I don’t talk about it much, but Vi is a bit self conscious about her looks. Additionally, she loves her androgyny, but feels isolated because she isn’t feminine. She’s most comfortable when being herself, but least self conscious when she’s in a dress, makeup, etc.
William is soft towards Vi when it comes to this because he doesn’t understand it. He would understand why she hates her awkwardness, but why appearance? He has no reason to be upset with her over it, but when she’s having her bad days, lamenting over herself, it suddenly isn’t about him, so he has to make things better.
William genuinely does like how Vi looks. It may not seem so from my characterization of him, since he’s reserved about emotions, but he is attracted to her. It doesn’t really matter what she’s wearing, her hairstyle, etc. He likes her in floor length dresses, he likes her in suit jackets. For all the things William is, he isn’t shallow and is intense about everything. (He admittedly does has a weakness for whenever she wears purple haha)
He compliments her eyes the most, but will say things about her hair, clothes, etc. He’s a bit nicer when he can tell he’s been a bit too mean and pushed her away, a bit. He can’t stand to lose control over any situation.
When he was a young ‘bot, it had never been Ratchet’s intention to become a caretaker.
He’d graduated from Protihex Medical Mechanics University, but then he settled right down in his mechanic shop—content to all but silently take commissions from Cybertronians who lacked the time or commitment to learn how to make their own repairs to this or that.
It was a quiet, stable life—not the most exciting or even fulfilling, but it was his by choice and he was comfortable, if unable to ignore the rising unrest in the people around him.
When the war began and everyone had to pick a side or be subjected to the stockade (funny, but looking back, Ratchet couldn’t remember hearing anything credible about Decepticons targeting unaligned ‘bots), Ratchet sided with the Autobots because they had the Allspark and the space-bridges, and because it made sense at the time.
Sure, the ‘Bots were in no way perfect and hardly improved over time—but while he was very well educated, Ratchet was still a young ‘bot figuring his way in the universe, and he decided that he would rather keep his head ducked in the system he knew than throw his lot in with what looked to be more of the same… just under a different boot.
That, and the Autobots were protoforming more sparks to create a large, fresh army that could be sent like waves into battles against the bigger, more powerful Decepticons. All those kids would need all the medics they could possibly get.
He’d always liked to be left alone, but that didn’t mean he was sparkless. He couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, not when he could help.
So, Ratchet became a medic—and like working in the mechanic shop, being a triage doctor seemed to suit him. He didn’t have to say much unless the ‘Bots around him were utterly incompetent or unhelpful, he just did his job and did the best he could. He liked to think he saved more lives than he lost, before the war ended—but the losses, though outnumbered, weighed more heavily on his spark than the victories could hope to lift.
Then, Ratchet was reassigned as a field-tech—sent to seek out wounded soldiers on exploding battlefields, and stabilize as many of them as he could. He watched droves of Cybertronians from both sides fall, and it admittedly broke something in him. He gained a reputation over time for being a loose cannon, an Autobot doctor who would tend to Decepticon and Autobot fallen as equals even if it meant defying orders. That came back to bite him more than a few times, but he refused to regret his actions even eons later.
One such effort had led to him capturing the cosmic rust cure, saving countless sparks from a horrible death. It was that effort, Ratchet always believed, which had gained the attention of Ultra Magnus and made him the candidate for Arcee’s rescue. That mission set off a domino effect that led him to Project Omega, to being the teacher and handler of a sentient Autobot weapon of mass destruction—and, ultimately, to the day when he had to set aside his own morality to put the despairing Omega Supreme out of his misery in the kindest way either of them could think of.
War had changed Ratchet, and—while he tried to be smart about it, in spite of the growing -well- spite within him—he hadn’t taken ‘no’ for an answer when that war ended. He’d submitted “willingly” for molding into a civilian frame, but they left his reminders war wounds alone and didn’t dare to touch his gear. He thought of them as a begrudging compensation for his service.
Then (again, whether the higher ups on Cybertron liked it or not) Ratchet had committed himself to watching over the slumbering body of his dear friend—like Arcee might have, before Ratchet had done the unthinkable at her urgent request and confined her wiped processor to millions of years of suspended stasis. He never got to know her, in that one day they spent together—he just knew that she was fierce, brave, loyal to her cause, and selfless in a way that was terrifying.
Ratchet couldn’t help Arcee, but he could try to be inspired by her. Was that enough?
Then, the kids came along.
First, two ridiculous kids who had been booted out of Boot Camp for a series of blunders that they’d carried over into Ratchet’s ‘peace’.
They were assigned to help him maintain Omega Supreme—and he wondered if it was a quiet slight from Ultra Magnus and the Council for his stubborn dedication to the past that was just barely above the insubordination that got many ‘Bots from Ratchet’s generation quietly sent to the stockades, never to be seen again.
