Inspired by Zanne and her "Wheeljack and his Turbo Pie" which was inspired by a conversation with Coralle and GlassCamel. {Zanne and Coralle gave me permission to spin, thank you. And thus, a lunch time conversation spawned with my three sons: 13, 11 and 8.}

Hubcap Hijinxs & Turbo Pi's

Prime's personal quarters: Optimus is all scrubbed, wax, and tires Armor All'd and now digging through his dresser. He's beginning to panic as his chronometer starts beeping. It would not bode well if Optimus Prime leader of the Autobot Army arrived at the latest UN meeting late. Nor would it look favorable if he showed up in his battle damaged hubcaps. Currently his quarters look like Astrotrain and Cyclonous have been there. Stuff is strewn from one end of the large quarters to the other. The chime at his door leaves Prime grumbling, "Enter at your own risk!"

Prowl opens the door and whatever he was going to say is instantly changed to "What in Char is going on here?"

Prime plants his fist on his hips in complete frustration, "I can't find my dress 'Caps. I swear when I find the twins, they're gonna wish they were on Char!"

Prowl winces, and hands Prime an every day hubcap from under a pile of data pads, "Sorry, but I guess these will have to do. You know they don't like to be kept waiting." Prime fumes again and snatches it from Prowl's extended servo.

Decepticon Underwater Base: Motormater's quarters: "RUMBLE! FENZIE!" The huge purple and black mech stomps out of his quarters. His temper matches his color scheme perfectly at this moment.

A small red and black head poke out of one side of the hall and a matching purple and blue head pops out of the other side. They look to the lumbering fuming gestalt commander and decide their best course of action is to run. An so they do. He follows.

Coming out of the commander's wash rack, another set of twin mechs are giggling. The red one snickers, "Oh you are a genius, Sunny."

The yellow one accepts the compliment, "What do you think their chances are of out running his temper?"

"I think Megatron kneeling before Prime has better odds." The two giggle again.

They pick up two huge hubcaps from the drying area of the wash racks. The red one asks, "I understand thrashing his quarters so it will take him a while figure out the 'hubcaps are missing, but how did you know they would be here and not in his special locker."

Sunstreaker smirks, "I over heard Rumble and Frenzy talking about a certain femme who has a thing for large purple mechs with lots of tires."

Sideswipe shakes his head, "Ohhhh, I think Frenzy and Rumble's chances just plummeted." Just then an explosion and twin howls of great pain were heard not far from the current location.

A black finger points up, "And I think that is our cue to go."

Fortress Maximus: General Ultra Magnus's quarters: Marissa leaps against the wall as a chair flies out of the City Commander's personal quarters and sails down the hall. A roar isn't far behind. Marissa ponders her next course of action. She was going to ask Ultra Magnus if he was ready to leave for the UN meeting, but with the desk following the chair down the hall, she decided maybe this wasn't a good time. She just started to walk away when the sound of thundering peds caused her to flatten herself against the wall. The peds stopped directly in front of her. And the body mass kneels. And a lone, huge white servo finger is directly in front of her chest. And then the helm lowers to join the finger. The optics within the helm are normally very warm and comforting to Marissa, but right now they looked like they could sear right through her like narrow beamed laser pointer.

"Cornel, if this is a new recruits idea of hazing, they will find themselves discharged and returned home courtesy of my ped. Am I clear?"

Marissa gulps and know she should say "yes sir," but in order to be honest she has to know the facts. Instead she eeps out, "Excuse me?"

"I do not find it funny by being PUNKED!" He straightens up to his full height and turns his shoulder ever so slightly to show her, "Now where the SLAG are my hubcaps?"

Security Officer Kup's personal quarters: Skids and Mudflap are inside the otherwise unoccupied quarters unauthorized. Skids is digging through a storage locker located under the berth.

Mudflap is digging through the dresser. "What is half this stuff?"

Skids doesn't look up, "I don't know, but if it's leaking, don't touch it!"

Mudflap chuckles, "Who knows, maybe Carley can use it as a secret ingredient?"

Skids now turns his head, "You don't want any evidence left on your servos, you glitch!"

Mudflap understands slowly, "Ohhhh, gottcha."

Just then Skids hold up the silver plate successfully, "Ah-HA! Got one! Oh good," digs a little deeper, "Got two!"

Mudflap then calls out, "Ha ha, I've got three and four. Why again did Carley send us here?"

Skids stuffs his two prizes into his subspace, "Carley said that Kup's old fashioned hubcaps are just the right size and shape for pie tins."

Mudflap shrugs, "What are pie tins?"

