And here's part two...Read on folks!
A short time later, Inferno was back at the landing site, panting heavily.
Firestar was watching Crimson who at the moment was focused on a pine cone. She looked up when she heard footsteps.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
"Almost…got caught…th-there were some humans…hiking n-not far from here." Inferno stuttered.
"They didn't see you, did they?" Firestar asked, sounding worried.
Inferno shook his head.
"I don't think so,"
"Good…" Firestar sighed.
Inferno looked in the direction where he came then at his mate.
"'Star, I've been thinking…if those humans had seen me, more than likely they would've tried to follow me back here." He said.
"So? What are you saying?" Firestar asked, she shifted slightly on the log.
"I'm saying that…I think it's time we left." Inferno answered.
Firestar nearly fell over.
"Wha…? Then…where else would we go?"
"I don't know, though if that one group of humans came this far into the forest, it's only a matter of time before some others show up and possibly find us." Said Inferno.
"That's true…" Firestar agreed.
"Listen, the town I told you about isn't far from here. We could…" Inferno was cut off.
"Go there? But…what about finding out if there's other autobots here?" Firestar asked.
"Look, Firestar we've been here for over a week, if there were more of our kind. We would've heard from them by now." Inferno pointed out.
"I suppose you're right," Firestar sighed.
She then noticed the clouds in the sky were getting darker and the wind had picked up.
"Just hope it doesn't…"
Firestar stopped short when she heard thunder.
"Rain…"
Crimson whimpered at hearing the sound and started shaking. Firestar picked her up and looked at Inferno.
"C'mon, we better start walking." He said.
A few minutes later it started to rain…at first it was very light, just a drop, here and there but then it suddenly became a downpour. Inferno and Firestar took cover under a bridge in a nearby flood channel. Crimson whined, she didn't like being out in the rain.
"Ok, now what?" Firestar asked.
"I'm not sure…" Inferno answered.
He then noticed some cardboard boxes sitting on the curb not far from them.
"I take it back…I just got a plan."
Moments later…
"I don't like this plan!" said Firestar.
"Is the coast clear?" Inferno asked.
Firestar checked her surroundings before she spoke.
"Yes,"
Inferno stuck his head out before he went and grabbed a large cardboard box. He brought it back under the bridge and began to write out the word 'Fragile' in Cybertronian. Firestar looked at the box once he was done and placed Crimson in it along with a brown tarp and iPad like tablet. The two day old femme had fallen asleep an hour ago. Picking up the box, both rescue bots stepped out of their hiding place under the bridge. So far, no one seemed to be around. Inferno then froze when he picked up the scent of another autobot.
"Firestar…come 'on," he said.
"I don't want to," she replied.
"Look, I don't like this anymore than you do but it's just until this whole thing blows over." Inferno explained.
He led the way until they stopped at a one story house in the middle of the block. Firestar then placed the box at the front door.
"Are you sure about this?" Firestar asked.
"I'm sure…there's an autobot somewhere around here…I promise we'll come back once we figure something out." Inferno explained.
Firestar placed a note she had written earlier in the box. She nuzzled Crimson one last time.
"We'll be back for you…I promise, Crimson." Said Firestar, before she covered her daughter up with the tarp and closed the box. She and Inferno looked at it for a minute then they switched into their alt-mode, as a pair of fire trucks and left.
Flashback ends…
Back to the present…
"I guess until we find Firestar and Inferno we won't know what happened before they left Crimson at Raf's house." Said Bulkhead.
"Then that is what we will do…in the meantime, I expect all of you to pitch in with looking after Crimson." Optimus told the group.
"No problem…" Bulkhead replied with a smile.
"Yeah, this'll be easy as pie." Said Miko.
Two hours later…
"Oh yeah, couldn't get any easier than this." Miko muttered, Crimson was curled up on the couch next to her. Even though she was a sparkling, Crimson was easily the size of a large dog and weighed almost as much. While this didn't seem to be unusual for Cybertronains, from a human's point of view, it was another story.
"I hate to say it, but this is so boring."
