Alright, this is long, but I ask you to read it.
First, to the person who left a guest review on the date of May 13, 2015 with the name "Hmmm.", I sincerely appreciate the review and the idea behind it, but as you stated in your review, you only just started reading. You posted the review on Chapter 2. Since creating SJAL I've become a much, much better writer and have stopped the majority of my writing errors. Your complaint was that I don't use punctuation correctly, and that " It's a serious pet peeve to see a halfway decent story that doesn't use something that's taught in elementary school." . Yes, well guess what! I've stopped doing that. I took an amount of offence to this, because if you read the description (which will be updated soon) you'll see that SJAL has over 35 chapters, and is over a year old. In that time frame, I would ask that you always assume the writer has become a better writer, but instead you posted something you thought would help on the second chapter of a 30+ story. Plus that, the story I put a lot of work into, you just called a "halfway decent" story. And thanks for trying to tell me the use of commas and periods but I am one hundred percent aware of what they are used for, I'm not an infant. I'm 100% aware you didn't mean this to be rude at all, and I hope you don't take this rudely, but seeing as you left me with no way to address, I had to respond to you here. Thank you for the review and if you had posted this before Chapter 20, it would've gone to great use.
To my other current readers who have been with me for a long time going, I send all of you a shit ton of hugs. The updates, starting this upcoming Monday, will not be new chapters. I'll be rewriting and updating the previous chapter from 1 to about 25. I've had more than six people either review or PM me, pointing out mistakes I made while I was an excessively worse writer, and I'm tired of hearing about them. Thanks everybody for your patience. Also soon I will be posting snippets and clips of future chapters on the SJAL Facebook Fan page, but if you don't want to read them, please just ignore them. I will also be asking you people questions there, as it ha been requested to me that I should a 50+ chapter story. I may not more than fifty chapters, but I might be doing specials here and there! Thank you everybody and enjoy! There may be spelling errors, my sincere apologies. The name Backsplash is my name, and you may not use it without my permission via PM.
Sunstreaker sighed as his holoform slipped into his alt. mode, placing the plastic bag of chicken noodle soup cans on his passenger seat. Lily hadn't eaten a proper meal in two weeks, and they made sure she was moved to the Med Bay instead of being in her room now, but she wasn't getting better at all - if anything she was getting worse. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and it was driving him, Sideswipe and Ratchet nuts. Ratchet had flushed the Energon from her systems, she was given antibiotics and they had tried everything they could think of, yet it didn't help. Sideswipe kept saying that he was positive she looked like she was loosing weight, but he was just paranoid.
A hand reached out to try and touch Sunny's hood, but he revved his engine loudly causing the human to jump back as he shifted gears and sped off.
Sideswipe was right where Sunny had left him, sitting in holoform beside Lily on the human bed. She was sleeping, her eyes moving under her eyelids. The silver Corvette was parked over in the corner.
"She any better?" Sunstreaker asked, activating his holoforn,
"Hasn't thrown up in three hours, so yeah." he nodded.
Lily had been throwing up every thirty minutes before, so three hours an improvement. Ratchet had said the only way for her to recover was to either bond with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, or let her body work off whatever it was going through. The second option seemed as though it would take forever, but they refused to ask her to bond until she could understand the intensity fo what they were offering.
Sunstreaker poured the chicken noodle soup into a container and shoved into the mini heating machine humans made, hitting the to minute button. The light went on, the container started spinning, and Sunstreaker walked back over to lay down on the berth next to Lily. She moved a little, but thankfully didn't wake up, and he ran his hand through her ponytail.
He leaned down and kissed her pale cheek. She huffed a little, and groaned, then her eyes fluttered. Sunstreaker saw Sideswipe get up for the human heat machine that beeped. He brought back the thing of soup and a spoon. He sat next to Lily, filled the spoon with the soup, and brought it closer to her.
"Lily, wake up." Sideswipe said, and nudged her lightly.
