Promise - Nitrobot - Transformers: Prime [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

For someone like Optimus, solitude was a rare mercy in the regular cycle of war and battle. He was the one that everyone looked to for direction, the one who had an answer and plan for everything. The reality couldn't be further from his soldiers expectations, but it didn't hurt to let them hold hope. He prided himself most on being an approachable leader, but maintaining such illusions gave little time for recluse.

The rain was heavy, splattering thickly and streaming down his armour. The rest of the Autobots were confined to base during such weather, and Optimus even welcomed the moisture even as it threatened to rust his hinges. This forest was a favourite place of meditation for him, the cover of trees shielding him from wandering Decepticons and amplifying the soothing sounds of earthly nature. Ratchet was entrusted with overseeing the base and team, as well as deflecting any suspicions about his unaccounted absence. Even so, worry constantly gnawed at his spark during his excursions, holding back any true sense of peace, but at least it kept him alert.

He may never have seen the stain of energon on the fern leaf otherwise.

It was fresh, still glowing and only now succumbing to the relentless hammering of rain. Drip drip onto the forest floor, washing away into nothing. There were no reported incidents of incoming space pods, ships or other indications of new Cybertronian arrivals recently. A rogue Decepticon. Whether the energon was from itself or any unfortunate tag-along victims, there was no doubt that it would be hostile.

Optimus engaged his guns and ducked behind a tree, scanning the immediate area for life signals. None in range. He inched forwards, aiming his barrels left and right as he stalked through the soaked undergrowth. Even if the 'Con had somehow cloaked their signal, where there was one drop of energon there was always more...

The gloom of the evening made the glowing trail stick out like a sore servo. There was evidence of someone desperately trying to rub or scratch the stains out of the rocks and plants, but obviously they were in a hurry. To get out of the rain? Decepticon reasoning was never that simple. The spread of the energon drops increased the further Optimus followed them, eventually turning to thick streaks down the side of a mountain, which held an unknown cave. The opening of which was framed in luminescent blue.

Getting down the rocky face of the mountain was hard enough for Optimus', in full health and state of mind. It was mostly due to his large frame though, so the Decepticon must have been nimble to be able to traverse the stones without falling and snapping something off. He was certain now that it was the 'Con who was injured, else he would have been ambushed by now. Even so, they were known to act desperately whether able to fend off danger or not, either fighting to the bitter end or, more commonly, fleeing from the battle. The barrels of his guns burned through the rapidly growing darkness as he approached the mouth of the cave, pausing at the energon stains to scan the black beyond.

"Back away, Prime."

Optimus swung his guns towards the direction of the voice; hissing and embedded with a venom that he'd never encountered before. Deeper into the cave, two dull pink lights barely glowed in the gloom. Their beholder had shied far back into the shadow of the cave, away from the spreading moonlight. Airachnid was alone, no detectable Vehicon escort or hidden officers nearby, and from the fizzling of her energy field, severely injured. Despite the previous warning, Optimus still advanced.

"I said BACK AWAY!" she shrieked, fangs bared fiercely and two back legs brought up, ready to slice and shear his plating when he came in range. Optimus halted, but did not retreat from her burning gaze. His optics could pick out highlighted details of her tensed frame, but the rest of her body was carefully hidden in the dark. She was taking the defensive.
Very strange. But, it seemed, conventions were changing in the rebirth of war.

"Has the damp gone to your processor, Prime?! Get away from me before I claw out-" Her cry was ended with a hiss of pain, and the pink light was suddenly extinguished. What Optimus could see of her slumped to the granite floor, servos folded in and helm dipped. Too weak to move, and the heavy loss of energon will have disabled her ranged weapons. The hunter of the Decepticons, sadism and taint incarnate, lay as helpless as a sparkling before him. His gun hummed from the ready charge of plasma loaded into it, aimed steadily at Airachnid.

One twitch of the digit would light the cavern with what was left of her energon. One simple reflex would end the centuries of murder and universal genocide.

His next actions would mean the life or death of more than just one bot.

"Where are your Decepticon brethren?" he asked, lowering the weapon to look into Airachnid's onlining optics. She made a scoff noise followed by coughing, and thick droplets of fresh energon fell to the floor.

"What does it matter to you?" she growled in reply. "They're far away from here. They won't care about my demise. So just put me out of my misery, Autobot."

"You know I cannot do that, Airachnid," Optimus said cryptically, causing the spider's dimming optics to widen in shock.

"And just why not?" He noticed how she crawled backwards towards the nearest wall of the cave despite her injuries, and the sharp edge of fear in her voice.

"Because," Optimus transformed his gun back to its servo form, and stood resolute against the background of thunder and rain. "I will not create an orphan."

Airachnid's faceplates cycled through a rainbow of emotions; surprise, outrage, confusion, some that even Optimus did not recognise. Finally she lowered her helm again against her knees in defeat. "What gave it away?" she whispered, vocaliser threatening to close up.

"I know a mother when I see one. A new one especially so." When he approached this time, Airachnid did not force him away. She stared off blankly at the sheet of hammering rain outside and flashes of lightening, turning her face away from the Prime. Her spider legs lay purposefully folded in a shield around her back, joints twitching subconsciously. In the centre of that mass of razor-tipped rods Optimus could sense a tiny spark frantically ticking away. She was protecting her offspring. To see her caring for any living creature, let alone one of her progeny, was a jolt to Optimus.

The being before him was not Airachnid. She was a fading shadow of the Airachnid that he had witnessed just mere months ago. And something happened in those months. Something that had smashed her into a broken mess, leaving her clinging to tiny vestiges of her former self even as her personality was unwillingly rewritten. And now one question hung in the air like a viral disease; what had scarred her so much that her unbreakable core had shattered like glass?

"Need I ask who the father is?" Airachnid flinched at the mention of the word 'father', her optics shuttering from the sudden flare of anguish. Optimus' suspicions were correct then.

"There was a reason why I split from the Decepticons in the first place," she said in barely a whisper. "Megatron always held a special interest in me. Thought I was exotic... a war prize..." Her tone was mocking, but underlined with regret. "I knew it was only a matter of time before he...acted." She swung her optics to meet his, pink and blue swirling together with the intensity of her accusing glare. "If it wasn't for the Autobots, I would never have had to go back there. Back to him..." Optimus was lost for words at the inner turmoil being played out in front of him. Airachnid was always shown to be capable, adaptable, at home in any environment. That is, any except from home. The irony was as heavy as the beat of the rain outside. It was almost terrifying seeing such a strong femme struggling to even speak.

"You kept all this to yourself?" Airachnid's glare now sharpened to steel.

"Who would have listened?" she growled, claws scoring the rock beneath her with deep gouges. "Do you know how it feels, Prime? Have you ever thought you'd finally escaped something so stupid and pointless... only to be dragged right back into devil hands?" Her mouth twisted into a shaky frown, and her optics burned brighter even with her condition. Optimus remained silent, and her helm fell forwards again.

"Just go...leave me and my burden to die with some dignity." Silence prevailed, save for the constant ambience of nature, for the next few tense moments.

"Airachnid," he began. "If the Decepticons no longer welcome you, then you are a rogue. A neutral, in all respects. And I will not allow a neutral to die if there is any possibility that I can save them." Airachnid scoffed again at his foolish noble words, refusing to meet his stare again. "Please, Airachnid...let me help you. And your sparkling." More silence. More rain. Something like a sigh pushed past her vocaliser and the legs at her back coiled out, servos reaching behind her and slowly drawing a new shape away. It was wrapped in webbing as a makeshift cocoon. She had probably used the last of her energy to make the cover. She cradled it close to her chestplates, near her spark chamber. Helm dipped downwards, optics squeezed shut.

Optimus had seen the image far more times than he ever cared to remember. Mothers desperately shielding their sparklings from whatever lay ahead, be it an advancing armada or grenade or flying shrapnel. Rarely did both make it out of those situations alive. Now Airachnid was hiding her child from the future; as dark and cold as the earthly night outside. He had seen mothers defiant to the end in an effort to protect their last link to their dying planet. And mothers-to-be shot through the spark... the thought caused his own optics to flutter. Now was not the time to be remembering...her.

"You both need energon," he said, eliciting a condescending glare from the femme.

"And you just so happen to carry cubes around with you?" she asked mockingly, frowning while still running digits down the sparkling.

"As a matter of fact, yes." From subspace he retracted two cyan cubes, their glow tearing through the darkness. His hand only barely moved out of the way of Airachnid's extended leg, the barb reaching to snatch the cubes. It pulled back and she frowned deeper still.

"If I give you this energon, I expect your first move will be to attack me once your weaponry powers online again. Therefore, you must let me manually disable your offensive systems before I give you your life."

For a second, Airachnid actually appeared to consider the offer. As if she even had a choice. Optimus edged closer, keeping his optics firmly on the irregular twitches of her spider legs. Those legs were always a cause of fascination, or at least curiosity. The Prime, like all other bots, did not know of how Airachnid evolved into a techno-organic, as they were known. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

"She hasn't made a sound," Airachnid said numbly, lightly running talons down the blanket of webbing as Optimus knelt next to her."Not when she was birthed. Not even when... when her brother was shot right in front of her."

Optimus had long ago realised that one never did just accept the everyday horrors of war- public or otherwise. And just when you thought that you'd seen the worst of what your kind had to offer... a new grisly event lay around the corner.
"I'm...I'm sorry," he said dumbly as he cautiously grazed her servo with a hand, to which she growled again.

"Your apology means nothing to me," she snarled, jerking her servo away from his touch. "In the end, he's still a charred stain on the Nemesis floor..." If Optimus didn't know Airachnid better, he would have sworn that her optics were leaking coolant. Her servo fell back into place and he took it again, this time met with no resistance. A simple clip of the weaponry lines that ran through the servos to the hands and her lasers and webbing would be useless. As for her acid and razor legs... he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

"And you know what the worst part is?" A sick bark of a laugh ripped through her cracked vocaliser as her helm inclined upwards again. Her faceplates were tracked with coolant streams after all. "Deep down inside I honestly don't give a frag."

"What do you mean, Airachnid?" Optimus asked, confused from her contradictory words. She didn't care, yet she was guarding her remaining offspring as fiercely as any mother would... What else had fate done to her?

"Do you know anything of the giant spiders of Archa Seven?"

Archa Seven. It was a name that he hoped and prayed never to hear again. He could practically feel his energon lines freezing over. His digits had pinched over a line of wires inside her servo plating and it took all his strength to bring himself to twist them into breaking.

"I have...heard of the planet," Optimus answered as Airachnid hissed in pain, bringing her cocooned sparkling even closer to her chest. "Its inhabitants... I know not of." With Airachnid relatively disarmed, Optimus held the first energon cube near her, which she swiftly grabbed and brought to her lips, gulping the precious liquid down. It was empty in less than than a klick. She sighed as her systems began to recover, energon tanks refilling and auto-repairs going to work. Optimus held out the other cube, which she took more hesitantly. With a glance at Optimus, she turned her back on him, obviously uncomfortable with him seeing her sparkling. He could see that Airachnid's choice of using only two legs to threaten him with wasn't a choice at all; they were the only ones she had left.

"Marvellous creatures, those spiders," she continued as she fed her sparkling, leaking the energon down its throat through a tiny slit in the webbing. "A single hive mind, ruled by a queen. And ferociously protective of their young..." The last sentence ended in a regretful growl, and she threw the empty energon cube away in anger.

"Are you saying that you are related to the Archa spiders somehow?" Optimus asked, answered with another laugh- stronger this time, but no less mocking.

"You tell me, Prime. Am I Decepticon, rogue, organic? Am I even Cybertronian?" She turned around again, a hand pillowing the head of her cradled sparkling. "Whatever my relation to them, we both share that damned trait," she said bitterly even as she held the object of her hate so tenderly. "My instincts have never betrayed me before..." she revealed idly, helm down again. 'Even the instinct to trust this filthy Autobot?' her processor echoed as the statement left her lips. Of course she didn't trust him. Never mind that he was an Autobot, being a Prime would have sanctioned her impulse to melt his head off its neck cables. But she was feeling...lighter of of a sudden. A weight heaved off of her shoulders and off to Primus-knows where. All from just... saying that scrap to someone? Never mind that someone being Optimus fragging Prime.

"What will you do now? With the Decepticons willing to kill you and a sparkling to care for..." Optimus asked out of a genuine worry that had generated over the past few minutes. Airachnid shrugged her shoulders indifferently, though with her back to him again she wiped the new tears of coolant away.

"I'm a scavenger. I'll adapt. As I always do."

"There's a near zero chance of you finding energon deposits on this planet without some form of det-"

"I can deal with it," she cut in defiantly, remaining two legs jerking in annoyance. "I've survived one war, I can make it through another."

"You've survived a war, but no sparkling ever has. Not without help." Airachnid stared at him in disbelief as she absorbed the information.

"The day I believe the Autobots would aid me is the day I kiss the Allspark," she spat in extreme scepticism, depositing her wrapped sparkling back into the safety of her back legs connector joint.

"True, the Autobots as a whole will not help you," Optimus agreed, his blue gaze still steady. "But I will." Airachnid just shook her head with a sigh.

"You are an idiot, Prime," she groaned, with the slightest suggestion of what might have been sincerity. "I have nothing to give you that you or your Autobots would want. Why help me only to hinder yourself?"

"Because, Airachnid," Optimus began with great difficulty, his voice edged with hurt that had long lost its edge. "I lost someone on Archa Seven. Someone...who then, was my world. And when she was gone, that was when the war began. That was when I vowed to take Megatron's life as his war did Elita One's."

Elita One.

Two words that hit Airachnid's processor like twin sleeper bullets.

She felt the impact; a sudden pressure in the centre of her helm. Painful, but nothing that she hadn't suffered before. It would subside, and it was dismissed.

It would arise again in time though.

"My reasoning as to why I wish to aid you is irrelevant," Optimus said in a last-ditch effort to earn a measure of her trust. "The question still remains; will you accept it?"

The common silence passed between them before Airachnid's answer. "Very well. Unless I find myself to be self-sustainable..." She had some difficulty getting her next words past the blockade of pride. "I accept whatever help you will give to me and my sparkling."

Optimus nodded towards her, and turned to face the pouring rain at the cave entrance. The moon was obscured and almost half-way though its transit. Ratchet would be worrying by now.

"Ratchet, this is Optimus. I need a Ground Bridge."

"Understood," came the medic's relieved voice at the other end of the comm line, and a green-blue vortex yawned in front of Prime.

"Wait!" Airachnid called from the cave just before he stepped into the spinning opening of the Ground Bridge. "Elita One..." She almost had to choke the name out. It felt strange on her glossa and felt like it burned her lips. "Was she... taken by the spiders?" A solemn nod answered her."I am sorry for that," she whispered, which Optimus' picked up even through the barrage of moisture against rocks. He hmphed in acknowledgement.

"You...promise to return?"

Another silence broken only by the still hammer of rain. Then pierced by his final reply;

"I promise."

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Optimus almost didn't notice the sudden flurry of activity sparked by his arrival, stepping slowly through the Ground Bridge warp vortex wrapped in his own thoughts. Only when something thudded against one of his peds did he jolt out of the haze, helm facing downwards at a sheepishly smiling Miko wielding a dented wrench.

"Sorry, Optimus," she apologised with a wave. "But Ratchet was about to blow a gasket, if ya' know what I mean," she whispered with a thumb pointed towards the anxious-looking medic behind her.

"You were gone for quite a while," Ratchet observed as Optimus' frame dripped water onto the base floor. His tone was neutral but there was tension wreathed in his cables.

"I suspected extra Decepticon activity in the area and had to scout around twice. Nothing to worry about," he replied passively. "Where are the others?"

"Recharging while they wait for the rain to ease off," Ratchet explained, servos still crossed even as his faceplate remained blank.

"Then I believe I shall join them after drying off." Optimus walked towards the drying vents next to the base washracks, nodding to Jack and Raf sat on the couch with a video game. Miko watched him leave with something dancing in her eyes and a scowl on her face.

"Did he seem kinda off to you?" she asked, jumping up onto a nearby desk much to Ratchet's irritation. He did seem to consider her words though.

"What do you mean?," he inquired.

"Y'know, kinda..." Miko clicked her fingers as she searched for an appropriate word. "Distant?" Ratchet's optics blinked in thought for a long minute.

"Most likely he's just tired from the extra work," Ratchet finally replied, turning away so that the young human couldn't see his stony mask break into a frown. "Nothing to worry about..." he repeated Prime's own words under his breath as Miko swayed off back towards the boys. Something was troubling the Prime, that much was obvious at least to Ratchet. He'd known Optimus for too long now to ignore even the most subtle indicators of distress. The line of his mouth was forced, his posture too straight, walk stiff. He was trying too hard to act normally and in turn revealed his unease.

Ratchet might have appreciated the irony if he didn't recognise the smouldering fire in his blue optics. He had only seen such flames once before; long ago back on Cybertron in the midst of the war.

On that day, a promise was broken and a spark was lost. And if there was one thing Ratchet had noticed in his long life, it was that fate has an unfortunate habit of digging up old graves.

xx

Airachnid didn't know how long she lay there, huddled against the edge of the cave wall. Her optics were closed, the moon out of sight and everything in darkness. Outside the rain hammered down as ferocious as ever- occasionally a stray droplet would touch her armour and cause her to flinch. She would have slapped herself if she had the energy to spare. No wonder that Prime took pity on her... Primus, she was pathetic. No weapons, no home, and saddled with a parasite.

The sparkling was still silent, not even whimpering from the darkness or cold. Some part of Airachnid hoped that she had met the same fate as her brother- though not as brutally- but so far it hadn't felt as if her spark had been sliced in two, so that distant dream would remain as such. Another routine sigh huffed past her vocaliser, and her optics inched open as she reached behind her to grasp her child. With a tenderness that was completely foreign to her, she cradled her sparkling in aching servos. Part of the web cocoon had worn away around her face, though her own optics remained closed to the world. Her greatest worry was that they finally opened red. Crimson points that would haunt her for the rest of her life... a living reminder of her fall from grace. Hah. To brand that day with a word like 'grace'...

'In a way, I should be grateful for you,' Airachnid thought to herself, touching a digit to her child's still faceplate as she recalled what had transpired seemingly hours ago. 'Without you, Prime would have killed me... or at least hauled me back to his Autobots.' Much of her thoughts had been occupied by the knight in red-and-blue armour, the taste of his given energon still lingering on her glossa. The first question was 'why?'. Why did he feel so inclined to help the one who had caused his soft comrades so many centuries of misery? Pity wasn't strong enough a reason. Optimus' own explanation was unsatisfactory. The inner workings of Autobot minds... one mystery of the universe that she'd never uncover. Best to just accept it as it was and not dwell too long on the details.

He would be back... when? How long would the fresh energon keep her going for? How long would she have to wait for his presence again? The questions made her processor pound in pain, and she resigned back to her faux catatonic state. The energon she ingested activated her automatic healing systems and she could feel tiny nanites going to work over her many scars and cuts. Even the slightly weeping wounds in place of her back legs were starting to heal over. They'd grow back, albeit at an excruciatingly slow rate. They always did... every damn time.

Airachnid had a love-hate relationship with her techno-organic form. The 'hate' side of which had doubled exponentially over the past few months. It wasn't that at first glance people would either instantly love or hate her based on what they saw. Nor was it the simple abominable fusion of living and metal, disgusting and wretched. She couldn't pinpoint the source of her hatred, nor the source of undeniable appreciation buried under the detestment. If she was just another run-of-the-Well femme, then perhaps Megatron might have ignored her.

She mentally slapped herself to keep her processor intact as it drifted back to that agonising night onboard the Nemesis. In his quarters, trapped beneath him as his talons scraped against her armour... to this day the scar on her waist still hadn't faded. A hand glided across the dent in the protoform, tracing the long line where his own armour dug in deep. The other servo clasped the sparkling closer to her, mother and daughter shielded from the roaring elements as they fought their own war inside themselves.

She never cried when she was brought fresh into this fragged-up world.

Airachnid had cried enough for both of them.

xx

The warm currents of air enveloped Optimus and stilled the running droplets of rainwater on his armour. Beneath him the vent grill worked with a loud buzz as his protoform quickly dried. But even with the afterglow of warmth radiating from him, Optimus' maintained his frown. As he trekked through the base hallways and towards his own quarters, his mind was chaotic and swirling with thoughts that he could only barely grasp at before they slipped away into oblivion. But they all held a recurring theme- pink honeycombs and black armour.

He did not regret for one klick assisting Airachnid, but his mind was clouded with possibilities of a grim and complex future ahead of him. How would he continue assisting her and her sparkling, how he would explain to the Autobots, what he would do, what she would do, and what to do with her war-born daughter? He was not one to simply push such matters aside and address them later, he needed answers now. Every day just pushed his spark to its limits and beyond...

He could at least lay out several certainties. Airachnid wouldn't be going anywhere in her current state; her weapons were still offline and Primus knows how long it would take for her to heal. She deeply cared for her sparkling, if unwillingly. The Decepticons would be out looking for her, but her techno-organic chemistry meant that she wouldn't produce a standard Cybertronian signal. Unless they intensely scouted every square inch of the planet, she would be at least relatively safe.

And most importantly, the other Autobots could not know about this. Ratchet would certainly object to assisting a Decepticon, let alone one such as Airachnid, and the relationship with the rest of his team were strained enough as it is. Worst case scenario, if Arcee ever uncovered what Optimus was doing... there was no predictable outcome for how she would react. The hole left by the spider in deactivating Tailgate was torn back open when she set optics again on Airachnid. If Arcee saw her leader, role model and- dare he say it- father figure with his murderer... he'd be spilling salt right into that wound.

He needed to protect Arcee from herself. If he had any hopes of truly saving Airachnid and her daughter from the pit created by Megatron, then his next moves would have to be careful. On handing over those energon cubes, Optimus' life was ripped into two. Light on one side and darkness on the other. Sharp twin shards bound together by a secret-no, a lie- meant to save everyone he loved. Saving everyone, just as he vowed to do a milennia ago...

"You always were an ambitious one, Orion."

Elita One...

It had been so long since he last thought of her; rose pink armour gleaming, shining silver, the brightest of cerulean blue optics that Optimus had ever had the joy of seeing... His legs suddenly crumpled beneath him, and he had to grab onto the wall to stop himself collapsing into a scrap heap. His processor was suddenly overloaded with an influx of accursed memories, smiles and laughs and tears blending together into a masterpiece so haunting that coolant threatened to spill from his optics. Sliding along the wall, Optimus dragged himself into his quarters and almost slammed the door shut, slumping onto his colossal berth with an equally large sigh. His optics squeezed shut and denta clamped down on his lips. He was no stranger to relapses, but like the trauma of war it was something that never settled into a desensitizing routine. When his optics fluttered open a long while later, his sight was fragmented and flickering; something from his processor overwhelming his optical sensors.

The glitches spread out even further across his vision and another sigh heaved past his closed vocaliser. It was going to be a long night...

xx

"You haven't touched your energon."

The lilt of a sweet and familiar voice reaching his audios broke Orion Pax's wall of concentration. Through the rubble blue orbs regarded him curiously, fringed with black and hung above a light pink smile. Elita One sat opposite him, holding a glass of energon near her mouth, while his own was cupped in his hands, forgotten in his other crowded thoughts.

"Thinking again?" she asked Orion as he swirled the glowing blue liquid around idly. He took a long sip before answering.

"Just about... the council. And what Sentinel said."

"Oh, the whole 'these young ones and their upstart ideas' spiel?" Elita smirked good-humouredly at the memory of Sentinel Prime's most recent tirade.

"I recall it as being a bit fiercer than that," Orion said, returning her smirk.

"Looked like his energon lines were about to burst."

"And his optics were practically poppng out of their sockets!" Their shared laughter filled the empty balcony of the cafe and wafted into the evening air.

"Does Alpha Trion know about the new bad influence?" Elita asked through tiny residual bursts of laughter, referring to Orion's newest idol, the Kaon gladiator Megatronus. She hadn't met him herself, but she had definitely experienced the influence his speeches had.

"Not yet. But I've been wanting to discuss it with him. He's... not as close-minded as Sentinel. I actually think he'll be interested in Megatronus' ideas."

"You think it'll shift the dust off his processor?" Her chuckle only increased at the disapproving look that Orion threw towards Elita's jibe at his mentor. Eventually he degraded into more laughs with her.

"I think he's been waiting for someone like Megatronus. Someone to stand up and say 'hey, maybe life actually kinda sucks'."

"Have you been spending time with Jazz again?"

"Well, you know him. He's infectious." Even Orion's light tone couldn't distract Elita from the fall of his icy, contemplative mask that he'd recently generated. Such a thing was arising more often with each passing day.

"What are you worrying about, Orion? We're here, we're alive, we've got good energon-"

"That's just us, though," he interrupted, a plaintive look in his optics. "What about the ones all around us?"

"What about them?"

"I mean... look at that gem seller down there." Orion motioned to the old mech stationed behind the stall at the side of the street below them. "He works all day, barely making enough credits to keep himself powered, and for what? So he can wake up to do the exact same thing for the rest of his life? You try and tell me that that's a worthwhile existence."

"I'm sensing a metaphor," Elita remarked with a habitual smile.

"Look, I'm sorry for getting all philosophical on you again-"

"I don't mind. It's cute." Her smile grew at the sudden rush of heat to Orion's faceplate.

"I'm just saying... we shouldn't have to conform to whatever life was chosen for us. We should have a choice. We deserve a choice. And it's about time the council knew that."

"And you're going to be the one to bring about this mass change in all of Cybertronian culture?" Elita sipped from her glass. " You always were an ambitious one, Orion."

"I won't be alone," he persisted.

"Ah yes, how could I forget Megatronus?" She didn't mean to be so spurning of her friend's ideals, but she couldn't resist easy opportunities at twisting his gears. "There's been rumours about, that he'll be addressing the council directly."

"Yes. He asked me to join him." The simple statement stunned Elita, her servo frozen as she raised her glass to her lips.

"When?" she asked, shifting into a serious tone for once.

"This morning," Orion replied. "It's scheduled a week from now."

"Oh..." Elita's processor was stalling at the abruptness of the news, trying to accept what she was hearing. Orion and Megatronus... marching right up to the High Council, demanding that they change a core element of all Cybertronian life? She was conflicted at what she should be feeling; hope for her dear friend and his goal for a better Cybertron, for a new future. And fear... for what the council might do if they rejected their appeal. There had been too many stories of outspoken high caste members suddenly 'disappearing' floating about... Of course a explanation was fabricated and if necessary, deaths obviously faked to those who looked close enough. Elita never before concerned herself with the blatant corruptness of her home though. If it didn't affect her physically, then she wouldn't let it do so mentally. But ever since she reunited with her old Academy friend, she'd become increasingly more involved with the little fluctuations, details and powers that controlled the whole of Cybertron. To think the fate and function of a planet in the hands of such careless individuals... it scared her more than anything she'd ever encountered. Even the simple idea made her shiver.

Within she was torn. But outside she still smiled.

When Elita looked up from her empty energon glass, Orion had a hand to the side of his helm and a long suffering expression on his faceplate. He made sounds of confirmation into his comm link and sighed when the transmission ended.

"Magnus' threatening to come down here and drag me back to work." He rolled his optics and adopted a small smile. "Will you be at your's tomorrow?"

"Usual shift times," she replied, the glow of her optics wavering slightly. As they stood and hugged farewell, she bade him 'good luck' in his audios. He grinned his thanks and waved before he went out of sight down a far street to the left. The same street that housed the gem merchant stall he pointed out.

Elita tried not to notice the security drones holding their guns to the old mech's head.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

To say Optimus awoke would have been too kind a word. Rather, he was torn away from the fabric of his relapse, the frayed threads that still lingered around him stinging painfully. He cycled air heavily, optics wide and systems on the verge of meltdown. His berth surface and his shivering frame was damp with coolant shed in his stasis. So much for drying himself off. With a groan he heaved himself upright and sat on the edge of his berth, servos on his knees and helm low. Even with the centuries that passed Elita One remained as crisp and beautiful in his memory as when he last saw her... when anyone last saw her.

His digits scored into the metal of his knees, distracting him from the murky depths of his mind. He wasn't ready to remember that yet... at this rate he never would be. Perhaps that was for the best.

As Optimus emerged from the stifling heat of his quarters and walked into the welcoming neutral air of the base, he prepared himself for a swarm of morning greetings and, more plentiful, mundane problems from his teammates needing addressed 'immediately'. The sight of the foyer was a comforting familiarity though, with the children sat at the TV and their guardians nearby. Ratchet was nowhere in sight- most likely getting supplies from deeper within the base or trying to escape the usual noise in the base centre that the humans generated. If he didn't spurn the species themselves, then he held more than enough contempt for their traits. Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead all raised their helms towards Optimus at the sound of his arrival, all mostly content- except for the femme.

"We missed you last night," she commented. Not a question, nor an accusation. Yet it still gave Optimus a sense of unease. "Ratchet said you were out on patrol." He nodded, trying to remain calm under the intense sweep of her stare. If he wasn't careful, she could easily pierce the shield that hid his discomfort.

"There was suspicious activity in the area," he expanded, marching himself past her even as her optics burned into his back. "I had to scout more thoroughly to ensure there were no threats." Arcee made a sound in reply, and seemed to let the matter drop. For now.

"Hey Optimus, where was the area that you were searching?" Rafael asked as Optimus passed the couch that the children were seated on, laptop opened and on his knees.

"I believe you know it as the northern Jasper woods," Optimus replied, wondering what the purpose of such a question was as the human child typed something in and brought up a webpage.

"I was just wondering because- where is it- here!" With a click Raf projected his laptop display onto the larger base computer. If Ratchet was present then he'd be having a processor meltdown at the thought of having potentially lost 'hours of vital medical work'.

"I was browsing the conspiracy websites for any new 'Bot sightings, and I saw this posted on a local blog," Raf explained as a short blog post was displayed on the screen, accompanied with a dark, blurred picture of the forest. There was a sliver of glowing blue between the fuzzy fern shadows. "It says that there was something moving in the woods last night, and that it left behind a glowing blue liquid." Bumblebee's, Bulkhead's and Arcee's optics widened at the news.

"That looks like energon to me," the Wrecker said grimly, and Bumblebee beeped something worriedly. "Think it could be that 'suspicious activity' you were talking about, Optimus?" Three pairs of wide blue optics swivelled towards the Prime, waiting for a confirmation.

Optimus took time to study the display before having to answer. The image was barely recognisable as a forest, only the fern leaves and ragged shadows of undergrowth giving it away. But what at first looked like a stunted tree with two 'branches' sprouting from the top brought back the images of mere hours ago. She was injured, clumsy, her first priority getting out of the rain. Stealth came later. Something- or someone- was bound to hear the crashing of desperately fallen foliage. All it took was one witness to bring even the greatest lie down to its knees.

But there were times when it could push itself back up.

"It could very well be, Bulkhead. Though I did not come across such on my patrol..." Optimus answered carefully, feigning his ignorance with a shameful expertise.

"Last night's rain will have washed it away by now," Arcee pointed out.

"Nevertheless, I shall investigate further," Optimus said with veiled relief.

