()
His engine screaming as he tore through down the street, Barricade made a mental note to personally tell Starscream how utterly useless his plans were. The Decepticon could hear his compatriot struggling to keep up, but as far as Barricade was concerned, the younger Decepticon could crash and rot for all he cared. If it hadn't been for Thrash's inexperience and overzealous behavior, they would be taking that wretched human woman as their captive. Starscream believed that the human woman could be used for the Decepticon cause. All she had proven to be useful for was getting the attention of an old, cantankerous Autobot.
…of course, that in itself could be useful as well.
Thrash was keeping up with Barricade, but barely. He had been hit a bit harder and wasn't able to use as much power as he normally could to keep pace with Barricade's breakneck speed.
As the thought of being able to capture Sophie and possibly kill an Autobot or two in the fray snaked its way through Barricade's processor, it cooled his fury, and he slowed down, allowing Thrash to catch up. The younger Decepticon wisely stayed quiet, but Barricade could tell that Thrash was grateful for the slower pace. Barricade wondered how closely Sophie was being watched now. Would the Decepticons still have the opportunity to capture her?
"Sir, won't Starscream be upset that we don't have Sophie as our hostage?" Thrash finally inquired over the comm-link.
"Most likely," Barricade snapped angrily. "Which is why you will be delivering Starscream the news of the failure to capture the human woman."
Thrash fell silent, but Barricade could practically sense the Decepticon's apprehension. It didn't matter, really. If Starscream was foolish enough to berate them for walking blindly into battle, then Barricade would have some choice words to say to Starscream.
The rendezvous point was an old, abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the town and was about fifteen minutes away at the speed they were goin. Starscream would most likely already be there, having the benefit of flight to cover far more ground than Barricade or Thrash could. Barricade couldn't care less if Starscream waited for fifteen more minutes or fifteen more decades. The flying fool had put the Decepticon cause at risk. The least he could do was learn some patience.
As they neared the warehouse, Thrash slowed down considerably, his engine going from a loud roar to a dull thrum. Barricade smiled sadistically to himself. Both of them knew how well Starscream was going to take their failure, and as headstrong a Thrash may have been, he wasn't stupid.
Sure enough, Starscream was waiting in the warehouse, already impatiently pacing back and forth. When he saw the other two Decepticons drive into the giant, empty metal building, he stopped, optics narrowed and watching them closely.
"Well?" he snapped, his instantly recognizable voice echoing through the warehouse.
To Barricade's surprise, Thrash transformed and spoke up first, though he fought to keep his voice steady.
"Sir, the human female was under the, uh, guardianship, of an Autobot. She managed to escape."
"'Escape?'" Starscream spat angrily. "The two of you couldn't handle one miserable Autobot and a puny human?"
"That 'miserable Autobot,' as you so eloquently put it," Barricade snarled, transforming and taking a couple steps towards Starscream, "was that trigger-happy, gun-wielding maniac Ironhide. You could have warned us that we would be going against the weapons specialist of the Autobots!"
"The both of you couldn't handle some ancient Autobot with a couple of guns?" Starscream hissed.
"Then perhaps next time you should be the one to take a plasma cannon blast straight to the face," Barricade snapped. "It might knock some sense into your core processor!"
"How dare you speak to me in such a manner! I am the leader of the Decepticons! I give the orders, not you!"
Thrash wisely remained silent, watching the two bicker back and forth. While Starscream technically was the leader of the Decepticons in Megatron's absence, Thrash couldn't say that he was really impressed with Starscream's leadership skills. And as unstable and destruction hungry as Barricade was, Thrash began to silently miss Megatron. At least he was able to keep the other Decepticons in check, whether by orders or brute force.
"Then you should be leading by example and prove to us just how easy it is to capture a human under the protection of a weapons specialist!"
"I shouldn't have to set an example for something so simple!"
Staying quiet, Thrash moved off to a corner of the warehouse, watching the two argue. This could take a while.
()
Sam paced back and forth slowly, waiting for Optimus Prime's debriefing of the Autobots to be over. He needed to get back to his dorm room. He could only imagine the sort of fury that Mikaela had in store for him now. She was supposed to bring him the AllSpark, or rather, what was left of it, but this was after he'd had to ignore phone calls and stood her up on their first internet date. At this rate he'd be lucky if she didn't hurl the remnants of the AllSpark straight at his head.
