Savin' Me
Chapter 2

Takes place long after the introduction/ chapter one.


Hazard looked behind him, as the small femme struggled to carry her load. His poor creation was hardly able to keep from falling backwards as her feet kept moving in the same zigzagged pattern, her knees threatening to collapse under the weight. If only Hazard could have given her a better life. It never seemed to get any easier for either of them. But then, what was done was done and he now knew he had trapped himself and his two creations to his own pit of despair. A pit also known by Demircon, a once proud city-state now infested with rust and decay.

Hazard turned his back, and resumed his pace while he himself struggled to hold his own load back to the repair shop. "Com'on, lil gal. We're almost there." He shouted back to her, shifting the rusted scrap metal in his arms. "Patch' aint gunna let us get our creds if we're late again."

"Arrrug," the femme stretched her lips into a straight line. "I'm trying. It's just too much….I-I can't." Her knees started to buckle again, zigzagging in a hurried rush. "I'm going to drop it-I can't-" And finally the her hands lost their purchase on the slippery metal.

But they didn't hit the ground.

"Hey there, petro-bunny!" Jive swiftly stepped in front of the staggering femme, "why don't you leave that to me, eh?" He said gallantly, doing an impressive bow and snagging the metal from her hands. Ruse did the same for Hazard, grabbing at least what he could from the older stubborn mech before Hazard had a chance to argue with him.

"Because!" She shot back, trying to grab her pieces back. "I can do it all by myself. I'm strong."

Jive grabbed for the pieces back in a tug of war with the younger femme. "You're as strong as a petro-bunny, don't fool yourself. Just let me-"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Ye-"

Ruse, who was standing beside Hazard, merely shook his head. "Are you a sparkling too now, Jive? You're fightin' with a cycle-old femme, dipstick! You honestly think y' gunna win against that?"

The blue and orange mech nor the femme paid attention to them though and continued arguing. Duel and Jazz lagged behind, each carrying their own loads of scraps and materials. "Keep it moving, we got work t' get done." Duel barked at the other four, pushing past them to get to the shop door where Patchjob was already heating metal for the work at hand. Reluctantly Jive gave in and "allowed" the femme to win their argument and trudged into the shop behind Duel and the others with a quiet mummble of "I still won."

Jazz sat his load beside the unofficial leader's pile too. He wasn't one to question Duel either. He hadn't been around the three of them for long, only a few cycles, but he was quite able to understand not to cross the big green mech. Ruse kept telling him that Duel would never hurt him of course, but the nasty sneer on his face made Jazz second guess his friend's opinion.

"Alrigh' Patch. We got y'r parts. Where's our cut?" Duel picked up a wrench off the old workbench and idly mangled the metal in his hands, leaning on the bench with one foot crossed over the other.

The mech in question looked grumpily over his shoulder where he had been attending his smoldering metal. "One second, younglin'. I got m'hands full. You wait."

"Aint waiting. I got hot parts here an' me and m'boys need creds to eat with. So either you start shellin' out those cred or I pull them outta your-"

"Don't use tha' tone with me!" The old mech snapped back. "I'll get your creds, youngin'." Patchjob looked like he was about to go back to his smelter but then wisely obeyed Duel for fear of bodily harm. He limped back toward the workbench and grabbed out a small box-covered in more locks than Jazz had ever seen on any door- and pulled out a few creds. "I'll give y' one quart even for this slag. Not a cred more."

"Slag you old man! That's worth at least 3 quarts." Duel cursed and smacked Patchjob's hand away, the credits going flying in all different directions. "Y' give us what we earned or I take it up with Spades."

The engineer visually flinched at the name. "Y' wouldn't."

"I would an' you know it, old man. I bet Spades wouldn't like t' here you're cheatin' some o' his Scavengers, would he?" The green mech sneered, "He needs us t' get the 'Bot and 'Con weapons and he needs y' to fix um. We're even partners, Patch. Spades ain't gunna like t' hear his tech aint payin' his Scavs. He wont make creds either if he aint got his parts. So give us what we need an' you'll get your parts."

