Braver Than Him

by ElectricWhiplashing

Foolishness had led him to where he stood. Too attached, too compromised. Bluestreak had told him many stories about bravery, and how one day, it would be his turn. "You'll have your moment kid. And when you do, you'll know it." How he desperately wished he hadn't. ONESHOT

He'd been foolish.

Not exactly a new development, but something that had surprised everyone, including himself, following his promise to be more cautious. Throwing himself in front of Megatron's sword did not count as cautious, and he knew it.

Seeing Optimus down, circuits sparking and crackling with electricity, energon slipping past the servo pressed to his own frame, coated in blue that knew no end, he burst onto the scene, crying out and pushing his leader to the ground as Megatron swung his arm, crying out in rage, savage red optics darker than the oldest of dying suns. Knowing he would be crippled, maimed, and more than likely killed, he put himself in the way of the Prime's would-be fall.

It didn't feel glamorous, brave or beautiful. If anything, he was terrified. His spark was well prepared, it had already stopped beating, and the guardsman reasoned with himself that dying had to be peaceful, it had to be alright, and not as awful as he was afraid it was.

So many had bravely marched to the mass graveyard they would rest in with fallen foes, not even able to be properly buried and offered true peace. He could do it.

Or so he thought.

It didn't feel glamorous, brave or beautiful. Dying was a blinding pain, and he was sure he screamed, the shock, horror and agony rooting itself in his frozen spark and tearing through his whole frame, hitting the ground. His vision blurred, and his servos removed themselves from his shattered chassis, he hadn't even known he'd moved them, and the energon he'd been so horrified to see before was no less painful to see, no more imposing a foe. He certainly felt no courage.

All he could feel was the pain, a painful ringing in his audio receptors, and some semblance of a shout, but he knew not where. He didn't even have the strength to whimper weakly, the pain unbearably ripping his sanity to shreds. His frame was ablaze, but all he knew was the cold, the image of his bloodstained servos fading fast, blackness bleeding faster than he was over his reality.

Everything was very still, and very quiet.

He didn't want to be brave.