Cliffjumper had serious misgivings about the mission, even before Hound ran them ragged until they were directly on top of the Decepticon base camp. Or what was left of it, anyways.
The greater part of the volcano's eruption may have already passed, but the environment around them was still entirely covered with a thick, choking layer of igneous ash that didn't exactly improve Cliffjumper's opinion of the planet as a whole. Hound, par for the course, hadn't stopped gushing for a moment about how "breathtaking" the valley that they'd found themselves in was, and the drive to the abandoned bunker only served to deepen the reconnaissance officer's convictions.
But Cliffjumper? He'd seen better. He'd destroyed better, for crying out loud.
"Primus below! Just look at all these organic growths!" Hound had all but squealed as they went by some kind of roadside parking lot overlooking a particular ravine. "They stretch on for megamiles, I'm sure of it! And the way the sunlight bounces off their, ah, appendages? Beautiful!"
He was, of course, referring to what the planet's inhabitants had named the Badger Lake Trailhead Valley, a picturesque body of water about 90 miles east of the city of Tranquility, Oregon. The area, which included a small campground, was entirely deserted thanks to the ongoing eruption of Mt. St. Hilary. The setting sun cast shafts of golden light over the top of the nearby Mt. Hood, and filtered through the ash cloud still spewing up from the summit of its more volcanic neighbor to the northwest. This lit up the dense and numerous conifers choking the area with somewhat of a glow effect that was very pleasing on the eyes. From here, it was possible to see St. Hilary looming in the backdrop of the whole panorama. Even though the evening was cloudy and the forest still filled with volcanic ash, it was a beautiful sight.
"Yeah, sure. 'S'okay, I suppose," Cliffjumper had said over their comms connection.
"Oh, come now, Cliff, what's that surliness in your voice? Why, it doesn't fit you at all. You're the archaeologist here, buddy, you should be even more into this stuff than I am!"
Cliffjumper's high beams flicked on in irritation for a moment. "First of all, I'm an archaeologist, not a geologist, Hound. Big difference there. And I'm not saying this place isn't worth saving, or even worth lookin' at." He sighed. "It's been a long freakin' solar cycle, you know? We don't know how long we've been out. For all we know, Cybertron could be destroyed. I'd rather table the discussion about Terra's scenery for another time, when we know more about why we're here, how long we've been asleep, and how many of the slagging Decepticreeps have been put six mechanometers underground, right? Anyways . . ."
He was silent for a few fractions of a mile. Hound took the opportunity to prompt the crimson stunt car. "Reminds you of things you'd rather not be reminded of at the moment, yes?"
Cliffjumper's presence at the other end of the connection grew a number of degrees colder. "Yep. Usually when I discover a place as nice as this, it doesn't last too long afterwards."
And it occasionally takes one of my partners with it, he thought, but didn't relay.
That was the dark thought rattling around in his head for the remainder of the trip. When the two 'bots were within earshot of the location Wheeljack had pointed out for them, they spun their transformation cogs and got to their feet quietly, ducking into a bunch of thick undergrowth just outside of what was for them a waist-high chain-link fence, topped with coils of barbed wire that were pretty much irrelevant to Cybertronians. On the other side of the asphalt stretch in front of them, a row of military vehicles not dissimilar to Hound's new alternate form waited for a driver to take them away.
The Autobots' hideaway didn't do much to conceal them, but they were both relatively small compared to 40-footers like Optimus, Ironhide, and Ratchet, and at least one of them was freshly painted in a dark olive green that blended well with the foliage, so they made do.
Hound whipped out a combat knife and slashed a medium-sized hole in the length of fence nearest him, which rattled only a little bit before the laser edge of his blade kicked in and began melting the metal before the knife ever even touched the links.
"All right, Cliff, you're the guy with the Cloak tech, so I figure you could scout out the area before-" Hound paused as his optics fell on his companion, who was sighting in a firearm best described as a sniper cannon larger than Hound was tall. "-er. Where have you been stashing that motherboard-fragger?"
The red 'bot didn't look at Hound as he peered through the scope on his ludicrously oversized gun. "I'll provide overwatch. You'd have a better chance at blending in than I would - just look at your alt mode. Some Decepticreep comes out, you shut off your engine and you're just another parked vehicle - and that's the last thing that'll go through their head before my bullets do. Besides, I haven't used my cloaker yet. Don't want it fizzling out at the wrong time."
Hound laid a disapproving look on Cliffjumper, but transformed anyways. "This isn't about your cloaker, isn't it?"
And just for a moment, the Recon specialist caught a glimpse of Cliffjumper's optics, gleaming close by the cold slate-colored metal housing of his weapon. They were cold, detached, a far cry from the bright, rakish façade the archaeologist forced them to adopt during the average day-to-day life of an Autobot conscript. There was something broken in the bluish-white light they gave off too, a type of glint that was all too common with soldiers who'd seen too much in battle. Cliffjumper was vulnerable after his long slumber, and he'd never been the most stable guy to begin with either.
All right, Hound thought to himself. He's not ready for an op like this yet. I can handle it. Primus knows I've done it before.
"Just keep me covered, yeah? I like my helm. I'd like to keep it a whole lot longer."
Cliffjumper didn't respond, not even a disinterested grunt, so Hound threw himself into a quiet reverse and backed into the abandoned military base, keeping to the shadows the whole while and switching off his lights. As he drove, an unpleasant thought occurred to him.
Primus below, he groaned in his own mind. I pray Cliff won't be the only one with a frame-deep sparkache and a malfunctioning sensory suite. Otherwise, we'll be doomed before we make it back home.
Hope ol' Soundwave's not on the Terra train just yet.
He thought.
It was warm, comfortable where he was. Dark. Nothing hurt anymore, not his throat. Not his armor plating or the durasteel muscle beneath it. Not even the amputated bond that he'd once shared with his oldest child. Not the one he once shared with his wife.
His sister's bond was inert, as it had been for a long time, but there was no hostility behind the digital gesture. There never had been. He felt . . . nothing but gentle warmth and a floating sensation, as if he was immersed in a calm, tropical sea on one planet or another.
