It was a cold evening at the end of fall, the place was a stretch of land across the upper part of the northern hemisphere of the planet. Humans had begun their imperious march across the world, and their advance had led the Cybertronians ever more into deeper, more remote regions.
The Autobots did so because they had been forbidden to interfere with human matters, a ban that stood even if those who had imposed it no longer did.
The Decepticons had more complex reasoning. One reason was that the Autobots lured them, pretending to have become careless in their concealment and trapping of the energon that all Cybertronians prized so highly. It was like a trail of breadcrumbs, and the Decepticons picked it up at once. But also the Decepticons knew that the losses and damage they suffered from this pitiful group of Autobot survivors was as nothing to the wrath that had come down upon the heads of the first Decepticons to land, and they knew it was a direct result of destroying a human settlement. And too, the Decepticons had orders of their own, the nature of which encouraged discretion.
Humanity thus safeguarded and still well able to be thoroughly ignored, the Autobots and Decepticons were free to continue waging miserable warfare on one another unimpeded.
Often, Bumblebee would lead the Decepticons on a merry chase to buy time for the crippled Diff and Rim to prepare a lethal surprise. There wasn't a Decepticon on Earth Bumblebee couldn't outrun, not only because he himself was fast, but because they lacked experience on Earth terrain.
Sand, rock, mud, open field, cliffs, forests or valleys, Bumblebee knew them all, and could navigate them with efficiency and speed, while the Decepticons crashed noisily and clumsily after him. If they lived long enough, they too would get it figured out. It was Bumblebee's primary objective to ensure that they never live so long, and certainly never managed to report what they'd learned.
At the heart of the battle that day was, as ever, energon. This had come on a cargo ship flown by a Decepticon pilot, whose lack of qualifications as a pilot were more than extensive. Suffice to say he had missed his mark, and hit a mountain on the way down while he was at it. The ship, hundreds of miles off course, carved a neat slice into the land as it crashed, a deep scar that would one day become a lake. The pilot was killed on impact, and an automatic distress beacon activated, one meant for Decepticons, but which the Autobots had learned how to pick up as well.
Bumblebee had seen the ship come in, of course, but the distress beacon made it a race, because it told both factions exactly where it was that the ship had landed. The Autobots didn't know how much energon (if any) the ship might have on it, or what else it might have been carrying, but they knew how much it could have. A combination of weariness caused by energon depletion, and awareness that any significant amount of energon delivered cleanly into Decepticon hands would spell doom for the last of the Autobots on Earth, drove them forth into the fray, into a battle they could not win.
It had been their hope that they should reach the ship before the Decepticons, and to depart before battle should become necessary. But the Decepticons, expecting the ship even before it crashed, were faster. Seeing a dozen of the hated vehicons swarming over the crashed vessel, and knowing more were on their way, Bumblebee's spark quailed at the thought of entering into this fight.
The sixth sense honed in war told him that ahead lay further tragedy, and loss.
But if Diff or Rim -who had come with him- sensed it, they did not behave that way. What they saw, Bumblebee also saw, and that was the fact that so much energon would power Decepticon weapons heretofore unavailable, and add to the technological advantage the Decepticons already possessed.
Where the majority of the tech the Autobots brought had been destroyed, the Decepticons had taken what they wanted, and received more since then. They were building something the likes of which few Autobots had seen firsthand. The Autobots did not know the purpose of the sinister thing the Decepticons were constructing in the stronghold they had taken for themselves in recent days, but they knew that so much energon might be all that was needed to power it.
"We can't let this happen," Diff said, and Rim nodded in silent agreement.
{Wait,} Bumblebee advised, but the two Warriors ignored him.
Knowingly, for they at last understood what being an Autobot meant, the two Warriors went out to meet Death. Sick at spark, yet knowing they were right, Bumblebee followed them.
By weight of numbers, vehicons lent advantage to the Decepticons. But no three vehicons were equal to even a single Autobot in even combat, and the Autobots had managed to come close unnoticed. When they struck, it was as they had many times observed hawks strike; from above and without warning. The vehicons were down in the ditch dug by the crashed ship, and the Autobots fell upon them from the top of the newly created ridge. In such close combat, there was little play with blasters.
The vehicons lacked great skill, but their freshly upgraded, close-fitted armor had fewer weak points than that of other Decepticons. In fact, they were mostly plating, and getting through that was no easy task. But it was a task the Autobots had gotten very good at, particularly Bumblebee. Rapidly, and literally, they tore into their enemies, and swiftly the first round of battle belonged to them.
But more vehicons came quickly, and those that fell had bought time. When the second wave of vehicons hit, the high ground was now theirs, just as the Autobots had known it would be. Without care for how easily the energon might be set off by a stray shot, the vehicons surrounded and commenced firing on the Autobots. Fortunately, they were disastrously bad shots, and Autobot armor was designed to take such punishment. A well-placed shot would pierce armor, and many ill-placed ones would eventually get through. But not before the Autobots managed to escape their disadvantaged position, and climb up to face the vehicons on equal footing.
Once they did, they could see the vehicons were being followed by other Decepticons, ones smarter and more powerful than simple vehicons. The Autobots had known this was coming their way, had known from the start of the battle that it was one they could not win. And so, in their first assault, they had made their move. While Diff and Bumblebee had concentrated on fighting, Rim had expertly placed IEDs on the energon-laden ship. If the Autobots could not keep the energon, they at least had to keep it out of Decepticon hands.
The three of them did not have to win. They only had to make sure the Decepticons lost. If they did not get out of the area in time, the explosion would kill them. But if they fled too soon and the Decepticons discovered what they'd done, there would be time to circumvent their sabotage.
"It's been an honor, Little Scout," Diff said, as the Decepticons advanced.
{We're not done yet,} Bumblebee replied.
