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strawberriesandroses52 · 3 days ago

Text

miscalibrated

pt 3/?

Jazz inspected the strange mecha. His curiosity itched like a rash in the back of his mind. It was just so… boxy? Inflexible? It moved smoothly, but it didn’t have any visible weapons, or any form of defense he could see. Overall, it looked like it would be very ineffective at fighting a kaiju.

Why would anyone build a mecha like that? It was such a waste of resources. Jazz huffs, Bebop’s fins flicking outward to reflect his frustration. The alien mecha watched with intense eyes at the action.

Jazz took one more long glance at the mecha. It still didn’t seem inclined to attack him. He upped his proximity sensors, and let Bebop’s system start creating a sonic map of the area. It would take awhile for her to get an accurate scan, but he had nothing but time right now.

The wreckage behind the alien mecha was scorched and looked like someone had taken a can opener and pried the thing open while drunk. He stepped closer to inspect it, letting Bebop’s sonar pings wash over it.

“ꃅꍟꌩ, ꒒ꍟꍏꃴꍟ ꓄ꃅꍏ꓄ ꍏ꒒ꂦꈤꍟ!” The other mecha said.

Bebop’s head turned 180 degrees to look the mecha in the eye.

It yelped with surprise, pulling back slightly.

Jazz snickered at the reaction, Bebop’s intercoms picking the sound up and transmitting it. The mecha narrowed its eyes at him, seemingly offended.

So they had laughter and offence in common then, given the mecha’s reaction. This day just kept getting weirder and weirder. He didn’t know what to make of the mecha fully. There was too much unknown, too much to discover. Briefly, he wondered why Percy had chosen him for the blasted experiment, but let the thought drift away.

Jazz turned to look back at the wreckage, although took a step back. He could feel the other mecha’s gaze on him as he walked around the wreckage in a large circle. It looked nothing like the tech he was familiar with on Earth, and considering he had been stationed in nearly every corner of the globe, that was saying something.

Once he completed his circuit, Jazz went back to staring at the mecha. Why had it brought Bebop back online? How had it brought Bebop back online? Jazz looked at her stats, finding his power levels at ninety percent. Nearly fully functional.

The mecha stared back, although far more wary than Jazz himself was.

Hm. They couldn’t just stare at each other forever. Jazz kneels down, motioning for the mecha to do the same.

It hesitates, but ultimately complies, sitting down with its legs tucked under its body.

Jazz pointed one clawed finger to himself, “Jazz.”

“ꀭꍏꁴꁴ?” It repeated, frowning.

“No,” Jazz flicked his fins, “Jazz.” he said again, putting stress on each sound.

“Jazz,” It said again. Although accented, it was a lot closer than the first attempt.

“Good job man!” Jazz nodded, giving the mecha a thumbs up as well.

The poor mecha seemed endlessly confused, but returned the thumbs up. It looked from Jazz to its own hand, looking almost like it was searching for approval.

Yesssss Jazz thought with satisfaction. He would forever go down in history as the first guy to ever teach an alien the thumbs-up gesture. Seven-year-old Jazz would be proud.

Jazz gestured to the mecha, hoping that they would get the message and introduce themselves.

“ꉣꋪꂦꅏ꒒.” It said, pointing to itself like Jazz had. Then, held up an uneasy thumbs up.

Jazz returned the thumbs up. “Rowl?” He tried. It didn’t sound totally right, and the syllables seemed foreign on his tongue.

“ꉣꋪꂦꅏ꒒” It said again, but going slower.

“Prowl?” Jazz tried again, this time getting a more enthusiastic thumbs up from the mecha.

So his name was Prowl. Jazz grinned, the action translating to Bebop’s systems as fully raised fins. He gave the mecha another thumbs up as well.

Prowl seemed a lot less alien, now that Jazz had something to call him. It also stroked his curiosity. What kind of pilot was Prowl? Where did he come from? And, how did he end up crashed in this desert, stuck like Jazz was?

Hopefully Bebop’s sonar map would reveal more information about their surroundings. For now, while it was developing, he would continue to try and establish more of a connection with Prowl.

Getting an idea, like a lightbulb going off above his head, Jazz took a claw and began drawing. First the sun, then Mercury, Venus, and Earth, continuing until he had the entire solar system. Then, he pointed to himself again, “Jazz,” and then pointed at the drawing of Earth. “Earth.”

Prowl studied the map, then scooted back a little to begin his own drawing.

