Chapter Text
“Megatron gave us our reason for living. Megatron is the Decepticon cause.”
-Soundwave, Transformers: Robots in Disguise #21
“I’m not betraying anyone. I’ve never been on Ratbat’s side. I’ve been on my side, and – occasionally – on Megatron’s.”
-Starscream, Transformers: Robots in Disguise #2
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
-Eric Hoffer, Author
Millions of years ago.
At the dawning of a revolution…
Perhaps it was a bad idea from the beginning. Yes the Seeker displayed the right amount of confidence, and he had the speed to back up his boasting. A cursory scan of his mind showed he believed in the Cause. Deeper examinations disclosed his idol worship of their rising leader. He seemed the perfect candidate, but hindsight is always a new pair of optics.
Soundwave shot out a hand to steady himself against the wall of the alley, absently noticing how his fingers left trails in the grime. Countless little observations were overwhelming his concentration. The smoky thick smell of fried capacitors warred with the clang and patter of mechanimals rooting through piles of used parts. A painful awareness of even numbers hijacked his vision with hues of indigo and emerald green. He scrambled to push the sensory overload away, but pieces of information needled at him, causing him to see, to feel, too much.
Yet the little things weren’t the root of the problem. The main distraction emanated from the mech to his left. Starscream’s emotions beat a bright, sonorous red. His feelings licked and stumbled through the space around him, squealing like claws down a sheet of metal.
Soundwave directed his senses to the ticking of his own internal components. It was the method he had learned so long ago, when he first started studying his telepathic abilities with the help of Ravage. One-pointed focus to remain a calm observer to the thoughts and feelings of others. Letting them flow past him, rather than trample over him.
By now he was an advanced student of meta-cognition. Thinking about thinking. The practice had taught him to function, allowed him to grow from a wreck of a mech into someone with autonomy and purpose. Someone in the position to do something about the inequality that had ground bots into slaves. So if Megatron wanted a flight-capable combatant, than a flyer he would have. Even if the flyer taxed Soundwave's mental training more than anyone else had in a long time.
“Are you okay?” asked Starscream. “You do know the way, right?”
“Yes.” Megatron would be pleased to see not one Seeker, but three. Soundwave pushed himself off the wall. “Follow.”
He continued to escort them through the steel-gray alleys of Kaon, past forgotten storage units and doors that led to nowhere. Twice he doubled back and intersected their previous route, although he was sure nobody was tailing them. They were just another group of low-caste mechs slipping between the cracks.
A slight electrical buzz filled the air, like a comm call on an untraceable frequency.
Stride unbroken, Soundwave cocked his head and listened. Not a comm call, but similar. The crackling soon settled into something his finely tuned audio receivers could understand.
::This guy is creeping me out. How do we know he’s not gonna stab us in the spark and harvest our fuel pumps?::
The words came with an air of playful violence. Soundwave categorized the tone and labeled it ’Skywarp’. The purple teleporter whose eagerness outweighed his intelligence. With his unique skill and thirst to push back, he would make a valuable addition to their movement.
::Because there’s three of us and one of him? Besides, no one wants your cruddy fuel pump, Warp.::
That signal was deeper, richer. Soundwave flagged it as ‘Thundercracker’. If there was a weak link in the group, it was him. Doubt radiated from his plating and his distrust tasted like crude oil. But Thundercracker was stable, and a longing for something better sang from his electromagnetic field.
Soundwave took a sharp turn to the right, stepping around a gooey puddle and dodging a dripping pipe. Trinemates. That was it. He must be hearing an infamous Trine link. Interesting.
::We can also fly away, dimwit.:: That response was unmistakably Starscream. ::Tell me you’re not afraid of this uncharismatic bore. It’ll be fine. Just be smooth and let me do the talking when we meet Megatron.::
Soundwave smothered a scoff. Starscream mistook conversation for charisma. Hopefully he could behave himself for Megatron.
