overall warnings: oddness and supernatural implications

further warnings for this story: more supernatural implications than usual...

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Were-Cars Diptych Five: Full Moon

Story One: Kinks

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They'd all talked about this before. Many times since leaving Cybertron and its chains behind. Within a month of landing on Earth the subject had been brought up, then settled once again:

Earth's moon did not affect them.

Which was a complete load of slag, Jazz thought as he contemplated his claws.

Truthfully ... he didn't hold the mistake against them. None of them had been sparked as shapeshifters and they'd left Cybertron long ago - long enough to forget that the forced change was only the most obvious of the moons' effects, that most of those effects were much subtler.

Thus the four other Autobots ignored what Jazz knew.

Right now Ratchet and Ironhide were verbally attacking each other. They saw it as no different than they're normal fighting, but Jazz also knew that before the night was out they would end up fighting or interfacing (or both) and there was the possibility that Ratchet rather than Ironhide would be their Third come morning.

(Honestly - Ratchet and Ironhide switched ranks so often, it barely affected the group dynamics anymore when they did.)

Optimus paced, agitated, and fustrated that he couldn't figure out why he was agitated. Jazz could easily see the mech their leader had been before the war in him - Orion's selective disbelief had only changed from a general disbelief in shapeshifters to a more specific disbelief in shapeshifters' supernatural aspects.

Bumblebee slunk around the base avoiding them all. Jazz couldn't blame him - they were all spoiling for a fight. And while in the no-rule fighting of Autobot vs Decepticon 'Bee was as tough a warrior as could be, he was no match for the others in the dominance/submission challenges of intra-track politics.

Outwardly, Jazz was the calmest, the least affected. He crouched in the desert, still as a stone statue looking up into the moonlight.

Inwardly, he really, really wanted to race.

Too bad it wan't going to happen. Jazz wasn't sure Ironhide had realized it yet, but the black mech had submitted to him barely a minute after moonrise. Jazz had known exactly what he was doing when he'd submitted to Optimus only ten minutes after that. Maybe if he hadn't, he could have raced Prime - nothing said he had to win the race - but challenging their First (wether the fragger acknowledged the title after all this time or not, that's what he was) after submitting was just inviting trouble. And Optimus would insist on being annoyingly contrite about hurting Jazz when the sun rose in the morning.

Bumblebee, who was Jazz's usual racing partner, wasn't even worth considering tonight. Poor 'Bot would only stall out in panic at the thought of racing the Second under a full moon.

If Jazz ever admitted to a reason to miss Cybertron, this would be it: the moons' obvious effects had left no room for confusion.

He was, well not happy they weren't going back, but that was for those who did miss their planet. He didn't miss Cybertron. There was nothing left on Cybertron for him to miss.

To Jazz, Cybertron was inprisonment and enslavement in Kaon, the shattering of the life he'd built after in Iacon, the War.

Redline dying.

Prowl ... well, yes, Jazz might have gone back for Prowl and the twins, but they'd left too, the First and enforcers of their own small track, same as Optimus's "team". And Prowl, of any were-car First who had ever commanded a Track of his own, would answer the Prime's call. If he was alive.

So he contented himself to waiting. Their restlessness under Earth's moon would smooth out - either as they settled into the patterns of their new planet, or as more Autobots arrived and a more formal Track structure was needed.

Tonight ...

Tonight the moonlight itself pressed against his plating like a physical pressure. The Earth's most basic energies positively sang with the forces Jazz had been taught to name Primus and Unicron - or more universally, simply Order and Chaos. Humans had their own names for these energies and, this being their planet and all, those were probably more accurate.

Every planet had its own energies, its own cycles. Earth was just the only one they'd landed on whose energies and legends had so closely matched Cybertron's. The Allspark's influence, or so Mikaela had thought.

Unlike Cybertron, though, Earth's was ruled not just by her lunar cycle, but by her solar cycle as well. Which made the energies ebb and flow and converge differently from month to month. Tonight was the full moon of the Hunter's Moon. Every predator was active tonight, looking for prey before winter set in. And while were-cars weren't predators like werewolves were said to be, the energies spoke to the alien shapeshifters just the same.

That was what Optimus and the others didn't understand, caught up as they were in the rational explanations of reprogrammed self-repair systems and extra coding irreversibly added to central processors (as though this gift was only a virus!). The moons meant slag. What mattered was the energy - its effect on a mech's spark energy was what made a shapeshifter a shapeshifter. Primus and Unicron (wether one believed them to be gods or opposing energy flows) didn't care about their shells. They only touched their sparks, and when that happened their shells followed suit.

So sure, Jazz didn't have any predator instincts for the Hunter's Moon to touch, but he really, really wanted to race. Motionless as he sat in the desert, he nearly vibrated with the effort it took to not go Challenge Optimus. Consequences be damned.

