Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Just the plot and OCs.
So once again I'll start with how awesome all of you are. Thanks so much for all the reviews. As always.
This chapter, well, not even Jazz can be cool all the time. It's time to see what possessed the saboteur to come home dragging static-hound pups.
Enjoy.
Chapter 21
"Static-hounds?"
Jazz didn't even look up as he leaned against the table in front of him with his chin resting on his palm while he listened to the two tone, doorwinged mech pace back and forth on the other side of the room. They'd been in here all fraggin' morning. The silver mech was well since fed up with the SIC saying the same thing over and over again.
So he said nothing.
"Static-hounds! Static-hounds, Jazz!"
"Yes," The saboteur snapped, finally letting his gaze snap up to his best friend. "Yes, Prowl, I'm aware what it is I brought back."
"Oh really? Are you aware? Because I thought for a moment your damn logic chip shorted out or something. At least then you would have some type of legitimate excuse for your damn idiocy."
Jazz's visor darkened as his optics narrowed. "Since when have I ever needed an excuse for anything that I do?"
Prowl's doorwings flared out behind his back. "I thought we were long since past excuses, Jazz. I thought you no longer had need from them?"
"I never had a need for them."
An optic ridge rose.
Jazz just glared harder. "You know I never did."
"I know you told yourself you didn't, but Jazz you always had a reason for everything you did. You justified everything. Even back—"
"Don't you dare!" Jazz bolted upright before the SIC could even register the movement, and by that time he did the silver mech was halfway to the door.
"Jazz—"
"Don't you even pretend that you know a damn thing about why I did anything back then! You didn't know me!" He swung back to his best friend, claws flexing and itching from the anger that swirled deep inside him.
"Jazz," Prowl sighed. "You didn't even know you."
The visor flashed and Jazz was gone.
Hic
Hic
Bee wiggled around a bit in his blankets while his tiny fingers stroked the slightly squishy protoform metal that made up the twitching audio receptors of the femme static-hound pup that was curled up with as much as possible of herself in his lap. Her long tail whipped back and forth happily as the little mechling pet her, her brother lying on the other side of Bee his big black optics watching the big mechs across the room.
Neither the pups nor the mechling really knew what Ratchet, Ironhide, and Optimus were doing, or what they had been doing for the last few joors. Not that the pups really cared. All they seemed to be concerned with was not leaving the mechling's side as he sat there in a pile of blankets sipping a really weird warm pink energon that Ratchet gave him. It had a funny taste, kind of tingly in a warm sort of way, but Bumblebee didn't question it too much after it started to make the throbbing in his throat stop.
Ratchet had stood there for a long while ignoring the pups that were swarming around his feet while he scanned, rubbed, and looked at Bee's vocal processor. The youngling hadn't been too thrilled when he had to sit there in Ratchet's arms with his mouth wide open while the medic figured out just how much he'd stressed the under devolved cords that made up his vocal processor. It was done with now though. Ratchet had what it seemed he wanted and Bee was content in his pile of blankets placed snugly in the center of Ironhide's berth with his two newest friends curled around him as he sipped at his weird energon.
The only real issue he was having with any of it was the—
Hic
Bee's whole frame shook with the sound making him scrunch up his little faceplate in unhappiness.
He was getting real tired of this.
Hic
Hic
Hic
An overly exasperated sigh echoed out of the mechling before he plopped down backward in his pile of blankets throwing his hands over his head not at all caring what happened to his cube of energon as he landed with a light thud on the soft surface of this guardian's berth. The noise and movement drew the gathered mech's attention and before they could help it a snort and smile worked its way out of all of them before Optimus tiredly pushed his bulk to his feet and went to the hiccuping mechling.
Hic
Hic
Hic
Hic
A deep purr rumbled through the Prime's chest as he reached the berth, his optics mindful of the two new additions it seemed they had added to their glitched up family. He was no more all that happy about it then Ironhide was, or Ratchet, or Prowl, the twins, or any of the other bots that saw the mechs walking back to Ironhide's quarters with an abnormally quiet mechling and the static-hound pups that were padding along behind the massive weapons master's feet.
It was safe to say that Hammerdown had stood there rather dumbly in the hall for a good few klicks just looking at his old teachers and family then to the pups standing at their feet before he lifted his optics to the dark blue ones of the mech he considered his older brother.
Yet he didn't say a thing.
Just tilted his head for a moment before he shook it once back and forth and strolled on back through the ship doors to his own ship.
Bee had yet to figure out whether or not that meant Hammer liked his new friends or not.
For now he wasn't too worried though. He just let out another hiccup looking up to the powerful mech's optics while the pups let out soft humming noises as they watched the big mech scoop up the tiny yellow mech from his fortress of fluffy blankets bringing him to rest in the crook on his arm.
Bumblebee snuggled into the familiar chest with another soft hiccup as he was carried back to the chair the Prime had been in next to Hide's desk where the other mechs sat together in the dim room.
The soft purr in the commander's chest mellowed out when he was sitting again with the once again sweet, calm, little mechling that wasn't screaming at them all from under a table. There were times when the mechs on this ship forgot just how much of . . . something Bumblebee really was.
The whole fit had just been because he was scared of them hurting those pups. Those pups he'd seen for all of ten nanos.
Because that was Bumblebee.
He didn't care that they were the same breed as those monsters in the tunnels that had tried to shred him. The thought had probably never even crossed his mind. Knowing him that was just what happened.
He hadn't cared what it cost him to make sure the innocent little things didn't come to harm either. He hadn't stopped until he'd screamed himself hoarse, and even then the fight only ended because in the end he was still Bee and he would always end up snuggling back up to one of them.
Though . . . the foul language was going to have to be addressed.
Later though.
Much later.
After the tonic Ratchet mixed up had soothed the irritated vocal processor and Bee had a few orns of enforced quiet time. Which was going to probably prove to be a bit of work. Bee wasn't usually quiet or still by nature so the prospect of keeping him both of those two things long enough for him to let his vocal processor heal was what had the three mechs sitting together in that evening watching the little mechling put off his recharge as he pet static-hound pups that had seemed to claim him as their own.
