Ironhide couldn’t believe this. Was it possible that his life could really suck THIS much? Just a few weeks ago they, or more specifically Optimus, had defeated the Fallen and sent the Decepticons packing. Their victory could be largely attributed to the valiant efforts of the ex-Decepticon, Jetfire. The old bot had sacrificed himself in order to give Optimus the upgrades he’d needed to defeat the Fallen. And even though Ironhide was grateful for his sacrifice, he’d been a bit happy when the old mech had ripped out his spark. As far as the weapons master was concerned, once a Decepticon, always a Decepticon. After the battle, Optimus had shed the upgrades he’d received from Jetfire, and all the parts had been respectively placed together and disposed of in an honorable manner, Ironhide did not deny that the old mech at least deserved that. But he had been put at ease knowing that the old jet was offline. Or so he thought. Whether it was excess energy from the matrix that was still left in the shed armor, or Jetfire’s spark still had a bit of kick to it, or maybe even that someone up there just plain hates Ironhide, the situation was the same. Jetfire had reappeared, completely repaired, at their base. And Optimus was trying to convince the weapons technician to watch him for the day.

“Ironhide, just listen to me. It’s not like I’m telling you to take him dancing, I’m just asking that you keep an eye on him and show him around the base. You know, give him a rundown on how things work around here and what needs to be done.” Said the leader Autobot in his usual, firm authoritative manner. Ironhide’s shoulder plates slumped as he whined,

“But Prime! My place is on the battlefield with you, fighting the remaining Decepticons! Not playing nurse-bot to an old bucket of bolts who can’t even control his teleportation modules!” Prime folded his heavy metal arms and turned his head when he heard Ratchet approaching behind him. Coming up to stand by the red and blue bot, the smaller mech reasoned,

“But Ironhide, just the other day you were complaining about how you never get a day off. This is your chance, or the closest thing you’re going to get to one anyway.” The green medic extended a hand thoughtfully, making Ironhide actually stop and consider his options again. After quite a while, the grey mech sighed and responded,

“Alright. I’ll do it. So where is the old geezer anyway?” Prime nodded and said,

“He’s in the airplane hanger getting settled in. You’d better go and make friendly with him; otherwise he’ll beat you with his cane if he decides he doesn’t like you. It already happened to Bumblebee.” Ratchet nodded and added,

“It wasn’t pretty, his helmet was dented all the way through to his processor.” This description, for some unfathomable reason, did not make Ironhide feel any better. But he decided to bite the bullet and go to try and engage in conversation with the old mech. Who knows, this might not end up being so bad, after all, how much trouble could one old guy be anyway? Ironhide made his way to the airplane hanger and soon realized EXACTLY how much trouble an old guy could be. The oversized rust bucket seemed to be throwing some sort of fit, and was whacking away at everything with his cane. There are very few things in this universe that actually scare Ironhide, and that cane was one of them. Ironhide actually gulped as he approached the old plane, ducking to dodge a bit of debris that came flying in his direction.

“Jetfire?” he said, standing behind the ex con at what he hoped would be a safe distance. The old mech stopped rampaging and turned around, his joints creaking and cracking as the rusty metal grinded together. Leaning heavily on his cane he growled,

“What do YOU want?! I’m busy trying to make this place more livable here!” He turned to the carnage behind him and extended an arm to verify it. Ironhide’s optic twitched as he absorbed the mess into his processor and then said in response to Jetfire’s question,

“Well, I’m here to show you around the base and get you acquainted with the way things work around here. So, if you’ll come with me…?” The plane stared down at him for a bit before scoffing and then declaring,

“Things will work around here the way I WANT them to! Do you even have any idea who you’re talking to, ya whippersnapper?! Since you obviously don’t have an eye fer greatness, I’ll tell you!” The old bot stood up taller out of his usually rather hunched over position and shouted to the heavens, “BEHOLD! THE INFINATE GLORY THAT IS JETFIRE!” He stopped yelling when his vocal systems began to back up and he started hacking and wheezing all over Ironhide. The grey mech put his arm up to shield himself from the bits of coolant that were spraying out of the older mech’s mouth and shuddered with building anger. This was going to be a long solar cycle.

