I'm not reposting all the warnings. If you didn't read them in Pt. 1, then on your head be it. Also, the formatting for this chapter is much better on Ao3, so I would recommend you follow the link on my profile to read it there.
[* * * * *]
Pt. 10
[* * * * *]
Chaos. Multi-colored wings erupted from the arena floor, scattering like a flock of birds before Thundercracker's charge, and everyone was shouting. What wasn't being bellowed by voice was being transmitted, and so many comm. lines pinged into place that the network almost shimmered into sight. Starscream shrieked in confused anger, demanding an explanation that Thundercracker yelled back, and their voices spanned octaves above and below the crowd noise. The flyers converging on the seats had to shout all the louder to be heard.
*"I hope to Primus you know what you're doing,"* Blaster said in the back of Jazz's helm, the only calm voice amidst the shouts. *"They're trying to cover it up, but the 'Cons just started being real unhappy in here."*
*"You should see what I'm seeing,"* Jazz said lightly, trying to transmit a sensor package and getting a 'Network Down: Please Hold' message. *"Blaster, we got eavesdroppers."*
*"Don't I know it. Scrambler should be giving them a headache, but alerts started popping up the second Thundercracker pulled his stunt. Somebody wants to know what's the haps in your neck of the woods, real bad."*
Red Alert broke in with an all-units broadcast over the Autobot system: *"Consider the comm. network compromised. Cover chatter, people!"*
Icons bounced and dropped, plonking into the line like the fat kid at the public pool. *"Geez, Jazz, you always go around kicking beehives?"* Sideswipe cannon-balled. *"Subtle as done by Slag. When did a missile blitz and a foot up the aft start replacing 'what's your sign'?"*
*"What can I say? I want me some-a that there honey, baby."*
*"Jazz!"* Bluestreak's giggles didn't cover the scandalized buzz that suddenly cropped up. Autobot icons jumped onto the network to join the gossip-fest. Not everyone knew what was going on, but they knew enough to play along.
*"Oh, like you're one to talk!"* Sunstreaker jeered. *"I've fixed your finish enough times to know banging bumpers to berth-hop is your favorite method!"*
*"Sunstreaker! If you're incapable of civilized speech, then get off the network,"* Prowl interrupted. *"An Autobot's personal choices are no business of yours, much less ours!"*
*"It's my business when I have to look at it afterward,"* Sunstreaker argued. *"Mech makes cable uplinking into bungee-jumping or something, because there are marks left behind that are - "*
*"Sunstreaker!"* five different Autobots cut in, in five flavors of disapproval.
A slow voice, gravelly and grave, drowned them all out. *"Me Slag more subtle than Jazz."* The Dinobots tended to be not-so-quick on the uptake when it came to verbal banter. The sheer unexpectedness floored the other Autobots for a second, especially when Slag went on to say, still as level as ever but in an unmistakable rhythm, *"Him Bluestreak like big 'bots?"*
Everyone else recognized it, and they were stupefied. *"And I cannot lie!"* Bluestreak rapped, two parts joy to one part naughtiness, and Jazz prayed to Primus that Soundwave was indeed listening in on the network at that very moment. He'd like to see the Decepticon communication specialist try and decode this for hidden messages! *"You Autobots can't deny ~ "*
*"I'm sure I can,"* Prowl said, deadpan. As if all emotion were lost to him. Woe betide the Autobot executive officer with such a crew.
*"Them Dinobots tried to warn me Slag,"* Autobot icons were beginning to jig gleefully in time, *"but that 'bot you Bluestreak got make me Slag so horny!"*
*"Thought that was your altmode,"* Cliffjumper quipped.
*"Well use me, use me a lot, cuz you ain't that average Dinoboeeeek! Wooho~o!"* Dinobot and Datsun dropped off the network in unison.
*"I'm…going to go have a long talk with the Dinobots about using human pick-up lines without understanding what they really mean. Again,"* Wheeljack excused himself, resigned to duty. The Dinobots didn't really understand sexual interfacing yet. They seemed to think it was companionable comfort-interfacing with funny dialogue and strange noises behind closed doors. It fell to Wheeljack to explain such things. Usually over and over again. *"Don't wait up, folks."* His icon bounced back up into stand-by. The inventor was presumably off to rescue Bluestreak from Slag's well-meant but totally off-target intentions.
Not that anyone worried. The night would probably end in a Bluestreak-centered Dinobot cuddle-pile.
*"They screwed up the lyrics,"* Gears complained into the silence left behind, and it was like poking a hole in a dam. Laughter swept down the line in a cascade of hilarity, and Jazz laughed with the rest of them.
Meanwhile, however, under the cover of noise and radio network transmission, numbers dialed, encoded, and - temporarily secured - sent old-fashioned text.
[I will not ask this of you.] Optimus Prime's icon hadn't pinged into the general conversation yet, but Blaster had keyed his number in the moment the chatter started. The messages came over the connection with an apologetic feel only genuine emotion could generate. [It is not right to sacrifice one mech for the hope of a plan that may not work.]
[And now you know how we feel every time you pull this slag on us.] Ironhide sent. [Jazz, what are you trying to pull?]
[Thundercracker's just broken his trine-contract with Starscream,] Jazz sent back, direct-texting to officer numbers, [because he's under the impression that I'm bargaining with Starscream for the position of Second-in-Command of Vos.]
[So it is possible for you to bargain for that position.] Prowl's text was as flat as the mech's voice probably was as that information processed. [Is this speculation or fact?]
Jazz took in the view before him. Flyers flocked to find seats, overflowing the makeshift tiers until it was standing room only as the Decepticons came and kept coming. More arrived every second, rushing up from the tunnel in their hundreds or bounding over the top of the skyscraper ruins in a constant flow. They swooped and shoved each other, jockeying for the best spots or at least a place to stand witness in. The Aerialbots let themselves be ushered to the center of the platform by Acid Storm and Skywarp, who were eyeing the overflow of flyers starting to perch on the edges. Jazz found himself surrounded by the three Autobots and guarded by two Decepticon officers warding off the curious. He didn't take his visor off the arena floor.
In the center of the tornado of wings, blue-black squared off against red-silver-blue. Shrill fury banged off of deep rumblings, distance and several hundred shouting mechs turning the argument between Thundercracker and Starscream into a spectacle of wild gesticulations. That was escalation if Jazz had ever seen it.
[Thundercracker wouldn't have broken his contract over speculation. It's a real possibility.] Text didn't let him lighten the grim words with his typical humor, but maybe the situation called for seriousness. [Has the topic of Vos entered negotiations?]
[No,] Prime sent. [Megatron refuses to let it be brought up. He actively changes the subject.]
[Avoidance. Question being, does he avoid it because it's going according to plan, or because he can't control it?] Red Alert's icon had dropped into the open line, and he was yelling at the other Autobots to get off the comm. network, didn't they know the Decepticons were listening in?! The gossiping Autobots dismissed his concerns. What, did Soundwave need a recipe for bad jokes as told by Bumblebee? [The assumption is that Starscream is controlling the Vosians, but Megatron controls Starscream. Vos would be Megatron's.]
