A/N: First of all, thanks so much for welcoming my extroverted little gender-bender :3 Yay! I promise, a) she's here for a reason and b) she'll prove her worth (also, check out my Deviantart account for a picture of her!).

Secondly, FLASHBACK PART ONE! Finally, right? I dearly hope this isn't predictable. I do believe Lockdown began as a 'Con, and I thoroughly explored the 'surprising' option of Autobot-ness, but it didn't click for me. Too… stereotypically surprising! I went for the unpretentious obvious.

So… it may be expected, but hopefully it's unique~! Um, also, this takes place… in the Great War, but in the middle-beginning of it, where everything's a little fanatical and rough around the edges. TFA timeline is very vague in canon, so I'd imagine that Ratchet was neck-deep in the end of the Wars, and I'd also imagine they stretched on for MILLENIA. Ew, Lockdown IS old. XD FINALLY, Moot, we see you ALIVE! Eventually. (… I think she's cuter as a ghost.)

Also, way too many OCs. SORRYSORRY.

Surrender

It wasn't their original assignment, to be sure, but Bar's team would have gone wherever the Command needed functioning servos.

His troupe of two (Autobot scouts) rooted a scant distance away, reduced to hunched shapes in the deep green night. Roller's engine ground quietly as the femme loaded fragments of fallen soldiers into her companion's main compartment. It had to be that way: Quickstop's nervous circuitry was such that she couldn't abide the crunching carnage laying in her, and even then her servos shook horribly while heaving the torsos off the explosion-blackened ground. They were always a little too heavy for her.

They weren't to the point that materials were scarce enough that they had to scavenge, but Bar suspected the time was drawing near, unless new deposits of ore were found. No, this was preventative measure. They gathered up the highest-ranked fallen to prevent Cons from getting their servos on any important info stored in the offline bot's banks: schematics, plans, coordinates, the like. Death-triggered data-wipes were in the process of being invented, but Bar was never one to bank on future developments to save the present. Moreso, they gathered the Autobots (dear fallen friends) to prevent them from being… defaced by their enemies.

Bar had heard rumors about sapping. He prayed they weren't true, even if his processor needn't stretch too far to imagine it in this day and age. Things—standards, morals--were falling too quickly to trace them, leaving only vaporous trails of descent, smelling of bitter sorrow and ash. Uprooted, distorted. They weren't even on Cybertron anymore: the 'Cons had moved to nearby planet and proceeded to decimate its local population in hopes of finding a new energy source. The Autobots had moved in to protect them and ended up tripling the carnage. Filthy, filthy fighting.

The two scouts and their leader moved around the battleground with quick, crunched movements, barely rising to walk and gather another weighty, cold, oil-smeared torso. Much like lightning, battle had never before struck twice in the same place, but Bar was beginning to doubt that sentiment: the battle raging nearby might overtake them, edging into the blackened valley where they gathered the corpses into their red ship. More importantly, he didn't know what faction they were closest to. It would make or break their survival, should the skirmish truly eclipse them. If they were caught in the middle of a battalion of 'Cons, their deaths were assured.

Reason as they may, following procedure in tense silence, all of them could feel that they had drifted behind enemy lines. The dark, ducking prickle of prey took root in their cores; they were too easily spooked by the flash and rumble of hot canons rationally too far away to worry about. Both of his teammates were wide-opticked and trembling, tripping and gasping. Exit was their first priority.

Times like these, he had to thank Primus he had a purpose—Sparks to protect. Otherwise, one might go mad.

Half-flinching from a girder-rattling explosion, Bar dropped what—who—he was holding when Quickstop shrieked, punctuated by the clang of her own load as she whipped out her gun. He straightened, looking around wildly and preparing for a violent retreat back to their ship, then followed the pristine red thread of his teammate's firearm cite. On the ridge of a nearby hill—they stood in a valley, up to their knees in rusting gore—a figure stumbled into sight, grasping for handholds in the tough brush. It staggered down the night-dark hill, crashing to its knees and nearly rolling, then struggled on, dull and steady.

Something about the size and the shape of it—lean, feral, masculine--told Bar it wasn't a 'Bot, but the jerky, creaking movements also told him it wasn't running at optimum efficiency. He narrowed his optics. Roller was at his side in an instant, more through panic than readiness; still in his alt-mode, his forelasers slid out and cited on the interloper, joined by the hasty click of Bar's arm canon. The far-away sounds of the 'bot's obdurate struggles were underscored by beep-blip of Roller's scan.

