This chapter is probably one of the hardest chapters I have ever had to write for this story. I've been brewing on it for weeks now. Months. I wanted to get everything just right. It's been written and rewritten. Tweaked and fiddled and changed and adjusted. The whole project nearly drove me insane! But finally, finally, the chapter is finished. I've never been so relieved in my life. *sighs in relief*

To all of my reviewers who have been so kind in showing their love for this story, this chapter is totally for you! I mean it- you guys are my inspiration, my reason for continuing, my reminder that this story is just sitting here, begging to be written for. My greatest thanks to Kai-Chan94, BoredTech, FoghornLeghorn83, Gatekat, , Fiera Sabre, PrancingTiger86, phoebe turner, Sergeant Duck, Christina, Lecidre, renegadewriter8, CNightJoy, Optimus Bob, Gimme-Chan, JenEvan, lastditch, curse-of-the-cat, Vivienne Grainger, DramaStar-Mel, Bluebird Soaring, Faecat, lady tecuma, Peacewish, Eerie Iri, starrose25, chloo, Geiera, Muffing, Shizuka Taiyou, chaitea16, Anasazi Darkmoon, and Swedish Dragon. You all are too kind~

I hope you all enjoy! Review to spread the love~ ^_^

Chapter 13

Jazz lounged to his own content on the long bench set up on the outskirts of the training range. He lay fully across the whole surface, one leg bent at the knee while the other dangled over the edge, swinging back and forth nonchalantly. Crossing his arms behind his head, he shifted around until he was comfortable. Prowl, he knew, would never dare be late for anything in his life, so he wouldn't have long to wait. A few breems, at most.

Waiting for Prowl to heal completely had not been an easy thing. Time did not pass as quickly as it did when Jazz was having fun tormenting his tactician. As a matter of fact, time apparently liked to slow down to the point that it felt like it was going backwards whenever Jazz found himself in the presence of someone other than Prowl, a condition that had happened more often than not as the mech recovered. There were very few available bots who measured up to the same intellectual standard- not that Jazz was much surprised by that reality. That's the way it had always been, with everyone around him always being slower, less interesting, and never very entertaining; only now, the condition was becoming irritating.

Not to mention trying to fit into his new function as the Autobot's consultant was very much like trying to wear armour built for someone else. It didn't suit him at all. It didn't fit. He wasn't about to admit defeat, and he refused to fail at anything, but damn if trying to be someone he was not didn't bother the slag out of him.

As Jazz pondered his current circumstances, he was forced to admit a small consolation for the arrangements- being that everyone was uncomfortable with his new position of power. Even the ones who had voted for him were a tiny bit antsy, with the exception of Blackhawk, who remained odd in Jazz's opinion. As far as Jazz was concerned, he hadn't been given much reason to like the Autobots, nor was he inclined to try liking them under any circumstances, and the same could be said for their opinions of him. Mirage, by far, was the most vocal about his opinions.

His reprieves from the bombardment of idiocy, annoyance, dislike, distrust, and irritation were far and few between. Sparring with the twins helped wean off the itch of excess energy that constantly crawled beneath his armour. Using Firestar for her ex-pleasure bot talents scratched an itch of a different kind. Unfortunately, Ratchet had barred him from his fondest outlet; Prowl, according to the medic, needed rest in order to heal. Also according to the medic, any visit with Jazz, no matter how brief, was not a restful thing.

So Jazz had been restricted to breaking into the med bay in the dark of night in order to steal an illicit joor or two with Prowl. Not that they did much. Sometimes Prowl recharged and Jazz sat there, using the time to think. Other times, Prowl was online and they talked about things that didn't mean much. Somehow, that was enough.

Thankfully, the inconvenience (and secret enjoyment) of seeking Prowl out in the middle of the night in order to have intelligent company with competent mental capabilities had finally come to an end. Ratchet had deemed Prowl fit for light duty, releasing to his own quarters and allowing him back into the main populace of Iacon. And that left Jazz free to live up to the promise he had made to the mech to help him with his little problem- a promise he was currently in the process of making good on.

Nearby, the door to the range hissed open.