[This isn't a Decepticon thing.] Jazz texted, watching the chaos. [They're Decepticons, but this isn't anything I saw in the Decepticon ranks during the war. Megatron might not have control much longer, or he might but it's not going to be the same as during the war.]
Ratchet was taking some flak from the other Autobots as word of the Constructicon Molestation Incident spread like wildfire. Well, that was one way to debrief everyone on what to expect from amorous, alliance-seeking Decepticons from now on. Under the cover of his embarrassed bluster on the comm. line, however, the medic caught Jazz's meaning. [Megatron and Starscream have a military contract. That ends when the war ends, from what little we know about this contracting scrap.]
[They'll renegotiate,] Ironhide asserted. [No way will Buckethead let Screamer loose that easy.]
[But that's my point.] That was the gamble, and it'd be up to him to make the payoff worth it. [If I can get the right terms, we'd have an Autobot presence in Vos before Megatron can claim it as his own.]
[No.] The single word was as firm as if Prime had actual said it aloud. [There is no guarantee it would work, and it asks far too much of you to even try.]
[Prime, you've asked nothing more of me every time I've gone on a mission.]
[There has always been the risk of damage or death, but not of,] the text hesitated strangely, as if Optimus were picking the letters out one by one, [moral ambiguity.]
That was a horrible way to phrase what Jazz was beginning to see as a cultural difference. It wasn't political incorrectness on Prime's part, or even unkindness. It was…a lack of terminology. The Autobots didn't yet have to way to express the differences between Autobot and Decepticon interfacing practices without couching it in derogatory terms. Even the catcalling at Ratchet had overtones of negativity that just didn't fit how Starscream and the Constructicons had approached things. But this was not the time to debate culture contrasts.
[With all due respect.] Blaster sent, plinking Autobot icons on the chatter-channel with groan-worthy Earth spambot porn messages featuring Constructicon heads pasted over select portions of human anatomy. [Prime? Pot's calling. Something about the color black.]
[Beat me to it.] Ironhide agreed. [And how are those negotiations going with Megatron, huh?]
[That is not the same situation!]
[No? You're right. I'm replaceable. You aren't.] Jazz really wished there was a way to make encoded text italicize, bold, underline, and possible dance. Just to get this through their slagging Prime's head! Hypocrisy, no matter how well-meant, was still hypocrisy. [Let's look at this a different way: if interfacing with a Decepticon was the only way to complete a job, would you any of you hold it against me?]
A half-dozen texts fought to be first in the queue. [No!]
[Of course not.]
[An unusual method, but not one I haven't heard before.]
[Don't be ridiculous.]
[If you judged it to be necessary, it was.]
[The war has called for extreme solutions before, and we've never held the victims to blame. No.]
[Jazz, this is not a mission.] Prime protested, and Jazz couldn't tell if his leader was angry or concerned. Or both. [This is your life we're talking about.]
[Yes, it is.] he sent back, and he wished there was a way to make the words more gentle. [I'd like to have a life after the war, but the war isn't over yet. I'm still your best operative in the field, and I've laid out the situation. We may not gain anything concrete, but we are definitely going to lose Vos to the Decepticons if I don't act. Orders, sir?]
The cursor blinked at the bottom of his visor: blip blip. Beyond it, Starscream was screaming bloody murder at his wingmate, throwing a fit worthy of his name as Thundercracker coldly ignored him to ceremoniously disarm himself. The blue Seeker's weapons stacked neatly beside the Air Commander's own. Knock Out ventured out to frisk the Seeker, enhanced medical scanners glowing in sheets of purple that cross-sectioned Thundercracker's body in a search for hidden weaponry. The Decepticon medic made some kind of snide remark, and Thundercracker backhanded him into the lowest tier of the audience.
Finally, the words came, typing across his vision slow and somber: [Jazz, against my better judgment, your mission is to infiltrate and secure the Vos city-state government structure. You are authorized to use any means at your disposal, as you find necessary.] A hesitation. [May Primus forgive me, and I hope to someday earn your forgiveness as well for using you this way.]
He'd set himself up for it. He'd dug out the information on a hunch and used it to pry under Thundercracker's plating. Jazz's spark still spun to read the assignment laid out in implacable text. [That'll happen the day you forgive yourself, sir.] Approximately an eternity from this moment, if the Prime's load of guilt from the beginning of the war on was any indication. [I'm going to need a lot of free rein here, boss.]
[Granted.]
[Ratchet, Ironhide, Blaster, Red Alert: I need everyone running interference between Starscream and me tomorrow if I can't start the ball rolling tonight. I suspect he's a verbal delivery away from formally rejecting this courtship, Megatron's orders or not. We need to make sure he's not allowed to make that rejection.]
[On it.]
[Prowl, this is a long-term deep-cover mission.]
[I will divert conflicting duties as needed.]
[Thanks.] He couldn't help himself. [Think you'll still respect me in the morning?]
Blip blip.
Speechlessness via text message was pretty anticlimactic. Oh, well. Jazz didn't much feel like laughing right now, anyway.
Down in the arena, Thundercracker evidently let something slip, and Starscream's head whipped up. Demonic optics target-locked on Jazz, and the Aerialbots at his back clustered protectively close even as the saboteur met that accusative gaze. Blazing red slitted dangerously, and the Air Commander's lips pressed into a thin, angry line. 'You did this,' that expression hissed, and Jazz allowed a narrow smirk to cross his face. 'Who, me? Now why would you think that?'
Out of nowhere, the entire Autobot network shut down. Jazz's comm. links led into a vast nothing, blacked out from even sensing the massive load of Decepticon communication happening all around him, much less the secured Autobot lines. He almost staggered, hands rising to hold his helm as if he'd been literally deafened. The reaction was unreasonable, but having a third of his sensor suites cut out all at once gutted his senses. He was off-balance, and Silverbolt's hands were suddenly on his shoulders to keep him steady.
More than one Decepticon turned to follow the Air Commander's deadly glare, but the Aerialbots were all focused on their officer in distress. Acid Storm and Skywarp exchanged uneasy glances, trying to guess what had happened. One of Jazz's hands left his helm to press to the sound system set into his lower torso, unconsciously seeking reassurance that his receivers hadn't actually been torn out. The speakers in his pelvic plates and on the inside of his doors hissed white noise briefly, testing, but there were no radio stations to play, no wireless to pick up, no comm. network to link into. Jazz's whole communication system was dead weight, locked up from the outside. It'd have to be rebooted manually before it'd work again.
Blaster did good work. Starscream had apparently tried to contact the saboteur, and that couldn't be allowed. Not right now, not with a mission at stake.
Jazz straightened, visor a deeper blue than a moment ago but rapidly resettling as he gave Starscream his most guileless look. Now, what could that have possibly been? Jazz certainly didn't know. A malfunction, surely. He'd have it looked at later.
Starscream snarled, taking a step toward the infuriating mech.
"Starscream! I challenge you!" Thundercracker boomed. He'd positioned himself on the far end of the cleared area serving as the arena center, and while the challenge was more controlled than before, a hush still filled the tiers. Everyone waited for the Air Commander, their Emirate, to answer.
Starscream didn't even give his challenger a glance. His optics bored into the Autobot far above. If Jazz hadn't been meeting his optics just as intently, he might have missed the minute flick of red.
