Disclaimer: Transformers isn't mine...

Please R&R

( I swore to myself I wasn't going to do another chapter until next week. But damn is this plot bunny biting hard)

He wasn't happy.

This warehouse was just what it said on the fence. Abandoned. It had been stripped of anything useful and the only thing that still worked was the odd little generator at the back which puffed out enough energy to keep Barricade going for maybe a day before the machinery gave up. Frenzy scuttled along the beams of the ceiling above the re-charging shock trooper, claws sliding into the framework as easily as butter. He had already done everything interesting, such as scaring away the nesting birds and creating a nest of chains for himself, if Barricade decided he wanted to set up camp here for a while.

He sighed clambering along the thick steel beam to peer out of some boarded up windows, some wooden planks having come loose and falling away to create a view point. The larger Decepticon below was recharging in the beam of light that filtered through the cracks. Frenzy chirred to himself as he slipped out of the broken window, casting his shadow over his sleeping partner. He paused as he was halfway out of the window giving a small cackle as he was distracted by his own shadow and proceeded to make what humans called 'bunny ears' with the enlarged shadow that his fingers made, swivelling one to face the wrong way as he changed the image to that of a dog. He jumped when Barricade gave a deep rumble, the car sinking lower on its suspension as the mech sank deeper into his recharge.

Frenzy giggled to himself as he made it out into the bright daylight, using a drainage pipe as a Fireman's pole to the ground. Barricade would have his aft later, but he couldn't care at the moment. He shuffled himself along the warehouse side and peered around the corners to check for any fleshies. He crept past the ajar doors to Barricade's hangar. Carefully watching the frame of the car as he made it to the other side and sprinting away when the interceptor didn't awake.

He inspected some of the other buildings which were disappointingly like the ones Barricade now rested in. Feeling annoyed he scuttled up the track to the main road where some accident was slowing down the traffic. With a gleeful squeal he folded down into a boombox on the semi-crowded walkway and waited.

As he watched the humans that drove and walked by he remembered the other Symbots he used to hang around with. Scorponok had been the one he had been closest too. The Scorpion having an unusual flare for hide and seek with a normally sinister and fatal twist for whoever was playing the opposite role. Scorponok was actually female, to use a human term, having no way to commune that she was in fact a femme and her dangerous nature many assumed that she was a mech. Blackout had taken obvious care of Scorponok, the female scorpion practically shone every time she was let loose and had somehow roped him into helping her preen when her killing sprees got a little messy. He kept telling himself it was because the femme had a very sharp tail and two dangerous pincers that could easily skewer his smaller, more delicate frame. After Blackout's death, Barricade had told him he searched for the Scorpion in the desert where the younger larger mech had left her to hunt down the remaining army men and hadn't been able to return for her prior to the Mission City fiasco. She wanted to be left alone, Barricade had said and that had been the end of it.

She was probably still out there, Frenzy mused with a chirr of amusement. He was jerked out of his musings as a human picked him up and carried him down the street. He internally smiled, Let the fun begin!

-Ten Minutes later-

Barricade was furious. Frenzy was nowhere to be found. He had specifically told the cretin to stay put! He stamped his pede in aggravation, tiny doorwings flicking madly as he fumed. He turned his optics to the roof with a shaky sigh as he tried to be quiet. "On the run again…" he rumbled to himself as he walked over to the door that he had left ajar. He shoved it open and folded down into his alt-form gliding out into the mid-afternoon sun. He turned into the building traffic, flicking on his moody looking holoform to try and blend in. He got the distinct feeling it wasn't working when the fifteenth person stopped to take a photo.

He ran a scan along a few cars that passed by in the opposite direction, examining the designs and layouts. He internally cringed as he realised how old these cars were and stubbornly refused to change. Slag it all he had some boundaries! He did however disguise his Decepticon brands with a simple hologram along his sides, no reason for the humans to have a panic attack and call those weird looking Autobots when he just wanted a drive.

A drive… that word seemed so foreign to him, he barely remembered a time when he could drive down a street without getting shot at. In fact he couldn't…

Eventually his patience and self-pity ran out and he resolved to take the next exit, a one way track that led out into the desert. He internally shrugged his hologram copying his movement and mimicked throwing him into gear and turning off the road and onto the dirt track. He gunned his engine hard kicking up dirt and sending a cloud of it over a couple in a convertible on the road. He chuckled as he heard the man shouting at him as he switched his holoform off. He concentrated on his speed, going seventy, eighty…

So concentrated on his speed he didn't see the police disguised Datsun coming the other way…

They collided with a firm metallic thud, both cars bouncing off of each other as Cybertronian war armour collided. The Datsun was pushed off of the sloping dust trail, as Barricade swerved around to face the way he had come, tyres spitting grit and small stones as he attempted to stop. The Datsun transformed into a Praxian framed mech, one wing was bent at an odd angle which was clearly causing the red chevroned mech pain. Barricade remained still as the other mech stumbled as he managed to get back onto the slope uphill from where Barricade now sat, nursing a bruised pride that he had been so distracted as to not see or sense the Autobot coming the other way. As the mostly white mech took out his rifle Barricade's instincts took over. He exploded into a myriad of parts, his four optics being the last to light up as he charged forward, talons spread wide, small doorwings on his back flared to sense anyone else that had followed the Datsun. The white and black mech was forced to drop the rifle and catch Barricade's hands with his own, the force of the collision sending both skidding up the slope. The Autobot grit his denta as Barricade narrowed his optics upping the hydraulics in his arms to put more pressure on the already damaged bot.

"You're finished Autobot" he snarled as the Praxian's arms began to shake with the pressure.