Chapter Text
Windcharger had a tiny breakdown over physically taking Prowl to the chute. The enforcer had almost gotten him to comply (cuffs on and everything) before the minibot freaked out and just told Prowl where the chute was. It wasn't his preferred method of uncovering the location of all the stolen items over the last couple orns, possibly longer, as who knows what could be in store, but it was better than no location at all.
So Prowl set off to go to the chute by himself, because it felt like the longer he had to wait, the longer these thefts would continue. He was so close to the end now, he could feel it in his core.
"Woah, where are you off to in such a hurry?" called the voice of Smokescreen, halting Prowl from pushing through the precinct doors.
Prowl half-turned to give the chief an irritated look. "To the bottom of this case." And he was going to be right slagged if Smokescreen was going to interfere with that.
"You're still on light duty only, Sarge." The way Smokescreen said it was more of a taunt than a reminder. "Um, you have to stay here."
Prowl seethed. Stupid medical restriction. Stupid chief. Stupid case. Stupid processor ache with the stupid tac-net driving him further and further into a wall. He glared at Smokescreen, hating to submit to the restrictions that he was so close to being cleared for, and hating to submit to this bumblefrag of an enforcer. "Why?" he bit out, against better judgment. He still had his servo on the door handle. The tac-net began weighing the consequences of disobeying direct orders, which he shunted immediately.
"We're, um, ah-" Smokescreen floundered, looking around the precinct. He could have just pulled the chief card again, but no, he was looking for an excuse. If robots could sweat, Smokescreen would be sweating right then. "We're commemorating you!"
"I thought that wasn't until-"
"Shut it, Cliffjumper."
"Yessir," the minibot grumbled, going back to hunching over what was certainly not an actual report. Prowl would have to get to that later.
Prowl looked between them, then at the chief again with a challenging stare.
"We're commemorating you for the good work you did saving Brainstorm and Bumblebee! Right now!" Smokescreen clapped his hands together, getting the attention of the other enforcers that were also not really working but looking busy enough. Really, Prowl had noticed their attention on them from the start. Bots really loved their drama.
Prowl, again, didn't say anything. His tac-net was still spamming the green light to just go out and do his job, but the rest of him was firm on not acting worse than he already was. How could he preach proper work ethic and respect for the chain of command if he was just going to ignore those very same structures because- what- he wanted to? He shook himself out slightly, needing to get the tac-net under control and himself back into a more professional stature.
"Nothing fancy, just uh, a traditional commemoration ceremony, right here, right now." Smokescreen looked desperate. It almost made him want to try testing the mech, but a deep invent allowed him to walk away from the door.
He had to wait. It would be better, in the long run probably, to cool off and go back to the chute with a level head. He was in a bad headspace.
Smokescreen looked visibly relieved when Prowl abandoned his desperate attempt at finishing the case that was making his energon boil. "Yes, alright, just stay here for a klik, I'll grab Hound and we can get this show on the road!" The chief hurried off, leaving Prowl standing in the middle of the precinct, which had since gone silent. Optics were on him, and his plating was starting to crawl.
Did they think he deserved to be commemorated?
Slowly, when everyone realized that Prowl wasn't about to say or do anything interesting, the tension in the precinct faded away and conversations picked back up.
Prowl didn't think he deserved it.
"Are you gonna sit down?" Jazz asked for the third time since he arrived at Prowl's apartment. The mech was looking mighty comfortable on his couch, just tracking Prowl as he paced vigorously around the living room.
Prowl, for the third time, shook his helm. The tac-net was going absolutely haywire, and the only way he was able to keep his processor from melting down was by staying mobile. He'd been trying to get it to cool off since his near slip-up at work earlier that cycle, but it just hadn't quit. It was churning numbers and scenarios like crazy, and it was all Prowl could do to keep things trimmed down to a level where he wasn't going to crash.
"You're gonna carve a trench in the floor, mech."
