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

[* * * * *]

Pt. 15

[* * * * *]

It didn't compute. It seriously did not compute in Jazz's head. The subprocessors whirred. Threat assessment kicked it over to information. Information tried to file it, but there wasn't a category for this. The tagging system was getting cross-correlated all over the place as processors tried to access, reassess, and change all the labels in one go. Jazz had fallen down the Primus-fragged rabbit hole, and nothing was as it seemed anymore. The deep voice coming from the thoroughly humiliated Seeker down below was feverishly asking for more, and it made no logical sense.

At least according to the logic system he currently followed, but there were gaping holes popping up the longer he stayed in this arena. Welcome to Wonderland. Throw out the old rules from the Autobot world, because Alice was through the looking glass. Everything backward was now forward, and Jazz was in the wrong. Although it wasn't precisely wrong so much as just...not right. According to a set of standards Jazz couldn't rightly say were applicable in the Autobot ranks, and there weren't a lot of clear reasons why.

"You want him to keep going?" he asked, but he'd reached some sort of shock plateau. The incredulous question tamped down into a simple inquiry. It sounded like he was asking why energon quality was down this orn. "You realize that everyone is staring at you." His visor shifted. "And that Starscream has found a whip he likes."

Thundercracker's sob was perfectly audible through Acid Storm's speakers. A prolonged shudder wracked his frame. "Nng. Oh…oh."

"Nice," Skywarp said, looking up at the Autobot with clear approval. "Very nice."

"Please."

"Shhh." A purple hand stroked the side of Thundercracker's face, and the shivering mech turned his head to burrow into it. Yet he was all the more obviously on display for hiding his face. "That's right," Skywarp soothed, the same maliciously giddy grin he wore into combat gracing his face now. "We'll take care of you, yes we will. I'm going to use you so hard you won't even feel Starscream peel the plating off your back. You're going to beg us to stop, and we won't, and you can't stop us." He leaned down and purred his engine. "You're going to love it, Thundercracker. Won't you? Mmm, yes."

The words were cloying sweet, obviously mocking, but a chill of truth dropped into Jazz's core like a broken icicle. Taken from an outside perspective, or even from his perspective of a single cycle ago, and those words would have had him lunging into the arena to stop this. Peace negotiations or not, watching a mech get raped in front of him was too much to ask.

Because that was Skywarp down there, evil and immature. There was nothing sincere in his tone, and the words were meant to flay Thundercracker to the quick until the blue Seeker cringed under him. Jazz had watched the teleporter take bets on this same Seeker's grisly demise with no more concern than a spectator at a race. No, more like a human seeing his old car in the compactor: 'Oh, well. Kind of a shame, but we had our good times. Time to move on.' Skywarp had made no move to interfere, not even when Starscream tore Thundercracker to pieces. Jazz had bargained with him just to interfere long enough to give Thundercracker a chance to gasp surrender.

Now he claimed in a blatantly false voice to care about his ex-wingmate?

The stark contradiction triggered something amidst what all the confusion had been holding at bay. It keyed a flip in processor priorities.

Jazz's job entailed information gathering and sabotage, not information integration. Spies didn't do the same prioritization and cross-linking analysis that tacticians did on information. It's why Jazz could outthink Prowl on the run in the short term, but stand-and-fight situations and longer strategies left Special Operations in the support position for Tactical. Operatives had to be the quick thinkers. They were the mechs hidden in shadows and layers of deception. They were notoriously unstable because they counter-balanced the more stodgy - but stable - tacticians. Prowl saw the past and present, then forecast the future of the larger picture; Jazz saw the micro-snapshots.

SpecOps fed Tactical information. In order to head the division, however, Jazz had some ability in picking up a grasp of the overall situation to make a plan for more than himself. Using all the information he gathered wasn't his specialty, however. It was why he'd reeled so badly from Acid Storm's flurry of revelations, but he was the only Autobot available. He had to make the plan. He had to use the information being flung at him almost too quickly to assimilate.

Jazz: jack of all trades tonight.

Tonight, he had to borrow some processor tricks from Tactical. Skywarp's teasing comments crossed Jazz's already criss-crossed lines of thought, and information assessment suddenly grasped the newest thread, weaving it into the warf. Wove it in, tightened it down, and an overall pattern abruptly emerged from the tangled mess. There was a larger picture here, even larger than the dangerous cultural gap he'd tripped over. He had to take a step back to see the forest for the trees - or rather, the Decepticons for the mechs.

He'd been watching Decepticons. He'd been listening to Decepticons.

Decepticons. Decepticons being watched and listened to by an Autobot. SpecOps used layers of lies in their work, but they were still Autobots. Decepticons specialized in deception to the point where Jazz had almost forgotten how much it saturated their daily lives.

Anyone who had ever run information assessment in Special Operations knew that a spy spotted could only gather flawed information. The Decepticons habitually used truths to make their lies just plausible enough to be inseparable. In their hands, a made informant became a weapon against the Autobots. Nuts and bolts, Jazz had turned the trick around on identified Decepticon spies among the Autobots! Nobody gave information away to the enemy unless there was some advantage to it. Even if the enemy wasn't quite an enemy at the moment.

The unspoken rule on the platform was that nobody looked at the Autobot in their midst. That did not mean they were unaware of his presence. They were as aware of him as he was of them. He knew very well that his presence had been a hot topic among the various comm. line conversations zipping about the arena. With his communication system completely down, Acid Storm could be broadcasting their entire conversation, and Jazz wouldn't be able to tell.

"What do you really think you're watching?" Skywarp had asked.

