Forests of the Night - Part 4
Disclaimer: Transformers is the property of Hasbro et al.
Title: Forests of the Night (Fearful Symmetry, Arc One)
Rating and Warnings: T (brief violence/morbidity and some dark themes, "OC" that isn't really an OC)
Timeframe/Setting: G1 with bits of Beast Wars and a few little things from Prime and movie!verse, very slightly AU; Cybertron, early war
Summary: Jazz wasn't expecting a rescue, and he certainly wasn't expecting a rescue quite like this one.
Also available on FF.net.
Arc One, Part Four
Jazz was a fool. A glitching, Pit-bound fool who thought with his spark instead of his processors and deserved his eventual fate for such stupidity. He'd trusted Cade because he wanted to, not because he should, and just look at where that got him - abandoned in the wilderness, lost, and underfueled.
He'd spent most of the morning trying to follow the catbot. He was well aware of the ridiculousness of that attempt. Cade didn't leave much of a trail, and Jazz wasn't that great at tracking, even if he had. So he went in the same general direction the catbot had run off in and followed such vague signs as a few snapped twigs and an overturned clump of substrate. It didn't come as much of a surprise when he gave up and admitted that he was lost and that the catbot wouldn't be found if he didn't want to be.
He tried comming him a few times, but the catbot was either ignoring him or out of range.
After that, he settled himself on a fallen tree and basked in the sunlight that filtered down through the opening in the canopy. He took out his final half a cube and sipped it slowly. The combination of sunlight and energon boosted his energy reading a disappointingly small amount, but Jazz was willing to take what he could get. When his fuel was gone and the sun had shifted behind the branches again, he set off once more.
Cade had been leading them southwards for the past two days, so that's the way Jazz went. He found a game trail and was feeling pretty pleased with himself as afternoon wore on. Maybe he could do this. If he could just reach the base before he ran out of power, he could comm the Autobots and find a safe place to go into stasis while he waited for help to arrive. Jazz was nothing if not resourceful. Sure, he hadn't been in this exact situation before, but he could adapt. It's what he was good at. Besides, Cade had practically told him where the base was. If he kept going he would probably run into it.
The game trail petered out into nothing and abandoned him in the middle of a huge snarlwire thicket. Cursing to himself, Jazz was forced to backtrack until he could get out of it, then follow the perimeter of the thicket until he could head south again. By the time he had gotten around it, darkness was falling and there wasn't a trail in sight.
The forest had seemed beautiful, almost magical, that first night by the energon stream. The wild creatures were strange, certainly, but not scary. Jazz had been pleased to discover that he was perfectly fine and there was nothing to fear in the woods.
That fearlessness, he soon realized, was conditional upon the presence of a sturdy shelter over his head and a confidant catbot by his side. It seemed darker, even with his visor properly adjusted. There were countless little things moving and calling on the fringe of his sensor net where he couldn't get a good reading on them. The turbofoxes had started up their laughing, sobbing screeches, which didn't help matters in the slightest.
Jazz knew he would feel better with a roof over his head, no matter how flimsy. But this time, there were no continent caves or fallen trees. He had to make do with a bundle of limbs propped against a thick irontree with a few swaths of tall silversedge for a roof. It was rather pitiful, but it was better than nothing. Jazz curled up and spent a long time trying to ignore the hunger and nervousness roiling through his tanks before he finally drifted offline.
His internal scanners woke him. Some alarm was going off, warning him that his energy levels were at the threshold of secondary systems shutdown and he really, really ought to refuel. He shut it off with somewhat more force than was strictly necessary. Grumbling about failsafes and regulations and the universe in general, Jazz rolled over and onlined his optics - and found a curious pair of orange optics staring right back at him.
For one brief but joyous moment he thought that Cade had returned. But when he sat up the optics retreated and there seemed to be more shuffling and snuffling going on than he remembered, so Jazz took a second look. It was a cyberhound. Correction, it was a pack of cyberhounds. It looked like a mated pair and three - make that four - of their mostly-grown offspring. They didn't seem particularly aggressive, but they were curious, fearless, and they had him completely encircled.
