Call me old, or set in my ways, but I'm not too fond of this row-at-the-top thing going on in the personal accounts. I liked it better as a bar on the side. Plus I suck at math, so whenever I go to look at my story traffic, I see a graph and I start panicking. For some reason whenever I see something geometry-related I have an odd fear that my old high school math teacher- the one who was also the basketball coach and spent the whole hour flirting with the eight cheerleaders in his class- will demand I write a thirty-seven-term equation explaining the corrolation between the graph and the axial tilt of the planet Neptune. He used random bullcrap like that to keep the rest of the class from reminding him that he was forty-two and married and those cheerleaders are sixteen and jailbait.

Oh lookie, I wrote Primus again. I haven't put him in this for a while, and I figured he needed a scene or two. He's not particularly pleased about recent events, but at least he's not resorting to drastic actions just yet. And yes, he's meant to appear somewhat child-like. I just can't picture him being old enough to be considered a mature member of his species; I don't know why, but he gives me the impression of being a fourteen-year-old trying to act grown-up and responsible. Now that things are falling apart, his facade is slipping and he's beginning to show his age- or rather, his lack of it.

And as a last note, those of you who are fairly observant will note that I have moved this into the movie TF category. We'll see if it has an impact on number of reviews.

Disclaimer: me no own. -le sigh-

---

Primus thunked his forehead against the broad, flat surface of the cube. Then, because it proved suitably painful, he did it again. And again. He turned away and made as if to walk over to the portal that showed him what was happening on Earth. Before he got two steps he went back and hit his head three more times.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" he muttered to himself. "Of course nothing could go wrong, I've only let the greatest Decepticon menace loose on that planet. Why shouldn't everything go as I planned? Starscream has only always been a wrench in everyone's plans."

He continued on this self-depricating vein for several minutes. After a while he had successfully vented his fury with himself and was scowling at the images of the seeker and the merchant. Those two had radically altered everything with such speed and precision it almost seemed as though they'd rehearsed it. To declare that he hated them and punish them for simply being themselves was immature, highly irresponsible, and very, very tempting.

"It is only a temporary setback," he told himself. "Merely a hitch in the grand scheme of things. I am still in complete control."

Oh, who was he kidding? He hadn't had anything resembling control of the situation since the moment Swindle arrived on Earth. Instead he'd chosen to rely on Swindle's innate ability to cause chaos. Well, he'd gotten his chaos, and he was now sorely regretting it. The merchant was off doing his own thing; Primus could only guess at his next move. Soundwave's ship was damaged almost beyond repairs. It wouldn't be too long before the Decepticon lost his near-infinite patience and journeyed to Earth to take matters into his own hands, thus complicating things even more. Starscream was wandering pointlessly, obviously torn between taking the piece of the cube and hightailing it or taunting Megatron with his possession of it. Megatron himself had been captured by humans, a state of affairs which had blindsided Primus completely. He'd almost forgotten the humans, had never imagined they'd have an impact on his plans.

The Decepticon team was in the middle of a slow-motion collapse, with its various members all taking off to do their own thing. It was enough to make Primus want to hurt something. Conversely, the Autobots had pulled together and were presenting a strong and united front. Which would be impressive and even slightly alarming, except their enemies were too busy squabbling amongst themselves to notice.

Primus reached out with one hand, brushing the image with his fingertips. Then he pulled back. There was no need for any drastic measures. Not yet. He'd have plenty of time to intervene, if need be. He started to turn and walk away, to leave that little planet to its own devices. A moment later he was back, sitting himself in front of the portal and settling comfortably. He was going to be there for a while.

---

Jazz couldn't have looked more stunned had Prime pulled out a gun and shot him.

Sam glanced worriedly at the saboteur, who had yet to move or speak. Or blink. Or even breathe without first being reminded to do so. He hadn't reacted at all when Prime apologized for the ninth time, or when Epps had walked in late and asked the wrong question, or even when a worried Mikaela had poked him so hard he'd almost fallen over. In fact, if it weren't for the small tremors he occasionally gave, one could be excused for thinking he'd turned to stone.

"Not taking it well, huh?" Lennox, who had returned just before Prime, studied the frozen saboteur sympathetically.

"Least he didn't start blaming everyone," Epps put in. His captain made a noise of agreement and Sam stared at them incredulously.

"He's right there," Mikaeal pointed out darkly. "He can probably hear you."

