"OW! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE SHOOTING, PIECE OF SCRA—"
"Shockwave, Language." Megatronus Prime calmly reprimanded before the mechling in question could finish the curse, and consequently end up with its faceplate being washed with soap.
"But—but sir! That Fra– sla–ugh! That dolt who doesn't know where to aim almost shot me, again!", the purple mechling tried to justify itself, pointing his blaster at the apparent dolt, Misfire, who had almost accidentally shot him for the second time.
"But he didn't, and I forgot the point where that gives you carte blanche to curse, little one." Megatronus commented amusedly. Making the monoptic mechling mutter softly and kick the pedes in frustration. This made the Prime chuckle as he approached and patted Shockwave's helm, making the mechling shout an Embarrassed 'Sir!', and also causing the seeker with terrible aim behind him to chuckle, unaware that he would soon be next.
Ever since Primus became Cybertron and gave rise to the first Transformers, the 13 Primes have always been legendary figures, emanating power, authority, charisma, wisdom, and leadership. The stories of their battles and conquests since the beginning of Cybertron made them seem almost divine beings, unreachable figures of extreme power, wisdom and respect.
...
And, apparently, since they were the very first Cybertronians, this also made them complete mamas hens.
No—seriously—it took a petition—and a slideshow presentation outlining all the reasons—that the young mechs and femmes not only wanted to train to be warriors and actively fight to defend Cybertron against the Quintessons, but also to help and protect the Primes as well.
It was a living PIT to convince 13 very stubborn and overprotective Primes that none of them were sparklings anymore who needed protection —and it seems that, even though they managed to convince that hard-headed bunch to train them to actively fight, they still have difficulty accepting and understanding it.
Only after much insistence, and meetings among the 13, did they agree to it, even if somewhat reluctantly. But it was obvious that somehow they would find a loophole.
Look, when you hear "training future soldiers to form an elite guard," anyone would imagine intensive and insane training in survival, infiltration, spy, combat, and other things. Yes, that's true. But the point is that the Primes are now using the pretext of "recruiting potential recruits" to simply YOINK any sparkling and mechling that even remotely looks like they need a home.
Basically, they've turned "training future elite soldiers to compose the High guard" into an excuse for blatant adoption, now taking any sad-looking orphan they can find.
Because that's how Starscream, Shockwave, Soundwave, and many others ended up at the Primes's HQ!
Not that they're complaining about it, since now they've got a house and sort of 13 creators (more specific; 9 sires, 1 carrier, 2 older brothers and 1 strange uncle, according to the personalities of the 13 Primes).
Megatronus watches the three mechlings train. It must be around 9 AM; Solus had just given them breakfast ("Come on, eat some more, you're growing newsparks! You guys need to eat well."—Solus Prime. "Miss Solus Prime, thank you very much for that, ma'am, but we're really full already!"—Shockwave. "Nonsense!" —Solus). Quintus was supposed to supervise their training today, but his brother had to leave at the last minute when one of his cameras picked up a signal from scraplets nearby.
"Starscream, no flying. We've already talked about this, training today is on the ground, little one." Megatronus tells the young seeker, who grumbles at having to descend from the air, and assumes a fighting stance against Soundwave.
Megatronus chuckled slightly at Starscream's pouty faceplate, shaking his helm, and turned his attention to Shockwave, who seemed to be having trouble with his new invention, a weapon that fired a beam capable of melting metal— and which apparently exploded it as well— turning the mechling to curse even the unicron himself.