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The transmission opened on a spark-wrenching sight and didn’t improve from there.
“This is Lieutenant Locust,” the young green and yellow mech shouts, static and low volume doing nothing to dim the intensity of his words, his expression. Certainly not the way he leans against the comm console for support, energon still dripping from the ruin of mutilated wings. “Mayday call, mayday call! War and Peace can Break the Stars, Pride still goes before the Fall! I repeat, Pride still goessh -fore the fffzk-”
The whole thing briefly fritzes, vague blobs of color moving around the screen, nothing audible besides the roar of static. Then the transmission resolves itself again, with a bigger, stronger frame pinning Locust down. Still next to the console. Still close enough for the microphone to pick up their snarls.
“Take it back!” The larger aggressor orders, claws buried in one of Locust’s shoulder joints, rendering his left arm useless. “Call them, take it back, tell them it’s a mistake!”
“Pride still goes before the-”
“Shut UP! Take it back!”
“Pride still-”
A brutal beating takes place. Fists smashing and claws slashing, ripping away the young mech’s plating, tearing into his cables, his circuitry. And still, no matter what his attacker demands, Locust only repeats the code phrase every Patrol agent knows never to use except for the worst of emergencies. The one that says the world might end if you don’t come. The one that summons Pridefall.
It’s the only weapon Locust can use as he’s ruthlessly torn apart. Until those claws dig into a particular spot right at the top of his neck, and the words die with a harsh screech and gurgle.
A bare moment later, the bigger mech freezes, staring with clear horror at the crushed voicebox in his grasp. Then his expression returns to fury, and he roars, “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!”
Locust looks, barely. One optic is dark and shattered; the other spasms, cracks obvious across the green lens.
He smirks.
With a howl, his attacker brings that fist down again, and once more, both direct hits to Locust’s remaining optic, putting it out of commission as well. But- there isn’t a third hit. There isn’t time. A sudden golden glow lights up the transmission, and the enraged mech lifts his head, glaring in the direction it’s coming from.
For a split second, his rage drops into pure alarm.
Then a blurred yellow figure SLAMS against dark metal, too fast to be properly seen, trailing lines of intense lightning that promptly fill the screen with fresh static - and there the transmission ends.
Bumblebee watched the whole thing at least a dozen times. First, live, as it came to the Terratron Patrol’s flagship. And on repeat, later, after the War and Peace squadron pulled off a successful extraction, after Pridefall landed directly atop the base where Locust sent his call for help.
After Bee made sure both his children made it to the medical hub for repairs.
He eventually stopped the repeating loop of footage. His office remained quiet for a few minutes, until a soft chime came from the internal comm network. [::Sir?::]
Sighing, Bee answered. “Yes, Pride.”
[::Guideline has signed off on Luck and Netty’s release from MedHub. Do you want to see the updates to their medical files?::]
“Probably better if I don’t,” he murmured, gazing distantly at the far wall. Cybermatter remained one of the best things post-war Cybertron had figured out how to produce, in his humble opinion. Thirty seconds, and the worst sorts of debilitating injuries could be repaired without even a single scar to show for it. Didn’t change the fact he hated when either of his kids needed to be dropped into a CM tank after a mission gone wrong.
The shipformer who housed most members of the Patrol simply hummed, and used an override to shut off the feeds of his desk console. [::According to my media research, this should be the part where the emotionally distressed guardian goes to his charges for a hug::]
That earned a snort. “Hint taken.”
Hornet would be her usual bubbly self. Locust wouldn’t give off a single sign of his earlier beating. They’ll crash into Bumblebee with delighted cries, insist on telling him all the epic highlights of their infiltration mission (recon, it was supposed to be simple recon, with a full squad instead of two agents alone), and then drag him off to go find Dragonfly and repeat every word like nothing in the world is wrong.
(Yellow plating scorched almost completely black from electric surge overuse, fluid levels dropped into single digit percentages. Wings ruined and optics dark and voicebox gone, the worst of Bee and Fly’s respective wartime injuries all rolled into the same awful thirty-second span. None of it mentioned anywhere except medical reports and a post-mission debrief.)
Bumblebee decided in advance to offer a Family Movie Night, nevermind it being a few days early from their usual monthly get-together. Something slow-moving, probably Earth pre-22nd century, practically guaranteed to send his grown kids to recharge in no time at all.
And he would be there, already holding them, when the nightmares inevitably arrived.