Chapter Text
Drift followed Searchlight, picked their seats in the campus bar. With the heating lamps above, atmosphere there was peaceful and warm.
“So, how’s it.”
Searchlight bent over his slim waist, elbow bracing his weight against the counter.
“How’s, what?” Drift glanced around -- there was a wall of glass in front of them, and several round-shaped tables behind them, not many were taken.
“Whatever comes to your brain.”
“Fine -- I’m surprised.”
“For what? That we have a bar?”
“Dunno. Might be something else, I guess,” he confessed, “probably everything I learned today. Everything, anything. I got a name too. Drift -- a nice one.”
A waiter brought them the low-grade ordered, Searchlight reached for the drinks, turned around, pushed one of them, which got flavored with copper grinds, to Drift. The glass bottom almost fell over hitting the seam of the table, Drift hurried to steady it.
“Primus.” The motorcycle stared outside, optics widened. Drift followed his sight, seeing the gathering crowd on the square. Though he’d noticed the situation a few seconds before, but different from Searchlight, who had been living on this planet for something like more than ten years, Drift was unfamiliar with “abnormal”.
“So...?”
He raised a brow, looking at his friend.
“Something big.” Poking at the vent-grilles on Drift’s waist, Searchlight quickly finished his low-grade in a few gulps, “bottom up and get on your pedes, hurry!”
“Something big?”
Searchlight slapped Drift’s back helm.
“Dumb aft.” the motorcycle hummed, but rubbed that spot with a glimpse of guilt, Drift probably didn’t have practical knowledge of stuff like this, “there, that platform, see? It’s for discipline. You have ‘discipline’ in your nice little brain eh?”
“I do, yes.” Drift mumbled in a lower tone.
“On your pedes then. There will soon be crowded.”
“Any danger?” Drift didn’t like seeing an excited Searchlight.
“I bet no... oh lad, there! See? That way!” -- Searchlight pointing a winged blue mech, who Drift found familiar, “That’s Pharma, and First Aid! Lancet! Staples and Clamp as well! What the pit? Medics’ fair? C’mon! Move your aft already!”
These mechs that Searchlight mentioned were wearing red, indigo, orange and irony-gray paint individually, in that sequence as well. Their face plates solemn, surrounding the discipline-platform with heavy fields. A government official reading some declaration high on that stage, whose golden chevron reflecting a shiny spot under the falling sun. Those medical units were nodding to greet the other mechs gathering.
When Drift and Searchlight finally reached the square center, lines of mechs were there already. They stood close to each other, however far enough for them to lift their arms. Searchlight was about to sneak to the front, but a stranger blocked the two young mechs’ way.
“Medical students, you two?”
“Eh-- ”
“Yes, we are.” Searchlight answered without hesitation.
“Your tutor?”
“Well, we were separated, got lost.”
Drift eyed his friend with suspicion.
“Fine then,” the stranger lifted his hand to hold his belt, “volunteered?”
“We are not sure what exactly is happening right now. Just followed the wave.” Searchlight said.
“Ratchet’s sentence happens,” the Stranger sighed, “if you haven’t heard about this, turn around and leave. We don’t know what this demonstration will lead to.”
“Ratchet’s sentence? Oh primus!” Searchlight yelled in a low voice, “of course we’ve heard of that, of him -- right, Drift? Ratchet, that fame doc.”
Drift slowly nodded, against Searchlight’s wide opened optics that filled with implication.
“Ratchet. Oh, sure.” Drift added, “he did something bad?”
“Disobey Senate’s direct order -- said he stole something. Yeah he sure stole their tail-gas.” the stranger ground his denta hard, “Ratchet would never steal. They made that pit up.”
“And the sentence is -- ”
“Empurata.” The stranger growled in his engine -- several other mechs around heard that words clenched their fists, they looked to this side, brow-plates knitting, and turned their burning gaze to the empty platform again -- the two younger mechs gasped as well.
“But he’s a medic...” Searchlight’s throat felt dry.
“-- they relieved it to paint penalty*,” another voice let himself into the conversation, a chill immediately ran through Drift’s back-plate, he turned to see Pharma, who was speaking.
“It’s about to start.” The blue medic said, four bottles of spray paint in his hands, “do you willing to change the color of your own paints?”
Drift drop his sight on Searchlight, who looked back. Pharma didn’t push it, his gaze was on something above this sea of mechs.
“I don’t mind doing that -- ” finally, Drift said, and added something he didn’t have a clue about, “we are making Ratchet proud of us, aren’t we?”
He took the bottles, found out there were only white and red paints.
“We are making him feeling proud of us, nice speech, apprentice.” Pharma turned to the stranger, “on behalf of all medical units, I thank you, Ironhide, your crews and your assistance.”
“You can count on me, fella.” Ironhide clapped on Pharma’s shoulder, “now focus.”
The blue mech nodded and left, others made a way for him to approach to the front.
