I am so sorry for the horrendously long wait! Life and other fic ideas got in the way! I am so sorry about this! I hope that you enjoy the last chapter of the name game! Please, leave a review and let me know what you think!

Ultra Magnus's Ability to Detach from His Carrier- I know that in G1 the carrier was a part of his body when he transformed (and didn't just disappear into netherworld like somebody else's trailer…), but, for the sake of this story, I am going to have his car carrier as a detachable accessory. It is movieverse after all; if they could give Prime flames, then I can separate Magnus from his carrier. Besides, if you were to calculate the combined mass his truck alt mode and the carrier, Magnus's bipedal mode would be a hulking monster.

Humungous thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this silly little story of mine! You have been tremendously wonderful! There are no words to describe how great you are! A galaxy-sized thank you goes out to blood shifter, Bunnylass, Jason M. Lee, Bluebird Soaring, Violetlight, Yami-Yugi3, AutobotStarlight, Dragon260, cmdrtekk, Daebereth, star's dreams, Fire From Above, Jessi Tsuki, amber Kat, Lucadris, Pheonix13, Twospotz, Kayla The Shapeshifter, theshadowcat, jazzbot8907, Soului, inuficcrzy, chigirigi, Anonymous a, Blazonix, LoveHopes, BarkingPup, Storm Blue Lightning Saix, and ArmoredSoul!

Special Thanks goes to both Lady Tecuma and Violetlight for reading this over and saying it was funny. I've been struggling to get my funnies out for a while and it just doesn't seem to be happening for me. They certainly gave me the boost I needed to finish this. Thank you two so much! Plus, I want to thank Violetlight and her Latin classes for the lowdown on Optimus' and Magnus' names- and the suggestion of Iron Man as a song. You're awesome Violet!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, Great Big Sea's It's the End Of The World As We Know It, George Thorogood Bad to the Bone, Black Sabbath's Iron Man, or The Song That Never Ends.

The Name Game

"It's the end of the world as we know it!
It's the end of the world as we know it!
It's the end of the world as we know it!
And I feel fine!"

Mikaela rubbed her temples soothingly, taking several deep breaths before sticking her head out the window. "Blaster, you're really not helping things here!"

"I thought the song was appropriate!" Blaster called back, his alt mode glinting merrily in the dawn light from where it was strapped down to the lower level of Ultra Magnus's car carrier.

"Hardly." Mikaela growled, grimacing as the mech turned the cheerful, apocalyptic tune enough so that it no longer warbled in the wind, ringing in loud and clear through the metal scaffolding of the moving carrier.

"It could be worse," Sam shrugged. "He could be playing Doomsday Clock by Smashing Pumpkins, or End of the World by Armour for Sleep, or The End by The Doors, or-,"

Mikaela's cell phone cut him off abruptly with a shrill ring and she scrambled to answer it, laughing lightly as Miles quietly muttered in relief, "saved by the bell." Flipping the little cell open, Prowl's voice suddenly came streaming in for the entire car to hear loud and clear.

"I trust you are still secure back there?" he inquired.

"Yeah, just fine, Prowl," Mikaela answered before anyone could complain.

"Glad to hear you consider your prisoners' comfort when you're transporting them to their doom." Miles called from the back seat, his voice lofty and melodramatic.

A sigh same over the speakers. "You are not my prisoners and I am not transporting you to your "doom." You three are accomplices to several infractions that have taken place on base and as such, you will be penalized appropriately."

Multi-toned electronic gabber came over the cell phone before Ultra Magnus's deep, rumbling voice came over it. "We will see to it that the punishment is within the limits of human durability," he said ominously. "I cannot say the same for Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Blaster, or Bumblebee."

The car carrier jerked around a bit as the eavesdropping twins tried to shake their energon restrains and roll for it again. In return, Ultra Magnus swerved, swinging his entire load sharply. While the captive Autobots were securely strapped down to the carrier with the thickest energon restraints Prowl could find, only receiving minimal jolts, the humans were not so lucky. Miles saw stars as his head smacked the window, and Sam saw nothing but Miles' shoulder as he face-planted into it; Mikaela got the gearshift in her side while Chase ate the steering wheel hard.

