Welcome, new readers and those who are familiar with my work!

The plot bunny for this came up and bit me out of nowhere yesterday (I blame Laura not being online), and I just HAD to start it. In fact, I MUST credit where its due, the initial bunny was a direct result of reading GATEKAT's 'Trials of an Ambassador'. It's on FF. net, so go look for it!

Prowl as a Mechalycan however, is something I have been RPing for quite some time with Laura. Turning my favourite characters into werewolves is a recurring trait of mine XD

Now, don't go thinking this means I won't be updating my other stories, I AM still working on those, but progress is slow cause of recurring Writers block. I have every intention of finishing them, even if I have to force myself.

This story is not planned as a particularly long one. 6 Chapters at most i'm thinking, and probably none of them reaching my usual 10,000 word standard. It's more of a size comparable to Legacy or Seekerbee.

So the main instigating factor for this story was my desire to reverse the little trope of Noble!Prowl who falls in love with Slave!Jazz. I Wanted slave Prowl and Noble Jazz, but of course Prowl is never going to be a normal slave, and Jazz isn't really Towers material, so they aren't a standard switch.

And a quick explanation of Mechalycancy as I'v developed it.

Lycan nanites change the base code in the mech, making all the nanites the bot then produces just like the infected ones, until eventually it alters the construct of the mech's frame and systems. New code is brought in and threaded into the processor from within.

With the influence of magnetic fields created by the alignment of cybertron's two moons with the planet, the Mechalycancy is triggered, causing transformation into a huge, wolf alt mode with a lust for energon straight from another bot's systems. Processed, circulating energon is much richer in all kinds of alloy and mineral particles, hence it's appeal to the Mechalycan's instincts.

As Wolf-HOUND mechs, the Mechalycan coding has been altered after it has settled, with suppressors and obedience codes. Slavery programming really. Only very few, very skilled mechs can alter the Lycan coding to create these Obedient, sentient wolf-mechs. They are simply another class of slave, low on the pecking order, like working dogs that double as pets of a sort.

They are not considered real people with any rights, despite the fact they are easily as intelligent and have the same emotional subroutines as any Cybertronian.

SO, here is a teaser Epilogue. It's tiny at only 990 words, but it should give you a taste of what you're in for.

Prowl had trouble remembering what it was like when he was normal.

His sparkling-hood had never been normal to begin with.

He had been sparked into slavery, and taken from his parents without them being able to do a thing.

At far too young an age, he'd had mature downloads and a battle computer installed. Learning to live with these at such an early stage in his development had been confusing and stressful. On top of this, his carers (and the term is used loosely) were unyielding to the fact he was young and emotionally undeveloped. They expected him to know his place and act like an adult.

Never mind that he and the other younglings had no idea how to do this, but they learnt, and learnt fast.

The only small mercy had been that he was raised among other sparklings given much the same treatment.

They had banded together, and that was the first Prowl knew of pack mentality. Stick together, get behind a strong leader and support each other, fill in the emotional gaps left bare by the caretakers.

The oldest sparklings were generally the leaders, but they would be taken away one by one, and eventually Prowl became the leader. He ended up that way for quite some time from what he could remember, and his leadership became his nature.

And then they had taken him too. Taken him to be infected.

From then on in, for about two or three vorns, his memories were mostly a haze of pain.

By the end of it, he was in his second frame.

He DID have an absolutely crystal clear memory of when they had him bitten.

It had been ludicrously sterile and efficient.

Hold the sparkling in restraints exposing the shoulder.

Force the viced jaws of the Mechalycan to penetrate the flimsy sparkling armour and break an energon line. Give the vice controlled jaws a few nano's sunk into the shoulder before winching open the vice and taking the Lycan away.

Lock the sparkling up to let the infected nanites spread and take over it's young frame.

Even once the infection had settled and Prowl was changed, right down to the fundamental base coding, that was not the end of his torture.

After he survived (and apparently, there was a 70 percent fatality rate in infected younglings, but he didn't find that out until much later), he was then subjected to the temperance process.

This involved the hacking of his code, changing of the Mechalycancy to exclude the deadliest, least controlled aspects.

It was the first step in crafting him into the perfect loyal, obedient, efficient wolf-hound mech that the nobility had become so very fond of owning.

After his infection and reprogramming, he was turned out with other surviving wolf-hound mechs to train in hunting and obedience.

Only after they had broken him and reshaped him into a prime example of his kind did they upgrade him into his third frame, allow it to be adjusted by his infection and coding, and put him up for sale.

The first mech to buy him was a second level noble named Quickgrip.

He was old and firm, but overall not as bad as some of the trainers Prowl had endured in the facilities.

Quickgrip honed him into life in the station of a lowly hunter.

Once he had a good feel for the requirements of his station and developed a temperament agreeable to his owner, he was upgraded into his final frame, and then bred with the alpha Mech-wolf, Sundance.

Prowl liked Sundance with an intensity he couldn't describe.

He hadn't a clue about the concept of 'love', and so didn't recognise it for what it was, but he was more than happy to bear his first litter to his alpha.

He was content to raise his pups, born as were-mechs because both their parents were infecteds.

After the pup's first frame upgrade, Prowl's content world collapsed around him.

Quickgrip needed credits rather badly. His estate was losing value with the decline in his primary investment- Tin mining.

Tin became cheaper and more readily available shipped from a new trade-partner planet.

To hold his position while he found a new asset to float his estate, Quickgrip sold all his salubrious possessions. This included his prized mech-wolf pack.

Quickgrip was more credit-shrewd than he was compassionate, and had no qualms whatsoever about separating his pack members to whoever would pay the highest for each specimen.

At the very least, he had to sell Prowl with his pups, but Sundance went to another estate in Simfur.

Prowl and his first offspring were bought by a very wealthy, very powerful upper class noble in Crystal city.

His name was Thunderwing, and Prowl's immediate impression was that his designation should be changed to Thunder-vocoder, since he seemed to like booming out his orders.

Lord Thunderwing was of high standing, with a military background and a lot of wealth.

His estate was large, but not large enough for his liking. Prowl also deduced that it would likely never be large enough for Thunderwing's liking. The arrogant noble would have taken all of Cybertron's lands as his if he were given the chance.

Thankfully, he was not. But the land he did own, and everything and everyone on it, was under the iron fist of his rule.

Prowl lived a hard life there, and was shaped into an absolutely exquisite example of his breed by Noble's standards.

This was because of Thunderwing's training methods. He did not threaten harm to Prowl if he should not obey or perform perfectly… he threatened his pups.

And Prowl did anything and everything to keep them from harm.

Prowl never complained. He wasn't ever under the impression he could, really. This was his lot in life. His place in society.

He was an alpha, and his duty to his pack was all that really mattered to him.