Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Deep inside Outpost-3, a set of doors slid open with loud hydraulic huffs, letting two workers enter into an enormous hangar. The room was entirely pitch-black, the only source of light being the torches brought by the drones. Each of them started looking around with careful steps, shining their torches onto the floor to see where they were going. One of them was holding a coffee cup in his other hand, taking a sip from it as he walked through the dark.

“Would you stop drinking from that?” his colleague asked with an annoyed look, “at this rate you’re not gonna have any room left once we get back.”

“Oh come on, man!” the other worker replied, “I could be partying like everyone else instead of being here! The least I deserve is some decaff.”

“Yeah, if you’ve got night vision goggles. Nobody’s partying until we fix the power outage, remember?”

“*Sigh* I know, I know… I’m just sick of it constantly happening. How many did we even get this month?”

“I stopped counting.”

The pair kept searching around the room, until they eventually managed to find a breaker. The drone without a cup took out a screwdriver from his pocket, opening its panel to take a look inside.

“All we can do is divert what little electricity we still have…" he said as he fiddled with the electronics inside, "Khan really needs to deal with this at some point.”

“Slurp… How exactly?” asked the other one after drinking again, “it’s not like he can magically pull fuel out of thin air.”

“Well we’ve gotta figure something out! At this rate we won’t even have enough power to recharge ourselves!”

The worker finished rerouting the power lines, a little light from inside the breaker indicating that the electricity now flowed to a different room. He stood up and closed back the panel, sighing with his hand resting against the metal box.

“Feels weird arguing about saving power while giving loads of it to some party,” said the drone with a cup, his colleague having no choice but to nod in agreement.

“Yeah, well, people desperately need to be happy around here,” he shrugged, “no way they’d accept skipping celebrations for practical reasons. Now come on, I think I wanna try the eggnog.”

Him and his buddy started walking back towards the exit, when one of them accidentally flashed something massive in the room’s center.

“Wait! Check this out,” said the drone with a cup, changing directions to head towards the colossal device.

The two pointed their flashlights at it, letting them see the inactive Space Bridge in all its glory. The alien construct stood tall amidst the darkness, the giant ring reflecting their torchlight with its sleek exterior. It was currently turned off, having never been reactivated ever since Megatron first left their planet. The amount of electricity it required was absurd, and given the current shortages faced by the colony, it was absolutely forbidden to activate it. Now the device acted as nothing but a glorified memorial, a reminder that there once was a being from another universe who stepped foot onto their soil, and helped save their world.

“Slurp… I still have a hard time believing we have this here. Feels like it all happened forever ago…”

“It’s not even been a year though… Do you remember his speech from before he left? I don’t think I’ve ever felt more enthusiastic than back then.”

“Yeah, the guy had high hopes for us. Slurp… Wonder what he’d say if he looked at us now.”

The other worker patted his friend on the back, hearing the sadness in his voice. “Hey now, don’t give up already. Things aren’t over yet. I’m sure we’ll figure this out.”

“Sluuuuurp… I hope you’re right.”

“Would you let go of that cup already?!”

“Sure,” his friend replied, “it’s empty anyway.”

The worker didn’t really know where to put it, looking around the darkness until he found something that looked like a table. He placed the empty cup onto it, turning away to head for the exit with his friend. Their steps echoed through the hangar until they finally went back through the doors, plunging the room in complete darkness once again as they closed.

With the drones now gone, the hangar returned to its usual silence. The Space Bridge rested alone in the cold, completely isolated from the rest of the colony. Large vents hidden behind the walls quietly moved around the outpost’s air, making the structure seem like it was breathing in its sleep. Not one source of light was active inside the room, turning it into a darkened cave of what seemed like pure void. Everything inside it was completely invisible, hidden behind a curtain of shadows so deep it might as well not exist.

Because of this, nobody could’ve seen where the worker’s cup had been placed. Nobody could’ve seen that it rested on the Space Bridge’s lever, and how it began weighing down on the mechanism. Nobody could’ve seen the cup falling to the ground as the lever ended up fully going down. Nobody could’ve seen the screen next to it turning on, saying that the trans-warp generator was activated. Nobody could’ve seen the portal that appeared inside the metallic ring, and the purple crackles surrounding the green vortex. Nobody could’ve seen the remnants of solver energy, which had stayed dormant inside the machine, infect the portal to turn it into a strange wormhole.

A large singularity with the word [DOOR] written in its center now stood inside the Space Bridge, humming ominously inside the empty hangar. Its event horizon glowed with a violet light, casting the somber color all around the machine. The wormhole stayed like this for a few moments, seemingly keeping it together despite having summoned itself into existence.

K Z K R T !

But suddenly, it became unstable. The conduit through universes turned warped and wobbled, reaching into spaces it never should’ve been allowed to touch as it spiraled out of control. The sphere painfully squashed and stretched on itself, causing warnings to appear all over the Space Bridge’s console. It was changing shapes at a rapid pace, the blackness at its center eventually turning into a dull and lifeless gray. It stopped peacefully humming like before, instead producing a ghastly sound with an unnatural echo to it.

The noise made by the singularity was then followed by another one, which came from inside the vortex itself. It wasn’t yet another gurgle coming from the throes of the rift, but the sound of an engine. More precisely the engine of a plane, its mechanical roaring slowly becoming louder and louder. Something began appearing within the portal, its contours becoming more defined as it approached the wormhole’s exit. The object was heading for it at blazing speed, until it finally managed to escape the rift entirely.

W H O O S H !

All of a sudden, a sleek, nearly black stealth bomber flew out of the wormhole like a rocket, rising up towards the hangar’s incredibly high ceiling. The portal collapsed onto itself moments later, the eldritch energy keeping it together having fully run out. The bomber’s thrusters roared as it headed towards the closed off roof, its engine stopping moments before reaching it.

Then, it transformed.

The plane’s structure shifted in mid-air, its mechanisms folding into each other as it began falling towards the ground. The changing machine rapidly plummeted through the darkness, becoming something else entirely in its fall, until it finally hit the concrete floor.

T H U D !

The sound of the impact resonated throughout the hangar, ringing between its walls like a thunderclap. It made the whole room rattle like a pile of junk, a dust cloud rising from where the object crashed. But as the noise eventually quieted down, and the smoke parted away, it became apparent that something wasn’t right. Indeed, it wasn’t the landing gear of a plane that had touched down on the floor, but massive hands of pure metal.

A giant robot had now appeared within the hangar, slowly standing up from the shattered concrete after having left the portal. His body was tall and thin, boasting a dark blue exterior covering an even darker frame, which was laced with countless glowing purple lines. The arms extending from his shoulders were incredibly long and flat, having just shifted from being wings to upper limbs in an instant. His hands had spindly articulated fingers, currently pushing against the floor to help him get up. His torso was in the shape of an inverted triangle, with the legs attached to his hips boasting a set of inverted joints. His feet were sharp and triangular as well, their soles firmly planted against the floor as they let him stand up to look around the place. The robot’s face was nothing but a large screen, having no features to call its own except the smooth monitor currently observing the room. Spiky ornaments around its head gave the faceless machine a threatening appearance, making him look almost identical to the Decepticon insignia on his shoulder.

The silent transformer carefully took in his surroundings, having been waiting for this moment for what felt like millennia. His sensors quickly took a scan of the area, confirming he had at last escaped the accursed dimension. A sensation of relief overcame him as he stood before the Space Bridge, his body fully concealed by the darkness. Finally, after all this time…

Soundwave had returned.

♫ Music

“PARTY HAAAAAAAARD!!!”

Sitting on top of a stage behind his mixer, the DJ yelled his heart out as he turned the music back on, power having finally returned to his machine. The crowd of teenagers in front of him hollered in response, their chrome bodies getting bathed in multicolored lights as the room’s spotlights turned back on. Cheerful dancing replaced the stillness that had taken hold in the darkness, accompanied by drinks being poured and friends laughing together. Strange colors and shapes could be seen jutting out from the masses, coming from the weird and wacky costumes everybody had adorned for the occasion.

A large banner had been put above the stage, proudly announcing the theme of the party inside the room where prom night had happened a long time ago. Its black letters in a funky font were cast in orange and purple lights, surrounded by various drawings of pumpkins and skulls smiling end to end.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Spooky decor and fake spider webs were aplenty amidst the large room, cardboard cutouts and black garlands having turned it from a boring concrete box into a wicked dance floor. Fake bats hung from threads glued to the ceiling, accompanied by shadows voluntarily set up to look like there were witches flying in their midst. Pictures of monsters and ghouls had been put all over the walls, gnashing their paper teeth and mouths like they could reach beyond their flat bodies to bite the guests. Makeshift pumpkins had been made from empty containers and water jugs, twisted eyes and wicked smiles having been carved through their plastic, while orange LEDs lit up their insides like small bonfires. There were even full-on skeletons strewn around the place, which were just actual, genuine human corpses that’d been plucked from the frozen wasteland outside.

But while the colorful and gloomy decorations laid still, the drones surrounding them certainly didn’t. Mechanical whirring was ringing from the crowd, robotic legs dancing the night away like it wouldn’t be followed by a sunrise. Clothing and accessories of all kinds swerved around the mass, from the most conventional inflatable T-Rex outfit all the way to the weirdest choices of alternate fashion. Witches, demons, ghosts, vampires and zombies were all having the time of their life, partying like a necromancer had gone haywire on the local graveyard. Colorful drinks with or without bubbles were passed around, nobody checking to see if they were alcoholic or not. Everybody was dressed like the dead, yet the young drones felt more alive than ever.

