Friendly Fire
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
~ Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw)

#Heeeello, my merry band of misfits! We have incoming. Friendlies on patrol, way off their logged route. ETA one breem. Or possibly less – they just sped up.#

#....er, right for that trap we have, oh, right over there? For that Decepticon spy we're ambushing?#

#And we have a winner! Ayep! Correct! Got it in one! Accu-#

#Shortfall, of all the things to pick up from Fallout, did you hafta glom onto the lists? Huh?#

#Salvo.#

#Er. Yes, Flagship?#

#If they get here at the wrong time, Fallout and Wildside will be in serious trouble.#

#Yeah. Ain't good.#

#So go get caught.#

#...really? I can?!#

#Yes, you can. Delay them until we're done here. Go!#

#Did he... just giggle as he went off?#

#Yes. #

#Wait. We have a "Salvo gets caught" plan in case of stuff like this?#

#We do.#

#...I kinda feel sorry for that patrol.#

#So do I, Shortfall. So do I.#

~*~

Setting his data ping to a name and rank specifically designed for a situation where he might be unwittingly caught (or on purpose-caught) Salvo shifted position, moving further away from the ambush point in order to intercept the Autobot patrol unknowingly heading towards his team-mates. While he'd been indulging in unseemly glee before heading off to intercept, Salvo was focused as he neared the patrol, a whisper of data from Deadline informing him as to whom the members of the unit were. A moment later, entire personality profiles followed.

It was the last file (flagged to his attention no less) that set an evil gleam to Salvo's optics.

~*~

"Hey! Lookit what we found! Playing hooky, are we?" The voice alone was enough to grate on anyone's audio units, and the mech slowly looking up to glare at him certainly didn't seem thrilled about the sound. "Aw, didja get lost? Did your unit dump you here 'cause your paintwork is so boring?"

Somehow, Freeway must have hit a sore spot, Warpath decided. The remark about the large mech's paintjob had drawn a definite twitch in response. The patrol leader sighed heavily, still keeping most of his attention on the data being pinged back at them from the scouts' scanners. They were far off route. They'd found some mech whose data ping clearly indicated he was way off target and lost, his unit at least several hours out somewhere thataway. And why, oh why did his own unit always get assigned the annoying ones? Freeway cackled raucously, still spouting more insults towards the newcomer while Warpath sent in a request for identification on the data ping along with a hasty scan of the mech. This area had amazing data analysts, Warpath had to admit, which was a refreshing change of pace from the usual. The ping confirmation was returned in record time, along with the mech's assigned unit and a note confirming that a warning had been sent along to his commanding officer.

The mech – showing remarkable grace while being targeted by Warpath's unit and Freeway's unending stream of invective and taunts – turned to give Warpath a slow, pensive look, then flicked a few fingers at him in a silent greeting before turning his attention back to the smaller mech perched hich up above.

"Heights are dangerous, y'know." With that, the mech slammed a solid fist into the wall Freeway was perched on, drawing a loud and startled squawk in the process. Dust and rubble rained down, through the mech's outstretched arms, followed by a flailing red Autobot.

"Kinda short, ain'tcha?" The mech smiled down amiably at the little red Autobot now glaring up at him ferociously, and bounced him in his arms a few times.

The snickering of his unit was definitely easy to hear in the ensuing silence. Freeway's howls of indignation were suspiciously muffled, though Warpath had no desire to actually look and find out why. It was kind of nice not to hear the small bot's strident voice as clearly as they'd all had to hear it since they'd rolled out on patrol.

"So, uh. You guys usually patrol here?" The minibot's kicks drummed a steady beat on the much larger mech's thick plating, and remained generally ignored.

"No. One of our scouts detected unusual activity though so we adjusted our route to investigate."

The mech looked sheepish.

"Yeah, um. That'd be us. Our unit got sent in here on one of those 'need to know only and you don't need to know' missions. Our squad leader was pretty sore about that. Them giving us coordinates that made no sense didn't help much. You might want to check in and see what our command outpost has to say about it."

It was hardly anything Warpath and his unit hadn't experienced themselves, and he found himself nodding in sympathy at the mech, who was making no issue whatsoever about being covered by two mechs with drawn weapons. As giggly as some of his unit were about seeing Freeway still cradled in the large mech's grasp (and effectively muzzled, still), they was still a good soldiers and they all knew better than to relax their guard when facing a strange mech on the field. Until Warpath gave the signal, even if everything was clearly reading that all was good, the mech wasn't moving from where he was.

