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Soundwave is a good soldier.
A loyal soldier.
Third in Command of the Decepticon army and Head Communications Officer.
There is no mech more loyal to the cause than he.
It is simply not possible.
He has been with Megatron since the beginning, after all.
Always by his side, always tuning in, always gathering information.
One of the greatest spies ever seen.
Because how do you hide secrets from a telepath?
If he really wants to know them?
You do not.
So it stands to reason that Soundwave, keeper of the world's secrets, and a loyalty so sure one could build a home upon it, would never betray Megatron.
Starscream would always make his grabs for power and Soundwave would always be loyal.
Always had been.
Always would be.
… right?
“Are you sure?”
Soundwave almost feels… bad, in the face of this quiet horror.
He does not feel guilt often.
But he has always had a soft spot for Orion.
Optimus.
His friend.
The soft voice behind his own near silence and Megatronu– Megatron’s roar.
His designation and his frame and his position have changed, but he is still the same, under the scratched plating of a warframe that does not yet know how to be.
He may now stand taller than Soundwave, be heralded Optimus Prime, act as co-leader of the new council, but to Soundwave he will always be the sincere, awkward, and horribly shy data clerk known as Orion Pax.
It would be hard not to love him.
Not when he is so willing to burn himself on a magnesium flare that would see the whole world blister and boil to slag.
He is not sure how to describe it.
But he knows that out of anyone, anymech at all, there is none that he would trust with this more than Orion Pax.
“Soundwave: positive. Megatronus: … is falling.”
To be a Decepticon is to be loyal to both the ideal and the mech leading it.
Soundwave is, in truth, only one of those things.
He agrees with their ideals, in a very simple sense, seeing as how he wrote over half of them, but they do not hold strict sway over his processor.
His ties lie with Megatron, and it is as easy as that.
No more, no less.
It is an easy loyalty, born of familiarity and time.
Time that allows him to see what no other mech has.
Time that allows him to see where his oldest friend ends and the Madness begins.
Orion does not want to believe him.
Soundwave knows this.
He understands this.
But sympathy to anyone other than his cassettes is difficult in a way few other things are, and he flounders in his stillness.
“Soundwave: would not lie.” Is what he says, in the lowest, softest tones he can manage, and with anyone else he would be almost offended by their doubt.
But this is Orion.
And Orion doubts him because he is foolish and blind and horribly genuine.
He loves Megatronus.
Soundwave understands.
It is hard not to love him too.
But where Orion is clouded by his emotion, Soundwave has always been able to think clearer.
It is how he was made to be, so he is.
It is simple as nothing else seems to be.
And in his clarity, it is plain to see that something within Megatronus is beginning to buckle and rust.
Soundwave meets Orion’s pained optics.
It is… difficult.
“Soundwave: would not lie.” He repeats, with all the softness a gladiator can muster.
He watches Orion’s servos come up to cover his faceplates as his field draws in and withers like ash, and it feels…
It feels like the sound of broken cords.
Starscream has always been bold in his treachery, but he is Second in Command for a reason.
He is a good leader.
A good strategist.
His plans, more often than not, usually went well.
Regardless of all these things, he was still the reason why more than half their meetings ended in all out brawls.
Soundwave did not really mind.
It was familiar.
Reminded him of the Pits.
They also made it easier to manipulate Starscream’s plans, seeing as how more than one mech involved in them would get slagged in the fight.
Because Starscream was good at his job.
Too good.
Soundwave believes in Decepticons, in Megatron.
He does not believe in massacres.
So where Starscream is loud and bright and brilliant in his work to undermine every order, Soundwave is subtle, and quiet, and near invisible.
He is Megatron’s most loyal soldier.
There is no need to ever suspect him.
So no one ever does.
Soundwave does not have many friends.
He has his cassettes, and that has always been more than enough.
What friends he does have, he has for a reason.
Blaster is a fellow carrier, and a fellow telepath.
He is the closest that Soundwave has ever come to seeing himself in another mech, to meeting someone that understands what it is to be a carrier and hold the voices of thousands in his own helm.
His music taste is also exceptional.
Megatronus he has known as long as he was a gladiator, and then after.
