Remnant - XXVIII

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Requested By : Gib

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Okay, so, I thought this was obvious BUT bug AN time-

Shockwave didn't do recon on Atlas - or, in fact, Vale - because they weren't relevant. His plan as stated was to blitz Mistral, and then use that to sue for peace. Atlas could have had a million fucking ships and Megatron himself up there and it wouldn't have mattered, because he wasn't attacking.

Okay maybe Megatron would have matter, but you get my point.

For Mistral, I ALREADY ESTABLISHED intelligence on the area - Sienna has bases, agents, and smuggling lines all throughout the continent. Vale, too.

Atlas' forces were only ever relevant in their capacity to LITERALLY BE ATTACKING at the same moment Shockwave did. Which was unlikely, but prepared for in the form of a garrison left behind and additional weapons, which were directly shown in the prior chapter.

An issue not being regarded is that to get recon up there he would A, need to DESIGN A RECON UNIT, because NEITHER of his existing types are built for that - the Hornets are literally the only ones even remotely capable, and they are easily detected for the lack of numerous features needed to hide, such as stealth armor and anti-radar/ladar systems. So, while literally designing, building and testing new weapons AND the Scorponoks, he would ALSO have needed to design, test and field stealth armor, ECM systems, and more.

ALSO, creating such units would take away from his Energon supply - which is also clearly stated numerous times to be finite. Ten units built for recon is DIRECTLY ten units NOT being deployed to fight. He would be delaying an attack he would be weakening himself for, to gain intelligence on a country whose defenses relevant since he doesn't intend to invade them.

Shockwave tends to have a one track mind in the comics. To the extent that one time, he literally waged an ENTIRE WAR without bothering to find out who lead the opposing force - a revelation which ended said war.

TL;DR -

Here, his goal was simple - take Mistral, sue for peace. Atlas' forces have nil to do with that beyond their threat to Menagerie, which he prepped for with a RAIL GUN which shot something down - none had been installed up to this point, ergo, he prepared. But as he has a one track mind, even in the comics, he focused on that single goal to the exclusion of all else. Which has precedence in the comics, from which he is drawn.

I didn't make the character, I have to work inside the characterization which already exists, which includes his flaws.

If I wanted someone with flawless information gathering, this would be a Soundwave fic, lol.

As always, to be clear, I'm just answering questions. Not being rude.

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Within two hours, Mistral had fallen entirely, and the forty strong Atlesian air-fleet had been eradicated. With Mistral burning, Haven occupied, and the Council captured and moved to Haven for safe-keeping, the battle had swiftly come to its only logical conclusion.

His victory.

With the airborne Atlesians destroyed, he had dispatched his Hornets in every direction within broadcast range around Mistral. Most of what they found was expected - Grimm, attracted by the conflict which his Hornet units moved to eliminate, and villages milling about confusedly, which he ordered left alone. Beyond the land, though, his Hornets detected twenty one naval ships withdrawing and turning North, for Atlas. To ensure their rout, he ordered his Hornets to sweep down on the four ships in the rear and then withdraw, to turn an orderly regrouping into a proper rout.

"Master." Sting rasped as the flying Insecticons returned to the smoking city and found him moving along the rubble, searching for wounded 'bots in need of tending who hadn't returned to the surviving Scorponoks.

"Sting." He knelt beside a pair of legs whose owner had been buried beneath the rubble of a building and set about carefully pulling away the sections of wall that had fallen on top of him. Without turning to her he grunted a firm, "Report."

"The Humans suspected nothing." She answered, kneeling on the rooftop across from the downed Insecticon, behind him. "We sank six of their ships and withdrew, unharmed."

"I ordered you to sink five." He reprimanded, albeit somewhat gently, "Not six."

"The sixth was an accident." She defended meekly, voice low and trembling. "One was ablaze and careened into another, capsizing it."

"I see." He murmured as he finally freed the 'bot's face and froze. Shocked, he muttered, "Sever…"

Concerned for his experiment, he quickly scanned the machine. Half his head had been melted away, his left optic hanging, broken, at an odd angle, and his arm had been sheared away by an explosion. With it had gone his shoulder and much of his chest, exposing the outer housing of his Spark. His legs were damaged as well, but that was mostly superficial, shrapnel damage. The worst was concentrated around his chest.

