This comes at the end of "Season Two" (and I'll let your imagination fill in most of Season One, because individually adapting every single episode would have been quite an undertaking, especially with all the other things I was working on at the time!)


The Survivors

I know it was an accident.

That's what the mech told himself, over and over as he waited in the cold, dark shambles of his home. Blinded, wounded, and utterly alone, he could only console himself with the endless mantra: I know it was an accident. No one could have foreseen a Bridge collapse, or the Autobots breaking free and escaping to Earth to join their false Prime. Starscream and Skywarp had done well just to escape with their lives; he couldn't expect them to take him with them, now could he?

Shockwave pulled his arms and legs in close to his chassis and waited. Solar-cycles, Lunar-cycles, planetary revolutions, all seemed to blend and merge behind his sightless optic, forming artistic patterns with no rhyme or reason. What was time, after all, but a way to count down to things you looked forward to and remember things that had happened? He had nothing to look forward to, no reason to remember his past, so why should he mark the passage of time? Shockwave made up his mind to pretend that time was an imaginary concept and that he hadn't been stranded long at all. Someone would come along and find him eventually.

He talked aloud, most of the time, running commentary on his blindness, his past exploits, anything and everything. He took to telling stories to keep from boring himself to death. "Once there was a Shockwave," he would say, "And he lived in a hole in the ground, because he was not very intelligent." And he would laugh at himself and pretend that all was well.

Eventually, pretending became impossible, as his last reserves of energon began to deplete themselves. Shockwave fashioned a crutch of sorts from the debris around him - completely unaware that his cane was made from the limbs of two Autobot drones - and hobbled out into the wilderness of Cybertron, following his internal sensors towards a faint pulse of energon in the distance.

Of course, it could have been an enemy, and in his current state Shockwave would have been in no condition to fight. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and so the former ambassador picked his way painstakingly through the wreck and ruin of a once-beautiful planet. The way was fraught with peril for a mech without the use of his optical sensors, for even the wildlife of Cybertron had become harsher and more violent than their wont, and by the time he had reached a halfway point between his starting place and the energon signal, his blue and gold armor was torn in several places, scuffed and dirty. A large piece was missing outright from his left leg, and his left arm felt as though it was due to fall off at any given time. Shockwave dragged himself onwards in dogged pursuit of the elusive signal.

Eventually the trail led him to what his sensors told him was a sunken enclosure of some kind, in the ruined city that once stood by the Sea of Rust. There were living things here, he could sense them. Carefully, Shockwave slipped into the tunnels of an old temple, half buried in the shifting rust-sands. Something moved, just out of the range of his internal monitors.

"Does it hurt, hurt hurt? What is it, is it?"

It was an odd, burbling voice, wholly out of place with the dry feel of the building.

"My name is Shockwave, I come in peace," the Decepticon gasped. "Please, I...I can't see."

Hands, much smaller than his own, wrapped around his uninjured arm and began to pull him down an echoey space that must have been a passageway.

"Come with us, us us. We will feed it, feed it. Then it must go, go go."

Several more pairs of hands latched onto his hands and shoulders and propelled him forward. There was little point in resisting, especially not when his energon levels were well below the danger zone. Many more hissing, whispering voices joined in from the walls, and Shockwave guessed that there must have been hundreds of the unknown creatures. He fought down an instinctive fright at his unfamiliar situation. The stranger had said they would feed him, hadn't he? Unless they meant they would feed him to something. That sounded about right for his luck.

"I am Kickback, back," his apparent rescuer stated proudly at some point or another, "It is our guest now, now now." Then everything was drowned out as he was forcibly submerged into something cold and liquid. It took a few moments of overcoming his initial panic to realize that he'd been pushed down into an untainted energon river: likely subterranean and thus unpolluted by Autobot experiments.

Shockwave was not pulled out of the pool until Kickback had decided that he had sufficiently refueled, and then he was forced to sit still for long periods of time while someone called Sharpshot worked on his optic.

"Mm. It is an empurata, ata? It has done good things then," Sharpshot muttered as spindly, deft servos reconfigured diodes and circuits beneath the cracked lense. "No Autocratic-Robotic-Imperial suffers the empurata-ata unless they have turned against the Prime."

