DISCLAIMER: I do not own this franchise I am only using it and some of its characters as a base universe for this story.
Chapter 26- Sythen
POV: Twinwave
" " Normal talking
": :" Bumblebee talking
(Note: this chapter takes place during season 1 ep 22 " Stronger, Faster" of TFP)
"More energon on the move." Arcee said as an alarm went off, the room flashed green as it went off. Everyone started to gather around the computer screens to see where it was going and how fast. "Again?" Bulkhead complained, he had a reason for it too. This was the third or fourth time this week alone that thing had gone off and it didn't seem like it would slow down. "The Decepticons must be pretty desperate for it if they've been nonstop scavenging for this stuff." I commented as we waited for orders and instructions to see who was going to be going after it.
I had a feeling it wasn't me because I wasn't as fast as everyone else but I could still be useful enough to watch the kids while everyone was gone. "Their recent activity suggests a familiar pattern. The Decepticons are desperately scouting for new deposits to mine as Twinwave suggested. Autobots!-" Optimus started before he was cut off by Ratchet, he'd only been able to turn around and walk a few steps before being interrupted. "Optimus… if one of you comes back wounded this time- well. Our energon reserves are nearly depleted." Ratchet said grimly, Optimus nodded his helm "Understood. Activate the ground bridge. Autobots roll out!" he said as the ground bridge fired on. Everyone transformed and headed for the portal but Bee stayed behind and waited a second so I could hop on top of his alt so I could help.
I transformed and hopped on top of Bee so we could get going already and follow the others to the energon chase. When we got through the ground bridge and popped through to the other side we were just ahead of Knockout and Breakdown and in a good position to cut them off. "Autobots, prepare for combat." Optimus said and I immediately got off of Bee's alt so he could transform and transform his blasters, all I had to do was pull my swords out of their case and get ready to slash some tires. By the time everyone was ready to ya know, stop Knockout and Breakdown they'd clearly seen us because Breakdown had his cannon aimed and had fired a missile out way. Everyone ducked out of the way as the missile hit where we'd just been standing seconds before, then everyone but myself returned fire as I put my swords away and transformed to run ahead and try to bring Breakdown, who was carrying the cube, to a screeching halt by hopefully getting rid of one of his tires.
I ran towards them, I was lower to the ground than their vehicles so the blaster shots that were coming from our side were easily avoidable. I got to Breakdowns tires and managed to get one of his back ones before he turned his cannon on me and I decided to get the frag out of there before I was blown to bits by an incoming missile. I ran as fast as I could to get ahead of Knockout and Breakdown so that when they zoomed past the others I could just hop on top of Bee's alt and hopefully not slow anyone down, which was a good move because I was barely keeping pace with their engines when we reached the others and they zoomed by as blue blaster shots followed them. I managed to get back to Bee just as everyone was speeding away to catch up with the Decepticons.
We sped down the narrow cliff passage trailing not to far from the Decepticons when I heard their air support come in, "Uh guys, we've got bogies on our six and a lot of them at that." I remarked into our comm link. I'd turned around to see how many we were dealing with only to find that were, as usual, hopelessly outnumbered and about to be blown to bits by the missiles the eradicons were detaching. Everyone stepped on their breaks and the sound of screeching tires echoed off the rocky walls as the missiles flew over top of us and hit the sides of the passage, well everyone but Arcee had stopped. She was still going strong ahead of us and was trying to catch up with Knockout and Breakdown, the rocks that the missiles had hit came tumbling down as she used one of them as a ramp and shot herself into the air and untransformed. She climbed the falling rocks to avoid being hit before riding one all the way down once she'd gotten into the clear and transformed.
The wall of rocks she'd just avoided came tumbling down and blocked us from following her, apparently nobody's brakes were working today because I was forced to hope off of Bee to let him, Bulkhead and Optimus untransform as they barely hit the wall from momentum. "Arcee, fall back. You're outnumbered." Optimus said as he commed her, "And you've got no back up, we're a little trapped here Cee." I added as I attempted to scale the wall in front of us to see if I could get optics on her and the energon. "We're always outnumbered. We need that energon." Arcee shot back at him, she was right too except this time it was more like twelve to one or maybe twenty to one. By the time I'd managed to climb the wall she was already so far from us it wasn't funny and she was going full speed to catch up with the energon. "Ratchet, lock on to Arcee's coordinates and prepare an emergency ground bridge." Optimus said below me.
