Soundwave was far from amused. In fact, he was extremely irritated. After successfully disabling the Autobot named Wheeljack, he received a distress call from Laserbeak, informing him that her location had been compromised and she had been captured. He didn't have time to finish his job with the white and red Autobot scum, nor did he want to waste time when Laserbeak might be in danger. Soundwave transformed into his jet form and flew to her location immediately.

When he arrived, he saw Laserbeak in the center of a jungle, in an open field. At first, it seemed too suspicious, like a trap set by the Scraplets. But he couldn't dwell on that theory at the moment. He picked up his damaged velvet blue symbiote in his arms and disregarded his skeptical surroundings, heading straight back to the Decepticon base.

He didn't report his successful retrieval of the relic to his commander, but instead took Laserbeak straight to the medic, Knockout, for repair. He didn't trust Knockout's loyalty to their leader, but he couldn't deny the medic's skills. Laserbeak was back to her normal form in mere seconds, which only made Soundwave respect Knockout's abilities even more. However, the doubt about the medic's loyalty remained unchanged, and Soundwave would not let a few favors sway his judgment.

He watched as Laserbeak tried to move her wings and successfully flew into the air. She chirped happily above his head, and Soundwave gave her a relieved smile through their bond. He didn't want to interrupt her cheerfulness, but he felt it was best to stop her before she accidentally flew into any medical tools in the medbay and caused complications for him and Knockout. So, he told her to land on his chassis.

But something nagged at the back of Soundwave's mind about the way he had found Laserbeak. He couldn't afford to overlook anything and always had to be cautious, especially now that he had found something suspicious in Laserbeak's system. He found a virus that was cleverly disguised as normal data, but when he scanned her system, he realized that it was trying to attack his own system. He was able to quickly stop the attack with his firewall, but the virus code seemed familiar to him. After some consideration, he realized that he had encountered this code before when it had tried to interfere with his hacking of the humans' server room. The source of the problem was a human child with brown wavy hair named Rafael, who was a true genius even by Soundwave's standards.

If Soundwave hadn't run a scan on Laserbeak's system, the virus would have easily bypassed his security and sent the data about the Iacon relic to the Autobots without his knowledge. He deleted the virus, connected fully to Laserbeak, and was about to head to Lord Megatron to report his success in retrieving the relic.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion and Soundwave was sent flying, crashing into a wall. His visor was flashing with warning messages and he quickly realized that his chassis was severely damaged but his spark was still intact.

"What happened out here?" Knockout followed the sound from his medbay to find the spy master, Soundwave, lying on the ground with his burning chassis. "Oh scrap! Soundwave!" The medic immediately did what his job required and treated the patient.

Soundwave let Knockout do his job, as his system was still forcing in and out of emergency recharge due to the damage. Despite Knockout's skill, it still took almost an hour to restore Soundwave's body enough to take him out of emergency recharge. When he came to, he found himself sleeping on a medical bed and Knockout was still fixing his chassis.

The pain in his chest was too much and it caused him to fall back into recharge again, but he felt like something was missing... something very important to him. He tried to remember what he had overlooked, but when he realized what was wrong, he almost wished he could forget.

Laserbeak.

He couldn't feel her presence anywhere. Not in the medbay, not on the Decepticon carrier, and not even after he scanned the entire planet. It felt like his spark had a hole in it and if he couldn't find her soon, he feared the empty feeling would tear his spark apart.

"Knockout..." Despite his mind being in turmoil, his voice remained emotionless, as he would never let anyone see his weakness... not even Lord Megatron.

The medic stopped his work and looked at Soundwave when he heard his voice. "What are you doing? Don't you see that I am working here? So, if you please be helpful and let the recharge embrace your spark, it would be a lot easier for me to do my job."

Soundwave paid no mind to Knockout's request. "Laserbeak... location?"

Then, the moody medic's expression changed to a frown. Knockout's expression was not helping to calm Soundwave down. "Look, Soundwave, this is not the right moment to discuss this. Your body needs a full medical treatment before anything else," said Knockout.

"Laserbeak: Location," repeated Soundwave.

Knockout sighed. "Fine, if you insist. She's not around here anymore."

"Laserbeak: Where?" Soundwave asked, his emotionless voice sending shivers down Knockout's spine.

"I don't know if you're ready for this," the red con said with a sad expression.

"Laserbeak: WHERE?" Soundwave's last word was filled with an urgency that left Knockout feeling uneasy.

"She's not on this world anymore...she's dead," Knockout said quietly.

Silence filled the room after his words. Knockout wasn't sure if he should continue his work or leave the room before a rampage started. However, no rampage came. He picked up his tools and continued to fix Soundwave's chassis.

In Soundwave's mind, the news was a blow. The hole in his spark disappeared, but something in his spark went with it, leaving him with an even greater sense of pain and emptiness. He screamed inside, trying to deny the reality of the situation, but the pain only grew with each replay of the video comlink in his hard drive. He saw the blast that had taken Laserbeak's life, and he knew that the Autobots would pay for their actions. The pain in his chest was nothing compared to the pain in his spark, and the thought of his loss and loneliness was almost too much to bear.

She's dead.

Why? Why she has to die? Why not him? How could it happen? Soundwave recall the video comlink through his harddrive. It saw like the blast come from inside Laserbeak herself and that made her blast off in to pieces. The pain growing each replay he had seen. And he found only one explanation to this incident.

Autobot.

They will pay.