Holy shit, guys. Holy shit. Where You and I Collide hit 2000 reviews. I... I don't know what to say. I am still a little bit in shock. When I posted this story December 13, 2009, I did not think this story would get so far. I thought it was going to be short and quick... and now it is four years later, almost fifty chapters in, and I think I am only three-quarters of the way done. This is what insanity is, isn't it? Collide has seen fanclubs, fanart, fan-music, a fan-made animation, a couple of fan-done translations into Russian and Chinese, and some of the most incredible fangirls (and boys) I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Collide never would have gotten so far if not for the wonderful support, clever insight, inspiring encouragement, and foam-at-the-mouth devotion of you, my wonderful readers. From the bottom of my cold, black, shrivelled heart, I thank you wholly, humbly, and sincerely. Thank you for sticking with this story from the beginning, or stumbling upon it in the middle, or clicking a link from a friend because you were curious. Thank you, all of you. Especially you, Zeng Xiao Long Sunstar Crystal, my 2000th reviewer!
Thank you sincerely to yamiishot, Dragonstormgirl, Optimus Bob, Gilded Orchid, RagdolDark, 16DarkMidnight80, Chistarpax, ice around the moon, luinrina, Nikkie2010, Knocks, CNightJoy, VyxenSkye, 314, ennui DeMorte, Berylium, renegadewriter8, Guest, Autobot Chromia, DaJazzGal, mamabot, Camfield, AirJuvy, Faecat, Zeng Xiao Long Sunstar Crystal, Lady Nebkhat, Alathea2, Sideslip, FIREstee, electro moonlight, Daklog73, Haag, Senna-X3, LucasVN, those-painted-wings, Lecidre, and sametheeagle95!
Cheers to a brilliant run and many more brilliant chapters to come!
Chapter 47
It was an off orn for Jazz.
A vacation of sorts, he mused. He did not remember the last time he ever had a vacation. Or a break. Or even a night he had recharged all the way through. That being said, Jazz did not remember much these orns, so another memory lost to the annals of his mind was no great loss. Though he dismissed his errant thoughts, there was still a hissing voice in his head that said he had never had a vacation in his life.
Considering the state of his life as it was right that very moment, Jazz easily decided that he would never have a vacation again. In between jobs, Jazz had neither personal schemes nor outstanding debts that needed to be attended. There were no bots who needed hunted, no writhing mass of madness he could throw himself into.
Vacation? Ha!
He was too bored to enjoy himself.
No amusements to indulge, no poor bots to torment, not even a scheme to engage in! It was all terribly boring. Too tame. Too slow-
Wait. What was that?
No. No, nothing. Just a piece of scrap falling from a jet overhead. It bounced across the busy road, somehow avoiding all traffic. Amazing. Not even a single accident.
Jazz sighed, disappointed. He deflated on his perch, shoulders sagging, his legs swinging idly beneath him as he straddled one of the many girders supporting the suspended roadways.
The mundaneness of the orn was enough that Jazz was willing to stir up his own brands of entertainment. Now that would get the pulse of the place beating! Even though, he vaguely recalled, that the last time he had done such a thing, Security Response had chased him from the city. He did not remember which city. There were far too many cities to remember. Jazz simply knew it had been colourful and loud – the way he liked it - and when he had been done with it, there had been smoke and screaming in the air, the howl of sirens screeching loud into the night.
Ah, the fondness of vague memories barely remembered.
His fingers twirled a long bladed knife he had pilfered from somewhere. It had been in a dwelling of some sort, maybe... possibly... more than likely? Didn't matter. It was a nice knife, good quality, and Jazz had wanted it for himself. So he took it. The balance of it was great. If he struck fast enough, he could make the blade whistle as it cut. It was the sort of blade a bot could kill with.
With that thought, his mind fairly raced through a thousand ways he could use the knife on another living creature. A thousands ways he had used a thousand other knives on countless living creatures. Briefly lost in the sudden wash of colour and sound whirling together, Jazz saw no faceplates, no individuals. They all blurred together, essentially worthless to him other than for vague entertainment when there was nothing else to distract his mind.
So swept away was he, he even glanced down at his hands to see if there was cooling energon on them. He was clean, for the moment, though it wouldn't last. It never lasted. The thought was there now, to try out his new knife. A wild, craven need pulled at him, urging him to seek out the sorts of wicked entertainment that had been thrust upon him at the dawn of his life. The things Xerxia had done to him, done to others, and then taught him to do to others...
Only those memories stayed strong with him. Clear and sharp as diamond-cut crystal, his memories of those vorns with his master never grew dull, never faded.
Jazz was old, he knew that. He had lived long enough to forget more than most bots would ever know. The things he remembered though... Those were the memories that made him who he was. He remembered the way a bot looked strung up against a wall. He remembered what it was like to scream, and what it was like to make others scream. And he remembered the feel of a spark cupped in his hands. Life condensed into a pretty little ball of energy; the tingling electric power bringing his palms alive, tingling up his arms, before the light dashed into dark.
Jazz remembered how it felt to kill someone.
Maybe that was why he repeated the exercise so often? If the only memories he held on to were of pain and suffering, then it made sense he would repeat the memories over and over in hopes of remembering something new. More pain. More suffering. But it was all for naught. Xerxia had broken him somehow, and how he was stuck on repeat. Stuck in the world of madness she had created for him. Everything new paled like faint ghosts compared to the vividness of his past. There was nothing new the present could impart on him that outweighed his past.
Nevertheless, he kept up the motions because they were all he knew. Over and over, as if by rote, he schemed, he tortured, he hurt, and he killed. It filled him with joy, though it was hollow. He would have loved his work, if his spark had been functional enough for the emotion. He was swept away by the thrill, and yet it was short-lived. The sweetness of it always ended up bitter in the end-
Oh.
Oh, wait.
Jazz's head shot up. Something was happening. Awareness prickled down his armour. Red, red optics scoured the road, looking for the sudden source of interest. Finally! It looked like his boredom was over! He scanned around and easily spotted the source of the sound. It was an engine, a roaring one – the kind that made the air vibrate with its revving presence. One of those high-octane, high-performance showy engines in a powerful, sleek alt mode that said more about the bot in a single glance than interfacing with him could say in a whole session.
And Jazz felt his faceplate break into a smile. A wide smile that cracked the sides of his faceplate like the smiles that used to crack his master's. A big black chasm that opened up into nothingness inside. His sharp, sharp optics saw what no one else could see. The weave of the commuters around him, the overbearing push of the oncoming Cybertronian as he barrelled forward. And...
And... at the end of the pattern, Jazz could see the gleam of a single shard of scrap metal laying so innocently forgotten on the the road.
It happened faster than anyone else could see. Except, in slow motion for Jazz. He was able to savour the moment, crying out like a cheer, for the sudden carnage unfolding before his gaze. The roaring engine approached, its owner coming on like a tank, faster than he should. Slower Cybertronians could not move fast enough, and so were swerved around. That looming shard gleamed sharply in the light.
