Alrighty folks, here we are again in October. For those of you who remember from the last 2 years, next month is NA-NO-WRI-MO and I will be participating in it. Therefore, there will be no posts to any of my stories until December. That said, Please enjoy this post that I delayed to the last minute to post so that ya'll would have minimum waiting time until the next post.

Warnings: unintentional emotional trauma to a youngling?

Please enjoy, rate and review.

Chapter 5:

According to legend the badlands of Cybertron were once the most beautiful sectors of Primus' transformed frame. As the stories told it, there were once sprawling cities of Cybertronians who lived off of wells of emerging that sprung up from Primus himself. The mechs who lived there focused on peaceful functioning and the arts, which was reflected in the surrounding architecture, were highly prized. It was said that the Quintesson invaders destroyed these icons of Cybertronian living first, to demoralize the rest of their conquered slaves.

Now nothing remained but rusted cliffs and metal outcroppings so eroded by time that identification would be impossible.

All of this Laserbeak considered as he soared high above the wastes, scouting diligently for the Decepticon transports that followed him. Lord Megatron had called for the army's ground troops for his next offensive. The warlord's recent victory against Praxus had been the beginning of a much larger campaign to bring the Autobots to heel, an orn the Decepticons were eager to see.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Jazz was lost in the labyrinth. He thought he might have taken a wrong turn at the abandoned Alba Circuitry shop, which meant that he was now on the opposite side of Iacon from where he wanted to be. The saboteur wilted and sighed before trudging back the way he came. His purpose in Iacon's underbelly was two-fold. First, Ops had noticed an increase in femme traffic in the underground and wanted to know if there was something going on. Second, he needed some help revising his 'Woo Prowl' plan.

A plan that had been booted back to the drawing board courtesy of a very pointed conversation with a certain blue Praxian.

~The Dark Cycle Before~

A servo reached out and snagged Jazz's arm. His reaction time was so slowed by his apathy that he was unable to stop the owner of the servo from dragging from the hallway. One near function-threatening mistake was more than enough to fully bring him back to reality and he flipped up and around to pin the foolish mech to the wall. No one tried to assassinate the Jazz-meister on his home turf.

Finding himself holding an energon knife to Smokescreen's neck cables was not what expected however.

"What tha frag mech!" The currently high strung saboteur exclaimed.

Smokescreen put up his servos in surrender. "Sorry Jazz, but I called your name three times!"

And now Jazz was embarrassed. "Oh." He crawled off the Praxian and offered him a servo up. "Sorry. Ah wasn' really payin' attention. What didja need?"

Smokescreen have him the Optic of Knowing(tm) and said. "I need to discuss Prowl with you."

It took every ounce of Jazz's ops training not to freeze like a brassbuck in the headlights. Instead he affected an air of mildly concerned nonchalance. "Wha's wrong wit' Prowler?"

Smokescreen arched an unamused optic ridge, likely borrowed from the very mech they were discussing. "Well, let's see, a 'mysterious' mech has been leaving inappropriate gifts on my brother's desk. Now, thanks to my tenure as tac-rep to Ops I have access to all the locator beacons for all the agents, and guess whose beacon was in Prowl's office when the presents were dropped off?"

"Tha gif's were in'propriate?" Jazz replied pitifully, once caught there was no point in hiding and so far Smokescreen did not seem too terribly offended.

Smokescreen could not hold his stern look, and he busted out laughing. Jazz looked so pathetic! "Mech! That's what you're focusing on?"

Jazz shrugged. "Well, it does kinda explain why Prowler picked someone else to complete ya trine."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come'on mech!" Jazz exclaimed irritably. "Ya can't pretend like ya don' kno' 'bout ya youngling bondmate. Ah kno' spark bonds don' work like tha'!"

Smokescreen sighed, nothing like adding a translation error on top of cultural misunderstanding. "Sit down Jazz, I need to explain some things to you."

Jazz sat down, arms folded, and Smokey raised an optic ridge. Jazz just crossed his peds in defiance.

