Sorry about the long delay. RL has been unbelievably crazy but for some of it I couldn't look at this because one of the persons I based the past part on suddenly died.
As for the story itself, some of you might be thinking "wtf" during this, so for you I have something at the end ;) I also edited the Story Info for a couple warning changes with advice from Evil Ratchet.
On another note, I looked over my posted chapters and I noticed all my "scene change" markers are missing along with the ones that separate author notes. I don't know why but I'll reload all the chapters in hopes that'll fix it.
Groggy, Jazz onlined his optics only to see a very blurry orange object in front of him. After a few moments the blurry color revealed itself to be one of the Ark's walls. Along with the sunburst-orange colored wall he also saw a medical IV attached to him. Normally the unpleasant sight meant he was laying flat on a berth in medbay, but for some reason he was slouched against the wall. 'Huh?' He tried moving but his CPU was too sluggish for any real coordination. Another breem passed until Ratchet entered his view with a scanner. "Ratchet?" His voice sounded oddly distant.
The medic looked up. "Still having difficulty processing sensory input?" When Jazz didn't respond, Ratchet took his silence as a 'yes' and guided Jazz to a berth. With a few adjustments to the sedative IV, Ratchet waited until Jazz's optics cleared to explain. "You disappeared during battle to find Prowl, or so Ironhide told us. When Megatron's forces started pulling back Ironhide went looking for you. He found you in shock, staring at a rock wall." Ratchet's gruff voice suddenly softened recalling what else Ironhide discovered. He didn't want to mention it quite yet.
"After Ironhide managed to rouse you practically out of a coma you went ballistic looking for a Decepticon. Somehow you managed to attack and pin Starscream to the ground. Beat the slagger up pretty damn good too, considering he tried getting away. You were yelling at him to tell you who the new Decepticon was. After seeing the way you handled Starscream most of the Decepticons fled." Normally Ratchet would be launched halfway into one of his tirades right about now on why a mech's stupidity landed them in medbay. However, considering what caused Jazz's berserk attack on the Seeker, Ratchet felt a more tactful approach was necessary. Despite what some may think, he didn't always resort to yelling or hitting his patients.
"Then why…?"
"Why were you sitting in medbay unable to do anything a newly formed sparkling couldn't? Well, the Decepticons retreat didn't calm you down. You were so dead set on following them you even hit Sideswipe when he tried to restrain you. Stupid glitch-faced moron," Ratchet added with a scowl. As if Sideswipe hadn't been damaged enough, he had to jump in to feebly attempt restraining a berserk Jazz. "I had to use some of my more powerful sedatives so we could get you back to the Ark."
Jazz groaned and put his hands over his face. He didn't know how but his optics felt "gluey," based on a description a sick Spike once gave him. "Since when do you leave a mech on the floor?"
"Shockingly, the battle injured a number of our troops and a drugged but intact Jazz ranks pretty low on my priority list for who uses a berth first. You only have one now because I saw you trying to move as we finished with Bumblebee. Stay still so I can check your systems and hands."
Surprised, Jazz pulled his hands away and looked at them. Half his armor was missing and the pieces still intact were torn. He could see a few quick-bonding bandages on his hands where energon probably had been leaking. "How the Pit am I just now seeing this?"
"Because I haven't completely stopped the sedatives. There isn't a point until I repair your hands." 'Not to mention it actually gives me a chance to repair them before you get hysterical again,' Ratchet silently added. If there's one thing war taught him when it came to close comrades, there was a fine line where a mech could be sedated so he could talk somewhat coherently but struggle to really comprehend anything. Yes, Ratchet was becoming a master at manipulating others with drugs. A fact he wasn't comfortable with since it reminded him of Soundwave or Hook. But whereas they did it to make their 'patients' more vulnerable to interrogations, Ratchet did it to relieve them of the painful moments to come. The sedatives were unnecessary for repairing Jazz's hand since his pain receptors could easily be turned off, but they kept Jazz from remembering his close friend's fate in battle. He knew Jazz would be in a world of hurt once that happened. So for the moment Ratchet's comfort level meant less to him than Jazz's so the sedatives stayed.