There was a sudden shift in energy - a being less in tune with their own energies than Jazz was would have interpreted it as a slight change in the wind - and a barest hint of vibration against preternaturally sensitive audios, which had Jazz transformed and speeding across the desert almost before the thought occurred to him.

He came close to the city. A wolf pack ran through the scrub brush and Jazz could feel the energy fields of a were-car track driving of the joy of it - a werewolf pack.

This ... was probably not a good idea. But Jazz was beyond caring as he zipped over to intercept the wolves.

The Lead wolf brought the pack to a halt as Jazz approached. Jazz himself stopped at what his were-car programming/instincts said was a polite distance. The wolf, a scarred individual with black fur turning grey around the muzzle, stepped forward, bristling and growling, ears folded backward and tail up.

The wolf was beautifully expressive and Jazz could never hope to match that in his car form. Still he tried, backing away from the Lead wolf at exactly the same pace as the werewolf advanced - just as he would when faced with the First of a were-car track whom he didn't want to challenge.

The wolf stopped, flicking his ears in confusion. Jazz tried to sink lower on his suspension, thinking Please - just for the night. Then the old wolf growled and Jazz was surrounded by the the pack, all rubbing against him and against each other.

When they backed away, the Lead wolf howled, a clear sound that sent shivers through both Jazz's audios and spark. The other wolves joined in the song and, lost to the gathering energy, Jazz joined them. The low growl of his engine was a strange juxtaposition to the higher pitched howls.

They ran, and this time Jazz drove with them across the desert.

It wasn't a race. The wolves weren't even running at a speed Jazz would normally find even mildly entertaining. But swept up in driving with a pack of shapeshifters in harmony, he didn't care.

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The full moon came and went without any real effect on the Autobot base. Optimus was still in denial, and kept himself busy with continuing to work out the specifics of their agreements with the human governments. Bumblebee had gone to pick up Sam and Mikaela - the three of them had scrapped together the money to buy a couple of copies of a new X-Box game and were itching to try it on multi-player.

Ratchet was now their Third, but that was hardly anything new and would switch again in few months anyway.

Usually Jazz would have joined Bumblebee and the kids, or annoyed Ratchet until the medic was ready to rip out his radio systems just to get him to shut up. Today though, he felt calmer than he had in a while and just wanted to lay outside "sunning" himself. And listen to his radio.

Late in the afternoon, he noticed he was being watched.

The man was tall and (if Jazz had learned anything about judging human age) older than any of the soldiers assigned to the Autobots. His black hair was starting to turn grey in streaks.

He was familiar somehow but Jazz had never seen him before in his life.

He was about to (gently) remind the human that this was military property when a step closer made the man's energy field scrape against Jazz's. The were-car stiffened a bit in surprise.

"Thought so."

"How did you find-?" Jazz managed to choke out, otherwise speechless. Jazz was never speechless.

The werewolf grinned, a toothy, clever expression. "On your own, you smell enough like a car that I probably couldn't track your scent, but you mixed scents with us last night. You might as well have just put an X on a map."

A half-second internet search told Jazz that canines in general and wolves in particular, were known for a keen sense of smell. He shrugged. "Didn't think of that. Mostly, that ain't a sense that's all that useful t' us - we all smell like cars, like you said."

The werewolf stepped forward. This time - during the day, on the Autobots' territory, and thinking clearly - Jazz didn't back down. He didn't challenge the werewolf either; just neutrally held his ground. "Now that I'm here, I can tell you've got a Pack of your own. Why weren't you running with them last night?"

"We're just a lil new here," Jazz wasn't going to expose his track's problems and politics to a stranger. Not even a stranger who might actually understand. "Heard your howling and next I knew, I was trying t' drive with you for the night. It won't happen again."

"I wouldn't mind it happening again..." the tone was inviting. The wolf was starting overtures to invite a new member to his pack.

"Won't." Jazz asserted. "And First wouldn't be too happy with you trying t' steal his Second."

This time the werewolf started in surprise. "I'm sorry. I thought ..." ... he was a newly built or newly infected looking for a new track, Jazz's mind filled in the blank.

Granted he'd done a good impression of it last night, so he didn't take offense, but he wasn't going to explain why either. "We're working out the kinks."

"I can see that." The werewolf backed away, managing to retreat without submitting. "When you do, have your Alpha introduce your pack to us. I want to know who I'm sharing a border with."

"Sure thing."

With a nod goodbye, the man transformed and a black-furred wolf just starting to turn grey around the muzzle loped away.

Next month, Jazz was going to goad Optimus into racing with him before submitting. Just see if he didn't.

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End: Kinks

AN: This was the very first sidestory to WereCars I wrote, somewhere around the time that I was writing chapter four or five of the main story. This, honestly, is how I was thinking of Cybertronian Shapeshifters, and still do. Other characters - like Pre-Infection Prowl - had different views and experiences than Rhythm/Jazz and it never came through in that story.