Chapter Text
Things were blurry and distant, and there was a thrumming noise unlike anything he’d heard before. It was messing with his head at least as badly as the injuries to his frame were. Jazz vaguely remembered being dashed across some rocks–fighting maybe? Who? No, not a who. Maybe? Had he been caught in a storm? He couldn’t think. Couldn’t remember anything at all.
His pelvic fins were pinched. It was a small hurt in the greater ache of his entire frame, but it was such a strange pain that his processor kept catching on it. He was cradled too tightly in something; it was pressing on his sides and around his tail uncomfortably. Was he in one of the hammocks at the medic’s? Was… Something?
Jazz trilled softly. He was hurt, tired and confused. There was a weird smell? Taste? He didn’t know what to call it or how to process it. He drifted out again, lulled by the strange constant thrumming noise. He could feel it in his spark almost.
Was he drugged? He felt drugged… But if he was drugged then why did he hurt so badly? Had he truly been injured that badly that he was beyond pain patches and meds? But then why not put him into stasis? His visor flickered and he hummed before trilling again, trying to call for one of his creators or even the medic that must have been there. Anyone. Why was he alone? Was he alone?
There were more sounds, different sounds, but he was too far gone to really focus on them. He drifted more, the strange smell-taste getting stronger until he was struggling to breathe through it even as the world went black around him.
Jazz floated between brief flashes of not-awareness and the total blackness for what felt like an eternity but couldn’t be, if only because he would have died from lack of fuel if that were true. When he surfaced from the black again he wasn’t cradled in the not-hammock anymore. Even stranger still, he was laying on his back.
It was uncomfortable and the thin fins on his back were being crushed by the weight of his own frame. There was water around him but his face and chest were strangely exposed to the air. Someone was pouring water over him occasionally and there were hands. There were so many hands all over his frame. There were no familiar fields, there were no fields at all actually. Chattering noises like what the predacons would make washed over him in a buzz of background noise.
Jazz thrashed suddenly, trying to launch himself away from the danger, but he was stuck. The hands gripped him more firmly, some so hard that it dented his plating, but there was something around his wrists and middle that held him even tighter. His tail lashed wildly and hit something before some of the hands grabbed his helm and he froze, a low whine coming from his chest.
His vision cleared and his visor helped to filter the harsh light above enough that he could see a face staring down at him wide-opticked. The face was wrong though, like looking in a warped mirror or the surface of a tidal pool. There were gaps in places there shouldn’t be, the dentae were strange and flat.
“Let me go.” It was hard to try and be firm, with the weakly sung words ringing sharply from his chest in the harsh, dry air. The face reared back away from him, but the hands on his helm spasmed and tightened painfully, making Jazz cry out again.
He thrashed once more, throwing himself desperately against the hands and whatever else that was binding him. Whatever had caught him held firm though and he could feel as something in his wrists snapped and tore, energon bloodying the water around him.
The creatures chattered again, the one at his helm managed to keep a grip on him as it raised its voice in an impressive bellow. There was a flurry of movement around Jazz that he could almost make out despite his thrashing, and more of the creatures came around his helm. He bared his fangs at them, desperate to scare them off and trying not to show them how terrified he was. There was a prick in his neck cables and the smell-taste from before overwhelmed his senses again. From there it was only a handful of kliks and then the blackness took him again.
“Frag, is everyone ok?” Triage let go of the strange mechanimal that they had been brought once it had stilled. It was like someone had crossed a Cybertronian with a warwhale and maybe an oxide shark. It was fascinating and he should have really been better prepared for it to react as it had. The newness of it and the similarity had given him a false sense of security and he really should have known better. Just because it looked a bit like an oxide-shark or a warwhale didn’t mean it was going to behave like either creature.
Confirmations rose up around him and he relaxed a little further. Bruised and dented plating could be repaired. Some part of him had been hoping that maybe it was semi-sentient with those looks, but after that display it was easy to see that it wasn’t. He had no doubt it was intelligent; it had looked right at him the way the warwhales did when he helped go over them for their check ups. The visor over its faceplates had given it even more of a mech-like look than any other creature he had seen before. It seemed in-built and even now he wondered at the purpose for it.
When the expedition had come back claiming they had discovered a lost colony world, everyone had been ecstatic. The excitement for most had faded quickly though when the scientists and explorers put out their findings. The ancient colony ships had crashed, half buried in the turbulent waters of Nereus. The planet didn’t have much in the way of habitable land either and what was there was fiercely guarded by enormous predacon-like mechanimals. Making it far too dangerous to land without hauling out some serious fire power to clear the areas. And even if the long distance from Cybertron didn’t make that unappealing, the wild and unpredictable weather complicated everything further.
They had been lucky to leave with any samples at all, had been Triage’s understanding. Still, he was grateful that the expedition had managed to snap up some of the local wildlife and bring it back for further study. Several species of metal-fish and what looked like a type of cyanide-crab. Not to mention their new star attraction.
They were still trying to figure out the taxonomy of their find and reeling from the privilege of being chosen to keep it. Pictures of it had circulated on the net and the going ‘name’ for it was a mer-mech. Personally he though that was a bit silly, but that would probably be what the colloquial name for it ended up being. It was hard to take things like that back from the media.
“You think we should try again, boss?” Nautica called from outside of the treatment pool, safe and dry with the medical supplies.
“No. As potentially dangerous as it is, I think it’s better if we keep it sedated. It made it through the nearly vorn long trip despite being injured. Given how stressed out it got with all of us, I think it would be better for its health if we repair what we can while its out and then put it in the quarantine pool to rest and heal further. I wanted to get it off the sedatives but…” Triage rubbed at his faced tiredly. There were many downsides to being a marine biologist. He was considered one of the best on the planet, and that was probably what had actually gotten them their new specimen. Buut the responsibility of taking care of what was likely to be a one of a kind? It was a lot. Unless there was another expedition to Nereus, which he doubted, they had the one and only ‘mer-mech’.