/-/
After Ratchet repaired Jazz's hands he removed the sedative IVs. After informing Jazz that Prime would be in shortly for a briefing Ratchet stepped away to check on the others. Now with his mind feeling a bit more alert, Jazz tried recalling what happened. How did his hands get so damaged? 'Oh right, when I attacked Screamer.' He frowned as the memories came back. They were muddled but he focused on them anyways. His fight with Starscream had been more frantic than Ratchet lead on. Why had he lost it like that? Sure, Starscream was possibly the only mech more irritating than Megatron, but he'd never beaten the Decepticon so thoroughly before.
Ratchet said he'd been trying to hunt down a new Decepticon after he went looking for Prowl. What new Decepticon and what happened in his search for Prowl? As soon as he thought about Prowl the memories flooded in, forcing him to relive the horror of seeing Prowl being kidnapped by an unknown mech. Panic set in and Jazz leaped up, pulling off the remaining line attached to him. His peds hit the ground but he stumbled as the sedatives made it clear there was still some left in his systems.
"What the frag, Jazz! Get back on that berth!" Ratchet's order came out more like a snarl but Jazz raised his hand as if to say "don't even try it" when he saw Ratchet making his way over.
"Where's Prowl?"
Before Ratchet could respond, Optimus Prime's voice cut in. "Jazz, what are you doing? You aren't ready to leave medbay yet." Despite being unable to stand firmly on his own peds, Jazz still tried to bolt through the doors. Prime moved into his TIC's path to force him to listen.
"Where's Prowl?" Jazz repeated, this time facing Prime.
"We're searching for him. With what we've found we should have him soon."
"So in other words you don't really know where he is but 'A' for effort," Jazz snapped. Prime always gave the more optimistic or at least diplomatic answer. He wanted to tell Prime where he could put his answer. He wasn't going to be subdued by a few charismatic words by their leader with his best friend's life at stake.
"Not yet but we have every system and mech available searching for him. We've narrowed the search quite considerably so it won't be long. Trust me Jazz, we will have him back soon." Prime's reassuring words fell onto deaf audio receptors. They weren't good enough for the saboteur's – only Prowl's were. Jazz moved towards the door.
"Like slag you're leaving!" Ratchet snapped. "You aren't cleared yet." He moved in to grab Jazz but Jazz pushed him off.
"No! I'm not waiting here! I'm fine but Prowl might not be. I'm not waiting around for a group of frontliners and scouts to find a mech captured by an unknown assailant! Half our troops don't even know what's going on in their own heads let alone try piecing clues together to figure out where an unknown enemy would take Prowl." Jazz pushed forward until he stood in front of Prime, whose large frame blocked the door.
Optimus looked down at a determined and desperate Jazz. He knew Jazz would fight him to get through, size difference be damned. Prime hesitated a moment before stepping aside.
Jazz was just about to shove Prime – a move he knew would probably be futile and end up with him in trouble – when Prime stepped to the side. Jazz darted out without looking back. Once he left the Ark he transformed and raced to where he'd last seen Prowl. Most of the other Autobots were used to everything they needed to know about their enemy being right in front of their optics. As the Head of Special Ops, Jazz had a skill set for exactly the opposite. He might be the only one with the ability to find Prowl. Not only that but he wanted to be the only one to find him. What Prowl's captor had planned for him Jazz didn't know but he knew it wasn't friendly. In all his vorns as a saboteur, Jazz had witness what kind of damage the invisible marks left on a captured mech after being rescued. Because of that Jazz knew the less support a mech had the more irreparable the damage. His best friend needed someone there who he would feel completely safe around and that left precious few for Prowl, especially when one considered how over half the army mocked him only an orn ago. Besides that Jazz didn't want to hear Prowl was alive from some third party, he wanted to see and hear Prowl for himself.
/-/
Prowl could feel his systems slowly engaging as he became more and more aware. His entire body felt sore and stiff and he could swear he could feel every inch of his energon lines. Even his energon pump burned as if it was struck hard. Funny, he didn't recall getting hit in the chest – no, he was hit in the shoulder.
Reminded of the battle, Prowl immediately onlined his optics. His vision instantly populated by waves of Cybertronian text. What happened to his systems? Every system had varying degrees of damage, some of it almost debilitating.
After a full breem Prowl erased all the warnings and messages as he focused instead on taking in his dark surroundings. From the rocky walls and sparse terrain he gathered he was in a remote cave or underground cavern. His arms and legs told him he was restrained.
As he lifted his head a grey and green figure in the shadows came into view. "Painful, isn't it?" The voice was eerily soft.
"What did you do to me?" Prowl gasped painfully. For some reason his vocal unit burned.
