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Chapter 2
Blackness.
Static.
Heat.
Pressure.
Pain.
A whimper tore through his chest and though he tried to shake him head all it got him was a internal pounding from his audios and a hot jar of pain.
What?
Where?
Forcing his optics open a flash of fear went through Bumblebee when the blackness didn't change. It was only when his head stopped spinning that he realized the blackness wasn't his optics. It was Hide's armor.
Ironhide had twisted a nano before the blast hit. Latching hold of both Bee and Chromia and rolling to the floor with them. The hard land cracked one of Bee's winglets and bent a doorwing at an awkward angle as well as put far too much weight on Mia's lighter frame but when the ceiling came down in fire and metal around them that was the last thing the huge weapons specialist was worried about.
A static field scream tore his link with hounds, but it was far from Bee's mind as pain seared up his main strut. Senses screaming in his doorwings and winglets. It was the dull white noise silence that was the worse though. Trying to shake his head, trying to hear as his pulled back from Hide's armor, trying to see what was happening.
What he found made his spark clench all over again.
Attack.
They were under attack.
Hot, dark, eerie blackness seeped through his awareness.
Megatron.
Panic surged through his chest and the world came back in the screaming of alarms, roaring wind, crackling flames, fracturing metal, and the cries of his whole family echoing in both his chest and his audios.
"HIDE!" It was a far too high pitch a cry considering the mechling was more or less in his sire's audio, but considering Hide didn't move until Bumblebee glanced around them to find the burning ceiling caving in and he started shoving it was safe to say the big mech's audios were ringing just as bad as Bee's.
The second yell worked though. That or the fear coursing through the three way creator creation link that ran between the three of them did. Shaking his head with a groan Ironhide managed to find some leverage to haul his weight of the smaller frames he'd pin under him for protect.
Chromia coughed hard with the smoke and dust as her vents were suddenly free to breath. A groan tearing from Bee as he tried to pull his weight off his leaking sensor appendages. He hardly felt them in favor of trying not to panic at the angry red world all around him. Hot, sticky, smoky, and swelling of darkness.
It was only when Ironhide shoved himself to his knees, casting his dark optics in horror around that the truth of what was happening really sank in. It was the same time each of them actually heard the screaming going on in the comms.
"—get those Primus damn turbines clear! Fire rear thrusters! Level this damn sled out!" Optimus was yelling in a tone Bee had never heard before. The deep baritone cracking through the air ways like thunder.
"The thrusters are gone!" That was Inferno. "Engine five and four are gone to! Scratch that—we just lost one and two as well!"
"One engine isn't going to keep us airborne!" Red Alert screamed into the air ways.
Another boom roared through the ship and the whole shuttle gave a loud cry of metal agony in explosive fire as the whole thing rolled hard to the left sending Bee and his creators sliding headlong into the side of the berth. But considering in that moment he rest of their ceiling caved in a rain of fire that had Ironhide latching hold of the pair of them again and yanking them into his armor. Bumblebee felt his strong arms tighten with the quicken of fear in his chest as well as Chromia's thin strong arms tighten even more. Yanking him closer as the ship rolled and bucked with another audio shattering explosion over the roar of thunder and the hissing of searing wind bursting through the shattered ship armor to fed the building infernos tearing Bee's home to pieces as it spiraled out of the sky.
Another explosion.
Another hot boom of fire.
An almost chuckle through the darkness in his chest.
Bee screamed before he knew he had done it when the so cold it burned darkness hit him. Curling inward with the burn through is chest.
"I see you."
Bee's optics flashed open, shock ripping down his main back strut.
That . . . that was not Megatron.
Chromia's gripped tightened on him, but then they both were being hauled up to their feet.
"Up!" Ironhide hissed. "Up! Go! Now! We have to move!"
Stumbling with the ache in his chest and the ringing in his audios Bee hardly felt Mia yank him with her as Hide shoved them through the falling metal and fire. Some level of his processor was free enough to whistle for his hound and to feel the moment of panic when they didn't respond until they came leaping through the wall of fire that use to be his berthroom down to slid around his feet. Latching hold of armor, pulling and pushing, as they all tired to get out of the raging fire that was rapidly consuming their world around them.
Whether or not where they were going was going to be any better Bee had no idea, but under the coldness that wouldn't let him breathe was the fear and pain echoing from his family through his chest. They had to get out.
They had to help.
The hallway was no better than their berthroom when the whole ship gave another buck and roll, the screaming of alarms echoing over the crushing and exploding metal, it all grated hard against Bumblebee's audios. Not to mention how much the added boost of what his doorwings and winglets could pick out was making his head spin. It was his spark that was doing him the most damage at the moment though.
It was his spark that nearly put him on his knees when they made it to the hallway. Leaving the young mechling stumbling and whimpering, only Mia's hard grip on his arm keeping him from face plating the shattering floor.
His chest felt like it was on fire, but it was a fire born of cold. Burning ice claws circling the glowing ball of life in his chest until it felt like somehow across the comics field that sparks connected on it was going to tear it out. It actually hurt. Left him gasping and shuttering, whole frame at war with itself as it tried to fight a force it didn't understand. For there was no active threat in front of him. No real bot trying to do him harm.
At least, not that he knew or could see.
Whoever—whatever—this was, it was real all right and it wouldn't fraggin' let go.
"Stop!" He screamed back over the link. Lifting and shoving every blockade he had in an effort to make it let go. To make it stop. There was a problem there though. Because as gifted as Bumblebee was with his spark, for all the strange things he could do, blocking others out had never been one of those things he actually learned how to do. He had no need for it. His whole world around him was full of bots that didn't mind his prodding and his bonding. They let him in without fuss and he had always eagerly did the same in return.
His defenses on this front had never been practiced.
Bumblebee had no idea what he was even supposed to be doing.
"No." The chilly, raspy, echo of baritone almost seemed to be laughing at him. "No, I don't think I will."
Another painful yelp drew from his throat, however, it was hard to tell if it had to do with the harsh burn through his spark or the giant piece of burning ceiling that nearly landed on his head had Scout not thrown his whole frame into both Mia and Bee and shoved them out of the way with a harsh bark.
"I see you. Come on now, little spark. Come on out and let me end you!"
No.
No, that was not Megatron.
Bee didn't know who it was, but he really didn't want to find out.
Another explosion and it seemed he wasn't going to need to, because the already rolling battleship gave one last violent surge against the onslaught and lost its fight.
Bumblebee's very existence took a rather sudden and violent drop straight down.
"OPTIMUS!" Trailbreaker's voice screamed over the repercussions of the latest blast. "WE'RE GOING DOWN!"
The Prime couldn't find it in him to turn back and say a thing to the struggling black mech at the ships controls. There was nothing any of them could do now. Nothing but stand there before the huge panel of rapidly cracking glass and stare. Stare as a harsh beam of yellow light tore from the jagged black ship hanging over them and sliced into the west half of the ship like a charged energon blade through protoform. The ship's armored hull might as well have been none existence for the amount good it did in stopping the blast. Only charred black metal and burning flames left in its path, and Optimus could do nothing but stand there on the bridge clinging to the somewhat stability of the captain's chair as quite literally his entire world was sent into a burning downward spiral.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Prowl's voice echoed over the screaming sirens and the comm chatter of panicked bots. The once level tone of the black and white mech pitched into a fear Optimus hadn't heard for a long, long time but even that he could do nothing to help. All he could do was tear his gaze away from the trail of fire and metal splattering through the clouds behind him and set his optics through the thick billows of black smoke to see the rapidly approaching expanse of grey below them.
Spark twisting in its chamber he realized the Eternity was pitching in its spinning fall. Only the gravity drives—that were somehow still active—were keeping the bots somewhat on their feet. But it was about to get them all killed. The ship was trying to fall straight which meant the bridge was going to directly impact.
"CLEAR THE BRIDGE!"
Eight pairs of optics whirled on him.
Optimus snarled at the lot of them. "That was an order! DO IT NOW!"
