Transformers Fic
Title: Wild Ones (9/?)
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: M
Warnings: Future Plug&Play, Sticky, Eventual Gore, Violence from the Beginning.
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Most of the Main G1 Cast, Minor 'Going to die in the next chapter or in imminent future' or 'Plot accellerator' OC's.
Pairings: ? (Can't give away secrets! Sorry!)
Summary: Jazz knew having a Crime Boss as an Ex would come back to bite him in the aft...
===Iacon= Autobot Base===
===Wheeljack===
Dithering blindly had never been his strong point, Wheeljack admitted privately as he began to weld and solder some circuitry, his careful movements alerting his guest to his concentration as the blast doors to his lab slid shut and bolted closed. "Finally out of Ratchet's tender clutches are we Jazz?" he asked with a cheerful chirp, not bothering to spare the saboteur a glance, hearing the deliberately quiet pede steps towards his work bench.
"Just some cosmetic work left." The visored mech explained sourly, picking up a sphere like holo-imager from a precarious leaning pile of junk and tossing it between his fingers, stopping mere meters from the dangerous mech. "You do realise that your orns as Head Engineer are numbered don't you? I could go to the Prime right this instant and spill it all."
"No matter how much you whine to Prime, you're never going to reveal your connections to the Underworld of Cybetron." The damaged Praxian snorted with a flick of one of his blade thin doorwings, his optics narrowing in mild annoyance when he accidently soldered a wire into the wrong socket. "Besides the fact that you would be put in the brig for having those connections in the first place, your reasoning is beautifully transparent. You want to bring us to justice, but really… you wouldn't turn on Barricade. He's too deep in your spark. Nearly two hundred vorns of serious dating will do that to a bot."
"Anything I felt for him died when I found out he was the Crime Lord of Praxus." Jazz hissed from behind him, the rhythmic tossing of the holo-imager between his palms alerting the Engineer to the fact that the trained Special Operations agent wouldn't plant a dagger in his back just yet. "If he truly loved me, if he truly cared about us, he would have told me before he asked me to bond with him!"
"Would you have stayed even then?" the green and red highlighted mech asked, shutting off his equipment and removing the restricting goggles, turning to gaze blandly at the black and white mech that seemed to brace himself, almost as if he were expecting to be attacked. "Face it Jazz, this isn't about the fact that Prowl is a Crime Lord, it's about your inability to commit."
"Stop turning this back on me!" the Polyhexian snarled, incredibly more confident on his home turf, than he would have been out on the ruined streets of Iacon. "He built our love on lies."
"And yet, he stupidly loves you to the point he's been subconsciously been giving orders to keep you alive, despite your less than successful Bonding Orn." The Head of Autobot Engineering snorted in honest bewilderment, "Don't talk to me about love Jazz, you obviously know nothing of it. Now leave me be and go preach to your little Prime, I'm sure that report holds many little fantasy stories about what a Crime Lord's dungeon looks like."
"You aren't even going to check if I'm wearing recording equipment?" the Third in Command asked incredulously, dropping the holo-imager back into another pile of junk, making the engineer twitch in annoyance as his organised chaos was tampered with. "I could be getting this entire conversation to prove you are a fraud."
"I'm not a fraud, Jazz, by any means, I am a highly respected engineer, inventor and protoform designer in the Towers and Criminal World. Ergo, any equipment you would have had on would have malfunctioned in my Lab." The Crime Lord of Iacon purred darkly, his optics flashing a stroppy crimson in hidden irritation, "Even our Security Director doesn't get things working in here. So, since we have some privacy from the talking walls of our quaint little base, what else do you want to bother me about?"
"The Head of Engineering before you." Jazz growled, hiding his anger, hissing through clenched denta as his fists slackened and tightened in restrained fury. "What happened to her?"
"An unfortunate accident down in the bunker where they keep the supercomputers that have to be kept in the liquid nitrogen to keep cool," Wheeljack chuckled darkly, shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his servos in an amused 'oh well' gesture, "The fool got a little too close to the loose railing and fell in after checking for a fault, she froze before she could even scream for me to help. She was crushed by the computer when the automatic temperature hydraulics kicked in and lowered the mass back into the cooler. It was quite a messy process getting her mangled corpse out, the plating shattered if we gripped it too firmly."
"And let me guess, you watched gleefully from the sidelines as she deactivated." The azure visored mech growled in disgust.
"Surprisingly, no," Wheeljack sighed, clear there was a small part of him that mildly regretted the previous Head of Engineering's loss, his audio fins flashing disappointed beige, "My job was to keep tabs on the Autobots, Jazz, not join the Officer Elite. I did all I could to save Graphite at the time. I was actually very fond of her processing power."
"You… actually regret it?" the Special Operations Leader asked in bewilderment, the Crime Lord before him snorting in distaste at the instant assumption he wouldn't feel remorse, "But… Why?"
"You compare the Mob Hive to Megatron and his Decepticons," Wheeljack commented in amusement as his blast doors beeped with a request to enter, his ruby optics glinting back to blue as he brought their conversation to a cliff-hanger close, "Remember Jazz, not all Crime Lords are as evil as they pretend to be, even we, the criminal underground, look to a better Cybertron, even if it isn't the light and rainbows that your Prime envisions."