I wasn't really paying attention to the mechs right now because I was watching Arcee to make sure she was still okay, "She's almost got them Optimus but air support is arriving." I shouted to below me so he could hear what I was seeing. Though I knew an emergency ground bridge was ready and Ratchet was fully prepared to help her and had told her to decelerate I wasn't really paying attention to him. Right now one of my best friends was currently dodging an arsenal of missiles that had been detached and were raining down on her as I Ratchet tried to coax her back to base. The missiles hit around her or just in front of her but she always seemed to get out of the way just in time before another one hit close to her, that was until one hit just at the back of her and the explosion knocked her forward and made her come to a screeching and transforming stop.
"Arcee! Optimus she's been hit!" I screamed in horror, I didn't get to hear Optimus' word of caution because I was already over the wall and running towards her at my full speed as eradicons fell around he and formed a circle, this time she was hurt, hopelessly outnumbered and they were closing in on her fast. "YOU LEAVE HER ALONE!" I yelled as my alt untransformed and I slide under the eradicon on my twelve. I was untransformed and had both swords out when a ground bridge opened above me and Ratchet fell from the sky, "At Least I've got back up now." I thought as he landed a few feet from me and picked up an eradicon and threw it like a bowling ball towards the others. Without hesitation I lunged in front of me and dismantled the closest eradicon with my swords, Ratchet already had his blades transformed and was cutting through some of them as I helped. They had thor blasters transformed and the occasional shot came my way but I was already slicing them open before they could get another one in, together Ratchet and I cut through the remaining eradicons and the time other others had jumped the wall after me and fired blaster shots to spook off Knockout and Breakdown two eradicons remained and I sliced through one and Ratchet dissected the other.
I put my swords away and dashed over to help Bee help Arcee up as Ratchet stood on our mound of fallen eradicons, Arcee was on her feet when one dazed Con tried to sneak up on Ratchet and he backhanded him. "Hoo-ah!" he cheered as it fell, "Well that's something you don't see everyday." I muttered. I knew Ratchet hadn't seen combat in eons, well this kind of combat fighting an army of Megatron's undead with Optimus is a different story.
"Rafael, we need a ground bridge to our coordinates." Ratchet said he sounded vaguely similar to Optimus but I wasn't judging. The mech and I had just cut through maybe twenty eradicons without blasters and by ourselves, I'd say that was pretty good for someone who hadn't been fighting Con's in eons. The ground bridge opened up behind Optimus and Bulkhead, and everybody started to stream into it. They were super star struck by Ratchet and a little bit by me too as we passed by them to step into the ground bridge and disappeared into our usual plume of gold dust and reappear on the other side of it, which was of course back at base and into the main area.
"What happened?" Raf asked the second everyone was through the ground bridge, "I only saw the gory aftermath, but I hear the doc and Wave were a two bot wrecking machine." Bulkhead said as we approached Raf at the computers. Ratchet reached down and picked him up in one of his servos, there was a surprised scream from Raf because he hadn't been expecting to be picked up and Ratchet gave him a little toss. "Hey, little fella." he said before putting him back down onto the human platform next to his computers, "Alright, what's your secret?" Arcee asked as Ratchet walked away from us. I think it was safe to say that everyone had noticed a change in him over the last ten or so minutes. "No secret. Just a little something I like to call synthen~." He said he'd stopped at his work station where I'd seen him testing this stuff earlier, he picked up a container and tossed it to Arcee. The rest of them crowded around it like it was so new found treasure. "From the data Bulkhead transcribed? I thought the formula was-" Arcee started before Ratchet cut her off.
"Incomplete? Not anymore." he chuckled. ":This stuff sounds amazing!:" Bee buzzed before passing the jar to Bulkhead, "So Ratchet makes a better tough guy than I do a smart guy?" he jokingly before passing the container to me. "I'm still not convinced that this stuff is ready for actual use. I know it worked on Ratchet but we don't know if there's side effects yet." I remarked looking at the green 'energon' that I held in my servo, Arcee turned her helm to look at me "Oh come on, lighten up Wave, if it worked on Ratchet then it had to have worked on us." she said.
