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Jetfire carefully walked around the sector, his sword unsheathed and ready in a defensive position. He was on patrol, checking out a nearby sector, making sure that no Decepticons were in the area.
He walked around in what seemed like forever before hitting up the last spot.
Mistake.
Immediately, gunfire rained down on him, and in a moment of panic, he shot his missiles in the general direction the gunfire was coming from. When it stopped, he looked, finding Starscream and Thundercracker on a building top.
“Jetfire!!” Starscream screeched. Oh, he was pissed about something. Jetfire could think…of a couple of reasons why.
“Starscream! What are-“ he was interrupted by a shot to his chassis. ”…ugh…what are you doing here?”
Starscream fired another blast, this time at his wing, trying to prevent his escape.
”We have some unfinished business.” Starscream glanced over at Thundercracker, who nodded and shot Jetfire’s other wing.
Frag, this went wrong quickly. The injuries needed to be addressed quickly if he ever wanted to fly, or live, again. He fired another round of missiles before turning to run.
“JETFIRE!” Starscream yelled as he ran through the smoke, mercilessly shooting his blaster.
Jetfire wasn’t able to dodge, and the blasts hit the back of his wings. Starscream aimed at his pede, tripping him with a blast.
Starscream came up to him, starting to kick at his sides, as Thundercracker made his way towards the two.
“What…is the meaning of this?”
“This is for murdering our trinemate!” Starscream hissed as his kicks got harder, starting to leave dents in his framing, and soon, Thundercracker joined in.
Of course. Jetfire…hadn’t meant to kill Skywarp. In the moment, he panicked, and shot Skywarp, but didn’t plan for him to die.
Mistake or not, Jetfire took a life, left Starscream and Thundercracker grieving the loss of their beloved, and now seeking revenge.
He did deserve this. The incessant kicking and blasting just seemed to be the two of them getting their anger out.
Starscream leaned close to Jetfire’s audial. “Tell him what we did to you when you see him, would you? I’m sure that would make him very happy.”
…
Well, fuck.
Jetfire felt a sharp pain to the back of his head, and his vision blacked out.
*
“Are you sure he’s dead, Star?”
Thundercracker held one of Jetfire’s arms while Starscream grabbed another.
“Does that look alive to you?” They both began dragging him.
“OOF! He’s heavy! How did he move around on his own?”
“Just shut up and get him to the spot!” Thundercracker rolled his optics and continued to drag Jetfire to the spot.
‘The spot’ turned out to be a dug out hole a ways away from the murder spot. The two Seekers had been planning this for a while; they decided they didn’t want Jetfire to be found.
He didn’t deserve to be found.
They thought it was a fitting punishment for their beloved’s murderer.
After about an hour, they had finally managed to drag Jetfire’s body to the hole.
“Well, slag, Star, I think it’s too small.”
Starscream moved over to Jetfire’s side and started to shove him.
“Well, we’ll just have to pack him in there, won’t we?”
Thundercracker sighed and went beside Starscream, starting to shove as well.
“Are you sure no one’s gonna find him?”
“If they do, it’s not going to be for a very, very, long time. He’ll be long forgotten.”
After a few minutes of shoving, Jetfire went into the hole, his legs cramped in. Thundercracker and Starscream grabbed a couple of shovels they had left, and began piling dirt on top of him.
“Damn, this is…” Thundercracker grunted as he lifted up some dirt. “Taking a lot longer than I expected.”
“You helped come up with this plan!”
“I didn’t account for how heavy Jetfire was going to be!”
“He’s a damn space shuttle for Primus’ sake! Did you think that he would be a lightweight plane?”
“Well, sorry, I’ve never had to drag him before!” He placed another pile of dirt on Jetfire. “And I’ve never had to bury a body like this before!”
“Well, how did you think we were going to bury the body?”
“I don’t know, bring him to Megatron? He seemed to hate Jetfire.”
Starscream scoffed. “All he cares about anymore is ‘Project Nemesis,’ he would just give the body to Shockwave for his experiments.”
Thundercracker grunted. “Seems to be a worse fate than this.”
“Worse fate, but not the one he deserves. This is one Skywarp would approve of.”
