Strongarm loved backup. Not for any lack of confidence in her own abilities (er, mostly), but because it meant she went home with fewer scratches, dents, and cracks than she could have otherwise. After getting her clock cleaned (human phrases for battle damaged rolled off the glossa so easily they had all started to use them) by Steeljaw, and the tomfoolery that was wrangling Springload and his acid coating, she never took it for granted again.

Even if that backup was Sideswipe. Oh, he never followed any protocol ever, but he was great at attracting attention, and nothing made a double team work like having a partner so obnoxious that a Decepticon could get fury-induced tunnel vision trying to squash him. Which then left them open to a wide variety of counter maneuvers. And she would never admit it aloud, but he had a clever mouth, and some of what came out of it was hilarious.

Ahem, slightly droll. Yeah, that's what she'd formally call it.

She was never more relieved to receive support than when the Lieutenant did it himself. He was not the largest on the team, nor the fastest or most agile, but his experience let him move like he was. Bumblebee was able to predict an enemy's movements and adjust at a moment's notice. He rolled with his mistakes without the pageantry of hubris, even when they knocked him across a room and into a wall. His tactics were logical and effective; even when he led with his intuition rather than regulation, their small team came out on top. Her kneejerk reaction to consult her SOPs was as strong as ever, but with the Lieutenant's gentle guidance it was getting easier to react on the fly.

But there was something dark and viscerally pleasing about hearing the thundering footsteps and strut-rattling roar that came before a haughty Decepticon opponent got flattened by a Dinobot.

Right now was a perfect example.

The crew was after a pair of escapees, and apparently the universe had its own sense of humor, since it could have picked any random pair of inmate pods to rupture. But no, this pair had worked together for many, many vorns, and it showed. Hence the desire to split them up as soon as possible. The Lieutenant and Sideswipe were currently having a time trying to stave off the predatory advances of the tall mantoid femme (whose bladed forearms had already sliced clean through several concrete support posts of the parking garage they were fighting in). Strongarm could hear them several floors up. She had her hands full, however, with the heavily armored scorpoid trying to stab her to death.

Note for her personal logs: she meant this as literally as possible. She had a firm grip on the end of his tail, which was pushing her against a wall, as she tried to keep the highly venomous stinger from plunging into her middle. Fixit had been adamant; this was not anything like Quillfire's hallucinogenic neurotoxin. This venom was necrotic, and would cause body functions to fail and die. If not removed from the system fast enough, one's core would eventually seize, and snuff the spark. At least if it didn't cause you to hemorrhage out into your brain first.

Strongarm was starting to question her choice of tactics, however. Next time, she decided that she would dodge instead of block. With her hands busy on the tail, she left herself open to attack from the Decepticon's massive, spiky pinchers. Her opponent had wasted little time in taking advantage of this, stabbing with both his claws. Only with a feat of agility, that Strongarm was quite sure she would never be able to pull off again, was she able to put her pedes against the massive pincers. The force from both the scorpoid's tail and claws braced her back against the wall. And now she couldn't move. This left her very few options, and she couldn't maintain this forever; slagger had the benefit of his weight behind him, and he outweighed her by a good couple tons. If she didn't get out of here quick, she'd get tired, slip, and be either kabobed by the stinger or crushed by the pinchers. He knew it, too, and gave her a carnivorous, maw-framed sneer. Stupid Animechs and their extra limbs with weapons on them…

So it was with the greatest of relief when she registered the vibrating hammering of someone's massive pedes against the ground, and a loud bellow that echoed down the corridor of the garage. He was so slagging late, but right now she wasn't going to complain. The pressure of the scorpoid's tail and claws lessened just slightly as he quirked his head to the side.

"Looks like we're just about done here, Decepticon. That sound is my teammate, and he punches things like you for fun."

His response was a raspy, hideous laugh, which was the exact opposite of what she'd been hoping to instill.

"Splendid. Then he'll get here just in time to watch you die. I'm going to fill you with so much poison it will come out of your mouth." He grinned, and Strongarm grunted as he pushed more power into his tail. That long stinger was now only a hand's breadth from her middle. She could still hear the rumbling approach of an exited Dinobot, and she shot furtive glances down the corridor and by the slag pools where was he!?

So she was not quite expecting a massive, toothy maw to come erupting out of the wall beside her head, his huge body careening right behind, sending large chunks of concrete and pieces of rebar spraying across the floor. This caused the concrete at her back to crack and give way, and the stinger in her hands surged forwards once she was unable to brace against it. It never connected, as Grimlock closed a fist around the end of the tail and heaved, snapping it like a whip and sending the Decepticon first smashing against the ceiling, and then crashing back down to the floor. The scorpoid hissed and pulled, but his tail was stuck firmly in the Dinobot's grip.

"Ya know, when a lady has to fend you off with her hands and her legs, it means that she really doesn't want to dance with you anymore." Grimlock smirked before rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "But don't worry your ugly little face, I've been waiting for my turn with you all day."

The scorpoid gave another hiss, but brandished his pinchers at the big Rex.

"Then, by all means, Dinobot. Let's have ourselves a ball."

"C'mere, then, bug!"

