The command made Soundwave freeze in his tracks, having his back at Megatron. Shockwave had to turn to see what was going on. The moment he turned, he saw a bright light with a loud blast. Megatron had taken a careful aim and shot at Soundwave.
The whole moment felt like it lasted forever as the concentrated and thin shot of energy went right through Soundwave's back, piercing everything on it's way. It burst out from the other side of the spy's body, taking Laserbeak with it, making them both look like they were made out of very fragile materials. The force of the shot slammed Soundwave forward and he fell onto the floor right next to Shockwave. The chains got dragged on the floor, and stopped a little later, spreading everywhere around him. The heat from the energy had melted his insides around the small hole in his chest, and it prevented any energon from seeping out of the spy. Soundwave was completely immobile and even his purple glowing lines started to fade. The whole bridge went quiet, except the ship's distant hum.
Everyone was in shock for what had just happened, and looks were exchanged between Megatron and Soundwave. Even with Starscream's continuous betrayals in the past, their Lord had never shown this much brutality towards anyone. The evidence to even prove anything was just words of a two known traitors.
"You fool!" Shockwave shouted angrily at Megatron. He was in pain and his digits clasped the surface of his dark chest plate because the shot had destroyed the device which had a small fragment of his own spark in it. The scientist knelt next to Soundwave, clumsily turning him around to see if he was still online. For Shockwave's relief, the injury wasn't as big as it seemed, and his spark had remained unscathed.
"I'd be a bigger fool if I had actually believed everything I was told." Megatron started walking towards Shockwave, glaring at the two next to him, making both of the traitors move fast aside. They didn't dare to look at their Lord, who apparently had seen through everything.
"Did you all really think that out of nowhere my most loyal servant would all of a sudden decide to kill me? If Soundwave was up to something like that he had the chances for it countless times, and I'll gladly admit that I have even given him the perfect opportunities to do so." Megatron paused for a moment and turned around to everyone, spreading his arms. "And here I am, still standing." The Decepticon Lord stopped in front of Shockwave who was still kneeling down and holding Soundwave in his arms.
The scientist didn't look up as he was deep in his thoughts calculating current events and how he'd finish what he had started.
"Now that we're all gathered here." Megatron continued as Breakdown arrived carrying Knock Out who was still in a very bad shape, but conscious.
"Let us hear what really happened."
Breakdown looked at Soundwave, who was all beaten up, once again.
"I brought Knock Out like you ordered, sir." As he came more in into the bridge he let Knock Out on his pedes, holding his arm around his shoulder so the medic didn't fall.
"Lord Megatron, when I said we need to remove the thing from Soundwave, this isn't exactly how I instructed it to be done. Nevertheless, it was a success." Knock Out noted that their spy was alive while he himself was still in pieces. But he had his charm left, as he said all that with a daring grin. It was easily heard that he was in pain and trying his best to keep it together.
Soundwave's facial screen flickered a little for a very short moment, and Shockwave would have noticed it, if he hadn't looked up at Knock Out with a burning hatred in his optic.
"I'll say it short. The scars I have are partly because of Soundwave, and partly because of Shockwave. We all know that the spy has this... what ever you call it, a hate thing against everyone. Wrong. It all was because of something in him that he didn't even know existed. Like, come on. A spy isn't supposed to get hurt, and he never did, thus it wasn't noticed, until now." Knock Out took a little pause since using his energy to keep appearance wasn't such a good idea after all. "Soundwave came to me and I tried to remove the device from him, and each time I tried, I triggered his self-defense. Since we did it outside the Nemesis, I had limited tools at use. Just as I had succeeded to sever one the connections I was attacked by Shockwave who tried to get rid of me. If it wasn't for Soundwave I would be one with the AllSpark." Knock Out watched the scientist and knew immediately he'd never be on his good side. He turned to look at Megatron who insisted him to continue despite his weak condition.
"The second scanning that I did, with adjustments that Soundwave himself had added to the scanner, showed that he was temporarily restrained by this object. This restrain did not only include unwanted self-defense mechanism to trigger on physical touch, but other safety measures as well. After Shockwave's 'fix' on him, it also limited his abilities overall. Such as information output and information input via audio receptors, excluding optic vision." The broken medic got quiet again and flinched a little.
"You were supposed to keep it short, damnit." Breakdown mumbled with a frown.
"Dear Shockwave, I must say your actions have caused quite a havoc on my ship. I'm afraid I simply can't let it go without appropriate punishment. To all three of you, as it is easy to see that you're in liaison." Megatron glanced at Starscream and Airachnid who looked like they didn't know how to be.