Amidst the crowd, a small circle had formed around a break-dancing robot, which happened to be Thad dressed like a werewolf. He was spinning and sliding around with incredible skill, having only gotten better at it over the years and the many parties he had gone to and organized. Those surrounding him hollered at his performance, wooing him in rhythm with the beat.

“Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! YEAAAAAHH!”

As the jock mesmerized the people with his hip-hop moves, he suddenly sprung up from the floor before posing dramatically. He made finger guns at his spectators while smiling with his fake wolf teeth, causing a few girls in the audience to faint from his beastly charm.

“Haha!” he exclaimed, quickly fixing his fake ears that’d gotten a little loose, “dance tricks never fail to sway the ladies!”

“You’re a werewolf, stupid,” said a familiar feminine voice behind him, “it’s vampires who hypnotize people, not doggies like you.”

The furred drone turned around, seeing Lizzy staring at him with an eyebrow raised. She was wearing black cat ears along with a tail, accompanied by whiskers having been drawn over her face. She had a sparkly pink dress that shone beneath the spotlights, forcing Thad to refresh his cameras by blinking from its reflections.

“Wow, uh… You certainly look glamorous,” he remarked. “Almost a little too much for a party like this, don’t you think?”

“Pft!” Lizzy scoffed, “come on, dude. Everybody knows Halloween’s for dressing up like a freak, doesn’t really matter what kind.”

Thad was about to say something else, when one of his football buddies suddenly pulled on his shoulder from behind while laughing.

“Dude, that was amazing!” his friend said, “you’ve gotta teach me that someday!”

“Yeah!” added another, appearing at Thad’s side while patting his other shoulder. “Looks like you even managed to score the unscorable, eh?” the drone chuckled while throwing a look at Lizzy.

Thad smiled as he saw the girl roll her eyes at the guy’s remark. “Heh… What can I say?” scoffed the jock, “I’m a pretty cool guy.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said the feline fembot, “and you lot better stop flattering him too. Wouldn’t want his head to get big enough to replace our missing moon.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, an old couple was currently getting drinks together at the bar. The bartender with a fake arrow going through his head sighed as he filled yet another glass, whose contents wasted no time disappearing into the gullet of the drunken drone.

“Raaaah!” exhaled Nori as she put down the glass, having gulped it down all in one go, “t-that *Hic* h-hits the spot…”

A gentle hand carefully patted her back, Khan staring worryingly at his wife hunched over the bar while trying to gauge if she was going to throw up or not. “You okay, hun?”

“YES!” she exclaimed, one of her eyes remaining half-shut on her monitor as she said that, “I’m shooooo~ okay right now, you won’t even BELIEVE how okay I am.”

“I am quite skeptical about that, yes,” he replied, watching his wife slump over the counter while she got lost in half-eaten mumbles.

The mustached drone had gone with a very primitive costume for the occasion, having simply put on a lab coat tainted with red paint and called it a mad scientist look. He’d have gone dressed as a door if possible, but he felt like it would just make the party awkward to have an old man like him fool around with that fixation of his. He already felt out of place enough in this room filled with nothing but teens, which he had only agreed to enter to accompany Nori, who had wanted to feel like she was in her prime years again. Although, if someone were to ask him, drowning himself in booze probably wasn’t the first thing he’d have thought of to immerse himself in high school nostalgia.

Speaking of booze, his wife probably had more of it in her system than oil right now. Normally drones shouldn’t have been able to get drunk, yet a particularly skilled programmer had managed to find a way to circumvent that. Said programmer was currently exploiting her achievement with greed, having coded the insides of her mouth to create random patterns in her behavior the more alcohol it detected. The witch hat on Nori’s head swayed as she lazily moved her optics around, every movement she made with her drink threatening to stain the black dress she was wearing. She kicked around her feet in pointy shoes as she sat on the bar stool, bright pink lines having appeared on her monitor.

“Heeeeeyyy~” she said while lurching over to Khan, “that’s a-a pretty schmexy mustache you’ve *Hic* y-you’ve got there, mister… I- *Hic* k-kinda wanna kiss it.”

“Uh…” said Khan, looking around nervously while wondering what to do.

“But I- *Hic* CAN’T DO THAT!” Nori suddenly exclaimed, slamming her empty glass against the counter, “see, I already… A-Already have a… *Hic* A uh… A husband. Yeah.”

Nori looked down at her glass, slowly caressing it with her finger, “I l-love him so much. Really I *Hic* I-I do. I’m shhh… I’m shhh… I’m shorry, but I c-can’t smooch you. I don’t wanna b-be unfaithful to such a-a *Hic* great guy.”

“But… I’m your husband,” replied Khan in confusion.

Nori slowly turned her head towards him, forcing her eyes to blink one after the other, until they suddenly lit up like torches.

“YOU AAAAARE!!!”

“Whoa, wait! Don’t jump on me like th-”

C R A S H !

Khan yelped as his wife leapt over him like a face-hugger, knocking him off the bar stool and onto the floor. The seat she jumped from fell over, knocking over everybody else’s chairs near the counter like a big domino. Multiple drones fell to the ground along with their drinks, causing sounds of broken glass and bodies hitting the wooden floor. The man tried pushing against Nori’s embrace, but she didn’t care, merely continuing to savagely rub her face against him like a dog.

Khan saw the bartender leaning over the counter to glare at him, who was then joined by the many customers Nori had dissatisfied. The drone could only reply with a nervous shrug and smile, hoping the rest of the night wouldn’t be as rowdy for him and his wife. But mostly for him.

W H O O S H !

A white blur suddenly flew over him like the wind, coming from an elegant figure with silver hair and a body draped in cloth. The thing gracefully landed atop the disco ball hanging from the ceiling, making a not-so elegant middle finger towards someone on the ground below.

“HA!” mocked V from where she stood, holding a nearly empty bottle with a colorful liquid inside, “the fruit punch is MINE!”

“COME BACK HERE!” yelled an angry girl’s voice from amidst the crowd, followed by a dark shape leaping from the mass, which then landed atop the disco ball as well.

Uzi snarled at V, the disassembler playfully fiddling with the bottle to taunt the worker. V was wearing an angel costume, boasting a pure white dress lined with fake gold, along with plastic wings on her back. The halo pinned to her hair offered a stark contrast to her bratty grin, which had been carefully designed to make Uzi as mad as possible.

Speaking of the worker, her outfit was the complete chromatic opposite of V’s. Uzi was wearing a black dress with a short skirt, having a purple bow under her collar that made it look like a school uniform. She also had a beanie that looked like a bat, which seemed to be munching on her scalp. It had cotton teeth and large button eyes, the wings extending from it giving Uzi’s head a set of woolly appendages.

“Come on, Uzi~” giggled V with a condescending look, “I haven’t even gotten to taste it yet. I’m sure you won’t mind if I finish this bottle, right?”

“I CAN SEE IT LEAKING FROM YOUR MOUTH!”

V wiped her lips with her hand, seeing a little smudge of the drink on the back of it. She scoffed at the stain, before shrugging at Uzi.

“Oops. Busteeed~”

“Give it to me now or-!”

V suddenly threw the bottle away, launching it into the dancing crowd below. “If you want it so bad then go get it, narc!”

Uzi stared at the bottle in horror, which would no doubt explode upon hitting the floor given how hard V threw it. The worker leapt off the disco ball to catch it, completely forgetting she had telekinetic abilities. She outstretched her hand as it was about to land, until someone suddenly bumped into her right as she was about to catch it.

S L A M !

Uzi hit the innocent bystander like a meteor, toppling him as they both tumbled to the floor. The surrounding drones stepped away from the scene, not wanting to get crushed by the emo falling from the ceiling. Uzi’s head felt a little woozy as she stood up, hearing a familiar voice express the same feeling from under her.

“Ow… Biscuits…”

“N!” Uzi exclaimed, “oh I’m so sorry about that. Are you okay?”

N lightly chuckled at her, “uh… I’d probably be if you weren’t sitting on me.”

Uzi looked down, seeing that she was currently hunched over her boyfriend while he had his back against the floor. The worker quickly stood up from him while looking flustered, her expression causing a few snickers to be heard from the crowd. She ignored the teasing sounds and reached out her hand to help N get back up. He accepted it and pulled himself upright, fixing his outfit after he had fallen over.

The disassembler, as per Uzi’s insistent requests, had decided to wear a maid dress for the night. The black and white clothing covered most of his frame, its delicate silk offering a surprisingly good complement to his mellow attitude. N’s head wasn’t adorned with his usual pilot cap, instead boasting a set of long, purple bunny ears that swayed every time he moved. Some of the drones had been questioning things about themselves while glancing at the cute little maid boy, who even had an opening shaped like a heart showing his chest, along with thigh highs and cute boots with black ribbons.

Uzi was about to apologize some more, until she saw N extend his arm with his palm facing the ceiling.

Clink!

Suddenly, a whole platter full of glasses fell from above, landing delicately in the boyish maid’s hands. Uzi stared at him gently bringing the plate down, having skillfully grabbed it without letting a single drink spill from it.

“I threw it in the air when I saw you about to crash into me,” explained N, “good thing I’m great at balancing things!”

“Yeah,” said Uzi, who was genuinely awed by N’s sleight of hand, “no kidding.”

