Shockwave to be quite frank, did not like this forest.
At all, to be exact.
So many dreaded bugs, wriggling worms, noisy insects, annoying birds, and other annoying sounds and sights. He made a mental note to develop a special chemical agent and release it into the atmosphere to exterminate any small lifeforms within the forest and give him some actual peace and quiet. It would likely damage the local eco-system and spread to the nearby settlement of equines, but that was not of his concern. Though, it would be more hassle and resources than it was really worth, so either he would need to put it off, or simply forget about it. Plus, damaging the local environment may track the attention of hostile forces, or even draw the autobots out to track him down.
As his heavy footsteps lightly shook the trees and left deep prints in the ground, Shockwave started thinking back to all his great achievements. The Dinobots, even if dis-loyal, were still a wonder of science. The Combaticons were also the perfect soldiers, and Bruticus was his finest work yet in terms of combiner advancement. The Predacons were arguably his greatest achievement, being able to revive an entire race of long dead beasts, even if they too were somewhat rebellious like the dinobots. He had also created the Cortical Physic Patch, arguably his most important invention due to it's ability to extract information. But enough reminiscing about the past, it was high time Shockwave focused on the current time period, as well the future.
Due to Shockwave walking at a cyber-slug's pace, he would likely not alert any potential target's or subjects to his presence even with his heavy steps shaking the very earth, but it doesn't really matter if he could just blast them before they ran away, even if it costed him the ability to bring in the subject alive. However, as Shockwave looked down, he saw hoof prints in the ground, likely from another one of those small Equine creatures. Perhaps it was best to follow the tracks. Who knows, maybe he would find a corpse to study.
As he continued to follow the trail of prints, he soon began to hear... Humming.
It's tone indicated it was feminine in origin, likely an adult female. As he approached, he slowly peaked through a large amount of shrubbery and soon spotted the source. It was indeed an Equine like the others, though it's skin pattern was far different, as it had black and white stripes, along with golden accessories on it's neck and ears. As the equine hummed, Shockwave slowly watched, before pulling away and hiding from the creature. He had determined it was likely a member of the earth species known as the Equus quagga family, aka the Zebra.
Cataloging his encounter into his memory banks, he continued walking along the path, being careful to conceal his heavy footsteps as he looked to the sun slowly descending down beyond the horizon, indicating nightfall would occur soon. He needed to find a specimen for study soon, or just head back to the lab and conduct some other type of experiment, though considering he lacked any proper resources or specimens to study, it was unlikely he would make any progress without a sufficient sample.
Luckily, fate seemed to smile upon him, as he suddenly began to growling behind, and turned to look at two 'Timberwolves', likely the same ones that followed the pack leader he had decimated last night as suggested by the light singe marks indicative of plasma detonation burns. They clearly wanted revenge, and Shockwave was willing to use this to his advantage. While it would be very difficult to capture them, at least breaking them apart into more complete samples and collecting them would suffice. As the first wolf lunged at him, he took his chance, and smacked it with his cannon, as the heavy knocked it away, flying into a tree and breaking apart.
One down, one to go.
As he turned to the second wolf, it began to howl, the volume of its howling almost overwhelming his audio sensors. He took note to save the audio file of the howl, as he had never heard such a roar before and liked to catalog every new sound he had heard, before deflecting it away with his cannon, as it remained whole when it impacted the ground. As it leaped for him again, Shockwave saw an opportunity and seized it, as he grasped the wolf in his large and strong robotic hand, watching it struggle as he spoke in his colder voice, which felt the need to take control for a while.
"Specimen acquired... Now then, let's see what makes you tick..."
It was a short trip back to the lab, thanks to Shockwave being able to transform while containing the quite angry wolf inside his tank form as he returned to the lab safely, before quickly securing it in one of the sealed containment cells, as he was currently reviewing the energy readings within the cell. His internal parts still somewhat ached from all the clawing and scratching the Timberwolf did when it was inside his tank form, but he managed to ignore it.
From what he saw, these readings were indeed radiating from the creatures itself, particularly it's green glowing eyes, with the main chestal area seeming to be the source. He just couldn't quite pinpoint what kind of energy this was, or even if it was energy at all. What kind of advanced technology or energy allowed timber and other wooden material to coagulate into a life form? it made no sense, especially how it seemed to replicate pack mentality as well as basic instinct seen from the Canis Lupus of Earth... Well, he could always experiment. Shockwave made his way into the Testing Control Room, taking a seat as he activated the console and viewed all six cells on the display, before selecting Containment Cell 1, the current cell for the specimen, as it zoomed in and gave a view of the cells interior and the timberwolf walking in circles.
"Let us commence testing. First experiment, weakness to electrical shock stimulation." Shockwave turned to a button on his console, pressing it as a hole opened in the ceiling of the cell and an electric coil slowly lowered, pulsing with purple electricity as it charged itself up before...
Zap!
The wolf suddenly dropped to the floor as it's wooden body coarsed with electricity while it shook violently, howling before the shock subsided, slowly standing back up while Shockwave analyzed the results.
"The subject reacted with heavy convulsions before making eventual recovery. Determinate result, temporary stun as well as disorientation."
"Next test, weakness to... Fire." The electric coil raised itself back up into the ceiling, the hole sealing with the floor itself shifted, tiny holes opening up as the room began to slowly heat before...
Fwoosh!
The room was lit aflame with fire scorching the Timberwolf loudly whimpered while it ran around in circles within it's cell, before the fire ceased, leaving both a somewhat burnt cell as well as a burnt Timberwolf still tucking and rolling as Shockwave recorded the data.
"The subject's body was heavily scorched, yet survived contact. Creature seems to be adept at putting itself out, likely due to having experienced contact with fire multiple times as a side effect to it's body consisting of highly flammable material."
While Shockwave was deciding on the next test idea, he thought back to that audio file of the wolves howl he had recorded, deciding to upload and test something.
"Final test, weakness to sonic frequency overload." The holes in the floor sealed before the speakers in the cell activated. Shockwave then proceeded to play the file of the wolf howl, fine tuning it's frequency, as it rang out and suddenly the wolf whimpered and howled before bursting apart into wooden pieces.
"It would appear that this frequency not only stuns allows all who hear it, but when tuned, adjusted, and properly aimed, it can easily dismantle these wooden creatures with heavy sonic bombardment. I have no doubt that it could also incapacitate other creatures, though we will need to test that theory." He slowly walked out of the room that housed the cells and back into his main workshop slash laboratory and walked over to his work table, and got to work.
'By utilizing a similar blueprint used in Soundwave's sonic frequency tuner, it is possible to produce an add-on to my cannon that could utilize this frequency as a type of secondary blast to incapacitate targets...'
Soon enough, he looked to his newly modified arm, a small sonar dish attached to the top of it, as he activated the holo targetting range with several holographic targets appearing, before Shockwave took aim and fired a purple ringed sonic blast, as it impacted the target and caused it to fizzle and glitch out before completely vanishing, indicative of the hologram malfunctioning from the sonic overload.
"Excellent. We have made a truly great discovery. Now then..."
"Let's go test our theory, shall we?"