Pups that none of them were all that sure what they were going to do with now that they were here.
Static-hounds were a bit of a touchy subject.
It didn't help the opinion of them around this place that a pack had tried to take him away when those bounty hunters came calling, but there was also the basic truth of what they were. Beast like creatures that dated back to when the tribes were still fighting off Predacons. Back when civilization was the myth and order was a sparkling tale. Back when the world was wilder then a raging rust storm. That was when the first wild hounds found their way into the dwellings of bots. The old legend behind the taming of a creature that could never be truly called tame was that a femme long, long, long ago found two litters of static-hound pups that's pack had been slaughtered in a fight with a Beast had been pasted down over the generations of the tribes. Whether that fight was over food or territory nobot really ever knew, but the only things to survive the bloody battle were these two litters of pups. Weak, defenseless, and doomed to die in the wilds around them.
As was nature's way.
As was the Tribes' ways.
However, it is said that the young femme—who it was rumored had lost her own sparkling in a raid between battling tribes—would not leave the innocent pups to die in the energon around them. So she took the two litters that were made up a collection of mech and femme pups that totaled around ten and brought them back to her tribe where she looked after them. Despite the initial reaction of her tribe mates to the pups who were considered feral and dangerous because in all reality they were the femme ignored them and raised the pups who came to see her as their not only creator but leader as well.
It was no secret even then that the static-hound was a creature that worked off pack mentality. They functioned as a group or they didn't function at all. A lone static-hound was a dead static-hound. They just couldn't last in the world around them—find food, fight off other predators—on their own. Without the pact a hound was nothing, but the pack was nothing without a strong leader for the others to follow, and for a creature that was sparked with a willingness to rip and slaughter they had an odd way of choosing the hound that lead them. For most creatures that function in packs the leader is the biggest and the strongest of the members. The one that can force the others to fall in line behind them.
For hounds though this was not the case.
The leader of a static-hound pack was the cleverest one.
See, hounds were not just wild, slightly cruel at times, creatures. They were conniving as well.
For it took a smart animal to be able to trick a turbo-fox out of its den to take its life, land, and prey. Static-hounds were not just big, sharp fanged animals with an attitude to back up the look. They were actually smart.
Very smart.
And it was the smart hound that would keep its pack—its family—feed and safe, so it was the smart hound that lead the pack. Sure strength was a factor in the way a pack functioned, but what good was that strength if the leader and the whole pack would be killed in a fight over territory or starve to death the first dry season?
There was no use for brawn over brains in the Sea of Rust or any of the other still wild lands that ruled Cybertron back then. It might have been a force of the mighty world, but it was the clever creatures that survived long enough to still be around to this orn.
That is why—as the old story goes—the hounds came to accept the small femme as their leader as they grew. It wasn't that she was curl or forced them to believe her their master. It was because she had saved them, feed them, and protected them from harm, and so as was the static-hound way they followed the leader that would lead to their continued survival.
Thus, the first 'domesticated' static-hounds came to be.
But this was not the end of the story, nor was it the reason that the wild, clever, creature of the untamed planet came to become the semi-domesticated so called pet that it had come to be now.
No, what made the static-hounds famous was the night the tribe they had been brought home to came under attack.
War was a normal part of the way the tribes' functioned. They killed each other in droves because that was the way things were. It was nothing for a larger, more powerful tribe to completely obliterate a smaller one. Leaving nobot alive. Taking no prisoners.
It was a brutal time in Cybertron's history . . . not that the present was any less brutal.
It was one of these smaller tribes that the femme who had saved the pups came from, and the night the other tribe invaded her tribe didn't stand a chance. They were massacred, at least they would have been. Had it not been for the very suddenly realized force of a ten strong pack of static-hounds that found the prospect of their leader being choked to death something they weren't to fond of.
The full fury of a most affective secret weapon was unleashed on the invading tribe the moment one of those hounds saw a mech much larger than their leader take her to the ground with every intention of killing her.
And for a creature so heavily reliant on family and loyalty this was not something the creatures could tolerate.
They saved their savior that night and when the startled invades found the sharp fangs and claws of a wild creature tearing into them it shocked them enough that the femme's tribe could drive them out in defeat and keep what was theirs. Including their lives.
All because of the hounds that came leaking and panting back to the femme's feet.
That was the moment the life of the tribes changed forever.
The news spread like wildfire across the deserts, the crystal forests, the bottomless canyons, and the lava fields. Every tribe was suddenly curious of this aspect that static-hounds could be trained.
And so it began.
Pups were saved, stolen, and poached from the wild packs—for it was quickly learned that a grown static-hound would never turn to a bot's will, would never leave the pack it was loyal too—and raised, taught, and very soon bred. The tribes created a creature that was more wild then it was tame, but would follow until its dying breath the one that it considered its master, its leader, its family.
It was not double rainbows and sunshine from then on out though. If it was, then this orn it would not be such a touchy subject as to whether or not a static-hound could be made into a pet.
It didn't take the tribes long to figure out that the wild that lived inside a hound, the energon lust, the will to kill, the need to be cunning and clever could never be bred out of them. Also that the larger the number of hounds that were grouped together to form a pack the more dangerous and unpredictable they would become.
For they were hunters, killers, by nature.
Primus' design was not for a creature that would recharge at the end of a berth and lick your faceplate in the morning.
The static-hound was a creature made to survive against a world in which almost everything was bigger and more powerful then it would ever be.
They were not meant to be pets.
That was quickly learned.
They were a smart creature that could technically be trained to do anything that the one they were loyal to asked of them, no matter what the number there where, but it was a matter of how well trained, how true of a leader they had, that determined how tame they behaved. The hounds' pack mentality grew as the pack did and if the loyalty to the one they followed was not absolute, or if one ever started to doubt the leaders ability then that member would turn on them and that ended in nothing but a lot of spilled energon.