Jazz cracked open an optic, smirking. "Right on time," he called just as the storm-grey tactician came into view.

"There is no sense in being late," Prowl replied, exempting a real greeting.

Jazz smirked. "Are ya sayin' being late is only for the senseless?"

"You would know," Prowl said, almost teasing. He cast his gaze around the training range, and then noted Jazz's pose on the bench. It wasn't a deliberate pose, but certainly one that showcased the saboteur's handsome frame. Prowl cocked an optic ridge at the mech. "I hope you don't mean this as some misguided seduction, because I can think of at least ten other locations much more suited for the task."

Jazz laughed, swinging around to sit up and then popped to his feet in one graceful movement. "If Ah was seducing ya, you'd already be mine," he said with utmost confidence. "But good ta know where your thoughts are. Ah'll keep it in mind for future reference."

"That was not an invitation," Prowl informed, though his mouthplates hinted at that rare almost-smile he sometimes wore.

Jazz put a hand to his spark as if hurt. "Aw, now ya just had ta go an' disappoint meh."

"I am sure you'll get over it," replied the tactician.

"Ah don't know- you're an awfully hard mech ta forget," Jazz laughed, and it was the same handsome sound Prowl had heard in the med bay several nights prior. Jazz laughed a lot more often like that, even if he didn't mean to.

"I could say the same of you," Prowl said. He said it in such a way that Jazz couldn't decide if the mech trying to be humorous or merely pointing out a fact. The tactician turned away before Jazz could choose which option he liked better. With a nonchalant air, Prowl examined every detail of the cavernous room they were in- one of the largest rooms available in Iacon, as large as a stadium though it was far more plain in comparison. Nothing appeared out of place. No equipment was set up. None of the holographic projectors were on.

Standing well behind the tactician, Jazz enjoyed a moment of watching the Autobot's back as he tried to figure out what was happening. The saboteur could almost feel the intensity with which the tactician was thinking. The metal wings jutting from Prowl's back twitched, a comical contrast to the tactician's normally stoic demeanour.

Sensing Jazz's attention, Prowl turned over his shoulder. "What do you have planned for this session?"

"If Ah told ya, that would ruin the surprise," Jazz admonished, wagging a finger.

"When it comes to you, I find it best to avoid all surprises when possible," Prowl said.

"Flatterer," Jazz teased. He glided over to the control panel and connected to it via his interface cable. He downloaded the program he had been working on for the last couple of orns. In astroseconds, the holographic projectors hummed to life. A grid of light fell across the room, and then everything became a basic whitewash. From that, the intended images took shape.

The room that formed was a spacious octagon, larger than an average room, though smaller than the training range itself. There was a raised dais in the middle thickly padded with hard mats; plenty of room lay between the dais and the towering walls surrounding it. Enough room for a small audience, or for bots to carry out their exercises without fear of knocking into the mats or walls. The walls themselves were composed of black and copper panels, each polished to mirror-like perfection. Ancient scrawling symbols curled their way through the metal; Prowl would not be able to read the writing, but Jazz could. A high ceiling above plated in polished copper drew up into a sharp peak; a skylight of specially cut crystal began halfway up the cone, letting in shattered holographic sunlight, leaving the room well lit.

Weapons of various shapes and sizes hung on display. Colourful banners proclaiming tournament victories fluttered gently in the programmed breeze drifting through the room. Had holograms been capable of reproducing scent, Jazz would have programmed in the unusual scent that had always clung to everything- a sweetness that was both omnipresent and haunting. Sometimes the room stank of it.

Once the hologram finished loading, a room of austere power came into focus.

"Know the place?" Jazz asked as he disconnected from the control panel. He came to Prowl's side, allowing the hologram to complete the eighth wall behind him, hiding the last vestige of the Autobot training room they were standing in.

Prowl peered around at his surroundings in careful scrutiny. "I know this is a dojo, but not which specific one. It is unlike the one I trained under Yokétron in."

The saboteur nodded. "This is where Ah trained, actually."

Prowl's surprise was visible before he hid it behind his usual neutral façade. "It is a very nice dojo. You must have been very fortunate to train here."

