[TFP] Event Horizon - Chapter Six
Feb. 12th, 2012 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22And the time units I used, a mishmash of all the continuities: breem (minute), orn (day), cycle (hour), vorn (year), diun (month), eon (millennia), klik (second). I didn't put exact definitions of time units because I confused myself when I tried to calculate it all. There are just so many different definitions across the line. Hopefully, this'll be easier to "translate".
Special thanks to jalaperilo for the beta'ing!
Pairings Revealed: Ratchet/Sunstreaker, Sideswipe/First Aid, Jazz/Bluestreak, Megatron/Orion Pax (past), Bumblebee/Blaster, others
Rating: T
Warnings this chapter: spoilers for all of season one, implied spark merging, mechslash, language, mechpreg, character death, blood and gore, battle/war
Chapters: (01) (02) (03) (04) (05) (06) (07) (08) (09) (10) (11) (12) (Epi)
Event Horizon
Chapter Six
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Clang!
"I said be still," Ratchet growls, shoving his patient back onto the berth with both servos, the clang of helm impacting berth ringing throughout his clinic. "Or so help me Primus I'll bash you with your own arm!"
Said arm is lying off to the side, awaiting reattachment while Ratchet finishes cleaning and preparing the joint. Frayed wires and orns of grit and grime have made his work more difficult than it needs to be, not to mention his patient's squirming.
The mech, Hydrau, fixes a glare upon the medic, but obediently slumps into the berth. "Whatever ya say, doc. Just fix me."
"I am already in the process of doing so, scrapheap," Ratchet retorts, and pulls back, returning his attention to his tool tray. A few more stripped wires to replace, a hydraulic line to patch, and then he'll be able to attach the removed limb.
Hydrau watches every motion Ratchet makes as though expecting the medic to offline him when he's not looking. Ratchet can hardly blame him. Hydrau is used to being patched up by the half-taught, sadistic medics employed by the underground gladiator rings. But lucky for Hydrau, Ratchet is quite used to patching up twitchy gladiators who've managed to get themselves thoroughly fragged.
Reaching for a patch, Ratchet takes a moment to scan his clinic. Two other medics are on duty right now, but only Imager has a patient, an older mech complaining of something rattling in his vents. Axial's in the storage room, completing the onerous task of inventory, which considering their low stores, shouldn't be too difficult.
Altogether it's a quiet shift, which is a welcome change from the rising tensions of Cybertron's politics and the unhappy murmurings of the lower class. Ratchet is in the unique position of being first audial to many a grumble, from not only strangers, but his own partner as well. This... Megatronus is not wrong, per se, but Ratchet doesn't approve of the methods he suggests either.
Patients speak of war on the horizon, the whispers growing louder and louder with each passing orn. Ratchet closes his audials to them, focuses on each patient, as war has nothing to do with him. He's a genitor and a medic first. He'll never be a soldier.
Ratchet reaches for Hydrau's limb, lining it up to the proper socket and connecting the necessary wires. He tweaks a few lines, checks the alignment of the gears, and then oils up the joint. There. Done.
Satisfied, he accesses Hydrau's medical overrides and flips the switch, allowing sensation to return to the repaired limb, albeit at less sensitivity than would normally be given. The last thing Ratchet wants to do is fix the fragging arm again.
"Sit up. How's it feel?" Ratchet demands, not bothering with pleasantries. Mechs like Hydrau don't understand politeness. You told them what to do; you didn't ask.
Hydrau does as Ratchet says, sitting up and rolling his shoulder gingerly. "Stings."
"There're new lines in there. Your system has to integrate them is all. Feel your servo?"
Lipplates curling into an unattractive sneer that reveals the chiseled denta, Hydrau jerks his head. "Yeah."
"Good. Now get out of my clinic."
Hydrau revs his engine in challenge as he hops to the floor, towering over Ratchet by a good three helms. "My arm better not fall off, medic."
"I don't do shoddy work," Ratchet retorts, wiping off his servos with a nearby rag, shoulders straight. It'll take a lot more than that to intimidate him. "Get out of here."
With another fanged sneer, Hydrau stomps out of the clinic with all the grace his orns in the gladitorial circuit can give him. Shaking his helm, Ratchet sets to cleaning up his tools and wiping up splashes of chalky-pale energon. Luckily, he didn't choose to work in this clinic for gratitude.
Tossing Hydrau's stripped gear into a recycle bin – for later cleaning and refurbishing, they couldn't afford to abandon anything of possible use – Ratchet contemplates a break. Just long enough for a cube of low grade and a chance to rest his twinging struts.
Of course, Primus chooses to mock him for thinking such a thing by sending in two damaged mechs, carrying the bleeding body of a third, energon hitting the metal flooring in lurid splashes of dull blue. Ratchet honestly can't remember the last time he saw anything better than the lowest end midgrade.