"But, Prime—"
"Get out!" With a yank and a shove through the smoke and crumbling metal Optimus took Inferno by the arm and shoved him toward the door. "Get inward, however you can! The drives are holding, there is nothing more we can do from here! Move! Now!"
The second command was obeyed; frames scrambling through the smoke and fire and the rapid pitching of the screaming ship. But even if Optimus managed to get his towering frame and the bridge staff that had been on hand that night clear by a few burning hallways the unstoppable collision still blasted backward with a shock wave that threw them all into black nothingness.
The crash—from the outside of the dying ship—could be called a kind of horrifyingly beautiful. 300,000 tons of metal and glass slamming bow first into stone made an explosion like nothing else left on Cybertron ever could. Since the fall of the last Metrotitan nothing on Cybertron had come close to being quite that big. The Eternity was not the largest ship ever forged in the planet's history—far from it—but it was the biggest one left. Seven thousand feet from bow to aft made one very large arrow of impact.
Torn to pieces by an ion cannon or not the ship still had enough mass and speed that when it hit the deafening percussion that followed rippled the waves of the Mercury sea over six thousand miles away. The shock wave it made would have obliterated everything it hit within a hundred mile radius had there been anything around for it to touch. Leaving a crater straight down thirty miles deep and killing half on board personal in two nanos flat.
It was nothing short of a natural disaster, and it made one nastily sneering tyrant on the Nemesis' bridge a gleefully cackling mess.
However, that tyrant was not Megatron.
Megatron stood to the right of a tangled web of medical equipment in various severity of cabling and wires with his arms crossed and red optics narrow staring through the tinted glass of the Nemesis' bridge watching the ion cannon on the bow smoke against the dark night. It could fire no more for now. The massive gun had drained almost all of the ships power reserves leaving them virtually dead in the air. Not to mention it stole nearly the entire ration supply for the whole army for a decacycle every time it fired.
It was decimating to both what it hit and the one who fired it though Megatron knew better then probably any other bot alive that great power came at great cost.
One of his cost was strapped to the bow of his ship, the other was seated in what had been his chair.
A part of Megatron had swore to never call anything Master again, but unfortunately that part of the fallen prince was now buried so deep in the darkness of favorable slavery it didn't even know it was betraying itself anymore.
"They have been shot down, my Master." His deep baritone echoed over the raspy cackling of the huge black mech slouched in the middle of all that medical tubing in the chair. The gangly thin, emaciated mech wheezed out another cackle. Fire optics glowing through the dimness of the busy bridge. Though within nanos the laughter turned to a series of achingly horrible coughs leaving the little mini medic to scramble forward and try to stop it.
Not a bot on the dark bridge dared comment or even lift their optics to the sight ancient mech's struggle with something as simple as breathing. Megatron had already killed three this morning for looking wrong at the resurrected embodiment of evil.
The snatch from the gates of the pit might be miraculous but it was not yet complete. Shockwave was a dastardly evil genius, but there were limits to what even he had been able to do to help the comatose mech that Megatron finally found. It would take time. However, waiting was not one of Megatron's strong points.
He itched under his armor for energon and justice. The dark voices in his helm and spark—one of which belonged to the one on his right doing most of his thinking for him now—demanded the death of all those that stood in their way. Especially his younger brother.
But now, they needed the death of one more.
However, Megatron did not understand why.
When the coughing fit ended those pit colored optics narrowed the settling ship far below.
"He lives. They both do."
Megatron jarred.
"No grounder could survive that!?"
"Oh you still have much to learn, my apprentice." The dark mech chuckled. "This one is no ordinary bot and your brother is a Prime."
Megatron snarled at the title.
"Killing him and this interesting runt will not be as easy as you think, do not make the mistake of thinking otherwise. Send out the troops. Pick off the survivors."
Optics narrowing Megatron turned his gaze out over the world bellow them through the dark planes of glass. The ship might not be able to do anymore damage for the time being but his Decepticons could. Rolling his thick shoulders the fallen prince locked his gaze on the sniffling fool slumped over in the corner pouting.
"Starscream!"
The brown jet flinched up right.
"Get down there and kill them!"
Dozens of mechs sprang into action with a cry of 'yes, Lord Megatron' leaving the massive flight frame standing alongside his grinning master. As the bots sprang into action the bridge went quiet as the two mechs were left alone. It was only after a moment that a question managed to rise through the dark cloud suffocating Megatron's spark.
His optics narrowed through the fog in his mind and he glanced down at the seated Fallen in his command chair.
"Who . . . what interesting runt?"
With a crackling sizzle the Fallen rattled his beard crests before waving a long clawed hand at the mech as a pulse of dark energy surged between them. The once prince, turned gladiator, risen warlord flinched with the cold burn of energy as the fog decided again and the question drifted away as the lanky mech growled.
"Do not concern yourself with it. Just find him and kill him."
The first thing Bee registered was pain.
Burning pain.
The throbbing kind that made it feel like a bot could actually feel the nerve receptors pounding back and forth with the aching of signals rushing to and from the area and the processor.
It felt like his whole frame was on fire. A special kind of agony born of doorwings, winglets, and young armor. His whole neural net screaming with too many sensations and aches to process. In the end the whole thing was forced to narrow down to one definition of 'hurt' and screw the rest of trying to define what was wrong with him.
Instead of telling him all that was broken his frame was settling for a summary of really rather fragged up and pushed it all to the back of his processor. Turning all processing power on forcibly booting through the slowed down procedures, allowing him the glory of sight.
Only to wish a nano afterward that maybe he hadn't.
At first it was nothing but a blurry mess of billowing black and dancing red. Taking far too long for Bumblebee's processor to figure through before he realized what he was laying on his belly looking at was in fact a world clouded by rolling black smoke cut trough by licking flames. Broken bends of shattered metal, crushed walls, fractured supports, sparking power cells, and crumbling stone.
Shattered.
Broken.
Burning.
His whole world was in pieces around him.
Laying there in the ruble the reality of it all took a moment to fully process. He could see it, oh how he could see it, but it was almost like he couldn't.
It was all just too horrible to believe. Too wrong to be possible.
There was just no way.
There just wasn't.
This couldn't be his world. His home. This couldn't be what was left of it.
Dark and dying.
Dying.
It was with that one thought that the reality of it all came crashing back in. All the pain and all the sounds. His frame came alive with squealing agony as his audios picked up groaning metal, falling stone, and . . . quiet. Far too quiet.
A whimper of pain left the young mech when he tried to lever his arms under him and lift his weight. Every muscle and cable he had protested the action. Pleading with him to just lay there and call for help, but his spark was doing dizzy clenches in his chest and he was too afraid to know what he'd find if he reached out at the moment. So instead the forced his frame to obey him. Ignoring the leaks of blue running all over his dented and soot covered once bright plating. It accrued to him that the dark tinge to his plating was probably a bad thing but he forced his processor onto other things. Like figuring how to get up with the heavy beam laying on his back. It was crushing both his winglets and his doorwings sending all kinds of dizzy signals through his neural net.
It took a few twists and shoves but he managed to wiggle free of the biggest one over his back. Shifting and shuffling until he freed himself with a hard bang. Only once he was free of the beam did trying to breathe through the hot clouds of thick smoke and dust left him coughing and wheezing in an effort to try and breathe through the thick heat. A whole frame on fire with pain made the choking and wheezing even worse. Sending the wounds all over his frame into glaring alarms that made him dizzy enough that the whole world went blurry again.
Panting through the pain Bumblebee tried to focus enough to haul his frame upright but he did more falling then standing for a few klicks. Eventually the young mech got his feet, but all that accomplished was the feeling of being shot through the spark as he finally looked at what was around him.
The crumbled shell of a once mightily battle had buckled into a thousand different pieces. Some of it shattering apart with the impact never to be anything but dust again, but it was the extremely strong design that Hot Rod had come up with that was the only reason Bumblebee and what was left of the crew among this ruble were still breathing. Most of the inner structure survived the crash and with it a good many lives. But that didn't mean it wasn't a waking nightmare of the little yellow mech that tilted his head back and stared through growing pools of coolant in his optics to what had once been his entire world laying in broken crumbles around him.
Bent metal, licking flames, falling stone.
