A/N: There may be slightly fewer funsies from here on in – TF:TM wasn't exactly a Robin Williams gig...

Disclaimer: The phrase you're looking for is 'borrowed from TakaraTomy, Marvel, IDW and Hasbro' regarding Transformers. The phrase you're looking for is 'paws off, mine' regarding Nightraider, Dreadnought and Crossfire.

The lyrics used are from Roachford's 'Cuddly Toy' – not mine, awesome song though.

Italics denote telepathy/thoughts

Hora Spissisima – Part 3

CE 2005, North-west Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, Autobot City...

Even the best laid plans of Decepticon emperors could not adequately factor in a variable such as this.

One Autobot mech and a human fledgling had been watching the Rebellion coming into land, spotted the gaping hole in the side of the shuttle, jumped to the correct conclusion, and the young mech had proceeded to open fire. The raiding party had only just made it out of the shuttle before the inevitable explosion, luckily with minimal physical damage.

Any attempt at maintaining stealth was slightly lost in the ensuing bombing run on Autobot City, but the first part of the mission was at least complete.

Yellow and red laser fire screamed overhead. Explosions rocked the complex, throwing clouds of smoke and metal into the air.

Firing blindly behind him, Soundwave ducked behind a hastily constructed barricade, a blast of Autobot laser fire just missing the top of his helm.

Astrotrain and the Reflector trio immediately returned fire around the sides of the barrier. Two explosions and a strangled scream echoed across the compound.

Overhead, Starscream tore through the gaps between the city's towers, his null-rays set on the green mech and pink femme charging towards the transformation complex.

He fired off a couple of blasts and snarled. "Pathetic fools! There's no escape!"

The sounds of null rays in overdrive disappeared with a sudden screech and an ominous clanking noise.

Tempting as it was to assume the F-15 had just rejoined the Matrix, he had to be professional. Soundwave nodded at Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder. "Order; locate Air Commander Starscream."

The little camera-con trio briefly looked askance at their senior officer.

Viewfinder finally piped up. "You're asking us to transform in the middle of battle, and try to confirm if a certain jet has gone to meet his Maker, much to the probable shock and dismay of absolutely no-one?"

Soundwave peeled off a succession of shots over the trio's heads, conveniently taking out an aerial radar scrambler on one of the south towers, and glared at the smaller mechs. "Negative; order, not request."

The trio blinked, then transformed; their combined alt-mode of Reflector coming to rest in the Communication officer's outstretched palm.

"Just checking."

Soundwave risked a swift glance over the top of the barricade, and pointed Reflector's lens at the walkway into the city's defence bunker. Just at the utmost extent of the camera's vision, he could see blast-proof bulkheads beginning to close over Starscream's sleek frame. The Air Commander would have less than ten seconds to get out of there...

He heard the F-15 transform, but just a moment too late. Starscream had just managed to clear the secondary blast panels, but his pede had become trapped in the locking mechanism. The primary bulkheads were already starting to close...

Astrotrain peeked out; half of his attention on the Air Commander, the other half on trying to fit an RPG into his sidearm. "Is 'Screamer OK!?"

Soundwave ducked back down and shook his head. "Uncertain. Risk of crushing by bulkheads; severe."

Another null-ray blast made the navy mech ready his own shoulder cannon.

Astrotrain finished fitting his RPG and rolled onto his front, ready to take another shot at Ultra Magnus should the City Commander be unwise enough to show his faceplates. "Was that him or have the Aerials turned up?"

Soundwave glanced up and refrained from rolling his optics as Starscream soared into the air, a cloud of smoke and ash billowing from his right pede, all the while howling "MY FOOT!"at the top of his vocaliser.

Only Starscream could injure himself after getting trapped by a half-functioning city-former.

As his bondmate would say, take the little victories where you get them.

He immediately censored his thoughts. Thinking of Nightraider would open up the bond, and opening the bond now, at this distance...