"Miko, Crimson was born a couple days ago, sparklings spend about ninety percent of their time sleeping and the other ten percent eating." Arcee explained.
"But it won't last, give her sometime, she'll be up again." Said Bulkhead.
"If you say so," Miko sighed.
"She does look kinda peaceful,"
Crimson purred softly in her sleep and moved closer to Miko. She had become fast friends with her as well as Jack and Raf.
"So, that's her?" June asked, her shift at the hospital was only for half a day and she stopped by not too long ago. She spotted Crimson once she reached the top of the stairs on the catwalk.
"Yeah, that's Crimson." Said Arcee.
"Jack told me about her last night but I had to come see for myself." June explained.
Over on the other side of the room, Optimus was talking to a rather confused Agent Fowler about what had happened.
"Since when did this happen? Wait… don't tell me…she isn't yours and Arcee's is she?" Fowler asked regarding Crimson.
Both Arcee and Optimus almost tripped over themselves and looked at each other in shock.
"Oh no, no way!" said Arcee.
"Arcee is right, Crimsons is not our daughter…as a matter of fact, I already have a mate and a son…but I lost contact with them a long time ago." Optimus explained.
Smokescreen snickered.
"Crimson does sorta have colors like Optimus," he joked.
Wheeljack and Bumblebee both tried not to laugh.
"Look, how you handle this is your business, just…leave me out of it." Said Fowler.
Arcee took a moment to talk with June, being new to motherhood, the cobalt femme had a few questions. It went well so far but towards the end, their conversation took a turn.
"That doesn't sound so bad," said Arcee.
"Oh, I think you're going to have your hands full." June told her.
Arcee tilted her head.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.
June looked at her and laughed.
"You'll find out."
Sure enough, Arcee learned the hard way. Even with her friends' help, she soon found out taking care of a newborn like Crimson wasn't a walk in the park. The blue and red sparkling would wake up in the middle of the night. Most of the time she wanted to be fed, held or cried because she missed her parents. After three days, Arcee was exhausted and ready to call it quits if she could.
"What'd I tell you?" June asked.
"Ok, you were right…I had no idea how much work was involved." Arcee confessed.
"But…" Arcee looked over at Crimson who was playing with the kids.
"I can't say no and I'll admit even though I haven't been able to get as much sleep as I used to…she's worth it."
June smiled.
"That's exactly how I felt about Jack."
She then noticed Arcee seemed concerned.
"Something wrong?"
"Not really…I just…had a hard time feeding Crimson earlier…I don't think she really likes that replacement powder." Arcee confessed.
"Well, if that doesn't work…you can always try something else." June suggested.
"What else is there?" Arcee asked.
June gave her a confused look and raised an eyebrow.
It didn't take long for Arcee to put two and two together.
"Oh no…no way! That's where I draw the line. Forget it! I'm not nursing her."
June shrugged her shoulders.
"All right, have it your way. Not my problem."
That night…
Crimson woke up and was whimpering loudly.
"Ohh, not again." Ratchet groaned, like everyone else he was in his dorm room sleeping up until now.
"Three a.m.? you gotta be kiddin' me." Said Wheeljack as he looked at the digital clock on his nightstand before throwing his pillow over his head.
"So much for getting a good night's rest." Ultra Magnus muttered
"Does this kid ever sleep?" Smokescreen asked as he stared at the ceiling in his room.
Bulkhead and Bumblebee were both at Miko and Raf's houses, neither of them had to put up with what their teammates had endured all week. Apart from them, the only other bot that wasn't disturbed was Optimus. It was no surprise to the group since he could pretty much sleep through anything.
Arcee woke up to check on Crimson.
"What do you want now?" she asked in a drowsy tone.
Crimson whimpered and suckled on Arcee's fingers. It didn't take long for her to mix up the milk replacement powder. Crimson took a couple of sips of the liquid from the eyedropper and started to relax.
"That was easy…" said Arcee.
She then noticed Crimson stopped and let go of the glass tube.
"And…I spoke too soon."
