Author's Note

Chapter 2 commences! And seriously check out Shadowmane's work, he's really good

A Tiny Sweet

The girls and Wheeljack stared with their mouths agape at the state of Sour Sweet on the ground. Instead of the girl they knew and loved to hang with, they were now facing a tiny little infant, toddling around the room cutely.

“Wha… Wait… What… How… When…” Sunny Flare spazzed her arms, trying to come up with something to say, while at the same time, trying to hold onto her sanity. “What just happened!?”

“Sour just got turned… into a baby,” Sugarcoat replied, but her blunt tone of voice had melted away completely as she pushed her glasses closer to her eyes.

“Well… I’ll admit, this isn’t something I thought I’d see today...” Wheeljack, still without his facial mask, walked up to Sour Sweet and knelt towards her. “All her vitals are still in order, but they’re much less powerful now…”

“Well, duh!” Indigo zipped up to him. “She’s been turned into a baby, Wheeljack! Of course her stuff isn’t as strong anymore!”

“Great. So the machine worked, but now Sour’s a baby. That’s just peachy...” Sunny grumbled. She turned her head to the side and her eyes widened as she saw the machine that turned their friend into an infant was now in pieces. “Oh, great. And now we can’t even get her back to normal too. If Smallfoot finds out about this, we’re screwed six ways from Sundance.”

Wheeljack looked back and slid his face mask back on as he began to assess the damage. “Hmm… The frame’s buckled. With the amount of force it exerted, we’re lucky it’s not beyond repair.” He scratched his chin. “I’ll be able to repair it. But it’ll take some time.”

“Gee, you think?” Indigo snapped.

“Indy!” Lemon Zest immediately grabbed Indigo’s shoulders and squeezed tight.

“Gah! OK,OK! Get offa me!” Indigo Zap squirmed out of Lemon’s hold and calmed down in seconds.

“How long exactly, Wheeljack?” Lemon tiptoed up to him

“That depends.” Wheeljack crossed his arms. “How long can you keep Smallfoot occupied?”

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY, Y’KNOW!” Indigo burst out. “IF SMALLFOOT COMES BACK AND SEES SOUR SWEET AS A BABY, SHE’LL BE SO HEARTBROKEN THAT I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT SHE COULD DO!

“Uh… is everything alright in there?”, a voice from the hallway called out.

The Shadowbolts and Wheeljack turned to see Sideswipe and Bumblebee standing in the doorway. They both came into the lab and approached the CPA girls.

“We heard something blow up… again. Is everyone okay?”, Sideswipe asked.

“Uh… yeah! Everything’s fine!” Lemon Zest jumped and tried to hide Sour Sweet. “What are you two doing here? Aren’t you two doing something with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?”

“Actually, Rainbow Dash has a soccer meet today. I’d thought I’d let her do her job,” Sideswipe replied, “No need for a bunch of soccer players to be distracted by an Autobot. In other words, I’ve got nothing to do today.”

“Okay, but what about Fluttershy?” Sugarcoat asked.

“Fluttershy’s gone away for the weekend with this girl called Tree Hugger.” Bumblebee tipped his mechanical hand. “She said something about protesting against a forest being used as a filming ground for a movie. I wanted to help out, but she said that I might end up drawing too much attention.”

“Oh, uh, that’s cool,” Indigo stammered. “So… you two gonna watch the new recruits fail their course? I’m betting Strongarm and Tracks are gonna screw it up again.”

“There’s no such thing as a bad Autobot, Indigo.” Sideswipe shook his head. “There’s the good ones, and then there’s the ones that’re still learning the ropes.”

“In other words?” Indigo raised a brow.

Bumblebee tilted his head, “I’m not even sure there’s any other words, those two just need to learn to not argue over every single thing. But… it could be entertaining to see how they fold well with our other newbies. Hopefully working with someone who used to be a pirate and someone who was framed won’t be too difficult.”

