Starcrossed 51: Vengeance is Sweet
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Watching Megatron voluntarily destroy Bruticus on Cybertron was almost too good to be true, and with no way to contact Earth with Shockwave having regained control over the planet's communications, Optimus, Prowl, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker were forced to return on the space bridge.

Not one of them really believed that the tyrant had actually destroyed such a powerful weapon, but it didn't stop Prowl's doorwings from quivering with tension and comming his mate the moment they were back on Earth.

::Hey babe!:: came Jazz's cheerful reply, confirming Prowl's suspicions. Vortex was still alive. ::How was Cybertron, cooler than Earth, yeah? 'Jack says we're moving away from the sun again?::

::Yes,:: Prowl confirmed, and hid the disappointment as he relayed the news to Prime, focusing instead on one thing: Bruticus, and therefore Vortex, were in Megatron's control and it was overwhelmingly likely they would all shortly be on Earth. When he got back to base, he immediately pinged his mate's location and went to him.

Jazz was crouching down on the floor, working Mirage through the settings on a land mine, when the brush of Prowl's field made him look up.

"Jazz," Prowl said. "He's back."

A nanoklik of stillness, and then Jazz cocked his head with a flash of his visor and a cruel grin. He turned to his SIC, who knew exactly what those words meant. "Mirage, baby, I have somethin' ta see to."

Mirage purred deeply and nodded. "Do the twins know?"

"They saw what I did on Cybertron," Prowl affirmed.

Jazz hummed and rose gracefully to his pedes and slipped his hand around his mate's arm. "What do you know?"

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Jazz stood with Optimus, Ratchet, and Hoist on a cliff edge, firing at the Combaticons the moment they transformed back into root mode, attempting to drive them away from the worn out Aerialbots. One of the fliers was trapped beneath a rockslide and the rest were pinned down and unable to reach their gestalt mate.

Jazz cared, he really did, but he had Vortex in his sights and for the moment, that was taking up his entire focus. Centuries of war had honed his aim and he watched the 'copter frame moving, lined up his pistol, and fired.

The shot caught Vortex in the tail, knocking out his steering and sending him careening sideways into the canyon. The rest of the Combaticons scattered and Jazz disarmed his weapon with a grim teek. "Optimus," he said calmly, watching the smoking, unmoving wreckage. "Prowler an' me are requestin' a temporary leave of duty."

Optimus was quiet, Ratchet shifted uneasily and quickly left with Hoist to go help free the trapped flier. Optimus murmured that he'd be along shortly and turned to Jazz. "Are you certain this is what you wish to do?"

"Tell me why I can't touch my mate's spark and ask me again," Jazz said coldly, looking at his Prime.

Optimus nodded and squeezed his shoulder. "Please stay within comm range," was his only request. "When you've worked out more details, let me know."

"We will," Jazz said, and transformed into his Earth alt, making his way down to the rotor.

Even offline and with a different frame, Vortex was enough to make Jazz shudder when he was close, but he didn't even hesitate as he installed a virus to keep him in stasis, bound him in cuffs, and then commed his mate. ::I have him.::

Prowl replied with a hum over the comm, the harmonics that of understanding, intense anticipation and an inability to form words in his excitement.

Jazz pinged his coordinates, called in a favor from Skyfire, and in less than a joor he, Prowl, and their prize were in the air. A quick stop back at the Ark for Ratchet to remove the blocker, and then they were deep within an abandoned nuclear reactor in Siberia, isolated from the world and the comms of everyone but their family with an emergency signal.

They would be here until they chose to leave, Optimus reluctantly granting the leave that might take decades of Earth years, understanding that their loyalty to each other was stronger than their loyalty to the Autobots, and choosing the option of having them back some orn rather than never seeing them again, and quite possibly loosing the rest of their kin as well. Smokescreen and Bluestreak were unlikely to leave, though it was possible, but Mirage's loyalty was unquestionably to Jazz, and it would not take him long, second creation and subordinate mate or not, to convince the twins to leave as well.

When the doors locked and the roar of Skyfire's engine faded, Jazz pushed Prowl against the wall, kissing him with a quivering, passionate excitement. "Let's wake him."

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Vortex roused aching all over and with the distinctive pattern of coming out of forced stasis. Which made sense. He remembered being shot and crashing.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," came a purr in a mix of languages, native Cybertronian and the abomination of an Earth dialect.

"Huh?" Vortex struggled through the last of the boot cycle and finally focused on a pair of black and white mecha that didn't look right. "Autobots," he identified them with a sneer about the same time he realized he was very well secured and dangling in the middle of the room.

"Technically," the same voice said, the slightly smaller of the two and lacking the doorwings the other had. He stepped forward, visor glinting. "Do you know who I am?"

"Something tasty I'll get to ravage at some point," Vortex sneered.

The mech's laughter at that was clear and bright and ... unhinged. "Wrong guess," he said, and Vortex felt something slam into his spark, sharp and furious and cold. The mech didn't move, but his visor had grown brighter in the silence. "That hurts," he pouted. "How could you forget me, did our time together mean nothing to you?"

Vortex's confusion went from wartime prisoner to a much earlier moment, a vorn of exquisite perfection, and he could only stare at the black and white as he poked at the part of his spark he'd actually given up on and tried to block the memory of. "Jazz?" He used nearly the oldest variant of Jazz's adult designation, the one from that vorn they'd been together as a bonded couple, when Jazz had been his subservient mate.

Jazz grinned and cocked his head. "Hello, my Bonded," he said warmly, mimicking his first noble accent and voice.

"Why you," rage roared to life in Vortex's spark and processor, flooding the bond with his fury. "I will teach you your place, you ungrateful little brat! I gave you everything! I fueled you and gave you wealth and put life inside you! I got you everything you asked for, you glitched pile of scrap, you should have known better than to try and leave me, you little...!" It went on and on, furious shrieking and insults that meant nothing from a bound mech.

Jazz waited until the rant tapered off, watching calmly, his own spark absorbing the rage and everything else that came with it. The rotor was too riled up to watch what he was sending over, and there were endless layers of emotion there. "Temper," Jazz finally chided. "Who taught you your manners? And-ah, speaking of manners, I've forgotten mine!" he said, brightening and reaching out to Prowl, slipping his hand into his mate's and drawing him forward. "You remember Prowl, don't you? He looked a little different the last time you met?"

"Prowl?" Vortex repeated, then roared and lunged for the Praxian, who tensed but didn't move away. "Thief!" he shrieked, rumbling into another vile rant of all he was going to do when he got free, even more incensed than he had been at Jazz.

"You still don't realize it, do you?" Prowl spoke when the ranting calmed again. "Just a little less possessive and you could have owned Cybertron."

That stilled the rotor to stare at them.

"All you had to do was allow him to spike me now and then and I would have doubled your fortune every few vorns," Prowl spelled it out. "You couldn't allow that, and so we set about destroying you. I grant it we took entirely too long to call it a job well done, but this little thing called a war and the detention center got in the way."

"You nasty, thieving little-" Vortex snarled, causing Jazz to scoff and grab the pulley system that the rotor was strung up on and release it, letting him drop with a hard thud. Before he could do anything about, the chains around his ankles and wrists had tightened again and he was on his knees, arms wrenched up.

"Did you even listen to him?" Jazz hissed, stalking over to him and grabbing the top of his chestplates, yanking him close. "Do you understand what he just told you? I would have fucked you for eternity if you'd just let me play with a servant, as was my entitled right! He was no threat to you! I would have given you adoration, as many creations as you wanted, and Primus help me, I would have even let you do whatever you wanted with them! But you had to have me all to yourself, didn't you?"

"You are mine!" Vortex snarled back, unable to comprehend anything of what he was being told. It went against him, what he was, what he wanted.

Jazz just stared at him for a moment, and something almost like pity went through his field before he shook his head with disgust. "No," he said coldly, moving away. "I'm really not."

Vortex's almost white glare followed him back to Prowl where Jazz pulled his lover, mate, bonded, everything into a slow, deep kiss. When it broke, he turned back. "The Prime granted Prowl and me our bond-a legal bond only, there are a few obstacles before we can complete the formalities, but we'll go over those later-which dissolved any legal attachment between us."

