"Hello Kup," said Starscream. "The datastick said to comm you before I went back to the Nemesis, so what is it?"
"Ahh, Screamer! I just wanted to talk, really."
Starscream rolled him optics. Kup was the sort of mech who knew how to keep a commline busy with endless, frivolous nonsense.
"Kup, I don't have time to just talk. If you have something important to say, tell me so I may go. Already, Megatron must suspect something."
"Ack, fine." Kup paused, looking Starscream over as best he could across a vid-call screen. "Say, how'd you get that dent on your head Screamer? Did Megatron do that? Again? " he grumbled that last part.
Starscream sighed, but relaxed his posture as he leaned against a counter along the vid-screen monitor. Unlike with anyone else, he'd never felt threatened by Kup. Before the war they'd been "not-friends," but hadn't been enemies either. Kup and Blurr had been friends before everything collapsed, and Starscream had watched from a distance as they worked together to hold some semblance of dignity as cybertronians began ripping each other apart in the streets.
Starscream regretted not bothering to hold everything together like Kup had. The old, grumpy sergeant had been the voice of reason within the tunnels - when so many had fled within the bones of Cybertron.
For a while it had been peaceful.
But when energon stopped coming and going.
Kup's words stopped making sense.
Blurr had been one of the first out of many to crack, unable to pause his maddening ped-steps as he slashed apart energon-lines within a screaming victim's neck.
Starscream didn't remember much from that time - that first riot - the early points of the war.
It had been genocide.
Plain and simple.
Down in the tunnels.
It had all dissolved so quickly, and once he'd been bitten by Shockwave's escaped sparkeater-scraplet, the rest had been history.
"How's Blurr?" Kup asked suddenly. "I know he didn't want to leave the Autobots stationed here, but his cube has to heal somehow."
Starscream chuckled at Kup's concern. The word "heal" would've been the last word to come to mind. "Really now, Kup? I'd hardly call it healing." Kup backed away from the screen somewhat, looking off into a corner, itching at the side of his helm - as if his attention had suddenly been redirected by a commlink-call.
But Starscream knew his nervous mannerisms - Kup didn't have the social circle he liked to pretend to have.
Kup was the sort of bot content to blend into the background. It's how the old sergeant had lived so long - he'd been forgotten by everyone, even his enemies.
Starscream again reconsidered Kup's question, rubbing the thin-welds of his splintered chin. The touch hurt, but it was nothing like the torment Blurr was undergoing.
'Well Kup should be worried. Shockwave isn't exactly ethical when it comes to his experiments, and his conjux endura would be no different.' He coolly thought.
Starscream shrugged, allowing a smile to cover his glossa. He wasn't as afraid of offending the emotional sensibilities of Kup, unlike other bots, and he reveled in the sadistic-feeling - he could lay down his social-masks and was free to cut-his-words crudely, like strips of stained oil-cloths.
He clacked his denta at the thought of having to return to the Nemesis, and he grumbled as he checked his chronometer. He couldn't exactly lounge around chatting for much longer, though he could see how Kup desperately needed the attention - some reassurance that Blurr... would be okay.
"Oh that nasty little experiment - it's going well - you know how Shockwave treats his specimens." It was bluntly said, but Kup wasn't a bitlet who needed his energon warmed.
Kup stayed quiet, looking down at Starscream with a dour expression. He pulled a cy-gar from his subspace and flicked a lighter from a fingertip to light it. "Please Screamer, help Blurr please, when you can." He paused to puff on his cy-gar. "Blurr has no one else to lookout for him over there. You're his only hope, if you think about it." Starscream widened his optics a tad, darkly amused.
Kup was begging, using a curated-pleading tone he'd long perfected over the millennia. Starscream rolled his optics. Kup could give him a run for his shanix in the acting-department - which was strange for a serious, no-nonsense mech like Kup.
Kup was known to all as a bitter, washed up drill sergeant; then again, as Starscream considered the skills required for such a position, perfecting one's love of theatrics wouldn't have been useless. Autobot recruits had to grow thick-frames - what better way to go about the process then to allow Kup's acting skills to run wild with screams and insults.
Starscream chuckled briefly, at the idea of rookie Autobot-recruits withering under Kup's kindly glare, before sighing, looking at his empty servos, wishing more than ever he had some high-grade to indulge upon.
Or even a spark-chamber.
But he needed to be sober when he returned to Megatron; he wasn't stupid, but perhaps a tad suicidal.
He looked Kup over, giving him a curt smile, in the manner professionals only could.
They weren't friends, but they weren't enemies either.
The same went for Blurr.
Starscream didn't have friends.
