Author's Note:

This story starts a bit slow cause it's nothing but Cliffjumper's torture. But it's very necessary.

Nightstalker is roughly half a head shorter than Arcee. As Cliffjumper's torture proceeds, you will get to see many more references to Arcee.

And . . . hm. Forgot what I was going to say. Dante's Inferno was a great book. In all actuality, my OTP is Cliff and Arcee. I love them. They're cute. Arcee is one hell of a feminine character in Transformers Prime. So freaking strong and not just in the physical sense.

Nightstalker's song is "Howl" by Florence + The Machine

"Back so soon?"

His cocky attitude was getting on her nerves. Nightstalker ignored his comment, wondering when he had regained functions in his body to respond so cheekily to her again. Then again, the bot had given Starscream smack talk while he was on his knees.

The Autobot gave a harsh laugh, and Nightstalker duly noted that he wasn't coughing up excess energon anymore. "The silent treatment again?"

Nightstalker crossed her arms behind her back, circling the mech slowly. His blue optics watched her as she assessed his body make. He was a short mech, only a full head and a half taller than Nightstalker's height, but he had the thicker build of a brawler. He was clearly automobile, most likely a muscle car, had horns on his head most likely more for decoration than anything though he was minus one now. The Autobot emblem resided on both his outer forearms.

"Like what you see?" he teased again without much lightheartedness in his voice. Nightstalker passed around his back, inspecting his body. Beneath those bulky shoulders would be especially sensitive to pain, why his shoulders were so bulky in the first place. The headlights at his waist would serve well, as would his hands. There was always the cruel way to fall back on a mech's codpiece, but Nightstalker always found ways to keep from having to exploit that certain extremity. The neck was always a sensitive area, but the neck area was very unstable, and very easy to accidentally kill your captive prematurely. Vocal processors were better, and optics.

Nightstalker passed around the front of the Autobot who steadily kept his eyes on her. "So," he said again as Nightstalker studied him, "what made a gal like you decide to go into the torture business?"

Every Cybertronian's armor was suspect to her lava, and it was an easy place to start. But, the whips may be more fun . . . "Too small for anything else," Nightstalker told him, passing her eyes down his body for where she wanted her point of entry to be. "Besides, I would have a mentor to teach me better."

He frowned then. "A mentor?"

Nightstalker shrugged. "Arachnid is very successful in this area."

Nightstalker watched curiously as his eyes widened in horror, looking at her with newfound disgust. "Arachnid?" he echoed. "Out of all the slagging Decepticons . . ."

"I take it you've had a run-in with Arachnid," Nightstalker said idly, letting her whips coil out from her arms. "Either that, or you know someone who has."

He narrowed his eyes, suddenly fearing his captor a bit more. "You could say that."

Nightstalker wasted no more time for idle chatter and slung out her right whip, letting it snap and curl around one of his spread arms. He flinched at their decidedly serrated edges that left thin lines of energon leaking from his arms.

"Now," Nightstalker said to him, "we begin."

He didn't respond then, gaze flattening to the same Autobot determination she had seen over the years. It would take some time to coax the answers out of him, but he would be just like every Autobot that had spent enough time screaming and enduring the rank solitude of her cells; he would either slowly break, or slowly die.

"You know many more things than I actually could think of information-wise," Nightstalker crooned easily to him, letting her fingers trace next to the whip around his arm. "Therefore, feel free to surprise me with any amount of information you would like to give. I promise, it will make things easier on yourself." She gave a light shrug and a coy smile at his glare. "Besides, if Starscream likes you enough, he won't just kill you to spite the Autobots; he may let you go back for a ransom."

He scoffed at her. "Like you could possibly get me to betray the Autobots. Fair warning: you've got pit's job before you."

Nightstalker jerked the whip down and let it tear through his paint, causing him to tense up and clamp his mouth down to stop a yell. She then snapped the whip again, letting it wrap around his neck. She pulled, letting the whip tighten and lean him down close to her face.

"Good," she murmured to him, making his eyes narrow. "I like a challenge." She jerked the whip back again and backed up a good way, twirling them restlessly like lassos at her feet. "Now while I have my fun, I want you to think about what you can tell me, and you can think about the answer to this question: where is the Autobot base?" Nightstalker felt herself falling into her usual pattern of torture as she let a mocking smile curl her lips up. "Debate the answer and how much it truly means to you. Then, I will ask again and expect an answer."