After another hour had passed (and more arguing about the plan), the hole was filled up, any trace of Jetfire gone. Starscream grabbed Thundercracker’s hand, and held it up to their faces.
“We tell no one of this. The only bots who will know are us, and Skywarp. Jetfire deserves to be forgotten by the world.”
Thundercracker looked at Jetfire’s grave, and lowered both of their hands. “Do you really think this is what Skywarp wanted?”
“Oh, hell ya. He would’ve loved this.”
Thundercracker smiled softly. “Ya. He would’ve.”
*
Jetfire’s optics onlined to…darkness?
How?
He just woke up, how is there still darkness?
He tried moving his arms.
Nothing.
His legs felt cramped.
Something was covering his entire body.
He did a quick scan of his environment…
…
So he was underground…
Only about a couple of meters under, but still.
He had been buried alive.
No doubt, Starscream and Thundercracker doings. Was this their plan? Live burial?
No, Starscream had said “when you see him” before he shot Jetfire in the head. They had planned to kill him.
Jetfire was just lucky that the shot hadn’t killed him. Unfortunately, that meant he was buried alive.
He still had unaddressed injuries, plus the shot that knocked him out in the first place. Dammit, if they were going to kill him, they should’ve double checked or done more damage to either make sure he was dead, or would die in unconsciousness.
This was…so much worse.
The dirt was crushing him, blocking his vents, blocking everything. Jetfire tried moving his arms, hoping that if he slowly wiggled them, eventually, he would be able to dig himself out.
He tried screaming. All it left him was a mouthful of dirt.
Great, now he really had dirt everywhere…
His legs were curled up, cramped, as if the hole they had buried him was too small, and they had to really get him in there.
Along with his arms, he tried to move his legs, just to get them out of the spot.
All he could manage was wiggling his fingers and pedes just slightly.
After Primus knows how long, he gave up.
This was how he was going to die.
Buried alive, injuries everywhere, no one knowing where he was.
Because who would look underground for him?
*
Jetfire had been gone for a few days.
He had…disappeared without a trace.
Until Red Alert got an energon reader working, and found something.
“Energon readings? Here?” Elita, Chromia and Red Alert stood at a spot faraway from where Jetfire was last seen. One spot seemed to be disturbed, as if someone had dug it up and filled it back up again.
“Yes. If the reader’s not wrong, someone is buried a couple of meters below here.”
Chromia kicked at the dirt. “What if they’re dead and this is a grave?”
“Weird spot for a grave.” Elita looked around at the surrounding area. It was at the far edges of the sector, and isolated with no designation that this was a grave.
Red Alert stepped forward with a shovel they brought and started digging. “If they were dead, we wouldn’t get a reading.” He grunted as he lifted a pile of dirt away. “Plus…the shape that the reader gave me looks like Jetfire.” He started digging again. “Jetfire or not, someone is buried alive here.”
Both Elita and Chromia grabbed shovels and got to work.
“How do you think something like this happened?” Chromia dug deep, and lifted a sizable pile of dirt away.
“Probably an accident. Someone who didn’t finish the job,” Elita answered, also bringing piles of dirt away.
“If this is Jetfire…someone tried to kill him and hide it.” Red Alert dug where the face of the bot was located.
“I would bet Starscream. Have you seen him in battle with Jetfire?” Chromia grunted as she lifted more dirt away.
“He does have motivation…” Jetfire did kill a fellow Seeker, a Seeker, which late one night after nightmares, Jetfire had confided in Red Alert was Starscream’s trinemate.
They couldn’t speculate about it for too long. They couldn’t even confirm that this was Jetfire yet, and they needed to get whoever was under here out of the ground before they died.
*
It had been too long.
Too short.
His chronometer was messed up, Jetfire couldn’t tell how long he had spent here.
All he knew was that he wasn’t dead yet.
He should’ve died from his injuries by now. Perhaps the blasts weren’t as fatal as Jetfire initially thought.
Sad. He thought he would've succumbed to them by now.
He needed to throw up for a long time now. Probably from said injuries. Obviously, he couldn't.
Jetfire lost track of how many times he had to swallow energon back down, probably the only way his systems were still functioning at this point.
