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Soundwave made his way silently down into the Tombs below the remains of the Arena. The Tombs where fallen gladiators had been put to rest, often without ceremony and rarely with tears or grief. The Tombs where Frenzy had asked to be interred if he fell during the revolution, and the Tombs where Rumble had asked to be buried with his brother as his spark energy bled away into the atmosphere after he fell in the battle for Iacon. The Tombs where Enemy, adopted into their cohort after his own host fell and such a perfect match for his twins that they might have been triplets instead, had dragged himself after receiving a mortal injury during a spying mission that he had been too inexperienced for. The Tombs where there was nothing but a nameplate and an empty cell for Buzzsaw, because the missile hadn’t left enough of him to salvage when it hit.
Soundwave made his way inside, with Ravage’s limp body cradled in his hands, ready to lay him to rest with his brothers. On his shoulder Laserbeak crooned, grief and love in equal measure sung into the darkness for her fallen siblings.
Aw, not Ravage!
He was gonna live forever!
The voices whispered through the dark, just barely audible over Laserbeak’s song, and he ran a check on his audials even though he had heard the first voice every time he had brought another Recordicon to this place after laying Frenzy to rest. They returned no errors, as expected, and Soundwave continued on into the maze of mausoleums until he reached the edifice he had chosen for himself and his cohort when he began fighting in the arena.
He was the best. He shouldn’t be here.
Nooooo! Buzzsaw’s voice was new, and it made the grief of his loss cut again. Though, it also comforted him to know that the flyer had made it here, to be with his siblings, after all.
“Ravage…” Soundwave’s vocalizer, unused to speech after his oath to remain silent until all of Cybertron was free, crackled as he replied. But in this place, among his recordicons who couldn’t see his faceplate anymore, it was more disrespectful not to speak. “Was the best of us. He…”
Laserbeak crooned a new note, and rubbed her head against his. It was not as much comfort as he would hoped for, but knowing that she was the last was difficult.
The last of his recordicons, and possibly the last on the Decepticon side of the war.
“He died protecting Lord Megatron,” Soundwave continued after several kliks.
Big Boss shoulda been protecting him! Rumble was right, but Soundwave would never say it. One tiny recordicon should never have been trying to protect someone with armor that could not be dented by the strongest Prime and that would withstand the heat of a fusion blast.
We’d’a all done it though. Enemy sounded uncharacteristically thoughtful.
That was, perhaps the part that hurt the most. They would have all done it, himself included. And when it was his turn, there might not be anyone to bring Soundwave to the tomb to rest with his recordicons.
“Ravage, all of you, should have survived to witness victory.” Soundwave lowered Ravage’s frame into the cell he had prepared vorns ago, when Frenzy first asked to be interred here. He had always known they would all want to be together, and with him, in the end. “Soundwave, Laserbeak, will witness in your stead.”
Immediate protests met those words, and he smiled for a klik behind his mask. Then he closed the lid over Ravage and etched his youngest recordicon’s name into the metal with a laser pen he carried for no other task.
Then he bowed his head and keened his grief into the empty halls. Laserbeak didn’t hesitate before joining in.