Mistaken Identity

"Did you see the Autobots today?"

Alexis looked up from her cell phone at Ari's traditional and daily out-of-the-blue question. "What?" she said, raising an eyebrow and looking at Ari. The two of them were sitting at a Mexican – American blend café. Alexis had a burrito while Ari had a BLT sandwich, one that she was more interested in dissecting than actually eating. Alexis had been reading the last text message from Kina about a Stanton-related episode that had occurred a few minutes ago, leaving the colonel high-strung on cold fury and frustration. Kina was advising for both Ari and Alexis to stay off base for a couple hours, to let the colonel blow off steam in the shooting range instead of the base corridors at a certain lieutenant. "What did I see?" she asked again when Ari didn't immediately answer her first question.

Ari shrugged, picking at the helpless lettuce in her sandwich. "I said, did you see the Autobots today? They're tearing around DC like it's a freaking playground, and mind you I don't like unauthorized kiddies playing in my turf," she said, shrugging as she glanced in the direction of the White House.

"Since when was DC your turf?"

Ari snorted. "Since, like, now. Anyway, it only caught my attention because there's this red Autobot with 'em now, was behind Bumblebee last I saw," she said, finally settling with the ranch dressing – drenched bacon strips. She frowned thoughtfully, the edges of her eyebrows vanishing behind her sunglasses. "You know, I've always wondered where Barricade went after our little meeting in New York City, where do you think he's gone?" she asked, glancing over at her comrade-in-arms and best friend.

Alexis shrugged. "Neither he or Starscream or here, so I'm grateful for that," she said, sipping her lemonade.

Ari shrugged. "I'm going to need to take a walk after this… I'm stuffed," she said, leaning back in her seat and patting her stomach.

"You barely ate," Alexis pointed out, gesturing to sandwich that had been more or less torn apart.

"Yeah, well, you didn't see me and Tyler chilling out in the kitchen when the chefs were baking desserts for that gala thingy tonight. Did you know that Chef Perez is actually French and from Paris? His father happened to be Spanish, but he was born and raised in Paris," Ari said eagerly, leaning forward in her seat.

"Nice. But that's five seventy-four you're never getting back," Alexis warned.

"I got a penny back for my change, remember?"

Alexis scowled. "Anyone ever tell you that you're hopeless sometimes?" she demanded, trying to keep the testiness out of her voice.

"Why else do you think that Colonel Stanton and Kina love having me stick around?"

"To keep Riley from driving them crazy," Alexis answered falsely, narrowing her eyes. Any further sarcasm was cut off when a roar came up behind them, startling both women. Alexis relaxed when she recognized that it was just Optimus pulling a trailer… while speeding for who knew why but judging by the amount of chaos that was following in his wake, he probably had a good reason. Ari sighed as Optimus passed, both Ironhide and Ratchet close behind.

"Always off in a rush they are… so now think of that picture that but all over DC. That's what it was like earlier," Ari said studiously as she sipped her soda.

Alexis sighed. There was only so many times she could argue with Ari about something, but the argument always ended when Ari decided she was bored of it and changed the subject.

Unknown to the women, Ironhide had in fact noticed them. He just dismissed them as unimportant; getting the cargo, recovered stolen NEST property, back to NEST's American headquarters just happened to be a little more important at the moment. Bumblebee was racing elsewhere in the city, having finally found the latest Autobot arrival. Ironhide hadn't had a chance to ask Prime or Bumblebee about the new arrival's designation because incidentally, Soundwave (who was still latched to one of the numerous satellites above the atmosphere), had alerted Starscream to the arrival, drawing the Seeker away from harassing a few of the airborne Air Force pilots near Edwards Air Force Base. Exchanging pilots for two ground-trapped Autobots, the Seeker was now strafing the road every time he flew against the flow of the Autobots' travel. Which in turn was riling up the Americans enough to send an Air Force squadron to at least distract the Seeker long enough to give an Autobot a chance to respond to the aerial threat.

In other words, DC was a very messy war zone.

It didn't help either that Thundercracker and Skywarp, whose arrivals had been confirmed a while ago by a NEST team, were nowhere in sight.

-Bumblebee to Ironhide- the scout buzzed with the humans' Morse code system. Had he been under less pressure, he would have sent more song fragments, as his vocal cords had gotten slagged again when combating Skywarp.

