Chapter XXVI

With another chance of solitude, Prowl carefully analyzed the information he had gathered and filtered it through his growing sense of paranoia. There were a few too many people related to each other within a sequence of happy coincidences for him to consider something was not going on. And yet, what if there wasn't? What if his paranoia was just that; all exaggerated delusions?

He would have to table those thoughts for a moment. He checked around the entrance of the large lot, scanning for signatures. He shook his head. Ninjas could apparently mask their signatures and were masters of stealth. It could be hard to catch one if one had followed them. Only Jazz and the Metacon would have a chance of locating a cyber-ninja.

After half an hour, when he did all that he possibly could and was satisfied that the perimeter he checked was clear, he headed back towards the dojo. Both ninjas were perched on the roof. Jazz was sitting on the edge with a leg dangling over the side and an arm propped on a bent knee, and Revamp sat cross-legged with his back straight like he was a carved installation of the architecture. His form was changing shape, stretching and contracting ever so slightly, trying to figure out a new form to take on momentarily.

"Find anything?" Prowl called up to them.

"Just nature tryin' to reclaim the borders," Jazz answered as his raised leg straightened out and swung over the side. He kicked his pedes in rhythm.

"The aerial fauna is slowly coming back, after a few thousand years," Revamp added, "and bringing the trees with them. I'll have to do a bit of replanting so they won't take over the area."

"I meant if you found any spies," Prowl growled low enough so that the two above could not hear him. He could care less about the lawn planning and maintenance. By tomorrow he would be on his way back to the cities and finish this investigation and he would take Jazz with him, by force if need be. The shifter could stay here with his supposed Ghost and abandoned village. He needed Jazz's memory of Shockblast's confession, not another sketchy Metacon.

As he approached the steps to the dojo, Jazz jumped down with a loud thud. Revamp touched down with far more grace and silence and scampered away into the ruined gardens to begin his work.

"We're wasting time here," Prowl said.

"You sound like you need something strong to drink."

"You brought me here to hear about your history. I've heard it. We should be going back."

"You don't want to stay?"

Prowl snapped his head towards him, making Jazz flinch. Something in his optics frightened him. A part of the officer's processor that Arthropod unlocked cycled through information to use against Jazz's infuriating stubbornness to return.

"We're not escaping our duty to the planet," he ordered. Before Jazz could protest, he continued. "I, personally, am not going to hide here, not even with you. Shockblast is neutralized, as are his slave forces. There's no point in hiding. With his confession, he'll be immobilized, stripped, and in quarantine." Though a continued life sentence as a living spark in a laser-grid box seemed a merciful way to treat such a monster.

The ninja stepped closer, bringing a hand up to Prowl's face. "What happened to you?"

"Stop avoiding the subject."

"You're… so much more serious."

"Involuntary surgery, unwilling participation in a gladiatorial match, and a threat on life can do that to a mech." He pushed Jazz's hand away. "I'm leaving and you're coming with me."

"I'm not going."

"You're coming with me even if I have to put you in stasis locks and drag your aft across the off-Grid fields myself."

"You'll be paralyzed before you can even pull them out."

Prowl's patience was waning. "What are you trying to do, Jazz? Why stay here? There's nothing here! It's a dead settlement! It's time to move on."

"It's my history!"

"And it's just that! History! It's past!"

Jazz turned away to look around at the broken landscape he used to call home. Prowl could see that the memories were scrambling in his processor. In the downturn of his mouth, he saw pain of guilt. The white mech sunk down and hugged his knees, hiding his face and curling into a still posture. His frame did not shake, at least as far as Prowl could tell. Silence passed between them. Only the winds and both of their engines humming sounded in the stillness. The officer huffed and sat down next to him, putting a hesitant hand on Jazz's back.

"It's gone," Jazz said after a few minutes. "I thought maybe a couple of them would be waiting here for me. They're all just…"

Prowl looked out at the ash-covered yards, reimagining the scene Revamp described to them. Shockblast's Animox and mind-washed soldiers, Yoketron's initiates and expertly-trained ninjas, slaughtering each other. One side for the lord's greed and the other for their way of life.

"I forgot how he said it," Jazz continued. "Somethin' the old mech said about good and evil, how they balance each other."

