The battle field was equivalent to that of the Pit; fire rose everywhere that it was allowed to burn, taking everything down in it's path. No lives in it's wake were spared; Bumblebee was sure that there were a lot of human lives lost before they arrived. Everything was chaos; those survivors were either terribly injured or unable to move, and the rest were trying to escape like madmen, as if some demon or gremlin was after them personally. Bumblebee almost felt like ripping a Decepticon's spark out at the moment, seeing all of this around him; he never thought they'd stoop so low as to do something like this, but then again, they practically had ruined last Christmas for all for all of the Autobots and Team NEST members. So in the end, 'Bee could see them doing something like this, almost sadly enough.
The alarms had been for more than a simple reason; an oil refinery nearly thirty miles away from base had reported attacks form Decepticons; the enemy were obviously trying to steal resources. They also reported the city not five miles form that getting attacked and bombed; most likely a diversion for the oil refinery, although Ironhide had claimed that this was all just a big set up so they could send in Soundwave to their base and have him get all of the important junk he needed from it before leaving it with a big bang. Literally. Optimus, feeling his friend's paranoia, sent a few of the Autobots to stay and stand guard over the base, in case anything happened. Which was why Bumblebee now stood in the broken city, looking it over as if it was a land mind just waiting to happen.
There had been reports of Megatron being spotted in the city while the disaster was occurring, so of course Optimus himself had decided to go with the main group sent there to check it out; Bumblebee was part of said group, along with Ironhide, Jazz, Mirage, Cliffjumper, Hound, Ratchet, and Trailbreaker. Besides the images of humans scattering away from wreckages every so often, there was not a soul in sight, most anything on the ground scattered remains of buildings or human vehicles, or that of human bodies. 'Bee stood silently on a mound of wreckage, weapon ready, looking silently over everything as if he was ready to attack anything that moved [that wasn't human, of course].
"Talk about hell in a hand bag, huh?" came a voice from behind; Bumblebee didn't even flinch, seeing as how he recognized the voice from the start. There was a rumble of debris that fell under footing as the large mech came up to rest beside him, his own cannons ready. "Kinda makes ya wonder how in Primus' name someone could do such a thing in such lil' time, eh?" asked Ironhide, seeming to stop and view the scenery well.
And he was right, too; you kind of had to wonder what kind of bots the Decepticons were to do things like this, and for the matter, why. The Transformers were usually an intimidating race to that of the humans; meaning that all you had to was order the organics around in a strong voice and they'd listen to you. Well, some of them would; some that didn't know how nice the Autobots could be, of course. Most of them were just scared of the stories they'd heard of the Decepticons, and how they were ruthless and careless in their deed, and didn't care who got hurt. Bumblebee had heard enough stories about the Decepticons - mostly their leader, Megatron - and how evil and wicked they were. He heard a lot of other things about them, too, but he didn't feel like using too many choices words.
"Prime says we have'ta patrol the city," informed Ironhide as he regarded the broken city landscape one last time. "Better get goin' now 'fore they leave us, huh?"
Bumblebee nodded, and both turned, almost in unison, and began walking back towards their small unit. Prime was obviously saying something, or at least had been, but Bumblebee had heard nothing of it; he had been on put on lookout for the group, and could be informed later if needed. Optimus's optics looked almost grim, however it was hard to tell with his face mask on what he was really feeling. Bumblebee had the urge to ask him what was wrong, however knew that this was a bad time.
"Alright," Prime said once Ironhide and Bumblebee were in audio-shot to listen in, "the last known place the Decepticons had been seen in this city were in the south-west corner. Therefore, that is our most likely chance of finding them is if we head that way."
"'Ah take it we're walking?" asked Mirage, although that was a rhetorical questioned; too much of the road was blocked off by debris and human ambulances to make it easy for them to drive. Therefore, it was quite obvious that they were getting there on foot.
"Ain't that a long ways to walk, though?" asked Ironhide. "Ah mean, we're in the north-eastern sector. That's a good forty miles, mech! You 'xpect us all the way there? Why not just let them come to us, for Primus sake?"
"Because, you nimrod, we'd be at a disadvantage if we let the battle come to us," said Ratchet in a matter-of-factly tone. Ironhide gave the medic a grunt and a slightly angered look, however said nothing to try and retort; you could tell that they were a bonded couple, alright.
"On foot it is, then!" Hound said, trying to cheerful that they had to walk that far in order to get to their destination; Bumblebee knowing that at any time they could get ambushed or attacked in the large city. Needless to say, he didn't know that he would be right about it.
This chapter just explains some stuff. The next one is better.