"Investigate what now?" a grumpy voice asked from behind; Ratchet returning with an armful of glass medical vials. Bulkhead pointed to the projected display, thankfully after Ratchet had unloaded his servos so that he didn't end up littering the floor with broken glass shards from his shock.

"Energon!" he cried out, advancing towards the image with an accusing digit pointed out. He was about to say something else, but a frantic glance at Optimus immediately stopped him. They had both noticed the familiarity in the shadowy background shape, and Ratchet was just words away from dooming Airachnid, and her child. Optimus' optics held a silent plea, one that he couldn't explain but that he prayed his old friend would understand and accept. Asthe other Autobots voiced their own opinions in ambience, Ratchet groaned and shuttered his own optics, coming to stand closer to Optimus.

"That form in the trees?" he whispered, keeping his mouth movements to a minimum.

"They think it's just branches," Optimus replied.

"And what is it, really?" Ratchet asked with a sudden, snappy distrust. Optimus was silent for a few klicks before he answered.

"That I cannot reveal." His optics lowered at Ratchet's deep sigh. "At this moment in time, at least."

"You're keeping secrets from the team-"

"For a good cause, Ratchet," Optimus interrupted, desperation creeping into his tone. "All I ask for now is that you trust me on this, and I promise that all will be revealed." The old medic scoffed, but his hard blue glare softened.

'Promises... what significance did they have anymore?' But in all the years that he knew Optimus, he'd never given him real reason to doubt his actions. Regardless of how much or little he knew of them, or the motives behind them. If he could will himself to break through his wall of cyncism just one last time...

"You guys done gossiping?" Miko called up to the elder mechs, drawing a scowl from Ratchet. He glanced again at Optimus, something reluctant flitting in his optics, and slowly nodded rejoined with the rest of the Autobots gathered around the display. Optimus let out a heavy cycle of air, wondering just how deep the pit he'd dug himself into was now.

xx

When Airachnid awoke from recharge, something echoed wildly throughout her cave. She didn't realise it was her own scream until the reverb had long since subsided. Cycling air rapidly she glanced around warily, noting the fingers of morning sunlight rays spreading into the cave opening and the heavy after-storm mist in the air. A hand subconsciously went to her sparkling tucked into her back, stroking the tattered webbing as she tried to stand up. Slight wobbling on the peds, but she didn't collapse when she walked forward. A noticeable improvement from yesterday.

A quick scan confirmed that her minor wounds had healed over night, and the other larger lacerations would only require a few days. Rust infection shouldn't be a problem as long as she stayed dry. But though she was healing on the outside, inside she was still in a limbo of turmoil. Her spark still ached from the agony of feeling her son's brief life extinguished, and her processor pounded incessantly. She had dreamed, but her memory refused to recall the images and whispering sounds. It hurt too much. Though she could see bright spots of glowing blue in the corners of her vision...

One servo cradled her sparkling and the other shielded her optics from the glare of the sun as she emerged at the very edge of the cave entrance. No Cybertronian life signals in range, with forest surrounding the area and fallen, rotting logs nearby marking the age of this wide ravine. The Decepticons would be hard pressed to find her- if they were even trying to. Megatron didn't know that one of his children still survived- Airachnid was careful to conceal the femme from his optics during her escape from the Nemesis- and he would be certain that Airachnid's wounds would have eventually finished her off for him. She didn't even know where the Ground Bridge spat her out- it wasn't as if she could see where the co-ordinates were set...

Lasers scoured and scorched the walls inches away from her back as she pelted through the Nemesis corridors, unable to suppress her whimpers of pain and unbridled terror. She held a precious load close to her aching spark- ebbing waves of agony from her core that caused her to trip over her heels in her frenzied escape. The Vehicon troops were always just a few klicks behind her... matching her pace but thankfully not her speed. In any other cursed circ*mstance she would only be slipping up in their own spilled energon on the floor, but no matter how much she desperately tried to force any vestige of power into her servo blasters she was awarded only with an empty, futile click and another searing sparking of her wires.

Why was she running? What was it about the worthless slab of newborn protoform cradled to her chest that made her tear apart everything she had tried to keep glued together for the past endless vorns? The basic message playing on a loop in her processor- Keep her safe- was almost insulting to her, but she wasn't afforded any further time for hurried contemplation before a light fixture exploded right before her, energy within falling back on her coolant-beaded armour and making contact with stinging hisses. They were getting closer. If she tried to go any further down the corridor ahead they'd easily rail her bleeding back with plasma bolts. Her last two legs twitched again- they were doing it a lot since her other four were ripped off by Megatron's grip, one that shot out at her as soon as the crimson optics picked her out hiding in the gloom of the Nemesis' more deserted hallways. Or maybe what alerted him was the scream of pure agony that lanced through her, past her vocaliser and into the air saturated with the stench of molten metal and fusion discharge. One servo instantly clutched again over her spark as another pulse of pain passed through, and optics scanned all around for somewhere, anywhere, to give her a klick of sanctuary- or some sweet illusion of such. If she was going to die, she'd die with some semblance of peace.

That, at least, was something she could control. Unlike the Nemesis doorways, one of which suddenly slid open as her servo braced itself against a wall to support her trembling frame. She fell into the room beyond and hit the ground on her mutilated back, wincing and dazed from the impact. With foggy optics she frantically assessed the blurry shape before her, a button of some kind for the door. Whatever it did, she didn't have time to find out before a free servo pressed it. The sound of bolts engaging on the door was a sound of sweet relief to her, the echoes of the locks sliding into place overlapping her heaving gasps of air through her warped vents. Somehow she managed to pull herself to her shaking peds, recognising the wide expanse of room as one of the data analysis centres from the lights set low against the glow of the massive computer screen that dominated the far wall. She only just noticed that the console below it was occupied when the silhouette stood there turned towards her. At the sight of sheer glass reflecting back coolant-teared honeycomb optics, her knees threatened to buckle under her from the weight of the despaired wail building within.

Soundwave's approach was devoid of emotion, not even the barest signal of anger or accusation in his fluid movements coming to meet her. Airachnid's breaths hitched with sobs that what little that was left of her pride couldn't even quell. She wanted to meet his featureless face with something at least close to defiance in the face of slender death, but the silent child still in her arms was all that magnetised her optics- all that mattered was that she survived. Even if her creator didn't.

"Please..." Trying to bite back such a pathetic plea only left stinging holes in her glossa, and her energon tasted stale as it pooled in her mouth."Spare me, Soundwave..." Her optics dared to shutter and point upwards to him past the sad film of tears. She didn't know what good it would do to beg, let alone with Megatron's pet himself. She also didn't know, and would never know, what little sub-routines were passing through his mind as he processed her infeasible request. For some, inexplicable, terrifying reason though, that request was accepted.

She heard the whirl of the Ground Bridge portal next to her before her optics flicked towards it, a swirling gate to Primus-knows-where. For all she knew it would lead to Megatron's quarters, or some barren prison where she could be suitably left to rot. Knowing Soundwave on basis of only mythos and bare reputation, Airachnid could only guess those desolate possibilites. Wherever it stranded her though, at least she knew one thing. It would be better than the Nemesis.

Soundwave's motives for such an act of...empathy were something that she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to uncover, if the opportunity for such knowledge ever came along. She certainly didn't want to dwell on it, all that mattered was that Primus had decided to down a few high-grades and twist his little playground that he called the universe around- and fortune favoured her in the aftershocks of such supposed meddling. Soundwave's Ground Bridge was self-generated; good news in that there was no way for the Decepticons to lock onto the destination co-ordinates, bad news in that she was virtually stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Stranded... except for Prime.

And if he was nearby, the rest of his team was sure to be.
Arcee would probably shoot down her sparkling right in front of her out of revenge for Tailgate- how she could hold a grudge that long, Airachnid would never know. The others she knew little of, so she could hardly gauge their actions. But she'd bet both their sparks that not one of them would be nearly as understanding as Optimus.

Something clicked in her arm, and she looked down at her wriggling offspring. The webbing cocoon had worn away into stray strands that stuck to the sparkling's plating like a disease. With a talon Airachnid picked them off as the child stretched and chirped in her waking throes. Light gray protoform marked her skin, with optics squeezed closed. Armour wouldn't start forming until her next few weeks, and even then it would constantly reform and shed as she grew. With their faceplates close, Airachnid could see two faint streaks of black arching down her sparkling's optics, with a small violet mouth underneath.

'How can something so young be so beautiful...?' Was this how all mother's saw their children? Or were her techno-organic instincts masking over her vision? She wouldn't be surprised, they had done nothing but hinder her these past few months.
Karma really was a glitch.

Seating herself at the very edge of the cave, Airachnid allowed the rising sun rays to wash over her armour and heat her sluggish systems. She didn't want to risk leaving the area, else she get lost, or if Prime returned. And she was certain that he would. He was too damn holy to let her fend for herself. That would make taking advantage of him even harder.

She'd have to play her cards very carefully. Her main goal was to survive. Any revenge against Megatron came later. Much later. Optimus would be instrumental to achieving that goal, so she'd do well to keep him close. And if there arose any side ambitions along the way... well, she was an unfortunate opportunist. A not-so-nasty habit that Archa Seven gifted to her, along with everything else.

Something told Airachnid that she'd be revisiting that Primus forsaken planet more times than she'd ever care to in the coming days.

xx

"Optimus, are you sure-"

"I will be fine, Arcee. The rest of you are needed here to ensure the safety of the base, and the children," Optimus assured her, the spinning Ground Bridge portal behind him giving him a harsh glowing outline. Ratchet looked even more unhappy than usual at the bridge controls, but stayed silent as Arcee questioned Prime on what he was about to undertake. The rest of the Autobots knew only that he was going to scout the forest area again, in search of the 'Energon Culprit' that had the humans in an uproar. It took a hefty amount of persuasion to convince Agent Fowler that an aerial scout would not be necessary- the last thing Optimus needed was the notoriously twitchy human government becoming involved with what was already spinning out of his control. He knew though that convincing his teammates that he would be safe going alone would be significantly more difficult. With one last look at Bulkhead and Bumblebee assembled in the background, Optimus turned towards the vortex before Arcee could think of another worry to voice. When he winked out of sight, she sighed with servos crossed. Bumblebee chirped a question at her; "Anything wrong, 'Cee?"

"Nothing, Bee, just... I've got a bad feeling about this," she replied, optics shifting nervously. Ratchet glanced over at her, and sighed wearily. 'I hope you know what you're doing, Optimus...'

"PRIME!" a sudden very angry voice cut through the tense silence of the base, Agent Fowler's visage taking up the communications computer screen. "What in blazes are your people doing out here?!"

"You just missed him," Bulkhead said to him, optics heavy with annoyance. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is that we had an agreement; no collateral damage!" The Autobot's faceplates turned to confusion.

"I can't imagine Optimus going out to level a town in the space of two klicks," Ratchet deadpanned.

"Where is Prime anyway? Can he explain why there are two jumbo bots out ripping up the ground as we speak?!"

"Decepticons?" Ratchet asked, coming to join the rest of the team gathered before the screen.

"There has been plenty of infighting lately. Megatron can't seem to keep his ranks in line..." Arcee commented.

"Well I'm just arriving on the scene." The screen shifted with a burst of static to show a ship lodged in the dirt, spilling out smoke. "Have a look." Zooming in on a tiny point stepping out of the ship debris showed a bulky jet Decepticon wielding a hefty cannon in his servos, aiming it steadily in front of him. Bumblebee almost thought it was Skyquake at first glance, frantically clicking in disbelief. Bulkhead's outspoken speculation sated his thoughts though;

"I dunno... paint job aside, it can't be Skyquake. You and Optimus pounded him into the ground."

"You said there were two bots... so who's the dance partner?" Arcee asked as the camera panned to the side, showing another ship parked on the ground and zooming in on another familiar shape.

"By the Allspark..." Ratchet muttered at the white, blaster-ready mech shown on screen. "It is one of ours!" And not one to be happy about. Bulkhead was quite the opposite to Ratchet's annoyance at Wheeljack's return though, pounding his teammates on the back enthusiastically.

"Yeah, Jackie's back!" he laughed, grinning at the sight of his old friend. Ratchet rolled his optics, not wanting to think of what Optimus was going to have to deal with when he returned.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Optimus marched into the cool evening air, peds crunching in the twigs and leaf litter beneath. He was plunged into darkness as the Ground Bridge portal disappeared, but recognised the outline of the cave opening up ahead. Just as well the bridge co-ordinates were unchanged since his warp last night. He approached unarmed, not wanting to incite another hostile response from Airachnid, and switched on his chest headlights to illuminate the cave as he knelt down at a window-like gap in the stone. Her back was turned away from him, resting on a mound of rocks against the wall. Optimus recognised the purring sound of sleep that came from her. With a rumble of his engines, he waited patiently for her to wake. Airachnid's helm rose slowly, shaking slightly and turning towards him. Her optics narrowed against the sharp glare of his headlights, but he swore her lips bore a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. She thought he couldn't see it.

"Apologies for waking you, Airachnid," Optimus began, dimming his lights as she shifted herself into a sitting position. "Are you well?"

"I'm...better..." Her reply was quiet, edged with caution. With his strange kindness the previous night she couldn't bring herself to drop her guard; even former Decepticons still suffered from the viral distrust of Primes. Optimus nodded despite the ice in her answer, still kneeling at the cave opening.

"May I enter?" he requested, drawing a look of confusion from Airachnid. He was...asking permission? She nodded before she could fully consider it, a seemingly automatic action. Slowly Optimus lowered himself into the dip of the cave, which levelled out into a spacious room. He approached her from the side, noting how she turned herself away from him the closer he came. Her servos were held against her, fiercely shielding their cargo from prying blue optics.

"Took you long enough," she muttered, regaining some shadow of her long lost impudence. She braced herself for a cutting reply, but all that came was a voice so sincere that it almost sickened her.

"I would have visited sooner, but I had to deflect suspicions," Optimus explained, a genuine apology in his tone. Airachnid couldn't face the endearing smile that he dared to show to her- for her.

"They'll find out," she said, rearranging herself to face away from Optimus again. An optic ridge raised at her words. "Autobots don't know how to lie. And they sure as the Pit can't accept a lie. Especially not one from you, Prime. How will you stop them from hunting me down when it happens?" It was a long moment before he answered.

"I know more of the art of deception than I'd care to ever admit, Airachnid." Now it was her turn to raise a ridge skeptically. So the Prime wasn't as pure-sparked as she always thought... that made him just a tad less insufferable. "And I made my choice to aid you and your child. That will not change whether or not my comrades accept my decision..." His optics wandered off as he thought of how Airachnid's prediction was already coming true; he had pledged to Ratchet an explanation and Arcee was already asking questions. His teammates knew him too well. At the very least, Ratchet would understand why. Arcee wouldn't even give him the chance to explain.

"Are you going to stand there all night staring at me?" Optimus didn't notice his optics centring on the half-hidden mass in Airachnid's servos. He averted them, but caught a glimpse of her softer expression. Somewhere in his spark, he felt a need to see the sparkling for himself. Curiosity wasn't enough to describe it.
"If I may ask about your sparkling-"

"She's fine," she snapped back, faceplates sharp as steel again and scowl returning. "Just fine..." Her optics flitted down to the child in question, turning it in her arms as Optimus contemplated how she reacted to his request. He expected it as well as a human expected dark clouds to bring rain. But this dark cloud had a spark that he promised to protect.

Reaching into his subspace compartment, he drew out another two cubes of energon and stretched his servo out towards her. With a weighing look she snatched them as if they were going to disappear into thin air. Optimus watched as she stared forlornly at the cubes in her hand, helm dipped down. She didn't drink the energon.

"Your weaponry systems should have repaired themselves by now," he told her, letting his gaze fall gently on her. The encroaching light of the moon was spreading up her frame from the small opening of the cave, highlighting her ragged features. Her armour was scratched and dull, paint chipped and faceplate marred with contempt.

"Nothing stopping me from attacking you then, is there?" Optimus recognised Airachnid's probing questions, a subtle attempt to have a glimpse into his mind. Decepticons were adept at the manipulation of words, a craft that Megatron himself mastered in his gladiatorial days.

"Only your own morals," he replied, not attempting to hide any information from her, but deciding to use her own art against her. "But in that case, there would also be nothing stopping me from retaliating." His optics went back to her sparkling, and her eyes widened in the sudden horror of realisation.

"You wouldn't," she whispered in disbelief.

"I do not leave orphans, Airachnid," he repeated with a careful edge, frown giving off a neutral warning. The morbid message was clear; drop the attitude. Their stand-off was tense and silent, sharp optics measuring every minute movement of the bot before them. Airachnid's stiff shoulders fell in defeat under Optimus' intense stare, her servos following suit. He hated himself for having to resort to such diabolical, underhand tactics, but if it would sand her rough edge down enough so that she opened up to him, then it was necessary.

"Your sparkling?" he asked again, expecting a proper answer this time.

"...Sleeping. Quiet. But...healthy." He noticed the venomous regret in her reply; her previous attitude to her child so far hadn't changed. Or if it had, she wasn't showing it.

"May I see her?" Under other circ*mstances it would have been insane to hand something over to the very bot that mere klicks ago had threatened to terminate it, but Optimus knew that Airachnid's reasoning processes would be cloudy over the lingering haze of relief that her submission would have brought on. She didn't look up as she outstretched her servos, sparkling held in her talons. Optimus shifted himself closer and gently retrieved the bundle of life from her, hands as still as the night around them. He held the sparkling in the cradle of his servos, optics scanning the tiny form. He didn't know what he was expecting- a miniature version of her father most likely. But looking at her, taking in every developing detail with whirring optics... if he didn't know it already, he would never have guessed that Megatron had anything to do with her. She was... delicate. A soft faceplate with sweeping rather than striking crowns, and thin primary armour over her grey protoform. Not a trace of Decepticon taint that he could visibly see. Her optics were still closed over, black lines that matched her mother's curving down. A tiny servo was curled over her violet lips, twitching irregularly. There was always an innocent beauty within every sparkling, but to see it coming from a damned Decepticon union was a jolt to Optimus' systems. Not an unpleasant one, rather it awoke something in his processor... something that he thought he recognised from millennia ago.

"She's beautiful," he said, content to simply watch her in his arms. Airachnid scoffed at his comment, letting her helm hit off the rock behind her as she slumped back. Typical Autobot sympathy. His next remark though caught her off guard. "Just like her mother." Her optics flashed open, trying to meet his own to see if he was serious. But something made them avoid him, dancing around the gloom of the cave yet refusing to go near the blue lights that regarded her with returning sincerity.

"Then why do I feel so ugly?" Optimus froze at the pure bitterness in her confession, optics angling up towards her. Something in his spark wrenched at the sight of her folded and broken, without the strength to even keep her helm up. He didn't see any ugliness in her, like he always saw within Decepticons. The ugly face of evil. She didn't have it... or he couldn't see it. Or a combination of the two. No, when his optics settled onto her, he saw only one painfully familiar thing.

'Dammit Elita...'

Both victims of Megatron's atrocity. Both fallen prey to Archa Seven. The only break in the monotony was that Airachnid survived. An extraordinary coincidence.
But Prime had learnt to never believe in coincidences.

He couldn't ask her about Archa Seven though...not yet. A sudden chirp from his arms pulled him from that particular ravine of thought, and his optics flicked down again. Two squinting, icy blue lights looked back. They took in the angles of metal and the pulse of the spark nearby.

"Airachnid..." Optimus called to her, optics still locked with the sparkling's curious gaze. The femme lazily swung her head towards Optimus, and her limp neck instantly went taut as she realised that there were two more lights in the darkness. Numb with... some feeling she didn't recognise, she slowly drifted towards them and gratefully took in the light blue shade in the tiny lights before her.

'Anything but red...' She felt herself sigh with relief and something like wonder at the sight of the new, innocent eyes finally opened for the very first time. They didn't frantically dart all around though like curious mosquitos, as most sparklings did- eager to explore every inch of their home and world. If her whole world was but a dark and damp cave, then perhaps that was why she stared so intently at Optimus.
Perhaps...

xx

"Prime often go off on these walks?" Wheeljack asked as Ratchet welded blue sparks down a scar in his shoulder, who tutted every time he flinched away from the stinging flame.
"Depends," Arcee answered, servos crossed as she stood with the rest of Team Prime gathered around the new arrival. "He likes his border patrols."

"Less work for us though!" Bulkhead chuckled as Ratchet finished up with Wheeljack's repairs, much to his dwindling complaints ("Take it easy, Doc, I need that arm"). "Hey, speakin' a'work, how come you're back on earth, Jackie?"

"Along with that other bot?" Arcee added. Wheeljack let out a growl before he answered.

"That... would be Dreadwing," he all but spat in reply, optics narrowing dangerously. "Tracked his sorry aft across millions'a light years when he finally touched down back here." As he explained how Dreadwing killed Seaspray and attempted to terminate him as well, Ratchet couldn't stop his optics glancing towards the Ground Bridge controls and comm screens. A nervous twitch triggered from the unease that currently saturated his spark. Ratchet had no idea what Optimus was out doing, nor did he know if it really was as necessary as he insisted it was. And when Optimus did decide to tell him, he certainly wasn't sure if he'd be happy with the answer.

He wasn't able to mull over the situation any further as he felt Wheeljack suddenly jerk his shoulder, all but toppling the unsuspecting medic as the Wrecker marched with a grim determination.

"Look, Wheeljack, just wait 'til Optimus comes back-" Bulkhead first began, then was cut off by a cynical scoff.

"And how long'll that take? Two klicks or two breems? Every second I waste here I could be spending pounding Dreadwing back into the ground where he came from!" His glare at Bulkhead was heavy with accusation, and all the Wrecker could do was sigh.

"Jackie, I know you're upset- Seaspray was a brother to me like every other Wrecker. But you caused some serious damage out there-"

"I'll say!" a seething Agent Fowler cut in as he entered through the base elevator, turning a stare very similar to Wheeljack's own towards the white mech. "Your little 'cowboy antics' nearly blew our cover!"

"Cover?" Wheeljack asked with a raised optic ridge. Bulkhead explained how they disguised themselves among the unsuspecting humans, and Ratchet couldn't help but wonder when Optimus' cover was going to be blown sky high.

xx

"Lord Megatron, I live to serve," Dreadwing recited as he knelt on the Command Centre bridge before the warlord.
"Rise, Dreadwing," Megatron commanded with a thoughtful glint in his optics. "Loyalty such as your's is a rare commodity." 'And Primus knows we need loyalty around here...' His ranks were dropping like flies- first simple Eradicons and Vehicons and now competent officers. Still, at least they wouldn't be too missed...

"Mine runs deep and true. Yet it is not loyalty alone that brought me here," Dreadwing confessed. "I seek confirmation of the demise of one whom I considered a brother." Scratch that- two of them wouldn't be too missed. Megatron had only learnt of Skyquake's residence on earth after Starscream's departure from the Decepticons- a pity considering it would have given him another excuse to throw the Seeker off the Nemesis flight deck for not disclosing the location of a Sleeper to him.

"How did you learn of his passing?"

"My twin and I shared a split spark- two halves of the same life force..." Megatron's interest piqued at the mention of split sparks- considering what had recently happened considering such strong familial bonds. "Even across the galaxy I sensed when he emerged from stasis on this planet, and when his spark was no more." It was all he could do to stop himself from grinning at this new information. 'So that's why she was in such pain...' Megatron was wondering why Airachnid had clutched her spark chamber so tightly in apparent agony when she made her escape from the Nemesis just days ago. As for her reaction to his termination of that tiny, Scraplet-sized protoform that was crawling all over his floors, it only confirmed his previous suspicions.

'Such a shame to not be able to see the full results of my dominance,' he thought with sick regret. 'But at least the effects are certain to be long lasting...'

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

"Have you thought of a name?"

Airachnid took a slow sip of energon before answering. Optimus had so far remained silent since the sparkling's optics onlined, simply watching the enchanting, young blue orbs and occasionally letting his own flick upwards towards her. His question almost made her splutter with spiteful laughter. 'Stuck with a Decepticon's brat and all he can think of is her name?'

"That wasn't exactly a priority," she mumbled, still savouring the last few drops of energon on her glossa. She set the empty cube down next to her, lying back on the rocks and pointing her weary optics to the ceiling. Nothing but granite darkness above. She missed the stars, celestial guardians that had constantly stood vigil for her. On Archa Seven, on Cybertron, even on the Nemesis... through even the tiniest windows she always saw them burning their print on the cosmos. Now they had abandoned her, and she'd never felt more spark-shatteringly alone. Just as she was about to fall into such a pressing void though, a sudden tug at her spark caught on her and drew her attention to Optimus. He lay like her against the rocks, one servo propping him up and the other holding the sparkling, whose optics burned even brighter than when they first whirred to life and locked intently onto the Prime. Airachnid realised why when she felt the tug on her spark again.

Optimus frowned at the sight of Airachnid holding a servo over her spark chamber and optics squeezed shut. He couldn't even begin to place where her obvious distress might be stemming from- either from the residual pain of sparkling birth, or loss, or something else entirely stabbing at the core of her emotional shell. She didn't move when he moved his servo to the remaining energon cube next to her, lifting it up and bringing it to the sparkling's mouth. Only now did her optics look away from him, and down to the energon being held to her lips. With a faint chirp she let the liquid slowly leak into her, sending her growing systems whirring and tiny spark alight with glee. Optimus smiled at the sparkling drinking away in his arms.

"You know why she's been staring at you all evening?" Airachnid queried, servos calmly placed on her knees and previous agony all but dissolved. Optimus pointed his optics to her and shook his head.

"She's imprinted on you," she stated apathetically, faceplate falling on her knees as they curled up to her chest. "For all she knows... you are her sire." Optimus took a moment to fully process the revelation, looking down at the sparkling with new eyes. She stared back as intensely as before, lip corners upturned. He numbly lifted his servo and raised his smallest digit in front of her. Emitting a series of joyous clicks the sparkling grasped the digit with all of her own, optics appraising it with unbridled curiosity.

'Sire...' It was common knowledge that sparklings developed an instant bond with whatever they first saw, but Optimus had never heard of it being so strong as to be imprinting. Almost as if to confirm Airachnid's statement, the child pulled on the digit to bring it closer to her and nuzzled her helm against it. Optimus didn't want to think that this was the same creature that he had threatened to terminate a breem ago as another digit stroked at the strange bump on the back of her head- a small tangle of metal wires that reached to her tiny neck.

Across from them Airachnid looked on with sickness still heavy in her spark. Just when she had reached the fateful 'things can't get any worse' checkpoint, those damn eyes just had to open. Those damn, blue beautiful eyes...
Wait, blue?

Airachnid had only noticed the abnormal colour of her optics then; a rival cyan to Optimus' own. If they weren't destined to be standard Decepticon red, then they should have been violet or pink as her own were... The night kept getting stranger and the moon hadn't even halfway crossed the sky. She could see its light creeping into the cave though, leaking through the cracks in the stones. Optimus notice her wistful stare at the tiny beams of light, the only indicator of the world outside this dark sanctuary, and Optimus shifted the sparkling gently in his hold as she chirped lightly.

"Perhaps the child would benefit from a small venture beyond this cave... and we might find inspiration for her designation..."

"'We'?" Airachnid asked with a raised optic ridge, suppressing her relief at the thought of finally seeing her stars again.

"You said yourself that she considers me her father... I believe that gives me the responsibility of her designation, if only partially." As if she could say no to that smile. She tried to push herself to her pedes, clawing onto the rock wall for support. When she tripped from taking a step forward she felt large servos close easily around her, and looked up to Optimus' concerned expression. But before he could ask if she was able to walk, Airachnid quickly collected herself and swept her child out of his other servo, marching past him to the cave opening at the front, neck held high and back legs clicking together. That simple show of haughty independence sent a shock through Optimus' spark that came out as a sigh from his vocaliser. Primus, even the way her hips swished in rhythm was like Elita's own! He trudged after her into the envelope of night air ahead, optics fighting back the coolant that filmed them over.

xx

"I'll talk to him," Bulkhead muttered to the other Autobots as Wheeljack marched to the base entrance, leaving a trail of heated frustration behind him. Ratchet exhaled in relief at the Wrecker finally taking his leave, who'd been pacing up and down the entire length of the base during his wait for Optimus' return. The medic was on the verge of lightening Bulkhead's workload and breaking something himself when Wheeljack blew a fuse and stormed off while yelling "Frag your damn systems, if Prime don't wanna be here then neither do I!" As Bulkhead trailed behind him, Arcee turned her gaze to Ratchet.

"He should be back by now," she noted with concern, crossing her servos across her chassis. "What if he's in trouble?"

"If he was, he would have commed for help," Ratchet reassured her, optics still glued to the computer panels. "Whatever Optimus is doing, he can handle it."

"Hmm," the femme voiced skeptically, leaning on a stack of boxes. "There's something up with him."

"He has been... rather on edge recently," Ratchet admitted carefully, tapping digits slowing their pace. "But I don't see it as anything to worry about."

Arcee's optics suddenly snapped wide, and turned back towards him. "Ratchet... do you think..." She paused uneasily before continuing. "They've... started again?"

"What's 'they'?" Bumblebee beeped, looking from femme to medic curiously. Ratchet took a brief look at the scout before his optics fell to the floor, and Arcee's darted around.

"You'd be too young to remember it, Bumblebee..." Ratchet mumbled while extracting himself from his station. "What we refer to is... something that Optimus suffered from during the war. Flashbacks and memories to something that he lost..."

"Well, spit it out doc, what are we talking about?" Bumblebee was expecting a glance of scorn from the medic for his impertinence, but he didn't even shoot a dagger his way as he walked with a solemn air next to Arcee. He answered with only two words.
"Elita One."

"Who's Elita One?" Ratchet's helm turned towards the question that Raf asked, looking up from his video game and giving a worried voice to the other children's collective buzzing thoughts. They'd been mostly quiet during Wheeljack's tantrum and Arcee's worries, but now they looked to Ratchet for an explanation. At first he thought the medic wasn't going to answer, but he managed to huff a reply past his vocaliser.

"Elita was Optimus' spark mate."

"What's that, like a wife or something?" Miko asked, springing up from the couch and leaning on the railing.

"Ohoo no, a spark bond is a much closer connection than what you call 'marriage', though the concept is similar," Ratchet replied. "It is the ultimate show of commitment- two sparks joined as one."

"I heard of Elita," Bumblebee whirred in confirmation. "When I was out of duty after Tyger Pax, there was all these rumours going around about her. I never really listened to them though- too busy drowning in anaesthetic at the time." Now Ratchet brought out his glare at Bee's jab of humour on such a serious topic. He couldn't really blame him though- if he didn't listen, then he didn't know.

"So if she's so important to Optimus, how come she isn't here?" Miko asked further, resting her head on her arms. In the background Jack pressed his palm to his face; of course she hadn't caught the tell-tale grim tone that Ratchet spoke with. Then again, he was always like that.

"Ah," the medic began, turning his helm away for a second and letting his optics wander as he thought of how to explain it all. 'She was killed' wouldn't do. 'She's missing' was just lying. Luckily Arcee came up with an answer for him.

"She was taken from us," Arcee choked out, servos stiffly falling to her sides and faceplate twisted into a scowl. "By the Decepticons... by those fragging spiders..." Her helm snapped away from the gathered company and her peds carried her swiftly away from the foyer, stamping along one of the base corridors to her quarters.

