Storm was fast asleep, curled around the thickest tree he could find. His sparkeater-neck stretched, outwards and flat like a snake's, against the most accommodating branches – to gingerly rest his head against a pile of leaves tucked away within the branching nook of the trunk.
His wings were left in a disheveled-state. Wires sat exposed to open air, hissing and crackling like little whips of despair.
Storm would've been in agony, if he dared to awaken. But he was deep in stasis-lock. His body frantically healing the complex network of internal bleeding filling his twisted limb gear-compartments – dry and dark spaces, where fuel did not belong.
Drip. Drip.
Energon, once processed into a mech's lines, burned slowly, less explosively.
But that meant nothing when it was chewing through the carbon of a tree.
Drip. Drip.
The blood, black as soot, was particularly nasty. It singed and crackled against the tree like a living being of shadow.
Soon, it would splinter and fall.
Crrrrr-eek Crack.
In no time at all.
Crrrrrrrrrr-
Like a chopping ax the biting blood flowed deeper, past bark and cambium rings.
Jetstorm was left a withered husk, desperate for rest, which was impossible to achieve.
There was no more energon left, inside of him.
Crrrrrrrrrrrrr–kkk!
…
…
…
The tree fell.
…
…
…
Storm did not move. His helm clattered wetly against the trunk and leaves.
The momentum of the crashing tree flung him into the ground.
…
…
…
His back hit the dirt sickly.
…
…
…
And only then did Storm awaken.
His wings!
His wings!
Broken. Shattered. Agony.
Storm screamed himself raw. His internal UI reported countless warnings and pop-ups of damages.
He was too confused to comprehend just what the hell happened. He shivered in what black fluids remained, pouring thinly from his body.
He was still screaming, but his mouth eventually heated with sparks.
He coughed, and coughed. A splatter of vantablack glistened around fragments of his voicebox – the delicate mechanism blown to smithereens.
…
…
…
Slowly, torturously, Jetstorm moved.
His knees buckled. His claws dug heavily into the broken splintered tree, for enough purchase to stand.
Finally, he stood up, sucking every inch of pain spiraling from his being to give him the energy to remain awake.
He was terribly lucid.
In a way no mech nor sparkeater ought to be.
But there he was, ready to feed.
Jazz was in trouble.
He knew that comet was going to be a disaster, but in his haste to set up his surveillance-devices, he neglected to consider…a radical possibly…
A forest fire.
"Well, isn't this some nice weather?" He sarcastically said, to himself, and certainly not to a herd of panicking deer pelting past.
"Right, well it's better than nothing." He said, as he snapped another picture with his internal optic-camera.
'Hrmmm, he looks like Jetfire…just bigger.' Though it couldn't be possible the two were related, mused Jazz.
He'd gotten footage of the comet, a massive burning orange shuttle-mech, stomping around the Nemesis-wreck – as if he owned the place.
Jazz paused, to consider the possibility. 'Maybe he does own the place?' humming to himself, he shimmied up a tree, for a better vantage point against the rising black smoke. 'Those Decepticons seem awfully happy to see him. If only I could get closer, I could record–'
Snap!
'-their conversations…'
Jazz's thoughts abruptly cut off. He barely had time to register a sound behind him.
Before.
Snap!
Another.
At first he thought it was a fleeing Earth-creature – like a bear or a deer – something heavy.
But.
Crack !
That was way too loud to be anything "organic."
Jazz spun around, backflipping off from the top of the tree with the grace and pizzazz of a sugared-up squirrel.
He swung a leg forward – ready to kick –
"Ratchet!?!"
There stood the medic. He looked awful. His white paint stained with mud, energon, and other unmentionable fluids.
"Blast, you look like The Pit warmed over-" Jazz was about to say more, but -
"JAZZ! Why did you ignore my emergency -comms!?" Bellowed Ratchet. He channeled the spirit of a white rhinoceros as he charged towards Jazz in an aborted tackle.
"What the– frag Ratchet! I thought you were the enemy."
"I will be, if you don't get back to base, right now!"
"Really, doc? But I'm getting intel. See, look here-"
"JAZZ! I need you! Now!" Ratchet looked ready to punch him. The "doc" was quivering like a parched steam-engine.
"BUT-" Ratchet punched Jazz, smacking him onto his aft.
"Did you not hear me!?" Ratchet was obviously in hysterics. "Bumblebee is missing! Optimus is dying! Something is wrong with Arcee!"
"You'reTheOnlyOneLeft!" Ratchet spoke so fast, that he sounded like Blurr. "HelpMe!"
"But Ratchet!" The doc tried to swing again, but Jazz rolled outta the way, wise to his temper. "Slag-it, listen! The groundbridge?! If everyone is out of commission, who's watching the base if you're out here!?"
"Ahh, right. That." Ratchet looked nervous, twiddling his fingers. "I took a leap of faith."
Jazz looked unimpressed, his lip pinched. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"So, do the Autobots typically let prisoners play with the groundbridge-controles?" asked Knockout, seated nearby the groundbridge console and lever.
"Cliffjumper," shrugged, getting used to his new bot-form. He gesticulated with wild slashing claws as he spoke. Knockout would've been worried, if he wasn't currently prepping the workstation's surface for a manicure.
He looked like slag, but Knockout knew he best not think about it, least he felt even worse.
