Silence reigned. Finally. He'd been beginning to wonder if the explosions would ever end. He finished shifting debris away from the door to his quarters and wrenched the unresponsive thing out of his way angrily. Buried inside his quarters when the damn attack happened. Perfect.
He clambered over hills of fallen, twisted metal on his way outside, trying not to look at them closely, all too aware that there were probably mechs there, in with the pieces of the building. He really didn't want to think about that. He found himself at a breach in the outer wall of the complex and looked out with trepidation.
Primus, what a mess. Nothing moved apart from the smoke drifting over the battlefield. Ratchet crept carefully across the rubble from the destroyed buildings that used to be part of the vast medical complex at which he worked. Damn Megatron and his Decepticons! Hospitals were supposed to be safe zones! Not casualties of a war that no one there had wanted to be part of in the first place.
A faint shudder skittered down his frame as his comm unit blipped suddenly, catching on a distress beacon's broadcast. Someone had lived through the destruction.
The first frame he came across was the dark, dull grey of death, its chest a mangled expanse of metal, tubing, and fried wires. Ratchet's lips thinned and he scowled at the corpse. It was impossible to tell, with that level of damage, who he was or even whether the mech was Autobot or Decepticon. There was nothing Ratchet could do for him, anyway, beyond sending a prayer to Primus that the lost spark would make it back to him.
After this, though, he wasn't even sure he believed in Primus any more.
He passed a great many more dead mechs, some he recognised as being part of the medical staff who'd raced out to try to aid the wounded before the fighting got too bad. They were just as twisted and broken as the combatants. Some of these he could only recognise from certain parts unique to their frames, as their faces had been ruined or completely blown off from the force of the explosions that had ripped through their ranks. His mentor was among this number; he only knew her by the half of her helm that remained. Grief washed through him as he paused at her side, but there was no time to mourn right now.
No, now he had to find the source of that Pit-damned signal.
It was faint, but steady and very annoying. Probably on purpose; anyone wanting to rid themselves of the annoyance had to find it first, thus effecting a 'rescue.' He oriented himself and moved as stealthily as he was able to manoeuvre across the pitted, broken landscape. There didn't seem to be anything still living out there, but he really didn't want to draw attention to himself if there was.
Now, if he could only locate the source! There really weren't that many places to hide out here, and the signal was the strongest in this area. The mech had to be here, and he was clearly still functioning or the distress beacon wouldn't be active.
He may not be conscious, though, Ratchet reminded himself. "Anyone there? I'm a medic," he called, loud enough to carry a short distance, but hopefully not enough to attract hostile attention, if there was any to be had.
The sharp rasp of metal on metal drew his attention off to his right, where a small mound of wreckage quivered and shifted, a tremor running through the whole thing before it slid down itself, tumbling pieces off at wild angles. One bounced past the young medic and his optics fixed on it as it came to rest at the base of another mound.
A quiet, static-laden, "Here," brought his attention back to the original pile. A golden visor glared out at him, flickering spastically and spitting sparks from its side where a chunk of it had broken away and cut into his face. He lay at an awkward angle and from what Ratchet could see, he was covered in dents and scrapes.
It was the sight of the pierced energon line in the mech's neck that spurred Ratchet into action. A trickle of the blue fluid leaked out around the jagged shard of metal embedded in the tubing and Ratchet set to work, repairing wounds as he came across them.
He didn't know how long he'd been working on the mech, didn't know his designation or affiliation, but it didn't matter, because he was doing what he'd been created to do. Healing. The rhythm of the work lulled him into forgetting where he was for a time and the disaster that had struck at his home.
His patient was not the talkative kind; in fact, he barely said a word. It didn't help that he kept sliding in and out of consciousness. There was a slow energon leak somewhere in his systems that Ratchet hadn't been able to pinpoint yet, and it was causing a heavy drain on the mech. Every time he moved a piece of debris off of the injured mech, there was new damage to repair.
"You know, you're lucky to be alive," he commented to the mech during one of his conscious periods. "Any one of these would have been fatal if it had hit just slightly off of where they did." Maybe not the greatest of topics, but the pervasive silence was beginning to get to him.
"That is very reassuring."
The words were delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner that Ratchet wasn't sure if they were meant to convey sarcasm or not.
"You're the only one left. You guys all killed each other. Killed a bunch of my friends, too, when the hospital went up." Bitterness flowed with the words and he had no interest in stopping it.
"My... apologies. We were trying... to save the hospital. I'm sorry it didn't... work."
"Didn't work? Mech, there is nothing left. 'Didn't work' is an understatement."
"Prowl."
"What?"
"My designation is Prowl. Autobot junior tactical officer." His words were beginning to slur.
Ratchet scowled. "What's a junior tactician doing on the field? You should be somewhere behind the lines, analysing troop movements or something. Not fighting on the front."
There was no answer. The mech called Prowl had fallen into unconsciousness yet again.