Author's Notes: Hi everybody! Sorry it took me so long to update again, but I am so glad to get back into this story. I just hope this chapter isn't too short. There are so many possibilities for worldbuilding in this fic that I just don't know where to begin. Oh well, enough of me rambling. Please enjoy this chapter, and I hope you will review :)

Chapter 5

Pursuit

Things had been weird in the most wonderful way for Cliffjumper ever since Arcee had come into their lives from her strange parallel dimension. He was always a lively and reckless mech, but now he felt more carefree than he had since arriving on earth in the first place.

At the moment he was cruising down the street after picking Sierra up from school and they were heading back to base. He couldn't wait to see Arcee. Part of him still felt a tug at his spark when thinking about Ratchet's studies into Arcee's dimension, and he knew sooner or later the doc would find a way to get Arcee home and take her away from him again, but until that happened he was determined to live for the present and not worry about the future. Whatever happened, happened.

"Hey Cliff, check it out," Sierra's words cut through Cliffjumper's thoughts, "Vince has a new ride. A black convertible, old school from the looks of it. Maybe a '72, but I can't tell what make and model."

"What do you care? That guy's a creep," Cliffjumper drawled.

"I don't care, I just like to mess with him," Sierra smirked, "Vince is one of those guys that thinks he can beat his chest and pound a few faces in to get whatever he wants."

"Yeah, and I've noticed what he wants is you," Cliffjumper pointed out.

"I know," Sierra rolled her eyes at the thought of it, "Hey Cliff, here's a stoplight. Let's have some fun with him!"

"Hm, you mean what I think you mean?" Cliffjumper purred with impish anticipation.

"Oh, yeah. Darken the windows," Sierra ordered as she gripped the steering wheel tighter and tucked herself further into her seat with a savage grin.

Vince waited impatiently at the stoplight, growling at it as if ordering it to turn green so he could hurry up and go already. He had just got this car, and the drag races were tonight, so he was going to show his competitors who was boss. He just wished he could get that little dweeb Jack Darby to race him. When Vince crossed that finish line and beat his rival that would show Sierra who the better man was.

As he waited he suddenly caught sight of a shiny red Cadillac with dark windows and a hood ornament that looked like a tiny pair of bull horns. Vince gave the car a smug grin and started revving up the gas on his car; ready to peel out as soon as the light turned green. He noticed the other car started revving up as well. Oh yeah, this dude was totally here for the races, and Vince was going to make that shiny Caddy eat his dust.

The light turned green, and suddenly the two cars were taking off down the residential road at breakneck speeds. Vince got a good head start, but to his shock the Caddy not only kept up with him but surpassed him by over two car lengths! Vince forced his engine to go faster as they turned the curb, but the red car just sped up and took the curve like it was floating on air. Vince was mad at being made a fool of by some nobody with a cowboy car, so when the car stopped Vince stopped as well to give this guy a piece of a his mind.

The Cadillac's window rolled down, and much to Vince's surprise there sat Sierra grinning back at him and chuckling like some kind of Bond villain. All she was missing was a cat to stroke as she divulged her evil plans to him.

"Hey Vince, you might wanna get your money back on that thing," Sierra laughed as she fondly patted her car's side door. Okay, so she didn't really need the cat.

"Whoa...Babe, where did you learn to drive like that?" Vince asked in awe, his temper ebbing away and being replaced with curiosity.

"Ah, ah, ah, a girl never reveals her secrets," Sierra taunted him, "I gotta go now, but if I were you I'd get a better car for the races outside town. That little pedal car you got there wouldn't keep up with a bicycle. See ya later!"

With those words Sierra drove off, leaving Vince in the dust once again. This time he didn't even try to catch her. Who knew a Cadillac could be so fast?

"You know Sierra, I wish you'd take me to these races you keep talking about," Cliffjumper said with a fake pout in his tone, "You know we'd win."

"Yeah, but that's cheating," Sierra pointed out, "I like messing with Vince, but I don't want to take away from the spirit of the sport just because one guy's a jerk. Besides, I never compete. I just like to watch and sometimes hold the flag."

"You should compete. You're good," Cliffjumper replied supportively.

"Eh, that kind of dangerous driving just isn't my thing," Sierra shrugged, "I prefer to use the opportunity of those fast moving cars to test out new lenses for my cameras. I have some pretty good shots taped to my ceiling. I know this is redundant, but I could take a picture of my pictures to show you sometime."