Arcee set the eyedropper aside on the nightstand. Crimson continued to whimper and didn't stop. Letting out a loud sigh, Arcee knew what was coming next. She lifted up the right side of her chest plates and held Crimson close to her. It wasn't long before things got quiet.
"I hope I don't regret this," Arcee said to herself.
"Ouch!" she yelped when Crimson latched on.
'Not gonna look,' thought Arcee.
Seeing that she couldn't ignore it, the cobalt blue female glanced at Crimson.
'Great… my body is making milk.' she thought.
Two days ago, she discovered this but refused to let Crimson nurse. Arcee couldn't help but notice she was more relaxed. It wasn't uncommon for a femme or any other mammal to feel like this when feeding their offspring. Granted, Arcee had never done this before, so it was going to take some getting used to.
"So…this is what it's like." Said Arcee.
"That's it,"
Crimson let out a muffled squeak in the process. She stopped suckling after about twenty minutes.
"Huh?"
She looked down at Crimson, smiling at her.
"Hey there, Little one,"
Crimson perked up and smiled back. Arcee then lowered her chest plate. She saw Crimson rubbing her eyes and started to close them but they quickly reopened.
"Take it easy…I'm not going anywhere," Arcee assured her.
She nuzzled Crimson and stroked her back.
"I'm sorry about earlier…like I said, I promise I'll take care of you."
Arcee was alerted by the sound of someone knocking on her door. She got up and opened it.
"Oh! Hey Ratchet."
"How's it going?" he asked.
"All right, I guess for getting up at three in the morning." Arcee half joked.
"I heard Crimson and came to check but it looks like everything's fine." Said Ratchet.
"Yeah, she's quiet now." Arcee told him.
Crimson let out a small hiccup followed by a yawn.
"I think after this she'll probably go back to sleep." Said Arcee
"Let's hope so…" was Ratchet's reply.
He patted Crimson on the head, making her purr.
"Good night,"
"See you tomorrow." Arcee said to him, and with that Ratchet left.
Once she got back to bed, Crimson immediately curled up next to Arcee, resting her head on the blue femme's chest.
"Let's get some sleep, huh?" said Arcee.
Crimson let out a small squeak as if agreeing with her. She and Arcee gave in and shut their eyes. Within seconds the two of them were asleep.
The next morning wasn't so pleasant like it usually had been. Smokescreen was leaning against the wall fast asleep and snoring. One by one, the rest of the team entered the main room. The bots missing were Ratchet, Arcee and Optimus who weren't awake just yet.
"Get up!" someone one shouted.
Smokescreen awoke with a start.
"Who was that?!" he sputtered.
"Stop snoozing on the job!" said Ultra Magnus.
Smokescreen yawned and stretched.
"Keep it down, I didn't get any sleep last night." The young mech admitted.
"And neither did anybody else." Ultra Magnus told him.
"Ever since that little scraplet got here, she's been nothing but trouble."
"Scraplet? Where?!" Bulkhead exclaimed nearly knocking over one of the stacked crates.
He and Bumblebee came back recently from dropping the kids off at school.
"Chill, Bulk…there's no real scraplet. Said Wheeljack who currently was working on a crossword puzzle.
"Then, who were you calling a scraplet, Ultra Magnus?" Bulkhead asked.
"I think he was talking about Crimson." said Smokescreen, sounding uncertain.
Bulkhead and Wheeljack stood there, both their jaws nearly hit the floor.
"What?!" they said simultaneously.
"You heard me…she is worse than the humans. We have enough distractions as is it is and the last thing we need is a runt like her causing trouble." Ultra Magnus said in firm tone.
"Ya know, that's a new low…even for you." Said Bulkhead.
Wheeljack walked up to Ultra Magnus. Bulkhead started to say something but didn't, Smokescreen got out of the way, giving the two older males some space.
"You got a lot of nerve calling a helpless sparkling a name like that." He growled.
"And you're defending her, why?" Ultra Magnus asked.
"Because I know what it's like to be entirely on my own with nobody else to turn to except some relatives I hardly knew!" Wheeljack yelled.
