Your weekly instalment of darkness
Later than it should be but earlier than last week.
Title: The Sins Of The Past
Setting: G1
Rating: NC-17 for the story, this chapter is a 12 for mild violence
Characters: Jazz, Mirage, Bumblebee, ensemble and OC’s
Warning: I was in a very weird and unhappy headspace when this came along and sunk its teeth in, this is not going to be a happy fic people, just so you know.
Summary: No matter how far or fast you run you can’t leave your past behind. Jazz’s misdeeds have finally caught up with him and the price of absolution could be deadly
Chapter 4: Prowl broods over things, Prime makes a decision and Jazz remembers too late that not every friend can be trusted.
---Earth two days later ---
Prowl dropped like a stone into a chair in the quarters he shared with Jazz, the silence of the room crowded in round him reinforcing Jazz’s absence and he found himself getting as jumpy about Jazz’s absence as Jazz had been about the reasons he was going to be gone. Unable to stand the oppressive silence and unwilling to touch Jazz’s music collection without permission Prowl pushed himself up and began to pace restlessly.
With them sharing quarters he’d been given a front row seat into some of the things that lurked in the back of Jazz’s mind, he’d been startled almost into shutdown the first time Jazz had onlined from recharge in what he had taken to calling ‘paranoid spy mode’. There had been no warning, he had been sitting at the desk reviewing the previous day’s duty log and he’d turned round to find Jazz millimetres from him with a knife in his hand and a look on his face as if he expected to find half the ‘con army in the room. After a few seconds tense silence Jazz had lowered the knife and given him a half hearted grin,
“Sorry, old habit kicking in. Best way to take someone off guard is to jump them when they first online, snapping awake like that’s saved my life a few times.” Jazz had offered as apology and explanation for his behaviour.
He’d taken to staying on his bunk pressed up against the wall, trying to appear as non threatening as possible until Jazz had fully woken up after that, the look in the saboteurs optics had convinced him that if Jazz ever perceived him as a threat it would be a case of strike first and ask questions later. Then the nightmares had begun, he’d often wondered what it would take to terrify the Porsche. Having listened to the screaming and the things Jazz cried out during his nightmares he had concluded that he would have been unable to endure the life Jazz had led before being assigned to their unit. The first time Jazz had started screaming he’d rolled of his bunk without thinking and tried to wake the other black and white, what had followed was a very confused four seconds before he’d found himself on the floor, on his back, unable to move, with a still not fully online Jazz pressing the barrel of an illegal pistol firmly between his optics. The fraction of a microsecond before Jazz’s mind had caught up with Jazz’s body had been the one of the most terrifying moment of his entire existence. Jazz, to give him his due had been as horrified by what had almost happened as he’d been. Neither of them had felt like going back into recharge after that and had spent the night talking, Jazz had eventually persuaded him that leaving him to scream and shout through his nightmares would be better for Prowl’s health.
I could see how badly he was coping with the idea of going on the mission I should have called the whole thing off and found a different way to do this Prowl thought turning on his heels in the still ominously quiet room, preferably before the ‘twins incident’ a shudder ran up his spine at the memory.
The only warning anyone had had was Sideswipe’s yell as he’d dropped through the space were a ceiling panel had been, Sunstreaker burst from one of the cupboards that lined the corridor and tried to grab their victim from behind. The raised optic ridges and sighs of ‘there they go again’ had been cut off mid flow by a scream from one of the twins and then by Sideswipe’s body flying through the door to the common room at waist height. Mirage had been closest to were the body fell and as he’d turned Sideswipe over to revel the damage Prowl’s first thought had been that somehow a Decepticon had made it into the Ark. As Ratchet rushed over to the downed twin and began working feverishly, trying to stabilise him, he and Ironhide had run out into the corridor fully prepared to take on who ever was out there. What they found had stopped them both dead, First Aid was working over the torn body of Sunstreaker and crouched in a defensive stance covered in the twins energon was Jazz, a deadly look on his face. Prime alerted by Tracks had come running down the other half of the corridor stopping beside him, taking in the whole scene in one glance he had marched over to Jazz who’d swung round to face him, murder still in his visor. It had been a pump stopping moment, would Jazz recognise his commander or would he attack him. Those gathered in the corridor had let out a sigh of relief as Jazz started and came back to his usual self at Primes first words of anger.