A hard, bitter smirk curved Jazz's mouthplates. "Yeah, Ah was real fortunate." He let that comment hang in the air for a moment, knowing that Prowl would not enquire further. Cycling air through his vents, he then gestured to the padded dais. "Might as well start; get up in there."

"I thought you were going to teach me to control my emotions, not spar with me," said the tactician, leaning back instead of moving forward. "I am not averse to expanding my circuit-su training, but not now."

"The room's for inspiration, not sparring," Jazz informed, walking over and gracefully leaping up. He turned and stared down at his would-be student, visor retracted. "Ya want mah help or what?"

Prowl pursed his mouthplates, quickly following the saboteur up. "Why are there no ropes around the ring?"

Jazz shrugged. "Xerxia, mah master- she believed that if ya made a mistake, ya should pay for it." He gestured vaguely in the air. "If ya fragged up in the ring, ya deserved ta get thrown ta the floor."

Prowl frowned. "One should be able to learn from their mistakes, not be punished for them."

"Yeah, well, ya learnt real quick around here or else." Jazz circled around the edges of the mats. His head tingled as he recalled how many times he'd been dropped on it as a youngling. He could almost imagine Xerxia breezing in, calling for him to begin another 'lesson'. A brief feeling of nausea passed through him. His unintended distraction was enough for Prowl to notice it.

"Are you all right?" wondered the tactician.

Jazz snapped out of his reverie, disgusted with himself to be affected at all. "Ah'm fine." He pointed to the centre of the ring. "Sit there."

This time, Prowl did not question him; he stepped into the center of the ring and sat down, correctly assuming a pose taught to all circuit-su trainees for meditation.

"Huh," Jazz said, staring for a short bit.

Prowl looked up, blinking curiously. "Is this not what you wanted?"

"It is, Ah just… wasn't expectin'ya ta do it so easily." Without saying anything more, Jazz walked over, slid to the mats, and mirrored Prowl's pose.

"Have you ever done this with anyone else before?" Prowl suddenly asked. "Trained them, I mean."

"Ah've always been a bit of a loner," Jazz shrugged. "Never really thought of helpin' anyone before; never seemed worth it, ya know? Besides, Ah've never been in the frame of mind ta be able ta help anyone before."

"True," Prowl agreed. "Until recently, you were delusional and dangerously unstable."

Jazz paused, frowned, and then nodded.

Prowl's hand moved, almost as if he meant to reach out to pat Jazz's, but he jerked to a halt before he moved far. "I said you were delusional, Jazz- past tense. You're not who you used to be."

"Ah know," Jazz murmured, and he almost pointed out that it was because of Prowl. A much larger part of himself still rebelled against admitting such a thing. He met Prowl's gaze in the brief silence that fell between them, and Jazz was suddenly aware that he did not need to say anything to Prowl over the matter- he was already perfectly aware of it.

They blinked and looked away, refusing to say anything to each other in case it spurred them to say something that they could never take back.

"So," Prowl suddenly intoned after he decided the silence had stretched on long enough. "How do you plan to help me?"

"Ah was thinkin' of tryin' ta teach ya ta control your emotions the same way Ah was taught," Jazz admitted. "Just go through the same training methods, things like that. Ya obviously didn't get ta complete your training or else ya wouldn't be havin' these kinds of problems, Ah wouldn't think. Ah'll probably throw in a couple of mah techniques Ah learned from… around."

Whether 'around' meant he'd raped the information from bots' minds or if he'd simply developed them from life experience, he didn't say. Prowl knew better than to ask. Instead, he decided to ask another question- which he felt was rather important to ask for the sake of his own mental wellbeing.

"By any chance, was your training in any way related to your previous insanity?"

Jazz arched both of his optic ridges. "It wasn't circuit-su that turned meh insane," he stated flatly.

"That's a relief," Prowl intoned, letting his shoulders relax.

"It was mah master who turned meh into a monster," Jazz concluded matter-of-factly.

Prowl stared, trying to determine if the saboteur was joking or not. It only took a moment to ascertain the answer by the look on the saboteur's faceplate. Jazz wasn't joking. Prowl frowned deeply. "That's not exactly reassuring."