Slowly, sight began to return to the Decepticon. There were two failed boot-up operations, and at one point the distorted figures around him were a psychedelic kaleidoscope of fragments jumbled every which way, but incrementally Shockwave was able to regain control of his optical functions.

He was surrounded by Insecticons - usually thought to be barely sentient, if not simply wildlife - in the center of their hive. Kickback turned out to be a green and silver grasshopper about half Shockwave's height, and Sharpshot was a very large Arachnacon.

"Th-thank you," Shockwave stammered, "I don't know how I can ever repay you, Kickback, Sharpshot. I don't believe I would have been able to repair myself."

The Insecticons refused to accept the idea of any kind of payment, but asked that he do them one favor.

"Something stirs above us, us," Sharpshot explained, beginning to fall more into the speech pattern of his compatriots, "Something evil. It drains our rivers, rivers, and our warriors are taken to experiment upon-pon. Will you investigate-gate?"

Shockwave was barely aware of the layout of the structure above him, as he'd seen nothing but the subterranean levels, but he thought this sounded fair.

"I will," said Shockwave, and was sent above ground with the blessings of the Rust Sea Swarm and the promises that he would always be welcome to their river.

"Upstairs", there were many fascinating samples of ancient archaeology and old cultural murals from the time of the celebrated Nova Prime, but Shockwave did not have time to study them all, to his disappointment. He simply followed the traces of unusual energy output to a lightly guarded Autobot outpost.

There were few soldiers, but all were on edge, which worried him. Then someone mentioned "Wheeljack", and his energon ran cold.

Wheeljack was completely mad, obsessed with finding order in chaos, yet he did not have the benefit of emotions like Ratchet did. Certain cases could still appeal to Ratchet's spark or protective instincts: Wheeljack literally had no emotions. He had damaged that part of his processor in a failed attempt to infiltrate Alpha Trion's mind with a cortical psychic patch.

Shockwave didn't know what the Autobot was doing in the wastelands, for he was no scientist himself and didn't understand the strange and horrific experiments. Still, he resolved to sabotage whatever he could and rescue any test subjects.

A few well-placed diversionary magma grenades served to distract and detonate the majority of Wheeljack's guards, and Shockwave's Hyperflux cannon - a gift from the Decepticon leader, as ambassador's like him weren't supposed to be armed - was all that was needed to silence the rest.

Wheeljack, however, was apparently from home that day.

Not that Shockwave was complaining, of course. He had hoped he wouldn't have to see the frightening Autobot at all. When he uncovered a file labeled "Project Predacon", however, the Decepticon began to wish that the mad scientist had been present, just so that he could have the pleasure of ripping his spark out personally. There was so much pain contained in the damaged audio files, and countless failures, dissected and "recycled" when they were still alive and beginning to be aware. Shockwave's spark flared in a potent mixture of pain, sorrow, and a rage unlike any he'd known in a long long time.

Shockwave stormed the laboratory and shot down the last two drones without a word, then focused his attention on shutting down the energon shock-field that surrounded a too-small pod holding a curled-up form. He slammed his good fist down on the button and watched the tube hiss open. Cybernucleic Acid gushed out and pooled on the floor as a distinctly beast-like shape fell out and let out a pathetic whimper of pain.

The Decepticon launched himself over the console and landed next to the creature. It was large, maybe about half the size of Kickback, but from the files and the soft plating of its neck, Shockwave guessed that it was not full grown. Perhaps not even out of infancy.

"Hello there," he said softly, "Are you alright?"

The dragon squealed and tried to scuttle behind his pod, trembling.

"No no, don't hide! I won't hurt you." Shockwave held out his good hand towards the young creature. "Don't be afraid, little one."

He shuffled closer, then leaned back quickly as it swiped at him. "Now now, I know you're frightened, but that's not going to solve anything!" he scolded, "I'm trying to help you. Now do you want to stay here, or do you want to come with me?" It only snarled at him and attempted to pull itself further into the shadows. Shockwave shrugged and stood. If that was what it wanted, well, he couldn't force the dragon to go with him.

"Alright then. I'm leaving. If you want to stay there, just mind you keep away from the Autobots."