Truth and lies; flawed reality and fiction related to the real world. This could all be a show for the lone Autobot in the audience, but he didn't know how much of it was acting and how much of it was genuine. He didn't know how much of the information he had was hopelessly riddled with half-truths. There was a line between believing in a mech's honest word and - well, being dead, if that mech was a Decepticon. Or so it had gone since the war began.

Starscream had flown with his current wingmates for over six million years, but he apparently didn't want them as a flight wing after the war. Jazz had automatically assumed that meant he didn't like them…but then again, Starscream didn't seem to like anyone. Thundercracker had apparently possessed high hopes of being his executive officer in Vos. The fine line of 'liking' versus 'working well with' in politics was impossible to guess from an outside perspective. If Skywarp were half as stubborn about choosing his wingmates as passing comments seemed to hint, it didn't quite make sense that he'd stand by and watch Thundercracker die. At least not without good reason. What reason could be good enough?

"What do you really think you're watching?"

Jazz didn't know.

"Acid Storm," he said slowly, deliberately pulling out of the Seeker's hold, "if you had challenged Starscream, would you have survived?"

The move took him away from Acid Storm's external microphone, and the green Seeker smirked as he shrewdly covered it with a hand to muffle their words further. "No."

"Sunstorm did."

"Sunstorm," Acid Storm used the words as carefully as knives, slipping them under the Autobot's armor, "has no real authority. Everyone knows why he's in my trine, and while he has power, he's too young and too mad for more than military rank. He got away with it because nobody expects him to support the Commander."

He gave the larger mech a considering look. "You are expected to?"

"Of course. I'm the wingleader of the Rainmakers." Acid Storm drew up proudly. "I wouldn't expect to survive if I challenged Starscream."

"Because…?" Jazz prodded.

"Oh, no." The mottled-green Seeker's smirk widened smugly. "I'm not giving you that answer." 'Figure it out yourself,' his optics dared. If the Autobot thought himself worthy of a contract with the Vosian Emirate, then it was about time he showed Vos some of that worthiness.

Hey, a challenge? This was why the Jazzmeister was here. The Autobots didn't send just anybody down the rabbit hole, after all, and Jazz was beginning to find a method to the madness. "Division of loyalty," he concluded, and this time he was certain. "Starscream would kill you to ensure you couldn't threaten his power."

"Not to brag or anything," the haughtiness in Acid Storm's stance didn't need to stoop to mere bragging, "but when the election finally comes around, I will be one of the candidates contending. I intend to win, legal and binding. Undermining the Commander's authority at this juncture would divide the Armada when we can least afford it, and that would push the election off even further. He'd have to kill me, or others would take that as implicit permission to follow in my contrails. Then…" he trailed off, throwing his hands apart meaningfully. Like a flock of birds scattering apart.

"Divided we fall," Jazz murmured, looking down into the arena. Starscream had chosen his whip and was showily flicking it at the ground. Rust burnt to black streaks in its wake. Skywarp had Thundercracker shaking visibly, although whatever he was whispering into the defeated Seeker's audio was blocked from Jazz's hearing by Acid Storm. "Why is Thundercracker still alive?"

"Thundercracker's not a wingleader."

That earned Acid Storm an annoyed glance. How ignorant did he think Jazz was? Wingleaders led their trine, but Thundercracker was - or had been, anyway - an officer in his own right. "He's no Skywarp. Mechs would follow him."

"Yes." The haughty aloofness faded, and for once, the red optics resting on the Autobot seemed almost troubled. The Decepticon appeared to briefly debate something before reaching a decision. His helm cocked to the side as he looked down at Jazz/ "Let me put it this way: did you know I once had a full wing?"

'Acid Storm, Leader of the Rainmakers, Subcommander of the Decepticon Armada.' His profile was extensive and under continual update. One of Jazz's subprocessors filtered out relevant information to add even as they spoke.

An older mech, emerging at the beginning of the Armada as one of the most prominent officers in the Decepticons. He'd headed the Armada in Starscream's absence as one of the most powerful and favored officers under Shockwave. Inside the Armada, he was outranked only by officers in the Elite under Starscream's command. That theoretically positioned him under Thrust, Dirge, and Ramjet, as they were also Elite officers, but so far as Jazz knew, that command chain had never been tested. Starscream typically assigned him to head large chunks of the Armada he himself wasn't physically present to command.

Once upon a start of the war, this mech had flown in a trine made of two completely different mechs than those he flew with today. Jazz nodded. Of course the Head of Special Operations knew. "Yes, I know."

"Hmm." The optics didn't shift, and the weight of their gaze was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Jazz refused to show it. "Do you know how they died?"

The notes in the files weren't extensive, but Cause of Death was listed. "Acidwash fell in battle. You executed Stormfront soon after for insubordination and mutiny." In case Jazz had dared forget for one moment that this was a ruthless, sparkless Decepticon he was talking to. Acid Storm's file also noted that he'd flown with his trine prior to the war, although details were sketchy and based off of gossip. Which, among the Decepticons, might be the carrier of real truth.

"It's good to know damage control on that worked as planned," the Rainmaker said, sounding oddly distant.

If they were capable of moving, Jazz's helm projections would have perked up. 'damage control' was SpecOps' code for 'making the enemy think otherwise.' Which meant the Autobots had been fed a cover-up.