His fuel pump didn't even skip a beat. "Aerialbots, go report to Prowl that no, I'm not dead." He turned his head enough that they could see his smile, still not breaking optic contact with Starscream. "My comm. system just went down. Everyone at HQ probably thinks I got shot." Bypassing the fact that Soundwave could easily tell the Autobots sharing the central monitoring station with him that Jazz was fine. That would require trusting Soundwave's word, after all, and wouldn't get the Aerialbots out of here.
Silverbolt hadn't been privy to the officer texting free-for-all, but he didn't hesitate. "Yes sir."
Fireflight did hesitate, soft-spark that he was. "But - "
"That's an order, Murdock," Jazz said quietly, reassurance and official order in one.
"…yessir."
The Aerialbots launched. There was a second where they hovered instead of boosting up, and Jazz could almost imagine the conversation over internal comm.
*"Relay a message to that,"* his imagination lacked sufficient vitriol to come up with a bad enough word here, *"commander of yours!"*
Silverbolt would be diplomatically polite. *"I'm sorry, Starscream, but we have prior orders to carry out."*
Air Raid wouldn't be quite so diplomatic. *"Tell your flunkies to deliver it."* He'd pause, probably looking too much like Slingshot at his jerk-iest for his own good. *"Oh, sorry, are they too busy attacking you for delivery duty?"*
*"Good luck!"* Fireflight would add in, six kinds of encouraging. His words would be all the worse because they were genuinely well-meant.
And then the Aerialbots were up, up and away. A few of the Decepticons in the tiers watched them go, but the majority of attention remained glued to the show. Starscream was literally shaking with stymied rage, fists knotted and remaining wing flaps at full extension. Jazz met incineration-red with cool blue, making his own silent challenge to the Decepticon Second-in-Command's pride even as Thundercracker's deep voice boomed a repeat of the formal words. It was the Air Commander's choice: lower himself to involving Skywarp or Acid Storm in admitting that Jazz had played four of the highest ranking officers in the Decepticon Armada, or salvage his pride at the cost of accepting Thundercracker's challenge.
For a moment, it seemed that Starscream's hot temper would win. The Air Commander stood poised to fling himself over the crowd.
The Jazzmeister's lips quirked. 'Bring it on.'
[* * *]
"Seeker Stand-off" available on Ao3
Picture by Shibara on LJ/Ao3/Tumblr.
[* * *]
A shriek burst out of the Seeker, and he whirled to face Thundercracker across the ring. "Fine, you idiot - I accept!"
The blue Seeker immediately launched upward, body twisting into his altmode. The F-14 looked entirely out of place in an arena full of Cybertron's finest flyers, but Jazz realized that at some point on Earth, he'd gotten used to it. It'd be a little weird, in fact, to see Thundercracker as anything else. The idea of Starscream waiting for his (ex?)wingmate's charge standing tall and proud in any other altmode wasn't just weird. It actually felt heretical. Cybertronians were a whole race based on adaptation and disguise, but some mechs were so deeply hidden the altmode was the only stability to grab onto.
"This is going to be good," Acid Storm said from his side. When Jazz glanced aside, he could see the green Seeker watching raptly as Thundercracker came around.
Skywarp snorted air scornfully from his other side. "This is going to be ugly," he corrected, and a glass-cracking BOOM exploded through the air.
Amplified by the shape of the makeshift arena, Thundercracker's engine warped sound waves with its force. Armor plating rebounded off the very air, flattening lighter mechs and sending others staggering. Whole sections of the tiers stumbled and fell, tripping up further as reverberation came back around with a miniature crack! Yells of pain, excitement, and anger dissolved the audience into chaos. Half the flyers were scrambling to move, either further away or closer, and everyone was getting in everyone else's way.
Hands clamped onto Jazz's shoulder-tires, keeping the small Autobot upright even as the two Seekers at his side struggled to stay on their feet. Skywarp's wings folded back with the force of the sonic slap, and he leaned forward like he was heading into a strong wind. Acid Storm must have tried to brace against it instead of riding the thunder like Skywarp had; cloud-patterned green wings snapped back, transformation hinges squealing protest as they were forced out of rootmode position. The Seeker's mouth thinned with what had to be pain as he dropped abruptly to one knee.
Jazz shook his head, briefly disoriented as his sensor suites flicked through realignment, and looked out over the arena. The heaving mass of multi-color limbs didn't immediately resolve into anything that made sense. His audios rang oddly, making him miss Acid Storm's question the first time.
"Say what?" His own voice sounded too loud, but he knew it was a trick of his recovering audios.
"I said, are you alright?" The Rainmaker eased himself back upright, and although the question sounded nice enough, his optics never left the direction Thundercracker had disappeared in. Radar tracked what the night sky concealed: the F-14 jet whipped through a tight turn. The audience screamed louder, seeing him coming, and only Acid Storm's inbuilt charm kept his tone courteous as Thundercracker accelerated. "Maybe you should go. You're not made for this kind of combat."
Starscream had gone to one knee in the arena and evidently rolled with the force. His cockpit dripped broken glass when he stood, but stand he did. "Is that the best you can do, drone-fragger?" his shrill voice taunted about the madhouse noise.
Air pressure built, snapped, and - as the foreign jet altmode snarled through the center of the crowd like a hostile alien attack - released again.
The whole slagging world rang like the inside of a bell. Resonated like the inside of a discharging cannon. Sounded and felt like the inside of a bomb shelter during a direct hit. Concussive force flattened the first five tiers and anyone left standing in the next few rows above that. Starscream went down, but he was hardly alone in that. His shriek of rage was audible and painful, cutting through the tinny aftermath as everyone yelled and screamed and couldn't hear properly.
At least his windshield hadn't gone yet. That was a muzzy and not terribly reassuring thought to have, but it helped Jazz focus against the throbbing beat as he fought his way back to his feet. His helm's sensor projections were ringing hard enough to hurt from pulsing waves of haphazard data input, but he didn't dare turn the sensors down as they reset yet again. He had to know where the threat was coming from next - there. The Autobot looked up, thanking Ratchet in the back of his mind for reinforced visor glass. HUD snapped tracking into place over inadequate night vision. Thundercracker was flying high, nosecone pointed straight up in the air as he gained altitude rapidly.
"Is anyone made for this?" the saboteur asked, voice strained. "And I'm fine, thanks."
This time, it was him offering the two Decepticons a hand up. The black-and-purple teleporter waved his hand aside impatiently, choosing to climb to his feet unaided, but Acid Storm accepted the help to get back up onto one knee. He stayed there, glancing between Thundercracker's distant signal-blip and Starscream as the Air Commander pushed himself back up. Skywarp stood, oddly mirroring his wingleader's defiant posture as he folded his arms and scowled up into the night sky.
"They're made for it," Acid Storm said, waving a hand vaguely at Skywarp for Jazz's benefit. "Or modified for it, anyway. They're his wingmates. They wouldn't have lasted long flying by him if they didn't have the mods added to make them able to fly through this slag."