I still wasn't convinced and apparently Optimus wasn't either, I'd already passed him the container of the stuff but he was as skeptical as I was. "Ratchet, I question the wisdom of using yourself as a test subject." the Prime said as he looked into the container of the stuff, "Optimus, you didn't see Ratchet out there. He was in overdrive. We should all try this stuff." Arcee said eagerly. I wasn't liking how everyone was immediately turning to this stuff as the answer for victory, "Or give Ratchet more so we can have a vacation." Bulkhead piped in.
"No thanks I'm good for not using this stuff, I helped Ratchet topple those Con's and I did it without this sythen stuff." I remarked, I would try it when I knew there would be no side effects and the sythen was perfect for consumption and fuel. "I know the initial results seem promising but I recommend that further testing be confined to machines, not Autobots. Outnumbered though we may be, old friend, we need a warrior in the laboratory right now. More than we need another in the field." Optimus said as he walked over and handed the container of sythen back to Ratchet. He took the container out of Optimus' servo and stormed off towards the hanger, where I had been planning to go but sure I guess I'll stay here with the others. "I'll go talk to him or maybe spar with him." Bulkhead said as he moved past Optimus to go catch up with Ratchet. I heard Optimus sigh and everyone started to slowly disburs and go back to going whatever they were doing before we'd left for the mission.
"I'm worried about him too, Optimus. He isn't acting at all like himself today." I said walking up next to the Prime, "He needs to understand that there are variables that he hasn't found yet and that this isn't our only hope to ending this war." Optimus replied. We both and I'm sure everyone else in here could hear the loud talking that was coming from the hanger, probably Ratchet recapping today's battle to BUlkhead in epic detail. "I know, Optimus. But I think whatever that synthen stuff is made of is clouding his judgement and-" I was cut off before I could finish talking by a loud crash and smash of something coming from the hanger.
"What was that?" I heard Arcee ask as she and Bee cam back from their room, "Is anyone hurt?" I asked running over to see what had been the cause of the commotion. Bulkhead was upturned and had apparently been thrown through the wall of the hanger and had hit the wall in the hallway before coming to a stop. Ratchet was already through the hole and talking to Arcee and Bee who had come to se what in the pits of Kaon was happening, "You think you can take me, musle car?" Ratchet asked Bee. ":Uh no thanks, I think you'd cream me.:" was Bee's response, Ratchet pushed past him and said "Wimp.". To be fair I don't think I'd like to get thrown through a wall either Bumblebee, "How's it humming?" Ratchet said as he walked past Arcee and I died a little inside and was happy that I liked femmes instead of mechs because oh boy did they have the cheesiest pick up lines.
"Did he just…" Arcee started before she trailed off, I finished helping Bulkhead to his pedes before I walked over to join them. "I think he did." I replied as equally as shocked, "Stronger, faster, studlier. Bulkhead said, we turned to look at him instead of Ratchet who was walking away from us and towards the energon stock pile probably to refuel. "Well if it makes him like that, I'm definitely not trying it." I remarked walking away and towards the main base, as I was the alarm started going off again which ment we had more energon on the move.
"Looks like the Cons hit another vein." Arcee said as we got close enough to the computers for her to read it, "Autobots, roll out." Optimus said. He turned towards the unactivated ground bridge before Bulkhead stepped infront of him to stop him, "Hey, hey, shouldn't we wait for our secret weapon?" he asked. They all seemed to be clinging to the hope that Ratchet would come with us and make the mission easier. "This mission is unlikely to require medical expertise." Optimus replied, he wasn't dine talking for a second before Ratchet added something. "But you never know if it may require additional firepower. Bumblebee can handle ground bridge duty." He said, we turned to see where he was and of course Ratchet was leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed and attempting to look cool persay.
