Chapter Text
Wheeljack was peering far too closely at Prowl’s hip seam for comfort. Jazz was insisting on Prowl getting the same mod that allowed the seamless switch between Jazz and Meister. Prowl could see the value in it.
The mod in particular was one that allowed minor preset frame shifts, and several stored paint nanite settings. It truly was an excellent mod for any undercover work, also a rather complicated one. Prowl would have the only other system from Jazz, and Wheeljack’s partial mod.
Prowl’s Praxian frame was presenting issues for the install however, and Wheeljack’s increasingly frustrated muttering as he recoded and reshaped his plating was increasingly alarming.
Across the room Jazz watched with his visor cycling between blue and gold, flicking through presets to be uploaded as soon as the mod was complete. Minor identities were also being set up to link to these presets, being coded from the data up by Inferno and Red Alert, the latter of whom was sulking on the opposite side of the room from Jazz.
Red Alert, who handled security and any hacking needed by Jazz or Ratchet, was a very tetchy, very paranoid mecha, as Prowl had discovered. He’d just lost an argument with Jazz about whether he could bug the precinct in case Prowl betrayed them.
Prowl wasn’t touching that one. He’d earned the tacit trust of Inferno, who had mated the suspicious wreck of a mech, and that was plenty of accomplishment.
Ratchet was working the clinic attached to the front of the warehouse the rest of them had gathered, studiously ignoring the illegal mods being installed without his presence.
There was a click-click-whir, then the plating Wheeljack had been focused on shifted into its new position, a sharper angle that jutted out in what would pass as lascivious to Praxian ideals. Wheeljack crowed victoriously, his servos raised and helmfins flashing a triumphant magenta.
The last of the mod coding settled in his processor and Prowl accepted the handshake protocols to begin assimilating it into his systems. The presets could be loaded or edited at any point now.
Jazz glanced up and grinned from his perch at Prowl, sitting there with his plating askew and multicolored as the coding integrated. Hot Rod, curled by Prowl’s pedes, cheered softly with Wheeljack and flared his spoiler in a decent imitation of a Praxian congratulatory position.
In the three orn that Hot Rod had lived with Prowl, and Jazz intermittently, the mechling had practically attached himself to Prowl. The mechling would only listen to him, occasionally Jazz, and on the occasions that Jazz could not sparksit during Prowl’s shift, Ratchet.
The mechling had taken over the spare berthroom entirely, and Prowl was heavily considering finding a bigger flat with the increasing frequency that Jazz was crashing on his couch.
Now though, the first big mission was tonight, one they’d been planning and preparing for since the rescue job for Hot Rod had gone well. Mech trafficking was a massive problem for Praxus, but underground slave trade and competition was an issue planet wide.
Senators got involved in the other City-States. Praxus didn’t have senators due to its independent stance from the Primacy and the council, but her City Lords were definitely involved. Prowl didn't have enough influence in how the city was run to prevent disaster if a Lord were killed, nor did Jazz.
There were other ways to behelm a glitchsnake though, and one of those ways was to cripple the system.
The past three orn had been spent securing identities, ships leaving port and willing to smuggle mecha out, and sympathetic gangs to provide chaos as backup. You could not run a slave based entertainment industry without the slaves to power it.
Iacon was famously a haven city, something that Prowl could attest to from his previous assignment and precinct. Any slave they freed tonight would be sent there, unless they wished to stay. Adults had choices, and identities were apparently sparkling play for Red Alert to forge.
Jazz swung down from his perch and approached to offer a dataslug to Prowl. He plugged it in without hesitation and uploaded the specs and color schemes for his diversion identities. He seamlessly switched from one to the other to test the mod.
Jazz is still grinning and Wheeljack has retreated to join Red Alert and Inferno at the back of the room. Wheeljack doesn't have much of a role tonight, aside from installing Prowl’s new mod, but he had volunteered to match mecha with missing profiles.
Red Alert had downloaded as many profiles as he could onto a data pad for retrieval last orn, and Wheeljack had been studying it hard. No one wanted this night cycle to fail, not with how many powerful mecha were involved in its continuance and protection.
City Lords and enforcers, and several of the gang leaders had been connected to the access points Prowl had found in his research over the vorn. He’d been here for far too long without the abilities to fix anything, to fulfill his function, only able to gather and protect myriads of information and evidence for a system that wouldn’t acknowledge their need.