Already pissy from being conned into coming in with her niece and friends for their sake (they were too terrified to climb in the back seat of Prowl's alt mode for fear of what he would do to them), a hot streak of exhaustion-induced road rage shot through Chase. She thrust her head out her '91 Honda Civic's window and yelled, "Would you watch your freaking driving! I did not put up with you robots for seven years to die now!"

Mikaela scrambled for her fallen cell phone, which had wedged itself underneath her seat when the car jerked. Optimus's calm voice was speaking now.

"My apologies, Chase," he said. "I am aware that this might be of an inconvenience to you to be escorting Mikaela, Sam, and Miles back to base-."

"Damn straight it is," she groused.

"-And, although it is a nuisance, we greatly appreciate the time and patience you are giving us."

"Time and patience mean bullshit if I'm dead." Chase replied flatly. "Either talk Magnus into taking the alien equivalent of a breathalyser, or else keep him in the right lane."

"If that is what will make you more at ease, Chase, Magnus will be more careful with his driving," Optimus offered, ever the peace keeper.

"It'll make me as "at ease" as I possibly can be when I'm in a car strapped down to the top of a moving car carrier driven by a giant alien robot who can't seem to keep it in a straight line," Chase replied, not bothering to curtail her sarcasm. It was ass crack O'clock in the morning; there was no way in hell she was going to pretend to be nice.

"I'll have you know, I am aware of all of Earth's driving laws and regulations and I am following them within their specified parameters," Ultra Magnus retorted curtly.

"Sure, because us being up here is the most legal thing in the world," the woman replied, barking a harsh laugh. "I do this kind of thing all the time with my human buddies too."

Sam reached out to pluck the phone from his girlfriend's hands. "I don't see why you couldn't have just us ride with Bee," he said. "I mean, it would have saved you the hassle of loading Chase." He ignored the middle finger saluted in his direction from the driver's seat.

"I am not chancing another escape." Prowl replied curtly. "As I seem to recall, it was not even a few short hours ago that you three decided to go AWOL with Bumblebee; what would stop you from attempting another run if I let you ride with him?"

"Ironhide's cannons come to mind..." Miles uttered under his breath, hoping neither Prowl no Ironhide heard him. No doubt the Topkick was flanking the group for that exact purpose; in the event someone tried to run, he'd get target practice.

"Fine, fine, point taken- we can't be trusted with Bumblebee," Sam conceded reluctantly. "But don't you think it's an unreasonable precaution to have us strapped down to the top of the carrier? Wouldn't it have been just as easy to have Chase drive us?"

"Perhaps, but I reiterate the point of the possibility of escape."

"Do you honestly think this older-than-shit car could outrun you all?" Mikaela asked with a roll of her eyes.

"That's not for me to say. Even if the probability is low, there is no point in taking the risk. You are safely restrained on the carrier and Ultra Magnus is being more careful with your transport; if you cause no further trouble by trying to escape, then there should be no other issues." Prowl explained calmly.

"Oh yeah? What if I have to go pee?" Miles challenged for the hell of it.

It took Prowl a few moments to reply; human bodily functions were always a touchy (if not a little creepy) subject amongst some Cybertronians. "You will have to… "hold it" until we get to base. You may use the human facilities there."

"What if I can't hold it?" Miles asked. "What if I gotta go so bad I can taste it?"

"That is physiologically impossible for your species," Prowl informed him firmly.

"Oh yeah? Well tell that to my poor bladder," Miles retorted, his grin obvious in his voice. "No, wait, tell that to my poor bladder and my poor taste buds- they're the ones being held hostage by all the backed piss that can't fit in my bladder anymore."

"Miles, that's disgusting," Mikaela muttered, though she was stifling her own laughter.

"Can't we just pull over for him?" Bumblebee intoned. He'd driven Sam around enough over the years to know the direness of a human who had to relieve themselves.

"We are not that far from base. I am sure that he can control his bodily functions until then."