-Ironhide here. What is it?- Ironhide sent back as he managed to keep with Prime, mile for mile. He was thankful that for once Major Lennox wasn't with him; the man's fragile metabolism would not have been able to handle the speeds and sharp turns that Ironhide was pulling.

-Starscream has cut off his attacks. He's going in as backup for another Decepticon who is going to try and go after Prime. Our friend and I are coming to join you- Bumblebee clicked back. So the little scout hadn't gotten the newcomer's designation yet. No time to fuss over that now; if Prime was in danger, then that had to be dealt with first.

All right. Since you can now, regroup with us as fast as possible Ironhide ordered through the link before signing off. Bumblebee, he knew, would be downloading a map of DC and locating Prime's signature on it before taking the shortest route possible to the three of them. Prime, Bumblebee is rejoining us with reinforcements Ironhide sent to his leader, receiving a single click of acknowledgment in response. Prime already had to split his attention between the dodging and panicking civilians and getting to their destination in one piece while avoiding a riled Seeker. In other words, Ironhide knew that a click was the best response he was going to get.

His attention was briefly diverted when he saw a civilian police van – a K9 unit by the looks of it, was coming towards them and was effortlessly weaving in and out of fleeing traffic. Sirens wailed as it headed towards them, no doubt the first of many responders to calls for aid from the public in the devastated parts of the capital city. Ironhide only became worried when he saw an all-too familiar F-22 Lockheed Martin Raptor jet behind the K9 unit, guns blazing. Behind Starscream Ironhide could see the outlines of the F-22's relentless pursuers. The scene momentarily reminded Ironhide of the one time he saw Major Lennox Epps taking out a hornet's nest by the side of Lennox's house in fear that the stinging insects would eventually hurt Annabelle. The episode finished fifteen minutes of inventive and colorful cursing and hundreds of stings later when the nest was disposed of in the nearby creek. The pursuing F-22s were just a cloud of angry hornets, and probably resembled as such to Starscream.

Dangerous, but easily removable.

-Prime, that van has got to be the Decepticon that Bumblebee said that Starscream was covering for. I'll take it out- Ironhide assured his leader, again receiving the single click in acknowledgement. Ironhide readied to transform and take the van out with his massive laser cannons the moment the two vehicles were parallel with each other.

-May I interject an opinion Ironhide? I do not think that van is a Decepticon- Ratchet cut in to Ironhide. -I do not recognize this van's electronic signature; it may just be a civilian vehicle-

-What, you keep track of all Decepticons now?- Ironhide demanded.

-Well, no, but it doesn't seem like a Decepticon…- Ratchet snapped back, his sentence cut off as the wailing K9 unit slipped around Prime and past Ironhide, snatching the weapon specialist's opportunity to turn it to slag. Ironhide was about to continue arguing with Ratchet when there was a sickening CRASH!

Ironhide slammed on his brakes mere seconds before either Ratchet or Optimus; somehow the three Autobots managed to avoid colliding into each other. Ratchet barely avoided the shower of metal bits and glass that had sprayed from the unexpected contact. Turning his attention back to the small intersection, he let out a wordless roar of anger at the sight.

Bumblebee had used the small road as a shortcut to the main one. Somehow, the K9 unit had been right there when Bumblebee, rushing to aid his friends and therefore not paying attention, came out and more or less T-boned the K9 unit. What astounded Ironhide was that Bumblebee sustained more damage to his entire front while the van received an innocent looking dent in its side. As far as Ironhide knew, ordinary human vehicles could not significantly damage either Autobots or Decepticons. So this had to be a Transformer in order to deal out that much damage to poor Bumblebee while sustaining very little damage to itself.

"Whoa," Ari said, standing nearby on the sidewalk while Bumblebee groaned over the link. She and Alexis had wandered away from their café, and were standing on the street corner. "What the hell?" she asked, her words momentarily distracting Ironhide from thinking about mauling the van.

Just as well. The van, having decided that it was still intact enough to continue running, reactivated its sirens and began to charge once more, aiming for a certain street corner. Ari's eyes widened significantly and she swore viciously, turning on her heel and taking off back the way she and Alexis had come, her friend close behind her.