Then, they got a leader—another kid, the quiet Optimus Prime with sad optics and a fondness for history—and the task of repairing space-bridges. It seemed to make Bulkhead happy.
They stumbled across yet another kid, out there in the asteroids. Prowl was obviously older than the rest, his generation probably among the earliest molded protoforms—and one of the last waves of fodder sent out before the march of the Omega Sentinels. He was stubborn, short-tempered, and distant—and Ratchet didn’t blame him for a second. Honestly, if everyone of that generation had shown up on Megatron’s front step, Ratchet might have even gotten a quiet chuckle from the confusion and outrage the Council no doubt would have fronted.
The Allspark fell into their servos.
The Decepticons came for them.
The ship crashed.
Fifty years of stasis.
An attempt to help perfect strangers.
Ratchet couldn’t get Prowl stable.
Then, Bumblebee lifted that strange little organic creature onto the berth—and that was how half of the little team met Sari Sumdac, a human child who was kind and helped them just because she wanted to. Her childish energy and snark were a lot, even too much at times, but Ratchet knew that there would be no hesitation from his weary old frame if it ever came down to him having to sacrifice his life for her or any of the other kids.
After everything that he’d seen, Wheeljack should not have been a surprise. The version Ratchet met during his Project Omega days was already enough of a reckless eccentric, an alternate making a mistake that dropped him through the multiverse was bound to happen at some point.
This Wheeljack was distant and wild a lot like Prowl was and still had been, expecting death around every corner and willing to meet it head on with a smile on his face and a sword in servo. He was a veteran of a relatively ancient war with some of the unhealthiest coping mechanisms that Ratchet had ever encountered (next to his own), and the old field-tech had admittedly misjudged the Wrecker many times. Like him, there was nothing Wheeljack would not do for the kids—and there were layers upon layers of masks and protective shell to be broken, slowly revealing a grieving engineer sitting on a pile of insecurities and yet… still so much a kind, silly kid.
So many kids, adding Jazz to the masses was very much a ‘what’s one more? the more, the merrier’ moment. He was hesitant and came with his own unique baggage and insecurities, but he made the leap when it mattered most.
Those kids, Isaac, even Captain Fanzone—they’d become Ratchet’s family, on Earth. The kids were his world, grinding his gears one day only to turn around and help him confront his struggles the next. They’d rescued Omega Supreme and Arcee, saved most of Detroit, and captured most of the top Decepticons… but in the end, at what cost?
Prowl was gone, and that loss would weigh upon his spark forever. Ratchet had promised himself that he would always watch over these kids, and he’d already lost one. He just hoped that he wouldn’t lose the rest of his family, too.
Ratchet never intended to be a caretaker of any kind. He would have been content to spend his life alone in a quiet little mechanic shop.
Damn that shiny, sentient rock to bits after all it had put everyone through—but it seemed the Allspark had a different plan.
It made Ratchet a caregiver, and the field-tech owed it to his kids to do his best.
But when had his best been good enough?
As the doors sealed behind him and the others who had stayed—Arcee, Sari, and Bulkhead—the old field-tech brushed a servo across a wall.
“Hey, old friend,” he greeted quietly, still trying to get used to that hum of life and energy against his palm. “You got Wheeljack’s location?”
“Yes,” Omega Supreme replied.
“He alright?”
“He is online.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Ratchet admitted, though he put on a small smile. “Thanks, Omega. Just keep me updated, okay?” He glanced back, sighing. “Sorry about all of this, Arcee. Pit of a first day back.”
Arcee blinked, then she glanced away. “Oh, it-… It’s alright. Just-…” She sighed. “It doesn’t feel like I’m ‘back’ from anything. I have no sense of having been gone. But… it all looks so different.” She looked at the sealed door, her expression grim. “The world was in ruin. Our people were at war… Now, I’ve just watched as Megatron himself was delivered into Autobot custody by ‘Bots I just met—and… it doesn’t seem real.” Her shoulders sank. “None of this does. So much has changed, and I’ve missed it.”
“Some things never change,” Ratchet assured her gently. “You’ll see.” The ship rumbled, and he looked up with a frown. “Omega?”
“It is still crowded, outside,” the massive Autobot said after a moment, seeming unsettled. “There are many Autobots staring at me.”
“Is there enough space?” Ratchet asked. “Can you transform back into a ship?”
“I-… I think so.”
“Then go ahead, old friend—and try to get comfortable.” The field-tech patted the wall. “We’re here for you, okay?”
Arcee perked-up. “You’re good with him.” Ratchet looked at her, an optic-brow raised, and she just smiled. “I’m glad it was you.”
“How’d you know-?”