"It's of Cybertronian make," he huffed, engine whining nervously. It was an issue, as the native population was composed of meshed inorganic and organic elements. Bar tried not to look at the bleeding shells piled waist-high in his cabby.

"And? What's the signal?"

"It's a 'Con, sir," Roller said finally, but by then the scum was already too close. Bar caught a flash of insidious green and black as the 'Con extricated itself from a tangle of brush with a rip of its oversized servo. All three of them, low-grade energon running high and acidic in their tubing, jumped when the 'bot got close enough to make out the wickedly pointed symbol on its wide black chassis, then jerked again and fell flat on his front in the hard dirt.

A front, surely. A ploy. Hatred surged in Bar's substructure, ripe for one willing to take advantage of their side's decency.

"You're in Autobot territory; we have you in our cites!" Bar shouted, unsure if it was the truth. He zoomed in on his cite, finding the fiend's white head under the X. "Disable both servos!"

The mech lay motionless for a haggard cycle, keeping where he was. Then, slowly, he heaved himself to his knees and, even more slowly, as if in a stupor, raised one arm. It wavered slightly in the soot-black air, the other hanging limply down by his side. The scout team hissed and stiffened to see the a-symmetrical, suspicious-looking move; after a moment, Roller revved his engine short and sharp and re-focused his beams, crying out:

"You heard him, dissenter! Both servos where we can see 'em, mods exposed!"

Three sets of arachnid brittle limbs unfolded from his lean sides with a sound like crinkling plastic and hung motionless, clicking a little. A thick firearm struggled out of the black, half-peeled exostructure of his shoulders then clicked to an upright position. The motions were ponderous and slow, as though he was in a great amount of pain. Through it all, he did not move his right arm.

"Your servos!"

"Would if I could," the asymmetrical mech huffed dully, wide mouth twitching at the side. His vocals, probably compromised by another injury, were coarser than mangled metal. "Bum arm."

An unreal, brittle moment passed when they all realized that the 'Con had fully acquiesced, and, despite his suspicious movements, wasn't going to charge them. He simply kneeled where he was, red optics flickering fitfully, nearly swaying. At an utter loss, half of his processor still stuck on the battle raging so close by (they could feel the tremors in the dense ground), Bar commed his two teammates to keep their weapons raised, then lowered his own and took a strong step forward.

"What do you want?"

"Surrender," the mech rasped. If Bar would have laughed, it would have come out bitter and hateful. As it was, he only sneered.

"You're hardly in a state to demand it, filth."

"Naw. Surrender to you."

Bar stiffened, nearly stalling.

"You what?"

"Surrender. Yield. Give up. Me, to you." The half-crumpled Decepticon glanced up under his dirt-encrusted brow with a wry, pain-wracked grin, rumbling: "Now, d'you mind whiskin' me away in the name'a justice and all things good 'fore the 'Cons can strip us all together? 'Cause I'd really like to get outta this in a better state than your buddies there."

Though he mocked the fallen, scream-frozen soldiers at his pedes, there was a pointed distance in the term--'Cons--that simply didn't mesh with the scraped Decepticon sigil on the mech's green-striped chassis. But the group didn't have time to sort out identification issues: the aforementioned 'Cons were on their way, canons sounding off with a gritty, rattling proximity. An artillery shell hit the side of the valley, shaking the ground; the battle was upon them, with a hungry rush of sulfur-rich heat. Knowing how important enemy intel was to Command (and caught at the rationale-drained instant of hot escape) the team had no choice but to rush forward, grab the passive mech and manhandle his lanky but abominably solid form into their ship along with the last of the still-smoking databanks and tear out of the valley.

"Moot, full speed."

"Yes, sir."

Never once did they wonder why a 'Con would be on the run from his own.

Once they had unloaded the fragments into the hangar, they properly restrained the Decepticon with a pair of stasis cuffs. He was far larger up close: he smelled of burning foliage and grimy artillery powder, and his great spiked back loomed in front of Bar's face like a pulled punch as he snapped the mech's good wrist into the cuffs, then struggled with the limp appendage, wrenching it none-too-gently when necessary. The extra storage room became his cell, reinforced as it was; they sent Quickstop to gut it out beforehand, just to get her out of his rumbling presence. A moment longer and she might have short-circuited, and they had to maintain some fraction of façade if their charge was to be pliable--at least until they got him to Command.

