Dorothy Haven, one of the most powerful humans on the planet of Earth and the holder of the last fragment of the Allspark, didn't really want to be sitting in the principal's office for the fifth time this year.
The woman looked over at the two boys beside her, identical in looks and in clothing style besides on having dark red hair and black and red clothes and the other having black hair and light purple and blue clothes one. The two boys were sitting in the chairs with their knees hugged up against their chests and chose not to look directly into the woman's eyes. They could tell she was upset and that they were going to get grounded when they got home, but they couldn't really help themselves. They grew up most of their lives around Decepticons of all things and everyone's malicious attitudes seemed to rub off of them. They were lucky if they even had desserts tonight.
"So, please tell me what Fred and Ron did this time, Mr. Warren." Dorothy asked, leaning back in her chair and trying not to sound overly irritated. "I'm pressed for time since I still have to pick up Lara and Betty from the middle school, Ryan from his kindergarten class and I left my youngest at home with my oldest."
"Of course, Ms. Haven." the principal continued and looked over at the other parent that seemed a little too prim and proper for her daughter too be attended a public school in the middle of Texas. "Mrs. Florence, I think that you and your daughter are overreacting on the amount of damage done."
"My little girl has been violated by those two ruffians and I wish for them to be expelled from the school!" the woman cried out, sounding like a British monarch right out of the 18th century.
"What exactly did they do?" the mother of the two boys asked, quirking a brow and fixing her glasses.
"They got paint on her favorite dress!" the other mother yelled, pointing at the large spot of red paint on the bottom hem of the pink dress the little chubby girl besides her. She was sobbing into her mother's side and the mother was glaring at the two boys. "You, Ms. Haven, seem to be incapable of taking care of your children and disciplining them!"
"Excuse me?" Dorothy asked, chuckling to herself. Who did this mother think she was? She wasn't a dictator to her children, even if she did punishes them harshly sometimes for doing stupid things, but she loved her kids and hoped that this mother came into the real world at some point because there was no way in hell that she was going to let this woman think that she couldn't take care of kids. "That seems extremely biased, Mrs. Florence. Do you know what happened to your daughter exactly?"
"We don't." Mr. Warren cut in, looking at Dorothy with some concern. "Fred and Ron have refused to tell us anything truthfully."
"We have!" the kid in red yelled, standing up in his chair. "We told you Francis Murkinson was throwing paint at us from across the room and we retaliated! We didn't mean to get paint on her dress! We weren't even aiming for her! Where is the justice in this society?!"
"Fred, sit down now." the mother of the boys grounded out, making the little boy freeze and sit back down with a bit of fear. Dorothy never used that kind of tone with her voice unless the twins did something very wrong. The woman looked over at the mother and sighed. "I'm sorry. I can pay for the dress, if you want."
"No, I don't want money." the other woman protested. She looked over at the two boys and seemed to go rabid as she tried to reach for one of them. "I want them to be thrown out of this school!"
A hand grabbed the other woman's as Dorothy seemed to magically appear in front of the two boys and squeeze the woman's wrist hard. Her usual hazel eyes flickered a glowing blue for a few seconds as she stared down the mother. The two of them stood there for a while before Dorothy realized that she had done it again and let of the woman's arm, growling a bit. "Don't touch my kids, lady. I'm not as prim and proper as you are, so I'm not afraid to stuff you in a smelting pot it you even think of hurting my babies."
"Ms. Haven." Mr. Warren called out and distracted the woman's attention. "Just keep the boys out of school for a few days. They can come back on Friday. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I can't let them go this time. I hope you can understand."
"Yes. Of course. Boys, let's go pick up your siblings." Dorothy replied, nodding to the principal of the school before glaring at the mother as she walked out of the office with her kids at her sides. Once she got out in the hallway, she groaned and banged her head against the tile wall. She looked back at her kids and tried so hard not to yell at them. She could see that they were scared and knew why. Her eyes were glowing blue again, which usually meant that the woman was pissed. "Five years, boys. Five years since Chicago and you still can't keep it under wraps."