Recently, he had just been trying to recharge, hoping that he died during it, only to be disappointed that he woke up much later.
This was torture.
The dirt was getting too heavy, he still had some in his mouth, dammit, his body was sore, he just wanted it to be over.
He just wanted to be dead.
Unfortunately, being stuck in place meant that there weren't a lot of ways he could end it himself just yet.
All he could do was wait for his energon reserves to run out or the wounds actually do something.
It was a slow, painful, lonely, death.
As he tried falling back into recharge, hoping this time he wouldn’t wake up, he…felt something.
Not on his body, but from above.
Thumping noises.
He tried making noise, tried moving, tried making some sort of indication that he was here.
He tried activating his jets to make some form of noise, but they too were clogged by dirt, there was no way to safely turn them on.
The thumping never left, just continued.
He listened to the thumping as it…got closer.
It wasn’t just thumping, someone was shoveling!
Oh Primus.
Oh Primus, someone was shoveling.
Was he being saved?
Did someone find him?
Tears built up behind Jetfire’s optics, unable to spill from his entire face being blocked by dirt.
He tried moving, pure desperation to get out of here giving him strength to do so.
After a little while, there was something.
Light.
*
They had been shoveling for a while, but looking at the energon reader, they were getting close.
Red Alert was most careful shoveling around where the face would be, in fear of hitting whoever was buried.
As he carefully picked up a small pile of dirt, he froze at what he saw.
Blue.
An unmistakable blue optic.
”JETFIRE!” He screamed, and began clawing at the dirt, desperate to reveal more of his face. Jetfire’s optic was dim, close to shutdown, but still alive.
Elita joined him, using her hands to remove the dirt. Chromia continued to remove the dirt around his body. As they uncovered both of his optics, tears started to flow down. Whether from relief or pain…
”Jetfire! We’re getting you out of here!”
As soon as Jetfire’s mouth was uncovered, he tried to cough up dirt in his mouth, but failed.
“Jetfire, please, you have to wait until we get more of your head out…I’m sorry…” Red told him.
After what felt like a long time, most of Jetfire’s head had been uncovered from the dirt. He lifted his head, and practically puked up the dirt, along with a mixture of energon. Red Alert lowered his own head down, and pressed their foreheads together.
“Jetfire, Jetfire, Jetfire…” he muttered, starting to cry himself.
Jetfire actually started to make noise now, his tears turning into full on sobbing as he gasped out ‘help.’
”Don’t worry, Jetfire, we’re getting you out here,” Elita spoke as she continued to remove the dirt.
Chromia and Elita had removed enough dirt around Jetfire’s body for him to bust his arms and legs out of the dirt, finally being able to move. He gasped in relief as they helped him sit up, now hyperventilating.
Elita grabbed a cube of energon from her subspace, and handed it to Jetfire, who quickly drank it down, having gone a long time without anything. As soon as he was finished, his optics seemed a little brighter than they were before.
Red Alert looked around Jetfire’s body, and noticed the wounds. He grabbed a first aid kit from his subspace, and began to clean up Jetfire’s wounds, no doubt infected from dirt being piled on top of them.
Once his wounds had been somewhat treated, Jetfire motioned for Red Alert to climb into his lap. Red Alert obliged, and Jetfire immediately wrapped his arms around Red.
Elita stood, and placed a hand on Jetfire’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, Jetfire. You’re safe now.”
Jetfire nodded as he held Red Alert close, his breaths not calming down, still processing what had happened.
“How…how long…?”
Elita sighed. “A few days.”
“How…did you…”
“Red Alert fixed up an energon reader. That was the entire reason we found you.”
Jetfire nodded again as he fell silent.
A little bit passed, and Elita spoke again.
“We should head back. We don’t want to run into any Seekers.”
Jetfire’s breath hitched and he hurriedly stood, Red Alert still in his arms.
“Yes…yes, let’s…let’s go back.”
“Hey. We won’t have you go out on patrols for a while, okay?” Jetfire turned to Elita. ”You can stay at the theatre with Red.”
Jetfire sighed, his breath finally slowing down. “Okay. Thanks.”
Elita smiled. “No problem.”