He started walking over to us, ":If it means Ratchet can go then sure, I'll stay.:"Bee buzzed. I just rolled my optics "No I don't think it will." I shot back, we didn't need his reckless aft coming and ruining our element of surprise, that is if we had any. "Time to put some hurt on those Decepticons!" Ratchet said excitedly, he'd completely ignored my last comment and wasn't going to take not coming for an answer. Bee fired up the ground bridge and wished us good luck before we all stepped through and disappeared and then reappeared at the top of a steep hill., we could see the vehicons and their drills below us.
"How are we going to get down there without completely alerting all of them?" Arcee whispered to us, once the ground bridge disappeared we'd ducked behind a rock on the top of the hill to hopefully remain out of sight of them. "We need to go in stealthily and quietly or we'll face the firing squad." I replied, I poked my helm around the rock to count how many vehicons we were outnumbered by. "I count nine or maybe ten cons below." I said once I'd restored my cover, "You all are taking too long, is this how you always operate on missions because it's slow." Ratchet said and before we could get a word in he was gone and was running down the hillside. "I guess we have to follow him now." Bulkhead said and we all steped out from behind our cover to run after him.
We didn't end up being too far behind him but he was jumping from rock to rock and occasionally flipping off of one and landing on a nearby dead tree trunk which I thought would have snapped under his weight and given our position away. We eventually got to the bottom and hid behind some more rocks while someone came up with a plan. Bulkhead pulled out his energon signal meter and looked at the red hand. "Signal's weak. They may have hit a vein, but they won't find much of any energon pulse- not here." Bulkhead said quietly enough so we could hear him and not the vehicons.
He looked straight at Optimus when he was done talking to see if he had a plan ready, "I take some comfort in the fact that Megatron seems as desperate to find this stuff as we are." Arcee replied and I nodded my helm. It was good to know that they might be suffering as much as we were to find fresh deposits on this planet, "Do you two always talk this much during these missions? " Ratchet retorted and was over his rock, transformed and down the hill before any of us could speak. "Great now we have to go after him and make sure he doesn't get himself killed, this is exactly why I didn't think we should bring him." I said before transforming and following after him.
Of course I didn't have a vehicle mode or blasters so I wasn't good at long range but I could get down the hill pretty quickly and nimbly. I watched as I ran down this hill, Ratchet had used his momentum like a ramp and had put tire marks on the first vehicon he'd run over. Then he was transformed and had his blades equipped and was doing the same thing I'd seen him doing this morning except with less style. I transformed and joined the fire fight, the others had high ground and blasters so they would be fine in thinning the ranks for me.
I pulled my swords out of their case and jumped into slicing and dicing the vehicons, there weren't going to be any survivors when I was done with them. "If only Bee were here, then I'd have some back up." I muttered as I took on another Con and as he fell another one came running and firing my way. "Where's Ratchet?" I thought looking around, I got my answer when I saw him climbing the cliff in front of us for whatever reason. Well at least my backup was here and I had less vehicons to worry about because everyone else was finally down the hill and picking them off for me. I sliced two more vehicons in half before Bulkhead used his wrecking ball and smacked the last one we needed to worry about.
I dropped my arms and had a second to relax before screaming started above us, a lot of "No!" was coming from up there. " I guess we need to get climbing." I remarked as I made my way to the cliff and started pulling myself up it. The others followed and soon we were pulling ourselves over the lip of the cliff and wondering what the frang was going on. "That's all I know. Really!" a non-Autobot's voice said, we stopped in our tracks when we saw what was happening. Ratchet was leaning over the miner that had been drilling earlier and was melting just above his visor with his blowtorch, I could tell everyone was now understanding the side effects of synthen I'd mentioned earlier. "Now, was that so difficult?" Ratchet asked as he pulled his torch away from the sparking Con, the only response he got was a groan and more sparking.
He untransformed his torch and transformed his blade and looked like he was going to end the Con's life. "Ratchet! What are you doing?" Optimus said as he ran over and grabbed Ratchet's blade arm to stop it from coming down and slicing the miner's throat, Ratchet stepped off the miner and he dashed away from us. "Getting results." Ratchet said as he turned to Optimus, I could already feel the tension building between them.
