[G1] Operation: Berthtime Story
Oct. 30th, 2015 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22a/n: Another commission fic I had tons of fun writing. :) I do hope you enjoy and have a happy halloween!!
Title: Operation: Berthtime Story
Universe: G1
Characters: Ratchet, Jazz, Sideswipe, Prowl, Optimus, OCs
Rated: T
Warning: horror/gore, canon typical violence, ghost stories
Description: Ratchet sees a group of new recruits waiting for their induction, and it's an opportunity he can't pass up. Plus, Sideswipe and Jazz owe him a favor.
Commission Fic for jenn-oddballpunk. Written entirely to this Trick or Treat mix.
Happy Halloween!
There were six new recruits.
Six new victims.
Ratchet could barely hold back his smirk.
He clapped his hands together and the six newbies, practically sparklings, startled. They looked at him warily, at the Autobot badge on his chestplate, and the medic symbols on his shoulders. Yet, they still had no idea who he was.
They would learn.
“While we're waiting for Commander Prowl, let me tell you a story,” Ratchet said as he rubbed his palms together and started pacing back and forth across the front of the room.
Six pairs of optics followed him, their plating clamped tight, their fields equally restrained. They were waiting for their medical evaluations, courtesy of Hoist, but Ratchet never could resist an opportunity like this.
One brave spark lifted a hand. “Excuse me, sir, but why?”
Ratchet planted his hands on his hips. “I'll tell you why, soldier. Because if you're going to survive longer than your first training session, you need to know the consequences and repercussions of misbehavior.”
He leaned forward. They leaned back.
“You need to know what horror awaits you in the medbay if you make a stupid decision out there on the battlefield. You need,” he said with a poignant pause and a slag-eating grin, “to know about Ratchet the Hatchet.”
One fan clunked to life and the owner gave an embarrassed cough into his intake.
Ratchet buried his humor deep down and straightened. “Have any of you ever heard this story?”
The very same brave spark who had spoken the first time raised his hand again. “Isn't, um, isn't Ratchet the Chief Medical Officer? I heard he was the Prime's friend. I thought he was nice.”
“Idiot!” His orange and red plated friend hissed. “If he was nice, do you think they'd call him the Hatchet?”
Brave spark in blue ducked his helm. “All the best names are taken,” he said.
Ratchet lifted his orbital ridges. “That they are,” he said. “So sit back, you newbuilds. And let me tell you a tale. But if you get scared, don't come crying to me later. It's just a friendly warning.”
Six helms bobbed in arrhythmic understanding.
Ratchet straightened his spinal strut and launched into the story, written so long ago and now memorized.
“Legend has it, the Hatchet is the oldest medic to have ever been sparked,” Ratchet began in a low, ominous tone. “He was brought to life from the ruins of Unicron's scrapyard, tasked by the Slagmaker himself to hunt down all Cybertronians who risked their sparks recklessly.”
“Pah,” one of the recruits scoffed subvocally. “Unicron's not real.” He sneered.
Ratchet swung his gaze in the young soldier's direction. “Do you have something to add to the story, soldier?” He offered a gimlet optic, one known to even make Sideswipe and Sunstreaker take notice.
It was super-effective.
“Sir, no, sir!” Green armor clattered as the recruit straightened and saluted.
Ratchet tipped up his helm. “Didn't think so.”
Ah, it felt good to be intimidating again. Only the new recruits were good for taking him seriously anymore. Ratchet blamed Sideswipe.
Ratchet began his slow and steady pace across the floor as he launched back into his tale. “Anyway… as I was saying.”
The Hatchet rose from the shambles of debris, old parts and rust and dried energon sloughing from his frame. His plating was marked as a medic, but his equipment a mockery of such. His saws and scalpels were meant for a far sinister purpose.
Or so he learned as Unicron, the planet-eater, stood over him.
“You are my medic,” he boomed in a sonorous voice. “You are to punish the fools who waste the gift of my brother's spark.”
The Hatchet laughed a raspy laugh. “And how shall I punish them, my lord?”
Unicron's lips peeled back over his sharpened denta. “In whichever way you see fit, my medic. Send them to me, if you wish.”
“It will be my pleasure,” the Hatchet said and he tilted his upper frame in a bow, his hands making grand gestures. A trill of excitement danced through his dark spark.
“Good, good,” Unicron purred. His flicked his taloned fingers at his medic. “Now go. Begin the hunt. Do not fail me.”
“Never!” the Hatchet declared. He let loose a raspy laugh and showed off his own sharpened denta.
And so it began.
He didn't need to look far. There was already a battle raging on the shores of the Sea of Rust, a skirmish between two disparate groups of Cybertronians. Mecha who had no true reason to fight, but felt the need to damage each other anyway. They were the perfect candidates.
The Hatchet grinned and licked his lips. He revved up his saw, heard the whine of the gears as it spun faster and faster.
This was going to be fun.
He threw himself into alt-mode, a medical vehicle painted in shades of pale green and white and crimson, and thundered down the road. Anticipation lit the air in spark-painful shocks. The ground quickly fell away beneath his tires. He screeched into the middle of the battlefield, and found himself facing the side who had won.
They looked at him with horror. They didn't know what to think of him. They stared as he transformed to root mode, their optics searching his frame for something familiar. The Hatchet wore no recognizable brand. He had only his allegiance to Unicron, and a disdain for the reckless.
The Hatchet spun up his strut saw. His optics roamed over the five mechs in a near cluster, their frames a pockmark of dents and scrapes and broken limbs. They pulsed energon – wasted it, this precious resource. Yet, they dared look smug.
“You,” the Hatchet boomed, his gaze focusing on the obvious leader, the largest of them and the one at the forefront. “You are the first to be punished.”
Unease floated outward from the five mechs, their fields flaring in sync. But only the leader proved impertinent.