"Woah... who glitched her hard drive?" Bumblebee beeped while Jack looked at the motorcycle fast retreating worriedly. Ratchet sighed before he gave an explanation for Arcee's explosive reaction.

"Arcee was particularly close to Elita One... in many ways, she was both a mentor and a dear friend. After Optimus she was hit hardest by her... demise." The medic's optics shuttered solemnly at the memory of that day. When Optimus returned to Iacon, alone and with all the grief in the universe weighing on his shoulders...

"What was Arcee talking about when she said 'spiders'?" Ratchet's attention flicked over to Jack, who still had concern on his features. "Does she mean...Airachnid?" Even now, months since he and his mother had been hunted by the Decepticon, he still saw dreaded spindly razors when he closed his eyes.

"No, she was referring to the spiders of Archa Seven- a mostly uncharted planet distant even from Cybertron," Ratchet replied, calling on the little that was known about it. Archa Seven was virtually unknown before the war, and there was never the time nor resources to spare to mount a scout or investigation of the planet. After what happened there, no Cybertronian in their right mind wanted to even think about it, let alone set ped on it. He wanted to just leave the explanation at that, but the children looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

"I'll take it from here, Ratch'." The medic didn't even notice Bulkhead returning until he heard his voice from behind, turning his helm to clouded, sorrowful optics. "After all... I was there." The Wrecker turned to the children, trying not to focus too much on Miko. He took a long look at the three of them, and heaved a deep sigh before he set off;

"Near the end of the war, Optimus had tracked the Nemesis to the planet, where it had landed after sustaining heavy damage in a firefight with the Autobot warship; The Ark. He was going to confront Megatron once and for all on its surface, while their armies fought against each other. By now, Optimus and Elita had spark bonded, so he forbade her from fighting with him to ensure her safety. But during the chaos of the battle Megatron managed to send Decepticons onto the Ark... and took Elita hostage. I watched Optimus with a sword to Megatron's neck, and above them a pair of Decepticon scum had Elita in their filthy claws... if he killed Megatron, they killed her. I watched him forced to disarm and let Megatron go... and I watched as he sent a fusion shot right into Elita's legs. He was aiming for her spark chamber but I managed to throw his aim off when I saw what he was gonna do. Of course the fragger was gonna kill her anyway..." Bulkhead's voice had slowly grown into a snarl over the course of the story, and his faceplate was twisted by rage as his engines growled with fury.

"Jeez..." Miko whispered with eyes teary and a hand at her mouth. Raf and Jack kept their gazes plastered to their shoes, not wanting to meet the glare of Bulkhead's optics.

"So where do the spiders come in?" Bumblebee asked impatiently, breaking the melancholy atmosphere with a strike of beeping lightning. Bulkhead immediately rounded on him and spat out his answer.

"After Megatron maimed her, those things appeared all around the field before anyone could blink an optic. On top of all the casualties from their attack, there was a rock slide; she got buried, spiders swarmed her, spark signal went out, poof." Bumblebee flinched back from the intensity of Bulkhead's stare, optics wide and backstrut bent. It was a long moment before Bulkhead realised how close his enraged faceplate was to Bee's, and he pulled back with dazed eyes.

"S-sorry Bee, it's just... the look on Optimus' face when he saw Elita like that..." A servo rubbed his helm in discomfort. "I'd never seen him so...angry before. Or ever since." Ratchet hmphed something in confirmation, remembering the permanent look of grim determination that was etched into the Prime's faceplate since his return to Cybertron after Archa Seven. Determination to push onwards, to destroy Megatron, to hold back the guilt...

"Optimus only survived because their spark bond was still young; if it was a long-term bond, the loss would have consumed him and took his life as well. Over the centuries Optimus has dealt with it as much as he could, but he is still prey to flashbacks to when Elita One was alive. Arcee too had such visions after Tailgate's death- though on a much less devastating scale," Ratchet said. "Not dissimilar to what you humans call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We suspect that he may be suffering from an onset as we speak, possibly triggered by something."

'Something that he's going to have a hell of a time explaining to me.

xx

"You seem unaffected at the sparkling having established such a bond to me," Optimus commented as he walked behind Airachnid, optics bright and alert in search of danger amongst the trees that lined the canyon, all but blocking out the sky. The femme was keeping close to the ravine walls, oblivious to everything except the path ahead and the child in her arms. She gave a simple shrug, slowly drifting along the cold dirt under her heels.

"I suspected something like it would happen," she said in a tone that was hollow as she dug out the lie underneath. Truthfully, in all her contemplations of her survival, the Decepticons and, reluctant as she was to admit it, Optimus himself, the implications of imprinting were the last thing on her mind. If anything, it had completely lapsed from her mind until she felt the sparkling's bond hook onto her spark and pull her into the network that had been crafted between the three bots. She didn't know how she should have felt about it all- angry? Annoyed? Maybe even... relieved?

Well, in the end at least it was better Optimus than Megatron. A Scraplet would have been better than that sick fragger. At least then she could just send a heel through its head and be done with it.

"We are nearing the end of the ravine," Prime voiced as the walls around them widened the further they ventured, ending an opening crowned by an arch and looking over a valley. Airachnid responded by quickening her pace, optics pointed forward as her view of the valley retreated, overtaken by the night sky above that slowly leaked into her vision. 'Almost there...'

Optimus was stumbling over the rocks as he worked to catch up with the femme, not wanting to leave her side for a klick. He didn't trust the cold and quiet evening ambience that hung like a blanket over them, nor did he trust her with the sparking. Airachnid brought herself to a stop at the very edge of the opening, still as the stars that were sprinkled across the swirls of blue and black so far above them.

If there was one thing Optimus could appreciate about Earth, it was its celestial viewpoints. On Cybertron atmosphere was near non-existent, offering a mirror into the black void of space that surrounded the planet and offered itself as 'the Universe'. But even with such an ideal sky, as Cybertron so quickly expanded the rise of the buildings, spacescrapers and fortresses that spiralled from the planet's layered, buried core all but cracked the heavens into a scattered, mismatched jigsaw. Even when Optimus could see into space from the very top layer of Cybertron or from the view port of the Ark, anything that would have been of interest or beauty was far out of sight and reach. At times he'd be lucky enough to glimpse a lone nebula or supernova amongst the pinpricks of stars, but the chaos of war left little room for appreciation of nature. But when he arrived on Earth so long ago, backed by only barest backbone of his Autobots, he took the time to admire this young, beautiful new world. One evening he stood alone on the crest of a bare plateau, silently watching in awe at the sky bleeding away its last colours of orange, red and streaks of purple. Blue, black and other darker palettes blended into the velvet night and the bright spokes of stars stabbed through, the single moon rising to join the blooming cosmos spread out before him. In the years since that evening, Optimus had never seen anything more magnificent on Earth. And from the look of enchantment in Airachnid's optics locked to the sky, he wasn't the only one so charmed by the sight.

"Scorpio," Prime muttered absently, noticing the particular arrangement of stars hovering over them; a trail of white dots ending in a triangle, with a single red star at the formation's heart. Airachnid glanced sideways at him in question, while her talons absently caressed the sparkling as it burrowed into the warmth of her chest.

"What the humans call the collection of stars above us- a constellation. They have many myths and traditions surrounding them, like the old stories of Cybertron." Optimus glanced along to her, expecting to see her yawning in boredom. But to his surprise Airachnid had torn her gaze away from the night and instead oriented it to him patiently waiting for him to continue. With a cough of his air vents, Optimus recited what he knew of the human's space-based speculations.

"They call it a 'zodiac'- one of twelve that leave their mark during each month of the year. It was said that if a human child was born during a certain month that they would have certain personality aspects and traits according to their zodiac sign." Airachnid still listened while her attention turned to the constellation, optics skirting the tail of the scorpion while a talon at the back of her sparkling's head curved around the small threads of metal that stemmed from there, following the movement of her eyes.

"Scorpio, did you say?" Optimus nodded as Airachnid contemplated the name, murmuring it under her breath. "Scorpio... Scorpia..."

"Are you thinking of naming your sparkling?" Optimus asked, optics flicking down to the child in question and meeting again with whirring blue lights staring up at him.

"It would be a fitting name as any. And I can't just go on calling her 'pest'." Even with her icy words Airachnid felt the frost over her spark melting away as Scorpia swept her young gaze over her protectors and parted her lips in a chirping smile as Prime knelt back down closer to her. "And Optimus..." He looked back up at Airachnid, back legs twitching somewhat nervously.

"It's our sparkling now," she corrected with a smile of her own.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Ratchet's helm snapped towards the Ground Bridge portal, which glowed a bright white leaking green as Optimus emerged from the vortex.

'About damn time,' the old mech grumbled, clicking off of the data screen he'd been blankly staring at for the past breem and approaching Prime with thinly veiled impatience. Arcee was working on nudging Bumblebee awake- he'd since fallen into recharge during their wait for Optimus' return- and the two kept their distance from the leader somewhat cautiously. Optimus raised an optic ridge at their reaction, sensing the awkward silence that had settled over the base at some point during his absence.

"Another 'thorough scout'?" Arcee asked, servos over her chest and optics lowered with... concern? What had they been discussing when he was with Airachnid... Optimus nodded silently to her question while he tried to glean some understanding from Bumblebee's own stance and expression. Same optics, same hunched shoulders and door wings lowered in a defensive position. The night still hadn't ceased its little perplexities.
"Where are the children?"

"We took them home a little while ago," Arcee replied, saying nothing of the fact that it was well past midnight in their time. "Did you find out anything about the energon?" Optimus had to take a moment to remember his whole cover for leaving the base in the first place- to 'investigate' the energon stain that Airachnid unknowingly left behind.

"Yes, it- uh... appears that the source was from myself," he lied with a touch of embarrassment. "I seemed to have received an injury during my initial patrol and leaked the energon that we saw this morning." Arcee's sigh betrayed her disappointment and belief of the lie, and Bumblebee whirred in a similar tone. Ratchet would never be so easily convinced though.

"Well, if that is the case Optimus, I'll need to ensure that the injury isn't serious." When Optimus turned to face the medic, his optics showed anything but professional compassion. The blue glare was hard and burned with a harsh finality: "We need to talk." Prime felt like a Scraplet walking into a pit of acid as he followed Ratchet into the med-bay. He heard Arcee ask out loud "Where'd Bulkhead go?" before the doors hissed close and blocked out all outside noise. Optimus was trapped with the truth, and it was fast slipping from his grasp.

"Sit," Ratchet ordered mechanically, pointing a digit to the berth at his left as he flicked through his array of medical equipment. He did as instructed, leaning on the edge of the berth and trying to stop his optics from sticking to the floor. He wasn't ready to tell Ratchet about her... about them. From the way Ratchet had sat himself stone-still on the opposite berth though, it looked like he wasn't going to have a choice.

"You said you'd tell me if I trusted you. I did. I lied to the team just as you did. Now tell me what I'm betraying their trust for. Now." Optimus had rarely seen Ratchet speak so... intensely, something that he couldn't label as anger but came close enough brimming from his words. His optics never left Optimus' faceplate, and his scowl didn't shift as he awaited an answer. How could he even begin to explain? Furthermore, how could he expect him to understand?

"In that forest..." Prime began, flexing his hands on his knees and clawing into the armour seems. "There now lives a- two helpless bots. Two victims of Megatron's atrocity that I cannot allow to go unaided." Ratchet was silent for a long while, expression unchanged.

"Decepticons?" he finally asked, tone more neutral than before but optics still spilling out his current odium.

"Former." The medic shuttered his optics closed with a sigh that Optimus was unable to read any specific emotion from, lowering his helm and pressing a hand to the pounding metal. 'Primus, Optimus you're too... good for your own good.'

"And that's all you'll say about it?" Ratchet barked, servos rising to cross over his chest.

"All I can and will say for now. I need... time."

"The one thing that we have in a constant short supply."

"I realise that more than anyone, Ratchet, but..." Optimus was unable to supplement a reason, even as he furiously racked his processor for something- anything that would convince Ratchet that what he was doing was worth the effort and moral trauma. To his surprise though, the medic huffed out an air cycle of very reluctant acceptance and his optics' furious glow decreased to show simmering embers.

"I still want to examine you."

"But I am healthy-"

"No, you're not," he interrupted Prime's protest, steel optics now starting to flicker and turn away from him. "I know when something is wrong with you, Optimus. Don't think for one klick that you can hide something like that so easily. And you're not leaving this med-bay until I help you fix it."

"There is nothing wrong with me, Ra-" Optimus insisted, an edge creeping into his voice as Ratchet's scowl returned.

"They've started again," he stated bluntly, feeling almost insulted at the feigned look of ignorance that Prime put on. 'He really does think I'm a fool...' Ratchet rumbled another deep sigh, dropping his helm heavily and bringing it back up to face Optimus with his faceplate completely rearranged- optics and ridges lowered with mouth frowning solemnly.

"Optimus, if this is about Elita O-"

"Don't. Say. Her name to me." The medic was shocked by the snarl that Optimus let out, his neck holding his helm down so that his grimace was hidden. In all the time that Ratchet had known Optimus, helping him for centuries deal with the devastating loss of his spark mate, he'd never seen such an inferno of rage that leaked from the residual light of his hidden optics. Bulkhead had said that he'd seen first-hand Prime's release of grief and pure anger while on the battlefield, and had most likely suffered through outbursts on the journey back to Cybertron. By the time the Ark touched down, Optimus was but a hollow shell bled dry of any emotion. It had taken a joor before he would even talk to anyone outside of his exclusive inner circle, and even then it was simple one-word growls. Another vorn passed before he would even consider letting Ratchet help him. At the time the medic thought that he was so enveloped in grief that it was near impossible for him to think straight, but when he finally coerced Prime to receive the therapy, he saw that his ties to Elita ran far further down and wide, a complex net of tangled sweet memories that acted as his only link to a precious and precarious time before the war. And that were instantly slashed from her demise. He didn't want aid because he refused to accept the crushing reality of her death, refused to burden himself or his Autobots with even further trouble and trauma; the list of reasons he gave Ratchet was endless. But most sacred and importantly of all, he didn't want to forget her. The sting of her absence kept her eternally forefront in his mind, and Ratchet sincerely suspected that her lingering memory was all that stopped Prime from going insane those first few weeks.

"Very well, I won't," Ratchet said softly, sanding down his rough façade to adjust to the jolt of Prime's response. "But if you are going through... relapses-"

"Is that all they are to you?" Optimus growled dangerously, slowly rotating his helm to look to the medic. His scowl was etched into his faceplate, and through the film of coolant covering his optics his wrath flared up for the first time in millennia. "A simple processor glitch? Has every casualty of this Primus forsaken war morphed into nothing but some statistic for you? That's all that she is now... one spark lost in a sea of thousands. Because of him... because of me." The dreaded self-loathing was returning, and Ratchet had to stop from slapping himself for allowing the first thought in his mind to be 'more paperwork'. Of course Optimus was right. During the war every day was nothing but a blurr of death and Well-bound victims praying for nothing more than its sweet release, and like all medics that survived he allowed himself to become wholly desensitised to the suffering right in front of him.

Optimus gave his helm a frantic shake with another grimace, shuttering his optics to wipe away the coolant. He oriented the orbs back up to Ratchet, who could think of nothing to say that wouldn't set him off on an emotional rampage.

"I've already lost one life that I could have saved. And I'll be fragged if I let it happen again," he muttered, scowl evening out but still deep on his faceplate and chestplates shovelling out air cycles. "May I be excused?" he asked with a tone of furious mockery. Ratchet nodded blankly, pretending not to hear the bitter sarcasm as Optimus marched himself out of the room. The med-bay seemed to boil from the heat of his rage, and Ratchet had to suppress a shiver from the cold that he left behind.

xx

"Jazz, I need to get back to wo-"

"What'chu need, Oreo, is a free night on the town. And by Primus, I swear you will get one."

"Ugh, fine, fine, just stop calling me that!" Orion groaned as Jazz pulled him along by the servo along the shuffling line of bots bathed in neon light. When he asked Jazz what on earth they were waiting so long to see, the mech just gave a sly chuckle and told him to be patient. Orion considered such a thing to be impossible when every five klicks he was being pushed from behind by a boisterous red mech with cannons larger than Ultra Magnus' shoulder plates mounted on each servo. Said servos came ever closer to knocking him around the helm just before Orion could finally move down the line when it shifted. He knew initiating any conversation with Prowl would be pointless- if he could even manage get Prowl to tear his yellow visor's glare away from the data pad in his hands (Orion resolved to find out just how he managed to concentrate with a set of rotors bashing into his back). So it was all he could do to sigh and just suffer through it all while Jazz busied himself with a red and orange femme in front of him, much to the chagrin of her mech companion. Seeing the jealously etched into the mech's faceplate made Orion's mind lapse to the object of his own affections- Ariel.

How long had it been since his graduation from Iacon Academy? Seven, eight stellar cycles? In the crushing monotony that he called his work life at the Hall of Records, time had blended together into places when he was awake and those blissful glimpses of dark that recharge afforded him. He was rarely able to see his old Academy friends nowadays; Ratchet, Blaster, Dion and others had been stationed outside of the Iacon city centre where Orion was all but confined to. He was lucky enough to have found a friend in Jazz as fellow worker in the Hall- unless he had another borrowed data pad overdue- and Prowl was a frequent peruser of the records within whenever he needed to update a police protocol or look up logged data on a bot. But Ariel was a different matter. Even though the last time he'd had the honour of seeing her was at their graduation, donned in the traditional black ceremonial armour that hugged so well to her frame, his mind still saw her as crisp and clear as ever. In the ragged and organised chaos of his life she remained the single invariable- the smiling singularity that he had slowly but surely found himself in love with. It was a classic case of a 'more than just friends' situation, but Orion had never been brave enough to confront it head-on. He had deeply valued their friendship together, and he didn't want to do anything that might upset it- or her. While in the Academy he busied himself with his studies, and his work ate up every piece of spare time that he had nowadays. While Orion was more or less accepting of it, Jazz was certainly not- and he wasn't convinced that his friend was content with such a boring lifestyle. A day of relentless harassment and a breem wandering the Iacon high streets, and here he was dragging this reluctant pedes along the ground with attitude to match.

"Look, Jazz, I appreciate you taking an interest in my well-being-"

"No ya' don't," he interrupted with an endearing grin.

"-but I'm not really... a fan of the whole 'social scene', you know?" Orion sighed, trying to keep an iota of politeness in his weary tone. He'd spent too many late nights in the Hall looking out over the neon-speckled streets that marked the Iacon nightlife- mechs too overcharged to even work their T-Cogs stumbling out of the bars and clubs that lined every street, and gangs cheering their sparks out for Primus knows what drunken reason- to have any desire to be a part of it.

"Tell ya' what, Orion," Jazz reasoned as the orange femme and her scowling companion disappeared into the darkness beyond the giant circle of the club entrance." We go in, we have a good time, and next week we'll check out those Gladiator Arenas that you keep talkin' 'bout. Sound good?" Orion's helm perked up at Jazz's proposal, thinking it over while Prowl scoffed at yet another mention of 'those damn arenas'. Ever since Orion had heard of the unrest in Kaon apparently sparked by the gladiator Megatronus he would not shut up about it. It was enough to make an inferior-minded bot's head burst.
"Who knows, might get a look at ol' Megatronus 'imself," Jazz added at Orion's nod, nudging him with an elbow.

"Yes, Primus forbid if his schedule becomes too full of illegal combat to humour visitors," Prowl spoke up for the first time that evening, still keeping his optics on his data pad. "Or would he not be able to read a schedule even if he had one?"

"Hey hey, there's our Prowl! Where ya' been, how ya' doin', pick up any souvenirs for us down in Aftville?" Prowl huffed a long-suffering sigh at Jazz's drilling laughter as they finally reached the front door of the nightclub- blocked by a large hulk with a piercing monoptic red stare flicking from the party of three to the board in his servos.

"State designation."

"Jazz is in the house, baby," he answered with a smirk, to two pairs of rolling blue optics behind him. The optic scanned the board for a klick before stretching his jaw in a yell over Jazz's still-smug faceplate.

"DESIGNATION IS NOT DOCUMENTED ON GUEST LIST!"

"Come again now?" Jazz asked in disbelief with flat-lined optics as he suffered through the cloud of exhaust that the bouncer-bot's yells expelled over him.

"THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO ENTER WITHOUT VALID INVITATION SHALL BE DENIED ENTRANCE AS SUCH IS OUR MIGHTY AND GLORIOUS MASTER'S ORDERS!"

"I thought you said you knew the owner, Jazz!" Orion hissed into his audio, feeling the rest of the line jostle with impatience behind him while Prowl made a point of ignoring the whole scene.

"Ah, don' worry 'bout it, Oreo- this dude's got just a bit a'... 'low RAM' if ya' know what I mean," Jazz explained with a jerk of his thumb to the seething mass of purple and green plating, before turning back to it. "Lookie here, ya' big lugnut, if we could just speak to Mirage for a sec'-"

"NEGATORY!" Two hooks that acted as hands suddenly grabbed Jazz by the scruff of his neck, threatening to throw the slim squirming mech onto the side of the street. Orion thought it was a new record in making before him- least amount of glasses of high-grade ingested before being thrown out of a bar- when the bouncer suddenly froze. Jazz was still kicking his legs up in an attempt to dislodge himself from the grip when there was something shimmering over the mech's shoulder- a sharp white digit suddenly forming out of nowhere tapping on the metal.

"Stand down, boy," a slowly emerging blue-accented white mech ordered lazily, pushing past the much larger mech as if he was a door that was in his way. Yellow optics watched Jazz being dropped onto the red line of ground under him, not even sparing a glance to bewildered Orion.

"You do know there's a VIP entrance at the side, Jazz?" Mirage asked as Jazz dusted himself off while muttering furiously about how 'damn security drones can't tell an A-lister in the making'. When he realised that he'd made both himself and his friends wait in line for two breems and no reason, he was quick to escape Orion's pointed glare by looping a servo around Mirage's shoulders and letting himself being lead inside.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The interior of the club reminded Orion of the time he passed by one of Kaon's industrial smelting pools, on an Academy tour of the city. It was mandatory that every attendee of the trip see how the miners of Kaon worked and lived- a rule that the supervisor was obviously not fond of by the way he wrinkled his olfactories when the time came to see the energon creation process. To this day Orion could not recall anything he learnt on that trip without as well bringing forth the searing scent of singed metal, raw energon and gallons of oil, as well as a buffeting heat on his faceplate. The situation wasn't so different here. Boxed in at a table booth with adamant Prowl on one side, Jazz and Mirage on the other and a sea of other assorted mechs stretching out as far as the optic could see- in this case it was to the glimpses of catwalk and stage stationed at the front that Orion caught when someone was kind enough to move their helm out of the way. He found himself trapped here by stupidly following Jazz inside, with Prowl automatically trailing after him. Mirage had led them past the crowded entrance, passing under the shadows of ledges and balconies that broke out of the dark surrounding walls and gliding along the red tiles underped. Other bots milling in the corners or sat at tables barely glanced at them, and when they did it was to catch a rare glimpse of Mirage mixing with the 'common' folk- or as common as could get in a club like this. 'The Circle' was one of Iacon's elite nightclubs that catered to only the highest profile of clientèle; be they politicians, entertainers, military personnel and every illustrious in-between. Of course neither three of the invited mechs qualified for that, but Jazz had many friends. And friends of those friends managed to land him in a cosy little friendship with The Circle's owner, Mirage. Orion had seen him enough in 'Cybertronian' magazine, once even on the front cover, to know that just being in his presence should have been an honour. Should have been.

More neon flares, more bots at tables- Prowl made a sound of disgust at the sight of some of them hooked up to Simultronic- and one long tunnel of dark after the other. Somehow through the maze of spotlights and scarcely-armoured servers Orion managed to keep Mirage and Jazz in sight ahead of him, and finally sat down at the booth where he was effectively barricaded behind now. At first he thought he'd finally have a chance to ask Jazz what the frag he was supposed to do, or be waiting for, but he could barely get a word in edge-wise to the white mech's conversation with Mirage. Orion's weary sigh and the slump of his servos on the table was enough to set Prowl off.

"I'm assigning myself to the bar," he announced in monotone, dropping his data pad back into subspace and stiffly raising himself from his seat to march to where the high-grade was circulating. Orion spared a glance back to Jazz- engrossed in an account of his infamous 'The Curious Incident of the Turbofox in the Night-time' story- before following suit, letting Prowl part the crowd with the abrupt authority that came with his job- or maybe it was him shoving aside the mechs in his way. From how Prowl all but riveted himself into the barstool, Orion guessed it was the latter as he took a seat much further down. He motioned for some standard high-grade to calm his circuits, keeping his glass close to him and taking small sips as his optics focused on the catwalk now right in front of him. There was still a crowd of shadows blocking a clear view, but at least he didn't need to break his neck cables just to see.

"First timer 'ere, huh?" A gruff voice asked to his right. Orion turned to face it, recognising the red cannon mech that almost decapitated him in line now sitting next to him. He chuckled at Orion's small nod, throwing back his high-grade and slamming the glass back down. Almost immediately the bartender appeared to refill it as he continued; "Ah' reckon ah know 'bout every bot in here, but ah never seen ya' 'round 'ere, ya' see." His accent sounded Hydraxian- the speed capital of Iacon- but from the weight of his plating there was no way he was a racer. Probably a bodyguard or some security mech for a hotshot out to drown his pride and processor in 'grade.

"I'm accompanying a friend," Orion replied, to another raucous laugh from the red mech.
"Ah, a central Iacon boy!" Another laugh, another long swig of high-grade."Ah yeah, never would'a expected ta' see one'a you down 'ere." Orion wasn't sure what to make of the mech's disbelief, instead choosing to sip instead of speak.

"Ya' don't look it though," he said with some contemplation, drawing an eye-ridge heavy look from Orion. "Most centro-'Cons, they'd be shakin' in their cases in a place like this."

"'Like this?'" Orion asked somewhat hesitantly, making the other bot splutter past his high-grade from another roar of laughter.

"Ya' don't know a lot 'bout 'The Circle', don'tcha?" A shake of the helm answered him. "Oh boy oh boy..." he said through his chuckles with rough pats on Orion's back, almost jolting his high-grade glass out of his hand."Let's just say... you're in for a show ta'night, uh... what was your name again now?"

"Orion Pax," he answered slowly, to an affirming grunt from the red mech.

"Ironhide." He stuck out his glass to hit it against Orion's, tipping it back and emptying the rest of the high-grade dregs down his throat. 'Primus, how much can he take?' Orion wondered as the lights suddenly dimmed around the stage, spotlights switching on to full glare and highlighting the area.

"Here we go..." Ironhide said as he swirled himself around to face the stage, bracing his servos on his knees with blue optics narrowed, glossa clicking with anticipation. As Orion made to copy his stance, he saw why.

While before the stage was but an empty raised platform, it was now holding aloft a single shadowed figure at the very back and centre. As soon as it appeared, a rally of whistles swept up from the mechs gathered beneath and some let out premature cheers. From the shape Orion could discern that it was Cybertronian- all dark curves blended together and topped with bulk that defined a helm. It tipped up slightly, still shrouded in shadow even as it was surrounded by filtering light purple light overhead, and from hidden lips came a sound that Orion swore made his spark skip several beats. It was a single sweet tone of song, obviously from a femme, plucked from the very pits of her vocaliser and polished to shine out of the darkness that cloaked her from the prying optics of the mechs that Orion now realised had gathered solely to hear and see her. And hearing her... this femme that he had never known even existed, let alone had known would be here...

"Who is that?" The awestruck whisper left Orion's mouth without him realising it, all other senses focused on the lingering note that still rang in his audios and blocked out the rousing catcalls.

"Ya' never heard'a Elita One?" Ironhide didn't sound surprised, rather amused at the Iacon native's naivete towards his own city. "Then you have not lived, Pax..."

The note wavered ever so slightly, dipping down in a soft wave that washed over Orion and numbed his frame, his optics fluttering above the smile that spread on his faceplate. 'Elita One...' His upturned lips formed the name as her's weaved lilting words into her melody. He'd seen little on Cybertron that he could call 'pretty' in the many years since he first emerged from the Well of All Sparks- to be subject to such a startling show of beauty tonight was a pure shock to his systems. When his optics refocused themselves, Elita's veil had dropped away to reveal regal rose armour layered over dusty pink protoform- of which was scarcely covered by the scandalous uniform that designated her as an dancer, a member of Iacon upper classes' renowned burlesque scenes.

That revelation wasn't what made Orion's shuttered optics suddenly snap open, nor his smile to falter and the spell that was offered by song to shatter in his audios. Of course he'd heard of the femmes that fell prey to the art caste and found themselves at the centre of many a mechs pointed lechery every night- he'd heard enough stories of smug politicians at the front desks of the Hall of Records to have at least a basis of that scene sorted out. He looked the femme over again as she sauntered along the catwalk, still spilling out a harmony that had all but entranced the rest of the audience just as he had been.

Dusty protoform. Rose armour.

Unless his memory was glitching as he thought his optics were, it was an inversion of Ariel's native colours.

She never did say what caste she'd been put into... A shoulder jabbing into Orion's side halted the whirring of his processor as it slotted the new facts together.

"That's ma' girl," Ironhide whispered in a chuckle, jerking a servo at the blue-armoured femme now at the side of the stage, a back-up dancer to further compliment Elita- No, Ariel's performance. 'Primus, she's even more beautiful now...' Orion thought even as he tried to respectfully veer his locked optics away from her. He shouldn't be seeing her like this, not after so long apart in such a shady circ*mstance...

She swooped down in an extravagant move, sweeping her gaze over the crowd and causing several impending spark attacks before she suddenly caught a flicker that was frantically darting from the stage to the floor. A curious sight that made her optics stall, and the flicker to meet with them. Blue with familiar blue, when Orion had a chance to take in the graceful contours of her faceplate before it twisted into shock.

Not the reunion reaction he was expecting.

Before he could even blink though, her expression was covered by a professional coolness that most would mistake for haught as she wrenched herself away from him, slipping back along the catwalk and strutting around the back of the stage. Her vocaliser carried on her signature tune as if she hadn't just suffered an implosion in her spark.

'Of all the times, of all the times, of all the fragging times he could have seen me...' Still she had to go on with the show, strategically keeping her optics away from the central line of sight and trying to distract herself from the searing heat in her faceplate. At Elita's side Chromia threw a worried glance to her friend - pausing her glare at Ironhide who valiantly cheered at her embarrassment- but the lights went down again before Elita could make any sign of a reply. Finally the finishing act, always klicks too late...

Orion noticed how quickly she scurried off the stage when the final spotlight went out, the applause drowning out the last note of her music.

"Wha'did ah tell ya' huh?" Ironhide laughed around a fresh glass, oblivious to Orion's discomfort. "Ya' never forget your first show... though it doesn't hurt'ta refresh your memory every now an' then." All Orion could think about was how long Ariel had been working here, catering to Primus knows how many mechs here tonight and wandering drunk outside. Did she... enjoy it? The last thing Orion wanted was for Ariel to be stuck in work that she hated, of course, but... the thought of her basking in the limelight that was the glow of optics all around her saturated his spark with its first taste of envy.