Alone in his quarters Prowl winced at the memory of the dressing down Prime had delivered, Hound and Trailbreaker had been assigned to take Jazz to an isolation cell and Ratchet and First Aid had commandeered others to help move the twins to the repair bay for emergency work. He and Prime had gone to Prime’s office and sat there is disbelieving silence waiting for word on the twins. Many joors later when an exhausted Ratchet had called to tell them the twins were out of danger he’d remembered that no one had checked to see if Jazz had been injured, so he’d gone down to the cells, a good deal of trepidation floating round his CPU. He’d carefully and slowly opened the cell door and put his head round the door even more carefully, but Jazz hadn’t moved from his spot in the opposite corner. His knees drawn up against his chest arms curled round his shins his wrists still bound together by energon restraints. He had slowly walked over and knelt down reaching out to deactivate and remove the restraints, Jazz’s face was pale and his optics under his visor were fastened on the middle distance, dried energon splattered over his upper body but particularly over his hands. He’d found the sight disturbing on so many levels he’d had to get some water and try and clean as much of it off as he could. He’d almost finished gently cleaning those delicate claw like fingers when Jazz had registered someone was with him, and then who it was and had collapsed in an emotional heap on his shoulder muttering incomprehensible words tears spilling down his face. He and Prime had given serious thought to abandoning the mission after that. When they went down to the cell the next morning however Jazz had been determined to go through with it.
Officially, Jazz had been exiled from the Autobots for an unspecified length of time; they had decided not to make a lot of noise about it, Jazz had simply slipped out of a back entrance onto a waiting shuttle and left with out anyone knowing. Hound had gone down to take Jazz his breakfast one morning and come scrambling into Prime’s office rambling that Jazz was missing only to be stopped cold by Prime telling him the sentence he’d imposed on Jazz, the rumour mill had done its work and by mid shift there wasn’t an Autobot on the planet who didn’t know. He smiled sadly to himself, over the past four and a half months every ‘bot on the base, except Prime, had come into his office at least once to plead for clemency for the saboteur.
The sound of his internal radio brought him back from his thoughts and he acknowledged the call, “Prowl”
“It’s Prime, our exile has sent a message.” Prime’s voice was heavily tinted with relief at the long awaited contact.
He was out the door before Prime had cut the line, if Jazz had broken radio silence it could only mean that the mission was over and he would soon have a room full of songs again, it was, he reflected a very appealing prospect.
-- Prime’s Office ---
Prime looked closely at his second in command, Prowl was so tense he was practically vibrating in his chair. He smiled beneath his battle mask, Prowl was obviously missing Jazz more than he was prepared to let on, and he wasn’t the only one. The months since Jazz had left had been filled with mechs petitioning him for Jazz’s return, the most memorable had been the twins, who had literally got down on their knees and begged. Nearly a month later their promise of no pranks and no fights was still holding.
“It’s dated two days ago at origin, and all this solar activity has scrambled it badly. It came directly into my private inbox, by passing all the other communication and security systems.” Prime started as the door locked closed.
“Two days? That’s a long time for a message to get here from there.” Prowl’s voice betrayed his worry over the time lag.
“It looks like Jazz bounced it off every commercial satellite in the galaxy, trying to throw anybody tracing communications off.” Prime reassured him.
“Have you listened to it?” Prowl asked.
“No. I thought it would be more appropriate for both of us to hear it together. Just in case he’s taken the ‘this message will self destruct in 30 seconds’ thing to heart.” Prime fought to repress the grin that threatened to split his face.