One moment, the shard was there. The next, it was kicked up by black wheels scoring the road. Its sharpness disappeared into the undercarriage like a dagger delivered into the soft underbelly of a beast. There were so many ways this could have played out. A thousand different ways that little shard could have bounded off the protective plating on the underside of the Cybertronian. Only one way it would have struck true, finding that little weakness where the connections between the plates were weak enough to be driven through. The spark hanging low in the frame. Like a key to lock, the shard found its home and twisted deep.
Blue sparks lit up the road, so bright that they turned the surrounding daylight to night. A thousand tiny suns bursting forth into the air. The front end of the speeding creature reared up, as if thrown by a detonation. Screaming erupted, a frenzy of Cybertronians hoping to escape. They turned stupid in their panic, forgetting everything that should have come naturally to them; front ends rammed into back ends, metal flying. Diamond coverings shattered, sending sharp little diamond tacks everywhere to be tread over by the next unsuspecting victims. Wheels blew out; air exchangers sucked up pieces and suddenly burst into flame. Streaks of energon ignited.
Jazz was laughing. He had never laughed so hard in his life. Or perhaps he had. He did not remember. It didn't matter. In this moment, nothing else mattered. He was leaning back on his perch, arms wrapped around his middle as he laughed until his vents hurt. It did not matter that bots were dead, more were suffering, and chaos was spread as far as the optic could see. He was entertained, and that was all that mattered. He was no longer could barely hear the sound of his own laughter above the wailing.
In the middle of the road, the actual epicentre of the carnage, that stupid roaring engine unfolded. It became a living Cybertronian. A dying Cybertronian. A stupid, dead bot who would be forgotten as soon as Jazz looked away. There was pain etched onto his stupid features. Energon pooled around him, gushing out in great arcs and rushes where lines had been severed. His spark was on display, bright blue and pulsing erratically where the dark piece of metal pierced it.
A dirty hand reached out.
Jazz paused laughing, cocking his head to the side. That hand was reaching for him. Outstretched for him. Asking for help. It was blackened by soot, twisted from where the initial accident and flipping end over end had broken him. That hand shook, rattling. Not so proud now. Nothing to be proud of now.
Jazz stared at the hand, unmoved by it. Might as well as no one for help. No one would likely offer more help than he would.
Ah. But wait for it. Wait for it. The tingle in the air. A burst of excitement. Little bright sparks sputtering out, out, out. That shard in the bot's chest glowing white-hot in the tempest of beating energy, grinding loose, falling out. It was hot, hot, hot. Like a brand. Like the spark before ignition. Jazz leaned forward, sucking in air, watching the descent. Eager. Knowing what would come and wanting it so bad. The tip of the innocuous little shard struck a pool of active energon. Jazz heard the deafening 'ting!' of the metal hitting solid surface. And then the energon ignited, flaming high and hot, so bright it was white.
Jazz was laughing again. Laughing so hard that his legs kicked out. He dropped his dagger, but did not care that it disappeared into the empty dark below him. He laughed even when he could not hear his laughter over the scream of sirens. He laughed when others were crying. When they gurgled, cried out in pain. Laughed as they died, and laughed harder when they stayed dead.
He laughed hardest when Security Response stood over the burnt out husk of the stupid roaring engine, their hands on their hips, shaking their heads over the pointless waste of life.
Jazz laughed until he slipped from the girder, tumbling down several levels until he caught himself on a new suspended roadway. He wasn't laughing anymore. No longer was he bored, either. Standing there, on the side of the busy roadway, he looked up, shrugged, and transformed. He merged with the traffic, off to find some new entertainment.
His boredom, and the look of a dirty hand outstretched to him in supplication, were already forgotten.
The borderland between Iacon and Axium Nexus was exactly as Jazz remembered. It was like every other borderland on Cybertron; cut deep into the surface of the planet, a physical embodiment of the ancient divisions between the massive territories. They were empty, forboding places. Scrubbed of all evidence of life; it was cold, desolate, and full of hiding places a Decepticon could crawl into.
Armour prickling, senses reeling, Jazz scowled up at the walls hemming him in on either side. Too much like a corral for beasts, leading them on into the slaughter. Too much like a cage. In some places, the gorge was wide and sprawling, big enough to fly a large cargo ship through, and in others it narrowed, like in the section Jazz was travelling now. He could see the walls rising on either side, dark monoliths that stretched, seemingly unending, in either direction. There was a crumbling bridge hanging precariously overhead across the chasm, twisting and groaning, threatening to come down at any moment.
The last time Jazz had been here, he had been on a one-bot rescue mission to save Bluestreak.
With his mission down in the South Pole still firmly at the fore of his mind, Jazz had a whole new, and unwelcome, appreciation for the haunting borderlands of Cybertron. New dangers he had never considered. A creeping aversion that bordered on fear, though he was loath to admit any such sense. But this mission was necessary, a driving need that had rousted Jazz from the confines of Iacon base and thrown him out into the wilds in search of answers. Clues. Anything.
Jazz was not alone on his mission. Reminding himself of the fact made him want to bang his head into something solid. Prowl had dug his heels in and held Jazz to his vow to bring some half-bit nitwit Autobot along for the ride. So here Jazz was, out in the unprotected wilds of an outer Iaconian province, with a serious case of Autobots on his aft.
His only consolation was that he got to choose who came with him. Prowl had been accommodating in that sense, except to reserve veto power when Jazz had grinned and suggested the Twins. Not that the saboteur was that stupid to let the Twins off-leash so soon, but Prowl's horror at the idea had made the joke worth it.
In the end, Jazz settled on a scout from Intelligence & Espionage. Mirage's irritation over one of his precious agents being rousted had been delicious, more so because Jazz chose Hound – the only bot on Cybertron capable of tolerating the Master Spy. Amiable, friendly, sickeningly happy Hound was rumoured to be the only bot in the universe to take Mirage as a lover without being driven away by Mirage's personality. Upon Jazz's first request, Hound had readily agreed to being lent out on a brief mission. Mirage had fumed for orns.
All things considered, Jazz could certainly do worse. Amiability was not necessarily something he looked for in a bot, but Hound had such an excess that it was hard to ignore. He just oozed happiness like an airborne miasma. Since this mission was a one-time limited deal, Jazz could deal with it. He'd suffered worse. Aside from field skills, Hound had been a part of the team originally ambushed out here. The possibility existed that he might remember something useful of that orn, some insight that Jazz might not have otherwise seen.
What Jazz had not bargained for was a stowaway. A non-traditional stowaway, but an unwelcome intruder nevertheless. Nightbeat had only appeared after Jazz and Hound had left the capitol column of Iacon. One moment, two bots had been driving along the rough tracks alone. The next moment, there had been three. Nightbeat had acted as if he had been there the whole time.
Despite Nightbeat keeping silent on his reasons for joining their mission, Jazz did not turn the agent away. There was the possibility that a mech as peculiar as Nightbeat could prove to be useful. If reduced to it in a firefight, Nightbeat was as good a living shield as any.
