Dark Dreamer 8: Kneeling Before Primus
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Jazz led Prowl deep underground, down more than a hundred levels below the hidden citadel that was the shadow caste's domain. It was so deep inside the world that it was actually warmer here than on the surface. It was dark too, the rich darkness that came with warmth and a complete lack of any light. Their optics were useless here. Navigation was by memory and secondary senses. Jazz was used to it. Prowl had to work just to follow in his master's pedes and remember the path without any of the usual navigational markers.

They moved in silence, both their systems designed for it and Jazz was not in the processor-space to talk. It was too serious an orn for it.

He could loose Prowl with this.

He really, really didn't want to loose his pet. He was even willing to admit that Prowl was more than a pet now. He was more than a potential agent. He wasn't willing to go so far as to call Prowl his mate, but Prowl mattered to him more than he should.

Yet as much as Jazz didn't want to do this, it was tradition and law. Before he taught Prowl any more, before Prowl was even permitted to remain in the realm any longer, he had to face this.

This ... Jazz shuddered in the privacy of his processors. Even his memories of it were hazy, but they were full of terror, pain and loss. He'd stumbled out of the chamber alive, something that not all managed. Three orns later he'd also been declared functionally sane, a trick not all survivors managed. He remembered being very angry that he hadn't gotten one clue as to what to expect and even angrier at the order not to share anything of his experience with another short of bonding with that mech.

In time he'd come to understand, but he still despised it. He hated sending the least trained of his clade into a death trap. He always put it off as long as he could, as long as he dared, and he grieved every spark he led to their end because of this room.

With Prowl, he almost balked the tradition completely.

In the end though, he couldn't. He's put it off nearly seventy vorns, teaching Prowl everything he dared first. Bringing the mech up to what those separated into the clade knew, or at least as much as he could within medical restrictions. Prowl was as ready as any new mechling of the clade.

It just was that it wasn't saying much, given almost one in twelve didn't make it out of that room intact enough to survive.

Jazz felt his spark quiver as he paused in front of the door that made or broke every mecha of his clade. None left this room unchanged. Those changes enabled them to do what they did. At least that was what jazz had convinced himself of. It wasn't just tradition. Tradition he could do away with. A useful tradition, a needed thing, that he could not.

He felt Prowl stop a half pace behind him and wait, silent, still and patient for instruction. Prowl wasn't afraid. His spark had grown enough that it could usually be teeked at close range if you were trying. Jazz silently admitted to himself that he was more than afraid. He didn't want to loose his pet, his future agent. Replacing him could be the work of a lifetime and Jazz didn't have the time to devote to it.

Steeling himself, Jazz palmed the door open and stepped into the warm, space twenty places by twenty paces for him, carved into pure crystal. Bright white light radiated up from under the floor to shine, reflect and refract from the faceted walls.

"Kneel," Jazz pointed to the center of the floor. Prowl moved with a fluid, silent grace that made Jazz's vents stall every time. He would never tire of seeing this mech kneel at his pedes so willingly. Ice blue optics looked up at him, trusting, so very trusting. Would they still be trusting when this was over? Jazz didn't know. He'd never been able to tell how a mech would be changed by this room.

"Remain in this room until the door opens," Jazz instructed, the words he said to every mecha he brought here. The words his sire, his leader, had said to him so long ago.

"Yes Master," Prowl's smooth vocals rolled over Jazz, soothing his spark for a moment.

It took all of Jazz's will to turn and walk away without another word, touch or look. He couldn't show favoritism. He didn't dare. Not in that room. He wasn't entirely sure why that was so imprinted in his processors, but it was.

Some things weren't to be questioned.

When the door closed behind him, Jazz sank against it, shaking for a moment as he gathered himself to return to the world above and his duties to the greater good.

Prowl remained completely motionless in the center of the crystalline room. His senses alert, his frame relaxed, his systems primed.

He waited.