He lifted his blaster and fired. Reckless. Without thought. No wonder he was on the Hatchet's list.
The Hatchet dodged with ease. “It's time to play a game,” he said as he stalked closer, each step measured. “Hide-and-Go-Kill and if you make it to the end, you get to live. Sound fair?”
“We're not playing your stupid game!” the leader snarled and fired again.
Hatchet decided to humor him. He watched the bolt go harmlessly through his frame. Pah. Their weapons couldn't harm him. He was chosen by Unicron.
“You really don't have a choice,” the Hatchet purred and he leapt at them, strut saw bared.
They scattered, but not before he grabbed the slowest of them. He bore the heavyweight to the ground, the mech landing on his face with a crump of metal and transsteel.
“You didn't even engage your personal shielding!” the Hatchet said with a laugh as his victim squirmed out from beneath him. “You only have yourself to blame.”
The hack saw came down. Sparks rose up, lighting up the dim battlefield. Screams were the perfect addition to a symphony of pain. His victim stopped moving.
Success.
The ground crunched, giving the Hatchet fair warning. He whirled around to see that one of his first victim's friends had returned to rescue his companion. Brave of him. Foolish of him.
The Hatchet snatched said mech by the intake and slammed him into the ground. They left a crater beneath them. Energon dripped free in lurid splashes.
“You attack without a plan,” the Hatchet said with a cackle as the mech squirmed and thrashed beneath him, panic ripe in his field. “How careless of you.”
He twitched his wrist. The spinal strut snapped, cutting of the neural pathway between spark and processor. The mech was still very much alive, but he couldn't move.
The Hatchet smirked and looked down at his prey. If only he had the time to devote to punishing this mech thoroughly. But no. The other three cowards were quickly putting distance between themselves and the Hatchet.
As fun as it was to play chase, the Hatchet didn't want to drag this into infinity.
He left his second victim laying there, immobile and terrified. His ventilations were labored. He could only see his dead companion. The smell of energon was thick on the air. The Hatchet greedily inhaled it.
“Ahhhh,” he breathed. “The smell of success.”
He focused his crimson optics on the horizon. He sped off into the night, following after two who had gone the same direction. They were two-wheelers, fast and maneuverable, but noisy.
He tracked them to the ruins of an old town, rusting and decaying, long abandoned. Did they think they would find refuge here?
How silly. No one, no where, could hide from the Hatchet.
He found one cowering behind the collapsed walls of an old energon cafe. He was running Spec Ops protocols, nearly silent. But he couldn't stop ventilating, and the Hatchet could smell his fresh energon anyway. Could smell the spill of it and the bitterness of hastily applied static bandages.
The Hatchet pounced and laughed at the high-pitched yelp his victim made.
“You are a grounder,” the Hatchet said as he poked and prodded and played with the sponginess of the tires. “And yet you thought to fly against a Seeker. How foolish of you.”
His victim begged for mercy.
The Hatchet laughed.
“You weren't so afraid of death when you were hanging off the thrusters of a Seeker, were you?” he asked, baring his denta.
Frightened blue optics flared. Fear sliced into the air, so delicious.
Two sweeps of his strut saw took care of this one.
The Hatchet left him behind, a mangled mess, food for the scavengers already peering at him from the shadows. He had other quarry to find.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the Hatchet chanted as he roamed through the streets, scanning for his targets.
The Hatchet found the fourth frantically trying to reboot a communication console in the abandoned Enforcer station. He shook from helm to pede. He gripped his blaster tightly. He whirled to shoot when he heard the floor creak.
It passed harmlessly through the Hatchet, who clucked his glossa.
“Naughty, naughty,” he said as he stalked forward. “It's not nice to shoot at strangers.”
“Stay back!” the mech said and a sword emerged from his left wrist. As if that would do any damage to the Hatchet.
You can't hurt what you can't kill.
The poor Tankformer's energon soon painted the console. It splashed from ceiling to floor. The Hatchet tilted his helm to the side, admiring his piece of art. A few scattered bits of plating was the perfect compliment. He particularly liked the mouth, open in a scream forever soundless.
The Hatchet grinned and licked his lips.
One more to go.
He turned his gaze to the east, the direction he'd seen the fifth mech go. The Hatchet spun into vehicle mode and raced into the evening, the sun setting quickly, casting dark shadows over the land. A little bend of space-time, and he caught up to the fleeing mech, proving he'd never had a chance.
The Hatchet cackled as he took a ramp and transformed mid-air, coming down hard and heavy on the revving speedster. Metal crumpled beneath him and the soldier let out a screeching yelp. He transformed in a flash, his axles broken beyond repair.
“Just let me go, please!” the mech begged as he tried to limp into the night. His terror smelled like sweet high grade and the Hatchet shivered as he soaked it in.
The Hatchet climbed to his pedes slowly, following his last prey at a slow measured pace. He didn't have to hurry. The mech moved at a limp, dragging a crumpled ankle strut behind him. He fired over his shoulder, the shots missing the Hatchet by feet.
“But if I do that, you won't learn anything,” the Hatchet said with a smile. He stepped over splatters of energon his prey left behind.
An easy trail for the Hatchet to follow.
The mech tripped. His blaster went flying out of his hands.
The Hatchet smirked, and leapt upon him with nothing short of glee, pounding the mech into the ground once more. Metal screeched. Something went crunch in the mech's chassis, his fuel reservoir perhaps, given the energon pooling beneath him. He screamed, a high and enticing sound.
The Hatchet laughed. He climbed to his feet and circled around the fifth mech, watched him laboriously try to crawl forward. Desperate to function to his last spark revolution, apparently.
The Hatchet almost admired the mech for his tenacity. Even as he tried to reach for his blaster.
He kicked it out of reach with a laugh.
“Which one to use, I wonder?” the Hatchet mused aloud, an energon prod crackling in one hand while he let his saw spin to life in the other. “Tell me, dear mech. Which do you prefer as the source of your offlining?”
