Warnings: Swearing, ideological topics, disturbing imagery.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the plot, and even then there's still some leeway regarding that.

Rating: M

Summary: In an investigation to try and figure out what happened, several 'bots discover that they've only just scratched the surface.

Author's Note: I wish I had the proper amount of free time to respond to every review. It makes me feel like a shithead when I can't individually tell each of you how happy your reviews make me. You guys deserve so much more for being so supportive and encouraging. (You also deserve more frequent updates, but with my schedule, I'm a bit unable to do as such.) Alas, I'm afraid that for now I'll have to address the bulk of them come each new chapter. Thank you Starfire201, Acidgreenflames, Fianna9, iNsAnE nO bAkA, DemonSurfer, renegadewriter8, Richard'sQueen aka LGFS, Sideslip, LucasVN, Amai Seishin-Hime, Shizuka Taiyou, XxArtificalizedxX, Switchgear, Qwikshot, digiwriter1392, and Freezing Inferno.

An extremely large thank you goes to one of my idols here on FF, Ghost of the Dawn, who I shamelessly admit is a big inspiration for me when it comes to Transformers and angsty Prowl-related stories. Your feedback means worlds to me, my dear.

The chapter you're about to read wasn't scheduled until waaaay later. It only got moved up the queue because Jazz got in my face and demanded that he get some lovin'. Or else he'd sic his Special Ops boys on me and hold my flashdrive ransom. Well, you gotta give the mech props for delivery.

Chapter Five: Fine Lines

"You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down."

— Stanislaw Lem

"You ready?"

"Yeah." Jazz sucked in a long draught of air through his vents. "Just do it."

Slowly, Hound stretched out his free hand toward the security lock. From the datapad clutched in his left palm the tracker read off the numbers listed, punching them into the system. Numeral by numeral the locking mechanisms came undone until the last digit was entered. A green light blipped at the top of the keypad as Hound stepped back from the wall. With a bell-like ping the locks on the door released.

Password accepted. Welcome, Autobot Prowl.

Jazz's fists clenched until his fingers left shallow gouges in his palm.

"Well," Hound sighed, "let's see what we can find."

Both mechs briefly swapped a glance before the green tracker palmed the silver panel. At his touch the door hissed open, sliding at a painfully slow pace, it seemed, as if the room was in no hurry to relinquish all of its secrets. Without waiting for orders Steeljaw darted between his legs, jaws already parted to inhale residual particles clinging to the air. Of all of Blaster's symbiotes the golden feline was the most adept at tracking, able to draw in scents decacycles old and isolate them into separate strains, to be contrasted against an impressive databank of odors and textures he had recorded over his lifetime.

It was what qualified the lion for this task.

In comparison, Hound's own frame was outfitted with a wide array of mods that he'd collected. One such feature was his optics, stylized with refined magnification, infrared vision, and nocturnal lenses. Prior to the war, the green scout had nurtured a secret ambition of gaining access to the spacebridges that dotted the galaxy in hopes of exploring organic worlds. The thought of making planetfall on some uncharted world sent a thrill through his circuits like nothing ever could—not because he was interested in the scientific slag like Perceptor was. What called to him was the journey into the unknown, the trek through foreign terrains teeming with life that no optics had ever seen before. The danger, the adventure, the excitement—the stuff of sparkling recharge stories.

After the fall of the Golden Age, however, spacebridge maintenance had fallen into disarray, forcing spacefarers to rely solely on stellar ships equipped for long trips into the void. With the technology fell Hound's dream, a thought that made him sigh. Accompanying the bitter disappointment were several decacycles of sulking as he had deliberated what to do with the upgrades he had spent centuries—fragging centuries!—saving up for.

One of the many benefits of this war, I suppose, he mused in a grim sort of humor as he adjusted a gauntlet on his wrist. As the setting recalibrated he slanted a look toward the room. The necessity of gaining the upper hand had made Hound the perfect candidate for venturing into enemy territory—an apt candidate for both Special Ops and Search and Rescue. Overnight his precious exploration mods had been transformed into dark instruments of sabotage and recon.

A necessary sacrifice.

And while the forest-green mech certainly had no qualms about helping his faction, he still clung stubbornly to the hope of one day restoring his equipment to its former purpose.

