The Diego Diaries: Magnus and Arcee's Turn (dd7 252)
=0=On the street outside a restaurant in Bern, Primal Colony of Mars
Magnus reached the street about the same time that Ratchet caught up with him. Arcee was following from the metro nearby. Ratchet hurried forward, then knelt before the two mechs on the ground. Nearby, Elita was holding Jetta's face talking to him as Prime held his arms. Everyone was grim and tense. "What happened?" he asked.
"I don't … I think we have a problem here," Elita said. She looked grim. She kissed Jetta as he relaxed in his futility to get free of Prime.
Ratchet rose from the two. "They're pretty beat up but they'll live. I called an ambulance."
It was silent as a tomb for a moment.
Prime relaxed his grip as Jetta turned toward him. "I'm alright."
"Obviously not," Optimus said, then turned to the two mechs huddled together nearby. "Corsair … Imaldo," he said as he walked to them. He enveloped them in his arms and they stepped into him gripping him tightly. "It will be alright. We are going to go somewhere and talk. You will be safe." He glanced at Jetta who was ill looking as he stood in Elita's embrace. "Ratchet? What about Corsair and Imaldo?"
Ratchet scanned them, then looked upward at Prime. "We have a meeting room at the hospital building down the street. Why don't we go there? That's where these two are going." He glanced around and spotted three more in the doorway of the restaurant. They looked shocked and they were as high caste as the two on the ground. "Excuse me a moment." He began to walk toward them. They began to back into the restaurant. Ratchet stepped up and entered the building to find them.
Prime watched them, then looked down the street as the siren of an ambulance could be heard. The van pulled up as EMT's and a police medic from the local substation stepped forward to take care of the two mechs. He glanced at Jetta who walked toward him. "Are you alright, old friend?"
Jetta stared at him, his emotional disarray still evident. "No," he managed. "I don't think so."
Elita pulled him into her arms. "We're going to get through this. We can talk together, just like when we were kids and things were fragged. Don't worry. This will be okay."
"I don't know," Jetta murmured. He held her tightly.
Magnus and Arcee watched them, two of the closest friends of their lives in disarray and felt the same. It was Arcee, Ariel, Orion and Deion, always. They were friends. They were a team. They were gifted and destined for greatness but they didn't know then. They knew they loved each other and that Jetta and Elita were always in love. They had dreams, hopes and each other all the long orns of their lives.
"What do you want to do, Orion?" Magnus said. For a moment, he was a big kid standing on the corner with his friends sorting out a problem. Then he blinked and the present came to him again.
Arcee slipped her servo into that of Magnus as she stared at Jetta who she loved. She loved all of them. They were a family, the bunch of them, and Corsair and Imaldo were part of that. Everyone's genitors took care of everyone's kids. That was how it was. "Why don't we go to the hospital. I'll go find Ratchet. Magnus, why don't you help Jetta get his genitors to the hospital?"
He nodded, watching as Arcee walked to the restaurant, then disappeared inside. It would take a couple of cabs to carry everyone there but they followed the ambulance to the Autobot Medical Center of Bern three giant city blocks away.
=0=Inside
Ratchet followed the three mechs who were gathered at the doorway, tracing them toward the kitchen area of the restaurant. They were halted there by the owner who was telling them they couldn't come through this part of his building. "I think you better listen to him," Ratchet said quietly. "You never know when you're going to cross a soldier who will plant you."
They turned to Ratchet, their fists clenched as they were caught without escape. They were tall, well made, had the usual great features and schemes of the wealth class and they were nervous as frag. "We're going to leave now," one of them said, an older mech who looked like he'd once had a lot of power. The timbre of this voice and the eons of living on the wrong end of hearing it told Ratchet he was what he was.
"I need to ask you questions first," Ratchet said as Arcee joined him.
"We don't wish to answer. I don't know why you're asking and I don't believe you have the authority," the same mech said.
"We're asking and you know why. As for authority," Arcee said raising a fist. "Mr. Leftie and Mr. Rightie," she said raising her other fist, "gives both of us the authority."
