I stood on a lone, deserted butte staring at the discolored, shifting sands far below me, my processor thinking over the last few solar-cycles. It all started when the Autobots boarded the Nemesis. No, it was a chain of events that was kicked of by me getting captured. Prime shot me out of the sky and temporarily overloaded my systems with electricity, when I woke all of my limbs were restrained much to my frustration. The oh so 'mighty' Prime questioned me about Lord Megatron's plans, (as if I was the coward that is Starscream) and thus I mocked them. Which lead to me deleting all the data on my drives after the Autobot medic, Ratchet, threatened to forcibly gain access to said drives. Upon mocking the group one last time, I placed myself stasis by crashing my drives.

Lazerbeak arrived and disabled my bonds and brought me back online, in the process transferring an objective, capturing Ratchet. Thankfully, most of the Autobots had left leaving me with three guards, one of their Wreckers, their rookie, and their medic. I had little challenge incapacitating both the Wrecker and the rookie, actions that allowed me to capture their medic. The capture of their medic proved to be a boon, as it allowed us access to a large portion of the formula that made up Synthetic Energon, which was needed to make cyber-matter.

Once Ratchet had completed the task we had set for him, he was handed over to Predaking. During the time he was the Predacon's prisoner he managed to reveal and convince the mech of Lord Megatron's treachery. This lead to the beast attacking Megatron and thus getting himself expelled from the ship. This lead to Ratchet being able to come assist his team by stopping Shockwave from firing the Omega Lock.

All of this lead to the Nemesis getting boarded by the Autobots. During this time, I was trapped in this Shadowzone by the Autobot's human pets, and my master was stabbed by the same scout he had tried to kill so long ago. I tried to catch my master as he fell but failed, because I was a what the humans called a ghost.

I watched as Lord Megatron was revived as a mere puppet of Unicron, and I followed him to Cybertron. I watched as he turned the ancient corpses of the once mighty Predacons into Terrorcons. I watched as Unicron's presence was terminated from my master's mind, and I heard him admit the defeat of the Decepticons. He then placed himself in exile and left Cybertron.

I returned to Earth with Ratchet, contemplating my next course of action. I was jolted out of my thoughts as I heard Lazerbeak's warbling. Lifting my helm I turned to face my incoming symbiote, with a quick series of chirps Lazerbeak clicks into place on my chest. Feeling files begin to download, I stared into the sky as I processed the data. Lazerbeak had been Ing mapping the surrounding terrain in search of a cave system.

As always my ever faithful symbiote had found a large cave system which would be perfect for my purposes. I had limited options in what course of action to take, and a limited fuel supply. Because realistically, I severely doubt the Autobots would assist one of their greatest enemies. So I made to decision to find a safe place to bunker down and place myself and Lazerbeak into stasis lock.

So turning to face the north western sky I flipped into the air and transformed. My destination was only a ten minute flight away after all.

{-}

I gracefully transformed and fell about three mechanometers, slamming into the ground in front of the entrance to the cave. With careful steps I slipped inside the yawning hole in the ground.

The entrance was large and quickly narrowed as the floor gently sloped downwards. Eventually the hall widened out again into a large cavern that had paths leading of to the left and right. After deploying Lazerbeak to investigate the left tunnel, I headed right.

Stepping into the right tunnel I employed the use of echolocation. After the sound returned I was able to create an accurate three dimensional map of the tunnel. It was straight and slowly narrowed into a flat wall about, twenty-five mechanometers back. With this tunnel a dead end I turned on my heel and headed towards the other side of the cavern.

As I reached the opening of the left tunnel, Lazerbeak, reappeared and reattached herself to my chassis. It seemed this side had more use as it wound down into the earth. The path sloped downwards at a steep angle and had a gentle curve. Lazerbeak noted a large cavern at the bottom, so I stalked down the corridor.

Once I reached the bottom I sent out another echolocation pulse. When it returned I constructed the model in my processor, the cavern was large as Lazerbeak had said, and up in the corner was a small ledge perfectly sized for my alt-mode. Long quick strides carried me over and a multitude of scans assured me of the structural soundness of the ledge.

This ledge was a perfect spot to go into stasis, only open in the front, and all three walls were extremely thick and were unlikely to collapse. Thus, there was a minute chance the would ceiling collapsing on me, and injuring or killing me.

So I marched towards the caverns entrance to gain as much maneuvering room as possible. Reaching the entrance I smoothly transformed and flew towards the ledge lining myself up with its mouth. As expected I landed perfectly, and with a sigh I began to shut down my systems one by one.

Lazerbeak was the last thing to be shut down, and as I sat in the silence of the Shadowzone I wandered briefly about the future. But, one day we would be woken and with that thought I entered the final necessary stasis codes. My HUD asked for a confirmation which was delivered and a countdown promptly started.

Soon my world faded to black, I was a peace Lazerbeak was safe as was I, and that was all that mattered.

{-}

Soundwave would not wake for an eternity. As the Spymaster slept the Shadowzone slowly developed into its own dimension. Primus and Unicron fought, and the First Thirteen Primes were created. Cybertron developed, and soon Megatron rose as the High Lord Protector. Not long after Megatron went insane and attempted to seize power for himself, founding the Decepticons.

Megatron left Cybertron in search of the Allspark and crashed on Earth, and still Soundwave slept nestled on his ledge deep underground.

But soon Soundwave would wake and change how many beings understood the universe.

{-}

Disclaimer

I do not own Transformers

Time measurements

Nanoclick = a second

Cycle = 1.5 minutes

Mega-cycle = 2.6 hours

Solar-cycle = one day

Deca-cycle = ten days

Orbital-cycle = one month

Stellar-cycle = one year

Distance measurements

Mechanometer = one meter

Hic = one kilometer