A/N: Sorry for the long wait - I have no good excuses

A/N: Sorry for the long wait - I have no good excuses.

Chapter Thirty-five: Tiptoe Trouble

"What do you mean by breaking a few promises?" Arcee questioned Rocket.

"I mean - you two help me sneak into Cobra's base so that I can look for Bumblebee," Rocket smiled innocently back at the femme.

"No," Arcee replied firmly.

"But you haven't even heard my reasons why yet!" Whined Rocket like a little child.

"I don't need to hear them, I know that you were given explicit orders from your commanding officer to not get involved in the mission," Arcee gave a smug smile.

"You don't know what will happen in there like I do," Rocket said, "the ninja team will come across Stormshadow - start fighting and then retreat back to base! But - if I sneak into the base as well, I won't get caught up in that battle and will be free to look around for Bumblebee," Rocket looked hopefully at the Autobot.

"How can you be so sure that they will battle Stormshadow?" Asked Arcee.

"Because that is one of life's certainties," replied Rocket.

"Sensei, are you sure this is the right way to the hanger?" Asked Kamakura as they wandered down a long, dark corridor after having sneaked in through an air-vent.

"Of course Sensei is sure!" Snapped back Jinx.

"I was just asking, no need to bite off my head," replied Kamakura.

Snake-eyes ignored his two students bickering and continued walking ahead until a shuriken materialised by his feet.

Looking up, he almost groaned… did Stormshadow have a tracking device on him or something? The way he kept showing up was getting beyond ninja creepy.

"So brother," gloated Stormshadow, "I see you have come to finish our battle!"

"Sensei will defeat you!" Yelled Jinx.

"Yeah! You're no match for him!" Kamakura added.

Snake-eyes gave a sigh before drawing one of his katana and readied himself for Stormshadow's attack.

"Right about now, Stormshadow will be muttering something about how Snake-eyes betrayed the Arashikage Clan, while Jinx and Kamakura will be yelling back about how he is wrong and that Sensei would never betray anyone," Rocket was staring at the time on her sigma gauntlet, "after that the two of them will start attacking each other."

"So if you are right about this and we do sneak you into the base, what about when the ninja's retreat and you are not here?" Asked Mirage.

"I'm glad you've asked me that Mirage, as you will be staying here - helping me," replied Rocket.

"Why Mirage?" Asked Arcee.

"Well, Snake-eyes has his ninja bike to get away on, Jinx and Kamakura can both ride you - but Mirage can turn invisible and wait out here for me without anyone knowing. That way all the bad guys will assume that all the good guys have left and won't bother searching their base for me," Explained Rocket.

"I'm not sure about this idea," Arcee said.

"Come on," said Mirage, "if it is for Bumblebee - then I'm in."

"If you two are so set on this idea, then I don't see anyway for me to talk you out of it," Arcee shrugged in defeat.

"Great, tell the others we'll meet them back at the Sea Titan later Arcee," Rocket said as she jumped into Mirage and the two of them disappeared into thin air.

"Sure - leave me to do the explaining," growled Arcee.

Snake-eyes deflected a blow from Stormshadow and risked a glance at his students to see how they were fending against all the ninja B.A.T.S that Stormshadow had called up to fight them.

They were doing okay, but he could see that the two of them were beginning to get tired as each B.A.T they took down - two more would take its place.

Stormshadow gave a snort of disgust when he saw his opponent distracted, "I want to fight you with your full concentration, if you can't do that then run away to protect your pathetic students like a coward!"

Even though he knew Stormshadow was taunting him, Snake-eyes didn't say no to the offer and ran off to call a retreat with his students. They'll just have to search for the Autobot some other time.

"Are you sure about this?" Asked Mirage.

"Of course I'm sure!" Replied Rocket, "when I stayed here - I made sure I knew this place like the back of my hand, and this is the closes air-vent to the hanger for me to enter the base with."

"Fine, must I wait here for you when you come back?" Mirage looked at the tiny human on his hand busy unscrewing the cover of the air-vent in question.

"No, just wait around the hanger entrance till you see me," Rocket replied as she finally removed the cover and placed it onto Mirages hand.

"I'll see you later then," Mirage said as she disappeared into the dark opening.

The ninja team arrived at the location where they had left the Autobots and Rocket. They didn't see Mirage and assumed he was playing around with Rocket.

"Did you find Bumblebee?" Asked Arcee anxiously.

"Didn't get a chance, sorry," replied Jinx.

"We ran into Stormshadow," explained Kamakura.

"You're joking right, about the Stormshadow part?" Arcee asked quietly.

"Nope," said Kamakura, "now Mirage, look visible please so I can get in and we can all go.

Nothing happened.

"He isn't here," Arcee said.

"So, where is he then?" Asked Jinx.