Prowl made a semi disapproving semi-amused snort in response and listened carefully as Prime started the message, static and interference crackled through the speakers and then buried in all the noise as familiar voice could be heard.
“Jazz … Ark, mission …A1 … a friend … trouble. In transit ... Keitel … help … safe… please … come…”
The crash of Prowl’s chair hitting the floor reverberated in the still of the office; Prime couldn’t recall the tactician ever having looked so distressed. Not that he was much more sanguine about the situation, Jazz had pulled off a very dangerous mission, alone, unaided, under considerable stress from past memories and had apparently landed himself in bigger trouble as a result.
“Yes we are going after him, no not mob handed, and yes we will use revoking his exile as the official reason. How soon can you have a shuttle ready to launch?” Prime answered all of Prowl’s questions before he could ask them.
Prowl visible pulled himself together and began plotting.
“Omega Supreme could make it in 24 hours You, Me and?” the tactician responded absently more than half his processor dedicated to working out how best to go after Jazz.
“Just the two of us, the reason Jazz is on his own out there is we couldn’t risk spreading the secret, besides do you really want the others to find out the real reason Jazz was ‘exiled’.” Prime declared firmly “We’d be at serious risk of physical violence if the rest of the crew thought we’d put Jazz is danger, so we’ll have to take a shuttle and pretend that there’s nothing wrong.”
Prowl thought about that, given the strength of feeling in the Ark over the issue, he and Prime would probably get only a third of the way through any explanation before having to spend a lot of time in the repair bay, providing Ratchet agreed to fix them in the first place.
“Point. We can launch a shuttle tomorrow afternoon, how are we going to tell the others?” Prowl said, calculating and re calculating the fastest route in his CPU.
“With as much fanfare as possible.” Prime assured him.
--- Four days later, Sln Docks, Keitel ---
“Still got that fix on Jazz?” Prowl asked quietly.
Prime looked around at the broken down cityscape, an uninspiring and probably dangerous place to live but perfect if you wanted to hide, they were going to have to be careful.
“Yes, Three miles south of here. We need to keep our optics open; this looks like a shoot first kind of place.” Prime responded just as softly.
They began to thread their way through the crowded streets keeping as low a profile as they could totally oblivious to the figure shadowing them. Following Jazz’s short-range locator beacon they eventually came to a small scrap shop that looked like it had been built out of the merchandise it sold, the door scrapped open with a noise load enough to wake the dead.
A voice from the back yelled out in response, “RATCHET! Get your scrawny aft into the shop.”
Prime and Prowl valiantly tried to suppress face splitting grins, as Jazz stomped his way into the shop from the yard trailing a long string of colourful curses, most of which they’d heard crossing the lips of the CMO over the millennia.
“… slagging, pit spawn. Why the glitch do think Primus gave you legs, huh, so you could run your latest slave into the covenant-forsaken ground? Yes well, what do you want?” Jazz aimed the last comment at them, along with a glare that would have made the real CMO proud
Still struggling to suppress their amusement at the impersonation neither of them moved from the shadowed corner they stood in.
Jazz burst into curses again, “I haven’t got all glitiching day here. If you want something haul your aft’s into the light so I can see you and get the pit on with it.”
Prowl gathered himself and slouched forward causally into the late afternoon sunlight that streamed through holes in the roof, “Sorry Ratch, we jus’ come past see if you’s OK, pick up a rumour you in too deep.”
A slight widening of the optics, quickly suppressed, was the only reaction Jazz gave to the sight of his fellow officers standing in the shop.
Jazz yelled over his shoulder to the unseen mech in the back of the shop, “Boss, I’m headed out. I’ve gota little private business to deal with.”
Ignoring the shouts from within Jazz grabbed Prowl by the arm and pushed Prime out of the shop into the yard, stopping only when they reached the corner furthest from the shop.
