#tttj

Of course it was because shockwave learned a new tidbit out of his continual examinations of the mecha.

One, the metal they were scavenging from the kaiju ships to build the mecha was alive.

Two, it is loyal to humanity because humans want to keep the mecha alive, the intent is to protect. No mecha is left behind, humans packbonded with the metal and it packbonded back.

Three, kaiju soldiers contain a multitude of power sources, including glowing power cores in their chests and highly volatile blood.

Four, the kaiju metal has no problems using the kaiju soldiers as fuel (food)

Five, if shockwave attempts to kill or injured a pilot directly the kaiju metal will resist and try to keep the pilot alive through any means necessary.

Six, the metal can talk to other metal without direct contact and every mecha in the program wants shockwave dead.

Thats the rundown. Theres a tid bit where its the main reason jazz stays alive, since the mecha adapt the mouth addition to create edible (if not the most tasty) food for him to survive on. Its still missing some nutrients but Bebop is resourceful, she can fill in the gaps with extra organic material.

This is absolutely confused the cybertronians.

In my main au jazz and prowl get stuck together on a quintesson ship and slowly navigate the language and species barrier.

Theres the usual jazz thinking that prowl is a mecha, but it lasts a much shorter amount of time since prowl off handedly mentions how organic the quints are. And after some back and forth charades Jazz realizes what prowl means.

Prowl is non the wiser and think jazz was just having trouble with the word organic due to its odd phonetics.

Jazz decides then and there to never ever mention that he is organic due to the tone prowl used.

Jazz then tilts his head 4 degrees and realizes he is at 15% fuel.

He loiters around for a bit more charades when prowl decides to go resume hacking into the quint computer to hopefully control the ship / send a distress signal.

Jazz takes this precious time to gorge himself on as much kaiju as can fit into his incredibly fucked up metal jaws.

Prowl successfully takes control and sends a distress beacon but no control over the ship, deciding to go back to where jazz was still guarding the main hallway to the control centre prowl gets the lovely view of jazz sat down on his fucked up collapsible too many joints who did this to you legs absolutely chowing down on the internals of a quint.

Jazz freezes, and very slowly chews and swallows his most recent bite. Before in a moment of absolute genius, points to the torn into carcass of a quint and asks "want some?"

Jazz is caught in a rip in space and dies, well he should've. Primus took one look at this creature who just saved cybertron and decides to save him the only way they can.

So Jazz becomes a cybertronian, kinda. Theres still a human in his sparkchamber but he can transform and partially control bebop remotely.

Then the rest of the continuity soup as we are going off of happens, jazz becomes 3rd in command and befriends prowl n optimus n ratchet. They find out that jazz is a loadbearer but he never takes off his exo suit, which by now half of it is part of him but he is still organic by soul.

Of course jazz became his usual frame n height, and just never tells anyone that he had frame the size of a combiner. This is JAZZ we are talking about he is more masks than mech.

Of course im imagining a magical artifact fucks this all up. And of course it's in a long abandoned temple, which is underground.

Its a temporary truce between autobots and decepticons due to the increases quint swarms (still not at their full strength since Jazz destroyed 97% of their entire military)

And of course theres an artifact with the ability to turn bots into their "original self" it gets used on Optimus and he gets turned into his Orion pax form. Memories are not affected, prowl gets hit and the only thing that changes are his decals.

Jazz disappears, not that it destroyed him but that in the 10 second flash of light he managed to squeeze out of the main area of the temple and into the adjoining area. Drastic? Yes. However Jazz has a little bit (read: an entire cybertronian lifetime) worth of trauma about the others finding out who he was (is)

No one can track Jazz even when he is the size he currently is because surprise surprise he kept his t-cog and he is making that everyones problem.

Many bots leave to deal with their new forms and accept that once the effect wears off (something that Jazz missed by his quick exit) that jazz will return.

Prowl finds him, not through tracking or hunting. But by realizing that Jazz was acting like he does when he came back from long infiltration missions. And so he plays music, for a while nothing happens, the temple feels less like a ruin but more alive. The strange cyberplants sway and move in time.

It stays this calm until a song finishes and one of the old tunes that Jazz used to play comes on, the song hasn't been played in vorns. But it is still the same slightly crackly velvet smooth that it was when Jazz first showed Prowl the piece. (Its elvis presley's "cant help falling in love")

{i started listening to it at this point so i suggest doing it too}

The cyberflora move slow and smooth with the beat, the water dripping from the ceiling resonates, the creaking of the structure becomes gentler.

