Sooo... I forgot about this... Have some more...
Survival protocols burst through the static, and Prowl was instantly in motion. Outnumbered three to one he had no real hope of fighting, that left flight. Clearly they had not expected him to be functional and as the Praxian sprang up from his back, he caught them off guard. Before they could react, he leapt over the barricade. It was the exact same spot where he had pulled that half-clocked operative over, this was unlikely to be a coincidence. He ran as soon as his peds hit the road below. Blaster fire kicked up pavement where he had been standing less than a nanoklik earlier. Though the bulk of his training had been in pursuit and capture, Prowl was well familiar with evasion, and he ran under the overpass, using it as shelter from the projectile and laser fire. With precious little time, the Enforcer came up with a plan. Using his martial arts training, he scrambled up the support. His attackers scrambled down the overpass several nanokliks, perhaps even a klik after him. Unlike them, Prowl knew his enemies, there training and their weaknesses. Garboil and Nightstalker had tested poorly for their athleticism, their frames were built for strength, not for speed or aerobatics.
“He’s gone!” Garboil called.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” A voice called from above their helms. Barricade was the only other Praxian Enforcer in Iacon, and Prowl had worked with him very briefly at his posting in a precinct on the west side. His presence offered more questions than answers. Prowl had found him to be aggressive, and insubordinate, his involved in this scrap was not startling. The next nanoklik there was another clatter of armour as Barricade leapt off the overpass, and the cool helmed Praxian froze. Unlike his friends, this Spawn of Unicron was athletic and quick. He was also considerably more heavily armoured that Prowl. Calling for back up from the Enforcers would be a fool’s errand, there was no way to know who else might be in league with these three. Instead, Prowl initiated his comms and entered that operatives ID. Static was the only answer he received. That shock stick must have fried his comms, Prowl was on his own.
“He’s gone,” Nightstalker said. “Look.”
“You dumbafts, he can’t just’ve disappeared,” Barricade snapped, and he stalked under the overpass, and out the other side. “He has to be here! How could you fraggers have lost him? H’uh?”
Prowl only had nanokliks to act. As quietly as he could, the Enforcer shuffled along the support structures of the over pass until he reached the edge. Barricade stalked back, cursing his quarry’s designation under his ventilations. With the other Praxian just metres below him, Prowl was forced to freeze. The other two were too close, jumping on Barricade would be reckless, and suicidal, and the slighter Praxian was neither. Not even daring to ventilate, Prowl waited until Barricade stalked off again, waited for him to stop and snarl at Garboil, and then he made his move. He swung from underneath the overhang, and began to quickly climb the side. Just before the tactician could make it safely over the side, blaster fire scored his leg. A damage report flashed across his HUD, Prowl ignored it, despite the sparks, he transformed successfully and raced at full speed back down the highway.
Rather than the precinct, he raised full speed for the Autobase. Someone could comm Autobot Jazz. If they would not let him on base, at the very least they would not let him get shot... in theory. First, however, Prowl needed to get there. His tactical systems displayed a path. Barricade and the others were unlikely to continue their pursuit into the bustling downtown where the bars, clubs and streets were filled with mechanism, a high number of whom would be Autobots, and armed. Taking the next left, the Praxian demanded another burst of speed from his frame. The laser fire that had scored his leg had damaged one of the main cables there, in his altmode it served as part of the support for his undercarriage. It was weakened, it could snap. He only had a nanoklik’s warning before a crushing weight smashed against his hood. A well aimed elbow triggered his transformation sequence, and as the Praxian was forced to violent transform, that cable snapped.
“You put up a better fight that I’d thought,” Barricade sneered against his audials. Prowl felt a nose of a blaster pressed against the back of his helm. “Not good enough...”
With a quick slash of his servo, Prowl knocked the blaster away from his helm, it went off, the sound so loud the tactician’s audial buzzed with static. To their right there was a scream of pain, Prowl did not pause to consider who might have been shot. Barricade was off balance, the smaller Praxian used that to buck the mech off. He rolled and true his rifle all in one motion and levelled it at his attacker. Over the other Praxian’s shoulder Prowl saw Nighstalker writhing in pain, Garboil was nowhere in sight. If the mech had any sense, he would be making his escape, but the damaged Enforcer could not know for sure. His frame ached from the forced transformation, never mind his leg, but Prowl did not allow it to distract him. Half on his chassis, and half on his knees, and arms outstretched, Barricade’s blaster was pointed away from Prowl. They were so close, however, so close that if the slighter Praxian was not quick on the trigger his attacker could still make the drop on him. As Barricade watched him from the corner of his optics, Prowl wondered which of them would break first.
“Drop your weapon, or I will shoot you,” Prowl ordered. “If you so much as ventilate, I will shoot you.”
“I just might shoot you first,” Barricade hissed, false bravado to the end.
“Have ever been hit with an acid round?” The tactician asked. “Even if my first shot fails to kill, the acid will continue to eat away at you circuitry.”
“Frag you,” the other Praxian snarled, but he dropped his blaster, but it was still within arm’s reach. Nighstalk’s whimpers stopped. Prowl was fairly sure he was dead.
“Servos behind your back,” Prowl ordered. Still snarling, Barricade did as he was ordered. He must have expected Prowl to close the gap to cuff him, his frame was tensed, ready to react, but to his misfortune, his smaller compatriot was not an idiot. “Do not move.”
