To Serve and Protect Chapter 1: Kidnapped, a transformers fanfic

So this is a side story that I'm going to use to describe something that's coming up in my fic "The World Needs You Now". There's no mention of the main character of TWNYN in this fic, so this fic is totally OC proof! That means its full of canon characters (except for the bad guy) and only mentions of said OC. I hope you like this. It's only going to be, say, 4 chapters long. But that's all I need to explain this. I hope you like this!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters Sarah, Annabelle, Will, or any of the Autobots. I don't own anything to do with Transformers (or The Lorax). I only own the bad guy. EDIT: Also, I do not own the idea that Ratchet and Que/Wheeljack created a program that allows holoforms to consume food as a 'alternate source of fuel'. How did I forget to write this? It belongs to Botosphere.

To Serve and Protect

1 ~ Kidnapped ~ 1

Sarah Lennox watched as her only daughter swung on one of the swings in the backyard from where she was standing behind the glass doors. She smiled softly, enjoying the happy look that was on her daughter's face. The seven year old was a miracle to the Lennox family, and whenever she was happy, the rest of the family was happy too. No one could stay unhappy if she suddenly bounced into the room wearing a smile that shone almost as bright as the sun. And for such a cheerful daughter, Sarah Lennox was grateful. It helped her stay sane when her husband, William, was stationed in Qatar and at various other bases around the globe.

Sarah and her daughter, Annabelle, were currently staying with Sarah's mother and father. It was for their birthdays because they were positioned so close together on the calendar. And it was a welcome break from the farm life. Yes the views they got out of their big country windows were gorgeous, but she felt safer and more secure here in town when Will wasn't home. Yes, there was a giant alien robot there to protect them when Will wasn't around, but sometimes something did slip by Ironhide's sensors. Like that bear that had snuck into the chicken coop and ate all the chickens before ambling off in the middle of the night. Or that poacher that went after the cougar cub that decided to dart across the horse pasture…

Yeah, Sarah felt safe here, even though they were not going to be at her parents for too long.

From where she stood, she could hear her father pouring chips into a bowl while she heard her mother working the popcorn machine so that they could sit down to a movie together with a snack. They were going to watch the movie Annabelle had been wanting to watch for a while—The Lorax. The little girl had wanted to see the movie ever since she had seen come out in the store. Sarah had finally been able to grab a copy, so they were going to watch it that afternoon. Annabelle was going to be so thrilled to see that they were going to watch it, because, of course, she hadn't told her yet.

Sarah heard the front door open and then close, and then footsteps. "Smells good," Ironhide's voice grunted. She smiled. Ironhide, their guardian, had taken to the smell and taste of butter-coated popcorn once Ratchet and Que had come up with technology that allowed their holoforms to eat food and use it as an alternative fuel source, since the Energon Earth had was not going to last forever. He had also taken to her cooking, which meant he would eat dinner with them as many times as he could. She now had to feed a very hungry man and a very hungry mech every dinner.

She heard more footsteps before Ironhide's holoform appeared beside her. "Watching your daughter?" the Weapons Specialist asked, knowing that he had just pointed out the obvious but didn't care.

Sarah nodded with a hum of confirmation. "I just wish that Will was here to enjoy it with me…us…" she glanced up at the holoform, at his imposing stature. She watched as Ironhide nodded slowly after a pause that lasted a few seconds.

"I know," he said. "But he is busy looking for the Witwicky boy. He won't be coming back until they find him. This is the final stretch." Ironhide glanced at her. "They think they know where Sam is. I'll be returning to the base after the movie."

The woman nodded. "I understand."

Silence fell between the two as Sarah went back to listening to her parents preparing the snack. She could hear her mother preparing the iced tea. The snack would be finished when the iced tea was made. Sarah felt that she should be helping them, but she continued to stare out into the backyard and at her precious Annabelle.

But the serenity of the situation was not to last. Suddenly, a gold coloured SUV raced down the alley that ran just outside the back fence, and screeched to a stop. A man jumped out and ran around the front of the SUV before he vaulted the fence and quickly made his way over to Annabelle. Sarah came out of her relaxed stance and tensed as the man grabbed Annabelle. The blonde haired girl let out a scream as the stranger wrapped one hand around her and pressed a gun to her head. Sarah screamed her daughter's name as Ironhide growled and slammed the glass doors open with enough force to shatter the glass. He then went to step forward, but the man smirked and clicked the gun's safety off with a mocking chuckle. Sarah couldn't help but gasp.