Sheer walls of rock, burnt and scorched what looked to be miles straight up.
How far had they sunk down?
How hard did they hit?
Who was still—
Every thought in Bee froze up in one terrifying notion.
Where was everybot?
"MIA!" The scream tore through him in half wail half binary click of a sparkling, but at that point, he didn't care. He didn't care about anything other than finding his creators. His family. "HIDE!"
It was with that that the scrambling started. Pain forgotten he took off at a climbing run through piles of stone, broken glass, and stone. Digging, throwing, and pleading both out loud and in his head.
They couldn't be gone.
He couldn't be alone.
It just wasn't possible!
Tears choking his voice and stalling his already choking vents through the smoke Bee threw himself over ship struts and snapped beams. Throwing aside anything he was big enough to move and sliding around all the other stuff he wasn't. The whole time screaming at the top of his vocal processor for somebot—anybot—to answer him.
The far more intelligent idea of using the gift he was born with to find the sparks he knew by each different frequency and living pulse flew right out the window the moment the fear set in turning the mechling into a scared creature his age had every right to be. Alone and so very afraid.
In short, he panicked.
Running, climbing, screaming, searching; Bee wasn't sure how long he did any of it. He just knew he didn't get very far before a beam he'd been balanced on gave under his feet and he went plummeting down in a failing crash. Landing on his aft with a pained squeak, but for the most part unharmed. Shaken still, but okay.
However, it did him little good to clear his head so he was up again in a nano trying to scramble forward but this time before the words flew from his mouth they cut off in a gutted choke. Optics stretching wide Bee froze, staring in complete bewildered shock at the pearl white mech with ghostly pale optics standing before him. A long, dangerous blade glittered at his back, but a sly smile curled up his lips. It wasn't the smile that Bee stared at though. Instead it was the claw he had pressed to his lips in a 'shush'. But that was not what stalled Bumblebee. What froze up every fiber of his being was the translucent form.
At first glance he'd thought the mech was real, but the longer he looked he realized . . . it wasn't.
But this was no hologram either. No hologram looked like air currents fading in and out of sight. They had pixels. They could look solid too. This wasn't solid, if Bee focused on him he could see the crumbling metal behind the form.
Optics widening he stood there and stared.
Processor locking on the strangeness of it before something familiar struck. That pearl white color and those ghostly pale optics. Small frame, sharp claws, and that sword. He remembered this mech. From long, long ago.
A mech that saved his life.
That died doing it.
Bee mumbled. "Cyber?"
The pale figure smiled behind his finger letting that claw drop before he nodded just once and glanced upward. Bee followed his gaze, out of the habit of following direction, and caught sight of the flash of a seeker's wing overhead. Vorns of lessons and instinct kicked in a flash causing him to shrink down and back into the shadow of a broken wall. Going as still as he possibly could and clenching his frantically beating spark to try to calm its pulses. He didn't have a Dampener, he no real way to hide, but the calmer a spark was the harder its frequency was to pick up.
Only when the bright flash of armor didn't return did Bee let his optics fall back to the form that had warned him.
But it was gone.
Cyber was gone . . . or . . . had he ever really been there in the first place?
Cyber was dead.
Bee had seen him die a long time ago. Hammer spoke of him often, Bee had heard plenty of stories, but Cyber was gone.
A slow feeling that was something between fear and wonder crawled up Bee's back strut leaving him to stare at the place where the familiar form had been. Did . . . did he just see a ghost?
Was that possible?
Had it been a trick of his processor? Of smoke and scattered flames?
Was he just afraid and his mind playing tricks on him?
Trembling there in the shadows he stared, plating tight, and processor rolling. His spark picking up on the scattering of emotions again and pulsing with them far too wild for him to have even a hope of hiding it. His mind was so locked up on trying to figure out what the frag he just saw that noticing the sensors on his back was the last thing he was thinking about. He had no idea they managed to pick up the movement of living energy behind him.
He didn't notice.
Until it was too late.
His doorwings and winglets were leaking, damaged, and hurting. They weren't focusing on the outside world enough to speak to his processor loud enough. They were too busy trying to clot his self repair nanites into the deep gashes that were torn down the outsides of the broad appendages. Tracking his surrounding was not his frames natural response to what state it was in and with his mind distracted his frame let sensory slip for a few klicks.
But that was more than enough to get him killed.
Optics focused before him he didn't see the shadow shift behind him and he sure didn't see the frame slide out of the darkness. Didn't have any idea anything was there. That is until and arm snaked around him and a hand clamped over his mouth.
With a yank he found himself hauled off his feet and pulled back into a large, strong chest, but the nano something touched him his whole frame came alive with panic. In a jerk he fought. Twisting and kicking as he slammed back into the hard armor trying to wiggle his littler frame out of the strong hold, but before he even managed to kick out more than a few times a familiar voice hissed into his audios as a well-known energy field clashed into his.
"Be still!"
Bee went limp in less than a blink. Whole frame going lax with the familiar sound of Sideswipe's voice and energy field.
Sides.
It was Sides.
His whole frame sagged in relief against the strong armor of Sides' chest as he was yanked further back into the shadows when another shadow of flight flickered by overhead. The warm, known, buzz of Sides' field pressing firmly into his own calmed him down enough to let him breathe and focus. Enough to realize it was Sunstreaker shoving them both backward deeper into the shadows. The slightly larger twin blocking the narrow groove between a shattered wall and a slab of stone with his back to them as his dark optics focused on the little bit of clear sky above them they could see. Even in the darkness Bee could make out the startling amount of energon leaking down Sunny's armor. The thicker armor of his shoulders was pealed back and torn in stick streaks of blue to show the leaking protoform underneath. He was dented and scuffed and burnt all over. Looking like Bee had never seen Sunstreaker ever let himself look before. A thick tear was torn into his back that looked suspiciously like the clean slash of a blade. It didn't take Bee but another glance to see the thick energon rolling down both of Sunny's brawn blades.
He'd just killed somebot, and they'd got a hit in before that.
It sent a shiver down the mechling back strut.
It was only after the shadow vanished that the big mechs relaxed slightly. At least enough for Sunstreaker to turn around and Sideswipe to drop him back down to his feet. Letting go from the hold he had on Bee's mouth but the other strong arm didn't let go. Instead twisting him in a hard yank until he was staring up at the angry faceplate of the younger twin.
Energon leaked in a steady stream down the right side of Sides' face. Flowing from the dented and cracked point of his right audio horn. The rest of him was in no better shape than his brother, but his blades were tucked away from the motion of grabbing the little yellow mech.
"Are you stupid?" Sunstreaker's low hiss drew Bee's optics back to him, shrinking a little under the stressed, angry glow in his dark optics. The huge mech crowding into the cove to back Bee against his brother's damaged frame. Sideswipe kept the hard grip on his arm, both their fields at war with fear, anger, and worry. Bee knew well the anger in both of them at the moment was built more from fear than anything else. "What the frag were you standing around looking at?!"
The answer jumped to his tongue, but he swallowed it back down. Saying he saw a ghost didn't seem the best response right now. Besides, he still wasn't all that sure what he saw.
"I—" Spark clenching coolant bubbled in his optics and throat that he tried desperately to swallow back down, but fear shivered him from the inside out and with a whimper the lunched forward. Latching hold of the big golden mech in a tight trembling hug. Sunstreaker stilled for a moment before a sigh rattled his aching frame and he pulled the little mech up off the ground and into his arms.
Bee stood at about hip height now, but he was still small enough for either of the frontliners to pick up easily if they needed to. Not so much for Jazz or the femmes anymore, but the bigger bots could. The Dinobots could do it easily as could Optimus and Ironhide. At the moment though Sunny wouldn't have really cared if the mechling was as big as Swoop. He'd have figured out a way to pull him up and hold him close as the trembling thin frame latched hold and whimpered against him.
A warily sigh rattled through the golden mech's vents again and he leaned forward against Sideswipe the two of them tucking the little mech between them in a way that their larger frames hid him from sight while they both kept most of their attention out of their little hideaway.