The voices had stopped screaming in his audials for the first time in centuries. He'd learned to block them out over the years, but they were ever-present, tickling the back of his subconscious mind. If he focused on any one of them, there were no secrets between him and whoever else was in the room. Music helped, always. But now, there was no music.
He was at peace for the first time in . . . he couldn't remember, exactly. Maybe it was when he met her at that inn on the shores of Damaxus . . .
"C'mon, Soundwave! Work with me here!" a voice cried, far off in the darkness. No. He didn't hear that. It wasn't her speaking. It wasn't even her child-
A memory, growing more vivid by the second. Sitting inside Crystal City's grandest theater. It had been an anniversary - or was it a Day of Forging? If he just thought about it, he'd remember. It was so long ago. The music was almost a physical sensation, so moving, so calming on his overstressed mind. War was coming, but he hadn't cared at the time. She hadn't cared at the time. It certainly had blotted out nearly all of the horrifically explicit, hate-filled daydreams of the theater's other patrons. They were so disgusted by the Warforged, Beastformer abominations daring to sit in their hall that the only people really focused on the music were his family and the band itself.
He'd watched, by proxy of the minds of the socialites surrounding their row of seats, his son get murdered in various ways, each one worse than the last.
A ruined tail writhing as if it were still alive and slick with thick green mech-fluid. A spinal column dangled from one end or another - it was difficult to tell which end was which.
Primus below. I swear I'll-
Focus on the music.
The music.
They didn't understand what they'd gone through just to score seats in the hall.
A sparkling's head - the approximate size and shape of a Kaonian Tygar's kitten - a kitten! - blew apart, destroyed by a servant with a bodyframe similar to his own, and not resembling any of the vapid, ignorant elites around them-
"The music, Soundwave! Focus!"
The comfortable warmth got hotter. A blast of what sounded like compressed air shot by his right audial node.
No. No, no, no.
The AllSpark. The Well of All Souls.
"your fault-"
It had been such a lovely night. But his sons couldn't even have that to cherish, couldn't they? And neither, evidently, could her . . .
Gunfire. No. After so long, after knowing such peace . . .
"Father! We need you!"
Lord Megatron? No . . . he respected and knew his old ally, but all he wanted to do was-
"you'll see me above you one day. One day."
Day? What - what did that mean-
"Come toward my voice. Don't leave us here."
"It's your fault what happened to her - but you can't even admit that, can you?"
"I don't want to see you anymore, old warmongering fool. Get out of my sight."
"Leave. And tell little brother that he can't change my mind, either."
Pain flared in his head, which he could feel again. An old wound tore wide open, and he was treated to a flurry of images and sound that elicited a scream, which came out as a prolonged, strained moan.
His vocoder turned the moan into something downright sinister. The voices came back, and Soundwave's peace and comfort was gone.
They were far away, angry. He couldn't make any of them out at this range. There was gunfire. He recognized at least one set of voices.
The voices of the Cassetticons, the only good things he'd ever done for a universe that was too busy to deal with most of the problems he faced over his long lifespan. They were serious, professional, even dire under stress. Combat. One of them was injured, and badly.
And that, he could not abide. Even if it cost him his rest.
Soundwave of Kaon, Communications General, Espionage Director, and second-in-command of the entire Decepticon Empirical Army sat bolt upright in the stasis pod that nearly became his coffin, optics gleaming bright with an angry crimson light despite his post-stasis-lock disorientation. The pod's door fell to the ground with an earsplitting clatter of metal on metal, which caused the overseeing medical technician to leap back.
Nanobot fluid dripped out of Soundwave's every crevice. His armor plating, freshly painted and, as it seemed, reinforced, glistened with liquid that was already drying to a salt.
"Nyeh, they're breachin' the perimeter!" Rumble's reedy voice reported. "You punks got Dad up yet? 'Cos we're about ta get ganked by the whole freakin' Autobyte army!"
Tigertrack, the one who'd pulled Soundwave out of his slumber, didn't respond in any way other than the equivalent of an excited squeal, or an exclamation of overwhelming joy. Silver feet hit the charred, jagged armor plating on the edge of an artillery crater in the side of the Autobot Ark.
Soundwave retrieved his weapons from his subspace pocket, which opened for him as easily as it ever had. His overshields boosted up to full power, and he prepared to once again wreak violence on his fellow Cybertronians.
My axe. My Cassetticons. My fight.
Hound jerked his hand back from the edges of the collapsed bunker, still giving off concrete dust and a evil-looking black energy that set his neural network ablaze. Tendrils of . . . corruption, for that was the only word for what he was looking at, still pulsed irregularly, eating away at the ruined wall like a fast-acting acid turned into something alive. As he watched, the smallest remaining coils of darkness diminished bit by bit, leaving nothing behind of themselves or the matter they'd rested on only a few moments before.
Cliffjumper sidled up alongside him, the overlarge sniper cannon resting idly on his hip. "Let's see - devastated stone bunker, crystals of antimatter and Angolmois, scent of death and destruction in the air . . . Megatron?"
The Recon officer nodded, still crouched in a tentative squat near the scene of the crime. "Yup. Thinking so."
"Color me surprised, yeah?" The cannon clicked against the pavement as Cliffjumper set it down, taking care not to scratch it. "I take it that you couldn't sniff anything out of the ordinary 'round here? Well, minus-" he gestured in the general direction of the bunker - "-this slag, I suppose."
"Scans turned up negative," Hound reported in a low voice. "This is either a trap - or a sign. We're too late. They could have gone anywhere by now, but at least now we know that they were here. Otherwise, structures on this world often collapse into antimatter-soaked ruin, and I just don't think that's the case."
"Well, it ain't the first thing you said, that's for sure. My cute little Hubcap here's equipped with some highfalutin Energon detectors, and I canvassed the whole area while you were sneaking around. If there's anyone still here, they're either dead or using an Espionage-grade emissions shroud."
"Cassetticons?"
"I don't think so. They tend to travel in packs, and I'm almost positive I would have picked up on at least one of 'em when I was passing over the area. Here's something, though."
The archaeologist passed over a set of viewfinders, graded for heavy-duty reconnaissance use. They were displaying a few numbers that made Hound's jaw drop in astonishment. He stood upright and glanced at his partner, who was waiting with eyebrows raised.
