I'm not reposting all the warnings. If you didn't read them in Pt. 1, then on your head be it.

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Pt. 14

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Right.

Wrong, but right.

Jazz looked out over the arena, and he tried to see it.

Not a callous war unit throwing one of their own to a merciless beating. Mechs who knew each other in and out giving one of their own what he liked, in a socially acceptable setting.

Not an arrogant Air Commander carelessly abusing Decepticon soldiers. Decepticon soldiers using their Air Commander for their own ends.

Not an orgy every other tier.

…well, no, Jazz still saw that one. But apparently public debauchery was acceptable among the Decepticons. Maybe it was a widely held kink.

Everything in his Autobot background recoiled from the spectacle. There was something deeply, fundamentally wrong with what he was seeing, but information subprocessors were combating that initial recoil with a sudden shift in perspective. Threat assessment was throwing a mild fit as his ability to adapt got tested to its limits. Everything he thought he knew contrasted sharply with what he was learning. This was public debauchery, molesting mechs out in the open where anyone and everyone could see, and it was wrong. Wasn't it?

He didn't know anymore. There wasn't a scrap of shame to be found in the arena, but that would mean that 600+ Decepticons - all Vosians, a united city-state's culture - felt that there was nothing here that should be hidden behind closed doors. This wasn't an isolated incident. Every Decepticon base ever infiltrated had showed the conflicting signs of rampant sexuality and callous violence.

That led Jazz to take a look at why exactly he felt they should be ashamed. Not the violence; what Acid Storm had explained was still percolating in the saboteur's cortex. No, he had to think about the sex. Sex, sex, everywhere, and yet he didn't understand a thing about it.

The Autobots didn't practice tactile interfacing, but the longer he thought about it, the less logic he could come up with for why. Sure, the Autobots had wonderful sex. Wall-banging, neighbors-knocking, awesome fragging that left mechs staggering after overload. Hardline cables gave a glorious high of mutual pleasure and sharing that couldn't possibly be matched by mere touch. Sheer energy transfer did things to a mech's body that couldn't be mimicked by hands, mouth, or - from what he was seeing right now - whatever other appendage could fit. That wasn't a good reason for why the back of Jazz's cortex flinched away from the idea, however.

Starscream had brought him close to overloading, and he'd certainly enjoyed it. Ratchet had been flustered by being walked in on, but he hadn't seemed to mind what the Constructicons were doing. Tactile charge-building was good! Okay, it was better than good. It'd felt like his sensor network had caught fire with charge, it'd been so good. So why had Jazz never tried it before?

Some playing around, sure. A few deft touches in the right places was a great way to get someone revved up and let him know there was interest. Being too forward, however, would earn a mech a loose reputation. Everybody knew a mech who had to ask for it got his bolts screwed tight by anybody and everybody. Which was an odd stigma, since sharing cables was generally such a loving thing, even among the frontliners. But being too open about it was discouraged by a very odd type of peer pressure.

Huh. Jazz had thought about it before, but his job was to analyze the Decepticons. Analyzing his own faction had been a background process working in the back of his head all this time. He'd thought about it, but he hadn't actually thought about it. He knew the others had, too. The Autobots all knew how to respond to the proper social cues in the ranks, so they must have at least had a passing thought about what they were reacting to.

Smokescreen slinked through the ranks, always poking that chevron of his into everyone's business and berth. It made him a good meter for troop attitude, but he wasn't quite respected because of it. Prowl stood stiffly on the opposite side of that invisible line. Everyone knew he was a cold one. While he'd interface regularly with the officer cadre, he rarely invited any of the rank and file to his berth. It gave him an unshakeable aura of authority, but it also made him unapproachable. Smokescreen could be as professional as physically possible on-duty, but nobody would ever regard him as fully respectable. There was a...taint. His bold attitude when it came to inviting others to his berth had marked him. Prowl was not shy when it came to issuing his own invitations, but he was discreet.

There didn't seem to be a middle ground. It was either private or in everyone's faces. There was a fine line between discretion and unappealing brazenness for the Autobots. Jazz walked that fine line like a gymnast on a tightrope. As the unofficial morale officer and as - to put it bluntly - a spy even among the Autobots, he had to be everybody's friend without favoring anybody. Everyone knew he was uncatchable, but they also knew they could snare him for a quick shag just by walking by him the right way and waiting for the famous Jazzmeister's smile.

Yet it was mostly unspoken. The whole arrangement worked, and Primus knew the interfacing was glorious, but it was all hardline. Physical stimulation was never more than foreplay in Jazz's experience, and Jazz was experienced. No denying that.

