The wind so cold,
but the night so young. The Medbay was busy, Ratchet
working his magic. Jazz's wounds were deep, but it was
nothing that the experienced Medic couldn't handle. As
he worked, Prowl watched what he could from through the Medbay doors'
windows. Ratchet had locked the doors and had refused to
admit anyone, so the cop was anxiously standing at the doors, his
face practically pushed to the windows. Ratchet had
assured him that he could handle Jazz's situation, but that didn't
stop the first-in-command from worrying and dreading the
worst. Prowl felt a slight bit of pressure on his
uninjured shoulder and looked around to focus his optics on the red
hand of Ironhide.
The red mech smiled at him. Ratchet
had fixed him right a while ago, but his left arm was held at his
side, three of his fingers still missing. "Don't let it worry you
too much, boy." Ironhide said gruffly. "Ratchet's programmed to
fix catastrophes like this, and, believe me, he fixes them well."
Prowl nodded and smiled feebly at him then, getting a small bump on
his left side, he turned to Tracks, who was standing next to
him.
"Jazz is strong," Tracks said, a small smile on his
face."Whatever those seekers did to him was harsh, but I know that
Jazz is stronger than to let a cowardly blow like this bring him
down." Prowl smiled at Tracks, but something about the Firebird's
demeanor worried him. Tracks had never before cared about
Jazz, nor seemed to worry at all of any of the Autobots were injured,
so why was he suddenly being a kiss-aft?
Prowl pushed the thought
from his mind and looked back into the Medbay at Ratchet's back;
kiss-aft or not, the Firebird was not Prowl's main concern at this
time. Out of sheer force of habit, Prowl opened up his
Comm Frequency to try to talk to Jazz, but found that the Porsche's
line was dead. He knew that Ratchet had sedated the
Porsche, but that didn't stop the cop from trying. He
put his right hand on the door for a moment as he closed the comm
with a sigh. He wanted this all to be a nightmare,
something brought about by the stress of the war. He
wished that if, by some Primus-inspiring incident, he would wake from
Recharge and find everything to be back to the way it should, but
part of him told him that this was all real.
He felt a bump on his
side again and saw First Aid beside him. "Come on, Prowl, I want to
take a look at your arm." Prowl shrugged him off and looked back
into the Medbay. He didn't want to leave his spot, but
knew he needed to let First Aid check him out. With a
sigh, he looked back at First Aid, who was still trying to usher him
away from the doors. "Come on, let me see."
Prowl sighed, but
followed away obediently. First Aid directed him over to
the wall and had him sit. Prowl rested his back against
the wall and let First Aid examine him as he stared at the Medbay's
doors, afraid that if he gets too far away from the Medbay that Jazz
would die in a
nanosec.
"Prowl? Wake
up, boy."
The cop heard tapping for a second before his systems
came back online, his optics flitting to life to stare right at
Ratchet, the Medic's EMP generator out and pointed at his
chest. Prowl grumbled and reached a hand up to his head as
Ratchet's arm retreated, the EMP disappearing back into the recess
of his arm.
"You must have gone into self-stasis." Ratchet
mumbled, a kind smile on his face. "How long have you been out
here?"
Prowl looked around him. He didn't see any
bots in the hall besides Ratchet and, as he checked his cerebral
circuits, he wasn't very surprised to find it to be quite
late. Looking back at the Medic he smiled slightly. "I
don't know. I've been out here since you locked the
Medbay's doors." He paused for a moment as some information
floated around his head. "How's Jazz?"
"Stable," the
Medic replied, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. "But
it'll be a long time before he'll be functioning properly again."
He sighed, then mumbled "Haven't seen a bot this smashed
up since the beginning of the War…"
Prowl nodded. "Can I see
him?" His voice sounded anxious as he watched Ratchet and was
relieved when the medic nodded. Standing up he walked into
the Medbay and remorse filled his synapses as he saw Jazz on a corner
recharge berth.
