New chapter for you. So, I have a poll upon my profile, and so far two people have voted on it. Thank you, two people, I appreciate it.

Jazz was waiting for him when he walked out of the house the next day. The passenger door flipped open, hologram waving to him from the drivers seat, odd expression on it's face.

"What's up, man?"

The normally happy (from what he knew, anyways) mech was strangely subdued.

Sam frowned at the mech, putting his backpack down on the floor of the car.

"Nothin'... much. You ok? You're... acting different."

"... Your caretaker hit you last night."

"And let me guess," Sam said, "You googled it."

"Do people really do that t' their sparklings? They really... hurt them like that?"

"Yeah."

The car swerved to the left and into an alleyway, passenger door swinging open and gravity depositing him neatly onto the ground.

The odd, mechanical sound filled the dark space and Jazz the robot stood before him, shivering.

"I- Why? How? Bee-bee's a sparkling and I can't even imagine anybot hurtin' him! Especially not me!"

"Just what... is a sparking to you?"

He plopped down on the ground, resting Sam on on of his knees.

"A sparklin' is a... newspark, I guess. 'Bee ain't really a sparklin' anymore, more of a younglin', but-"

"How about... from the beginning? Like, 'what is a youngling' kind... of beginning."

"Cybertronian childhood is divided int' three separate stages: sparklin', younglin', and mechlin'. Ratch' would prolly know more 'bout this than me..."

"Ratchet would probably join the decepticons... in annihilating the human race if he found out about this."

Jazz nodded, expression grim.

"I think most of us would freak out, 'specially with 'Bee here. Just... the whole concept just- Whatever, ok. Sparklin's are like the human 'quivalent of babies, from onlinin' 'till about... 10 vorns, I think-"

Sam clamoured up from the mechs knee to his shoulder, tapping the side of his faceplates, questioning.

"A Vorn is...?"

"'Bout 83 human years? Yeah, I think that's it... Uh, after that, they're considered younglin's, and they're younglin's from 10 vorns 'till about... 40 vorns, and after that, they're called mechlin's, which I'd guess is th' 'quivalent to the human teenager, and they're not considered mechs 'til a full 80 vorns after that."

"So, Bumblebee is...?"

"'Bout th' 'quivalent to a... ten or eleven year old child, I think. 'M about nineteen or twenty, Ironhide's, like, fourty or something, Ratchet's about thirty, and Boss-bot's about twenty seven."

"So, Optimus Prime's pretty young to be leading a war."

Jazz grinned wryly, leaning against the alley wall.

"We're all too young to be in this war, but we ain't gotta choice."

They sat in silence for a while, neither noticing a small camera perched in the window of the building across from them,

"So, what... were you saying? About the sparklings?"

"Oh, yeah! Well, sparklin's 're pretty rare, 'cause there's only three way's you can get 'em, and two out of three require ya t' build the body yerself or get someone else ta do it for you, and most bots don't have the time or money."

"Ya can go to Vector Sigma, a really complicated super computer thingy, but it's really, really picky 'bout who it gives sparks to. Then, there's the Allspark-"

"The thing you're trying to find?"

"Th' very same. Anyways, it can make sparks too, but only a certain amount every vorn. Then, there's the third option, sparkmergin'. It only works with sparkbonded, though, and you need two crazy strong sparks t' make a sparklin'. If the sparklin's in a femme- a female on your planet- then the protoform builds itself out of excess metals, but if it's in a mech-"

"Guys can have babies?"

"Uh, yeah, they can't on your planet?"

"No, no they can't. And there... is no way I'm giving a giant alien robot the whole 'birds and the bees' shtick, so... if you wanna know why, use the Internet."

"...Ok? Well, if it's in a mech, then ya have t' build the bodies yerselves, which is hard on a lot a people."

"Ok. Well, people on earth don't have that problem. In fact, getting pregnant is so easy that people do it on accident all the time, which leads to the three A's: abandonment, abuse, and abortion. None of them are nice things.:"

"Are all humans like this?"

"No, not also have the opposite side of the spectrum, like Miles' parents. They love their kid so much it's ridiculous."

"So, not all people are bad?"

"Nope. But, seriously, though...You don't have any of those kinds of problems on your planet?"

Jazz carefully picked up Sam and placed him on the ground before transforming, passenger door swinging open.

"Not with sparklin's. We get abuse from... significant others? But never for sparklin's... Until Megatron came along, that is."

Sam had a feeling that whatever Jazz was going to say, he wouldn't like it very much...

"For the war, a... care center was opened up inna neutral city called Vos. All the sparklin's of th' war mechs, no matter what side they were on, were sent t' Vos in order t' keep 'em out of the fightin'... but Megatron..."

"What'd he do?" Sam asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Bombed th' whole thing. Didn't leave a single sparklin' alive."

Sam gasped, hands clasped over his mouth, sudden nausea making his stomach roll dangerously.

"He... why?"

Jazz sped up, angrily weaving his way between two slow moving cars, paying no heed to the frustrated honks he got in return.

"Because some of them were autobots, because he needed the seekers on his side, because he's absolutely fraggin' crazy- who knows?"

Yess, who knows indeed?