His gear was what qualified him so well for the job laid out in front of him. His presence was also needed for a different reason: to keep their Third-in-Command from falling apart.

Jazz was shifting his weight between his pedes, gauging the darkened quarters with a hint of trepidation. Originally the saboteur had volunteered because, "I know what his quarters look like, so I can pick out anythin' if it's amiss." Though as he watched his superior deep breathe, Hound couldn't help but wonder why Jazz had lied his way into an investigation he was clearly unprepared for.

Once the scanners had finished booting Hound turned his full attention to his friend. The black-white mech was trembling faintly. One hand was digging into his arm. Meanwhile, Jazz's helm was bowed. An unintelligible mutter left him, and at that Hound paused in his actions. By the sounds of it, Jazz was giving himself a pep-talk.

Unable to help himself, the green tracker reached out a hand, resting it on Jazz's shoulder and effectively stopping his tremors. Hierarchy be damned, just because this was an official assignment didn't mean that he couldn't comfort his superior!

However, the contact seemed to put his friend's mind to a certain decision. Steeling himself, the Third-in-Command lifted his chin ever so slightly, mouthplates going into a tight line. His shoulder blades rolled free of Hound's touch, gentle yet firm. With his Special Ops mask firmly in place, he took a few steps forward and advanced into Prowl's quarters, but not before his EMF reached out to Hound's. Their spark resonances brushed, a non-lingering feel that said more than words ever could:

Thank you.

Hound gave a brief nod. With a last exhale the green mech gathered his courage and entered the room. No sooner had the door slid shut behind him did a brilliant blue visor illuminate the gloom, along with a pair of slanted optics nearly ground-level. As he moved about the space, something caught him around the ankle, nearly sending Hound stumbling.

"Lights on," the saboteur rasped from somewhere nearby, and at once the room brightened. Instinctively Hound filtered his optics to a setting more compatible with the brightness, and as his vision adjusted, he found himself confused by his surroundings.

This wasn't what he had been expecting.

Whatever misconceptions he'd held about the SIC were disproved as he gazed about the wreckage. Datapads were strewn across the floor, some with cracked screens, others neglected in the corner or under furniture. Two or three cubes also littered the ground, one with a sickly blue-pink slime oozing out of the corner of the shattered glass. Aside from the paperwork recklessly tossed about the room, a nearby filing cabinet had one of its drawers ajar. The extra work desk that had apparently migrated into Prowl's room over time had gouges in the metal in the shape of claws and digits.

"Damn," Jazz swore, loudly and shakily, jolting Hound out of his daze. Glass and metal crunched beneath his pedes as the Special Ops officer knelt next to the desk legs. "What th' slag is all of this?"

If you wanted my guess, I'd say that Prowl has been severely unhinged for some time, Steeljaw offered from the nearby berth. Unsheathed claws scratched the floor as the symbiote jumped down. Not meaning any offense, but metaphorically speaking, his room is as unstable as his mind.

Hound's shoulders slumped a fraction. "No offense taken, 'Jaw," he reassured the lion, before Jazz could get any words out. As his trained optic took inventory of the wreckage, he felt his spark sink in dismay. Where to begin…?

"Well?" When Jazz flashed a distracted look in his direction, he prompted, not unkindly, "What do you want us to do?"

For a klik the black-and-white mech merely stared back, obviously lost in his thoughts. Just as Hound decided to repeat his question Jazz snapped back to reality. Gears whirred as he rose from his crouch, servos firmly rested over his hipjoints as he surveyed the quarters. Some obscure emotion flickered across his visor, too brief for the emerald 'bot to identify. Briskly Jazz ordered, "You an' I are gonna divide th' room between us. Start by takin' pictures; touch nothing until you've got it all mapped out. Once you've got them saved on a secure file, comb through everything. Look at th' contents of each datapad, an' mark it. Especially anything that don' belong. I want t' collect them for further analysis on a later date."

Beneath the professional demeanor Hound thought he heard a faint waver.

What exactly classifies as out-of-place in this context? inquired Steeljaw. The platinum-gold feline curled his lips at the aged contents of a spilled Energon cube. Voicing what Hound had already thought, Steeljaw continued, This entire room looks like it doesn't belong. Are you sure these aren't someone else's quarters, and we walked in by mistake?

