Earth (Part 2)

"Watchet!" A tiny voice called out from down near the floor. "Up! Up!"

Ratchet, a large and chunky white and orange Autobot, glanced down at the toddler on the ground and smiled, squatting down to offer her a palm to climb onto. The little dark-haired girl did so, seating herself confidently and glancing around without a care in the world as she was brought up to the bot's face. "My name is Ratchet," He reminded her fondly, lightly patting her head with a finger and stressing the first letter. "Rrrratchet."

"Watchet."

Heaving a sound similar to a human's sigh, Ratchet carefully set the little girl on the computer console he was working at, being sure to place himself between her and the very-far-away floor.

The little girl's name was Leah, and she was the two-year-old daughter of a pair of humans Ratchet worked alongside. They along with three teenage children had assisted the Autobots in protecting Earth from the Decepticons almost five years ago, and restoring Cybertron to the point where it was inhabitable once again. Back then there'd been other bots, but they'd since returned to Cybertron to begin rebuilding, and Ratchet had volunteered to stay behind on Earth, just in case. In truth, he'd found he was far fonder of the little humans than he'd ever dare to admit and hadn't wanted to leave them quite yet. June and Fowler's marriage and the subsequent birth of Leah had reinforced that even more. He absolutely adored the toddler and spoiled her rotten, something the children (now all grown adults Ratchet had to keep reminding himself) enjoyed teasing him about often.

Speaking of which…

"Aww look, Grandpa Ratch's at it again!"

Miko; the bane of Ratchet's existence. The girl had no sense of danger whatsoever and actually seemed to find joy in giving Ratchet near spark-attacks with her antics. She was what twenty now, and just as much trouble as she was as a teenager. She was a tall, slender Japanese girl, decked out in jeans and a tank top, her black and pink hair tied in a short pony tail.

Her face was lit up in a teasing grin as she elbowed the dark-haired man beside her. He too was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, an old pair of sneakers on his feet. His name was Jack, and he was Leah's much older brother at nearly twenty-two. Ratchet was still able to remember the look on his face when his mother had announced she was pregnant once again; it had been hilarious. Despite the slight mental breakdown he'd put them all through at the time, Jack was usually a calm, logical young man. He preferred to think things through before acting, which helped to balance Miko out at least a little. However, he was not above a little teasing himself.

"Aww," He cooed up at Ratchet, clasping his hands together mockingly.

Ratchet rolled his optics and ignored them, grumbling to himself as he returned to his work at the computer. It was mostly useless work, keeping a proximity sensor system up and running just in case any Autobots or Decepticons were to come to Earth, but it kept him busy so he didn't mind. Especially when the two young adults planted themselves on the human-sized couches stashed in a corner and began to play video games 'for old time's sake'.

He could hear Miko and Jack chattering away about Bulkhead and Arcee; two of Ratchet's fellow Autobots and the humans' respective guardians. The Autobots had originally lived on Earth in hiding, keeping themselves out of all but the most top-secret of sights, until Arcee accidentally got into a fight with some Decepticon drones right in front of three human children. The Cons had targeted them specifically, forcing Optimus Prime to assign them guardians and let them in on the secret. June as Jack's mother had eventually been dragged into the mess, and Fowler had been the Autobots' Government Liason, a position he had since retired from and Jack now held.

Ratchet smiled and shook his head; most of the Autobot team had been so against the idea in the first place, but now none of them knew how they'd get by without the humans. Even with them stationed on Cybertron most of the time, they always took the time out to visit the humans every once in a while. Ratchet glanced towards a massive tunnel built into a wall of the base; it was almost time for their monthly drop-in if he remembered correctly. Perhaps a few days?

The tunnel was their Space Bridge; a powerful teleportation device and Ratchet's other primary duty on Earth. He and the humans functioned as a small off-planet base for the team on Cybertron, somewhere they could get away to relax or receive extensive repairs when necessary. Usually the latter considering Ratchet was a far better medic than the one they currently had, if he did say so himself. He was responsible for keeping this side of the bridge in working condition and communications with the Cybertron team up.