Hazard looked from Duel to his business partner and knew automatically they were going to be out the extra twenty creds. No one could fight with Duel. He had more strength in one hand than a mere repair tech had in his body- or hers with the case of his unnamed creation. If he wanted to, Duel could literally rip them apart as Hazard himself had seen happen to a former Scavenger when the mech had tried to cheat Duel. Besides, he had a point and Spades was much more frightening to face than Duel.

"Alright. Y' win, youngin'." Patchjob replied roughly, trying to keep what dignity he still had which in all reality wasn't much. Of course, Hazard knew from years of working with the other mech, Patchjob would never let anyone know he had no dignity. In fact, he made it his daily habit to make sure everyone knew he was the greatest repair tech this side of the district. Not that he was actually a first generation, rusted, repair tech with shaking hands who had Hazard around do all the work because he himself couldn't hold himself together long enough to make a repair.

With great reluctance, Patchjob handed over the creds. If there weren't several others present, Harzard could have sworn his partner was going to kiss each cred as they past from owner to owner. With the last cred now in Duel's hand, his giant fist closed and subspaced his precious credits.

"Good doin' business with y' Patch." Duel nodded to the brothers and Jazz and made his way out the door, nearly knocking the femme over at the doorway.

"See y' Patchy!" Jive tossed off a mock solute and followed Ruse.

The four mechs lived together not a block away, in an old entrance to the catacombs. Duel had found the place first, not too long before he ended up meeting the brothers. It wasn't much of a home really, and there wasn't any separate rooms as all of them lived in a hallway passage. Their makeshift beds were just piles of old crates. Their walls were dripping in rust. Yet, the place was still home.

"Home sweet home!" Jive called out and bounded into the catacombs headfirst followed by a crash that sounded Jive's head hitting the wall again. "I'm okay!"

"You know… we really outta get that fixed," Ruse mused. Duel just kicked his way in and stomped over to the table in the middle of their one roomed home and dumped out the creds. There, he proceeded to sort them out into equal piles of four.

Jazz smirked at Ruse as he helped the poor dazed blue and orange mech to his feet. "Get what fixed, Ruse? The door, or Jive? I think we might get better luck with the door."

"I was talking about the door."

"Abuse! I didn't do anything this time and you guys still gotta give me slag?" Jive whined, rubbing his head and holding on to the wall for support until he was able to see only one of his brother again instead of the multiple clones of him. "I don't feel the love in this room."

"Awh, now com'on. Y' know we love ya." Jazz grined and threw his arms over the other mech's shoulders. "You're like our very own petro-puppy. You're like… th' mascot!"

"Does that mean I get my picture on buttons?"

"Y' can buy all the buttons y' want, y' orange plated idiot. Com'on over here an' get your cut, mechs!" Duel called, gleefully feeling the credits as they slipped though his fingers. "We got paid good this time. Dang time too. Patch cheated us last time and this time he more than made up for it."

"How much we got?"

"Good few pints each."

"That's great!" Jive pushed away from the others, his temporary concussion long forgotten with the promise of creds to his name. "Jive gunna go party tonight!"

"Party?" Ruse asked, "At where, y'fragger? You can't go into any of the bars anymore. Y'got banned when you slagged off the bartender and broke th' only high grade dispenser in the district."

"True… but if I go in my disguise no one will dare recognize me!" The blue and orange mech boasted and ran over to dig out an old face mask from his pile of scraps. "See? No more Jive."

"It's just a faceplate, idiot." Ruse muttered and crossed his arms over his chest. That did it. His brother had to have been the stupidest mech ever spawned. How had they come from the same person anyway? "We still know it's you."

Jive just grinned knowingly, like he did every time just before he created some kind of mayhem. "Yeah but will the bartender know that?"

OOooOOooOO

Author's notes: Just a quick note this time because I'm sleepy and really lazy tonight. Much thanks to Tirya for helping me with this series. And lettme tell you it's going to be a doozy. This one might not have had too much action, but it's going to be coming up. I know it might not seem like it now, but it will have a lot more Jazz and some cameo's from others later on. And the name change actually came around because I'm a huge fan of Nickelback and their new song, "Savin' me" fits this fic perfectly. Thanks again for the reviews on the last one and I will try to get to your requests. Oh and no, I don't own the Transformers, I only own Jynx, Patchjob, Ruse, Jive and Duel. Thanks again everyone! Please leave those reviews : D