The worker suddenly remembered what she was looking for, leaning down to frantically search for the bottle. “By the way, did you see some fruit punch fall before I did? I didn’t even get to drink an-”

Uzi stopped as she found a pair of beastly claws on the floor, slowly looking up to see the sentinel they belonged to. Pinky stared at Uzi with her red-eyed optics, facing her with its head sideways like an actual lizard. The murder drone killing machine was of course wearing a cow boy hat, but also had a saddle on its back to complete the western-coded look. Between her teeth was the bottle Uzi was looking for, having been caught mid-air by the horse-attired sentinel.

“Oh thank goodness,” exhaled Uzi in relief, “I almost thought it explo-”

S P L A S H !

“… deeeeeeeeed.”

Pinky’s tail swayed in happiness after successfully crushing the bottle between its jaws, having sent the last of the fruit punch spraying right into Uzi’s face. The sugary liquid leaked down the worker’s face as she made a disgusted grimace, hearing V laugh maniacally at her predicament from above. Uzi’s outfit was now drenched in the stuff, her eyes twitching in anger as the drink’s taste was everywhere except her tongue.

“Yikes,” hissed N through his teeth, pulling a towel from one of his dress’s pockets to give Uzi, “want something to dry yourself with?”

Uzi threw a death glare at V who was still on the disco ball, laughing so hard she could barely keep herself on it, all while Pinky swallowed the plastic bottle like it was candy.

“… Yeah,” she eventually replied, taking N’s towel with a tired sigh, “guess I’ll just be gone for a bit to clean myself.”

N suddenly leaned forward and licked Uzi’s screen, tasting the fruit punch right off his girlfriend’s face.

“Mmh~!” he hummed at the taste, “mango!”

“I-! Eh-! You-!” Uzi stammered, embarrassed beyond belief at having been licked by him like that, “I-I’m gonna go now!”

“Aww,” N playfully whined, “you sure you don't want me to do the rest?”

“Bite me!” she replied as she walked away from N, trying to hide the bright shade of purple of her cheeks.

“I’d rather lick you!” N quipped back, making Uzi even more embarrassed as she eventually lost him in the crowd.

N’s jokes had almost made the worker forget about the stickiness now tainting her clothes. Great. Guess all of it would have to go into the washer the moment she gets home. Uzi spent a while trying to find a spot without too many people clumped together, eventually noticing an empty space behind one of the tables used to hold snacks and drinks.

Uzi walked around the table filled with empty bowls and chip bags, most of it having already gotten pillaged by the hungriest of the drones. The worker groaned as she put her back against the wall, carefully wiping the fruit punch off her face with N’s towel.

“Веселитесь?”

“{Having fun?}”

Uzi shouted in surprise, feeling like her core was about to jump out of her chest as a disembodied voice suddenly addressed her. The drone frantically looked around for its source, quickly noticing a dark figure leaning against the wall right beside her that she hadn’t seen. The person was draped in an almost pitch-black robe with a hood covering their head, making them nearly invisible where the room’s spotlights didn’t shine. One of their hands was firmly clenched around a large scythe, its curved blade shining in the darkness as the figure turned towards Uzi.

“Серьезно? Из всего, что могло бы вас напугать, этот недорогой косплей Смерти — именно то, что удалось?”

“{Seriously?}” asked Doll, her red eye staring at the worker from the darkness of her hood, “{of all things that could scare you, this low cost Grim Reaper cosplay is what succeeds?}”

“I wasn’t scared!” lied Uzi, “just surprised to hear someone… I dunno, talk to me out of the void when I thought I was alone!”

“Не могу поверить, что у меня зрение лучше, чем у тебя, хотя я всего одним глазом. Тебе действительно стоит проверить зрение.”

“{I can’t believe I’ve got better eyesight than you with just one eye,}” Doll chuckled, “{you should really get your optics checked.}”

“Shut up,” grumbled Uzi, “why don’t you just regenerate your other one anyway? It’s not like there’s anything stopping you.”

“Потому что это выглядит круто.”

“{Because it looks cool.}”

“That… Yeah. Okay, fair.”

Uzi took off her bat beanie, grabbing an empty cup from the table before squeezing on the beanie while holding it above the cup. Her hands twisting its cloth forced the fruit punch out of the fabric, which then fell right into the cup waiting below. Uzi put her now dry beanie back onto her head, grabbing the cup to drink the colorful liquid she had just extracted. Doll gave Uzi a weird look as she gulped down her drink, making a satisfied exhale as she finally got to taste what V had tried keeping from her. N had been right about the mango taste, although the added woolly texture probably wasn’t meant to be in there as well.

“Also, to answer your question…” said Uzi, placing the empty cup back onto the table, “yeah, I’m having fun.”

“Отлично. Ты заслуживаешь чаще улыбаться..”

“{Good. You deserve to smile more.}”

“Heh,” chuckled Uzi, “that’s very nice coming from the collector of souls. Not too much traffic on the river Styx to get here I hope?”

“Узи, я серьёзно.”

“Uzi, I’m serious.”

Uzi’s smile disappeared, Doll looking at her with a seriousness that was fitting of her costume. The purple worker looked at the crowd dancing around under the spotlights, feeling like the music was slowly tuning out of her senses.

“I… I’m fine, Doll,” she said while rubbing her arm, “I’m over it. It’s been nice to not have to fight for so long.”

“Я бы тебя не винил, если бы это было не так, понимаешь? Сомневаюсь, что больше нескольких человек пережили то же, что и мы.”

Doll sighed at how dismissive Uzi was. “{I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t, you know? I doubt there’s more than a few people who went through what we did.}”

“And what?” asked Uzi with a hint of irritation, “are you saying you already moved on?”

“Категорически нет.”

“{Absolutely not.}”

“O… Oh…” said the worker, taken aback by Doll’s honesty, “then I guess… Yeah, I still think about it sometimes.”

Uzi’s gaze became distant, remembering everything that’d happened following Megatron’s arrival to their planet. Her getting possessed by Cyn, and him by Unicron. The hordes of zombies. The battle in space. Their duel on a moon that was now missing from their sky… It had all happened in such a short amount of time, so short that part of her refused to believe it was even real. Yet the scars left on their world were very much there, laid before everyone’s eyes for her and the others to see every day.

She couldn’t forget the struggles. The pain. The agony. The despair. The sheer helplessness she felt every time the gods nearly destroyed everything she cared about. Uzi knew it could’ve easily gone much, much worse, and she hated how big a part luck played in their victory. Had the demons become allies from the start, they would never have stood a chance. The possibility terrified Uzi, often imagining the complete emptiness Cyn and Unicron would’ve left in place of their planet had they won.

Her and Doll then noticed movement from amidst the crowd, seeing Lizzy and V riding atop Pinky’s saddle together. Uzi chuckled as they rode the sentinel like a pony, the goofy image taking her mind off her troubles for a moment, before she stared down into her open palm.

“I guess I’m a bit… Incredulous, if that’s the right word,” Uzi said, slowly closing her hand. “After going through so much action, I think my body’s just… waiting for it to happen again.”

Uzi scowled at the feeling, hating how overbearing it had become as of late. “And it- it just makes me so tense, all the time! Like, I’m tired, Doll! I really am! I’m sick of being a hero!”

Doll silently nodded at Uzi’s complaints, letting the drone air out her grievances to someone she knew could listen. The purple worker made a long, drawn out sigh of exasperation, leaning back even more against the wall.

“I know Megatron told us we shouldn’t take what we have for granted,” said Uzi, looking up at the ceiling, “but seriously… What’s the point of fighting for my life if I never even get to live it?”

“…Люди любят завершенность и определенность. Это дает им чувство безопасности. Жаль, что у жизни на самом деле нет конца.”

“… {People love closure and certainty,}” Doll replied after a moment of silence, “{it makes them feel safer. Too bad life doesn’t really have an ending.}”

“Yeah,” Uzi agreed, pointing to herself, “would really love to know how this hot mess ends.”

The bat-dressed worker then looked away from Doll, seeing a drunk Nori resist Khan’s grasp while he tried pulling her away from the bar. The red-eyed Reaper saw the couple as well, noticing the happiness flashing in Uzi’s eyes upon seeing her parents together again. Doll smiled from seeing Uzi’s mood getting better, before Khan’s sight made her think about more practical matters.

“Как ваш отец справляется с энергетическим кризисом?”

“{How is your father dealing with the energy crisis?}” asked Doll, directly addressing the elephant everyone in this room was trying to forget.

“Not great,” replied Uzi with a frown, looking up at the spotlights spending their precious electricity away. “Everytime he sends out N and V to look for oil, they’re basically just scrounging for leftovers. They’ve been emptying so many warehouses that they’ve had to spread their search farther than ever.”

“Haaa…” sighed the worker, “I don’t even remember the last time N came back from an excursion with a smile on his face. That’s how bad it’s gotten.”

Doll crossed her arms at the news, hating this corner the colony was being pushed into. The fear of dying a slow, painful death while starving for electricity was still distant, but it was getting closer every day. After everything she and the others had been through, she found it infuriating that the biggest threat they now faced was something as simple as resource shortages.

And it’s not like the solution for it was an easy fix. There wasn’t any big bad they had to beat up to save the day. Only a crippling lack of essential materials and energy that they needed to survive. It was a strangely realistic issue for the drones to face, who up to this point, had been doing just fine using whatever the humans had left behind. But now those leftovers were drying up, and they were scrambling to find what they needed to keep themselves online.

Doll sighed as she thought the issue over, coming to a simple yet loathsome conclusion.

“Думаю, пришло время вернуть себе наш мир.”

“{I think it’s about time we took back our world.}”

Uzi turned to Doll, raising an eyebrow, “what do you mean?”