"Yeah, we know how that goes." After a moment – and more data incoming to settle his worries, Warpath nodded. "Local command outpost confirms he's one of their own. They're also calling us back in. Stand down."

The mech smiled under briefly under his battlemask and tucked the red bot he was still holding under one arm, still ignoring the drumming of fists and pedes on his sides as he lumbered forward to exchange friendly greetings with Warpath's unit.

"You get separated from your unit, then?"

"More like my unit got separated from me." With a shrug of disgust, the mech stopped a few feet from them, standing at ease. As much as one could with a flailing, howling bot tucked under one's arm. A few of the other mech had switched from the odd, occasional giggle to outright muffled snorts of laughter while their comrades kept watch.

"And they have you under radio silence and you can't check in or use your team data-net to coordinate." The statement was made flatly and with a certain degree of annoyance. The mech's resigned shrug in reply told Warpath all he needed to know. It also meant Warpath himself couldn't do a thing to help out, since no one could contact them under such conditions. Technically, Warpath wasn't even allowed to talk to the mech.

"Hey, no worries. I can just tag along 'till my commanding officer gets himself unlost and shows up." He set the struggling Freeway down on his feet (hard) and then patted the smaller bot a few times on the head (enough that Freeway clearly wobbled on his peds for the next few steps he took).

"Hey. You okay there, speck?"

"What did you call me?!" The wobbling straightened out instantly as Freeway forgot about being dizzy and instead focused on being indignant. Warpath tried not to snicker himself and turned to give the other members of his unit an amused glance. One of them was leaning on a far, half destroyed wall and the rest of the mechs standing behind him weren't doing much better. They were still (somehow) keeping watch, judging from the data streaming in from them and the scouts they had spread out a bit further afield. Warpath strongly suspected the conversation between the mech and Freeway was being broadcast to the scouts, judging from some of the wavers in the data coming in.

"Speck. Hrrm, that don't work? How about small stuff?" The mech grinned broadly and Warpath strongly suspected he was bouncing his chin off his armor on purpose.

The data from the scouts wavered once more, and Warpath decided that visuals were being sent along to them as well.

"Grblt! Don't call me that! I'm not short!"

"Did I call you short? But hey, that's fine. I'm an easy-goin' kind mech." The pause didn't last long, though there was much pretense at hard thinking at least. "How about runt then?"

"No! Not funny!"

"Tiny?"

"Hey!"

"Midget?"

"AARGH!"

Warpath chuckled lowly as the mech and a steaming, cursing Freeway took point, heading back towards the outpost, and shook his head as he collected the rest of his unit and got them back into somewhat giggly order.

If they were lucky, maybe the mech would harass Freeway into blowing a circuit on the way back.

~*~

"Hey guys! That unit was great! Went back to base and then we went off to this bar they knew at one of the civilian outposts nearby and ...woah. The slag happened to you?"

Salvo stared in mild horror at the conditions his teammates, then reached forward to delicately pluck a strand of... something from Flagship's helm. The bit of green something wriggled and hissed at him.

"Huh."

"Had fun, did you?"

Though Salvo did his best to not react, it took all of three seconds for a sozzled grin to break through. "Good mechs, that bunch! Know how to have a good time too, if you know what I mean!"

Fallout walked by (carefully), the dents and scratches marring her gray paint drawing a sympathetic hiss from the tank. Wildside followed close by, equally dented and banged up but moving smoothly, and offered his partner a small smile, which Salvo returned cheerfully. Longshot (entirely unscathed) leaned nearby, keeping a wall up while watching the proceedings with decided interest.

"Hey, Salvo?"

The voice was from somewhere down below – a location Salvo had ignored thoroughly for most of the evening, though this particular voice Salvo dimly remembered was one he shouldn't ignore. (Too often.)

"Yeah?"

"You know how I don't care if you call me short, on account of you being big an' dumb?"

Salvo frowned.

"Yeah?"

Shortfall beamed and walked towards the much bigger mech, stepped up on his pede and wrapped both arms around his leg with a blissful smile.

"I think I need to try out that new taser system Deadline equipped me with during my last upgrade again." And with that, Shortfall activated his very own personal taser system on someone for the very first time. (On purpose anyway.)

"YEEAAARRGH!"