Miles sighed dramatically. It looked like he was going to lose his hypothetical game of human-has-to-go… "Alright, fine, leave me up here to suffer. I might as well just open the door and-."

"If you even dare leak up there, you little carbon-monkey, and it gets on me, I'll smear you into the ground!" Sunstreaker roared. The entire carrier rocked with his fury. Magnus swerved again to keep the Lamborghini in check, throwing the humans again despite his prior promise of safer driving.

Even as his head bounced off the window, Miles couldn't help but grin. He'd gotten a rise out them, which was what he'd been aiming for. Baiting bots was some of the best kind of fun to be had, almost as fun as picking on their names.

Chase grunted as her nose cracked against the wheel. Her fingers came up to feel the damage and came away wet and red. Stemming the flow by pinching her nose, Chase's gaze was dark and promised pain as she glared towards her niece.

"You owe me so much for coming with you," she hissed. "I mean blood service out of all three of you for a couple of months. Otherwise, Autobot tires aren't the only thing I'm slashing tonight."

Overhearing the impending threat, Sideswipe whined through the open phone line. "We didn't do anything that bad this time-!"

"You're concept of 'that bad' is severely skewed," Prowl pointed out flatly.

But Sideswipe would not be swayed; he'd been watching too many Law & Order/cop shows to back down now. "Don't we get any say in this, though? A hearing, or defence, or something?"

Ironhide's deep, gravelly voice rumbled through the phone. "Not unless you want to bargain with the business end of my cannons."

"…nevermind. I'm good back here." The Lamborghini squeaked. He'd take human leakages and slashed tires over plasma cannons any day; he'd wait to make his appeal.

Mikaela rolled her eyes and snapped her cell shut, stashing it back in her pocket. No point in listening to alien robots quibble back and forth.

"Prowl must be super pissed if he's willingly breaking a law by leaving us up here," she commented offhandedly.

"Maybe he's a dirty cop now," Miles offered, nodding to Prowl's panda-paint glinting in the dawn light, his back end blackened with soot. "Get it? Dirty cop?"

"Har har," Mikaela replied flatly, reaching for the radio. She switched it on and fiddled with it until she found a song that was loud enough to drown out Blaster's ongoing music selection.

"-I'm here to tell ya honey,
That I'm bad to the bone-
Bad to the Bone
B-B-B-B-Bad B-B-B-B-Bad B-B-B-B-Bad
Bad to the Bone-."

A wicked solo ensued, filling the car with the sweet tunes of George Thorogood.

"I don't know why, but this song makes me think of Ironhide," Sam said offhandedly.

"Really?" Mikaela asked, eyebrow quirked curiously.

"Yeah- it just has this kind of old, badass feeling to it- kind of like Ironhide, you know?"

She laughed a bit. "I guess. I never really thought about it before."

"Now's as good a time as any to think about it as any," Miles pointed out, nodding out the window to the road ten feet below. "It's not like we're getting out of here any time soon."

"I got a better song for old 'Hide," Chase offered, her nose now stuffed with tissue she'd dug out from somewhere. She leaned across to the glove compartment, retrieving a CD case and popping in a disk.

"What song?" Sam asked enquired curiously.

"Just wait for it," Chase ordered, waving him off with a flick of her hand.

And then came the unmistakable announcement-

"I Am Iron Man"

-followed by one of the most famous riffs by Black Sabbath.

"Nice," Sam laughed. Miles gave a little air guitar show in the back, miming along with song.

"The song's kind of creepy, actually- like, how much it pertains to our lives," Mikaela said. "It's a about a guy made of metal who travels through time to benefit mankind."

"Holy shit," Miles breathed, dropping his air guitar act.

"Yeah, but then, because of his metal form, the people reject him, even though he's done all this stuff to help them. For revenge, he tries to kill everyone."

"...So, who wants to give Ironhide a hug right now and tell him that we appreciate everything that he does?" Sam asked, a nervous smile wavering on his face.

Chase rolled her eyes, taking her CD back and stashing it away. "It's just a song. Get over it."