Ratchet was startled out of his thoughts by a beeping sound, one he hadn't heard in years; the proximity sensors. Both Miko and Jack jumped up at the sound and hurried over. "Are the Cons back? Are they?" Miko demanded excitedly, jumping up and down. "Cause I can go get the armour and kick their cans if you want! You know, since you're so old now…"

The armour Miko refered to was the Apex Armour, an ancient Cybertronian relic their team had managed to pick up amongst all the fighting. On activation, it surrounded the user in an indestructible suit of armour. They'd learned through less-than-ideal circumstances, in which Miko was very nearly killed, that humans were capable of using the armour as well. She'd been allowed to hold onto it ever since, once again just in case.

Ignoring the crack at his age, he wasn't that old yet; Ratchet shook his head, frowning in disbelief at the screen. "No, it's an Autobot ship. One I even recognise."

"What're they doing on Earth then? Shouldn't everyone be heading back to Cybertron by now?" Jack asked curiously, staring up at the screen himself.

"I have no idea, but it's one of the Ark's small transport ships, so it is definitely worth investigating." Ratchet replied, already picking up Leah and contacting her mother's phone via the base's comm. link.

Twenty minutes later found Ratchet speeding out of a Space Bridge portal in his Ambulance form, Miko (and her armour) and Jack strapped into his front seats, as he hurtled towards where he'd tracked the ship's crash site to be.

"So what exactly is the Ark anyway?" Miko asked loudly over the roar of Ratchet's engine. "You guys have mentioned it heaps, but no one ever really bothered to explain it in detail."

"To you maybe," Jack snorted, crossing his arms over the seatbelt. "Arcee was never on it, so she hasn't told me much, but Bee's told Raf plenty of stories."

Raf was the youngest of the trio of teenagers, and Bumblebee his guardian, although Ratchet probably counted as a secondary guardian with the sheer amount of time he spent with the boy. Raf was a genius, a natural with computers and technology of most kinds, even Cybertronian. Ratchet had enjoyed teaching the shy boy about his home planet and their technology while learning about Earth's from a patient and non-demeaning teacher. The boy was eighteen now and off at college, but he regularly came by to visit. He definitely would once he heard about new Autobots landing.

"The Ark was the Autobots' biggest starship," Ratchet replied to Miko, his voice echoing wearily out of the vehicle's radio and lighting up the dashboard in tandem with his words. "We began building it when we first heard Cybertron was dying, as a means to evacuate as many of our forces as we could. Obviously we sent out many other ships as well, but I have no idea where any of them ended up if they even managed to survive.

"The Ark however, travelled the stars, visiting many different planets and fighting the Decepticons wherever we came across them, until we ended up in your galaxy. Optimus was sensing something on one of the planets, so we gathered up a team to go investigate."

"You two, Bumblebee and Bulkhead," Jack added with a nod.

"Yes. We took one of the small transport ships and left, the Ark crew promising to loop back around in a couple of years if they didn't hear from us." Ratchet replied, entering a dense wood and having to slow his speed. "But they never did, even with all the messages Optimus sent out. We always just assumed something had happened and they'd been forced to scatter; the Ark wasn't in the best condition last I saw it."

"So what, this ship is the first sign in…?" Miko trailed off.

"Nearly ten years," Ratchet answered, skidding to a stop.

The ambulance's doors opened and both humans clambered out, glancing around the area. They still appeared to be deep in some woods likely in the middle of nowhere, but there was a large clearing in front of them, probably caused by the smoking chunk of spaceship in the middle of it.

Ratchet transformed, blasters at the ready, and ordered the children to follow along behind him just in case. They'd been fooled before, and if the Ark really was no longer functioning, it wouldn't be that difficult for Decepticons to get their hands on one of the transport ships. Not to mention the fact that even if the occupants were Autobots, something had caused the ship to crash.

Edging forward cautiously, Ratchet moved to where he knew the exit hatch to be, banging a fist on it. "Hello?" He called out loudly, staring confusedly when the door moved, obviously having already been pried open. The next thing Ratchet knew, there was a flash of silver and he ended up face-first on the ground, a blaster to the back of his head and a small weight on his back. He waved a hand dismissively at Miko as he heard her pull out the Apex Armour.

"Jazz."

"Ratchet."

"Ratchet?" Both humans chorused, very much unsure of whether this small silver bot was an enemy or not. At least until he jumped up and off their friend, grinning cheerily as he helped haul Ratchet to his feet, clearly knowing who he was and still not at all sorry.

"This is Jazz, head of the Autobots' Special Operations Unit and all around pain in the neck," Ratchet informed the humans dryly, sending a glare at his comrade.