"He's right there physically," Lennox corrected gently. "Mentally he's in another universe. He can hear us, but he's not paying any attention to us."

"No," Jazz said suddenly. "I'm back."

"Are you all right?" Sam asked carefully. Of all the Autobots present, the only one he'd really seen get mad was Ratchet. He had no clue what sort of a temper Jazz might have.

"I'm fine. I'm cool." The saboteur gave a sharp bark of laughter and buried his face in his hands. "No, I'm not. I'm mad. I wanna take a thermal detonator an' shove it up Starscream's exhaust port an' watch th' fireworks." He sighed and dropped his arms, giving them an uncertain attempt at his normal cocky grin. "But hey, I'm alive, right? Better than th' alternative. An' if six billion people are cool with bein' human, I can handle it."

"And it's not as if Starscream's gonna get far," Sam added, grateful to see even a weak immitation of the saboteur's omnipresent good humor. "Not with us here, and Soundwave..."

"An' we didn't even know if it would be any use at all," Jazz tacked on. "It was just a small piece. Hell, th' whole thing might've been useless. I'm not exactly its normal kinda customer."

There was a pause as the humans tried to come up with a response to that. Finally Lennox smiled.

"Looks like it's back up to Primus, huh?"

"Yeah," Jazz shook his head at the irony. "Never got involved in anythin' 'fore now, but now it's almost like he's got a personal stake in this."

"Will?" They all turned to see Sarah, Lennox's pretty blond wife, standing in the doorway with her arms full of fussy baby. She looked exhausted and not too far off from throwing a fit of her own. "Annabelle won't stop crying. Could you take her for a while?"

"Uh, sure," the captain agreed cautiously. He unloaded his noisy baby from his wife and held her as though she were made of spun glass and would shatter if mishandled. Sarah gave him a quick kiss and almost ran back into the back room, where the female humans had their own room. Sam grinned at Lennox, who was staring at his baby as if he'd just been handed a wolverine.

"Still new to the parenting thing?" Mikaela asked with a laugh.

"I'm fine with it until she starts doing this." He nodded towards the baby's red face, complete with a sheen of snot and tears and drool. Sam took a big step backwards and was amused to see that Jazz and Epps had done the same thing. The captain also noticed this and scowled at them.

"Are you any good with babies?" Lennox turned to Mikaela hopefully.

"What, because I'm a girl, I automatically know how to handle a baby?"

Lennox studied her, then looked at the other three. A mid-twenties staff sergeant fresh from the desert. A giant-space-robot-turned-human. A seventeen-year-old boy. And himself.

"Given the alternatives..." he began. With a disgusted snort Mikaela took Annabelle and cradled her easily. Sam watched her, his mind boggling as he wondered exactly when Mikaela had gotten this experience with babies.

"Health class," she explained to the looks she was getting. "We had to take care of a doll for a week."

"Wow," Sam muttered. "I'm glad I didn't get that class." That was apparently a bad thing to say, for his girlfriend shot him a chilling glare.

Jazz groaned tiredly and dropped onto the couch next to Lennox. "Well, today's been wild," he drawled. "I'm almost afraid how tomorrow's gonna turn out."

"Hey, whatever happened to Ravage?" Epps asked suddenly. The saboteur grinned mischeviously.

"Got his firewalls back up, deleted th' virus, and high-tailed it outta here 'bout an hour 'fore Prime got here. He won't be sneakin' up on us again, though. Th' songs I downloaded into him are actually in his systems now. His CPU reads 'em as bein' meant to be there. It'll take a complete overhaul 'fore he stops playin' those songs."

Epps started to laugh and Lennox shook his head. "You are evil," the captain chuckled. Jazz smiled smugly.

"I know. Ain't it awesome?" The saboteur yawned and stretched. "All right, I'm done. See y'all in th' mornin'."

As he walked past Mikaela, he paused and leaned closer to study Annabelle. After a moment he backed away and muttered something under his breath. Then he continued on his way out.

"What'd he say?" Lennox asked, but Mikaela could only shake her head.

"Aside from the freezing-up thing, he handled that fairly well," Epps said. "Didn't get mad or anything."

"Well, maybe," Sam admitted. "But if I were Starscream I'd be avoiding him for a long time."

"And Prime," Epps added darkly. "He hides it well, but I could tell- he's royally pissed."

"Yeah, well, not often he lets one of his 'bots down," Jazz informed them, causing both soldiers to start.

