I think I said something about sporadic updating schedules? Yeah, that's very true. Enjoy! I certainly did :D
After futilely searching for Perceptor for nearly three breems, he finally managed to track down Rung lingering around the medbay. Apparently, the mech had gotten word of Ratchet's rampage and was helping some of the medical staff organize themselves and their supplies. When Ratchet caught up to him, the psy-ops mech looked at him with his overly bright optics and Ratchet envied how serene he seemed amongst such chaos.
"He's above ground," Rung said and held up his hands at the shocked look on Ratchet's face. "He's safe- he has an escort. He just needed to get some fresh air and some time alone."
Ratchet didn't waste any time heading to where Rung directed. He found a ladder leading up to the ground, and was glad to find that his GPS said it was long gone from the front lines. He emerged into the dying sunlight and found two mechs standing in a waist high rift in the metal, talking quietly. They both turned towards him as he clamored up the ladder.
"Where's Perceptor?" he asked, realizing he recognized one of the mechs- it was one of the quiet ones from the medbay. Of all the mechs to trust with a mentally unstable patient, not one in Charr's medbay held up to his standards.
The medbot stood a little straighter. "Just down the way, sir," he said. "We set up a target for him to take a few shots at."
Ratchet's optics brightened in shock, his mouth dropping open slightly. "You gave him a weapon?" he asked, dumbfounded. The medbot didn't have a chance to answer. A gunshot echoing over the uneven field stopped him mid word and Ratchet didn't pause to wait for the rest of his excuse before sprinting towards the source. Panic filled his frame like poison and it only seemed to grow, slowing him down as he saw Perceptor lying flat against the ground, helm lying against a slightly raised ridge on the ground.
He was so convinced, so certain that something terrible had happened, that when Perceptor turned and lifted his head to look at him, he tripped over an uneven piece of ground, sprawling out just a few feet from the mech. Perceptor relaxed the grip he had on the rifle in his hands, pulling his optic away from the scope to look at Ratchet. "Are you alright?" he asked mildly.
Ratchet stared at him for a long moment before slowly pushing himself up. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said, sounding dazed and relieved even to his own audios. He stayed sitting, not sure he would be able to stand without his legs shaking as relief washed through him. "Are you alright?"
Perceptor shrugged and turned his attention back to the scope of the rifle. He tweaked the settings and it wasn't until Ratchet looked a little closer that he saw a small calibrator hooked into Perceptor's wrist, telling him the wind direction and speed on top of other elemental conditions.
"What... what are you doing up here?" Ratchet asked and jumped as Perceptor's finger tightened on the trigger, loosing off a shot with a quiet snap. The gun in his arms jumped and he reached behind him, grabbing a pair of binoculars.
"Check my aim," he said and handed the device to Ratchet.
Ratchet frowned and took the binoculars, hooking them up to his optics. He zoomed in, finally catching sight of the target that Perceptor was shooting for. He winced slightly, seeing that a stock picture of Landslide had been printed out and pasted onto the thick target. Perceptor's shot had penetrated right through the mech's cheek.
"Where on Cybertron did you learn to shoot?" Ratchet asked and set the binoculars down.
Perceptor shrugged again. "Rung said I should find a way to vent my anger," he said. "I decided that this would be suitable. Turns out I'm rather good at it." He pulled the hammer back, popping out an empty shell, before reloading and leaning in and taking his aim again. He steadied his breathing, taking a few deep breaths before exhaling, long and slow. His finger tightened around the trigger, popping off another shot.
Ratchet curiously grabbed the binoculars again and saw that this shot had made it straight through the picture's optic. "I'd say that's a bit of an understatement," he muttered.
Perceptor let out a quiet huff through his vents and checked his aim through his scope. The silence stretched out between them and Ratchet cast uncertain looks at his friend, watching him loose shot after shot until the picture in the distance was little more than tatters. He opened his mouth a few times to speak, but nothing came out.
Perceptor was the one who finally broke the silence. "Why did you come up here?" he asked, finally setting his gun to the side and unclasping the targeting device from over his optic. When he looked at Ratchet, his expression was completely devoid of emotion.
"I," Ratchet started before closing his mouth uncertainly. "I wanted to check on you. See how you were doing."
"How do you think I'm doing?" Perceptor asked and picked up the binoculars. Ratchet couldn't see what he was staring it, but a part of him knew he was intently focused on every hole in Landslide's picture.
Ratchet swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Perceptor, I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know what else to do. You were... you were scary," he admitted. "I've never seen you look like that before, like you were just... dead inside." Perceptor kept his optics against the binoculars, but Ratchet could see how his jaw clenched. "I just wanted to get you out of there. That was the only way I could figure out how to do it."
Perceptor finally set the binoculars down. "You corrupted my memories," he said. "You invaded my processor, viewed the most humiliating, degrading and damning moments of my life and corrupted them so I didn't have access to process them. You altered me against my will."
Ratchet lowered his head, looking at the ground. He simply nodded. His guilt was absolute- what else could he say?
"I can't forgive you for that," Perceptor said.
Ratchet let out a long breath, trying to keep his system steady even though he felt like he'd been stabbed. All the air whoosed out of his vents in a long huff and he didn't seem able to draw in another breath. He sat in the silence, trying to keep his vents from sputtering. What else had he expected?
Perceptor slowly got to his feet, grabbing his rifle and equipment as he did. "I'm joining the Autobots," he said.