Smokescreen sat in an adjacent chair and began. "The first thing you need to understand is that there are two types of trines, familial and bonded. The glyph used to denote both of these is the same except for a small modifier. The trine Prowl, the mechling, and I possess is the familial type. A primaer, an adepto, and a vicarius. It is three mechs who may or may not be related by sparkline, but who have chosen to be family permanently, thus the meaning 'brother who is chosen'. There is no interfacing in this type of bond and according to Praxian history it is a remnant of the wing-bonds of our Vosian ancestors. So, you can stop writing off your romantic inclinations towards Prowl. He is not taken."

Jazz perked up considerably during the explanation, but then he slumped again. "But, ya said tha gif's were in'propriate."

Smokescreen gave him an amused look. "That... is because they were Prathama gifts, and if you are going to court Prowl you will need to present Bija gifts."

"Prathama gifts?" Jazz interrupted with a frown. "Tha datafile Ah read onleh mentioned one type o' courtin' gifts."

Smokescreen stiffened. "You have a Praxian courting manual?!"

Jazz unsubspaced it with an unsure nod. "Yeah, found it in tha South District near a school."

Smokescreen took the 'pad with reverence and smiled sadly. "Yes, that sounds about right. It would have belonged to a second degree sparkling preparing for the new coding their fourth frame would have."

"New coding?"

"Yes, when Vosians and Praxians reach their fourth frames their interfacing protocols begin to online in preparation for their adult frames. It is at this time that the sparklings find out whether they are prathama coded or bija coded."

"Wha's tha difference?" Jazz was puzzled, Polyhex did not have special interface coding.

"Well, again it goes back to our ancestors, but this time to our common Quintesson-era ancestors. During the occupation it was not safe for Vosians to have sparklings or bonds openly, lest the Quintessons steal the little for experimentation and forced upgrades. So, one or two of a mated trine would stay behind with the sparklings while the trine leader looked for energon. After a time, it became imbedded in our coding for two in a mated trine to be caretakers and one to be provider. The two types were designated Prathama and Bija, which translate to alpha and beta in Standard. These coding types translate into our courting methods as well, with the prathama pursuing the bijas of his choice. You were courting Prowl as the prathama which introduced a conflict, and unintentional insult, to his own prathama coding."

Jazz paled as the energon rushed from his faceplates. "Oh. C'n, c'n Ah fix it? Is't poss'ble fo' meh tah still court Prowl or have Ah blown mah chance?"

Smokescreen smiled indulgently, his brother was going to be such a lucky mech. "No, you haven't lost your chance. You are, however, going to have to change your method of approach. And, before you do that, you need to ask yourself if you are willing to be a bija, and undertake all the responsibilities of one."

~Present Orn, No Longer Lost in the Maze~

Jazz had left that talk without an answer and Smokescreen, who was himself a Prathama, could not help with more than a clinical list of what prathamas expected from bijas. The blue and red mech had suggested that Jazz should ask the femmes, but even when pressed he would not answer why they would know more than a Praxian about a Praxian custom.

Thus, Jazz was killing two turbofoxes with one stone.

He could tell he was entering the femmes' territory because the piles of slag and trash were largely cleared away and the remnants of the buildings looked lived in. The femmes had taken to sprucing up their territory after their acceptance by the Autobots, which signified that they no longer feared discovery, although they kept fake slag piles on servo to disguise their areas in case of incursion.

Jazz navigated his way to the meeting hall in hopes of finding some of the senior leadership there. He was in luck this orn as Phalanx was there overseeing a punishment detail assigned to polishing the hall's floor. Jazz was careful not to walk on the portion that had already been cleaned and called out to the big purple and orange mech.

"Yo, Philly, how's it hangin'?"

"Jazz." Came the laconic reply. "We were wondering when Blackshot would send you down. We did not think it would take so long for Ops to notice our increased population."

Jazz chuckled. "We have been a lil' busy up top. Though, tha' is really onleh half tha reason Ah'm here."

Phalanx arched an optic ridge. "And the other half?"

"Well," the saboteur replied sheepishly. "Ah need some information on Praxian courting practices from a Bija standpoint and Smokescreen directed meh here."

"Ah." Phalanx nodded sagely. "I suggest you talk to Solaris and his femmeling charge Windblade."