The Porsche looked better than before, but not by
much. His head was still exposed and the wiring looked
damaged. There was a screen above Jazz that displayed his
vitals and Prowl saw that Jazz's spark had a stable and strong
pulse. He looked back down at Jazz's face and
sighed. His visor had been removed and the optical stripe
below that was dark. The cop felt sorry for him and
regrets started to run through his mind as he looked at the gaping
hole in the side of Jazz's head. If he had been there
just a few minutes before he could have prevented that pain from
befalling him. Reaching out to Jazz, he went to touch the
Porsche's head, but pulled back as a park shot off of one of the
wires and an agonizing scream of pain ripped through the silence of
the night.
He stared at the Porsche in shock, his optics wide, as
the scream disappeared. A brief image of blue and red
flashed through Prowl's mind when the spark went off, the scream
accompanying the vision through his mind. Wherever the
shriek of pain came from, he sure as Hell didn't like it. Prowl
leaned in toward Jazz's head to see if he could determine what had
happened, and, sure enough, the cop immediately recognized the
Porsche's memory cords. Looking up at the Medbay's
doors he had just noticed that Ratchet hadn't followed him in. He
knew that the Medic wouldn't be very happy if Prowl accessed Jazz's
private memory, but whatever caused Jazz to omit a scream like that
was something that he wanted to find out. Looking down at
the Porsche's exposed circuits, he reached out toward them and
winced as a jolt went up his arm and the shattering shriek went
through his head again.
"Does it hurt, Jazz?"
Tracks' head was next to Jazz's, whispering in his audio. "You're
crying, baby. Why don't you enjoy it? You're
willing to bond with that chauvinistic prick Prowl, but not me?"
Prowl felt disbelief steal through Jazz's body at the words as
he stared at Tracks with horror and pain in his optics as the
Firebird reached down and ripped off the front of Jazz's cod and
descended to sit in front of Jazz. Pain tore through
Jazz's chest and he felt like his body was being ripped in two
pieces as both Starscream's and Tracks' sparks forcefully
attacked and bonded with Jazz's. The Porsche screamed on
agony, painful tears streaming down his cheeks as he felt his body's
synapses failing, his spark getting weaker and threatening to
extinguish from the strain. Jazz's circuitry belayed and
his body finally shut down his functions, the rapists' energy
surges still flowing through him.
Prowl pulled
back as the blackness came over his mind. He was shaking
violently as he held on to Jazz's recharge berth to prevent himself
from falling over. Revulsion filled his body as the images
continued to sway in his mind, anger building quickly. Why
would someone do that to another bot, why would a fellow Autobot
betray his comrade like that? He slowly became aware of
his surrounding and noticed a seizing pressure on his arm. Looking
over at Ratchet he was greeted with a livid expression.
"What
the slag were you doing?!" Ratchet hissed at him, grabbing at
Prowl's arm to e sure the cop wasn't going to fall over. "You
were screaming; what happened?!"
Prowl's head was still
swimming with the images that had assailed him while he was attached
to Jazz's memory. He shook his head and quickly thought
of an excuse. "Got… got my imagination going…
thought Jazz was dead." He mumbled. He felt like he was
going to be sick as the violent images raced through him. The
more Prowl thought about what had befallen Jazz, the more sick and
angry he became.
Tracks, a fellow Autobot, did this to
Jazz? Prowl never did trust the Firebird, but he never
would have imagined that he would have the audacity to do this to a
higher-ranking official. He shook his head quickly to try
and rid himself of the sickening thoughts, but instead of ridding
himself, it made it all worse.
All at once Prowl's sick feelings
turned to anger as his imagination shifted and began to come up with
strategic and ever-nasty ways of doing harm to Tracks, and he had a
huge inkling to want to find the Firebird immediately and pound him
to bits. Ratchet had been trying to get his attention, but
he quickly shook him off, mumbled about wanting to go recharge, and
then left the Medbay with one, single thought in his brain: find the
son of a bitch and kill him.
