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Shadows of Tomorrow	By : Breech_Loader Category: Transformers > Transformers: Animated > Het - M/F Views: 1716 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
~~~

Shadows of Tomorrow

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

~~~

Harley: Perhaps a little explanation is required. You see, this chapter takes place DIRECTLY after Chapter Nine, in fact they were originally going to be one chapter but they were too long.

Froggy: This chapter, things start to get complicated. I hope we’re keeping the Autobots in characters too.

~~~

Chapter Ten: Interrogation, Misunderstanding

Barricade looked down at Hotwire, who was smiling up at him and stroking his wires lightly, and bent in to kiss her once more. Suddenly, interrupting the mood, he was receiving a radio message. All data pointed to it being Frenzy who was trying to contact him.

Barricade groaned, this time in irritation. Why, of all times, did the little thing have to bother him now? Sighing and rolling off of Hotwire, staring up at the ceiling, Barricade linked up with the radio signal, "What do you want, Frenzy?" he growled.

"Barri-Barricade!" Frenzy wailed, "Something terrible! Dreadfully terrible! It's happened! Oh no!"

"What has happened?" the scout asked irritably. He didn't want to put up with Frenzy's problem; he wanted to get back to having fun with Hotwire.

"Autobots!" Frenzy wailed, "Autobots caught Frenzy after I stole some guy's laptop! They don't know Frenzy is radioing you on Decepticon frequency but they'll work it out soon because Frenzy has to stop talking to concentrate on this!"

"Autobots?" Barricade spoke sharply, sitting up in an instant. Armour plate snapped into place where it was intended to be, "Where are they? Give me your location!" he demanded.

"I don't know! They're in the city!" Frenzy wailed, "Somehow they knew we'd be coming here!"

Barricade swore loudly, climbing to his feet and priming his weaponry. His partner was in danger, stuck in enemy hands, and he had no idea where to start looking, "Keep transmitting!" he ordered, "Hotwire and I may be able to find you!"

"What's wrong?" Hotwire asked Barricade, her bodywork closing up again, "What about Autobots? Was that Frenzy? What's going on?" her voice took on an irritated tone, which meant she was worried.

"Frenzy has been captured by Autobots somewhere in the city,” he answered swiftly, "He's transmitting encrypted messages over the Decepticon frequencies."

Hotwire sat up suddenly, "Well, what are we supposed to do about it?" she asked, looking cross, "Wait, that would mean Ratchet is in the city. I think I still have his frequency somewhere in my long-term memory."

"We can use that to find him,” Barricade agreed, "If he hasn't changed it for that reason. Otherwise, we could triangulate Frenzy's position as long as he is transmitting."

"I don't think Ratchet would bother changing his own frequency just because I can't stand him," Hotwire answered, and concentrated to remember the frequency, to which she changed her own radio to in order to find him, "I think he's about three miles directly east of here," she said, "But there's a traffic jam between us and them - serious gridlock."

A loud click filled the air as Barricade loaded his guns, "That's only a problem if we intend to stay hidden,” he spoke darkly, "A rescue mission makes that a non-issue."

"Wait, what?" Hotwire asked, "You want to go and take them both on in the middle of a city? I thought we were trying not to be noticed!" she said.

"We got noticed,” Barricade replied simply, "They won't give up Frenzy without a fight. Our best bet is to go in guns blazing and escape while the dust is still settling."

"You what?!" Hotwire managed, "I’m not afraid of anything, but I'm not a soldier! I won't be able to back you up properly!"

"Then stay back, distract them, cover me while I retreat. I'm going to need a medic once this is over,” Barricade explained to her. The large robot stopped his preparations and tilted his head curiously at her, "Unless you have a better idea."

Hotwire seemed to be thinking, "I don't want you to get hurt, that's all!" she said, getting angry, "Frenzy is in relatively safe hands, they won't hurt him any more than you ever have I'm sure, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's told the Auto-jerks where we are anyway! Either that or they're expecting us to go to them! Why should we fight a battle on their terms?"

Barricade growled, not wanting to give up, but seeing the sense in Hotwire's words. The Autobots had the advantage. The fight was on their terms. Even if he somehow managed to beat them, he would have drawn so much attention to himself in such a fight that escape would be almost impossible to achieve, "They have my partner,” he growled, "They treated you badly enough. There's no telling what they'll do to an enemy, regardless of what Prime says. If you know of any way I could make them fight on my terms, I'd love to hear it."

Hotwire concentrated, "Don't think I don't care about Frenzy," she said, "He's your partner and I can see that when he gets hurt, you hurt too... Right now though, the Autobots know exactly who they're looking for. If you ask me, I think the best thing to do is stick to our old plan and get out of town. The Autobots either expect you to charge in like an idiot to rescue your partner, or run for it like a coward. There's no pleasing them."

With another click, Barricade shut his weapons down and lowered them, "Then I'll be happy to disappoint them,” he rumbled. His emotions told him to do the stupid thing, but he couldn't allow them to rule him. They would only get him killed, "I'll wait,” he said, "Wait for them to make the next mistake."

Hotwire rubbed her face and sat down heavily, personally convinced that this was all her fault, but also relatively confident that Barricade would argue with her on that. Still, it wasn't a theory she wanted to test, "Can we not wait here then?" she asked him.

Barricade wanted to. In fact, he wanted to be on the floor again entangled with Hotwire, not at all troubled with this conflict. Reality, however, was set against him, "If they break Frenzy, he'll lead them right to us. We must find another place to hide."

Hotwire almost apologised again for something that definitely almost certainly wasn't her fault, Stop that! she thought to herself, then spoke, "I don't know what to do," she said finally. Everything had been thrown off. Fleeing had almost been enjoyable before this. Except now it had gone wrong.

"The good hunter waits for the right time to strike. So we wait,” Barricade explained, pacing across the room, glancing towards the entrance, "We'll have to distance ourselves from this place, find somewhere new to hide. With your knowledge of Autobot encryption, we can watch their transmissions."

"Yes, but I'm not a hacker," Hotwire protested at this last statement, changing her radio frequency back to 'General Broadcast', "And besides, Ratchet would probably notice something - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if he already has," she watched Barricade pacing, "I'm not a spy either, Barricade! If I was I'd be a lot better at scanning frequencies and a lot worse at saving people's lives!"

"Then give me the codes, and I'll search them. I'm not the best hacker, either, but I picked up some tricks from Frenzy. It's a long shot, but I'll take what I can get,” Barricade spoke, walking towards the building entrance, "But for now, we have more immediate concerns."

Hotwire radioed him the codes obediently - what did she care if some Decepticon got his hands on Ratchet's frequency? - and followed him, one hand on his arm, worry, then anger registering on her face.

