"Optimus, we have a problem." The chief looked out at the Autobot leader with concern.
Optimus Prime could hear the unbelievable sound of Autobot babies crying in the background.
"Is that…?" he asked slowly.
The chief nodded once.
"It happened this morning when we came down to the garage." Chief explained. " The Bots came up from the bunker, and got zapped. Now, we have four Bot babies that are too large for us to handle. Lucky we had the other four around to help."
Bumblebee appeared suddenly behind the chief, bouncing two bundles in his arms, a distressed look on his face.
He beeped and whirred anxiously, then held what he was carrying up to the camera.
Under the white swaddling, two familiar faces peeked out: Blades and Heatwave, only, they were smaller.
Much smaller.
And, they were crying their spark out.
"We already called Doc Greene, but, no luck, so I called you." Chief sighed.
Bumblebee withdrew, trying to sooth the two new babies, and Optimus caught a glimpse of Salvage carrying Boulder and Chase, also attempting to quiet them down, Hightide and Kade cowered in a corner, hands clamped over their ears, Cody desperately doing research on his computer along with Graham, Dr. Greene, and Frankie, while Dani and Blur stood by the chief, looking helpless and more then a little confused.
Servo was following Bumblebee as the yellow and black Bot paced from one end of the bunker to the other, whirring and chirping hopefully as the dogbot kept pace with him.
"I'm on my way." Optimus rumbled, transformed into vehicle mode, and was off.
He used the trip there to gather his thoughts and formulate a plan.
There was no technology to re-grow the Bots back into adulthood, and he had not even known there was one to make them babies again.
Of course, there was that ray the Doc had once grown Cody and shrank Kade with, but this was different.
Then, their mental state remained unaltered, while their bodies grew or shrank.
With the Bots, however, they had completely morphed into actual babies.
Optimus Prime knew of only one way to age a baby into an adult, and that was to raise them up until they were grown.
The problem was, the humans needed the rescue Bots now, not many years in the future.
And the Bots would have to re-learn everything they ever knew, including how to work with their human partners.
Optimus allowed himself a small groan of frustration as he pulled up to the firehouse.
The garage door opened a second later, and he pulled in, transforming as the door closed.
"Optimus! Thank goodness you're here!" Cody raced towards him.
" Yeah, thank Primus." Hightide groaned from the corner, Kade echoing his sentiment in his own way.
"Tell me everything you know." Optimus said, and then listened as all the humans and full-grown Bots told him every theory and passing idea that went through their heads concerning the baby Bot problem.
Cody wanted to raise the Bots here, Kade wanted them gone and he didn't care where, Hightide wanted to give them to a fembot to raise, Dani wanted to have Doc Green operate on them, Frankie wanted to try the time machine and going back and trying to remove the ray first, Bumblebee wanted to help raise them, Chief wanted Optimus to take them, Doc Green wanted to try and make some sort of formula to try to re-grow them though he had no idea where to start, Salvage wondered if stasis pods would work, Blur thought they could speed up the Bot's growth somehow, and Graham thought maybe they would grow up in a few days and just to wait and see.
Optimus considered their ideas for a second, before dismissing some them as rubbish.
"The only real answer I can find is to take them to my base and raise them, while freezing the time elsewhere." He told them.
"How would you do that?" Graham wanted to know.
" Time is a very thin curtain, if I ripped it carefully and stepped through, I can stop it, then, re-open it at my base and raise them with no time lost here. You would hardly know they were gone." He explained.
Bumblebee chirped enthusiastically, and Optimus nodded. "Yes, we would all be raising them, and training them." The leader looked at Hightide, who nodded glumly.
"That might not be so bad, if they would stop crying." Salvage said as the two he held crying reached an ear-splitting height.
The massive red and blue autobot reached down, and gently took Chase from the garbagebot's arms, leaving him with Boulder.
Murmuring softly, Optimus rocked the little Bot in his strong arms, a warmth flowing through his chest.