"Kay, ya kno' where they are?"

Phalanx's optics dimmed as he accessed his comms. "Sol and Windy are in the Cartography Lab. Go out the west exit, take the third street to the right, and the second stair down. Five buildings straight ahead and you will arrive at your destination."

Jazz nodded his thanks and took off.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

When Jazz arrived he found the tricolored Queen in the company of a brightly colored femmelet who bore the facial markings of a priest-in-training. They were pouring over some maps of the lowest levels and discussing what sounded like an exploratory mission to see if there was any way to go deeper. He silenced his steps as he entered, it was always fun to try to sneak up on the femmes' ops commander. As per usual though, Solaris both heard and identified him without even needing to turn around. If it had been any other mech it would have been embarrassing.

Solaris turned to him with a warm smile. "Jazz! It has been decacycles since I have seen you. How are you?"

"Ah've been well, thank ya." He replied as he skipped over to hop on a stool. "Word has it ya c'n answer mah questions."

Solaris gathered up the maps and moved to put them on a shelf. "Well I can certainly try. What troubles you?"

Jazz squirmed as he made himself comfortable. "Business before pleasure Ah guess. Tha bossmech wan's ta kno' why there're so many new femmes roamin' about."

Solaris nodded at his charge. "You mean like Windblade here."

"Mmhmm."

"Well Jazz, the answer is that we are now hosting the entire remaining femme population of Cybertron."

"What!" Jazz did not squeak, any testimony to the contrary was a lie.

"It was the inevitable outcome Jazz, even if we had not issued invitations of asylum. Windblade and I are the only femme survivors of Praxus, I because I migrated to the Iacon Clade, and Windy because he was sent to convince me to attend the family gathering for the Festival. The other clades know as well as we do that this is only the first of Megatron's plans and took the pre-emptive step of fleeing to the spark of Autobot territory for safety."

Jazz could accept that on face-value, but Command would not likely be pleased by the large number of new tanks to fill. There was another important tidbit in there too. "Ya had info 'bout Megs' plans befo' Praxus happened? Why didn' ya say anehthin'?! Prowl's entire culture has been wiped of o' tha map n' ya could have stopped it!"

Solaris shook his helm. "The information did not arrive until the attack was already underway and by then it was too late. Elita is upstairs now turning in a full report of the upcoming sequence of destruction as we have been able to determine it."

Jazz relaxed back onto his seat. "Kay, as long as tha's tha case Ah'm ok wit' it. Howevah, these new femmes gonna ina'grate? Cuz Ah don' see Command jus' acceptin' feedin'em wit'out a trade off o' some sort."

"And what do they think they would be able to do about it if we said no?" Solaris replied hotly, servos planted firmly on his hip gimbals in punctuation.

"Now, now Sol." Jazz backtracked quickly. "Ah'm not tryin' ta start a fight. It's not tha' Command would not want'ta take care o' any neutral femmes, it's tha' they don' have tha resources. At mos' they'd ask ya ta send'em ta a neutral colony like we did wit' tha aquatic frames."

Solaris smoothed down his ruffled plating. "That… is an acceptable reaction I suppose. For the most part the visiting clades were already supplying us with information, now they will become combat divisions divided and ranked based on citystate. Only the priests have refrained from joining up."

Jazz nodded, the priests were well-known as pacifists and Optimus Prime respected them greatly for their determination to hold to their values. "Kay, so if ya don' need ta tell meh anythin' else, Ah gotta 'nother question."

Solaris leaned against a holotable. "Shoot."

"Well," somehow all the courage had left him, and Jazz was embarrassed to bring it up. This was going to leave him vulnerable and was still not sure if he was okay with that. Still, he would never get to court Prowl if he did not know how. So, he scraped up his courage from the bottom of its hidey-hole, and spoke. "Ah'm-tryin'-ta-court-a-Praxian-don'-kno'-how-screwed-it-up-Smokescreen-said-ya-could-fix-it-help!"

Solaris blinked, then blinked again. "Um… one more time please Jazz, and slower this time. I won't bite you, I promise."