They were good partners in the ring, when not pitted against each other, better partners outside of it, when plotting revolutions, and Laserbeak liked him, from almost the first moment they met.
Laserbeak did not like many people.
He was bright and angry and viciously earnest, if Soundwave had to describe it, all in a way that he could never imagine himself being.
Megatronus burned like a supernova, striving towards the betterment of all with a determination that was almost foolish.
Shockwave was a tragedy in many parts, but Soundwave found he liked him because he understood the distance he felt in his own processor.
He was not Empurata like Shockwave was, not taken and moulded and razed like a city before being built up again like an abstract painting, a mockery of his own former image, but Soundwave was not built to be emotional.
He was built to be functional.
And Shockwave understood that.
Frenzy and Rumble also liked that both of their designations ended in wave.
They found it amusing.
And then…
There was Orion.
He was not a carrier or a telepath, not a gladiator or a brother in arms, not a mech familiar with detachment or function over form.
He was a data clerk.
Who saw hope in a gladiator’s poetry.
Who saw change in barred denta and bloodied claws.
Who saw revolution in the speeches of a miner and a future in the faceplates of cassettes.
Orion was good.
Hopelessly naive, blinded by his own emotions, frustratingly stubborn.
He was good.
He was better than good.
He had killed Senator Ratbat.
Before Soundwave ever got the chance to.
For him.
And it was hard not to crumble in the face of such a declaration of loyalty.
Orion started as a data clerk.
An archivist.
But there was a reason the Matrix chose him.
There was a reason he had found his company in gladiators.
There is a certain safety to being Soundwave.
He has history with Megatron, has always presented with utmost loyalty, and it makes the Outsider in Megatron’s processor hesitate before acting fury upon him.
Beyond that, Soundwave is good at his job, silent treachery aside.
He is a telepath, a carrier, and a good commsmech.
He does not go poking in the processors of others often, but there is the fear that he does recreationally, and holds the secrets of the world to his tape deck.
Soundwave would be remiss to not use such a reputation like a shield.
To kill a carrier would be to indirectly kill a hoard of cassettes, and the thought of killing cassettes is so vile a thing Soundwave knows with absolute certainty that if a Decepticon ever killed one of Blaster’s cassettes, the whole army would turn upon them and melt them into scrap.
He would even see to it personally, old ties aside.
Managing the whole of the Decepticon forces messaging requires specialized programming and eons of skill, and there are few that could handle the many lines and communications like he does.
It would be difficult to find another.
The nearest option would be Blaster, but he is an Autobot, and thus out of the question.
For all these reasons he stands in a relative safety that not many have.
No one would kill a carrier.
No one would cross a telepath.
No one would slag their Head Communications Office.
Not even the Madness that infects Megatron’s processor.
Orion can be painfully naive, but he is also deceptively clever.
Behind his careful words and kind optics, he is dangerous in a way that is very different from Soundwave’s own.
He is expected to be dangerous, with his battle mask and visor and claws.
He is a carrier, and that comes with the expected ferocity of someone willing to kill in the defense of their charges, though anyone attacking his cassettes outright is unlikely.
He is a former gladiator, and seeing as how he was stood next to Megatronus when his image was hijacked and projected across the planet, it is hard not to know that he is a former gladiator.
He is dangerous in every inch of his frame, and it is plain to see.
Anyone with optics can.
His designation alone is usually enough.
Orion is not like that.
He is a warframe now, the Chosen Optimus Prime, Bearer of the Matrix, but his danger started long before.
It started with Orion Pax and his fierce loyalty.
In his unwillingness to just let someone go.
So when Soundwave tells him of the poison in Megatron, in Megatronus, there is horror and ash and disbelief, palpable and rusted, and he feels a guilt he does not feel for many others.
It does not so much as pass, as Orion raises his helm from where he has buried it in his servos, optics bright, fans whirring, and something darkens in his faceplates.
It would not be out of place on Megatronus.
It would not be out of place in the Kaon Pits.
But that is perhaps what makes Orion all the more frightening.
He did not learn his fierceness out of necessity.
He came with it.