When it came to tactile fragging, however, he was an amateur among specialists. The Decepticons all around him were showing him how very much he didn't know, and it was disconcerting. Not just his lack of knowledge - the fact that they were showing. Showing everything. They were asking permission, talking about consent, and discussing what each mech enjoyed. All of that, in public. Jazz hadn't been this unsettled by interfacing since the first time he'd flirted with Optimus Prime.

It'd taken orns for him to brace his struts enough to act casual while bending over in just the right way to show off his aft to the Matrix-Bearer. The idea of flat-out walking up to the Prime and talking about how attractive Jazz found his leader, how he wanted the chance to link in and exchange energy with him...that would have taken wider diameters than the ball-bearings he had. He'd have been more worried about his forwardness would put off the mech than confident that - what? That he'd effectively communicated his desire?

How could two completely separate cultures have developed like this? They were all Cybertronians. They shared the same planet. How had their cultures diverged so widely? The welcoming, equality-seeking Autobots kept their intimacy behind closed doors and coy smiles while the hostile, war-mongering Decepticons abused each other and fragged every which way from Sunday right out in the open. From the other angle, the Decepticons saw nothing but frightening hardline interfacing hidden like a dark secret and never talked about, while they talked about everything and didn't do a thing without asking permission first.

Maybe the question wasn't so much how the cultures had developed so differently, but more along the lines of how they hadn't destroyed each other yet. Although not for lack of trying.

The real question was how they'd managed to get as far as they had in the peace process if they were working blind. Neither side understood the foundation the other worked off of to make basic decisions.

Both sides were trying desperately, tonight, to understand.

A few pieces slotted together, pushed into place by that busy subprocessor, and Jazz had the sudden thought that a few Autobots could easily fit into this society. Heh. Did the Decepticons have a brig fetish? He could think of a couple 'bots who seemed to get into trouble just to end up on punishment detail. Power play…oh, yeah, Tracks would adore having someone dedicated to polishing him to overload several times an orn. Carly had once joked that Prowl was a pair of handcuffs and a billyclub away from being a sexy Bad Cop, and that was a hilarious mental image to have while watching -

Scrap metal and iron. The humans.

Several things aligned in Jazz's mind, snapping into a pattern that still made little sense but at least explained why it had all seemed vaguely familiar. A whole alien race with no hardline cables, the humans had a hundred million different ways to orgasm just by tactile sensation. Or visual, or auditory, or frag, Jazz didn't know. Imagination alone capped the limits, for all the information he had on the subject. The point was that they didn't have the option of equality via a cable interface, so they'd invented every possible permutation of sex their clever race could conceive of. As his processor raced to decompress his low-importance Earth database, his scrambling thoughts seized on the most prominent label available to slap on what he was standing in the middle of.

He blinked through reset. And again. "Whips and chains and fetishes, oh my," he muttered, half to himself.

Acid Storm eyed his wide blue visor suspiciously. "What?"

"BDSM."

"Is that military code or a music group?" the vivid green Seeker asked warily, then stiffened in offense when Jazz started laughing at him. "Pardon me?"

Amusement pumped his vents to heaving, but it was relief more than anything that had the small Autobot wheezing. He waved a hand at the Rainmaker, asking silently for time to recover.

He'd been dreading trying to explain the Decepticons to the other Autobots. It had seemed like an impossible task when he himself could barely wrap his head around the basic tenets of Decepticon society. It had literally not even occurred to him to explain it this way. Not in the context of Bondage-Discipline/Domination-Submission/SadoMasochism - that was too limited. But explaining the Decepticons outside the context of the Autobots!

...frag. How did different cultures develop side-by-side? Earth was a living example. Earth had hundreds of different societies, with thousands of different subcultures hidden under the generic 'normal' each society labeled itself. The short-lived race that lived on it could be the fast-forwarded illustration for how cultures could destroy each other on contact, or meld into something new. It wouldn't be the first time the Autobots had picked up interesting bits of mind-bending knowledge from the young, energetic humans that populated Earth. The small organics seemed to specialize in unexpectedly shifting Cybertronians' comparatively ancient perspectives.

Humankind was a weird, weird race with some utterly right-angle turns in their thoughts and cultures. The whole planet stepped Cybertron through a looking glass into Wonderland. The Ark crew had been repulsed and shocked to the core the first few days and weeks on Earth, because trying to understand humans in the context of Autobot society just didn't work. The humans were just too different. There were enough parallels on Earth to render things eerily similar, but not quite enough. Rabbits and petro-rabbits; foxes and turbo-foxes; man and machine. Alice recognized the caterpillar as a caterpillar, but her world's version had been far, far different than Wonderland's.

It had put the Autobots' minds through the wringer trying to twist Earth's varied peoples and practices into their accepted order of things. They'd despaired of ever reaching an understanding with their human hosts and allies, right up until Perceptor had finally lit upon the key. It was only once the Autobots accepted the fundamental differences under the surface similarities that they had been able to open their thoughts and understand. It hadn't been easy, but it'd been possible.