Jazz's stare hardened. "My best friend has been livin' in here for vorns. Trust me; it's his. Which reminds me…Steeljaw, I want ya t' scan th' room for paint samples, armor chips, perhaps chemical spills. Doesn't matter. Jus' keep an ear an' optic open."

Tall order, remarked the lion under his breath. With a polite dip of his muzzle, he acknowledged, Very well, and started bobbing his maned helm along the floor. Well, you ought to know right off the bat that someone has been in here recently. Within the last seven days, if I had to hazard a guess.

"What?" Hound swung his head sharply in the symbiote's direction. "How can you tell?"

Once sure that he had both Autobots' undivided attention, Steeljaw proceeded to prod the debris with an outstretched paw. Cybertronian respiratory systems, as you well know, are designed to cycle air in order to regulate internal temperatures. Airborne particles like dust also are constantly filtered through our vents. When a space has been unoccupied for some time, the air stagnates and the dust settles due to a lack of circulation. To demonstrate his point, he gestured toward a filmy layer of grime settled across the nearest upturned chair. However—bunching his hindlegs, the cat sprang onto the computer terminal atop the desk—if you look here, you'll see that the keyboard is spot-free. Disturbed. Meaning…

"Meaning that someone's been in here while Prowl took his team to Kaon," the tracker concluded darkly. He aimed his furrowed brow in Jazz's direction. "Did anyone else know Prowl's password?"

Between gritted denta the black-and-white growled, "No. He changed his PIN every decacycle, an' always right before he went out on missions. No one 'cept for Prime an' th' Security Director had access to th' entry codes for th' barracks. Mech was always meticulous 'bout that sort of slag; I mean, Pit, I wasn't even…"

With a choked noise in the back of his throat he trailed off.

Needless to say, Hound got the gist. "Well," the scout gathered, "perhaps we should see what was of such interest to our interloper." Although having a course of action helped give him a direction to go in, it did little to settle the churning feeling in his tanks. If someone had recently seen the overwhelming evidence of Prowl's mental instability, then why didn't the 'bot come forward and say something? Anyone who took one glance at the wreck could tell that something was clearly off, and while suicide wasn't at the top of that list, the uncharacteristic throw-about certainly warranted an investigation.

If the intruder had reported this orns ago, could Prowl's suicide attempt have been prevented?

No point in dwelling on the what-ifs. They still had a job to do.

So, it was with moderate difficulty that Hound tore himself away from those disturbing thoughts and carefully circled around the desk. Despite the careful measures he took to sidestep the mess, scattered steel and shards warped and crunched underfoot. All of the additional sounds of breaking sent a thrill through his neural net, like the extra noise was forbidden by some unspoken law. It only seemed to heighten their purpose, their reason for being here.

Steeljaw made himself scarce, leaping onto the nearest wall-mounted shelf behind the terminal as Jazz settled into the desk chair. Hound studied the translucent screen, which booted up at the visored mech's touch. He inwardly prepared himself for the tediously long amount of time needed for code breaking, but was just as surprised as his companions to find the computer's documents already displayed on the screen. Whoever had last used the machine obviously didn't expect anyone else to come snooping.

Or didn't care, his CPU helpfully supplied.

Together, the trio peered closer.

Displayed on the screen were several recent monetary transactions. All of them showed huge sums of credits recently transferred to other accounts—Smokescreen's, the Autobots' collective funds—with a significant decrease in Prowl's. According to the banking statement at the bottom of the screen, the tactician's account had been completely drained, and by none other than himself.

For several moments, no one spoke.

"I—" At first, Jazz's words were so static-laden that Hound could barely make out anything intelligible. Forcibly the TIC swallowed, causing the tightened cables in his throat to seize. "I don' get it. Why would he go an' flush his savings like that?"

Perhaps, said Steeljaw, in a delicate murmur, Ratchet's previous theory about Prowl's self-deactivation being spontaneous was incorrect?

Jazz glanced over his broad shoulders and fixed the little lion beneath his caustic gaze. "Are ya suggestin' that it was premeditated?"