"This can't be right. How are we not getting overloaded? Just the energy in the air-"
"I know, right? And yet, we're completely fine. My vitals are reading better than they usually do. Could be something having to do with-"
"The stasis," Hound finished. The two mechs stood there for a moment, staring at each other in wordless surprise.
"We've got to get this information back to the crew," Hound breathed. "Grab your gun - Hubcap, was it called? I think we've learned all we can from here. Mark the location on your map, we'll have to return later."
Cliffjumper groaned and labored to lift the enormous sniper cannon. "Didn't even get to shoot anything. What a waste."
"Hold that thought, soldier," the dark green Jeep commanded. He kneeled again, inspecting a circle of soot on the ground and a number of tire tracks that seemed much newer than the various others around the ruined base's campus. They led from the mouth of the antimatter-blighted bunker and doubled back around past a row of military vehicles to the Autobots' left. Hound couldn't see where they went from there, but the still-erupting volcano in the middle distance gave him a pretty good idea of the general direction the Decepticons' tracks would wind up meandering to.
"Figured as much," Hound grunted. "Keep Hubcap ready, then, Cliff. You just might get your chance. Let's go hunting."
When Soundwave burst forth from the wrecked artillery room that had nearly become his tomb, he did so with gusto.
As the long-defunct pieces of a ruined spiral portal flew into the twisting hallways that he'd fought in so many years ago, he raised a hand to the cannon situated on his shoulder. The Autobots were closing in. Had he awakened a minute later than he did, they surely would have overtaken the Cassetticons.
Speaking of - there they were, taking the opportunity to dart past his legs and into the artillery bay. The chasm there would deposit them directly into a chamber of the volcano that the Ark rested in, from the look of things closed off to the main caldera but still situated above a river of magma. The main attraction in the vast cave was the exposed upper deck of the Ark - and hopefully an avenue of escape with better prospects than the one filled with Autobots.
Buzzsaw was heavily injured, yet mercifully unconscious. Glitch - resourceful kitten - had forced an emergency alt mode reversion, and his brother was currently mag-clamped to his back in the form of a data disk - or whatever similar device or organism passed for one on this world. Soundwave felt all of this, even as his finger depressed a single well-used button on his newly reformatted shoulder-mounted rocket repeater.
There was silence for a moment, and then a loud noise not dissimilar to a broken, disused hose suddenly spewing a vast, oscillating stream of stagnant water - only a hundred times louder. Soundwave's eyes narrowed as he gazed into an Autobot's blue optics from across the hall. A hive of rocket-powered explosives issued from the repeater, flailing out into the hot, dry air in the form of an enormous white cloud. Dark purple light flickered across Soundwave's field of vision as his overshields intercepted a half-dozen incoming plasma rounds - but those were the last ones the Autobots fired. Twenty-four micromissiles shot out of the white cloud wreathing the Decepticon's head and shoulders and flew at every Autobot in the room like killer wasps defending a trod-upon nest, each with their own unique sounds of ignition. Soundwave ducked back into the artillery bay without sticking around to see the results of his counterstrike. The sound of explosions and pained yelps followed him.
The whole process had taken maybe five seconds. Seven, tops. And there was still much work to do.
I've found an entrance! No Autobot signatures detected. It's clogged with debris, though, Laserbeak crowed in triumph over the Cassetticon bond.
"Rumble, make us an ingress!" their commander said tersely, vaulting over a damaged power structure of some kind atop the Ark's outer hull. He was pleased to find that his throat was intact and his speaking wasn't painful. Of course, he hadn't expected anything else from resting in a reformatting pod for so long, but it was still a favorable sensation.
But . . . he'd never gotten in a stasis pod. He'd attempted to sacrifice himself for-
CRUNCH! The rubble fell away as Rumble slammed one of his pneumatic piledrivers into it, surprising no one. Of course he'd already be on the ball about wrecking something.
"Badda-bing, badda-boom!" the Demolitions mech quipped.
"Enter. Quickly," Soundwave commanded, raising his rifle at the ruins of the artillery bay. "Initiate Defense Plan Meteor and run scans of the interior ASAP. Frenzy, take point. Keep to the rafters until I infiltrate. Ravage, with me. Sentry position. Cover the bow area."
Получено, the Saboteur affirmed.
"-coming down around the barracks on Block A," a voice crackled in Soundwave's audios. He didn't recognize the person speaking, but he assumed it was whoever was acting as the Autobots' communications specialist to ferret out his Cassetticons. The voice was staticky and faint, and Soundwave didn't have a chance to lock onto it, but he knew one thing - the Autobots were still hot on the trail and it wouldn't be long before they caught up again. No matter how derelict their ship may be, it was still their ship, and the Cassetticons weren't far from their last known location.
When Soundwave dropped into the hallway below, his suspicions were only confirmed. They'd entered into a dark, cozy - for lack of a better word - room with a low ceiling, recharge slabs long abandoned strewn all over the floor, and the Cybertronix equivalent of the letter "A" clearly stamped into the wall. They didn't have much time.
"Defensive positions. Secure this corridor. I will scan for an exit."
Soundwave took a knee by a defunct computer station and began probing the Ark's interior with subsonic waves - a type of echolocation, somewhat, and one he'd passed down to his oldest child . . .
No. No time to dwell on the past.
He forced himself to return to his work. He vented slowly and calmly, ignoring the oil that dripped down his faceplate as his new body cooled itself.
A dead Autobot lay in front of him. Not particularly noteworthy on its own merit - he'd seen plenty of dead Cybertronians in his lifetime, perhaps too many - but the amount of decay was staggering. The corpse was barely distinguishable as a Transformer, mingling with the other pieces of discarded machinery all over the floor like it was just another gray, lifeless pipe or ventilation unit that had been torn from its mounting and cast on the floor during the raid on the Ark. Only when one had time to really study it, notice the vague shape of splayed arms and a listless cranial unit amongst the soot-blackened floor of the barracks, did it begin to resemble a formerly living, breathing being again. Based on whatever was left of the jawline, the suggestion of cheekbone structure poking up from rusty, thinned facial material, Soundwave thought that the body in front of him may have been a femme at one point.
But there was no logical reason why she should have been so . . . dessicated.
