#I did Megatron’s design a while ago and you can tell because it was during my messy lineart era

[sphnyspinspin]

I was looking through my art stuff and I found my old Hazformer redesigns for @blitzy-blitzwing and their Becoming A Demon TFA-Hazbin Hotel crossover fic. I was too shy to post them but here I am. These were pure self indulgence and I just am a HUMONGOUS fan of this fic OMG.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #32 - Nobody’s Ever Actually Dead in Comic Books

Our band of merry guys-who-weren’t-on-the-Lost-Light-in-issue-#1 approach the shattered husk of the Lost Light, in a gruesome scene that is only slightly marred by the graphic design.

Font doesn’t really suggest danger, does it? Here, for comparison, is something I slapped together in fifteen minutes (including recreation of background) using a font I got off a free font site.

Now, one could say that my version is rather derivative, flat, and arguably cliche, but you know what else it is? Appropriate for the fucking mood of having found a destroyed, hemorrhaging ship after everyone you knew disappeared.

I’m available, IDW! Hit me up.

Theorizing that this is the ship that the Coffin Rodimus came from- remember that? It was a few issues ago- the gang flies in for a closer look. The ship blood is actually something called quantum foam, which allows for quantum space travel to happen. It’s not supposed to be outside of the quantum quills, but the ship’s pretty junked up, so it is.

Because the ship is so very full of holes, the gang can set down for repairs pretty easy. They land in Swerve’s, finding it in less-than-pristine condition. They also find evidence of Crosscut having gotten creative, as a poster for the play he was working on is hung up in the room. Considering he was still writing it when he disappeared, this might seem a bit odd. But then you remember that this is a ship from the future, and it stops being so odd.

Because this is a future ship, with evidence that Crosscut did some stuff, it stands to reason that, at some point, everyone is going to come back from being disappeared.

Just to die.

Which is a bummer, but one crisis at a time.

Megatron disembarks the Rod Pod, with Ravage following, and everyone is just a touch put off by the duo. Everyone but Nautica, who proceeds to commit a microaggression.

Nautica, that’s Soundwave’s father you’re petting like a common animal.

Ravage, angered by this over-familiarity, swats at her. Skids questions letting an active Decepticon roam around, but Megatron brushes off these concerns, saying that finding any still-living crew members is more important. With that, the search begins.

The gang splits up to look for clues, despite Riptide thinking this is a horrible idea. They’re on the clock for this one- the quantum foam is liable to explode if it touches anything, and there’s an awful lot of the stuff floating around right now.

Nightbeat and Nautica leave the rest of the group to their own work, seeing as Nautica has the most appropriate alt-mode for traversing the gaps in the ship.

Man, that’s pretty cool. Wish Nautica hadn’t been regulated to being “girl best friend” for her character arcs, I would have loved to see her do some neat stuff for her own development. Guess that’s what happens when you get introduced as main cast late, and have to compete with all the faves who had dozens of issues to be established and who also don’t have to deal with the whole “token girl character” thing.

The rest of the gang- Megatron, Ravage, Riptide, Skids, and Getaway- start looking in the area they’re already in. Seems a little lopsided, but whatever.

Ravage finds someone almost immediately, identifying Ultra Magnus through smell alone. Only, it isn’t just Ultra Magnus.

The Magnus armor lays not terribly far away, having had its hands cut off to prevent the recall signal from being activated before being gut-murdered.

Gut-murdered wiTH A FUSION CANNON, MEGATRON

Of course, Megatron was forced to destroy his fusion canon after it was decided he would be joining the Lost Light, but you can buy these things off the black market like it’s nothing. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brainstorm had a few stashed in his lab.

As it currently stands, nobody can trust the guy who has a storied past of killing Autobots, on a future ship where the only folks who could stop him are dead. Megatron, at least, has the good sense to not argue this fact, and suggests that the boys lock both Ravage and himself up until they suss out exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, over with Nautica and Nightbeat, we run through all the weird shit that’s happened in the last day or so.

Nautica, you’ve been on this ship for months now. How did you miss the fact that the only couple within 800 miles got annihilated by way of Phase Sixer? I feel like that attack might have come up at some point.

Since they’re on the subject of spouses, Nightbeat asks Nautica if she’s married, or if she has friends. Though noting that such a direct line of questioning might get him slapped with someone else, Nautica reveals that she is single, though she does have a best friend. Nightbeat is also single, probably because he pulls shit like this.

While this conversation is going on, Nautica uses her Sonic Screwdriver wrench to open a door with the literal push of a button. Brainstorm tricked out her wrench so hard it turned into a magic wand, which is good, because they’re going to need all the help they can get now that space is literally warping around them thanks to the quantum foam.

Nautica kicks something on the elevator, and that something turns out to be Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase. Too bad Swerve is gone, he was so invested in what it contained. Luckily, Nightbeat is just as interested.

Back over on the other side of the ship, it seems as though Megatron kept his word about not resisting, as both he and Ravage have been locked in a cabinet. Wonder how that’s going for them.

Oh, better than I expected.

Ravage is fucking pissed that Megatron joined the Autobots, thereby turning his back on everyone who supported his cause during the last four million years. Despite this grievous betrayal though, the Decepticons haven’t stopped moving. Turns out, Galvatron’s in charge now.

But only if Autobot Megatron isn’t some sort of ploy.

It’s at this point that we learn just why Ravage is here to begin with- to see if Megatron’s truly given up the Decepticons, and if he has, to murder him. But first he’d like to know why this is happening.

Megatron views himself as a monster, having perpetuated a war that ended the lives of billions, destroyed the Cybertronian way of life, ostracized his race from the rest of the universe, and killing just to have something to do. He doesn’t like feeling this way about himself, so he decided to walk away from that life by joining the other team.