He hadn't gone more than three steps before something crashed into his legs. Shockwave stumbled, and looked down to find the dragon huddled up against him, squeaking miserably. If he'd had a mouth, Shockwave would have smiled as he reached down and scooped the creature up. "Come along then, let's go tell Kickback we've found the problem, eh?"

Once the Insecticons had been told what Wheeljack had been up to, they swarmed of their own accord to the surface, destroying whatever they found. Wheeljack had evidently built himself a Space Bridge on the top of an old tower in the ruins, and escaped before he could be caught. The Bridge's controls were damaged in his escape, essentially stranding Shockwave in the Rust Sea. He found that he did not mind that nearly so much as he might have. It did gall him to be separated from his fellow Decepticons, but he was hardly alone.

Shockwave stayed in the hive with the dragon-creature, who he determined to be just a sparkling. It avoided light and company for cycles at first, whimpering and hiding whenever anyone approached, but eventually it began running to Shockwave for comfort when it became frightened. Before long, it was not uncommon to see Shockwave sitting and writing down all his observations about Insecticon culture while the beast-form sparkling clung to his back, tail wrapped around its chosen caretaker's middle.

Some of the Insecticons jokingly named the creature "Predaking", though in action it was more akin to "Predacoward". Shockwave tried to spare its feelings - which he was certain it had - by telling it that one day it would be a king in its own right.

Sharpshot insisted that it would one day transform, and though Shockwave was not entirely convinced at first, Sharpshot had not steered him wrong yet, so he began to attempt to teach it language. Cycle after cycle he spoke to it, questioned it, told it stories.

"Once upon a time," he would whisper during its sleep cycles, "There was a Predaking, and he lived with his guardian in the Rust Sea. Nobody was braver than Predaking, and everyone else knew it, so they had to tease him sometimes to remind themselves not to be afraid." Sometimes the sparkling seemed to hear him, other times it just went on recharging.

Once more, time blurred and became immaterial to Shockwave. Nothing mattered but the little Predacon, who grew larger every day. It followed at his heels wherever he went, from his hovel in the Insecticon Hive, to the edges of the Sea of Rust, to the remains of Wheeljack's lab, where he was attempting to recreate the Space Bridge.

"Some day, Predaking," the empurata victim sighed as he pored over the corrupted databanks, "You and I are going to get off of this dying world. We'll rejoin Megatron and the rest of the Decepticons - I'll bet Airachnid would like to meet you. She's such a conservationist! And she loves sparklings - Ah! What is that?! Get that out of your mouth!"

So went many conversations with the young Predacon as, bit by bit, the Bridge was pieced back together with the help of Sharpshot and Kickback. By this time, Predaking stood as high as Shockwave's shoulder, promising a much taller mech should he ever transform.

At last, the day came when the Bridge was ready for testing. But something was not right.

A massive surge of energy swept across Cybertron from somewhere nearby. Hurrying out to investigate, Shockwave saw swarms of Autobots, more than he had seen in long years, surrounding a piece of architecture he'd thought was simply legend.

"The Omega Lock!" Shockwave breathed. He reached down and quickly restrained Predaking when he saw the band of Decepticons the Autobots had surrounded. He knew better than anyone else that the Predacon could not bear to see anyone victimized, and often became a little...overzealous...in righting wrongs.

"Easy, son. We must assess the situation first," he whispered. Though when he saw Megatron, it was all he could do to restrain himself.

The Autobots held three pods containing some kind of creature, though he couldn't make out the species from the distance he was at, and the Decepticons were surrendering. Shockwave concluded that the pods must have contained hostages, possibly friends of Megatron's team. A swift battle broke out as a beam of light and energy shot out of the Lock and into space, and the Decepticons snatched up the hostages and retreated through a Space Bridge. But not before Megatron, with an arm that was clearly not his own, snatched up a blinding blue sword and thrust it deep into the Omega Lock's control panel.

Shockwave glanced back over his shoulder at where Sharpshot stood on the hills below. The Arachnacon nodded once. Go.

"Now, Predaking!" Shockwave hissed, "Before we lose our chance!"

