Soundwave awoke in a familiar room. The soft blue glow of the datapads gently illuminated the ceiling.

He got up, clutching his head. The last hallucination had to have been the longest. His entire frame ached. Unfortunately, it was impossible to know from what. It was a miracle that his unconscious mind even directed itself back to this familiar place; the old Iacon archives, where he had spent much of his time in the past few years. He studied the wall of datapads. Row after row they trailed on, almost up to the ceiling. He had written all of these, during his exile. It was something to do- boredom was one of the first things he had encountered. Along with the mind-numbing silence of being alone.

It was a certain kind of silence, one that could be heard even when watching the happenings of the other dimension. It rang constantly in his audios. There was a constant empty, aching feeling he had never experienced before.

He had never felt "loneliness" until now. He had never cared about being ignored. It had been part of his daily function; the only time he was ever engaged with others was when he was receiving orders. And even then, it was only Megatron. That was the way it worked. It was better than having an imbecile like Starscream rant to you all day.

He shook off his thoughts. No need to ponder what was. Besides, wallow in the past too long, and he might start hallucinating again.

So he busied himself. The old Iacon hall was in constant need of repair. There were datapads to be written, things to rearrange, and. . .

There was something he was missing. Something terrible. It had to be something important, and he was forgetting it. He couldn't think of what is was.

Back to work. . .

"Hey, Frenzy! I got called into work today. Wanna come with? Bulkhead says this is going to be my biggest job yet."

Frenzy sighed. He hated his brother's enthusiasm for his "job".

"Well?" Rumble looked at him.

*You know how much I hate it when you do that. I'd rather not watch.* Frenzy glared.

"Alright, I'm going without you then. See ya later." Rumble responded out loud, and then added *You have to respond out loud sometime! People are gonna think you're nuts.*

Frenzy rolled his optics as Rumble left the room. Their quarters, no doubt about it, had likely been Soundwave's quarters. It had been the only uninhabited living space when the twins arrived, and Frenzy suspected it was for a reason the Autobots did not care to explain. It didn't make his creator's passing hurt any less.

After making sure that Rumble had already left the ship, Frenzy left the quarters as well. It didn't feel good to spend too much time in there. He wandered down the halls that he had only seen in blueprints; after all, he had been sent off-world before the ship was built. Rumble's skills had been needed on one of the colonies, and Soundwave was needed to finish the building of the Nemesis. And thus they were separated.

His spark ached with grief. If only he knew back then that that would be the last time he would ever lay optics on his creator. There were a lot of things left unsaid in that half-hearted goodbye.

Frenzy walked to the bridge, trying to distract himself. Even though it had now been three weeks since he had arrived, he was still startled by the casual atmosphere that greeted him. Most Vehicons were off-shift right now, having rations or even just hanging around. The few Vehicons that were on duty paid no mind to the Minicon as he strolled right up to one of the unoccupied computers. Which was odd, because most of the Autobots tried their best to keep him off the main systems, giving him the small computer in his quarters to mess around on. It wasn't connected to much, and it didn't have any information he needed.

It became obvious that this computer wouldn't either. This computer was used to monitor communication signals coming from off world. However, Frenzy noted, the computer was not operating at complete efficiency. The signals were muddled somehow.

Well, I can fix that, he thought, before opening up the computer's diagnostics and getting to work.

It didn't take him that long to fix the problem; communication signals were now boosted to full capacity. A swarm of unreceived messages flooded into the notifications, all of them from "Wheeljack".

"What are you doing? Get off of there."

Frenzy turned to see Smokescreen behind him. The larger bot picked him up off the keyboard and sat him roughly on the ground, despite his protests.

"Oof! What was that for?" Frenzy asked, annoyed. "At least try and set me down gentler!"

"Sorry, little guy. Ultra Magnus told me to keep you off the computers." Smokescreen replied.

Frenzy made stern eye contact before uttering, "Little guy?! You're lucky I'm not my brother. He would of socked you right of the face of Cybertron."

"Wow, really? Well-"

"Besides, I just fixed your communications links. See for yourself."