Don’t think it’s quite that easy to do, but okay.

Ravage isn’t so sure that this change of heart is going to stick, still convinced that Megatron will snap back to his old self with just a bit more time. Problem is, Megatron may not have a ton of that resource left.

Didn’t they build that body in like an hour so you wouldn’t die? Yeah, no wonder it feels as ill-fitting as a twenty-dollar suit. Thing’s probably made out of pig iron and duct tape.

The lights come on before further self-reflection can be done, and the duo realize that they’ve had guests this whole time.

Someone put the kettle on.

Obviously some fucked up shit happened on this ship. Megatron isn’t so sure that it’s him who did these dirty deeds, however, as he reaches into Ratchet’s mouth and pulls out his brain. Which feels like something that doesn’t really absolve one of guilt, but okay.

Also, ew.

Back with Nautica and Nightbeat, things are getting weird.

Now, this sequence might seem confusing at first blush, but this is because the laws of reality are collapsing around them. Going by clues in the background, we can find the proper, linear progression of time, and thus is conversation. This is what is actually happening:

With the mystery of Brainstorm’s briefcase eluding us once again, we move on to see more graphic aftermaths of violence. Poor Tailgate has been nailed to the wall with a chunk of a metal beam that’s almost as big as he is. The mood lighting for this scene is gorgeous, but I’ve hit my limit for exposing y’all to gore for this issue, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one. Then they find something even more interesting.

Who’s ready for Under Cold Blue Stars… 2!

Back over on the opposite side of the ship, Riptide’s found something nasty. It’s a bunch of dead bodies!

Including, uh, Pipes.

Who already died a while ago.

Hm.

All the bodies in this room are in their alts, and it looks like they’ve all been shot and drilled into, for some reason. Skids brings up that he had a friend who could identify the placement of any robot’s brain module just by knowing what they turned into. Then he reaches into a corpse to see what the drill-hole’s all about. It makes him sick, though maybe not for the reason you might think. He gets on the phone with Nightbeat, who’s called to tell them that they’ve found Overlord.

Still locked in his weird body harness.

And decapitated.

Megatron is on the other line, calling because he’s figured out the same thing Skids has. Someone paid a visit to this ship. Someone nasty.

The gang regroups, and Nautica gets the basics on the DJD, because I guess nobody’s mentioned them even in passing in the last six months, either.

God, what do they even talk about on this ship? Certainly not their feelings.

The reason that one room was filled with alt-modes was because of Tarn’s addiction to transforming; t-cogs are easier to remove when they’ve been used recently.

We get a quick 4/5ths-page gore-fest, then it’s back to making it all about Megatron.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you FUCKING DEFECTED, YOU POOL NOODLE.

Nightbeat’s beginning to put two and two together. There’s an Overlord in the basement. That shouldn’t be, because Overlord got exploded by Chromedome when he mercy-killed Rewind. Something is off about the past of this ship.

Before he can establish his MTMTE everybody-lives-but-then-dies AU though, the quantum foam fucks with the ship. These sons of guns need to get the hell out of here, pronto.

Oh god, what now?

Ravage smells someone inside the Magnus armor, someone who isn’t a part of the usual nesting doll lineup. Megatron reaches into the Crackerjack box and pulls out one hell of a prize.

HE LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES

Chromedome would be so thrilled, if he still existed.

[notwhelmedyet]

The Rehab Job

There needed to be more mtmte heists.  Heists are hard to write, so I stole a plot from the show Leverage and adapted it to my needs.

Title: The Rehab Job

Plot: There’s a chance to recover a copy of the starmap!  Unfortunately, an organic has stolen it and hidden it somewhere in the library of Yelsid.

Pairings: Rewind/Chromedome, future Drift/Ratchet?

Rating: General

Length: 7375 words

I’ll probably post this to AO3, eventually.  After I get back into my account.  In the meantime, enjoy!  If you see any weird mistakes, let me know, I wrote this on my phone during a roadtrip.

"What did you need from me, Captain?" Rewind asked. He hadn't expected a comm message from Megatron, let alone a pair messages from him and Rodimus, both requesting his presence on the bridge halfway through third shift. Luckily he didn't get much sleep lately and didn't even have to unplug in order to head to the situation room to respond to the pair of "Urgent" and 'VERY IMPORTANT" messages.

It took him just as long as if he had, because Chromedome had heard him sneaking out and then had to come along. But in any case, they weren't command staff, they weren't supposed to be manning comms continually.

As expected, both Megatron and Rodimus were there, along with Drift and Ultra Magnus. Nobody raised a fuss over Chromedome showing up uninvited, which was good, it was way too early to be dealing with him whinging.

"I have a favor to ask of you, Rewind," Megatron said.

Rodimus, following just long enough after that he could plausibly deny having spoken over him said, "We've lost the map."

"I'd heard. It was destroyed along with half the matrix when you took down Tyrest."

"No, we lost the-"

Megatron held up a hand to stop him. "We should start at the beginning, Rodimus." He turned back to Rewind and said, "Drift had a copy of the starmap made before the Lost Light first launched."

Chromedome leaned forwards, catching Rewind's eye. "Umm, that's not possible," he put in skeptically.

"Apparently just because Percepter says a thing is impossible, that doesn't make it so," Rodimus said.

Drift cut in excitedly, "It was protected against mechanical copying, but couldn't erase your mem-"

"The details aren't important right now," Megatron said. "A copy was made and entrusted to a NAIL named Litho. He was working at the great library on Yelsid. He made the mistake of lending the map to an organic for safekeeping."

Ultra Magnus cued up one of the monitors with an image of a round blue organic in brightly colored robes. "Jek Puln of Quentine was a well respected safe and secret keeper until a week ago, when it was discovered he was stealing any hard currency left in his safes and he made himself disappear. He took the starmap with him."