Acid Storm's optics had clouded as if steam from past battlefields obscured the glass. "I shot Acidwash down myself. A swift execution was the only mercy I could give him." He smiled almost mechanically, face flexing on automatic at the Autobot. "He had been my wing-third since the Academy, but it didn't matter what I felt. I would have spared him, but I could not. Once you reach a certain rank, you are more your position than you are the mech inside it. Rank supersedes personal opinion." His optics cleared a tad, actually seeing Jazz. "You must know this. Have you never executed a traitor? The way you run your army, you must all be half in each other's minds all the time."

Disgust cleared the last of memory from his optics, and Acid Storm sneered. "How you can trade cables the way you do and then go into battle with dead mechs' access gates still active in your cortex is - " He stopped himself and looked away, forcibly reining in his thoughts. "I…apologize. I did not mean to imply Autobots - well. For the purpose of ending our Great War," he recited dully.

This was information, but the thrill of gleaning relevant data from the enemy was distinctly missing. Jazz felt ill, in fact. "For the purpose of ending our Great War," he agreed softly, trying not to interrupt. Trying to offer sympathy despite himself.

In a way, Acid Storm was right: crossing cables gave every Autobot who shared that way a deep connection. It made deaths among the ranks more deeply felt, and it made it harder to forget those who'd fallen. Uplinking created a separate access gate for every different mech who cabled in. The access gates from individual mechs long gone still waited in vivid reminder for a renewed connection that would never happen.

Every time Jazz interfaced, his CPU ran through the list of access gates to match up his current partner with previous uplinks, and it hurt in an empty way when his cortex flipped past the same gates again and again. It was an almost physical, aching reminder of the dead. Each deactivated gate was a memory of living pleasure that could never happen again. Some Autobots felt those empty gates as sad remembrance of those dead and gone. Jazz had always treasured them for reminding him of better times.

There were connection points that ached badly, however. Those were the traitors. And as much as Jazz personally had made love to, felt for, and connected with those mechs at the time, he hated those cold gates now. For that reason, he sympathized with Acid Storm despite himself. Because he knew what it was like to find out someone he'd embraced and interfaced with had betrayed his faction.

It was a personal, painful thing branded on his very spark. He'd purge the gates, but only time could do that. Instead, they sat in his cortex and continually reminded him that those mechs he'd once linked up with had turned against him. They were dead, and many of them had died by his own hand. Some had gone by formal execution. Some of them had been imprisoned indefinitely, but prisons were something the Autobots hadn't been able to afford since they'd begun their guerilla tactics on Cybertron. Hit and run required mobility, and prisons weren't mobile. Those executions hurt even more for how little justice supported them.

The Autobots' interfacing habits knit their ranks close, but it meant the dropped stitches were all the more obvious. Traitors didn't unravel them, but it hurt them as a whole.

The lower ranks occasionally accused Jazz of being cold and unfeeling, but the charges were easy to disprove because Jazz could play any part. He walked the fine line of officer and friend, and it was a hard line to define. Jazz could give the worst orders and murder Decepticons with a smile, but then he could come back to being every Autobot's buddy. Prowl had a harder time simply because, as Acid Storm had said, the higher the rank, the less of a mech could show outside it. Stuck between Optimus Prime's soft spark and Jazz's bouncing joviality, someone had to play the cold-sparked professional. It was, as the officer cadre knew, a series of carefully assigned roles.

Even if they'd wanted to spare a traitor, none of them could afford to. Not by their roles. Not by the war they fought.

"What did Acidwash do?" he asked quietly, not expecting an answer.

To his surprise, Acid Storm answered. "He covered for Stormfront. I know why he did it," the green flyer said, vision distant again, "and I can even understand, looking back at it now. He thought he could stop Stormfront and bring him back to the Cause, no one the wiser. He didn't personally betray me, for all that he did by lying to me. In a twisted way, he was trying to preserve our wing." Even from the side, Jazz could see the oddly pained cast to the red optics. "My position did not allow me to accept personal reasons, however." He reset his optics and looked down at the listening Autobot. "The most I could do was give him a quick death."

There was a hurting pinch at the base of Jazz's spark chamber, and although he didn't realize it, his visor had softened to a deep azure with sympathy. It was a familiar story to anyone who'd worked within the grunt units, especially early on in the war when causes and concerns had still been fairly fluid. Loyalty in the ranks had moved like the tides of an ocean depending on the newest battle or speech. Personal loyalty to a friend could make a mech cover a shift from one faction to another. Among the Autobots, it was an acknowledged personal struggle.

Smokescreen's berth-hopping wasn't just because he enjoyed bumping bumpers. The mech was fiendishly adept at weaseling out secret sympathies and accepting anonymous tips from guilty consciences. Sometimes it was as simple as someone needing to have a spark-to-spark conversation with the mech in question. Sometimes it was the only warning before someone turned traitor.

It was one thing when someone switched factions within the rank and file. They mostly were concerned with getting out of the Autobot ranks and defecting alive. They left their friends and unit-mates wondering what they'd done wrong, or if they could have 'saved' the defectors. There were counselors within Medical who specialized in going in to those abandonment situations. Guilt caused hesitation, or mindless, raging hate. Both could get mechs killed.

While Jazz had passed on his share of priority kill-orders for army grunts, it was defectors from the officer cadres that passed assassination orders over his desk. Prowl made those a priority for Special Operations' most dangerous agents. There could be no regret or sadness for officers who defected. There was no gloomy nods and 'what-ifs' shared among the others, wondering if it were somehow their fault. With higher rank came more responsibility and more expectation, but also no way out.

Covering for a traitor was aiding and abetting, no explanations accepted. No exceptions made, no matter personal feelings.. Apparently, that was true among the Decepticons as well.

