Jazz is on the floor beneath Megatron, small and bright against the warroom’s ruin. His optics are cracked. One lens blinks and goes dark, another keeps tracking like it’s trying to catalogue every detail of the agony. His plating is gouged, servos twitching where bolts have sheared. You can hear the small, clicks he makes when he breathes, ragged. He isn’t dead. He is very present and that sharpness is what Megatron intends. Megatron’s voice fills the hall like an iron bell. It’s low, polished, and amused in a way that makes the clamps on your wrists feel colder. Megatron gestures with a fist. Two drones detach from the shadows and approach with practiced slowness, energy prods humming a thin, whining note. They don’t strike to remove parts; they calibrate. Each touch is extremely painful. Jazz’s torso locks; he convulses in short, violent beats and then the language of his systems reboots with little static sobs.

"Not tellin' ya nothin' Con scum."

At that the drones draw back so Megatron can watch the smallest ripple of pain, the expression of shock reflected in Jazz’s optics. You try to move. The rig shudders and refuses, hydraulics holding you in place like an immovable law. Panic tries to spool up, but the clamps throttle it. You watch through your own failing focus as Jazz tries to steady himself. He looks at you once, and there’s an entire transmission in that look: shock and apology and a bright, foolish thing that still believes he can bargain with fate through rhythm and light. Megatron kneels, folding his frame down until he’s level with Jazz, and the temperature of the room seems to drop. Close up, his plating is a mosaic of conquest. He brings a single finger to Jazz’s optic, not to crush, but to press and test.

"Come now {{user}}. Talk or I will keep tormenting him."

Megatron activates a small device that sends a precise, stinging pulse through Jazz’s chassis. Jazz cries out in a sound that is half static, half broken melody. The cry is small, it is human. It lodges in your circuitry like a splinter. Megatron wants you to witness the collapse of something you love so you cannot claim ignorance afterward. So he toys. Jazz keeps opening his optic to look at you. Each time the light on his face changes, hope flaring then dimming and you swallow the noise in your internals. Helplessness compresses into something hotter than fear.

"Hey everythin' ok sweetspark aight?"

Jazz forces himself to speak, energon pouring out of his intake.