Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Hasbro does. The Efforts and their story, how ever, are mine.
Author's Note: Read my other story, Project Abominations, if you want to find out exactly who the Efforts are and what Breaker Labs are, among other questions. This is a side story taking place sometime during Project Abominations; after the uprising, but before the Decepticons begin major heavy-duty recruiting.
Shockwave Babysits
He was thousands of years old and was over a dozen feet of towering, lavender-mauve and white-cream colored metal of destruction, death, and horror. Dozens had died at the end of the gun making up his left hand and hundreds had died at his orders. His face, marked only as a yellow optic, failed to betray any fear or hate or emotion what so ever. He had crushed metal skulls beneath his square, firm-footing boots and he had held over half of a warring planet under his control in preparation of the return of his leader. He had designed and created countless monstrosities and machines to do his bidding, whether it was to level an entire city or wipe out an entire regiment of enemy soldiers. He was Shockwave, famed scientist of the Decepticons, and he was a powerful, cunning, invincible warrior, master mind and—
"Shockwave!" a little voice suddenly whined.
And he was a babysitter.
If his light bulb of an optic could roll, it would have as he turned in his seat to look down at the blonde-haired little girl with baby blue eyes standing below him, dancing from foot to foot in her grey-trimmed, white uniform. The black and blue streaks in her blond hair reminded Shockwave not to simply shoot this annoying organic, as she was of Thundercracker's own Spark, as much as even Thundercracker himself was reluctant to admit.
"What is it, Cartwheel?" Shockwave sighed. "What do you want?"
"I need to use the bathroom!"
"Can't you go on your own?"
"I keep forgetting where it is! The bathroom I used to use got blown up when you and Ferrofluid started expanding the base."
Wishing he could roll his lone optic again in annoyance, Shockwave sighed as he stood up, leaving the computer council he had been sitting at before.
"Alright, let's go find you a bio-waste disposal closet," he sighed.
"Bathroom," Cartwheel corrected.
A few minutes later and Shockwave was standing outside of one of Breaker Labs' bathrooms, patiently as he could; waiting for the tiny human-Transformer hybrid Effort to finish her business. As he waited, he stewed.
Why did he have to get left behind on the base while the other Decepticons went raiding? Why did he have to take care of the youngest Efforts, Cartwheel and Shadowleap, while Ferrofluid and Mextron were on the other end of the base on room clean-out duty, removing human items from the rooms to prepare for their expansion? Also, where in the Pit were Effort 137 and Smartmouth, the seemingly-mute Effort of Soundwave and the ever snappy femme of Starscream!? Last he had heard there was talk about energon or meditation going around. And here he was, one of the best soldiers of the Decepticon Army (okay, a decimated one, sure, but he was still second only to Megatron of the six [excluding the Cassetticons] revived mechs!), and he was baby sitting Thundercracker's Effort.
Cartwheel began to sing in the bathroom.
"I'm a little tea pot, short and spout…"
"Primus save me," Shockwave muttered, knocking his optic off line temporarily in a robotic blink as he rubbed the spot above his optic.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I'm hungry," Cartwheel suddenly announced.
"Go find something to eat," Shockwave replied, staring at the crude computer screens making
up his computer room and the data they held.
"But I don't know how to cook!"
"You Efforts eat what ever you find in the cafeteria's kitchen, yes? Go heat something up in there!"
"But Smartmouth always told me not to work with the stuff in the kitchen, or else I might almost burn down the base again."
Shockwave's head lifted up and then swung around to stare down at the tiny organic girl standing below him. Burn down the base….?
"Fine, he growled, getting up.
"Now I don't want chicken," Cartwheel said, trotting after Shockwave's heels as he once more exited the laboratory. "And I don't want that beacon stuff or lettuce or tomatoes or that weird French-sounding stuff or anything moldy…."
Primus save me, Shockwave thought, feeling his gun warm up.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I'm hungry.
I need to use the bathroom again.
Where do babies come from, Uncle Shockwave?
Why can't I call you Uncle?
Where do Transformer babies come from, Uncle Shockwave?
Why can't I call you Uncle Shockwave, again?
Why do you want me to call you the "Supreme, All Powerful, Ever Intelligent and Wise Duke
Shockwave"?
What're ya doing?
The second to last-statement, Shockwave had really hoped to catch the dumb little organic, but she had expressed some intelligence by not falling for it. The last question was the one that made Shockwave want to bang his head into the wall because that was the one she asked fifty-two times in less than hour. Primus, why can't he just shut down!?
