Losses (2)
“I’m not going to get into Transformer creation or how our spiritual system works or anything like that. I could take hundreds of your Earth years talking and arguing against all of that. So instead of starting off at my creation, I will instead start the story at where I first became a doctor.”
“What drew me to become a doctor was partly because I enjoyed helping others and partly because I wanted a job where I could inflate my own ego. And where better to do both than saving lives. I studied the medical records written by the greatest doctors before me and spent centuries learning and perfecting my soon to be craft. And as naturally brilliant and gifted as I was, it wasn’t long until I passed the exam to get in and became a doctor in the greatest city on Cyberton, Iacon.”
“It took a while before my name got known, but my early days were some of my most important. I took on any and every patient, regardless of class or background. And I saved each and every one of them. No matter how severe an injury or how terrible a severed body, I found a way to put them back together. Eventually my name became one of the most renowned for my skill and expertise, to the point that they called me the Unfailing Ratchet, because I never failed.”
“After a few centuries of success after success, it’s safe to say that my ego was the same size as the list of patients that I had helped. I bathed in the praise and the cheers of others and for a time, as much as I regret to say it, I truly believed myself to be every bit as talented as they said I was. It got to the point where I would ignore the writings and discoveries of other doctors, believing that I knew best. Had things continued the way they did, I would have been the most successful, and arrogant, doctor on the face of Cybertron.”
“So what changed?” Fluttershy asked.
“Megatron. He was a former gladiator that gained renown by being unbeatable in the ring and being a leader that all of the oppressed looked to. And there were oppressed on Cybertron, Fluttershy. At the time, I was too blind to see it. So many bots looking for someone, anyone, who could bring down those in power and establish a balance where they were no longer treaded underfoot. And for that cause, when Megatron rose up against the Prime’s and the Autobots they were right there with him, becoming his massive army.”
“As Megatron wanted to tear down those with power and prestige, and with me having both power and prestige, naturally I joined the Autobots to fight against him, as a field doctor naturally. I also naively thought that I could further my career by doing this as well. The world-famous surgeon who entered into the war for the planet to save as many lives as he could. The media along with the people would eat it up and I would ten times as famous as I had been before. It would have been my crowning achievement.”
“But those who seek glory in war are always the first to have their ambitions shattered by fate. It was at the battle of the rust pits where everything changed for me. The Autobots were supposed to be holding the line against a way of Cons that were moving through the rust storms towards our position, using the storm as cover to avoid our fliers. To counter this, we had a line of eighty or so bots, each ready to fight the Cons as they emerged from the storm. It was supposed to be a slaughter. And it was. For us.”
“The Cons were using a brand-new weapon, designed by Megatron himself. A chemical toxin that devoured a bot from the inside and caused a full system collapse. A slow, painful and lethal collapse. As part of the medical team I had a face plate designed to keep toxins like that out. I was the only one that had such a device. So I was forced to watch as my comrades, all eighty of them, succumbed to death in agony and pain.”
“I did what I could. Tried everything I knew, but at the time the toxin was new and we had no counter to it. All I could do was comfort those that were dying and try to make their last moments as painless as possible. But the one bot who I will never forget, Duststorm, held on longer than the others. He held on longer because he believed in me, the Unfailing Ratchet. The doctor that had never failed to save a patient. And he still had that hope and belief in me in his eyes when his spark finally left his body and he died in my arms. Duststorm was my first true loss as a doctor. He would be far from my last.”
“The war raged on. Both sides constructed new and terrible weapons to use against the other side. And as the weapons grew greater, the body count grew higher. I did what I could, but at every battle I experience more and more failure, more lives that I couldn’t save despite all of my years of training and practice. Their lifeless faces still haunt my dreams to this day. At the battle of the Wildlands I only managed to save one out of a company of five hundred. And that one was myself.”
“Ratchet, I-“ Fluttershy began, but Ratchet held up a hand to silence her.
“If I stop Fluttershy, I do not know if can start again,” Ratchet whispered with a pain and age in his voice the likes of which Fluttershy had never heard. “The failures began to affect me. At this point in the war no one cared if I was the legendary medic or a brand new one. A medic was a medic and we did the best we could. But I still cared. I still cared that I had once thought of myself as being so great and yet here I was, failing so miserably.”
“It began to affect me. I doubted myself when operating, I started to run blindly into combat, almost as if I was trying to die. I began to think if I couldn’t save all of them, then what right did I have to live? And my foolish bumper nearly got what he wanted, for during one of my charges I took an energon shell right to the side of the head, one that knocked me offline in the middle of the scrap lands, essentially our version of no man’s land, where I would have surely met my end.”
“Then how did you survive?”
“The same way the Autobot’s survived after the death of Zeta Prime. How the Autobot’s continued to fight after the loss of Cybertron. Optimus Prime,” Ratchet replied and for a moment all of the pain, grief and agony in Ratchet’s voice vanished and was filled with awe and pride. “Alone, and against his commanding officer’s orders, he raced into the scrap lands and dragged me back to the Autobot’s side, despite an unholy amount of energon fire raining down on him. He got me safely behind our lines and patched up.”
“Then he asked me what had I been thinking charging into enemy lines like that and I told him what I told you. About all of my failures. About thinking myself so great only to have failed so terribly. That I didn’t deserve to live after I had failed so many. I laid it all out before him and he listened. He was then silent for a few minutes before he finally replied. And what he told me changed my very spark.”
“Ratchet, he said to me, I know how you feel. I know what it is like to watch those under your command, under your care, to be extinguished while all you can do is watch on. It is a feeling, a pain, that will never go away. But if we devote all of our time thinking about what we could have done, we forget about what we can do here and now. Yes, many have died under your care, but so many more have been saved by your actions. Maybe all you can only save two or three sometimes, while losing the rest. But if you die here, if you give up here, then maybe none of them will make it out. None of them will be saved. Do not die to atone for those that you failed to save. Live for those who will need you in the coming battles, those who will need you unparalleled skill to survive against all odds. There are many more Autobots who will need to be helped, just as I helped you.”
“Do not focus on what you could have done, but focus on what you can do. No matter how unimportant it might seem to you, it could make all the difference to someone else’. And then he charged back into battle, leaving me there to think about what he had told me. He was right, as he almost always is. I had begun to focus too much on what I could have done instead of what I can do.”
“And that is the same lesson I pass on to you,” Ratchet told Fluttershy, who had been listening intently in silence. “Yes, maybe things with Stickshift could have gone differently had you not been there. But if we waste our efforts worrying about what we could have done, we may forget about what we can do. We lost an ally today. As sad as it is to say, he will most likely not be the last ally we lose. But his sacrifice meant that the Cons did not succeeded today. And that in itself is a small victory…is anything I’m saying to you making sense?”
“Actually…yes Ratchet, yes, it is,” Fluttershy muttered, but she was talking more to herself than to Ratchet. Ratchet smiled at her response before he transformed back into an ambulance.
“Glad to hear it. Now come on, let’s get you home so you can change out of those clothes and shower. I don’t think you want to be covered in energon any longer than you have to,” Ratchet said. Fluttershy nodded and got into the ambulance, which buckled her in and closed the door behind her. “If you want, you can run the siren and I can go really fast.”
“…thanks Ratchet, but that won’t be necessary. I have plenty I need to think about until I get home.”