Author's Note: Shout out to ElanorAvathary for the review. I can unfortunately neither confirm nor deny if Ratchet lives. You'll just have to wait and see ;) but for now, we're with the mechs on the moon. We'll be bouncing between them and the mechs on Earth in the next few chapters, so I hope you guys don't get confused by it. Anyway, enjoy!


Chapter 20

Prowl kept an eye on the medic after the near revolt; it was not a hard thing to do with his daily spark checks. Ratchet had insisted that they be a thing when Prowl had arrived on Earth to the empty casing of his mate and a torn sparkbond he had not felt when he was across the universe. The CMO said that was likely the only reason he had even lived, and Prowl should have counted himself lucky. Jolt repeated it every day when the scan results returned nothing out of the ordinary. His spark was perfectly healthy. He should be glad.

He supposed that if he had his emotion center turned on he would most definitely not be glad to be alive without his sparkmate. It was easy enough to be thankful when he did not have any pesky emotions getting in the way of the logic behind that thankfulness. He could not help the Autobots from the Well. He would not have been able to focus on watching out for the young (and trouble enticing) medic if he were an emotional, and likely suicidal, wreck. He was thankful that he could so easily turn off his emotion circuit at will, and that neither Ratchet nor Jolt had done a scan of his processor since he had done so to realize he had. It was easy enough to turn on, yes, but there were severe repercussions when turning it on depending on how long it remained off. At that point in time, he doubted that he would survive turning it back on.

Prowl realized that while a lot of the assumptions and observations he had made about Jolt prior to the mech becoming Ratchet's assistant were still sound, they were not as true as he had thought. He had deemed the mech to be reckless troublemaker, both on and off the battlefield, but there were obvious calculations made for each seemingly reckless move. The young bot was actually very calculated in most things he did. Prowl suspected this was likely a side effect of medic training, perhaps even stemming from his life before joining the war effort.

Information was Prowl's life blood. The only mech who cared more about facts than him was Perceptor, but they hungered for different types of facts. Prowl needed to know about mechs: what they liked, what they disliked, their background. He needed to know what made them tick. It was necessary as the Autobots' head tactician to know this information when making anything from work schedules to battle plans. And the thought that perhaps he did not know enough about a mech that was rather important to his current team was enough to take his focus off of the eminent chaos and his dead sparkmate.

He started gathering information in the easiest way he knew how: asking questions. "You were a scout prior to joining Prime's team on Earth, correct? On the same team as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, under the command of Kup?"

Jolt was not at all annoyed by the questions, and answered each of them easily. "Yeah, although Sideswipe and I got separated for a bit. Sunstreaker found us, but unfortunately lost contact with Kup. Blaster got a brief message from the ship a while ago that Kup had been trying to get to us. He sent a reply, but we haven't heard anything since then."

"They're likely headed to this quadrant. Your ship was patrolling in the opposite direction, of course, so it is likely to take some time." Prowl pointed out, watching as Jolt searched about the medbay and grumbled almost inaudibly about not knowing where something was. Jolt certainly did not keep it as organized and tidy as Ratchet, but they had left in a bit of a rush. Everything had just been thrown in at the time of their departure, and it seemed that Jolt had not gotten around to sorting everything. Prowl picked up an energon converter off to his side, moving to where he knew Ratchet would have kept it and putting it away. "You seem relatively close to the twins. Did you know them before the war?"

Prowl watched Jolt very closely, noting how the other mech's doorwings suddenly snapped to attention. Jolt dropped whatever he had been holding, resulting in a loud clang and a long string of swears as he hurried to pick it all up. The medic cast him a weary look over his shoulder as he set down what he had been holding before sighing and turning around. "How- How did you find out? Are you gonna question my allegiance now, like you do theirs?"

Prowl had absolutely no clue what Jolt was referring to, but went with it. The mech was making it seem like he had been some sort of criminal before the… oh. "It was a lucky guess, really. And never have any of us questioned their allegiance, nor will anyone question yours. You are all skilled fighters, and our comrades. We have no reason to. But, it would be useful to know where you came from, if you don't mind sharing."

Jolt gave a jerky nod, seeming a bit distracted. "Yeah, okay." He took a while to cool himself, the familiar charge of electricity building up to drastic levels inside of him. He let out his electro-whips, feeling the charge leave them slowly. With a final vent of air, he began to share his story, for the first time ever.

