A little oneshot about Shockwaves and Soundwaves meeting

I tried to find an explanation for myself why Soundwave is so strange

as Ratchet said "He's no ordinary cybertronian, inside or out" yes, but why?

all strangeness is on purpose.

Prologue

The morning was dark in the military city of Kalis, as acid poured from the rain clouds above, burning the ground below, creating a white steam, that stung in the olfactory sensors. Calling Kalis a city was a little strange though. It was more like a barren wasteland, a training ground for the military and military students, as well as a 'playing ground' for the war facility's scientists. The only buildings, on the wide city area, were the military's main complex, multiple dorms, luxury depending on rank, a large building for scientific research, equipped with the most advanced technology on cybertron and the prison for the most dangerous criminals. Not too many scholars lived there, most of Kalis' population was made out of soldiers, but the scientists that lived there, were some of the best. The most respected of them was named Shockwave and rumors said, that he was borderline ingenious when it came to his main subjects, engineering of weapons and physical or mental dissection. His creations were practical, but most of all, frightening. He had managed to accomplish the recreation of 'Predacons', from ancient fossils, which were now sold to the kaonian gladiatorial arenas; but the by far most terrifying invention of his, according to the military officers' statements, was the 'Cordical-psychic-patch', that made the interrogations of prisoners a lot easier. The dubious ways of the scientist, that had once been a professor in the iaconian academy, had originally sent him to the prison in Kalis. He came within an inch of being molten down in the smelting pools, after his trial in the Supreme Court of Judicature in Helex, for the crime of dissecting conscious, kidnaped mechs. Downfall, the director of kalis' complex, had hired him instead.

Shockwaves laboratory was by far the biggest. It was comprised of a room with several dissection tables, a storage hall for instruments, parts and data pads, a room for the engineering and testing of weapons, a hall for chemical experiments and a large corridor full of CNA-filled test tubes for the breeding of predacons. Right now, the dark purple tank was located in the latter. "Sparkbeat, normal. Sensors, functional. Estimated time until completion, three groons and two breems." He mumbled to himself, as he recorded the progress for the log. Meticulously, he checked the status of all the beasts Kaon had ordered; twenty at the moment. Just as he had finished writing down the stats of the last predacon, he could hear shots being fired outside of the scientific complex. /The laser guns and the proton cannons./ He registered, being able to tell from the sound of his inventions alone. Interested in the end product of his weapons, that had been incorporated in the standard equipment of the higher ranked soldiers and to collect the undamaged limbs and organs of the intruder, to stock up on spare parts, he put his data pad aside and walked to the upper level of the mostly underground building.

It was an accident. A malfunction in the inner tunnel system of Cybertrons unreachable core, that lasted only a klick. One of the partitions, that regulated the energon flow of the planet had failed briefly, which led to the forming of a connection, that was not supposed to ever form. With a bright flash of light, the two parts, that made up Cybertrons core, The Allspark and Vector Sigma, fragments of the sparks of the gods Unicron and Primus, connected and bonded, splitting in the process, creating a sparkling. Within astroseconds, vast amounts of program files and codes streamed into its system, updating it, modifying it straight to its final, adult form. Its designation, was Soundwave. Yet still, he knew nothing.

After about a megacycle of aimless wandering inside the core of cybertron, the slim, anthracite decepticon managed to reach the planet's surface through the omega lock. The first thing he saw, was a seemingly endless sea of rust, all around him. Led by instinct alone, he activated his radar system and found masses of living energy signals, the nearest ones, about five breems away, in westerly direction. For the first time in his short live, the flier transformed and took off. In exactly the calculated time, he landed in a barren metal wasteland, aside from a few buildings and was instantly attacked.

When Shockwave reached the top level of the scientific complex and stepped out of the main gate, he did not want to believe his single red optic. He took in the sight in front of him. On the ground lay about seven high ranked soldiers, offlined or severely injured and in the middle of them, stood only one mech, completely passive, looking at the dead frames with an unknowing, interested and almost innocent, yet neutral expression. "This..." Shockwave spoke to himself, "...is highly illogical."

Log entry I

Race: Decepticon, Model: flier, Origin: unknown, Attributes: slim form, anthracite main armor with black sub armor, several violet light pipes installed. Gray-white faceplate, black optics, purple irises and slitted pupils, underlined with undulated, parted light tube under each optic.

The subject does not show any sign of knowledge, it's actions seem to be steered by instinct alone. Even after several attempts to commence communication, the flier model does not speak, I assume it's voice box is broken. A strong fondness for glowing objects is perceptible. It's intentions are unclear.

"What is your intention?" The scientist asked, but received no answer. "Tell me your designation." still no response. "Speak or I will have to terminate you." no reaction.