The mechs stared at them, then the same mech said, "If you lay one hand on us you're going to be arrested."
"Then we'll all go to jail together," Ratchet said. "I personally don't give a frag but it might be therapeutic to thrash your sorry afts. What do you think, Commander?"
Arcee shrugged. "It'll be great. I haven't slapped the slag out of a high caste in what? A few joors?" she asked.
Ratchet grinned at her, his shining daughter from another ada. "You make me proud. She's my daughter just so you know. You came here to help your old ma, didn't you." He grinned at her and she grinned back. "But don't worry. I'm also a doctor and I can glue you back together after we part you out."
Arcee laughed, then stepped closer. "What's the decision then?"
The three looked at her, then over her as through the door walked a couple of individuals that neither Arcee nor Ratchet had ever seen before. They gathered by the group which put Arcee and Ratchet between both sides.
The one mech grinned. "I hope you understand that my bodyguards are trained to protect me and my comrades. I don't want to cause any trouble but you need to step aside and let us go."
Ratchet grinned at Arcee. "He doesn't want to cause trouble. Of course not. He's hired goons to do that for him."
"That doesn't sound nice. We're not stepping aside." Arcee stepped even closer. "We have questions. You need to answer them and then maybe you can move on. Maybe." Arcee turned to Ratchet. "Will they move on?"
"Depends," Ratchet said. "Depends on their involvement in the altercation outside. Given that there's more here than meets the optic, I would think you'd cooperate to help out your friends. They got thrashed good."
"What makes you think they're friends?" the mech asked.
"They are," a waiter said who was standing nearby. "They all dined together."
"Ah," Arcee said. "You just lied to us. Why would you do that?"
"What makes you think we're lying? Maybe we just don't want to get involved in someone else's personal problems and vendettas." He glanced at the others. "We would like to leave now. Correct?"
The other two nodded.
He looked at both Ratchet and Arcee. "Move."
Arcee glanced at Ratchet. "Do you wanna move?"
"Nope," Ratchet said.
Arcee looked at the three mechs. "We're fine here."
"Then move them," the mech said as he glanced at his two body guards.
Ratchet glanced at them, then Arcee. He shrugged.
Arcee glanced at both groups, then unsubbed her big gun. She pointed it right at the face of the spokesman. Everyone in the room tensed, freezing in surprise and the rising threat level. "They can. Come get me, that is. If they do I might accidentally squeeze the trigger and your face will have a big gaping hole in it. How about it? Your call."
The big mech stared at her, then the two mechs behind them both of which had drawn their guns. He shook his helm, then they subbed the weapons. "We're at impasse," the mech said.
"No you aren't."
Everyone glanced toward the sound of a deep and deeply pissed off voice. Ultra Magnus was filling the space behind them with his spectacular magnificence as he watched the show. He was gigantic, remarkable and as menacing as a mech from their species could appear to be. Both bodyguards stepped slightly aside to include him in their field of view.
"Why, Magnus. What a good son you are," Ratchet said. "I want to ask them about the two stiffs outside and they went all Lone Ranger on me."
Magnus stared at Ratchet a moment. "Good thing for you I like westerns."
Ratchet grinned. "Good thing."
Magnus glanced at the two mechs who were bodyguards. "Drop your weapons on the floor or I'm going to drop you."
They stared at the mech, noting his primal standard frame, the steely opticed no nonsense gaze that could blister paint, the fact that his tattoos said that he was the Tyrest Treaty enforcer, then complied. Weapons dropped on the floor. As they did two mechs and a number of others following walked their way from the restaurant proper to stop by Magnus.
"You rang?" Springer asked, then he caught a glance of Ratchet. "Oh. Why am I not surprised? Hi, Ada. You have the right to remain silent."
Ratchet dazzled them all with a big smile. "Hello, Springer. Drift. Your gang of thousands behind you." He turned to the three mechs. "My sons Springer and Drift are in charge of security here. Magnus is my son-in-law and this vision," he said nodding to Arcee, "is only one of my many daughters, a few of which are still available for bonding." He dazzled them again.