Hound paused his long-legged stride, taking stock of the gorge. One deep green arm went up, halting the rest of the team. He bent, shifting his hands through the grey ash that settled like a blanket over every surface. War had thrown so much debris into the atmosphere that sometimes it rained ash as much as it rained acid. Hound's palms came away sooty, streaked with pitch black from burnt debris hidden beneath. "This is where my team and I were attacked."
Nightbeat shaded his optics, casting vague glances around. Jazz stopped instantly and went about evaluating their immediate surroundings. The bottleneck shape of the borderland in this particular section made it dangerous. The walls were close enough to attack from either side, though far enough away that retaliating forces would have trouble defending from both sides.
"Pirates used to use sections of the borders like this," Nightbeat intoned randomly, staring up at the bridge that groaned pitifully when a hard wind swept through. "Cargo ships would sometimes try to squeeze through here, especially at night when they thought no one was watching. It's a good way to avoid border inspections. Pirates on gliders, or bots who could fly on their own, would jump down from either side and take over the ship." His cloudy gaze swung to Jazz knowingly.
For all the vague memories Jazz possessed, he knew he had been part of several raiding parties like that. They had been popular long ago, when technologies had been less developed and it had been much easier to take a ship by surprise. The first jump was always the most thrilling. But if someone were to ask if Jazz had ever done something like that in this particular border, he wouldn't have been able to answer.
All on his own, Nightbeat said, "I was never a pirate, but I did similar things when I needed a ride somewhere. Wait until a ship passed by and then jump on its back and scramble aboard without anyone noticing." He paused, glancing at the two bots watching him. He had just spoken more words than either Jazz or Hound had ever heard him say at any one time. Nightbeat's shoulders shrugged. "I didn't make much as a private investigator. Better a free ride than none at all."
Jazz snorted. So the little glitch had experience being a stowaway? No wonder he was so good at it.
Hound chuckled lowly, shaking his head. Setting Nightbeat's pre-war transgressions aside, the scout pointed at more evidence of old gunfire that streaked into the high walls. Black slashes from plasma burns, deep gouges where missiles and mortar had scored away metal. It looked like a gigantic beast had been set loose, taking out its fury on everything it touched. The ground itself was littered with debris, both fresh and old. Where the supports had collapsed in the multi-layers of the wall, sections of the canyon had crumbled into mountains of ripped metal and jagged girders.
"The scouts from the outposts mentioned some unusual movements along here, enough to have a genuine team out to investigate." Hound's arms came down, hands bracing on his hips. "There's always been some activity down here, ships using the gorge as a means of travel without needing to risk the open skies, but the 'Cons slipped up. Two ships in one cycle was suspicious enough."
Jazz said nothing, letting the words sink in. Letting his mind prickle, thoughts racing.
Shockwave was meticulous. Every detail, no matter how tiny, was dealt with in laser precision. Obviously he had been established here long enough to build a lab, following a carefully crafted pattern of movement that would not alert the Autobot scouts in the area. Everything had been accounted for down to the molecules of air. But there was a chink in Shockwave's armour, coming in the form of plebeian Decepticons. Half-bits who wouldn't know their audio dials from their exhaust pipes, working here at the secret outpost only because the large operation required bots to keep it running. Chances were, most of them hadn't even had a clue as to what was really going on.
No, scratch that, none of them had had a clue. The memories Jazz had drained from the 'Cons he'd murdered attested to how well Shockwave had been keeping his secrets hidden. Not one of those dead bots had even known Shockwave's designation.
Somewhere along that well-fashioned detail-oriented clockwork-style line of action and reaction, someone had screwed up. A bot did not follow the plan. An alarm was raised. Autobots were sent to investigate. Jazz himself showed up, taking his first steps into the twisting labyrinth of mysteries and monsters that was slowly taking over his life.
As Jazz came back from his own thoughts, he tuned into Hound's words: "We tried to play it safe by sticking close to this side, using the Iacon wall as a shelter of sorts. Who would have guessed they would have been waiting for us in the wall?" Hound glanced at Nightbeat. "I didn't know about pirates using the canyons for jumping ships. I was a Guardian at the Tetraxian Youth Sector before I became an anthropologist with the Research Core. No room for ship-jumping in either function."
"You should try it sometime." Nightbeat flashed a smile.
"No time for that now. Hound, ya were saying they ambushed ya?," Jazz intoned sharply, hoping to steer the conversation back.
Hound nodded determinedly, "Yes. They wore dampeners. We didn't know they were there until it was too late." He shivered, shaking his head when the memory became too much. "It was hard to even tell what direction they were coming from. The shots seemed to come from every direction."
Taking Jazz's none-too-subtle hint, Nightbeat was once again all business. "Judging by the angle of the impacted shots, the Decepticons were hiding on the exposed upper levels." He pointed high to where the walls had fallen away from the gorge, exposing the multiple levels of Iacon's interior. "There's a stray shot right there..." His finger followed his mental projection, arching across the wide channel to the other side, where Axium Nexus rose up from the ground. "Someone shot across the gorge, it seems."
"They had ya absolutely surrounded on both sides," Jazz said, sliding a sidelong glance at the scout.
Looking startled, Hound revved, took a deep drag of dusty air, and then coughed it out. "Primus... we were damned lucky to get out alive."
Jazz pointed across the gorge, to where he suspected a secondary team of Decepticons had been camped out. "If ya had retreated ta the other side, more Decepticons would have been waiting there."
Hound's optics flashed as they readjusted, bringing long-range into focus. He saw the exposed structure of Axium's gorge wall, the countless little nooks and crannies that a Decepticon could have tucked away into. "Good thing we turned hard and ran straight back up the gorge to get out of here."
"That is probably the only thing that saved you from sharing Bluestreak's fate," Nightbeat said, turning one slow, full circle. "Jazz, were you shot at when you came through here?"
"No," Jazz replied. "Ah followed the border along the top and came down farther along. Even with the bots Ah freed, we took a long way around by climbing into Iacon's infrastructure and hiding in the wreckage. If Hound was attacked coming down the middle, Ah wasn't making the same mistake."
"For the best," Nightbeat muttered, still surveying his surroundings. "It looks like there could have been at least three actual snipers on either side, unless they managed to get the femmes in on this. Most of the spaces I'm seeing are too small for a mech or minibot to fit in properly."
Jazz snorted. "Decepticon femmes are worse than Autobot ones. They don't associate with the main forces. Ah'd be surprised if Shockwave convinced Megatron to borrow them, and even more surprised if Megatron managed ta get them ta work in a dirty little outpost in the middle of nowhere."
Nightbeat's optic ridges arched subtly. "Megatron has trouble controlling his Femme Division?"
"Everyone has trouble controlling their Femme Division. If anything, he has more control than anyone else Ah've seen – and that's only because he's willing ta make lethal examples of those who disobey him," Jazz dismissed.
With a thoughtful nod, Nightbeat turned back to the massive wall looming over them. "If the femmes are not in question, then maybe the rest were automated systems? It's simple, efficient; all that's needed is a motion detector and a signal modulator reader."
