The Start of Something Interesting...

[lastonepercent]

The day was calm, with no recent Decepticon attacks, and none suspected to be incoming for some time.  The cons were too busy licking their wounds from the last battle, one that the Autobots had decidedly come out ahead on.  The celebrations had gone on long into the night and the recreation room was already a mess.

Thus, it was the perfect chance for a lone Autobot to slip casually outside.

Mirage had no shift currently scheduled, so he was free to spend his time as he pleased.  He certainly made no move to hide his departure, greeting his comrades in the halls on the way out, but the box in his hands remained unopened despite any passing curiosity.  It was quietly shifted into subspace before long, and  the former noble shifted into alt mode just as smoothly when he reached the doors.  Despite the completely inappropriate earthen race car mode, the mech had little trouble self-adjusting before driving off into the forest covering the mountain, for business unknown...

Comments

[lastonepercent]

"You-!"

Mirage hissed at the interruption, startled at the painful noise but forced himself to bite off his snappy response; his anger wasn't enough to make made him ignore the unspoken order.

Armor still defensively bristled, Mirage took a reluctant step back and turned toward the mech he actually still respected.

"Sir."

[cliffjumper]

Cliffjumper just knew that what was coming wasn't any sort of congratulations of a job well done of warning of something suspicious - not by Jazz's expression, because just their yelling wouldn't have caused Jazz to frown as he was.

"He was---!" So Cliffjumper attempted to get out his point of view as fast as possible, whirling to face Jazz and widly gesturing at Mirage, but Jazz just shook his helm and held his hands up.

"While I ain't gonna say you're not lacking in initiative, we can't go around mistrusting everybody of the crew who's found somewhere you don't know why they're there, Cliffjumper." Jazz eyed the minibot, who made a noise like his engine was dying and jerkily crossed his arms over his chestplates, glaring at the ground.

While he was sure he could deal with this normally, the situation required a different take than just telling, or not telling, Cliffjumper anything. So he shot off a ping to Optimus while he looked to Mirage.

::Prime, I ain't sure how much I can or should tell him, and I don't think Mirage's up for it, could ya mediate?::

"Sorry 'bout the interruption, Mirage. Your effort's appreciated, but while this is kinda similar to what happened before, a bit of moderation might be a good idea? Why don't ya take a break and finish this off when you feel up to it?"

Jazz didn't know precisely how or what Mirage was doing worked - he wasn't well-versed enough in Primal Venacular or the various ceremonies and prayers or the disparate religious orders that had survived to know the exactly what Mirage was doing. But he didn't need to know more beyond the fact that Mirage was from one of them - this had come at the behest of Prime, after all.

[lastonepercent]

Mirage sniffed irritably, shoulder-wheels bunching with noticeable agitation.

"I'm hardly inclined to finish at all at this juncture. The spirit is thoroughly ruined."

He carefully didn't glance at Cliffjumper at all, completely ignoring the minibot's existence with a sort of disdainful, purposeful obliviousness designed to shield his own wounded pride.

Even so, he strode back over to the rock to retrieve his discarded tools, replacing them in the box.

Over the commline, the Prime sighed with vexed resignation.

::And I suppose it would make for a more lasting impression if I was there personally.::

Because Optimus, as well as everyone else in the command structure, was tired of pointless, slag-stirring accusations. Against Mirage as well as others.

And he'd been looking forward to what Mirage had been working on, too. So much for that moral-booster.

::I'm on my way.::

[cliffjumper]

Cliffjumper would've missed Mirage's pointed ignoring of him if he hadn't been sneaking narrow glares up at Jazz and Mirage - and that ignoring both made him angrier and guiltier and he didn't even know why.

"Pretty please?" Jazz drove his pitch high up and visor going bright in an attempt at lighten Mirage's sour mood, before he sobered up again, grin small and dry as he gave Mirage a pat on the arm as he passed him. "Whatever works best for you."

::Got it in one, boss-mech! At least this time it wasn't done in front of an audience, even if I'm gonna have to do damage control with Red.:: Jazz glanced from former noble to minibot as he talked to Optimus, holding back an almost amused exasperated sigh.

