//------------------------------// // Answers (3) // Story: We Need A Medic // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// Answers (3) “I will only ask you this once. Where is the Deceptacon base?” Optimus Prime asked in a cold tone to the captured Deceptacon. “Choke on pavement, Prime. You don’t have the bolts to torture the information out of me!” the Con yelled back from the inside of his cell. Having successfully captured a still functioning Deceptacon, Prime and the other Autobot’s had placed him in a energon cell for interrogation. But despite all Cons fear of Optimus on the battleground, with prisoners every Con knew Optimus was far more restrained. “I believe that you do not understand your position,” Optimus continued on, ignoring the Cons words. “You are in our base with no way to communicate with your brethren. They will not know where to look for you and I highly doubt Soundwave will care enough to send a rescue party. The only chance you have of getting out of here is to tell me where the Deceptacon base is, before I have to use...drastic measures.” “Get bent, Prime! I won’t tell you anything!” Fluttershy stood far away from the “interrogation”, choosing instead to stand on the operating table where Ratchet had laid the Con that Fluttershy had demanded he saved. She stood next to the Con in case Ratchet needed her help in repairing him, but for the time being he performed the surgery himself, hardly ever glancing at the human. “How is it going?” she asked the doctor for the fifth time in ten minutes. Ratchet’s response was to grunt, just like all the other times, before he continued on with his work. Fluttershy sighed at his ignoring her, but made sure to keep a close eye on how he operated. She watched how he moved is hands, how he extracted and shifted metal fragments that had the potential to cause even more damage to the Con, and how he managed to do all of that without causing any energon to leak out. “Thank you for doing this,” Fluttershy said at last to Ratchet, who once again gave her no answer. “I know you don’t like the Cons, and after what you told me I can’t say I blame you, but this shows the kind of bot you are, saving the life of your enemy.” “There are two things wrong with what you said that I must correct,” Ratchet snarled, his mood having not improved in the slightest. “First is that you said I don’t like them. That is the understatement of the century. The second is that you said I am kind to save the life of my enemy. I was and still am perfectly fine with letting him die. I am saving him not out of the goodness in my spark, but because you begged me to. If this Con pulls through, he will have you and you alone to thank for saving his worthless chassis.” “Is he going to pull through?” Fluttershy asked with some concern. “I may have gotten older and more cynical, but I’m still one of the best doctors on or off of Cybertron. Yes, he looks like he’s going to pull through,” Ratchet muttered as he did a sweep of the Cons internal structures, before he slammed the chest plate shut. Fluttershy noticed that there was still a giant hole on the front and back of the Cons armor. “Aren’t you going to fix that up as well?” “Sure Fluttershy, let me fix up his armor, oil his joints and send him back onto the battlefield feeling like he’s brand spanking new so that he has an easier time killing us,” Ratchet sassed back, getting Fluttershy to cross her arms and frown at him. “You asked me to save his life. I did. I did not agree to repairing his armor or fix whatever side effects the sniper round might have on his movement or power output. Neither of those endanger his life in any way.” “Won’t or can’t fix them?” Fluttershy baited. “That won’t work on me, Fluttershy. The Con will live. That’s as far as my mercy for him goes,” Ratchet snarled before he lifted the Con onto his shoulders and walked him over to the holding cells where Optimus and the others were. He entered in the code to open the cell, dumped the Con inside, on his head, before closing it up once more and walking in the direction opposite of Fluttershy. She stuck out her tongue at him before she activated her harmonic powers, summoning her wings so that she could fly over to where the other Autobots are. She landed on the shoulder of Optimus, who nodded to acknowledge her presence, as he continued on with his interrogation. “This is your last chance, Deceptacon. Tell us where the base is or I will be forced to use drastic measures,” Optimus warned in a dangerous voice. Fluttershy would have told Optimus all of her secrets on the spot if he had talked to her like that, but either the Con wasn’t afraid of what Optimus might do or didn’t care, cause all he did was snicker. “You don’t scare me Prime. Yeah if I was in a fight against you I might