Prowl x Jazz - Week 2
The muses really haven't been talking to me much this week and real life has been busy. I'd hoped to have much more, and better, writing finished. What I *have* got is a little TF:Animated Jazz and Prowl for week 2 of this year's anniversary challenge.
This is a little triptych of snapshots based on the flashback scenes in the TFA episode 'Five Servos of Doom'. I'm giving it an overall title, since I may come back and add scenes for some of the other week 2 prompts another time.
Title: Prodigal
Verse: Transformers Animated
Rating: T
Characters: Jazz, Prowl
Warnings: Angst, saboteur-related damage and destruction.
Prompt: Week 2, #9, #5 & #14
Summary: Long before they meet on Earth, Jazz and Prowl separately face the consequences of Master Yoketron’s death. Written for the prowlxjazz anniversary challenge.
Tears of the East
The doors hung off broken hinges, damaged beyond repair. That was fitting somehow.
Death and destruction had come in the night cycle. Theft and violence had intruded where before only tranquility and virtue held sway. The sanctuary of the dojo had been breached, its intricately laid floors stained with the life fluid of its guardian.
No, Jazz thought, as he gazed down at the greyed-out frame in front of him, this wasn't something to be hidden behind closed doors. This was a loss all of Cybertron should mourn - a betrayal that would grieve Primus Himself.
That the events here must remain hidden, knowledge of their loss concealed from the Autobots of Cybertron and beyond, burned Jazz up from inside out.
"Master Yoketron would not wish for his deactivation to spread despair."
Jazz jumped, his arms falling from folded across his chest to rest near his thighs. It took all his strength of will not to take the instinctual move a step further and eject the nunchaku from his thigh holsters.
"Easy, Jazz. Easy." Ultra Prime reached out one large hand, resting it on the young cyber-ninja's arm. His words were soothing, his control almost perfect. Even so, Jazz felt the fine tremors running through the larger mech's body. Ultra's rumble echoed through the room, made still deeper and more resonant by the pain everyone here shared. "Control your reactions, young one."
The words were familiar, memorised by every student who had passed through those broken doors. Jazz's response was automatic, a soothing meditation playing through his processor. He vented deeply, steadying his systems and folding his arms across his chest. Looking around, he forced himself to scan every broken floor tile, every fragment of glass littering the floor and scorch mark that marred the walls. When he spoke, his voice was level. "What happened here?"
"Slavers? Anarchists? We'll probably never know."
The words were too blunt. Jazz's fragile control shattered, a gasp escaping him. His visored gaze fell to his feet, to the one piece of evidence he'd not dared study in detail. "What?! But the sensei deserves…"
"Master Yoketron deserves many things, justice not least. But the perpetrator is long gone, Jazz, without leaving evidence or witnesses." Ultra Prime's big blue servos came up to rest against his helm, even his calm façade cracking under the circumstances. "Jazz… if you wish to wait outside… I know this is difficult."
It was the address of one cyber-ninja to another, rather than commanding officer to elite guard cadet; a show of kindness rather than pity. Jazz knew that. His long cycles in this very dojo had taught him that there was no shame in grateful acceptance. Even so the young cyber-ninja tensed. Elite guard or not, most of his team had been left in the outer dojo, recording evidence of the crime and beginning the clean-up. Every mech permitted this far into the inner sanctum… permitted to view Yoketron's body… had earned the right to be here - former students, or the precious few who might be called Yoketron's peers.
And of them all, Jazz was the youngest - the last student the master would ever send to the Academy.
But not, Jazz remembered with a surge of regret and sympathy, the last student in Yoketron's care.
"No witnesses? Guess the kid didn't see anything then? Where is he? He's gotta be sore cut-up about all this. I should talk ta him."
The big blue and white mech beside him froze, every strut in his body tense. "Master Yoketron took a new student?"
"Sure. Sensei's not had him long. A coupla thousand stellar cycles, maybe? Just called him 'the young one' or 'my student' when I called."
