Title: Covert Operations
Author: Darkfireblade aka Hellsfire.scythe
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Chapter: 2/?
Summary: Catch? There's always a catch. Giant not-so alien robots from outer space just weren't the catch that anyone was expecting.
Notes/Warnings: This starts from Heroes episode "Fallout" and diverges from the series continuity. Will be AU. Also, for Transformers, the story will diverge from the series before the movie.


Chapter Two: Reunions

Fifteen thousand astro-seconds late. Tardiness for anything never sat well with this mech, but it boded for even more trouble when concerning a certain group of Autobots.

"Spike late! Me Grimlock say we go check it out."

"Slag say Spike always late. What you expect? Humans slow."

"Perceptor, why we no go to Spike ourselves?"

Wearily, Perceptor glanced up from Teletraan-I's consol and eyed the Dinobots, a warning gleam in his optics. "I've explained this to you an exorbitant amount of times. Primus, I think that you'd remember this by now." The scientist remained still as the large mechs lumbered around him, waiting with an air of practiced ease even when Grimlock thrust his muzzle nano-meters away from Perceptor's faceplate.

"Me say we just forgot."

"I say that I've upgraded your CPUs enough times in these two years to warrant some sort of memory retainment. If anyone's going to be attracting attention, a group of you Dinobots will perform the job splendidly if I don't erect the Ark's shielding systems, thank goodness for Wheeljack." Perceptor quipped back. It had fascinated the scientist that despite the minor upgrades, the Dinobots still maintained their root personalities and behaviors. Whether or not the lack of change was of their own volition or just an unchangeable constant that Wheeljack had ingrained into them.

Perceptor was sure that it was the former.

A weak trill echoed through the command room, snapping the scientist from his train of thought. Perhaps mentioning Wheeljack was not the best plan of action, Perceptor observed as Swoop's wings fluttered half-heartedly. "We lucky then. Wheeljack finish project before he disappear, or we catch lots more attention." With Swoop's pronunciation, the collective atmosphere of the room seemed to lower as the absence of the Ark's former engineer was once again registered.

The bleak mood wasn't made to last.

"Me Grimlock still say we bash in all their brains!"

"Yeah! Where Spike's box? He promise box."

"Sludge bored with Ark every day. Get box, Perceptor make tool, rest of Autobots come to help, right?"

"No more stuck in boring forest every day!"

Perceptor quickly pushed the levers and made a last systems check before forcing his synthesizers to create a throat clearing noise to regain the attention of the Dinobots. "Our shipment is due to be arriving soon and we don't wish for our guests to miss us. I'm sure you can propose your complaints and solutions to Spike sometime in the future if time permits it."

Without further prompting, the Dinobots stampeded for the front entrance to the Ark. Stopping only to grab and subspace a small gadget hanging on the Ark's orange walls, Perceptor rushed after them to the rendezvous point hoping that this time, the confusion of Spike's 'employees' wouldn't lead to another reason for trouble. Primus knew that trouble had found them too many times already, there would be no place left to hide if it found them again.

Their quarry was found with relatively little difficulty, the headlights of the humans' car spearing bright beams of light through the heavy darkness of the forest area. As the Dinobots surrounded the vehicle, Perceptor retrieved the small object from storage and hid it easily in the palm of one charcoal hand. Car doors flew open and Perceptor quietly moved forward, quelling whatever previous feelings of anxiety that had crept into his systems as he moved to intercept the humans.

0oo0

Hiro Nakamura stood resolutely, sword brandished fearlessly towards the beast towering over him. The small, comic-loving, Japanese man stood beneath a huge dinosaur brandishing a sword. Isaac snorted into his glass of water as he banished the image of his painting from his mind. It made no sense, but then again, not many of his paintings did.

Rustling cloth alerted Isaac to Witwicky's movements further down the counter. The man hadn't touched his own drink yet. Suspicion piqued, the idea of water no longer seemed appealing to him. Cautiously, he set the glass back onto the counter with a light tap.

"They've been gone for almost an hour. How much longer will it take for them to get back?" Isaac demanded.

The store owner remained where he was, back faced towards Isaac as he shrugged. "Not too much longer."

