Welcome to the next chapter where Jazz prays to Primus, Prowl refuses to be intimidated and Sunstreaker has a bad night _

Jazz Could just go straight up and ask Prowl but who did that? Nah, it was much more fun to find things out on his own. Twins were tougher than he thought. Bluestreak was literally no help because he and Prowl shared zero prior history apart from both of them being Praxian.

This left personal records. After trading a couple of shifts around Jazz managed getting a decent quiet evening shift to root about in personnel files.

Sure, it was not entirely legal for unauthorised personnel Buuut... A little cassette had whispered to him that they were looking for a mole in the precinct and what better way to contribute to investigation than look for discrepancies in the files of the newcomers?

Jazz scrolled through the list, he had to be quick; evening shifts were quiet but there were still mecha around.

Landing on a glyph '∏', Jazz kept scrolling; Perceptor, Pipes, Polaris… who even was that?... Prowl, bingo.

He plugged a prepped data pad into the terminal and drummed fingers lightly on the polished surface of the console while waiting for the file download to complete.

Jazz frowned a little when it took longer than expected. This was unusual, was Prowl's dossier that extensive?

Faint pedesteps approached from the corridor leading to the personnel archives, Jazz stopped drumming and very carefully unplugged the datapad before the download was complete. He checked his inner chronometer - too early for hourly night patrol of the office and those steps were too quiet to be Nigtbeat's and too light to be Sunstreaker's. Was somemech else in the building that he hadn't accounted for?

He peered up at the vent cover and soundlessly hopped on one of the archive drives. A shadow passed before one of the corridor lights just at the entrance of the archive. Slag that quick mech, if whoever they were would continue at that pace Jazz would be soon found out.

There was no time for hiding in vents - too loud at this distance. Jazz huffed and pulled himself up the structure support beam instead. Visor on lowest setting, he leant against the concrete bars, hiding most of his frame within the shadow cast by the structure. If he was lucky the newcomer would not even glance up. They rarely did…

The pedesteps stopped before they entered the range in which Jazz could see. He had to strain his audials to have any clue of who the newcomer was or what they were doing. The mech was hesitant to approach for some reason.

Were they scanning? Because if they were, Jazz was well and truly slagged. His proximity cloaking was still standard issue, no thanks to Red Alert, and his presence could be detected by fellow enforcers who had a mod of a higher tier.

-"Hello?"

Jazz swore to himself - Praxians were surely to be his undoing. Out of all mecha it just Had to be Prowl. Anyone else he would have had enough rapport with to let this slide but Prowl was his superior and a hard-aft rule-abiding one at that.

Jazz bit his lip and waited, schooling his systems to remain calm. In a way it felt as if he was on a mission all over again. Prowl was another mech he had to get away from - the only difference being that he could not attack his superior in defense. Diversion was also out of question because Then Prowl would go into pursuit mode and those could get ugly very quickly.

Ironhide had gotten on their SIC's bad side once about the internal workings of the precinct. Prowl had gone to investigate who was responsible for leaving empty dirty energon cubes on top of the office dispenser.

Blaster agreed that it was probably both a demonstration of power and immense boredom. Yet, the resulting hot-on-tracks chase and the standoff between the relatively petite Prowl and heavily-armored Ironhide was something to be saved and savored.

Prowl came to stand in front of the terminal, doorwings splayed wide. Before doing anything else he glanced over his shoulder, scanning the area where Jazz was hiding. Seemingly satisfied with what he had or hadn't seen, he went ahead to check the terminal. Luckily not the one Jazz had been using but if he drew up activity logs…

Doorwings shot up, Jazz groaned inwardly, yep, he'd looked at the activity logs alright. The Praxian rummaged about his chassis for a bit and ...

Whoa! Prowl didn't play around.

Gun unholstered, the SIC quietly crept along the side of the archive terminal. Doorwings rigid but resting just below his shoulder struts - out of the harm's way in case of direct confrontation.

Jazz had not accounted for a thorough sweep. His hideout worked because of where Prowl stood at that moment but he could be easily spotted if someone looked up at a wrong angle. This meant that he would have to move With Prowl on high alert just below. Somehow balancing over a tub full of scraplets was a far more desirable experience.

But move Jazz did, in sync with the SIC below. Treading softly, he clung to shadows, running his proximity jammers for all they were worth.

-"I know you are here."