They weren't the same, Decepticons and Autobots, but they sure seemed similar enough at first glance. Similar enough that they'd been clashing because nobody had gone looking under the surface for a way to resolve things.

Jazz had gone through the looking glass. Again. Somebody should put a warning sign over that thing.

"'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,'" Jazz quoted merrily, lifting his head at last. This time when Acid Storm frowned at him, the Jazzmeister beamed back up at him. "How 'bout I tell you what I see right now, and you educate me?"

The Rainmaker's frown slowly smoothed out into neutral consideration. He still wasn't happy with Jazz's rapist accusations, but to be fair, the Autobot seemed to have taken the issue seriously. "Fine," he agreed curtly. He turned and, folding his arms over his cockpit, jerked his chin at the arena floor. "What do you see?"

Still smiling, Jazz looked down into the arena. "I see Starscream tying up another mech with a rotary's blades."

Red optics followed his gaze. The rotary mech was sitting on the ground, digging his fingers into the rust and grunting as Starscream slowly bent his blades back around the last flogged victim. The creepiest part being that another helicopter stood in front of the abused mech, hand petting his helm. The standing Decepticon was talking to Starscream as the Air Commander worked, apparently unconcerned with the pained creel of metal bending, but the rotary at his feet leaned into his touch.

Now that Jazz knew to look for it, even through a mask the expression on the rotary's face was obviously one of bliss. The Autobot saw it, and turned over the thought that other helicopter didn't have to be there. Neither of the standing Decepticons, the ones he automatically labeled as the ones forcing the other two 'Cons to cooperate, were actually acting to restrain them. Even Starscream wasn't pinning the flyer he'd beaten. Jazz really couldn't understand the purpose of this strange sideshow.

"It's a rotary thing," Acid Storm said blandly.

That was his explanation. Jazz even waited a moment to make sure.

"We have rotaries in the Autobots," he objected, trying not to sound accusatory. "They don't like that."

"Have they tried it?"

"What?" The black-and-white Autobot sputtered a bit. "No! Why would they – no, wait, not going there, not here nor now." Jazz put one hand to his head and waved the other in a quest for the right words. Looking glass world, Alice; things went deeper than what he expected to see. "You can't just shove a whole category of altmodes into a stereotype after getting mad at me for doing the same thing," he settled on after a moment.

Mottled green wings flicked back, offended, but Acid Storm gave it some thought before reacting. The peace negotiations meant patience. Tolerating stupid Autobot ideas. Yes. "I'll grant you that," he bent his neck in a stiff nod, "but some stereotypes are based off of repeating truths." Heavily implying that truth had to be present. Oh, Jazz was not looking forward to debriefing the other Autobots on their collective ignorance. "Are your rotaries warbuilds?"

Jazz had to think about it. There seemed to be a divide, which he hadn't really thought about before. There was a sort of unspoken judgment on a mech's frametype in the ranks, but long vorns of war had torn through most of the prejudice that had once prevented warbuilds from being welcome in, say, Iacon. Something that had likely contributed to this wide difference in cultures now, considering the fact that the initial majority of the Decepticons had been warbuilds.

Somebody was going to have to have an educational seminar on Decepticon culture for the Autobots. From what he'd heard so far, Starscream had already held one for the Decepticons. He was beginning to think his debriefing for the Autobot command staff was going to be a class entitled 'Autobot Interfacing 101: How We Don't Talk About Sex.'

He shook his head free of that thought. Later. That was a problem for later. "Some of them."

"Hnn. Ours, too," the Seeker admitted. "The warbuilds get more out of control, but they're all inclined to be…" He paused, optics turning toward Jazz.

"Feisty?" he suggested, thinking specifically of Blades.

Green wings ruffled, slats and flaps pulling out. "I was going to say 'aggressive.' It sounds better than 'action-hungry destructive whirligigs'." Acid Storm turned that over in his head and eventually nodded. His wings smoothed back down. "But 'feisty' works, too."

Oh. Well, that sounded a lot like Springer, come to think of it. "Sooooo…what? This is some kind of control method?"

"In a way," the Rainmaker agreed. "Rotor stimulation is very diverting." Starscream started bending another rotor as the helicopter burrowed his face into his fellow Decepticon's hand and moaned happily. The sound carried well around the makeshift arena. "I've been told it has to do with a direct-gate connection from their hubs to other motor functions," Acid Storm continued almost clinically. "It leads to higher repair priorities, but it's also a higher sensory level the rest of the time. If they don't get enough stimulus from combat flights, their spinny 'copter CPUs start getting…" His hands opened before closing around his elbows again.

