Chapter 5: Meet the Family

I love you, my dear reviewers! Read on!

Me: *mutters darkly* Cake… Must have cake…

Wheeljack: *pops in* Nova?

Me: *turns to him with a crazed look in my eyes*

Wheeljack: *gulps and slowly backs away*

Me: I WILL OWN YOU! *pounces*

Wheeljack: *throws smoke bomb before running away* NEVERRRRRRRR!

Me: GET BACK HERE! *runs after him*

"Bond talk"

"Comm link"

'Thoughts'

"Hey femmes! We've got some newbies here!" Chromia called as soon as they entered the room. Arcee, Flareup, Firestar and Moonracer were sitting on various chairs and chatting when the others entered.

"Hey Mia! Whoa! I didn't know that there were any femmes left that were this young!" Arcee had bounded out of her seat as soon as she had spotted new faces and made her way over to them.

"Heeeey…" Crystal pouted.

"We are not younglings!" Swiftstreak cried indignantly.

"Just because we're not as tall as you femmes doesn't mean that we don't have adult frames." Nightstar said.

"Sorry." Arcee guiltily rubbed the back of her neck.

"No, don't worry. We get that a lot." Icewhip said generously. Nightstar looked at her like she had grown two helms before she went and poked her.

"Who are you and what did you do to our lovable tactician? Where are you keeping her as captive?" Icewhip grumbled a little at Nightstar's obvious jibe and slugged her in the arm before looking away. "Ow…" Nightstar rubbed her arm.

"How about you femmes introduce yourselves?" Elita suggested with a smile in her voice.

"Howdy! I'm Swiftstreak, the group's motivator and she's my twin Shadowhunter. You can call me Swift and Shadowhunter Shadow. Shadow doesn't talk much, so prepare to have a one-sided conversation whenever you try to chat with her." The yellow femme said with a friendly grin. Shadow just snorted and looked disinterested.

"Hi! I'm Nightstar, second in command of this troop and the resident medic!" Nightstar beamed.

Moonracer's jaw dropped. "Y-You were the medic who saved the rest of them?"

"I sure hope it was me. Sometimes, it's like I don't have control over this body." Nightstar replied as Moonracer frantically scanned her for abnormalities.

"Nightstar loves to joke around about stuff like that so don't take her seriously. I'm Crystal, the communications officer." Crystal shyly said, noting Moonracer's slightly embarrassed expression.

"I am Icewhip; third in command and tactician of the troop." Icewhip said formally. She faintly heard a barely muffled cry of "Boring!" from Nightstar before there was a subdued curse. Icewhip turned and shot an annoyed look at her leader who was rubbing her helm, having been whacked on the helm for attempting to escape.

"Uh… Hi. I'm Ultranova Prime, the leader of this troop. You can call me Nova." Nova fidgeted at the shocked looks of the others when she said Prime, even Elita looked astonished.

"Where? When? How?" Elita spluttered.

"It's a long story. I'll tell y'all later." Nova said vaguely, not wanting to explain further.

"How did you get here?" Flareup bounced up and down in her seat.

"Why don't we get some Energon and you can give us all the details?" Firestar suggested. The femmes grabbed their Energon and sipped them as they chatted away.

"…Remember that time we hacked into the world network and pretended we were beings from outer space that wanted to eradicate the human race due to their utter stupidity? Crystal and Icewhip were awesome!"

The femmes laughed as they shared stories. Nova felt her initial shyness and worry fade away the more she conversed with everyone. She was one of the ones laughing the loudest as they spoke about anything and everything their processors could come up with. They hopped from topic to topic, spending a few kliks on one before some bot would bring up an incident to start off a whole new bout of giggles and tales.

"…Did I tell you about the time Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stole Ratchet's wrenches? Ratchet yelled the whole place down! Turns out, they were 'accidentally' thrown out of the base. He was furious. I swear by Primus, his language must have upgraded when he found out about how his tools met their end. Of course, he dragged the twins into the Med Bay after that and placed it under lockdown. I could hear them begging for mercy for orns through the door! Unfortunately for the rest of us, he got new ones as soon as he was through with them and he used them a lot more often."

