Greetings, readers!
This particular fanfic is spawned from Guardians of Life, Chapter 13, when Ratchet mentions Jazz almost died as a hatchling. It was asked in a certain review if this was why Jazz is so short.
And the plot bunny bit, hard.
So here it is! Memories of a Runt. :P
Also, I left it open to where I can leave this as a oneshot, or I can continue it at least one more chapter with more memories of little Jazz.
Its up to you guys. You tell me what you want!
Disclaimer: This should be known already. Sheesh.
"Aww, c'mon, 'Hide! That's not fair!" Jazz whined, futilely jumping to reach his shield held high above his head by said Weapons Specialist.
Ironhide laughed in response. "I thought you said you could beat me at this!"
"Yeah, but this is cheating!" Jazz growled, eyeing his shield as Ironhide lowered it ever so slightly, tempting him to jump again.
"It's not cheating, I'm just exploiting a weakness!" Ironhide laughed again as Jazz launched himself into the air, barely missing the shield as Ironhide pulled it just out of his reach.
Glowering, the saboteur crossed his arms over his chest moodily. Prowl walked through the door to the main room and said, "Ironhide, I need you to…" his voice trailed off as he saw the Weapons Specialist grinning smugly, holding Jazz's shield above his head, and the saboteur pouting next to him. "…may I ask why you are keeping Jazz's shield away from him?"
"Hey, he challenged me. Its not my fault he's so short."
This remark caused Jazz to suddenly spring back into the air with a growl, but Ironhide's reflexes kept the saboteur from reaching his goal yet again.
"Your current plan of attack isn't working, Jazz," Prowl stated factually, watching him jump repeatedly and failing each time.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Jazz seethed, optics never leaving his shield.
"Maybe you should come up with a new plan."
"Like what?" the saboteur snapped.
"Well, what would you do if a Decepticon took your shield?"
"I'd shoot the slag out of them with my cannons!" Jazz said immediately, and before he could consider doing so Prowl cut back in.
"Okay, well…what would you do if they stole your shield and your cannons were offline?"
Jazz paused for a moment, thinking. Then suddenly he said, "I'd do this!" and punched Ironhide in his interfacing panel. Hard.
The Weapons Specialist immediately doubled over in pain and Jazz snatched his shield back, grinning triumphantly.
"Now that is cheating!" Ironhide coughed from the floor.
"I'm not cheating, I'm exploiting a weakness!" the saboteur mocked. "It's not my fault it hurts you so bad!"
When Ironhide could only grunt in response, Prowl felt it would be best to call Ratchet in. It wasn't often that the Weapons Specialist was unable to express his pain/anger/whatever with various curses.
Ratchet came stomping into the room, mouth twisted into a frown. "What the frag did you do to yourself, Ironhide?" he asked the mech still doubled over in pain, though the CMO was pretty sure he knew exactly what was hurting. Very few things hurt Ironhide to the point where he couldn't curse every other word.
The black mech didn't reply except to point an accusing finger at Jazz.
Grumbling, Ratchet knelt at Ironhide's side and carefully disconnected a few wires to ease the pain, and injected a mild pain reliever into his hip joint to help with the rest.
Then the medic immediately whirled his rage upon the saboteur, who tried to look as innocent as possible. And failed.
"But its not my fault, Ratch!" Jazz protested, dodging a backhand to his head. "If 'Hide didn't make fun of my height so much, I'd--"
"That's no reason to hit him there!"
"But Prowl told me to do what I'd do if a 'Con took my shield and I couldn't use my cannons!"
When Ratchet turned to face Prowl, the black and white mech held up his hands defensively and said, "Hey, he's the one who came up with it, not me. But I must say it is effective…"
"Still not something you'd do to your own fragging comrades though," Ironhide growled. "You're really touchy about you're height, ya know that, Jazz?" he added, sitting up.
"Well duh, seeing as you make fun of me so much!"
"It's not my fault you're so puny."
"It's not my fault either!"
