Primal Fire

Chapter One: Rebirth

Choking, Burning with white hot fire, Wheeljack struggled within the viscous fluid that filled his containment cylinder. Unspeakable pain, relentless agony, time ceased to exist. Only this torture and a deepening hatred of those who condemned him to this hell.

He'd been captured by the Decepticons and instead of sentencing him to death after they rooted around in his head he'd been given to Shockwave as a test subject.

Wheeljack couldn't hear or see anything and whatever that one eyed freak was doing to him the only thing Wheeljack was aware of was that it felt like his armor had been melted away leaving only his protoform behind and the mad scientist was playing 'operation' while keeping him alive and aware of every bit of pain.

Eventually he felt his body begin to itch and new armor beginning to grow across his protoform and the tube seemed to shrink and there was no more room to thrash or fight the pain and he was left to curl into a tight ball to fit into the increasingly small space.

Wheeljack could feel his mind slip in and out of consciousness and his memories became fuzzy and hard to grasp. He clutched tightly to the memory of Team Prime, Bulkhead and Miko and the last memory he had of his carrier. As the memories grew harder to remember something changed.

He heard alarms and the thick glass around him cracking then blaster fire. As the blaster fire receded, Wheeljack flexed and stretched, hearing the glass around him crack even more.

He knew he had to break free before it was too late. His movements grew more frenzied as the Decepticons were too preoccupied with their own battle to notice his struggle. His mind reeling with the idea of freedom after what felt like an eternity of misery.

With one last surge of strength, Wheeljack burst through the glass, shards flying in all directions. He spilled out onto the floor in a heap. His frame immediately heaved and he began purging a fluorescent yellow goo from his system and he gasped for fresh air.

He looked around, his mind hazy. Everything seemed so much smaller. He forced himself to stand and was startled that he couldn't stand on two legs. Then he looked up and the reflection of the face he saw wasn't his own. It was a monster from one of Miko's movies. Wheeljack recoiled back but heard more blaster fire and screaming. No time to figure out what the hell was happening he had to get out before Shockwave came back and continued whatever this was.

He awkwardly found his footing after tripping and falling over his feet and his tail??? This was so fucked.

Wheeljack's head swam as he stumbled forward, each movement sending jolts of pain through his circuits, his new form feeling foreign and unwieldy. The sounds of battle echoed around him, the cacophony of blaster fire and shouting spurring him on. He needed to find his way out, away from the Decepticons and their torturous experiments.

As he moved through the dimly lit corridors, Wheeljack couldn't help but marvel at the strength in his new limbs, the sharp claws at the end of his digitigrade legs clicking against the metal floor with each step. His tail swished behind him, a constant reminder of his altered state.

Rounding a corner, Wheeljack froze as he came face to face with a group of Decepticons. They stared at him in shock, backing away at the sight of this unfamiliar creature before them.

Without hesitation, Wheeljack lunged forward, his instincts taking over. He ripped apart several Decepticons and his jaws closed on the last vehicon with a sickening crunch, warm energon oozed out of its crushed frame, staining his new teeth. He ended up involuntarily swallowing the vehicon's blood and his body immediately demanded more. He was starving. He crunched down harder, sending a larger gush of energon down his parched throat and he began to chew, devouring half of the vehicon before his head cleared enough to focus on the matter at hand.

No time to feed. Danger. Out out out. Had to get out.

Wheeljack sprinted through the halls of the Decepticon ship, He was desperate to escape this place, to be anywhere but here. He eventually made it up to the flight deck and skidded to a halt at the edge of the ship.

Looking down, Wheeljack saw a vast expanse of Forest far below him. The trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, painted in hues of green and brown. This was his only hope for freedom.

With a deep breath, Wheeljack leaped off the ship. If his frame couldn't handle the drop, oh well. death was preferable to being recaptured. And if he died at least the pain would end.

Plummeting down towards the forest floor, Wheeljack braced himself for the impact. His armor offered little protection against the ground's unforgiving surface. As he hit the ground, he rolled, skidding across the mossy leaves and twigs with a loud crackling noise, trees splintering under the weight of his mass pin balling off of them until he finally tumbled to a stop. The pain coursed through him like wildfire, but it was a different kind of pain, overshadowed by the relief of freedom.

He lay there for a moment, gasping for air, his body heaving and trying to recover from his ordeal. The sky above him was darkening as thunder rumbled in the distance. Relief flooded his systems and the exhaustion he felt from the constant agonizing torment pulled him under, not realizing that the low sound he heard was coming from his own chest.

Wheeljack snapped back into awareness after an undetermined amount of time when he heard the underbrush rustling. A pair of golden optics met his blue ones. A reassuring thrum permeated the air and he involuntarily relaxed as the creature approached him and gently nosed his face.

His chest rumbled back a response filled with pain. The creature hummed a reassuring melody as it pierced a spot on his foreleg with a talon. Wheeljack jerked and hissed before the creature dug out a tracker and threw it away.

Wheeljack looked between the creature and the device for a moment before he realized what it was, rage boiling to the surface in a vicious hiss as he quickly smashed it with his claws angrily before losing his strength again and collapsing back to the ground.

The creature licked the wound it had made on his frame and it stopped bleeding. It then slipped its body under his and lifted him up on its back. His head hung down over its shoulder, his abnormally long neck making it so that his nose almost touched the ground.

The creature used its snout to adjust him into a more comfortable position before quickly retreating deeper into the heart of the forest.

Back on the Decepticon warship, the vampiric zombie outbreak had been contained and dealt with and Shockwave was assessing damage to the ship by order of Lord Megatron when he finally returned to his lab. The one eyed mech stared at the shattered containment cylinder and the flashing red warnings on the screens.

!Containment Breach!

Physical Alterations: Complete

Memory Wipe: Failure

Containment Protocol: Failure

Termination protocol: Failure

Tracking: Error! No tracker found

Shockwave quickly turned to report this to Megatron. Starscream and his idiotic folly have created more than five major issues on this day. And one of them was still an active threat.