The Enemy Within

Across a landscape of nightmares, between life and death, Jetfire struggles with a darkness from the dawn of Cybertron.

Synopsis

"I got out..."

The last thing Jetfire can remember, he was battling Sunstorm high above the Earth, where the insane clone exploded after being exposed to the mysterious purple ooze from beneath the planet's surface. Now, as he returns to consciousness, there is nothing but darkness all around him... and something else that has spoken these words, something which Jetfire cannot see, but rather sense.

As a scientist, Jetfire refuses to believe he is dead, but the realization that soon creeps over him as shapes begin to form in the darkness is even more chilling: somehow, he is back in the Well of All Sparks on Cybertron. He recalls his last visit to this place, the final battle with The Fallen, when Primus himself rose from the core of the planet to dispatch the dark disciple. But the very existence of Primus defies all of Jetfire's scientific beliefs, and Jetfire denied the evidence of his own optics. Then, from the darkness, the image of The Fallen appears, mocking Jetfire's narrow-mindedness and attacking him. As Jetfire collapses, the Well of All Sparks blurs away from beneath him, and he suddenly finds himself on the surface of Cybertron, epochs in the past, and watches as The Fallen battles and defeats an ancient Prime-like Cybertronian. His foe bested, The Fallen turns back to Jetfire, and time spins around them again, to the days of the Great War, dead and dying Autobots littering the planetary surface around them. The Fallen's form warps and twists, and for a moment, Jetfire finds himself fighting a red and black version of himself, before suddenly, the combatants find themselves in the Well of All Sparks again.

As Jetfire watches, Shockwave enters the chamber, breaking the seal that he had helped place upon it so long ago. From the pit at the well's heart, he drains energy... and Jetfire understands. In breaking the seal, in taking the energy of creation from the well for his cloning experiments, Shockwave has freed The Fallen! The essence of the evil being had possessed Sunstorm, corrupting the clone's dedication to Primus... and when Sunstorm was destroyed... The Fallen's immortal essence found a new home... in Jetfire himself!

The horror of his realisation brings Jetfire back to reality, as he awakens to find himself buried in a mass of polar ice, having fallen there after plummeting from the skies. Overhead, through the ice, he can see a team of Autobots arriving, following a signal he is broadcasting, preparing to dig him out. Jetfire tries to scream a warning, to leave him, and the evil trapped within his body, buried... but of course, he goes unheard. And as the digging begins, and the ice begins to crack, within Jetfire's mind, The Fallen whispers...

"Out!"

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• A victim of Dreamwave's bankruptcy and dissolution, this issue was never released. In fact, unlike most of Dreamwave's other cancelled output, its very existence actually went unknown until author Simon Furman revealed a summary on his blog in late 2010, along with summaries of his various unreleased Energon issues.
• Jetfire's battle with Sunstorm occurred in "Atonement".
• The defeat of The Fallen and the sealing of the Well of All Sparks took place in "Conflagration", the final issue of War Within: The Dark Ages.
• Shockwave's cloning experiments were seen in the unfinished mini-series, War Within: The Age of Wrath.

External links

• "The Enemy Within" summary on Simon Furman's blog, 21 December 2010