"Uh, okay. . ?"

Smokescreen stepped up to the computer and browsed through the messages that had just arrived.

"Wheeljack, huh? Wow. He must be far out there! Bulkhead's been waiting for a reply for weeks. We'd just assumed he'd moved out of range."

"Well, it's obvious you have more range than you think you did. You just have to turn of the frequency inhibitor. I doubt anyone's trying to send coded messages anymore."

"Dang! We should let you onto the computers more often." Smokescreen smiled." You could be our new tech guy! Where'd you learn all this stuff? Heck, you're younger than I am!"

"Soundwave taught me everything he knew." Frenzy replied.

"Soundwave?! Really-? I meant- uh, you probably learned from the best, I guess." This topic seemed to make the recruit very uncomfortable.

"I was his Minicon." Frenzy shrugged. "You can believe whatever lie they told you in bootcamp, I don't care. But some Decepticons actually were fond of each other."

Smokescreen was taken aback. "Woah, I'm sorry. That came out all wrong."

For once, he sounded very sincere.

"No offense taken." Frenzy responded.

"Well, I'm going to go put in a good word for you to Ultra Magnus, and go tell Bulkhead about the ten missed messages from Wheeljack that he has."

Frenzy watched as Smokescreen quickly exited the bridge. For being the first real casual conversation he'd had with an Autobot, it went pretty well.

There was not much else to do, so Frenzy left the bridge. The halls were filled with Vehicons on break. The friendlier ones waved hello as he passed by; the ones who wouldn't be bothered ignored him.

All of the sudden, his comm. link rang on an emergency frequency. He answered.

"Your brother's not responding, and-"

A wave of pain washed over him. His arm throbbed. It wasn't his pain, though. He took several sharp breaths.

"I need. . . a bridge to the construction site! Now!" He commed.

A Groundbridge opened and he ran through.

Pain shot up his arm. Soundwave dropped the datapad he was holding. The Minicons. His Minicons.

Rumble!

He opened up a bridge to the coordinates as fast as he could. He ran through to find a construction site in chaos. A crowd of Vehicons, mixed in with the occasional Autobot, were all standing around something. Running straight through the people in the crowd, unseen and unheard, Soundwave approached.

Rumble was collapsed on the ground. His arm was nearly torn off, and energon was pooled all around.

*Rumble, Rumble!* Soundwave linked in vain.

Another Groundbridge opened up behind the crowd. Frenzy came sprinting out of it. The Vehicons cleared a path for him to come through.

"Rumble! By the Allspark. . ." Frenzy shook. ". . . get a medic. Get a medic!"

"We're trying the best that we can!" Bumblebee shouted back. "The Spacebridge is having issues and-"

"GET A PRIMUS-FRAGGING MEDIC!" Frenzy screamed, louder than Soundwave thought possible.

"We need a bridge to the Medbay." Commed Bulkhead.

The Groundbridge appeared behind the crowd.

"Make way!" Bumblebee cut through the crowd, cradling the injured Minicon and rushing him through the Groundbridge.

Soundwave followed.

"Knockout, we need you."

The comm. rang with words he never thought he'd hear again. The door to his cell opened and Arcee entered.

"What happened?" Knockout replied. "Finally decided to-"

"Rumble has been injured and Ratchet's stranded on Earth. If you are a real medic, it's time for you to prove it." She took his stasis cuffs off.

His optics grew wide, and then narrowed. "Where's my patient?"

Knockout ran down the halls, Arcee barely keeping up. The Vehicons looked on in surprise. His absence had not gone unnoticed.

They entered the medbay doors.

"Primus. . ." Knockout gasped as he laid optics upon the Minicon's injuries.

"GET TO WORK, SLAGGIT!" He flinched to see a hyperventilating Frenzy staring him down.

Knockout went and frantically grabbed the tools he needed, before taking a deep breath and getting to work.

No doubt Soundwave was watching at this very moment. He could practically feel Soundwave's optics drilling into his frame. . .

Rumble thought he heard a voice. A single voice. His creator's voice.

*Stay with me, Rumble. Stay with me. . .*