Steadfast looked at the servant that was facing her at the entrance of Shatterwave's office. The mechanism had the build of a dancer and no discernable weapons save for a pair of wrist-lasers and a blade strapped to his leg. His hull was black with intricate silver swirls and complementing patterns only visible in the ultraviolet range. It said quite a lot about Shatterwave that he kept a servant whose main use was decoration.

"My master wishes for you to enter," the servant said with a graceful gesture that added to the impression of a dancer. Steadfast stepped into Shatterwave's office, keeping her wings slightly folded back to make herself look smaller – a gesture of deference that was considered proper when approaching a higher-ranking Decepticon. The office was lined with the terminals and tactical displays one would expect and some objects the purposes of which weren't readily apparent. It was far from small and cluttered, though – a fact noted with gratitude by the claustrophobic Seeker and a testimony to its occupant's rank.

Behind a table in the middle of the room, Shatterwave was sitting in a chair that was built to fit his body, which bore more than a passing resemblance to that of his brother Onslaught. He probably wants to forget he ever had a brother, though, Steadfast thought. Onslaught and his four closest associates had only recently been convicted to permanent imprisonment – or, as cheerfully mocking Decepticons put it, "being stored in a filing cabinet, good-bye!" – for renegade activities or, as the same mockers called it, "trying to spit in Megatron's oil." Shatterwave had come out clean, or maybe he had just been very good at hiding any trace of his wrongdoings.

Indicating a chair on the opposite side of the table, Shatterwave said, "Have a seat." Once his guest had sat down, he looked her over, as if appraising a painting. "Purple. A common colour," he commented with a fine undertone of dagger-sharp disapproval, then added, "… although the emphasis on a single hue is used quite effectively in this composition."

"Composition" my aft; I'm a factory-built Seeker, not some artist's creation, Steadfast thought, but kept it well to herself – it wasn't wise to contradict a higher-up, especially not while giving one's first impression.

Shatterwave gestured to the dancer-servant, who had remained standing at the back of the room. The servant vanished into a side-room and then reappeared, carrying a tray that held two finely wrought crystal glasses filled with energon. He put down one glass in front of his master, who immediately took a sip from it, one in front of Steadfast, and retreated to the back of the room to remain there again, silently awaiting further orders.

Steadfast cautiously took her glass in one hand, not being used to drinking from such a delicate vessel. Noticing her hesitation, Shatterwave said smilingly, "Smart piece of wings, you are. It's normally not wise to accept a drink offered by an artist. But I assure you, this one's clean."

The Seeker took a sip and then asked, "Artist?" She only knew of Shatterwave as a military commander.

"You don't know why I ordered you here, do you?"

"In fact, I don't."

"I am, indeed, an artist. I have gained more than a little fame for my works of music."

"Then I hope you'll forgive me for not knowing that. I have no time for music."

"But you do have some appreciation for the arts?" Shatterwave asked. He didn't add, "… you ignorant flyer," but it was more than obvious from his tone that he was thinking it.

Not wanting to incur further disfavour, Steadfast quickly replied, "I'm actually quite fond of the works of Slog." It was only a half-lie – she did like what she had seen of his works, though mostly because of the destruction that went into their creation.

"Ah, Slog. He's undoubtedly a genius in the field of sculpture. But there are more forms of art than sculpture. I have made myself a name as a creator of operas, but the art form that calls to me now is rainweaving. – And this is where you come in," Shatterwave explained. "Your file tells me that you're not only an experienced rainflyer, but also a qualified meteorologist."

"Former meteorologist," Steadfast corrected. "Right now, I'm a warrior doing my part to fight the Autobot scum. My experience only covers the military application of rainflying."

"That's not a problem," said Shatterwave. "I will be the one doing the creative work. You will merely be in charge of the technical aspects of my project. Do you think you can handle that?"

"And if I say I can't?"

"Then I will see to it that you'll get to do something within your range of skills, such as guarding a strategically unimportant outpost."

In other words, he's got the rank to make me do it. "I can and will work on your project," the Seeker said.

Steadfast hadn't kept count how often the servant had refilled her glass during the remainder of the talk, but she did feel slightly overenergized when she left Shatterwave's office.

The dancer-servant had been charged with the task of leading her around the place. "Your quarters are over there," he explained, pointing to a door. "Well, they aren't actually your quarters; you'll be rooming with his adjutant for now. But before you move in, I'll show you to the bath."