“What the slag are you doing here? Didn’t you get my message?” Jazz hissed anger and fear evident in his voice, “Were you followed? Who else is here? Where are they?”
Prowl held up his hands to stop the flow of questions, “Yes we got the message but it was a bit scrambled, it sounded like you need help and we decided to provide it, no I didn’t see anyone following us, we’re alone. What’s the problem?”
Jazz sagged against the fence groaning softly to himself about Murphy really having it in for him.
Taking a deep chamber full of air Jazz said, “The message was that I had run into some trouble but with the help of a friend I could handle it and the best thing you could do was to please stay away. You need to get the slag out of here, where’d you set down?”
“Sln docks berth thirty six. Are you sure you don’t want us to stick around?” Prime responded, feeling more than a little unhappy about leaving Jazz in the middle of whatever mess they’d unintentionally landed him in.
“Absolutely! No offence but, you guys are in way over your depth.” The patented dazzling grin flashed across Jazz’s face “Leave it to the expert, go find somewhere close by get some R’n’R and I’ll call you when I’m done.”
---
Sliding through the rapidly darkening slums Prime and Prowl following him as best they could, Jazz couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. This is going to be every shade of not good he thought just as a moving shape on one of the rooftops flashed in the corner of his optics. The high pitched howl of an energy weapon discharging shattered the silence and Prime went down without even managing to pull his riffle, Prowl did mange to get a couple of acid-pellet round off before being dropped by an EMP round. Jazz fighting off several attackers could do nothing to help either of them, and then suddenly he found himself in a wide circle, checking to see if there was a way out Jazz was brought up short by Sync stepping out of the darkness a stunner in his hands.
“So, so trusting Jazz, should have listened to ya instincts.” Sync’s voice dripped fake disappointment, “Ya gonna come peacefully? The boss wants a word with you.”
“Fall into the pit, you treacherous ice glitch!” Jazz snapped back, venom dripping from his voice.
“You first.” Sync responded coldly.
Jazz heard the howl of the stunner as it discharged and the world in front of his visor went white.
Title: The Sins Of The Past
Setting: G1
Rating: NC-17 for the story, this chapter is a 12 for mild violence
Characters: Jazz, Mirage, Bumblebee, ensemble and OC’s
Warning: I was in a very weird and unhappy headspace when this came along and sunk its teeth in, this is not going to be a happy fic people, just so you know.
Summary: No matter how far or fast you run you can’t leave your past behind. Jazz’s misdeeds have finally caught up with him and the price of absolution could be deadly
Chapter 4: Prowl broods over things, Prime makes a decision and Jazz remembers too late that not every friend can be trusted.
---Earth two days later ---
Prowl dropped like a stone into a chair in the quarters he shared with Jazz, the silence of the room crowded in round him reinforcing Jazz’s absence and he found himself getting as jumpy about Jazz’s absence as Jazz had been about the reasons he was going to be gone. Unable to stand the oppressive silence and unwilling to touch Jazz’s music collection without permission Prowl pushed himself up and began to pace restlessly.
With them sharing quarters he’d been given a front row seat into some of the things that lurked in the back of Jazz’s mind, he’d been startled almost into shutdown the first time Jazz had onlined from recharge in what he had taken to calling ‘paranoid spy mode’. There had been no warning, he had been sitting at the desk reviewing the previous day’s duty log and he’d turned round to find Jazz millimetres from him with a knife in his hand and a look on his face as if he expected to find half the ‘con army in the room. After a few seconds tense silence Jazz had lowered the knife and given him a half hearted grin,
“Sorry, old habit kicking in. Best way to take someone off guard is to jump them when they first online, snapping awake like that’s saved my life a few times.” Jazz had offered as apology and explanation for his behaviour.