“Я имею в виду, мы не можем продолжать есть объедки и просто надеяться, что завтра будет больше! Мы должны выйти и всё отстроить заново! Мы живём буквально в дыре под полом, спрятанные в городе, который нам даже не принадлежит, с улицами, по которым никто из нас не может проехать! Вам это нравится?!”

“{I mean we can’t keep eating scraps, and simply hope there’s more tomorrow!}” exclaimed the drone, “{We have to go out there and rebuild, all of it! We live in a literal hole under the floor, hidden inside a city we don’t even own! Does that sound pleasant to you?!}”

“Well… No,” Uzi replied, “but we’ve always lived like that, right?”

“Мы не просто жили, мы выживали! И мы продолжаем выживать!”

“{We weren’t living, we were surviving! And we still are!}”

“Whoa, hey, calm down,” said Uzi, seeing that a few people were starting to look their way from Doll’s shouting, “I get what you’re saying, but it’s not like there’s anything you and I can do about it.”

“Я знаю, но я просто…!”

“{I know, but I just-!}”

Doll suddenly stopped herself, sighing loudly as her temper became less agitated.

“*Вздох*… Мне просто хочется чувствовать, что я живу в месте, где мне место.”

“{*Sigh*… I just want to feel like I live somewhere I belong.}”

Uzi was taken aback by Doll’s change in tone, seeing tears swell up under her red eye. She quickly put her arm around the indigo-haired Grim Reaper, trying to comfort her as the music now seemed incredibly out of place.

Doll wasn’t making any audible crying. All Uzi could hear was a shuddering breath desperately trying to be held in, the hidden well of stress within Doll now threatening to overflow any second. The cheerleader’s eye quickly darted around, falling on a glass bottle on the table in front of her. The Grim Reaper let go of her scythe and launched forward, snatching the bottle with her hand before popping its cork open with her teeth. Doll put the drink to her mouth, rapidly chugging it down like she was a water pump while Uzi stared at her in worry.

The Grim Reaper eventually put down the bottle, having emptied it by herself in mere seconds. Her breath was no longer shaky, her expression having returned to its usual calm.

“… You doing okay?” asked Uzi, aware that Doll wasn’t particularly fond of having people worry about her.

“Хаaa… Теперь я тоже. Хорошо, что твоя мама сделала свою программу для дегустации алкоголя открытым исходным кодом.”

“{Haaaa… Now I am,}” replied Doll with the same tone she had before, “{good thing your mother made her alcohol-tasting program open source.}”

“Alcohol? What are yo-”

Uzi’s eyes went wide as she saw the label on the bottle, proudly displaying the word “VODKA” in decorated letters. The worker looked back at Doll in awe, the cheerleader having apparently some sort of divine resistance against being drunk.

Doll straightened her back as she stood away from the table, groaning while she fixed her spine before leaning down to grab her scythe. Uzi didn’t know if she should press the issue of what just happened, Doll having seemingly already put the ordeal behind her. The purple worker decided to change the subject, her gaze having been caught by the scythe’s gleam under the spotlights.

“How lucky that you got to keep your weapon, huh?” said Uzi, looking at Doll’s scythe to make it obvious as to what she was talking about. Doll glanced up at the curved blade, smiling from Uzi’s barely hidden attempt at getting her mind off things.

“Да. Особенно учитывая, что вы потеряли двоих.”

“{Yes,}” the Grim Reaper agreed, “{especially considering that you lost two.}”

Uzi groaned at the memory, “oh please don’t remind me. I barely got to test my new railgun that I already had it melting in my hands like a burnt cookie. And I’m not even gonna mention the Dark Star Saber…”

“Жаль, что я не видел, как ты им размахивал. Эти энергетические волны звучали очень заманчиво.”

“{I wish I could’ve seen you swinging it around,}” said Doll, “{those energy waves sounded like fun.}”

“They were,” Uzi replied, “but you know what wasn’t?”

“Бороться с Син и Юникроном?”

“{Fighting Cyn and Unicron?}”

“Fighting Cyn and Unicron.”

The two drones looked at each other in silence, before eventually falling into girlish snickering. Doll’s translated laughter overlapped over Uzi’s, both of them feeling glad that they could still have fun despite everything.

Suddenly a noise rang out from the crowd, Uzi quickly turning around to see what it was. She sighed in exasperation as she saw V and Lizzy still riding atop Pinky, except that now they were making the sentinel chase N around the room, the devilish grins across their faces betraying how much they were enjoying it. The pilot made panicked yelps as the robot’s jaws kept missing his dress by inches, frantically running away while everybody else laughed at the spectacle.

“Oh come on!” exclaimed Uzi, “I thought we were over the bullying!”

“Я тоже так подумала. Такое ощущение, что эти двое совсем забыли о том, как развивались их персонажи в прошлый раз.”

“{I thought so too,}” said Doll, looking disapprovingly at the feminine bots on Pinky’s back, “{it’s almost like these two forgot all the character development they went through last time.}”

Uzi slammed her fist into her open hand, smiling evilly. “Then how about I fix this continuity error myself, huh? Call it a manual retcon.”

Doll rolled her eyes at Uzi’s violent instincts, feeling how ironic it was for the worker to call others out for not changing, while still acting like a chaotic gremlin herself every so often.

“Звучит заманчиво. Но, думаю, я предоставлю вам самим разобраться с этим вопросом.”

“{Sounds like fun,}” said the Grim Reaper, “{but I think I’ll let you handle this one.}”

The worker turned around to look at Doll, “wait, you’re already leaving?”

“Да, думаю, я просто задремлю до конца ночи. Нужно только, чтобы водка хорошо и легко переварилась.”

“{Yeah, I think I’m just gonna doze off for the rest of the night. Make sure the vodka gets digested nice and easy.}”

“Ha!” scoffed Uzi, “don’t let the keybugs bite!”

“Я не буду!”

“{I won’t!}” said Doll as she walked away, waving goodbye at Uzi while she headed for the exit.

Doll quickly disappeared into the crowd as Uzi went to help N, the Slavic drone slowly shuffling through the people so she could leave. Her spooky outfit and scythe seemed to be making the people get out of her way a bit faster, which was welcome given how many she needed to go through before reaching the doors. Though it was probably more due to the fact that most of them recognized who she was under her hood, and didn’t really want to get in the way of someone who didn’t carry sharp things around only for show.

♫ Stop

The drone finally reached the double doors, pushing through them to end up in the empty hallway beyond. The party’s music turned muffled, only getting quieter as Doll walked away from the doors, until it eventually faded into complete silence.

Draped in her ragged cloth, Doll took off her hood to see where she was going more clearly. The corridors she passed on the way home were completely empty, with everyone young currently partying where she just left from, and everyone too old and grumpy to participate slumbering in their beds. Her steps echoed through the steel tunnels without anyone to hear them, her figure illuminated by the meek lights above as she wove her way through the outpost. Not many were turned on given how late it was, and that the current watchword was frugality. The party Doll had just left didn’t stand by it of course, but that was only because it was an exception. Everyone had been needing to unwind the pressure from the constant resource shortages, which ironically enough, had made people want to celebrate Halloween in these energy-hungry festivities to forget their predicament.

Doll hummed as she walked, tapping the side of her scythe against the wall to give her singing rhythm while she headed home. Having done some unwinding herself with Uzi, the drone felt like a weight she hadn’t noticed was finally lifted from her chest. It had felt incredibly freeing to talk about her issues, which was yet again proof that she needed to open up more, just like Nori kept saying to her. Thus, it was with a clear mind that Doll approached the door to her apartment, putting her hand next to the keypad, ready to enter the code required for her to enter.

But… She didn’t.

Instead, Doll stopped. Her finger hovered above the device, frozen. Her expression had shifted into one of pure confusion, before she slowly turned her head towards the wall behind her. She wasn’t staring at it directly, instead focusing on something she had just felt beyond it, much deeper inside the colony’s innards.

“У… Узи? Ты здесь?”

“{U… Uzi?}” Doll asked into the empty corridor, “{are you there?}”

Silence. Doll walked away from her home’s entrance to head for the wall, before peeking around a corner that weaved around it.

The drone had just felt solver energy being used. Lots of it. It was unmistakably Uzi’s, but the direction it came from was strange, just like its intensity. The surge hadn’t come from anywhere near the room where Uzi was supposed to be, and the discharge was much too strong to have been used only to help N get out of some petty bullying.

This unexpected mystery made Doll’s fatigue completely vanish, the drone now both worried and intrigued as to what could’ve possibly caused this energy wave. She looked back at her apartment door for a moment, before eventually deciding to venture away from it, and instead head closer towards the discharge’s source.

Doll’s pace became quieter as she left her residential block. She didn’t know why, but she had a gut feeling saying that she needed to be discreet right now. Not because she might’ve woken someone up with her footsteps, but because of something much, much more dangerous. Although she was a robot, Doll knew when her instincts were onto something. And just like always, it was up to her to see if they were right or not.

The infrastructure around Doll became more and more industrial as she moved, her lonesome trek taking her far away from the places made for people to live in. The walls were now nothing but naked concrete, with exposed cables snaking around on the ceiling without anything to conceal them. Large industrial fans were moving around the colony’s air through immense vents, their spinning blades casting moving shadows onto Doll as she progressed further towards her goal. The silence she had found comfortable now felt oppressive, waiting to be broken at a moment’s notice by something she couldn’t see.

