Belatedly added preface, gooo.

What you're about to read is fairly linear, but not totally. Different chapters focus on a different character. For example, this chapter is about Soundwave. Later chapters include Knockout, Bulkhead, Ratchet, and Arcee. And more! Things happen. The story goes in and out between pre-war, mid-war, and post-predacons rising. There are serious liberties taken with character backstories- especially with characters who got very little characterization or backstory. References to some other Transformers media, modified to fit into tfp canon. Also apologies in advance for spelling and grammatical errors- no matter how many times I reread and edit a document I always seem to miss things!

Warnings for: Torture, violence, robot gore, child neglect/abuse, major character death, secondary character death, grieving, war.

I would like to thank you in advance for reading! I mostly write in my spare time for fun, so I love to hear what you think about my stories! I'm very delicate, though, please be gentle when reviewing. Thank you, and please enjoy!

Finish Him

The crowd roared, totally over the edge with excitement, their voices sending tremors through Soundwave's metal body. His left arm was twisted into ruin, bright blue energon pouring from a dozen or more breaches, torn cabling sparking and bent bolts and wires tinkling down through the hardware, no longer attached. He exvented heavily, staring down at the far more injured mech at his feet with the silent disdain that had made him famous.

"No- I yield, I yield-" the mech stuttered, his glitching vocal processors stumbling over the words and sending the pitches and tones to wildly inappropriate levels, bursts of static choking the syllables. But Soundwave understood him.

He was missing both his legs, crushed and mangled pedes strewn in pieces around the arena, a massive energon puddle pooling around his neatly crushed waist. Soundwave took a step forward as the mech raised what remained of it's functioning arm in a desperate plea for survival as the crowd chanted "Finish him, finish him, finish him" so loudly it sent another wave of lost pieces shuddering out of Soundwave's crushed limb and down to the metal floor of the arena.

"You don't have to kill me-" The mech continued pleading, one optic blinking out, "You could just hit me again, and I can offline temporarily- and I'll crawl out of the pile later- I won't tell anyone, I promise- I'll get a new name and I'll leave Kaon, I'll never come back, I promise-"

Soundwave clicked on his visor's screen, playing back the crowds's words, "Finish him, finish him, finish him!"

The mech scrabbled against the steel ground as Soundwave raised his remaining limb, clearing the intrusive alerts and demands for repairs blooming against his HUD.

"They'll never know, I promise, you won't-" Soundwave neatly removed his opponent's head with a clean tug, holding the rest of his body down with his chest cables. The crowd roared even louder, something Soundwave had not even realized was possible.

He dropped the mech's helm with a clatter beside him, then turned to face the crowd.

At the end of a match, his energon boiling with hate and rage against his position and the things he had to do to survive, the things these vermin would pay him to do made him glad he did not have a typical faceplate.

The masses never liked a champion that hated them.

Soundwave skittered to a halt, HUD bursting with alerts and alarms, the crack down the middle of it making it more difficult to focus on the images behind them than he was finding himself able to become accustomed to. Left Arm Damaged: 60%, Right Arm Damaged: 84%, Left Leg Damaged: 52%, Right Leg Damaged: 12%, Helm Damaged: 24%, Main Energon Line: Severed, Auxillary Lines: Severed, Tertiary Lines: Severed-

He cleared them all. They were irrelevant now.

Megatronus stood above him, wielding a gaudy silver blade that Soundwave hadn't taken seriously. A decision he suspected he would not have sufficient time to properly regret.

The crowd was chanting in unison. Rise, Rise, Rise, they called, and briefly Soundwave thought they meant him, until a memory file blossomed on his screen of Megatronus- the original Megatronus, of the thirteenth, the Fallen. Rise, they said. For Megatronus, the Fallen, to rise, and bring them with him.

He hated them.

In fact the only living thing in this arena he didn't hate at the moment was Megatronus. He hated the way energon was piddling beneath him, pathetically, beyond his control and beyond the ability of his self repair to stop. He hated the crowds and their weakness and their desires and he hated mostly what he had been driven to, and what he had become. He hated his own weakness, he hated his despair and he hated his hate.

He did not hate Megatronus.

Not Megatronus, who was desperately fighting for his own survival, the way he had been up until this final moment. Not Megatronus, the ex-miner who had risen to fame and glory and status through his desperation and starvation and hate, the same way Soundwave had.

He did not hate Megatronus for being better at hating than he was.

His visor flickered, the lights beneath his plating following suit as his energon levels dropped to critical and imminent offline messages popped open against his screen. He bowed his head, playing back a soundbite from the crowd's cheering.

"Finish him, finish him, finish him."