Well...it would not benefit either of them.

Right now, there were bigger problems.

The blast doors were slamming shut all over the city; connecting bridges were withdrawing into their armoured bays, and the seemingly harmless looking towers that dotted the complex were slowly but steadily transforming into weapons arrays bristling with anti-aircraft missiles and laser cannons.

Dropping Reflector, uncaring of whether or not the little combiner was alright, Soundwave lunged out from behind the barricade and sent a trail of ion blasts after one unlucky red and grey Autobot, the last two blasts catching him in the shoulder and head as he sprinted into one of the emergency tunnels. The navy mech saw his enemy, with no small satisfaction, stagger and fall to his knees just as the blast door slammed shut.

Death would be soon, if not immediate.

Dismissing the soon-to-be corpse of Windcharger from his mind, he activated his comm. system. "Soundwave to Megatron. Autobot City defence mode; enabled. Primary blast doors; impenetrable."

At the other end of the comm., the Decepticon emperor hovered less than half a mile above the city and aimed a blast from his fusion cannon at the nearest bulkhead.

TCHOOM

Damn it.

Nothing but a cloud of flames and smoke.

He broadcast his next order over the general system: "BREACH THEIR DEFENCES!"

Out of the corner of his optic, he spied Shrapnel and Kickback swooping in from the north to feed upon the bulkhead he had fired at. Two Insecticons alone might not create a sizable breach, but it could provide an opportunity, or a distraction.

And speaking of distractions...

Megatron turned and sped off to locate his third-in-command, narrowly dodging a 'stray' blast from Starscream's general direction.

He fired right back and allowed himself a few seconds of satisfaction at the sound of the F-15's squeal of pain, before locating the vanguard trying to blast their way into the communications hub on the central platform.

Soundwave twisted out of the way of a missile and squeezed off a couple of shots at one of the laser turrets to his left. On either side of him, Ramjet and Thrust were keeping up a steady volley of null-ray blasts at the missile turrets and the assorted satellite dishes arranged along the top of the Crow's Nest.

He just about registered Megatron and Starscream landing and adding their own weapons fire to the mix, but it was impossible to tell if they were making any real difference. The two sides were too evenly matched; the Decepticons had the greater numbers and the element of surprise, but the Autobots had their fortress and the ability to...

He froze and silently cursed.

Of course.

The ability to contact the Moonbases and request reinforcements.

And as soon as he had thought it, Soundwave picked up the dulcet tones of the Autobot comms. specialist on his systems.

"Optimus Prime, do you read me?! The Decepticons are blitzing Autobot City; we're really taking a pounding! Don't know how much longer we can hold out!"

He narrowed his optics under his visor. Of course Blaster would be here. The red and yellow boom box possessed a great fondness for Earth and its cultures, as did most of his people. Monitoring duty on Luna Alpha and Luna Beta would have no doubt sent the mech into an impressive state of boredom, and so the Prime would naturally station him on his planet of choice.

But if the arrogant little upstart thought he could get the better of a communications specialist of Soundwave's experience, he was sadly mistaken.

He immediately relayed the Autobot's frantic message to Megatron and waited for orders.

The silver gunformer turned and glowered at him, murderous intent lighting his optics.

He pointed at the roof of the Crow's Nest. "Soundwave, jam that transmission!"

Inside Soundwave's tape-deck, all of the Cassettes tensed in anticipation.

They knew what was coming, and they were going to enjoy it.

Dodging an appallingly aimed anti-tank missile, Soundwave sprinted to the edge of the platform and slapped his Eject button.

"Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, Ratbat; eject. Operation; interference."

The four Cassettes shot out of the storage compartment in a blur of red, blue, black, purple and gold.

Keep your comms. active. We must know what Blaster has managed to transmit to Luna Alpha, if anything at all.

Inside the tape-deck, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw shifted anxiously. They knew why they had not been chosen for this mission – their wings were too fragile and their top speed was less than half of that of a Seeker. They would be targets at best, liabilities at worst.

