#dad soundwave

Sire Gift

The Birth of a sparkling as you assume is always celebrated to the highest level and newborn sparklings are showered with gifts from their creators’ friends and family.

But there is one person’s gift that, in Kaon at least, is seen as more important than any other person’s present.

That is the Sire’s Gift.

And while it is not required in Kaon it is common for Sires to handcraft their “Sire Gift” while their partner is still carrying. Some Sires will spend the entire carrying cycle slaving away to create the perfect Sire present for the day their sparkling arrives.

When Megatron found out about Optimus being pregnant with their first born (Hot Rod), he went straight to work. His sire gift was a giant playroom for their child. With toys, books, a little table for snack time and even a whole Climbing Frame. But the feature he put especially great care in was the mural decorating the playroom’s walls. The mural depicted the landscape and city of Kaon, to always remind his son that one day he might take his sire's place as king of Kaon and that he should always strive for the country's wellbeing in his endavours.

Of course at that time neither Megatron nor Optimus would have ever imagined that they would have more than one sparkling. Let alone three, because again Sparklings are incredibly rare on Cybertron.

So when Megatron learned years later that he has sired a second sparkling he was quite stressed out to think of a Sire gift that could match the playroom. The stress was so bad Megatron actively went to his in-laws for advise. Specifically to Alchemist Prime to ask him for some divination on what his second son would be like. While Alchemist's divination (as always) was incredibly vague Megatron did manage to decipher that his second son would most likely be enamoured with organic life. So Megatron, with the assisstance of the Primes once again, went to work and rearranged the royal gardens of Kaon to become a never before seen wonder of nature. Megatron gathered plants and pollinator organic species from all across the galaxy to create this garden for his child.

And then some more years later Megatron found himself in the exact same position once again. His beloved queen was carrying their third child and how could Megatron give his youngest bitty a sire gift that was on par with an entire playroom and garden? He had tried asking Alchemist for another divination, but this time the Prime's divination had been worded so vaguely not even Megatron could make head or tail of it.

The king of Kaon was at the edge of despair trying to think of a Sire Gift, while his youngest child's due date approached ever faster. And that is when his father-in-law Megatronus Prime came to him and told him about his Sire gift when Optimus had been born. He had given Optimus a simple stuffed animal. Megatronus explained how he had never sown anything prior and frankly the plushie did not turn out great. But Optimus had cuddled up to it every night regardless. So it's not the size or grandeur of the sire gift that matters. What matters is that you show your sparkling how much you adore them through it. The Sire Gift should be the manifestation of the promise of a father's love and support to their child.

And that is when Megatron finally knew what he shoudl gift his third son. For the following days Megatron locked himself away in his study not even coming out to eat or sleep, worrying his conjunx and annoying his advisor Shockwave in the process. When Megatron emerged almost a week later he revealed his Sire Gift to Optimus: A hand carved crib for their third sparkling. The crib had a little Tank and Truck carved on each side, representing his Sire and Carrier respectively. A manifestation of their promise to always love and support their sparkling.

Sparkling Pendants

As I have already established in a previous post: Sparklings are seen as undeniable precious and treasured beings given how rare they are. As such creators tend to give it their all to protect their bitlets from any and all harm.

One way creators attempt to shield their precious little bundles of joy from harm is by gifting them a so called Sparkling Pendant.

The Sparkling Pendant is a simple necklace with an amulet dangling from it given to a sparkling almost right after emergence. Sparklings often are made to wear it up until they are the human equivalent of a 5 or 6 year old. Though there have been a handful of cases of especially protective creators making their children wear it all the way up to the age of 12 and beyond.

The Sparkling pendant (originating from Iacon) is believed to protect the child from evil spirits (or even Unicron himself in more conservative parts of Cybertron) and harm such as major injuries and sicknesses. However there is no proof that it actually does anything like that and is mostly founded in superstition (similarly to how we believe 4 leafed clovers bring good luck)

Megatron and Optimus had sparkling pendants custom made for each one of their children. The amulets were made out of pure silver with Energon leylines encrested into it for decoration. The royal crest of Kaon was carved into the front of the amulet and the Child's Initials on the back.

Rumble and Frenzy's Sparkling pendants however bare the crest of Iacon and were also given to them at birth by their Sire Soundwave.

Soundwave had actually designed them himself as his 'Sire Gift'. He would have wanted to give his sons something much grander, but he did not dare to leave his pregnant conjunx alone and he feared for Rodimus’ safety, given some servants had kidnapped him and forced Rodimus into the Iaconian isolation ritual before when Soundwave wasn’t around. And Soundwave did not want to risk this from happening again so instead he stayed by Rodimus’ side during the entire carrying process and just designed the twins’ sparkling necklaces instead as his sire gift.

little Fun fact: The Sparkling Necklaces are directly inspired by the ancient roman Bullae.

