Hi folks, got a short one here today.

First, I would like to say that the long, involved detailing of the femme culture actually came from my attempts at discerning why a genderless society would isolate an entire frametype when no other frametype was treated thus. I could think of no logical reason but the one I gave in the last chapter. Even were I to place it in the context of a bigendered society it did not answer the issue, in fact it made the whole Autobot cause seem very sexist.

Second, I had a great time in this chapter with the speech of Perceptor. His enormous vocab was a delightful way for me to show the expansive reaches of my own vocabulary in a way that other people could enjoy. I actually used to speak just like our beloved microscope and have been the recipient of many blank "whut u say?" looks.

Lastly, As pointed out by RagdolDark this story no longer fulfils the original summary. When I first began writing this ficlet I intended for it to be a short, maybe 5 chapters, story about Jazz hating Prowl but eventually coming to love him. However, around chapter 3-4 the plotbunny took a wide turn into left field and has stayed there ever since. I also got so submerged in writing the chapters that I completely forgot I even had a summary. There will eventually be Prowl/Jazz, but the bunny keeps giving me world development and character development material instead. So, to reflect the current storyline the summary has been changed. Many thanks to RagdolDark for pointing this out and thanks to all my other stellar reviewers for their feedback.

Chapter 10:

"Leave them alone!"

Nine colossal heads turned to identify the interloper who would dare interfere with their fun. To their endless amusement it was a little yellow minibot. The ringleader's mirth made him feel magnanimous so he did not flatten the brazen mech, yet. "Oh? And why should we? Are you planning to defend them minibot?"

Bumblebee drew himself up to his full height, which sadly was only barely to the shortest lugnut's waist, and replied, "If I have to."

The group of ruffians got so tickled by the thought of this tiny mech trying to do anything against them that they neglected to notice the mecha approaching to back up the brave mini.

"Indeed, it would be most unwise of you to further attempt to propagate this prejudice against diminutive individuals and should you continue your machinations I am afraid that chastisement will be your guerdon." The entire gathering, minibot and cassettes included, stared at the new speaker, dumbfounded by the incomprehensible speech. They knew that his words were probably Cybertronian, but the meaning was lost upon them. The bullies guessed that it was most likely a series of geek-ified insults and chose to take offense. They began to encroach upon the smallish red mech's personal space with much intended malice.

They froze however, when they noticed his companion. A grey and white mech with red and green accents adorned with a round blast mask and… glowing headfins. A spike of fear drove its way through their sparks completely nullifying all thoughts of defenseless drones, annoying minibots, or presumptuous nerds with overly large vocabularies. Instead, they could only focus on the Unamused™ visage of a seriously irritated Altihexian. An Altihexian that was known base-wide as Wheeljack, Master of Accidental Explosions and Chief Munitions Officer. Not someone to tangle with unless one wanted to lose a limb… or three.

Suddenly, picking on the little drones did not sound as fun as it had earlier. They made mumbled excuses about not really meaning anything by their actions and scurried off. The cassettes vented a collective sigh of relief and turned to thank the bigger mechs.

"Thanks for sticking up for us. Those glitch-helms can't seem to get it through their processors that we aren't drones and they are constantly picking at us." said Steeljaw.

"That is preposterous," exclaimed the red mech, a microscope barrel on his shoulder flexing its focusing lens in an expression of his outrage, "Your sentience is categorical as evidenced by your self preservation reaction to the persecution rather than the drone response of automatic compliance."

Again, a round of blank stares greeted the science mech's statement. Wheeljack however, was doubled over giggling at the communication breakdown. The red microscope realized he was not getting through and turned on the laughing engineer. "Wheeljack, translate."

The Altihexian managed to calm his laughter down from the gasps it had devolved into and did as asked. "'E means ya willin'ness to fight fo' ya'selves shows ya all got sparks."

"Ooooh!" came the foursome chorus of understanding.

"Well why didn't he just say that?" Rewind asked.

"He did," answered Wheeljack. "Perceptor just doesn't know how to speak without using multisyllabic words."

Four more understanding nods. The cassettes then turned and thanked Bumblebee too. He looked down embarrassed and told them not to worry about it. Then something occurred to him and he looked at the bigger mechs. "Aren't you two officers? Shouldn't you be in the ornly meeting right now?"

Wheeljack looked chagrinned, "Yeah, but we were sent out to get energon for the meeting 'cuz the dispensers in the officers' lounge 'r all broken."

Perceptor, who had been sulking over the previous teasing, took this as an opportunity to get in a jab of his own. "They are 'broken', Wheeljack, because you concluded it would be a stupendous ponderation to postulate that the dispensors' outputs could be aggrandized and used the actual devices in your verification instead of facsimiles."