Turning, he observed the machines that lay broken along the road behind him. Their weapons were formidable, to be sure, but one in particular stood out. It was a long sheath which contained what was likely half a load of long, ballistic missiles. A deep, quick scan told him each of them was tipped with hardened metal, and contained a highly explosive payload. Which made them perfectly matched to combat his Insecticons.

"Impressive…" He rumbled, "Sting, order Insecticons to collect a number of these units. They are to be sent to my laboratory in the Dark Mountains, for examination."

"Yes, Master."

"If Atlas dispatched a fleet here, then they likely dispatched one to Menagerie as well." He went on, scanning the downed Sever more deeply. His damage had been severe enough to force him into stasis, but not destroy him. Standing, he added, "Order two Hornets to remain, while you and the rest of the swarm return to Menagerie and ensure its safety. They are to bring me spare parts for Sever's repairs."

"I understand."

"And send Insecticons to investigate Haven with a Faunus squad." He added distractedly, attention already locked almost entirely on Sever. "There is an energy signal there. Investigate it."

"There is?"

"You do not detect it?" He asked, turning to look at her."

"No…" She ducked her head, "I do not."

"I see…" Then sending them would accomplish nothing. His sensors must have been more acute… A logical conclusion. "Belay that order, then. See to the rest."

"Yes, Master." She answered, wings buzzing as she lifted up and away and he knelt to pull the damaged 'bot free of the rubble and lay him on the ground.

Other, properly dead, Insecticons lay along the road. Two of them, in fact, likely from his unit. Moving to one, he knelt and proceeded to carve open its head to extract its optics, murmuring, "You do not need this. But my experiment does."

Extracting the units, he set about cutting away the ruined, melted segments around Sever's internal neural core casing. Even it had suffered mild damage, a testament to these new weapons, but only on the surface. Cannibalizing his fallen brethren, he replaced his broken optic and then carefully realigned and reattached the joinings around its neural casing, and them fitted on the armored exoskeleton he had extracted from the dead units. The result was a discolored mix of greens, browns and reds, but it would suffice - and all he needed now was a repainting.

Perhaps blue - it would be fitting.

Next he removed Sever's warped chest-plating, replacing it with segments of the other. By the time that was done, spare scrap and parts had been delivered by a pair of Beetles units. Using that, he steadily replaced the mass between the Spark chamber and the shoulder. Rerunning wires, cables, motor units, regulators - all as carefully as the surgeon that he was in the moment. Finally, he refitted the bracketed shoulder jointed and turned to collect an arm from the fallen. He had the parts to make one, of course, but that would take time, and this would expedite matters greatly.

It socketed in smoothly and after a few test signals that set fingers flicking and joints bending.

Finally, he reached out to connect a cable from himself to Sever and issued the stimulus-signals to bring him out of stasis.

Groaning, Sever rolled onto his older side and clutched at his head. But, after a moment, he rolled back over and gazed back up at Shockwave, murmuring a reverent, "Master…?"

"You were severely damaged." He explained shortly, turning and striding up the road. "Collect yourself, then return to the Scorponok, refuel, and resume your duties."

"Yes, Master…"

As he moved through the city, he passed Faunus and Human crews containing and extinguishing the fires which had been started by the fighting. As well as Insecticons excavating rubbled while Faunus soldiers and local police rescued those trapped inside, and his forces policed the surviving Atlesians into large, open squares for observation and processing. They would be well cared for, and make excellent bargaining chips for negotiations to come which would ensure his goals were met easily.

In short, their safe return, in exchange for the demands he had laid out for Sienna's approval back on Menagerie.

Moving through the city, he continued his search for damaged insecticons in need of his personal care. He found several, missing legs, hunks of their head, or in one case, missing the entire bottom half of their body along with an arm. Hours passed as he worked, mending his damaged warriors and leaving them to recover with orders to return to the Scorponoks as soon as they could. They would obey him, he knew. They were simple creatures in that way.

And besides, mending the others meant that Sever wouldn't suspect him of preferential treatment, and so his experiment would go unharmed.

After a while, as he knelt over a Hornet missing half her face and most of her body, he detected a familiar, small presence approaching him from behind. Without turning, he grunted, "Sienna. Your battle went well?"

"I-It did…" Her stutter made him pause for a moment, before he carefully finished reattaching her arm and stood to turn and look down on her.

Sienna Khan was wearing the bodysuit and armor he had provided them, and it was pockmarked by dents and gouges from the fighting. Her hair was wild and hung around her shoulders, too. And he could detect traces of blood all across her front - though a scan showed no injuries, and thus, he determined it to not be her blood. Which filled him with a relief he didn't quite grasp.