"By definition, being on polar opposites of a spectrum, one can't exist without the other."

"Close. I can't remember… It was something like…" He looked up, blue visor dimmed with the tiredness of all that had happened in the past few days. "One way gets to be too much, the other has to step up. Those aren't the words, but you're smart. You get it." He loosened his posture, sitting on the ground with his knees bent, arms still hugging around them. "Evil got to be too much this time, and good had to do something about it.

"Yoketron always believed in fate, that there are certain things meant to happen. Me, I like to think that even if somethin' wasn't supposed to happen in whatever game the world likes to play with us, it'll set itself straight again. Know what I mean?"

"Not really."

"I guess this is too philosophical for you."

"Officers don't deal with philosophy; we deal with facts."

"But average people deal with morality and philosophy, and that relates to facts."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"What happened here was bad. Terrible. This whole Shockblast thing was a slag-show. It'd been goin' on longer than I really know. But somethin' had to happen to right the wrong again, and that somethin' happened here, at this spot." He tapped a flat palm against the ground twice in emphasis. "I made it out. Everyone else scattered or died, but there had to be one to come back to this.

"Jumpspring died. Some dude we never knew had to die in order for you to pick up his case and finish it for him."

"If he never died, he would have been the one to bring you into his investigation," Prowl stated.

"And then I probably would never've met you."

Prowl noticed a pressure on his side. Jazz had leaned into his arm and rested his head back on the officer's shoulder. The latter moved his arm to grab the ninja's opposite shoulder and pull him closer.

"There's a reason he died. Maybe you were meant to be here," Jazz continued on. "Turns out your psycho boyfriend was involved."

"And his brother."

"Revamp's cool, though."

"He's alright."

"So, you got some sort of closure."

"I got to learn to whom and to where he was smuggling weapons. He never confessed that part during his trial, only that he was guilty of it."

"I sense an 'and' in there."

"And that he never actually loved me." He felt Jazz shuffle closer to give him the comfort he no longer needed. "He was using me, to throw people off. He seemed too innocent."

Memories with Burst came in short sequences. There were times when the shifter wanted to learn the working mechanisms of each weapon the station harbored—to see which would please his master most. Burst always seemed interested in everyone's job—to know who was the most important and who could be the next soldier in Shockblast's schemes. There were moments when, now to Prowl's disgust, Burst asked him where they could hide and make out—to learn where cameras were and were not. "He played the entire station like we were idiots."

"You didn't have a reason to suspect."

They sat for several moments longer in silence. Prowl pictured what the area used to look like before the attack. A clean ground, painted structures, a low wall surrounding the space, and students strewn about in groups to teach each other and hone their new athletic combative skills. Right now, Revamp, alone, was digging around a small reflective glass sapling to begin its relocation.

"You're really leaving, huh?" Jazz spoke up.

"I have a job to do."

"I can't go."

He was going to argue his point again, but something stopped him. Jazz pressed a hand to his face, a finger to both of his temples, and his visor slid away with a swift click. They locked optics, caught in a trance.

"It won't be forever," Jazz assured him. The lower part of his optics curved with the hint of a sad smile. "I'll come back when I'm done."

"Done with what?"

"My training."

The ninja's gaze shifted to the intact entry arch as his visor slid back into place. Prowl followed it and his intakes hitched in surprise. There, crouched and hunched like a carrion on the curved top of the structure, was a thin white mech with four hanging arms and no face. His helm slicked back into a pair of horns. Four orbs of differently colored irises floated around him; lidless optics surveying the surroundings. Looking close enough, one could see a long, swinging tail that ended in a five-inch piece that flared and ended at a point, yet the struts of the appendage were not connected to anything visible. Prowl jumped to his pedes and shifted an arm into his weapon.

"That won't get ya very far, babe," Jazz chuckled as he stood up. The thin mech's lower arms rose up, fore- and mid-digits of each hand pointed to the sky. Two of the orbs rushed forward and stopped a foot short of Jazz. The white mech bent forward, bowing low.

"Sensei."