"Twitchy," Jazz supplied wryly. "I get it." He studied the rotaries below, trying to be objective. He couldn't see Blades getting his rotors bent. He might like them stroked, but not bent. A Protectobot pile, all focused on stroking -

His fans locked on command, but his ventilation system complained. Jazz told it to shut up, he was busy thinking of kinky things. Which really didn't help with the whole overheating issue, but his mischievously racy subprocessor took that as permission to pop another 'copter to mind. Springer…no. Maybe? No. He couldn't decide. He couldn't picture the Autobot triplechanger on his knees like that, but Jazz suddenly had a vivid mental image of him wrestling with Whirl, both Autobots sinking fingers or teeth or both into each other's rotor assemblies. Whirl he could definitely see as into rougher stuff. No? Maybe.

"Are - do all - "

Thankfully for Jazz's ongoing battle against embarrassment, Acid Storm shook his head. "It's personal preference. Some like pain," the kneeling rotary nuzzled his mask against the standing mech's tail-rotors, "others like less, ah, forceful stimulation." The little blades turned lazily, and the mech fervently nuzzled each one as they came into reach. Starscream glanced down at him and reached for the last rotor.

His mouth opened, but Jazz closed it with a click. He let that run through his head. More mental pictures chased after. "Fair enough," he conceded after giving himself time to think about it properly. Not about the pictures. The concept!

Duty glared into the back of his helm where that naughty subprocessor lurked. Bad Jazz.

"What else do you see?"

Feisty helicopters with flirty rotors. "I see a crowd cheering on pain," Jazz said instead. Red optics darkened and cut toward him, and he held up his hands. "Hey, whoa, I'm seeing things here!" That could be accurate phrasing, either way. Hmm. "I meant that I saw all these mechs," he waved at the tiers of Decepticons around him, "laughing when Starscream beat Thundercracker into sheet metal." Before that as well, when Starscream beat Sunstorm's challenge. And in between, watching Sunstorm's 'punishment.' Slag, they were laughing at Thundercracker right now!

Crimson lightened back into plain red, and Acid Storm's displeasure ebbed back down into mere disgruntlement. "Alright." He looked at the crowd himself, and a faint expression of puzzlement crossed his face. It deepened after a klik of thought as Jazz looked to the Seeker expectantly. "…in our defense, Decepticon military hierarchy doesn't promote liking superior officers," the Rainmaker said finally. "The Autobots, I take it, are more than a little different there."

Jazz gave him a lopsided grin when an oblique look asked confirmation on that. "If I saw my superior getting his aft whooped, I'd be down there helping him so fast you'd think I could fly," he said. "Slag, it wouldn't matter who it is: lowest footsoldier or Prime himself. Seeing someone in pain is just wrong." Uh, wait, remember who he was talking to. "To us," he amended, but there was no hiding how ill at ease changing his statement made him.

Pain was pain was pain. Except, apparently, when it wasn't.

"Really." Acid Storm let that one dubious word express his opinion on that. Considering the daily arguments going on in the peace negotiations, he really didn't need to say more. Everyone was doing a lot of evaluating their own words these days.

So Jazz thought about it.

One of the most fundamental tenets of the Autobots was Prime's oft-stated motto: 'Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.' That didn't just mean having the freedom to do as a mech pleased. It also meant the right to live without another person's will imposed upon that mech. In this case, it meant the right to live without pain inflicted by that other person.

As red optics met blue visor, that stood between them like a wall. Because what was going on in this arena wasn't just the Decepticon way. It was also, apparently, the Vosian way. Freedom, as Jazz was painfully aware, was often an ideal held up above reality. It was a nice thought, but not really feasible. Universal freedom would be anarchy. Reality required rules, regulations, and imposing a government on Cybertron. In governing, where did the line lie between the right of a governing body and those it governed?

Freedom was a right. Freedom, according to a faction and a city-state, to challenge the current governing system, but also to punish a failed challenger. Vos had been an independent city-state longer than the Senate's Cybertron Unification Alliance had been in place. The system seemed wrong from the outside, but that's what every invader thought when imposing his own system upon what was already there.

Did any government have the right to take away personal freedoms? There was anarchy versus prevention of crimes, but the Decepticons had obviously determined different things to be crimes than the Autobots had. In this arena, the mechs had the freedom to outright laugh at someone's pain or humiliation if that's what they enjoyed.

The Autobots didn't allow that. Openly, at least. As much as Jazz didn't want to admit it, to be honest, there were more than a few Autobots who laughed when a Decepticon went down, and no one stepped in to stop that. Which was rather hypocritical when laid out like this.

Frag, where did the line get drawn between laughing at black humor - or even slapstick! - and actually laughing at someone? He could name a handful of Autobots who were made entirely uncomfortable by Earth humor simply because certain cultures favored laughing at the unfortunate humans who fell victim to oft-violent or derogatory 'humor'. It wasn't that the Ark crew had been free of that sort of thing, but in the interest of camaraderie, nobody ever said anything against each other. They just avoided the mechs they were uncomfortable around.