. . .

Jolt was given spark by the allspark and immediately put with a group of maintenance bots in Kaon. It was his job to keep the bots working the mines, and all of their equipment, in peak condition. By then, Megatronus was a name many of them had come to fear. He took control of the mine operation in Kaon not long after Jolt had started working without a constant mentor there to make sure he did not mess anything up. That was how Jolt had met the twins, and Megatron.

Jolt had heard of several kidnappings around Cybertron, had seen random younglings appear and just as quickly disappear, but never had he actually come face-to-face with any. He had been working to repair the leg of a mech who had been in a mine collapse, crushing the leg entirely. He heard the door to the medical center open, but paid it no mind. He had a patient, after all. He had only looked up when one of the femmes that worked the medical center with him came over, her optics darting about. "J-jolt. You're requested in room 4. I'll take over here." That was peculiar, but not entirely unheard of; many mechs only let one bot work on them. But he had never before been requested. He handed over what he had been using to the femme- he had never gotten her designation because he had disappeared from there after that shift- and moved to go check who was in room 4.

Room 4 was one of the larger side rooms of the medical center; they generally used it to house patients that needed to stay for extended periods of time. None of those patients were there, though. Someone had moved all of the patients out, leaving four mechs he had never seen in there. He could tell who the largest of them was just by looking at him, though. Many people spoke of Megatronus. They said his armor was as sharp as his temper, and optics the darkest of crimsons. Realizing who he was made it easy enough to guess that the other was his right hand mech, Soundwave. They stood by two huddled together younglings, likely about the same age as Jolt. Both were battered, and one of them had an arm out of socket.

"I was told I was requested here," Jolt said cautiously, optics flicking between Megatronus and the red and yellow younglings. He felt the familiar buzz of electricity building up quickly, as it often when he was anxious. This was not a situation he wanted to be in. Those two were obviously abducted, and in poor condition. Was he expected to just fix them up and then let Megatronus do whatever he wanted with them? What was he supposed to do?

"Ah, yes. Jolt, is it? I have heard good things about your work from my men," The large, terrifying mech seemed to praise, obviously trying to get Jolt to relax and trust him. He admitted that it did work a bit. Megatronus' partner stood silently beside him, not moving even an inch as the other approached Jolt. "I require your assistance, young medic."

"I am a maintenance bot, so if it is anything other than fixing limbs or stripped gears, I'm not your mech." Jolt replied quickly, stepping back reflexively when Megatronus reached out to try and rest a servo on his shoulder. He watched the mech's expression drop for the briefest of moments before it was back to before. "I never received full medic training."

The same servo he had been avoiding before settled on his shoulder, gripping it a bit too firmly and preventing him from moving further. He felt panic rise in his spark, the familiar buzz filling his audio receptors as he started to get overcharged. The gladiator leaned down some to be optic level with him, "No, you may not be a proper medic, but I believe you are just the mech I am looking for." There was a dark promise in those words, one Jolt did not want to find out about. His eyes darted from those sinister red optics to the two sets of bright blue watching him warily before he made his decision.

Without a second thought, he decided to show Megatronus why the others called him Jolt, and try to get those other younglings out of there. He unleashed the charge he had been building, sending out violent shocks of electricity in all directions from him. The large mech was down in an instant, circuits temporarily overloaded. He collapsed to Jolt's side, leaving Jolt standing across the room from his friend. The other mech was quick to launch into action, charging at Jolt. He leapt to the side to try and avoid him, yelling to the younglings. "Get out of here! Run back to your home! I'll distract him!" He ducked a swipe from the other, letting out the electro-whips he had been outfitted with for his job to try and defend himself.

The red and yellow mech were on their feet in an instant, but they did not run from the room like he expected them to. They launched themselves at Soundwave, tackling him to the ground even though the yellow one had an arm out of socket. What were they doing? "Get out of here!" He yelled again, charging up his whips to try and shock the large mech unconscious.

"Come with!" The red one called to him, huffing as the mech swatted him away. That enraged the yellow one- his twin, Jolt realized- who attacked Soundwave with renewed fervor. Jolt watched stunned for a while as the twins held their own pretty well against the mech. When he finally had enough of a charge, he shouted for them to move before lashing out at Soundwave, shocking him into temporary stasis.