"Then why's he doing it?" Jazz asked, not expecting an answer as he squinted down at the Air Commander. His vision blurred momentarily before bringing up high-resolution magnification. He scanned the Seeker visually and frowned. Rust, spatters of lubricant and energon, some already-broken armor that had given up and fallen off, but no real damage. Even the missing canopy glass had been cracked before Thundercracker's attack, Jazz recalled. "Starscream's not disabled by the attacks, so what's Thundercracker tryin' to pull, here?"
The Seeker-blip on Jazz's HUD reached its peak and held, just for a second. The audience fell unnaturally quiet, and a glowing optic-rainbow of dread turned up toward the sky. The radar blip that was Thundercracker turned almost leisurely, nosecone pointing straight downward.
Gravity took hold. Thrusters grabbed gravity right back and fragged it senseless like a speed-freak groupie, wringing it for everything possible.
Skywarp spat a sharp curse and dropped to his knees, wings unlocking to fold close to his body. Starscream's manic laughter wove through the tension, egging it on until the wave of horror crested. Suddenly everyone was shouting: instructions, panic, bets, all of them rendered almost incomprehensible even through the comm. network by ambient noise. Air pressure upped, a storm building, and no one could get out of range in time, even if they weren't here to witness Ground Zero.
Acid Storm hesitated, conflicted, but then quickly offered his hand to Jazz. "For the purpose of ending our Great War," he recited hurriedly, and the small Autobot didn't hesitate to take it.
The mottled green Seeker pulled him down onto the ground between his knees and tucked him close. Jazz found himself pressed against a Decepticon's cockpit, securely wrapped in enemy arms and sheltered by lowered wings. "For exactly this," the Rainmaker said quietly, helm bent protectively over his Air Commander's intended.
It had occurred to Jazz, but Acid Storm's words confirmed it. "He's showing off," he said back, and that's when the world blew up.
The sky beat angry fists against the ground in punishing waves of thunder. The ground leapt up to concuss Jazz, slamming into his helm, and everything fritzed into scribbled lines of black and white static.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Jagged white flashes, interspersed with black. A muffled, deep rhythm underbeat a shining, whining rill. It sounded the way a submarine with engine trouble did, including dozens of hazard alarms going off.
iiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggfubfub fubfubfubfubbrrriiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiii innnggg
A lock-away processor deeply rooted near his spark casing assumed control when stunned central processor units failed to respond to command pings. It clicked over to emergency sequences and forced reboot by isolating cerebral circuitry from physical input. Autobot medics hated the necessity of this core processor reboot, but they still coded for it. Even when they had patients wake up on the surgery table suddenly fighting, understanding nothing but the fact that they were being held down, that was one patient who might live a moment more out on the battlefield.
ubfubfubfubrrriiiiiiiiiiiiii iiingubfubfubrriiiiiiiiiiiii iiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiii iiiiiiiiiiinnnggg
Get the mind online. The body might be headed for statis lock, seized up in pain or under a hack's control, but get the mind online. So long as there was current flowing and pressure in the fuel lines, it gave an Autobot the precious opportunity to think. Even if it was only a last thought before fuel trickled away into nothing, maybe it gave a mech one last chance to make peace with Primus.
teeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnngg gtingtingubfubgubbrriiiiiiii iiing
Jazz snapped back to himself with a garbled blurt of panic, flailing for that critical moment before recent memory fell back into place and the lock-away processor handed over control to his CPU. A heavy weight on his back had him pinned, anyway, and flailing was useless until it moved. Jazz went totally still in Acid Storm's grip as the Seeker raised his head. The waves of distortion through his optical sensors were nauseating, but a quick reset of his visor failed to make the jagged pattern of light and dark disappear. Jazz blinked again, lifting his own head cautiously.
The world came into focus slowly as his vision adjusted better, static shimmering into waves of rust falling through the air. He tensed for a second because it looked like they were rushing toward him, but then another floodlight popped out in a burst of blinding light and sudden darkness. The rush became just the dizzy reflection of flickering lights.
The blurry green Seeker curled around him said something. Jazz could see his mouth move, but all he heard was, "obrobflubfubrriiiiiiiiiiiinb upbupbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtingti ckdonk?"
It took effort shake his head. His hand felt pins-and-needles numb from the sensor compression and release that had just pounded his outer plating, but he lifted it to tap against his helm, hopefully telling Acid Storm he wasn't hearing anything. From experience, he knew it'd take a breem to recalibrate his audio receivers.
Thankfully, the Rainmaker seemed to understand. The Seeker nodded and sat up carefully, head turning as he scanned the area. His hands kept a hold on the smaller mech, and Jazz let him because it was easier than trying to sit up on his own. He concentrated on reeling his jaw back into place, as some part of him thought that having his mouth open would help him hear. It actually would, but it made him look extremely stupid, too.
This wasn't the first time he'd been hit by Thundercracker's specialized engine, but experience rarely helped make a mech's body feel any better. It just let a mech tell his body, 'Do this, and eventually it'll get better.'
"Do this," Jazz told his body, which whined complaints back at him. "Don't care. Do it anyway."
His body informed him that it didn't like whatever had happened. He blew a mental raspberry at himself for stating the obvious.
When he turned his attention away from the pop-up parade of internal alerts, the saboteur gave the area a visual scan since his other sensor suites were still tuning up. He saw purple-and-black legs braced nearby, standing on the edge of the platform. Over the edge, a mass of feebly stirring limbs was visible in the flickering light of the floodlights, like a tumbled metal junkyard for the barely online. A few mechs were climbing free, but most of the Decepticons in the tiers below weren't in any better shape than Jazz himself. And he'd been sheltered from the worst of the impact by Acid Storm. Ouch.
The Autobot turned his head, looking up sidelong at the one mech within sight who seemed capable of standing. Skywarp didn't look happy. Smug, yes, because everyone else was wallowing about helplessly while he very much was not - but not happy. Obviously, being able to withstand his wingmate's weaponry wasn't all fun and games.
Displeased red optics cut toward them when Acid Storm apparently decided it was safe to get back to his feet. "Wahwharurrurrburrrrrr," Skywarp said, which Jazz was fairly sure wasn't actually what he'd said at all. It sounded like the Seeker was standing about 600 meters further away than he really was, and from the sound of it, he was gargling septic tanks and trying to swallow a sheep at the same time. "Whackasackatingtingfubbadubb a?"
Acid Storm helped the small Autobot up, and Jazz shrugged at Skywarp. Half a breem until recalibration. He tapped the side of his helm and shrugged again.
"Wharburr. Brriiingdockdockdonk," Acid Storm said, and there were two sheep and a large plank of wood being gargled. Jazz just barely kept from giggling. It was shock reaction as much as amusement that made the sound so funny.
Skywarp seemed annoyed, and his optics bore into the Autobot. After a two full seconds of silence, the annoyance transmuted into baffled ire. Skywarp's optics seemed faintly puzzled. Apparently, he'd thought Jazz hadn't been telling the truth about his comm. system crash, because that was the look of a mech unable to make comm. contact. "Ramalamadingdong?" he said directly to the small Autobot, words deliberately loud and slow.
Oh, seriously, now that had to be intentional. Jazz gave Skywarp a filthy look and held up three fingers. 'Three kliks.' He let his hand drop, and oh, oops, he just happened to let two of his fingers fall first.
The fickle Decepticon grinned appreciatively.