soil my bumper, but not here. Not while I’m at your mercy. Because I know that whatever terrible thing you think you can do to make me talk is nothing compared to what Soundwave would do to me if I actually did talk. So do your worst Prime, I’m not afraid.” “Very well, but remember that you brought this upon yourself,” Prime said as he reached behind him. Fluttershy watched the Con clench his fists in preparation for what Prime was about to do. Optimus brought his hand back out and opened it to reveal…Pinkie standing in the center of his palm. The Con stared down at the girl for a moment before he threw his head back and laughed harder than any Transformer had laughed in a long time. “T-that’s what you’re going to do to me?! Have this pink flesh bag try to torture the information out of me?! Oh that’s good, that’s too good! And they say you don’t have a sense of humor Prime. Ugh, the laughs alone are almost enough to make me want to tell you, just for how much joy you’ve brought me.” “I warn you Deceptacon, Pinkie is far more clever than she lets on. Underestimate her at your own peril,” Optimus warned. “Yeah, sure I will Prime.” “Howdy friend! How are you doing today?” Pinkie asked the Con as Optimus moved her to the edge of the energon cell. “Just dandy. I get to be the esteemed guest at the Autobot hotel. Love the service so far, all this attention, but the rooms need some work,” the Con replied with a smirk. “You’re funny! That’s great! I love funny people and jokes! Speaking of, have you heard the one about the dog and the horse?” Pinkie asked. “No and I don’t really care. Is this your idea of torture Prime? Having this little bag of flesh talk me to death? Because it ain’t working!” the Con yelled at Optimus. “Aw why are you being mean? Everything would just be so much easier if you just talked to us,” Pinkie begged as she gave the Con puppy dog eyes. “All we want to know is where your friends are. We promise that we won’t hurt them unless they try to hurt us. And we’ll even let you go. Some come on, open up. Let’s have a heart to heart.” “I’d rather have my spark ripped out, through my face, then say anything to you,” the Con snarled at Pinkie, whose eyes welled up with tears. “So you’re not going to help us? But I was planning on throwing you this huge party to thank you for being so cooperative,” Pinkie told him. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve heard human parties are pretty garbage. And I bet ones thrown by you are even worse,” the Con said with a smirk. Pinkie’s mane deflated and Optimus pulled her back away from the Con. “You did your best, Pinkie,” Optimus comforted. “I know, but all I learned from talking to him is that the Deceptacon’s base is hidden under the Horseshoe lake to the north of town,” Pinkie said with a dejected sigh. “How do you know that?!” the Con roared from the cell as he slammed his fists into the energon walls. “How did you figure out where our base was from our talk?! I didn’t say anything about it!” As soon as those words left his mouth, Pinkie’s mane inflated once more and she gave the Con a peppy and cheerful grin. “I didn’t know silly billy. You just told me!” Pinkie explained to the Con, who looked at her with utter confusion on his face. “Optimus told me where the Autobot’s believed the base might be at, so I pretended that I learned that location from talking with you. Your outburst at my guess confirmed that our suspicions were correct and the base is indeed there. See Optimus, I told you he would cooperate!” “Indeed you did, Pinkie,” Optimus said with a smile to Pinkie, before he turned to look back at the Con, who was now staring at the dancing Pinkie Pie with disbelief and confusion running rampant in his eyes. “As I said, Con. Underestimate her at your own peril.” And with that Optimus walked away from the prisoner with one human in his hand and the other upon his shoulder. He marched over to the command table, where he pressed a few buttons and brought up a holo-map of the area that the Con had accidentally revealed. He lowered his hand to the table to allow Pinkie to hop off, but when he offered to do the same for Fluttershy she shook her head. “I need to talk to you. About Ratchet,” she whispered to Optimus and he nodded his head to show he understood. “Autobots,” Optimus began, his voice gathering all of the bots around the table to listen to what he had to say. “For a long time we have been searching for the Con’s base of operations. And while we have searched, they have taken the lives of numerous members of our team, as well as taken two innocent girls that should not have been involved in this war in the first place. As we did not know the location of the Con’s base, they have held the advantage over us. But now that changes.” “Now…we go on the attack.”