Jazz slipped over to the table by the door, and Prowl followed him, a curious Hot Rod on his pedes. The weaponry laid out was inspired. Wheeljack had outdone himself. Even if four railguns was definitely excessive for two mecha who didn't use heavy guns.
His acid rifle was there, as well as a basic sniper rifle, and several bandoleers of knives designed to be worn underneath plating to pass detection. Hot Rod attempted to slip one of the smaller pistols away, and Prowl handed it to Jazz without looking at the mechling.
Hot Rod audibly pouted.
“Ya ready for this?” Jazz asked, and Prowl raised his wings determinedly.
“Yes. I am.”
Jazz paused at the edge of the inactive arena, several sublevels lower than the sewers. Elevators and cistern drains were the only ways in or out, and the sheer amount of elevators with the capability to go this far down was staggering.
Jazz had already slipped a slug into the system down here, Red Alert reported his full control of the elevator and camera systems. He’d also reported a PA system as available and allowed Jazz access. Jazz had a thought for that, but he was somewhat worried about altering Prowl’s careful plans.
::Prowl:: he comms, ::What are your thoughts on musical accompaniment? Would that hurt the plans?::
There is a long moment of silence before Red Alert and Ratchet both groan deeply from the other end of the line.
Prowl hums, ::Mmm. That should be fine. Pick a fast song?::
That is doable. Jazz cues up one of the songs he wrote years ago, one of the ones not meant for the streets or the public. He fiddles with the volume, and adds a soft automated tone underneath, the message Red Alert had meant for the PA to be used for. The message will be audible, both of them.
The instrumental intro fades in as the message starts, on repeat. ”This is a rescue operation. Please make your way to the elevators once your cell is open, and check in with the assigned mech to lead you to the docks. This is a rescue operation.”
We’re not gonna take it, no, we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it anymore.
The music kicks in and Jazz darts down his end of the arena, lockpicks tucked away in favor of the faster option of a semipermeable acid pellet, one that burst when shoved in a lock allowing doors to swing open, as Jazz passed. The few rooms that had mecha with chained pedes or cuffs he’d duck into, and take a moment with the lockpicks.
We’ve got the right to choose, and there ain’t no way we’ll lose it, this is our life, this is our song.
The massive underground arena was set up similarly to its counterpart in Kaon. Two corridors of cells split off beneath and behind the spectator seats, housing the different types of slaves kept for entertainment. During the inactive joors, every slave was locked up and guard was minimal. With Red Alert in the camera systems, any alarms shouldn’t be triggered at all.
We’ll fight the powers that be, just ‘cause, you don’t know us, you don’t belong.
One corridor, the one Prowl had claimed, by dint of having better armor and size advantage, was for the gladiator slaves, the fighters and killers trapped in tiny spaces. Prowl was expecting to come back with dents, if it was anything like a Kaonite arena at least. Kaon starved their gladiators in order to encourage aggression.
We’re not gonna take it, no, we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it anymore.
The other end was for racers, and any undecided mecha. That corridor was the one Jazz was darting down in a circuitous route back to an elevator. Most of the mecha he’d freed were adults, only three mechlings in the lot, including a bright blue racer that had been limping badly enough that Jazz was simply carrying him.
Oh, you’re so condescending, your call is never ending, we don’t want nothin’, not a thing from you.
Red Alert had locked down most of the elevators, but the four still active were being watched and guarded by the two friendliest and most negotiable gangs they’d found. The Glades gang was mainly drug runners and messengers, and had been incredibly receptive to assisting when approached.
Your life is trite and jaded, boring and confiscated, if that’s your best, your best won’t do.
The Westport warren on the other servo was not only receptive, but actively helping, running point and directing the surface evacuation routes to the ship they’d hired. The Warren was also taking records for Inferno and Wheeljack, matching old identities, assigning new ones, and running interference to distract the night cycle enforcers across the city with a loud territory dispute.
We’re right, we’re free, we’ll fight, you’ll see.
Prowl’s contact in the Westport Warren had proven invaluable as the shockingly competent network of minibots simply made it happen as per the terms of one night’s allyship that Prowl had requested.
We’re right, we’re free, we’ll fight, you’ll see.
Jazz grinned at Prowl, sharp and feral across the hall from his mecha filing into the other elevator. The plexiglass separating them was pristine, and Jazz raises his pistol to aim at the upper corner. It shatters, and the glass rains down with a crash right as the song crescendos above them, tinny and loud from the PA system.
We’re not gonna take it, no, we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it anymore.
