Elita-1 watched Arcee struggling in Tailgate's arms, and she screamed out to them. "Arcee, Tailgate! Don't let them take me!" Arcee started struggling even more, but Tailgate refused to let her go. Elita-1 looked into Tailgate's optics, and saw the regret in his optics. She realized there was no way they could save her without being killed themselves, and she let herself go limp.

She had recognized her captor almost immediately. She may have only just joined the Autobots, but everyone had heard of the mad scientist Shockwave. His emotionless mind, and his one eye made him impossible to not recognize. Elita-1 was terrified for what she knew was coming. Shockwave was not known to be kind to his captives.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked quietly, staring off into the distance where she knew Arcee and Tailgate were, grieving over the loss of their friend.

"To my laboratory", Shockwave answer. His cold tone sent a jab of fear through Elita-1's spark, and she shivered. A sense of foreboding came over her, and she knew that she would not be coming out of this alive. No one ever did.

After a long pause of silence, Shockwave set her down. She almost immediately tried to run away, but Shockwave grabbed her and held her against him. "It would be illogical for you to know the location of my laboratory."

"What are you going to do then?" Elita-1 grunted back at him as she struggled against his grip. He didn't respond to her, instead looking off towards the two moons. She followed his gaze, and saw a skinny black jet flying towards them. She didn't recognize it, but she knew that it was not good news. She continued struggling, and finally managed to escape from his grip. She ran, not daring to look back. Elita-1 eventually transformed, and sped away, heading towards the nearest neutral city, which she was glad it was one that leaned more towards the Autobots. She was merely 2 miles away from the edge of the city when she was shot out of her vehicular form. She crashed against the ground, her head taking the brunt of it. Her head pounding, she hesitantly sat up, and saw Shockwave and another Decepticon standing in front of her. Her optics blurred, and she fell over, unconscious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arcee stared off into the distance, slowly coming to the terms of the fact that she just lost one of her best friends. The femme she fell in love with. She looked up towards the moons, and silently screamed at Primus. She stood there for several minutes, before a servo on her shoulder caught her attention. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw Tailgate. She stared dully at him, but didn't say anything to him as she returned to staring at the twin moons.

"Arcee..." Tailgate whispered. "We have to report this attack so if there is anyone else in the area, they can be moved to somewhere safer."

Arcee sighed, and nodded, finally turning away from the place she lost her friend. A determined look appeared in her optics. "I'm going to kill him... I'm going to kill Shockwave."

"Then train hard", Tailgate said, not even attempting to stop her train of thought. "Train hard so that you are able to fight him in a fair fight."

Arcee took the lead, Tailgate trailing behind her. The red and green mech cast one look behind him, and thought to himself, 'I'm sorry, Elita. There was nothing we could do.'
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Elita-1 woke up, her head still pounding. She groaned and tried to sit up, only to discover that she was strapped to a berth. She struggled to get out, but nothing seemed to work.

"You are awake", a monotone voice from next to her stated. She whipped her helm around and glared at the purple mech. She held a staring contest with the one eyed mech before he finally turned away and grabbed a vial of of some strange purple liquid.

"This will hurt", he said as he inserted the vial into a needle like contraption. "It would be logical for you to scream, as that will reduce the pain slightly."

"What is that?" Elita-1 asked, shying away from the needle. Shockwave paused to explain.

"A concoction of an organic material I found on a distant planet and cybertronian CNA. I have tried other organic material, but all my test subjects have failed. Except one. If you survive, you will meet him."

He gestured to the other side of the room where Elita-1 was greeted with a horrific sight. Several cybertronian bodies, but with weird fluffy stuff growing out of the protoforms. Some were using a strange white liquid, and others had red squishy material attached to them. Some limbs were displaced, and Elita-1 found that she could not look at them for very long without feeling queasy. When she looked back at Shockwave, she discovered the vial to be empty and that there was a burning feeling spreading through her veins. It wasn't horrible until the burning feel reached her spark. Then sharp, blinding pain struck her, and she couldn't resist a scream. She could feel her back shifting out of place, and things changing on her form. Elita-1 arched her back, and with a quick release of a button from Shockwave, she was free from her bindings. She fell to the ground, panting breaths coming from her mouth. 