To push past it, he murmured, "You know, my Insecticons were meant to lead the fighting. Not you."

"Y-Yeah, I know, but…" She shrugged and chuckled almost awkwardly, pacing over to a mostly destroyed restaurant that had seats arrayed in front of it. Most had been crushed, blown apart, or toppled. But she found one that was upright and sat, flicking him a look, then grimacing and looking away.

Worried, he asked the obvious, "Sienna, are you… Alright?"

"Y-Yeah, Shockwave, I'm… I'm fine." She took a shaky breath, let it out, and then ran her hands through her hair gently. Then, more harshly, tugging at it until she snarled and stood, hurling her chair back as she growled. Then, as suddenly as her anger had come on, she deflated, turning and leaning on the dirt-covered table beside her.

"Sienna…" He knelt, looming over her and scanning her for injuries. He detected an anomaly and murmured, "Your blood pressure is… Elevated."

"You…" She paused and, without turning, she asked, "You can tell that?"

"My optic is capable of in depth scans." He explained quietly, hesitating a moment before reaching out to touch a finger to her back. She flinched in surprise and flicked a look over her shoulder, but relaxed when she saw his hand withdraw. When she turned away again, he asked, "What is wrong? Did the battle go worse for you than I was told?"

"Did the-" She scoffed and shook her head. Then, slowly, she bent down and picked her chair back up. Sitting down, she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and her head resting in her hands. "Atlas attacked Menagerie, Shockwave."

"I… anticipated such a possibility." He murmured, "Which is why I left behind a garrison. And built missile launchers, and the railgun. To defend it."

"Yeah, and… And they did." She sighed, "But… But Atlas' fleet still did damage, Shockwave. They bombarded the coastline. All along the beach, and half a block inland. I think it was to prepare a landing, but… But it never went that far. Half the fleet was downed, and then they pulled away."

"Likely to head here." He nodded and stood, looking southward, "They are coming, then?"

"I don't know, but that's-"

"I will dispatch my Hornets." He assured her, turning and adding, "I will join them. We will destroy the air-fleet and return to help you solidify control of Mistral. With that done, we can-"

"Ghira was at the docks, Shockwave." She cut him off and he froze, processors grinding to a sudden halt as he went still.

Passive enviro-scans went idle, internal energy regulators ceased for a microcycle, nearly overheating his cannon, and his spikes flicked agitatedly, attuning themselves to a thousand signals and internal directives before he calmed himself. His hand curled into a fist, and he was aware of his optic dilating and undilating - toggling through several settings as he registered… Something. Something deep, in the back of his mind.

Slowly, he forced himself to calm as much as he could, turned, and asked, "He is injured?"

Slowly, Sienna looked up at him, eyes watery and soft. She gnawed at her lip and, slowly, shook her head. He felt as though she'd grown a hundred times her mass and struck him with the gesture instead…

Flinching, he backed away and shook his head, "No. No, he is not- His Aura would protect him."

"An artillery shell struck him." She murmured, voice quiet and distant - his audio receptors were seizing. "Point blank. No one's Aura could handle a shot like that…"

"I will go to him." He rattled out, turning and preparing to transform, "Even if he is dead, I will repair him. It will take time, but as long as there's a body-"

"There isn't." Sienna said and, slowly, he turned back to stare down at her once more. She played with her fingers for a second and then threw her hands up in the air, almost choking, "There's nothing left, just- Just blood. And-And bone, and some clothing… He was… Ghira was…"

"Vaporized." He murmured, mind going cold and blank. "At point blank range, a shrapnel round such as that would have eviscerated him thoroughly. Annihilated him. Down to pieces smaller than your finger. At a ratio of… Of… Of…"

Roaring, he spun and plunged his fist through a building across the street. Glass and brick shattered as his arm cleaved through it, and a room collapsed. But he didn't stop. He brought his fist around again, tearing through its front and showering the street in rubble and then turned, sweeping his leg through it. Roaring, he primed his cannon and annihilated it whole - along with the building behind it.

Shaking, he stood in the smoke and the rubble, and heard Sienna murmur, "Shockwave…"

He said nothing. Silent, he ordered his Insecticons to swarm the remaining fleet - alpha priority, no orders for restraint. As they lifted off, he watched them.

Then, slowly, his gaze fell and he turned to meet Sienna's wide, frightened eyes. Quietly, he murmured, "I am… Sorry."

