AUTHOR'S NOTE: READ PLEASE!

I'm BACK! Sorry, exams are evil incarnate. Now that I'm done, I'm gonna stock pile chapters over the break so this won't happen again… Hopefully. I'm officially declaring Fridays as my posting days unless something comes up, then I should post Saturday.

I shouldn't miss my posting days, and if I do, I will most likely leave you a warning in the Author's Notes the week before. SO PLEASE READ THEM! I know what it's like to skip over them to the story, I am a bad culprit at this, but at least scroll back to them. PLEASE? This is my best way to communicate to you.

Also, I'm writing this between my beta reading for StoryLady35's "The Sound of Scrap's Heart" and Graceful-Kuja's "It's Love?" so I'm learning to balance all this.

Anyway, onto the story!

"Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas,
Everybody's looking for something.

"Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you.
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.

"I'm gonna use you and abuse you,
I'm gonna know what's inside.
Gonna use you and abuse you,
I'm gonna know what's inside you."

"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)", by Emily Browning

If you could see the way they were looking at me right now, you might think that I had asked to go on some suicide mission.

"Are you out of your fragging mind?!"

…Maybe Knockout's reaction suggested some validity to my previous thought.

Starscream scowled at the medic. "And what, pray tell, is so wrong about her officially joining my armada?" One of his servos that had been carefully folded behind his back gestured to where I still kneeled on the bridge. "She is, technically, a flyer. And she wants to prove herself. What better way then to let her fight?"

Before Knockout could yell at the seeker like he so clearly wanted to do, Breakdown intervened. "My… Lord…" he said carefully after blocking Knockout from moving forward and giving him a pointed look. "She is still in need of careful observation. We aren't sure how she is going to react to her new form. Also, she doesn't even have any weapons, and we aren't exactly stocked for her size."

Having calmed down, Knockout added with a smirk, "Besides, even if she doesn't feel worthy, she is still the true heir to the Decepticon throne. It wouldn't bode well for you to put the heir in harm's way, now would it?"

Starscream's scowl deepened as he ground out, "No… of course we wouldn't want our precious princess out in the field unarmed… but, this is her choice, and who are we to deny her that?" Before Knockout could respond, Starscream had turned and continued. "She can be fitted with weapons later, and for now she can claim a few protective weapons from the armory. That and some brief training should sufficiently train her for light missions."

That's when Knockout shouted, "You cannot overrule Megatron's decision!"

Hushed silence. "What decision?" Starscream asked carefully as he looked back over his shoulder.

His confidence returning, Knockout declared, "She was deemed to be my apprentice early on, my liege, back when she was but a young sparkling. She showed much potential then, and now that she has a proper form, I can only see her excelling more under my tutelage."

"I was your apprentice?" I asked softly as I rose from the floor.

With a kind smile, one that I assumed was rare and meant only for me, he said, "Quite talented, might I add. You might even surpass me one day." Then, with his normal smirk, he adds, "Might."

"Well then," Starscream cuts in. "It seems we are at an impasse. She may have been assigned to you, but she has just pledged herself to me, so, since I can pull rank, I say—"

"Now, hold on—"

"I didn't know I was his apprentice! I—"

"Lord Starscream, this is ridiculous—"

"Ahem." All of our arguing ceases to look back at the cluster of Vehicons who had accompanied me to the bridge. They all stared at Rowback who confidently stepped forward to speak. "May I make a suggestion?"

Before Starscream could snap back at him, I say with an exasperated sigh, "Oh, don't get your landing gears in a twist. Let him speak."

The Vehicon leader then said, "You could make her a field medic. She wouldn't be in the direct line of fire, yet still both be in the field and acting as Knockout's apprentice. You know how adverse the sides are to combatting those who are strictly field medics." While a grin grew on my face, I could see the optics of the other officers widen as they considered the idea. Then, upon seeing that the officers were being receptive of his idea, Rowback continued. "Also, if it would make you more comfortable with her being in the field, she could accompany my squad on training exercises, and we could see to it that she has sufficient skills for combat."

By this point, Starscream stepped forward, servos laced behind his back as he slightly leaned forward and spoke. "What is your designation?"

"D38T5-7, my Lord."

"His name is Rowback," I say indignantly while I cross my arms and glare at the back of Starscream's head.

Starscream, in turn, ignores me and continues to address the Vehicon seeker. "Hmm… you're the leader of one of my top ranking Armada squadrons, aren't you? Very well. If you want the burden—" I snap out an angered 'hey!' while Breakdown snickers at me, "—of training the femme, then I will not stop you."

Breakdown steps forward and adds, "While I'm not gonna be much help with the flying aspect, I want to head up her combat training. If she can learn to handle me, ain't none of the Autobots gonna be a problem."

