Alone: Chapter 1
Jazz sat in the back of the room without a word, the only sound coming from the front of the gray room dulled further by the tone of the hot air blown out of the mech at the front. Dozens of Autobots sat around the long table, and there were so many crammed in the very limited room that many more were standing behind them. Jazz had been guaranteed a chair for some reason. It was not the first mystery that was floating around behind his chipped but regardless, shining visor. Jazz looked along the table, which was almost as tiringly long as the meeting, which he painfully sat through. It was finished stainless steel, and colorless aside from the reflections of the mechs behind him and the faded Autobot insignia in the middle and ancient Cybertronian in a circle around it, the meaning forgotten.
Jazz looked around at the faces, and could not place a single name. Of course, there was a reason he was made a soldier and not put in an office. His size did not permit him to see half of the faces of the room, but it did allow him to sneak around enemy bases without detection and do reconnaissance work, hence the title 'saboteur'. He let himself smile remembering his first successful mission with his team, which, yes, was the first mission they took on together. His smile disappeared shortly after. He felt so alone. His friends so far away. He had been the one to be taken; transferred to Command. He had heard the reason many times. He had never understood. Jazz leaned back, feeling the slight after math of Ratchet's procedure of putting his halves into a whole and bringing him back to life, with no use of the Allspark, through a slight tinge in his side.
Jazz wondered if he had properly thanked Ratchet. Optimus had told him of the CMO's dedication and persistence in working on Jazz: sixteen solar cycles without a break. It would have been longer if the poor doc had not passed out due to lack of energy…… No, he had not thanked Ratchet properly. Words were not proper for such a thank you. He had to actually do something. But now, he couldn't. He would have to fulfill whatever was asked of him first then as soon as these buffoons got what they needed, he could go back. But Primus knows how long that would be. It would take a while, that is for sure.
A sigh escaped him as he started to process the statements coming out of the aged mech at the front of the room. He looked like he was in charge of the crowd, all optics locked emotionlessly on him, giving a subtle nod in agreement every so often. Jazz closed his own, only listening, but opened them when a painfully familiar word came to him.
"…from Earth." The mech in front said.
If he had not been listening when he decided to start, he surely would not have had the slightest idea what the larger mech was talking about.
"Lieutenant. Please stand." Jazz stood, feeling the command rattle his thoughts away and through his circuits like a train. The older mech slowly made his way over, Jazz just watching, wondering the true reason he had to stand.
"The Lieutenant, previously positioned under the command of Optimus Prime, was, before three earth weeks ago, very much offline." Like a sudden wave of appall, the sea of heads crashed unto poor Jazz an onslaught of horrible whispering and murmuring.
"Dying at the very hands of Megatron himself, who also was in the end, as I hope all of you have heard, done away with." Jazz waited for the second half of the story, but it never came. Ratchet had very much told him that the shard of Allspark had been used for the resurrection of the tyrant. Jazz opened his mouth to speak and remind the older bot, perhaps he had forgotten, but the other had flared frigidly burning optics at him, branding the message into his central processor. A few of the other Autobots closer to Jazz, five mechs and two femmes, had caught the signal and worried mutters fluttered about the corner.
Jazz caught a good amount of information about the mech next to him from those seven. Apparently, he was a Prime as well, and he caught something else as he processed Primes through his data banks.
"…in the three solar cycles he's been here, Sentinel has sure scared the living Primus out of this place…"
He was new. Too new. Three days? Optimus had told the new recruits about the vigorous classes and training, not to mention the painful meetings, that any new arrival, Prime or not, had to go through after arrival. Optimus, because of his relation to Megatron himself, had to spend an entire earth revolution in training and loyalty classes meant for turned Decepticons; much like the treatment of disobedient dogs on Earth.
"Shhh." Sentinel Prime hissed, silencing the room. Jazz, still half in thought, jerked back to reality, feeling the tinge in his side again.
"Jazz was saved however, by methods we Cybertronians have not documented. They are of rebellious origi-"; "Ratchet is not a rebel!" Jazz flared against the Prime, physically angry. The other just raised a calming hand, and smiled apologetically.
"Not rebel, then. Other origins." Sentinel corrected himself, offering the revision. Jazz stood, clawed fingers clenched to his palm, still obviously angry at the insult aimed at the one he owed his life to, not to mention his dear friend. "Fine." His permission wasn't dwelled upon as the next order of business came to the Prime.
"Wheeljack." Sentinel summoned a name that Jazz recognized. Jazz perked up hopeful to see his ingenuitive comrade. Not ten seconds after, a familiar "OW!" came from the hall following a clatter. Jazz sighed to himself, relief filling every fiber of his being. A scuffed, scorch-scarred mech came tumbling in. He had a tray and a stack of five medical books…but Wheeljack was an inventor; an engineer, not a medical officer. The tray was the cold steel of the berths back on Earth that were in the Med Quarters where Ratchet made his sanctuary. On the tray were long forgotten official equipment used in Cybertronian surgeries and common medical procedures. Of course, such a long time between his last look at the shiny sharp things, they looked menacing, and downright scary.
Wheeljack´s optics widened in some emotion as they caught Jazz. He sat the tray and books with freakishly precise and slow movements as he continued to stare at Jazz, obviously taken off-guard. He strode up to Jazz catching sight of the seam of smelted ore and grafts of metal, a look of disbelieving happiness. He rapidly switched his line of vision, as well as his emotion, towards Sentinel Prime.
Sentinel had been watching Wheeljack since he came into the meeting hall, expecting, it seemed, the exact reaction from the engineer. Sentinel just raised his hand like a master to his disgruntled dog.
"Why didn't you tell me Jazz was alive?!" Wheeljack shoved the hand out of the way, and might as well had thrown a serious bite with the growling tone in his voice. Jazz felt a pang in his side and spark when Wheeljack's optic began to leak coolant, and even more so after the hand from Sentinel went back up.
Chapter One~