"You forgot to mention my charm and good looks," Jazz threw out there, already looking distracted as he glanced back into the ship. "But no seriously, I'm glad it's you Ratch. I got some of your favourite old patients for ya."

Ratchet wasn't especially surprised to find one of the 'favourite old patients' to be Sideswipe; he and Jazz were usually around each other in some way or another. Fireflight however was a different story; while she was friends with Sides, it was rare for her to be far from her own teammates if she could help it. Frowning, he leaned against the medical table the femme was resting on, staring at her thoughtfully as she recharged.

Sideswipe however was already awake and causing trouble from his medical bed where he was stuck as both his legs were damaged enough he couldn't walk. He very much enjoyed the attention he was receiving from an over-excited Miko and was bragging away about his flying and fighting capabilities. At least until Miko pointed over to 'Flight and Ratchet, asking; "What's the deal with them? I don't think I've ever seen Ratchet so…gentle with a bot."

"Isn't it obvious?" Sideswipe replied with a mischievous grin. "She's his long-lost, what do you organics call it? Offsping?"

Oh here we go. Ratchet groaned and rubbed at his temples in annoyance, while Jazz simply looked amused from where he was leaning against the doorway. Miko's eyes grew wide and she turned to the medic, shouting; "What!? I thought- you said- you guys can have babies!? How does that even work!? I mean-"

"I am not fixing your legs," Ratchet informed Sideswipe flatly, "You can remain a cripple for the rest of your life."

Sideswipe pretended to pout, the effect lessened by his still-present grin. "Aw come on Ratch, I thought it was funny. And you gotta admit, you do baby her and her brothers a lot."

"Brothers!? How many kids do you have!?" Miko exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Well between them and the other combiner team-" Sideswipe began, only to be cut off by Jazz.

"Ratch doesn't have any kids, Siders here is just screwin' with ya," He informed the little human, giving his subordinate a warning look. Sideswipe knew very well that this was a sore topic for the medic. The humans however, simply looked confused.

"What's a combiner team?" Jack asked curiously, ignoring the rest of the conversation. Ratchet had already explained how new Cybertronians were created; he couldn't believe Miko had fallen for that at all. This last part seemed interesting though.

"A dangerous experiment that should never have gone ahead." Ratchet replied sharply, focusing his attention on the unconscious bot and fussing unnecessarily over a few dents in her head. "Decepticon scientists were stupid enough to link a group of bots together and allow them to combine into a larger, much more powerful bot. They never thought about how having five or more conflicting personalities in the one body would affect the bots; leaving all of them unstable and dangerous."

"So Fireflight's a Decepticon experiment then?"

"No. Autobot scientists got their hands on the tech eventually and were convinced they could do better. We now have two teams of five that are heavily emotionally reliant on each other, have incredibly unstable personalities, and combine into mindless destruction machines."

"Oh," Was all Jack had to say. To him the basic idea sounded rather cool, and despite the amount of time he'd spent around Cybertronians, he just couldn't fathom what that kind of connection would be like. Ratchet seemed awfully bitter over the whole thing though and very protective over the little flyer. "So where are her brothers now then?"

"The 'Cons attacked a small group of us and forced us to scatter," Jazz replied grimly, stepping forward. "'Flight ended up with me and Siders, but we think one or two of the others may have been captured. 'Flight's team were the only thing keepin' us in the game, we were outnumbered so badly. Seekers were pretty determined to take 'em out; chased us all the way to this galaxy."

"Maybe I will fix your legs then," Ratchet muttered to Sideswipe thoughtfully. "If we go looking for them, I'd rather not have Jazz crash us again."

"To be fair, he crashed Flight and then the ship," Sideswipe added unhelpfully, pointing at his superior as he dobbed him in and Ratchet turned a death glare on the little ninja. "Also, no offence Ratch, but I doubt you and your little squishies are going to make much of a difference, and that ship is way beyond repair."

As Jazz proceeded to flee both the scene and Ratchet's wrath, the medic turned a knowing smile on the red pilot. Clearly he knew something they didn't.

"What?"

Next Episode - Cybertron
As the reconstruction of Cybertron continues, Ultra Magnus is having a few...issues.

Thanks for the favourites and reviews on the first chapter, feedback is always appreciated very much!

~Saani