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In my dreams, I can still hear the laughing. Five voices, chuckling as one, rising in harmony with the gnashing of too many teeth and the screams of those unjustly put to death. It's why I prefer to recharge via energon and not a berth. It's better to try and forget than it is to see them that way. It hurts so much that my last memory of them is one so savage.

One day, I'll make the Quintessons pay. Revenge is hardly a worthy motive for an Autobot, but until I met the Dinobots, I never thought of myself as one. To be an Autobot means one's chosen a side. It wasn't until now that I even knew there were sides to take.

My "parents", to use the human term, creators, to use ours, were scientists wanting to escape the Great War. Just before the left Cybertron, they built me, gave life to my body-shell. Thus the stars were the first home I ever knew.

Childhood, such as it was, did not last.

Shot down over Quintessa, I was buried under rubble when the Sharkticons came and took them away. I followed, finding them on trial for who knows what offense. The slagging five-faced demons found them guilty and ordered them fed to the Sharkticons. I tried to stop them, blinded by rage.but I was too late.

To this day, I can't remember what I did to escape. I have flashes, violent bits of memory, but it's really all just wisps. It's probably better this way. If I remembered what I did, I might remember who I was.

I don't know how long I was there; you can't measure time on a world of endless night. I just know that it was too long, too long to be alone.

I know I lost something in those long years. I know I lost myself.

I created Wheelie so I'd have someone to talk to. He was supposed to be everything I wasn't: strong, fearless, daring, talented, and a real scrapper-someone who could fight the Sharkticons, someone who could keep me safe, someone who could survive. Eventually, I became him, or he became me. I really don't know.

The rhyming? It started out as a game, a way to keep my mind occupied when I wasn't stealing, fighting, or hiding. I've done it for so long now that I find I can't talk any other way, no matter how hard I try.

The other Autobots think I'm just a child. I left childhood behind a long time ago. But let them be amused by me. Let them only see the playful, partying boy-robot of Quintessa. It's better that way. If no one knows, they can't pity me.

If no one knows, then I don't have to know. I can forget the past. I can forget the pain.

I can live.