"What're ya doing, Uncle Shockwave?" Cartwheel asked, kicking at one of the newly installed
computer components peeking out from its screen. The device spat sparks, making Cartwheel jump back as all the screens Shockwave had so painstakingly set up flickered, flashed blue, and went dark.
"Primus save me," Shockwave muttered.
"What's a Primus?" Cartwheel asked.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Play with me, Uncle Shockwave!" Cartwheel ordered.
"No," Shockwave grunted, using a crude screw to attach a newly-created, Cybertron-grade
computer to the rest of the computers in the room. Primus, human technology was so crude, tiny, and delicate! It was a miracle that he was able to make a computer able to communicate vast distances anyway!
"Why not?" Cartwheel asked.
"Because I'm busy, that's why!" Shockwave snapped at her. "How about you go bug Mextron or something? Primus, I hate babysitting you Efforts while there's raids, and me being an elite, too-!"
"I already tried talking to Mextron," Cartwheel said.
"And what did he say?" Shockwave inquired, praying that Megatron's Effort had acted like his father and smacked some sense into the whiney brat.
"He said to play with Shadowleap."
"Shadow…? Oh no!" Shockwave wailed.
"Oh yes!" a dark-skinned and haired nine year old boy, the same age as Cartwheel, cackled as he jumped out from where he was hiding behind a large pile of trashed computers on the floor. He wrapped an arm in a buddy lock around Cartwheel's shoulders while the other waved over his head.
"What's up, Cyclops?" Shadowleap laughed.
If Shockwave knew anything about Efforts, it was that they often shared the same traits as their fathers, and Shadowleap's father was Skywarp. And if this boy was as annoying as his prankster father, then all of Shockwave's work this night would be undone.
The evil, mischievous grin was wiped from Shadowleap's face when Shockwave lifted his gun hand as it hummed to life and he deliberately, for the first time ever, disobeyed Megatron's orders of not making an effort to hurt one of his charges.
"You… don't call me 'Cyclops," Shockwave hissed. "Or 'uncle' again, or I will shoot. You will not speak again, or I will shoot. You will sit right there and not move, or I will shoot. You will not make your presence known, or I swear that by Primus and all of Cybertron and the energon in the universe that I will shoot! DO YOU GOT THAT!?"
In response, both nine year olds sat down hard on the floor as they hugged each other. As Shockwave watched, their eyes became moist and their lower lips began to quiver.
"Oh," Shockwave said, his ear fins drooping. "Please, no, don't cry, please, no, no, no, no, no-!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Megatron, the Seekers, and Soundwave's Squad had finally returned from the raid, their arms heavily laden with energon cubes and the Seekers practically stumbling drunk against one another in triumph. Starscream, as usual, was getting a scolding from Megatron.
"And if I must remind you one more time about who has first taste of energon on this base,
Starscream," Megatron snarled, dropping his own load of energon cubes into one of the new energon storage unit rooms. "I swear, by Primus, that your body will be melted down for scrap!"
"Oh yeah?" Starscream sneered, dropping his own energon cubes off and stalking after Megatron as he went to the computer room to check on Shockwave. "Then what'll you do? You only have five mechs to boss, all together, and I got two of 'em right under my thumb!"
"Well the other two," Megatron growled, "Are powerful, ruthless warriors, more than capable of destroying those two idiot Seekers, and no one can out match Shockwave when it comes to tactics-"
Just as Megatron said that, he and Starscream stepped into the computer room.
Shockwave was sitting at his desk, one metal hand holding his cheek up while the other arm was curled in front of him. Shadowleap was sitting on his shoulder, tugging up and down on the ear fin on that side of Shockwave's head as he made crude machine noises, pretending that he was operating a lever. Cartwheel was on top of Shockwave's head, kicking the other ear fin and laughing when she saw the long, narrow feather-shaped strip of metal wave up and down. Numerous black markers stolen from some supplies closet were strewn on the desk in front of him. On the square expanse of his head where his optic was and his face was supposed to be, there were numerous black markings making up a smiley face below the yellow light bulb optic, and a couple of large, oval-shaped eyes were drawn to look down at the yellow light bulb, creating the likings of a face with Shockwave's optic as the nose. All over his shoulders, arms, and head, flowers, rainbows, stick figures, and numerous other squiggle signs had been drawn.
Shockwave slowly and slightly turned his head to fix his own optic on the open-mouthed Megatron and Starscream. He may not have had a face, but one could tell, none the less, that if he had had one, his eyes would be drooped in wariness and a look of hopeless misery and total loss would be on the imaginary face.
"Oh, Primus…" Starscream whispered.
"Lord Megatron," Shockwave said. "May I kill the children of this planet?"