It didn't stop either of them from worrying over their baby brother. Ratbat was surprisingly quick, and he had taken part in more than his fair share of skirmishes, but he had never fought in a battle of this intensity before.

Rumble and Frenzy were the first ones to transform and land on the roof of the communications tower, followed quickly by their eldest and youngest siblings. Ratbat hovered overhead while Ravage crouched next to the twins. This was a mission that would require their brothers' more...irritating abilities.

The blue Cassette flashed a grin at his ruby twin as they grasped the main satellite dish and started to wrench it back and forth between them. "Ready t' try fingerpaintin' with a lil' Autobot energon bro?"

"Dude, we talked about this. Follow th' plan!"

"We have a plan now?"

"Uh, yeah?"

Rumble thought for a second before a sadistic smirk made its way onto his faceplates. "Oh yeah..."

The satellite dish finally gave way with a horrific screech of twisting metal. Under the Plexiglas roof, Perceptor and Blaster stared up in horror.

Rumble's smirk twisted a little further. "First we crack the shell..."

Both twins transformed their arms into piledrivers.

"...Then we crack the nuts inside!"

The Plexiglas gave way after just a few seconds' pummelling. Rumble and Frenzy immediately latched onto the cowering form of Perceptor. Ravage and Ratbat followed suit; the black felinoid went straight for the microscope's jugular, and the little bat viciously strafed red plates with scratches and bites.

Surprisingly, Perceptor didn't back down. He threw a heavy punch at Frenzy, quickly putting the red mech on his aft. Ravage roared in pain as he was grabbed in midair and thrown across the room.

You leave Ravage alone!

Ratbat screeched and dived, latching into Perceptor's faceplates and digging his fangs into sensitive nasal plating hard enough to draw energon.

That was enough to push the microscope over the edge. He managed to shove Rumble out of the way long enough to scream, "Run Blaster, save yourself!" before he was dogpiled by the twins.

The boom box snarled. "No way! Two can play-"

Ravage took advantage of the pause and leapt at Blaster, claws unsheathed and dripping with oil and energon.

Blaster executed a perfect spinning kick.

CLANK

Ravage fell back with a yelp and hit the floor, hard. In his dazed state, he caught sight of the boom box hitting his own Eject button and snarled.

Oh fragging fabulous.

"Sic 'em!"

Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Eject and Rewind emerged from Blaster's tape-deck in a sparkbeat.

The golden lion tackled Rumble off Perceptor's shoulders, barely missing Ratbat. The little bat screeched as Ramhorn charged into him from behind, Eject leaping over both of them to careen into Frenzy's fists. Rewind was quick to pull his own pistol and discharge a blast into Ravage's side, enough to make the panther retreat for a few crucial seconds.

Perceptor hauled himself off the floor and backed up towards Blaster.

"Do you think you got through to Prime?"

The red and yellow mech shrugged one shoulder. "Let's hope so, 'cause if I didn't, we're all gonna look like burnt-out toaster ovens!"

The microscope glanced back and readied his concussion rifle. "Any reinforcements coming from Autobot Headquarters?"

"I raised an alert as soon as I heard the first explosions-"

"So where are they? Omega Supreme, the Aerialbots..."

Blaster grimaced. "Sorry buddy, but they have their own problems to deal with."

Oregon, Mount St. Hilary, the Ark...

KSHOOM

The blast didn't do much to damage the Guardian's armoured hide, but then, it didn't have to.

Bruticus drew his sonic stun-gun, red optics blazing like the Pit, and fired again, this time at the Guardian's arms.

BOOM

The explosion flung shards of dirt and metal into the air, obscuring the gestalt's view for a few seconds. Omega Supreme's massive red, grey and gold chassis finally appeared in a burst of laser fire, smoke curling up from his rocket gantry in satisfying black clouds.

