Over the course of a week, Chromia met almost every bot in the base, including Optimus, Prowl, Red Alert, Ironhide, Blaster, Jazz, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Magnia, Bumblebee, and Ravenblade, as well as a few young bots. Ravenblade was the sparkling of Magnia and Bumblebee, and she was about 2 solar cycles old(2 year old stage), and Chromia had heard all about the three of them's stories from Firestar, who had become a bit of a gossip since she arrived and had other bots to talk to. Trying to keep track of how many grandfathers Ravenblade had made her helm hurt, so she basically just remembered Optimus as being one of them.

Optimus had said that there was another team of bots stationed on Earth, as well as a few allies like Knockout and Roulette scattered throughout Iacon, and it was a comfort to Chromia to know they had so many warriors. The only bot she hadn't met was Smokescreen.

She finally met the blue and white bot when he zoomed past her in the hall near the training room.

"Hi, I'm Smokescreen!" He yelled over the roar of the rocket boots attached to his peds. He was attempting to hover in front of her, but one of the boots seemed to have more power than the other, and kept surging up, throwing him off balance.

"Ummmm...I'm Chromia?" She looked at him, bewildered

"Sorry about the noise!" He shouted, "I volunteered to test out Blaster's new rocket boots for him!"

"I can see that" She raised an optic ridge

"I was just heading to see Ironhide!"

"Oh, great." Chromia said sarcastically

"I know, he is great!" Smokescreen shouted, and Chromia sighed, "Hey, you wanna try these out?"

"No" Chromia said almost immediately. Smokescreen looked a little dejected and Chromia internally cursed herself before saying, "Alright, fine." She was trying to make friends here, and letting people down wasn't going to do it.

Smokescreen looked scarily ecstatic, and shut the boots down, landing with a small bang on the floor. He clumped over to Chromia and tugged the boots off of his peds before handing them to her excitedly.

"It's so much fun!" He chattered happily, attaching the boots to Chromia's peds through a series of loops and latches that Chromia was certain would never come off.

Then, without warning, Smokescreen pressed the on button and Chromia shot up into the air.

"Yahhhhhh!" She screamed, streaking down the hall, "Heeeeeelp!"

"Sorry Chromia!" Smokescreen yelled, sprinting to keep up with her, "I'll get some help!". He banged on the door of the training room as Chromia bounced around in the large open space next to it.

"Please be Jazz, please be Jazz." Chromia prayed internally, "Please don't be-"

The door to the training room flew open and of course Ironhide emerged, yelling to Smokescreen, "What-?". And then he caught sight of the flailing Chromia.

He simply stared for a moment before bursting into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Chromia" He gasped, laughing so hard, "What-are you-doing?"

"Your stupid fanboy convinced me to try out these damn rocket boots, and now I can't-Scrap!" She practically did a flip in the air to avoid smashing through a ceiling beam.

"You have to help!" Smokescreen urged

" 'Have to'?" Ironhide smirked, "I don't know about 'have to' "

"Ironhide, you fragger! You better help me or I swear to Primus I'll give you a scar to match the one on your other cheek!"

"You can do it!" Smokescreen's optics practically shone with hero worship, "C'mon Ironhide"

"Femme in distress here" Chromia moaned, getting a little dizzy from the rocket boots zooming her around

"Fine." Ironhide grumbled, "Woulda been fun to watch her fly around a little longer though." He hopped up on a large crate and snagged Chromia's ankle as she flew by, deactivating the rocket boots.

She let out a terrified little shriek as she began to fall quickly to the floor, but a pair of powerful silver arms caught her just in time.

Chromia let out a little breath and looked up to see Ironhide staring down at her. Realizing where she was, she quickly struggled out of his arms, and started off towards the training room with an embarrassed huff.

"You're welcome!" Ironhide called, annoyed, and Chromia spun around and gritted her denta.

"Thank you."

He raised an optic ridge, "You sound like you swallowed poison saying that."

"I may as well have." Chromia rolled her optics, "Come on. We're late for training." Shaking his helm, Ironhide followed her into the training room.

OoooooooooooooooooooooooooO

The three bots had a lot of eager new bots to train that day, and by the end of it they were all exhausted. Ironhide and Jazz began sparring again, and as they practiced, Jazz realized something.

"Ya know..." He looked between the two of them, "Me and 'Hide have sparred, and me and 'Mia have sparred." Chromia smiled at the cute nickname, "But you two have never sparred together, have ya?"

"No!" Ironhide objected, "There was that one time….when you weren't here…."

Jazz crossed his arms and raised an optic ridge, "When I weren't here? 'Hide, I practically live here."

Ironhide glanced at Chromia, "Back me up here, would ya?"

Chromia shook her helm, "I think we should sparr. That way we'll know if one of us is doing something wrong, because we wouldn't hesitate to point it out." She patted Jazz's shoulder, "Jazz is too nice."

Jazz pouted a little, "I'm not nice! I'm mean, girl, a mean machine!"

"Fine" Ironhide grumbled, "But don't expect me to go easy on ya"

Chromia rolled her optics at his comment, but didn't say anything and they began to fight. For a while it seemed they were evenly matched, but Chromia soon began to notice that every time she got behind Ironhide, he wouldn't know what to do.

"Ironhide" She said, exasperated, "What in Pit are you going to do if a Decepticon gets behind you on a battlefield?"

"I don't know" He said, a little annoyed, "I'm surprised you haven't flipped me over and humiliated me yet."

She huffed, "That's because I'm not trying to humiliate you this time. I could just as easily tell you what you're doing wrong instead of showing you. You know, you could always try dropping into a crouch and kicking them in the shins. They definitely wouldn't be expecting-"

"Femme, I don't need your bloody help!" Ironhide snapped and Chromia's optic ridges drew together in a scowl. Moving quickly, she spun behind him, grabbed his shoulders, and flipped him over her leg and onto the floor.

"Would you stop being such a sexist pig for five minutes and realize I am actually trying to help you, something I very rarely do?!" She shouted, "WITH ANYONE?!"

Jazz covered his mouth with his servo and Ironhide looked extremely surprised before getting pissed, "I didn't ask for your damn help, femme! Why in Pit do you even want to help me anyways?!"

"Because you're being stupid and you're going to get yourself offlined!" She yelled, "And I refuse to lose any more teammates, even a stubborn, proud mech like yourself!"

Ironhide stared at her, "What do you mean, any more? No one's offlined on this team since you got here"

Chromia closed her optics and sighed, "I didn't mean on this team"

" 'Mia…." Jazz started, but Chromia shook her helm wearily

"I'm calling it quits for today….I'll see you mechs tomorrow." Chromia turned and walked out abruptly. She headed back to her quarters, resolving to get some recharge, while fiercely pushing the despairing thoughts about her former teammates out of her processor. She didn't want to think about that now.

She didn't ever want to think about that.