upside down | transformers - bayverse

ii. chapter nine

Mikayla didn't know what to do. All she saw was blood running down from an arm that had no end. A flow of red so deep that she could swim in its embrace. And her best friend lay at the other end of it.

Shouting reached her ears, but she couldn't process it. It made her skin crawl. She noticed the slight shiver of her friend's frame as her eyes slowly closed, her body falling limp to the open servo of her guardian.

The brunette didn't want to look up at the silver mech's face, too afraid to register that anything bad was really happening. Maybe this was all some dream. The desert heat must be getting to her. Yeah, that had to be it.

"Move out of the way!"

A voice broke through her thoughts, and reality crumbled around her. A broken expression fell into one of terror and fear of her friend's life. Quickly heeding the medic's words, she ran to the other side of the second-in-command.

From this angle, she could see the fear in the eyes of the ones the two trusted most. It was true that they won, but at what cost to their soldiers? Their spirit?

Their friends?

Her stomach twisted, colors flashing by in a whirlwind. Red Alert, who was more familiar with treating flesh wounds, was scanning her vitals, while Epps started screaming nonsense into his walkie talkie for an airlift.

When the blood of her friend began to stain the sand around them, she snapped out of the trance.

She didn't even realize that she'd been crying until the tears blurred her vision so much that she couldn't see.

The people that surrounded her were all trying to get the young blonde to wake up. Mikayla begged her friend to wake up. To show some kind of life besides the slightest rise and fall of her chest.

People and autobots alike surrounded the area, most of them looking at the scene with fear. There was a moment, a pause that echoed in their ears as the familiar red and yellow of the rest of their mismatched family joined them, smiling until they saw just what was happening.

Mikayla recognized the looks the two gave each other before joining the rest of the autobots in a show of silence- quiet for the first time since they arrived on Earth. Sometimes the fear of death brought even the strongest to their knees.

Jazz looked the most fearful of them all.

Once her red face had looked up for the first time, all she saw were expressions of hurt and fear. Were they about to lose another? How many would need to die in order for their cause to gain any kind of meaning or importance to those who fought for it?

Was it easier to just submit?

Her thoughts ran too fast for her heart to catch up. She was stuck in a loop of what they could have done better. Which outcome could have given them the better rate of survival. While it was true that Arcee didn't lose her life, and it was true that more soldiers survived this battle than they would have without..

It was still a large price to pay with fate. A price that they might have to pay with their lives.

And the brunette may experience the grief of that firsthand.

Red Alert still monitored the girl's vitals, updating the paramedics on the field with her condition. No one wanted her to die. Not like this, and certainly not to a decepticon.

Jazz stood over them, having already placed the girl on the blanket that they provided. The on foot-medics were all concentrating their efforts to make sure the girl would live. The silver mech was right beside Red as the he looked down at her body in helplessness.