I've had this in my back pocket since I edited the other two chapters. I always meant to come back and lengthen it, but I never did. I got writers block and other concerns. So those who are interested. Here's a significantly shorter chapter. I hope you enjoy this for what it is. At least I finally got around to doing another draft and posting it.

"Well? Don't keep me waiting. What do you have to say?" asked Finn tersely. "Or is this a situation where you want me to talk first?"

Rook sighed "Look kid... no, your name was Finn, right? Look Finn. I know what it is like to have your entire life uprooted by our war."

Finn snorted incredulously. "What do you know? You're a robot. You were born an adult. You have a creator, not parents. You don't have a heart or soul. You don't have a concept of how frail we are compared to you."

"Actually, that's not entirely true." said Rook, kneeling. As he did so, his chest panel opened up, revealing a pulsating purple orb, which, in Finn's mind, bore a striking resemblance to a plasma orb. Something he'd never been to terribly interested in. But for some reason... this orb was mesmerizing to look at.

"Even though we are machines, we too, have been granted the spark of true life. You humans often speak of your 'heart and soul' well, ours may look different, but we have them too. Except for us, they are tangible objects. Visible sparks of life. If this goes out, I will die, end of story."

"How... how does that happen? If you have souls... how do you create them? Do you build a body and activate it, then it magically appears?" asked Finn.

"How does one create a human soul? No one knows how it truly works. If it worked as you suggested, then we wouldn't have the massive influx of drone warriors like the Vehicons or Autotroopers, now would we? Granted, those that last do gain a level of self-awareness that suggests that they have gained sparks, but those situations are... uncommon."

"Then again, with the way things are going, they may one day become the new source of Cybertronian life." said Rook, shaking his head somberly. "In the olden days, we had hotspots, where newborn sparks would rise from the planet, which were then put into protoforms that would take on the most comfortable shape for the spark. When those began to vanish over time, a new method arose and has become the most common form of birth among our race. They make a body ahead of time, take a piece of an existing spark, and insert it, and have it grow into its own being. That's how I was born."

"So technically, we do have parents. Personally, I have no idea who mine is, but that's not that important. As for the 'born an adult' thing..." Rook wiggled his hand. "Technically true but... there is definitely a learning curve you could call "childhood". After all, there's a difference between having knowledge, and knowing how to use it. We, unfortunately don't have the time that you do. We don't get to be so lucky. I didn't get to be so lucky, well maybe that isn't entirely true. When you're an MTO, you NEED luck to survive."

Finn was still angry, but now his curiosity had been piqued. So after struggling with himself for a few moments, he ventured to ask "What's an MTO?"

Rook sighed. "Well, I guess we're talking about that now. My fault really... OK kid, strap yourself in for this this'll take a while. MTO stands for "Made-To-Order soldier. In the earlier stages of the war, before our cloning and drone creation systems were streamlined and perfected, both sides needed a way of replenishing their ranks. And so they came up with a brand new method for introducing new Cybertronians to the universe. Gone was the method of gradually introducing a new life to the universe and giving them the illusion of choice. Now, each side would harvest as many sparks as possible and rationed them out to their command ships. You know what they did with those sparks?" he asked rhetorically, Finn shook his head.

"Whenever a big battle was looking dire, they would shove the sparks into bodies made for battle, implant orders in their brain, then they would literally throw us onto the battlefield. I was born at the battle of Rukh, one of the early offworld battles that didn't involve an existing Cybertronian colony. My first memory is of a castle tower imploding."

"The Hell?! You'd do that to your own children?!" exclaimed Finn incredulously.

"It's war. You do nasty things for the sake of victory. To be fair, our supreme commander is on record stating he despises that method, and he banned it as soon as it was feasible. And he has a record of being far more lenient on deserters than his counterpart. We were the first to come up with an alternate solution, you know. It took far too long in my opinion, but hey we get less deserters and accept more from the enemy side due to our differences in command style. Our supreme commander at least tries to be likable."

"But how many actually survived? How many left?" asked Finn, now invested.

"Officially, around 25% of all MTO's who survived long enough either defected or abandoned the cause altogether. I'm sure the actual numbers are higher though." said Rook, shaking his head. "Having experienced what it's like myself, I completely understand. Sidelock and I stayed loyal, but I can totally see why others wouldn't."

Now, Finn was still angry, but that anger had been redirected somewhat. "Why would you stay loyal? And who the hell is Sidelock?!"

"During the battle, my unit got annihilated, no big surprise there. We were cut down to a handful of bots, and me and this other MTO with a garish color scheme... I think you'd refer to them as Christmas colors? Anyways, the two of us got cornered by an early model clone, and by that I mean a Generation 2 model, by the name of Lieutenant Dreadwing."

Finn furrowed his eyebrows in slight confusion, but he didn't think of Eject's gift at that moment.

"Normally, that would've been the end of us, but can you believe it? We were saved by Sideswipe AND Grimlock of all bots! Can you believe our luck?!"

"Yea... so I have no clue who the hell those people are or why they are significant." said Finn bluntly.

"Oh, right! Sorry, umm... Sideswipe is one of our most decorated war heroes, especially significant since he began as a grunt at the start of the war. Grimlock is an old combat legend, and the leader of the Lightning Strike Coalition. He's kinda of a big deal. Anyways, they injured this guy enough for US to get the killing blow. He was all dramatic about it too, his last words were 'I won't be killed by an MTO!' spoilers. He was killed by two MTOs. That other MTO, once we left the battlefield he chose to name himself after both of our saviors. He suggested I call myself Grimswipe. But I refused on account of that being one of the stupidest names I'd ever heard." Finn snorted at that.

"So instead, I named myself after our birthplace, I just changed the spelling. After that, Sidelock and I wound up becoming best friends. We went on every assignment together." said Rook fondly.

"Then... where is he now?" asked Finn.

"We were... both assigned to this Earth posting, and... something went wrong during a mission. I...I'm not sure what it was and... we kept the body. It's in stasis under the base, actually, along two other comrades. I... I'm glad we did that, I cant bear to be so far from him yet." Rook said somberly. Finn could swear that if Rook had flesh, tears would be leaking from his eyes.

"Anyways, I get it kid. I do understand what you've gone through."

Finn went silent. Well, now he had even MORE of a reason to be resentful of Cybertronians and yet... he couldn't resent Rook. This... they really were living beings, weren't they? If anything, he could at least tolerate the fellow victim of the world who'd also had their youth desecrated.