Thundercracker's Fate

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Chapter 2: Coming Online

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Thundercracker came online to find the Autobot CMO hovering over his chest and the CMO's assistant peering into his optics. "He's awake!" cried the latter enthusiastically.

Ratchet moved quickly up toward Thundercracker's head, only to scowl as the seeker went back offline.

-o-o-o-o-o-

He onlined again to find Ratchet there as before, arms in what was left of the seeker's chest up to his elbows. And instead of the white visored and masked mech, a dark green one, also with a visor and mask, had replaced him. "Hold him, Hoist. Keep that feed live," barked Ratchet. "I'm not sure if I can. He's a mess in here."

"Doing my best, Sir. But these fluctuations..."

Ratchet moved up again to the head of the seeker. "Thundercracker, I need you to access your..."

-o-o-o-o-o-

The third time he woke, he found four Autobots huddled over his frame... if one could still call it a frame. He'd been ignoring the messages crackling through his processor. He didn't really want to know how badly he'd been damaged. Getting stepped on by Superion should really have off-lined him permanently.

"Keep him steady, Hoist," the CMO was growling. "Watch those high field sines."

If his vocalizer had been working, Thundercracker would probably have been groaning. Ratchet was banging on his spark chamber with some unknown tool.

"I'm loosing him..." whimpered the dark green Autobot.

"Hold him, Hoist. You can do it."

"Ratchet, he's too damaged," groused one of the others. "There's a reason the Decepticons left him for dead."

-o-o-o-o-o-

"This is the problem, Optimus," First Aid stated. He's been so damaged we can't keep him on-line. His processor keeps shutting down to protect him."

"If we can just transfer his spark and processors to another frame, even just temporarily, Red Alert should be able to hack him," continued Ratchet.

"Then do so. Do we have any spare frames? Or something that would work? Wheeljack, what'cha got?"

Wheeljack shook his head. "No spare frames lying about."

"What about in your lab on Cybertron?"

"Not even in my lab on Cybertron."

"Well could something be built?"

"Not easily. We're low on parts and frame components," explained Ratchet. "Most of what we had was used in reformatting the crew and repairs since. This war has been expensive in medical terms."

"I suppose we could go back to Cybertron and find a frame," mused Wheeljack, crossing his arms over his chest. "Plenty of bodies lying about there."

First Aid jumped in. "If we could find a volunteer who would be willing to give up his frame for the duration of the interrogation..."

"Shall I put out a request for a volunteer? The transfer would just be temporary, wouldn't it?" Optimus asked.

"I suppose we could do that, but I don't know of anyone in this crew that's enough of a masochist to allow a Decepticon to take over his frame and then allow it to get hacked."

"Well, we'll see if we can get a volunteer. If not, we'll send a team to Cybertron to collect some empty frames."

"All right Prime, but the sooner the better. We're not sure how long we can maintain Thundercracker's spark before he gives up."

The Autobot leader nodded, and Wheeljack and Ratchet left the office, First Aid rushing ahead. And on reaching his office next to the medbay. Ratchet paused, his hand hovering over the entry panel. "You know, Wheeljack, we do have a spare frame lying about."

"Oh? Wait, not that hideous thing Sparkplug put together. That would serve Thundercracker right," the engineer chuckled. And then he shook his head again, remembering the fiasco that had been. "I suppose we could though."

"Not that thing. I'm talking about Madame Ratchet. She's good to go."

Wheeljack rubbed his chin. "I'd forgotten about her. Of course." And then he shook his head. "Bahhh! She's too good for him."

"I've had her all these vorns and have never done anything with her or her parts. And at this rate we might as well just use her."

"Citrine's much too good for him. She's still sealed and all."

"I know. Not like we were using her for anything else though."

"Seems a waste, but if you're sure."

"Maybe it's time we started using her. Besides, if we put him into Citrine, we'll have no end of volunteers to help with the interrogations and guard duty."

Wheeljack laughed. "I knew there was a reason you were my best friend."

