I know that it's been a long time, but I forgot that I posted the last chapter, so I had to start all over again with it and that took a long time. Anyway, on with Rule 13!

Rule 13: The world is not black and white, but shades of grey. However, there is still a war going on, and no matter how weird your enemies act towards you, you must remember that they are still your enemies.

Sam stared blankly at the wall of the storage container that he was trapped in. How long had he been here, now? A month? Two? Three? He had lost track after he and his fellow prisoner had been roughly transported to the Nemesis via Skywarp. Space. How were the Autobots going to find him now?

His joints ached and metal was beginning to replace his skin, thanks to whatever Allspark ability that Megatron had perfected. The tyrant was on his throne, ignoring him for once. Birdy had been taken out of the crate a few hours ago by Soundwave, leaving him by himself.

Doubts had been creeping around in his head ever since that first conversation with the Decepticon Leader, fear of not being rescued fighting against his faith in the Autobots. They were his family, they wouldn't just leave him, would they?

The teen regretted ever pushing the issue of his going to college, he wished that he had remained ignorant to everything the Autobots had kept from him. That was an entirely different can of worms, though; biting betrayal at their obvious distrust in his ability to handle the information that had to do with himself and Lennox.

Sam looked up warily as he heard heavy pedesteps approaching the crate, flinching as blood red optics stared down at him. Surprisingly enough, Megatron had yet to harm him other than the initial, bone crushing grip that first day he had woken up here, and hadn't raised his voice at him. That didn't stop his leaning away as the taloned servo as it reached down and plucked him from his prison.

"You've been quiet, Boy. How odd of you. You're not foolish enough to attempt to escape, are you?" Megatron cooed at him, his tone rhetorical and condescending. A sharp claw brushed gently over his head as he was set on the mech's desk while the bot picked up the datapad sitting there and began working again. Almost absentmindedly, Megatron's servo, the one that was resting against him, began to glow faintly and Sam felt the creeping warmth that came with the Allspark energy surrounding him.

The warmth abruptly changed to uncomfortable heat and the teen hissed in surprise, scrambling away from the servo. He froze and gulped as Megatron growled lowly at him and scruffed him, heat intensifying. "Where do you think you are going, Boy?"

Sam twisted, whimpering as more metal rapidly ate away at his skin and his shoulders began to burn like someone had decided to stab white hot knives into them. The pain continued up his spine until his vision seemed to flash and his world went black.

He woke up, confused and not recognizing where he was. It looked like Ratchet's medbay, if Ratchet's medbay was lit by a single light over an examination berth and smelled distinctly like dried energon. Something was off with his vision, it was too sharp and distorted at the same time, something written in Cybertronian was blocking his view. He flinched and made a squeak of surprise, dread filling him as he realized what had happened to him. He made another noise of distress, not really knowing how to move his body now.

Sam managed to roll over, but the exertion in doing so left him near stasis. His systems needed fuel apparently, but he resolved that he wouldn't accept any given to him.

Not that there was anyone to give him any. The teen couldn't stop a keen of hunger from slipping through his vocal processor. He wasn't G, he didn't have ironclad control over his emotions and reactions. He was just a kid.

The thought of G made his spark hurt, he missed the ex-spy that had been his biggest supporter whenever he disagreed with the bots. Lennox was, too, but in a different way. He missed both of them.

Despite trying to stay quiet, someone must have heard something as he literally felt pedesteps coming towards him. It was like his back could sense the vibrations of sound, and a jerky glance at his back revealed doorwings flitting weakly.

"You're awake."

Sam didn't recognize the voice or the Con that owned it, but it certainly wasn't friendly. He whined and weakly curled up into a ball, wishing that he was alone again, regardless of protocols racing across his vision telling him that it was better that he wasn't alone.

He ducked his helm, curling it so he couldn't see what was going on in his surroundings. Apparently his doorwings made that rather impossible and he could practically watch the bot walk steadily around the berth, looking at various monitors and screens.

"You need energon."

Sam made a noise of denial at the bot, curling tighter. Clawed servoes ghosted along his back and an overly amused chuckle assaulted his sensors. "None of that, little one. Megatron would not be pleased if you went into stasis from lack of fuel."

Sam wondered if this was how G was when he first changed, and blearily realized that he had never seen the spy refuel. How did he manage to function?

The still unnamed Con gently petted his back and his doorwings, triggering coding that forced the new bot to relax and uncurl. He was now on the cusp of recharge rather than stasis, and systems were beginning to power down in preparation for that. His optics had offlined without his notice, but they flickered back on as he heard more pedesteps coming towards him.