One of the orbs parted from its brother and floated to inspect Prowl. The officer stared into the dark space of the optic, feeling frozen to his core. Prowl raised his gun. The tail of the mech looped over its owner's back and stretched forward, the sharp point touching between Prowl's optics as a challenge. He could feel the magnetic pull that held the pieces of the tail together between the phalanx. He inwardly calculated the distance between himself and the mysterious mech. That was at least a forty-yard range. The phalanx was shaking to hold their places between the magnetic fields.

"Don't piss him off, he's friendly." Jazz advised, holding his bow.

The white and black mech stared at the optic that was hovering around him. He could see one of the thin mech's raised hands rotate in circles, controlling the orb. Prowl's pistol shifted into its plating.

"That's Ghost, isn't it?" Prowl asked, more of a question to himself.

"Don't forget the 'the.' That's part of the title."

The sharpened point dragged itself upwards, pressing itself against the red chevron on Prowl's head. The scrape left behind a thin trail of energon that did not flow.

The tail retreated. Prowl blinked and the Ghost had disappeared from the arch to stand directly before him. The officer nearly jumped backward from the suddenness. The ancient mech was twice his own height, which unnerved him further. But the Ghost did his best to bend his strange unguligrade legs to be closer to a normal, acceptable height that had still boasted of superiority. Two orbs floated by his head, their line of sight focused on the smaller mech, as his blank, smooth face stared into nothing over the top of the officer's head. The Ghost reached for him, two arms on his shoulders, the other two running over the plating of his helm. One hand stopped at the atlas of his neck. A sharp claw pressed in and upwards. Static rippled across Prowl's vision. As he stood there, Prowl noticed that the Ghost did not at all seem like a Cybertronian. There was no hint of tires, wings, or anything else that would suggest he had a secondary form. On a closer look, it seemed most of the mech's joints were held together by magnetism, and parts of him were malleable. A second claw slipped through. He started to feel dizzy. He was kept up only by the Ghost's firm hands on his shoulders. After an uncomfortable moment, the Ghost let go. Prowl's brow ridges furrowed and he reached a hand around to the back of his neck to feel for the surgical point.

He frowned, stating, "I'm getting sick of creepy mechs putting their digits in my head."

Jazz had laughed. The Ghost tilted its head in a response Prowl could not read.

"Sensei, come on inside!" Jazz said, immediately shedding the disciplined persona. "It's your house, after all. I'll get Revamp. Boy's a mean mixologist."

The ancient mech flexed a hand, palm out, then pointed to the ground, ordering his subordinate to remain a moment longer. His tail curved up and around to the back of Jazz's head. The white mech was uncomfortably still and winced when the point penetrated above an audio receptor. The Ghost put a hand back to the small hole he made in Prowl's helm and a surge from the point of his tail trailed up the appendage, his back, around his shoulder, and into his hand. An electrical current connected Jazz and Prowl for a split moment. Both mechs hissed at the sharp pain.

"I know I'm not really allowed to ask questions, sensei," Jazz grumbled, "but what the frag was that?"

Prowl could hear echoes of his conversation with Jazz. Then he had a vision. He was inside the server room Jazz spoke about, listening to Shockblast's speech about reformatting the society of Cybertron with himself at the helm of it all.

The officer batted away Ghost's arm, disconnecting the mind control the other had on him, and the vision disappeared. The two orbs staring at him came closer, waiting for Prowl to realize.

"Thanks. Sir."

"What was that?" Jazz asked, impatient for an answer. "We've had about enough of mysteries for a week. We don't need more mysteries. I'm thoroughly tapped out at this point."

"Ghost… The Ghost implanted your memory of Shockblast's confession into the chip still in my processor," Prowl explained. "Giving you a reason to stay and me to leave."

Jazz heard the heavy tone. He knew that no matter where he was, he wanted Jazz to stay with him, but he also had a job to finish. Shockblast was still out there and he needed to present the final piece of evidence not only to the police of Praxus but to the Department of Global Security.

The Ghost turned away. In a silent flash, he seemed to have disappeared to leave the two lovers alone to finally end their conversation.

"It's not goodbye forever," Jazz said, stepping closer. Prowl, however, was stepping back.

"Are you promising me that?"

"I make an oath upon Yoketron's final resting place, wherever Revamp or the Ghost might've put him."

Prowl looked at him and finally closed the gap between them. He pressed his mouth to Jazz's, twice, softly. He pulled away for a moment, looking through Jazz's visor to see the outline of his optics.

