The Victory's docking tower doesn't rise, so Skyfire has to get to the emergency entry that opens in the hull of the sunken ship.
One of the Reflector components is waiting for them once they get out of the Shuttle to allow him to transform.
For the first time since… since, the humans see Skyfire's state.
All things said, he's been spared a lot of damage, only burn marks streaking his plating.
None of the Autobots inside react to seeing the Cassettes, Rumble carrying Chip since his strength makes it easy for him to do so, though Warpath looks clearly uncomfortable.
"Come, you need to be checked." The Reflector component, who looks completely unharmed, then proceeds to guide them through the dark corridors of the spaceship, lighting the way thanks to some kind of lantern on his grasp.
He doesn't take the group to the Repair Bay, but to what looks like the Rec Room.
One quick look at the space illuminated by large floodlights is more than answer enough as to why.
Every single table is being used as some kind of bed or seat, the remaining three Constructicons rushing from one damaged mech to another.
Ratchet, sitting next to the door, almost jumps to his pedes when he sees them, but Skydive pulls him down with a whimpered plea, catching Hook's attention.
"At last! There, we had that area cleared for you. Who's the worst?"
"Perceptor. His lab was set ablaze when that surge hit. What happened?" Inferno immediately answers, putting the unconscious scientist on one of the stretchers that have been moved into the room.
"One instant we were fighting, the next Starscream was shouting at us to get down and for the Fliers to land, all panicky, and then that thing hit. Blew the injured ones up when the leaking Energon ignited, and I'm still trying to find out what else it did to some of us." The Decepticon medic explains with a growl, rushing to the two Autobots. "You're not fine yourself."
"I went to get him out of the lab, but I was there just a moment. He's worse than—"
"He has thicker plating, he's better. You, on the other servo, have all your sensory net fused to your plating, so sit down and let me see if I can save anything."
"Blaster! Come over here!" Ratchet shouts, even though the soft whispers and the clanging of the room aren't loud enough to muffle his words.
Slowly, and leaning on Prowl as much as the SIC is on him, the Cassette Carrier approaches the ambulance, still held in place by the worried Aerialbot.
"I—We are fine, Ratch. Really. The Ark took most of the brunt, and I got away from the lava before any serious damage could—"
"You're leaking from your chest compartment." The Medic cuts with a hiss, looking over the seams of the glass cover with soft touches of his remaining servo.
"My communications systems blew up, but, taking everything into account, it wasn't serious. The newspark is fine, Ratchet, I can feel him."
"Newspark?" A voice by Spike's side asks, startled and confused and slightly hopeful, but when the boy turns, there's only Ravage there. "You're carrying?" And… well, it was Ravage talking, look at that.
"Yeah, got the confirmation about a couple joor ago." Blaster answers with a small smile, looking more sad than happy.
"Where's Prime?"
And the whole room goes silent, no one meeting Prowl's gaze as he helps the Autobot Communications Officer sit down next to Ratchet while analyzing the other mechs.
No one, except a certain large gray being missing an arm.
"Deactivated." Megatron finally answers, and even though his voice is quiet, it's still too loud in the almost complete silence permeating the room. "The Matrix exploded."
And if the room had been quiet before, now it's soundless.
"What?" The Autobot Second finally whispers, shaking and tilting to the side of the remaining doorwing before Hoist holds onto him, his dented and bent legs and back barely keeping them both upright.
"That energy wave reacted with the Matrix of Leadership and it blew up. Optimus is deactivated, the Matrix destroyed, and the line of Primes ended. Not that there's much of a line of anything, in our situation…" The warlord explains, even the grumbling at the end sounding defeated.
"It was a solar flare." Thundercracker adds, attracting all gazes, though he doesn't look away from the ceiling he's staring at, lying on a table with a nervous Ramjet moving to be at his side. "The increased heat of the last days wasn't a warmer summer than usual. We were distracted by the battle, we didn't notice until it was too late… and by then, all we could do was land and hope it didn't…" His voice breaks with static, and his optics go black as he visibly tries to recompose himself. "It interfered with Skywarp's warp matrix, made it malfunction, and he… He's gone. Erased, warped out of existence, or something. I was too close, half my frame was pulled into that… warp field, or whatever. The Autobot frontliner twins were inside the field too."
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.
Gone.
"Sit down." Scrapper orders, guiding the Autobots to the couple of stretchers next to Perceptor's, leaving the humans to stand next to the door with just Ravage and Rumble as company.