Lemon shuddered. “Sorry. Whenever you say pirate, you make me think of Overload and those pirate bots…” She still heard the swing of Mjolnir as Overload’s visage flashed in her mind.

“Talk about pirates. They are the worst excuse. Heck, they don’t even dress like real pirates,” Sideswipe huffed. “Where’s the eye patches? Where’s the peg legs? All the talk of ‘Aargh’ and ‘claiming the booty’?”

“Or the robot parrots, for that matter?” Bumblebee added.

The girls stared at the bots for a few seconds.

“I’m not sure where the robot parrots come from… but when we met them, they didn’t have any parrots. Or monkeys.” Sugarcoat shook her head. “They had an Insecticon and a porcupine, but no parrots.”

The girls were about to talk, but Sour Sweet, cooing and babbling, squeezed through Sunny’s legs, and right up to Sideswipe and Bumblebee.

“AHHHHHH!” Sideswipe let out a lady-like scream and jabbed a finger. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF ULTRA MAGNUS IS THAT THING?!”

Lemon snickered, “Did you just scream like a little girl?”

The tiny Sour Sweet just stretched her arms out, trying to reach for the shiny red robot. The two bots’ eyes bulged right out of their sockets.

“Sideswipe… I think we might have taken some bad Energon.” Bumblebee began to back up. “Maybe we should clear our heads. Hopefully a drive in the desert will help…”

“Yeah. Or maybe Optimus or Teletraan-1 have some Decepticon fugitives for us to handle…” Sideswipe shuffled backwards as well.

When they were both out the door, they ran off as fast as they could, hastily transforming into vehicle mode along the way.

“What’s the matter with those two?” Wheeljack turned his head back to Sour Sweet. “She’s harmless. And a little cute at that…” he listened to Sour giggling as Sugarcoat picked her up.

“Have they even see a real Earth baby before?” Sunny Flare asked.

“Look, even if they haven’t we can’t let Smallfoot know about this. No matter what!” Indigo Zap stomped forward. “Smallfoot and Sour Sweet are pretty close. If she discovers that her girl is now a baby, she could end up being a blubbering mess, drowning herself in ice cream while watching those ooey-gooey soap operas…”

“Or worse, she’ll try and kill us all because we’re responsible for her being this,” Sunny replied.

“Or maybe Smallfoot will try to kill Wheeljack since he’s the one who made the machine in the first place”, Sugarcoat deadpanned.

“That’s highly impossible.” Wheeljack shook his head. “Plus, my calculations show that one punch from an Autobot or Decepticon can prove fatal against humankind. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why humans send armies and war vehicles to deal with us…”

The baby Sour looked up at Sugarcoat and raised her hands, beginning to smush and pull Sugarcoat’s face, laughing all the while.

“Wheeljack, listen up and listen up straight. You’re gonna fix that machine so we get Sour back to normal before the day is up.” Lemon Zest came up to Wheeljack with her hair draped over her face and a malicious glint in her eyes. “I don’t know how long or how hard it is. I’m NOT letting Smallfoot get traumatized by a baby Sour Sweet, or letting her try to kill us. Ya got that?!” As she flipped her hair up, her teeth all looked like they had been sharpened.

“Girls? What’s happening to her?” Wheeljack turned to the other Shadowbolts. “Is this normal when Lemon Zest is angry?”

“I… I’m not even sure,” Indigo stared slack-jawed at her friend, imagining a fire appearing around her body.

“There is one other thing. If Sideswipe and Bumblebee alone freak out just from seeing Sour, we can’t let anyone else in this entire base find out.” Sugarcoat finally pulled Sour away from her face. “Optimus, Ratchet, Road Rage, Pipes, Von Joy, Pathfinder, no one. Not a single Autobot, Dinobot, Protectobot, Aerialbot, Rust Renegade, or a Guardian Gobot.”

