Kickassia

Years ago, events would have played out differently.

In the wake of the crash, Perceptor would have been elbows-deep in coding; while the others scouted a safe location, he would have been assessing their systems and security protocols, scanning logs and combing the wreckage for some hint of what had gone wrong. The Decepticon's attack had slipped past their defenses without so much as a blip - it was too perfect. The mystery would have plagued him for days, dominating his thoughts even with the Swarm bearing down on them...

But that time had passed.

Study had been set aside in favour of ballistics, verbose enthusiasm traded for stoicism. Curiosity had been replaced by the will to survive. The question of 'how' was still there, albeit relegated to some far corner of his mind. So long as they were stranded on a dead homeworld, Swarm closing in on their energy signatures, method and mysteries weren't important.

With the others busying themselves securing their likely temporary hiding spot, Perceptor had taken it upon himself to move to the upper levels. The range of his scope had them beat no matter how they sliced it. While they could argue the motivations behind his reformatting, they couldn't argue with the results - if anything so much as twitched, it would have a bullet between the optics before it could process the idea of being a threat.

He settled himself against one of the blackened walls, rifle resting against his thighs as he glanced out at the broken terrain. It wasn't the Cybertron he remembered - but then, he wasn't the 'bot who'd been there to remember it. Not anymore, anyway.