The story, she is just FLOWING!

Note: I gave this a proofread and slight rewrite; I didn't feel it was up to my usual standards.


Staring at the door through which Megatron had left, Shiftlock growled in exasperation and anger. She no longer needed to keep up pretenses, not when that tyrant was out of earshot, and she didn't care if Knock Out and Shockwave heard her.

The red Aston Martin found the entire situation hilarious. Oh, certainly, having a former Decepticon-turned-Autobot walking around the base as a sort of prisoner-with-privileges was going to be awkward for the entire crew; nevertheless he intended to relish every uncomfortable moment it produced. Like telling Barricade Shiftlock was on the Nemesis, and with Megatron as her 'mate', the Saleen couldn't lay a digit on her. He wanted to set up a betting pool among the other officers as to whether or not Barricade would blow an internal fuel line once he knew. Schadenfreude? Most definitely.

"Temper temper," he teased, verbally poking at the femme in a condescending tone. He was almost certain she'd hiss and spit like an angry feline, and Knock Out felt like feeding his perverse desire to rile Shiftlock into a frothing rage.

Sadly no such reaction was coming. "Oh shut up," Shiftlock grumbled, folding her arms, her temper once more held in check.

At the diagnostics computer in the far end of the medical bay, Shockwave busied himself with a deeper examination of the protoforms' pre-awakening scans. The tete-a-tete between mech and femme behind him only reinforced his commitment to emotionless logic.

Alas, there was still work to be done. Knock Out could only play for so long before risking unpleasant consequences. "Get up on the berth," he requested, slipping into a more professional demeanor.

Shiftlock acquiesced, accepting a little more of her fate as she hopped up onto the diagonal metal table, lying down. "No funny business," she warned, mistrustful of her newly assigned medic.

*Le gasp!* Knock Out feigned offense, one hand on his chest, batting his optics. "Funny business? Moi? But I'm dealing with Megatron's blushing bride." Okay, there was time for just a little more play.

Shiftlock looked daggers at him.

Knock Out laughed. Bingo! We struck angry. "Oh it could be much worse, Shiftie! You have no idea what an advantage you have right now," he said cheerfully, lowering a scanner from the multi-tool that hung over each medical berth.

"Advantage? Being weaponless and captive on the Nemesis and forced to put up with this disgusting hoax?" Shiftlock retorted while fantasizing about twisting Knock Out's limbs into pretzel behind his back.

"That disgusting hoax, as you put it, is going to keep Barricade off your tailpipe," Knock Out smoothly replied, elated by the look on the fembot's face as she realized how right he was.

She put a hand over her optics. "Oh Primus he's on this ship. I completely forgot he's on this ship."

"Yeeeup," Knock Out casually replied, running a scanning beam over Shiftlock and turning to look at the monitors. He was satisfied with large portion of goat he'd just gotten from the femme, and decided to throw her one of its bones in return. "You might want to lose the attitude and start making friends. You're going to be here awhile, so fitting in will be to your advantage in the long run."

Shiftlock sighed and stared up at the multitool, contemplating the best possible course of action. Of course she intended to escape, but it might take awhile; trying to make certain that both she and her children made it out in one piece would take longer. Blending in really would be the wisest choice. "Some of you used to be friends," Shiftlock countered, though agreeing with the notion.

"If there's one thing I've learned lately, it's that you have to be willing to put aside old grudges if you want to survive," Knock Out commented, thinking of Airachnid.

Well that was a change of pace. Shiftlock remembered Knock Out having a vengeful streak a mile wide when it came to even petty offenses. Something must have changed over the vorns. "When did you start dispensing sage advice?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"It's a talent you acquire when you're patching up people for doing stupid things," Knock Out answered somewhat sourly. It was partially true, and a satisfying enough answer to deflect anyone away from the real reasons that hovered over his head (one deck above him) and was opposite him on the other side of the room.

Shiftlock laughed softly in spite of herself: Knock Out was on his way to becoming a grumpy old Ratchet. Maybe an evil, red, sociopathic Ratchet, but a Ratchet nonetheless.

"Looks like you're clear," Knock Out said, finishing the scan. "I'm pretty sure you have weapons hidden all over your frame, so just unload them onto the berth next to you."

That killed what little good mood Shiftlock had, and reminded her that she would be defenseless, a sheep among wolves. Standing back up, she began to remove an energon knife, grappling line, and hand blaster, setting them down on the steel of the table.

Knock Out blinked. "That's it?"

"Who needs more?" Shiftlock asked, smirking.

"Wreckers are known for their ingenuity," Shockwave commented from his console.

"Yeah... I suppose you'd be familiar with that, wouldn't you Shockwave?" Shiftlock asked with a smirk. After the launch of the Ark, the Wreckers, under Ultra Magnus' command, had been tasked with defending what was left of Iacon, protecting Alpha Trion, and sending search and rescue squads looking for other Autobots who had fallen into Shockwave's hands, leaving only after they had finished freeing the last survivors they could find. They were tough days, and the attacks by Shockwave's Insecticon swarms were constant, but it was a time that she could look back on with pride. She had no only survived, she had thrived - and being able to verbally slap Shockwave without repercussions was gratifying. What she would have given to have had Grimlock here right now.

And yet, her bravado inched backwards as Shockwave looked up from his work to turn around and face her, stalking closer, overshadowing her with his approach. Had she made a dangerous miscalculation in what she thought she could get away with? Was his stoic mien just a facade, and had she foolishly triggered the release of vorns of suppressed emotion?

"Indeed," he answered, unflustered, as he turned and walked past Shiftlock, leaving the room.

"He always gives me the creeps," Knock Out commented lowly, exposing a shared discomfiture at the monoptic scientist's presence.

