Chapter 1: Someone Else's Memories

"They t-took the bridge..." Diode gasped, kneeling down as enegron leaked heavily from his side, spilling over his red hide, slowly repainting it blue.

"Don't talk, you're heavily injured" the medic, Ambulon, said to him, kneeling beside him, trying to stop the bleeding. "Mirage, we both know we're the only ones left. What do we do?" He asked, concern in his voice, turning to the blue-and-white bot standing with his back turned to him,

"We have no choices left" Mirage sighed, finally turning to the medic, a blank look on his face. "They jammed the communications before they even ambushed the ship. We either fight, or we die."

"So, y-you're saying we're doomed?" Diode asked. "They have several times our number out there! We'll... We'll..."

"I said stop talking!" Ambulon shouted, attempting to quiet the ailing soldier.

"What's the point?" He replied. "I'm about to die anyway..."

"I just don't get it..." Mirage whispered to himself, taking out his sword from its sheath on his side, readying it for battle. "How could the Decepticons have known about our coming? It doesn't make any sense..."

A loud bang on the closed door made all three of them turn. An inward-facing dent formed around the middle of it, and was soon joined by a second one as another bang sounded.

A roar from the other side of the door heralded an explosion that followed it, knocking the door through the air, forcing Mirage to to avoid it as it slammed against the wall behind him.

Nearly a dozen Vehicons emerged from the opening, each one focussing their blaster arms on the three Autobots. With large footsteps sounding, a large, purple-and-green Decepticon with a single, red, cyclopean optic joined them, scanning the room in a rather malevolent-appearing way, before his eye landed on Mirage.

"You must be Mirage" the lumbering brute said, looking directly at him, ignoring the other two. "I'm Lugnut, and I've been sent to collect you, intact, for my master, Starscream."

"Starscream... I should have known" Mirage growled from under his breath. "You can tell your master that I don't intend to be taken alive" he said again, brandishing his sword.

"He didn't say you had to be alive..." Lugnut cackled. "Just "intact.""

"That's something you won't be when I'm through with you" Mirage replied, threateningly. Seconds after he spoke, he rushed up to Lugnut, and brazenly slashed at him, having the blade cut deep in his opponent's arm, holding it down.

As Mirage took it out when Lugnut swiped at him, he jumped back, ready for another attack, this time ready to strike an exposed weak point at the giant's hip.

Suddenly, the sound of blaster fire went off behind him. Looking back, Mirage saw Diode and Ambulon firing at the Vehicons from the corner of the room. As soon as he had turned his head to them, however, a volley of shots from the Vehicons went out, and each one hit his defiant allies, instantly blasting them both to pieces as they each let out cries of pain and horror.

"No!" Mirage cried out. No sooner had he returned his view to his primary foe, a monstrous, three-fingered servo reached out and wrapped itself around his face, making him lose his grip on his sword, and slamming him to the ground with incredible force.

Placing another servo on him, and lifting him up, Lugnut brought Mirage's back down upon his knee, forcing a cry of agony out of him as he ruthlessly broke his spinal column.

"Shockwave said he just needs your head" Lugnut spoke calmly to the paralyzed bot he now had at his mercy, as he placed one servo around his neck, and another around his waste. "That means the body doesn't have to be included!"

Unable to even move, all Mirage could do was watch in horror and voicelessly scream as he was torn in half.


Phase-Out woke up with a start, breathless. He placed his servo on his stomach, and felt around his waist, and saw, to his relief, he was in one piece. It was just another nightmare. Another dormant memory that once belonged to Mirage that now inhabited his mind. Another lost night of powered-down sleep.

Getting ahold of himself, he slowly got to his feet, and began walking around his room, rubbing his tired face with his servo, sighing. As he lamented over the negative effect of Shockwave's blasted cortical psychic patch for giving him all of Mirage's memories, he decided to take a walk down the empty hallway, to visit H-43, the Vehicon that the team had prisoner, and the only other bot there besides himself that knew the whole truth as to why he was here.


Nine, long months had passed since Sharpshot, Shrapnel, and Waspinator attacked, and in that time, Phase-Out had many, thoughts going on in his mind, and a very serious rethinking on his current position. After the Autobots risked their lives to save his in those nine months back, something in him had changed, and this time it wasn't his Shifter body that did the morphing.

