Ratchet threw the doors open and strode into the moon base med bay, optics like sniper scopes. Fragging Prowl, had to frag up the already stressful and irritating process of selecting an apprentice. And the glitch had the fragging nerve to act like it was a mistake. A growl worked its way up his vocalizer. The handful of medics and assistants brave enough to stick around after his whirlwind entrance scrambled for cover. Good. He was in no mood for incompetence or looking for the head medic of this bay.

A door near the back of the bay opened and an older medic walked out. "I just messaged him, he'll be here in a breem." Faded red and chipped blue paint belayed the clipped tone. Ratchet tried not to glare at him. Tried. His fury with their SIC was still volcanic and just as indiscriminate. The medic didn't bother introducing himself and he already knew who Ratchet was. "I'd be looking at the next class coming up," the medic's irritated tone couldn't hold a match to Ratchet's smoldering anger. "He looks good on paper, but, Primus, the glitch is just a placeholder until you get a good one." He waved his hand like he was dismissing the apprentice's very existence. Ratchet growled again. He'd already been looking at the next batch of graduates.

"Hello?" A soft voice asked from behind Ratchet. Ratchet whipped around and honed in on the small red and white apprentice. Deep ocean blue optics still as wide a sparkling's looked back at him before dropping to the floor. He bent under the heavy glare but he didn't run screaming.

"Let's go," Ratchet said, leaving the room with the same bombastic force he had entered it. The Ark was already off course for this detour and they had scheduled bases they needed to get to. He had almost ground his denta into shavings just waiting to disembark and pick up the little glitch. The crew was not going to wait another breem for them. If the apprentice couldn't keep up he'd just deal with the flak from the Iacon Medical Academy for not having an apprentice this cycle.

His audios picked up the sound of small feet a few strides behind him, tapping quickly on the tile to keep up. "My name is First Aid," a quiet voice said, reaching to Ratchet like a verbal handshake.

"I know," he snarled. The apprentice didn't try to speak to him anymore. Ratchet's heavy feet hit the tiles like artillery shells and even though he strode down the middle of the hall, mechs and femmes tripped over themselves to avoid him.

The Ark came into view a breem later and Ratchet didn't break stride going up the ramp, knowing Red Alert would be waiting. The door slid open two steps before Ratchet reached it. His next step was shortened a bit by surprise. Waiting on the other side of the door Red Alert's deep violet optics flashed with lightning. His burgundy armor shone dully in the light, more suited for shadows instead of glittering in sunlight like the Twin Terrors. And standing fearlessly next to him, the target of Ratchet's unmitigated fury; Prowl.

His armor didn't shine, his crimson optics more predacon than Cybertronian. Ratchet growled at him, much like a canine predacon. Prowl didn't spare him a glance. "First Aid," Prowl's soft low voice made Ratchet's optic twitch. "Welcome to the Ark, I'll take you to your quarters."

Ratchet snarled at him. "That is my apprentice, I'll fragging take him."

Prowl's steady gaze was like staring into a pool of lava. There was more beneath the molten surface, but how deep it went was anyone's guess. It was almost dizzying. "This is a very dramatic change for him, I would like the transition to be a smooth as possible and your current state is not conducive to that. His first shift is tomorrow morning." No anger, no sarcasm, no admonishment colored his tone. Every word spoken like fact. Ratchet had a wrench in his hand before he consciously thought of grabbing it. An electrical flare from Red Alert's sensor net knocked the wrench off its trajectory for Prowl's head. It clanged loudly against the wall behind them. Neither one flinched, Prowl's fathomless optics never left Ratchet's face.

Turning away without fear of another wrench or scanner or welder coming at him he softly told First Aid to follow him. First Aid came into Ratchet's peripheral but didn't immediately follow the SIC. A slight tilt from his head indicated he was looking between his mentor and Prowl, trying to decide whose order he was supposed to follow. Ratchet snarled in wordless rage once more. "Give me my wrench back you son of a three port pleasure bot, and you," he snapped at the small apprentice. "Stay the frag out of my sight until your fragging shift and don't be late." The apprentice cowered and followed Prowl without another word.

"Ratchet," Red Alert's voice was heard more often than Prowl's but it was still a little startling when he spoke. "You can be angry as you'd like with Prowl and myself, but I will ask that you refrain from unleashing your wrath on an innocent juvenile." Violet optics didn't watch him, but the bowed head of his apprentice.