"That fits," Hound agreed, his gaze raking the far wall. "If Shockwave is supposed to be some kind of ghost operative, then he would be working with as few Decepticons as possible."
"Bots working for him don't even know they're working for him. He's a better kept secret than Ah was," Jazz said, flashing a hard look at the two Autobots. "He didn't get ta be such a big secret without knowing what he's doing."
"Good thing we got someone who knows what he's doing on our side," Hound replied, grinning down at Jazz as if Jazz had not relayed a piece of terrible news. He went on to add his own input. "Automated guns are the easy way to cut down on personnel. Less bots around, the less bots there are to screw up."
"Too bad he had enough bots around ta screw up," Jazz sneered.
"Lucky us," Hound said.
Nightbeat looked like he would say something, only to shut his mouthplates and stare into the distance.
"If the 'Cons were able ta set up automated systems, it means they were here for a while." Jazz hopped up onto a tangle of metal debris, kicking up plumes of grey. He coughed it away from his vents. The yawning dark pits of the wall intrigued him, beckoned him to see what sorts of hidey-holes the Decepticons wormed their way into. "Ah'm gonna go check out a couple of the spots, see what Ah can see up there. Ah'll be right back."
"Wait," Hound called, moving after Jazz before the saboteur could go far. "What if there's more hiding out there? We've tried to keep a scouting presence out here at all times since the Bluestreak incident, but we can't be sure the Decepticons haven't returned."
Jazz did not disguise his annoyance. He didn't have a problem if the Decepticons decided to pop up. More fun for him, getting to kill a couple of 'Cons and having the chance to probe their minds for more information.
"There's no one out here," Nightbeat intoned flatly without looking up from the rusted pile he was poking.
"How do you know?" Hound questioned, concern rather than irritation on his faceplate. "If they're wearing dampeners like last time..."
Cloudy optics flicked up, exhaustion reflecting in their tired depths. "Trust me, there are no living Decepticons in the vicinity. Not here. Not in this exact spot."
"See, there's no one," Jazz said, deciding that Nightbeat's uncanny sense was better than nothing. It was two against one, and Nightbeat had yet to be wrong in all his career.
Hound was still unconvinced.
Jazz cut in before the scout could say anything. "Worry more for yourself, okay? If the automated guns are still operational, they'll go for you, not meh. Ah'm Neutral, and Ah can switch ta my Decepticon modulator if Ah need ta." He poked Hound in the chest, hard enough to leave a nick. "Ya can't."
"You have a point. Don't go too far, okay?" Hound sighed, stepping back. "I'm going to see what I can find around here. If Decepticons have been in the area, they won't be able to hide it with this much ash on the ground."
"Have fun," Nightbeat bid, picking up a scrap of something from the ground to examine it.
Jazz gave a quick nod, slipping off through the wasteland. The first hole he found in the wall was a low one, nearly midnight black inside. Dust had settled, hinting no one had passed through in a long time, if ever. A high-powered cannon was bolted to the dingy floor, hooked up to a dead energon cell; one of the automated guns that had been left to rot when Shockwave abandoned the place. If this one was dead, chances were the rest of the cache were too.
Twisting and turning through the levels, scaling up support columns and wriggling through open chasms between collapsed floors, Jazz came upon his second hidey-hole. A quick peek out the crumbling makeshift window revealed a perch high off the ground, a perfect vantage point for a sniper looking to pick off unwitting Autobots. Unlike the first hole Jazz had climbed into, this one wasn't empty. A dust-covered corpse sprawled across the floor, dead from a single stray shot through the small window. Curious, Jazz flipped the corpse over to note the pattern of singe marks around the head and shoulders. A photon blast, an attack commonly used by Hound via his immense shoulder mount.
Hand to audio, Jazz opened a comm to his team. "Hound, Ah got a 'Con up here. Looks like ya smoked him good in battle."
"I got one?" Hound wondered, bewildered. "Well, good for me, I guess. I wasn't exactly aiming at the time. Everything else good up there?"
"Nothing but dead and dust." Jazz cut out with a laugh, deciding that a little entrepreneurial harvesting was in order. It certainly paid to have extended sub-space pockets, allow him to take up what he saw as value materials. Weapons, of course. Armour parts that were difficult to manufacture, and anything that was made with metal compounds hard to find. Optics were taken, and the energon that had yet to congeal fully was drained for later use. Lastly, Jazz stole into the dead mind and pulled out what he could, which was disappointingly little. Turned out the 'Con was just a hired gun, told to sit still and keep an optic open for any Autobot activity.
Nothing about Shockwave in there, no matter how deep Jazz dug. Damn, the scientist was good.
He climbed up several more levels, finding no more corpses or any further useful evidence. Just automated weapons of various shapes and forms, all power reserves drained to dust.
His comm channel chirped, Nightbeat summoning him.
"We have something down here you might want to see," said the agent. "Hound found fresh tracks."
"Ah'll be right down," Jazz said, making the quick choice of going the fast way down. He was due for a decent thrill. Weak reddish light filtered in from outside, and he ran straight at it. Exhilaration spiked through his spark, energon singing, as he flung his full weight out the ragged opening. Nothing but empty air caught him on the outside. For mere moments, he was weightless. He was in the past, standing at the edge of a skyscraper, with Xerxia's hand on his neck, the whole world stretched out beneath him. And then he was in the present again, feeling the sudden effects of gravity while Hound's strangled yelp echoed down the gorge. A loud 'whoop!' burst from his mouthplates as he plummeted into a wild free fall.
Without fear, only burning excitement, Jazz spared only a glance for the ground speeding up to greet him. It was still a long ways down. He grabbed a ledge that was speeding by, his spark swooping in his sparkcase. His weight jerked hard on his shoulders, swinging like a pendulum. His feet found purchase, bracing, and then lifting off again. The world turned over as he flipped, completely free, and then returned to reality with another jarring stop. Claws digging into the crumbling metalwork, his faceplate hurt from his broad grin. Air rushed in through his vents, sucking in deep before he threw himself out again, laughing as gravity pulled him down.
All too soon, his feet hit the ground. The impact jarred him from his feet to his horns, but it felt good. He ached from the sudden exertion, but it was a good ache. Thrilling. Exhilarating. He felt his spark pounding a heavy rhythm against his sparkcase. He was alive in the best of ways. Touchable. Unstoppable.
When he finally caught up with the others, Hound was a mess of nerves. Optics wide and mouthplates agape, it was obvious the scout had expected to be scraping Jazz's flattened corpse off the ground.
Jazz braced his hands on his hips, unable to stop grinning. "So, what's up?"
Hound floundered, hands moving haplessly through the air. "How did you do that?"
"Practice," Jazz replied with a incorrigible laugh, dusting off his hands. "If there's one thing being pushed off of spires teaches ya, it's how ta fall with style."
Hound didn't bother to ask how many spires it took to learn such style.
Jazz glanced at Nightbeat, who appeared to have missed the whole show. The agent's attention was firmly fixed on the ground where a clear set of tracks cut through the layers of ash. When Jazz laid optics on him, the bot said, "Seven out of ten."