"Do you…" Acid Storm hesitated, expression conflicted. "You weren't the Autobot Third back then, but…do you remember Stormfront? Do the Autobots…remember him?"

Oh. Oh, weld-scars and pit-scrap, Jazz didn't want to feel this. Not for a Decepticon. For a mech desperately seeking - reassurance, perhaps, that he'd done the right thing. But not for a Decepticon. "No," Jazz said gently, voice as soft as the dark blue light of his visor. "There is nothing on Stormfront's file other than the notation about a lack of information on the circumstances surrounding his execution."

For all that he didn't move, standing stubborn with wings flared proudly, Acid Storm still sagged. His helm turned, hiding his face even as he seemed to look over the crowd. "You know," and this time Jazz heard the struggle of a long-past decision through the distant tone, "I turned him over to Shockwave to myself. He died tortured and screaming, stripped of his brands and his rank, his dignity and eventually his life. And I was finally satisfied when his spark extinguished. Because he'd betrayed me. He'd betrayed the Decepticons, but he'd betrayed me. Even if I'd been allowed to show mercy, I wouldn't have for that crime."

His face turned forward at last, but his profile showed nothing but an old tiredness. "But…" A snort disparaged himself, but he couldn't seem to stop. "I'd held onto a kind of hope that he'd at least died for something. That maybe his death had been worth it." The red optics stared blindly into the night sky, no longer pretending to see anything. "Foolish of me, I suppose, to think the Autobots would remember one death among millions."

There were no information downloads tagged under the dead Rainmaker's name. Jazz's overworked processors were dutifully unpacking old archives from the requested timeframe. While he hadn't been more than a junior Autobot officer at that point, a potential defector from that high in the Armada ranks should have been tagged in his old files. It was entirely possible that he just didn't have the right files in his personal archive, however.

"We may not have anything on him because you caught him," the Autobot suggested, a little disbelieving at just how badly he wanted to offer anything to a Decepticon. The attempted comfort earned him a stricken look, and Jazz flinched as it hit him how that sounded. The look turned mean. Ouch. But then, accepting sympathy instead of rejecting it as pity was a skill not many had. Jazz should know. "I don't mean - "

"He was a traitor," Acid Storm snapped, optics narrowing. "There was too much evidence to be proven otherwise." He clearly didn't want to entertain the thought that his ex-wingmate might have been executed before actually turning traitor. That implied Stormfront might not have actually gone through with it. That Acid Storm might not have had to kill his own wing. Doubt could not be allowed.

Jazz raised his hands. "So you got him on time."

"Yes." The clipped word stung them both.

His question was tentative, and he almost didn't dare ask, "Did…you ever think he might have been right?"

Acid Storm stiffly folded his arms and pointedly looked down into the arena. 'Talking over.'

A rueful, self-directed smile tugged on his lips as Jazz looked into the arena. Okay, not even a smidgen of Autobot sympathizing there. Acid Storm had killed his own wing, and however much he apparently missed them, he didn't regret the necessity of their deaths. Jazz probably wouldn't have been allowed that far into Acid Storm's past unless the vulnerabilities had long been stripped away, anyway. Some questions festered through the war, waiting to be asked, but despite how Jazz's spark ached for the asking, he was well aware that it was a Decepticon's question. It could have been one more layer of deception.

In a way, Acid Storm's little roadtrip down memory lane had served its purpose. It connected a few dots in Jazz's mind to explain Skywarp's noninterference. Starscream's utter brutality, as well. Skywarp could sometimes be somewhat dumb, but Acid Storm and Starscream obviously knew that Jazz had instigated Thundercracker's challenge. It was an Autobot-caused event, for Jazz's reasons and not Thundercracker's. Heightened emotion and manipulation aside, Thundercracker had betrayed Starscream under Jazz's direction.

This time Jazz saw the arena from a different angle.

"What do you really think you're watching?"

He was watching politics: a Vosian politician squashing dissension before it could undermine the system.

He was watching military discipline: a Decepticon officer putting down a mutinous underling before the mutiny spread.

He was watching information control: Decepticons showing the Autobot that they were united and willing to kill anyone.

He was watching a declaration: Starscream would not succumb to personal feeling over rank and duty.

He was watching a show of strength, and the underlying message was for everyone watching, but especially Jazz: there would be no mercy for those who betrayed the Vosian Emirate. There would be even less for those who betrayed Starscream, Air Commander and Second-in-Command. There could be no room for a mech's personal needs or wants before the twin onslaught of politics and military rank.

It didn't matter what Acid Storm had felt; his ex-wingmates had died. It didn't matter what Skywarp and Starscream actually felt. Jazz might never see the Decepticon officers' real emotions. With an Autobot - or even just the soldiers of the Armada, for all he knew - watching, no honest feeling could be allowed to show. In the Decepticon ranks, weakness was ruthlessly exploited. But every weakness had sixteen different covers, and a mech's weakness could be yet another concealment.

Because it seemed that not every weakness was taken advantage of. As frustrating as discovering the contract system was, it was also quickly making sense of a faction and society that didn't seem operational. On the surface, at least. The Autobots had been frustrated the entire war, watching the Decepticons' seething quagmire of internal sniping. Tactical and Special Operations jointly predicted imminent implosion of the Decepticons every cycle, but it never happened. There was a system here that Autobots hadn't seen, weren't understanding. They had, in fact, failed to factor it in during the entire war.

Jazz had the most up-to-date relevant information on that system, but he lacked Prowl's tactical mind to connect it all. But he thought he saw enough. The big picture was blurry, but he thought he could see a pattern, vague as it was.