"The more I hold onto you, the harder it is to leave," he whispered.

Jazz smiled and rubbed a hand up and down Prowl's arm.

"Then you should probably go."

Hearing the words said aloud put a dull ache in Prowl's spark. He did not want to leave, not without Jazz, not after all they had been through. The officer put his arms around him, accepting that this would be the last time he would get to do so. The ninja returned it and planted kisses on his shoulder.

"Remember your promise to me," Prowl muttered.

"I'll find you."

Prowl could not only hear it. He felt it. It was true.

"I'll find you, Prowl. I'll find you…."

"Your boy toy's leaving?"

Jazz took a decorative knife off of the wall and threw it at Revamp's shoulder. He could not tell if the shifter dodged it or willed his arm to take a different mold for a split second to allow it to graze right past him and stick to the wall. The Ghost sat at a table to the side of the room alone with a small cup beneath his chin and a translucent tube connecting the base of his throat to the liquid in the container. Jazz wondered if it was a special straw or part of his master's anatomy.

"He's got a name, kid."

"I'm older than you."

"I'm your senpai, though."

Revamp's body straightened, widened, shortened, lengthened in different areas. Changing his contour and then his color, he molded himself to look exactly like Jazz. The only difference between their appearances was the fabric tied around Revamp's neck that spoke of his previous life as a space-faring rascal. He took up a two-handed blade and grinned.

"All facts," he said, sounding like the mech he was copying.

"You challenging me, little mech?" Jazz gestured his whole arm to the ancient mech to the side as he stepped into the bordered square of the floor. "In front of my sensei, you sure you ready to get embarrassed?"

"Our sensei."

"Regardless, you're gonna be eating the floor when I'm done."

"You know what they say 'bout barking and biting."

"Trust me, I can bring both."

"I hear one, but I don't see the other."

Jazz took up his old trusted sai that he left on the shelf while Revamp took his place opposite of the room.

"You even copied my vocal inflections, that's a nice trick."

"Softenin' me with flattery, senpai?"

Jazz's optics shifted to the side to see any change in the Ghost's posture. Usually when two challengers faced off and kept talking, people would seem tense and twitch in anticipation for the battle, groaning at them to get the fight started already. Instead, he sat there enjoying his drink. Jazz was looking to see if the Ghost was either ignoring them or just happy to be in the presence of students again to not care about their unnecessary pre-combat banter.

"You stalling, kohai?"

"Something like that."

"Rousing?"

"Close."

There was a change that he could feel at his side. The white mech looked again towards the Ghost. His spark stopped when he saw he was not there. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground. Above him, a figure launched itself from behind and over Jazz's head. The Ghost landed like an animal on all of his limbs and rose gracefully back onto his two legs. The four optics floating around him spread out to each claim a corner of the fighting ring.

"Yo, misdirection's my thing! How dare you!" Jazz laughed as he stood again. "You come back from your li'l romantic rendezvous with Cap'n G and you're trying to best me at my own game!" His laughter grew quiet as he looked around, expecting the old pirate to jump out of the shadows and attack him too.

The Ghost took long strides backwards to step out of the ring, lacing all of his hands behind his back. His chest was more protruded, a sign of his own pride and a hint of amusement. Revamp took a stance with the two-handed sword. Jazz lowered himself with one sai forward in his dominant hand and the other in a reverse grip. They stood still, waiting. One of the Ghost's optics floated to a recently polished, circular instrument hanging near the balcony.

"The word for body is also sword," Revamp recited.

"The body is a tool to be cared for and mastered," Jazz finished.

The eye hit itself against the disk to resonate an echoing note throughout the room. The two generations of students clashed.

xXx

I was looking up Japanese words to put on some art I might do of the Ghost and saw that one character meant both body and sword and thought to myself "that's probably the first thing he taught Yoketron."

Sorry about this being a short chapter. The next one is sort of a "double" update. There was a whole world building backstory I was going to include about where the Ghost and Gigamech come from, but since it's not important to the current plot it's going to have a separate entry. And since I typed it separately, it's way longer than I originally was going to make it. Yay for inspiration! Hopefully I'll have the next update before the end of next month to make up for my unfulfilled promise of dedicating a month to being creative.