LOST IN THE CURRENT pt 2
LOST IN THE CURRENT pt2
Starscream strafed at a mostly abandoned road-a detour made solely by the one he loathed most because the Autobot wanted no other casualties when he was singled out.
“…I will rip those obscene bits from your chassis-your paltry excuse for wings-charlatan! And I will send you to HIM so he himself can throw you into the pit-because he never wanted you!”
A shot grazed Prowl’s left door, the Autobot having no choice but to careen into it, rather than allow the first shot to pierce his roof dead on down to his drive train. After that, Starscream began seeing just how much surface area he could strip from those doors by driving the tactician into trees, rock faces or what ever was handy.
“Why don’t you simply DIE, Autobot?” Starscream taunted, as Prowl calculated the speeds necessary to manage the tunnel up ahead where he could take cover, transform and launch an appropriate defense. “Your story has become old and tedious, and who has the stomach for perpetual tragedy?”
Prowl could not argue-aside the fact that his processor was busy calculating a way to survive Starscream’s aerial attack-his own recent delusions had weakened him to the truth of Decepticon’s verbal ones.
The tunnel loomed ahead.
Prowl transformed and dove…
***
…His optics reactivated to crystal blue sky over head, with no indication of Starscream-nothing but the wind blowing in a field of tall grass and red flowers. As his CPU went to the arduous task of realigning, Prowl shifted and the digits tracing tender joints in his wings drew back cautiously.
The tactician moved to draw his weapons from subspace…
“…Heyhey-easy slick-peace here, all the way.”
“Jazz,” but Prowl remained tensed.
“War in Heaven, angel?” the visored mech wondered, tending to the damage on Prowl’s wings, “Starscream trying to make a bid there, too?”
“He seems bent on my becoming the Pits’ newest inhabitant.”
“So chill here, then,” Prowl rose on his elbows, his face no more than a few inches from Jazz as the spy beamed with a sort of loving kindness-almost gratitude-that produced a warmth seeping into the tactician’s own spark. It was something Prowl had never seen in Jazz while the spy lived.
“Missed ya, y’know,” Jazz went on to say, running a finger down a paint stripped panel. “So I don’t care how I got cha-say a prayer for Screamer fr’it maybe.”
"I doubt it would help him,” Prowl commented, grinding his denta. “Jazz, I-“the touch was as real as the kiss a day ago. It was hard not to get lost in the sensation.
“Not hurtin’ ya, am I?” The movement was arrested, concern slowly crossing Jazz’ beautiful features. “Always thought these things’d be sensitive.”
Prowl confessed, “Th-they are.”
Jazz looked as if he’d found an exciting new toy, gesturing. “Let me?”
Reservations faded with the acceptance of the dream, and Prowl nodded his permission, the silver taking to a gentle exploration of virgin territory, ghost like touches surprisingly soothing. Eventually, Jazz pressed Prowl to lie on his stomach in order to facilitate some repairs to the battered appendages.
Soft, comfortable moments passed, when Jazz began to hum, the words falling from his lips sweet, low, “If you had not fallen, I wouldn’t have found you-my angel, flying too close to the ground. I know someday that you’ll fly away though, cause love's the greatest healer to be found”
Prowl flipped over, staring. “Jazz?”
The spy chuckled, though there was sadness there beneath it. “Willie Nelson.”
"I know.” And Prowl began to recite - not sing - in a voice smoother than satin, “Angel flying too close to the ground, fly on, fly on past the speed of sound. I'd rather see you up than see you down-“the tactician trembled, spark aching because of the inevitable, “So leave me if you need to-I’ll-always remember.”
"Prowler-“and the silver muse, surprised and enchanted by the angel, leaned easily, laying the red chevron among the other buds ready to blossom, flowing down into the longing mirrored beneath him, “Never leave you, Prowl, never…”
“…Should of lost the bot off the scanners like that-Starscream had to have been masking him somehow…”
Ratchet attached Prowl to Ironhide for towing, the tactician feeling too drained after letting go of Jazz, grateful he wouldn’t have to power his own way back to the complex.
Now, he was absolutely positive that his CPU was heading for failure.