Skywarp's sweet whispers were blatant mockery, but under that assumption lurked an Autobot fallacy. Jazz had to root deep into automatic information assessment, stopping the process to find a key point. Not to invert it, but to tweak it. The assumption was that Skywarp's smile and stroking fingers held nothing but sinister promise. That the teleporter wanted nothing more than to debase his ex-wingmate. Starscream had stopped at the edge of executing Thundercracker because Skywarp had interfered, and everything from that point on had been showmanship meant to really grind the traitor's face in his mistake. This was all discipline and demonstration for those stupid enough to follow Thundercracker's example.

Processors stuttered to halt, then turned over as Jazz took away that underlying assumption. Instead, he introduced the possibility of maybe.

Suddenly, information assessment exploded with a hundred new scenario interpretations. Maybe Skywarp was sincere. Maybe his mockery was a cover, one more act in damage control. Maybe he was giving his ex-wingmate what Thundercracker really wanted. Maybe Starscream was slipping a strange version of mercy underneath the dead-serious charade.

Jazz's threat assessment processor spat out a string of garbled trash, giving its considered opinion on maybes. How could it judge what was action/reaction when every action had 44 layers of maybes and every reaction couldn't be trusted for the maybe nots? Did Skywarp had enough connection to his ex-wingmate to be motivated by his pain? Did Starscream judge Thundercracker punished enough to give Thundercracker the Decepticon version of a reward?

Maybe Jazz had played this all wrong. The Decepticons had been playing him all along, and he'd based his gamble with Thundercracker on the faulty information of a spotted spy. Yes, the challenge had broken the trine contract and taken out a contender for the Vosian Second. It was the position his mission dictated he try for. In return, however, there were at least three high-ranking Decepticons who knew that he'd stirred the trouble here tonight. That number likely included the majority of the arena by now, realistically. If they were half as aware of the situation as he now suspected, the whole audience was aware of his part in the challenge.

On the surface of politics and military rank, that had been acceptable. Jazz had factored out personal connection originally, because his sources had never indicated there were more than a few of those. But with maybe putting emotional attachment back into play…

He'd broken up a stable wing, and anyone with a potential emotional link to Thundercracker was going to resent him for that. Leading those mechs would be Starscream and Skywarp. Skywarp had already been causing trouble despite the peace negotiations. Starscream caused trouble by just existing. Threat assessment shrieked unholy terror at what he could do intentionally if he turned on the Autobots in revenge for Jazz's interference. That didn't even take into consideration what the Decepticons standing witness here tonight might do, following their officers' examples.

Jazz's visor narrowed suddenly. He was SpecOps, not Tactical. His specialty was operating off of limited information on the short-term. Okay, time to stop analyzing the larger picture and get with the micro. Mission goal, not overall plan. Like infiltrating a minor Decepticon base, his concern had to be in fooling the units inside, not the entire Decepticon faction. Prioritize according the mechs at hand, and align the priorities to the mission goal.

Goal: infiltrate Vos. Every other concern about the flyers in this arena slotted naturally into place under that.

Time to think like a Vosian.

What did he know about Vosians? Information assessment clicked smoothly over to facts, running maybe under confirmed knowledge. Subtle powerplays were applauded. Displays of strength were respected. Demonstrations of power beyond physical strength were held at much the same level. Emotions appeared as a weakness, and bargaining was held as vitally important. Surface appearance was deceptive, except when it wasn't.

If Jazz could give them something suitably reasonable to back up his displacement of Thundercracker, then they might see it on their own standards. They might see him as one of them instead of as an invading outsider. The first rule of spying was to blend in, not stand out, but Jazz didn't have much hope of that. An Autobot - a grounder Autobot, at that - among Decepticon flyers already stood out.

That didn't mean Jazz couldn't use it to his advantage. Sometimes standing out was its own disguise. If he could manage to turn it around, wear his surface 'weakness' as strength, then...yes. He could use this.

So. His most stand-out feature was also his 'in' right now: Jazz was the outsider. The outsider who was being courted. When he'd been establishing his placement as Starscream's intended, there had been burgeoning respect in Acid Storm and Skywarp's behavior. Maybe it was time to push that place. There were no terms yet. Starscream had been leading this bizarre dance of seduction and politics so far, but what if Jazz turned it around on him?

Starscream was the treacherous Second-in-Command of the Decepticons and Air Commander of the Decepticon Armada. Yeah, well, the Jazz was sneaky Third-in-Command of the Autobots and Head of Special Operations. If any two mechs could go toe-to-toe with each other, it'd be them.

He had an idea, and it was crazy. Crazy like making Autobot warriors out of old Earth fossils, because sometimes crazy worked. Sometimes crazy stomped all over Decepticon plans because crazy couldn't be predicted. Fortune favored the bold and Dinobots alike, and the Autobots had already done Dinobots. What the slag. It was time for the Jazzmeister to do bold like it was going out of style.

"Hey, Skywarp!" Jazz called suddenly, and half the audience jolted in surprise. "Spread his legs more - I can't see!"

Shocked optics turned up toward him, a rainbow sea of colors, and Acid Storm straightened in surprise beside him, hands dropping to the green Decepticon's sides. A shivery moan came from the speakers in the Seeker's cockpit. Jazz shifted his weight to one leg and cocked his hip, folding his arms over his hood and smirking in response to the stares. Starscream paused in his dramatics to direct a blank look up toward him.