“Stay with him,” Orion whispers, far too gentle and kind to ever be an order though Soundwave knows it is one. He would never dream of disobeying it anyway. “Stay with him and– he is losing his trust in me, Soundwave. In us all. Keep him safe, even if you must keep him safe from himself. I ask this of you, to do whatever you must to remain by his side. Please.”
Orion would have been a wonder in the Pits.
Soundwave knows this as sure as he knows himself.
Change would have happened sooner, had Megatronus and Orion Pax formed their bond over spilled energon and not datapads of poetry.
He does not know if it would have been better or worse, but it was something, a thought, a processor thread, and he pushed it back to turn over in his servos later.
The question of just how much of Orion Pax was made by his life and just how much was his own inherent good.
Soundwave dips his helm.
“Orion: does not even need to ask.”
Soundwave has done many terrible things in the name of the Decepticons.
Planets have been destroyed under his watchful optic, Autobots have been tortured almost to the brink of death at his command, debilitating sabotage of the highest order done by his own servos.
He has done so very many terrible things.
Soundwave will take his regrets to the smelting pits, as well as his secrets.
Because while he has done terrible things in the name of the Decepticons, he has also done terrible things to the Decepticons.
Treachery is easy when his loyalty is held by a single mech of his faction.
Mass desertions of soldiers done under his careful, distant guidance, there was a reason Jazz’s desertion went so smoothly, spies shuttled back across enemy lines where no one would see, Mirage should have died in Polyhex, alerts, even, in the more dreadful times when he cannot stand idly by, the Iaconi Archives were a part of Orion and he would not see them burn.
He was too late for Praxus.
He will not make the same mistake again.
It is a risky existence, one where a single mistake will see him caught and most likely killed.
Him and all his cassettes.
It is not logical, as Shockwave would say.
Soundwave does not care.
Orion asked him to do what he must to remain by Megatron’s side.
Do what he must to bring Megatronus back to them.
So Soundwave commits atrocities, and partitions the guilt and regret until they are manageable instead of suffocating.
He does what he has to.
But if there is a chance for another to
live?
Then Soundwave will take it in both servos, with consequences hounding at his struts, waiting for him to fail.
He never does.
Because Soundwave, if nothing else, is brilliant at deception.
The fall of the High Lord Protector looks to be a sudden thing, to the outside optic, but Soundwave knows better.
He is not in the habit of raking through another’s processor, does not need more thoughts than his own and his cassettes pushing at the boundaries, but it is hard not to when a cursory glance shows something rusted in Megatron’s helm.
It is dark, and slick, and viscous, and Soundwave has never seen anything quite like it.
It sits in Megatron’s processor like a poison, like tainted fuel, and it whispers.
It whispers with a voice like Death.
Slow and insidious, turning everything in Megatron’s processor against the fragile new world they’ve built.
He is Orion’s Lord High Protector, but not even he can see the taint.
Cannot see the virus, the ghost in Megatron’s helm.
The vile thing that tastes like ash on his glossa.
It is Other in a way he cannot understand.
Soundwave is not a religious mech.
He knows the stories, and he knows that Primus was real.
He is the core of the planet, after all.
But he does not believe he is watching over them, benevolent and kind.
If anything, if he did not offline in the making of a world, then he is asleep.
Slumbering after the Creation of the Thirteen and the Defeat of Unicron.
But the hissing poison in Megatron’s processor makes him wonder.
It makes him wonder.
Primus is sleeping at their core.
But where did Unicron go?
There are certain rules that are followed even in war fare.
They are what separate mechs from monsters.
You do not kill cassettes.
It is a rule known well.
Not only is it taboo, but it is cruel.
You may fight a cassette.
You may maim a cassette.
But you may not kill one.
If you did, and the backlash did not kill the carrier, then vengeance would find its mark.
And that was a fate worse than what befell the cassette.
You do not kill a piece of a gestalt.
To kill part of a gestalt would be to tear a void in the collective spark.
There were only a servofull left as it was, much like the city guardians.
Enemy IDs were kept updated for a reason, so that any gestalts in the field could be identified and taken out non-lethally.
The penalty for the death of a gestalt was harsh.
On both sides.
You do not kill only one part of a trine.
It was a rule much like gestalts.
Killing one trine member would be to kill them all.
Do not leave the remaining alive.