What he really wished was that Snaptrap had answered the Director’s call to come in on his orn off to deal with this. The ‘mer-mech’ couldn’t wait for proper medical attention and Triage was no veterinary medic. The vet-techs they had were amazing and with all of their many vorns of experience he was hoping they could cover what he didn’t know. Still, it wasn’t their job to fill in because the head vet hadn’t wanted to come in. And of course their other vet was unavailable as well, just to complicate everything further.
He ordered the two vet-techs who had launched themselves to try restrain the lower half of their mer-mech to get out to get dry before the salt water started to cause damage. With their patient sedated they could afford to be a little slower, making sure to draw energon and scrape plate samples as he and the remaining vet-tech worked together to patch the poor thing up, taking note of it’s entire frame as they did so.
Wicked claws and fangs, likely for catching and devouring prey. The visor probably helped with filtering light. Its colouration, black and white made him believe it was an ambush predator, especially with the shape of its fins. It had standard reproductive organs, which while fascinating, it was a shame that the expedition hadn’t managed to capture a breeding pair. Tight, interlocking plating made up its scales and while many were damaged, the ones that weren’t seemed to be in good health.
“Once its healthy we’ll have to get it back here for a full scan, see if we can get a better baseline for its internals.” Triage noted absently as he stroked over the powerful tail. The plating was smooth like a warwhale but lacked the thickness in the plating; more like an oxide shark in that regard. It was so fascinating. He truly couldn’t wait until it was awake again so they could begin to study its behaviours.
“Mmm,” Nautica hummed in agreement. “Do you have any guesses on its age?” She was also excited; having an attraction like this would do wonders for their grant applications this vorn. Not to mention the influx of income from letting the public see it. They would be able to upgrade so many of their enclosures.
“Adult? Can’t really say more than that. Once we have more scans I might be able to better guess how old, but it’s likely we’ll never know for sure.” Triage finished up and everyone worked together to get the mer-mech back in the sling. From there they used the rolling hoist to bring it to the small quarantine pool in the back of the aquarium. It was only about 10 mechanometers long, just barely twice as long as their patient, and at only 4 mechanometers deep, with no rock or sand, it was the ideal place to put an injured mechanimal.
“We’re going to have to think up a name for it.” One of the vet techs hedged, clearly having something in mind.
“We’re definitely not letting the public name it, that’s for sure.” Nautica muttered, still offended that they had Lord Snappy the jaw-locking techno-turtle. A couple chuckles and nods followed, suggestions quick to pop up with more laughter as things settled back into a more normal and comfortable rhythm.
They eased the lift down into the quarantine pool and carefully let the sling fall from around it before pulling the entire hoist assembly away from lip of the smaller tank. The mer-mech sank and settled at the bottom of the shallow tank, the clear plexi-glass letting them see that its gill-vents were working well and it wasn’t suffocating from being so still.
Lights were dimmed and while most of the staff trickled off to do other things, Triage stayed in the back rooms with their new addition. Jotting down notes on what he had noticed earlier and things that he wanted to check over once it was awake. It was so interesting to watch. He was truly hopeful that they would be able to teach it tricks like they did with the warwhales and alloy-seals.
Not only would it be a huge draw for the public, it would truly make their jobs easier when they could get their patients to voluntarily expose parts of themselves so they could monitor their health and changes to their frames. Eventually even he had to admit defeat and headed home for the orn. They would have to work on adjusting the dosage for sedatves as the mer-mech should have woken by now. Unfortunately it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to everyone’s safety. Still, that was all problems for the next orn.
When Jazz came to again, it was like trying to breach in a storm. The waves churning and trying to push him whichever way except the way that he wanted. There was a heavy grogginess that he again would have associated with being sedated. And while part of him didn’t want to think these strange creatures capable of drugging him, he wasn’t so stupid to dismiss the idea that they were intelligent enough for that.
He let himself flatten to the bottom more, frame searching for sand to partially hide in, only the ground was smooth with no purchase. His servos flexed and spread along the bottom, trying to figure out what it was. Processor slow and stuttering, his optics booted up fully behind his visor and while it wasn’t as bright as it was before, it was still far brighter than he liked. He swung his tail lazily and was grateful he hadn’t tried to launch himself faster as he crashed into something. It was still painful though, his entire frame lighting up in a distant sort of agony.
Jazz curled in on himself, giving himself a moment to whimper softly at not only the pain, but everything. Gill-vents flared wide, pulling water in to give his frame more air to work with. The larger pulls helped him settle and he slowly uncurled. Things were overwhelming right now but that was okay. He could figure it out. He was a smart mech.
Reaching out with his servos first, he was able to find a wall made of the same strange material that the ground was made of. Keeping it on one side and one arm in front of himself, he swam along slowly and must have made two or three rotations before he realized he was trapped in some sort of holding cell. The curvature of the walls combined with the lights and the reflection from his visor meant he couldn’t see where it was. It was too solid and didn’t let any current through like a force-shield might.
The water didn’t seem that deep and he swam slowly up, his helm breaching gently. The cell he was in wasn’t deep at all; he couldn’t even float upright properly, his tail curled and pressed uncomfortably against the bottom. From the surface he could see there was a metal ring around whatever it was they were using to contain him. There was no water anywhere that he could see and that sent his spark spinning in tighter rotations. There were strange things everywhere and if he wasn’t alone and hurt, it might be interesting. Instead all it was doing was adding to his panic.
“Hello?” The mer-mech called out, projecting his song as best he could with his injuries. When no one answered he tried again, as loud as he could, the water rippling with the force of his song.
“Anyone?!” Jazz swam faster, circling in his prison despite the way it pulled at his injuries. No song answered his and he breached again, swinging his arms up and over the metal lip of the clear walls of his prison. His claws scrambled against the smooth materials, unable to find purchase.
The lip of the tank sat higher than the water and he could see the ground was a good distance away. He tried to get his cortex in order, tried to slow himself down and out of his panic, but it was so hard. The room he was in was large. There was another prison cell next to his, though it was empty and out of reach. With how small the cell was, he wouldn’t be able to get up enough speed to breach and launch himself into the next tank. (And even if he did that, then what?)
