Partners (3)
Ratchet had to take a moment to make sure that he wasn’t having a near death hallucination. His body was now golden with pink highlights, his car doors had formed wings similar to that of a butterfly on his back, his weapons were not only recharged, but far stronger than before and his Autobot symbol had been replaced by a pink butterfly. If it wasn’t for the fact that he could feel the raw magic flowing through his energon, he would be certain he was dead.
“Fluttershy, are you alright?” he asked down at his chest, which had sucked the girl in.
“I think so. Right now I seem to be fused to your spark and my magic is flowing into you. Do you feel any different?” Fluttershy called back.
“Fluttershy, you have no idea.”
Ratchet then slow turned to face the dozen Cons, all of who had been stunned by the fusion and transformation of Ratchet and Fluttershy. But the moment Ratchet turned to face them, they broke free of their trance and leveled their weapons at the Autobot. Yet even with all of the blasters and weaponry pointed his way, Ratchet found himself smirking.
“From the way I’m feeling I could tear through all of you without breaking a sweat. But since mercy is a trait that is prized among the Autobot’s, I feel like giving you a chance,” Ratchet said sinisterly to the Cons, as a smile spread beneath his face plate. “Leave and you will all walk out of here alive. Stay and fight…and we find out just how powerful Fluttershy’s magic has made me.”
“So, the magical infusion that Ultracon spoke of was not just a fool’s errand,” Soundwave muttered to himself, unaware that with his new magical powers Ratchet could hear the Con just fine. “Actually Ratchet, I am just as curious to see this power as much as you. That is why I order…to attack!”
The Cons all let out bellows of fear and rage as they began to fire their weapons at Ratchet. Ratchet lifted an arm and braced himself for the impact, but to his amazement the magical energy that surrounded absorbed the energon bullets. What’s more, as he glanced at the ammo counter on his raised arm, he saw that Fluttershy’s magic was consuming the ammunition fired at him and adding it to Ratchet’s arsenal. That got a laugh out of the Autobot.
The Cons all ceased firing when they realized that their attacks weren’t doing anything and began to gape in awe at the completely uninjured Autobot. Ratchet slowly lowered his arm and stared down the Cons, shifting his neck slightly to stretch it before mutter, “My turn.”
In a blinding flash of golden magic Ratchet was on the first Con, who barely had enough time to register what had happened before Ratchet’s energy sword slashed across him three times. The Con howled in pain as both of his arms and one of his legs fell from his body, before he collapsed to his back in a writhing mass of metal and pain.
Ratchet spun towards the next Con and plunged the sword straight through his spark, lifting him off of the ground before Ratchet ripped the blade back and cleaved the Con in two. Before either of the halves hit the ground Ratchet was on the third Con, kicking him in the head with such force that his skull was torn from his body and sent flying like a soccer ball.
“HAHAHA! I haven’t felt this good since I discovered that energon booster!” Ratchet laughed with mirth before the barrels of his minigun began to spin. The Cons realized what was about to happen a second too late and in the next second energon bullets erupted from the end of Ratchet’s barrels, ripping apart the Cons until they were nothing more than a pile of scrap metal and energon.
“Soundwave, what do we do?! He’s killing us!” one of the Cons called back to Soundwave, who had been smart enough to keep his distance, before the Con was completely ripped apart by Ratchet’s minigun.
“Yes, it seems he is,” Soundwave noted as the last of the Deceptacons fell to Ratchet’s minigun fire. Ratchet’s now crimson orange barrels rotated to a halt, ending the rain of bullets that had ripped apart a dozen Deceptacons. Ratchet then slowly turned his head to face Soundwave, whose face was unreadable beneath the plate on his face.
“That a good enough demonstration for you?” Ratchet asked Soundwave as he slowly walked towards the Con, who lifted his arm and began to enter coordinates for his own ground bridge. “What’s that? You going to run back to base with your tail between your legs? Well here’s an update for you, you don’t have a base anymore. By now Optimus will have turned the whole place inside out and taken down your leader while freeing the girls. You have nowhere else to run, Con.”
“So you say,” Soundwave replied as he opened a ground bridge behind him. Before he could take a step towards it Ratchet’s gun was pointed right at Soundwave’s chest, halting the Cons escape.
“Where do you think you’re going? Even if you have somewhere else to run to, you’re not getting away from me,” Ratchet informed Soundwave in a near whisper. “You’re coming back with me to the Autobot base, where we can finally be rid of you once and for all. Now all that remains is the question of will you come quietly or will I have to-“
A metallic shriek tore apart Ratchet’s sentence and a moment later a metal bird slammed into the side of Ratchet’s gun, knocking it to the side and away from Soundwave. The second the gun was no longer pointed towards him Soundwave let his metal tendrils fly towards Ratchet. Yet even though his gun had been knocked away Ratchet still had his blade, which he used to cleave through tendrils before they could reach him.
