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Okay, so, just so everyone knows, this chapter is going to be a sort of 'interlude' again. Only this time, it is used to explain Soundwave and Lazerbeak's presence, among the other Minicons obviously.
If you don't CARE about Soundwave's journey to find Remnant and Shockwave, skip. But for those that do…
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From here, through the wind-blown sand and dust gusting around him, Earth hung in the sky like a distant, luminous jewel. Mars' dark side had turned to it, and with it the sun had gone, which left the distant, troublesome little planet to hang, surrounded by the millions of stars in the night sky. Part of the Earth was in shadow, too, but even it glowed - billions of lights pockmarking the continents and even parts of the oceans, now, where Humans and their fellow Earthlings made their homes. It was beautiful, to be sure, but…
He couldn't help the way his mind felt driven, dragged to the same old tracks. Like old circuits, glitched into a loop and sputtering at the back of his cortex.
How many of those twinkling, trillion shaded lights had long since gone out? On Earth, and even in the infinite darkness around it. Homes that had fallen, swept aside by storms or industry. Stars that had winked out, breathing great gusts of fire and wrath in their final gasps.
Such thoughts always pushed to the fore of his mind, when he was alone, in the dark…
Made him feel small…
"And so many thought we could rule all of that." He murmured, his voice snatched away by the wind along with his weary sigh. "Fools… Every last damned one of them, fools."
His fools, though…
He detected the motion from behind him far, far before his optics would have ever been able to see through the sand and dirt. That was the reason they had chosen Mars, after all - it was isolated, dark, and almost impossible to see anything on, especially when the sands were blowing the way they were now. No one could possibly observe them here, at least according to his old friend. Anonymity had never been his strong suit, stealth far from his preferred methodology, so he simply assumed that the 'Bot knew what he was doing.
Finally, after a couple more minutes, he heard the familiar voice. "Lord Megatron."
He sighed and turned, "That is not my title, Soundwave. You know that."
"I do." He nodded, crossing his arms and allowing his supplemental auditory systems to thrum a quiet, gentle beat absent-mindedly. "I do not care, however."
"I suppose I can't force you to." Megatron chuckled, shaking his head wryly and allowing himself a small smile. Soundwave was… An interesting 'Bot, to say the very least of it. "Your journey was… Untroubled?"
"No one has followed me." Soundwave answered, "Or you. And none are watching. Lazerbeak is in low orbit, watching for us."
"That isn't what I meant…"
"Ah." He bowed his head slightly, as if to hide a smile his flat face couldn't show. Looking back up, he said, "It was… Quiet. Peaceful."
"Good." Megatron smiled, "I'm glad you didn't run into any problems."
"Indeed." A moment passed, less time than a Human's heart took to beat, and Soundwave rumbled. "I don't think you called me here for pleasantries, Megatron."
"I didn't." He confirmed, "But I should have."
"Oh?"
"I don't have many… Friends, Soundwave." Megatron admitted, turning to gaze up at Earth once again. As he considered it, he only had a handful still alive - and that thought seemed to draw the blue out of the distant planet as he stared. "I would prefer to actually value those I have left."
"I… Understand that, Megatron." Soundwave murmured, "More than most might understand."
"Indeed." Megatron nodded - Soundwave's bond with his Mini-cons was widely known, if less widely maligned than it had once been. "It's why I came to you with my… Concerns."
"I understand." Soundwave said as he joined him, standing at his side and gazing at the distant planet and the twinkling stars that mantled it. Quietly, he went on, "I found nothing."
"I see…"
"Do not misunderstand." Soundwave said, turning to meet his gaze when Megatron hummed and turned to him. "I found nothing, Megatron. No debris, or residual sign of Shockwave's destruction in the space-bridge collapse. None of even my most sensitive instruments, and most skilled allies, could find a single nanofilament anywhere in this system or those adjoining it. Nor could I find even circumstantial signs of tampering with the surviving machines involved in the incident."
"Much of those were destroyed."
"Much of the Spacebridge mounting, assembly, and power conduits, yes." Soundwave agreed, "But the computers, triangulation systems, computational matrixes… Nothing of importance was destroyed. And nothing that could be left out in any sort of escape attempt, for that matter. If he had done this, I would know."
"So, then…"
"I do not believe Shockwave died in the Spacebridge collapse, Megatron." Soundwave said, turning his gaze back to Earth. "Nor do I believe he personally oversaw it to facilitate an escape, either."
"But we have no way of finding out where he went?"
"Only one."
"Which is?"
"The Spacebridge collapse trailed a stream of particulate matter, likely from the destroyed components of the Spacebridge mounting and assembly, though it could not be identified, out through space." Soundwave explained, "A ship could follow the trail."