“I was an intel ‘bot, during the war.” She crossed her arms. “Figuring things out was the job. And even though it was rare, I did meet some good caregivers—back in the day… You did good.”
Ratchet turned to face her, at a loss. “I-… I just tried to do right by both of you.”
“It seems like you did,” Arcee said, reaching up and resting a servo on his arm.
Ratchet looked down at her servo, stunned, then he met her optics again. She was still smiling at him, tiredly but with such sincerity.
She believed her words.
But Ratchet just couldn’t.
He knew too much.
She didn’t know enough.
“I’m gonna go find Wheeljack,” Bulkhead finally spoke up. “Might take him for a drive, or even out to the old farm. Let him clear his head a bit.”
Ratchet tore his gaze from Arcee to look at the green mech, and he nodded. “Good idea. Comm if you need anything, alright?”
“You got it, doc-‘bot,” Bulkhead agreed, then he turned away. “Hey, Omega Supreme? Can you lead me to Wheeljack?”
“I-… Yes, I can,” the Omega Sentinel decided after brief hesitation—and while Ratchet didn’t quite know what to make of that, he left them to it.
“There’s a story there,” Arcee remarked as Bulkhead walked off, and Ratchet glanced at her. “I saw some resemblance, but that was hardly the Wheeljack I know.”
Ratchet blinked, then he smiled awkwardly. “Heh. Now, that’s a long story… I did promise to catch you up, didn’t I?”
“I think you did.”
…
The story took hours, though it didn’t feel that way to Ratchet.
At a certain point, he sort of lost himself in the memories—reflecting on everything he had seen and done, the way the war had ended and the changing of the universe in its aftermath. The only way he knew that it was over was when he felt he had run out of things to say, and his shoulders sagged under an invisible weight in spite of being lighter than they’d been since he could remember.
It only occurred to him after the fact how quiet Arcee and Sari had been, as he had averted their gazes. There should have been questions or even just comments, but there had only been silence pierced by story.
“… So,” Ratchet said at last, feeling drained and no lighter for the unloading of the truth. “That’s about the size of it… Arcee?”
“Ratchet?” Sari held a hand up, glancing at the field-tech with wide optics. Both she and Arcee were sitting on a medical cot, their shoulders sagged while the intel-‘bot stared at the floor unblinkingly. “I was there for the tail end of that, and I’m still reeling. Just give her a moment.”
Ratchet blinked, then he glanced at Arcee once more as she slid off of the medical cot and walked across the med-bay—her arms crossed as she approached a window and looked out over Cybertron. It was quiet for several minutes, then she closed her optics as her shoulders raised.
“… I left my career and joined the war effort because I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “How terrified my students looked, each time the bunker shook because of the bombings. It didn’t matter then what side was dropping the bombs, just that the young were scared and that there was no true comfort. No end in sight. And those sparklings I was looking after were going to be the next wave of Autobot warriors sent into that- That Hell.” She opened her optics again, her shoulders setting with an eerie finality. “So, I became an intel-‘bot… and they told me that, if one mission was a success, the war would finally end. I sacrificed everything to achieve that goal—to bring peace for my students, for all future generations.” Her digits dug into armor plating of her arms as she clenched her optics shut and bared her dentas. “AND WHAT DID THEY DO?!” Both Ratchet and Sari jumped a bit as the intel-‘bot spun around, her optics narrowed as she threw her arms down to her sides before wearily raising one to gesture back to the window. “How-? How could they? How could they make a future even more terrible than our past?”
Ratchet reached out. “Arcee-”
He suddenly froze, noticing something that shone a bright pink welling up in Arcee’s desperate optics before one overflowed and it fell—rolling and leaving a glowing streak down her face.
“Whoa.” Sari stood up on the cot. “Is she hurt?”
“I’m crying, young ‘bot.” Arcee reached up and carefully wiped her face with her servo before regarding Sari with concern. “Have you never seen tears before?”
Sari was puzzled, then her optics widened in disbelief as the horrible pieces must have come together in her head. “… I know for sure that Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Optimus hadn’t, before they met me.”
Arcee blinked, then she looked at Ratchet with wide optics as her servo dropped. “… I’ve just come to a conclusion, Ratchet. And I need you to tell me that I’m mistaken.”
Sari looked at the field-tech reproachfully, clearly not sure of what to say or think. “Ratchet?”
“Ratchet.” Arcee’s servos shook as they clenched into fists at her sides . “Tell me!”
“… I can’t,” Ratchet whispered, and he watched her face drop. “I really can’t. They- They must not have bothered, while you were in stasis. They didn’t-… They didn’t reformat you.”
Sari blinked. “Reformat?”