It always had.
The ancients discovered that the smaller the number, the easier the connection, they found that single hounds raised from pup-hood would behave just as well—or there about—as any of the turbo-dogs that the bots of old would come to create by breeding the tamer hounds with tame turbo-foxes. It was found that one—hardly ever more than two—hounds could quiet possibly become that pet that recharged at the end of your berth and padded along after you where ever you went. If their bond with their leader was strong and they had reason to follow they would follow to the end of time—as was the static-hound way—but more often than not, especially after the turbo-dogs came to be, the hounds as a house pet fell out of favor.
They became what they had started out being.
The creature that would follow a bot into battle with no fear and no hesitation, would be loyal to their dying breath, and was capable of spilling enough energon to soak the wilds of Cybertron for vorns.
And that was just what they did.
The semi-domestication that had started fell out of practice and the hounds were only kept as weapons. They went back to the baser of their instincts. Wild and unpredictable even if they would follow a leader.
They were not pets.
At least, not to the mechs that were sitting together in the dim room trying to coax a tired, hiccuping youngling to recharge as the two pups snored on the berth.
Yet there was that possibility flickering in the back of Optimus' mind. The actual upsides it could be to have a creature once again—now that Risk was gone—that was strong enough to help look after Bee—once it grew, which they did, insanely fast—and would be loyal to him for its whole life.
Because it was already painfully obvious to the three mechs who it was the pups would be loyal too. It was the tiny yellow mechling that had crawled under a table with them trying to protect them. They might be a wild beast but as the mechs well knew static-hounds were far from dumb. Those pups knew what was happening; they knew who had helped them and who hadn't wanted to.
And as far as Optimus was concerned they had already shown their loyalty when they left the safety of their hiding place to follow Bumblebee out.
The connection was already started, whether the family was sure if they were okay with it as of yet or not, and the simple matter was it wouldn't matter one way or another. Because not a one of the these mechs would take something that Bumblebee wanted away from him. Not when—even if it was dangerous—it had already shown where it would follow.
They were not capable of denying the mechling anything that would make him happy.
They never had been able too.
And after the fit he'd thrown trying to getting them to not hurt the pups it was hard for any of the mechs to think about what it would do to the mechling if they just took the pups from him.
Bumblebee was not stupid.
He was quite clever in fact, and he would know. He would know what they had done.
Neither Optimus nor Ironhide thought they could look into those big baby blue optics and watch them fill up with tears when the youngling realized those he now considered his new friends were gone. Taken from him by the mechs he loved so much.
It was much later that night when the three friends were still sitting together quietly in the weapons specialist's room watching the tiny mechling purr softly where he was snuggled against the powerful spark of the Prime that they let their gazes shift between him to the curled together black shapes that had commandeered his blankets in his absence as if they were clinging to his scent.
A heavy sigh drifted out of Optimus as he let himself realize how small and innocent the pups were. They were not all that different from Bumblebee. Found lost and alone in the middle of someplace that if they stayed they would die, and they certainly weren't the first strays that the Autobots had brought home.
Probably wouldn't be the last either.
"It's not fair that he has nothing to cling too that is even remotely his size." The Prime let his optics slide back to the two he considered brothers.
Ratchet huffed, but his spark wasn't in the sound. "He'll always be small compared to most things around him. We've already gathered this much."
"What I mean is he needs a playmate his own size." The Prime sighed. "We all know how losing that robo-cat hurt him. Besides, let's face it. The only reason the thing with Ravage even happened was because he wants a friend."
Ironhide hissed quietly so that the sound would not wake his son that was resting in his commander's arms. "Don't even bring that up right now. I'm gonna fry that little glitch the next time I lay optics on him."
"Good luck with that." Ratchet rolled his optics. "Ravage isn't still alive because he's lucky, Hide."
"Luck had everything to do with it." He black mech growled.
"Not the point, mechs." Optimus said softly and attention was returned to him. "The point is for as wild as static-hounds are we also know the other side of them, and I know I'm not the only one that saw it."
Both the CMO and the WS looked away again.
They'd seen it.
They knew what it meant.
The pups were loyal to Bee, and that wasn't likely to change.
That didn't mean they were sure they liked it though.
Ironhide let out a soft sigh. "Well it's not like I can take them out back and shot them and Bee not cry for the rest of ever."
Optimus snorted. "This is most likely correct."
"So I guess they stay . . . until they do something that makes me have to kill them."
"It would seem so." Optimus nodded.
"Great." Ratchet rubbed a finger between his optics. "I can't see this coming back to bite us."
"It'll be alright, Ratchet." Optimus offered him a warm smile. The two tone commander was no yet sure if he was fully alright with the outcome, but it was the one they were faced with so really it was the one that he was going to have to accept.
"You know what I still can't figure out though?" Ratchet lifted his gaze to hold the Prime's who nodded his head for the medic to go on. "Why? Why did Jazz even bother to look? Why did he bring them back? Well I know why, but why? I figured if anything Jazz would be the one that would want the furthest away from hounds."
Ironhide let out a rumble that was louder than it should have been, but that tonic of Ratchet' was strong and Bumblebee didn't so much as twitch in the safety of his recharge.
"Careful where you go with that, Ratch."
"I don't mean anything by it, Hide." The CMO turned to face his friend. "Really I don't. I just . . . neither of you will talk about it."
Those dark blue optics narrowed. "And that is not likely to change. Now leave it."
Both Ratchet and Optimus knew they were treading on thin ice when it came to the subject of where Hide and Jazz came from, and it wasn't like they didn't know.
They knew. Just like Prowl did.
Though there were few others that knew the full truth.
Because of the simple fact that Ironhide and Jazz would not speak of it. They refused to go back to the past.
They refused to remember.
However, that was something that quite possibly was going to have to change.
Because the truth was Optimus needed to know why Jazz would do this. Bring the pups back and just give them to Bee without even running it by either of them. It wasn't like the silver mech really ever asked for permission for anything he ever did anyway, but this was the little mechling he considered his sparkling brother they were talking about here.
