Whatever rancid blight had seeped into his processor hadn't bothered him.
Churning, Churning, A Rotten Lime Sun.
Bright and early, forever.
Though it caused much pain and discomfort when Jetfire remembered just who had put it there.
Shockwave.
"Shockwave, I'll kill you!" He screamed, his throat raw as he spat a repulsive splatter of green backscatter, the sky was a sticky, suspicious-swirly, energon blue.
And the ground was nowhere.
"Wake up!"
...
...
...
Jetfire pawed at his face, finding his palms covered in oil-slick tears. He could barely see as he rose up from the crammed lightless tunnel he was forced to call "home," while amongst the Decepticon-ranks. Thankfully, Jetfire had gotten rid of his roommates when he'd first found out that he'd been unreasonably assigned a room with two vehicons inside.
And even alone, as a single mech, he still barely had enough space to recharge horizontally - his legs would soon be sticking out into the Nemesis hallways if he grew any taller.
If.
His fans whirled as they reestablished an equilibrium within his ventilation systems. He felt something against his side, poking him - his freshly welded-on claw tips felt alongside the darkness, picking it up.
A datapad he'd liberated from the clinic.
It had a copy of Laserbeak's medical information and he'd been studying it extensively in preparation for the T-cog surgery he'd promised Soundwave. Laserbeak still had a lot of recovering to do until she was ready to be cut open, but by that time Jetfire would be ready to shape the minicon back into her peak condition.
He'd fallen asleep while working on the schematic for Laserbeak's customized T-cog; he'd never seen or heard of a mech blacksmithing minicon parts in recent history and it was a completely untouched subject for him.
His research material was subpar and he wanted more than ever to break into Ratchet's clinic to scour the databanks within the medic's personal computer. The Iacon Database Soundwave had given him appeared incomplete - from what little Jetfire remembered from Ratchet's computer, it'd been chockful of Iacon Hospital Procedures and Soundwave's Database lacked the very same medical articles he'd seen before.
It was frustrating beyond belief.
With the Decepticons he'd gained a mentor, albeit a reluctant one in Knockout; but still, he somehow had access to less medical information than when he'd been with the Autobots.
It was insanity, the feeling unreal.
Jetfire felt helpless for the first time in a longtime.
No one could tell him how to properly create and to install minicon parts; he'd have to rely on entirely himself to figure it.
'I won't fail Laserbeak.' And that budding, pustule of a promise to himself, ignited his dead-spark and ambition. Awake fully now, he left the datapad behind, leaving the tunnel to squint his optics against the drab purple lights of the Nemesis. He rounded a corner, not really paying attention to where he was going. It was still early in the morning and some mechs were still asleep in recharge.
...
...
...
'What a depressing atmosphere. I hate it here.' He mused, as he took in the bland lifeless hallways; he was reminded too much of his home-tunnels on Cybertron, dark empty corridors he'd ran around as a sparkling in.
Back then he didn't think anything was abnormal about it, running around eternally, to a path to nowhere.
But now, after feeling sunlight across his paint and frame several times before, he longed to live in a place warm and bright.
His wings itched behind him, and Jetfire paused in his walk, remembering he could fly.
When was the last time he'd done that?
:"Good, you've been listening.": Jetfire's eyes went wide.
He received a random commlink message.
The designation of the sender was unreadable.
But his systems had neither denied nor accepted the submission.
Which was concerning...
Did he have a virus?
Where his systems infected, somehow?
:"Good." :
:"You've been listening." :
What did that mean?
What mech would just send him a random message?
He reread the message several times, looking left and right as he did so, feeling the mystery-mech's EM-field bearing down against him, like an intense gravity.
'Perhaps...it's just my imagination." As soon as he had that thought, another commlink message clawed, unwanted into his systems and contact information.
:40.4193731°N, -115.4158832°W:
It was a coordinates number to somewhere outside the ship.
Somewhere below it.
Reluctantly, Jetfire began to trace his steps closer to the given coordinates, crossing down the halls he'd already traversed. He suspected he might've been walking into a trap, or perhaps it was a Decepticon-test of sorts.
Whatever the plot was, Jetfire took the challenge in stride; he would've done little else, otherwise.
He rounded a corner, almost bumping into two gossiping vehicons blocking his path, but he sidestepped them easily enough, overhearing their conversation.
"No way that was an Autobot; it was fraggin' hideous!" Said a random vehicon.
"What, you sayin' Autobots are pretty or something?" Said another.