"We're sorry." Frenzy spoke up, looking down at his sneakers and fiddling with his hands. "We're trying, Carrier."
"I know, I know." the mother replied, squatting down to look at the boys. She could see the shame in their eyes, since they knew what they did was wrong and that Dorothy was upset. She remembered when she had to explain to all the kids why they needed to use their holo-avatars in public and whenever someone they didn't know came to the house. They all hated it, but suffered through it for the past five years. This was the first year she was letting all the kids go to school and it was almost over. The summer would be a lot easier and she wouldn't have to worry about the boys causing trouble, or anything else. The glowing blue in the woman's eyes faded and she looked at her kids. "I'm sorry I lost my temper."
Frenzy and Rumble smiled and ran forward to hug their carrier, squeezing her chest as she chuckled and hugged back. The three of them stayed like this for a long time before the woman stood up and sighed. The two boys looked a little happier and seemed to stand taller than before. "So are we still in trouble?" Rumble asked.
"Definitely." the woman replied and earned a whine from the cassette twins. "I'm not grounding you, since you didn't mean to cause any harm to the girl, but you did try to throw paint at someone. So no dessert tonight for you, too."
"That's not fair!" Frenzy exclaimed as they started walking down to the kindergarten wing of the school building. "It was Rumble's idea!"
"No, it wasn't!" the other twin argued back. "It was Frenzy's idea!"
"Both of you are still getting no dessert, so stop complaining." Dorothy answered back, walking up to Ratbat's classroom and knocking on the door, since she knew that the end of the day was the time where the teacher let the kids nap until their parents came to pick them up. The teacher came to open the door and waved for her to come inside. "You two wait here."
The boys nodded and sat down against the wall, sighing and secretly coming up with new pranks to pull on Ravage when they got home. Dorothy walked inside the class and smiled as she saw her second youngest curled up under a blanket with his Zubat plushie in his arms. The mother made her way through the sea of children and picked up the dark-haired child in her arms, keeping the blanket wrapped around him as he snuggled up to her shoulder. Dorothy mouthed a thank you to the teacher as she left the classroom and motioned for the boys to follow her.
The family excited the school building to see Laserbeak and Buzzsaw sitting on the edge of the curb by the car with their phones out and seemingly bored. They both looked up at the same time and smiled at bit at their family as they walked up. "Thank Primus you guys got her. We were waiting for thirty minutes and it's hot out here." Laserbeak muttered as she stood up and retied her long dark red hair into a ponytail. "What happened this time, Thing One and Thing Two? Eat some paste?"
"Laser, cut it out." her sister scolded her as she stood up as well. "That's not nice."
"Since when are we nice, Buzz?" the redhead asked the blonde as they walked over to their side of the car. "Anyways, can you open the door now, Carrier? These holo-avatars are sweating and it's disguising."
"It's not disgusting. It's how the human body keeps itself cool." the mother answered back as she took the car keys out of her jean pocket and unlocked the car.
The two pairs of twins rushed to the car and hopped inside, deactivating their holoforms and letting their frames all transform back into their normal selves. The two bird-like cassettes in the backseat started to fight over the seats with the two mech-like cassettes as Dorothy got in the driver's seat and placed the sleeping Ratbat in the passenger seat, next to his frame. The woman started the car and all of the kids in the back found somewhere to sit, either on the seat or on the floor of the car. "Why do Laserbeak and Buzzsaw always get the seat!?" Rumble argued.
"Because we're femmes, dumbaft." the red condor answered back. "And the polite thing for mechs to do it allow femmes to go first. Right, Carrier?"
"More or less." Dorothy answered back as they started driving back to their house. Sooner or later, everyone seemed to come down in the backseat and the mother of all the children was left with some silence and sometime to think about things. It had been five years since the Battle of Chicago and five years since she had seen Soundwave. The human sighed as she remembered how much she missed him and wished he was here to help her take care of the kids. Of course, she hasn't seen the Autobots either in that amount of time or Barricade, but it was hard being a mother of seven kids all by herself.
