A new chapter... finally!
Parlay!
Author: Thalanee
Verse: It’s A Game (Because something this crazy could only happen in a game)
Word Count: 1900 words
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: crack… why do I always attract the crack bunnies?!
Disclaimer: Nope, they’re still not mine…
Summary: What do you do, when you’re surrounded by enemies who are about to shoot you to Kingdom come? One word: parlay!
Author’s Notes: Inspired by an old bunny from the tf- bunny farm: “[G1] Jazz: Looks likes I'm surrounded. *looks at surrounding Decepticons* Well only one thing to do! PARLAY!” (link: http:// tf-bunny-farm. livejournal. com/ 354620.html#cutid1, just remove the empty spaces)
I’m still alive but the last month has been hell on earth and I had absolutely no time to write, as much as I would have loved to. This month doesn’t look any better but if I hadn’t written something, I’d have gone crazy, so sorry there’s not really much plot.
Hope you like it anyway! Please let me know what you think.
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When Jazz had professed an interest in the workings of Decepticon weaponry and stated his wish to find out exactly how those things were put together, staring right into the barrel of a Con’s gun pointed at him wasn’t what he had in mind as a research tool.
It was rather disturbing to have the business end of a humming, ready- to- fire weapon pointed right at his face.
And it was dirty. Its owner obviously wasn’t the type to care for his weapon like he should. As close as he was to the barrel of the gun he could even see the tell-tale hairline cracks in the metal it was made of, a sure sign of neglect (and a tribute to the programmers’ almost obsessive attention to detail, not that Jazz was complaining; the visuals certainly had improved very much compared to the boxy looking characters of the first generation game). Which brought Jazz’s errant thoughts back to the problem at hand.
He was surrounded by mechs.
While that was not a problem in and of itself, the fact that all of those mechs were Decepticon soldiers was indeed. And all of them had one weapon or another trained at him. Some even used two. And except for the brave spark pressing his weapon right to Jazz’s head, all the others kept a healthy distance to the well known saboteur.
Almost smirking to himself, the saboteur felt rather pleased with this show of caution. It was rather flattering to know that he had garnered such a fearsome reputation in the game that they all recognized him and didn’t even dare come any closer despite the fact that he was alone, unarmed, restrained by a pair of cuffs and surrounded. He gave in to the grin tugging at his lips.
Upon the sight of his expression some of the ‘Cons watching him actually took a half step back, while others gripped their weapons just a little tighter. What was it Prowl had once told him in a fit of mischief? Oh yes… smile, because it makes your opponents wonder what you’re up to.
Speaking of which, he should find a way to get out of this quickly, it wouldn’t do for a master saboteur to be rescued. He obviously had a reputation to maintain. Also he was proud of the fact that he never needed to be rescued (he knew Prowl was itching to return the favour).
Luckily Jazz knew just the thing to do to get himself out of his predicament…
“Looks like Ah’m surrounded,” Jazz mused aloud looking around at the six anxious Decepticon soldiers still pointing their weapons at him, their faces revealing how suspicious they still were.
Scratching at his head, the silver Solstice hummed idly, making a show of thinking about what his next move should be, when an expression of devious delight appeared on his face. “Well, there’s only one thing ta do then…”
Warily the soldiers watched, waiting for the saboteur to make a suspicious move, but he did no such thing. He just sat there, cleared his vocalizers, and then…
“Parlay!” shouted Jazz.
Perfect silence greeted his announcement. Unsure what to make of the Autobot’s shout they exchanged confused looks and stared at Jazz as if he had lost his mind. Some even lowered their weapons. All the while Jazz looked at them expectantly.
“… Come again?” One of them finally said when it was obvious that no explanation was forthcoming.
“Ah said Parlay.” Jazz repeated, azure visor glinting with mirth as he mentally dubbed the mech “Clueless”.
“What’s that mean?” A second Decepticon piped up, sounding just as confused as Clueless. Should he call him “Baffled” or “Stumped”?
The soldier pointing his gun at Jazz’s head spoke up angrily. “Yeah, I never heard of that.”
Somewhere to the side another mech yelled, “He’s just messing with us, let’s shoot him and get it over with. We still have to return to base.”
“But it’s part of the rules, mechs!” Jazz protested, doing his best to look as innocent as possible. No mech who knew him well would have been fooled by the act. “If Ah want ta parlay, ya have ta take me wit’ya to ya boss so Ah can negotiate with him. It’s one of tha rules Vector Prime and the Fallen made up way back when.” It would be so worth it to see Screamer’s and Meggsie’s faces, Jazz was severely tempted to actually let them drag him to their bosses.
Stumped sounded suspicious as he reached for his personal datapad. “So you say, I’ll check.”