Because if there was one thing Jazz was good at, it was reading people (but he didn't put up with whatever slag, contrary to what people might think. He'd shut down the twins more often than Prowl had actually), and if he was reading the signs right, well.

Cliffjumper didn't make it easy for himself.

[lastonepercent]

"Hrmph."

Mirage grumbled at Jazz's faux-plea, but he didn't say anything further as he gathered his tools. Jazz's enthusiasm always made it hard for him to turn the mech down, which is probably how he ended up stuck on board the Nemesis for weeks at a time.

And he was too angry to even entertain the notion of continuing at the moment.

Trusting Jazz to watch his back, the former noble stooped down in front of his ruined work. Thrown by the sudden, inexplicable urge to grieve, he covered the impulse by scoffing at the new scratches on the ancient detailing tool and sighing over the spilt, now-hardened gilding that had spattered with Cliffjumper's unexpected arrival.

So. Very. Ruined.

As for Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader had prudently already been heading toward the entrance of the Ark when Red Alert's call had come in, so dust plume of his arrival was already beginning to show on it's way up the mountain.

[cliffjumper]

Jazz was indeed standing quietly between Mirage and Cliffjumper, tapping a foot to the music he'd dialed in to - Cliffjumper didn't really seem ready to do much of anything than glare at the ground and squirm.

A squirming that sort of froze when the noise of the Prime's engine differentiated itself as it came closer; there was just no way to not recognise it, and Cliffjumper's expression briefly flickered into a wince.

That just wasn't fair, calling in Prime?!

He'd just been--- shoulders stiffly bunching up as his crossed arms tightened over his chestplates as Optimus arrived and transformed, Cliffjumper stared even harder at the ground.

[lastonepercent]

Mirage hastily stood back up when he heard the rumbling arrival, optics going briefly wide when he saw that Optimus himself had been called to the scene.

How humiliating.

"Jazz," Optimus transformed and stepped up to the gathered mechs, greeting his second-in-command with a nod before addressing the rest of the group.

"Well then. I hear that there is something going on that I need to know about?"

He addressed the circle of Autobots with a raised optic-ridge and a unusually cold tone. Mirage simply clutched at his box, shame burning in his fuel tanks.

[cliffjumper]

"Prime." Jazz threw a jaunty salute at Optimus, but was otherwise serious as he glanced from Prime to minibot to noble.

::Mirage, you can leave if ya want to, since ya ain't done anything wrong.:: And, frankly (and unfortunately) he doubted Cliffjumper would be able to apologise even if he should.

Cliffjumper couldn't quite contain the wince at Optimus' tone and had brief flashes of the other times he'd brought up accusations of espionage/treachery. Only one of them had turned out to be true, so maybe his sense of picking these things up was a bit wrongly calibrated, but frag it all..!

"Red Alert didn't know what he was doin' out here, and he was doin' somethin' weird and doing it on the rock where the Ark is buried, so what was I supposed to think?!" Cliffjumper spat out, engine grumbling beneath his tone as he glared at the ground, frustration, anger and a confusing mix of guilt and feeling like he was being picked on because of Mirage bubbled somewhere.

It wasn't his fault other people had gone further than he just had - but at the same time Mirage had been pointed out a fair few times and that had made him just throw his arms up the second time it happened (and yet, uncertain whether it was true or not, he'd behun to believe it right around when it was proven not to be true).

[lastonepercent]

"I think you were supposed to simply ask your fellow Autobot what he was up to. Or perhaps follow procedure and do proper recon if you had any reason to expect violence."

Optimus only gave the rock a passing glance as he approached, sighing and nodding to Mirage in turn.

::You are, of course, free to go, Mirage. Thank you for your attempt - it is appreciated.::

Whether or not he was already aware of Jazz's own comm, Optimus still gave Mirage his own blessing. With a finally adjustment of his box and a nod to his Prime, Mirage flickered into invisibility. The faint crunch of a single footstep against gravel betrayed his hasty retreat for only a moment.

::Thank you, Prime.::

[cliffjumper]

The sputter slipped out even if it probably shouldn't and he also probably shouldn't argue with the Prime, but.