Shelves full of things he had no words for lined the walls of the room; strange artificial and harsh lights lined the ceiling. Strange, strange, strange. Everything around him worked together to keep the anxiety spiked high in Jazz’s cortex and spark.
Dropping back in to the tank he let himself sink to the bottom, arms wrapping around his torso in an attempt to self-soothe. He hadn’t seen any openings that would be used as a doorway, but his position in his prison tank was so limited. He was reasonably sure he could get himself out of the prison cell and that would give him better access to the room and possible escape.
The only problem was that he was very sure he wouldn’t be able to get back into it. Most people wouldn’t exactly want to hand themselves back over to their jailers but without access to water he ran the risk of drying out or running into his captors. His captors who apparently lived on the dry land.
It seemed like a lose-lose situation. He could practically hear his carrier scold him about rushing into situations unprepared. He needed more information; he needed a better look at his captors and to see if he could figure out what they wanted from him. They hadn’t felt like people and that was perhaps more jarring than the off way the one who had stared at him had looked.
Still, patience had never been Jazz’s strong suit and it galled the mer-mech to let himself remain trapped, but what else could he do? He lasted all of a joor before the need to move was too great and he started carefully circling in his cell.
It was so small and it made the trapped feeling worse, the absolute silence only compounding the sensation. Even when he’d been a mechling and gotten into a bit of trouble, the cell that the enforcers had held him in had been larger than this. Not to mention the sounds of society around him, the calls of the ocean itself. None of that was here to help soothe him.
His chrono must have been damaged as well because joors slid together in the nothingness of his cell. He tried to call it up on his HUD over and over before he ended up giving up. Time would have to be guessed at but he could work with that. It wasn’t like he would be without it for long. If his self-repair didn’t get it, then a medic could fix it easily enough.
If this had been an actual jail, someone would have come for him by now to read him his rights and tell Jazz what he had done. Part of him wondered if he’d damaged his helm somehow – it would explain the broken chronometer but also why he thought he’d been kidnapped by strange land-creatures. Maybe he was hallucinating? It didn’t make sense though with all of the sensory input that kept insisting he was above water. Could you hallucinate that as well?
He changed things up by occasionally poking his head above the water line to try and figure out what some of the things on the wall were. None of them were remotely familiar and he was at a loss as to what they were and instead just started making up things and stories about what they might be to try and stop himself from spiralling. Like that set of doo-dads on the far wall, they were differing sizes of concentric circles. It was neat looking, but what did it do? Hypnotize helpless fish into swimming where they shouldn’t?
(This was so unhelpful but it made it feel like he wasn’t going entirely crazy. That he was in fact being held captive by strange creatures and this wasn’t a bad drug trip.)
Exhaustion and hunger pulled at him but he stubbornly stayed online. There was no food that he could see and that was quickly becoming the bigger worry. Panic and anxiety made him wonder if he would fade and become an Empty. Feral and monstrous, trapped in this prison? It was a ridiculous worry for only missing a meal or two, but did these stranger creatures even fuel with energon?
It seemed that just as Jazz was becoming desperate enough to try and get out of the tank to take his chances on land, one of the creatures came around a corner he hadn’t been able to see beyond. It was tall and stranger than he vaguely remembered. (Was this even the same one? How many were there?)
Unlike the predacons, it walked around on two pedes instead of four and its top half was like a strange mimic of a mer. There were weird gaps in its armor and the digits on its servo were blunt with no claws or webbing between fingers. It was carrying what honestly kind of looked like a bucket. It grinned at him, lip plates stretching wide and exposing blunt dentae, finials on the side of its helm perking up.
It lifted an arm and waved at him. With nothing better to do Jazz waved back, not taking his optics off the strange being. If it had been a mer, he would have said it looked delighted by him waving back, which, rude. He did have manners despite what his creators said. It stalked closer to him and he tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out how it balanced with only two pedes instead of four.
It started to chatter at him and the noise washed over his exposed and drying audials and sensor horns. He dipped back down, letting the water wash over his helm before he popped back up next to where he had been. When he went under it had come closer, not so close that he or it could touch each other thankfully – he wasn’t sure what he would do if it tried that.
This close though he could see that the bucket–it had to be a bucket–was full of what looked kind of like dead iron-fish. It chattered some more, tilting its head at him before it brought the bucket forward and grabbed one of the maybe-an-iron-fish and tossed it into the prison cell with him.
Jazz stared at the creature for a long breem before he let himself look at the dead fish that was floating closer to him. It smelled strange in the water with him and he tried to move away from the dead thing. Unfortunately him moving just made it follow in the wake of his attempted escape. It gestured and chattered at him more before it tossed in another dead fish. It was different than the first, though still not familiar to him and definitely not any more appealing than its friend.
The creature tilted its head the other way, a frown tugging its strange features down. It chattered more at him and gestured at the fish floating after him. The mer-mech shuffled down further; it was clearly trying to tell him something but it was gibberish as far as he was concerned.
“Look, I can’t understand a thing you’re saying but could you stop throwing dead fish at me?” Jazz sang carefully, over enunciating in hopes that maybe it would catch on. The creature winced and brought its empty servo up over its finials as if to protect them.
“You ok?” He tried again and saw how it winced again when he sang. Which. Not great. How was he supposed to try and talk to them if singing to them hurt them? And what sort of creature couldn’t understand song? Even the predacons responded to it a bit.
Jazz dipped back into the water to rehydrate himself and give himself a breem where he wasn’t staring at the weird creature. It was the uncanny valleyness of it, it looked so much like a person but at the same time there were so many things just wrong with it.
The dead fish bumped into him and he grimaced, tank cramping with hunger. It wasn’t even freshly dead, which while not his favorite was at least tolerable compared to the smell of not quite decay on the ones in the tank with him. He liked his food cooked, thanks. And that was if he even ate it at all instead of just having energon like a normal person.