Eventually, the costumed girl arrived at the source. Or rather, at its entrance. Doll looked up at the large doors leading inside the helicopter hangar, which was now used as a glorified storage locker for the Space Bridge. She was certain it was here that the energy came from, the drone even being able to taste remnants of it in the air, despite standing outside the room.

Doll then looked to the side, observing the lever made to open the door with apprehension. Why was she feeling so nervous about this? She was a fighter, and a real good one at that. She had faced threats beyond what most living beings ever come across in their lifetimes, and yet… She still hesitated.

“Может, мне стоит… воспользоваться сервисным пунктом.”

“{Maybe I should… Use the maintenance access instead,}” Doll said to herself, thinking that using the tiny opening made for engineers was a much stealthier approach, compared to waltzing in through the massive doors.

The mechanical Grim Reaper walked away from the main gates, searching for a smaller access point she could use to get inside. Once she found one, she couldn’t help but think back on what she felt while looking at that lever. She had asked herself why she felt nervous, but in truth, she knew that was a lie. Because Doll wasn’t nervous…

… She was scared.

Hidden inside a dark and secluded room, concealed from any prying eyes, stood Soundwave.

The Decepticon communication officer sat there for a while, carefully observing this strange location he now found himself in. His dark screen took in every last detail of the walls surrounding him, seeing how they went up far above him to stop at a large ceiling door. He looked down at his hands, his joints whirring as he slowly opened and closed them into fists. The air around him was cold, feeling the atmosphere’s low temperature cling to his plating like it was part of him. Little to no sound could be heard from where he was, his auditory sensors picking up nothing but distant mechanical noises of no importance.

He was alone. Good.

Although Soundwave’s feet had barely just touched down, his pragmatic mind was still as sharp as ever. He didn’t miss a beat on proceeding forward, taking the first logical step any soldier must follow after arriving somewhere unknown.

“\\Execute emergency status check. Compile and report all relevant findings.//”

Soundwave remained perfectly still as he ran internal diagnostics, multiple background programs checking the condition he was in after escaping the vortex. Eventually, a large report of all findings was quickly drafted by his inner algorithms, Soundwave deciding that he would look at it later when he had the time. Right now, he had much more important matters to attend to than caring for himself.

Soundwave turned around, looking at the Space Bridge he just came through. The room was completely pitch-black, meaning he had to use his heat-vision to observe the contraption, its inner mechanisms still hot from having been used barely a few clicks ago. The Decepticon immediately headed for the machine, his optics already set on the small control panel beside it…

C L U N K !

… Before he suddenly dropped to his knees.

The Decepticon was surprised as his joints slammed into the ground, his legs feeling so weak that it stopped him from taking more than a mere step. Soundwave hadn’t expected this to happen, and immediately looked for its cause. Suddenly, all of his attention was diverted by the report he had obtained, looking at its very first line to see what was most wrong with him.

DANGER: CRITICALLY LOW ENERGON LEVELS REACHED. HIGH RISK OF MOTOR MALFUNCTION

Of course. Energon.

Soundwave looked down at his chest, feeling the torturous pain of starvation rampaging through his spark like a Scraplet colony. His body had been afflicted with it for so long, and to such an extent, that he’d all but forgotten about it. The unbearable suffering had become normal for him, having only managed to endure for this long because of his unflinching force of will. Although his quick thinking on going through the Space Bridge had allowed him to escape the Shadowzone, it had also shattered the focus required to forget his pain. Soundwave put his hand on his sternum, his fingers touching Laserbeak’s hull to calm himself. The minicon installed upon his chest had been dormant for many cycles now, his master unable to provide the required Energon for it ever since he’d gotten trapped inside that hellish realm.

The Decepticon looked up at the Space Bridge, remembering where he was before arriving here.

The Shadowzone… A place of nothingness wedged between dimensions, accessible only via carelessly open two Space Bridges next to each other. Soundwave reminisced about the attack on Megatron’s warship long ago, the Autobots having thrown all of their forces at the Decepticons in hopes of saving Earth from being terraformed.

It had been a violent fight, one he only saw on the ship’s cameras as he manned it from the control bay. Though even from his supposedly secure post, Optimus’s forces still managed to reach him. The humans that the Autobots had been so adamant on protecting baited him into a false sense of superiority, and trapped him between two open Space Bridges. The energies of both portals had passed through him like neutron bullets, before suddenly catapulting him out of reality.

Once he came to, he was still in the control bay, but he was no longer there. He tried striking the humans, but it was no use. As he threw his fist forward to crush them, his limb simply phased through them as if he didn’t exist, hitting nothing but empty space. They saw their eyes look around the room without ever stopping on him, before eventually fleeing to regroup with their allies altogether, leaving Soundwave on his own.

The Decepticon tried using his remote control of the warship’s Space Bridge to get back, but the Shadowzone interfered too much with his wireless access. He also tried using the manual controls out of habit, but his attempt quickly failed when his fingers phased through the console.

Then suddenly, there was a tremor. He didn’t know whether it was an explosion, or a shift in the ship’s direction. Either way, Soundwave had gotten thrown off balance, causing him to rapidly tumble through the room in the wall’s direction.

And then he phased through it.

His own momentum catapulted the transformer straight out of the ship, launching him directly into the void of space. Soundwave’s mind raced as his body spun through the vacuum, seeing himself rapidly getting further from his base of operations. The first thing he did was deploy his two robotic tentacles from his chest, attempting to grab the ship’s hull to catch himself. But once again, his sleight of hand proved useless, the tendrils failing to even touch the spacecraft’s metal.

His first attempt having failed, Soundwave then retracted his tentacles, and transformed into his plane form. The sound of his booster sounded odd and distant inside the Shadowzone, which only heightened his discomfort as the transformer saw the warship get further and further away. The massive construct’s thrusters were magnitudes stronger than Soundwave’s, carrying it far off into the distance while the Decepticon was left in the dust.

Eventually, the ship disappeared from his view, concealed by the darkness of space while Soundwave was concealed from the universe itself. The transformer returned to his robot form, now left to hang in absolute nothingness as an intangible ghost.

At first, Soundwave thought his problems might not be as bad as he thought. As he looked down, he quickly noticed the vibrant atmosphere of Earth beneath him, although its colors had turned a dull gray from the Shadowzone’s effects. He thought he might have been able to descend upon it and wait for an opportunity to come back, having no doubt that his master would be looking for him once he defeated the Autobots.

However, Soundwave had failed to account for one thing. Something he couldn’t have known. Something only someone knowledgeable in the Shadowzone could’ve told him, thus sparing him the misery of discovering it himself.

As the Decepticon prepared to descend upon the human world, he noticed how its shape suddenly turned blurry and foggy. Confused, he turned on his sensors, and felt even more estranged as they told him that the planet was disappearing. Soundwave then looked around as every last one of his instruments started failing. Not failing in the mechanical sense, but failing to detect things.

Visuals. Radio waves. Heat signatures. Cosmic rays. Light emissions. Magnetic signals. Radiation… Soundwave’s screen darted around in every possible direction, his multiple senses all becoming useless as what they were meant to perceive seemingly faded from existence.

What Soundwave had failed to account for, is that if the Shadowzone was anything, it was not stable. Anytime a portal into it is generated, it creates a temporary zone of semi-tangibility around it, where those unfortunate enough to fall into it can touch certain things, while phasing through others. However, the nature of that zone is temporary, and its range limited. Soundwave had already exited said area upon getting thrown out of the warship, and now, he was entirely outside of it. And outside of it, was nothing.

The Decepticon stared in apprehension as the universe’s image vanished around him, his body now trapped inside the empty space between dimensions. No more stars. No more light. No more gravity. Pure nothingness. There was no color to it, not even dark. It was indescribable. He hadn’t ever seen anything like it, because he couldn’t even see it.

For the first time in his life, Soundwave doubted. He doubted he’d be able to come back to Megatron, and help him finish the righteous crusade he’d joined the gladiator on all these cycles ago. He doubted he could find a way out of this place, where there was such a lack of space that light couldn’t even travel through it.

He doubted he would survive.

Most bots would’ve panicked. They would’ve flailed around in the void, called for help until their voiceboxes broke, their minds eventually turning corroded like corpses ridden with the Rust Plague. But not Soundwave. Instead, he planned.

The Decepticon quickly put himself in a state of quasi-stasis, reducing himself to only his base functions to preserve Energon. His limbs stopped moving, his joints locking into place as his body turned into his spark’s tomb. Getting out of the Shadowzone was unachievable by himself, meaning he would have to wait for the time where someone would open it again. Until then, all he could do was wait, and hope his reserves would last long enough until such an opportunity arose.

And so he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited…

Stellar cycles upon stellar cycles passed, the passage of time feeling real only because of Soundwave’s internal clock. Years and years without any sensory input went by, all without any hint that the world outside himself existed, except for his memories of it. Soundwave’s mental fortitude was the only bastion between himself and insanity, his mind staying as sharp as a masterfully forged blade without ever flinching.

But alas, will is not enough to sustain a body. After enough time, Soundwave started feeling a need for Energon. Then hunger. Then starvation. After a while, the transformer turned into nothing but a lump of metal and pain floating through the ether.

No matter. His suffering wasn’t important. Megatron was still waiting for him. There was a war to win, and his master needed him. His mission was like an unbreakable thread keeping Soundwave tied to life, preventing him from sinking into a deep slumber, and finally join the Allspark.

Z W A P !

Then suddenly, after eons of silence, he heard something.