Ratchet felt like he had heard it over a long distance and looked up at the mech, not quite processing what he had said. "You what?" he asked.
"I'm joining the Autobots," he repeated. "They could use a mech like me. With seven days left until Landslide's masterpiece goes off, they need a mech like me." He checked to be sure the safety was on before slinging the rifle over his shoulder. "And if anyone is going to give the Decepticons and Landslide the end they deserve, it's the Autobots."
Ratchet slowly got to his feet, his shock evident on his face. "Are you sure?" he asked.
Perceptor looked at him levelly. "I've never been more certain about anything in my entire life."
Ratchet swallowed as he looked at him. A part of him knew there was nothing he could say to make this right, nothing he could do to fix this. "Perceptor... we can still leave here. We can go to Polyhex or Nova Cronum. We can escape all this."
Perceptor watched him get to his feet, the expression on his face a mix of sorrow and pity. "Maybe you can," he said quietly. "There's no escape for me. Not anymore."
Ratchet's engine sputtered as he looked at his friend, studied his face for any sign of the familiar mech he had known in Praxus, but Perceptor looked like he had aged vorns in a short period of time. His normally bright blue optics were dull and tired, hiding a deep pain that seemed to reach throughout his entire frame, echoes of far too many bad memories. This was not the same mech he had known and a part of him realized that that mech was gone, even if he wanted nothing more than to be wrong.
"I just want you to be safe," Ratchet said.
Perceptor offered a small smile, a halfhearted quirk of his lips. "I will be," he promised. He shouldered his rifle and turned, walking back towards the ladder and his two escorts. "You saved my life, Ratchet... I won't forget that."
Ratchet looked up, optics wide, but Perceptor had already ducked down the ladder, back into the claustrophobic depths of the base. He let out a long sigh and turned his gaze towards the distance, seeing the lights of the battle eternally lighting the horizon. The sunlight had long since disappeared, and the glow of Cybertron's moons were dim, their crescents just barely cresting the horizon.
Ratchet sat and draped his arms around his knees, feeling a small kindling of hope in his chassis, trying to press through his sorrow. He stayed above ground for a while longer, watching the ebb and flow of lights that flashed and morphed like some aberrant aurora borealis. His optics slowly slid out of focus and he hovered somewhere between recharge and awake, letting the night envelop him.
It took him a long moment to register it and even when he did, it was almost over- a fiery column that stretched out hellish fingers into the air, grasping and clawing into the lower atmosphere. He watched with wide optics as the fiery hands reached their limit before curling into whorls of smoke that blackened the sky in the distance. His protocols kicked in like a slap to the back of his helm and he shot to his feet, rushing down the ladder and back into the tunnels, thoughts focused on nothing else but the mechs on the front lines.
"What the holy slag was that?" Ratchet choked out as he stumbled into the medic's tunnel. He'd driven through the tunnels so quickly he felt as though he'd shaken something loose and his vents were whirring at full capacity yet they still barely managed to keep his system from overheating. As he reached the medic's tunnel, he found that a few of the staff was there and the number of injured mechs below was... surprisingly low judging by what he had just witnessed. There were a few mechs being treated with light shrapnel damage and a mech who looked like he had had a chunk of his shoulder blown off, but no heat damage, no burns.
Ironhide looked happier than Ratchet had ever seen him. "That was a Primus sent gift from above," he said through a laugh. "One o' the Con's weapons detonated in their lines! Primus, it looks like it even caused a chain reaction—set off the rest of their supply!" The red mech ran a hand over his crest and scurried up one of the ramps to peer at the battlefield, looking far too spry for a mech who had looked so worn earlier that day. He leaned down and called through the hole. "By Primus, I've never seen anything like it!"
Ratchet hurried up after the mech, grabbing his offered hand as he nearly slipped in his haste. Ironhide helped pull him through the hole and into the trench and Ratchet coughed through the smoke that hung over it. Just a few hundred yards in front of him, he could see the flames from the explosion burning and the smoke billowing from the ashes of the former Decepticon front lines. Heat registered against his armor and he gaped at how lucky they had been—any closer and the front lines would be in much worse shape than it was.
"Oh Primus," Ratchet breathed. The explosion had leveled nearly everything. Where the Decepticon trenches had woven through the crust now stood a hole of smoldering wreckage that cut through the maze of tunnels like a giant fist had been brought down on them. "What could have done this?"
Ironhide shrugged. "The Cons must be turning out weapons far beyond their abilities—they overreached," he said. "Y'know what? Frag that, I don't care- as long as they keep doin' it."
Through the smoke, Ratchet saw figures running- mechs retreating. "Oh Primus," he said again, not believing what he was seeing.
As though a confirmation to what his optics were registering, Ultra Magnus' voice registered over a base-wide comm, ringing strongly in his audios. "Press the advantage, mechs!" he called and all around him, a roar of primal glee rang out from the soldiers. They seemed to move as a wave, hurdling over the lip of the trenches and charging towards the retreating Decepticons. Ironhide disappeared onto the surface with the rest of the throng and Ratchet watched him leap over the open veins, his gun leveled towards the enemy lines.
Ratchet crouched down and looked through a hole into the medic's tunnel. "You, you, you and you," he said, pointing at four medbots in turn, Forcep included. "Follow me!" he barked. The mechs scrambled to obey, climbing up into the trench to join him. Ratchet lacked the primal glee of battle these soldiers all held, but as he pulled himself up over the rim of the trench, four medbots in tow, he had the intent to catch anyone who fell.