"That is unlikely-" Prowl blurted, wincing as he kicked at the tac-net again. Figure of speech, you stupid-
"What's goin' on?" Jazz asked, beginning to sit up from his comfy spot. Curse this mech for caring so much about him.
Prowl debated getting into the whole tac-net thing. It wasn't exactly a secret, nor was he uncomfortable with bots knowing about it, it just... wasn't something he felt necessary to bring up. It was part of him, sure, but it was invisible to everyone else.
"My..." Prowl began, slogging through the torrent of unrelated data. "I have a piece of hardware in my processor. It is a tactical network and it is... it was supposed to aid with preventing processor crashes, but instead it has managed to become a separate problem at times. It is being a problem at the moment."
Jazz kept tracking Prowl's route around and around and back and forth through the living room as he listened, absorbing the information. "Oh. I'm sorry, Prowler, that must be a pain."
Prowl nodded, bracing for a million questions about his condition and the tac-net, but instead Jazz just kept watching him quietly. A few breems later, with Prowl not slowing down, the mech asked if there was anything he could do to help.
"I believe it will take forced stasis at this point," Prowl grumbled. He tried a few different things on the tac-net, but it bit him back with a vengeance. It wanted to work, but his shift was over, and there was nothing he could do.
"Hmm. What do you call it?"
Prowl paused for a moment, then picked right up where he left off. "The hardware?" he asked for clarity. Primus knows he needed that. Jazz nodded. "The tac-net."
Another few breems passed, and Prowl's cooling fans clicked on to a higher speed. Not a great sign. He grumbled under his breath, only having a little bit of room to worry about being an awful host to the mech he was seeing. Actually, he had no idea why Jazz was there. He couldn't really remember at the moment if there was something they had planned in advance, or if the mech had explained, or anything. But he was there, and sitting on his couch contentedly. It was both comforting and confusing.
"What's the tac-net tryin' to do?" Jazz asked, stretching his legs out on the couch, probably because it was clear Prowl wasn't going to sit down with him any time soon. And he wanted to! But it wasn't going to happen.
"It is... doing a lot of things," Prowl explained poorly. It was mostly just being really bothersome. It was also very desperate in its attempts to get Prowl to investigate the chute. "I was unable to uncover what I believe is to be the bottom of the robberies. It is... upset." Prowl was also upset, but he wasn't going to admit that.
"You mean Gears isn't the end of it?"
Prowl shook his helm with a distraught sigh. "Two other minibots have been apprehended since last cycle. I suspect there to be others, but I was kept from working further due to Ratchet's medical orders and... Chief Smokescreen's impromptu commemoration ceremony."
Jazz perked up at the latter half. "You got commemorated?"
"Yes." Prowl dug the little medal out of his subspace and gave it a gentle toss to Jazz for inspection. He switched the directions of his pacing thanks to the soreness creeping up on his struts. Jazz tossed it back after an impressed whistle. "He was behaving oddly. I do not think the ceremony was supposed to happen for a few cycles, but he insisted on it just as I was about to go out and hopefully crack this case."
"You don't think..." Jazz tilted his helm, allowing the suggestion to float in the air.
The tac-net had been chewing on the idea that Smokescreen was somehow a part of the robberies since the moment the mech started acting twitchier than usual. Prowl also couldn't deny his suspicion. Had the chief known that Prowl wasn't going to run out regardless of the sudden commemoration, he wouldn't have acted so nervously. Maybe the chief wasn't part of the robberies, but part of whatever underlying evil was occurring linked to the robberies. That, paired with the location Prowl had been given...
"I do not know," Prowl huffed- because he didn't. Not for sure. As much as he wanted a reason to get Smokescreen out of his position as chief, he couldn't make an accusation based on such minimal claims. "I hope not."
A half joor passed before Jazz got up from the couch to hold Prowl by his shoulders, effectively stopping the constant pacing.