“It happened to all ‘bots who survived to see the end of the war and… didn’t want to be sent to the stockade, for insubordination.” Ratchet felt a sick but not unknown feeling well up in his tank and his spark as he explained. Horrible images of things he had seen in the decades after the war’s end flashed through his processor, and then there were things he hadn’t seen but had grown to fear: an army of Autotroopers, nameless and faceless, coming for Wheeljack, Prowl, Sari, and now Arcee just because they didn’t fit in. “They wound up making a mold real similar to my original build, so I wasn’t changed much.” Again, he saw wave after wave of Autotroopers march across his vision—and not for the first time, he wondered about just how lucky he was to recognize himself in the mirror. “I assumed that they’d done the same for you, since there are so many frames that look-” He stopped himself, stopped his patient from facing that fate for the moment. “I, uh… They even let me keep much of my gear—my magnets, even—as tools for my work with Omega, and compensation for my… efforts.”
Arcee looked like she didn’t know what to say, then she crossed her arms again and walked over to face the field-tech. “… But what did they take?”
“Hm.” Ratchet’s expression softened as his body deflated. “Little things, mostly. Or, at least… things that seemed little, until they were gone.”
Arcee reached up and rested a servo on his arm, then she closed her optics and hung her head in defeat. “… How could they? I… trusted them.”
Ratchet gazed at her sadly, then he sighed and hesitantly opened his arms. Arcee looked up at him, surprised, and the old field-tech raised his shoulders in an almost-helpless gesture.
All he had ever wanted to do was finish what he started, to help Arcee—make certain that she was alright. For many years, he felt as though he had failed—and now, she was alright physically, but her struggle to adjust for all the time she had lost and all that had changed would be an uphill climb.
The world as she knew it was gone.
The government would come for her, if they ever put it together that she was unmolded.
She was scared, and all she had to confide in was a ten year-old techno-organic in the body of a teenage Terminator, a traumatized and exhausted Omega Sentinel she was once meant to mentor, and one old field-tech she’d known for all of a day before she’d lost her memory to his EMP.
Not the most reassuring bunch.
This wasn’t a wound he could patch.
Ratchet was almost-helpless.
But… he knew he’d helped Wheeljack in his own uphill climb, like this. He could offer it to her.
Arcee seemed uncertain of the choice before her, but then: she smiled, stepped forward, and rested her head on the field-tech’s windshield. And he carefully embraced her, doing his best to not confine her as he gave what comfort he could.
“… Even if I was wrong about them, I wasn’t wrong about you,” she said softly. “Thank you, Ratchet—for everything.”
Ratchet’s optics widened, then they closed. “I’m the one who needs to thank you, Arcee. What you did, it set me on a path I never would have picked for myself—and… I found a family.” He gave a small smile of his own. “They’re obnoxious, reckless, stubborn pains in the aft—but I wouldn’t trade ‘em for a damn thing.”
“Aw, Ratchet!” Sari rested her hands on her hips, her bright optics shining with fondness, but then she blinked before her optics widened and her helmet suddenly deactivated. “Huh.”
Ratchet pulled away from Arcee to look back at the young techno-organic worriedly. “Sari?”
“Hold on a second. Hold on.” Sari held her two index-fingers, optics narrowing in thought, then she looked at Ratchet warily. “Protoforms as they are now are supposed to take the form of their assigned molds or whatever they imprint on, right? And the-? The protoforms recovered from the Nemesis, they were like that too?”
“That’s right,” Ratchet agreed, uncertain of where the girl was going. “We even know that they were stolen from the vault of the cyber-ninja’s fortress by Lockdown, and that the clones that attacked Earth were brought to life by fragments from the Allspark after they were molded.”
“… Ratchet, I don’t think I came from a protoform like that,” Sari said softly, distraught.
Ratchet blinked. “What?”
“Think about it. My dad called it a ‘little body, like liquid metal’. Little, to a human. Ratchet, I was too small—and I was too different,” Sari explained emphatically. “And even though my father didn’t have a spark, he touched me and I changed. That’s not how it works, is it?” Ratchet blinked again, then his optics widened. “A-And I didn’t just turn into a copy of him, or even an empty shell waiting for life. I have some of his traits, but I became a different person. His daughter. Alive.” Sari crossed her arms, hugging herself as she stated what she had been alluding to all along: “Ratchet, we still don’t know where I came from or how I wound up in that lab… Whatever I am, we just know that I was meant to pack a punch—and I showed up in my dad’s lab, somehow… right next to Megatron’s big, stupid head…” She closed her optics. “I don’t know anything about myself.”
“… I don’t believe that’s true,” Arcee disagreed, and Sari and Ratchet looked at her in surprise as the intel-‘bot walked over and got down on one knee to look up at the techno-organic on the cot. “I don’t know you too well yet, young ‘bot—but just because you’re not certain of your beginning does not mean you don’t know your present, or that you can’t decide your future.”