Jazz flushed a little, uncomfortable to admit that he still commed his former master for advice or, if he was honest to himself, just to hear that calm voice. The expression of total surprise on Ultra's face washed any thought of embarrassment out of his processor. The sombre frown it faded into sent a chill through his spark. The larger bot looked up through into the Matrix Chamber, his gaze resting on the shattered shells of protoform capsules rather than meeting Jazz's visor.
"The dojo was empty. If slavers took the protoforms…" Ultra Prime hung his head, his movements heavy. "Taken or fled, I fear for the youngling. I can only pray that Primus guides him on his path."
"You and me both, Ultra. You and me both."
In a ruined sanctuary, surrounded by the wreckage of a broken dream, the rising Prime and newly-minted cadet paused to offer up a silent prayer, grieving both for the mentor they'd loved and the brother they'd never know.
Logic
It probably wasn't the most logical decision he'd ever made. At the time logic had been the furthest thing from his processor. Kneeling in the ruined dojo, huddled beside his sensei's grey frame, Prowl had room for only one thought: that his mentor's last words to him had been a rebuke.
Yoketron's teachings had fled in the face of his shame. He'd fled too, as if physical distance could separate him from those disappointed words. In the stricken, shock-blurred hours that followed, he'd been nothing but a lost youngling once again. What was there for him in this world without a sponsor? Where was he to go, except back to the stockades Yoketron had rescued him from so long before?
It was nearly half a solar cycle before he found his pedes turning back towards the dojo. He froze in horror as it came into view, dazed and dismayed to see the dozens of mechs swarming over his fortress home. For a moment icy fear froze his spark - had Yoketron's murderer returned? Had Prowl failed to protect even the few remaining protoforms? Then he saw the Autobot emblem on every chest, and anger swept away the fear.
It should have been better, to see even distant allies rather than enemies, but this was wrong… this was all so wrong!
In the thousands of stellar cycles Prowl had lived in the dojo, it had been a sacred space. Visitors were rare, treated with respect and offering due reverence in turn. This… this infestation swarmed through every door, over the roof, leaning through the broken panes of windows, measuring and recording. He wanted to run at the mechs, drag them physically from the building. He wanted to denounce them as defilers, screaming his rage to the heavens at the sight of the sanctuary's secrets bared beneath the stars.
Prowl's servos tightened around ninja-stars he didn't recall drawing. He realised he was poised, body crouched, his lip-plates curled back in a snarl unlike any that had crossed his face since he left the streets behind. For just that single moment, every part of him yearned to tear these Autobots limb from limb, and, with absolute certainty, he knew he was capable of it.
And just like that, Yoketron's teachings broke through his rage.
Throwing stars slipped between his servos and clattered to the ground. He sank to his knees, his dark colouring hiding him in the shadows. Trembling, he ran through one meditation after another whispering the focus words aloud, as he hadn't since his master first watched him stumble through them.
"Sensei, I have failed you twice."
His voice was scarcely audible, lost beneath the crunch of heavy pedes on glass and the shouts of the guardsmechs. There was no response, no murmur of absolution. Yoketron was gone, and no number of apologies and silent pleas was going to bring him back.
Emotion had betrayed Prowl. His surging fury and spark-deep pain only told him how far he was from the mastery of passion that Master Yoketron had urged upon him.
His spark clenched deep in his chest. He'd still had so much to learn. He knew nothing of the world outside the dojo - felt younger and less confident now, in fact, than he had as a street-smart kid two thousand cycles before. The optics quest Yoketron send him on had never been intended as the final test, but only as the first of many, part of a training left woefully incomplete. Now he had no choice but to survive on the paltry skills Master Yoketron had time to teach him.
Still kneeling in the shadows, he forced his grief aside, using every trick, mantra and meditation he knew to disconnect from his emotional subroutines and focus on the pure logic of his processor instead.