Jazz twisted his digits together and looked everywhere except at his two-mech audience. "Ah was tryin' ta court Prowl. Ah messed't up cuz Ah didn' kno' there were more th'n one kind'o courtin' n' if it hadn' been fo' Smokey Ah'd'a continued doin' all'a tha wrong things. Problem is, is'at Smokey don' kno' how ta court as a bija, bein' a prathama n' all, so he tol' meh tah talk ta ya. So, help?"

Solaris shook his helm with a warm smile. "Sure, both Windblade and I are bijas and it would be our pleasure to help you."

Jazz relaxed in relief. "Great! What do Ah do first?"

The femmeling, who had been content to allow his mentor to speak for them to this point, spoke up. "Well sir, first you need to understand that bijas do not court prathama, they tempt them."

Solaris nodded. "Yes, you have to make yourself desirable, worth pursuing in their optics."

"How do Ah do tha'?"

"There are many ways." Windblade replied. "Learn how he takes his energon and make him a mid-orn meal every orn."

"Straighten his office." Solaris added.

"Walk with him from his quarters to the ornly meeting."

"Compliment his strengths."

"Offer to help him in the washracks."

They would have continued in this manner, but Jazz raised a servo to stop them. "But Ah already do mos' o' tha'! Ya sayin' Ah been temptin' him this whole time?!"

Solaris cocked his helm. "Yes. How did he respond."

"Well he certainleh didn' respond wit' courtin' gifts, tha's fo' sure." The saboteur replied almost sullenly.

"Jazz." The Praxian femme said sharply. "How did he respond."

Jazz looked up from glaring at the floor. "Well, he doesn' kick meh out anehmore." He paused to think. "He smile fo' meh, n' sometimes Ah c'n even get him ta joke wit' meh a bit. If Ah'm late ta get him in the light-cycle he comes ta get meh. He invites meh ta take mah en'rgon wit' him now too."

Solaris and Windblade exchanged a glance.

"Jazz," Solaris began. "You may not know this, but I am one of the Gifted. On the few occasions that I have seen Prowl, I have always gotten the impression that he is a very reserved, almost painfully shy mech when it comes to personal interaction. I think, in his own way, he has been responding."

Jazz perked up. "Ya think so?"

"Yes, we do." Windblade confirmed.

"Which means that it should not take much to tip his servo." Solaris said excitedly.

"Uh, like wha'?" Jazz said as he worriedly leaned back.

His reluctance did not deter the eagerly encroaching femmes at all.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Mirage was coming to realize that sometimes the ultra-structured methodology of Towers courtship could be very annoying. According to the rules he was supposed to respond to the first gift of courting with a return gift of equal value to the one presented to him. Given that he did accept their courtship he needed a pair of gifts of incredible value. The choice of what to get was made very difficult however, by who his suitors were. Hound had degrees in mechanimal husbandry and mechanimal cyberbiology. Trailbreaker was not degreed, but was very knowledgeable on all types of Cybertronian flora. Their interests were low-value shanix-wise, even if he could find specimens that properly conveyed what he loved about his suitors.

Then the diode clicked on. Mirage had an idea.

It would take some careful dealings and judicious maneuvering, however, it could be done. Mirage would have his gifts and they would be just as impressive as the mechs they represented. He would also be having a discussion with his suitors on whether they should continue the structured courting or if they could go to a more natural relationship.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Bluestreak/Thing carefully snuck out of his masters' quarters. He was being so very careful not to wake Smokescreen, who had fallen into recharge on the couch after a long dark-cycle with his poker group. One of his masters' primary rules was that Bluestreak/Thing was not permitted to wander the base alone, so attempting to leave should be enough to get him punished.

Once out in the corridor he scampered off in the general direction of the enlisted quarters, another place he was not allowed to be. It was the middle of the third shift so the halls were nearly devoid of mecha. This changed once Bluestreak/Thing reached the main portion of the base. He hesitated as he looked out, he had never seen so many mecha! His first masters lived on their master's estate and the neighborhood rarely had pedtraffic. Bluestreak/Thing waited until he saw a gap in the crowd, then dashed out. He was worried that someone would notice he did not belong, but there were bunches of mechs his size walking in the crowd. Once he got to the hall that he had been told was off limits it was much quieter. Unfortunately, there were plenty of mecha still roaming about and none of them were small like him. Bluestreak/Thing tried desperately to blend with the wall as he walked, but when he heard someone call out he knew he was caught.