Until the feline mech steps forward.
"What about Soundwave? And Ratbat?"
"Soundwave's here." Scavenger calls near the end of the room, and, since the humanoid Cassette is still carrying Chip, all of them go to the Constructicon. "Ratbat's fine, he's just in stasis after Soundwave's communications systems blew up, so we got him out of the chest compartment and resting here." He explains, gesturing to a purplish bundle at the head of the Decepticon Third's table. "Now, Soundwave, on the other servo… You know how he gets his processor-reading capabilities from his super-sensitive electric field, right?" The Cassettes whimper, and Scavenger looks clearly uncomfortable. "Yeah… That flare didn't do him good. The only thing we've managed to ascertain so far is that the processor damage isn't worsening, but we can't try to repair it right now, we're… busy, and awfully undereducated in that field."
"I may be able to help." Ratchet calls, and even though he tries to stand up, Skydive still hanging from his only arm doesn't allow him to move. "Once I'm repaired, that is." He adds, more softly, and the Aerialbot calms down a bit.
"Scavenger, if you're done sealing leaks, come help with the Autobots. As soon as Reflector get the lights back up, we're starting with replacements, and we need to have everything else out of the way first." Scrapper calls from where he's carefully detaching Cliffjumper's cracked plating, the Minibot grimacing in pain but keeping still.
Without a word, the Constructicon gets to work on Trailbreaker's pedes, taking bent and burnt plating off to seal the broken lines, but the quiet doesn't make the soft chatter of before come back.
"What about the rest?" Sparkplug asks, attracting the attention of the closest mechs. "The rest of Autobots and Decepticons. These can't be all of them, right?" He adds, lifting his hands to gesture to the room, and, as before, all but Megatron look away.
"Astrotrain was fairly unscathed, so we sent him to check on the groups that were neither at the battle nor the ships. However, all our comm devices have been permanently disabled by the surge, and we're still trying to get the Victory working, so there's no way to contact them."
"And who are those groups?" Carly asks softly, looking around to try and locate all known mechs.
"The Combaticons and Insecticons in their bases, the Dinobots and Protectobots, and those whose last locations is known, like those Minibots of yours."
"Beachcomber and Windcharger went to Yellowstone Park." Prowl lets out softly, his remaining doorwing lowering to almost rest on his molten back plating. "And Yellowstone is basically a giant volcano caldera. After seeing just how Earth's geological activity has increased after the flare…"
No more words are needed.
"But what about the others?" The young woman asks, a bit more forceful with worry, as unable as the rest of humans and small Cybertronian to see the whole of the room's inhabitants. "You're obviously still alive, even if missing an arm—"
"From my fusion cannon exploding, yes. I was fortunate my plating is thick enough and the security clamps of my Energon lines functioned, for I would've deactivated from my own Energon igniting and exploding while still in my frame otherwise." Megatron hisses, glaring darkly at his remaining servo, tightly clenched on his lap.
"Right. You're here, but Optimus died because… that matrix thing exploded."
"The Matrix of Leadership was a cultural and religious sacred item, said to bear Primus' own conscience, along that of the previous Primes. It was a powerful artifact that Primes stored in their chests, around their sparks. So when the Matrix blew up… it took Optimus with it." A new voice explains, bitter and saddened, and the humans finally find the Autobot Third, sitting next to Silverbolt, and with his visor still cracked and dark, though the damaged plating of his left thigh is gone, along a lot of the inside, leaving only the thick main strut, some rubber-like tubing that must be the Energon lines, and some chain linkages from hip to knee joint.
"Jazz? How are you?" Prowl asks, straightening as he finally locates the saboteur.
"Could've been worse. Someone crashed on me, got a thigh damaged and my visor busted, but at least I was the one that didn't go gray." The Head of Spec Ops answers with a small shrug, and the Aerialbolt next to him curls into himself with a soft whimper. "Bolt? You alright, buddy?"
"It was Air Raid. The one who… who crashed on you, it was Air Raid. When Starscream started shouting for the Fliers to land, I gave the order too, but… he and Slingshot didn't obey. They crashed, broke some Energon lines that caught fire and…" Another whimper, and, a bit awkwardly and after some fumbling, Jazz manages to pull the larger mech closer into a semblance of a hug.
"Shush, it wasn't your fault, Silverbolt. It was no one's fault, it just happened. You did what was best for your team, and Fireflight and Skydive are still active thanks to you. Calm down, Bolt, buddy."