"I thought you left!" the captain barked at the saboteur, who gave him an unapologetic grin in return.

"Came t' talk to Sam. Optimus says he's gonna go get your parents tomorrow mornin' whether or not they wanna leave, and by th' way, he'd really, really appreciate it if you went with."

"I'll go." Sam nodded.

"Great. Well, second try: night, folks."

"Maybe I should plan out what I'm gonna say to them," the teen mused as Jazz walked out. Not that it could really go any worse than the first try.

"I think it's a little late for that," Lennox muttered, and Sam sighed. He found himself silently agreeing with Jazz's earlier statement.

Tomorrow was definitely going to be interesting.

---

It appeared that there were benefits to possessing a scrap of the Allspark. Not many, but one Starscream was certainly taking advantage of: the ability to sense and track even the faintest energy signals from his fellow Cybertronians.

He'd sat in the forest all night, trying to figure out what those fools had done to the Allspark. The scrap he had was next to useless- it contained barely a fraction of the Cube's awesome power, and he had no way of tapping into or using even that little bit. The thing had certainly lost its most potent ability, for it could not create sparks.

Starscream had arrived at the conclusion that, save as a bartering chip, the thing was useless. Certainly it wouldn't be returning Megatron to his real body. However, no one else needed to know about its limitations.

Come dawn he'd transformed and flew off, heading northeast in the vague hope of miraculously wandering into and recognizing Swindle. He still wanted that jammer, especially now that he had the Autobots gunning for him as well. After a few moments, he noticed he'd drifted well off-course and was heading west, somehow changing direction without realizing. He'd repositioned himself and flew on- for about three minutes. Then he'd checked his GPS and found himself once more pointed to the west.

The drifting off-course concerned him. The fact that he didn't register he was going the wrong way until he actively checked his scanners scared him. Real, deep-in-your-spark there's-something-seriously-wrong-with-me scared him. A flier was only as good as his navigational abilities, and if Starscream's were even slightly off, he was a dead mech. This planet may be small but it was far too big for him to wander around blindly. And if he left the planet... in space all he had to guide him were his own navigational systems. One tiny error and he was slagged.

After a few minutes to collect himself, he'd started off again, this time checking his GPS constantly. And he realized something: while he was flying, before the drifting started, it felt as though something were pulling him westward. As if the planet's geomagnetic field had jumped while he wasn't paying attention. He'd simply been following the pull without noticing it.

He'd gone west, and found that there was thankfully nothing wrong with his systems. Instead, as he found when he explored the sensation that kept him going this way, he found that the pull actually originated from the Allspark fragment. It was tracking something, something that was moving. It hadn't taken much effort for him to figure it out from there. Wandering nowhere in particular- Allspark quiet. Looking for Swindle- Allspark tracking something.

So now he was following the pull, which was getting stronger and more noticeable, almost to the point of being unable to turn away. He was surprised at where he was- heading into southern California, near where the Autobots had first landed. This was probably where their base was located. Either the stupid Allspark piece was tracking the wrong mech, or Swindle had finally lost what little grip on reality he had.

Starscream's radio crackled and human voices began to fill the static-riddled line. The seeker immediately dropped back and lower to the ground. Of the various threats the humans posed to him, the one he took most seriously was whenever they sent fighter jets out after him. The humans' jets were almost as agile and fast as himself, and although their weapons weren't as impressive, one shot could easily bring him down. And being shot down while going that fast, and that high, was not a fun experience. It was also not one that could be repeated too many times.

And then the tug from the Allspark piece did a complete one-eighty. The force from the pull yanked him around too fast and nearly sent him tumbling tailfins-over-nosecone until he ran into something hard and not designed to support or withstand such an impact. His own quick thinking saved him from his second crash in as many days- he transformed mid-air and spun around, pointing himself in the new direction beofre transforming back. The quick change appeared to have gone unnoticed.

The second time this happened, approximately four seconds later, he decided that he might be going just a little too fast.

The third time this happened, approximately seven seconds after the second, he realized that the Allspark was only good for general areas. If he wanted to find Swindle he was going to have to track the merchant down himself.

So he flew in slow-broadening circles over the city, keeping the radio line opened and carefully screened, while trying to figure out how he was to identify Swindle. As soon as he found that two-faced merchant, he'd offer the Allspark fragment in trade for one of his jammers. And when Swindle went for the near-useless scrap, Starscream would shoot him. Afer all, betrayal was the thing the seeker did best, and Swindle was far too unpredictable to be allowed to live.

