Hammerhead.

Warnings: Violence, bad language, gore and possibly some sex.

"Through this doorway what's on the other side, never knowing exactly what I'll find, locked and loaded, voices screaming: let's go, come on do it, here we go!" – Hammerhead, the Offspring.

Timing: Post season 2 finale, set few weeks after Beauty of the Beast in my very own BotB Prime Timeline (due to the fact that season 3 – The Beast Hunters is about to be aired at the end of March).

Rating: M (alternative – if there will be any – or extended chapters will go MA and will be available on my Tumblr account, the address is available on my profile page).

Pairings: Megatron and June, Bumblebee and Miko, maybe some Shockwave and Arcee.

Disclaimer: Transformers Prime © Hasbro. Story's plot and OC's © me. There may be some OC's that aren't mine – they belong to their respective creators.

Tranquilize.

Silently reflection turns my world to stone,

Patiently correction leaves us all alone,

And sometimes I'm a travel man,

But tonight this engine's failing.

I still hear the children playing...– "Tranquilize" The Killers

Starscream leaned on the wall behind Soundwave and Shockwave as both mechs were typing franticly at their keyboards. Soundwave managed to hack some satellites and now they were searching for Megatron. Additionally Laserbeak was flying around the military base to search for any tracks of their leader. There were no results.

"I believe it is time to admit that we failed in our attempts." Shockwave stepped back from his console. "Lord Megatron left no traces except of that large puddle of energon."

Starscream was tempted to throw some kind of snarky remark but he knew that it won't help and they will simply ignore him.

Soundwave's arms sagged slightly, then his visor displayed schematics for Laserbeak as the silent mech summoned his minion back.

"Yes. Let us see what Laserbeak had found." Shockwave directed his optic in the general direction to where Laserbeak departed.

"You do realize that despite any kind of efforts, we may never find him?" Starscream decided that it was about time to speak. Two mechs glared at him simultaneously. "I'm just saying! Sure, we should look for him, but there is a chance that we'll fail to find him. You must consider such a possibility."

Soundwave glanced at Shockwave in mute communication.

"Yes." Answered Shockwave. "But for now our leader is missing and we will search for him and if we'll fail, then we will make arrangements."

"Fine." Starscream waved with his servo nonchalantly. "But what about now? We must somehow manage now."

Soundwave cocked his head and then displayed pictures of himself, Shockwave and Soundwave.

"I see. Well, I guess it should work for a short while." Starscream lost most of his steam when he saw Soundwave's proposition. He couldn't argue with such an arrangement. They would maintain the order by sharing various duties, Starscream would rather prefer to replace his Master (even if only for a moment as the seeker knew that Megatron won't stay dead no matter what) but at this point even this solution was acceptable.

Everybody was staring at Megatron. Ratchet was more or less disgusted, Arcee seemed thoughtful, Bumblebee looked rather angry, Wheeljack and Bulkhead were ready to put Megatron out of his misery, Smokescreen didn't show any emotions and Optimus Prime was simply perplexed.

Megatron lay on his back in the infirmary section of the common hangar. His wound was huge, molten wires and energon lines jut out in various directions. It had to hurt, it had to be an agony and all but Ratchet and Prime saw the moment when Megatron was hit.

The Decepticon Warlord was about to step into Groundbridge, he was almost in the vortex when it happened. First it was this awful sound, crackling like ionizing air when lightning struck, only there was no thunder itself, no mighty roar of split air when hot plasma passed electrons. Few crack noises and nothing more; when tiny, midget lightings danced on a long barrel of large weapon mounted on a pick-up truck. Then the device came to live, the end of this barrel-like structure that might have been a projector; started to produce light, the charge started to build and it grew fast. It took less than five seconds and the charge detached itself off of the barrel and it flew fast toward Megatron. It just zipped and hit the Warlord in his left lower back. It didn't make any noise.

Then it was just scary. Not because it was Megatron who was shot, but because the weapon could do that to him, one of the strongest and most mighty Cybertronians. What would happen if it hit someone smaller, with thinner armour?

Megatron didn't made a sound as the charge just tore his abdomen open, he only looked surprised, shocked maybe, as some smoke rose from his side. Then he reached and touched the wound, his face was focused and he looked like he used his entire energy on staying conscious. He lifted his servo to give it a glance, the servo was covered in energon and then Megatron felt. Like human made rag doll. His knees buckled, then the rest of him just hit the concrete.