The woman brought her hand back to trace the edges of the hidden fragment still lodged into her spinal cord. She had learn that those two figures in her head during her coma were right about the war that was going to happen. She had learned also that the fragment was the only thing keeping her alive. Ratchet had told her that since it was connected to her spinal cord, that removing it would kill her. The only benefits of being having the fragment was that she had some abilities that have helped her protect herself and her kids and that she could know live as long as a cybertronian could. Heck, she was 34 years old and she still looked 22. She could make energy shields, control the life energy from the fragment, and apparently could talk to Primus and Unicron at some points. But she hated it, since it made her a target and put her kids in danger.
The car ride back to the house was long, since they lived outside of the main suburban area. They lived in a big house in the middle of a small forest, giving them lots of privacy from the government and from everyone else. The woman technically owned the land, but people did come to swim in the lake behind the meadow. Ratbat had woken up during the ride and was looking out the window as they drove through the forest. Dorothy pulled up the long driveway to see Ravage sitting down on the side of the hill and holing Toxin in his paws. The cybertronian panther looked exhausted, but what did you expect when you were taking care of a sparkling? All the kids jumped out of the car and sprinted into the house, leaving Dorothy behind with the groceries.
"Carri!" The woman looked up from grabbing all the bags and saw Toxin jumping up and down excitedly at her feet. The little mech had learned to walk by himself, but still had some problems walking at the pace he wanted to go without falling over. Dorothy chuckled and looked at Ravage as the giant panther walked up and smiled.
"Let me take those, Dorothy." the cat commented, leaning into the back of the car and picking up the all of the bags into his mouth before walking around the back of the house to enter in through the larger doors of the house since he didn't fit through the front door.
"Thank you, Ravage." the woman called after him as she closed the trunk of her car. Once the panther left, the woman reached down and picked up the child into her arms, nuzzling him. Little Toxin was still a sparkling of very few words, but his vocabulary was getting better. His words were mostly mispronounced or shorter versions of the actual word, but Dorothy frankly didn't care. She was just happy that her youngest was able to learn things without being able to go to school yet, being that he wasn't old enough for kindergarten and his holo-avatar hadn't been created yet. "Hello, sweetspark. You have a good time with Ravage?"
"Yeah! Kitty!" the sparkling giggled and nodded, snuggling his helm into his carrier's shoulder as they walked into the house. Dorothy locked her car from the doorway before closing the door and placing her bag down by the coat rack. She saw that all the bags were already in the kitchen and the two bird cassettes were putting the groceries away. Since the cassettes all had holo-avatars, besides Toxin, they all ate human food and energon with it. But since energon was slightly radioactive, Dorothy had to be careful when feeding her little bitlet and usually let Ravage do it. "Food!"
"Yes, baby. I know, but you don't have your holo-form upgrade yet so I can't give you human food." the woman replied, sitting Toxin on the counter as she placed her car keys on the hook over where she kept all the bills. She picked up the mail Ravage brought in earlier and scanned through the letters, seeing that some were bills and others were just advertisements. "Once Soundwave comes back, he'll upgrade you and then we can all eat as a family."
"And when if he coming back exactly, Carrier?" Laserbeak asked, perching on the counter besides the little black and green mechling. His little winglets were flapping as he clung onto the other's long neck, giggling happily. "He's been gone for five years now, and he hasn't shown any signs of coming out of hiding."
"I know, but he's trying not to get caught by Cemetery Wind, like what I'm doing with you all. He hasn't forgotten about us, Laserbeak. He's your sire and he loves us very much, but he's... he's coming back." That's all that Dorothy could say, being that she didn't really know any more than that. She wanted her mate back just like the kids, but she didn't know where he was or when he was coming back. One of the many perks of being in love with a Decepticon, she guessed. She turned around to see Buzzsaw had joined them and they were all looking at her with large sad optics. The woman sighed and hugged them all squeezing them a lot. "I love you kids so much. No matter what happens, I'm never letting you go. I'll keep you safe, just like I have been for the last twelve years of my life."