Not too much longer. That was the answer he had been hearing for the past thirty minutes. A frustrated growl escaped Isaac's lips and he grabbed the closest thing possible before lunging towards Witwicky. "Where are they? It doesn't take this long to drop off a stupid crate." hissed Isaac, a letter opener poised shakily over the other man's throat. "Don't try playing me."

A familiar sounding click, then something pressed slowly into his abdomen. Isaac found himself pushed right back into his chair staring at the steadily aimed barrel of a small handgun.

"If you would please stay calm, Mr. Mendez. I'll take you to your friends immediately."

0oo0

"Please! Let us go! I have very important mission I have to complete. The store owner said we deliver box and go back to get Isaac. It very important that we deliver box."

"Hush! Hiro, don't speak to them. You might just encourage them!" Ando whispered urgently, pulling Hiro back as the long necked robotic dinosaur stared down at them with piercing blue eyes.

"Maybe this just bad misunderstanding..."

"Bad misunderstanding? Hiro! They're giant robots, giant transforming robots. They're not even supposed to be real!" muttered Ando, switching back to the more familiar language of Japanese. Hiro quickly followed suit.

"You said that my powers weren't real. But you see that they exist now!"

"Those are powers, these are characters out of after-school cartoons."

"Well...maybe they exist too?"

"Sure, next thing you know it Spock will beam down and use his Death Grip on all of us."

"There is one car robot."

"Yeah, but that's just a playground attraction. It isn't real!"

Their hushed conversation was interrupted as a large shadow enveloped both of them. Blue eyes glowed eerily above them before the large red and blue robot crouched down lower, a strange smile on its face. Instinctively, Ando grabbed Hiro around the middle and pulled the other man back, as far away as he could go from the terrifying not-really-apparition. As far back as he could go wasn't far as they swiftly found themselves up against a dull orange metal wall.

The large robot didn't move from its previous position, but its startling eyes stared curiously at them.

"Fascinating," Ando heard the synthesized voice exclaim in English. "They've reverted back to their native language." There was a brief moment of silence and Ando thought that perhaps the giant robot had malfunctioned, but there was no such luck. Ando jumped and Hiro made a startled exclamation as the red and blue robot began speaking fluently in their language. "Can you understand me? You humans are speaking Japanese, am I not correct?"

Attempting to hide all signs of anxiety, Ando took a step forward and stared directly into glowing blue eyes. "You should listen to my friend. We're very, very important people on a very important mission," Ando demanded slowly. "My friend here has great powers, if you don't let us go, he'll be forced to use them!"

"Ando!"

Said Japanese man swore as something jabbed sharply against his shin. "What was that for, Hiro?"

"Last time you said that, I ended up with a black eye! I have no power right now!" hissed Hiro frantically as he pointed at the sword hilt protruding over the top of an extremely tall, robot-sized counter-top.

"Powers? I wasn't aware that humans possessed any extra abilities."

The robot's voice was even closer than before and Ando's stomach jumped into his throat when he saw how close those large black hands were getting. A gap was now present in the 'living' wall that consisted of the robotic dinosaurs, all that stood between them and that hole was this robot. All they needed was a distraction…

Hiro suddenly wrenched himself from Ando's grasp and darted off to the left. Ando watched in horror as the large mechanical hands scooped the smaller man up into the air.

"Now! Ando, run!"

What? Ando stood rooted to the spot, staring at Hiro's flailing form. What the heck was that idiot thinking, running off like that? It was quite obvious that the first one of them to make a move to escape would be caught—

"Ando! Don't just stand there, go!"

"You…you're trying to save me?"

Before the idea was able to take firm root into his mind, Ando started when he found the ground rapidly receding away from his feet, a vice-like grip wrapped firmly but gently around his body. That shocking blue returned, closer this time, and if it were possible, puzzled looking.

"Ando, you were supposed to run," Hiro's voice grumbled from nearby.

"How was I supposed to know that you were going to do something as stupid as that?" Ando muttered back, not quite able to smother a smile that was threatening to smear itself all over his face.

The screech of tires was heard echoing through hallways and the world swung around as their captor turned to examine the source of the noise.

Any relief that Ando had felt upon seeing a familiar blue Nissan Versa peeling into the large room evaporated when he spotted the lack of an occupant in the driver's seat. Silence pervaded the room, interrupted only by the thrumming of the Versa's engine and the sounds of mechanical movement from the various robots. Next thing Ando knew, various splits appeared along the Versa's smooth surface and he found himself staring in utter shock as another robotic form replaced the area where his and Hiro's long-time transport had been.

