Four Times - Prowl almost caught Jazz
NAME: Rose0mary
TITLE: Four Times
RATING: PG
WARNINGS: None
Characters: Prowl and Jazz
Fandom: Generation 1 or IDW - I like 'em both!
(4 Times: first encounter)
It had taken several recharge shifts, but at long last, Prowl tracked down and cornered the elusive hacker. “It is very bad form to take over somemech’s avatar while the owner is otherwise occupied in the online world.”
His prey, a nondescript mech decked in green (NOT the stranger’s natural appearance, nor even the intruder’s preferred downloaded specs - did the intruder even have a preferred skill ability? Prowl wondered), tried to claim his innocence (“hey, mech, you got the wrong guy”), stopped completely at Prowl’s cold order: “Stop pretending to be Hound.”
“Not bad, mech.” The stranger said, shedding the top false layer, revealing yet another disguise. The florescent orange beneath the green paint did an excellent job of camouflaging him visually.
Before Prowl could pull out his handcuffs, the mech pressed himself into the wall and vanished. The enforcer vented. He could catch the intruder, even if it took to the end of his life.
(4 Times: personal pranks)
Prowl did not expect the stranger to take over an empty avatar again, and he was right: for the next six vorns, mechs that left recharge to interact in the online world (earning what they could to sustain their sparks), plugged back in to find nothing had changed, no mech stolen their intensity.
That did not mean the hacker had left this particular zone alone. Oh no, not at all.
For the next six vorns, after ineffectively chasing the stranger to a dead-end corner, ever time Prowl left the Office and entered recharge, he had to adjust his settings. Sometimes his paint job had been changed - bright blue in place of black, purple instead of white, grey and red splattered his frame as if he’d walked through a particularly wet and nasty scene of deactivation - but more often, music blasted through his audials, potentially deafening him. If his electronic frame could suffer permanent damage, that is.
Rather than breaking his desire to find the culprit and bring the hacker to justice, the challenge only made him more eager to hunt the stranger down and finally, finally cuff him.
(4 Times: Missed, greatly)
When real life crime began mimicking sabotage in Prowl’s preferred recharge world, he spent fewer breems chasing the elusive stranger, spent less energy on studying the hacker’s patterns of disruption and chaos, and found himself emerging sooner and sooner.
His absence and reduced effort in the uploaded had been noted.
After the twelfth crime-lord wanna be (picking up inspiration from a V.R. world that had no laws against vandalism, graffiti, self-portraits, colorful self-expression, painting with explosives, or even creative misuse of recycled coolants and deactivated mech’s congealing fluids), Prowl logged in and found himself surrounded by Praxian crystals.
Prowl pulled up short. There was nothing in his public server (or even private systems - he double checked his available info), that even hinted towards his Praxian origins, let alone the fact he wanted to maintain a crystal garden of his own, some distant orn.
In the privacy of his room, Prowl let his mask down, and simply enjoyed the present. He would go chasing after the elusive stranger next orn.
(4 Times: Now you have me)
When Prowl finally caught - really caught, not cornered, not tracked to a dead-end system, not almost had-him, not chasing a phantasm, but actually caught the phantom stranger, one hand holding onto the unknown mech - Prowl wasted no time in cuffing him.
Unsurprisingly, the stranger resisted arrest. “Hey, mech, you going to tell me what the charges are?”
“Illegal hacking of avatars”, asked for a list of supposed wrongdoings, Prowl cheerfully recited some of the more unusual activities he traced back to this particular mech. “Changing others avatars -”
“Some bots ask for modifications the system won’t allow,” protested the stranger, fighting to escape Prowl’s hold. Unsuccessfully. The handcuffs limited his arm-and-hand, movements, and when Prowl chained himself to the handcuffs, linking their two frames, it rendered the range he could get to virtually zip.
“-continual defacing of public buildings,” Prowl continued ticking off crimes committed by the grey-and-charcoal black stranger, “public inciting of mobs.”
“That one isn’t a crime here - some of the Artificial Program Inhibitors can’t be bypassed without a world-wide distractions, and no real mechs ever came to harm”
“…” Prowl broke off his recitation. “Are you purposefully giving me more activities that could get you banned from all variations of Cybertronian worlds?”