"Don't worry, you now have the Wrench Patrol up and ready for action! I shall combat the evil forces of Ratchet! Yah! Die!" Nightstar grinned and swung her wrench, accidentally whacking Swiftstreak on the helm.

"Hey! I didn't do anything!" Swift protested and both she and the medic bantered back and forth.

"The work shifts should be over already for the mechs. We should go if we want to catch them before they head back to work." Firestar said after checking her internal clock.

"Well then, more introductions!" Elita smirked. Every bot stood and headed towards the main lounge as Nightstar groaned and moved swiftly, tackling Nova before any bot could blink and was dragging her out of the room.

As the femmes headed towards the lounge, loud and raucous laughter could be heard along with many chattering voices. The door to the lounge slid open, revealing tables filled with mechs. Many were chatting, with some mechs leaning so far back on their chairs it looked as if they could fall over at any moment.

"Don't tell me we'll be in the centre of attention!" Nova voice betrayed her horror, her shyness coming back with full force.

"With how cute you femmes are, you'd definitely be at the centre of attention." Moonracer said.

"You femmes are definitely going to give the unbonded mechs a run for their money if they want to get your attention." Chromia chuckled.

"We're all doomed." Nova said. A vicious snarl from Shadow backed her up. "See? Even Shadow agrees with me!" All Nova received was a thump to the helm, courtesy of Nightstar's wrench before she was dragged into the room, followed by Swiftstreak hauling her very uncooperative twin along.

"Hey guys? Hello? Am I being heard here?" Arcee tried to get their attention. She was ignored. Sharing a look with Flareup, both of them cupped their servos to their mouths and sucked in a deep breath, only to be stopped by Nightstar. Nightstar's optics gleamed with amusement and she gestured for both of them to let her do it.

"MR UNICRON HAS ARRIVED! PREPARE YOUR SPARKS, WEAKLINGS!"

There was a huge uproar after that, the mechs who were leaning back on their chairs fell backwards with loud crashes, a couple of mechs spilled their Energon and the femmes even saw one spit out his Energon violently at the mech who sat opposite him.

A blast was heard and the shot hit the doorframe above the femmes' helms. "KYA!" Nightstar leapt into Icewhip's arms. The commotion soon cleared and every bot noticed Ironhide's arm cannon was out and smoking a little. Icewhip looked at Nightstar sceptically before dropping her to the ground.

"Never do that again." Ironhide growled. He placed his weapon back in subspace and Elita seized this opportunity. Addressing the now silent mechs, she began to speak.

"Thank you all for giving us your undivided attention. Nightstar, just don't try anything like it again. Hello every bot, we would like to introduce the eight newest members to join the Autobots. This is Ultranova Prime, leader of the troop."

Nova raised her hand and gave a shy wave. "Hi." There was a round of clapping, incorporated into it were murmurs about the title of Prime. The other mechs just stared.

"Her second in command and their medic, Nightstar." Nightstar gave an insane cackle and fired up a Taser that she had probably borrowed from Swiftstreak at some point in time and forgot to return it to her. The muttering grew louder.

"This was the medic that stabilized my condition?"

"She looks like her processor is malfunctioning."

"She's still cute; in a psychotic, mad doctor kind of way."

"Hey Doc! You don't need to show your insane side now. Oh hi! I'm Swiftstreak, the team's motivator. This is my twin Shadowhunter, the group's interrogator. Y'all can call me Swift and her Shadow." Swift stepped up and bowed. Shadow just growled and muttered something under her breath. There were slight whispers about having another set of twins in the base.

"Their third in command and tactician, Icewhip." Elita continued, unfazed. Icewhip nodded coolly, as if the other mechs were beneath her concern.

"Last but definitely not the least; this is their communications officer Crystal." Crystal smiled sweetly.