These ones were heavier, more confident and stately, and he recognized them as Megatron's. "Hook, has he awoken, yet?"

Sam whimpered and curled back into a ball at the booming sound that seemed far too loud.

"Yes, he's awake and understandably terrified. I've been attempting to get him to relax enough to take energon. For some reason that I cannot fathom, your presence just undid all my work," the mech, now identified as Hook, replied, sarcasm dripping from his glossa as he once again gently petted Sam's back and doorwings.

The newbot tried to ignore the feeling, but he was too low on fuel and once again was on the brink of recharge in only a few moments. Something wet and sweet washed over his glossa and his automatically swallowed it down, too tired to try to spit it out. His systems rebooted sluggishly, waking up at the new stimulus that was hitting them.

The new and startling HUD that spanned across his vision helpfully informed him that his tanks were full and that recharge was necessary to completely recover from the stress his body had just gone through. Sam turned his helm away from the energon, clicking quietly as his systems powered down and he sunk into recharge finally.

Megatron watched the former human with amusement as the small thing clicked and twitched his doorwings in his recharge, something akin to snoring and kicking in one's sleep. Emotion other than rage or disgust hadn't affected him in centuries, yet ever since his revival and discovery of his Allspark energy, they had been happening more and more. His sanity had been returning with each passing vorn.

As such, the sight of the sparkling was completely adorable, though he'd take that sentiment back to the Pit with him. Pity that he was so scared of the Decepticons. Megatron knew very well that the human that had killed him was just waiting for the other pede to drop and for cruelty that was expected of the tyrannical faction to fall upon him. Something that would never be allowed to happen, but the sparkling didn't need to know that.

After all, fear was such a delicious motivator.

Janina flinched as Soundwave entered the cell she had been left in, strapped down securely to the surface top. It wasn't necessary. Not really. She doubted that she could stand at this point, let alone escape. Scare tactic, then; the pressing need to escape and the knowledge that it was impossible.

Really wasn't necessary, either. She was in space.

It hurt to think. Of course it hurt to think, with her mind invaded every time she thought that she might be able to catch her breath.

"Further defiance will result in physical punishment."

The red head couldn't speak. Her voice had faded days ago, too raw from her screams. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't sneer at her captor; tell him that it was useless. Birdy settled for a derisive, sharply pushed out breath of air.

When the tentacle secured its forceful connection into her consciousness, she directed her thoughts to medical school, mainly the exams that had been hell to get through. It was getting easier to do that, think while someone tried to dig up information.

Something cold traced a line down her chest, soothing and anchoring in the fire that she had been living in. Squinting open her silver orbs, she realized that the red stuff on her bare chest was blood. Her blood. Another couple of lines and her skin was laid open. She could see her own organs laid out for all to see. There was no pain, just blissful cold where the blood rapidly cooled and slid down onto the table. What a strange effect. Was she in too much pain already to notice added stimuli? Was her brain damaged to the point that it wasn't processing signals correctly?Of course, it could be a chemical or nutritional imbalance, could be-

She was sharply yanked out of her assessment of her predicament and her eyes would have widened if they hadn't slammed shut. She couldn't move. Mentally, at least, but not really physically, either.

It was like someone was holding her down, struggling be damned. Restrained as she was, she couldn't direct her own thoughts and was horrified as the information she had been hiding was brought to the forefront of her mind. It was… a rather anticlimactic way to lose.

The tentacle cut the connection, leaving her reeling as she could suddenly move again, gasping as wave after wave of pain washed over her. What had once been cold relief was now burning fire in chest and abdomen. It hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much!

Apparently she could still scream. In the back of her mind, the medical doctor was reminding her that if the bleeding didn't stop, she was going to die. A darker part of her mind asked if that would be such a bad thing. It would end the pain that she was in on a daily basis, even before she had been kidnapped and tortured.

The guilt would be gone. She would never have to deal with the fall out of her weakness in keeping that information from those that would abuse it. Nothing would ever be able to hurt her again.

Her consciousness faded from bloodloss, caught in a battle with itself to push back the darkness.

She didn't expect to wake up.

G had become much more amicable with the move to the adult frame, though some of the bots on base simply refused to change the way that they treated him. He was used to it by now.

Right now, though, Prowl was staring at him like he had grown a different head.

"You… you wish to spar with me."

"That's what I said."