Television and the Internet had brought the topic into open discussion, however, because the Autobots had been more comfortable expressing their discomfort about an alien culture. It'd been easier to critique a different - and therefore 'inferior' - society than analyze their own.

Jazz looked down into the arena, and this time he saw it from a different perspective. If this had been plastered across Teletraan One's main screen, how many Autobots would have been laughing?

The good news was that he could release the lockdown on his vent fans. He suddenly wasn't in danger of overheating.

Acid Storm watched him. There was no outward sign of the saboteur's thoughts, but after the silence stretched on long enough, he nodded. "What else do you see, Autobot?"

"I see Skywarp molesting a helpless mech."

"Mmhmm." Acid Storm gave the observation due thought. Indeed, Skywarp was kneeling between Thundercracker's spread knees, and his hands were teasing his ex-wingmate to squirming. "Fair enough."

That was a little surprising. "I thought Decepticons didn't - " Jazz paused, because using the 'r' word right now would probably not be wise. Diplomactic phrasing was a go. " - didn't take anyone against his will?" The blue visor narrowed in thought. "Is this part of Thundercracker's punishment? It doesn't seem…right." Not that he had a good handle on what the Decepticons considered 'right,' but it did seem odd.

The Rainmaker hesitated himself. "It…is, but it isn't."

"Your answers are so illuminating," the Autobot said dryly, shifting his weight to one leg. It stuck his hip out in a way he knew most mechs found sassy in an appealing way. Right now, he'd use any weapon he had to keep this conversation flowing.

A contemptuous snort answered his efforts. "It's complicated."

'No, really?' the wide blue visor said. "You don't say." Jazz feigned surprise, and this time Acid Storm reluctantly cracked a smile.

The Seeker shook his head at the smaller mech. He gave the two Seekers down in the arena another considering look. "You remember how the Air Commander had us all laughing during the challenge?" he asked, feeling his way around whatever it was that was so complicated.

"The first or the second time?" The first time had been the smack on the aft and Jazz's joke.

"The second time."

"Uh-huh. Yep, I remember. Don't know what he said, but it must-a been funny." The officers had started laughing first, obviously in on whatever the Air Commander had said over the Decepticon comm. network. It made Jazz wish his comm. system were still operational, but he probably wouldn't have been able to hack the commissioned officers' secured line that quickly. He was good, but not at the level of Blaster.

"Right. It was, but…not in the sense of a joke." Acid Storm seemed to be weighing how much to reveal. Explanation versus Autobot. "There are certain aspects of contract that aren't common knowledge as a mech gets promoted," he said slowly. His words were picked carefully. "It's strategically inadvisable to reveal that a highly ranked officer enjoys certain activities," was decided on finally. "That's something strictly confined to either the officer cadre or a mech's closest contracts. Or a trusted frag-buddy, I suppose, but that's sometimes just asking for it to get spread around half of Cybertron." He shook his head at the gullibility of some Decepticons. "Anyway, we were laughing because Starscream leaked an interesting clause in the trine-contract."

Jazz reached for casual, but his information assessment protocols were blinking excited pop-ups at him. Valuable personal information on a Decepticon officer! "Someone will take advantage of it?"

Red optics chided the saboteur. Acid Storm knew what he was doing, but the Decepticon found a vague angle to answer with. "Some mechs don't know how to leave the berth out the duty shift. Slipstream's one of them, but fortunately, so is Sunstorm. They can play their powergames all over the base on or off duty because nobody's stupid enough to not respect Sunstorm for worshiping her contrails. He's a lunatic," his wingmate said, weary but oddly proud, "but he's a blatantly powerful lunatic. Thundercracker," Acid Storm cocked his head at the bound mech wriggling under Skywarp's hands, "is powerful, but he's not crazy. Losing respect because of what he likes in the berth is a real problem just because it'd take so long to punch everyone back into line. Sunstorm just goes 'burn in the holy light of Primus!'" he imitated his loony wingmate, and Jazz grinned appreciatively, "and everybody's too busy running for their lives to disrespect him."

"Can't really see Thundercracker having a one-way dialogue with Primus."

"I hope not." Acid Storm shook his wings distastefully. "One ultra-religious bolt-brain in the Armada is quite enough."