"Shush, Bee." Sideswipe quietly told him. Hand lifted to rub at the pinned antennas atop his head. "Calm down."
Bumblebee hissed up at him, but stayed hidden between the strong frame. "I can't find anybot! I thought—"
"Shush," Sunstreaker whispered against his audios. "We're here, it's okay."
It was a bold face lie and they all knew it. Nothing was okay. Nothing at all about any of this was okay, but they found him and they would protect him of that there were no doubts. Besides, he had the best chance of finding others anyway.
Holding tightly to the two that had long ago become his big brothers Bee shivered with his optics closed. Wishing that was enough to shove the world out and make it all go away. That he could open his optics and he'd find out it was just a bad dream. That Scout and Echo were laying at his feet and Hide and Mia were less than twenty feet away.
That things were okay.
But he was not the sparkling he once was and he knew no amount of wishing was going to fix this. That didn't make him any less afraid though.
It took another few klicks for the two of them to get him calmed down enough to slow down his rapid breathing and quivering frame until Sides asked.
"Are you hurt?"
It was with that that both mechs pulled back and took a good look at him. He wasn't leaking as bad as either of them, but it was still a instinctual wrong to see any amount of energon on his frame. It made their split spark clenched between them in a way that hurt more than anything leaking on them.
"I'm okay." He whispered. Still holding tight to Sunstreaker's armor, but he pulled back now. Getting a grip on his emotions in an internal hiss and turned his attention back outward.
The twins were here.
He wasn't alone.
It would be okay.
They couldn't possibly be the only ones. They would just have to find the rest of their family and he could do that by—
Oh slag he was an idiot.
Repressing the urge to slam his head repeatedly into Sunstreaker's middle only because that would hurt the big mech more than it would hurt him Bee turned his attention inward and then shoved it out searching for the sparks he could pick out and name who they belonged to with little more than a single pulse. Only to stop short with shock when he realized he couldn't feel the twins as they stood right there in front of him.
Confusion flaring out his doorwings Bee glanced between them.
"I can't feel you. Why can't I feel you?"
"Never took the Dampeners out." Sideswipe shrugged with a wily grin. "We hadn't gone around to it yet. We hadn't gone to berth when the attack hit."
"Which reminds me, open up." Sunstreaker said, pulling on Bumblebee until the mechling let go and stepped back.
"What?" Bee blinked.
Sideswipe had already caught the thought in his brother's head. Nodding quickly with the notion he stepped back with one narrow glance to the dangers that lay outside before he cracked open his chest plate. Bee didn't need much more prompting then that. He understood.
His ability to look with his spark wouldn't do much good if at the same time it got them notice by those circling jets. He didn't what to think about what more Decepticons could possibly think they could do here, but he was not foolish enough to not know what was happening.
They were looking for survivors to pick off.
Megatron obviously assumed crash would kill at least most of them and what would be left would be too disoriented, hurt, and scattered to stop the killing parties that he could hear starting to grow in number around them.
Bee knew what was happening.
He afraid it was going to work.
Shaking off the fear he forced himself to focus again. Doing as he was told. Cracking open the pressured seals of the flat panels of this chest.
Twenty vorns ago he hadn't been able to do this. Second frame sparks were still locked away behind solid protoform that was not mature enough to open. It was only after thirty vorns that sparks matured enough and plating had grown enough that the thick spark glass—the clear protoform directly over the spark chamber—cracked and made a bot able to open their spark chamber to the outside world.
He was still wasn't physically mature, but he had access to his spark. For this though he didn't need all the way down into his spark chamber. Spark Dampeners didn't need to be in the spark chamber. They just needed to be inside armor and over it.
So pealing back the layer of armor to revel the pale yellow protoform bellow lit by the shine though his spark glass Bee took the detached dampener Sides handed to him and hooked it over the glass. No matter how much it made him light headed and kind of dizzy.
He did—he really did—hate Spark Dampeners.
However, he knew better then to argue this one. Locking his plating back into place he gave his head a good shake trying to clear the left over fog, but there was no point. He was just going to have to function through it.
"What about you?" He asked, as Sides locked his plating back into place. The big mech looked down at him and gave him a small wink.
"Same spark, Half Pint. The one Sunny's got will work well enough."
"Don't call me that." The golden mech growled, pulling back and taking another glance out at the destruction that lay before them. "Now come on, standing around is asking to get shot. They're looking for survivors. Let's find them first."
Bee shivered at the dark words, but nodded.
"Get to looking, Half Pint."
Narrowing his focus Bee took the safety the twins offered and closed his optics in an effort to help see through the fog the Dampener. It was hard though. The effect of keeping his own spark hidden made it harder for him to reach out and look for others. It was like driving through shifting sand, technically doable,but hard as all fraggin' get out.
It made his spark pound and his head spin. Distorting what he should be able to feel enough that it was like there was nothing at all out there. Like they were gone.
Gone.
A shiver rattled through Bee's frame leaving him quivering again there in the shadows. Looking but not finding and no matter how much he knew—at least prayed—it was the Dampener and not everybot dead because he that he was damn sure he'd have felt that.
Right?
They were out there?
His family wasn't gone?
He didn't even realize he was whimpering again, that coolant pooled at the bottom of is big optics, until he was benign spun and Sideswipe was kneeling down in front of him.
"Hey," Sides rumbled at him, a sound between a low purr and a reassuring click. "Hey, look at me."
"I can't feel 'em." Bee warbled back at him.
He couldn't help it. No matter if he'd spent the last twenty vorns trying to convince his family he wasn't a sparkling and that he could do what they thought he couldn't he felt like curling up on the ground at the moment and balling. He might be a youngling that grew up in a war zone and knew far more about the crueler side of life then he should, but he was still just a youngling and his entire life literally just went up in flames around him.
He hurt and he was scared.
And this fraggin' dampener wasn't making things any easier.
He wanted his sire, and his carrier, and his hounds, and his family! He wanted to wake up!
But he wasn't dreaming. He knew that.
That was the problem. This was real, it was all really happening.
He was afraid.
"Listen to me." Sideswipe shook him hard once. His whole frame jarring with the motion flashing pain through him because of it, but he kept Sides' gaze as the big mech made him. "You have to calm down and you have focus. We're not playing training games anymore, Bee."
"I—"
He knew that.
Oh Primus how he knew that.
Sides shook him again, dark optics narrow and angry. Not at the mechling. No. He was pissed about all the rest of it. Energon boiling for a fight like it hadn't in vorns. The tension seeping between him and his brother enough to cloud them both. Shoving them back into fragged up coding that if they let slip probably wouldn't be enough to save anybot once the fighting started.
"Stop it!" He growled. "You've been begging for vorns for your field test, well I'm sorry Bee, but here it is. Now you have to suck it up and prove you can play the game. If you don't we don't have a slaggin' shot in pit. Now focus, you can do this Bee—"
"You don't believe that!" Bee suddenly shouted back at him. Fear mixing into anger. "None of you believe I can do it. You don't think I'm good enough!"
The words stalled Sideswipe. Leaning him back to stare down at the smaller mech in his grasp. It was enough to twist Sunstreaker from watching out of their little hide away. Both sets of mirror dark blue optics widening then narrowing with something far from the pit going on around them.
"Not good enough?" Sides repeated before with a groan he shook his head then shook the mechling once more. "Where ever you got that fragged up notion, loose it! You can do whatever the slag you put your spark too and you know it. We all know it. We're scared of loosing you and that's all it is! Do you understand me?"
Bee nodded slowly.
"I'm sorry if you thought that, but Half Pint we don't have time for this. I know you're scared, I know you're hurt, and what we're asking isn't fair, but if we want to get out of this alive you have to suck it up and do what we both know you can. There are no restarts or try again tomorrow here, Bee. Not anymore. Screw up and die is the only thing there is. But we're not beat yet. Now can you focus for me?"
Still nodding along Bumblebee sniffled a few time before closing his optics and searching.
A cough rattled through pained vents, but with a rattle and a shake pointed black audios raised through crumbled stone before with a massive shove and push the sleek, strong black form of Scout sprang free of the ruble he'd been pinned under. Blowing a hard puff of air out to clear his vents the big mech hound shook his thick head. Audios perking and tail lashing behind him while he turned back to watch Echo crawl out of the hole after him.