"You don't like how I talk to an apprentice, send him to someone else," Ratchet seethed. Red Alert's optics turned on him and the effect was almost as unbalancing as Prowl's. Unlike Prowl who had a center of a slightly darker red, Red Alert had none. A solid ellipse of shifting violet flashed every few breems with blue or white lightning depending on what was triggering his sensor net. He didn't speak, he didn't have to. Only Prowl could hold his disconcerting stare for more than a breem. Ratchet turned on his heel and walked away.

oOo

Ratchet walked into the dispensary that night still in a poisonous mood, but less inclined to lash out now that the Ark was almost back on scheduled course. Unsurprisingly, there had been few injuries in the med bay and everyone had been present and on time for their appointed checkups. No one on the ship, not even the slagging twins, were willing to risk their afts when Ratchet was this angry. Even Blaster and Jazz had kept the music at a tolerable level for most of the orn. Next door, though, in the rec room, a heavy bass beat started thumping. Ratchet curled his lip but restrained his anger. It was quiet enough he wouldn't be able to hear it two floors up in his quarters.

For the most part, the dispensary wasn't overwhelmed by noise either. He sat at a table, away from the adjoining rec room wall, and tried to relax the coils of anger squeezing his spark. He'd had the perfect apprentice picked out, had picked her out a vorn before she graduated, and had all the paperwork in order to request her. It was the culmination of a decacycle of careful research on accreditation scores and instructor notes on each and every student in the Iacon Medical Academy. Some hadn't made it past the third accreditation test, some had fallen short, but she'd been flawless from the beginning. High scores, excellent notes, and he'd been in hot competition with several of his respected peers for her.

And then Prowl lost his paperwork.

She'd been gone in a breem and by the time Prowl had told him he needed to resend every mech and femme he'd looked at had been snapped up.

There were still holes in the med bay walls that needed to be patched. Hoist had taken refuge in Wheeljack's lab. And after he'd thoroughly exhausted the brunt of his fury and frustration Prowl had the alloy to offer a solution. He still hadn't read First Aid's file, and he had no inclination to do it. Like the medic on the moon base had said, he was just a placeholder, something to appease the chairs at the Academy until the next graduating class. They wouldn't allow him as a seasoned battlefield and bay medic to not take an apprentice. Medics were in short supply, they couldn't afford anyone of age to not take an apprentice, even for a cycle.

The angry circle of his thoughts was broken up by a familiar, if not annoying, voice. "This is the dispensary and there's one on C deck but I think it's just for the officers up there since I've never seen anyone else in there but there's really no reason for anyone to go up there because the rec room everyone uses is right here and you'll have to meet Jazz and Bumblebee and Blaster and especially Wheeljack and Hound and we probably shouldn't introduce you to the twins tonight because they can be kind of scary—" Bluestreak continued to ramble as he walked into the room with First Aid a few steps behind. Ratchet's sour mood blackened again when he saw the apprentice. Similar in size to Bumblebee, the apprentice had an even lighter frame than the scout. He could never be a battlefield medic, it was a Primus given miracle the little glitch hadn't tripped and crushed his spark casing.

"Bluestreak, mute it," Ratchet snapped. The Praxian's wings dropped and folded close to his body, First Aid cringed like he was expecting physical blow to accompany the sharp words. Bluestreak lapsed into silence and a faint echo of guilt flitted through Ratchet's spark when the Praxian juvenile's wings stayed closed and tight in fear. He handed a cube of energon to First Aid and then took his hand and led him quickly from the room, never once breaking his silence.

Once they were out of the room, the lights snapped off, leaving him alone in almost complete darkness. Ratchet tried to find the rage that had been sustaining him for the last septorn but a barrier of contrition kept him from it. His mood had everyone on the Ark wary and now he'd scared Bluestreak. The young Praxian probably wouldn't come near him for another septorn. He still glared in the general direction of the camera mounted in the corner to his left. If the glitch Red Alert locked him out of his quarters there really would be Pit to pay.

oOo

A/N: I don't know what it is, but it's so easy writing a furious Ratchet. Everyone is going to be OOC in this and Prowl's and Red Alert's color schemes have been heavily altered. There's a purpose to it. This is the start of fairly extensive retelling of Transformers and the oddities will make more sense as more stories are added.