"What?" Vortex thrashed against the bindings, enraged at what he was being told. "He can't do that! I paid for you! You are mine. That ... that thing has no right to touch you!"

"He really does not understand," Prowl murmured in utter amazement. "I knew he was insane, but to not grasp even that much..."

"Coulda been the detention center," Jazz hummed as they watched Vortex with little more emotion than they would have watched a rabid creature in a zoo. He pulled his love back into a kiss and listened to the insane howling of their prisoner go up a notch. "I want you to spread me wide and make him watch," he purred, his field alive with anticipation.

Prowl shivered. "On you back, on your knees, against the wall, riding me?" He managed to ask as field, frame and spark all focused on the singular desire to please his love. He kissed Jazz fervently, then worked down to his neck cabling while his hands skimmed over the now-familiar frame. "Should I taste your spike first?"

"Ooh, yes, before I ride you," Jazz purred, shifting and resting his hands on Prowl's hips, grinding their pelvises together. He tossed a grin at Vortex. "Something he loves to do."

"Love to please my Jazz," Prowl moaned and came up for a heated, sloppy kiss, grinning against his mate while their prey, their nightmare, thrashed in his binding and howled in outrage. Slowly he knelt, trailing kisses down Jazz's chest. "Soon this will be mine, fully and forever," he laid a palm over Jazz's spark. "As mine will be yours."

"It's always been yours, since the moment I was sparked," Jazz whispered, hands on his mate's chevron as his head tossed back. "Got a new spike the night we ran away from you," he said for Vortex. "We designed our equipment to match each other, you wouldn't believe how good it feels together." His vocalizer hitched as Prowl's lips found his spike cover and began to worship the smooth black metal.

"Aah, yes," Jazz sighed as the metal slid back and his spike jutted out, each section paid perfect, complete attention to as it extended, Prowl's glossa circling and stroking lovingly along his length. When Prowl pushed his mouth down and swallowed, Jazz's keen mixed with Vortex's outraged shriek and Prowl's pleasured hum.

It was always good, the pleasure, being with his love, but the thrill of doing so in front of the mech who had almost destroyed them was a high like no other. Prowl's lips, glossa and intake all worked in perfect synch to drag cries of pleasure from Jazz. Each cry giving a spark to his own charge until his spike panel slid away and the intricately crafted spike began to pressurize on its own.

Jazz waited until he heard it fully extend and then his hands moved around Prowl's helm and gently tilted it back and off, leaving his spike glistening proudly. "On your back, helm towards him," he murmured, with a glee he couldn't begin to contain in his field.

Prowl gave a small whine at being denied his love's release, but moved to comply without hesitation. He spread himself out, helm towards the prisoner, and rolled his hips upward in offering.

"Later," Jazz promised him in a deep purr as he lowered down and covered his lover, sliding their frames together and rubbing his valve along Prowl's spike. "I want the first overload he sees me in to be on your spike, my love." He dipped down, pressed his lips against Prowl's audial, brushing them over metal. "I want him to see me writhe in the ecstasy that he would have kept from me."

Prowl shuddered at the words and implications. His hands moved along Jazz's back, stroking and tweaking, taking all the care he usually did while his hips rocked up against that exquisite slick heat. "You feel so good, love."

Jazz came back around and claimed a deep kiss and then rose upright, lining himself up with Prowl's length, and with his visor completely fixed on Vortex he lowered himself down, sheathing his lover. When he was settled completely he leaned back and braced himself on Prowl's thighs and gave a slow pull-push, giving Vortex a perfect view of the spike disappearing into his frame.

The enraged cursing and promises of agony for them both only sweetened the physical pleasure, and Jazz could feel through their fields that Prowl was getting off on it just as much. Vortex still didn't seem to have any grasp of the fact that he was never going to leave this place. Even if it meant setting off the small explosive charge by his spark now, the rotor would deactivate by the time anyone reached this room.

Prowl's moaned bliss, glyphs of devotion and adoration that acted as a sweet counterpoint to Vortex's snarled hate. Across the bond all the rotor's possessive rage poured into Jazz at an intensity that would have crushed him once, but now, just added heat and strength to the fire.

Jazz worked his mate, rode him hard and fast before slowing to a crawl and squeezing until they both felt like they would explode, then rocked and twisted so fast that they were panting and flushing out heat as rapidly as their frames could manage.

It was endless joors and Jazz slowed down every time they were close to overload, until Prowl was sobbing and begging beneath him and he was shaking so hard he could hardly keep his frame upright. "Ready, lover?" he panted.

"Yes!" Prowl keened, his frame desperate for the release he'd needed for the last joor.

Jazz managed a nod, forced his vision back online to look right at Vortex, and then drove down, rippling his valve around his mate, and let his field rush hot and sweet. The first burst of transfluid came as Prowl choked and seized beneath him and Jazz screamed and writhed in a desperate overload, all but squirming on his lover as their fields exploded together, reaching far enough to pummel against Vortex's, which was wild with a rage that bordered on insanity.

"Ohh Prowl," Jazz moaned as another hard shudder went through him and the overload extended on, tumbling into a third, and a fourth rush of energy and crackling charge that had been too long pent up escaping their frames. Prowl's optics flared bright enough they almost burnt out as his frame arched and contorted with his screams that were as much in good-pain as pleasure until he dropped offline.

Jazz nearly followed, falling forward, and caught himself on his arms at the last instant, shuddering over Prowl and panting heavily as he fought the pull into recharge for long enough to lift his head and stare, grinning, at Vortex, who stared back with his face frozen in a snarl.

"Do you know," Jazz said, static-laced, reaching down between his legs and leaning back again, splaying his fingers out to frame the view of Prowl's spike lodged in him, "How many times he's split me open?"

"He'll pay for every one," Vortex growled, optics bright and spark pulsing with the insanity that was blooming to its full once more.

Under Jazz Prowl booted, but only partway. His field was still crackling with charge but was the flat of the AI as he reached up, desperate as much as the AI could be, and clawed against Jazz's primary interface port, cable in hand.

Jazz's attention shifted down. "Shh," he murmured as he took the cable and felt the AI and frame relax under him, trusting him. It had been a long, hard road to earn that trust, one that Jazz hadn't even realized he'd been traveling until it hit him that the AI did trust him with Prowl's frame and fate. Jazz first slicked the jack with his glossa in a caress that was entirely a show for Vortex before plugging it into his chest and stroking his mate's helm.

The charge that poured over the line was a full, hard overload that wrenched a scream of bliss and shock from Jazz, then again
when a huge charge bloomed across his systems a second time.

"Damn," he gasped when it was over, slumping forward. "Wow I need ta do that more often." He looked into the stunned face of his love, panting. "Please tell me there aren't risks to doing that all the time."

"Unfortunately, yes," Prowl murmured, too dazed to give numbers. "Low, but there."

"Dang," Jazz said, and greeted his mate with a kiss. "I think 'Texy liked our show, love," he purred, as the rotor shrieked in the background. He took another kiss and then moved up and off, gliding over to him, as transfluid dripped down the insides of his thighs. "And it isn't just Prowl I've had, would you like ta see more?"

"I'll shred them all!" Vortex snarled. "No one has the right to touch you but me!"

"Take that as a yes," Prowl hummed in the background as he struggled to his pedes.

"Oh, lover," Jazz said, reaching out and stroking Vortex's face, but the subharmonics were a sharp contrast: disgust, revulsion, hatred. "You won't be alive long enough for the centuries that would take. I've gotten a reputation as a bit of a whore, actually, can you imagine? Anyone who's ever asked for me has had me." He leaned in with a datacable in hand, their frames flush and rubbing together, mouth pressed to Vortex's audial, voice dropping to a whisper. "I'd spread my legs for an organic before I would open them for you."

"That's not your choice to make," Vortex growled at him.

"Maybe while you had me it wasn't," Jazz said, plugging in and making quick work of the rotor's firewalls. "Oh, Screamer didn't give you much in the way of software, did he? Oh well, I guess you can only expect so much from Earth junk," he rapped his knuckles against the plating. "Mm, although, there was that one time when Prowl fragged me in your berth, let's start there."