That logic told him that there was nothing for him here. What could he tell these Autobots except that he had seen nothing of the attacker? Would they even believe that much? Who was Prowl, after all - alone and without his mentor? Did anyone even know he existed? For all the guardsmechs knew, he was the aggressor, the rogue ninja who'd opened Yoketron's inner sanctum and returned to gloat over the futile investigation.
He couldn't face that hostile scrutiny and nor, he thought, would his sensei wish it upon him.
He'd find his own path. He was alone now, and that wasn't about to change any time soon.
Standing, bowing one last time to the dojo and to his fallen master, Prowl turned and walked into the night.
Fell out of a Daydream
A new world never failed to give Jazz a thrill. Each planet was so different from the last. Jazz never tired of the new thrills and opportunities his travels with the Elite Guard presented, or the satisfaction he got from leaving a peaceful planet behind him.
This world was prettier than most. He was accustomed to uniform worlds - barren rocks with only the subtlest variation in the tint of their red dirt, or perhaps gas planets that eddied with variations on the same basic shade. This 'Earth' was different, blues and greens and sandy yellow-browns, all swirled with an ever-changing veil of white.
"If you've finished admiring the scenery, Jazz, perhaps you'd like to set a decent trajectory."
Sentinel Prime would have filled the words with biting sarcasm. Ultra Magnus just sounded amused. The huge blue and white mech leaned forward in his chair, hammer gripped in one hand as he too studied the new world. He sighed, air venting from his intakes.
"We have places to be, Jazz, and precious little time to waste."
"Aye aye, Magnus, sir." Jazz threw a grin over his shoulder, more for the Magnus's sake than his own.
They'd come a long way from the junior Prime and first-posting cadet they'd once been. Ultra Magnus was always busy these cycles, his personal squad kept small to ensure mobility and qcutuick response. Jazz made a point of being part of that group, his experience and skills letting him his own orders, despite refusing the steady stream of promotions offered him over the cycles. Ultra appreciated it, he was sure. The older cyber-ninja needed someone with the skills to spar against, but more than that, he needed someone who knew when to speak and when silence was called for. Jazz had become that: a familiar confidante despite the difference in rank between them.
"An organic world?" The new voice from the back of the bridge mingled horror with disgust and, to Jazz's sensitive audio receptors, a healthy dose of fear. "We're landing on an organic world? Is there a single sentient being down there? Is it even safe to land?"
"I would expect there to be at least five, since it would appear Optimus Prime's team has already been here for a considerable time with little ill effect."
"And we're taking their word for that? Of course, I might have guessed that Optimus would…"
Wincing, Jazz shook his head. For all his flaws, S.P. was usually pretty good at reading when he could push his luck with their boss, and when Ultra Magnus was not in the mood for trifles. Whatever it was about this Optimus that bothered Sentinel so, it had his grovelling circuits out of synch. Judging by the pitch of Sentinel's voice, their Magnus's irritation didn't come close to registering.
Focused on piloting the ship, Jazz tuned Sentinel Prime out as the mech went on, his vocalisor never dropping below 'strident' and easily qualifying as 'piercing' from time to time. If nothing else, he pondered, Ultra Magnus needed someone to remind him that the Autobots he laboured for night and day weren't all glitches as arrogant as his first lieutenant.
A sensor readout caught Jazz's optic and his broad grin faded. The glitch had a point though.
Five Cybertronians registering. Oh, there was a blur of signals from the local-built machines and the low background noise that flagged this as a category one organic biosphere, but in the entire planet there were only five life-forms advanced enough to stand out, and each of them wore an Autobot beacon.
Jazz's vented sigh was inaudible beneath Sentinel's rant, but he felt Ultra Magnus's optics on him nonetheless. His cheek-plates flushed with energon, turning slightly in his chair so as not to meet his old friend's gaze. He had no desire to explain his sudden and uncharacteristic fall in spirits, even if Magnus would understand only too well.