Jazz nodded. He stared at Skywarp molesting Thundercracker some more. The blue Seeker's injuries were field patched and obviously had to hurt, but he was arching into Skywarp's hands despite himself. Skywarp kept his mouth beside his ex-wingmate's audio, whispering something as he dipped his fingers into the main pelvic joins. The upper left side was so much melted slag from the explosion, but he had all his attention on the lower area presented by Thundercracker's spread legs. Everything was mapped out, thoroughly explored with long, slow strokes of his fingers, except for that one flat panel at the bottom. That, he skipped. And kept skipping, no matter how Thundercracker's pelvis squirmed. That panel, Skywarp didn't touch. It was the most protected place simply by the way the joints worked. That panel was normally under constant pressure, rarely seen by anyone, always scraped by the interior edges of armor plating from on both thighs…

White thighs squeezed together. Jazz caught himself doing it a split second later, but fortunately for his dignity, Acid Storm was shuffling his feet, too. There was something about watching Skywarp work that made a mech's plating ache. He'd never even known it was a hot spot, for frag's sake! Well, okay, he hadn't known his hands were sensitive, either, until Starscream had -

Acid Storm gave him a mildly amused look when he couldn't get his fans shut off in time.

"I don't get it," Jazz said quickly. "Is Starscream punishing him for challenging, or I going to be watching Thundercracker get his ailerons get 'faced off?" It was really bothering him that Thundercracker didn't have a choice either way, but he was wary about bringing that up.

The Rainmaker hesitated again.

"Let me guess: it's complicated."

"Yes." Red optics lit suddenly, and a cunning smile Jazz didn't like slid into place under it. "Hold on. You might…this could work." Acid Storm turned that smile into the arena, and Skywarp was looking back up at him inquiringly.

Jazz watched them speak over internal comm., and he worried. It was almost guaranteed he wasn't going to like whatever they were talking about. Skywarp's optics flicked to him, and a sly grin quirked his lips. Check that: 100% guaranteed. Acid Storm chuckled. The Autobot looked at him suspiciously, but the Rainmaker shook his head and held up at hand to ask for patience.

Down in the arena, Skywarp had returned to whispering to Thundercracker. This time, the blue Seeker's helm shot up. The glass remaining in his one working optic glowed orange and yellow instead of red because of cracks, but it still served to reflect horror quite well as he stared up at Jazz. Skywarp snickered loud enough to be heard up on the platform, and Thundercracker began shaking his head. Skywarp whispered. Thundercracker's head-shaking sped up, but his optic stayed locked on the Autobot.

Some of the crowd was beginning to take notice of the small drama on the other end of the arena from Starscream. There was a cluster of flyers assembled around the now-crippled rotary and the whipped mech bound to his back, but the next whipping hadn't started yet. Starscream glanced over and frowned, and Skywarp turned his grin on him. A moment later, the Air Commander laughed shrilly and turned back to his latest victim.

That was all the permission Skywarp needed, if Thundercracker's face was anything to go by. The blue Seeker was bound too tightly and was too injured to move much, but he leaned forward as best he could to get closer to the purple-and-black teleporter. The new position required him to look up at his ex-wingmate, and his expression was pleading. His mouth moved rapidly, talking fast.

Skywarp snickered again and patted his head. It was a supremely condescending move.

Thundercracker let his head fall, clunking against Skywarp's cockpit. Jazz could read his lips: 'No, no, no, please, no…'

"That's right," Acid Rain crooned maliciously, and the Autobot beside him jumped in surprise. "I'm going to tell Jazz all about your little secret." His cockpit clicked, seal popping as the glass opened slightly, and the Seeker turned the opening toward the smaller mech. "Won't that be nice, Jazz?"

Having that smile turned on him reminded Jazz of watching this mech manipulating the acid rainclouds that were his favored mode of attack. Nothing good could come of it. "Uh…sure," he said, leaning back from the canopy being thrust into his personal space.

"Please don't," a voice said from Acid Storm's chest, and Jazz blinked. The deep voice was tinny and thin coming from the tiny speakers inside Acid Storm's cockpit, but it was definitely Thundercracker. "Skywarp, don't do this."

"Shhhh," Skywarp this time, louder and closer to the exterior microphone. Jazz could see that the teleporter's cockpit was popped now, too, likely because Starscream had busted Thundercracker's own communication equipment.

"Say hello to Thundercracker, Jazz." Acid Storm smiled, optics mean as they narrowly watched the Autobot's expression. "I thought he might want to listen in, since it is part of your personal turn-on. Isn't that right, Thundercracker?"

"Acid Storm, there has to be something you want - "

"Now, now, don't interrupt a superior officer." Skywarp's voice was tinny as well, but the sickly-sweet glee came through quite well.

"What," Jazz started, but Acid Storm turned to put a companionable arm around his shoulders. " - what."

Charm appeared, as applied with a trowel. "Well, Jazz, I don't want you to think you're about to witness a rape," the Seeker said, putting pointed emphasis on the last word. He paused artfully, then let his smile turn sadistic. A faint, pleading sound came from the speakers in his cockpit. Jazz only heard it because he was now held against Acid Storm's side, which was slagging weird in and of itself. "Oh, wait. You are."