It was far larger than Jazz’s, and took Prowl quite some time. There was a sun, although it didn’t seem to be in the center. In the center was a large planet with a lot of geometric details. Or as detailed as one could get with sand. There were smaller planets Prowl had drawn nearby, connected to the main planet with a line. Did Prowl’s people inhibit more than one planet?

When he was finished, Prowl copied Jazz’s gestures, pointing from himself to the large planet in the middle. “Prowl, ꉓꌩꌃꍟꋪ꓄ꋪꂦꈤ.”

“Kaibakon?” Jazz tried, knowing that his attempt at pronunciation was hilariously bad.

Prowl almost looked offended. “Cybertron.” Prowl said again, but slower.

“Cybertron.” Jazz repeated, earning a far happier look.

So Prowl was from a planet called Cybertron. Jazz looked back down at the map Prowl had drawn. His solar system was far larger than Jazz’s, and he couldn’t begin to place it. It held no familiarities he could connect to his own system. Still, it was knowledge gained.

Jazz cleared the solar system drawing, Prowl leaning forward to watch with interest. He started with a circle, then a wonky torso, arms, and legs. Jazz decided to draw thick lines like his braids to represent the hair, a wobbly smile, and two dots for eyes, and a thin line to represent the bridge of his nose.

Then, in carefully printed letters, he spelled out ‘J A Z Z’.

The utter confusion on Prowl’s face was almost hilarious, if it weren’t for the hurried glances from Jazz’s drawing to his visor.

Prowl pointed to the drawing. “Jazz?”

“Yes?” Jazz said, giving Prowl a thumbs up.

Prowl then pointed to Bebop, “Jazz?” he asked again.

“Yes.” Jazz confirmed, giving Prowl another thumbs up.

There was some sort of disconnect happening, but Jazz couldn’t think of what could cause it. As a fellow pilot, Prowl should recognize the difference between someone’s mech and their true self.

Jazz pointed from his drawing, then to Bebop. “Jazz. Both are Jazz.” He said, even though he knew his words wouldn’t necessarily help Prowl.

Jazz thought for a moment. Maybe it would be easier to show Prowl? He glanced at the stats, although a little lower in oxygen than Earth’s atmosphere, wherever this was wasn’t completely devoid of it. The oxygen levels were comparable to a mountain altitude.

Jazz got up from the pilot seat, flicking through the series of buttons it took to unlock the pilot pod. Bebop’s arrays went dim as the pod hissed steam, releasing the pressure locks.

There was a confused, nearly scared noise from Prowl’s direction.

The light was considerably blinding as Jazz popped his head out from the pilot pod.

There in front of him was Prowl, looking…absolutely terrified?

“You good man?” He asked, slowly climbing out of the pod and coming to stand on Bebop’s knee.

Prowl looked at him the way you look at a cockroach on the wall. The initial terror, then, the burst of bravery as you find a slipper to crush it to death with.

Jazz is lucky he spent the last seven years honing his reflexes.

Otherwise he wouldn’t have dodged the boulder that came flying toward him.

Prowl wasn’t used to the panic that gripped him recently.

There was an–an organic thing that had crawled out of Jazz’s chest. Prowl had heard of parasites before, but he wasn’t aware that mechs could get organic ones.

Blindly, he scrambled and reached behind him, coming up with a palm sized rock. Had he taken a second and aimed, he likely would’ve hit it. But it missed the mark, hitting Jazz’s dormant body instead.

The little thing survived. It stood on Jazz’s knee, as small as Prowl’s palm.

“PROWL!” The organic parasite shouted.

It shouted with Jazz’s voice.

What in the name of Primus…

“Jazz?” Prowl asked, the data in his mind scrambling to come up with an answer.

The organic spoke again, in the same language that Prowl didn’t understand, but it carried Jazz’s tones and inflections.

Before he could even ask himself the question, his battle computer gave him the answer:

This organic creature was Jazz.

Prowl stared down at …Jazz. Not just a simple organic creature, but Jazz, who was from the third planet from the sun in his solar system, a place called ‘Earth.’ Jazz, who had seemed eager to find connection with Prowl.

The organic crossed its tiny arms at him, saying something in its language.

“I’m…sorry.” Prowl said, drawing his legs back close to his body, folding his arms to his side and resting his hands on his knees. As strange as it was, for an Organic to have a giant, mech-body that it…drove from the inside? That didn’t mean Jazz couldn’t be a valuable ally.

Jazz replied with a pointed tone, his hands going to rest on his hips.

So, his only ally was actually a tiny organic. He had crash landed on this desert planet with no sign of rescue.

What else did this day have in store for them?