"I… Cannot ask that of you, old friend." He wanted to, to be sure, but Megatron reigned in his desires and sighed. "I will have to content myself with knowing he is alive."
"We do not, though."
"We know as well as we can."
"...You truly want to know what happened to him." Soundwave hummed, "Don't you?"
"Of course." Megatron nodded, "I… You two are among my oldest, most loyal, comrades. If I knew he'd died, I could make peace with that. If I knew he'd escaped, even. But not knowing… Pains me, Soundwave."
"I understand." Soundwave nodded, "I will follow him, then."
"But-"
"He is my oldest companion as well, Megatron." Soundwave pointed out, "I want to know, too."
"I see." Megatron smiled, then sighed, "Thank you, Soundwave. You don't owe me anything at all, let alone something like this, but-"
"Nonsense." Soundwave shook his head and turned, "I owe you more than you could know, Lord Megatron."
Megatron sighed and shook his head, turning to watch the stars. "Not Lord… Not anymore."
Soundwave's only answer was to increase the steady 'thump, thump, whump' of his audio systems as he left. As if to drown out Megatron's words. Though both knew Soundwave better than to think he'd actually missed anything Megatron had said.
Soundwave didn't miss anything.
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The trail he found stretched out into space, and consisted of mostly standard radiation typical of Spacebridge failures. When a Spacebridge failed, the resultant explosion had two methods of dispersal. The first, and most violent, was a simple cascade explosion, where the quantum mechanics at play in the semi-wormhole would breach containment and violently react. When this happened, entire cities could suffer extensive damage - or be destroyed, if the installations handling such transit weren't properly rated against such explosions.
Which, to his experience, they often were not, whatever the safety boards in charge of their construction said.
The second result came if specific safety systems survived the crashdown enough to register the overall failure, and react appropriately. Which also required that the systems needed for said reaction be functional. In this event, they would simply eject their energy and matter roughly in the direction the Spacebridge had been aimed. This was mostly due to the computer systems, navigational heuristics and overall computational information having already been collated and processed in the first place.
Given that all of Earth's cities were still standing, it was more than evident which of these Shockwave's failed bridge had been like even without the diagnostics data the investigation which followed it had logged.
Though, of course, he did have that data, too, courtesy of Laserbeak.
Fortunately, this all confirmed his suspicions - as much as they could be - and provided a basis for his investigation.
Unfortunately, that 'direction' was a cone expanding outwards from its zero point of origin across millions of star systems and, eventually, out of the galaxy itself and on towards several more. Trillions of worlds…
But, he knew several ways to narrow down the options.
First - such spacebridge 'slinging' necessarily interacted with gravitational forces along the way. Everything it passed, from moon to black holes, would slow it. But this required time, which equated to distance. And given the nearby systems in the cone showed no signs of atomic depositing - or none he could detect, at least - and he believed Shockwave was alive… He eliminated every system within ten lightyears of the origin point.
This eliminated thousands of worlds on its own.
Second - by the same principle, certain gravitational bodies could and would outright end the quantum spalling. Namely, black holes. If items spalled through these, they would be consumed - and often cause disastrous quantum shifts within the structure of space-time around the event for hundreds of years in radius of unpredictable size. This had only happened once, to his rather extensive knowledge.
Or, well, the knowledge he had gathered from hundreds of scientists' archives, at any rate.
Using their data, theories, projections and the data based on the Teyvat Event, as it had been called, he formed an interface network and overlaid it on the holo-navigational console. Four hundred and seven cones, smaller than the original, expanded within the overall search field, eliminating forty three percent of it. Combined with the initial removal, he had eliminated fifty two percent of overall possible systems.
Third, and final - he accessed the archived survey data cataloged by all those who had returned to Cybertron prior to its annihilation. For Shockwave to stay, there would need to be an astronomical body of sufficient mass for him to live there. Planetoids and above would be ideal. But, for sake of his initial search pattern at least, Soundwave limited himself to systems surveyed which had planets. And systems that had not been surveyed - as well as those which had only had distant gravitational analyses run, which could varyingly detect the presence of planets to some degree.
Another ten percent of the cone eliminated - so, sixty two point four percent of possible system.
Down from a few trillion to a hundred billion…
It was progress, at least.
He plotted a navigational route through the cone, with thousands of stops from which he would launch unmanned drones, and sighed.
"Prepare for launch."
A host of psychic-link affirmations registered at the back of his neural cortex and he bit back an old, familiar spike of disquiet. So few, now…
"Launching."