He saved a few shots of the corpse to his memory bank and decided to ponder them later. He had a theory, but one that he would rather not entertain unless he knew more.
It didn't matter. He'd found an exit - or at least a way to get further away from the Autobots.
"Cassetticons, fall in! Double-time!" he ordered silently over the bond. Sound probably carried in the haunted, forgotten stern quarters of the Ark.
They charged out of the desecrated barracks and toward the exfil point that Soundwave had marked on their HUDs. The hallway here was part of the Ark's main amidships deck, and was much wider and cleaner than any other room they'd been in yet, despite slight damage from the crash and the prior firefights. More dead husks accentuated the edges of the hallway here and there, each one as withered and rusted as the femme in the recharge quarters had been. The lights were dim, obviously operating at a much lower power level than they would have been in flight, but they were positively blinding after the cave-like atmosphere of the barracks.
The exfil point was straight ahead - a ventilation shaft large enough for Soundwave to just squeeze through. Based on his scans, it opened up later into a larger room, but he didn't know anything beyond that, not even how large the room beyond was. With every step, the shaft cover seemed to grow more and more promising, almost shining golden in the faint light it was reflecting from the wall sconces.
Suddenly, Soundwave touched a stranger's mind. He had a brief impression of clenched teeth, of a war-torn banner snapping over a bomb-blasted battlefield. An orderly regiment of Autobots standing in a crisp file, every bodytype and alt-mode accounted for, all ready to do battle for a reunited Cybertron, and a sensation of fierce pride mixed with battle-fury. The mind of a soldier, tempered with softer, less violent memories of a city by the sea, an image of a beautiful plaza in Crystal City - fireworks blazing overhead and everything - and a hazy impression of a hard-living femme with strong, rough hands and a confident grin.
His mind touched three others: a mind so cold and clean it gave even Soundwave a slight chill down his back struts, and one that was further away. A hyper-music track played loudly in the background of this distant mindscape, and for a moment, the Decepticon feared that Blaster had been resurrected somehow . . . but no. This individual was tighter, more controlled, and the music was much quieter and more subdued, tinged with repetitive rhythms overflowing with soul and conveying many more emotions than the Autobot Communications Officer's chosen tracks usually did.
Soundwave almost got lost in the music, but shook the feeling off and sent out more tendrils of his will. The fourth and final mind was different. It was deeper and more vast than any other mindscape he'd ever experienced before in his life. If the other three were crisp, self-contained lakes, each one unique and reflecting a near-perfect image of their owners' diverse psyches, this last one was an enormous ocean, its surface calmly rippling above unknowable fathoms of experience and knowledge, all under the light of a vivid summer sunrise that banished the darkness below for another day. It was a mindscape in the way the Moon was a rock floating in space - and as far as Soundwave knew, no other Cybertronian thought the same way.
He'd come into contact with this mind before. It was Optimus Prime.
"Cassetticons, return! Return: all!"
No one could fault the Cassetticons' response time. They didn't ask questions, didn't even miss a beat as they snapped directly in front of Soundwave, folded up into their new altmodes, and slotted cleanly into his open chest compartment.
A split second after Soundwave had detected the first mind, three figures rounded the corner up ahead, each heavily-armed. No words were exchanged between the two parties, no witty banter flew through the air. The Autobots - he recognized them as Major General Ironhide, Third-in-Command Second Lieutenant Prowl, the former Prince of Praxus himself, and of course, Optimus Prime, the commander of the entire Autobot Army - knew how dangerous Soundwave of Harmonex was, and they weren't about to afford him any breathing room whatsoever.
A volley of superheated lead arced overhead, slung from Ironhide's enormous Gatling cannon. Soundwave tucked into a roll, fired two electric bolts in the general direction of the three Autobots, and took cover behind a ruined bulkhead as an acrid scent filled the air. Droplets of some type of acid plowed into the portal Soundwave was backed up against, eating a massive, rusty hole in the already corroded metal. His overshields began to hiss and spit as they counteracted the acid's effect. It was a glancing blow at worst, primarily made up of mere droplets of splashback from the Autobot TIC's infamous chemical sniper rifle, but the acid was persistent and wreaked a heavy toll on Soundwave's defenses. Not to mention, Prowl's weapon alone seemed more than capable of disintegrating Soundwave's only cover with just a few shots, should the triad of Autobot Command choose to rely on siege tactics until backup arrived. He had to move.
"Frenzy, stand by and accrue charge," he ordered as the strange sensation of his Cassettes rearranging themselves filled his chest compartment. While this happened, he took the opportunity to glance past his right shoulder. Whatever Soundwave's new alternate form was, it was equipped with mirrors at locations that wound up corresponding with either shoulder, and they were just perfect for the tactical use that he had in mind. Convenient, even.
Folding one of them sideways, Soundwave watched as the Autobots assembled into an offensive formation, preparing to advance down the hallway even as the rest of the Autobot Army was en route - Ironhide in front with a wide personal combat shield, Prime bringing up the rear with Energon axe in its short handheld configuration, and Prowl staying at a distance, rifle trained on-
PING! A greenish-brown flash filled Soundwave's field of vision as the overshielding directly over his right shoulder exploded in a flare of light. It was now or never.
He cocked his Electro Bolter and poked it around the corner of the bulkhead in the direction that the most recent acid squall had come from, firing once. His blind aim was good, and he was rewarded for his action with a very loud, jittery growl. The Prince of Praxus wouldn't have screamed - Soundwave knew that from Prowl's time in the Leadership - and for the Praxian to make any kind of noise, it had to be a close enough shot to hurt.
"Frenzy, eject! Operation: Riposte!" Soundwave ordered aloud, reloading his weapon and diving out into the open hallway. Frenzy shot out of his creator's chest at an angle, spinning end over end even as he converted into a spindly, multi-limbed robot and dug his delicate taloned fingers into Ironhide's shield, winding up on the commander's back like some kind of steel-blue spider creature from some forsaken desert world out in the seas of the cosmos. Two sets of twin thermal blades ejected from his upraised hands as the Cassetticon let out an ear-splitting shriek of war and began to furiously dig at the thick torso armor of the Autobot High General with all four arms.