Prowl could never understand the language, there was simply never enough time to learn it and a Jazz never accepted an interface deep enough to learn it. And on the times a deep coding dive was required Prowl never went into the areas not allowed (the dives were to check for spyware)

Jazz moves, it's a slow and careful movement as to not make a sound. Walking on all fours so as to fit through the doors, wings held tight to his back out of instinct to protect the melted thrusters.

Claws clicking so faint that the music covered it, Jazz sits in the room nearest. The rumble of Prowl external speakers familiar enough to sooth some part of him he forgot about.

Jazz reveals himself, eventually. Song after song passes with just him sitting there, and then Jazz turns around.

Stalking towards a back exit, the music gets quieter. Until the sound is gone and all Jazz can hear is his plating shaking and his own thoughts rattling in his head.

Jazz sits, it's quiet. No voices join the wind, theres no rhythm to the water dripping, theres not even any light filtering in through the cracks in the ceiling anymore. Theres nothing ahead of him, open rock for miles with no illumination.

His engine stutters, mechs don't have tear ducts but he feels something wet sliding down his cheek. Three fingered hands trace the path but theres no wetness, not until he presses harder and feels the gentle press against skin.

Jazz waits in the dark.

And waits.

And waits.

Theres no one out there.

Not even a moon to guide his sight.

Theres light at his back.

His visor is the only light ahead of him.

.

.

.

Jazz turns around.

His claws make noise, tapping with the drip of water in a rhythm that makes no sense, his vents curl and heat the air until the whistles line up with the wind.

Jazz steps towards the light.

He walks slow, he stops often, looking behind him as if the darkness will reveal all if he can just look a second longer.

Jazz walks forward.

Audials flick forward and claws scramble on stone as the sounds of music ring through the air.

Prowl is still waiting.

Jazz walks faster.

The music changes.

Jazz shifts into a run.

Jazz stops before the main door, it is the only door big enough to fit him, and behind it is prowl.

Never let it be said that jazz was the most observant. Between getting stuck in space and meeting strange alien robots (living metal what-) it’s normal for his brain to be a little less observant of his current condition.

He was brushing his teeth after a meal when he noticed it. His teeth seemed sharper, and slightly thicker? Jazz brushed it off, more concerned with getting back in the pilot seat before someone needed him.

Then it happened again, a routine re fuel for the ship they were on got ambushed by the quints. Just some scouts so it wasn’t that bad, but as he watched his blade cut a scout clean in half, he opened his mouth, breathing in, running his tongue over sharp teeth. Catching himself he kept fighting, pushing that thought to the back of his head.

Until he got back to the ship safe, he skipped the check up. Walking as slow as he could towards the room that he was given.

The second the door closed and the locks engaged jazz reach to turn off the mech, pausing before leaving it on.

Reaching behind his head he felt for the cables that connected to the back of his head. The release handles felt cold under his hands, pulling down they spun easily. The feeling of parts of his body becoming unresponsive washed over him stronger and stronger with every cable he pulled free.

The hollowness settled in his legs, back, and around his eyes like rocks. Blinking in the darkness for a second, he tapped the side of his head. A pulse, and his visor clicked on. A pause later he reached for the handles, the cold metal a comfort. Standing was always hard after so much time in the mecha but this time it felt, more wrong. His balance wouldn’t settle no matter how much time he waited.

Slowly stepping out of the cockpit he gentle enters the rest of the pilot’s suite, he stumbles. The walls are close enough to grab by design. But that doesn’t matter when they are still metal.

There’s a kitchenette thing, as close as the engineers could make in the small space and meant to be used in zero gravity. There is a polished metal panel in place of a mirror. When jazz finally stumbles up to it.

Clammy hands grip the edge of the counter, his visor lighting the way. Finally looking himself in the mirror he picks at his teeth with his fingers, thick, sharp, and deadly. He can smell himself and the faintest trace of bleach from when bebop was cleaned before takeoff. Taking a guess, he lowers the opacity of his visor. His eyes, long cloudy and pale from the drift seem brighter.

Pause, what? Jazz’s eyes snap open hands flying to his visor as he realizes he just changed the opacity of his visor without even looking at the settings. Breathing harsh his eyes snap to his reflection again, and watches in fascination as his visor changes opacity. Then colour, then what light he is seeing, then back to normal.

Hands clutching the counter again, he slams through all the settings he knows. The visor responding faster than thought possible. Finally settling on a vision, he had never seen before. Shades of blue encompass everything, before slowly fading back to his normal vision.

