"Look at 'em," Ironhide snorted, slowly shifting his arm between his cannon and his hand, "all scrawny little—thanks, Ratchet—little showroom models and race cars. These are civies with guns, not soldiers."

"At least the 'civies with guns' come in for regular maintenance," Ratchet dug through his subspace and retrieved a thin bristle-brush—humans used them for cleaning drains, but they were the perfect size to scrub dirt out of the intricate parts of a Cybertronian—and handed it to Ironhide, accepting the oil back from him.

"Yeah? And you complain about it constantly. You grouse when I don't come in, and you grouse when they do. I think you just like hearing yourself speak."

"Hn. You know Sideswipe came in demanding a tune up? Mech's the most meticulously kept piece of machinery this side of the Kuiper belt."

Ironhide grunted in amusement, scrubbing through a month's worth of caked on mud. The subjects of his derision were running through drills—walking through drills would be a more apt descriptor—on the tarmac below him. Sideswipe, vain prissy aft though he was, at least had some minor semblance of combat training. The rest…

"Useless," Ironhide spat.

"We were expecting refugees," Ratchet pointed out, "not the Elite Guard."

Ironhide blew steam through his smokestacks. "What can I do with this?" He waved a dismissive hand at the Autobots below them. "Starscream is still out there, Barricade is still out there, and who knows what they're coming back with? We need an army, not a bunch of civilians."

"Didn't Lennox offer army resources to help train them?"

"Pft. What do humans know about Autobot training?"

"Can't be much," Ratchet grunted, struggling to fit a large piece of scrap metal in his subspace, "considering it was you teaching them."

Ironhide sneered. "I'm a fine teacher. Humans are just stupid."

"Prove it," Ratchet nodded towards the trainees, "and maybe I'll believe you."

"One of these days," Ironhide swiped at Ratchet's head. Ratchet ducked his fist and transformed with a laugh, driving back into the base. He tucked his cannon neatly back into his arm—no grinding; Ratchet had been right about it needing maintenance—and pushed himself to his feet. The flat beaches of Diego Garcia stretched out beneath him. It was disgusting here, all hot, watery air, and ocean stink. It made him long for Cybertron's sterile buildings, the quiet creaking of the planet. Hell, it even made him miss the acid rain.

"Alright," Ironhide rolled his neck, popping the ball joints, "let's see what they've got."

He threw himself into a roll, transforming once his shoulders hit the ground. His engine revved, hurtling him over the dirt and bare asphalt. He couldn't see in alt mode, persay, but he could visualise his surroundings.

The faces of the twins as he sped down from the hill at fifty miles per hour at them were priceless. It was one of the high points of his million year career, definitely. Ironhide saved the image to his permanent memory.

Ironhide twisted, suddenly, dragging long streaks of black behind his tires. Oops. At least it gave the maintenance staff a job to do. He twisted out of alt mode with as much grace as he transformer into it, which was to say, not much. What he lacked in grace, however, Ironhide more than made up for in sheer intimidation. Five and a half tons of shifting metal skidded to a halt in front of the crowd of panicked Autobots, and Ironhide stomped his feet as he stood upright. He held back a grin. It wouldn't do to look friendly to these scrapheaps.

"Fall in!" he shouted instead.

The new arrivals struggled to form some semblance of order. Sideswipe kept rolling back and forth on his wheels, Jolt was crackling with nervous energy, driving away the 'bots on either side of him. Arcee was struggling to keep all three of her bodies upright at once, and the two of them sagged the second she turned her attention away to adjust one of them. And the twins…

Ironhide stayed silent, his face twisted in a glower, as Mudflap and Skids escalated from punching each other to flat out brawling.

The other three Autobots looked at each other, until finally one of the Arcee units slapped them for their attention. Mudflap looked up, blanched, and hauled his brother upright.

Ironhide rolled his fist back, and shifted his arm to a cannon.

As one, the Autobots took a step back. Mudflap and Skids ducked behind each other. The Arcee units wobbled and threatened to crash into Jolt, who let a single nervous blip of static slip out of his vocalizer. Sideswipe was the only one who reacted sensibly, dropping back into what he must have assumed was a combat stance, his blades ready to spring loose.

Ironhide considered—really, he did—lecturing them, pulling a Kup and reducing them all to a quibbling pile of bolts and regret.

But, he was never one for words when action would do.