Nightstalker took the first strike at him, letting her whips crack against his metal. The sound banged out like a gunshot, echoing sharply in the enclosed room. This would be the only sound since the red Autobot stubbornly kept his mouth shut and refused to cry out. Playing around with her whips, Nightstalker laughed out loud but to herself as she struck the mech over and over, seeing the thin lines of energon lacing across multiple wounds that quickly accumulated.

"It's been some time since I've had a chance to enjoy some old fashioned torture," Nightstalker said conversationally, unsurprised when the mech kept his tight jaw shut. She hit him once across the face just to see him seethe. She chuckled at him. "Your indignation is cute."

Nightstalker took leisure time to inflict the numerous wounds that were nothing serious. These wounds were to cause him to feel pain all over his body as a reminder that no part of himself was safe. These were meant to make his strength slowly sap and the scars to infect and wither him more. It was a simple tool, but one that Nightstalker found most promising when done correctly. This was where she differed from Arachnid—Arachnid immediately went for the cruel things while Nightstalker played with you and slowly drew out punishments.

After a lengthy time of attacking with her whips and seeing thin lines of energon coat his body at almost every turn now, Nightstalker let her whips rest. "Now. Where is the Autobot base?"

His head was down, and Nightstalker was unsurprised to see him look up with hard eyes. "Sorry to say," he told her, "but if that's all you've got then I've got no problem."

Nightstalker gave a light laugh and a simple shrug. "Is this it? No, of course not. Please dear, this is just the preliminaries." Flicking a switch inside of her, Nightstalker let the electrical currents run through her whips. His blue eyes jumped to the sight of the tips of the whips cracking with electrical energy and the sound of electricity humming through her weapons. Nightstalker quirked a brow at him, saying easily, "Of course, since this is too mild for you, I can always speed things up."

She didn't let him think through the implications of her statement but instead lashed the whip out with more ferocity than before, letting it crack against the side of his helm. This time the Autobot couldn't resist a startled yell of pain, jerking against his bonds when the electrical current shocked like lightning through him. Nightstalker paused, watching with bland amusement as he struggled to lift his head to keep her in his sights, but his optics were frizzing from the amount of raw power that had surged through his system.

"Those warning signals flashing across your optics?" Nightstalker intoned carelessly. "Get used to those. They will be all you see for the next stretch of your life." She watched as his optics finally focused on her, and she finally saw the first flicker of doubt flash through him before he hardened again. She gave him a sickeningly sweet look of misunderstanding.

"What?" she asked, as if he had asked a question. Nightstalker lifted both whips and slapped down both on his left shoulder, making his jaw clamp the tightest she had seen it yet and arch sharply in pain. "Did you forget? With your signals disabled, the Autobots have no idea how to find you, much less can they track the NEMESIS. I have you all to myself for megacycles, solarcycles, stellarcycles . . . and exactly how much pain I wish to inflict depends on your answers." She smiled at his look of indignation. "So speak up," she cajoled to him, letting another sadistic smile curl her lips. "You might save yourself if you do."

His eyes widened a little, from what Nightstalker couldn't tell in time because she had already let her whips fly. This time the reoccurring process was different as she indulged in electrocuting him. He tried to keep his silence, but after a bit, even that changed.

The first scream was less than imagined, just a muffled cry from between his lips when Nightstalker lashed her whips against his headlights. The next, notwithstanding, was more pronounced, cutting off shortly with another harsh grit of his teeth. After that, Nightstalker was pleased to hear constant screams echoing in her chambers of agonizing death.

It wasn't until several screams became punctuated with frizzing of his voice did Nightstalker relent. Twirling the whips casually about her feet, Nightstalker reminded him, "I'm in charge here. You are at my complete mercy, whatever mercy that I may possess." She cracked the whip again near his helm, letting him watch it come. He jerked back wildly from the tip, but it just snapped in front of his face in a serious threat. She didn't want to short him out, after all. "Now," Nightstalker asked again, "do you have the faintest idea where the Autobot base could be?"

There was a moment of silence where nothing could be heard but the sadistic hum and crackle of electricity in her whips. Finally, the red Autobot managed to bring his head up to eyelevel. His trembling lips managed his next words.

"Even if I did, I would never tell you."

He cringed again when she faked attacking him with her whip. Nightstalker let out a laugh, indeed, very amused. "Please, of course you know where your base is, so don't even try that method," she laughed, finding him funnier the more she had him here in the shadowy dungeon. "Just man up and tell me that you're not telling me."