The blast doors to the lab snapped open, revealing a very agitated Ratchet, the red white and grey medic pausing in slight surprise when he spotted Jazz standing with his shoulder struts hunched and fists clenched. "Jazz. Aren't you supposed to be talking to Optimus?" the Chief Medical Officer asked in confusion as Wheeljack waved him in with a welcome chirr.
"I'm just going; I was… getting to know our new Engineer." The saboteur muttered, turning on his heel strut and stalking past him, leaning over to whisper darkly in the medic's audio as Wheeljack turned back to his discarded project, "Don't trust him Ratchet, not for a moment."
===Kaon= Gladiator Pits===
===Sunstreaker===
Awaking alone on his berth was a odd feeling. Instead of clutching a sliver streaked frame, he clasped the folds of his thin, worn, thermal blanket tightly where it had congealed into a random pile, giving the illusion of an arm or waist. Blinking his optics owlishly in bewilderment, Sunstreaker dropped his grip, pushing his frame up on his palms to gaze about the sparse living arrangements that all Gladiators were entitled to.
The pleasure mech was gone, the only evidence he had even existed streaked liberally in grey along his pelvic plating and two sets of claw marks raking along his chest plating. Indignant fury crawled up into his processors, curling around any rational thought like a venomous snake, blinding him to the new obsessive coding that lay dormant in the recesses of his mind.
He swung his pedes to the floor and half leapt from the berth, stalking to the door and ignoring the new patches of rust that were beginning to blotch his wall as he slammed his fist into the keypad. The door opened with a timid squeal of rusty mechanisms and a tired sigh of hydraulics, allowing the annoyed Gladiator into the dank hallway of the Arena's Pits. He cast his blue gaze about the dimly lit hall, his olfactory sensor crinkling in disgust at the flakes of rust and old paint peeling from the walls. The only movement seemed to be from the odd turbo rats scurrying to and fro from the shadows, carrying energon covered chips of plating, even the odd finger if one looked closely enough.
The gold mech strode without fear, deliberately stomping on one of the bolder rodent's tail as it crossed his path, earning a shrill animalistic scream before it scurried away in a torrent of scrabbling claws and chattering clicks. Elevated by the creature's pain, he loped into the Gladiator's public wash racks, tactfully ignoring the much larger Gladiators in the corner where they were bullying a smaller, lesser known Pit Fighter with cruel shoves and brutal remarks. Snorting softly through his vents, Sunstreaker quietly predicted the chances of the poor fragger's chances of going another orn without being jumped and raped by the group. It didn't look good.
A slave femme attended to the evidence of his interfacing, layering the golden yellow paint in the grooves on his chest plates and rubbing off the excess to reveal a flawless finish, moving onto his pelvis plating as another slave mech gently began to rub his back plating with a cleanser dunked cloth, erasing the dust and grime that he had accumulated from the last orn and recharge cycle.
As the mech and femme worked over him, he mulled over the depressing thought that the grey Praxian had simply went looking for a better frag after he had succumbed to the exhaustion of the orns events. Baring his denta in a subconscious scowl, Sunstreaker noted that the Pleasure Bot had simply collapsed right along with him, tucked close to his chest when he had finally relaxed his processor enough to activate his recharge protocols. So where the frag was he?
After getting assurance that he was spotless and clean once more, the Gladiator stalked like a predator from the Wash Rack, casting a venomous glance to a dirt rolling Tank Class mech that nearly clipped him, trying to rush into the humid room to join the group of Gladiators beginning to gather and trade farfetched victories in the large bathing pool.
He barely glanced at the other mecha in the corridor, only looking up at his spotted the pleased looking Pit Master that was counting his credits as a slave femme was being physically separated from her youngling by a posh looking Towers Mech, the femme screaming and making a fuss as the finely polished Noble grabbed the little one by the scruff bar, forcefully herding the youngster away from his Carrier and up the steps.
"Pleasure doing business with you." The Pit Master smiled lecherously at the elegant nobility, turning a brooding optic back to the struggling femme clamped between two of his favourite guards. "You knew this would happen when you let that Gladiator have your valve!" he scolded, not noticing Sunstreaker frowning in the shadows behind him, "Just feel lucky I actually made a profit from your little tryst. That Noble was a passionate fan of your lover before Lockdown ripped out his spark." He almost shouted at the broken femme, raising a servo as if to beat her when she keened for her youngling.
"I think she's learned her lesson." Sunstreaker rumbled blandly stepping from the shadows, impatient for attention from the Pit Master that startled slightly at his unannounced presence.
"I really need to put a bell on you." Snapped the greedy mech; flicking his fingers dismissively at the wailing femme and the guards to get out of his sight, "Despite that loud colour, you still manage to sneak up on me."
"Try shouting softer." Sunstreaker snorted, offering his advice flippantly, taking on a defensive stance when the Pit Master loomed closer, his ex-vents smelling of putrid vintage High Grade energon, prompting Sunstreaker to wrinkle his olfactory sensor. "I need you to tell me where a mech is."
"I own plenty of mechs." The irritating mech nodded, answering him as if he were a sparkling, "Which one?"
"Praxian, grey with red and a streak of silver," the famous gladiator snapped in frustration, tapping his pede impatiently.
"Ahh, him." The Pit Master nodded sagely, subspacing his data-pad and scrolling down the screen, the bright light of the old pad making the purple mech's silver optics squint, "That's Classified."
"How the frag is that classified?" the warrior snarled at his superior, "He's a pleasure bot! What the slag is so Classified about that?"
