Holy crap, does this mean that if I kill off characters in highly dramatic and emotional ways, reviewers will come out of the woodwork? Man, I gotta write me up a list of people I'm gonna kill! 8D I'm kidding! I'm kidding! ...mostly. I already know who I'm going to kill. ^_^
Besides that, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! Oh my god! The last chapter was the most reviewed chapter in the history of this story! I love you all so much for your loyalty, enthusiasm, and just plain craziness when you review and make my day a thousand times better than it was before! Thank you so much to shantastic, Taimat1972, Wanderling, VyxenSkye, IBrokeThe4ThWall, Alathea2, MoonWallker, Camfield, Katea-Nui, White Aster, femme4jack, VaRa129, Jenn, Alice, Prowls-little-angel, Guest, Guest, poiseninja, SunlightOnTheWater, RamenNoodlesXD, Gamemice, ReveilleWolfie, abarai-san, NarnianOpal, RedStarBloom, Fianna9, Cybela, Qwertzu, Guest, DemonSurfer, Daklog73, Sideslip, Peacewish, blueShadow, Chistaepx, Ano-Hitori-Chichi, The VastraNarada, Faecat, Astsadi, Stargazer at Moonlight, Wisecrack Idiots, Field Empathy, aradow, quasarsmom, Rae, SweetIndigo, Whiteinu1, Imbri of the Moon, Optimus Bob, SwedishDragon, evilbunny777, cmdrtekk, Xenophobic Doll, Jamie, Nikkie2010, Randomstrike, JenEvan, StarscreamII, Kemmasandi, Move-2-da-beat-femme, electro moonlight, Guest, and XlizardQueenX. *Whew* That is quite the list! Pieces of my heart belong to each of you!
Chapter 39
Hunter's blank optics stared upward without accusation. There was a self-satisfied smile on his faceplate, as if confounding Jazz and Prowl was the perfect last act for him.
Prowl was not sure how he was supposed to feel about it.
Physically, there was not a place on his frame which did not hurt in some capacity. This throbbing manifesting through his pressure sensor grid was not the right kind of pain he knew he was suppose to feel at this very moment. Where was the agony over his sudden loss? There was shocking emptiness inside of him where he thought he was supposed to feel something. A hollow echoing that went on forever inside his head. Prowl stared down at the unmoving frame braced in his lap and he could not force himself to feel anything.
The irony of his sudden inability did not escape him.
As he drew a quivering hand down the side of Hunter's slack faceplate, Prowl found no comfort in the absence of immediate grief. It would come soon, as would every other blackened emotion Prowl possessed. Like the dreaded astroseconds of anticipation between the moment his emotional centre was turned on and waiting for the backlash to hit, Prowl could only brace himself with a grim expectancy for the storm to hit.
"This is not your fault," Jazz suddenly intoned, cringing at the sound of his own voice. It was rasping and cracking, far from the comforting tone he had attempted. There were too many shadows in Prowl's optics, opening up into the bruised empty places that shock had inspired. Yawning dark chasms just waiting to be filled. Blame was creeping in on the rising gloom, criticism and self-hatred no doubt gnawing on its heels. The oncoming fallout was likely to be more than what Jazz could handle in his own disturbed state.
"Not my fault?" Prowl enquired hollowly. "How can it not be?"
"Hunter came here of his own freewill," the saboteur reasoned, touching Prowl's knee. "He did what he did because he..."
There was echoing silence as his voice trailed off.
Prowl raised his optics, watching his partner with so much stirring behind his optics as floodgates threatened to spill over into madness.
"He loved ya, Prowler," Jazz murmured, shockingly aware that it was the first time in his life that he had ever said those words, in that order, meant to comfort someone in pain rather than taunt them. "Ya heard him say he would have tried ta follow on his own. That's how much he cared about ya."
"I gave him the tracer. I am the one who ensured he would die here," Prowl replied, his vocal processor cracking. His shoulders jerked as air shuddered through his vents. "He would not be dead if it were not for me."
"Kingpin is the one who raised a blaster ta him." Jazz raised his hands to take his partner's faceplate into his palms, cradling Prowl's head with a firm but gentle grip. "Prowl, ya had no way of knowing what would happen here. What ya did with that tracer, ya did because ya believed in him. Ya trusted him and loved him enough to believe he was still an Autobot, and he proved you right."
At the mentioning of love, there came a flash from deep down in Prowl's optics.
Jazz dared the smallest of smiles. "Yeah, ya loved him. Ah might not be too familiar with that particular kind of nonsense, but Ah don't know what else ta call it when ya care for someone and do things for them beyond personal gain and self-preservation. Ya cared enough for Hunter to overlook the logic of his presence in Centaurie Tetrax, and look what he did. He came here and he saved your life."
