Chapter 2
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up here," Vince was waving his hands at an amused Airachnid. "Shockwave and Drakonis brought what on board?"
"Six baby Predacon clones." The spider Con answered back.
"I thought the plan wasn't to wake them up until they were full grown, like Drak. Did something change?" Sierra glanced up at Breakdown, who released a burst of air from his vents in the Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh.
"Yeah, that was the plan - but somehow the 'Bots got wind of what we were up to, and sent a massive force to attack the base where Shock had his lab."
Amy finally looked up from her Kindle e-reader. "What happened then?" Ravage, the feline symbiont that the girl sat against, rumbled in agitation.
"Options: Termination of project or release of Predacons as sparklings." Soundwave answered in his monotone voice. As the tall mech rarely spoke up from behind his reflective faceplate, if ever, the others all paused to absorb the weight of his words.
"So... If they couldn't have gotten the babies out in time, Shockwave would have had to kill them?" Sierra asked quietly. Soundwave was the only one to answer, giving the teen a brief nod of affirmative.
"That's horrible," Vince murmured, fisting his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.
"That's war." Airachnid pointed out to her charge.
"Still, to have to commit mass infanticide, just to keep the kids from being captured by the enemy? I don't think it gets much worse than that."
"It does." Breakdown said in a hushed tone. "Like when the Autobots blew up the Youth Sectors to keep any of the younglings and sparklings being raised there from growing up to join the Decepticons."
No one spoke for a while after that. The Cybertronians were remembering the despair of creators and elder siblings in the deca-orns after the massacres at the Sectors, while the trio of young humans were contemplating how some people could be so evil as to do such a thing. A door opening at the other end of the room interrupted their various thoughts.
The six Predacon sparklings bounded in, followed by a harried looking Shockwave, along with Knockout and William Fowler, both of whom sported identical smirks.
"Whoa!" Amy yelped, leaning as far into Ravage's side as she could when Airazor slithered up, poking her nose right into the human girl's face. Vince and Sierra found themselves in similar states as the other sparklings got as close as they could to inspect the organic beings.
"Yeah, I got the same reaction when they first saw me," Bill mentioned idly, strolling up to his daughter and her mechanical feline babysitter. "I think the first lesson with these guys is that of personal space."
"An excellent idea, Bill. Shocky, you gonna get on that any time soon?" Knockout snickered.
At Shockwave's half-hearted glare, Breakdown took pity on the clearly overworked scientist. Almost two full days of looking after a wild herd of sparklings was enough to push anyone into a state of exhaustion.
"Aw, go easy on the mech, KO." He gently nudged Shockwave in the direction of the door. "Why don't you go get some recharge, sir? We'll look after the runts for the next few hours."
"That, would be much appreciated, Breakdown. If you're sure you can manage-"
"No sweat, Shocks!" Vince put in, getting over his initial surprise and currently stroking a purring Skylynx. "We'll keep 'em under control."
"Then I shall see you all at the end of next shift." With that said, the scientist veritably fled the room, eager for a chance to get some rest. Agent Darby had requested Drakonis, Skyquake and Dreadwing for guard duty on a group of aircraft taking high profile materials from an overseas base back to her organization's top secret headquarters, and the trio weren't due to return until that night after a full twelve hours away. By himself, Shockwave had quickly been overwhelmed by his young charges.
Primary Guardian or not, he needed a break!
"This is so cool!" Sierra whisper-yelled, running her fingers over Triple's metallic scales. Each of his three heads competed for the teen's attention, nudging one another out of the way with irritated squeaks. The other Predlings scattered to take up perches on various Decepticons, with the exception of Airazor and Skylynx, who were quite content to continue being pet by the human youths. Knockout went ahead and shared each of their names with the kids, who were suitably impressed.
"Okay, I'll admit, these guys are pretty cute as well as cool." Amy said, shooting a grin at her dad before looking around at each of the sparklings. "We've got a feathered serpent, a phoenix, a hydra, a gryphon, and a couple dragons."
"We can't call Snick and Steel the same thing, though - they've got enough differences between their frame types." Breakdown pointed out.
"Well... Snicktooth's the same as Drakonis, right? And we've been calling him a dragon from day one." Vince mused. "So, how about we say Darksteel is a drake. Similar, but not quite the same."
"I'll go along with that." Airachnid ghosted a digit over her charge's hair, ruffling the orange locks and getting the teen to roll his eyes.
"Hey," Amy suddenly said, a mischievous tone making its way into her words. "These guys can already fly under their own power, right? And they look big enough to ride..."
"Absolutely not, young lady!" Bill announced, getting a pronounced pout out of his daughter and a laugh out of everyone else.
-PP:SC-
"What do you mean, they took the Predacons with them?" Optimus growled in a tone that had Arcee cringing internally. On the surface, though, the dark purple femme appeared unaffected. She'd put off making this report as long as possible, knowing her Lord would be displeased, but time had run out when the Prime called her to his throne room aboard the Ark.
"My troops briefly engaged and were destroyed by Predaking upon their arrival at the bunker." She began to explain calmly. "After he and Shockwave vanished through a groundbridge portal, the rest of the Eradibots were able to enter, and found that everything of the laboratory within had been destroyed. It was only later, as we were sorting through the wreckage to find anything that might be of use to Ratchet, that the discovery was made over the lack of any ruined Predacon protoforms."
Looming over her, Optimus narrowed his crimson optics. "So," he rasped. "Megatron still has his new recruits. But thanks to our timing, it is doubtful any of the clones are yet as powerful as Predaking. And that gives us an opportunity to work with..."
A/N: Hi folks! Hope y'all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday, those who celebrate it anyway. I didn't get very much time to work on this over my break, but wanted to go ahead and post what I had written anyway. I'll try to have updates every week or two, but, as returning readers may know, I have a nasty habit of losing steam with a project the longer I work on it, and may very well jump to something else to occupy my time. We'll just have to see how it goes this time around!
-Triscribe