"We don't have a map, but we have a chance to recover one if we can get this organic to return the starmap."

Chromedome drummed his fingers on his leg in a familiar nervous tic. Rewind could tell right where his mind was going and leaned closer. "What part to you expect me to play in all this?" He asked.

"The Galactic Council has a protection agreement with Yelsid. We know Jek hasn't left the planet, he's down there somewhere. But the council refuses to accept a war party of Cybertronians visiting the planet. They would be willing to accept one archivist, coming to visit the Great Library," Megatron said.

"Absolutely not," Chromedome said. "Rewind is not going to play spy, all alone, on an alien planet."

Rewind couldn't imagine anything more wonderful. Away from the ship, away from the ghosts, away from the new three shift system that was getting on his last nerve. And to go on a proper adventure, to do something of value for the mission...

"You're his Conjunx, Chromedome, not his sparkmaid. Rewind gets to choose if he goes," Rodimus said, eliciting a rumbling growl as Chromedome flared in anger.

Rewind stepped forwards to position his back to Chromedome, a restraining hand on his leg. "I want to go. I will not go behind Chromedome's back. Is there not some way to negotiate my going with him? Do organic conjunx's not have co-travel rights?"

Ultra Magnus nodded slowly. "It merits investigation. I will hail the guard sergeant again, please excuse me." He nodded curtly to each of the captains, then excited the room.

"We want Ratchet to upgrade your inter-Autobot radio to work for planetary distances. Percepter and Brainstorm think they've cracked it," Rodimus said.

Drift added, "Not good for long-term, too high draw for the aux systems, but it'll be very minor surgery to refit it and put it back to normal. Me and the Captain," he inclined his head to indicate Megatron, "already got the upgrade."

"Well, if Domey is okay with it, I'm game."

Ultra Magnus walked back in, and if Rewind didn't know better, he'd have said Magnus was chuckling. "Section seventeen, pssh," he muttered before catching sight of everyone's expectant gazes. "Apparently you have 'spousal' rights. We are cleared to proceed."

"Alright! Let's steal a thief!" Rewind said, jumping a bit on his pedes.

"I think abducting Jek would be taken poorly by the Galactic Council," Megatron said. "Let's aim to merely recover the starmap."

The Yelsid library was amazing.  The data hookups were designed for of organics but with a little fiddling could be coerced into giving up all sorts of information that weren't officially stored on the actual library network.  And, since the average organic customer in Yelsid was pretty close to Rewind's size, everything was weirdly in proportion for him.  For once, Chromedome found himself squeezing to fit through doorways and into waiting room chairs instead of Rewind having to ask for help reaching everything on the counters.  It was weird and had put Domey in a bit of a bad mood.

"Did you get everything you were looking for?" Chromedome asked as Rewind skipped down the stairs to meet him.

"Pretty much.  I uploaded a copy to the crew.  From the looks of it, our thief is a bit of an addict."  {What do you think, Rung?}

{I am still offended that you all think I am going to be able to psychoanalyze a random, organic I have never met solely on the basis of his credit logs.  What do you think my profession is, witchcraft?}

{Please cut the unnecessary chatter on the frequency} Megatron cut in. {We do not want to catch anyone's attention with a sudden rush of of activity}

{Apologies, Captain.  Yes, an addictive personality.  If you compare this credit history to a local map, he stays within a near constant radius of his work.  He doesn't like change, he's likely to have retreated to one of his places of comfort when threatened.}

{Me and Domey will check all of them.  We can pull the local cameras into my network when we get there and then monitor for him remotely. Rewind out.}

"So what are these local haunts?" Chromedome asked, tapping on a public vidscreen to bring up a local map.

"Oh, you know, the usual organic obsessions. Gambling, all sorts, Syn dens, a few bars, sex fairs, a couple of food places."

"So when Rung said he was addicted to everything..."

"Well, he's not taking Syk, but that's only addictive for Mechs. Other than that, pretty much."

"We're not going to be welcome in most of these establishments," Chromedome said.

Rewind nodded, "we're really just checking the docking bays for his personal light flyer. It's a planetary-bound shuttle."

"Well then, let's get on the road."

14 pizzerias, 3 brothels, 2 strip clubs and one seedy card den later, tensions were running a bit high.

"He is not going to be in any of these places," Chromedome said. The sound was always a bit more rumbly when he was in his alt mode, something about the acoustics changed.

"The captain was sure he hadn't gone off world," Rewind said from inside the cab. They'd stopped for drinks between the prior stop and this one, and he was nursing the iced engex slush he's gotten, letting it give him a good excuse to avoid eye contact with any passers-by.

"Since when was Megatron 'the Captain' anyways?" Chromedome said.

"Nobody bothered to tell me," Rewind said. "I assume there's a story there.". He caught sight of someone exiting the distillery via the side exit and set down his drink so he could lift up and get a better look.

It was Jek! Or at least a similarly colored organic of similar stature. Rewind brought up the database entries for Jek sale tried to compare, but their probable match stepped out of his line of sight. He tried to get a better look and bumped into the canopy of Chromedome's cabin.

Something went squish.

"What was that?" Chromedome asked. "Did you just spill something?"

"Yes, but we need to focus on Jek right now."

"Was it that blue energon slush you ordered? Oh Primus, I can feel it dripping."

"I'll clean it up, Jek is right over there."

"Scrap, you're right. And he's got company. Out of the car, Rewind, I'm gonna need arms for this."

There was a group of tall, pale skinned organics wearing black tailored skins trying to force Jek into a light flyer. Two of them were brandishing laser pistols, blunt tipped 870s, banned by the Galactic council due to their tendency to straight through their target and then the next few buildings in their path. Rewind charged while, behind him, Chromedome shifted back.