"He saved my life at the cost of two others," Prowl countered brokenly, for the first time letting his optics settle on Kingpin's abandoned frame. The emptiness inside him churned, cracks appearing in the wall of shock to allow the spurn of anger and bitterness spill inside him. He welcomed the oncoming internal pain like a well deserved punishment.
"That's life sometimes," Jazz said with a shake of his head. "Ya know we can't always save everyone."
Prowl shuttered his optics, bowing his head until his chevron touched Hunter's. "It is... an inefficient waste to have lost two lives."
The saboteur looked away, affected more than he wished to reveal lest he make Prowl's situation worse by proxy. "Kingpin ain't a waste. He would have killed ya, Prowl. Ah'm not sorry Ah put a blade through his head."
The words were like a slap, sharper still for all the truth in them.
Prowl's mind grasped frantically for stability, loosening its holds on the threads of logicality to grip even tighter to baser things that had taken root in his spark and held on like a festering disease. Things like blind loyalty. Stupid love.
"He was still..."
"Your brother? Prowl, think about it. He just tried ta kill ya," Jazz countered with a harsh snort. "Why claim he's your brother now when you've spent most of your life claiming the rest of your cadre are just work associates? Kingpin was no more your brother than Ah am Mirage's lover."
Instead of getting the levity he might have hoped for, Jazz miscalculated. There was a brief flash in Prowl's optics, an agonized realization, followed by a deepening scowl that seemed to test the durability of the tactician's jaw joints. Slowly, like a creeping glacier shoring its way through his insides, the immense pressure of his loss was building. His mouthplates drew into a firm line, vocal processor tightening as the need to vocalize his loss burned down the neural wires. He shuddered, frame creaking as his injured arms tightened fractions around the corpse he embraced. Hunter's head lulled to the side, optics dark and reflective like empty shards of glass.
Jazz fell back onto his aft with a frown, watching his partner cautiously. He was running out of ideas to help him sort through the oncoming tide. In his current physical condition, Jazz wasn't sure how well Prowl would shore up under the brunt. The last thing he wanted to try was syphoning off the excess emotion. Prowl was too mentally powerful on a good day. Something as emotionally traumatizing as having two brothers murdered together was likely enough to burn out Jazz's capacity, putting him out of commission and placing them both in serious danger.
"Ah don't know what ta do," he admitted, tasting bitterness on his mouthplates with every word that fell.
"Neither do I," Prowl replied so quietly that it was nearly lost in the sounds of his creaking frame.
Desperate for the solidity of something under his hands, Jazz let his cracked claws stroke along one of Hunter's massive arms. So much strength built into one frame. Wonderfully thick armour, housing a spark that Jazz could see clearly in hindsight was loving and loyal – two qualities that were no longer as much the weaknesses he might have once considered them. The coolness of the metal felt surreal beneath his palms. His armour prickled with the notice of Prowl's barely contained energy; he could read the thousands of different ways the tactician was hurting, but he did not know of a single way to take the pain away. The knowledge itself caused Jazz his own personal agony in failure.
From overhead, the massive glacier creaked and groaned its haunting call before buckling under its own weight to release sheet after sheet of ice and frozen grey-yellow debris. White sparks exploded across the force field, flaring and flickering in rapid succession as frozen material was vaporized into ghostly trails of steam. The echoing groan of the glacier carried on down the gorge long after the steam blew away.
In the stillness that followed, it was the thought of how alone they were in the vast emptiness of the southern pole region that weighed heavily on Prowl and Jazz.
"Do ya want meh ta take him away?" Jazz asked quietly, staring at Hunter's empty frame.
"Not yet," Prowl replied tightly. He shifted, the backs of his battered knuckles gently stroking the side of Hunter's faceplate in a gentleness he had rarely shown when the scout lived. "I realize that it is only a matter of time before my emotions get out of hand. If I start to become... unmanageable, you have my permission to knock me out."
"Ah..." The objection died in the air between them. Jazz cast his gaze to the snow-dusted ground, his mouthplates falling into a solemn line. "Yeah, alright."
Prowl relaxed a fraction, trusting his partner to do what was right.
Jazz would do the right thing, though he wouldn't enjoy it. He had hit his quota of doing the right thing several good deeds ago and now he was sick with the excess.
Trying to give Prowl the time he needed, however long that happened to be, Jazz returned his attention to Hunter's frame to try to take the dead mech's measure. It was infinitely harder to see into a bot when they were dead. Whereas the living were like open books and their optics shining like a mirror of their sparks, the dead were... empty. It was a metal frame, vacated of its life and stories, as inanimate as the orn it was manufactured. Reading the dead had never been a skill Jazz considered worthy of himself when his time was better spent stripping a frame for valuable parts and mining the mind for information. It was still an unworthy skill, but one that Jazz regretted he had not perfected. With it, Jazz might have been able to offer Prowl some kind of peace of mind in Hunter's death.
