The Autobots don't really understand birthday parties, but that doesn't mean they didn't help with it. At least, that's what Chip says after they enter the Rec Room to find it colorfully adorned and with almost all of the Cybertronian there throwing confetti at the cry of 'Happy birthday, Spike!'.

It's a great party, complete with food and drinks Sparkplug and Carly brought, and even presents from the Autobots, most of them petty or decorative things, since, apparently, anything that wasn't a necessity was a luxury back in Cybertron, before the war, and thus would make the perfect present in the bizarre and alien custom of birthday gifts.

Spike loves them all, even the weird sculpture from Gears that is supposed to be some kind of wild animal from a planet the name of which can't be pronounced by humans, but that is so masterfully put together and made of fantasy-like glassy metals that the teenager feels his breath taken away at the sight of such beauty.

It's even more amazing when he's told it's made of tin and clay.

"I guess you can find beauty even in a mud-ball like this." The Minibot simply says with a dismissing shrug, but it means the world to the boy.

Even those that hated it in the beginning have learnt to love Earth, his home planet. It's heartwarming, that a species that has seen so much, that can live so long, appreciates this 'mud-ball' humanity was born in.

However, even the most perfect occasion can have a flaw, and this time, it is the alarm indicating a Decepticon attack.

But nothing can make the day go wrong.

So, along with his father, his best friend and his girlfriend, Spike boards Skyfire and accompanies the Autobots to the battle.

He knows his limits, though. Meaning, while the Cybertronian fight each other, the humans rush into the attacked lab, fortunately empty, to get to whatever the Decepticons want before they do.

Ravage and Rumble are already there.

No matter. They won't let the Decepticons win.

They say as much, and, as usual, the Cassettes don't take well to being mocked by them, especially because, even though the natives are 'weak' and 'fragile' squishies, they've managed to drive them away before.

And they all know it.

Despite the snarling and exchanging of insults, neither side gets a chance to do anything, because Skyfire rips the ceiling away and, faster than they thought him able to, he grabs all those inside and transforms, dumping humans and Cassettes alike into his cargo bay, pained yelping echoing against the walls—

The Shuttle trashes, violently, like a plane through a storm, even though he hasn't taken off, and his unwilling passengers are rattled around like the ball of a pinball machine.

With a last roaring shake—or is it Skyfire's scream of pain?—all systems turn off, throwing them into darkness.

And the shrieking begins.

Pained, agonized actually, and pleading and terrified and so much like the lost toddler Spike found in the mall once that it shouldn't be the Cassettes'.

But it is.

The fearsome Decepticon Elite spies are screaming and flailing around, searching without really looking, as if their whole world had…

Thanks to the wild flashes of the panicked and horror-struck Cybertronians' visor and optics, the Witwicky find the door to Skyfire's cockpit, and get it open with some bars from Chip's broken chair.

And Spike finally acknowledges the grief in the Cassettes' cries, because the world has ended.

Where there was a large facility, now there's a pile of molten rock and metal.

Where there was greenery as far as the eye could see, now there's ash.

Where there were snow-capped mountains in the distance, now there are active volcanoes and crumbling rocks.

Where there was blue sky, now there's fiery red with yellowed soot clouds quickly growing.

Where there were metal giants fighting in yet another battle of a seemingly never-ending war, now there are fallen frames and burning lumps of molten slag.

"What's going on? What happened?" Chip calls from where he's sitting, a scared Carly next to him, snapping father and son from their horror-induced paralysis.

They can't see the outside from the cargo bay, only the red light bathing everything like the unblinking alarms of the Ark, slithering over white metal and clothes and flesh as if it was alive, distorted by the smoke the other two humans don't know is there.

"Oh God… I-I'm not sure, but… Oh God…" Sparkplug stutters as Spike takes a step back, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. "Looks like—like an atomic bomb went off… or more like a dozen…"

The lights start to flicker, the Cassettes' cries slowly growing silent as they get to their knees, Rumble covering his faceplate with his servos as he curls against a shocked Ravage's bent back.