The guard station was above them by two levels. Jazz’s last step in Prowl’s plan was to get rid of them. He crunched over the glass to pass the clingy blue mechling to Prowl. A massive gold mech hovered behind Prowl, and peered at the mechling.
Yeah!
Jazz ducked into the third elevator, trusting Prowl to be able to finish the coordination of the mass escape with ease. It was mostly done, just the loose ends of making sure every mech got where they needed to go.
Yeah!
He saluted his partner jauntily as his elevator began to rise. The second that both of them, and their hangers on were clear, Red would trigger the bombs. The arena was deep enough that structural integrity wasn’t an issue.
Yeah!
There wasn’t something deeply satisfying about those mecha that liked to descend to see captive mecha fight to their deaths, race until their frames grayed, and watch mecha simply suffer for their own pleasure, only to find a crushed, rubble filled, remnant of a arena, no longer useful for so much as scrap.
The final line of the song repeated as Jazz lunged out of the elevator, knives flashing, as he killed the guards equally complicit in this travesty. They’d rescued around two hundred mecha according to Red Alert. What a mess to have gone so uncared about, so protected.
We’re right, we’re free, we’ll fight, you’ll see. We’re right, we’re free, we’ll fight, you’ll see.
Prowl split off from Jazz in the second that the mech moved to saunter down his hallway. From Red’s intel his side of the hall would have fewer mecha, or at least fewer cells. It would have more chains and cuffs, to hold the fighters in.
Jazz was moving fast and efficiently, in order to get to the guards before any alarms started on the surface level, since that was where the most interfering variables were. Prowl was moving slower, he’d have to lower any aggression for a safe evacuation.
His training in Iacon on crowd control and deescalation were going to be his assets here, not his armor as he’d told Jazz. That sort of knowledge made the mech somewhat twitchy though. Prowl didn't quite trust Ratchet enough to show the medic his code, but Jazz had seen after a bad shift that had triggered a nasty crash.
Jazz was very anti-enforcer as a result, and did not like to hear anything good at the moment about what Prowl could still use.
The music’s lyrics started, with the announcement overlaid and Prowl twitched his wings in amusement. The acid pellets for the locks did very well, and Prowl pushed the first door open with a clang.
“What’s with the tunes?” The gold mecha demanded through a thick Kaonite accent.
Prowl flicked his wings again. The music wasn’t a distraction, it was even used frequently by enforcers as a timing tool or a distraction, but Jazz’s song choice was truly unique.
“I believe that my partner wanted a time signature that was enjoyable,” he answered and he stepped forward with the lockpicks for the cuffs binding the mech to the wall. Prowl was not well versed with picks, had in fact only been practicing for the past few orns, but these were fairly simple locks.
”Partner.”
Prowl shrugged his wings weakly. He really couldn’t have done anything on this scale on his own, and neither could Jazz without his little cadre of behind the comms mecha. Except that the golden gladiator is peering around Prowl’s frame and he won’t find anyone there. “He’s getting the other side.”
Prowl yanks hard at the stuck cuff. The lockpick is jammed in a rusty gear and Prowl hopes this isn’t setting a pattern for the rest of the mission. The mech huffs air out his vents hard, blowing hot dusty air over Prowl.
“The locks all stick here. Too many fighters, too many deaths for them to care. The keys hang across from each cell in the light alcoves so the guards don’t have to figure out rusted keys.”
Prowl yanks the pick out ungently, and darts back into the hall. Red Alert fills his comm line with angry queries and Prowl mutes it. The keys are exactly where they’re supposed to be and Prowl shoves the first one in its lock without adieu.
Golden huffs again, this time in amusement rather than scorn, and he stands to stretch his cables from the half slouched kneel he’d been stuck in, “Designation is Sunstreaker, not Sunny, just Sunstreaker. And your partners a real idiot to leave you on your own. Lab sides easy. Racers and half-scrapped experiments is all, ain’t no one over there gonna do nothing but follow orders.”
Prowl grumbled as Sunstreaker follows him to the next cell instead of the elevators, “That was rather the point. Meister is an excellent fighter, but I have better armor. The plan was for him to be able to focus on any guards or such over there that might require finesse, whereas I’m perfectly capable of taking a dent or two in order to get a fighter out and calm.”
“Stupid,” Sunstreaker mutters, and he blocks the punch thrown by the mech in the third cell they’ve unlocked. He leans forward and snarls in the mech’s face, just a rattling sound at first, then, “Just run. Get out, quit fighting.”
The mech does, and Sunstreaker follows Prowl still, “I do not require protection.”
“Too bad.”