It didn't help that he also felt something for the Autobot, Arcee. There was just... Something there. Something about her that reminded him of his lost Sparkmate, Winglancer.

The last few encounters he had with her on the desert road in their almost weekly, to nightly duels in his true form felt much different than they did in the months prior as well. They both flirted with each other, on several occasions, and it didn't take a mnemosurgeon to realize that neither of them were trying their hardest in their latest encounter, three days ago. It was as if he sensed a kindred spirit in her... And the realization disturbed him.

Phase-Out, still in the guise of Mirage, soon came to the prison cell that housed the Vehicon. When he looked in, he could see that, to his surprise, H-43 was awake, sitting up on the metal cot that extended from the wall. His head shot up when he saw Phase-Out, and he stood up.

"What are you doing here at such a late time?" The purple bot asked from behind the force field.

"I had another nightmare... That memory of Mirage's final moments" Phase-Out replied, looking toward him. "But that's not why I'm here."

"What are you here for, then?" H-43 asked. "You know you could be reporting to Starscream about your latest findin-"

"I haven't reported to Starscream for several weeks" Phase-Out interrupted.

"What? Why?" H-43 asked.

"That's kind of why I'm here..." He replied, rubbing his back, turning his view both directions of the hall that the prison block was in, to make sure nobody was coming up on him. "I've been thinking about something important very meticulously for the last few days..."

"And?"

"And I don't think... I don't think I want to do this anymore" he finally said.

"Do what?" The Vehicon asked.

"Spy on the Autobots! I'm not sure I want to do it anymore!" He shouted back.

"Are... Are you serious?" H-43 said, a look of surprise behind his copper-colored helmet. "Well, why's that?"

"I was sent to infiltrate them because Starscream played on my hatred for what one of them did to me during war..." Phase-Out started. "...But in the time I've been here, I realized something: I feel no hatred for any of these Autobots. They even saved me from a rather awful fate, a few months back. It doesn't feel right!"

"Are you nuts? You're a Decepticon! They're Autobots!" H-43 yelled. "And not just any Autobots. They're the same ones that made us practically lose the war! Don't you know how dangerous they are?"

"They're dangerous when they act as a team in a battle" Phase-Out replied. "When not in battle, they act more different than any battalion, squad, or legion I've snuck into. They act... Almost like a family. And last I checked, I wasn't sent to infiltrate a family."

He suddenly took in a sigh, and turned away, thinking deeply before talking again.

"I don't know... Do you think I've just gotten rusty at this in the time I've stopped doing my job?" He asked his compatriot.

"Hey, look at me, I'm just a Vehicon" H-43 said again, gesturing to himself with both his servos from behind the force field. "I was created to be nothing more than a replaceable, expendable soldier. You, on the other hand... You are a Shifter! You guys are the greatest spies in the universe, and from what I've heard, you were one of the best during the war on Cybertron. If you were good there, you can be good here, too. None of them even knows your identity for the extent you've been here so far, for Primus sake!"

"I was barely in the war in the first place!" Phase-Out snapped back. "I left after a single tragedy occurred in my life, and that was that. I didn't want to go on."

"So, you're just going to give up?" H-43 inquired. "Just because you don't hate any of these guys, you're just going to give up?"

"What experience do you have with this kind of thing?" Phase-Out retorted.

"Well, first off, I don't really hate any Autobots, save for that stupid blue fem that killed T-7, then lied that he was still alive, to my face" he replied.

Quickly realizing who he was talking about, Phase-Out turned his head away, and stopped talking, to avoid accidentally saying something that would give away to this grunt what he felt.

"This conversation's over..." Phase-Out finally murmured as he turned, before starting to walk off, ending the conversation with his ally quite abruptly.

"You can keep going. Just remember, you're a Decepticon. You need to remember that!" H-43 shouted to him as he started to pass out of view, down the hall.


The Red Knight, Star Saber was his name, paced around one of the many, dark halls inside the ship, Astrotrain, diligently reading, and reciting from the small, pocket-sized book he held in his servo. Things were quiet, a fact that Star Saber always loved whenever it was only him around, and that, mixed with what he was reading, really brought his mind off of what was troubling it.