Terrified blue optics stared back at him. “Please, don't!” he begged from the last crumbles of his vocalizer. Static crackled loudly.
The Hatchet threw his helm back and laughed. “The saw it is,” he said and swooped down upon the last reckless spark.
He would join his friends soon enough.
Ratchet echoed the Hatchet's dark laugh with his own as the new recruits stared at him, wide-opticked, enraptured, on the edge of their seats.
“The Hatchet swung his arm,” Ratchet continued with anticipation humming like electrical fire in his lines. He swung his arm to imitate. “And off came the mech's right arm in a spray of energon! The severed limb flew into the night.”
An energon-spattered arm suddenly dropped down from the ceiling landing with a plop on the floor in front of Ratchet.
He scrambled backward, widening his optics in fake surprise. “In Primus' name!” he breathed, grabbing at his chassis.
A leg came flying in from the other side of the room, hitting the floor with a clatter and sliding across the polished steel to barely tap the right foot of the nearest new recruit.
“Oh no,” Ratchet moaned theatrically. “He's here!”
A low, dark laugh spread through the room. Several more energon-spattered parts came flying into the room and then there was a scraping, shuffling noise. Ratchet whirled toward the door as two mechs came shambling into the room, painted in shades of grey and coated in energon.
Jazz was hobbling on one leg and dangling off of Sideswipe's side, where the red frontliner was missing an arm. Their frames were covered in dents and scrapes and missing armor panels. Their windshields were shattered. They left drips of energon behind them.
“Help us,” Jazz moaned.
“He's coming for us,” Sideswipe added, reaching with his one free hand toward Ratchet, who made it a point to scramble backward.
The new recruits jerked to their pedes, and crowded at the back of the room, optics wide and fields flaring with distress.
“What should we do?” one of them demanded.
“Help us,” Jazz said again, his vocalizer crackling and spark spitting from his dark visor. A piece of plating came loose from his frame, clattering to the ground. Behind it was a pulpy mass of energon and cables.
The door right behind Ratchet slammed open.
“What is all the noise in here, Ratchet?” a voice demanded in a thunderous tone that made the new recruits jump and almost startled Ratchet, were he not prepared for it.
Ratchet opened his mouth to respond, but Sideswipe chose that moment to let out a piercing wail and he and Jazz shambled toward the new recruits. They were in reaching distance now, having crowded the half-dozen mechs into a tight corner. Their vents were rattling as they clutched at each other.
Prowl whirled toward Jazz and Sideswipe, his doorwings flaring with shock, no doubt him struggling to parse exactly what was going on.
And Ratchet laughed the evil laugh he'd designed for the Hatchet. He rose to his full height and extended his armor saw and electrical prod.
“Why Prowl,” he said in an ominous tone. “Don't you remember who I am?”
He advanced on Prowl just as the second-in-command whipped around to face him again, his expression one of confusion and exasperation.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Ratchet powered up both saw and prod, the buzzing crackle echoing in the abrupt silence. “I need the spare parts,” he hissed and advanced on Prowl with a maniacal laugh as Sideswipe and Jazz launched themselves at the new recruits.
Pandemonium ensued.
The six new recruits screamed and climbed over each other to bolt for the door. Two of them got stuck in the frame as they tried to leave at the same time, and the pushing mass of the other four forced them out. Their thundering footsteps continued down the hall until Ratchet could no longer hear them.
A moment of silence dropped into the room.
Sideswipe cackled. Jazz echoed him.
“Did you see the looks on their faces?” Sideswipe said as his vents wheezed and he laughed all the harder. His field spike with exultation and amusement.
Jazz slapped at Sideswipe's arm playfully. “I took snaps, mech. These're comedy gold.”
Ratchet, meanwhile, was grinning from audial to audial, so hard that his faceplate hurt. Laughter bubbled up in his internals and his spark fluttered with amusement, but he was trying not to dissolve into helpless giggles.
Operation: Berthtime Story was a success. For the tenth time in a row.
Until Prowl whirled toward all three of them with narrowed optics and hiked doorwings. “I don't know what that was about,” he said with a low growl in his engine. “But I am quite certain that when I return, all of you will be due punishment.”
He then proceeded to stalk out the door, hands forming in and out of fists, no doubt intending to chase down his wayward recruits. He looked more than a little miffed and that was the last straw.
Ratchet collapsed both saw and energy rod and clutched at his abdominal plate as he laughed.
The door swished sulkily shut behind Prowl. But it wasn't enough to soften the laughter. Jazz and Sideswipe leaned heavily on each other, their vents wheezing. More energon plopped to the floor, congealing at their feet.
“That was great,” Sideswipe said, wiping pretend tears from his optics.
Jazz tried to push himself upright, standing firm on two legs, though one couldn't be seen. “That was fun,” he corrected. “If that's how you're going to punish us from now on, count me in!” He gave Ratchet two thumbs up.
Sideswipe straightened and crossed the floor, gathering up the spare parts that had been tossed into the room. Giving them a second glance, Ratchet realized that they were nothing more than props. A collaboration of cheap plastic and aluminum and slap-dash paint, something that would only fool new recruits already on the edge of fright. They were probably Sideswipe's work, given his lackluster talent in art.
“That hardly counts as punishment for the type of shenanigans you two get up to,” Ratchet said dryly. He scanned Jazz, trying to figure out how the mech appeared to only have one leg. “What did you do? Borrow Mirage's cloaking device?”
“You know good and well it's wired in, Ratch.” Jazz winked half his visor. “A good magician never shares his secrets.”
Ratchet raised an orbital ridge. “Or maybe you're just using attention deflectors,” he said, and like magic, Jazz's leg fizzled into view. After all, deflectors only worked so long as a mech didn't know they were there.
“You caught me.” Jazz held up his hands and nudged Ratchet with his shoulder. “Does that mean ya forgive us?”