They ran from the medical center then. Granted, they did not make it far before Megatronus' goons found them; it was not hard to spot three brightly colored younglings in the pits of Kaon, where most bots were a dull gun metal grey to match their depressing surroundings. Jolt had honestly feared for his life, as well as for the split-spark twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Their caretakers had been murdered before they were taken captive by Megatronus and brought to the gladiatorial ring. Before that, they had lived the easy lives of those placed in the artist caste. He had grown up around this, unlike them. They could not have possibly known how to deal with this.

Yet, they had fought well against Soundwave. Maybe Jolt was wrong.

After getting captured, Jolt was beat to the point that he nearly offlined. Each of his tormentors was outfitted with a device to make them immune to his charges, making his possibility of escape impossible. He eventually gave up on begging for his life and crying for help, resigning himself to his fate. No one would help him. They all feared Megatronus too much to bother helping a few simple younglings. So he would take his punishments in silence, not even crying out in pain after a while.

One orn, Megatronus was the mech who entered his holding cell. Jolt nearly laughed, because finally he was actually going to die. That was the only reason he could think of that Megatronus would come into his cell. But, he was actually surprised that orn. Megatronus undid his stasis cuffs, and stood over him as Jolt rubbed at his sore wrists dumbfounded. Was he being let go? He looked up to Megatronus, surely looking glitched at that point in time with how confused he was.

"You wanted to fight so badly before, so that is what you will do now. You will fight. Go get patched up by one of the medics, then report to the mess hall." And then Megatronus left, with door wide open for Jolt to do the same.

He waited several clicks before he limped slowly out of the cell, favoring his right leg a bit. He found the medics easily enough, one immediately coming to attend to him. He tried to tell the mech to go help someone else and just give him the tools he needed to repair himself, but the mech actually laughed at him. "You'll want better repairs than something a maintenance bot can do before going to the rings, boy. No one wants to go into their first fight not working at 100% efficiency."

. . .

"I'm sure you can figure out the rest," Jolt said, shrugging. "I wasn't one of the bigger names, like Sunny and Sides were. They were the twin terrors. I was just that glitchhead who shocked people." He offered Prowl a wry smile. He pushed off of the berth he had come to lean on during his storytelling and moved to go sort through a mess of tools on the other side of the medbay. "I got out with most of my sanity. I unfortunately can't say the same for Sunny and Sides."

"You tried to help them, though." Prowl added, looking on the mech with a new understanding. It made sense in a way that Jolt came from the gladiatorial pits, especially after watching him in battle. He was erratic, like the twins, fighting as if his life were truly at stake if he did not kill every last enemy. He was gentler than the twins off of the battlefield, though. Not being as deeply involved as them had helped him some, it seemed.

Prowl was snapped from his musings by a sudden slam as Jolt's fists collided with the workbench before him, a surge of electricity pouring out from him and through the room quickly. It nearly knocked Prowl to the floor with the power of it. "I was not good enough, though! I have never been good enough than to just be some side show that no one cares about. If I had saved them, all of us, then maybe we would not be here. Maybe-"

"The war would have happened anyway. You three would have found your way here whether you had been part of the pits or not." The tactician was quick to interrupt the other and diffuse his volatile emotions before he could accidentally let out another, possibly stronger charge and damage anything in the medbay. "This war was bound to happen, whether you saved the twins or not; there is no need to blame yourself for the past. You need to just try and make the future better. Which you are." He watched as Jolt's doorwings drooped sadly behind him, getting a small nod from the mech.

"You're right."

"I know," Prowl said with a small smirk. "Now, I have work to do. It was nice speaking with you, Jolt." He left the medbay quickly then, on a mission. He searched the entire ship, searching for the one mech he knew could help him keep an eye on the medic. He finally found him lounging about the rec room, sitting by himself at a table and sipping on energon.

"Need something, Prowl?" Mirage drawled lazily, leaning back in his chair some as Prowl approached. "You seem on edge, just like every other mech here. Take a break, prop up your feet. There's no need to go guns blazing everywhere."

Prowl rolled his optics, ignoring the other's offer to take a seat. "That's not it. I need a favor, and you're the only mech I know who can get the job done without blowing their cover." That last part caught Mirage's interest, the ex-aristocrat sitting up immediately. "I need you to keep an eye on someone for me."