"I'd like that," Cliffjumper replied fondly.

The rest of the drive was in companionable silence, and Cliffjumper's processor was free to roam again. He still felt like the luckiest mech in the world. He had good friends among the Autobots, as well as the two humans Sierra and Raf. Now he even had a friend from another dimension, though part of his spark still ached for the real Arcee; his Arcee. He wondered if she felt the same way about her Cliffjumper. He wondered if maybe he should ask. Nah, why dwell on the past when the present was so slagging cool?

Arcee was bored. She normally didn't like to use such juvenile words to describe her feelings, but there was no other way to put it. She had wanted to get out of the base for a while due to the tense atmosphere of being around the gruffer version of Optimus Prime, so she volunteered to go with Bumblebee and Raf on their mission to gather radiation readings in a forest in North Dakota. What she didn't realize was that in this universe Bumblebee was just as much of a science nerd as Raf, and now she was stuck listening to them talk about plant matter.

"How far do you think this strain of fungus goes?" Raf asked Bumblebee.

[I'm not sure,] Bumblebee mused, [Perhaps about 100 kliks or so. My scans only go as far as 25 kliks, and I can still detect the fungi in lush quantities.]

Arcee had such a helmache. She wasn't stupid by any means, but she was no scientist either. Arcee was trained as a stealth fighter. Weapons and maneuvers, that was her specialty. She didn't feel like she could get in on Bumblebee and Raf's conversation, and that just made her feel like a third wheel.

It was in this moment that she realized how much she missed Jack. She would occasionally go on missions with Jack when they weren't too dangerous. The two of them could always find things to talk about, and when neither one felt like talking there was no pressure to do so. She wondered how Jack was handling the fact that she was gone, and that just made her want to get back to her dimension as soon as possible.

Great, now I'm bored and miserable... Arcee thought dismally to herself.

Fortunately for the group Arcee had nothing to do, because she was the first one to notice the distorted sound coming from above them. It was the growl of two jet engines, but it didn't sound like anything on earth. Arcee enhanced her optics to get a better visual, and she saw that there were two seekers coming right for them.

"Decepticons!" Arcee shouted, getting the attention of the boys, "Coming right for us at twelve o'clock high!"

Bumblebee's arm immediately turned into a cannon, and Arcee's did the same. Raf ran under a nearby tree and tried to stay out of the Autobots' way. A green jet came diving in first followed by a navy blue jet. Arcee recognized the alt mode of Dreadwing in the navy blue seeker. At least, she thought it was Dreadwing. It was hard to tell when at any moment everything she thought she knew could be turned on its head. Nonetheless Bumblebee started firing, so she did the same.

The two jets started firing from mounted gun turrets hanging from their undercarriage. One of the green jet's shots almost hit Raf, and that made Bumblebee angry enough to start firing twice as fast as he was before.

The jets were fast, and Arcee wondered if they'd ever be able to land in a good shot on those Decepticons. The good part about this situation was that the Autobots had more cover in the trees, so the jets were just as unable to hit them as the Autobots were unable to hit the Decepticons.

Finally, after a few minutes of this fruitless cat and mouse game, the seekers landed and transformed so they could face their Autobot opponents. Arcee was correct in assuming the blue seeker was Dreadwing, but she didn't know who the green seeker was; only that he looked aggressive and was staring right at her.

[What do you want now, Decepticreeps?] Bumblebee asked crossly as he aimed his cannon at the green 'Con, [Come here to do your master's bidding, lapdog?]

"I don't know what that means, but I will tear your head off for it!" The green seeker seethed. Yep, this one definitely had a temper.

[A lapdog is an obedient pet, and that's what you are Skyquake, Megatron's pet,] Bumblebee taunted the enraged seeker.

"Why you good for nothing slag sucking-!" Skyquake bellowed belligerently.

"Skyquake?" Arcee asked, recognizing the name.

[You know him in your world?] Bumblebee asked.

"No," Arcee replied casually, "You killed him, so I never got the chance to meet him."

[I killed him? Wow, I'm awesome in your world!] Bumblebee exclaimed happily.

"Hey! What are you Autobots talking about?" Skyquake asked heatedly, "Is this some sort of code? Hey, is this about me!?"

