Sensibility Spawns Lots Of Good Outcomes Book 1

Chapter 67: Count On Elita One To Nurture Upset Sparklings

(Uniend Cluster 831.1012.514.1014.25.07.02.23.32 Zeta-Alpha-Kappa, Tuesday, May 24th, 1988, third person POV...)

Elita One comes in to the command center with and gives him his first Energon feeding for the day.

After Toxiccrusher finishes drinking his Energon bottle, Optimus comes in and asks, "Elita One, how are you?"

Elita One answers, "I'm hanging in there. But don't get me wrong; I know we've had similar experiences caring for sparklings, but it's been decades to close to three centuries since we had to take care of a sparkling."

Optimus replies, "I know how you feel, Elita. But I will be right there beside you in case you need me."

Elita One gently sets Toxiccrusher on the medical table and she hugs Optimus while pulling him into a passionate kiss.

After they separated, Toxiccrusher clicks and whirls as he holds out his arms.

Optimus notices that Toxiccrusher was making the gesture towards him, and thus Optimus gently embraces his new adoptive son.

Primus and Ratchet come up and Primus says, "Optimus, we need selections of Autobots to patrol for more Energon to farm and seed."

Optimus replies before saying to Toxiccrusher, "Understood, Primus. Sorry, Toxiccrusher; Sire has got work to do for today. But do not worry, I will return soon."

Optimus hands Toxiccrusher to Elita One and he along with Primus and Ratchet go with a small portion of the original Autobot roster to the Shelta Cave in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama once more.

Elita One sighs as she looks at Toxiccrusher, smiling toothily at her.

Cliffjumper then asks, "So, what would Toxiccrusher like to do?"

Elita One then says, "Cliffjumper, to me, it's obvious that he has not yet learned how to talk in English. He can only chirp and whirl in Cybertronian."

Cliffjumper replies, "Oh. Okay then."

Tailgate then comes up and asks, "Do you know how to sparkling sit, Elita One?"

Elita One answers, "Yes, I do. I learned over time."

Arcee then says, "I'm afraid you may be right, Elita. We ourselves have varying degrees of whether or not we once sparkling sat, and I know for a fact that Bulkhead and Cliffjumper themselves haven't done such a thing before today."

Cliffjumper replies, "Yeah, you got that, Arcee."

Bulkhead then says, "Besides, it gets so boring here at the base all the time, and the only thing that'll break it up semi-permanently is when the Decepticons make their way to Earth in 22 years from now."

Drift then says, "As far as I have been told by the Circle of Light after my defection from Shadow Raker and Megatron, raising children is a training exercise all in itself for the finest warrior who can turn into a professional parent only if they have the courage to attempt it while remembering stellar cycles of trial and error for future experiences in raising children."

Crosshairs then says, "I hate to say this, guys, but Drift is right; even for someone who has plenty of experiences in a previous life, raising sparklings and looking after them for someone else is a most difficult task that not everyone succeeds at regardless of what types of discipline and guidance they use."

Hound then says, "Regardless, this'll be an excellent start for Elita One to get some practice since she has likely forgot how to do it over the years of us traveling to Earth."

Elita One then has an unreadable thought going through her processor and he says, "You know what? I believe I do have some things in mind."

Over the course of the day, Elita One discovers the hard way through her growing experience that raising her own sparklings and looking after another Cybertronian's sparklings are similarly different things, especially when the parents of the other sparklings are either comatose or dead. And as she also grew to learn the hard way, no two sparklings are alike no matter if they're twin siblings or twin cousins or otherwise. And along the way, she also discovered the hard way that sparklings in most ways are similar to human infants when distressed, scared, hungry, in pain, upset, etc., and thus this drilled into Elita One's mind that, like with her and Optimus' original children, she needs to be careful with how she treats the sparklings, especially considering Arcee telling her about Photonblade's lectures on humans in centuries gone by using violence as an abusive form of discipline, especially in overbearingly strict religious/non-religious family units and especially in families who are either dysfunctional, part of criminal families, or have been desensitized to the consequences of child abuse after having gone through said motions as children themselves without knowing the full details of the consequences in question, even including the different iterations of Hamato Yoshi with either the Ancient One or with his biological father Hamato Yuuta.

And over the course of the day, the other Autobots and Cybertronian civilians who have sparklings asked Elita One questions about the parallels between raising sparklings and raising human babies. Of course, she was happy to explain it to them as best as she remembered from Photonblade's lectures which Arcee shared with her, but like her sparkmate, she also made sure to turn off every sparkling's audio receptors to avoid them hearing the less than clean-mouthed and clean-worded details about raising human babies before gradually raising them as teenagers going to high school for four to seven years – depending on whether or not they go to normal high schools or to District 75 schools for children on the Autism Spectrum Disorder – before saying goodbye to them while they go off to college for two to ten years, depending on what may be required for the students to attend college for those amounts of years.

And there was even an ugly moment where Toxiccrusher experienced a baby cramp and caused him to be distressed in pain, but nevertheless, Elita One was able to help calm him down.

Then, six hours and a half later, Elita gives Toxiccrusher his Energon bottle at the scheduled time.

Elita One says as she feeds Toxiccrusher his Energon bottle, "Toxiccrusher, I vow on this day, if any Decepticon like Megatron tries to harm you, I'll kill them myself."

The End.

(Author's notes: See you all in chapter 68: The New Autobot Air Forces.)