With a roll of his optics and an exasperated sigh, Starscream says, "Fine, fine. Whatever. Are we all happy now? Now will everyone get off of my bridge: it's getting crowded in here. Shadow can start her training with the seekers as soon as Knockout's cleared her. Now, all of you, leave! You're giving me a processor ache…"

By this point, Knockout strode forward to me and grasped my upper arm. Giving Rowback a quick nod of thanks as he leads me out of the bridge, Breakdown trailing closely behind, he doesn't let up his grip until we are far down the hall. Then, he abruptly stops and stares daggers at me. "What in the name of Primus were you thinking? You are the Decepticon heir, not some common soldier! You shouldn't be fighting your way to something that's already yours!"

I glare daggers right back at him. "I haven't earned anything. I don't want some title that was just handed to me because I'm Megatron's daughter! I want to earn the right to call myself that. And from what I've heard about my past, I haven't even earned the right to call myself a Decepticon!" I start to storm off away from him, but a larger servo grabbed my wrist.

I turned to coldly glare at the offender, but my gaze softens when I see the worried optics of Breakdown. "Hey, look, we just… We don't want to see you hurt again. The Autobots let you go out on a mission, and you were tortured and killed. We don't want another body. I… I wouldn't be able to handle that. None of us would."

With a sigh, I reach up and wrap my slender arms around his neck. Without missing a beat, he wraps his arms around me as well, lifting me from the ground, and squeezes firmly, as if trying to make sure I was real. When he finally sits me back down, I say with a sigh, "Look, I know you two aren't happy with my decision… but I need this. I need to feel like I've earned my place here, that I deserve to be Megatron's daughter."

Breakdown gives me a sad, yet understanding look. I smile softly back before looking to Knockout who glared off at nothing. I strode forward to him, but before I could speak, he says, "If you get yourself shot, I am locking you in the med lab and never letting you out."

I laugh lightly before hugging him. "Watch the paint…" he mumbles as he hugs me as tightly if not more so than Breakdown. Then, he pulls back and says, "Alright, enough of the dramatics. We need to finish analyzing the data from your scans."

I stared intently at the mech before saying, "I'm not going to get anymore scans… Right? I do not want to deal with that again."

He rolled his optics and huffed as he walked away. "Honestly, you are just as bad as your father…"

As Breakdown and I follow, Breakdown chimes in by saying, "Hey, at least she only growls at you. Megatron growls and threatens to throw you through a wall."

"Don't give her any ideas."

I watch as Breakdown hits the ground like a falling tree, giving a satisfying groan of pain. Though a bit cruel, I can't help but slyly grin as he lies sprawled across on the training room's floor. "Okay, Little Bit," he grunts out. "I give. You don't need any help with hand to hand."

After bringing my attention from the guitar rift playing over the speakers, I scoff at him. "You're holding back." Using my newly found strength, I leap from my stationary standing point and land with a satisfying thunk upon his chest, crouching in a gargoyle-like stance. "C'mon! I can take it!" I could feel a wide Cheshire grin grow upon my face as he vented out a sigh.

"Maybe after a break…."

"Aww! You're no fun! C'mon, one more round. Please?"

"Knockout, help me out here!"

"And what help would I be?" Knockout asks as he casually leaned against one of the walls. His sinister smirk, the one I was coming to realize that I had the habit of mimicking, spread across his face. "I'm a medic, in charge of her medical training. You called dibs on her sparring lessons, all powerful warrior."

"Go frag yourself." A few of the on looking Vehicons snickered, but they immediately silenced at Breakdown's glare.

"Oh, lighten up, big guy." With a flip backwards, I land on my feet, feeling a pleasant buzz of energy course through my systems. "Now, are we sparring or not?"

"Not," Knockout casually responds from the side. "I need to scan you to see how your systems are holding up." Upon seeing me about to protest, he holds up a servo and says, "It's only a basic scan, and if you refuse, I'm going to cut off your sparring practice till you comply."

I began to mutter some obscenities under my breath, but a new voice brought me from my thoughts. "Maybe she should spar against someone who is on the same level as she is." My head darts to the open doorway to see the only other Decepticon femme onboard the Nemesis.

"Hello, Airachnid," Knockout sneered. His entire body language shifted. The once cool and calm medic with a feral smirk became tense and angry, scowling at the new arrival to our sparring group. "I don't really think Everon needs training from you."

I scrunch my optic ridges together in a puzzled gesture as I tilt my head to the side. "Why can't she help? It's not like more training will hurt me, right?"

Breakdown sat upright. "I'd rather let you pound me into a scrapheap before I let you train with a torture specialist."

My optics widen as I stare at the femme who nonchalantly sighed to Breakdown's accusation. "Be as threatened as you want, I'm still the best suited to be her trainer. We already know she can handle the big ones like you: now she needs to learn how to handle the dangerous ones."

