Disclaimer: I don't own TF or any of the canon characters.

PART 9
#Prosecution of Justice

Taking down Ratbat was relatively fairly easy, all things considered.

He had already taken a scandalous hit to his public relations after enforcers investigated the arsonous crime scene and somehow deducted that the cause of such devastating event was caused by a lack of safety precaution – not too far from the truth, considering the explosives were made from disqualified energon shipments back at the dock. And Shockwave even had the bright idea to recapture the whole interrogation and illegal mecha-experimenting that Ratbat was fumbling around with, which he later stored in motor functions of his processor where they didn't bother wiping. If that wasn't evidential enough, he also sent Enforcers a sample of Dark Energon they recovered, along with recordings of his private conversations with these unofficial military forces regarding their not-very-legit transactions. The fallout was quite total, with the senator being accused of multiple charges varying from light to severe, including - but not limited to - homicide, power corruption, attempted assault, illegal possession of prohibited substance, and so on. In short, it wasn't difficult to proclaim deactivation as the former Councilmech's only option at redemption.

Ever since Shockwave had gotten back from the incident, he had decided not to intervene anymore into the society and political fields of their campaign. Instead, he became the helpful scientist, occasionally offering valuable clues anonymously to the Enforcers directly, not through Orion's active prosecution, efficiently creating a divergence from his most recent crimes and disassociating him from any possible suspicion. Regarding his interrupted research of Dark Energon, he took a lot of time to think things through, but in the end, he stashed a large quantity of them far away into an abandoned warehouse which location is privileged to only him and not another spark, pledged to return and wrap stuffs up at a later date after the trial is concluded, then returned to run nomination as a replacement Council member for Ratbat's vacant seat. His ambition was large, and his run for power was universally supported by students, workers, manual laborers, and practically anyone that wasn't considered wealthy. Soon, he finished his education, and rather than receive an ordinary certificate for an average student, he was granted a commendation for simply attending Iacon's High as it first-ever senator graduate.

Orion, on the other hand, decided not to return. Despite Shockwave's countless offers of "rank pulling" and "soft, harmless influence" – which he over-achieved to such an extent that the school itself had to draw back all charges placed upon him as "burglary" or "theft" and recall every member of the Royal guard as an accidental slip-up in security - he turned everything down with an excuse of "too occupied with Ratbat's case" sometimes before, and a "not really ready to return yet" sometimes after. He never came back for his diploma in Archivation, and just stick with being the same, lame dock worker for quite the duration of Ratbat's trial. Due to overwhelming workload on both sides, a lack of communication eventually leads to the fallout in their admirable partnership, and though Shockwave was more concerned with being voted than talking to an old aquaintance at the moment, even Orion realized when something snapped inside him. At first it was barely perceptible and was only expressed superficially as short-term lost of memory. Soon, manifestations became violent reactions towards working colleagues, and it wasn't until he physically assaulted another worker, that he began diagnosing himself. As he seemed to realize, the more distant they grew from each other, the worse his conditions became.

He knew something was wrong, and blamed his intuition for excessive paranoia, but still stalked his friend's radio frequency just to be certain. And he wasn't disapointed, though, when his expectations finally came into reality.

"Hey there mech! Nice job on landing that position, pal! I knew you had the potential for it right the day we met!" A random mech smiled at Shockwave, and he raised his cube of high-grade, taking a small sip while returning a polite nod, just for diplomacy's sake. He was more than certain that was their first-ever contact of any sort, but pretending to be well-known companions had seemed to become the proper social etiquettes as of recent.

The ball room was crowded, stuffed with mecha and filled to the brim, all being aristocrats from the more luxurious stratums of Iacon inhabitants. All of whom wore such bright, good-natured grin on their faceplates while plotting such nefarious schemes inside their processor. They might congratulate him and welcome him into their class, but they wouldn't even let each other into one's own home. Ever so cold and calculating, just like him.

Like he once was, he corrected himself, before he met Orion. The night seemed so far away, yet he could still feel the ghost of a stylus making contact with his dented helm that the weird mech had projected at him as a poor excuse of a greeting. Primus, he missed the good old days when he didn't need to keep his shields up all the time, when he could just be himself. Young, ambitious, uncaring much. He missed all the heated bantering about silly philosophical questions that would extend far into the depth of off-cycle and left them restless for the entire following workshift. He missed bragging about his superiority everywhen he could point out a specific flaw in Orion's thesis. He missed the exhilarating thrill of waking up in the middle of the off-cycle to tinkle with stolen scientific equipments, mutturing a few inaudible gratitude for the slagger that went through so much trouble getting them for him. Heck, even when the shit already hit the fan, he could still reminisce about each waking orn, frantically scanning through their private encrypted channel to make sure Orion didn't encounter any trouble on his runaway. Frag, he missed that mech.

Subceeded into a trip down the memory lane, he had incognizantly began hyperventilating. In the midst of cramped, narrow space, surrounded by crowds of stranger. And so he really couldn't be blamed for suffering a mental breakdown and running straight for the nearest entrance, ignorant of whomever he bumped into on his feverish sprint.

The off-cycle was getting even darker as the van-former sped down the highway in a speed that would certainly put him behind bars for life. The heavy lead filling his gestation tanks had just turned acidic, and the unfounded phantom of a pain wrenching deep beneath his abdominal plating only succeed in pushing his top velocity a few hundred mile-per-hours higher. Cybertron's double moons were shining bright in the dark, aura of deep blue and light purple blending with his own white headlights, colouring everything around them into a typical scenary taken from a horror movie, where the life-ending phone call would be anticipated to go off at any time unexpectedly-

-and before he even finished that thought, an old radio frequency fickled to life. Orion heard a familiar sobbing sound from a ghost of his past.

"I can't do this anymore. I can't. I know you probably aren't listening in to this frequency, and I'm having one of my episodes where I monologue again, but I can't do this anymore. Wherever you are, I know you can't hear this, but please do. I need you…"

"… Shockwave?"

Author's warning: Part 10 is sad. Be prepared, you have been warned.