"What if you went out and did whatever it was you were gonna do?" Jazz asked, earnest. "You caught Gears by finding a loophole. Why not find one here?"
It was as if a floodgate had been opened. The tac-net abandoned its frantic dumpsterfire of calculations for a nanoklik, latching onto the glyph 'loophole' with fervor. Prowl's optics cycled a few times as the hardware realized it could have been trying to find ways around obstacles rather than repeatedly trying to slam through them.
"I could simply take a late night stroll," Prowl breathed. "Happen to come across the chute. I would be curious..."
Jazz grinned wide, nodding his helm encouragingly. "We could go for a lil late night stroll. Less suspicious that way." He winked, and Prowl ignored the subtext. "I could insist we check it out 'cause a... wait, a chute?"
"A chute. That is where Windcharger said the stolen items go. Where the stolen items go must be where the mastermind is. Or a hidden society of minibots. Or a spacebridge leading to a different colony. Or-" Prowl sucker-punched the tac-net and clicked his vocalizer off.
"Then I'll insist we check out this chute and you can take the credit for stumbling upon something big." Jazz beamed at him, giving his shoulders a firm pat. "If it'll help you settle down, then we oughta go right now, yeah?"
"Yes. Right now. Yes. Thank you, Jazz." Prowl gave an awkward, yet meaningful squeeze back, just briefly, before hurrying out the door. Finally, the tac-net settled enough to make him stop overheating.
The sun was rising on Cool City as they began their walk to the chute. Few bots were still out, most of them trudging along to their homes or wherever they went when the parties were over. They paid Jazz and Prowl no mind, thank the Primes.
Prowl suspected that the hype and intrigue was beginning to die down now. He had hoped for and expected such; as crazy as bots could get about the smallest things, they were also just as quick to move on. He was grateful for that aspect. So much so, that when Jazz timidly laced their digits together as they walked, he didn't immediately worry about some no-life paparazzi springing out from around the corner to take a picture and then run off again. In fact, he felt brave enough to strafe a little closer to the other mech, shoulders brushing as their arms swung in tandem. It was a warm comfort in the still chilly air of the city.
Despite the eased tension in his helm, Prowl still took the most direct route possible to the chute. This made the walk feel much too brief, and he briefly mourned that loss, but the tac-net spurred him on under the shadow of City Hall.
"Woah," Jazz uttered, stopping in front of the building. "The chute where all the stolen slag's gone is here?"
"That is what Windcharger confessed, yes," Prowl replied, letting go of Jazz's hand to continue around to the side of the building. The alleyway there was dark, even with the rising sun illuminating the streets.
'Left side of City Hall, back in the alley a little, behind a painting on the wall.' That was what Windcharger had squeaked out kliks before being dragged out of his holding cell.
Prowl's whole focus went into finding- oh okay, it was a literal painting. In a fancy frame and everything. The painting itself was pretty unremarkable compared to the kinds of graffiti that decorated every building, but it was odd that such a thing was on an exterior wall. He examined it closely, checking for obvious seams or tricks, then spotted the hinges. Classic.
"Huh," Jazz said as Prowl opened the makeshift painting door. Behind was the mouth of a chute that opened up into darkness. He made a mental note to put in a good word for Windcharger's cooperation. "That's a chute, alright."
"Indeed," Prowl muttered. He scanned the ground for something to toss down it. A crushed up aluminum can. It thunked against the chute's walls softly at first, then nothing. Not even a sound of it hitting a bottom anywhere.
Prowl and Jazz exchanged a look. That was odd.
"Why would these minibots be throwing stolen junk down a weird chute behind City Hall?" Jazz said into the open air. Prowl couldn't help but share the same question. His tac-net had been churning away on that aspect, too, and had just as many bizarre scenarios saved up as it did for what could be at the other end of the chute.