No one laughed, mostly because they could not understand what the scientist had said. The engineer could see Perceptor's hurt and so he translated, thus outing himself. "He said that I tried to make the dispensers make moar ena'gon an' they blew up."

"Oh." Again, understanding. The envisioned spectacle made them want to snigger, but these were officers, so they held their mirth in. After a few more moments of chatting, the five small mechs offered to help carry the loads of energon. The two officers gladly accepted and off the group went.

o0o::o0o::o0o

When Blaster saw his minimechs troop in carrying the staff's energon his spark swelled with pride. They looked so adorable when they handed each officer a cube with a cheerful grin and greeting. He also got the nagging feeling that they were hiding something from him because there were moments where they seemed a bit too cheerful. Hmm… There would be words had later, for now he needed to focus on the meeting.

o0o::o0o::o0o

After dropping off the fuel, Bumblebee escorted the cassettes back to their quarters just to make sure there would be no more bullying attempts. When they arrived at the door they thanked him again and the minibot took the opportunity to make a suggestion that had been percolating in his meta since the bullies ran off. "Hey, I'm not sure if it would be something you're interested in, but I have a plan of revenge that might teach those fraggers to check for sentience before acting foolish."

The predatory grins would have made even the most hardened Decepticon quake.

o0o::o0o::o0o

The Meeting from the Pit was finally… over. Perhaps if Jazz were slightly less overcharged he would not have minded so much, but then he would recall the sermon-monologue that served as Prowl's status report. Yeah, it was a bad meeting all around. Someone really needed to vet that mech's speeches before he accidentally bored the masses to deactivation. Keeping to the facts was one thing, droning on until mecha were contemplating ripping out their audial assemblies was just cruel and sparkless. Thus Sayeth Jazz the Overcharged.

However, now that the mandatory ornly torture session was over, the Polyhexian was headed straight to Medbay for an overcharge fix. Then he was going to go to a stint in Comms with his favorite music mix blasting in the background for therapy.

It was during this 'therapy' that Jazz found his mind drifting back once more to the black and white winger. He remembered that the first time he saw the Praxian up close it had crossed through his processor that black and white really set off a doorwinged frame in a rather sexy way. His voice was nice to listen to as well, it had this midrange bass resonance that could give rise to all sorts of nice thoughts, until one actually listened to what Prowl was saying. The sheer dryness of the spoken content could shatter even the most hard-core voice addict's fantasies, and all without even the slightest effort on the tactician's part.

It was rather sad, Jazz thought, Prowl was doorwinger yumminess with the voice of a god, but his complete lack of visible personality, or even emotion, ruined all that entirely. The mech really needed to get out of his office for some social development. This thought reminded him that he had never finished implementing his plan to loosen up the stick-afted SIC. Well… He would just have to remedy that. He had plenty of time now, what with Comms being far less labor intensive than Medical and the femmes aiding his investigation. Jazz now had enough processor space to designate a few threads to the stiff Praxian.

He would contemplate his options for the rest of his shift.

o0o::o0o::o0o

::Have you acquainted yourself with the target yet?::

::He was sucked into an Officer's meeting first thing and then he was in Comms for the remainder of the orn. I am staking out his usual commissary now and I will attract his notice when he comes for his dark-cycle energon.::

::Very well, we need to hurry though, Lord Megatron does not do well with unnecessary delays.::

::Someone should have told Soundwave that, it's his fault after all.::

::Yes, well, nothing that can be done about that now… Good luck my love.::

::Thanks, I love you too.::

o0o::o0o::o0o

Highgrade burned off quickly. Despite its ultra refined nature it was low density and artificially supercharged. It took roughly six highgrades to equal the mass of a single midgrade, which meant a mech's systems were actually processing less energon despite the increased cube consumption. Also the extra charge made it impossible for the excess energy to be stored in the reserves. This was the cause of the 'overcharged' state that most drunks suffered from and also for the hyperactive, happy feeling that made drinking so enjoyable. However, when the charge wore off, the affected mech's body did not get the memo right away and would begin to burn through the reserves at an accelerated rate to maintain the previous level of energy. The final result would be an exhausted, extremely hungry mech who felt like a steamroller had just passed over him.

To all of this Jazz could attest its truth.

He hurt.

He was tired.

And if he did not get a cube soon he might vamp someone.

It was for this reason that Jazz forewent trudging to usual rec room over by Medical and slogged his way to nearer one next to Tactical. The short jaunt was uneventful and the line at the dispensers was short. The Polyhexian took his ration to-go and retreated to his room.