Simultaneously rising to the symbiote's defense and trying to calm his friend, Hound held up his servos, palms out. "Any speculation at this point is fair game. We don't know, Jazz. He's been hiding this well for some time. Unless Prowl comes forward and says it, then we've got to consider the evidence. I mean, why else would he transfer his credits if he wasn't planning on—"

"Alright, alright!" the Third snapped. "I get it." Abruptly he pushed the chair back and rose. "I'm gonna start seein' what's on those slates."

Without another word he stalked across the room and started to scrounge amongst the datapads.

Momentarily the golden Autobot swapped a pitying look with Hound. Likewise Steeljaw hopped to the floor and set about the task of cataloging his finds.

Resignation and despair weighed down on the tracker's spark as he set to photographing the opposite side of the ruined quarters. Even as his hands stayed occupied with sorting through the various possessions, his processor betrayed him. It strayed back to the owner of the items that he was now rummaging through as if they were part of a clearance bin.

Prowl.

While Hound had never been particularly close to his superior officer, he respected Prowl. The doorwinger was polite, attentive, and honest, always seeking the most efficient option that had the lowest probability for failure. While they weren't the best of chums, Hound liked him well enough. Unfortunately, that lack of friendship many claimed was forged by Prowl's general lack of common ground shared with the ranks. Never mind how his personality traits lent themselves badly to his strict reputation. Like the socialite he was, Hound was guilty of having contributed to the rumors about their Second-in-Command, be it during shifts or while chatting amicably with his peers in the rec room. Most of the rumors were exaggeration, aided by Prowl's cloistered personality.

Now joining those cruel rumors was the debate of who was to blame for all of this.

Blame.

Was that all they cared about?

Truth be told, he didn't know who caused it. Only that lately so many pinned the blame to Prowl's antisocial tendencies. Everyone said he was obsessive and withdrawn. Cold-sparked. Unfeeling.

But now, as Hound dug through glass splinters and broken memories, he found himself reconsidering. Maybe that was the only way their Second-in-Command knew how to show passion and devotion for his work.

And wasn't he just as passionate about the things he loved?

A deep pang of guilt struck him.

The possessions scattered about the room belonged to a mech he had never bothered to get to know. Would he even have that opportunity again?

"I found something!"

Seconds later Hound was on his feet and hastening to Jazz's side. As the green Cybertronian settled next to him his optics strayed toward the datapad in Jazz's hands. Words were typed across the screen, with the Autobot symbol placed at the bottom of the margin.

Slowly, Jazz rasped, "It's a letter. Look."

Hound looked.

To the family of the deceased:

We regret to inform you that Autobot Javelin was killed on the morning of

Following that was an empty space where the incomplete letter ended. Below was a list of names. With a sickening lurch the tracker recognized them as the designations of the mechs and femmes who had perished on the failed mission to Kaon not even five days ago.

Burnout, Hawkeye, Torque, Rivet, Magnet Rise, Pressure Point, Backlash, Quartz, Compass

Unable to go on looking, Hound tore his optics away. A full-body shudder followed.

"Th' timestamp is late," the saboteur murmured. Armor shifted as he settled from a kneel to a crouch. "Prowl was supposed t' have these filled out an' sent right after th' debriefin'. Guess he never got around t' it." A low noise left the back of his throat as he reached for another datapad on the ground. "Got this, too. It's a list of th' upcomin' operations for th' next few decacycles. But that ain't what caught my optic. It's what Prowl put in th' margin—bunch of rhetoric, as far as I can tell."

True to his words, as Hound accepted and read over the mission statements, he found in Prowl's tidy scrawl additional information. Statistics. Percentages. Probabilities. All of them detailing the failure rate for each team being sent out. Coupled with the data were equations and frantically-written footnotes, with at least dozens of alterations made to the upcoming missions, each one aimed at trying to reduce those odds. Judging by the angry scribble made by the stylus, Prowl had no success.

Finally Hound handed it back to Jazz, who immediately subspaced the evidence. No words were needed to describe the obvious. Feeling a tad more helpless than before, the green mech rose and crossed back over to his side of the room, where he resumed moving amongst the overturned clutter. While some of the datapads were blank, one or two matched Jazz's earlier find, with more statistics about Energon regulation and casualty amounts from the medbay.