"You would not last five minutes against me, your level of skill-"

"Prowl, if Cons get on base, I don't want to be hiding in the background. No more sparkling protocols. No more glitching. It's been months since I got a workout of any kind."

"You can spar against Skids and Mudflap."

Two new arrivals that were too arrogant to function, and stupid to boot.

"You're kidding."

"I do not 'kid', G. I will not hurt you."

"You-"

"I can do so too easily. Even our recruits fresh out of the Academy have more training than you do. Besides, you are still adjusting to the size change. In time, yes, I will spar with you, but until you can prove that you can keep up, then I will not."

G bristled, but Prowl met his glare with an even gaze. "Since you're so intent on sparring, I'll comm. Skids and Mudflap now. We'll meet them there."

G had a feeling that he had just screwed himself over.

Sparring against smaller opponents wasn't something he hadn't been trained to do, but Skids and Mudflap were… small. They were taller than Jazz, but not by much. It had worried him at first, until he learned that the two had no idea what subtly was and they broadcasted their moves loudly to the world.

It had been an insult to his skills. He was a spy. He adapted quickly. His new body and size had already been taken into account, calculated every move, and he went with the fastest way of taking them out. He grabbed their scruffbars and slammed them together, leaving them in a stasised heap at his pedes.

"You're supposed to spar with them, not knock them out," Prowl scolded from where he was leaning against the wall.

"Then give me something actually worth sparring against!" G snapped. Prowl was silent for a moment, then he was moving. G reacted on instinct, or base coding or whatever it was in this body, and threw his arms up, blocking the strike just barely. He wasn't given the opportunity to recover, forced on the defensive from blows that were as denting as they were precise.

His legs were kicked out from under him, but he rolled mid fall so he was back on them a nanosecond after he hit the ground. Something onlined in the back of his processor, analyzing the way Prowl moved, how he fought, and he used that information to finally start fighting back. Prowl was fast, he only landed a few hits, then in a twist of moves too fast for him to process, he was on the ground, pinned on his front with a pede pressing down warningly between his doorwings.

"Is that what you were looking for, G?" Prowl growled in a rare show of anger.

G tried to push himself up, but the pressure on his back increased. "I want to try again."

There was a noise of disbelief and the pede was gone. "Your human martial arts are not going to give you an edge against Cybertronian fighting styles. They're too predictable."

"Then teach me," G growled, finally getting up and glaring at his guardian.

Prowl's shocked faceplates were proof that he hadn't been expecting that. Then his expression turned neutral and he nodded. Their bond slammed shut and G actually flinched. He was directed into an unfamiliar, rather uncomfortable stance, pushed and shoved until he no longer moved, then ordered to offline his optics and to focus solely on cycling cool air and energon through his systems.

Prowl dumped the twins outside the doors of the simulation room and locked everyone but perhaps Jazz, Ratchet, and Prime himself out with his personal lock codes. Once that was done, he started a simulation, programming it so that it would ignore G.

G's doorwing flicked and stilled as his processors alerted him to the threat around him. He shut down the battle computer whirring to life, too stubborn to lose control so soon.

It was hard to ignore it, hard learned instinct to never let his guard down, never completely block out everything was rearing its ugly head, shunting his vents and making his energon race to prepare for an attack that never came and left him dizzy. Then there was silence. That was almost worse. His frame was still wanting to roar to life to react.

The spy hadn't gotten where he was in life because of lack of patience, though. He could note the similarities between meditative methods and what Prowl wanted him to do now. Using that knowledge, he calmed himself, mentally following the flow of his own energon and ensuring that it got to the places it needed to be while regulating his internal temperature.

After a few… moments, hours, days for all he knew, there was a blip in his concentration, an alert that there was movement around him, but he slipped back into his internal focus, getting intimately familiar with his frame in a way that he had neglected before.

His frame was starting to ache, but Prowl hadn't allowed him to move. G had sat still for longer. He could remain motionless for days, if need be, and he was well versed in stake outs. Still, this was getting ridiculous.

Energon levels were getting low and recharge alerts flashed across his processor; would have flashed across his HUD had it been onlined.

The only sense that he allowed to roam was his hearing, mostly from his doorwings, waiting for his Guardian's command.

Tremors in his frame started when his fuel levels reached twenty percent. Twenty percent in his sparkling frame had meant that he could keep going for another few days. He lost energon faster in this frame. Ratchet said it was because of the meddling that the All Spark had done to the frame when he entered it, advancing his processors to a level on par with Prowl. Prowl had millennia of practice regulating his energon consumption. He only had a few months… a few months that had been spent more getting used to not worrying about glitching than energon consumption.

