Soundwave walked through the halls of one of Cybertron's many buildings, passing by Decepticon soldiers as he walked. He had something on his mind he wished to express with Megatron, and when he reached the end of the wide, large corridor, he pushed open the doors and saw the large bot in question, who stood near the back of the dark room by himself with his servos behind his back; apparently in deep thought. Upon hearing the intrusion, he turned around and let his face lighten up upon seeing his chief communications officer approach.
"You wished to speak with me, Soundwave?" his leader asked; Megatron's words carrying their typical deep, commanding tone.
"Yes, Lord Megatron," Soundwave replied in his own monotonous, guttural voice. "My lord, you of all the Decepticons above or below me know me best... and for that reason, I wish to ask you for permission to make a vow of silence that shall last until our cause is victorious, or I am upon my deathbed waiting for immediate execution."
Megatron, unmoving for a moment upon registering the words, shook his head as he chuckled soundlessly. "A vow of silence? Soundwave, my greatest communications officer, if you were to take such an oath how would you talk to us? How could you relay any important information we require from one with a position like yours? Silence would be quite the handicap for you indeed..."
"I have other means of communicating, my lord," he responded. "I simply wish to show my devotion to our cause through a way that I can manage in my position. For all we know, it could inspire others to perform further acts of fidelity in your name."
Megatron lowered his head and hummed for a moment. "Very well, Soundwave. I permit you to make this vow," he spoke, a smile forming on his mouth. With his only objective complete, Soundwave bowed his head to his leader in respect, and quietly left the room, never to utter a word for the remainder of the war.
That vow Soundwave had made eons ago was now null and void. All those millennia spent fervently serving the Decepticon cause, all in single-minded silence, were now rescinded. It was all for nothing. The Decepticon ideals, everything he gained and lost in the pursuit of empowering his cause he had put so much faith into, the near-fanatical willingness to follow Megatron to the pit and back... this ache he felt in his spark must have been the same pain as a theist if they were to have their beliefs shattered before them like a hammer to a mirror.
As Soundwave lied on the gurney, wishing his useless form was atrophying into rust, nearby, Arcee stood in front of the nearby computer monitor, speaking to a friend on the other side.
"...He did WHAT?!" Ratchet cried out on the object's screen.
"He... released himself from his bonds in the night, and used the cortical psychic patch on me while I was recharging," Arcee repeated, pinching the bridge between her eyes with her servo; cringing from having her prediction that he was going to act like this come true.
"...B-but you managed to escape and capture him again, I see," the medic spoke, looking to the motionless Soundwave from the camera. "Don't worry, Arcee. I'll just inform Ultra Magnus, and he'll put that Decepticon where he belongs."
"You see, that's the thing..." the fem started again, rubbing her arm in an awkward manner. "When this happened, it was... two days ago."
"TWO DAYS AG- Arcee! Are you suicidal?! What in the Allspark are you thinking in calling me this late?! He could have broken loose again and extinguished your spark in your sleep!"
"Ratchet, if you'll calm down and listen, I can explain," she tried to reason. "When I arose after what he had done, I found something of a very peculiar nature."
"Well, go on ahead then. Explain these "findings." I'm sure I'd just love to hear them."
"Ratchet, when I found Soundwave after waking up, he was... off."
"...What?" the old mech asked, flatly.
"He was acting as if his motherboard had blown. Just look at him, Ratchet!" she said again, motioning to the Decepticon behind her. "Soundwave hasn't even attempted to move since that day. He's become practically vegetative. It's almost like he's... lost the urge to go on, if I'm correct in that regard."
"You said that... you said that he used the cortical psychic patch on you. Do you think he... saw into your memories?"
"He saw enough to see Megatron formally say that the Decepticons were no longer a cause in his optics. So, yes." Arcee replied. "And from what I'm seeing now, Soundwave; the only bot that served under Megatron and followed every order he gave to the letter without a nanoscalic care for his own self-being, is obeying this final order, and doesn't know what to do with himself now."
Ratchet put a hand to his face and let out a sigh. "I know what your tone is suggesting. Are you saying you want him to keep working with you? Even after what he did?"
"Yes," she replied. "I want to see how it plays out from here."
"Are you sure?" he asked again. Arcee gave him an assuring look, and then nodded.
"Very well..." Ratchet groaned reluctantly. "I won't inform Ultra Magnus of Soundwave's... "disruption" this one time. But if he so much as puts one bolt out of line..."
"I have him now Ratchet. I've changed the code to his locks and by the looks of it, he no longer wishes to escape," she smiled as she prepared to sign off. "I'll see you later."
As the image of Ratchet disappeared from the screen, Arcee turned her attention to Soundwave, and walked up to him. The Decepticon was too busy being caught in his thoughts to even notice her presence.
"Soundwave. Are you listening?" she inquired. He didn't respond in any way for nearly half a minute, before finally lifting his head in her direction, the fem's reflection casting off from the Decepticon's otherwise black visor.
"You might want to know that Dropshot finally decided to say something, but didn't admit to anything concerning what happened to him," she went on. "He did say he has a friend; a shifter and fellow ex-Decepticon by the name of Sundowner that knows what predicament he's in, and gave us info needed to contact him. I'm heading down to Cybertron in an hour to meet up with him, and you're coming with me. Understand?"
Instead of nodding, the slender bot dropped his visored head against the gurney and went limp again. Arcee exhaled a loud breath.