“Gotta convict me first, and you haven’t got a leg to stand on.” So saying, the stranger, pulled to the right one last time---
And the cuffs, secured tight, sprang open letting the grey-and-charcoal black mech escape capture yet again. “Nice chase” he called out, as his avatar faded, indicating his imminent exit from recharge, “hate to talk and run.”
Stunned at the turn of developments, Prowl could only watch as his prey once again slipped through his fingers.
(now you don't)
(4-Times: real applications)
It was about fifty-seven joors after Prowl failed to unmask the stranger that vexed him in the recharge world, which his Protihex co-worker commented on how subdued Prowl had been lately.
“No, I am not.” Prowl paused his pursuit of the current ongoing case.
“You are,” his white-and-midnight blue coworker argued. “You haven’t been yourself lately - behavior with the others has changed.”
“Jazz, I never interact in off-topic office discussions. I never offer an opinion, unless asked, and I don’t bet on anything less than a sure thing. Nothing has changed, why are you insisting something is wrong?”
“Hey, mech, you’re the one who said ‘wrong’, I said ‘subdued’. Now I know something’s really bothering you. Now, you gonna tell big brother what he wants to know, or am I needing the big guns?”
Prowl glared at Jazz. “What happens during my off time is none of your concern.”
“It is when it’s made you more passive than normal - ya didn’t react when Armorhide accidentally took a big gulp of Engex instead of the regular energon he was expecting.”
“Jazz!”
“Just sayin. Being downcast don’t suit you at all.”
“I am not downcast!”
“Ya sure ain’t cowed. Now, you got a criminal for us to chase, or you gonna continue sulking?”
Prowl sputtered, yet willingly passed over the list of places their current suspect liked to hang out after a hit. “This discussion is tabled.”
“Until your processor gets off track again, sure,” Jazz said, easily trailing Prowl out the door, bobbing his head to some faintly familiar music.
It wasn’t until after they’d found Telus, that Prowl realized just why those tunes had felt so familiar, despite his own lack of appreciation for the musical arts: those songs had been part of the music he’d been blasted with by the nameless hacker.
TITLE: Four Times
RATING: PG
WARNINGS: None
Characters: Prowl and Jazz
Fandom: Generation 1 or IDW - I like 'em both!
(4 Times: first encounter)
It had taken several recharge shifts, but at long last, Prowl tracked down and cornered the elusive hacker. “It is very bad form to take over somemech’s avatar while the owner is otherwise occupied in the online world.”
His prey, a nondescript mech decked in green (NOT the stranger’s natural appearance, nor even the intruder’s preferred downloaded specs - did the intruder even have a preferred skill ability? Prowl wondered), tried to claim his innocence (“hey, mech, you got the wrong guy”), stopped completely at Prowl’s cold order: “Stop pretending to be Hound.”
“Not bad, mech.” The stranger said, shedding the top false layer, revealing yet another disguise. The florescent orange beneath the green paint did an excellent job of camouflaging him visually.
Before Prowl could pull out his handcuffs, the mech pressed himself into the wall and vanished. The enforcer vented. He could catch the intruder, even if it took to the end of his life.
(4 Times: personal pranks)
Prowl did not expect the stranger to take over an empty avatar again, and he was right: for the next six vorns, mechs that left recharge to interact in the online world (earning what they could to sustain their sparks), plugged back in to find nothing had changed, no mech stolen their intensity.
That did not mean the hacker had left this particular zone alone. Oh no, not at all.
For the next six vorns, after ineffectively chasing the stranger to a dead-end corner, ever time Prowl left the Office and entered recharge, he had to adjust his settings. Sometimes his paint job had been changed - bright blue in place of black, purple instead of white, grey and red splattered his frame as if he’d walked through a particularly wet and nasty scene of deactivation - but more often, music blasted through his audials, potentially deafening him. If his electronic frame could suffer permanent damage, that is.
Rather than breaking his desire to find the culprit and bring the hacker to justice, the challenge only made him more eager to hunt the stranger down and finally, finally cuff him.