He lunged for Sideswipe, pulling his cannon away as he did so. Sideswipe tried to react, but he was clumsy, untrained. Ironhide ducked under his first swipe and grabbed his left hand before he could release the blade, crushing it in his fist and crimping the metal shut. Sideswipe howled in pain and clumsily kicked at him. Mistake. Ironhide caught him around the middle and heaved him towards the other Autobots. Jolt and the twins managed to dodge aside in time, but Arcee scrambled to co-ordinate her units. The blue one crumpled to the ground under Sideswipe's weight.

One down.

The other 'bots finally managed to get it through their thick processors that they needed to mount a counteroffensive. The twins surged at him, fists swinging wildly. Ironhide didn't bother with Mudflap, stepping aside to let him run headlong into Jolt. He snatched Skids off the ground and crushed him around the middle, denting his armor and short circuiting some of his non-essential functions.

"Who turned out the lights?" he shouted, pounding vainly on Ironhide's hand. Ironhide vented air and tossed him at Sideswipe, who was struggling to regain his footing. He went down with a dull clank and an intelligible stream of curses.

Ironhide turned towards the remaining 'bots. They were lingering away from the battlefield, out of arm's reach. Perhaps they had learned from their comrades?

Mudflap let loose a cry of rage and ran at him.

Or maybe not.

He had the sense of mind to finally pull out his measly cannon and fire a handful of shots at Ironhide's chest. The energy bursts felt like a mildly irritating case of rust. Ironhide shifted to his cannon and leaned down to the minibot, priming a blast. The barrel burned molten red, and Ironhide could feel the heat radiating from it.

"Mine's bigger," he grinned. Mudflap quaked. Ironhide pulled the cannon away from his head and fired it next to the pile of Autobots. The Arcee unit shrieked, and pulled her head under Sideswipe's leg.

Ironhide pulled his leg back and punted the minibot across the tarmac, away from the other Autobots. Well, the first pile was getting a little big.

A blaster bolt to the back of his leg drew his attention. Arcee was attempting a joint attack with her two free bodies. She could control two of them simultaneously with a fair amount of success, and they managed to swerve and twist around each other without crashing. Ironhide grabbed for the pink one, but she was too small and fast, and his fist ended up closing over air. He drew his hand back. Well, if that was how she wanted to play it.

Ironhide flipped his targeting scope over his eye and calculated her trajectory. He grabbed again, not at the spot that she was, but at the spot she was going to be in aught point four seconds. Both Acee units shrieked as Ironhide's hand clamped over the pink unit's midsection. He took the momentary distraction as an opportunity and snatched the second Arcee off the ground. Their engines revved uselessly. Ironhide smacked them together and tossed them next to the blue unit.

One left.

Jolt was standing behind him, fists raised in defense. Ironhide heaved a sigh, shifting his weight. Ah, yes. This one.

He punched vainly at Ironhide's arm, struggling to scramble away as Ironhide casually walked closer to him. Ironhide slapped his hands away and grabbed his arm, preparing to sling him into the other Autobots. Sideswipe was looking twitchy again.

That was the plan.

Ironhide clenched his fist to throw Jolt, and approximately 10,000 volts of electricity arced up his arm. His hand spasmed, crumpling Jolt's upper arm like aluminum. The electricity shorted out after that, and Ironhide tossed Jolt, still crackling, into the pile. The other bots yelped as the residual energy leeched onto them.

Ironhide shook out his arm. Some of the minor relays were fried, but the limb still worked. He was almost impressed by the last-ditch effort. Of course, that was quickly overshadowed by his disappointment that there even needed to be a last-ditch effort. The five of them should have lasted longer than, Ironhide checked his chronometer, three minutes and thirty eight seconds. Maybe a lecture would have been less depressing.

"Drills," he grunted to the groaning Autobots slowly staggering to their feet, "tomorrow. Five am, sharp."

He didn't bother telling them to be there. They would be there.

If they weren't, well…

Maybe he'd give them to Ratchet.

"We've got a long way to go."

Er. Ah. The title today comes from Hero's Come Back—or rather, the English translation thereof. This is why I can never put my phone on shuffle when other people are around.

Despite the fact that the Bay movies were my big introduction back into Transformers, I've never actually written a movieverse fic (the terrible nonsense I wrote when I was 12 and never published doesn't count). Consider that rectified.

Thank you for reading!