Hi! Here's chapter 8, and I'm sorry it's a week late! Blame school. But at least it's up now.

Pivot: A combined state of admiration and horror? That's a good thing, right? Heh, glad you like the idea of Snow/Cy as an interrogator. The BW thingie was just one stupid little paragraph. I had to do it, it was sad, and yes I do wonder why the slag I mentioned it. I know, Kicker running around there just isn't right, but he really does it in Energon. He's lucky he wasn't slagged in the first episode. Lemme know if you ever get that blackmail on Prime and the Omnis. Heheheh… As far as I can tell, Energon comes in little rocks that Transformers can't touch if they don't want a jolt. Omnicons have to make them useable back at Ocean City. Omnicons are basically the Autobot, non-gestaltable Constructicons. They build everything. And besides that, they and the Terrorcons are the only ones that can touch Energon w/o getting zapped. The Terrorcons are the new Decepticon army, and as far as I can tell a grand total of three of them can talk. Anyway, thanks for your three reviews, and update soon!

Pretty in Scarlet: Wait for me! ((Grabs Requiem Blaster and chases him with you)) Thankee for reviewing.

Seeker Nami: Having Ironhide thinking he's a duck? XD I'd like to see that! Thanks for the review!

GothMasterFlash: Thanks, I'm honored you like it that much. Yeah, poor Ironhide… heheh…

indigo-ink: Yes. He must die, be roasted over an open fire, and forced to listen to eighteen hours of Cyclonus reciting Monty Python skits by heart. And then recite all the Marx Bros movies, and then we can drag in all the other Decepticons and make then perform Con Warp, Then, to top it all off, we can have Cy dress up as Barney and give him a hug… No, actually, that'd probably scare Cyclonus more than it would our victim… Thanks for the review! Beautiful and fascinating? Eheh… It's really that good? Thanks! You haven't seen Energon yet? Aw, too bad. Don't worry, you'll probably get to see it eventually. Warning: If you think it's not very good, the truth is it isn't until "Crisis in Jungle City." I think that's what it's called… You'll know what it is when you see it.

Haley Macrae: Thank you for that question, you inspired this chapter, the next chapter, and a prequel I'm going to write in the yet-to-be-determined future. And all you did was ask about Cy's past… Thanks for the review and all the unintentional plot-bunnies!

Okay, here's chapter eight, I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Slag… I own the title of the game Grand Theft Alien, even though we ALL know what it really is. I own this story, Sparkstarter-the-fictional, and the NtMF poem. Everything else is Hasbro's, unfortunately.

…..

'In fact, trying to forget is causing more harm than good.'

'Trying to forget is causing more harm than good.'

'More harm than good.'

'More harm than good… why should I forget?'

'What am I trying to forget? When I wore the mask? How to wear the mask? Or why I wore the mask?'

'Shouldn't I know?'

Cyclonus stepped into the rec room. He'd only been there once before, about two months ago. He was instantly reminded why he hadn't gone back since.

All the conversations in the room petered out, as everyone turned to look at Cyclonus. The heating coils under his face started to warm up, the Transformer equivalent of a blush. All he had wanted was to play one of the holo games. Cyclonus glanced at the holoscreen on the other side of the room with the gaminc console hooked up. No one was on it, but it was very far away. He'd better just make up an excuse and move on

"Is… Sparkstarter in h-here?" Cyclonus asked quickly, making up a name. The coils under his face got even hotter. He'd stuttered. He felt like such an idiot. It would've been better if he'd just walked out without saying anything.

The Decepticons glanced at each other in befuddlement. Only two or three were actually looking around the room for the fictional Sparkstarter, until someone said, "Nope. He's not here."

"Oh," Cyclonus mumbled, wishing the floor would just swallow him. "Wrong room." He quickly backed out of the doorway and moved down the hallway just far enough away that no one could see him. Slowly, the conversation came back, but it was still hushed. Cyclonus looked at the floor forlornly. Everywhere he went, that happened. He was a prototype Transformer, the first to be designed to fly with a rotor, but the Decepticons here didn't know that. They just knew he was… different. Very different. The first day someone had suggested he might be an Autobot spy, and since then his reputation had never really recovered. And since he was a fairly new Transformer-- only a few months old-- he didn't know what to do when things like this happened. He was a complete outsider.

"Frrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaak," someone in the room said. "What's that guy's name? Psycho-Nutz, or somethin'?" The others in the room laughed.

"He's weird, I'll give ya that," someone else said. "He hasn't said more'n fifty words since he got here."

"And what's with that pinwheel?" someone else yelled, which made everyone laugh again.

Cyclonus was suddenly very concious of the propeller on his back. He was proud of being a prototype, but he wasn't sure he'd have wanted to be one if he'd known it would get this kind of response. Not that he had had a choice, he was just created that way.

Wanting to get away from the others, he started walking down the hall towards the nearest exit. Maybe if he could get outside and fly around a little, he'd feel better.

Cyclonus stopped dead in his tracks. Go flying? With his "pinwheel?"

And give everyone else another reason to isolate him?

Cyclonus turned on his optics, and looked around. He was still in the stupid tiny room with the stupid Autobot Ironhide. It had only been a dream. All that stuff had happened millions of years ago.

Cyclonus sat up and glanced at Ironhide. Still recharging. Cyclonus decided to bug the Autobot again, to distract himself from the memory, and fired a shot that hit the wall just over Ironhide's head. He sat up quickly. "Did the Autobots come back?"

"Naah," Cyclonus said, waving Ironhide off. "That was just Leader-1 coming to get revenge on Megatron for forgetting about him."

"Oh." Ironhide was awake now. "Who's Leader-1?"

"Clench."

"Okaaaaaay, who's Clench?"

"Leader-1."

Ironhide narrowed his optics. "Okay then, who are Leader-1 and Clench?"

"You just answered your own question!" Cyclonus said. After several million years of practice, annoying people took no effort at all. He wasn't even concentrating.

"Fine, be that way," Ironhide muttered, turning the other way. "I bet there is no Leader-1 or Clench or whatever. I'm not even going to bother trying to talk to you."

Cyclonus smirked. "Is that a promise?"

"Slag yeah! I'm not talking to you until the Autobots rescue me! And when they come, I'll LAUGH IN YOUR FA--"

"You're still talking," Cyclonus pointed out, and Ironhide shut his mouth and turned away.

Ironhide would only be able to keep this up so long. He'd talk eventually. Cyclonus picked up a sharp rock and started making little scratch marks on the stone floor. If he kept this up long enough, Ironhide would have to ask what he was doing.

Scratching rocks doesn't exactly use much brainpower, so Cyclonus let his thoughts wander back to his dream. He remembered that day very well. Not only had his propeller been insulted that day, that had also been the morning of the battle he had "snapped" in. They'd never mocked his propeller again. As far as Cyclonus knew, no other Transformer had been made anything like him. He had been the only one with a propeller, and now, he didn't have on either. And so the legacy dies before it even began, with Cyclonus being rebuilt in 6.3 seconds flat.

'6.3 seconds…' Cyclonus thought, and with a start realized, 'If it only takes that long to reformat, who don't I just reverse it? There are hundreds of reformatting station on Cybertron! I can fly again, any time I want! Why didn't I think of that before?'

Why?

'Because,' Cyclonus suddenly realized, 'this whole time, the problem wasn't that I couldn't fly, but this body isn't my body.

'But I haven't been "me" for millions of years, so I shouldn't care about my old body at all, right? Unless, all that time, I was me.'

'And if that was me, they why don't I want to act like that?'

"Wow. My head hurts."

Ironhide glanced at Cyclonus, who was still carving on the ground like he hadn't said anything. He opened his mouth to ask Cyclonus what he was talking about, remembered the promise he had just made, and shut if again. Instead, he sullenly watched Cyclonus make those weird marks.

Ironhide was suddenly interested. What could be so fascinating about making little mark-things on the ground that it would make someone's head hurt? He was about to ask, remembered again he couldn't, and instead glared at Cyclonus.