"Only what I had to do to get what's mine back." His attacker's tone filled Prowl with just as much dread as the words.
"What do you mean?" the tactician spoke carefully. Whoever this was evidently thought they knew Prowl. Whether or not that was true remained to be seen, but for now it was an unknown and dangerous variable to Prowl. There were only two possible answers: this mech was an enemy or delusional. Either way, the mech had shown Prowl he had no problem hurting him.
The mech moved silently until he was next to Prowl before wrapping one arm around Prowl's waist. A finger rubbed almost seductively on Prowl's hip seam while the other hand softly rubbed Prowl's right doorwing near the joint. "I suppose I can't fault you for not recognizing me… but I can give you a hint." Suddenly the finger in Prowl's hip seam curled, twisting some of the wires painfully. Caught off guard, Prowl cried out before the grip relaxed. Instead of feeling relieved however, Prowl was horrified. Horrified because he couldn't figure who this mech was and from the mech's expression, that wasn't an acceptable answer.
With no name to give him, Prowl's silence only infuriated the mech. Snarling, the mech pushed himself off of Prowl and stood in front of him. "How pitiful – here you are at my mercy and all I ask for is a name. You can't recall a name from your own fraggingpast to save your life! That's really sad." Abruptly he yanked Prowl's lower torso towards him and placed a hand back on that same hip seam. "For all your feely-touchy slag you've been even as a sparkling and the lack of friends you ever had I'd think you could figure it out. You were one of the most emotional mechs I ever knew! Crying because some mech made you upset or whatever pansy-aft emotion you didn't like feeling. You know what Prowl, feel this."
The hand on his hip drove painfully into the seam and clenched a cable before tearing it in half. Prowl cried out as his leg buckled but the restraints held him up. Without his leg supporting that side anymore, his arm and struts were suddenly being stretched painfully from the excess weight. He could feel energon pooling in his hip joint from the internal bleeding.
'Wait, there's something familiar here,' Prowl realized after the pain-induced fog began to fade away. He looked the angry mech in the optics. "I do know you," he spoke quietly, "from a long time ago."
The mech's anger evaporated before being replaced by a bitter expression. He shook his head before laughing brokenly. "I suppose there isn't much else to help you remember who I am. Time means nothing to me anymore – but then a lot means nothing to me anymore."
Prowl stared at the suddenly almost despondent mech. 'He's unstable.' His captor may be more of a "head-case" than even Starscream. Before he could analyze the situation another and more important realization came to him: there were less than a handful of mechs in his past he'd describe as unstable, Megatron and his army non-withstanding. Unstable and accusing him of being too emotional – something no one had done since he started the academy – left only two individuals and only one that would use pain as a hint. "Conex?" The name brought more pain then relief.
"Heh, took you long enough," Conex sounded almost sad but it quickly disappeared when a smirk appeared. "And it's ConAir now."
"What happened to you?" Prowl hardly recognized the mech. He could see the barely-controlled monster behind the mask.
"Seems foreign to you, this me, doesn't it?" He gave a low chuckle. "It shouldn't – well not completely considering it all this started back when we were seeing each other, after all. All those vorns ago, I finally had a chance to fight. I had a chance to help the Autobots without waiting to be 'of age' just to train!" He laughed, reliving the excitement before quieting after a moment to continue on. "We were told to keep silent about it unless we wanted to risk being banned. They just wanted to make a simple modification to increase our effectiveness. I had no problem with that, at least not until the headaches." ConAir tilted his head as he touched his helm. "Next thing I know the changes they make tire me out more and I started lashing out more without reason."
From the pointed look on ConAir's face Prowl realized there were something else to that. His concentration had wavered in and out while ConAir was talking from the energon pool in his hip. It was still growing, albeit more slowly than initially, and now pressing on the other cables in his hip. Internal bleeding may not be the same for a Cybertronian as it is for a human, but that didn't mean he wasn't in trouble. However, he was in more trouble if he didn't focus back onto the conversation at hand. He replayed back his past memories and stopped when he remembered the last time he saw Conex. "That argument…"
"Exactly. That orn the headache was longer than normal and it was driving me insane." He glared at Prowl and reached out to clench the tactician's shoulder, digging his thumb into the wound. Prowl forced himself not to flinch as best as he could. "You were driving me insane with your incessant whining."