He’d taken to staying on his bunk pressed up against the wall, trying to appear as non threatening as possible until Jazz had fully woken up after that, the look in the saboteurs optics had convinced him that if Jazz ever perceived him as a threat it would be a case of strike first and ask questions later. Then the nightmares had begun, he’d often wondered what it would take to terrify the Porsche. Having listened to the screaming and the things Jazz cried out during his nightmares he had concluded that he would have been unable to endure the life Jazz had led before being assigned to their unit. The first time Jazz had started screaming he’d rolled of his bunk without thinking and tried to wake the other black and white, what had followed was a very confused four seconds before he’d found himself on the floor, on his back, unable to move, with a still not fully online Jazz pressing the barrel of an illegal pistol firmly between his optics. The fraction of a microsecond before Jazz’s mind had caught up with Jazz’s body had been the one of the most terrifying moment of his entire existence. Jazz, to give him his due had been as horrified by what had almost happened as he’d been. Neither of them had felt like going back into recharge after that and had spent the night talking, Jazz had eventually persuaded him that leaving him to scream and shout through his nightmares would be better for Prowl’s health.
I could see how badly he was coping with the idea of going on the mission I should have called the whole thing off and found a different way to do this Prowl thought turning on his heels in the still ominously quiet room, preferably before the ‘twins incident’ a shudder ran up his spine at the memory.
The only warning anyone had had was Sideswipe’s yell as he’d dropped through the space were a ceiling panel had been, Sunstreaker burst from one of the cupboards that lined the corridor and tried to grab their victim from behind. The raised optic ridges and sighs of ‘there they go again’ had been cut off mid flow by a scream from one of the twins and then by Sideswipe’s body flying through the door to the common room at waist height. Mirage had been closest to were the body fell and as he’d turned Sideswipe over to revel the damage Prowl’s first thought had been that somehow a Decepticon had made it into the Ark. As Ratchet rushed over to the downed twin and began working feverishly, trying to stabilise him, he and Ironhide had run out into the corridor fully prepared to take on who ever was out there. What they found had stopped them both dead, First Aid was working over the torn body of Sunstreaker and crouched in a defensive stance covered in the twins energon was Jazz, a deadly look on his face. Prime alerted by Tracks had come running down the other half of the corridor stopping beside him, taking in the whole scene in one glance he had marched over to Jazz who’d swung round to face him, murder still in his visor. It had been a pump stopping moment, would Jazz recognise his commander or would he attack him. Those gathered in the corridor had let out a sigh of relief as Jazz started and came back to his usual self at Primes first words of anger.
Alone in his quarters Prowl winced at the memory of the dressing down Prime had delivered, Hound and Trailbreaker had been assigned to take Jazz to an isolation cell and Ratchet and First Aid had commandeered others to help move the twins to the repair bay for emergency work. He and Prime had gone to Prime’s office and sat there is disbelieving silence waiting for word on the twins. Many joors later when an exhausted Ratchet had called to tell them the twins were out of danger he’d remembered that no one had checked to see if Jazz had been injured, so he’d gone down to the cells, a good deal of trepidation floating round his CPU. He’d carefully and slowly opened the cell door and put his head round the door even more carefully, but Jazz hadn’t moved from his spot in the opposite corner. His knees drawn up against his chest arms curled round his shins his wrists still bound together by energon restraints. He had slowly walked over and knelt down reaching out to deactivate and remove the restraints, Jazz’s face was pale and his optics under his visor were fastened on the middle distance, dried energon splattered over his upper body but particularly over his hands. He’d found the sight disturbing on so many levels he’d had to get some water and try and clean as much of it off as he could. He’d almost finished gently cleaning those delicate claw like fingers when Jazz had registered someone was with him, and then who it was and had collapsed in an emotional heap on his shoulder muttering incomprehensible words tears spilling down his face. He and Prime had given serious thought to abandoning the mission after that. When they went down to the cell the next morning however Jazz had been determined to go through with it.
