The slope of K9, across the Chinese border in the Himalayas really had been a nice spot for their assignation, Starscream thought as he entwined himself with Skyfire's wings and cockpit. Pale blue hands softly stroked white wings, bringing murmurs of pleasure from Skyfire's vocalizer. Suddenly, the pleasant caresses stopped.

"Mmm?" asked Skyfire in a drowsy tone, still adrift in post-overload glow.

"Sky, why is there a glowing yellow disc forming about a meter above the snow behind you?"

"Mmph?" Skyfire turned his head slightly, just in time to watch the disc of glowing yellow energy seem to solidify into a mirror-a mirror of quicksilver, that rippled and shifted.

Starscream frowned thoughtfully. "I think it's a portal of-"

A squad of red-clad cape-wearing swordsmen came running out of the quicksilver surface of the portal, followed by an odd woman in scanty purple rags, what appeared to be a serpentman-and Dr. Mindbender. Cobra-La's elite had a backup escape plan.

They stopped short, staring at the accursed abominations (giant robots) where nothing but snow or possibly an alternate Cobra-La had been expected.

"Transformers-here!" gasped Pythona. Dr. Mindbender said nothing, fear-widened eyes locking with furious red optics.

"Who are-?" Skyfire started to ask, only to be interrupted by Starscream.

"I see someone I don't like," the late Decepticon Air Commander snarled, arm-cannon charging, raising towards the knot of non-humans-and Dr. Mindbender.

"S-Starscream!" Dr. Mindbender yelled. "You're dead! We got the signal when Cobra Commander's booby-trap went off! You can't be here!"

Pythona slapped him in the back of the head. "Shut up, you idiot!" she hissed. "That's an alternate-YIII!"

SZHAACK! Starscream's laser fire narrowly missed Dr. Mindbender and Pythona, and did whiff a couple of the cape-clad goons-more of whom have been pouring through the portal, swinging furiously at some foe behind them. Those facing Starscream dove into the snow.

Said foe charged through the portal on a tracked AFV and skidded to a halt, guns swinging around to bear on the two Transfomers. Skyfire, slightly alarmed at this development, rolled Starscream off of him (disrupting Starscream's aim completely) and drew his own double-barrelled proton cannon.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE! HE'S AN AUTOBOT!" yelled someone from the AFV. "Nail the Decepticreep instead!"

Skyfire aimed his cannon at the AFV's tracks. "Negative! Hold your fire."

Starscream shook the snow off of himself and rose to his feet. Pythona dragged Dr. Mindbender over to the GI Joe vehicle, using it for cover from Starscream-only to find herself looking up the barrel of a rifle held by a red-haired woman in GI Joe uniform.

"We surrender!" Dr. Mindbender said, before Pythona could ruin it for him.

"Yeah, right," said the red-haired woman. "Cover these two," she said over her shoulder to someone else in the vehicle, "and anyone else who gets the urge to surrender-Damn it, who let Globulus slip back through the portal!"

She looked up at the annoyed Autobot. Big, really big, white, red and completely unknown to her. Starscream-it sure looked like Starscream, right down to the purple Decepticon sigils, albeit with what looked like F-22 wings-stared at them, head tilted slightly. His arm guns were slightly askew, not pointed directly at them. That much restraint was unusual in a Decepticon, to say the least.

"GI Joes here?" Starscream said, sounding mildly surprised in that disturbingly Cobra-Commanderesque voice of his. "Why am I being shot at now? Are you really that mad about the weather?"

Lady Jaye-for it was she-stared up at both of them. "Hold your fire-and where do you think you're going, Mindbender?" She glared fiercely at Cobra's mad scientist, who seemed very anxious not to hang around Starscream.

She looked past Starscream at the unknown Autobot, taking in the trampled snow and remembering the two interlocked, struggling forms she'd seen. "What's going on? We portal into an obvious fight and you tell us not to attack him?"

"WE WEREN'T FIGHTING!" Starscream and Skyfire said almost in chorus.

Lady Jaye just stared at them. "... You just broke my brain."

-FIN-