#quantumlogician

// Starscream returned from fighting for his life in the trenches and immediately resumed his previous clinging position. Megatron is lowkey happy to have his personal podcast back

@quantumlogician asked:

Shockwave, for a change, invades into Soundwave's space. A bulky looming presence propped right before him. In passing this room, he felt the tendrils of their fields spark against each other, the spymaster's EMField drenched in an usual volatility.

He says nothing, save for the single-optic share into the back of Soundwave's helm.

He didn't immediately react to the invasion of his space; however, that was signal enough that Shockwave was allowed to be near. Any Vehicons that had dare to approach him had suffered the consequences instantly, after all.

The once lively and cocky chosen of Primus, bathed in golden light, was now draped in dark, cool tones, black replacing the once fiery red, purple replacing orange, and blue accenting where yellow once was. The only aspect that hadn't changed, was his piercing blue optics, though they held less whimsy and mirth as before.

Rodimus Prime didn't look at his co-captain, looking ahead at the bridge terminals and brushing past Megatron with his servos clasped behind his back. He inspected the information silently, his gaze stony. Eventually, once his inspections of the ship statuses proved sufficient, he turned his helm slightly towards Megatron, glaring at the gunmetal grey mech whom he called 'co-captain.'

"You always have been sentimental over the people you terrorized for eons." He said flatly.

"Don't compare me to such fools." Rodimus turned on his heel and walked languidly from the bridge, though his eye ridges were creased inward and his jaw was clenched.

Sits with his elbows on the table, fingers clasped beneath his chin as he regards his third in command from afar. The intensity of his gaze rests heavy between Shockwave's shoulders, square in the middle of his back.

A moment more of disquiet silence, before Megatron spoke up.

"Shockwave, may I ask you a personal question?"

He didn't wait for his go-ahead before continuing.

@quantumlogician asked: A lone voice message pings through dimensions. It's impossible to tell how far it has traveled, but by testament of its artifact encoding and aberrated glitch of the relay, it had endured quite the travel.

It rolls as follows:

" Soundwave— If this message ever reaches you — There lives a hope — ... are alive and that you are well — It has been vorns by now — there has lived a guilt on my conscious. "

" I am sorry — ... didn't find you on Earth. — Left on escape ship to — Kaon. "

" This won't absolve me of my sin — failure of ... finding you. — If you lived — live well. "

For what remains of the message is drenched and obscured by smothering static.

Hearing that voice in any capacity is enough to make him freeze entirely. Soundwave's helm snapped up from where he had initially been looking down at the feline sprawled in his lap. Ravage was saying something, obviously alarmed, but Soundwave couldn't hear him anymore.

If you lived, live well.

As soon as the static filled message ended, Soundwave immediately played it again. And again. And again.

He felt sick.

By this point, Ravage was pressed fully against his abdomen, and Laserbeak had undocked from his chest to wedge herself under his chin. He didn't react to either of them.

This won't absolve me of my sin. Failure of finding you.

Shockwave had tried looking for him. This message was proof of that. But, by Primus, there was no way of tracing it. Not with how scrambled and messy it was. It made his spark ache in the way it did when he thought about the twins. He felt empty. Hollow.

If he could cry, he knew there would be tears streaming down his face. Instead, all he could do was wallow in his sorrow and grief as his frame trembled with unrestrained emotions. Too much.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There lives a guilt on my conscious too. Words that Shockwave would never hear, but clearly needed to be said.

Soundwave plucked his deployers from his person, setting them gently onto the berth next to him as he moved to stand. He didn't hear their concerned attempts to garner his attention, or the way they trailed after him as he made his way into the hall.

He only had one goal in mind: find Rodimus.

And the stars grew distant and lonely in their orbits. We saw but could not touch their wandering grace.

Windblade found herself mouthing along with Metroplex as he recited that poem that seemed to be forever stuck in his mind and now, thanks to how much time she spent poking and prodding around in what was left of his brain, stuck in her mind as well. Along with that ode to homesickness came the ripples of pain from the large mech, whom she tried to soothe to the best of her ability.

This was work for at least three Cityspeakers and yet, Windblade was alone.

Not alone, Wind-Voice.

Metroplex tried to soothe her in return. It would have worked, maybe, if they weren't both dealing with the ripples of fresh pain that resulted from nearly everything she tried. This was becoming the routine: she fixed one thing and three more broke, she managed to get power back on in one area of the city and another would be left in the dark, and all of it happened here, inside Metroplex's mind. He was growing tired of the desperate prodding.

But she had to fix him. Had to get power back on every corner of his surface, had to find a safe way to open the bridge to Caminus, had to–

Her body arched and seized as the cable that connected her assaulted her with a sudden surge of electricity. Windblade managed to reach for her temple, ripping off the cable from her port, severing the connection and collapsing to the ground. "Okay, OKAY!" she whined, limbs still shaking. "Got it, you're overwhelmed. I'll leave you be. You can just TELL ME next time"

Windblade limped out of the tower, staring out towards the city. There were the lit areas, the ones consumed by darkness, and above everything else NOISE, too much noise.

Pent up energy had her fans going off. She needed an outlet, some way to blow some steam. Back home, that would have meant flying with her fellow Camiens. Here, that wasn't exactly possible. Here, it had been set long before her arrival that air forms were a Decepticon thing, and Windblade didn't know any of them who would care to fly around with the Cityspeaker.

Except for ONE...

Making it to Starscream's location proved to be quite the trip, but nothing that Windblade couldn't handle. She arrived unannounced, uninvited, and with their last interaction having been him attempting to kill her, then striking their little secret deal. And she was quite unstealthy when it came to her landing. Not from lack of skill, but because she wanted him to be aware that she was there, perhaps avoid another confrontation.

continued from (x) // @quantumlogician

Starburst tried really hard to listen to the scientific talk- but the 'No' stood out to her most, which caused her to frown.

"Well, that's a shame! I think having little baby Predacons skittering about would be fun! Especially if they came from eggs!"

After a moment of thought, Starburst reaches into her subspace and pulls out a VHS tape copy of Jurassic Park, offering it to Shockwave.

It started out as just talk about a strange red star that appeared above Cybertron. It lingered there for quite a while, ominously looming over the planet as if it were watching all the inhabitants … Lurking... Until one night, it fell from the skies. There was a minor tremor that shook Iacon when the star landed somewhere just outside the city, causing a bit of a commotion for its citizens.

By the time civilians tried to investigate, law enforcement had restricted the area, and whatever thing that left a crater in the planet’s metal surface was swiftly hauled away. It didn’t take long before rumors began to spread, be it between the more superstitious or the scientifically-inclined; some had already speculated that the strange red star was just a new constellation, dubbing it the “Mourning Star”. Others, however… Others suspected that it was an omen, and that theory only seemed to grow more plausible after the star fell. Since then, there have been whispers and murmurings of an enigma that left the scientists scratching their helms.