Toy Spies

Disclaimer: Usual routine, do not own Transformers in any way shape or form, they all belong to Hasbro and Paramount and the comic guys. Not making any money out of this either so please don't sue me okay? Butterfly's mine and most of the inspiration comes from the series of sparkling fics that are cropping up all over the place.

Genre: Family/humour/angst

Authors note: So sorry this has taken so long to be updated, I feel quite the fool for allowing it to happen for so long. Anyway I finally re-found my inspiration and there should only be a couple of chapters to write now and hopefully it'll be up to peoples expectations.

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Chapter 2 – Clock Start

Hiding in a fairly large building was usually not a problem at all but with several thousand sparklings running around it was next to impossible. Even the little handful Frenzy would have trouble here and Barricade was beginning to wish, not for the first time, that he had not been chosen for the job at hand. At least communications were kept to a bare minimum but sometimes he just wanted to yell at someone for getting him in this mess. It was totally insane and completely dangerous. The little blighters got everywhere and weren't afraid to kick up a fuss given half the chance. Primus was a little on his side though, it was only the very young sparklings that had found him recently and they were easy to trick.

The older ones would have tried to play with him or else report to one of the youth zone defence force that something was in the pipes. Most of the neutrals wouldn't care much for this sort of thing but if Hummer or Butterfly heard about it then who knew what would happen. Right now, Barricade was wedge in-between two of the sleeping quarters that faced the second clearance area which would lead to the main command centre. At least that was what the plans said anyway. This was gruelling work, long and boring to but it had to be done. All he needed was a big enough distraction to get into that area and upload the virus. Once that was done it was simply a case of getting out alive before the whole place blew up.

"Hewwo!" said a voice from above. Barricade looked up to see yet another sparkling looking down on him. He growled and then thought of a rather nasty idea. "Hello little one. Fancy helping me out?"

--

In another part of the Youth Zone, a figure sat and stared at nothing in particular. Gunshots of cruel laughter could be heard as a group departed from the clearance zone, and it shook Butterfly to the core. To see Sabatora again was hard enough to be forced to exchange words was a nightmare she wished to never re-live. Technically the fem was supposed to be patrolling a different sector but had offered to cover Trinity for a bit so that the other could check on her mother-unit. Sparkling births were rare now but each one was treated as a special case. Not that Butterfly would pay attention now; horrible memories were surfacing from her memory banks about what that fem had done to her all those vorns ago. The constant beatings, screaming and general torture for simply being a write-off spark. Even though she knew it not to be true, every single encounter brought those memories back to haunt her and there was no escape from them.

A steaming cup of energon brought Butterfly out of her thoughts and back into the real world, along with a friendly smile from Hummer her partner, "Hey there missy, not like you to be sitting around moping. What's up?"

Butterfly blew the steam off the drink and sighed, shaking her head before taking a long drink, "To be honest, I'm not sure. I guess I'm just worried" it was a lousy excuse.

Hummer nodded in agreement. That was the problem with the little fem, she cared a little too much about everyone who was close to her., "Don't worry about Prime, he's to responsible to go and get himself killed in some foolhardy way"

Only silence answered him and Hummer sighed, a long whistle that normally made her laugh. Even though he would never admit it out loud, Hummer worried about the fem a lot and sometimes wished that she were his daughter. That way he could yell a bit more at her to stop worrying and have some fun in life. But then again, another thought passed through his processor, one not entirely appropriate for his parameters. Primus help him if Prime did find out about their relationship.

"I know…it's just" she sighed, shoulders slumping a little before she stared up at the stars. There was a familiarity to the sigh, one filled with fear and regret. Hummer stared at her in shock, "Don't say that slagheap got in contact with you again!" he growled.

"N-no!" there was too much hesitation in the voice to convince Hummer and the fem was forced to look down and shiver slightly. The much larger male was using those eyes on her again, the ones she could never resist, "It was just a passing encounter, I didn't mean for it to happen" tears began forming though they wouldn't fall, "She…she threatened to take everything away from me"

A curse escaped from the heavy troopers lips before he turned back to watch the beautiful cybertronian before him. Her light blue optics were averted from his gaze, the energon cube forgotten completely and it appeared that she was trying to curl up tightly on herself. Without saying a word, Hummer grabbed her chin, tilted her head back and planted a kiss on her lips.