That was report that Arcee gave, the rest only confirmed what she said, adding one or two juicy details.

Laserbeak settled on Soundwave's chest plates with pleased chirp and connected to her master. Little minion liked to be on her own, but moment of connection was always a relief. Laserbeak was more than aware of size difference between her and other Cybertronians and it made her apprehensive, being under her master's protection was comforting. Physically she was genderless drone, and as such she was assembled but with time and upgrades she received she managed to develop personality. Her mind wasn't much more than a sparkling, maybe youngling, but that was just enough.

Soundwave felt his minion pleased state of mind and probed for surveillance data which Laserbeak instantly provided. One of his tentacles reached to the console and connected itself to the keyboard. The data stream begun to flow.

Shockwave and Starscream observed the entire scene in silence. Shockwave knew the nature of Soundwave and Laserbeak's bond, he was the one that assembled all of Soundwave's symbiotes or provided frames for those that were created as Cybertronians and their sparks were only transferred to new bodies *). He helped Soundwave with first upgrades and knew all his minions.

Starscream wasn't sure what Soundwave's lackeys really were, except for Ratbat, but that was different story. He only knew that for now only Laserbeak was around (thank to Primus, Unicron, Fallen or any other deity, demon or another supernatural being that he didn't believed in) and that Soundwave was ready to (and actually did that couple of times) obliterate anyone who would harm his little hellions. Or at very least break a lot of frame struts **).

Suddenly one of monitors came to life with video feed and everyone's attention focused on the view.

It was the battlefield. There were human vehicles, few guns left behind, couple of M.E.C.H. corpses (handiwork of Vehicons without a doubt), some chips of purple paint on the concrete where few Vehicons went down for couple of minutes after being shot with electric charges; and a puddle of energon.

Laserbeak hovered above it and followed a trail of blue drops that led in direction opposite to where M.E.C.H. vehicles, guns and bodies were. It was clear that someone took Megatron from the battlefield. The trails disappeared suddenly, Laserbeak circled the area for few minutes but found no more droplets of energon.

"It is clear then." Starscream pointed at the screen with his thumb. "Megatron was taken."

"We already knew that much." Shockwave tapped the keyboard and zoomed frame where the energon trail ended. "But he was carried before he was taken away. It is a clue to who taken him."

"Your point?" Starscream raised one of his opticbrows and gave one eyed Decepticon impatient glare.

"With local approach I deduce that whoever took Lord Megatron was not human. Our Master was carried, humans couldn't lift him, they would take him into one of their transport vehicles from where he felt."

"Clearly." Starscream waved with his servo. "There is only one party on this planet that could grab Megatron and just frisk away, and we all know who they are."

"And we just learned that our enemy has a Groundbridge at their disposal. It can only indicate that sooner or later they will resume their usual route in disturbing our operations."

There was silence for about a minute when suddenly Soundwave visor came to life and loud "MEGATRON" could be heard as the spymaster replied it spoken with Starscream's voice. That caused every 'Con on the bridge to jump, including Shockwave.

"Yes, well, we know who got him." Starscream growled angrily after he composed himself. "The question is what they did to him?"

"They didn't kill him on the spot when he was vulnerable. That can only mean that they have some use for him." Shockwave gave Soundwave a glare, but the silent mech showed no reaction to this silent scolding. "And I would greatly appreciate, Soundwave, if you would adjust your volume."

"Autobots" This time it was Megatron's voice that Soundwave used, with adjusted volume.

"Yes. I would say they will use him to divert our attention when they will be pulling some sort of stunt." Starscream's voice was low and rough.

"Megatron." Repeated Soundwave, again with Starscream's voice.

"What do you suggest?" Shockwave moved his antennae with something that could pass for curiosity.

It was interesting trait for the ex-senator, ever since the Emputara and Shadowplay ***) he became as emotionless as a wooden log, but the 'most ambitious of cerebral re-engineering' that was meant to render him emotionless and make him 'lucky to muster an emotional response to anything' couldn't just delete all the motions because it would cause serious cerebral endamagement and disturb cerebral – Spark connection when CPU wouldn't react to Spark's signals properly, there was danger of crashing when CPU would receive signal from the Spark and react to it as dangerous, it would label it as such and consider all files from the same source as contaminated. So all the emotions that couldn't be eliminated – those most fundamental ones that had their source in Shockwave's spark and not his CPU – were channelled directly to his antennae, because Lobe (who performed the Shadowplay) had no idea what else could be done with them. As a result Shockwave couldn't muster emotional reaction to anything – consciously, but subconsciously he reacted with tepidity by moving his antennae a little every now and then. Few could read those reactions. Megatron and Soundwave were two of those who could. Shockwave himself couldn't.