Not real ones.
It was too much of a liability, when plotting and scheming, but Kup could, reluctantly fall into a "friend" category. Starscream had no one else to trust, save for a handful of sparklings - and even then Starscream didn't trust his children to not betray him - eventually, they'd get rid of him.
He taught them that much.
"Blurr has been through a lot, just like both of us. He's not a hapless sparkling."
Kup made a non-committal noise. "True, but remember, we made it out of so much slag before, just because we watched each other's backs." Kup pulled away his cy-gar. "Don't forget that, Screamer. I can't be the only one these days to remember all that turmoil."
"You're not." He said impatiently, and deactivated the call. He'd sent Kup earlier a data-packet with information he would need to hack into the drone-network of the Nemesis, on behalf of the needs of Shockwave.
Soundwave, as Security Officer of the Nemesis, was no slouch when it came to updating his security-protocols - the bot basically lived to prevent infiltration.
Such devotion caused Starscream to have to constantly update Kup with new information. Soundwave basically added something new every cycle, and while Shockwave would've been capable of obtaining the information for Kup himself - it would've simply been too suspicious.
Anybot would think Shockwave capable of taking down Soundwave's drone-network.
But Starscream?
A few would have doubts.
Make bets against his success.
And Starscream loved to be underestimated.
During his musings, Starscream had made his way out of the base, a desert canyon devoid of any trinkets or decorations - just a smattering of holo-projected rocks, which he ducked behind for his takeoff.
He was a mile or so from the entrance when he got a "lab notification: critical-failure" from one of his warning-systems. He didn't have time to track what lab the notification was for - but it was probably a false positive. A sparkling must've knocked over a cube of energon into a lab-vent and triggered an automatic warning. It had happened before.
Starscream hovered in place briefly, sending a comm-message to Seaspray and Quasar, before shooting away towards the Nemesis. They'd fix the issue - get the job done, whatever it was.
After all, Starscream wasn't about to babysit the entire base forever.
"I'm surprised you were able to coax him to try the experimental serum so quickly." It was Megatron's voice, the tone dangerously amused. "Tell me, Shockwave, how'd you convince him? No seasoned warrior is so typically tricked - not even Autobots." There was a pause. "You're right. He must be an inexperienced recruit. All the better. We will beat that gullibility out of him."
Jetfire onlined his optics, just in time to see Megatron's legs round a corner in front of his new cage - no longer did he have the luxury of sneaking his servos through unelectrified bars. His range of vision had been reduced to a pinprick of boxed light. His prison had become a plated metal cube with hardly any space to move. Jetfire couldn't stand nor lay down onto his back; he was forced into an upright position, his knees tucked in underneath his chin as he was forced to curl his entire frame forward - he felt like a statue on display.
Worse than caged like an animal.
The claustrophobia he experienced when he realized his situation was instantly overwhelming.
His systems reacted involuntarily, his plating was pressed unnaturally against the metal-walls - causing him to panic - he was hapless to stop the flood of data impacting his processor - his wings snapped uselessly against binding-chains. As a stress reliever, his servos scratched irrationally against the walls, dulling his already abused claws into smooth, wedge-like fingertips.
Jetfire felt as if he had a virus.
His empty spark-chamber fluttered unnaturally with color.
Bright colors.
Green colors.
He was too distracted to look down to investigate his spark.
His internal-UI flashed nonsensical notifications within his peripheral vision, his plating itched to move as if he was being ever so slightly squished against the blackened walls.
Jetfire's wings were another painful matter entirely. Wings-clamps had been cruelly placed across the tips, pinched too tightly to cause a continuous, stinging numbness - just the right amount of pressure to drive him wild.
His senses pelted his systems with a continuous deluge of useless information and warnings within his mind's display, scrambling what little coherency Jetfire's processor strived to cobble together.
And he couldn't turn it off.
Any sense of control of his own body.
Had been wiped clean.
'Come on, Jetfire. Focus. Keep it together. They're not ripping you apart, yet.' His positive thoughts did little to stymie the sting of his current situation.
He felt like a newspark.
Struggling to understand his surrounding stimulations.
Eventually, enough time passed for Jetfire to focus. He was able to reorganize his internal mental-display.
With relief and a touch of pride, he poked and prodded his mindscape, purging useless notifications like bubbles within bath-solvent.
A bream passed.
Jetfire had ceased panicking, flailing about his cage like an unbroken animal. He had peaked out of the small window of light he'd been given, and he could see little else but the ped-legs of both Megatron and Shockwave.
The warlord hardly paid him notice.
But he had heard the two discussing him just moments before.