Off to the right, Sophie was sitting on a table, her back propped up against some boxes. After losing an argument as to why she couldn't order pizza to a top-secret military base, she had gotten quieter. Sam wasn't sure if this was her version of a 'spaz attack' or if that was still in the works. She had bundled up in a jacket supplied by one of the soldiers and was slowly trying to twirl a pen between her fingers.
Sighing and combing his hair back absent-mindedly, Sam glanced over at Bumblebee, who was listening intently to the Autobot leader. While Sam could appreciate the concern that the Autobots had for the destruction that two Decepticons had caused, he really wished that they could send out a memo or something. At least in this instance.
"Trust me, if Mikaela doesn't understand, at least a little, as to why you're late, you really need to find a new girlfriend."
Sam looked over at Sophie and sighed. Mikaela and Sophie had never seen eye-to-eye, but Sophie had usually been the instigator of any fights. While Mikaela seemed to be happy enough to leave Sophie alone, Sophie seemed to have an outright vendetta against Sam's girlfriend. One of these days, Sam was going to have to have Sophie explain her grudge.
"Look, I've stood her up, asked her to fly halfway across the country, and after all the insanity I put her through when the Autobots first arrived, I think Mikaela has a bit of a right to be upset."
Pausing, Sophie chewed on her lip ring before rolling her eyes.
"Fine…I guess so. Still, if you're out saving the world, you should really have an understanding girlfriend."
"I'm pretty sure she's gone way beyond the realm of understanding to blind faith."
"So does that make Mikaela and me your personal lemmings or something? We're just blindly following you around?"
"I'm not exactly keen on calling my girlfriend a lemming."
"And as for me?"
"I'm smart enough to not call you a lemming."
"Yep. You're smart."
"You know, it's no wonder that you and Ironhide get along so well," Sam replied, sounding slightly exasperated.
"Excuse me?" Sophie asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, both of you think that violence is the answer."
"I do not!" Sophie protested. She paused, thought about the statement, then cleared her throat. "Well…at least…not most of the time, anyways. Besides, what do you mean that he and I 'get along?' You make it sound like we're high school buddies or something. In case you've forgotten, he's a giant alien robot with enough weaponry to level a third-world, probably even second-world, country, and I'm guessing about as old as Methuselah."
"In the interest of keeping you alive, I'll refrain from letting Ironhide know about those comments. But seriously, if you're going to make friends with the Autobots, you might as well befriend the trigger-happy one."
"Is that supposed to be some sort of comment on my attitude?" Sophie grumbled.
Sam looked to be gearing up another comeback, but his cellphone began to ring. Sophie mumbled something about being saved by the bell as he answered the phone call.
"Hello?"
"Sam?"
"Hi, Mikaela," Sam said a bit loudly, giving Sophie a narrow look.
"Hello, ball and chain!" Sophie yelled in a chipper tone.
"Was that Sophie?" Mikaela asked.
"Sophie? No, no…that's…that's some angry…woman…she's probably drunk, too."
"Drunk, huh?" Sophie asked quietly, the sound of being challenged already rising in her voice. She cleared her throat loud enough to get Sam's attention, and then smiled widely. The smile only became more genuine when she saw the look of panic spread on Sam's face.
"No-" Sam managed to plead before Sophie cut him off.
"Sammy-wammy!" Sophie shrieked, hugging Sam roughly and practically pressing her face against the cell phone. "Where've you been, bay-bee..?"
Fighting to pry Sophie away, Sam also struggled to keep the phone pressed tightly to his ear. One so that he could still hear Mikaela, and then two so that he could maybe drown out some of the obnoxiously off-key humming that Sophie was subjecting him to.
"It's Sophie, isn't it?" Mikaela repeated for the third time, already sounding irritated.
"Well, yes, but Sophie was just leaving, wasn't she?" Sam said, giving Sophie a pointed look and pained grin.
"Go? Going where?" Sophie slurred back, blinking at Sam with wide, doe-like eyes.
"Anywhere but here!" Sam hissed, holding the phone away.
"Are you busy, Sam?" Mikaela asked, again having to repeat herself.
"No! Not at all! Sophie's just...uh...being Sophie."
"But Sammy-wammy...I wuv you," Sophie protested, drawling out the last word.
"I will sic my robot friend on you," Sam threatened. He quickly turned his attention back to the phone. "Mikaela, just...one moment, please. I'm dealing with my soon to be ex-friend if she doesn't stop acting like some drunken prom date."