She moaned and tossed her head back and forth, before she leaned over Sunstreaker's lap. Sunstreaker reached down and grabbed the garbage pale. She dry heaved into it for a few seconds, then her right hand came up to wipe spittle from her mouth. She moaned again as Sunny rubbed her back.
"Come on Lily, you have to eat." Sideswipe encouraged
She moaned and moved her head away "No."
She didn't want to eat it; she'd just throw it up anyways.
"Lily, you have to." Sunny said
"No." she repeated
"Lily." Sideswipe growled
"Baby girl, you have to-"
"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker!" Ratchet exclaimed as he burst into the Med Bay, cutting Sunstreaker off.
"What is it?"
"One of you transform." the CMO ordered
Sunstreaker leaned down and kissed Lily's forehead, then released his holoform. Lily tried to protest, but all that happened was a moan. She always felt so much better when both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were with her.
Sideswipe stayed beside her on the berth.
Sunstreaker walked over in bipedal "What?"
"Open your chest plates." Ratchet ordered
"What?" Sunstreaker asked
"You heard me perfectly well." the CMO responded.
Sunstreaker furrowed his optic ridges but opened the golden chest plates, revealing the blue blob of energy that was his life source. Ratchet leaned down and picked up the tiny human who laid on the bed, and placed her in his spark chamber, still lying down.
"Sideswipe, bipedal." he ordered.
Sideswipe dismissed the holoform and was standing in bipedal within seconds, "What are we doing Ratchet?"
"You three are bonding, now." he said, turning to look at a Datapad.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker looked over at each other hesitantly, "Ratchet we-"
"Enough!" Ratchet yelled, slamming his fists on to the counter "You two have been putting this off because, whether you admit it or not, you're scared. You're scared that when she wakes up and is conscious enough to understand what you did, she'll hate you. You're scared that things will end the way things did with Backsplash. Well, guess what! It won't! Lily isn't Backsplash. I highly doubt you two can even begin to comprehend how much that little brown haired human loves and cares for you two. So, if you two wont willingly bond with her, I'm going to make you!" Ratchet finished, and his optics rotated a little.
"Now," Ratchet said calmly "Open your chest plates."
LPOV Change
I honestly didn't think the inside of Sunny's chest would be so nice and warm and... cozy. Sideswipe looked at Sunstreaker hesitantly, but Sideswipe cracked his chest plates open. He had an identical floating spark to Sunny's, and he took a few steps closer. I contemplated going towards that one too, but Sunny's is so warm; instead, it started moving towards me. I felt myself smile a little bit. It touched Sunstreaker's briefly, almost like it was acknowledging the presence of his, and Sunstreaker's moved against his too, almost like they were high fiving, then they were surrounding me. One of them - I had lost which one was which by now - nudged me a little and I hummed. They made me feel warm and my nausea disappeared around them. One of them moved forward and touched me a little more roughly and I assumed, since Sunny's meaner than his twin, that that one was Sunstreaker's spark.
Finally, they joined together, over top of me; everything went blue.
After a few minutes everything felt fuzzy and calm. There was a high pitched whine of an engine from one of my twins, but all I could see was blue. It was like being in a room with every wall painted stark blue. Eventually, between the warm, fuzzy feeling, the lack of constant nausea and the boringness, I fell asleep to the sound of whining engines.
The minute Sideswipe's spark started moving, Ratchet closed the curtains, then left and locked the door behind himself so no one could walk in unexpectedly. Everybot knew that bonding was considered extremely intimate for bots.
Then, they saw what they'd been waiting to see since they could remember.
They were staring at Lily. She was younger, much younger, with a little bit of baby fat left on her cheeks, but her cheek bones were still rather prominent. She stood by a silver Rookie, who had black racing stripes down his hood. Lily wore a black wifebeater and a pair of black jeans, the bottoms of which were covered by boots. She was waiting by the hood with her arms crossed, under an overpass.
An old, black Camaro pulled up and a man much older than her got out of the driver's side. A woman got out of the passenger's side, wearing a white tank top, a skirt and a pair of large black heels. The man wrapped his arm around the woman's waist when they reached each other and walked over to Lily.
