Transformers belong to hasbro Takara and marvel. I don't, no infringement intended.

'Slagger,' moaned Ratchet though a bleary and pained processor, 'who decided that this was a decent or sane time to get up!' Attempting to raise his helm, he then fell full length off his recharge berth, producing the most amazing clatter and clanging that awoke the other denizens of dormitory 16.

'Mute it, you underclocked waste reclaimator!' Snarled Triage, irritably hurling a nearby buffing cloth at Ratchet, hitting the disoriented bot, as ever, right in the mouth, leaving him unable to defend himself as the other irritable mechs started to get off their berths and prep themselves for another orn on shift at the Iacon academy of Medicine, getting upright with various groans of tired mechs, muscle cables creaking as they were tensioned, and the inevitable noises and smells made by Circuitprobes failing recycling catalytic converters. And the complaints about the time Ratchet had come into the dorm, falling-down energised were also becoming routine, much to his embarrassment.

'Professor Refurb is going to go berserk with you if you don't stop partying all down-cycle instead of studying,' hissed Triage irritably to his suffering friend, 'and you know we're getting the intern placements soon, do you want to get assigned to the Empty clinics out in sector 17?!'

'Doesn't matter much to me,' grumbled Ratchet, hands searching for a preprepared cube on the side, before drinking it down in one, 'clinic is a clinic, and the Empties need as much treatment as anyone else, besides, did you hear about the party at McCadams Oilhouse? It just hit a decivorn straight and –'

'-and if you don't start paying more attention in class, the professor is going to have you servicing sewerage drones out in the Rust Sea!' Triage broke in, exasperated at how his friend failed to grasp the basics of the predicament.

'Triage,' stated Ratchet patiently, 'am I in the top 5% of the class?'

'Yes, but –.'

'And do I handle every assignment I get given without a problem?' Triage again nodded resignedly. 'And am I so far ahead in the research and reading that I could give the lecture?'

'You're also the only one in our group who gets brought back by the enforcers so over energised your optics have crashed!' Protested Triage in exasperation.

'That was once!' Protested Ratchet helplessly, following the group out the dorm, shaking his helm experimentally, before running forwards and transforming into his alt, and barrelling down the hallway toward the lecture hall. ' last one there is a hopeless scraplet infection!' He yelled as his fellow interns dived out of his way into the walls with cries of alarm, or shifted, rather more sedately into their own alts, before following after.

Triage shook his helm sadly, it was true that Ratchet was that good, but he just didn't have the attitude of a doctor, being more interested in having fun than spending his every cycle improving himself to improve his patients lot…

It turned out Professor Refurb was one of the mechs who disapproved of being disturbed in the middle of his recharge, and duly Ratchet found himself in the outreach clinic in sector 17.

Ratchet leaned back from staring deep into the chassis of a mechanism, the poor bot being far to far gone to determine whether they were a mech of femme, and tried to restart the energon pump in a desultory fashion. The pump whined, made a pitiful noise, and once more failed. This time however it also snapped loose from its mountings revealing that the reason for its failure was the inevitable dry tank of the previous owner.

'Call it, then send em to the recycle pile, and once you've done that, work through the recycle pile a bit, so we can send that to the smelting farm,' came the unsympathetic voice of his supervisor, a worn and tired looking mech by the name of Axiom.

'There has to be more to this than watching mechs offline because they don't have enough energon to run,' grumbled Ratchet, hands gently disconnecting the inefficient energon infuser from the silent hulk, before carefully lifting the body off the workbench, and carrying it to a worrying pile in the corner, and laying it beside the other bodies, collecting some cleaning equipment and starting to roughly wipe the dust flakes and used hydraulic and other unknown and congealing fluids from the bench.

'Probably,' agreed Axiom indifferently, hands transformed into a chaotic mixture of wires and micro manipulators, inserted deep inside a nameless piece of equipment, trying to resurrect the antiquated scanner attached haphazardly to the side, 'but while the council sits on its gold plated posteriors then there won't be any increase in funding for – Ratchet!'