Now all he needed was to find the damn 'con.

---

It was utterly amazing, the things humans would tell complete strangers on the internet. Certainly this shocking display of stupidity was proving useful to Swindle. He'd found out more about Sam Witwicky by looking at a site called livejournal than he had by hacking the various government databases. And the really sad thing was, Sam didn't have an account on livejournal.

Through this, Swindle had discovered where he went to school, who his friends were, where they hung out... and he realized that, even if the Autobots were guarding the boy, they probably hadn't thought of the people in the boy's life. His parents, maybe. His friends? Probably not.

This was why Swindle found himself prowling the side streets of a small town called Tranquility on this lovely Saturday morning. The Saturday thing was important, he knew, because humans had school five out of seven days a week and he didn't really feel like waiting until mid-afternoon before carrying out his plan. Even with his jammer, he felt insecure. He was dangerously close to the Autobots' original landing site, and it was doubtful they'd set up their base too far from any of their human friends.

It was taking a ridiculous amount of scanning and studying to track down his current target, and the knowledge that the boy might not even be outside helped not a bit. Finally the 'con spotted a gawky-looking human that fit his description rolling down a side street on an odd-looking board with wheels. A few more in-depth scans and he confirmed it. The boy's name was Miles something or other- humans had an annoying tendency to give themselves multiple names- and he was 'best friends' to one Samuel Witwicky.

"Best friends," Swindle scoffed. "What a novel concept." Entirely a human thing- even the Autobots knew better than to make such casual commitments, for you never knew who would fall during the next fight. There were certainly friendships- Swindle himself had had a fairly relaxed rapport with Sideswipe at one point- but it was only once in a very rare while that they connected on a deeper level.

Still, the humans formed such connections and Swindle was Decepticon enough to not be adverse to using it to his advantage. He turned onto the street and hung back just behind the boy. He was by no means the stealthiest of mechs, yet the human seemed to not notice him.

Either he's blind or I've radically changed appearances within the past thirty seconds without realizing it.

He ran a quick scan and sadly tossed the second option out. The first one was quickly ruled out as well, for the boy had stopped moving and was staring at a pair of humans across the street. Females, Swindle noticed. Then an idea bloomed and he did a few quick scans, pulled up a few images on the internet, ran his vocal processors through a modulator, and switched on his holographic projector.

So the boy liked females. Swindle could work with that.

He swung forward, turning and stopping just in front of the boy as he started to cross the street. The human's rolling board kept moving forward even as the human itself fell backward. One collided with Swindle's front tire, the other hit the ground with a painful-sounding thump. Swindle double-checked his holoform one last time, then rolled his window down.

"Are you all right?" the holoform asked. The boy had been rubbing at the back of his head. Upon hearing Swindle's modulated voice, his chin snapped up and he stared at the image presented him. He had to stand up to get the full view, and he did so quickly.

"Uhh…" he said oh-so-cleverly. Swindle decided to give him a little push in the proper direction. The board had angled itself slightly under his tire; he rolled backwards just enough that the thing twisted around and one of its wheels popped off. The boy didn't notice.

The holoform hooked one elbow outside the open window and peered down at the board. "Oh, it looks like you broke your… skateboard?" He paused to look up the proper word and couldn't help that it came out sounding like a question.

"Uhh…" came the reply. Swindle grunted in irritation. Maybe he'd gone a little overboard with his holoform, although he didn't see how. The thing was wearing clothes.

"Do you want a ride?" the 'con tried, masking his rising irritation as best he could. The boy's eyes went wide and his head bobbed up and down rapidly. He scrambled forward, snatching up his skateboard and the wheel and scurrying around to the passenger's side. Swindle had the door sitting open by the time he reached it and almost didn't wait for Miles to close it himself. Once he did, the mech silently locked everything up and rolled up his window.

"So, uhh… I'm Miles," the human said awkwardly. Swindle gave a pleased hum.

"Good," his holoform answered cheerfully. After a moment he realized he was expected to give a name in return. "Clarice. I'm Clarice. And you, you're friends with Sam Witwicky, right?"

"You know Sam?" Miles asked in surprise.

"Not personally," the holoform answered. Not yet, the mech added to himself. "Do you know where he is?"

"Uh, he's probably, uh, at his house?" The boy was taking constant and subtle glances at Swindle's holoform. More specifically, at the holoform's chest, which was a good deal more generous than most humans' Swindle had seen so far.

