Queen's notes- its been a long while since I updated this. In part because I've been sick, as well as fighting depression from losing my dad. I hope you like this non the less, I'll just be very paranoid in my corner here and see how it goes.

From the Depths

In A Medic's Care

Ratchet vented deeply, cycling the air in his system as he leaned back in the seat that Wheeljack had brought in for him. The other mech was absorbed in his own results from the latest sets of scans of their patient. With each new scan that was taken, they were learning more and more about the new mech. Physically at least, it was hard to get to know someone personally when they were in stasis.

The medic wasn't about to wake this beast-former up just yet, or any time to soon. It wasn't fully for selfish reasons, Ratchet already learned how to improve the fuel tanks and energon conversion systems for the whole crew just from checking for internal damage in the first hour of having this mech in his care. The blue and silver mech had to stay in stasis as his starved systems were slowly re-introduced to refined, and a mild grade of energon.

What was in the beast-former's tanks, or rather the residue and what was left in the energon lines, was a surprise. Almost purely raw energon, proving to Ratchet that not only that his new patient had a few hard vorns indeed to be reduced to eating raw energon, and have a complete saturation of those levels. It also proved that the blue mech's tanks were very powerful things to be respected on that alone. Not to mention the adapting trait

There was also a second tank in there that Wheeljack was trying to figure out what it was for, other than to process a different kind of fuel. What that alternate fuel was, was still a mystery... for the most part. Wheeljack had a suspicion of what it was, after checking his notes, and reviewing footage of the Insecticons. He wasn't going to tell Ratchet yet what he thought that second tank was for until he was sure. Nor would he tell anyone else before Ratchet, as Wheeljack knew the medic would understand what the beast-former would have had to done to survive, where as the average mechs wouldn't.

The engineer looked up from his spot and at the blue and silver mech, Wheeljack couldn't help feeling sympathy. Being stuck on a wholly organic world with no known energon... he and the Autobots had been lucky to have a few small scale refineries on the Ark. This mech likely only had the natural raw energon scraps, but then like the Insecticons, he had adapted with the beast mood.

Very few mechs for the most part would understand having to convert organic matter to energy. Fewer even knew that beast formers could do that.

Hopefully though, this mech wouldn't ever have to do that again, and have enough normal energon. At least that's what Wheeljack intended, and was sure Ratchet did as well.

Wheeljack looked up and over to the blue and silver's mech's optics, staring thoughtfully at the red color.

"He doesn't seem like a Decepticon," Ratchet said, watching Wheeljack and noting what he was looking at.

"No, he doesn't, not after you brought him up enough to get his energy field active." Wheeljack rumbled as he stood, walking over to lean against the occupied berth to stare at the beast formers face. "But Primus you're a mystery mech."

"A very messed up mystery," Ratchet huffed, leaning to one side to a parts shelf, then started in a new section of replacing the warn energon lines. The part he just replaced was already being integrated; though the medic was watching to see if the blue mech's nanites would reject any of the new parts.

Wheeljack leaned over, tapping the exposed knee joint of the mech, examining it for a few lone minutes, "Hmm... I think we should get a concentrated sample of this mech's nanintes, the replacement joint here is almost completely reinforced with this new metal he's made out of."

"I have another sample of this alloy for you," The surgeon sat up, reaching back to one of the trays and pick up the small section of the outer armor, "Looks like he... shed the armor. This came off his pectoral wing."

"Shed?" Wheeljack echoed the unusual word as took the piece of blue metal, it wasn't a world often used with Cybertronian. Standing he moved to be directly under one of the lights, turning the piece over in his hands, "Like he's growing? I wonder how... it would have to be like an organic based design. He's fully in an adult frame as far as I can tell."

"His spark is old enough for sure." Ratchet commented as he stooped back to the task of replacing the lines one sub section at a time, "And has gone far too long without any medical care."

"I don't think that was his fault my friend." Wheeljack peered up from his newest toy, so to say. "Sideswipe found in an underwater and underground cavern, set up with what looked like a shipwreck's remains."

The white and red mech rumbled deep in his chest before venting in the equivalent of a sigh again. "I know, stasis locked after crashing, and now like we were all suffering the cases of stiff, dry joints coming out of stasis."

"I wonder what this alloy really is," Wheeljack muttered, fingering the fine ridges in the metal. "It looks like an alteration of some sort..."