::Skywarp does have a point though,:: said Thundercracker. ::What if-::
::I said we’ll be fine,:: Starscream shot back. ::This is what we wanted, remember? This is the beginning of something real. And I’m gonna fly straight to the top.::
::Don’t you mean we?:: asked Thundercracker. ::We’re gonna fly straight to the top?::
::I. We. Same thing.::
Soundwave stopped in front of an ordinary storage module near the road. Headlights flashed above them, accompanied by the sound of grounders whizzing by in their alt modes. The place wasn’t so much hidden as nondescript. The average onlooker would never guess what lay inside, a dead end housing a new beginning. As a precaution, he dropped a hand over the Decepticon symbol on his chest. With the other hand, he knocked on the door.
It opened to reveal a guard sitting behind a monitor. Swindle. The one who believed in the Cause, but whose thoughts often read as shanix, shanix, shanix. He looked at the four of them with badly practiced disinterest.
Soundwave nodded to him and moved his hand aside to uncover the Decepticon badge. The badge Starscream wanted so badly to wear.
Swindle pointed a thumb towards the inner door. “Word to the wise, the big guy is in a bad mood. He had a run-in tonight. Lost an arm.”
No. A major injury? So soon? That would be detrimental to their plans. Soundwave couldn’t prevent his visor from flaring. “Dismemberment…is he functional?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Swindle. “He’s good. Heh…good as you can be with one arm, I guess. Scrap was he mad.” He pressed a button on the rusty control panel, and the door on the far end of the container opened. “Anyway…ech…you should see the other guy.”
Soundwave’s agitation settled. The other guy was no doubt still in pieces. He beckoned towards the Trine, crossed the small storage area, and walked them into a darkened hallway.
Their footsteps echoed through the long, empty corridor. Soundwave’s senses functioned well in the dark, and this hall felt like every other makeshift base they’d created in the past month. Stuffy and plain, yet with a palpable excitement that came from knowing you were on the brink of something huge.
The hallway soon widened and glowed dimly under emergency lighting. Two dented mechs limped past them while leaning on each other. They grunted to Soundwave, thoughts alight with painful pride and images of high-grade.
Head tipping in acknowledgement, Soundwave shut them out to probe the Seekers again. He could hear Starscream wanting to ask questions about the base, but the brash jet didn’t voice them. Good to see he has a sliver of self-control between his thoughts and his vocalizer.
The hallway terminated at a large set of bay doors. Before he hit the button to open them, Soundwave placed an arm in front of Starscream’s cockpit. “I should warn you, many mechs find themselves overwhelmed by him. I suggest-“
“So what’s he like?” interrupted Starscream, bouncing on his heel thrusters.
Soundwave considered the question honestly. “He is a long detonation sequence on a powerful explosive.” Using the opportunity of Starscream’s brief attention to continue his instructions, he said, “Do not attempt to antagonize him. He will not stand for games, and he will not hesitate to dispatch you if he thinks you are lying.” He met Starscream’s unflinching glare, trying to convey a sense of urgency in his monotone instruction. I am counting on you. Do not reflect poorly on me. “And we will know if you are lying.”
Starscream huffed and crossed his arms over his cockpit. “I didn’t come online yesterday. What’s he really like?”
The open threat clearly hadn’t registered. Soundwave considered a repeat warning, but they’d come too far in their arrangement to turn back now. And to be one of the few capable of answering that question was an honor, for how many could see into the gladiator’s very spark? “He is passionate but fair.” Soundwave palmed the door controls and waved the Trine forward. “He is the future.”
The room was a furor of activity. Unlike the rest of the structure, it was bright and high-tech. Sensitive monitors and repair arms hung from the ceiling, each reaching to work on one of the many unconscious mechs propped on circuit slabs. Yet there was one mech dominating the room with sheer presence, making everything appear to revolve around him. He reclined on a slab, a huge mass of twisted wires and damaged plating. Multiple cords fed him life-giving energon and put his vitals on various monitors. He sat, with his optics offline, as though he were at a routine checkup. Rather than scratched and beaten and missing an arm.
Megatron.