His frame gave out at ten percent fuel levels, knee bolts sending lances of pain up his frame. The bond between himself and Prowl snapped open, and something akin to annoyed pride filtered over to him. Prowl thought that he would have moved before this. Thought that he would have given into his need to pay attention to everything that was going on around him rather than himself.

That was what G did, after all. He put everything before himself because he believed himself expendable. His guardian's goal had been to force him to counter that thinking.

Sneaky bastard.

Ratchet wasn't impressed with either of them. First off, G was full of dents from being Prowl's punching bag, secondly, he couldn't support his own frame because of lack of energon, and finally, they were both planning on doing it again.

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse to allow it!" the old medic ranted at them while he gave G a cube of medical grade energon and ordered him to drink every drop of it.

"Not your decision," G argued when the fuel was gone.

"You're still adjusting to your frame-"

"Still not your choice."

"You have poor energon distribution-"

"The entire exercise is focussing on my energon distribution and regulating core temperature."

"If you interrupt me one more-"

"Dr. Ratchet? Um, Wheeljack needs your help."

Ratchet rounded to the door, wrench already out of subspace and ready to be thrown. Prowl grabbed his arm before he could launch it. The medic focused on who was interrupting him and visibly softened.

"Dr. Velcrov, my apologies, I'll be there right away."

Since their arrival, the entire base had been practically tripping over themselves to ensure that the two youngest and possibly only remaining Velcrovs didn't fear the bots on base. They normally stuck around Wheeljack, to everyone's surprise. An even greater surprise, the amount of explosions had decreased tenfold.

"How bad is he?" Ratchet asked after a tense silence.

"Oh, he's not hurt," Janette assured, surprised look on her face. "He says that he may have found a way to double the energon production that you guys have set up here, he wanted your input before he tested it out."

G rebooted his optics in surprise. "Wait, he didn't test it out first?"

"No, the Ghosties wouldn't let him. Kept stealing his stuff… guess they learned from Birdy about that… she's always been with the theory that you can learn more from watching something in action than theorizing endlessly about what could go wrong. Of course, she'll spend days pouring over everything before she tests it, but… Ghosties seem to have a sixth sense when something's about to go wrong."

Ah, yes, the Ghosties that wreaked havoc on everyone's scans, stole things, and generally gave Prowl hell.

Jazz loved 'em.

"At least they have some use other than annoying everyone on base."

"Heh, she's the only one they listen to. Well, sometimes."

Ratchet nodded and gestured for her to lead.

"You know that those two have the entire base wrapped around their fingers, right?"

Prowl looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"They're not scared of any of you, and if you keep letting them get away with everything and walking on eggshells around them, they're going to start acting out."

"They've been here three months and their behavior has not changed."

"So they were never scared of you."

"Or they remain so."

"Nah. She didn't even flinch when Ratchet pulled out his wrench."

"G, you are falsely analyzing budding trust. There has always been somebot to prevent Ratchet from throwing anything at them, and their exemplary behavior keeps them on his good side."

"That's another thing, since when are kids so well behaved? Especially scared kids? Scared kids… throw tantrums and lash out."

"G. You are paranoid."

"Paranoia's healthy."

"You are making enemies of children, G."

"They're devils, I swear, have you seen their hair?"

"You had red hair when you grew it out."

"Like… orange, not blood!"

"G."

"Alright, that one is a stretch."

Gentle affection washed over him while his guardian shook his helm. "You need recharge."

"I want to spar you again."

"Then will you recharge?"

"Yes."

Unceremoniously getting his aft handed to him and then dragged through the base by his scruffbar for everyone in the base to see was thoroughly embarrassing.

Especially when Jazz caught up with them and started teasing him about it while he tried to escape his Guardian's firm hold.

If his pede lashed out and tripped the TIC, well, no one could prove intent with all his struggling.

He did laugh as Prowl collared his mate and dragged him along for the ride, too. The silver mech's pedes didn't even touch the floor. The curses were entertaining, too.

"If you two are quite done."

"We're not doing anything, Prowl!"

They were both dropped on the ground the moment the doors to Prowl and Jazz's quarters closed and locked behind them.

"Prowl, I have my own quarters," G reminded, picking himself up.

"I know you do, but I got tired of dragging you back here when your memory fluxes prevent you from the recharge you need."

"Oh, that explains a lot," the spy mused. He hadn't been able to figure out how he always ended up here in the morning. It was rather annoying to online with Prowl soothingly petting his doorwings and not knowing the why or how.