He had not felt it since he raised Bumblebee, and it felt good.
Chase opened his eyes and caught sight of Optimus's stern face, and the leader instantly relaxed it into a smile, causing the little policebot to wave his arms at him, and coo, the crying magically ending.
Optimus loved sparklings; some Bots could not stand them, but he had always loved them.
Chase must have sensed that, as he seemed quite contented now.
Looking over the four baby Bots, Optimus scanned their ages and found the following:
Blades, the youngest, was not even crawling yet, nor could he sit up.
Boulder, the next youngest, could sit, but not crawl.
Heatwave, the next youngest, could barely crawl.
Chase, the oldest, would soon be learning to walk.
All four required bottle-feeding of only pure energon, their systems not devolved enough to handle diluted energon yet.
That would have to wait until they were older, and talking.
Optimus suddenly looked up, alarm spreading over his features.
The Bot's bodies were filled with impure energon, and at this age it could be deadly.
No wonder they were crying so much.
"Blur, get back to the base and prepare the rest of the team there to hold up, and call in any that are out. Hightide, you go with him. Bumblebee, prepare for energon extraction and infusion, and Salvage, hold the sparklings." Optimus rapped out orders and the Bots leapt into action.
Optimus turned to the humans, but before he could speak the chief spoke.
"Is there any way we could go with them? I sure would hate to have to start over from scratch with them and growing used to humans again." Chief Burns looked highly uncomfortable with the idea of starting over again.
Optimus began to say no, then paused.
Something that another human, long ago or at least it seemed, had made so he could stay with Optimus for as long as the Bot lived, surfaced to memory.
The human who made the anti-aging serum had since met a tragic end, but his work still remained, locked in the safest vault Optimus Prime had on his base.
Optimus slowly nodded. " But only one of you." He said firmly. " I have a serum to stop a human from aging, but only for one, and they have to be young."
Chief sighed. " I would be to old, right?"
The massive Autobot leader nodded once.
"So it's up to you kids who should go." Chief Charlie said, looking resignedly at his family.
" Which one of us should go?" Dani asked, looking around at her siblings.
Each one of them wished to go with their Bots, and they all began discussing the matter among themselves.
"While you are deciding, I will be infusing the Bots." Optimus informed them, then strode away.
" I should be the one to go, then I might have a shot at keeping Heatwave under control." Kade was arguing.
" I don't think that's the best reason to go, son." Kade's dad told him gently.
Normally, he wouldn't butt in on his kids' discussions, but this time he felt justified.
This was a serious matter, and he could not let the wrong person go and turn the Bot's sour towards humans.
"Who would you pick, Dad?" Dani asked.
"Personally I would pick Graham or Cody, sorry you two." He apologized to Kade and Dani.
"As would I." Optimus rumbled from the other side of the room as he carried in a sleeping Chase.
Setting him down nearby, he added. " You have to think of all the other Autobots you will be living with for the next several years. You may not find yourselves comfortable living amongst them for so long."
"Oh you're right." Graham considered this, but Cody put in eagerly, " I wouldn't mind! I haven't met an Autobot I don't like yet."
Optimus hid a smile at Cody's enthusiasm. "You may change your mind once there, young man." He warned.
" I still think I would be the best to go; most of the Bots always liked me more anyways." Cody stated.
"He does have a point." Dani mused.
" Yeah, when given a choice on whether to hang out with us or Cody, they almost always pick Cody." Kade complained. " Chase and Boulder were the only two who ever changed their minds."
"And it wasn't that often." Graham pointed out.
"And they almost blindly trusted Cody, while they questioned us on everything." Dani sighed.
"Well, I am the only one teaching them everything they need to know about living here!" Cody defended himself.
" Then it's settled." Chief Burns looked up at Optimus. " You will keep him safe, won't you Optimus?"
Optimus remembered with a pang the last human he had been responsible for.
" I swear on my life." He vowed solemnly.
And he meant it.
This time, nothing was going to happen to the human in his care.