Sideswipe joined them, arms loaded up with his cheap mech parts. “Yeah,” he added as he snuggled up to Ratchet's other side. “You can't be mad at us now, can you?”
“Try me.” Ratchet snorted and pinned them both with a hard look. “Besides, I might be able to call us even, but wait until Prowl gets back and decides punishment is in order.”
Sideswipe scoffed. “Oh, yeah. An extra duty shift in front of the monitors, big deal. It was worth it.”
“Slag yeah, it was!” Jazz said, and raised hand for a high five, which Sideswipe enthusiastically returned and resulted in him dropping half his armful of mech parts to the floor with a clatter.
Sparklings. Sometimes, Ratchet swore he was surrounded by sparklings. Which explained why they were so reckless and prone to endangering themselves. This was probably a poor lesson in encouraging them to take better care, but who else could Ratchet turn to when it came to a prank of this magnitude? Wheeljack was busy and Bumblebee just couldn't pull it off.
“Besides,” Jazz said. “I'm pretty sure I can convince Prowler that this was a team-building exercise and we did nothing worthy of punishment.” His grin and subsequent wink told more about his intentions than Ratchet wanted to know.
“Eww, mech. Eww.” Sideswipe scrunched up his faceplate and crouched to gather up his supplies. “I didn't need to know that.”
“Not in the way you're thinking, idiot.” Jazz laughed. “If I was going to use those techniques, I'd just sic Wheeljack on him. I meant that I'd appeal to his better nature.”
Ratchet scoffed. “Prowl is probably going to chase those six halfway back to Tyger Pax. I don't think he's going to have much forgiveness in him.”
Jazz planted his hands on his hips. “Don't count the Jazz-mech out just yet.”
“Good for you then. But can the Jazz-mech please help me with these props before I drop them on the floor gain,” Sideswipe said with a roll of his optics.
Jazz laughed and grabbed the leg.
The door behind them opened and all three mechs whirled toward it. A red and blue helm poked into the room, amusement gleaming in blue optics.
“I heard shouting and saw Prowl thundering down the hall after some of our new recruits,” Optimus commented as he stepped fully into the room. “Is it already that time again, Ratchet?”
He nodded with a laugh. “Yes, Prime. And do me a favor. Remind your tactician that it's all in good fun and there's no reason to bring the hammer of the law down.”
Optimus chuckled, amusement ripe in his field. It was good to see him like this, no tension and at ease. “I'll be sure to do that. I trust you have video?”
“Of course, I do. What kinda prankster do you take me for?” Jazz said. He looked more than proud of himself, even though this was Ratchet's idea from the start, and had been for the last dozen rounds of new recruits.
It was a tradition by now. Scared recruits were cautious recruits, Ratchet hoped. Recruits that wouldn't end up in his medbay except for their standard maintenance appointments.
“I still have a copy of when you did it to mine and Sunny's group,” Sideswipe said with a faraway look in his optics. “I don't think he's forgiven you for that, Ratch. Or Wheeljack, for that matter.”
Ratchet beamed. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's group had been one of his favorites. They'd come in with Smokescreen and Tracks and two others. One of whom had ended up leaking lubricant on the floor while Tracks had passed out cold. Smokescreen had crawled over Sunstreaker in his haste to get out, scratching up Sunstreaker's paint in the process.
Wheeljack made a really, really effective, shambling Empty. He'd been horrifying. Jazz and Sideswipe had portrayed a sort of comical horror, but Wheeljack really resembled a dead mech walking. He'd dragged along a fake corpse with him, and the screech-screech of metal against the ground had been effectively eerie.
“This time was pretty tame in comparison,” Ratchet admitted.
“But no less amusing, I'm sure,” Optimus said. He rested a hand on Ratchet's shoulder and squeezed. “I'm glad to see you having fun, my friend. But do remember to hunt down those poor recruits later and inform them of the joke.”
Ratchet grinned. “Of course, Prime.”
“That does raise a question though,” Sideswipe said with a thoughtful look. “How did you get the nickname 'Hatchet' anyway?”
Jazz coughed into his hand and backed away. “Wow. Look at the time. I have to go. Messes to clean up. A Special Ops division to run. I'm sure there's monitor duty waiting for me and everything.”
He fled out the door before any of them could say a word. Almost as if Ratchet had said it was time for maintenance or something.
Jazz hated his ornly check-ups. Mostly because Ratchet lectured him about the medically inadvisable upgrades and recodes he did.
Optimus, at least, was a bit more diplomatic. “Work waits for no one, I must agree,” he said, and bowed out with much more dignity than Jazz had given.
Sideswipe eyed Ratchet with nothing short of suspicion. “Should I be concerned when the leader of the Autobots and the leader of the Special Operations unit both scatter when they hear a simple question?”
“I don't know.” Ratchet onlined his strut saw and let it lazily spin, the soft whirring noise oddly loud in the silence of the meeting room. “Should you?” He grinned.
Sideswipe narrowed his optics. “You, my mech, are the spawn of Unicron.”
But, Ratchet noticed, he wisely backed toward the door.
“And if I didn't have somewhere to be right now, I would bow to you and demand that you teach me your secrets,” Sideswipe added before he eased his way out the door, leaving droplets of energon behind him.
Ratchet collapsed his saw and crouched, picking up the fake optic Sideswipe left behind. He admired it in the sterile overhead light. Hmm. Maybe save this for next time.
He tucked it away in a subspace pocket and dusted his hands.
Operation: Berthtime Story was an unequivocal success.
Time to start planning for the next one.
Ratchet grinned and whistled the song of Unicron as he headed to the medbay. It was the theme of Ratchet the Hatchet after all, and everyone who heard it scrambled to get out of his way.
Smart mechs.
****
a/n: I always have such fun with commissions and this one was no exception. Special thanks to Jenn for commissioning me with such an awesome prompt.
