TF: A New Beginning?

[wildernesstales]

Rating: PG-13
Series: G1
Summary: Something strange has happened in both the Autobot and Decepticon armies.  How will everyone involved cope?
Warnings: Fluff?
Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I’ve forgotten…
Authors Notes: Idea from the tf_bunny_farm, bunnies 15 and 16.  I’m… not finished with this I don’t think, but I’m severely lacking in ideas/fun for them to get up to.  So I rounded it off so it would stand well enough on its own if I don’t get round to writing anymore.  The Protectobots don’t exist yet; as much fun as sparkling!First Aid would be to write… ooh, and sparkling!Hot Spot being mothered by Inferno.  That would just be adorable!)  I just figured they hadn’t been built/sparked yet.  Plus, it makes it easier if both factions only have one set of sparklings to look after.  Dammit, I might just have to write that as an interlude/extra part to the story now.
Feedback makes friends.  Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.

 

Vector Sigma had been wrong and Primus now had to step in to fix his mistake.  New sparks should never have been put into adult frames.  In a flash of light, Primus fixed this, causing chaos for both the Autobots and Decepticons.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Motormaster wasn’t quite sure what to make of what had just happened.  One moment he had been sitting at his desk, checking his report ready to send to Megatron, and the next he couldn’t even see his desk.  Well he could, if he looked up.  And Motormaster wasn’t exactly used to looking up.  Looking down, he realised that suddenly everything seemed a lot larger.  And considering everything in his quarters started off large in the first place, that was certainly saying something.
Getting down off his chair was an experience he’d care not to repeat.  He was just grateful that none of the other Stunticons had been around to see him fall on his aft.  The door to the main Stunticon common room had posed more of a problem, but a swift kick had sorted that.

Limping into the main room, Motormaster found himself confronted with four equally confused… and equally small… Stunticons.
“What the frag?” Came the simultaneous comments.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ratchet couldn’t believe his optics.  He’d just finished repairing Fireflight’s wing and turned around to put his tools down.  When he turned back round, Fireflight was nowhere to be seen.  At least not at the level Ratchet had been expecting to see him.  Sitting in the middle of the berth looking more than a little lost (not that it differed much from his normal expression), was a much smaller Fireflight.
“What the slag?”

Wheeljack turned round at Ratchet’s exclamation, staring at Fireflight in surprise.
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.  I just turned round to put my tools down, and when I turned back, he was like this.” Ratchet waved a hand at the sparkling Fireflight who just reached up, trying to grab at the red hand just out of his reach.

“… Ratchet?” Prime’s voice sounded over Ratchet’s commline.
“Yes?”
“Has Wheeljack done anything I should be aware of?” Came Prime’s almost hesitant question.
“No.  What’s wrong?” Ratchet had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly what was wrong.
“It’s Silverbolt.  He’s… you’re not going to believe me...”
“Try me.”
“He’s a sparkling.”
“Primus…” Ratchet shook his head.  “It’s happened to Fireflight too.  We need to find the rest of the Aerialbots.” Before anything bad happens, was the unspoken ending.  Wheeljack nodded, immediately contacting Ironhide and Red Alert.  If anyone would know where the other Aerialbots were, they would.

Red Alert reported back within minutes, informing them that the rest of the Aerialbots were in the Aerie, the hanger provided for the new gestalt.  And that his cameras showed they were all sparklings.  Ironhide was on his way, to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves.
“Primus, what the frag happened…” Ratchet muttered to himself.  Primus however (as much as he wanted to) didn’t answer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Finally, Ratchet had all the Aerialbots in the medbay.  Having given each one a full checkup (and given them a clean bill of health), he was at a complete loss at to why they were suddenly turned into sparklings.
“I’ve got no clue Prime.” He shrugged.  “No idea why.  They’re perfectly healthy, just… sparklings.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened in Cybertronian history.” Perceptor put in.  Ratchet nodded his agreement.