"She is not—"

"Seriously?" I snap. "Just yesterday, you two were freaking about me being in the field. You were worried about me getting hurt. Now, someone who specializes more dangerous forms of combat offers to spar with me, and you say no?! What the frag!"

Knockout sighs, and then moves to approach me. "Look, Shadow—"

"She and I are sparring," I declare, my tone authoritative and unyielding as my back straightens and wings twitch irritably. Almost as if it was matching my darkening mood, the already heavy metal music playing took a faster, more sinister twist, delving into lyrics that sounded more violent, occasionally even screamed rather than sung. Looking back at the spider-like Con, I say, "Don't hold back."

With a confident smirk, one that should send chills through my wings, she responds, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Quick as a flash, she lunged forward, talons at the ready. I swiftly dodge to the side, narrowly avoiding her attack as well as the volleys she repeats, slashing her talons as I shift from position to position. When she gets too close for comfort, I grasp her forearm, wrapping my arm around hers. Swinging a leg up, I have it wrapped around her neck before she can blink, and I use the foot still firmly planted on the ground as a pivot point to throw her over my head as I flip backwards into a crouch.

Though the move was unorthodox, she flew straight into the far wall, hitting it with a satisfying thud. The Vehicons standing near that area of the wall all jumped back, clearly startled by the flying Spider. Cracking my neck, I slowly rise from my crouch and flex my wings, adjusting them after the flip. Feeling empowered from both the blaring music and the fight, I taunt, "I thought you said you weren't holding back?"

With a slow, almost sinister laugh, she replies, "Oh, Shadow, you have much to learn." With that, she lunges from the ground, using her long, spindly legs to propel her from the floor towards me.

I pull a foot back to gain a better stance, but her lunge still knocks me to the ground with a dull sense of pain in my abdomen. As she dug her sharply plated knee into my chassis, I realize that I'm just going to have to grin and bear the next bit of pain.

Tensing my wings to raise me off the floor, I bend up my lower half, gritting my teeth as her knee dug deeper because of each movement, and when I lock my legs firmly around her waist, I use the new leverage to pull my torso out from under her. A loud scraping could be heard because of the way her knee was pressed into me chassis armor, but it was a minor cost for freeing myself.

Surprisingly, as I feel the pain shoot through my chest, I feel… more powerful, more energized and alert. It was strange and should have unnerved me, but at the moment, my mind was lost in the fight.

As soon as my torso is free, I drop to my servos and the tips of my feet before pushing myself up and away. Then, as she turns to face me, I have already gained a proper stance and land a perfect spinning kick to her face, followed by me suddenly bringing said leg down on one of her closest spiderlike appendages. She cries in pain as the sickening snap fills the room, and I allow her to stagger backwards.

She growls as she cradles her broken appendage close. Narrowed, violet glowing optics slowly rise to meet mine. "You are going to pay for that one, my little Aurial."

Before I can ask, she lunges again, with more purpose in her optics then before. What had started as a spar had turned into a full-fledged conflict between us, both her and I alternating between fierce and precise jabs to clean and efficient blocks, neither seeming to have definite edge on the other.

That is, until one of Airachnid's poisoned talons raked down my arm.

I yelped in pain, jumping back to cradle my wounded limb. The actual protoform damage was minimal, but the poison was what did the real damage. Only, as I felt the pain grow in my arm, it felt… familiar to me. I knew this pain. And oddly enough: it didn't bother me. Instead, it empowered me, gave me a sense of renewed strength and determination.

Too bad it also brought forth rage.

"Shadow!" Knockout cried out. "For Primus sake, Airachnid, that poison will kill—"

Before the medic could finish, I felt a sudden, primal edge take over. All sound was blocked out, even the steady and fierce rock music that I had been pacing myself to. With a feral snarl, I lunged for the Spider. Whereas before I had been sparring with the intent of only minimal damage, now I wanted more. I wanted her energon spilt across the floor. I craved it, needed it, and as these thoughts flew through my head, I felt a familiar tingle spread through my wings.

I did not need to look to see that they now mimicked the darker gray tone they had taken when I argued with Starscream, and as I spun, instinctively using the wings to hit Airachnid and draw long gashes across her form, I knew that they had become the sharpest of razors.

She fell to the floor upon her servos and knees, gasping in the immense pain that the one strike of my razor wings had caused. Then, before I could lunge again, she laughed. She laughed softly to herself in a way one would if they had just come to some ridiculous conclusion of a thought.

That or if they had lost their sanity.

She lightly shook her helm from side to side. "I should have known."

My optic ridges scrunched together, and I tilted my helm to the side. "Should have known what?"

With a casual smirk, she looked up to me. "I should have known that your trigger was pain."