"Except what you just did isn't how we get our results, touture is how the Cons get there's." I said, stepping forward to join Optimus and Ratchet. "And breaking protocol. That was a Decepticon miner, servant class, not warrior class." Optimus said, he'd switched to his parenting tone and was clearly not at all thrilled with what he'd just witnessed Ratchet do. "Oh, and let me guess. I'm just the medic." Ratchet reotered, he sounded like a sparkling who'd just been caught doing something they weren't supposed to. In this case, well that was the case. "Autobots do not inflict harm unless all other options have been exhausted. It is what separates us from the Decepticons." Optimus replied, he'd started to lean closer to Ratchet to get his point across, Ratchet just scoffed and laughed in response to Optimus' seriousness and I couldn't help but feel shocked at how reckless Ratchet was being.
"Is this really the time for another lecture, Optimus? You didn't just happen to discover Megatron's current location, did you? Well, I did! And do you happen to know where there is a stockpile of raw energon pire for the taking? I do!" Ratchet yelled, at this point Arcee and Bulkhead had joined the three of us and Bulkhead had stepped in Ratchet's sightline of Optimus to try and get him to calm down. "Come on, Ratchet. Calm it down." Bulkhead insisted he'd put one of his servos in front of Ratchet to try and stop him from walking over and punching Optimus.
Ratchet smacked his servo out of the way before ranting again, "Calm is the last thing we need! Calm is what lost us Cybertron! The Cons have a warship, an army. All this energon scouting, you think Megatron isn't gearing up for something big? We're squandering our resources chasing after his crumbs when we really need to be hitting him hard and hitting him now. Precisely where it hurts!" Ratchet said he'd moved from walking away from us to pacing and now to punching one of his servos that had been curled into a fist into his servo. "A direct assault on the Decepticons would only provoke retaliation and lead to incalculable losses. I will not endanger innocent human lives." Optimus said he'd walked over to Ratchet and no they were both starting to rant.
"Yet you seem to have no problem endangering ours. Just ask Cliffjumper. Oh, I forgot he couldn't be here today." Ratchet remarked and I grabbed Arcee before she could do anything she would or wouldn't regret later. "That's it, Ratchet, you just can't go and do whatever the frag you want because you want to. We have a protocall and a way of doing things around here." I said as I held Arcee back with the help of Bulkhead, "Really? Because the last time I checked blasting off into space the moment you get your feelings hurt by a femme is breaking protocall." Ratchet retorted and at that point I wanted to kill him and I could have if I simply had let go of Arcee and ran with her to slice Ratchet in two.
"You know your problem, Optimus?" Ratchet said, turning his attention to his old friend, "For such a big, strong bot, you're soft. You didn't pound Megatron into scrap when you had the chance- many times chances, in fact." Ratchet yelled at him. I would never understand how Optimus kept his cool in these situations because I wanted to tear Ratchet's helm off and be done with his Primus unawful ranting already, "I'm afraid that the synthetic energon has impaired your judgement, old friend. I am confining you to base until further notice. Bumblebee, bridge us back." Optimus said, he comm Bee for the bridge and Bulk and I finally let go of Arcee. The bridge appeared behind us and everyone started to go through it, "You crossed a line today, Ratchet and I hope karma's a glitch and gets you back for it." I said turning around and starting to walk towards the bridge.
I heard a sigh and Ratchet say "Fine." and he pushed past me and walked through the bridge and back to base, I turned my helm to look back at everyone and Arcee just shrugged in response. I kept walking towards the bridge and saw Ratchet come running back through, he picked me up in the air with his servos and threw me right at Optimus. I flew through the air and landed with a thud against his leg, I was still laying on my back but I heard Ratchet transform and tires screech as he drove away from us. "Are you alright, Twinwave?" Optimus asked me after he was done scowling in Ratchet's direction.
"Never better, but remind me to run him through if Megatron doesn't kill him first." I said as I tried to stand, the world was still a little fuzzy and spinning but I managed to transform and run through the portal with the others following closely behind before I felt like I was going to fall over. We got back into the base and everyone transformed and Arcee immediately went over to the computer to see if she could manage to track down Ratchet, "Can't get a fix on Ratchet's coordinates." she said after a moment of scanning for him. "That bogus energon must be scrambling his signal." Bulkhead replied. "And you guys wanted to try that stuff." I said, "Keep trying." Optimus urged. "We've got to find Ratchet before he finds Megatron. "Don't worry I've got it." I replied as I walked forward and moved Arcee over from the controls.