Shiftlock raised an optic ridge, the nervous chill of her almost confrontation with Shockwave finally starting to melt away. "... Why are you being nice to me? I'm an Autobot. Moreover, I'm a traitor to the cause."

"Not anymore," Knock Out replied with easygoing confidence in the veracity of his words.

Bricks of realization dropped by the ton onto Shiftlock's spark, threatening to crush it in her chest. He was right. Until she could escape, he was right.

If she could ever find a way to escape.

"I'm sure you're going to want to get back to your-" Knock Out tried to stiffle a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. "- "mate" and children. Don't want to keep "Daddy" waiting. He's not a pleasant mech to be around when it comes to delays."

Shiftlock could just hear the air quotes around those words. She didn't want to think about it. Reality was closing the walls in around her.

"There's a Vehicon outside that will escort you to Lord Megatron. You're going to want to call him that, or 'my Liege', unless he tells you otherwise. Don't even believe for a moment that he would spare you from the usual disciplinary measures if you don't mind your manners. Just ask Starscream," Knock Out advised.

For just a nanoklik, familiarity crept in around the edges of Shiftlock's perception; it was as if she were back in the pits, Knock Out as her medic, advising her on racing techniques or which mechs to watch out for in the next derby. They were good memories, but she tried to stuff them down and cast them out of her processes. She didn't want to feel good about anything involving this mess.

The door opened, the violet-visored face of a ground-type Vehicon looking in. "Shiftlock?" he asked. "Come with me. Lord Megatron's orders."

...

"So are you going to be my escort from now on?" Shiftlock asked the Vehicon at her side as they walked through the open hallways of the Nemesis, the sound of their metal pedes echoing on ahead of them.

"I suppose so," he answered noncommittally, seeming uncomfortable with conversation. Why would anyone - particularly an Autobot - want to chatter with him as if he were an old friend? Wasn't he nothing but an energon-filled barrier to smash through on the way to the higher ranking officers to them?

Apparently not in this one's estimation. She kept talking. "Well, we'd better start getting used to each other then. You got a name?"

The taller black and gray mech's waves were retracting closer to his frame in shyness. A name? Standing out was bad. You could hide in a crowd of duplicates. "No," he said distractedly, turning a corner as they went along.

Shiftlock frowned. This struck her as wrong - entirely wrong. "Nothing?" she asked.

"You don't need a name when you're a genericon," the Vehicon said brusquely, trying to shut down the chit-chat before it went any farther.

Now Shiftlock was angry, for multiple reasons, the least of which was the utter irony walking alongside her in the form of a nameless, low-caste drone among a revolutionary army that had once sought to abolish the position of nameless, low-caste drone. The old Decepticon ideology reared its head inside of her. Her time-worn brand seemed to itch itself to life across her mesh.

"Yes you do," Shiftlock countered, not letting the matter drop.

The Vehicon grew restless and ill at east. "Names are for those that have earned them," he countered. There. That should be good enough. Maybe she'd shut up. They were getting closer to their destination anyways, and then he could drop her off to whatever fate Megatron had planned for her, and forget this whole ridiculous notion of individuality.

"That's the biggest pile of pit-scrap I've ever heard," Shiftlock challenged.

She just did not give up! Now the Vehicon's discomfort was turning to anger. "And what would you know about it?!" he said, whirling on her, stopping in the middle of the hallway, plates raised, EMF sizzling against hers as with the same level of aggression as a shove backwards.

Shiftlock stubbornly persisted like a mule that refused to budge. She could be as obstinate as Ironhide at times. "I wasn't given a name either. I had to give myself one, because I was a low-caste, defective Empty," she explained firmly.

The Vehicon suddenly stood back up, field emitting a flourish of high-end spectrum surprise, letting up on the smaller femme's. "You... you were nameless?"

Shiftlock smiled back up at the genericon. "I was. Let me show you something," she said, pushing part of a shoulder plate out of the way. There, branded into her mesh, was a scar in the shape of a Decepticon insignia.

The Vehicon's visor flickered, the equivalent of a blink. " . . . You're one of us?" he questioned.

"I am more one of you than you know. I was part of the original revolution. I once stood alongside Megatron," Shiftlock said.

"So then . . . why did you leave?"

She looked the Vehicon square in the optics. "Because the Decepticon cause lost its way. We were all like you. We rose up because we desired something more than being disposable soldiers and labor."

The Vehicon suddenly placed his hand against Shiftlock's mouth. He drew a finger to his faceplate, beseeching the fembot with his electromagnetic field: Be quiet. Danger. Listeners.

She understood and sent back a frequency of gratitude for the Vehicon's warning. She'd almost forgotten about Soundwave's capacity to be eyes and ears everywhere on the ship.

"So in the tradition of the old ways, I think you should have a name," she continued, winking with one optic. Had to keep the conversation going, lest they tip off the spymaster.

The Vehicon continued walking, gesturing for Shiftlock to follow. "I will think of one," he assured her. In truth, the idea appealed to him - and now he wanted to know more about the "old ways" of the Decepticon cause.

They came up to the door to the command room, and the Vehicon turned to the orange and black femme to see her off. "I'll be waiting here when Lord Megatron is finished with you," he said, a silent wave of eager anticipation sent in her direction. If she had wanted to make a friend aboard the Nemesis, it seemed she'd had success.

Shiftlock didn't like the way that sounded, however: 'Finished with you'. Finished doing what? she thought. He made it sound as if she were a meal to be devoured. Megatron's comments about playing mates with "all the trappings" came to mind - so maybe in a way, she was. Swallowing audibly, she faced the doors, and braced herself for whatever would come.