#tf mecha universe #mech pilot jazz au #tf jazz #tf prowl #rose's mecha au #mecha #mecha pilot jazz au #first contact #friends #no shipping #original by Keferon

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strawberriesandroses52 · 5 days ago

Text

Miscalibrated

pt 1/?

---

JAZZ stares up at the blistering sun. It’s so hot out that he half expects some lone vulture to shriek. Or maybe someone to strum a guitar, like they do in movies and TV shows. To really top it off, perhaps a rattle snake hiding in a singular cow skull. Then it would really be like it was a movie.

If only it was a movie. If it was a movie, then he would have some doohickey or secret plan to get out of this mess. Then he wouldn’t be stranded on some alien planet who knows how many lightyears away from earth, slowly overheating in his mecha. Bebop was a wonderful machine, but without power, she was just metal. Cool looking metal, but just metal.

Jazz has long since stripped out of his assistance suit, down to his boxers, having sweat through it an hour and a half into being stranded. He was slowly sipping his water, trying to ration it while thinking of a solution.

No power, no communication. No power, no way to tell if this atmosphere was breathable or not. Or if there would be any kaiju lurking about. No way to tell if the ground wasn’t made of acid or something like that.

It was a circular train of thought. He can’t stay and die of heatstroke, but he can’t leave either. His only hope would be to wait it out, hoping that Bebop’s systems got the distress call out before powering down. He hopes someone gets his signal before a kaiju does.

Jazz had been a pilot for seven years, and while that’s nowhere close to the record, it’s nothing to scoff at either. Bebop hadn’t been his mecha the entire time, but she’s been his for the last four years, and he’s gotten a little attached. There’s some stickers on her pilot seat, old and peeling off now. His boot scuff marks on her deck. His greasy fingerprints are on the array of buttons in front of him. They’re comrades, partners.

But right now she’s killing him as much as she’s saving him. If he was baking in here, then it must truly be scorching outside her hull.

“I guess there really is no way out, old girl.” He mutters to her, head thunking down on her console. He likes to think that if she could talk, she’d say something to cheer him up.

But the metal around him doesn’t respond.

Pilots are often told that being separated from their mecha means the death of the pilot. It usually means a kaiju has figured out where your pod was located and is about to rip you out of your mecha’s chest and kill you. But what about when the cause of death is the mecha itself? He doesn’t remember any talking about that at all.

(except maybe the myth about a haunted mecha, which Jazz was disinclined to believe in.)

Surely, it must happen from time to time? A failed weapons check, a miscalculation, a malfunction, a miscalibration of some kind.

Jazz takes another sip of water. It brings no relief to the heat, and is tainted with the taste of salt as well. He wrinkles his nose a bit at the taste.

No power.

No way out.

He takes another drink, wishing perhaps that it was something a bit stronger.

Bebop’s frame shudders around him.

Jazz sits up, looking around at the metal. Was Bebop caving in on him? Or some kaiju coming to pry her open, hoping to eliminate the pilot inside?

Instead, Bebop begins to move like someone or something is carrying her, and the swaying almost knocks Jazz out of the pilot’s chair. Whatever is going on outside of Bebop’s protective embrace, they–it? Is dragging Bebop somewhere.

To help? To death? Jazz doesn’t know and doesn’t have any way to know.

Of all the pilots, of all the people that this could happen to– of course it’s him. Of course it’s Jazz. Lucky-unlucky Jazz. Jazz who can flirt with death and live to see another day only because it loves toying with him. Fate’s own personal chew toy. Being dragged off to an unknown location by an equally unknown thing to an even more unknown fate.

He kind of wants to scream, but that wouldn’t help his situation.

So he sits. Listening, trying to see what the heck is going on outside of the pod. It doesn’t provide him with much information, a scuff here, and a dragging noise there.

The unease of not knowing getting him, he slips his assistance suit back on, putting his helmet back on. The suit stirs to life, barely functioning without the connection to Bebop’s systems. It’s uncomfortably sticky, but he bares it with a grimace. Already, the helmet is making his scalp sweat. But sweating is a good sign. From what he remembers of the survival crash courses he’s taken, it’s when you’re not sweating is when you need to worry.

The pilot’s chair is as comfortable as ever, it had to be, since pilots spend 270 out of 365 in it. The old guard likes to call the new generation soft, with all their fail safes and safety checks and comfortable pilot seats. Jazz thinks he’d rather die with the comfortable seat.

There’s a pause to the dragging. Muffled sounds float into the pod, and Jazz can’t even begin to decipher what is on the outside.

