Thunderstorm.

THUNDERSTORM – a difficult or miserable time in their life

Ah, which to pick…

How about when he had just been dumped in the arena? He’d thought through escaping the mines and smuggling out Rumble and Frenzy in the process, but getting to the arena and fighting was really as far as his plan went at first. Sure he was big and sturdy, he obviously survived, but it was a learning curve.

You don’t step off the street and into a ring and know how to take or throw a punch. In the mines he’d known what he was doing and knew what to expect, even if the conditions were horrid. He scraped by, won by the skin of his teeth and spent his nights passed out on the floor of his cell-like accommodations. 

And that was when he wasn’t defending the minicons! They found odd jobs soon enough, but right at the beginning they had nowhere to go and were living off of whatever Megs could afford to give them from his winnings. He vehemently refused to let them fight (despite Frenzy’s loud protests) because though he wouldn’t admit it, they were the only familiar people in this new world and the thought of losing them and being alone there was even worse than facing death every day. He fought every day for two weeks straight before they started thinking he might be something special, two weeks of death matches before the bosses gave him some rest so they could see what he could do when he was at his best.

He doesn’t remember everything about that short period of his life and honestly it’s for the best.