The Seeker bristled. "I'm not dirty!"

The servant's slender wings twitched in an apologetic gesture. "I didn't mean to say you were. It's just that Master Shatterwave said you should have a hot oil bath, because you had a long journey."

Even though she remained wary, Steadfast couldn't help but feel some gratitude for the generosity of her host and new superior as she was soaking in the hot tub, which was big enough for the full breadth of her wings. She wondered if the lavish treatment was a sign of some softness she could exploit, or if there was some hidden motive or another. Her mind took stock of her situation. On the down side, I have to work for a groundcrawler who thinks he's some kind of fancy genius artist. On the up side, I actually enjoy rainflying, and this will allow me to put my skills to use. It could be worse.

The "adjutant" turned out to be a heavyset tank that treated the winged newcomer with chilly almost-but-not-quite politeness, but his room was reasonably clean and spacious enough to make the two Decepticons not feel like they were sitting on each other.

Steadfast settled in front of the terminal she had been given permission to use and started sifting through data files related to her new work. There was a selection of personnel files she set aside for later survey. Shatterwave had decided to give her some amount of choice who to work with in "realizing his vision" – the Seeker strongly suspected this was not done out of generosity or trust, but so that it could be blamed entirely on her if the people selected failed to fulfill his expectations.

She sighed briefly, wishing for a moment that she at least still had her trinemate Lashweaver around among all the unfamiliar mechs. Not that wishing could change anything – he was dead now. His skill with the battle-whip hadn't saved him on their last ill-fated mission. They'd both failed to realize in time that their third, Stonesplit, had led them into a trap. She herself had gotten away with her life, but Lashweaver …

She'd had to decide fast when he'd been wounded. To not leave him behind hadn't been an option – he would have slowed them down – but to let the Autobots get him alive …

She'd decided. Hitting him with her ion beam had been easy – Lashweaver had trusted her too much to expect her to shoot him. Then the finishing shots, and Stonesplit yelling, "You … you killed a Decepticon!" …

Stonesplit hadn't survived for long thereafter – after having realized what he'd done, she'd made sure he didn't live to regret his treachery. Knowing him dead gave a little satisfaction, but it didn't make Lashweaver alive again, neither did it erase the fact that Stonesplit had been able to fool her for too long. She'd failed that time. This time, she'd do the job right. Even if it was just art, she'd do it right.

Steadfast turned her attention to the other files. There were statistical collections of atmospherical data for the areas that had been selected as potential places for Shatterwave's work, video recordings of the rainweaving performances of other artists, and whatever theoretical treatises on the art of rainweaving had been available – many rainweavers preferred to keep their trade secrets to themselves, something Shatterwave had complained about to her during their initial talk, warning her to not think about "putting on airs" like that.

Briefly narrowing her optics in thought, the Seeker decided that reading through all of the data files one by one would take too much time. She quickly selected the theoretical treatises. Bringing her face in line with the terminal's optical interface, she commanded, "Computer, flash-imprint the selected data!"

The data came shooting through her optics' neural lines directly into her memory system, a dizzying, blinding flurry of ones and zeros. It was a heady rush, overwhelming almost to the point of painfulness, but when the data-flash was finished, Steadfast felt invigorated rather than exhausted. Nevertheless, she knew that too much flash-imprinting at once could overtax a Transformer's systems.

The Seeker now retrieved the visual documentations of bygone rainweaving performances. In light of the knowledge that had just been burned into her, they would be easier to understand.

Rainflying – cloud-seeding to bring down acid rain on Autobots – was something Steadfast was well familiar with, but the techniques involved in rainflying were merely the beginning of what was rainweaving. Rainweavers used those techniques to create patterns of rain, some as intricate as crystal structures, veritable short-lived tapestries woven from falling noxious liquid that left their corrosion-imprint on the ground.

Steadfast couldn't help feeling fascinated as she watched the images of reddened sky bursting into torrents over torrents of rain. There was something primal to it, the rushing curtains of light, oh so light drops of liquid that yet held destructive power. It was beauty. She noticed that Shatterwave had experimented with adding music to some of the recordings, nothing more than very simple weavings of sound, but they complemented the pieces. Sound and rain, rain and sound and rain … it was late when the Seeker finally switched off the recordings and stretched out on the room's second recharge bed to go into rest mode.