Well.

"I did!" Tossing his hands up in the air, Cliffjumper stomped one foot and then crossed his arms over his chestplates again. "I asked, all right? Just 'cause he decided to get angry..." He hadn't 'asked' (demanded to know, more like) in the best way, perhaps, and quickly jumped to adding other things, but in Cliffjumper's mind, he had started out asking.

If in an overly antagonistic way.

Jazz had to look up at the sky to not make a noise or a not-helpful comment, because he could well imagine how that had went. Especially by how quickly it had escalated.

Diplomatic and good at hiding it when he was suspicious or letting his paranoia get the better of him, Cliffjumper was not.

STEALTH ACCOUNT SWITCH GO

[ichooseboth]

Optimus sighed again, waiting until he was reasonably sure that Mirage had time to make his way out of the clearing before continuing.

"And how did you ask him? Is there any possible reason why your phrasing might have upset your fellow bot?"

By Optimus' tone, it was obvious he had a pretty clear idea what that possible reason might be. But he rather wanted to see how deep a whole Cliffjumper was planning on digging himself into.

/GASP

[cliffjumper]

Cliffjumper opened his mouth, but his vocal processors ran on empty and he snapped it closed again.

While he was still upset, and even more so by this response, his processor contained more than two bits of processing power.

"Well, I didn't call him a traitor or spy or anythin'!" Cliffjumper muttered as he stared, stubbornly and narrowly, at the ground by the Prime's feet, his field pulled in tight.

Jazz, for his part, had almost made a noise at Optimus' question, and then again when Cliffjumper answered.

::Not as bad as it could be, but even without an explicit accusation it ain't hard to see how it went down considering 'Jumper's abrasive personality. They were very loud.:: Jazz knew he shouldn't smirk at that, and he didn't, but his tone was briefly amused.

Besides the seriousness of yet another accusation, it had, at least, not had the chance to have a huge fallout.

Except on a personal level for at least one of the two involved - he knew Mirage didn't have anything against Cliffjumper but nothing more than that... And it was probably "hadn't had" anything against him, unless Cliffjumper pulled himself up by his bearings and made amends.

[ichooseboth]

'Well, I didn't call him a traitor or spy or anythin'!'

Optimus' sigh was much more exasperated this time around, a hand going up to cover his face at Cliffjumper's words. He was angry, and disappointed, of course; but also embarrassed. For the Autobots, and the fact that this kind of 'misunderstanding' was still happening, this long after the two sides had been formed.

"Well that is one small mercy."

His comm to Jazz was equally vexed, and he shook his head.

::Not as bad as it could be, no. But still bad. I don't want to guess as to how many people might have heard them.::

"Cliffjumper."

His hand fell back, and he leveled a hard stare at the shuffling red minibot.

"I want you to tell me exactly what you thought you saw. And then, I want you to go over and look at that rock, and tell me what you really see."

[cliffjumper]

::From what I heard? Anyone who already was set against Mirage or had a grudge, won't change their opinion, but I think that likewise'd go for anyone who don't have any, or likes 'im.:: This whole thing was frankly more exasperating because he had to take time out of other tasks.

At least it wasn't an out-and-out emergency.

Cliffjumper had looked up when Optimus said his name, his expression mulish - and then he winced and dropped his gaze, shoulders inching upwards.

There was still a definitive stubborn set to his posture, however.

"Usin' some sort of tool on the moutain our ship is buried in, and it sure wasn't carvin' a statue!" He didn't really feel like going over to the messed-up squiggle that glinted in the afternoon sunlight, but slowly, reluctantly, he walked over.

"We've got the Insecticons on Earth, all right? He could've had somethin' happen with them, and this thing?" Whirling around, Cliffjumper waved at the glyph. "Could be anything! Even if it is an ancient cybertronian glyph, it could still be used as code, and if it's not, it could be, and how am I supposed to know? I ain't ever seen it to know, Prime! I was just worried!" he cut off his yell to stare at the ground again, arms and fists stiff by his sides.

Sure, he'd almost accused Mirage of being a spy or traitor, but his first thought had been that it was unwilling.