"But they're gone… and your leg is useless and your visual sensors destroyed, because I couldn't save my brothers…"
"No, Bolt, no…" The saboteur whispers, clearly out of his depth, and Skydive and Fireflight quickly stand up from their seats to curl against their Gestalt leader, displacing the Head of Spec Ops.
Scavenger is there almost immediately, helping Jazz hop to the seat next to Ratchet that has been vacated.
The damaged leg is hanging uselessly, the pede not even twitching as it drags against the ground.
"What about Starscream?" Skyfire asks, clearly worried, as he scans the mechs in the room from where he's standing close to the wall to not be in the way.
"Over there, by Soundwave. We finally managed to get his spark stabilized, but I don't think it'll do him any good." Scrapper answers, observing Hoist's inner workings as he carefully takes the back plating off, Cliffjumper almost completely armor-less and sitting still and silent next to a still shocked Brawn. "If he manages to survive the orn, the chances of sudden spark-extinction will lessen notably, but he'll never fly again. Or even run."
"What?" The Shuttle whispers, dismayed, and, had he been capable of it, he would've paled.
"War isn't kind to anyone." Thundercracker answers from his bed, optics black. "Starscream's spark hasn't been fully attuned to his frame for millions of years, ever since the frame transfer, and it would've never been. But even though he could function normally, that left him more vulnerable to the flare than the rest of us. He's lucky his spark didn't extinguish right there and then. Or maybe not."
"We'll get you a replacement leg." Scavenger calls calmly, almost soothingly, and the blue Seeker onlines his optics to glare at him. "Not another wing, or turbine, but at least you'll have two legs and arms again. Primus knows we can do as much with as many deactivated frames."
Thundercracker is saying something, his voice a low growl, but Spike isn't listening anymore.
"Primus knows we can do as much with as many deactivated frames."
It can't… It can't mean…
"What are you going to do?" The teenager asks, loud enough that all conversation stops as they turn to him. "With the dead, what are you going to do? What are you going to do with-with Optimus, and Bumblebee, and…"
"With the Minibot, nothing. He was a pile of molten materials. But Prime's right arm will replace Megatron's, and we can use what we salvage from him to build more limbs and fix broken sensor nets, and—"
"What?!" All humans exclaim, horrified, and get annoyed looks from the Decepticons and sad ones from the Autobots.
"We have little replacements here, and your Ark is gone, so we're going to recycle as much of the deactivated as we can, to help those still functioning." Hook grumbles, glaring at Inferno's inner workings as he keeps working. "Which won't be as much as any of us wants."
"You've got to understand we're not organics." Ratchet adds, voice low and soothing. "As mechanical beings, we can have some parts be replaced, and even exchanged. Think of it like all of us being donors. Only, instead of organs, we can donate whole appendages."
"So you're… going to pull Optimus apart to give an arm to Megatron and… who knows what else?" Spike whispers, voice trembling and eyes wide. "You're not… going to give him a proper goodbye, to bury him, or… or whatever?"
"Recycling in mechanical species doesn't work that way." Scrapper answers, serious, turning to face the humans. "Organics decompose and thus their basic components go back to the soil to be absorbed by others and continue the cycle. Mechanoids are dismantled and melted down to build new parts and frames, but in wartimes, or situations with such lack of resources, we can't afford to build replacement parts from deactivated frames. We must use the available parts, no matter if the degree of compatibility isn't as high as it could be."
"This is the 'proper goodbye' for Cybertronians, little buddy." Jazz calls, helm tilted their way with a small but warm smile. "Melting them would've been better, but this is second best. Their sparks go back to Primus, and their frames go to help the rest of us. As it has always been and… will keep being, for as long as our race exists." The tiny speech is soured towards the end, the saboteur's smile vanishing as he turns away.
But, despite how… repulsing the idea of dismantling the dead is, thinking of it as donors and transplants and this being the traditional funerary rites—like the alien version of a viking funeral, or something of the like—makes it more bearable.
As long as they don't think too much or deeply about it.
"What now?" Chip asks, and the room darkens almost visibly.
Because this isn't a simple question.
It can't be simple ever again, for as long as ever gets to be.
"We wait for Reflector to get the power back, and keep repairs going." Scrapper answers softly, starting to get Prowl's damaged plating off. "And then, we get back to Cybertron."
"But what about us?"