When Vortex seized up in shock and rage against him, Jazz hacked into the vocal controls and froze them. "We're going to be quiet, and not interrupt," he said. "This could take a while, I've been working on this file for you for a long time." He reached his hand back for Prowl, drawing his lover flush against his back and accepting the offered cable as he queued up the spliced-together file of every spike he'd ever taken while Prowl held and nuzzled him, affectionate and supportive in a way that Vortex couldn't comprehend. "So, here's the time in your berth..."

After playing that memory out in loving detail over the sound of Vortex screaming in his processor, they showed him the first time with their new equipment after escaping, and then the file moved on to show Jazz's memory of every mech and femme that had ever spiked him, save one.

"Energon, love," Prowl murmured when the file finally came to a close. "I don't think he'll even comprehend what we're doing until he calms down a bit."

"Mm." Jazz cocked his head at the dazed-looking rotor and released the freeze on his vocal systems while pulling out a pair of cubes, handing one to Prowl. "He is teeking deliciously, isn't he?" he purred between sips.

"Far more than I dared imagine," Prowl shivered, sharing their first mouthful of energon with a kiss. "So long we've waited and planned. It is almost surreal to have him finally here."

When they had finished, Jazz subspaced the empty cubes and pulled one filled with jet fuel. "Seems a waste to pour any of this down your intake," he told the rotor, "But I want you to live long enough to play with." He reached up and grabbed Vortex's mouth in his claws and forced it open, taking the tube that Prowl handed him and shoving it down before pouring the fuel in.

It was only in that moment that Vortex realized his facemask was gone, but it was the least of his concerns as he choked on the rich fuel. Far richer than he'd had since awakening in this frame, and he struggled to swallow as it burned its way down his intake and sent a painful surge of energy through his frame, like an overload without the build up and raw, rough pain instead of any kind of pleasure.

"Hurts, right?" Jazz hissed. "This isn't even close to what you did to Prowl, not even close to what I'm going to do to you. I just need you to survive the first decaorn before I really dig in."

Vortex just sort of stared at him for a long moment before his attention shifted to the Praxian behind him. "What did you do to my bonded?"

"The one who adored you, wanted to please you?" Prowl's field rippled with a sick pleasure. "I shredded him. Tore him from Jazz's frame and left him in tatters to be picked at by defrag cycles until there was nothing left."

"Ooh, and he loved you, simpering little thing," Jazz trilled with dark joy. "He tried to stop me leaving, almost got me to turn around and go right back in, and he was that close to winning. When he realized how far away I'd taken him..." Jazz pulled up the memory of the construct's final act, the attempt to kill him, and forced it into the rotor's processor. "He was going to kill us both, sacrifice himself in order to destroy me. He'd have given you anything."

Vortex actually made a choking sound, his visor whiting out in shock. Grief, actual, honest grief, rose up from his processor and spark, but only for a moment. Then rage, murderous on a level he'd never known before flashed through the rotor and snapped the tenuous grip he had on reality.

"I don't think he's going to shut up this time," Prowl observed after a solid breem of writhing and screaming.

Jazz nodded his agreement and set aside his memories of Radiance until the rotor had worn himself out enough to be something resembling sane again. Calmly, he unplugged from Vortex's chest and handed Prowl's cable back and pulled a torch from his subspace. "Let's see how long it takes to melt down a rotor blade."

"Given how long it took to rust, we'll be here a long time," Prowl purred with a psychotic gleam in his optics.

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Vortex had long ago lost any sense of time. He wasn't even sure if the partial frame he was in was the one he'd been captured in. The professional part of his processors was quite impressed. The rest of him was mostly dazed. The loss of his bonded, the murder of the only mecha he'd ever cared about, still tore at him.

Pain receded and he could focus through his cracked visor.

"Our creations," he mumbled, thinking of that last bit of his bonded that might still exist. "Where?"

The professional part of him screeched in objection, but he didn't pay it any heed.

He felt the flicker of surprise through the hands that were busy pulling an engraved blade out of his rotor pack and then Jazz walked back around in front of him. "You care?" the mech asked, sounding shocked.

"They were ours," Vortex mumbled, only half coherent from coding objections and spark ache.

"You'll find out," Jazz promised him, and the cable was plugging back into his data port. "Since you're feeling sentimental, I want to introduce you to someone." The image of a Praxian with dark charcoal plating and bright yellow highlights flooded his processor against his will. "This is Radiance." Dozens of images flashed by of the same mech, all of them showing him smiling, grinning, laughing, kissing, and then the voice was inside his head and the predatory presence of his bonded was next to him. ~He was our mate, our third.~ The images stopped on a frozen moment of the mech with his chest open, showing a bright, golden crystal chamber around a brilliantly pulsing spark. ~This is as close as I could come to knowing his spark, because you couldn't let me go,~ Jazz hissed.

"You shouldn't exist!" Vortex snarled, rage and emotional pain mingling into a potent cocktail in his field. "You murdered my bonded for his frame!"

"The construct never had a right to that frame," Prowl's voice was cold. "It was the construct, not the mech."

"He loved me," Vortex could only repeat.

"Which is why it was destroyed," Prowl replied calmly.

"Stop calling him that!" Vortex shouted.

"THAT'S ALL IT WAS!" Jazz shrieked, and claws caught across Vortex's visor, shattering half of it. "A coding adaptation so I could SURVIVE you and what you did to us!"

"He was real!" Vortex snarled back. "He was the real one. You're the thief. You murdered my mate, stole our creations away!"

"YOU RAPED ME!" Jazz screamed, and a barrage of images, violent and glitched from distress slammed into his processor, moving by too rapidly for Vortex to even fully see what they were, just that each one shone with energon and terror, and beyond the vivid, racing flashback Vortex felt himself slammed back.

Claws tore at him and the dagger was sinking into his chest and then it all stopped very suddenly and Vortex dimly saw the shape of the Praxian pulling his enraged mate off.

"Love, not so fast," Prowl's voice was soothing, his field encompassing, his grip strong without hurting. "Don't kill him so fast."

Jazz hissed and snarled and tugged, but didn't try to break away, and very slowly calmed down until he was just x-venting heavily and shivering, and then he shook himself and resettled his armor, slipping back into his cool, controlled composition. "You're right," he said, voice flat. "That would be too generous for him."

"Still crying over that?" Vortex sneered, latching onto the first moment of weakness he'd seen. "Those pretty little seals that tore so nicely?"

Jazz looked at him coldly. "While we wait, I'm going to show you more of our mate, and if I get bored with that, we'll just go back and relive the construct being shredded a few more times."

"The shock value's worn off, you pathetic Autobot," Vortex hissed at them. "You got me, and pretty good. I'll give you that. But you don't have anything now."

A grin spread over Jazz's face. "I have time, and weapons, and everything you taught me while I wait to bond with my Prowl." He took a deep, shuddering intake, engines purring as his visor flickered. "It's been so long, what's another metacycle?"

Prowl embraced him from behind and nuzzled his love. "You know, the blocker is off. There is no reason to hold off on merging."

Jazz groaned, head falling onto Prowl's shoulder. "We're so close, love," he murmured. "I don't want to feel him in there with us, not when we're so close."

Prowl nodded and kissed Jazz's stubby horn. "Then we repay what he did to us and move on. We've waited so long."

Jazz nodded, turned, and claimed a deep kiss. "Come remember Radiance with me," he murmured, and drew his mate over to their once-nightmare, and pressed forward the best of nearly a millennia with their mate while they waited.

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Jazz got bored about halfway through the wait and returned to torturing the rotor's blades and Vortex was holding back a screech when it suddenly stopped and Jazz gave a quivering hum. He came around front and looked at him, an odd grin on his face. "Darling, I'd like you to meet your creations," he purred, holding his hand out towards the only entrance to the room.

"They're alive?" Vortex's scattered thoughts took a moment to organize a response. His optics locked onto the human blast door as it was pulled open.