The effect was immediate. Even Optimus Prime himself started a fraction of an inch and seemed to forget about Soundwave for a moment to get the silvery creature off of his friend. That was a mistake. As Prime reached out to pull Frenzy off his target, Soundwave shot his last readily available harpoon in the split second Optimus's instincts won out over his military mind. It would have been a killing shot on any lesser mech, but nevertheless, Optimus realized the ploy and jerked his head back to the Decepticon Comms Officer, regarding the incoming harpoon and doing an odd little dodge - more a sinuous roll of his high, blocky shoulders than anything else - that was only partially effective. The harpoon entered Optimus's body at a slight angle, piercing straight through the plating below his right arm. The Autobot Supreme Commander roared in pain as the electric charge hit him, but he was alive and angry. Probably not even too badly injured.
Disappointing - but it will do well enough, Soundwave thought as a thrill of bloodlust tickled the back of his neck, then faded away again under his usual calm, rational mindset. He'd come that close to killing the last Prime . . . perhaps even ending the War in the process.
Frenzy's stiffened atop Ironhide's shoulders. His red eyes flashed an electric white and his tiny chest component shifted, two circular drums folding out into the open and spinning like tops. Four spindly, clawed arms rose to either side of the minibot as if preparing to plunge into the Autobot's vulnerable cranial unit, even as Ironhide's own arm shot up to grab the diminutive Decepticon by the thin waist during the brief respite he'd been granted.
"SKREEEEEEEEEE!" wailed Frenzy - a sound that was unnaturally raspy and entirely alien even in the harsh, metallic tongue of the Cybertronian race. Ironhide had already torn him from his perch atop his back, and was bringing Frenzy's form around to cause some extreme kind of damage to the diminutive mech, but it was too late. Soundwave tightened his grip on his temporarily empty rifle and braced himself for what was about to come - a potent electromagnetic pulse, like an invisible explosion, designed to disarm and disorient entire squadrons, if not for a moment.
Operation: Riposte was designed to be used in conjunction with a full or almost-full set of Cassetticons and a team of more than seven full-sized fellow Decepticons, but it worked in a pinch with just Soundwave and Frenzy if needed - as it did now. Four weapons - Prowl's rifle, Optimus's axe, and Ironhide's twin arm-mounted cannons - flew away from their owners, some with more vigor than others. Ironhide collapsed to the ground with an audible groan, sparks snapping profusely from his head. As the Autobot leader's axe spun off into the dim hallway beyond, Optimus lunged after it, seemingly unaffected by the harpoon in his chest.
"Amazing . . . that should have paralyzed him, especially after the EMP," Glitch noted over the spark-bond. "We're really not dealing with your average Transformer, are we?"
Soundwave didn't respond as he rose to a standing position, drawing his own axe and hefting it above his head for a powerful toss. Optimus Prime was almost right in front of their escape route, trying with some difficulty to pick up his weapon. He looked up, fingers closing around the shaft of his axe, just in time to see a violet version of it spiraling towards his head. He raised the weapon and flinched away, prepared to block a nearly-unblockable attack . . .
One that never came. Rather, Soundwave's axe soared past him and embedded itself blade-first into the vent cover behind him. The dots connected a fraction of a second too late.
"Frenzy, return!" the Decepticon droned in that multi-tonal, synthesized voice, flashing past Optimus and striking him across the faceplates with the butt end of his empty rifle.
The Autobot Leader recovered quickly - far too quickly - and brought his axe to the sparking harpoon embedded in his own chest. With a jerk, and a brief shout of pain, he snapped the shaft and pulled the majority of the barbed spear out of his chest, glaring daggers at Soundwave the whole time even as the Decepticon's hands closed around his own weapon.
Using it as leverage, Soundwave tried once, twice, and tore the vent clear of the wall, turning the brief action into a wide swing and shattering the damaged cover over Optimus's head, whose forward momentum was too great to stop or dodge in time. Prime fell to the ground, dazed for only a moment, even as Frenzy completed his recall maneuver.
Not a moment too soon, either. A cascade of photon particles splashed against the Decepticon Communications Officer's depleted overshields, quickly whittling his armor to nothing. Soundwave jerked his head around to catch a glimpse of First Lieutenant Jazz of Staxis, charging down the corridor with teeth grit and a repeating machine pistol blazing. With nothing else to do, he summoned a gladiator's shield, which granted a brief respite before he felt rounds slam into his unprotected lower body. Soundwave was out of ammo, energy, and now, as his HUD informed him of accumulating damage to his torso, he was out of protection too.
A photon round hit home through a chink in Soundwave's leg armor, causing him to hiss in pain. Now or never.
"Brace for impact," he transmitted, before leaping backwards with the help of tiny retro-thrusters in his feet. His gladiator's shield came down, heralding a new wave of ballistics to come raining down at him. Large fractures spread across the large window on his chest, the one protecting his Cassetticons from the hostile environment, even as he began to shift into vehicle form for the first time since his reawakening.
He used his last ounce of proper primary-form articulation - his arms were still available - to grab the upper rim of the ventilation shaft and swing himself, backwards, into the Ark's maze-like system, just big enough for Soundwave's new form to fit without scraping its ceiling.
And what a form it was. A rugged, powerful armored truck of some kind, with six wide off-road wheels, heavy arms and armor, and plenty of Communications gear to spare, although he'd made sure that he transformed in such a way that these were down and fit as closely to the outer shell of the alt-mode as possible. As he trundled backwards on a route revealed to him by the powers of his limited echolocation capabilities and sent a volley of burning armor-piercing rounds down the way he'd came from a roof-mounted Gatling turret to dissuade the smaller, lighter, and more agile Jazz from following him, he took the opportunity to review the files his resuscitation pod had downloaded. Apparently, the natives of this planet referred to Soundwave's new form as their equivalent of an off-road military APC, outfitted with a small command room for acting as a nerve center in the field.
The Autobot stasis pods choose their reformatting projects well, he thought. Of course, he'd never admit that aloud.
But as he explored the details of his new vehicle form, the thrill of battle fading from his CPU - for now, that is - he couldn't help but feel rather impressed.
