Losses
The ground bridge closed behind Ratchet as he walked into the Autobot base, carrying in his arms what remained of Stickshift. There were numerous holes and dents in his body from where Ratchet had used him as a shield, an action Ratchet would hate himself for later. But none of those wounds had meant anything. Stickshift had been dead from the moment his spark had been blasted out through the front of his chest.
As he walked towards the operating table Ratchet glanced around the base to see the reaction of his fellow bots. Most of them looked on with sorry and shame, sad to see that another of their comrades had fallen in the war with the Deceptacons. Curbcheck was off in the corner, trying to make a new tunnel for the base by punching the wall with his fists. Ratchet couldn’t bring himself to tell him to stop. And then there was Fluttershy, who was curled up into a ball out of the way, looking lost in more ways than one.
Ratchet set the body of his comrade down on the operating table and, even though he knew it was pointless, performed a system check on him. There were vitals, no signs of cranial activity: Stickshift was dead. Ratchet sighed bitterly before he turned his head at a bot’s approach. Curbcheck was walking over to Ratchet and had a look in his optics that Ratchet hated to see. Hope.
“There is nothing I can do,” Ratchet said in a tone of finality, hoping to lessen the blow as much as he could.
“B-but doc, you’re the best of the best,” Curbcheck tried to reason, but Ratchet knew that he was more trying to reason with himself. “You fixed Bee’s voice, you’ve repaired Optimus all of those times…surely there is something that you can do to-“
“Curbcheck. Soundwave shot out your brother’s spark. That is not a serious wound. That is not a life-threatening wound. That is a fatal wound,” Ratchet informed Curbcheck in an emotionless tone. “All I can do for a wound like that, even with all of my centuries of medical training, is say that I’m sorry. He’s gone. One with the All Spark.”
Curbcheck glared down at the ground for a few seconds before letting loose a bellow of agony and rage. He transformed into his vehicle form and raced out of the exit of the base, heading towards the surface. “Cruise Control, go after him. Make sure that he doesn’t get himself killed,” Ratchet instructed, getting one of the Autobots to nod before they too transformed to pursue Curbcheck.
Ratchet then shook his head and started to examine Stickshift’s body for the energon bullet that so easily killed one of the tougher bots that he knew. But in the back of his mind he knew that while the weapon had indeed killed Stickshift, the Con that had been holding the rifle had knew exactly where to place that bullet.
“Soundwave,” Ratchet said through a clenched jaw.
“Soundwave, sir?” one of the other Autobot’s that had been standing close by asked and Ratchet silently cursed himself for letting his anger override his thinking. “THE Soundwave? The one that was Megatron’s right hand bot and was responsible for the deaths of so many of our comrades? That Soundwave is back?”
“Sadly, yes. Soundwave has indeed returned,” Ratchet replied with another sigh.
“But he was trapped in another dimension! One that there was no chance of him getting out of!” the bot said in a panicked voice. “If he’s returned, then what chance do we-?”
“Calm yourself. You have me, a bot that has dealt with Soundwave before. And you have Optimus Prime, a legend who has brought down dozens of Soundwave like Cons,” Ratchet replied as he stared into the bot’s optics, allowing the younger bot to see his confidence in their leader. “Yes, Soundwave is dangerous. But he was at his best with Megatron and now Megatron is no longer around. We will deal with Soundwave soon enough.”
“But sir…Soundwave was only loyal to Megatron. Yet he attacked you and your team while you were returning to base here. Does that mean that Soundwave is now loyal to Ultracon? Or…maybe…Megatron is working with the Cons! Or Maybe Ultracon is just a false name that-“
“Again, calm yourself. Megatron has not returned. Optimus saw to it that Megatron would never bother another transformer again,” Ratchet said. The words did little to instill confidence in the younger bot though. “Look, why don’t you go out on patrol. Take your mind off of things. It’s been a long day for all of us.”
The bot nodded and walked towards the edge of the base, but Ratchet could tell from his expression that the senior doctor had done little to instill confidence. Ratchet frowned before pressing his fingers to the side of his head.
“Ratchet to Optimus. Optimus, do you read?”
Static was all that Ratchet was rewarded with, so with a snarl he walked over to the communications hub machine, which also happened to be the machine that Fluttershy was leaning up against with her head in her hands. Ratchet gave her a sympathetic look, but he couldn’t take time to talk to her. He had more important things to worry about at the moment.
“What is the matter with our comm channels?” Ratchet asked the bot at the controls.
