"Ratchet man, you sure nothing showed up in those tests?" Jazz said that night, almost begging the medic to give him a scrap of hope.
"Nothing Jazz. He's in perfect health...physically and mentally," the medic said defeatedly.
"Everything he's saying and doing is coming from within himself."
They glanced up as the common room's decibel level waned, and saw that Prowl had entered.
Jazz noticed that even Sunstreaker dropped his gaze as the tactician glared around.
"Sorry to disappoint you all, but yes, I am still functioning," Prowl said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
Jazz glanced over sharply, as someone muttered something about taking the Datsun out while he was still weak.
Prowl clearly heard too, and advanced on the trio sitting towards the back of the room.
"Rusting useless miserable little scrap heaps," Prowl spat, "If anyone had had any sense, creating Minibots would have been outlawed aeons ago,"
Cliffjumper, Brawn and Windcharger just stared at him.
"You slagging sparkless glitch! You're a disgrace to your creator!" Cliffjumper found his vocalizer and leapt to his feet.
"And a disgrace to the Autobots," Brawn added.
"Want a piece of me, Cliffy? Come on then!" Prowl antagonized, "Wait an astrotick, I'll make it easy for you,"
The tactician dropped to his knees.
"Hound'll thank me for this," Cliffjumper swore, cracking his knuckle-joints.
"Who's with me?" he glanced around.
Jazz and Ratchet leapt to their feet as one, as not only Cliffjumper moved in on the Datsun.
There was formidable strength currently occupying the room, Jazz noted uneasily: The three Minibots, Slingshot, Warpath, Inferno, Huffer, among others...more than enough to take the tactician apart.
And most of those present had been viewing their second in command with outright malice.
"All right, enough!" Ratchet barked, shoving roughly through the mob, closely followed by Jazz.
The medic tugged the antagonistic Prowl to his feet before he could protest, and turned on the rest of the Autobots.
"Proud of yourselves? Going to make light work of the Autobot who's just come out of the medbay?" Ratchet spat.
Jazz made his own sentiments even clearer.
He stepped deliberately in front of Prowl and looked each of the vigilantes in the optics.
"Anyone who wants to have a go at him will go through me first," Jazz positively growled.
The seething Autobots backed off.
"For Primus' sake, if they think they can take me on, let them go!" Prowl snapped.
He tried to shove the saboteur out of the way, and Jazz and Ratchet grabbed him by the elbows as his knee-joints buckled.
"Ok, that's it," Ratchet declared, and dragged Prowl out of the room.
"Prowl, are you all right?" Ratchet asked him once they were in the hall.
"Let go of me, you glorified quack!" Prowl hissed fearfully and threw the medic's hands off his shoulders.
"Prowl, you know I won't hurt you," Ratchet said in consternation, as the Datsun stalked off unsteadily, without a backward glance.
Jazz glared around the common room -at Cliffjumper, especially- and walked out.
Jazz wasn't entirely certain how far things would have gone, but hadn't really wanted to find out.
"Where'd Prowl get to?" he asked Ratchet.
"Ingrate," Ratchet grumbled, "I don't know Jazz. I hope he's gone to bed. You stunned him harder than I thought. He should probably still be in the medbay,"
Jazz gave a world-weary sigh and studied the floor.
"Ratchet man...you don't know how hard I was hoping there was something wrong with him. Sounds terrible, but at least there'd be a reason for this..."
The medic gave him a disconsolate pat on the shoulder.
"So was I Jazz."
X
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X
Jazz just couldn't give up on Prowl.
Very, very few Autobots tolerated even hearing the Datsun's name spoken in their presence, after the incident in his quarters.
The hatred against him was growing every day.
Jazz shuddered to think what it might result in, especially considering the episode in the common room.
Even easy-going Wheeljack, who hadn't said one word against the tactician this entire time, had become anti-Prowl.
But not without good cause.
Wheeljack was working on the schematics for a powerful new energy collector, and had hesitantly asked Prowl to double-check the differential equations in the complex formula.
Prowl had a strong grounding in science, had a better understanding of Higher Mathematics than any other Autobot in the Ark, and tactician and engineer had not yet gotten on each other's bad side.
Prowl had agreed civilly, sending Jazz's hopes that maybe the old Prowl was back skyrocketing.
He was wrong, badly wrong.
Jazz was on duty in the control room, along with Optimus Prime, when the engineer stormed in and flung a datachip on the workbench between them.
"Three months of research, down the greasetrap," Wheeljack said flatly, vocal indicators flashing a dangerous orange.
"Wheeljack man, this isn't the formula for your energy collector?" Jazz asked him, but he already knew the answer.
"You know as well as I do it is Jazz,"
"What about a backup chip?" the saboteur said hopefully.
Wheeljack threw another corrupted datachip next to the first.
"That's my backup, and it has also been erased from Teletran's memory banks,"
"Wheeljack, how did this happen?" Prime asked, picking up the dead chips.
"Guess, Prime. I asked Prowl to check the equations," the Lancia said coolly, as close to furious as Jazz had ever seen him.
"Oh man...you sure it wasn't an accident?" Jazz asked, painfully aware that amount of damage just couldn't be accidental.