A portal. A gate opening through this realm, tearing a rift through the veil behind which he was trapped. The phenomenon by itself was enough to take him by surprise, but what stunned him was the other signal he felt near the portal. A signal he was already familiar with. A signal he had been waiting for.

Megatron.

Soundwave immediately transformed into a plane and blasted off, casting aside any thoughts of self-preservation as his master’s spark beckoned him like a sun. Along with Megatron’s spark was also a second, weaker signal staying by his side, but Soundwave paid it no mind.

But although his reaction had been quick, he was still too slow. Soundwave watched the dots on his radars disappear as they moved at speeds his vehicle form could never have achieved. They were merely passing through the Shadowzone, traveling inside a safe conduit that kept them from entering the dimension without ever even seeing it.

Soundwave transformed, extending his hand towards Megatron’s signal.

“\\No! Master! Take me with you! I beg of you, don’t leave me here!//”

But Soundwave’s silent plea received no response. His hand remained open into the void, until the signal eventually disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He was still trapped, and his master had seemingly failed to even notice his presence.

And yet… Perhaps that not all was lost. Soundwave still had the coordinates to where the portal had opened, the vortex having disappeared alongside Megatron’s signature. The Decepticon slowly let himself hover towards it, his inner algorithms allowing him to place it inside this location of absolute null.

Once again, all Soundwave could do was wait. His screen stared at the spot where the tear to his prison had opened, ready to enter were it to open again. His transformation following Megatron’s appearance had deprived him of even more Energon, leaving him frail and starved as he watched over the gates of his salvation.

Almost an entire stellar cycle went by without anything happening. The hunger had become all-consuming, tearing through every fiber of Soundwave’s being without ever letting go. It felt like Unicron himself had his fingers wrapped around him, slowly squeezing him tighter and tighter until he would eventually break and fall apart. But the wait was even more painful, knowing that his salvation was so close yet so far. So imminent yet so distant…

Z W A P !

Until the universe finally called him to action once more.

Now, Soundwave was back in the material world, staring at the contraption that had freed him from withering into a rusting carcass inside an empty dimension.

Its design was strange. First of all, the console was much too small to be operated by cybertronians, and seemed primitive in comparison to the actual Space Bridge itself. Second, is that there was a message written in cybertronian that’d been carved into the Bridge, accompanied with a translation in a human language. He glanced at it, instantly able to recognize the ancient saying without even having to read it.

Until all are one.

Soundwave ignored those oddities, turning his focus on more pressing matters as he slowly stood back up. The transformer’s chest made clicking noises, followed by two metallic tentacles with glowing articulations coming out of his chest, which descended upon the console. The limbs had three sharp claws on their ends, along with a multitude of purple threads moving around out of the tentacles’ tips, giving Soundwave a more subtle approach than what the claws could provide.

The small threads quickly danced around the console’s keyboard and touch-screen, making the UI dart between menu after menu. Soundwave felt unnerved by the device, not liking this blend of Earth technology with cybertronian engineering. What kind of twisted mind could’ve even invented such a thing?

No matter. Right now, Soundwave needed to look for the machine’s logs. If he could simply access them and copy the latest input coordinates, he could go back through the Space Bridge and join his master right away. Every key being pressed was a step closer to his reunion with Megatron, the pace at which they were being clicked only hastening as the Decepticon already imagined seeing his glorious leader’s figure once more.

Creeeeak…

Metallic screeching. Poorly maintained hinges. Left.

Soundwave’s head instantly snapped towards the noise, able to recognize the tells of an intruder no matter the location. He saw a very small door open on the far side of the wall, a tiny figure carefully stepping through it while seemingly trying to not get noticed. Soundwave couldn’t exactly tell what it was, his heat sensors giving him nothing but an indistinct blob of colors for lack of having the lights turned on.

The Decepticon quickly went through his options. He was inside a closed-off room with nothing but a Space Bridge, meaning it was no doubt a secure location. This small creature was probably a guard meant to keep an eye on it, the fact that it was here being much more trouble than it looked. Although it was minuscule, Soundwave was in an incredibly fatigued state. If it were to call reinforcements, he didn’t know if he’d be capable of defending himself, Starscream’s history with humans having proven that little doesn’t always mean weak.

Soundwave couldn’t allow it to warn the rest of its troops. He had absolutely no intention of getting himself killed, or worse, captured and interrogated. He’d just have to get rid of it and escape through the Space Bridge, all without leaving a single trace. The Decepticon’s screen locked onto the creature, marking it for immediate termination with his faceless features.

“\\No witnesses.//”

Doll’s body was frozen in shock, her eyes barely able to distinguish the massive figure standing in the darkness. The thing’s contours were sharp and metallic, its massive limbs illuminated by purple lines that shone in the dark. She couldn’t see any eyes where its head should’ve been, instead noticing a faint reflection upon a smooth surface above its shoulders. She had no idea what this thing was, but the anxious feeling currently churning in her stomach told her this was the source she’d been looking for.

The drone opened her mouth to say something, but she stopped almost immediately as something suddenly barreled towards her.

♫ Music

T H U N K !

Doll threw herself to the side, her cloak getting torn right off her body as she rolled away from what looked like a massive robotic tentacle. She saw the thing’s claws pinning her cloak against the wall, nailing the cloth she was just wearing a second ago against the naked concrete. The tentacle pulled away from the wall, letting her pierced costume fall to the ground while it prepared for another assault.

S W I S H !

Movement. From behind.

Doll ducked as a second tentacle passed right over her head, missing it by a hair’s breath. The invertebrate limb smashed into the floor from its momentum, sending sparks flying as it raked against the metallic tiling.

The drone quickly got a hold of herself, gripping her scythe in a practical manner made for combat. The tentacles lunged at her again, but this time she was ready. Doll extended her open palm towards one, while simultaneously holding out her scythe towards the other.

ZAP!

A red hologram suddenly appeared within her fingers, causing a large solver symbol to ensnare the first mechanical tendril. Doll flicked her wrist downwards to nail it to the floor, before parrying its companion with her curved blade. The clawed contraption reeled as she pushed it back with her weapon, the purple threads wriggling out of its tip moving around like they were expressing pain.

“Что ты, чёрт возьми, такое?!”

“{What the hell are you?!}” she yelled at the tendrils, before turning to the mysterious figure out of which they extended.

Nothing but silence met her question. That, and a strange rattling sound. Doll looked around to see where it came from, until she saw that the tentacle she just glued to the floor with her powers was now burrowed into it.

S M A S H !

The ground under Doll’s feet fractured as the metal tendril suddenly punched through it, quickly ensnaring her leg between its claws. She screamed in surprise, her voice echoing inside the massive hangar as she was then sent flying through the air. The drone barely spent a few seconds barreling above the ground until she slammed into another wall, the impact cracking open the back of her skull.

Doll groaned as she fell back down, small rivers of oil pouring from her damaged head and onto the floor. She looked up and saw that she was now right next to the giant, its faceless silhouette staring her down with his invisible and cruel eyes.

The drone snarled at the beast, refusing to stay on the defensive any longer. She saw that it was retracting its tentacles from the other side of the room, reeling them back towards him to attack her. Doll jumped with her scythe in hand to evade the limbs, letting them pass under her like wretched robot snakes.

W H O O S H !

Doll threw her scythe towards the giant, using her powers to maintain its course and give it unnaturally high momentum. The creature stepped back, seemingly bringing up one of its arms in defense, but it was too slow. Her blade hit him directly into his plexus, bouncing off his thick coat of steel after making a hellish noise of clashing metal.

But Doll wasn’t done. As her feet touched the ground, she focused on her weapon yet again. Glitchy holograms appeared all around the object as it hung in the air, before it suddenly duplicated into two more. The drone smiled as she made the blades start spinning, before suddenly bringing them down onto the giant like iron rain.

This time however, the thing didn’t even try to dodge. Instead, he simply stood there without moving while the scythes hit him, letting them create storms of sparks as they struck his body. Their orange glow illuminated his face for just half a second, letting Doll see that it was nothing but a single featureless monitor, staring at her like an empty TV screen. The drone barely had time to realize he was focusing on her that a giant hand swooped in from the side, its sharp fingers aimed directly at her.

S C H L A C K !

“АААААH!!!”

Doll screamed, her right arm and torso having just been punctured by a massive finger. Pain shot through her limbs like lighting upon wire, awakening bloody memories of the last time she fought. Doll endured the feeling, gritting her teeth as she saw the creature rear up its other other arm, ready to decapitate her with an even swifter, second strike.

Z W A P !

But that was without taking into account her ability to blink through space. Doll had focused for just one moment, and now, she was standing on the opposite side of the room, her chest and arm bleeding abundantly. The giant’s features darted around in confusion, until he turned around and saw her standing a good distance from him. She could see her own oil dripping down from his hand, which he quickly got rid of by flicking his wrist, sending the dark liquid splashing onto the wall.

Doll extended her usable arm while the other one regenerated, using her powers to call her scythe back into her grasp. Oil stopped flowing from her wounds as they closed themselves, her hands tightly gripping her weapon’s staff as she observed the giant from afar. She saw its figure slightly lean forward as her body finished self-repairing, seemingly curious about these healing abilities of hers. Though his interest quickly left as it returned to its usual battle stance, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the hangar as he slowly advanced towards Doll.

But suddenly, just as she prepared herself for battle again, she saw the thing’s legs start trembling. It took only one more step before it then fell over, barely catching itself onto the Space Bridge. Doll looked at it, confused. She saw its body struggling to stand up, hearing its joints and servos whine in protest as he attempted moving them. It was like its own structure was failing it, unable to sustain the weight of his enormous body.