"Skyfire?" Carly asks, and white noise comes from all around them as the lighting stabilizes. "Skyfire, are you all right?"

For a moment, there's nothing.

"I… mostly… Are kzz-u alright?" The Shuttle finally answers, voice mechanical and almost unrecognizable from the static overlapping with it.

Something moves on the other side of the cockpit glass.

A large gray shape slowly sits up, paint scratched, peeled off and burnt in most places, the only remnants of the right arm being a shredded stub attached to the shoulder joint.

"A bit banged up, but yes. What happened? You shoved us here with the Cons!" Chip exclaims, gesturing to the Cassettes despite none of them knowing if the large mech can really see it.

It may have been a protest before, but after what they just experienced, after what Spike can still see, and the fact the two small mechs are quiet and non-threatening, it's questioning and confused instead.

The gray shape turns to another at its side, one with a well-known boxy chest ripped to nothingness from what looks like an explosion from within.

And then, after solemnly resting the remaining servo on a matte gray arm, and whispering something the boy doesn't manage to catch, Megatron wobbly stands up.

Optimus stays immobile on the ground, gray and broken and dead.

"I don't think that matters anymore." Spike lets out, voice raspy and almost broken, as if he'd been crying, even though he hasn't shed a single tear. "Autobot or Decepticon. I don't think that matters anymore."

"What? What happened?!" Carly calls, distressed, but unwilling to move from Chip's side, even if that would mean knowing what is going on.

"Frenzy… Laserbeak, Buzzsaw…" Rumble sobs, voice cracking with static, attracting their attention. "They're gone… Gone… Carrier… I can't-can't feel him… Carrier…"

"It was a solar flare." Skyfire speaks, suddenly but so softly that he almost goes unheard, his voice no longer distorted. "I felt it just before it hit, when it reached the atmosphere. I… I'm sorry."

But he saved them. He shouldn't be apologizing. Or was that said to the Cons?

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Old words he didn't truly hear but that have never been forgotten, spoken by so many voices that time has made them blend into one, black figures moving slowly through his home and tears on the face of a man he had always thought of as unbreakable.

And the absence of warm arms shielding him from the scary thunderstorm, the silence filling in the void of a sweet voice he barely remembers singing a lullaby he'll never forget, vanquishing the monsters in the darkness that lightning brought to life.

Spike's throat dries up.

"Earth?" Chip whispers, but he's too clever for his own good, him and Carly, because the boy is going pale and there are tears in the girl's eyes, but the younger Witwicky can just plea in his mind not to hear what they're obviously thinking.

It can't be real. It can't.

"The flare was too strong, it… must have destroyed everything down to a couple miles or more into the ground. And if I'm wrong… The atmosphere is almost completely gone, filling with toxic gases, and the leftover radiation is lethal to organics, even at minimum exposure. I'm sorry."

Slowly, more shapes on that nightmarish outside world start to move, sit up and even stand up, uncaring whether they're next to enemies or friends, and cries and screams grow loud enough to be heard through the reinforced glass and metal of the Shuttle's hull.

Ratchet, an arm gone and shoulder blackened, being checked by Hook as Scrapper staggers to the medics, carrying an arm still attached to a shoulder with a long narrow doorwing-like pane.

Scavenger helping Jazz from under a half-melted gray frame Spike refuses to recognize, paint blackened, visor cracked and dark, and a badly burnt leg unmoving.

Megatron picking an immobile Soundwave up as best as he can with just one arm, the glass of the chest compartment stained pink from the inside.

Thundercracker sitting on the ground with difficulty, an arm, leg and wing missing along almost the whole side they were attached to, though with no Energon staining them, a crater at his back like that left by a spoon in an ice cream tube.