"Actually, Jazz, I wouldn't say that," Ratchet interjected. "You did have some part in this."
"What?!? How?"
"When you were just a hatchling. Remember how you almost died?"
Ratchet was monitoring the hatchling sacs in his medbay on Cybertron. He had them carefully moved there so he could keep a closer optic on them, as hatchlings on the planet were very rare now, and even then not many made it to the sparkling stage.
One particular sac caught his assistant's attention when he was making his rounds.
"Um, Ratchet, sir? This one's moving around a lot," First Aid said, peering through the translucent material. The plaque below told the medic the hatchling's name was 'Jazz.' "Think he's ready to come out?"
Ratchet walked over and observed the tiny mechling closely before scanning him. The hatchling squirmed from the tingling sensation of the scan, looked up at the two adult mechs inquisitively while upside down, and gurgled.
"No, he's still got some time left in there," the CMO replied after finishing the scan. "So stay put in there, little Jazz!"
Jazz's little face twisted into a frown, which didn't go unnoticed by the medics.
"Hmm. This one's unusually sentient for his age," Ratchet commented, peering closer at Jazz.
The hatchling rolled over in his sac with a miniature growl and stared at Ratchet. He placed his little hands against the material, still pouting. He was bored. He wanted out. He wanted to know what the world was like outside of this fluid filled prison. He wanted--
A shimmer caught his optic. A medical instrument was glinting in the overhead light.
The hatchling's optics went wide with joy. He wanted that. It was big. It was shiny. It was awesome. Jazz started to push against the fragile material, determined to investigate the shiny 'toy.'
"No, Jazz," Ratchet commanded, staring straight into the tiny mech's optics.
Jazz merely stuck out his tongue at the medic before slicing a small hole in the sac wall, which quickly grew larger on its own until Jazz felt himself be sucked out of his prison. The first words he heard outside of his sac was Ratchet's long string of curses.
"By the damned fragging Pit…Slag it, Jazz!" The CMO yelled, catching the hatchling before he hit the floor from that deadly height. "First Aid! Get me an emergency kit!"
Jazz soon realized he didn't like this world. It was cold and hard and painful and especially loud. He wanted back inside his warm and cozy home, and whined when he was taken even further away from it.
Ratchet brought the hatchling over to a berth where he began immediately working to save Jazz. Hatchlings that emerged too soon had almost a hundred percent death rate. The nutrients they needed for development were in the fluid sacs, and it couldn't be easily replicated.
Jazz shut his optics and whimpered pathetically. All the movement and colors and noise hurt his premature processor. His dislike for this new world caused his spark to beat erratically, wreaking havoc on his underdeveloped body.
Ratchet was quickly but delicately attaching life support lines to the mechling. If Jazz was to survive, the medic would have to regulate his spark beat, energon flow, and temperature in under a minute, and even then there was still some irreversible damage. Not many medics could perform this stressful feat.
"Grab me that hatchling berth and the heated mesh blanket!" Ratchet yelled to First Aid, who immediately returned with the requested items.
The CMO gently picked up Jazz, life support and all, and wrapped him in the mesh blanket and placed him into the hatchling berth. He waited nervously to see if his efforts succeeded.
Jazz's optics were still shut tight as he curled into a ball. For a moment he didn't move, but when he realized things didn't hurt so much anymore, curiosity got the better of him. He shyly opened an optic, saw something shiny on Ratchet's hand, and immediately gave a diminutive growl and reached one hand out for it while his other hand clutched the blanket around himself.
"I think he wants your laser scalpel, sir," First Aid commented, obviously relieved the mechling survived.
Ratchet huffed, returning to his normally grouchy self. "Well he can't have it," he said, retracting the scalpel back into his finger.
When the shiny instrument disappeared, Jazz's bottom lip quivered slightly, and then he burst forth with a surprisingly loud and obnoxious wail.
Ratchet rubbed his nasal plating with his hand and sighed before showing Jazz the laser scalpel again.
The crying immediately stopped and Jazz perked up, optics wide and focused on the shiny instrument, nasal plates twitching slightly.