The mech who had clamored for Jazz’s execution sputtered indignantly. “Wait, you’re taking him seriously?! I’m telling you, this is bullslag! Why should we do what he wants?” Pointing at a wide-visored Jazz he turned to the other soldiers who were listening.
A mech Jazz recognized as Dead End had watched the proceedings with growing dread, his plating starting to rattle in agitation, before he suddenly started to wail. “He’s planning something, we can’t take him with us! We’re all gonna die if we do! If he doesn’t maul us, that mate of his will!” He was waving his arms around in a comical looking manner, causing his comrades to duck out of harm’s way and curse him, because he still held his weapon.
Clueless tried to reason with Dead End. “Don’t you think his mate will take it even worse if we kill him? Don’t you remember what happened the last time some idiot killed that saboteur? Oh no, I say let him have his parlay and make him our officers’ problem.”
In this vein the discussion continued for quite some time.
Jazz watched them, giddily waiting for the right moment to put his plan into action.
None of them watched Jazz, too busy to argue among themselves, trying to decide whether to just shoot him, or give in to the Autobot’s request for Parlay and take him with them, so none of them realized that he had long since wriggled out of his restraints.
Finally Stumped raised his head from his scrutiny of the datapad, a look of mild distaste on his face. “Besides he’s right, says here in the oldest part of the Decepticon code of conduct, if a Bot wants to parlay we have to honor that request and take him to the highest ranking officer around.”
“You’ve got to be kidding?!” Jazz’s guard moaned, unaware of the silver servo carefully reaching for the other pairs of stasis cuffs in a holster at his side. Having found what it was searching for the servo disappeared again, the soft clicks of three pairs of cuffs snapping shut drowned in the loud argument going on. The Decepticon soldiers were so busy they didn’t even see as Jazz slowly backed away on all fours…
The spirited discussion continued, until Stumped, who apparently was of slightly higher ranking than the other soldiers, put his ped down. “I don’t care how dangerous you think he is, we won’t kill him now. What do you think Lord Megatron and Starscream will do if he carries info they want and we kill him? No, we’ll deliver him to the higher ups, then he’s not our problem anymore.”
Continuing he turned to look at their captive, “You’re lucky, Autobot, we’ll-“
Oh. Slag.
The place where the silver prisoner had sat was conspicuously empty now. Frantically they all looked around to see where the saboteur had disappeared to, when a whistle drew their attention.
Only a few steps away Jazz had popped up again out if thin air, flipping something small into the air. “Hi guys!” he trilled cheekily.
Almost as one the six Decepticons started towards the lone Autobot, aiming to recapture him, but as soon as they moved forward, something tugged at their pedes and they all stumbled and tumbled into heaps on the ground. Moaning they looked at their pedes to see why they had fallen as soon as they took their first steps, staring in disbelief at the cuffs shackling them together in pairs of two, so that if one mech moved his right foot, the other had to move his left at the same time or they would end up as they were now: flat on the earth.
A cackle drew their attention back to the silver mech. “Ya lookin’ for this mechs?” Now they recognized the silver item in his hand: it was the key to the stasis cuffs…
“Hey, give that back!” the Decepticon who had wanted to shoot him yelled.
For a moment Jazz pretended to think about it, then smiled. “Don’t worry, Ah’ll just borrow it, ya’ll get in back in a couple of cycles. Until then…” he paused, but he just couldn’t help himself, he had to say it… “ya’ll remember this as the day ya almost caught Jazz!”
Whooping Jazz transformed and drove of at top speed, eager to get back to the Autobot base where his mate was waiting for him. He couldn’t wait to tell Prowl about this.
Sometime later, back at the Decepticon base…
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” Starscream nearly wailed in disbelief when he was told how the Autobot saboteur had escaped capture, after coming across the three pairs of soldiers stumbling towards the barracks because their pedes were cuffed to each other. The Air Commander could scarcely believe his own audios. His troops couldn’t possibly be that stupid, could they? How could they have fallen for that ruse?
One of the soldiers raised his hand hesitantly. “Is that what parlay means?” he asked, cocking his head in confusion.
“Yeah, I thought it meant we’re supposed to let him talk and try to negotiate.” The mech Jazz had christened Stumped explained. “It said so in the code.”
The Decepticon Air Commander could feel one of his optics twitch nervously. Somewhere in the background he could have sworn he heard Skywarp and Thundercracker snickering. “We’re Decepticons! We’re not supposed to give a flying frag about the code, dammit!” he yelled, throwing his arms up in desperation. “Besides it’s not a code, it’s more guidelines. We don’t have to follow them, we can ignore them as we please.”
“But aren’t we supposed to follow orders?”
“Of course you’re supposed to follow orders, what kind of question is that?”
“But you just said we’re supposed to do as we please instead of following the rules, and following rules is like following orders.”
Starscream sighed. The next time he saw Jazz he was going to kill him.
The End.