"There are some organic plants in the lab, Mixmaster wants to—" All Constructicons stiffen at Scavenger's words, optics and visors black. "There are some organic plants in the lab." He repeats, almost emotionlessly, more subdued and clearly saddened, as the three remaining lime green mechs get back to work again.
And then, the lights flicker and light up, and there's a collective sigh of relief from all Cybertronian.
"Thank Primus. Scavenger, keep going with small repairs, Scrapper and I will start with replacements." Hook commands, though there's not much of an order in his voice, and his Gestaltmate gives him a nod before the other two get out of the room with Ratchet and Hoist.
After exchanging some words with the only Constructicon left, Skyfire moves to the Energon dispenser and starts filling cubes to hand to the injured mechs.
A soft whirring sound catches the humans' attention, and, when they turn to the origin, they see Ravage standing on his back legs as comfortably as any other of them, before jumping up to Soundwave's table.
"Bro?" Rumble whimpers, staring up at the panther pleadingly.
With a hydraulic hiss, Megatron stands up and moves to them, carefully grabbing the Cassette and pulling it on his carrier's improvised berth, before repeating the operation with the rest of humans so that they can join Chip, now sitting down as the two Decepticons have moved to curl against the Communications Officer's side, with Ratbat cradled in Ravage's arms.
Soundwave looks as if sleeping, still dirtied with ash and burn marks from the battlefield, but with only his visor black to indicate anything wrong with him.
So, after a moment to look at him, Spike uses the chance the elevated position grants him to truly look around.
Ratchet, Hoist, Hook and Scrapper are in the Repair Bay, and the Reflector components are repairing the ship.
Megatron is still standing next to them, with Soundwave unconscious on the table, and Ravage, Rumble and Ratbat with them. Frenzy, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, according to the remaining Cassettes themselves, are dead.
Starscream is lying on the next table, optics black and paint looking dull and grayed out, his cockpit gone and a bunch of cables slithering out of the space on his torso to connect to a machine showing some lines on a monitor, some kind of Cybertronian heart-monitor.
On the same side of the room, Thundercracker is lying on his own table, Ramjet, canopy gone and nosecone-shaped helm dented, sitting by his side. Skywarp is dead, having taken with him the twins, and, judging by their absence, so are the other two Coneheads.
On yet another table, Wildrider and Breakdown, scuffed and dented, are tightly embracing each other, not paying attention to the rest of the room. Since there's no sign of Motormaster, Drag Strip and Dead End, and if their behavior is any indications, Spike assumes they're dead too.
And talking about behavior, the Constructicons' reaction to Mixmaster's name points at him, Long Haul and Bonecrusher being gone too.
Astrotrain is off to fetch the Combaticons and Insecticons, but there's no sign, nor has been any mention, of Blitzwing, so the teenager adds him to the growing list of casualties.
Once he's sure that's all the Decepticons there, the human turns to observe the Autobot side.
Optimus is dead, as well as Slingshot and Air Raid, and it looks like Windcharger and Beachcomber are too. And so are the twins and Bumblebee.
The other three Aerialbots are curled on their own table, with an almost armor-less Cliffjumper and a shocked Brawn on the one next to them.
Jazz is sitting next to Blaster, and Prowl is by an uncomfortable Warpath.
Perceptor is lying on his own table, unconscious, with Inferno watching over him from where he's sitting next to Trailbreaker.
Powerglide, Bluestreak and Ironhide were at the battlefield. Gears, Huffer, Red Alert and Grapple were at the Ark. Hound and Mirage were lying gray and immobile last Spike saw them, and of Wheeljack he just managed to spot a detached arm.
It is safe to assume they're all dead.
Tracks was in New York, Smokescreen in Las Vegas, Cosmos in orbit, Seaspray somewhere on the Atlantic, Omega Supreme had taken a break to visit the Great Lakes, the Dinobots had gone exploring on one of the many deserted islands the government allowed them to freely roam without fear of property damage, and the Protectobots were on some kind of conference on a Griffin Island, or something of the like, somewhere in Maine.
He can only hope they're all alright.
AN: My apologies for taking so long to update, but I had other plot bunnies attacking me and some trouble trying to write this chapter. In the end, I had some things moved to the next, so whether those mentioned in the last part are deactivated or not, and which state they're in, will be revealed next chapter, when Astrotrain comes back.
Oh, and the replacing will begin. Be prepared to see some mech with parts that don't belong.
The Protectobots being in Griffin Rock (not Griffing Island) is a nod to Rescue Bots (which I haven't seen, but I've heard much about).
If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask.