"You realize your son is up to no good," Wheeljack mentioned to Sparkplug as opened the maintenance panel on one of the Ark's fixed defense guns.

"Tell me something I don't know. What did he do this time?"

"It seems he managed to sic the Dinobots on poor Mirage..."

Sparkplug chuckled and leaned down to rummage through his toolbox. "I caught that bit already."

"...and my sources say he's now got some form of revenge planned for Sunstreaker."

"Hmph. Kid's aiming high then. What did you say was wrong with this scrapheap?"

"Something's throwing the calibration off." Wheeljack hooked a diagnostic module up to several circuits.

"Hey! Let me down!"

The pair looked up to see Swoop flying toward them. In his claws he clutched an rather angry, red mini-bot.

"I SAID PUT ME DOWN YOU OVERGROWN TITANIUM TURKEY!!" Cliffjumper yelled.

"Swoop not turkey! Swoop great eagle. Carry dwarf to safety."

"Who are you calling a dwarf, slag-head?!"

Sparkplug and Wheeljack stared for a moment at the pterosaur as he glided overhead, and then exchanged a knowing look.

"Mystery Dinobot Theater strikes again."

"Christ Almighty," Sparkplug sighed, shaking his head. He pulled out his comlink from his toolbox. "Spike? Where are you?" A small burst of static came over the comlink, before Spike's rather frazzled voice came through.

{Uh, dad. I've kinda got a situation here.}

"Do tell. Would it by any chance have something to do with certain robots' playacting."

{Well...yeah.}

"This could easily get out of hand, son. You shouldn't be encouraging...."

{Encouraging?} Spike interrupted. {Dad, believe me. I am NOT encouraging them! They get these crazy ideas and won't take no for an answer. Right now, I'm stuck on a very high ledge because the rest of the Dinobots were too heavy for Swoop to carry to his "eyrie"!}

Wheeljack started snickering and activated his own com. "Well, get ready for company. Cliffjumper's on his way up."

{Awww, crap!}

Sparkplug rolled his eyes. "Okay, son. Tell us where you are so we can fish you out of there."

{North face of the mountain. Waaaaay too far up. Swoop! What the hell do you think you're doing?!} Faint but furious voices filtered over the com. {It's not my fault! Dad, please get someone up here ASAP before Cliffjumper throws me off the ledge.}

"Will do. Hang in there." Sparkplug switched off his comlink and looked up at Wheeljack. "Any ideas?"

"I'll have Blades get them down. But you'd better get inside. Before Swoop comes looking for more people to 'rescue'."

"Me and anyone else that guy can fly off with. I never realized story time could be so dangerous."

The door into the passageway slid open, but no one came through immediately. After a second of quiet listening, Mirage cautiously peeked his head around the jam. Seeing nothing, he sighed and entered the corridor. To an outsider, it would have seemed like he was navigating deep in enemy territory instead of the heart of Autobot headquarters. At the sound of loud voices filtering down the hall, he froze, ready at an instant to go invisible. He relaxed a bit when he recognized the sound as Ironhide arguing rather enthusiastically with Hoist. The blue Autobot resumed his trek down the hall. The control room door was in sight. Once there he could relieve Jazz, safely immerse himself in his duty shift and no longer worry about being pestered by overgrown metallic lizards.

But first he had to get there. More loud voices started to echo down the hallway and this time he heard a distinct, "Me Grimlock.." rise above the rest. He abandoned stealth and made a break for the door. His clattering dive through the door caused all heads in the room to swivel toward him.

"Hey there, Bilbo!" Jazz called out from his post. "Here to take over, or hiding from your dwarf buddies?"

Mirage groaned and hid his optics with his hand as Sideswipe, who had apparently been keeping Jazz company, chuckled at his discomfort. Two days had passed since the Dinobots had ambushed him. He didn't know what was worse; fending off Swoop's attempts to recruit him in their playacting or being tagged (likely for a very long time) with this degrading nickname by the rest of the Autobots.