The Aerialbots were all sitting on one berth, huddled together, staring up at the larger mechs.
“It doesn’t even seem as though they’ve retained their memories.”
“Have too!” Slingshot cried out, though in a series of chirps and whistles rather than speaking.  Ratchet sighed, long forgotten protocols automatically translating Slingshot’s words.
“All right, perhaps they have retained their memories.  It still doesn’t explain why they suddenly became sparklings.”
“Primus.” Silverbolt managed, staring up at Prime.
“What?” Optimus Prime stared back at his now diminutive aerial commander.  He had to admit, Silverbolt looked rather adorable as a sparkling.
“Primus.” Silverbolt repeated almost proudly.  Ratchet just slapped a hand over his optics.  Prime knelt down so he was at optic level with Silverbolt.
“You know who did this to you?” He asked softly.  Silverbolt nodded frantically.
“Primus.”
“Primus?” Ratchet shook his head.  “Why would Primus do something like that?” The medic was at a complete loss.
“I do not know why, but I’m not going to question it.” Prime shrugged and straightened back up.  “We are just going to have to take care of them until we can understand how to reverse the process.”
“I am going to have to sparkling proof the entire Ark.” Red Alert groaned.
“It ain’t all that bad.” Wheeljack chuckled, picking Fireflight up.  “The little guys are cute.” Fireflight made a grab for Wheeljack’s headfins as they lit up, fascinated by the colors.  Skydive reached for the datapad Ratchet was holding while Slingshot and Air Raid just pushed against one another in a mock-fight.  As Skydive pulled the datapad away from Ratchet, the medic just groaned.
“I wish this was happening to the Decepticons as well.” He muttered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“What?” Megatron’s face was a picture as Hook tried to explain exactly what had happened.  Onslaught was standing off to one side, still trying to come up with some sort of explanation as to what exactly Vortex had been doing sneaking into the Stunticons quarters.
“I cannot explain it.  They are just sparklings.  And with their own minds.” Much to his chagrin, he couldn’t explain exactly what had happened.  He just hoped that Mixmaster had managed to coax Breakdown out from underneath his workstation by now.
“Get them out of here.”
“Megatron!” Both Hook and Onslaught cried out at the order.
“You cannot abandon them, they are still Decepticons.” Onslaught reminded Megatron.
“I am aware of that.  However, I will not have sparklings running around my base!”
“What do you suggest?” Hook’s tone was verging on derisive.  “You can’t exactly expect us to sparkling-sit.”
“Can’t I?” As Megatron spoke, Onslaught glared at Hook, just knowing the surgeon had condemned them to sparkling-sitting.
“Lord Megatron, I must raise an objection.” Onslaught spoke mildly, knowing full well that outright dismissal of his idea would not go down well with Megatron.
“Your objection is noted Onslaught, however I expect the both of you to arrange with your teams to keep an optic on the sparklings.  If indeed they do possess their minds and abilities, they may yet be of use to us.”
“I understand Megatron.” Onslaught bowed slightly and left the room, Hook following him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“How much of their minds do they retain?” Onslaught questioned Hook as they headed towards the Constructicons’ laboratory.
“As far as my scans detect, they retain everything.  They are who they were… just sparklings.” Hook was confused by it all, not quite understanding how it had happened.

The sight that greeted them when the doors to the laboratory slid open was something that would remain burned in Onslaught’s processors for the rest of his existence.