Down below, Skywarp blinked through reset before shaking his head and reaching down to smack the inside of Thundercracker's thighs. A whimper came through this time as Thundercracker struggled to obey.

"Oh, come on," the Autobot scoffed. "Is that the best you can do?"

Skywarp cackled, and the smacking this time rang loud enough to be heard over the sudden buzz of excited conversation. There were a thousand optics glancing between Jazz and the two Seekers kneeling together below. Starscream looked at the two entwined mechs, then up at the Autobot high above. He nodded slightly and strolled slowly across the arena floor. Acid Storm only looked at Jazz, seemingly unaffected by the continued whimpers coming out of his cockpit speakers.

Thundercracker thrashed against his bonds, trying to spread his knees despite the damage to his hip. Skywarp said something sharply, words muffled by the crowd sound, and cruelly twisted his fingers in the blue Seeker's pelvic join. Thundercracker yelped and surged up against the lock-bar under his wings, and his legs popped wide before he collapsed back down. His helm fell forward against Skywarp's cockpit. Jazz could see his lips part, softly mouthing one of the bracers across the gold glass.

"Not much of a show," Jazz commented to the Rainmaker loud enough that the tier below turned to gape at him, and now Acid Storm was giving him a half-amused, half-bemused little smile. "Reminds me of, oh, what was it he said?" He unfolded an arm enough to raise a hand to his chin, tap-tapping a finger against his lips as he pretended to think. The green Seeker continued to wanly smile. "Oh, yes." He let his smirk widen as Thundercracker's shattered optic turned up toward him. "Making sure I was nothing more than a frag-toy. Who's the frag-toy now, huh?"

The gossip spread like wildfire. 'Vengeance.' It'd been a set-up to get revenge on Thundercracker belittling the Autobot. That was something that the rank and file could understand. 'Infighting,' Jazz's confident stance hinted into the back of their minds. 'Infighting among the officer cadre.' Infighting, like Thundercracker letting Skyfire past his guard or Skywarp shooting Starscream up the afterburners during battle. Not an Autobot taking out their officer. Starscream's intended taking out the competition.

Acid Storm's optics glowered deep crimson, but he dipped his helm in wry acknowledgement of Jazz's skill. Down in the arena, Starscream looked as forbidding as ever, but there was a tiny curve to dark lips. Worthy of a Decepticon? Worth of the Vosian Emirate? Jazz met his optics and let his own smirk become something luxurious. A victor reveling in victory, posed on a ledge like his triumph was a display trophy. If anyone could be worthy of being courted by an entire citystate, it was this Autobot!

"Who's a good frag-toy?" Skywarp chirped, obnoxiously cheerful.

"Oh, Primus, yes," moaned from Acid Storm's cockpit, and Thundercracker hid his face against Skywarp again. "I am. I am."

"That right, you are!" the teleporter chirruped with a preschool teacher's overdone joy. He'd likely have clapped his hands, too, but his hands were busy petting the blue Seeker's helm and thumbing the broken fan vents. "Aww, who's a boogie-boo? A boogie-booboo!"

"What in the Pit?" Acid Storm laughed.

"Baby talk, Skywarp?" Jazz's disdain was overdone and all the more mocking for his poorly-hidden smirk at Thundercracker's expense. The blue Seeker moaned and squirmed under Skywarp's nonsense patter, and the audience's gossiping lowered to a purring buzz as more and more 'Cons fell to watching the show again. "Are you going to use him or raise him?"

Skywarp giggled and lifted his head to grin at the Autobot. Only because Jazz knew to look for it did he see the shadow of resentment lurking in the devilry-bright optics. 'You did this,' the teleporter blamed even as he shouted, "Hey, if you think you can do any better - !"

"And what if I can?!" Jazz shouted back, interrupting him, and for a moment, everything froze.

That sound? That lack of sound was 600+ Decepticons' processors mashing the kink button all at once. Power failed, rerouted to imaging things that hadn't occurred to any of them until it occurred to them all. That shift in light was even the floodlights turning toward the mech standing on the little platform mid-tier.

Look at the Autobot. No, really. Look at the pretty, shiny, deadly Autobot. Look at him. Third-in-Command, Head of Special Operations, Autobot, and they'd still drag him to the berth given half a chance. Or pin him to the nearest wall. Or - well. Yes. Just look at him.

Look at Thundercracker. Poor, defeated, beaten Thundercracker. On his knees and trying not to look like he wanted it. They all knew better, but smashing his pride was the point. Look at his total degradation and hopelessness, strangely magnificent in the way it wrapped hot lust around their sparks and gloated.

Look at the Air Commander, battered but still standing under his injuries. Look at him walking slowly up behind his ex-wingmate, drawing the vivid pink flanges of his chosen whip through his hands. Look at him. Power, prestige, glory; all painted peacock-strutting proud in blue, red, and white paint. Beautiful before, but a splendid dream of desire now.

Now picture a Thundercracker sandwich: Starscream working the whip down one side, and Jazz's hands working up the other.

…ahhh. Now that was scrumptious.

A thousand optics turned up to Jazz, dim with shock as that picture flashed, full-formed and absolutely delicious, through their minds. Starscream alone seemed unaffected, regarding the Autobot's frankly provocative look with unimpressed impassivity. That look said that the Air Commander knew exactly what the Autobot was doing. That collective mental image had been carefully calculated for best effect.

Jazz piled on the charm, smiling wider, and the small uptick to Starscream's lips flashed briefly higher before smoothing back out. It implied permission for Jazz's meddling. They both knew the game, but neither played fair - and in disobeying all the rules, they made a kind of rulebook all their own. It tailor-made the game for them, personal and intimate.

