newborn
The sky was a hazy gray, and beneath it lay a devastated wasteland, ravaged by war. Gale-force winds swept across the collapsed buildings, carrying debris with them. The antenna picked up the distant, noisy sound of a drill bit cutting metal.
After the great war, Shockwave, left behind on Cybertron, began his solitary research journey. Undistracted by others or trivial matters, he could focus intently on his work in the laboratory, and his research progressed rapidly. Soon, during an outing, he unexpectedly discovered the skeleton of a Predacon. He decided to restart the Predacon project and create a Predacon.
Living alone on this abandoned planet, spending vast resources and energy to create an intelligent, alien being, it's hard to say whether Shockwave felt lonely.
The audio receiver picked up the sound of metal being chewed, which usually meant that a swarm of metal-eating insects was nearby. Shockwave adjusted his course and carefully moved away from the sound source, as he definitely didn't want to be discovered by a large group of metal-eating insects.
The planet was ravaged by war, and most Cybertronians had fled their former home. With resources depleted, finding super-energy sources had become extremely difficult. Fortunately, Shockwave, as the Decepticon's chief scientist, had established numerous laboratories throughout the planet, storing considerable resources, so his need for energy was not urgent. His trip served two purposes: first, to assess the environmental changes around the base, and second, to collect usable Predacon skeletons for Project Predacon.
After investigating the surrounding area, Shockwave discovered many piles of Iron-Eating Insect corpses.
This was highly unusual, Shockwave deduced. Even among swarms of Iron-Eating Insects, cannibalism and fighting would occur. However, due to the Iron-Eating Insects' metal-eating nature, when one died, its companions would pounce on and tear apart its corpse, leaving only dust-like iron filings. Almost no Iron-Eating Insect corpses were left behind, let alone large piles of them.
With the audio receiver upright, Shockwave picked up the faint footsteps behind him. He immediately turned, charging his hand cannon and aiming it behind him. Behind him was an open space, with some metal scraps whistling in the wind; he saw no Cybertronians. He turned and continued walking forward, his hand cannon charging continuously for a possible counterattack. Based on past experience, the Autobots always managed to avoid his line of sight. The machine behind him had been following him, likely looking for an opportunity to ambush him.
Shockwave arrived at a clearing filled with bones, squatted down, picked up a bone, and walked in another direction.
He decided to use the laboratory's various traps to trap the machine that was tracking him, so that he could carefully investigate the details of this unfamiliar machine.
The shockwave moved towards the base, and the machine followed. As it entered the base, the machine stepped through the gates and into the surveillance range. The camera transmitted a clear image of the suspicious machine: a medium-sized female drone, seemingly alert, with its two wings raised high.
She walked through the corridor and entered a laboratory. The machine followed her into the trap set for her in the corridor. The laboratory door closed quickly, and then all the other doors connecting to the corridor were locked, leaving the unfamiliar machine, who hadn't had time to enter the laboratory, in the enclosed space formed by the corridor and the closed doors.
This has trapped her!
Shockwave continued watching the images transmitted from the camera. The machine looked around, walked to a corner, placed its hands on the wall and rummaged around, then, still in human form, flew to the ceiling and rummaged around again. It seemed it only found tightly sealed steel plates and couldn't find an exit. Then, like pollen undergoing Brownian motion in water, it flew around in the confined space, crawling on the ground trying to find a way out. Its wings made it look like a giant cockroach on Earth.
"Tell me your identity, and what's your purpose in following me?" Shockwave couldn't stand it anymore. Was this machine's central processing unit even working properly? Could he really get any useful information out of it? At least he could confirm that this guy was an Autobot. The only logical explanation was that Optimus Prime would kindly take him in; otherwise, how could he have survived the war?
It must have heard the sound. The machine turned to face the camera, flew over, pulled the camera out, chewed it, and then spat out the fragments of the small speaker with a "pui" sound. This was the last image the camera transmitted back. But it didn't matter; I had another one. Shockwave smugly turned to the image transmitted by another camera. This camera hadn't been turned on before to conserve the base's energy, but now it was time for it to come in handy.
The machine was flying around again. After a while, probably unable to find an exit, she stood on the ground and, like a wild beast, rammed the laboratory door through which the shockwave had just entered with all her might. A dent appeared on the laboratory door; the force of her ramming was truly considerable.
The laboratory door to the shockwave was built to the highest level of protection; it would be difficult to break it open with a ramming attack alone. Having realized it couldn't be forced open, the machine stopped, stood before the door, placed its hands on the door, and remained motionless.
Suddenly, large cracks appeared on the iron door, and it shattered. The shockwave that had seized the opponent's confidence also shattered, which didn't make sense! Large pieces of iron slag crashed to the ground, revealing a red, camera-like eye in the dimly lit laboratory behind the door. Red light shone through the swirling dust onto the young machine.
"Who exactly are you?" The hand cannon charged and aimed at the machine opposite, while Shockwave warily watched its opponent, slowly retreating step by step. If the opponent attacked, it could immediately retreat to another door to trap the opponent for a while, buying time to escape.
The machine opposite suddenly went dark, its head tilted to one side, its body fell over, and it lay motionless on the ground.
Shockwave cautiously approached step by step, aiming his cannon at the machine lying on the ground. Once the cannon was pressed against the head sculpture, Shockwave was finally able to confirm that the unfamiliar machine was indeed offline. He used his other hand to lift the machine and place it on the experimental table, connecting it to the equipment to read its memories.
The incubation pod ejected urgently, going online, but data transmission was forced to stop due to insufficient energy. However, the remaining data revealed her name: Steel Fork. She got up and left the incubation pod. The incubation room was covered in dust; beyond that were broken windows and decaying walls. Then came the unfortunate encounter with the Iron-Eating Bugs, discovering she could draw energy from them, using her powers to protect herself, capture the bugs, and wander through the ruins. The last thing she remembered was seeing her own purple figure.
Shockwave thought, "I never imagined the Autobots would abandon their newborn sparks." The battle had reached the incubation facility, forcing the staff to urgently remove most of the newborns. Grimlock, for unknown reasons, was forgotten in the incubation chambers. As the war progressed, the facility's energy supply was cut off until the incubation chambers' energy reserves were depleted, at which point Grimlock was ejected. During this time, some newborn Cybertronians must have occasionally escaped, but the facility had already been overrun by the Iron Eaters. Lacking Grimlock's abilities and methods to deal with the Iron Eaters, they were all devoured. Even the emergency ejection of the incubation chambers might have been due to the Iron Eaters entering the facility and corroding the energy lines, or directly damaging the chambers, resulting in incomplete basic data and an inability to understand even the Cybertronian language.
It just went offline due to an emergency lockout caused by insufficient energy.
She wasn't an Autobot, but she could be a Decepticon. Given Cybertron's current state, keeping her alive made sense. Shockwave put down his scalpel and instead grabbed a can of energy fluid, injecting it into the young Cybertronian's body.
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