Nemesis Intruder (transformers)

Chapter 13: What's the kindest way?

"Decepticons of the nemesis,'' Megatron's husky voice boomed through the Nemesis, the echoes making it distort into a roar that rattled the grey, steel walls of the Gathering Hall. "Recently, as many of you may have heard...there have been many attacks on Decepticon operations. They at first started out small..." Soundwave was to the left of Megatron, Ravage at his side, He could see Starscream, who was on Megatron's right, rolling his optics at their leader.

"At first the attacks started out small, however, like a disease, they began to grow." Soundwave wanted to pinch his nose bridge in annoyance, of course the Autobots wouldn't listen, especially to him of all bots, he should have never wasted his time trying to warn them...

Well, that's at least what the more reasonable part of him said anyway...

"Last night," Soundwaves undivided attention flickered back to Megatron, who showed a picture of one of the operations, or the aftermath of it anyway. There was fire everywhere, and bits of metallic structures that were burnt and melted so much to the point that one could not recognize the original structures they were intended to be, surprisingly enough, Soundwave wasn't aware of there being anything going on last night...

"odd"

"One of these attacks has escalated to the point where we nearly lost valuable sources of Energon, the culprit? wasn't caught..." The blue mech's neck cables tighten like a boa constrictor squeezing the life out of its prey, only now it was Soundwave trying to stop himself from doing multiple things at once.

He knew immediately that it was Jazz, it had to be him! Soundwave wanted to walk up to that monochrome mech and slap him across the faceplate and scream at him. He wanted to scream at that stupid Autobot, "what were you thinking? Pulling off a stunt like that?! You could have gotten yourself caught!", doesn't Jazz realize the severity of the situation? Doesn't he realize that he could have gotten offlined? Doesn't Jazz-

And then he paused for a moment, "what am I doing? Why am I so worried about an Autobot?" The thought echoed in his mind. "My loyalties are to the Decepticons, not Jazz." soundwave tried to remind himself, remind himself of the oath he took. He knew that he should tell Megatron immediately, that was the logical thing to do of course...

And yet... he said nothing.

"This nearly resulted in numeral injuries and almost alerted human authorities to our location, which is why I've called everyone here.'' Soundwave turned his attention towards the back of the crowd, there stood all of his cassettes, Max included, being watched by Thundercracker, who offered to oversee them. Soundwaves optics darted over to Max who stood in the middle of the group, her eyes were downcast, and her expression seemed... indifferent. He didn't blame her, Max was after all a human child, children weren't exactly meant to stand still and listen to any boring meetings where they barely knew what was going on.

Then again... children weren't exactly meant to be inside of alien spaceships where they were essentially being held captive...

"From now on, we shall cease all operations on earth, for the time being. No exceptions, am I clear?" a unanimous nod was shared amongst all the 'cons.

"Meeting... dismissed" Soundwave walked down from the podium, making his way to the back of the crowd and over to his cassettes. While walking over, his eye caught hold of Shockwave, who seemed to have been staring at them.

"Were they any trouble?" Soundwave spoke in a friendly manner towards Thundercracker.

The seeker chuckled "your charges were all well behaved, including the twins, or well... triplets now..." Soundwave gave a small smile under his mask at Thundercrackers joke, his smile dimmed when he saw how Max seemed to flinch at that comment.

"Well, I'm off, thank you Thundercracker" Soundwave said, taking Max by the hand and leading his cassettes off. While walking back to his quarters. While walking though the slightly purple tinted metallic halls, Soundwave noticed Max's demeanor, how her feet seemed to scuff against the metal floor, and her eyes tilted down to the ground, she just seemed...down, so to speak.

.: do you wish for me to carry you, Max?:. Soundwave sent Max a message through a private comm-link, at first, Max was startled, but then she regained her sullen look, seeming to remember how Soundwave had installed a com-link into her hearing aids, after repairing them.

.:no thanks:. Max responded, after a few long clicks. Although Soundwave was slightly dejected by her refusal, didn't push it any further, respecting her boundaries. He contently held her hand, guiding her back to his quarters with the rest of the cassettes.

"Soundwave, a word...." Soundwave turned around and was met with Shockwave, behind him; Soundblaster. Oddly enough, the clone had several injuries, most noticeably, a cracked visor.

"Shockwave: requires Soundwave?" Soundwave questioned, his body was turned around as he waved at Ravage, giving them the go ahead for leading the rest of the cassettes back to the ship. Shockwave stepped forward.

"Soundwave, i am... curious about your bond between you and your cassettes, tell me, how are they formed?" Soundwave took a pause, noting how Shockwave and his little "science experiment" seemed to... stare at him. Of course, cassettes were always a bit of a touchy subject for Soundblaster, being unable to have any himself...

"Spark-splitting" Soundwave answered, bluntly, not particularly wanting to delve into the subject any further.

"Interesting..." Shockwave's singular optic clicked in interest, seeming to record the data down in his files. "However, is it possible to... perhaps... control them?" Soundwave was... taken aback a moment by the ... suggestion...

He quickly responded, trying to change the subject. "Cassettes: are disciplined."

