Bruticus tore at the side of the Ark, leaning against the ship so that the loss of his arm wouldn't unbalance him. The metal was pliant, strong, but supple enough that it didn't break easily, and he had to grasp and heave and wrench just to pull one plate from another. He popped rivets and unstuck welding, clawing single-handed at the double hull, then the interior walls.
His missing part was in there, he could feel it. He reached out through the bond, grasping after the shape of that mind, that whirling sharp mesh of memory and stark, overwhelming panic. It was conscious, this time, but its comms were down and all it could do was scrabble after him as he clutched at it, striving desperately for a place to meet in the middle.
The Autobots fired, but it didn't matter. Starscream had removed his deactivation switch after Megatron had done that odd thing with his processor, that strange mental reorganization that had allowed him to see more clearly who was friend and who was foe. For a while at least, he could bear it.
But as the Autobots continued to fire, Bruticus realised that they weren't just fighting him because he was their enemy. They were fighting him because this was all their fault.
They had taken his missing arm. They had caused all the hurt and the panic, all the confusion.
He tore a chunk from their spaceship and threw it at them, howling his – his missing component's – pain and fear and distress. He left off the dismantling for a moment, long enough to pick up the sonic stun rifle and fire blast after blast at them until the ground they stood on threatened to cave, and they were forced to flee for cover. Then back to the Ark, a little yellow 'bot clawing at his shin, scaling him, trying to get under his plating. Bruticus swatted him, but he clung on, clambering higher, firing at a weak spot just below his knee.
Bruticus stomped, attempting the shake off the yellow 'bot. But the missing part of him was close, so very close, and the yellow 'bot didn't matter. His knee didn't matter. He could fragment, go back to smaller units; it would only be one damaged component. He had others.
Not yet.
He held together, peering through the hole in the hull. In here, he knew, was his missing part. The part that had been taken from him. Behind the thrusters, in a room that smelt of ozone and old energon.
And yes! There it was! Lying facedown on a berth, the back of its helm wide open. A pair of Autobots scrambled for their weapons, and a small metal box – significant, somehow – clattered to the floor. Purple light spilled from a tiny gap in the lid.
"Mine!" Bruticus snarled. The gunfire didn't matter, the lasers were nothing. Scorched plating he could live with, pain he could endure. But not the loss of one fifth of his self.
Ignoring the Autobots, he prodded his missing limb.
It didn't move.
It was damaged, far from whole. Maybe the rest was in the box? It looked small, though, too small to hold the twiddly bits. But it felt important, and Bruticus picked it up, clutching it between forefinger and thumb as he gripped the limp grey body of the copter tightly with his other fingers.
A blast hit the back of his neck, and he reeled. He fell away from the Ark, more blasts landing on him, harder and hotter than the earlier laser fire. He looked down, into a tiny muzzle aimed directly at his head. This new enemy grinned, his yellow and black facial fins gleaming in the morning sun. He squeezed the trigger.
Bruticus disintegrated.
.
"Slag!" Bumblebee landed on his aft in the dirt. He let the momentum carry him, rolling him over into a natural crouch as he raised his gun and fired at the complex maelstrom of moving parts. Climbing Bruticus' leg hadn't been the best choice he'd ever made, but he hadn't thought the combiner would fall apart so quickly either, or look so confusing while he did it.
The others caught him up, crouching, shooting. Prowl gave him a quick glance, and Bee nodded; no harm done, don't need a medic. He shoved himself from the ground, running to keep pace with the advancing front line.
The Combaticons were retreating. They'd got what they came for; Vortex's limp body slung over Onslaught's shoulder, a box leaking purple light held tight to his chest. Blast Off transformed, the roar of his engines making everything vibrate.
Bee flinched as a piece of shrapnel pinged one of his horns. Brawl and Swindle kept firing, covering Onslaught as he loaded the copter aboard, and then they too were inside and Blast Off shot into the sky, a blur of brown and purple quickly vanishing through the thin haze of cloud.
"Cease fire," Prowl sighed. "They're out of range."
Bee slumped, for the first time noticing the damage done to the Ark. "Oh look," he said, grasping after a levity he didn't feel. "Cleanup duty."
"That'll be for all of us," Prowl said. "All right, I want patrols inside and out. Make sure there's no-one else lurking and that they didn't leave anything behind. Bumblebee, you go check on Wheeljack and Perceptor. I'll contact Grapple and Hoist, and we can make a start on repairs."
Bee nodded, taking one last look at the gaping hole in the side of the Ark. He was there just long enough to hear Prowl's parting words to Skyfire.
"I don't know what I'm going to tell the Protectobots."
.
Vortex came around in med bay. It wasn't the Nemesis, he could tell by the strip lights humming high above, but Combaticon HQ. He'd been in stasis, his consciousness suspended. He watched as the figures rolled across his HUD. Fourteen joors. Not long, and a good while less than he'd been separated from his body. His team must have activated the emergency protocols, or got a medic to, forcing everything to shut down. He stamped on the memory of his own blind panic, and spent a moment enjoying the pulse of electricity surging through his wires, the tingle of his sensor net as he flexed his fingers and made his damaged tail rotors spin.
He still didn't know if the enemy had actively decided to box him while he was still conscious, or if they truly had no idea what they were doing. And he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
It didn't matter right now. What mattered was his team had come for him. He grinned, wondering whether Blast Off had finally have gotten over the Unfortunate Squishy Incident. He'd have to find out, when he could get the shuttle alone.
He stretched out on the repair berth. That probably wouldn't be yet. He still lacked rotors and a vocaliser. But at least he was in med bay, and not the Nemesis' brig.
As for his team, there was no sign of his them, just the white blur of a medic drone as it scurried around, watching him with insectile eyes. But there was a patch welded to his jaw, and he'd been recharged and refuelled. He wasn't strapped down either. He fidgeted, contemplating standing up; he'd had enough of incarceration.
The main door opened with a whoosh, revealing Onslaught, his armour pitted and stained, his visor bright.
"You can stay where you are," he said. "Starscream's sending Hook over. You're fortunate that you're useful."
I'm always useful, Vortex tried to say. The severed connections at his throat itched. He tried again, using his comms. "You'll always need me, and you know it."
"Not if you get yourself killed." Onslaught said. "And the next time Soundwave asks you were you are, you're to give him proper coordinates. None of this 'I'm on a continent with squishies' slag. Understand?"
Vortex sighed, glaring up at the far strip lights. "I was tied to an Autobot," he said. "You know how important it is that they underestimate me."
"There are better ways to go about it than that!" Onslaught paused, and Vortex waited while his commander's anger ebbed away. "No more chasing after Protectobots," he said.
"What? Oh come on! What about minibots?"
"You know what I mean," Onslaught glowered. "I hope you've learnt something from all this."
That my team actually will pull me out of the slag? Vortex thought. Or, perhaps, that pushing Onslaught any further at this particular point wouldn't be a productive use of his time. Or maybe it was to do with Autobots, with their twisted morality and warped sense of justice.
"Sure," he said. "I learnt plenty."
He thought of the Autobots, and the store of data he'd accumulated. Data he could use to get back at them, to get his hands on that tempting little Protectobot medic. His commander would come around on that one, he'd have to.
Onslaught gave him a long, hard look. "You'd better have," he said.
