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"No, no, Prowl's not Prowl," Mirage insisted.
"Yes, I am," Prowl said. "Of course I am; I'm black and white and I have a stick up my…"
"Sideswipe," Sunstreaker said, warning clear in his voice.
"No backtalking your commanding officer," Prowl retorted, his expression far too gleeful, "or it's off to the brig with you!"
"Don't you dare send my frame to the brig, you aft. I just got it polished." Hound looked down mournfully at his green paintjob, his hands flicking disdainfully against his chassis. "Unlike this one…why couldn't I get switched with Mirage? He at least knows how to take proper care of himself…"
"Thank you," Wheeljack said, amused. "I have been attempting to pass on such habits to Hound, but the progress is slow-going."
"There's more to life than the washracks," Sideswipe said philosophically.
Seven of the Upgraded bots had crowded into the medbay. That in itself wasn't unusual these days; Ratchet could expect any number of them in or out of their Upgraded transformations on a berth throughout the week from a bewildering array of damages that had occurred in the heat of battle. Sometimes the damage was normal, like scrapes or dings or someone's arm getting torn off. Again.
And sometimes it was Sunstreaker, mad as a cornered turbofox and covered in glitter from helm to pede. (And wasn't that a repair and a half: dealing with both the ridiculously sticky glittering substance and Sunstreaker's howls of outrage that he was going to get the glitch, just see if he didn't, and Bumblebee prudently staying as far away as possible.)
The point was that Ratchet had seen a lot. Nothing Prowl's team of 'magically' Upgraded misfits could do should surprise him anymore.
He really should have known better than to tempt Primus.
"Sideswipe is Prowl is Sunstreaker is Hound is Sideswipe," Mirage said when prompted about the predicament that had landed them all within the medbay. He was fidgeting, seemingly ill at ease in his frame, which in itself was odd; Mirage was normally the epitome of calm control. This, however, seemed insignificant in the face of the fact that he had not stopped running his vocalizer since he had entered the medbay.
Mirage. Acting very not-Mirage-like as he scattered words like the skies above Portland scattered raindrops. (Which was to say, not so much 'scattered raindrops' as poured a lot of water down from the sky for a fair amount of the year. He was no Hound to get all soppy about weather patterns and organic life, but this planet could be pretty damn amazing in its own way.)
Ratchet resisted the urge to reset his optics. "Will someone please explain to me what happened?"
Sunstreaker – or whoever – opened his mouth to reply, but Mirage beat him to it. "See, there was a bright light when we were out fighting those shadow-things – the ones that are kinda like drones in that they're pretty weak and stupid but there's tons of them so you have to be careful not to get overwhelmed – and we beat them, of course, but then there was that light and everything went all sparkly and then everyone got mixed up and we don't know how so Prowl said we had to come see you immediately before Sideswipe started abusing 'the power implicit in his borrowed frame' –"
"I would not abuse my power," Prowl said sulkily. "No one ever lets me have any fun."
"Because we know you," Bluestreak pointed out. Prowl huffed.
"—and Jazz went to go report to Optimus 'cause his group didn't get zapped and Prowl wanted us all to stick together, even Sunstreaker, which really upset him 'cause he said – Sunstreaker said, I mean, not Prowl 'cause Prowl wanted us here so you can fix us – anyways, Sunny said that he had more important things to do –"
"Like getting to the washracks and having a good, thorough scrub," Hound said tightly. "I have…there is…do you ever even use the washracks?"
"Of course I do," Sideswipe said mildly, "but before the fight, Trailbreaker and I found this little copse with the mostinteresting life forms underneath a fallen log, and…"
"I. Don't. Care."
"—and anyways, you can fix us now, because you're Ratchet and you can fix anything," Mirage finished in a rush, smiling brightly. "Like that time when Sideswipe got stuck in a tree and got bark stuck up his tailpi—"
"Blue!" Prowl grabbed Mirage's shoulder, a look of horror crossing his faceplate. "That never happened, remember?"
"Okay," Ratchet said, resisting the urge to beat his helm against the wall. "Thank you for that, Bluestreak. Now, which one is Wheeljack?"
"Here, Ratch'," Bluestreak said cheerfully. "I tried to get a scan of the light that caught us but the readings are looking pretty weird."
"You all appear to have undergone a mass personality transfer," Ratchet said dryly. "Somehow I'm not surprised that the cause of it all seems 'weird'."
A/N: For the horribly confused:
Prowl is in Sunstreaker's body
Sunstreaker is in Hound's body
Hound is in Sideswipe's body
Sideswipe is in Prowl's body
Bluestreak is in Mirage's body
Mirage is in Wheeljack's body
Wheeljack is in Bluestreak's body.
Yes, I am a horrible person and not at all dead as I may have appeared to be. (Done! College! YAAAAAAAAAY. Now off to be a responsible adult or something.)