The black-and-white mech stopped discreetly trying to shrug Acid Storm's arm off and twisted his head to the side to stare up at him. However, the Rainmaker's smile was directed down into the arena. When Jazz followed the look, he saw Thundercracker looking up at them again. The blue Seeker immediately ducked his head, avoiding the Autobot's gaze as Skywarp's sniggering came through the open comm. link.

"You see," Acid Storm continued, "Thundercracker's little secret is that he likes to give up control. He likes to be the victim. He likes to be forced to enjoy all the awful, awful things Skywarp's going to do to him. It's not as though he has a choice, right?" The Rainmaker was practically cooing. "His big bad commander's going to punish him for his sins, and poor ickle Thundercracker has to kneel there in the dust like a grounder and take whatever's coming to him. Isn't that right, Thundercracker? You're all tied up with nowhere to go. Starscream's going to use that whip on you until you scream for mercy, and everyone knows the only reason Skywarp's got his hands on you right now is because Starscream's given you no choice. He's going to 'face you until your vocalizer gives out, and you have to allow it. You're going to overload again and again because you have to. Everyone's going to watch it happen and laugh at you. Poor, poor helpless Thundercracker."

The blue Seeker moaned a denial, but his wings were flexing against the bar, fluttering. His forehelm ground against Skywarp's cockpit, but he had his split bottom lip between his teeth as if to keep the sound from turning urgent. The teleporter's fingers worked between his spread thighs, increasing their tempo as half-burnt cabling in the hip joints were tweaked and stroked. Thundercracker shuddered but couldn't stop a needy sound from escaping.

"Oh, he wants it," Skywarp giggled over the comm. line. "He wants it so bad his plating's crackling, but it so doesn't look like it from up there, does it?" He turned his head and grinned sharply. "You have no idea what you're doing to him, Jazz. He's so mortified I can see his spark trying to crawl into itself, just because an Autobot knows that he wants this. If Starscream didn't want you bound," the teleporter said to the shivering mech, voice dropping to a predatory purr scary even through the tiny speakers, "I'd have so many orders for you. Have you lick my thrusters out. Polish my wings. Finger my cockpit. Self-service in front of me." He shivered himself. "In front of the whole world. I'd make you do it all, right here. And you," he almost whispered, "would do it. And you'd love it."

"Sk-Skywarp, I - "

"Shh. Am I going to have to stop?" Skywarp's hands lifted away, and Thundercracker made a broken sound. He shook his head hurriedly. "Good." The purple hands slid back down again.

"I don't understand," Jazz said, scraping up coherency from the bottom of his personal lock-box of dignified behavior. He knew just asking was humiliating Thundercracker further, but he really didn't understand. "I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any - "

"Don't apologize," Skywarp said, tinny and grinny. "He's going to spontaneously overload just walking by you in the hall from now on."

"It's extreme," Acid Storm explained so kindly it was clear he was only doing it to grind further rust in the wound, "but this scenario?" His optics flicked around the arena. "Being punished for something and being forced to enjoy what's happening to him while everyone stares and gossips? It's fairly similar to what he's asked for, before. Fantasy made real life. Lucky Thundercracker. Did you know Slipstream and I courted him once?" the Rainmaker asked abruptly.

The subject-change made Jazz's spinning head feel like a bobble-head on a dashboard. "No..?" That meant Acid Storm must know what Thundercracker liked, but it just wasn't fitting together in his head yet. How the frag could any of this have anything to do with contracts and negotiating?

"Yes." Thundercracker was shaking his head again, staring up at Acid Storm with an expression of despair. "He could have made a decent Rainmaker," the leader of the Rainmakers said, smirking back. "Problem was, it took us half an eternity to figure out what he wanted. Do you know how hard it is to get an explanation out of a mech who wants to be publicly shamed and overloaded against his will? I thought Slipstream would throw him out an airlock when we finally cornered him and got him to spill an actual fantasy. She lives for this stuff." He blasted air out his vents, pretending exaggerated nostalgia. "Alas, 'twas not to be. Slipstream can't leave the fantasy in the berth," he confided seriously to Jazz, who gaped at him, "and for officers, well, like I said, openly having this kind of kink just doesn't promote respect from the ranks." He couldn't keep the serious aura and smirked again. "Which isn't a concern anymore, is it, Thundercracker?"

"Thanks to Starscream's big mouth," Skywarp chortled, "everyone knows you're the one calling the shots, here. All you'd have to say," he breathed, and the speaker just barely transmitted his words, "is stop. Come on, Thundercracker." The blue Seeker shook, hips twisting and face utterly conflicted as Skywarp teased him. "Tell me to stop. Starscream's going to beat you, either way. You've earned your punishment. It's your choice," the words drew out, slow and cruel, "if you want your pleasure as well."