Of course, the obscene Earth gesture went right over Acid Storm's head. "Warg?" he asked.
"Don't ask," Jazz, keeping his vocal output as low and level as he could without feedback from his audios.
"Murgle," Skywarp said cheerily, and Acid Storm gave him a doubtful look before turning his attention to the arena floor.
Jazz took a single step just to test whether he had his balance back yet. When his body informed him of its intent to cooperate now, he took the remaining two steps to the edge with more confidence. The high, ringing keen in his audios was hiccupping now as recalibration tuned him in to the changing pitch of separate voices that made up the background noise of six hundred mechs moaning and groaning their way back to the land of the functional. If they felt anything like Jazz did, they felt like they'd woken up post-combat with a hangover. Drinking heavily during battle wasn't an experience Jazz had ever wanted to repeat again, mostly because it felt like this afterward.
Normally, Thundercracker wouldn't divebomb like that. Typical battle conditions would make a straight dive too tempting of a target, and nobody on the ground would stay in the target zone if they saw it coming.
Normal didn't apply here and now, however.
Thundercracker hovered in the air in his rootmode, almost level with the platform. He balanced on tongues of flame from his heel-turbines, perfectly composed and utterly unharmed by the force he'd brought down on them. There was no gloating on his face as he looked over the slowly-recovering Decepticons below, but there was an impassive kind of satisfaction visible on his face when the floodlights popped back on, one by one. This was his power, and now they'd felt it. His hands were in tense fists, and his face had pulled into severe lines. His optics played around the arena in quick flashes, taking in the crowd's reaction - but he never looked up for long.
Like the mechs beside him and the Seeker hovering in the center of the arena, Jazz looked down.
Starscream had gone down hard, if the rust streaks and indented armor on his front were anything to go by, but the Air Commander was upright again with only his limp slowing him down. He turned in a slow circle, balanced on his good turbine, and he'd abandoned his arrogantly aloof pose for a ready stance. His hands were empty and held open, poised to hit or hold, and he watched his ex-wingmate the way the Big Bad Wolf watched human girls entering dark fairytale forests. There was something terrible and hungry in his optics, burning fractured and mad where cracked optic-glass had fallen out. Where he should have looked battered by repeated combat, he seemed victorious. When he should have seemed disadvantaged or made lopsided by his injuries and missing wing, he seemed to have fed off the pain.
He was the one on the ground, small and wounded, yet Starscream looked all the more dangerous and not at all small. The grin splitting his face was so fierce it bordered deranged. 'Come closer, Little Red Riding Hood.'
Thundercracker looked down at him from above, and maybe it was Jazz's imagination, but the blue Seeker seemed just a tad intimidated. Certainly, he was wary. 'My, what big teeth you have.'
Skywarp said something. Although the sound of his voice devolved into warbled hiss-pops of nonsense, Jazz picked up most it: "Welpft, hee's successfully made him rescreekly mad. Way to gleepdercracker."
"He bettpop stay up threeep," Acid Storm said back. Even through the static, he sounded serious. "Starskrriiiiiii took Sunstpopm down even with all his extra armroooorssskt."
Jazz's sensor suites helpfully blurted a status update, then rebooted in one extended cycle. It left Jazz feeling oddly like he was suspended in zero-gravity for a split second as everything shut off and on. He quickly sent a denial command when his reboot log came to the offline communication suite. That needed to stay off for a while longer.
The background riiiiiiiiiing suddenly resolved into individual shouts, the sounds of a crowd starting to cheer again. The rhythmic beat snapped into the dull roar of jet engines and turbine fire from Thundercracker. The Autobot blinked as his receivers shut off, blanking the world to silence, and calibrated back up to normal levels. It felt like the audio equivalent of spiraling outward, and it was almost dizzying without his comm. systems to balance him.
Jazz shook himself to resettle crimped cables and, incidentally, catch the two Seekers' attention. "That was quite a demo," he said, honestly relieved to be able to hear his own voice again. He didn't take his visor off the stand-off. "Did it do anything besides waste Thundercracker's energy?" Although he could see it had. If the goal had been to impress the assembled Vosians with Thundercracker's abilities, that had been a blast of a demonstration. Nothing said 'powerful' in Decepticon lingo quite like knocking everyone head over thrusters, and sheer sonic boom had done that quite well.
"Back with us again?" Skywarp quipped. "Thought you were having a comm. malfunction."
"Still am," Jazz admitted easily. "Can't access anything." He smiled blandly, because if Skywarp was going to take out the Autobots' Third-in-Command, this was his chance. It really wasn't very likely he'd try, not with what was already happening. "I can hear you now, though."
Skywarp scoffed. "'Malfunction' my shiny purple - look at that!"
Starscream had lunged upward. One outstretched hand missed Thundercracker's foot by a wide margin, but the blue Seeker still veered heavily to the side. He recovered immediately, but even the flyers still sitting on the ground leaned forward like predators sensing weakness at just how far he'd moved. Starscream landed lightly, damaged turbine sputtering but still functional, and his wolfish grin only widened. 'Little Red, Little Red, why are you running?'
Thundercracker didn't even spare a look at the crowd this time. He kept his optics locked on the Air Commander. 'Because I'm not stupid.'
The dark helm tilted slowly to the side as if considering the challenger up above him. 'Now now, Little Red. Are you afraid of me?'
Red optics locked together. '…such big teeth you have.'
Starscream was in the air a moment later, and the arena roared approval.
Acid Storm sidled up to Jazz's side again as hot air buffeted everyone hard enough rock them on their feet. Thundercracker's engines boomed, concussive threat still seeking weak spots, hoping to snag something through breeched armor as the blue Seeker dodged and Starscream shot past. "What exactly do you think you're watching, here?" the acid-green Rainmaker asked, optics more thoughtful than worried.
Thundercracker swapped end-for-end in mid-air, turbines bursting incandescent as he transformed and tore after the Air Commander, but Starscream careened across the arena just out of reach. The red Seeker stayed fast and low, half-running and half-flying in giant leaps that allowed him to change direction every time he touched down. The blue jet's greater speed was useless; Thundercracker's altmode didn't have the agility necessary to aim his engine at the quicksilver-fast mech ahead of him. The pursuing Seeker was forced to transform, twisting in order to align his thrusters in the correction direction. Starscream just took off in another direction, forcing Thundercracker to transform yet again to correct.
Except that this time Starscream did a half-transformation of his own, jet engine igniting and lighting the specialized thrusters that made him the fastest flyer on Cybertron. For a breathless moment, running momentum pushed him opposite ignition thrust, suspending him near-motionless in the air. The two Decepticons hung nosecone-to-nosecone. Thundercracker's surprise almost bled off his wings, but there was no time for the blue Seeker to react before gravity pulled Starscream's nose down. The Air Commander twisted back through the half-transformation into rootmode again, and thrust kicked in. He zipped underneath his ex-wingmate close enough to scrape broken gold canopy glass in creeling lines across the blue armor even as Thundercracker transformed and grabbed for him.
He was also close enough to reach up and smack Thundercracker's aft.