"Watch your glossa youngling, before I yank it out!" the hulking mech screeched back, his figurative feathers truly ruffled that the yellow mech was challenging him so publicly, Sunstreaker usually pushed his buttons when the two were in the privacy of his office after the gold mech had caused a little mayhem. "Now go get your energon before I decide to put you in a match with Lockdown!"
Growling like a feral animal, Sunstreaker backed off, his ex-vents harsh with his rage, pushing past the Pit Master towards the Mess Hall, muttering curses and insults to any that passed to close to his immaculate finish.
He stormed into the Rec-Room, startling a few minibots into dispersing before he whacked one over the helm with his clenched fists. Several new trainees saw him coming, scattering from the energon dispenser as it belched out their standard ration into the sorry looking metal cubes that were stacked in a precarious pile that looked like it was about to topple at the slightest nudge, beside the old rusty machine. Frowning, he swiped the cube, turning to survey the already rowdy room before a familiar purple femme waved him over.
"I take it you're not having a good orn." His usual sparring partner teased as he dumped his energon onto the table with a clang of metal, his thick plated, golden frame slumping heavily onto the seat, with a fury driven growl as she tried to hijack his cube.
"Frag off, Nightbird."
"Definitely not having a good orn." She grinned brightly, wrenching her servo back in mild surprise when the mech dared to take a swipe at her. "What's up Sunshine?"
"Don't call me that." He hissed at the cheerful femme.
"Oh, I get it, you're fragged off. Who is it this time? Is he in the Medical Bay already?" the ninja bot asked excitedly, almost bouncing in her seat with excitement.
"It's not a Gladiator, it was a pleasure bot," the brightly coloured mech glowered broodingly into his gritty tasting energon, before tracing a line of rust on the table's surface that was stained with the dried patches of mech-blood and spilled energon. "I came to after the recharge cycle and the fragger was gone!" the exotic helm fins flashing polished gold as he suddenly gestured erratically in her direction, "What kind of pleasure mech just ups and leaves? And I'm not just talking about my berth; it's like he's disappeared off the face of the fragging planet!"
"Calm down Goldie!" Sneered one of the other veterans of the Pits, swirling his lumpy, watered down Tank Grade energon with his remaining servo as a squeaky looking medic tended to the stump of the other from across the room after the Front Line Class gladiator's voice had risen over the course of his rant. "You'd think that you were actually attached to the whore after only one good frag!"
"Call me that again and I'll rip your slagging throat cabling out!" Sunstreaker snarled back, optics glinting malicious bluebell, the hidden coding in the back of his processors firing on with a now instinctive defence on behalf of Bluestreak's berthing habits. "And that mech was not a whore!"
"Whatever you say." The snickering elder mech snorted, tossing back the last of his energon with a satisfied gleam of his optics, leaving Sunstreaker to spit figurative bolts over the veteran's jabs.
"He's a dead mech walking." Another rookie group muttered from another table, rolling their optics at the elder mech as he turned back to chatting up the medic currently repairing him.
"Listen Sunstreaker." Nightbird sighed, reaching over the table to pat, almost patronizingly on the frustrated mech's arm plating, "This mech you're so worked up over was clearly sold on."
"He can't have been." The gladiator sulked, covering his obvious distaste with a quick swig of his energon, the graceful mech's faceplate twisting at the taste, slamming the energon back to the table, the liquid sloshing loudly. "I would have seen him going around. Last Recharge Cycle was the first time I had even seen him. He must have been new. The Pit Master was less than helpful, like he usually is, Classified Information my aft."
Frowning, she hummed in puzzlement, tilting her helm, "Maybe you twin could help you, last I heard, he was good at tracking bots and not so legal items down."
"Sideswipe moved to Praxus." Sunstreaker snapped with a clipped, icy cadence. "Apparently Kaon's been getting some bad press with the War going on. Megatron has his HQ somewhere around here, so his business had been going down the drain. Praxus is neutral until they make up their minds about which side they are joining, so he hightailed it there, leaving me to rot here."
"You can't possibly expect me to believe that you only joined the Pits because your brother wanted to move to Praxus." She snickered from behind her raised energon cube. "knowing you Front Liner builds, I expect pride had something to do with it too."
"Sideswipe said, and I quote from his rant, 'You are an artist, you wouldn't last five breems in a fight if the Decepticons actually made a move to secure Kaon.' I joined the Arena to prove him wrong," Sunstreaker admitted, his shoulder plating flattening closer to his protoform in apparent embarrassment at his admission. "Let's just say we weren't on talking terms until I dialled his Comm. Number a vorn later and apologised for punching him."
The armoured femme giggled, shaking her helm at the silliness of the mech before her, "If the pleasure bot isn't here, just go get him, if he was as good as you are implying, he's worth chasing!"
"Thanks." He sighed relieved that somebody seemed to understand his dilemma, draining his cube and rising from the table to return to his sulking somewhere less private where he might call his brother for a favour, "I'll see you for sparring later?"
"Wouldn't miss it, hon!" she called, drawing shrill suggestive whistles from the room as the golden mech strode from the room with an air of superiority, giving the Cybertronian equivalent of the middle finger to the Rec-room as he went.
Sighing, the femme dialled a number on her Communication Link, wincing at the amount of static that laced the line, despite the reassurance it would work over the long distance, "He'll be coming your way by the next orn."
"Deal is a deal I suppose." Sighed a childish voice from the other end, the dull throb of music in the background, "Thank you for your services Nightbird, as per our agreement, your Gladiator Contract has been annulled."