"Is it too much?" Swindle dropped the modulations and spoke in his voice. The boy frowned and glanced around, peering into the back seat. Swindle waited until he was looking back at the holoform before continuing. "Because according to the internet, teenage boys have a hard enough time focusing without hormonal overload. This is just a compilation I pulled together out of some images I found; I can change it if it'll help you focus."

He dropped the holoform entirely and Miles uttered a very shrill sort of shriek. He scrabbled for the door handle and beat against the window when he found it locked. Swindle took it all in stride, riding out the human's panic. Once the boy stopped he spoke again.

"Guess I should've known better than to use images of a porn star. Certainly did the job, though, didn't it?"

"Who are you?" the boy demanded. "How are you doing this?"

"I am Swindle, and what I am is Decepticon." He paused and noted the human's utter lack of response. "And you have no idea what that is. Huh."

"A talking car?" Miles muttered. "It's a talking car that drives itself."

"Yeah, a talking car. We'll go with that. So I ask again: where is Sam Witwicky?"

"It's like… it's like… it's Knight Rider!"

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, Knight Rider! So you're KITT? And I guess that makes me-"

"How about 'delusional'?" Swindle interrupted, irritated by the comparison. "I told you, my name is Swindle and I am a Decepticon, Primus fraggit, not some toy car driven by a computer."

"So what is a Decepticon, then?" Miles asked. And Swindle found, to his utter lack of amusement, that he didn't know how to answer that without contradicting himself.

"All right, fine. I'm a car driven by a computer. I'm also an intergalactic arms dealer and you, boy, are pissing me off, as you humans like to say. So either tell me where I can find Sam Witwicky or I start giving you a demonstration of my favorite toy and you can kiss half of California good-bye."

"I don't know!" the boy yelped, and Swindle finally sensed he was getting the fear-fueled respect he deserved. "He hasn't been to school for a few days and he wasn't home last time I stopped by."

"Were his parents?"

"Ye- no! No, they weren't, and I don't know where they all are."

"Oh good," Swindle answered calmly. He googled Sam's address and was almost there when Miles seemed to notice where they were going.

"What are you- I said they weren't here!"

"And yet I chose not to believe you," the 'con shot back. He was halfway through turning onto the street when he yanked himself back around, going straight ahead. Miles sighed in relief but Swindle was still tense. A moment after he'd cleared the intersection a huge black Topkick pulled up to the stop sign on the road Swindle had almost turned onto. The 'con kept all his scanners trained on it, knowing full well that Ironhide could- and at one point did- use his sorry aft as a football. When the Autobot turned in the opposite direction Swindle relaxed.

"That was close," he muttered. Then his scanners picked up something even more menacing than Ironhide and he cursed. "This will be closer. You!"

Miles jumped and frowned at the dashboard. "I have a name,"

"Yeah, whatever. Pretend to drive."

"Uhh… okay," the human muttered. He held both hands out in front of himself and moved them around in an odd manner. It took Swindle a few moments to realize what he was doing.

"Not there! Get in the driver's seat, idiot!"

"But you said-"

"Now!"

"Why?" But the human was moving, sliding into the proper seat. Swindle snapped the seatbelt around him and used it to push him into place.

"Army rules: no porn stars driving Decepticon vehicles." The real answer was that he didn't trust his holoform to stand up to any scans and preferred to use the real human available to him. He felt no need to explain that to the real human itself, though.

Then he shut down all scanners and sensors and clung as close to the curb as he could as the bass rumble of a diesel engine grew, until Optimus Prime rounded the curve in the road ahead.

They were large vehicles, both easily taking up all of their lane plus a good chunk of the others'. Swindle gave way to the Autobot commander, pulling over the curb and onto the grass. He would quite happily sink into the ground if that was what it took to not attract Prime's attention; unfortunately, reality deemed such a stunt impossible and left him huddled on the side of the road and praying.

And then Prime was past. Swindle was in the process of easing back onto the road when a yellow Camaro whipped around the curve.

"Hey, that's Sam's car," Miles said. Then he pressed his face against Swindle's window, ignoring the Decepticon's exclamation of revulsion. "Sam! Sam, help! The car is kidnapping me!"

"Get off!" Swindle barked, bucking his seat and sending the human tumbling into the back. The Camaro slid to a stop and Swindle saw a human in the smaller car staring at him. He didn't need to run a scan to tell him that Prime was stopping as well, but he did so anyways. He wasn't surprised at all to find he was right.

