"Hah"! Hot Shot hooted, tossing the controller to the floor and standing up to do a hip-swinging victory dance, made even more eye-catching with the wrap-style and floaty fishtail and form-fitting skirt of the dress she was wearing. "Third race in a row! Who's the champ? I'm the champ"!

"That wasn't fair"! Bumblebee retorted. "It's bad form to use your power-ups when you're already that far ahead! I demand a rematch"!

"Hey, if I wasn't supposed to use power-ups, the game shouldn't have given me any", Hot Shot replied with a grin. "But I'll take ya up on that rematch anyhow".

Bumblebee's petulant scowl morphed into a grin, and she picked up the controller and handed it back. "I'll beat your skidplate clear to Cybertron this time, Hot Pants".

"That's what you said the last three races, but my skidplate's still firmly attached".

"Well, get ready to kiss it goodbye". Bumblebee started up the next race, and the two young 'bots hunched over their controllers in concentration.

"Fraggin' turbo-revvin' young punks and their video games", Ratchet grumbled, folding her arms over her chest. "I'll never understand this younger generation anymore than I understand my own son".

"Neither will I", Red Alert confessed, straightening his bolo tie. "But at least Hot Shot hasn't set the couch on fire again, so its not as bad as it could be. How is Javik"?

"He's fine, just hanging out at a friend's place for the rest of his leave", Ratchet answered, pulling down the hem of her dress a bit more. "Last I called him, he said he was going to go shoot hoops with his girlfriend".

It was the Autobots' first evening in their newly completed base, and they were enjoying a night to relax and unwind after weeks of overseeing and helping out with construction, rounding up rogue mechs and Decepticons and scouring Detroit for stray AllSpark fragments. The younger ones had commandeered the viewscreen for video games, while Prowl and Jazz flipped through the former's collection of holo-photos of the natural scenery outside of the city. Ironhide showed Brawn and Bulkhead how to mix fuel blends 'to put Maccadam's Oil House to shame'; Ratchet and Red Alert alternated between sharing gossip about their various patients over the years and occasionally critiquing Ironhide's attempts at mixing drinks, and Rodimus had crouched down to talk to Professor Sumdac, fascinated by this planet's organic natives and the stories the inventor had to share.

Optimus Prime, for her part, mostly hung back and watched, drinking from her own cup of a simple blend Ratchet often fixed for herself that she was starting to like as well. It was good to not only have their own team back together, but to find comrades they got along with nicely. Her crew had been on Earth long enough that she worried they'd forgotten how to get along with fellow Cybertronians, but unless Team Athenia's time spent in space had left them a little off-kilter in the CPU as well, apparently they hadn't entirely lost the knack.

Her gaze rested on Prowl, and she smiled as the femme pointed out a photo of a beaver dam she had discovered during one of her forest excursions. This wasn't just a night to relax and hang out with Rodimus's team. It was a welcome-home party for Prowl as well, who had finally been cleared to leave the medical facility on Cybertron and rejoin them on Earth. Pharma and and the other medics were still scratching their heads over just how the cyber-kunoichi had managed to survive her heroic sacrifice, but Optimus didn't question it too much. She was just glad to have her old friend back.

Her gaze drifted back to the barrel that served as her makeshift fuel glass, and she idly swirled its contents. She should be happy, she knew-their team was complete again, and they would make great strides in their mission on this planet. All was well...so why did she feel so unsettled? Why couldn't she just relax and enjoy the evening off in the company of friends and comrades?

The memories, she decided. They had been coming back more frequently, rising to the surface of her CPU to surprise her at the most inopportune times. Strange...she hadn't dwelled on them in vorns, not since coming to Earth and getting pulled into the first actual battle of her life...

Gunfire and screams of pain filled her young audials, and she hunched down behind an offline femme and clamped her hands to the sides of her helm. Her whimpers of terror were drowned out by the pitched battle raging around her, and she barely heard her mother's voice over the bedlam.

"Take the sparkling and get her to an escape pod! Now"!

Hands snatched her, and for a moment she felt a rush of relief...but the one who had grabbed her was not one of her mother's soldiers. It was a stranger, a patch over one optic and a cruel light gleaming in the other one. A scream of horror ripped from her vocaliser as the stranger flung her over one shoulder and ran, leaving her mother far behind...

"OPTIMUS"!

"Huh"? Optimus shook her head. "What...sorry, I missed what you said, Ironhide. Can you repeat it"?

"I asked if you could give me some help with my dress here", the red femme repeated. "I've been trying to get this diesel spot out of it, but its still here".

Optimus sighed and got to her feet to help the armoured femme out. There had been no kind of persuasion for any of them to wear their bodysuits nor any other kind of clothing from the citizens of Detroit nor the Elite Guard, but Bulkhead had suggested the idea, reasoning that it would be better to have something that would cover them up yet allow them ease of movement and a bit of comfort in the changing temperatures as well. And since they were on a planet who's inhabitants weren't at all dissimilar to them (except for being organic), it wouldn't slight anyone to be themselves.

Ratchet in particular had taken the idea seriously enough, and had left for Cybertron first thing last April morning and returned with many of her old clothes that she had saved up over the years, just temporarily until they could secure a certain number of credits individually to get some personal picks. From there though, more clothing came until everyone had their own sets consisting of sleepwear, partywear, everydaywear, winter gear, underwear...and others as well.