When the mer-mech popped up again the creature was gone; the curvature of the prison walls had prevented him from seeing outside of the water. The dead fish continued to bump into him and his tanks churned from the combined disgust and hunger. He tried to settle on the bottom and once he had laid there for a while, the dead fish floated back to the top.
He still ached, his frame using all of his available energon to try and speed his self-repair. Someone had taken time to weld the worst of the injuries but without fuel his self repair would eventually stop and start cannibalizing his frame. Or just stop working at the repairs all together. His wrists especially hurt from whatever he had done to them while he’d tried to struggle free before.
More joors dragged by and Jazz finally had to shut down into recharge–not just to try and escape the deepening hunger but because if he didn’t, eventually he was going to crash. And that certainly wasn’t going to help the situation. (Maybe if he crashed it would reset whatever nightmare trip this was–even if he didn’t remember doing any drugs, this had to be something like that and not what it seemed like.)
When Jazz stirred from recharge the dead fish were missing. Which was distressing to realize that without fields, without song, he couldn’t sense or really hear them if he was in the water. He ached more than he had before he had slept and his HUD told him just how low his tanks were getting. He couldn’t remember eating anything and the last time he had fueled was at the family gathering before things got… murky.
Memory degradation could have, must have, been brought on by helm and processor damage. How long ago that was, he wasn’t sure, but his fuel gauge was creeping towards the red. If he didn’t fuel on something soon he was going to enter stasis… And then who knew what those creatures would do to him.
He surfaced again, jolting back under when he saw that there were three of the creatures in the room. They were perched on top of some of the things that had been pressed against the far wall of the room and were working with something in their servos. The splashing of him moving so suddenly caught their attention and one of them scurried off, all three chattering excitedly and loudly. He swam carefully to the edge, peering over and holding on to the lip of the tank with his servos.
“Have you got fuel?” Jazz immediately regretted asking when the remaining two winced as he sang out and chattered even louder at each other, and looked away from him. Right. Speaking hurt them somehow. He was going to have to figure out how to ask a different way. Swinging his tail to the side and slapping it against the tank wall made water surge over the side, splattering loudly on the ground. It got their attention on him though and he waved at them.
The two lit up, clearly delighted and waved back at him. They chattered even more excitedly, their calls quite loud and a third voice responded from somewhere he couldn’t see. The sound echoed strangely in the air compared to the water. The third creature came back from where the one with the bucket had come from earlier… also with a bucket. This was not a good sign and Jazz sank back into the water a little more.
The one with the bucket got closer to the edge of the tank than the very first creature had. If he pushed himself up he could probably grab at the creature. Which might be satisfying in the short term, startling the things holding him captive it probably wouldn’t do him any good in the long term. This one had white and blue plating and it looked softer–younger? A mechling maybe? It was so hard to say with how eerily similar they all looked to a mer.
The young one chattered at him and grabbed a dead fish and excitedly tossed it into the pool with him. He took a long slow look at the young one and then at the dead fish before he pointedly pushed it away. The creature frowned at him, and, like the first, simply grabbed a different type of dead fish to toss in. Jazz called on Primus for patience and pushed the other dead fish away, pointedly staring down the creature. Instead of catching on, it tossed in a third fish, its shoulders flexing up in some sort of unfamiliar body language before it stepped back away from the tank.
Jazz wanted to yell but swallowed the frustration down. Hurting them wouldn’t help–even if it might make him feel better about the whole situation. He swam back down to the bottom of the tank, dead fish swirling disgustingly with him, bobbing in his wake. He settled on the ground again, offlining his optics. Once they left he would try and get out, he couldn’t continue like this. He was so hungry and did his best to try and power down into recharge.
Beyond his tank, the two vet techs and the student intern leaned back on their stools, watching the still form at the bottom of the quarantine tank. That it had refused food not once but twice now was very concerning. Mechanimals couldn’t go without fuel the same way that mecha could. Their simpler systems would freeze up and getting them to recover was difficult at best.
“Should we get Triage? Or Snaptrap?” Searchlight, the student intern who had gotten a little too close to their new addition fretted. The bucket of metal-fish placed at his pedes. “It’s been a full orn and it hasn’t eaten yet. That can’t be good for its recovery.”
“It looks like it’s recharging, maybe it’s just too tired?” Riptide, one of the vet techs offered, scrolling through the notes that Triage had added to the mer-mechs file last night.
“I dunno, Nautica said it looked at her like she was stupid this morning when she tried to feed it.” Searchlight said and he could easily see it doing that. It had such expressive faceplates. It reminded him of the neon-otters and their little expressive muzzles. They made the cutest little faces when they got something other than treats when that was what they wanted. The way they would put their little paws together and almost beg and pray certainly didn’t help the impression that they were pleading for something better.
“Well, Triage was saying he thought it might be an ambush predator. It’s a new addition too, it probably just wants live food.” Outback, the other vet tech present, folded his arms over his chassis, looking at the, in his opinion, sulking mer-mech. “Which it definitely can’t have in the quarantine tank. Never mind the off chance that it could get hurt hunting. It will just have to learn that the dead fish are just as good as a live one.”
“You don’t think it’s going to be under stimulated with out catching its own prey?” Searchlight kicked at the bucket, wondering if there was a way they could maybe play with it to encourage it to pounce on the fish. “Maybe we could move the fish for it, y’know, like how we do with the neon-otter pups when the creators reject them?”
“It might be under stimulated, but the risk that it might hurt itself trying to catch something or trying to eat something while it was still online and thrashing would be too high as well. With how little we know about it, a lot of its medical care this early on is going to be guess work. Not really a risk we can afford to take.” Riptide said, ever quick to try and help educate their intern. The younger mech would never learn if he didn’t understand the whys of what they did.
“You wanna get that close to it?” Outback scoffed as he cut in immediately after the blue mech, the students they sent were dumber than ever in his opinion. Neon-otter pups were adorable and so were alloy-seal cubs, but they were the cute things that made the public forget that wild mechanimals were dangerous. And apparently young interns too. “You wanna end up like Stalker? Drowned at the bottom of the aquarium?”
