It was freezing. His joints had locked up during recharge and slowly Jetfire sat up, unspooling his limbs from their clamped positions against his frame - as if he'd been a human-mummy awakening from an ancient slumber - and out of habit he rolled to stand, as he would if sleeping atop a berth...but instead he rolled and rolled...until he came to his senses, clinking against the metal-bars of a cage...
'Zap! Pssszap!'
That moment he reeled away in horror - the metal hissing and spitting at him to wake up.
'The Universe's rudest alarm clock,' he thought.
Jetfire was awake!
As his nervous systems came fully online, a terrible familiar pain reignited across his servos and feet-talons - puffs of smoke left his plating - energon stains had decorated him in macabre splotches - thankfully devoid of any explosive potential - the energy had evaporated away when it dried.
Jetfire certainly didn't want to randomly combust, but he felt like it was possible as he brushed away energon-dust from his heated plating.
'That would just be embarrassing,' he thought.
To die from energon-combustion.
So embarrassing.
It was just a silly death-trope belonging in old cybertronian-sitcoms.
And wasn't at all relevant to his current situation, Jetfire assured himself.
Even if he was kidnapped. Locked in a cage.
He would die somehow.
But not by spontaneous-combustion.
His optics blinked on and images came in blurry and slow - he needed energon - but the smell of smoke spoiled his appetite.
He had much bigger things to worry about.
Like being locked in a cage.
'Why do I feel like a crushed soda can?' he mused to himself...but quickly the horror of his reality became post-humorously clear.
He had been captured by Decepticons - and he was locked in a cage - a very small one at that - with barely any room to stand up in - there was no berth - no place to sit and to sulk.
No privacy either.
The cage had been plopped down in the middle of a hallway, tucked away into a dark corner.
He was a specimen on display.
For whoever walked by.
The cage was small and short like a coffin, forcing himself to curl his back if he wanted to stretch his legs. Jetfire liked to consider himself a levelheaded and adaptable bot, but he failed to spin his kidnapping into anything positive.
He was screwed.
Totally screwed!
He was so utterly - stripped nuts - busted bolts - ultra-screwed!
Jetfire limply stared at his servos, the palms blackened blue from dried, burnt and spent energon. Crusty stains crumbled from all around his body as he stood up and began to shake his plating loose, reminding him of a time he had crash landed onto a sandy beach - and to that very moment, he was still picking out grains of sand from the many crevices of his frame.
A door slid open down the hall, near his cage.
He didn't think anything of it...until...
'Crash, clatter,' the sound of something shattering.
"Ahhhaaauuuggghhh!" A shriek of horror sounded behind him. It almost sounded like his mother, but as he turned around he grimaced - he had been mistaken.
Some mysterious red and white stranger was staring with wide-red horrified optics.
"Oh Primus!" The mech shouted, and he waved his servos about in alarm - Jetfire noticed a shattered ceramic mug by his feet - which looked oddly like "human-make." The mug had been full of high-grade energon if the bubbling pink splatter was enough clues to go by...
"You look just awful!"
"Oh thanks, I think that's the first compliment I've gotten this century," said Jetfire, with all the quality sarcasm he could muster. Already this mysterious red and white mech was grating on his nerves, as kidnapping had done little to improve his mood. He felt a processor-ache begin to manifest, from the twitching pain of his plating. He clutched his head and stayed quiet.
'Click'
His cage opened...
Jetfire stared, not moving.
He didn't trust at all that he was just going to be let out.
He wanted to get up and run, but he could hardly stand - no doubt he had a malfunction in his nervous systems. Jetfire had to settled for small crawling steps forward out of his cage, and he stood up slowly, his nerves burning the whole way up.
"Oh, that doesn't look too good..." The mystery bot held out his servos, hovering over Jetfire's sides as he took a shaky step forward.
"Yes, you've made that clear earlier."
Jetfire looked at the shattered mug of energon. His energy levels weren't desperate, yet he still considered lapping it up from the floor. He hoped his future didn't have to come to that...
"Well, at least your vocal-cords are working perfectly. Those things are such a pain to replace."
The bot sighed, blinking his optics as he scanned over Jetfire's damage.
"Come on, let's get you checked out. I might as well start my work-cycle early."