The saboteur was not sure how long he spent staring at the frame while Prowl slowly broke down, but instead of seeing the answer to an unanswerable question, Jazz saw something quite different in that rust-coloured corpse.
An interested hum vibrated the still air. Jazz's hands, which had fallen stationary, began wandering the scout's frame with renewed interest.
Prowl tensed, drawing his brother's frame closer to himself in a gesture that was was out of character for him to be so possessive.
"Ah'm not gonna take him away," Jazz assured, fingers travelling along off-orange lines of armour. Something caught on the cracks of his damaged claws.
"What do you think you are doing?" Prowl enquired sharply.
"Ah don't know yet," Jazz replied, scratching at the unseen catch until the adhesive failed and something came free from its crevice under Hunter's gigantic chestplate. He turned his hand over to inspect his prize, finding a still-active dampener sitting so innocently in his palm. The corners of the saboteur's mouthplates turned up in a bemused half-smile.
"Is that...?" Prowl dared to wonder.
"Ah knew there was something odd about the corpse. Too... surreal, Ah guess," Jazz intoned, switching the miniature device off. There was a stunning moment as their resonance scanners refreshed, failing to register each others spark signatures while they remained hidden beneath the impenetrable machinations Jazz had impressed on them, though they did pick up a single weak signature from between them.
A sudden laugh escaped the saboteur before he could censor himself.
"He's alive," Prowl breathed, caught somewhere between shock and incomprehension. The inner workings of his mind were nearly visible as thought processes came to a sudden crashing halt, desperately backpedalling to catch up with the new information flooding his sensors. His pale optics shot to Jazz, barely able to comprehend the laughing grin that now split his partner's features.
Jazz laughed again, finding it hard to help himself. He threw back his head with one of his rare handsome laughs, crushing Hunter's damper between his fingers with absolute relish.
"Hold him still," the silver mech commanded, though still with a devious grin lighting his grimy faceplate. "He's weak and still fading. Ah'm gonna give his spark a little jump start ta keep it from fading, but he might spasm."
"I have him," Prowl assured, manoeuvring himself so that he could best brace his brother. Though he was injured himself, he hardly thought his wounds were of concern in this very instance. He did not bother to disguise his eagerness as he said, "Do what you have to do."
Jazz rose up on his knees, bracing one hand to Hunter's shoulder and laying the other atop the darkened hole that led down into the sparkcase that was not as empty as they had first suspected. The spark was so weak that its glow was practically negligible. Jazz pressed down on the armour as hard as he dared, until he could feel the lightest touch of pulsing energy against his palm.
"So this is either gonna save his life or kill him. Here goes nothing!"
A brief magnetic burst charged the air, followed nearly instantaneously by Hunter's frame giving a sudden violent lurch as every vent opened up and sucked in a tremendous gush of air. Royal blue optics flared back to life, and a strong pulse of blue light flashed brilliantly from within the hidden sparkcase. Prowl held on tightly as the scout's systems scrambled to reinitialize failing processes, causing his limbs to spasm randomly and his spinal column to bow.
Jazz laughed again as a startled and breathless noise. First he had killed for mercy, and now he was bringing bots back from the brink of death? This orn was full of new things for him! He kept his hand over Hunter's chest, supplying a steady magnetic rhythm for the fragile spark underneath to follow until it was stable enough for him to pull away. It was not the first time that a spark had touched his stained hands, though the occasion was arguably more joyous than all others that had come before. Blue light leaked from between his trembling fingers, shining brighter and stronger with each steadying pulse.
"Hunter? Hunter!" Prowl called, searching for any reaction. "Second of Five, can you hear me?"
"Give him a moment," Jazz breathed. "He just came back from the almost dead. His audios might not be reinitialized yet."
Prowl settled back, though he could not disguise the eagerness lighting his optics.
Before Hunter's spark became stable on its own, his wits returned enough to take in his surroundings. Weary blue optics came into focus, first panicked as his last memories replayed in his mind, and then calming as he realized the danger had passed. His gaze came to settle on the intimidating sight of Jazz looming over him, caught in a very compromising position by Cybertronian standards. It was not exactly commonplace to come online with a stranger you barely know touching your spark in any way, shape, or form. Especially a stranger who, by most reliable forms of gossip, was banging your brother. One burnt orange optic ridge arched incredulously.
"Did I... miss something?" he wondered in a voice that sounded as if it had been dragged over gravel and then set on fire.
"Depends on your definition of missing something," Jazz replied, mirroring the arch of Hunter's optic ridge as if not to be outdone.
"Define it for me."
"Ah just saved your life," the saboteur informed, easing his hand away slowly in case Hunter showed signs of distress without a magnetic pulse keeping his spark even.
