DEAR READERS (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) – Sorry about the long wait. I was having technical difficulties, as you can see. However, everything's fixed now, and Chapter 25 ("Educational Television") is finally up! Read, review, and enjoy!
After the bachelor party was over, everyone came home totally wasted on energon. By the time they got to base, Moonbeam was standing there with an old, crabby-looking femme bot. The unfamiliar femme was holding screaming Megs. Stars was also crying, but he was (as usual) hovering in the air.
"Nice going, guys," said Moonbeam, scowling at them all. "Since you left me all alone here to take care of Stars and Megs, I had to call my mother to come help me out."
Moonbeam's mother stomped up to Starscream and cuffed him on the cheek. "You'd do well to teach those sparklings of yours some manners, young man! Why, back in my day, we didn't cry, no, because we had VALUES in those days, and—"
"Mom, please stop," Moonbeam groaned. "Nobody wants to hear about 'values', okay? They're newborn sparklings. Of course they cry."
"I know how sparklings act!" Moonbeam's mother snapped. "Oh, dear Primus forbid I should try to enlighten my own DAUGHTER with some ELDERLY WISDOM, but NO, why don't I just go bury myself in a hole somewhere and rust? Would that make you happy, missy? Huh? Would it? Would it?"
"No, Mom, of course it—"
"Don't you interrupt me, missy!" said Moonbeam's mother. "You think I'm just some old, nagging hag, don't you? Well, it was from bearing all these children, that's how, while your lazy-aft father could hardly be bothered to dispose of expired energon!"
"Hey!" Starscream said unsteadily, clinging to Megatron's arm for balance. "MY twins' father doesn't do anything either!"
"Except you only have two!" Moonbeam's mother shot back. "I had EIGHT, including her! Five femmes and three mechs! And you're on something, aren't you, young man? Did you have high-grade tonight?"
"Mom, he's NOT your son!" Moonbeam cut in.
"You hush up," Moonbeam's mother told her daughter, and then she turned to Skywarp. "Young man, when you spark my daughter up, they'll have to be better behaved than the little brats I had to take care of tonight! And I expect you to produce at least six grandchildren!"
Moonbeam sighed and rolled her eyes. "Skywarp and I aren't even—"
"I thought I told you to hush up, missy," said Moonbeam's mother. "And you better not have spread your legs for this mech yet. You know what I told you and your sisters, save your valve for when you're married."
"Mom!" Moonbeam cried. Even she was blushing now.
"Is that all the femmes of today do? Get themselves violated?" Moonbeam's mother waved her hands in the air dramatically and pointed at Skywarp again. "You didn't violate my daughter, did you, young man?"
Thundercracker and Starscream were very amused.
"Skywarp violates her all the time." Starscream laughed.
"Yeah, he's always telling us about how he gets triple overload from her," Thundercracker added.
"Is this true?!" Moonbeam's mother cried, then clapped her hands over her mouth.
"Well, look who's talking!" Moonbeam shot back. "Starscream had S&M 'facing with Megatron and you sparkling-sat the misbehaved byproducts tonight. And even though Thundercracker broke up with his slutty hooker ex-girlfriend, you two are still friends with benefits, aren't you?"
"What is this world coming to?" Moonbeam's mother cried. "Moonbeam, I did not raise you to act this way! Not one bit!"
"Starscream and his brothers are correct, ma'am," Gemstone said. "Moonbeam is a bitch-whore."
"Oh, yeah, like your record's so clean, Gemstone," Moonbeam said sarcastically. "You're a prostitute, for crying out loud."
"She's a what?!" Moonbeam's mother screeched.
"That's right, Mom," Moonbeam said smugly. "This little slut used to live in Kaon and charge mechs to 'face with her for a living. Now that she's come to Earth, she lives at the Cybertronian Mechs' Club and does the same thing. Plus, we just found out that she's sparked up, and we have no idea who the father is."
"What the—I'm not going to have a sparkling!" Gemstone cried.
"I have no respect for prostitutes," said Moonbeam's mother. "You couldn't be a mother."
"But I'm not sparked!" Gemstone insisted.
"Gemstone's not a prostitute any more," said Thundercracker. "She's my friend. And she lives with us, not at the Cybertronian Mechs' Club."
"Is it your sparkling, then?" Moonbeam's mother snapped.
"She's NOT going to have a sparkling," Thundercracker replied. "So it's nobody's."
"It's true," said Starscream. "Moonbeam was just trying to make Gemstone look bad."
"I'm no happier with you, young man." Moonbeam's mother turned to Starscream. "Shame on you for spreading your legs for your boss! Are you trying to get a promotion?"
"Oh, he wants a promotion, all right," said Megatron a little drunkenly, "but he's got to kill me for that! We do the 'facing just for fun."