Slowly, Shockwave walked towards the strange mech, that had singlehandedly defeated the soldiers, who had tried to subdue him. He stopped, when the anthracite flier with violet glowing lines, began to move in his direction, steps also slow and determined. The scientist decided to keep his weapon system deactivated, to not threaten the intruder. Not regarding him, the slim Decepticon passed by, heading towards the entry of the laboratory complex. Shockwave assumed he wanted to steal the inventions and followed, but halted, when the other stopped just in front of the door. He, again, walked closer to the strange mech, who did nothing, but stare at the glowing sign above the gate. "This is also illogical."

A theory formed in his processor and the tank walked around the building, to enter through a side door. It did not take the organized mech long, to find what he was searching for, grab it and walk back to the main entrance from the inside. He found the anthracite mech in the same position as before, but when he came too close, the purple scientist drew the attention of the other. It seemed aggressive. Quickly wanting to test his theory, he lit the bright blue light tube, he usually utilized to examine his test subjects in the dark. The reaction was instantaneous. Within nanoklicks, its optics darted to the lamp, all signs of former pugnacity gone. He tracked every movement of the light source, standing there passively. Shockwave began to lure his newly selected subject into his dissection hall and placed the incandescent light on one of his instrument tables, before backing away. The slim mech seemed so distracted by the luminescence he did not notice the tell-tale click of locking doors. With his theory proven right, the scientist decided to install light tubes in his armor, his back had been difficult, but he had managed. He approached his new subject once more, this time without evoking an act of aggression. Even when he reached to turn off the light, he was not attacked. Instead, the flier shifted his attention to him. "What is your intention?" He tried again, but still received no answer. "Is your voice box broken?" No reaction. "Strange." Shockwave mumbled to himself, trying to think of a logical reason for his subjects behavior. /It reacts to light, and attacks when approached, but shows no hostility when approached by a glowing being. It does not speak and does not seem to understand our language, despite being an adult decepticon... Maybe its processor got damaged/ Turning the light on again, he retreated to observe the oldest predacon, that should be about to hatch by now and to ponder about further actions he needed to take, to study his new found subject.

Log entry II

Theory proven, the subject does not even have basic knowledge and acts on instinct alone. It seems to have exceptionally strong firewalls the cordical-psychic-patch is not able to breach. The subject possesses six connectors and ports, assumingly in addition to regular interface equipment. The connectors and ports are located on either side of his chestplates, waist, and mid-back. Study seems to be worthwhile and will be continued. Side-note: a muzzle will be needed.

When Shockwave came back into his dissection hall, the strange mech still stood in the same position as before, staring at the light source before him. The scientist approached him, a fresh, still sealed cube of refined energon in his hand. With his other hand, that was capable of transforming into a plasma cannon, he reached to turn out the lamp, to get his subject's attention. The flier reacted to the fuel before him and took it without hesitation. Not caring to lift the lid, the anthracite decepticon opened his mouth, revealing four extremely long dentae, two canines on top, two shorter ones below and used them to bite through the resistant metal without difficulties. Shockwave deemed the action illogical, but watched with interest, as his new subject drank the energon out of the holes he had made, lapping it up with his black-violet glossa. The flier had to come from a part of cybertron, where the fuel was hard to reach. Never before in his life, had the scientist seen such unusual dentae. A knock on the door broke Shockwaves chain of thoughts. "This is Downfall. Open the door, I want to ask you questions about the offlined soldiers in front of the complex." With a remote control, that was the only way, to open the gates, to prevent intruders from hacking his locks, he let the director inside. "I do indeed have the information you need." He stated, facing the black Pickup. "My new subject here is responsible for offlining them." "And why did you neither tell me about your project, nor informed my men that you were going to let it roam outside of the laboratories?!" "You misunderstand. I did not built this decepticon. When I found it, it had already killed the soldiers. It seemed unusual, so I decided to analyze it and it is indeed highly interesting. I will continue my research on it." Downfall stared at Shockwave with disbelieving optics. "You can't be serious! This mech offlined my men! He is a criminal and I will not grant him a residence in my facility! Let alone waste fuel on him!" The director snarled angrily, stomped over and snatched the almost empty cube from the intruders hands. Within a nanoklick, he regret his descision. The long dentae of the flier were buried into the plating next to his neck, ripping a bit, before letting go again. "Argh! You bit me! He bit me! Fine! Keep that test person of yours, but make sure that this... thing stays inside your lab!" Downfall backed away, leaving the room and cursed infuriated, as he ranted about the mech, not being a cybertronian, because he had neither seen a cybertronian bite someone before, nor had he ever heard of it. Not even sparklings bit mechs. This. was. unnatural.