And Jazz had just dumped static-hounds in his lap.
There was something more here that much was easy to see just by the way that Hide would not meet either pair of optics around him.
Something that was going to have to be addressed.
BOOM
A shower of plasma and stone rained down over the shooting range, but Jazz didn't even pause to take note of it.
No.
He just relocked on his virtual target and fired off another round of shots. Emptying the clip on both his blasters again before he tossed them across the very cluttered room. There wasn't much that had escaped the saboteur's anger tonight. He'd already shred his way through every functional practice drown, nearly short-circuited the projection system when he took his mood to it and started shooting even the control panel, and he'd burnt through every target they had.
He was still burning through rounds though.
Burning through his emotions. Burning through his past.
Damn that Prowl! Damn that stupid, right mech!
With a growl the silver mech spun from the chaos he had created. Though he refused to admit to himself that he was pacing. Because he wasn't. He wasn't.
He wasn't this upset over a few stupid words.
He wasn't in this much pain.
He wasn't thinking about then.
He really wasn't.
Accept that he was . . . and he knew it.
And it was STUPID AS ALL FRAGGIN' PIT!
How many vorns? How many!?
How long had he been free of that place? Free of the lies and the hurt and the struggle and the . . . the mech that he really was.
He'd left his past in that damn desert.
At least he tried too. Maybe he hadn't done such a good job . . . because no matter what he'd done it seemed it didn't matter. He'd never out run the truth of his breed and his purpose. He'd never outrun the mech he had been.
The mech that he locked away in the back on his mind when he got his stupid aft caught. When he looked up into a blaster and the curious blue optics behind it. When he was given the chance to be somebot else.
After he had been what he was forced to be longer than he ever wanted.
There was always something funny about what the world seemed like after a raid. At least that was the way Jazz say it. When the noise and the chaos subsided and his job was done. When he was left standing in what was left.
When he could claim the spoils he was ordered to retrieve.
That was when it was funny.
In a sad, irritating kind of way. Because all those around him celebrated the victory of claiming another territory, of sacking another tribe.
Jazz though . . . he just stared at the death around him and wondered what he was supposed to be doing with his life.
"Ya missin' all ta fun, Jazz-mech."
The silver saboteur's mind came back to the present as he shook his head letting his visor covered gaze slide to the blood red femme that was leaning on a stone wall behind him shaking the energon off the end of her glowing dagger.
Snorting Jazz turned back to the falling home in front of him where he knew for a fact at least three sparklings were buried under the ruble. He'd blasted the supports out of the building. He'd saw it come down.
He'd saw who didn't get out . . . he'd done that.
"Jazz?" The high pitch of her voice grew a little softer when the bright femme closed the distance between herself and him. "We won. What's wrong with ya?"
"We always win, ya glitch." Jazz rolled his optics not looking away from the building.
"Ya glitch?" She snorted with a cross of her arms and a tilt of her head as she regarded him through light blue optics. "Little harsh don'tcha think?"
With a sigh the silver mech turned from the carnage to her as he walked away and she followed. "Ah'm sorry, Foxtrot."
She shrugged. "No big, glitch."
He cast her a smile, knowing full well that the smaller bot didn't have to follow him away from the loud pillaging of their tribe mates, but that she would do it anyway. She was his best friend after all. Which was saying something for the lives they lived.
Their breed didn't have friends.
Because sooner or later one of them was going to stab the other in the back. That was another one of those things that made Jazz's tanks roll.
The idea that one day he would put a blaster to the bright femme's back and pull the trigger. That he would have too, because that was what was expected of him.
Him.
The Tribe Leader's son.
Twist.
Duck.
Spin.
Twist.
Spin the other way.
Jump.
Flip.
Roll.
Spring up.
Slid back.
Duck.
Twist.
Slice.
Grab.
Ste—BAM!
"Awe frag it!" Jazz slammed to the floor after having been tossed backward into the stone wall of the training room. His processor was ringing from the bash against the hard black rocks infused with steal, but he shook off the dizzy shoving himself up as quickly as he could narrowly being missed by the larger clawed foot that slammed into the hard stone floor where he had just been.
"Move faster, mechling." The larger grey mech snarled, swiping his claws through air that would have been Jazz's chest if he was slower.
The young silver mech hissed at the term from the larger mech while he danced further away from the bot that pushed himself up right. His jagged grey armor flashing in the artificial light as he flexed long and twisted claws.
"Ah'm no mechling." Jazz growled as he glared into those dark red optics that held nothing but the promise of his failure. They always had.
"Prove it." And he lunged.
Energon dripped in a steady stream down more places of him then he really wanted to admit. It was that damn pride of his that did it. Made him sit there long after he'd been beaten—seriously beaten—and try to figure out why it was he was such a failure? Why it was he couldn't be what he was supposed to be.
Why it was he would never be good enough to be what Supersonic wanted.
Why he would never be the son his Sire wanted.
A heavy sigh drifted through him as he peaked at the gash that ran through the middle of his torso leaking energon badly. Maybe it was the distraction of his pain that kept him from noticing the two that entered the energon soaked training cellar, but it didn't take the silver mech's highly tuned sensors long to pick up the presence of the only two in this damn place he trusted.
The blood red femme and the ice white mech.
Foxtrot and Shatterproof.
The only friends he'd ever known.
Friends that shouldn't be that. Because Princes did not have friends. At least the way his Sire saw it. Jazz was meant to be feared, he was meant to be curl, like Supersonic.
But he wasn't.
He never had been.
Maybe that was why Shatterproof and Foxtrot even bothered with him. He'd never been all that sure though. Because they should know better. They might have been together since they were all sparklings, raised by the same nurse seeing as all their creators aside from Jazz's Sire died of the virus breakout that swept through the lava fields and the desert sands almost two hundred vorns ago. That shouldn't have changed a damn thing though.