Astrotrain, standing in shock next to a rocking Wildrider, a curled up Breakdown, a shivering Skydive, a horrified Fireflight, and a numb-looking Silverbolt, all of them staring at piles of burning molten metal, colorful flames spewing from them.

Brawn carefully sitting up with Cliffjumper's help, red plating cracked in spider web-like patterns that the strongest Minibot refuses to look up, too horrified to do more than stare at his own servos.

Hound, lying gray and immobile next to an equally colored and unresponsive Mirage, smoke climbing out of the seams on their torsos and their open mouths in faceplates twisted in agony.

Ramjet kneeling next to a still Starscream, almost frantically shaking the other Seeker and pleading for him to react, to no avail.

And of the rest of Cybertronian, only molten metal and broken parts remain.

At most.

"Ark. The Ark!" Ratchet shouts, reaching for Megatron but being held in place by Hook. "The Ark is in a volcano, we have to get the others out!"

"Shuttle, can you go there?" Megatron asks, turning to Skyfire.

"Yes. But I don't know if I can carry all of you at once."

"You won't have to. Bring them to the Victory. We will all wait there."

And the Shuttle takes off, though staying close to the ground.

"I need you all to move to the cabin. I can't safely transform or open my bay doors with you there."

Numb and pained, the humans nevertheless tense when the Cassettes approach Carly and Chip.

"I can help carry him." Rumble whispers, nodding to the boy.

After a moment, the disabled teenager nods, and the Cassette easily picks him up and takes him to the cabin, leaving him on a chair.

It doesn't take them long to get to the Ark, and, as Ratchet feared, the volcano is spewing lava over the sides.

What they didn't expect, though they should've, is to see a group of Autobots on the outside.

Prowl is at the front, with half his body with molten plating, the doorwing on that side missing, with Blaster at his feet with his chest covered in Energon. Trailbreaker, with burnt pedes and servos, is kneeling next to Inferno, whose whole frame is crisscrossed by burnt lines, an immobile Perceptor, plating cracked and burnt and missing his shoulder cannon, in the fire truck's arms, with Hoist looking him over, although wobbling unsteadily on his pedes, and Warpath, missing his tank nozzle, waving at Skyfire.

There's no sign of any of the other mechs left behind.

And there's lava slowly slithering out of the Ark's entrance.

Barely half a minute after the Shuttle lands, and after some shifting of plating as the transport mech adjusts his size to Cybertronian standards, they take off again, leaving the remnants of what had once been Spike's second home behind.

Nothing more than molten rock and metal and burning memories.

Smoke in the wind of a dead world.

AN: Hey, look, another post-apocalyptic story, how new is that? ... Well, I hope it's new enough to get your attention XP

Nah, seriously here, this story begins like many of my other ones, if not all. With a dream. And that dream was influenced, I guess, by the movie Knowing, since I had seen it recently.

Now, not much has changed from my original dream, including the excuse of Spike's birthday so that as many human allies as possible were in the Ark, and that Skyfire managed to save them, and a couple of Cassettes, by means of shoving them inside a Shuttle's cargo bay (a vehicle prepared to resist the harshness of space and most of everything it can throw at those who dare traverse its depths, up to deadly radiation), but there have been changes. Mostly on the list of casualties and injuries. Because, as always, I try to stick to reality as best as possible in such circumstances, and that means... realism killed more characters and gravely injured a lot more than I first thought it would (and it also spared some others, let's be sincere). So, if your favorite character/someone you liked is deactivated or grievously damaged, know I couldn't do a thing to stop it from happening. And if nothing has been said about them, you'll get answers next chapter, when the official casualty list will be revealed (though ask if you want, I always answer if I can). Well, I could've avoided it if I hadn't written this, but where's the fun in that?

By the by, a question: Is it alright for this to stay with a T rating, or should it be M? 'Cause this is supposed to be robot gore (kinda), but I'm not really sure how that is supposed to be rated...