'I've got to be careful about what I promise,' Ironhide thoughts, just a few minutes too late. The curiosity was driving him crazy.

Yes, Cyclonus is very good at his job.

Bzzzt. Bzzzt. BOOOOM! Sizzle. "Take that, ya green freak! My lasers are MORE than a match for you." Stomp, stomp. "Hmph. Big guy. No problem, I'll just jump to the side--" Squish. "… Dang."

The words GAME OVER scrolled across the screen. Kicker groaned and threw down his controller. "Stupid game," he muttered. "Why'd I even buy Grand Theft Alien?" He waited for someone to tell him to stop whining, and when no one did, he glanced around the room at the Autobots in there. They were in the rec room, and when there was nothing else to do that was the only room you could find anyone. Currently, most of the Transformers were talking, except for Demolisher, who was busy glaring at the wall, and Optimus Prime, who was doing paperwork. Same old, same old. Everyone was here, except…

"Where's Ironhide?" Kicker asked. The other Autobots looked at each other, then around the room, finally noticing the four-day absence of their fellow soldier.

"He's probably somewhere else in the city," Prime said absently, still reading over some thingamabob.

'Why do we call Ocean City a 'city,' anyway? It's a stinkin' military base an' everyone knows it!' Kicker thought, but said, "I haven't seen him for half a week! I can never get rid of him this long!" Kicker grinned. "If you see him, tell him to keep up the good work." With that, he picked up his controller and started a new game.

They all forgot about it and went back to what they were doing. But only a few moments later, Hot Shot said, "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Ironhide in a few days."

That got everyone's attention. Hot Shot was always running around the base. If Ironhide was there, Hot Shot would have known it.

"Has anyone seen him?" Prime asked, putting down his datapad. He was starting to get worried. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Ironhide either…

Everyone in the room was wracking their memories, trying to remember seeing him. The only one who wasn't was Demolisher.

Demolisher had seen Ironhide frozen to the ground on the canyon planet. Either he was still there or the Decepticons had gotten him. Most likely, he was being kicked around by Megatron as they spoke. "I think I saw him a couple of days ago."

The room turned towards Demolisher. "When did you see him?" Prime asked, trying not to sound anxious.

"When the city was raised to launch the scouting expedition to the dark side of Mercury. I think Ironhide was with them," Demolisher lied easily. A scouting mission had been sent out two days earlier, to see if there was any Energon on Mercury. Most of the planets in Earth's solar system had been explored, but Mercury hadn't, because it was too close to the sun. Mercury had just reached the point where it was farthest from the sun, so an expedition had been sent to the dark side, with lots of extra coolant. It was their best chance to explore it. "It might've been someone else, though. Whoever it was, he was in his alt-mode." That comment was to cover his skidplate, so if the found out Ironhide wasn't there he wouldn't be caught in a direct lie. A trick he'd learned from Cyclonus.

Hot Shot frowned. "I read the list of Transformers that volunteered to go. I don't remember seeing Ironhide's name on it…"

"Then let's check," Jetfire said, standing up. "C'mon, the list will be in the Database."

"The what?" Demolisher asked, but no one answered. Everyone else had already stood up and were leaving, except for Kicker, who had started a new game, and Inferno, who was for no obvious reason pretending to be interested in Grand Theft Alien. Demolisher wouldn't get any answers from them, so he stood up and followed the others.

Jetfire, Hot Shot, Optimus Prime, and Demolisher headed down the hallway. Hot Shot sped up a little to catch up with Jetfire. "Do you believe him?" he asked quietly, gesturing back at Demolisher. Jetfire shook his head.

"I don't believe a word that Decepti-scum said," Jetfire said, "which is exactly why we're checking that list."

Hot Shot nodded. "I can't remember everyone that was on that list, but if you named someone I'd be able to tell you if he was on it or not. And Ironhide wasn't."

"I didn't think so. But until we check the list, we give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Why?" Hot Shot asked. "We don't owe him anything."