And he no longer cared…
“…So leave me if you need to-I’ll-always remember…my Angel flying too close to the ground…”
***
The silver blur teased the corner of Ironhide’s optics, the presence like a slow burn in his system-the energy signature was familiar, and there were moments when the weapons’ specialist thought to question, but the question would come to mind on what felt more right; life WITH that silvery shimmer, or with OUT.
After that, a slow acceptance slid over him like hot wax-it tasted like the way things SHOULD have been…
“…Ghosts are human situations,” he told Ratchet, who had mentioned the more human features swimming in the sharper edges of a machine sentience that should have only existed in memory. “They aren’t real-we don’t sense what isn’t real, medic.”
Ratchet’s CPU seized as the world around him slowed slightly, memory trickling with the feel of a chassis beneath his hands, wondering why the self contained, secondary power source that controlled transformation, wired into Jazz’ hard drive, failed-but then reasoning that such a thing wasn’t possible. Megatron tore Jazz in two at the midline, shutting down transformation capability--but when the lines facilitating transformation broke down; power was rerouted to the cerebrals to prevent function shut down.
And he wasn’t perfect-Ratchet had no trouble accepting that. Considering his own damages after the incident at Mission City, the medic was amazed that he could recall anything clearly. And since there were no such things as ghosts, there was only one, reasonable explanation…
A spark in wanting could cause a CPU to justify anything…
***
“…Perceptor, I have NO idea who you are speaking of…”
First Aid’s reaction hardly surprised the scientist-what would have surprised him, was the younger medic actually responding in the positive to his question…
“…Why yes, Perceptor, I HAVE been wondering about where Jazz has been, and why he suddenly looks like nothing on Cybertron OR Earth…”
Granted, Blaster remembered, and though vaguely, so did Gold Bug-but bots like First Aid, Sandstorm, Springer-even Ultra Magnus, saw him as nothing more than a name that they might have seen only on a marker.
Perceptor, who was the only one that still held Jazz close to himself, had his suspicions…
“…Been slummin’ in th’matrix,” Jazz answered, completely unconcerned at how his explanation sounded.
Now, the fact that he was driving in what was presumably the land of the dead as if it were just an every day thing didn’t escape Jazz, but it didn’t phase him either-aside the fact that it was a place as solid as the world where Prime, Prowl, Ratchet and the others had died in the first place…
“…So leave me if you need to-I’ll-always remember…my Angel flying too close to the ground…”
“…You hear another speaking, and I am slowly being-overlapped-am I not?”
“How’d’ya guess?”
“Suffice it to say-your consciousness following your spark,” though Perceptor doubted it was to the Matrix-the alterations to Jazz’ form were very real, rather than ghostly. “The true answer, however, is to the question-of WHY you are still HERE...”
Of course, Jazz was Perceptor’s good friend-his last, from everything the scientist could access. And while he would deeply miss the spy, just seeing the happiness on Jazz’ face while that other voice drew him was enough to urge Perceptor to stay the course…
“…Jazz, you should not BE here,” the scientist handed him a picture, the spy staring at it wide eyed in a mixture of emotions that caused the red mech to turn away, lest it deter him. “You were deactivated by Scourge-weeks ago. Your chassis located by GPS-in a fault line several miles-from an abandoned site-called Mission City…”
The pictures drifted down to the ground, and now, even Perceptor could hear it, that familiar voice threading softly between the molecules that vanished to unknown places, recreating their realities by conscious will alone, living dreams, before coming back again…
“…My Angel, flying too close to the ground--”
Jazz was pulled by the gravity of a force so powerful, it circumvented the sorrow that came to the scientist as his long time friend moved forward, passing from one life to the next, joined to one ghost, becoming another, responding in kind.
“--If you had not fallen, I wouldn’t have found you-my angel, flying too close to the ground…”
…But Perceptor knew, when those molecules returned, Jazz would not be with them.
“Good-bye,” he whispered, as reality rippled tentatively, causing minute changes as it went, passing by the pictures that had been at Jazz’ feet, washing over the unaltered ones still on Perceptor’s work bench.
The image of Scourge’s mangled remains waivered, expanded from sharp, mangled angles, contracting into soft faded grays and shattered silvered glass.
Silver glass reflected a red chevron, and joy haloed two sparks joining, as if they’d always been meant, before fading forever in blue optics that would never forget...
“… Good-bye--my Angel flying too close to the ground…”