"Somebody's a crankypants," Sophie grumbled. She leaned forward and yelled at the phone. "Hi, Mikaela! How's, um, where ever you are?"
"Fine, save for the fact that a phone call with just one person seems to be a difficult thing to find," Mikaela answered tersely.
"Bumblebee!" Sam shouted quickly.
Looking over his shoulder, Bumblebee glanced between Sam and Sophie as Sam frantically pointed at Sophie, who was having more of a conversation with Mikaela than Sam was. Mouthing the words, "Get her out of here," Sam pointed at Sophie and then dramatically gestured away from him. Sighing inwardly, Bumblebee walked over and carefully picked up Sophie...and was instantly met with a high-pitched shriek. The noise echoed throughout the hangar, and Sophie, now in Bumblebee's palm, froze. Sam looked up at Sophie, who was now very quiet and appeared very sober, gave her one last glare, and quickly walked off, apologizing profusely to Mikaela.
Looking around at the few soldiers that were now staring at her, Sophie smiled weakly and waved.
"Sorry, um...first time being abducted by aliens is a bit...scary," she said meekly. Turning and looking up at Bumblebee, Sophie glared at the Autobot. "What the hell was that? You scared the bejeezus out of me!"
"'Two's company, but three's a crowd,'" Bumblebee replied, using a tidbit of a radio advertisement to answer.
"Look, when Sam finally meets the girl of his dreams and marries her, he'll thank me that I saved him from that Gorgon that he's currently dating."
Bumblebee made a slightly annoyed chirp and lightly shoved Sophie with his index finger. Sophie crossed her arms and turned up her nose, chuffing angrily.
"You know I'm right," she snapped.
Meanwhile, Sam was still apologizing to Mikaela as she explained flight delays.
"So you're flight's delayed by three hours? Are you sure the shard's okay? And I'm really sorry about Sophie, she's, uh, she's-"
"She's Sophie. Sam, I remember her from high school. She was the one who was always smoking out by the track, getting in fights with the football team, and somehow managing to pass all her classes with straight As. Nobody really got along with her except you and a few other people. And yes, the shard's fine. I haven't let it out of my sight."
"You're sure? I mean, I trust you, but it'd be really bad if we lost that thing. Really, really bad."
"I know, and yes, I'm sure."
"Okay...thanks."
"How are you doing?" Mikaela asked, her tone softening.
"Me? I'm fine. Why? Why do you ask?"
"Because I can't imagine that between dealing with this and then having Sophie constantly harassing you is doing you any good."
"Oh! No, no. I'm fine," Sam replied quickly, standing up a bit straighter and trying to make his voice sound a little gruffer. "This, bah, this is nothing. I could deal with this all day."
"I'm still being abducted by aliens and nobody seems to care!" Sophie yelled from her perch in Bumblebee's hand. "Hey! Ironsides! You're supposed to have my back, right?"
"For the final time, it's 'Ironhide!'"
Sophie bit her lip ring, looking a bit flustered. She looked up at Bumblebee and leaned towards him.
"He's all mad now, isn't he?" she asked, whispering conspiratorially.
Bumblebee nodded slowly.
Sam looked at both Bumblebee and Sophie, then sighed and turned his attention back to the phone.
"But, you know, if you wanted to get here early, that would still be totally cool," he said to Mikaela, trying to mask the pleading tone in his voice.
"That bad, huh?" Mikaela laughed.
"You have no idea. If she's not doubting the fact that the Autobots are here to keep Earth from becoming the Decepticons' personal shooting gallery, Sophie can't seem to get Ironhide's name right. ...and to say that it's pissing Ironhide off would be the understatement of the year."
"She can't get his name right?"
"Yeah, it's like she's got name Alzheimer's or something when it comes to Ironhide," Sam replied, ignoring the face that Sophie was making at him.
"How hard is it to get Ironhide's name right?" Mikaela asked slowly. "I mean, it's just two words..."
"Yeah, I don't know, but she seems to have been able to make every other combination of words that sounds somewhat like his name.
"How can somebody who passed almost all our high school classes with minimal effort have such a problem with a name?"
"If you figure that one out, let me know, because I think Ironhide is on the verge of stomping on her."
"Well, I'll think about it while I'm looking for some place halfway decent to eat in this airport. So I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay, sure. And, um, Mikaela?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful."
"Always," Mikaela laughed.