Behind him, Superion and Defensor charged out of the Ark, the Aerial combiner peeling off a couple of shots at the ominous figure looming behind the Combaticon combiner's right shoulder.

Menasor landed beside him, Motormaster's energon sword gleaming in the summer sunlight.

"Menasor take stupid Aerialbots and Protectobots on together!"

The other Combiner nodded and reloaded his stun gun with a sadistic smile.

"Bruticus destroy Autobot Guardian!"

Omega Supreme's optics narrowed.

"Situation...dire."

Cybertron, Imperial City State of Iacon, the Imperial Tower, Medical Bay...

Music pounded through the medbay speakers, the bass pounding through the tiles hard enough to shake a mech's pede plating loose. Knock Out held one end of his electro-trident to his mouth and crooned like an overclocked new-build at their first rave. "...So you gotta feel for me baby!"

Lyzack leaned back against him, throwing her head back against his shoulder plating as she provided surprisingly melodic back-up. "Feel for me baby!"

"Yeah, you gotta feel for me baby!"

"Feel for me baby!"

"Yeah, you gotta feel for me baby!"

"Feel for me baby!"

Lyzack span away as the young Aston Martin threw himself forward and slid across the floor on his knees. "Oh, gimme some looooove!"

A green medicine ball zoomed over his head, slamming into the spray-painted target on the wall. Sixshot twirled his club through his fingers like a cheerleader's baton and whooped.

Glit just checked his noise protectors were still in place and went back to sanitising the berths.

Quickly nudging another medicine ball into place with his foot, Dreadnought rested his wedge against his shoulder and shot a worried glance at the two senior femmes in the middle of the main ward, both glaring at each other with their hands on their hip-plates, and neither looking like they were willing to back down any time soon.

Nightraider rolled her optics and tried to ignore another wave of pain from her spark as the bond stretched. "Strika? My shift team, my medical bay, my rules. We aren't doing anyone any harm."

Strika's displeased expression didn't budge. "You are medical professionals. You should try acting like it occasionally."

"And I can tell you, right now, as I have done every time in the past seven million years when you've questioned my authority, this is as professional as we get when we have frag-all to do."

The cream and red tank resisted giving into the urge to cite the F-14 for insubordination and settled with glowering. "The majority of the Decepticon elite forces are on Earth. As of this moment, they are battling Autobot forces, both at Autobot City and at the Ark. You cannot be so stupid as to think that there won't be any casualties!"

"I'm not. Nor are my team." Nightraider made a sweeping gesture around the bay with her right arm. "In case it escaped your attention, the entire bay has been disinfected, reorganized and is functioning at full combat readiness, as is the weapons upgrade ward. All medical supplies have been logged and distributed, the operating theatre is sterilised and ready to use, and the triple-changer bay is-"

"Being used as a driving-range-slash-karaoke-booth."

"A soon to be sterile driving-range-slash-karaoke-booth, thank you very much. We can clear it in one breem, get the cleaning cycle run in less than two, and all non-medical equipment present can be subspaced immediately."

"And Sixshot?" Strika gestured at the massive green and white six-changer currently picking a miniscule fleck of dirt off of his nine-iron.

Nightraider shrugged. "Eh. We needed another player."

The Femme Commander opened her mouth to snap a retort back and quickly thought better of it. Spinning on her heel, she marched towards the main doors, fingers curling and uncurling voluntarily.

"On occasions such as this," she growled, pausing briefly at the doors and glaring over her shoulder at the amused F-14, "I do wonder why I bother wasting the space in my drives to record any of our interactions."

Nightraider grinned and cupped her hands against her mouth as the cream and red tank departed. "Just think of it as more material for my ever-impending and yet-never-to-be-attempted court-martial. You know, the one you've been trying to set up for-"

Dreadnought glanced over at the security monitor. "Ok, she's gone."

"-oh thank Primus." The red and black jet exhaled deeply, grasped frantically behind her for the nearest berth with her left hand and sank down to her knees, her right arm crossing over her chestplates.