After a moment of silence, Shockwave decided to begin the examination of his new, now legal subject. Not that he cared if the director approved his researches. To avoid any problems, the purple tank installed light pipes into the cord of the patch, before slowly, carefully attaching his most feared invention to the back of the fliers neck. Thin wires shot out of the end and forced their way into the decepticons cables, connecting to his systems. The subject gave a start on the sudden intrusion and turned around, taking the cord into his hands and regarded it with interest, but did not try to remove it. Instead, he opened several panels on his armor, revealed six ports and connectors, and used them, to indrude his computer consol, which had only showed error warnings of the patch not able to breach the firewalls before. With incredible speed the flier seemed to ravish the consol of every file that was installed. After a few klicks, he disconnected and closed the panel again. He turned to face Shockwave. "Designation: Soundwave"

Log entry III

My broken vocalizer theory has proven to be wrong; the subject is able to speak, though it does not form complete sentences. While it still does not show any sign of common sense, it seems to be highly intelligent. The subject also seems to have telepathic abilities, as it seems to know all of my intentions and answers to unspoken questions. I have customized a visor for the subject. Visor accepted, no problems found. Due to former difficulties with breaching the subject's firewalls I have rebuilt myself and installed the same set of ports and connectors the subject possesses, in order to form a connection.

/Soundwave./ The scientist repeated the designation in his thoughts. /It must have downloaded some of the data from the main system, through the consol. Interesting.../ "Affirmative: Data downloaded " Shockwave was a little startled on the sudden answer of the mech with the multi toned, deep, electric voice. /This is illogical. Why does it answer if I did not say anything./ The anthracite flier looked at him with a puzzled expression. "Shockwave: did not speak?" Realization sunk into the tanks processor. /It can read my thoughts./ While he did not yet want to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing, it fascinated the scientist even more. Not bothering to hide his thoughts anymore, Shockwave decided to ask his questions openly. "Why did you bite the director?" "Soundwave: annoyed" "So you bit him out of annoyance?" "Affirmative." The scientist was as delighted as his low-emotion systems could manage. His new subject was finally answering him. "Where do you come from." The slim mech pointed wordlessly into the direction of the rust sea. "I do not understand ... Where have you been sparked?" "Location: unknown." "Who were your creators?" "Creators: unknown." Shockwave thought for a moment. "Do you know what creators are?" The flier nodded. "Creators: Carrier and sire of a sparkling." This was absolutely intriguing. Within mere clicks, the strange subject seemed to have not downloaded only some of the data, but all of it; the whole database. Though it could not be, that was the way it was. /To manage this, it must possess a high-tech system. No system on Cybertron is that advanced.../ He had to analyze it. The purple tank walked into his storage hall and built a visor, that was able to connect with the system of those who wore it. It would be a perfect protection against his subjects 'acts of annoyance' and at the same time, it would be useful for it. When he returned into the dissection hall and handed the visor to the anthracite mech, it seemed to accept the invention, clicking it onto his faceplate, activating the magnets that held it in place. "Do you like it?" The scientist asked, carefully approaching the subject. It seemed to be testing it, as the visor began to show graphs, images of locations and stats at a rapid speed. After it stopped, the flier nodded. "Affirmative: Visor: Useful." Shockwave used the distraction of his subject, to prepare for his next step of connecting to it, to analyze its systems. Deactivating his pain receptors, he began to rebuild his own frame, installing six ports and connectors on the same places as the ones of the flier. By now, he had experience in working on his back.

Log entry IV

The subject is highly intractable. Normal dosage of stasis beams are not sufficient, needed amount unclear, experiment had to be aborted. The connectors are able to create high voltage electricity; danger warning. System analyzation process has to be postponed, it might be indispensable to let the subject get acquainted to myself first.

After installing the new appendages to his frame, Shockwave let his system run a compatibility test, which came back positive. The scientist approvingly nodded to himself, satisfied with the result. One glance to his subject told him, that it was still distracted by the visor. Deeming the moment to be a good opportunity to test his new connectors, the purple tank grabbed the stasis-beam-gun from one of the tables and fired at the anthracite mech. The shot hit and sent pink flashes through the frame before him, jolting it. Shockwave did not see his subject's face through the black visor, but he did not need to see, to know it glared at him. /This is illogical. The dosage should have been enough to put it into stasis./ With a multi toned growl the flier turned towards him and opened several panels on his armor, releasing his long connectors. Alarmed, the scientist aimed to shoot again, only to have the gun battered out of his grip, against the wall, by one of the connectors. The threatening appendages started to spout electricity as the subject advanced. "Wait. I did not mean to harm you. There is no need for you to feel threatened." Shockwave sat down on the ground, to confirm his statement, putting himself in a vulnerable position. Confused by his action, the flier halted. After a breem of roaming through the other's thoughts, he slowly nodded and retracted his connectors. "Access to system: not granted." "Understood." Somehow, it was logical, that his subject was not willingly submitting to his experiments. Still, the tank was convinced that he could find a way to invade the slim mech's system. All he had to do was wait and observe the flier and if that would not help, he simply had to upgrade the stasis-beam-gun, but he decided to stick to the first option for now and begin with studying his subject's character first, while giving it time to familiarize itself to him. At the moment though, it seemed to be the best option to lock the room, turn the alarm on and retreat, to take care of his other experiments, after all, it was already late in the night cycle and he had not accomplished very much today. Having decided on his plan, Shockwave put another cube of energon on a dissection berth, in case his subject got hungry and went on to observe the predacon clones.