Mixmaster was knelt in front of his work bench, making nonsensical clicking noises in an attempt to coax Breakdown out.  The small Lamborghini was huddled against the wall, staring at Mixmaster with wide optics and shaking his head to whatever Mixmaster was saying.  They heard the scientist groan and watched him crawl back out.
“He wwwon’t come out.”
“Leave him there then.” Hook snapped, walking straight past the scientist and doing his best to ignore Long Haul.  The dump truck was in alt-mode, with Wildrider and Drag Strip perched in his dumping tray, giggling like, well, like sparklings as the Constructicon raised and lowered his tray.
Onslaught meanwhile was more aghast at the sight of Vortex playing with Motormaster.  Unbelievably (or believably given their personalities), they were rough-housing.  Motormaster was currently swinging on one of Vortex’s rotor blades.  Swindle was nowhere to be seen and Onslaught really hoped the jeep wasn’t off trying to sell the sparklings to the Autobots.  Blast Off and Brawl had also made themselves scarce.
Dead End was the only sparkling not interacting with the other mechs in the room.  He was sitting quietly in a corner with a datapad that was almost as big as him.
“Primus hates me.” Onslaught grumbled, scrubbing a hand across his visor.
“Primus hates all of us.” Dead End drawled, looking up from the data pad long enough to fix Onslaught with a look as the confused Combaticon stared down at the sparkling.
“What?” He asked.
“Primus hates all of us.” Dead End repeated, surprisingly eloquent for a sparkling.  “He did this.” Dead End looked back down at his data pad, evidently having said all he was going to say.
“Did he really say what I think he just said?” Onslaught asked the room at large, needing to check he hadn’t misheard the small Porsche.
“He did.” Scrapper confirmed.  He had been doing his best to ignore what was going on around him, concentrating on his latest set of blueprints.
“You are sparkling-sitting first.” Onslaught growled, moving back towards the door, grabbing Vortex on the way.  The ‘copter yelped as his rotor blade was grabbed harder than he’d been used to, struggling to his feet and stumbling backwards as Onslaught pulled him out of the laboratory.  Motormaster let out a wail of disappointment as his new favorite plaything disappeared.  As Vortex and Onslaught left, Breakdown peeked out from under Mixmaster’s workstation, squeaking in surprise as the scientist swooped and picked him up before he had a chance to crawl back under.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Frag!” Ratchet bit out the curse as he flailed in the air.  Before he’d had a chance to turn off their flight capabilities, all five Aerialbots had taken to the air.  Silverbolt had been easy to catch, not flying more than a few feet above the ground.  Evidently his fear of heights was still as strong in this form as when he had been an adult.  Air Raid and Slingshot were the hardest to catch, swooping and soaring around the Ark ceiling, well out of reach of most of the Autobots.  Skydive had been tricked into diving towards Ironhide while Wheeljack grabbed him out of the air, producing the most amusing squawk from the small (and normally reserved) jet.

