With the AllSpark located, the Scouts regrouped and held a tight defensive formation. Actually, it was less the AllSpark than the passage that would lead to it, but that was as close as the Scouts dared venture. There were only five of them, not enough to fend off more than a few Decepticons if they were discovered, making the final line of defense the imprecision of their location. It would buy a few extra seconds at most, but seconds could be everything.
The scouts didn't have to wait long, though they spent the entire time certain they were about to be set upon by Decepticons and die. Optimus and his team deployed much closer to the site than the scouts had, but still some way off. Even so, the clock was now ticking.
Given the Decepticons knew the vicinity of the AllSpark, they would have scanners peeled for Ground Bridge activity, and would mobilize the very instant the Bridge was detected. Optimus had decided that was a necessary risk, as he and many of his team were too recognizable to drive through Tyger Pax unnoticed. The time they saved driving would be needed to enact the launch.
At once, the scouts relievedly gave up their defensive positions to the Warriors. With barely a glance at their Prime, the scouts dispersed to the best high points in the surrounding area to provide a wider field of view. Meanwhile, the Wreckers left the Ground Bridge and headed for Tyger Pax to intercept the Decepticons and act as a raucous misdirection that would (hopefully) keep Megatron and his army away from the launch site for long enough that the mission could be completed.
For the moment, the only duty of the scouts was lookout. But, if the ruse of the Wreckers was found out or their line broken, the scouts would be the warning for the Warriors, who were also moving out from the center of activity to make a defensive line that would keep the Decepticons guessing about the final location of the AllSpark, and they would act as the second line of defense. The scouts, if necessary, would join the Warriors, but they were not as large, powerful or battle experienced and were likely to be overcome fairly easily by comparison.
Bumblebee already had a plan for that if the time came, one which he hoped would allow him to be more useful than mere cannon fodder. But he hoped the time wouldn't come because, if it did, his odds of survival would be at an all-time low. He never liked to play those odds, but even so, there was a sense of excitement in his mind about it. There always was if it was to be a race. And it was.
Knock Out had, at the time, been marshaled to a base that would serve as relief center for the battle Megatron anticipated would happen at Tyger Pax. Knock Out didn't know that. In fact, he was nowhere near Tyger Pax, whose wounded would be removed from the field of battle to another location, and from there to his via Ground Bridge. Knock Out didn't know that, either.
In fact, no one had seen fit to tell him and Breakdown anything at all, other than their orders to report to yet another temporary station. It was then and there that he would begin to see the casualties from the front lines en masse, and bear witness to their loyalty, as well as their conviction not only that Megatron's crusade was just, but that the Autobots were indeed trying to destroy them all.
Not one mentioned the city he'd come from, or what the battle had been about, and Knock Out hadn't asked. If he had, he might have agreed with them. After all, he'd gone deep enough into the records to know just what it was that the Autobots were trying to launch to keep it from Megatron's hands, and just what Megatron wanted to use it for. Capture the AllSpark, capture everything.
But Knock Out didn't know. To him, that posting was nothing more remarkable than his first reunion with Shockwave since apprenticing under him (if one wanted to call it that) in Kaon.
Shockwave told him that he could expect a long day of work, and that no whining would be tolerated.
"When have I ever whined to you?" Knock Out retorted, incensed.
It was only later that he would realize what a transformation he'd gone through. Despite the fact Shockwave could have turned him into a paint scraping on a wall, or worse turned him into a lab animal, Knock Out no longer feared the mad scientist as he once had. Even Shockwave had to accept ornery behavior from a surgeon, because there were so few, and they were so needed.
But Knock Out didn't have time to appreciate the thrill of power, because the casualties started coming in, one after the other, faster than he could keep up with them, more than he'd ever seen before.
Great Cybertron, what was happening out there!?
Tyger Pax was on fire. The flames licked towards the void of the sky, choked for want of oxygen, then burst brilliant anew whenever a new fuel source became caught in the conflagration. The blaze made a massive target of the city, over which swirled dozens of Seeker Flights, darting and dancing about like hungry scraplets looking for the feast. Below them were the Wreckers, who were more than living up to their name today, with explosion after explosion turning the shining city to so much ruin in a matter of minutes.. or was it hours? Bumblebee didn't know, time had no meaning today. Today there was only the beginning and the end, and everything in between was just holding out.
Somehow, the Wreckers had given the Decepticons reason to think the target was Tyger Pax itself, and the bloody fighting spilled everywhere onto the streets. Jets dropped low to rip the road and buildings apart with barrage after barrage of fire, only for high-perched Wreckers to drop down on them from buildings and tear off their wings with their bare hands. Wreckers launched rockets and grenades at the Seekers, who soared skyward at dizzying speeds and then dove back down to exact revenge once the threat was passed. Civilians, if there ever had been any in that city, were nowhere to be found. On the ground, the spies on either side had either joined the fray or slipped quickly away on business of their own, and the mercenaries ducked out because they didn't get paid enough for this scrap.
It went on. And on. And on. There was no end to it. Ground Bridges flashed open time and again, bringing reinforcements or withdrawing wounded when it was feasible, but more often than not they were on their own as a Ground Bridge was too great a risk for either side just now.
And, with the Decepticons having absolute air superiority, there was only one way it could ultimately end. There were maybe two Wreckers that had clunky ships they flew in, but nary a one with a flight mode of his own. They didn't stand a chance in combat like this. Starscream's Seekers, now headed by Megatron himself, would tear them to pieces in the end.