Soundwave turned and ran to the ground bridge, with Ratchet chasing after him. Thanks to Fluttershy’s magic he was far faster than Soundwave and was upon him in second. Ratchet raised his blade and prepared to drive it through the back of Soundwave, but once more Laserbeak intercepted Ratchet, firing a laser into the side of his arm and knocking his weapon to the side.
“Laserbeak, return,” Soundwave instructed, before he looked to see that Ratchet had already grabbed his sword and was lunging right towards Soundwave. For a brief moment Soundwave realized what was about to happen, before the blade came slicing down towards him...only for it to be intercepted a moment later by a metal bird. “Laserbeak, NO!”
“So I see there is some loyalty among the Decepticons. He died for you,” Ratchet said to Soundwave as the ground bridge closed around the Con, before he glanced down at the sliced in half metal bird that was barely twitching. “But know that the next time we meet, I’ll do the same to you.”
Soundwave let out one last wail before the ground bridge swallowed him, leaving Ratchet alone next to a dozen Deceptacon corpses. With the battle finally over he let out a sigh, before opening his chest compartment to allow Fluttershy to get out. His spark chamber shifted around to free the girl, who stumbled forward and would have fallen straight to the ground had Ratchet not extended a hand to catch her.
“You alright?” he asked her as she panted heavily.
“Feel like I just ran ten marathons with no breaks,” Fluttershy wheezed out, sweat pouring down her body which shook with fatigue. “I’ve never held my magical form for so long or used it to power someone as large as yourself. I think I’m going to sleep for the next twelve days.”
“After what we just went through I would say that you earned it,” Ratchet said with a smile before he glanced over at himself. His body was back to its regular forms, his Autobot symbol was back on his chest and his weapons had gone back to their regular, and far less powerful, forms.
“Hey Ratchet?”
“Yes Fluttershy?”
“Did you know we could do that? Combine? Is that why you’ve been keeping me around?” Fluttershy wheezed out.
“I had no idea that I could combine with a human. It is rare enough for Transformers to be able to fuse with one another, but I have no recollection of any time in the endless history of Cybertron of a Transformer fusing with a living organism,” Ratchet explained to Shy, who let a smile cross her face at that information.
“So then, I guess that makes the two of us pretty special, huh?”
“I suppose that yes, this would make us special.”
“So why do you think we combined? Is it simply because your spark reacted to my magic? Or maybe,” Fluttershy began before giving Ratchet a tired smile. “It’s because it sensed how much we cared about one another? After all, it only happened after you finally said I was your partner and showed just how much you care.”
“Are you suggesting that we achieved a new form of power that has never been seen in history of Cybertron simply because I admitted that you annoy me less than the other humans that I’ve met?” Ratchet asked with a raised eyebrow to Fluttershy.
“That is exactly what I’m saying.”
“Well, there may be some truth to your words. When we get back to base perhaps we can study this new form more,” Ratchet said as he pressed a hand to his audio receptors. “Ratchet to Autobot base, does anyone read me?”
“There you are Ratchet. We’ve been worried sick about you,” the voice of Red Alert said over the communications. “You ran off on your own, then your coms went down and we couldn’t even open a ground bridge to retrieve you. What have you been up to?”
“It’s a long story and one that I will have to tell in person or else you will not believe me,” Ratchet replied. “How goes Prime’s assault against the Deceptacon base?”
“It seems to be wrapping up. The Cons fought hard at first, but once Prime and his team got close to where the girls were being held, they just seemed to…give up and leave. Actually, it wasn’t that long before you called me.”
“I don’t like that,” Fluttershy said to Ratchet as she sat up in his hand. Ratchet had to agree with her.
“It won’t be long until Optimus and the others return. They have Sunset and Rainbow Dash and are fighting their way through the remainder of the Cons,” Red Alert continued. “Do you need a ground bridge back to base or are you driving?”
“We will be needing that bridge,” Ratchet agreed.
“Alright. Give me just a moment and I’ll have it for you.”
“So the Cons abandon their base a few moments after Soundwave retreats. I don’t like that,” Fluttershy muttered.
“And you heard him mention how Ultricon’s idea wasn’t a fool’s errand after he saw us combine? Maybe that is what he and the Cons were trying to do with your friend’s magic. Use them to create the form that we achieved,” Ratchet added on. Then the ground bridge opened up, telling them that it was time to return to base. “Come on, let’s grab Twilight and return to base. I have a feeling Optimus is going to want to hear all about this.”