The hairs on his arm stand up, followed by the ones on his neck. A sour, metallic taste fills his mouth.

He barely has time to think what the fuck before every nerve in his body is alight with fire. His body seizes up as jolts run up his legs and up his back and across his arms. His mouth is open and making a sound, it feels like a scream but he can’t hear anything. His fingers and toes tingle and sting as he gasps for air.

Again, his body seizes, less violently this time, but still aching with fire. He flops down onto the console in front of him, panting and heaving. His muscles dance of their own accord, twitching and spasming. There’s the distinct smell of burnt hair somewhere near his nose. His tongue feels numb.

But, Bebop’s arrays flicker to life. Stutteringly, the HUD comes back on, washing the pod with blue light. Several alerts pop up, proximity, damage and radar most notably.

Jazz takes in a large, staggering breath. His heart is banging a gong inside his chest and his head, and his arms tingling with pins and needles barely respond to his commands as he moves to turn on all of Bebop’s sensors. He misses a couple times, reaching too far or not far enough before he can hit the right button.

Bebop comes to life. His helmet’s full visual display pops on, and Jazz is no longer human.

Jazz is a twenty two and a half foot tall mecha strapped with knives, guns, and lethal precision.

Being a pilot for seven years gives you wonderful reflexes. Jazz prides himself on having a particularly good reaction time, even among other pilots. Instinctively, before his sluggish brain registers that the shape above him is vaguely human-mecha shaped, he swipes wildly with Bebop’s built in knife.

There’s the distinct shriek of metal on metal and a pained yelp that sounds too human for comfort. Jazz doesn’t spend long considering it, he just rolls away from the direction of the noise. Bebop’s systems are still booting online from the surge of power, meaning Jazz wouldn’t have access to her sonar navigation, his guns, or life support levels yet.

When he springs out of the roll, he doesn’t look back as he sprints across the desert landscape. Bebop’s digitigrade legs barely touch the ground before launching him ever forward. As weird as this day has been, he has to admit he’s in a better situation than he was in earlier today.

There’s a thunder of footsteps behind him, echoing the same metal-on-hard-rock sound that Jazz’s own feet make. His jaw tenses as his eyebrows furrow in deep, quick thought. What to do? Something clearly wanted something to do with him. He had very little information to go off of.

In a split second decision, Jazz launched himself forward with a mighty leap, landing crouched on the tips of Bebop’s metallic toes. He pivots, staying low to the ground as he faces whatever thing had just tazed and chased him.

It’s a mecha.

Pearly white, black, a bright red. It’s a bit taller than Bebop is, and has very, very human-like proportions. And an even more human face, judging by the shocked expression. Whatever country or corporation that built this mecha must’ve been absolutely loaded to create such a human like mech.

It opens its mouth and what the hell are those TEETH? Jazz takes a second look and, yes, yes those are teeth. What kind of mecha has teeth? One that bites kaiju?

The mecha makes several sounds like dial-up internet, the error code of a printer, static, and various beep boop noises. Are their speakers damaged? Is Bebop’s audio receptors damaged? Or are they speaking some binary computer language?

Bebop’s fins, functioning as both sonars and emotive display, flicker up and down. The strange mech pauses its sentence to watch as the fins move. Besides the electric shock earlier, the mecha has yet to attack. Based on its body language, it doesn’t necessarily intend to at the moment. It seems just as confused as Jazz.

Warily, Jazz stands up to Bebop’s full height, fins held at neutral. The mecha stands up a bit straighter as well, staring at Jazz consideringly.

He takes two short steps forward as Bebop’s systems get a full visual scan. The mecha doesn’t move, but doesn’t back away either. Jazz flicks on his intercom.

“Hi.” He says.

The mecha’s face morphs into confusion. “Hai?” It repeats with a strange accent.

Ah. So, a pilot that definitely did not speak english. That was odd. Most pilot programs, government or otherwise, required knowledge of English and one other common business language. Pilots weren’t just skilled monster hunters, they were engineers, scientists, inventors, military personnel, the best even among the best.

“Konichiwa?” He tries, earning the same look again.

English and Japanese were the only two languages he knew at the moment. But the pilot should’ve recognized at least one of them. Two of the most basic words from two of the most recognizable languages should’ve garnered some spark of recognition.

Is this even a pilot from Earth?

#mech pilot jazz au #tf mecha universe #transformers #rose's Mecha au #mecha #first contact #tf jazz #tf prowl #friends #no shipping #honestly my first attempt at writing something since like 2022. I'm a bit rusty #original au by Keferon

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