“But what about Teletraan-1? He sees everything in this entire base, he’s gonna blab,” Indigo stated.

“True.” Wheeljack nodded. “But, he’s pretty limited when it comes to stuff like gossiping. If we can get Sour Sweet back home without anyone noticing, then we’ll at least keep the non-AI Autobots from having a panic attack.”

“Wait! Smallfoot and Sour share the same house! We can’t keep her there!” Indigo jolted. “What if she walks in and sees Sour isn’t home? She’s gonna ask. And you know how terrible we are at making excuses. Especially you, Sugarcoat…”

“Lies are a cancer, Indigo Zap.” Sugarcoat lowered her brows. “If you lie, you dig yourself a grave that you will never be able to climb out of. The truth is the ONLY way to a better life.”

“It’s not just Smallfoot freaking out we have to worry about.” Sunny Flare brushed
Sour’s hair. “The trip through the Groundbridge might make her feel sick. Or worse, it might leave her with some pretty weird side-effects…”

Wheeljack sighed, “Then I guess we’re hiding her here. Wait… you girls have that entire lounge. It’s basically like an entire apartment. What if you kept her there?”

“We have a lounge?” Lemon tilted her head. “It looks more like something out of some weird Sci-fi movie…”

Sugarcoat facepalmed, “Lemon, do you not remember playing video games with Blaster and our cassettes?”

“Oh yeah…” Lemon replied. “Yeah, now I do. Outback made a lot of cocktails in that kitchen. Too bad we’re not old enough to drink ‘em…”

“It’s better than nothing, I suppose.” Wheeljack folded his arms. “But remember that Teletraan-1 still has eyes on the place. He’s gonna see every second that you’re in there. You’ve just gotta make sure that the other Autobots don’t come in and freak out like Sideswipe and Bumblebee did.”

“We’ll try,” Sunny replied, then mumbled under her breath, “This isn’t going to be easy… I just know it.”

“Aw, come on, Sunny. We can move like ninjas!” Indigo performed some quick flips and darted from cover to cover. “They won’t suspect a thing!”

“Let's just hide her already.” Sugarcoat said, looking down on the baby Sour. She tried reaching for her face again and giggled as Sugar gently pushed her arms away. “I feel like death by cuteness being a real thing might be sooner than we expected…”

Indigo was the first to step out of the room. She snapped her head left and right, checking the hallways. All clear from anyone. But she could still hear voices from some of the other rooms and the clanking of their feet against the floor. Trying to get to the lounge would be harder than anticipated.

“Okay, I think the coast is clear, but we’ve got to be quiet. There are still bots around,” Indigo replied.

“But what if the bots see us sneaking around?” Sunny whispered. “How are we gonna hide Sour if someone catches us?”

“Or if Sour starts crying or playing loudly?” Sugarcoat added. “There’d be no hiding her if they can hear her.”

“Let's just try to hide her the best we can,” Lemon said. “The last thing we need is a bunch of Autobots screaming like girls over a cute little baby like Sour Sweet.”

Sour reached up and began to pull Sugarcoat’s pigtails towards her. She stuffed the massive strands of hair into her mouth and began suckling on them, unfazed by the amount of hair in her mouth.

Lemon couldn’t help but smile. “She is actually kind of cute as a baby.”

“Maybe for you, but I’ll be glad when we can forget all about this.” Sugarcoat pulled her hair out of Sour’s mouth and felt the saliva dribbling down off of her pigtails. “Ew… This is beyond gross.”

“Auntie Suga…”, the baby spoke, drooling ever so slightly as a smile crept onto her face.

Lemon just grinned some more. “Awww… she’s so adorable! She thinks you’re her aunt! Wait, does that make us all aunts?” Lemon asked.

Carefully holding Sour in her arms, Sugarcoat crept out of the room with Lemon Zest, who were then followed by Sunny and Indigo Zap.