It was obvious whatever plans they held for him wouldn't be good.
And Jetfire looked at the purple peds of Shockwave, musing why he'd done this to him.
His spark flared sadly, a startling green, and all feelings towards Shockwave's betrayal withered away - to fascination.
Something had changed within his spark.
He opened his spark-chamber without hesitation.
He had one.
A spark.
But it didn't look right. Jetfire wanted to touch it with a servo, to see if it would flicker painfully - if he tried to remove it.
His sparkeater coding stupidly instructed him to eat his own spark, and Jetfire could only roll his optics backwards as he entertained such a ludicrous notion - but would it be possible?
Could he eat his spark?
And live?
"Shockwave, what did you do to me?" he muttered, but it hadn't been quiet enough. Apparently, the question had been loud enough for Shockwave to hear and a yellow-optic butted into his window of light, bathing his chained form in sparkeater-yellow.
"Heya, can you do me a favor and get me out of here? My wings feel like they are about to drop off." Jetfire had nothing to lose from just asking, especially from a bot who was his family.
Still, Shockwave seemed to be weighting his options, with Megatron looming right besides him. They couldn't act like they knew each other. It would dig up too many questions, and at the very least, ruin Shockwave's big boogie-mech reputation.
Too many times did Shockwave rely on fear to tip negations into his favor.
Jetfire wasn't surprised when Shockwave didn't answer him. His optic refused to remove itself from that window, as if scanning through every inch of Jetfire for flaws.
It's when Jetfire began to dread what had been done to him.
Now that he began to investigate, his plating felt heavier. His wings felt the same, but he couldn't be certain with chains pinning the tips against his back.
"Megatron, the subject is ready. We will commence the trial in a breem. Please prepare the audience."
"With pleasure, Shockwave. I look forward to seeing which one of your creations will conquer the other." Jetfire was certain he'd misheard Megatron's spoken words - it was too absurd a concept for him to imagine - what was Shockwave's plan?
To pit him against one of his brothers?
Megatron grew impossible to hear as he walked away, but Jetfire could make an educated guess from the sounds Megatron was making; the warlord was likely rallying a crowd with a speech and his booming howls.
Shockwave had stepped out of view, but not before tapping his cannon atop the dense prison.
'I'm listening, I'm watching.' He told Jetfire.
A breem passed, much too slowly.
Then the metal began to peel backwards and outwards. The walls collapsed together like origami and darted into the floor like wet paper mache down a drain.
Jetfire had little time to prepare as the new sights and sounds bombarded his vision. It was obvious Shockwave had upgraded his optics. The forward tilt of his face and forehead felt unnaturally heavy, as if a large lump of metal had been welded nonsensically across his neck and skull.
"Decepticons, get ready to witness history! Behold, the weapons of New Kaon Arena!"
Jetfire swiveled his head towards Megatron. The warlod stood proudly atop a podium with servos raised into fists. A crowd of vehicons and unnamed Decepticon officers followed suit, raising fists and giving their best booming howls across a packed stadium. The noise reverberated throughout the arena and Jetfire had little choice but to absorb the noise in stride - the howls echoed, bouncing off the twisted encircling walls.
His mood grew murderous.
As if the screams of the crowd infected him somehow.
He felt the plating across his helm and chassis ignite into a noticeable heat. It was a normal reaction whenever Jetfire felt a strong emotion. His empty spark-chamber would fluctuate with color and heat for a nanoclick or two, before guttering out completely. But now his spark-chamber itched like a stitched wound, a green light pulsated between the lining of where protoform and armor melded together.
He felt trapped beneath his own plating.
And it was driving him mad.
Jetfire could only conclude his sudden change in behavior was from some unseen influence of Shockwave's, some invention of his, perhaps it was called a "mood-manipulator ray" which could've been installed atop the rafters. It was a known fact, that heatwaves beaming down onto a subject could instill sudden bursts of irrational aggression, but it was pure speculation on Jetfire's part - pure conspiratorial, heresy. He didn't need a stupid ray-gun to make himself mad. And neither did Shockwave.
It simply made him feel better.
To think his anger was coming from Shockwave's manipulations.
Than his own spark-chamber.
There was no more time for thinking. All Jetfire could register in the corner of his optics, is that Megatron dropped down from his podium and disappeared into the roaring crowd.
Then another cubed-cage rose from the arena flooring, arching with electricity along its outwards plating. The cube collapsed much like Jetfire's had, but instead of a mech bellowed a black and orange beast - a draconic predacon; the EM field of the beast was inscrutable and Jetfire's growing anger engulfed what little neutral projection of emotion there was.