Silence bitchslapped the audience like a pimp. Like a hardcore pimp, 'cause that audience had better respect. Starscream's derogatory laughter demanded it. In the middle of challenge combat, fighting with an opponent current odds had him losing to, and the Air Commander made it absolutely clear who he thought the bitch was. Or maybe who he thought the alpha-bitch was, anyway. 'Bend over and take it, Little Red.'
Thundercracker staggered on air for almost a full klik, turbines sputtering just enough to keep him flying. Puppets with tangled strings jerked that way. His jaw had gone slack, and his optics were wide and flat with shock.
"I dunno about you," Jazz said clearly into the silence, knowing he was pushing it but just unable to stop himself, "but I'm pretty sure I'm watching a 'Girls Gone Wild' video. The uncensored catfight edition." He looked around earnestly. "Where's the Jell-O vat? Can we get a Jell-O vat down there?"
"What flavor?" Skywarp asked, loud and clear, and there was a creeping, gleeful devilry bubbling up in his voice. Acid Storm just stared at them both, dumbfounded.
"Cherry, of course." Thundercracker lifted his head, a burgeoning rage verging on horror filling him to overflowing, and Jazz gave him his sauciest wink. "Because you gotta know, that Seeker just got it popped."
No one else got it, but despite that, everyone got it. It was impossible not to get it.
Laughter didn't rock the arena. It destroyed it. Thundercracker's engines had flattened the audience, but Jazz brought the house down on top of them. Flyers fell over and clutched the nearest mechs, laughing so hard whole tiers fell like dominoes. A huge, reversed Mexican wave swept the arena like drunken fans at a Superbowl: flyers fell down, stood up, and fell back over in succession as the ribald, mocking laughter fed off itself, up and up. The nearest mechs in the tier below Jazz turned around and boosted each other up the incline to reach hands up toward the Autobot, who shook their hands congenially and grinned acceptance of their half-coherent praised words. Acid Storm and Skywarp turned to fend off congratulations from the other mechs on the platform with them, and still the laughter went on.
In the center of it, Thundercracker hovered in a blooming cloud of dark anger. The face he turned up to Jazz was genuinely scary, but the glare redirected toward where Starscream had landed. Because it always, always came down to Starscream. The Air Commander cackled loudest of all, optics narrow red slits of unappeased rage all his own, and he jerked his chin up when Thundercracker let loose another reverberating thwoom! The merriment rollicked on, barely subdued, and Thundercracker's wrath built to tower over the arena like an atomic explosion in slow motion.
Jazz could almost see the mushroom cloud forming, getting ready to spread and fall, but suddenly there were spots of hysterical laughter started up all over again throughout the crowd. The flyers had been gradually calming, but that just made the renewed laughter more obvious. Curiosity clustered the nearest mechs closer. The spots expanded into large knots of mechs that were gasping to their neighbors, and Thundercracker's mask of rage cracked. The blue Seeker turned a stunned look on the wildly laughing crowd. He glanced back at Starscream - who was grinning wickedly, obviously at fault here - and quickly darted an appalled look up at the platform.
Where Skywarp whooped helplessly, clutching his hands to his cockpit as he sat down and laughed. Acid Storm stumbled around behind Jazz to kneel at the purple-and-black Seeker's side and prop his forehelm on Skywarp's right air intake, laughing until his ventilation system went through a reset. And still they kept laughing.
Baffled, the lone Autobot met Thundercracker's utterly mortified look with a quizzical shrug. Oddly, that seemed to reassure the Seeker. Whatever was happening, he didn't want the Autobot to know. He turned a deeply black glare on Starscream and shouted something unheard over the mirth.
Jazz scanned the crowd. It took him a bit of rifling through his files to match faces and unit-markings to ranks, and the spread-pattern finally began to make some sense. It had started with the officers. Since he hadn't seen anything all that humorous happen, it'd likely been a comm. broadcast. Over the officer network, it seemed, and the officers had, of course, immediately spread the word. The small mech looked below, to where Starscream couldn't be heard over the windstorm-gale of laughter. From the look of things, he was taunting his ex-wingmate. If Thundercracker's face was anything to go by, the atomic cloud was amassing again fast.
Curse his curiosity, because the saboteur wanted to know what the Air Commander had broadcast to get that kind of reaction. "Do I wanna know?" he asked the two Seekers still gasping faintly beside him on the ground. He really did, but spies didn't get information by flat-out asking for it.
"No," Acid Storm said, climbing to his feet.
"Yes!" Skywarp chirruped around a huge, profoundly evil grin. "Oh, yes, you do. You want to know so bad."
"But you're not gonna tell me," Jazz said back dryly.
"Why would I?"
The Autobot looked into the arena. Thundercracker was slowly hovering in a circle, exchanging biting commentary with the Air Commander as they eyed each other warily. "Depends, I suppose," he watched closely, trying to read their lips, "on how much loyalty you have to Thundercracker." With all the languages of Earth at their disposal, lip-reading was as tricky as hacking an encrypted comm. line on the fly. The nearest tiers of the audience seemed enthralled, however. "But since Starscream didn't immediately oust you from his wing, my guess is you're the wild card. If Thundercracker wins, you're fine. If Starscream wins, you're fine. You don't give a scrap who wins because the winner will keep you either way."
Passive sensors mapped out the two Seekers looking at each other behind his doors, possibly exchanging a quick internal comm. in order to explain the Earth idiom. Acid Storm moved around to Jazz's other side again. The Autobot kept his attention on the arena floor, but his sensors showed the Rainmaker standing close enough to look down at him like a breeder examining new stock. There was just something coming off the Decepticon that had Jazz half-expecting the green flyer to try and inspect his teeth. Did he come with papers? What was his pedigree?
Unconsciously, he stood straighter and crossed his arms across his radiator grill.
Skywarp stayed seated, apparently content to sit at Jazz's feet as he watched his wingmates face off. "Good guess." One red optic angled to look up at the Autobot as Starscream took off across the arena. "My contract's one-sided. I'm not expected to be able to control either of them." He seemed amused by the concept. "I mean, how could I stop them?" Unspoken, of course, was the question of 'Why would I want to?'
Okay, the mech had a point. The Autobots knew that Thundercracker and Starscream rode herd on Skywarp, but it had honestly never occurred to Jazz to think about it going the other way. Which, watching the fight, kind of made sense. He couldn't imagine Skywarp getting in the middle of this fight. The black-and-purple teleporter was twelve kinds of nasty in a back-stabbing flitting way during battle, but this was a totally different type of combat. It was a fight, raw and brutally up-front.
Thundercracker rocketed across the arena, but Starscream's speed slipped him past his heavier, slower opponent. Unfortunately, his missing wing seemed to pull him askew as well, and Thundercracker reversed just fast enough to clip Starscream in the helm with an elbow. The Air Commander hit rust, sliding painfully across the ground. Sparks showered in his wake as exposed struts and bent armor edges scraped metal, and Thundercracker's turbines lit those sparks to multicolored flames. Flakes of rust rained droplets of fire to the ground, catching up to the Air Commander as he slid to a stop and looked up to see Thundercracker bearing down on him.