They were both banged up, leaking, and dented, but more or less in one piece. Sharing a look between endless ebony optics they then cast their attention around. Confused, hurting, and unsure the two static hounds stood staring out at the chaos around them.
What the frag had happened?
"Bee?" Echo perked her audios and cast her optics about the smoky ruin frantically. "Where is Bee?"
Scout pinned his audios, pacing forward a few steps only to stop short. Lifting his head he parted his jaws, peeling back lips to in vent. Trying to get something other then smoke, burning metal, and energon. There was hardly anything to find though.
Lowering his head in a snort the mech hound flicked his audios forward.
"Don't know, but we find him."
Springing forward the hounds took off, dodging through the ruble and flames in search of their alpha or anybot else that made up their pack. Their yellow colored brother was not what they found through. In less than twenty yards Echo pulled up short. Audios twirling and optics narrowing she caught sight of a flash of color through the ruble. Leaping through a shattered wall Echo slid to a stop with Scout prancing in behind her only for them both to freeze at the sight of the bright blue armor they knew very well.
Chromia.
Bee's carrier.
The lean, strong, bright femme was pinned on her back by huge broken beams. Heavy weight trapping her against the jagged stone she'd managed to land on. Both hounds perked at the sight of the thin femme desperately trying to wiggle her way out from under where she was caught.
With a bark Echo sprinted the rest of the way over to her, skidding up beside her, until she had her muzzle pressed down as close to Chromia as she could managed to wiggle through. She didn't make it close enough to touch, Echo and Scout were both far bigger then they had been when they were puppies and even if the femme hound was smaller than her brother she still stood no chance of wiggling her way into this mess of beams and stone.
Whining lowly her black optics fixed on those widened blue optics that flashed to her in shock.
"Echo!" Mia let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank Primus! I thought you were something else."
The femme hound tilted her head, unsure of what to do or how to help. None of the other bots knew they could talk like Bee did. They didn't have the slightest idea the hounds could talk should somebot be willing to try and listen. Without Bee here Echo didn't have a clue what to do or how to help.
All she knew to do was whine and try to shift closer as her brother paced behind her.
Mia didn't seem to think there was anything the hound could do though because the femme hissed as she tried to shove the beam off her again.
"Where's Bee, Echo?"
The direction question made the hound perk up her audios. Shocked by a command such as that coming from one other then Bee. The most Mia or Hide ever did was give either hound a pet or tell them to get off the berth every now and again. They never acted as if the hounds were smart enough to understand.
"Echo," Mia pleaded. "Where is Bumblebee? Where's Hide?"
The femme hound gave a snort.
She didn't know and she had no way to tell the femme that. Scout gave a low growl from behind her making the femme wiggle her way back out of the small place she'd pushed through and look back at him.
"Can't help. Have to find Bee." The mech hound grumbled through their bond.
Echo shook her head at him. "Can't leave her here."
"Have too. Find Bee."
Echo didn't like it one bit as Chromia called out the hounds again, but turning away she followed her brother in search of their alpha. He would be able to help far more then they could and it shouldn't be that hard for them to track him down.
The closest spark he managed to pin down was Jazz. Though getting to him wasn't proving to be easy. The sounds of the Decepticons working their way down into the crater they were trapped in was a chorus of laughter, growling engines, and thrusters. The majority of Cons were airborne and getting down here would be little work for the likes of them, but they seemed to be enjoying taking their time.
Every few klicks Bee heard a cannon or blaster go off but every time his spark clenched and he wanted to stop them Sideswipe's grip tightened on his arm and kept him close. There was nothing they could do. He knew that.
The only chance they had was saving as many of their family as they could, but they were bell-fish in a barrel down here. If they attracted attention not even the Terror Twins would be enough to save their hides.
It was just . . . hiding rubbed Bee wrong in every way imaginable. They should be fighting, not hiding.
However, on top of that was this terrifying point in the back of his head; what the frag were they going to do once they did find everybot?
How did they get out of this hole alive?
A low groan echoed through Optimus' audios. The sad part was, it took him a few nanos to realize it was his own. Only when another one rolled through him did he realize it was his own vocal processor that was making a sound, but those were not his hands latched hold of his shoulder trying to pull him out from under the wall that apparently had found its final resting place on his back.
"W-wha . . . ?" Forcing his optics open he was greeted by a gray, blurry world of smoke and darkness. It was only when a flash of yellow caught his peripheral vision that Optimus' mind caught up with them.
The ship that came out of nowhere.
The attack.
The crash!
His family!
Jerking with the thoughts, Optimus attempted to roll up right only to find the movement was near impossible before a voice snarled above him.
"Stop squirming you glitch before you hurt yourself worse!"
Ratchet.
Oh thank Primus.
Craning his neck Optimus caught sight of the big medic trying to lever the large slab of metal that had him pin, but he was attempted to be doing it as quietly as possible. It only took the over head thunder of thrusters to freeze up the Prime's whole frame. It all clicked into place in less than four nanos.
The ship crashed and Megatron sent his troops down to slaughter the survivors. Just as he did with the Youngling Sectors.
A low growl kicked into the Prime's engine and he gritted his teeth.
Over his slagged frame would Megatron take what he had left from him.
"Get me out of here." Optimus growled a sound that very rarely left the Prime. "I have to go kill my brother."
"We're trying!" Prowl's voiced snapped back at him. "But we can't do that if you get us noticed, now hush up!"
It took some wiggling and quite a lot of shoving by Hound, Trailbreaker, and Ratchet, but eventually Optimus felt two sets of hands latch hold of him. Finding himself pulled free by Arcee and Prowl just as the place he'd been trapped in gave under the weight of the section of broken ship it had been holding up. The loud bag of the collapsing steal and stone rang out like an explosion around the eerily quiet catastrophe all around them. A sound that tensed them all up as it drew the sound of thrusters closer.
"Move!" Ratchet yelled under his breath. "Now!"
Optimus was too unsteady on his peds from the change of equilibrium to do much arguing before he found himself and what looked to be all of the bridge staff that had been with him in this section of the ship shoved away from the open and deeper into the wreckage shadows. He didn't need much prompting.
All that was required were a few steps to feel just how slagged up he was. Energon was leaking freely from his chest and back, and he was pretty sure not being able to feel the arm that was hanging limply at his side was not a good thing. But when his glance around again proved that everybot that had been on the bridge was at least standing under their own power he breathed a little easier.
Ratchet and Arcee were burnt and dented, but that didn't slow them down in shoving the eight bots deeper into the shadows in an attempt to hide. No bot here was ready for a fight, which was just what Arcee growled at Drift and Mirage when the two mechs tried to turn back toward the sound of approaching jets with a snarl each.
Only when they were hidden away and the circling jets peeled off again in search of what might be more than just ruble falling in their book did Optimus turn his optics to his Second in Command and Chief Medic.
"Status?"
"Status?" Ratchet swung back at him with a burning, but quiet glare. "We're in a hole! They blew up the damn ship! Two out of three bots I've found so far are dead!"
Optimus flinched.
"I thought you were dead, you fragger! You were hardly breathing!"
Looking to Prowl Optimus wasn't sure what he was hoping for but the grin expression on the normally stock faceplate sent his spark plummeting.
It was Hound, the big green mech leaning against a less burning slab of metal and his brother as he looked around at his commanders then finally, tentatively, asked. "What do we do, Prime?"
"Pray." Mirage hissed under his breath, earning a smack from Arcee for his trouble.
Straightened his shoulder Optimus turned his gaze out the way they had run.
"Is anybot's comm working?"
"Why?"
"Because it's the only chance we've got."
Shouldering his way under a large piece of rock it wasn't Sideswipe's optics that found what they stumbled on. It was his olfactory senses.
But that in no way was a good thing.
