Red Alert never expected to lose her left hand.

There were several other body parts for her to lose, which were all easily replaceable. A leg, or an entire arm, or a piece of her head, her kibble, her headlights, maybe even her whole arm would be more convenient. But of course, today was not a day for convenience. No, today, everyone had lost something.

However the Decepticons managed to get the coordinates to Fortress Maximus, it was never explained. One of the new cadets, a 'bot named Longarm, had suggested that it was either dumb luck on the Decepticons' part or an act of desperation after learning that their double-agent had been arrested. Of course, Red Alert had heard head to tail of this story; Sentinel Minor wouldn't shut up about how he had found the spy among his cadets and that he deserved a reward. Red Alert never liked the guy.

Of course, that was the general concern of many of the citizens in Kalis. The bombing of every building and division significant to the Autobot's position in the war was a severe blow to many. Though there seemed to be a lack of bombs on their part, because the buildings were bombed one at a time with a single explosive. Ultra Magnus said that the Autobots should be thankful that this was a minor occurrence, and they had all only suffered minor casualties.

One of which included Red Alert's dominant hand. The rest of the ministry of science had experienced their own share of casualties as well; Mainframe had lost the ability to transform, Wheeljack had gotten massive, irreparable burns on his faceplate, and Perceptor had gained irreparable damage to his vocal processors.

Out of all of these, Wheeljack had suffered the least damaging, as he managed to take it all in stride with a new apparatus he described as a 'moustache'. He had even searched for old video files of other creatures with 'moustaches' so as to know if he had to act any different than his normal self. Seeing as his best role models were two human men that were fun-loving scientists-much like himself-he had nothing to worry about.

Mainframe had confined himself to his quarters, and decided to spend the rest of his lifecycle as a cataloguer—he would organize and define all of the confidential data that was released from the Ministry of Science and make sure that they weren't touched unless by confirmed associates. It was the best he could do, really. There was no other available job for a non-transforming Cybertronian. Besides, he used to be able to transform into a supercomputer, anyways. It wouldn't be very different.

Then there was her. How was she supposed to do her job without her dominant hand? Red Alert was the medic; and the only medic that was allowed to stay within the confines of the Ministry of Science. All the other medics had to go out to war and save the 'bots that were dying, for their own reasons. Red Alert hadn't the slightest desire to go out to war, worried about her own safety. While her reasons for wanting to stay were undeniably selfish, she still managed to stay in the Ministry of Science. All thanks to one person.

Perceptor showed the most distain for his loss. He had been very close to the explosion; not as close as Wheeljack was, but close enough to get severe damage to his head and processor. Red Alert had done the best she could to get everything else working, what with having to use her opposite hand, she had no choice but to remove his vocal processors anyway. She couldn't put them back in the right place without a steady hand, which she was lacking at the present. But she couldn't just leave them there; there was a lot of static and interference within his head, and if she didn't get them out or put them back in the right place they would become completely unusable. Or he'd die altogether.

So she had to take them out. Once he had woken up from stasis-lock, Wheeljack was happy beyond relief and hugged the guy instantly. Red Alert, however, had to immediately inform him of his loss. Clearly, he wasn't happy about this, and stood up almost immediately. He searched fervently for something, though for what she couldn't fathom. Until he finally came back with a blank Data-Pad. With his fingers, he had transferred the words on his mind onto the screen and shoved them her way.

Why did you not repair the damage?

Red Alert had responded as kindly as she could. Lifting up her left hand, she had explained to him what had happened to her. She had her left hand out the furthest from her quarters, and the bomb blew almost instantly after, blowing her left hand off. She then debriefed everything else that happened; that Highbrow Prime suffered heavy burns and needed to cover them up with an apparatus, Botanica losing both of her legs and needing to replace them with a completely different mode of transportation, due to the lack of resources, Alpha Trion's quarters becoming completely obliterated, and several other accounts. Perceptor just listened in silence. What else could he do?