Despite Dreadnought's best efforts, the sedatives had taken that little bit too long to kick in, and right now, she was stuck with a badly stretched sparkbond that felt like it was trying to burn the casing from around her spark. Under normal circumstances, she would have dosed herself with a few shots of whatever was available in the stores, downed half a bottle of high-grade and then slept everything off in her office until Soundwave returned.

Unfortunately, full combat readiness prep for medics clearly stipulated that they had to remain sober and ready to online at full operational capacity in under three breems, so for now, she was on non-energon based pain suppressants, and stuck listening to her two primary EMTs performing their preferred karaoke set list at full volume while the second shift's chief engineer and the resident six-changer/rather bored S.T.A.G tried to put fist-sized dents in the walls from their golf practice.

She flinched again as another wave of pain raced through her spark.

At least fending off Strika proved to be a decent distraction. The Femme Commander had heard of the phrase 'nothing as unmilitary as a military medic', but she tended to disregard it when dealing with a medic who consistently demonstrated a low tolerance for outside interference, especially when it came to her team.

Nightraider was fully aware that Strika only interfered when her deeply suppressed mother-hen tendencies fought their way to the surface, so she had long since learned to just roll with it and not say anything that could warrant time in the cells.

Lyzack was busy scrolling through the shared music drive with Glit watching next to her, so Knock Out dumped his electro-trident atop the nearest cabinet and sauntered over to his commanding officer, quickly retrieving a cube of low-grade from his subspace. Kneeling down, he gently intertwined his fingers with hers and slipped the cube into her right hand.

"Morphine. I don't know if it'll take, but it can't be worse than the diclofenac."

Nightraider took a small sip and flashed a grateful look at the Aston Martin.

"You are some sort of horrible little red Avatar of Primus and I don't know what I did to deserve you."

Knock Out chuckled as he settled in next to the older femme and leaned back against the side of the berth, allowing Nightraider to use his shoulder as a somewhat solid cushion. "I think the phrase you're looking for is 'ridiculously attractive', and from what I remember, you didn't deserve me at all. I just simply refused to leave you after the whole business with Crossfire. "

The F-14 grimaced. "Let's not talk about that while I'm in pain please."

"Gotcha."

The opening strains of Little Red Corvette piped through the speakers, distracting the Aston Martin from his gaffe. He sighed and pouted as he leaned back against the berth.

Nightraider glanced up at him over the curve of his chestplate. "What's wrong?"

"It's just not the same listening to this and not having Breakdown around to..." He thought for a few seconds. "...entertain."

"For 'entertain', I'm assuming we're still swapping it with the phrase 'frag against the wall until all your plates give'?"

"Primus yes."

She sighed. "Sweetspark, I am so the wrong femme to get sympathy off right now. Just throwing that out there."

"For reference, are you going to do this every time Soundwave goes off-planet?"

The red and black jet twisted around enough to give the Aston Martin an unimpressed Look.

"I'm sparkbonded to a Decepticon officer. In fact, not just an officer, one of the two Thirds-in-Command. He's a massively tempting target for assassins both off the battlefield and on it. Any pain I suffer, he feels, and any pain he suffers, I feel. He's taken our creations with him. If one of them gets injured, he'll beat himself up about it until the day he offlines, and if one of them offlines, I honestly think he would follow right behind them, and me right behind him. Right now, I'm trying not to think or feel anything that could filter through the bond and distract him, and I'm really trying not to think about what could happen if he gets hurt.

"So yes, I'm going to do this every time Soundwave goes off-planet, and you don't get to comment on it unless you're sparkbonded yourself. I happen to know damn well that you're not, so quit whining."

Knock Out snorted and rolled his optics. "Hey, I'm allowed to-"

A sudden flash of green to his left stopped all of his thought processes. "INCOMING!"