Freezing up in the path he was clearing with Bumblebee tucked right behind him and Sunstreaker covering them just a few steps behind the big warrior didn't even make a grunt when Bee smacked into him for the sudden stop. Didn't answer when the little mech sent a questioning chirp his way. He just stood there taking deep vents, trying to pick out through the smoke and the burnt world to make sure he scented what he thought he did.
However, there was no mistaking that smell when one had spent so many vorns living in it.
The smell of death and burning energon.
Tightening his armor Sides glanced over his shoulder. Sunny knew already. He'd picked up the scent the same time Sides did. The thought shared between them as all ways.
"What?" Bee questioned between them. "What is it?"
"Stay here." Sides told him firmly before slipping forward again through the tight, jagged path they had been forging through the ruble leaving Bee standing there with Sunny's hand on his shoulder. What he found when he rounded the corner made him groan.
Grapple.
Tracks.
Seaspray.
Turning his optics away Sides sighed.
The three of them were not hard to make out, even if their frames had long since gone death grey. Their energon was still cooking as it bubbled out of the deep gashes and tears along their broken frames.
They died on impact. That much was clear to see. The giant weight of metal over them proved that.
It would be a lie to say they hadn't suffered, but at least they hadn't suffered long.
Anger surged through his veins forcing the red frontliner to turn away to get a grip on his spilling emotions. Sunstreaker wasn't helping. His twin knowing already what Sides had found by their connection, but neither of them were doing any good on keeping themselves from blowing up.
"I'll kill them." Sunstreaker snarled through their bond. "I'll kill them all."
Sideswipe agreed with his whole spark, but there was nothing they could do for their fallen commands now. They had to stay alive to avenge them. Stay alive and save what others they could. Bee could feel Jazz which meant the saboteur was alive, but he might not be if they didn't hurry.
"Come on, we have to keep moving."
"Block them. I'll keep Bee from looking."
But there was nothing they could do to keep him safe from the smell.
Grunting Ironhide flashed his optics open only to be greeted by the sight of tiny pieces of rock crumbling down on top of his head. However, he supposed the tiny pieces of rock were bigger than the slab of stone that was hanging precariously a few yards over his face.
Slag.
Now, this was far from the first time the big mech had woken up in the aftermath of disaster, but it was one of the more uncomfortable times he could remember off hand. What made it all that much worse though was the moment he realized Mia and Bee weren't with him.
Panic surged through Ironhide's chest before he snatched hold of it and bit it back when the sound of plasma blasters that burned at far too high a heat to be Autobot weapons went off hardly two hundred yards away. The sound bouncing through shattered beams and stone leaving Hide biting hard on his lip to keep his cannons from whirling out an answer.
Decepticons.
He'd slaughter them all for this.
Managing to free himself from the light beam that had him pinned the massive ebony mech hauled himself upright and slipped deeper into the destruction around him. Heading away from the sound of blaster shots.
He had to find Mia and Bee. They were alive, that much he could feel, but they were hiding their sparks which meant they were in trouble.
He was limping, leaking, and dented, but his plasma reserves were not punctured and were rapidly heating as he slipped through the smoke. A few more nanos and he'd have the ammo to do some serious damage and damage was just what he was going to do.
Those slaggers tried to kill his family.
They were going to pay for that.
"There!" Bee said quietly, pointing through the smoke to what looked to be a cross support for what had been the ship's bow. Or at least what was left of it. "Jazz! There!"
Sides and Sunny snatched for him but the little mech rushed forward anyway. Not at all caring about being seen as he hurried through the smoke and fell down to his knees before the crumbling mess that he could see Jazz's dulled silver armor through and the glow of his blue optics.
"Jazz!"
"Stop, Bee!" The harsh command worked like a charm. The young mech tensing up and stalling just long enough for Sides and Sunny to catch up with him and pull him back away from the mess.
"Hey!" He snapped at them, but a growl from Sunstreaker kept him quiet as he was shoved back into a shadow.
"Stay there. Stay right there, do you understand me? Don't move an inch."
"But I want to help get Jazz!" Bee pleaded at him.
"You found him, Half Pint, that's good enough. This whole thing is unsteady. Let us get him out."
Bee didn't like it, but he stayed where he was place as Sunstreaker stepped back away to kneel down next to his brother. Leaning in and looking around the maze of sharp metal to where they could see Jazz pinned by his legs under a beam in the middle of all of it. How in the frag all these sharp skewers missed him they hadn't the slightest idea.
"Jazz?" Sides called carefully, knowing very well from the sight of things it was worse in there then it looked. Jazz wouldn't have barked that command at Bee for no reason. He also wouldn't be wearing that look in his optics for no reason either.
The very reason for it was laying on the other side of Jazz with a ten foot long metal pike stabbed through his spark chamber. There had been nothing Jazz could do besides lay there and watch the young speeder leak to death. It boiled him inside and the anger that was pulsing in him was the only reason the silver mech wasn't crying.
He was to angry to cry.
"Keep him back." Jazz coughed through the smoke. "He doesn't need to see this."
No.
No, the horrible sight laying just beside him was not something Bee ever needed to see. He needed to keep the image in his head of the last time he'd seen Blurr. That is what the mech would have wanted.
"Jazz?" Sides questioned.
"Blurr is dead." Jazz growled lowly, tugging harshly on his pinned legs but they still weren't about to let him free. He was about at the point he was going to cut the damn things off just to get out of this hole but he wouldn't be much good after that so he swallowed the building anger. Instead letting his gaze return to the twins as their gazes darkened with his words while they both let out a hiss.
From the gasp and pained whirl behind them he knows Bee heard him, but it wouldn't have been something they could have kept from him from long. Jazz was actually a little surprised Bee didn't already know. Though that might be a testament to how slagged they all were at the moment.
"Get me out of here." Jazz finally said. "I have a tyrant to murder violently."
Standing there in the shadows watching Sunstreaker and Sideswipe try and free Jazz as quietly as they could Bumblebee was doing his best to not break down into tears.
He'd known.
He realized that now.
A piece of him inside had already known.
If he looked right now—really looked—he'd probably know every single bot that he was never going to see again that was laying among this ruble dead right now. They wouldn't be in the links he had with them. He knew that.
He just didn't want to look.
He didn't want to know.
He didn't want it to be true.
And it was a nothing but a sparkling's notion to think that the longer he didn't look to see the less it would hurt when he did. He was doing it anyway though.
Standing there quivering in the shadows he bit back his tears in favor of reaching out and looking for the next living spark they could save. That was what he had to make himself focus on. That and that alone.
Because that was the only thing he could help.
There was nothing he could do for the dead now. No matter how much he wanted too.
It was in his searching that he picked up two bright pulses not far away. Optics flashing open Bee bit back another gasp as he swiveled in their direction.
"Scout? Echo?" Calling out along their link was harder to do with the Dampener over his spark but within two nanos he had an answer.
"Bee!" Echo called in excitement and Bee felt his spark speed up with joy.
They were okay.
"Where are you?" He called to both of them.
"Looking for you. Where at? Mia need you."
Bee stiffened up. "Mia? What do you mean? Where?"
"She pinned." Scout answered in a growl. "We can't help. Need you."
"Where are you!?" Bumblebee shouted back at them.
It was more or a feeling then a direction, but it was enough and without even looking over his shoulder to tell the twins what he was doing Bumblebee sprinted off through the smoke in the direction of his pups and his carrier.
Most of Megatron's diabolical little scheme to kill a majority of the Autobot army, his stupid little brother, and end this pointless war in one fail swoop did have a whole lot of evil merit behind it. With that giant ion cannon strapped to the side of his ship it all seemed pretty foolproof.
However, there was one tiny detail Megatron and his Master forgot to consider in trying to take out the Autobot high command after they already destroyed one ship.
And that, was that the rest of the army had already been hauling aft in this direction. Now sure, there was that whole convenient little aspect of no radio waves being able to survive when the cannon was on, but the one thing about all that that the warlord and his Master forgot to take into account was the ability to send them out after the gun shut off to power back up.
It only took a comm from his brother far down below in that ruble for Ultra Magnus to panic and Hot Rod to jump a half built hyper drive into a short range warping drive. Covering the last few thousand mile distance between them and flash into the sector guns blazing on a ship that was more or less dead in the air while that weapon charged.
