I don't get paid enough for this. The Seeker castle was...mighty, to say the least. Elites on every side, every corner, every mouse hole. Even if I had received my ancestor's great gifts of shape-shifting, I would never have gotten in, never.

Roselight was chomping lazily on her bit, uninterested. She had already sized up the situation, and was giving me the heads-up that I should give up as well, but I was a stubborn mech, and so I fought for a way to get in.

The Elites found me. Every. Single. Time. How? They're Elites. They're not called Elites for being lazy. They were the best of the best of the best, and they wasted no time showing me that.

My pride was knocked down a few rungs after being degraded (repeatedly), and as I stood at Roselight's shoulder, I gazed up at the highest window with a balcony. The Queen was regarding me, her wings perked in curiosity. I tried one last time to get in, and the Elites found me again, dumped me unceremoniously in the moat. Any other team of guards would have laughed as I drug myself out of the muddy water before the water Predacons could snap at my heels, but the only one that was laughing was Roselight, who tossed her head and snorted, her blood-red mane fanning out prettily around her lovely head. I imagined snapping her neck for being rude, but then she trotted past me up to the Elites, and she did something remarkable.

It was common knowledge that Predacons have more than one mode, but to see one vulnerable means that it trusts you. She became human before my eyes, and I blinked stupidly as she saluted the guards, smiled sweetly back at me, and purred when they stepped by to let her in. I followed her.

"How did you do that?"

"I simply stated we had to see the Queen. There are more Elites inside, so try not to be such a threat."

Stupidly, I thought amazing. It knows words. I knew Roselight saw this thought in my expression because she turned back into a red horse and trotted towards the stairs guarded by more Elites, who scanned her, scanned me. With the removal of my weapons, my chain, and the knives and guns I carry out of sight, we were deemed defenseless. Vulnerable. I was beginning to hate that word.

And when the door opened to the Queen's personal quarters, my mind was changed. If vulnerable got me into the room of the prettiest femme I ever saw, it wasn't so bad after all.

"Hello," she said. More Elites stood behind her, their weapons charging in their holsters. I could hear the buzz. How I was going to snatch the Queen away was a big question I had, but I trusted Roselight, who turned back into a human, and I trusted my charm.

"Oh, I, ah, was expecting someone else. See, I travelled a long way...A very, very long way. I was hoping the Queen would still be alive. I had something to ask of her, but...where is she?"

"My mother? She is dead." Her wings lowered ever so slightly, and the guards allowed their shoulders to drop minutely.

"Oh. Oh, I am so very sorry," I sighed. I rubbed my arm. "Well, this is awkward. I have news from the Quintessons, that they wanted to visit with her, but if she's not here..."

"Quintessons? What do they want?"

Quintessons and Seekers are closely linked. Without the Quintessons, there would be no Seekers, and without the Seekers, the Quintesson brothers wouldn't exist. This was going to be too easy.

Roselight spoke up. "They are dying, the brothers, and they require a meeting with their closest friends to decide which planet goes to which heir."

Seekers, while smart and witty, do not often catch on quickly, but there are some cases when I am proven wrong. This, as it turned out, would not be that case. I would be thwarted, by an old enemy.

Predacon fire interrupted whatever the Queen had been about to say, and before the Elites could react, the Queen was snatched up into black talons. There was a flapping of wings and the femme was gone. Roselight reverted back to her Predacon form, and I my bipedal, just as the rest of the indoor guards piled in and gazed up at the sky.

"The Predacon is heading to a marked ship!"

"Identify that mark," barked a captain.

"The Firebreathers, captain."

"Scrap."

The Firebreathers. A band of Predacons with a mech for a helm. The mech's name was nicknamed the Bondbreaker, because he targetted young mated femmes to kidnap for ransom only to kill them when he got his credits, jewels...

They had just recently been employed by the Quintessons to do "dirty work", and it only meant one thing if they were here.

I had been replaced, sentenced to death. Any moment now, I assumed my datapad would beep, and ah, there it is. The virtual letter of my unemployment notice.

I was no longer an ally. I was the enemy, and wanted.

I mounted Roselight, spurred her back into the stars and onto the moon, where I screamed my anger. What did they see that I had not covered up? Nightprowler? No, I decided, it had to be further back. Oh, wait.

I had been with Optimus, who was an ex bounty hunter, who was the enemy. I had been his friend. I was walking a thin line with the Quints, and they had decided to put me on a planet where being the friend of the most hated mechs in the universe had a death penalty, former or current. Optimus was currently sheltered in the sticks of a small town nobody remembers the name of (at this moment, even I fail to recall...), and I should have taken that cue and done the same, but now. I wanted brownie points. I wanted to belong.

I fit in like a chicken in a fox den. I had to be terminated, and terminated I would be. Such is the life I had chosen.

In a fit of rage, I swung the back of my servo across Roselight's cheek. She didn't even blink, wasn't even bothered. She only laid down and stared at Earth, her audios pricked in my direction. I growled and sighed, relaxing slowly. What had happened to me since I joined forces with the Quintessons?

Before, I was an easy-going mech, mated to Jazz, expectant sire of twins, by-the-book kind of officer among the warriors under Optimus...and then I was a slave, the former sire of twins that were promptly torn from Jazz's spark after the Quintessons won the war, and I became their personal hunter before they obviously found a much cheaper, better means of getting what they wanted.

But, oh, revenge...what I could do to them. They had not taken Roselight from me. I still had wings, a means of travel. I could easily seek revenge, destroy the Quintesson rule because they destroyed me with a single act.

I would need only three things: Optimus, Roselight, and Venganza. I smirked at moon dust and I dusted off my servos.
"Oh, Roselight...it's time to go hunting."