Beta: Starfire201

Written for PJlover666

Inevitable

Jazz slowly walked through the military hangar which they were stationed in. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to walk again and he relished it as much as he enjoyed the happiness of Prowl finally arriving on Earth. He had missed his bondmate over the last vorns, but their separation had been necessary for their search for the Allspark.

His visor became a few shades darker as he remembered the fate of the Allspark. What a waste. They had fought for millions of years and suddenly Megatron's defeat became more important than the continued survival of their own species. Optimus had reasoned that Megatron had attacked the humans with a fury that bordered on madness. Megatron needed to die to protect humanity. Jazz had just nodded and thought that he would attack anyone who had experimented on him for nearly a vorn as well.

But all this was in the past. Now, Megatron was dead again, and their own planet so very heavily damaged that one could just call it destroyed. Their race was seeing the end of the war and the end of themselves. It was a reality that was hard to accept.

Suddenly he saw a familiar face in the busy base, full of humans running around trying to build their city again.

"Sam," he said with a smile. "Wanna go on a ride with me?"

The boy – no, man looked up and frowned. "A ride? Jazz, I'm a little bit busy here."

Now that he Cybertronian looked closer, he could see that Sam's posture was slumped, his eyelids were heavy and his reactions were a bit too slow. The human was exhausted. "Busy? Can't it wait for a bit? Ya look ready to keel over and sleep for a week."

Sam managed a grin. "I am ready to do that, but..." He sighed. "There is so much do to. Counting people coming back to Chicago, organising sleeping places, food, trying to clear the areas of dangerous weapons..."

"The last is our job, and we finished yesterday." Jazz knelt next to the human. "Come with ma for a ride and get your thoughts on other things. This can wait for one or two hours."

Sam hesitated, then he nodded. "Why not? Really, who would decline a ride with one of you?"

"Now, that's the spirit!"

Ten minutes later, they were racing through the empty streets of Chicago. The destruction was still far too obvious, debris everywhere and nearly no humans in sight besides the military. But at least the fires had been extinguished and everything that hadn't been of human origin was safe in the spaceship Prowl's crew had arrived with.

Sam had been quiet during the ride, just looking outside, watching Chicago flying past the windows. Far too alive still were the pictures of the battle in his mind, of Cybertron in the sky, of the many dying and screaming people...

"Sam?" said Jazz suddenly. "Did ya ever wonder why da Decepticons chose that name for themselves?"

The human startled. "What?" Then he fell back into the seat and shook his head. "No, why should I? Really, we all just thought you named them Decepticons and that they had another name... and later I forgot to wonder. We were a little busy surviving, remember?"

Jazz didn't laugh. "Ah remember." Something like a sigh was audible in the car. "Decepticon is a translation of their name from our language. Not sure if ya all realize this, but yar language is a bit inaccurate."

"Hey! Our language is just fine."

"It sure is. English has its own beauty." There was amusement in Jazz's voice. "Just wanted ta say that in most translations, some things are lost. And so it happened with the Decepticons. In our language the meaning is more along the lines of 'those who had been deceived, but learned from it'."

Sam was quiet for a moment as he tried to understand the implications of this information. "But... How they have been deceived? Who has deceived Megatron, I mean..." He stopped for a second, breathed, began anew. "That sounds as if they hadn't been always evil."

"They weren't," came the subdued confirmation from Jazz. "We didn't want to clear up humanity's misconception of da name, because ya clearly associated bad things with the designation 'Decepticon', which was in our favor. But Ah thought that now... was the time to give them this much fairness."

Sam felt as if he had been punched. He really shouldn't have been surprised that the Autobots had lied and manipulated them as well, but... they had been the good guys, right? But of course, he should have known that such a war has to be more complicated than they made it out. It was just simpler not to think about it. Not to think about the enemy and their name. It had been their own choice not to ask.

"So..." he began slowly. "They had been deceived?" And he could feel that there was a story behind that. A story that had been the root of a war that had cost them everything. It felt like the opening of a dark secret... a bit like Pandora's box he mused, just that it had never been humanity's box.

"Yep." Jazz turned sharply and choose to enter the empty highway in which he accelerated. "A little history lesson for ya. A long time ago, our planet was attacked by another alien race. As a result, nearly every new created spark became a warrior frame and was sent to the front lines."

Something about that was disturbing, though Sam needed a moment to find it. "You sent children to the frontlines?"

"We don't have children like humans do. But essentially, yes." Sam gulped and Jazz accelerated further. "We won the war and the soldiers, led by the Lord Protector Megatron, returned home. But they weren't welcomed with open arms. The civilians were scared and through the sudden spike of the population, energon became rare. During the famine, da Senate started to call frames that didn't contribute to the productivity of Cybertron 'obsolete'."

"And that means...?"

"They weren't allowed energon allotments." Jazz sounded grim. "In short, they starved, became Empties, and died. In thousands. Mass murder sanctioned by the Senate. And Optimus Prime was just watching."

Sam felt sick. "No..."

"Yes. What do ya know about core programming?"

Still busy with the picture that Optimus Prime had just watched as his own people died, he answered, "Nothing."