The mech was surprisingly quiet through the ordeal. He had no barbs, but no flinches, and did not struggle once. Bar simply wanted to get him out of sight, growing to question his course of action even as he shut the door: but as quiet as their 'charge' was, his team made no effort to smother their own questions.

"Why would he come so willingly?"

Barely positioned at the carrier's controls, Bar half-glared behind him: Quickstop glanced at him nervously, then ducked her head. Roller put a servo to her sloping back. The two had gotten… unfittingly close over their term of service together. Bar grimaced inwardly, then thought about the question. Something to explain such atypical behavior from a killer.

"He's running from something, most likely. Typical 'Con," he snorted. "He's faking his arm, most likely."

"But… it's dead as scrap: all circuits dry, can't you feel it?"

The group went silent: it was true. There was no way he could be faking his injury. The subliminal electronic waves every Cybertronian radiated from the push and pull of their circuitry resonated within other receptive bots as a secondary non-optical form of being-registry, much like heat functioned for organics. The prisoner's limp, thorn-encrusted arm was like a clammy, deaf inkblot over their sensors. A dark spot. Dead. Whether it was self-inflicted or not, however, was another question entirely.

"Then he's injured. Let's look at the options: he's either a very dedicated spy, looking for a way into Command, or he's running from certain death. 'Cons are just as likely to kill their own if crossed. Either way, no good for us—especially if the scum that wants him comes looking for him."

"He could be looking for amnesty."

All of them looked up. The mild, even voice came from all around them—though specifically barred from the secondary storage closet, no doubt. Moot was sagacious and sensible like that. Bar frowned up at the ceiling: any squeamishness he'd had with 'not knowing where to look' had dissolved long ago. He had worked with Moot for many stellar-cycles. The two were practically incapable of offending each other, a stalwart respect bracing all of their interactions.

"He doesn't exactly look like a reformer," Bar muttered, leavening his angular body into his navigator's chair with a dirt-choked creak. "But if he's important enough for them to come rooting around, he may have some information that we need."

"Perhaps he is running with a secret," she allowed. "Then again, perhaps he's reaching out to our faction the only way he knows how."

Bar made a flat noise, then said no more. His dark silence heralded an end to their discussion: the scouts, at least, knew how to read him, and still feared him enough to duck out before he could become terse with them for asking in the first place. Both of the younglings glanced back at their equally young leader before they left to their bunks: his vertical form, his severe red plating and thin blue optics. He was sober yet inspiring, but never comforting. Quickstop shuddered as she passed the too-quiet storage closet, and Roller nudged her on. Moot waited until they were gone before gently swiveling her superior's chair toward her softly-lit panels.

"Bar?"

Bar vented a weak bit of air, optics flickering offline. His energon reserves were low, made worse by the full-body rev of panic they all experienced when the 'Con stumbled in. Madness. He would need to take it easy until the next ration.

"It will be all right. Command is behind us."

"I have a bad feeling about this," he murmured, placing one servo on Moot's steering console. He felt a comforting rumble saturate the ship around him and smiled slightly. Words were trite and Command was far away: he felt the femme behind him, every gear and gasket, and that was all he needed at the moment. The fact that he could count on someone was everything.

So long as they did not waver from their duty, everything would turn out fine.

He was slumped in the corner. He had been, for megacycles—and that was just for the current solar-cycle. The Decepticon mech's spikes and white brow glowed with a ghastly purity in the shadows of the storage closet. He had been dumped and apparently forgotten: if not for the (very low-grade) rations they slid through the custom slot, he would have assumed they wanted him to become a piece of furniture on their little carrier. A trophy.

A week in, the lights came on; he shuttered his optics halfway.

"What is your name?"

The clean female voice was the first thing he'd heard since the red one shoved him in. He glared at the ceiling, looking for a speaker.

"Why d'you wanna know?" he grunted. Rousing himself from the clotted, dry silence of his cell, systems slow to warm, he gave the all-around voice a gap-toothed sneer. "Thought it was easier for you 'bots just to stick a faction to it and be done with it."

"Personal, overly-civilized quirk," she deadpanned. "I dislike referring to you as 'the Decepticon'."