The saboteur shrugged unconcernedly. "Not mah fault if ya can't handle the truth. Ya still have time ta back out if ya think ya can't handle it."

Of course, Prowl weighed his options. Jazz watched with sharp attention as light shifted behind the tactician's optics, indicative of his logic circuits running. It took all but a moment, but it was a moment in which Jazz did not know the outcome, and it still bothered him to fall short.

Prowl met his gaze and inclined his head. "The benefits outweigh the risks," the mech announced. "I have no doubt that if I begin to display unusual behavioural deviances, Ratchet will call me on it. In which case, our sessions will end and I will request a reprogramming to remove me of whatever I have learnt here."

"Fair enough," Jazz shrugged. "Shall we begin?"

"Of course."

"We're not gonna do much today. Ah just wanna ask a few things ta see what Ah'm workin' with. Ah have a basic idea, but who really knows what's really going on in that messed up head of yours?"

"Messed up?" Prowl repeated, looking mildly indignant.

"Ya got a better word ta call it?"

Prowl clamped his mouthplates together mulishly, remaining silent.

"See? You're messed up. Acceptin' that is the first step ta fixin' it." Jazz laughed as Prowl looked ready to share a few choice words, but kept silent in case he said something that would change Jazz's mind about the training. Little did the tactician know, Jazz had no intention of changing his mind. They were going through with this so that Prowl wouldn't be weak anymore. He had to be equal to Jazz, or at least as close as he could get, so that when the day came when Jazz defeated him, the victory would be all the more sweeter.

"Let's get started on 'fixing' me, then," Prowl finally blurted, turning his olfactory sensor up.

"Oh, yeah- let's start." He pondered for a moment over how to start. Never, in his entirely too-long life, had he ever asked another living being this question. He might have asked a few dead ones, but in that context, he most likely would have been mocking them. Steeling himself, he asked, "How do you feel?"

Prowl arched his optic ridges, visibly surprised by the question. "Neutral at the moment, perhaps a bit curious of what you plan to do to me, and I would be lying if I did not say I was a bit wary of this training… Why?"

"No, Ah didn't mean…never mind." He sighed, shaking his head. "Ah meant… How do Ah put this? How do you feel, as in… ta what depth do ya feel?"

"How do I describe something like that?"

"Ah don't know…" Jazz sighed. "If ya haven't noticed, Ah'm not real good with talking about mah emotions, either. Ah'm used ta controlling mine and mocking others. Ah've only had ta do this once with Xerxia."

"Only once?" Prowl asked.

"Like Ah said, ya learned quick with her." He remembered what Xerxia had done to get the right answer out of him. She'd waited until he recharged and hacked into his head while he couldn't defend himself. While that was certainly an option available to Jazz, he suddenly had an aversion to doing so, which both bothered and frustrated him. He scrubbed his faceplate with his palm. "This would have been easier if Ah could see inside your head."

"What would you do if you had access?" Prowl asked.

Jazz lowered his hand, locking gazes with the tactician. "Ah'd want ta look at your emotional centre ta see if ya have any anomalies in the structure or programming, maybe check out a few memories of ya turning your emotional centre off and on ta feel what ya feel- to what degrees are ya affected, what emotions are the most problematic for ya. Ah can't help ya properly if Ah don't know what Ah'm dealing with." He shrugged. "That's all Ah had planned for this session, actually."

"That sounds reasonable," Prowl said, and then surprised Jazz by clicking his interface panel open. Prowl, observant mech that he was, did not miss Jazz's brief look of surprise. He actually had the audacity to smirk a little. "Trust, remember?" he said. "I agreed to help you with it. I'll trust you to look inside my head without…" he paused to consider the right term, "going overboard." Then his expression turned pensive as he said, "I just realized that in allowing this, I am giving you what you wanted when you first came here. You wished to see what made me tick, and now you finally are."