Feedback is welcome and appreciated.
And yep, I am still taking commissions!
Title: Operation: Berthtime Story
Universe: G1
Characters: Ratchet, Jazz, Sideswipe, Prowl, Optimus, OCs
Rated: T
Warning: horror/gore, canon typical violence, ghost stories
Description: Ratchet sees a group of new recruits waiting for their induction, and it's an opportunity he can't pass up. Plus, Sideswipe and Jazz owe him a favor.
Commission Fic for jenn-oddballpunk. Written entirely to this Trick or Treat mix.
Happy Halloween!
There were six new recruits.
Six new victims.
Ratchet could barely hold back his smirk.
He clapped his hands together and the six newbies, practically sparklings, startled. They looked at him warily, at the Autobot badge on his chestplate, and the medic symbols on his shoulders. Yet, they still had no idea who he was.
They would learn.
“While we're waiting for Commander Prowl, let me tell you a story,” Ratchet said as he rubbed his palms together and started pacing back and forth across the front of the room.
Six pairs of optics followed him, their plating clamped tight, their fields equally restrained. They were waiting for their medical evaluations, courtesy of Hoist, but Ratchet never could resist an opportunity like this.
One brave spark lifted a hand. “Excuse me, sir, but why?”
Ratchet planted his hands on his hips. “I'll tell you why, soldier. Because if you're going to survive longer than your first training session, you need to know the consequences and repercussions of misbehavior.”
He leaned forward. They leaned back.
“You need to know what horror awaits you in the medbay if you make a stupid decision out there on the battlefield. You need,” he said with a poignant pause and a slag-eating grin, “to know about Ratchet the Hatchet.”
One fan clunked to life and the owner gave an embarrassed cough into his intake.
Ratchet buried his humor deep down and straightened. “Have any of you ever heard this story?”
The very same brave spark who had spoken the first time raised his hand again. “Isn't, um, isn't Ratchet the Chief Medical Officer? I heard he was the Prime's friend. I thought he was nice.”
“Idiot!” His orange and red plated friend hissed. “If he was nice, do you think they'd call him the Hatchet?”
Brave spark in blue ducked his helm. “All the best names are taken,” he said.
Ratchet lifted his orbital ridges. “That they are,” he said. “So sit back, you newbuilds. And let me tell you a tale. But if you get scared, don't come crying to me later. It's just a friendly warning.”
Six helms bobbed in arrhythmic understanding.
Ratchet straightened his spinal strut and launched into the story, written so long ago and now memorized.
“Legend has it, the Hatchet is the oldest medic to have ever been sparked,” Ratchet began in a low, ominous tone. “He was brought to life from the ruins of Unicron's scrapyard, tasked by the Slagmaker himself to hunt down all Cybertronians who risked their sparks recklessly.”
“Pah,” one of the recruits scoffed subvocally. “Unicron's not real.” He sneered.
Ratchet swung his gaze in the young soldier's direction. “Do you have something to add to the story, soldier?” He offered a gimlet optic, one known to even make Sideswipe and Sunstreaker take notice.
It was super-effective.
“Sir, no, sir!” Green armor clattered as the recruit straightened and saluted.
Ratchet tipped up his helm. “Didn't think so.”
Ah, it felt good to be intimidating again. Only the new recruits were good for taking him seriously anymore. Ratchet blamed Sideswipe.
Ratchet began his slow and steady pace across the floor as he launched back into his tale. “Anyway… as I was saying.”
The Hatchet rose from the shambles of debris, old parts and rust and dried energon sloughing from his frame. His plating was marked as a medic, but his equipment a mockery of such. His saws and scalpels were meant for a far sinister purpose.
Or so he learned as Unicron, the planet-eater, stood over him.
“You are my medic,” he boomed in a sonorous voice. “You are to punish the fools who waste the gift of my brother's spark.”
The Hatchet laughed a raspy laugh. “And how shall I punish them, my lord?”
Unicron's lips peeled back over his sharpened denta. “In whichever way you see fit, my medic. Send them to me, if you wish.”
“It will be my pleasure,” the Hatchet said and he tilted his upper frame in a bow, his hands making grand gestures. A trill of excitement danced through his dark spark.
“Good, good,” Unicron purred. His flicked his taloned fingers at his medic. “Now go. Begin the hunt. Do not fail me.”
“Never!” the Hatchet declared. He let loose a raspy laugh and showed off his own sharpened denta.
And so it began.
He didn't need to look far. There was already a battle raging on the shores of the Sea of Rust, a skirmish between two disparate groups of Cybertronians. Mecha who had no true reason to fight, but felt the need to damage each other anyway. They were the perfect candidates.
The Hatchet grinned and licked his lips. He revved up his saw, heard the whine of the gears as it spun faster and faster.
This was going to be fun.
He threw himself into alt-mode, a medical vehicle painted in shades of pale green and white and crimson, and thundered down the road. Anticipation lit the air in spark-painful shocks. The ground quickly fell away beneath his tires. He screeched into the middle of the battlefield, and found himself facing the side who had won.
They looked at him with horror. They didn't know what to think of him. They stared as he transformed to root mode, their optics searching his frame for something familiar. The Hatchet wore no recognizable brand. He had only his allegiance to Unicron, and a disdain for the reckless.
The Hatchet spun up his strut saw. His optics roamed over the five mechs in a near cluster, their frames a pockmark of dents and scrapes and broken limbs. They pulsed energon – wasted it, this precious resource. Yet, they dared look smug.
“You,” the Hatchet boomed, his gaze focusing on the obvious leader, the largest of them and the one at the forefront. “You are the first to be punished.”
Unease floated outward from the five mechs, their fields flaring in sync. But only the leader proved impertinent.
He lifted his blaster and fired. Reckless. Without thought. No wonder he was on the Hatchet's list.