Glowing azure eyes dimmed and shuttered repeatedly, coming as close to dazed as any machine Ando had seen before could become. Blankly, they shifted around the room and towards its occupants.

Ando promptly fainted.

0oo0

The Ark was abnormally quiet when Spike arrived. No loud exclamations from Dinobots reverberated through the corridors. No crashes of metallic feet pounded heavily on the floor. Further more, there were no signs of protest or sounds of human voices. Just the familiar rise and fall of Perceptor's voice echoed through the Ark's hallways from the command deck.

"Just keep moving, Mr. Mendez and keep your hands where I can see them," said Spike, the gun in his hand belying his gentle tone. Ahead of him, his companion pinned Spike with another piercing glare.

"What is this place? It's got to be the corniest get-up I've ever seen, a spaceship in the side of a mountain," sneered the man. "Either my friends have been abducted by aliens or they've been taken captive by a bunch of old 80s cartoon fanatics."

Spike fought the urge to roll his eyes and prodded the barrel of his gun impatiently to Mendez's back. "You'll see soon enough, Mr. Mendez. Just keep your wisecracks to yourself."

"What are you gonna do to me, huh? Shoot me? Lock me away in your little spaceship? I've got connections out there and they're going to notice if I go missing."

"Just shut up and move."

The muzzle of the gun jabbed harder into the other's back and Mendez wisely took the cue to shut his mouth.

What Spike saw next was a fist hurtling straight towards his face. Stars exploded in his vision as a numbing pain seared across his cheek. The floor of the Ark met Spike with a resounding smack and the sound of something small and metallic skittered quickly away.
Footsteps padded quickly away and Spike struggled to regain his equilibrium. Something warm and moist smeared across the back of his hand as he wiped furiously at his nose. When Spike looked up, this time he was the one doing business at the receiving end of his gun.

"Alright now Mr. Witwicky, I hope I have your full cooperation on this. Take me to Hiro and Ando and release them, and maybe I'll resist the urge to blow out your brains."

Spike staggered to his feet and pushed a soiled handkerchief firmly against his nose before facing the man. His mind raced through all the scenarios and possibilities it could come up with, but none of them came up with satisfactory results. Carly was waiting at home with Daniel. Perceptor and the Dinobots hopefully came away with the shipment and had the other machine up and running. Leading Mendez to where his friends were and in turn to the in hiding Autobots would be of no further consequence to him or the mechs. "...You have a deal Mr. Mendez."

"Good, now lead the way."

Spike entered the command deck first and was greeted by a pair of narrowed optics.

"You Spike late, Teletraan-I say you get here while ago," grunted Slag, lowering his horns so the one atop his nose nearly grazed against Spike's hair. "What take you so long?"

"Slag, this might not be—"

"Oh shit!"

A gunshot rang through the air, the bullet whizzed past Spike's shoulder, screaming as it ricocheted off Slag's heavy armor plating and came to a violent stop on the ground. Behind him, Spike could hear Mendez's labored breath and frenzied movements as the man struggled to re-aim the pistol at its target. Slag swished his tail lazily through the air, unperturbed.

"Wait!" Spike clamped a hand down on Mendez's wrist, halting the other's frantic movements. "Don't shoot. You're going to hurt somebody."

"You're protecting it?" growled Mendez, still attempting to wrench his arm from Spike's grasp. Not for the first time, Spike silently thanked whoever was listening for the good that those years of physical labor as an oil rig worker and a mechanic had done for him.

"Slag here doesn't need any protecting. But if you keep on shooting around those bullets, one of them is bound to bounce off his armor and end up in someone else." Spike forcefully pushed Mendez's arm so that the gun was now pointing at the floor. The man glared back with fearful fury.

"Maybe if I'm lucky it would hit you instead, you sick bastard," hissed Mendez, his whole body trembling. Whether it was in anger or in fear, Spike couldn't tell.

The stare-off continued for what seemed to be an eternity before a joyful cry erupted from further away in the room.

"Mr. Isaac!"

Mendez snapped his head towards the direction of the exclamation. A few meters away, one of the two Japanese men that had accompanied Mendez to the store earlier that day waved enthusiastically towards them.