Rather than inch forward, Prowl inched back, never taking his rifle or his optics off the other Praxian. There was no doubt in his processor that Barricade had other weapons, a shock stick at least, and almost certainly other blasters. With his leg crippled, Prowl would not risk attempting to secure the larger Praxian, so long as he kept his distance, their stalemate was in his favour. Prowl waited, completely silent. Surely someone must have heard the gunfire, and yet there was no sound of sirens, no bystanders, nothing but silence for what felt like an eternity. Ped steps echoed down the pavement, and Barricade lunged forwards; Prowl fired. The other Praxian screamed in pain as Prowl’s should hit him high in the back. Twisting around, awkwardly, and rifle still raised, the Enforcer faced this new threat. He found himself staring down a hulking red mech with a very large gun, and the Autobot insignia embossed in the centre of his chassis.
“Now what the frag’s goin’ on here?” The mech demanded over Barricade’s increasingly garbled howl. “Enforcers havin’ a shoot out wit each other?”
“Bit more complicated than that, ‘Hide,” Jazz jogged up, and he brushed the far large mech’s weapon down. “This one’s ours... Sorta.”
“Ya got ops in the Enforcers now?” Hide, as Jazz had called him, asked.
“Nah,” the operative replied. “Reinforcement’s comin’ can ya check the fragger o’er there? See if he’s scrapped?”
“Yah, fine,” the Iaconian said. “In the streets Jazz? They’re gonna have fun wit this one.”
“I have a neutralizer,” Prowl offered, having lowered his gun when Jazz had arrived on scene. He cocked his doorwing at Barricade. “If the damage is not too grave already.”
“Hand it over,” the Polihexian replied, and Prowl did exactly that. Jazz dumped the vial into the gaping would between Barricade’s shoulders. His vents were still wheezing, there was a chance he would live yet. “Don’t look like y’re goin’ anywhere under y’re own steam.”
“No,” the tactician confirmed. “The cable in my leg has snapped. There is one other on the lose. Garboil, one of the Enforcers at my precinct. He, Nightstalker and Barricade attacked me in the same spot as I pulled you over.”
“Same spot Nightstalker liked to pull over his victims,” Jazz replied. “Fragger’s consistent.”
“Was,” Hide corrected. “This one’s scrapped... Not an acid round.”
“Barricade shot him in error,” Prowl explained. “He intended to shoot me in the helm.”
“‘M sorry I brought ya into this, Prowl,” the saboteur said as he examined the prone Enforcer’s leg, and then the rest of his frame for additional injuries. “Didn’t expect ya to be a target.”
“I was already a target,” the Praxian replied. “They had a plan, Barricade appeared in command of the ambush. He is assigned to a different precinct. The fact that you requested copies of their schedules yester-cycle, and I was attacked this mega-cycle are merely coincidences.”
“Flatfoot maybe?” Jazz asked, as he his digits brushed against the burn out wires at the Enforcer’s side. “You outta lay down ‘til the medics get here.”
“I am fine,” Prowl replied, the other mech’s touch was light enough that it barely hurt. Still, the burn from the shock stick was beginning to throb in time with his spark. The pain only temporary, the injury was grievous. “It is possible he could be involved. Though it strikes me as an overreaction to my criticisms.”
“Unless he had somethin’ to do wit this slag, ‘n he’s afraid ya gonna figure it out,” the Polihexian replied.
It was a possibility. Prowl had no respect for the Praefectus, thinking the mech an egotistical PR hound, but he had never considered that Flatfoot could actually be corrupt, certainly not on that level. If the Polihexian Enforcer was involved, he no longer had Prowl to worry about, but the Autobots, which meant if their was something to Jazz’s suspicion, something would be done about it, an Autobot commander was not so easily ignored he himself would be. That was a more frustrating thought than the Enforcer would have expected, so far as he was concerned, it should not have taken an arm of the army to address the dysfunction in Iacon’s Enforcers, it should never have gotten this bad. Even if Flatfoot was not involved, he could not be entirely innocent. There was a reason the Praefectus personally managed Nightstalker and Garboil’s schedule, though he did not know what it was.
“Flatfoot personally wrote the schedule for both Nightstalker and Garboil,” the Enforcer said, and finally thinking of that dataslug, he opened the hidden compartment in his arm. “I believe he did the same for other Enforcers, in other precincts, but I do not know for certain. I have the records you wanted... here.”
“Smart,” Jazz hummed. “Not the sorta trick I’d expect from an Enforcer.”
“When I decided I was going to leave my in-laws’ compound, I to find a way to save credits,” Prowl explained. “I was not permitted to work at that point, or to even have my own accounts, though I had an allowance meant to spend on Smokescreen. Every quartex I transferred some onto an unlisted credit chip. I had to hide it, so I fashioned this compartment.”
“Slick,” the operative said, approvingly.
“How was it you found me?” the Praxian asked. All of a sudden he was looking up at the stars. Jazz supported his helm as his back made contact with the grown. He frowned, he was fairly certain he had not collapsed, no this mech had herded him and he had not even noticed. Before Prowl could sit back up, purely in defiance, Jazz pressed a firm but gentle servo against his chassis.”
“Better safe,” Jazz declared. “Burn that deep means that shock stick weren’t standard issue, ya shouldn’t’ve gotten up after.”
“I have strong survival coding,” Prowl replied. “Again, how did you find me?”
“That shock triggered the slug’s recovery signal,” the Polihexian explain. “I tracked it, ‘n ya. Ya got some moves.”
“It could have gone better,” the tactician replied. Sirens blared in the distance, and Prowl could not help but sigh, Smokescreen was not going to be happy about this.