Jazz's optics flashed with the realization. "Huh…" This should have been a momentous occasion; how many frustrated nights had he spent in Straxis brewing over what would crack Prowl's mental armour? How many times had he wondered what was going on inside the tactician's mind without ever finding an answer? So why wasn't he happier about it? He was finally getting what he wanted, and yet… he didn't really want it. He didn't earn it. How messed up was that? Maybe Jazz needed his head examined now.

"You don't look as triumphant as I would have assumed you would," Prowl observed.

"Let's just get this over with," Jazz murmured. They moved closer to each other so that their knees touched. They retained their original poses, comfortable to stay as such for as long as needed. Jazz flicked open his own panel and withdrew his cable, expertly connecting to Prowl with no further ceremony. They synchronized, and then their minds collided. The actual sensation of connecting to another mind is not something that could be easily described, but it was similar to feeling as if you were falling and flowing at the same time. And while you fell, someone was falling into you.

It was the feeling of the boundaries of one mind suddenly expanding to include the boundaries of another.

Jazz made a quiet murmuring noise, leaning back a bit. He knew what to expect when slipping into Prowl's head. He knew from the brief moments they had shared their minds in Iacon and the long moments when Prowl had been Jazz's prisoner in Straxis. Immediately after gaining access into the inner regions of the tactician's mind, he was assaulted by how bizarrely ordered Prowl's mind was. There was not a sinle piece of mental lint anywhere to be found. It was sealed tight, locked down, and scrubbed clean- like the most foreboding high-security vault that ever existed. There was no other mind on Cybertron like it. But knowing what to expect and actually feeling it were two different things. The latter was so much better.

Prowl's optics flashed as he leaned back, bracing his weight on his palms. He tilted his head back. Occasionally, if he wasn't braced for the transition, sometimes Jazz's mind gave him a headache. Much unlike his mind, Jazz's mind was a complex storm of whirling thoughts, vague images, strange sounds, lingering sweet smells, and electric sensation. The only small consolation to meeting a mind so frenetic, disjointed, and full of perpetual complexity was that Jazz's mind was also conspicuously clean. Jazz never had any misfiled information, data errors, dead files, or debris lying around. He was strange, but never sloppy.

Jazz went straight to work, unwilling to waste time. The emotional center was one of the strangest parts of any Cybertronian's mind; it was both a physical structure and an abstract idea. Emotions themselves were curious things- they could be programmed but never taken away. They could be touched, manipulated, changed, but never deleted. Once an emotion was learned, once it was in someone's mind, it was there forever. No one, not even Jazz, could steal it.

Currently, Prowl's emotions were very neutral. He wasn't feeling much of anything at the moment, and Jazz guessed that that was how the mech preferred it.

As Jazz's mind curled around the structure, Prowl shuddered.

"Ah can't believe Ah missed this before," Jazz said, shaking his head as he manipulated the centre. "Ya hid it so well that Ah thought ya were a drone."

"It took everything I had to hide it from you," Prowl murmured quietly. "I dreaded the orn you would find it."

Without mercy, Jazz said, "If Ah had found it, Ah would have driven ya insane with it. It would have been so much fun."

"You would have killed me," Prowl stated. "I couldn't let that happened."

Jazz's respect for the mech went up, and it was accidentally transmitted to Prowl. The tactician almost smiled. Jazz huffed quietly, ignoring it.

He closed his optics and shut out the world as he focused his attention on Prowl's emotional centre. He held it in his mental-hands, turning it over, inspecting the structure from the inside out. It did not appear irregular. There was nothing outstandingly odd about it. There were only two things worth noting, one being that Prowl's emotional variety was unusually limited; he had the basics, like happiness, sorrow, and anger, and a few of the more complex emotions like passion, guilt, and hatred, but not as great a selection as a normal Cybertronian. The second interesting point was that the majority of the emotions that Prowl did have were negative ones.

Guilt. Remorse. Sorrow. Shame. Disgust. Frustration. Rage. Hatred.

Jazz glanced up, meeting Prowl's steady gaze. He didn't bother speaking out loud as he asked, did you learn all of these from war? The transmission was not like a voice one would hear inside their head, nor was it like a text to read; it was the same feeling as thinking a single thought, except that Jazz had been the one to think it and Prowl received it.