There was another data crystal on his berth.

During the celebration yesterorn he had found himself in the company of Solaris for the majority of its duration. Trough their conversation Jazz had discovered that the triplechanger had a very dry, devious sense of humor and a penchant for theatrics. In *his own words, "If you can distract your enemy with a flare of overdramatics then he will place his focus on you and not notice when your partner fleeces him clean."

And this entire enterprise of leaving datacrystals embedded with cryptic messages lying in obviously out of place locations, definitely fell into that category. Peeved that Solaris was able to bypass his room's security so easily, the saboteur ignored the crystal. Instead, he checked in with his teammates. "Yo 'Bee, Ah heard ya nearleh got run ova' by some goons in tha rec room earleh this light-cycle."

The minibot rolled his optics and generously shared an exasperated grimace. "Yeah, a bunch of the frontliners and gunners were picking on the cassettes. No one else was stepping up for them so, I did."

"Ya weren't worried 'bout blowin' ya cover?"

"At that moment, no. All I could see were their scared faces and all I could think about was protecting them at all costs. They were so terrified, the big mechs were telling them that they would be pulled apart and smelted slowly until their spark chambers ruptured. How could I not step in? The cassettes are barely second stage younglings and they were being told that they would be tortured to death for the crime of refusing to allow the bigger mecha to steal their energon!"

Jazz's face became very dark. "Were tha soldiers serious 'bout their threats?"

Bumblebee recognized the look on his leader's faceplates and silently approved of the fate that would soon overtake the errant mecha. "Yes sir, they were. If questioned, they will undoubtedly insist that they thought the cassettes were drones, but they kept referencing to the little mechs' sparks. Those heavies knew what they were doing."

"Then they will be dealt wit'."

Bumblebee took satisfaction in that resolute statement, but then he remembered what he had discussed with the cassettes earlier. "Um, maybe give us a few orns before you do that. The bitty mechs and I have plans for them first."

Jazz grinned, his lighter side coming to the fore. "Oh? N' ya gonna share these unholy designs wit' ya eva' fait'ful leader?"

Bumblebee just grinned back.

The saboteur shook his helm and changed the subject. "So, where's 'Raj? Ah haven't been able ta see 'im yet this orn for an update, usually he's here by now."

The yellow minibot's optics suddenly became sparkly with mischief. "Our dear noble had finally stepped off of his pedestal and made peace with 'the Green One.' They have spent the last orn getting to know one another via comm an their conversations have become downright friendly, if you take my meaning."

"Oh really?" replied the Polyhexian, his own countenance showing his utter enjoyment of this development. "Well, we'll jus' haveta give'em a nudge now n' then ta keep 'em goin' in tha right direction. Ah think they both deserve som happiness n' if they c'n find tha' wit' each otha' then its all good."

"I agree. So, are you ever going to look at that data crystal? I have been waiting for over a joor for you to get back and open that thing."

Jazz looked down and considered whether he had pouted long enough. Deciding he had and that propriety was satisfied, he loaded the crystal into a spare pad. Thankfully, the message was very simple and not the series of riddles that the last had been. It read, -:-As promised, all the information we possess is being turned over to you for your investigation. However, we felt that this would still not be enough, so we cleared it through Blackshot to have one of our mecha added to your team. This addition possesses unique skills that will be useful to your mission, and since he is our Anchor, he is also a direct line to our information network. He will arrive at your quarters on the mark of the fourth joor of the dark-cycle. –Solaris, the Dark Queen.-:-

Jazz looked up and Bumblebee was staring at him expectantly. The saboteur started giggling, the minibot looked like he was sitting on cogs and ball-bearings with the way he was struggling not to fidget.

"Well?" the little Iaconian demanded impatiently.

When Jazz managed to stifle his snickers, he relayed the message, "They're assignin' a femme directly to tha team. *He'll be here in'a few kliks."

"What!" Bumblebee exclaimed, "But the room's a mess!"

The yellow mech immediately jumped up and began to scurry around cleaning up the mess the three of them had left during their overcharged entry that morning. He stopped after a moment and glared at his leader, "Come on! We have to get this place cleaned up. First impressions are everything and we can't have our new member thinking we're slobs, they'll lose respect for us!"

Jazz started chuckling again, but dutifully helped clean. Mirage showed up a short time later and was railroaded into picking up too by the Taskmaster Mini. It was a good thing too, for as the last item was put away the doorchime range. The Central Cityite and the Iaconian arranged themselves around the room trying to affect an air of nonchalance and professionalism while the Polyhexian rolled his unseen optics.

"Are we settled?" Jazz asked. Twin nods answered him so he opened the door.

-tbc-