Rewind hit his target from behind and sent them both sprawling, the pistol skittering out of their hand and across the pavement. They thrashed, reaching for it. Rewind smacked their hand back and something made an unsettling crunching sound. He looked away from his target to the rest of them, one of whom had shifted his aim away from Jek to point at him.

Rewind had a brief moment to panic before Chromedome bowled into the group, scattering them like bowling pins. The group fell under a blur of white and gold and a barrage of clanging and meaty thuds. They were Taranian syndicate members, Rewind suddenly realized. The costumes were distinctive, as were the gill tattoos.

"Rewind, he's getting away!" Chromedome yelled, but Jek's light flyer was already lifting up and zipping down the street.

They bolted after him, but he didn't make it far. They found the flyer crashed into one of the municipal building around the corner. Jek was inside, unconscious.

{Captain, we have an emergency. Jek is about to be picked up by the police and turned over to the Galactic Council. We need more time.}

Drift cut in. {They can't take him if he turns himself in.}

{Turns himself in to where?} Megatron asked.

{Rehab.}

The Mental and Physical Rehabilitation Center on Lois 3 wasn't famous. It wasn't particularly well known or large. It was, however, free, and quite close to the library, and insignificant enough amongst the millions of addiction facilities that littered the galaxy. It would serve to hide Jek until they located the starmap.

Rewind and Chromedome were staying on Yelsid to follow up on any clues that could be extracted from Jek. That meant the team undercover had to be pulled together quickly from the members of the crew who'd already gotten their inter-Autobot radio upgraded.

"Mister Ratchet, I'm sorry, what are the correct honorifics for your....species?"

Ratchet looked down on the tiny doctor, practically sprinting to keep up with his slow stroll through the corridor. "Doctor would do."

"Doctor Ratchet, then. We're very honored to have you join us, but I must ask, why Lois? We've never treated a Cybertronian before, much less had one as part of the clinical staff."

"We had my two patients come here for exactly that reason. One is addicted to Syk, which he could acquire from nearly any Cybertronian with ease, this is putting him farther from temptation. The other recently had a nervous breakdown in response to being attacked by one of his patients and finds large-statured Cybertronians triggering. It's difficult to isolate him from anyone who is tall."

"Taller than you?" The little doctor asked.

"Two, three times my height. You know, tall." Ratchet said, smiling toothily.

{I do not understand why Rung is not the clinician in this harebrained scheme} he said dourly.

{I wanted three on the ground and I felt you less capable of passing for a patient} Megatron said.

"Well, Doctor...Ratchet, if you'd like to see your first group? Get right into things?" The doctor asked.

"By all means," Ratchet said as they tromped down the hall to a group therapy room. Inside there was an old organic, seemingly composed mainly of wrinkles, Rung, Drift, Jek and an Onyx Cryptid sitting in a circle awkwardly mis-sized folding chairs. Rung was doing an excellent job of acting the nervous wreck, eyes going everywhere, probably trying to analyze all of the patients in the room. Drift was similarly jittery, but the low fan hum and fluttering optic lights were a clear indication of actual Syk withdrawal. Ratchet could strangle him.

He made himself walk to the central folding chair and sit down. It creaked, but it held. First bad thing that decided not to happen all day.

"Okay. My name is Ratchet. I'm a doctor, but if you call me Doctor Ratchet, they're going to need to transfer you to a different sort of hospital. That clear?"

Blank faces, those of the group that had faces. Drift was ticking his left pede against the chair leg in time to the opening of the Empyrean Suite, which was either an indication the shakes had set in, or the flashbacks or perhaps he was just bored. Hard to tell because he'd completely shut Ratchet out after they'd argued about him going under cover.

"Alright, well then. We're going around the circle. Your name and why you're here, we don't need to hear your life story or any unimportant tangents. I'm easily bored. You first," he nodded at the wrinkly one on his right.

The thing gibbered something completely incomprehensible. Ratchet considered asking for him to repeat that, remembered he did not care, and moved on to Rung.

Adjusting his spectacles and hunching a bit under everyone's gaze, Rung introduced himself. "Rung of the Pious Pools. I'm not, I'm used to being on the other side of these little talks. I'm a psychotherapist by trade. There was a bit of an incident recently with one of my patients, which is to say I was held hostage by one of my patients and shot in the head and now I'm not doing so great. Umm, I think that's everything and we should move on now."

"I'm Drift. I'm here because I sometimes take Syk and someone felt it interfered with my work," Drift said into his knees.

"Not because it's a highly addictive drug actively known to melt Cybertronian nervous systems?"

"I have everything under control."

Ratchet barked a laugh. "Of course you do."

"Maybe the next person would like to introduce himself," Drift said.

"Oh, yes," Jek said. He rubbed his hands together nervously. "Umm, my name is Jek Puln and I'm an addict. Mostly alcohol, but also food, and sex, and drugs, and race sideways, and feeling plugins at the cinema. Card, of course.  But mostly alcohol. I don't even remember checking myself in here or how I got here from Yelsid. But apparently I realized I was in a bad place and I walked myself to the shuttle ferry and I made-"

"I think we've got the picture."

{Ratchet!} Rung said. {The whole point is to get Jek talking, you can't just cut him off.}

Jek bobbed his head in agreement.  "I'm sorry, you're right, I was monologuing a bit there. I just hope I paid the parking fee for my shuttle before I left. You know how sometimes you start worrying about something and it's stupid, but now that you've started you can't stop worrying, when though you're pretty sure you actually have nothing to worry about?"

Ratchet frowned. "That sounds irrational. In any case, I was told you crashed your flyer before you turned yourself in."

"Oh, shit. No, not the light flyer. Though I did like that thing. She was a beauty. I had a second shuttle for transporting client goods, it was parked in long term parking on Yelsid."