"Hey." She was soon hugged by a squealing Nightstar.

"I can just offline from your cuteness!" Nova sweatdropped and reached over to tweak Nightstar's doorwings a little. "Oi! Hands off!" Nightstar smacked Nova's servo away. Sensing a good-natured squabble coming up, Elita led them over to an empty table before the other mechs introduced themselves.

"I do not like the way these mechs are staring at us… A few of them look like their optics are gonna fall out of their helms!" Nova sent nervously through the bond.

"I don't like the way a couple of them are looking at our Crystal." Icewhip gritted her dentas, fingers itching to bring out her knuckledusters and knock the mechs out.

"So…" Sunstreaker drawled.

"How did you end up on the battlefield like that?" Sideswipe finished.

Swiftstreak went to the corner of the room, hugging her knees close to her frame. A dark aura surrounded her as she drew meaningless patterns in the ground with her finger. Crystal giggled at the yellow twin's antics before answering, "Well, Butters was steering the ship when she argued with Icewhip, then she kind of crashed into an asteroid and all of us had to abandon ship."

"What are you doing?" Shadow said, noticing her twin was acting up.

"This… is a home for a hamster." Swiftstreak was now tearing paper into strips which gathered in a nest shape around her. It took an immense amount of self-control on behalf of the femmes to not keel over with laughter at her impersonation of Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club.

Nova broke first, holding on tightly to Icewhip as she laughed like there was no tomorrow, Energon tears pouring down her face. Nightstar soon succumbed to the immense hilarity of the motivator, falling out of her chair, pedes sticking up and kicking the air as she held her sides and cackled. Crystal soon followed, placing her helm on the table as she pounded the piece of furniture with her fist. Icewhip allowed herself a small chuckle before she pushed her leader off her shoulder. Shadow just took it all in with an air of boredom.

When the merriment had died down, the femmes noticed various mechs were staring at them in shock, including Optimus Prime who had entered just as the femmes had started laughing. "This is a regular occurrence. Don't pay too much attention if anything like that happens." Elita chuckled.

"You femmes seem to be familiar with Elita. Why is that?" Perceptor asked.

"Each of our Creators was offlined when we were younglings due to the war and Elita-One took us in and trained us. To us, Elita is like the mother we never had and our close friend. We are very attached to her. When we fully completed our training, Elita sent us to Earth to scout for Energon. During our stay there, since we had completed our training, Elita left us to train each other while scouting. On Earth, we fell in love with certain cultures and music and saved some songs into our memory." Icewhip said.

"You were the team that was supposed to return a few stellar cycles ago! What happened?" Springer, the sparkmate of Arcee asked.

"We were supposed to return from scouting for Energon earlier but our ship malfunctioned and we had to stay longer than expected to get it up and running again. When the ship was repaired, we immediately began the journey back to Cybertron. On the way, two certain femmes were arguing and our ship accidentally hit by an asteroid, so we had to abandon ship and fell right into the middle of the battle." Nightstar said. A cry of "Hamster!" had the group in hysterics once more.

"I saw what you did to Starscream. What happened to get you so worked up like that?" Sideswipe addressed Icewhip. Savage growls were heard, quickly replacing the joyous laughter as Icewhip's blue optics faded into a deep red and Nova banged a fist on the table. Hard.

"No bot messes with our little sister and gets away with it." Nova growled, her visor turning crimson, alarming most of the mechs in the room.

"The next time I see that cowardly excuse of a Seeker, I am going to offline him myself." Icewhip snarled.

"So you're all related?" Trailbreaker tilted his helm quizzically, visor glinting in thoughtfulness.

"W-We're not. But we're so close we can be called that." Crystal's voice wavered slightly at the anger she saw in Nova and Icewhip's optics. They quickly caught on to the cause of Crystal's fear and both of them cycled a deep intake before they calmed down slightly.