"Hey, mechling, what're you doing down here? Where are your creators?"

The hulking mech that stepped into his path was awful and scary with his huge size and piercing optics. Bluestreak/Thing panicked and ran, narrowly missing being grabbed by the behemoth. He wanted to test his masters, not die! The big mech gave chase and just before he could be snagged, a door opened. Bluestreak/Thing leaped through the stabilizers of the golden-yellow mech exiting the room and frantically looked around for a place to hide. There! There was a bunch of stuff jammed under one of the berths and he could just see a youngling-sized hole behind it. He had to tuck his doorwings down to fit, but that meant that no one else could follow him either. Bluestreak/Thing listened to see if the big mech was still coming after him.

"Sunstreaker move! That youngling doesn't belong down here." The big mech said.

'Sunstreaker' replied in a voice so dark with death it made Bluestreak/Thing shiver. "I couldn't give a frag if he does or doesn't. You're scaring him, so he stays. If you don't like that I can introduce you to a wall or four until you do."

A loud thump that rattled the floor told the mechling that the bigger mech had stomped his ped. "Yeah right, like I'm really gonna leave a youngling in the servos of a marauder like you."

A third voice popped up from behind the big mech. "I don't think you understand mech, we're not giving you a choice."

A few echoing thuds were heard, then a frame shaking crash. Bluestreak/Thing plastered himself against the wall, and wished that he had never left his masters' quarters. He knew the two violent mechs had closed the door when the light dimmed. He heard them walk over to the berths and sit down. It was silent for a moment, then a soft voice, one that he barely recognized was the yellow mech, said. "You can stay under there for as long as you need to. We may be tough with the other big mechs, but we would never hurt a youngling."

Then there was silence. If Bluestreak/Thing strained his audials, he could just barely hear the big mechs' vents, but that was all. The time passed terminally slow, but the never moved. After a while he heard their vents slow and rhythmic sighing sound began to repeat. They were in recharge. Bluestreak/Thing wasted no time in scrambling out and for the door. It did not open. He was trapped!

Then there was a scraping sound that made him whirl around in terror. There was a red mech sitting in front of the berth pushing the storage crates back to close up his hidey-hole. The golden mech was the one in recharge, so there would be no second rescue.

He looked at the red mech and the red mech looked at him. Then the big mech spoke. "Hi, I'm Sideswipe. What's your dez?"

Bluestreak/Thing started to cry.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Blaster was on duty when the message came in and could not help but wish he was not. It had been very difficult for the hostmecha to search through the ruins of Praxus, it reminded him far too much of the host district in Polyhex. It was the same for Mirage, as the noble had confided during the most recent Friends of Jazz get-together.

Thus, when the cry for reinforcements and rescue aid came in from the Manganese Outpost it was as though the wound was fresh once more.

The Mountains were melting.

Every1's Beta: Oh thank you for the inspiration! My muse fairly leapt on your ideas for Bluestreak and the twins and RAN away with it. It is sooo being used in the next chapter.

Starfire 201: I am so glad you like the meaning, most of Blue's bios list the English translation of his name with no thought as to a Cybertronian meaning. This gave me a lot of literary license to play with and I am glad it came off well. The trauma too is interesting to work with, it changes the way some of the canon characters might react to certain situations without coming off as ooc.

Wastingtimeagain: well, I hope this wasn't too long of a wait, but I did have a reason so I hope you forgive me.

Canikostar99: well, as you can see Jazz survived and Smokescreen has learned a valuable lesson about not sneaking up on opsmechs.

BookLovingPerson R.B.L: yes, Jazz was under the impression that trine mates were trinemates(I.e. bondmates), and that the only way he could have Prowl was to snag the empty trine position. He would have eventually started courting Smokescreen too if he could have gotten some return interest from Prowl.