Prowl began trying to figure out how he was going to get to said other end. The chute was large, large enough for a minibot to fit down, but not for mid-sized mechs. If Jazz was perhaps just a little narrower, he could have squeezed himself through, but there was no way Prowl would be able to make it with his doorwings. He briefly considered trying the front doors in case they were unlocked, but then wasn't sure how he would find the chute from the inside. Perhaps-
"Hey guys!"
Prowl and Jazz both whipped around, startled by the sudden appearance of a certain minibot. How the mech could sneak around like that was beyond either of them.
"Just gonna dump this stuff in there, okay? But you didn't see me! Remember that haha! Also, Prowl, we don't need any more cans, but it's nice of you to try to help. But seriously we got this you can um, go somewhere else? Not that I'm saying I want you to leave, but-" he began dumping spoons, coasters, and tiny bottles of artificial lubricant down the chute from his subspace.
Prowl gawked, astounded by the sheer audacity the minibot continued to have.
"Listen this is supposed to be a secret and I'm not supposed to let anyone know about this but it's really really really really really-" ten 'really's later- "important and I'd hate for your sparks to be denied The Well, y'know?"
There was that phrase again. Windcharger had said it when Prowl was trying to get him to bring him to the chute. What did that mean?
"I'd hate that, too," Jazz said before Prowl could jump right into slapping the stasis cuffs he was already pulling out of his own subspace to slap on Bumblebee's wrists. "Can we get in on having our sparks going to The Well, maybe?" He gave Prowl a look, motioning him to put the cuffs away. Against the tac-net's better judgement, Prowl decided to trust whatever it was Jazz was getting at.
Bumblebee emptied his subspace and turned to Jazz with a lopsided grimace. "I dunno, Jazzmeister... I don't think you're ready to get into the slag we've got cooking. I mean maybe you are, I don't know, but it's crazy, mech, crazy! But I guess I could put in a good word to the up-and-coming savior of Cybertron A.K.A. the new Primus?"
Prowl was officially lost. The tac-net chimed in with it's previously discarded minibot cultists theory. Well, it had been 'hidden minibot society', not cult, but close enough.
"Oh, yes, please!" Jazz nodded enthusiastically, lightly flicking Prowl's side as a hint to play along. Right, the mech was a good actor... Prowl was not. He would try his best, regardless.
"Yes, er..." Case in point.
Bumblebee peered at both black and white mechs scrutinizingly, scratching at his chin as he tapped a pede rapidly on the ground. He looked back at the chute, back at Jazz and Prowl, back at the chute- "Alright alright fine fine fine fine fine! But no funny business, either of you! Looking at you, mister- don't crash in there I might not be able to drag your aft back out!"
Prowl frowned, but kept his comments to himself with the help of Jazz's reminding nudge. "Thank you, Bumblebee, I- we- appreciate your willingness to help."
Bumblebee ranted something unintelligible to himself, scrambling into the chute and disappearing into its depths. Just like with the aluminum can, there was no sound of the minibot reaching the end. A breem passed, then five, then twelve before Jazz spoke up again.
"Is he comin' back?"
"I... do not know," Prowl whispered, deigning to lean his head into the chute to try and peer down into it's unknown depths. Just as before, he couldn't see a damn thing. "He made it sound like-"
"Hey, guys, I'm back!" chirped Bumblebee from behind them, this time from the other side of the alleyway. Prowl startled pretty bad, hitting his helm against the top of the chute before he could properly remove himself from it. "So, the bossman said it's ok for you guys to come down, but you can't touch anything and you have to swear to the oath and everything if you want your sparks to go to The Well when it's your time. And if you break the oath you, uh, yeah you don't get to go back to The Well, your spark gets denied The Well."
Jazz hissed through his teeth and reached up to rub the back of Prowl's head where he'd hit it. "Well- heh- well, we'll just have to stay true to the oath. Right, Prowler?"