A light snore interrupted them and they turned to look at Swiftstreak who had fallen asleep in her paper nest. Nova vented and looked questioningly at Shadow, who gave her a nod. She gestured for Nightstar to do her thing as she watched the medic set the Taser to the lowest setting and shock the yellow femme.

"I'M UP!"

"Then it is a good thing that all of you are awake. Your rooms have been prepared. Follow me." Optimus turned.

"Bye!" The girls left the room with Prowl, Optimus and Elita. The group headed through winding corridors and endless hallways. Crystal walked peacefully in between Elita and Nightstar, Prowl and Icewhip were conversing about various battle tactics and the twins were having a private conversation through their twin bond, leaving Nova and Optimus walking side by side. Nova was feeling rather jittery as her optics wandered once more to steal a glance of the mech she fangirled about at every waking moment.

"So… What did you femmes do besides training with Elita?" Nova visibly jumped and turned her helm to look at Optimus.

"Uh… Shadow and Swiftwing are both front-liners. Swift motivates and encourages all of us, Shadow just does the interrogating. If Swiftstreak's bored enough, she'll drag Shadow to do some pranks. Thankfully, they're all meant for harmless fun and all of us end up having a good laugh at the end of the cycle. The twins also really like to dance, so it's normal if they suddenly begin dancing out of nowhere. Icewhip does the battle tactics most of the time unless Crystal is threatened, which means that Nightstar and I have to help to come up with the battle plan. Crystal works in communications and she is pretty good at intercepting Decepticon communication signals and hacking. She loves singing and her and Nightstar love music the most out of the rest of us. Nightstar studied to be a medic, and she turned out to be rather gifted in that field. She also loves art and her drawings are just so realistic!" Nova answered nervously.

"You flatter me." Nightstar sent through the bond.

"You still have not told me about your pastime." Optimus smiled behind his mask at the flustered manner of Nova. 'She's cute. I wonder what she will look like without her visor and face mask… Prime you cannot think of this sort of things at a time like this! She just arrived here and here you are having your thoughts turning to things like this. We are in a war, Prime. Get your processor together!' Optimus reprimanded himself inwardly as he listened to Nova's next words while leading the group to their new rooms.

"You probably won't find this interesting… I just worked here and there, helping wherever I could. I enjoy writing a lot and Nightstar and I can spend many cycles just discussing and judging each other's works. You see… Whenever Crystal is in trouble, it's natural for Icewhip and me to pursue the wrongdoer and Icewhip usually gets to them first. This is when the twins usually come in to restrain Icewhip before she can offline them. Nightstar is always able to find Crystal and calm her down while I just finish what Icewhip starts, usually with less violence."

"We have arrived. This whole stretch of rooms is for your troop. Prowl, if you would please give them their room codes." Optimus ordered.

"Twins, your rooms are these two next to us." Prowl said as the twins downloaded their codes.

"Let's check them out!" Swiftstreak cheered as her door opened to a golden bronze ceiling and leaf green walls. The furniture in the room consisted of a desk with a couple of chairs; a huge berth was to the right and a stereo system to the left, next to the desk. A second door was noticed on the right wall, and she had a sneaking suspicion that it lead to the room next to hers. This left a space in the middle of the room that was large enough for her to practice dancing. "Cool!" The yellow femme approved vocally.

Shadow moved towards her own room as her door swished open to reveal black walls with a storm blue ceiling. Her room was similarly set up like her twin's, with the same large space in the middle. This time, however, the second door was found on the left. Taking out her axe she sunk it into the wall, much to the alarm of the mechs. The femmes just looked unperturbed at this turn of events. "Now it feels like home." Shadow muttered as she removed her axe, a long gash remaining in the wall, marking the room as hers.

"Each room has its own personal wash racks and Energon holder in case of emergencies or if you are unable to leave your room." Elita explained without batting an optic. "Crystal and Icewhip, you're up next."

Crystal walked into her room, amazed by the baby blue walls and the off white ceiling and squawked as she tripped over her own pedes, Icewhip immediately rushing to her side in concern. "You okay?" Icewhip helped her up.