"Only seven?" Jazz snorted, coming to crouch at the bot's side.
"I took points away for scaring Hound."
With a glance at the scout, still recovering, Jazz shrugged. "Fair enough. What do ya got for meh?"
Hound gave himself a shake. "Someone small was moving through here fast not long ago. There's no evidence of attempting to cover the tracks." He turned, pointing at a collapsed section of wall not far behind them. "Must have climbed down there, scooted the edge, and then made a dash down the center. Awfully bold for someone to just streak right down the middle, don't you think?"
Jazz revved.
"Then again, the middle is the most open part of the gorge. If someone wanted to take the risk to move fast, the middle is the best way to go." Hound's sharp optics surveyed the prints with expert precision. "Too small to be mech or minibot. It's either a large microbot or a standard femme."
Jazz leaned over them, tracing the small prints with a critical optic. "Femme prints."
"I am inclined to agree," Nightbeat intoned, flicking a glance at Jazz. "Could you be wrong about the femmes working with Shockwave?"
"It's just one femme," Jazz pointed out. "There should be more if Megatron had their cooperation, and even then, we wouldn't be seeing their tracks. They're too good ta slip up with something stupid like this." He let a claw fall into one of the tracks, feeling how the ash had compacted under her weight, how the excess had puffed away. It was a deep print, weighed down by more than just frame weight. In the uneven grooves and valleys, Jazz could see the way the runner slipped and slid in the ash, how she struggled to maintain her headlong bolt through the gorge. It was a pace set by a desperate bot, someone foolish and stupid, too untrained to be either Autobot or Decepticon.
Hound walked ahead, following the tracks. "She transformed up here, kept going up the gorge. Heavy wheels for a femme, definitely meant for off-roading." He shielded his optics from the glare of the red sky. "No denying it, she's heading in the direction of Shockwave's lair."
Nightbeat settled back on his heels, elbows resting on his knees. "Chances are, if these tracks are not all that old, we'll be meeting this mystery femme up ahead."
"Then let's not waste any time," Jazz said, rocking to his feet.
They trudged on, keeping their optics open for any sign that they might not be alone anymore. Though it might have been faster if they had switched into their alt modes, there were certain advantages to their bipedal modes when considering stealth. For one, they could bend, twist, and move as they needed to in the uneven landscape; their bipedal agility and flexibility far exceeded what their stiff alt modes could offer. They had the advantage of being able to turn their heads, survey the land with their own optics rather than rely on their scanners. While most Cybertronians would have prefered their scanners, Jazz was better adapted to the gifts of his Sight. Hound was a scout, trained to use his optics to the same capacity he could use his other senses.
And Nightbeat... Whatever the pit Nightbeat did, he did it well, and Jazz was not about to question it.
It was another three joors before Jazz and his team approached the ruins of the base. Despite the time, this trek did not seem to take as long as the last time Jazz had been through here... probably because this time, Bluestreak's life wasn't on the line. The air was stale, but thankfully a lot warmer than the pole. Despite it having been several long cycles ago, the acrid scent of burning metal from Sunstreaker's and Sideswipe's explosive visitation still lingered hauntingly in the air.
Now that Jazz could stand back and observe the true settlement of the base, he could appreciate how well Shockwave had planned out his little operation. It was off the main path, hidden deeply within the twists and turns of this labyrinth-like section. Just like in the Kaon-Tyger Pax southern borderland lab. Why break a winning combination? It was nearly impossible to get the drop on the place, unless you knew what you were doing and were really good at doing it. Were it still in one piece, the base would have been just about the same size as the other one. Now it was blown to smithereens, with debris stretching out in all directions.
Jazz nodded approvingly over the devastation. The Twins certainly knew their way around a set of explosives.
Nightbeat sighed, rubbing tiredly at the side of his head. "Evidence of the Decepticons scavenging the place."
"Yeah?" Jazz intoned.
"Over there," Nightbeat said, pointing to vague piles of scrap metal. "Can't leave behind valuable materials or damning information. They must have been coming around in between Autobot patrols."
"Old piles. This place is as good as abandoned now," Jazz replied, noting that the activity would have taken place shortly after the explosion.
Hound frowned. "There's not likely going to be anything left for us to look for."
Jazz shook his head in sad agreement. "This is probably a big waste of time, but it's worth a shot." He hopped down the shallow ledge, making his way down the cracked, debris-strewn road that led to the destroyed gates. He avoided the motion sensors left behind by the Decepticons. He supposed he should give them credit for their half-sparked attempts to keep an optic on the place, but obviously it was of no more importance. Their disinterest boded ill for Jazz's mission.
Nightbeat wandered ahead, his head cocked to the side, hand trailing along a half-wall so that his fingers left behind grey streaks in the dirty ash.
"What should we look for?" Hound wondered, watching as Nightbeat disappeared around a corner.
"Anything," Jazz sighed, loping off in another direction. He followed halls and corridors that no longer stood. Letting his feet guide him by memory, he ended up in the Holdings area. The cages were scattered in twisted heaps of metal, the bars twisted in every direction. Square outlines in the ground indicated where the cages would have been before they had blown up.
Jazz walked to the cage where Bluestreak had been held. He stood in the place where the sniper had writhed on the ground. His spark turned over in his chest, burning with foreign feeling.
As quick as he could, he exited the area and went hunting amongst the debris for any kind of clue. The hallways were a wreck, no more than a labyrinth of twists, turns, and dead ends. He tried to recall what the place had looked like when he'd rampaged through it the first time, but those memories... the parts directly before he'd heard Bluestreak crying out... were disconcertingly vague. It was a feeling that Jazz was coming to dislike greatly.
Stalking along, he could hear Hound shifting about unseen somewhere in the wreckage. Being the largest in the group, Hound easily made enough noise for all three of them. Movement in Jazz's periphery had him jerking around, dagger in hand, prepared to fight off the femme whose tracks they had seen. A moment later, he put his dagger away with a roll of his optics.
Nightbeat continued to sift through his small pile of debris, unbothered by Jazz's near-fatal slip up. "I think I found something, but I'm not sure."
"Yeah?" Jazz hopped up over a fallen door and slid down into the small slope of debris.
"This looks like it used to be an archive of some sort," said the agent, nodding his head to the left. "See those things over there? They look like burnt out hard drives."
Jazz perked up, eyeing the dusty husks. "Anything on them?"
Nightbeat sighed. "Completely wiped out. But I did see some frame parts around them. Someone must have been standing right next to the hard drives when the place blew."
"Ah." Jazz crouched, hefting a piece of concrete and tossing it aside. "The rest of the bot is down here?"
"I suspect so." Nightbeat leaned down and swept aside a blanket of dust, then recoiled when a faceplate stared up at him.
Jazz wrinkled his olfactory sensor. "The head's been damaged."
"It could still have something useful in it. Help me get him out."
Together, they hauled away the worst of the wreckage to uncover the corpse. Its death mask continued to glare out at them accusingly, mouthplates gaping in a silent scream. A piece of shrapnel pierced the back of its head, likely the killing blow. Jazz noted the open interface panel on its chest, the cable trailing naked through the dirt. His gaze tracked to the nearest of the standing hard drives, knocked crooked off its axis, blackened by soot. An access panel in its side hung open.