Ratchet snaps to attention. "Axial! Get the frag out here!" he shouts, hurrying forward to take the bleeding mech just as one of his companion's leg gives out and he crumples to the floor, strut snapped off at the joint. Wonderful.
Ratchet hates strut replacements.
Pedestomps announce Axial's arrival as he takes the bleeding mech's other arm and together, he and Ratchet drag him to a berth. Offline from loss of energon, he doesn't so much as groan or twitch.
"I've got this one," Ratchet says, edging Axial aside as he sets up an energon drip and starts hunting down torn lines. "See to the others. Grab Imager, too. Spire's vents can wait."
Axial nods and scurries away to attend to the others, summoning Imager at the same time. Ratchet bends his focus to fixing the mech in front of him, only tangentially aware of Axial helping the one with a shattered strut to a berth, while Imager inspects the third mech, who seems to have the least damage of them all – bent plating, a scratch in his chestplates, and a dent in his helm.
Ratchet clamps the two main spurting lines, and turns to the main problem: the mech's chestplate has been bashed inward, pressing against his spark chamber. That's what's keeping him in stasis. Cursing, Ratchet works to carefully unbend the panel, without jarring the spark chamber. He doesn't even have to ask how it happened. All three mechs have gladiator written all over them.
The majority of Ratchet's patients are low caste bots who can't afford genuine medical care, but he also gets a steady stream of beaten and broken mechs, who drag their afts to his clinic rather than risk the sadists at the rings. Granted, those medics are likely to choose permanent offlining over a mech they figure can't fight anymore. Less of a drag on resources.
Ratchet honestly doesn't call those sadists medics.
Anxious breems tick by as Ratchet carefully removes the dented chest plating, and a secondary layer of armor, enabling him to see the spark chamber behind. He vents relief. It's not been compromised. The mech will live. He is also still leaking energon from minor tears, which calls for a systematic hunt of every. Fragging. Tear. Pit-slagged gladiators!
"Ratchet!"
Someone yells his name, and for a moment, Ratchet thinks it's one of his fellow medics, that perhaps two of the less injured patients had a worse injury than he'd originally observed. But no, Sunstreaker comes storming into the clinic, plating ruffled and optics bright, a mech on a mission.
What the frag? He's supposed to be at their apartment!
"Sunstreaker!" Ratchet hisses and looks at his patient. Stable for now. He can grab a moment. "Imager, take over here. I'll be right back."
"No problem." The chartreuse mech slips into Ratchet's place, enabling him to ease away from his patient and focus on Sunstreaker, all but vibrating with restrained energy.
Ratchet storms across the room, dialing down his vocalizer as he confronts his partner. "What are you doing here? Where's Knock Out, you fragger?" Sunstreaker is supposed to be with their youngling today! That was the agreement!
Sunstreaker rears back, whatever had riled him taking a backplate to his new irritation. "How irresponsible do you think I am?" he demands, bristling. "He's with Hot Spot."
"That still doesn't explain why you're here," Ratchet retorts, and turns around, a quick sweep with his gaze informing him that he still had one patient that needed attending, a second with a shattered limb, and the original patient that had been his, severed energon lines needing patching and replacing.
A yellow-plated hand lands on Ratchet's shoulder, spinning him back around. "I came for you," Sunstreaker answers. "We have to go. Now."
"I can't leave," Ratchet says, irritable. "I have patients."
"Frag them!" Sunstreaker all but snarls, both servos planted on Ratchet's shoulders, fingers clamping down as though refusing to let go. "It's every mech for himself. Uraya's about to be nothing more than a crater."
Ratchet stills. "What are you talking about?" He doesn't like the look on Sunstreaker's faceplates, the anger and the growing edge of fear. Not for himself, of course not. There is very little, if anything, that Sunstreaker fears.
There is, however, a sense of growing danger. Something that climbs over Ratchet's helm, grasps onto his shoulders, and clings to his dorsal plating like a glitched turbofox.
"We heard about it at the ring," Sunstreaker says, vocalizer low and serious. "The Decepticons are making their move. Today. Sideswipe and First Aid are already in Praxus. We're going to meet them there."
Ratchet snorts. "If we're going to war, what makes you think Praxus is going to be any safer? Let me go, Sunstreaker."
Fingers dig in further, near-denting his armor. "Stubborn old- Slaggit! Uraya is nothing to the Council. They're not going to protect us!"
"I'm not abandoning my patients!"
"I won't let you abandon us!"
The sound of aerials streaking overhead pierces the tension of the clinic. Ratchet's mouth clamps shut, his gaze darting upward. Sunstreaker's does as well. In the distance, Ratchet hears a loud boom. Like an explosion.