If you must kill a trine member, kill them all.
Quickly.
They do not need to suffer the worst of all pains any longer than necessary.
It is only merciful.
There were other rules, like where you may shoot a seeker or a Praxian, not the wings, never the wings, what to do with young Autobots, bring them back to their faction, do not be so cruel as to kill a youngling when there are so few left, how far destruction of an enemy base was allowed to go, there will not be a second Praxus, but those first three were some of the most prevalent.
They were not crossed.
Cassettes were safe.
Gestalts were safe.
Trines were safe.
As safe as one could be in a war.
Even the Madness of Megatron seemed to follow this.
Until suddenly it did not.
“Megatron: willing to go to war.” Soundwave intones, Ratbat almost a statue upon his shoulder as he plays back the sound clips doused in vitriol.
They are… upsetting.
Megatron does not sound like himself.
He sounds almost like Sentinel.
Not in his words, never his words.
But the tone.
It is not one that speaks of forgiveness or a new world.
It is one promising termination to those who dare uphold the old ways.
Who dare to attack Kaon.
Soundwave is sure Megatron would reel at the comparison.
Maybe even spare a moment to think.
But he would never dare say it.
Not when Megatron is turning against his own Prime, his own council, with Soundwave as a lone pillar of old trust.
Not when he is the last tie left.
It would be foolish to risk it.
He knows it.
And Orion does too.
His servos are linked, folded beneath his helm, and his entire frame flinches minutely with every acidic word spit from the recording.
Soundwave finds he feels a sort of guilt for making him listen to the poison of the words from his Lord High Protector, but Orion is no stranger to cruelty.
He is no stranger to hate.
Ratbat cuts off the recording early in the second play through, and Soundwave does not ask him to start playing it again.
His cassettes are far more emotional than he, especially Rumble and Frenzy, but Ratbat has always had a soft spot for Orion in his short life.
Considering he is directly responsible for his being?
It is not surprising.
“Soundwave: wants to know what action we are taking.”
Orion opens his optics from where they were screwed what looks to be painfully shut, and they are overheat bright in their intensity.
“What you have been,” Orion responds, calm but for the undercurrent of what is most likely hurt. “Stay with him. Become one of his Decepticons. Try to bring him back.”
Soundwave… does not like the sound of that.
“Query: what if that is not enough?”
Orion flinches at that, and his helm ducks down in a way that has Ratbat whining sadly.
For a moment, he looks every inch defeated.
“Then it is not enough,” Orion whispers to the table top, the sound ringing hollow through his audials. “And we have lost Megatronus to a foe we cannot see nor hope to stop.”
There has always been a safety to being Soundwave.
His loyalty to the Decepticons is, to him, questionable, but his loyalty to Megatron is unparalleled.
He has known him the longest, walked with him the furthest.
They have stood shoulder to shoulder drenched in energon against a roaring crowd, against a roaring world, that wanted only for their blood to spill in a twisted form of entertainment.
Megatron has always been Laserbeak’s favorite.
He has always understood Soundwave the best, perhaps apart from Shockwave, that was not one of his cassettes.
He has always been his friend.
Even when the Madness started to pull him away.
Soundwave had been made Third in Command for a reason.
Not Second, because Megatron knew it was not something he would want, but Third, because he was trusted.
He was loyal.
He was good at what he did.
But now–
Soundwave had made an error.
Even he was not immune.
It happened on occasion, and he was always quick to fix it.
It had been a small miscalculation, a delay in changing comms frequencies to stop Frenzy from aggravating his injuries, and instead of the full rollover of frequencies, only half switched to the new lines.
Communications were scattered for three kliks.
It was not a lot of time.
But it was enough.
Enough to draw the ire of the Madness.
And Laserbeak suffered for it.
Laserbeak, who he knew had always, in turn, been Megatron’s favorite.
Soundwave is not built for emotion, but the storm curled in his spark and processor is not one he can easily partition, and he almost, for a moment, wants to purge his tanks.
And then Starscream is there, drawing Megatron’s ire, arrogant and cutting and so very pale in his dark faceplates.
And then Shockwave is there, Shockwave who used to be Orion’s friend, and he is lifting the dripping form of Laserbeak so carefully Soundwave would think that maybe he remembered how to care.