"There is nothing in here," Chromedome said, peering through one of the windows of the docked shuttle.

"I doubt he would have left the map sitting out in the open," Rewind said. "Help me with the door?"

The combination for the drive-lock was easily disabled, but actually opening the door took some leverage as the hydraulics had lost pressure sitting out. After Chromedome got the door open, Rewind climbed aboard. It was a small shuttle; only a pilot's seat, a small storage bulk and a relief area tucked in between. Certainly not intended for long haul flights. Rewind scanned over each of them superficially with Brainstorm's provided 'starmap detector' but didn't get any hits.

"No luck with the gadget, we'll need to do a full search. It'll be a tight squeeze, but I think you'll fit. Come on board and help, detective," Rewind said.

"I haven't been in mechaforensics for a long time, I don't think the title still applies," Chromedome said, hoisting himself into the space. "I'll take the cabin, you can start searching in the bulkhead."

Click.

"Rewind, did you hear that?". Chromedome asked, freezing halfway through the doorway to the cabin.

"Weird clicking sound? I heard it."

"It sounded unpleasantly familiar. Get out and check under the shuttle for me?"

"What am I looking for?" Rewind asked as he scooted under the docking platform to get a look at the underside of the shuttle, turning on his projector to use as a light. The light skimmed across heat panels, rivets, a maintenance port for the engine computer, a tangle of wires-

No.

"Domey, do not move. It looks like the floor is wired into a pressure sensor, which is wired into some sort of frag bomb."

From above, silence.

After a few moments, Rewind called out again. "Domey, did you hear me?"

"Yeah. Sorry. It must have been set to only trigger near Jek's weight. Scrap it, I should be down there, I disarmed hundreds of rigged shuttles in my day."

"Great, you can walk me through it."

"No! You need to get out of the blast radius. I can go into standby while you call for help."

The little countdown readout ticked along. "There isn't time for that, we're on the clock."

"Rewind, get out of there! You aren't-you can't do this and I need you to be safe."

"I'm sorry, Domey. I can't do that." Rewind shut off his audials and then dimmed his visor, scanning for any relevant information in his database while he kept his hands busy opening up his chestplate and hunting down the right wire.

Yes, a match 3.2 million years ago, procedural videos, Autobot search and rescue. Using the gap of the seam between his hand and wrist, he slowly stripped the trigger wire. Then, with one of the cables from his emergency self-repair kit, he spliced from that wire to the grounding line in his left leg.

He brought his visor back up to full and his audials back online to the timer hitting single digits and Chromedome shouting at him. It ticked down and Rewind wished there wasn't the metal hull of the shuttle separating him from Chromedome's arms. At one, he let his visor dim again and took himself back to a night before the launch of the Lost Light, safe and together under a familiar Cybertronian sky.

The electrical impulse from the trigger jumped to the splice and lit down his leg in a crackle of sparks and sudden pain. Something popped in his knee and then his ankle and he ripped the trigger wire out of the whole assembly. The bomb didn't go off. Residual tremors shook up and down his leg. He steadied his hands and disconnected the pressure sensor. Chromedome had fallen silent at some point, he must have heard the commotion below.

"It's disarmed!" Rewind called. "You should get down here and detach it from the ship. I don't think I can."

He last there and let himself shake, feeling suddenly drained, probably from the high processor demand of locating that footage and the fright more than anything. Chromedome crawled in beside him and laid his hands, reverent, on the sides of his face. Then he let his head rest over Rewind's spark chamber and breathed, voice box hissing out undignified staticky sounds.

"I'm sorry Domey. I know you want to protect me. But I can't lose you either."

Domey's hands clamped tighter. "I've never been able to save you," he choked out.

"I let you die too," Rewind said. "And you still act like I could lose you again and be okay." The shuddering had traveled up from his legs, his shoulders rattling against the pavement.

"We need to talk about this, really talk about it. Not right now. Did you disarm it using a Machspeed grounding? I haven't seen anyone do that in centuries. That maneuver was never intended for a frame your size." He ran his hands soothingly down Rewind's left leg as if to smooth out the shaking like a wrinkled cloth.

He unhooked the splice and began to disconnect the bomb from the underside of the shuttle, fetching a few small tools from his subspace to finish the job. "You're going to see First Aid right away. You could have blown out all the nerves in your leg with that stunt. It'll be a miracle if you can walk on it."

"Chromedome..." Rewind whined, very much not in the mood for a lecture.

He paused his work, took one of Rewind's hands and squeezed. "I'm sorry. You were amazing. Thanks for saving both of our afts. I over-think when I'm scared, I'm really proud of you right now."

"Mm," Rewind mumbled as his rudimentary self-repair system finally gave up on fixing the damage and cut off all sensory and tactile readings from that leg. The feeling of nothing washed over him like bliss.

It only took a few more minutes for Chromedome to get the bomb safely disconnected. Carrying it in on hand, he eased his other arm under Rewind, lifting just a little to crawl them out together.

They emerged into the glare of a dual star noon and a barrage of laser pistols. The Taranian syndicate was back, but there was another group, this one short and somewhat insectoid looking mechs.

"Where are the artifacts?" One of the mechs hissed.

"Okay, I don't know what all this is. We're just looking for something Jek Puln stole from our... employer. If you're in a similar situation you're welcome to search the ship," Chromedome said, angling his body so he was between Rewind and the line of fire.

"You helped him," one of the Taranians crackled through a budget universal translator.

"We were worried you were going to kill him before he divulged the location of our stuff," Rewind said.

That didn't seem to move the criminals, who kept their guns aimed at the pair.

After a long moment, Chromedome held up the bomb. "We just nearly died getting this bomb out from under the pilot's cabin. I've got it rigged to a psychic trigger. Upset me too much and this baby is going to blow you all to scrap and little fleshy bits. Me and my friend might make it. You all look a lot more fragile."