"That is not important, Commander," Dreadwing replied; an undercut of urgency in his tone, "We still have to bring back the female."

"Great. The lapdogs know how to fetch..." Arcee growled under her breath.

"Hey! I heard that, glitch!" Skyquake snapped at Arcee, "Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"Well that's original," Arcee quipped as she sized up her competition.

Without warning Arcee then leapt up in the air and turned her cannons into blades. She scratched up Skyquake's wings, which caused him to howl in pain. Bumblebee started shooting at Skyquake while Dreadwing tried to tackle Arcee. Dreadwing knew if he could just get close enough to her that he could plant a bomb that would incapacitate her long enough for her to be captured. Arcee knew this too, however, so she kept herself at arm's length from the blue seeker.

Dreadwing tried to grab her, but she hopped and flipped too fast for his slower bulkier frame to catch up. She would every now and then swipe at him with her blade and scratch his paint, but she couldn't stay around him long enough to do any real damage, plus Bumblebee could only hold off Skyquake for so long. The Decepticons knew it was only a matter of time before their targets grew too tired to fight them.

Raf noticed this as well and used a comm device tucked into his shirt sleeve to call Optimus Prime. The Decepticons would frequently jam comm signals used by the Autobots, but they still didn't know the humans had their own devices. Raf hoped Optimus would answer soon, and sure enough soon he got an answer.

"Rafael, is everything alright?" Optimus asked in concern; knowing already that Decepticons had been spotted in the area.

"Commander Skyquake and Dreadwing are both here fighting Bumblebee and Arcee," Raf whispered so no one else would hear him, "They want Arcee for some reason. Please hurry. I don't know how long we can hold them off."

"Cliffjumper still isn't back yet," Optimus informed him, "I'll have to take care of this myself. Conceal yourself as best you can. I'm on my way."

Meanwhile, Bumblebee and Arcee were still holding their own against Skyquake and Dreadwing. Shots were fired and blades were scraped with the paint of their opponents. Bumblebee saw that Arcee was having trouble dealing with Dreadwing, so he blasted Skyquake in the face to distract him long enough to run to aid his new comrade.

Dreadwing saw that Bumblebee was running toward him and decided he would take out the bug before he went for Megatron's real target. Bumblebee came in with cannons firing, and Dreadwing expertly dodged the blasts. Bumblebee saw that some trees were on fire now, and he hoped the flames didn't spread too far. He readied himself to attack Dreadwing, and Dreadwing readied himself to attack Bumblebee. For a moment they just stood there regarding each other, but then before either one could attack Skyquake slammed into the back of Bumblebee's helm with both his fists; causing the scout to fall over unconscious.

"Thank you, Commander," Dreadwing said graciously, "And now to leave a final parting gift for our worthy adversary..."

Dreadwing then pulled out one of his bombs and was about to place it on Bumblebee to destroy him.

"No!" Arcee shouted as she suddenly darted into the fray.

She grabbed the bomb before Dreadwing and Skyquake could react, and she threw it up in the air and shot it. The bomb blew up harmlessly in the air, and Arcee turned in time to see both mechs approaching her.

"Oh, scrap," Arcee whispered as she readied herself for an unfair fight.

Just as both mechs were about to pounce, however, a ground bridge opened several meters away and Optimus Prime ran toward them with his arm cannon at the ready. The seekers saw the feral look in the Prime's optic and decided that today they would rather live than die today thank you very much. They both transformed into jet mode and took off into the sky; the sound of their own engines following them as they departed and the air distortion from their takeoff smothering the flames.

"Arcee, are you damaged?" Optimus asked breathlessly as he tried to steady himself after running to catch the perpetrators.

"I'm fine, but Bumblebee is hurt," Arcee replied as she pointed out the unconscious scout.

Raf came out of hiding then at seeing that everything went well. Optimus then picked up the boy and handed him to Arcee, showing a gentleness she had yet to see with this version of the Prime. She got the message loud and clear and carried the shaken child to the ground bridge while Optimus carried Bumblebee in his arms.

Arcee wondered if this Prime was really as fearsome as she had been led to believe. Part of her wanted to say no, but another part saw the fear in the seekers' optics. Whatever his relationship with his fellow Autobots Arcee knew one thing: the Decepticons feared this Optimus Prime.