Starscream’s jaw creaked. No sound came out, but his internal sensations were like a decrypted datapad, open and easy to read. Fans whirring, he projected the feeling of his feet being swept out from under him. Falling. The world fading away.
Soundwave executed a slow vent and tried to manually prevent his leg servos from buckling. He was dizzy, overwhelmed by the intensity of Starscream’s experience. In times like these, when he started to dissolve into someone else, anchoring himself physically could bring relief.
And nothing grounded like a touch to Ravage. Automatically, Soundwave reached out a hand. It didn’t always work and the cat wasn’t always there, but more often than not, outstretched fingers would come to rest lightly on the top of Ravage’s head. As if hand and head were a natural extension of each other, two pieces fitting together.
His fingers bumped against something. Soundwave’s lips twitched behind the mask, and the space between his nervecircuits and Starscream’s adoration widened a bit. The cat must have slunk to the side at some point, unnoticed from the shadows.
In front of them, the Seekers tried, and failed, not to gape at Megatron. ::Oh no,:: Skywarp said over the Trine link. ::He’s even hotter in person.::
An eternity of spark-pounding seconds passed before Megatron turned his sightless gaze towards them. “Hnnn…what do you want?”
“Your request,” said Soundwave, somehow managing to keep his voice even, “for a flight-capable combatant?”
Megatron’s optics blazed to life. He gritted his teeth as a recently recruited Constructicon took a blowtorch to his arm. “Hrm,” he grunted. “You have one?”
“Negative,” said Soundwave. He gestured towards the jets. “I present three. Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Starscream.”
Starscream shivered, his mind projecting disbelief. Megatron was right in front of him, looking at him. Expecting a response. It was a moment he had no doubt fantasized about for months and now that it was here, he clearly had no idea what to say. A mixture of awe and gratitude infused his field, and his vocalizer stuttered on and off.
“Mmm…uhhh…Meg…” Starscream threw himself onto one knee. “…Megatron! I pledge my allegiance undying!”
Soundwave let the embarrassment flow past him. This wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed a mech have an…acute reaction to Megatron. It was quite common, although the spy considered himself above such things. The spinning of his own fuel pump in the gladiator’s presence was attributable to the mech’s pure magnetism, nothing more.
Starscream hazarded a glance upwards and locked optics with their leader. Kneeling between Megatron’s legs, he exuded a strange sense of power. A feeling of purpose rolled off him. Sweet and righteous after a lifetime of aimless wandering.
Something of an amused smile graced Megatron's lips as he regarded the jet. Everything about him, from thoughts to posture to the resonance of his very being, took on a different hue. One Soundwave had never seen before.
“That’s the guy?” whispered Ravage. “He smells like a jerk.”
A stunning surge of intuition struck, the kind that broke down all the ways one thought things were. Soundwave set his receivers to pick up as much information as possible. Right here, in this moment, another revolution was taking place.
That might have been okay. The Seeker shamelessly ogling Megatron’s frame might have been okay. But then an errant notion wormed its way to the surface of Starscream’s consciousness. That could be me, he thought. Forceful and in charge. Making decisions. Everyone jumping to do my bidding. I could be a leader too. That could be me…
Soundwave gripped tighter to Ravage’s head and schooled his features despite the mask. He swallowed against the bitter taste in his throat tubing. There was no room in their uprising for envy, but there was always room for wariness. Oh yes, hindsight was a new pair of optics. Perhaps this was a bad idea from the beginning.
~~~~~~
Millions of years later.
At the height of the war…
It wasn’t impossible to find an inorganic bar in this part of the galaxy. The challenge lay in locating an establishment where a mech could conduct business without arousing interest. A place blind to Stentarian conflicts, Cybertronian factions, and one’s opinion on the ‘Androids-Built-by-Androids’ civil rights movement on Dendrite IV.
Starscream sipped on his Illusion Shaker and surveyed the room. House of Tankir, he thought. They should rename this place House of Tacky.