Jazz reverted to religion and gave a short prayer to Pimus. Prowl had spoken in direction which was definitely Jazz-free but that might not be the case for much longer.

Then he got an idea. An absurdly stupid idea which was likely to land him into some kind of trouble along the way but pit was it worth a try.

He pinged Prowl's emergency line which he was sure would come through.

::Hey mech, 'm sorry ta bother ya so late but are ya up ta sum friendly chat in th' off-hours?::

It was comical to see Prowl's body language in response to Improper off-hours messagingTM.

Doorwings shot up in indignation and then lowered swiftly, a small groan of annoyance.

::Is this a code name for an emergency situation?::

Glib answers were the best to piss off Prowl.

::Na mech, oh, Oh, aw mech. This ain't th' right line::

Prowl did not reply but he did stop and Jazz could clearly hear him grumble "Idiot" under his breath.

Jazz grinned and started retreating to the entrance, making sure the shadows still worked in his favor.

::But since ah 'ave woken ya up, would ya be int'rested?::

Prowl stopped once again and Jazz used this temporary bafflement to hop down from the support structure.

:: This is hardly the time, please refrain from contacting me on this line outside of an emergency situation.::

Prowl still hadn't moved and Jazz used this to angle his way outside through the archive entrance that Prowl had left open.

::Gotcha.::

Once safely out, Jazz stopped, swiveled around and leant against the wall next to the archive entrance; Prowl was likely to spend some more time in there looking for the intruder but eventually he would go out. Aand, whilst Jazz did not have archive clearance he was supposed to be in office, Prowl, however, wasn't and that was as good a blackmail material as any. So Jazz checked on that precious datapad in his subspace and waited for the Praxian to exit.

About ten clicks later Prowl stormed through the Archive door and locked it behind him.

-"Why 'ello there."

Prowl jolted, obviously surprised, he had subspaced his gun though. Pushing himself off the wall and effectively into Prowl's path, Jazz used his slight height difference to give him a smirk. Doorwings canted back politely but stayed rigid, indicative of wariness.

-"Can I help you?"

-"Nah, jus' wond'rin' whatcha doin' 'ere this late."

Jazz stretched but made no attempt of clearing Prowl's path.

-" I am not obliged to report to you and you are effectively in my way. Is this behavior meant to intimidate me or is it an awkward way of flirting?"

Prowl's words could give a mech a frostbite, well, no beating around the bush then.

-"Neith'r really, jus' wond'rin' why ya still 'ere."

-"If you find your shift so uneventful that you have the time to wonder about schedules of other mecha and 'comm me on a frequency reserved for emergencies, I am certain I could find something for you to do."

Jazz bit down the natural retort. Working next to Prowl was likely to be boring as slag yet an excellent opportunity to study him.

-"Actually, ah wouldna mind."

Prowl reset his optics, eyeing Jazz as he sometimes eyed the twins - in anticipation of a prank.

Jazz kept his faceplate neutral and posture loose.

-"Alright." Prowl closed his optics and pinched his nasal ridge while drawing in a vent -" I want you to study the video feed of tonight's Archive recording."

-"Anythin' particular ya lookin' fo'?"

-"Anyone entering or leaving apart from myself."

Jazz nodded, there went his seamless plan. Keeping the proverbial stiff upper lip, Jazz nodded. He had hoped that it would be something along the lines of rewriting his reports, he rather wished it was something like that.

-"Oh, and when you are done with that - I want you to look through your reports. I have annotated the places that need more attention."

-"Yessir!" Jazz straightened in an awkward salute and asked for a permission to leave.

Jazz could not believe that he was going through the security feed in which he was the prime suspect. Luckily he had been careful enough to avoid cameras but some mech else hadn't.

The frame was strangely similar to Steeljaw in that it was a quadrupedal and rather small.

Was that the reason Prowl's file was downloading slower? Someone was downloading it in sync with Jazz!

And if Prowl had locked the door the intruder should have still remained in the Archive!

::Prowl! Ah got somethin'!::

::This better be an emergency.::

Jazz sent him the snapshots of what he'd found.

::Archive, Now, code yellow.::

Jazz unholstered his own gun and headed down to the archive. Prowl was already there, standard riot shield on. After signaling readiness they unlocked the door, Prowl taking lead and entering the room to stand just a bit further than the doorway and Jazz covering him.

