PRESENT DAY
The robot erupted in an explosion of golden sparks and burnt metal.
The force of it shoved Gwen back, causing her trip and fall, back-first onto a decaying wall of stone. She landed awkwardly and as a shard of the exploding robot pierced through her lower torso and into her mid back, she barely held back a scream.
Blood. Coppery, dark red blood was falling from each side of the wound. Pain exploded and boiled as she struggled to close her eyes.
They had started to sting from the hot sand and with broken thoughts, Gwen wondered if this was how she would die. She never thought she would die so pathetically; she always expected she would die heroically, with shield in hand and sword in heart; a poetic death.
But no, lest it be so the universe actually cared for her enough to at least let her die the way she wished. Luckily, she made sure to tell Bee before they left the base that if it so be that she did not make it back, that they must play "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead", from The Wizard of Oz at her funeral. That would make Talon laugh; laugh even harder than the time she accidentally got a hamster stuck in one of Primes exhaust pipes (long story short, the power a burrito has is limitless). However, that probably did not matter now.
Nothing probably matters now
A brief remnant of a memory flashed before her eyes.
"You're gonna live right," he had said, his large electric blue eyes had been ever so transparent "we're both gonna live. We're gonna kickass and not die and you bet Megabum's big, fat, ugly head we will come back and I will make out with you as I so rightly deserve." His voice had been as clear as his eyes when he stated these things to her. There was so much fear and raw emotion.
Gwen recalled how horrible it had felt to lie to him. To say the words he wanted to hear. To tell him what he deserved to be told but not what was going to happen. She could mentally feel herself ripping apart the bond of trust they shared; it was like trying to tear apart rope with her bare hands. She had never felt so utterly awful.
"Promise me," he was pleading; the term begging could've been used, something she never expected a Cybertronian to be capable of. She did not expect them to say or do things she herself could not comprehend, nor have the courage to do. Her breath halted,
"I promise."
Tears sprang to her eyes; gushing down like a waterfall and mixing with the dirt on her face, creating a sort of muddy plaster on her cheeks. A hand grenade had gone off inside her heart and seemingly burnt everything to ashes. Though selfishly, her soul had never felt so light.
Gwen's heart began to slow, her breathing became raspy and the tips of her fingers and toes had rapidly began to numb. The blood was already to starting to clot; but that doesn't matter when one does not have enough of it. She smiled ever so ruefully.
Well, nothing important anyway.
And so, with a slight flex of her hand and a short exhale of breath;
She finally let herself die.