Ratchet and a disabled veteran attempt to save a life while still completing a mission.

Synopsis

Megatron's weather-controlling device creates a sudden hurricane along the Gulf Coast where disabled veteran Stan Bennett is hitchhiking. The driver who picks him up is forced off the road by a falling tree, and trapped in the car amid rising water. Stan goes to find help, and encounters Ratchet on an urgent mission to repair the crashed Sky Spy probe. Ratchet extracts the woman, but she requires emergency surgery Ratchet isn't qualified to do, and Stan (a former field medic) cannot perform because he only has one arm.

Ratchet uses the damaged Sky Spy to deep-scan Stan's memories of his medical training, and conducts the operation while Stan supervises. Stan learns the missing element needed to complete Sky Spy's repair is Titanium, and volunteers his prosthetic hook for the job. The Sky Spy is launched and stops the weather machine long enough for Optimus Prime to destroy it.

Later, Ratchet checks up on Stan and their patient. Stan has regained his confidence and intends to attend medical school, despite lacking an arm. Ratchet presents him with a token of gratitude, a prosthetic arm made with Cybertronian technology to replace the one he disassembled to repair Sky-Spy. The two healers then go off to talk over drinks of oil and soda.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Continuity notes

• "Healers, Fighters, and Transformers" takes place in a micro-continuity very similar to the Generation 1 cartoon except set around the time of the story's publication (2004).
• Ratchet gains a working knowledge of human medical science.

Trivia

• Teletraan I is spelled "Teletran One".
• Ratchet and Stan were both feeling lost in this story. Ratchet had been spending more time on combat missions and less time as a medic, and Stan was haunted by helplessly watching his comrades die in the same accident that cost him his arm. During the Sky Spy download, Stan re-experiences the memories of all the people he helped as a medic, and Ratchet is able to re-connect with what it means to him to be a healer.