"I don't recall 'whining' – I had been talking to you about spending the orn with Bluestreak and Charger when you became angry."
"Whenever you talked about them you were always whining – how should I know the difference anymore when you were just talking or whining?"
"By listening."
"I was listening! Don't call me a liar!" The thumb in Prowl's wound curled around a jagged piece of armor until he snapped it off and energon trickled out of the new gash. Prowl stiffened but somehow managed not to make a sound. He wasn't going to cry out for fear it might excite Conex. He remembered that trait from long ago from when they were interfacing. The sudden delusions or misperceptions of events were new to him, however. So was the physical violence over a few words. Realizing the additional unknown variables were more likely to get him hurt his battle computer started running simulations of how this might turn if Prowl was not careful.
"What happened after that orn?" Maybe if he kept him talking he would focus more on himself and less on Prowl, thereby decreasing the physical attention he was getting. If Prowl was lucky (all things considered), Conex would be so focused on talking about himself that missing some of what he says when the pain or nausea waves hit him wouldn't be so detrimental. The tear in his hip stopped leaking energon but the feeling of spilled energon pressing up or sliding down his other cables was sickening. Thank Primus, Conex pulled away as Prowl calculated when he resumed telling his story.
"The need for energon grew and so did our anger. A constant starving CPU can only handle so much. Finally they had an answer. They said we just needed to rest and we'll wake up good as new." His harsh laugh echoed off the walls. "We woke up and everything was wrong. Our bodies were no longer ours and our energon lines burned. But the energy! We finally had all the energy we needed!
"To much it turned out. Do you know what it's like to never be able to give your mind a rest?" Prowl said nothing about how he understood thanks to his position within the Autobot army for fear it would pull Conex's attention back onto him. Fortunately, Conex didn't wait for a reply. "Soon it became almost a driving force – we had to keep our energy levels up or our systems would burn from the consumption rate. Recharge was impossible! It wasn't fast enough! Of course this didn't bother the scientists because it was a small price to have the perfect warrior." He sneered.
"What are you talking about?"
"You think these veins are for show?" He removed his arm on Prowl's shoulder and brought it to his face. Unbeknownst to his assailant, Prowl silently breathed a sigh of relief. His plan was working. "It was their answer to a high energon demand with low resources – the ability to steal it from other mech's bodies."
"What?" His battle simulator paused momentarily as he contemplated idea. "How is that even possible?"
"These veins – more like tubes or tentacles – create a connection to the target when in proximity and enter an energon line. They create suction to forcibly remove the target's energon and deposit it into my own. It's really not that hard to find an energon line on a target; our individual designs are not so unique when it comes to placement of a core system," he drawled.
The ability to steal energon from others? It was rather far-fetched but it made sense for what caused Prowl's systems to be so damaged. If the majority of his energon had suddenly been stolen then the lost would damage his pump and the systems unable to properly shut down would be damaged from the lack of fluids running through them. Ironic his current problem was fluids running where they shouldn't. "Then how am I even functioning?"
"I prepared this place when I first arrived and stored excess energon here. I won't go into the details how I got it but let's just say there aren't as many Decepticon scientists when I left Cybertron. At any rate, I had no intentions of staying with those Decepticons. It was just unbelievable luck that I had enough energon here when I saw you." Conex leaned in with a sly look on his face. "Such wonderful luck." His hand caressed a doorwing for a moment.
Prowl ignored the way his plating crawled. This was entering a dangerous territory for him. "So where have you been all this time?"
"Oh, that was the best part of the whole thing!" Conex pulled back and laughed sarcastically. "With our minds unable to rest we started becoming more aggressive. The proverbial trigger was the orn we learned we were not helping the Autobots but being tricked by the Decepticons! All this time we wanted to help make the Autobots reign victorious and it turned out we were helping the Decepticons research developing warriors they desired! Our targets had been Autobot spies or ex-Decepticons! After that we revolted but it turned out those scientists did get one thing right – a fail switch. It wasn't the quickest fail switch considering we managed to kill all but a handful of them before we finally fell into forced stasis lock. Guess they didn't want to kill their lab turborats just yet. What happened after that I don't know, but next thing I know I found myself surrounded by Decepticons."
"And then Megatron decided to set up a battle for your introduction." It wasn't hard for Prowl to connect the final pieces.
"Yes, and that's how I found you," Conex purred as he again brushed the side of Prowl's face.