They should have run a long time ago.
They should fear Supersonic. They should fear the example he would undoubtedly make of them one orn.
Jazz feared it.
He feared it more than they could possibly know. Because he knew how his Sire would do it.
That didn't stop the young silver mech from accepting the dangerous white claws that unfurled before him though. With a sigh he winched through the pain that flared through his sensor-net from the injuries reminding him of his failure as the larger mech pulled him to his clawed feet and steadied him against a thick side while Foxtrot swung his other arm around her smaller shoulders and without a word the two of them helped him limp from the energon soaked reminder of what they all knew and down to the healers' hut. Not because he wanted it per say, but because it had to be done. It wasn't as if Supersonic could have his heir leaking to death on the floor where he left him. That would never do.
No.
He would be taken to the healers' and they would patch him up then send him back to his Sire's wrath.
That was how it worked.
That was how it had always worked.
From the orn he was strong enough to hold up a simple dagger that was the way it had been. His Sire had been beating his stupid aft as long as he could remember, not that he even really cared anymore. It had turned him into the amazing set of skills he was now.
Even if he still wasn't good enough to best the only mech that he really did want to dig his claws through and watch his energon leak down over his claws.
Not that that was ever going to happen.
A dark chuckle rumbled through the thick chest that was located somewhere near Jazz's sensitive audio receptors making the silver mech roll his optics as he glanced up to the larger form of Shatterproof as the two of them crouched there in the crevices of the stones.
"Whatcha so giggly 'bout ya big ol' fool?" Jazz snorted quietly as they waited in the shadows overlooking the unsuspecting fools recharging peacefully in the tiny village below.
Shatterproof shrugged with a deeper laugh. "Ah was just thinkin' is all."
"Pit that's a dangerous pass time ma friend."
He was promptly smacked upside the head making the only slightly younger mech laugh while he lightly shoved him back only to be shoved a bit harder.
"Watch ya self, Jazz." His friend warned lightly. "Ya go and start callin' ma ol' what that make ya self?"
The saboteur paused in his cackling as that accrued to him. "Uh ya just go on and forget ah said that."
"Can do ma bro." The white warrior nodded as they both turned their attention back to the village that would come to a fire ravaged end this dark and moonless night out here the red glow of the desert sands.
The somber silence lasted for a while longer; it would be a good amount of time before Supersonic and the rest of the forces caught up with the two speedsters, but eventually that curiosity of Jazz's got the better of him and he tilted his audio horn topped head to his lifelong friend.
"Just 'cuz ya is as bored as ma is . . . whatcha wondered over?"
Those deep red optics cut Jazz's way before the larger mech shrugged again. "Nothin' really."
Jazz lifted an optic ridge above the rim of his visor. "Yeeeaaah suuuure."
The other glanced before looking away again.
"Shatter ya and ma known each other way ta long ta lie ta each other. Just go on and tell whatcha worryin' over."
The larger mech let out a sigh before he turned his dark optics to his friend's visor. What Jazz found there surprised him and he leaned in closer in building concern even if the Prince of a tribe should never do such a foolish thing.
Snorting Shatterproof shook his sharply angled head as he turned his optics away again as he whispered. "Ya, Jazz."
The saboteur leaned back in confusion. "What?"
"Ya Jazz," The larger mech took a breath before he let his dark optics return to his friend. "Ma worryin' over ya. Same as Foxy is."
"Worryin' over ma?" Jazz's optics narrowed in growing confusion. "Why the frag ya worrin' over ma?"
The other snorted loudly. "Ya got a thick head on ya shoulders, Jazz-mech, but ya not that thick is ya?"
The silver mech was lost. "What is ya ramblin' 'bout?"
"Come on now, Jazz." Shatterproof rolled his optics. "Ya know what ah talking about."
And then he understood.
Looking away as the truth flashed through his processor the smaller mech sighed. "Yeah . . . ah know . . . ."
Shatterproof turned his gaze back to the quite village below. "Ah know ya did."
Jazz chuckled without a hint of humor in his tone. "What the two of ya worryin' 'bout that nonsense for?"
"Seriously?" Shatter snapped his gaze back with a dangerous flash in those dark optics of his.
Jazz shrugged. "Ain't nothin' 'bout it ya'lls problem."
Shatterproof just stared.
Jazz was forced to look away.
"Not our problem?"
"Well its not."
"Ya own Sire is out for ya neck." Shatter growled.
Jazz shot him a glare. "Like that's new."
At first he hadn't known what to do when he stepped through the strip of fabric that had once been his colorful door that was now just shreds of pathetic scrap fluttering in the hot wind. He'd stood there for a very long time in the evening heat and just stared at the shreds knowing what awaited him and just to scared to move forward, but eventually he summoned up the courage to slip through only to wish once he was on the other side that he'd just turned tail and fled to his friends' huts so that he didn't have to see what he knew would great him on the other side.
The space that had once been his simple yet colorful quarters was now nothing but a broken, energon soaked joke.
And Jazz really wanted to cry.
Not that a Prince was ever supposed to do something like that.
No.
A Prince was never supposed to feel anything. At least that was the way Supersonic saw things.
Which was why he did this.
Yes . . . this was his Sire's doing.
It had his damn designation written all over it.
No other bot would dare do this.
Only his own Sire would destroy everything he loved just because he could, and there was absolutely nothing Jazz could do about it.
He guessed that was why he was such a damn coward who just fell down in the middle of those battered, torn, now grey, and lifeless frames pulling the smallest of his pets into his lap as he cradled her small head in his hands as he bent at the waist leaning down to press his forehead against hers while he choked down his sobs rocking her back and forth.
Sly.
Primus damn it!
Little Sly!
She was hardly more than a pup!
Just a little pup!
What had she—or any of the rest of them for that damn matter—ever done to him!?
They were just static-hounds! They behaved. They stayed in his hut unless they were with him. They'd never so much as acted out.
However, none of that mattered.
Not to Supersonic.
