A/N: Consistantly, the Combaticon chapters were longer than those for the Stunticons. I believe it is because the Combaticons have a past they can pull from, no matter how little information they end up sharing.

You would think that this one would be as straight forward as Breakdown's, but Vortex decided to twist it around on me.


Vortex

Claustrophobia: the fear of confined spaces.


The simple pleasures in life were often underrated.

Built during the Great War, Vortex was one of only two Combaticons who had no personal memories of Cybertron's so-called "Golden Age" (possibly one of three, though it was so hard to get Swindle to divulge any information about his past). Thus he had no affinity for what others called the "good old days". While lesser mechs bemoaned the swill that made up their daily rations and compared it to "real" Energon refined from energy sources more efficient than crude Earth fuels, the interrogator was content to sit back and observe. To listen.

What would the Autobots think if they knew their enemies whined like spoiled sparklings over something they could not have?

True, the war had increased the average 'bot's appreciation of the simple things far beyond what any peacetime could achieve. A cube of the most impure, polluted, sludgy Energon was finer than any Golden Age high-grade when the alternative was starvation. A hard, narrow, creaking berth coated in the unsavory fluids of its previous occupant was the most comfortable resting place when the only other option was the ground. A warm body willing to caress and bite and reciprocate (or not, there was always the exception) in the most essential and basic bonding activity was preferable to working the joystick solo. Even day to day functioning was a commodity in a time when over sixty percent of Cybertronians were rusting away on battlefields both new and ancient, stripped of all useful parts so that others may continue to defy their eventual fates.

The simple pleasures were the best pleasures. And Vortex had always held an appreciation for the simple pleasures.

Granted, as his hobbies could be considered a bit "abnormal" so too was his definition of pleasure skewed. The sweet sound of a mech's agony as his limbs were slowly and excruciatingly torn off wire by wire and plate by plate. The stutter of an energon pump as it tried desperately to force vital fluid through a rapidly depressurizing circulatory system... Beautiful.

Still, he could understand the lure of more acceptable gratifications. Energon, a place to rest, 'bots to frag.

Space to fly.

Vortex was a rotary mech. One of many flight models in the great Decepticon army. Not as fast as a Seeker, not as strong as a shuttle, but capable of flying in any direction and vertical take off. He could also use his rotary blades as weapons, though that was generally frowned upon due to the damage it caused to such vital and sensitive equipment. Which really didn't bother him since he had access to an almost unlimited supply of replacements, and what fun was life if there wasn't a little pain involved?

Flight models were flight models, however, and as such they all shared a common pleasure.

The sky.

It didn't matter if that sky was a rich thick blue of nitrogen and oxygen and a handful of other elements, or a thin stale red poisoned with the ash and smoke of burning cities. The sky was the sky, and there was no way to describe the rush of displaced air over a fuselage as engines were pushed to their extremes. The delight in cutting power to rotary blades almost a mile above a battlefield and free falling, riding the fine line between life and a rather large crater. The power to go wherever you wanted and frag anyone who said otherwise.

To have the sky was to have freedom.

Of course, every pleasure came with its own risks, and loving the sky was no different.

It was a common trait, one that was accepted by scientists worldwide as just being a result of flier programming. All aerial models, without exception, did not do well indoors. The small places, the dark places; all were equally terrifying to those that held the sky. To be placed inside was to no longer have the freedom of outside. It was one of the reasons that the city of Vos was so famous for its large towers of glittering crystal and glass. Being able to see the sky gave one the illusion that the walls did not exist.

Even that was a risk. Not seeing the walls did not make them disappear.

Vortex had once observed a strange event while undercover in a human city. A small organic bird had flown into the hangar he was hiding in. The humans had attempted to chase it out the doors, but instead it returned again and again to a tiny window near the ceiling. Eventually it had broken its own neck on the invisible barrier, too caught up in trying to reclaim the sky to consider another exit.

Vortex had been in several prisons over the course of his long life. Many were of the standard sort, four walls with only a tiny patch of sky visible through a high window. Some were worse, just a small dim box with bars that crackled and spit. He had seen the inside of many brigs, Autobot and Decepticon, and they were identical except for the color of the walls.

A prison, however, did not need physical dividers to be effective. The worst had no walls, and offered no hope of escape. A prison of the mind and loyalty through programming could clip a mech's wings as surely as a tiny dark box. Better, as a box offered the hope of the outside world.

Was it any wonder that he enjoyed the small pleasures, when the greatest one of all had already been taken from him?

He flew and killed and did what he could to proclaim his freedom as often as possible.

It made the glass walls seem a little bit clearer.