Chapter 9

Hope is a fickle thing. As hard as a diamond, but at the same time as fragile as a soap bubble.

Megatron had been counting on facing an Autobot unit who had lost their hope, the fight sucked out of them by the loss of one of the key members of their organisation. Sadly, he was greatly mistaken. The news of Ratchet's survival had bolstered the Autobot's resolve to phenomenal levels. Previously worried, anxious and despondent, now they were angry.

By now, Megatron should have known that it was never a good idea to mess with ticked off Autobots.

"Autobots! ATTACK!" Optimus boomed, sprinting out of cover to take his nemesis by surprise. The invading Decepticons were caught off guard as Autobots sprang out of concealment and leapt on their foes. The Constructicons attempted to combine into Devistator to gain the upper hand, but the process was brutally interrupted by a charge from the Dinobots. Soundwave and his Cassetticons were set upon by the entire Minibot contingent, while the Seekers were forced to split up to save their own tails as missiles of several different descriptions homed in on their position.

0o0o0o0o0

Skywarp spat oaths that would have made even a hardened veteran flinch as he dove to shake off a particularly persistent heat seeker that Bluestreak had set on him. Normally he would have teleported out of the way, but there wasn't a clear patch of sky anywhere close.

The Seeker wrenched open his air brakes and flipped into a tight split-s turn. The missile shot past him and exploded against the side of the volcano. Skywarp swung around the mountain to rejoin the main battle, only to fly directly into an incandescent magnesium flare that overloaded his visual relays with it's white glare. Blinded, he transformed and landed in a crouch, one hand rubbing his optics in a feeble attempt to make them clear faster.

Just as everything started to slowly fade back into crisp images, the Seeker heard a slight scrape of metal against rock. He half-turned to face the source of the sound and groaned. "Ohhh slag."

"Well, well, well. If it isn't our favourite birdie." Sideswipe drawled, grinning menacingly. He turned to his twin, still keeping his gun trained on the half-blinded flier. "You think we can get him to sing?" he asked, one optic ridge curved expectantly.
"I think so." Sunstreaker replied, a cold smile momentarily gracing his perfect features.

Skywarp backed up against the rock wall behind him. This was officially not his day.

0o0o0o0o0

"I thought Megatron said this would be killin' spree!" Rumble yelped, diving to avoid being crushed between Brawn's fists.

"If ya haven't noticed," Frenzy ducked a laser blast, "Megatron says that alot! Lookout!" The warning came an instant before Jazz roared through the mele on his way to tackle Soundwave.

Frenzy groaned as he scraped himself out of the dusty soil. "We need t' get outta here before we're toast!"
"No argument from me!" Rumble shouted back.

0o0o0o0o0

Thoroughly routed and taking heavy casualties, the Decepticons pulled back within an hour of starting their attack. This was exactly the opposite of what Megatron had been expecting, and the warlord silently vowed to make his arch nemesis pay for this latest embarrassment as he gave the order to retreat.

0o0o0o0o0

A vaguely familiar ceiling dotted with lights and vent covers was the first thing that greeted Ratchet's optics as he came back online. It took him about a minute to process the various tid-bits information being relayed to his CPU, but when the situation finally clicked the medic let out a world-weary groan."Well, if this isn't the irony of ironies. Recovering in my own repair bay, who'd have thought this would've happened?"

"Most of the Ark I think."

Ratchet levered himself into a partial sitting position and looked around for the source of the voice. "Sparkplug? What are you doing here?" He questioned the human who was sitting on the bench nearby.
"Keeping an eye on you." The human replied. "Wheeljack staggered off to get some rest at about seven this morning. I volunteered to keep watch in case something happened."
"Wheeljack?"
"Yup. Hoist helped him, but he was pretty worried about you. Everyone was."

Ratchet took a moment to make sure his audio sensors were functioning properly. "They were worried about me?" he repeated.

Sparkplug laughed. "You had the twins so concerned they were pulling guard duty outside the repair bay doors." He chuckled.

"Heh. Well, whadda ya know." Ratchet smiled.