And then Skywarp and Thundercracker close in on their tail, masking what is not a run but, to Soundwave, feels just as desperate.
And then Soundwave shudders with Megatron’s angered roar, because that is not his friend.
That is not his leader.
That is not Megatronus.
It is difficult to fight something you cannot see, but Soundwave does his best.
He walks Megatron back from the edges he stands on, pulls him away from the crevices of actions that are almost Sentinel like, does his best to drag him back to some semblance of himself.
Megatron plans to destroy a planet, and Soundwave must remind him of the actions of Nominus Prime.
Megatron plans to slaughter an Autobot base, and Soundwave must remind him of the Praxian Enforcers.
Megatron plans to have disobedient prisoners fight to the death, and Soundwave must remind him of the Gladiator Pits.
It is not an easy job.
It is not even a forgiving one.
Megatron hates being told what to do, and it is only tightly held restraint that stops him from dismissing, and later attacking, Soundwave outright each time.
He knows this, and tries not to push it.
It becomes harder, however, over time.
More difficult to bring Megatron back to a shadow of Megatronus.
Like the taint is growing stronger the longer it has to lay down its poisonous roots.
Soundwave does not know how he is supposed to fight it.
He does not even know what it is.
It feels like a losing battle.
Like an exercise in futility.
But Megatron is his friend.
He promised Orion.
So he has to try.
And he does.
Shockwave has had millennia to learn how to work on his cassettes, and he pieces Laserbeak back together easier with his one servo than Soundwave ever could have on his own with his two.
They shake far too much now for that.
Soundwave presses them hard against the glass of his tape deck, and counts the sparks in his chest, once, twice, three times, a thousand, counts the number over and over and over as Laserbeak twitches and whines and whirs as Shockwave solders her plates back into their original shape.
His cassette could have died.
His cassette could have died.
Could have.
Would have.
Were Shockwave not putting her back together.
“What will you do?”
He shutters his optics, and resets his vocalizer a total of four times before he tries to speak.
“Query: what do you think I will do?” He croaks, and Soundwave cannot even begin to care how very shaken he sounds.
Shockwave lets out a toneless hum.
It is his emotion-muffled version of sympathetic croon.
“You will not stay,” Shockwave says first, and it sounds too sure to be a mere theory, but Shockwave has sounded like that about everything for almost as long as Soundwave has known him. “Not after this. You will run. You would not put your cassettes in danger by remaining where they could be hurt.”
Soundwave can not even think of being in the same room as Megatron.
Not now.
Not when it makes his tanks churn for more than one reason.
“You will run,” Shockwave repeats, and carefully pushes the last of Laserbeak’s plates back into place before triggering her transformation sequence. “It is the only logical conclusion.”
“Query: where will I go?”
The answer is obvious, to him.
But he wants to know what Shockwave will say.
Soundwave opens his arms, and Laserbeak is gently deposited into his open tape deck, glass slamming firmly shut after Shockwave’s servo.
He makes another toneless hum, this time close enough that Soundwave can feel the vibration through the floor and up his pedes and in his struts.
“To Orion.” Shockwave says easily, lone optic focusing on him, before repeating, “It is only logical.”
If Soundwave had had the choice, he thinks maybe he would have been a musician like Blaster.
Maybe they would have worked together.
Or met as competitors.
Maybe they would have worked the same places, fought in music battles.
Maybe he would have met Jazz this way, instead of through picking sides, and then through him Ratchet, and through him Orion.
Maybe, in this world of choice, Megatronus would have been a poet.
Maybe he submitted his works to the archive Orion worked at.
Maybe they were friends.
Maybe they were all friends, in this kinder world where they could choose what they wanted to be.
But this was not that kinder world.
Soundwave had been bought and owned, a good telepath and a good spy and a good gladiator.
Megatronus had been sold for daring to write and read, a disposable that was supposed to die in the ring and did not.
They had met first, with blades to each other’s cables.
The friendship was fast but not fleeting.
Orion was next, meeting their optics when their plates were still drenched in the energon of those that they had killed, and not balking at the smell of metal burn like so many had.
