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Just a skirmish with a couple of Seekers. That’s all it was supposed to be.
Red Alert and Jetfire were held up behind a piece of rubble, gunfire blasting their shield.
“It’s not gonna last,” Red Alert grunted as he tried to get a look beyond the rubble. At some point, the rubble was going to fail them, crumble and they would either have to run or fight.
“Red!” Elita’s voice on the comm. “What’s your status?
”Held up with a couple of Seekers right now.”
“Not for long,” Jetfire slowly started to stand. “On my say, cover me.” He unsheathed his sword.
Elita groaned over the comm. “Just get out of there alive, it’s not worth your lives. We’ll…we’ll find more energon.”
Jetfire tuned in the line to speak with Elita directly. “Where? The planet is dying- where are we going to find more energon?”
“It’s not worth your lives-“
The gunfire seemed to calm down a bit. “I’ll be fine, Elita. I’ve been through worse.”
“Jetfire, that’s not a good thing.”
Voices called out from beyond the rubble. “Why aren’t you fighting back? Did we kill ya? Waiting for backup?”
Jetfire gave the cue to Red Alert. He leaped up from behind the rubble, and came running at full force towards the Seekers. Red Alert popped up from behind and fired shots at the Seekers. One of them came running for Jetfire, blaster loaded before Jetfire slashed his sword across their chassis. They faltered a bit before being shot down by Red Alert.
“Red! What’s happening?!”
“Jetfire decided to confront them…we got one down just one more to-“
The second Seeker blasted at Jetfire, hitting him in the chassis. Jetfire groaned as his hand came to cover the wound. He panted before running towards the Seeker and swinging his sword. They dodged, and fired another shot at Jetfire.
“Jetfire! Fall back! Elita, be prepared to-“
The Seeker pulled out a bludgeon, and with their blaster, shot Jetfire against, bringing him to the ground. Red Alert ran from the rubble, reloading his blaster, getting ready to shoot again. The Seeker raised the bludgeon and smacked Jetfire on the head, hard.
Time seemed to slow down. All of a sudden, there was a boom, yelling from Jetfire and smoke. Red Alert shot at the Seeker several times, bringing them to the ground. He ran around to observe the damage-
Oh, Primus-
Half of Jetfire’s face was blown off, leaving his processor exposed. His left optic was dark, no longer operational.
No. No, the override-
It shouldn’t-
No-
“Elita! We need help, now, Jetfire’s down!”
Jetfire was breathing heavily, struggling to stay awake.
“On our way! What happened?”
Red Alert grunted as he grabbed his first aid kit. “The core override.”
“Core override? I thought it was deactivated-“
“Me too, clearly, we were wrong.” Did he still have time to save Jetfire? “Jetfire, you need to stay awake.” Jetfire wheezed before coughing up some energon.
“Slag,” Red Alert muttered as he grabbed some emergency patches from the first aid kit. “Just hold on, I’ll get you more patched up at the theater.”
Jetfire functional optic looked over at him. “Red…”
“It’ll…it’ll be fine.”
*
Elita and Chromia slammed Jetfire on the closest surface they could find while Red Alert quickly grabbed more equipment.
“I need energon, stat.”
Chromia nodded and ran off to their supply to find energon. Red Alert powered on his tools and some more patches.
“C’mon, Jetfire, stay with me…” Jetfire’s optic was flickering on and off. His breathing was slowing and his plating was graying. “No, no, no…”
Red Alert was working on patching up Jetfire’s face more until he felt a squeeze on his hand. He looked down, and saw Jetfire smiling softly at him before his optic finally shut off.
“Red Alert, I got the energon-“ he slammed down his tool on the table as Jetfire’s plating turned completely gray. Jetfire was gone. Red Alert couldn’t save him. Elita came up from behind him.
“Red, I’m sorry,” Elita spoke softly, putting her hand on his shoulder.
They could’ve prevented this. They could’ve taken the core override out of his head, and this wouldn’t have happened. Jetfire would still be with them.
“Just…Chromia, there’s other bots that probably could use that energon. Just put it on the table, I’ll…” Red Alert moved from Elita to clean up his tools and get a final look on Jetfire’s disfigured face.
Elita went over to Chromia and whispered something to her before both of them left Red Alert and Jetfire alone. Red Alert sighed and grabbed the energon cubes, no longer able to look at Jetfire anymore.