He still didn't want to enter such a vulnerable state while there were others so close to him. Long suppressed and hidden fear of being harmed by those that he cared for most rose up in full force, slinking over the bond despite his efforts.

"Hey, G, did ya know that Prowler's ticklish?"

That got his attention. "What? Where?"

"Jazz…"

"It's-"

Jazz yelped and leapt away from his mate when the cyberninja made a grab for him. He ended up bowling into G, who twisted to protect his doorwings and ended up sprawled on the berth.

"Hey… this is comfy."

Jazz was using his back plating as a pillow and it very nearly sent the former human into a panic. No no no no, trapped, can't-

"Easy, mechlin', ain't nothin' gonna getcha. Ain't a thin' on Earth or Cybertron that can sneak past me, even less past Prowl. Recharge easy."

Prowl flopped down next to Jazz, who wiggled around until his was lying on top of both Praxians and on the cusp of recharge. G was still tense, the comforting waves of safety from Prowl not helping much.

"Offline your optics, G. Trigger your recharge protocols. It will feel uncomfortable, but it will allow you the recharge that you desperately need," his guardian ordered softly.

G stared into the darkness as Prowl triggered the lights, focussing on where he knew the ex-enforcer was resting.

"Trust us, G."

His offlined his optics and triggered the protocols, fighting against them as they rose up and shut down his systems.

Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave examined the data Soundwave had acquired from the human, Sam deep in recharge in the crook of Megatron's arm.

"What do you mean, you can't understand it?" the tyrant snarled quietly to his second in command.

"I mean, my Lord, that it's written in something the humans call 'shorthand'. Some of these symbols are so similar, they might be the same thing in just a scrawl. The human's mind simply remembers the shorthand and understands it. I'd need the key to know what they mean."

"Soundwave."

"Doctor Velcrov: in deep stasis from interrogation. Further interrogation: ineffective. Attempt: almost assured failure. Humans: fragile; need more time to recover."

"Well maybe if you hadn't gutted it, then it wouldn't be in such a state," Starscream sneered.

"Physical pain: only distraction with proven results. Distraction successful. Information acquired."

"Right. It only took you a full seven orns to break the bug. You're losing your touch."

"Humans: alien; adapt rapidly. Dr. Velcrov: too much information and adaptability to suppress self thought. My techniques: forced to change and adapt in accordance. Human: nearly succeeded in harming Soundwave through connection. Soundwave: willing to demonstrate to Starscream that I have not 'lost my touch'."

Starscream sneered at him before sauntering away. Megatron growled and snapped, "Where do you think you're going?"

"To get the human to decode her data," the seeker called carelessly over his wing, flicking them in dismissal before hurrying away.

Megatron normally would have gone after him and put him back in his place, but he couldn't bring himself to now. He wasn't going soft, never that, but his healing processor didn't see the blatant insubordination as something punishable. The traitorous bot was doing work to further the Cybertronian Empire. Why should he stop him?

"Soundwave-"

He was cut off as the sparkling he was holding suddenly twitched violently in his recharge, whimpering and keening before snapping up and clinging to the warlord's armor.

He cried out loudly, then broke down into hiccupping clicks and beeps. "What is wrong, little one?"

The clicks halted and bright blue optics looked up at him in shock at the cooing clicks and whistles that came from the tyrant. Only Optimus had been able to understand G when he was stuck with only sparkling speak for communication, not that he had allowed G to know that.

"Lord Megatron: we have arrived on Cybertron. Warning: Autobot Vessel: the Ark in vicinity and approaching quickly. Query: attack?"

"Yes, alert the troops. I will lead the attack myself. Is Dr. Velcrov stable enough to move?"

"Affirmative. Forced to use reparative nanites. Starscream administered them in an attempt to hasten further questioning. Query: move to where?"

"Keep them at the command console with you," Megatron growled, dropping the distressed sparkling into his trusted third in command's servoes.

Soundwave nodded and walked away to fulfill his orders while the tyrant stormed to the top deck, ready and willing for a fight against the pathetic Autobots. The back of his whispered denial at him, remnants of the Lord Protector coding activating, telling him that they weren't weak, they had survived just as he did, and they were his people, his to protect, his to serve, his to-

-Mine to RULE! he roared at it, ruthlessly trying to suppress it. Upon failure of that, he ignored it, just in time to meet Ultra Magnus in battle on the decimated planet that they had both once called home.