Clearly, the scorpoid had misjudged his opponent in his pretension. With his most fearsome weapon trapped firmly in Grimlock's hand, he was forced to rely on his claws. These were hardly weapons to sneer at in their own right, but if there was one thing Grimlock excelled at, it was close, tactless physical combat. Even with one hand occupied, Grimlock had three other limbs and a tail to bring the pain with, and he did so with extreme prejudice (he currently had a huge mouth full of sharp teeth as well, but Strongarm had noted that she'd never seen him use them in combat, and had taken incredible offense when Underbite had bitten him; odd behavior for a predatory Beastformer). He pulled hard on the scorpoid's tail, yanking him towards a vicious right hook that connected with enough power that Strongarm would later swear she could feel it in the air and rattle in her chest. Even with the Decepticon's thick plating, the blow clearly knocked a good measure of sense from him. He gasped, vocalizer thick with static. Grimlock used the moment to pin the deadly stinger under a clawed foot, freeing up both fists. His giant muzzle split into one of his wild, almost delirious grins, and Strongarm thought that right now would be a great time to end this. Because she had no desire to get in between a Dinobot and a Decepticon as they continued their extremely one-sided fight, especially when the Dinobot threw punches hard enough to injure a large, bull chompazoid.

She ran up Grimlock's tail and along his back, not bothering to really dwell on her surprise at the lack of give in his form at all, even as he was supporting all her weight on his spine. She fell to her knees at about his shoulders, leaning over his neck and drawing a set of stasis cuffs from her subspace.

"Decepticon fugitive," she grabbed at the first claw, pulling it towards her and into the cuffs, "in accordance with Cybertronian Legal Code Section three-zero-five," and she reached across Grimlock to cuff the other pincher, "you are hereby placed back under arrest." The only response she received was a groan. That knock Grimlock gave him had done some serious damage.

"Aw, it was about to get good." The big Dinobot looked rather dejected, tail lying limply against the ground. He glanced back at her over his shoulder. Strongarm leveled a look at him.

"If your idea of 'good' is later picking up all his energon-soaked pieces from the walls and floor, then I suppose so." She slid down off his back. Well, that had worked better than she'd expected. Rather rude of her though, to use his dorsal plates as stairs. If he took any offense, he didn't say it.

Grimlock gave a mock gasp. At least, she hoped. Sometimes, it was hard to tell if he was being serious or not.

"You wound me. I would have stopped before he came apart. Probably." Strongarm just rolled her optics.

"He looks pretty done as it is."

"Yeah." Grimlock snorted. "Wimp."

"You hit him in the face, Grimlock."

"Do you have any idea how many times I've been hit in the face?" He almost looked proud of it.

"I can only imagine." Given his propensity for making his own doors in walls, never mind the amount of collateral damage that tended to result from any sort of vigorous activity that Grimlock found entertaining, Strongarm fathomed he'd taken a lot of objects to the face, from rocks to building structural members to fists and pedes. Speaking of those surprise doors, though…

"Thank you." She waved a hand at the rubble that had up until recently been a fully functional wall. "I do appreciate not being skewered, or doomed to die a slow death from envenomation."

"Wasn't nothin'. I'm just sorry I couldn't be here faster. You guys absolutely gunned it back there. I had to follow your tire tracks." Grimlock looked down at the barely conscious Decepticon in his grip. "Hey Strongarm?"

"Hm?"

"I understand wanting to contain the prisoners quickly and all, but did you have to cuff his claws around my neck?"

What?

Sure enough, in her haste to slap the bracelets on her perp, she had cuffed him around the Dinobot. Grimlock pulled, but the stasis cuffs prevented the Decepticon's claws from moving apart enough for the big Rex to slip his head out from between his arms.

"Oh scrap." Now this was just embarrassing. How on shiny Cybertron had she managed that? Grimlock looked at her, and she could feel her faceplates heating. A slow grin split his muzzle, and she flushed harder.

"Don't even."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You didn't have to. I can feel it."

"Naw, its just funny. Here, I got a hold of him." Strongarm pushed her discomfiture aside at Grimlock bent to allow her access to the cuffs. As she slid her code card across the reader the ceiling shook, and they could hear a yelp from above them.

"Oh by Primus she has my head! Please, please don't let her eat my head!"

Oh yeah, there was still the other one.

While hearing Sideswipe's voice jump a couple octaves as he shrieked was incredibly amusing, it was dampened severely when one considered what the deadly mantoid was incarcerated for in the first place. Grimlock looked hopeful.

"I get to punch the other one, too, right?"

"You'd better. Sounds like they could use our help." Strongarm dug through the rubble to retrieve her proto-blaster from where the scorpoid had knocked it from her hands.

"Aw yeah. Round two!" Grimlock slung the Decepticon over his shoulder. He then galloped off, following his nose after their wayward teammates. Didn't even bother to wait for her. She wasn't too worried, though; all she had to do was follow the trail of rubble.

Strongarm folded into her alt mode and went after him. Her transformation was not as smooth as she would have hoped, and various bits of her frame were tender and sensitive. Oh, she was going to go straight into recharge when she returned to base. There was another shuddering thud, a loud roar, and she could hear the discharge from Bumblebee's sidearm from where she was. Whatever she needed to do to bring this evening's hectic mission to an abrupt end, she would do it.

Her alt mode was pretty hefty, after all. Maybe the Dinobot would get to watch a tired, achy, totally done with this police interceptor flatten an oversized, arrogant insect.

AN:

I was grooving on this until the middle, and then it kinda got away from me. I apologize profusely.

Blah blah typos blah. Fix 'em in the morning blah.