Ratchet looked around sharply, as an empty, still missing half their head, still trailing cables and sensors from the disassembled helm, and tried to get off the repair berth they were on and walk out the door. 'Where do you think you're going slagger,' he snarled, rushing over to reseat them before they tore the remaining contents of their cranium, 'do I have to weld your Primus forsaken aft to the ceiling before you'll stay put long enough for me help you, you hopeless fragger!'

The mech, predictably, made no response to this, which was unsurprising, seeing as their one working audio was currently still on the side of the berth, disconnected from anything that may have helped relay the frustrated interns growl to the confused, and half stripped mech confusedly trying to walk out the door.

'It isn't the worst idea I've ever heard…' muttered Axiom, '…but if I catch you saying it to the patients without at least trying to use the surgical restraints…' he paused as Ratchet pointedly glared at a defunct mag-clamp that Axiom had meant to repair some cycles previously. 'Point taken, and I know those things can be broken by a sparkling… ah forget it, now, there's a pelvic strut here that will take a fine weld here…' he began to lecture, absently tapping the confused patient on the side of the head, which left them stiffening, before powering down gently on the berth. Ratchets eyes dimmed in surprise before he looked at his tutor.

'Cranial access port, unshielded on a mech like this,' Axiom explained, on warbuilds and heavy construction mechs, it's better designed, you'd need a laser or a fibre connector to access those, but on a standard mech, best way you can put them out, is give that a sharp shock. But be damn careful not to hit the neural cluster, you can kill a mech if you get that….' Ratchet listened in carefully, as his supervisor taught him things that just weren't in the texts, as well as the best way to secure an uncooperative bot to a berth…

'Ratchet! Ratchet! Ratchet!' Came the calls of the over energised mechs around him, as he carefully and thoughtfully hefted the small dart between his fingers carefully, before chugging the cube of high grade in his other hand, spinning, and hurling the dart with astonishing speed and force into the printed picture of Emirate Xeon's head, or at least a reasonable picture of it once Megatron had removed it from the extortionate thief's shoulders.

'Right eye!' Called the barkeeper in this dingy dive, 'Who bet right eye!'

Groans were the general reply, as bots who wouldn't have bet Ratchet could have found his aft right then paid out bets grudgingly to more experienced mechs, who knew two things, one, never bet against Ratchet when he was overcharged, since medical programming was capable of sobering him in nano-cycles if required, and two, after vorns of time working in the tougher areas of cybertron, never bet against the medic drunk or sober when he had things to hand to throw, as more than one scavenger trying to help themselves had discovered going through Ratchets spare parts pile.

'So, how much did I make,' queried Ratchet to the barkeep, accepting the pile of shanix with equimanity, before looking at the pile suspiciously, 'where's the rest?'

'Things are tight since the rebellion started,' shrugged the barkeep, 'people aren't betting it if they can't loose it…' Ratchet's shoulders sagged, it was true, but the mo eye from hustling overcharged enthusiasts had kept his clinics, wherever they were, in extra materials, so he didn't have to watch mechs expire due to it having the basic resources to treat them on the pittance the council 'generously' donated to such altruistic projects.

'Just let me know when you think it's good to try again,' muttered Ratchet, subspacing the pile. 'And drop by and get that rotator seen too, you're starting to squeal when you bend!' with a cheery wave, Ratchet turned and headed for the door, bent on perhaps recharge, perhaps looking in on some of his patients, but not expecting the entire wall to blast in and bury him in tonnes of debris, as his processor went dark with shock and confusion.

'We've got another live one here,' Ratchet heard as he rebooted, the sounds of metal creaking above him as he was dug free from the still smoking crater that had once been an oil house.

'What happened?' He asked his rescuer, as his waist was uncovered, leaving just his legs trapped, starting to check his arms for any major damage. His rescuer pursed their lips grimly, before replying.