After a short moment of silence everyone could hear the familiar recorded sound.
"I was betrayed by you and Megatron." Shockwave's voice said in the clip which Soundwave played while being still.
"I will do everything I can in my power to make you worthless to Megatron. And then I shall take you back."
"Silence!" Shockwave lost his cool and lifted his arm up in attempt to punch his fist into Soundwave.
Megatron didn't do anything to stop Shockwave, and the Vehicons around the bridge only watched. Breakdown would have tried to interfere if he wasn't helping Knock Out to stand, but the medic felt that something different might happen now that Megatron blasted the cursed thing out of Soundwave.
Before Shockwave's hit would land, the the Third in Command dodged it by rolling away onto the floor, taking a good distance to the purple mech. The hole in his chassis hurt like the Pit was burning in him, and it fueled his anger that had risen to the surface again. Soundwave's cooling systems were working at maximum and it made him hiss loudly. The pain forced him to crouch and as he touched the floor with his digits, a small but bright bolt hit his arm, coiling upwards, and disappearing as fast as it had appeared.
The peculiar presence that Soundwave had always sensed in the ship was now stronger than ever before. He knew that Shockwave had experimented with spark fusion to make the Trypticon Station operational, but this presence was something else. The fusion had brought only chaos and confusion into the very being of the Nemesis, and each time Soundwave was fixing problems here and there, it was like he had felt a faint joy around him.
Now the joy was gone and anger was overflowing everywhere. It also affected him, and to ease the processor ache it caused, Soundwave instantly ripped off one of the floor panels in front of him. His tendrils emerged to attach themselves to the wires below, but not just the usual two, but six which surprised almost everyone. The other four had been concealed deep in his body, and now that the limiter wasn't in him anymore those were able to activate themselves again. The distant blur he had for eons was gone and Soundwave felt fully free for the first time. He had been Shockwave's toy since he got out of the Well of All Sparks and today would be the end of it.
The moment the tendrils attached themselves to the ship's systems they all could hear the soft hum get louder. The bridge's floor started to tremble, and all of a sudden the metallic plates started to shift, revealing the ship's structure. Not only did the bridge move, but the whole Nemesis was more and more askew, and everyone but Soundwave had to grab onto something to hold their balance.
"Hey, watch it!" Breakdown shouted as he had a hard time holding Knock Out and himself from falling and rolling over to the other side of the bridge.
"Interesting." Both Shockwave and Knock Out said while they were watching what was happening around them.
With screeches and cracking sounds, like something needed oil in their systems, the walls started to transform as well, forming shapes and structures, capturing all bots but one. Even Megatron didn't avoid the imprisonment, but he could have if he wanted so. Instead he chose not to just to see how all this would end without him interfering. Everything was interesting indeed.
"Soundwave! Have you short-circuited your processor?" Starscream literally screamed as he couldn't move at all. The ship had captured the seeker's feet first, making him unable to change and fly away. Airachnid was right next to him in her spider form struggling to get away.
"I won't let you escape." Soundwave played another clip with Shockwave's voice and now that everyone but himself was immobile, he stood up. He retrieved his tendrils from the wires and circuitry of the ship and left them hover around himself. The pain grew stronger as he took steps towards Shockwave since the blast had injured his spinal cord. The atmosphere around him felt gloomy and vexed, and with the tendrils moving around in the air like snakes he looked like he wanted to kill.
"Let us be reasonable, my dear Soundwave." Shockwave tried to stall him with talk while trying to get his arms free. He knew what the spy was able to do, and now probably even more than he could ever estimate. Back on Cybertron he had to repair his laboratory countless times when something went wrong and the spy was able to free himself destroying everything around him. The closer Soundwave got the more Shockwave felt rational thinking would get him nowhere.
Instead of trying to talk more Shockwave managed to engage three of his tendrils towards Soundwave. In hopes that he could injure the spy even more to prevent anything from happening to himself the tendrils attacked as fast as possible.
It didn't require much effort from the angry mech to block the attacks, intertwining their tendrils together, forcing Shockwave to a halt. Soundwave didn't move for a while and only looked at the mech in front of him, who looked back in silence. With quick moves, the remaining three tendrils attacked the scientist, invading his ports in the back of the head by literally tearing off the covering panels. Shockwave yelped in great pain since Soundwave didn't even bother doing it carefully. Instead he felt great pleasure hurting the other and he didn't hold back at all.