The book's contents were nothing but ancient, holy scripture that he had been familiar with since he was first brought into his religious order many millennia ago. His silent reading was interrupted, however, by the sound of somebody walking toward him, and a loud, whimsical voice caroling to itself.

...You don't know what you're messin' with, you've got no idea... You don't know what you're looking at, when you're looking here!" An orange-and-blue colored bot, with an almost featureless face, save for a single, large, bright blue optic in the middle of it, sang as he danced down the hallway. He was apparently wearing a pair of crooked, makeshift headphones attached to both sides of his head.

"You don't know what you're up against, no, no way, no how..." He continued to sing to himself, ignoring the figure he was passing. "You don't know what you're messin' with, but I'm gonna tell you na-na-now!"

"Whirl..." Star Saber growled, closing his book, turning to the bot that was now going from distracting, to annoying, to downright angering.

"Get this straight! I'm just a mean, green mother, from outer space, and I'm bad!" The one-eyed mech continued to sing, oblivious to Star Saber.

"Whirl."

"...I'm just a mean green mother, from outer space, and it looks like you've been had!"

"Whirl!"

"...I'm just a mean green mother-"

Whirl!" Star Saber roared a final time, snatching the headphones right off of him with a forceful grip, snapping him out of his singing.

"Wha- Hey, what the heck!" Whirl cried out in an immature voice. "Give those back or I'll break your fingers! I was listening to my favorite song!"

"And I was reading my favorite book" Star Saber retorted, callously, not caring for his threat. "What garbage are you listening to, anyway? It doesn't sound like any songs I've ever heard of" he asked, looking at the devise in his servo.

"Well if you MUST know, it's a song that I pira-... "BORROWED" from that planet we're about to head to" Whirl said, grabbing his headphones back. "Wasn't it called Earth, or something? Oh, who cares. All I know is that those satellites they have are really easy to hack."

"What are you even doing over here anyway?" Star Saber asked. "You never come over to this part of the ship."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot..." Whirl started. "I just wanted to tell you that your other little knight-friends caught somebody that looked, and sounded important. I think they said his name was... "Sideways," or something. Thought you should know, seeing's how you weren't present when they brought him in, and showed him to Lockdown."

"I know about... Sideways" Star Saber responded, returning his attention to his book, opening it back up to the page he left off on. "I swore that if I were to ever see him again, I'd kill him on the spot. I do not lie, and my allies need him alive, so, therefore, I must keep my distance from that... Wretched iconoclast."

"Wait, you know him? What'd he do to you?" Whirl asked.

"I'm not telling something like that to a nut like you."

"Hey, who's the nut here? I'm on my happy pills right now" Whirl said, as he watched the Red Knight walk off. "I'm just as perfectly sane as you are!"

Star Saber ignored him, and started to recite the lines in his book again, starting from where he left off.

"Pff, whatever" Whirl puffed, sarcastically, putting his improvised headphones back on, and turning to the direction he came in from. "Nobody ever listens to me when I don't have some pointy murder weapon pointed at their heads anyway. Oh well. Off to go polish Rumble... Yeah, he'd like that..."


Vos's Logs

Subject Name: Lockdown

Quote: "I'm a firm believer in the term "pay a man enough, and he'll walk, armorless, through the Pit." Tell your friends."

Mental Stability: Stable.

Mental Issues: None

Bio: He hasn't told me anything too major about his origins, and I don't plan on being rude and asking, but what I do know is that he began his work during the beginning of the war for Cybertron, acting as a bounty hunter and hired gun from both sides to do their work. After it ended, he collected a crew of the strongest, cunning, and/or bravest/craziest bots he could find, and now works to track down only the most dangerous and highest-paying criminals and former Decepticons on the run from war crimes.

Further Notes: Well, he's the captain. A surprisingly charismatic fellow, Lockdown, of all bots, hired ME to be a psychiatrist, of all things, on his ship. He told me he wants me to constantly evaluate his men, to make sure they're mentally healthy enough to serve him without going rogue, or going on some shooting spree. I asked him if he knew my background, he replied "yes," and that... Was apparently that. Quite a forgiving fellow, assuming he had any issues with my past masters.