A/N: This was origionally a prompt put up by DeathStallion on DA and ChimeraDark on the LJ Twins-x-Ratch comm.
Listen younglings and listen well for this is your only warning. You fear the nightwalker, dread the werewolf, feel terror at the thought of the lycan or ghoul. Yet, remember young ones for this is truth: There is always something worse.
Ratchet smirked as First Aid shuddered in the cool morning air, the younger healer drawing his earthen brown cloak tighter about his frame. "Cold?"
"No, sir." Aid replied skittishly, bright blue optics scanning the early morning misty forest warily "Just I know we're being hunted."
Ratchet laughed, not his harsh overworked bark that mechs normally heard, but the loud, long, face-splitting grin, laugh that had been missing since winter had set in. "Ha, Aid, you're finally learning." Ratchet chuckled again then leaned closer to his apprentice, continuing in a soft conspirational murmur.
"Now, remember, they have weaknesses we can exploit. Sunlight, mortal optics sensitive to snow blindness, and a natural timidness; we find ways to exploit their faults and we'll be fine." Ratchet finished with a smirk, drawing his own rose bear fur cloak about him to ward off the early chill.
"But," Aid looked around nervously, "They're nightwalkers!" Ever since the battle underground he had found it impossible to be near the nightwalkers of their crew. Fear crawled through his lines and made recharge impossible unless if he was exhausted from the day's toils.
Ratchet pinned First Aid with a hard scowl, "Yes, and the first lesson you should have learned out here is that fearing them only makes them stronger. Know their strengths and their weaknesses and you can outsmart them." First Aid looked to his mentor, amazed once more that this brilliant, fearless and terrifying medic was only a couple vorns older than himself. Ratchet had a young face when he laughed, but when he snarled or frowned his plating changed, and seemed to make him twice his age with triple the intimidating bearing. Still, his wisdom was unmatched and made him ageless in so many ways.
Aid finally nodded at Ratchet's words, their travels this winter had taught him Ratchet's lesson. The nightwalkers below Crystal Spire had been predictable to a degree when Aid actually overcame his fears to think about it. While Aid had not done any fighting he had watched and the knowledge only cemented his master's words.
Once Aid nodded his understanding Ratchet raised his hand signaling the hunt to start. Around them figures shifted in the snow, shadows passed without any figures forming them and heavy mists rose in the brilliant early spring sky filling their vision with white. First Aid trembled, he knew those around him were friends, that he had nothing to fear. Still, knowing it was them hunting made him shudder.
Ratchet huffed, shoving his apprentice right into the line of fire, eliciting a yelp from the younger healer as a wet snowball pelted his face. "Gah! Ratchet!" Aid stooped as another missile flew past him barely missing Ratchet while he scooped his own fist full of snow and lobbed it at the hidden archer.
The snowball fight refused to stay in one place as the combatants shifted, ran and danced in the snow. It had been Sunstreaker's idea, the nightwalker knowing Aid still feared them and ensured the youngster would learn to be brave regardless of what he faced. Ratchet cackled as he danced aside letting snowballs fly harmlessly past him while he pegged his lovers and brother in swift succession.
"How does he do that!" Bluestreak demanded as he panted lobbing more slushy missiles at Ratchet and all missing him harmlessly yet hitting all surrounding him.
"Hey!" Cliffjumper yelled, "No powers! There are mortals here!"
Ratchet laughed, "I'm not doing anything!" He danced from yet another snowball shifting to let it pass by harmlessly and hit the red mini-bot square in the chest.
"Slaggit that does it!" Cliff roared scooping snowballs and pelting Ratchet with them at close proximity. Breath misting to mingle with the nightwalker induced mist the combatants danced through a world of sunlight and mist. Blindingly bright and murky they often saw figures at the edges that were never there. Voices echoed that had no origin making their battlefield an empty void of eerie quality and their shared brotherhood of friends and lovers.