In less than a nano the tables turned and Megatron found himself in a burning ship while his brother's fragged seconds fired everything they had and there was nothing he could fight back with.
It was kind of spectacular.
Bumblebee had just slid around a corner and nearly tripped over Echo when the explosions started over head. Flinching with the sounds and diving for cover out of reflex it was only after the shouting and firing of thrusters around him started upward did he peak out of a shadow to find what looked to be every flying Decepticon that had been down here shot back up to the sky.
Optics widening, Bee tilted his head back to find the bright light show of blue and red fire as the Victory tore onto the playing field guns blazing. Lighting up the Nemesis under a wall of heavy fire, and the massive black ship didn't even try to fire back.
They just hung there in sky getting torn into by laser fire.
They weren't fighting back apart from the fliers rocketing back skyward.
Slowly it dawned on the young mech. That massive gun that had torn his home to pieces in twenty nanos flat drained the ship's power.
They couldn't fight back with it.
Magnus was gonna tear them to pieces.
Throwing his hands over his head Bee bounced once in a silent cheer while his spark sang in his chest.
"Get 'em, Mags." He whispered as Scout and Echo circled him looking up as well.
Make them pay for what they had done to his whole world.
He watched for a moment as the sky came alive with laser fire from the ship and the fliers circling the massive battleship. They couldn't get through the pulled up force fields they had activated.
But when Echo whined and nipped at his fingers he pulled his attention back down in a glance and set his optics on her.
"Mia." She repeated as if he really needed reminding.
Processor and spark kicking back into gear Bee nodded and motioned for them to lead the way. Chasing after the pair of black streaks through the thick smoke he kept glancing up on the fighting that was going on overhead. At the winning that was going on.
His spark lifted in his chest.
They had a way out.
They could do this.
Things might be okay.
Racing after the pair of hounds Bee slid around one more corner before he caught sight of Chromia's bright armor.
Under a huge pile of metal she was struggling with Bee felt his spark clench before he sprang forward shouting. "Carrier!"
Mia stilled at the sound of his shout. Glancing to the side just as Bee hit his knees beside the huge pile of ruble. Scrambling and pulling he tried to clear a way to her without bringing the whole thing down on them both.
"Bee," Her voice pitched from shock to worry to a sad kind of joy at the sight of him and he stalled long enough to offer her a small smile as he worked.
"I'll get you out, Mia. Just hold on a klick."
Scout and Echo circled behind him with high noises of distress. They wanted to help, but they had no idea how.
"You're hurt." Chromia's optics narrowed as she caught sight of the energon leaking down his frame as he pulled heavy pieces of stone away.
"I'm okay." He shook his head rapidly. "How bad are you hurt?"
"Not really." She tried to assure him, but he could hear the pain in her voice. "I just need out of here. Have you seen, Hide?"
Shaking his head as he pulled on one rather large beam the young mech answered.
"No. Sides and Sunny found me, and we found Jazz, but when Scout and Echo said they knew were you were I came running."
He paused in his pulling to let a painful jolt of realization hit him before he mumbled.
"Blurr is dead." Mia stopped her struggling from where she had been working with him to free herself. "And Tracks, and Seaspray, and Grapple. And . . . a lot more . . . I can . . . feel it . . . but I don't want to. I'm afraid to look, Mia. I don't want to know."
"Hush, my mechling." Mia reached out to try and comfort him but he was still too far out of reach.
Hardening his slipping spark again though Bee shook him head hard and went back to trying to free her. After several klicks the sound of cannon fire exploded off to their left, stalled both of them.
They knew those cannons.
A glance was shared between the two sets of blue optics.
"Hide." Bee whispered, tearing his gaze away letting his doorwings spread out despite their aches and flicking up his antennas trying to pin point what was happening. That was when other blaster fire joined in. The sound of blades clashing and shouting echoing with it as Hide's cannons went off again and again.
It seemed not all of the fight had been taken to the dancing of laser and fire going on above them. Bee dared another glance upward and smiled despite himself to see the Nemesis pitching hard under the steady stream of fire power that Magnus was tearing it out of the sky with no matter the number of huge fliers circling the battle ship.
"Come on, Bee." Mia pulled his focus back. "We can't stay like this."
She was right.
There was still a fight going on. He had to get her out.
As the sounds of the fight increased the hounds got more and more restless behind him. Pacing in circles and growling.
Glancing over his shoulder back at them Bee rolled his optics.
"Go see if you can help if you want." He told Scout. "Just be careful."
"Have to watch your back." Scout argued with a shake of his head. Pack stayed together. Protected each other. They had to stay with him.
"I'll be fine. Go see if they need help. Find Hide."
Both hounds wined at him for a moment before he shooed them off and went back to trying to free Chromia. Shifting, and pulling, and tugging he managed to work his way to Mia, but getting her out of the pin she was in proved to be a little harder then he thought it would be. Trying to not hurt her and keeping quiet made it all that more difficult.
That and he was small.
He couldn't lift a lot of the bigger slag.
Wedging his shoulder under a beam he tired to lever it off of her legs while the femme attempted to pull herself free, but it wasn't budging.
"Damn it!" He growled as he shoved. "Move already!"
"Well, well, well,"
The two of them stilled.
Plating tightening, and wings plastering down, Bee slowly turned around. Ignoring Mia's grasp and reach for him Bumblebee quickly stepped away and place himself in front of her as he tilted his head back to stare up into burning red optics.
"If it isn't the Autobots' youngling. You're really still alive?"
Bumblebee didn't budge. Even when Chromia snarled, fighting and struggling to get free and draw attention to herself instead of him.
"Tripwire!" She snarled. "Get away from him!"
"Chromia!" The huge black mech chuckled, red optics blazing and battle axe swinging lazily in his right hand. "Been a long time, femme. Funny, seems the last time I saw ya, you looked a lot like this. Only the mechling was already dead that time."
The outraged sound that left Chromia made Bee have to fight back a flinch. Bots were fools if they thought she wasn't twice as dangerous as Ironhide was and three times as vindictive. She might be smaller than the mechs around her, but she didn't need her mate's size to do just as much damage.
Taunting Mia was a death wish. Especially taunting her with that.
It made Bee's energon boil just at the mention of it. It was far past cruel.
However, this was a Decepticon he was looking at. He had to remind himself of that. Taunting femmes with a sparkling they had already lost by actions bots like him caused was nothing. It was actually to be expected.
He was as big as a seeker, but he wasn't a flight frame. No wings or blaring external weaknesses. Just one big, bulky wall of armor and fangs and a really sharp axe.
Swallowing hard Bumblebee tightened his doorwings behind him, pinned down his plating and readied that upgrade Wheeljack had helped him with a few decacycles ago. He hadn't actually used it yet—apart from dancing around the lab with it once it was installed—but now seemed as good as time as any.
He might only be a fifty-five vorn old youngling but he knew the look of wicked intent in a mech's optics. He knew what came next. The twins were right; he was no longer playing at training. There were no try again tomorrow here.
There was only that mech, that dangerous axe, and Bee standing between him and one of the two most important things in his life. No matter how loudly Mia was struggling or calling to him both out loud and over their spark he wasn't about to move.
Hand rising slowly behind him, Bee reached into the subspace pocket where he had tucked the blade the twins had given him. Fingers tightening around the hilt as he called it into existence.
Mia was yelling at him, yelling at Tripwire, yelling for Hide, the fear in her voice tightening Bee's spark, but he didn't budge. He wasn't about to run. No matter how much she screamed at him too.
That mech would kill her.
He wasn't about to let that happen.
"Stay away from her." Calling up the upgrade he pinged it into service. Snapping his head down once letting the full face battle mask slid down and snapped into place. Optics narrowing behind the guard as surprise sparked through the massive mech's optics while a nasty gleam lit his optics.
"Oh now, what is this? Little mech with a little struts? You think you've capable of taking me on?"
"I might just surprise ya."
"BUMBLEBEE!"
He tuned his carrier out in favor of calling desperately through his links for the hounds he had just sent away.
