Knight takes Bishop
Jazz hunched down behind a rockfall as Deck entered the cave, the larger mech's footsteps booming like an intermittent roll of thunder.
"So far, so good." Jazz grinned to himself, listening as Deck's foot went through a thin crust of lava and the mech exercised the colourful end of his vocabulary. This whole area was pitted with bubbles made by trapped gasses. Most of them have already been 'discovered' during previous training missions, but there always were a few more waiting to be found during a moment's inattention.
"Jazz! You know I'll find you eventually." Deck yelled. "Come out and I'll make it quick."
"Oh I somehow doubt that." Jazz replied, deliberately throwing Deck's words back at him. "Your idea of 'quick' and mine are very different." There was an untranslatable growl from the artillery gunner.
The Special Ops smirked and slipped two smoke grenades out of subspace. Just a little more prodding and Deck would be angry enough to lose his focus. Jazz pulled the pins and threw the grenades so that they would ricochet off the walls, adding noise to the disorientating smoke; then combat-crawled to a lava column that he knew was nearby, using it for cover. "Y'know Deck, I never would've thought you'd be th' one t' sink so low." He commented. "We were friends, brothers in arms. Why'd ya want out?"
Deck snorted, batting angrily at the obscuring smoke. "I don't hang around the weak. You're weak Jazz, Hardline wasn't. All it was was a matter of time."
"So I'm guessin' that y' faked th' whole 'unstable' thing?" Jazz guessed.
"Everything bar the insults."
"I always found it funny that y' waited 'till Shadow was gone 'fore you came an' insulted me and the twins last time. They woulda ripped ya a new one if I hadn't gotten in there first." Jazz observed. The veiled insult was clear to Deck- You're the one who's weak because you were scared of a little femme and I had to protect you from two of my own.
"I'll show you!" Deck snarled. He started towards where he thought Jazz was, only to stop and pause as he picked up feet shuffling away to his right. A rock skittered to his left. Deck grit his dental plates in anger. Curse this blasted smoke!
Jazz smiled grimly. With his very sharp hearing he could pinpoint Deck's location exactly while the other mech floundered helplessly in the dark looking for him. The echoes were incredibly distracting to those unaccustomed to it, and Jazz was anything but. He picked up another couple of small stones and lightly chucked them in Deck's general direction. There was a scrape of metal on rock as Deck whirled around once or twice, then a snarl of irritation.
"Where are you?" Deck roared. Normally he would have opened fire and blasted everything in range, but there was no telling how strong the ceiling was and the last thing he wanted was to be buried under several tonnes of mountain.
"Over here!" Jazz shouted. Deck turned just in time to see the mech rush at him from out of the smoke and land a solid punch across his chest before vanishing again. There was a patter of feet then Jazz appeared again, this time slamming the heel of his hand into Deck's chin and snapping his head back. Deck roared and lashed out blindly, but Jazz was gone. Again and again the cycle was repeated as Jazz taunted Deck with all the skill of a matador taunting a bull.
The smoke had thinned somewhat by now and through the haze Deck glimpsed the entrance to the tunnel that had led him here. He took a risk and ran for it, knowing that Jazz had to be close behind.
0o0o0
Prowl was still sitting at the back of the Common room, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped before his face, his expression intent. Half an hour ago, he and the other officers had 'heard' Jazz using his radio to contact Teletran over a frequency that was restricted to command-level access only. The channel had been scrambled so nobody knew what Jazz had requested, but now the question was why.
"Prowl?"
The 2IC looked up to see Swoop standing beside him. "Yes Swoop?" He asked.
"What you thinking?" The Dinobot asked as he sat down. "Him Optimus thinking, him Wheeljack thinking, everyone thinking. Even him Slingshot thinking. What everyone thinking about?"
"I'm not sure." Prowl said honestly. "There are many things to consider here."
"You thinking about him Jazz, yes? How to help?"
"I am."
Swoop shifted slightly. "Him Optimus wanting to go help him Jazz. Wanting to go outside, fight bad guy. Us Dinobots want to too. Everyone want to help him Jazz. Why we not help him Jazz?"
"We can't yet. Jazz asked us to wait until dawn." Prowl answered.
The Dinobot frowned. "Why?"
"Jazz wants to try stop Deck on his own. He knows how Deck fights and he doesn't want anyone to get hurt unnecessarily."
The Dinobot took a moment to digest that. "Him Jazz good friend."
Prowl nodded. "He is indeed."