::Not that this is any better, but he does have a point 'bout the bugs. I suppose we shoulda taken more precautions about when we sent Mirage out and who might notice.:: Jazz barely kept the static sigh in and folded his arms under the swell of his chestplates.

[ichooseboth]

::Perhaps not. But that doesn't make me any less sick of it.:: Optimus argued with a electronic sigh.

::And Insecticons or not, we cannot afford to continue in this way. And if we are not safe from them right outside the base, we have even greater problems than that, Jazz.::

"While I am glad that you were considering more options that it initially appeared, if you had simply taken more time to observe you would have noticed that Mirage was in fact doing something very close to 'carving a statue'."

Shaking his head, Optimus approached the rock, kneeling down down to examine the markings with a unusual amount of care.

Reverence, almost.

"Why would he leave such obvious markings, if it were code?"

A large blue finger traced the now-hardened gilding, which glinted in Earth's sun.

"Why make it so obvious, so detailed, if it were not, in fact, meant to be noticed?"

Without standing, the Prime turned enough to give Cliffjumper a disappointed stare, low enough to look the minibot right in the optics.

"Such level caution and paranoia has a place. The barest of provocations is not it."

[cliffjumper]

::True. I'll make sure Red doesn't make it into a problem, 'cause if he wants to start making everybody clock in an' out for a walk around the mountain, we'll have rebellion on our hands.:: Despite the cheerful tone, Jazz would make sure Red Alert didn't add any further 'security measures' that he might have gotten ideas for from this.

Cliffjumper had been staring at Optimus tracing the glyph, and so his optics were easily caught when the prime turned to stare at him.

He tried to keep that gaze, but soon dropped his dimming optics to the ground, because Prime was right.

Even if he still couldn't tell what the glyph was, the fact that it'd been gilded was a bit... too much work for it being code.

"... right." Cliffjumper's engine skipped a cycle as he ground the word out and he hated being wrong. Especially about things like this.

Because it was obvious by now that he was wrong.

[ichooseboth]

::Good. See that he doesn't. We can add some sort of random medical checks for Bombshell's devices instead, which should help more for than just this sort of thing. It might frag off Ratchet a bit until he gets used to it, but would be better all around. Toss that idea around with Red and see what he thinks.::

Optimus shook his head as Cliffjumper's gaze dropped, disappointed in his 'bot and sad that he even had to have this conversation at all with the red mech. He was fond of Cliffjumper, but that didn't excuse his behavior.

"While blind optimism has no place in this war, much to my regret, please see that your preemptive caution is more restrained in the future, Cliffjumper. The fact of the matter is, I already knew what Mirage was doing. In fact, I requested this from him in the first place."

The Prime paused to let that sink in, slowly rising to his feet after one final pat against the half-carved rock.

"I'm afraid you'll be reporting to Prowl for an appropriate punishment detail - if this had happened in front of other Autobots, the fallout to both morale and Mirage's personal well-being here would have been very poorly effected. Dismissed."

[cliffjumper]

::Aye aye. Should probably have put something like that in effect the moment we found out they were on the Nemesis, really. Situation's been on here on Earth, though.:: Jazz twitched his shoulders and doorwings in something like a shrug.

Shifting on his feet to start, Cliffjumper twitched and then froze when Optimus said he'd asked for it, and he almost asked what Mirage had been doing - but then Prime was standing up and Cliffjumper didn't know how to ask anyway.

It made him annoyed again, though, because this hadn't had to happen and yet it had and now...

His shoulders sank with what Optimus said next and reflexively, his hands tightened into fists and his helm snapped up.

"But---!" Then he cut off his vocaliser so fast there was an audible click and dropped back into a nod. Because what if he hadn't confronted Mirage here, but waited until they were back?

He'd been wrong, especially since apparently Prime had requested it (whatever it was), and that meant Mirage hadn't been doing anything wrong... and while the noble fragged him off a lot of the time, he was also, well.

Well, he wouldn't want to put Mirage in danger if he was actually innocent.

"Yes, Prime." The salute was kind of brief, but both Optimus and Jazz got one before Cliffjumper whirled around and meandered down the side of the mountain, slowly disappearing from view.