Hunter groaned, feeling discomfort as his spark wavered. He was divided between the living essence of his spark syphoning his consciousness into that little ball of energy, and the larger entity of his frame holding on to his spark with the desperate intention to live. His spark settled where it was, still partially disconnected from his frame and haemorrhaging energy to the free air, but determined to hold on.
"I'm gonna owe you, aren't I?" he complained hoarsely, softening the accusation with an attempted smirk.
Jazz shot Prowl an amused glance before shrugging. "Ya saved mah partner, so Ah'll consider it even."
Hunter snorted, only to regret it when the world started spinning and looking like there was a dozen of everything. Had there been enough energon left in his reserves, he might have purged.
"You're still very weak," Prowl chastised as his hand moved to replace Jazz's, acting as a plug to keep the cold air out. "You took the shot meant for me, Hunter. It pierced your sparkcase. Save your energy as much as you can."
"Yeah," the scout grunted, looking down. "I thought things were a little more ventilated in that area than I remembered."
"Please don't joke," Prowl pleaded. "I thought you had died."
"Don't worry, I feel like I died."
Despite himself, Prowl breathed a quiet laugh as he shook his head. "I was too distracted to have noticed you had no spark signature before you were shot, and then Kingpin shot you. I was too...distraught to think that I had lost two brothers in a single moment. It did not occur to me that you would be wearing a dampener." He held Hunter a fraction closer, closer than he had ever botherd to willingly hold any of his cadre. "I highly doubt Smokescreen would forgive me for losing you."
There was a long pause as Hunter simply laid there, cycling air in and out of his vents as if trying to gather strength to speak again. His head lolled back to reveal a weak half-smile. "He would forgive you, 'cause it wouldn't have been your fault. Me, on the hand, Smokey be happy to blame me for dying. I still owe him a couple cubes of high-grade, you know?"
"I said don't joke!" Prowl admonished.
"Okay, no more jokes. I'll be serious now," Hunter yielded, patting his brother on the hand. "Good thing you found the dampener or I really would be dead. Those things should come with warning labels – if the shot doesn't kill you, your friends thinking you're dead probably will."
"What did I say about joking!" Prowl exclaimed, sounding increasingly distressed. "And besides, Jazz found it."
"Same difference."
"Hardly," Jazz snorted.
Hunter rolled his optics, one of the few things he could do without discomfort or accidentally setting off a new bout of spasms. He shuttered his optics and laid quietly in Prowl's arms for several minutes, his faceplate flickering with an array of expressions – both voluntary and other. Being angled as he was, his ruptured reservoir tank was able to drain even more, though the last dregs of the fluid to slowly make its way out was sluggish and greyish-blue. Prowl drew his injured arm up and let his fingers rest against Hunter's faceplate, stroking along the strong lines with obvious restrained affection.
"Your hand is shaking," the scout murmured.
"I imagine it would be," Prowl replied wryly. "I am very relieved that you are alive."
The hand atop of Hunter's chest was joined by Hunter's own hand, the knuckles dripping sluggishly with energon. They shared a gentle squeeze, Hunter being far more comfortable with the affectionate gesture than Prowl was. Though the light of the scout's optics was flickering, the expression within was lively and full of warmth.
"It figures," Hunter chuckled, barely able to shake his head.
"What figures?" Prowl wondered.
"That I would have to almost die in order to get a hug out of you," Hunter riposted, laughing roughly at Prowl's sudden incredulous expression. Despite his aches and pains, there were some things too funny not to laugh at. Even Jazz, who had snuck away from the intimate moment between brothers, dared to snort.
"You should not expend yourself unnecessarily," Prowl scolded in a flustered tone. "Jazz, where are you? What are you doing to that frame? Please, come help. Hunter, I said stop laughing!"
Hunter failed to heed the order.
Jazz paid his partner a little more attention, casting Prowl a nod before digging his hands into a small crevice on Kingpin's frame and jerking up the largest section of chestplate. "What does it look like Ah'm doing?" he said, now in the process of jimmying the armour plate away from the heavy duty bolts anchoring it.
"It looks like you are desecrating the dead," Prowl observed tightly. "You would be more help over here bringing a belligerent injured mech to heel before he forces his spark to extinguish!"
"He's fine, Prowler. Right now, Ah'm busy cannibalizing your evil brother ta save the sort of decent one." He then cast an arch look down to Hunter, who was in the process of calming down. "Ah haven't forgotten that idiot comment in Tyger Pax. When Ah attach this plate ta ya, Ah'm gonna make it hurt."
"No, you won't," Prowl countered.
Jazz arched an optic ridge, and then shrugged when the issue wasn't worth bantering over. He returned to extracting useful parts from the corpse.