Purple prisms dangled on chains from the ceiling. The walls sported an electro-etched paisley design that ceased being popular when Nominus was Prime. The closer one sat to the bar, the stronger the smell of an engine backfire. It was like the owners decorated a millennium ago, and then forgot about silly things like trends changing over time. Or good taste.
Yet it was the terminal lack of aesthetic appeal that made the House of Tankir the perfect place for a secret rendezvous. There were few chairs, and fewer bots in them. Those that did throw a glance his way were obviously doing so out of appreciation, not recognition. One sly look and they were inspecting their own drinks and muttering to their comrades.
Starscream propped his chin on his fist and lowered his wings, trying to appear as unremarkable as possible. It was difficult to avoid attention when one was gorgeous but being spotted now could ruin everything. And with leadership of the Decepticons at stake, he was taking no chances.
After a moment, the door sprang open. Starscream’s contact shuffled in. The mech stopped in the middle of the club and clutched his briefcase to his chest, whipping his head around and making direct eye contact with almost everyone.
Starscream suppressed a groan and waved him over. Dealing with the undercover Autobot weapons designer always brought mixed results. Sometimes his information seemed promising, sometimes it was intelligence the Decepticons already had. But he was easy to figure out, an arrogant exterior hiding some personal issue. Insecurity. Tragedy. The details didn’t matter. A mech who was easy to read was a mech who was easy to manipulate. Starscream’s favorite kind of person.
“Brainstorm,” he said as the other jet approached the table. “You’re late.”
“More like you’re early.” Brainstorm pulled out a chair and sat, wincing as the legs scraped against the floor. He looked around again as if scared that the noise would give him away.
“Were you seen?” asked Starscream.
“No.”
“I took the liberty of ordering you a drink.” Starscream slouched into his seat. A dash of harmlessness with a side order of ego stroking and the scientist would be drinking out of his hand. He pushed a cube of fizzing blue liquid towards Brainstorm. “A triple-filtered Galaxy Spiral, right? That’s what all you geniuses like.”
Brainstorm visibly relaxed and nodded. He took the drink but didn’t remove his mask, instead playing with the metallic straw.
Starscream had planned on more small talk, but couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, “Do you have them?”
“Yeah.” Brainstorm reached into his subspace, pulled out a plain metal box, and placed it on the table between them. “I’m calling this invention…” He paused, no doubt for suspense, although the moment lasted long enough to leap from suspenseful to annoying. Finally he said, “a Gravity Initiator. It’s a working title.” He opened the box and took out a circle of black plastic.
The device looked as deadly as a doorstop. It was shorter than the energon cubes on the table, with a diameter less than half of Starscream’s smallest finger. There was a raised bump in the center. Starscream licked his lips. It was smaller than he expected it to be. Perfect. He could carry a lot of those in his subspace. That dawdling bucket head would never know what hit him. He reached for the plastic circle, the first key to his long-deserved supremacy.
“Careful,” scolded Brainstorm. He snatched the device away. “Sheesh, you’re just like my colleagues on Kimia. Why does everyone operate on the ‘see a button, press a button’ principle?”
Starscream tamped down a burst of irritation. “So how does it work?”
“For starters, don’t press the big round thing in the middle unless you really, really mean it.” Brainstorm flipped the circle over. The underside was flat, with three small holes. “Step one, put this side against something and press the button on top. A trio of sharp prongs will shoot out and keep it attached to whatever surface it’s touching.” He put the Gravity Initiator back in the box. “Step two, move away. Far away.”
“How far?” asked Starscream. He took another sip of his drink, optics riveted on the disappearing device. The expression on Megatron’s stupid ugly face when that thing burrowed into his plating was gonna be priceless.
“Far enough.”
Starscream snorted. “Real helpful. I take it there’s a timer on it?”
“Yeah,” said Brainstorm. “About three seconds. Enough time to step out of range, probably not enough time for someone to tear it off. Probably.”
“And then it makes gravity?”