Chosing your first Altmode

While transformers are born into a certain frame type, their altmode is still chosen by them.

On the sparkling's 5th birthday (So around the same time they are old enough to take off their sparkling pendant), a set of different altmode options are laid out in front of the child in the form of toy models. The child then choses their first altmode from this set of toys.

In both Kaon and Iacon this ceremony is seen as a great deal (Kind of like how we tend to view a child's first day of Kindergarten or School), but in Iacon it can have some slight religious undertones (like so many things). Usually this manifests by richer families asking for a priest or diviner to be present during the ceremony. The priest usually blesses the child after chosing their altmode while the diviner attempts to deduce a reading of the sparkling's future from their choice.

Of course apart from the clergy, the ceremony is also attended by the sparkling's family members and friends.

Cheetor's ceremony had taken everyone by surprise when he ignored every altmode option the priest and diviner (who had traveled all the way from Iacon) had brought with them and instead had run out of the palace's grand hall, all the way to the royal library. His family and all the guests watched in confusion and curiosity alike as the young child pulled out a book about organic creatures and skipped all the way to a page about a creature called a 'cheetah', explaining how he wanted to be THIS.

Why this was especially shocking is that Cheetor was not born a Beast frame. And yet here this young sparkling was scanning the simple image of an organic creature and making it his alt mode. It was obvious to everyone present that this transformation did not come easy to Cheetor (as is usually the case if one chose an altmode outside of ones born frame type), but the sparkling's determination presevered.

And frankly Megatron had never been prouder of his son before. Megatron who had started a revolution and rebuilt an entire nation on the idea that one's frame type did not dictate who you had to be, had just witnessed his own child defy the odds and chose an altmode that did not allign in the slightest with his frame type. Because it's what he wanted.

Cheetor's grand-sire Alpha Trion (an actual born Beast Frame) had taken it upon himself that day to visit Kaon as often as he could to personally train Cheetor in how to navigate his new altmode. Not that Alpha Trion minded much. Any excuse to spend time and play with any of his grandsparklings was a valid excuse in his eyes.

Soundblaster's revenge aka How Rumble and Frenzy created a national crisis

This is a small story idea, set not too long after Rumble and Frenzy are born. The 13 Primes and Rodimus are working hard to get the tradition of isolating carriers during their pregnancy banned in Iacon but the council keep arguing how it's tradition and many more conservative Iaconians are unfortunately reluctant to change, believing that a carrier must endure this test Primus had given them by letting them have a sparkling in the first place. So needless to say the process is slow and Rodimus, still getting used to his new role as Prime and the cultural difference between his homeland and Iacon, is absolutely exhausted to say the least.

Rodimus' one guiding light in all of this are his dear baby twins Rumble and Frenzy and his conjunx Soundwave. No matter how drained he feels after hours of arguing and holding speeches to push Iacon away from its outdated traditions and lead the country to a new future, seeing his family at the end of each day always brings a smile to his face.

So much so that Rodimus straight up tells Soundwave one day that without Rumble and Frenzy, he would be lost. Unfortunately for the couple, a certain former acting Prime (*cough cough* Sentinel *cough cough*) overhears their conversation and instantly begins scheeming. Sentinel has been trying and failing to sneakily break the young Prime's will for quite a while now. But no matter what curveball he seems to throw at him, Rodimus always bounces right back.

So Sentinel in the dead of night travels all the way to Kaon to pay someone jailed in one of the highest guarded prisons there a visit. That someone turns out to be none other than Soundblaster, a bounty hunter who's had a long lasting (and extremely one-sided) rivalry with Soundwave. Sentinel promises that he will help Soundblaster break free and get revenge on his arch nemesis Soundwave if he in turn can make Soundwave and Rodimus' twins disappear. Sentinel does not care how. As long as Soundblaster makes sure no one can ever find them again, Rodimus would fall into despair and Sentinel could easily reclaim the throne of Iacon by claiming he is 'simply taking over the reins while the young Prime is mourning the loss of his sparklings.

Soundblaster, upon hearing this plan, does not need much convincing. After all nothing he could ever do to Soundwave would hurt that accursed musicplayer as much as taking away the one thing he loves the most. The one thing he cannot replace: His sparklings.

So that night Soundblaster sneaks into the twins' nursery and basically abandons the sparklings somewhere in the deepest woods, where not even Ravage's nose or Laserbeak's optics coudl track them down.