Hunter gave another huffed laugh, shaking from either involuntary spasms or true humour. The laughter had been enough to drain him, so he now settled comfortably into Prowl's lap and waited for something to be done.
Prowl made himself busy by cataloguing damages and calculating the best forms of field repair he and Jazz could attempt to get Hunter out of this wretched place – hopefully in one piece. He was ultimately distracted by the remaining excess of emotion still built up in his head. It had not been negated as he would have hoped with the introduction of positive emotion. Rather, they now played a precarious balancing act in his mind, as divided as his battle computer was from his main consciousness... but, unfortunately, less evenly matched than the construction of his consciousness. He was too inclined toward negative emotions; it was rare that the positive ever outweighed the negative.
"Alright, Ah've got what Ah need here. Just call meh the Doctor of Doom," Jazz announced a short while later. At his feet, he had sorted out piles of armour, bolts, hinges, lenses, and any other valuable frame part he could find. Weapons were in another pile that Jazz no doubt meant to horde for himself. What was left of Kingpin was a mangled mess which the saboteur had the decency to try to hide behind his legs – though it was a wasted effort. In his hands was Kingpin's visor being twirled around and around through his clever fingers.
"Hunter doesn't have a visor," Prowl pointed out.
"But Ah do, and mine's cracked," Jazz replied, popping out his damaged visor and jiggling the new one into place. It was the wrong model for his frame type, so the size and shape were off and the locks protested the foreign object being shoved into them. The light was not as bright as usual through this new visor. "How do Ah look?"
"Asymmetrical," Prowl reported with a scowl. "Take it off."
"Let him have it," Hunter countered. "Kingpin's not using it."
Prowl pressed his mouthplates together, wanting to say more about it but resisting. Anything to come out of his mouthplates would likely be fuelled by the illogical attachment to a mech who, only breems before, had been ready to execute him.
From behind that crystal visor, Jazz could see all too clearly that Prowl was not as calm as he would have liked to be. There was struggle in the tactician's optics. Not wanting to create more strife, the saboteur slid his asymmetrical visor from his faceplate and tucked it away into subspace.
When Prowl arched an optic ridge, Jazz shrugged. "It wasn't mah style anyways. Ah'll replace mah visor when we get home."
"Oh sure, it wasn't your style. That's exactly the reason," Hunter snorted, but then hissed when a silver foot rammed into his leg.
"Ya want meh ta patch ya up or not?"
"That depends," Hunter grunted. "Are you going to kick me again?"
Jazz crossed his arms stubbornly. "Probably. Ya got any other issues?"
"Are you the one that patched up Prowl's shoulder?" the scout wondered, turning an arched look at the mangled mess that was Prowl's damaged shoulder. It had been shot, patched, twisted, nearly dismembered, covered in organic debris, and further damaged by fighting with Kingpin. It looked like a blind, armless demolitions bot had attempted his hand at field repairs, rather than the highly skilled saboteur Jazz claimed to be.
The white-hot glare Jazz shot the downed scout was answer enough.
"Let him patch you up so we can get out of here," Prowl insisted tiredly, followed by a long sigh that turned to wisps of white vapour around his vents. "The sooner we leave this place, the better. I have had enough of the poles to last a lifetime."
"Fine, fine, patch me up," Hunter huffed, and then pointed a warning finger at Jazz. "But if you kill me, I'll come back and haunt you."
"Ya have no idea how much that is a distinct possibility around here," Jazz drawled, dropping to his knees along Hunter's side and laying Kingpin's dark armour over the warm rusty orange of the scout's chest. Prowl and Hunter's hands fell away underneath, and thankfully no one's spark extinguished in the process. "You're not gonna have some kind of crisis of identity or some slag like that if Ah start welding pieces of your dead brother ta your frame, are ya?"
"Pit no," the scout snorted. "He's dead and gone, but at least his frame will be of some use. Ah got no problem enjoying the irony of using pieces of a bot that wanted to kill me to keep me alive. Serves him right."
Prowl flinched and looked away.
"Ah'm glad we have that settled, then," Jazz declared. "No sudden moves, ya got that? Don't give meh any reason ta waver while Ah'm welding."
"Oh yeah, sure, I'll try to resist that raging urge to dance around while my life hangs in the balance," Hunter replied dryly, garnering very little laughter from his dry humour. The arms that held him tightened by a fraction. Shifting his expression to something more serious, Hunter met Jazz's gaze and gestured to his ruptured abdomen. "I got one other problem, besides the dancing. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm gonna need a new reservoir, too. You can patch up my sparkcase as much as you want, but it won't help anything if I don't have the energy to support the rest of my systems."
Jazz paused, pursing his mouthplates as he thought about it. "Ah pulled out Kingpin's reservoir – ya can use that one until ya can be treated by a real medic."
"And energon? Is there enough in the frame for me to use?"