At least they hadn't lacked too many options for party wear this evening. Bulkhead, thanks to a very generous partnership with a certain plus-size clothing line, was now wearing an olive-green sweetheart neck dress with a flared hem and frilled half sleeves. Ironhide's at-present dress which Optimus was helping to clean was a knitted vermilion one that had thin straps tied into bows on her shoulders and a low scoop neck that showed off her wide yet firm dress. Brawn wore a similar dress, but it was khaki coloured and had three-quarter sleeves coupled with pearlescent beads sewn into the collar that clacked everytime she shifted or bent forward. Bumblebee and Hot Shot had also settled on similar looking dresses...though in their case, those could not have made them look any younger than their actual ages. The yellow minibot wore a red mock neck cold-shoulder dress that had a flared skirt reaching down to her lower kneecaps along with low-heeled shoes of a similar red colour that had an open space between the toe covers and ankle straps resembling narrow hearts. She had also added a few extra details by tying her already long bright yellow mane into a half ponytail with a lacy scrunchy and fluffing out the bottom and putting on a narrow light blue choker. Hot Shot wore a similar dress, but orange and with an illusion neck instead, and also a lot more revealing as it was a wrap-style dress. It also lacked a flared skirt, instead having a form-fitting bottom with a separate fishtail attachment around the waist. Her own hair was way too short to style, but she had managed a short and messy high ponytail tied with a tangelo orange rhinestone-studded scrunchy and low-heeled boots that had tasselled tops instead of dress shoes. Also unlike Bumblebee, Hot Shot had apparently splurged a little on some decent jewellery and was now wearing a pair of tangelo drop earrings with a matching choker and bamgles. Ratchet and Red Alert, being somewhat old and now unused to the weight of flashy jewellery and the current dress styles, had settled with something a little more appropriate for people during their time. Ratchet in a two-toned navy-blue long-sleeved flapper dress with a wide waistband, a triangular pattern dividing the pleated skirt's tones through the middle, a white neckerchief, low-heeled pumps and wristgloves. Red Alert in a maroon Cold War-era tuxedo with a grey dress shirt, red bolo tie and black dress shoes.

But none could rival that of Prowl. Clad in traditional Japanese attire, Prowl had literally become the center of attention for her welcome-home party that night. Her furisode kimono was a long rippled one of white watery silk, with lacquered cyan blue threads embroidered into water hibiscus blossoms onto the delicate white fabric and gold lace trimming over and underrobe of green with a sheer magenta-threaded obi around her waist, held up by a thin brown obijime string and tied into a combination between a dangling style and drum knot style, giving it a tidy box shape with two long wide bands of sheer cloth dangling down. Her hair had been left loose, with only a length of white silk ribbon tied around it in a quarter ponytail, though the rest of her hair had been shined with oil just for tonight. Jazz had initially planned to wear a kimono as well, but after her recent tangle with the Starscream clones that day, she had given up on the tedious process of putting on her own kimono ensemble and instead switched to a simpler 1940s style with a black dress that had sheer blue lace and thin straps, paired with striped blue and black ballroom gloves and dress shoes with a flapper hat.

Optimus, however, was wholly uncomfortable in her own party wear, but more from how she was feeling than from the material itself.

Over the course of their time with Team Athenia, Optimus had decided to make it a point to get to know them better, or rather, they had decided on that, and Red Alert had surprisingly jumped on the bandwagon as well. Within weeks, Optimus had already established a degree of rapport with Rodimus's insanely-huge extended family (consisting of her parents, older and younger siblings, several uncles and aunts, cousins, grandcousins, grandparents and great-grandparents along with her granduncles, grandaunts, great-granduncles, great-grandaunts and many of her in-laws and relatives by marriage) whose size owed its credit to their practice of polygamy; Brawn's orphaned triplet nephews and nieces whom she had taken in after her sister and brother were killed by space pirates; Hot Shot's guardian, Ironhide's older siblings and Red Alert's wife, Twirl.

Of all of them, however, Twirl took the best pleasure in taking care of Optimus everytime the Hero of Cybertron herself paid her and her husband a visit, seemingly sympathising with 'this sweet little orphan', a statement that made Ratchet roll her eyes the first time she heard it but otherwise she said nothing in reply. It seemed that Optimus was pretty much her favourite now, and not just as a daughter-figure whom she took pleasure in feeding and taking care of in general. Twirl was a fashion designer, and so it wasn't hard to guess who had become her favourite model for her new designs as well, besides Rodimus.

The two Primes had been given nigh-identical dresses that were a snug fit around their frames, Optimus's made slightly loose on account of her more muscular figure, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that wearing strapless clothing was a Pit of a lot harder than it looked. Rodimus's slim frame fit well into the strapless ultramarine blue chiffon dress that hugged her body snugly, paired with matching sandals whose knee-length straps tied into bows and ribbon wristlets whose tassels dangled from her wrists, along with matching drop earrings and rings. Optimus's dress, also chiffon and strapless, was eggplant purple instead, but with full-cover button-up gloves and wedgie boots and full hoop earrings as well as wider rings. It was a bigger size than Rodimus's dress too, but even with the inner flash-cotton padding and some of the seams in the skirt loosened for ease of movement, she still felt as if she were being suffocated by a cyberpython as she moved and tried to focus on breathing in and out to steady her nerves. She was supposed to kick back and relax, not stress herself out needlessly.