"Pit!" Sunstreaker snarls and drops one servo, snatching Ratchet's and pulling him toward the door. "I'm not arguing with you, Ratchet. We're going. Now."
"Sunstreaker-"
Ratchet's world shatters. The front wall of his clinic explodes inward, pelting him and Sunstreaker with bits of metal and flaming debris. Sunstreaker tackles him, bodily covering Ratchet and shielding him from the worse of it. Somewhere, there is shouting and screaming, the noxious aroma of smoke and burning attacking Ratchet's chemoreceptors.
Everything around him shakes and shudders, metal crashes as it collapses, the world rattles on its foundations. Ratchet shutters his optics as shrapnel pelts through the walls with loud screams of sharp objects tearing through the air. Something pings on Sunstreaker's armor and he curses about his paintjob, but he doesn't stop shielding Ratchet, his energy field vibrating with worry and anger, matching the fear and fury in Ratchet's own.
He doesn't need Sunstreaker muttering in his audial to know what happened. The Decepticons have bombed Uraya. They are all going to offline here, trapped beneath layers of rubble.
More explosions rock the building. Outside is filled with the sound of Seekers cutting through the air seamlessly, their thrusters a steady rumble. The noxious smoke is getting thicker, obscuring Ratchet's vision, and he switches to a different spectrum, picking up a few heat signatures through the dim.
Something rumbles ominously. And then the ceiling falls down on top of them. Ratchet's world turns to static.
He doesn't know how long he spent knocked in a twilight state, somewhere between consciousness and temporary offlining. But the sound of Sunstreaker calling his name, the concerned brush of a familiar energy field, and the warnings streaking across his HUD thrust Ratchet from semi-consciousness to full vigilance. He lurches upward, and instantly curses as his right arm registers pain, from where it dangles loosely from the socket. Dislocated. Scrap.
"Come on, Ratch! I can't carry you!" Sunstreaker says, and he's tugging on Ratchet's other arm, trying to pull him to his pedes while Sunstreaker's other arm strains to hold up a piece of scorch-marked paneling.
Ratchet staggers to his pedes, the ground lurching beneath him as his gyros struggle to stabilize. He must have taken a blow to the helm... "... What?"
"No time. We have to go!" Sunstreaker shoves him toward an open space and Ratchet stumbles out from under the collapsed roofing.
As soon as he's free, Sunstreaker dives forward, dropping the roof, the ends of it narrowly clipping the backs of his pedes. He rolls to his pedes equally quickly and grabs Ratchet's uninjured arm, tugging him toward a nearby alley, though how he could see it in the thick smoke is anyone's guess.
Ratchet struggles to cling to coherency, his worldview a blur of colors and debris and grey smoke. He reboots his optics, but that doesn't seem to help. The sound of shouting and crackling flame ring in his audials. Memory returns slowly, like he can't seem to access the proper files.
"Wait! Axial and Imager..." He tries to dig in his heels, turn back, but Sunstreaker is less damaged and significantly stronger.
"Too late. They're dead." Sunstreaker's tone is flat. "And we'll be, too, if we don't get out of here."
In the shadow of the alley, Ratchet gets his first real glance at his partner. Yellow armor is dented and scratched, some so deep the paint has stripped away, leaving him in protoform silver. He's leaking energon, too and worse, there's a piece of scrapnel lodged in his dorsal plating, just to the left of his right shoulder joint.
"We need to stop," Ratchet says. "You're damaged."
"I'm functional," Sunstreaker corrects. "We don't stop until we're in Praxus."
Logical, but yet... a note of alarm rings through Ratchet's processor. "No, we have to go back to the apartment. Knock Out-"
"-is with Hot Spot, remember? They should already be in Praxus."
Relief courses through Ratchet, calming the frantic spin of his spark. "At least let me dial down your pain receptors."
Pausing at the end of the alley, Sunstreaker peers into a street crowded with debris, but empty of life signs. "Fine. But I'm fixing your shoulder first. Stand still," he retorts, turning back toward Ratchet with intent.
The medic backpedals a step. "I'm not really sure that's a good- slaggit, Sunstreaker!"
No warning, just a slam into the wall, a twisting jerk of his arm, and his shoulder is relocated in a fraction of a breem. The pain is sharp, but brief, and fades away to a dull, aching throb.
"And they tell me my berthside manner is atrocious," Ratchet mutters, testing the durability of the fix. It'll do.
Sunstreaker's grin is more predatory than amused. "That's why you're the medic and not me." He leans one servo against the wall just to Ratchet's right, as if concealing him from the alley entrance, and offers the other to Ratchet, panel sliding aside to reveal the medical port on the underside of his wrist joint. "My turn."