No, Prowl mentally sighed. When I functioned in Security Response, I saw many terrible things. He bowed his head a little. So many terrible things.

There are a lot of terrible things one transformer can do to another, Jazz said- and for a very brief moment, Prowl was given the impression that Jazz had done every single terrible thing possible. He had used bots, abused them, done things to them that there weren't any words for. And he hadn't felt a single drop of guilt for any of it.

"Have you always been a sociopath?" Prowl wondered out loud.

Jazz nearly jumped by the sudden sound of the tactician's voice. It took him a second to process what had been asked. "Oh- no, Ah guess not. Ah was almost normal once, Ah think…a long time ago… Until I came here." He gestured vaguely to the dojo without looking at it. He went back to telepathic communication: Ya interested in expanding your emotional repertoire?

Prowl shook his head, his red chevron catching in the light. I… do not know. I would rather be able to control the emotions I have now before I gain new ones.

Fair enough. Jazz mentally backed off, his mind already racing with the information he'd gained. He kept his thoughts hidden behind firewalls so Prowl would not sense them. Already, plans were starting to form. Dozens of them. They were flowing, jumping, weaving, and waving, each calling for Jazz's attention. They called all at once, like a wild storm. And from each plan, he could see whole new worlds unfolding, all the little possibilities, all of the connections and opportunities. He was not like Prowl, who could think logically of a thousand situations and a thousand more countermoves for each situation. Jazz thought in terms of… well, he wasn't quite sure how to describe it. Chaos theory? Domino effects? Butterfly effects?

He gave himself a mental shake, compartmentalizing his thoughts for later. To Prowl, he said- Shut off your centre for an astrosecond. Ah wanna see what it feels like.

There was a long moment of uncertain hesitation, and then Prowl did so. What happened in the aftermath was like being sucked into the vacuum of space. Everything became void. No emotion whatsoever. It was very plain, logical, boring. Numbing. Cold. So empty that you could almost hear an echo in Prowl's head.

Ya did that so easily, Jazz commented.

I have had a lot of practice, Prowl replied.

Turn it back on now, Jazz commanded. In the next instant, sensation came back. Warmth. Feeling. The centre had not been turned off long enough to have stored up very much of a backlash.

"That wasn't so bad," Jazz remarked, smirking lightly.

Prowl gave him a haunted look.

"Ah know, Ah know, a real backlash is worse. Give meh a memory of it," Jazz said.

Tension tightened every line of Prowl's frame.

Jazz reached out and grasped the tactician's forearm, gripping it tight. "Ah can take, Prowler."

"Just… brace yourself," the tactician warned, grasping Jazz's hand with his free one.

Jazz sat back, cycling air deeply. He took the warning seriously. He felt Prowl's mind moving against his own. A memory was selected, and then transferred through their link. It was a relatively large file, but the time index on it was very short. Jazz cycled air once more. He steadied himself. Let everything else fall away. He accessed the file, opening it.

There were no visuals.

No sounds.

No tastes.

No smells.

Only sensation.

For long astroseconds, all Jazz experienced was a void. He was separate from it and yet experiencing it at the same time. Then came a subtle feeling like the flicking of a switch. He experience a brief moment of feeling like he was standing on the edge of a cliff and leaning over, looking down. His spark jittered. His armour prickled. Cadlm before the storm.

Without warning, it hit him.

The intensity of the emotions were so strong, it was like a physical blow. Like being thrown into a wall. Being smothered. Shot at close range with a plasma cannon. Ripped apart. Imploding and exploding at the same time. Emotions rushed through him so quickly, so fiercely, and then waged war within him so vehemently, that a moment came when Jazz briefly lost his mind in it.

Agony. Guilt. Hatred. Disgust. Shame. Horror. Misery. Regret. Loathing. Remorse. Disappointment. Contempt. Rage. Torment.

Suffering. So much suffering. More suffering than any spark had a right to feel.

Self-hatred.