"No, GrE66, just no! Just that that thing almost killed us!"
"Sure...whatever, St3v3N..." Said GrE66.
"Just, just stay away from the woods. Bo83rt is dead out there, I just know it!" And then St3v3N zoomed away in the opposite direction, the vehicon's hands flew up in flabbergasted frustration.
It was a strange enough interaction to hold Jetfire's attention, and it helped that he was stalling bumping into that so-called trap.
"You weren't in the clinic."
"Ahhh-hhhisssss!" Jetfire snarled, lashing out at whatever startled him, before freezing in place - becoming optic to optic with Shockwave.
"Ahhh-hhhiiiii." He gave Shockwave his best smile.
"You weren't in the clinic." The mech repeated and Jetfire cowered away, making himself small. "Uh, no sir. I just booted up from recharge." He steepled his claws together nervously. "I worked the night-cycle. Knockout should be there for the morning shift. He is, isn't he?"
Shockwave made a strange, pained sound - as if he tried to remember what being annoyed sounded like.
"No. No one's there." Suddenly, a great shadow engulfed Shockwave's figure and the predacon came into view after rounding a corner, now completely unchained.
"You just let the beast out?" Jetfire squinted his optics, his wings and hands clasped behind his back. "Just like that?"
"Just like that." Shockwave hummed, before nodding. "The beast listens to me." And as if to make a point, he performed a demonstration. He pulled from his subspace a golden-glowing kibble pile of midgrade energon, flaking a servoful of pellets out. The beast licked down the kibble eagerly and then sat down on its haunches, purring all the while like a kitten.
"That's crazy. I haven't seen the guy so calm while he's awake. Knockout and I had to keep him constantly sedated and in-stasis lock."
Shockwave blinked his optic, before he replied, slowly. "The pellets...are full of sedatives. The tranquillizer known as 'gamma-hydrox-toxen,' to be exact."
Jetfire sighed, crossing his arms. The predacon would soon be drug-resistant to everything the clinic had to offer.
'Hopefully that never becomes an issue.' He thought. He walked passed Shockwave, lazily waving a servo as he did so. "Anyway, I best be getting back to the clinic then, if Knockout's missing his shift."
"No." And before he could take another step forward, Shockwave's servo grabbed his shoulder. "No. Follow me."
Then suddenly, Jetfire received another commlink message and all became clear.
:"We have work to do.":
It didn't come from Shockwave.
The EM-field bearing down on him felt warm, weird, familiar...
Like mother.
To Jetfire's surprise, Shockwave had commandeered a hab-unit room atop the Nemesis as his new laboratory space.
The room was ridiculously huge, a penthouse extension seemingly glued onto the ship.
"Um, how'd you get this?" Jetfire said, with arms crossed and a very peeved expression. "Everyone told me all the big rooms were taken, so I've been stuck recharging in a vehicon-slab unit."
"This is Starscream's hab-unit within the Nemesis. Do not trash the place." Shockwave said, looking at him quietly, before turning around a wall-bend to ignore him completely - no doubt becoming engrossed in one of his countless projects.
Then he received another commlink message.
"Blast it!" Jetfire cursed, not even looking at the message, before kicking a filthy soot-covered talon against the wall, leaving marks.
Suddenly, a commlink audio-call opened up without his permission, and a very familiar voice blared into his audials.
:"Ack, that hurt you know! And just what have you've been doing to get so filthy, hrmmm!?":
"Starscream!?" Jetfire shouted, out loud to the ceiling.
:"Yes, and that's Ma-ker to you, Jetfire!":
"Come out, Screamer! I haven't seen you the whole time I've been kidnapped on this ship! And, you choose now as a good time to talk to me?" Jetfire did nothing to hide his irritation, waving his arms around to an empty room. "What gives?"
:"Oh yes, that... I meant to visit, really...":
"Really?" Jetfire sneered, well aware of Starscream's penchant for lies.
Sometimes all Jetfire wanted was a hug or a single head pat from dear ol' ma-ker.
It would've meant the world to him, when he'd been locked up in his cage or cell, to have some kind of acknowledgement.
That he was loved.
:"Really... well, it's a long story. I'm sure if you pester Shockwave adequately enough he will eventually give you the full details.":
"Story? Pfft, whatever, I don't care." Jetfire buried his hurt underneath an irritated tone. He'd expected Starscream to visit him a decacycle ago, when he'd first been locked up - now , the mech had the audacity to weasel back into his life as if nothing had happened - as if Jetfire hadn't felt so utterly betrayed - after being ignored for so long.