"Right, yes... we shall follow this... oath." Prowl reset his optics as the pain subsided from his helm. "I am ready when you are."
"Follow me!" Bumblebee scrambled off almost too quick to follow. Prowl got deja-vu to his first night in Cool City, chasing after the minibot through the crowded train station. If only he'd known...
Bumblebee led the two of them through the alley, into a hidden door along the exterior of City Hall, and through a variety of odd passageways that diverted from the main architecture. Despite the chute seemingly going down, the minibot took them up; climbing a few dingy stairwells and a rusty ladder in what could have been an elevator shaft. The higher they got, the more it reeked of... of something Prowl couldn't put a digit on. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant, to say the least.
An intimidating set of double doors were pushed open by Bumblebee, unleashing the worst of the stench and a scene of absolute horror.
All of the stolen items were carelessly thrown about the small room. There was no order to the chaos, just a complete mess like all the city's dumpsters had been dumped at once, and then a tornado blew through it, and then a second tornado blew through it again. In the center was an absurdly large cauldron over a fire that was being fed by the various stolen items. Prowl grimaced, determining that most of the bots these items belonged to would likely either never see their things again, or wouldn't want them back again anyway. Above the cauldron, on a makeshift staircase, was a blue minibot, various bird-like creatures perched on his shoulders and helm as he stirred whatever concoction was in that cauldron with a huge metal rod. He dropped what must have been a kilo of powdered Hollow Matter (if Prowl's drug database was accurate (which it was, thank you Ratchet)) and it caused the sludge that was brewing in there to slosh over the edge and land in the fire.
Prowl gagged, nearly purging, which Jazz covered up with a well-placed cough. Either way, neither minibot seemed to notice or care.
"What the frag..." Jazz muttered, staring mostly at the blue minibot talking to himself as he made Cybertron's worst stew.
"Alright, Beachcomber, here's the mechs that were snooping around the chute. Um, please don't make me cut them into tiny little pieces?" Bumblebee kneeled before the fire and cauldron, bowing his helm reverently.
Those glyphs put Prowl into fight-or-flight mode. He had no doubt in his mind that if this minibot- Beachcomber- told Bumblebee to butcher him and Jazz, he would do it. He wouldn't enjoy it, but it was clear that whatever was going on was intense and not easily breakable. This bot was in deep.
"Ah, no need for that, friend!" Beachcomber hummed, and Prowl recognized his voice. Why did he recognize his voice? He'd never met or even seen this mech before. "Jazz is a good ol' pal o' mine, and his new beau is right dandy. Violence isn't necessary, mech!"
Bumblebee stood from his kneeling position and nodded firmly. "Understood, sir! Then in that case they said they want to do the oaths and pledge their undying loyalty to you, as the new and upcoming Primus, savior of all and ever so wonderful and cool."
Jazz was holding onto Prowl's arm tightly, apparently just as scared as Prowl himself felt. This was much worse than anything he'd anticipated. The fumes coming from the fire and the amalgamation in the cauldron were beginning to make him dizzy and his plating itch.
"Call for backup," Jazz whispered in Prowl's audial urgently. "He's mixed something bad."
Prowl grimaced, but did as Jazz said. He pinged every enforcer code he had saved, trying to keep it on the down-low as Beachcomber started rambling about the oaths they were supposedly taking. While he was doing that, the tac-net began being useful for once, and started pin-pointing wrappers and containers for illicit substances, compiling their information and the potential side effects they could have when mixed with others. This took up almost the entirety of his processor's bandwidth with the effort, plunging him into a locked-frame, dim-opticked state before he realized it would take that much power. There were a lot of different substances around. Distantly, he could sense something important transpiring.
