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Shockwave had converted most of his personal quarters into his own lab, with Megatron’s permission, of course. He had never been concerned with having anyone else use them... until Blackarachnia showed up. Originally, Shockwave hadn’t minded her need for a workspace. He was actually sort of happy to finally see another Decepticon take interest in scientific endeavors, even if she was an ex-Autobot… but Shockwave began to grow suspicious of her work when she suddenly requested to have the lab to herself for a solarcycle.
Shockwave, though wary, allowed this. Megatron had apparently authorized her project, so it wasn’t like he was in any place to argue with her. He used a spare berthroom to recharge that night and tried his best not to worry about whatever Blackarachnia’s experiment was.
Shockwave waited a good long while before deciding to head into his lab. He had his own work to do and wasn't just going to sit around all day, waiting for her to be done. He at least wanted some kind of time estimate of when he could return. When he entered the room, he was surprised to see that Blackarachnia was not present, and he was even more surprised to see someone else sitting on one of his tables.
Shockwave immediately recognized the "someone" as Blitzwing, a fellow Decepticon who had recently been invited to stay on the Nemesis by Megatron himself. Despite the fact that Blitzwing was about the same age as him, Shockwave hadn’t spoken to him much. Shockwave was perfectly content keeping to himself and his work; he found no need to make friends. Though now, he kind of wished he would have talked to him a bit more. Maybe he would have a clue as to what’s going on.
Blitzwing looked up at Shockwave, finally noticing he was there. Shockwave awkwardly stared back for a moment.
“Um, hello, Blitzwing,” he finally mustered out. “What are you… doing in my lab?”
“She told me to stay here for a bit,” Blitzwing replied. Shockwave immediately noticed that his voice was laced with static and unsteady. In general, he seemed weak. He had his servos laced together loosely, but they were trembling. “She said I… need some time to recover. I’m not sure how long though.”
“Recover?” Shockwave quietly repeated. Certainly, Blitzwing couldn’t have been the subject of Blackarachnia’s experiment, could he? Shockwave stepped closer and put his servo on the edge of the table. “Blitzwing, what’s going on?”
“I… I, um…” Blitzwing reached up and placed a servo on his faceplate. His one-working optic squeezed shut. “Blackarachnia… said she needed a subject for her experiment. She said it would 'enhance' me… make me a better soldier.”
Blitzwing abruptly stopped talking and began to shake even more. Shockwave tensed up, unsure if Blitzwing was about to have some sort of breakdown or a spark attack- but then, he heard a weird click and watched in horror as Blitzwing’s current faceplate turned to reveal another one.
“I have no idea what that repulsive excuse of a Decepticon did to me, but I’m going to rip out of her disgusting techno-organic spark for it!” Blitzwing snarled, his new, red faceplate being accompanied by a new voice.
Suddenly, the same thing happened again to reveal another face.
“Well, I can’t say that I’m not surprised that I didn’t get what I asked for!” He then burst out into an audial-splitting cackle.
His faceplate changed one more time, fortunately back to the original. Blitzwing didn’t say anything-- he just cradled his helm in his servos. Shockwave couldn't see his face now, but he could hear Blitzwing sobbing.
“I don’t know what she did to me,” he muttered. “I don’t know…”
Before he could say anything, Shockwave heard the familiar sound of someone entering the room. He looked over his shoulder and was not surprised to see Blackarachnia.
“Hey, Shockwave,” she nonchalantly greeted him as she approached him. She gazed around him to look at Blitzwing and chuckled. “Primus, is he really out again?”
Shockwave turned around and was surprised to see that, indeed, Blitzwing was in stasis. Blackarachnia stepped closer to push Blitzwing from his current position of sitting with his helm in his servos and onto his back.
“What did you do to him?” Shockwave sternly asked.
Blackarachnia rested her side against the table, looking over Blitzwing. “Well, as you know, most Cybertronians only have one alt-form. I played around a bit and managed to trick his processor into thinking that he’s more than one bot-- and, of course, altered his t-cog and a few other mechanisms-- so now he can have more than one alt-mode.”
She then reached up and pushed his faceplate, forcing it to switch to the next one. Shockwave felt his spark lurch.
“He now has the choice of two alt-modes and two types of weaponry,” she continued to explain. “Each of his first two faces can only use one of each of those at a time, but the third can choose to use any of them whenever he wants. Of course, this is all in theory. I still have yet to see if any of this works.”
Shockwave tried his best to hold back his anger. “So, you just made one bot into three bots?”
“Not exactly,” she said with a shrug. “Think of it more like… extreme mood swings. At the end of the solarcycle, he’s still all Blitzwing, but his emotions are more… separated. Of course, his processor just recognizes it as three separate bots, so he can have more than one alt-mode.”
“And how has this affected his processor?” Shockwave pressed. “Surely a procedure this extreme has to have some costly side-effects.”
“I think he’s lost most of his memory,” Blackarachnia flatly replied. “He remembers a few things, like you, and me, and Megatron, but he can’t seem to remember where he was forged or anything from his early life. I don’t think he’ll have issues remembering things in the future, but he’s definitely forgotten a lot now.”
Shockwave paused for a moment. He clenched and unclenched his servos before muttering, “ You'll have to excuse me.”
He didn’t even wait for Blackarachnia to process what he had said before leaving. He immediately headed for the control room, knowing exactly what who he was looking for. As he entered, he was unsurprised to see Starscream at Megatron’s side, going on about something, and Lugnut at the controls. Shockwave stepped closer, no one noticing he was there yet.
