Silence.
Peaceful, serene, silence.
Other Cybertronians would be driven mad by the constant silence, the dreaded loneliness, the deathly quiet, the serene tranquility, all factors that normal Cybertronians feared.
But for Shockwave, it allowed him to perform his greatest work, with a lack of noise and chaos to distract him from his logical research. And right now, it was more important than ever that he completed his work.
"Adjust the power value by sixty-seven percent... Tune trajectory calculation frequency by twenty-two... Ensure stability range is kept at nominal levels..." Shockwave hummed out the necessary steps and instructions to himself not only to help him remember and focus, but to help him keep calm in his current situation.
It had been ten solar-cycles since Cybertron was fully re-activated by Optimus prime and his team, and ten cycles since he became the most wanted mech on Cybertron. He had barely been able to avoid capture on several occasions, having to leave his lab to retrieve the materials necessary for his work. Now, the autobots were on the verge of discovering the location of his laboratory, and if they were successful, it would spell certain doom for Shockwave. However, Shockwave had a plan to escape his current scenario, and it was the project he was currently fine tuning right now.
The Space Bridge.
Originally destroyed thanks to the actions of autobot Arcee and Cliffjumper many cycles ago when they had infiltrated his base thanks to the moronic Starscream, Shockwave had been working on it's repairs since the day Cybertron awakened, originally as a emergency precaution, but now it was his last hope to escape the wrath of the Autobots, and to avoid paying for his many crimes and experiments against them. The creation of the Forged, the Predacons, the Dinobots, the Insecticons... The list could go on, and all of it was pinned on Shockwave, making him seen as an even greater evil than Megatron himself. Of course, Shockwave did not care what they thought of him, he just cared about how they would scrap him with their bare servo's if they found and captured him.
"It is a simple logical miracle that I have managed to evade detection for this long. If I am fortunate enough, I can- Agh!" The sound of ringing and static emitting from his voice modulator had returned yet again. It had started shortly after Shockwave's tussle with the massive predacon horde that had assailed him during Unicrons rise. Shockwave thought nothing of it at first, but after performing a diagnostic on himself, he had discovered the Predacons had managed to damage his voice modulation chip, the piece of the modulator that allowed every Cybertronian to have a unique voice.
Now fully fed up with the ringing, Shockwave turned away from the large space bridge and looked to a small table, upon which several tools and spare parts rested, including his old and broken optical lens he had replaced after the predacon attack. On the table were two voice chips, one of which being a copy of his voice from the early days of the war. He decided to store the old copy in a compartment before swiftly replacing his current damaged one with a fresh copy of his current voice.
"Finally, that incessant ringing is over. Now, to escape before I am inevitably detected." Shockwave actually preferred this new voice. While not sounding cold and emotionless like his previous voice, it was still sufficient, especially because it gave him a sense of nostalgia to the early days of the war, when he still had his massive tower to perform his glorious experiments in, including improving upon the Insecticons, and creating the Dinobots and Combaticons... But since that facility was destroyed, Shockwave felt a sense of emptiness, which this chip now reminded him of.
Regardless, with the new voice chip installed, Shockwave turned to the space bridge control panel, as he lifted his right servo and began calibrating its systems. Diagnostics showed that the Gateway was fully ready now, and only required a short amount of time to be charged, as he looked to the charge percentage slowly increasing, and made the quick time calculation in his neural cortex.
"One minute, one minute until the space bridge charging has finalized." Shockwave couldn't help but feel relieved, knowing that his escape from the wrath of the autobots was so close, yet it felt so far away... Suddenly, something caught Shockwave's attention, as the sound of rapid beeping caused him to turn to a second screen to his right, displaying an alert, before revealing the camera feed of the entrance to the lab, as four bots could be seen outside the door, trying to bust it down, recognizing the bots as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Arcee, and Bulkhead. The Autobots were outside, having likely located his laboratory via either advanced tracking techniques or another unknown method.
Shockwave at first started to panic, before quickly calming himself down, as he looked to the other screen, and saw the space bridge was 50% fully charged, performing quick calculations in his mind.
"Thirty seconds."
The sound of the door being bashed in was un-mistakable, as Shockwave quickly turned and raised his massive arm cannon towards the door way, staring down the four entering Autobots with his single red optic, watching as they raised their blasters at him and entered a stand off.
"Shockwave... We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way..." Shockwave simply scoffed at Prime's words.
"And if I were to choose the easy way, even if it is highly illogical and improbable, would I not be hauled off to Kaon to be executed as a monstrous war criminal before all of Cybertron?"
"Shockwave, there is no need for more bloodshed... We can work to rebuild Cybertron together!"
"And leave it to be ruled and ruined by the Autobots? I am sorry Optimus, but I fail to see the logic in such a future, especially considering how it only dooms you all to repeat our civil war, as corruption and injustice takes root within our society once more. Simply put, under Autobot rule, Cybertron has no future. Even if the planet has been revived, it is doomed to die once more... And not even I will be able to save it. None are unwilling to do what must be done, and with Megatron gone, it is likely nobody ever will."
And with his retort finished, Shockwave heard the distinct sound of the Space Bridge powering up, turning to see its swirling vortex open up. He had no time to input the coordinates, so this was going to be a blind warp. If he could even make it to the bridge in time, that is. Not wasting a single second, Shockwave quickly charged up and fired multiple shots from his cannon, before turning and making a dash for the bridge.
"He's making a run for it!" Bumblebee cried out as the Autobots proceeded to fire upon Shockwave, as he quickly dropped to the ground and shifted into his tank form, going full speed with his tire treads leaving tread marks on the ground, while he rotated his turret 180 degrees and fired at the Autobots before driving through the bridge into the vortex. And before the Autobots could give chase, Shockwave fired one last shot at the bridge control panel, blowing it to pieces, as the Autobots vanished.
Shockwave then turned his turret to face forward, the end of the bridge tunnel being visible, revealing a large amount of trees and grass under a night sky, as he increased his speed, before rapidly exiting, as he soared through the air, easily flying a few meters off the ground, before transforming mid air, and finally falling and impacting the ground with heavy force, leaving a crater before bouncing and rolling across the grassy terrain, until he made contact with a large and sturdy tree, impacting it as his optic became blurry and a small crack formed across the lens, his back spines slightly dented, and his vision slowly beginning to black out as he went into temporary stasis mode to recover...
Shockwave was not afraid of his temporary shutdown however, because now, he had escaped Cybertron, he had escaped his Autobot pursuers, he had escaped the wrath of Optimus Prime and his team, he had left behind his past of serving Megatron and the Decepticons... And as he looked up to the stars above him before his vision blacked out, it finally sank in.
Shockwave was finally free.