~~~

Frenzy was really angry now. And scared too, but mostly angry. He'd been captured disgustingly quickly after stealing that laptop from the meatbag. He'd just been heading back to the garage, in fact, ready to leer some more at Hotwire and Barricade who were doubtless merging like petro-rabbits. And then he'd just been knocked down, grabbed, and put into a metal box with not even enough room to transform. He'd managed to warn Barricade since his capture, but that was about all. Right now he was getting more and more pissed.

Suddenly, the steel box shook violently, knocking the tiny robot around inside and banging him against the sides. It swiftly became impossible to tell which way was up or down, but the lid of the box opened, spilling in blinding light, and Frenzy was dumped out onto the floor. The comparatively enormous Ironhide was standing over him, glaring down at him.

Frenzy glared back at him, then whimpered and curled up defensively in Boombox mode, as if that would make things any different.

Ironhide leaned down and tapped the Boombox, speaking in a grave voice, "Don't go hiding from us, Frenzy. Tell us what we want to know. Where are your companions?"

"Don't know!" Frenzy squawked nervously, not unfolding, "Nowhere near here, that's for sure!"

"Lying to us will do you no good,” Ironhide warned, tapping his fingers ominously near the small Decepticon. They were lucky to have run across the little robot, and now they had a prisoner that could lead them right to Barricade and Hotwire. Thankfully, Decepticons weren't usually known for their bravery or loyalty.

"You wouldn't believe me if I did tell the truth!" Frenzy yelped. He was badly scared, but some sort of nugget of loyalty inside him told him that he shouldn’t blab off his friend's positions after a few weak threats.

"Try me,” Ironhide rumbled, again tapping his fingers against the Boombox, "We just want to talk with your friends. There'll be a whole lot less trouble if you just go along with this."

"Talk with them and then rip Barricade's head off!" Frenzy yelped, "I know what you Autobots are like!"

"We are not barbarians, no matter what you've heard from your leaders,” Ironhide spoke irritably, annoyed by the accusation, "We'd much rather have a friendly conversation than fight."

"Why'd you put me in a box then?" Frenzy asked, his eyes extending a little on stalks. Also some of his legs were extending, and he looked a little like a crab.