His twin joins the shrug, "I duno. She said treat and I said when? She said bring me the 'caps and I said 'yes ma'am." Mudflap chuckles stuffing his own two prizes into his own sub space. They silently nod to each other and cut the lights. Then seek out of the commander's quarters towards the engineering lab.

Wheeljack's lab: Skids and Mudflap arrived just behind Sideswipe and Sunstreaker with their shiny prizes. Carley motions to them to set them down beside the General and Prime's on the counter. Bumblebee props the data pad up beside Carley so she read it easily. She looks at it and then back to Bumblebee, "Are you sure about this?"

Bumblebee holds up a palm to calm her fears, "Trust me, if there is one thing Chromia knows, it's her sweets. This is one of her favorites. I contacted her personally."

Skids leans over to Sunstreaker, "What is going on?"

The yellow mech gleams, "Carley said today is National Pie Day. She knows how hard these negotiations are on Optimus and Magnus, so she wanted to do something sweet for them."

Mudflap leans in, "Okay, so what's a pie?"

Sunstreaker shrugs, "I dunno."

Sideswipe joins in, "So what's with the hubcaps?"

Skids shrugs, "I dunno."

Wheeljack leans pipes up, "I thought is had to do with Pi, you know 3.14 to Infinity."

Carley pats the white shoulder giggling, "Wheeljack, you celebrate Pi your way and I'll celebrate my way. Now, I need Selinuim and Berilum and three pounds of cinnamon."

Wheeljack smirks, "And a dash of high-grade. Chromia always leaves out the high-grade." She giggles and Wheeljack pulls a bottle out of his subspace, "My personal favorite."

Sideswipe asks Carley, "What's with the hubcaps?"

She smiles, "Where else can I get a large circular metallic dishes with a nice reflective internal surface? Now you're sure the mechs you borrowed these from said it was alright?"

All four nod very innocently, "Absolutely."

Sunstreaker leans into Sideswipe near silently, "Think Motormaster will kill us less if we return one filled with a sweet?"

"I dunno."

Three hours later: Wheeljack and Bumblebee, using cooling pads on their servos, pulls the over filled Energon Pies out of base oven. Carefully setting them on the workbench to cool, Wheeljack looks them over.

"I'm sorry Carley, but it just needs something more."

"Like what?" She looks over the recipe over carefully, "I followed the directions properly."

Skids smirks, "Carley, you know Wheeljack. If it isn't made with rocket fuel, glowing in the dark, or burning a hole in something, it 'needs something more'. You know like that TV show, 'needs more power'! That's our Wheeljack."

Wheeljack looks at one of the smaller pies. Everyone can see he has tuned them out. The way the lights on his helm are glowing and brighter and brighter, they know he's already come up with something. He smiles, "Carley, can I have this one. I think I know just the thing to improve it."

Carley smiles, "Wheeljack, of course. By the way, thanks for letting us use your lab."

He smiles again to her, "Anything to make Prime's day." He picks up the pie and walks to the other side of the room.

Another three hours later: Spike squeals with delight as a turbo charged hubcap filled with Energon Cinimmon pie comes grazing over his head and circles the room. Skids and Mudflap's helms yank up from the sink where they are clean up pie making tools. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe jump out of the closet where they were putting the remaining ingredients away.

Wheeljack is gleefully standing in the middle of the room making the pie chase Spike around the room with his remote control. Spike dashes behind Skids only to have the mech dive to the side as the pie comes close to his helm. Wheeljack sniggers with his own engineer's glee. The pie just grazes past Mudflap and weaves in between the second set of twins before heading off down the main hall. They all follow the flying pie out into the main hallway.

Ark Main Entrance Hallway: Ultra Magnus and Prime return to the Ark after another grueling UN meeting. Kup welcomes them at the entrance joining the walk down the hall. Marissa is perched on Magnus' shoulder. "Good evening, Cornel. Good to see you again."

Marissa smiles to the security chief, "And always a pleasure to see you, Kup."

And that was as far as the conversation got when they were interrupted by the sound of small (well small in Autobot terms) twin turbo rockets coming down the hall. The sound was growing louder and coming closer to the returning commanders. Kup flattens against the side of the wall, Magnus ducks.

Spike calls out, "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!"

Wheeljack tries, but it's too late. The flying Energon goodie is out of control. The pie lands SPLAT! Full on. Classic clown style. Larry, Moe and Curly would be proud.

Prime's face plate is now covered completely in Energon pie, with little smoking turbo engines for mask decorations.

Kup reaches up and removes the turbo charge-hubcap-pie-tin, "I've been looking for that."