His chronometer disabled, he did not know how long he held still, ready for anything, expecting nothing, waiting for this test to end. The light was difficult to focus around. It was too bright, the colors and frequencies bouncing every which way. Combined with the crystal walls it made his vision and much of his other electromagnetic based senses ineffective. It even messed with his sensor wings' ability to judge distance.

It was an unnerving kind of blindness, unsettling in many ways, but it did not bother him much. After his early orns in the box, in the cage, in the places that other masters kept him he had acclimated to far worse. There was no compression here, no physical misery, no expectation of pain to come. This was simply ... emptiness.

He knew when he had been still for two orns when his systems shifted into conservation mode, shifting his tac-net to standby along with other energy hungry systems. It did not bother him. While it reduced his reaction time, it was the tactically more sound of the choices he perceived.

His systems cut back two more times, marking the seven orns and sixteen orns respectively. The next reduction would happen in sixteen more orns. In thirty he would fall into stasis.

He was hungry. Very, very hungry.

He knew hunger. Knew this for what it was and exactly what stage of starvation he was at. It didn't bother him.

Deactivation held no fear for him.

~Do you wish to return to me?~ a powerful, warm rumble echoed through Prowl's awareness.

Prowl considered the question, absently curious why he would be hallucinating already, and hallucinating of Primus of all things.

~You do not believe I am real,~ the presence was curious now as well.

Prowl paused again, giving the question his full consideration even though he believed he was hallucinating.

"I do not believe that Primus or Unicron are all powerful, all knowing beings," Prowl eventually answered. "I do not believe that one is good and one is evil. It does not fit the data I have."

~Yet you speak to me as if I am real when you believe I am not.~ There was real curiosity now.

"If you are real, then it is to my benefit to have this conversation," Prowl explained simply, calmly, and without moving more than was required for speech. "If you are not real, then it does little harm at this stage to indulge myself and my subconscious. A point of fact, however. I do not discount the possibility of their existence. I discount the extent of their power."

~You do not believe in gods.~ Amusement flowed from the voice.

"Define what a god is, first," Prowl insisted calmly. "There are many variations. Some are confirmed, others plausible, and some improbable to the ridiculous."

There was a deep rumble of amusement and affection. ~Go to the root glyph for that. Primus. The creator of all Cybertronian life.~

"I do not have an issue with that," Prowl said calmly. "Just as I have no reason to believe."

~There is a thing called faith. You have a very strong core of it.~

Prowl considered that and nodded. "It is not a faith founded in gods, however. I could argue is it less faith and more a choice not to drive myself insane seeking conflict where there may not be any."

~It is faith.~

"So you say," Prowl responded, neither refusing nor accepting the statement.

The presence swirled around him, drawing a soft moan of pleasure from him. ~Who do you serve?~

"Order."

~Primus or Unicron?~

"Order," Prowl insisted, shivering as his armor began to loosen in the next stage of energy conservation. The trillions of microfilaments that secured it to his protoform and fed information back and forth drew a lot of power, but were considered high priority for survival. Higher than the processors. It meant he'd been here for thirty two orns, or the energy equivalent to it.

~Primus or Unicron?~

"Order." Prowl growled back, his very spark flaring to challenge the unacceptable options.

~He's rejected you, brother,~ a new, darker voice chuckled.

~He has rejected you as well,~ the first replied and pressed deeper into the spark that was so fresh from himself. It pressed back, growling and defiant, but also not hiding in the least. It didn't shy from the darkness of the devourer as the second presence jointed the first in pressing against Prowl's awareness and spark for answers.

"I rejected neither," Prowl growled back. "You both know you are the same being, split in two. Creator and destroyer. One can not exist long without the other," he snapped, irritated by them and the statements.

The two presences paused, seeming to regard each other.

~Balance.~ Primus corrected Prowl.

"Urr?" Prowl tried to follow the conversation he was sure he was only hearing part of.

~Balance,~ the brighter one repeated. ~You serve balance. Creation and destruction in equal measure, when things are in balance, or whichever side is needed to bring things into balance.~

Prowl considered that for a long time, his processors having trouble tracking information and correlating it. Yet it did sound correct. It was Order.

