Complicated Vows: This Is War

Commence Combat

            At an Earlier Time:

            The silver Autobot had sat in stasis lock for a month and a half, while the Raptor was onboard being “fixed” by Starscream. Now, Jazz was laid out on a surgical gurney next to the blue bot, still in the very low power state. Because this delicate procedure involved replacing good parts with frail crumbling ones, Starscream was aided by Scalpel, the Decepticon’s best medical bot.

            Starscream had kept everything that had been pulled out of Raptor, including the shavings of oxidized sulfuric buildup. Now, he wanted to know how the substance mutated on a live Cybertronian, and how to make its spread advance at a faster pace. If he could figure out how to turn the corrosion into a weapon, he would add it to the Raptor’s arsenal.

            He started first with replacing sections of the Autobot’s main energon lines. Next to be fixed were various wires, vents, and compressors. Two pistons of the eight in the engine were replaced with corroded, immovable ones. Once the inner-most parts were replaced, they swapped a few panels on Jazzes chest plates, face plates, and cannons.

            By the end of the procedure, the Autobot looked positively dreadful. It would shock Starscream if he was able to function at all, provided he could even be brought out of stasis lock first.

            Miraculously but eventually, Scalpel had the Bot online but groggy, miserable, and quite pissed too. He had been returned to the back chamber of the ship, restrained to the wall. He had to be, for it was dangerous to let the Bot be free to wander his cell, giving him a glimmer of hope.

            Jazz was monitored and regularly tested to see how his vitals were reacting to the spreading sulfuric acid corrosion. Various parts of him were also experimented on.

            In places where there wasn’t significant enough corrosion, not enough to Starscream’s liking, they were put through trials to see what would make it grow faster or more aggressively.

            First they cleaned Jazzes right arm of all foreign matter, except for the corrosion. Then they subjected the metal and sulfur to bare flames. When the fire seemed have no effect, the heat was amplified using various unidentified machines that spit concentrated heat on Jazzes arm. He tried to hold in agonized screams at first, to hold on to his Autobot dignity, but eventually the searing metal overrode his pride and he cried out in terrible pain. This, of course, only made Starscream smirk with sick joy.

            Conclusion of fire and heat: no effect other than to weaken the substance.

            The next trial, tested just twenty minutes after the heat, was ice. Modified Cryofreeze cannons were aimed at all angles towards Jazzes left arm. The experiment had to be cut short or Jazz would have offlined too soon as a main energon line was frozen solid, blocking the circulation. He would have fallen back into stasis had the heat cannons not been brought out again to thaw the lines. This resulted in cracked armor plates and splintered hoses from being frozen then immediately superheated. Jazz felt his processor trying to pound out of his head while his spark barely even throbbed in his chest.

            Conclusion of ice: inconclusive; must be rerun at a later time.

            With the possibility of the sulfuric corrosion having been corrupted, Jazzes arms were removed to preserve the purity of the corrosive acid elsewhere on his body.

            Starscream remembered how the truck had explained the worsening of the buildup when he’d moved east and been subjected to more moisture. So the next experiment was to pipe in water and run it through the Bot’s body.