Officially, Jazz had been exiled from the Autobots for an unspecified length of time; they had decided not to make a lot of noise about it, Jazz had simply slipped out of a back entrance onto a waiting shuttle and left with out anyone knowing. Hound had gone down to take Jazz his breakfast one morning and come scrambling into Prime’s office rambling that Jazz was missing only to be stopped cold by Prime telling him the sentence he’d imposed on Jazz, the rumour mill had done its work and by mid shift there wasn’t an Autobot on the planet who didn’t know. He smiled sadly to himself, over the past four and a half months every ‘bot on the base, except Prime, had come into his office at least once to plead for clemency for the saboteur.
The sound of his internal radio brought him back from his thoughts and he acknowledged the call, “Prowl”
“It’s Prime, our exile has sent a message.” Prime’s voice was heavily tinted with relief at the long awaited contact.
He was out the door before Prime had cut the line, if Jazz had broken radio silence it could only mean that the mission was over and he would soon have a room full of songs again, it was, he reflected a very appealing prospect.
-- Prime’s Office ---
Prime looked closely at his second in command, Prowl was so tense he was practically vibrating in his chair. He smiled beneath his battle mask, Prowl was obviously missing Jazz more than he was prepared to let on, and he wasn’t the only one. The months since Jazz had left had been filled with mechs petitioning him for Jazz’s return, the most memorable had been the twins, who had literally got down on their knees and begged. Nearly a month later their promise of no pranks and no fights was still holding.
“It’s dated two days ago at origin, and all this solar activity has scrambled it badly. It came directly into my private inbox, by passing all the other communication and security systems.” Prime started as the door locked closed.
“Two days? That’s a long time for a message to get here from there.” Prowl’s voice betrayed his worry over the time lag.
“It looks like Jazz bounced it off every commercial satellite in the galaxy, trying to throw anybody tracing communications off.” Prime reassured him.
“Have you listened to it?” Prowl asked.
“No. I thought it would be more appropriate for both of us to hear it together. Just in case he’s taken the ‘this message will self destruct in 30 seconds’ thing to heart.” Prime fought to repress the grin that threatened to split his face.
Prowl made a semi disapproving semi-amused snort in response and listened carefully as Prime started the message, static and interference crackled through the speakers and then buried in all the noise as familiar voice could be heard.
“Jazz … Ark, mission …A1 … a friend … trouble. In transit ... Keitel … help … safe… please … come…”
The crash of Prowl’s chair hitting the floor reverberated in the still of the office; Prime couldn’t recall the tactician ever having looked so distressed. Not that he was much more sanguine about the situation, Jazz had pulled off a very dangerous mission, alone, unaided, under considerable stress from past memories and had apparently landed himself in bigger trouble as a result.
“Yes we are going after him, no not mob handed, and yes we will use revoking his exile as the official reason. How soon can you have a shuttle ready to launch?” Prime answered all of Prowl’s questions before he could ask them.
Prowl visible pulled himself together and began plotting.
“Omega Supreme could make it in 24 hours You, Me and?” the tactician responded absently more than half his processor dedicated to working out how best to go after Jazz.
“Just the two of us, the reason Jazz is on his own out there is we couldn’t risk spreading the secret, besides do you really want the others to find out the real reason Jazz was ‘exiled’.” Prime declared firmly “We’d be at serious risk of physical violence if the rest of the crew thought we’d put Jazz is danger, so we’ll have to take a shuttle and pretend that there’s nothing wrong.”
Prowl thought about that, given the strength of feeling in the Ark over the issue, he and Prime would probably get only a third of the way through any explanation before having to spend a lot of time in the repair bay, providing Ratchet agreed to fix them in the first place.
“Point. We can launch a shuttle tomorrow afternoon, how are we going to tell the others?” Prowl said, calculating and re calculating the fastest route in his CPU.
“With as much fanfare as possible.” Prime assured him.
--- Four days later, Sln Docks, Keitel ---
“Still got that fix on Jazz?” Prowl asked quietly.
Prime looked around at the broken down cityscape, an uninspiring and probably dangerous place to live but perfect if you wanted to hide, they were going to have to be careful.