Sari frowned. “But I have to know. What if I come from someplace bad? What if all of this weird tech packed in my body is dangerous?”
“That’s a good point,” Arcee admitted. “And no matter what, you have a right to know the truth about yourself… Would you like to?”
Sari raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Hm.” Arcee smiled tiredly at the techno-organic. “We’re both outsiders to this world. I’ve been gone so long, I feel like a relic of the past. And you? You’re our future, Sari Sumdac. You shouldn’t have to feel like an outcast. You should be able to embrace what’s good about this world.” Her expression softened, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “And know enough to be able to do something about some of the bad.”
“I’m not sure if anyone would listen to me about something like that.” Sari crossed her arms, looking away as her red pigtails bounced above her head. “You’re right. I don’t exactly fit in.”
“Neither do I,” Arcee said with a sigh, looking at the girl again. “Not anymore… But maybe, we can figure something out together.”
“… Yeah.” Sari glanced up at the intel-‘bot, managing a small grin. “Maybe.”
“Ratchet,” Omega Supreme’s voice spoke up. “I am rather… uncomfortable.”
Ratchet frowned, going over to the main console. “That’s odd. I coulda sworn that I’d covered all your bases on the flight over.”
“It is not a physical ailment.”
“Not a-?” Ratchet blinked, perplexed, then his optics narrowed as he walked over to the main windows and looked outside.
There was still a large, boisterous crowd gathered outside to celebrate the defeat and capture of Megatron—and beyond them, a circle of Elite Guardsbots observing the scene.
Ratchet blinked again, then his expression softened. Omega had not remained conscious to see the war’s end, the bustling celebrations before the new normal took hold.
No wonder he was so uncomfortable.
Ratchet was actually taking shelter from that same crowd within his old charge, who could not even find security in his vehicle-mode.
Enough was enough.
Omega had gone through enough.
“Understood, old friend,” Ratchet murmured, heading back towards the console. “Let’s get out of here, find someplace nice and quiet.”
“Wait, wait—what about the others?” Sari asked worriedly. “They won’t know where we’re going. And we have to tell Wheeljack and Bulkhead, since we don’t know what their plan is.”
“All other passengers have departed,” Omega Supreme informed the techno-organic.
Sari looked at the console in surprise, then her face fell. “They’re all gone?”
“… They’ll find their way back, kid,” Ratchet told the girl softly, hoping that fate wouldn’t make a liar out of him. “They all will.”
Sari did not seem any more convinced than the field-tech felt, but Arcee carefully put a servo on her shoulder as Omega Supreme took flight.
…
…
Ratchet found Sari sitting on Omega Supreme’s exit ramp, sitting beside her jetpack with her knees pulled to her chest as she gazed at the distant, ever-glowing lights of the nearest city.
The field-tech had chosen an old, abandoned, wartime industrial site for their refuge. It was dark, but it was solitary and quiet—suitable for all of them to get some space, after their ordeals.
He’d sent the new location to Jazz, Optimus and Bumblebee, and Wheeljack and Bulkhead. There had been only the briefest, noncommittal replies.
Ratchet never thought he’d miss their noise.
“Just yesterday, I was excited to be on the moon,” Sari broke the silence after Ratchet sat on the ramp beside her. “… Can’t believe I let Fanzone beat me to Cybertron.”
Ratchet smiled. “Heh.”
And Sari smiled back at him. “Hm.” Then, she looked away. “… Ratchet, I can’t remember.”
“What?”
“I can’t remember the last thing I ever said to Prowl,” Sari confessed, and Ratchet’s face fell. “Or the last thing he ever said to me… I can’t remember what our ‘goodbye’ was.”
“… Me, neither,” Ratchet admitted after a long moment, his optics widening as the realization struck him, then he sighed and closed his optics. “But… it isn’t ‘goodbye’ forever, Sari. You have a spark, like the rest of us. We’ll all-…” He opened his optics as another weight fell upon his spark, then continued to speak. “We’ll get to see Prowl again, someday—when all are one.”
“Yeah, great.” Sari huffed. “I get to look forward to becoming a part of the thing that killed him, and never seeing my dad or Wheeljack or any human I care about again in any lifetime.” She closed her optics, and she rested her forehead on her knees as she pulled her legs tighter to her chest. “… I should never have upgraded.”
“You needed to, Sari,” Ratchet disagreed. “You saved Bumblebee. You saved us, on Christmas. You fixed the space-bridge, and-”
“You guys would’ve found a way, without me,” Sari argued, raising her head. “But my Key? That’s what we can’t afford to be without, and I used up all of its energy on impulse!”