"How so?" Ratchet asked, the medic's dark indigo optics staying focused on his task. Carefully tracing the connecting lines in the beast former's forearm, mapping out how the smaller energon lines were placed and the reason for so many... "Primus!" Ratchet would have sat up if he hadn't been so experienced, his hands staying perfectly in place.

"Hmm? Primus? What's a Primus?" Wheeljack diverted his own attention as he looked over, not bothered that Ratchet interrupted before he could explain... not that the mech could explained more than what he knew that he didn't know. Wheeljack's optics flashed and dimmed in a blink as he watched ratchet look between differ screens around them. "What is it?"

"This mech is a triple changer." Ratchet said, his optics widening in surprise as he looked back down at the metallic but semi organic looking armor of his patient. Confused, but still he nodded to the opened forearm his hands were still in, "Look at this, he has a whole thruster around the supports, that's why the nerve lines to the fingers are inside the support, not along the outside like you would expect with most beast mode mechs... and there, on screen 4-U, the wings, those fins, look in the thickest base, those are hover coils and another set of thrusters."

"Primus," Wheeljack agreed, matching expressions with his friend before the engineer set the metal down and ran another scan, this time using a hand held device to reach under in that space between the mech's back and the pectoral wings.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It took a few kliks for the two mechs to realize the sound wasn't coming from what the other mech was doing.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Wheeljack lifted up to look, double checking what ratchet was doing.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Ratchet narrowed his optics, scanning around first the side room they were in, then turning a fraction to see of the main medical bay was still empty or not. Then he homed in on the sound, spotting the small movement that was making it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

...the end of the beast former's long tail was twitching, the bladed end lightly tapping against the ground.

The two Autobots froze all movement, watching the tail as slowly the twitching stopped. Only to start the rhythmic 'Tap. Tap. Tap.' as Wheeljack shifted, one arms still under the blue mech. The engineer looked down at the darkened optics before slowly pulling his arm back out with the wireless scanner. Glancing back as the tail stilled once more.

"...his back is sensitive..." Wheeljack said in a low tone, realizing as he shifted as if to put back the scanner.

"Those heavy fins sitting like that, I would imaging he didn't get much simulation on them." Ratchet said, still staring at the tail as the other mech moved over to the small tank of oil where the two drones that had been found with the mech were soaking. The medic looked over, blinking himself as he saw that the drones were facing the wrong way, no longer stiff on their back and side, the streamlined shark and remora were both settled on their bellies, optics glowing faintly in the oil as the drones curled around each other, each with a nose in a corner as mock gills worked to get the oil moving through their frames.

Wheeljack took a side step, to the screens that displayed vitals and monitored every function. He tapped a red button on screen, switching the read out to nural and the secondary input. "...Ratchet."

"Those drones are awake-" Ratchet started, but was cut off.

"That's because our guest has been awake for the past two local hours." Wheeljack said bluntly, looking at the blue mech with wide optics, his winglets twitching in a spazznetic false pattern.

"He's…what?" Ratchet stood, hands extracted and returning to normal, feeling... he wasn't sure what as the medic realized the 'fast and dirty' repairs he had been doing mostly in the last five hours. Not even bothering rerouting nerve clusters in the frame or shutting down pain relays as he thought the mech was in stasis.

He had been awake the last two hours? With scalpel of metal and lazar, with parts being taken out and put back in… without making a sound or indication through what had to be one of the worst possible sensations to wake up to... didn't react until Wheeljack brushed what could be called a ticklish spot by human terms.

"He's watching us through the drones." Wheeljack said turning to the oil tank, watching the shark drone twitch the end of its tail before readjusting itself. He turned his optics to the beast former, "You're awake. Tap twice."

Tap...Tap...

"Good Primus," Ratchet backed up, feeling his energon tanks start to roil in revolution at what just happened, the pain his new patent had just suffered through.

Wheeljack made a motion that was the equivalent of a dry swallow. He checked another screen that he pulled down, dubble checking it all. "His optics are off, so his audios and voice box..." Wheeljack turned to look at the drones, "You're using them, how…?" he paused, glancing at the mech and back to the drones as the remora wiggled its own pectoral fins. "You have an override in your systems don't you? One tap for yes, two for no."

There was a long pause before the tail went, tap against the floor.