"Don't move, man," the stranger warned, his voice heavy with a Russian accent. "Or it's bye-bye to sweetie-pie here."

Ironhide's vivid blue eyes narrowed dangerously and he growled.

"Now," the Russian said. "Since Colonel William Lennox and I have a score to settle and you don't want your daughter here to die, you'll allow me to get into the SUV and drive away or I will kill her." When neither Ironhide or Sarah moved, the Russian knowingly nodded before he backed up to the fence, opened the back gate, went through it, and backed up to the SUV. After throwing Annabelle into the back, he climbed into the front via the front passenger seat. With tears brimming, Sarah watched as the unknown man drove away with her baby.

Before the SUV was out of sight, Ironhide was comm'ing Optimus. ::Come in, Prime!::

::Optimus here, what is the matter, Ironhide?:: came the calm voice of the Autobot leader.

::Some human fool came and kidnapped Annabelle at gunpoint. Sarah is about to burst into hysterics. What should we do?:: Ironhide asked as he comfortingly wrapped his arms around Sarah's shoulders as she began to sob.

::We're on our way. Try to follow the criminal while we catch up.::

::Will do, Optimus. Over and out.:: Ironhide looked down at Sarah who looked like she was ready to collapse. "Don't worry, Sarah," he said softly. When she looked up at him, his eyes held a softness she had never seen before. "We will get your youngling back." And with that, he scooped her up bridal style, and quickly carried her inside. Once she was set down on the couch in the living room, Ironhide deactivated his holoform and started his engine.

Barricade was just minding his own business, thinking over what he had done for the Decepticons. Back in 2007, he had fought to get information about the Witwicky boy's glasses, but failed. In 2009, he was still paying for that failure up where Starscream had sent him. He had to patrol several of the cities up in Canada. The snow that fell every winter there was treacherous. He was stuck in Canada and not allowed to travel to Egypt in order to help his comrades. But in 2011, he was back in the US and allowed to help Megatron take over the world (though he didn't trust Sentinel. The Prime was, after all, an ex-Autobot). He was about to execute the Autobot Que at the puny human's request, but missed when one of the Decepticon ships began to dump its load of single-Decepticon flyers down onto the street they were on.

Now he was on his own again, patrolling a highway under his disguise of a police officer. For the last seven years, his ego as a well-known Decepticon had been bruised. And he didn't like it. He tried and tried again to keep his reliability intact, but he was failing miserably. Like, for instance, a few months before, her tried to retrieve an AllSpark shard that they had located, but he couldn't get the exact location from the girl who was reported having it, so he was forced to kill her. But, the all-annoying yellow and black Autobot who was the guardian of the Witwicky boy had swooped in to save the day, and stopped him from executing the girl with one of his maces.

The Saleen growled at the memory. He had been so close! He had checked to see if there were any Autobots in the vicinity before he had taken off after the girl. But the scum had been hiding. The fragger came out of nowhere!

The more recent failures, he was unwilling to say, stung more than the ones that he had performed when he first landed on the planet.

Barricade now spent his time pretending to be a harmless police car as his holoform played the part of a police officer that used him as a police officer. He had to admit that the human law enforcers had an exciting line of work, since some humans broke the law and had to be caught because they broke a rule pertaining to said law. And some of those law-breakers were dangerous, like one criminal the Decepticon knew. The fleshling was from a country called Russia. He was an ex-spy who had gone rogue and now only caused trouble. His record carried charges from armed robbery to murder. Barricade hated to say it, but with that human, he'd rather see him behind bars not hurting anyone than to see him running amok. The man, whose name was Francis Ericson, was a man who reminded him all too much of Starscream—minus the spitting, the ugliness, and the backstabbing ways (though, since he didn't personally know Ericson, he had no idea if Ericson was backstabbing or not).

The Decepticon had already caught the Russian three times and jailed him personally. But the man kept coming back. After the third time he had escaped Barricade realized that the man must have friends from his days of spying helping him escape. Tricky, slagger, he thought.