Prowl decides this is not the time to argue.
Admittedly the rest of the hall is cleared much faster when Prowl is able to focus purely on the locks. His ATS pings him a code error requesting a cohort expansion. He still has no cohort, he dismisses it irritably.
He reaches the end of the hall by the time Jazz’s song is hitting the wind down notes, even the chaotic music that Jazz enjoys and creates follows patterns and math, and Prowl appreciates the predictability of such. Sunstreaker is still hovering behind his shoulder like a surly frameguard, and he glares at the line of injured and under-fueled mecha filing into both elevators.
Jazz grins one of his terrifying smiles and he shoots the glass between them, earning several yelps from the scared mecha behind him, and a startled upsweep of Prowl’s sensor panels. Sunstreaker starts to rumble a subsonic growl as Jazz steps across the glass towards them.
Jazz honestly did look remarkably frightening if Prowl looked from a fresh perspective. His feral smile, fully at home when he looked himself in his colors as Jazz, was entirely alike to a sparkeater with his sharp black and red Meister frame. His posture was meaner in his Meister frame-shift as well, he looked as if he would stab Prowl, if Prowl hadn’t known he could trust this mech.
Instead he walked up, handed off the limp, blue mechling with the broken, leaking pede, and sauntered to the last elevator up to the guard’s station with a sardonic salute. Prowl laughs outright at Sunstreaker’s blatant confusion, “C’mon. That’s the signal, we’re the last mecha down here, we’ll take the tail end of evac. Let’s get you out of Praxus.”
Sunstreaker hums in response, “Sure, maybe.”
Prowl ignores that and pings Red Alert the code for the final ascent from him. The elevator creaks in the alarmin half rusted way that most do in Praxus. The city was beautiful on the surface, pristine, but rusted to the core under its polished paint, right down to the infrastructure.
The mechling whines lightly and presses his helm deeper into the crook of Prowl’s arm. Sunstreaker leans closer just long enough to press a battered pain chit at the mechling’s port. Prowl catches his servo only to get shoved lightly, just enough to need to catch himself on the wall.
The pain chit activates with a low warble and the mechling goes limp entirely. Prowl jostles him lightly in alarm and Sunstreaker snorts, “Sparklings been passed around arenas about as much as I have. He’s a racer, and one of their experiments in seein’ how fast they can make a mech go. They don’ give him med care or pain chits, messes with their data, I think. He always looks like he hurts though, unless he’s runnin’. I got the chit for a win in the arena almos’ a decaorn ago, been saving it.”
Prowl flicks his wings as the elevator thunks into place at the top, “And how long have you been passed around, as you said?”
He leads the way out of the elevator, nodding at Habglare and Glimmershell as the two minis take up amateur flank positions behind them on the path to the docks. Sunstreaker is quiet for a too long moment and Prowl glances over. The gold mech is staring at the sky with open awe and wonder. Luna 1 is full tonight, with Luna 2 barely a half moon beside her, and the stars are bright as a result.
Sunstreaker sucks in a startled gasp as Prowl pulls him forward gently and turns a small, almost shy smile on him, “Um. I really don’t remember anything but the arenas. I’ve been in lots, this is the second longest. I’m a good fighter and they sell me when they get bored, I think. I had a brother once, I don’t know what happened to him after they separated us.”
“Why did they separate you two?” Prowl asks, as Sunstreaker gets distracted by a window box of crystals.
“I dunno. They told me they’d give him back if I won enough fights, but I’ve been sold twice since then and I haven’t gotten him so I guess I’m still not good enough.”
Habglare grumbles behind them and darts off to the left. Sunstreaker glares at his retreating frame.
“He wouldn’t leave me behind, he wouldn’t,” Sunstreaker looks at Prowl with a fierce glare hiding pleading optics, “He’s lying. Sideswipe wouldn’t escape and leave me behind.”
Prowl flicks his doorwings, uncertainly. He doesn't know this mecha, or his brother. He truly couldn’t say. Sunstreaker’s face keeps its angry glare, but his entire field rumbles with complete dejection. He teeks abandonment to Prowl with no filters whatsoever.
Prowl’s spark aches. He knows abandonment, intimately. Instead Prowl points out one of the prettier sights in Praxus out to the mech beside him, a mural sparkling with inset mosaics and crystal mosses. Sunstreaker is just as fascinated by it, and his field swings wildly over to charm and intrigue.
