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There was an explosion of light, and then the world seemed to turn inside out.
One moment, Shockwave was limping heavily through the wilderness. The place might have been considered beautiful by some, with its sleek, pristine surface shimmering in the early light, strangely quiet after the departure of Unicron’s army and Shockwave’s own Predacons. Shockwave, however, was barely processing the world around him. Calculations seared across his optics as vividly as if they were written on the landscape. Degree of frame damage. Sensory systems offline. Rate of energon loss. Degree of spark power remaining. And in a corner of his vision, that rapidly diminishing number that told him how long it would be before the trickles of energon seeping from his shredded circuitry bled away the last of his strength.
Then, for a fraction of a second, everything went white, before filling with impossible colours.
Something – a wave that was neither heat nor vibration, and yet felt like both at once – went through Shockwave, pouring into him from pedes to helm. His sensor array was spinning wildly, trying to quantify it. It was as if his EM field were swelling, bursting like a physical thing from the confines of his armour and leaving the shell behind. Shockwave was conscious of the sense that he was rising off the ground, pulled towards the thousand bright meteors streaking across the sky.
So this is what it is to die.
And just as suddenly, he was back, the weight of his frame and the familiar pings from his systems replacing the dizzying feeling of formlessness. Shockwave lifted his hand and studied it gingerly, trying to make sense of things. He still functioned, it seemed, but his wounds felt oddly numb. Readouts scrolling across his vision at lightning speed told him that the pulse, whatever it had been – and that information still defied his internal instruments – had had a revitalising effect. It hadn’t cured his injuries, but it had slowed the rate of energon loss and dulled the pain, buying him time.
And it hadn’t done its work only on Shockwave, but also on the planet itself.
The Omega Lock had made Cybertron whole again, but without the animating power of the AllSpark, their world had been antiseptic and sterile. Now, that was changed. Shockwave would need the instruments in his lab to make a full assessment, but there was no mistaking the hum, pitched so deep that it was just at the edge of his auditory sensors’ range, like a massive engine powering up beneath him. Even the surface of the planet had grown warmer under his feet. Cybertron was not only alive; it was awake, now, it was –
Shockwave thought of the lights he’d seen arcing through the sky, and made a wild deduction.
– fertile.
Fascinating. He must study this phenomenon further... and now, he realised with satisfaction, he would actually have the chance. The fog of pain was lifting from his processors. Yes. Get to the lab; repair his injuries; find out how the battle between Unicron and the Autobots had gone. Find out if his Predacons still lived. What about Starscream? And the revived body of Lord Megatron… Shockwave’s future, which had been narrowed to a pinprick of time – perhaps two dozen more steps through the wilderness; perhaps even fewer – was suddenly expanding before him again, full of questions, full of purpose.
He set off at a slow, yet determined, pace, so as not to aggravate his injuries. Perhaps two hours until he reached the lab. The journey would give him time to construct a plan. He had to –
Abruptly, Shockwave froze. Something had changed in the renewed hum of the planet, some new, discordant thread of sound. He strained to catch it. It was almost like… a voice?
“Alive… alive… alive…”
Lord Megatron!
But as Shockwave spun, trying to pin down the source of the words, a second voice replaced it. “Help me,” it rasped, in tones that were unmistakably Starscream’s. And then a flood of other voices. Shockwave recognised Knock Out’s, and Predaking’s. The Prime’s voice intoned, “Groundbridge,” and then came a long string of coordinates, spoken in fragments by mecha living and dead.
Shockwave stood stock still, processing the data of his sense and weighing it against every logical conclusion he’d made since the end of the battle for the Nemesis, all those months ago.
Then – injured joints screaming – he transformed, and tore across the wilderness at a speed that felt like it would rip him apart.
***
The groundbridge apparatus was a misshapen thing, cobbled together from rejected scraps and part of a cloning tank Shockwave had been forced to cannibalise, but it would serve.
Bracing his cannon arm heavily against the control panel, he sagged, fighting a wave of nausea. Ugly, impatiently made welds crisscrossed his plating. They were only intended to last long enough to keep him from bleeding out before his work was complete, but even that goal might be too ambitious. Every movement tugged at them painfully, and the one on his thigh was threatening to tear open.
He dragged himself upright again, murmuring about dimensional concordance and frequency distortions. On one screen, an ancient image of the AllSpark rotated; on another, the observed properties of the energy pulse he’d witnessed scrolled past. A third held a transcription of the message he’d heard in the wilderness, along with estimated translates of coordinates between dimensions out of sync.