Nobody had ever before seen Soundwave show any kind of emotions, and this very moment was a solid proof that he actually had them. The Vehicons and others were quietly staring at him and absorbing everything they saw since who wouldn't want to witness such a rare event.
The purple patterns on the spy began to glow again, a lot more brighter than earlier. The brighter they glowed, the more painful shrieks Shockwave made. The cold atmosphere on the bridge caused Soundwave to literally fume as hot air escaped his seams and vents. It took all his efforts to search the information he wanted, in Shockwave, to destroy every trace of him ever existing in the scientist's life.
But the task was too great for his current condition with Shockwave's vast processors. He managed to erase only a very small proportion of those memories before he started to grow weaker and more exhausted. Shockwave twitched and screamed until the glow in his red optic dimmed and he became limp.
Forced to retreat Soundwave pulled back his tendrils, leaving the unconscious Shockwave alone. He staggered back, wincing in pain again. The efforts he made caused the older wounds to open, and even the injury that Megatron gave to him was now seeping out energon. He turned his head and looked at the others in silence while holding his arm on the hole in a try to prevent too much bleeding.
The Nemesis slowly recovered its equilibrium, and the hum quieted down to it's normal level.
Starscream didn't know how to react to the spy's stare towards him since all he wanted was to get away as far as possible. If only the ship's floor and walls weren't so mutated, and keeping him captive, he would have fled ages ago. He looked at Megatron, who had his back at him, and then moved to see Airachnid, who hadn't succeeded to escape either. The acids she had spit around her weren't melting the metal at all.
"You... killed him, didn't ya?" Breakdown muttered quietly as he kept looking between Soundwave and Shockwave in doubt.
"He didn't. A physical impossibility with just a direct contact like that to the head. And also, why would he do all that if he could have just extinguished his spark?" Knock Out replied, partly wishing Soundwave had done it.
The shot, energon leaking, and mentally exhausted mech started to wander around sluggishly, collecting all pieces he could find of Laserbeak with his tendrils. He looked at the fragments of his creation and then glanced at Megatron who hasn't said anything this whole time.
The tyrant looked back at his servant who was taking steps towards his direction and finally stopped in front of him. The situation looked charged as they both kept staring at each other, until Megatron spoke.
"Do you wish to kill me?" His tone was calm and solid and he kept his optics on the mech before him.
"Negative." Soundwave said with the monotonous voice clip and knelt down in front of his Lord and Master, bowing deep.
"Do you wish to be under my command again"? Megatron continued.
"Affirmative." The spy replied getting up carefully right after.
More words weren't necessary as the purpose of the conversation was to show that nothing could come between them. Because Soundwave had finally been able to reach Megatron with his telepathy, they went through the longer and private discussion silently. Everything that had happened, every thought and even feelings, they shared with each other, clearing all misunderstandings that might have occurred during the chaos. In their information exchange, Megatron had felt the need to mention also, that he was taken by a surprise that Soundwave didn't see through his act at first. And for the broken mech's surprise, his Lord said something that reminded of a very subtle apology.
The walls and floor started to slowly shift back to normal as Soundwave turned to Shockwave. He looked at the unconscious one with mixed feelings. How much information did he manage to erase and how will it affect when he wakes up? And if the spy didn't succeed well enough would he be a target of an insane scheming again?
All Soundwave hoped for was that Megatron's punishment would be severe enough for all three to remember not to mess with him ever again. He looked back at his Master, then others around the bridge.
"Current condition: In need of repairs. Destination: Medical bay."
Soundwave turned to leave and walked out of the doors, dragging the chains with him and leaving a trail of energon droplets behind.
The spy was thinking through all the mess that happened and thinking also the future and what it might bring. If Shockwave were to recover the memories, which is more than likely, they probably would see another attempt of all this. Only difference was that for the next time Soundwave would be fully prepared for anything.
Without further thoughts he opened the door and entered the medbay. He carefully put the pieces of Laserbeak on a free table and lied down onto one of the berths. Soundwave let out a hissing noise and stopped caring about what happened around him. His wounds would be repaired soon anyway since after all that trouble he went through he calculated that neither Knock Out or Breakdown would try and attack him. The knowledge that all three traitors were stuck in the bridge for a good while gave him a secure feeling and made him fall into a calm recharge.
Author's Notes: Thanks for reading!
I hope you enjoyed the story :) It is my very first fanfic ever and since I've been reading them for quite some time now, I wanted to try and create my own. I have to admit I had headaches, eye twitching and brain melts trying to figure out dialogues and keep characters in character. But in the end I enjoyed writing this a lot!