"I must say, Moonbeam, I'm not quite approving of the society you are marrying into," Moonbeam's mother told her daughter crisply. "I thought when I met the Decepticon leader, he would be less intoxicated."
"Hey, the Decepticon leader can get drunk if he wants," said Starscream, pointing at himself.
"She meant me, not you," said Megatron.
"Prove it," said Starscream.
"Moonbeam, I'm your mother," said Moonbeam's mother. "And I say that only when you marry this mech can you know him intimately. Do you want to have 'accidents', like Starscream did?"
"Mom, it was nice of you to sparkling-sit, but you can go home now, okay?" said Moonbeam.
"That's all you want, isn't it?" Moonbeam's mother repeated. "All right, then! I can tell when I'm not wanted! Don't bother to thank me! I'm going!"
Of course, Moonbeam was a purebred, which meant her mother was a Seeker too, albeit a quite old and wore-out one. Before they knew it she had turned herself into a jet and soared into the sky…away from them.
"Sorry about that," Moonbeam told Skywarp apologetically. "My mother can be a prude. In fact, I was 'facing with mechs when I was still in Seeker school, and she never knew."
"Why didn't she want you to 'face?" asked Thundercracker. "Our parents were fine with it."
"Seekers are supposed to want to do it," Starscream added. "It's part of our natural programming."
"Well, I came from a very traditional family," Moonbeam explained. "The jets' natural reproductive instinct was something we were taught to suppress, especially the femmes, me and my four sisters. Whenever one of us brought a mech home—and we tried it a lot—our father would always try to intimidate him until he went away."
"So if it's bad to want sparklings, why do you have seven siblings?" Skywarp asked.
"It's not the urge to have sparklings that was discouraged," Moonbeam told him, rolling her eyes. "Interface was only forbidden when it was purely recreational. You heard my mother—I should save my valve for when I'm married, but once I am married, fire away. She wants you to give her at least six grandchildren."
"Can you have six?" Skywarp asked. "I mean, I know your mom had eight, but…"
"It depends on two things: how fertile you are, and your frame design," Moonbeam replied. "There are some Cybertronians who can't carry even one sparkling, and some, like my mom, can have eight. It's hard to tell with a jet because we tend to be quite fertile, but we're also lightweights, which makes flying easier but makes carrying much harder."
"Well, I would love to have a big family," Skywarp told her.
"Remember what we talked about, Skywarp?" said Moonbeam. "For now, it's just the two of us."
Skywarp shrugged, and they all went inside.
THAT MORNING…
Thundercracker woke to a very strange sensation…a very good strange sensation. For some reason, he had awoken fully erect and he had a wonderful feeling down there; he looked and—
Gemstone had decided to awaken him by sucking his spike?! Awesome!
"Keep doing what you're doing, hon," he moaned, automatically spreading his legs further apart as Gemstone fought back her giggle fit. To Thundercracker's delight, Gemstone finished the blow job and let him release; after the eruption (so to speak), he collapsed onto the bed with a sigh of happiness.
"Did it feel good?" Gemstone whispered, running her fingers up and down his wings.
"YES," said Thundercracker—one hundred percent sincerely. "What are you doing in my room?"
"Oh, I thought I'd join you this morning," said Gemstone. "Moonbeam's with the sparklings already in the main monitor room. They're watching this TV show her mother introduced to them on one of the Autobot channels. 'Grimlock the Purple Dinobot', I think it was called."
"Why are they watching one of the Autobot channels?" Thundercracker asked. "And why are they watching a show about the Dinobots?"
"Well, none of the Decepticon channels have sparklings' shows," Gemstone explained. "Apparently, Grimlock's show is 'educational'."
"What do they learn about?" Thundercracker was now curious.
"Hmm…I actually don't remember." Gemstone looked pensive as she mulled over it. "Come on, let's go see."
Thundercracker put his spike back into its housing and closed the chamber, then grabbed her hand. Together, they headed to the main monitor room.
Sure enough, Megs and Stars were parked in front of the TV—well, Megs was. Of course, they were too young to know how to sit up, but Megs was lying on his front, and Stars was, of course, hovering in the air. They both had pacifiers in their mouths, and apparently they had already had their bottles. On screen, Grimlock (painted purple) and all the other Dinobots were learning about sharing or friendship or something else stupid that Autobot sparklings learned.
Everyone else was hung over and still in bed, so the main monitor room was empty except for Moonbeam, the twins, and Skywarp. Skywarp was hung over too, of course, but he wanted to help Moonbeam. Thundercracker looked at the screen.
"What time is it, kids?" the announcer was saying.
"IT'S GRIMLOCK TIME!" the invisible background audience hollered.
"That's right, kids, it's Grimlock time!" said Dinobot Grimlock. Thundercracker wondered why he was talking in complete sentences all of a sudden, until he realized that the voice actually belonged to Wheeljack (who built the Dinobots), and Grimlock was just lip-syncing badly.