Slowly the mists settled letting them once more see the sparkling gem of Imperial City. The white spiring capitol city in the distance reached towards the heavens like the Spear of Primus. The image was breathtaking every time Ratchet returned from his journey, and this season the glittering city seemed more beautiful than ever.
"Welcome home," Sunstreaker whispered into Ratchet's neck kissing the side of his jaw from behind.
"Not yet," Ratchet sighed, "We still have ground to cover."
Once the mists fell away the battle turned into a free for all, Aid giving as good as he got and finally forgetting what he traveled with. The fear of the nightwalkers fell away and he only saw mechs surrounding him he had come to know as friends. The chattering Bluestreak who would rather flee from danger than fight but still stood his ground when needed kept their group in good spirits with his stories. Sullen Sunstreaker filled them with trepidation of his temper and awe of his talents. Sideswipe kept them on their toes with his pranks and well fed with his constant experimenting in energon processing. Wheeljack served as their conscience in a way, he knew when to be a brat and when to behave, often leading the twins into performing their antics. Cliffjumper stayed true to his name guiding them to ignore sensibility and safety when jumping in would be faster. Bumblebee was their youngest and most innocent member strong willed and stubborn he reminded them that they had nothing to lose if they never quit. And Ratchet, Aid smiled as he thought of his mentor, Ratchet was somehow the center of their world. They followed the healer's path protected him when needed and did his bidding when his own hands were too full with the caring of others.
Their group was a strange one yet for once First Aid felt like he was coming home. Splat Aid staggered from impact and fell onto his aft while around him the others cackled.
"Where were you Aid?" Bee sniggered as he helped the taller mech to his pedes.
"I was right here you – you – Ratchet?" Aid looked into the distance, a strong sense of déjà vu filling his lines. Around the bend, through the last vestiges of forest before the open fields leading to Imperial City lie a patch of air shimmering in the frigid air.
"Heat shimmer," Ratchet frowned and hustled over to where the hazy distortion originated accompanied by the thin filaments of smoke.
"Heat shimmer? But, its freezing!" Aid balked, afraid of finding yet another nightwalker blackening in the sun.
"It's clear!" Blue called from ahead, "Someone forgot to douse their campfire."
"I don't think so," Cliff groused, "Its nearly mid day. If that was a night camping fire then these should have burned out long ago. No, something's not right."
"He's got a point," Bee replied, looking the ground over with a frown, "The snow hasn't fallen for days but there are no prints.
"Then what are those – ripples? – in the snow?" Aid asked looking at the strange patterns that seemed to sweep across the crisp snow.
"Old hunter trick," Jack replied, "Layers of branches sweep the snow and keep snow shoe tracks from being seen. Someone's out here with us."
"What do we do?" Blue asked with wide optics.
"Tag!" Sideswipe pelted Sunstreaker with a snowball hard enough to make the finned helm ring. With a snarl Sunny bolted after his brother, the pair lobbing snowballs in all directions including the others in their distracting fun.
"Well, when in Paraxus," Jack grinned, grabbing fistfuls of snow and adding to the flurried chaos.
Ratchet shook his helm looking around once more and pelted Aid with two globs of snow in a row before running for his life from Sideswipe's 'snowball of doom'. The massive clump was bigger than Bee and promised to drown Ratchet in the swiftly melting snow.
"It sounds like mud drying too fast." Bluestreak switched topics once again in his ever continuing dialog as they walked through the slowly thawing forest as winter grudgingly gave way to spring. After their snow battle they had paused for a mid-day ration, each finding dry clothes to ward off freezing their systems as wet clothes chilled on the body.
"What does?" Cliffjumper demanded, barely holding in his temper at the constant babble that had been the backdrop of their journey since they had survived the caves below Crystal Spire. Keeping up with the ever changing monologue often proved too irritating to the red mini-bot yet sometimes, like now, the changes drew his attention back despite his best efforts to tune the taller blue mech out.
"The snow. It's melting and dripping and sounds like the river bed that was behind my home. When the summers were too hot it would sound like this kind of crinkly or like too many insects gnawing on wood. I like it."