The two gangs cursed. "The Zoabs," one of the mechs muttered. Chromedome shook the bomb a bit, narrowing his visor to look even grumpier. They scattered.

"Bluffing?" Rewind asked after a moment.

"Obviously. Though psychic triggers totally exist. Brainstorm was using them for that paintball game in Swerve's."

"I guess we should actually check the shuttle, while we don't have company," Rewind said.

"Alright. But right after we're getting you to a medibay."

"Well, Rewind and Chromedome didn't find anything at the shuttle," Ratchet said.  "So we're going to have to get more information out of Jek.  Which should be pretty easy, since he's an incessant babbler and you're roommates."  He looked over at Drift, laying on the bed.  "Or it would be pretty easy, if you could stand up."

Drift buried his face in the pillow, finials catching on the thin fabric.

"I would like to emphasize, for the third time today, that your plan was monumentally stupid.  You need to go back to the ship; we can try to shuffle the room arrangements and get Rung in with Jek.  Leaning on the addict angle was smart, but you can't even function, Drift.  And I cannot get anything fragging done when you're over here, suffering, in my line of sight!"

"You could leave the room," Drift moaned.  "Then it would be quiet in here."

"Oh yes, excellent and sound medical advice.  All good medics advice going cold turkey on Syk while lying alone in a room, surrounded by clueless organics that wouldn't know a coolant line failure from an transformation cog impaction."  

Ratchet sat down on the bed.  "This whole thing is idiotic.  We just corner Jek and hit him a bit till he tells us the location of the starmap.  None of this mincing about, sneaking and telling lies. Shortest way between two points is always a straight line and usually involves hitting someone, has been my experience."

There was a clatter at the door and Jek stumbled in, big smiles and flopped onto the bed.  "Man, Drift, you've gotta go to the pharmacy. Everybody told me withdrawal was awful, but it turns out science is great and there are these pills and...wow, I feel floaty and cool." He turned his head over to look at the other side of the room and blinked slowly as he took in the scene.  "Hey Doctor Ratchet. Hey Drift. You don't look very cool right now.  Maybe you should get a doct-oh, wait, you already have a doctor here.  What's wrong with him, Doc?"

Ratchet gestured at Drift, who was now curled up in the bed, visor entirely offline so they couldn't see the flickering, digits rattling involuntarily against the bedsheet.  His temperature was high, but not so high he needed any sort of medical intervention yet. "There aren't a lot of drugs that work on Cybertronians, mechs like Drift. There are circuit boosters, which either kill you or make you high. There's engex, which you can clear up with a good whack to the FID chip.  There's Absyne and Strelin, but those are expensive enough there aren't a lot of addicts.  And then there's Syk, which is what Drift here is struggling with.  Cheap as dirt, been popular in the gutters of Cybertron since before I started practicing.  Fries your nervous system, eventually it starts rotting the actual brain module."

Jek took all this in, nodding slowly.  "And there's nothing you can do to help him?"

"I could shut down his sensory array, but that can trigger brain module hot spots and seizures.  Safest thing is to go offline entirely, into cold storage for a couple of months.  The withdrawal symptoms still happen, but they happen slower and the patient can't feel them."

Drift shook his head into the pillow.  Since the pillow was hooked into his finials, it ended up moving with him, which was almost comical.  "I'm not losing time over this again, Ratch," Drift moaned.  "I can do it."

"And there's nothing else?  No drugs that can help?  Nothing? Aren't you guys, like, billions of years old?" Jek asked.  "Sheesh, it only took us Bidarieks six hundred years to have all of this." He wiggled his fingers, as if to indicate his dubiously coherent mental state.

"Syk was never a priority.  There was a war, and there was a lot of time and energy poured into finding new ways to kill people and new ways to put them back together," Ratchet said, unhooking Drift from the pillow, one finial at a time.  He tossed the offending and slightly shredded pillow on the floor.

"Gasket always said," Drift mumbled, "nobody cared as long as it was just the guttermech and the drones that were addicted."

Ratchet winced.  "He probably wasn't wrong." At some point he'd started running a hand absently up and down Drift's spinal strut. There was no specific medical purpose, but Drift wasn't complaining. Perhaps it would distract him from the pain.  "Research budgets were generally determined by the Council in early days.  And then they were determined by command.  And even if you went your own way, you probably picked a project likely to get you famous.  Nobody was clamoring for a cure for Syk addiction or something to ease the withdrawal process."

"Nobody with a voice," Drift said into the mattress.

"I hope you don't mind my asking," Jek said, "seeing as we're strangers and all, but why take it again if you knew it was going to be this bad?"

"A friend asked me to," Drift said.  "I didn't want to let him down."

Ratchet opened his mouth, remembered they weren't alone in the room and shut it again.

"Oh, I know all about that feeling," Jek said.  "I have a bunch of friends that I help out.  I work in item securement and protection.  Do you have any idea how many stolen artifacts people ask me to keep safe?  So many.  So many.  I've been having duplicates made so I can return the artifacts to their rightful owners.  But then the feds bust in and check the books on a low cashflow day.  So now they think I'm a thief.  It's a mess."

{Ratchet, Drift, you both need to get out of there.  I've sighted eighteen intruders, all armed with laser guns.  I have a sinking suspicion they're the same sort that Chromedome and Rewind ran into, and that they are looking for Jek.}

"Jek, do you trust me?" Drift said, reaching out a hand.

Jek reached over and grabbed his hand.  "Yeah, of course, I trust you."

Drift smiled, all fangs.  "Look at that, Ratchet, he trusts me. Biiiiig tick, right there.  Jek, you and Ratchet need to leave right now. Some of your angry customers are coming to kill you.  I got a friend on radio," he tapped the side of his head, "who saw them coming down this hallway."

