Ookami: So, this story is a lot different than the rest of the others in this drabble set, but Neko is making me wait for too long to post a new chapter or story potentially, so I am giving you all a taste of what may come to be. And there may be more than one of these.
Silver: Do note that part of this relates to the challenge that ageofthegreekbaby posted on their page, so there is no claim to the story idea itself. Neither the characters and locations that are familiar beyond the author page of NekoYOokami.
Ookami: Thank you Silver for the disclaimer. So, without further ado...
Woopsies Slipsies, Sorry Ironhide~
If there was anything that Ironhide had missed about not knowing if their species had a future, which is something all the Autobots still wonder how they were gifted with such precious little bundles of life, it would be the amount of processor strain that his claimed sparkling would get herself into. Just as the day had looked like it might have an end in sight, there was a minor explosion in the safe room the humans had taken to call "The Sparkling Treehouse." Located off the ground, but not quite in the rafters, the large room connected to an out of the way wall was heavily fortified to keep anything from outside from hurting them. They hadn't considered the sparklings hazards to themselves back then after all. Making his way to his sparkling, he sees Hound and Optimus Prime heading the same direction as he is. Oh Primus, did Zephyr Shift hurt the other two in this one? Sending a firm-concerned-curious over their bond, feeling only bashful-embarrassed in response, he made it to the stronghold in time to get a look after Prime had opened the side of the room.
Hound's little one, the red and white mechling Storm Runner, was on the opposite side of the open space looking a lot like a human dumbfounded. Little Lunar Cascade, the bright pink and yellow femme of Optimus, was near the "lab" area of the room chittering and whirling angrily at the last sparkling, looking like a little smog or dust had landed on her frame in the aftermath. Zephyr Shift, who was in the lab zone and normally was a faded dark green, was currently matching the rest of the lab in various states of black or ashen blue. The table had a predictable black mark that indicated the initial location of the explosion, but it was surprisingly small in comparison to the noise and destruction that it had wrought. There were two storage cabinets on their sides and in need of repair, as well as two storage doors and Zephyr's right arm as well as most of her right side now that Ironhide looked closer.
"What happened?" The words had come out of three vocalizers in various fashions, but Ironhide's near growl had caused the other two to send warning looks at the mech while Zephyr had shunken a little at the anger his tone carried while he was projecting protective-worried-frustrated towards her. She pulled out a quick translator device that she had made a while back and quickly started putting the answer into the machine.
"I was trying to make a smaller version of Hound's hard-light projector so humans could carry it and create optical illusions of barriers if needed. I tried to keep some of the more advanced parts out though, since I don't know how to make them or how they all work anyway. Apparently one of those pieces stabilize the internal temperature or something with the engine, because it started sending error codes after ten minutes suddenly and several at once. It sent several warnings that the energy core was about to fail so I put up the protective field to the rest of the room before curling in the corner. I didn't think it would be so destructive. I'm sorry Ironhide. Sorry for scaring the others Prime and Hound, I didn't mean this to be so dangerous." The neutral voice of the machine did not match the repentant and ashamed look that she portrayed, unable to look above her pedes while the voice told the story that had occurred. The end of the message was slightly static filled, the cause found after the message finished it spat out sparks before exploding itself. Luckily Zephyr knew the signs of a failing device by this point and tossed it to the other side of the lab and overturning the lighter table in the lab to use as a shield from any debris, activating the shield in the progress. Not getting past the shield, the slight smog from the second explosion joined the first, making the air seem to take on a greener hue somehow.
Waiting impatiently for the shielding to dissipate, Ironhide internally growled at himself for causing his sparkling to be sending waves of fear-shame-hurt through their bond over the existence of a secondary explosion, before sending strength-concern-love towards the little femme. When the barrier finally went down, a solid minute after being activated, Ironhide gathered the seekling into his servos to determine to what extent the damage to her frame had suffered. Most of it was superficial considering, but there were places that would need welds and careful soldering to aid the frame into recovery. "Well, it looks like ya have cut off your fun time a few times over with this mishap Zeph. I ain't mad at the fact it exploded, you have less of those than Wheeljack and the invention was a good idea, I am more upset that ya didn't try and get out of the blast range b'fore activating the shield." With the sheepish look from Zephyr and stern look at his servos from Lunar it wasn't hard to deduce that the shielding had a software flaw that wouldn't let her. "And if that ain't possible right now, ya'll gonna hafta figure out someway to fix that, if not someone ta fix it. Now, let's get'cha ta Rachet to get his verdict on the matter." With that, he left the others to tend to their sparklings.
Optimus and Hound looked at eachother after confirming once more that their charges were indeed safe. The collected dust on Lunar had been from the dispersion of the smog from the initial explosion, no damage to her physical form at all. Storm had been too far from the explosion to have even been concerned over, though the reveal of what Zephyr was creating had left the sparkling smug while Hound was concerned and bothered by the questions of how they came into possession of that information.
Hound, not wishing to speak of his concern with them in audio range, instead chuckled and stated "Well, if it wasn't for the concentration in science, I would say Ironhide is trying to raise one that is just as blunt and dangerous as himself." He paused there, looking at his sparkling when a sudden wave of fear-concern-hesitant came from the kid from his words.
Optimus, feeling a wave of concern-excited-wary from Lunar, responded with a neutral "He still may be successful, there is many vorns until we can know for sure. It is, however, comforting to know that she seems to have the same fierce protectiveness for those around her as her guardian." Hound had given an affirmative sound at that, though the concern from Lunar Cascade had only grew as she chittered in the coded language the sparklings made for each other to StormRunner.
Lunar Cascade's first words with Storm Runner was simply stated, "Oh great, now we have to make sure she doesn't try killing herself protecting us and also watch for the guardian influence making it worse."