Ironhide could still hear the two female pilots bickering as the van began swift pursuit.

"Goddamnit, what do the cops have against me in general?" Ari wailed as she increased her speed.

"I don't know, maybe it's because you're forever finding ways to not only occasionally break the law, but tick off Stanton! Just 'cause she's a colonel doesn't mean she doesn't have her contacts anymore!" Alexis shouted back, their voices fading from Ironhide's auditory sensors as his optics latched on the side of the nameless Decepticon.

The number read 634.

Ironhide growled, a red haze settling in over his vision as Ratchet continued fussing over Bumblebee while Optimus took advantage of the fact that Starscream had disappeared from sight, his F-22 'entourage' gone in pursuit of him. The Autobot leader was using his hologram to examine Bumblebee since he could not detach the trailer enough so that he could transform. Worse, a crowd was already gathering at the scene on the account that there'd been an accident and humans seemed to have a morbid fascination of such scenes, and two, Ratchet had exposed himself, deciding that helping a teammate was more important that maintaining military secrets.

So the wily Barricade had an accomplice? Definitely a brother, although Ironhide couldn't see the lone hunter pulling off a double act with another Decepticon because it simply wasn't Barricade's style. Barricade might be changing his tactics however just to throw the Autobots for a loop, and Ironhide realized something that could change the war in the Decepticons' favor a bit

Ironhide growled as Bumblebee whimpered in pain, Ratchet now in his original form to see the Autobot scout better. Sam and Carly, arriving after having made their own escape from a crazed and overeager-to-prove-himself Skywarp, rushed over to where Bumblebee sat trapped in his auto form, unable to transform because of the damage dealt to his sensors and gears in the front of his alt form. A slight, nervous whimper could be heard over the team link as other Autobots, hearing the commotion over the radio, began speeding toward them to investigate. Not only that, but human cops were arriving back on the scene also

All Decepticons had conspicuously vanished from sight.

Ironhide growled as he too transformed to help Ratchet get Bumblebee ready to travel back to base via a flatbed trailer courtesy of a grateful United States President. That didn't stop his processer from roiling in anger and plotting his next move.

Barricade was going to pay for this.

Meanwhile, said Decepticon had taken up refuge in a quiet town in central Massachusetts. The most exciting thing going on at the moment was the neighbor's dog barking like crazy in the house up the street. The cruiser itself was on the road shoulder, a fast-moving creek next to him. Barricade's hologram was busy at the moment, helping his 'partner' recover from the last firefight that had Barricade tangling with Skids and Mudflap on their way to rejoin their comrades in the south, having gotten sidetracked and eventually lost along the way.

Barricade won. After Mudflap took himself out of the fight by yelling at Skids too much, it was easy to dispatch the second twin. Barricade then retreated, leaving the pair of twins groaning and moaning on the ground. He could have killed them yes, but it wasn't worth his time

To her credit, Jenna Peyton said nothing as Barricade ripped the next metal bit off of her arm, where it had been glued there purely by accident during the earlier firefight. She only paled a bit more at the sight of her vividly red arm. Then Barricade, without warning her just as she asked, reached over and pulled out a piece of shrapnel, eliciting a few soft curses from the other woman. At least Jenna wasn't one of those humans queasy at the sight of her own blood. She said nothing as she submitted to the offered bandage and began to slowly wrap it around her forearm after refusing Barricade's help.

She was proving to be less of a handful that Barricade initially assumed she'd be. Even though he did coerce her into this 'partnership', she had failed to take the multiple presented opportunities to sell him out. It didn't hurt that she had intimate knowledge of the government, still maintained old contacts within the government, and somehow managed to maintain her common sense, something most human adults seemed to have lost by their old age.

She gritted her teeth as her antiseptic stung her skin, but didn't say anything as she carefully wrapped the bandage around the gash gingerly but tightly. "Are we to expect anymore Autobots or Decepticons today?" she finally asked, keeping her head bowed over her work. Barricade took one end of the bandage after watching her struggle with it for a while.

"No, there was something in DC that occupied them yesterday, and even into today," he replied, keeping a close monitor of the ex-CIA agent's bio signs. Certain words seemed to trigger memories of her old life, and then she would be spending the next couple days brooding over her decisions to figuratively join Barricade on the road.