"Pleasure doing business with you, Silverstreak." She smiled as the link went dead, humming as she drained her energon cube with a smug smile.
===Praxus= The Club===
===Prowl===
"You let him escape?"
"An unfortunate event, but one that has little drawbacks in the grand scheme of things," Prowl soothed calmly with a barren monotone as the gun metal grey transformer stalked before him, his fusion cannon humming with heat and purple energy. "Energon?" he offered, gesturing with the curved glass decanter as he poured himself a cube of highly refined Mid Grade energon, setting down the beautiful creation on the table before them.
He let out a slow, cold smile, lazily taking a sip of his energon as Megatron, the War Lord of Kaon, swept his servo at the table, sending the expensive accessories across the room to shatter along the far wall where it splattered in a messy mockery of a battlefield kill with a loud crash. "Are all you Praxians this incompetent that you have to try and win me over by waving your riches in my faceplate?"
Silverstreak, who had been standing behind his brother's chair, ever watchful for threats, hissed lowly, wings rising fractionally at the insult before his brother soothed him with a casual flick of dismissal from his relaxed doorwings. Barricade softly sighed, rising his cube of energon to examine the fine glowing swirls that danced through the mixture at optic level, ignoring the furious Leader of the Decepticons that paced before him. "You worry over nothing, Megatron, Jazz is no threat."
"That saboteur has taken out many of my operatives and even two of my bases single-servoed!" the gunformer snapped, his wire thin patience evaporating like a petrol coated fuse before the immoveable black and white Praxian currently ignoring him in favour of inspecting his energon of all things. "Tell me, Barricade, why the frag couldn't you have done away with him?"
"As I clearly stated, it was an unfortunate underestimation of my old friend that led to his untimely escape." Prowl sighed with a frozen mockery of regret, gesturing to Silverstreak who had the decency to look a little sheepish, "My brother's just overlooked a minor detail, that's all."
"Ah yes, where is the Gambler?" Megatron asked, temper clipping his words into rough rumbles of threat. "He was the one responsible for the Autobot, he should be taking the punishment." He smiled cruelly, his fusion cannon humming higher as more energy was diverted to the weapon.
In a flash, Barricade had leapt from his seat, energon cube crashing to the floor, shattering into a million shards, each splattered with the contents of the Crime Lord's drink as he drew his energon sword from his subspace and placed the heated tip at the War Lord's throat cabling. "You will not touch my brothers." Barricade hissed, optics of molten ice swirling a crackling ivory, his doorwings high and stiff as the Decepticon stared at him in shock, his wide ruby optics clashing with wonder and a rage that burned eternally like the fires of the Pit. "If you dare lay a servo on either of them without my permission, Optimus Prime will be the least of your worries!"
"You are bold." Megatron sneered, the smell of slightly singed cabling drifting lazily to his olfactory sensors, "To point a sword at the one who could bomb your city at the wave of a servo."
"While you are still in the middle of recruiting?" Barricade smiled; the devil hiding in a mortal frame, "My, my, how easy would it be to dismantle those toy soldiers you call Decepticons without you bellowing out orders, I wonder?"
"A stalemate then." The grey mech conceded, holding his servos up in amused surrender, just now taking notice of the sniper dot trained between his optics, emanating from the slightly anxious looking Silverstreak. Barricade relaxed, subspacing his sword, turning his back on him boldly, returning to his previous unruffled state in his plush chair, snapping his claws to call off his youngest brother's marker. "When will you have a decision?"
"I have to talk it over with the Hive first," Barricade deduced for him, leaning an elbow on the arm rest and placing his cheek plating on his knuckles as his other servo kneaded the opposite arm rest creating small metal shavings with his claws that landed on the puddle of energon and glass that the Praxian Lord had forgotten in the sudden excitement. "Then, afterwards, I will pressure the Praxian Council into putting out a formal statement of allegiance."
"And your allegiance will be to my faction?" Megatron growled, optics flashing with a hidden warning.
"You haven't impressed me much." Prowl replied lowly, his metal brow creasing as he allowed his faceplate to scowl when Megaton's growl became a full snarl, "But you can possibly redeem yourself yet. Perhaps we can come to an agreement about a certain Autobot Jazz?"
"Oh?" the ex-gladiator asked, curiosity piqued, "And what agreement would that be?"
"I want you to keep him alive for me, as slippery as he is, I would like to… possess him when all is said and done." Barricade demanded, "You grant me this Megatron, Praxus and the Crime Lords of the Mob Hive will all be yours to use as you see fit, once I have the usurpers and do-gooders weeded out."
"Very well, Praxian," Megaton chuckled darkly, rolling his shoulders as he turned to exit via the balcony. "You have three orns to give me your decision, or else this city is going to be levelled." The larger mech sneered taking to the sky as the two Praxians gazed disapprovingly at him.
"But stupid Barricade, you have revealed your weakness." He laughed as he took off, turning to sneer down at the glowering black and white mech, "Jazz will herald your fall, Barricade. And when the time comes, not even the great Optimus Prime will be able to save you…"
Prowl rumbled lowly as Megatron became a dark speck on the horizon, his doorwings flaring up into a 'V' as he clasped his servos behind his back, simmering in silent fury, ignoring a servant femme that had been summoned to clear up the mess the arguing had caused, turning a blazing gaze to a stony faced Bluestreak, "Get me Dai Atlas. It's time he and I had a little reunion."