As if to back his words, Bumblebee broke formation, actually charging the oncoming Decepticons. With their heavier armor, such a run would have been suicide for either Diff or Rim. But Bumblebee ducked, dodged, and used boulders and collapsed vehicons for cover. In the meantime, Diff and Rim finished off the last of the vehicons they were up close and personal with, then broke in different directions to find cover for the coming firefight.
It was not the first such run Bumblebee had made. Diff and Rim had been startled the first time he'd done it, thinking it was a suicide run. But Bumblebee had long-practiced abrupt turns, particularly on Earth. At seemingly the last possible second, he executed a flip transformation and shot off in a direction the Decepticons did not expect. At least, that was the idea, that was how it had worked before.
But this time, just as he was making the turn to transform and get clear, something awful snaked across the ground and wrapped itself around his leg. It pulled him up short, and his own momentum sent him crashing heavily to the ground with a startled buzz.
Without hesitation, Bumblebee kicked out at where he assumed the owner of what he thought had to be a hand would be, and was surprised to find only empty air. He looked back and realized that what had him was a tentacle tinged with purple, its angular possessor several yards farther away than Bumblebee had expected.
Soundwave.
The name clanged through Bumblebee's consciousness, striking like a gong in his head. Everyone knew Soundwave, academically speaking. He was Megatron's oldest ally, one of the few survivors who had been there from the start, in the Pits of Kaon. But that wasn't what terrified Bumblebee.
It was memory. It wasn't only Megatron who had inflicted torture on him. The sight of Soundwave sent memories skittering through Bumblebee like scraplets, and shudders rippled through him. What had happened to him had finally started to fade, but now it came back all at once, as if it had been only yesterday that he'd been left for dead. Memories seared into his spark broke to the surface, disabling him as effectively as if he'd been shot. He remembered everything.
"Scout!" Diff's voice cut through the noise in Bumblebee's head, snapping him back into action.
Bumblebee had seldom fired his weapon during the guerrilla campaign of the Earth-based Autobots, for the simple reason that doing so was costly, and he had heretofore been largely able to avoid it. Diff and Rim had likewise avoided blasting anyone or anything, usually being kept out of the field of fire altogether. But now Bee twisted around and fired two quick blasts.
The first missed its mark and struck a vehicon a glancing blow in the shoulder plate. The second found its home in the face of the tentacle-bearing Decepticon that had caught him. In that moment, Bumblebee realized it was not Soundwave, but another Decepticon who had improvised weapons that merely resembled the dreaded tentacle attack of Soundwave. The first clue was that he was too stocky to be Soundwave, but the more important one was that he had been slow enough that Bumblebee's second shot had connected. Soundwave would have dodged such an attack, even if it cost him his hold on Bumblebee's leg. Soundwave knew the first priority in close combat was always avoiding injury, and he was both smart enough and fast enough to have evaded Bumblebee's slightly panicked retaliation.
As it was, however, the Decepticon did not release his hold on Bumblebee, for which he paid a steep price. But it was not all for nothing. Still hampered by the tentacle clinging tenaciously to him, Bumblebee thrashed to free himself as the converging Decepticons shifted their fire from the sheltered Warriors and turned on the exposed and much closer Scout.
Responding to Bumblebee's plight, Diff and Rim both broke cover. Their reasoning was two fold. Firstly, to acquire a better shooting angle. Secondly, to draw attention to themselves, and try to draw fire. They were mobile. Until Bumblebee was free of the tentacle that had grabbed him, he was not.
But what actually saved him was the shortage of energon. The Decepticons that hit him had misjudged the distance, as well as the power needed to punch through his armor. Their attempt to conserve energon in battle was their undoing, as their shots weren't strong enough to break Bumblebee's armor and kill him in a single shot. He took damage from that first volley, but it did not take him out as it would have had the weapons which fired on him been properly calibrated.
He gave the Decepticons no second chance. Realizing that pulling away had only caused the tentacle to tighten its grip, Bumblebee gathered himself and sprang towards the enemy. The tight hold on his leg loosened, it being reflex on the Decepticon's part. Bumblebee's first shot had taken him out of the fight, and the tentacle was working solely on reflex now, not conscious intent. When it let him go, Bumblebee whipped around and reverse himself, launching away from the Decepticons, who were realigning themselves to his new position and apparent attack. Only one of them was quick enough to see what he was doing and take advantage of it before he reached Diff and Rim.
But in this deadly game, one was enough.
Bumblebee didn't so much feel the shot that punctured his armor right below the chest plate at his back, as he was aware of the flash of destructive energy that tore upwards, spreading through his chest, and finally dissipating somewhere in his shoulder on that side. He was aware when he fell, though he was too stunned by the hit to even try maintaining his balance. Vaguely, he knew he was leaking, and he felt a strike of anger at the waste of energon draining into the dirt.
He knew he should get up, even as he knew that time was nearly up. Any second, an explosion would rip through the area, obliterating anyone and anything that had failed to get out of the way fast enough. But he lay, listening to the seemingly distant sound of blaster fire and shouting. He made no move to assist when Diff or Rim (he didn't know which; it didn't seem to matter) knelt beside him, grabbed him and tried to drag him to his feet. He knew they were yelling at him, and he figured they were telling him to get up, that it was time to go, but he couldn't hear them, didn't understand, didn't care.
{Just let me go,} he said quietly, or maybe he only thought it, {Just go.}
Sounds were faint and crackling now, he didn't know if there was a reply. The world had turned to blurry pixels, color and clarity were fading fast. Bumblebee did not think he was dying. He had thought that and been wrong before. If and when he died, it was going to come as a surprise. He knew it could happen at any time, but trying to anticipate when and how he would go was simply a waste.
The world seemed to pulse, to flash blinding white, and then it all went black.