No reaction. She shrugged and said, "I'm sure that between all the military generals and guys in the Pentagon, they can handle it. No wonder I saw DC turning into war zone on the news this morning." She began to slowly tie the bandage at the end as she looked up, her eyes darting around the area. The way she usually behaved when she sensed that someone near was either following or hunting them down. Barricade listened as well, but heard nothing.

"You're overreacting," he said mildly as he finished her neglected work.

She scowled, turning back to glare at him. "I am not overreacting, how the hell do you think I was able to evade you at the Museum of Science in Boston when you were chasing me that day?" she snapped.

Barricade snorted at the memory. "And you ran straight into Sideways outside. Your expression, as the humans say, was priceless," he said as gave the bandage a hard yank, making the wraps extra snug.

"What, trying to cut off my circulation now?" Jenna said, all acid gone from her voice again as she offered an innocent eyebrow-raise.

"Now what would I stand to gain from that?" he asked in a low voice, his head lowered so that it was close to her ear. She turned her head slightly to face him, to make eye contact with him, and opened her mouth to respond.

Crash!

The two of them ripped themselves away from each other as an all-too familiar black GMC Topkick began to transform. Dirt from his crazed collision with an innocent homeowner's flower garden on the front lawn fell off the armored plating. Jenna didn't say anything, just took one look at Ironhide's infuriated expression with his glowing and charging cannons, and then wisely retreated over the little creek and disappearing altogether in the woods. Barricade meanwhile used this little opportunity to transform and meet the enraged weapons specialist head on.

Mistake.

Something had been festering underneath the Autobot's armor for a while, and it took a heavy-handed swing to Barricade's midsection for the Decepticon hunter to realize that he wasn't just fighting a peace-loving Autobot right now; he had a severely pissed off weapons specialist on his servos. There was also no Prime or NEST to hold Ironhide in check from completely annihilating Barricade right then and there.

BAM! BAM!

Barricade narrowly missed the first cannon blast, and was forced to gain a little altitude almost seconds later to avoid the second. Dirt, little trees, and plants sprayed into the air, chunks of concrete joining the mix a few moments later as Barricade was unceremoniously thrown to the road. He managed to scrabble back to his feet before Ironhide more or less pinned him down to the road, and scored his first hit on the Autobot's back. Pulling the tiger's tail, Jenna called the attack whenever Barricade performed something similar to it. He never understood what the phrase meant, what tigers had to do with attacking Autobots or other Transformers for that matter. She'd tried to explain it to him once, that his strikes only served to anger an already riled up opponent.

Now, as Ironhide snarled as he picked himself up from the ground, Barricade was beginning to understand the human phrase. He heard several beeps over his communicator, Jenna's signals that she was prepared to meet up with him at a different location if necessary. But as Barricade tried to transform while diving forward for the way out, Ironhide managed to swing around and smash his fist into Barricade's front. The attack completely threw the Decepticon off and into the homeowner's already partially destroyed flower garden. This time around, a shower of petunias, pansies, daffodils and daisies accompanied the flying soil. Slightly disoriented, Barricade managed to drag himself backwards far enough to avoid Ironhide's next cannon blast, which created a crater in the middle of the lawn. As Barricade regained his balance and began his counter-attacks, he wondered what he had possibly done this time around to warrant the weapons specialist's personal attention. Okay, Mission City had been bad, but Barricade already received retribution for that one a few months later in California. Then there was the whole pinning blame on the Aliskevicz brat in DC after Stanton's ambitious operation to remove the remnants of Sector Seven revivalists, but Barricade figured the humans' karma got him back when he realized that Frenzy had been taken from him without noticing. As far as he could remember, encounters wit the Autobots were limited to the accidental crossing of their paths, but other than that Barricade was trying to stay below NEST's radar. Maybe this was for the destruction in New York City, he had –

His musings were cut short as Ironhide broke through his defenses and finally slammed him down on the pavement, chunks of concrete flying up into the air at the impact. "All… right… Autobot, what is… it this time?" Barricade growled, his optics focusing on Ironhide. He was pleased to note that he at least got in some visible cuts and dents on the black-armored weapons specialist.

"Where… is… your… brother?" Ironhide growled out in a low and scary voice.

It took a few moments for the words to register in Barricade's processor. Brother?

Ironhide interpreted Barricade's silence as a refusal to speak, and didn't hesitate to crush one of Barricade's arms. The Decepticon hunter grimaced at the pain but didn't verbally react. He did stop struggling with Ironhide however as he replayed the memory of Ironhide's question, just to make sure he didn't misunderstand the weapons specialist's words.

-Tell him Philadelphia- Jenna muttered over his private and encrypted link with her.

"Where is your brother?" Ironhide thundered after the silence became too much for him to bear. "Don't think about lying to me, you filthy Decepticon. I know about your little tag-team secret, and if it turns out you're lying, I will mangle you beyond repair when I catch you again," Ironhide growled, increasing the pressure on Barricade.

"Umph… he's… my brother is in Philadelphia," Barricade growled out, glad that he didn't have to fake the pain in his voice. If anything, it made the lie more believable. Barricade half-expected Ironhide to turn him into a metallic pulp anyway, just to discourage him from warning his 'brother' of the oncoming danger. To his great surprise however, Ironhide abruptly abandoned him lying there in the street, transforming back into his Topkick form and tearing down the way he'd came, disappearing around the corner.

"Talk about bizarre," Jenna said, stepping out of her hiding place in the foliage. She looked Barricade's partially wrecked form over and said, "If you weren't in such pain and in this condition, I'd say 'I told you so' and gloat about it later afterward."

"You should do it now, while I still cannot hurt you," Barricade snarled as she cautiously approached the injured Decepticon, taking care of the jagged cracks and holes in the street as well as the splatters of pink energon. She knew firsthand the effects of the energon on human skin; the wide, jagged scar on her upper arm was a silent testament to the fact. Her cheek was sporting a new cut, from the flying concrete and her 'borrowed' police uniform was smudged with soil and dust. A dark purple and lighter violet pansy was still lodged in her ponytail, going unnoticed as she finally approached him and placed her hands on her hips, assessing the damage.

"Fine. 'I told you so'. Now, we can either do that thing again where you tell me what to do, or we can limp back to Eddie's and this time take over the entire car repair shop," she said, squinting as she studied some of the finer cracks in the armor. "You know how much Eddie loves having you around…"

Barricade groaned at the memory of the completely insane chief mechanic. Once Eddie had found out about Barricade, he'd spent the next few days pleading with Barricade to stay on as security while withholding mechanics in an effort to ensure approval. It wasn't until that Barricade threatened to leave a smoking crater in the shop's place did Eddie finally relent and give him mechanics to work with, mechanics that had been sworn to secrecy about Barricade's identity since they had to follow his instructions.

"We'll stay here and you'll fix me up," he snapped. "I don't think I can stand Eddie right now."

"Aw, the big bad Decepticon is afraid of a harmless car mechanic," Jenna muttered softly but Barricade let it slide. He needed her cooperation on this. "So, I didn't know you had a brother. What's his designation?"

"How should I know? I didn't know I even had a brother up until now," Barricade grumbled as Jenna pulled out a pair of gloves to get to work. "Now do exactly as I say or Primus so help me there won't be even be molecules of you for the humans to identify."

"Fine Mr. Grouchy," Jenna muttered under her breath as she braced herself for the first set of orders.

The 'brother' meanwhile was recovering also.

"What the hell was that back there, in the streets?"

Breaker threw his hands up in self-defense as he turned in his chair to glare at Clutch, his dark eyes flashing dangerously. "Hey, I'm good at cracking into other people's computers, not being a homicidal driver with a K9 unit through the middle of DC as it's freaking out!" the Moroccan complained as Scarlett leaned over the monitor nearby, watching as the video of the K9 unit crashing into the yellow and black Camaro played over and over again on the news. The video and incident were a few days old, but the media was still having a field day with the tapes. In the meantime, the team was forced to hole up in their three-star DC motel, waiting for the news to blow over. The only good news out of the entire fiasco had been that their target was still on the loose.

"That ain't no excuse for bad driving," Clutch intoned in a condescending tone to Breaker's response to his original question. "Click it or ticket man."