"Find then," he said thinly, blue optics narrowing. "I'll never rat on my friends, and there isn't a fragging thing you can do to make it different."

She shrugged, saying, "Brave, but the days down here can get tedious . . . I wonder how long it will take to make you see different." Nightstalker gave a sigh, retracting her whips leisurely and letting her wings twitch. His optics jumped at every movement she made. "The whips bore me. Let's move on from this simple play, and we'll finally get serious. Let me ask you a question that you can answer: do you know why my eyes are orange instead of the typical Decepticon red?"

He hesitated, blue optics narrowing with distrust. "I don't know," he finally stated.

Nightstalker sighed, rolling her eyes. She grabbed his face with her hands, making his jaw tense when she leaned in close, invading his personal space as he twitched in pain from the whips. "Come on, you're a bright bot," she spat a little. "You don't have the faintest idea? Surely you can come up with something to amuse me with."

"I'm not here for your amusement!" he denied her, glaring as defiantly as he could into her eyes.

"On the contrary," Nightstalker drawled, stepping within a hairs breadth from him and pulling him down. He stiffened. "You are here for nothing except my amusement," she hissed in his audio receptors, letting her claws dig into the back of his neck. She let her other servos claws dig into the plating above his interface panel. He couldn't quite stop a thin gasp of horror. "Whatever my amusement may be."

When Nightstalker caught sight of the sheer horror that mounted in his optics, she laughed, shaking her head. "Now, now," she told him with mocking reassurance, "if you behave well we won't have to go to such extremes."

"We don't?" he replied thinly with heavy sarcasm. "That's a first."

Nightstalker let her lips curl into a smile. "Unlike most," she said, trailing the tip of her fingertips from his interface panel up to that one horn on his head. "Unlike most, I have a healthy respect for that area." She stroked that one horn on his head curiously, wondering why he had chosen them out of all things to decorate his head with. "After all, a torturer doesn't get an interface too often."

Something clashed in his eyes before he suddenly growled, "Don't touch me there."

Her hand jumped from him instantly for some reason, and then her lips curled again. "I see," she stated, crossing her arms. "A hot spot that's already touched by someone special. You don't want me making it feel different." His optics flickered, but he didn't argue, so Nightstalker knew she had hit a nerve. She waved a hand. "Now, you don't have the slightest idea of why my optics are orange?"

Something worked behind his gaze that was slowly filling with fear. "To designate you as the torturer," he finally squeezed out of his vocal processor. "Because you're female. Or maybe you just don't like red."

Her lips quirked up. So, he still had some spunk. "Wrong on all accounts," she told him, giving a little laugh. "Though, I am not too partial for the color red. It must be why I like to tear apart your paint." He refused to flinch, stolidly keeping his gaze on her. "As to why my optics are orange," Nightstalker said, approaching closer, "is because it signifies the lava boiling inside my blackened crust." She lifted a finger, transforming it in his sights. Nightstalker very deliberately let one droplet of the glowing orange lava drop to the floor between them. It hissed at contact.

She didn't miss the way his optics flared in true alarm.

"Now before I start, I'll give you the chance to answer again," Nightstalker said, slowly pacing around him. "The Autobot base?" He didn't answer. Nightstalker transformed each finger open, chuckling behind him. "You ready, sweetheart?" She didn't touch him for some time, knowing that he was waiting for it and would not know when it came since she was behind him. She smiled to herself. To play with her captive's mind was always refreshing. His metal kept hinging up more and more as the time passed at which she didn't touch him, but Nightstalker kept letting drops fall, letting the sound of the sizzle fill the air and let his mind run haywire with thoughts of how his metal would react when it sizzled.

At the first sign of relaxation, Nightstalker sliced her claws oozing lava across his back. He arched and screamed, jerking forward as the lava rolled down his body and slowly burned through the metal.

"What was that?" she shouted out above his screams. The red Autobot clamped his mouth shut again, struggling to keep anymore sounds inside. "Did you say something about the Autobot base? No? Okay, then we'll try this again!" Nightstalker let her claws puncture his right arm, letting the lava pour into the insides and melt away the wiring. His screams began fresh, agonizing howls of misery as he thrashed in his prison, unable to escape the molten grip on his upper arm.

"Tell me the location of the Autobot base and I'll stop," she promised him. When he still refused to give up the location, Nightstalker let more lava pour into his arm. He writhed in pain, screaming so forcefully that his vocals began to fritz in and out.