Hound was parked behind some odd rectangular structure, lights turned off and vents stilled. His holo-projector hummed with a nearly silent drone, and that was all the noise he made. The constant drone was an oddly reassuring one, but its usually calming effect held no solace for him today.
Through the volcanic ash still filling the air even as night fell on the virtually unspoiled wilderness, Hound's target was clear. From the looks of things, the planet's inhabitants - whom Hound had yet to see in the flesh, so to speak - had set up some kind of blockade to keep unauthorized individuals from straying into the danger zone of the erupting Mount Saint Hilary. Clearly, the efforts had been successful - the only notable organisms left in sight were a few abandoned, ash-covered cars not unlike what Cliffjumper's alternate mode had been. There wasn't another living being in sight - not even Cliffjumper himself, who had broken off the road and skirted away up a nearby ridge to gain the upper ground when Hound's finely-tuned sensors had unexpectedly picked up on a distant Decepticon energy signature.
It was probably just the excess Energon radiation in the air reacting with the volcano's, er, atmospheric contributions, he thought. But the reasoning seemed obtuse even as he pondered the possibility. After all, there had to be a rather ominous reason why the native emergency responders had gone to such extents to set up a perimeter like this one just to abandon it in its entirety all of a sudden, and it definitely wasn't a progression of the volcano's eruption.
Mt. St. Hilary rumbled in the distance, a sound that Hound felt deep in his frame rather than heard with his auditory sensors. It had been steadily voicing its ancient, subtle anger for as long as the two Autobot scouts had been outside the Ark, but it was so much easier to perceive the constant rumbling, like that of a far-away and unimaginably huge thunderstorm, when everything was quiet.
Hound was a 'bot of nature and the outdoors. He hated the quiet.
He noted this, passively, to distract himself from distraction, but his mind was elsewhere. In this case, literally elsewhere, in a holomatter body that was inspecting the desolate checkpoint on the road ahead. The avatar was in the form of Hound's vague idea of a human, fed to him by his stasis pod about a day ago. It wasn't perfect by any means, but thanks to his intensive suite of holotech that he'd used for centuries, his was much more robust, much more vivid than any of the other Autobots' would have been. The holomatter generator rendered Hound's avatar in much higher definition than the usual garden-variety projector, and imbued it with enough strength that it could actually do physical labor outside of its proportional form that most avatars couldn't.
It didn't matter that in contrast to other holomatter constructs, Hound's was in decidedly too much detail rather than the waxy, gauzy look that was all too common among other users. It didn't matter that the State Trooper uniform that his avatar wore over a lean, yet muscular frame and under a military jacket wasn't proper regulation for the state of Oregon. It didn't matter that the avatar's unfaltering easygoing grin was just a little too wide, its eyes a little too bright even while being shot through with overly visible blood vessels. The construct was imperfect, but it got the job done, and what Hound saw through its eyes was deeply concerning.
Some type of red liquid splashed across the wooden barricades was being slowly covered up by the quiet snowfall of ash. Several smoking craters lay beyond the first few rows of moderately crushed cars and overturned traffic cones - and, as Hound's avatar inhaled deeply through its odd fleshy proboscis, his veteran woodsmech's senses picked up on not only the acrid tang of gunpowder and laser weaponry, but the cloying scent of Dark Energon too, carried on the brimstone-scented West wind.
A frown would have crossed the Recon officer's face, but all his avatar registered was an improbable twitch of the corners of its mouth. He lifted a callused hand to his ear, and spoke. "Cliff, signs of heavy activity. Be on guard. Returning to baseform to scout out a path through. Over"
There was no answer but a medium-volume crackle of electricity on the other end of the line. Hound repeated the report, to the same result.
He suddenly became aware of a tall, dark, alien shape resting on top of the brown structure he'd parked by. His spark - represented in the avatar as some pulsating organ in the chest cavity - began to hum at a higher pitch before he forced it to relax. It settled back down to a calmer, lower drone not dissimilar to that of the holoprojector humming all the way back behind the building, mounted on his hood. Too far away to provide comfort.
The shape held a blade four times longer than Hound's entire holomatter body suspended loosely over his vehicle form's vulnerable cabin. It wore a long blue chain around its waist, crisp, ornate artwork of a raging storm over an angry sea over its wide wings, and a crooked smirk upon its face.
"First time offworld, little fleshling?" the Seeker tutted. "You could have fooled me. Classic, rookie mistake - straying just a little bit too far from your big, powerful groundpounding body."
Hound's avatar stiffened and flickered, but he restabilized the illusion when the Decepticon brought its sword closer to his waiting vehicle form.
"Whoa, there, cowboy! Don't move a single simulated muscle! I see so much as a magical fairy shimmer, you're dead," he warned. "You know, I gotta say though, this hutch over here? Wasn't a bad effort to conceal your true form. I'd have been almost confused if more'n half the folks you fight on a daily basis can friggin' fly. Hey, long as we're here, wanna hear a story about my old man's adventures in Vos?"
Hound didn't say a word, hands above his head, but nodded slowly. Decepticon Seekers loved to talk - about themselves, about their families, about their future plans, anything. 'Cons were funny that way. He'd heard of this one before, and the distinctive wing art really gave the rest away - some Outlier prankster who called himself Skywarp. He wasn't unstable or anything, and wasn't in the business of killing hostages unless he could make it funny. Things weren't looking good, but it'd at least give Hound some time to formulate a plan.
And yet, a situation like this reeked of a set-up. He'd have to think fast.
Hope Cliff's okay, he thought, and began furiously pinging the archaeologist's line, eyes sliding around the checkpoint to see where the trap would spring from.