"Oh Gen, is it the Taranians?  Or, wait, it could be the Yelsid black ops police force.  Or the dark librarians.  Or those little mech people, what were they-"

"Enough of that," Ratchet said, hoisting Jek up by the arms.  "We're leaving.  You're walking.  Drift, I'm going to carry you, but we need to get out this window and along the roofline first, so I can't get into ambulance mode yet."

"You can turn into an ambulance? Woah, dude, that's awesome," Jek said, swaying a bit on his feet.

Drift shook his head.  "You two go on, they're not looking for me."

Ratchet said, "They're angry and armed.  I'm not leaving you helpless in the room where they were expecting to find their target."

From outside the door, there was a loud clattering sound, and then the high tones of Rung apologizing.  He sounded very high, actually. "Oh, I met you yet.  What what were your names?  I'm telling everyone this story, you tell me if it's unreasonable.  So I'm with this patient and things seem-"

Ratchet knelt next to Drift's bed.  "Rung's stalling for us.  Jek, help him get onto my back."  With great difficulty and a mess of caught legs they managed to get Drift out of bed, his arms locked around Ratchet's neck and his legs looped around his midsection. Slag, that medical reader must need recalibration, Drift was much warmer than he should be at that reading.  Ratchet stood, knees clanking as his hands clamped Drift's legs tighter.  They walked to the window and inspected the anti-escape laser array.

"And then he ripped my thumb out!  It was deep wired.  Deep wired, I tell you.  Why are you walking away?  I'm not even to the best part yet."

{Captain, I need the power out here, right now} Ratchet said.

{Right now is not possible.} Megatron radioed back.

{Sure it is} Rodimus said, a moment later and everything went dark.

{Rodimus, do not just push random buttons, especially if Brainstorm has labeled them 'do not touch'.  Do you have any-}

Ratchet tuned out Captain Drama, lifted a pede and kicked the window out. The glass, settled on the ground below with a satisfying tinkle of destruction.  He stepped through with Drift, ducking low to keep from catching anyone's finials on the edges of the broken window.  Jek stepped out after them hesitantly and they walked out across the roofline as Ratchet called in Skids and the emergency shuttle.

"We are not helping this organic moron," Megatron said finally, gesturing to where Jek was cooing over the height difference between Chromedome and Rewind, face hidden behind his hands.

"We can't just leave him," Drift said.

"You need to get your aft back to the medibay," Ratchet growled. Drift looked up at him, head lolling.  He widened his optics in some feeble attempt to look harder to send away to a medibay, which was stupid.  Ratchet was implacable when it came to patient care.  "It wouldn't take much more time out of our day, the plan Rewind came up with.  And Jek has promised to fetch us the starmap when we're done."

"We just finished cleaning up a small system wide power outage due to Rodimus's..." Megatron seemed to struggle to find the words. "So keep it quick, small and not important enough for authorities to deal with.  Have the day off, do what you wish.  And where is Rung?"

"He stayed on Lois 3.  He seemed to be having a very nice time," Ratchet said.  "We'll go pick him up after this."

"I'm coming," Drift said.

Jek looked over.  "Oh, buddy, no.  You have an awesome spaceship and, like, three hot robot nurses.  Stay here."

"All medics currently have temperatures within standard parameters," Ratchet said dryly.

"I can help," Drift insisted from his spot on the floor where he was sitting, leaning up against Ratchet's leg.

"No," said Rewind.

"No," said Rodimus.

"I will flay you alive," said Ratchet.

"I am staying out of this conversation, but we definitely don't need more than three people to pull this off," said Chromedome.

Drift huffed, sending a hot burst of air out of his vents.  "Fine. Ratchet, carry me."

"I am not carrying you to the medibay.  If you can't walk, get a First Aid to bring you a circuit slab."

Carrying Drift was a very pointy experience, even the second time around.  He had far too many pointy bits for one mech, even when he wasn't wearing any of the swords.  And the stupid wide parts of his arm bracers kept getting caught in Ratchet's shoulder joints.  No less than ninety percent of the frame he'd picked up in Crystal City was entirely pointless frippery.  Speedsters and their stupid frippery bits.  You'd think they'd want to be aerodynamic, but no.  They just had to be covered in delicate little bits that were always breaking and stabbing you in the optics and which caught on you when you tried to get them off your back and onto the circuit slab.

Seeing as they weren't on any sort of timetable, Ratchet took the time to go over Drift's patient file with First Aid and Velocity.  Then to check that the stores of medicinal coolant were doing good and that they had a few cooling pads already prepped.  Good to be thorough.  He checked in with Drift one last time and made a note that the other medics should try and convince him to go cold sleep, but he doubted they'd succeed.  Then, before he left, he made a quick note in his calendar to follow up on whichever member of the crew had supplied Drift with either this moronic plan, the actual drugs or both. Wouldn't need more his normal shift break to settle that.

He noticed Drift had sunk into recharge on his way out and took the time to rearrange the cooling mats a bit before heading out the door. Wouldn't want him thinking Ratchet was getting attached.

Three shuttles hovered and then docked in the long-distance parking bay of Yelsid, just south of the Great Library.  Out came a few representatives from the three groups of angry customers they'd encountered so far, swaggering over, armed to the teeth.  From where he stood between Chromedome and Ratchet, Jek quaked a bit.

"Our deal is simple," Ratchet said, laying a proprietary hand on Jek's shoulder. He did his level best not to shudder with revulsion while thinking about skin oils getting in his finger joints. "You get the thief.  And when he tells you the location of our stuff," he held up a card with a universal communicator code written on it, "you can give us a ring.  No hard feelings, everything forgotten."

