"Hey kid! Can you hear me?" Checkers paused and pressed his fingers to his .
"I hear you Bruticus." He chirped with a relieved smile. "Where are you?"
"Just outside the warehouse, you?" The young yellow and black mech looked around.
"By the docks. I'll be there in a cycle."
"Hurry up kid! This place is crawling with guards!"
With an unhelpful nod, Checkers darted across the docks and passed the transporter post. Looking up, he saw the numbers roughly painted on the sides of the warehouses in Predacon numerals. Whoever put them there clearly wasn't all that well educated.
Suddenly, gun shot caught his attention and his head turned towards the sound. The familiar droning of Bruticus's laser optics echoed across the whole trading post. Checkers smiled; no one could beat Bruticus's main weapons, not unless they knew his blind spots.
Checkers had rolled his eyes at his comrade's choice of name; taken from the story books of the legendary Combaticons. But in most aspects, the name suited him! He was a brute, through and through, though he was always sweet and gentle with Checkers. In fact, Checkers was convinced-
"AAAAAAAAAARGH!" The sound came quick, and rang in Checkers' audios. For a moment, his spark stopped pulsing.
He broke into a full out sprint across the trading post until he reached warehouse 27 where they were supposed to break into. Guards were strewn across the ground in their tens, bodily energon splattered about their bodies like spilt paint. Checkers stepped cautiously over each of them until he reached the half opened door to the warehouse, and crawled inside.
"Bruticus? Buddy?" His voice loomed in the darkness, the few flickering neon light above blinking at him. Checkers' was face suddenly contorted with horror and disgust. He clasped a yellowy-gold servo over his mouth and gagged. Amber optics glancing back to the scene a few metres in front of him then back down and removed his hand so he could purge his tanks.
Once his lunch was covering the floor, he looked back up at Bruticus's body; all 17 torn and ripped parts of it scattered across the floor. Checkers swayed uneasily and whimpered.
"Oh Primus..." He wheezed, then threw up again. He stumbled towards Bruticus's head and lifted it shakily. He shuddered as his jaw flipped open with gravity. "Bruticus... I'm sorry pal..." He looked around the room, searching for some kind of large container, and found it in the form of a wide stasis box. He placed the head back to the floor and walked towards it, dragging it out from under the shelves.
He began collecting up the broken bits of body and carefully locked them in the box, then pushed it out to the edge of the docks. He looked up at the moon and blinked, then collapsed to his knees; the reality of what was happening finally sinking in.
Bruticus was dead. Checkers was pushing his make-shift coffin into the oily ocean. And was dry-heaving and keening in sorrow, beating his fists against the ground and screaming painfully.
Tears dripped from his face and he clenched his fists. Those Predacons would pay for this.
XxX
"I cannot do this again..." Tigertron sighed mournfully, shaking his head.
"It's... it's never easy to... bury a friend..." Cheetor replied, half biting his tongue in an attempt not to scream for Bruticus.