"Well, you see, my dad's a boatformer first of all. Great guy, funny, charming - much like yours truly, I might add. I get it from him - but he's not even equipped with antigravs or anything. Didn't used to be before the War, that is. Anyway, he met Mom in Vos one day on a business trip. Vos, of all places! Can you think of a worse place for a boatformer to be than the City in the Sky? And let me tell you, Dad felt it every step of the way. Couldn't drive the runways, couldn't just fly to get where he needed to go. He had to leg it up the stairs the whole time he was in town. By the time he got to his destination, he was so tired his legs actually started sparking and he couldn't feel anything below his waist coupling! So, at this point he was practically crawling along, out of breath and minutes late for his meeting, and it was then that he looked up and saw her - my carrier, who'd seen the whole thing from the air. She asked him if he wanted a lift, heh heh, and by the end of the cycle, they'd already fallen for each other. That night, well, their escapades were heard all throughout-"
Hound wasn't even surprised in the least when another Seeker dropped from the swirling ash clouds above, pulverizing the cars on the side of the road. This one was cobalt blue, but it was difficult to tell in the dark, gritty, and grey atmosphere. What little light there was glinted menacingly off of the new Seeker's shoulder pauldrons, one of which obviously was composed of his vehicle form's nosecone, and the gnarly arm-mounted chainsaw weapon he wore on his right arm. Electricity arced around the newcomer in great bright white bolts like he was the ancient Corumkanti god of thunder Gunbarrel himself.
"Thank Primus you've finally shown up. Your pal here was boring me to tears!" Hound quipped. The permanent grin etched into the avatar's face may or may not have helped sell the jab.
"You didn't need to tell your whole life story again, Skywarp," the thunder god growled in an undertone not entirely unlike the continued eruption of Mt. St. Hilary in the distance. Somehow, it carried across the ashy clearing.
Skywarp looked a little put out and his sword wavered gently. "What was I supposed to do, Mr. Melodrama? Spear the Autobyte right away and shout some storm pun into the valley? Leave the natives alone until these guys showed up, and then you get to call in a lightning bolt or something, get rid of two Skywings with one big zap? You of all people should have appreciated my gravitas!"
"This is a military operation, you idiot, not an Energon break with friends."
"Oh, come now, 'Cracker! Can't we have fun while we're at work-"
"I'm feeling a little left out here, fellas," Hound interrupted. He used his vehicle mode speakers to better overcome the avatar's comparably puny timbre. "What are you gonna do with me now? Or are you going to take your couples' spat somewhere else? C'mon. I've got places to be, and it's getting dark. Help a fellow Cybertronian out?"
Skywarp coughed. "Fleshie's got a point, 'Cracker. Take a rain check on the debate? I'd like to get above all this ash. Airbags won't recover for cycles. Besides, we've got places to be, too."
"Keep in mind, I'm your superior officer now. This could be considered grounds for a disciplinary," the other Seeker said with eyes narrowed. "As amazing as the idea is, though, you're right."
He opened his palm without warning, still glaring at his partner. A thick coil of lightning lashed out like an injured snake, flashing into Hound's avatar faster than he could comprehend the attack.
Hound screamed only a little bit, holomatter body fracturing into geometrical shapes of light. His voice became staticky and rang with a ragged, metallic tone before his consciousness was forcibly shunted out of the dying avatar.
His mind swirled, his vision filled with endless red-and-yellow warning signs even as it fuzzed into a morass of snowy white and blurred orange shapes.
Fragmented.
Slag-
The holo-projector sparked and smoked, an acrid scent filling the air.
You've stepped in it now, Ranger. Think! Think-
"You're our little doggy now, 'Hound.'"
A hand laid over his hood, making his nanobots glitch and his alloy tingle uncomfortably-
Snap.
A vent cover fell a few mechanometers to the filthy ground. Soundwave followed it shortly afterwards, landing with a practiced roll.
"All save Buzzsaw: eject. Form loose defensive perimeter," he said after a moment's silence to ensure his solitude in the room.
Ravage, Rumble, Laserbeak, Frenzy, and Glitch shot out into this new space with hardly a moment's delay, flawlessly adopting a protective circle around Soundwave as he took in the new surroundings. They were in a wide, cavernous space, hulking, ruined shapes rising up out of the gloom. Utter quiet, like the kind you'd find in a mausoleum, filled the stale air within, with only the omnipresent rumble of the volcano providing any sort of auditory input.
And a shaft of dim light shone over the desolation within the Ark.
I'm not detecting any Autobot signatures, Glitch commed silently. No signatures at all, really. He sniffed the air twice, then sneezed. Lots of death here, though. Lots of death.
Looks like we're in one of the aft hangars, Laserbeak reported, patrolling close to the chamber's high ceiling. Portal's clear to the stern, and the access door is open. We're not the only ones who've been here in the last however long period.
Two Autobots. Passed through not long ago, Ravage confirmed.
Soundwave pondered this information as his gaze played over more desiccated frames.
"Prima, Solus, and the One Below, what happened here?" Rumble said. He'd gone silent, too, and there was a notable note of fear in his "voice." Uncharacteristic of him, to say the least.
Glitch crept up near one of the bodies like it was a potentially dangerous load of ancient TNT, holding up some decrepit mine. Well, I've got a theory, but you won't like it. Pit, I don't like it. Think Soundwave's on the same boat, too.
Soundwave said nothing, but drew his axe and shield. The faint purple light that they gave off revealed the wreck of an Autobot dropship, the ground surrounding it littered with the bones of Cybertronians that had fought in the raid that seemed as if it had happened just yesterday. His weapons also illuminated a path out of the hangar.
"Fall in. Make for the egress point. I will contact Lord Megatron." Was it his imagination, or did his vocoder make his voice seem more clipped, more emotionless than usual?
As his Cassetticons found their own ways around the wreckage, Soundwave opened a link with his commander, preparing to deliver a brief summary of the situation and request aid. But Megatron was much closer than he expected.
So was the entire Decepticon army.
The coastal winds blew in from the West once night fell, dissipating most of the smoke and the ash hanging in the air. It was a full moon, one that cast light over the wilderness for miles in every direction, but the night was hazy and ash still drifted in tangible motes through the air. The mountain still shook from time to time and belched more clouds of smoke into the otherwise clear sky. Here, its periodical mini-eruptions were much louder, and earsplitting when they occurred too, but they hadn't happened for a while. The true tension brewed on a rocky outcropping just outside of the Ark's gaping stern hangar between two races of alien robots.
Soundwave stood among the slimmer rank-and-file. The Decepticons were outnumbered by their adversaries by a wide margin, but they were empowered with the recovery of their SIC and the power of Dark Energon. They stood in enemy territory like they owned the place, and power just about radiated off of them.
