Sorry for the wait. Here's the next chapter. Liliy goes home again.
It was nighttime. The children had already been taken home. Liliy was sitting in the chair just staring off into space.
"A token for your thoughts," Optimus's deep voice rumbled, breaking the silence.
Startled, Liliy looked over at the tall mech manning the monitors. He looked back at her with concern in his optics.
"I was just…" She paused, her gaze going to the floor. "…thinking about my family."
"You miss them." It was a statement not a question.
"Yes…"
"Do you wish to see them?"
Her gaze snapped back up to his.
"Can I?" she asked.
He regarded her for a moment. She looked up at him with hopeful eyes and she was almost tempted to see if she could pout to get her way. It didn't usually work when Miko pouted but then again, Miko often got into trouble too.
"Alright," he said finally.
Liliy grinned. She quickly got up from the chair and hurried around to the computers. Putting in some coordinates, she activated the ground bridge. Then she leapt off the platform and rolled when she hit the floor. She came up running, but before she disappeared into the portal, she called over her shoulder to the mech who just stood watching her in surprise.
"Thank you so much, Optimus. See you in a week."
Liliy came out of the portal not far from the Canadian city of Toronto. She looked over the city lights before snapping her visor over her eyes and calling up her own bridge to her base.
A super happy smile adorned the faceplate of Victor, a sky blue and white grounder, who was running the bridge controls when she returned.
"Hey, Victor." In a flash, she was on his shoulder and giving his helm a one-armed hug. "Guess what," she said, laughing at his surprised look.
"What?" he asked.
"I get to stay for a whole week this time."
Liliy always loved the way her boys' optics lit up when something excited them.
"Yes!" he cried, throwing his servos in the air and almost knocking Liliy off his shoulder. "Party time!"
"What are you doing, Victor?" came a voice from the main hall. A lime green femme appeared in the doorway. "If Alfa hears about you goofing off…"
"I think he'll make an exception this time, Lima," said Liliy.
"Madam!" Turning, the little femme called to the others in the hall, "Hey, guys, the Madam is back!"
More voices drifted to them along with the thudding of metal feet. Suddenly there were six more mechs in the room, all their optics lighting up as happy smiles split their faceplates. Liliy laughed. This was her favorite place to be.
Liliy did not let them start the party until morning so that those in recharge could get their rest. As usual, the party lasted the entire day and well into the night. After things finally started to wind down, Liliy asked Leecher to accompany her to the medbay.
In the medbay, the mech sat on a metal stool and leaned forward, resting their arms on the counter. Then their mask split in half just below the darkened visor. Behind the open mask there were no faceplates. In fact, there was nothing there that even resembled the interior of a mech's helm. Instead, there was mostly empty space with a throne-like seat at the back, just the right size for Liliy. To the left of it, about shoulder-height, sat a curious creature. It appeared to be made of fine chain mail. Two yellow optics stood on flexible stems like snail eyes. The body could also be likened to a snail's save for the caterpillar-like legs on the underside near the front. It had two tails shaped like leeches' mouths that were in fact the creature's mouths used to suck energon. They also worked well as hands for gripping. Fully stretched out, not including the eye stems, it was just longer than Liliy's arm in her robot mode. This creature, most likely an experiment gone wrong, was sentient. And very intelligent. Because of its nearly unquenchable desire to suck energon from just about anything, it called itself a cyberleech or just 'Leech'.
"What is it, Lil'?" the cyberleech asked, its voice coming from a small speaker at the base of the eye stems. It had crawled out of the Leecher mech armor and was sitting on Liliy's personal console looking up at the femme. She stood next to her chair and stared at the floor.
"Please don't be angry," she replied as she dropped her holoform cover.
The inner working of its optics dilated in disbelief at the slumped, crumpled form that was her left shoulder.
"What…? No! WHEN?"
"Uh, since I ran into the Autobots on the highway."
"WHAT!?" Leech shrieked.
"You're angry."
"Of course I am! How many times have I told you not to let your injuries go? How many?!"
"But I don't feel anything on that side."
"It doesn't matter!"
"I'm sorry. But I am here now. Leech, will you please fix my shoulder?"
Heaving a frustrated sigh, the cyberleech relented and beckoned for her to come closer with a tail.
"You know, Lil'," Leech said, examining the injury closely. "If you die, I will too. We are practically bonded after all."
"Yeah. I know." Muttering, she added, "And all the boys would lose their light."
