Prompt: Breaking the Rules
Transformers (c) Hasbro
Moonracer's optics flickered uneasily between the two parties gathered in front of her. She opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a shaky giggle. The glares she was receiving intensified in response.
"Don't you have something to say to them, Moonracer?" Ratchet growled, looking like he was barely restraining his own personal tirade of reprimands. The cyan femme tapped her fingers together gingerly.
"Umm...r-right" she fixed her gaze onto the small group of three clumped together. A strange combination of apprehension mingled with pride radiated from them.
"Boys" she addressed her sons with as much authority she could muster. It wasn't a lot. The three younglings focussed on their creator; optics and visors brightening in attention.
"Do you have anything to say for yourselves?" she asked gently. The aggravated growls resounding from the larger group didn't pass her notice, but how was she to help it that her voice took on a naturally soft tone whenever she spoke to her children. The younglings shifted uncomfortably, silently arguing which of them should answer first. Eventually, being outvoted by two to one, the oldest, Skyblast, spoke up.
"We...ugh...we were just having a little fun, creator" he grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his helm. "Not like anyone got hurt, right?" He risked a glance towards the larger group...and instantly regretted it. Slag, could Sunstreaker glare when he was angry! The youngling gave a nervous laugh, optics switching back to Moonracer.
"Umm...we're really sorry" he grinned meekly, elbowing both his brothers in the abdomen.
"Ow! Ah, um...yeah, we're really sorry!" Sky High's optics brightened, wings rising in earnestly.
"Yeah...what they said" Afterburner lazily mumbled, head languidly tilted to the side.
"Sorry for what?" Moonracer feebly pressed, having learned from experience that a simple apology hardly ever seemed to suffice a group of disgruntled, pride-damaged mechs. Particularly when the offenders were her sons, who seemed to have made it their mission to get on almost every mech's bad side; something Flareup had jokingly informed her they 'got from their father'.
Skyblast hesitated, seeming to carefully consider his words. Unfortunately, Sky High had taken this as a signal for him to take over.
The youngest Seeker cheerfully responded, "You know! For replacing the boss-bots normal energon cubes with spontaneously exploding ones so that they'd splatter rotten energon all over them!" This spurred a wave of irritated twitches and scowls from the mechs and barely suppressed snickers from his brothers. Moonracer expelled a sigh.
"Yes, that" Why, oh why, did they have to chose perhaps the most ill-tempered, violence-prone mechs on base as their most consistent targets; were they trying to make their creators fear for their sparks?
Exasperatedly crossing her arms, the femme took a different approach.
"Will it happen again?" 'Why am I even bothering asking?'
Of course, there was no hesitation in the response.
"Absolutely not-"
"-we promise-"
"-on our wings!"
Ratchet had to roll his optics at that one. But, to be fair, they weren't lying...not really; they were essentially stating that they would never again use spontaneously exploding energon cubes...not that they would never again prank. As soon as they got the chance, the three would be pitching ideas for the next form of torment they could inflict on the base.
The medic cycled cool air through his intakes. If nothing else, Ratchet had to admire their fortitude...that and the fact that they were indirectly avenging the vorns of torment he and the base had suffered under the near depthless array of pranks, courtesy of the Demonic Duo. A small smirk crept across his faceplates as he recalled the image of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe after their respective cubes had detonated in their hands, splattering their frames. That was going to keep the medic in good spirits for at least the next mega-cycle.
"Ok then" Moonracer breathed, moving onto the next part of this all too familiar scene; the punishment. There was a silent, but unanimous, wave of frustration. Every single bot at base knew that Moonracer was about as good at doling out punishments as Skywarp was at math. Perhaps the best she had ever gotten to an actual punishment was for the three younglings to go to their room and think about what they'd done.
Whenever it came to this part of parenting, Moonracer stopped seeing three bratty Seeker younglings. Instead, what she saw were three new-sparked, Seeker sparklings; innocent and sweet. Ratchet would seriously have to check if there was some kind of glitch with her processor when this was over.
And getting Skywarp to punish them was essentially pointless. All the Seeker did was laugh at the victim's misfortune and compliment his children's ingenuity. If anything, a well performed prank seemed to be the equivalent of receiving top-marks in his book.
Moonracer furrowed her optics ridges, attempting to block the mental image of her sons as adorable, chirping, tiny sparklings with cute little wings and little optics and little pedes and-
"MOONRACER!"
The cyan femme all but yelped at the sudden shriek, hesitantly turning to face the source. She found herself staring down two twitching, energon covered Seekers.
"...Oh yeah..." Skyblast mumbled, desperately fighting back his grin.
"Forgot we switched theirs too..." Afterburner remarked with lazy amusement. Sky High was unable quell his laughter.
"W-we're in trouble now!" he barely got out between guffaws. The Seekers' optics blazed with anger. But on the plus side, this new development had served to lighten the mood of the other duped mechs.
"Heh, nice look Screamer" Sideswipe snickered. The jet glowered.
"Shut it! You'll just encourage them!" Thundercracker snapped, gesturing at the highly amused looking younglings.
Starscream set his incensed gaze onto Moonracer, "You better have some punishment for this one" he growled. The femme grinned nervously.
"Hehe, o-of course" she slowly moved her gaze from the two livid Seekers back to her children...and felt herself turn to putty, "Umm...I want you all to spend the rest of the cycle in your room and think-"
"Oh, you've got to be fragging me?!" Cliffjumper yelled, too furious to be watching his language in front of the younglings.
