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It was not supposed to have happened like this. It was not supposed to have happened, period, but especially not like this.
Rodimus had imagined that their end would have come in a blaze of glory, the Lost Light and her crew in the sky above him as they defeated a vast galaxy-spanning threat and saved countless trillions of lives that would forever remember their sacrifice.
But instead, they were stuck here. In what might at one point have been a sewage tunnel, huddling against iron bars that refused to budge, while everywhere around them, there were shouts from the hunters. The earth shaking from explosions when bombs went off, meant to flush out the mechanoids on the run.
He looked to the others; the survivors of Team Rodimus. What few of them that were left, at least—Ratchet sat at the back, head bowed and clinging desperately to the grey corpse that had once been Drift, as if love and prayers could do what even their most skilled medic could not. Swerve, staring silently at the ground. Brainstorm, half propped up against the wall, still alive, though how his optics were focused on nothing and his spark's irregular flares could be seen through the tears in his chestplate, that was a temporary state at best. Cyclonus, one arm missing, clutching a catatonic Tailgate close.
The bottom of the tunnel was pink from their combined injuries. Rodimus himself could feel the energon constantly seeping through his fingers despite his best attempts to keep the gash in his middle closed—the result of a close encounter with one of the organic hunters. He was still not sure what exactly any of them had done to warrant the attack in the first place; they had landed, as usual, on a new planet. They had had Blaster play cheerful music as they approached the nearest settlement, and bedecked themselves in bright colours, just like all the other planets they visited. Being loud and flashy had always been a good way to show a lack of aggression up until now.
And it had seemed like it had worked like normal. Right up until Blaster stepped on a landmine, and then the entire crowd of organics had fallen on the first bots like a swarm of scraplets.
Only a few of them had brought weapons. They had not found as much as a trace of other mechanical lifeforms before, and their natural plating had usually been more than sufficient to ward off any aggressive spears or primitive kinetic weaponry. So of course those few had tried to defend the others, tried to buy them time.
The EMP had shocked everyone when it went off. Those that it did not knock out, at least, to be at the mercy of the rabid mob. Only the fact that Rodimus had been on the very edge of the defenders, and close enough for someone to snag his spoiler and drag him away when he fell, meant he was still alive.
He had no idea what had happened to the Lost Light itself. What had happened to the crew onboard. They had tried—oh, how they had tried—to get in touch. Every comms channel they had, every radio frequency, everything they could think of, but no response. If the organics had EMPs, though, they might have had some way to scramble electronic communications. The only way to get the ship's attention for rescue would be some kind of visual signal... But, Rewind had been the only one of them who had brought anything that could project, and he had been trampled alongside Chromedome and Nautica by the organics in the first wave.
Which left the unarmed bots with very few options, none of which wouldn't alert the organics as well.
Not unless they had a bomb of their own. But Brainstorm was unresponsive, and no one else had the capability to build anything explosive.
Except...
"Swerve," Rodimus said, flinching at the roughness of his own vocaliser. "Did you bring any engex?"
"Now?" Swerve asked, and it was a testament to how tense the situation was that he stuck to that one word, even as he pulled out a bottle of... Nightmare Fuel.
Rodimus grinned, snatching it from Swerve's hand.
Cyclonus raised his head slowly, clearly in pain, and Rodimus was pretty sure the old bot recognised the look in his own eyes. "Captain?"
"I have a plan," Rodimus said, mouth filling with energon. He spat on the ground, adding to the pink, and twisted the cork off the bottle. The neck broke as well, but he didn't worry about getting glass shards in the contents. Any damage they could inflict would only support his plan. "When I give the signal, run to the ship. Do what you can to survive and get out of here."
Cyclonus gave him a long look, and then, slowly, nodded, clearly understanding.
Rodimus nodded back, put the bottle to his lips, and drank.
It was a credit to whoever had designed them that FIM chips were extremely durable. Despite the stabbing, despite the EMP, it was still working, even against a whole bottle of Nightmare Fuel. Well. Mostly. The roil in his tank was probably something that even FIM chips couldn't help against, but it wouldn't last long. It wouldn't need to.
Limping to his feet, Rodimus stepped out of the tunnel and onto the churned ground cover. Maybe it was grass. Maybe it was something entirely else. Once upon a time, the bots would happily have gathered to investigate and marvel over the variety of life in their new home universe. Right now? Right now, he would have given anything for sterile metal and a lack of organic anything.
And especially right now, he needed distance. Refusing to look back, and trusting in his crew to let him do this, he hobbled as fast as he could; knowing all too well how bright his natural colours stood out against the muted blues and violets of the plants around him. A bright, easily-spotted target. He had cursed it when they had been fleeing, knowing the danger his mere presence put his crew—his friends—in. Now, that same element would be to his benefit.
"Come and get me!" he screamed at the world, feet carrying him one step at a time. "I'm here!"
Once upon a time, he had longed for attention. Had desired adoration and accolades. To stand above the rest, to reach for the stars and have them reach back. Then, he had carried the matrix in his chest; had it fused to his body and its energy spinning his spark across injuries that he could not have survived otherwise. He had received the accolades and fame he wanted, but with it had come responsibilities that he had not. With cold decisions and hard choices that he hated.
He had tried to be a leader. Tried to make the decisions that had to be made, to pay the costs that had to be paid.
And he had killed so many in the process. Bad decisions upon wrong choices, until he had wanted nothing more than to curl up in a hole and return to being a nobody. But the universe had refused, and he had been dragged kicking and screaming into growing. Into improving. Into becoming aware of just how poorly he filled the shoes Optimus had vacated for him, until the Prime had returned to take over and made Rodimus aware all over again of how he was not a leader.
And after all that, a mere eight years in the Lost Light's captain seat and working alongside Megatron had done more for him than the previous four million years had. Had given him the growth and the self-esteem and the realisation of who, exactly, Rodimus was outside of the desire for recognition. And Rodimus would not have traded the experience for anything.
Around him, he could see the organics closing in. Strange spears and odd weaponry at the ready, So small. So fragile.
He turned, finally, and saw the faint flicker of optical lights within the tunnel several hundred feet away. With a smile, he raised the near-empty bottle in salute.
"'Till all are one!" he shouted, feeling at peace for perhaps the first time in his life.
And then his spark flared, and the Nightmare Fuel in his tank, leaking into his internals through the gash, ignited.
In another universe, Nightmare Fuel had once shifted a warworld into hyperspace.
In this one, it took out nearly a thousand organics and left a pillar of flame eight hundred feet tall.