Miles cleared his throat a little, diverting attention to him. "Well, when you think about it, Ironhide's name really suits him, doesn't it?" he asked carefully, segueing into the name game cautiously. "I mean, Ironhide is as tough as they come, right? He's older than dirt, survived this war probably better than anyone, and no Decepticon in their right mind would dare take him on in single combat or in a long range firefight. And he can take a hit like the best of them; I've seen him spar with other bots- he's got thicker armor than most other Autobots combined. It's like he's got an iron hide."

Sam tipped his head consideringly. "I can see where you're coming from, but then you could also think of the iron in Ironhide's name as meaning "gun," since a synonym for gun is iron, like someone's packing iron…"

"Yeah, makes sense," Miles agreed, nodding along. ""Gun-hide."'

"Of course it makes sense when the mech we're talking about loves his cannons more than Sunstreaker loves his reflection," Mikaela said, her eyes twinkling. "Figures he'd find a way to stick to his guns."

"Bad pun," Miles laughed.

"Look who's talking," Mikaela shot back in good humour.

"I'm the king of puns!" Miles shouted, looking terribly mock-affronted.

"The king of bad puns," Mikaela countered.

"I resent that!"

"Oh please, this coming from the guy who gave us "Stars Cream"? Don't even try to defend yourself, you've already lost."

Sam laid a hand on Miles' shoulder. "She's right, man" he said lightly. "Never argue with a woman." He leaned in close so the two females in the front wouldn't hear and shared the one of the few bits of wisdom he had. "Even when you know you're right, if you argue with them long enough, you will suddenly find that you are explicably wrong in some obscure and terrible way, and until you are ready to admit that you were wrong for something you know you were right about, your ass will be sleeping on the couch."

As fate would have it, Miles was far less reverent of the terrifying power of women than Sam was. "I haven't even used my best material for this one, yet!" he challenged.

"Dear God, do I even want to hear it?" Mikaela groaned. Chase sighed, reaching beneath her seat and pulling out a compact flask. With a glance to Miles gearing up for whatever spiel he was about to give, she downed the entire thing.

"Okay, okay, here goes." Miles cleared his throat and prepared for his delivery. "Iron is a particularly hard metal, right? And the last part of his name is hide, which is like skin, like the ass of a cow or something. So, string them together and what you get? Ironhide equals hard ass."

The Civic vibrated with the raucous laughter that ensued.

"Hard ass, indeed. Not bad, Miles," Mikaela chuckled, the first to come down from her laughter-high. "How about I give you a challenge, then? Try Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus on for size."

"Aw, damn," he pouted. "How the hell am I supposed to figure those one out?"

Fiddling with her flask between her fingers, Chase perked up a little. "They're Latin, aren't they?" she asked. ""Optimus" means something like "the best" and "Prime" is- oh damn, what is it…" she puzzled briefly with the answer on the tip of her tongue. Why did Latin class have to be all those eons ago? "I'm not sure, but I think "Prime" is supposed to be "first" of something."

"You sure?" Sam questioned.

Chase shrugged. "It's been twenty-plus years since I've been to school, so sue me if I'm not fluent in Latin anymore."

"But that means Optimus' name would mean Best First." Sam said disbelievingly. "Come on, Best. First."

"I think it fits," Mikaela intoned. "Optimus is the leader of the Autobots, isn't he? So, being the Best First would make sense- you wouldn't want the second worst as leader, now would you?"

"Starscream seems to think it's okay," Miles countered.

"Starscream seems to think a lot of things are okay," Mikaela said.

Sam was still stuck on the translation of Optimus' name. "Are you serious? "Best First?" That's what his name means?"

Chase sighed, shrugging. "I guess."

"In that case, I think someone is just a tiny bit full of himself," Sam sighed. "How about Magnus? What's his name mean?"

The older woman thought over the name of a few moments. "I'm not sure; I think it's something like "Beyond Greatness"…"

Sam laughed. "It's amazing this planet doesn't implode from the weight of some robots' egos."