"Jazz, datachips don't corrupt themselves!" Wheeljack snapped, "And the only other Autobot who had access to it besides myself was Prowl!"
X
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X
"Prowl, why did you do it?" Jazz implored the Datsun's back over the hiss of water.
He'd had a stroke of luck and cornered the tactician at the wash-rack, where Prowl couldn't walk out on him or slam a door in his face.
And by another stroke of luck Prowl was the only one in there at the moment.
"What are you babbling about?" the Datsun snapped without turning around.
"Wheeljack's formula. Why on Cybertron did you destroy it? That energy collector would have been a benefit to us all," Jazz pointed out as Prowl polished his chest scallop.
Jazz waited while the silent Datsun rinsed his door-panels and deactivated the water flow.
"You're not going to answer me, are you," Jazz stated, wiping steam off his visor.
"Give that Autobot an Energon treat," Prowl sneered, shoving past him to a drying unit.
Jazz seized him by a damp forearm and pulled him back so they were face to face.
"Unhand me, you over-ranked exhibitionist," Prowl snarled.
"Tell me why you did it," Jazz said quietly, ignoring the insult.
"I felt like it. Happy now?"
Prowl yanked his arm out of the Porsche's grip and stalked past him.
Jazz looked at him for an astrotick, and just walked out.
X
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The following morning, Jazz sat at his post in the Ark control room, idly tapping his fingers and thinking.
After leaving Prowl at the wash rack, he'd gone to Wheeljack and spent half the night trying to help the engineer piece together his lost formula.
Wheeljack had been pretty icy with the Universe at first.
But it wasn't in his nature to be that way for long, and he and Jazz had ended up in a long, involved discussion about the tactician.
However they didn't come to any conclusions, nor could they revive the engineer's formula.
Jazz sighed and turned his attention back to the screens he was supposed to be monitoring.
He was covering this shift for the absent Prowl. It was easier to just shut up and cover it, rather than trying to get the Datsun out of bed and then listening to the bad-mouthing.
And more likely than not end up covering it anyway.
Jazz glanced up as all the shop talk faltered and ceased.
The tactician had noisily stumbled in, nearly two Earth hours late for duty.
It was clear he'd been into the Energon the night before, probably into the small hours.
Jazz -and the rest of the Autobots- were stunned speechless.
Prowl did not over-energize, plain and simple.
The old Prowl, at least.
"Nice of you to join us," Trailbreaker said sarcastically, eyeing the dishevelled mech up and down.
Optimus Prime marched over, seething.
He stared at Prowl in pure disgust for several astroticks.
The Datsun was having difficulty just standing up straight.
"So what's my assignment?" Prowl muttered.
"If you'd bothered to read the duty sheet, you'd know," Prime practically growled, "But don't put yourself out, Prowl, it's covered,"
Prowl glared unevenly around the room as the on-duty Autobots stared at him, and discovered who was covering his shift.
Jazz got out of his seat and slowly walked to him in the silence.
Prowl looked the Porsche square in the visor, as well as he could in his condition.
"Traitorous rust heap," he slurred angrily, and took a badly uncoordinated swing at the saboteur.
Jazz gathered his shocked wits and easily dodged.
A collective gasp went through the room.
Prowl over-balanced and went down on hands and knees.
Jazz squatted to his level.
"Prowl, what's going on with you," Jazz whispered sorrowfully, restraining the impulse to lay a hand on his shoulder.
"Slag off," Prowl hissed at the control-room floor.
"He's not worth your trouble Jazz," Trailbreaker snorted.
Prime strode over to yank him to his feet, and Jazz noticed Prowl never looked the commander in the optics.
"You're off-duty indefinitely, and I'm confining you to quarters," Prime said, and they all heard the controlled anger in his tone.
"You won't last a week without me," Prowl sneered.
"We've been managing so far through your malingering," Trailbreaker snapped.
"Trailbreaker, Ironhide, escort Prowl to his quarters," Optimus ordered flatly.
He handed him over, and the big mechs took a firm hold of his upper arms as they frog-marched him out.
"Everyone back to work," Prime said, trying hard to sound normal.
Jazz wasn't sure if anything would ever feel normal again.
X
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Prowl roundly cursed his guards and their lineages for at least ten generations, in English and three different Cybertronian dialects, all the way to the living quarters hall.
"You watch your mouth, or you'll be picking it up off the floor," Ironhide warned sharply.
Prowl ignored him.
They practically shoved him through his door, and Trailbreaker just marched off, shaking his head in disgust, but Ironhide hesitated for an astrotick.
"Prowl old buddy, why don't you tell me what's wrong? I've known you for aeons, and this just isn't you," the older Autobot said gently, studying the tactician with undisguised concern.
"I'm not your buddy, and I don't know why Prime puts up with you," Prowl said tartly, turning his back on Ironhide.
"You're outdated and outmoded. Dead weight that the rest of us have to carry."
Ironhide stared at the black and white mech.
"I more than carry my weight Prowl. And when I reach the end of my usefulness I'll acknowledge it. Maybe you should rethink your own," the red mech said quietly.