"Please..." she cried. "Please make it stop!"

"The pain will be over soon", Shockwave replied. "For soon, you will either be successful, or dead."

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Elita-1 screamed, liquids falling from her optics. Searing pain came from her back, and a screeching metal on metal sounded all throughout the room. It rang in Elita-1's audio receptors, and she flinched. 

Slowly, the pain started dying down, and Elita-1 collapsed onto her side; her chest moving up and down in a quick heaving motion. She curled up, and squeezed her optics shut. After what seemed like years, the pain finally subsided completely, and Elita-1's breaths became lighter, until she found that she did not need to breath at all, as per usual with all Cybertronians.

Slowly she sat up, and noticed that there was a heavier weight upon her back. She also noticed that instead of her legs being blue and black, they were now purple and black with her knee spikes being gold.

"What did you do to me?" she whispered. When Shockwave didn't answer, she looked up at him. He was watching her curiously.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?" she shouted, only to pause when she realized her voice was different as well. She stood up, her legs shaky. Shockwave finally answered.

"I perfected you", Shockwave answered. Elita-1 shook her head stubbornly.

"Let me see myself", she hissed. Shockwave nodded once, and connected himself to the computer, moving a picture onto the screen. Elita-1 stared at it in shock.

"No..." she whispered and stumbled back to the berth, sitting down in shock. She didn't recognize the femme on the screen. The femme she saw there was black and purple with bits of gold. Her optics were completely purple. She had six spindly legs hanging from her back. She looked at her mouth and noticed that her dentas were bared, and she had two fangs on either side.

She shook her helm. "No... no, this can't be real. This is just a bad dream. You'll wake up and you'll go with Arcee to your first day of Autobot training."

"That would be illogical", Shockwave said. Elita-1 looked up.

"Why?!" she shouted.

"Because no one would believe it was you. After all... Elita-1 is dead", Shockwave answered.

"Arcee won't believe that!" Elita-1 snapped. 

"Won't she?" a new voice thundered. Elita-1 whipped around to see a tall silver and purple mech, with what looked to be a bucket on his helm. She instantly cowered in fear, recognizing him as Megatron. A silver mech followed closely behind the leader of the Decepticons. Elita-1 tilted her helm in confusion as she took note of the weird audio receptors on the top of his helm, as well as the floofy metal thing that rested behind him. It twitched every now and then. 

"Lord Megatron", Shockwave bowed. Elita-1 stood her ground and Megatron stared down at her.

"Arcee does indeed believe you to be dead. So does you friend Tailgate."

"I don't believe that!" the femme snapped, glaring at the intimidating mech.

"Hear for yourself", Megatron gestured to the computer, where Shockwave pulled a recording. Elita-1 watched in shock as Arcee and Tailgate stood side by side, reporting to what Elita-1 recognized as what was going to be their commanding officer.

"We were attacked at the border of Iacon by Shockwave", Tailgate spoke clearly. "We lost Elita-1 one there."

Arcee spoke quietly, but Elita-1 was able to make out what she said. "Shockwave... he kidnapped her. She was screaming for help when we last saw her."

Their commanding officer sighed. "Shockwave's reputation as mad scientist is bad enough. But we all know that no prisoner of Shockwave has ever survived."

Tailgate nodded. "Shouldn't we at least attempt looking for her? She might still be alive."

Arcee snorted. "You heard Ultra Magnus, didn't you Tailgate? She's dead. There's no point looking for her."

The video ended there and Elita-1 stared at the image of her friends. At first she felt sad that they weren't looking for her. But then anger took it's place. They weren't even going to attempt looking for her. She started trembling as she thought about it all. Anger, sadness, and hatred raged through her spark. She shoved any other emotion down, including the love she held for the blue and pink femme.

She cast a glance at the image of what she looked like now before kneeling in front of Megatron. "Call me Airachnid, my liege."