"Um… went off with Rocket to help her sneak into the base because Rocket said you would get caught up fighting Stormshadow," Arcee said this rather fast as if she was trying to get it over and done with as quickly as possible.

"What?" Screeched Jinx, "she was ordered to stay with the car!"

"Hey," interrupted Kamakura, "if you look at it in a certain angle - she has stayed with the car!"

Both Snake-eyes and Jinx hit him on the head.

"Don't be stupid," snapped Jinx, "how are you going to get back to base?"

"On me," replied Arcee, "I can carry two humans you know."

Jinx rolled her eyes, "oh great!"

Rocket crawled along the air-vent, getting dust on her sigma suit. She knew that if she stuck to the air-vents and didn't wander around the corridors, she had a much better chance of not being discovered by the enemy.

Didn't mean she had to like it though, and the fans posed a problem - causing her to take detours that was making her route to the hanger longer than it should be.

Pausing to take a breather at a fork in the tunnels, she felt something poke her back.

Rocket jumped and managed to stop herself from giving off a scream. Heart pounding she slowly turned around to see what was in the air-vent with her… and saw….

"Frenzy?"

"Hey! Who are you calling Frenzy! I'm Rumble!" The cassette spat back at her angrily.

"Sorry," Rocket felt a bit bewildered but saw now that if she looked closely she could see this Frenzy clone had blue markings, "you just startled me for a moment."

'Rumble… why did that name sound familiar?' Wondered Rocket to herself before the realisation hit her, "you're Rumble! The one Frenzy named the teddy bear after!"

"I just told you my name was Rumble! You deaf or something? Anyway - how do you know about that… that… thing named after me?" Rumble demanded.

"I… er… heard about it on the office grapevine," Rocket gave a fake laugh, knowing that she couldn't tell this Decepticon she was one of the enemy, and one who used to spy in this base, not to mention the one who bought the teddy bear. Rumble didn't sound too happy about it.

But what was Rumble doing on Earth? The only extra Decepticons she knew about were the recently decided to come back to life ones. Well, she was off-duty for quite awhile - maybe the others had forgotten to tell her that there were extra Decepticons on Earth now.

"Office grapevine?" Rumble asked her, confused.

"Oh that, just means rumours floating around the base," explained Rocket, wondering how she was going to get rid of the Cassette so she could carry on sneaking around, "anyway - what are you doing sneaking around the air-vents?"

"I could ask you the same question," replied Rumble suspiciously, "I haven't seen you around the base before."

"Well, I haven't seen you before either," Rocket replied evenly, "but if you really want to know - I'm training… as… um… I'm a spy… so… yeah… sneaking around is my job, so right now I'm doing my training!"

"Right," Rumble didn't look convinced but he accepted it anyway, "I'm bored, so I decided to explore the base."

Rocket sensed there was something extra he wanted to add, "and?" She prompted.

Rumble twitched a bit, he was reluctant to admit this bit to the human, but she could help him, "I'm lost!" He blurted out.

"What?" Rocket thought he was joking.

"It isn't funny - when we crash-landed here, my directional finder got broken and no one has had time to fix it yet!" Rumble gave a slight sniffle.

Rocket felt a bit bad for the tiny Decepticon, she couldn't just leave it wandering around forever and besides - now he wouldn't get suspicious about her heading off to the hanger.

"Then why did you wander around up here if you knew you could get lost?" Asked Rocket.

"Didn't you hear me before? I was bored!" Rumble explained.

"Okay, I assume you want to go back to the hanger right?" Asked Rocket.

Rumble nodded.

"Then I'll take you there then," said Rocket, this gave her free passage into the hanger - where hopefully the only two Decepticons that would recognise her (Barricade and Frenzy) won't be there.

Rocket headed off for the hanger with a happy Rumble following behind her.

"Its a pity you let them escape," growled Cobra Commander.

"I apologise my lord," Stormshadow bowed.

"I wonder why those stupid ninjas were here in the first place?" Destro wondered out aloud.

"Isn't it obvious - its because those Decepticons have that Autobot prisoner. I bet the other Autobots asked Sigma 6 to look around to see if their buddy was here," replied Firefly.

"At least they were chased off before they could get near the hanger, you did at least one good thing tonight Stormshadow," said Cobra Commander.

"Thank you," replied Stormshadow, ignoring Zartan mouthing 'suck-up' at him.

For some reason, since he found out Stormshadow had run over his sister, Zartan had been less than friendly towards his fellow colleague.

"Here we are," announced Rocket to Rumble.

"Thanks, do you want some energon?" Asked Rumble.

"No thanks, I um don't eat energon," replied Rocket.

"Oh," Rumble looked crestfallen, "I can scare some Troopers into getting you some human food then?"

"I'm not really hungry, thanks all the same," Rocket really didn't want to be served food by Troopers who would recognise her, "I'll just hang around the hanger if that is okay with you?"