Prowl ignored the touch as he tried to continue distracting his former lover. "But you left the Decepticons. That's why you prepared this cavern and you did not stay during the battle with Megatron. It's because they are unmoral and cruel. Even through all the pain they've put you through you still sense they are wrong. Perhaps there is still some good left in you." Carefully Prowl watched, hoping there was still enough of Conex and his Autobot loyalty left.
Conex pulled away as he considered the possibility. "Perhaps I do see the evil in the Decepticons, but that wasn't why I planned on leaving. The idea of being someone's 'toy' doesn't go over well with me. Luckily no one paid much attention to what I doing when Megatron wasn't interested in 'his toy,' so my absences went unnoticed. It's interesting, though, when I am around Megatron. He's cruel but he hardly treats those good or evil differently. In fact, the fate of a captured Autobot isn't so much worse than a Decepticon who irritates him. Aside from his ultimate goals, Megatron is not as evil as those around him. No, evil is just his whore for what he really wants: power. It fills his needs to being the most powerful one around in every sense of the word. That's the only reason he'd taken an interest in me was because I would've grant him ultimate power, had the original scientists not failed. I suspect the only reason Megatron is evil is because good requires sharing. In that sense, I see the same evil in me as him. I don't like to share." His expression changed for a moment as he leered at Prowl, playing with Prowl's chevron and pinching it almost painfully for a moment before continuing on. "More than that, they are proud of the way they are and I've lost my desire to change. So where is the difference between me and those Decepticons, eh Prowl? Where is it, this difference between me and those you speak ill of?"
'Oh no,' Prowl could feel his core temperature drop as his battle simulator flashed a danger warning.
Conex's look intensified as he pressed on with the new line of though. His grip on Prowl's chevron tightened. "With your morals, does that mean you are so much better than these Decepticons? The Decepticons I see few differences between them and me? Does that mean you think you're better than me?" He snarled and Prowl could see the mech he once knew dissolve, revealing the mech he first meant on the battleground. ConAir let go of Prowl's chevron only to slam his fists against Prowl's doorwings. One hand grabbed Prowl's right doorwing and bent it forward while the other hand applied an uncomfortable amount of pressure on the left wing's joint. "Answer me – are you personally better than me or just all Autobots in general?" The pressure on the left doorwing's joint grew.
"I don't believe anyone is better than another individual. If I did I wouldn't be a part of the Autobot army." It wasn't quite a lie, but what Prowl really thought didn't matter. "I've worked my way through the Autobots ranks to ensure equal treatment for all."
"I don't care about your patriotic actions!" ConAir snapped. "I asked what you thought. Actions and thoughts are not always the same. For instance, I didn't love you then but I pretended to. Mostly because I loved playing with doorwings – still do." He twisted his right hand into the left doorwing's joint some more, causing Prowl to cringe as he felt the joint beginning to buckle. "You remember that, don't you, Prowl? Tell me, has anyone had fun with them since I've been gone or are you just as alone as ever?" He chuckled. "I remember how to have fun… scream for me, Prowl." He twisted his hand the rest of the way.
Prowl cried out, his vocal unit cutting out. ConAir laughed as he moved to shift all his weight painfully onto Prowl's right wing after completely breaking the other joint.
His only warning was the sounds of ground being scuffled followed by several pounding steps before his optical ridge was virtually smashed in. ConAir toppled backwards – pulling Prowl's right doorwing with him. ConAir looked up with his one remaining functional optic at the enraged new black and white Autobot. Whoever this was only became more furious upon hearing Prowl broken and static cry when ConAir pulled the doorwing during his fall.
Jazz heard Prowl pain after he hit the grey mech and he looked to see Prowl's right doorwing torn partially off with energon running down his side. He snapped back around and glared at the mech before him. "You fragging Pit-spawned filth! How dare you attack Prowl!" With a roar Jazz jumped on top of the ConAir.
To say ConAir was startled would be an understatement but he adapted fast and used Jazz's momentum to push the saboteur off of him. However, ConAir's opponent was not to be outdone and twisted around as soon as he landed, launching himself back at his opponent. They struggled in hand-to-hand combat until Jazz was pushed backwards and lost his footing. ConAir grabbed Jazz around the neck and Jazz tried to pry his hands off only to discover his own hands were still weak from earlier. ConAir slammed him into a large rock before he could come up with a second plan. His opponent's grip only tightened as he tried crushing Jazz's neck. Jazz fought back but he found it difficult with his grasp being so much weaker. 'Wonder if that's why Ratchet didn't want me to leave,' Jazz thought dully.