"Very much so," Jazz said as the pair walked over, and Vortex recognized them immediately. Autobot frontliners, powerful warriors. They came to stand next to Jazz, arms crossed over their chests and identical frowns on their faces. "I'm very proud of them, their heritage notwithstanding," he continued, running his knuckles down the red one's arm as he looked up at them. "Prowl sired them too, filled me to bursting over and over again, and they were the result."

"Grounders!" Vortex looked somewhere between horrified and mortified. "You turned my sparklings into grounders."

Sunstreaker's engine snarled back as his optics brightened with anger.

"And Autobots," Vortex added a moment later, something less important to him but still a point. "You murdered my mate for his frame, stole my sparklings, grounded them and made them Autobots!" he shrieked in something resembling hysteria.

Sunstreaker shot Prowl a bewildered look.

"He considers the construct the real Jazz," the Praxian just shrugged.

"It was sentient, sort of," Jazz said with an identical shrug. "Mm, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, meet your sire." A grin split his face and he stepped close to the rotor, who snarled back at him. "Meet the reason you're alive. Although you wouldn't both be if he'd had his way. Do you know his first words to me after we found out the newspark had split?" Jazz turned back to them. "'An heir and a toy.'"

Twin engines snarled together.

"So you," Jazz said to Vortex, "Can stop with that nonsense about stealing your sparklings. You would have torn them apart yourself. And there is no piece of that thing left alive in them, it was shredded before their protoforms began to develop and this spark," his hand went to his chest, "Is mine. They are mine, and Prowl's, and yours, but they aren't your way to connect with that thing."

"They were ours to do what we wanted with!" Vortex shrieked, struggling uselessly against his binds, trashing and twisting.

Jazz picked up the end of the chain system that Vortex was tied up in and tossed it to Sideswipe, who caught it reflexively, his gaze fixed on the screaming, incoherent rotor, his expression a mix of horror, pity, disgust ... but mostly hate. Sunstreaker only had hate on his facial plates. "Just don't kill him," Jazz said, and slipped away to the far wall, drawing Prowl with him and pressing him back, taking a slow kiss that was given and returned eagerly and openly to the sound of a crash, then clashing metal.

"I believe our creations are suitably angry with him," Prowl purred when they finally parted.

Jazz listened to the clash of frames behind them and nodded, hand sliding down Prowl's body to wrap around his leg and pull up, pushing his hips forward into the open space. "I think so," he agreed with an answering purr, and hummed happily at the sounds. "They'll be busy for a while..." Fingers slipped into the junction between Prowl's legs and brushed suggestively over the cover that snapped open immediately for him with a low, needy groan.

"What's different about this one?" Prowl asked with a purring shiver. "It hasn't turned you on like it usually does to work someone over."

Jazz nipped at his mate, spike extending against Prowl's hip. "Haven't gotten started yet," he rumbled, taking a firm hold of Prowl's waist and lining himself up, pushing in. "Just warming up and playing with him, wait 'til I get to his spark."

Any response Prowl might have had was lost to his moan of pleasure, a direct and familiar counterpoint to the cries of pain and snarls of denial going on across the room as their twins took out many of their frustrations once aimed at their carrier on the mech more directly responsible.

Jazz rocked, purring deeply to what he could hear and even almost feel going on in the center of the room, face pressed to Prowl's neck as he basked in the reality of finally, finally having Vortex in their grasp.

When he overloaded into his love, it was to an agonized, rattling scream from the rotor and when he turned to look, he saw Sunstreaker wrenching one of the heavy rotor blades hard enough for it to twist, and he grinned, panting.

Sideswipe rose, having heard the cries from his creators, and turned with energon splattered on his front and dripping from his claws, the rotor's thighs mangled.

"They know how to hurt a mech well," Prowl purred with deep approval as he focused on the scene. The pair hadn't had the lessons in torture that their creators had, but they'd clearly learned the art.

"Kaon crowds really dug this kinda thing," Sideswipe said, licking his claws off as Sunstreaker rumbled in agreement.

"...Kaon ... crowds?" Vortex asked with a sharp whine of his flight engine when the yellow twin yanked at the blade.

"We were Gladiators," Sunstreaker said. "Grew up in youngling pits and made it to the top of the official Kaon arenas."

"This isn't the first time we've met," Sideswipe added, as Vortex stared at him.

"You've paid for our services in the berth a few times," Sunstreaker growled, adding more force to the rotor blade he was busy twisting into a knot.

"Granted you found us appealing when we were called the Bladed Brothers," Sideswipe added. "We had such a shiny finish you just couldn't stand not to mess with it."

"Took us orns to get presentable again after you," Sunstreaker growled, full of frustrated hate. "Most mecha just wanted to spike us, to say they had. But not you. You had to go and make us ugly."

"You!" Vortex screeched, and twisted madly. "I remember you! You-you-" He broke off into another shriek.

"We what?" Sideswipe snarled, grabbing him by the throat. "We weren't timid enough for you? You lodged a complaint because I growled at you when you hurt my brother and got us both whipped."

"I'll have you both smelted!" Vortex raged at him.

Jazz couldn't quite stop the laugh that escaped after that and he pulled out of his mate, resettled his armor and walked over, smooth and calm. "You're never leaving this room," he said. "When the twins have had their fill, they'll give you back to me, and I'll show you just how much I've learned. You were an excellent teacher."

"As was Whiplash," Prowl added. "Though he only built and refined what you showed us. What I'm eager to show you is what we developed on our own."

Jazz hummed deeply and waited until Sunstreaker stopped mutilating the blade long enough for the rotor to stop screaming and stepped in next to the red twin, drawing a single claw under Vortex's chin. The rotor looked at him with optics that were deep red with fury and loathing.

"Remember that strange bout of vandalism you had in Kaon?" Jazz purred. "Rotor blades across your gates? Finances vanishing? Your gardens poisoned? That was us."

"You?" Vortex roared, shaking as much from rage as pain.

"We weren't Autobots yet," Prowl chuckled. "We were actually the last of our glitched little family to join up. Smokescreen was first. He convinced the twins to join. Bluestreak even joined before us, and he was still a mechling at Praxus."

Sunstreaker snarled at him, a wordless sound of anger bred from distress.

"He wasn't family back then," Prowl soothed his irritable creation. "He hadn't even been created yet."

Sunstreaker settled and Jazz chuckled. "He's definitely family now," he promised the twins. "We wouldn't forget to include him."

Vortex's gaze shifted sharply sideways and he latched onto the information inherent in the short exchange. "You find something young and pretty?" he sneered. "I'll find it when I'm free, and I will be free. Megatron has to be hurting your Prime for me, he'll be here any time to order my release. I'll find it and hurt it, just wait," he hissed through his pain.

"Keep telling yourself that," Prowl chuckled. "So far Megatron doesn't seem to have noticed you're missing."

"And our young and pretty can handle himself as well as we can," Sideswipe purred, his optics glittering with memories. "You have to be competent to keep our attention more than one frag."

"He did," Sideswipe grunted as he began to precise work of folding a previously untouched rotor blade longwise. "You'd have better luck taking us out than him."

"You're lying!" Vortex screeched, frame going rigid and blades trying to pull out of the abuse, disabled rotor pack rattling and whining against the sabotage. "I'm part of a gestalt, Megatron wants me!"

"Haven't heard anything," Jazz said coldly. "Apparently you're really not as special as you think." He leaned in, visor bright. "You're weren't anything special in berth, either, for that matter. Not at all what interfacing was cracked up to be."

"My bonded enjoyed it," Vortex hissed back. "It was good." He screamed in pain as Sideswipe dug his claws into Vortex's hips and tore at them.

"Four to one just in this room. You're worth slag in the berth," the red warrior corrected him. He glanced at Jazz. "You said we can have fun with him. Does that include letting the overgrown desk fan loose in the room to really play with?"

The visor brightened, optic ridges raised, and a smile crept across Jazz's face. "Whatcha think, Prowler?" he asked his mate as he databurst the twins the detonation codes for the bomb in the rotor's chest. "I'm down."

"Go ahead," Prowl nodded. "Just don't kill him. That's our pleasure."

The twins turned identical, savage grins on the rotor, who snarled back as he shook the chains, eager to have a chance to fight back. "So frightening," Sunstreaker sneered back.

