servos of the Autobots? Was all of this all parts of your so-called successful plan, Starscream?" he asked as he approached the grey mech and leaned his optic only a few inches from his face-plate.

Starscream shrieked, his wings lowered down, he tried to think of a comeback, "W-Well I..." he gulped and tapped the tips of his claws nervously, his optics were focusing on different directions, avoiding Shockwave's intimidating big red eye, "A-at least I was trying to wipe off those scums while you were hiding away!"

"I was never hiding. I was observing." briefly answered Shockwave and decided to return back to his work on the monitor.

"Oh, is that so? And you found a bunch of human younglings with some sort of strange power that they possess, we don't even know what that is! How is it going to help us defeat our enemies?!"

"By examining their unknown energy source further, it reaches high levels of power which we can acquire and destroy the Autobots with. I have not gathered you all here for no reason. You are going to be part of this investigation and you are going to bring me that powerful source, whether you like it or not."

"You mean you brought me here to watch over those life forms? Do I look like a sparkling sitter to you?! This is a job for an Autobot! And I am no Autobot, I am а Decepticon, I am Starscream! And I am not going to spend my time strolling around like a fool!"

As he approached Shockwave behind his back, the one-eyed scientist harshly grabbed him by the neck, lowering him down, making sure he was staring directly at him. Starscream screeched in his grasp, he was terrified of what the Decepticon scientist was about to do, he tried to free himself but it was to no luck. Shockwave tightened his servo to stop him from squirming and warned, "You have already made a fool of yourself, Starscream. In front of the Autobots, in front of the Decepticons, in front of whole Cybertron, you are nothing but humiliation to our cause." he finally let go and pushed the seeker away, "I will gladly put you back in your misery if you continue to disobey me."

Starscream didn't say anything back, he only glared at him and stroked his neck cables. He rolled his optics in annoyance once Shockwave turned his back on him.

》* 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ * 。° 。 • ˚《

Sunset gasped as her eyes went back to normal and came back to reality, she glanced at her guardian and yelled, "Optimus! A 'Con! There's a 'Con called Shock-!" before she could finish her sentence, Soundwave squeezed her so hard that she let out a painful scream which made the Prime yell out of rage and shoot at Ravage so he could get out of his way. 

Bumblebee struggled to get up and fight, his entire body trembled and he winced at the huge pain coming from his chest. His wound has gotten worse, more Energon leaked down his armor, he felt weak, his optics were starting to shut down. As he made an attempt to reach out his servo to grab his weapon, Soundwave caught his arm with one of his free tentacles, dragging the injured yellow soldier closer to him. Laserbeak went to his master and attached himself to his chest. Strongarm stood up and groaned, her optics widened when she saw how Soundwave was taking Bumblebee and the two teenagers through the portal. She promptly got up, snatched her weapon and sprinted to them.

Before entering the portal, Soundwave moved his helm as a signal for Ravage to come in as well. The cat obeyed and without a second thought, left the Prime and rushed to his master. Optimus saw Strongarm running towards them so he ran along with her too, both of them opened fire. Soundwave stepped forward and vanished through the light along with his hostages, Ravage dashed and right before the Groundbridge could close, he jumped directly into the brightness last, leaving the two rushing Autobots behind, "Lieutenant!" Strongarm shouted and the portal closed directly in front of them, "No..." she whispered to herself as they stopped in their tracks and stared at the spot where they left. Her gaze was then directed to the Prime who grunted and collapsed, thankfully, he managed to support himself on the hard soil with his arms on time. The cadet rapidly rushed to him and asked in worry, "Sir, are you alright?" she placed her servos on his shoulder for more support. The Autobot leader didn't respond, his optics were staring at the ground, his mind was completely somewhere else.

Suddenly, they heard noises of approaching vehicles and giant running steps that could shake the whole ground underneath them. Both Cybertronians looked behind them and saw Arcee, Smokescreen and Grimlock transforming into their robot forms and scurried to their teammates, "Aww man, we missed them again?" the dinobot disappointingly said, seeing the damage that was surrounding them.

"Strongarm, Optimus! What happened?" Smokescreen troublingly questioned as he kneeled beside the Prime and the cadet along with Arcee.

"Who did this?!" asked the smaller blue femme.

"It was Soundwave, ma'am." Strongarm shortly replied to her question.

"Soundwave?!" the trio confusingly bellowed at once.

"So it's two of 'em!" Grimlock inserted in surprise.

The taller femme peered at him in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"Starscream attacked me, Knockout and Sideswipe when we tried to save the girls." involved Arcee.

Optimus slowly supported one of his arms on his leg and said, "It appears they have aligned together to plan their strategy of capturing our human companions."

Strongarm continued on, "We couldn't stop them too, ma'am. He had a few allies besides his attacks and took the humans and the lieutenant with him."

"They took Bee too?!" the smaller femme now irately questioned.

Smokescreen then asked, "Allies? Like the Vehicons?"

"No... Ravage." Optimus answered and the rest of them gasped in shock, "Soundwave... has somehow been able to side with him again." 

Sunset's last words didn't stop repeating in his processor, he finally understood what she meant, "But I'm afraid it is not only them who are behind all of this..."

"Who else could it be, Optimus?" the young mech asked his leader.

When he heard the question, the Prime lifted his helm and looked at his confused allies.

"Shockwave has returned as well."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Author's note]

*Gasp*

Wait- why am I gasping? I already knew that.

Sorry for the wait folks, but I finally finished with all of my exams and now I have enough free time to focus more on writing! This is my longest chapter yet, I'm pretty glad how it turned out, hopefully, I can keep the same tense feeling for the next chapters as well.

Also, to apologize for the long wait, I made some memes for y'all