"Yeah, I'm alright." Her desk was on the right while her berth was on the left. "I like this room."

"Glad you do." Icewhip said gruffly before stepping out.

"Icewhip, here is yours." Prowl said as he gave her the code. Icewhip nodded, gaze lingering on him a nanoklik longer than required before she went in, face plates dusted with a light shade of blue.

"Icewhip and Prowlie sitting in a-"

"One more word Nightstar, and I will send you into stasis." Icewhip threatened. She then took a moment to admire the room, which was large enough for her to fly in and had ice blue walls and a black ceiling with crimson edges. The layout of her room was like Crystal's, except that the desk was closer to the door. "Nice." She gave a low whistle of appreciation before she shut the door behind her.

"Nightstar, yours is next." Prowl said as she downloaded the code. Nightstar nodded her thanks; doorwings fluttering with excitement as she waited for the door to fully open.

Nightstar's room opened and her doorwings flared up in a sharp 'V' shape in astonishment before settling back to normal. Her room had navy blue walls, with a dark grey ceiling. A large desk had been provided in the middle of the room, as if it was meant for her art supplies. Her berth was to the left of the room. "All the possibilities!" Nightstar cried with excitement. She quickly took out an airbrush from subspace and began to trace out designs on the walls.

"Let's leave her alone, shall we?" Elita suggested. Nightstar just waved the rest of them off with an indifferent servo before returning to her work. "Nova, yours is the last one."

"Thanks." Nova stretched her arms over her head as she walked over to her room, the door sliding open as she stepped in. "Whoa… This is great!" Her room had lavender purple walls with a light blue trim and the ceiling was rusty red in colour. A large desk faced the door while her berth was to the right. She hummed a little tune as she began to take out a few brightly coloured data pads, a faraway look in her optics as she plunked them down on the table before taking a black one out of subspace and typing furiously on it.

"Ah, Nova's going into writer mode. It will be impossible to distract her whenever she is like that. Uh…Prime? Hello?" Elita waved her arms exaggeratedly from her position behind him, seeing as Optimus was staring quite openly at Nova's figure. Optimus did not appear to hear her, his optics never leaving Nova. Smirking, Elita comm linked Chromia. "Hey Chromia, I think Optimus has a thing for Nova."

"No way! What's happening right now?" Chromia answered immediately.

"His optics are getting a little out of hand… Anyways, I'm just glad that he's found somebot he likes. I'm perfectly happy with our current arrangement of friendship." Elita sent back.

"But don't you get lonely sometimes? C'mon… I'm sure you have a secret crush!" Chromia teased.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Elita braced herself for the next statement.

"Oh Primus, WHO IS HE?" Chromia's voice seemed to have doubled in volume.

"That's for me to know and for you never to find out. Elita out." Elita ended the link.

"OHAI SHADOW- AAAAAAHHHH!" Swiftstreak's loud yell was followed by a crash, bringing Optimus out of his stupor.

"Ahem… Good recharge to all of you. Flareup and Arcee will take you all for a tour of the base on the next solar cycle. After which, we will decide on which duty positions will be best for each of you." Optimus was rather disappointed that he had to leave as he looked one last time at Nova. He found her staring straight at him, her helm tilted cutely to the side before she quickly panicked and looked down back at her data pad. He soon left the hall with Prowl and Elita.

"I sense a disturbance in the force. Is our wonderful leader turning a pretty shade of blue?" Nightstar giggled through the bond.

"Don't remind me… Leave me to drown in my writing!" Nova wailed.

Me: YUSH! Ah am DONE! Praise meh!

-Silence-

Me: *sighs* Oh well. Please R&R!

Starscream: Or else what?

Me: *grins deviously* Who wants to play Starscream the piñata?

Icewhip: MEEEEEEE!

Nightstar: SHIBARI!

Me: Femmes, ATTACK!

Starscream: *runs away*