Her impromptu deployment on Earth had taught Strongarm many things.

Humans were clever and adorable. And sometimes gross.

Even the best Lieutenants sometimes disregarded protocol and made things up on the fly. So far to great success, but no less aggravating. She really was writing them all up in her free time (although she was slowly starting to admit to herself that the more time passed, the less likely she was to turn her reports in).

Decepticons came in all different flavors of Crazy, but only a few variations of Trying to Vaporize You. Also, she really should study that ship manifest again, because so far it seemed like the vast majority of prisoners aboard were Animechs. Seriously, if she saw another set of claws and teeth brandishing a purple Decepticon logo, she might blow a fuse.

The day she could put her foot so far down Sideswipe's intakes that he couldn't speak for a week, she'd throw a party. Or, maybe, he'd finally put his own foot in there. She had hope.

And Dinobots were as surprising as they were straightforward, oxymoron may that be.

Turns out, while stealth may not be Grimlock's thing, he was an excellent tracker. He was so good, he wasn't even aware of it himself. Right now, Strongarm was following him up a steep hill, far enough behind to be out of reach of his massive tail, as he lumbered through the forest with his nose to the ground. Every so often he'd look up, sniff around, and adjust his bearings.

Fixit had explained the science behind it when he'd been busy detoxing Grimlock after the skunkticon debacle (and she would call it such, since they had all given Bumblebee far more aggravation than he'd deserved). While the, erm, fragrant toxins exuded by the skunkticons had effected all of them, they had thrown Grimlock for a particularly nasty loop, regardless of having taken more doses of it. Essentially, he'd been done in by his alt form's exceptionally sensitive scent receptors. While his sense of smell was marginally better than any of the rest of the team's in his root form, his giant beast muzzle contained long tubes loaded with sensors that ran from his nostrils almost right to his brain. Every inch that contacted air created data on his surroundings; what he did with it was up to him. Most was subconsciously processed and stored, but if he decided to focus on it he had a veritable field chemistry lab attached to the front of his face. At least, so said Fixit.

Grimlock himself had been too out of it to give much of a confirmation on the function of his inner workings.

Strongarm believed it, though, considering that her own first meeting with Grimlock was derailed when he lumbered off through the woods chasing Underbite's scent to Denny's scrapyard. It was reinforced now, as he tracked their fugitive through the thick brush.

They were after a known smuggler. While his usual MO was the "run of the mill" passing of illegal goods, he had gotten in over his head when he began trading a series of highly dangerous chemicals to the Decepticons and others for profit. How he'd gotten those chemicals was unknown, but the council had shipped him off to prison as soon as he was sentenced. He was a good sneak; street smart and savvy, he left no trail even through Earth's soft alien terrain, and had been able to deactivate his signal even without Steeljaw's help. Lt. Bumblebee had split the team into pairs to search quadrants around the crash site. While working directly with her CO would have been optimal, only he and Strongarm carried stasis cuffs, or had the training to bring criminals in without beating them half to permanent deactivation; it was strategic, then, to have the two trained law officers spread around.

Being partnered with the loud, brash Dinobot was not usually conducive to finding a stealthy perpetrator who could have heard them coming from a mile away, but Strongarm quickly realized that she had received the boon partner. While searching for evidence of Cybertronian life (which on Earth meant footprints in the dirt and broken branches in the trees), she had been ready to give up and move on to the next area when Grimlock stopped cold, face buried in a bush.

Not gonna lie, her first reaction was to recall her attempt at marching him out of the field near the scrapyard. She did not feel like convincing the Dinobot that now was a terrible time to ponder his appreciation of Earth's flora.

Instead, he raised his head from the bush, and made that deep, airy rumble that caused all kinds of prickly sensations to run up and down her back, and took off through the trees. She thought he had lost his mind, until she realized that he was stopping to smell all kinds of things, even barren patches of soil, that were all in a single, focused direction. He had also ceased to be talkative, well engrossed in the task of detecting the trail of their fugitive. Strongarm could have asked all kinds of questions, and oh, was that a difficult instinct to kick, but instead she just followed him, oddly confident in his nose's abilities. Granted, he was tracking the only Cybertronian trail in these woods other than their own, so it wasn't like sniffing out a single criminal in Praxus. She appreciated the ability all the same. And Earth's wilderness was full of all kinds of odd and interesting scents that could make finding their one Cybertronian rather difficult. Good thing Grimlock was tenacious. He seemed to be getting happier the longer this chase dragged on.

Which was something she pondered while they stomped through the underbrush. The more derisive scholars likened Beastformers (Dinobots firmly included therein) to Predacons and other wild animals roaming Cybertron's undeveloped places. Never mind that Predacons had recently been shown to be just as high functioning as any modern mech or femme, if a bit more susceptible to the dictations of their instinct, and prone to congregating in packs of their own kind. Beastformers, long believed to be the direct descendants of that ancient race, were considered by some to be the prehistoric link to modern Cybertronians, and treated with some of the same prejudice. Namely, "Danger: Little Brains, Brute Strength." Animechs got a similar treatment, especially if their root forms were not bipedal. It still made news when a member of any of these groups bucked the trend and engaged in "loftier," more cerebral pursuits. Strongarm considered this to be unfortunate; the "Form Dictates Function, and Function Dictates Rank" method that had divided classes of Cybertronians during the Golden Age were a primary key to the rise of the original Decepticons, and the eventual abandonment of the planet as it died. Never mind undoing the hard work currently taking place to return Cybertron to its former glory, Strongarm had met quite a few Beastformers and Animechs who she genuinely liked (present company included), some of which went through her cadet academy with her. She thought no less of them than she did of Minicons and average bots. There were some physiological differences that could not be denied, but when Strongarm swore to be the shield of law for all Cybertronians, she genuinely meant it, no matter how many claws or tails or dorsal spikes one happened to have.