Hollow Matter, Coal Cygars, Grud, RX88, Pulmonary Retreat, Acid, 92-42, Tourmaline, Grud 2.0, Circuit Boosters, and Grud: Unlimited were analyzed, thrown into a blender, and by the time Prowl was released from his catatonic state (without a clear solution, of course), Jazz was miraculously scaling a wall in attempt to get away from Bumblebee, only to get swarmed by various birds of paradise and a couple flyts. Beachcomber, meanwhile, was descending his staircase of garbage and heading right for Prowl, something malicious burning in his optics.
"How are you still functioning?" Prowl demanded, stepping back away from the minibot. He scanned the immediate area for things to defend himself with, but surprise-surprise, everything was broken and trashed and small.
"I have been chosen to guide the universe, Prowl. I am one with Primus, and he is one with me," Beachcomber replied, holding a spoon full of slop out towards Prowl. "You, too, may join the new age of wonder..."
Prowl swatted the spoon out of Beachcomber's servo, the goop splattering with a hiss against something. "You are out of your processor!"
"No," Beachcomber chuckled, and it should not have sounded so warm and inviting. "You, friend, are not in yours." He already had a second spoonful of goop ready, aimed at Prowl's intake.
"Don't eat that slag, Prowl!" Jazz shouted from where he was now scrambling around up in the rafters.
Prowl's one coherent thought was 'fragging duh' before slapping the second spoon away. He pinged Ratchet like crazy, then continued pinging enforcers his location and that he was in need of dire assistance. He still wasn't really sure what was going on, with birds screeching at Jazz, Bumblebee climbing up to the rafters, Beachcomber slowly walking Prowl into a corner. The fumes were really starting to make the back of his throat burn and he was fearing for the worst- that he was becoming intoxicated by them.
Prowl darted around Beachcomber, struggling to focus on anything but calling for help. Unfortunately, his new position garnered him the attention of Bumblebee, who decided to target him instead of Jazz. The yellow minibot launched himself from the rafters, only for his pede to catch on the lip of one and send his momentum downwards instead of out- and he landed perfectly in the boiling cauldron of a million different drugs and Primus knows what else.
"Bee!" Jazz cried, reaching much too late for the minibot, who splashed around in the sludge like he was drowning.
In slow motion, the cauldron rocked, then tipped completely over, sending it crashing into the flames below. The miscellaneous burning items scattered, spreading the blaze, and the mystery sludge oozed around Prowl's pedes. Things were bad before, but now they were much, much worse.
"No!" Beachcomber fell to his knees, absolutely devastated by his concoction being wasted on the floor. This didn't stop him from trying to scoop it up with his servos, filling his subspace pockets and intake as much as he could. Prowl really did purge now, retching awfully as every circuit within him burned.
"Jazz-" Prowl coughed out, searching the rafters for his mech. "Jazz, we have to-"
"Your sparks will be denied from The Well!" Beachcomber bellowed- well, actually it sounded just as lax as the rest of his laid back speech pattern. "You have doomed us all!"
Jazz dangled from the rafters, gritting his dentae as he looked down at Prowl, wordlessly communicating what was about to happen. He let go, tucking his limbs in closer to his chassis, and plummeted. Prowl leapt without a second thought, arms outstretched and he just barely managed to catch him, softening his fall and keeping him from landing in the worst of the sludge. "Grab Bee, I got the mayor."
"Y- wh-" Prowl shut down his questions. It didn't matter. Bumblebee was sizzling in the cauldron, screaming his vocalizer raw as he slipped and sloshed around in the bowl. Prowl yanked him out by the arms, himself grunting as the hot goop burned under his servos. Once more, deja-vu crossed his processor as he hauled the writhing minibot towards the exit, which was soon to be consumed by flames.
Prowl hardly had to check for Jazz and Beachcomber as he hurried back the way they came as fast as he could. It wasn't easy; his perception and balance were becoming worse and worse, and he kept having to stop to cough and gag. His sensors were taking fuzzy data input, adding onto the difficulty of traversing such a weird route. He blinked once, twice, and then he was somewhere he didn't recognize. Voices were muffled all around him, and it was like trying to see through dense smoke. Maybe he was trying to see through dense smoke; things were on fire, after all.