There was no movement to be registered, no sound either, then they heard a shot being fired and out of the blue a small rocket went past Prowl's shield and exploded against the doorframe behind him. Prowl grunted, axing his doorwings down to protect them from the burnt of the explosion. Through the smoke Jazz noticed something black and silver whizz past him and into the hall and gave it chase.

::He headin' to transport decks, Sunny on intercept.::

::The slagger Bit me!:: Came a moment later from the golden riot.

::'s long as ya got 'im attached.::

This time there was no response, and no response from a bitten Sunstreaker...

Jazz sped up and saw the golden frame on the floor, leaking energon from neck tubing.

::Ratch, need ya down by the transport decks.::

There was a ping of confirmation and Jazz knelt by the leaking riot, attempting to slow the energon loss by pressing the cables together.

Prowl arrived only moments later, looking at Sunstreaker, then Jazz and rushing past them towards the transport decks.

There was a noise of a couple of shots fired and then nothing.

-"Prowl?!" Jazz called out after their newly-appointed SIC, hoping had not met the same fate as Sunstreaker.

Moments later the mech in question returned from the deck area, holstering a rifle and unsubspacing a data pad. Jazz gaped - first gun, now a rifle, was he a walking armory? Then again, Prowl Had rocket launchers mounted on his back, so there was that. Clearly their little visitor had escaped but the mech was calm like Pious Pools.

-"I'm fine, how is he?"

Busy with Sunstreaker's lines, Ratchet grumbled but it seemed like it was not the "I'm losing him" sort of grumble. -"Jazz, get a gunrey, Prowl, I'll need you to open doors for me."

Once Sunstreaker was safely in the medbay, Jazz went to Prowl's office. The mech was sp mesmerised by the datapad and didn't acknowledge Jazz's arrival at once, so naturally Jazz went to Prowl's desk and leant over his shoulder to look at what had captivated their SIC's attention so completely.

A small glowing dot moved down the map through the area Jazz knew was out of their precinct already.

-"Nice. Tho, quick lil' slagger."

Prowl sighed a little and pushed away from his table, effectively bopping Jazz in his mid-section with the back or his chair in an unspoken reminder of personal space limits and that Prowl actually had them.

-"He has help. No quadruped can travel at a speed of a seeker."

By the morning Jazz had managed raking up as many snapshots of their mysterious visitor as possible. On his way to Prowl's office he did a small detour through medbay to see if Sunstreaker was in any state to tell them anything.

Sideswipe and Bluestreak were already hovering in the corridor at the entrance but apparently they had come too soon. Ratchet informed them that Sunstreaker remained in deep stasis for his repairs to integrate.

Slightly disappointed, Jazz pinged Prowl with an unnecessary update just to annoy him.

::Prowl?::

No response,

::Prowler?::

Still nothing.

Oh, this was serious; Jazz headed to the SIC's office immediately. Prowl Always answered unless… He peered inside and almost laughed, the Praxian sat leant back in his chair, doorwings lax, optics shuttered, a slight snore coming out of his intakes. He was almost adorable like this, such a shame to wake him up…

Jazz tiptoed around his superior's chair and whispered into his audial.

-"Pro~owl."

Those pretty doorwings twitched and then everything else went to slag, Jazz found himself flying mid-way through the air and landing painfully on his back, being pinned down at the gunpoint.

-"Just what do you think you are doing?"

-"Mech!" Jazz lifted his hands up -"Reportin' mah findin's"

Prowl lowered his gun and extended his hand to help Jazz up.

-"Jus' how long 'ave ya been 'ere?"

-"Clearly not long enough to teach mecha to knock before entering."

-"Mech, ya know what ah meant." Jazz leveled Prowl with a serious look and sure enough, those doorwings went up defensively.

-"I'm your commanding officer."

-"Yer shift's ova." Jazz parried and was met with a glare.

-"P'haps ya could go hom'n, recharge prop'ly? Ya ain' gettin' mo' done like dis."

-"An officer was attacked and data was stolen within our precinct. I can't just go home, Jazz. This is my responsibility."

Jazz crossed arms over his chassis and tilted his helm to the side.

-"So ya recharge 'ere 'nstead?"

-"I had not intended to fall into recharge." Prowl amended, looking ashamed of himself. -"And if I recall correctly, your shift had ended groons ago."

Jazz smirked, seems like they were starting to tread on some common ground. -" 't ain't only on yer shoulders, mech."

Yay! I squeezed my buttcheeks together to get this out.