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After one hundred and eighty seven billion, five hundred and two million, one hundred and eighty seven thousand, two hundred and eight systems spanning fifty one million 'jumps' he finally registered something. A weak signal, barely detected by the drone he had dispatched thousands of jumps back, originating in an unsurveyed, but gravitationally scanned system which had been tagged 'gravitationally anomalous' and 'hazardous' - both of which had lead to it being excluded from exploration.
However, that fact only made the Cybetronian signature - and that is what it was - more interesting.
After seventeen tries which lead his 'jumps' to bypass the system entirely, always slinging him - sometimes with rather severe damage to his relatively small ship - to the edges of the system, he gave up. Instead of jumping, he simply directed his way towards it on impulse thrust. Such would take decades, centuries, to get him where he needed - but from how weak a signature he had registered, Shockwave wasn't likely to be evading him.
And his drone had come in using the same measures - and thus, they worked.
Finally, after several years of impulse travel, they reached the system…
Only to find it mostly unremarkable.
There was a simple gas giant - standard size, standard signature. There was an asteroid belt - similarly standard. And four planets. Two were barren, small, and so irradiated even a Cybetronian would struggle to survive without advanced protective systems. Or terraforming. Neither of which he could detect from the husks. They were devoid. The fourth planet from the star was the aforementioned gas giant.
The third was an Earthlike world, with a shattered moon spalling and fragmenting in its orbit.
It was the source of the still-weak signature… A signature that barely registered as stasis. Presuming it was on the surface of the planet, at least. Which was unlikely - an impact from a 'slinging' would crater him. He would be underground, most likely.
And so, he began triangulation…
He found him after less than a standard solar-circuit cycle - or what he estimated to be one, based on variable speeds. On a smaller continent, in the southern hemisphere. But, just when he had arrived…
So too did Organics.
Organics who helped what was left of Shockwave free of his earthen tomb, and took him to their home. From which so much came… And given that he was here to ascertain Shockwave's status, he was content to watch.
For a time.
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Over the next few years, he dispatched his Mini-Cons to covertly retrieve data through a half-dozen means. Sometimes, it was through battlefield salvage, collecting notebooks, electronic devices, and communications units left behind in remote enough regions to go unnoticed. But, most commonly, he merely set up relay-interceptors. Native life was primitive, relying on barely any encryption at all. Most, in fact, simpy used phrase-codes. Impossible for common means to decipher, since words could mean anything.
For Soundwave, though, it was almost… Relaxing.
The planet - Remnant, according to collected data - was a world at war. Racial war. Humanity - or rather, some similar offshoot, since it was impossible for these creatures to be Human for a host of reasons - versus another, similar sub-species. The Faunus. The motivation - hatred based on such petty differences as, for the most part, a tail, or differing ears.
It was all so… Petty.
And familiar.
"I sympathize with them." Laserbeak admitted when Soundwave sensed some… Disquiet in his old friend. Circling high over 'Menagerie', where Shockwave had settled in to, of all things Sounwave could have anticipated, aid the Faunus - at least, so he had stated.
Soundwave remained to be convinced wholly of that desire.
The presence of what he and his crew had coined the 'Pseudo-Insecticons' - he lacked the data to verify fully their nature, unfortunately, and hadn't been willing to risk alerting Shockwave as of yet - only furthered his suspicion.
"Why?" Soundwave finally asked, "Your sympathy is hard-won."
"They are hated, derided, for what they are. Nothing they've done." Laserbeak answered, "I… Remember that."
"I see…" The rest concurred - pinging across their connection with anxiety, pain, and most acutely, anger. "We could intervene."
"That would reveal us."
"I am aware." Soundwave answered, "What do you want to do?"
"Hmm…" Lasaerbeak was silent for a while, before he said. "Watch. Shockwave, motive aside, has it in hand."
"Indeed." He answered, reaching out and asking. "Frenzy?"
"Invasion underway." The hidden Mini-con reported stiffly. He was hidden in the mountains of Mistral, with a signature jammer to hide him from passive detection systems and a good line of sight on Mistral, where Shockwave himself had come to battle. "Almost over, though. Enemy fleet breaking."
"Destruction level?"
"Minimal." Frenzy answered, "Shockwave is being… Careful."
"Interesting." Soundwave rumbled quietly, "Continue monitoring-"
"The northern fleet has reached Menagerie." Laserbeak reported, "They are bombarding the city…"
"Hold positions." He ordered, "Maintain visual feed."
They both confirmed. And, for a long while, they were quiet. Menagerie burned, the fleet attacking it was driven off, and Mistral was steadily dealt with. All of which proceeded normally. The Faunus handled most of Mistral, alongside the Insecticons who aided them. Shockwave, though, busied himself tending to his wounded. He dug them out, cataloged their damage, and then repaired them.