Bumblebee had been in pitched combat with the massive revived Predacon named Predaking. She may have to ask some questions when he had a spare moment; considering that Grimlock was big and brawny enough as a ferro-rex, she could hardly fathom facing a full grown cyberdrake that was said to have outweighed Megatron by several tons. And spewed jets of fire from his mouth.

Ridiculous. Nature was a scary thing sometimes. Imagine if Grimlock could breath fire. Strongarm resisted a snort.

Grimlock crested a hill, and Strongarm ran to catch up. She ended up almost crashing right into his rump as he stood, stock still, staring down into a small parking lot that marked the head of several human hiking trails. There were two vehicles in the lot, a rugged white hatchback and grey pickup truck. Neither looked particular Decepticon-ish; in fact, human artifacts could be seen in the bed and windows of the truck. Strongarm sighed.

"Looks like he gave us the slip, big bot. I'll radio the Lieutenant and we'll move on to the next grid." She turned and started to walk back down the ridge; Bumblebee would kill them both if a human coming off the trails happened to see either of them. She may have kicked a rock in disappointment. She wanted to bag their criminal without her CO's help. Or Sideswipe's help. For pride reasons.

She came up short as Grimlock's massive tail swung over across her chest, bringing her to an abrupt stop.

"Hey, Strongarm."

She turned, finding herself face to snout with his huge head. Grimlock turned to point his muzzle back to the parking lot. A pair of humans, a male and a female, had exited the trails and climbed into the truck. In just a few more moments they were gone, and in just seconds more the white hatchback had turned a sickly yellow. And with a nice, contrasting Decepticon symbol emblazoned boldly on the hood.

Camo-paint, or a hologram. Oh, well played; he'd almost squeaked right past them. Would have, too, if not for Grimlock's one sense that was fooled by neither camo-paint nor holograms. Beside her, the Dinobot bared his teeth, and Strongarm put a hand against his flank, intent on keeping him from barreling off without her. She could feel him tense under her hand; Grimlock did not do "sit and wait" well.

"Come in Lieutenant."

"Go ahead, Strongarm."

"We've got eyes on our fugitive. He's currently in a small parking lot near the north-eastern trail heads."

"Copy that, we're on our way. Do not engage until we get there."

Next to her, Grimlock rumbled. He tilted his head to look at her. This was killing him, she could see it all over his face. Behind them, his tail lashed from side to side, and she could see his hands clench hard.

"We aren't really gonna just sit here, are we?" Because only Grimlock could make his fifteen-some-odd tons look pitiful.

She shouldn't. She really shouldn't. But her pride was doing terrible things to any rational logic she currently had.

"Oh, look! He's moving! I think he's, um, armed, yeah. If we don't take him in soon, he could be a danger to any humans coming to hike out here!"

Grimlock frowned.

"What? He hasn't gone anywhere—oh." Grimlock grinned hard, baring all his teeth. If she weren't expecting it, it might have shocked her in its ferocity. "Ohhh. I get it."

Strongarm smirked.

"You help me bag this guy before Bee and Sideswipe get here, and I promise you can take a draw of my energon rations for the next week."

"Please. I'll help you bag him for free."

"Okay, but the offer still stands." She meant it, too. If she could drop a captured Decepticon at Bumblebee's feet when he arrived, she would give Grimlock just about anything. Within reason.

"A'ight. You have any strange rules on punching?"

"Yes. As hard as you possibly can without destroying him. Kinda hard to cuff a bot with no hands to cuff." Seriously. Also, ew.

If possible, Grimlock smiled harder.

"Cross my spark and hope to die."

"That is still the creepiest human saying I've heard yet." She drew her proto-blaster from her waist, and brought out a set of cuffs from subspace. Fast and hard, he wouldn't even know what hit him. And on the way in, she'd bother to read him his rights.

Her com unit crackled.

"Strongarm, did you copy? Do not engage until we back you guys up."

She grinned, transformed and took off down the hill. Grimlock roared, and broke into his ballistic, lumbering gallop. If the convict didn't know they were there before, he sure did now.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant." Strongarm rolled hard around a tree, barreled through some shrubs and launched her self out into the parking lot. "But I can't talk now. We've got our hands full of hostile perp. Well, Grimlock's got his hands full."

Oh, she was lying like a dirty rug, but she'd explain that later. She was about to drop a Dinobot on a Decepticon, and it was still early afternoon.

If hunting with Grimlock was always this fun, she'd have to do it more often.

AN: Oh, Strongarm. Be glad Grimmy doesn't breathe fire. Or, y'know, wield a flaming sword. Just sayin'.

Until supplied with something canon, I will be using the term ferro-rex (ferro referring to ferrous metal) whenever a Cybertronian refers to Grimlock's beast form. Because Cybertron does not have t-rexes. I'm sure cyberdrake is self explanatory.

Brief rant: In episode 16, they say Grimlock weighs three tons. Bull. He's a freaking dinosaur made of metal. Unless that metal is super light, I won't except any weight less than fifteen tons. A city bus, without passengers, weighs about twenty tons. I can't wrap my head around Grimlock weighing much less than that. Considering some Earth pickup trucks can haul about ten tons, Strongarm can probably do an easy fifteen.

Rant off.

There are typos in here, I will try to find them all.