AN: I think it's safe to say that my attempt at daily updates this month has been an epic fail. XD Today's chapter will be uploaded later.

Towerling

Chapter 21

Repeat

War was a vicious cycle.

With each day that passed, Mirage steadily became more and more aware that a quick resolution wouldn't be found. Megatron and his Decepticons continued to push their campaign across Cybertron, becoming more violent with each new city they took and leaving fewer refugees to seek the Autobots' aid. When the Autobot forces began to take back some of the provinces the Decepticons had taken, the Decepticons seemed to rally around their charismatic leader and push back twice as hard.

Push and pull—that was the motion that described both sides' efforts to combat the other. At one point, Mirage had even begun to question if the Autobots were any better than the Decepticons. There were many Autobots he encountered that thrived on the violence as much as the Decepticons did, justifying why they bombed a small city to drive out Decepticons or executed a mech begging for his life.

However, Mirage met many other Autobots who, while violent in some way, genuinely opposed the direction the Decepticon movement had taken. Jazz was a constant companion to Mirage, even as the smaller mech began to rise through the ranks, and proved time and again that his spark was good despite the actions he was required to do. Mechs like Hound, a former guide for Cybertron's more exotic regions, and Hoist, a soft-spoken mech who usually offset Ratchet's abrasive personality in the med-bay, proved to be of the same character.

Mirage questioned mechs like Sunstreaker, one-half of a set of spark twins from the gladiator pits of Kaon, and many of the mechs who had formed the sub-group of Autobots known as the "Wreckers," but even they seemed to stop short of committing some of the vile acts the Decepticons did.

None of it really mattered though; none of them were exempt from the same cycle of violence. He, like all the other Autobots, took up arms to fight against the Decepticons. With each skirmish, Mirage wondered if it would be his last; if he would be caught whenever he utilized the stealth skills he had learned from turbofox hunting to make it behind enemy lines and sabotage their equipment.

As his skills became more apparent and his success rate surpassed many other Autobot agents, he became a frequent go-to choice for high-risk missions such as disabling communication beacons, sabotaging weapon turrets, and gathering information. Jazz would try to joke that his upbringing in the Towers had prepared him for war better than many other mechs, but not even Jazz's forced laughter could make Mirage thankful for those abilities. Each new mission simply painted a war that wasn't showing any signs of ending.

However, Mirage did find some benefits to his position, and he utilized every opportunity he was given to analyze every piece of information he found during his missions. He wouldn't do it on site, of course; there was always too high of a chance of being caught to filter through the information he gathered before downloading it for Autobot specialists to later analyze.

When it had been downloaded into a server on their base though?

Mirage glanced up and down the hallway he stood in, shifting slightly to the right as one of Red Alert's cameras swept the entirety of the hall. He waited for the camera to turn away again before carefully walking below it and jumping to the next blind spot in the security mech's slightly flawed system. He ducked into the room that housed the base's main server and stayed in the shadows to avoid the cameras in the room as well.

He waited patiently, watching the camera move left and right until it suddenly stopped, the red recording light winking off. He fluidly moved into action and crossed the room towards the database's interface. His fingers danced across the keyboard as he pulled up the recent files he had downloaded from the Decepticons and transferred here.

His optics skimmed the few folders he had organized the mess into until he found the one he was looking for. With a swift tap of the keys, a list of names flooded the screen, and Mirage's optics quickly scanned the list for what he was looking for. He frowned and scrolled through the list twice.

"Thought Ah'd find you here."

Mirage jumped and silently cursed himself for his sudden lax in attention. He slowly turned away from the screen. Jazz frowned at him from the door that Mirage hadn't even heard open. Jazz waved up at the camera. "This your doin'?"

Mirage shook his head. "No. Believe it or not, Sideswipe is smarter than many think."

A small smile flickered across Jazz's face before abruptly vanishing. "That so?"

"Yes. He is actually quite skilled when it comes to hacking the cameras and shutting them down to throw Red Alert into a panic."