Log entry V

I have been able to get close to Soundwave after 3 Vorns. He can be highly aggressive when provoked, and destroyed my lab several times. The connectors I have installed on myself enable me to link to his system. He has shown superior hacking skills and seems to be a very high-tech mech, with system capacity unlike anything we have discovered before. With his vocalizer he is capable of emitting various sounds and noises in extreme sound levels, which he uses for entertainment and sonic attacks. The luminescent lines on his armor have shown to be energon lines under protoform. He wears very little armor, as his high powered system causes him to overheat easily.

The breeding of predacons went as well as ever, five batches have been produced in the last decacycle. This time though, while they were sent to the arena in Kaon, they were sent for a different purpose than fighting against gladiators. This time, they were going to fight in Megatrons rebellion against the current rulers of Cybertron. Soundwave had gained more and more freedoms, due to the good realationship the flier and the tank had formed by now, and discovered his passion in hacking the transmissions that were sent over all communications link frequencies. He happened to hear the speeches of the gladiator champion from Kaon, and persuaded the scientist into joining his rebellion. It had been a long, annoying procedure, in which Soundwave used his sonic skills to pester Shockwave, making disturbing noises and playing distracting music while he worked. After a few cycles the broad mech gave in and fulfilled his new companion's wish. They had come into contact with Megatron, because Soundwave insisted on fighting a match against him. The gladiator seemed to be interested in his strength and invited him to join his cause. Now the silver-gray mech had set his sights on Shockwave too, and ordered five batches of predacons for the day of his rebellion. "I have just sent the predacons to Kaon." The purple tank spoke, putting away the datapad, he carried in his hands and neared his strange companion. "Are you listening in on another transmission from Kaon?" Soundwave did not turn around when he answered an 'affirmative'. He had come to trust the mech, who had taken him in, although it had taken it's sweet time.

After recording the transmission the slim flier stood up from his seat and turned to meet the scientist. Without saying a word he walked over to a dissection berth, laid down and opened the covers of his ports. Shockwave froze, bewildered by the action. "What are you doing?" "Access, granted." He droned in his beautiful multitoned voice. "You would let me... connect?" Normally the emotionless mech would not falter in his speech, but this situation made his processor flush with a strange, tingling feeling. Cautiously he stepped towards the berth and extracted his connectors form his frame. With slight signs of hesitance he locked them to Soundwave's ports. First to his sides, then to his back and finally to his chest. One by one the firewalls fell, revealing the superior system they protected. It was stupendous. As was the charge that slowly built within them from the connection. Absentmindedly the purple tank let his hands wander the frame on the dissection table, stroking over every transformation seam they could find, halting on his stomach. "This... is protoform..." He stated, letting his fingertips glide over the soft material. Reluctantly he moved to the other parts of the fliers frame that showed the glowing lines, when he gently touched his inner thighs, Soundwave moaned, arching his back. Never had he felt something like this before. Losing control over the foreign touch, the anthracite mech's interface panel snapped open. When he saw his partner's startled expression, he took off his visor, revealing his own lust filled faceplates. "Access: granted." After a moment of paralysis Shockwave was all over him. He opened his own interface panel and connected it to the slim frame that lay now so invitingly splayed beneath him. As the connection was made, long fingers gripped into the plating of his back, supporting the beautiful arch the other's back was forming. Moans excaped the vocalizers, while the energy flowed so very pleasingly through their combined systems. Their chestplates flew open and crashed together, merging their sparks. Overload hit the two mechs hard, kicking their systems into overdrive, cooling fans whirring madly. The rest of the cycle was spent in blissful silence on the now scratched and abused dissection table.

Epilogue

That day, Shockwave stopped refraining to Soundwave as 'his subject'. Now, he was his bondmate, though never had that word left either of their voice boxes. The new situation was kept a secret from everyone, though they did act on it when they were alone. Officially, they were working together, so when the scientist built his partner the drones Laserbeak, Ravage, Ratbat, Rumble and Frenzy as younglings, it was only for research purposes, self-evidently. But the War took the sparks of all but one of them; bitterness spread in the slim Decepticon that was accused of having no emotions; and when the enemy sent Shockwave into a deep stasis on their abandoned planet the silence took him over and Megatrons intelligence officer erased his emotional program to live on. For the cause. Till all are one. All Hail Megatron.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm alive, yay

will continue my other stories now as well,

as long as I still have time to do so.