Author's Note: I wasn't planning this; it just happened. Sometime between one and two in the morning, while I was thinking about Oceanglide. Somehow this one got in and kept me up until half three. I've edited it a bit since then, but be warned. Takes place pre-Armada, in some nameless backwater place with rain and probably sea. I blame insomnia.

"The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I shall better the instruction."

- Shylock, The Merchant of Venice

Vendetta

Oh, look.

I remember them…

Do they remember me?

I bet they don't.

They wouldn't.

Bootlegs.

They think they're so damn wonderful, them and their ugly, oversized body-shells…

They probably don't even remember.

They made my life a living hell for three and a half thousand years, and they don't even remember, do they?

They treated me like dirt! They even made me think I was worthless! They hurt the others and there wasn't even anything I could do…

The slagsuckers. How dare they? What makes them think they're so special, huh? They're scrap! Disgusting, filthy, scrapheaps! Too dumb to use a console without smashing the keys! And they mocked us!

How dare they?

…

They don't remember!

…Oh, we'll see about that. I'll make them remember. I'll teach them…

Doublebit was a neutral, and had been all his life. This was his first crime. His second was being unimportant, even by neutral standards. He was, therefore, a double offender. As such, he was aware that, generally speaking, he was fair game. Which was to say that there was no reason for a Decepticon to avoid killing him, and even the Autobots were slightly more lax about enforcing the rules where his welfare was concerned.

This had not, in the time that he had lived, been a problem; in fact, he tended to come as close as any neutral could to fitting in with Decepticons. And he had enough self-preservation not to trouble the few Autobots who roamed the streets from time to time. It was very likely, indeed, that Doublebit would have lived a fairly long and happy life, were it not for his third crime.

The third crime he committed was being an ignorant jerk with a penchant for tormenting smaller, weaker neutrals, and it was about to get him killed.

Not that Doublebit knew that, of course. He just knew that he was hurting all over, and that he was lying on his back, and that wherever he was, it wasn't his home.

Nor could he move his legs.

This realisation dawned on him quite suddenly, and provoked immediate panic. If you were helpless and neutral, you were doomed for certain, and Doublebit knew it.

A sound to his right caught his attention, and he turned his head – about the only thing he could move – to see what it was. He was just in time to see a brown Minicon with purple highlights walked into view around his shoulder.

"Oh, good," said the Minicon. "I thought you were never going to wake up." He grinned, facemask notwithstanding. It was the most horrible thing Doublebit could ever remember seeing although, to be fair, he couldn't seem to remember much of anything up to and including last night.

Through the haze of pain and damage warnings the neutral managed to say, "Who're you?"

The Minicon walked closer and leaned forward, yellow optics meeting his. "Remember me?"

Doublebit gazed at the smaller 'bot's face, trying light-headedly to place it. "No," he admitted after a minute. He could remember last night, a bit… out with Shard and Hellbent and the others… yes, that Minicon, later on, and a fight…

The Minicon snarled; Doublebit returned his attention to his enraged captor. "Are you sure you don't remember?"

"Yeah," groaned the neutral muzzily. "Why…" He was cut off by a sudden pain in his head. The Minicon kicked him again.

"Well, that's just a pity then, Doublebit, because I remember you; yeah, you and your friends, too." He gestured with a sneer to a few pieces of metal scattered on the floor behind him; from the colour, they'd once belonged to Hellbent. "He screamed the most," added the Minicon, seeing the recognition in his captive's optics, "but the green one went the quickest."

Doublebit shuddered and wondered what was going on. "Who are you?" he croaked, making a real effort this time.

"Does it really matter?" sneered the Minicon. "It didn't matter before, obviously, if you didn't even bother to remember… but you louts never cared who it was you picked on, did you?" The neutral noticed uncomfortably that the smaller 'bot's fists were clenched and the missile mounted prominently on his back was trembling… and the Minicon was worryingly close to his face…

"I… I don't…"

"You don't what?" hissed the Minicon. "Do you have any idea what you did? Are you too stupid to understand or are you so arrogant as to think yourself superior? You?" He slammed a fist sideways, into circuitry the neutral hadn't even known was exposed.