Soundwave tilted his head and played 'dial-in' sound.

It was Starscream who understood TIC first. "You lost your mind." Upon seeing that Shockwave who was new to Earth didn't know what Soundwave meant, Starscream explained. "He wants us to call Autobots! First of all, we don't know where they are. And – to put it plain – we don't have their 'digits'."

"You reached Special Agent William Fowler, I'm currently on an intensive training retreat…"****) Was Soundwave's only reply. In Fowler's own voice.

"You can't be serious!" This time Starscream voice went high. "This fleshling is the last one to help us reach Autobots!"

This time Soundwave displayed picture of Nurse Darby.

"Yes, well, we don't know if she knows where those twice damned Autobots are hiding, and if she would want to help us."

All Starscream received was a glare. He looked at Shockwave who didn't seem willing to help.

"Fine! We will try Fowler." Starscream gave exaggerated sigh and turn to the console. "If anyone knows where those Auto-brats are it will be him. Just don't blame me if he'll tell us to go and self-handle ourselves!"

"We can't just leave him like this." Ratchet poked Megatron with one digit. "He's already in shock and it will lead to him off-lining. If we're not going to do anything it would be just easier to finish him off."

"Ratchet, we do not finish anyone off." Optimus was still at loss with what to do. "Even if it would be the easiest way."

"We're not going to help him; I mean he is the Slagmaker! Right?" Smokescreen poked his head from behind Prime.

"We already did. By taking him away from that facility." Arcee glared down from large pile of crates she perched on. She was on eye level with Optimus.

"But that was to prevent M.E.C.H. from taking him and learn about his fusion cannon, right?" Smokescreen stretched his neck struts to glare at the femme.

"We can always put him in stasis lock. It would require patching him up to make him stable, but without proper repairs he would stay this way." Ratchet activated his scanner and began to examine Megatron. "It would certainly give you more time to quarrel."

"Can you do it?" Prime observed as his Medic read the results of examination with almost divine patience.

"It shouldn't be a problem. There's enough energon in his systems to support him for a while, he didn't lost that much because the shot sealed his energon lines. But the mere impact was tremendous shock to his systems. He was lucky it didn't got his spinal column and that it's just a single injury."

"As bad as I was?"

Ratchet stiffened upon hearing his Prime asking this in calm voice. He turned to look but Prime's yellow optics was focused on Megatron and already healed face was stoic.

"No, but almost. He has single injury, but you can see that he got shot throughout. Your injuries were caused by rubble and high temperature, his injury is charge induced. I can tell you that he was in a world of pain before his lights went out."

Prime stared at Megatron for a moment before he transferred his attention at his Medic. "Put him in stasis lock then. Make sure he's stable and then we will decide what next."

"I say let him die." Arcee gave Megatron hateful glare. "For all he did, to us, to you Optimus, he deserves a lot worse than this."

"No Arcee." Prime looked at the blue femme with great sadness. "Decepticons are our enemies and we do not trust them, but they are Cybertronians like us, and there is less and less of us as the time pass by. What had happened to me when Megatron levelled mesa allowed me to understand one simple truth: we are a dying race. There is no Allspark available for quick breeding of new Cybertronians, and re-capturing it and placing it back in its place is pointless as it would put as back where we were when we decided to eject it. And the slower method would require placing a femme or a carrier mech into safe environment, which is unavailable at current time. We need to proceed with great caution now, or else soon our genetic pool will shrink too much."

With this Optimus Prime left the area and went to rest. He was still weak and it was best to allow Ratchet to work in peace.

TBC

*) See Megatron Origin, volume 4 page 14 – Soundwave and Senator Ratbat.

**) Cybertronian equivalent of bones. It could be translated as "Or at very least break a lot of bones".

***) See More than Meets the Eye volume 11/2012 "Shadowplay". Quotes taken from "Shadowplay".

****) Transformers: Prime, season 1, episode 10 "Deus ex Machina"

Self-handling – I think you all know what Screamer meant by that ;)