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: M
Warnings: Future Plug&Play, Sticky, Eventual Gore, Violence from the Beginning.
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Most of the Main G1 Cast, Minor 'Going to die in the next chapter or in imminent future' or 'Plot accellerator' OC's.
Pairings: ? (Can't give away secrets! Sorry!)
Summary: Jazz knew having a Crime Boss as an Ex would come back to bite him in the aft...
===Iacon= Autobot Base===
===Wheeljack===
Dithering blindly had never been his strong point, Wheeljack admitted privately as he began to weld and solder some circuitry, his careful movements alerting his guest to his concentration as the blast doors to his lab slid shut and bolted closed. "Finally out of Ratchet's tender clutches are we Jazz?" he asked with a cheerful chirp, not bothering to spare the saboteur a glance, hearing the deliberately quiet pede steps towards his work bench.
"Just some cosmetic work left." The visored mech explained sourly, picking up a sphere like holo-imager from a precarious leaning pile of junk and tossing it between his fingers, stopping mere meters from the dangerous mech. "You do realise that your orns as Head Engineer are numbered don't you? I could go to the Prime right this instant and spill it all."
"No matter how much you whine to Prime, you're never going to reveal your connections to the Underworld of Cybetron." The damaged Praxian snorted with a flick of one of his blade thin doorwings, his optics narrowing in mild annoyance when he accidently soldered a wire into the wrong socket. "Besides the fact that you would be put in the brig for having those connections in the first place, your reasoning is beautifully transparent. You want to bring us to justice, but really… you wouldn't turn on Barricade. He's too deep in your spark. Nearly two hundred vorns of serious dating will do that to a bot."
"Anything I felt for him died when I found out he was the Crime Lord of Praxus." Jazz hissed from behind him, the rhythmic tossing of the holo-imager between his palms alerting the Engineer to the fact that the trained Special Operations agent wouldn't plant a dagger in his back just yet. "If he truly loved me, if he truly cared about us, he would have told me before he asked me to bond with him!"
"Would you have stayed even then?" the green and red highlighted mech asked, shutting off his equipment and removing the restricting goggles, turning to gaze blandly at the black and white mech that seemed to brace himself, almost as if he were expecting to be attacked. "Face it Jazz, this isn't about the fact that Prowl is a Crime Lord, it's about your inability to commit."
"Stop turning this back on me!" the Polyhexian snarled, incredibly more confident on his home turf, than he would have been out on the ruined streets of Iacon. "He built our love on lies."
"And yet, he stupidly loves you to the point he's been subconsciously been giving orders to keep you alive, despite your less than successful Bonding Orn." The Head of Autobot Engineering snorted in honest bewilderment, "Don't talk to me about love Jazz, you obviously know nothing of it. Now leave me be and go preach to your little Prime, I'm sure that report holds many little fantasy stories about what a Crime Lord's dungeon looks like."
"You aren't even going to check if I'm wearing recording equipment?" the Third in Command asked incredulously, dropping the holo-imager back into another pile of junk, making the engineer twitch in annoyance as his organised chaos was tampered with. "I could be getting this entire conversation to prove you are a fraud."
"I'm not a fraud, Jazz, by any means, I am a highly respected engineer, inventor and protoform designer in the Towers and Criminal World. Ergo, any equipment you would have had on would have malfunctioned in my Lab." The Crime Lord of Iacon purred darkly, his optics flashing a stroppy crimson in hidden irritation, "Even our Security Director doesn't get things working in here. So, since we have some privacy from the talking walls of our quaint little base, what else do you want to bother me about?"
"The Head of Engineering before you." Jazz growled, hiding his anger, hissing through clenched denta as his fists slackened and tightened in restrained fury. "What happened to her?"
"An unfortunate accident down in the bunker where they keep the supercomputers that have to be kept in the liquid nitrogen to keep cool," Wheeljack chuckled darkly, shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his servos in an amused 'oh well' gesture, "The fool got a little too close to the loose railing and fell in after checking for a fault, she froze before she could even scream for me to help. She was crushed by the computer when the automatic temperature hydraulics kicked in and lowered the mass back into the cooler. It was quite a messy process getting her mangled corpse out, the plating shattered if we gripped it too firmly."
"And let me guess, you watched gleefully from the sidelines as she deactivated." The azure visored mech growled in disgust.
"Surprisingly, no," Wheeljack sighed, clear there was a small part of him that mildly regretted the previous Head of Engineering's loss, his audio fins flashing disappointed beige, "My job was to keep tabs on the Autobots, Jazz, not join the Officer Elite. I did all I could to save Graphite at the time. I was actually very fond of her processing power."
"You… actually regret it?" the Special Operations Leader asked in bewilderment, the Crime Lord before him snorting in distaste at the instant assumption he wouldn't feel remorse, "But… Why?"
"You compare the Mob Hive to Megatron and his Decepticons," Wheeljack commented in amusement as his blast doors beeped with a request to enter, his ruby optics glinting back to blue as he brought their conversation to a cliff-hanger close, "Remember Jazz, not all Crime Lords are as evil as they pretend to be, even we, the criminal underground, look to a better Cybertron, even if it isn't the light and rainbows that your Prime envisions."
The blast doors to the lab snapped open, revealing a very agitated Ratchet, the red white and grey medic pausing in slight surprise when he spotted Jazz standing with his shoulder struts hunched and fists clenched. "Jazz. Aren't you supposed to be talking to Optimus?" the Chief Medical Officer asked in confusion as Wheeljack waved him in with a welcome chirr.