So Ironhide began their tour of the base with the plane launching and landing strips. Mainly because he was hoping to start with something that at least remotely interested the old plane in order to hopefully keep him out of trouble for that much longer. It worked for a while, but Ironhide soon found himself in his vehicle mode and chasing after the plane as it took off from the landing strip just as a fighter jet was coming in for a landing. Ironhide ended up swerving off the strip just in time to avoid getting crushed by the incoming jet, but what had happened to Jetfire? The weapons expert looked to the sky where he had been just a few seconds ago, but nothing now remained but a bit of discharge in the air and a few parts on the ground below where he’d been flying. After a while of staring at the empty space, Ironhide realized with a tremendous amount of terror and annoyance, that Jetfire had teleported. But where?

Ironhide checked all around the military base, but there was no sign of Jetfire anywhere. He finally decided to go inside and use the equipment there to do a scan of the area, hoping to pick up the old mech’s energy signature that way. He soon discovered that he was nowhere nearby, and there appeared to be no sign of him anywhere. He was contemplating doing a global scan when an energy signal blipped into view on the screen. Jetfire had reappeared…right in the middle of the nearest city. The truck growled in annoyance and took off out of the hanger, transforming as he ran and speeding off in the directing of the signal, which he’d programmed into his comlink. As he drove along the deserted road he repeatedly begged to himself that the old plane would stay put long enough for him to get there, but no, there was no way it would be that easy. Ironhide soon found that Jetfire was on the move, undoubtedly plowing through everything in his path and crushing people cars and homes with that Primus-Forsaken cane of his. God that thing was scary. If he hadn’t been in his vehicle mode, Ironhide probably would have shuddered at the thought of the large, metal death stick.

After a bit of driving, Ironhide initially came to the city. He forced himself to slow down to the regulated speed limits and began to navigate the significantly narrower and more crowded streets of the big city. It didn’t take long before he started noticing signs of Jetfire’s presence. There were large tracks in the pavement, streetlamps were bent and knocked down, and there were frightened and confused looking civilians scattered all about the area. He wondered about the sanity of the old mech, after all, he was a robot in disguise as much as Ironhide was. Shouldn’t he have enough common sense to stay in his vehicle mode when out in the open? Ironhide followed the destruction to an open park, the sort that you would find people walking their dogs in and old ladies feeding pigeons from park benches. It was then that he discovered that Jetfire did have the intuition to disguise himself, although his methods weren’t all that clever. There in the middle of a field next to a duck pond, sat the old warplane in all his glory. He was completely visible save for a part of his left wing, which was cleverly disguised by a few bushes.

Ironhide groaned to himself, which came out as a rumble of his engine as he drove into the park. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any humans around. Perhaps they’d already been scared off by the rampage, or beaten into mushy pancakes by the deadly cane. Ironhide drove as close as he could before returning to robot mode and approaching the plane.

“Jetfire?” he said, coming up beside the hull of the large airship. He received no response, so he tried again. “Jetfire?” Still no response. He tried once more, this time giving the plane a hard prod with one of his cannons and a rather loud yell. “JETFIRE!?” This time, the plane rattled to life, suddenly transforming back into a mech. He stood, stomped around a bit to get his footing, stretched to crack his back, and then growled,

“What’s the matter wit’ you young bots these days? Can’t even let an old war vet enjoy a nice stasis nap in the sun, can ya?” Ironhide’s optic twitched spastically as he stared up at the ex con. He eventually pinched the bridge of his helm in order to calm himself down and turned away from the plane, sighing as he began to walk away,

“Alright Jetfire. No harm done. I’ll just take you back to the base and we can…JETFIRE?!” Ironhide turned to catch a glimpse of the old mech teleporting again, apparently not liking Ironhide’s suggestion. Ironhide let out a miserable howl and took a moment to go and bash his head on a tree many times. Only when the tree snapped in two did the silver mech deem that he had punished himself enough. Seeing that he had no other options, Ironhide checked his comlink again, and discovered Jetfire’s signal on the other side of the city. Taking off without a word, Ironhide began to wonder how much trouble he would get into if he managed to dump the old mech into an active volcano somewhere. The image brought his mood to the highest point that it had been at all day, even though that wasn’t saying much, and allowed him to bite the bullet long enough to arrive at the area that Jetfire’s signal had been found. It was a wide-open field, surrounded by stands that were filled with droves upon droves of people. They were all watching the field as they waited for something to happen. Ironhide wondered what they could all be sitting around there for until he happened to pass a sign that was advertising an air show that was supposed to happen some time that day. It was apparently featuring many very old plane models that were more or less impossible to see nowadays. Joy.