Doublebit gasped and flailed his arms feebly; they, too, were paralysed; although they had some movement, unlike his legs. Perhaps it amused his captor to leave him floundering powerlessly in empty air. The Minicon watched with interest, and turned, giving the part he'd hit an appraising look which was all the more terrifying to Doublebit because he couldn't actually see what state the damaged section was in.

He felt the pain all right, though.

More fired through his upper arm as the Minicon fiddled with something important. Doublebit yelled: he could feel the creature pulling his arm apart. "Stop that!" he wailed, thrashing about as much as he could - in vain.

The Minicon all but ignored his plea. "Oh, dear, Doublebit," he said disapprovingly, holding up a wire peeled away from its casing. "You were always telling me to show you what I was made of. I'm just having a look to see what you're made of." He twisted the wire, contemplatively, prompting a shriek from his victim. "Substandard materials, it seems."

"Let me go," moaned Doublebit. "I don't know who you are or what you want…"

The Minicon shrieked. "You disgusting, obsolete rustbucket! You still don't have a clue, do you?" He stepped closer to the neutral's head and dealt him a kick; Doublebit felt his armour crumple under the blow.

The Minicon went on. "You and your little gang tried to destroy our life! You made it so my life wasn't worth living! And- and you don't even remember!" he shouted.

"How can I?" cried Doublebit weakly. "I don't know you!"

The Minicon gave him such a look of loathing and hatred as he had never been subjected to before. Something twinged in the neutral's mind. He'd seen a shadow of that look before…

…He'd kicked Waterlog: the little runt had been asking for it after all. Well, he'd been in range. And for some reason he glanced over to the corner where another of those weaklings was, and he'd seen that look…

He hadn't thought much of it then, but it seemed horribly important now.

"Yes, that's it," said the Minicon, taking a foul delight in the shock that spread across his victim's face. "I'm Stormcloud."

Doublebit made an inarticulate whimper as he shook his head, trying to equate this terrible creature with the pathetic, terrified refugee he had tormented years ago.

"Yes," drawled Stormcloud. "I am. And I've come all this way back for a visit to tell you just what you meant to me." His expression changed faster than the wind; he leant forward with another sneer, missile launcher raised slightly behind the twin crests of his vehicle-mode hull. "So tell me," he hissed quietly, "how does it feel to be helpless, Doublebit? Are you enjoying it as much as I did, huh?"

Still in agony, the neutral moaned, "What do you want?"

Stormcloud didn't answer directly. "Do you understand now?" he demanded. "Do you even realise what you did?"

"Yes," Doublebit tried, ready to say anything if it might help. The Minicon glared at him.

"I don't think you do." He stepped back, purposely crushing the still-trailing wire underfoot; his victim writhed in pain. His missile launcher raised and arched over his head, so that Doublebit found himself staring along his tormentor's primary weapon. "How does it feel now?" asked Stormcloud. "How does it feel to be helpless… to be at my mercy? Although there isn't enough to save you…"

"Stormy, old pal," struggled the neutral, playing for time, "don't do this. You're being..." He didn't even need to say it.

Stormcloud gave a cruel laugh. "Maybe I am. But you know, you've only yourself to blame…"

"Please…"

"What, you want mercy? Forget it. You never gave us any. And you know the price: a life for a life…"

The neutral squeaked faintly, frozen in terror, his optics pleading. Stormcloud grinned, at once consumed with delight and hatred, and that malicious figure was the last thing Doublebit saw.

A brown and purple Minicon stormed outside and pounded his fists into the nearest wall. Still shaking with rage, he stepped back and screamed his fury to the sky – but his cry seemed small and weaker than it had been in his mind, more lonely and helpless…

His energy diminished, his emotions still blazing strong, Stormcloud glared down at his trembling fists. Something inside him wept in fury and frustration. Unfair that after all that, their destruction had given him no real pleasure. Wasn't revenge supposed to be sweet?

It gave him little satisfaction that he did not cry.

Stormcloud scowled, and straightened with a jerk. His expression thunderous, the terror of the seas moved off into the wakening city, ignoring the rain that was beginning to spatter the dust.

Stormcloud is much too happy on the Decepticon side. It changed his life. Or gave it back to him, perhaps. He seems to have become a better bully than the bullies…

Disclaimer: Only one who's mine is Doublebit (and Shard 'n Hellbent, but they're just names) and I don't want him. The rest don't belong to me at all, as they'll tell you very loudly.