Breaker glared at the tank driver. "I was wearing my seatbelt, Mr. Smarty-pants. I had every right to speed there, it's not every day that a F-22 pilot goes off his rocker and strafes the city streets. On top of that, I had the sirens going!" he snapped as Clutch shook his head dismally.

"The Tomahawk is still gonna give you a hard time about that one. Wrecking a civvy car and losing the Aliskevicz brat in the chaos…" Clutch said, shaking his head. "Remind me, how did you get on the team again?"

"Hey! Don't you dare start that on me! In my defense, it should be the stupid Camaro driver who should be shaking in his boots; I had the right of way and he had a frigging stop sign!" Breaker half-shouted, standing up from the little motel desk with his fists at his side. Clutch actually flinched; while Breaker was more than capable of doing harm, like everyone on the team, Breaker rarely used physical violence, preferring the AK-47 to do the talking for him. But Clutch didn't want to be Breaker's first physical-attack victim, so he bravely swallowed his fear and stood up to match, no, tower over, Breaker's height. Breaker narrowed his eyes, but didn't stand down.

"Yeah, but you do get your occasional stupid driver who runs stop signs. Takes one to know one, eh?" Clutch said, prodding his teammate further. Breaker growled and finally began to approach the tank driver menacingly. Clutch happily accepted the challenge and began to charge down the hacker, but that was when both combatants abruptly fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Thanks Snake, I couldn't hear Duke at all with their yelling," Heavy Duty said, eyeing the ninja as Snake Eyes retreated from the two fighters, his work with Breaker's and Clutch's pressure points finished. The black-masked ninja nodded once in acknowledgement before sitting down and snapping his fingers at Scarlett, reminding her that she still had a fractured arm that needed looking at.

"Two injuries sir. One was Ripcord, the other injury, which was from the accident was Scarlett's arm; she was on the side of the K9 unit that received the impact. Thankfully the doubly-reinforced armor was enough to prevent the entire side of the van from being ripped through," Heavy Duty finished, his head still buzzing from Clutch and Breaker's argument.

"You guys are lucky; Colonel Stanton was too distracted with the rogue F-22 to ask Hawk about how the chase for Aliskevicz was going. Hawk is still trying to figure out why she wants us to hunt down one of her own pilots, but so far she's still clammed up about it,"Duke said through the speakerphone on the dusty telephone on the nightstand. "We also have orders not to interfere with the military as they bring the DC situation under control; orders from the Secretary of Defense himself."

"Acknowledged," Heavy Duty replied as he changed the monitor screen for Scarlett since she was more or less immobilized by Lifeline as he attached a splint to her damaged arm with white bandage. Once that was done, the medic fluttered over to the other injured patient

"Out of curiosity, if she did, how did Aliskevicz escape?"

"For starters, she had a friend. The pair, once realizing that we were after them, took off and headed down the street before going through an alleyway that opened up into private backyards. Apparently Aliskevicz has quite the imagination; instead of using traditional weapons to slow us down, she used ceramic flowerpots as weapons; some were full with plants, others were empty. Snake Eyes and Ripcord were in pursuit, but while Snake obviously used his mystical ninja skills to dodge, Ripcord wasn't so lucky. Lifeline says that Rip should be fine, it's just that he was knocked out clean into next week with a concussion," Heavy Duty said, glancing at the resident medic who was still monitoring Ripcord as the latter remained still on the room's sole bed.

Duke sighed. "Very well. Contact me if there are any new developments. Duke out," he said before hanging up.

Heavy Duty sighed as he leaned back in his chair. Now that Aliskevicz had proven to be almost as slippery as Cobra, he was beginning to realize a possible reason as to why Stanton asked them to hunt her down rather than do it herself.

Oh well, time to get back to work.

A/N: Nanoe and I were talking on deviantArt about the released video of a Metropolitan K9 Unit SUV crashing into Bumblebee on the Transformers 3 set in Washington DC, and this is the result of that discussion. Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the set collision, and the K9 unit wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. It is a spin-off of the Air Force One continuity. Plus, right now, fanfiction is therapeutic since my NaNoWriMo novel is on the verge of making my mind snap in half; I have accidentally engaged in a flat out race with a group of writers who have ignored the 'no partners' rule.

And as ever, Transformers and G.I. Joe aren't mine. All related media from both belong to Hasbro.