After a million stellar cycles, Jazz knew, the elder cyber-ninja had given up the hope they'd once shared. Jazz thought he'd given it up himself. Bare common sense told him Yoketron's last student was long gone, the kid's empty frame crumbled to dust. The added thrill that had once accompanied each planet-fall - the idea that just maybe this world would be the one where they found their lost brother…? That had faded. Or so he'd thought.
It wasn't until he came to this organic world, so utterly devoid of meaningful life, that he realised he was still carrying that torch. Somewhere deep inside, he realised, he was still searching. And this world was probably the least likely lump of rock Jazz had ever seen on which to find a single lost Cybertronian.
"Jazz! Quit day-dreaming and straighten us up!"
For once, Jazz realised, coming out of his thoughts with a well-controlled start of surprise, Sentinel was well within his rights to snap out a rebuke. His childish regret, the failing of a long-held and never truly plausible fantasy, couldn't justify bringing an Elite Guard vessel in at this angle, or with such excess speed.
His training clicked into play, stilling his mind and focussing everything on the controls under his hands. No hint of concern or doubt in his abilities crossed his face, no outward sign of his regret as he corrected their trajectory and prepared the ship for an abrupt landing. Instead he shot a lazy smile in Sentinel's direction, making pains to project the calm that his comrade found endlessly infuriating.
"Chill, man. Just giving the locals a good show, you know?"
"Indeed." Magnus's deep rumble cut off any protest from their crewmate, but the older mech's servos were poised in the position that signified 'focus' and Jazz took the silent rebuke with a bow of his head.
Settling the ship in a cloud of steam, Jazz stood, taking a moment to smooth his hands down his sleek new lines before following his ship-mates to the ramp. There was meant to be another cyber-ninja on this crew, and just as he'd be assessing the bot's style, so he'd be assessed in turn. Jazz's actions would reflect on the honour of his sensei as much as the Elite Guard.
Whatever dojo this new ninja called home, he'd see only the best from one of Master Yoketron's students. There was no time now for long vanished hopes and forlorn day-dreams. It was time to wake up.
Three cycles later - as he watched the lithe black cycle-bot flow with effortless grace through a sequence both characteristically familiar and obviously, painfully incomplete - Jazz prayed this daydream would never end.
This is a little triptych of snapshots based on the flashback scenes in the TFA episode 'Five Servos of Doom'. I'm giving it an overall title, since I may come back and add scenes for some of the other week 2 prompts another time.
Title: Prodigal
Verse: Transformers Animated
Rating: T
Characters: Jazz, Prowl
Warnings: Angst, saboteur-related damage and destruction.
Prompt: Week 2, #9, #5 & #14
Summary: Long before they meet on Earth, Jazz and Prowl separately face the consequences of Master Yoketron’s death. Written for the prowlxjazz anniversary challenge.
Tears of the East
The doors hung off broken hinges, damaged beyond repair. That was fitting somehow.
Death and destruction had come in the night cycle. Theft and violence had intruded where before only tranquility and virtue held sway. The sanctuary of the dojo had been breached, its intricately laid floors stained with the life fluid of its guardian.
No, Jazz thought, as he gazed down at the greyed-out frame in front of him, this wasn't something to be hidden behind closed doors. This was a loss all of Cybertron should mourn - a betrayal that would grieve Primus Himself.
That the events here must remain hidden, knowledge of their loss concealed from the Autobots of Cybertron and beyond, burned Jazz up from inside out.
"Master Yoketron would not wish for his deactivation to spread despair."
Jazz jumped, his arms falling from folded across his chest to rest near his thighs. It took all his strength of will not to take the instinctual move a step further and eject the nunchaku from his thigh holsters.
"Easy, Jazz. Easy." Ultra Prime reached out one large hand, resting it on the young cyber-ninja's arm. His words were soothing, his control almost perfect. Even so, Jazz felt the fine tremors running through the larger mech's body. Ultra's rumble echoed through the room, made still deeper and more resonant by the pain everyone here shared. "Control your reactions, young one."
