It would be naïve to believe that Blitzwing’s body was designed in the manner he was meant to be from the very beginning of his creation. Only a fool would believe that, when he had been first given life, when his spark was first placed into that empty chamber, three faces were already hidden beneath his helm. Only fools would believe he was able to drift seamlessly into societal acceptance because – in all honesty – he could not control what he was, he could not repress, he could not force even one personality into submission, much less two.

The cold one, his face was the first face. It was not always his face exclusively, however – it used to be their face. When the other faces were given to Blitzwing, quite some time after he had been cast out by the Autobot scientists, he had decided to keep the original face for his own further use, because it was what he felt most comfortable displaying. The cold personality had associated himself strongly with that face very early on, because it was angular and difficult to read, and held an air of aloofness that suited his tastes.

Most others found it somewhat disconcerting, which he found preferable. Maybe it was the single round optic that put others off. The optic was a tactical advantage, of course, and had been intended as such when he was created. Data was interpreted in sharper focus, relayed to his sensory network in a kaleidoscopic image of vibration and sound. It was logical and precise, although admittedly somewhat jarring.

The random face, he never saw the data in the same manner, and it left him effectively blinded in that one optic. Colors, shapes that shifted and peeled away to reveal hidden imagery were lost on someone like him. To the random one, every color was viewed – not as a harmonious image – but as a separate, tangled entity that twisted into the other colors unnaturally, awkwardly, yet beautifully. The cold one supposed it appealed to the random one’s sense of irony – segregated entities twisted together into a single object or image.

He always was just a little crazy.

The hothead could utilize the optic well, but not well enough. Colors to him were meant to be bright, distinct, brilliant warm colors like fire and the flash of weaponry. The subtle shifts in the images were difficult for him to understand or interpret, difficult for him to follow, and he eventually found the silvers and the blues that tangled into the temperate image agitating. He was quick to choose a different face, when it was offered, and now all he saw was red.

Blitzwing – the cold Blitzwing – felt relieved. It wasn't that he wanted the face to himself, or had always wanted that, because it simply wasn't true. He didn't wish for individuality as the Autobots seemed to believe (a ridiculous wish – he was already an individual, even if he shared a body with others). Blitzwing didn't wish for personal space, or privacy, or singularity. He was relieved because the superfluous faces allowed all three to express themselves freely.

It was, to put simply, more comfortable.

Blitzwing had always been, and would always be, three personalities, three individuals, three segregated sparks in a single form. That was not something he could exactly regret – he could not long to be alone when his only experience of loneliness had been the most torturous experience of his life. The concept of wishing for utter silence was – quite honestly – very much beyond his comprehension.

Not that he wished to comprehend what being alone could truly mean.

Blitzwing recalled what silence was like. There was a time – one time – when Shockwave had somehow destroyed what he believed was an unbreakable connection, and cut away the other personalities from his mind with surgical precision. That was what the Autobot scientists had wished for all along, and yet it was Shockwave that succeeded.

It was just one time. Now, Blitzwing was here, with Megatron, and he would not leave. Even if the Decepticon were only to bring him death, he would at least die in the company of the others in his head. The Autobots, they would not allow him to exist as he was. They would not allow Black Arachnia to exist as an organic (as distasteful as he found her, he did not relish in the concept of her being dissected).

Blearily, an image on a screen came before him. Megatron was more concerned with his pet at the time being. Lugnut was helping the Constructicons with the space bridge. Only Blitzwing was there to answer the transmission now.

Shockwave was waiting, patiently, obediently.

‘Blitzwing,’ said Shockwave, his voice elegant and defined in a manner that made the triple-changer's spark quiver despite his disgust.

‘Shockwave,’ responded Blitzwing calmly, betraying none of his own trepidation.