Too little evidence, too many guesses. But his helm was beginning to swim from lack of fuel, his dry tanks twisting and scorching, and leaving his work to go foraging now was an unacceptable risk. If he was captured or offlined before he had the chance to finish his task… even Shockwave’s normally unflinching mind recoiled from finishing the thought. No. He was as certain as he could be. There was no other choice.
He threw the switch.
The groundbridge swirled open, and for a long moment, there was nothing. Shockwave’s optic dimmed as he watched. The raw ache of his wounds, which he’d been able to push aside as he worked, suddenly slammed into him, making his knees buckle. He gripped the edge of the console and kept staring into the vortex, even as his processor reeled.
Wait – wait – there.
A dark form was moving inside the groundbridge portal. The light almost completely obscured it at first, but as it neared, it gained solidity and shape, becoming a slim, familiar silhouette.
Shockwave’s ventilations hitched as Soundwave stepped through the portal.
Shockwave had not allowed himself to mourn. There had been far greater losses to the Decepticon faction that day. Their lord and master; their army; their hopes. To waste time grieving for the disappearance of a single soldier, however valued, had seemed worse than irrational to him. It had felt almost obscene, in the face of the catastrophe that had befallen their cause.
So the cold shock of relief almost staggered him. It was as if he’d clumsily welded over the hole where some vital component had been ripped out, and the sight of Soundwave alive had sliced agonisingly through the botched repair job and plugged the missing piece back in.
Shockwave couldn’t move, couldn’t stop staring. His starving gaze raked over those long, graceful limbs, with their exquisite tracing of biolights, up to the visor staring back at him. Every inch of Soundwave was thick with memories – that tilt of the head, this scar left from an unlucky blaster shot, the hands that Shockwave had loved to watch dancing masterfully over control panels. Every tiny detail that Shockwave had been certain he would never see again, standing vivid and alive in front of him.
And it was at that moment that the lack of fuel caught up with Shockwave, and he crumpled to the floor.
***
He woke in the room behind the lab, on one of the recharge slabs Starscream had insisted they install, though Shockwave would have contented himself with the floor rather than waste time on such frivolities. Energon was steadily trickling into his systems from a line that had been installed in his arm. Shockwave shifted his limbs one by one, taking stock, and found that the most precarious of the welds over his injuries had been redone, and all of them smeared with a nanite-rich ointment.
And Soundwave was next to him. Simply checking the monitor attached to the energon feed; all placid EM field and warm blue plating, almost close enough to touch.
There were so many questions, and yet Shockwave found himself asking none of them.
Instead, he sat up, and cycled a vent slowly. “There are… things I should have said to you, long ago. I refrained because I believed that such feelings had no place in war, but…” He trailed off. Soundwave had turned to look at him, head tilting attentively; when Shockwave fell silent, he began to play a series of images across his visor.
They were of Shockwave himself, but distorted, as if seen through smoky glass. Watching, Shockwave filed away a mental note concerning overlapping dimensions for later study. Right now, he was more absorbed in the warm wash of Soundwave’s EM field as he replayed the memory of Shockwave training his new Predacons; the faint ripple of amusement at the recording of an argument with Starscream; the way Soundwave flinched at even the memory of Shockwave disappearing under the crush of ravenous Terrorcons. Most common, though, were the images of Shockwave working, just working. Every so often, one of Soundwave’s hands or feelers would enter the frame: sometimes trying to reach out and passing right through Shockwave’s body; other times not trying, simply hovering in frustration.
Months of watching. Months of aching to touch, and not being able to.
Soundwave sat down next to him on the berth, and lifted one hand. A question.
Without hesitation, Shockwave bowed his helm and nudged it against Soundwave’s open palm. Those talented, needlelike fingers were shaking slightly as they petted Shockwave’s armour, gently stroking up and over his antennae. Then the hand was gone, and Soundwave’s helm was nuzzling against Shockwave’s as he wrapped arms and feelers tight around Shockwave’s waist. Shockwave brought his own arms up to hold him, awkwardly at first, and afraid; but Soundwave’s long, supple body melted against him, and Shockwave clutched him firmly, revving his engine until the sound rumbled reassuringly through both their systems.
In the past day, Shockwave had seen gods and monsters and entire worlds restored to life, but none of them mattered more than this.