And then the nightmare got even worse.
"Decepticons!" Prowl screamed, gasping for air as he sprang out of his hospital berth, wielding an invisible rifle.
Wires and lines disconnected with a snap, causing their respective monitors to scream right back. In an instant, First Aid was coaxing him back to the berth with a kindness that was so unlike the nursebot's usual spunk. He let it happen. As he got settled again, he wondered why he had shouted that. What did it even mean...? He had vague recollections of what must have been an absurd hallucination of being in a war on another planet. Whatever had been in that sludge was... potent.
"Where is-"
"Shh. Everybot's fine, Prowl. Just let us keep purging your systems, 'kay?" First Aid worked diligently, hooking everything back up to Prowl's frame.
Prowl let his helm fall back with a soft groan, then immediately passed out again.
When Prowl next woke, he was in a different room. The lights were dim, and there was padding against his audials to reduce the noise of the machinery hooked up to him. He felt like slag. He also couldn't remember a damn thing from after Bumblebee's accidental swim in the cauldron of horrors. He began to worry. About Bumblebee, about Beachcomber, worst of all he worried about Jazz. Was he hurt, too? He must have been just as affected by the fumes as Prowl had. Was he waking up now? Was he okay?
"To your right," grunted the familiar gruff voice of Ratchet. "Reach your servo out."
Prowl blindly did as the doctor said, wincing at the soreness in his arm as he reached out to his right, patting around the empty space until he brushed warm plating. He didn't have to look to know it was Jazz's arm he was touching. His sparkrate settled (he didn't notice it intensifying to begin with), and Ratchet muttered something to himself that Prowl didn't quite catch due to the padding around his helm.
That much relieved, he once again slipped into recharge.
"I still cannot believe that Mayor Beachcomber was ultimately behind the petty thefts," Prowl murmured, his cheek resting on Jazz's shoulder. They were squeezed onto one medical berth, wrapped under the same sheet, sharing some kind of energon pudding. It was cool and sweet in Prowl's intake, soothing his sore throat.
"I... can," Jazz replied, lazily mixing the pudding around. "He's always been experimental. I just thought he'd be smarter not to go overboard like that."
Prowl hummed, thoughtful. He wasn't nearly as tired as he had been, thanks to nearly four cycles of sleeping off the mayor's Primus-seeing sludge. In that time, he'd also been able to fully process what he could remember, as well as take into account whatever his visitors told him. His visitors being trusted coworkers only. Which really just meant Hound, Trailbreaker, and Bluestreak, if he was being honest. Hound gave an accurate retelling of what happened after he had arrived on the scene, while Trailbreaker emphasized the most 'exciting' parts, and Bluestreak tried his best not to ask a billion questions. Plus, Jazz being there was more comforting than he could have ever imagined, and he swore to his tac-net that his presence alone helped boost his recovery. The tac-net refuted the claim, naturally.
"Who is going to run the city now?" Prowl asked, really just to fill the silence. He didn't truly have the energy to worry about the loss of a political figure- in any case, how much mayoral stuff did Beachcomber even do before he succumbed to the worst concoction of poisons ever seen by medical professionals? Cool City could survive without a mayor for a little while, probably. It wasn't like anyone cared about anything other than having a good time, anyway.
Jazz shrugged, briefly lifting Prowl's helm with the movement. "Politics ain't my thing." He scooped up a portion of the pudding, then offered it to Prowl, who merely opened his intake and leaned forward slightly to receive the delightful food. "I'm sure someone will step up. Maybe you could be the mayor."
Prowl snorted around the intake-full of pudding, nearly choking on it in the process. "I will not be running for mayor of Cool City," he scoffed lightly. He shut his optics, snuggling closer to Jazz's frame with a sigh. A nap was calling his designation.
"Whatever you say, sweetspark."