He was just delighted to be free of those wretched paint-chipping chains…
"What's an Autobot?" Cliffjumper asked. Knockout was nonplussed as he reached for the predacon's hand. "Right, I forget, you're brand new." He sighed, muttering something about "babysitting duties," before uncapping a bottle of polish.
"What color do you want, big guy?" asked Knockout.
"Huh?" Confused, Cliffjumper just stared. "What?"
"Nevermind. It was a dumb question. I only have the red bottle – to touch up any potential scratches I get in the field…though it might look tacky on you – red claws with your gold scales? Eh, yick. Not my finest work. You're going to look like a Chinese-cuisine mascot.
"Chi sssssneeze quiz-zing?"
"Nevermind."
And as Knockout began painting the dragon's claws a bright ruddy red, Cliffjumper glanced at his scales, overcome with an implacable emotion.
"Knockout, didn't I used to be red? I remember being red. Can you paint me red?!"
"Do you now?" Knockout sighed. "Well, I'd love to paint you red, kid…but sadly, a tiny bottle of this "crimson-scarlet farquaad," won't cut it."
"There's no red paint, like, anywhere?" Cliffjumper innocently asked. He seemed overcome with emotion. His white puffy faceplate twitched outwards with a grimace – either he was going to vomit, or burst into tears.
"Oh Primus, I forgot." Knockout suddenly smacked himself in the face, almost spilling the bottle of polish over, were it not for an attentive Cliffjumper.
"W-what's wrong?"
"I just realized every beautiful possession that I own is utterly destroyed! My room, my penthouse! It's completely smashed!"
"Awww…" Cliffjumper made a sympathetic whine, unsure what a penthouse was, but it sounded delightful.
"Hey, Knockout?"
"What!? Can't you see I'm having a centennial-crisis here?!"
"Why's the table beeping?"
Knockout leaned over the console screen, and sighed. "Looks like the Autobots want back in…"
Then Knockout smiled deviously, generously brushing a claw, red. "Unfortunately, for Ratchet and company – I'm feeling pouty – so I say, make em' wait."
"Hrmm, isn't that mean?"
"No, well, yes – but, it also means we can look for red paint!"
"Yaaayy!" And Cliffjumper jumped up and down like a belligerent puppy.
"I bet there's a can of Autobot-red somewhere in storage. Come on! Let's get beautiful!" And Knockout and Cliffjumper ran down a random corridor.
The groundbridge continued to beep.
Jetstorm was barely coherent as he wandered around the woods. He couldn't smell. His olfactory-sensors had been knocked offline by an excessive amount of…smoke?
Storm stared dumbly as he observed a forest fire blazing right towards him.
He didn't panic, even though it would've been within his best interests to run.
'Um, uh.' He thought, unable to make a sound. 'Is this normal?' He spotted a herd of scattered deer, and each expertly sprang over logs and rocks with a hypnotic flourish.
It was too much for Jetstorm and his killer's instinct.
He swiped a claw forward and easily got two squealing and mangled deer against his claws.
Experimentally, he ate one whole, too starved and crazy to care.
The mere idea of burning flesh for fuel within a cybertronian's tanks would cause most mech's to purge.
But then again, Jetstorm was a sparkeater.
The concept of "flesh-eating," was hardly foreign to him – it just felt weird, eating an organic. The deer had basically disintegrated on contact with his tank-liquids, burning like a lump of coal within his gut.
He ate the other deer, trying to get a taste of the red-gooey innards. It had the texture of energon…but…
'Wow, this tastes like nothing. It's like eating puffy air.' Storm sighed, left unsatisfied.
But then, he saw movement in-front of him.
Some mechanicals were fleeing the fire, running towards him.
He had no time to question the matter as he crushed one quickly with a servo, biting ravenously the sparse energon-rich innards.
It was a Decepticon-drone crab, one of Shockwave's no doubt, due to the resemblance and color-scheme.
It wasn't delicious, but Storm wasn't complaining. It was the sparkeater equivalent of being teased with one potato chip out of an entire chip bag – and not being allowed to have more.
This feeling Jetstorm would not accept. He ran, jumping on all fours as he tackled another drone and promptly suckled it dry.
He looked around, staring into the horizon of the fire, looking for any more targets.
He saw the silhouette of two mechs. His optics widened in a predator's delight.
'This is going to be fun.' He thought.
"Hey, since when did we get new Autobots?" asked Raf, to Jack, as the children looked down from the base's mezzanine -- still groggy from their earlier naps.
One didn't just simply befriend aliens, and keep an uninterrupted sleep schedule.
It had been a hectic, traumatizeing day for the Autobots. Jack wanted more than ever to go visit Arcee in her hospital room – but without Ratchet there to escort him, he had no access to the clinic.
"Jack?"
"What?" and then Jack remembered Raf's question. "Oh right, sorry. I have no idea who those two new bots are."
"The gold one looks pretty neat. What do you think he turns into?"
Jack shrugged. Any excitement he'd feel about two new team members was utterly annihilated by the recent terrible events.
Smokescreen was dead.
Jetfire too.
Optimus Prime.
Might. Be. Dead.
And Arcee.
Too?
"Do you think they're Decepticons?" Raf asked suddenly.
"What?! Why would you think that? Decepticons can't just wander around…right? Ratchet wouldn't allow that, or Arcee."
"But look at that red one. That's a Decepticon-brand on his chest." Argued Raf.
"They were talking about red paint earlier. They must be looking to switch sides." And Jack preened, confident in his answer.
Raf hummed, unconvinced.