Nightstalker jerked her claws from the mech's arm and his voice box broke briefly in pain. Her orange eyes idly took in his shuddering form, his thin gasping, and his bowed head. She walked around him, eyeing the gaping wound she had left in his arm that still leaked lava through the holes. The steady drip sizzled against the flooring and ate through the mech's metal.

Nightstalker waved her hand to catch his attention. "So . . ." she drawled out, looking at him with exaggerated curiosity. "Do we have an idea yet where the Autobot base could be? Or do we need continue this?" She drew a thin line across his opposite arm, making his body strain as the lava smoldered and ate that thin line open like cheese.

His breathing was labored, his lips trembled, and his voice was filled with static. "Y-You'll never . . . get . . ."

Nightstalker waved him silent with her hand, rolling her eyes. "Yes. I get it. Was everything tonight not enough?" She gave a sigh, shaking her head. "A pity." She waltzed around him once, taking in every turn of his body when she decided, to pit with it. Transforming the tips of her fingers closed, Nightstalker let a small compartment in her right arm transform. Taking out one of the three vials filled with a sickly green fluid, she wagged it in front of the mech's curiously frightened eyes.

"You know what this is?" she asked him. When he didn't respond, she smashed her fist against his lava-ravaged arm. He screamed again, and Nightstalker patiently waited for him to gather his breath back.

"I don't know," he gasped immediately when he could, still struggling for his breath. Nightstalker patted his cheek.

"Would you like to know what this is?"

A shudder ran through his frame before he managed to respond. "Not . . . particularly . . ."

"My mentor gifted it to me," Nightstalker continued. His gaze snapped up then. She swirled the bright green liquid in its vial. "If you're thinking that this is her own unique poison, you'd be thinking correct."

Nightstalker watched in curiosity as unconcealed horror rose in his eyes. She widened her orange eyes to him. "Oh? It seems you're affiliated with the stories of her venom. Perhaps, you've had a taste?" His blue optics jumped to her before fixating on the vial, and it caused Nightstalker to laugh darkly. "No, you haven't, but you've clearly seen what it can do to a bot." She swirled it in his sights again, pulling out a precision cutting knife for the occasion, surprised she hadn't wielded these on him yet. "Would you like to have a taste?"

"I'd prefer not," he rasped immediately, eyes wide in untold terror of the venom. Nightstalker didn't care for his response and opened the vial, dipping the tip of her blade into the substance. It hissed on contact, and she held up the blade near him. He was audibly trying to control his gasps as he leaned away, and Nightstalker leisurely passed the venom-dipped edge across his cheek. The mech's eyes dilated and widened in agony, a quick gasp and a clenched jaw all that kept back his screams. He twitched, silently enduring his first taste of her venom.

Seeing his untold fear, this was where Arachnid would plunge forward with the punishments brutally until he broke. This was where Nightstalker retreated back with a secretive smirk as his metal hissed and sizzled, tiny wisps of smoke coiling up like snakes. His terrified blue optics slammed into her orange ones.

Nightstalker closed the vial and returned it to her arm with the other two. She smiled at him, and he looked on with growing apprehension. "I think that's enough for today," she told him, "but don't worry—we'll pick up with the venom tomorrow morning." His optics tightened with barely contained panic.

Nightstalker turned and gave him a slight wave. "Remember my question, darling," she cajoled to him. "You might not have to endure the venom." With that, Nightstalker exited and locked the door behind her, leaving him inside the cell. A second later, she cut off all the lights in his room so the darkness would plague him just as much.

She left the door, knowing he'd be hyperventilating with barely controlled hysteria of the dark and the dread of what would come tomorrow. Nightstalker thought it was probably the worst failing she could find in Arachnid. While she was deadly with her usage of torture, striking fear into the most brave, there were times she failed in extracting information. Namely, Arcee, but Nightstalker never said her name because Arachnid was especially sensitive to the name.

However, unlike Arachnid, Nightstalker had never failed to make someone crack. Because, unlike Arachnid, Nightstalker gave her victims time alone in the dark to doubt themselves. Some initially gained strength from this time alone, time to collect themselves and steel themselves for the next round, but given enough time, even that would fail them and they would falter, weaken, and break. This is how they lost hope, wrought with sorrow, and abandoned everything but the present and the pain they lived in. These were the ones Nightstalker left without even hope of death.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

It was a fitting quote, and one she had written in energon along the walls of her haven of torture cells. Nightstalker left the desolate halls of darkness and despair to the Autobot mech.

She would have to read this Dante's Inferno some day.