"Alright. Core programming is that part of ourselves that we were created for. It's a part of our personality. Nothing we can ignore, ya understand?"

Sam shrugged. He didn't understand, not really, but he wanted to hear the rest of this story.

"Optimus' core programming is to keep the main populace happy and in peace. Megatron's core programming was the protection of Cybertron and its populace." They met a few other cars and Jazz evaded them far more skillfully than any human driver ever could. "In short, Megatron simply wasn't able to watch his own army starve to death. He ignored the second part of his core programming – to be always at the Prime's side – and started a civil war with the goal to get energon from other planets. But we can't ignore our core programming forever. That has consequences."

"What kind...?"

"Madness."

And slowly, Sam could see what happened. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. "So, Megatron wanted to save his soldiers and other people and because he had to fight against Optimus, he went mad? That's horrible."

"Yep." Jazz sounded far too callous for this. "Starscream's fate was the same, by the way. His core programming was the task of the protection of Cybertron's skies from any threat and to obey Megatron. At some point, he knew that Megatron was a danger to Cybertron, but he still had to follow him."

"So, he tried to assassinate him?" And the situation became obvious. "He never wanted to succeed, right?"

"Of course not." Jazz laughed. "Starscream wasn't stupid. If he had wanted to, he had hundreds of opportunities to kill his Lord. He just didn't. And Megatron didn't kill him because Star war still one of his own to protect. Not even considering how guilty he must have felt in his sane moments to know that he had led Starscream down this path."

For the first time, Sam could hear in something like respect in an Autobot's voice for their enemies. "But if it all was so bad, why didn't Optimus try to help? I mean, he's your Prime! And you said he wants all of you happy. I can't understand why he just... watched..." He had to force the last word out. It was too unbelievable.

"He is. But his core programming is different. A Prime doesn't go to war. That's what the Lord Protector is for."

"But Optimus did," protested Sam. A battling Prime wasn't something anyone would forget soon. Optimus had been monumental, scary, and so very,very powerful.

"Eventually," admitted Jazz. "After the Senate was dead and half of Cybertron already burning. Then, he went to war to keep the other half in a state that at least resembled peace. Can ya imagine how bad the situation was for most Decepticons, that they would sooner follow two mechs that they know are insane rather than return to their Prime's side? Can ya imagine it?"

He couldn't. "Okay..." Sam breathed. "Okay. But Prime won, and everything is alright now, right?"

For a long, too long, moment the Autobot was quiet.

"Jazz?" asked Sam with a very bad feeling.

"Say, Sam, do the actions of destroying the Allspark, killing your own Lord Protector while he lies on the ground, and destroying Cybertron look very sane to ya?"

The human choked. "What..."

"Ah took ya with me because Ah wanted at least one human to understand why," Jazz continued. "Prowl's and my choice fell on ya. In short, Sam, Prime's core programming has stopped considering us, the Cybertronians, as the ones he has to lead. Instead he has replaced us in his mind with humanity and Earth." The hurt in those words was cutting. "We can't accept this."

"Jazz..." Sam lent forward and touched the console. For once, he was speechless.

"Maybe we have finally gone insane as well; Prowl and I... wouldn't be that surprising, really. Just the last in a long line. Maybe, it's all our fate?"

"What are you - "

The words were swallowed by a very loud explosion. In shock, Sam turned in his seat and looked back with wide eyes. All he saw between earth and sky was one giant column of fire that split the very sky and engulfed the core of Chicago, burning white hot. Sam had to cover his eyes, and still he saw the column behind his eyelids and heard the dark growl of destruction. Then, slowly, he registered again what the Autobot was saying:

"Please, understand, we had to do it, Sam. We had to kill Optimus, before he started another insane war for peace or happiness. This time maybe against us all, just to protect humanity. Prowl's calculations showed that possibility. We had to do something."

"You killed them..." whispered Sam, remembering all the soldiers and humans and – they were all dead. Dead like Optimus Prime.

"A small sacrifice for the safety of our two races."

"They're dead!"

"But we tried to get as many of them out as possible. Really, no Cybertronian besides Prime was in NEST. Prowl saw to that and he gave them all cover missions that would require humans." Jazz sounded so cold and uncaring. "It was quite fortunate that Optimus trusted us two as much as he did. He didn't even check the reports twice."

Sam felt himself heaving, and after a moment he realized that his body wanted to sob. But his eyes were still burning and dry. "You're a monster," he whispered, not even knowing if his words were true.

"Yes." Jazz became a bit slower. "But aren't we all by now? So, here we are! Our trip together ends here!"

The door opened, but Sam didn't move. "What do you mean..." No, he already knew what he meant, he just needed to find the right words. "Jazz, what are Prowl's and your core programming?"

"You humans really learn fast, what?" But Jazz sounded fond, even as the seat moved and Sam found himself lying in grass, shocked and half-blind. "We were Enforcers, or police you might say, built to protect our people from core programming madness, to eliminate any threat from within and to protect our Prime."

He gripped the grass. "You killed him."

"Yes." The door fell shut with a small chuckle. "As Ah said, maybe it's fate."

And the silver car turned and drove away on the highway, leaving the crying human on the edge of a burning city alone.

~silber