“Sari, energy can’t be destroyed,” Ratchet told her kindly but firmly. “The energy from the Key is part of you, now. The Allspark itself is.”
Sari stood up and grabbed her jetpack, slinging the weighty device onto her back. “Yeah, and I’ve been so responsible with it.”
“Sari, you’re not even ten years-old, yet,” Ratchet tried as he watched the girl activate her battle-helmet. “This is not on you.”
“… You were right about me, Ratchet.” The girl closed her optics, then she looked at the field-tech as her mask appeared to cover her mouth and hide her face in shadow. “I never should have been trusted with the Key.”
“Sari.” Ratchet stood as she took off, flying away into the maze of abandoned buildings. “Sari!”
The girl didn’t slow down or look back.
“Ratchet.” Arcee was standing in the doorway when the fretting field-tech turned around, her expression forlorn. “Go after her. We’ll be alright.”
Ratchet hesitated, then he nodded before he transformed and drove off into the darkness.
…
Sari wanted to scream, or to break something—probably both.
So, she did.
She flew through a broken window, landed on a dusty floor, screamed her throat raw, and put her fist though a wall. It was only in the moment after that she realized it was solid metal, and her optics widened as her helmet’s mask deactivated and she grimaced at how easily her fist had crumpled the aged material.
Like tin-foil.
It was just another reminder of what she was, the mystery and the shortcomings and not being as human as she had believed herself to be for nine years. Yes, she was powerful—but how powerful, and why? What had Sari been made for, why had she come to Earth?
It was one big, frustrating mystery that was piled upon all of the other struggles that had practically consumed Sari’s life.
She learned that her father had been harboring Megatron, then lost him. She got him back, only to learn that she was only half-human. They had reconciled, only for Sari to upgrade and stab her best friend before falling into a coma. She woke up and Christmas happened, but she led a team to victory—and then, they had won a final battle for the sake of the Earth… at the cost of Prowl. Now, those who lived were angry and sad and scared and scattered.
And what could Sari do?
What could anyone do?
Prowl would know. Prowl was the one who had always effortlessly brought the team together when Optimus couldn’t, whether he knew it or not. That first day, they had united to save his life—and then, when Starscream attacked, it was his words that rallied them.
He was the one who convinced the team to give Wheeljack a chance to settle in. He was the one who stepped in to help Bulkhead and Bumblebee when they struggled to fit in on Earth, he was the one who saved the Dinobots, and he was the one who made Jazz welcome.
Prowl was the one who had Sari strap on her skating safety-gear and practice kicks and dodged before she even knew about her techno-organic self, who always made her feel like she could be protect herself and the ones she loved if she was brave enough to try.
And if Prowl wouldn’t have known what to do, Wheeljack would have—even if he had always doubted how smart and kind he could be.
But Wheeljack didn’t know, because Prowl was gone and no one knew anything anymore.
Sari pulled her hand from the wall as her eyes filled with tears, then she closed them as she sank to her knees and rested her forehead on the cool metal. She hugged herself, her whole body trembling, then bit her lip as something welled up before it escaped and she started sobbing.
Sari cried.
She cried and she cried and she cried, like she thought opening the floodgates would be enough to lift the weight from body, mind, and spark.
She cried herself silly, until the whites of her optics tinged red and her nose ran and she knew she had to be a horrible, soaking mess of a girl.
But she didn’t care, because the weight was still there and Prowl was still gone. She was just tired.
After a while, Sari managed to remove her jetpack and stand on shaky legs, and she turned around to actually look at the building she’d entered.
It looked like some sort of factory, with walkways and mechanical arms all about—framing odd, narrowed pathways built from large, rectangular shelving spaces built into the walls.
It was as if something was supposed to be hung from the pathways and carried along from the peculiar shelves as needed, like something out of an old animated movie Sari’s father had shown her with doors traveling across a massive space to an energy plant run by monsters.
The pathways went over empty vats and between odd devices, then went down a sharp incline to the factory floor—where a row of large, metal and glass cylinders waited to meet them.
“What is this place?” Sari asked herself, then she frowned as she walked over to the cylinders.
The glass opened as doors in the front, and she stopped before one of the open pods and blinked her weary optics as she saw that—within them—there were rectangular indentations which looked a lot like… Cybertronian bodies?
Like whatever was coming off of the pathways was supposed to settle into the indentations and take shape within them, like-
“Molds,” Sari realized, stunned, and she stepped into the pod and stared up at the contraption in a strange awe. Then, after a moment, she realized that she recognized the shape as more than just any Cybertronian frame. It belonged to two ‘bots she’d come to know, including… “Prowl.”
Sari thought she was out of tears to shed, but her optics still became watery. Without really thinking about it, she reached out and rested her hand on the mold—and as technology was now able to do, it spoke to her.