"You listen to me, and you listen well" he scolded, knowing that it was the only way to get through to her, "You are Prime's daughter, no matter what that slagging waste of a program says or any other bot for that matter"

Butterfly started at him in total shock, "But…"

Hummer sighed, "It doesn't matter to me or anyone else. She can't touch you, she wouldn't dare unless she was that stupid. You are protected from her. Just like the twins and Bumblebee. That monster cannot do anything to you under pain of death because you are Optimus's daughter. Do I make myself clear?"

There was a faltering in her emotions and the tiny fem wrapped her arms around his frame. Hummer smiled, holding her gently in a loving manner. Quietly the big mech decided that once this shift was over and his little princess safely tucked up, he was going to find Sabatora and give her a piece of his memory banks. She had no right to do this to Butterfly, not after everything that had happened before.

"Come on" he said after a little while, even though he longed to hold her forever, "We'd better get back on patrol or else we'll get reported"

--

There was a crash, several squeaks of surprise which were then followed by wails as something gushed out of a piping network with a sloshing sound. Ratchet looked from the medical wing of the youth zone just in time to see several sparklings run out of a room followed by a river of energon. He sighed, before charging quickly to see what the little blighters had gone and done this time, "What have you been told about playing in that room!" he shouted before hitting the stoppage mechanism with his hand.

This caused most of the main doors to close, but it was of little consequence really. Spillages like this had to be contained in order that sparklings didn't inhale anything nasty into their system. Of course when it was the little blighters who caused the problem to begin with it meant that they to got caught up in one of the nearest lock down areas with no problem. Turning and glaring at the small group that were huddled in a corner in terror, the medic sighed and recognised every last one of them.

It was the usual suspects of Bounce and Coded, with several others recruited for their mischief making cause which included the barely recognisable Bumblebee. The medical officer sighed and shook his head with half a mind to punish them all severely but knew that really they couldn't have anything done to them. "Right you lot, what were you doing in there?" he demanded.

"Medi to Ratchet, what the hell are you doing?" came a rather irate voice through his internal coms system as one of his medical orderlies got in contact with him. This was followed by a similar query from Midi, the other orderly who was assigned to watch the youth zones. Both were still training but were learning fast and hopefully would be able to join him out on the field as battle medics soon once some of the others were trained up to just below their level.

Ratchet sighed, "Some sparklings caused an energon leak in the main room, I shut it down to stop it spreading" simple and straight to the point as ever, Ratchet waited for the other two to reply.

"Is that all?" came Midi's voice sounding full of disbelief.

Medi chuckled to herself and he could almost hear the shaking of her head, "That's a fairly common thing for them to do actually. Set the elder ones on the clean up job they should be experts at that"

"What about the younger ones? Can't let them go unpunished" sighed Midi, obviously somewhere near the other but still using the com link.

"I think they're going to need a good old fashioned scrub…what about the repair work?" said Ratchet, indicating to the two older ones to get a move on whilst re-opening the doors.

There came a sigh, though it was hard to tell who did it, "Who knows. Not our job to sort it out, best to report it to head operations but they've got their hands full with something else so I doubt that it'll cause a stir" they said in unison.

"Understood" Ratchet rolled his optics before chasing after the three younger sparklings and trying to catch hold of them. The buggers were quick and could change direction at a seconds notice. Still they had to be caught and do that he would.

--

Barricade grinned as he slipped inside the main room, hearing the conversation and knowing that he had everything he now needed to complete this mission. With a grin he placed the small disc into the drive and set about typing out the access codes. He had barely less than five micro-minuets to get everything uploaded and set. It still hurt to be doing something like this but it had to be done.

"Final Code accepted. Please state time of detonation" said the computer relays, not aware of what dangerous programming it had just taken in. Barricade stopped and checked his internal clock, did some quick sums and then entered in the information before shutting down the system and preparing to escape.

Only three hours till the youth zone was no more. A trickle of sadness crept through his system but he had to ignore it. He was a Decepticon, with no emotions or feelings for anyone but himself.

TBC