Lily, who was alone, straightened up and looked at the guy head on.
"You White?" the man asked
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't." she snapped.
"Ain't ya a little young to be involved in shit like this?" the man asked
"You better mind your own god damn business before I kick you so hard your balls fly out of your eye sockets." Lily growled, and they noticed her fists were clenched.
"Hey, whatever chica, I was just asking." he said
"And I'm just saying shut the fuck up and mind your own god damn business." she snapped
"Alright, look, I'm just here for my share." the guy said
"Here." Lily said, reaching into her pocket. She handed the man a small, circular, yellow bag that was about the same size as the first knuckle.
He smiled, "Thanks girly, here you go."
The man reached into his Camaro through it's open window, then brought out a grey bag. He reached into the bag and handed Lily a package of elbow noodles, a thing of margarine, and two boxes of pizza pockets. Lily grabbed them, then nodded at him.
"You ever need more, you know how to reach me, and you know my price." he smiled. Lily nodded, keeping up a monotone expression. Lily nodded again and threw the things into the passenger seat, slipped into Rookie's driver seat and left the area
The scene changed, and they were looking at one of their memories. Sideswipe wondered if Lily was seeing what they were.
A small golden mech sat on a berth next to a red mech who looked identical to him besides the audio horns versus the audio finns. The red mech was just slightly smaller, and a little bit thinner. Both had been shoved in this room a few mega cycles ago, maybe a whole quartex. The red one was hungry, that much was obvious. He had his knees pulled up to his chest, with his poorly painted arms wrapped around his knees. He had his helm resting against his knees, closing his optics.
The golden mech looked over when the door cracked open to reveal a massive black mech with red optics, "Let's go, both of you."
The golden mech nudged his twin, "Sides, come on, let's go."
The red mech, Sideswipe, scramble up and followed his twin out of the door. Sunstreaker , the golden one, stood in front of his twin protectively as they exited the room. They were brought into a room that was filled with large mechs who were scraped and unclean, but laughing and joking with each other at their table mates. The twins were brought to the back of the room.
"Sit here." the black mech said. They sat down quickly, in front of three older mechs. The black one sat next to Sunstreaker, who wouldn't let him touch Sideswipe if his life depended on it. Of course, older siblings were always more over protective.
"Who're you?" one of the older mechs asked
"These are the two scrawny nebies Boss was talking about."
One of the mechs laughed, "They won't make it one second in those cages."
"That's your opinion." Sunstreaker retorted.
The older mech turned and looked at him.
"Sunny, don't." Sideswipe hissed
"Listen to 'im, Sunny. You shut your mouthplates before I punch 'em shut." the mech growled
"You couldn't touch me witha ten foot pole." Sunstreaker sneered back. The mech growled and stood up, his chest becoming larger as he huffed. Sunstreaker stood up in front of him.
"Sunny." Sideswipe hissed.
The large older mech walked over in front of Sunstreaker and growled down at him.
"Boy, you don't even know where you are, so you better watch what you say before youget on the wrong side of-"
Before Sunny could hear the rest of what he was saying, the mech fell to the ground and landed on his aft. He brought a hand up to touch his nasal ridge, and looked at the Energon covered digits. The little mechling had the guts to punch him. Before the mech could do anything else to him, there was a large green mech in his way.
"That's enough."
"Underscore, move, get out of my way." the mech growled
Underscore snarled in his direction "You speak to me by my designation?"
The big mech dropped his head "My apologies."
"Good. Now go wash up. These two will not be harmed, am I clear?" Underscore asked
"Crystal." the big mech muttered through obviously grit dentas.
"Good. Go."
The big mech stomped off angrily, and Underscore turned and smiled at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe
"Did or did I not tell you these two would be worth it?"
The scene changed again, and they felt the bond.
"Ma, enough. I don't give two shits what you think I should and shouldn't be doing, alright? You will not work, and I'm ok with doing this. Stop calling, I'll see you at home tonight."