-o-o-o-o-o-

When Thundercracker woke again, things had definitely changed. There were no warning messages. The medbay was calm and quiet. Only the white medical assistant was visible.

He felt drowsy... disconnected. And the messages coming through his processor were coded in blue rather than red. Glancing at them, they were cheery welcome messages from his new frame.

His new frame?

The white medic was leaning over him looking into his optics. And then the medic pushed up his visor and looked more closely. "I think he's stable," he said with a tone of delight in his voice.

"He's holding," came the voice of the dark green medic from nearby.

Ratchet appeared and leaned over his head. "Thundercracker? Can you hear me?" he asked.

He could hear, but why should he respond to the Autobot's question.

"Thundercracker? Can you hear me?" he asked more insistently.

"Yeah... I can hear you," he mumbled bitterly.

The others excitedly laughed and actually appeared to bounce around a bit in joy. Great.

"You just missed a narrow scrape with Mortilus, but we managed to keep him at bay. So welcome back."

"Thanks..." Thundercracker grumped. He wondered if he should see why he was getting new frame messages. The last time he'd seen them was when he'd been reformatted after the Autobot's Ark had awoken after six octads of dormancy on this miserable planet.

"How are you feeling?" Hoist asked.

"Strange. What have you done to me?" His voice sounded different as well he noticed. Its depth and rumble was gone.

"We had to put you into a new frame. Yours was so damaged that we couldn't keep you on-line, no matter what we tried."

"You should have just given me back to the Decepticons."

"Eh. They didn't want you. They left you for dead after Superion stomped on you. And then Menasor fell on top of you when Superion knocked him over."

Thundercracker sighed. Talk about adding insult to injury. "You should have just left me as well," he huffed. "What's my new frame? Whose hand-me-down body did you put me in?" Well that explained the difference in his vocalizer.

"We didn't have any vacated frames..." said a new voice. "But we did have something mostly suitable sitting in Ratchet's closet."

Thundercracker turned his optics to see the infamous mad-scientist Wheeljack coming over to the group. "Mostly suitable?" Great. What had the nutcase done to him? Reformatted him into some dreadfully domestic Earth machine?

"And it looks great on you," he cackled.

A bit of panic set in. Had they put him into that hideous mish-mash of parts they called a frame, the one Megatron had tried to seduce to the Decepticon cause when they found it to be sentient? Or had they put him into some piece of laboratory machinery? He reached out through his frame, and found it to be at least a normal Cybertronian shape. Though he could not find any transformation cogs or transformation commands in it. "What have you done to me? What did you put me into?"

The Autobots laughed and held him down as he began to fight the light restraints keeping him on the medberth.

"Shhhh... shhhh. Easy there, Thundercracker," said Hoist soothingly. "Stop struggling and I'll show you."

"What am I? What sort of monstrosity have you dross-prossed idiots made me into?!"

"Shhh... Calm down," said Hoist. "Let me help you."

Thundercracker looked down to see the dark green mech was unbinding one of his hands.

Hands. At least he had hands.

But not his own, or anything like his own. The hand the doctor was releasing was slender and silver, decorated with pale yellow bands and set into an arm of a rusty-gold tone with glass-enameled turquoise blue highlights.

"What the...?" He pulled the hand closer to his optics and stared. "This is... What hand is this!?"

Hoist took it gently and stroked it. "It's yours now."

"It looks like a femme's hand," he hissed.

"It is a femme's hand," said Ratchet, leaning in. The chief medic had finally appeared.

"Welcome to your new frame," chuckled Wheeljack sadistically.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Thundercracker's Fate" continues in Chapter 3: "The Toshers"

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Author Notes:

Chapter Order – The chapters in this story are not in chronological order. Instead they skip around to unfold the events in a more dramatic fashion.

Wheeljack – I love writing him a few screws loose, and being unashamed about it. And I am trying to make the Autobots in this story a little rougher—not the goody two-shoes versions of the canon.

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