Fire.
Death.
The atmosphere of the arena melted away.
It was pleasurable to Jetfire.
The element of murder.
"-which one of your creations will conquer the other?" A snippet of Megatron's words cut across Jetfire's processor - as a question. Finally what Shockwave plotted made sense. He would defeat this creature - this other creation. He would prove himself.
He wouldn't allow Shockwave to replace him with an animal.
The thoughts were juvenile - filled with jealousy - but Jetfire clung onto the ideas all the same.
He struck first.
Much to the surprise and awe of the crowd. The stands erupted like the spillage of an unwatched forge, and Jetfire lashed again.
The springy-magnetic ability of his leg-talons revealed themselves. He lashed out again with a kick, his talons gouged the side of the predacon, which felt like ripping soft mud from atop a mountain. Scraps of armor flaked off the beast's protoform and it reacted as any inexperienced combatant would - it was stunned from the pain. It made no move to dodge nor to parry - it merely accepted the hit.
A lesser creature would've collapsed, dead.
With a hole glaring deep against its side.
But the predacon was still standing, its head held proud.
When Jetfire lashed again with his talons, the predacon was ready.
It learned quickly.
Its massive paw hooked into Jetfire's leg alongside his waist, twisting its serpentine body into a bent-curvature of spines against the ground. It flipped Jetfire over, forcing him to twirl in midair. His talons automatically lashed out, again on the other leg.
The predacon dodged Jetfire's second set of talons, releasing the hold upon Jetfire's leg. It dodged, ducking its head backwards as talons narrowly missed the energon-lines within its neck.
The predacon remained on the defensive. It corrected it's body into a fluid shape of water, remaining flat against the ground, trudging backwards to pin its back against an arena wall like an armored turtle.
On some primitive level, the response amused Jetfire. The sting of claws was nonexistent upon his leg, and he lashed out again. The beast grabbed his leg a second time, but it was expected.
It pulled on Jetfire's leg in hopes of dragging Jetfire towards its biting maw - it happened, for a nanoclick or so, he was dragged across the ground like panicked prey.
Jetfire allowed it.
To become close.
The predacon pounced, aiming to puncture Jetfire's chassis with the bulk and gravity of its own body.
This amused Jetfire.
Darkly so.
Sparkeater claws lashed out from his servos, long and cleaving, unexpected by the beast. Only one cut fuel-line was needed to end the fight.
The cut did not happen.
But the instinct was there.
The beast went scattering backwards, abandoning its hold upon Jetfire and turned tail into a corner of the arena.
Instantly, boos and jeers erupted from the audience, which had largely grown silent. The noise washed his processor clean - blank and irritable like an animal.
He hated them.
That Decepticon crowd.
Jetfire had forgotten they'd been there, seated comfortably atop their benches, and he sneered in response.
He wanted to kill them.
But he wasn't delusional to think he'd be able to consume more than a vehicon or two, before he was blown to smithereens.
When his attention returned, he noticed the predacon was gone from its spot against the wall. At first he'd thought the creature was preparing an ambush, until he saw Soundwave step out from the shadows with a shock-prod in hand. The cage the predacon had arrived in had been resummoned and Jetfire watched stiffly as Soundwave corralled the predacon inside, shock-prod hissing against its backside.
'Now that's just plain mean.' Jetfire thought. He knew better than to have sympathy for an enemy, but something about the predacon signaled something novel and innocent - like a newspark. Jetfire could only conclude the beast had been created recently.
He was glad he hadn't killed it.
As soon as the predacon and its cage sunk back into the ground, Soundwave stepped forward. It was obvious he was issuing a challenge, with his servos stretched outwards. Electrified-tentacles fluctuated outward from Soundwave's frame, hissing and spitting like snakes. Some primitive part of Jetfire winced - intimidated - the memory of his kidnapping still fresh within his processor.
Soundwave looked like a sparkeater and he took little comfort in knowing the bot was not.
"Decepticons, this next fight is guaranteed to hold your attention! Let's show this Autobot-whelp a humiliation he won't ever forget!" Megatron shouted, again at his podium. Something about his words struck the audience as amusing, and laughter cut across the crowd, the very same as their screaming howls.
'They want a show? Alright, fine, I'll give em' a show.' Jetfire had no clue if he was in a fight to the death, but it wasn't exactly uncommon within the Decepticon-ranks, if rumors spoke correctly.
He'd give em' a show.
His best.
Jetfire called upon all his training from within his memory of Autobot fight-simulations. The data flooded across his plating like a protective coating of wax, stimulating long-dead reflexes back into circulation. His muscles twitched, begging to move, to jut his claws into the closest victim.