"See if you can find him something he'll like that's not attached to me, will you?" he asked his assistant.
First Aid returned with a small piece of scrap metal, shiny yet dulled on the edges so the hatchling wouldn't hurt himself.
Ratchet took the metal piece and held it up to Jazz, who was immediately distracted by this new shiny object. He hesitantly extended his arm and poked it before drawing back quickly and flinching. When nothing happened, Jazz poked the piece of metal again and leaned forward to sniff it. Then he suddenly snatched the metal piece from Ratchet and immediately started gnawing on it, completely ignoring everything else around him.
"Isn't he cute?"
Ratchet watched Jazz happily gnaw away on his new toy.
"Om nom nom…"
After a moment he got bored and yawned tiredly. Jazz stopped gnawing on his favorite (and only) possession, and instead curled on his side beneath the blanket, and snuggled against his piece of metal with a smile. He was in recharge within seconds.
It was enough to make anyone melt.
"Eh, I guess."
…except for Ratchet.
'Think he'll be okay?" First Aid asked.
"He should be," Ratchet answered. "Jazz managed to survive emerging prematurely and seems to be doing quite well for such trauma. The hard part is done. He should even be able to live without the life support soon enough, and once he gets through that, he has no major health issues to worry about. Well…except for one."
"What's that?"
"His development will be slowed. He's no longer surrounded by the necessary nutrients that would normally regulate his development. Luckily his processor is more advanced than most hatchlings his age, so that will counterbalance that particular development issue somewhat. His only real problem will be purely physical."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"He's going to be short. Really short."
"How the Pit was that my fault? I was a hatchling, for Primus's sake!" Jazz exclaimed.
"You're the one who ignored him," Ironhide reminded.
"How was I supposed to understand that?"
"You were sentient enough to understand what I told you, not to mention every other hatchling stayed in their sacs until they were supposed to come out," Ratchet replied pointedly.
"That disobedient nature seems to have kept with him too," Prowl commented.
Jazz threw his arms up in defeat and plopped down on the floor. "Did someone name this 'Pick on Jazz' day and not tell me about it?" he asked, exasperated.
"You were a handful, you know," Ratchet glowered. "Couldn't leave you alone for a nanosecond before you got yourself into trouble." He turned to Prowl. "Remember when he first discovered he had a visor?"
Nodding, the black and white mech replied, "Oh, yes. How could I forget that?"
Jazz was finally off life support, and was released from the medbay to live in the nursery where the other hatchlings and sparklings lived.
Unfortunately the nursery bots brought him back three days later because they couldn't handle him.
"He's got way to much energy for a hatchling! He refuses to listen to any of us! We've tried everything!" one of them gasped. "We can't put up with this and take care of the others at the same time."
"But what am I going to do with a hatchling in my medbay?" Ratchet asked, frustrated.
"That's your problem, not mine," the second one said, leaving Jazz on a berth and leaving the medbay.
Ratchet loomed over the tiny mech, glaring. Jazz looked up at him innocently and blinked twice before gurgling happily.
The CMO's expression softened slightly at the cuteness of it.
Woah, Ratchet was smiling. Jazz had never seen the medic with such an expression, and it scared him. Jazz wished he could make it go away somehow. Suddenly, as if answering his plea, Jazz's visor flicked down over his optics.
"Wrrraaaaahhh!"
The hatchling yelped in surprise and rolled backwards, startled by its sudden appearance. He then started screeching and clawing at it.
Ratchet's glare came right back.
"Listen to me, Jazz," he said. "You have control over your visor. Just concentrate on it."
Ignoring the medic, Jazz continued screeching and clawing. When this wasn't working, he went into a frenzied rampage around the room.
Prowl was outside in the corridor when he heard all the racket from the medbay. He decided to investigate it.
The Second in Command didn't bother knocking on the door because he knew Ratchet wouldn't be able to hear it over the noise coming from within.
"What happened in here, exactly?" Prowl asked, voice slightly raised over the screeches. "Isn't he supposed to be in the nursery?"
