A/N: Woo for first Transformers: Prime fic! This one's come about as a result of seeing Soundwave stuck in the Shadowzone, reading a couple of other Shadowzone fix-it fics, and watching the New Captain Scarlet episode "Chiller."

Jolt here is basically the one from the second Michael Bay movie, except, well, femme and with an actual personality. And a voice.

Enjoy, and review. Even if you think this concept is overdone. (Except it isn't; all the Shadowzone fix-its have human love interests, and that crap is messed up.)

- Tom

KEY:

"Normal talking."

"Soundwave using/someone else's/voice."

Found

Soundwave clanked through the Nemesis' lower decks. Entirely alone.

Of course he was. Even though he wasn't sure whether he was in the Shadowzone anymore.

He could be. He could not be.

After all, he had managed to open a groundbridge under his feet and pull himself through it, even if he only ended up in the same place.

Had he done that? Or was it just something he was going to do? Soundwave didn't know. Time had no meaning in the Shadowzone. If that was where he was.

He knew there were Autobots in the ship, and he knew they were not any of the Prime's team. He knew Cybertron was reforged; Laserbeak – still in the real world but transformed into a light fixture or something of the sort – had been recording them, and they had been talking about "the Rebirth" amongst themselves. He did not know if Megatron was alive, or dead, or undead, but the spy knew that Starscream was alive, and so were some Decepticons. Somewhere.

He wasn't sure he cared anymore. After millennia alone, all Soundwave really wanted was for someone to see him, or hear him. Any contact was better than none at all.

That said, he was still not sure he was an enemy to these Autobots.

Clang-click. Clang-click. Clang-click. Here came one now – a femmebot if the noise from their stabilisers was to be trusted, and probably carrying something heavy.

It could, in theory, be Starscream, Soundwave considered. Even so, he stepped back and accidentally stepped through a wall into what he recognised as Energon Storage Bay Four.

That was another annoyance: he could walk through the ship's walls and doors as if he were permanently wearing a phaser gauntlet, so he assumed he must still be in the Shadowzone. Or partly in it. One or the other.

The approaching Autobot was definitely a femme – Soundwave could hear her talking to herself.

"-down Jolt, it's not like there's anyone down here anyway, it's just a little creepy, right? Although it's hardly surprising that it's creepy, being a Decepticon Nemesis-class destroyer and all. You know, just calm down and put the Energon where it's supposed to go, and don't bump anything like last time, don't need to blow the whole ship out of the sky aga-"

Soundwave suddenly realised she was coming closer towards him, and sank back into the shadows.

The femme rounded the corner, awkwardly carrying far too much Energon for her small chassis. Her right stabiliser slipped on something and she toppled over, the Energon landing on the deck and pulsing dangerously for a second.

"Scrap! Not again..." she cursed.

The femme froze until the pulse died away. Seeing the Energon was safe, she compressed it and piled it up among the rest.

She turned around and walked backwards, commanding the Energon cubes to "Stay!" until she looked up and then stopped.

"Hello?" the femme asked. "Who's there? Can you hear me?"

Did she see him? Was it possible?

"Hello?/Can you hear me?" he repeated to her in her own voice.

"Okay, wow, Primus, that's creepy. Are you in here, uh, whoever you are?"

"In here/Can you hear me?" Soundwave said, using her voice again.

"I can hear my voice, whoever you are. Is that you?"

Soundwave's spark swelled. She could hear him. "Energon where it's supposed to go/Jolt/hear me/in here?" he said.

"Jolt! That's my name! Where are you? No, wait, you, well, I, well, you...oh whatever, you said "Energon where it's supposed to go," that must be the storage bay! Okay."

"In here/In here/In here/Jolt/Jolt/Jolt!" Soundwave replayed again and again.

"That's my name, don't wear it...wow. I found you." she said, pulling aside Energon cubes to reveal Soundwave.

"Found you/Found/found/found..."

Jolt stepped back from the tall, slim mech in front of her, who was speaking to her in her own voice. She stepped into the hallway.

"Come on out here so I can look at you." she asked, and the bot walked through the Energon, and the wall, out into the hall.

"Primus, are you a ghost?"

"Know." her own voice said.

"No?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

His helm nodded forward slowly. His face was covered by a shiny black screen with a large crack in the middle, which distorted the holographic oscilloscope displayed on it.

"If you aren't a ghost, what happened to you?" she asked, looking him up and down.

Three recordings played. The first one was from an old Earth movie that Commander Bumblebee was fond of quoting: "A glitch in the Matrix/", the second a recording of Head Medic Ratchet: "/groundbridging to/", and the third a voice Jolt didn't recognise but sounded harsh and cruel: "/this so-called Shadowzone, Starscream?"

What Jolt got from that was that something went wrong when he was groundbridging and he was trapped between dimensions. Something that was covered extensively in Groundbridge Training – never cross two groundbridge portals – had evidently happened.

No-one had ever gotten out of a Shadowzone pocket in recorded history without an external Groundbridge to help them, though.

As her eyes scanned his slim chassis she suddenly noticed the purple crowned face high on his right arm panel.

"You're a Decepticon!" she said, aghast, then flicked out her left arm blaster. "Servos in the air!"

The 'Con complied. "Just calm down." her own voice came from him.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" Jolt cried, firing her blaster.

The bolt shot straight through the Decepticon and hit the wall behind him.

"Ghost." the 'Con said, lowering his hands.

"So you can't touch anything besides the floor?"

He stretched out his long arm and stuck his four clawed digits through her head and waved them around to demonstrate.

"Okay, stop now, that's really disconcerting." Jolt shivered and the mech retracted his arm. "It's really cold."

Suddenly her comlink buzzed and she pressed two digits to the right side of her helm. "Jolt here."

"Jolt. It's Windcharger, you okay? I heard blaster fire."

Jolt mouthed to the Decepticon to keep quiet. "It's...it's...uh...nothing, Wind. I just got, uh, spooked by something in the cargo bay."

"You're unbelievable, Jolt. It's just a room, it's not going to hurt you." Windcharger snorted.

"Says you who never goes down there. It's all spiky and that purple Energon is really scary in the dark." Jolt replied huffily.

"Whatever, Joltie."

"Don't call me Joltie! JOLT out." Jolt retorted and closed the comm line.

"What am I going to do with you..." she wondered aloud to her mysterious companion.

"/not going to hurt you/" Windcharger's voice rang from the Decepticon.

And for some reason, she trusted that look(?) on his cracked screen.

"I'll have to hide you somewhere. Maybe if you just stayed in the Energon vaults? I promise I'll come and see you." she asked.

He nodded.

"Oh, and I'll have to figure out what to call you. I can't just call you "Decepticon" all the time, and I guess you can't really tell me your name...so..."

She thought for a bit. "I'll call you Echo."