"I wonder..." Nightbeat murmured, turning the mangled corpse this way and that. He failed to find he what he was looking for, dropping the dead mech in Jazz's lap and crawling away on all fours.
Jazz made a noise of disgust, picking up the bot's trailing cable and swinging it around. The heat of the explosion damaged the connecter on the end. The port was full of soot. No way Jazz was sticking anything of his inside this thing. He braced his hands on the head and started to twist it back and forth, loosening the connection to the rest of the frame. If the head had anything valuable in it, he could take it with him and use Iacon's resources to hack into it.
"Found it!" Nightbeat suddenly exclaimed, thrusting a dinged gauntlet into the air.
The nearly-headless corpse in Jazz's lap was minus a gauntlet on its right arm.
Taking out a polishing cloth, Nightbeat went to work cleaning off his new prize. He wandered back to Jazz, sat down, and ignored the saboteur while he went about ripping the corpse's head off. When the last of the wires were severed and the spinal column snapped with a satisfyingly loud crack, Jazz proudly held up his own prize and sneered at the empty glare that stared back at him.
"Here," Nightbeat intoned, handing over the gauntlet. "This is probably of more use to you."
Setting aside the head, Jazz took the gauntlet. In his hands, he felt the lingering heat of the agent's touch. He knew Nightbeat wouldn't have gone after it unless it was something important. He turned the armour over, bottom of the wrist turned up. There, engraved in the grungy metal, was the sign he was looking for.
"Psi ex Machina."
Nightbeat cocked his head to the side. "The cult?"
Jazz tensed, arching an optic ridge. "Ya know of it?"
"Not really." He sat back, shoulders shrugging absently. "I was a private investigator, remember? I had a case once of a missing lover. The trail led to a cult suspected of abducting bots, but after that it went cold." Nightbeat frowned. "It was a bad case."
Jazz fiddled with the piece of armour before deciding it was useless to him and tossing it aside.
"Obviously the Psi ex Machina have something to do with Shockwave, or else you wouldn't have gotten so tense seeing that mark" Nightbeat observed, glancing around himself. He tapped his chin with a finger, humming quietly for a moment. "I don't remember much about the cult, but I remember they were involved in experiments. From what I've seen here, Shockwave is involved in experiments, too. Not a coincidence, right?"
Jazz rolled his optics. "Ah see how ya earned that second in command position in Special Ops. Your detective skills are unrivalled."
Nightbeat ignored him. "I can assume you saw something when you investigated down south." He paused, brow furrowing. He looked to the side, like someone was whispering in his audio, and then he glanced at Jazz with a dawning realization. "Oh. You brought something back with you."
"How did ya know?" Jazz hissed, bristling.
A crooked grin flashed in the grimy light. "I didn't. Not until you just confirmed it." He held out his hand, palm up, crooking his fingers. "Let me see it."
"Over your rusted frame," Jazz snorted.
Nightbeat sighed, heaving to his feet with some effort. "You found something you can't explain while you were in Kaon. If it was something you already understood, you and Prowl wouldn't be trying so hard to figure things out. We wouldn't be here combing the burnt out ruins of a stripped lab."
Jazz's mouthplates curled in a sneer. "Why did ya really come with us, Nightbeat?"
"If I didn't come with you, would you have found that corpse?" the agent wondered, and then looked at the discarded gauntlet. "Would you have found that mark that links this place with the cult you are looking for?"
"Answer the question, Nightbeat," Jazz bit out.
He hesitated, measuring the saboteur with a guarded stare. There were too many secrets in Nightbeat's optics. "I came because something told me to come."
"Something told ya?"
"I'm not crazy."
"That's debatable."
Nightbeat backed down a step. "I tend to follow my instincts. They've never steered me wrong. I felt like I needed to come, so I came."
Jazz could not ignore what his own instincts were telling him. Nightbeat was telling the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, and there definitely were still secrets that the bot was hiding, but he did join the mission with pure intentions. He did not mean Jazz, Hound, or anyone else any harm.
Slowly, making no sudden moves, Jazz dug into subspace and removed the data pad he had filched from Shockwave's lab in Kaon. Despite pouring joors into it, orn and night, whatever code the Decepticon had used to encrypt the pad was proving resilient. Jazz had made little leeway with it.
Nightbeat's gaze locked on the data pad and refused to look away.
"This is what ya want?" Jazz asked, watching as Nightbeat's optics unfailing followed the path of the data pad as Jazz waved it. "Puzzles are your speciality, aren't they?"
"I live for them," Nightbeat replied unguarded. "Mysteries of any sort, really."
"Thus explaining why you went into private investigation." Jazz glanced at the data pad, admitting to himself that a fresh perspective is what he needed. Someone who wasn't mired down in the mess, but also someone who knew how to keep a secret. He tossed the data pad, and it was caught with expert precision. "The moment ya learn anything, ya come ta meh."
"Of course," Nightbeat assured, tucking the pad away into subspace. "We should get going. Hound's been left on his own for long-."
"Ow!" a deep voice howled directly following the sound of metal hitting metal.
"That was Hound," Jazz said, turning in the direction of the continued exclamations. The scuffle was easy to narrow down when everything else was in nearly complete silence. Hound's deep voice boomed in the emptiness, nearly drowning out the sounds of his opponent, who sounded suspiciously like a femme.
Jazz turned around a collapsed wall just as a set of green arms were scuttling in the opposite direction, attached to a green femme who was clawing her way on all fours. Hound was attached at the other end, yanking her back by the legs. It only took a single glance for Jazz to confirm who their new company was. A flare of irritation prickled inside of him. Lifting a foot, he braced the sole against the femme's forehead and shoved her hard enough to send her sprawling backwards into Hound's chest.
Moonracer did not stay dazed for long. She twisted and writhed in Hound's grip, shrieking to be released. Like a wild thing, she kicked and scratched and screamed. It was not until Hound caught her by the ankles that she even slowed down for a second. Her optics shot wide, outrage blazing in them, and then she was instantly a harridan. Hanging upside down in mid-air, she punched and scratched at anything within reach, whipping back and forth so hard that loose pieces of her armour flung away.
"Let me go right now! I mean it! I'm armed and I'm not afraid to shoot you!" she screamed. "Put me down, you brute! You Autobot! I'll teach you to mess with a Neutral!"
No longer fighting for his life, Hound looked down at his captive and laughed. "Moonracer, it's been a while."
She screwed her faceplate up and punched him in the leg.
Jazz crouched down to her level and caught her other fist when it flew on a direct route to his faceplate. He squeezed her fist until she cried out in pain. "Care ta explain what the pit you're doing here?"
"No," was her belligerent answer.
"Fine." He looked up at Hound. "Shake her up a bit."