Dazed, Jazz struggled with his vision until a green glow formed from ConAir's arm. His left hand immediately released ConAir's and he summoned his rarely-used flamethrower from subspace. Just as he released a blast the green vein attacked him in his neck. His flame hit the vein and Jazz's fingertips causing both to burn.
ConAir shrieked and pulled back. The exposed vein burned away and now instead of stealing Jazz's energon, it was bleeding his out. ConAir stood back up and attacked, now desperate to get energon, but the lost was already slowing him down. Unable to maneuver easily, ConAir faltered in his attack and fell but managed to clip Jazz's shoulder enough to knock Jazz down with him. Anxious to replace the energon loss, ConAir grabbed at Jazz to connect on of the remaining veins with the hole in Jazz's bleeding neck. Despite losing energon only slightly faster than Jazz, ConAir's vision was rapidly fading as more warnings appeared. With ConAir's movements slowing down, Jazz capitalized on that to forcibly remove what was left of the burnt vein. ConAir let out a shriek as the energon poured out and started clawing at his chest. Gasping, ConAir's entire frame shuddered several times before becoming completely still.
Scrambling back up, Jazz swayed for a moment before turning his gaze on a weak and 'bloody' Prowl. He moved unsteadily over and cut the restraints holding Prowl. Prowl fell and Jazz caught him but with his injuries he struggled with the weight and the two of them ended sinking to the ground. Jazz looked down at his quivering and damaged friend. He'd never seen Prowl quiver although he'd seen in the last couple of decaorns the other sides of Prowl so rarely expressed. He felt a surge of protectiveness and he tightened his grip on the barely-conscious Prowl as he held him. He rubbed his hands on the portion of Prowl's back away from the doorwings to reassure him that he was safe while Jazz comm'ed the base for medical assistance. All that mattered was getting Prowl the help he needed. He pulled Prowl in tighter.
Prowl was barely aware of what was happening around him once he'd been cut free – perhaps even before that when his doorwings were damaged. Only a small portion of him realized Jazz was there. He could feel the pain easing as the pressure on his arms was finally relieved but now he felt cold. Something wrapped around him and pulled him close. 'Jazz.' Prowl curled into him, feeling a comfort he needed. Indeed, Jazz would be the one to provide it to him, not even an orn later from the time he entertained the notion of trying something. But all he could think of was not the tender moments he and Jazz felt but rather what happened between him and Conex. For so long it'd never mattered to him how few bothered talking to him outside of work but hearing his first lover throw some of the more painful parts of his past back at him cut deeper than he thought possible.
It wasn't like he never cared for some one else – he'd just rarely allowed himself to take time out for it. Indulging in personal fairs took attention away from his job and logically a single personal matter did not supersede the attention the cause needed. No, his attention needed to focus on performing his duties as SIC and as one of Prime's most knowledgeable senior officers. His survival and those around him depended on it.
Still, it was not their appreciation here to save him. It was Jazz. For once he chose to ignore logic and focus on the warmth of Jazz's presence as he pulled and held Jazz closer. But even that did not quell Conex's voice mocking him in his head.
For all of those betting on ConAir being Blacksmoke, I have decided to answer that in a Q and A format for the sheer hell of it.
Q1) WTF! Why the hell is the main bad guy of the story not Blacksmoke? Blacksmoke had a bigger part than Conex!
A1) Because in a darkish love story, what's better: the bad guy being Prowl's sparker or Prowl's ex-lover? Yeah, Conex should have had a better part earlier but I realized to do that it would drag the story on rather then getting to the one part we all ultimately care about: Jazz x Prowl. Damn it for falling behind on my plan to stay one to two chapters ahead of what I post.
Q2) So does this mean nothing is going to come about for Blacksmoke?
A2) Nope. In fact, thanks to the reviews I got, my plans for Blacksmoke have expanded :) I plan to wrap up all my lose ends from the past and there's four or five left, depending how you count it.
Q3) So about getting to that part we ultimately care about… how much freaking longer?
A3) Well gee, the Big Plot Moment ™ is now over and Prowl is Jazz's arms. How much longer do you think is left?
Q4) Does Jazz really have a flamethrower?
A4) Yup, it is indeed cannon. Marvel comics, 1984, Issue 7.