The bot pushed him forward, through a door that had been right next to his cage. Jetfire felt his anxiety churn like a black hole as he took in this information. Who was this weird red and white bot? The Autobot battle-simulations had never mentioned him!
Was he an interrogator?
Was he going to be ripped apart limb from limb?
Jetfire considered those all very valid questions as his servos clasped the sides of the door entrance. He didn't remember what bot had told him so long ago, but he just knew if he "went through that door," he "wouldn't be coming out."
"Oh, you're gonna be one of those patients. Goodie, and just when I thought starting my day early was a good idea."
He wanted to scream and shout. He wanted to kick out and run down the hallway.
He wanted to be free.
And what was stopping him?
'I'm out of my cage. This is my only chance, now or never,' he thought. He didn't have time to formulate a pep-talk as he turned around to face the mystery bot. An uneasy smile was plastered upon his glossa and he watched in satisfaction as the red and white bot backed up a step, apparently put off by his many sharp teeth. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jetfire rammed his helm into the bot's chassis - and leaped as high as he could, quickly somersaulting over the bot. A thruster on his ped ignited, and scorched the bot beneath him.
"My finish! My face!" The bot squealed.
Jetfire ignited his hover-thrusters and barreled down the hallway. His only chance of escape was by speed, and with a deep intake his fans whirred to give him that extra second of push.
Instinctively, he wanted to transform but a twinge in his side reminded him it would be a bad idea. To his despair, the hallway was long and curved in every which way and direction, thwarting his hope of escape. He didn't see sign of a runway nor open sky anywhere.
No windows dotted the halls of the Nemesis.
He didn't have enough energon to keep his thrusters burning, fleeing down to nowhere forever.
Remembering his training simulations from the Autobots, he changed tactics. With a clack of his heels, his thrusters retreated deeper into his peds. He remembered a close-corridor fight he had once with Bulkhead - and he had been absolutely pulverized. Yet while his frame was frail, thin, and spindly, he learned he needed to channel every ounce of strength, speed, and flexibility he had to survive.
His flat, buttery-curved talons grew larger from padded springs inserted between and against his toes, giving him a jumpy kick he needed to be careful about using. His upgrade, had been a gift from Shockwave - in fact all his battle-augments had been courtesy of Shockwave - which no one had to know about - until now - not even the Autobots knew all of his quirks.
He swung his leg upward and like magic his ped magnetized to the ceiling. Normally, a ship's coat of alloys and specialized paint prevented magnetization of any kind - but Shockwave's genius saved the day again.
Instead of using his thrusters to move, his magnetized peds clicked on and off in a swift rhythm, and required almost no energon to use. He galloped, almost swam as he cut through the air. Finally, he found what he was looking for - an air duct.
Without the barest hint of comprehension nor hesitation, he ripped the cover away, not caring where it fell in a dusty clatter.
He didn't know what it connected to nor where it would lead, but it was safer to travel in than an open hallway - plus, cameras, heat and movement sensors, where harder to maintain in air ducts - a fact he knew too well. Most of his sparklinghood consisted of repairing all manner of tight, absurd places Shockwave and his drones had been too big to reach.
His magnetized peds were rendered useless in a duct, but it was a comfort to know they where there. He just needed to find a runway or open air in which to jump off of.
Minutes passed of his wiggling and bending throughout the passageways like some burrowing hell-creature. With every minute his frustration grew greater, as well as the burning across his plating, and a new sharp pain had blossomed across his abdomen.
Whatever was wrong, he had no energy to spare thinking about it. His pain-receptors had shut off from overstimulation, and with the lose of sensation, came the rushing invigoration of clarity.
He would survive.
He would flee.
Such simple but determined thoughts put Jetfire into a good mood - he wasn't quite himself.
The pain and adrenaline had become too much.
Now he took a backseat.
To some malicious programming.
All his processor could do was fixate on the gruesome teachings Shockwave had taught him during sparklinghood.
He had turned feral.
Something terrible.
Back then.
Now the same gruesome teachings had to be understood again. Jetfire's feral alt-form push towards the surface of his metal and mind, him being hapless to stop the transformation, but also not wanting to.
It was "do or die," he told himself.
Jetfire and his brother Storm has been too old to undergo Shockwave's surgery to turn them both into triple-changers; unlike all the other sparklings.
Unlike all the others.
He missed them.