"I'm just going; I was… getting to know our new Engineer." The saboteur muttered, turning on his heel strut and stalking past him, leaning over to whisper darkly in the medic's audio as Wheeljack turned back to his discarded project, "Don't trust him Ratchet, not for a moment."
===Kaon= Gladiator Pits===
===Sunstreaker===
Awaking alone on his berth was a odd feeling. Instead of clutching a sliver streaked frame, he clasped the folds of his thin, worn, thermal blanket tightly where it had congealed into a random pile, giving the illusion of an arm or waist. Blinking his optics owlishly in bewilderment, Sunstreaker dropped his grip, pushing his frame up on his palms to gaze about the sparse living arrangements that all Gladiators were entitled to.
The pleasure mech was gone, the only evidence he had even existed streaked liberally in grey along his pelvic plating and two sets of claw marks raking along his chest plating. Indignant fury crawled up into his processors, curling around any rational thought like a venomous snake, blinding him to the new obsessive coding that lay dormant in the recesses of his mind.
He swung his pedes to the floor and half leapt from the berth, stalking to the door and ignoring the new patches of rust that were beginning to blotch his wall as he slammed his fist into the keypad. The door opened with a timid squeal of rusty mechanisms and a tired sigh of hydraulics, allowing the annoyed Gladiator into the dank hallway of the Arena's Pits. He cast his blue gaze about the dimly lit hall, his olfactory sensor crinkling in disgust at the flakes of rust and old paint peeling from the walls. The only movement seemed to be from the odd turbo rats scurrying to and fro from the shadows, carrying energon covered chips of plating, even the odd finger if one looked closely enough.
The gold mech strode without fear, deliberately stomping on one of the bolder rodent's tail as it crossed his path, earning a shrill animalistic scream before it scurried away in a torrent of scrabbling claws and chattering clicks. Elevated by the creature's pain, he loped into the Gladiator's public wash racks, tactfully ignoring the much larger Gladiators in the corner where they were bullying a smaller, lesser known Pit Fighter with cruel shoves and brutal remarks. Snorting softly through his vents, Sunstreaker quietly predicted the chances of the poor fragger's chances of going another orn without being jumped and raped by the group. It didn't look good.
A slave femme attended to the evidence of his interfacing, layering the golden yellow paint in the grooves on his chest plates and rubbing off the excess to reveal a flawless finish, moving onto his pelvis plating as another slave mech gently began to rub his back plating with a cleanser dunked cloth, erasing the dust and grime that he had accumulated from the last orn and recharge cycle.
As the mech and femme worked over him, he mulled over the depressing thought that the grey Praxian had simply went looking for a better frag after he had succumbed to the exhaustion of the orns events. Baring his denta in a subconscious scowl, Sunstreaker noted that the Pleasure Bot had simply collapsed right along with him, tucked close to his chest when he had finally relaxed his processor enough to activate his recharge protocols. So where the frag was he?
After getting assurance that he was spotless and clean once more, the Gladiator stalked like a predator from the Wash Rack, casting a venomous glance to a dirt rolling Tank Class mech that nearly clipped him, trying to rush into the humid room to join the group of Gladiators beginning to gather and trade farfetched victories in the large bathing pool.
He barely glanced at the other mecha in the corridor, only looking up at his spotted the pleased looking Pit Master that was counting his credits as a slave femme was being physically separated from her youngling by a posh looking Towers Mech, the femme screaming and making a fuss as the finely polished Noble grabbed the little one by the scruff bar, forcefully herding the youngster away from his Carrier and up the steps.
"Pleasure doing business with you." The Pit Master smiled lecherously at the elegant nobility, turning a brooding optic back to the struggling femme clamped between two of his favourite guards. "You knew this would happen when you let that Gladiator have your valve!" he scolded, not noticing Sunstreaker frowning in the shadows behind him, "Just feel lucky I actually made a profit from your little tryst. That Noble was a passionate fan of your lover before Lockdown ripped out his spark." He almost shouted at the broken femme, raising a servo as if to beat her when she keened for her youngling.
"I think she's learned her lesson." Sunstreaker rumbled blandly stepping from the shadows, impatient for attention from the Pit Master that startled slightly at his unannounced presence.
"I really need to put a bell on you." Snapped the greedy mech; flicking his fingers dismissively at the wailing femme and the guards to get out of his sight, "Despite that loud colour, you still manage to sneak up on me."
"Try shouting softer." Sunstreaker snorted, offering his advice flippantly, taking on a defensive stance when the Pit Master loomed closer, his ex-vents smelling of putrid vintage High Grade energon, prompting Sunstreaker to wrinkle his olfactory sensor. "I need you to tell me where a mech is."
"I own plenty of mechs." The irritating mech nodded, answering him as if he were a sparkling, "Which one?"
"Praxian, grey with red and a streak of silver," the famous gladiator snapped in frustration, tapping his pede impatiently.
"Ahh, him." The Pit Master nodded sagely, subspacing his data-pad and scrolling down the screen, the bright light of the old pad making the purple mech's silver optics squint, "That's Classified."
"How the frag is that classified?" the warrior snarled at his superior, "He's a pleasure bot! What the slag is so Classified about that?"