Megatronus paused, blade held high in his one remaining arm, chest plating sparkling in the reflective dull glow of the energon pouring from the gash in his shoulder that had severed his main fuel line. Soundwave had not been lucky to get that shot in, but he had been unlucky to lose his footing against the slick surface of the energon covered metal ground, and in doing so, the match, as well.

"You were- a worthy opponent," Megatronus offered, vocal processors stuttering over the gash in them, and Soundwave looked up, meeting his eyes.

There was silence as they stared at eachother, both halfway to going offline as it was, Megatronus wavering in his ability to stand, Soundwave unable to even move his battered parts but to give him a small nod of acknowledgement and gladiatorial gratitude.

This was how all gladiators died. A few months of middle caste living, energon to drink and steady repairs in exchange for a short life and the entertainment of the masses. Megatronus having been born a miner was a death sentence for them both.

Megatrones shuttered his optics, before reopening them with a snarl.

"You were a worthy opponent," he said again, disdain familiar to Soundwave echoing in his voice, "and they would have me end you far before your time." Megatronus stumbled uncertainly, then collapsed forward, ramming the blade of his sword into the ground and leaning on the hilt as he exvented heavily. Soundwave could hear the liquid in his vents moving with a distinct sloshing sound, clogging Megatronus' filters.

"I suspect you hate them as much as I do," he said quietly, and Soundwave nodded again, his HUD starting to dim, "How about we stick it to this slagged up, broken system, together, huh?" He coughed, then leaned up off his weapon haphazardly, kicking it over. The blade snapped like a toothpick beneath his formidable weight and he staggered backward, before raising up one hand and staring the announcer dead in the eye.

"I yield," Megatronus spat, before falling backwards with a crash in a heap.

The crowd went silent, but the medics flooded the field anyway.

"Autobots don't enjoy killing," The gray bot in front of him spat, and Soundwave felt his energon boil, "We're not murderers like you 'Cons."

He stepped away from the shattered remains of what had once been his companion, Ravage, now an empty metal husk covered in spilled energon and smoking still from the burning wounds it had suffered.

His midsection cables dropped with a quiet click.

Autobots didn't enjoy killing, but they certainly enjoyed rubbing the privilege to have mercy in their opponents faceplates. Soundwave felt his gears snap, an almost snarling noise he had forgotten he could make without his voicebox, his servos clenching into fists as his pedes revved with fury.

Autobots were the single most selfish creatures ever birthed by the Well of All Sparks. Their obsession with 'justice' now that the lower caste had risen up and demanded it was the cruelest irony he had ever encountered. After millenia of watching laborers offline in the streets, to tired and battered to afford energon or repairs while privileged Autobots walked unhampered twenty floors above them on the surface he no longer had any sympathies for their claims that they were 'righteous.'

The righteous cause was not the one who would have let them starve while they played politics and talked everything out like sparklings. The righteous ones were those who had run screaming through the streets to take what they deserved. The righteous ones were those who took what was owed them and was owed the the millions before who had died because of this insanity. The righteous ones were those who refused to go quietly into the night.

The righteous ones were the Decepticons.

He sustained minimal damage in dismantling his opponent.

He plucked the axe from the tiny native's hands with the ease one might pluck a petal from a flower. Their screams echoed down the halls and reverberated in his systems, a gentle reminder of millennia past. "Finish him, finish him, finish them," chanted in his spark, silent to all but him.

He retracted his cables and punctured the line leading from the main computer bank. They had been neutralized. He dropped the axe and left them unfinished.

The Autobot rogue has more than earned his own death. The destruction he had caused against Lord Megatron's cause could not be ignored or forgiven.

The resonance blaster glowed dull and red in his servo as he raised it to point at the helm of the swordsbot. There was no time for regrets, there was no room for excuses.

With the end of the war he had thought the killing had been over. He had thought the Decepticon cause could simply move on to the righteous rule it had been promised. Lord Megatron would get the glory he had deserved, the high caste life that had been denied him by birth. Soundwave would be by his side, faithful servant through the millennia, uniting the fallen Cybertron back to its once former glory, only without the slavery and pit fights and starvation. A Cybertron worth living in.

The dull glow rose brighter, and the autobot at his feet shut his eyes, preparing for the inevitable end. A memory file exploded onto his HUD display, only for a moment, a moment of agony and blossoming damage alerts and Megatronus standing above him with the same look he was certain he would have right this moment if he had a face.

He had been a worthy opponent.

Had been. Had been. HAD been.

He gripped the blaster tightly. Had been. Had been. HAD BEEN. HAD BEEN.

Lazerbeak sent him a wave of alarmed pings along with her coordinates.

Had been. Had been. He disengaged his weapon and dropped his arm. Would be again.

He transformed after a quick step away, prioritizing his only remaining minibot's life over the Autobot's death. No one could begrudge him the logic of the decision. No one would.

