Author'sNote: I want to thank Cloud-Dancer103 for giving me the idea for this chapter!

Disclaimer: I own none of the Transformers characters. I do own my OCs so if you use them you need to ask me first, please and thank you.

Key:

Sparklings talk/ Cybertronian= bold

Com. =::-::

Chapter 14

There was pain, so much pain that all Jade wanted to do was curl up in a ball and let the blissful feeling of falling unconscious consume her. Not yet though, there was still danger. She didn't remember when Barricade picked her up or when he carried her toward what must have been the ending scene to the battle, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that the large black robot had pointed one of his cannon hands at the children. He was a danger and needed to be eliminated.

When the male refused to lower the cannons, having the audacity to focus one on her and the other on Barricade who was leading the children to safety, Jade snapped. Her world faded as she launched herself at the aggressive male while his head was turned away. Her vision turned black, she could hear nothing but frightening static after her first primal roar, and all sensation was lost so she had no clue if she was even moving. Her only thought was protecting the children.

To say Ratchet was surprised that Barricade had come near the group was an understatement. The medic's astonishment grew into awe as he noticed the damaged femme cradled gently in the Decpticon's arms and the large mech following behind. The large mech had no faction symbol, but Ratchet couldn't tell if he was a neutral or not. The femme however was more concerning. From where he was standing he could make out a dented helm, damaged ankle strut, and a melted off piece of armor that was supposed to go over the sparkling chamber.

He was about to charge forward and start working on the femme while drilling the Decepticon for answers, the mech would cooperate if he wanted to stay undamaged, when Ironhide noticed the group. Understandably, Ironhide would be jumpy after just finishing a battle and so his cannons automatically pointed at the heads of both oncoming mechs. Of course his actions brought the attention of Optimus and Sam. Never in his entire life had Ratchet wanted to hit the weapon specialist so hard that he would be unable to function for at least a stellar cycle.

Suddenly the femme, which he had thought was in stasis lock, stood on her own peds making him want to force her off her damaged leg. She snarled at Ironhide in a way that made Ratchet's medic programming run on overdrive. She was severely injured and should be in stasis lock, not threatening Ironhide. Glancing at Barricade and the other mech, who looked confused and worried, Ratchet noticed several little forms in the unknown mech's servos and a proverbial light bulb went off. If that mech was holding sparklings then the femme's sparkling protection programming would be active. With the way she was acting Ratchet had to say it was a very overactive program that was running.

Just as he was going to intervene the femme launched herself at the perceived threat with a furious roar when Ironhide turned his attention away from her. Ratchet was really getting tired of his actions being cut off right before he went to do them.

Ironhide's head whipped back toward the femme just as she landed on him. The two crashed down onto the street, creating an Ironhide shaped crater in the pavement below. Ironhide grunted as his helm bounced on the cracked pavement. The femme however seemed unfazed by the fall and started to literally tear at any of the weapon specialist's exposed wires with her bare servos. With a snarl Ironhide tossed the femme away from him before standing. The femme crashed into the wall of a building, falling through the structure to land inside. Growling Ironhide tried to fire his cannons only to find they refused to work. Ratchet automatically knew that the femme had damaged the circuitry needed for the cannons to operate properly. Slightly stunned that he was unable to use his cannons Ironhide prowled toward to hole in the building. Before he could get to the femme, she came flying out of the hole with two blades that were bent sharply in the middle drawn and ready to strike. Quickly Ironhide was on the retreat, dodging as many swipes from the deadly blades as possible. All too soon the large mech was backed against the wall of a building with the femme posed in front of him, her arms crossed so that if she moved even a little the blades in her servos would slice through the vulnerable neck cables of her captured prey.

Enough was enough. This nonsense needed to stop before Ironhide was killed by the femme, the femme got herself killed, or one of the sparklings that had been calling out to her the entire fight got away from Barricade and got hurt themselves. Stealthily Ratchet maneuvered himself behind the snarling femme. Her helm whipped toward him with a fiery glare right as he pinched the precise neck cable he was looking for. Then her optics offlined and Ratchet caught her as her frame fell toward the street. Ironhide vented with relief as the blades fell to the ground. He would never admit to the fear he showed in his optics when he looked at the femme.

"Thanks Ratchet. Now all we have to do is get the Con and we can-"

"We will do nothing of the sort. You will go find Bee and Jazz before I reconfigure you into a toaster," Ratchet growled, interrupting the mech in front of him.

Not wanting to face the wrath of Ratchet, Ironhide fled from the area to look for their comrades. It was time to carefully choose his battles and he refused to fight with the medic. Gently laying the femme on a level area of blacktop he turned his attention to a shadow that had appeared over him. Looking up and behind him he found the large unknown mech and sure enough a servofull of sparklings, though some looked like they may be minicons. Ratchet blinked at the different frames and wondered where on Earth all of them had come from.

"You will fix Carrier, right? You will make her better and she will take care of all of us, right? You have to fix her, we need her!" one of the seekerlings wailed in Cybertronian, tracks of leaking energon falling from the little mech's optics.

"I will try." He couldn't give them a straight answer until he was able to fully diagnose the femme and to do that he needed a medbay. Looking up at Optimus he commed the Autobot leader;

:: I need to get her to a medbay, even a temporary one. She will offline soon from this damage. Not even patching her will help at this point. ::

:: I will speak to Lennox and see how fast we can get you to one suited for your needs with supplies. Do what you can to help her survive. :: The Leader of the Autobots paused for a moment before speaking again, :: She was damaged by humans while trying to protect the sparklings, wasn't she. ::

:: I fear that is most likely the case, no Cybertronian other than Megatron would dare harm a sparkling and even he would have second thoughts regarding that now that there are so few Cybertronians left. :: the medic reasoned as he quickly took pieces of medical patch metal out of his subspace and welded it over the wounds. He would not lose this femme after losing Jazz already.

Glancing up at the sound of movement, Ratchet saw the large mech sit down on the other side of the femme. Within the little group in his servos there were several different frames of different colors and four uncolored seekerlings, one of which was a femme trying to desperately break away from the large seekerling mech holding her back. It seemed that Primus had blessed the next generation with a medic. He would have to see about training her when she reached her second frame.

"Carrier," the little mech seekerling whimpered as the medic continued to work. The frightened and desolate look on his little face plates forced Ratchet to work faster. This femme was needed by these sparklings; he would slag himself if he didn't try his hardest to save her. No sparkling was going to be without their carrier if he had anything to say about it. Never again.