Ratchet winced as Fireflight went bouncing past.  Literally.  Sparing a moment to catalogue the damage he was going to have to repair, he rushed after Fireflight, colliding with Perceptor as Fireflight managed to take off almost vertically.
“This is going to be extremely difficult.” Perceptor noted from his position on the floor.
“Really?” With barely a glance at Perceptor, Ratchet leapt in to the air, managing to snag Fireflight by one wing.
“Not the wings!” Ratchet wasn’t sure exactly who shouted it, but it made him fumble, losing his grip on Fireflight.  The small jet giggled and fired his thrusters, heat wafting across Ratchet’s face.
“Slag it.”
“Gotcha!” Wheeljack crowed as he caught Fireflight.  The small jet giggled again, reaching up to try and bat against Wheeljack’s headfins.  Grinning behind his mask, Wheeljack just tickled Fireflight, easily distracting him.
“Thank Primus.” Ratchet vented a sigh.  Now that all the Aerialbots had been rounded up, he could do something about turning off their flight capabilities.
“Ratchet…” Skyfire began almost hesitantly.
“What?”
“I don’t think you should turn off their flight capabilites.  They’ll react much the same as seekers and it’ll drive them insane.  They need to be able to fly.” Ratchet paused at that.
“That… makes sense.  But Primus, we can’t have them flying around the base.”
“Of course not.” Skyfire shook his head.  As the only other Autobot flier, he was in a unique position.  “Perhaps if you explained the situation to them, they would refrain from flying too often?”
“It’s worth a shot.” Ratchet glanced up at Skyfire.  “You’ve been talking to Perceptor, haven’t you?”
“Perhaps.” Shaking his head, Ratchet stopped in front of the berth currently containing all five sparkling Aerialbots.
“All right you lot.” He crouched down so they could see him a little better (and the sight of five sparkling staring up at him with wide optics was adorable enough to not make him sound as stern as he needed to sound).
“I’m going to leave you flight-capable, but…” He paused, holding up a finger before any of the Aerialbots could interrupt.  “… you are not to abuse that fact.  You have sparkling forms, even if you still have your adult minds.  You are more susceptible to damage and energy loss than as adults.  And I do not want to fix damage you’ve sustained flying around at heights you shouldn’t be flying around at when you’re low on energy.  Understand?” To his relief, all five sparklings nodded solemnly.  Well, Fireflight nodded after Slingshot nudged him.
“We’ll be good.” Skydive answered for all of them and Ratchet stood up, nodding to himself.
“All right then.  We’ll assign caretakers to look after you.  We can only hope the same thing has happened to the Stunticons and Megatron won’t be up for battles or energy raids for a while.” He allowed himself a brief moment of indulging in thinking what sort of chaos sparkling Stunticons could be causing before returning his attention to the sparklings in front of him.
“Do we have an understanding?” All the sparklings nodded on cue and Ratchet vented a relieved sigh.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Frag it, I swear this is some sort of punishment.”
“Now what could you have done to need punishing?” Bumblebee grinned at Sideswipe’s moaning.  Air Raid giggled and patted at Sideswipe’s leg before toddling (slightly unsteadily) towards Slingshot.
“Why am I here?” Sideswipe slapped a hand across his optics.  “For once, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Oh come on Sideswipe, it’s not that bad.  They are kinda cute.” Silverbolt frowned at Bumblebee as the yellow Minibot spoke.
“What?  I can’t help it, you are.” Bumblebee couldn’t help but laugh at the pout Silverbolt gave him.  “Even cuter like that.” He laughed harder as Silverbolt folded his arms over his chestplating and sat down.
“We’re not cute!” Slingshot clicked.  Much to his utter disgust, he seemed to not be able to speak in anything other than sparkling speak.  All the others, except for Silverbolt, slipped into sparkling talk from time to time, but it was Slingshot who was most put out by it.  Fireflight found it fascinating and kept trying to speak in it all the time, loving the sounds of the clicks, chirps and whistles that was all they could pronounce of Cybertronian.
“Of course you’re not.” Sideswipe agreed, easily scooping Slingshot up in his arms and tickling him.  With the heightened sensors that came with the sparkling frame, Slingshot soon dissolved into fits of giggles.
“Not fair!” He managed to get out between the laughter and the squirming.
“Oh I think it’s perfectly fair.” Sideswipe grinned, continuing the tickle assault.  At least, he thought it was fair until he found himself pounced on by four sparklings.
“Now it’s fair.” Bumblebee commented, watching as Sideswipe hit the floor, writhing and laughing as the sparklings proceeded to tickle him.  Their small hands were perfect for gaining the advantage, sneaking into the gaps between his armor.
“Not!” Sideswipe shrieked, not able to get away from five sets of small hands.  And especially not without hurting them (and Ratchet would have his fan belt if he did that).
“Oh I think it’s perfectly fair.” Bumblebee countered, taking a few image captures.  Sideswipe wasn’t going to live this down for a long while.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“This has to be some sort of pppunishment.” Mixmaster growled, trying to prise the Lamborghini off his plating and failing miserably.  Ever since he’d managed to snatch Breakdown from under his workstation, the sparkling hadn’t wanted to be apart from Mixmaster, resisting all attempts that were made at removing him from Mixmaster.  Still, that didn’t stop Mixmaster trying.
“I don’t think it’s all that bad.” Long Haul replied.  He was still entertaining Wildrider and Drag Strip with his tray.
“You wouldn’t.” Hook pointed out, casting a sneer towards Long Haul.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Will you all just be quiet?” Scrapper groaned.  It was bad enough they had sparklings on the base in the first place, let alone the fact that they were having to sparkling-sit.
“Don’t wanna be quiet!” Motormaster stamped his foot angrily, glaring up at Scrapper.  He hated the thought that they were being looked after, as though they weren’t capable of doing it themselves.  Ignoring of course, the disastrous attempt at taking in energon earlier.  That Scavenger had actually had to construct a lid for the energon cubes to stop them spilling it all over themselves still grated.  Of course, Breakdown had taken his energon ration (with sippy lid) from Mixmaster easily.  Then the others had wanted their energon too.  It was only Motormaster that seemed to be annoyed at having to resort to sparkling methods of being fed.
“Well what do you want to do?” Bonecrusher just had to ask.
“Drive!” Motormaster’s answer was echoed by all the other Stunticons.
“Drive?” Bonecrusher obviously hadn’t been expecting that answer.
“You glitch, they’re cars, of course they want to drive.  Question is, where?  There’s not enough space for them to be safe on the base.”
“So where do we take them?”
“We’re going to have to take them to the surface.  At least there’s plenty of space there.”
“Why is my processor telling me this isn’t a good idea?”
“Well, what else do you suggest we do?”
“We’ve got no choice, not if we want to keep them happy.” There was a collective sigh from the Constructicons.
“Drive!” The Stunticons cheered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