Power Levels Critical: 5% Remaining. Shut Down Imminant. Recharge Required.

Soundwave cleared the alerts from his HUD display silently. There was laughter around him, resonating off the walls.

"Wait, so these protocols are routed directly through the system input?" The smallest human giggled, standing on the main databank beside the traitorous medic, another life Soundwave had spared, many times, apparently when he should not have.

"Of course they are," scoffed Knockout in that obnoxious, throaty way he always had, "Where else would they route through?"

"Uh, duh, reroute them through the analog systems. The way this is set up, it's a miracle you haven't had a critical surge. There's way too much going through direct right now. I mean, how would you even shut down nonessential systems in a power emergency?" The little human said, tapping obnoxiously slowly at the keys that were half his height. Soundwave grimaced internally. He had scripted those protocols himself.

He was starting to hate the little human more than any of Cybertronians.

Power Levels Critical: 4% Remaining. Shut Down Imminent. Recharge Required.

Soundwave did not move from his stationary seat against the far wall of the Nemesis' groundbridge room, not bothering to waste precious remaining energy on useless activity.

He had exhausted all options, but no longer possessing the power to open another ground bridge and having hacked into the Autobot's logs and found this particular issue was one he could have solved far too late to actually solve it, there was little else to do but wait to for his energon levels to run out and to offline quietly.

Knockout was being unusually hostile considering he had not actually scripted the Nemesis energy routing protocols, but it seemed mostly facetious. Soundwave wondered briefly if Knockout was actually enjoying the tiny human's company. Maybe he was just happy to have another scientist around who wasn't ordering him around for once.

"Oh- wait, where is this route going?" The human said, it's voice small in the echoes of the room.

Knockout looked up from where he had been typing, and raised an eyebrow, "Hm. That looks like Soundwave's direct uplink route. He uploads- uploaded data wirelessly sometimes. He basically was the Nemesis," Knockout said, returning to his work, and Soundwave peeked up.

Power Levels Critical: 3% Remaining. Shut Down Imminent. Recharge Required.

He exvented slowly, abating the rising desperation, and a quiet feeling he hadn't encountered since the begginings of the Great War- fear.

"But, that doesn't make sense. It says here he uplinked four days ago. We shot him into the Shadowzone almost a month ago."

Knockout put aside the cablings he'd been repairing, and rose to inspect the databanks the human had pulled up more closely.

"Huh... It looks like he actually has. Maybe he got out?" Knockout suggested hesitantly, and Soundwave noted with satisfaction the concern in his voice. He should be afraid of him. If he had gotten out of here, the traitor would be dead by now.

"...Or maybe he's still online," The human said, almost to himself. Soundwave focused his optics on him, "When we were in the Shadowzone, we managed to get information back to this dimension using Miko's cell. Maybe the Nemesis' wireless connection worked for Soundwave, too."

Soundwave would have smiled if he could have.

Power Levels Critical: 2% Remaining. Shut Down Imminent. Recharge Required.

Nevermind.

The human tapped quickly at the logbanks, accessing his previous activity in the system. He'd discovered very quickly that it drained his power immensely, and there was little he could do but send messages. And he had tried to. To Shockwave, to Starscream, to Knockout- all ignored. To Megatron... returned, unsent.

The war was over. The war had ended a long time ago, and he had kept on fighting. The way you kept fighting in the Pits long after it was obvious who the victor was, stamping out any traces of life, screaming into the crowd your right to life, your right to existence by ripping someone else's from them.

He didn't have enough power left to compose much of a message, but if he was going to offline anyway, the least he could do was offline knowing he had perturbed the Autobot's favourite human pet.

He composed a one word message, and pushed it through the connection, sapping his remaining energy reserves. His HUD display lit up red and desperate, and he eyed Lazerbeak with friendly contemplation where she lay, offline, a few yards away, sapped of all power.

Power Levels Critical: 0% Remaining. Immediate Shutdown Protocol Activated. Automatic Recharge Protocols Activated. Energon Levels Depleted. Offline Imminent.

He exvented slowly, feeling his processor shut down. His legs went first, though he'd shut down the main energon lines to them weeks ago. Then his arms, as the dull purple glow of his energon lines ebbed slowly into darkness.

He would have smiled if he could as his message blossomed on the Nemesis' databank screen in front of the human and the traitor, glitched and unrendered as it was.

Murderer, it said, simply, an elegant way to convey everything he wanted to. A fitting final word- an accusation, laced with secondary meaning, but mainly, resonating with truth- one of the hallmarks of a true Decepticon. So many lies that the few truths ring out clear and aching with the sharpness of them.

One of them said his name uncertainly, but he wasn't able to register which it had been before total system shutdown.