'It isn't a little rebellion any more, it's a war now.' Said the enforcer continuing to shift debris to the side, 'Megatron's people just launched an attack on the council, called for people to rise up under his badge, called themselves 'decepticons', and it's gotten crazy since then, and it's only been 5 breems, and well…' The enforcer, a black and white model with a sensory chevron waved vaguely around, smoke rising from much more than one destroyed bar.

'He's crazy,' murmured Ratchet in shock, 'this won't improve anything, there won't suddenly be fuel for all, or freedom, or better rights, this is just…' The enforcer narrowed his optics sympathetically, and opened his mouth to say something, but his optics opened wide in alarm, as he hurled himself over Ratchets half covered chassis, while a seekers engines screamed as they passed overhead, before the explosions from the strafing run hit, and Ratchets world once more went out, just like the lights

It had been six breems since the attack, and the seeker hadn't yet come back, which was for the best mused Ratchet grimly, as he tried desperately to fix the mess of severed and leaking cables and pipes in the enforcers back before he finished leaking out, as well as getting to some of the other patrons of the bar, uncovered by the explosions, but for now, pinned by off-lining enforcer and trapped by the lack of legs, there wasn't much Ratchet could do until he finished his patch job and could get the enforcer into a proper repair bay, unable even to push the body off him temporarily, not while his spark still burnt.

'His names Prowl,' muttered another survivor, trapped but unharmed, 'total jerk type, but this guy?' A blackened chassis, clearly beyond help was nudged thoughtfully, 'This was Riccochet, it's just not fair, why did he buy it not that walking calculator,' Ratchets fingers twitched briefly, as they continued to save Prowls life.

'Because that's the way it happened, now shut up Quickmix, I'm busy!' He grunted distractedly, as the sound of engines hit his audial again. Staring up in horror, he had only a moment to be relieved it wasn't another strafing run, before the seeker flipped and transformed mid-air, and descended down to see the chaos they had wrought, and ensure there would be no survivors.

'Help us!' Called a construction mech Ratchet didn't know, as the seekers head whipped around, before striding over and hauling the injured mech to their pedes.

'Help you? After I just bombed you? Do I look stupid, gutter trash,' snarled the seeker, firing into the construction bots face, eliciting gasps of horror from the survivors, and a bloodthirsty and crazed smile from the seeker, who hurled the body to one side, greying and demagnetising, as the bots tool compartments flew open, showering the others in tools. 'Who's next!' Demanded the psychotic 'con, turning slowly in search of a victim.

'Big bot, aren't you when people can't fight back aren't you,' accused a voice, drawing the bots attention towards Ratchet, 'attacking a few mechs in search of a few drinks because you can't handle being a looser!' Continued the voice, as Ratchet frantically searched for anything nearby to defend himself and his patient with, fingers closing around a heavy wrench from the deceased mech. The seekers face had fallen totally flat, and Ratchet wonder exactly who was dumb enough to antagonise the angry killer before he realised as the seeker stepped towards him, the voice was his.

Fingers flying Ratchet frantically sealed the last of the leaks in prowls chassis, just as the seeker leaned over and hauled the unconscious body of the black and white to one side with a great twist, and the medic saw his chance, as the wrench came around and smacked the seeker in the back of the helm, and down he went… right over Ratchets waist pinning him back to the floor.

'ARGH! When I get free from here you overweight flyboy I'm going to weld your aft to the ceiling so you can feel how much you weigh you spawn of the Unmaker! STOP LAUGHING QUICKMIX AND GET ME OUT OF HERE!'

In the aftermath, and on punishment detail to retrieve the injured, Skywarp looked up at the seeker frantically kicking and swearing on the damaged ceiling strut in awe, and as he walked away laughing, decided that this was definitely something he had to try sometime.

Ratchet kept the wrench, it brought him luck, particularly after he started practising his throwing skills with the new and heavier wrench, which he used in place of his old darts….