My optics widened, and before I could respond, Breakdown has grabbed me from behind. "Sorry, Little Bit, but Knockout has to treat that wound. Now."

With that, he is running out of the sparring room while cradling me close to his chassis, leaving the few still present Vehicons to watch as the Spider laughed at her private thoughts as streaks of energon dried slowly against her armor.

"It doesn't make any sense."

"Knockout, can't we just take this as a good thing and not question it? I mean, Little Bit being immune to a little poison isn't exactly the weirdest thing that has happened in the past few days. Maybe it's because of her being part human."

The medic sighed as he continued to stare at the screen. "Breakdown, you and I have personally seen what that poison does to the average Cybertronian. And I have high doubts that her immunity has anything to do with her human half."

I sit on the spare berth as they talk and simply run my servos through the feathers of one of my wings that I have cocooned around me. Now that I was calm and not craving to see Airachnid's energon spilt on the floor, which I was trying to still wrap my thoughts around, my razor wings had returned to their original soft and silvery feathers.

Knockout had cleaned the gash on my arm thoroughly and had begun to seal it, but I stopped him, saying that it was aching too much. He couldn't turn off the pain receptors without a risk of corroding the sensors in my arm.

But as a secretly begin to trace the painfully tender edges of the wound, hidden by my cocoon of my wings, I can't help but want the pain to stay.

"Does it have anything to do with her calling me an Aurial?" I suddenly ask.

Both the mechs flinch at my question. Then, a contemplative look passes over Knockout's face. "Actually, that might explain it…" Suddenly, he turns back to the screen and begins typing away at the keys.

I scowl and ask, "Well, are you going to tell me what an Aurial is?"

Without looking back at me, Knockout responds, "Well, in short, you are an Aurial. Airachnid as well." My jaw drops. "Since her poison is naturally made by her body, it might be a kind that Aurials are immune to. Or at least, they won't die from." He leans in the squint at the screen, and then he goes off on another typing tangent. "Aurilians are Cybertronians with special appendages, such as your wings or Airachnid's extra legs."

His typing finally slows before he presses one final key with a flourish and turns back to me. "We don't really know much about their subspecies. Only that they all seem to be female and occasionally appear in random spark births. The only really well known fact is that they were never sparked from the Well. They all come from a Carrier birth."

"A what now?" I ask.

"A lesson for another time," he responds offhandedly. "Now, are you calm enough to let me finish with your arm? The wound needs to be more properly treated or the armor and protoform will heal incorrectly. Not to mention the nasty scar." I roll my optics but offer him my arm without question. I already knew how serious he took my medical treatment.

As I flick my wings back behind me, though, our optics all catch on the same thing: three small, silvery feathers float lightly through the air before landing softly on the ground before me. We all stare for a moment, and then I yell with wide optics, "My feathers! They're falling out! Are my wings falling apart? Are they going to fall off? Knockout—"

"Easy," Breakdown says as he strides over to me and wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders. "You're probably just shedding some feathers."

At my confused look, Knockout explains. "While winged Aurilians were rare, as in, I don't think any even existed during my life cycle, most Cybertronians heard stories of them, such as their feathers. They would constantly have to preen their wings to gather the loose feathers in order to keep up their abilities to fly with the wings."

Breakdown bent down and gently picked up the longest feather. "Lots of Cybertronians thought it was good luck to carry an Aurial feather. Since the Aurials often hid their feathers, they were near impossible to come by." He stared at it as a soft smile crossed his face. "Knew a guy back on Cybertron who had one. Kept it with him all the time. Luckiest fragger I've ever met."

I smiled at his thoughtful look. "Well, now you have one." He turns to me, clearly surprised by my statement, and I cross my arms and roll my optics. "Honestly, why would I need to keep a hidden horde of feathers? Go right ahead and take it."

Before Breakdown could continue, Knockout announced as he bent over and grabbed the others, "Well, since you don't mind, I'm going to take these two for study. I'm curious about what their genetic make up is like…" He straightens up and looks to me. "If you are going to go flying tomorrow, I suggest you start preening your wings between now and then so that you don't have any affecting your flight patterns."

I frown before sighing. Flipping one wing back around me, I say, "Well, this is gonna take a while…" Breakdown simply laughed at my pout as Knockout smiled and shook his helm, turning back to his workstation in order to analyze his new specimens.

I then slowly get off the medical berth and make my way towards the door, and as I start to slip out, I hear Knockout yell, "Scrap! Shadow, get back here!" I start to dart away, a mischievous smile on my face. "Frag it, femme! I still need to patch your slagging arm!"

Okay, I know it's a bit of a simple chapter, but the filler is kind of needed. Things are going to heat up in the next chapter though, and it's going to go crazy from there.

Anyway, please, please, PLEASE, review! Any comments or concerns welcome!