The Hatchet dodged with ease. “It's time to play a game,” he said as he stalked closer, each step measured. “Hide-and-Go-Kill and if you make it to the end, you get to live. Sound fair?”
“We're not playing your stupid game!” the leader snarled and fired again.
Hatchet decided to humor him. He watched the bolt go harmlessly through his frame. Pah. Their weapons couldn't harm him. He was chosen by Unicron.
“You really don't have a choice,” the Hatchet purred and he leapt at them, strut saw bared.
They scattered, but not before he grabbed the slowest of them. He bore the heavyweight to the ground, the mech landing on his face with a crump of metal and transsteel.
“You didn't even engage your personal shielding!” the Hatchet said with a laugh as his victim squirmed out from beneath him. “You only have yourself to blame.”
The hack saw came down. Sparks rose up, lighting up the dim battlefield. Screams were the perfect addition to a symphony of pain. His victim stopped moving.
Success.
The ground crunched, giving the Hatchet fair warning. He whirled around to see that one of his first victim's friends had returned to rescue his companion. Brave of him. Foolish of him.
The Hatchet snatched said mech by the intake and slammed him into the ground. They left a crater beneath them. Energon dripped free in lurid splashes.
“You attack without a plan,” the Hatchet said with a cackle as the mech squirmed and thrashed beneath him, panic ripe in his field. “How careless of you.”
He twitched his wrist. The spinal strut snapped, cutting of the neural pathway between spark and processor. The mech was still very much alive, but he couldn't move.
The Hatchet smirked and looked down at his prey. If only he had the time to devote to punishing this mech thoroughly. But no. The other three cowards were quickly putting distance between themselves and the Hatchet.
As fun as it was to play chase, the Hatchet didn't want to drag this into infinity.
He left his second victim laying there, immobile and terrified. His ventilations were labored. He could only see his dead companion. The smell of energon was thick on the air. The Hatchet greedily inhaled it.
“Ahhhh,” he breathed. “The smell of success.”
He focused his crimson optics on the horizon. He sped off into the night, following after two who had gone the same direction. They were two-wheelers, fast and maneuverable, but noisy.
He tracked them to the ruins of an old town, rusting and decaying, long abandoned. Did they think they would find refuge here?
How silly. No one, no where, could hide from the Hatchet.
He found one cowering behind the collapsed walls of an old energon cafe. He was running Spec Ops protocols, nearly silent. But he couldn't stop ventilating, and the Hatchet could smell his fresh energon anyway. Could smell the spill of it and the bitterness of hastily applied static bandages.
The Hatchet pounced and laughed at the high-pitched yelp his victim made.
“You are a grounder,” the Hatchet said as he poked and prodded and played with the sponginess of the tires. “And yet you thought to fly against a Seeker. How foolish of you.”
His victim begged for mercy.
The Hatchet laughed.
“You weren't so afraid of death when you were hanging off the thrusters of a Seeker, were you?” he asked, baring his denta.
Frightened blue optics flared. Fear sliced into the air, so delicious.
Two sweeps of his strut saw took care of this one.
The Hatchet left him behind, a mangled mess, food for the scavengers already peering at him from the shadows. He had other quarry to find.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the Hatchet chanted as he roamed through the streets, scanning for his targets.
The Hatchet found the fourth frantically trying to reboot a communication console in the abandoned Enforcer station. He shook from helm to pede. He gripped his blaster tightly. He whirled to shoot when he heard the floor creak.
It passed harmlessly through the Hatchet, who clucked his glossa.
“Naughty, naughty,” he said as he stalked forward. “It's not nice to shoot at strangers.”
“Stay back!” the mech said and a sword emerged from his left wrist. As if that would do any damage to the Hatchet.
You can't hurt what you can't kill.
The poor Tankformer's energon soon painted the console. It splashed from ceiling to floor. The Hatchet tilted his helm to the side, admiring his piece of art. A few scattered bits of plating was the perfect compliment. He particularly liked the mouth, open in a scream forever soundless.
The Hatchet grinned and licked his lips.
One more to go.
He turned his gaze to the east, the direction he'd seen the fifth mech go. The Hatchet spun into vehicle mode and raced into the evening, the sun setting quickly, casting dark shadows over the land. A little bend of space-time, and he caught up to the fleeing mech, proving he'd never had a chance.
The Hatchet cackled as he took a ramp and transformed mid-air, coming down hard and heavy on the revving speedster. Metal crumpled beneath him and the soldier let out a screeching yelp. He transformed in a flash, his axles broken beyond repair.
“Just let me go, please!” the mech begged as he tried to limp into the night. His terror smelled like sweet high grade and the Hatchet shivered as he soaked it in.
The Hatchet climbed to his pedes slowly, following his last prey at a slow measured pace. He didn't have to hurry. The mech moved at a limp, dragging a crumpled ankle strut behind him. He fired over his shoulder, the shots missing the Hatchet by feet.
“But if I do that, you won't learn anything,” the Hatchet said with a smile. He stepped over splatters of energon his prey left behind.
An easy trail for the Hatchet to follow.
The mech tripped. His blaster went flying out of his hands.
The Hatchet smirked, and leapt upon him with nothing short of glee, pounding the mech into the ground once more. Metal screeched. Something went crunch in the mech's chassis, his fuel reservoir perhaps, given the energon pooling beneath him. He screamed, a high and enticing sound.
The Hatchet laughed. He climbed to his feet and circled around the fifth mech, watched him laboriously try to crawl forward. Desperate to function to his last spark revolution, apparently.
The Hatchet almost admired the mech for his tenacity. Even as he tried to reach for his blaster.
He kicked it out of reach with a laugh.
“Which one to use, I wonder?” the Hatchet mused aloud, an energon prod crackling in one hand while he let his saw spin to life in the other. “Tell me, dear mech. Which do you prefer as the source of your offlining?”