As he lifted his helm to suggest that they regroup, a metallic glint caught his eye. Hidden in the shadowy recesses of the room, the shiny object was barely noticeable from where it poked out of the rim of the waste receptacle. After a brief stall he moved across the room toward it.

Deft hands dug into the trash bin and extracted what looked like several chunks of fractured gold. Surprise coursed through Hound as he turned the broken lumps over in his hands. Gold, while not as rare as Cybertanium, wasn't exactly an abundant resource on their planet. So what was it doing chucked in the trash?

What exactly is this supposed to be, anyway? he mused. Several sides of the ore were smooth and expertly crafted, as if they had a distinct purpose. Yet as the tracker studied the unnatural cuts on the gold, he couldn't place any sort of function to them.

That was, until his thumb brushed over one of the smooth sides and found an indentation.

Spark thudding, he hastily turned the mineral over and peered keenly at it. Engraved into its surface were several Cybertronian glyphs, cut off from where the gold had obviously broken apart:

—in recognition of an outstanding act of—

Understanding dawned.

Adrenaline pounded through his fuel lines, numbing him. As if his hands had a mind of their own, Hound set to work, barely able to control the shaking racing down his arms as the golden chunks were placed on the ground. Like a puzzle, piece by piece he arranged them until the fracture lines fit together, forming ugly scars against the once pristine and immaculate surface. Within seconds the pieces were refitted on the flat floor into a pentagram star. The words on the individual pieces at last came together:

The Praxian Department of Security Response
proudly presents this award to
Enforcer Prowl
in recognition of an outstanding act of bravery
with no regard to self or personal safety,
with great individual courage,
and with absolute devotion
that went beyond the call of duty

Awed, he could only rock back on his heels and stare.

Klik by klik, the realization began to set in. As it did—as his so very undeserving, unworthy hand reached out and touched the award—something inside Hound refused to accept what he was seeing. The tracker's mouth worked to form something other than white noise and static, struggled to piece his disbelief together.

Why would he throw something like this away?

Just as the words bubbled up from his throat, Steeljaw materialized in front of the small entryway connecting Prowl's main quarters to his private washracks.

Jazz, Hound, the lion called. His tail twitched. You need to see this.

With a dreamlike slowness Jazz obeyed and entered the side room. A second alter a low, ominous keen ricocheted off the walls. Fear had his pedes grudgingly, unwilling moving across the space to where Steeljaw sat guard outside of the private washroom. He didn't even bother trying to brace himself for what he might find.

And as Hound bounded into the room and stopped, he realized how fruitless it would have been.

Pools of sickly blue, green-tinged Energon coated the tiled floor beneath the spigot where it hadn't yet seeped through the drain. Merged with the more recent spatter of foul fluids were dried stains of bright sapphire Energon. Below the nozzle embedded in the wall was a shallow slash mark, likely made by some sort of—

His spark skipped a beat.

By some sort of blade.

Jazz was bracing his weight against the tiled wall with one hand, evidently finding it hard to support himself, even for appearance's sake. Light flashed with laser-point brightness, as if the processor behind the visor was working overtime to keep up with the onslaught of information.

Vomit, announced Steeljaw. His jaws parted as he prowled toward the edge of the spill and sniffed. With each inhale the pore-like sensors beneath his muzzle gave a weak illumination. Color and composition give it away. Raw Energon that's consumed is denser because the tanks haven't broken it down yet. It's thicker and takes longer to dissipate, hence why… His lips curled at the rancid odor wafting up from the spill. Hence why it's still here, even all these orns later.

Nausea wreaked havoc on his frame. "Does that mean he's been intentionally purging?" Hound asked, while at the same time backing away a few feet from the vile.

"No." The single syllable sounded stripped of all emotion. "Ratchet said…Ratchet said that Prowl hasn't been refuelin' for a while. His body probably started t' cannibalize th' internals. More'n likely, every time he tried t' eat, his systems rejected th' Energon 'cause he was so malnourished." As Jazz trailed off, his servo went to the wall, tracing one of the dried azure tarnishes.