“It wouldn’t do that!” Searchlight protested quickly. It was obviously stressed out by the strange environment and just because Triage thought it was fully grown, didn’t mean that it was.
“Search’, it has hands. Stalker got grabbed by that warwhale’s mouth. You really think that thing wouldn’t take you down to the bottom? We don’t know anything about it’s behaviors yet. What if its like the dynamo-dolphins? You wanna get raped to death or something? I’ll say it again, it has hands. That makes it more dangerous, not less.” Outback scolded, doorwings angled aggressively high. Primus save him from the young and stupid. “Never mind it’s hurt and stressed out right now, so whatever behaviors we’re seeing could change drastically once it’s healed up and moved into a proper tank.”
Searchlight huffed but didn’t argue. It was just so interesting! He knew he should be grateful that he was being included in taking care of their new acquisition but if he was being honest he thought they were all low balling how smart it was. Yeah there were plenty of things on Cybertron that could mimic looking like a mech and weren’t any smarter than a turbo-hound, but this just felt different. The warwhales they had were plenty smart and he could see the way they thought about certain things they did but their proto-processors didn’t really seem to think in ways like splashing for attention. Not without them teaching them first that that worked as a way to call them, unlike what the mer-mech had done before.
“Well, I messaged Triage and he said one of us needs to stay back here with it at all times to make sure it eats. He doesn’t want to have to hook it back up to a line like they did to get it here, and I agree. If we can’t get it eating there’s no point in trying to shuffle everything around to make space in one of the bigger tanks for it.” Riptide said after a breem of silence and tapping away at the data-pad on the counter.
The vet-tech stretched and got off the stool, tapping Outback on the shoulder as he did. “We can tag out if that works for you?” After the earlier display he didn’t really want to lave Searchlight alone with it.
“Yeah, that’s fine, I can get the meds prepped for the warwhales, the carrier model should be hitting emergence soon and I would absolutely love to rub it in Iacon’s face that we got a calf and kept it alive.” Outback stood to gather what he would need when the others left so he wouldn’t have to leave the room without someone else present. “Did you hear they lost theirs after only a quartex? Poor thing.”
“I did hear that! They think they’re so great but I’ve seen the tank they keep their warwhales in and honestly, I know the going research says they don’t need more than that but I don’t think that’s true. They’re the ones who’ve lost two calves and had a trainer death in the last vorn.” Riptide gossiped as he got Searchlight to take the bucket of fish and go feed all the bigger fish and mechanimals they hosted at the Polyhex National Aquarium.
Outback kept gossiping as he got everything ready and waved the other vet-tech off once he had what he needed. Settling in to do his work he kept half an optic on the occupied quarantine tank. Normally he would just dial up the sensitivity in his audials but after hearing that Primus awful screech that came from the mer-mech he hesitated to do so. They would have to set up some recorders once it was in a bigger tank, it reminded him a bit of the recordings of the bigger species of whales that could be found in the Rust Sea. Maybe when it was fully under water it was less intense?
There were so many experiments they would be able to do once it was settled in a proper tank and he was looking forward to all of them. Outback may not have done a full tenure to getting a doctorate but he had taken enough courses in marine biology that it had stuck with him enough to pursue a career in at an aquarium. Playing sounds to it, giving it puzzles, all sorts of things. He was especially looking forward to once it was trained. Watching the warwhales and neon-otters perform was a highlight and it certainly made his job easier when he needed to see something on their frames.
He worked diligently and as it edged closer to a full joor with no activity he was going to have to remove the dead fish from the tank soon and try again with fresher ones, as the water wasn’t cold enough to stop the energon in the fish from coagulating. Outback stretched and let his doorwings quiver to shake off the stiffness of hunching over the work counter for so long before he walked over to the quarantine tank to get a better look at their prize.
It was still on the bottom, only the flutter of its gill-vents and the brightness of it’s paint to hint that it hadn’t deactivated. He stepped a bit closer so that he could look along its back, turning on his headlights to get a better view of the welds that ran perpendicular along it’s spinal strut. They looked like they were integrating well but that would change if it didn’t eat soon. They might have to try some of the higher value fish instead of the metal ones that made up the base diet of most of their larger fauna.
The sound of the heavy back door sliding in its tracks pulled his attention away and Riptide walked in followed quickly by Triage. Outback stepped back, headlights off and went to pack up his work now that the others were there to keep an eye on their patient.
“Still no change, huh?” Triage muttered to himself, walking around the circular tank as he left the two vet-techs to their work. It was clear from the dead fish floating at the top that there was no change and the dimmer biolights on their mermech spoke of quite a low fuel level.
Moving back to where the supplies were kept he grabbed one of the long sticks that had a mock-flipper attached to the end of it. They normally used it to get the warwhales attention, but they were going to have to think of something different for the mermech. Clever hands would no doubt be able to grab and pull on the stick, which was a huge safety hazard.
The biologist slapped the flipper against the top of the water, staying back and feeling the startle in the field of the two behind him. It worked as intended though as the mermech woke again, a lash of its tail sending it against the wall of the tank with a gentle thud. Triage winced at that but given it didn’t look dazed or clutch at anything he figured it was just startled.
It came to the surface and poked its helm above the water to presumably stare at him. It was hard to tell with the visor that covered its optics. He hadn’t been able to find a way to disengage it like he had wanted. The visor hadn’t seemed hard wired in and the lack of optics to track made it harder to gauge its reactions. It stayed in the middle, clearly wary with the stick in his hands. He carefully manoeuvred the flipper and used the end to push the fish closer to it. He really didn’t want to have to tranquilize it and put a line in it.
Jazz was still as the creature (he really needed to think of something to start calling them to keep them all separate in his cortex) kept a firm hold on the strange weapon. It had a flat piece, no doubt the source of the weird sound that had come from the surface. He made a face as the creature – it had red and white plating, maybe he should just go by their colours for now?