Doll took one last glance at the titan, before immediately turning heels and gunning it for the maintenance access. She knew she could hold her own against him, but continuing to fight here would serve no purpose. She had to get to her friends, and inform everyone that this thing was here. If they all joined forces against it, seeing how fatigued the creature already seemed, they’d be sure to defeat it without Doll needing to risk her life.

The drone dashed across the room towards the small door, unable to use her teleport again from her lack of recent practice. She didn’t hear any more footsteps behind her, thinking that the giant had given up his pursuit.

Z W A A A P !

But just as she was about to reach the opening, a massive flash of light suddenly blinded Doll. She blinked a few times to refresh her optics, before looking in awe at the Space Bridge portal that had just materialized in front of her. The spinning green vortex hummed as it hovered between her and the exit, bathing her body in its verdant glow. With the portal in her way, Doll couldn’t leave the room the same way she came in, the irony of a gateway blocking another not being lost on her.

Doll turned around, seeing the giant currently hunched over the Space Bridge’s control panel, using one of its tentacles to manipulate the device made for drone hands. She was about to launch her scythe at him yet again, when the portal suddenly started getting closer.

The drone stumbled backwards in surprise, falling over before crawling in panic to escape the approaching vortex. How was this possible? Since when was that machine able to generate portals outside its own ring? Since when could they move? And how did this creature know how to do all of that?!

Z W A A A P !

Doll froze as the sound of another tear through space rippled through her receptors, turning around to see a second portal having just appeared behind her. Her screen darted back and forth between each Space Bridge, seeing that she was starting to become trapped between them as they both advanced in her direction.

She attempted to rise from the ground and run, but Doll suddenly felt herself becoming weak. She looked around to see massive bolts of green energy being exchanged between the portals, trapping her inside a powerful storm that made her body feel numb. The streaks of light intensified as Doll’s OS began glitching out, getting assailed with such powerful forces that her very software was groaning in pain. She screamed as the lighting passed in and out of her, traversing her metal like spears of glowing pain.

The drone’s optics frantically looked around, desperately attempting to find a solution to her predicament. Doll tried teleporting away, but the Space Bridges were causing too much interference for her to concentrate. It was like a constant downpour of magnetic waves, paralyzing every last wire and circuit inside her to the point of becoming nearly unable to move.

Her single red eye, hollow and terrified, eventually fell on the giant’s figure as the portals began closing in on her, their light shining brightly enough to finally let her see who he was. Doll’s expression froze like a porcelain mask upon looking at his illuminated shoulder, instantly recognizing the familiar symbol etched into its dark metal.

“Т-ты… Т-ты… Де-”

“{Y-You…}” she stammered, staring haggardly at the insignia on the giant’s body, “{y-you’re a… A De-}”

Z W R A A A P ! ! !

♫ Stop

For a moment that lasted less than a frame, Doll’s entire world stopped making sense. Her body was sent into a whirlwind of violent and conflicting tremors, before they stopped just as quickly as they started. Her face hit the floor as she fell over, her limbs no longer being numbed by energy. Her skull made a strangely echoing noise as it met the ground, the metallic sound reverberating unnaturally through the air. Doll groaned, feeling a splintering headache run through her brain not from her fall, but the explainable phenomenon she just went through. The drone shook her head to clear her thoughts, before eventually rising to her feet. She gripped her scythe with forceful intent, ready to defend herself as she looked around the same room she’d been standing in this entire time.

Or… Was it? Her optics took a gander at the location, a feeling of unease washing over her as she noticed abnormalities in her surroundings. The walls had turned from their usual color to a dull gray, the usually loud ventilation systems were completely silent, and the air felt even colder than usual, hanging unnaturally still around the astounded drone.

Doll then looked over to the giant, who she now knew was a transformer. The purple lights coming off his body had turned into a dim white, casting a meek glow over the room’s floor while he stayed hunched over the Space Bridge’s control panel.

She frowned at the Decepticon, who’s faceless head seemingly wasn’t even looking at her. She readied her scythe once again, making it spin on itself even faster than before, until she threw it directly towards his face. The blade silently spun through the air, inching closer and closer to the cybertronian without any hint of him moving, until the scythe finally made contact.

Except it didn’t.

Doll watched in utter confusion at the transformer, her scythe having just phased right through his head like it didn’t exist. Her disarray was enough to interrupt her telekinesis, letting the scythe clatter to the floor somewhere further into the room while she stared at the unharmed alien.

“Что за… Как ты это сделал?!”

“{What the… How did you do that?!}”

The drone’s own voice surprised her as she spoke, her words sounding more like a distant echo than any sort of clear sentence. She looked down at her hands, her chrome body looking even paler than usual. Even the red glow of her own eye was absent, her screen reflecting nothing off her palms but the same monochromatic light everything else was draped in.

“Нет… Нет, нет, нет, нет…”

“{No… No, no, no, no…}”

Doll rushed towards the cybertronian, extending her hand to ensnare his neck joint with her holograms. A sense of terror started rising within her as her abilities told her there was nothing there, despite what she could see herself. The drone attempted to get even closer, her tunnel vision preventing her from noticing the shift in the transformer’s positioning.

W H O O S H !

She yelped as his enormous arm suddenly passed through her, the drone remaining frozen in shock as the giant robot changed the position of his limb to help it better support him. Doll looked up at him with hollow eyes, her enemy seemingly unaware of both her presence and existence. She saw the tips of his tentacles carefully manipulate the console’s keyboard, typing away at it as if she wasn’t standing right beside him this very instant.

The drone waved her arms around. Yelled as loud as she could. Tried punching the giant. Nothing worked. Her movements were unseen, her voice inaudible, her hands unable to touch.

Doll’s optics were fixated on the control panel, thinking that, if she could manage to use the device, perhaps she’d be able to manifest another portal and escape this… This fake world she had been cast into, and return to a place where things were more tangible than here.

But alas, the drone’s expression turned to horror as she realized she couldn’t even put her hands on the console’s lever. Each attempt she made resulted in her fingers phasing through the device, her breath becoming ragged like an animal’s as reality slowly sunk in.

«НЕТ! Только не снова! Никогда больше!!!»

“{NO! NOT AGAIN!}” she screamed in desperation, the trauma of being trapped inside Cyn’s systems bubbling back up to the surface, “{NEVER AGAIN!!!}”

No matter what she tried, the only thing Doll’s actions managed to do was make her feel more and more like a ghost. She was in a realm of silence and emptiness, where nobody could see or hear her, unable to interact with the world of the living. The drone kept fruitlessly flailing around for a while, before she eventually fell to her knees, sobbing in terror while holding her head with her hands.

Once again, she was trapped. Hidden away in a dark place where nobody could find her. Where nobody could come and save her. The realization forced her mouth into a nervous smile, coping with the situation by laughing in the face of her doom. But the manic laughter quickly faded, replaced by the sound of her fists banging on the floor. Doll clenched her teeth in rage, unable to believe that she’d been banished out of sight yet again, being left to rot in a hollow dimension where only she existed.

The worker bot raised her head to the skies, screaming at her prison without bars. Her voice resonated through the dark like a whimper in the night, echoing endlessly before dissipating into the distance. She called for help again and again, hoping her cries could reach beyond the dimensions, and fall on one of her friends’ ears. She kept calling without stopping, refusing to give up on the life she fought for so easily.

She called.

And called.

And called…

But nobody came.

“\\Target neutralized. Returning to prime objective.//”

Soundwave’s fingers hastily danced across the Space Bridge’s console, cycling through the list of past inputs yet again after having just sent the little being into the Shadowzone.

Using the Space Bridge to deal with the intruder had been a genius idea on his part. Not only had it allowed him to deal with her despite his severely reduced capabilities, but it also meant that there wouldn’t be a body for her comrades to find. Granted, his fight with her had left some scars around the room, but nothing that would’ve been as alarming as a corpse.

The Decepticon shifted his stance, placing one of his hands on the floor to support himself while he let his tentacles handle the delicate dashboard. His Energon deprivation was starting to make itself overbearing, forcing Soundwave to struggle against his incredible fatigue just to stay online.

As his limbs manipulated the little console, the transformer’s mind wandered to the strange things he’d seen during this short encounter. Telekinetic abilities, teleportation tricks, self-repair functions… Such advanced forms of technology offered a stark contrast to the primitive infrastructure surrounding the Space Bridge, making Soundwave question his opponent’s nature.

It was small like a human, but metal like a cybertronian. It was too little to transform, yet had performed feats no children of Primus could’ve done on their own…. Had he ever encountered a species like this before? Soundwave quickly cast these bothersome questions aside, preferring to return to more practical matters as he finally found the log of input coordinates.

The log was… Short, for lack of a better term. Only four uses in total had been recorded, two of them having been directly initiated by him. The Decepticon opened the oldest record, quickly taking note of the spatial coordinates inside the file. He was just about to copy them into the Trans-Warp generator’s database, when he suddenly made a double take at the numbers written on the screen.

It didn’t take long for him to notice that they didn’t make any sense. Values that should’ve been positive were negative, referential data was completely out of bounds, vector trajectories collided with each other… It was like a random set of information had been disguised as an actual file, put inside the machine by someone who barely knew how to use computers just to mess with its next user.

Soundwave checked the file’s metadata, refreshed it, analyzed and rolled it back multiple times to see if this was just due to some corruption error. But no matter what he did, nothing changed. The values stayed exactly the same, nonsensical and unusable.