Jazz's frame seized. His back arched, his head thrown back as a strangled gasp left him. His claws spasmed, digging into Prowl's armour. Every single neural wire he possessed was on fire. He was burning up. His tanks were churning, the energon going sour. The intensity of the assault shorted out his optics, his vision flickering in and out. Only static noise came out his mouthplates.

"Jazz? Jazz!"

The pain… Primus, the pain was unbearable. Tearing him up inside. Slashing wounds into his softest places and pouring acid inside. Black, black acid. Festering infections. Rancid, rotting, repulsive diseases.

Hate. Hate. Hate. Self-hate. Disgust. Shame. Lots of shame. So much agony. Too many regrets. Overwhelming guilt.

He was lost in the flood.

It was too much emotion.

It wasn't normal.

Normal Cybertronians wouldn't have been able to handle so much emotion. It was more than what should be coming from a backlash. More than... anything Jazz had ever experienced before.

Jazz's white optics shot to Prowl, staring at him with wild optics.

"Jazz, say something!" Prowl demanded, shock evident on his faceplate.

Emotions. All of those emotions.

It was as if Prowl felt things a thousand times beyond what a normal bot could. A single emotion magnified to impossible extremes. He felt them more deeply than anyone else. More intensely. The sensation was visceral. Primal. Powerful.

No wonder Prowl felt the need to turn his emotional centre off! Who could live like this? It was torture! But turning it all off was part of the problem. Turning the centre back on would magnify those already-intense emotions. It was a miracle Prowl hadn't simply put a plasma rifle to his head and pulled the trigger.

Hard hands gripped him. His frame was shaken. Prowl was shouting things at him, but the words didn't make sense. Jazz reacted, though. He reacted instinctually, lashing out with a violent slash of his claws. Prowl jerked back, releasing him. Jazz was on his feet instantly, stumbling backwards. Away from Prowl.

Prowl shot to his feet, trying to follow. "Jazz! Jazz, please stop! Jazz, stop!"

Too late. The edge of the dais came. Jazz's next step met air, and suddenly his world was toppling backwards. His head hit the floor first, the rest of his frame following quickly with a terrible crash. Everything ceased to work for one dark, terrible, black moment. In a flash, Jazz's optics reinitialized. He gasped for air, desperate for something to cool his burning innards. The shock of the fall had ended the memory, but spasms of it still ran through his frame. He felt like he was trying to crawl out of his own armour.

"Jazz, are you all right?" Prowl demanded, leaping off the dais in order to grab the fallen mech and drag him to his feet. "Say something, damn it!"

The moment Jazz was steady, he yanked himself away from the tactician. His optics went from wide and wild to dark and shrewd. He was forced to grab the edge of the dais to brace his weight. "How…" He gritted his mouthplates, forcing his vocal processor to stop shaking. "How can you feel all of that without going insane?"

Prowl searched Jazz optics for more, but found that the saboteur had closed himself off. His optics reflected nothing but light. Unsure of how to answer, he asked, "Was it really that unusual?"

"Ya have no idea," Jazz replied. He shuttered his optics, his mind racing faster than ever before. Faster and faster. Thoughts flying at the speed of light. So many thoughts. Questions. Interests. Puzzles. Puzzles. Puzzles. Primus, what a puzzle! How does a mech who wants nothing to do with emotion end up feeling them at such an amplified level? How? Why?

"I take it this session is over now, yes?" Prowl wondered, his expression now as shut down as Jazz's.

There was no way to tell what either mech was thinking.

"Yes." Jazz took a step back. Then another. He needed to regroup. Rethink his methods. He needed better plans. He needed to work on this puzzle. So much uncontrolled intensity. Power. What would it feel like to control it? Harness it? To grip it between his hands and drive it higher, wilder, and then make it explode? Could he make Prowl explode with it? Was it the same for positive emotions? Could Prowl feel joy the same way he felt sorrow? Could he feel passion the same way he felt hatred?

Jazz wanted to know. He wanted to know everything.

He spun on his heel, heading straight for the exit. One of the walls of the dojo disappeared, revealed the exit of the training range. Jazz did not pause as he walked through, merely tossing the words "Ah'll contact ya once Ah figure out when our next session will be," over his shoulder.

Never once did he look back.