The words were familiar, memorised by every student who had passed through those broken doors. Jazz's response was automatic, a soothing meditation playing through his processor. He vented deeply, steadying his systems and folding his arms across his chest. Looking around, he forced himself to scan every broken floor tile, every fragment of glass littering the floor and scorch mark that marred the walls. When he spoke, his voice was level. "What happened here?"
"Slavers? Anarchists? We'll probably never know."
The words were too blunt. Jazz's fragile control shattered, a gasp escaping him. His visored gaze fell to his feet, to the one piece of evidence he'd not dared study in detail. "What?! But the sensei deserves…"
"Master Yoketron deserves many things, justice not least. But the perpetrator is long gone, Jazz, without leaving evidence or witnesses." Ultra Prime's big blue servos came up to rest against his helm, even his calm façade cracking under the circumstances. "Jazz… if you wish to wait outside… I know this is difficult."
It was the address of one cyber-ninja to another, rather than commanding officer to elite guard cadet; a show of kindness rather than pity. Jazz knew that. His long cycles in this very dojo had taught him that there was no shame in grateful acceptance. Even so the young cyber-ninja tensed. Elite guard or not, most of his team had been left in the outer dojo, recording evidence of the crime and beginning the clean-up. Every mech permitted this far into the inner sanctum… permitted to view Yoketron's body… had earned the right to be here - former students, or the precious few who might be called Yoketron's peers.
And of them all, Jazz was the youngest - the last student the master would ever send to the Academy.
But not, Jazz remembered with a surge of regret and sympathy, the last student in Yoketron's care.
"No witnesses? Guess the kid didn't see anything then? Where is he? He's gotta be sore cut-up about all this. I should talk ta him."
The big blue and white mech beside him froze, every strut in his body tense. "Master Yoketron took a new student?"
"Sure. Sensei's not had him long. A coupla thousand stellar cycles, maybe? Just called him 'the young one' or 'my student' when I called."
Jazz flushed a little, uncomfortable to admit that he still commed his former master for advice or, if he was honest to himself, just to hear that calm voice. The expression of total surprise on Ultra's face washed any thought of embarrassment out of his processor. The sombre frown it faded into sent a chill through his spark. The larger bot looked up through into the Matrix Chamber, his gaze resting on the shattered shells of protoform capsules rather than meeting Jazz's visor.
"The dojo was empty. If slavers took the protoforms…" Ultra Prime hung his head, his movements heavy. "Taken or fled, I fear for the youngling. I can only pray that Primus guides him on his path."
"You and me both, Ultra. You and me both."
In a ruined sanctuary, surrounded by the wreckage of a broken dream, the rising Prime and newly-minted cadet paused to offer up a silent prayer, grieving both for the mentor they'd loved and the brother they'd never know.
Logic
It probably wasn't the most logical decision he'd ever made. At the time logic had been the furthest thing from his processor. Kneeling in the ruined dojo, huddled beside his sensei's grey frame, Prowl had room for only one thought: that his mentor's last words to him had been a rebuke.
Yoketron's teachings had fled in the face of his shame. He'd fled too, as if physical distance could separate him from those disappointed words. In the stricken, shock-blurred hours that followed, he'd been nothing but a lost youngling once again. What was there for him in this world without a sponsor? Where was he to go, except back to the stockades Yoketron had rescued him from so long before?
It was nearly half a solar cycle before he found his pedes turning back towards the dojo. He froze in horror as it came into view, dazed and dismayed to see the dozens of mechs swarming over his fortress home. For a moment icy fear froze his spark - had Yoketron's murderer returned? Had Prowl failed to protect even the few remaining protoforms? Then he saw the Autobot emblem on every chest, and anger swept away the fear.
It should have been better, to see even distant allies rather than enemies, but this was wrong… this was all so wrong!
In the thousands of stellar cycles Prowl had lived in the dojo, it had been a sacred space. Visitors were rare, treated with respect and offering due reverence in turn. This… this infestation swarmed through every door, over the roof, leaning through the broken panes of windows, measuring and recording. He wanted to run at the mechs, drag them physically from the building. He wanted to denounce them as defilers, screaming his rage to the heavens at the sight of the sanctuary's secrets bared beneath the stars.