The red mech shoved his mentor to the floor and flung himself in top of her as a medicine ball flew overhead, just brushing the pointed tip of his helm. It embedded itself in the wall with a somewhat worrying CRUNCH.

Sixshot shot a proud grin at the sprawled figures. "Not intentional, but impressive!"

Dreadnought cocked his head and studied the impact crater. "Nice swing. What're we calling that; par three, dogleg to the left?"

Knock Out growled from his position on the floor, "How about out of bounds, and you owe me a can of Turtle Wax?"

Disentangling herself from Knock Out's legs, Nightraider hauled herself to her feet and wrenched the medicine ball out of the wall. "Failing that, I'll call it a hole in one and you don't get to choose which end of the club goes in first!"

As the two medics, the engineer and the six-changer began to argue, Lyzack fondly scratched Glit behind one pointed audial and tapped at the music drive. "High Speed Dirt or Rock You Like a Hurricane?"

The silver feline purred gratefully. "As appropriate back-ground music or for another karaoke attempt?"

"Either/or at this point. Anything that distracts the rest of the team from thinking about what's happening on Earth can only be a good thing."

North-west Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, Autobot City...

From the relatively safe position under one of the main gun turrets, Megatron did a fast head count of the assembled mechs and smirked.

It was time to unleash their primary weapon.

"CONSTRUCTICONS, MERGE FOR THE KILL!"

No matter how many times Soundwave had witnessed the event over the years, there was always a tiny portion of his CPU that never failed to be impressed at the combining of the six Constructicons into one being.

Scrapper and Mixmaster transformed briefly into their alt-modes before shifting to form the legs. Scavenger, Long Haul and Bonecrusher immediately followed suit, forming the torso and arms, while Hook launched himself into the air, transforming mid-flight to combine with his brothers.

Devastator's massive cranium finally emerged from his shoulders, a vicious smile slashing across his faceplates.

"PREPARE FOR EXTERMINATION!"

The green and purple Combiner slammed his hand over the nearest laser cannon and crushed it to pieces. Skywarp and Thundercracker took up flanking positions, weapons charged.

The primary bulkhead started to crumble as Devastator tore at the orange plating, bolts and metal shards raining down over the assembled Decepticons.

Soundwave reloaded his rocket launcher. It would not be long now before they gained access to the city's inner sanctum. Once the bulkheads had fallen, all they would need to do was kill the remaining Autobots, locate the subsection of the base that was rumoured to house the cityformer Metroplex, and destroy his spark.

It would be a crippling blow to the Autobot war machine.

A sudden flash of light to his left pulled him out of his reflections.

A torpedo!

Megatron had also spotted it. "TAKE COVER!"

Soundwave immediately ducked and covered alongside the Insecticons as the torpedo exploded against Devastator's side. The Combiner shuddered for a moment, before growling and resuming his systematic destruction of the bulkhead.

Another flash to the left!

The second torpedo missed its mark, but the damage was done.

Soundwave felt himself being flung into the air from the force of the explosion, his rocket launcher falling from his hands. He crashed backwards into a heap of charred, twisted metal. Shards of steel dug into the secondary energon lines in his arms, and fresh pink-purple energon began to flow. Inside his tape-deck, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw screeched in fear.

The third torpedo walloped into Devastator less than a sparkbeat later.

The gestalt roared and heaved away one massive piece of the bulkhead. Turning more swiftly than any being his size had a right to, he pitched the gigantic sheet towards a nearby pillar-box, clearly the source of the torpedoes.

Soundwave gritted his dental plates and shut his optics in the light of the explosion. He yanked out a roll of medical-grade duct tape from his subspace and rolled it around the worst of his wounds.

There was no time for injuries now.

There was no time for rest now.

He pulled himself to his feet, sending a soothing psychic pulse to his two contained creations, and to the four Cassettes still clustered around Devastator's gargantuan feet.

Follow my lead. Stay down. Aim for the remains of the pillar-box.

With that, he charged back into the battle.

TBC