"Ahhhh, what a mess. Fancy a walk back, Prime?" Jazz chuckled dryly, shifting his shoulders as the minibot disappeared from view.

[ichooseboth]

Nodding at Cliffjumper's salute, the Prime watched his retreat until the minibot vanished out of sight. Then he let out a massive breath, shoulders slumping under the invisible weight.

"A mess indeed. One that could have been worse, but has been repeated far too many times. A walk back sounds like a good idea, Jazz."

Giving his second a thankful pat on the shoulder, Optimus fell into step beside the smaller mech, ready to plan future precautions.

He also had to mentally prepare what he was going to say to poor Mirage, if he ever managed to track their best spy down.

[cliffjumper]

That had been so incredibly stupid, and while he had a momentary flash of anger directed at Mirage, it dissipated quickly - the only one at fault here was himself. Slowing down on the path that snaked around Mt. Hood until a human could easily have ambled along beside him, Cliffjumper supposed he should be glad he hadn't waited until Mirage was back.

There could have been an audience---

::Cliffjumper? Something happen after you left?::

Stopping right in his tracks, Cliffjumper scowled, his EM field automatically pulling tight around him.

::How the frag did you---no!:: How in the pit had Bumblebee known?

::Red got in a tizzy, and then I caught a brief glimpse of Mirage as he disappeared into his quarters. Didn't look too happy, and besides patrols and stuff, you were the only one out there.:: Bumblebee's tone was even and patient, carrying a nearly affable implication of 'I can't leave you alone, can I?'

::... I. Might. Have accused him of workin' with the Decepticons. Or that Bombshell might've gotten to him.:: Cliffjumper muttered slowly over the comm, staring at the ground. There was no reason to try and lie, since his initial reaction would've told Bumblebee he had done something.

::You---CJ.:: A wash of static followed the exasperated burst, but before Cliffjumper could rally an angry defense, Bumblebee continued. ::Come meet me in my quarters and tell me everything, 'kay? You don't make things easy for yourself, do you?::

He didn't want to, but talking with Bee might be a good idea.

::... Gimmie a cycle.::

::Just don't blow anything important up.::

-----------------------

A week later - a busy week, as Cliffjumper had done the punishment detail and then worked hard on avoiding Mirage as much as possible - Cliffjumper still wasn't sure how he was going to apologise.

That he would do it... yeah, he was, Bee had beat him over the helm until he'd agreed that he knew he had to. Didn't mean he actually wanted to do it, or what might be a good one.

He wasn't very good at apologising.

Moreover, while he'd rather not admit to it, the fact that Mirage might not accept it - or accept it but stay angry at and aloof with him, which was worse than the vaguely amiable nods in passing or brief conversations when they'd shared routine maintenance or surveillance shifts, sat unpleasantly.

Not that he'd thought he'd actually had any chance at all before, but now he probably definitely didn't have one.

Trundling morosely down one of the Ark's many corridors, Cliffjumper was trying to think up good apology-plans and discarding each one for being stupid or things he couldn't do. Especially when 'I'm sorry' would probably be hard enough to spit out.

He was such a fraggin' idiot---

Helm snapping up, Cliffjumper stopped, and then slowly backed up a few steps and faced the door he'd thought... Leaning forward and resting a hand on the door, Cliffjumper had almost decided he'd just imagined it when the caught the noise again.

Optics narrowing, Cliffjumper upped the sensitivity on audials and opened up the sensory input for his horns, after a moment or two able to piece the inputs together to---

Muffled moaning?

He almost blushed then, but managed to keep his field under control and the only reason he didn't leave then and there was because there was no fragging reason for anyone to be doing something that might require moaning in an unusued supply storage.

Which meant that whatever was going on, was probably not something illicit in terms of Decepticon activity, but bad nontheless and Cliffjumper slapped his hand down on the opening mechanism.

He hadn't really expected the door to open (he'd have pulled out a gun or something if it hadn't, though), and was briefly as stunned about that as at what he was seeing.

"... What the frag are ya doin' and stop that!"

[lastonepercent]

Mirage's retreat from the scene had been as quick as he could manage, which meant it wasn't nearly as stealthy as he would have liked.