Obliging the order, Hound took an ankle in each hand and proceeded to shake the Neutral femme. He did not take the shaking seriously, as evidenced by his merry laughter. A proper torturer, Hound was not. Moonracer, on the other hand, might as well have been under the mercies of the worst interrogator on Cybertron if the continuous claws-to-crystal shriek she gave off was any indication
Jazz waited until she settled down again. "Got anything ta say now?"
"I. Hate. You."
"Ya seem ta have grown a spinal column since the last time we talked." He snapped his fingers and she was taken for another ride, this time with a little swinging involved. Back and forth. Back and forth. Shake. Shake. Shake. Hound was still laughing, careful not to hurt his captive. Nothing close to the level of torture Jazz might have visited upon her, but it was probably adequate enough. Moonracer wasn't a warrior. She would crack easily enough.
Jazz checked his chronometer, and then counted down; three, two, one - "Okay, okay! I'll talk! I'll talk! Just make him stop shaking me!" Right on time.
Jazz gave the signal, and Hound gentled his shaking until Moonracer could hang motionless from the mech's hands. Her arms hung loose, scraping the ground. She looked like she was about to lose the contents of her tanks.
"Why are ya here?" Jazz pressed.
"I'm looking for Shockwave on my own!" Moonracer exclaimed, clapping her hands over her mouthplates just as she heaved.
Jazz backed up to avoid the spray, and then looked away when Moonracer purged and gravity pulled the spray down across her faceplate. He waited until she was done sputtering, wiping her face with her hands. Dirt smeared in the wetness of the congealed energon. Her optics blazed with furious white fire.
"Why are ya looking for Shockwave? Ya know he's dangerous. You've seen what he can do. Are ya completely stupid?"
"You haven't done anything since you got back from the south!" Moonracer hissed. "The Autobots aren't doing anything! I am sick and tired of living in fear!" She swept a vicious hand through the air. "If no one is going to help the Neutrals, then I will!"
Jazz's expression relaxed, one optic ridge quirking. "So ya came here ta do what? Look for clues?"
"Yes." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I haven't found anything yet, but that doesn't mean I won't! And I've been resetting and recharging all the motion detectors I come across so they fire on anything that moves. If Shockwave comes back, he's in for a nasty surprise."
"Really?" Jazz drawled, nearly laughing.
"Yes, really," Moonracer sneered petulantly, made even more comical from its upside down view.
"Hound," Jazz called, smirking up at the scout. "Ya can put her down now."
With a chuckle, Hound set the femme gently on her feet, offering to brush non-existent dirt from her frame. Moonracer took exception to his politeness, rushing him with the intention of shoving him away. As a femme-type bot, she was lightweight and small, particularly when compared to the heavy bulk of Hound's off-roading mech-type frame. Moonracer bounced off of Hound and landed on the ground, scrambling away when he tried to help her up. Upright again, dancing out of arms' reach, she whacked her armour back into place where it had been thrown askew by the shaking.
"Figures you'd be skulking around here," she sniffed in Jazz's direction. "You always seem to be around."
"Ah happened ta be on a mission of mah own, one that happens ta involve finding anything around this pile of garbage that would tell meh where Shockwave might be," Jazz replied, giving the Neutral a pointed look. She stuck her chin out and tilted her olfactory sensor up in the air. Stubborn, stupid creature. Wasn't it only a few cycles past that she'd still been too scared to look him in the optic?
Hound cocked a hip, hands braced low. "Speaking of missions, I thought I found something back there," he nodded his head in the right direction, "but then I went chasing after her."
Moonracer was stubbornly unapologetic.
"What was it?" Jazz enquired.
"Not sure, just some strange readings," Hound said, his expression clouding over. "I've never seen anything like it before, not sure what to make of it. Probably best for you to have a look at it."
"Show meh," Jazz commanded, reaching over and locking his hand around Moonracer's wrist. "You're coming with us. Ah don't want any more trouble outta ya."
Though she dragged her heels, Moonracer consented to being led around by the arm.
By the time they made it to Hound's discovery, Nightbeat was already there. Clever creature. Jazz hadn't even noticed when he'd snuck off. This time, he wasn't on his hands and knees digging in the refuse. Instead, he stood quietly, head tilted back and his optics closed. His frame swayed softly back and forth, as if mesmerized by something... or he'd finally fallen into recharge.
Moonracer managed to yank her arm away, glaring accusingly at Jazz. She pointed at Hound, and then at Nightbeat. "I thought you were supposed to work alone."
"Prowl made him bring me," Hound coughed into his raised fist, trying to hide his grin.
Jazz rounded on him with a snarl.
Nightbeat startled, head jerking up and around. Either he was drowsy from being rudely snapped online or dazed from whatever trance he'd been in. "Oh. What?"
"Why are you here?" Moonracer demanded bravely.
"I'm a stowaway," Nightbeat replied absently.
"Argh!" Jazz threw his hands up in defeat.
Moonracer blinked at the trio, followed by a frown of utter confusion.
Pinching the bridge between his optics, Jazz looked between his two Autobot teammates. "Tell meh what ya got in here?"
"Scan it," Hound said. "See if you pick up anything... unusual. The energy signature is all over the place in this section of the compound."
Casting a wide range scan, Jazz cocked his head at the readings.
"Spark energy," Nightbeat intoned, optics closed once again.
"It's been perverted," Jazz observed. "So Shockwave is experimenting on sparks?"
Moonracer gasped, hands flying to her mouthplates. Horror flared in her optics. "The... the screaming I heard..."
"Shh, Moonracer, you can't freak out in this place." Hound laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, though his expression was grim. "Spark experimentation is the ultimate taboo, Jazz. Do you think Shockwave would go that far?"
"Without a doubt." Mind racing, but his frame suddenly numb, Jazz turned on his heel and marched from the place. He heard Hound immediately at his back, Moonracer following a moment later. Nightbeat stalled in the ruins for longer than necessary, eventually making his way in everyone's wake.
"We're getting out of here right now," Jazz ordered. "The sooner we're back in Iacon, the better-"
A bolt of energy seared out of nowhere, skimming his ankle before lancing straight into the ground. Two more rapid bolts of bright white plasma screamed from different directions, one nearly taking a horn from Jazz's head, the other nicking the side of Hound's arm.
Hound jerked back on impact, his opposite hand clutching the smoking gouge. When more fire came, he fell back with the rest of the team, falling to the ground with a crash when Jazz reached up and yanked him down. "Damn it! Are we under attack?"
"In a manner of speaking," Nightbeat replied calmly, ducking his head nonchalantly when another bolt of plasma flew by. He pointed over the makeshift wall they were taking cover behind. "Those are the automated guns. Someone reactivated them."
Jazz shot a narrowed look in Moonracer's direction. "Ya can thank her for that. Now turn them off, Moonracer."
"Yeah, give me an astrosecond. I had them off earlier... I don't know how they got turned on again." She patted herself down, looking for the little cranny where she had stashed the kill switch for the automated guns. A moment later, she froze, her optics shooting wide.
"No," Jazz hissed. "Don't tell meh-"
"It must have fallen out when you were shaking me!" Moonracer exclaimed, patting herself frantically. "I had it right here and now it's gone! The remote must have landed hard enough to turn the guns back on!"