"Watch your glossa youngling, before I yank it out!" the hulking mech screeched back, his figurative feathers truly ruffled that the yellow mech was challenging him so publicly, Sunstreaker usually pushed his buttons when the two were in the privacy of his office after the gold mech had caused a little mayhem. "Now go get your energon before I decide to put you in a match with Lockdown!"
Growling like a feral animal, Sunstreaker backed off, his ex-vents harsh with his rage, pushing past the Pit Master towards the Mess Hall, muttering curses and insults to any that passed to close to his immaculate finish.
He stormed into the Rec-Room, startling a few minibots into dispersing before he whacked one over the helm with his clenched fists. Several new trainees saw him coming, scattering from the energon dispenser as it belched out their standard ration into the sorry looking metal cubes that were stacked in a precarious pile that looked like it was about to topple at the slightest nudge, beside the old rusty machine. Frowning, he swiped the cube, turning to survey the already rowdy room before a familiar purple femme waved him over.
"I take it you're not having a good orn." His usual sparring partner teased as he dumped his energon onto the table with a clang of metal, his thick plated, golden frame slumping heavily onto the seat, with a fury driven growl as she tried to hijack his cube.
"Frag off, Nightbird."
"Definitely not having a good orn." She grinned brightly, wrenching her servo back in mild surprise when the mech dared to take a swipe at her. "What's up Sunshine?"
"Don't call me that." He hissed at the cheerful femme.
"Oh, I get it, you're fragged off. Who is it this time? Is he in the Medical Bay already?" the ninja bot asked excitedly, almost bouncing in her seat with excitement.
"It's not a Gladiator, it was a pleasure bot," the brightly coloured mech glowered broodingly into his gritty tasting energon, before tracing a line of rust on the table's surface that was stained with the dried patches of mech-blood and spilled energon. "I came to after the recharge cycle and the fragger was gone!" the exotic helm fins flashing polished gold as he suddenly gestured erratically in her direction, "What kind of pleasure mech just ups and leaves? And I'm not just talking about my berth; it's like he's disappeared off the face of the fragging planet!"
"Calm down Goldie!" Sneered one of the other veterans of the Pits, swirling his lumpy, watered down Tank Grade energon with his remaining servo as a squeaky looking medic tended to the stump of the other from across the room after the Front Line Class gladiator's voice had risen over the course of his rant. "You'd think that you were actually attached to the whore after only one good frag!"
"Call me that again and I'll rip your slagging throat cabling out!" Sunstreaker snarled back, optics glinting malicious bluebell, the hidden coding in the back of his processors firing on with a now instinctive defence on behalf of Bluestreak's berthing habits. "And that mech was not a whore!"
"Whatever you say." The snickering elder mech snorted, tossing back the last of his energon with a satisfied gleam of his optics, leaving Sunstreaker to spit figurative bolts over the veteran's jabs.
"He's a dead mech walking." Another rookie group muttered from another table, rolling their optics at the elder mech as he turned back to chatting up the medic currently repairing him.
"Listen Sunstreaker." Nightbird sighed, reaching over the table to pat, almost patronizingly on the frustrated mech's arm plating, "This mech you're so worked up over was clearly sold on."
"He can't have been." The gladiator sulked, covering his obvious distaste with a quick swig of his energon, the graceful mech's faceplate twisting at the taste, slamming the energon back to the table, the liquid sloshing loudly. "I would have seen him going around. Last Recharge Cycle was the first time I had even seen him. He must have been new. The Pit Master was less than helpful, like he usually is, Classified Information my aft."
Frowning, she hummed in puzzlement, tilting her helm, "Maybe you twin could help you, last I heard, he was good at tracking bots and not so legal items down."
"Sideswipe moved to Praxus." Sunstreaker snapped with a clipped, icy cadence. "Apparently Kaon's been getting some bad press with the War going on. Megatron has his HQ somewhere around here, so his business had been going down the drain. Praxus is neutral until they make up their minds about which side they are joining, so he hightailed it there, leaving me to rot here."
"You can't possibly expect me to believe that you only joined the Pits because your brother wanted to move to Praxus." She snickered from behind her raised energon cube. "knowing you Front Liner builds, I expect pride had something to do with it too."
"Sideswipe said, and I quote from his rant, 'You are an artist, you wouldn't last five breems in a fight if the Decepticons actually made a move to secure Kaon.' I joined the Arena to prove him wrong," Sunstreaker admitted, his shoulder plating flattening closer to his protoform in apparent embarrassment at his admission. "Let's just say we weren't on talking terms until I dialled his Comm. Number a vorn later and apologised for punching him."
The armoured femme giggled, shaking her helm at the silliness of the mech before her, "If the pleasure bot isn't here, just go get him, if he was as good as you are implying, he's worth chasing!"
"Thanks." He sighed relieved that somebody seemed to understand his dilemma, draining his cube and rising from the table to return to his sulking somewhere less private where he might call his brother for a favour, "I'll see you for sparring later?"
"Wouldn't miss it, hon!" she called, drawing shrill suggestive whistles from the room as the golden mech strode from the room with an air of superiority, giving the Cybertronian equivalent of the middle finger to the Rec-room as he went.
Sighing, the femme dialled a number on her Communication Link, wincing at the amount of static that laced the line, despite the reassurance it would work over the long distance, "He'll be coming your way by the next orn."
"Deal is a deal I suppose." Sighed a childish voice from the other end, the dull throb of music in the background, "Thank you for your services Nightbird, as per our agreement, your Gladiator Contract has been annulled."