Brainstorm had an infuriating way of looking at people like their mere attempts to think were offensive. “It simulates mass, which in turn curves space-time. That creates a localized gravitational field strong enough to immobilize almost any sentient creature. For a little while, anyway.”
“I thought the effect was supposed to last.”
“It’ll last,” said Brainstorm. “An hour. Maybe two. Nothing can artificially generate gravity forever.”
“Well then,” said Starscream. “I’ll just have to make do.”
“I’m sure you will.” Brainstorm pushed the box forward. “Here.”
Starscream reached for it, visions of his new crown dancing in his processor. “You’ve done a great service for the Decepticons.”
Brainstorm snatched the box back. “Seriously. Don’t touch the victim after you press the button, or the gravitational field will encompass you too. And make sure you store them securely. There’s forcefield pockets in this box that keeps them from bumping into each other and going off.”
“Don’t touch. Step back. Store securely. Got it,” said Starscream. His outstretched fingers were itching.
The scientist slid the prize forward again, but kept his hands on it. “I hope you realize how brilliant this is. These are so much more than a set of magnawheels or anti-grav locks.”
“I’m sure they are,” said Starscream. He grabbed the box and pulled hard. “Only a scientist of your caliber could have made them.”
“I came up with it myself,” said Brainstorm, still not letting go despite Starscream’s tugging. “Perceptor stole my idea, but I invented it first.”
Oh scrap, not this again. He is so transparent. Starscream yanked the box into his possession. Hoping to avoid another one of Brainstorm’s creepy Perceptor rants, he asked, “How many are in here?”
“Five.”
“Five!?” shrieked Starscream, possibly just a bit too loud. “I asked for ten!”
“You asked for as many as I could make,” said Brainstorm. “I could make five.”
“Fine. Fine.” Starscream drummed his fingers on the table. Five wasn’t enough. Megatron, Soundwave, Overlord, and Black Shadow were all aboard the True Believer. That was four. What if Sixshot and the rest of the Warriors Elite showed up? Or Tarn and the DJD? Starscream tapped the table faster. He’d make it work. Once he led the Decepticons, most of them would fall in line anyway. And Black Shadow was always eager to take a bribe. He moved aside a piece of armor and put the box in his subspace. “You’re going a long way towards ending the war, Brainstorm. You’re a hero.”
“I know.”
“But Soundwave might get suspicious if I come back with nothing.” Starscream let the implication hang in the air. He needed something to legitimize this meeting. He needed information.
“Aha,” said Brainstorm. He produced a datapad and dropped his voice. “I intercepted this on Kimia. Looks like a high-speed organic ship is due to pass through this sector soon.”
Starscream took the datapad and skimmed the first few paragraphs. The notes were in Neocybex, interspersed with words in some organic language that didn’t translate. “One hundred miles? That’s a long ship.”
“And fast,” said Brainstorm. “They’ve improved their technology in the last couple of centuries.”
“How is this news?” asked Starscream. “If this ship is anywhere nearby, I’m sure Soundwave already knows about it.”
Brainstorm shoved his drink aside and leaned over the table to tap on the screen. The scent of ozone and chlorine streamed from him, like an accident at a laser blaster factory. “Look at the ship’s manifest,” he said. “They’re carrying a top-secret item deep in their arsenal. The codename translates as Totality.”
Starscream turned down his olfactory sensors. “What’s Totality?”
“My opinion? Besides an unimaginative yet ominous codename? It’s a weapon. A serious one. All that foreign writing is about us. Frame designs. Conjectures on how a spark works. Pieces of our programming. Not other mechanical races. Cybertronians in particular.”
Interest piqued, Starscream made another pass through the information. A weapon was always useful. “They’re studying us?”
“Enough to make something worth hiding,” said Brainstorm, “And here’s what Soundwave probably doesn’t know, I heard a rumor that Optimus Prime is leaving to intercept them. Maybe to negotiate something about it.”
Starscream’s hands tightened on the datapad, hard enough put a tiny crack in the edge of the view screen. Prime meeting organics out in open space? Didn’t he have people to do that for him? “A waste of time,” said Starscream, struggling to contain his excitement. If Optimus Prime would show up, Totality must be important. “They want nothing to do with us.”
