Summery: Cybertron is split. In the Southern Hemisphere of Cybertron, the Decepticons whom are ruled by Megatron have control. They own slaves, who are treated as animals. The Autobots are in the North, and they believe in equality. It is ruled that if slaves are able to escape the Decepticons and head to the north, the 'Cons can't go and get them back. But, the slaves have to cross through neutral territory, some of whom would gladly bring them back. But many of them will help smuggle the slaves north.

I do not own Transformers! I'm just borrowing them for my own amusement.

"Soundwave" "Barricade" "Shockwave"

"What are you two doing?" Hydrostorm cried out when he was grabbed from behind and lifted into the air. In front of him, Silverstripe screeched t a halt and spun around. A mech was standing right behind him, holding Hydrostorm in a tight grip.

"L-Let me go!" Hydrostorm cried, but the mech just shifted him to one arm and tightened his grip before grabbing Silverstripe.

"Trying to escape?" The mech smirked before heading toward the main dwelling. Hydrostorm kept struggling as he was carried in, but Silverstripe was waking silently alongside the mech. The mech shoved him into what seemed to be a closet, then threw Hydrostorm in and slammed the door shut.

Hydrostorm began to stand, but Silverstripe grabbed him. "Don't. You'll just get us into more trouble."

"Who was he?" Hydrostorm asked, glaring at the door.

"An overseer..." Silverstripe answered.

"Huh?"

"Don't you see the mechs watching over us while we were mining?" He asked.

"... No...?" Hydrostorm says.

"Well, there are a few mechs that are watching over us, overseers. They watch us to make sure we're doing our work and that we don't escape." Silverstripe explained.

"Oh..." Hydrostorm looked at him. "Now what?"

"He's going to talk to our master."

"And after?"

"Punishment."

Hydrostorm shuddered a little. "What's the punishment?"

Silverstripe shook his helm, not wanting to tell him. Hydrostorm shuddered again.

"Come on, we should rest. They're probably not going to bother with us until morning." Silverstripe told him, then curled up into a ball. Hydrostorm watched him before curling up into a ball as well.

Hydrostorm jolted awake when someone shook him. He jumped up to see Silverstripe looking at him. "They're coming." He said simply, making Hydrostorm look at the door.

A moment later, the door opened and the overseer that had caught them looked down at the two. "Come on." He grabbed them, dragging the two out of the closet and down the hall. Hydrostorm started to dig his pedes into the ground, to struggle a little, but stopped when he saw Silverstripe wasn't fighting.

The overseer dragged the, into a room, pushing them in front of the slave owner. The mech stood from his chair when they were dragged in, going to the other side of his desk with a datapad in one servo.

"So you two were caught trying to escape." He started, looking over the datapad. The two mechlings remained silent. "P6-921. Interesting, it seems you have been perfect until now. No attempts to escape, no bad marks... Why now?"

Silverstripe remained silent, not moving when he was addressed.

The mech looked at Hydrostorm. "P8-737. You are new here, and I also did not receive any record for you. But, regardless of whether or not your previous owner put up with escape attempts, I will not stand for it. Especially if you convince another to join you. You will be punished-"

"Wait!" Silverstripe winced when the three all looked at him. "I-I mean wait, master. Hy... P8-737 did nothing wrong. It was my idea to escape, I planned in, and I convinced him to join me."

The mech looked at Hydrostorm. "Is that true?"

Hydrostorm looked at Silverstripe in shock. Part of him wanted to say yes, to cover his friend, but... What Silverstripe said had been the truth. "Yes..." Hydrostorm ducked his helm.

The mech nodded a tiny bit, gesturing to the overseer. The mech grabbed Silverstripe and dragged him out of the room. Hydrostorm looked at the slave owner as he sat back down at his desk, placing the datapad down and looked at Hydrostorm. "What are you still doing in here? Get out!" Hydrostorm nodded, turning and bolting out the door.

He came outside, pausing long enough to watch the overseer force Silverstripe onto his knees and chaining his arms around a pole in the yard. Hydrostorm had wondered what it was for, after all, it wasn't a great decoration, but Silverstripe wouldn't tell him what. Watching Silverstripe being chained to it, he didn't to know anymore. Jumping off the porch of the main dwelling, he bolted to the cabin he had been staying in.

P6-921 pressed his forehelm against the pole after the overseer had left him alone to gather the other overseers and wake up the other slaves. He didn;t know if all the slaves would come, there sometimes were a few that remained behind. He hoped someone would, to keep Hydrostorm from coming. P6-921 knew what was going to happen, he had seen it often enough. But Hydrostorm hasn't, and P6-921 hoped he wouldn't.

He lifted his helm when he heard chatter coming from behind him, knowing that the other slaves were being herded toward him. He heard several startled gasps when they saw him, but he kept his gaze on the pole he was chained to.

"There has to be something wrong..."

"Why is he chained there?"

"P6-921 would never do anything wrong."

"Are you sure?"

"You're a little new here, you wouldn't know. I've been here longer than he has."

The crowd went silent and P6-921 lifted his helm to watch the overseer that caught them walk up, a whip curled around his servo. The mechling didn't react in fear, only watched him blankly.

The overseer looked over the crowd of slaves. "This mechling has been caught during an escape attempt." The crowd murmured softly at that. "And it is time for his punishment." He uncurled the whip from his servo and lashed it across the mechling's back.

P6-921 spasmed in pain, but gritted his denta and squeezed his optics shut tight. Any slaves that had cried out with the first lash tended to have to suffer longer. He gritted his denta again at another lash from the whip, barely able to hold back a cry of pain.

The overseer smirked when the mechling cried out at the third lash of the whip, thrashing against the chains that bound him to the pole. He lashed the whip across his back a few more times before finally stopping. After he stopped, P6-921 leaned limply against the pole, his back leaking energon. He called forward a slave as the others were forced to disperse, the other overseers hearding them to the mines. The overseer released the chains and the femme slave picked up the mechling and carrying him back at the cabin.

Hydrostorm bolted to the door when she walked in. "What happened? Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine." She answered, putting Silverstripe face down on a berth.

Silverstripe looked at the other mechling tiredly. "Yep."

Hydrostorm didn't look convinced but the femme shooed him away so that he wouldn't get in trouble for not being at the mine in time.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Of course I am."

"... Sorry..."

"For what?"

"That you got hurt."

"It is not your fault. I needed to be punished, in their optics at least."

"Why?"

"Because they don't like escape attempts. Or successful escape attempts."

"Oh... Now what?"

"We try again when I'm better."

"But..."

"But what?"

"What if we're caught again?"

"Then we get caught. Then we're punished. Then we try again."

"You're not afraid of being punished again?"

"Yes, I am. But you have a family you need to get back to."

"... When will we try again?"

"When I'm better. Maybe a few days."

A week later, the slave owner was in an uproar. Two slaves were missing. Both grounder mechlings. One red with yellow servos, silver pedes, and yellow optics. The other gunmetal gray with a blue stripe going down both arms and optics that glowed like the surface of Cybertron. Both, though still in danger, free for now. Though safety only lay beyond the neutral border, and even that didn't guarantee absolute safety.