"So you couldn't run away,” was the simple answer. Ironhide crouched down, staring at the little scampering robot. Frenzy was known as one of the weaker minded Decepticons, and it shouldn't take much persuasion to make him see things their way. It helped that both he and Ratchet were something like 20 times his size.

"Well obviously," Frenzy said, "Don't want to help Autobots," he said sulkily, "Not like we're any danger to you anyway. Why's Hotwire so important?"

"Orders are orders,” Ironhide replied, "Despite whatever she says, she used to be an Autobot, and we'd like her to be one again." The larger robot seemed to relax somewhat. Civility could sometimes work even better than threats or torture. If someone thought the ‘bad guys’ weren't so bad, they'd be more willing to work with them.

"She's no Autobot now," Frenzy sniggered, "She really has things for Decepticons. She repaired Frenzy," he added smugly.

Ironhide frowned, remembering what Ratchet had told him about her, "Hotwire is a medic who values all life. That hardly sounds like the trait of a Decepticon to me. Of course she repaired you,” he retorted.

"Frenzy saw her repairing Barricade after the junkyard too," Frenzy sniggered, "And Barricade was really grateful..." he leered, or he would have if he hadn't been mostly in Boombox form, "Really grateful," he sniggered again, remembering watching them.

Ironhide narrowed his optics at the smaller robot. The way and tone in which that was said unsettled the weapons expert greatly, "What is that supposed to mean?" he growled.

"Why do you care?" Frenzy asked, seeing the effect the words had on Ironhide. This was good. Now he wasn't being asked questions any more. He became more confident, "She looked like she was enjoying it from where Frenzy was standing, anyway." He sniggered again, almost on reflex.

Ironhide failed to see the humour in that. He grabbed the half-Boombox and lifted it up into the air, glaring at the thing. He had his doubts about Hotwire's allegiance, but there was no question in his mind what Barricade was capable of, "That's not funny,” he growled.

"Hey!" Frenzy squawked, "What was Frenzy supposed to do? Tell them to break it up and get a room? Barricade would have been even madder than when he found out I'd watched..."

Somehow, Ironhide found it hard to imagine that such a thing could have been totally consensual. Shaking the smaller robot, he demanded, "Tell me where they are!"

Frenzy whined, but he didn't have the guts to keep this up, "In the city!" he whimpered, "But they won't stay long! So it doesn't matter! You won't find them anyway!" he insisted, “Nobody’s hurting anybody!”

Like the Autobot was going to believe that. The ruined floor of that warehouse was still clear in his memory banks. A loud click sounded as Ironhide pointed a multi-barrel rotary cannon in Frenzy's face. It never failed to have an effect on someone, "Where in the city?" he boomed.

"Somewhere! Frenzy wasn't paying attention! Bad part!" Frenzy whined, "Why you care about that anyway?" the small 'con blinked, "Oh... oh! The Autobot's got a crush!" He knew it probably wasn't wise to say that sort of thing when a rotary cannon was pointed at his head, but he couldn't help himself, "He's got a crush on a Neutral!"

"You'd say anything to save yourself, wouldn't you?" Ironhide growled, the barrels of the cannon spinning briefly. He pressed the weapon closer to Frenzy's head. He wouldn't put it past the Decepticon to have simply lost his way, but it was quite possible that he still was lying, too.

Frenzy probably would have wet himself, if robots could do that, "Don't know! Bad part of city! Garage! Lots of graffiti!" he wailed.

"I think that's enough, Ironhide," Ratchet's voice rang out, "You can put him back in the box for now."

Ironhide stared at Frenzy another second longer for drawing his weapon back and shoving him inside the steel box. "So, they're at a garage in a bad part of town,” the weapon specialist spoke out loud.

"Yes, and I personally don't think you're going to get much more out of Frenzy than that," Ratchet replied, "Not without resorting to Decepticon techniques, anyway. I'd just like to add-" Ironhide knew what he was going to say - that the reason they were Autobots was because they were different to the Decepticons - so he didn't listen, "Are you listening to me?" Ratchet asked suddenly.

Ironhide turned to face Ratchet, surprised by how sharp that sounded coming from a comrade. "I understand the rules, Ratchet,” he replied, "We do not kill prisoners, and we do not resort to torture," then he smirked, "But there's no rule saying I can't scare the slag out of them."

"What?" Ratchet sounded confused.

"Uh, that was what you were saying right?" Ironhide checked.

