The room the guard showed her to was simple – just a berth and a few shelves for storage – but it wasn't nearly as dark and cold as her cell in the Decepticon fortress. She walked across the room and gazed out a large window; there wasn't much to see but dry and arid land, with bots coming and going from the base.
It was oddly comforting to watch other bots converge and mingle amongst themselves. She hadn't seen much of that with the Decepticons – only guards constantly patrolling every edge of the fortress.
She sat down on the berth but kept her gaze outside the window. She absentmindedly gazed out, the events of earlier still weighing heavily on her processor.
Her biggest question: What had happened around Optimus? What was that weird feeling she got – but not quite a feeling, more like a built-in instinct – when he stood around her? Was he capable of doing something to her, messing around with her processor or her perceiving of feelings? She had been under Shockwave's simulations countless times; she knew when an outside force was controlling her.
What purpose could he have for doing so, though? Was he trying to figure out her secrets, dig through the files of her mind? She remembered rumors floating around that Soundwave was able to do that, although she never got any sort of indication he had done that to her.
And the other thing: Optimus had seemed just as confused as she was. Did he know she would feel whatever he was doing to her, and he was attempting to mask it? Or was he really just as clueless about whatever happened as she was?
At this point, she was stressed, tired, and frightened of her new world. She decided later would be a better time to think on all this.
She was wondering what to do in the meantime when she remembered something: her powers! She couldn't believe she had forgotten! For so long, her powers had been a distant part of her, something she had but could never access. Until now.
She wasn't even sure where to start. She had few memories of ever using her powers, or of what they could do, or of how they even worked! She decided it would be best to start small. She pulled the blind over the window, then surveyed her room.
It was pretty empty, but maybe she could try moving the shelf? It wasn't too big, and it might be a good place to start.
Sona looked at the shelf and thought of what she wanted to do. Then, she looked down at her servo and slowly opened it. A small flicker was beginning to appear – a wispy strand of blue violet that emitted a soft glow and swirled in her hand. Or rather, separate strands of blue and purple that curled together to create a blue-violet glow. She watched it in fascination, in disbelief that she could create something so beautiful from nothing but her thoughts, but she stopped once she realized she had accidentally activated her music box.
The song that played was a joyful one, a song meant to sound giddy and free. She stopped the song, then lifted up her servo again and re-created the glowing wisp of magic. The music started again. Now the song was slower, still happy but a little peculiar-sounding, as if the notes didn't quite fit together but somehow made do.
So her powers activated her music box; strange. Her music box couldn't activate her powers, but her powers could connect her music box to her feelings and create songs she had never heard before, almost like the music box had a mind of its own.
The music was quiet enough, she figured, that she could keep using her powers as long as she was in her room with the door closed and the curtains drawn. She created the wisp for a third time and let it hover above her palm longer. Then, she eyed the shelf on the other side of the room and slowly lifted her servo.
The shelf moved with it! A haze of blue violet magic shimmered around the shelf as she picked it up, and it was moving with her servo. She swayed it a little to the left and watched the shelf move, then a little to the right—
Crash! A little too far to the right. She startled and dropped the shelf with another crash!, her music box stopping right in the middle of the track. She whipped her helm to the door, her spark beating quickly. She listened for footsteps or confused voices down the hall. When she heard none, she let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the shelf. She picked up the shelf and righted it, electing to leave it be for now.
What else can I do? she wondered. Although her powers were new to her, they somehow felt so familiar, as if she had been using them her whole life. She vaguely remembered trying to use them when she had first arrived on the Decepticon warship, all those years ago; it hadn't gone well. She shook the bad memories away. Those days are over; you need to focus on your new life, away from the Decepticons and away from being a prisoner.
She looked around the small room that served as her home for now. It was drab and empty, with no possessions, no books or datapads—
And no friends. She still didn't know what had happened to Jetfire. But maybe – just maybe – he had survived the conflict and was taken as a prisoner instead of killed. She certainly hoped so. They would probably keep the Decepticon prisoners close by, meaning there was a good chance Jetfire and any other prisoners were in this facility.
But where? The place was huge, and she had just gotten here. She was meant to be resting, and it probably wouldn't look good on her already-suspicious rep to ask where the prison was. She would have to find it herself, then.