"That's a sparkling punishment Moonracer" Ratchet sighed in aggravation, "You need to start giving them proper ones"
Moonracer's optics carefully averted the mechs' intense glares, "...But...like what?"
Starscream gave an extravagant rolling of optics, "Oh I don't know! How about having them clean up the mess their little prank left for a start?" he snapped, crossing his arms.
"And putting them on monitor duty for the next mega-cycle" Sunstreaker added.
"And sparkling sitting" Sideswipe smirked at the idea of forcing the brats to look after his own little gift from the Pit.
"You could ban them from flying for-"
"NO!" the three younglings, who had been liking the direction of this conversation less and less, were horrified at Cliffjumper's suggestion. Luckily, they weren't alone in that sentiment.
"Are you crazy?!" Thundercracker asked, aghast.
"You can't ban a Seeker from flying, idiot" Starscream snorted, "Not without them going fragging insane" Despite his current resentment towards the younglings, Starscream would never wish something like that on the brats...or any other flyer for that matter.
Cliffjumper wisely dropped the idea, but continued to twitch, grumbling something about overly sensitive jets.
"The point is" Ratchet went on; diverting the conversation back to the issue at hand, "You have to stop looking at them like they're sparklings! They're already one hundred and forty vorns old for Primus' sake!" Moonracer winced at the bulls-eye statement. She knew Ratchet was right, but it was...hard. They may not be sparklings any more, but they were still her sparklings.
The femme's inner conflict was all too apparent on her faceplates and as the kliks passed, it seemed less and less likely that she was about to 'lay down the law' any time soon.
Finally, after over five kliks spent in tense, twitching silence, Starscream snapped.
"Oh, frag it! Do I have to do everything myself?!" with a snarl the Seeker stomped up until he was less than a metre from the younglings. They winced as he pointed a single blue digit down at them, "You three are going to clean up every last drop of that energon this cycle! And, while you're at it, you can clean the wash-racks and the rec-room too. And I don't mean a half-aft job; I want to see my faceplates in that metal" Moonracer and the others stared in shock, optics wide. But Starscream was nowhere near done.
"After that, you can use those underdeveloped wings of yours to replace the ceiling lights in the hangar. And yes, I mean all one hundred and ten of them! And, if you haven't done anything else to frag me off within the time it takes you to do all of that, you can finish up by organising every one of the security tapes from the last mega-cycle" he paused momentarily, "...Hmm, well by then there'll probably be an extra few cycles worth of tapes added to it" a pure sadistic smirk spread across his face, "But I'm sure it's nothing three adept young Seekers like yourselves can't handle" The younglings merely stared dumbfounded at the mech; wings twitching.
Starscream sent a typical haughty smirk in response to the others stunned expressions.
"What? You don't think I got to be an SIC simply because of my wonderful personality do you?" he quipped with a snicker. Moonracer's optics were wide in disbelief. Starscream didn't honestly expect them to do all of that did he?! They were practically sparklings!
The Seeker noted the femme's expression and knew that she was less than a klik from rendering his punishment moot. He met optics with Thundercracker and a silent decision was made.
"But...Starscream they can't...they're just- Wah!" The femme yelped as she was suddenly lifted by both arms, a Seeker either side of her, out of the room. "Umm, what-"
"Sorry Moonracer. You had your chance at doling out the punishments" Thundercracker, to his credit, did seem genuinely apologetic.
"Now it's time to let the professionals take over" Starscream on the other hand couldn't have sounded more eager if he tried.
"Ugh... bu... but-"
"We'll be sure to go easy on them, don't worry" the lead Seeker made a half-sparked attempt at reassurance.
Any further protests Moonracer began to voice were cut off as she was gently ushered out of the room, the door whooshing closed in front of her.
Turning on his heel, Starscream shrugged his shoulders, "Come on, it had to be done" he reasoned. A series of mildly conceding grunts was his response.
Optics flickering back to the younglings, Starscream scowled, "Why are you all still here?" he snapped. The three flinched at the sharp tone.
"Ummm...?" Skyblast began uncertainly.
"Oh, I'm sorry was that punishment not enough for you? Did you want something else?" Starscream paused, seeming to consider this. "Ok, how about for every astrosecond that energon is still on the floor, you three have to-" his sentence went unfinished as the three disappeared from the room with a flash of blue and a chorus of 'We're going! We're going!'
The Seeker allowed himself a satisfied smirk. But it was wiped clear the next klik as a burst of purple light filled the room.
"Woah! That was a Pit of a mission!" Skywarp cackled, clumps of snow falling from his wings.
Revolving around, ever obnoxious grin plastered across his faceplates, the black jet froze. His optics moved from the energon covered frames of the mechs up to the still rather peeved expressions on their faces.
Then, wings twitching and limbs flailing, the Seeker broke down in a gush of hysterical laughter.
"AHAHAHAHA! Oh Primus I love my kids!" he cackled, doubling over with the force of his guffaws.
Author's Note: XD a little look into the day to day events of what the bots at base have to put up with! FYI, only Sky High can teleport; but they all may as well be able to, seen as he acts as mini-space bridge for his bro's ;D All the kids are canon and jets 8D
Yeah, Sides has a kid too; but so does Sunny, Ratch and Screamer xD (after Warp and Moony got buseh, some others did too ;3) Let's just say...it was Cybertronian mating season...yeah.
Starscream = Supernanny