Jazz stood up, knocking down his silly little structure in the process, and shouted while brandishing one of his knives. Six pairs of orange optics retreated with nervous little growls, but the exertion took more out of him than he thought it would. He slumped against a tree, trembling, as his processor cranked out a few more warnings. He deleted them all viciously and when he looked up one of the smaller cyberhounds was slinking closer again. He slashed at it and it darted back again, squealing.
Jazz leaned against the tree. His hands were shaking. He didn't dare try to run. The cyberhounds were faster and they were programmed to chase things. Prey. He was prey to them. They had no qualms with dragging him down and tearing him to pieces to get at his few remaining resources. Jazz giggled. It wasn't exactly the way he'd thought he'd go.
There was a cyberhound sniffing of his ankle. He kicked at it, but it dodged him and he nearly fell down. It backed a few paces away and sat down on its haunches, watching him with its tongue lolling out of its mouth.
"What're you . . . grinnin' at . . . huh, mutt?"
It stopped panting and tilted its head when he spoke. Then it whined and stood up, wagging its tail eagerly.
A heavy weight slammed into Jazz's shoulder and pinned him to the tree. Blunt claws scrabbled at his armor and warm breath gusted on the exposed cables of his neck. He slashed blindly with the knife. Hot liquid spattered on his hand and the weight fell back with an awful squall. A cyberhound staggered away from him while bright pink energon dripped from a wound in its abdominal plating. The rest of the pack shifted uneasily. Growls and whines filled the air around him.
This wouldn't do. This wouldn't do at all. He was surrounded and exposed. The cyberhounds had learned to fear his knife, but they would lose that respect as he grew weaker. His own body was failing him. All they had to do was wait. Eventually, he would be too weak to hold the knife.
Jazz pinged Cade's comm again but received no reply.
He studied his surroundings with as much focus as his slowing processor would allow. The pack had him encircled. They were keeping themselves well out of his reach. The wounded one occasionally whimpered to itself and licked its belly. He didn't doubt that it could rouse itself when the time came. His only shelter was the tree he leaned against. He'd selected it for its girth rather than its height. It was an unusual specimen, growing thick and sprawling rather than tall like its neighbors. He'd chosen it merely for the sake of having something sturdy to put his back against, but now it might very well save his life. At least, he hoped so.
Keeping his sensor net tuned to the pack, he circled the irontree until he found its lowest branch. It was a long, spindly outgrowth about even with his chin. Under normal circumstances, he could have hopped up on it without a second thought. Circumstances as they were, it took him three tries to wrap his hands around it and walk himself up the trunk. He stopped to catch his breath once he'd done it. The pack sniffed around curiously and he could feel the branch trembling beneath him. Time to move.
He worked his way higher, branch by branch, knowing that one slip would be fatal. The pack clustered around the tree, snuffling around and watching him. He stopped two meters above their heads and was tempted to throw a knife into their midst to remind them that he, too, had fangs, but he dared not risk a miss. And besides, even if he did hit one, he'd be short a knife. He settled with shouting a few insults and concentrating on climbing higher.
He found a sturdy fork a comfortable height above the ground and settled in. He activated the magnets on his hands and feet and took a moment to write a few lines of code that ensured that they stayed activated even if everything else went offline. He took stock of his weapons. He pinged Cade again (no response, big surprise). He tried to comm his home base and got only static (again, big surprise). He looked down at the cyberhounds to make sure they hadn't tried any funny business. All six were present and accounted for and still on the ground. He triple-checked his magnets, set an alarm to go off in half a joor, and forced himself into recharge.
He awoke in half a joor to find one of the cyberhounds taking a running jump at the tree. It didn't come anywhere close to his perch, so he dozed off again.