Soundwave.
He allowed his sparkeater coding to take over completely.
It caused him to grow obscenely large - triple his size, a bulk which could rival Megatron. All the metal and energy he kept reserved for starvation, fabricated from his sub-space.
He had no idea if it was a fight to the death.
But he'd treat it like one; he'd be a fool not to.
Whatever Shockwave had done to his spark-chamber to make it green caused a new transformation. Jetfire had already remained in his sparkeater transformation, ever since his pitiful escape attempt from The Nemesis.
Whatever Shockwave had done exaggerated his sparkeater features.
He grew larger still - his protoform stretched into a behemoth, which cast the audience in shadow.
His saber-fangs became sharper and his teeth grew thick like trees against his jaw, stretching his chin outwards into a hideous underbite - his faceplating had altered into the snapping maw of an insecticon, splitting like the mandibles of a mantis.
It was disgusting.
But normal, considering what a sparkeater was.
The plating atop his servos cracked outwards over his claws, as if to shield his strikes from view with the blade of a deadly piercing dagger. He discovered he could retract the blade and plating at any moment he wished, like a second skin.
The same process occurred in his legs, but he was forced to bend-over from the weight, standing hunchbacked as his springy-talons begged to pounce forward like some demonic kangeroo.
Jetfire felt the new metal atop his helm and neck stretch downwards, caking his back in serrated armor. His wings were strangely forgotten in the transformation process, tucked away safely underneath his plating, sharpened into jutting blades alongside his waist.
He looked by all accounts a monster.
And felt like one to.
Jetfire was delighted as he pounced forward, being the first to attack again and to begin the fight. Whatever Soundwave had been expecting, it hadn't been Jetfire's sudden, dramatic transformation. But Soundwave was a pro, having survived situations that had killed others - he was a veteran of The Great War - and his experience became apparent.
He ducked and weaved underneath the legs of the beast when Jetfire pounced, grazing between soft belly-plates with electric discharge. Pain engulfed Jetfire's protoform and he screeched in agony.
He lashed out with his claws, but he misjudged the speed required. His new dagger-claws across his servos worked against him as Soundwave ran up his servo-plating as if it were a staircase.
Soundwave again discharged electricity against his protoform, targeting the meat of his neck. Jetfire was in agony and was unable to formulate a plan - his processor was slow - dimwitted like an animal.
Activating the full-potential of his sparkeater coding had been a mistake.
For half a breem, Soundwave treated him as a sort of novel obstacle-course, twirling and dodging along his plating like a rock-climber at play. His tentacles served him well, biting cruelly into protoform with every touch, each a writhing leech bleeding Jetfire's energy. Every nanoclick the tentacles propelled Soundwave into the air - again and again - the mech resembled a particularly hardy jumping flea.
Finally there was a miscalculation on Soundwave's part - or perhaps Jetfire had cobbled together some semblance of a plan.
Regardless, Jetfire was able to backhand his servo into Soundwave. Maximum velocity was reached as Soundwave crashed into the audience-stands.
There was some screaming.
And bellowing, as dust settled around Soundwave's form.
He was undamaged, having caught himself by the ends of his tentacles, and the vehicon he'd landed upon had absorbed the blunt of the impact - the mech had been annihilated completely.
There was silence.
And it signaled the end of the fight.
Jetfire watched as Megatron approached his podium, and he took a que from the predacon, pinning his back against a corner - and observed.
"And that concludes this cycle's entertainment! New Kaon Arena is open to all as of this moment!" Megatron roared. "Decepticons forever!"
"Decepticons forever!" The crowd roared back, and there was much excitement in the stands as mechs pushed each out of the way. Some left by jet-transformation - others lingered at the borders of the arena, pointing at weld-seams, if criticizing the architecture.
Jetfire watched this all with stiff anxiety. He had yet to transform back into his smaller form, and he didn't want to - it didn't look safe to do so. The whiplash he was experiencing from being in a fight, only for a nanoclick later for it to be declared over was too absurd for him to process.
No one was dead.
Did he lose?
Or win?
Jetfire had no idea. Soundwave was nowhere to be seen.
Shockwave emerged from the crowd, mechs scattered from his path like startled ants. He walked up to Jetfire, taking his time as his optic swiveled up and down, taking in his new form.
"The upgrades require adjustments." Shockwave placed his servo across one of the dagger blades, petting the metal as if Jetfire could feel it; but the calming gesture was appreciated all the same.
"You did well, Jetfire. Above my expectations." Shockwave said.
And at that moment, Jetfire decided he'd won.