#arsonist4hire

Left primarily alone with no assistance, the Decepticon took it into his own servos to deal with the lot of them with increasing sadism and control. At first, he was subtle and fought a fair fight in name of Megatron's honor, but just as his illustrious leader slowly phased into tyranny, Shockwave unknowingly did the same.

The Insecticons had warned him of an Autobot excursion near his North-most post and in creating a clever divergence, he managed to swat a good chunk of them under the resurrected parts of an old metro-bot. However, one survived. A good one— one dear to Optimus himself.

Shockwave thus took him far from where any of the Autobots had rumored to traveled. To dead lands that have went untouched by all except Shockwave, where he caged the bot with all his terrific and violent mechanisms.

And, he waited. He worked, monitoring the heart of Cybertron, but he awaited to see if his captive would wake and what he could divulge.

The signal is continuous and insistent. Like the incessant beep of a heart monitor, like an alarm that won’t shut off— annoyingly pestering you to do something about it. Once you have encrypted its message, allow it to play within your feed, this is the message you will find:

“—is Hot Rod,” The figure speaking seems small, in relation to his ship. There is something leaking from his optics, black blotches all over him, and he seems frantic. “We require aid. Acroplex—“ He coughs, rubs the palm of his hand against one optic, leaving behind a black blotch from what you can now only assume is grime. “My ship and I require aid. She’s hurt bad, but, hm— we’ve exhausted the possible options. And I can’t leave. Won’t, without knowing what’s wrong.”

The figure— Hot Rod— chokes on his words. “She needs help, and I’m all outta tools. Please.” Something makes a loud bang behind him, which causes the video message to flicker and eventually fade as he runs out of view. When you look outside, to find the source of this message, you will find a beaten down ship— smoking, with an engine clearly on fire. It staggers in its attempt to stay mobile and not join the strong orbit of the nearby planet.

The distress signal strikes as an unexpected wake-up call; jolting Hadal out of his peaceful interstellar slumber to the wailing of alarms so rarely triggered. He silences them almost reflexively, and spares a second to check in on Nitelight (still in recharge in his quarters, undisturbed, thankfully) before sharpening his focus on the encrypted data.

Another Cybertronian? The dreadnought wavers, a healthy sense of caution flickering along his neural spires. His immediate assumption is that it's some form of trap, designed to lure charitable souls into an ambush; an assumption soon disproven, as a radar sweep of the entire system reveals there is nothing but the ailing vessel and the nearby planet. Perhaps the source of the distress signal might have had friends there, if its atmosphere was not corrosive to living metal; he knows that Cybertronians actively avoid that sort of hazardous environment.

He could just leave them to their fate. —as soon as the thought crosses his mind, he recoils in disgust. No; so long as he is capable, it is his duty to assist those cast adrift on the star-lanes. He reluctantly wakes Nitelight with a brief explanation of the situation at hand, then withdraws his attentions to the bridge in preparation of what will doubtlessly be a difficult rescue. The Acroplex is ensnared by the gravity well of the nearby planet; a trajectory that's simple enough to intercept, though the maneuver will require him to burn a surplus of fuel.

"Do not be afraid." His voice breaks through on the Acroplex's comms, struggling against the static. The glare from the dreadnought's searchlight is blinding, rendering his silhouette a featureless shadow against the stars as it looms over the Cybertronian vessel. "I am Hadal; I am here to assist you and your crew however I can, Acroplex. Please remain calm while I bring you aboard."

He moves into position, checking his speed against that of the incoming Acroplex as she barrels towards his open hangar. The docking clamps catch her before she slams into the hull, though it's a close call; the shriek of metal scraping against metal and snap of a distressed socket makes him wince inwardly—but it's a small price to pay for the lives of the Acroplex and her crew.

4RSON1ST is texting you.

> Someone planted ~3 to 6 smoke bombs near ur doorstep. Watch out

MEGATRON is texting you.

TXT » You'll have to do better than that.