"Goody," Cliff grumbled, "You like the sound of termites eating snow."
First Aid chuckled, "That's not what he said and you know it. Quit being grumpy, sourpuss."
"I ain't grumpy! I'm just sick of the snow and the cold and now it's wet and cold and I don't like it." Cliff rumbled grudgingly, knowing the deep snow slowly turning to slush was causing his malcontent. "Where's Bee?"
Everyone paused, Ratchet, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe walking separately ahead finally paused and looked back on the others. "Where's Wheeljack?" Ratchet asked worriedly feeling dread sink in his tank just as the first wet splat sounded against the back of Bluestreak's helm.
"Snowball fight!" Bluestreak screeched as the damp snow moved like an icy slug sliding thickly down the back of his neck. In seconds snowballs were flung in all directions in an eight way free for all. Running and cackling like younglings they darted between the trees squealing as wet drops of melt landed on helms or fell down open shirt collars to place chilled kisses on their necks.
The sun rose higher warming the day further turning slushy snowballs into watery missiles dousing their targets in a deluge of frigid water. Soaked and chilled, exhilarated and tired from their mock battle the panting mechs slowed on the crest of the last hill leading to Iacon City. Before them the shimmering gem of the district seemed to sit on a setting of pristine snow. Nothing moved, no draft bots hauled their cargo, no merchants hauled their heavy carts full of trade. The road in was abandoned two weeks before the first day of spring.
"Something's wrong." Ratchet ground out watching the eerie tableau before them with slitted optics. As they scrutinized the city below think tendrils of smoke separated from the sky rising and thickening into a pillar of blackness that filled the air with the acrid stench of once living metal being burnt into slag.
"What is that stench?" Bee asked gagging.
"They're burning the dead." Wheeljack and Ratchet replied in unison, the brothers' optics locked warily on the rising plumes of ash.
"Don't go down there," Sunstreaker murmured barely loud enough to hear, pulling the others' attention on him. The golden nightwalker stood tensely scenting the air, fingers entwined possessively with Ratchet's.
"Please," Sideswipe asked as well stepping forward to slightly shield Ratchet from the city, "Don't go down there."
Ratchet looked between his lovers then back to First Aid, then Wheeljack standing protectively between Bluestreak and Iacon. "I have to," He swallowed tightly, his voice filled with raw fear and desperation "Our families are down there."
Shoulders sagging the nightwalker twins, Cliffjumper and Bluestreak released their grips on their lovers each only nodding their support. "Then we go with you." Blue stated confidently. The others nodded their agreement Cliffjumper and Bumblebee stepping forward once more as the forward guards while Sunstreaker and Sideswipe fell back letting the other four stand in the middle as their wards.
"Let's go." Ratchet signaled their group forward hoping that whatever was claiming mechs in the city below had spared his parents, Aid's family and the ruling Primes.
The journey between the pristine forest filled with the dripping of the melting snow and the ever encroaching city passed by in a blur. The road was silent almost echoing with their footsteps as the freezing breeze warred with the warm sun.
All too soon they stood before the city gates closed and barred as Ratchet had never seen them before. In a sense of déjà vu the twins stepped forward pounding fiercely on the door but this time there was no snow, no howling wind. Nothing stirred save the slowly pluming smoke rising high above the city.
"Who demands entrance?" A guard demanded through the door not bothering to open even a peek hole to the outside.
"Master Healer Ratchet returning from my route with Journeyman First Aid and guards," Ratchet replied brusquely letting the guard stretch out the silence as nothing was spoken in return.
"You did not leave with guards." The guard challenged, the familiar snick of crossbows being armed sounded en mass from behind the thick doors. Ratchet suddenly became acutely aware of the narrow slits along the city's outer walls that he had never noticed before, each hiding an archer and a cache of arrows. He looked over the walls counting at least two hundred slits and knowing that several more were hidden where no one could see them. Murder holes, he remembered the name for them now, and wondered if he and his friends would suffer that fate.