The way they were looking at each other wasn't helping anyone regain coherence. There was enough chemistry boiling in the air between the two hotties that Mixmaster could sample it. It might not be Love Potion #9, but the mechs in the audience would eat it up with a spoon.

"How," Acid Storm squeaked, and hurriedly cleared his throat with a vocalizer reset. "How likely is it that you'd, ah, follow up on that threat?"

Jazz peeled his visor away from Starscream to give the Rainmaker a sultry look all his own. The mottled-green Seeker actually took a step away, taken aback by the mercurial change from Autobot officer to regular mech to 'I'll take two of that to go, thank you!' "Depends on how nicely I was asked, I suppose," the small grounder drawled. A high-performance engine turned over with an audible thrum, and the Decepticons on all sides were straining to hear the low-voiced conversation.

Acid Storm's flaps flicked through their extensions, and the burr of his fans wasn't covered by the Autobot's engine noise. "Please?"

"Pff." Jazz waved his free hand in dismissal.

Air popped, displacing forcefully enough to buffet Jazz's doors. "What if I called in that favor you owe me?" Skywarp asked, all sorts of urgent.

He hadn't even considered that. Giving Skywarp a self-indulgent reason to curb his righteous rage, yes, but not flat-out clearing that debt before it became a problem. That was...a very good idea, actually. Jazz gave it some thought, showily returning his fingers to tapping on his chin. Dimming his visor, he eyed the two Seekers. They were obviously exchanging Words over internal comm. lines. Scrap metal and iron, what he wouldn't give to have a hack on that network right now.

"Nope," he said at last, betting that he could push a bit further. "Not enough."

"Aw, that's pit-scrap. Really? Why not?" Jazz fluttered his fingers at the Seekers; such trifling offers were not enough for the sexy Autobot. The two Decepticons exchanged another glance. "Please?" Skywarp offered artlessly. "Pretty please with whipped cream on top?" That got him a perplexed look from Acid Storm and a laugh from Jazz, but the Autobot still shook his head.

The look between the two officers this time was longer, and Skywarp was frowning unhappily at whatever Words were being said. The surrounding tiers were all but hovering, not daring to get any closer but drooling over the eyecandy flicking his doors at them playfully as the officers talked. The unit on the tier below had clustered underneath Jazz's feet, staring up at him. He tilted his head to the side and winked half his visor off at them, shifting to push his other hip out as he peered down over his prominent hood at them. There was hushed discussion of that bumper. And they were rather fixated at how far that hip went out. Extra flexibility for his frametype?

Gah. Want want want.

The two Seekers beside the black-and-white Autobot continued talking, but their optics skimmed the audience with a casual air that wasn't casual in the slightest. Disappointing an arena-full of flyers could cause trouble. More importantly, judging by the whirr of their fans, the two officers wanted themselves. Skywarp shrugged at Acid Storm. The Rainmaker hiked his wings back at him.

Jazz went back to smoldering in Starscream's general direction. Let it never be said that the Jazzmeister wasn't capable of using every weapon at his disposal. His outsider status centered around his faction, but also his grounder status. Well, he was perfectly capable of making his body exotically unique instead of a liability. He shifted his weight again, letting his aft sway and languidly swishing his doors downward as if he were relaxed. Look at him being so casual.

The Air Commander had his back turned to him. He was ostentatiously busy checking Thundercracker's ties. The blue Seeker, however, stared up at Jazz with a panicked mix of pleading and revulsion. It was want, but a want so perverse the flyer was revolting himself. The conflict turned his expression to agonized indecision.

Jazz tried to understand it and felt a queer mix of empathy pulling his own spark. What was it like to want something like this? Did it feel like need or an indulgence? Thundercracker's expression reminded him of his few times helping Ratchet. That look reminded him of the way his fellow Autobots had twisted in an agony of pain and self-hate, half-shame but half-need while the medic inflicted what was needed. All Jazz had been able to do was offer support, because that's all that could be offered.

The idea lit something like magnesium in the back of Jazz's head. The plan snapped around, re-centering, and maybe crystallized. Clear and tricky at the same time, but if Special Operations were easy, there'd be more Autobots coming back from missions.

"I don't suppose you take bribes?" Acid Storm finally offered half-heartedly.

In his peripheral vision, the two Decepticon Seekers were still frowning at each other. Acid Storm didn't expect him to take the suggestion seriously. But Jazz's goals were short-term steps leading toward a larger end, and ultimately, he wanted down into that arena. The means versus the ends was a constant debate in war, but Prime wasn't here to mourn his methods.

Information assessment kicked over the suggestion and weighed it. The likelihood of a better offer was slim.

The Autobot tilted his head down and to the side, not turning to face the officers but giving them his full attention. "How much of a bribe are we talking?" His smiled dropped, replaced by a quick flick of his tongue over his bottom lip. "The idea of doing this in public makes me…nervous." That last word was laden with many things, most of them involving other people's nerves. Jazz drew his bottom lip in and set his teeth into it, then slowly slid it out from underneath the dental molds.

Skywarp and Acid Storm fixated on the tiny motion, mesmerized. When it popped free, Skywarp jerked like he'd been shocked. His wing knocked into Acid Storm, who shook his head as if clearing his head.