"We know, Carrier." the two femme cassettes answered back in unison before flying off to go hang out in the living room. The mother smiled and looked over at Toxin, who was squirming and jumping around as he was picked up by Dorothy again. He wanted to go play with his sisters, too. The woman wasn't having the little mechling run away from her this time and placed him in the living room where his play pen was. Once he was seated and was playing with a few of the toys he had, Dorothy checked the time to see she needed to make dinner.
"Rumble, Frenzy, come down stairs please!" she yelled up to hear two thuds above her helm before the two other mech-like cassettes in the household came running down the stairs. They skidded to a stop in front of her, but Frenzy tripped over Rumble and sent the two of them to the floor. They groaned as Dorothy chuckled and pulled them up to their feet. "Go start the mac and cheese on the stove with Ravage while I go to the garage to check on our other resident."
"Got it!" they both replied before speeding off to the kitchen and pulled the holo-avatar of Ravage from the walkway without any explanation. The mother of the children chuckled again before going to the basement door and grabbing the metal contained on the top stair by the handle. Closing the door, she carefully walked past Toxin, who had passed out on the floor of the play pen and walked out through the two large back doors of the house. She walked off the edge of the back porch and made her way down the large hill that the household was on.
The property was big, since it was most of the meadow area of the forest and the large pond nearby. The only reason she was allow to be on this plot of land was because the government owned it and she "bought" it after the fall of Chicago. It was supposed to be a military base, but it never got finished all the way, meaning that airplanes were just out in the middle of the field and there were barbwire fences all around the property. It was good for Dorothy, since it helped her keep her family safe from trespassers or house buyers. Most importantly, it was shown on maps to still be owned by the government, so no one trying to hunt down cybertronians came here.
On the other side of the meadow that had overgrown part of the base, there was a huge jet hangar that was bolted shut from the inside. The human finally got to it and walked around the side, pushing open a really rusted shut door with ease and pushing it shut again. The lights flickered on when she walked in and she smiled, loving the look of the place every time she was in her. Walking over to a big metal structure in the middle of the airplane garage, she flipped on the light over the structure's head with the control panel and placed the container down to wait.
Two crimson red optics faded on before a large groan echoed off of the walls as the metal structure started to stretch and sit up. "Good morning, Starscream. How'd you sleep?" the woman asked, leaning against the panel and warmly smiled up at the seeker from where he was sitting up against the wall.
"Well, for the most part." the mech complained a bit, stretching out his arms and doing an overall systems check before trying to scoot any closer. "This new body has so many new systems that it makes it hard to recharge without memory fluxes hitting you left and right. But I must say, I do feel a lot better now that my voice doesn't erupt my audio receptors every five nanoklicks."
"Thank Soundwave for the upgrade. I may have gotten you a frame, but he's the one who placed in all the new systems that you-know-who forbid you to install." Dorothy replied, smiling as she pushed the container forwards towards the mech's leg. The seeker was right, since she's the one who fixed his voice box in the first place. After the battle of Chicago, the woman had found Starscream nearly dead in the middle of a streets. So being the nice person she was and keeping her promise that she kept all those years back, she and Soundwave made his a new body and fixed some parts that Megatron had damaged a long time ago. "I brought you some energon, since I forgot to bring you some this afternoon. The boys got called to the principal's office again and I had to go."
The seeker's wings, since they were now free from his back and not completely jointed down like in his last frame, shook as he chuckled a bit. His voice was still a little gravelly, but that was as best as the woman could do for him. His voice was much deeper now though, making it easier to listen to than the high-pitched squealing voice he had before. He opened the lid of the contained before taking a long sip, relaxing a bit more now that energon was in his tanks. "You can't blame them, Dorothy. They're Decepticons by nature and those two trouble-makers were bound to end up in there anyway."