In her mind, Sari saw a young Autobot geared-up in shades of tan, black, and gold stumble out of the red-hot mold and onto the facility floor.
The lights shone brightly overhead as he and others like him were ushered onto the main floor and lined up, outfitted with weaponry while a loud Autobot with the Elite Guard emblem stamped on his arms barked out that they were the latest wave of troops being put through basic training and sent out to face the Decepticon scourge.
It was a great honor to live, fight, and die in the Autobot cause against slavery and tyranny.
The young ‘bot’s spark was pounding, his optics wide, his own body feeling like a vice. He didn’t understand? Why was he here, why was no one helping him? Was he really made just to fight and die for the sake of a cause he had not even begun to understand?
He was suddenly turning, running, transforming. How had he known he could do that? There was shouting, commotion, even blasterfire behind him—and then-
“Sari?” The techno-organic nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound, pulling her hand back from the mold like it was still red-hot, then she looked back and up with wide-optics to see an equally wide-opticed Ratchet kneeling outside of the pod with a dismayed expression.
Before she even knew that she was moving, Sari turned and ran before leaping—and Ratchet just caught her with ease, like he did it every day, and held her to his chest in the same embrace they’d all seen Wheeljack figure out. He cradled her in his servos and held her to his spark, offering her the best hug a giant robot could give a little girl, and it was more than enough.
Sari didn’t know how much time had passed when Ratchet finally, carefully lowered her to the floor and she stepped down before warily looking back at the protoform mold.
“… Does it hurt?” She asked.
Ratchet sighed. “I’m told that many feel very uncomfortable, even suffocated—like they’re trapped in a wrong body that’s being forced upon them… and they’re absolutely right.” He shook his head. “It’s a body that the government assigned without their consent, a shell for their sparks to inhabit but never truly own.”
Sari looked at him with a frown. “Can they fix it?”
“I wish they could, kid,” Ratchet replied sadly. “That would probably help a lot of Cybertronians. Some make modifications, put their unique spin on what they’ve been saddled with by these fraggin’ things—but you have to be among the higher-ups in Cybertronian society to get away with it without penalty, or even being sent to the stockade. Then, of course, you get stuff like the Jettwins—a military experiment… one that should never have been needed, let alone conducted.” He closed his optics as his shoulders sagged in defeat. “Government and military regulations put a lot of restrictions on frames, and our leaders say that we should be grateful for what we’ve been given even as they get to alter themselves.”
“They can break the rules, but you can’t break the mold. Sounds like stuff I’ve read in history books,” Sari noted, her expression grim. “… You said that you had to be reformatted. That you had a frame your spark was happy with, then-…”
“They didn’t change me as severely as some,” Ratchet tried to sound reassuring, but there was pain in his voice and his optics. “I was lucky, I could make do. Others-… Others were braver than I was, and they fought back against the new regulations and got taken in. They thought that they could go to the stockade with their heads held high and bodies as they chose them to be… I wish they’d been allowed that comfort.” His face grew haunted. “Then, there were some who got very quiet… and then, they disappeared.”
“Where’d they go?” Sari asked, but the field-tech did not respond; he either did not know, or could not bring himself to tell her the horrible truth. “ … Is that while you’re achey, all the time?”
“Hm.” Ratchet met her optics again. “I wonder, sometimes. To be completely honest with you, this frame that they forced me to wear-” He looked at his servos, then he closed them into fists. “I’ve never been endeared to it.”
“They really took your ability to cry?” Sari asked at a whisper, and Ratchet looked away without replying. She closed her optics, then she turned around to face the old protoform mold again. “Why-..? Why would they do this?”
“Well, at first, it was just to generate a standard soldier,” Ratchet was able to answer that question for her. “That was this mold, the one that Prowl and Jazz came from. Made training easier when you needed a lot of soldiers very fast.”
“Did they even get to be kids?”
“… No,” Ratchet admitted. “The war killed ‘kids’ as a concept for us Autobots—or, at least, one with any positivity. Then, the war ended—and our leaders never wanted another war to start. So, they outlawed warframes and issued a set of civilian molds to standardize Autobot bodies and decrease the chance of a new threat emerging from the masses. Old Cybertronians were reformatted to fit the news standard, and all future Cybertronian generations were molded as their sparks emerged.” He shook his head. “They never knew any different.”
“How were their molds chosen?”
“As needed.” Ratchet stood up. “Bumblebee's frame type is the most common. Little ‘Bots are fast, don’t require as much fuel, and can handle most jobs… Plus, they make good fodder if you make a lot of them.” He crossed his arms, holding himself like the thought made him sick. “Frames like the one Optimus wound up with are usually used for ‘Bots who will grow up to hold positions of power in the military, they’re quite literally shaped to attend the Academy… Records show that Optimus’s personal history is a bit less straightforward than that, but that’s the gist.” He sighed. “Frames the size of Bulkhead’s are the rarest. They’re intended for all of the heavy labor, notably maintenance and Energon farming.”