"It's not-"

Before her words finished, he shifted form and soared up and away at a micro-impulse. Once it was safe, and the shockwave wouldn't annihilate Sienna and the city, he fired a second more powerful one, and propelled himself into orbit. And beyond, out to the debris of the broken moon, where he shifted form once more, turning to slam into the largest section hard enough to register damage to his servos.

Then, for a while… He knelt there, in the void.

And simply… Stared, down at Remnant.

And thought.

Ever since coming to this world, he had… Tried, so very hard, to put his past behind him. To put his past methods behind him. He had come into a fight that wasn't his, and tried to, for once, do all the right things. Help people. Restrain himself. Make comrades- Friends, even, with the people around him. All the things he had seen the people who defeated him, and his ploys and plans, do.

And it had failed, time and again…

And now, it had cost him something with… A sense of weight. Something that made him want to destroy. He didn't comprehend the weight - couldn't - but the want to destroy…

That, he could comprehend.

He leapt off of the rock and transformed, and a single impulse burst of his engines sent him searing through space and then through the atmosphere. As he came down, into sight of the floating city bound by chains, he reached out. There were hundreds of broadcasts ongoing across the Kingdom - but only one feed coming into it. A video feed, as encrypted as the primitives were capable of.

Latching onto it, he followed it to its source - a large building at one end of the floating city, overlooking Mantle below.

He tapped into the feed, and listened as a man spoke, "-don't have the resources to manufacture a ship, much less another fleet, Ironwood!"

"I understand resources are short, Councilman Sleet, but Vale has-"

"Nothing left to give!" Another man cut in, voice carried in by the signal. Curving through the upper atmosphere high over Atlas, he broadened and deepened his connection to the feed. It was a display of several people, each with designations hovering under their video feeds. 'Councilor Foil' went on hotly, "You took what we had for your mad invasion, General, and we don't have any more to give you!"

He cut the feed and turned, angling down towards the roof of the building - where the feed was being directed and displayed. Moments before impact he slowed and transformed, crashing through concrete and iron supports at several kilometers per hour.

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"Indeed, we-"

The Councilor's words vanished in the dull roar and crash of stone shattering and something immense slamming down into the concrete with enough force to throw Ironwood off his feet and reverberate through his body. Rolling onto his arms and legs he staggered up, ears ringing, and yanked Due Process free of its holster. His guards did the same, throwing back their coats to repeal flak armor and drawing smaller sidearms at his sides.

Together, they leveled their weapons on the billowing cloud of dust and smoke filtering through the air.

"Get the Councilors." He hissed when nothing came, raising his voice and adding to the filled seats around them, "Everyone, clear the floor!"

"I think not." A voice rumbled, before a massive fist punched out, into the concrete beneath Ironwood. He felt the building tremble and heard the stones falling as the fist withdrew and its owner spun, scattering the smoke and dust as it buried its fist in the concrete over the other exit, shattering it and trapping them.

"What in the world…"

"I will not allow any to leave." The massive machine rumbled as it emerged from the darkness and turned to him, cyclopean gaze glowing a bright, menacing red. "General Ironwood."

"What…" He blinked, set his teeth, and flushed his Aura through his body - his Semblance steeling him, as ever. Standing straighter, he snapped, "I demand that whoever is in that thing step out and surrender immediately!"

"Whoever is inside?" The machine turned fully towards him, fanning the last of the smoke away with the barrel that made up its other arm. Resting its proper hand against its chest, "I'm afraid you misunderstand, General. There is no pilot."

"What-"

"I am Shockwave." The machine snapped, fingers dancing across the inside of its gun-arm. "Formerly, the lead scientist of the Decepticon cause. You should feel honored, General Ironwood, to meet me. You all should, in fact, most honored councilors."

"And why is that?" Sleet demanded from behind his two bodyguards, pointing a long finger at him and snarling, "How dare you come here and presume-"

"Presume what?" He asked, turning and leveling the cannon on the man. "I presume nothing, Councilman. I demand."

Councilor Sleet's entire podium vanished in a pulse of vibrant violet. In its place, as the smoke from the blast faded, Ironwood could only see a round section of concrete which was simply… Absent. Burnt and blacked around the edges, but otherwise, it was as if the entire area had simply been scooped out of existence outright.