Not seeing Jetfire, Ironhide decided to circle around the back of the facility, hoping that he’d be able to spot the old mech from there. And sure enough, he found him, standing next to a pink biplane and…hitting on it.

“You know sweetheart, my father was THE FIRST WHEEL! Can you believe that? And he never transformed, but he did it WITH HONOR! And I, being his descendant, naturally inherited a lot of his incredible traits. Pretty impressive, eh? Hmm…you’re a quiet one, but that’s alright! Obviously you’re just a little shy in the presence of the magnificent Jetfire! It’s perfectly understandable, nothing to be ashamed about!” At this point, Ironhide had tackled the plane and the two of them had rolled into the grass below the airfield. The crowd fell dead silent for a second or two before erupting into fits of wild cheers and whistles that were heard halfway across the city. The two mechs rolled in the dirt for a while before Ironhide found himself overcome by a strange light, and the next thing he knew…he was lying on the side of a misty lake in the middle of nowhere surrounded my mountains. Puzzled, Ironhide sat up and looked around, doing a scan of the surrounding area to try and discover his whereabouts. But the mountains must have been giving him some interference, because he couldn’t get a clear transmission. It was then that he realized that his only way to get back to the base was probably to find Jetfire before the crazy old coot teleported again. Fan-Slagging-Tastic.

Getting to his feet, Ironhide wiped a bit of the damp sand away from his knee joints and began to slowly walk along the quiet beach. The air was cool, the water was dark and murky, and occasionally it would ripple as though something had just moved beneath it. Each time the mech would see the odd water movement he would stop and try to scan the spot, but all his scans revealed was that the body of water was a very large and very deep lake. It appeared to be filled with caves and canyons, which were probably giving him plenty of interference as to what kept moving just off the shore. Finally it came to the pint where the whateveritwas was beginning to drive the silver mech nuts, so he did what any reasonable mech would do, shoot a blast from his cannon into the water. The sound he received in response resembled a roaring moan, and much to his horror, a giant beast lifted its head out of the murky depths. It looked like some sort of giant aquatic lizard, with a long neck and very large teeth. And that was when Ironhide noticed a sign that read,

“Welcome to the Loch-Ness! Home of Nessie! Please, do not feed the lake beast! Thankyee.” The next thing Ironhide knew, a massive lake monster that was oddly fast on the beach was chasing him down, considering it didn’t really have any legs. Ironhide transformed into his vehicle mode in an attempt to outrun the beast, which only worked until his tires got stuck in a rut and he was left to the mercy of the Loch Ness Monster. But, to his amazement, appearing triumphantly over the horizon was the old plane that served as Jetfire’s alternate form. It flew directly overhead and transformed, coming down hard next to the overgrown lizard. Leaning on his cane, Jetfire growled,

“C’mon ya wussey! Come and face the infinite glory that is Jetfire!!!” Ironhide watched in awe as the old mech began to thrash the giant beastie with his cane. He ended up feeling a bit sorry for the creature; it never knew that it didn’t stand a chance. The silver mech watched as Jetfire sent the lake beast packing, using a clever combination of foul, old man language and his dreaded cane. When put together, those two weapons were oddly potent. When Nessie had been returned too the depths from which she emerged, Jetfire stood on the mech for a bit, waving his cane at where she had been and declaring his victory to the sky. Ironhide came up to Jetfire slowly, afraid of a wallop if he startled the older mech. But Jetfire slowly turned and offered a slight smile beneath his plated beard.

“Looks like ya got a lot to learn, ya whippersnapper.” He said to Ironhide, leaning on his cane. Ironhide found himself nodding, and grabbing onto Jetfire’s arm as he prepared to teleport them home. Although they went through several remote locations before getting there, including the moon, Saturn, Antarctica, and a Wal Mart somewhere in the middle of Texas, they did eventually make it back to the base.

The rest of the Autobots returned late that night. And although most of them went to their oversized garage for recharge, Optimus went off to search for Ironhide and Jetfire, hoping that they hadn’t killed each other during the day. When he entered the airplane hanger that the old aircraft was residing in, he found the two of them reclined in front of a projector screen, watching an old war movie in black and white.

“Wow Ironhide! You actually did it, man! I was worried for a minute there! I though you would have…” There was a loud clank as Jetfire smacked Optimus on the helm with his cane, knocking the truck out cold and watching indifferently as the leader came crashing to the floor like a felled tree. Ironhide looked at the old mech, smiled, and gave him a thumbs up and a high five before returning his attention to the projector screen.