He wasn't a fool. He knew the was probably the stupidest thing he had ever done.
But . . . what choice did he have?
Tripwire grinned, his battle axe spinning around his long claws.
Bumblebee tightened his fist around the glittering hilt of the blade hidden behind his back.
A blur of movement and the massive mech charged forward with a battle cry. Huge axe swinging wild and high as he closed the distance between them in less than two strides. Optics narrow Bee threw his weight sideways in a fast tumble. Going down in a duck and a roll that took him out of the path of the over shot weapon while bringing him up just behind him. The quick motion surprised Tripwire, the huge black mech stumbling as he tried to correct the swing for the blur of yellow movement that was already coming up to his feet behind him.
The twist was too slow though and with a flash of black metal Bee sliced the long blade through the thinner plating at the back of the mech's right knee. Drawing a thick splatter of energon in hardly a wrist flick earning himself a pained bellow and that axe swinging for his head.
Jazz's voice echoed through his audios with a lesson.
"Stay low. Keep moving. Whatever you do, keep moving. You're fast Lil' Bee, it's a gift, use it. Keep low and tight and they won't be able to get a hold of you with weapons."
Low.
Tight.
Moving.
That axe was long and would do little good if Bee kept himself dancing around the massive mech's legs. He wouldn't be able to get a hit. All Bee would have to contend with was those claws. It wasn't much, but it was better than dodging that axe in long range.
Spark hammering Bee threw his weight forward this time. Ducking between the Cons' legs, blade slicing as he did. Cutting through the underside of the mech's other thigh.
Coming back to his feet just as the mech let out another roar of pain, this time his leg giving under the sharp precision of Bee's blade the little mech twisted again. This time catching his balance on his palms as he rolled with his motion, blade clipping through the front side of the other knee before a backhanded slap caught him full in the faceplate.
A cry of pain exploded through his chest as he went sailing backward with a crash. Battlemask taking the brunt of the hard hit saved Bee from unconsciousness, but Bee's weaker plating could not withhold what older plating could. Instead buckling with the force of the hit. The force of it traveling down to bust and bruise the softer protoform underneath.
He was lucky the hit hadn't landed on his optics, and instead left him with energon pooling in his mouth and leaking from his nose as it put him on his back.
"You slaggin' little runt!" Tripwire bellowed over Mia's hisses and struggling. "How dare you!? I'll fraggin' gut you!"
The mech was slow to his feet though for the little mech hadn't missed what he was aiming for. He knew what to hit. He'd had Cybertronian anatomy drilled into him by Ratchet and How To Kill 101 from far more then just Jazz, Hide, Mia, and the Twins. He knew the weaker spots in a bot's frame.
The thinner plating behind the knee, the main veins that lay just a few inches up from it, and so many more. The mech was too tall for him to aim for the quickest and easiest place but if he could put him on his knees long enough he'd be able to make that strike.
That was what he was planning for at least.
But the slices he's made weren't as deep as he hoped they'd be for Tripwire managed to scramble to his feet. Wobbly and limping with energon gushing down his calves, but up all the same.
Scrambling Bee rolled up right, knife glittering with energon in his right hand.
"Fraggin' insect." Tripwire growled trying to charge forward only to stumble and find his legs didn't want to obey him.
So.
Maybe the hit went deeper then Bee thought.
Well, that was an upside he guessed.
Only the mech dropping the axe and yanking a blaster into existence was less on the upside.
Frag.
Ducking left Bee barely dodged the hot burn of plasma. Taking off at a sprint through the crumbled metal and stone, he circled, keeping the attention on him so Tripwire wouldn't turn that blaster on Mia who couldn't run no matter how much she was struggling and screaming at the Con to get his slaggin' hands away from her sparking.
Bumblebee really wished she'd shut up.
What the frag was he suppose to do if the bastard pulled another gun and started shooting at her too!?
"Stand still you little pest and let me shoot you!" Tripwire bellowed.
"Yeah right!" Bee shouted back, ducking around a broken wall and just missing the shot that went for his spark as he yelped and twisted back away from it. The twist left him sliding on loose rocks, tripping, falling, and landing faceplate first in the dirt.
With no cover.
Slag.
"There you are—" The taught cut off by an agonized scream that pulled Bee up just in time to see the full weight of a very angry mech static-hound crash into the Con's back claws shredding into armor and fangs latching down on the back of the mech's neck.
"Scout!" Bee called, rushing to his feet, tightening his grip on the knife and sprinting toward the rolling ball of black armor and plating as Tripwire screamed and shouted, shooting wild and racking with his claws trying to get a grip on the hound that was sparing no time trying to bring him to the ground.
He simply latched hold with his fangs and started shredding with every claw he had. Snarling and hissing that high pitch static that made his breed famous. A sound that that close to audios would shatter them and leave a bot's processor reeling.
"Stay 'way from my brother!" Scout snarled out, shaking his head back and forth like the mech's neck was one of his favorite toys. "I'll eat you!"
Rushing forward, knife glittering Bee was fully intent on ending this while he could but before he was halfway there the mech dropped the blaster in favor of latching hold of Scout's audio and ripping the hound off his neck by way of nearly shredding the sensitive audio off.
Scout's hold came loose with a yelp of agony as his weight was thrown forward and slammed into ground. The mech's long claws shredding into his audio in an energon soaked mess that left the hound howling in pain and struggling to get free.
Bee's spark clenched when the Con aimed his other claws for his struggling hound's throat.
A long put away memory flashed before his optics. Of a silver and blue robo-cat and the massive seeker that killed him as he to tried to protect Bee. Starscream had taken Risk from him.
Bee snarled.
No bot was slaggin' taking his hounds!
"Let go!" Bee shouted, throwing himself into the bigger mech's front. Pitching them both backward on the mech's hurt legs until they crashed onto the broken ground. A snarl roared through his whole frame as his free hand fisted into a flying punch that connected with the mech over and over and over again in the nose.
It was oddly satisfying.
"Don't!"
Punch.
"Touch!"
Punch.
"My!"
Punch.
"Hound!"
The last hit broke strut. The mech's noseplate shattering under Bee's fist in a spray of energon that spattered back into his faceplate in eerily hot that shocked the little mech still. The sticky substance sizzling against his armor, leaving him staring down with wide optics to the seeping blue mess he'd made of the mech's faceplate.
Spark rolling in his chamber he stalled. Staring in something like confusion until Tripwire's claws flew and caught him across the face.
The sharp claw slice punctured his battlemask and racked down the side of his cheek and neck in a spray of hot blue and stinging pain. The hit throwing Bumblebee off the mech with a yelp of pain before he found himself pinned on screaming doorwings and winglets looking up at the ruined faceplate of a snarling mech.
"You—slag—kill—!"
Those claws went for his throat, but Bee fought back. Bucking his legs up kicking hard against the mech's front trying to free himself of the heavier mass on top of him before the pressure on his aching wings left him unable to do anything. He didn't weigh enough though and the kicking went unnoticed until Echo slammed into the mech's side. All claws, and fangs, and hisses just as her brother had been. Rolling with the mech she threw to the side. Slicing into his chest in rapid strikes and tears as she snapped rapidly for his neck.
Tripwire managed to keep one clawed hand fisted round the femme hound's neck though and keep her dangers fangs at bay. Not that that stopped Echo as she tore with her claws aiming for the mech's neck. Scout was hurrying to his paws off to the side, but energon was pouring down the hound's head and muzzle. The agony of his audio leaving him dizzying and stumbling.
For the moment there was nothing he could do to help his pack mates.
However, Bumblebee wasn't about to stand for the Con tearing into Echo's throat as she tried to tears out his spark. Forcing himself up again Bee tackled the two of them. Freeing Echo from the mech's hold, but it got them both throw to the side. Hardly dodging a slice of claws, weight crashing down on him, Echo falling away with a yelp, Bee pinned, two knives glittering, and one sinking home in a explosion of life giving blue.
Then, everything went still.
So, I'm gonna go hide now.
Hope you enjoyed (and don't wanna hurt me too bad). I'm looking forward to seeing what you all thought.
-Jaycee