"Pleasure doing business with you, Silverstreak." She smiled as the link went dead, humming as she drained her energon cube with a smug smile.
===Praxus= The Club===
===Prowl===
"You let him escape?"
"An unfortunate event, but one that has little drawbacks in the grand scheme of things," Prowl soothed calmly with a barren monotone as the gun metal grey transformer stalked before him, his fusion cannon humming with heat and purple energy. "Energon?" he offered, gesturing with the curved glass decanter as he poured himself a cube of highly refined Mid Grade energon, setting down the beautiful creation on the table before them.
He let out a slow, cold smile, lazily taking a sip of his energon as Megatron, the War Lord of Kaon, swept his servo at the table, sending the expensive accessories across the room to shatter along the far wall where it splattered in a messy mockery of a battlefield kill with a loud crash. "Are all you Praxians this incompetent that you have to try and win me over by waving your riches in my faceplate?"
Silverstreak, who had been standing behind his brother's chair, ever watchful for threats, hissed lowly, wings rising fractionally at the insult before his brother soothed him with a casual flick of dismissal from his relaxed doorwings. Barricade softly sighed, rising his cube of energon to examine the fine glowing swirls that danced through the mixture at optic level, ignoring the furious Leader of the Decepticons that paced before him. "You worry over nothing, Megatron, Jazz is no threat."
"That saboteur has taken out many of my operatives and even two of my bases single-servoed!" the gunformer snapped, his wire thin patience evaporating like a petrol coated fuse before the immoveable black and white Praxian currently ignoring him in favour of inspecting his energon of all things. "Tell me, Barricade, why the frag couldn't you have done away with him?"
"As I clearly stated, it was an unfortunate underestimation of my old friend that led to his untimely escape." Prowl sighed with a frozen mockery of regret, gesturing to Silverstreak who had the decency to look a little sheepish, "My brother's just overlooked a minor detail, that's all."
"Ah yes, where is the Gambler?" Megatron asked, temper clipping his words into rough rumbles of threat. "He was the one responsible for the Autobot, he should be taking the punishment." He smiled cruelly, his fusion cannon humming higher as more energy was diverted to the weapon.
In a flash, Barricade had leapt from his seat, energon cube crashing to the floor, shattering into a million shards, each splattered with the contents of the Crime Lord's drink as he drew his energon sword from his subspace and placed the heated tip at the War Lord's throat cabling. "You will not touch my brothers." Barricade hissed, optics of molten ice swirling a crackling ivory, his doorwings high and stiff as the Decepticon stared at him in shock, his wide ruby optics clashing with wonder and a rage that burned eternally like the fires of the Pit. "If you dare lay a servo on either of them without my permission, Optimus Prime will be the least of your worries!"
"You are bold." Megatron sneered, the smell of slightly singed cabling drifting lazily to his olfactory sensors, "To point a sword at the one who could bomb your city at the wave of a servo."
"While you are still in the middle of recruiting?" Barricade smiled; the devil hiding in a mortal frame, "My, my, how easy would it be to dismantle those toy soldiers you call Decepticons without you bellowing out orders, I wonder?"
"A stalemate then." The grey mech conceded, holding his servos up in amused surrender, just now taking notice of the sniper dot trained between his optics, emanating from the slightly anxious looking Silverstreak. Barricade relaxed, subspacing his sword, turning his back on him boldly, returning to his previous unruffled state in his plush chair, snapping his claws to call off his youngest brother's marker. "When will you have a decision?"
"I have to talk it over with the Hive first," Barricade deduced for him, leaning an elbow on the arm rest and placing his cheek plating on his knuckles as his other servo kneaded the opposite arm rest creating small metal shavings with his claws that landed on the puddle of energon and glass that the Praxian Lord had forgotten in the sudden excitement. "Then, afterwards, I will pressure the Praxian Council into putting out a formal statement of allegiance."
"And your allegiance will be to my faction?" Megatron growled, optics flashing with a hidden warning.
"You haven't impressed me much." Prowl replied lowly, his metal brow creasing as he allowed his faceplate to scowl when Megaton's growl became a full snarl, "But you can possibly redeem yourself yet. Perhaps we can come to an agreement about a certain Autobot Jazz?"
"Oh?" the ex-gladiator asked, curiosity piqued, "And what agreement would that be?"
"I want you to keep him alive for me, as slippery as he is, I would like to… possess him when all is said and done." Barricade demanded, "You grant me this Megatron, Praxus and the Crime Lords of the Mob Hive will all be yours to use as you see fit, once I have the usurpers and do-gooders weeded out."
"Very well, Praxian," Megaton chuckled darkly, rolling his shoulders as he turned to exit via the balcony. "You have three orns to give me your decision, or else this city is going to be levelled." The larger mech sneered taking to the sky as the two Praxians gazed disapprovingly at him.
"But stupid Barricade, you have revealed your weakness." He laughed as he took off, turning to sneer down at the glowering black and white mech, "Jazz will herald your fall, Barricade. And when the time comes, not even the great Optimus Prime will be able to save you…"
Prowl rumbled lowly as Megatron became a dark speck on the horizon, his doorwings flaring up into a 'V' as he clasped his servos behind his back, simmering in silent fury, ignoring a servant femme that had been summoned to clear up the mess the arguing had caused, turning a blazing gaze to a stony faced Bluestreak, "Get me Dai Atlas. It's time he and I had a little reunion."