"Picked them up after Steeldale, the outer province has gotten dangerous." Ratchet replied promptly.
"No kidding," The guard finally opened a slit in the door, a narrow spy slot that doubled as a close range murder hole at perfect chest height. "We're sending for your relations, for confirmation of who you claim to be."
Ratchet glanced at Wheeljack worriedly, "How do you know who to send for?"
"You are the master healer, sir. All of Iacon knows who your family is, and they will know if you be fibbing." There was a smirk in the hidden guard's voice that made Ratchet uneasy, whatever had happened within his town had pulled the darker side of mechs into the light, showing the inner darkness and cruelty most covered with kindness. It was a trait Ratchet was all too familiar with.
"Move aside!" Ironhide's familiar voice snarled from behind the gate before the doors were flung wide. "You sure took your sweet time!"
"Nice to see you too." Ratchet sighed, flinching when Ironhide and Chromia gasped once they saw Wheeljack standing unharmed in the sunlight.
"Uh, hi pops!" Wheeljack grinned, facemask absent and gaping holes where his fangs used to be still showing prominently in his smile. "I'm home?"
"Slaggit, we'll talk about this later." Hide swore and made a subtle sign of warding before pulling his sons in, the others following close behind. "We've got a plague, started three days ago. No one knows nothin' bout it or how its spreadin'. The healing collegia is overrun with patients, all hospitals are treating patients on the floor, in basements, even in tents on the street. We've got riots, looters, violence of all sorts everywhere. Our six prisons are full and folks want to start witch burning and lynching next."
"I need to see the patients." Ratchet strode next to his creator, "These are Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Bluestreak, Cliffjumper and Bumblebee. They're guards of sorts. These two can face down just about anything," He gestured to the guised nightwalker twins walking in sunlight as mortals once more. "He's a crack shot," Ratchet nodded to Bluestreak, "And they're pit good with cross bows. Take them and try to keep them alive."
"Yes sir," Hide snorted, "When did you become such a hot shot?"
"We'll talk about that later." Ratchet replied with a smirk, "Get Aid and me to the nearest hospital, I'll leave the city to you."
It was worse than Hide had let on, more dire than the black plumes could ever explain. One in two. It was that bad, one in two living sparks were taken to Primus from the strange sickness. More than a thousand had perished in the last two days, the first patient showing up just the day before that. Ratchet checked over the efforts of the other healers, desperately looking for options. Remedies known to midwives and dentists had all proven useless. Every folk remedy known to hedge wizards and weather witches had failed. Every healer at all levels of the colegeia had sifted through the vast tomes of anchient magi and witches, healers of past ages and modern discoveries, and still nothing worked.
As Ratchet went over the symptoms seeking an answer he saw fifty die in half as many minutes, all wasted swiftly from healthy with strange rust rashes to swollen, buckled plating that cracked leaking fluids to suddenly graying for no reason at all.
"Ratchet," First Aid spoke in the desperate silence, "Mortals can do nothing. You know this."
"I know," Ratchet sighed feeling as if he was setting himself up for the burning stake. "Let's go." Together they left the collegia library heading back to the many patients graying faster than any could try for a remedy. "Just –" Ratchet hesitated, unable to find the words.
"I won't let anyone get to you. I swear to Primus, no one will get touch you until the last mech is healed. I promise." Aid assured Ratchet, knowing that the panicked mechs would scream for the death of the one who could cure them pointing to Unicron's trickery in calling the pure to His side. They would never believe that Ratchet was helping, and not reclaiming the plague he had loosed upon the city for fame.
Ratchet stood tall, feeling as if he were in a dream and moved to stand at the center of the hustling healers and crying patients. With one last breath he let loose the inner aura kept tightly bottled inside and focused only on the feeling of the plague within a mortal frame, sensed the heaving bodies, the desperately pounding sparks. Then everything slowed, his vision turned white and everything was silence.