All that mattered was they were Jazz's and that massive mech would hurt him in every possible way he could trying to make him into the monster that he wanted, and in the end if Jazz didn't change the whole tribe knew that it would be him that go slaughtered in the end.
Supersonic would not accept anything less then everything that he wanted . . . and Jazz had never been what he wanted.
The silver mech knew all too well that he never would be.
He figured that out long ago.
That he didn't belong here. He never would.
He just didn't know where else he was supposed to go.
That was why he sat there in the middle of his ransacked room stained with energon refusing to admit that he was crying over a dead pup's frame until a hand tipped in sharp claws laid on his shoulder before a smaller frame curled around him from behind wrapping strong arms around his shivering from. Jazz took a shaking sob filled breath, but couldn't make himself move as he felt Foxtrot pressed herself against his back trying to share some comfort for her friend while Shatterproof stood there beside them looking over what had been done to the only things in his life that Jazz had truly let himself become attached too.
Besides the two that were with him now.
But no matter what the silver mech thought the truth was that Shatterproof and Foxtrot were more than capable of taking care of themselves. It might be foolish of them to say that they didn't fear Supersonic—and it might also be a lie—but even if the laws of a tribe were everybot for themselves and friends are for fools the three of them had had each others back since their nursery cribs. They would not leave him now.
No matter if Supersonic was out for them too. No matter that it was a given that sooner or later the mighty leader would turn his anger for his 'failure' of a son onto them. That was something they'd face when the orn came. Because their friend needed them.
He'd never make it on his own.
Because Jazz . . . well he didn't even know who he was.
He'd never known who he was, or what he wanted. He'd never been given the choice.
This could quite possibly be the worst decision he'd ever made.
In fact, it probably was.
It brought whole new definition to the term stupid.
This was bordering on moronic, or it might have possibly left it waaaaaaaaaay back there.
Jazz wasn't all that sure.
It could be either way really, but at this point he didn't care.
He was running and that was the end of it.
No matter if that made him a coward or not. It was the only choice he had. It was the only one he was going to make. If he stayed Supersonic would kill all that was left that he cared about, he'd make Jazz saw it too, and then he would kill Jazz.
For the simple matter that Jazz was never going to be what he wanted.
He knew that, the tribe knew that, and Jazz knew that.
They'd all always known that.
It was time that Jazz just embraced it.
He was no son of Supersonic's. He'd never wanted to be in the first place so in the end it didn't truly matter. Leaving the tribe and everything he'd ever known behind him wasn't that hard. All that was left to bind him were the only two that had actually cared about him, but in the end if he stayed he'd be the death of them.
Leaving was better for everybot.
It was the only option he had really.
So here he was, milking his engines for everything they had as he gunned his way toward the border of the Sea of Rust. Staying in his Sire's domain was a death sentence. The only chance he had was to leave the desert behind him and find a place for himself somewhere else.
Out running who and what he was might be a bit harder then he originally thought it might be though.
To be completely honest this was kinda new for Jazz.
Stuff like this normally didn't happen to him.
So since he was already being completely honest he'd admit that he wasn't all that sure how to handle it.
Which might have been what had gotten him where he was. Laying on his back with a plasma blaster warming against the side of his head as he stared up at the first mech—besides his damn Sire—that he'd ever known that had been either lucky enough or quick enough to catch him when he was slinking around.
In hindsight he probably should have known better then to try and swipe from an Elite base in the middle of the crystal forest in the first place, but the truth was bots did crazy things when they were hungry.
It was the hunger that Jazz was really blaming for all of this.
He hadn't had a decent meal in . . . actually he'd forgotten how long it had been.
The lack of decent fuel had made him into this sluggish fool that had managed to get himself caught by a stupid Elite trying to snatch himself a decent meal.
"Be still," The mech warned him when Jazz tried to twisted out from under the slightly larger weight that was pinning him by a foot above his spark.
Jazz growled in response to the words, his darkened visor flashing with the glare that was burning behind it as his claws itched to dig into the sensitive wires in the ankle they were wrapped around.
His captor just lifted an optic ridge as he titled his red chevron topped head.
"That would be unwise."
"Ain't from where Ah'm lying." Jazz snorted.
"Do you really think you can damage much before I put a hole through your head?"
"Ya be surprised what ma can pull of ya glitched Guard!" His claws flexed, but the blaster pressed again him whirled as it warmed the plasma shot that waited in its chamber reminding Jazz of who was really in charge right now.
The white and black doorwinged mech tilted his head the other way as curiosity glittered to life in his optics confusing the silver mech.
"You're accent," The Guard mech said trying to keep the wondering out of his voice. "It's not of the crystal forests. You have the draw of the Sea of Rust. What's a desert mech doing this far north?"
Jazz snarled, trying to twist again, but only managed to get the hammer of the blaster to kick back and still him all over again as the weight pressed harder into him.
"Ain't ya damn business, Elite!" He huffed.
The mech just went on staring.
Jazz growled. "Either shot ma or get off ya fool. Ah got slag to do, glitch."
"Prowl." The other said.
Jazz's snarl died off into a confused mumble. "Huh?"
"Prowl." The other repeated. "My designation is Prowl. Not glitch, not Elite, not Guard. Prowl."
Jazz blinked. "Is that supposed ta matter ta ma?"
Prowl shrugged. "Just thought it might be easier to get you to tell me your name if you knew mine."
Jazz snorted. "Kinda wishful thinkin' ain't that? Whatcha think Ah'm gonna tell ya who ah is for?"
"Call it a hunch."
"A hunch?"
"Yes, an educated guess of sorts." This 'Prowl' nodded.
"Based off a what?"
"Well everything you've done so far to be honest."
Jazz's visor's tint faded back to its normal glowing blue caused by the optics hidden behind it as he stared in confusion up at the mech that still had him pinned but had yet to really do much else.
"Whatcha ramblin' 'bout?"
"It's simple really." The other shrugged. "Everything you've done for the last two orns of you scouting this base."