She stepped up to her door, and it slid open. She peeked her helm out to make sure the hall was empty, then stepped through. The door slid shut behind her, and she started off at a walking pace down the hall. She hadn't gone very far when she spotted a sign hanging between two other rooms – a map!
It clearly showed where the main hall, med bay, rooms, even a library, was, but no labels for a prison, which made sense. She scanned the entirety of the map and realized it clearly showed a below-floor level, but it was void of labels.
She set off for her destination, determined to find and free her only friend.
The main hall was full of bots, laughing and talking and sharing their relief at the War finally being over.
Optimus, unfortunately, couldn't share in that relief – at least, not until they captured the rest of the Decepticons. As long as Megatron was at large, the War between the Autobots and Decepticons couldn't really be over.
"Optimus?" a voice next to him said. He snapped out of his thoughts and whipped around.
"Oh, Jazz – I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realize—"
"That you're supposed to be celebrating?" his friend scoffed.
"I don't think we should celebrate until we know for sure the Decepticons are no more," he said uneasily.
"Optimus – believe me, I'm as worried as you – but we have patrols and monitors watching for any signs of Decepticon activity. It's your break time now, and you need to enjoy it! Just look around – all these happy bots, celebrating and dancing and remembering what it was like to have a good time. You should do the same."
Jazz clinked his glass with Optimus' – startling Optimus for a moment, since he had forgotten he was holding a drink - then took a long drink and set it down again.
"Jazz, can I tell you something?" Optimus asked quietly.
"Well, of course!" Jazz scoffed. "Prime, I've told you everything you should and shouldn't know, and a word never left your mouth about it. The least I can do is return the favor!"
"Jazz – " Optimus lowered his voice significantly. "You know the Decepticon prisoner we liberated earlier?"
"The one that had already been trying to escape, yeah. It's something like Sonar, isn't it?"
"Sona. I checked up on her in the med bay to try and fill in the gaps, but she acted…strange."
"Isn't that to be expected? You know she has to be scared out of her processor, clawing her way out of an escape pod then waking up in a whole new place altogether."
"But there was something else…some sort of apprehension towards me, some unexplained fear."
"Horror stories about the looney, sadistic, Matrix-bearing leader of the Autobots probably reached her audial receptors. The 'Cons probably talked about you the same way we talk about their leader."
"That's not it, Jazz…" Optimus stepped closer and leaned down, lowering his voice even more significantly. Jazz quickly realized whatever Optimus had to say was serious and dropped his joking tone. "It's…the Matrix. It was behaving weird, like it was beckoning me towards her but also pulling me away. Like it was undecided but worried – curious but wary. I can't describe what it was, but it was such an uneasy feeling.
"And she acted like she felt it too. She didn't want to come near me, and she relaxed when I stepped away, like something was giving her the same feelings, as well. I think the Matrix is just as confused as I am, and that scares me, Jazz."
"She was quiet, wasn't she?"
"I learned nothing we couldn't have figured out from the scene at the escape pod. She said she didn't know how long she had been imprisoned for, or why. But for Megatron to go to the lengths he did to bring her with the fleeing Decepticons, she couldn't have been an ordinary prisoner."
"I see what you're getting at, Optimus. And I think you're right to be wary of her, especially if the Matrix is acting out of whack around her."
"We still don't know where her loyalties truly lie; for all we know, us finding her was just an elaborate scheme to infiltrate our base and destroy us from the inside-out."
"That's awfully complex for a last-ditch plan, but if it would make you feel better, then do what you have to, Optimus." Jazz took another swig of his drink.
"Jazz, can I trust you to look after her for me? There's a lot of planning and meetings for the reconstruction efforts that I can't miss, not to mention tracking down the last of the Decepticons, but you can. Keep an eye on her, will you?"
Jazz set down his drink and jokingly saluted. But he replied in his serious tone, "Of course, Optimus."
Sona walked quietly down the halls, scanning for a staircase or an elevator to get to the lower level. After a lot of exploring and failed attempts at navigation, however, Sona realized that the only elevator to get to the lower level was within the officer's main quarters.
Meaning she would have to get past every one of the Autobots' superior officers, their guards, and then Optimus Prime. She really didn't want to have a confrontation with him again; what if he really could see right through her?
The only way to get the officers' quarters…was to go through the main hall which, judging by its noise level, was packed with bots. It wouldn't be easy to sneak around unnoticed.