Red’n White used the weapon to push one of the dead fish at him and he tried not to despair at that. His fuel gauge had tipped towards the red line while he had recharged, his self-repair pulling hard from the last of his reserves. They seemed so insistent that he eat the fish. With no other visible options, it was looking like that was his only choice other than stasis.
Hesitantly the mer-mech took one of the dead fish into his hands, his claws curling around it delicately. He swam back a bit, out of the immediate reach of the weird stick-weapon, and kept an optic on Red’n White as best he could manage. He didn’t want to look at the fish. That would make it more real. His tanks cramped painfully and he shuddered lightly, unsure if it was hunger or nausea. It was probably both.
Claws tapping against the soft metal scales of the fish in his hand. Jazz fought back a whine before he brought the fish up to his mouth. The moment the cold scales touched his lip plates he had to yank it back and fight the urge to retch. There was a smell to it, it must have been dead almost an orn, maybe even longer. He wasn’t a big fan of uncooked food to begin with but when he did indulge it was always fresh, always still warm and smooth.
Runing a claw through its belly to expose the delicate internals and fine energon lines inside the fish, Jazz stared down at the flayed metal fish. Trying to work up the nerve to eat it. An energon line split and congealed energon oozed from the tiny line into the cavity he had opened. It was one of the most disgusting things he had ever seen.
He had to force his helm down and he ran his glossa along where the energon was. The little barbs on his glossa caught the droplets and flicked back up into his mouth as he swallowed. It wasn’t quite sour but it was so close to it that he had to take the fish away, the smell of it making all of this worse. He felt like he was going to purge.
Unfortunately that little taste made warnings light up in his HUD. He was nearly critical and he didn’t have time to be choosy anymore. Jazz closed his optics and brought the fish to his mouth to tear off a chunk, trying not to chew and just swallow as quickly as he could. The sour, almost rotten taste of it lingered on his glossa and the solidness of the meal hit his tank hard.
It took all his processing power to force stop himself from purging. His systems fought him, trying to reject the bad meal. He didn’t have anything at all to spare to a purge. Keening softly to himself he kept his optics off, trying to detach himself from what he was doing, taking in more of the fish again and again until dentae met claws.
Unable to contain himself, the mer-mech had to swim to the bottom of the tank and circled the perimeter of it in distress. While his tanks weren’t happy trying to process such a solid meal when he was so low, his fuel gauge was ticking up slowly. Moving so much probably wasn’t a good idea when he was so close to critical but it was move or purge at this point. And he if he purged he didn’t know how he was going to eat another.
Because he was going to have to eat another. And another, and another after that. He was going to have to eat whatever they gave him or he was going to shut down.
If they didn’t bring him something more rich in energon he didn’t even know what he was going to do. It was so hard not to think too deeply about his situation. But he needed to think about it, and the practical part of him knew he wouldn’t think about anything useful and would only ruminate on all of the bad parts instead of doing any productive thinking.
Several breems passed before Jazz could work himself back up to the surface to grab one of the other fish. It was clearly a different kind, smaller with fine, almost delicate scales. The creatures were watching him closely and Red’n White had settled back on its perch, weapon-stick still in hand. They were chittering to each other again, but they seemed pleased that he had eaten the first fish.
He didn’t want to make them happy though. He wanted out of this awful, tiny prison cell and he wanted to go home. He wanted his carrier and sire in a way that he hadn’t since he was a little fingerling. Turning his back on them felt dangerous but he couldn’t watch himself eat the fish, it felt subversive to make sure they couldn’t see him eat the awful thing either.
Jazz forced himself through the second fish, which maybe if it was fresh wouldn’t be so bad. It had more energon in it than the first fish had. That was both better and worse. He needed the energon badly, but it was so old that it had coagulated fully and the texture was so awful he nearly purged twice again but somehow he made it through.
He ate it and his fuel gauge pinged up. The sign that he needed to continue or else.
On a roll of terribleness he grabbed the third fish, a larger and heavier scaled thing. It had an oily sheen to it and the scales looked so thick that he wasn’t sure his dentae could pierce it. Reluctantly Jazz ran a claw up its belly, which normally parted easily. This one had a give to it that resisted his sharp thumb claw. He had to press harder and it finally gave but it took effort to work his claw up.
He wanted his knife to open this awful thing. He wanted a thermal vent to cook with. He wanted anything other than these awful, long dead, fish. (He wanted to be at home with his family and friends.)
Because he had to put more force in to cutting open the fish, he burst energon lines and some kind of oil line as well. It spilled down his hand and spread across the surface of the water quickly, tainting the small area with little rainbow blooms.
Jazz cycled his optics off and on, breathing deeply from his lower gill-vents in an effort not to purge. He needed to eat, the other two combined had only brought his tank up to a measly fifteen percent from the five he had started with. This single fish was large enough it might push him over twenty percent.
Leaning against the tank wall he used his tail to keep himself propped up and the leaking fish out of the water. Oil oozed down his hand and arm, leaving a rainbow sheen along his white forearm plating. Quickly, before he made himself more nauseous looking at the thing, he leaned forward and took a bite.
Or, tried to take a bite rather. Under the heavier scales it was tough and rubbery and his sharp dentae punctured holes in it, but the proto-flesh wouldn’t tear like the first two had done. Offlining his optics he bit again, and then tried to chew. Oil and rancid energon hit the back of his intake and when he tried to chew again he gagged. It was all too much for his poor strained systems.
The heavy fish was dropped onto the wet ground beside his tank as Jazz helplessly gagged again. The oil coated his glossa, and the sensation combined with the lingering flavor made him retch. Digits spread wide on his servos and he clawed helplessly along the metal ring of his prison, trying to haul himself up and out in a desperate bid not to purge and further contaminate the dead water he was being kept in.
Desperation made the next lash of his powerful tail launch his torso over the lip of the tank. Smooth chest plating somehow got caught on the metal ridge of the tank and he was suspended half in, half out. The sudden pressure on his tanks made him retch again, and unable to stop the code sequence this time, his tank purged, sending hot, partially processed chunks of fish up his intake.