The moisture in Spike's mouth dried up as fear seized hold of him for the first time during this whole operation. What was going on? Why were the other men roaming around freely? Where was Perceptor? Where was that goddamn machine of his?

"Hiro, where's Ando?" demanded Mendez.

The small Japanese man let out a weak grin before pointing somewhere behind him. "He a little groggy. Just wake up from faint."

A snicker escaped from Mendez. "He fainted?"

"Yes. There was big surprise and Mr. Robot hold him too hard. Not enough blood get to brain, so he faint, Mr. Robot told me," said Hiro a bit more confidently.

"Mr. Robot?" asked Mendez dryly.

"He means Perceptor," Spike muttered. Slowly he turned to face Hiro, still keeping a firm grip on Mendez's hand. "Where's Perceptor, by the way?"

"Perceptor? That his name?" a thoughtful look passed over Hiro's face before the small man blanched and let loose a stream of what Spike guessed was Japanese. When Spike nor Isaac made no move to respond, Hiro tried again, this time in English. "Perceptor, like Perceptor in Transformer?"

Spike winced at the comparison and nodded. Somewhere behind him, he heard something clatter to the floor. Spike could feel Mendez's wrist spasm erratically in his hand. "Yeah, so tell me, where is he?"

Slowly, Hiro pointed further back in the command deck. "He talking to Nissan Versa."

Past the loose circle of Dinobots, closer to Teletraan-I's controls, Spike could see the back of the Autobot scientist, but that was not what startled him. Sitting at Perceptor's feet was another mech. At first glance, the blue and grey plating held nothing that was recognizable to Spike, but as his gaze traveled further up, a familiar faceplate and red chevron stared back at him.

Wrenching his hand away from Mendez's wrist, Spike shoved past Hiro and sprinted towards Perceptor and the not-so-strange mech. Before he could reach the mech's side, Perceptor's hand stopped him meters away, the scientist giving Spike a warning look.

Chest heaving and heart racing, Spike gaped openly towards the mech seated at Perceptor's feet.

"Bluestreak?

The blue mech cocked his head in confusion and Spike could feel the other's optics scanning him over. After a pregnant silence, Bluestreak's gaze swung from Spike to Perceptor and back to Spike before speaking. "Do I know you?"

0oo0

"Those metal freaks didn't hurt you, did they?"

Hiro glanced up from Ando's side and shook his head. "They scary at first, but they don't hurt us. I explain everything…well, almost everything." He flashed Isaac a reassuring smile. "Everything A-OK."

"A-OK? What do you mean A-OK? They fucking kidnapped the two of you!"

"No, no, no. They only want box. Later, Mr. Robo – ah, Perceptor, say that they will wipe memory of night away."

"Then what are you still doing here? Let's get out of here now!" Isaac reached for him, but the Hiro danced away, a petulant expression on his face.

"No! We have to stay here, they have the Nissan Versa!"

"Forget about the car, we can rent a new one!" exclaimed Isaac, reaching and missing again.

This time Hiro reached into his book bag and pulled out a rolled up comic book. "Can't rent new car. Must have Nissan Versa, remember?" Hiro pointed towards the picture of him and Ando driving off in the last panel of Isaac's future 9th Wonders comic. "It's our destiny. Shukumei."

Hiro watched as the artist growled in frustration. After a minute of pacing, Isaac looked back towards him with a set frown on his face. "Fine, just fine. But if we wake up tomorrow morning with no memory of what the heck happened or on some alien spaceship, I'm blaming it all on you."

0oo0

Spike read urgently through Perceptor's med-scanner for the umpteenth time before finally giving up.

This was Bluestreak alright, the med-scanner confirmed that much in the mech's electron field signature. But—he eyed the blue mech up and down, attempting to take in the sharp-shooter's new clumsy form.

"He's got no memory at all, Perceptor? They've erased it?"

Perceptor sniffed at the comment, as if thinking that such an act of altering a Cybertronian's programmings were incapable by human standards. "No, his memory banks to my knowledge haven't been altered. It's just been completely removed. They've gone and replaced it with a shoddy imitation. I'm surprised that he has any short-term memory at all." The scientist glanced back down at Spike with a semi-apologetic smile. "No immediate offense to you humans."