"Ah slag, there he goes again," Ironhide groaned at what was happening further down the bar- a blue racer mech had all but pinned Prowl down to the bar counter. "I'll see ya' when ah see ya," Ironhide bade farewell to Orion with a hard pat on the shoulder before he shot off down to pull the blue bot away ("Dammit Blurr, whaddav' ah told you 'bout drinkin' the charged high-grade!"). Seeing Prowl obviously occupied with spitting threats at Blurr and Jazz still trying to get in Mirage's good and guest books, Orion had the feeling that he wouldn't be missed by his companions if he was so inclined to slip backstage for a few klicks...

After the moderate chaos of extracting himself from the sea of seated mechs and emerging at the other side with only a few dents in his chassis, it was surprisingly easy to find and shove himself through the door that led to the dancer's dressing rooms- he just needed to be mindful of the security drones stationed at the corridor intervals. Forward, forward, left, hold back, right, forward, collide faces with the pink femme coming around the corner-

Orion was beginning to suspect that Ariel was all but used to hiding and recovering from shock as she barely stumbled from the impact, pointing her face towards him even as she rubbed where his crest had hit against it.

"Orion!" Elita hissed, falling back into the shadows behind her and bringing her servos up to cover her torso, still baring burlesque armour that was in the process of being unclasped. "What the... what the frag are you doing here?!" Both here as in 'this club' and 'seemingly on his way to raid the dressing rooms'. Primus, it was bad enough that he saw her on display like that...

"I should ask you the same thing, Ariel," he answered with servos crossed, baring a scowl of disapproval. Even with his harsh expression she couldn't help appreciating how damn handsome he was. Well, he was good enough before but now... 'Not the right time, Elita. Not the right fragging time.' Her faceplate mirrored his own, features twisted in outrage; humiliated on stage, embarrassed beyond system recognition, not getting to say goodbye...

Most confrontations ended in tears, fears or- in those extreme cases- gears spread across the floor. Those that ended in abrupt outbursts of laughter usually did not even qualify as a confrontation. But here it was. Blue glare to blue glare, denta gritted and lips pursed... little details that dissolved in the next five klicks from the corrosive bubbles of laughter that suddenly burst past Orion's mouth. His servos hugged his chest as his cables ached from the strength of his guffaws, and he couldn't have kept eye contact if he had a cannon pointed to his head. Which he conveniently did another five klicks later- wielded by a surly security drone.

Elita was still trying to understand what the slag was going through Orion's processor. Is he... enraged? Happy? Partially insane? She didn't understand his chain of reactions, from anger to amusem*nt even in the face of the glowing gun barrel at his helm.
"Is this bot bothering you, Elita?" a robotic standard drone voice asked, powering up its weapon as it asked. Elita looked from the drone back to Orion- drone to Orion, drone to Orion- for a long moment before realisation dawned.

'We've known each other for stellar cycles... separated for less, and when we finally meet again, we're... embarrassed?' Friends as close as they were weren't allowed to be so hostile over something so... so stupid! Orion understood how ridiculous it was before she did, which explained why he was struggling to work his vocaliser through the peals of laughter now accompanied with Elita's own. Even more they laughed because of... happiness. Pure undeniable happiness that came along with reunion of dear friends no matter the time or place.

"We-we're fine, r-r-really, I i-invited him here," Elita spluttered as she stumbled, unable to even hold herself upright from the force of her laughs. The security drone frowned at Orion reaching to hold Elita up, still heaving out chuckles while the gun retreated from his helm.

"Mirage will not be pleased with unauthorised visitors."

"I don't think he'll notice too much," Elita countered breathlessly, tugging on Orion's plating to pull him past her dressing room door. Before the drone could protest further the door slid closed, and the two bots collapsed on the floor in a giggling heap.

xx

"You still haven't said why you're here."

Orion raised an eye ridge over his energon cube, looking to the dressing screen that Elita had disappeared behind.

"I believe you phrased it just a bit differently." She chuckled for another countless time that night, giving Orion another reminder of why he missed her so. Her laugh was much like her singing- brimming with stray strands of music and melody that only needed to be threaded with sweet words to make a spark melt. He'd never heard her sing before, but he recalled days spent in the academy library listening to her hum under her breath while he pretended to be studying data pads.

"Remember when Blaster tried to drag us into Praxus before our graduation?" A weary groan answered him, and he smiled against the glass at his lips. "Think that- except he was successful."

"And who would this worthy replacement for Blaster be?" Elita emerged from behind the screen donned in a set of thin but modest recharge armour, seating herself on her berth just across from the lounge where Orion was placed.

"Jazz- the one who was following Mirage around like a swarm of Scraplets all evening."
"Oh, that's who he was..." Elita stretched along the berth surface, stifling a yawn.
"I can leave now, if you wish to get some sle-"

"Are you kidding, Orion?" Elita shot up in disbelief, optics gleaming and lips grinning. "After three stellar cycles we're finally back together- and I'm just gonna throw you out?" She shook her helm while humming 'nuh-uh' and threw herself next to Orion, resting her helm on his lap just like she did during many a lazy school day afternoon. "I don't care if I'm about to offline, I'm making every klick matter here." She turned to rest on her back, looking up at Orion as he set his energon down; two matching smiles.

"Well, maybe we can start with how you ended up here..." Orion offered, stopping himself from stroking a servo across Elita's helm. "And where 'Elita One' came from." With small sighs and little grins Elita described how she received her designation to the art caste after graduation, and from further guild-specific training in Praxus ("Be glad we never went there, Orion- Ratchet would have thrown a fit at all the high-grade thrown around") she was picked up by Mirage to work in The Circle. At first she was just a back-up dancer, but the mechs obviously took a liking to her and eventually she rose to be one of the shining stars of the shows- Elita One was her stage name.

"Explains how I'd never heard about it..." Orion contemplated, feeling the warmth of her processor reflected against his palm that rested beneath her helm. "So what happened to Ariel?"

"She's still here," Elita said with an air of hesitancy. "But I feel like... I've left that part of my life behind. I know it's... strange, seeing me up there like a trophy or something but... Ariel could never have done that. Never could have paraded in front of strangers, because she never needed to. But Elita- me, I mean..."

"Being Elita One makes you feel confident?" Orion asked to help spur her thoughts on. She nodded, sighing again past another yawn. "And does she- do you... like being like that?" Elita pointed her optics upwards, looking through Optimus' for a long while with a slight frown before she gave a reply.

"I don't know... At first I was terrified, of course. Of seeing all those optics on me, judging every move I made... But in the end... every day I'd hear about femmes looking up to me... like some kind of role model. Pit if I know why they do but... I guess I just like being that mentor figure. Someone that others can turn to for help. And in a business like this, there isn't much help that you can get from other femmes..."

"How so?"

"When I first started, the starring dancers might as well have spit oil over us all from how they treated everyone. No explanation why, they just liked to... glitch for the sake of glitchiness. Thank Primus they were gone by the time I stepped in to replace them, but it makes you think of how it is in the other cities..." Iacon's entertainment industry may be cut-throat at times, but it was heavenly compared to what might happen in cities like Kaon. "Chromia's got a habit of being juuust a bit rough sometimes, but she means well. I saw you met her mechfriend, Ironhide?"

"Oh, don't remind me..." Orion automatically reached a servo to rub at where a cannon managed to ding against it. Another bloom of beautiful laughter filled the night- swiftly cut short by the sound of a door slamming open.

"Ah, Oreo, there you are!" Jazz exclaimed with twitchy optics and an even twitchier tone, barely noticing the femme spread across his lap. "Listen, hate to cut the meetin' short- hey. how you doin' honey? Anyway, we need to go. Like now. Like ASAP now." Every word was punctuated with a frenzied step forward, ending with Jazz grabbing onto Orion's servo and hauling him off of the lounge.

"I'll- uh- see you next time Elita!" Orion waved in farewell to a still-giggling Elita sprawled on the couch, waving weakly back before the two were separated by a familiar red mech- cannons at the whirring-barrel ready.

"I told you we need to get outta here-!"

"GET BACK 'ERE YA' SORRY PIECE'A SCRAP!" Ironhide bellowed as he chased the duo down the thin corridor, massive shoulders scraping the walls as Jazz all but dragged Orion behind him in his bid to escape.

"Jazz-agh!- what the frag did you do now?!"

"Do not hit on the blue one, Orion. Whatever ya' do, do not-" Jazz's pro-tip was sheared off along with a digit as he stretched a servo to the handle of the club's back exit. He paid no mind to his minor maiming as he threw himself and Orion out of the door- crashing down on metal pavement two stories below it.

"Who puts a door up there anyway?!" Jazz asked to no-one as Ironhide frantically aimed a cannon in all third-dimensional sanctioned directions except straight down into the shadows below. Orion grumbled something as he assessed the new series of dents and scrapes now adorning his frame.

"Say, uh, who was that girl you were with?" Jazz asked as he picked himself up and worked on brushing off the metal shavings that found their way lodged into his paintwork.
"Ar-Elita One. She's a... dear friend of mine's."

"Huh." He opened up a commlink to Prowl, sending several hundred two-worded messages of 'pick up'. "So, uh... is she single?"

"Don't. Even. Think about it."

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Optimus awoke again with his helm pounding in painful concert with his spark. When he attempted to lift it he found it as heavy as lead, and the surface it fell back onto searing from the conduction of his overheating frame on the berth beneath him. He groaned over the frantic whirring of his cooling fans, and pushed himself up despite his lethargy, ignoring the dizziness at the corners of his vision. Somehow he managed to march valiantly back to the foyer of the base with barely a thought spared for his most recent relapse. As long as he didn't think about it, the agony in his spark would eventually subside...

He pulled back from entering when he saw only Ratchet present- the other Autobots having still not risen from their own undisturbed recharge. Optimus envied their easy comfort more than ever as he pushed himself to approach his old friend. One that he realised he had come very close to making an enemy of.

"Optimus." Ratchet's greeting was strangely surprised. "I-uh, wasn't expecting to see you awake so soon." Optimus raised an eyeridge over the medic's awkward tone.

'Soon?' But...surely he'd slept through the night? And it certainly wasn't rare for Ratchet to wake early in what the humans called mornings.

"How long was I recharging?" he asked uneasily, still mentally shaking off his sleep as Ratchet tried to keep his attention on his console.

"Just a breem," the medic answered in a mumble. Optimus would have groaned in more solitary conditions. No wonder he was so exhausted... but he could hardly drag himself back to his berth after seeing that. He was somewhat expecting Elita to be paying him another painful visit in the night, but there were very few memories of her that could have such an effect on him as their first reunion did. And now he was faced with a new problem- fixing the damage his outburst had done and delaying Ratchet's full discovery of the severe situation as much as possible.

"You were right." Optimus of course thought that Ratchet already knew that, but beginning with admitting his own mistaken denial was as good a start as any. "Because of the... relapses, I haven't been acting as a leader should." The medic sounded a grunt of acknowledgement. "Recently my actions have been selfish to my own conscience- no matter who else they might benefit in the end. If you will accept my apology-"

"No need, Optimus," Ratchet cut in with a sad, forgiving smile on his faceplate turned away. He easily recognised the regret in his old friend's tone- and something made him trust that his actions, however vague to Ratchet himself, were justified. Even with the depth of his knowledge of the Cybertronian psyche and the years he had spent in Optimus' company he couldn't even begin to imagine what his processor suffered through. Not to say that the medic was at all dismissing the whole 'Decepticon refugee' predicament, but Optimus knew what he was doing, and how to do it. Above being a dear old friend he was a Prime first and foremost- and his commander. Even if his vision was blurred from resurfacing past trauma and the immovable morals that both blessed and cursed all Primes, Ratchet would simply have to dust off that long-forgotten instinct called 'faith' and put all his swimming doubts in it to keep his Autobot loyalty close. For now, at least.

"In any case, right now we have a bigger problem," he continued, turning back to the screen displaying a co-ordinate map. "Bulkhead and Wheeljack haven't yet returned."

"Wheeljack?" Optimus asked, surprised to hear the departed Wrecker's name again.

"Yes, he arrived shortly after you left yourself. He didn't want to wait for your return, and Bulkhead went off with him. That was three breems ago." In that instant Prime took on the steel demenour that characterised a commander in thought. Now was the time to prove himself worthy of Ratchet's forgiveness. "I wouldn't expect Wheeljack to be spending any length of time within the base, but Primus knows where he might be dragging Bul-" A series of beeps from the console cut Ratchet's voice off, and he furiously typed in something as the map zoomed out and panned over to a different point.

"It's his signal," Ratchet relayed. "Over a thousand miles from here. And I would imagine Wheeljack is with him," he continued with a grimace in his tone.

"Attempt contact," Optimus ordered near instantly, expertly clearing his mind of all emotional clutter and focusing his blue-tinged sights on the task at hand- getting Bulkhead back home.

"No response," Ratchet said, turning around with worried optics. Optimus evaluated both the screen and the quandary ahead of him. If Bulkhead wasn't responding his comm link was either disabled or, most likely, he was unable to answer.

"Lock onto his c-" Optimus began, but stopped as he remembered that Airachnid's location was still inputted in the Ground Bridge targeting system. With a shutter of his optics Optimus quickly amended his command. "Make a record of the current locked Ground Bridge co-ordinates, the enter Bulkhead's." Logging her location was a risk in that any other Autobot scanning through the records could find and use it- Ratchet himself would be a main suspect for such activity. Especially now that he knew the nature of Prime's secret- though not so much a secret as a vague confession now. Optimus kept such suspicion in mind as the medic saved Airachnid's co-ordinates and reset the system to accept the input of Bulkhead's. The Bridge vortex whirled to life in a flash of swirling light and humming diodes.

"Optimus," Ratchet called as the Prime made to depart. The old mech's frame was tensed and his optics wandering again. "If I keep my silence on the... current Decepticon situation-"

"I promised to show you them. And this is one I will keep in time." Ratchet nodded in acceptance of Optimus' answer, and watched him disappear into the warp. Somehow, in a haze of leftover trust and dormant moral barriers rebuilding themselves, Ratchet fought back the urge to see where those previous numbers led to even while they rested at his very fingertips.

xx

It was a good name, Airachnid reasoned with herself. Her newly christened child slept soundly in her servos, exhausted from frame to tiny spark. Airachnid herself was feeling much the same as she struggled to keep her optics open and focused on the high moon above- but why? What was it that forbade her from pausing her motherly sentry duty against the night's horrors? When Scorpia was still but a squirming mass of metal veneer and protoform, even with her previous primitive maternal instincts overriding her processor Airachnid had no qualms of falling prey to peaceful sleep. But now that her child bore a name... she allowed her optics to shutter wearily for a nanoklick.

Scorpia's namesake constellation was still branded into the shifting sky draped over her, heavy with the weight of the cosmos and its own heavenly children. Only now with Prime gone again- with another promise to return soon in his wake- could Airachnid let the stars lull her into something close to stupor.

'Hello, my old friends...' She was reminded of the days she spent on Seven taking glances to the sky and frozen nights melting into dark mornings. 'Dark' was as accurate a description as any for Archa Seven's geography- every square inch crowded with caves, forests and trees whose infinite lengths of roots and vines turned the planet into a criss-cross web containing the Universe's personal nightmares. Only once had she ever dared to challenge the twisted floor of snarling thorns and long-buried monsters condemned to the heart of the planet. A dreary day with a monochrome patchwork sky breaking through the gaps in the mesh of branches in the forest canopy. She had no scale of the time when the day took place, all she knew was that it was only shortly after... she awoke. Perched on a branch, under a break in the branches, lidded gaze lingering on the shaft of thin sunlight that streamed from the window of sky past her optics, bleaching the ferns and leaves curled out desperately to trap the rays as they finally fell to the feral shadows far below her. Just when she risked a look to those shadows from fear nagging at her, the fleeting rays swept the edge of something for the briefest of moments. Something shiny and curious... and calling to her.

Airachnid didn't remember or want to remember what she was thinking at the time, nor why she was there. She'd worked too long these many years to block as much as her early Archa years from her mind to start dredging them up all over again. In fact, the only way she could recall the day she dared to dive was...

Careful not to disturb Scorpia, Airachnid unlooped a servo from around her and slowly inched it to the opening to her pocket of subspace. From its edge she pressed two digits onto a rough lump of rock almost jutting out, extracting it and holding the shard up against the glow of the moon. Among the encompassing shadows hooking themselves along the length of the rock brilliant diamonds of light pierced through, though Airachnid never did find out what type of mineral had encrusted the stone. She'd been too preoccupied trying to survive every day to put any research into it. When she finally wrestled it out of the entanglement of vines and thorns what felt like hours later, she spent another long while simply looking at it, turning it in her still-strange claws and stroking the tiny craters that marked its interstellar journey to her palm. She only discovered it was a meteorite long after the Decepticons picked her up, when she was toured around Kaon as a new recruit.

Flamewar. That was her guide's name.

"And over along this block we've got the newer barracks, some energon stores, missile silo to the left and cannons to pelt said missiles around the right. This used to be a view-point over Hydrax Plateau, but there isn't much to see there nowadays other than the graveyards. Somedays I miss the speedwa-"

"What's that on your neck?" Flamewar paused her rote at the interruption, turning away from the open viewing balcony overlooking part of the Plateau to look at the black-armoured femme she'd been stuck with today. She'd been silent throughout the whole tour other than affirming nods and sighs every now and then. At the sound of her question and her curious pink optics glancing from Flamewar's face to the thin loop of chain around her neck, hovering just above the arching flames on her chestplates, the older femme took on a smug look.

"Oh, this?" She flicked the lump of glittering rock. "Just a little trinket from an admirer. Pure Polaris meteorite joined with Gygaxian crystals. Rare enough before the war, but now-" She broke off with a scoff and a pair of digits rubbing at the precious jewel. "Course, with rarity comes a price- some femmes would kill for something like this."

"Right..." Airachnid said slowly, letting Flamewar lead on while she slyly slid a hand into her subspace. The word 'meteorite' struck a chord with her stellar-loving self- ever since she'd learnt the basics of the cosmos and its landmarks during her mandatory 'Decepticon Orientation' sessions she was fascinated by the sky and what lay beyond it. And to think she had a shard of that sky in her grasp... her hand tightened instinctively around the shard, and she refused to let go of it until her helm hit her berth that evening.

After she'd assimilated into Kaon's militant backdrop, Airachnid didn't see much of Flamewar after that except for the time the femme confronted her for 'taking her target' while on an interrogation mission- Arcee certainly had a lot of enemies among the Decepticon girls. If she recalled Flamewar was killed shortly before the exodus of Cybertron; a sniper caught the glint of that very same necklace she so proudly flaunted to Airachnid in the blurry mess of the battlefield (just as well her death was on the Hydrax Plateau, so they didn't have to budge her body).

Now that she looked over it all afresh , the spider didn't see much anyone familiar save for the drones and her commanding officers. And of course the Lord of them all... 'No. Don't think of him. Don't fragging think of that bastard...' When she opened her optics she found her helm buried into Scorpia's , who pushed herself deeper in her grasp and burrowed near her spark chamber. Primus, she couldn't even look at her child without painfully remembering where she came from.

Why would she care though?

Why should she care about... bonding with her? Or the problems that would surely meet such a task... A groan rippled through her systems and her helm slumped back against the rock wall. All she wanted to do was forget about it all until the morning and hope against all possible hope that the entirety of the past year was just a horrific dream, but that was too easy. It would be so easy to just let her optics snap shut and to let sleep wash over her...No. She was still alive. After all this slag, she was still alive. And she was strong enough to survive the past, present and whatever the damned future had hiding away for her. To let go was to give in, and to give in was weakness. She wasn't a Decepticon, she was better. Superior.

Why did Megatron take her? Because he believed it as well.

Why did he kill their first child? Because he was scared of anything that came from her.

Why did Optimus save her... Not again.

'Just start with the basics, Air...' she told herself through the pounding of her helm drowned in fatigue. She was a Decepticon. Not anymore. She was lost. She was stuck here. She had a child. She didn't want a child. But she loved it. Did she even know what love was? Her attempt at thought collection only amplified the processor pulsing tenfold. Airachnid was beginning to suspect that perhaps her injuries weren't all specifically physical. With a hand around her meteorite and another on Scorpia's helm though, talons stroking in circles as her helm dropped even further back against the cushion of the cave wall, the ache dulled slowly, until she had nothing else to keep her awake.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Optimus detected only one life signal in range when he emerged in the depths of the rocky forest landscape- buried under a recent rockslide. Not a good sign. He managed to shift a few of the granite obstructions before he spied white flailing armour amidst the dirt and dust.

"What took you so long, Bulk? Don't tell me ridin' with Prime have made ya'-" Wheeljack's chuckle halted at the sight of Prime standing over him, glare hard against the silhouette of his armour and the glowing moon set behind him.

"Soft..." The Wrecker was roughly hauled to his peds, spilling off the other rocks piled on top of him, and worked on brushing his armour down rather than making optic contact with Optimus. "Nice of you to make it to the reunion at last."

"I am willing to overlook that remark if you direct me to where Bulkhead is." Wheeljack's optics reflected a foreboding uncertainty to Optimus' question.

"Oh he's near here, sure... uh... just need to dig around a bit..." Blue optics narrowed and squeezed into slits of controlled rage.

"You placed one of my Autobots in danger-"

"With all due respect, sir," Wheeljack cut in while he flexed an aching shoulder joint. "Bulkhead knew the risks. Every Wrecker does." Prime's glare hardened further as Wheeljack turned back to the stones. "Now I'm sure he's just... somewhere in this rubble." Optimus wasn't able to consider the hesitancy of Wheeljack's words before his fears were confirmed by a comm from Ratchet.

"Optimus, Bulkhead's signal has moved from your current position!"

"Where is he now?"

"Still mobile, I won't be able to centre on it until it is-"

"I know where he is," Wheeljack said with a grim tone, making to march forward. "With Dreadwing." Optimus co*cked and eyeridge at the mention of the familiar Decepticon, moving to keep up with Wheeljack.

"What part does Dreadwing have in this?"

"I tracked him down here, and he challenged me to a little stand-off. I had Bulkhead tag-along, a good ol' two against one."

"And you know where he is now?"

"I've only followed him from Antares to Rigel and back," Wheeljack replied with a smirk despite the worry for his friend clouding over his faceplate. "I've still got a tracker on him, and with the Jackhammer gettin' over to him'll be sparkling's play."

"Sparklings..." Optimus allowed himself to muse out loud as Wheeljack vaulted over a cliffside, skidding down the stone while he decided to take a more cautious approach in lowering himself down. He'd never given much thought to Scorpia recently- his processor was preoccupied with still recovering from relapse and too coated in blind anger to focus on anything. But if the child truly believed that he was her sire, then he'd need to adjust that.

Whether or not this new bond with the sparkling would be advantageous or at all detrimental to his ultimate goal of keeping mother and daughter safe, Optimus had yet to see. He had seen first-hand the dangers of becoming too attached to something- especially something so fragile- and there was no guarantee that Scorpia would survive whatever Earth's forces or Primus had laid out for her. If the mortality of the previous war was anything to lay a basis on, growing up with the Decepticons forever lingering in the background would be like a survival game against a Sparkeater and a Mini-con. Optimus knew for a fact that there was no logistical chance in the Pit of his spark surviving another bond sever like...

He furiously shook his helm with a hidden scowl, a gesture that Wheeljack luckily did not catch. Primus, how could he be so selfish? Placing his own spark in the reserves while others young and old fought out on the frontlines- even if that spark was encased with the Matrix. And what would the fabled trinket rattling in his chassis tell him to do? What would the Primes of past do, be they as one mind or individual opinions? Would they even approve of his aid to Decepticons, let alone share his empathy? No... even if he could somehow summon again the long-gone consciousnesses of his predecessors he doubted that he'd be satisfied with their advice. He needed to reach his own conclusion- what he knew was right in the core of his spark.

That was a debate for another day though, he told himself as Wheeljack's ship came into view on the horizon. At least he could be sure of one thing; he had a duty now as a father to protect his-their daughter. And he'd fulfil it as a father should. Because in the end Megatron certainly wouldn't.

"It's our sparkling now..."

As Optimus contemplated it, a rare proud smile dared to show itself.

xx

It started with a simple thud against his chest. Unusual, but nothing to bring concern to his processor. Then came the ache. And the hisses. And finally the pulses of what he liked to call 'searing agony' spreading themselves all over his frame from his core that led to him stumbling into the med-bay.

"Lord Megatron, I'm deeply sorry, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with-"

"I don't need apology! I need RESULTS!" Megatron bellowed at the flinched figure of his medic, almost gouging his claws into the scanner he held with a shaking vice grip. He'd been holding the damn thing for at least a breem, hovering it over every joint, node, wire and plate on Megatron's body at his fusion cannon's insistence- at least that's what Knockout gleaned from the steady pulse of plasma aimed at his helm. He only dared to let an air intake pass when the purple glow snapped away from him, following the movement of Megatron's servo as he hefted himself off of the examination table.

"I understand your frustration fully, but unsourced spark pains aren't unheard of, my liege," Knockout pressed on, digging through his mental medical archives for any reprievals that would stop Megatron from flexing his claws like that- it was too easy to imagine them gouging into his paint job...

"You expect me to accept that my spark is so weak that it succumbs to SENSORY PHANTASMA!?" Megatron roared as he whirled around again, optics ablaze with seething irritation and glowing a red that rivalled Knockout's own finish. Primus, he didn't know what the metal maniac he called Master wanted from him- what was he supposed to do when he just marched himself into the med-bay (without an appointment, nonetheless) with a hand over his spark chamber and another hauling Knockout over? Of course the medic was used to strange demands in the Decepticons and thought nothing of Megatron's immediate demand to have his chamber examined, but he didn't have the faintest idea of what he wanted him to find in there.

"N-not at all, Lord Megatron- but unless there's a way to physically remove your spark for examination-" He tried to ignore the murderous glare he received at making such a suggestion. "-then I've done all that's possible to try and diagnose what the problem is. Even if there were anything I could see, there could be any number of causes. Chamber stress, compression, dark energon use..." Knockout was sure to keep his last suggestion to a mumble that he prayed wouldn't be heard.

"I see.." The medic fought the urge to flinch from Megatron's low growl, and only lowered his defensively raised servos when the flare of the warlord's optics died down somewhat. With another punch to his chest Megatron departed from the med-bay as suddenly as he arrived without a further word to Knockout and only one drill casually crushed in his claws. Well, at least it wasn't serious.

xx

"You, uh... ain't lookin' too good, Prime."

Wheeljack's off-hand comment almost made Optimus helm collide with the Jackhammer's ceiling as it jolted in shock. He hadn't realised his optics had closed over until light suddenly burst painfully into his vision. The blue orbs whirred as they tried to adjust to the visual overload, and took in Wheeljack's infrequent worried glances while he sat at the ship's controls.

"I haven't... been keeping to a good recharge schedule lately," Optimus managed to mumble his explanation with some gathered dignity, rubbing a hand against his faceplate and shaking off the dregs of fatigue leeching onto his systems. That coupled with the inescapable stress that buckled itself to his shoulders did not make for a confident appearance. Even now the only thing keeping him from falling into recharge was the bump of the Jackhammer's flight path through the sky, crossing counties in pursuit of Dreadwing and their lost Autobot. Wheeljack gave a shrug at Optimus' reply, knowing better than to chance another few glances with Prime's optics now functional. Primus, he was another one Optimus would have to worry about... if he was to remain on Earth for any length of time, who's to say he wouldn't see it convenient to scout his surroundings? And if Airachnid was living as close as Jasper's woods to the Autobot base, Wheeljack could easily stumble across them. Optimus didn't want to even consider what a Wrecker's reaction to rogue Decepticons would be, but he knew it wouldn't be pretty. Still, even with doubts of Wheeljack's own moral values circling his mind, Optimus knew that he would have made a valuable addition to the Autobots if he ever made the decision to leave behind his lost roots. Such a thing was unlikely though- who was he to expect any bot to abandon what was perhaps the only tie to Cybertron that they had left? Even with Airachnid's own protests that she had completely defected from the Decepticons, if it wasn't for Megatron Optimus was sure that she would still be on the Nemesis right now. Too many ifs to break past his barrier of lethargy... he needed to distract his mind, to keep himself occupied.

A thought suddenly struck him hard enough to have his helm make contact with the ceiling this time.

"Wheeljack, if I may ask-"

"Shoot." He didn't turn his gaze from straight ahead while Optimus held a hand to the dent now baring itself on his head.

"In your travels, did you come across a planet known as Archa Seven?"

Wheeljack let out a small whistle at the name. "Haven't heard the name Archa in a long while.. I remember this one planet called 'Akalo'- I swear, just sayin' that around Ultra Magnus makes 'im cower in the corner. See, there was this massive energy surge down there- natives called it the Divine Light or some'in or other- anyway, it was my last official mission as a Wrecker under Magnus' command, and before we can get to where Akalouthans have their bars, what do you know, the Decepticons are wantin' in on-"

"Wheeljack. Archa Seven?"

"Wha-? Oh, that." Wheeljack cleared his vocaliser and shook his helm to clear it of any remaining nostalgia. "Guessin' it's the seventh planet from the star? Yeah, I got near the system again after I left the Wreckers- Seven had the biggest energon spikes, so I touched down there. Nice place, little bit humid and big-crazy-bug-infested for my likin' though."

"The spiders?" Optimus' optics brightened at the prospect of possibly hearing what creatures Airachnid had spent her life surrounded by. Other than the scholarly curiosity of Orion Pax making its reappearance, he would work on learning anything that would help in her finally opening up to him. A stable trust between the two would be vital in ensuring Scorpia as normal a childhood as she could get in such circ*mstances.

"If you wanna' call 'em that, sure. Me, I'll just stick with fraggin' big crazy bugs." Wheeljack gave a shudder at the thought of scittering legs and glassy rows of murderous eyes thinking up one hundred different ways to pry his armour off and feed it to their kids. "Barely got outta there with my servos still attached, even then I only got a few old energon boxes for my trouble. Big big ship of the slag crashed down in the middle of the forest- Decepticon from the look of it, but I wasn't too picky."

"What were the spiders like?" Optimus pressed on, gaining another passive shrug from Wheeljack.

"Just like spiders, I guess. Nothin' more to it. Big afts, big legs, big... creepy fangs. Lived in these big hives, eatin' anything that gets in their way; think of a Scraplet, an Insecticon, and nine vorns after a damn drunk night. " He turned his helm back towards Optimus. "What's so important 'bout them anyway?"

"I... came across a reference to them in a data cylinder. I was curious." Wheeljack seemed to find the notion of a bot like a Prime being described as 'curious' amusing from his stifled smirk, but said nothing further to voice doubt. Other than a slight mutter under his breath that widened his smirk into a grin.

"Course, not all of them are bad..."

"What was that?"

"Uh, nothin'! Nothin'..." Wheeljack veered his optics away from Optimus' scowling sound of suspicion.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

He should have been asleep. He should have just let himself fall into his berth and in turn into recharge, letting what blissful ignorance he had left drop him into the next bustling morning. Maybe the presence of other well-rested Autobots would... soothe him somehow. But Ratchet couldn't sleep- not with the base so empty yet so full with secrets. Optimus' parting promise was still running through his processor, distracting him from any possibility of doing work. Not that he had any- apart from the single file opened before him on his screen.