"Maybe we should rename the Autobots the Egobots," Miles joked. "You'd think their egos' were a prerequisite for leadership."

"How so?" Mikaela enquired.

"Just think about it; you got Megatron- ."

"Megatron?"

"Yeah, Megatron, 'cause you can put "Mega" at the beginning of any word and make it sound mega-badass. You'd think you'd have to have a little bit of an ego to name yourself that. And then there's his lovely cream of the crop second-in-command, Starscream-."

"I just got a really bad image when you said cream on the crop," Sam grimaced.

Miles grinned. "Do I even have to explain Starscream's ego, or have we all had enough of it to drown ourselves in?"

"I think we've had enough of Starscream's ego to drown several continents," Sam pointed out.

"Alrighty then, moving on to the Autobot's side: We have Optimus Prime; Best First; their Supreme Commander; Número Uno; Head Honcho; The Boss; The Chief; The End All To Be All-."

"Miles, we get the point," Mikaela said quickly.

"Hold on, I got a couple more-."

"No really, we get the point." She said firmly.

"Fine, so yeah, Optimus I think has this hidden super ego, you know. Like passive aggressive style- he acts all calm and noble on the outside, but on the inside, he's a raging egomaniac and his name was just accidental slip of the- uh, Cybertronian equivalent of a tongue."

"Any ideas as to why his name's in Latin instead of English, genius?" Sam teased.

"Because his name was too great to be conveyed by the English language." Miles replied matter-of-factly. "Everything sounds cooler in Latin."

"Right…" San rolled his eyes. "Moving on to Magnus."

Miles cleared his throat, missing how the entire car shuddered, failing to see that they had now come to a complete stop. He was in the game now; there was no stopping him, not even the fact that they had arrived at the base. "And then we come to his "Great Beyond" eminence, Ultra Magnus-."

"Yes?"

Miles gave off a high-pitched squeal, whipping around to face the large, metallic faceplate of said "Great Beyond" eminence peering in through the Civic's window. Momentarily flabbergasted, the human could do nothing but stare wide-eyed and spasm in his seat. So involved in the game were they, they hadn't noticed the carrier come to a halt and Ultra Magnus unhitching himself.

Ultra Magnus tipped his head curiously, staring back at the obviously not-well Miles. "Is everything alright? Did I jar you when I came to a stop?"

"No, we're fine, just a little startled," Mikaela explained.

The Base Commander backed off a little, an apologetic look coming across his features. "My apologies."

Prowl was crouched below them, unlatching Blaster's restraints. "Do not try to run," the tactician warned.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Blaster replied, easing himself up to the second level of the carrier as the twins were unhitched. The microbot tugged open the Civic's diver side door. "Put in a good word for us, will ya?" he said with a slight smile as he helped Chase from the car.

"No way. You dug your graves, now you're going to lie in them," she replied, giving the mech a smile that was more poisonous than friendly. "I just came along to make sure my niece and company got here in one piece." She turned to Prowl, who was now directing Sideswipe down the ramp. "They're all yours, Prowler. I'll leave the Civic here so they can drive themselves home. Just call me a cab and I'm outta here."

The tactician kept his gaze focused on the twins, not willing to give them another opening for escape. "Of course. I am sure that Hound is off duty by now, he'll escort you home."

"Lovely." She turned to the three guilty humans now easing themselves out of the car. "Good luck you three, you're going to need it." Without further ado, she scrambled down the scaffolding, off in search of Hound to demand a ride home.

In an act of supreme rarity, Prowl cracked a ghost of a smile, staring down at the assembled party of guilty persons as soon as all of them were gathered together off the carrier- Bumblebee, Blaster, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Sam, Mikaela, and Miles. Under his, as well as Optimus', Ultra Magnus', and Ironhide's scrutiny, they squirmed uncomfortably. Miles was looking a little faint, leaning against Mikaela's shoulder for support.

There was a small bit of satisfaction in seeing the guilty squirm. The tactician had been through the night of pit with the rigging of his office, the hunt for the perpetrators, the invasion of the Decepticons, the second hunt for the AWOL perpetrators; he was now drawn, drained of patience, and looking for a punishment that was great enough to convey how truly fragged off he was.