The next days and weeks were filled with planning and preparation. Seekers were refitted and trained to add to the number of rainflyers under Shatterwave's command, a chem-tech worked on experimental concoctions for the cloud-seed flares, many a cycle was spent drafting rain-patterns on a holographic table ( Shatterwave was drawing with Steadfast watching attentively, ) and then there was test run after test run.

All of this was done in what was considered "their spare time". Warfare was still Shatterwave's main occupation, and Steadfast was expected to do her part as a regular air warrior in the strikes against the Autobots. She gradually got used to her new flying partners, a conehead named Atomic, whose green colour almost seemed to glow, and Sunshine, a regular pyramid jet like her, whose name befitted his golden yellow colour, but not his utterly humourless personality.

One time, as they returned from battle – Steadfast had been shot in one leg, but refused to wince as she unfolded from her pyramid form and touched down with her feet – Shatterwave announced that there would be a special event: the performance of one of his operas. "We need some culture, or we'll forget what we're fighting for," he explained.

Steadfast was not of the opinion that artistic expression was the main thing the Decepticons were fighting for, but she dutifully appeared in time for the event, freshly repaired and with clean, buffed armour.

Shatterwave's troops were not the only audience – some Decepticons from neighbouring areas of Cybertron had appeared, as well, including one heavily armoured attack vehicle. "That's Strika," Atomic explained to Steadfast. "She's a brilliant tactician. Shatterwave is mad-keen on impressing her for some reason."

Once the audience had assembled, the performers – the main one being Shatterwave himself – took their positions. Steadfast found that the servant that had greeted her on her day of arrival was indeed a dancer, and not a bad one, either. His movements, accented by the shimmer of the patterns on his body and the bells he was wearing for the occasion, were sensuous and graceful. There were other dancers, as well, and techs turned out to be talented singers. But the most impressive sounds were the ones that came from Shatterwave. Steadfast had seen the destructive side of his sonic capabilities, but the sounds that emanated from him now were no less powerful, if in a different way. They ranged from a low rumble like the voice of a mountainside – if a mountainside had a voice – to hammering rhythms as hard as steel, to haunting melodies that rose and fell, to spark-rending shrieks that could have physically torn the armour off a Transformer, had they been louder.

When the performance came to its conclusion, no one said a word for a while.

The first small rainweaving – a mere rehearsal for what Shatterwave had in mind – was performed over a nearly deserted place. The few straggling empties in the area fell down twitching when the acid rain ate into their circuits, as if performing a grotesque dance.

"… the atmospheric conditions on that day will be ideal!" Steadfast insisted, looking animatedly into Shatterwave's purple optics.

"But you do know that on that day, there will be a lot of Autobots in the area for the celebration of … wait! That's precisely why you want us to do it on that day, isn't it?"

"The best art is the one that kills Autobots, wouldn't you agree?" Steadfast said with a smile.

"That's what I'd expect a Slog admirer to say," said Shatterwave, giving her a 'How would you know what is or isn't good art?' look. "But to perform the rainweaving right over a big Autobot gathering will complicate things."

Steadfast nodded curtly. "It means we'll need to approach unseen, get in quickly, and disable the Autobots before they disable us."

It was the day of final planning. Shatterwave's rainflyers and some of his other subordinates were assembled around a big table, the middle of which was graced by a holographic simulation of his grand project. None of the Decepticons involved had gotten much rest in the last few days, and Steadfast has long since exchanged the "clean" drinks for heated energon mixed with a strong stimulant which Shatterwave readily supplied, though his adjutant warned her that "too much of that stuff will eat your components from the inside out". The Seeker still seemed to hold up well, but Shatterwave's staff watched her closely for lapses in judgement.

Concerns were traded back and forth. – "This side of the pattern requires one curtain of rain falling down after the other, but you'll only have time to fly over once!"

"We'll use time-released flares; we've tested them, it'll work."

"We won't have that much of a stealthy approach if I'll supply the sound as planned."

"It's possible to do this if we …"

Finally, Shatterwave looked at Steadfast – "Good, we'll have it on the day you've chosen. But if anything goes wrong …"

"… you'll make me guard a strategically unimportant outpost?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of stripping you for parts, then handing what's left to another artist," Shatterwave said without a trace of humour.