It came out of his mouth in a wet crash against the ground. It went on for a breem, misery strut deep as Jazz finished purging, somehow the acidic taste of the partial procession was worse and lingered awfully. His audials rang and he felt hot and sick all over, even in his spark.
He was so deep in his own misery that he had lost complete awareness of his surroundings and the creatures that had been watching him. He was caught at an angle on the edge of the tank that let him see them moving around the big room very fast. There six of them now and were hurrying to do something. Sick and afraid, he thrashed, claws scrabbling and tail lashing as he tried to free himself.
Instead the mer-mech slid further, one of his gill-vents catching on the lip and sending a sharp, warning jolt of pain through his frame. He stilled fully, optics blown wide and so bright that the shape of them could be made out behind his visor. Panic made his gill-vents try and cycle faster but only one was under water and the other three were drying out fast, pulling in straight air as they were. It burned and made his cortex spin like it was caught in a whirlpool.
He was helpless, whole chassis heaving with terror and disgust. Red’n White had a different stick now, this one glinted with something sharp on it. The mer-mech tried to squirm but his caught gill-vent sent agony up his side and his stilled again, gills flared wide with distress. The stick was jabbed at him and he caught sight of the large needle at the end of it. Unable to get away, it stabbed under one of his scales and Jazz could only watch as whatever strange liquid inside of the syringe was pushed straight into one of his lines. The needle was pulled away and the strange smell-taste from the previous orn washed over him.
A breem passed with his spark spinning quickly, panic ramping up even higher as he felt his frame start to go lax and his spark rotation began to forcefully slow. His optics dimmed and his processor tried to skip up in horror as he realized with out a doubt that he was being sedated. The creatures had put strange things over the plating of their servos and arms and a second realization washed over him as they grabbed all manner of tools. He’d been trying to put off the idea that they were people because it meant that back little processor thread was right, and he very much did not want that thought to be right…
Which, if they were mer, he would say they were gearing up to deal with a violent mechanimal. Which mean they thought he was a dangerous mechanimal.
Things felt fuzzy and distant but he never fell fully under. His glossa felt thick and fuzzy in his mouth, helm rolling as he lost what little strength left in his frame. Jazz whined louder, unable to form words to sing and keep them at bay that way. They all moved towards him and he couldn’t so much as twitch to defend himself.
Red’n White had put the stick down and come to his side, showing just how big the two-legger was, easily as tall as Jazz was long, his strangely plated arm reached to stabilize and hold the mer firm as a contraption of sticks lashed together was brought over and two mechs wearing strange coverings along their legs and torso’s jumped in with him.
He couldn’t move at all, and with the way he was caught on the rim he couldn’t turn and see what the two in the water were doing. He could feel their terrible hands reaching along his hips and grazing their digits across his pectoral fins. There was a fluttering sensation that followed and two more of the two legged creatures brought over an even stranger thing with an extended arm. Behind him the two in water lifted something and attached it to the top of the armed thing that had been wheeled over. The sixth stood back, hand raised to it’s helm and chattering.
Water poured suddenly over his shoulders and helm, his terror ratcheted up another degree. Jazz couldn’t see them at ALL and while the water would normally be welcome, not being able to do anything or see them was all the more panic inducing.
They talked in their strange chattering language and then there were more hands bracing along his shoulder and chassis as whatever had been wrapped around him began to lift. He was eased off the lip and back fully into the water though most of the hands bracing him kept in place while one set let go to start moving the sling more fully around him until the body of his tail and chassis were swaddled. His shoulders curled inward, arms placed carefully so that his wrists crossed over his abdominal plates.
The sling was lifted until he was entirely out of the water, neck painfully extended as his helm and tail fin dangled free of the sling. Jazz’s distressed whining grew in pitch but it didn’t seem to bother them the way his singing did. He couldn’t see anything but the contraption that held the sling he was kept in, but he could feel how he was being moved.
Breems passed like orns and the lights above got even brighter. An eternity later the contraption stopped, letting the sling swing slightly as it began to be lowered. He immediately tried to wriggle free of the solid net like thing though his frame was still unresponsive. No matter what his processor sent, nothing moved, not even a little twitch.
Someone cupped the back of his helm, lifting gently to ease the strain on his neck until his back strut met something solid. The dorsal fins along his back compressing uncomfortably and then painfully as his full weight pressed down. The sling was unhooked and the sheet was let go to the sides as they swarmed around him. Water was poured diligently over his drying frame and he couldn’t do anything but stare and vent slowly as needles flashed in the peripheral vision. There was a prick along his neck and one near the center seam of his chassis, hands petting and trying to sooth and doing anything but that... A clear bag full of energon was placed on a stick and he both felt and saw his fuel gauge go up.
The hands went away for a moment, and a tiny part of him relaxed ever so slightly. They were dealing with the low fuel, maybe there were just worried about him purging? It was never good to have a system purge. Maybe… except the hands came back and instead of the clinical touch of a medic they started stroking along the mer-mech’s sides, fingering at his gill-vents and then at his pectoral and pelvic fins. With the shape of his chest and the way he was laying he couldn’t see and he wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
One hand in particular stroked along his tail before it skirted up and pressed at his vent seam. His spark contracted in his chassis and something that felt far away made a shrill noise. That was not meant to be touched by anyone other than a partner or a medic. These strange people were not medics. The hand went away for a moment before it returned and something slick and slimy was spread over his vent seam and then there was something pushing inside of him.
Jazz’s processor shut down for a moment, an old system that would prevent a full on crash. It left him reeling, audials ringing in the open air. His mouth fell open and he gasped, harsh dry air being forced through his gills and secondary vent systems.
It kept fondling him, reaching deep inside. It didn’t really hurt, maybe a slight pinch but it was so deep and he didn’t want it. He didn’t want it! It felt like for a moment his processor disconnected from his frame and he was an entirely separate being. If he was away he couldn’t feel what they were doing. Except that didn’t mean they stopped what they were doing.