(4 Times: Missed, greatly)
When real life crime began mimicking sabotage in Prowl’s preferred recharge world, he spent fewer breems chasing the elusive stranger, spent less energy on studying the hacker’s patterns of disruption and chaos, and found himself emerging sooner and sooner.
His absence and reduced effort in the uploaded had been noted.
After the twelfth crime-lord wanna be (picking up inspiration from a V.R. world that had no laws against vandalism, graffiti, self-portraits, colorful self-expression, painting with explosives, or even creative misuse of recycled coolants and deactivated mech’s congealing fluids), Prowl logged in and found himself surrounded by Praxian crystals.
Prowl pulled up short. There was nothing in his public server (or even private systems - he double checked his available info), that even hinted towards his Praxian origins, let alone the fact he wanted to maintain a crystal garden of his own, some distant orn.
In the privacy of his room, Prowl let his mask down, and simply enjoyed the present. He would go chasing after the elusive stranger next orn.
(4 Times: Now you have me)
When Prowl finally caught - really caught, not cornered, not tracked to a dead-end system, not almost had-him, not chasing a phantasm, but actually caught the phantom stranger, one hand holding onto the unknown mech - Prowl wasted no time in cuffing him.
Unsurprisingly, the stranger resisted arrest. “Hey, mech, you going to tell me what the charges are?”
“Illegal hacking of avatars”, asked for a list of supposed wrongdoings, Prowl cheerfully recited some of the more unusual activities he traced back to this particular mech. “Changing others avatars -”
“Some bots ask for modifications the system won’t allow,” protested the stranger, fighting to escape Prowl’s hold. Unsuccessfully. The handcuffs limited his arm-and-hand, movements, and when Prowl chained himself to the handcuffs, linking their two frames, it rendered the range he could get to virtually zip.
“-continual defacing of public buildings,” Prowl continued ticking off crimes committed by the grey-and-charcoal black stranger, “public inciting of mobs.”
“That one isn’t a crime here - some of the Artificial Program Inhibitors can’t be bypassed without a world-wide distractions, and no real mechs ever came to harm”
“…” Prowl broke off his recitation. “Are you purposefully giving me more activities that could get you banned from all variations of Cybertronian worlds?”
“Gotta convict me first, and you haven’t got a leg to stand on.” So saying, the stranger, pulled to the right one last time---
And the cuffs, secured tight, sprang open letting the grey-and-charcoal black mech escape capture yet again. “Nice chase” he called out, as his avatar faded, indicating his imminent exit from recharge, “hate to talk and run.”
Stunned at the turn of developments, Prowl could only watch as his prey once again slipped through his fingers.
(now you don't)
(4-Times: real applications)
It was about fifty-seven joors after Prowl failed to unmask the stranger that vexed him in the recharge world, which his Protihex co-worker commented on how subdued Prowl had been lately.
“No, I am not.” Prowl paused his pursuit of the current ongoing case.
“You are,” his white-and-midnight blue coworker argued. “You haven’t been yourself lately - behavior with the others has changed.”
“Jazz, I never interact in off-topic office discussions. I never offer an opinion, unless asked, and I don’t bet on anything less than a sure thing. Nothing has changed, why are you insisting something is wrong?”
“Hey, mech, you’re the one who said ‘wrong’, I said ‘subdued’. Now I know something’s really bothering you. Now, you gonna tell big brother what he wants to know, or am I needing the big guns?”
Prowl glared at Jazz. “What happens during my off time is none of your concern.”
“It is when it’s made you more passive than normal - ya didn’t react when Armorhide accidentally took a big gulp of Engex instead of the regular energon he was expecting.”
“Jazz!”
“Just sayin. Being downcast don’t suit you at all.”
“I am not downcast!”
“Ya sure ain’t cowed. Now, you got a criminal for us to chase, or you gonna continue sulking?”
Prowl sputtered, yet willingly passed over the list of places their current suspect liked to hang out after a hit. “This discussion is tabled.”
“Until your processor gets off track again, sure,” Jazz said, easily trailing Prowl out the door, bobbing his head to some faintly familiar music.
It wasn’t until after they’d found Telus, that Prowl realized just why those tunes had felt so familiar, despite his own lack of appreciation for the musical arts: those songs had been part of the music he’d been blasted with by the nameless hacker.