“Okay, the lounge should be three doors down the right corridor. We just got to get on by without anyone noticing us.” Indigo Zap put herself against the wall as they came to a junction, and peaked across all three lanes on the lookout for any Autobots.

“Play…” Sour Sweet began to get restless, and wiggled around in Sugarcoat’s grip.

“Sour. Hold still.” Sugarcoat tightened her grip. “Once we get to the lounge, you can play as much as you want. Just don’t move. Alright?”

The girls carefully walked down the hallway, but they froze when they saw a red Autobot running down the hallway with a crazed grin on his face and laughing hysterically. But then they looked back and saw a silver Autobot with an angry look on his face.

“I’m going to put you back together so I can tear you apart, you little scrapheap!”

“You got to catch me first, Bluestreak! Hahaha!”

The silver Autobot was close to the girls, but he didn’t pay attention to them.

“Hi, girls!” Bluestreak called out as he ran past them.

The Shadowbolts charged off, screaming as they darted away from the two bots, desperately trying to avoid them panicking at the sight of an infant in the Autobot Base.

Thankfully, the two robots were gone, and none of them looked back to notice a strange appearance in one of their members.

Sour bounced up and down with every pace Sugarcoat ran, squealing with a massive smile on her face as she clapped her hands together, almost wobbling out of Sugar’s hold altogether.

“At least she likes the run!” Lemon called out.

The girls all slowed down their run as they saw the robots were gone. Thank goodness.

“Okay, that was a close call. Hopefully… oh come on!” Indigo groaned as she saw another Autobot coming towards them.

“Girls. How are you all doing?” Arcee came up to the Bolts.

“Sorry, Arcee. Can’t talk.” Lemon Zest walked past him. “We just got orders from Optimus Prime about a potential dead zone in the base. He wanted us to investigate because, uh…” she stomped her feet, trying to think of something. “It’s… gonna EMP any Autobot that tries to get in. Yeah.”

“Oh. Alright.” Arcee watched the Bolts slip by her. “Make sure it’s not too long. There’s a football match on tonight and I’ve bet on my team to win. I just wanna make sure they can deliver.”

“Uh, catch up later!” Indigo ran off.

Arcee looked back at the bolts as they came to the end of another corridor and caught a brief glimpse of a baby Sour Sweet in their arms. She stared and rubbed her eyes, before going off to another part of the base.

“EMP? Really, Lemon?” Sugarcoat asked.

“If there’s one thing Cinch’s science classes taught me, it’s that EMPs can really screw up even the biggest of machines,” said Lemon Zest. “The reason Sunset’s against using ‘em to beat the Decepticons is because she’s worried it’ll fry Optimus and the Autobots too and turn them into scrap.”

Sugarcoat stared at Lemon while the baby in her arms continued to play with her hair.

“Girls… can we talk about this later? We’re almost to the lounge area, just one more door to pass and hopefully we can hide her. Let's just hope there’s no one coming out of that room, or no one easily distracted.”

That part was the good news for them. The bad news was that Sour Sweet’s tiny body was beginning to unload a stinky poop. It wasn’t long before her pristine white diaper grew a mushy, stinky, squishy brown spot; one that began to warm Sour’s tiny groin up. As her little legs squelched in the poop-ridden diaper, she began to sniffle. Tears formed in her eyes as she finally began to cry, then scream loudly as the smell of her ruined diaper hit her nose and the noses of all the other Shadowbolts.

“Ugh… come on, let's get her into that room, NOW.” If there was one thing Indigo hated more than anything, it was crying babies.

The girls all rushed into the lounge and the doors closed behind them.

“Okay… first thing…” Sunny started to catch her breath as she watched the Bolts set Sour down on the ground. “We’re gonna have to ask Wheeljack to open a Groundbridge so we can get some baby supplies.”

“And fast!” Lemon said, holding her nose. “This smell is worse than the stinkiest garbage on trash day!”

“I hope Smallfoot is having a better time than we are right now…” Sunny said.