He'd stared at the image for an hour now- an hour exactly. He checked the clock every five minutes, methodically counting down the ticking analogues to daybreak. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd whiled away twilight hours at his console, but what was a first was the nature of his convenient insomnia.

Two Decepticons... the possibilities were slim, but the only evidence of their existence presented in front of him wasn't exactly helpful in narrowing it down. The glow of energon seemed normal at first- to the untrained optic. But Ratchet had seen enough of what injured bots bled to see the too-subtle pigment irregularities. Even so, he couldn't see how seriously they were injured... Primus, what wouldn't he have given to have someone like First Aid with him...

His shuttering optics widened as his helm shook itself. Dammit, one bot being so stuck in the past was enough for him to deal with. Even with his HUD flashing so irritatingly he had to stay focused- right now his curiosity was all that convinced him to stay online. So he knew that at least one of the 'Cons was injured- for whatever reason. And much as he didn't want to admit it, but hurting one of those was no mean feat. As for the rest of the image... the silhouette was almost totally blended into the twisting trees and soggy claws of ferns. Even when he first saw it Ratchet didn't believe it could be a Cybertronian shape, but now with the hours spent in study he saw that some 'branches' didn't line up to the surrounding plants, some shadows didn't fit, and he swore he could see the barest glimmer of pink...

He huffed a tired sigh, and forced himself not to look again at the Ground Bridge controls to his left. Optimus said he would show him, but how long would it take for him to deem it 'the right time' for revelation? Ratchet didn't doubt his friend's trust for one minute but... he was impatient. He was worried. He needed to know that there was no danger, that Optimus wasn't about to make a terrible mistake.
Just one button would take him to them...

'No.' He'd wait. He had to. He had to pretend that the co-ordinates, the shape and the doubts weren't there. Just for a while. For as long as his cynicism would hold back for.

Not that that was a more reassuring way to put it.

xx

It was times like this that Rafael was grateful for backup files. True, he didn't usually save copies of the Autobots internet shots, but this was a special circ*mstance. And it wasn't exactly an Autobot one.
With a stifled yawn he rubbed his eyes again- no wonder he needed glasses when he always had them locked onto a computer screen. Still, he couldn't bear to give them a rest just yet.

He'd almost forgotten about the blog photo that he'd tracked down the previous day. But it popped up again suddenly in his mind just as he entered his bedroom, seeing Bumblebee tear away from the sidewalk outside his house with a farewell flash of his rear lights from the window. Now, two hours and a USB stick later, he sat with it open on his screen and scanning through his brain. Something about it was... off. When he took away the distracting glow of the energon the shadows didn't fit together right. And Raf was no expert in trees, but he knew they didn't grow that jagged in the background...
What was it that Optimus had said about it? Of course it would be from a Cybertronian... but what type? Autobot or Decepticon, or something in between? Was there anything in between? A sigh tipped his head back wearily. 'It's too late to be thinking about this stuff...' When he went to shut off his computer though, a small blip came through the speakers. He didn't hear it very often, but that was the sound of someone messaging him.

'u online?'

Only Miko could get away with typing like that.

'Yeah. Why are you up so late?' He typed it in after another sigh, idly wondering if it was really that hard to type in a few extra letters for cohesiveness sake.

'culd ax u the sam thing'

'We have school tomorrow.'

'ur tellin me XD'

Typing that gruelling fact in must have ended up imprinting it in his sluggish mind, because all Raf wanted to do was fall into bed and hope that morning was still a long way off.

'Raf? U ok?' Miko's new message brought Raf's hand back from the computer's power button. Well, at least she was using capitals now.

'Sorry, Miko. Just tired.' His fingers hesitated for a second on the keyboard, before he decided to ask her. 'You know that energon blog pic I found?'

'ya'

'I've been looking it over, and there's something weird about it. Don't know how to explain what.' He didn't expect Miko to give him any help with it- he just felt the need to share the worries with someone. Anything that would give his mind a rest, even if his typing fingers didn't get one.

'sounds freky,' Miko replied after a long moment, in which he could almost picture her scratching her head in thought. 'U shuld tell OP bout it'

Optimus. He was still out in the forest when night settled and they all had to return home- Raf remembered the worry wreathed in Bumblebee's beeps when he talked with him during the ride back, and the anxiousness on Bulkhead and Arcee's faceplates that they conveniently hid in their alt modes. Usually Raf would have been planning to tell him anyway, but with what Ratchet had said about Elita One... Raf couldn't even imagine what he'd do if anyone in his family was harmed, and he didn't want to think about what Optimus must have been going through. He had too much to worry about now- no matter how brave a faceplate he put on for the rest of Team Prime. Nevertheless...

'I think I will.'

"RAFAEL!" A sudden shout from the lower landing made his fingers slip on his keyboard just as he sent the message, and his glasses almost fell off his desk from how he jolted in surprise.

"Are you still on that computadora?!"

"Sorry, Mama- I was just finishing up some homework!" he answered, scrabbling to switch it off and leap into bed before she decided to stamp up the stairs. The covers muffled his mother's warning for him to get to sleep, but even if he heard it it didn't speed up the hours that it took his mind to finally switch off.

xx

"More spark pains, Lord Megatron?" Knockout asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice as the mech marched again into the familiar medbay. No matter how much he told him that there was nothing to do but wait for the aches to subside, he just kept coming and threatening all sorts of unfortunate limb removal if the good doctor refused to look him over again. It was enough to almost want your spark chamber torn out and thrown off the Nemesis flight deck. Still, he could hardly let himself offline with his chassis so scarred, so that was enough to steer him away from the usual impulses.

"Not this time, Knockout," Megatron growled to Knockout's carefully veiled relief. "No doubt you've heard of Airachnid's departure from our ranks?" A crimson eyeridge raised at his question.

"Of course, my liege," Knockout answered, just as he set down a polished drill. Only the entire army had heard of her escape from the Nemesis, and over half were envious of her getting out. And he would admit that he'd miss seeing those fascinating legs of hers...

"And while she was with us, she underwent a full medical examination?"

"As standard."

"Then why was I not informed that she was carrying?" He almost sliced the rag in his claws into strips with how his wires suddenly clenched at Megatron's casual revelation.

"I-I'm sorry, my liege?" he stuttered, whirling to face the warlord's expectant optics with his own wide ones. Knockout realised his audios weren't glitching when Megatron's faceplate hardened, and his peds began to march his frame closer to the medic.

"Airachnid. Was. Carrying," he growled slowly, optics narrowing with every word punctuated with disapproval. "Either you failed to notice... or you decided not to tell me, doctor." When he drew his scowling faceplate level with Knockout's, the red mech was fighting not to flinch away from the raging hot air rolling out of his vents, ending up with his wheels pressing into a wall.

"U-um, I d-did not detect any life signals i-in her spark chamber when-"

"EXCUSES!" The med-bay erupted into a screech of claws on metal and a cry of agony from Knockout as his abdomen metal was torn into by grey talons that flung him across the room like a lifeless target drone. Energon leaked from the twin wounds in his side and from a gash in his lip that came from his denta biting into it, and he left a trail of the liquid as he scuttled backwards from Megatron's approach.

"That glitch spawned a sparkling on this ship- AND NOT ONE OF YOU MORONS KNEW ABOUT IT?!" Every word screamed hit into Knockout like bricks as he futilely held his shaking servos up against Megatron's fury.

"L-Lord Megatron, please! I-If I had any idea that Airachnid was in that state-" Knockout began to beg, holding back his wince at the spreading sting of his bleeding cuts. "T-then I would never have let it go u-unreported!" The fear in his optics and in his heavy broken air cycles seemed to have the necessary effect on his pleading, for the warlord's snarling scowl and the seething glare of his optics seemed to fade back into the darker recesses of his mind. He straightened his spinal column and glanced with distaste at the sheen of energon on his claw tips as Knockout struggled to stand. The gaping gashes in his protoform were no real worry to him- his mind was too focused on keeping Megatron from another volatile outburst and convincing Breakdown to buff the scratches out after all this for him.

"So you say..." he muttered skeptically as he slowly rubbed his talons together. "And if I was to take your word for it." A ragged sigh of eternal thanks to merciful Primus shadowed Megatron's turning away from Knockout. "Then that still leaves the question of how you just so happened to not know of her pregnancy."

"Well, um... if I may input on the situation," Knockout started his bid to keep himself alive for the time being. "The act of sparkling carrying is a very delicate procedure- any number of factors may have shielded the spark from detection." Megatron's quirked optic ridges expressed a smidge of believe to the medic's reasoning, and a twitch of his stained talons folded behind his back signalled him to continue.

"She may not have been sparked at the time of the examination, o-or the scanner was malfunctioning, or even her partially organic biology might have interfered with the results!" Knockout went on, trying not to groan with every step he took with a hand stemming the trickle of energon from the largest wound on his right. "And i-if I might ask, my liege..." his dimming optics flitted nervously as he hesitated to inquire. "How do we know now that she was with spark?" He almost dived for the floor again at the sight of Megatron forming a fist, but instead of crashing it into Knockout's faceplate he kept it static as he rotated himself to face the medic again. The look in his optics was cold and somewhat thoughtful, like curious dried blood stains.

"It was that child's birth that prompted her defection in the first place," he eventually answered with little emotion that could be discerned. "I saw it before she escaped."

"What became of it?" Knockout pressed on. Megatron's lips twitched ever so slightly as he delivered his dangerous reply.

"It has been dealt with." The tone told Knockout that any further questions would not be so generously answered- with words rather than a fusion cannon in his face. "Return to your usual duties- I trust this discussion will not leave the walls of this med-bay?" The medic managed a single nod as he recalled where Airachnid's escape had been reported from- the fourth level deck of the Nemesis- those few days ago, and the team of Eradicons that had to close the whole level off for 'cleaning' shortly afterwards when Megatron finally departed again. And on that grim note did he also realise the most nagging question of them all.

'Who in their right mind would sire a sparkling with her?'

xx

"Open Dreadwing's communication link," Megatron relayed to Soundwave as he entered the Command Centre, just registering how long it had been since he saw the soldier. If anyone now knew the importance of keeping appropriate leashes on your officers, it was Megatron. As Soundwave opened the comm channel, the warlord didn't hold back the edge to his addressing tone.

"Dreadwing, where are you?"

"Merely pursuing my destiny, Lord Megatron." His co-ordinates came up on the screen as he spoke- Megatron didn't recognise them, but he sensed that wherever it was, it would soon be Dreadwing's grave.

"Did I not order you to stand down?" The edge sharpened on the stone of his vocaliser as it grated past, already growing wary of just how loyal this Seeker was. They were always ones to watch out for...

"Forgive me, one true master, but it is my hope that vanquishing Optimus Prime will earn your respect."He had to shutter his optics to stop them from rolling at Dreadwing's evident lapse of stupidity.

"Optimus is not so easily disposed of, as I keep trying to explain to all of those who foolishly attempt it!"

"I assure you, Master, in but a few moments Optimus and two others will be blown to their protoforms." He paused a moment to consider Dreadwing's words- in all the times Megatron had received false news of Prime's impending demise, his would-be assassins were never able to actually trap him. And if there were two other Autobots to sweeten the gravestone...

"I will allow it, Dreadwing, in memory of your departed twin, but only this once," Megatron finally relented, with no real anger left in his systems after just subjecting Knockout to the brunt of it. And perhaps Skyquake's death could prove very useful for ensuring Dreadwing's full and loyal return to the Decepticon cause. And he'd be a valuable addition, of course- for as long as he can stay alive.

"I will be surprised if we ever hear from Dreadwing again," Megatron commented with a hint of smugness as he clicked off the comm link. Obviously he didn't expect a reply from Soundwave beside him, but there was something in his energy field that felt... distant. His helm turned to where his officer stood still as ever- too still. It was something that Megatron had noticed as a rather common trend developing within Soundwave recently.

"Soundwave." Megatron's summons was met with no acknowledgement. "Soundwave!" Only when he raised the decibel did the mech's helm snap to attention toward the warlord's voice, not even a semblance of surprise in his frame other than the slight fizzle of his field. Even the faceless couldn't hide everything.

"You've been rather unfocused as of late, Soundwave," Megatron mentioned suspiciously, partially turning himself further in Soundwave's direction. No further response. "I'll expect your Iacon database work to be progressing as ever despite current... events." Not that he'd also expect Airachnid's departure to have any effect on the officer. But he didn't notice Soundwave's confirming nod come with just a nanoklick of hesitation beforehand.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

The journey back to base was... cramped, to say the least.

"You sure you 'Bots are havin' an energon shortage?" Wheeljack grunted as he tried to jostle around Bulkhead's weight squashed between the captain and passenger seats.

"Hey- what're you tryin' to say, Jackie?" Bulkhead said with a thud of his fist against his servo. Wheeljack laughed even as the controls threatened to lurch from his grip. Again. "Least my weight is useful."

"Oh, that's it, you old-!"

"How long until we reach Jasper again, Wheeljack?" Optimus asked, eager to prevent the outbreak of another impromptu sparring match (the last one had almost sent the Jackhammer into a nosedive).

"'Nother hour or so," Wheeljack answered just as he was unwrapping a hand from around Bulkhead's neck. "Should touch down just before dawn."

"Just in time to bust in on Ratchet's mornin' coffee. Think we can get a few extra hours'a recharge when we get back, Optimus?" Bulkhead chuckled as he rubbed at where Jackie had left paint scuffs.

"Woah, woah, whadda'ya mean 'we'?" Wheeljack protested, flicking one quirked optic off the sky and back to Bulk.

"What, you're not stayin' with us?"

"I told ya' Bulk. I ain't an Autobot. I can't be tied down like that. Only reason I ended up back here in the first place was 'cause'a Dreadwing-"

"And now he's back with Megatron. If you're with Team Prime, then you can get to him again as well as the rest of the Decepticons!" Bulkhead pressed on, pleading in his optics. "Optimus, whadda' you think?" The Prime jolted at the mention of his name, brought back from the fringes of his thoughts with shuttering optics. He had to take a moment to process what the two mechs had been saying. Wheeljack staying on Earth... from what he said of Archa Seven, he obviously wasn't a fan of spiders. But Airachnid could defend herself if there ever came the chance of the Wrecker coming across her and Scorpia... and now was the time to put the welfare of his team first.

"The Autobots would be very grateful to have you working with us, Wheeljack. But if your spark still lies in the stars, then no-one will force you to stay." It was a long, bumpy moment before he gave an answer.

"...Maybe it is time my peds stayed on solid ground for a while," he mused, letting the control wheel drift in his grip, and the uncertain line of his mouth turned to a scarred smile towards Bulkhead. "Still got those alt-mode ideas in that lugnut of a processor?"

"You're just lucky I do- you'd probably pick something like a dumpster truck-"

"Even if I knew what one'a those was-"

"Think 'Huffer on Wheels'."

"Ah, Primus."

Optimus lapsed back into the realm of his mind while the Wreckers bickered, only able to think of his berth and whatever recharge had in store for him this time. In a way he was looking forward to seeing Elita's face again... even if it was through filmy optics.

"Hey, Bulk," Wheeljack said after another silent minute.

"Yeah?"

"What's 'coffee'?"

xx

Early sun rays were spilling over the horizon line when Optimus disembarked from the Jackhammer, with Wheeljack and Bulkhead falling out behind him. They argued over who pushed who that time as the elevator descended into the mountain, dropping them just outside the base's foyer. Ratchet greeted them- slumped over his console with vents snoring, screen blank and sleeping as he was.

"Anyone got a welder?" Wheeljack asked with a stifled chuckle to Bulkhead, contemplating how the medic would look with some choice symbols carved into his armour. Optimus opted to ignore it as he approached his friend, gently placing a warm hand on his cold shoulder. His backstrut shot up as soon as the metals made contact, servos flying everywhere.

"O-Optimus!" Ratchet stuttered, instantly springing upright with optics blinking as they whirred online. "I-Is Bulkhead-?"

"Right here, Ratchet. Safe and sound," the green mech answered with a smile, raising a hand that came down to pat his back. Even as his systems were still warming up the blue optics that rested on Bulk's servo were scanning- the ever scrutinising look of a worried medic. Bulkhead recognised it, drew his hand away and pounded it against his chest. "Minus a few scratches, nothin' to worry about."

"Even so, Bulkhead, I'd like both yourself and Wheeljack to be examined for other potential injuries," Optimus said, to a scoff from the white Wrecker behind him.

"Don't worry 'bout me, chief. Whatever I got, I'll fix myself up- I survived mutant spiders, I can live through Dreadwing tryin'a make us inta' craters."

"Suit yourself," Ratchet grumbled with a tone that would have been apologetic if not for the succeeding mutter of "Not about to waste Autobot supplies and my time on some rogue." As Wheeljack sauntered back to the base's exit with a backward wave of his hand to Bulkhead, Optimus coughed through his vocaliser.

"As a matter of fact, Ratchet, Wheeljack may soon be joining our ranks-"

"Woah, let's not jump the gun here," Wheeljack protested, spinning around on his ped and marching back to them. "I said I'd think about it, that's all-"

"I recall, Wheeljack, and I understand that you may want to scout this world to see that it is suitable for you. But can I trust you to maintain covertness while you do so?" Now it was Ratchet's turn to scoff at that as he checked over Bulkhead's frame for anything serious.

"Pfft, what, ya' think I'm gonna walk in the nearest town guns blazin' like it's Darkmount all over again?" Wheeljack retorted with a smirk. "Trust me, Prime, as soon as I get one'a those alt modes, you won't even know I'm on this rock."

"In that case, let's go and find that mode for ya'!" Bulk said cheerfully as he slipped out of Ratchet's examining grip and pounded on his friend's back, to the former's even louder groans. "Go with the Ark, Optimus said. Remaining Autobots need your medical expertise, he said."

As the two Wreckers made for the road-bound entrance of the base, Optimus approached Ratchet again as he switched off his data screens.

"A whole night without recharge," Optimus pointed out, causing his servos to freeze for a moment, before his sigh as he let them drop to his sides.

"I was... worried," Ratchet answered, turning his optics hesitantly to his friend's.

"About yourself and Bulkhead..." He started to trail off, and his optics followed his servos in pointing to the floor.

"And the Decepticons." It wasn't a question but Ratchet nodded regardless.

"I still don't know what you were thinking when you decided to aid them, whoever they are," Optimus noted the emphasis on 'whoever', but he didn't want to give names yet- best to let him see them for himself when the time came. And he knew that that time was very soon.

"But... as long as you believe that it was the right thing to do... then I guess I just have to accept that." Somehow Ratchet gave a small smile, which Optimus returned.

"I trust everything was peaceful in our absence?" he asked, eager to turn the subject away from Airachnid.

"Almost. Arcee did awake just before you came back," Ratchet revealed. "She was disoriented, said something in her processor was blocking her recharge. I sent her back to her quarters with a hibernation chip." Optimus gave a curious hmm.

"I will check in on her on my way to my own quarters," he said with a departing nod to Ratchet. "And I expect you to be heading to your own, old friend." Even at the roll of his optics and his usual dismissive groan, Optimus knew he heard tired footsteps behind him in the direction of their berth.

Optimus own was certainly calling to him as he trekked through the corridors of the base, but he paused outside the door to where Arcee had made her small home. It used to be bigger, but after Cliffjumper's death she couldn't bear to be next to an empty berth... Optimus' optics flickered at the thought of their fallen comrade, but he kept them bright as he opened the door.

He recognised the stains of coolant under her creased faceplate buried into her berth surface, even as her forlorn shape turned into a blurr of blue and silver as Arcee instantly stood up, wobbling on her peds as she furiously wiped a servo across her optics.

"Y-You're back," she said, walling off the croak of her strained vocaliser. No look of shock in her purposely blank expression, nor the usual admonishment that he'd heard being giving to Bumblebee many a time of 'don't you know how to knock?'. At that grim note Optimus nodded, letting the door close fully behind him as he stepped closer into her room.

"Ratchet told me you couldn't sleep."

"I was just... uh... th-the hibernation chips made my optics leak," she explained in a furious rush, turning away from Optimus with her servos over her chestplates.

"I've used those chips enough to know that's not true, Arcee," Optimus said gently, remembering how he went through entire cartridges of them following Elita's demise. She stayed silent, losing her defiance as she sank to her berth again and let her helm fall into her chest. It wasn't unusual at all to see Arcee like this, but Optimus could tell this wasn't about Tailgate or Cliffjumper.

"I miss her..." Her vocaliser crushed the words into a whisper that only just entered the range of Optimus' audios. He approached her with slow steps, kneeling down to where her optics would be if they were able to look at him then. "All of them, but... Elita was the first to go..." They started to leak again, and she didn't flinch when Optimus reached out to wipe the coolant tears with a digit near her faceplate.

"I remember when the news reached Cybertron. It was Blaster that told me, played me the recording himself. I didn't come out of my quarters for a long while then- not even when Tailgate was threatening to break the door down-" Her laugh at that wavered with the sadness flooding into it. "Only when you came back to Cybertron, I managed to drag myself out of there. It didn't feel right... walking without her. Every step I took I thought I felt her servo through mine's, but when I turned to look...praying that somehow, she was still with me..." A long sob racked through her frame, and Optimus kept a firm hold on her shaking shoulder as she tried to fight it back down.

"I saw you walking down from the Ark," she went on. "The look in your optics, the way you pushed past everyone gathered there... they never tried to comfort you. No sympathy, no empty words, they just... let you be. And I always wondered what that look was... it would have been useful for me." How long had all this been boiling in her spark, Optimus wondered. Even with Cliffjumper she'd managed to push her grief aside. But perhaps that was the problem... she was so quick to just shove her more fragile emotions away into the dark corners of her spark to just let them be forgotten, until they start to grow and leach off her very core...

"To be honest, Optimus... I always blamed you for it," Arcee confessed, tilting her helm up and shuttering her optics. "After the numbness all that was left was... anger. At you, at Megatron, at the whole fragging war. That was why I didn't join you on Earth... I stayed on Cybertron with Tailgate. It was only Cliffjumper who brought me down here, and now he's gone. I..." Her vocaliser seemed to freeze up, her stuttered words lagging.

"I too blamed myself for Elita's demise, Arcee," Optimus revealed after his long silence as Arcee trailed off into her own. "Ever since we lost her I'd always thought if I hadn't left her on the Ark... or kept her to Cybertron..." His optics whirred frantically to keep stray tears at bay. "But then I realise that she wouldn't have wanted that. Nor would she have wanted her family or friends to mourn her so. The only one at any fault here is Megatron, and only in stopping him can we serve any kind of justice for her. She died as an Autobot... and that is all she would have wished for." Arcee's tears had started again, but she didn't try to hide them as they spilled over her tiny smile.

"I was... family?" she asked in a whisper as Optimus placed another hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him.

"You were as close to a daughter as Elita could have ever hoped for... and if she was here now, she'd be telling you to get some sleep."

When Optimus own processor finally shut down, for the first time in days all he saw was Elita's beautiful beacon optics flickering in the darkness of his recharge, joined with a smaller pair just below. His love and his child watched over him as he slept.

xx

Airachnid's emergence from sleep was less peaceful than she would have ever preferred, as her optics snapped open as soon as she recognised the distant rumble of engines roaring outside. Her first thought was Vehicons, despite all her delusionary reassurances that the Decepticons would never find her here. She instinctively checked her servos, where Scorpia still slumbered in a realm of sparkling-borne peace. A fresh wrapping of web put her safely on Airachnid's back, just between what remained of her legs there. Scorpia's optics slitted open and bled lines of blue, but other than that the movement didn't disturb her as her mother climbed out of the cave. The sound was still coming closer, though Airachnid hadn't seen any roads nearby. But whoever said Decepticons needed roads to travel?

She had emerged at the other side of the cave this time, where Optimus had first approached from and where it opened onto wider dusty ground at the foot of the rocky hill ahead. Just looking at them sent prickles of pain through her nodes, so she turned her attention to where the land stretched ahead into flat plains, with only a few trees of the surrounding forest cropping up to break the horizon. She thought she could hear the engines in that direction, and debated the wisdom of staying out in the open or in her confined space where one laser bolt could offline her instantly. There was another cliff just above the cave opening, where it turned into the ravine that the other entrance led to, but... could she climb it? She had no worry about the strength of her webbing holding Scorpia to her frame, but there was still the familiar ache of healing ringing through her.

With another cautionary glance at the plains to her sides Airachnid placed a palm on the rough tumbles of rock strewn overhead, feeling her weapon port suction to it. Her other hand did the same, and she was pulling herself up onto the ledges above with only the slight pain of her back legs swaying on their joints to complain about. She stopped just as she reached a wider ledge of trees and saw shape starting to emerge from the forest patches and crest the plains stretching far out before her. She shielded herself behind the branches as the shape, wavy from wafts of Earth sun battering against this small corner of the planet, came into distinction. A vehicle- mainly white sports car. Airachnid didn't bother to identify it further beyond 'not Decepticon' before she pulled back further into the trees, praying that Scorpia was still in her lull of silent sleep. Just as she was about to dismiss it though, her scanners brought her attention to something interesting.

'Cybertronian life signal...' An Autobot, then. Not sent by Optimus- Airachnid didn't expect him to tell anyone of his little secret. Then that raised the question... what were they doing here? Her helm peeked out from a tree trunk just as she heard tires skidding to a stop with rings of black marks in its wake, and her optics just took in the shifting plates of transformation before she remembered where she'd seen that white armour before. She was sure to cover her daughter's growing audios before she uttered her usual curse to Wheeljack.

"Frag my life."

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

"Jackie, your signal's paused. Everything alright?" A voice echoed in the Wrecker's comm unit as his transformation gears- rusty from the years of disuse- whirred to a stop.

"I'm fine, Bulk. Just takin' a break," Wheeljack called back into his unit, optics taking in the Earth landscape that he set out to scout. Dust, dust and more dust. The trees on the rocky ridges now rising up at his sides were the first signs of green he'd seen since he left Bulkhead behind, ramping off-road and kicking up more of the grainy stuff in his wake as he tore across the Nevada desert. It reminded him of the Rust Sea, albeit without that annoying 'rust' feature taking up so much of his systems nowadays. "You head back to the base, I'm gonna look 'round here for a while."

"Alright. I gotta go take Miko to school anyway." The link cut out just as Wheeljack's scanners finished sweeping the area. Apart from Bulk's signal at the far edge of his range, already retreating, he was alone.

With a roll of his shoulder gears Wheeljack took slow, lazy steps forward, letting the morning sun to the low east wash over his dust grained frame and humming an old Wrecker drinking song under his exvents. Earth was a pretty nice planet, if you forgot the Decepticons scraping their afts all over it. The humans as well would be some getting used to, the bigger ones especially. Still, he could definitely get used to having Miko nearby. As for the Autobots... eh, maybe Optimus wasn't such the prig that Grimlock always made him out to be. Besides, anyone who wasn't Ultra Magnus warranted at least a little respect on his part.

A sudden rustle of branches nearby made Wheeljack's peds freeze, and before Airachnid could mutter another curse his cannons were out and aimed high overhead. He sidestepped cautiously as his battle mask shot over his faceplate, optics narrowed at the suspicious ridge of forest on the upper ledge and audios tuned in to the fading noise. Bulkhead had told him about the other lifeforms on Earth- birds, dogs and whathaveyou- but Wheeljack didn't survive as a Wrecker by leaving disturbances to themselves. He paused, waiting for the sound to repeat itself, and when it didn't he advanced to the foot of the cliff.

In the fleeting safety of the trees, Airachnid's spark was hammering so hard in its chamber that Scorpia was sent wriggling in her webbing, trying to reach behind her and calm her mother down. Airachnid beat down the urge to reach behind her and hold her daughter close- not yet, at least. Any other moves and Wheeljack would be on them both before she could blink an optic.

Unfortunately, Scorpia was not so content with being ignored.

'What the...' Wheeljack's eye ridges raised at the unmistakable sound of a... sparkling? Crying? Nevermind that Wheeljack had never heard of any infants surviving the war, but of one being alive on Earth? His ridges lowered again at the possibility of some sick Decepticon trap.

"Show yourself 'fore I shoot this whole forest down!" he called out in a growl, powering his cannon up. Usually he would have shot the whole forest down at this point, but he suspected that Optimus wouldn't appreciate such damage to the planet's wildlife (Okay, a bit of a prig).

No rustle, no show. The sparkling sound was only slightly muffled by its mother frantically trying to quiet it, obviously to no avail.

"Last warnin'..." Wheeljack's plasma shot was whirring hot enough to melt through its own barrel, and all Airachnid could see when she chanced a glance downwards was a blue blurr designed solely to kill her.

'One of these days, you're going to be just another one of them, aren't you?' she thought with her gaze turning back to Scorpia now cradled in her servos, cries dimmed to a low whine. With a sigh on her lips as they pressed to her child's forehead, Airachnid rose to her peds and inched herself around the tree trunk to bare herself before the Wrecker down below.

As soon as he saw the familiar palette of pink, black and gold, Wheeljack's cannon died down and fell to his side as his mask retracted, revealing a very pleased smirk.

"Long time no see , darlin'."

Even after all these years, she still had that same tired look whenever she heard his voice.

xx

It was afternoon when Ratchet heard the arrival of the children in the screech of tires on the base tarmac as he was shrugging himself awake, managing a grunt of greeting to them and the other Autobots as he took up his post again.

"Hey Ratchet, where's Arcee?" Jack asked as Bumblebee and Bulkhead transformed (the latter heading promptly to his own quarters), Miko launching herself on the couch and Raf setting up his laptop.

"Still recharging. She... didn't get much sleep last night," the medic replied, to a dismissive shrug from the human as he went to shove Miko's legs out of the way as they took up the whole couch.

"What about Optimus? Did he come back?" Raf asked this time, staring up at Ratchet.

"Early this morning, yes," he replied with a quiet groan, wishing he had followed his teammates examples and just stayed in berth himself. "He won't be up for another few hours, I'd imagine."

"Oh..." Something in the young boys dejected tone made Ratchet's more endurant side show
itself.

"Why do you ask, Rafael?"

"I just... wanted to talk to him about something." His curiosity satisfied, Ratchet was about to return to the screen before him, until he heard Raf's voice again (prompted by a few boot-clad nudges from Miko and frantic whispers of 'Go on, tell him!').

"You know that... picture I found a few days ago? The one in the forest, with the energon?" Ratchet huffed an affirmative to that. "Well... I was looking it over again last night, and I thought I... noticed something about it. More than just the energon, I mean."

"And what would that be?"

"Something in the background, like... a shape." Raf loaded the image up again and turned his screen towards Ratchet. "See?"
The medic leaned down for a closer look, doubtful that the human would have spotted anything that he might have missed last night (but maybe those lenses he put over his eyes did something to them...).

"Y'know what I think it looks like?" Miko said as she leant over to Raf's laptop and effectively blocked off Ratchet's view. "Airachnid."

"W-what?!" Both boys- Jack and Raf- and bot all exclaimed at Miko's musing.

"Yeah, see? All the spikey things, all the black, and you try telling me you don't see some purple in there," she said, dodging away from the screen as they all crowded around it. They all scanned it with new eyes- taking in the irregular points and shadows, the purple-pink tint to the black all around. Whether or not this meant Airachnid was free from the Decepticons again, or if she just got caught hunting, neither of the boys could stop the shivers that welled in the goosebumps along their skin.