Shockwave's makeshift Autobot face was ugly and jarring to Blitzwing's optical sensors. He grimaced inwardly – he hated it. He hated to think of Shockwave wearing that pitiful disguise and speaking with those Autobots, especially when his ordinary Decepticon body was as elegant and coldly precise as his cold voice. The face, the fake personality, was supposed to be neither warm nor cold, neither strong nor soft, inviting nor intimidating. It was bland, boring. Blitzwing hated it, hated him for wearing it, and yet–

Shockwave was not the first scientist that had taken on Blitzwing as some treasured pet project – he was the last, though, because Shockwave knew that there was no slagging way, not in a million vorns, that he would get away alive if he tried to kill the other sides of Blitzwing. Oh, Blitzwing knew that slag-head had spent night after night sizing him up, deciding which personality he'd kill first if he could, if only to make them shut up!

The frigid one, oh, Shockwave would never kill him, because the frigid one was logical and obedient and so mind numbingly stingy that Blitzwing thought he was going to pound fists into his own body in pure frustration every time he heard the little whiny voice of his other half.

But Shockwave had liked the frigid one (if Shockwave actually liked anything at all). Shockwave might have just thought frigid was rational and therefore, should be allowed to live because he would serve their slagging cause the best.

But in the end, Shockwave knew he couldn't separate them, because the frigid one put up such a damn fuss when the scientist had cut off the other personalities. The frigid one was the only one of the three who knew true loneliness. When the crazy one and himself were cut off, Blitzwing could sure as hell feel the frigid one, but not the other way around. It was like Shockwave numbed the frigid one up, made him stop feeling anything in his own mind.

Either that, or it was like Blitzwing was a ghost still inside the other’s head. He never liked that thought.

It wasn't, well, fun for Blitzwing to be trapped in his own mind without being able to talk. He screamed out his thoughts but his mouth wouldn't move, and his body wouldn't listen when he wanted to break free from the restraints, to tear into Shockwave and pound in his optic with his own antenna!

The crazy one, even as psychotic as he was and as happy as he always was, had been pissed off too – with good reason! Shockwave had spent those cycles pretending to help him, to help them, just like the Autobots pretended to care when they really just wanted to isolate the frigid one so he could be 'fixed'. By the Autobots’ reasoning, Blitzwing was too angry to stay alive, and the crazy one was too… well… crazy.

Shockwave said he didn't believe the Autobots were right. He said that he didn't believe the three personalities were good soldiers without each other. Yet, he had still tortured them. And then, when Shockwave finally managed to get them right where he wanted them, ready to clip away the two personalities he found irrelevant... he let them live!

And Shockwave didn't even explain why!

‘What do you want, optic-head?’ growled Blitzwing, his hands clenching into tight fists as he stared at the flickering screen.

Feh. Optic-head. Blitzwing knew that wasn't the most derisive thing he could have said, but he didn't give a slagging damn.

Shockwave managed to have an expression even with the fake face, pretentious and amused all at once. Slagging scientists were all the same, and Blitzwing knew scientists. None quite like Shockwave, truly, but he knew the type. They all pretended they were better and smarter, which never meant anything to someone like Blitzwing. Even frigid-face, the stuck-up little prick he was, agreed with him on that.

‘I see your penchant for charm hasn't dissipated over the years,’ said Shockwave, so smoothly and so perfectly arrogant that Blitzwing found himself bristling with rage.

‘And I see your pench– your penc– I see you haven't stopped being a stuck-up bastard! Why don't you come down here and face me like a real 'con, huh?’

Shockwave leaned forward slightly to the camera, his head tilted in that curious way that made him look like an idiot, but really kind of meant he was being challenging.

‘Finish the space bridge and I will,’ said Shockwave.

The ugly fake face transformed away and suddenly Shockwave was there again, bleary, flickering, his single optic piercing inside him. Blitzwing’s spark jolted roughly like it was grabbed in Shockwave' claws again, and he felt himself waver. Not fear, because he wasn't afraid of Shockwave, not Shockwave – Shockwave, he hated, hated him entirely and unwaveringly, and yet–

Blitzwing found himself laughing hysterically – the others didn't remember, oh, why wouldn't they just remember? Did they remember who was first and who was second and who was third? Did they even remember that there was actually a first personality, a second, and a third, and that they weren't just that way from the beginning like icy believed?