The Autobots, by example, had massed in front of the Ark's cargo hatch, armed to the teeth and bristling with anger. They did not attack, however, because among their enemies' sparse number, two of theirs sat on their knees, heads bowed, bleeding from multiple places and looking quite the worse for wear. Hound and Cliffjumper.
Megatron was the one who broke the silence. "Autobots. Optimus Prime. You've awakened substantially earlier than I expected. Mainly because I did not expect, nor did I plan for, you to awake at all."
"Yeah, well, you should have put bullets in us while we were still in stasis, tyrant," Jazz spat. "Say, Soundwave, how's your yellow birdy doin'? Bit of a sore throat still?"
Laserbeak, perched on Soundwave's shoulder, squawked indignantly on Buzzsaw's behalf, causing a jolt to run through the entire meeting. Some weapons primed, and rows of metal teeth showed as several soldiers' faces contorted into battle-ready sneers.
"Peace, Laserbeak," Soundwave intoned, effectively hushing the rest of his side as well.
"We'll tear you all to bits and bolts, Decepticreeps!" someone snarled, much like a feral animal would have done. It was probably Camshaft.
"Enough!" Optimus barked in a deep baritone. "Megatron. We will honor a parlay and hear your terms, but while you are here, you live by our terms. Whatever the outcome of this event, Hound and Cliffjumper are to remain unharmed. Do I make myself clear?"
The Decepticon Emperor's blood-red optics gleamed with malice, but also a twisted kind of respect. "Crystal, 'Prime.' You have my word as a fellow warrior and my authority as Cybertron's rightful Emperor. The two incompetent scabs will not meet their ends at my, nor any other of my subjects' servos."
"As your spark shines, you keep your word," Optimus demanded, every word hard as flint and strong as steel. "Now. Let us parlay. What are your terms?"
"Why, nothing else than the voluntary conversion or forced eradication of every Autobot that still stains the stars, of course! The reinstatement of freedoms and civil liberties for all Cybertronians under the reign of a generous, loving, yet strict, ruler to guide all wayward sparks away from their own self-imposed destruction! You've known this from the beginning. But, I'm told that this is not a sustainable strategy, and thus will deign to narrow my scope." He spat some of the last words like he couldn't wait to get them out of his mouth. "What I want right now, Optimus Prime, is your Ark. Just for a little while. Just until we find the Nemesis and the means to build the very first outpost of the Free Intergalactic Decepticon Empire here, on Terra. Your crew will live unless they themselves resolve not to. My Decepticons will be supreme and unquestioned for the entirety of our occupation of your base. And in return of your temporary fealty and the services of your precious rust-bucket, you will all have your lives after all is said and done. Your hound and your cliff-jumper will be spared. Your Ark will be left in the same condition we use it in. This is a one-time offer, Prime. I suggest you take it."
A howl rose from inside the aft hangar. "Like Pit we're going to take your slag, murderer!"
And a small yellow mech rushed forward out of the crowd, twin Stingers glowing a deep blue. He had a set of lively doorwings that folded behind him as he ran, jaw set and azure optics set on the craggy face of the Decepticon Commander . . .
Three enormous tendrils of volcanic lightning came down from the smoke cloud above, striking the earth between the two militias with a noise so loud it knocked several smaller Minibots on both sides down and even made Optimus Prime flinch. When the dust cleared, the ground was scarred and black, with ankle-high growths of purple crystals forming an unmistakable border between the Autobots and Decepticons.
Megatron and Thundercracker each lowered a hand. Bumblebee stayed frozen in his tracks, still in an action pose, unable to move.
"I take it that's a no, then?" Megatron inquired once the ringing in everyone's ears had subsided, deathly calm as he powered up his fusion cannon.
"NO! Megatron, stop! Bumblebee does not speak for all of us," Optimus lied. Even he wanted nothing more than to liberate his captive allies by extreme force, but he kept that out of his well-measured tone. Glancing at Soundwave, he sent a silent message to every Autobot gathered - one that was nothing but a blank text, albeit one attributed clearly to the Prime. "We will think about your most . . . generous . . . offer. Give us until this time next cycle, and Autobot High Command will have an answer to your demands. You have my word."
Megatron inclined his head and did not answer for some time, watching more lightning flicker in the tormented sky above. No one else knew it, but he was silently conferring with his trusted second-in-command, and after a while, he seemed to reach a decision. "Very well. Since you and your . . . allies . . . treated my second so well while he was rebooting, I will grant you this boon. Of course, I will be taking your twin scouts. Call it insurance. Once more, they will not have to come to terms with their god under my care, even if you fail to supply me with your response."
"Permission to address the enemy, my lord?" a medium-sized, medium-featured Decepticon inquired. His only distinguishing feature was the giant aperture in the center of his torso, which was currently spiraled open.
"Permission granted, Viewfinder."
"Death isn't what should be feared in the company of the Decepticons," the leader of the Photonicons remarked blandly, as if commenting on the weather, in the general direction of Optimus Prime. "It's the road one must walk to get there."
"Autobot hospitality: appreciated," Soundwave noted. "Decepticon hospitality: rather different in nature."
Megatron waved a hand, and the row of Dark Energon crystals imploded violently, but they were too small to be a threat. "We will return at the time you have specified, when Terra's sun sets once again. I hope that you are prepared to stand for your beliefs. What were they, again? Ah, yes. 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.'"
"Sentiment: noble. Reality: often disappointing," Soundwave finished as Spectro of the Photonicons hauled Hound and Cliffjumper up by their stasis-cuffed wrists.
And the Decepticons fell out without another sound. The Autobots let them leave. What else could they have done?
As Soundwave transformed again and his Cassetticons returned to their compartment, where their sibling Buzzsaw was already on the road to recuperation, various sighs of relief and shouts of elation sounded over the Cassetticon bond.
But out of the excited, yet hushed, clamor over Buzzsaw's inert form and over the still-present eruption of Mt. St. Hilary, only one message was directed solely at Soundwave, who accepted it without preamble. It was Ravage, his oldest son and overall quietest creation.
I must say. Not in front of the others, yes, but I must say nonetheless. It is good to have you back, komandir.
And although Soundwave didn't respond, the sentiment between the two mechs was perfectly clear as they came down from the mountain.