"No, most of it drained out when Ah was harvesting parts." Jazz regarded Prowl with a measuring look. "Ya think ya can walk?"
"Yes, I should be able to," the tactician nodded. "Do you want me to go get more energon for him while you work?"
"If you're feeling up ta it," Jazz reasoned. "Go ta the generator room we were first in. The faster ya get the energon, the sooner we can get out of this place."
As Prowl eased out from underneath Hunter, Jazz rose with him. They stepped away from their unexpected saviour, who cast them a pointed look before slowly letting his optics wander elsewhere. Without energon to sustain his systems, and the energy of his spark basically bleeding out through the hole in his chest, he was tired. It was a struggle to stay online. Prowl kept his sensors locked on the mech in case his condition took a turn for the worse.
"He's gonna be okay," Jazz murmured, laying a careful hand to Prowl's undamaged shoulder.
"The chances of him surviving are not in his favour," Prowl countered in a similarly hushed tone. "Perhaps if it was just a ruptured reservoir, he might easily walk away from this, but he has an exposed spark. You are no medic – you cannot patch a sparkcase without damaging the spark. Even if you patch the external armour, his spark will still be bleeding out into the frame. Unless he managed to land a ship nearby, if we expose him to the elements beyond the shielding for long enough, he could still die."
"There's no such thing as optimism with ya, is there?"
Wordlessly, Prowl glared.
Jazz scrubbed a hand over his faceplate. "Ah'm gonna do mah best with Hunter, Ah promise. When ya go get the energon, Ah want ya ta do something else for meh."
Wariness crept over the tactician's grimy features, followed by tiredness and resignation. "What is it you want me to do?"
In all seriousness, the saboteur said, "Turn off your emotional centre."
Dark optic ridges shot high on the tactician's forehead. That was the last thing he had been expecting.
"Ah mean it. Turn it off," Jazz insisted.
"If I do that now, the backlash when I do turn it back on will be painful," Prowl warned, shooting a careful look toward Hunter to make sure he was not eavesdropping. "It is counterproductive to turn it off, especially with all the work I have put into mastering my condition. Are you saying I am not strong enough to handle it?"
"Ah'm not saying that at all," Jazz rushed to assure. "You're suffering right now. Ah can see it."
"I will work my way through it without relying on damaging shortcuts."
"Ah don't need ya being on a hair-trigger right now while we're in the middle of Crazy Town," Jazz hissed. "Ya got one bot dead, the other on death's doorstep, and we're about ta go back out inta an EM storm that, if ya recall, was not very fun the first time around. Ah need ya in top form, and if that means turning off your emotional centre, then so be it."
Prowl shifted back defensively, one hand curling into a loose fist. "And if I turn off my emotional centre? I will be no better than Kingpin, throwing away my emotions to make myself more efficient. I will be like Shockwave and every other member of the Psi ex Machina."
"Ya will never be like them, Prowl," Jazz rushed to assure. "Ah don't know what went on between you and the Machina, but Ah do know that ya have more honour and dignity than that cult has ever known. It kills meh ta ask ya turn off your emotional centre-."
"Then don't ask me."
"Ah have ta."
Prowl shuttered his optics, shoulders dropping as scattered logic circuits started asserting themselves. He was currently weak in both physical and mental capacities. One he could not fix. One he could. Logic would dictate that he do whatever possible to increase his chances of survival.
Jazz saw the beginnings of weakness and pressed his advantage. "Ah promise Ah will help ya turn it back on when we get out of this mess. Ah'll syphon off excess emotion or act as a buffer... whatever ya need, Ah promise ta give it ta ya." Silver hands frame the tactician's faceplate, forcing Prowl to meet the saboteur's intense stare. "Ah need ya in top form right now. Ah need ta be able ta depend on ya without worrying that something is gonna set ya off. It's not that Ah don't have confidence in ya, Prowler. Ya know Ah trust ya more than anyone else-."
A ghost of a smile appeared, followed by a shallow nod.
Jazz returned that ghost with an honest smile. "Ah trust ya with mah life, Prowl, but we both know that you're struggling right now with what's inside ya. For all of us ta get out of here alive, we gotta do some things we don't like."
"I will concede to your reasoning for now," he sighed, shuttering his optics. A moment later, the telltale signs of his emotional centre disengaging became apparent; his stance became subtly more rigid, his faceplate and frame drained of all inflection. When those pale optics opened again, they were as cold and distant as ice.
But beyond that, those optics still belonged to Prowl, not to a sparkless machine.
"Ah'm sorry it had ta come ta this," Jazz murmured.
"Do not be sorry. This was the best course of action to ensure our collective survival," Prowl replied in familiar clipped tones, abruptly turning on his heel to complete his assigned task in as timely a manner as possible. Jazz continued to watch him for several steps before the tactician paused but did not turn around. "When I take you up on the offer to help reengage my emotional centre, that will count as upholding my promise to allow you free reign in my mind."