But she had to try. For her own sanity, and for Jetfire.
She held herself high and stepped through the empty elevator.
As she was going down, Sona vaguely wondered to herself if her powers could help her out somehow. As she stood in the middle of the elevator, she thought of the best ways to get by unnoticed. Disguise? Everyone probably knew everyone here, so that wouldn't work. Stealth? She didn't trust herself to not trip over something. Invisibility? Maybe…if her powers worked like that.
She didn't know what she could do, and the only way to find out was to try it out. So she tried a similar tactic to before. To her surprise, it worked! But her damn music box wouldn't stop playing. She knew it would probably hurt, but she lifted the small panel on her chest where the music box was and jammed her finger inside it. She winced as the gears ground to a halt, but it was working for now. She would have to hold the awkward position until she got to Jetfire.
When the elevator opened, a few nearby Autobots stared in confusion at its lack of passengers. Sona stepped through and with quiet footsteps made her way past the staring Autobots.
She continued to duck through the crowded main hall, but she forgot invisible was only see-through, not walk-through. When someone suddenly bumped into her, she gasped and lost the grip on her powers for a moment. She flashed back to reality but quickly got ahold of herself and turned invisible again, hoping against all hope no one had seen her.
She could see the doors to the quarters up ahead. She began to move faster, excitement beating in her spark, but stopped when she saw Optimus Prime talking quietly with another unknown bot. She cautiously stepped closer, as close as she could be without the strange feelings coming back.
"…do what you have to, Optimus."
This came from the unknown bot, and with a sense of dread, Sona realized they were probably talking about her. Of course they didn't trust her; they had no reason to, what with the little information she had provided them and her quiet aloofness. This fact scared her more than she wanted to admit; it meant she really couldn't escape from her past, she couldn't avoid the constant surveillance and worry always placed upon her.
She was so sick of being treated like a prisoner; although she was free she didn't feel much less like a prisoner here. The Autobot base felt way too crowded, filled with too many watchful optics and not enough places to escape to.
And she couldn't forget Megatron; him and so many other Decepticons had yet to be captured, and where was the first place they would look for her? The Autobot base. Jetfire had said the Autobots would protect her, but she didn't want protecting; she wanted freedom to be herself, to find out what her powers could really do without worrying who may be watching and how word could get back to Megatron about where she was and what she was truly capable of. She just wanted to be free – free from other bots and free from their questioning processors – and ultimately free from this damned War.
She remembered her task and turned around, back to the double doors that would lead to the officers' quarters.
She realized that to open it, she needed to scan a valid energy signature of one of the officers'. Instead, she lightly pressed her hand up against the door and thought about it: thought so hard about how she wished to be on the other side of the door, thought how she wanted to reach Jetfire, thought about what Skywarp could do …
When she opened her optics, she was in an unknown hallway on the other side, also empty like the other ones. Most of the officers were probably in the main hall with everyone else, celebrating their supposed victory.
She walked, still invisible, to the very end of the hall, where she teleported herself through another locked door – Optimus Prime's quarters.
His room was filled with monitors, computers, a berth, screens for planning, everything you would expect from a war leader…but it was also filled with quite a few datapads, she realized. Each one was loaded with books and information. A few titles jumped at her – "Legacy of the Primes", "The Golden Age", among many others. They seemed interesting, and perhaps they could give her some insight into the unknown portions of her past. But they would have to wait.
She teleported back out and discovered the very door she had been looking for – the door to the prison. She phased through it and walked quietly down the small steps.
The steps spiraled down farther than she expected, until she finally stepped into a surprisingly-high-tech prison.
The bars to the cells were electric, not unlike the ones Shockwave had in his lab, with the cells closed by solid metal on all sides except the front. She shivered at the familiarity of it all. Not seeing any guards and starting to become intolerant to the pain of holding her fingers inside her music box, she let go and shed her invisibility.
Inside, she saw several recognizable faces; Vehicons, Decepticon warriors, soldiers, and even some medic-class were locked away inside the cells. They were cuffed and sat glumly against the wall or on the small berth inside, optics trained to the floor and helms lolling. Sona couldn't help but feel sorry for them for a moment – she knew what it was like to want nothing more than your freedom but to be absolutely helpless against doing anything – but then she remembered that these were the same bots who had locked her away and planned to use her powers for some twisted scheme. It was hard to find much pity for them after that.