"So you wanna get cozy," he said, then paused maliciously, once more looking up at the ceiling with thinned red optics. "Y'know, before you go and induct me, I probably doused one of your buds. Or thirty-two. S'that gonna put a wrench in our relationship?"

He was bored.

It was the first time anyone had spoken to him in solar-cycles, and he leapt at it, aggravating her just because he could. Moot would understand this, in time, when her processor indeed began to 'get cozy' with him without her consent and, worst of all, she began to understand him too well, but at the moment he just seemed like an abrasive aft. Stupid, pugnacious, assumptive, repellent. Classic 'Con grunt.

It was up to her to speak to him. Bar had no inclination (and too much to worry about), and Roller and Quickstop were terrified of him. Hard as it was, she was curious about him. Much like most other 'Bots, she had never had the opportunity to speak to a Decepticon in a closed environment and she craved information concerning how the other side functioned—perhaps alongside glimmers of affirmation that she was doing the right thing in this amoral time of war. But every time she tried to approach him (even limiting her well-spoken tendencies to suit his slurrs) he sat in his corner and shot insults at her, turning every benign comment into a barb about her crew's closely-held beliefs.

Strangely enough, it became obvious that he wasn't needling her about her faction through any sincere want to provoke a dirty truth, or as an opposing force. He just knew what irritated her from the simple lilt of her vocals and therefore wanted her upset--to be able to effect change in his hostile, rigid environment in any small vicious way he could. Finally, after megacycles of doomed, on-off inquiries and huffy retreats, she prized his name from his spiked exostructure like a rusted gear: Lockdown.

He didn't ask hers.

Lockdown, as she now knew him, was cagey. She kept a sensor on him at all times, watching him quietly through the fishbowl lens of her camera as she floated over barren landscapes, Bar at her controls. Locked in a room equipped with only shelves and one berth-sized bench, walled away from light or air-flow, he reminded her of a tortured feral organic, hard black body pumping as he paced the closet end to end. The rhythm of his distractions, it seemed, were both relieving and maddening in turns. The mere press of the walls made him heavy and miserable and the lack of decision aggravated him as much as the basic idea of imprisonment.

It wore him down with devastating speed. Finally, one solar-cycle, the two (Autobot and Decepticon, matter and antimatter) conducted an exchange that wasn't technically a fit of sneers and snarls. Moot only managed it because Lockdown was exhausted: exhausted of having nowhere to move and nothing to do, worn down to a barely-humming shell by his imprisonment. Because all of his arguments were obviously launched for their inflammatory nature, Moot perhaps thought that he was questioning his own beliefs—which made her even more sensitive to his entrapment.

Soon, far too soon, his paces and growling one-armed push-ups became the physical manifestation of inner turmoil over affiliation. She began to pity him. Rational as she was, she began to hope for him. He had not attempted to escape; he had not attempted harm on any member of their crew and ran to them for safety. Safety of ideals. That one solar-cycle where she actually had him pliant and quiet, if crushed, Moot warily extended her first equal word.

"If you... need anything, let me know," she said softly, watching him for the next flare; waiting to have her humble offer spat back as a curse. "If it isn't too extravagant, I may be able to help."

He only looked up with an understandable amount of suspicion, red optics dimmer than usual.

"Take it bein' let outta this Pittish little hotbox is 'extravagant'?" He asked gruffly.

"Beyond," Moot answered, not without some humor. Lockdown snorted, then leaned back again, giving his lethal frame entirely to the cold wall with a dull rumble.

"Thanks, gal."

He could be charming, she found out, when he wanted to be. She liked his vocals.

Bar was grateful to her for 'loosening' him up, but she could see he disapproved of her continuing to speak with their charge, even if he respected her enough to let her make her own decisions. Perhaps it was for good reason: not another week went by but she found she actually wanted to let Lockdown out. Let him walk around, for the vice of his prison had bled his violence away. He was a tightly-wound mech, knotted with tension: he needed to stretch his flexors. When asked (with all the proper conscientious mentionings of stasis cuffs and inhibitors) Bar gave her a stern, wary look and said solitary confinement never damaged anyone. He was right; she quieted, cowed by her leader's sterile silence, and focused on navigating the ash-grey skies of the strange planet.

It was finalized. Under no circumstances could she give Lockdown the thing he currently wanted most. His mangled arm, on the other hand, was something she could work with.