How they managed to get the sparklings to the surface without Megatron finding out, Scrapper wasn’t entirely sure.  He suspected it had a lot to do with Soundwave and he found himself surprisingly grateful.  Not that he’d ever tell the Communications Officer that.  Perhaps next time his own creations ran amok in the Constructicons’ workshop he’d let them off easy.

He stood watching for a moment as the sparkling Stunticons transformed, awed that they could still transform, even though their earlier scans had proved that they could.  Seeing it was different to reading it on a scanner.  Of course, once they’d transformed, the Stunticons zoomed off as quickly as their little wheels would take them.  Leaving the Constructicons staring after them.
“Well don’t just stand there!” Scrapper barked at them.  “After them!”  They transformed and hurried after the Stunticons, easily catching up with them.
“Now, you keep your speed down because I really don’t want to have to repair you.  And make sure you stick close to us.” Scrapper ordered, not entirely sure whether the Stunticons were listening or not.  Well, judging by the way Breakdown veered very close towards Mixmaster, he’d been listening at least.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Optimus, I think you should see this.” Red Alert’s voice sounded over his comm line.
“Red?  Can’t you just tell me?”
“You need to see it to believe it Optimus.”
“All right.” Prime heaved a sigh.  “I’m on my way.”  He nodded to Ratchet and made his way to the door.
“Oh, and tell Ratchet his wish was granted.” With that, Red Alert closed the comm line and focussed his full attention on the monitor screens in front of him.

It didn’t take Prime long to reach the security office.  He palmed the door chime, ignoring the fact that he actually had to, and waited for Red Alert to let him in.
“Optimus.” Red Alert was wearing the most satisfied smile Prime had ever seen as he pointed at one monitor in particular.
“Is that really…?” Prime leant forward, looking closely at the monitor.
“If you think it’s the Constructicons looking after what appears to be sparkling Stunticons, then you are correct.”
“Primus…”
“… has been busy, evidently.  Not only has he turned our Aerialbots into sparklings, he has turned the Stunticons into sparklings too.”
“But why?” Prime asked the question everyone has been asking themselves ever since the Aerialbots have been changed.
“I have no idea.  But at least the Stunticons can’t do any… much damage like this.” Red Alert corrected himself as he watched Wildrider crash into a streetlight.
“What on Cybertron are we going to do?”
“Honestly?  Cope as best we can.  None of us, save a few, have any real experience with sparklings.  And I doubt the Decepticons have many mechs capable either.  I would hope that any attacks might cease.”
“Let’s just hope you’re right Red Alert, let’s just hope you’re right.”