Starscream rolled out from underneath black feet not a moment too soon. They slammed into the ground, and the Air Commander flipped into a crouch right next to them. Instead of jumping away, he surged right into them the moment his own feet hit ground, turning about in a scraping creel of rust as they dug in. Thundercracker's reaching hands closed on empty air where the blue Seeker had expected Starscream's neck to be. The Air Commander was the lighter mech, but he'd thrown his whole body into the move. It was less of a tackle than a sprinter hearing the starting pistol.
His heavily-armored ex-wingmate grunted, hit mid-thigh by the projectile-impact of Starscream's shoulder, then yelped loud enough to be heard over the crowd's bloodthirsty cheering as the edge of Starscream's broken wing stabbed into the pelvic join. Thundercracker's thigh jerked up out of defensive impulse that did nothing but trap the equivalent of a blunt knife into his hip joint. Starscream's shrieking curse was clearly audible as his forward motion came to an abrupt halt. Thundercracker's bellow of pain was even louder, because that sudden stop had all of Starscream's weight behind it.
Streams of pink energon and oil-hued green lubricant spurted down the blue Seeker's leg in lurid squirts. Apparently, even blunt knives could slice if a mech hacked with sufficient force. Or, in this case, if Starscream jerked on his wing hard enough. Starscream was a trapped animal pushing and tearing at the trap with all four limbs. If not for the blue Seeker's heavier armor, the blast of fire from Starscream's turbines would have punched holes through to internal structure. Clawed fingers ripped into armor joins, yanking frantically.
As it was, Thundercracker was hardly better as pain and unexpected close combat hooked one knee out from underneath him. He flailed, losing his balance, but war-trained hands instinctively attacked even as he fought not to go down. Where Starscream was causing minimal damage against Thundercracker's heavier plating, one swift punch down visibly dented the Air Commander's helm. The strong knock shook Starscream into a head-wobbling split second of reset, and in that second, Thundercracker lost his footing.
He fell backward, skidding a bit sideways as he hopped on one foot in a last-ditch attempt at staying upright, but his collapse yanked Starscream forward as he went. The Air Commander ended up landing almost on top of his opponent, and Thundercracker yelled again as the move sawed the blunt wing edge over already-sliced tubes and linkages. Either the different position or additional slick pour of liquids opened up the clamped joint, however. Although Thundercracker twisted on the ground, grabbing for him, Starscream ripped himself free. He kicked into a crouch, planting his feet on the damaged hip joint. One turbine twitched, grinding into the gap.
Jazz's visor widened at the Air Commander's truly vicious grin - or rather, at Thundercracker's uncontrolled cry of, "No!"
Starscream's turbines lit, and he erupted straight up into the air. The force of those specialized turbines turned to full power launched the blue Seeker tumbling across the ground, but what had the audience up and screaming applause was the explosion.
"Well, that's that," Acid Storm said a little ruefully as he watched Thundercracker burn. "So much for that bet."
"Ouch," Jazz said, not giving away the ill seep of disgust curling in his tanks. Or the tight bite of fear. Not only was the crowd cheering on the violence, but they were applauding the pain of a mech being incinerated from the inside out. "Why's Knock Out just standin' there?" he asked, winching his reaction down to simple curiosity as he pointed out the medic standing on the sidelines in a pose of exaggerated patience.
Skywarp cast him a 'Duh!' look. "Fight's not over yet, Autobot." He gave the Rainmaker a mock-sympathetic look. "Although it's fairly obvious who'll eventually win."
"You're not serious." Jazz looked between him and the frantic efforts of Thundercracker. Skywarp's mouth quirked, and the Autobot gave him an incredulous stare. "Can he even stand?"
The blue Seeker had come out of his roll already tearing at his own armor, desperately prying open melted catches and throwing plating aside in order to manually clamp off lines. He worked feverishly even as flames hungrily licked at his hands and melted the tubing under his fingers. Fire lit his face gruesomely, fed by his own fuel and fluids. Lubricant burned at high enough temperatures, and the fire had definitely reached those levels under Starscream's thrusters. It consumed hoses and aperture valves, linkage joins and cable housings; it ignited anything that wasn't metal and softened even that in the heat of energon-fed flames. It was trying to run up the fuel lines, seeking the tanks of unprocessed energon that would burst Thundercracker at the seams like a firecracker exploding inside an overripe fruit.
Thundercracker kicked and screamed hoarsely when the out-of-control fire burning down his leg hit the thruster reservoir, and a loud Bang! echoed above the crowd's cheering. The blue Seeker forced agony-clawed fingers back into the fire at his hip, working all the faster with his lower leg a shredded ruin as vivid illustration of his imminent fate. It was a dripping, ragged, fiery motivation.
Jazz had seen it on the battlefield a thousand times. More than once, he'd been the one to put a Decepticon down for good with another shot to a shoulder or fuel pump. Whichever was handiest for him, because taking one of the burning mech's arms out of the equation was as lethal as a killshot. It was the price paid for being robots fueled by volatile substances: a well-placed fire killed, even if the wound didn't seem severe.
Sometimes, Ratchet had said back on Earth, he envied the humans their blood-filled bodies.
Starscream gently touched down across the arena, accepting the audience's enthusiastic ovation. Even the jeering from those who'd lost their bets was accepted as tribute, because the losers had to admire him. He turned slowly, worse for wear but still standing, and basked in their praise. He was still the best, and they knew it.
At long last, his opponent managed to close off the open lines. Face grim and streaked in black char, Thundercracker began fire suppression. It was sadly pathetic, seeing the Seeker using his palms and handfuls of gritty rust scraped off the ground to beat out the flames. Knock Out's rant on hygiene and tirade about how "I'm not cleaning that slag out!" could be heard by half the crowd. They only laughed in response. Jazz felt a twinge of empathy for the blue Seeker, but the arena was an ocean of mockery as the assembled flyers called rude suggestions.
Thundercracker kept his head bent over his work. Saving his own life was more important than pride at the moment.
Starscream turned his attention leisurely to the downed flyer, and the whole arena fell silent. Anticipation had the tiers leaning forward, whispering excitedly but no longer shouting. This was the drama. This was what they had assembled to see!
The blue Seeker tensed, and he slowly, slowly looked up to meet Starscream's optics.
Jazz involuntarily learned forward with the audience, and Skywarp glanced up. "It doesn't matter if Thundercracker can stand," he said to the Autobot, casually resuming their conversation as if his wingmates weren't facing off below. "This isn't over until he concedes. What do you really think you're watching? A power-struggle in the ranks?"
Jazz hesitated, because he wasn't entirely sure anymore what was happening. Thundercracker was stiffly bending his remaining functional knee now, levering himself up onto it with his arms, and from there he stood upright. He rocked alarmingly, burnt leg hanging like dead, useless weight off his body, but he stood up. He met Starscream's critical gaze with a sort of mute defiance.
"I don't think I know," the Autobot confessed, watching Thundercracker's hands tighten into fists. The downed flyer was in no condition to fight further, but he obviously intended to continue. "I thought he was challenging for Starscream's position. I thought all of this," he shrugged, tossing his head to indicate the arena and eager crowd, "was a challenge for Emirate." That wasn't completely accurate, but better to be underestimated as a dumbaft than remind everyone that the ignorant little black-and-white mech in their midst was the Head of Special Operations.