Terrified blue optics stared back at him. “Please, don't!” he begged from the last crumbles of his vocalizer. Static crackled loudly.
The Hatchet threw his helm back and laughed. “The saw it is,” he said and swooped down upon the last reckless spark.
He would join his friends soon enough.
Ratchet echoed the Hatchet's dark laugh with his own as the new recruits stared at him, wide-opticked, enraptured, on the edge of their seats.
“The Hatchet swung his arm,” Ratchet continued with anticipation humming like electrical fire in his lines. He swung his arm to imitate. “And off came the mech's right arm in a spray of energon! The severed limb flew into the night.”
An energon-spattered arm suddenly dropped down from the ceiling landing with a plop on the floor in front of Ratchet.
He scrambled backward, widening his optics in fake surprise. “In Primus' name!” he breathed, grabbing at his chassis.
A leg came flying in from the other side of the room, hitting the floor with a clatter and sliding across the polished steel to barely tap the right foot of the nearest new recruit.
“Oh no,” Ratchet moaned theatrically. “He's here!”
A low, dark laugh spread through the room. Several more energon-spattered parts came flying into the room and then there was a scraping, shuffling noise. Ratchet whirled toward the door as two mechs came shambling into the room, painted in shades of grey and coated in energon.
Jazz was hobbling on one leg and dangling off of Sideswipe's side, where the red frontliner was missing an arm. Their frames were covered in dents and scrapes and missing armor panels. Their windshields were shattered. They left drips of energon behind them.
“Help us,” Jazz moaned.
“He's coming for us,” Sideswipe added, reaching with his one free hand toward Ratchet, who made it a point to scramble backward.
The new recruits jerked to their pedes, and crowded at the back of the room, optics wide and fields flaring with distress.
“What should we do?” one of them demanded.
“Help us,” Jazz said again, his vocalizer crackling and spark spitting from his dark visor. A piece of plating came loose from his frame, clattering to the ground. Behind it was a pulpy mass of energon and cables.
The door right behind Ratchet slammed open.
“What is all the noise in here, Ratchet?” a voice demanded in a thunderous tone that made the new recruits jump and almost startled Ratchet, were he not prepared for it.
Ratchet opened his mouth to respond, but Sideswipe chose that moment to let out a piercing wail and he and Jazz shambled toward the new recruits. They were in reaching distance now, having crowded the half-dozen mechs into a tight corner. Their vents were rattling as they clutched at each other.
Prowl whirled toward Jazz and Sideswipe, his doorwings flaring with shock, no doubt him struggling to parse exactly what was going on.
And Ratchet laughed the evil laugh he'd designed for the Hatchet. He rose to his full height and extended his armor saw and electrical prod.
“Why Prowl,” he said in an ominous tone. “Don't you remember who I am?”
He advanced on Prowl just as the second-in-command whipped around to face him again, his expression one of confusion and exasperation.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Ratchet powered up both saw and prod, the buzzing crackle echoing in the abrupt silence. “I need the spare parts,” he hissed and advanced on Prowl with a maniacal laugh as Sideswipe and Jazz launched themselves at the new recruits.
Pandemonium ensued.
The six new recruits screamed and climbed over each other to bolt for the door. Two of them got stuck in the frame as they tried to leave at the same time, and the pushing mass of the other four forced them out. Their thundering footsteps continued down the hall until Ratchet could no longer hear them.
A moment of silence dropped into the room.
Sideswipe cackled. Jazz echoed him.
“Did you see the looks on their faces?” Sideswipe said as his vents wheezed and he laughed all the harder. His field spike with exultation and amusement.
Jazz slapped at Sideswipe's arm playfully. “I took snaps, mech. These're comedy gold.”
Ratchet, meanwhile, was grinning from audial to audial, so hard that his faceplate hurt. Laughter bubbled up in his internals and his spark fluttered with amusement, but he was trying not to dissolve into helpless giggles.
Operation: Berthtime Story was a success. For the tenth time in a row.
Until Prowl whirled toward all three of them with narrowed optics and hiked doorwings. “I don't know what that was about,” he said with a low growl in his engine. “But I am quite certain that when I return, all of you will be due punishment.”
He then proceeded to stalk out the door, hands forming in and out of fists, no doubt intending to chase down his wayward recruits. He looked more than a little miffed and that was the last straw.
Ratchet collapsed both saw and energy rod and clutched at his abdominal plate as he laughed.
The door swished sulkily shut behind Prowl. But it wasn't enough to soften the laughter. Jazz and Sideswipe leaned heavily on each other, their vents wheezing. More energon plopped to the floor, congealing at their feet.
“That was great,” Sideswipe said, wiping pretend tears from his optics.
Jazz tried to push himself upright, standing firm on two legs, though one couldn't be seen. “That was fun,” he corrected. “If that's how you're going to punish us from now on, count me in!” He gave Ratchet two thumbs up.
Sideswipe straightened and crossed the floor, gathering up the spare parts that had been tossed into the room. Giving them a second glance, Ratchet realized that they were nothing more than props. A collaboration of cheap plastic and aluminum and slap-dash paint, something that would only fool new recruits already on the edge of fright. They were probably Sideswipe's work, given his lackluster talent in art.
“That hardly counts as punishment for the type of shenanigans you two get up to,” Ratchet said dryly. He scanned Jazz, trying to figure out how the mech appeared to only have one leg. “What did you do? Borrow Mirage's cloaking device?”
“You know good and well it's wired in, Ratch.” Jazz winked half his visor. “A good magician never shares his secrets.”
Ratchet raised an orbital ridge. “Or maybe you're just using attention deflectors,” he said, and like magic, Jazz's leg fizzled into view. After all, deflectors only worked so long as a mech didn't know they were there.
“You caught me.” Jazz held up his hands and nudged Ratchet with his shoulder. “Does that mean ya forgive us?”