"So he's been coming in here to—to puke?" Unbidden, the mental image of Prowl hunched over in the stall and retching into the drains crossed Hound's mind. It sickened him.

Steeljaw shuffled his paws. If my scans are reading correctly, that isn't all that he did in here.

Neither mech asked him to elaborate, so the cassette continued, his vocalizer tinged with something more than his usual aloof personality: The lighter blue stains aren't from his tanks.

Ice ran through his pumps at the lion's next words:

They're from his fuel lines.

Jazz was running from the room before the final word had slipped from Steeljaw's lips.

Acting on his years of training, Hound whirled around and darted out of the washracks, the symbiote hard on his heels. Upon reentering the main quarters they found Jazz on the floor, his upper torso wedged beneath the tactician's berth. His frame stretched, joints popping and twisting as he reached deeper under the ironwrought frame.

What are you doing? Steeljaw exclaimed.

Instead of replying, the saboteur dug deeper under the berth, his systems straining from the exertion. When the lion made to repeat his question, he was cut off by Jazz's barely-intelligible grunt: "…it's in here…no other place that bastard would hide it…"

Armor expanded and heaved one last time before the Third backed out, cycling air hard. Following his helm as it cleared the underside was a padlocked titanium box.

The lion inched closer to Hound and emitted a deep growl.

And that is? Steeljaw inquired warily.

Jazz clenched his jaw. "A safe. His safe." Skilled hands that had disarmed dozens of bombs flitted over the keypad. Knowing Prowl, the encryption would probably be difficult to hack. Hound was already anticipating several possible algorithms to test against the lock. But before he could speak the black-and-white mech had already typed in a password. His vents refused to circulate as he watched the safe.

Waiting.

A pneumatic hiss creaked out from the lock. Like the room, the safe seemed reluctant to cough up whatever it was hiding beneath its chrome-colored surface. One by one the locking mechanisms released, each harsh click unnaturally loud in the silent room. At last, the crease along the lid gave a parting click and the box ticked open by a wire's breadth.

Oddly enough, Hound felt calm. His faceplates shifted into a neutral frown. Casting a sideways glance at Jazz, he murmured, "You already knew the combination, didn't you."

It wasn't a question.

When Jazz tried to exhale, his vents hitched, like something was caught in the gears. "T' serve an' protect. Old Enforcer motto." Black fingers reached out, shaking so violently that for a heartbeat the TIC almost didn't manage to grasp the lid. With the way he was tensing one would think that the world was coming to an end.

For Jazz, it probably was.

The need to do something overwhelmed Hound. On impulse his hand shot out, wrapping around the saboteur's wrist. Once his friend's hands stilled, softly, the tracker asked, "Do ya want me to…?"

A firm nod no. "Don' matter who does. Gotta know if it's in here…"

Just as Steeljaw demanded, What exactly is "it"? Jazz curled his digits around the rim and opened the safe.

It wasn't empty.

Lying atop several holoframe photos was the wicked rim of a blade. Slickened across the handle and razor's edge was a crusted, dark blue-black film of dried Energon. The item Prowl had utilized before to carve up his own protoform.

Cybertronians, technically speaking, couldn't suffocate. They weren't dependent on oxygen. They didn't have to breathe. Yet as Hound peered down at the sinister-looking weapon, it felt like a heavy pressure was crushing his chest.

Neither mech nor the symbiote moved. Hysteria was closing its fangs tighter around the group the longer they took in the blade and everything it stood for. Desperate to escape the panic he was sure one of them was about to descend into, Hound took charge.

"Tungsten carbide," the tracker observed as he gingerly plucked the blade out of the safe. Even in his handling he fought the urge to cringe, to toss it across the room, to blast it until it was nothing more than a pile of molten slag—as if by destroying it, the dark history behind it would vanish, too. Flakes of dried Energon—Prowl's Energon—peeled off the metal and settled onto his hand and the floor. Biting back the gag he could feel forming, Hound wasted no time in subspacing it. "This isn't a custom blade. More than likely it belongs in the armory. Ironhide's probably looking for it."

Don't you need to fill out a form to obtain supplies that valuable? Steeljaw pointed out. Back and forth his tail lashed, hackles raised as he glared.