In another half a joor it - or possibly another, he couldn't exactly tell - had figured out how to build up enough momentum to run up the trunk for a meter or so. He watched it until it managed to hook its paws over the lowest branch, then he shouted and chuckled when it fell off and landed with a thump and a squeal. It limped away and he recharged again.
When he awoke again it was suspiciously quiet. Four of the cyberhounds were napping and the other two were lounging about. Apparently, they weren't concerned with him going anywhere. He broke off a twig and threw it at one of them just for spite, then went back to recharge when it scrambled to its feet barking furiously.
On the next half-joor they were all awake and the one he'd thrown the stick at was still squabbling with another one. Presumably, it blamed its packmate for the stick and their fussing was keeping the others awake. Jazz was perfectly happy to rest while they couldn't, so he dozed off again.
After that, they had quieted down but weren't really offline. He took the opportunity to figure out how to tell them apart. It might come in handy. And he was bored. They all ended up with names like Halftail and Crookednose. He recharged for the usual time and then quizzed himself. He got Big Momma and Silver mixed up, so he threw another stick and went back to sleep. He tried it again when he woke up and was inordinately pleased with himself when he got them all right.
The night passed very slowly. Jazz was so bored and uncomfortable he almost forgot to be afraid. His energy levels were steadily dropping, but he bought himself some time with his short, frequent recharges. He concentrated on surviving until sunrise, when the cyberhounds would give up and go home and he could figure out what to do about his lack of energon then.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
He fell into recharge, ignored three alarms and awoke on the fourth to find Twosocks halfway up the tree. It was slow, awkward going. Cyberhounds were obviously not made to climb trees. He kept very still, gripping his knife, and watched it carefully step from branch to branch. It got stuck two meters below him and dithered on a branch for three breems while Jazz thought he would scream from frustration. Finally, it found a way to the next branch. It made it to the one below his fork and reared up, propping its paws on the trunk beside his head. Jazz was reminded uncomfortably of Cade. The beastbot leaned towards him and he forced himself to stay still. Just as its snout touched his helm, he redirected all available power to his left arm and lashed out with the knife.
When Jazz's optical and auditory sensors booted back up, he found Twosocks gurgling and twitching on the ground with his knife sunk to the hilt in its throat. He complimented himself on a job well done and went back to sleep.
His tactile sensors refused to boot up when next he came online, but he could see that his magnets were still working and the five remaining cyberhounds were on the ground where they should be, so he wasn't terribly concerned. He slept for three joors without setting an alarm.
When he came up again - still without tactile sensors and now without olfactory ones as well - three of the pack were up the tree and the other two were trying to follow. Jazz watched in dumb horror as they crept towards him, step by shaky step. He didn't have enough knives for all of them. He didn't have the strength to wield a knife, anyway. It was dawn and the cyberhounds were moving in for the kill. Jazz could have laughed at his own stupidity if he had the energy to do so.
At first, he thought his optics were fritzing. A black shadow appeared out of nowhere and bowled over Halftail, one of the cyberhounds still on the ground. There was a scuffling noise, a sharp metallic screech, and Halftail went still. It had all happened too fast for the other cyberhound- Licker, the one with the wounded abdomen, by the looks of it - to respond, but when it lunged the shadow knocked it aside, clamped down on its throat and gave it a good shake. The shadow tossed the cyberhound away and Licker fell over in a widening pool of energon.
Big Momma and Crookednose responded furiously. They lunged out of the tree with their lone remaining offspring. They circled the shadow, baying and biting. The shadow clawed at them and snarled like Pitspawn. When Crookednose lost its nose - along with half of its face - Big Momma and Silver decided to cut their losses. They fled, leaving the cooling frames of their fallen (Licker was still kicking) and a shadow with a lashing tail.
Cade looked up at Jazz. ::You really are an inordinate amount of trouble, you know.::
Jazz laughed, sobbed, and almost had time to say something witty before his processor informed him that he was going into emergency stasis, effective immediately.