A whining noise came from the speaker. Acid Storm turned to the dumbstruck Autobot still standing under his arm. "I can't keep a straight face through this kind of thing. Powerplay can be interesting, but when he asked me to pretend I was raping him..." He grimaced a bit. "He knew that I knew that he knew it wasn't real, and acting it out was so corny I couldn't stop laughing. Kind of, uh, ruined the moment."

"Being laughed at is plenty humiliating," Skywarp said. "Hey, Jazz, remember that Inky Crystal of Power thingie?"

"Incan," Jazz corrected automatically.

"Whatever. The shiny crystal underground in South America."

"Yes," the Autobot said slowly, "I remember it. As I recall, the Decepticons lost that battle spectacularly."

"Pfft, whatever, it was just a shiny crystal." Skywarp sulked. "Earth had a million of them. Anyway, what I remember is Thundercracker screwed up big time." The helm against his cockpit dug in as if the blue Seeker in question were trying to hide against it. The strained whine hadn't stopped. Then again, neither had Skywarp's fingers. "He let Skyfire get too close because he wanted Starscream to be blamed for losing the crystal. When Starscream got out of repairs, he made dumbaft here," Thundercracker whined louder as purple fingers deftly twisted, "clean the corridors down in the docking bay with a buffing cloth and his teeth. And say what you want now, Thundercracker," Skywarp snickered, "but I watched you after the Cassetticons got done pointing and laughing. I walked up and pinched your wingtip," he did it, illustrating the story, "and you overloaded hard."

Thundercracker tossed his head back, teeth buried in his lower lip as he bucked against his ex-wingmate's hand. Skywarp pinched his wingtip again, and the blue Seeker sobbed air through damaged intakes. Still smirking, Skywarp lifted his hands away. The sob lengthened into a helpless keen, and Thundercracker's helm snapped forward to entreat the teleporter.

"Tell me to stop, Thundercracker," the teleporter coaxed. "Just one word, and I'll go away. You can take the whipping like a mech. See that Autobot up there watching?" He pointed, and half the crowd turned to stare at Jazz. When had Skywarp's sideshow torment become center stage? Acid Storm's arm tightened, bringing the small grounder in closer to the Rainmaker's side. Jazz narrowed his visor and refused to fidget. Thundercracker did not look. "He'll tell on me if I don't. Don't you feel safe?"

"Rescued by an Autobot," Acid Storm chuckled. "Oh, that's got to hit all your humiliation buttons right there. It'd almost be worth it, wouldn't it?"

"Whoa, hey, I'm not comfortable with this," Jazz said uneasily. He wasn't comfortable with any of this, but having everyone look at him was only making it worse.

The Seeker half-holding him wore a smug, evil grin. "But don't you want to make sure this isn't rape? Go ahead. Ask him if he wants this."

"Yeah!" Skywarp lit up like dayglow. Thundercracker's helm fell forward against his cockpit again, and the tunk transmitted through Acid Storm's speakers. "Do it! Oooooo, no, I've got one better." An idea had obviously struck the teleporter. Thundercracker winced. This could only be Bad News. "Give him an order."

"Skywarp." That one word was desperate. Bad News, indeed.

Skywarp sat on his thrusters and used one hand to lift Thundercracker's chin. His ex-wingmate fought him at last, trying to yank his face away until the darker Seeker finally made him meet his optics. "What's the matter, Thundercracker?" he asked sweetly. "You don't want one of those pathetic, squishy-loving Autobints giving you orders, huh?" A shiver visibly wracked the blue Seeker. "But he's an officer, soldier. What with the peace negotiations and all, why, he outranks you now. If he gave you an order," the teleporter purred, pulling his ex-wingmate close to whisper against trembling lips, "you'd just have to obey it, now wouldn't you."

Faulty ventilation failed, and an emergency heat spill triggered. Circuits tripped, parameters exceeded. The excess charge had to go somewhere.

Thundercracker arched back so hard his wing hinges distorted as crackles of electricity and heat coursed from every limb, centering on his spark. Skywarp actually had to flinch away, shielding his face with his hand as overload spat flares of energy out of the blue Seeker's open chest.

Thundercracker shuddered silently - once, twice - before collapsing forward again. He heaved air, trying to cool resetting systems.

Silence reigned the arena. Starscream half-turned to look. The audience stared.

"Oh, yes, just like that," Acid Storm breathed.

Someone started clapping. It broke the stunned quiet like a footballer punting a Ming vase. Suddenly, the whole crowd was on their feet, stomping their feet and cheering and catcalling. It was complete chaos. Jazz's doors went up defensively, surprised, and he glanced around a little wildly before catching himself.

"Please," panted tinny and faint from Acid Storm's cockpit, "please don't stop. Please, please don't stop."

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End Pt. 14

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