"Ah'll have to tell Optimus that's the source o' our everyday 'Con attack." Jazz gestured again, this time towards the computer. "He in on this too?"

Mirage glanced down at the keyboard, and a part of him wanted tap the key that would delete his log in history like every other time. "No, he is not."

"Didn't think so." Jazz sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Ah like you, 'Raj. Have since the first time we met, an' Ah've gone outta my way to defend you when some o' the others would off accusin' you o' bein' a double agent 'cause of the way you tend to distance yourself from others. But do you know how hard it is to look Prowl in the optic and say you're not sneaking around in areas you shouldn't be in? I've barely been in charge of Special Ops for a deca-cycle, and I'm already having to come behind you and clean up your mess."

A wave of embarrassment curled around Mirage's spark along with a pinch of guilt. He turned back to the keyboard and proceeded to delete his history, making sure to follow every step he had been taught by Jazz. When he turned back around, Jazz was only a foot away from him wearing a severe frown. "I apologize. I thought that I had followed every step to prevent my actions from attracting any unwanted attention."

Jazz's frown didn't waver even as he reached behind Mirage to input a string of code that Mirage was unfamiliar with. After Jazz had entered the code, the screen flickered, and the home screen for the base's archive had been restored. "You keep leaving your personal signature in the database's history logs. You're not authorized to access any information you gather after it's been logged."

Mirage calmly grasped his hands behind his back and refused to turn away from Jazz again. He had learned soon after meeting Jazz that when the mech dropped his thick accent, he was in a serious mood. One that could quickly determine whether or not he acted on his gut instincts. "I am not accessing important—"

"The individual identities of the Decepticons are important." One of Jazz's hands curled into a fist, and his lips pressed tightly together. "Everything we get from their servers comes with backgrounds, locations, IP addresses to personal comm. links—are you getting why I wouldn't be able to defend you if Prowl got a hold of this?"

Mirage swallowed against his rising guilt. "Jazz—"

"I'm not your friend right now, Mirage." Mirage's spark stopped at the harsh comment, but Jazz continued without pausing. "Tell me why you're repeatedly coming here after every mission."

Mirage's vents hitched, and he suddenly felt a wave of panic. Jazz didn't back down from his demand, and he even moved between Mirage and the door, as if to prevent the mech from bolting without answering the question. Mirage's optics flicked up to the camera, and he knew that they didn't have much longer before Red Alert rebooted his security systems. He had timed how long it took the reboot before. "Whatever I say…it would sound as if those rumors about me were true."

"Then explain it in a way that it won't."

Mirage hesitated, but ultimately sighed when Jazz remained unmoved. "I had a friend before all this began, one that supported the Decepticon cause. She was in Vos when the Towers were attacked, and I have not been able to contact her since the war began. I hoped that I could possibly find her comm. link in the data I retrieved, but I have been unsuccessful. I…I only wished to learn of her status."

Jazz continued to stare at Mirage for a long minute after his confession. Mirage tried to keep his emotions as calm as possible, but something must have leaked through his mask to make Jazz finally hum. "I'm putting you on probation."

"Probation?"

"No more espionage missions for a while. You'll be put on patrolling or monitor duty until I say otherwise." Jazz tilted his head from side to side with another hum. "I'll tell Prowl it was because you were aiding Sideswipe in hacking the cameras as some way to get closer to the rest of the crew. He probably won't buy it, but I'm not that concerned with it. You're my mech, and I dish out punishment as I see fit."

Mirage's frame slightly relaxed. "I understand."

"Don't make me catch you here again."

"Of course."

Jazz's frame seamlessly shifted from tense commander to friend. His frown softened to one of concern, and his optic band lost its dark glare. "So ya find anythin' on your friend?"

Mirage shook his head, and he didn't even need to read Jazz's expression to know that he betrayed his melancholy. "No."

"Ah'm sorry."

"As am I."

Jazz lightly patted Mirage's arm and turned on his heel to leave the room. Mirage followed without hesitation, and they had traveled halfway down the hall when the cameras turned back on. "For what it's worth, Ah hope ya find her."

"As do I."