Pawn to E3
"Hello Jazz, come to greet me?" Deck's mocking voice echoed off the walls of the ravine. Jazz made no reply, only clutched his rifle closer to his body. "But then, I'm not fighting Jazz, am I?" Deck continued. "No, Jazz doesn't hunt, now does he? But I know who does." The formerly black and white could hear the grin in Deck's voice. "Welcome back Hardline, it's good to see you're still alive."
Jazz set his jaw, trying to will away the ghosts associated with his old name. Yes, he had once been known as Hardline, the second in command of a gang on the rough side of Heliocon. It had been a fairly good life, save for the turf clashes with other gangs. When those happened, he usually got sent in as 'negotiator', mediating the dispute one way or another; the 'another' usually involving a carefully selected kill of some sort amongst the other party. When the Decepticons rose up, many of the gangs banded together into a militia to keep them out of 'their' city.
On the first day of the attack, most of them were slaughtered.
He had joined the Autobots in retaliation, knowing that the only way he could get back at the Decepticons was to get his hands on the training and resources that the Autobots could provide. Upon finishing boot camp, he was quickly transferred to Black Ops and assigned jobs that were well suited to his tastes and background, like infiltrating Chief's gang for example.
But then he got caught in the back blast of a sabotage gone wrong. Agony like he'd never known before raked its fingers along every sense that he had as his armour melted, until he couldn't take anymore and sunk into the depths of what he had been sure was death.
When he woke up two lunars later, the repair technicians had told him that he'd hovered on the brink of permanent stasis for well over half that time, and until a few breems before he came online nobody knew if he was even going to wake up.
As far as he had been concerned, Hardline had never woken up. He'd taken a good long look at what he was and didn't like what he'd seen. So he took his nickname as his real name, and set about living the way he should have from the start.
But life never seemed to want to work out the way he wanted too, and time after time Jazz had been forced to face the reality of what Hardline had done and who he had been. Just like now.
Prowl and Optimus were the only ones at the Ark who knewanything about his past, and Jazz hoped to keep it that way.
"Y' ain't got a chance Deck." Jazz called out. "We both know that. Just give it up an' I'll make sure the docs take good care of ya."
"Oh I somehow doubt that." The still unseen Deck sneered. "Your idea of 'good care' and mine are very different."
"Just keep on talkin'." Jazz thought, edging along the scree slope towards the source of the voice. "A little more an' we can finish this 'fore more people get hurt."
"By the way Hardline, I like the new colours."
"Oh slaggit!"