"You don't have to tell me twice, Star." the mother replied, pinching the bridge of her nose. "One kid was throwing paint at them and they threw some back, but it landed on a girl's dress. Trust me, the mother of that girl couldn't have been more snobby than she was, but I wouldn't put it past her."
The two shared a short laughed before something crashed on the other side of the warehouse, causing Starscream's defense systems to go online and his null rays activated towards the area of the noise. After a few seconds, one little wing popped up from behind an empty storage crate and the little cassette pulled himself up onto it. "I okay!" the little mechling cried.
"Ratbat, you scared us." Dorothy chuckled, smiling as the little bat giggled and few over towards them, clinging onto his carrier's front before making a fake roar at her. The woman smiled down at her second youngest before shifting him to sit higher up on her chest. "Did you come to say hello to Uncle Starscream?"
"Yah!" he squeaked before flying up to the seeker's face and sticking onto it, covering up the mech's sight and nuzzling his face. "Hewwo, Uncle Star!"
"Hello to you too, Ratbat." the mech replied, cupping the little bat in case he fell off. He gently kissed the cassette's underbelly before gently taking him off and placing him on the panel next to the woman. "I'm having my dinner right now, and I'm sure you have to go have yours. I'll talk to you later tonight, Ratbat. I promise, alright?"
The little metal bat nodded, climbing onto his carrier's back and laying his helm down. "Bedtime story?" he asked, watching the seeker for an answer.
"Why not." the ex-SIC of the Decepticons answered back, reaching down to give the little cassette a rub on the helm. "I'll tell you about the cybertronian dragon tonight and how he protected Cybertron from enemies, like your carrier does for Earth."
"Starscream, stop. I'm not that great." Dorothy responded, making her way out of the hangar the same way she came in. She pushed the rusty door open as she and Ratbat waved goodbye to the seeker as he took another sip of energon. The two left to go back up to the house and get the rest of dinner ready. The woman silently hoped the Ravage didn't let the boys burn down the house. She quickly peaked in through the back door of the porch before stepping in to smell dinner not burnt and actually done for once. "Thank you Primus." she sighed.
She picked up Toxin, who was still asleep on the floor and placed Ratbat down on the plush chair in the living room, letting the tiny bat activate his holo-avatar. The little boy giggled and grabbed his Zubat plushie before running into the kitchen to go sit at the table. Ravage passed by the little boy, smiling as he grabbed the biker's helmet from the coat rack. Dorothy didn't notice that the shaggy haired teen was going to leave until the little sparkling in her arms woke up and saw him. "Kitty!"
The panther froze in opening the door as he heard Dorothy turn around to face him. "And where are you going?"
"Biking with some friends at high school?" he replied, more as a question since he knew the woman hated him going out at night and risking his safety of being caught.
The mother stood there for a while as Toxin patted her chest, signaling he was hungry and needed food. "Fine. But you can't come home if you don't win the race."
"Will do-wait." the nearly adult cybertronian replied, pausing to understand what she said. "How did you know-"
"You waxed yourself his morning." Dorothy replied, walking towards the kitchen as she heard the phone ring. "Don't think I didn't see that fifty you stole from the counter this morning to go get yourself a wash, wax and coffee before school."
The black-haired male groaned, shifting the tooth necklace around his neck before stepping out of the house to go to his race. "See you tonight, Dorothy!" he called, slamming the door behind him.
"Yeah, whatever you crazy furball!" she called back, chuckling to herself as she answered the phone. It was Cade, a friend seem made a while back after she had first moved her with the kids. Her daughter, Tessa, and Ravage were relatively the same age compared to human years. They were both seventeen and they went to the same high school, so that's how the two parents met each other. They were in the same carpool line one day and she had fixed the man's truck since it broke down.
The man on the other side of the line seemed really excited for no reason until he started explaining to her something. "Wait, Cade, slow down! What about a truck?"