Brainstorm shifted in his seat. “If you had a mech-crushing organic super weapon, Wannabe Fearless Leader, what would you do with it?”
Starscream picked up his drink and took a large swallow. He put it back down slowly to buy himself some time. There was a right answer to this question, and it was in his best interests to tell Brainstorm what he wanted to hear. “I’d use it to end the war,” he said.
“Use it or use it?” Brainstorm drew his hands apart, like he was expanding the air with his fingers.
“If you’re implying that I’d go on some misguided Megatronesque revenge rampage,” said Starscream, “I wouldn’t. You can’t rule what doesn’t exist.” He returned his gaze to the cracked screen, but hope of new technology made it hard to focus. “But I’d use it if I had to. Conquest is made of the ashes of one’s enemies.”
“Wow that’s deep,” said Brainstorm. “Were you constructed cold?”
“Excuse me!?” Starscream dropped the datapad and jabbed a finger towards Brainstorm. “Why do you care, Autobot? There’s a thin line between categorization and segregation, and…” He trailed off, cringing. Great. Now I’m quoting Megatron.
And so what? The old slagger’s ideas used to be good. Back when it was an honor to bow before him. Starscream’s fuel pump picked up, mind feeding him the charged, naïve fantasies of his younger days.
Brainstorm saved him further internal discomfort by saying, “What’re your thoughts on MTOs?”
“Empty O’s?” asked Starscream, now truly baffled. Did Brainstorm mean that roundish snack that Ammonites liked? “What…I dunno…they’re a little bland.”
The weapons designer just stared at him. “No. Em-Tee-Ohs. Made-to-Order soldiers.”
Starscream scowled. Another loaded question. To him, a loyal subject was a loyal subject. “I think they should be treated like everyone else.” There. That wasn’t even a lie. Equal subordinates under Starscream. “Where are you going with this?”
“Just intercept that ship,” said Brainstorm. “And remember, nothing can generate gravity forever.” His wings slumped, and for a second, he didn’t have the tightly controlled EM field of a brilliant scientist. He seemed sad and distant. “Not that any of this will matter soon anyway.”
“Are you scheming? You’d better not be,” said Starscream. “Leave the scheming to the professionals. Besides, I won’t need forever. When I lead the Decepticons, then Megatron will admit-"
“Oh, look at the time,” interrupted Brainstorm. “I’ve gotta go. Someone will notice I’m missing by the time you finish with one of your creepy Megatron rants.” He jumped up and loudly said, “No I will not interact with you, vile Decepticon.”
Starscream shrank into his chair. “Yeah, um…you’re…” He glanced around the room. Other bots were looking their way.
“You are my enemy,” said Brainstorm, even louder and more awkwardly. “I do not care what you want or need.”
“Frag. Me.” Starscream buried his face in his hands. “You are the worst double-agent ever.”
Brainstorm turned on a heel and made a hasty retreat. His briefcase clattered along the top of the table, knocking his untouched drink onto the floor and shattering the cube with a loud crack.
“Thanks for your service,” whispered Starscream to the scientist’s retreating wings. “Weirdo.”
A waiter with wheels for legs rolled up to his table. “Oh dear,” he said, and began picking up the pieces of Brainstorm’s broken cube.
“Sorry about that. My friend is clumsy. I should help you clean that up,” said Starscream, making no move to get up and not meaning it in the slightest.
“That’s not necessary.” The waiter placed the pieces on his serving tray. Three more arms extended from his middle and began to vacuum and wipe the floor. “Would you like something else, Mister…?”
“Soundwave,” said Starscream. “I’ll settle the tab and take another Illusion Shaker.” He handed the server a gold Decepticon currency card that he’d recently liberated from Soundwave’s possession. “And you know what? Make it a double.” He flicked his wings and flashed a gracious smile. “I’m celebrating an upcoming promotion.”