The mech was forced to drop his invisibility half way to his rooms, for he was getting too sloppy to avoid running into other 'bots much longer. He nearly ran over a group of minibots in the process anyway, and immediately barricaded himself in his rooms with a screech of tires and engine. He proceeded to avoid everyone for the next two days, even politely declining Optimus' invitation to visit his office for energon.

It took him some time to calm down enough to declare himself fit for company; and even then, he ventured off to the shooting range with Tracks to vent his frustration out on the targets and his poor friend's audials.

"Oh, I agree completely, my dear mech. That little punk was completely out of line. Has been for some time. I cannot imagine what is going through Jazz and Optimus' helms, allowing such ruffians on board in the first place."

At that point in time, Mirage's answer was nothing but a snarl and several vicious shots to six hard-light targets in a row. But Tracks was good enough to continue agreeing with Mirage's earlier ranting, even if he didn't actually agree when Mirage went on a completely unrelated tangent; they knew enough other well enough to understand when one just wanted to vent. It was de-stressing, and it worked well enough to get the noble-mech from locking himself in his rooms further.

And Mirage needed to regain the proper state of mind for what they had planned next.

Several hundred more hard-light projections met their swift demise before enough was enough.

-----

Originally, the completion of the Protection Line would have coincided with the next ritual Mirage wished to undertake, followed by a public opening/blessing of the boundary line, complete with an appearance of the Prime himself.

After the interruption, Mirage wanted nothing to do with the thrice-cursed rock, but that didn't mean he couldn't continue on with the more personal element he had planned. Tracks was his second, of course; serving his his acolyte for the ritual. No one else on the ship, or even on Earth even knew of the process involved, as far as he was aware.

A long soak in hot, slightly acidic cleanser purified his frame, melting away the organic gunk of Earth and made his armor a hint more malleable than usual; a quick rinse kept the pleasant stinging from becoming a burning, and Mirage made his way to their requisitioned and re-purposed storage room still steaming-hot. ...To no small amount of not-so-stealthy glances along the way.

The room, granted to him upon request from Prime long before the rock fiasco, was a completely different world entirely. Decorated in the electric-blues and whites and silvers, the room matched the decor of the Temples of Primus of old as much as possible. A simple altar, this of proper Cybertronium, had been found in another storage area and reassembled at the fore. A ritual berth, round and padded, had been carefully constructed from shaped and polished scrap supplies.

Here at least, organic materials were useful and welcomed; the padding was, for the moment, cotton and wool, and the brilliant draperies hanging artistically across the room made of silks and voile. Mirage didn't know what the allied humans had thought of the requests, but he didn't really care. Prime had not indicated that it was a problem, and until his special order for fine metal meshes could be completed and shipped by agreeable human suppliers, it would work well enough.

Cradling a flame of energon in a contained cube, Mirage approached the berth with a low chant humming in the back of his vocalizer. Tracks already awaited him in the center of the berth, tools cleansed from the outdoors and laying out on display. The lesser noble was already cleansed and glowing in the half-dimmed diode-light, though less stringently than Mirage himself. Tracks nodded in greeting, and Mirage spilled out the purple-blue flame into the waiting brazier, and climbed up onto the berth.

Laying out on his back in front of Tracks, the humming rose up to a low song, prayers and blessings mostly-forgotten by the rest of the galaxy spilling out as he nodded to the other mech. Tracks raised the delicate drill tool, and started over Mirage's spark.

-----

It had been a long time; too long, really. His old markings had long since been worn away and filled in with new nanites and chromatites. Mirage had warned Tracks beforehand that his reactions might be...undignified, and so they had come prepared.

Starting over the spark, Tracks slowly worked along the edge of every panel and plate spiraling out from Mirage's core. By the time they were done with his ventral chest pieces, Mirage's song had gently vanished into static, though it still continued silently between them, unbroken over their private commline. The lines of the song matched the glyphs slowly forming on blue armor.