“You really let her do that to one of your soldiers?” Shockwave spat when he was a few pede-steps behind Megatron.
Starscream and Lugnut both swung their helms to look at Shockwave. Starscream gave him a bewildered look, meanwhile, Lugnut immediately took action and stormed right up to him.
“How dare you think you have the right to speak to our glorious leader with that tone!” Lugnut snapped. Shockwave was fully prepared to argue with Lugnut but was unfortunately interrupted by Megatron.
“Lugnut, Starscream, leave us be,” he calmly said, waving off the two.
“Are you sure about that?” Starscream asked, raising an optic ridge.
Megatron was oddly calm. “I am fully capable of handling this.”
Starscream shrugged before making his way out of the room. Though he was hesitant, Lugnut ended up following behind the seeker. As soon as the others were gone, Shockwave went off.
“Are you aware of what you authorized?” he sharply asked. “Since when have we become so desperate that we need to resort to mutilating our own bots?”
“Calling it mutilation is a harsh and inaccurate way to describe what was done to Blitzwing,” Megatron simply said, finally turning to face Shockwave.
“I beg to differ,” Shockwave snorted. “Have you seen him yet? Because I have and, besides the obvious horror of him having three separate faces, he is a mess. He is trembling, emotionally unstable, and terrified - oh, and apparently, he can’t remember any of his sparkling-hood! This is absolutely horrific, and the fact that it was done to one of our own loyal, devoted soldiers is even worse!”
Megatron frowned. “You say that as if your own projects aren’t as ‘horrific’.”
“The worst I’ve done is design military weapons. I’ve never even considered experimenting and torturing one of our own bots for my own scientific endeavors.” Shockwave huffed. “And you let an ex-Autobot do it, of all bots!”
“I let her proceed because I believed that her idea had potential,” Megatron suddenly snapped, making Shockwave flinch. He took a step back, but Megatron took two steps closer. “Unfortunately, we are becoming a bit desperate for tactical advantages against the Autobots, and her triple changer program seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. There is the possibility that Blitzwing will end up not being the ideal soldier I wanted, and if that’s the case, then another bot like him will never come to be- but I am not about to waste this potential just because of these morals you suddenly think you have.”
Shockwave stood there for a nanoklik, too stunned to say or do anything. Megatron just stared back at him, waiting for him to say something.
“...Blitzwing didn’t ask for this. He could’ve been a normal bot, but now he’s a freak, and, unlike me, he wasn’t sparked like this.” Shockwave’s helm hung low. “It could have been prevented.”
Megatron shook his helm. “I knew you were upset about this for another reason besides morality.”
The warlord hesitated for nanoklik, thinking, and then sighed.
“If you are truly so worried about Blitzwing, then I’ll put you in charge of his aftercare. I’m sure Blackarachnia wasn’t looking forward to that, anyway,” Megatron murmured. “Hopefully it’ll give you some peace of processor.”
Shockwave would’ve protested, but he knew this was the most he could get out of the exchange. “Thank you, sir.”
“And I hope that this was the first and only outburst from you,” Megatron quickly added. “You are one of my most loyal and devoted subjects, Shockwave. Don’t make me regret putting you on such a pedestal.”
“Of course, my liege,” Shockwave softly said. “I am deeply sorry for my behavior.”
Megatron turned his back towards him once more. “Go, now.”
Shockwave followed orders and exited the room. Not to his surprise, he found Starscream and Lugnut in the hallway, most likely listening in on him and Megatron. Shockwave didn't care. He hurried past them and was thankful that they didn’t say anything.
Blackarachnia was still in his lab when he returned, and Blitzwing appeared to still be unconcscious. The femme looked up at Shockwave as he entered.
“Want to explain to me why Megatron just comm'd me to let me know that you’ll be taking over for Blitzwing’s aftercare?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“Would you rather take care of him instead?” Shockwave retorted.
“Hm… fair point,” she admitted, shrugging. “I’d wait a few more megacycles before letting him try to refuel. He might purge his tanks if you give him any now, and that would strain his systems way too much. He’ll probably recharge a lot, but if it starts seeming excessive, wake him up. Keep a datapad of any of his symptoms and comm me if anything goes really wrong.”
She gave him a small wave as she left the room. “Good luck.”
Shockwave watched as the door shut behind her and remained staring at it for a few kliks. He eventually grabbed one of his chairs and pulled it up to the table Blitzwing was on. He rested an arm on the table, careful to not invade Blitzwing’s space, and rested his helm on that servo.
"Why are you doing this?"
Blitzwing's voice made Shockwave jump.
"I'm sorry?"
Blitzwing didn't bother to roll over to look at him. "You're taking over looking after me. Why did you do that?"
Shockwave gazed down at the table for a moment, and unfortunately caught a glimpse of himself in the silvery reflection. Though he couldn’t see himself that clearly, it was clear enough to make him look away.
"I don't think what Blackarachnia has done to you is right," Shockwave murmured. "And there's not much else I can do for you other than try to be here for you and offer you my sympathy."
Blitzwing finally rolled over. He met Shockwave's gaze and stared at him for a long while, most likely trying to decipher if this was genuine or not (a difficult task considering Shockwave's lack of facial features). Blitzwing eventually relaxed and mumbled, "Thank you."
Blitzwing's optics slowly went offline as he drifted back into recharge. Shockwave gently rested his claws on Blitzwing's servo and laid his helm against the cold table. He eventually fell into recharge as well.