"They brought him back, saying they couldn't handle him," Ratchet glowered.
"Can't imagine why."
"Hah, yeah…he also conveniently discovered he has a visor right after they dropped him off. It just suddenly covered his optics and he went crazy. I'm not fast enough to catch him, not to mention we have to be careful not to accidentally bump a hatchling sac. I don't want to chance having another hatchling remotely like this one."
"Hmm…" Prowl mused, still calm despite the screaming little mech that was darting across the floor like lightning. "I didn't know he had a visor."
"He obviously didn't either," Ratchet commented dryly.
"Is there anything that he really seems to like that you know of?" the strategist asked, thinking of a plan.
"He likes shiny things, but I already tried that."
"Music?"
"Tried that too. It only made him shriek louder."
"Energon candy?"
"He doesn't realize what it is through his visor."
Prowl paused his questioning to watch Jazz bang his head against a shelf and squeaking each time, trying to get rid of the scary thing over his optics.
"…shouldn't you try to stop that?"
"Why? Maybe he'll knock himself out."
"What good would that do!?"
"It would shut him up."
"Aren't you worried about processor damage?"
"Nope."
When Prowl raised an optic ridge at him, Ratchet replied, "From the look of it, he already has processor damage. A little more wouldn't kill him. Might make him even shorter in the long run, though," the medic added as an afterthought.
The two mechs returned their attention on Jazz, who was now stumbling around dizzily from whacking his head so many times against the shelf.
Prowl decided it would be best to grab him before his energy returned. Or, for that matter, before Ratchet came up with another not-so-great idea.
"Hey, Jazz. Jazz," Ratchet said, bending down to look at him within Prowl's grasp. Jazz only continued clawing at his visor sadly and whimpering, partly from his visor and partly from the large processor ache he now had.
"JAZZ!" Ratchet yelled, startling the mechling into stopping. Ratchet glared at him, and he instantly calmed down slightly. This was a sight he was used to. Familiarity was comfort.
"Listen this time, will you?" Ratchet continued. "You control that visor. You can make it go away whenever you want. Just concentrate on it."
Jazz sniffed, arms dangling at his sides while Prowl still held him. Then his face tightened in concentration, and suddenly, his visor retracted with a fwip.
Jazz blinked in surprise, then tried to bring it back.
Fwip.
Giggling, Jazz started rapidly lowering and retracting his visor.
Fwip. Fwip. Fwip. Fwip.
Ratchet only groaned in response.
"Wow. You were an idiot back then, Jazz," Ironhide said, snickering.
"Not much has changed," Ratchet added dryly.
Jazz gave up arguing and continued to pout on the floor.
Ratchet and Ironhide kept joking and making fun of the saboteur, and even Prowl managed to get a few witty comments in.
"Remember the day he discovered his own reflection?"
"I don't know which is funnier…when he discovered it or when he tried to attack it!"
"And remember when he managed to crawl into Teletraan-I's computer system?"
"That was a nightmare to fix."
The three mechs continued sharing memories and laughing at the saboteur's expense. Finally it seemed as if Jazz had enough of them and he got up to leave.
"Where'ya goin, Jazz?" Ironhide asked, still laughing at the latest joke.
"Back to my room. Come get me when 'Make Fun of Jazz Day' is over."
"But that's every day!"
Jazz continued to his room, grumbling to himself as the laughter echoed in the corridor. He got made fun of just because he was short. Sure, he made fun of Ironhide because he's trigger happy, and Ratchet because he's grouchy…but they could control those! Jazz couldn't control his height! And their jokes about him not being able to adapt weren't true at all. He found ways to get around quite well.
He groaned when he finally reached his door. "Not this again…" he mumbled to himself, glaring up at the keypad lock.
"Who stole my step ladder again?!?"
I don't know how much I like this ending, but no better ideas struck me.
If you have a better idea for the end of this story (or at least this chapter, if you all insist that I continue), please let me know and with your permission I will use it. :)