"What's the deal with Airachnid anyway?" Miko continued, tapping a foot idly as she lounged on the couch. "She's all... different from you guys." Ratchet, who had pulled himself away from the tiny computer screen, made a sound of grim agreement, and his optics wandered as he thought of how to explain her to these humans. To even begin on what she was could fill an entire Covenant.

"She is... what we call a 'techno-organic'," he explained. "Fundamentally a fusion of Cybertronian and organic; genes, chemistry, biology-"

"Hang on a slaggin' second, I thought techno-whatevers were sparkling myths!" Bumblebee whirred erratically, just returning from retrieving his energon ration from the base stores.

"That is just one of the many misconceptions about TO's," Ratchet sighed to the young scout, wondering just how much of a sparkling he could be about these things. "They are very much real, Airachnid is living proof of that much."

"Soooo, what is a techno-thingy?" Miko pressed on, leaning her head on an armrest.

"And make it juicy, I need something to distract me from homework." Make that two sparklings.

"No-one knows exactly where they originated from," Ratchet began. "Despite their many origin stories. It's nearly impossible to tell fact from fiction."

"What, you couldn't just go up and ask one where it came from?" Miko asked, to a wide-eyed look of shock from the medic.

"Noooo, no no, nothing of the sort. Techno-organics were... not looked upon kindly in Cybertronian society."

"How come?"

"It was the general consensus that they were... tainted," Ratchet explained with a shudder, just as Raf and Jack's were ebbing away. "Unnatural abominations, not meant to walk Primus' body, or among his children. Some even believe that the Well of All Sparks ceased production because of the sudden surge in the TO population, just before the war. Because Primus was angry with their presence."

"Yeah, but not everyone hated them, right Ratch'?" Bumblebee beeped with a mischievous tilt of his eyeridges. "If I remember, there were quite a few that actually admired techno-organics-"

"You mean fetishized them," Ratchet interrupted with a sickened scoff as Raf translated Bee's blips for Miko and Jack. "Disgusting, the slag they would come up with, all sorts of debauchery-"

"You seem kinda hardcore about the whole 'equality' thing, Ratch'," Miko pointed out.

"Well, I must admit, I too once shared a contempt for them, but... Elita had always supported them." The mention of her name silenced Bumblebee's light beeping chuckles.

"Always saying they deserved more, that they couldn't change what they were born as and such, and... eventually I believed it too." The dreamy mist that seemed to dull Ratchet's optics dissipated with a blink, and he remembered what Miko had asked in the first place.

"But Airachnid appears to be a mutated Cybertronian, rather than born as techno-organic. And the Decepticons no doubt would have seen her organic traits as an advantage in their ranks. If there was anything to know about her, then only they would know it."

"Wait, so she wasn't always like... that?" Jack said, finding it hard to imagine the spider as anything other than a crawling nightmare.

"I am only speculating, but... yes, I'd imagine that at some point she was pure Cybertronian, infected with organic biology at some point. The best guess I could make would be that Shockwave experimented on her, or perhaps The Institute had something to do with-"

Frantic clicks and whirrs courtesy of Bumblebee cut Ratchet off, and he was about to threaten to weld the scout's vocaliser shut when he caught sight of blue armour and bluer optics glaring at him.

"Arcee! How-how long where you, uh, standing there?" Ratchet stuttered, letting his entire train of thought crash into his CPU walls.

"Long enough to give myself another headache, thanks," she groaned in reply, creasing her optics in pain of her throbbing processor. Jack leapt off the couch and went to her, and she showed a smile as she knelt down to him.

"Sorry for not picking you up, partner."

"Don't worry about it, really. Are... you okay?" Her weary nod wasn't a convincing one.

"I think a long ride on the open road will help clear that headache up," he said over the thud of footsteps in the corridor behind Arcee, and Optimus entered to see Miko trying to interrogate Ratchet.

"Come on, tell me more about-"

"No."

"Well what was 'The Institute-"

"I said no, Miko."
Optimus left them to their curious exchange as Arcee looked up at him, still kneeling next to Jack.

"Permission to leave to base, Optimus?"

"Granted. In fact, it's time I left for a patrol myself." Airachnid and Scorpia would be hungry, and as Jack and Arcee tore off through the road entrance he made for the Ground Bridge controls. Raf kept his eyes plastered to his laptop, and Miko looked on the verge of hammering Ratchet's plates to dented oblivion as the medic caught Optimus, just when the Bridge vortex yawned open.

"Actually, Optimus, I need to... retrieve some things from outside. For an experiment. It would be most efficient if I accompanied you on your patrol." After all these centuries, his old friend still knew how to be a sneaky bastard. And there was no way to refuse him without looking suspicious... but perhaps it was time he knew the truth.

"Of course, Ratchet. After you."

xx

Ratchet wasted no time in getting to the point as soon as he felt dirt under his peds.

"They're nearby?" Optimus could only nod and keep his pace as slow as possible as he spotted the rocks where Airachnid had made her home. He contemplated leading Ratchet astray, and then feigning ignorance to the former Decepticons location, but... no. He needed at least one bot he could trust. And Ratchet wouldn't appreciate any further deception.

"All I ask is that you let me bring them out of their own will and... do not attack. Please." Ratchet's optics veered downwards as he recognised the pleading in Optimus' tone, and he gave a nod of his own. The cave entrance was just a footstep away when Optimus held up a servo before Ratchet, leaning down to see if she was awake. Or alive. With the sun at its highest point and beaming straight into the cave, there weren't many places for the shadows to reign. Or anything for the shadows to hide.

"They're... not here," Optimus said in disbelief, standing back up as all the worst possibilities raced through his mind.

"What do you mean-?" Ratchet's voice was precursor to an accusation, one that died down as a shriek sounded from far deeper than the cave, carried over the high cliff above them from the other side. Unlike the shrieks of pain and grief that both Autobots were so used to though, this one told of delight. And that pitch of sound could only come from one thing.

"A Decepticon sparkling!?" Optimus flinched at the outrage in his friend's hissed whisper, and before he could begin to explain Ratchet was pushing himself through the cave opening, heedless of his plates scraping against the compact rocks. Optimus was careful to keep any mention of sparklings out of his cover ups; as a medic, Ratchet knew more than anyone else what Cybertronian children and mothers had suffered at the hands of war. And now Optimus wouldn't be able to stop him homing in on Airachnid even if he had the Polarity Gauntlet with him.

Luck seemed to be with him today though, as when he made to chase after Ratchet, he had great trouble stifling laughter at the sight of the medic caught between a rock and... well, a rock. His backpack had jammed itself in a particularly tight crevice, and was leaving orange scuffs all over the granite.

"If I get you out of this, Ratchet, will you let me go ahead?" Optimus asked over the sound o the medic struggling without success, and with heavy vents he answered with a furious mutter of "Very well." A hard push to the accursed backpack and Ratchet was sent reeling as he popped out, and Optimus kept walking ahead as he left him to gather himself. Daylight was strong and streaming through the other ravine opening up ahead, and the sound of Scorpia chirping was clear as the sky hidden overhead. Though Optimus pleased smile at the sound fell when he saw what was causing it.

"WHEELJACK?!"

The Wrecker sat on a log just outside the cave opening perked his helm at the shocked shout of his name, still cradling the clicking sparkling in his servos. Airachnid was perched in a tree branch opposite Wheeljack, seemingly unharmed from the look of her grin at the sight of Optimus, and Wheeljack flashed a smirk of his own at the gaping Prime as Ratchet approached behind him, still gasping.

"Nice family ya' got here, chief."

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Wheeljack may have greeted the two with a smirk, but Airachnid was far less welcoming.

At the sound of her furious hiss and the look of two pink orbs glowing in the middle of her outstretched palms, Optimus barely stopped himself from lunging towards her. "Stand down, Airachnid!"

"What is he doing here?!" she snarled over his command, optics firing threats into Ratchet as his own scalpel weapons slid out. Optimus threw a look back at him as he dropped into a battle stance, and whispered to wide-eyed Wheeljack, "Keep Scorpia safe."

"You got it, chief," he muttered as he retreated into the safety of the shadows, a servo held over Scorpia and his helm bent to hush her confused cries of fear. Optimus didn't question his readiness to protect her, nor why he was even here just yet, he had more important things to deal with now.

Like keeping these two from killing each other.

They hadn't budged from their defensive positions, but Airachnid's blasters were burning ever brighter into the growing evening gloom.

"Optimus, you are helping Airachnid?!" Ratchet spoke her name like it was poison on his glossa, and her optics narrowed at the scorn in his voice.

"I will explain, Ratchet, when you stand down!" Optimus ordered, attempting to gain his slipping control over the situation.

"What, so she can burn me into the rocks?!" the medic barked back, only flicking his optics off of Airachnid over to Optimus for a klick. With a growl Optimus turned his attention from his stalwart teammate to the source of his aggression, his tone dropping from commanding to beseeching.

"Airachnid, Ratchet will not harm you, nor your sparkling. And you will not lay a hand on him. Do you understand?" From the fury in her grimace, she didn't want to understand. But eventually her scowl shifted into a set line of displeasure, and she closed her palms again. Optimus gave a small nod to her before turning back to Ratchet, putting all his authority into his stare. His expression stayed angry, but finally his weapons retracted.

Optimus heaved a deep sigh of relief and shuttered his optics, letting the fire in them cool down before opening them again.
"I understand you do not trust my medic." He addressed the femme first, eager to calm her suspicions before anything else- the wrath of a mother was never something he desired to face. "But I have good reason for bringing him here."

"As good a reason for aiding her in the first place?" Ratchet asked, unwilling to relinquish his bitterness, but Optimus dismissed his growl.

"Be honest, Airachnid, would you expect your child to survive past her first year without any medical help?" Again he ignored Ratchet outcry of "CHILD?!"

The femme veered her optics downwards as she contemplated his words. True, she'd never really thought about the future for her offspring, but she doubted that any sparkling had never needed aid from a trained medic. She had no way of knowing exactly what might befall Scorpia as she grew- rust, cablewarp, protoform tears- and no way of treating her. And she'd be lying if she wasn't hoping for some first aid herself...

While Airachnid thought it over, Optimus now spoke to Ratchet. "Yes, she is mother to a sparkling." 'Formally two.' "Would you have expected to let them both die out here?" Ratchet was still reeling from shock, optics flickering and apertures zooming erratically.

"H-how could... she- she-" He broke off into a series of stutters, starting words and never finishing them, before again crying "A sparkling?!"

Optimus looked to where he saw the faint glint of Wheeljack's armour, and jerked his helm to summon him out of the dark. He still cradled Scorpia, shielded from the confrontation, and thankfully she'd quieted down.

"Hey, Doc," he quipped to Ratchet, who formed his dropped jawplate into a distasteful frown at the insufferable Wrecker. To Optimus he only offered a lopsided smile, and a view of Scorpia's tiny servos stretching towards him, and even tinier optics blinking up at him.

"She likes you, chief," Wheeljack muttered, gently shifting her so that Optimus could lift her into his own arms. He was still wary of Wheeljack's presence, as well as his lack of Decepticon hatred (though very much welcomed in the recent midst of such), so Optimus only nodded at that. But as he looked down at Scorpia and picked out her gleeful grin, he felt his own mouthplates moving to match hers. She chirped as she nuzzled her helm against his spark, and Optimus almost forgot the still-scowling medic behind him until he felt the tap of his digit against a shoulder plate.

Webbing shot down between the two mechs as Ratchet moved closer to the sparking and snatched her out of Optimus arms. Above, Airachnid hissed venom at them as she held her cocooned offspring, two back legs raised in defence.

"Carrier protocols..." Ratchet murmured, recognising some of the display as one femmes would use whenever they felt a danger to their children. "So she is a mother." Disgust had replaced disdain in his tone.

"Airachnid, please. Ratchet only wishes to see Scorpia," Optimus pleaded to her, only to be met with a sneering growl.

"I've already lost one child to Decepticons," she reminded him, pressing her daughter even closer to her chest. "I won't lose another to Autobots."

Another sigh filled Optimus' vents. "You just have to trust me." Something changed in Airachnid's faceplate then, but she was quick to hide it before Optimus could decipher what it was.

"Air." He was surprised to hear Wheeljack speaking, in a soft voice that had no business coming from a Wrecker vocaliser. "I know you're worried, maybe even a lil' scared right now. And I know Ratchet is... not the most 'compassionate' Autobot around. But he knows what he's doing. And he ain't gonna hurt a single fibre optic on that lil' darlin's body." Wheeljack looked to Ratchet, motioning for him to make some damn effort in reassuring her. An air intake sailed through his olfactories, and he tried to erase all contempt from his systems.

"I have been a medic ever since I came out of the well," Ratchet revealed, not about to have his skill doubted. "I have cared for young and old bots, mothers and fathers alike. And I would never harm a sparkling, Airachnid. Autobot or Decepticon born. You have a medic's oath on that." Optimus doubted how much faith she would have in an oath from an Autobot, but her scowl had melted away and servos had lowered. Her optics swept over the three mechs below her, and lingered long on her daughter's faceplate before she relented. Lowered herself from a web string, she dug her heels into the dirt as she touched down, and tried to keep her gaze on Ratchet. Her steps were slow but sure towards him, and she held Scorpia in her palms, claws carefully avoiding her protoform, as she offered the youngling to him.

Ratchet hesitantly reached towards the web wrap, only allowing his own digits to brush against hers for a second before pulling back, now holding the squirming sparkling. It had been a long year since Ratchet had ever had one in his arms, but he had enough experience with them to keep this one calm in a stranger's grasp.

Now that her servos were empty, Airachnid didn't seem to know what to do with them. Her talons wrung and curled and flexed, her servos wrapped around her torso only to drop to her sides again as she watched the Autobot handle her child. She didn't want to go too near him, but her spark ached whenever she moved away. A large hand on her shoulder stilled her twitches, and Optimus gently led her aside with a backwards nod to Ratchet. He returned it before settling down on a rock with the sparkling, all Decepticon prejudice gone as he gently examined her.

Only when Airachnid saw Wheeljack leaning on part of the ravine wall did she spare a smile, sitting opposite him as Optimus lowered himself next to her.

"Care to explain. Wheeljack?" he asked after a long moment of silence spent gauging how Wheeljack and Airachnid glanced at each other. Optimus had never seen the femme so... at ease, and he'd never known Wreckers for their levels of 'sympathy'- or whatever it was that stopped Wheeljack from killing her on sight . To say the whole thing unnerved him would be a severe understatement.

"We have a history," Wheeljack said, only expanding his explanation with a sly wink. With what he knew of the Wrecker, Optimus wasn't sure he wanted to know what that history entailed. All that mattered was that, as far as he could see, Jackie intended no harm towards the Decepticon refugees.

"And Airachnid, you're... comfortable with Wheeljack around you and Scorpia?"

"Better him than that brute you call a medic," she scoffed, her servos starting to drift over her frame with nothing to occupy them now. She still wasn't happy with Ratchet having current custody of her daughter, and Optimus suspected it wasn't just because of her techno-organic instincts putting her on edge.

"I understand that you-"

"Do you really, Prime?" Airachnid retorted, turning on him with a waver of a frown. "Do you really understand having to give up your life, possibly your own survival for something that you never wanted in the first place... and then having it just taken from you like that?" Optimus tried to imagine it, tried to think of anything like that... he never wanted the Matrix of Leadership, but it had never endangered his life. And Elita... Megatron had taken both her and the Matrix from him. The only difference was that he always wanted her, and in the end he'd never get her back.

Airachnid carried on as Optimus screened his thoughts. "This may be just the carrier protocols talking, but... dammit, I want this all to be worth something. I want to see Scorpia grow and flourish and... have a chance at something better than I ever had."

"And you will, darlin'," Wheeljack reassured her, letting a servo gently pat her knee. "I know Ratch'. He ain't gonna hurt her, and if he does try anything with ya'-"

"Then you will let me deal with it, Wheeljack," Optimus interrupted sternly. There was some danger in his apparent closeness to AIrachnid, the Prime realised- if he was a Decepticon sympathiser, what did that mean for the Autobots? He'd spent a long time in the stars... long enough for his loyalties to blur.

An eyeridge quirked at Optimus' glare, followed with a shrug. "'Course, chief. I just want ta' keep 'em both safe, is all."
Optimus nodded slowly. "And how did you happen to come across Airachnid?"

"After I scanned my alt-mode, I went scoutin' with Bulk. Ended up goin' off on my own while he drove back to base, and ran into Air here," Wheeljack explained, softly squeezing the spike of her knee. Airachnid didn't respond, her optics locked behind her onto Ratchet, back turned to her.

"Airachnid?" Her helm snapped around to the sound of Optimus' voice, her mouth hanging open. "Are you sure you're alright?" Her frantic nod was unconvincing.

"I'm just... this feeling of... caring.” Her faceplate curled and her lips drew back in a hiss. “I've never... felt it before. I... I'm scared, Optimus. I don't like it." Optimus had seen many a scared Decepticon before; in the face of death, they were all the same. But what Airachnid spoke of, the prickling in her EM field and the flicker of her optics, was something else entirely.

"Optimus!" Ratchet's call from behind broke Optimus' train of thought off, and he had to abandon Airachnid to her fears as he walked to where Ratchet stood cradling Scorpia with a gentleness he hadn't seen for many a year.

"I've detected a... problem with the sparkling," Ratchet said, keeping his voice low and his tone as neutral as possible.
"Such as?" It took all of Optimus' effort to stave off the tremors in his vocaliser.

"At first glance she seems perfectly healthy- steady armour growth rate, no birth defects, systems functional. But her structure and biology... I've never seen anything like it." As he spoke Ratchet stroked a digit along one of Scorpia's helm crowns, a soothing sensation that made her purr softly.

"What do you mean?"

"While her armour is growing in normally, the layer currently covering her is abnormally... brittle." Usually a sparkling's armour was soft and pliable, to allow for easy molting and movement. It only started to harden after their first stellar cycle, and even then it was tough enough to withstand a battle, not brittle. "Furthermore, I scanned her energon and...” Ratchet inhaled a large gulp of breath. “I don't know how to tell you this, Optimus, but... I picked up readings of Dark Energon radiation in her veins."
'From Megatron,' was Optimus' first thought, and the implications came raining down on him. There was no telling what even the smallest amount of Dark Energon could do to something so frail as a sparkling, or the complications it could cause as she matured.

"But she seems... healthy, otherwise?"

"As far as I can see," Ratchet sighed. "I suspect Airachnid's techno-organic mutations affected her while she was still in her spark chamber, and if so then her problems will be genetic. Nothing much I can do in that case, other than keeping an eye on her."
"Which you will do?" Optimus asked hopefully.

"Well, I can't just let the only sparkling I've seen in over ten decacycles just die out here, Optimus!" the medic burst out, jolting Scorpia from her lull and causing her to wail quietly. Airachnid's helm shot in their direction, optics cold with a mother's rising fury, but Optimus held her back with a motion of his servo. She reluctantly turned her glare away as Ratchet tried to calm Scorpia down.

"I see why you did this now," he muttered as he cradled the sparkling close to his chest, letting her paw at the pulse of his spark through the metal. "Even though I don't see the wisdom in leaving a femme like Airachnid to care for a spark-"
"She is the last bot I would ever have called 'motherly'," Optimus agreed. "But over the past few days I have seen she is more than capable of keeping her daughter safe."

"So why does she need our help?" Ratchet protested.

"She has nowhere else to go. Megatron is the reason she is in this situation, and I doubt she'd ever willingly return to him. Furthermore, Megatron has no knowledge of there being a sparkling on Earth. We can hide them, help them without the Decepticons even knowing Airachnid is still alive-"

"And turn her into an Autobot?" Ratchet's tone had an edge sharpened with years of cynicsm, and his scoff almost tore into Optimus' audios."Optimus, you’ve tried to make Decepticons turn to our side before, but it just doesn’t work. You think you can save her. You think you can... change her. But the fact is that she made the choice of where her loyalties lie back on Cybertron, and no sparkling is going to change that.” The medic’s optics were coldly final even as his hands were gentle on the sparkling. “Once a Decepticon, always a Decepticon.”

Optimus had to search for words to refute him, and there was silence between them for long seconds. "She never had the choice of her loyalty in the first place." The medic's optic apertures whirred in confusion at Optimus' revelation.

"How?"

"The same how as to her being techno-organic.” The Prime glanced back to make sure the femme wasn’t focusing on them. “During the war, I know not when exactly, she was a normal Cybertronian, left stranded on a planet far from our home. Those planet's inhabitants changed her somehow, and when the Decepticons found her down there she was something else entirely. She owed them for her rescue, and I'd wager that her debt has been long since paid. It was circ*mstantial loyalty, Ratchet, nothing more." Rather than looking understanding though, Ratchet’s gaze was suspicious.
"And what was this planet called, Optimus?" It was another long, tense moment before he answered.
"Archa Seven." The sigh that shuddered through Ratchet made him regret ever bringing up Airachnid's history. The medic summoned Wheeljack over, handing Scorpia over to him while he pulled Optimus further into the tangle of tree branches and rock walls.

"Optimus, I know what you're doing," he said gently when they were out of sight. "You think... you can see Elita somewhere in Airachnid. Don't deny it. And I know you miss her, we all do, but... there's nothing we can do to bring her back. The only thing that would be best for the rest of the team would be for you to let her go. Let her rest in peace."
Again, Optimus took a long time to pick his words before supplying them in his reply. "I know their histories are very similar, Ratchet, but any relation never crossed my mind for a klick. I have let her go. I know she is gone... and I accept it. That does not change that Airachnid needs my help. And I give it to her." Now Ratchet's sigh brimmed with exasperation.

"Primus dammit, Optimus!" He threw his servos up in his anger. "How do you know she isn't... manipulating you?! Elita's... disappearance on Archa was no mystery on Cybertron, even to the latest arrival to the war. How easy would it have been to look up your name in the Decepticon database and see just one line about Elita? If anything, I'd be surprised if she wasn't tricking you in some way." Leave it to Ratchet to always see the worst in a situation, even if it was... startlingly logical. Optimus hissed his own sigh through his vents, closing his optics and having to force them open again when he spoke.

"I will not deny that she wouldn't do such a thing if she had the chance to do so- but I can't believe it. I just can't, Ratchet. I must believe that there are some Decepticons worthy of redemption, of change. If not... then this war will have no true winners." When Ratchet looked up again at the Prime, he saw more of his leader than he did of his old friend. It was obvious Optimus was blinded by his own self-righteousness, and nothing he or anyone else said would budge him. Ratchet clenched his fists, the same hands that held Airachnid's daughter like she was his own.

"...Just be careful, Optimus. That's all else I'll say on the matter." He shoved himself out of the makeshift crevice before any argument could be offered.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

"Uh, Knockout?" The medic held back his groan at the sound of Breakdown standing just outside the med-bay's doorway. Better him than Megatron, at least.

"Be quick about it, Breakdown, I've got bolts to buff."

"You haven't seen Airachnid anywhere, have ya'?" Knockout paused his buffer pad to throw an incredulous look back at him.

"Where have your audios been for the past few days, Breakdown?" Trust him to not listen to comm line gossip. "She's long gone."

"Gone?! W-where?" Knockout only caught a glimpse of the worry blooming on his faceplate before turning around, brushing down a shining chestplate.

"Primus knows and only cares," he sighed, wishing everyone would just shut up about it already. "Apparently she was carrying and-

"Wait wait, carrying? As in, sparkling carrying?!"

"Ah, your audios are malfunctioning," Knockout said in irritation, wishing for just one moment to himself on this Primus-forsaken ship. "Didn't you see Megatron chipping his paint over it? The murderous glare in his optics usually gives it away."

"I was busy!" Breakdown protested, leaning on a table laden with data pads. "Can't expect me to know everything that's going on..."

"Hmm." Knockout threw aside the buffer, deciding to just do it all again later. "Anyway, it's all been dealt with. Megatron killed the sparkling and Airachnid has more than likely perished. Nothing to worry about." The line of worry on Breakdown's faceplate only deepened at Knockout's words. A sudden thought drifted past the medic's processor, something that would explain Breakdown's worry about Airachnid aside from his so-called 'crush'...

"Say, Breakdown, you didn't.... interface with her, did you?"

"Wh-what?" His surprise at the question was answer enough for Knockout- Breakdown wasn't smart enough to pull off a lie. "No! No- I mean, not that I... couldn'tve if I wanted to-"

"Yes, yes, just... no chance of you being the sire, right?"

"No!" Breakdown insisted, sounding offended at the accusation. "Sure, I like her, but I ain't letting my firewalls down for just anyone!" Knockout was tempted to remind him of that one pleasure drone he knocked up back on Cybertron, but thought against it. He wasn't a fan of getting any more dents to bang out.

"Just don't let Megatron catch you talking about her," the medic advised. Once he mentioned Starscream's name a few days after his desertion, and for once it was himself who had tubes in every data port in his own med-bay.

Breakdown seemed to only barely hear him, a digit under his chin. "Maybe... maybe she's got some other organic-y way of sparking..." he mused.

"Excuse me?" Knockout deadpanned, a drill dangling from his digits and frozen in the air.

"What if she's got eggs stored somewhere?" Breakdown continued, one optic going wide and his joints stiffening in sudden fear.
"Eggs?" Knockout swore he could see a processor command called 'roll optics' across his HUD."Right, that is the last time I let you tag along to my drive-in theatres."

"I'm not crazy, Knockout!" Even with the defence in his voice Breakdown was still shivering. "What if... what if she's putting them in our spark chambers while we recharge?!" He started pacing by then, servos gripping his head as he felt a thousand possibilities crash down on him."They could be anywhere on the ship, or inside us! Waiting to burst out of our chassis' and suck on our plasma energy!"

"You're an idiot."

xx

Soundwave had recently noticed he'd been spending much more time in Nemesis hallway corners and drains of darkness than he usually preferred to, but he didn't have much room to complain. Or do anything other than stand and observe.

Right now he was well acquainting himself with the western side of the med-bay, inches away from Knockout and Breakdown's bickering. As soon as he'd heard the mention of 'Airachnid' through the surveillance feeds, he'd went to investigate. Even if Lord Megatron was so confident that the spider's spark was gone to the Pit, Soundwave was not so easily convinced- if she was able to survive Primus knows how long on Archa Seven, then Earth would be a walk through Helix Gardens to her. And if Megatron ever discovered the part he played in her escape...

Wandering thoughts. He wiped them from his processor, ending his recording as Breakdown departed the med-bay with paranoia sparking his circuits. Knockout bade him farewell with a disgruntled hmmph, not even turning to where Soundwave was leaving through the second doorway. By the time the medic would have registered the thud of the panels closing, Soundwave was already on his way to Megatron.

Thankfully the Command Centre was empty when the officer entered. He stopped beside Megatron, staring out across the cloudy expanse before them, and played a snippet of the two mech's conversation to him. He was silent for a long moment after the recording finished, and eventually sounded a harsh bark of laughter.

"Let them speculate," he decreed. "Even if they discover the true father, I see no possible threat to come with the knowledge."

'Of course you wouldn't...' Ever since he'd let Dark Energon into his spark, Megatron's decisions as leader of the Decepticons had become more and more dubious. And then came the day Airachnid returned, and the night she'd been shoved into Megatron's quarters.

Was that why he chose to let her go? Was there some unwanted emotion, some pity that he let slip through his spark that night? He had chosen to not think of the incident at all in the few days since it occurred, turning his attention to more important things. Not at all until... yesterday. When Dreadwing had voiced his intentions to terminate Optimus Prime, and he'd let that attention- that vital, dangerous attention- dift. He'd been thinking of what Airachnid had cradled in her servos, so close to her hammering spark. What she'd kept hidden, what she thought she'd kept hidden, from everyone else until they both spilled out of her chamber. How only one of them survived. And how she'd asked him, begged him, to spare what was left. Not just herself. It was her survival and maternal instincts working in tandem with each other, and it struck at something buried deep in Soundwave's mind.

What, exactly?

He didn't allow himself to think about that.

Megatron was suspicious enough as it was.

Realising how long silence had stretched on for, Soundwave let Breakdown's recorded voice play from the modulations on his visor. "Whoever that kid belongs to... he's one sorry glitch to let them go."

Megatron grumbled another chuckle. "I doubt our Decepticon broodmother is even still pumping energon. Such a shame." A sick sort of curiosity was curdling in his tone. "I might have enjoyed seeing more of my fruit from her spark chamber." And like cracked ice, Megatron's voice gained jagged edges as he glanced sideways to Soundwave.

"But of course, you'd know all about yearning for children, wouldn't you, Soundwave?"

He didn't deign to give a reply, other than the solitary twitch of his digits, almost forming a fist.

xx

Optimus didn't know what life on base would be like with Ratchet knowing where he went off to every evening, but he never could have prepared himself for the glares that burned into his back every time he made for the Ground Bridge. Even when he was certain that he was asleep, or working on something vital, Ratchet would always appear behind him with optics narrow and servos crossed (admittedly Optimus guessed that last part, but he had known Ratchet for over a millennia).

As for Wheeljack, it had taken all of Optimus' reasoning, Ratchet's protests Airachnid's own objections to not have him staying with her and Scorpia permanently. Optimus had already seen what damage Wheeljack could cause unattended, and he wasn't about to have Scorpia anywhere near it, and Airachnid had furiously insisted that she could take care of herself (it was bad enough that she had to rely on Autobots for energon, she had muttered). The Wrecker settled for leaving a grenade with her, should any threats stumble upon them, and he wasn't far behind when Optimus made his own routine visits. Airachnid was almost silent during them, accepting her energon without comment and letting the mechs hold Scorpia after she'd been fed. She huffed her goodbyes when the moon made itself known and they left her in the faint light.

But in the end, everything seemed... peaceful. Far from ideal but... peaceful. That was all Optimus could really ask for.
All until Optimus went on patrol one unassuming sunlit day.

Bumblebee kept his weapons out and trained on the retreating horizon behind them as Optimus led the way, over and down cliff edges and across bare patches in sprawling forestry. Airachnid had made her camp not far away, and Optimus couldn't help stealing glances at the familiar distant rocky ridge where she slept.

One glance lasted one second too long as he almost stumbled helm-first into a cave opening. Bumblebee's panicked whirrs were muffled from the sound of his own gasp. A few loosened stones skipped down into the darkness below, scraping into oblivion.

"I'm fine, Bumblebee," Optimus said to him, taking a cautionary step back. The scout arrived at his side, optics wide at the black expanse yawning open before them.

Beep beep, chirp. "Should we... check it out?"

Optimus thought a long while before answering. "Underground would be a likely place for a Decepticon operation to be hiding itself." 'Or a Decepticon'.

The rough descent was only helped slightly by the light of their optics, one pair wide and whirring with the other narrow and alert. Darkness and uncertainty lay heavy on them, every step of metal-on-rock amplified in the twisting cavern corridors. Optimus winced as his armour scraped against the stones, forcing himself through a narrow gap and into a wide chamber. He stretched his cramped callipers as Bumblebee emerged behind him, shying back as a sudden screech echoed through the rocks.
Lamplight optics widening as they both recognised the sound from Cybertron's past.