Dragon and Ambassador alike charged forward, breathing fire and firing lasers in a surprise attack on Prime and his Autobots. Before they had a chance to react, Shockwave jumped through the Autobots' still-open Bridge with Predaking close behind. They landed atop a mesa, looking out at a hovering warship.

"The Nemesis!" Shockwave could have cried with relief, though that would have been rather embarrassing with the Predacon present. "Predaking, do you think you can-"

Whatever he had been about to say was lost as a blast knocked him to the ground. Predaking squawked and made a clumsy lift-off as Cliffjumper appeared, energon prod in one hand and the other hand collapsed back into a battle pistol.

"Well well, if it ain't the ambassador. We thought that looked like you, back on Cybertron, but you didn't even stop to say hello. How rude!" With a sneer, he struck Shockwave with the energon prod, sending excruciating waves of circuitry overloads through his systems. The blue and gold mech dropped back to the ground as his attempts to rise were met with pain each time.

"This really is a day of victory!" the Autobot boasted. "Optimus Prime will wipe out Megatron's forces once and for all today, and I get to add another Decepticon head to my wall. You do know, don't you, that I was the one who killed Skywarp?"

Skywarp was dead? Shock stilled the Decepticon a moment as Shockwave's mind raced. Did this mean Starscream was dead as well? He knew of few Seekers that survived the deaths of their Trinemates without lasting damage. His attention was pulled painfully back to the present as the prod was jammed into the intersection between his helm and neck, and this time he could not keep himself from crying out.

Something slammed into Cliffjumper from the side, and he found himself face-to-fangs with the dragon that had flown off when he'd first attacked Shockwave. It did not do to leave a live dragon out of one's calculations, and this one seemed unusually focused. Not that Cliffjumper had much experience with mythical beasts. As he watched in horrified fascination, it transformed into a mech a head taller than Optimus himself. A large hand wrapped around his throat, lifting him from the ground.

"Strike my father again, Autobot, and I will bury that prod in your spark."

With a guttural snarl, Predaking flung Cliffjumper into the rocks, then transformed again. Taloned feet scooped Shockwave up from the top of the mesa and rocketed towards the retreating warship. The Autobots soon spotted the dragon, however, and fired as he fled, striking his wing.

The Predacon collapsed onto the flight deck, still carrying Shockwave, and found himself staring up at Megatron.

"What-?"

Feral golden optics met his own as the dragon uncurled itself, revealing a one-eyed Decepticon hidden under his wings.

"Shockwave! By all that is good, you're alive?!" Megatron hurriedly extricated the still-twitching mech from Predaking's claws and helped him upright. "Are you alright, old friend?" He looked around and glared out at the approaching Autotrooper helicopters.

"We've got to get out of here." He motioned to a familiar shape in the shadows.

"Soundwave! Get this ship into orbit before the Autobots blow us out of the sky! And get the children to the medical bay. We need to make sure they weren't injured in this disaster."

He turned back to Shockwave and looped the shorter mech's arm over his shoulders. "Let's get you inside, my friend."

Predaking growled in a warning manner, swishing his tail back and forth.

"Stand down, Predaking, and transform," Shockwave groaned. "These are friends."

The beast nodded and shifted into his upright form, lifting his chin proudly. "If you trust them, then I will not attack." To say that the shock on Megatron's faceplate pleased the Predacon would have been a little bit of an understatement. He was almost gleeful as he followed them into the ship, down to Knockout's medical ward.

"Shockwave, who is your companion?" Megatron whispered, "I've never seen his kind before!"

"Ask him." There was the distinct impression that Shockwave, though mouthless, was smiling.

Megatron turned to look up at the hovering Predacon. "If you do not mind my questions, noble dragon, what are you and where have you come from?"

Predaking considered the question a moment, still unaccustomed to speaking and unsure of how to answer. Finally, he smiled and said, "Once there was a Predaking, and he lived with his guardian in an Insecticon Hive. That is all that I know, and likely all you need know."

He glared, waiting for someone to comment on his beast-form, or his rough, unused voice. Instead, a tiny, tiny organic creature sitting on the berth, holding a Cassette's servos, piped up, "COOL!"

Megatron smiled. "Predaking," he said in a weary voice, "You may have just turned the tide of the war in our favor."