"Because Optimus wants us to trust him," Jetfire said, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it himself.

Hot Shot groaned in frustration. "We can't trust him! He'll be just like Starscream. Get what he wants from us and then crawl back to Megatron."

"Starscream might not have 'crawled back' if a certain yellow Autobot hadn't declared him Public Enemy #1."

Hot Shot looked away from Jetfire. He was right. "Okay, fine. Until we know for sure, we give him the benefit of the doubt."

"And if it turns out Demolisher is lying…" Jetfire prodded.

Hot Shot smirked. "We slag him."

Jetfire sighed and gave up. He wasn't going to get anything more out of Hot Shot. Besides, that's probably what Jetfire would want to do too.

"So, what is this room?" Demolisher stared at the giant computer and wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling rows of datadisks plugged into the walls.

"This is the Database," Prime said. He gestured to the walls. "These disks contain information on everything that's happened in the Autobot army for the last four million years."

Demolisher nodded. Everything, huh? Demolisher could use this to his advantage. "So, would it have a list of the Decepticons that had to sign the… contract?" Prime could tell Demolisher had wanted to put the word "slavery" in front of "contract".

"Yes. It does," Prime said warily. Demolisher was definitely up to something.

"And it would have a list of the Decepticons that were injected with the Nanobots?"

"…Yes," Prime said reluctantly. He wondered what Demolisher wanted to know. Wouldn't be good, that's for sure.

"So it has a lot of information about those Decepticons? And that contract? And the Nanobots?"

"………Yes…"

"What kinduva sick person would have stuff like that?" Demolisher asked angrily, stalking off and leaving a thoroughly annoyed Prime behind. Spending most of his time with Cyclonus had finally paid off. And plus, he had learned what he needed to know. If that computer— or "Database"— had info about Nanobots, Demolisher could find a way to kill them, maybe even completely extract them from his body.

'Now…' Demolisher looked up at the countless datadisks. 'Which one of these would have that info?'

At the main computer, Hot Shot typed in "Mercury expedition" and clicked Search. In a few seconds, a list of all files that had "Mercury expedition" in the titles were shown. Hot Shot clicked on one that said "Mercury Expedition - Volunteer List".

Demolisher, still looking at the shelves, saw a glow out of the corner of his optic, and turned to look. One of the normally crystal-blue datadisks was glowing a purplish-pink. Demolisher moved towards it, wondering what had caused this one to light up.

"He IS on the list!" Hot Shot said, sounding surprised. Demolisher turned away from the datadisks to look at Hot Shot. He and Jetfire were staring at the screen, shocked. Ironhide's name would be third from the bottom, Demolisher knew. He had put Ironhide on the list himself, a few hours after the expedition had left. He knew that eventually they'd be wondering where the missing Autobot was.

"What'd I tell you?" Demolisher said, coming up behind Hot Shot and Jetfire. "His name's right there!"

"Yeah, you're right," Hot Shot said. He glanced at Jetfire. Jetfire knew what he was thinking. 'We were wrong about him.'

"So, guess we don't need to worry about him," Hot Shot said, exiting the file. The glowing datadisk on the wall went back to its normal blue. So, that was what it did. When a disk started glowing, it meant that disk had the info that was being displayed. That would be useful.

Now that the minor crisis was over, the three Autobots headed back to the rec room. But Demolisher didn't.

Making sure no one was watching, he went over to the computer and typed in "Nanobot project" and clicked Search. Over fifty files came up, but all the titles were blank. Before Demolisher could click on one, a notice came up on the screen.

RESTRICTED FILES

PASSWORD:

Demolisher's optics narrowed. So, they had planned ahead. That was fine. He could find out what the password was. He glanced at the rows of disks. None of them were glowing. Scrap. That meant that the disks didn't light up until you actually opened a file. Too bad. Demolisher could have just taken the disk without worrying about security protocols…

Demolisher turned off the computer and headed out of the room. He'd find his way out of here yet.

…..

Hi! Sorry I'm so late. Blame school. At least I'm back now…

ckret2