"I demand your attention, Councilors." He went on, lowering his cannon and continuing to work his fingers at its side. "My name is Shockwave, as I said. And I have come here today to speak, to Atlas, to Mantle, and to Vale alike. And beyond, to the rest of the world."

Raising his hands, he seized some of the wires attached to the view-screens projecting the Valean Council. Wrenching one out, he hooked it into the back of his head and added. "A world which I have just connected to. Say hello, Councilors - I am projecting you on a broadband signal broadcast by myself, and relayed by every antenna in Atlas beyond, to a thousand more on the ocean. And on, to the villages and the Kingdoms themselves."

"Impossible!"

"It's true…" Councilor Foil murmured, "I-I have the video feed on my Scroll… Its from his point of view, but-"

"The floor is mine, Councilor." Shockwave waved his hand and the Councilor fell quiet, even as his mouth moved. His eyes widened as he realized he had been muted, and Ironwood watched him lean back in his seat, mouth slack."

"Call Shield fleet." He hissed to his guards, "Order them to deploy and-"

"Call your fleets." Shockwave cut him off, lowering his weapon at last. "They will not arrive before I finish my lesson."

"Your lesson…?"

"Mine is a lesson of law." He nodded his head, voice pleasant and almost amused. Turning, he regarded the huddling mass of people and went on, "Not petty Human law, mind you. Universal law. A law of reality. Laws which you people have all forgotten. The first I speak of - the law of consequence. That all actions have reactions. I trust you fools know that much, at least?"

"The first law of force." Watts called out from the crowd, and shrank back when the machine turned to face him and the science division around him. Gesturing at them, Watts stammered, "W-We are men of science. You sound like one, too."

"I am, yes."

"So surely we can… Arrange something?"

"We can, yes." Shockwave nodded, "I will ask you one more question, and you will answer."

"Alright…"

"Define, simply, the law of gravity."

"I'm…" Watts sounded confused and blinked, "Sorry? Just… Just gravity?"

"Indeed. A law which Atlas, it seems, has forgotten." Watts opened his mouth to speak and Shockwave's hand snapped up, requesting a silence Watts granted with a curt nod. "Instead, allow me to offer a… Visual aid. To you, and the world watching."

"First, the law of consequence." Shockwave rumbled, stepping back to the center of the platform and pacing around, turning his gaze towards Ironwood once more. "For instance 'with crime, there is punishment."

"Crime…"

"Yes, General." Shockwave nodded, reaching out to snatch him from the platform faster than Ironwood could perceive. The machine lifted him up, forced him to gaze into his luminous eye, and he rumbled, "Your crimes are many. But here? Today? Your crime is taking that which was not yours."

"What did I take from you?" He snarled, struggling against the metal fingers that held him.

"The second lesson." Shockwave rumbled, holding him out and turning him so that he could see Shockwave level his cannon at the ground. "What goes up… Must inevitably come down again."

"No…"

Shockwave's answer was to unleash a bright, violet bolt of fury so hot Ironwood felt the heat from forty feet away. It slammed into the concrete and cut through with the ease of a hot knife through water. As it faded, Ironwood heard the familiar rumbling - of concrete and steel and iron and earth coming apart at the seams as all which held it together came apart.

"A last lesson." Shockwave offered, over the sound of the world around them shearing apart in a nearly deafening cacophony of steel and stone carving through each other, "Never power your entire city's gravitation lift mechanism from a single structure, no matter how powerful the energy signature is."

Ironwood's eyes widened, and then he fell from the machine's fingers. He leapt and his form shifted, metal flowing from bipedal to… To a jet, before rocketing away, all before he even hit the ground.

Ironwood felt his ribs crack as he hit, though, and gasped. Then, he felt the world come apart around him.

And he closed his eyes.

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Shockwave watched Atlas fall, coming apart as it listed to the side, away from Mantle. It undra and detonated in a thousand splashes of a hundred colors. The city scattered across miles as it skidded across the tundra, exposing its internals for the few moments they survived the force. Inevitably, though, those came apart as well. Until all he could see was debris, scattered for fifty miles away from Mantle. With his Optics, he could only detect faint flickers of life.

None of which came from the section the Council had been in.

Turning, he watched a handful of Atlesian airships moving towards the rubble. The so-called Shield Fleet. They were vulnerable, with no sign of their shields. Not that they would have mattered against a full powered blast of his graviton cannon. But…

Eventually, he banked off to the side and up, back towards the moon.

Enough had died today.

Now… Now he just wanted the quiet.

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