"Egg beater of doom," Sideswipe snickered.

Jazz smirked, shook his head, and drew Prowl back with him to lean up against the wall, shoulders brushing and Prowl's wing tucked behind him as Vortex shook his way from the bindings and staggered up to his pedes. Even with the damage, and the pain, this mech was still strong, but Jazz could tell from the twins' circling paces that they weren't going to make the mistake of underestimating him.

"If you get from the building, the comm scrambling wears off," Sideswipe told him. "You could probably get your gestalt here in a groon."

"Not that it'd help you any," Sunstreaker smirked, eager and reveling in giving a little personal payback to the mech who had done so much damage, directly and indirectly. "You wouldn't last a groon."

But it had been enough to give Vortex hope of getting out and he growled back at the pair, limping as he moved and settled and figured out how much strength his legs still had.

"My credits're on the twins," Jazz whispered loudly, tilting his head towards Prowl.

"No one is going to take you up on it," Prowl chuckled, low and affectionate. "Unless the bet is whether they'll remember to leave him alive enough for us when they're done."

"I bet they will," Jazz said, settling in to watch as the twins began toying with their prey, making quick strike-and-retreat moves that so far were designed just to rattle and aggravate, a tactic that was working effectively. "Wanna take me up on that?"

"Mmm, what is the wager?" Prowl nuzzled him. "Credits aren't that interesting to bet with."

"How 'bout I bet that I will turn in every report on time and without complaint for a vorn," Jazz purred. "Against you not being allowed to nag me for them for a vorn."

Prowl considered the conflict playing out before them, the way the twins were taunting and tormenting the grounded rotor trying to reach the door and fight them off. "Mmm, no. That bet is too rich too loose."

"Spoilsport," Jazz stuck his glossa out. "Three metacycles."

"What about the winner gets to spike our toy first?" Prowl counter-offered.

"You're on," Jazz said, turning his attention back out. "Hey!" he called, getting the twins' attention. "If you kill 'im I'm reassigning Mirage to galaxy perimeter!"

"And I'll override that order," Prowl called a counter as he carefully untangled himself from Jazz and stood. "Just pay attention to the fight," he added as he walked to the huge blast door and pushed it open, then stepped away.

Vortex sharpened on it like the sky-deprived flight frame he was and shoved past Sideswipe, sprinting towards the opening. The red twin allowed it but Sunstreaker was right there to cut him off and shove him back, giving his brother enough time to cut around to the side, and then stepped away, letting Vortex get another sprint in.

Sideswipe raced to intersect, diving into a slide pede-first, slamming into Vortex's legs and toppling him over before pouncing on top of him with a deep growl and slamming him into the floor.

"I'll kill you!" Vortex shrieked, landing a punch in the middle of his chest and sinking his claws in. Sideswipe grunted and Sunstreaker was there in an instant, grabbing the hand away and pinning it.

"You are such a spoilsport," Jazz told his mate, purring from the show.

"I just gave him an incentive to think less and react more," Prowl purred as he snuggled in to enjoy the show of the two heavy frontliners playing keep-away with an ever-increasingly desperate Vortex and his bid for the door. "It's not like you would have really sent Mirage away. You want to live."

"Honey, we need to show a united front in front of the kids," Jazz chastised.

"Hey!" Sideswipe called. "Would the peanut gallery like to keep it down?"

"Seriously," Sunstreaker said. "You're like an old married couple."

Jazz and Prowl looked at each other, then back out at where Sideswipe was holding the twisting, snarling Vortex by the rotor blades while Sunstreaker danced around him, scoring blows between his attempts to block. "We are an old married couple," Prowl said.

"Objection!" Jazz said. "Old!"

"Pff," Sideswipe said. "You are old!"

"I am only 300 vorns older than you!" Jazz said, sitting upright until Prowl's purring strokes got him to relax back down.

"But we've been married for over seven thousand vorns, not counting the extended stasis," Prowl teased him with affectionate kisses. "Sideswipe's old too, he's just hasn't been married long enough to be an 'old married couple'."

"Yuck, you've infected him!" Sunstreaker managing a pouting grumble towards Jazz. "He never used to be so imprecise with language."

"I hadn't dealt with humans yet," Prowl pointed out smoothly. "Though mostly it annoys the rotor you're working over."

"I'll see you all flayed!" Vortex shrieked, struggling to pull out of the red twin's grip. Sideswipe smirked and let go, causing him to stumble forward from the sudden lack of resistance from behind, but he recovered quickly and focused in on the door. Both twins backed up to guard it, but they stayed far enough away to still give him a moment of hope.

Vortex tried to transform, getting stuck halfway through the transition from the damage and reverted back with a screech as he tried to make a dash on his pedes, an attempt that was quickly cut off.

"Cat 'n mouse," Jazz grinned.

"They're very good at it," Prowl purred, all but radiating his pride in the pair as a neon sign. "It takes a significant level of intellect, thought, planning and skill to anticipate an enemy's movements so well and counter them. It's a pleasure to watch."

Vortex hissed at him and his rotors rattled aggressively-or tried to, they managed to whine and click before the rotor cringed. "Kill me or let me go," he snarled.

The twins glanced at each other, and there were volumes exchanged in that single moment. They spread apart and Sunstreaker held his hand out towards the door while Sideswipe glanced at his seated creators and flicked his optic in a wink.

The rotor sprinted towards it and was through the door and disappeared before the twins transformed and raced off. They heard the squeal of tires and screeches outside, clash of armor, and it was a full five kliks before Vortex was dragged back in, kicking and screaming.

"You lied, you lied!" Vortex shouted.

"You really thought we were stupid enough to leave your comms in?" Jazz said, unfazed. "That was one of the first useful things you taught us."

"We will show you exactly how dedicated we were as students," Prowl added, a horrible promise in his voice. "We watched, felt and we learned. We are better at torture than you are, and the students must show their teacher that they have learned all they can from him."

"You're weird when you get all talky," Sunstreaker grumbled as he slammed a fist squarely into Vortex's chest to send him to the ground.

Jazz chuckled and nuzzled his mate fondly. "He used to be much more 'talky,'" he said. "Shoulda heard him in berth the first few millennia ... oh, you remember how you took his vocalizer, don't you, 'Texy? Gave him one from a turbo-hound?"

The twins gave Jazz a startled look, then turned vicious snarls back on their spark sire.

"You what?" Sunstreaker hissed, grabbing Vortex by sinking into his chest plates and shaking him.

"Wasn't going to waste credits on a real one," the rotor spat back despite the pain and the slowly growing realization that Autobots or not, he was going to deactivate here, at their hands and for their pleasure.

"You sick, twisted mess of scrap," Sunstreaker snarled.

"He is, but it's off topic," Jazz said. "Prowl had such a gorgeous voice, beautiful tenor, and then it was gone, and I didn't hear him speak for more than a vorn. And then once I did oh Primus was it amazing..." His hand slipped between his legs and pressed down at his valve cover. "He'd talk to me for so long and I overloaded harder from his voice than I ever did in that freak's grasp," he finished cheerfully. "He could talk endlessly."

"That," Sideswipe snickered, "Is disgusting."

"Damn, I was going for sweet," Jazz hummed, head against Prowl's shoulder as his mate's hands slid down his flanks to join his at the interface covers. Prowl's spike was hard against Jazz's backstrut as Prowl took a sensor horn into his mouth to lavish it with his glossa.

"Sometimes he'd overload just from my voice, early on," Prowl added with a low rumble of fond memories. "You have no idea the kind of ego burst that is, to have you mate writhe and scream in bliss without even touching him. It was so intense."

Vortex flew into another mindless rage, this time his goal was to anger the twins into deactivating before their elders got back to the systematic pain.

But they had grown, in the centuries since leaving the arenas, no longer able to be pushed into that kind of blind killing frenzy from something as weak and unthreatening as the rotor between them. If anything, their fields teeked amused as they toyed and batted at him.

When Vortex was blind with his incensed, humiliated rage, they tossed him back over to the chains and systematically strung him back up, loose enough that he was still able to writhe and toss on the ground, screaming at them to kill him.