Jazz's jaw fell open slightly.
"Yes, I'm aware of how long you've been sniffing around. I was keeping track of you. Wondering what it was a loner was doing this close to a base guarded by three dozen. You were either a spy for a Tribe around here or you were alone. The fact that you weren't trying to sneak around any of the meeting rooms or such made the odds point more toward the conclusion that you were on your own. Or course that made me wonder what it is a loner would want with this base. There is no way he could take it down on his own."
"Ya might be surprised." Jazz mumbled.
Prowl just went on. "It's true. I could be. I don't know enough about you to make any real judgment calls. This one is a bit more of a gamble then I really like to make, but there was something strange about what you were doing. Which is why I didn't report it. I might should have. We will see soon enough I suppose."
Jazz just stared. "Ya is glitched ah swears it."
"Not glitched." Prowl shook his head. "Just curious. Curious as to why a mech like yourself is stealing energon. Why you didn't harm a single spark when you snuck in and would have gone right on and snuck right back out had I not dropped in on you."
"Ya want ma to start slaughterin' then by all means hop up ah'll start right now." Jazz's visor flashed.
"And what if I said I'd just let you go, what would you do then?"
All over again Jazz blinked, confused. "What?"
"You haven't damaged anything." Prowl pointed out. "You haven't taken information, and nobot knows you are even here. Besides me that is. What will it hurt that a hungry mech slipped some energon? How can the lot of us call ourselves peace-bringers if we deny such a thing?"
"Peace-bringers?" Jazz laughed. "Is that whatcha call ya self?"
Prowl's bright blue optics narrowed slightly. "It might not be what your breed calls us, but it is true."
"Ma breed?" Jazz threw his head back as much as he could laughing, the sound confusing the one that still had him prisoner, before he let his focus snap back on the other. "Ah haven't got a breed."
"You don't?" Prowl questioned.
It was at that that Jazz looked away. "Not anymore."
"Well . . . ." Prowl began quietly. "Do you want one?"
With wide optics Jazz met the two tone mech's gaze in disbelief as the other removed himself and his gun from him stepping to the side before he did the strangest thing as of yet, bending slightly to offer a hand.
Jazz lay there for a good few nanos staring in utter bemusement before he did something even stranger yet. Pushing himself up slightly he reached out and took the offered hand as he quietly said.
"Maybe."
Maybe.
Jazz shook his head.
That one simple word and his whole life had changed.
Sitting there in the middle of all the chaos he had caused with his claws digging into the side of his head that he had clutched between his forming fist and was lightly banging against his drawn up knees.
It had been a long time since the sly, silver-tongued, saboteur had found himself in a position such as this, but he was doing his very best to ignore it and pretend that he wasn't curled up here on the floor reliving everything he'd locked away.
Leaving his Sire had been the best decision he'd ever made. It was the decision that brought him a freedom like he had never known. The freedom to figure out who and what it was he truly wanted to be, but it was also the decision that lead him to the frontlines of Sentinel's armies. The armies that swept through the tribes and either brought them into submission or brought them to extinction.
Jazz hadn't been on the force that swept through his home village and brought it and its cruel leader to a very energon soaked end, but he had been the one that told the reining Prime how he could get into the fortified valley that held the tribe that he would not have been able to break through had Jazz not.
Jazz had kill them.
Whether he'd been there or not . . . he'd killed them.
Even if their frames hadn't been among the slaughter—Jazz had checked the reports, Prowl and Optimus had helped him—he knew one way or another he was the reason the first friends he'd ever known were gone. Whether they died that night or not it was his fault. Because if they hadn't been there that night it could only mean that Supersonic killed them after he realized his heir was gone.
He would have taken his anger out on them.
On the two that had stood beside him through it all. They had been a team the three of them. They protected and looked after each other, and Jazz had left them to face their fates so that he might out run his for a while longer.
He was no better than Supersonic had been.
Not really.
Even now.
He'd told himself he brought those pups back because it was time that Bumblebee had a playmate his own size again. Because Jazz knew firsthand that a hound pup trained and cared for right was a companion for life, but the truth was Jazz brought those pups back because he had looked at that little femme one that bounced up to his hand and he'd seen Sly.
He'd seen all the innocent lives that were lost because of him.
And he couldn't leave them there to die.
No matter what the repercussion of his actions were going to be. He hadn't cared. He'd done it because he wanted too.
Just like he'd done for a very long time.
A shaky breath rocked through the silver mech as memories rolled on by in his mind's optics. The laughing faceplates of his friends, the happy wag of his hounds' tails, that ever present sneer worn by a massive grey mech that he could never please, and then the rest of them.
The rest of the nameless faceplates that he'd seen over the vorns.
All those that he killed because his father ordered him too and he hadn't been mech enough to stand up and say no, and then the ones that had come a bit closer to now. All those that had stood on the other side of a faction line from him.
Those that would kill what he meant to protect.
The ones he killed and felt nothing for . . . .
The ones that sometimes made him feel just a bit too much like his Sire's son.
It was those thoughts that kept the saboteur from noticing the hiss of the shooting range doors, the mech that paused to take in the things that the silver's anger had caused, the sight that left the new comer sighing as his doorwings hung a bit lower than they normally did, and slowly walk to the place his friend was balled up to sink down onto his knees beside him and wrap an arm around his slightly shivering shoulders.
Jazz didn't jump like many would have.
The touch was familiar and not all that unexpected really.
He just took a moment to gather himself before he carefully unclenched his claws from his own audio horns, turning his darkened visor that was clearing out of habit to the ever calm and collected bright blue optics of his best friend.
"I'm sorry." Prowl said softly, making a small smile rise on Jazz's lips even without his real consent.
"I know." He sighed looking down again. "So am I."
"I know." Prowl nodded.
Jazz snorted.
Prowl smiled. "You're right by the way."
"I'm always right, Prowler."
"Of course you are." The two tone mech snorted this time. "Except where you're wrong."