Lily, who looked the same as within the first few months of being hired by NEST, hung up the phone she was on and laid on a one of those rolling things that she used to go take care of the underneath of their alt. modes. Sunny and Sideswipe always forgot what humans called it.
She was working on Optimus; technically, his alt. mode, even though she probably didn't know that that was actually him. She was under there for a substantial amount of time before something kicked her foot.
"I swear to God, you kick me again and I'm going to shove my hand down and your throat and pull out your intestine- oh, Ironhide. What do you want?" she asked, standing up.
"Here." Ironhide's holoform said, handing her a large Iced Capp.
"Thanks. You didn't have too." she said
He shrugged, "No worries. Thanks for helping out."
"It's kind of my job to do this." Lily pointed out.
"Whatever." Ironhide shrugged, then walked off.
Lily scoffed, took a sip from her Iced Capp then stared at the wall for a second "Whatever." she mocked, attempting to make her voice deep, shrugging. As she turned around she shook her head, "It only works on him."
She was just about to lay on the rolly thing when there was the rev of an engine. She looked towards the exit to see a yellow Lamborghini and a red Lamborghini drive in. The two holoforms stepped out of the seats, and walked off without noticing her. Lily shook her head and waited until the door had shut behind them.
"Blonde haired, empty brained, dumb assed, bitch!" she yelled, and threw a wrench. It flew a substantial ways across the room, landed on the floor and skidded to a stop in front of Sunstreaker's alt. mode, which she had thought was just his car at the time. She walked over and picked up the wrench, glaring at Sunny's hood. She extended her index finger and ran it across his hood loudly.
"Oops." she said sarcastically, and began walking back towards Optimus. As she was walking, they heard her mumbled "Motherfucker.", before she laid on the thing, and slid back underneath Optimus.
Sunstreaker laughed at thatone and Sideswipe smirked. They saw more things, some snips from their lives, their success in the Pits, femmes, joinging the Autobots, a byunch of other things, plus they saw Lily's life as a kid, they got to see baby Lily, four and five year old Lily, ten year old Lily sitting in a hospital chair on her birthday, asking if her Daddy was alright; they saw Lily start High School, they saw more illegal stuff, they saw more things she did at NEST when she first joined while no one was around. Sideswipe's favorite was when she keyed the words "Blonde Headed Bitch" into Sunny's hood, then repainted him again.
It wasn't Sunstreaker's favorite part.
So, now they sat together on a berth in holoform, her sleeping in between them, going over what they saw. She was already looking better. The color was coming back to her cheeks, and her eyes were no longer moving under her eyelids.
"I thought she was lying when she said she had done illegal things." Sideswipe muttered
"I think we all did." Sunstreaker reasoned, then smirked "I like it when she pokes at the bond like that.".
There was another poke from her while she slept. He chuckled and poked back.
"She's like a sparkling trying to figure bonds out." Sideswipe smiled when she abandonned Sunstreaker for a minute and poked Sideswipe. When he punched back she paused for a minute or two, then he felt something akin to a punch.
Sunny laughed "Yeah, a vicious little two year old, maybe." he chuckled.
She poked Sideswipe again; he brushed his end of the bond against hers and she went back to Sunny's side.
Sunstreaker leaned down and kissed her forehead, then whispered "I am not a blonde headed bitch." in her ear.
Sideswipe laughed loudly, Sunny smiled, and all of the sudden he felt her slam something against the bond, causing him to laugh too.
Alright, with that out of the way, get ready for an SJAL revamp! Chapters 1-20 will be re-written and updated every Sunday or Monday! Enjoy the rest of your day
Baby Update: The babies are officially one tomorrow/ the day after (depending on when you're reading this). May 16th, 2014 I was blessed with two baby twins who nobody thought would survive because the chances for horse twins can be low. Now, they're both healthy, happy, and conformationally correct! Eek! They grow up way to fast! Voltage will be started for riding first, we're going to put a training pad on his back and see how he adjusts! Woohoo!