The twins backed away, looking at their creators. "I think we broke him," Sideswipe said, smirking at the way Jazz had his fingers pressed into his valve alongside Prowl's.

"Excellent," Prowl praised the pair without breaking his efforts to blind Jazz with bliss from just his fingers. "You have grown up so much. It's a joy to watch you play."

"Can we watch you play?" Sunstreaker asked, settling down on the ground near them, drawing Sideswipe down with him.

"Mmhmm," Jazz hummed, arching back. "In just ... in just ... mm, Prowl..."

The twins rolled their optics in unison, well-used to the libido of their creators.

"Yes," Prowl answered his creations.

In the distance, Vortex gradually stilled and stared, fixated, at the fingers. "That was mine," he hissed. "Before it was ever yours. I had him first. Remember how nicely he screamed?"

"Yes, I remember the screams," Prowl said softly, his voice even and completely at odds with the movements of his fingers into the gasping, writhing mech pressed against his chest. "This valve was never yours. He screams for me now, in pleasure, from anything I do to him. I make sure to please him with every touch."

"He overloaded on me first," Vortex snarled.

"Damn, mech, are you really that stupid?" Sideswipe asked, peering at him. "He'd overload on a stick if he had to."

Jazz managed a whine in protest, but not much more, and Sunstreaker snickered.

"It isn't the overload," Sideswipe continued. "That's not even important. It's how much he loves Prowl."

"And how much I love him," Prowl whispered, mostly for his mate to hear and feel the full honesty of it across their fields.

Jazz screamed and seized and Vortex's voice joined in with him, rage against joy, hate against love.

When it was over, when fingers were cleaned and plating resettled, Jazz rose up to his pedes and stalked forward. "Are you ready to play?" he asked coldly.

Barely a step behind him Prowl shivered in anticipation. For the first time the twins saw their creators as something very close to the monsters they had become in the arenas. This Jazz and Prowl held no morals, no reservations, there was nothing in them that was capable of regret in the violence they were about to commit.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe shared a glance and accepted that maybe they weren't so different from the mechs that had created them. They were all monsters inside. All of them at peace with that truth and that the respectable mecha that most knew were no more than masks, a thin veneer.

~I guess ... they really do get it, being a monster inside,~ Sunstreaker murmured, struck between awe and a calming sense of being accepted by someone who understood.

~They do,~ Sideswipe whispered, watching the flawless transformation as Jazz drew a dark whip from his subspace and gave it a testing blow through the air. ~Radiance wasn't, Mirage isn't. We got lucky, Sunny, we got so lucky, that we have him. I wonder how they'd be if they still had their balance.~

~I don't know. We kinda have one and we're still fragged beyond recognition inside,~ Sunstreaker pointed out. ~The veneer might be thicker, harder to shed. I don't think anything can change what we all are.~ He leaned against his twin. ~Yeah, we're so lucky Mirage is ours. It feels good to have him nearby. You think that's what they had with Radiance? Feeling better just to have him in the same room, just to know that he existed and loved them despite knowing them.~

~To hear them talk about him ... it was all of that and more.~

"Let's see," Jazz purred, drawing the twins' attention back outward, and struck, hard, across the open, sparking wounds in the rotor's abdomen where Sunstreaker had ripped the plating. The inlaid diamond shards caught on the fine sensor wires and pulled out as Jazz drew back and Vortex screamed. "Is that it?" Jazz hissed, with another crack of the whip. "You're pathetic, everything you dished out and you can't take it without crying like a sparkling?" The third hit ripped away protoform and the strength behind it left scratches in the armor.

~You know, we've never actually asked to watch them at work,~ Sunstreaker suddenly realized. ~Interrogation has been Jazz's job since before Praxus fell.~

Sideswipe shivered. ~We saw more of this in Prowl than Jazz. At least when Jazz grins he doesn't look...~

~Demented?~ Sunstreaker supplied, optics on his frame sire, watching his expression.

~...Yeah.~

Jazz worked at the same spot on the rotor's abdomen until he couldn't see anything through the running energon, and his spark was pulsing rapidly in his chest long before that point. Energon scent and someone under his claws, it had been so long, the Prime steadfastly refused to loose Jazz on prisoners, and this mech more than anything was going to get him revved.

That his mate was behind him, field alive with arousal and excitement and vicious glee that few subjects elicited only encouraged Jazz's state.

The whip wrapped around Vortex's neck and with a twist of Jazz's wrist, tightened and caught, and when he pulled, he lifted Vortex towards him, crushing the cables together. Vortex choked and Jazz grabbed the weapon to yank harder, slicing his own hand open but not even flinching. "So what kinds of surprises did Shockwave install in your upgrades?" he purred, and his hand went down, tearing at the panel where a spike should have been and immediately feeling the housing beneath his fingers. "Excellent, I was actually worried you wouldn't have anything down here. Rape anyone with this one yet?"

Vortex tried to answer and couldn't. He could only choke and sputter through the ruined vocalizer.

"Extend it," Prowl ordered, though which of them it was directed at could be debated.

Jazz's grin was savage as he sank his claws into the housing and twisted, tearing and ruining the systems as two reached in, dug into the hidden tip, pierced straight through, and then pulled.

Vortex's shriek was shrill, agonized as shudders of revulsion worked through his frame from the forced extension that irreparably damaged the equipment. It would never retract again.

Jazz moaned long and low at seeing it, not as modified and intimidating as the model he'd known so well but still sharpened and bladed, dark red. "So many nights," he whispered, staring. "So many nights you ripped me open." He dug his claws in harder and Vortex tried to pull away, then whined as it stretched his spike further and froze. "Prowl," Jazz said, and his tone was ice as he reached back for his mate's hand and slipped a dagger into his fingers.

Prowl caught a kiss from Jazz before sliding his claws along the extended length. "I can't even begin to do all that you did to mine, but I'll give you a taste of it," he rumbled over Vortex's screams and let himself sink fully into the hate he had left. Even here he knew the emotions were a bare shadow of what they had been before Prime's healing merges and the knowledge that had come with them, so now he acted not for himself, but for his mate.

Jazz needed this in the same way Prowl once had, but Prowl wasn't about to lie and say he wasn't enjoying it, either. It was still one of the most satisfying things he'd ever experienced.

With a smooth twisting of his wrist, Prowl sliced off a single hooked blade, digging in a bit to take it out along the attachment point where the sensor wires were gathered.

Jazz purred, visor bright and fixed, while his free hand reached back to stroke Prowl's still-extended spike as he watched.

"Dirty-nothing-freak!" Vortex screeched, only to have the sound choke out when the next flick sliced out another bladed point.

"You are still less than I am," Prowl purred as he methodically worked along the length until it was smooth. "That's a start," he smiled and nuzzled his mate to Vortex's sobs. "I really expected him to be stronger than this. To think we feared him for so long."

"He liked to pick on weaker mecha," Jazz hummed as he watched with purring engines. "Credits kept him safe. Don't even have Megs ta protect ya here, do ya, 'Tex?" he taunted, admiring his mate's precise work.

Vortex's vocalizer spat broken glyphs that were too heavily cut with static to be understood. Not that anyone would have cared even if they could.

Prowl's claws came out with tiny transformation sequences and began to make jagged spirals around the spike, digging in just deep enough to make him bleed at first. The second pass went deeper, and the third ran a counter-pattern that was deeper still.

The metal gave easily, this spike made with only the barest necessary quality of material, and Jazz chuckled deeply, his intakes speeding up as Vortex's field began to teek more and more desperate. "If I could," he whispered as Prowl carved, working glyphs into the length, "I'd devote a century for every nanoklik of pain you caused my love. You're lucky I'm impatient."

"But since I'm here, he has a reward waiting for him at the end," Prowl purred and leaned in. "My spark. We'll finally merge, finally get to bond, when you are out of the way," he hissed the aggravation that had caused them over their long lives and dug his claw in deep to pull along the full length of the spike. "Torch."

Against the far wall, two pairs of optics went wide and two sets of vents stalled out, but the pair said nothing. Jazz's own vents hitched and he handed the tool over, drinking in the fear that flooded the rotor's field and the garbled, nonsense pleas that spat from his vocalizer.