"It must have activated when he hit a level of energon saturation. Brought him up to a level of awareness." Ratchet was controlling himself as he came back, twitching at another tap. Venting deeply he put a red hand on the mech's helm, looked at the drones and said, "I'm putting you under, back into stasis."

Tap. Tap.

"You're going under." Ratchet was already working, the drones growing restless as the long tail of the mech tapped twice again before starting to slide across the floor, the end curling. There was a faint twitching from the blue mech before the movment in the drones slowed, then relaxed as they entered a state of being under their own AI control. "Wheeljack?" Ratchet demanded, voice stressed but mostly even.

Wheeljack altered between two screens and different displays for two minutes, then vented, "Back into stasis. Full stasis... how did he do that? How could he stand that? His joints and moter fuctions where locked up, we were moving his limbs... Primus the pain tolerance this mech must have… you were..."

"I was replacing nerve lines an hour ago..." Ratchet bowed his head, arms coming up to shield himself against the reality he must have caused.

"He didn't move Ratchet," the engineer turned, showing the displays, throwing a tool to make the medic look up as Wheeljack pointed at the saved, older readings, "He didn't move, didn't react, as much pain as that must have been, he didn't even seem to fully realize it, like it was normal to be at a level of pain."

"Who the frag are you?" Ratchet said softly as he looked into the darkened red optics, aware of Wheeljack sending a privet comm. for Optimus Prime, Prowl and Jazz to come down to medical at once. He glanced over at movement in the background the drones started to wrestle in play, the remora nibbling on the shark's pectoral as it rolled in the tank.

Queen's added notes: I have always seen Depth Charge as having a high pain tolerance even before what happened with Protoform X/Rampage. Both physical and mental, he had to being a Guardian in (as I see it) on the pioneering and outside edge of Cybertronian controlled space, on a mixed race planet with humans and their allies contently stopping by.

After the fall of his colony, of both colonies he knows, then the long Hunt, he was tortured in more then one way by Protoform X, in order to survive Depth Charge made himself become stronger and build shields. He had to with such a powerful empath able to mess with his emotions. I think he wasn't whole unaffected and that Depth Charge developed heightened empathic traits because of this, not as strong as an empath but became one still. This is also why he feels so strongly to those lost that he tried to protect from Protoform X.

Yet instead of crumbling at feeling each life that was left half dead for him to find slip away, Depth Charge made himself keep hunting. In a way, Rampage made his own doom and only 'friend' as he saw it. So there could be one spark in the universe that would be willing to face him. That one person that knew him in a way that could, and has won against him.

Not to say Protoform X/Rampage is purely a monster, he was after all twisted and turned into what he was, but also still and ~empath.~ A smart, as well as immortal and regenerating empath that was also isolated from others, and that's the worst thing one can do to an empath of the level that Rampage is supposed to be. Being so isolated he had no education other then how to kill, no morals were enforced, possibly even punished at first when he resisted hurting others, be able to feel their pain. After so long isolated he started to crave whatever emotions he could, as fast as he could...the easiest emotions he could get from people in the fastest way?

Pain and fear.

So when he comes across someone like Depth Charge he's got a playmate that feeds him other emotions, it just took Protoform X a while to realize he was being followed by the same person.

I can go on and on about these two, but I'll hold off for other chapters.

(if you can't tell I adore and love both Rampage and Depth Charge's characters, at all stages of their character evolution)

Reviews:

The Twin Tailed Guardian
Er... happy late birthday? hope this wasn't too long for another update, its been a bit hard for me to write on my own.

Autobot Phoenix
I am sweetie! just slowly

Siri Pax
I am! and yes, I'm tring for more guardian traits in the random out-of-order scenes I've done. They're coming soon promise, I'm trying to make myself write more.

Guest 1 'SS'
Thank you!

Shimmer Mane
Thank you! and it is continuing, hope you like the knew chapter

Guest 2 'Cougar'
Honestly I don't have all that much of a plot, other then short term, I haven't even dissided if my crabcakes comes back or not. I'm glad you like my Depth Charge so far, and continue to enjoy the story as it unfolds. He'll be more upright in the next chapter I hope, but I wanted to start to establish the first stages of the odd connection I was hoping for here, between Depth Charge and Ratchet, the first medic he's trusted in a long, long time.