Note: ...Eh, Shadowcaster wanted out...It's not fluff, it's not massively edgy! It's a backstory! Because I wasn't indulging Shadowcasters want for energon tonight. Also, if she seems less evil, it's because this is before the war and she's not being told to make things to kill yet. ]

"Can you let me out?"

Her audios pricked to the sound of a foreign voice in her lab, one not belonging to her or any of the delivery services. It was a curious thing...Had someone crept in while she was out and had become snagged in one of her traps? Or were they simply a left over, still half alive corps in some bin in the far back...

Maybe that's what the smell was...It was getting rather bothersome.

She pivoted on her heel, scanning the back part of the lab that wasn't graced with the overly bright light of her work station. A faint life force did make itself known to her, and with peeking curiosity she marched her way over to the darkened room and flicked on the dying lights to maybe catch a glimpse of this...intruder.

With a flicker and a annoying buzz she could fix later the lights turned themselves on. And with this new light she was able to see into the storage units, suspended cadges and traps littered about the floor, along with tossed weapon parts and failed doomsday devices.

What captured her attention however was a rather brightly colored mech in one of the said suspended cadges. Humph...She had forgotten about him being there. Now actually thinking on that it was rather disturbing, she had taken such great interest in the mech at first.

Now here he was, suspended like a common house canary. Except not singing, and very bloodied.

He had scooted to the front of the cadge, tail curled about his waist, winglets tucked to his body, optics wide and fearful with just a tinge of hope and one of the curling, spiral horns was missing an end. His plating was missing in places she had probably implanted things, his own energon seemed to be the only type on the cadge floor and he looked dim, as it were to say.

She had probably not fed him in a long time...Much less paid him any attention what so ever. Her little science project...Well...Now that his presence was known again, she could start right back up!

"What is it you want?"

He simply cocked his head and gripped two of the bars, looking intently at her. Maybe this was one of his more...Silent psychotic breakdowns. Pity, she liked the ones where he beat himself and screamed into the air at villains that didn't exist. They proved to me much more interesting and exciting if she remembered correctly.

There had been so many other mechs and femmes she had had brought in for 'treatment' since she must have put him in this cadge.

"Can...you let me go please?"

The seeker let out a snort, why in unicrons name would she do that? Let him out to test or to study maybe but to go? Never...he was far to valuable. It was probably why he had been put back there. For safe keeping perhaps?

"Now why would I do that~? Who wants you out there anyway, what with the way you scream and hurt yourself, or mistake others for random people that don't exist? Its pathetic you would even believe you had something to return to if I did release you...And I doubt any one will come looking, or if they did...you would be able to tell them anything...I would make sure of it."

He scooted back, keeping self away from her. Her faceplates up and in the bars of the cadge. Right in front of him, intimidating, spark-less. What type of femme kept other mechs and femmes as pets and test subjects? This one...Obviously.

He did look surprised and mortally terrified when she reached up and snapped the front of the cadge bars off with her claws however, reaching in and snatching up around the waist and lifting him out, keeping him restrained and in her hold while she walked back to her actual work place and deposited him on one of the larger, sturdier tables.

He may have been a small model but he wasn't a minibot. Still having some weight to him even after the sum he had lost...she mentally cursed...he wasn't fit enough for some of the processor test she had stored away for the little nutcase.

'He needs to see a medic, to be fixed and cared for...But I can't simply let him go then expect to find him again without some kind of supervision...And snatching him out of his work...delivery was already iffy enough...Oh...well...Let's see how much of one test he can take before another.'

The plan to induce a 'episode' was the easiest to follow. It could take actual probing, it might only take scaring him into one. She was willing to try both...or anything. She would just have to stop at a point to keep him alive...Too bad she didn't have any other Guiney pigs or she could test some of the acids...Her helm snapped back to him as he wandered about the table, looking over the far to high edges and the debating look upon his faceplates before he froze and looked back at her.

"I...If you let me go I will come back...Please...I just want to leave...For a little bit..."

She cocked her head, his voice was so choked and desperate. She could sense truth in each word of his. How long had he been in there? Eh, what did it matter...She wasn't letting this one go.

"I think not...Your to valuable to me. Your mental state is an absolute mystery to me and it makes you a special mech..."

He blinked. And she swore, absolutely would upon her death bed he suddenly looked pleased with himself for a first time in a long time.

"But, I promise to come back...I really have no other place to go.."

It was saddeningly true. He lived his nights at a mental facility. He worked with the delivery service to feel some sense of normal and not like he was a freak to be kept under watch...This was the first time anyone had actually told him the mental 'illness' was...special...in some odd twisted way yes...But that was a first. Even from his captor.

And from everything he had seen done to others...those she had killed or sent on their way...He was still here! There was something going for him...

"Hmmm, Im sure that's true."

` She answered back. Well, there wasn't much harm in letting him go if he would return...but there was the 'if' she was an excellent liar. And if he tried to blab she could say he was talking crazy, and everyone would believe her...She held merit among the top scientist.

"I swear...If I don't you can come find me...I will come back...I just want some freedom."

Hmm...She could respect that. If they would give her the freedom to do as she pleased this would be a different Cybertron. For better...but more than likely for her own enjoyment.

Hooking a claw under his chin and grinning lightly at the fact his thin plating split and bled down her finger she looked down into his optics and spoke calmly and clearly.

"If you don't come back I will hunt you down and use you as my favorite lab rat...do you understand?"

He wasted no time, looked her right back in the optic and flashed a grin she dint expect. Even after all the test she had performed before locking him away in that cadge, the words of uselessness and disgust, the pain she had inflicted. He was still going to return..She saw a flicker of madness within his helm...Something that she could relate to An odd twist in his spark, one she hadn't seen in anyone but herself...It was a mutual respect that she hadn't killed him yet...And he hadn't pleased her by begging until this once...

The request to be allowed out. And she was pleased with his answer.

"Perfectly mistress..."

"Good."

She snatched him off the table, and opened the door from her lab, placing him on the ground and twitching her wings up her back.

"And what is your name little mech?"

"I have a lot...Freak, Twisted, mentally unstable, unsafe, patient 578/10... But Softtread is my name."

The femme couldn't help but snort...though she had a few unpleasant names of her own none of these fit the little mech...And is she now owned him...

"None of them suit...Your designation is Whackjob..."

His optics shuttered in confusion before he let the name sink into his processor. It was beyond fitting, and the small grin and flick of the odd little tail gave way to his non disguised agreement with the title.

"And your name?"

"Shadowcaster..."

He gave a short not before spinning on his heel and transforming, to her surprise, and taking off down the hallway and away from her laboratory.

'Little pest best return or I have wasted too many recourses on his little helm!'

And it was, to her pleasure in the next three days. The small mech came waltzing back, energized, painted and still as odd. And just like he had said, there wasn't anywhere else for him to go.

A forgotten amount of time later-

He would admit, she had gotten so much worse with her experiments that she had been back then. She was always bloodied up and willing to kill for any reason. And it had pleased him to know she went on a murder rampage when she believed him to be dead.

He was also pleased when he returned. Just like he had promised he would every time he left. He wasn't subject to torture or pain like the others he would see, nor was he beaten and wounded and left for scrap.

But he could detect the slightest bit of joy left in her rise up and make itself known. Her sitting frame, aft planted on a large boulder, she looking rather amused at best to see him on this planet of them all.

Scrambling up into the femmes lap and nuzzling her side it wasn't to hard to say he had missed the terrifying embrace. Even with claws taping against his back, his life in her cold servos yet again.

"I was told you were dead."

"I will always return mistress, I promised."