"There's a star on my car and one on my chest, a gun on my hip and the right to arrest. I'm the guy who's the boss on this highway so watch out what you're doin' when you're drivin' my way…" sang the pleasant voice of the Canadian/American cowboy over the airwaves. Barricade knew he shouldn't have, but he had begun to enjoy listening to the radio when he was simply cruising down the highway. He especially enjoyed any song that sang about police officers. So far, the song he was listening to at that moment was as close to a favourite as a song could get (in his unwilling to have favourite lists part of his mind). There was something about country music that was soothing…

He was startled out of his thoughts when his 'radio' beeped before the voice of one of his 'fellow officers' drowned out the song. "Hey, Officer Cade, we have a problem."

Barricade choked back the groan that wanted to leave his voicebox. "What type of problem, Xavier?" he demanded.

"Well, your 'friend'" there was a chuckle "was spotted forcefully taking a child from the backyard of a home in the town of Tranquility, Nevada. After taking the child, he shoved her into a gold SUV and drove off. The mother of the child just called us. She sounds quite upset. She said it was her only child and she doesn't want her taken from them."

"Ericson is at it again, isn't he?" Barricade sighed. It seemed he was going to have to play hero once again. He shut off the music as he thought about the human sparkling. Sparklings were important, no matter what species they belonged to. He viewed sparklings with high regard, and at the femmes that created them with the same regard. He hadn't wanted to kill all the sparklings at the Youth Sector…but he had no choice…either he help kill them, or his sister would die. Megatron ended up offlining her anyway. He returned to the present. "What's the SUV's licence plate number?"

"OTN dash 285. The SUV was last seen pulling onto the highway, going east. Where are you?"

"Which highway, Xavier?" Barricade barked, something inside him reminding him of how much he loved high-speed chases…

"The only highway running through Tranquility, moron," Xavier said playfully before he became serious again. "Highway 50."

"You're lucky I'm not in the station with you, Officer David Xavier. You could have gotten a black eye" Or much worse, Barricade thought "for that." He snorted at the sounds of disbelief and fear coming from the officer. David Xavier knew when the man he knew as 'Officer Barry Cade' meant business. "You're also lucky that I'm on the same highway as that criminal idiot and going in the same direction. I think I've spotted him as well." It was true, he could just see a gold SUV in front of pickup truck pulling a flatbed trailer. He zoomed his vision in on the SUV's licence plate and chuckled darkly when he saw that it matched the description of the licence plate Xavier had given him. Gotcha, Ericson, Barricade thought evilly. "I've got a visual. Ha, he won't stand a chance."

"Get after him, Cade. Don't let him get away," Xavier said.

Barricade activated his holoform in his driver's seat and had it grip his steering wheel. He then switched on his sirens and accelerated. The pickup slowed down and pulled over as Barricade raced past and after the SUV, whose driver noticed him and was racing away.

"I can't believe he took Annabelle," Lennox growled from where he was sitting in Optimus' driver's seat. "And with Annabelle there…"

"From what I've learned about human criminals is that if one criminal has a gun while he or she is kidnapping someone, they have absolute power in the situation. It was the same on Cybertron," Optimus said. The leader of the Autobots couldn't take his mind off of why the man would have wanted to take Annabelle. Was it because he knew that if he sent out a ransom, he knew he would get the money? The Autobots would do anything to keep Lennox's daughter safe, since she was considered part of the family. "Why would this man want to take Annabelle?"

Lennox sighed and looked down. "If it's the man I think it is, I know why he took her. He wants me."

"What is this man's name?"

"His name is Francis Ericson. He was a former spy for the Russian government. I caught him in the middle of an 'operation' he was doing for their government and I stopped him from cruely killing a family who had spotted him before I had. I don't think he's forgiven me for that yet," Lennox explained.

Optimus paused. "I have to agree with you Lennox. If he had forgiven you, then he wouldn't have taken your daughter."

Lennox didn't say another word as Optimus pulled out onto the highway and charged down Highway 50, going east. Optimus soon came up behind Ironhide, who was swerving between cars almost in an angry fashion. He even honked at a few to get out of his way. It was understandable, since Ironhide liked Annabelle a lot. But it was highly illegal. Optimus was going to have to talk to him when this was all over and Annabelle was safe once more. There was no 'if' in this situation.

They soon caught up to the SUV since Ironhide had been keeping tabs on it. Optimus scanned it even before it was fully visible. Annabelle was laying the very back of the SUV, curled up in a tight little ball. Her elevated vitals showed that she was terrified.

But Optimus' attention was quickly taken from the SUV when Lennox gasped loudly. Optimus quickly searched for the source of Lennox's fear and saw what was troubling him.

Barricade.