Clearly, Perceptor's lack of communication would be a problem. Ultra Magnus had informed the entire Council that the recent turn of events would have to be overturned as soon as possible in order to initiate a project that needed to be done. When Red Alert had first heard of the project, she had no idea how in the world she would be able to built a 'bot that big. Especially without a left hand.

Perceptor and Wheeljack had already gotten started on the thing by the third solar-cycle she decided to sulk over not having a hand to work with. They were building it the same way they would build any other 'bot; they'd build their Alternate Mode first, and then introduce a protoform into it to create a robot mode. Though even then it wasn't the same thing as building a regular 'bot. They had to experiment quite a few times with different scales. With all of the big vehicles they had decided to create, there would be at least 3 or 4 oversized 'bots walking the streets of Kalis one day.

Red Alert still decided to sulk for the majority of the time. Wheeljack had tried to cheer her up on many occasions. And he succeeded quite often; there wasn't a thing he didn't know about making Red Alert laugh. Give him a data-pad and he'd write a whole novel about how to make her laugh. Wheeljack even made Perceptor laugh on occasions, back when he was capable. Now Perceptor was confined to a wide, open-mouthed smile.

Now that the 'bot that would be the Autobot's ticket to winning the war was about halfway done, Red Alert had come to observe what was being done. Out of all of them, Red Alert was the most skilled at biology and life sciences, which gave the Ministry of Science an edge when it came to projects including live subjects. Without her input, there was bound to be some problems. Without Red Alert actually working on the darn thing, the project was going to have to make do with what it got at the end. Fact was; time was running out for the Autobots.

It was on this particular day (to be more specific it was night, since the city's lights were turned on) she had decided that the very least she could do was take a look at the darn thing. If she didn't have a clue what was going on with this 'bot, then there was a chance that something might go wrong. She walked up, admiring the work Perceptor and Wheeljack had put into this one, massive Autobot. It was definitely worth looking at, and a spectacle to behold for any creature less than or equal to the size of the average Autobot.

Then Perceptor walked in. Red Alert heard the door open and looked to her right, seeing Perceptor coming in with a small container in his hands and a Data-Pad on top of it. Once he saw her he perked up and smiled, running towards her stiffly, making sure not to drop the contents of the box too soon. She wondered what it was for. Verbalizing her query, Perceptor picked up his Data-Pad and wrote to her what he wanted to do.

Startled, she wondered if this was a good idea. Of course, she didn't like having a stub of a forearm without a hand, but this wasn't exactly what she wanted. Besides, what if Perceptor didn't know how to make her a hand? She didn't want to have some sort of monster-hand with the middle digit being smaller than the pinkie digit or having a thumb for a forefinger and vice versa. But Perceptor only 'told' her that it was supposed to be a surprise. Finally complying, she was led to a flat surface and was placed into stasis lock.

When she woke up, she found that both of her arms were a bit heavier than they used to be. Perceptor had relayed that he had added some extra weight to her right arm after working on her left, to keep her from being lopsided. Red Alert nodded, and observed the new left hand.

It wasn't a left hand at all. It was some sort of strange item made of a rubbery substance. When she sent out a message, she learned that she could move the three prongs on it to grab onto something. Not exactly a hand… Then she was passed a data-pad instructing her to think of a medical tool. Confused, she did it anyway.

Her strange new left hand folded together and shifted within her forearm, being replaced by a scalpel. Shocked, she tried a different tool. A syringe, a magnifier, a scanner, and even a simple, accurate tool for detailed and complex circuitry. Amazed, she turned and immediately hugged the guy. Perceptor showed no objection. Why should he? He had been hugged several times before by both her and Wheeljack, and even hugged by Mainframe on several occasions. Once he was even hugged by Botanica! The only thing that was really on her mind at the moment was how she would repay him.

She decided to start by giving him a new vocal processor, with the left hand that he made for her.