"See, now I have to run for my life," he groaned.

Then he kicked his engine over and launched himself forward, his front bumper hitting the Camaro's back side panel with enough force that he spun the small car into a full three-sixty. Had it been an Earth-made vehicle, he probably would have taken the whole back end off. Instead he just left an impressive dent.

"You hit him," Miles sounded surprised. Swindle barked out a laugh.

"I liked that option better than sticking around and waiting for Prime to get himself turned around. Better long-term prospects for me. Prime's not the soft-sparked fool he used to be, you know. He actually believes in killing his enemies now."

"So they're the good guys?"

"That depends entirely upon who you ask. Ninety percent of the universe says yeah. Me, well, they've spent a depressingly long time trying to kill me, so I'm inclined to say no."

He made a hairpin turn onto a main road and swung wildly around the stopped traffic, running a red light and blowing past two stop signs. He made another turn onto another big road, then slammed on his brakes and transformed.

The F-22 banked broadly, its right wing slicing through the air he'd once inhabited, then transformed and dropped to its feet heavily. Swindle picked himself up from where he had lunged to the side; he wasn't sure how much damage a crash with a jet would do him, but he was in no big hurry to find out. Miles lay on the grass, making an interesting wheezing noise, but a quick scan showed he wasn't dying. The former Combaticon took a moment to collect himself, then turned to face the jet.

"Starscream," he ground out. "So nice to see you."

"Where is Megatron?" the seeker demanded sharply. Swindle shrugged.

"Somewhere northeast of here, I think. The humans got him."

Starscream hunched his shoulders, pulling his wings closer to his body. They were both scanning continuously for Autobots, although Swindle knew the seeker would pick up on them first.

"This is useless," the jet snapped as he held out one hand. Swindle saw a scrap of metal in his palm.

"The Allspark?"

"Yes. It has none of its powers."

"Well, I can't do anything with it," Swindle countered in exasperation. This wasn't the first time a fellow Decepticon dragged a scrapped item to him in the hopes that he could fix it. "Find a Constructicon, although they'll say the same thing."

There was the roar of a diesel engine from behind Starscream. Both 'cons peered around to see Ironhide pulling onto their street some half dozen blocks back.

"You have signal jammers," Starscream turned back and spoke hastily. Swindle pulled one out and held it up.

"You wanna trade a perfectly functional, valuable jammer for a scrap of metal?" he asked.

Starscream's free hand curled around it, but Swindle didn't let go. "Piece of the Allspark," the seeker murmured, waving it in front of Swindle's face. Their scanners both pinged as Prime appeared on the road behind Swindle. "Both Megatron and the Autobots want it. You can trade it for anything."

That did it. In one lightning-fast movement, the merchant released the jammer and snatched the fragment. Starscream grinned and turned his arm over, cycling out one of his null rays. Swindle brought up his own free hand- and the gun in it- and before the null ray could fire, he snapped off three shots towards the seeker's vulnerable wings. The jet twisted away so only one hit, then transformed and blasted off.

A port opened along Swindle's right arm and six anti-aircraft tracking missiles took off hot on the Air Commander's tailfins. Starscream thus handled, at least for now, Swindle turned his attention to the Autobots. He reached back and swung Motormaster's gun around, pointing it towards Ironhide. For a moment he fingered the firing stud; then he pivoted on one foot and fired blindly.

The shot, wild as it was, still managed to clip Prime's shoulder. It had enough power behind it that the 'bot staggered a few steps backwards. Swindle pushed the gun back and turned, jogging off the road and into the tangle of buildings beyond. He paused long enough to snatch up Miles, who hadn't gotten too far, then burst into a full-fledged run, weaving through parking lots and crossing main roads. He finally dropped into his car mode and ducked into a gas station.

In that moment Starscream shot down the last of the missiles and angled himself towards the ground. He pulled up when he noticed the two Autobots, banking sharply and finally pointing himself to the northeast. Swindle's hiding spot didn't work as well on opponents on the ground, so he pulled onto the main road and began scanning the internet for a suitable alternate form to replace his current eyesore.

Miles sat, stiff and rigid, in the driver's seat. The Allspark fragment rested comfortably on the passenger's seat. After a few moments the human looked down at the steering wheel and quite succinctly summed up the past ten minutes.

"Whoa."

---

a/n: shorter than normal. why? because i'm fried to the bone. good night.