“So you are a medic as well?” Searchlight glanced Ironhide from helm to pedes. This med was in rusty-red, frame bulky and tough, didn’t seem like a medic, less possibly a nurse too.
“I am not. Huh. But I own him a big favor, to Ratchet. Time for me to pay that back.” His hands on hips, helm held high, “Ratchet is a good doc. I won’t stand and watch them ruin him.”
Drift eyed at the spray bottle, handed Searchlight two of them.
Just at the point when they figuring out how to use this spray, a noise came from the platform ahead. Sound of booing raised against the three mechs who just appeared upon the stage, the two on the right and the left sides were with goggles. The one between them were dragged, his step pace a mess, optics flickering.
“Ratchet!” Ironhide growled.
And the crowd roared.
The official started to read the verdict. Drift couldn’t hear a single word. His helm raised. The moment Ratchet’s figure reflected into his sight, a sudden taste of bitter, and warm, ignited in his spark. His fingertips rest on his chest armor, right above his spark.
Ratchet dropped kneeling as the soldier released their hands, like a stone thrown onto the floor, there wasn’t another movement from him then. A handcuff displayed on his wrists, and a trial of chain connected to it. Soldiers tied that chain onto a pillar standing in the middle of the stage, hanging Ratchet’s body. Silence spread across the square. Dusky shades of the setting sun delineated and filled that broken frame with colors. Drift then noticed, Ratchet’s frame now covered with dull, dark pink -- the color of long dried energon.
Soldiers used water-guns to wash away the coagulated energon, unfolding the patterns that carved deep into the doctor’s plates -- red, glowing red that was almost too bright to be seen on the protolly white frame. These patterns were not sprayed paint, they were stabbed into plates by stings during a long period of penalty.
A numb, stingy feeling sprawled across Drift’s plate. He hugged himself tight, didn’t notice a drop of cleansing shed from his optics, which were opened wide, straight gazing at the medic.
“Water on wounds -- lost your fragging mind y’all?!” Pharma rushed onto the stage, shouting, covering Ratchet’s wet frame with a piece of tarp. But the soldiers continued their job.
“To punish the Chief Medical Officer, who has stolen a forged spark, is an act of justice. Remember -- no matter what class you are in, non shall be tolerated by the justice; no matter what shape you change into, non shall hide from the eyes of Senate --”
Numerous engines began to roar and growl. Whilst Drift could hear nothing. His gaze never once left Ratchet, whose arms were pined on that pillar, frame hanged, helm dropping. Pharma’s shaking body blocked his sight from time to time, when that happened, a voice raised in Drift’s spark: step aside -- I, I want to see him.
Mechs that participating in the demonstration took their act, spraying color of red and white on their original paint. This wasn’t in Senate’s anticipation.
The official lost his composure. He waved off the soldier, didn’t know what to expect next.
Though water guns shut, Pharma still clenched tight on Ratchet’s body. Clearly the flow of high-press water wasn’t treating his wings gentle.
“My, my, our CMO, Ratchet, spending his whole life for Cybertron and her science of medicine, for Primus and his children, but now he is hung here, stabbed and pierced by the law he respects and obeys!” he slightly straightened his back, shouting towards the sky, “if one is truly a criminal -- true justice fails to speak for him! While if one is not --”
Before Pharma could finish, the official released a whip, lashed right on vents located on his back. The medic hissed in pain, tried to curl up.
While hearing a very near sound crying for help, Ratchet’s optics lightened.
He trembled, a word was spilled: “Stop.”
The official stop lashing, though he wasn’t sure if he himself the object of this verb.
“Already brought me another mess,” Ratchet’s fists tightened, lifting his frame, “Got your internship finished, youngling?”
That was much harsher than a stroke of whip. Pharma shivered, his arm lost all the strength.
That piece of tarp falls, revealing the flame-colored tattoos -- in the glow of sunset, they failed to make up as a carved punishment, or a mark of humiliation. Wearing those, Ratchet become a something brighter, a sign, a beacon.
“Turn around, you, all of you.” Ratchet darkened his optics, voiced soft to Pharma, “don’t forget your duty, as medics.”
The official gestured to the securities, whom were holding high shields, now moved towards the demonstrators. The CMO glanced trough his retreating colleges, slowly nodded with respect and thankfulness.
Through all those moving helms, Drift was sure that Ratchet’s sight made a stop, though brief, firmly on him -- countless thoughts streamed across his processor.
He desperately hoped, the stolen spark could be him, and somehow a voice whispered, that Ratchet was holding just the same thought -- or what else could cause such a tearing pain deep down to his spark, when he was about to be dragged away from the great medic?
He thus, held up his arm high, shouting out:
“For Ratchet -- for Ratchet!”
“For Ratchet --!”
And those words echoed.
He saw -- Ironhide and his crews rushed towards the stage, relieving Ratchet from that pillar -- the sun finally set between the buildings, and the shades faded.
From that day on, medical units from Cybertron wear their core paints as red and white, they all volunteer to do so.