To Heal a Mockingbird (TFA Ratchet x Mech! reader)

Chapter 6: Sparks of the Future

"Let me out!" I begged as I slammed my fists against the bars of my cell. "Please! Just let me out! You can't do this!"

"Shut it, you!" The prison guard barked as he jabbed me through the bars of with a shock rod, electricity pouring into my frame and causing me to yelp out in pain. "You're lucky the Magnus is even letting your sorry paint job live!"

The guard yanked the rod out of my frame, and I crashed to the floor like a sack of energon cubes, my seams hissing with smoke from the electrical shock I received. The guard then jabbed me again, causing a shriek of pain to rip through my voice box once again.

"In fact, I'm gonna make you WISH he hadn't!" The guard opened my cell and proceeded to beat the ever loving slag out of me. The entire time, I would try and fight back only to get put back to the floor with the shock rod. I ended up completely giving up to the beatings and laid limp on the floor. Small drips of energon leaked from my intake and down my dermas, eventually making contact with the floor with light drip sound.

When the guard was done thrashing me about, he left and re locked my cell with a disturbing grin on his face.

"Oh, by the way," he said. "Megatron says hello." Before I could respond, the guard turned and left, leaving me alone in the dark prison.

'Primus... have mercy...' I thought to myself as I slowly and shakily pushed my frame back upright, stumbling a little in the process. 'I... I don't know what... what they are telling me....' I limped over to the recharge slab that was bolted to the wall, carefully maneuvering my now battered and beaten frame onto it with my back facing the bars of my cell. 'But... but i.... I can't... be who they... they claim I am...' I curled up tightly and allowed my optics to close.

"Primus... if you can hear me... please... they need to know i... I'm innocent." I quietly prayed.

But deep down, I knew that was a lie, yet I couldn't give anyone a reason for it. All I felt was guilt.

I ended up drifting into recharge, and in my dreams, I saw disaster and chaos. Thousands laid strewn dead across a battlefield and in the center stood Megatron with a cold and sadistic smile on his face.

In his grip was a glowing crystalline gem that seemed to hum and pulse like a thousand sparks all in unison.

'Help us.' I heard the gem whisper in many voices. 'Find us. Save us.'

The dream then changed to what looked to be a staging area for a siege outside of where I knew the Well of Allsparks was located, most likely outside of Crystal City.

'They will find us! They will hurt us! Hurry! Please!'

I jolted awake with a gasp and an overwhelming sense of dread crossed my spark like a shard of ice. A dread one should never ignore. A dread of the end.

"Gotta... gotta get outta here." I whispered to myself as I shakily pushed my frame upright. "Gotta... get to... the Allspark."

-with Ratchet and the others -

"And you're saying this data just straight up appeared?" Ratchet asked with a cocked optic ridge.

"Yeah and?" Pharma huffed. "It's still information that is evidence and support for Y/D's deactivation." Pharma then turned to the Magnus with a stern look. "You need to have him terminated."

"Not until this information is traced back to the source." Ultra Magnus said firmly before motioning for Wheeljack. "Wheeljack, can you run a trace in the data?"

"I can try." Wheeljack said as he went over to Pharma's work station and began running various lines of code in order to find where the data came from. "My question is why someone would send this in the first place?"