It didn't matter, it really didn't, because they were all the same, they were equal, they were shared, consciousnesses threaded together yet separate. Oh, they still felt each other, inside and out, and it helped when they wanted, desired to feel each other, desired to lay on a berth and run their hands lustfully over their own body. The icy one, he loved the coy touches, the little touches that would make him gasp and squirm and whimper, and brute, he liked the whimpering. He loved it. And Blitzwing, well, he just loved them, feeling them and hearing them and needing them.

They’d never believe he was first, because he was the random one, the anomaly, the mistake, and yet he was first. He remembered being first, and the others, they couldn’t remember that because they were last. They couldn’t remember being without each other because they came into existence so close together. It was like the missing parts, the sanity and the anger, the things he needed, they came to him finally, to stabilize something that was intrinsically not working.

It was like missing parts of his mind multiplied into separate entities.

Shockwave, Shockwave knew that, and that’s why he couldn’t kill them – that’s why.

Blitzwing was the first. The icy one, he was third, he was last. If Shockwave killed Blitzwing and the brute, he’d only leave behind a wisp of personality, and unfinished part, something incomplete and alone in a way that Blitzwing himself had been alone when he first been sparked. Alone was not acceptable, or wanted, it was like being dizzy. He hated that feeling, it twisted his spark in a way he couldn’t describe, a way he wouldn’t want to – there was no point in living if it was like that.

Blitzwing grinned. ‘Oh, I like fisticuffs!’ he cooed at the screen. ‘But you haven’t got any fists!’

Almost self-consciously (if Shocky was self-conscious, which sounded funny) Shockwave looked down at his claws, then back up at Blitzwing.

‘You haven’t changed at all,’ said Shockwave, almost distantly. ‘Tell me, Blitzwing – are there still only three of you?’

Oh, Shockwave always thought they’d keep multiplying like they did before, but there was no point now, even if there were still things missing. Those things, they could be accommodated with the company of Lugnut, of Shockwave, maybe even that cute little yellow Autobot, maybe–

Blitzwing pressed himself against the screen, and Shockwave eased back as if Blitzwing could just reach right through and bite his little optic. ‘Is there still only one of you?’

Shockwave paused, in that way that meant he didn’t know what to say. That happened a great deal with Blitzwing. ‘Excuse me?’ he managed finally, in a haughty way that seemed so much like the icy one but so much more dark.

The red grin broadened further. ‘Longarm Prime,’ he purred. ‘You made yourself a second face like you made my faces!’

‘I see,’ said Shockwave. He tilted his head away, and began to type distractedly at a computer in that way he always did when he didn’t want to elaborate on something he found ‘irrelevant’. ‘That’s different. That is an assumed identity – it is not like yours.’

‘Phoo,’ said Blitzwing, disappointed with the answer. But, after a few moments, he brightened. ‘Do you have friends?’

‘Friends?’ asked Shockwave. ‘Autobots? There are those that consider Longarm Prime their friend, yes.’

‘And Longarm Prime considers them a–’

Impatiently, Shockwave cut him short. ‘I know where you’re going with this, Blitzwing, and no matter what the others believe, what you believe, it is a farce.’

Blitzwing’s grin widened. ‘Then what about the yellow one?’ he asked. ‘You let him frame the little Autobot, the green one. If Bumblebee wasn’t such a silly yellow bumbler, he’d have been in the Elite Guard right after that happened!’

‘What is your point, Blitzwing.’

It didn’t sound like a question, more like a warning.

‘If you had framed Wasp yourself, and taken credit, you would have been promoted faster,’ said Blitzwing amusedly. ‘I think, just maybe, just a little bit, Longarm might have liked the cute little yellow–’

‘Enough!’

Blitzwing laughed uproariously as the view screen shut off abruptly. Oh, oh he was certain Shockwave hated him, hated him and wished to pluck him away and destroy the little anomaly. Shockwave hated imperfect, he hated things that did not make sense, that did not follow order. Shockwave hated him, and yet–