Prowl lit it and adjusted it to just over the melting temperature of the spike's material before flicking it across Vortex's gaze. "Remember how hot it made you when our positions were reversed? How many times you overloaded just melting my hands down to the wrist, one finger at a time? I'll get to those, eventually, but first the cause of so much pain and so much of your effort to dominate." He purred deeply and lowered the torch to Vortex's mangled spike, just ghosting over the length at first.

The full-frame, wracking spasms were so severe that Vortex actually tore the tip of his spike through Jazz's claws and the younger of the tormenters brought his knife spinning into his fingers, grabbed the rotor's hip, and slammed the weapon down through the length. It impaled Vortex's spike into his own hip and his garbled screams were loud enough to hurt when Prowl made another pass, wild optics behind the visor rolled wildly and found the twins, staring pleadingly at them. "I-r, s'r, k-pl's!" was the broken string of glyphs that tore out.

The twins just stared, unmoving, and Vortex twisted and shook.

"We've had entirely too long to plan this," Prowl purred, his optics and field expressing the full madness that he'd given himself over to for this. Slowly, drop by drop, Vortex's spike's skin melted away, pooling on his pelvis and hardening there, soldering the spike down and leaving the sturdier core exposed. Jazz wrenched his knife out so the next stage wouldn't harm it, and Prowl upped the intensity of the flame and went to work on that, moving from the tip to the housing, then deep inside it, as deep as the flame would reach.

When he worked, slowly and methodically, Jazz slipped away to Vortex's head and moved into a straddle above him, grabbing his helm in his claws and yanking up, pushing his spike against the rotor's lips. Vortex tried to turn his head away but Jazz just pulled him back and then forced his knife in and twisted it sideways, using the blade to keep his jaw open.

"I learned this from you, you know," he spat over the rotor's keens. "This response to another creature's pain, it hardwired itself in as I adapted to you. You never expected it to be turned on you did you? You never anticipated that your two best students might just hate you for the lessons you so diligently gave."

Vortex couldn't have responded even if he'd wanted to. His vocalizer, what was left of it, was glitching, the blade lodging his mouth open and the blinding pain from between his legs all meant he was largely lost to reality.

Jazz shoved in with a low moan, forcing down the intake that had never been violated like this, voluntarily or no, and gasped at the intense, rippling tightness that tried to force him back out. "Frag. You," Jazz groaned, shaking from the pain that was flooding from their once-tormenter. "Prowl. Oh, Prowl, don't stop!"

"Not until they're nothing left. Then his hands, rotors, and all the other parts he melted off me," Prowl promised with a psychotic giggle.

Jazz snarled through a grin and pushed, losing himself to the sensation and the waves of agony.

When he finally came out of the haze of overloading, more times than he'd kept track of as his mate had methodically melted away the rotor's frame, Jazz slumped down, exhausted, and first glanced over to where he'd last seen the twins.

They were gone, not unexpectedly so-Optimus certainly couldn't spare them as well and they'd seen what they'd needed-leaving him and his mate alone with the rotor. "Think I needta recharge," he murmured happily, slumping against Prowl.

"Then recharge with me, my love," Prowl helped arrange them near their prey on a matt. It wasn't a great berth, but it was softer than the cement floor and Prowl was happy to hold Jazz in his arms again.

SxSxSxSxSxSxSxSx S===================S SxSxSxSxSxSxSxS

Jazz purred and stretched when he booted, several decaorns after they'd melted Vortex's spike, though he hadn't been keeping good track of the time throughout the methodical process of torturing every span of Vortex's frame. Part of him was amazed that the rotor was still alive, more of him was thrilled he'd made it this long.

"Think he's ever had his valve touched?" he rumbled to his mate when he was fully online.

"I very much doubt it, unless it was by Megatron to put him in his place," Prowl nuzzled in reply.

"'Texy," Jazz sing-songed, rising smoothly to his pedes and gliding over to the wrecked frame. He looked worse than Prowl had after being melted, now, and Jazz suspected he had long ago been stripped of his sanity. He dropped down into a crouch on the chest, grinding his pede into a wound over the spark chamber. "Ever been well and truly fragged?"

Vortex whimpered.

It made Jazz shiver, hard, and he pulled something out of his subspace that the rotor's optics immediately locked onto. The bright shine of chrome, sculpted metal, and a mimic of the spike the rotor had used to break Jazz's seals and torment the pair. "Since you liked it so much," he explained cheerfully.

Vortex whimpered, dazed and beyond any ability to be fully coherent anymore.

"It's a pity we don't have access to a repair bot to fix him up," Prowl lamented even as he assisted Jazz in arranging the odd straps that would hold the spike over where his real one was and plugging it into several data and interface ports. "But it was very nice of Wheeljack to make this for us. We really must give him something in return."

Jazz hummed and drew his mate into a kiss. "We could go after Shockwave after this," he said. "No one'll miss that glitch except Megatron."

"Definitely," Prowl purred as he pressed against his mate's back, anticipation thick in his field. "Shockwave even qualifies as a solid military target. Without him Cybertron would fall into our hands quite rapidly."

"And once we're bonded we'll be able to get into Darkmount," Jazz said with a grin as all the strategic possibilities of two of the most powerful Autobots being able to evade any comm-detection system began to trickle through his processor. He knelt down in between Vortex's disabled legs and pushed them open, easily tearing the valve cover away and pressing claws at it. "Ooh, someone's had you," he purred. "Was it Megatron? Was it Onslaught? Were you on your hands and knees?"

"I'm sure it was Megatron that took this glitch to put him in his place and all that," Prowl chuckled. "You know how Decepticons like to use interfacing to display dominance."

"Intimately," Jazz purred. "And they still manage to completely miss the meaning of it. Mm," he hummed thoughtfully as he lined the spike up with the tight-looking, barely used valve. "I'm sorry you don't have seals for me to break, but just knowing you've had that humiliation makes me feel better, darling bonded." He sank his claws into the hips, getting a shocked screech of protest, and then pushed.

The spike needed a good amount of force behind it to move forward and Jazz gave a shuddering moan as the hardlines conducted the mock sensory data directly into his sensor net. He stilled there, panting heavily as Vortex shrieked. "Primus," he managed, then yanked back out, and Vortex screamed, optics going white.

Energon spilled out behind the spike and Jazz laughed as he started to drive at a steady pace.

"Primus, that much force, and he's at least twice the size you were back then," Prowl's optics went wide as his engine growled. "Maybe I can snatch Hook to patch him up a few times."

"You think ... that 'Con hack ... wouldn't rat us out?" Jazz panted between thrusts. "Ohh so good, not gonna last long."

"Oh, he would in a sparkbeat," Prowl continued to move with his mate while Vortex, or what remained of him, howled and screeched in wordless agony. "But no comm and given a choice of being the next toy or fixing this one, I think he'd be a good survivalist and fix this one."

Jazz purred deeply, head back against Prowl's shoulder. "Love you," he moaned, starting to move past the ability to think and strategize. "Have you soon, don't wanna-don't wanna make it lo-ah-onger!"

"Then we don't," Prowl trembled against his back, riding with the bliss and energy surging from Jazz's frame. He held there, pressed close enough to feel every quiver. "This is for you now, my love. When you are ready to end it, we end it. I've had my revenge on him."

Jazz managed to nod as he hunched forward, gripping hard enough to rend metal, and it took less than a dozen more thrusts before he screamed out and seized in an intense overload that rippled static over and through his frame, jumping to Prowl, even pulling Vortex up into his grip as the rotor thrashed uselessly. "See-how-you-like it!" Jazz moaned, and then collapsed back when the charge finally faded. "You ... wanna turn?" he asked, looking up at his mate.

"Very much," Prowl trembled in anticipation as they swapped the harness setup. "He's so close. So very close." With a manic grin he drove forward, laying over the mangled frame as he pounded into it. Moans and keens of bliss mingled with Vortex's screams and static-heavy cries.

"Soon," Jazz moaned from behind him, hands wandering his mate's frame, arching against his back. "A-after this, Prowl, lover, love, I want you after this."