"You can't just hand me over to these guys," Jek said, looking between Ratchet and the oncoming syndicate members.  "Just call up the police!  I'll go willingly, I promise."

"We're not big on getting our hands dirty," Chromedome said.  "It's difficult to wash all the...fluids out of your joints after a good convincing."

"I can't do this!  You can't do this to me!" Jek shouted, whirling to run the other way, towards his shuttle.  The doors still lay open after Chromedome and Rewind had busted them open the day before.  He made it through the doors before Ratchet and Chromedome had managed to give chase.

Click.

Chromedome froze, putting out an arm to stop Ratchet.  "Get back!" He shouted.  "He's triggered another bomb!"  Everyone bolted to the nearest shuttle, putting as much space-rated hull between them and the blast area.

There was a long silence and then the air caught fire.  Little bits and pieces of shuttle ricocheted off the surrounding spacecraft and smoke poured down from on high.

"The Zoabs went and murdered our guy and probably blew up the merchandise," one of the Taranians said finally.  They were all dusted in a thin layer of smoke.  "You two should have kept a better grip on him.  How hard can it be to hold onto one slippery little thief?"  He shook his head.  "Move out, guys."

Grumbling about Jek and the finish on their spacecraft, all three loaded up and lifted off again.  Ratchet let the silence and the dust settle companionably for a moment, then said, "That blast was slightly bigger than I'd pictured."

{Rewind, you guys okay?}

Rewind skated over, wearing a pair of boots with wheels and little booster packs.  They were apparently popular in the library for stocking shelves.  He was dragging a small wagon with Jek crammed inside. "We're good," he said.  "The lift went fine.  I got the wagon right under the hole you cut out of the hull.  We went under a few ships and holed up on the other side of the blast shield you put in.  These boots are pretty great," he said, letting go of the wagon to do a tight circular turn.  "I might have to keep them."

"Just don't wear them where Swerve can see them or we're going to have an incident on our hands," Ratchet said.

"That was great work rewiring the bomb," Chromedome said, nodding at Ratchet's hands.  "You ever do that before?"

"Not in a long time."  He held out a hand to Jek.  "Starmap please."  Jek carefully lifted a small spherical object out of his pocket and passed it over.

"Where was it?" Chromedome asked.  Rewind shook his head frantically.

"Bidarieks can store small objects in their anterior folds.  It's where you'd nurture the hatchlings, if you were pooling," Jek said.  "Want me to show you?"

"No."

“I'm just disappointed we didn't get to hand Prowl's number over to a bunch of organic gangsters,” Rewind said mournfully.  

"I think it's high time you were getting back to the rehab facility, Jek," Ratchet said.  "You're going to need a good support team in order to stay clean.  The bad news is you're dead now.  If you were to pop back up here, under the same name, those people we just convinced to stop trying to murder you would be back here faster than you can blink.  The good news is we had to make you a fake identity in order to check you into the rehab facility in the first place."

They all went to the shuttle back to the Lost Light, Jek carefully hidden in Rewind's wagon under a pile of books.  From there they shuttled back down to Lois 3 to drop of Jek and pick up Rung.  He met them in the shade of the front entrance, running to meet them at an jog. When he reached the group he pulled Rewind into a hug.  "Hello guys!  I've been learning so much here.  There are so many types of emotional intimacy in the cosmos.  And physical affection!"  He broke off from that hug to bomp Rachet on the chest plate.  "And so many emotional disorders.  This vacation has been a dream come true."

"It wasn't really a vacation," Chromedome said.

"I haven't taken a day just for myself and my research in decades.  Oh, it has been amazing.  Rewind, if you would hold still, I have categorized all the types of hugs and their social contexts.  This is fascinating."

It was early in the second shift when Ratchet found the time to actually leave the Medibay the next day. There had been quite a bit of drama earlier in the day when it was discovered the starmap had gotten corrupted at some point during the rigorous disinfection process Red Alert had subjected it to.  But when he checked the logs, the captain was marked as being off duty, and thus in his habsuite.

When Ratchet knocked, the door opened with no word from within.  It was well lit and Megatron was sitting at his desk, which was somewhat of a disappointment.  He'd expected dim shadows and looming thrones, somehow.

"Captain, may I come in." He said.

Megatron looked up at him.  "Ratchet, of course.  I've been expected someone, I wasn't sure it was going to be you.  I assume this is about Drift."

"I know you and Rodimus were together when the topic came up, but I'm assuming you were the supplier.  And frankly, I am relying upon you to be the voice of reason.  What justification could you possibly have for forcing him through that again?"

Megatron shook his head.  "Dea-Drift is a terrible actor.  There was no way he could act the part of a struggling addict."

"That is what he is.  That is what he has been every moment you've known him.  You were probably too busy with the warlord gig to notice him drowning."  Ratchet did his best to keep his voice level, his hands still and unclenched at his side.  "Frankly, you and Rodimus both, the way you steer him around to do your bidding borders on abuse.  Borders is probably too generous.  It is abuse."

"You are free to your opinions," Megatron said lightly.

"Well I will put this as a statement of fact, then.  If Drift pulls this stunt again, he could go offline, permanently. He will be dead and beyond your power. Whatever else you have on board I will take now. I will take it down to the incinerator and I will burn it.  Captain."

"You're not even Chief Medical Officer, any more Ratchet.  We have no bond of friendship.  How do you hope to give me orders?"

Ratchet bared his denta in a sharp smile.  "I may not be chief medical officer, but who are you going to call the next time someone blows you halfway into the afterspark to put you back together?"

Megatron nodded. "A fair point.  It was a mistake," he said, off-hand. "You're right, it was a mistake."

He reached inside his desk and came up with a small metal case that would hold several injection cannisters.  He pushed it across the desk towards Ratchet.

"I know it was," Ratchet said, taking the case and leaving.