"None taken, I know what you mean," Spike replied with a sigh. "What'll we do now?"

"Actually, I was hoping that your new friends would know," said Perceptor, turning to look at the trio huddled tightly together in the middle of the command deck. "The Japanese humans were the ones to find Bluestreak. The one named Hiro told me they rented him from an airport parking garage. Is that usually where humans put stolen goods?"

"Stolen? Am I stolen? Cause I knew something didn't feel exactly right and I've had this weird feeling right where my fuel pump is since I rebooted and I'd really like to know what exactly is going on because from what I can tell, those two guys have been driving around in me for weeks and the small one, yeah he's the one I distinctly remember first and—"

"Yeah, definitely Bluestreak," said Spike, chuckling lightly for the first time in a long while. "I'd recognize that voice anywhere."

"Is there anything else you remember, anything at all about the people who apprehended you and the others?" asked Perceptor gently.

Bluestreak's optics dimmed and his mouth slid into a set line as he drew his new body closer to himself. Something incoherent jumbled out of the sniper's vocalizer.
"Say that again, Blue?"

"I remember being scared," whispered Bluestreak after a moment of hesitation. "I had no idea where I was, who I was." His gaze darted upwards to Perceptor, as if looking for something familiar he could latch onto. "A man appeared in front of me, told me my name and designation number. Then everything went black. Next thing I know, I come to again and feel someone prodding around on my dash. That would be Hiro over there. The rest is exactly as he told you earlier, Perceptor."

The scientist nodded slowly and rested a hand over Bluestreak's shoulder strut, "It's heartening that you're back with us. We're now one step closer in securing the others."

"Oh, how touching. Why didn't I get invited back to this reunion?"

"Who would want you at any party, you mooch?"

Spike spun around towards the new voices, fear seizing him again. Why hadn't Teletraan-I warned them of intruders coming anywhere close to the Ark?

When he caught sight of the newcomers, he immediately realized why. Head poked out from an open window, a middle-aged Hispanic man smirked back at him as he lounged comfortably in the interior of a vintage blue Corvette Viper.

"What's up, Spike? We were in the neighborhood and we thought to drop by. Got some guests?"

Raoul grinned winningly from his seat, a trait Spike instantly recognized as belonging to the other man's companion. As soon as Raoul stepped out of the car, the Corvette split and twisted into another mech. Transformation complete, Autobot Tracks beamed smugly back at them.

0oo0

"More? There's more of them now?" whispered Isaac as Hiro and Ando curiously watched the exchange between the giant robots. Their trio was totally being ignored now in favor of the two newcomers. Instead of taking advantage of this obvious opportunity to run, his two companions were content just standing there, speaking to each other in hushed Japanese.

Discussion ended when all attention was turned back to them. Isaac found himself twitching his fingers on an illusionary handgrip. A hundred meters away, near the entrance to the large room, lay the discarded gun.

Large metal 'feet' stopped a good distance away from the group and their human companions came forward until only a couple feet separated them from the trio.

"So you know where to find the others?" asked Witwicky.

"Others?" Hiro cast a sidelong glance towards Ando before turning back to Witwicky. "You mean like other Transformer, from TV show?"

"I'd prefer not to be associated with that childish serialization," snorted the red-faced robot, flicking black fingers distastefully through the air.

Hiro nodded his head quickly once before continuing. "I...do not know."

"I told you, Spike. Why should they know? Just put them through the doohicky and send them off already," drawled the unnamed man.

"No wait, wait! W-we know of one, perhaps." stammered Ando, an alarmed look passing over his face at the mention of the strange memory erasing machine that had been brought up a few moments before.

All eyes turned to the Japanese man and Isaac could see him visibly gulp before going on. "I knew of one transforming robot, years ago in Japan. They said he was only a model, celebrating the successful series, good for tourist attractions."

"What he look like?" demanded the large T-Rex.

Ando jumped at the robot's close proximity and muttered what looked like a quick prayer before going on. "I don't remember too well, it was a long time ago. But it was a Porsche, and when it transformed, the robot had some sort of blue visor–"

"Jazz," interrupted Witwicky with a quick intake of breath.

Isaac shot Ando a quick look of thanks for the other's fast thinking, never mind if the information was true or not. It got them off the hook. Or so he thought.