He had always been different, dangerous in his kindness.
Ratchet had followed, and then Jazz, and then Blaster, and then Shockwave, Prowl, Ironhide, Wheeljack.
A cascade of new faceplates as they planned a revolution.
As they planned what could become a war.
In this unkind world, they did not have luxuries.
They had what they made with their own two servos.
And in this world, Soundwave had made himself into Third in Command of the Decepticons and Head Communications Officer.
The closest he got to music is what he played in his own audials, files and sound clips he’d traded with Blaster in the final days before Megatron had declared war.
It is not a kind world.
But it is the one he lives in.
And it is one where he could possibly be considered one of the greatest double agents the two factions have ever seen.
Soundwave knows his way to the Ark.
His cassettes have broken in enough times, and even if that were not the case, it is not exactly like they are trying to hide.
He does not think that they were expecting him to waltz up to their doors though, with Laserbeak’s energon still staining his servos that will not stop shaking.
Perhaps if his processor had been clearer, he would have thought to send Orion a comm when he had left the Nemesis, and not when he was a quarter ways away.
But his processor had not been clear, and it is still not clear now.
Still, Orion is able to stop anyone from shooting him rather quickly, arriving seconds after he drops within range.
He has not seen his friend roar in his defense in a long time.
It is very different from Megatron’s rage-drenched howl.
And it is enough to make his knee joints give out.
Soundwave has not met Orion outside of a battle field in so very long.
But now he is because–
Because he failed his mission.
Megatronus is lost.
Orion lays a careful servo upon his shoulder, and it is easy to lean his weight into it.
Things have always been easy with Orion.
“Soundwave: …” he shutters his optics against the churning in his tanks, the pulsing of his spark, and after a moment, retracts his visor, pulls his battle mask out of place. This is not the place for them. Not the time. Not now.
He draws in air through his vents, and breathes it out through his mouth.
He has not done that… in a long time.
“I have failed.” Soundwave whispers, dull and empty and hollow, and it feels so much more real now that he has said it aloud. “He attacked Laserbeak. Megatronus is lost.”
And his spark aches at the way Orion’s faceplates crumble, and he shudders as Orion draws him close and spits out a horrible static sob.
He has failed.
They have failed.
Megatronus is lost.
Soundwave is a good Decepticon.
But he would not mind if the war ended.
He would not mind if the Autobots won.
Soundwave thinks he would prefer if the Autobots won, if anyone had to.
He would rather no one win at all.
If the war just ended.
He misses Blaster.
He misses Orion.
He misses Cybertron.
He misses peace.
But he has missed them for a long time.
And he can continue to miss them for longer.
Ratchet removes his badge easily.
Soundwave cannot find himself sad to see it go.
Millennia of service.
Gone.
Down the drain.
As good as shanix on the husk of Cybertron.
A vicious part of him, carrier code through and through, whispers and snarls good.
He first meets the optics of the data clerk when energon is drying between his seams.
They are bright, and determined, and not at all afraid.
He stares at them, and Soundwave and Megatronus, coated in the life of another, and he is not afraid.
He asks, “Are you Megatronus?” like everyone in the entire arena does not know the reigning champion.
Megatronus lets out a huff, tilts his head, and says, “Who wants to know?”
The mech is not afraid, even then, as Megatronus towers over him.
He simply holds out a servo, datapads bundled in his other arm, and smiles with all of his denta.
It is out of place on this mech, with his smooth paint and few scratches.
It is out of place on this mech, but it would find itself quiet at home in the Gladiator Pits.
“My designation is Orion Pax.”
Red paints itself upon his frame, and those of his cassettes, easily.
Blaster sends him data file after data file of the music he’s collected over the eons.
Eject, Rewind, Steeljaw and Ramhorn all hover around him for days.
Orion sits by his side, shoulder to shoulder, and they simply be.
There is still a war on.
He has lost one of his most important people to a thing he could not fight.
Soundwave could not save Megatronus.
But he has Orion back.
He has Blaster, and he has music, and Laserbeak is alive.
Thanks to Shockwave she is alive.
And for now, until he is stronger, until he does not taste the defeat so readily on his glossa, that will have to be enough.
It will have to be enough.