"For the last time, Jazz, I ask you not to call me that. I. Am. Not. A. Hobbit."

"I don't know," Sideswipe drawled cupping his chin contemplatively. "There are a few more similarities between yourself and the infamous Mr. Baggins than just your invisibility trick."

Jazz grinned. "Yeah. For one, you do live underground."

"In case you didn't notice, you heathen, we all currently live underground," Mirage ground out between his faceplates as he took Jazz's post. His tone, however, did not deter the pair in the least.

"You're both the 'upper crust' of your respective societies."

"You both prefer comfortable living to adventure."

"But you've got to admit he's pretty good at adventure when forced to it."

"Again, like a hobbit."

Mirage glared at them. "Don't you have something else you should be doing?"

"Nope," Jazz answered cheerfully. "Gonna have to face it, man. You're the Cybertronian version of Bilbo and there ain't nothin' you can do about it."

Mirage buried his face in his hands and groaned as his colleagues roared with laughter. "I completely and utterly despise you all."

"Poor Autobot," crooned a soft voice as the others began to reign in their hilarity. "Praps he learns not nice to make fun of humanses. Yesss, Preciousssss."

"You!" Mirage sat bolt upright and spun his chair around. There in the doorway, with a camera bag slung over his shoulder, was the author of his current troubles. "Don't you dare come near me, you protoplasmic imp! You can tell your friends that I'm on duty, and they cannot draft me for their fool games."

Spike gave a cackling laugh and darted across the room. With two crates and a shelf, he managed to bound to the top of the control panel without any assistance. The other Autobots noted absently that being forced to manage in an environment where things were several orders of magnitude larger than humans could easily use had resulted in the development of some remarkable agility. However, it was all lost on Mirage when Spike landed on all fours by his control panel and started imitating Gollum's body language as well as his voice. To Jazz and Sideswipe's immense amusement, he drew back from the human as if from a poisonous creature.

"Susssspicccioussss Mirage," he hissed. "Not play with him today. No Precioussss." He craned his neck upward while pulling his shoulders down and back. "Here to collect friendses we are. Has other fish to fry we does."

Mirage relaxed marginally, but not much when he took in the smiles on the other Autobot's faces. "Really. What other 'fish' would this be? And for Primus sake, talk to me like a normal person."

Spike laughed and relented. "Well you might remember a certain handsome Autobot who joined you in heckling me. Very good-looking mech. You might say pretty as an elf. Or an elf-king." His grin turned maniacal. "I mean, he even has the 'ears' for it."

Mirage's jaw dropped as the implications sank in, and Jazz and Sideswipe went into hysterics. "You can't mean you..."

A commotion in the hall interrupted him. The clatter of heavy feet mixed with enthusiastic Dinobot shouts, and the distressed cries of Sunstreaker overrode them both.

"Watch the chrome! Slaggit, put me down before you scuff me!"

As they turned toward the door, they were treated to a glimpse of four Dinobots carrying a violently struggling yellow mech. Right after them ran Snarl who cradled a wreath made out of red-and-gold painted, sheet-metal "leaves" in his gigantic hands.

"Wait!" he shouted as he chased after them. "Slag drop crown!"

Mirage looked at Sideswipe aghast. "You let him do this to your brother?"

"Let him?" Sideswipe laughed. "Who do you think made the elf-king's crown?"

"No more time to chat, guys," Jazz said as he transformed. "We've gotta hurry if we're gonna immortalize this re-enactment of classic literature."

"Got my camera loaded and ready to go," Spike agreed as he jumped from the control panel and climbed into Jazz's driver's seat. "How much blackmail do you think we could get for the negatives?"

"Forget that, Spike," Sideswipe said with an evil chuckle. "Some things are priceless."

As the trio sped out of the room. Mirage breathed a sigh of relief. "They're insane. Every one of them."