Habglare rejoins them at the dock entrance commandeered for the dark cycle, and holds the fence up for them. Ratchet has set up a tiny medic tent beside the ramp to the outbound ship. Wheel jack beside him is chatting amicably to several mecha with the wear marks of cuffs, and Cave-In from the Glades gang.
Prowl leads Sunstreaker over to Ratchet and the gold mech immediately quails back and snarls as Prowl sets the mechling down on the collapsible cot Ratchet’s using. He allows Sunstreaker to yank him back obligingly as the gladiator stares Ratchet down.
Sunstreaker shoves him back several steps and scoops the mechling back up, keeping himself interposed between the medic and Prowl. Wheeljack bursts into hysterical laughter and Ratchet growls, both out loud, and scolding over Prowl’s comm.
“Yo, what the frag?” Jazz says from behind Prowl, and his wings shoot up in shock fast enough that he clips Jazz’s helm and he yelps in pain from the impact to his own wing.
That yelp combines poorly with Sunstreaker’s own shock, and he whirls around and lands a solid punch on Jazz’s faceplates. Jazz reels back with the impact and stares at Sunstreaker.
Sunstreaker’s systems are whining loudly with stress and exhaustion, and still he bares his denta at Jazz in a rattling snarl, which intensifies as he spins to snarl at Ratchet as well as he attempts to advance. Throughout he is attempting to herd Prowl backwards and cradling the still unconscious mechling close.
Wheeljack’s laugh has not stopped. Sunstreaker’s systems are fast approaching a red line as they start to stutter and pop. Prowl carefully steps around and reaches for the mechling. Sunstreaker lets him, and stands there glaring at everyone else.
Like a shot Prowl hands the mechling directly to Ratchet and turns back around to catch Sunstreaker’s forearms as he lunges to intercept. He takes his own turn to back Sunstreaker up and catches the mech as he his knees give out with a particularly petulant whine from his engine.
“Shh, breathe. Ratchets a good medic, you can trust him, promise.”
Sunstreaker shakes his helm frantically, “No, can’t- no. Medics hurt, that’s all they do!”
Jazz kneels beside them, teeking Sunstreaker’s frantic field, flaring misery and fear and protective rage in equal measures, “I’d hazard then, that ya ain’t seen a real medic. Why don’ ya watch what he does with the mechling?”
Jazz triggers the micro-transformation for his frame, but not the nanites, and he carefully leans on Sunstreaker’s other side. They all watch together as Ratchet runs a basic medical scan on the mechling. The basic medical care afterwards stops the slow leak from his pede.
Sunstreaker relaxes in increments, and as soon as Ratchet puts down the welder he makes his way over to offer the scanner plug to Sunstreaker for inspection. He is gentle in a way that Prowl has never seen the mech, and neither has Jazz from the faint surprise echoing through their fields.
Sunstreaker whines lowly, offers his arm with the port cycled open, and turns his face into Prowl’s chassis. Ratchet plugs in to run the scan with a low hum. He curses quietly at the result.
“Hey, kid,” he asks softly, leaning in at an angle to catch Sunstreaker’s optics, “You aware of your medical history?”
Sunstreaker shakes his helm. Ratchet sighs deeply.
“Right. You ever been through psych courses or processor programs?”
The whine of confusion from Sunstreaker is answer enough and Ratchet rocks back on his pedes, his struts creaking as he gets back up. Prowl points out a patch of wild crystals a few feet away jutting from a crack in the docks. Sunstreaker’s attention is captured and Prowl looks at Ratchet expectantly.
“These two are coming back with us. I am going to need more equipment and time to figure out what is up with the little one, and if he’s healthy. Most of the injuries here will hold until the boat docks, and the few choosing to stay and make a life here will be fine, but that one’s half slagged,” he says jerking a servo at the blue mechling.
Jazz nods hesitantly, “I’m sure we can find ‘im a foster.”
Ratchet snorts, “Sure. Or he can room with Hot Rod because I need access to the kids. That one’s coming too by the by.”
Sunstreaker looks up sharply with an alarmed warble. Prowl offers him a rust stick out of sheer desperation, the mech’s calm is visibly fraying around the edges. Sunstreaker turns the rust stick over in his servos in confused curiosity.
“He’s been force upgraded. From what I can tell he should be in his adult frame now, but barely so. He was probably upgraded as a mechling, or a youngling. Second frame, maybe third at most, and I’m leaning towards second. He’s missing key programming as a result. At this point he’s going to have to learn it the hard way, and needs a foster until then, one he trusts.”
Prowl cycles his optics. He is going to need a bigger hab.