"Soundwave... I know what you're feeling right now. But tell me, would you rather give up and waste away over something that happened in the past, or find something else that matters with the future? You have the rest of your life to contend with, and that started the day Megatron let you and every other mech under his command go."
Soundwave barely tilted his head to her, the answer more than clear that he wasn't going to talk. She gave him a glare and looked away, before looking back.
"Well either way, you're coming with me," she said again. "Get ready to head out in an hour."
With that, Arcee turned about and abruptly left the room, headed for the Cliffside's control area. Unbeknownst to her, Soundwave lifted his head and watched her leave. There was something about that fem that gave him a strange feeling he couldn't describe. He had done an admittedly more-than-unpleasant deed to her two nights ago, yet by the fact he wasn't already grabbed and escorted to a high-security prison by now, she insisted on letting him stay.
But when his curiosity over what this queer, indescribable feeling was had passed, he went right back to getting lost in his thoughts.
Though the sound of voices was everywhere, there was a hush amongst the surrounding crowd as Arcee and Soundwave both walked through one of Iacon's lower-east quadrants. Not bugged or rushed as much with his current predicament the last time he was out, Soundwave took the time to notice a pleasant blue sky showed overhead, and realized everything seemed so... peaceful. To be around civilians again was an alien feeling to him, but he shook it off quickly.
"Dropshot said we'd meet Sundowner at a street corner near here," Arcee spoke in a whisper to the Decepticon. He didn't respond.
Huffing at his persistent, though not unexpected silence, Arcee continued forward with her charge, their footsteps clanking on the metal ground until they both stopped briefly as she spotted a mech possessing an appearance matching the description she was looking for. The character standing by the street corner, who appeared to be waiting for someone, had a dark gray, spiky, thin, shadowy shape to him, and multiple legs trailed down by his side, reminiscent of that of an Insecticon. Both Soundwave and Arcee could see a paranoid gleam shimmer in either of his red, slit-like eyes, and his body seemed to twitch constantly.
"Excuse me, are you Sundowner?" Arcee asked, as they both came up to the jittery individual. Having not noticed them, he turned to the two.
"Me? Ah, yes, I am. And you must b-... S-S-S-S..." he tried to say, before his eyes peered over the two-wheeler's shoulder, and he entered a stutter. Looking as well, she noticed he was gazing at Soundwave fearfully.
"Don't mind Soundwave," she said in a collected voice, looking back at him.
"Wh-what? Don't mind S-S-Soundwave?" Sundowner asked, his form starting to contort into a smaller, insect-like shape as he spoke. "Don't mind Soundwave? Don't mind Soundwave?! That's Soundwave! The Decepticon's chief communications officer and confidante to Megatron himself! What in everything good in this newly-restored world is he doing with you? An Autobot?"
"Call it community service," she quipped, before her face became serious once more upon noticing that the bot's squawking had attracted the unwanted attention of about a dozen random passerbys. "Just... keep it down and listen. I came here because your friend, Dropshot, told me you knew some things about the ones that tried to kill him, apparently."
"I... I... yes, of... of course..." Sundowner replied, calming down and returning to his normal size. His multiple legs skittered to the side a little bit, in what looked like an effort to put some more distance in between himself and Soundwave, who tilted his head to the side upon seeing this. "Wh-what would you like to know?"
"Dropshot spoke of one with a name resembling something similar to "Dead-guy,"" she started. "Do you know who that is?"
"Well, not his name, no, but I know of one that serves under his command," he spoke.
"You do?"
"Y-yes, I know one of the bots that works for him," the shifter replied, his slit-sized optics looking around suspiciously, as if he felt someone he didn't want to be watching him was listening in. "He's a Decepticon that once worked as an armed peacekeeper before the war started, like y-you. He did some bad things, he did some secret things, and his main job was to route out traitors in the ranks and terminate them in any way he saw fit. He still does it today, even after the war has ended! That's the thing! That's how he got into the service of the other mech, and that's why he's trying to hunt Dropshot and I down. Because we quit being 'Cons."
"What's his name?" Arcee asked, a hint of urgency in her tone after hearing that last bit. Sundowner looked around again, twitching slightly before turning back, ready to answer.
"He... he goes by the name of Bar-"
With the sound of a blaster shot going through the air, followed closely by a mini-explosion, the shifter's head was suddenly blown in half, scattering energon and metal within a small radius. Everything seemed to go in slow motion for Arcee as she helplessly watched Sundowner, a look of blankness on what was left of his face, collapse onto the ground. His body's inevitable crash. The first scream from the crowd. The stray energon that collided against the side of her face. And then time caught up again.
"No!" she finally shouted, falling to her knees in a vain reaction to save the bot she already knew was dead, as her mind came to grips with Sundowner's demise. Quickly getting over his death, she looked to Soundwave, who stood next to her, looking off in the distance.
"Soundwave, where in Primus did that shot come from?!" she asked. He simply pointed to where he was looking at, which was the top of a nearby building. As Arcee looked to it, she just managed to see a medium-sized figure disappear behind the rooftop.
"Soundwave, that mech... Quickly! Transform and go after him!" she shouted her order. "I'll catch up with you, but go! Get him! Before he escapes!"
With a nod, Soundwave jumped into the air; the sound of a T-cog going out as he shifted into the form of a human-styled MQ-9 Reaper drone, and jetted off after whoever had fired the shot. Arcee, after looking back at Sundowner's remains and placing a servo on his body, stood back up and shifted into her own vehicle form, speedily chasing after Soundwave and the assassin as fast as she could go, sending out a loud whir through the crisp, panic-filled air.