"Money," he said, realigning his thoughts. "Credits." He turned to Skywarp again. "How much do you - "

"Don't look at me," Skywarp said defensively. "I'm broke. I spent it all on," he glanced at Jazz, and just as quickly away, "stuff." Acid Storm glared at him. The teleporter shrugged, for once seeming embarrassed. "Human TV shows, okay? I liked the 'Simpsons'." He ducked his head slightly under the Rainmaker's glare. "I'm still paying Soundwave back for the last 16 seasons of the series. Me no have money."

"What, you bought the downloads from Soundwave?" That actually surprised Jazz enough to break character as Acid Storm's face twisted up at the strange grammar. "You know Blaster has them all, right? He's Cybertron's authorized distribution vendor for the major Earth TV networks."

Red optics rounded by dismay looked to him. "Well, now I know. D'oh."

Several previously minor details of the Decepticon/Autobot departure from Earth clicked into place, and Jazz gave him a peeved glare of his own. "You're the one who stole the Los Angeles' Randy's Donuts giant donut sign, aren't you?"

"It was the Insecticons!" Skywarp denied immediately, but his guilty face said it all.

"For Primus' sake." He abandoned the pretty pose. Some things required the full-on facepalm, complete with slouched shoulders. Jazz: Made Of Disappoint. Oi. Immature war machines. Who liked the Homer Simpson, apparently, and were willing to haul giant donuts across the galaxies because of it.

"I wanted a souvenir," the purple-and-black Seeker muttered, sulking. "I'm not giving it back!" he said a second later, wagging a finger at the Autobot. "So you can take your squishy-love and shove it where the - "

"Skywa~arp," Acid Storm half-sang, pulling on his fellow flyer's arm. "We like the Autobots now, remember?" Despite the friendly smile on his face, the Rainmaker's optics were sharp and narrow. They practically transmitted a berating lecture all on their own without the aid of comm. links. His voice lowered to a forced-cheer hiss, like a snake upchucking glitter. "We very much like the Autobots, especially this one, and if you make him angry, I'm going to drop-kick your precious 'donut' into Shockwave's smelters."

Both Jazz and Skywarp stared speechlessly at him for that. It wasn't just the words. It was the contrast of words and the pleasant smile pasted across his face. The contradiction was so severe Acid Storm just looked unhinged. The Rainmaker had evidently had enough of their Earth-tainted ways. He wanted something, and if Skywarp got in his way, it was quite clear he'd have no problem finding a place for the body afterward. Since everyone in the arena hungered after Jazz's aft at the moment, they'd probably help with disposal.

Jazz did good work.

"Right…" Skywarp looked down at the hand on his arm and pulled futilely. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry," he muttered in Jazz's direction.

"I'm telling the Earth Embassy," the Autobot retorted, "and you can deal with the fall-out. They've been blaming the Aerialbots for years, did you know that?"

"Really?" The teleporter seemed elated. "That's so cooof!"

Acid Storm didn't deign to notice Skywarp rubbing his cockpit and resentfully pushing away the elbow he'd just shoved into the black-and-purple teleporter. "Are you serious about this?" he demanded of the Autobot. "You'll take a bribe to go down there and 'face him into the ground?" His finger stabbed toward Thundercracker, who shuddered under the sizzling heat of the whip trailing over his wings as he stared up at Jazz.

The saboteur flicked his tongue over his lip again, and thin slivers of glass glinted under the floodlights as his door windows peeked out. He looked down at the Air Commander circling the wounded Seeker, then back to the two Decepticon officers. "Clear the debt," he told Skywarp. "I don't owe you anything." The teleporter made a face but nodded reluctantly, and the Autobot-blue visor swung to Acid Storm. "And make the bribe sizable."

"You don't have to worry about that," Acid Storm swore fervently. He took a large step back from their little group and raised his arms. "Attention!" he bellowed, and comm. lines were totally unnecessary in the breathless silence as every optic fastened on the acid-green Seeker's fierce grin. "It seems our Autobot friend here needs some financial persuasion to give us a show! Those of you who want to make this happen, we'll be passing the chip." A flat encoder pad appeared between the Seeker's two forefingers, held up on display.

The Rainmaker brought it down. Slow and deliberate as an entire audience's fans sucked in air greedily, he typed in a passcode. When he held the pad up again, there was a number stamped in glowing orange across the display. Jazz schooled his reaction down to nothing, replacing shock with boredom even as his fuel pump skipped a beat. The crowd murmured, unsurprised and already trading speculative comments, and he couldn't risk showing anything.

"You know what to do." Acid Storm smiled and held out the encoder invitingly.

Half the crowd surged forward, but a thin flyer from the tier below darted into the air and snatched it from his hand before zipping back to his unit. Noise exploded like the hurricane windfront hitting all at once, swirling out around the makeshift arena. Starscream and Thundercracker were the peaceful eye of the storm. The Air Commander smirked up at Jazz as if he could see past the saboteur's calm façade. Units audience-wide clumped together, throwing credits onto encoder chips and sending their representatives off toward the pad now making its rounds.

Decepticons clambered over each other, yelling numbers with an excitement that bounced and built up. It was like the Wallstreet of Interfacing, stockbrokers buying shares in the show and selling snippets of their imaginations in ribald shouts and flung credits. The number didn't creep upward: it shot. Acid Storm watched it leap madly up, smugly satisfied. Sizable bribe, indeed.

Skywarp sauntered closer and leaned down into the Autobot's personal space. "You'd better make it good," he said through a smile made of entirely too many teeth, and Jazz was certain - maybe - that he wasn't just referring to the show.

Below, bartered like a base commodity and ignored by even Starscream at the moment, Thundercracker arched into another overload.

No pressure, Jazz.

[* * * * *]

End Pt. 15

[* * * * *]