Shockwave shook his helm, "no, no. not training, Soundwave. I mean control, think like a queen bee and her hive..."

Soundwave felt a slight shiver in his wires, leaving him cold. Shockwave surely didn't mean anything malicious, surely... right? He delayed his response by a few clicks, each one seeming to take an eternity. "Negative"

"Ah, shame. Carry on then '' Shockwave then promptly left, Soundblaster limping along behind him. Leaving Soundwave alone. The mech quickly paced back to his personal quarters, wanting to join in the company of his cassettes.

.............................................

Once back the familiar walls of his quarters, with their comforting steel walls, Soundwave sat down in his study, a little office to the side of the room, where he had a comfortable view of all his cassettes. It was a small little space, just a desk, a chair and some data pads to work off of, nothing much else. His eyes shifted from the twins, to the cyber-birds, to the bats, to finally, Max.

Max was situated in her little nest, as he called it. The cleaning rags now replaced with a proper cot and fresh cleaning cloths for max's comfort. She seemed to curl up into a small ball within. Soundwave watched as Wingthing padded over to Max, seemingly exchanging a few chirps, then leaving after Max gave no response.

Perhaps she's just hungry...

Soundwave took a few cubes from his desk drawer, and a sandwich out for Max. He watched all his cassettes gather around him, eager for a cube of Energon, after he passed them all out, he walked over to Max, sandwich in servo. The sandwich this time around was a little bit different that most of the others he (or rather, Ravage) got ahold of. This was his first attempt at making one. Soundwave reasoned that with Max on the ship, he might as well learn how to prepare small things. It was a fruit sandwich, with whipped cream and strawberries, something he would think a small child like Max would surely enjoy.

Soundwave approached Max, gently. "Max, are you hungry?" Soundwave spoke, his deep voice trying to be a bit softer so as to not frighten Max. He kneeled down to the child's level, despite the fact Max wasn't exactly facing him..

"No...no I'm not hungry...but thank you..." Max spoke, her voice was quiet. Soundwave placed the sandwich down near her cot, hoping that she would eat later, for her own good. He sat there for a second, before speaking up again.

"Would you like to take a walk around the ship?" Soundwave asked her again, fiddling with his servos a bit as he asked, Max remained still.

"No thank you, I feel quite tired today..." her voice seemed... void, lacking the once timid personality it had to it. Soundwave didn't blame her. He wanted to say something else, at least convince her to look at him, or to at least eat, but he didn't...

He took in a silent sigh as he got up, picking up a cloth and placing it comfortingly over Max. He was about to lean his head in to send her off into a nice dream, but stopped halfway, instead settling for a simple pat on the shoulder.

"Sweet night, Maxwell..." and he padded off, back to his study.

Since the meeting, about limiting earthly activities, Soundwave found his inbox filled with requests, more so than average at least. Soundwave looked at what could possibly be a full night's workload. He removed his face mask, taking in a deep vent as he did so.

Creak, his head glanced over in response to see Ravage, padding up to him, a cube of Energon in their jaws.

"Thank you, Ravage" Soundwave spoke, taking in a sip of the fuel-grade.

"Someone has to keep watch out for you" Ravage mused, taking a cursory glance over at Soundwaves datapad, looking at the inbox. "full night's work?"

"I'm afraid so, old friend" Soundwave responded with the same tone.

"Don't keep up too long" Ravage responded; Soundwave waved them off.

"Don't worry, I won't."



That, was...a lie.

It was... oh primus knows what hour this was. Soundwave was still up, despite not feeling the human-ly urges of sleep deprivation, he was feeling something pretty close to it. His optics just threatened to shut at any moment. He glanced up at the remaining messages, only a few hundred more to go...

He groaned a bit, his optics were so damn tired, and he just wanted to fall in recharge, but he couldn't give up now. Regardless of his mental limitations, he continued, only pausing when he noticed a... particularly odd message.

No messenger, no subject and most odd of all, no location to track back. Soundwave flickered his optics a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things. This... was... suspicious. His spark missed a few pulses. He hovered over the open tab, then clicked.

When he opened, he only wished his fuel-grade was high-grade instead.

.:hi Soundy:.

His. Jaw. Dropped.

Jazz?! Of all the scrap-brained ideas, directly messaging Soundwaves comms, like this? What was he thinking?! Soundwave took another sip of his Energon, begrudgingly reading the rest of the message.

.:Date night tonight, meet at this location. Remember to dress nice <3:.

Underneath the message were the latitude and longitude coordinates of what looked to be a particularly fancy human restaurant in... New Orleans...

Soundwave could only sip on his Energon in disbelief.

looks like he was going on a..."date".

AUTHORS NOTE:

Hi guys, its been a while since I posted, and its probably going to be EVEN LONGER because of how LOOOONG the next like... two? chapters are. sorry! 

btw THANK YOU to my two beta readers for helping me with this chapter a bit, and thank you dearly reader for sticking alongside this chapter.

also, funny thing that happened while writing is that when i was checking for spelling errors, the word "human-ly" auto-corrected to "womanly" for some reason lol

.:The TRANSFORMERS will return after these messages..:.