Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(Warning: Contains Death, Suicide and lots of angst. Sorry no funny stuff today, I'm feeling depressed... hope you enjoy.)

The Silence had come to Praxus.

Femmes and Mechs had occasionally talked of it. A once good and prosperous city or town would vanish into the Cybertronian night, and in the cycles following it would fall silent, building after building, frame by frame until nothing remained but shattered frames and dreams.

The Silence had originated in Kaon and had greedily followed the wake of Decepticons wherever they marched, swallowing every frame not pulled from the rubble fast enough.

They never expected it here; never here in a neutral city of culture and noise.

With a pained cough, a black and white plated mech splattered in the life fluids of himself and others, managed to push a deactivated frame from his torso, the grey mech having already been claimed by the migrating Silence as it flopped back into the ash and gooey fluids like a discarded rag doll.

He heaved himself up into a sitting position energy spent; whimpering when he tried to stretch out his doorwings, the crumpled appendages scraping along the slab he now leaned against in his shelter of metal. His golden optics flickered in dull interest as a femme, distraught with a dead sparkling in her grasp wandered by covered in grime and energon, her expression blank as she tried to understand that the spark she had previously been nurturing for at least a few vorns was dead. Parental programming was a curse when the Silence claimed its victims.

He tried to get his vocaliser to make a protest as the femme picked up a discarded rifle of Decepticon origin and held it to her helm, leaning down to kiss her dead youngling and snuggle it to her chest plates before the resounding crack of a gunshot split the Silence that had descended over the tortured city before it was swallowed, tapering off with an ill sounding echo.

His gold optics, one fractured and slightly blurry watched it all in horror, his white servo, covered in grime and fractures of stress lifting slightly as if to catch the femme as she toppled to the frame strewn ground clutching her deceased offspring tightly, a hole in her helm that sparked and smoked releasing the smell of charred internals that made the downed mech watching wrinkle his olfactory sensor in disgust.

He looked down at his legs and pedes with a wince, one was completely crushed, the other in a startlingly fine condition that made him want to laugh hysterically. Instead he thumped his helm against the slab of metal that supported him, releasing a whimper when only one point of his once majestic ruby chevron registered feeling as the point ground into the slab. The injury enquiry he sent out to his systems made him wince as enough errors to fill several data-pads was thrown across his vision. He quickly shut them down as he saw the internal leaking error, it wouldn't be long till he bled out then…

Pain hadn't come yet and hopefully it wouldn't. He would deactivate here in his beloved city before any of that happened. Speaking of said city, he gazed out of his dying place and searched the now relatively flat area surrounding the now decimated square that he had been patrolling when the first bombs came to cause the Silence.

He nearly wailed as he saw buildings and towers had buckled and leaned against their stubby charred neighbours burning from the inside out, the metal that held them slanted, groaning feverishly as embers and ash fell from the heavy smog of destruction above like snow. A lamppost bent and curled over itself from the heat and flames that licked at its base flickered with light, throwing partial illuminating beams onto the broken frames of mechs, femmes and sparkling that were strewn around haphazardly visions of terror and horror twisting their faceplates.

Silence reined here in this space.

Only… there was a shuffle and a small terrified whimper as he gave a shuddering cough of surprise, energon trickling from between his denta as a tingle of pain began to worm its way into his processor. He rebooted his vocaliser as the scurrying stopped just before his alcove in the rubble and his voice came out with a rasping whine, "Who's there?"

The creature or lucky Cybertronian squealed softly in terror. "I'm Bluestreak." The childish voice stammered back, "Who're you… sir?" the voice asked as if just remembering his manners, a small grey helm with a blunt red chevron peered around the slab to stare at the downed enforcer that sat dying calmly in front of the burning Crystal Gardens. It was a Cybertronian then.

Golden optics scanned the child that trotted into the alcove, wide baby blue optics staring appalled at the deactivated frame that lay beside the downed mech. "Can you help me find my Carrier?" the youngling asked with a shudder, his little winglet fluttering in horror as he gazed at the dirt covered, crumpled set of the mech.

"My name is Prowl." He replied soothingly his vocaliser flushing occasionally with pained static, beckoning the youngling to sit next to him, the small mech was almost in mint condition had it not been for his grazed knee and elbow joints. "I was an enforcer. Don't worry; your carrier has probably gone to get help. Come sit and wait for her, it's dangerous out there." A lie about the fate of his perhaps, but the child needed to hear it.

"Why is everybody deactivated?" the child whispered, shuffling closer and snuggling into his already aching side, making him wince slightly in discomfort.

Prowl sighed, his vents flushing air that stirred the dry dirt that wasn't currently being clogged by his energon, steadily leaking from his frame. Instead of answering, he soothingly began to croon, opening a public channel that all of Praxus had access to and had once been used for enforcer news and ring ups. His lullaby echoed through the radios of those still struggling to live, gently lulling those who were dying to Primus with smiles. Others, stronger, but still slowly leaving the world of the living began to sing too.

The Silence broke and Prowl smiled through the energon that leaked from his mouth as the youngling was sent softly into recharge as the world outside the alcove of rubble died and burned.

The Silence would come here eventually.

But for now, the cherished sound of noise, took its place.