Optimus laid a firm hand on Prowl's shoulder. "Do penalize them accordingly," he instructed. "But try to remember that I will need them functional in the future, not traumatized beyond repair."

"I will keep that in mind, Prime."

Ironhide allowed a gruff rumble to emanate from his vents. "If they cause anymore trouble, you know where to find me. I'll be glad to take care of them for you."

"I think a punishment fitting of their infractions will be enough to deter them from future mischief."

Ultra Magnus glanced towards the decidedly petulant-looking twins. "We will see how long that lasts."

"We're going to die, aren't we?" Miles squeaked.

Prowl deigned to give him an ominous look. "Actually, I have something else in mind..."

"…you know, this ain't too bad," Miles said offhandedly, twiddling his thumbs in the large cell he was sharing with Sam and Mikaela. "I mean, sure, we're stuck in here for the day, but it could be worse, right? Prowl could have sent us to the med bay with the others for a week's worth of duty with Ratchet."

Sam shrugged, his fingers lightly playing over the dimly glowing force field that kept them in the cell- it was adjusted to the lowest setting possible so that it didn't fry any humans if they touched it. "I guess it could be worse…"

Suddenly, a soft pneumatic hiss sighed through the large isle of the brig. A couple of light footsteps echoed through the room before a friendly light-grey faceplate came around the corner.

"Here to keep us company?" Mikaela asked as she watched Bluestreak ease himself to the floor in front of their cell. The mech grinned a little and shook his head.

"No, not this time. Prowl asked me to come down here to be your warden. I hope you three are comfortable, we had to turn down the force fields to their lowest setting so that you didn't scramble any of your organic circuits- no, wait, actually, we didn't so much as "turn it down" as we had Wheeljack come in and override the power output controls and write in a new sequence for a low-power field." He reached out and touched the field, which brightened fractionally but did nothing more. "I can barely feel it, which is funny since it's the thing that holding you in and its barely there. Or, well, I guess it's not so funny, 'cause if you touched it you'd probably end up with a huge shock. It's so strange that you're species is so resilient in some cases, and yet so fragile in others."

Forcing a strained smile across his face, Sam leaned towards Miles. "I think it just got worse."

Oblivious to the exchange, Bluestreak suddenly perked up as he remembered something. "Oh, hey, do you want to hear this new Earth song that Prowl just taught me? I know, it seems really strange that Prowl of all mech would teach me a song, but he said that you three would really enjoy it if I sang it to you. Normally he's not so big on letting people in the brig enjoy themselves, but I guess you're lucky. He seemed like he was in a pretty good mood after he came out the med bay and caught me in the hall- although Ratchet didn't sound too happy with whoever he had trapped in there with him. I feel sorry for the poor mechs Ratchet's holding hostage-."

The three humans exchanged alarmed glanced, each praying a silent prayer that their Autobot friends made it out of their sentence alive.

"-But, anyways, I think you'll really enjoy this song. It's actually kind of funny." He paused to get the tune right in his head, and then opened his mouth to begin,

"This is the song that never ends…"

Miles shot Sam a terrified look. "No, dude, now it's worse."

By the time the sun was heavy on the horizon and the humans were finally released from their punishment, they were in a near catatonic state. Ten hours straight with Bluestreak and that song was far worse than anything Ratchet could have possibly thrown that the others. They twitched with the very mentioning of music, not even daring to touch the radio as they drove off in Chase's Civic. Oh pure, sweet silence; something the relished in the entire drive home.

It was only shortly after their departure that Prowl's office door hissed open quietly, admitting Bluestreak. The tactician spared the sniper a brief nod before continuing to work on the mountain of data pad that had built up on his desk. Bluestreak just smiled and sat down in the chair across from the cop-bot. A day spent with the three young humans had given the sniper something to think about.

"Have you ever thought about it?"

Prowl looked up, optic ridge quirked. "About what?"

"Their names."

"Whose names?"

"The humans' names…"