He could only hope he saw his brethren again.
With a wet squelch and a buckle of pain, Jetfire transformed.
Changed.
Into a feral horror.
The itching tingle of his elongated saber-fangs was the first sensation. He opened his mouth, now dripping a black energon, his maw turned elongated, unhinged like a snake's. His plating grew spikes outward, some at misaligned angles due to his injured plating.
He caught his reflection in the metal of the duct, but he had no time to look as he coughed up a splatter of energon. He was covered in his own lifeblood, and he couldn't help but understand that he had made a grave mistake.
There was so much energon.
Too much.
He imagined it seeping, dripping down the thin-welds of the ducts into the innerworkings of the ship - where his body would bleed and rust.
No one would find him.
Such horrible imagery - his failure - flared inside him panic.
What little remained of Jetfire's senses dissolved under a cacophony of instinct. He and Jetstorm served as prototypes - examples on what "not to do" when changing a sparkling into a triple-changer.
Shockwave made mistakes.
Jetfire made mistakes.
Shockwave had taught Jetfire to fight in tight corridors, what all grounder-younglings typically learned. But in truth of spark, Jetfire was a Seeker - meant to fly, and in feral-form or not, an irrational claustrophobia overtook his senses and became the forefront of his processor.
'No one will find me.' The thought rang loud in his stupid, feral head. It was hard to say if he was still Jetfire. The sweet-spark of the Autobots.
Get out!
Get out!
He tumbled faster throughout the air ducts - suddenly desperate to find his way out, scratching like a rat lost in a maze. Jetfire found that his servos had grown claws, shiny and unused, which he could retract and reattract anytime into his fingernubs. He stabbed the walls to climb either upward or downward, depending on the demands of the path ahead.
Eventually, he'd found the end.
He was about to drop down from the duct entrance, before a thick swallow of energon down his throat made him second-guess the wisdom of it.
'Am I bleeding...inside?' he thought.
He took stock of what was below him. He could see vehicons - lots of them. The duct-grate blocked most of his view, but the extended senses of his feral-form allowed him to "see" without optics. An angry EM field flared out just below him, as if ready to catch him in some deadly trap.
He had been raised by Starscream; and by some extension, Shockwave too. He wasn't a stupid, naïve bot by any means.
He wasn't what the Autobots believed him or his brother to be...
Never.
Against all his other wishes, he backpedaled from the entrance. Something was waiting to snatch him up from the other end.
He just knew it!
He couldn't confirm it by smell. He was covered in too much black energon to get a read on anything else.
But, the Decepticons setting up an ambush made sense.
And the more Jetfire thought about it, the more he could cry from what he was concluding.
He was so stupid!
He was an idiot!
He had trapped himself inside a tunnel without meaning to.
He'd just discovered something terrible.
The whole time he'd been running down a path to his slaughter like a cramped scraplet.
Was he doomed?
Perhaps.
After all, he wasn't delusional enough to think he could tackle whatever surprise a Decepticon ship had in store for him.
The air-duct he'd ran through had only two entrances and exits - there was nowhere for him to go, except out through one of the two vents.
Jetfire gulped, tasting weak-bitter energon burning down his throat.
He turned around the way he'd come, accepting defeat and any miracle that'd come his way. There was no other option. It was the "most logical choice," as Shockwave would say.
Still, he allowed himself some hope.
Maybe the Decepticons hadn't laid another ambush at the entrance, turned exit.
'Fat chance of that,' he thought. 'It'd be like expecting a scraplet to not want to eat fresh protoform flesh.'
He traversed the air-duct much faster the second time. He crawled up slowly towards the exit, already sensing something was wrong.
The air-duct had been recovered by its grate.
He hadn't done that.
Still, adrenaline got the better of him.
It had turned him into an imbecile.
His sparkeater-coding.
Before he could think better of it, he touched it...
The pain!
The pain!
Jetfire's world erupted into fire!
He fell from the duct with a crunchy, wet-thud. His neck twisted upward, his spinal-struts no doubt severed in multiple places. He saw the grate hovering just outside of his view, pulled from underneath his feet.
The smoke from his own burning energon distorted his view.
There was a shadow...
No...a mirror?
Whatever it was, Jetfire saw his reflection...
He was horrifying.
And Soundwave was there to kill him.