S L A M !

The Decepticon slammed his fist into the floor, enraged that his reunion with Megatron was being postponed by mere technical difficulties. The impact took Soundwave out of focus, springing his starvation back into action as it suddenly ensnared his spark like a whip of thunder. His body curled into itself without even transforming, his chest churning with an aching throb that nothing but his kind’s lifeblood would quell.

“\\Acknowledge change in priority,//” he thought with perfect clarity, “\\locate and acquire Energon fuel to ensure immediate survival.//”

There was no time to deal with the faulty Space Bridge anymore. He needed to find Energon, urgently. Besides, what use would he have been to Megatron if he went through as a barely living husk?

Soundwave quickly scanned the Space Bridge’s design, refusing for potential blueprints for a new iteration of the technology to be left behind. The transformer then looked up at the ceiling, seeing the massive doors made for aircrafts installed on them. His sensors located the cable that gave power to its hinges, following it all the way down from the doors to a small lever located on the wall. Soundwave extended one of his tentacles towards the mechanism, pulling on it with his limb to open the gates to his escape.

C L U NK !

A crude mechanical noise rang out above him as he pulled the lever, a thin ray of light penetrating the room that had been nearly pitch-black up until now. Soundwave saw the contraption slowly open to reveal a starry night sky, hearing a howling wind come through the opening, along with white snowflakes falling from above. The moment it was large enough to let him through, Soundwave immediately transformed into his jet form, and blasted off through the gateway.

W H O O S H !

The stealth bomber quickly rose through the air, abandoning the room he’d been stuck in all this time, while the massive doors he just passed started closing themselves automatically. The feeling of liberation he might’ve felt by his escape was silenced by his seething hunger, Soundwave not wasting a nanoclick longer as he activated his long-range scanners to pick up potential sources of Energon.

The Decepticon barely looked down at the ruined city below, being much too focused on his own survival to care about the snowy landscape. He ignored the harsh winds scrapping against his hull as he continued his survey, his map of the surrounding area still completely empty of Energon signals. The internal geographical display began glitching out, the device failing to work correctly given that Soundwave himself was running on fumes.

A few minutes passed, yet nothing had been detected. Every passing second felt like an eternity to Soundwave, his hunger tearing at him to the point where he had trouble keeping himself in the air. No matter. He had to continue. He had to survive.

Having gone in a straight line all this time, Soundwave’s journey eventually took him out of the lifeless city he’d been flying over since he escaped. The ground far below him was now nothing but scarce roads covered in snow and lifeless tundra, all without the slightest trace of the material he needed to live. Before him stood nothing but an endless expanse of white, one which extended all the way to the horizon.

“\\No signs of Energon detected. Changing directions to expand search, now heading for-//”

Soundwave’s train of thought was suddenly stopped by an alarm ringing in his head, a message in flashing red appearing over his internal display.

WARNING: ENERGON RESERVES INSUFFICIENT TO MAINTAIN VEHICLE MODE. REVERTING TO BASE FORM.

T H U N K !

Soundwave suddenly felt his Cog act by itself, forcibly returning his body into its bipedal form while flying in mid-air. The Decepticon was sent plummeting towards the surface below, unable to stop himself as he rapidly descended through the cold night air. His optics were barely functional, letting him see nothing but a low resolution image of an abandoned structure where his systems predicted he would land.

C R A S H !

His predictions quickly proved correct, Soundwave’s body smashing through the building’s roof like a meteor of steel, before violently slamming into the floor below. The impact sent vibrations throughout the entire construction, kicking up large amounts of dust and snow that’d stayed unperturbed for who knows how long. Steel pillars and broken windows rattled as they were hit by what could’ve passed as an earthquake, a downpour of rubble and tiles falling alongside the transformer as his frame cracked the concrete ground.

Soundwave stayed immobile for a couple seconds, laying under piles and piles of debris while seemingly dead. But eventually, the junk resting atop him slid off him as he slowly rolled over, now laying belly up towards the ceiling.

The Decepticon looked through the hole he had made, seeing a massive moon with an asteroid ring illuminate the night sky as it hung above him. The glowing satellite was casting its radiance upon Soundwave like a dimmer sun, illuminating his giant figure through the hole in the ceiling, while the rest of the building laid in darkness. For a moment, all he did was stare at the faraway planet, observing its colors and contours without thinking about anything else.

“\\Is this my end?//” Soundwave thought to himself, no longer able to move either his arms or legs, “\\has the time for me to join the Allspark finally come, lord Megatron?//”

Fight after fight. Battle after battle. War after war… He had lived through so much, and had struggled for so long. How could he allow himself to die in such a dishonorable manner? Not in a blaze of glory on the battlefield, but alone, his carcass left to rust somewhere in the dark? In truth, Soundwave didn’t care about the fact he was dying. Only that his death would be of no use to the cause he believed in. That Megatron wouldn’t be here to witness it, and assure him that he had done his duty.

He could’ve done so much more. He should’ve done so much more. But, no matter how much he wished for it to not be true, the sheer emptiness he felt in both his spark and body told him this was it. Soundwave extended his hand towards the sky one last time, using the last ounce of strength his limb had to try reaching for it, before letting it fall limp on his side.

S L A M !

Soundwave’s hand hit the floor like a sledgehammer, causing a large container that’d been moved around by his initial entry to fully tip over. The large metal box clattered to the ground as its rusted hinges swung wide open, making it pour its contents all over the floor. The container was filled with huge quantities of rock and dirt, some of which ended up falling into Soundwave’s palm like a handful of sand.

At first, the Decepticon felt annoyed that his body was being dirtied while he prepared to draw his final breath, as if getting preemptively buried before he truly went away. But, as he tried moving his hand to get rid of the dirt, a notification from his Energon detector immediately stopped him in his tracks.

The signal was barely strong enough to be picked up, yet the dot on his internal display was indubitably there, having at last appeared. Soundwave painstakingly turned to the direction his device had pinged, now looking directly at the gravely materials that had fallen between his fingers.

Energon.

Soundwave couldn’t believe it. After trying to find the precious fuel all this time, it was the Energon that ended up finding him instead. At a first glance, the rocky materials looked nothing like the blue crystals used to power his kind. However, the Decepticon knew better than to trust appearances. The mineral was merely hidden, concealed by multiple layers of impurities that prevented it from being visible to the naked eye. It was unrefined, crude, those who had harvested it from this planet’s crust seemingly unaware of its presence inside what they had excavated.

Still, although Soundwave had been granted a miracle, having nothing but unprocessed Energon at his disposal was essentially like having none at all. The mineral was useless unless treated, and his current state would never allow him to properly organize himself to refine it.

That was what the Decepticon thought at first, until he decided to take a more careful look at his surroundings. Turning on his echolocation allowed him to rapidly visualize the rest of the infrastructure, despite the utter darkness it was plunged in. The sound waves reverberated off every available surface near him, Soundwave now able to replicate a map of the environment without even tilting his head to look up.

The map showed him large machinery strewn around the entire facility, ranging from enormous articulated arms to bulky assembly lines. Huge pipes and conveyor belts laced the building’s halls like a network of veins, their rusted treads having stayed immobile for years without ever moving. Huge distillery tanks and grinders could be seen at the end of each line, their insides not having seen a single drop or crumb of material to treat in ages. Manual equipment was strewn around multiple tables surrounding the once automated lines, ranging from massive drills to small hammers. Transport vehicles had been parked near the building’s entrance, having once unloaded the containers that were piled up right next to Soundwave like a stack of bricks.

This was no ordinary facility, this was a refining plant. Every last piece of machinery here was meant to purify and distill the raw materials of the earth, both solid and liquid. Soundwave could not have landed in a better place, being literally surrounded by everything he needed to treat the crude Energon into something usable.

Two hatches opened on his chest, letting Soundwave’s mechanical tentacles slowly escape his insides, with one one of them heading for the mineral sitting right beside him. Even though he couldn’t move his limbs, he still had just enough energy to manipulate his tendrils, having never thought that this addition to his form would be the key to his salvation. He was so empty that he could only make them sluggishly snake over the floor, having to preserve as much energy as possible to be able to treat the Energon.

A second, more careful examination of the environment told Soundwave that most of the surrounding infrastructure was unusable, having remained to rot without maintenance for much too long. But that fact didn’t matter to him, his second tentacle already reaching for the manual tools set beside the defunct automated lines. The smaller equipment was in much better shape than the facility’s complex mechanisms, their simplicity having let them survive the passage of time without any issue.

Now having both the fuel he required, and the means to purify it, Soundwave got to work. His tentacles moved around the room with purpose, his body laying still on the floor while they manipulated the crude Energon, grinding, treating, and distilling it with care. Drills and sawblades echoed in the night, as if a small portion of the building had come back to life, the sound of Soundwave’s struggle being similar to the cacophony of a working factory. The universe had given him one last chance to prove his worth, and he categorically refused to waste it. As Soundwave’s screen faced the sky once again, the sight of the moon no longer brought him a sense of peace, but an eagerness to return to his prime and fulfill his duties.

He was a Decepticon, a warrior without equal in all of Cybertron and beyond. A servant of Megatron’s cause, savior of the cybertronian race. If he couldn’t return to his leader’s side for the time being, then he would simply have to make use of the current circumstances. This strange place he had landed in would know the righteousness of his master’s will, no matter if Soundwave had to impose it by his own two hands. He would make sure of it.

“\\All hail the Decepticons.//”

“\\All hail Megatron.//”