Jetfire had been shuffled around a cage, a steel-box, a jail cell, and then finally, his cozy little vehicon-recharge hole - a hole too small to even stretch his wings within.
'During the entirety of my kidnapping, dear ol' mother never once checked to see if I was okay.'
Or to check if I was even alive...
'He doesn't really care, does he? That's Screamer alright.'
As if Starscream could read his thoughts, or could see his tears, he received another commlink message.
:"I'm sorry.": But ultimately, such apologetic words meant nothing from an untrustworthy mech like Starscream.
Jetfire shook his head, struggling to keep oil-slick tears at bay, from streaming embarrassingly across his face.
:"Jetfire, what's wrong?": Starscream asked, as if the mech was truly that oblivious.
That sparkless.
And dense.
:"Jetfire, are you okay?":
"Why are you commlink-messaging me anyway?" He shrieked. "Just come out and talk to me!"
'Like a normal mech would!'
The commlink went silent for several clicks.
:"Shockwave...will talk to you now.":
He felt a servo across his shoulder, and then he was being steered towards whatever horrid thing Shockwave had been working upon.
Jetfire's tanks dropped, almost purging when he saw...
Starscream's eviscerated corpse.
"Starscream!?"
He screamed and screamed.
"What!? No!?" Jetfire curled into a ball, in denial of what he was seeing.
"No!"
But not even off-lining his optics could remove the horrible scene from burning into his processor.
"Starscream!? How! How? You can't be dead!?"
"He's not dead!" Shockwave shouted.
The entire room buckled, as if holding its breath.
Shockwave pointed stiffly, sternly at the eviscerated corpse atop a berth.
"That's Starscream's old body. He's getting a new body soon-ish."
:"Technically, my new body will be my old pre-war body ...but, uh... yes, whatever Shockwave said.":
Jetfire swiveled his audials, shivering as he looked up at the ceiling in disbelief.
"You're not dead?" With an uncertain expression towards Starscream's corpse, Jetfire evaluated the gruesome damage - it was utterly cooked, blown to bits...and even rusty with decay and gore, presumably after days of sitting out in the open, unpreserved.
'It doesn't look like a voice could come out of that...'
"So, you're a ghost?"
Suddenly Starscream's voice burst into laughter.
:"No, no! I didn't turn into a mere specter - not like what happened with Blurr...did...d-did you even read my message?":
Jetfire grumbled, scrolling through his commlink UI. He found one unread message and clicked it.
:"Jetfire, so good to see you! Starscream here! It appears I have suddenly died and my spark is now the proud new owner of Trypticon's spark-chamber. SoIAmTheShip!":
'Well, that explains...things.' And Jetfire breathed a sigh of relief.
Starscream was alive.
He was just a giant spaceship.
:"Why don't you take a seat?": And Starscream sounded strangely malicious, out of nowhere...
"W-what?" Jetfire stumbled as a copper-cushioned chair slid across the floor, upright towards him, as if urging him to sit atop it.
:"Come on, the chair won't bite. I promise, Jetfire.":
Reluctantly, he sat down.
Then there was a loud explosion!
Kuuuusssssshhhh - uuuuhhhhhrrrrnnnn!
"Gah! Ahh!" Jetfire shot up from the chair like a terrified cat, his claws lashing everywhere. "What the frag was that!?"
Suddenly, the walls trembled in laugher.
:"Ooho ho ho, just a little human joke Seaspray showed me once. Hehehe, do you feel better now? I certainly do.":
"It's a whoopee-cushion." Said Shockwave, his voice laced with horror, in response to Jetfire's question.
"I thought I'd destroyed the last of those horrid mechanisms!" Without ceremony, Shockwave kicked over the chair and dug through the copper-coated cushion.
Out peeled a pink, flabby thing.
'It looks like an organic's digestion sack...gross...' Jetfire could only smile in delight as he watched Shockwave drop the cursed pink filth into a trash can.
Only for the trash can...to topple over in protest...
It appeared to be Starscream's doing, as the floor rumbled angrily.
:"No, that's my last one! Do you know how hard it was to make 'whoopee-cushions' big enough to scare cybertronians?!":
Jetfire wasn't hearing it. He ran up past Shockwave, kicking the pink flabby thing as if it were a snake.
He pulled out a fist.
And he burned it!
"Clean that up." Shockwave said.