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
Alfa sat across from Echo, one leg stretched out. He absently rubbed his ped against Echo's as he read his data pad. Echo sighed and pulled his ped away causing Alfa to look up. Echo was covering his face with his servo.
"What's wrong?"
Echo just peeked at him between his digits as the rec room door swished open and the gulfstream twins entered.
'Oh,' mouthed Alfa.
"Echooo," the twins chorused together when they spotted him. They came and sat on either side of the slightly smaller flyer and leaned on his shoulders.
"Echo, we're really tired. Will you get us some energon?" asked Indy.
"Yeah. Will you get us some energon?" agreed Golf.
Alfa set aside his data pad and got up.
"If you wanted some energon," said Echo, "you should have got it while you were up."
"But the dispenser is on the other side of the room," whined Golf.
"Please, Echo," Indy begged.
"You two really need to-" Echo started.
Alfa came back then and handed a fresh cube of energon to each of the twins. They stopped leaning on Echo and reached for the cubes.
"Awesome. Thanks, Alfa."
"Yeah. Thanks, Alfa."
"Alfa, why did you do that?" Echo asked, exasperated, as the tall flyer returned to his seat and picked up his data pad.
[You know, if we were a human family, they would be your adopted children and I would be their doting step-father.] Alfa sent Echo in amusement.
Echo didn't deny the idea. [Please. Only when they're off duty.]
[Of course. Someone has to keep the brats in line.]
[They are the same age as we are.]
[They certainly don't act like it.]
[Neither does Foxtrot.]
[True.]
The twins seemed to liven up a bit with fresh energon in them.
"What's so important that you can't say it out loud?" asked Golf, sensing their conversation.
"They're probably talking bad about us, Golf," said Indy.
"Probably," Golf agreed.
"We were comparing you to human children," replied Echo.
"What?" Golf shrieked.
"We're not children," cried Indy.
"Alfa said it. Not me," Echo answered.
The twins looked at Alfa but he seemed to be suddenly very interested in his data pad and ignored them.
It took Leech nearly three days to replace Liliy's plating and get everything realigned so that she could transform again. The Laserblade let out a sigh of relief after transforming. She twisted and stretched on the medbay counter.
"Aw, yes. Finally. Less cramped."
Foxtrot raised an optic ridge at her. "Less cramped?"
"Yeah. My alt-mode may still be bi-ped but it cuts 7 inches off my height and makes me skinnier. You know that, Fox."
"Woah. Seven inches? That sure is a-!"
The medic's peds were swept out from under him, cutting him off, and he crashed to the floor on his back, momentarily offlining his optics. When they came back online, he found Liliy standing on his chestplates, looking down at him with a triumphant smirk and her hand on her hip.
"Either way, I'm tall enough to put you on your aft, Foxtrot."
"A fact I am always grateful for, Madam," he replied, referring to a time when she had knocked him down in a similar manner, saving his spark from an Insecticon.
Her smirk became a smile. "Well then. Why don't we try to get a canister or two of red energon filled while I'm here? What do you say?"
She jumped off him and disappeared back up to the counter.
"Sure thing, ma'am," the mech said as he clambered to his peds and went to get the supplies she would need.
Liliy climbed inside the helm of the Leecher armor and sat back in the seat.
"Are you ready for this, Lil'?" asked Leech, perched on the back of the seat while its tails plugged into the two ports beside it. "It has been a while since you have piloted this thing with me."
"When have I ever not been ready?" replied Liliy as the plates on her left shoulder slide back to expose her parts.
"Just thought I'd ask." Leech slipped off the seat and latched onto Liliy's shoulder strut.
Liliy blinked when some wires connected between her and Leech and they synchronized.
"It has been a while since I've had you in my head, I guess," Liliy admitted at the amount of information passing between them.
"I'll say. This is what you do all day? Babysit humans and lounge around the Autobot base?"
"They didn't like to let me out much."
"Apparently."
The mask closed them in and the heads-up display activated, lighting the visor orange. Liliy reached out with her processor thru Leech and felt the armor around her. Today it gave her the feeling of power. The knowledge that, in this armor, she could fight on equal footing with bots that would normally just be able to step on her. Sometimes, however, the armor would remind her of just how small she really was.
"Let's go train."
"Does anyone want to grapple?" Leecher asked the bots gathered in the large training room.
"I will," called one of the twins, coming forward.
"Very well, G-" Leecher paused. Then their mask split open and Liliy squinted out at him.
