A note on the French: …yeah. You caught me. Je ne peux plus parler, parce que maintenant mon japonais est toujours embrouillé avec mes autres langues, mais je peux toujours (pour la plupart) ecrire, lire, et comprendre. I haven't taken any French in two-and-a-half years, but I do recall that the imparfait is also the "literary tense," which one uses for seemingly no reason in works of literature similar to the way we write in the past tense. But my French now comes with a vague feeling as to what verb form I use rather than a solid handle on the rules. I'm quite rusty.

Bluebird and Yenasira: Glad you enjoyed that as much as I did. I think a dose of fear is healthy when dealing with an offended Ratchet. He really knows what makes you tick… and how to stop it.

teh: You are the unholy bane of my spellchecker, but I'm glad you can appreciate the morbid humor late at night.

blood shifter: Things will clear up when I get over all the mysteriosity… I hope.

Transformers doesn't belong to me! But review anyway!

The Bee, the Scorpion, and the Mech Who Stopped Time

Bumblebee desperately wrestled with Scorponok, trying to disable him so he could keep Starscream off of Ironhide. On the one hand, he needed to free himself to help his superior, but on the other, he couldn't release Scorponok or he would go after Captain Lennox again. He never thought he'd end up in this position. Not 'position' as in stumbling around with a mechanical scorpion latched onto his chest trying to rip his face off. That was just an occupational hazard.

Ironhide was the proverbial rock of the group. He could always be depended on as completely unmovable when he decided to hold a position, either in battle or an argument. Often enough he had been referred to as a gun turret, a fixed shield of heavy artillery, in that respect. That he had let himself be flying-tackled five-hundred meters across the open desert- that scared the living spark out of the yellow bot.

Suddenly Scorponok was hit with a barrage of white-hot projectiles to the head. He dropped off of Bumblebee, screaming and desperately trying to get underground as the yellow mech planted his foot squarely on the tracker's shortened tail. Impulses of relief flooded his systems as he saw the large red and blue vehicle coming up the road through the shredded remains of his battle mask.

Until he saw the telltale shadow preceding it, and his sensors notified him of incoming missiles, at which point he panicked.

Dashing away from the writhing scorpion, Bumblebee dove to shield the four humans left in his charge from the projectiles from above and the flying chunks of rock and dirt exploding from the ground around them. His right leg buckled as he took a hit to his lower back. His joints groaned with the effort of not allowing himself to fall forward and crush Sam and the Lennoxes. He could hear a rapid succession of thunderous booming through the explosions of the missiles. Please don't let Ironhide be hit! But he dared not look up to investigate while the deafening roar of jet engines was so close. Seeing Sam peeking, slack-jawed, from under his arm toward the fallen soldier and the source of the noise, he finally took the chance and straightened just enough to turn and see…

Then he witnessed an image that would be forever laser-engraved into his memory banks.

The entire world seemed to have frozen, the jet engine a static background noise to the words of his leader and idol, which were the only indication that time was still moving at all in the span of nearly a minute.

And for the first time ever, even since he was sparked as a small, helpless life-form looking up at a huge, strong one, Bumblebee felt fear toward Optimus Prime.

O.O meep. Way to not actually describe what happened, dumbass(me)! And I totally failed to save Ironhide yet again. Maybe next time, if he's still alive after all my digression… (runs away to cry.)

So that was a short one of more characterization and a GIANT FREAKING SETUP. Next time on Transmission Breakdown: all the stuff I've been vaguely alluding to but not actually explaining! ALL of it! I promise. It will be such a chapter that I must first reread, edit, and repost everything before continuing, meditate on it under a waterfall for a year, and then sacrifice a philosophy major every day for a month-long celebration in its name. So expect it sometime next week, when I've run out and gotten Transformers in Hi-Def and the soundtrack to commemorate the occasion.

In the meantime, enjoy Brewmaster. He's the mecha-coffee machine who always gives you that double-shot of energon in your morning joe. I think that must be what my mom drinks. Crazy morning people and their crazy mecha-coffee.