She checked each cell for Jetfire, creeping along the dark hallways. She peered into another cell near the end of the hall and gasped.
"Soundwave?" she whispered, stepping as close to the bars as she could.
The blue Communications Officer slowly raised his helm and gazed back out at her. His hands were cuffed like all the others, and she noticed from the literal emptiness in his chest that his minicons must have been taken away from him and moved.
"Sonatina," he said quietly.
"Sona. It's been some time."
"Not so long."
"I don't want to count the last time. That didn't seem like you."
"But it was."
Sona frowned sadly. Soundwave trained his visored optics back to the ground again.
"Did you feel any guilt when you shoved me towards your leader? Towards your mad scientist?" She desperately had to know; these questions had plagued her for millennia. She wanted to see guilt, or sadness, or something that showed some sort of emotion other than indifference within him. "Did some part of you remember the sparkling you helped raise, the sparkling you shared your appreciation of music with, the sparkling you gave a glimmer of hope to?"
"No," he said flatly. "All hail the Decepticons. All hail Megatron."
She frowned. Tears tugged at her optics, but she pushed them back. "That blind loyalty won't get you anywhere. It won't get you your freedom, regardless of whether you're locked in this cage."
"All hail Megatron."
The sadness continued to tug at Sona's spark, but she shoved it away. She couldn't let her emotions control her now, no matter how heartbroken she felt.
"I wanted to free you, Soundwave. To thank you for being there for me. I think your emotions go deeper than you let on."
"All hail the Decepticons."
"I'm sorry. Truly, I am. But I can't throw away my freedom while I have it. And we both know your loyalty would force you to betray me to Megatron. I can't live like that anymore; that's why I'm leaving even here." She began to step away from Soundwave's cell. In the one next to his, she saw all of his minicons inside. They watched her in amazement; it occurred to her they hadn't seen her since she was a sparkling. They had been her playmates for a short time before she met Jetfire. She knew she couldn't let them out, either, though, because of their loyalty to Soundwave.
Before their cells were out of sight, Sona turned back to Soundwave and his minicons. "Still…thank you." She turned back around for the final time and continued walking.
Jazz took the elevator up to the third floor, where Sona's room was. No one had seen her since Ratchet sent her up to her room, and Ratchet was worried if she didn't refuel soon.
As the elevator went up, Jazz thought about Optimus' words to him: how the Matrix was behaving strangely around their newcomer. He was unsettled by the fact that even the Matrix seemed confused about her. According to Ratchet, though, she hadn't shown any signs of violence in the med bay, so they shouldn't need to worry.
Still…a Decepticon prisoner, one who tried and succeeded to escape, one that had gone unnoticed and unheard of by the Autobots for who-knew-how-long, and one that wouldn't tell them anything…it was unnerving. Jazz badly wanted to believe it was just her fear of being a newcomer, and she would open up soon, but seeing and hearing Optimus' fear of her crushed any beliefs he had.
The elevator dinged when it reached its floor. Jazz walked down a couple hallways and past other bots making their way to the main hall for the celebrations. When he found her room, he quietly knocked on the door.
No response. He tried again. "Sona?" he asked. "You in there?"
She still wasn't responding. Being a prisoner couldn't have been easy, Jazz thought to himself. She's in a new place, with new bots, and she's nervous. It's no wonder she wouldn't want to come out around everyone.
Jazz tried to cool himself with these thoughts, but it wasn't working very well. He tried knocking and saying her name one more time. "Sona? You need to head down to the main hall and refuel. Ratchet's orders. Says it'll help you recover faster."
He pressed his audial receptors to the door – still nothing. No signs of movement, no shuffling, and still no verbal reply. Jazz sighed in exasperation; he really didn't want to intrude on Sona's privacy like this, but he didn't seem to have another choice.
He scanned his energy signature over the door, and it opened for him, as a high-ranking officer of the Autobots. He scanned the small room as the doors slid apart.
Empty. The berth and shelves were completely empty. The curtains were drawn over the window, the only sign someone had once inhabited this room.
Jazz kept his cool, despite feeling a little panicked. He scanned every crevice of the small room, but there was nothing – no signs that she had been there at all.
He did one last sweep of the room before comming Optimus. "Hey, Optimus? We may have a bit of a problem…"