"Indy, why are you wearing Golf's colors?" she asked.
"He, he. To see how long it would take for someone to notice," Indy said. "It seems the only ones we can't trick are you and Echo, Madam."
Golf came over and high-fived his twin. Their colors switched back to normal. They both were mostly cream colored but Golf had royal purple accents and Indy's were royal blue.
"Is this better, Madam?" They turned to look for her approval only to be tackled by Leecher.
"It doesn't matter. We can kick both your afts either way," Leecher said, pulling away from them.
"Oh yeah?"
"You're on."
Their masks fell over their faceplates as they rushed forward to tackle Leecher.
"Ow, ow, ow. That hurts!" cried Indy, pulling his arm away from the welding torch.
"Well, if you quit squirming…" said Oscar. The red and yellow copterbot caught the arm again and held firm so he could finish welding the crack in Indy's armor shut.
The medbay doors opened to allow Echo to enter. He stopped just inside the room and crossed his arms over his chassis. "I hear you two decided to go all out on the commander," he said as he took in the sight of the twins being treated by the medics.
"A lot of good it did us. They still won," grumbled Golf.
"Yes. They may have won but you did some damage."
"Like what? Scratched their paint?" asked Indy.
"Like we have get our spare armor," Leech said, hanging from Liliy's shoulder as the Laserblade crossed the medbay via the countertops. They went to a large cabinet in the back of the room. Liliy activated a control panel on the side of the cabinet and the doors slide open. Inside stood another Leecher armor.
"I think you guys forget that Leecher is just armor and doesn't register pain so they can fight beyond the limits of a normal mech," Oscar informed them.
"Yeah, yeah. We know."
"Golf. Indy." The twins looked over at Liliy. Leech had already detached from her shoulder and disappeared into the armor. "I would like to apologize."
"What? Why?"
"Madam, what for?"
"For sending you to the medbay. I'm not usually that aggressive, am I? And to you, Echo, in case this causes you any trouble with the twins."
"What? Madam, you are not to blame."
"Yeah. We kind of encouraged you. A little."
"They're always trouble," Echo stated.
"We are not, Echo," the twins complained.
Liliy burst out laughing. "Oh man, I missed you guys. I really need to come home more often."
"Yes! You do!" All six mechs agreed in unison.
"Definitely," added Leecher.
"We miss you a lot too, Madam," said Foxtrot.
"Well, I'll have to try and do that then."
"Can we have another party before you leave?" asked Indy.
"We'll see. First, you two need to finish getting fixed."
"We're practically fixed already," proclaimed Golf.
Foxtrot gently poked the abnormal crook in Golf's wing that still needed to be straightened. Golf yelped and jerked away from him.
"Foxtrot." Echo was glaring at him.
"What? I was just proving a point."
"Alright, alright. Echo, time to let the medics do their work," Liliy said as she headed for the door.
Echo shot another glare at the smirking Foxtrot then obediently turned and followed Liliy out the door with Leecher behind him. Out in the hall, Liliy zipped up to Echo's shoulder.
"Are you mad at me?" she asked.
Echo waited for Leecher to move ahead of them before he answered.
"No. I'm upset, yes, but not with you. Because I know how those two can be and this is partially their fault. One of these days they're going to push it too far and one or both of them will be gravely injured." Echo looked down at his servos and clutched them into fists. "That is a day I hope never comes."
Liliy leaned against the side of his helm. "Even though I don't have the connection with them that you do, I understand. I don't want to see that day either. They are my boys the same as you. I hate seeing you guys get badly hurt." They entered the main hall. "Well, I have to go see Bravo about repairs for the other armor. I'll see you later, Echo." She disappeared from his shoulder.
Echo watched her cross the main hall and sent Alfa a thought. [If we were a human family, Liliy wouldn't be our sister. She would be our mother.]
After a moment, Alfa replied. [Our mother is tiny.]
Echo smirked as he returned to the Comm center. [Yes, but we can rely on her.]
[Indeed.] There was a long pause while Alfa was thoughtful. [But she is like our sister too.]
[Hm. You're right. Sister-Mom it is then.]
To be continued... (Because next chapter, while it is based on the episode Stronger, Faster (s1e22), happens while Liliy is at home.)
So four more CRC members introduced...
The Twins, Golf & Indy: Gulfstream G500's [Surveillance Team]
Oscar: (Medivac) Eurocopter EC145 [Medic]
Victor: Ford Flex [Bridge Operator]