Ratchet -Cult-

Ratchet knew the valley was wrong the moment his scanners failed to stabilize. Readings slipped through his grasp like oil through cracked seals, numbers refusing to resolve into anything trustworthy. The air was heavy with aerosolized energon compounds and chemical residues that did not belong together, clogging his intakes and burning along his vents. This was not a battlefield. This was not a settlement. It was a slow acting weapon disguised as shelter.

They called it a sanctuary.

Ratchet called it a trap.

The cult had built their refuge from scavenged stone and scrap, plating fused together with slag and belief instead of proper welds. Symbols were carved so deep into the walls that they compromised structural integrity, yet the buildings stood anyway. Faith compensated where engineering failed. It unsettled him more than outright brutality would have.

The cultists gathered daily, chanting in broken rhythms, voices overlapping in a way that scraped at Ratchet’s audials. They spoke of purification, of clarity, of surrendering the self to something greater. Ratchet watched infections bloom where servos had been cut for ritual bleeding. He saw fractures spreading where untreated stress cracks should have been repaired.

And still, they smiled.

You were the one who kept them standing.

Ratchet noticed you almost immediately, not because you were loud or commanding, but because you were quiet. You stood apart from the chanting circles, posture relaxed, optics attentive. You wore the markings of a medic, but altered, stripped of insignia and modified until function had overtaken regulation. Your tools were not standard issue. They were personalized. Tuned.

Cultists gravitated toward you instinctively.

When newcomers arrived shaken and injured, it was always you who approached first. You guided them with steady servos, checked their vents, adjusted their posture. Ratchet watched you work and felt his spark tighten. Your movements were gentle. Reassuring. Perfectly calibrated to earn trust.

Then came the injections.

You administered them smoothly, injectors slipping into access ports with practiced ease. The compounds were not immediately visible on Ratchet’s scanners, masked beneath layers of harmless stabilizers. He only caught the deeper signatures when he recalibrated manually. Neural dampeners. Euphoric feedback loops. Compounds designed to soften resistance and heighten attachment.

Not sedation.

Conditioning.

The newcomers relaxed almost instantly, tension draining from their frames. Their optics softened. Some laughed quietly. Others leaned closer to you, as if drawn by gravity. Ratchet watched them change over the following cycles, doubts fading, individuality blurring, devotion deepening.

They stopped asking questions.

They started looking at you the way one looks at gravity. Necessary. Inevitable.

Ratchet tried to contact Optimus the first night.

The signal never made it past the valley.

Static swallowed the transmission whole, feedback screaming through his comms until he cut the channel to avoid damage. He tried again from a different location, boosting power, changing frequencies. Each attempt failed the same way, scrambled beyond recognition.

He felt it then. Not interference. Intent.

You stood across the chamber when he lowered his comm, optics already on him. Not surprised. Not curious. Expectant.

Ratchet began to test the limits quietly. Short range bursts. Encrypted pings. Emergency medical codes that should have cut through anything. Every signal fractured mid transmission, chopped into meaningless noise. His own equipment came back clean. No damage. No fault.

Someone was rewriting the air.

He followed you one cycle, careful to stay out of sight. You moved through the sanctuary like it belonged to you, checking on cultists with a medic’s eye and something sharper beneath it. You adjusted dosages, swapped injectors, watched reactions with unsettling focus. When one cultist hesitated, when fear flickered behind their optics, you corrected it with chemistry and proximity.

You never spoke.

You didn’t need to.

Ratchet found the remains two cycles later.

A cultist had been accused of resisting treatment. Ratchet followed the sound of tearing metal down a service corridor, dread pooling heavy in his spark. He arrived too late to intervene.

You were crouched over the body, plating torn open with anatomical precision. Chest armor lay neatly to the side, rib struts snapped at exact angles. Internal systems were exposed, wires severed cleanly. Bite marks scored the metal, deep and deliberate.