“Yes, Three miles south of here. We need to keep our optics open; this looks like a shoot first kind of place.” Prime responded just as softly.
They began to thread their way through the crowded streets keeping as low a profile as they could totally oblivious to the figure shadowing them. Following Jazz’s short-range locator beacon they eventually came to a small scrap shop that looked like it had been built out of the merchandise it sold, the door scrapped open with a noise load enough to wake the dead.
A voice from the back yelled out in response, “RATCHET! Get your scrawny aft into the shop.”
Prime and Prowl valiantly tried to suppress face splitting grins, as Jazz stomped his way into the shop from the yard trailing a long string of colourful curses, most of which they’d heard crossing the lips of the CMO over the millennia.
“… slagging, pit spawn. Why the glitch do think Primus gave you legs, huh, so you could run your latest slave into the covenant-forsaken ground? Yes well, what do you want?” Jazz aimed the last comment at them, along with a glare that would have made the real CMO proud
Still struggling to suppress their amusement at the impersonation neither of them moved from the shadowed corner they stood in.
Jazz burst into curses again, “I haven’t got all glitiching day here. If you want something haul your aft’s into the light so I can see you and get the pit on with it.”
Prowl gathered himself and slouched forward causally into the late afternoon sunlight that streamed through holes in the roof, “Sorry Ratch, we jus’ come past see if you’s OK, pick up a rumour you in too deep.”
A slight widening of the optics, quickly suppressed, was the only reaction Jazz gave to the sight of his fellow officers standing in the shop.
Jazz yelled over his shoulder to the unseen mech in the back of the shop, “Boss, I’m headed out. I’ve gota little private business to deal with.”
Ignoring the shouts from within Jazz grabbed Prowl by the arm and pushed Prime out of the shop into the yard, stopping only when they reached the corner furthest from the shop.
“What the slag are you doing here? Didn’t you get my message?” Jazz hissed anger and fear evident in his voice, “Were you followed? Who else is here? Where are they?”
Prowl held up his hands to stop the flow of questions, “Yes we got the message but it was a bit scrambled, it sounded like you need help and we decided to provide it, no I didn’t see anyone following us, we’re alone. What’s the problem?”
Jazz sagged against the fence groaning softly to himself about Murphy really having it in for him.
Taking a deep chamber full of air Jazz said, “The message was that I had run into some trouble but with the help of a friend I could handle it and the best thing you could do was to please stay away. You need to get the slag out of here, where’d you set down?”
“Sln docks berth thirty six. Are you sure you don’t want us to stick around?” Prime responded, feeling more than a little unhappy about leaving Jazz in the middle of whatever mess they’d unintentionally landed him in.
“Absolutely! No offence but, you guys are in way over your depth.” The patented dazzling grin flashed across Jazz’s face “Leave it to the expert, go find somewhere close by get some R’n’R and I’ll call you when I’m done.”
---
Sliding through the rapidly darkening slums Prime and Prowl following him as best they could, Jazz couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. This is going to be every shade of not good he thought just as a moving shape on one of the rooftops flashed in the corner of his optics. The high pitched howl of an energy weapon discharging shattered the silence and Prime went down without even managing to pull his riffle, Prowl did mange to get a couple of acid-pellet round off before being dropped by an EMP round. Jazz fighting off several attackers could do nothing to help either of them, and then suddenly he found himself in a wide circle, checking to see if there was a way out Jazz was brought up short by Sync stepping out of the darkness a stunner in his hands.
“So, so trusting Jazz, should have listened to ya instincts.” Sync’s voice dripped fake disappointment, “Ya gonna come peacefully? The boss wants a word with you.”
“Fall into the pit, you treacherous ice glitch!” Jazz snapped back, venom dripping from his voice.
“You first.” Sync responded coldly.
Jazz heard the howl of the stunner as it discharged and the world in front of his visor went white.