Chapter One

AN: Now, this can be read with or without reading my one shot of Vortex's meeting with Knock Out. And yes, if it bothers you that much that you can't get past the fact that Vortex is actually a Constructicon or whatever, then you are free to leave and not read this. However, I didn't know that at the time of her creation, so her name stays. 'Sides, an author once told me that thought is universal.

This is a rewrite of the original… because I have foreseen things… anyways, onto this story, which will hopefully be better than the original. It was terrible.

When I say spark mate, it's my rendition of what most think a soul mate is. So… yeah… hate me for it, I dun care X3

-:-

Decepticon. That name, word or title had different meanings, depending on who said it. For example, if it was said by Megatron, their leader, he would call it a great honor and the side that he led in the war. To me, it was a name that was forced upon me a little while ago. I neither wanted to be one, nor did I have the right mindset to become one. And yet, I was forced into it.

At first, I thought it was so they could hold me hostage, but when I was assigned to take Vehicons out on mining expeditions, it became clear that this was going to become permanent if I didn't act. The only problem was that I didn't know how to act against someone as giant as Megatron. There were two problems; one, I had little to no courage to stand against someone like him, and two, I was exceedingly small. I didn't even measure up to his waist.

I held little to no hope for myself while trapped on the Decepticon warship, the Nemesis. The only way I could see myself escaping was that one of the Autobots on Earth would miraculously pick up my signal and come rescue me.

But so far, all I had was an encounter with Knock Out, Dreadwing and a few mining expeditions. And of course I've met Megatron, but that is obvious. I have yet to see the oh so infamous Starscream, and same goes for Soundwave. I heard of them back on Cybertron, but I was blessed with being able to avoid them. Now that I reside on the same warship as they do, the inevitable is coming.

Luckily, I had survived another day on the Nemesis and was trying to get some recharge before the morning came; but, like previous nights, recharge didn't come as quickly as I wanted it to. The night I had stayed up crying, the same night Knock Out found me, I also happened to wake up a very angry Megatron. Just for waking him up I was sent to clean the Vehicons' barracks for a week. And that was after he held me up by the waist so that he could look me in the eye and give me a talking to.

Needless to say, I learned my lesson about being loud when you are unfortunately situated close to a grumpy sleeper. On the plus side, I had not seen that much of Knock Out; thank Primus for that. That medic was annoying.

However, my luck had ended when I heard a distinct knocking sound on the door to my room. Groaning, I asked who it was, and probably regretted that decision. I should have just stayed still, and pretended to be in recharge. But, being somewhat polite, I had to at least ask.

"Knock knock," the Decepticon medic said from behind the door. I groaned at the voice and decided it best not to answer. However, even though I had changed the passcode to my room, Knock Out still managed to get in.

I sat up and stared at him, "How'd you get the passcode? I made sure to change it after-"

"I'm the medic; I need access to places others can't get to," he explained.

"That still doesn't explain why you are here," I muttered. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he was here. Surely after today, he'd still be attending to injured Vehicons. From what I had seen while passing by the medical bay, the Autobots had put a dent in them, for sure.

Knock Out grinned, it was one of his more cocky type grins; ones that put me on edge. "I just came to check on you; considering the incident we had earlier."

I groaned, "Can you just leave. I don't need to be reminded of that night, or any particular night that followed."

The medic walked further into my room, and cocked his head to the side slightly. "That followed?"

"My quarters are the only place where I can actually be myself, unlike the rest of this warship," I said, laying back down. "Now can you please leave? I need to get some recharge in before tomorrow."

As Knock Out was leaving, I could barely hear what he said, but what it sounded like was 'yes, you will', whatever that meant. I was probably going to be sent out to watch over one of the energon mines. Hopefully then the Autobots would pick up my signal; I could have the possibility of being rescued. Although, I did have the Decepticon symbol on my wings; that might prove difficult explaining.

None the less, with these hopeful thoughts in my mind, I slowly, and slightly reluctantly, drifted into recharge. But, what awaited me when I would awake the next day; I wasn't prepared for. Nor would I ever be.

-:-

When I awoke the next day, I awoke to someone tapping on my face plates. Scrunching them up, I peeked open an optic, to see that Dreadwing was tapping me. I immediately opened my eyes. "Yes, sir?" I may not be overjoyed about serving the Decepticon cause, but I was no idiot.

He narrowed his eyes slightly at me, as though annoyed. "Lord Megatron has requested your presence on the bridge." Dreadwing went to stand at the door, waiting for me to follow.

I rose from the berth as quickly as I could without faulting horribly in front of Megatron's first lieutenant. Without making a sound, I followed him through the halls of the Nemisis, hoping to get the meeting with Megatron over quickly.

However, when I entered the bridge behind Dreadwing, what I saw made me weak. There he was, on the floor, the one that I cared about most; my spark mate. He saw me and grinned. "Hey Vortex, it's been a while."

"Swerveback? How did you end up here?" I asked, taking a step forward. However, two Vehicons stood in front of me, blocking my path.

"You know, just decided to pay Megatron a visit." He grinned up at me. "What about you?"

Before I could answer, Megatron yelled for silence. As quickly as we closed our mouths, he had brought up his fusion cannon to Swerveback's back, and charged it up. Before either of us had time to react, he fired, and I could only watch as the light left Swerveback's optics.

At first I didn't believe it, but when Megatron ordered the Vehicons blocking me to 'deal with it', reality hit me and I crumpled to the floor. I had no idea how to feel, exactly. The only thing that I knew, was that I was alone. My last hope, the one thing that I was holding onto, was gone.

I wasn't sure exactly how long I sat on the floor, but by the looks of things, it wasn't long until I was shoved off the ground and led away by Knock Out. By that point, I didn't really care what he said. All that I gathered was that I was being sent out to watch over an energon mine for the day, which I honestly didn't care about.

"Well, we'd best be going," he said, and that caught my attention.

"We?"

Knock Out laughed, "Of course. You don't think Megatron would let you go unwatched."

"Unwatched? Knock Out, you're trying to distract me, and it's not working. Why not just offline me? Do me a favour and offline me." A ground bridge opened up in front of us

"No, your far to valuable to offline. And also quite stunning."

As we arrived at the energon mine, I made a small growl-like noise. "Careful, Knock Out, someone might think you care about someone other than yourself."

He scoffed at that, "I just know good looks when I see them." I glared at him for that, to which he countered with smirking. "Careful, your optics might get stuck like that." He walked further in, leaving me standing at the entrance.

I glared at him a little more, like you would care, I thought to myself as I entered the mine.

-:-

AN: Yeah… I heavily changed it. As much as I love Smokescreen… I needed to kill something. XD So, reviews would be nice, if you could. And no haters, otherwise I have two very protective brothers that'll hunt people down… Seriously, it's quite scary O.o It's worse than Dreadwing's plots for revenge against his twin's demise.