A tsk! of disbelief came from his other side. "Emirates are elected," Acid Storm informed him, contempt Jazz identified as Vosian and directed toward an outsider dripping off his words. "Challenging Starscream for that position wouldn't work."
Skywarp eyed the Autobot, considering. "Sunstorm probably would have tried that, eventually," he disagreed slowly.
"Oh, well. Sunstorm." The Rainmaker's tone made it clear what he thought of Sunstorm's mental state.
"What am I watching?" Jazz asked softly, treading his careful line. The two Decepticons looked at him, and if he'd played the situation right, they were seeing someone closer to an almost-ally than a definite enemy. Because he hadn't reacted with revulsion or shock, and he'd gone for conversation over demands.
He was the spy, the saboteur, the Jazzmeister. He was building the role even as he became it. The most adaptable Autobot in the ranks watched Thundercracker painfully hobble forward on exposed, melted framework, and he didn't push. He just stood there and existed, and around him layered the complicated unsaid implications and ramifications of courtship and intentions, possibilities and probabilities of success.
There was a close bubble of silence amidst the murmurs and chatter of the crowd. Inside it, Acid Storm and Skywarp weighed the odds. Help him or not. Who he was now, against who he could soon be. What could he be…
A sharp clang of metal fist on metal body, and Thundercracker crashed to the ground. His broken pelvic plating squealed across the rust, and the Decepticon Air Commander stood over him like an angry god of the air.
"Get up," Starscream hissed. "I'm not done with you."
The blue Seeker groaned as he started the long process of regaining his feet. Starscream waited half a klik before rearing back and striking down with one fist. Thundercracker looked up just in time to get that fist to the face, and the sharp crack of an optic shattering ricocheted around the arena. Thundercracker went down again, thrown violently face-first into the rust.
"I said, get up!"
Skywarp rearranged his legs, turning to lean his back against Jazz like the Autobot were a bizarre backrest. "You're watching a contract challenge," he said neutrally, tilting his helm up to see Jazz looking down at him.
"Thundercracker would have won the right to break contract if he'd won the challenge," Acid Storm said, similarly neutral as he shifted just a tad closer to the smaller mech. "He could have used that to enter another contract with another wing, but what he wanted was to win the right to renegotiate."
He gave the two Decepticons unimpressed looks, letting them know he knew exactly what they were doing. Shameless red optics looked back at him. "Renegotiate. Not for a military contract, huh?"
"Oh, no," Skywarp blithely waved a hand at his blue wingmate as Starscream beat him down again. "He wants what you have."
Jazz grinned. "Good looks, better friends, and the best sex life this side of the quadrant?"
Cue spluttering.
Seekers: 0.
Jazzmeister: 1.
When they stopped making incoherent half-words, Acid Storm and Skywarp gave Jazz identical wide-opticked looks of surprise. Weren't Autobots supposed to be prudes?
Jazz smiled back, radiant as an angel. A really hot angel, mmm, yeah. A devious, manipulative angel from the wrong side of Heaven, but Starscream would never be able to convince the other Seekers he and Jazz weren't banging armor, now. One more nail in his cover act, right there. "What?"
"…I don't even. I can't. What." Skywarp opened and closed his mouth, searching for the right words to express his thoughts. They weren't coming.
Below them, Thundercracker laboriously dragged himself upright again. Starscream snapped out a kick to his chin that knocked him partway across the arena, wings skidding along the ground. His intakes coughed flecks of rust and gobs of internal fluids when the blue Seeker got up to his hands and knees this time, spattering the ground in patterns of green and pinkish purple. Something in his ruined leg sluggishly bled oil-hued black liquid.
"I'm getting all these nice pictures," Acid Storm said plaintively, "and no real data. It's not fair." The look he gave the Autobot was less cool assessment and more greed. Jazz waggled his doors at him. "Not. Fair."
"So he wants that Second position, huh?" Jazz chirped cheerfully. "Tough luck for him." He looked down at the fight. It could barely be called that. "He's not gettin' it." There was no guarantee that Jazz would, either, but Thundercracker? No way on Cybertron.
Starscream stalked closer, and Thundercracker's optics lit mulishly. He lashed out with an arm, wrapping it around Starscream's closest leg and curling around it as if he were a big wildcat, kicking and clawing and - dear Primus, was he biting?! The Air Commander staggered back, shrieking loud enough to make the audience cover their audios, but Thundercracker stubbornly hung on. He recklessly tore at the knee joint and the already-damaged turbine while Starscream shook his leg and punched at whatever he could hit.
It was barbaric. It was the desperate attempt of a defeated mech. Thundercracker savaged Starscream's leg, but the Air Commander's heavy punches were doing far more injury. One black hand was torn loose, leaving tracks in Starscream's armor as the Air Commander twisted it out of the way until there was an opening. His free hand dove down toward the melted slag that was Thundercracker's hip joint, and -
- the scream this time was all pain, attack forgotten.
"Is Starscream gonna kill him?" Jazz asked, keeping himself impassive. "That'd throw a wrench in the works for the negotiations. I'm not sure I can stand here and watch murder." His voice implied doubt, not toward the morality of what he was witnessing but toward the official duties of his position.
Honestly, Jazz's fuel pump was squeezing uneasily as he watched Starscream pry Thundercracker's hand away before beginning to just gracelessly kick the downed Seeker over and over. The gold cockpit canopy shattered. Bits of blue metal with black streaks of soot began to litter the ground, bright reflections of tarnished color under the floodlights. This wasn't combat. This wasn't Decepticons attacking Autobots. This was Starscream beating the slag out of a helpless mech unable to even do more than shield his head in his arms. Thundercracker weakly cried out, trying to block the blows, but they were coming too fast. If he sheltered his head, Starscream kicked his cockpit. The furious kicks aimed for his face if Thundercracker dared to curl up around his midsection.
Jazz wasn't sure he could stand by much longer.
Acid Storm frowned slightly, turning the Autobot's odd response over in his head. The smaller mech didn't seem distressed, exactly, but he'd raised a valid point. The idea of Megatron coming down on them all for provoking the Autobots was a bad one. "He might," the Rainmaker said a bit worriedly. "Skywarp?"
"Dunno," Skywarp said easily, not even hiding the fact that he was enjoying the show. He glanced up at Jazz. "He's lost the challenge, but all that means is that he can't formally break contract. Because of the terms of our contracts with Starscream, though, he broke it anyway." He shrugged his wings against the Autobot's leg and went back to watching Starscream pin his wingmate - or ex-wingmate, apparently - down and begin tearing things out of the blue Seeker's cockpit. "It's up to Starscream whether he takes him back into the wing or not." He gave a short laugh. "He hasn't conceded yet. The fight's not over until he does. Starscream hasn't even started punishing him, for frag's sake! How in the Pit would I know if he'll kill him?"
Instrumentation pattered down the ground in a terrible rain of parts. Stuffing from a seat followed quickly. Jazz held back, pushing aside his morals with all the iron self-control he had. Text scrolled at the base of his visor, underlining Thundercracker's writhing form: "…your mission is to infiltrate and secure the Vos city-state government structure. You are authorized to use any means at your disposal, as you find necessary."
Prime's orders were cold comfort.
[* * * * *]
End Pt. 10
[* * * * *]