His frown hitched farther down on his face. "Not officers. So long as they know the access code, they can take whatever they want, as long as it's returned."

None too subtly the lion remarked, Perhaps someone should look into changing that. With a snort Steeljaw shook his mane and began pacing toward the door. I don't know about either of you, but I think we got what we came for. Unless there is a valid reason why we should persist here a moment longer, then I want to leave. His deceptive stretch barely masked the tremor than traveled down the length of his spine. I…I think I'll take Blaster up on his offer, and listen to that download he acquired the other night. Not bothering to wait for their responses, he bounded out of the room.

Watching the sleek symbiote leave, he was reminded of how even more stoic personalities like Steeljaw's suffered the slings and arrows, too, even if they didn't always show it. With a final scan of the grim quarters Hound relented: "'Jaw's right. We did our job. Let's go."

It was only after he took four steps did he realize that Jazz hadn't moved.

Puzzled as to what had his friend stalling, the forest-green scout backtracked. Only the backside of the black-and-white's helm and spine were visible to him. Legs firmly tucked beneath him, Jazz continued to kneel in front of the safe. Curious as to what had his attention, the tracker crouched down behind him and peered over his shoulder.

Held tightly within his viselike grip was a holoframe, unburied from the recesses of the safe. Gazing up from the portrait was a group of mechs, crowded in front of a large stadium from the outside. Behind the group was a brilliant blend of rich, pristine starry sky, and vibrant neon lights from the building in the background. While a paint-flecked crowd jostled in the back of the picture, two black-and-white mechs occupied the front, their armor colors reversed. The visored 'bot had an arm slung around his friend's shoulder, beaming at the camera like he was king of the world. His companion—not so much. The doorwinger was slumped over a little, though he managed to give the photographer a frown that wasn't as disgruntled-looking as Hound imagined it would be.

"Th' first an' last concert Prowl ever agreed t' go to with me," Jazz explained. The sentence came out as a whisper, as if he was afraid that speaking too loudly would disturb the 'bots in the picture. "Th' band was a group called Nebula Five. Nice blend of genres. We got good seats; front row, as a matter of fact. It was all instrumental music. We chose them specifically because Prowl said he couldn't stand 'those uncouth two-piston screamers' that I liked t' hear. He said that he didn't like th' concert, 'cause they weren't t' his taste. But th' next day I caught him hummin' along t' one of their songs while he was filin' paperwork."

Not sure how to respond to that, Hound said nothing.

The saboteur huffed out a deep sigh that caught halfway through, turning into a dry sob. "He's one of my best friends, Hound. People always say, 'Why do ya put up with him? He's an aft,' but that's 'cause they don't know him. All they ever see is a rule book an' a one-way ticket t' th' brig. But no one ever bothered t' see beyond th' chevron. No one knew him." The conviction in his words was accompanied by a squeeze so hard that he nearly cracked the holoframe. "An' no 'bot ever had a better friend than him."

"He'll be alright," soothed Hound, not really sure what else to say. He only hoped that the monochromatic mech wouldn't see how little faith he placed in his own words. "You're a good friend to him. Prowl's lucky to have you."

Without warning Jazz's head whipped around. All of the agonized hurt and trauma burned through the glass, so powerful that Hound could feel his gaze like a physical blow. When he at last spoke, his voice was saturated with self-loathing. "I ain't a good friend if I let him try t' kill himself. And Prowl would have been better off if we had never met."

Author's Note: Something that I remembered while reading Ghost of the Dawn's comments is that my story, strictly speaking, isn't entirely G1. Most of its influences are borrowed from G1, but some of the characters' designs, plot points, and backstories are either from other continuities or are my own twisted ideas. G1 just seemed like the best heading at the time. So I'll probably need to go back and repost this as "G1 AU."

Another thing: If you think that there's something that can be done to improve the story, don't hesitate to point out mistakes! I won't be offended if you give me a little nudge and say, "Hey, Alex, there's a typo in paragraph four…" or "You might want to change the wording here, it reads a bit awkwardly." I also know that I have a tendency to be long-winded, sadly. I've been told that by more than one person, so letting me know will help me break that bad habit! c:

Coming up next: Chapter Six: Friction