And further in, cautiously creeping, what they found wasn't so much an operation as it was an 'impending murder scene'.

"Starscream!" The former Decepticon was scuttling backwards towards them, away from the Insecticon chittering hostility at him. A terror-written faceplate turned towards them, still scrabbling on the rock beneath shaking claws.

"P-Prime?" Starscream almost bit his glossa off in his haste to shovel the stutters out. "What are you do- I mean, praise the Allspark!" His tone changed just in time as he lunged towards Optimus' leg, grabbing onto the wheels and still looking at the stalking beast. "You've come to save me from that brute over there!"

Mandibles clicking, secondary arms raking the air and claws scoring into the gravel, the brute obviously did not appreciate the sentiment.

"An Insecticon..." Optimus' shotgun was out even before he finished the word, stepping backwards and dragging Starscream along with him. Bumblebee's angered whirrs at the sight of the Seeker changed to worry when the Insecticon tracked the pair's movements.

"You'll kill it, won't you?" Starscream begged, optics locked on the drooling mandibles that almost tore his wings off. "I-I mean, such a creature being loose on Earth would be a danger to both bots and humans, wouldn't it?" His bargain was as thinly veiled as his praise for Optimus, but the Prime saw his point as clear as the ion shells he loaded into the creature's carapace. Bumblebee followed suit with his blaster, peppering the black hide with hot wounds. The cries were drowned out by the release of the rounds, and eventually one of Optimus' shots caught the vocaliser. The Insecticon went down in a gush of energon and smoking exoskeleton.

Optimus winced again at how hot his shotgun was as it retracted back into his servo, and at Starscream's claws digging into his leg armour.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Prime! Truly you are as worthy a warrior as Megatron hims- AAGH!" His applause was interrupted as he was dislodged from Optimus' leg in a kick, sending him skidding into the gravel.

"Don't let me find you here again, Starscream." Optimus didn't look back as he made the threat. The seeker watched the Autobots leave in confusion.

"D-don't you want to take me prisoner? Give me s-some chance for redemption?" The desperation in Starscream's optics might have tugged at Optimus' spark, if he didn't know what he would do to Airachnid and Scorpia if he ever found them. Bumblebee was the one who answered.

"Get over yourself, 'Scream. We have better things to do than sparkling-sit you."

xx

Ratchet had more than one reason to be grumpy when they returned to base.

"Taking on an Insecticon... are you both lagging in your processors!?" he exclaimed while examining Bumblebee's chipped paint, ignoring his insistence that the creature never even touched them. Optimus basted in his own thoughts, praying that Starscream heeded his warning and stayed away from Airachnid. In any other situation he would have taken him prisoner, but the risk of him somehow finding out was too great. If Megatron even thought she was still alive, there was nothing they could do to hide her.

"And it's a miracle that it didn't touch you!" Ratchet said with a flourish of his servos at Bumblebee's protests, still mumbling about 'new wave Well-born punks'. He sent Bumblebee off to his quarters with a slap of his servo, pretending not to hear the chirped curses behind him. The medic's face reformed as he stood before Optimus, waiting for his own report of what happened.

"We found Starscream and the Insecticon near her camp." They'd both agreed never to mention Airachnid by name inside the base. Ratchet's optic ridges twitched up.

"How near?"

"Judging from the length of the underground tunnels, I'd say they were right underneath the surrounding forest."

A weary mutter of "Scrap," whistled under Ratchet's vents as he pressed two digits to his helm. "Is there any chance of Starscream going back there?"

"I can't say. Starscream is the most unpredictable of all the Decepticons." Optimus paused before venturing further. "Our safest option would be to move them to somewhere safer, more secure."

"And where exactly might that be?" Ratchet asked skeptically, looking expectantly up at his leader. Optimus took a plaintive moment before making for the base's main computer, tapping in something on the keyboard.

"Haven't heard from you in a while, Prime."

"We have been rather busy as of late, Agent Fowler, but I apologise for my silence." Optimus said, standing back to see the human's comm-image. "I am calling to request a re-issue of the list of possible home base locations that we received upon our arrival to Earth."

"What for?"

"With the Decepticons no doubt working on finding our current base location, it would be wise if we had a back-up base to relocate to at a moment's notice." Ratchet tried not to be impressed at how smoothly Optimus lied, even if it was a half-truth. Fowler sighed as he thought of all the file-digging he'd have to do for this errand.

"Fair enough. I'll send it over when I find it."

"Many thanks, Agent Fowler." Optimus clicked off the comm line, and felt a familiar burning on his back.
"How do you recharge at night, Optimus?" Ratchet muttered, a tut obvious under his disapproval.

'As of recently, I don't...'

A beep from the computer broke the tension, and both bots scanned the too-short list, making it even shorter as they automatically dismissed locations passing under their gazes. Too many humans, too close to Decepticons- and knowing Airachnid, she'd refuse to be anywhere indoors. As they reached the fringes of the list their hopes were tapering out- until one particular name caught onto their vocalisers.

"North Sister Island."

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

"I fully understand that you most likely are adverse to the concept of settling in a human-modified area," Optimus confessed, wringing his digits anxiously. Airachnid had said little on the way to the island that would become her new home, but the tense hunch of her shoulders and her downcast optics spoke volumes. She was scared. "But there is little to no possibility of you or Scorpia being disturbed by humans, or more importantly, Decepticons." She was silent as her gaze swept over the ferns and under the canopies of the forest all around them. Optimus cleared his vocaliser. "If you wish, I could request that some foliage be cleared to allow you more spac-"

"It's... it's fine, Optimus," Airachnid assured, voice distant. She took small steps forwards, pedes crunching the carpet of twigs underneath them. Scorpia slept soundly in her servos, chirping tiny snores against her chestplates.

"Are you certain?"

"The forest brings back... bad memories." She turned so her side was facing Optimus. The sad smile she favoured nowadays flashed back at him. "But I've survived worse."

A rustle in the undergrowth signalled Wheeljack's approach, and he all but tore through the vines as he tried picking leaves out of his armour seams.

"North pier and beaches are safe, and forest doesn't look too bad," he reported, flicking a beetle off his shoulder. "Might see a few big animals around, but nothin' I'm sure you can't handle." Optimus wasn't sure if he approved of Wheeljack's smirk and wink towards Airachnid.

"If I can survive Wrecker company, then Earth creatures will be a relief." The sadness was painted back over with sass galore.

"Ouch. Two centuries past and that glossa's still as sharp as ever." Wheeljack rolled his shoulders while his smirk went lopsided. "The again, I would know-"

"Wheeljack." Something in Optimus' voice made his cables tighten and his frame stand to attention, turning to face the Prime. "I believe Bulkhead will be questioning your absense by now."

"Yeah, yeah, same old story." The Wrecker's optics were practically rolling out of their sockets. "He always did worry himself somethin' fierce." Wheeljack dipped his helm to Airachnid in a farewell before making for the Ground Bridge site, marked between two arching palm trees by a cross in the sandy dirt. Optimus could almost hear the comm line exchange he was having with Ratchet, and the frustrated groans the medic was no doubt making just before the Ground Bridge materialised. He waited until the hum had gone before speaking again.

"And before I depart, Airachnid-" He placed a hand on an audial plate, the inset blue lines glowing for a klick before his digits extracted something from his helm. It was much like a memory stick, small in his open palm held out towards Airachnid. Her eyeridges furrowed.

"What's that?"

"The frequency code for my personal communication line," Optimus explained. "It will allow you to instantly contact me, should you encounter any trouble. I realise I should have given it to you earlier-"

"But you know as well as I do that location can be tracked via comm lines, and you couldn't have me handing such valuable data over to Megatron in exchange for my life." Optimus's optics whirred in surprise as the words spilled from Airachnid's smirking lips. "After a few days of company, you Autobots aren't too hard to figure out."

Optimus cleared his vocaliser at that, dropping his servo as she took the code between her claws. "If there is a situation where you cannot formally address the problem, then a simple comm pulse will suffice to summon me. Likewise if Ratchet is needed, I can send him to you." Not that he expected she'd ever be pining for the medic's attention, but sparklings were unpredictable. Especially when they were living vessels of Dark Energon.

Ratchet still protested leaving Scorpia in such a fragile situation, without any way to monitor her condition outside of check-ups. Optimus had to convince him to even let Scorpia be sent through the Ground Bridge to North Sister Island, with all his arguments that even the slightest malfunction could be a biological disaster.

Optimus wasn't as worried. With what Scorpia and her mother had went through and survived on the Nemesis, he suspected the next steps to be easy.

Big steps, but easy to take.

xx

The base was abuzz when Optimus made his entrance, the humans already settled in after a long day of school and their guardians close by. Where Wheeljack and Ratchet were verbally dinging each other's armour over appropriate sparkling care, Optimus spied the scrubs of Jack's mother, June Darby, sitting as far from the bickering bots as she could get. That gave him an idea. Albeit a risky one.

"Afternoon, Ms Darby." She looked up as he approached, her weary scowl turning into a smile as she lifted herself out of her chair.

"Jack was wondering where you'd gotten to," she remarked, leaning on the railing of the steel walkway.

"Recent Decepticon sightings have forced me to take on further scout duties." Optimus had knelt down so he was near enough to eye-optic level with her. They flicked away for a moment as he tried to gather his thoughts into a sentence.

"On the subject of Jack..." Even from being in contact with humans for over thirty years, he was still unsure of much of their emotional functions. He knew he'd have to tread carefully here. "I wish to inquire about something I believe you have much experience with, though I recognise it as something... personal, and I will fully respect if you do not wish to share it." Her smile faltered and eyebrows knotted together in uncertainty, but she nodded nonetheless.

"Go ahead, Optimus."

"You raised Jack by yourself, correct?" Instantly June's expression hardened, eyes blinking out the fresh chiselled stone of her face.

"Yes... I did." The sigh was heavy as it spilled past her lips. "His father left when he was five and... it's just been me and him since." On Cybertron, most single mothers were left so because their sparkmates had been killed in battle, though Optimus suspected that there plenty left abandoned by fathers in the planet's darker layers, especially in the so called Golden Age. Human females did not seem to differ greatly from femmes in that regard...

"Was it difficult, raising him without a father figure present?"

"Actually, no." Her voice had taken on a distant tone, not unlike the one Airachnid had displayed. "Not really, at least. Nothing much changed, I just had a few more responsibilities. It was all up to me to keep Jack fed and clothed and safe... it was hard on him, though. He still remembers his father. And over the years, it hasn't gotten easier." Her next sigh pressed her eyes closed, arms crossed over as she leant her back against the railing.

"What do you need to know for?" June asked, looking up again at Optimus.

"I'm afraid that is something I cannot disclose at this moment in time, Miss Darby." The apology was hollow in his voice. "But you have my deepest thanks, and my condolences." The smile was back, but not as bright as before.

"Did you have families, back on Cybertron?" Optimus was surprised at the human's question, never suspecting that any other race would have much interest in the culture of his own.

"Cybertronian family structure follows much of the same principle as those of you humans. Though some like myself are born of the Well and have no traditional 'parents', there are those who are born from a spark fusion between a mech and a femme." 'Or harvested in a sparkling farm. Or created in a laboratory under Protihex. Or spawned from Decepticon savagery...'

"A femme... like Arcee?" June's look was quizzical, stone chipped away to soft clay.

"Yes." 'And like Beta. Firestar. Lancer. Greenlight. Elita... all lost to the Allspark.'

"And like human women, femmes can 'birth' new sparks?"

"That is correct, yes..." Prime wasn't certain of where June was heading with her queries, but she took a moment of consideration before dropping her voice to a whisper, looking left and right for potential eavesdroppers. Optimus amplified his audio receptors to hear her.

"Optimus... is Arcee carrying a spark?"

Much of the base's interior was almost flattened as Optimus just caught himself from falling backwards, processor lagging as he tried to understand what June had said.

"N-No, no." Even his vocaliser was glitching in shock. "I mean, if she is, then I am not aware of it, but-"

"What ya' talkin' about?" Leave it to Miko to be distracted by a behemoth of a robot almost falling flat on his aft. She was still scrambling across the walkway and just stopped herself from hurtling over it by splaying her hands on the railings, lurching herself forwards and then backwards, her boots eventually finding solid ground. "Ugh, it's something boring, isn't it?" She was mock snoring over the rails before June could answer, with a knowing wide smile growing that Optimus didn't trust.

"Actually, we were just talking about baby Cybertronians-"

"BABY ROBOTS?! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, that is so cute!" Miko was squashing her face together as she jumped up and down, making the metal underneath her ring and thrum with her excitement. "They'd be so tiny and have big eyes and crawling everywhere and-" She cut herself off to make a high-pitched squealing noise, barely hearing a distant groan of discomfort from Ratchet banging on his fragile audios. "Where are they, where are they? Ooooh, I wanna see them!"

"I am sorry to disappoint you, Miko, but there are no sparklings in the vicinity." He turned his optics on June. "Or the near future," he said pointedly, rising from his kneel to escape the sound of Miko's boots clanging on the walkway as she ran in circles.

"Awww, what? You got me all pumped up for nothing? Dude, not cool." But even as Prime was leaving, June was leaning across to whisper something in the young girl's ear. Her grin spread like wildfire, and she all but launched herself down the stairs and raced towards a certain blue femme.

"HEY ARCEE, CONGRATULATIONS!"

"Congratulations on what?" As Arcee's confusion sounded across the base, Optimus was already grimacing.

'Primus, give me strength...'

xx

Night came quickly after Optimus' departure, and Airachnid settled herself down in her new cave. There were human constructs nearby that she could have used as shelter, but she shunned them. They were too closed, too barren. She was used to the sifting of soil underped and soft brush of leaves falling on her armour, even if she didn't want to be. It was familiar to her, and in the wake of her life collapsing all around her, familiarity was what she needed to hold onto.

At least here she was closer to the sky, sitting on the crest of a hill inside the great ring of mountainside that the island thrust up from its left side. The outside world was naught but the distant crash of waves on rock, waves on sand, and the hiss of her breath through her vents.

It was her own private Archa Seven, for better or worse. All that could pull her out of it was the code now running through her processor and slipping down into her data banks, catalogued as Optimus' frequency.

She could easily lead him into a trap with it. They both knew that. What was he doing then, handing it over to her? He'd given her too much charity for her to attribute it to that. Was he daring her to try something, challenging her?

Or... did he truly trust her?

She flung the now-empty code chip down into the dense ferns below, lost in the undergrowth before it even hit the ground. Primus, he kept complicating everything. She was trapped all over again. She should have ran off when she had the chance... she should have tried to.

But she did once. Dusty centuries ago, during Cybertron's funeral march, when the hollow streets were left for the dead and the sky was choked with the promise of escape.

The sweet, bastard promise of hope flung out among the stars. And yet only a handful found that hope on Earth.

'Some help you were,' she cursed up at those stars, winking down at her in mockery. Friends one minute, enemies the next. The story of every Decepticon's life. And every step of that life was littered with fallen false loyalties and lies.
Airachnid knew she wasn't the only one who deserted the Decepticons when Cybertron finally gave up its breath. Some banded together and took ships for themselves, others scavenging what they could from the ruins of their war and fleeing. She didn't like to call herself a coward. She wasn't afraid of the war, of dying for a miner's cause. What she despised was the utter mundanity of it all. War was so boring. What did she care for the fate of a planet she was dragged onto kicking and screaming, for the fealty demanded by a symbol branded on her chest, rusting as easy as any other metal on the battlefield graveyard?

She was not a Cybertronian. She didn't understand why so many of them sacrificed their sparks for naught- a bulk order of idiotic suicide- any more than she understood why she was different. Techno-organic, that was one of the first things in Primal Vernacular she had heard from medics trying to prod at her protoform, coming away with their own bleeding and scarred. Any restraints they tried to use on her melted in seconds under acid. Eventually Flatline had to bring in Shockwave, and he couldn't even find a data port to plug in a Cortical Psychic Patch.

It was still breems before they let her go, sweating coolant under the armour they strapped onto her as she was marched before Megatron himself. Talons tapping, scarred lips crinkling, damned red optics...

Airachnid didn't notice she was shaking until a whirr from her arms signalled complaint. Shuffling Scorpia's position so that she nestled into one chestplate eased her, helm nuzzling into the warm plating.

How could she love and hate something so much? Something that did nothing but ache her servos, waste her webbing and gnaw endlessly into her energon rations? She'd never liked sparklings, there were too many of them in adult-size protoforms where the Decepticons were concerned.

But for all that, Scorpia was the reason she was still alive. She frustratingly anchored Airachnid, forced her to take shelter in the cave where Optimus had first found them. And if Autobot pity was anything to rely on, she was the reason Optimus spared her.

That counted for something, she figured.

Flamewar had said her meteorite had come from a secret admirer.

'Perhaps the Universe is my admirer...'

Her hand was in her subspace, she noticed. Gripping the other reminder of her wretched mutant existence. With the night so clear the rock glittered even more, challenging her optics and biolights. She almost laughed at the thought of so many bots actually buying lumps of burnt carbon and sodium. Even when crystals mined from the blood of lower castes were hammered into them, they were just lumps dressed up as something valuable.

She was half tempted to send it falling the data chip, when a whine stopped her servo.

Scorpia's optics were wide with curiosity, miniature digits reached out and wiggling, waving in the webbing and grabbing for the piece of heaven held between the spears of her talons. With a passive grunt Airachnid let the useless trinket fall into her daughter's pining grasp. It was about the size of Scorpia's torso when she held it, hugging it close and cooing as it sparkled. Another thing about sparklings, they were easily distracted.

A smile crept onto her face when Scorpia started nibbling on the rock, scraping her growing denta along its surface. After a few seconds her face screwed up and her glossa leapt out, helm shaking as she tried to dispel the taste of granite. Airachnid almost jumped when she realised that the sound echoing around her was laughter. Her own laughter.

But there was something else echoing as well, tiny and almost lost in the timbre of her own vocaliser. Scorpia was looking up at her, face half-hidden by her chestplate so only her wide optics showed. She raised herself up slightly so Airachnid could see for herself.

"Mama."

The femme looked down at the sparkling as if she'd just grown eight legs (not that it would be that much of a surprise). Her latch mouth hung open, glossa still flicking and edges raised in an innocent, proud smile. Scorpia's first word... was that supposed to be important?

"Right. I'm your... Mama." The word hit Airachnid's taste nodes so strangely as it rolled off her glossa, realisation and confession released into the night. There was an unpleasant swelling in her spark, as if someone had pulled her chamber out, and Scorpia happily nuzzling close again didn't help it.

And then another grim thought struck her.

What if she never got her to shut up after this?

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

It was only much, much later when Arcee was cooling off in her quarters (after a fervent declaration of, "I'd sooner be Insecticon bait than having something like a sparkling sucking all my energon away!") and Miko managed to calm herself down and doodle enough 'baby robots' that Optimus was able to collapse in exhaustion- almost literally, from how he stumbled over to Ratchet for a conversation that he was partially dreading.

"I noticed you talking with Ms Darby," the medic pointed out. Obviously he did not approve of their topic of 'robot babies' from his glare.

"It has come to my attention that human children are not so diverse from our own species' offspring as appearances might suggest," Optimus explained. "Though I have no personal experience with sparklings, I feel that Ms Darby's own experience as a single mother may serve to benefit our goal." He stopped himself from mentioning 'Airachnid' where others could hear.

"Makes sense..." Ratchet reasoned, tapping a digit on his chin. "Though I doubt Ms Darby is in possession of servo blasters and poison secretion to help her on that front." Optimus' smile was faint at that quip.

"Also, Ratchet, if you wouldn't mind, I would recommend looking up as much as you are able towards sparkling care. I understand you were not in charge of any maternal or pediatric units on Cybertron-"

"Maybe not, but I do know how an average Cybertronian is supposed to work," Ratchet said defensively, his mind already glossing back over hours of medical lessons sat through in Protihex. "A sparkling is much the same, give or take size and some still growing organs. But wouldn't the sparkling require some form of special care, given her... heritage?" Whether he meant of organic or Decepticon nature, Optimus wasn't sure he'd be comfortable in deciding.

"I will leave that a call for you to make, old friend."

"Very well." His digit swiped over a datapad to his side. "I'll join you with her in the next few days- best to space out check ups for more accurate observation. On another topic, Optimus..." His servos hovered and he bit into his lipplates. "The human children have been digging around in online evidence considering the Decepticon's defection. And Miko seems to suspect her being involved. We have to be careful around them. While she may hold back from harming other Autobots, there's no telling what she could do to humans..."

"Your concerns are well noted," Optimus said grimly. Mother or not, he wasn't about to let Airachnid start her collection all over again. "If that will be all, I intend towards a long recharge ahead of me-"

"Before you go, Optimus," the medic called him back just as he turned around. "I trust you are in sound health? No more... relapses recently?"

"Not since a few days ago," Optimus said truthfully, dimly wondering if he'd have been able to pull off lying at this stage. He was grateful for the reprieve on his conscience, but he couldn't help but miss seeing Elita so clearly again...
With a final nod, the Prime departed, not knowing how he spoke too soon until too late.

xx

"Think they'll be able to find us in here?"

"If they do, Megatronus has been teaching me some gladiator tricks." Their laughter hit off the crystals surrounding them, filling the mineral air with sweet soundwaves. Elita let herself lean into Orion's chest, balling her digits into a fist and playfully hitting it against a plate before stepping back.

"Careful, even with four digits Jazz could probably still ding your helm."

"We'll see when he ever gets that thing fixed." He always was nervous around medics, and there was no way he could afford a custom replacement (and if he did he'd have it painted gold with platinum plates. Orion wasn't sure if he wanted to be around the attention a thing like that could attract).

"Thanks, anyway, for taking me out here," Elita sighed once she gained her composure, angling her giddy optics all around. "I've never been to Helix Gardens before."

"I was planning to bring you when the sun was rising the next solar cycle." Before Jazz decided to drown himself in high-grade and lead the whole security force of a nightclub (and Prowl) on a chase down the street and into the next city state. They only managed to slip away from the chaos because Lancer and Ratchet were just as bad. "But it's just as stunning in the night as in the morning."

Elita smiled in agreement, the glow of the crystals matching her optics and taking over when they shuttered closed for a moment. She flicked them upwards when they opened, and gasped in surprise.

"I thought you weren't able to see the stars in Praxus." Orion followed her gaze, and saw an impossible cluster of pin points huddling together in the dark. Praxus was known, among other things, for being so cut off from reality that even the sky was blocked from view, beaten by the canopies and buildings and neon that dominated the city.

"There must not be as much light pollution out here," he muttered, his smile joining Elita's. As they leant together on the railing of the small bridge underneath them, something crossed Orion's processor and found its way to his vocaliser."I heard Sentinel once say that all the stars had a place. They knew that place, where they were born and where they would eventually die. And they accepted it. That's why you never see them moving."

"Not exactly a subtle analogy to what he's trying to push around here," Elita scoffed, her lips compressing to a pout at the mere mention of 'Sentinel'.

"You mean the caste system?" Orion was surprised at the scorn in her tone, giving how dismissive she was of Cybertron's politics just a few days ago.

"Yes, the caste system! He's comparing something as beautiful as the cosmos to his 'utopia' that glorifies the oppression of bots who can't do anything about it!" She threw her servos up in emphasis, her gaze hardening. "That's just fragged up, Orion. Real fragged up."

He was unsure what to say over her sigh, helm slumping over the railing and servos limp.

"Can I tell you something, Orion?" she asked, propping her helm back up. "Back in Iacon, when you told me about this council meeting... I know I said a lot about how it shouldn't bother us, that the castes and everything weren't our problem, but... I forgot I once was one of them, having to scrape for energon every day just to survive."

"'Barely making enough credits to keep yourself powered,'" Orion recited, now realising how close his words hit home from her solemn nod.

" And I've been trying to forget about it," she continued. "Hearing you talk about the lower bots like that, it brought some painful memories back. I don't want to think about what my life was when... when I was Ariel."
Orion had never asked Elita exactly what had led to her working in a place like The Circle, but he'd heard enough horror stories of what happened in the Art caste to know that it wouldn't be a pretty story. He respected her too much to have her recounting what she had to go through to get where she was.

"I know something else that Alpha Trion once told me, something that might make you feel better," he offered, doubting that she could see a fault in his words. "There was a data cylinder, I remember. And it had a list of all the shapes the stars could make, each one an anchor for a line. And if your optics were in line with your processor, you could see art in the stars. You could see beauty in infinity." She found strength in her servos again to lift herself up, staring up at Orion curiously.
"Art... in the stars?" She reserved the right to be skeptical of anything named 'art', even outside of the castes.

"It takes some effort to see them, but they're there," he assured her. "You just have to know where to look. I was named for one of them. 'Orion the Hunter'. Supposedly it shows a mech wielding a bow and sword. It's impossible to see from Cybertron, but it's out there somewhere. And knowing that... that either above or beyond us, there will always be a piece of ourselves existing, it brings me some peace."

"My favourite one though-" He reached into his subspace for a datapad ("Trust you to bring a 'pad on vacation, Orion") and brought up a star map image. "-is this one."

Elita took the datapad in her own digits, zooming in her optics on the scribble of stars.

"'Scorpio', containing open clusters Messier 6 and 7, located in Milky Way galactic quadrant SQ3," she read off the title, screwing up her glossa in pronouncing some of the words."I can see why you like it."

"It's more than just a jumble of words," Orion insisted, pointing onto the pad. "See how it branches off at the top, and forms a curve at the bottom?"

"If you moved your hand out of the way, I could see."

"Sorry." She studied it for a few nanoklicks, turning it sideways and upside down.

"What's it supposed to look like?"

"That's the thing, Elita." Orion couldn't help grinning. "No-one really knows, not even Alpha Trion himself! Some other stars show at least mech shapes, or something akin to a Rust Sea creature, but this... it's mystified him. The name and location was all that was written about it in the Covenant. Beyond that, it's anyones guess."

"Wow... and what do you think it looks like?"

"That depends," he said with a small shrug. "Sometimes it's a strange starship, others it's a road or-"

"A pretty damn weird road," Elita muttered with a smirk.

"Well alright then, Ms. Astronomy. What do you see?" More than nanoklicks this time, Elita held the pad close, tracing the imaginary lines over and over.

"I see... something dangerous," she declared slowly. "Beastly. Like an Insecticon, but... deadlier. Small and easy to not notice. The curves are all jagged, and the branch is like something sharp." She twitched a smile up at Orion's impressed expression. "All pretty basic geometry. In fact... I think I saw a techno-organic like that once. Big tail with a stinger and everything."
"Where do you even see all these techno-organics anyway?" Orion had lost count of how many Elita had claimed to have seen, on top of free walking Deployers and Insecticon hybrids.

"This one place I worked in early on, it had a whole business in hiding outlaws and such. Techno-organics were always somewhere in the shadows. They'd get a refugee discount if they didn't spit everywhere or claw up the berths." She tried not to make Orion drop the datapad from how his chuckle sent his servos shaking as she handed it back over.

"Small and deadly though... I like it." He only noticed Elita's hand still brushing along his when he dropped the pad back into subspace, letting her digits find the plate creases. The metal of her palm was warm as he closed his hand around it, both of them joined as they watched infinity's canvas twinkling above them.

xx

'So much for that small blessing...' Optimus was still blinking helm pain away long after he jolted awake, wondering what good his 'Orion the Hunter' would be on Earth. Primus, he never even realised... when he pointed Scorpio out that night, it was the only one he recognised and it just leapt to his vocaliser. And now Scorpia was an eternal painful reminder of that long lost evening. As if it wasn't hard enough being with the daughter of his arch enemy.

The sun was quickly warming his armour to scorching point, the trees and ferns offering little protection and wrinkling when he brushed past them. Airachnid wasn't near the marked Ground Bridge point, but Optimus hadn't expected her to stay close to somewhere so open. He guessed she would choose somewhere high up, where she could watch anyone or anything approaching.

With her erratic EM field he couldn't rely on his spark signal detectors, but every hill he searched came up empty. The mountains were too large to quickly scale, and he doubted he'd be able to reach the same places Airachnid could. Attempting to reach or track her via comm line was also difficult, with the island far from any electrical relays and the overgrowth only offering interference. The energon in his subspace, and his spark, was getting colder with every passing klick.

He was beginning to consider asking in Wheeljack to help when his comm unit burst to life in a frenzy of static, making him wince before he could make out the panic-leaden breaths in his audios.

"crzzz-krsh-uzz-O-ptimus!"

"Airachnid?" His optics were rolling everywhere, his processor still disoriented. "Where are you, is something wrong?"

"Yes, there is som- kzzz-fragging wrong!" Even when choked with static her annoyance was clear as the sky above. "When you chose- is island, were you aware that- kzzz- is another- cnshhh- beast wandering loose?!"

"What?!" He was almost certain he heard her wrong. "That's impossible- there are no other cybernetic lifeforms on Earth, apart from ourselves and-" 'And Insecticons.' Fear clawed more ice into his spark.

"Airachnid, what is the nature of this beast? Is it insectoid, can it fly?"

"No, nothing of the sort, thank Primus for once." There was a sound of heavy impact, and the wrenching sound of Scorpia wailing. "It's some-zshhh - overgrown lizard!"

"Lizard?" Apart from Predacons Optimus wasn't sure if he remembered any sort of lizard beings on Cybertron, even before the war. Was this some kind of new Decepticon creation?

"He found us when I was- charging," Airachnid continued, her words in a rush and full of wind that whipped past her as she ran. "I managed- chsh- ght him off for a few hours, but the grenades are gone and my power levels are almost completely go- KSSHHHHH- HURRY!"

Optimus only realised his shotguns were already out when the transmission ended.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Even with the noise that Optimus heard in Airachnid's comm, the island was large enough that he could barely pinpoint where a disturbance could be. It took precious seconds for his comm unit could pick up her co-ordinates, but even with them Optimus knew it would be unlikely that she- or the beast- would still be there by the time he reached them. But at least he knew where to start.

The co-ordinates took him to the other side of the island, pelting past vine mazes and vaulting over fallen trees and scuffed dirt pits. He burst out into a wrecked clearing, littered with shredded ferns and uprooted trees leaving a trail deeper into the forest. There were energon stains in the dirt under his peds, but he doubted it was Airachnid's or Scorpia's. Hoped, at least.

Following the trail showed him more destruction, grass and bushes torn under colossal claw marks gouged into the packed dirt. He tried to tread cautiously, anticipating an ambush by whatever monster was prowling nearby. Sunlight streaming through tree gaps occasionally blinded him, and when he heard the distant roar-echoed crash of foliage he was lost in a flash of light as he whirled towards it. He grunted as his optics tried to recalibrate themselves and he leaned against a tree trunk, trying to get himself into shade. He caught a glimpse of dark grey metal rippling under gold and red steel, a lashing tail slipping out of sight and the stench of something raw and smoky rolled towards him. It reminded Optimus of the fumes that primitive energon processing gave off; the streets of Tarn and Kaon had permanent clouds of the stuff draped over skytops and laced in the air. It reminded him of Megatronus. He didn’t like it.