Nightbeat peered over the edge of their cover wall, and then ducked back down to avoid losing his head. "Looks like we will have to make a run for it."
"This is all your fault!" Moonracer shouted, her ire reserved solely for Jazz.
Jazz refused to rise to the occasion. He flicked her a cold glance. "Ah'm not the one who went about reprogramming the motion detectors and then was stupid enough not ta protect the kill switch in subspace."
She puffed up belligerently, though her chin was wobbling. Fear flickering.
"It's okay," Hound assured, trying to keep it light. "I have a shield generator. If you stick close to me, you should be fine." He glanced at Jazz and Nightbeat. "Moonracer's small, so I can fit her, but you two will have to run it on your own."
"Fine by meh," Jazz snorted, readying himself for the mad dash. He and Nightbeat squirrelled over the top in a flash, ducking and weaving as they ran. Plasma seared the air, screaming by them. Smoke and ash exploded into the air every impact. The shots just kept getting closer and closer, the computers running them adapting to their targets' movements.
Hound's crashing footsteps heralded the start of his run through the gauntlet.
Jazz kept his optic straight ahead, running flat out. Engines revving, vents heaving. This was a new kind of thrill, but no less death-defying.
From behind him, he heard a shriek, knowing instantly who it was. "Frag!" Jerking his head around, he caught a flash of Hound stumbling, the force field generated from his shoulder mount wavering. Moonracer was knocked away, her hip smoking where a plasma bolt landed. Jazz dived, avoiding a blast to the chest. Another glance back and Hound was beginning to turn back for her. Moonracer was dragging herself, grabbing handfuls of wreckage, her hip oozing, one hand outstretched pitifully...
Forget her! Forget her! She means nothing! Keep running!
It was complete insanity to turn back!
"Frag it." Jazz spun so fast he skidded through the slurry of soot and shrapnal. "Hound, keep going! You're the largest target out here. Get beyond the sensor range!" He zipped past the green mech, ducking bright flashes of plasma as they whizzed by. Feet slipping through garbage, kicking up sprays of debris that only attracted more gunfire. He watched Moonracer's optics pale and widen upon his approach, her outstretched arm going limp with shock.
"You-"
"Idiot!" Grabbing her arm in a punishing vice, Jazz whipped her from the ground none too gently. Ignoring her scream and cursing, he anchored her to his side – she was surprisingly heavy for such a small bot - and launched back into the fray, dragging her useless frame half-beside him, half-behind him. Over the sound of her screaming, over the howl of burning plasma, Jazz was cursing a streak of his own. His blatant stupidity, her uselessness, and the bad influence the Autobots had had on his own judgement!
Good deeds were going to be the death of him!
Nightbeat's garbled shout of warning came too late. Jazz's optics shot up to see a starburst of bright bright white whistling straight for them. No time to duck or run. Acting on immediate instinct, the saboteur did something that topped all of his stupidity so far. He shoved Moonracer to the ground and threw himself on top of her, becoming a Primus-damned a living shield.
Gritting his jaw, Jazz refused to cry out when the attack hit. He felt his armour melting, imploding inward from the heat and force of impact. Energon surged, but had no chance to ignite when the heat of the plasma cauterized his polymer lines. For a split astrosecond, Jazz felt air and heat flare up his exposed spinal column at the base of his back. Fire filled his frame, frizzing out neural circuits and overloading his processor.
And then he was numb, falling into the blackness of oblivion.
Rapid reboot program initializing... Initializing... Running Diagnostics... Calculating... Calculating...
Jazz snapped back to consciousness just as a bump in the road jammed into his front bumper and made his processor ring. Pain throbbed from one end of his frame to the other.
"What the fr-"
"He's online!" Moonracer exclaimed, her alt mode swerving at his side. "Jazz, how do you feel? That was an incredibly stupid thing you did back there! For an astrosecond, I thought you were dead."
Wanting to give his head a shake, Jazz found that he had no head at the moment. Or arms. Or legs. Someone had forced him into alt mode. Definitely had been forced, or else his trans-cogs would not be feeling so stripped. Everything was sore... except for his back end. He couldn't feel his back end. And yet, despite not being able to feel it, Jazz knew that it was currently lifted into the air at an angle truly unbecoming of a bot of his dignity. Hound was ahead of him, acting as the designated tow.
"What. Happened." Jazz bit out hoarsely.
Nightbeat cut around to Jazz's other side, also in alt mode. "You took a plasma blast to the back," he explained. "It must have hit in just the right place, because it cut through your armour and severed your spinal column."
That explained the numbness. "Slag."
"I had to go back for both of you," Hound said, sounding jovial rather than put out. "Just about killed my energy reserves extending my force field, but at least we got you out in one piece."
Jazz muttered something foul.
"Moonracer had a look at your back as soon as we were able to get a safe distance away, said it's pretty bad. Ratchet should be able to rewire it when we get back to base." Nightbeat paused, bumping along quietly on the deserted road. "We thought the electrical surge fried your processor. You're lucky you're alive."
Jazz growled lowly. "You were stupid ta come back for meh. Should have left meh."
Hound guffawed loudly. "No way in the pit. Aside from the fact that Prowl would kill us, you're one of us now. You risk your neck for us, so we risk ours."
Jazz silently fumed, humiliated, ignoring the detritus that got snugged up in his undercarriage. Moonracer stayed by his side, even after Nightbeat left to take point. She stuck close, silent but nervous. The creature who had gotten him into yet another ridiculous mess.
"Moonracer," he murmured.
"Yes?" She inched closer, sounding very much like all was forgiven between them.
Without warning, Jazz wrenched his front wheels and sent himself veering into the femme, throwing her across the road. The crash echoed loudly, sparks flying. Pain seared up Jazz's frame, flaying him from the inside out. Bit and pieces of him flew free, but extra damage was worth it to watch her get ditched.
Hound threw on his brakes, screeching to a halt. Nightbeat puttered to a halt, idling quietly.
Moonracer was on her feet a moment later, sputtering and bewildered. "What was that for?!"
"This is the last time Ah'm saving your sorry aft," Jazz snarled, wishing he didn't look so ridiculous in alt mode with his aft hiked in the air. "When we get back to base, either ya march your aft into Optimus Prime's office and beg ta take the oath or Ah'm gonna kill ya. Ah mean it, Moonracer. Ah'll kill ya."
Moonracer immediately puffed up, an obstinate scowl marring her features. Then she looked at Jazz. Really looked at him. The monster himself who was supposed to be sparkless, barely sane; he'd saved her life twice now, and even flew all the way down south just because she was concerned for the Neutrals down there. He was hurt, paralyzed from the waist down, and fuming like a wild animal. For everything he had ever done for her, he had never asked for anything in return, except for...
Her stubbornness deflated, optics averted. She collapsed into her alt mode and crawled up alongside him. "Okay, I'll take the oath."
Jazz bristled, resisting the hint of relief that flittered through his battered system. He summed up enough ire to bite out, "Good. You'll be Elita One's problem from now on. Not mine."