“I don’t know sir, the moment you returned they seemed to start going on the fritz,” the young bot replied. Ratchet sighed as he shooed the bot to the side before taking the helm at the control panel himself. Much like the younger bot had said, something was wrong with the machine. The systems seemed to be working fine, but there was some power, some outside source, that was messing with the communications. And he wasn’t sure what it was.
Yet had he only glanced down to his side at the girl who he had been ignoring, he would have found the answer right away. For the answer came in the form of that girl, who had curled up into a ball filled with anger and helplessness. Every time she closed her eyes she could see the empty, lifeless eyes of Stickshift. And every time she opened her eyes to try and banish the face from her mind, she saw her own body and the blue energon that was clinging to her like she had the power to revive its original owner. But what gnawed at her the most, what burned her soul like a flame that wouldn’t go out, was that she had just stood there. And that drove her to the edge.
With a scream, more of helplessness than it was fury, Fluttershy erupted into her harmonic form. Wings shot out of her back, ears form upon her head and her long hair formed a ponytail at the end. But the true greatest change to her form was the wave of magic that erupted from her when she transformed, a wave of magic that washed over the communications hub behind her. Science and magic met and magic won out.
The machine began to spark and sputter as the magic from Fluttershy soaked into its core, getting a cry of surprise out of Ratchet before he dove away. A moment after he did so the machine gave up on trying to fight the magic. The screens exploded, the wiring burned out and the metal twisted and warped until the communications hub barely looked like what it once did. Ratchet stared at what remained of his precious machine for a few moments, before he turned to Fluttershy with fury building in his circuits.
“Fluttershy, I needed-!”
Yet as quickly as the rage appeared within Ratchet it just as quickly vanished, vanishing as Ratchet laid is optics upon Fluttershy. She stood upright in her magical form, her body trembling from the sobs that forced themselves to come out. Tears fell from her eyes and swam down her face, yet even her tears couldn’t remove the energon from Stickshift that still covered her body. Guilt filled up his spark, getting the doctor to sigh as he knelt down next to her and extended a hand.
“Come on Fluttershy, let’s go talk.”
[=O=]
The ambulance came to halt just in front of a small river nestled in a forest of trees, a place not too far from the hidden Autobot base. The door opened on its own and allowed Fluttershy to exit, which she did so slowly. Ratchet hadn’t said anything to her on the ride over and Fluttershy had stayed silent in reply.
“Please sit next to the river, if you wouldn’t mind,” Ratchet asked softly.
Fluttershy did as he asked, drawing in her knees and wrapping her arms around them once she had sat down. She then lowered her head onto her knees, making it impossible for Ratchet to see her face. Ratchet knew that he should stay in vehicle form in case a random human decided to walk by, but he also knew that he would look a lot more sincere if he talked to Fluttershy face to face. So after a quick scan to make sure no one was nearby, Ratchet transformed into his robot mode and sat down next to her.
“What happened to Stickshift wasn’t your fault,” he told her. Fluttershy didn’t reply. “In this war with the Deceptacons our lives are a risk at any given moment. Soundwave would have killed Stickshift had you been there or not. That’s the kind of terrible Con that he is.”
“But if I hadn’t been there, maybe Stickshift would have been looking the right way,” Fluttershy whispered so softly that Ratchet had to turn up his audio receptors to hear her.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps Soundwave would have killed all of us. There’s no point in wondering what could have happened. All we can think about is what did happen,” Ratchet told Fluttershy. “And believe me Fluttershy, I have wonder many times what would have happened had I done things differently. What kind of bot would I be, would I still be alive in this war…and would all of the bots I failed to save still be alive if I had done something, anything, different?”
Those words, along with the tone of regret, finally drew Fluttershy’s head from off of her legs. She gazed up at the giant Autobot, who seemed lost in memories that were thousands of years old. She wasn’t sure if she should interrupt those thoughts, but after a few minutes of waiting she found that she couldn’t resist her urge any longer.
“How did you become a medic, Ratchet?” she asked the Autobot.
Ratchet’s response was to smirk and shake his head. “You don’t want to hear that story, Fluttershy. It’s old, it’s boring and it doesn’t have a happy ending. And you don’t need anything else depressing to deal with today,” Ratchet told her, but when he looked down into her eyes he saw the curiosity and need to know. So with a sigh, Ratchet gave in. “Very well, I suppose if I cut some parts out it won’t be too long. It started so long ago, Fluttershy. On the very first Cybertron.”