And just as Sentinel had hoped, his plan was falling neatly into place. When Rodimus and Soundwave woke up the following day to find their twins' cribs empty, Rodimus instantly sounds the alarms. Soundwave, along with the high guard, leaves the tower of the Primes to search all of Iacon for his missing sons. Thousands of Iaconian civilians join the search efforts but every last one of them turns up empty handed.

Exactly as Sentinel had planned, Rodimus begins to fall further and further into despair as the days pass with no signs of his sparklings anywhere and with his usually oh-so-vigilant Conjunx out of the tower to search for their twins. Not to mention the Primes themselves being too distracted with the search for the princes to notice their grand-sparkling Rodimus slowly fading away.

Rodimus was all alone with his own grief. No conjunx to support him. No Creators nor siblings to wipe away his tears. No grand-sires to take the load of Iacon off his shoulders. He was perfectly vulnerable and unknowingly playing right in Sentinel’s hands as he sat on the throne of Iacon with hallowed optics staring into nothingness, dried tears smearing his cheeks and barely responding to anything the council was saying anymore. Rodimus had lost any and all will to fight with his beloved sparklings gone.

So Sentinel strikes the iron while it’s still hot and suggests to Rodimus and the council that he will once again, heavy hearted, take on the mantle of Iacon’s “acting Prime” until Rodimus has recovered from his grief or until the princes will have been found. Of course Sentinel fully knows that those babies are never going to return and thus no one can ever take the throne away from him again.

Or so he thinks.

Because while no one in Iacon could find the sparklings, someone else did.

For the woods in which Soundblaster had abandoned the children were home of the elusive Maximals. A nation made up entirely of Beast Formers, who preferred to not engage in international affairs and rather lived in the shadows of the trees. As the sun had risen on that faithful day of the twins’ disappearance, a young Maximal femme named Airazor had heard the distressed cries of two sparklings and went to investigate. That is when she stumbled across a little basket with the shivering and starving sparklings inside it.

With the twins’ creators nowhere in sight, Airazor took the babies with her even deeper into the forest - to the hidden capital of the maximals. There she presented the twins to their nations leader Optimus Primal, explaining how she found them abandoned in the woods.

Primal however quickly took notice of the insignia engraved on the twins’ sparklings pendants: Iacon’s coat of arms. Whoever these sparklings belonged to, they must hail from Iacon. But the journey to Iacon was treatorous. Even for hardened Maximals. Especially with two vulnerable sparklings in toe.

And so Primal put together a team of his strongest warriors to accompany him on this journey to Iacon. On this quest they have to master their way through dangerous terrain, fight off hungry beasts ready to feast on the energon of some sparklings and most importantly keep Soundblaster off their back. Cuz as it turns out Soundblaster (while hiding out in the woods satisfied at having taken away Soundwave's greatest treasure) noticed the group of Beast Frames heading towards Iacon and that their leader carried the happily giggling twins on his back.

The group eventually does manage to reach Iacon and in a #dramatic-chase-scene reminiscent of the one in Steven Spielberg's 'the Adventures of Tintin' where the Maximals run through Iacon city to reach the tower of the Primes, while Soundblaster tries to snatch the twins away from them.

Eventually Soundwave returns from another unsuccessful search for his children when he suddenly sees Soundblaster running after a Hawk, a Gorilla and a Rhinoceros who are carrying Rumble and Frenzy. Soundwave, not really understanding what is happening but knowing fully well he cannot let Soundblaster near his sons, joins the chase and faces off against Soundblaster, ordering the Maximals to head inside the tower of the primes and return the twins to Rodimus.

While Soundwave beats Soundblaster into a pulp, the maximals run through the halls of the tower of the primes and eventually manage to find Rodimus. The young prime had become unresponsive to the world around him in the wake of his children's disappearance. But all the light and life returns to his optics the second he heard his twins laughter echoing through the tower. Rodimus jumps off his bed and runs frantically through the corridors of the tower, following the sound of Rumble and Frenzy's voices. He meets the Maximals half way who happily return the unharmed sparklings to their carrier. Rodimus crumbles to his knees as he finally holds his sparklings in his arms again.

Soundblaster gets imprisoned again, Sentinel loses the throne for a second time and all is back as it used to be.

Thanks for reading all this way! I hope you enjoyed it! I for y part had a lot of fun writing it. I don't know why Soundblaster would have beef with Soundwave in this AU frankly, given I only know him from Cyberverse and they never really explained what his deal was in that show so if you got any ideas I'd be happy to hear them.

The next textpost will actually describe the first of the suitors’ trials! So please stay tuned until then!