Important days often start early, and this one was no exception. While others were busy outfitting the rainflyers, accompanied by constant warnings not to confuse the markings on the different types of cloud-seed flares, Shatterwave's adjutant asked the black missile truck yet again if he didn't want to take some measure to protect his body. All rainflyers wore a permanent protective coating – which had never been duplicated by the Autobots, due to them lacking master chemists of the calibre of Mixmaster – in order to protect themselves from their own acid rain. Those of Shatterwave's troops who were to supply ground support for the upcoming mission had been given coatings, as well, but Shatterwave had refused such measures for himself.

He still wanted to have none of it – "My body is strong enough to tolerate a little rain!"

Then it was time. Shatterwave left with his ground troops. They would split up, and then draw a relentless circle around the target area to make sure the Autobots wouldn't be able to escape when the rainflyers arrived. With them left the crew that would be responsible for recording visual footage of Shatterwave's work, among them three diminutive robots that collectively referred to themselves as "Reflector". They had been part of the troupe of dancers during the performance of Shatterwave's opera, due to their uncanny natural ability to move in perfect unison.

The Seekers set off later, but not without a last, special act of preparation. Although rainflying was science, not ritual, rainweaving was traditionally preceded by an offering to placate the spirits of rain, or so the records that Steadfast had consulted said. "It's just a way of showing respect for what we're doing," she had explained to a Seeker who had asked her if she really believed in that sort of thing. "Having respect for your work doesn't hurt."

The purple Seeker now stretched out her hand. "Do you have the sight of a living foe?" she asked.

Sunshine handed her a shallow bowl that contained two blue crystals which, on nearer inspection, turned out to be the torn-out optics of an Autobot. "The minibot was still alive when I let him go," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Do we now have to mix our fuel in that bowl?" a blue Seeker asked. "Because I'm not going to …"

"Actually, no," Steadfast said. "The ritual only calls for some high-quality fuel, which we have here." She poured some energon from a small container into the bowl, just enough to cover the optics. Then she held the bowl aloft – "Sight of a living foe, make them look pleasantly on us …" – and tossed the contents into the air, from where they fell down in a spray of pink.

"Sympathetic magic," Atomic commented.

They had made their way over contested territory, relying on their speed and altitude to stay out of reach and, as much as possible, out of sight – they could not risk harming their precious, light, destructive cargo. Nearing the target area, the rainflyers split up in nine groups that would approach from different angles. Steadfast used the sensors embedded in her wingtips to glance back at Atomic and Sunshine to reassure herself that they were still following her. Despite all preparation, she was starting to feel nervous now. … only get one chance …

The purple Seeker powered down her sensors for a split moment, collecting herself. Then, there was nothing to do but start the approach.

They came too fast for the Autobots to do more than fire some futile laser shots from below. The Seekers heeded them not; they would have endured even heavier fire, for any evasive movements would have compromised the perfection of the pattern, and Shatterwave had warned them what would happen to anyone who didn't show the requisite dedication. At the exact target points, they dropped their flares, then again. Crossing paths in the middle, the flyers started moving outward again. Weaving … in and out …

Then the sky burst.

The Seekers circled, adding to the giant filigree pattern, and then crossed again under the thick, reddish clouds. Rain, as harmless to them as it was destructive to the Autobots, ran over their wings in streams, enough to confuse their sensors, but they were well-trained enough to not let it hamper their flight.

More veils and curtains of falling liquid added themselves to the first, then more, as the time-released flares went off. On the ground, Autobots fell and twitched helplessly, their systems giving out under the onslaught of the relentless acid rain.

Into the sound of the rushing downpour, other sounds mingled. The sounds of laser fire and explosions from where Shatterwave's troops were driving their Autobot prey back under the veils of acid rain, and then – the Decepticons had powered down their audios on command – the sounds of Shatterwave himself, the mighty, rumbling growls, like the song of a great beast, and the terrifying war-shrieks, sounds powerful enough to shatter Autobot armour and create cracks to admit the terrible rain, and proud melodies to declare his triumph.

It was destruction. It was glory. It was terrible beauty.

And then, it was over. Feeling that his work of art had played out satisfactory, Shatterwave had finally allowed his troops – ground force and Seekers alike – to pick off those that hadn't died from rain and sound alone. Then even that was done.

While Reflector recorded some final images of what was left on the ground, Shatterwave stood there. His huge, black body was sparking where the acid rain had gotten to his circuits despite it all, but he was too proud and perhaps too satisfied and joy-filled to admit to any pain; and next to him stood Steadfast with still-moistened wings and pride-brightened optics.