Above him, near his helm there was a glint of sharp metal and he was only vaguely aware of a scraping sensation along his chest near where one of the lines had been placed. One of his webbed hands were lifted and Jazz could see clearly as some little hand tool was fitted at the tip of his clawed digits. A loud crack filled the air and a sharp line of agony ripped down his hand and up his forearm. When the small tool was taken away the last digit of his hand was missing it’s claw and energon oozed sluggishly from the wound.
Someone else hovered over him and those strange and awful hands reached down and began prying at his chest seam. They didn’t try long before they stopped and came back with a slim bar that they slipped between the tight seams and popped open the armor that covered his spark. The background shrill sound picked up in speed as his spark casing was slowly exposed.
The fresh terror had him desperately trying to force his systems to purge whatever he had been given but with his energon levels so low that he couldn’t bypass anything. Instead he was given a front row seat to these awful creatures not just fondling his interfacing equipment but touching his inner most pieces. A needle flashed and was pressed down into the base of his spark crystal where it connected to the rest of his systems.
Jazz tried in vain to scream, to tell them to stop, to beg them to close his chest back up, for anything at all except what was happening. There was nothing he could do though and the needle left as quickly as it had come, the deep and rich colour of his inner-most energon filling the barrel of the syringe.
They had to force the chest plates back up and closed as they hadn’t been opened properly. Running their terrible little digits over the seam and chattering to themselves as they did so, they continued to touch him all over. He couldn’t see but he could feel that the one that felt like it had its whole hand inside of his vent seam. He could feel digits on his spike and in his valve all at the same time.
Everything spun and warped around him, his stress somehow managing to kick up even higher. His frame refused to answer him and the mer-mech was trapped. Part of him wanted to die–surely death would be better than this?
Please, couldn’t they let him go? Why were they doing this to him? Where did they even come from? Things were so muddled and awful he couldn’t even process it properly. It was so much that his processors threatened to crash again but the critically low energon levels prevented it again. (Though they were rising. Maybe soon he would be freed from experiencing all of this from a front row seat.)
Pain rose and fell in his frame in waves, something in his shoulder–and then in his caudal fin particularly hot and sharp. The hands came back to his helm and gloved digits forced their way between his lip plates, another hand working at his jaw hinge and forcing his mouth to pop open. Rubber covered digits skimmed over his sharp dentae and stroked along his glossa. The sensation of his glossa being pet made him retch and gag, the sensation too much after he had purged not long ago.
The digits quickly retreated and instead stroked over his sensory horns and the rest of his helm. For a brief moment Jazz worried that they would crack open his ports and try to hack and force-download into him too. Nothing seemed too much for these monsters. What had gone from maybe being kidnapped and held prisoner by strangers had quickly become so much worse.
Somehow he was spared the horror of them getting into his coding but after everything else it didn’t feel like a mercy. It was the only thing he was spared and it was hard to feel grateful after everything else that had been done to his frame and continued to be done to him. Everything had gone wrong so fast.
Time seemed to dilate around him, stretching into infinity and passing back so quickly at the same time. The hands continued to move along his frame and touch, needles were put into him and removed with no semblance of order. Or maybe there was an order but the mer-mech was so panicked and sedated at the same time that things were being processed poorly–if at all.
Eternity passed by before they worked the strange white tarp underneath him once more and they came around beside him, carefully rolling him onto his belly before the tarp was lifted. His nasal ridge was smashed uncomfortably against the tarp while one of his pelvic fins were being crushed by his hands. His gill-vents continued to struggle in the open air but the tarp was moist at least as it swayed along.
The chitter-chatter of their words flowed over him like a particularly slow current. Vaguely, Jazz was able to recognize that whatever they had given him was starting to wear off and that his fuel levels were nearly at three quarters of a tank. He wasn’t in any danger of starving immediately anymore at least. He wanted to laugh, hysterically and desperately because that felt like such a strange thing to be glad about after what it had cost him.
The knowledge that if he wanted to survive long enough to try and get home, to make these creatures understand him, he would need to eat the fish they were giving him. (If they even gave him more after all of that.) The very thought of having to put another one into his mouth made his fuel tank clench.
Breems or joors later, he couldn’t be sure anymore, he was eased into the tank that he’d been in before. The tarp sling was loosened from around him and he filled his air-bladder so he could float without needing to move his tail too much. The stress he’d been under had his whole frame feeling tight and sharp from being so tense. His tail in particular ached.
As more of his frame came back under his control Jazz lazily moved his tail to twist himself away from the tarp that was floating in the water. Sharp pain jolted up his tail from his caudal fin followed by the sensation of something touching his tail. He twisted and turned in the water, curling so he could look at his fins. He was expecting a piece to have been notched out or something similar after they had scraped at his paint and cut off a claw.
That wasn’t what was at the end of his tail.
No, something far, far worse was there. At the pointed end of his fin, a small ring had been punched through the delicate metal of his caudal fin. Attached to the ring was an equally small metal plate. It had strange carvings on it on the flat side of the plate. What they meant he didn’t know, but they were there.
Jazz stared a moment, stilling as he tried to compute what he was seeing. Was… was that a tag? Like, tag, band and release a wild mechanimal tag?
It couldn’t be.
He was a person. Even if he didn’t look or sound like them, he had a face! He had words! Okay maybe they couldn’t understand his words but it wasn’t like he could understand theirs! He didn’t treat them like mechanimals! (The fact that he kept calling them creatures in his helm was irrelevant.)
Hesitantly he curled just a little more and touched the little ring. Pain jolted up him again as it was jostled and he could see the angry edges of his unwanted piercing. It was too much. He couldn’t deal with it.
If he recharged he would wake up at home and this would all be some terrible night flux from having too much puffer-spines with his brother and they could all laugh about his over active imagination.
Jazz let himself sink to the bottom of the terrible and small prison-tank, wrapping his arms around his torso as he did so. He squeezed himself, trying to pretend just a little harder that he was at home, that he was in his hammock with his brother and that they had just been silly fish over indulging in some illicit entertainment. The remnants of whatever sedative and the shock and stress of everything made it shockingly easy for him to slip into a deep and flux free recharge.