Sooner or later, the Wreckers would be done for, or else have to pull out. They wouldn't have any fighters left. The Warriors would have to go next, getting torn to shreds even more easily because there was less cover outside of Tyger Pax and they were not brutes like the Wreckers. Warriors had elegant style, and preferred distance to their combat. This close-in, rip-out-the-circuits fighting was Wrecker-style. Cliffjumper might make a fair go of it, Bumblebee thought, maybe Ironhide, but so many of the others flat weren't bulky enough for that kind of showdown. Warriors like Jazz and Sunstreaker would simply be turned to so many metal fragments in one or maybe two runs of the Seekers.
Then no one would stand between Megatron and the Allspark but Optimus Prime and his least capable fighters. They'd hold to the last bot, but to what end? For what purpose? Just to say they fought and lost, instead of just lost? It was the same old question. Why?
Well, Bumblebee decided that he absolutely would not have it. Leaving his post on a rimrock, Bumblebee shot downslope and across the dusty landscape until he reached the road to Tyger Pax, his engine roaring fierce defiance to drown out the fearful pulsing of his spark.
"By the AllSpark, where are you going, you fool?!" That was Jazz on the radio, but Bumblebee ignored him, as he ignored the followup by Cliffjumper, "Get back here, you coward!"
They thought he was running to the Decepticons. Very well, let them believe it. Bumblebee turned off his radio as he approached Tyger Pax, and then shut off his lights. At first, he was unmolested, just a vehicle driving through a battle as if it were nothing to do with him.
However, his speed and the well-viewed situation meant that couldn't last. A little Autobot running without his lights, not a Wrecker for sure, bolting along at a crisp one-twenty-five an hour, said he was going someplace and hoping not to be noticed. As if he knew exactly where to go.
Megatron may have given the order, but Bumblebee would only ever hear it in his imagination.
Get that Scout. Capture him. I want that one alive.
Racing along, Bumblebee was aware of the Flight of Seekers that had broken from the combat crashing all around to tack onto him and pursue. They were not able to do so very well because of the buildings, and the Wreckers, who were more than happy to take their free shots on the distracted Seekers. But the Seekers would keep coming, Bumblebee didn't have to worry about that. More would be moved in to replace any the Wreckers destroyed, just as long as they had a bead on the Scout who seemed to be in an awful hurry to get some place very important. Some place that Megatron wanted to know about.
"Bee! What are you doing down here? Where are you going?" He heard Bulkhead, but didn't answer as he drove past without so much as slowing down.
Now the Wreckers were in on it. The Scout was going somewhere. They didn't know where or what for, but they felt the Decepticons ought to be prevented from following him. They wouldn't be able to manage it, but they'd give it their best. And that supported the illusion that Bumblebee was actually a high value target. There was just enough truth to that to be dangerous, but that was why the deception worked so well. Bumblebee's Decepticon teachers had taught him well.
He didn't even have to keep it up forever. Every single second he bought with the ruse was another second closer to a successful mission. Every single Seeker he dragged after him was one fewer on the Wreckers, one fewer for the Warriors to face. One more chance to survive. One more chance to succeed. One more chance for the Autobots. One more chance for freedom. Just drive.
One more time. Drive.
Bumblebee knew he should be scared. He'd been scared when he came through Tyger Pax earlier, and the premonition of disaster about to befall him was still with him as close as his own shadow, yet he wasn't afraid any longer. In fact, he was exhilarated. He felt as if, for the first time, he was doing what he'd been brought online to do. Everything else had been nothing but preamble, this race to the death, fighting Megatron's forces to the hilt, turning them from their victory at the eleventh hour… this is what he existed for. This was his purpose, what had been calling to him all along
It seemed strange to have it come to him now, even before the why had come with it, but that's how it was. This war was, at last, his own; he knew his side and would give his all for it.
Megatron had appeared at the spearhead of the Seekers, though Bumblebee didn't know when that had happened. A great, deafening thunderclap of a jet engine kicked the air above him and a horrible dark cloud descended closer. Megatron was going to overtake him. He'd forgotten how enormous the Decepticon leader was, the crushing sense of the inevitable defeat that came with his oppressive presence. He'd forgotten, but after Tyger Pax, he would never forget again.
He had no inkling of the fact, but in the future it would be his primary goal to thwart and mock Megatron at every turn when he had the ability and, to his immense surprise, this was not the last time he would find himself trying to outrun that which could not be outrun.
Megatron would catch him now, and catch him again. Like Death itself, the gray flier descended over Bumblebee, fearless in the confines of Tyger Pax, and finally catching him just as he got out of the city. Pulling up and drawing back, Megatron lined up and took a single shot at Bumblebee that jolted him stem to stern, locked up his steering and make him involuntarily hit the brakes; a miscue that sent him spinning out of control. He rolled into a transformation and brought his blasters to bear.
If Megatron wanted Bumblebee caught, he'd have to fight for it.
One more soldier. One more second. One more chance.
With Megatron circling overhead to make a clear landing, Bumblebee laid out the welcome mat, blasting away at him and the Seekers formed up behind him for all he was worth.
"Come and get me, 'cons!" Bumblebee snarled. "I'll send you to your damned Pit!"
And come and get him they did.