"Today on Grimlock the Purple Dinobot," said the announcer, "we have a SPECIAL SURPRISE GUEST! None other than…OPTIMUS PRIME, LEADER OF THE AUTOBOTS!"
"Ohhh…" said the invisible background audience.
"Today's special episode is called 'Decepticon Bumblebee Sees the Light','" said Grimlock/Wheeljack.
Seconds later, Optimus Prime joined Grimlock onstage, along with what appeared to be Bumblebee, possibly in a poorly designed Decepticon costume. Basically, he looked the same, except he had on fake red optic lenses and a Decepticon sticker over the place where his Autobot sticker usually was.
"What's today's episode about, Optimus?" Grimlock asked.
"Well, when I kicked Megatron's aft in our battle yesterday, I captured one of his Decepticons, Bumblebee," Optimus told everyone. "I was going to interrogate him at first and make him tell me all the Decepticons' secrets…but then I thought that maybe I could make a DIFFERENCE instead and SAVE THE WORLD!"
"What do you mean?" asked Grimlock.
"I talked about peace, love and friendship with him," Optimus explained. "Now, he wants to become an Autobot! You see, kids, instead of opening more prisons, we should open more sparks. Maybe someday, ALL the Decepticons will See the Light, and the Decepticons will be no more."
"Optimus is right!" said Bumblebee, taking off the sticker and the red optic lenses. "I want to be an Autobot now!"
"Come on, everyone!" said Optimus. "Let's sing our Sharing and Love song!"
"What the—what is this?!" Thundercracker hollered. Appalled at what his nephews were watching, he picked up the remote and turned on one of the Decepticon channels.
Unfortunately, something else was on that sparklings shouldn't be watching—apparently, this channel regularly displayed porn flicks.
"Oh, oh," some femme was moaning pleasurably. "Shove your big fat spike into my soaking wet valve!"
"Open wide, baby," said her mech's voice. "Let me feel your OVERLOAD!"
"Just enjoy," another femme cooed, and then the threesome really took off.
"What are the sparklings watching?" Skywarp cried. "Is that pornography?! Thundercracker, turn that off!"
Thundercracker wanted to see what was going to happen (nobody knew this, but sometimes he taped porn flicks and watched them by himself, just for the fun of it), but there were innocent eyes watching, so he quickly turned the TV off.
"Thank you," said Skywarp.
"At least they aren't watching 'Grimlock the Purple Dinobot'," Thundercracker said back. "No wonder the Autobots are so messed up if that's what their sparklings watch."
"You've got to admit, he has a point," said Moonbeam.
At that point, Megatron and Starscream walked into the room. Both of them were, of course, hung over from all the energon they had consumed at the bachelor party last night, but at least they were downstairs.
"What's going on?" Starscream asked groggily.
"The sparklings were watching this stupid Autobot educational show called 'Grimlock the Purple Dinobot'," Thundercracker told him. "So I turned on a Decepticon channel, but it was showing a porn flick. So we turned the TV off."
"I wish they could watch Autobot Air Force," Starscream said. "That was my favorite show when I was younger."
"Oh yeah, I remember Autobot Air Force." Thundercracker grinned. "I think that was every Seeker's favorite show, growing up. Did you watch it, Moonbeam?"
"Sometimes with my brothers," said Moonbeam. "My sisters and I were more into My Secret Life as a Femme Seeker."
"Yuck, that annoying show was way too girly for me," said Thundercracker. "What was it even about, anyway?"
"It was a great show about a defiant young femme trying to survive in Seeker school, dealing drama involving 'dreamy' mechs, peer pressure, substance abuse, accidental pregnancies, etc.," Moonbeam told them haughtily.
"Kind of like the PG-13 equivalent of Seeker Daily Drama," Starscream explained.
"Well, that show doesn't sound all that interesting," said Megatron pensively. "I've never heard of Autobot Air Force, though. What's it about?"
"It was my favorite show as a sparkling, and my brothers', too," said Starscream. "It was about this group of Seekers who lived to irritate the Autobots, and were never caught. One of them lived on the team as a spy, pretending he had 'Seen the Light', and he always tipped his team off about important missions and technology and stuff. It was funny, and there was a lot of action too. In a way, it was educational, because it taught Seekers about, well, being Seekers."
"It was much better than that weenie scrap you see on Grimlock the Purple Dinobot," Thundercracker agreed scornfully.
"You know, Autobot Air Force was taken off the air millions of years ago, about the time when we graduated Seeker School," said Starscream. "I think I might have a tape of it somewhere, though. Then the little twins can watch it too."
Skywarp nodded in agreement. "If they're going to be watching educational television, they should at least be watching things they need to learn."