By hand.
He was… Almost gentle, according to the visual feed.
Interesting…
Then, a Faunus approached and told him something. Something Rumble could not hear, from so far away. Something terrible. Something that made Shockwave recoil. Then he turned, and lashed out, smashing a building before going still. And then, finally, transforming and blasting away at plate-damaging, engine frying levels of abrupt acceleration.
"Word from Menagerie…" Laserbeak murmured, "Ghira Belladonna, Shockwave's rescuer, has been killed by Atlas."
The name was familiar beyond Laserbeak's words. Soundwave pressed a button and found a picture, courtesy of Laserbeak, of Shockwave kneeling in water. At a wedding for the man in question.
Suddenly, the sensors he had hidden in Atlas to monitor radio transmissions lit up - screaming in static and then dying. Concerned, he tried to contact them and found… Nothing.
The ship's monitoring systems detected atmospheric escape moments later - Shockwave had left the planet, bound for the broken moon.
"Laserbeak, Frenzy, find out what happened." He ordered, turning his ship to join the search for answers.
He needn't have bothered, however. It only gave him his answers minutes before he, and everyone else in the vicinity of the planet, would have gotten them in due time. Soon, news was being broadcast from every outlet on the planet. Atlas had fallen.
Destroyed in a fit of revenge by a titanic machine…
"Revenge." He murmured, "Now that is… Interesting."
Revenge implied pain, anger, loss. Emotional responses. Responses Shockwave was barely able to perceive, so far as he knew. Responses he had never, to Soundwave's knowledge, registered for an organic. Shadowplay should have made it all utterly impossible, in a variety of ways, yet hundreds of thousands lay dead.
All for an emotional outburst…
"Dispatch a communique beacon." He ordered quietly, "Detail coordinates, and anomalous system conditions. Confirm message - Shockwave, alive. Status, unknown. Advisory, emotional registry expanding."
"Megatron," he went on, dictating to the recording servitor that would relay it into the drone, "Shockwave is… Acting strangely. Emotionally. Organics present on planet. Interaction - confirmed, violent, but also, friendly. Intimately, I believe. Request directive on what action to take next."
He launched the unit and eased back in his berth, watching the moon. It would be a year before the buoy reached a transmission network. But nowhere near as long as it had taken him to arrive. Most of his time had been spent searching. But his drone could Spacebridge to known space to broadcast the message. And it would be answered in mere weeks, before it made the longer journey back to him with the answer.
For now, he had to be patient…
And watch.
What by the All-Spark was happening to Shockwave?
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Randomguy65 :
Lol
Atomic R4y :
Glad ya like the direction! To note, I'm not nearly as practiced with TF characters as I am with others. So if Soundwave, or his Mini-cons, are a bit off, feel free to offer tweaks. I'll practice as I go. But do understand that to some extent, these characters won't be one to one. I just don't know them enough to manage that, lol.
Aleucard :
A very astute observation!
Fortyfourb :
Glad you're excited XD
Kolomte'49 :
El diseño que imaginas no es TERRIBLE. Bastante cerca, de hecho. Solo un poco más ágil que Bulkhead.
Ozpin es un personaje bastante oscuro en mis obras, por lo general. A menudo termina en el lado positivo únicamente por casualidad, oponiéndose a Salem. Sin eso, sus maquinaciones pueden parecer frías y peligrosas. Podría seguir, pero no quiero aumentar el recuento de palabras, lol.
De todos modos, ¡me alegro de que disfrutes!
Geth Guest (Guest) :
No, I mean by lodging a trove of trash and junk data in every input registry, thus confusing and disorienting the AI experiencing it. Which, if you recall, is how Legion hid your presence on the Heretic Station in ME2. XD
Android latino :
The word you're looking for is 'Mini-Con' and yes, that is one.
Vendetta :
What a person does when hurt and angry is not the same as what they do while calm.
Shockwave was always CAPABLE of annihilation. Yet he refrained, UNTIL he lost his ever loving shit. The lack of that rage here differentiates the two, and you would be treating Shockwave unfairly if you neglected his displayed behavioral patterns. Especially since he doesn't really know or care for Summer the way he did Ghira.
All of which confuses him, for lore reasons, hence him snapping when he destroyed Atlas.
Also, he doesn't know what's happening - only that he promised not to let Summer die, so he intervened. Hell, Hazel outright tried to keep him away and keep him alive, before Shockwave realized what was happening.
He has zero motivation to killin this scene - so he doesn't. And he has the power to win WITHOUT killing, so he exercises it.