Springer snorted. "Ma is nothing if not prolific."
"You're right. Like I was telling your old pa, Ironhide in the berth the other nigh-" He didn't get much farther.
Moments later …
They were loaded into a van to be taken to the jail house for a conversation with Prime shortly. He was at the hospital with Jetta, Elita, Imaldo and Corsair. Magnus had gotten them there, then doubled back. It was a good thing. They exited the cabs, then walked into the hospital to go to the waiting room where everyone was gathered. The hospital was quiet as they walked down the hallways to enter the room together.
Imaldo and Corsair were sitting side-by-side on a couch while Elita and Jetta were seated on another nearby. Jetta looked like a rag, hanging his helm as Elita held him. Prime was sitting on a chair waiting for Ratchet and Magnus to come back. Everyone sat.
"Jetta," Ratchet said.
Jetta looked up at him with an expression of weary desolation.
"What happened?" Ratchet asked.
He was silent a moment, then glanced at his genitors. "Those mechs, all of them, they were the ones who hurt you."
Imaldo who was holding Corsair glanced up at his son, then nodded slightly. "I can't talk about it. We can't."
Prime stared at them, the two who were part of the adult world that protected and cared for all of them. They were two parts of his emotional life pantheon, friends and comrades of his genitors, the genitors of one of the closest friends of his life and part of the golden edged memory parade that he still remembered and which comforted him. "There were several, Jetta. What about the others?" He glanced at Ratchet.
"They're going to the jail. I asked that they be held over to talk to you," Ratchet said.
"If they truly are part of the group that was holding you, Corsair, then they will be held accountable," Magnus said.
"Thank you, Deion," Imaldo said softly. "We can't talk about it now."
"You don't have to, Corsair," Arcee said. "Do you want to stay here tonight?"
Everyone glanced at Ratchet.
"It's up to you," Ratchet said. "A good sleep is good tonic."
"Can we sleep in our house?" Imaldo asked his son. "That house is … its such a comfort."
Jetta nodded. "You can have whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. No one is going to hurt you here. I will make sure of it. We all will."
Magnus nodded. "This place is safe. All of us are here, together again, making it so. Its our turn to take care of you, Imaldo. You took care of us when we were kids. Its our turn to take care of you now. When you're on your peds, all will be better."
Imaldo stared at Magnus. "You were such a good kid, Deion. You were a great kid. All of you. I can't believe we're here with all of you. This is a dream."
"It's real," Arcee said. "It's a miracle. You won't get better fast but you'll get better. Everyone does. Those mechs are behind bars. They won't hurt you. We won't allow it. Let us take care of you, Omi. Let us be strong for you for once."
They stared at the mechs around them, at the two femmes with their beautiful faces. "I wish you could know how much it means to me that you're all here. That you're together. I love all of you." He glanced at Prime. "All of you."
"We return the sentiment, Omi," Magnus said. He rose. "Let's get you home and in bed. Rest is the best path forward."
They rose slowly, then Jetta turned to Prime. "I have to … what do you want me to do about this, Orion?"
Prime stared at the group, at the most important friends and influences of his life. "I want you to take care of your family."
Jetta stared at him, then nodded. They all managed everyone to the street, then into a cab then drove off toward home.
Prime turned to Magnus. "If they had anything to do with this, then they might not be the only ones here with a background in abuse and perhaps slavery."
Magnus nodded. He looked at Arcee. "This is right up your alley."
"I'm on it," Arcee said.
The group talked a bit, ,strategizing together, then walked to cabs to go to the jail to speak with the three. It would be a quiet ride to The City.
=0=TBC 4-9-2020 4-21-2020
Magnus and Arcee's Turn Continues ...
Omi - A name for someone who isn't your parent but helps/helped to raise you. Its pronounced oh-mee. It applies to anyone regardless of gender.