Ultra Magnus went quiet but only for a split second.
"Care to elaborate?"
"Sure thing… when I was Smokescreen's age, I lost my parents…there was a shuttle accident…and…" Wheeljack sighed and lowered his head.
"I got the news right after I got out of school…after that, I went to live with my two cousins and their parents. Bulkhead knew and like the best friend that he is, he helped me through it."
"I…did not know that," said Ultra Magnus.
"Well…now you do, so I recommend you think about it." Wheeljack suggested before he walked away.
Later that day…
Ratchet was working at his desk as usual, the rest of the team had gone into one of the large storage rooms, doing some much needed reorganizing and cleaning. Arcee was taking care of Crimson, overall it was totally quiet until…
"We're back!" Miko voice rang out as she hopped out of the passenger side.
"Aren't you all early? I thought your school didn't let out until three o' clock." Said Ratchet.
"We had half a day, teacher's staff meeting." Jack explained.
"Where's Arcee?"
"Right here," she called.
"How's it going?" Raf asked as they made their way up the catwalk.
"Fine…just been tired, Crimson's got up during the night, three times in a row." Arcee explained.
"Yikes!" said Jack.
"Anyway…" Arcee started to say but stopped when Crimson squeaked. She smiled and placed her near the couch. Jack, Miko and Raf immediately went over to greet her. Crimson nuzzled all three of them, obviously happy to see her friends.
"She likes you." Said Arcee.
"Yeah…we like her too." Miko admitted.
"Good, then you won't mind watching her while I'm out."
The young trio paused at hearing this.
"What?!" they all said in unison.
"There's an oil rig off the coast near Seattle where some Decepticons have been seen. Optimus and Ultra Magnus are going, another bot named High Tide is meeting us there." Arcee explained.
"Can't you get somebody else to fill in for you?" Bulkhead asked, overhearing the conversation.
"Tried it, but Optimus wants me to go, thinks I could use a break after taking care of Crimson all week." Arcee answered.
"Eh, we understand…you can count on us." Bulkhead assured her.
"Glad to hear it," said Arcee, she picked up Crimson and handed her to Ratchet.
"What? You don't understand I've got work to do." Ratchet insisted.
"She'll be fine…I'll only be gone a few hours. Look how good she's being." Said Arcee.
Ratchet looked down at Crimson who was smiling right him.
"That's cute," he said in a dull tone.
"I'll be back, Ratchet and the others are going to look after you." Arcee explained.
She gently rubbed Crimson's head as she did the young bot cooed. Ratchet gave Arcee a puzzled look.
"I talk to her…a lot," she explained.
"Nothing's wrong with that, it's not like she doesn't understand…besides, it'll be a good learning experience for her in the long run when she starts talking." Ratchet pointed out.
Arcee nodded.
"Autobots, let's roll out!" Optimus called.
Switching into their vehicle modes, Optimus, Arcee and Ultra Magnus drove off.
"Now what?" Ratchet asked himself.
He was surprised when Crimson grabbed one of his fingers, squeaking happily as she did held it. Ratchet tried to pull his hand back but wasn't having much success.
"Let go!" he exclaimed.
But Crimson didn't she just held on to his index finger, looking at him playfully.
While Ratchet didn't want to admit it, he was enjoying this.
"You've got a strong grip," he said.
Crimson then moved closer to him, Ratchet was taken aback by this and not sure of what to do. Once she got comfortable, Crimson loosened her grip on Ratchet's finger. She let out a small yawn before closing her eyes and dosing off. The orange and white mech, watched her as she slept, chuckling softly; this was priceless!
"You have any plans for this afternoon?" Ratchet asked.
"Besides watching Crimson, not really…except that movie Miko brought over." Bulkhead answered.
"I still don't know about this," Ratchet admitted as he looked at Crimson who was resting in his arms.
"Ratchet, get real…if we can watch a hamster for an entire weekend, how bad can an afternoon of babysitting be?" Bulkhead asked.