By the time Mirage had rolled over, spinal struts exposed to the detailing drill and finely covered with the delicate, occasionally oozing designs it was leaving behind, the noblemech wasn't able to hold back his soft cries. Gripping a strap embedded from the side of the berth for just this purpose, Mirage fought to keep himself still as lines of rite and prayer were literally etched into his frame. It was a ritual he had undergone many, many times before, but re-carving the lines anew made it feel like his initiation ritual all over again. It left him writhing under Track's hand, straddling the line between agony and oversensitised, fevor-born pleasure.

He would be left weak and trembling in frame, but his spark always felt clearer afterward; processor lost in a daze of thought and reflection during the length of the ritual, even as his voice cried out. The reflection was the point; the inability to forget the words and rites etched into your frame, a solemn vow.


...Which is why, of course, Cliffjumper would come bumbling right on into it.

"Smelt-slag-! Not you!"

Tracks hissed, jerking in pain as he cut his own finger in an effort to avoid mussing the marks on Mirage's back. Still gripping the energon line curled around his fists in willful restraint, Mirage blinked up with dim optics, dazed and uncomprehending. Tracks snarled, looking ready to chuck the drill at Cliffjumper's head.

"Begone, you interloping heathen!"

[cliffjumper]

"Leave? Like fraggin' slag you... you creepy rust-bucket!" Even if Cliffjumper had disliked or even hated Mirage, he'd hardly wish some sort of... creepy, ritualistic-looking... whatever it was while Mirage was apparently drugged.

The earlier mometary locking of his joints from surprise lifted and Cliffjumper darted forward - there'd be no chance for Tracks to do much as the minibot crossed the floor surprisingly fast and grabbed the taller mech by some convenient bit of armour.

"I ain't the one who apparently enjoys drugging people and inflicting pain!" There was a brief flickering thought of what if he had it all wrong? But if he didn't and just left, leaving Mirage to whatever Tracks was doing?

No.

So Cliffjumper used his brief advantage of a ready trigger finger (so to speak) and Tracks' awkward angle where he was on the berth and hauled around and leaning over do to how Cliffjumper had grabbed him, and punched him.

Immediately letting go, not caring where Tracks fell, Cliffjumper ran around the berth so he could grab one of Mirage's arms and pull him off and storm out - at least, he would be putting a very good effort into doing just that, since it wasn't as if he could lift Mirage up and dash away.

"Come on, come on."

Unfortunately.

And how the frag could something like this happen?

[lastonepercent]

Track's scathing reply was cut off with a yelp as he flew back with unexpected force, rolling backwards off the berth. Minibot punches were always almost always a surprise in their strength.

Mirage, meanwhile, slid right off the berth on his belly at the tug, landing on his knees and flopping bonelessly onto the floor. Thankfully, none of his limbs had yet to be worked on, so there was no pain in Cliffjumper's hold on him, but he was still shaking in the red mech's grip.

Mirage stared at the floor and a section of Cliffjumper's foot, uncomprehending. Somewhere in the back of his addled processor, hysterical indignation and anger was beginning to fizzle into existence.

Though he wasn't quite sure why just yet.

"Cl'ffjumper, wh-what? 'M not drugged, you...dumb person..."

His words were slurred, and he shook his helm, trying to glare with pain-dulled optics.

[cliffjumper]

He wasn't Brawn or anything, but he could pack a reasonable punch - otherwise the ill-advised grapplings he had ended up in with Decepticons would undoubtedly have gone worse than they had.

"As if you ain't, bein' like... like this," Cliffjumper hissed and determindedly pulled at the shaking limb he'd grabbed because they were leaving. Nothing he was currently seeing contradicted the conclusion he'd arrived at, especially with how Mirage was acting, and if he'd have to punch Tracks again, he fragging well would!

[lastonepercent]

"It's...on purpose...you twit," Mirage ground out, attempting to dig his knees into the floor, weakly resisting the tug.

He shook his helm, trying to clear his processor; he knew something had clearly gone wrong. But why?

Who would interrupt his... What was that idiot minibot doing?

Even as the lights went on in Mirage's head, Tracks was rolling back up to his feet, a snarl on his newly-dented faceplates.

"I've had more than enough out of you, wretch!"

Tracks lunged, attempting to tackle Cliffjumper with a fist of his own.