"You have me ... anytime ... any ... anywhere," Prowl groaned at the intensity of the feedback. "Haven't felt anything like this ... since ... that microbot ... what a-ohhh-frag that was."

Jazz's engines whined in sharp agreement as he rocked from the force of Prowl's motions, their fields entangled and bleeding together, one in arousal. "Your-your spark," Jazz gasped, and almost sobbed when he realized that he was ready.

He was ready.

And suddenly the need for Prowl to overload so they could finish the kill became blinding and Jazz pulsed arousal back to him through their fields. "Prowl," he begged, and it hurt so much to be this far away from his mate he could suddenly taste it.

Prowl's response was a hurried, utterly joyful series of thrusts and a roar as he stopped holding back and focused everything on overloading as rapidly as possible.

Jazz keened with him, shuddering and shaking through the sensations, crying out half-designations and glyphs as the current overwhelmed his processor before they collapsed, slumped over the rotor's quivering frame.

Prowl lay there, trembling as he cooled. "Still want me before we finish him?"

In answer, Jazz grabbed him and twisted, unplugging the spike set-up with hands that moved so fast he could barely keep up with them and climbed on top of Vortex, on his hands and knees, pulling Prowl in behind him. He handed a cable back, took Prowl's, and his valve was bared for his lover as he looked down into Vortex's wild optics. "Soon," he crooned. "After he spills in me for you to see, your spark is mine."

Prowl moaned at the promise and hurriedly plugged in, reveling in the intimacy of the hardline for only a few moments. Then he was against his mate's back, trusting into that incredible slick heat that nothing else could compare to. It wasn't as tight as some, but it knew him, had been chosen and crafted for him, and it was part of the mech he loved with all his spark.

"Ohh, love," Prowl moaned, turning his voice onto autopilot so Jazz would hear it no matter how distracted he might become. It didn't matter if he made sense, so long as he continued to talk and thrust and build up the charge inside their frames to that glorious peak that was mutual overload.

Jazz looked right into Vortex's optics as he gripped the chest for leverage and saw pain, fear, despair, emotions that were echoed into the field that pushed against him and through the wide-open bond. Jazz drank it all in as his hips pushed up and back, valve rippling around his lover in the most intricate patterns he knew.

He began to pull at the chest plates, and almost to his surprise, they opened willingly beneath him, dark orange light shining up. Jazz snarled down and brought his claws striking across the rotor's face, completely shattering the visor and pulling what remained of the melted mouth completely off. Agony pummeled him through the bond and he pushed his arousal back, and the anticipation, and the joy of knowing how close he was to being free.

Prowl groaned above him, intent on his last assigned duty, to spill his fluids deep into Jazz's valve. His voice continued to mumble, laced with static cracks, but glyphs of adoration, praise, pleasure, desire and love flowed freely until the pleasure was too much and his vocalizer could only spit white noise.

It rebooted, Jazz keened, and he screamed his lover's designation, the energy roaring through them both as he pumped thick, gooey, energy-rich transfluid into him, spreading the charge into the deepest recesses.

Jazz's vocalizer shorted as his head tossed back, his spike extending with the force of the overload as it rushed through him. His hands slammed into the rotor's chest and the flight engine gave a terrified squeal of broken pieces when he gripped the crystal in battle-strength claws and cracked it open.

They moved up as one, and when Jazz pushed his spike into the light, their scream was completely unified.

It had never felt so good. It had never been so personal. Jazz's spark lunged in his chest, recognizing the spark energy dancing into his frame from the contact and instinctively seeking to complete the merge they were in entirely the wrong position to manage.

"Ohhh, babe," Prowl gasped through the blinding pleasure. "I could live with this being the last one we take."

Jazz managed a nod as he thrust forward. Vortex had barely any life or will left in him, he could feel that through so many different sources, and it was hard to think straight with the dizzying reality that they were finally here, a place he'd once given up on ever reaching. Terror spiked beneath him, want and love from behind, and the mix was intoxicating in its pleasure.

When the spark began to gutter Jazz grabbed Vortex's helm and yanked back so he could meet the optics behind the smashed visor one more time before life fled from the frame. He stared into them, remembering everything Vortex had done to them, cost them. Engine growling, frame steaming from the heat, he looked. "Goodbye, Vortex," he said, then as overload started to shake through them, tossed his head back and screamed, "Prowl!"

His mate gripped him, grounded him, as the overload tore through him in the same moment that his spark was torn open as the physical bond shattered with the explosive end to one side of it.

Prowl sobbed against Jazz's back, sounds of pleasure, relief, disbelief, joy and the crushing reality that from this moment on, whatever they made of themselves was on them. Vengeance complete, their score settled and their long-held goal complete, they were on their own in a way neither had experienced before.

It was a tiny bit terrifying.

Jazz shook from the intensity coming from his mate and reached blindly for him, then felt a pull in the center of his spark as the energy tried to follow the same downward gutter as Vortex's had taken. "Prowl," he gasped, desperate, terrified, suddenly afraid that he wasn't strong enough to fight the break and he knew he needed his mate.

He hardly noticed the graying, energon-soaked frame as he collapsed sideways and keened, chest splitting and iris spiraling open as he somehow managed to twist onto his back.

It hurt to fight.

"Here, always here," Prowl didn't even think as his chest plates parted and his spark chamber came forward and opened. He simply pressed his chamber to his mate's. They would live or they would die in this moment, together as one. Bonded and alive or bonded and to the Well or oblivion.

~Stay with me.~ Prowl's awareness called to Jazz across their joining sparks. ~United, no pain can touch us.~

Jazz surged forward and the corneas collided so fast it hurt, arms wrapping around Prowl and pulling him completely flush. He held there, frozen, as his spark shuddered against Prowl's and the pull slowly lessened, the sheer cliff behind it grew further away, and the blackness beyond receded. When it was just a mild ache in his memory, Jazz suddenly opened his awareness forward, shining and bright and free, and found the pale blue, almost white presence waiting for him.

His spark quivered and danced, shy and excited and eager and younger than it had any right to feel, darting through caressing tendrils, arching against each stroke and circling back for more. ~You,~ he whispered in awe, meeting the presence that had been so close since the moment he'd come into being, and so far at the same time. Finally here, finally touch.

~Us,~ Prowl replied, full of joy, wonder, awe and gratitude, but first and most, love for the spark that was finally able to touch his own. ~I am yours, my love. Please have me.~

~Always yours, always mine, always ours,~ Jazz's very spark answered, and he managed to calm the racing energy down to a smooth flow that wrapped around the other light, touching the scars that marred the surface and finding only beauty in them. He could feel power beneath the awareness, strength that was content 9to stay settled, and he knew that strength would come whenever he called. ~Serve me,~ he whispered, a request and an offer all at once.

~Always,~ Prowl's very spark surged with joy at the prospect. He laid himself at his master's pedes in the small space between their spark cores and knew only joy, love and contentment in the act of pure, absolute submission to one he adored.

Jazz circled and purred, drawing flush with a blinding flare of light as he basked in being one, then spun and danced and laughed and pulled Prowl to come with him, baring the very center of his spark, and opened himself up for the bond that he ached to form. Prowl danced willingly with him, just as joyful, just as eager to offer himself.

At his core Prowl was still a calm, logical, ordered being that reveled in the predictable, yet also there was a full understanding that he was not complete. He needed the chaos that Jazz embodied to balance the order that could suffocate, just as the chaos that was Jazz needed the order Prowl provided to keep from flying apart.

They both knew and felt the absence of their third, and it still somehow did not detract in the least of the perfection that was their union.

Radiance wouldn't have wanted it to.

Two sparks circled and spun, one tumbling and full of bright laughter, the other more settled but no less joyful, faster and faster until there was no space left between, no part of one that was not completely part of the other, and the merge culminated in a blinding surge of pure light that exploded out with the crack and strength of a new star, a spasming, rippling overload beyond wires and cables and frames. They soared together, exhilarated and united, and it was only when forced by the necessity of their frames that they parted.

They left each other with loving caresses, still exploring this new union until the last tendrils separated and their sparks nestled safely back inside their crystals, and by the time their chests closed, they were deep in peaceful, needed recharge.

And they were no longer alone.