Not so much a question as it was a statement of fact.
Jazz snorted. "Yeah, it'll count as even – but only if we all get out alive."
Prowl cut him a curt nod before continuing on his way.
"I saw what you did there," Hunter called, summoning Jazz's attention from one bot to the other.
Approaching slowly, Jazz inclined his head. "What do ya think Ah did?"
Hunter grunted, looking like he wanted to raise himself off the ground but did not have the strength to try. "I know what a bot looks like when they start messing around with their emotional centres. Saw enough of it back in the precinct." He pursed his mouthplates. "That was a cruel thing you did asking him to turn it off. It's going to hurt him when he turns it back on."
"Don't ya think Ah know that?" Jazz snapped a little more sharply than he meant.
"I think you do know it, and that's why it was so cruel to ask him to do it. You know how much it's going to hurt him, but you still asked him."
"It was the only thing Ah could think of on short notice. Ya think it was easy for meh ta ask him? 'Cause it wasn't," Jazz spat. "Ah've been in his head. Ah've felt the things he can feel. Ah'm not gonna let him suffer on his own this time."
Hunter blinked slowly, taking in the measure of his volatile company. "You're being sincere, aren't you?"
"Yes, Ah am."
Again, blue optics scrutinized him. "Well... alright then. So long as you weren't doing this just to hurt him."
"He's the only bot in this world Ah don't want ta see hurt."
The admittance was honest enough to summon surprise in the scout's optics.
"You're a different sort of bot from what I thought you would be," Hunter admitted after a long silence. "When I heard Prowl had taken you on as a pet project, I was kind of expecting some kind of Machiavellian psycho... not someone who cares so much."
Jazz pursed his mouthplates at that comment, mulling over it to consider the best form of response. Nothing particularly acidic came to mind. He was too drained to make an issue.
With a pensive shrug, he said. "Ah've changed, Ah guess – thanks ta Prowl." The edges of his mouthplates quirked up. "He's a damn stubborn glitch."
Hunter had enough energy to chuckle quietly. "It's a two way street. Prowl's not exactly the same mech I remember either." One large hand patted Jazz on the foot. "Prowl wouldn't like it if I told you this, but he's the sensitive sort. It takes a lot for him to let a bot in."
"Ah noticed."
The scout cast him a measuring look. "It looks like he's let you in a lot farther than he's let anyone else in a long, long time."
"Since Evasia," Jazz supplied.
"He told you about her?" Hunter wondered with obvious surprise. "Looks like he let you in a lot farther than I thought. You work fast."
"Fast? Ah've been at Iacon for nearly two vorns."
Hunter did his best to raise his shoulders as a nonchalant shrug. "Fast by Prowl's standards. It took Evasia a lot longer to weasel her way in."
Jazz looked away, casting a pensive glance at the ground. "He's mentioned her, but Ah don't know the story about everything that went on." He began shuffling Kingpin's parts closer, weighing his options and deciding to do the less risky reservoir exchange before handling anything else.
Hunter watched the reservoir come closer to himself, accordingly shutting down operations in that area to allow for an easier surgery. "What went on between those two isn't my story to tell. I'm just sorry it ended the way it did. It hit us all hard, but it hit Prowl the hardest. He wasn't the same after it."
Jazz nodded silently, eyeing Hunter's frame as if to figure out the best way to go at this. Joints and hinges had been seized from the two shots, so he dug his hands in and manually pried the slates of armour apart to get at the scout's innards. Everything inside looked familiar on a general level. Nothing new jumped out at him. It gave him an odd sort of confidence that maybe his stolen medical memories and a long career in physical torture might actually be enough.
"Have you... ever done this before?" Hunter asked worriedly.
Silver shoulders arched up. "Ah've taken things out before... never really put anything back in, though. How hard can it be?"
Hunter's head flopped back to the ground. "I am so going to die."
"Just in case ya do, don't come back ta life or Ah'll have ta rip your head off."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Energon flow was shut down to the reservoir, allowing for tubes and connectors to be disengaged safely. Bolts and nuts were harder to finagle without the right tools. Jazz made due with what he had, causing only a moderate amount of damage to the surrounding machinery before popping the last bolt and jiggling the damaged part free.
"It's kind of weird doing this without someone screaming or beggin' for mercy," he observed absently, setting aside Hunter's reservoir and taking up the harvested one.
"Is that your version of reassurance?" Hunter snorted. "I'd rather have Prowl rattling off the statistical chances of me surviving this ordeal."
"Wuss. But speaking of your chances, just in case ya don't make it through this-"
"Still not reassuring-"
"Ah'm just thinking contingency plans. Ya got a ship, right? There's no way ya got here as quick as ya did without no ship."