“What the fuck.”

Slowly cycling through some more visions -without touching the settings- there isn’t much for jazz to compare it too. But it feels so effortless it scares him.

Slowly backing up again he absentmindedly rubs the back of his neck where the cables sat just a few minutes ago. And touches metal, solid and slightly warmed metal.

“WHAT.” The sound would’ve sent birds from their branches if he was back home. As it was, he was worried it could be heard outside of Bebop.

Both hands touching the back of his neck now he finds the metal has formed large flat plates, they slide over each other as he moves. With circular ports for his -his? - cables. The seams where the metal connected to his skin felt smooth, barely a raised edge and no scar tissue.

Hands grasped the edge of his under armour, the thin clasps came off easily and he pulled his shirt off over his head.

A litany of scars crisscrossed his front and sides, some surgical some not.

Turning to look at his back in the mirror his heart nearly stopped. Large spike like protrusions were connected to every vertebrae of his spine, with thick metal panels lining them. The metal stretched over his shoulders like a cloak, wrapped around his sides like a hug, and bled over his hips to flow down his thighs.

Eyes widen as the visor started shifting to check out the metal more, most visions barely changed it, but ultraviolet revealed swirling patterns similar to waves and plants. More variations revealed more depth to the patterns, finally turning on the blue only vision had multiple weak points showing up as rotating markers.

His hands traced the metal wherever they could reach, the way it dripped over his shoulders. How touching it felt like touching his own skin, with no seeming sensitivity loss.

Was this his skin now?

What caused this?

How long had he not noticed?

The metal felt warmer the closer it was to his chest and spine. The edges quickly became a point of fidgeting, hands picking at their edges absentmindedly.

One thought echoed in his head until it made his ears ring, “what caused this” more of an exhale than words.

Looking back up at his reflection in the polished metal all jazz could focus on was the dull metal that crowned his shoulders, the smoothness and shape reminded him of Bebop’s armour.

Turning slowly towards the pilot’s seat and the four cables that sat in heaps around it, it looked like a throne. Walking slow his gait felt wrong, every step threatened to have him meet the floor.

There were marks in the seat, where the spikes of his spine had pressed into the chair. The still active mech vibrated slowly, the engine a gentle thrum against the hammering of his heart. He could feel his breathing match the ventilation systems in their slow cycling; it did not stop his brain from going multiple miles a minute.

Turning back to the kitchenette, he opened the counter to the left of the mirror, looking away from it on purpose. Inside were sealed boxes, opening one he grabbed two of the silver pouches within.

Once again, he went towards the pilot seat, only stumbling twice. Sitting down hard, he ripped the cap off one and ate slow, careful of his now sharp teeth.

“How the crap do I explain this to hot rod” were the first words out of his mouth when he finally took a break from the food pouch.

“I’m sorry that we lost your brother but he’s back and now he’s part metal.” The sarcasm leached from his voice like venom. Leaning back into the chair he noted how comfortable it still was despite his back mostly being metal.

Tilting his head up to look at the mass of wires and cables that ran above the cockpit all he could think about was “how many of those are in me?”

Picking up the second pouch and getting up, Jazz ripped the lid off and started eating, this time while pacing. The pilot’s “suite” wasn’t the most spacious but at least he could move for a couple steps without worrying about oxygen.

“So, ive got metal plates and spikes. Likely fused with my spine and nervous system since I can feel them. And my visor has been likely melded with my brain since I can control it without touching it.”

“Wait, why were my eyes brighter?” quickly rushing towards the mirror again food pouch placed on the counter to be forgotten about, he turned the visor off.

The usual darkness reached him, years of using the drift had slowly cost him his sight until he could only see through Bebop. With his normal sight being blurry shapes and colours. The experimental visor had helped but the constant drift had wiped out the last of his sight leaving only total darkness when it was off.

But now? Tendrils of light flickered into his vision, his eyes hurt. Dry and achy with lack of use, looking up at where he knew one of the lights sat, he saw.

Flashes of light, soft and warm struck through the hazy darkness. No shapes or colours beyond the streaks of light through dusted air and the pale yellow of Bebops internal lights. But the darkness he had long since condemned himself to was showing cracks.

With a gasp in shock he stepped backwards once again, the visor flickered to life once more bathing himself in the bright blue light.

Stepping closer breathless he dropped the opacity of his visor until it was as clear as possible. Leaning in until he could see the individual lines of his iris, now glowing the same blue as bebops screens. Flickering within the once white pupil were thin speck of black, and shining blue.