Ratchet unspools a data cable and links to his partner, medical override codes making it easy for him to tap into Sunstreaker's systems and dial down the sensors until the pain of the shrapnel wound is barely a nuisance. Once in Praxus, Ratchet will have to surgically remove the twisted metal. But until then, this will have to do.
Finished, Ratchet removes the cable and coils it back into its compartment. He takes Sunstreaker's servo and gently closes the panel. "All set," Ratchet says.
"Good." Sunstreaker's servo slips out of Ratchet's, but only to curl fingers around Ratchet's own as he leans down, touching Ratchet's chevron with his helm. "Okay?"
"Relatively speaking," Ratchet says, his energy field brushing Sunstreaker's and conveying a complicated mixture of affection and gratitude, along with lingering grief that he hadn't a moment to process yet.
His clinic. His home. His fellow medics. All of it. Gone.
Sunstreaker pulls Ratchet's servo toward his mouth, lipplates brushing over the sensitive fingertips. "We're going to make it."
"Of course we are," Ratchet says gruffly.
A sound, like pedes tripping on debris, crackling over twisted metal, floats to their audials. Ratchet freezes, Sunstreaker jerks, helm twisting toward the alley entrance. One servo dangles at his side, energon blade gliding noiselessly into view.
"Sun-"
"Shh." Sunstreaker takes a quiet step away from Ratchet, toward the alley, at the ready.
He peers into the street and from his position, Ratchet can't see anything around his partner. He could use his scanners, but they are detectable. It would give away their position. And right now, they are only two, with Sunstreaker having the only fighting experience.
A klik passes in anxious silence, and then Sunstreaker suddenly lunges out of the alley, sword raised high, bright from heated metal. A quick swipe and the blade cuts through a mech's chestplates as though it were a thin sheet of gaseous film rather than battle armor.
The mech drops, energon spurting from a main severed line, optics going dark. Sunstreaker's strike had cut true, straight through to his spark chamber.
Ratchet stares, horrified, as his partner whirls, easily dodging blaster fire from another mech and leaps into the air, crashing down on a third attacking mech and neatly bisecting helm from neck. Sunstreaker rolls on his right shoulder over the decapitated mech, bounces on his pedes, and spins to attack the last enemy, the one who'd fired the blaster.
The shot barely singes Sunstreaker's paneling before the yellow mech is on top of the enemy, going for a killing blow. energon spills from the sparking gouge in the mech's ventral plating, a purple symbol bright on his chestplate – Decepticon. The fighter topples backward, defeated.
Ratchet has never once seen Sunstreaker fighting in a gladiator's pit. He will go to as many art showings as Sunstreaker can book, will admire each and every artistic endeavor, but he draws the line at watching his partner tear apart another mech in brutal battle for the sake of credits. It is enough that he has to put Sunstreaker together again afterward.
Right now, however, he is getting a glimpse of the vicious skills that his partner has acquired over the vorns. He doesn't know whether to be awed or sickened at the violence, and settles for something in between.
Sunstreaker turns back toward him, shaking energon from his blade before retracting it. "Come on. There will be more of them," he says. He stoops next to the only Decepticon which has been thoroughly deactivated.
Ratchet steps out of the alley, pointedly not looking at the fallen mechs. "What was the point?" he asks, unable to conceal his disgust. "They've already bombed Uraya."
"Recruiting, most likely. It's how the Decepticons operate. Or, alternatively, getting rid of future opponents," Sunstreaker straightens and tosses something Ratchet's direction.
He catches it easily, only to nearly drop the item. It's a blaster, one carried separate from a mech's frame unlike Sunstreaker's blades, which are built into his frame.
"If you're half a good a shot with that as you are with a wrench, you'll be fine," Sunstreaker says, coming close and gesturing to the blaster. "That's the trigger. These things typically carry a hundred shots. Make them count because we can't stop to reload."
Ratchet shakes his helm, uncomfortable. "Sunstreaker, I can't-"
"You will." Sunstreaker's servo covers both the blaster and Ratchet's servo. "For all that Megatron is demanding freedom, he hasn't given us a choice in this. It's shoot or be offlined. There's no middle ground. There's no such thing as a neutral."
Reluctantly, Ratchet curls his fingers around the grip of the blaster. "Very well." All of his medic programming screams in sheer outrage, but there is nothing he can do. "I'll do what I must." Though every inch of him protests.
War is coming. No, war is here. And like it or not, Ratchet is now forced to acknowledge that fact. There's nothing he can do but hold the blaster and follow his partner as they creep through the ruins of Uraya, heading for the border so that they can flee to the relative safety of Praxus.
a/n: Next chapter brings some more explanations and soon, I promise, we'll actually get to see some Knock Out in chapter... eight. Yep. Chapter eight. Feedback is welcome and appreciated!
I'm going to do my best to get some flash fiction up soon. Promise!