It seemed Rain's decoding and hacking lessons were going to come in handy onc3 again as I searched through a multitude of different frequencies before I stumbled upon his familiar signal. "I've got him." I reported as the alarm went off as soon as I found his signal. "Bumblebee." Optimus said as he looked to my partner, ":I'm on it:" Bee replied as he flipped the ground bridge switch and not whirled to life, it should take whoever was going through directly to Ratchet.
"Optimus, you need to hurry. His signal is fading fast." I said as soon as the ground bridge whirlied to life. "Autobots, Roll Out!" Optimus said as he, Cee and Bulk transformed and drove through to go find Ratchet. Bee closed the bridge as soon as everyone was through, "Now we just pray to Primus they find him quickly." I said to Bee as I got up from the computers and I headed over to med bay. ":What are you doing?:" Bee asked, "I'm going to set med bay up for when they need a bridge back, I have a feeling that Ratch will be in worse shape than expected." I responded before I continued to walk over to med bay and get the electro pulse monitor ready, some refined energon from our deserpatly low stock pile and well whatever else I thought I might need when Ratchet came through that bridge, I pulled a med berth closer to the machine I was working on getting ready when Bee got the call that they needed a bridge back.
I braced myself for what I might see when they came through and it wasn't what I had been expecting, Optimus was carrying an unconscious Ratchet and ran him straight towards me as bee closed the bridge in the background, Optimus carefully sat him down on the med berth as I placed the IV unit that had some energon in it onto Ratchet's massive would and then an elector pulse monitor over his spark chamber to monitor his spark rate.
Slowly but surely Ratchet's fleeting pulse stabilized and I let out a sigh of relief, "He should be waking up in a moment." I said as the beeping of the monitor got into a steady rhythm. "How do you know so much about first aid?" Bulkhead asked me, I just shrugged. "I used to faint a lot as a kid and when I became an Air Guardian we needed to learn field and emergency first aid in case we ever needed it." I responded. Ratchet let out a groan and I saw his optics open up as he tried to sit up to see where he was, "Easy old friend. You lost a lot of energon- good and bad. " Optimus said as he placed a servo on his friend's shoulder and gently pushed him back down onto the berth so he could lay down so he didn't put any strain on his wound.
"I- I didn't intend to hurt anyone. I just wanted so badly to…" Ratchet said trailing off, "Help us? We know Ratch, you told us explicitly when you weren't in the right helm space." I replied, I gave him a small smile of sympathy. "But you nearly caused the loss of something irreplaceable- our medic and a most trusted friend." Optimus said and I saw Ratchet smile, "And here I was thinking you were going to say the Earth." I joked. "You did, however, lead us to a much needed energon supply. And for that we should be thankful." Optimus said as he moved his servo to show both me and Ratchet the energon supply we'd gotten out of the mine Ratchet had been led to. I let out a small gap because I hadn't been expecting that much if it there was nearly thirty cubes stacked by the ground bridge and Bee plus Arcee were bringing in more as we spoke.
"The synthetic energon formula clearly needs refining before it can be tested again. On machines, not Autobots." Ratchet said as he and Optimus exchanged a small nod and smile. "Let us take comfort in the fact that you were able to dispose of the quantity that remained." Optimus said with a small smile.
"Alright enough of the chatter, he needs rest so his energon levels will go back up and so we can get that wound patched quicker. His medic's orders." I said putting both my servos at Optimus' back and trying to move him from the berth side, "Since when were you the medic?" Ratchet remarked for his berth as I attempted to remove Optimus from med bay. "Since you forfeited the title when you almost got yourself killed at Megatron's servo and I had to stabilized you." I retorted back to him as I slowly inched Optimus away from him and then gave up on the idea. "You stabilized me? But how?" Ratchet said with a little shock, "I've been trained to, duh. And you need rest, so recharge." I replied walking away from him.
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