Sideswipe joined them, arms loaded up with his cheap mech parts. “Yeah,” he added as he snuggled up to Ratchet's other side. “You can't be mad at us now, can you?”
“Try me.” Ratchet snorted and pinned them both with a hard look. “Besides, I might be able to call us even, but wait until Prowl gets back and decides punishment is in order.”
Sideswipe scoffed. “Oh, yeah. An extra duty shift in front of the monitors, big deal. It was worth it.”
“Slag yeah, it was!” Jazz said, and raised hand for a high five, which Sideswipe enthusiastically returned and resulted in him dropping half his armful of mech parts to the floor with a clatter.
Sparklings. Sometimes, Ratchet swore he was surrounded by sparklings. Which explained why they were so reckless and prone to endangering themselves. This was probably a poor lesson in encouraging them to take better care, but who else could Ratchet turn to when it came to a prank of this magnitude? Wheeljack was busy and Bumblebee just couldn't pull it off.
“Besides,” Jazz said. “I'm pretty sure I can convince Prowler that this was a team-building exercise and we did nothing worthy of punishment.” His grin and subsequent wink told more about his intentions than Ratchet wanted to know.
“Eww, mech. Eww.” Sideswipe scrunched up his faceplate and crouched to gather up his supplies. “I didn't need to know that.”
“Not in the way you're thinking, idiot.” Jazz laughed. “If I was going to use those techniques, I'd just sic Wheeljack on him. I meant that I'd appeal to his better nature.”
Ratchet scoffed. “Prowl is probably going to chase those six halfway back to Tyger Pax. I don't think he's going to have much forgiveness in him.”
Jazz planted his hands on his hips. “Don't count the Jazz-mech out just yet.”
“Good for you then. But can the Jazz-mech please help me with these props before I drop them on the floor gain,” Sideswipe said with a roll of his optics.
Jazz laughed and grabbed the leg.
The door behind them opened and all three mechs whirled toward it. A red and blue helm poked into the room, amusement gleaming in blue optics.
“I heard shouting and saw Prowl thundering down the hall after some of our new recruits,” Optimus commented as he stepped fully into the room. “Is it already that time again, Ratchet?”
He nodded with a laugh. “Yes, Prime. And do me a favor. Remind your tactician that it's all in good fun and there's no reason to bring the hammer of the law down.”
Optimus chuckled, amusement ripe in his field. It was good to see him like this, no tension and at ease. “I'll be sure to do that. I trust you have video?”
“Of course, I do. What kinda prankster do you take me for?” Jazz said. He looked more than proud of himself, even though this was Ratchet's idea from the start, and had been for the last dozen rounds of new recruits.
It was a tradition by now. Scared recruits were cautious recruits, Ratchet hoped. Recruits that wouldn't end up in his medbay except for their standard maintenance appointments.
“I still have a copy of when you did it to mine and Sunny's group,” Sideswipe said with a faraway look in his optics. “I don't think he's forgiven you for that, Ratch. Or Wheeljack, for that matter.”
Ratchet beamed. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's group had been one of his favorites. They'd come in with Smokescreen and Tracks and two others. One of whom had ended up leaking lubricant on the floor while Tracks had passed out cold. Smokescreen had crawled over Sunstreaker in his haste to get out, scratching up Sunstreaker's paint in the process.
Wheeljack made a really, really effective, shambling Empty. He'd been horrifying. Jazz and Sideswipe had portrayed a sort of comical horror, but Wheeljack really resembled a dead mech walking. He'd dragged along a fake corpse with him, and the screech-screech of metal against the ground had been effectively eerie.
“This time was pretty tame in comparison,” Ratchet admitted.
“But no less amusing, I'm sure,” Optimus said. He rested a hand on Ratchet's shoulder and squeezed. “I'm glad to see you having fun, my friend. But do remember to hunt down those poor recruits later and inform them of the joke.”
Ratchet grinned. “Of course, Prime.”
“That does raise a question though,” Sideswipe said with a thoughtful look. “How did you get the nickname 'Hatchet' anyway?”
Jazz coughed into his hand and backed away. “Wow. Look at the time. I have to go. Messes to clean up. A Special Ops division to run. I'm sure there's monitor duty waiting for me and everything.”
He fled out the door before any of them could say a word. Almost as if Ratchet had said it was time for maintenance or something.
Jazz hated his ornly check-ups. Mostly because Ratchet lectured him about the medically inadvisable upgrades and recodes he did.
Optimus, at least, was a bit more diplomatic. “Work waits for no one, I must agree,” he said, and bowed out with much more dignity than Jazz had given.
Sideswipe eyed Ratchet with nothing short of suspicion. “Should I be concerned when the leader of the Autobots and the leader of the Special Operations unit both scatter when they hear a simple question?”
“I don't know.” Ratchet onlined his strut saw and let it lazily spin, the soft whirring noise oddly loud in the silence of the meeting room. “Should you?” He grinned.
Sideswipe narrowed his optics. “You, my mech, are the spawn of Unicron.”
But, Ratchet noticed, he wisely backed toward the door.
“And if I didn't have somewhere to be right now, I would bow to you and demand that you teach me your secrets,” Sideswipe added before he eased his way out the door, leaving droplets of energon behind him.
Ratchet collapsed his saw and crouched, picking up the fake optic Sideswipe left behind. He admired it in the sterile overhead light. Hmm. Maybe save this for next time.
He tucked it away in a subspace pocket and dusted his hands.
Operation: Berthtime Story was an unequivocal success.
Time to start planning for the next one.
Ratchet grinned and whistled the song of Unicron as he headed to the medbay. It was the theme of Ratchet the Hatchet after all, and everyone who heard it scrambled to get out of his way.
Smart mechs.
a/n: I always have such fun with commissions and this one was no exception. Special thanks to Jenn for commissioning me with such an awesome prompt.
Feedback is welcome and appreciated.
And yep, I am still taking commissions!