~You may return to me, if this function is asking too much of your spark,~ the bright one offered gently. ~I know serving the silver destroyer has already burdened you greatly.~

It took Prowl too long to work out who was being spoken of. "No. I will adapt, or I will return when I cannot. I am not ready to leave him."

~Then gather your strength and return to Master. The door has reopened to the physical world.~

SxSxSxSxSxSxSxSx S===================S SxSxSxSxSxSxSxS

It took everything Jazz had not to react outwardly in the middle of an audience with the Lord Prime, Lord High Protector, six city rulers and a dozen other officials when a small notice popped up on his HUD. A single root glyph with no modifiers.

Success

His pet had walked out of that room. It didn't always mean the mecha would survive, but Jazz was sure that it meant Prowl would. He knew his pet. Prowl had none of the instabilities that triggered madness in the following metacycles. Jazz had. Oh yes, Jazz had them. It was a near thing, his survival. He was still marked and heavily scarred by that experience, even if he couldn't remember much of it.

He diverted some attention from the gathering to watch his pet appear on the first of the cameras in his realm and took in his appearance. The slender mostly black protoform was staggering, using various walls for balance and support as often as he could. Pale blue optics where glowing dim and stress-white. The slender nubs that marked where his chevron attached were the only indication that he had one at all, and the slender limb-like appendages, half the length of Prowl's arms, didn't look anything like the elegant sensor wings they supported.

It took a lot of knowledge to recognize this pathetic, struggling creature as his precious, prodigious pet. In the movements and in his destination were important tells, hints as to what kind of mecha had come out of that room. There were creators and there were destroyers. That much everyone knew. It was the very foundation of their society. What only a few knew, and fewer acknowledged, was that every once in a while a mecha would find a different path from that room. Sometimes these mecha were like Jazz, builders on the outside, destroyers at their core. Others served what Jazz referred to as Stasis, the status quo. Their function focused on making sure things didn't change too much. There were never that many of them, but they were a powerful force within the ranks and often a serious thorn in Jazz's side that he couldn't remove.

Privately Jazz expected Prowl to be a builder. All who craved knowledge the way he did were. They built networks without peer, unstoppable viruses, unbreakable defenses, made plans and designed worlds. It didn't matter what they focused on, they always gathered and built. Jazz had heard that one would be a destroyer now and then, but in his long life he hadn't actually met one. At least to Jazz, Prowl didn't have the spark to be a destroyer. He could be trained to destroy, could likely be taught to enjoy it, but it wasn't in his core makeup.

Prowl's abrupt shift from his unsteady stumble focused more of Jazz's attention inward to watch. These were such critical moments to witness. The protoform, one Jazz knew really had no business moving under its own power at this point, straitened, the protoform wings jerked upwards in something resembling Prowl's more commanding posture and he stalked across the hallway. Jazz could see exactly what had drawn his attention, there was a mecha standing there with energon, chatting with two others, but not why the normally docile, subservient and never-denied-here mech felt the need to posture.

The speakers did what they were supposed to and pretended that the protoform didn't exist. Right up to and including when Prowl snatched the energon cube from his hand. A startled look, carefully focused on his hand, and then it was dropped to his side as he continued to talk with his friends while Prowl gulped the contents down, then continued on his way.

Jazz couldn't help but grin at the fire that little display represented. His pet was maturing into a fine mech.

The track followed Prowl all the way to their quarters and once against Jazz beamed inside. Unarmored, disoriented, his processors mostly off line, badly depleted, a mecha always went to where they felt the most safe. He'd done his job then, convincing Prowl's very spark that those rooms were a haven, a place of safety.

He continued to watch as Prowl slumped against the wall next to the energon dispenser and tapped the codes for medical grade, then settled to wait the few moments it took the device to route and condense and purify flier high grade into something that thin and easy to swallow but concentrated.

Prowl had good survival instincts too.

Jazz could barely wait to get out of this gathering and go greet his pet.