Jetfire had remained in an uncomfortable recharge position, curled up like a withered turbofox, for what felt like a handful of days. He could last perhaps a week unmoving in his cage, before any inklings of hunger would reach him.
But he was a creature of opportunity, and his mind sourly lingered on the topic of spark-chambers. The medbay permanently smelled of energon and his sparkeater coding kept pinging and prodding at him to "go hunting," to "get to tracking down whatever poor bleeding creature," there supposedly was.
His cage had been tucked away into a corner of Knockout's Clinic and his only entertainment was watching the occasional vehicon coming in for a surgery. Sometimes they would be missing a limb or two and Knockout would grumble and complain - disappearing into a walk-in closet of vehicon parts. From the sounds of falling metal, it appeared Knockout had trouble navigating the storage room - the clattering of parts smacking into the floor or ceiling had been unmistakable.
During those scarce seconds without Knockout nearby his cage, Jetfire considered an escape. There would always be an unwitting vehicon injured upon the berth, sometimes two or three sedated into stasis-lock. He could rip out their sparks - Jetfire only needed a moment - to reach out his hand...
The bars were unelectrified. The sparks fresh for the taking. Sparkeaters possessed telekinesis and all he had to do was to flick a servo to drag the vehicons next to his cage.
In theory.
But a blinking red and purple optic kept his hand from moving, his lips and teeth from splitting...
His sparkeater coding was left screaming, unused and ignored.
Right above his cage loomed a camera, one inconspicuous and small, but there all the same. It was an ominous black bubble glued to the ceiling, some kind of surveillance drone left by Soundwave earlier.
Jetfire could only hope Shockwave would eventually come to let him out, because he had a feeling neither Knockout or Soundwave would again consider the idea.
He hadn't exactly endeared himself to them - some Decepticon lackies - who he'd might be killing within a vorn or so...
With precious little else to do, he fell into recharge...purging his memory banks...
He would online his optics if a vehicon or Knockout got too close, peering into his cage as if he were some sort of malingering bolthead.
'What do you all expect from me?' he sneered, wanting more than ever to lash out with his claws.
Eventually he fell out of recharge from the sound of approach, but it was neither a vehicon or Knockout. Shockwave's unmistakable purple-peds had jostled his cage with a light kick, and Jetfire's tired optics stared up into Shockwave's sparkeater-yellow optic, the color unassuming to all but another sparkeater, who could recognize a familiar hunger.
Nobody said a word when Shockwave picked up his cage by a magnetic handle attached to the top, with one servo, as if Jetfire weighted the same as a cube of aluminum. Knockout had conveniently evacuated his facility seconds before Shockwave arrived, his EM field had flared in undisguised panic.
Shockwave's EM field in comparison was utterly silent, stomping out of the clinic unceremoniously, swinging Jetfire's cage around as if he were a mere laboratory specimen.
And perhaps he was.
'Shockwave, you better let me out.' He odiously thought.
Shockwave didn't walk down the hallway he expected, the one that would've led to Shockwave's "official laboratory" atop the Nemesis, from what little information Jetfire had gleaned during his stay. Instead, Shockwave turned suddenly, shifting his direction quicker than as was normal for a bot his size. He flicked open a hidden panel besides a wall, clicking a series of buttons Jetfire pretended not to be paying attention to.
No doubt, the passcode would be changed later, but it was still useful to know what a passcode for the Nemesis could look like.
Shockwave stepped through a revealed door - an elevator - and Shockwave clicked out another passcode - and the elevator began to descend.
Neither said a word, each distinctly aware they were under observation, no matter what detour Shockwave took.
As the elevator opened, Shockwave stepped into an unremarkable room, one full of stacked mining equipment and empty energon cubes. His cage was placed onto the ground and Jetfire expected to be let out, standing up as best he could in his tiny cage, but he could only manage a miserable slouch.
"Let me out!" He hissed, his patience had apparently fled the scene. Shockwave banged the top of his cage with his arm cannon, in what must've looked like an intimidating display to an outsider, but to Jetfire, it at the very least let him know that Shockwave was listening.
Shockwave, with his one servo, took a groundbridge remote from his subspace and Jetfire eyed it keenly, wondering what plot had been cooked up. A green rip in reality swirled in front of them and Shockwave picked up his cage, stepping through.
Now they were in a laboratory, somewhere deep underground from what the pressurized-fibers within Jetfire's wings told him. But as he took a look around, his hopes of escape dimmed - he did not recognize this lab - and it was unlikely it was anywhere near a tunnel he could escape to - into another one of Shockwave's numerous hideouts.
"This looks brand new?" asked Jetfire. Was this a new lab built by his brothers, just recently? He had thought he had catalogued all of the laboratory tunnels within his databanks - and to think there would be labs he didn't know about, unnerved him.
"This is the lab in the basement level of New Kaon, the Decepticon-base stationed on Earth." Shockwave said, as if already aware of a potential misunderstanding. The cage was unceremoniously unlocked with a flick of a servo.
"Stay quiet, don't speak, follow my directions." Said Shockwave, his tone muted yet hurried.