“… But Bulkhead’s a genius,” Sari argued, turning to face the field-tech. “He’s- He’s not just some big beast of burden, and he- He’s always been so self-conscious about his size, and people have made fun of him when he didn’t even get a choice in how he was made!” Her eyes narrowed as she felt the ‘winglets’ on her back flare. “None of us asked to be made this way!” She turned away, her fists clenching at her sides as she fumed. “What even is a warframe, anyway? Why is it so bad?”
“That’s the word they use for Decepticon frames,” Ratchet told her. “Unique. Personalized. Powerful. Very large, and very dangerous—even capable of flight.” He looked at the mold. “Autobot leaders had a world to rebuild in their image, and they wanted to do it with as little fuss as possible. Assign a mold, have a role in your society filled, and know that you’re able to suppress any potential uprising because everyone’s built the same and too scared to be anything but what they’re told to be… The Decepticons had been exiled from our home-planet, but how do you avoid any possible sympathy?”
“Replace it with fear and hate,” Sari replied softly, staring at the mold. “If you’re different, then… they want you to believe that you’re dangerous, and bad.” She closed her optics. “… Prowl and Jazz were Autobot warframes?”
“Jazz is definitely reformatted.”
“What about Prowl?”
“… I don’t know,” Ratchet confessed. “And if I did, I would’ve never said… It would’ve been hard for the younger ‘Bots to understand. You heard about what happened when they met the Jettwins.”
Sari looked at the field-tech again, her spark feeling less heavy and more numb as the horror ebbed and the reality of the situation set in more and more. “What about Wheeljack?”
“Most would call him a warframe, but he’s a little different,” Ratchet explained. “There are no molds in his reality, so he came into his universe as a regular ol’ unarmed civilian with a good head on his shoulders. And when the war happened, he-… He had to change himself to face it.”
“… I wonder if that’s why he’s so achey,” Sari noted, her shoulders sagging as her winglets drooped behind her.
And Ratchet closed his optics. “It definitely is, kid. He’s light on his feet, but you saw how he was when we couldn’t get his shoulder just right. He’s not designed to be weighed down.”
“… All that armor and weaponry must get really heavy,” Sari said quietly.
And Ratchet nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you ever think he’ll be able to take it off?”
“I hope so—but it might just be a part of him, now,” Ratchet said. “And that’s okay, as long as he knows that he can ask us for help when it starts to drag him down.”
“He’s not asking for help, now.”
“No. He isn’t.”
“… Just yesterday, I was excited to be on the moon,” Sari echoed her earlier sentiment. “I thought I’d find myself, that we’d beat the bad guys and save the day, then get to go home together—finally get our perfect, happy ending.” She faced the protoform mold once more, crossing her arms over her spark chamber as she curled in on herself. “You’re right, Ratchet. I look older now, but I’m still ten. I was so stupid.”
“That is not what I meant,” Ratchet told the girl immediately, his voice becoming stern.
“… I know.” Sari shut her optics. “But everything’s horrible. I just want my friend back, and for things to be okay… but they never were okay.”
“No. They weren’t,” Ratchet agreed. “… But for a while there, it sure felt like they could be.”
“We won. It’s over. But I don’t feel like a hero. I’ve never felt so helpless.” Something pricked at her optics again. “… I wish Prowl was here.”
“Yeah, kid.” A finger rested on the techno-organic’s trembling shoulder, and Sari leaned against the comforting weight. “Me, too.”
I have the faintest, but true long wrinkle line along my forehead. I don’t want to say my age, but let’s say I’m young. Gen Z. My father’s side of the family either aged averagely or slowly. My egg donor’s picture looked of average age for…her age.
The point is, I know where this wrinkle is coming from. It’s not genetics or age. I’ve had chronic health problems all my life, they often become so uncomfortable or even unbearable I can’t help but squeeze my forehead together and it always feels sore. Right where the wrinkle is.
It’s kind of a shock. I’m used to wearing my health problems on my sleeve. I’m over weight, been in a wheelchair many times, had public episodes. But somehow this feels different. Maybe because it’s the first time I’ve developed a wrinkle. I feel embarrassed for developing one so early because of what is probably my health issues.
I know that aging is good, that it’s a thing to be Greatful for, but I’m struggling to be Greatful for a plain ol stress response that doesn’t even supposed to happen yet. I see posts about how wrinkles afe a blessing because life isn’t garenteed. But it’s not due to age. How can I be proud of being tense all the time?
