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It should have ended there.
He was convinced it had as he felt the first blast strike him, tearing through his chassis. The cold air of the ship could be felt on his very spark, energon now running freely through severed fuel lines onto the grated ground. Too close. This was it.
The plasma fire near was deafening, yet grew to a hushed whisper as his brain module re-routed his dwindling power away from his audials so he could concentrate on turning over. The need to escape and live another day was his main priority now. He couldn’t fight, especially not like this, with a gaping hole in his chest. With a heave he managed to lay on his back, finding himself now unable to get up.
His energon levels dropped 40% in these few fleeting moments. The dull paneling of the ship’s hull greeted his optics before they focused on a last figure. A Decepticon. They didn’t know his name. He would never know theirs. A last, much more personal blast of plasma struck his faceplate. It caused a searing sensation unlike any other he had known. If he believed in Primus anymore, he would have prayed to never feel that pain again. They hardly gave him a second glance as they did so. This was a war after all. He knew he was not the first and would be far from the last to experience a fall in combat such as this.
He was convinced that was it. There was no logical way out of this. It was over.
Like so many Autobots, so many Cybertonians before him, he knew he was yet another casualty in this lengthy, perilous war. Perhaps that was why it shocked him so that he sensed his mind still functioning, remaining optic clicking on as a chill struck every one of his thermal sensors as they activated. He was in a stasis tank.
How in the quantum realm did he end up here?
Unable to move, he drew his attention inward to where he knew he had always been the most valuable to anyone around him: his mind.
So he was alive. Good start.
What next?
How to live. How to stay this way. How to stay alive. He had survived, but what were his injuries? What was the cost? He sure hadn't escaped unscathed...the question was pushed to the back of his mind as he now recognized his surroundings to be in the Wrecker's med bay. Reorienting his thoughts, he focused on a further plan. So he had been rescued and was medically stable for now. Good. What next?
He couldn’t have a repeat of that disaster and if he was to end up in a similar situation, he knew he wanted a fighting chance at least.
Fighting.
Good, that was a start.
He needed a weapon. The skill to weild it. He was a scientist, perhaps something relating to chemical weapons…bombs? No, too loud and oblivious in many situations that required a lighter, more concentrated effect. Besides there was enough loud and oblivious on the Wreckers already. He needed something else…Stealth. Precision. Lethality. Something that perhaps allowed him to fight at a longer distance since he was far from a master of hand-to-hand combat. Not yet anyway. He'd ask Kup and Springer about conducting training for that.
A weapon...A gun. Ranged. A rifle perhaps. Sniper? Even better. With his microscope alt mode, he held a further advantage over his aim than the usual combatant. Good. That would work. He would need some notifications first.
Lots of them.
Good. Very good. He was making progress now.
He was never going to end up a helpless pile of scrap on the ground again. This was a war. If anything he was simply disappointed in himself for taking this long, enduring what he had, to come to this conclusion.
If he was to survive, he needed to adapt.
Change or die.
To stagnate in one’s role was to be no better than a walking husk of a frame, no better than the many offlined mechs who came before. No. He wouldn’t be this. Not after what he survived through. The war had now touched him so personally as it had to millions of other Cybertronians before him, as he knew he was no longer spared from its wrath. If anything he was now more aware than ever that he was lucky it had taken this long for something such as this to occur. If he did not learn from the scars of this experience, he was bound to end up as yet another name added to the growing list of the dead, however despite how death itself had nearly swept him up into it's endless caress of obscurity he resisted. Its touch would not take him so easily.
Afterall, wasn’t harboring the ability to change a defining factor of their species?
Perceptor thought so. A newly determined sense of finality to his plans overtook his mind as he forced a stiff arm to move over to the monitor screen within the cylindrical glass pod. A click signaled the disengaging lock of the stasis tank he was in.
It was time to get to work.