"Of course." Jazz laughed, turning to face him again. "But just wondering, what was I right about?"
"The pups." Prowl answered. "They will be . . . good . . . ."
Jazz's optic ridges lifted above the rim of his visor. "Really now?"
"Optimus has already informed me that the pups have chosen him." Prowl replied.
"I kind of figured they would after that little stunt in the medical bay." Jazz snickered. "I might have brought them here, but that means little compared to what happened in there. They'll choose the one that they feel they can trust."
Prowl rocked slightly on the balls of his feet as he knelt there next to his friend. "You knew they'd choose him anyway, or you wouldn't have brought them here."
"I don't know. I might have."
A look was shot his way to which had Jazz snickering all over again.
"Ya forget Prowler. I'm secretly a very bad mech."
"Oh the worst." That got the SIC chuckling.
"Tis' a gift." Jazz shrugged as he kept on laughing, the pain and the memories fading out leaving him sitting there in a shooting range that Ironhide was going to try and skin his armor from his protoform for destroying, and yet he found he didn't really care.
If Optimus had excepted the pups and was letting Bee keep them then that meant everything would turn out alright and Jazz could put his past back down where it belonged.
Locked up and put away where it couldn't haunt him anymore than it already was.
That was best for everybot really.
There was a reason so many that were still alive this late in the war had put the things that haunted them in a box, locked it up, and hid it away so that it could not come back to bite them now.
There were some things that were just better left behind.
It hadn't taken long for the silver tribal bratling or the two tone massacre survivor to learn that.
And sadly it probably wasn't going to take the little yellow thing that was currently somewhere on this ship in arms that would never stop trying to protect him all that long to figure it out either.
Everybot knew that.
"So," Jazz sighed as he leaned back on his palms stretching his legs out before him giving his clawed toes a wiggle. "How badly to you think Ironhide is going to break me when he sees all this?"
Prowl glanced around the room.
"Ratchet will need to be alerted afterward."
That got Jazz laughing again before he shoved himself to his feet watching as Prowl rose beside him with a smile of his own. They stood there quietly for a long moment before Prowl tilted his chevron topped head ever so slightly.
"Is the Jazz who knows himself back now?" He wondered quietly.
A slightly sadder smile came to life, but a nod all the same. "Yeah Prowler. I'm back. No more past getting' in the way, and since the Jazz who is downright awesome and loved by everybot with a lick of sense is back I've got something you and the others is gonna be dying to know."
"And what is that?" Prowl questioned trying not to laugh at his friends comment.
Jazz's visor flashed with mischief. "Remember how I said that I might have just put myself on the top of Starscream's to kill with death list?"
Prowl nodded. "Yes."
"Didn't you do your whole wonder over that little tidbit?"
"Of course I did." Prowl rolled his optics. "But sometimes your riddles best even me, Jazz."
A smirked. "Huh, I'll have to remember that."
"Just tell me what you did, Jazz."
"I kinda sorta might have been a contributing factor to the defecting decision of Skywarp and Thundercracker."
Prowl blinked.
Jazz grinned.
Prowl blinked again.
Jazz tilted his head.
Prowl blinked . . . again.
Jazz's smirk fell away and he waved his hand before his friend's optics. "Don't go and glitch on me now, Prowler. Ya hear me? I'm already on Ratchet's list."
Prowl shook his head trying to clear his rapidly spinning processor. "Did you just say that Skywarp and Thundercracker defected?"
"Yep."
"To us!?"
Jazz sighed a bit. "Umm no . . . I tried, but they weren't really game. They're gone though. We all know enough about Thundercracker to know he never really did like Megatron in the first place. He was only there because his trine was. They were having a nice little talk out there in the ruble and I joined in. I seriously doubt we'll ever see two of the very few seekers Mega-idiot has that are the slightest bit capable ever again."
"Jazz," Prowl said in slight wonder.
"I know," The silver mech smirked. "I'm just that awesome. Think this will get me off everybots kill list since I brought two pups home and gave them to the youngling?"
Prowl snorted giving his head another shake. "It just might."
The conversation didn't get to go any further though because the door across the way swished open and First Aid poked his head in. Those bright yet pale optics of his widened slightly at the sight of the shooting range before he cast his gaze to the two mechs.
"First Aid," Jazz smiled. "What can we do for you mech?"
"I'm not even going to ask what caused this." The red and white sighed. "I heard something so this is where I came but I was just wondering if you mechs know where Ratchet is at."
"Ratchet?" Prowl questioned. "Why don't you just comm him?"
"His comm link is off."
"Ah," Prowl nodded. "Yes, I figured he might do that while they talked."
"Where is he?"
"With Optimus and Ironhide in Hide's room." Jazz answered.
"Okay," The former apprentice nodded. "Thank you."
He was halfway out the door before Jazz spoke up again. "Why you need him, Aid?"
The other paused and looked back before those bright orbs of his darkened in sadness.
"Quickfire needs him."
Both mechs—who had known the femme as long as she'd known Ratchet, who had watched her grow under the medic's and his mate's guidance—stiffened.
"What's wrong with Quickfire?" Prowl questioned walking forward followed by Jazz.
First Aid stared at them for a moment before he said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
"This orn is Mirage's spark-orn."
Both of them stopped dead in their tracks, the truth settling in as their sparks as they looked down.
"Pit." Jazz hissed out.
First Aid nodded sadly.
Pit was most certainly right.
I'll just say it now. That accent is hard as pit to write! But it was so much fun!
You guys finally know how Jazz ended up with the Autobots, where he came from, and why in Primus' name he would bring static-hounds home after what happened in the tunnels. Hee-hee. I love it!
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd meet Shatterproof and Foxtrot. Oh how I have waited for those two to make an appearance . . . and then vanish again. You guys know me though. Nothing is ever that easy in my stories. *insert evil laughter here*
So what did you think?
You guys already know how much your reviews mean to me so let me know what you thought.
Next chapter is another flash of the past and will be up next, next weekend.
-Jaycee