"No, I was saying that you shouldn't be letting this get personal. Whatever Hotwire is now, and whatever she's doing with Barricade, you shouldn't let it affect you," Ratchet replied, "You don't seem to grasp how dangerous she is."

"From what you've told me, she's a medic who saves lives indiscriminately. How is that kind of person a danger to us?" Ironhide asked him honestly.

Ratchet rubbed his forehead, "She's not a pacifist. You remember how hard Frenzy was to capture?” he indicated a few scratches on his pain, “Hotwire is like that, only she's not afraid of being hurt. Frenzy gave in when he thought we'd kill him if he didn't, but Hotwire doesn't worry about things like that."

"She's not afraid of them, or she doesn't think about them?" Ironhide asked for clarification, because there was a big difference between the two. If she wasn't afraid of being killed, that was simply a matter of bravery. If she didn't even think of the possibility, however, that suggested a more troubling state of mind.

"I've never been quite sure on that," Ratchet admitted, "But you're letting this get too personal, Ironhide. I'm starting to worry about you."

The weapons specialist sighed, slumping somewhat, "Perhaps you're right,” he said, "Ever since Megatron's defeat, I haven't been able to relax. Perhaps this war has gone on so long that it's hard for me to grasp that it's ending."

"It has to end," Ratchet said calmly, "And I know that you have been fighting this war as long as I have. Perhaps longer. If - IF Barricade is hurting Hotwire, you should get angry, not because it's a Decepticon hurting an Autobot, but because it's a person hurting another person."

"Yes... yes, of course,” Ironhide agreed. It shouldn't matter who was on what side. It was likely that someone was hurting someone else, and that was all that mattered. Perhaps that was what Optimus sent him on this mission to learn.

"Now it's time to find them," Ratchet said, "Pick up Frenzy's box. They must be in this city somewhere."

~~~

It took about an hour of searching in the ugly part of the city to find a garage fitting the description Frenzy had given them. As they both had feared, both Cybertronians had already left. At least they didn't try to set an ambush. Leaning down on the concrete floor, Ironhide brushed his fingers against several deep scratches in the surface, like the ones they had found in the warehouse. "Well, this is familiar,” he said.

"I can read you like a data pad, Ironhide," Ratchet said, "Hotwire wouldn't stay with Barricade if he was hurting her. He wouldn't be able to keep her. It would be like keeping a sharkticon as a pet."

Ironhide considered this, examining the scratches. His deep voice spoke up, "Don't underestimate Barricade. He's one of the worst of the Decepticons. He's intelligent, patient, and ruthless." He had no doubt that Barricade was capable of containing Hotwire. It helped that he was five feet taller and four times her weight.

Ratchet shook his head, "Either way, this time it looks like these dents here could have been made by him," he pointed to some deep cracks, "It's perfectly possible that..." he rubbed his face. Why not admit it, after all? It wasn't as if Hotwire would think extensively about the consequences of such an act, "It's perfectly possible that they're merging, not fighting."

"Of course they're merging,” Ironhide replied. He wasn’t an idiot, "Frequently, from the looks of it, but I doubt it's her choice. We've got a lone, frustrated Decepticon with a much smaller and weaker femme-bot in his grasp. It isn't a huge leap in logic to assume what he may have done."

To Ratchet, who knew that if Barricade had tried to force a merge on Hotwire they'd probably be finding body parts, not just scratches, it didn't really seem like logic. Just prejudice, "I suppose you're happier for thinking that," he said dryly.

Ironhide shook his head, standing back up, "No. It makes me feel ill,” he spoke, glancing over at his companion, "I hope that I'm wrong about this."

Which begs the question of why I'm unable to convince you, Ratchet thought, "Well, they can't have been gone long," he said, "An hour, maybe two. It's unlikely they left without Frenzy telling them he'd been captured. We are very close to catching them again."

"Maybe. If we work fast,” Ironhide added, glancing around the room, "This is a large city, easy to get lost in. Our chances will decrease further if they change their appearance."

Ratchet wasn't convinced they would but that was a risk they couldn't afford to take, "It would be easiest to locate them if we worked with the local humans," he said, "I know Sector 7 is still chasing them both."

"Hmm... in that case, contact them. We can close a net around this city so our quarry cannot escape,” Ironhide agreed, transforming back into pickup truck mode.

~~~

Harley: Next chapter, Hotwire goes a little nuts. And bonding is different to merging.

Froggy: A little?
- 9
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- 11
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Shadows of Tomorrow