"Feel free to hang around then," said Rumble and indicated a hole in the tunnel which he had cut through to get into the air-vent.

"You first," said Rocket, waving him ahead.

She watched Rumble disappear through the hole then wandered over to look through it to see if it was safe to jump down. She wasn't expecting Rumble's hand to grab her and pull her through.

Rocket landed quite painfully on top of Rumble and groaned.

"Sorry about that," Rumble muttered underneath her, "should of asked you first before pulling you through."

"Never mind," Rocket groaned and sat up to look around. There was a metallic cat looking at her.

"That's my older brother Ravage, just ignore him - he tends to be a bit of a stuck-up at times," Rumble said, pointing at the cat, who growled at Rumble's description of him.

Two metal birds and one metal bat fluttered around her head.

"Why is there a puny Earth creature here?" Asked one of the birds.

"These are my younger siblings, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw are the two birds and the bat there is Ratbat - the youngest," Rumble pointed to each one as he said their names, "I don't know where Frenzy is though… probably in that human traitor Rocket's quarters again."

Rocket felt her heart jump, "oh really - he goes in that traitor's room a lot does he?"

"Now and again for some reason, its where we Cassettes recharged actually," replied Rumble.

So Cobra had given her old room to the Decepticons?

"Rumble!" Squawked Laserbeak, "you still haven't answered our question!"

"She's a friend I found," Rumble told her, he turned to Rocket, "by the way - I don't think you told me your name?"

Rocket felt her blood freeze, they knew the name Rocket as the name of a traitor, in desperation she thought of a new name for herself, "I'm called Teckor."

"That's Rocket spelt backwards," pointed out Ravage.

'Damn robot cat!' Rocket snarled in her mind, out loud she said, "oh - that's because I'm her replacement you see. Cobra gave me that name to show that I'm the opposite of Rocket."

Ravage didn't look satisfied with her answer, but backed off under Rumble's glare - he did not want to be welded to the floor again!

The other Cassettes begun questioning Rumble on how he found her, giving Rocket a chance to look around the hanger properly.

She saw that they were on the catwalk that ran around the hanger, she strolled to the railings and look around.

She spotted Bumblebee straight away - it wasn't hard to spot one yellow mech amongst all the black Decepticons.

'Mission objective completed, now I just need to get back and report Bumblebee's location,' Rocket thought to herself.

"Teckor!" Rocket jumped when Rumble screamed into her ear.

"What?" She asked rubbing her poor ear.

"Come on," he grab her hand, "I want you to meet my creator Soundwave!"

"What?" Rocket found herself being dragged down to main floor of the hanger.

"Hey Soundwave!" Shouted Rumble - getting everyone in the hanger's attention as he dragged Rocket across to Soundwave, "come meet Teckor!"

Rocket inwardly groaned as she saw several of the Troopers working in the hanger stop what they were doing and stare at her. In the corner of her eye she saw Barricade roll over from where he was recharging in his corner and open his optics to see what Rumble was up to. Rocket saw his optics widen when they locked onto her. Bumblebee was giving her a dumbfounded look, as if to say he couldn't believe what tactics human spies used - as he would never be caught dead doing what she was doing right now.

"Who is this?" Soundwave gazed down at the human Rumble had dragged in front of him.

"This is Teckor - she's like a friend, though I'll make her into a pet if you say so," replied Rumble.

"What?" Shrieked Rocket, "I'm not your pet!"

"I know, I know," whispered Rumble to her, "I'm just saying that so Soundwave doesn't squish you!"

Rocket became aware that there were several more towering mechs above her, turning to look - she saw what looked like three walking jets.

"That's not fair," grumbled Skywarp, "Starscream, if Rumble gets a pet human - why can't I have one?"

"Because I know you Skywarp," replied Starscream, "you'll look after it for the first couple of weeks until you get bored of it and then who has to look after it? Me, that's who!"

"That's not true!" Sulked Skywarp.

"Yes it is," Thundercracker joined in, "remember that giant worm you found once on that desert planet and begged us to keep it as a pet?"

"How was I to know worms were so boring?" Skywarp replied.

"Sometimes I wonder if you were born with a processor?" Starscream snarled, "and besides, its none of our business if Soundwave decides to get his brats a pet - unless of course it turns out later that the pet eats metal and our wings disappear during the night."

"Didn't that already happen once?" Asked Thundercracker.

"Yes," replied Starscream - glaring evilly at Soundwave.

"I've already apologised for that one time Starscream and I have made sure that my Cassettes know not to feed you to their pets again in the future!" Replied Soundwave.

Rocket listened to the conversation going on above her head with a sense of unreality, until she heard something that nearly made her heart stop.

"Rrrocket?"

TBC…

A/N: Was going to make it longer as an apology for making you wait so long, but then I looked at the time and realised that the next part would be better in a separate chapter anyway.

I hope that you have enjoyed this chapter and don't forget to please leave a review.