Hunter coughed, grimacing. "Yeah, had a ship. Crashed it, though. Hit a storm and it took me right out of the sky."
Jazz cursed under his breath, glaring into the mess of innards as he tried to figure out how to fit a square peg into a round hole. Nothing could ever be easy, could it?
"But..." Hunter intoned lightly, "I caught a lucky break. Got another ship, and it got me here just fine. Not going to say it was easy, since the damn thing had an attitude and the tracer Prowl gave me wasn't all that reliable down here, but yeah, it's a decent ship when you're in a pinch."
Jazz wrenched something inside, causing Hunter to howl and convulse.
"Sorry, wrong valve," the saboteur cringed, waiting for the coarse words to die down before he got back to jerry-rigging Hunter's insides.
"Frag you," Hunter spat on reflex, heaving ragged drags of air through his vents. "Where's Prowl? I want a witness present."
"He'll be back soon," Jazz answered, glancing over his shoulder in hopes that he would see a familiar storm grey shape approaching. No such luck, but it was worth a shot. "Tell meh more about this miracle ship before Ah touch something wrong again."
Hunter groaned, shuttering his optics. "It was a bad crash and I was lost for an orn or two. I honestly thought I was a goner – I had decent EM shielding, but my rations were running low and you can only handle the poles for so long. Happened upon a nomad Neutral right in the middle of the night. Nearly shot her head off before she said she came in peace."
"How very un-Autobot of ya," Jazz observed.
"You try spending the night alone in the middle of nowhere and not get spooked," Hunter retorted stubbornly. "She might have been a bit rough around the edges, but you gotta expect that in a place like this. Only crazy bots would choose to live in the poles."
"So... what? A Neutral just appeared out of nowhere and magically procured ya a ship? Sounds suspicious." He finished with his work on the tank. It was the ugliest thing he had ever seen in all his life, with crooked lines and rejecting connecting. Its only saving grace was that it was holding in place, as unstable as it was. Hunter would not be allowed to move much, but at least he wasn't slowly going to starve his frame of energon.
"It was damn suspicious," Hunter replied as appropriate parts of himself whirred back up to attempt integrating his new frame part. He grimaced as warning notices popped up to inform him in no uncertain terms that he was an idiot and to go find the right kind of frame part or he was going to pay for it – although it was in much more official terms than that.
"Not a perfect fit, but Ah did what Ah could," Jazz reasoned. "Now explain about following this Neutral? Are ya stupid or something?"
"Said she knew you, mentioned you by designation and everything. I figured she might have been an old associate of yours by the way she talked about you – 'disappointment this' 'failure that.' Real friendly sort, if you know what I mean. She had a mean look about her, but it was hard not to listen when she was describing the stealth ship you two were flying, where it set down and how to get there. I figured it was worth a shot. Worst that could happen was that she attacked me the moment my back was turned and harvested me for my parts. I got to the ship in one piece and the rest is history. Never seen a ship work so hard to get through an electromagnetic storm like that one did."
"Putter-poof saves the orn," Jazz laughed. "That stupid ship."
"Putter-poof? Is that what you call it? I've been calling it 'Noisy Piece of Junk.' No wonder it had an attitude with me," Hunter chuckled.
A distant shout alerted them to Prowl's quick approach, his arms laden with cubes of machinery-grade energon and a hovering gurney following along at his back.
Jazz raised an arm and shouted back, assuring his partner that Hunter was still alive and made it through the tank exchange. The dicey part was going to be the welding of the armour without igniting anything important.
Hunter relaxed into the hard ground as Prowl came into his periphery. "Good, you're still alive."
"I could same the same for you," Prowl replied, laying down his collection of cubes before gesturing to the gurney. "I found one of these in the corridor above the generator room. It would be useful in transporting you outside this place."
"Great," the scout grunted, making a face at the stained, gouged metal.
Jazz repositioned Kingpin's armour above Hunter's chest. "What's also great is that we got a ship ta get out of here in. Hunter flew Putter-poof here."
"ICOM-7," Prowl corrected briskly. "How did you manage to find it? It was well hidden."
"Had help," Hunter shrugged. "Old friend of Jazz's pointed me in the right direction."
"Jazz has no old friends, only bots who want to kill him, " Prowl replied. "Who was this mysterious benefactor of yours? Did this bot give you a designation?"
"Sure she did," Hunter supplied defensively. "It was a weird designation."
"Let's have it, then. Hopefully we will be able to trace it and find out if there are any Decepticon connections."
Hunter cast Jazz a pained look, to which the saboteur could only shrug.
"Humour him," he said. "Ah'd like ta find out what this mysterious bot was called, too. Send her a thank you note."
The scout nodded.
"She called herself Xerxia."