Prowl's servos tightened around ninja-stars he didn't recall drawing. He realised he was poised, body crouched, his lip-plates curled back in a snarl unlike any that had crossed his face since he left the streets behind. For just that single moment, every part of him yearned to tear these Autobots limb from limb, and, with absolute certainty, he knew he was capable of it.
And just like that, Yoketron's teachings broke through his rage.
Throwing stars slipped between his servos and clattered to the ground. He sank to his knees, his dark colouring hiding him in the shadows. Trembling, he ran through one meditation after another whispering the focus words aloud, as he hadn't since his master first watched him stumble through them.
"Sensei, I have failed you twice."
His voice was scarcely audible, lost beneath the crunch of heavy pedes on glass and the shouts of the guardsmechs. There was no response, no murmur of absolution. Yoketron was gone, and no number of apologies and silent pleas was going to bring him back.
Emotion had betrayed Prowl. His surging fury and spark-deep pain only told him how far he was from the mastery of passion that Master Yoketron had urged upon him.
His spark clenched deep in his chest. He'd still had so much to learn. He knew nothing of the world outside the dojo - felt younger and less confident now, in fact, than he had as a street-smart kid two thousand cycles before. The optics quest Yoketron send him on had never been intended as the final test, but only as the first of many, part of a training left woefully incomplete. Now he had no choice but to survive on the paltry skills Master Yoketron had time to teach him.
Still kneeling in the shadows, he forced his grief aside, using every trick, mantra and meditation he knew to disconnect from his emotional subroutines and focus on the pure logic of his processor instead.
That logic told him that there was nothing for him here. What could he tell these Autobots except that he had seen nothing of the attacker? Would they even believe that much? Who was Prowl, after all - alone and without his mentor? Did anyone even know he existed? For all the guardsmechs knew, he was the aggressor, the rogue ninja who'd opened Yoketron's inner sanctum and returned to gloat over the futile investigation.
He couldn't face that hostile scrutiny and nor, he thought, would his sensei wish it upon him.
He'd find his own path. He was alone now, and that wasn't about to change any time soon.
Standing, bowing one last time to the dojo and to his fallen master, Prowl turned and walked into the night.
Fell out of a Daydream
A new world never failed to give Jazz a thrill. Each planet was so different from the last. Jazz never tired of the new thrills and opportunities his travels with the Elite Guard presented, or the satisfaction he got from leaving a peaceful planet behind him.
This world was prettier than most. He was accustomed to uniform worlds - barren rocks with only the subtlest variation in the tint of their red dirt, or perhaps gas planets that eddied with variations on the same basic shade. This 'Earth' was different, blues and greens and sandy yellow-browns, all swirled with an ever-changing veil of white.
"If you've finished admiring the scenery, Jazz, perhaps you'd like to set a decent trajectory."
Sentinel Prime would have filled the words with biting sarcasm. Ultra Magnus just sounded amused. The huge blue and white mech leaned forward in his chair, hammer gripped in one hand as he too studied the new world. He sighed, air venting from his intakes.
"We have places to be, Jazz, and precious little time to waste."
"Aye aye, Magnus, sir." Jazz threw a grin over his shoulder, more for the Magnus's sake than his own.
They'd come a long way from the junior Prime and first-posting cadet they'd once been. Ultra Magnus was always busy these cycles, his personal squad kept small to ensure mobility and qcutuick response. Jazz made a point of being part of that group, his experience and skills letting him his own orders, despite refusing the steady stream of promotions offered him over the cycles. Ultra appreciated it, he was sure. The older cyber-ninja needed someone with the skills to spar against, but more than that, he needed someone who knew when to speak and when silence was called for. Jazz had become that: a familiar confidante despite the difference in rank between them.