Two hours later…
Crimson woke up from her nap. After falling asleep, Ratchet had placed her in Arcee's room. Like most infants, as long as she had something with a familiar scent on it she was calm. Crimson blinked her eyes and glanced around the room realizing she was alone. Seconds later, she let out a full-fledged cry.
It didn't long before everyone else heard her. Both Ratchet and Bulkhead volunteered to find out what was wrong and left the main room to check on Crimson. Walking into Arcee's room, they found the blue and red sparkling was no longer under the blanket. She was still crying for attention. Bulkhead went up to her and tried smiling.
"Aw, Crimson…what's the matter?" he asked.
Bulkhead then turned to face Ratchet.
"Uncle Ratchet, what are we gonna do?"
Said autobot frowned at the olive green mech, then narrowed his eyes.
"First, we stop talking like a chipmunk." He said to Bulkhead.
Crimson cried louder, to the little infant, it seemed as if they were ignoring her.
"Hey shut up!" Wheeljack shouted from down the hall. He was up front watching the movie, Dinosaur with Bumblebee and the kids. They were halfway through the movie and none of them wanted to miss it.
Crimson reduced her cry to a whine.
"Wait, I'll handle this…I used to do stand-up comedy, it was my only non-paying job that cheered people up." Said Bulkhead.
"Uh, Hi Crimson, it's me Kermit the frog, now you don't wanna cry do ya?"
Crimson sniffled and whined.
"Uh, Hi, it's me Mickey Mouse…do you wanna go to Disneyland?"
Crimson then started crying again, completely unimpressed.
Ratchet gave Bulkhead a look as if to say: "You got any more bright ideas?" Watching a mech go from having a track record of breaking things to imitating cartoon characters was pretty ridiculous to say the least.
"Wait, she'll love it…I call it, the sprinkler."
Bulkhead then went into the nearby bathroom, turned on the water in the sink and filled his cheeks. He went back to Crimson and turned his head in a mechanical style, spitting out water as he did so, like a sprinkler. Ratchet grabbed an umbrella that was laying on the floor, opened it and held it over Crimson to keep her from getting wet.
Once Bulkhead finished he saw that his attempt to make Crimson laugh had failed.
"Tough room," he said as Ratchet shook the water off the umbrella and closed it.
Just then, Bulkhead thought of another reason why Crimson was crying.
"Ratchet…what if she needs to be…uh… changed?" he asked, cringing at the end of his sentence.
Ratchet dreaded it as much as his teammate, he glanced at Crimson then Bulkhead.
"Check it out, go." He then pushed the other bot forward.
Bulkhead picked Crimson up, no sooner did he hold her, he was hit by a rather unpleasant smell. His eyes widened as he quickly put her down.
"We have a winner," he announced.
"Now what?"
"Bulkhead, put yourself in her place. What would you want done?" Ratchet asked.
"I've never changed an oil pan," Bulkhead confessed.
"Me neither, at least you smelled one." Said Ratchet.
It took all his strength to keep from laughing, while he wasn't crazy about Bulkhead's stand-up comedy, the look on his face from holding Crimson, was the highlight of Ratchet's day.
"All right, move over I'll show you how it's done. Come here, child. Can you believe this clown?" Ratchet said as he picked up Crimson.
"Ok now, make yourself useful."
"I'll take the south end," Bulkhead offered, holding Crimson's legs and turning his head to the side.
"Good," said Ratchet.
Crimson looked at him nervously as he and Bulkhead carried her out of the room. She wasn't sure about what they were doing.
As they walked down the hallway both of them tried to avoid running into anyone.
"Ratch, watch out." Bulkhead warned.
"Ok," said Ratchet.
"Step one, step two, step one, step two, step one, step two, step one, step two, step one…" they counted as they walked.
"Ok, look out," Ratchet warned as he and Bulkhead entered the main room.
"All right, keep her coming," said Bulkhead.
He and Ratchet then went into the medical bay unaware that Jack and the others had watched them walk by with Crimson. Judging by the disgusted looks on both bots faces, they knew what was going on. Miko grinned, this was the funniest thing she had seen all day.