Jetfire's first inclination when out of that cage, was to turn around and to give Shockwave a hug - some measure of affection was considered a show of rebellion, amongst his brethren - and predictably Shockwave battered Jetfire away, after a nanoclick or two of tolerating him awkwardly swaddling Shockwave's arm cannon.
Jetfire took the hit in stride, gingerly shifting onto the ped-metal of his talons, relieving the pressure that had built upon his spinal-struts. He stretched his wings fully and his vents hitched in relief. He eyed the cage warily and he wanted to smelt it down into a useless smoldering mess.
But now wasn't the place nor the time for that.
Or was it?
He wasn't going back into that scrap-wrap if he could help it.
And.
Shockwave was sparkless enough to throw him back inside.
It would be the most lazy and logical solution, after all.
'It's settled then.' He concluded, kicking the cage. 'I'm going to burn you.'
It had occurred to Jetfire then, that Shockwave had said nothing against using his fire-attacks; and he hadn't heard Shockwave say "Pretend NOT to be an Autobot." - and naturally, like any sparkling raised underneath Shockwave's thumb, Jetfire had been programmed to root out any mistakes which fell into his favor. He was practically obligated to rebel against the cold-clipped, logical orders of his progenitor, no matter if it would sour Jetfire's professional veneer within Shockwave's optic.
'He should've been more specific.' Jetfire assured himself. 'I'm an Autobot in a Decepticon-base. What else am I to-do but to invite wanton destruction?' Jetfire didn't take his thoughts too seriously, but he smiled a bit too readily when he ignited a fist. His typically hidden one-percenter power was to wield an element of destruction within his servos.
It burned.
Readily.
Gloriously.
His claws twitched upwards as if molding the center cup of a propane-torch - his claws twitched again and the well of fire within his palms extended - again - and again - and then a flamethrower burst forth!
Faster than a nanoclick - the cage had welded against the floor.
"Clean that up." snapped Shockwave, not even looking Jetfire over before he turned away.
"Later." Jetfire said. He felt distinct satisfaction as he looked down at the crisp, molten-slag pile, cooling impossibly slowly near his feet. Reluctantly, he put his palm-triggers away - tucked ever so auspiciously within his servos - just like his sparkeater claws.
"This is good actually. I had wanted to get a read on your powers." Shockwave gestured to the slag, to Jetfire's bemused surprise. "But don't do that again. Are we clear Autobot?" Jetfire rolled his optics. He'd have to play the part of a disgruntled Autobot-prisoner eventually. It was foolish to pretend otherwise.
Shockwave eyed a monitor he had pulled out of his subspace - for what function it served, Jetfire couldn't recognize. He'd wanted to ask, but he grew up following Shockwave's orders and so it was second nature for him to flippantly follow whatever was expected of him loosely - but considering he was in a "life or death situation," in enemy territory - Jetfire reevaluated his habits.
Seconds ticked by painfully as he watched Shockwave fiddle with his device, and then he pulled a processor-brain from his subspace and Jetfire couldn't help but to roll his optics - Shockwave, as a sparkeater, was known for hoarding every single processor-brain he could get his servo on - gleaning whatever useful information his could from their memories and experiences. It was common for Jetfire's brothers to exchange processor-brains for lab equipment, upgrades, and other favors from Shockwave.
But Jetfire himself had never been interested in such an exchange - and he instead randomly gifted away a brain or two to whatever brother was closest by, in the rare occasion he acquired one.
Such wanton generosity had made him popular.
Amongst his brothers.
Jetfire wanted to ask where Shockwave had gotten this particular brain. It glowed an unhealthy lime green and as Shockwave placed his monitoring device atop of it, it crackled into life as a sickly yellow.
"What...is-" He muttered a question, but Shockwave stepped besides him before shaking his head. "We only have so much time. Don't hesitate." He held out the brain to Jetfire, a large pocketed pearl of bubbling-ire. Jetfire knew what he was expected to do, but he didn't want to. "It's full of information you need, information I can't give you later." There was strangled urgency to his words. "Hurry, the window is closing. I need to relocate you, before security in the area is notified."
'Does that mean I'm being rescued?' Jetfire mused, placing a servo atop the ominously glowing brain. He took it, staring into the blighted-green processor. It was covered in a substance he didn't recognize and the surface was polished with a suspicious oily sheen.
'What is it?' he'd wanted to ask, but a single look at Shockwave told him all he needed to know. That sparkeater-yellow optic burned against his plating and Jetfire reluctantly clicked his spark-chamber open, placing the brain into the voided, blackened space.
There was a spark in there.
Somewhere.
Merely invisible.
Or so he was told.
But sometimes Jetfire doubted if he had a spark of his own; that perhaps, he'd been born a shell of a person.
Jetfire had no time to question nor to regret his decision as hot-red spades of information cut into his processor - each digging a painful groove...peeling back his plating like skin on an organic.
Crash!
He didn't remember collapsing to his knees, only that his servos had caught himself before flailing painfully against the ground.
He didn't remember a servo dragging him backwards towards the elevator.
He awoke.
In a cage again.