"An organic world?" The new voice from the back of the bridge mingled horror with disgust and, to Jazz's sensitive audio receptors, a healthy dose of fear. "We're landing on an organic world? Is there a single sentient being down there? Is it even safe to land?"
"I would expect there to be at least five, since it would appear Optimus Prime's team has already been here for a considerable time with little ill effect."
"And we're taking their word for that? Of course, I might have guessed that Optimus would…"
Wincing, Jazz shook his head. For all his flaws, S.P. was usually pretty good at reading when he could push his luck with their boss, and when Ultra Magnus was not in the mood for trifles. Whatever it was about this Optimus that bothered Sentinel so, it had his grovelling circuits out of synch. Judging by the pitch of Sentinel's voice, their Magnus's irritation didn't come close to registering.
Focused on piloting the ship, Jazz tuned Sentinel Prime out as the mech went on, his vocalisor never dropping below 'strident' and easily qualifying as 'piercing' from time to time. If nothing else, he pondered, Ultra Magnus needed someone to remind him that the Autobots he laboured for night and day weren't all glitches as arrogant as his first lieutenant.
A sensor readout caught Jazz's optic and his broad grin faded. The glitch had a point though.
Five Cybertronians registering. Oh, there was a blur of signals from the local-built machines and the low background noise that flagged this as a category one organic biosphere, but in the entire planet there were only five life-forms advanced enough to stand out, and each of them wore an Autobot beacon.
Jazz's vented sigh was inaudible beneath Sentinel's rant, but he felt Ultra Magnus's optics on him nonetheless. His cheek-plates flushed with energon, turning slightly in his chair so as not to meet his old friend's gaze. He had no desire to explain his sudden and uncharacteristic fall in spirits, even if Magnus would understand only too well.
After a million stellar cycles, Jazz knew, the elder cyber-ninja had given up the hope they'd once shared. Jazz thought he'd given it up himself. Bare common sense told him Yoketron's last student was long gone, the kid's empty frame crumbled to dust. The added thrill that had once accompanied each planet-fall - the idea that just maybe this world would be the one where they found their lost brother…? That had faded. Or so he'd thought.
It wasn't until he came to this organic world, so utterly devoid of meaningful life, that he realised he was still carrying that torch. Somewhere deep inside, he realised, he was still searching. And this world was probably the least likely lump of rock Jazz had ever seen on which to find a single lost Cybertronian.
"Jazz! Quit day-dreaming and straighten us up!"
For once, Jazz realised, coming out of his thoughts with a well-controlled start of surprise, Sentinel was well within his rights to snap out a rebuke. His childish regret, the failing of a long-held and never truly plausible fantasy, couldn't justify bringing an Elite Guard vessel in at this angle, or with such excess speed.
His training clicked into play, stilling his mind and focussing everything on the controls under his hands. No hint of concern or doubt in his abilities crossed his face, no outward sign of his regret as he corrected their trajectory and prepared the ship for an abrupt landing. Instead he shot a lazy smile in Sentinel's direction, making pains to project the calm that his comrade found endlessly infuriating.
"Chill, man. Just giving the locals a good show, you know?"
"Indeed." Magnus's deep rumble cut off any protest from their crewmate, but the older mech's servos were poised in the position that signified 'focus' and Jazz took the silent rebuke with a bow of his head.
Settling the ship in a cloud of steam, Jazz stood, taking a moment to smooth his hands down his sleek new lines before following his ship-mates to the ramp. There was meant to be another cyber-ninja on this crew, and just as he'd be assessing the bot's style, so he'd be assessed in turn. Jazz's actions would reflect on the honour of his sensei as much as the Elite Guard.
Whatever dojo this new ninja called home, he'd see only the best from one of Master Yoketron's students. There was no time now for long vanished hopes and forlorn day-dreams. It was time to wake up.
Three cycles later - as he watched the lithe black cycle-bot flow with effortless grace through a sequence both characteristically familiar and obviously, painfully incomplete - Jazz prayed this daydream would never end.