"Showtime," she said.
Deciding not to get involved, they all went back to watching the rest of their movie.
Three hours later…
After surviving the ordeal from earlier, the rest of the afternoon was quiet for the most part. By the time Optimus, Arcee and Ultra Magnus returned from Seattle, all five autobots plus the three humans were worn out. Optimus drove in first, followed by Ultra Magnus and Arcee. They stopped talking when they saw the main room looked like it had been trashed. Now in bot-mode, all three of them stood there in shock. A bucket with a mop as well as several towels were scattered on the floor and empty can of milk replacement powder was in the corner. Overall, it was a mess.
"What happened here?" Optimus asked.
Bulkhead was the first one to answer.
"Well… it seemed like every time we tried to feed her, she just coughed it up."
Optimus and Arcee shook their heads.
"Oy…" Ultra Magnus groaned.
The missing hamster incident was one thing but this was hilarious.
'This could be entertaining after all' thought Ultra Magnus.
Optimus would've laughed but this time he decided to keep a straight face. Arcee went over to the catwalk and found Crimson fast asleep on the couch with a teal blanket over her. She gently picked her up and held her.
"You awake?" she asked.
Crimson opened her eyes for a minute, she immediately recognized who was holding her. After a second she went back to sleep. Arcee felt tired as well and went to her room with Crimson in tow. While the team had gotten through this one episode, there was one thing left to do…clean up.
"Might well get started, this room isn't gonna clean itself." Said Bulkhead.
"Not bad, guys but next time try reading this." Miko suggested, she held up what looked like a book on baby and child care.
"Miko, why did you wait until now to give us that book?" Ratchet asked.
"Nobody asked me," said Miko.
Both Ratchet and Bulkhead stood there looking dumbfounded. One thing was for sure it had been a long afternoon.
MORE TO COME...
And that's a wrap! for now...until my new laptop comes in three weeks, which will be early August, updates on this story will be on temporary hiatus, I plan to update More than That, but that will probably be the last story I update until I get my new laptop. Just because I won't be updating doesn't mean I won't be writing via notebook. So sorry for the inconvenience, folks but I'll say this using an app to write is a far cry from having a full fledged laptop. Now for references: Firestar, Reptron, Oil-Slick, the Rescue bots and Clampdown aren't original characters neither are Cade, Tessa, Denny, Russell and the Witwickys all of them are from various Transformers animated series and movies such as G1, The Go-bots mini series from 2002, Rescue bots, Transformers movies 1 and 4, etc...
Quotes and other materials are from the following: Sitting Ducks episode: 'Chasing Andy', 101 Dalmatians: The series episode: Moove it on over! Dalmatian Vacation part 1 and It's a Swap thing, Scruffy, Drake & Josh episodes: Sheep Thrills and The Wedding. Cats & Dogs, 101 Dalmatians(1996 movie remake), Beethoven's 2nd, Bolt, Little Bear, Instant Mom season 1 episode: Camp Fear, Home Improvement episode: Bye, bye Birdie, Dog with a blog episode: Stan has Puppies, Jungle Cubs episode: The coming of the Wolves and the Pound Puppies (2010 remake) season 1 episodes: Rebound, No Dogs Allowed, and Rebel without a collar.
For those wondering about the babysitting scene in this story, the idea for that came from watching the Full House pilot episode: Our Very first show. I was flipping through the channels one night and after watching the episode I thought to myself 'Oh, this is going in the story!'
If anyone is wondering why Firestar had rejected Crimson when she was pregnant, this DOES happen to some Moms in real life. There's cases where new mothers, both humans and animals don't bond with their newborns right away.
Besides my laptop giving out last month I had another more severe loss recently. My first and only female betta fish passed away in her sleep from a combination of old age and illness. I did everything I could to help her but sadly she's gone. I will be getting another female betta at some point. I'll miss my first one though...
Anyway, this is the first time I've updated a story twice in one day!
Got any questions or suggestions, just send me a message.
Again, this story will be off of hiatus just as soon as I get my new laptop.
Stay tuned!