But he forced his olfactories closed and followed the reek and all its bad memories, more grimy grey metal disappearing into a tree cluster when he emerged from his hiding spot. His previous assumption at the Predacons’ extinction was beginning to change as he gauged the size of the thing’s shadow screening through the trees ahead. It looked as big as Alpha Trion, maybe even more so. Optimus almost wished he’d brought Wheeljack with him.

He emerged from cover again, bolstering his peds against the earth quaking beneath giant steps, his audios ringing from a grating roar and the frown under his battle mask growing with every worry-racked klick. If he was having second thoughts about facing such a beast, how would Airachnid have fared against it? Worst, how terrified would Scorpia be?
That was all assuming they were both still alive.

Ahead, all he could see of the creature was the swishing tail, razor end catching the sunlight and throwing it back off down its undulating back. He tried to associate it with anything else he might have seen on Cybertron, but Even from this distance he heard a heavy hum of vents opening and closing, the whirr of cooling fans beating back the tropical heat and the unmistakable growl of a predator on the prowl. Hopefully Airachnid was well out of sight, leaving Optimus to dispatch the hunter himself.
With the thud of its footsteps vibrating through the ground and almost unbalancing him, he planned to sneak up on the thing and see exactly what he was dealing with. The trees were too drawn back from the rubbled clearing to offer him any decent cover, and there was the danger of being trapped underneath them if that tail decided to whip around and knock an entire line down. That only left the open, trampled grass as a route towards the beast, and if the thing decided to turn around all he would have to defend himself was his shotguns.

As he timed his approach, Optimus couldn’t help but remember something Ironhide had once said, just after the war had started and when the Matrix still burned its foreign presence in his spark chamber. “Them guns ain’t gonna do ya’ no good when there’s Deceptipunks left, right, and fallin’ out the fraggin’ sky, Prime. Six nanoklicks reload time, best possible fire rate’a two shots a klick, solid plasma rounds?” He tutted and sighed, then slapped Prime’s nearest servo. “Primus sake, Optimus, yer’ the fraggin’ leader a’ our sorry aft army and yer’ brandishin’ pre-Golden Age weaponry! See if Ratchet’ll let ya’ get upgrades- no, make ‘im get you somethin’ just a little better than those things.” Both Ironhide and his worn advice were long gone, and ever since he spoke those words Optimus had only heeded them after Archa Seven, letting Ratchet graft a rapid fire trigger and extra ammo wells into his gun mechanisms, but nothing more. He wasn’t as attached to his weapons as he knew other mechs could be, but it was more a matter that back then, when he was still lost within the depths of the infinite wisdom of the Primes, he wanted to preserve what little he had left of Orion Pax, of his original body. He just had to hope that his shotguns still weren’t as useless as Ironhide had decreed them to be.

But he could ponder on that later. Now, he was Optimus Prime with a duty to perform.

A very large, very threatening, very angry duty.

Closer to the creature he could see better the folds of metal rippling as the titanic body moved, the spiked spinal strut arching out sharp rib-like structures that shined like black sunkissed steel. He couldn’t see the front or sides without compromising stealth, but the metal was clearly Cybertronian, which only baffled Prime further. He’d never seen any native animal as large or lumbering as this on Cybertron, not even in the Rust Sea. Not to mention the question of how such a thing landed on Earth without either Autobots or Decepticons knowing, and whether this thing was ‘Bot or ‘Con...

The earthquakes paused, the swishing tail hovering in the air and looming long and low over Optimus. The sound of vents was pitched up, growls now a low contemplative rumble. If he could see its optics, Optimus was sure they would be wide and searching for prey. His shotguns whirred as a neck bulging with cables swung a behemoth head towards him- as it turned out, the optics were red and narrowed, set into deep pits astride a wide muzzle full of denta, lip plates barely fitting around them, even when they were pulled back. Vocal fluids frothed and dripped from the daggers bared at Optimus, fat droplets splattering on the ground as the monster began to walk closer.

“Fellow Cybertronian!” Somehow Prime amplified his vocaliser louder than the ambient growls filling the air, edging backwards and blinking from the wave of corrupt stench billowing between grinding teeth. “I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and guardian of the natives of this planet.” He imagined Airachnid rolling her optics at him if she was nearby, as he was hoping, and it gave him some strength to continue. “On my authority as Prime and by the power of the Matrix, I command you to stand down and submit!”

He didn’t know if the brute could even understand him, let alone reply, but the head turned slightly to the side and the lip plates drew forward, entire body turning itself around and claws chewing up the ground as the taloned peds repositioned themselves. Optimus didn’t dare move while caught in the red headlights glaring down at him, and his vents were scarcely whistles in the wind. The tense seconds passing between them were marked only by the rhythmic swish swish of the beast’s tail, sunlight still glinting across its sword and taunting Optimus’ focus. The slobber on the denta was beginning to dry as they moved apart, making room for a snarl of rumbling, bitten words pushing out between them.

"Me Grimlock no care about Prime! Me Grimlock KING!"

There was an instant of confusion before Optimus felt himself land against a wall of trees as the tail he so warily regarded came whipping around and slamming into him. A scattering of warnings sprang up on Optimus’ HUD as his optics flickered, servos sprawled in the undergrowth as his entire frame groaned from the hard impact. The earthquakes had started again, and were coming closer towards him with every second he spent trying to pull himself back onto his peds. His weapons had to be switched out as he braced his servos on a tree branch, leaving him as vulnerable as a drone set against a Metrotitan. But as he tried to slow his vents and let the pain in his newly warped cables ease, his processor only just analyzed what the beast had said.
Grimlock...

‘’Grimlock?!’ Optimus had heard the name before, he had no doubt about that. During the war, on top of the Wreckers and the Aerialbots, there was the Lightening Strike Coalition Force. They were mostly thought of as a poor man’s version of the Wreckers, with all the co*ckiness and none of the discipline, led by the mech who called himself Grimlock and went out of his way to oppose every order Optimus put towards him. The rest of his coalition wasn’t any better than their leader- Snarl liked to live up to his name with every word he spoke at command meetings, and it was worth a prayer to Primus if Swoop ever showed up to one. Even so, their fateful disappearance (following disobedience of direct orders, he had to note) had struck a blow to Optimus ranks, and losing an entire squadron didn’t do favours for his public image in the optics of already skeptical soldiers.

But now their leader was here, changed into some kind of... animal. And about to charge right into him if he didn’t get out of the way in five klicks.

Rolling out of the way, Optimus heard the former Autobot-turned beast collide with the trees where he sheltered just moments ago, and took up a new defensive stance with his shotguns.

“Grimlock, I know you know who I am!” Optimus continued, his booming voice bolstered with the knowledge that this wasn’t some kind of Decepticon-engineered threat. “And I know you can understand me, so I will not ask again. Stand. Down!”

The drooling muzzle shook fiercely, splattering fluid again. “Me Grimlock no follow Prime! Me do what me want!” Optimus never remembered Grimlock as a well-versed mech, but this new speech of his was more suiting of a week old sparkling than a commando unit leader. But if this was a new body he was occupying, then it was unlikely that much of his processor would have survived such extensive host reformatting.

Taking quick steps backwards, Optimus thought over a new strategy.

“And what does Grimlock want?” he asked carefully, his battlemask scorching from the heat of his vents trapped against it. ‘Primus, let me leave here to find Airachnid, at least.’ He had to believe that she managed to escape the area with Scorpia, at least with him distracting Grimlock now.

The brute tilted his head again, almost surprised that he wasn’t challenged again. His strange smaller front servos drew together, his optics narrowing and looking away for a klick before spreading his jaws wide.

“Me Grimlock want SPIDER LADY!” And the confusion was back as fresh as ever.

“You want... Airachnid?” Optimus wondered if his impact had damaged more than just his armour as he tapped on his audios. But Grimlock’s earnest nod proved that he heard right.

“Me want pretty spider lady and little girl!” he said, his tail starting to wag back and forth. “Me want family! Me be good sire!” In the midst of his excitement his oversized olfactory ports flared and his lip plates made a shape as close to a frown as possible.
“Prime no be good sire,” he decreed. “Prime too dumb and weak! And ugly!” Optimus wasn’t sure how the last one was relevant, but he knew better than to argue when he was within snapping distance of Grimlock’s jaws.

“’Spider lady’ is under my care, Grimlock,” he said slowly, shifting his position on his peds. “And you tried to hunt her like some rogue Insecticon!”

“Not hunt! Me Grimlock not hurt anyone! Me wanted to catch spider lady and girl! Me Grimlock be good sire!” he insisted, bobbing his head up and down. Optimus suppressed a sigh, wondering how he could have forgotten how stubborn the original Grimlock was.

“And if Grimlock agrees not to harm me, will Grimlock help find ‘spider lady’ again?” His weary question was met with a defiant growl and more head shakes.

“Me Grimlock no help Prime! Me find family by self! Me Grimlock kin-“ Before he could finish his proclamation a black blurr suddenly launched onto Grimlock's muzzle, lost in the motion of him trying to shake it off with an annoyed roar. But the white starting to spread over his jaws muffled his cry, jolting his head to a stop as it was caught in a stringy mass of webbing gluing his mouth closed and his head to a side of his neck. Even as Airachnid stood on his restrained head he was starting to pull free of the bonds, but at least she was unharmed. More webbing was spiralling out of her palms as she worked to pacify the beast below her.

“What are you waiting for, Prime, the return of the Cybertron Knights?” she was yelling down at Optimus, still stunned that she was alive- alive- and well enough to be taunting him “Get over here and put your aft to use for once!” The effect of her sharp words was dampened somewhat by the sparkling cooing wrapped in the safety of her back legs, but the armour dents Optimus was still rubbing had taught him that sometimes he should just shut up.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

It took two long, splintered hours of flying dust, scorching blasters and ferocious roars before Grimlock finally subsided and allowed Airachnid’s webs to restrain him. Optimus suspected that it would have taken twice as long- or more likely that Grimlock would never have backed down- if not for her assistance, and he was grateful that he brought along extra cubes of energon.

“I’m fine, Optimus. You worry more than a maternity drone in a spark nest.” Airachnid had helped herself to two cubes, but she refused aid for her pulled joints or protoform abrasions. “I’m not the one who had a tree slammed on top of me.”

“Earth flora does seem to have a grudge against me...” Optimus muttered, remembering the ringing in his helm after a Vehicon drone knocked him off a mountain ledge with a tree trunk. He shook his helm as if he could still feel it.

“Flora and mechanical fauna,” she added with a chuckle. “Grimlock really doesn’t like you, Prime.”

Optimus hmmed as he looked over to where the ‘Dinobot’, as he had called himself, lay flat on his side under a wide-leafed tree, pawing at the webbing still around his jaws. “And yet he shows no hostility towards you...” A high trill echoed through the forest then, from a tiny shape nuzzling into Grimlock’s exposed side. “Or Scorpia.”

“Strange, that,” Airachnid agreed. “But I’m not about to complain. Whatever he is, as long as he isn’t trying to shoot me, then that’s good enough.” Optimus could feel his archivist curiosity boiling at what could have brought the long-dead bot to Earth, or what caused his protective compulsions over the femmes, but he tried to set it aside for now. They were all safe, and Scorpia markedly happier with the Dinobot nearby, and that was all that mattered.

But there was one bit of curiosity that Optimus allowed himself to indulge.

"On another note, if I may ask, Airachnid... how did you come to join the Decepticons?"

"You do have your priorities straight, don't you?" she scoffed through a small smile. Those were becoming more common with each day, and Optimus couldn't help but feel pleased at that. "If you found a Scraplet in your spark chamber, you'd ask it for directions to your fuel pump." A long silence came after her jape, and Optimus thought he wasn't going to receive an answer.

"They were the ones who lifted me off of A-7," she eventually explained, hugging her knees closer to her chest. "One of them, at least. Lockdown, I think his name was."

Optimus had heard of the Decepticon bounty hunter before, though reportedly he was killed on a planet in the Regulon system not long after the Exodus. "He took me back to Cybertron; to the bots he called his masters. They were ... friendly, for an army of murderers at least... but that might have been just because I had no armor on." Her smile turned to a smirk when she caught the dark flare of heat that bloomed in Optimus' faceplate at that. "When I eventually received some, they put me in their training ranks. That lasted for all of two solar cycles; weapon handling, bomb construction, simple battle skills, I just seemed to... know it all.” She took on a speculative tone. “Hmm, I think they were disappointed I didn't turn out to be so much of an uncultured savage to do as they liked with."

Optimus had never known before how Decepticons organised their own recruits, but it was strange to hear it being so similar to Autobot’s own procedures. Though he wasn’t sure if they had any ‘savages’ on the field- apart from the one lying only a few feet away.

"After I flew through training I was shoved into the main army ranks,” Airachnid continued. “But by that point it was late in the war, and everything other than drones were in short supply. Femmes and other sparse bots were reassigned off of the battlefields, and I became a torture specialist and interrogator-" Optimus tried to hide his wince at that, remembering how Arcee and Tailgate and countless other Autobots had learnt that the hard way. Airachnid noticed it, and her gaze fell slightly.

"Your Arcee would have told you all about that..." she muttered.”But before you try going on some Autobot 'redemption' speech, let me make one thing clear." When her optics looked around at him again, they were swimming in a familiar ferocity. "I am not sorry for what I did during the war." Each word was spoken slowly, punctuated with a flash of her fangs. "Not the torture, nor the murder, or even for Arcee. She has killed just as many Cybertronians as I have, just like every other Autobot and Decepticon. Just like you." Optimus wasn't sure if he had the words to contradict her, even though at the heart of her stance she was right. His hands clenched, distantly remembering the feeling of Decepticon energon dripping and drying in the metal seams.

“I don’t call myself innocent, Airachnid, nor does any Autobot capable of surviving the war...” he said slowly. “But even I find it hard to fully excuse the past. Your past. I have placed it aside for the sake of aiding you these last few days, but you and I both know old wounds are not so easily healed.”

"I did what I had to do like everyone else,” she said emotionlessly. “Just be glad that I haven't had time to start it all over again."

Optimus didn't doubt her threat, from the venom sheen that her fangs started to glisten with. His tone was cold, distant, clipped like an Empurated Seeker's wings. "Understood."

The old enemy silence took over, joined with sighing vents and talons still beating a metronome melody on stone.

"I don't say it to be spiteful, Prime," Airachnid pointed out. "I'm just... used to being judged more harshly than others. I don't want pity, or prejudice. I only want to make it clear that I am no different from anyone else involved in the War, despite... physical differences, obviously." Talons tapped on the rock beside her to divert her motor functions. "I don't know or care to know how my kind was treated before the war, but I can personally vouch that it couldn't have been any better from during it." Optimus had never devoted much thought process to how techno-organics would have fared in war time- to his knowledge the Autobot ranks had never had a TO recruited, so it was always assumed that they were either killed or hiding themselves from the war in the Underworld or Cybertronian wilds. When Bumblebee and Cliffjumper rescued Arcee from Airachnid, they couldn't report much on her appearance, and Arcee never talked about the incident to others; especially not to Optimus. But before the war even the lowest caste bot was generally more respected than a techno-organic. Senator Ratbat's appointment shortly before Megatron's uprising did little to stop discrimination against them, with all his attention focused on enforcing the Senate's laws rather than helping his own people.

"In truth, my position in the Decepticons... helped my techno-organic traits", Airachnid confessed, folding her legs back over the rock to dangle over the hill side. "It fueled my instincts, the compulsion that I've always felt to hunt and kill. Like a Scraplet feasts on metal to survive, I felt that I had to kill to live. After the Exodus I eventually did have to. I see nothing wrong with that."

“That is... understandable,” Optimus concluded.

“No need to worry yourself with wondering when I’ll start killing again, though,” Airachnid assured. “Ever since re-joining the Decepticons, I haven’t felt... anything. I suspect the pregnancy reset my organic protocols and switched from hunter to...” She trailed off, hesitant to call herself ‘mother’.

"In any case, when I left Cybertron, I had to find other outlets for my needs, as well as a source of energy. Whenever I felt it rising, I had to hunt something before I tore my own ship apart.” She sighed as she continued. “Furthermore, the Harbinger only had a limited store of energon that I could consume, but fortunately I found that I could draw fuel from organic matter. So I landed on other planets, hunting the native species for food and staying for as long as I needed.” Her helm lowered again, and she pressed a hand to her lips to muffle her next sentence. “Usually it was when the population was dead."

"And you also felt the need to collect your victim's heads?" Optimus asked before he could stop himself.

She shrugged rather than throwing him the deadly look that he had braced himself for. "I got lonely, and bored. It kept me occupied."

“But Kaon had no shortage of distractions for the war.” Thankfully she was smiling again, if only faintly. “By night and off-duty, I was a... dancer, you might say. Not like Autobot dancing, far from it, more like... well, I wouldn’t expect you to know about Kaon’s night clubs, but they were... places of quite ill repute.”

When she finished with a light chuckle, she found that his optics had turned away, their light clouded and distant.

“Haven’t fallen asleep, have you, Optimus?” she asked good-humouredly, met only with a moment of silence as Optimus closed his optics over.

"Elita was a dancer," he explained quietly. Her eyerides knitted together. ‘That name again...’

"I almost envy you, Airachnid,” he went on, sighing. “I do regret things I have done during the war.”

Unlike Optimus, Airachnid had no reservations to prying. “Like what?”

“I let my sparkmate die."

Airachnid wasn’t much educated on the rules of empathy, but she knew to let a pause seep through before pressing further. "What was she like?"

“Beautiful...” His digits spread wide as he gripped his knee joint. “The kindest bot I ever knew, wise beyond her centuries... I think you would have liked her, Airachnid.” A snort of laughter was her response to that.

“Because obviously I’m the kindest monstrosity you’ve met?” Though her optics glowed mischievously Optimus still drew back from her.

“I-I did not mean-“

“I know what you meant, Optimus,” Airachnid said gently, smirk failing her. “But you and I both know I don’t get along with ‘Bots, or Cons.”

“Elita was different, though,” Optimus said. “Like everyone before the war, she had friends who became Decepticons, but she managed to keep them. They were informers and data brokers helping us, all because they trusted Elita. She was the reason that the Autobots managed to hold out for so long. She also... she once said that your kind, techno-organics, should be as equal as any other bot. That-“

“It’s a nice sentiment, Prime, but organic or not never made much difference when war came around,” Airachnid pointed out, one eyeridge co*cked. Optimus saw it would be fruitless trying to sway her skepticism, so he kept quiet.

“But don’t get me wrong, she does sound... charming,” Airachnid eventually admitted, contemplating Prime’s words. “From what you say, I might have been able to tolerate her.” Optimus made out her next statement in a muted mumble; “And if I was wise like her, I wouldn’t be in this mess...”

“I can’t imagine that you ever expected to become a mother.”

“Not by a long shot,” she scoffed to him, optics going hard for a moment. “But... for a former Decepticon, I think I’ve done alright.” Her helm turned to where Scorpia sat on Grimlock’s back, a short tangle of wire dangling over her shoulder as she pressed her helm down against his metal. “In a strange way... I’m almost glad I am one.”

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

“Optimus, you can’t seriously be considering allowing a... beast like Grimlock around a barely vorn-old sparkling?!” Prime had prepared himself beforehand for a hefty reprieve from Ratchet, but it didn’t do him much good when the medic really got into it. “Primus knows how long he’s been offline for, or how he even got to Earth! For all we know the Decepticons could have found him first and reactivated him for their own purposes!”

“If that was the case then Grimlock would have immediately terminated both mother and sparkling and we wouldn’t be having this conversation, old friend,” Optimus said firmly.

“Don’t try and pretend you aren’t having the exact same thoughts about him, Optimus!” Ratchet huffed. “For Primus’ sake, I wouldn’t have let Grimlock near sparklings even back on Cybertron! Before he became some... feral beast!” Optimus had managed to snap some pictures of the mech during their scuffle on his optical feed and had shown them to the medic while first describing the situation on the island, and Ratchet’s optics still hadn't shrunk to their original size from seeing him.

“He can keep them safe, Ratchet,” Optimus still insisted. “He has more defence capabilities than you, me and Wheeljack combined. I may not trust him as a loyal Autobot, but from what I’ve seen I’ve already deemed him a suitable guardian.”

“And nothing an old grump like me says is going to change that,” Ratchet concluded for him, frowning. “Fine. But I’m not going to be taking any responsibility when we eventually have two deaths on our shoulders.”

“Noted.” The tension in the medbay was scattered when Wheeljack walked in, though he still sensed it heavily in the air.

“Jeesh, who died?” In hindsight it wasn’t the best thing for him to say at that time, but Wheeljack only realised that when he received a hard shoulder-shove aside as Ratchet marched past him over to a computer on the opposite wall.

“Well, someone hasn’t had their Engex this morning,” Wheeljack muttered as he rubbed his shoulder, turning to the only slightly more welcoming expression that Optimus showed.

“Forgive Ratchet’s mood, Wheeljack. He’s concerned, and rightly so.” Optimus was too tired to even try arguing with him, when his fears had such dangerously valid ground to stand on.

“What about?”

“Earlier today, it was revealed that the island was not as isolated as we first thought. There was another Cybertronian creature there, supposedly lying dormant before something managed to awake him.”

“No kiddin’?” Wheeljack frowned, tapping his digits on his hips. “What is it, like an Insecticon or a wild Deployer or somethin’?”

“A ‘dinobot’, actually.” Ratchet still had his back turned, but at least he made the effort to converse. “Or so Grimlock likes to call himse-“

“Wait a minute, doc, the Grimlock? As in, the hardest motherslagger on Cybertron next to fraggin’ Kup?” The lights of Wheeljack’s optics danced like he was a sparkling having its first energon treat.

“You know him?”

“Like the Pit I do!” Wheeljack chuckled at Ratchet’s wide optics. “I remember that walkin’ tungsten lump’d always burst into the Wrecker HQ and ask Kup to tell ‘im one of his ol’ Elite Guard stories. We told the rookies if they fragged up then we’d feed ‘em to hi- Wait.” His grin fell as he thought back to what Optimus had said. “You said he was on the island? With... you know who?”

“Exactly.” Ratchet didn’t bother hiding his smug ‘I told you so’ glance towards Optimus.

“And you’re just gonna leave ‘im there?” Wheeljack stared at Optimus as if he’d turned to chrome. “Pardon my skepticism, Prime, but that sounds like it’ll have the same result as leavin’ a Sharkticon in a room full’a Minibots.”

“As suspected, Grimlock was ... uncooperative when I first addressed him,” Optimus said, hiding a wince while his helm still rang from the tail that swatted him aside. “But other than his initial over-excitement, he has no reason to cause harm to them. He does not know they were once Decept-”

“Hey, is this an old mech party, or something?”

Optimus recognised the piping voice coming from the entrance just a klick after Wheeljack did.

“Miko?”

“WHEELJACK!” She was at his pedes in seconds, and by the time Optimus turned towards her she was standing on the metal and hugging the Wrecker’s leg. She was wearing a strange one-piece garment, black fabric patterned with pink and white skulls. Optimus guessed it was what humans called ‘pajamas’.

“What’re you doin here?” Wheeljack asked, awkwardly reaching down to pat Miko on the back with a digit in his own version of a hug.

“Um, I should ask you the same thing!” Miko jumped off his ped and placed her hands on her hips, staring up at Wheeljack. “Bulk said you were gonna be scouting the planet for Decepticon butt to kick! How come you’re back here?”
Jackie looked back to his unlikely companions and shrugged.

“Like ya’ said, old mech party. Now, your turn.”

Her grin turned devious, and she launched up in the air with her arms lifted.

“Sleepover!” She landed with a giggle. “I told my host parents I was spending the night at a friend’s, but they don’t need to know the friend is a giant robot. Not to mention one that snores. ” She made a face and pressed two fists into against her ears. “I had to get outta there before I went deaf.”

“Eh, try havin’ to share a bunk with him while in Wrecker trainin’. I almost threw ma’self into the nearby magma pit ‘fore I learnt how to turn off audios.”

“Oooh, did you do any pranks on other Wreckers? Like, putting foam energon on their hands while they slept or-
“Miko,” Optimus interrupted. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

Her grin collapsed, and she sighed.

“Yeah... I get it. Private meeting, no humans allowed, blah blah blah.” Miko was already walking to the doorway, twirling in each step and waving her arms. She turned around again just before she left, chewing her lip slightly.

“Oh, and Optimus... sorry ‘bout getting you in trouble with Arcee.” Miko sheepishly drew a circle on the floor with her padded foot. “For the record, I think she’d be an awesome Mom.” Wheeljack was looking at the Prime curiously, wondering how he managed to get Arcee annoyed at him, but Optimus ignored it with a sincere smile to the human.

“She may not see that as a compliment, though I think so too. But, like some humans, some femmes simply do not wish to care for sparklings.” As she skipped back down the corridor, a grim thought crossed his mind. ‘Or they have them forced upon them in the cruellest way imaginable.’

“Arcee as a carrier?” Wheeljack had an eyeridge raised in amusem*nt. “Turbohounds’ll grow wings before that happens. Then again... I never thought our spider would end up bein’ one.”

“Back to the point,” Ratchet grumbled. “I will be visiting them tomorrow with you, Optimus, to see Grimlock for myself. And you-“He pointed accusingly at Wheeljack. “-will stay as far from that beast as possible if he gets so excited around you.” The Wrecker shrugged at his glare.

“I can wait a few weeks for a reunion. And last time I checked, Grimmy ain’t fond of water so he ain’t leavin’ that island- not even for me.”

“He better not, or you’ll be the one putting him down,” Ratchet warned, to an optic roll from Wheeljack as he made for the base elevator to take him back up to the Jackhammer. He refused to say anything about where he landed the ship when he wasn’t with the Autobots, other than ‘somewhere high up’, but Optimus reasoned that it would be more dangerous to keep him confined to the base than to allow him freedom. And anyway, they had a tracker on the ship to see if Wheeljack made any attempts to land on the island.

The mines placed around the possible landing spots also helped.

xx

“Your verdict, doctor?”

“At least three plasma rounds to the chest, completely melted fuel pump and processor barely attached to the cerebral circuits- though I can’t tell if that was before or after death,” Knockout decreed, trying to casually waft a hand in front of his olfactories as he spoke over the Insecticon corpse. Even hours after death it was still smoking and sparking, and the stench was enough to make his paint peel. Megatron stood beside him with his servos regally placed behind his back, claws lightly clasping each other. He squinted down at the carcass, not wishing to get closer than absolutely necessary to it.

“And what might one of these beasts be doing on Earth?”

“That is... not so easy to find out.” Knockout lifted himself back onto his peds. “It’s possible that one might have found its way through a Space Bridge, or an egg could have accidentally been brought over from Cybertron. The specimen appears to be an adult though, and any eggs brought through in the past year would only be at adolescent stage without a hive to encourage development-“

“Or for all we know, there may be a hive right underneath us as we speak,” Megatron interrupted, tapping a ped on the dusty ground for emphasis and turning to Dreadwing, who had remained silent since embarking from the Nemesis. “I want the drones searching every tunnel and crevice of this area for any more Insecticons. Search the skies for anything of interest in the surrounding forest.”

“It will be done, my lord,” Dreadwing rumbled as he went to command the drones, shaking the ground slightly with each step. Knockout idly brushed his chestplate down with a hand and stayed by Megatron’s side.

“I don’t know of any Decepticons other than yourself and the drones who utilise plasma in their guns, Lord Megatron. I suspect it was an Autobot who did the killing for us.”

“A shame we did not find the Insecticon sooner, then, while the Autobot still lingered. We might have killed two Deployers with one shot in that case.” As the warlord chuckled smugly, a Vehicon drone approached.

“Lord Megatron, we’ve completed the search of the main tunnel system. There were no other bodies found. But there were other traces of energon further into the tunnels, too far from the Insecticon to have come from it, and there was only one exit at the end of them; an open shaft going upwards.”

“So the second bot must have had wings in order to escape?”

“Most likely, my liege.” Megatron’s grin grew deadlier than usual, and he swept his optics once more over the Insecticon corpse.
“Then that narrows down the list quite well.” He turned his back to the husk and looked back to Knockout. “Could Starscream have survived an attack by this Insecticon?”

“It’s hard to tell, my lord,” he admitted. “Starscream was definitely injured, but not at all lethally from the small amount of energon he left behind. Furthermore if he was near to offlining his wings wouldn’t have functioned, and his body would be here with his killer’s.” Megatron’s grin faltered ever so slightly.

“Hm. It seems he has managed to last longer than I would have thought possible.” He turned again and made his way back towards the Nemesis. “Remind me to congratulate him on his resilience before I crush his wretched spark. “
“And I might thank him myself for donating his corpse to Decepticon medical science,” Knockout smirked as he followed his leader back onboard.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

It was a pleasant surprise for Airachnid to wake up with warm sunshine on her faceplate, and a gentle tugging at her claws. Soft grey armour came into view as she blinked awake, and her daughter looked up at her with something on her hand. Scorpia had grown fond of finding parts of the world she was only just beginning to grow into, and bringing them to her mother to see what she made of them.

Airachnid stifled a yawn and squinted at the sparkling’s hand. “You found a butterfly, darling.”

Scorpia looked down closer at the yellow wings and twitching antenna on her digits. “B-Bubber... fwy.” Ever since it made her first word, her vocaliser had been searching for even more to say other than the usual trills and chirps. Usually sparklings had words and constructs downloaded directly into their processors, but with so little to work with Airachnid had to make do with teaching her manually.

“Close enough.” The spider smiled as Scorpia climbed into her lap, still holding her fluttering friend. The tangle of wires sprouting from her helm had grown long enough to reach past her peds, and Airachnid found some peace in winding strands through her claws.

Scorpia tried prodding one of the butterfly’s delicate wings, but it flew from her grasp. Her faceplate started to crease, and she whined sadly as Grimlock chased after it.

“It must be late for something,” Airachnid quipped, with no idea of how to deal with a crying sparkling and not wanting to have to. “Why don’t you go find another one?” Scorpia’s quivering lips lifted into a grin again, and she clambered off her mother’s lap and crawled to the edge of the clearing.

‘Even when I have one, I still don’t understand sparklings.’ Airachnid couldn’t imagine herself as one, so tiny and helpless (and flippant). She wasn’t sure if she ever was one, if she was born of the Well or in a laboratory or wherever her kind came from. Mostly because she never really cared.

Grimlock thudded towards her with yellow in his denta and fell down beside her in his listless way. The colossal mech hadn’t tried chasing her again, and flinched whenever she pointed her palms towards him, so Airachnid felt safe with his helm close enough to vent buffets of heat against her.

She pulled her last energon cube from her subspace and threw it aside for the dinobot to devour. He had said the main reason he chased her was because he was cranky with his energy levels being so low, and she’d rather have him fed and docile than putting up with any more rampages, even if it meant sacrificing some of her own energon.

The rock beneath her was damp with rain, but it helped her regain alertness as she leaned back and let the encroaching sun cast its glow over her. Ever since she departed from the Decepticons she’d taken a little longer to fully awaken- it was expected that all officers be alert immediately when awoken from recharge, and Megatron had no patience for late risers. That was why she was always one of the first to report to the command centre, allowing Knockout to take his time polishing his armour and receive the first helm-slap of the day.

Of course, it meant every morning began with moments spent alone with Megatron; with her spark beating fast enough for three (if only she knew...) and feeling his optics crawling under her protoform, but it was better than suffering his wrath. Again.
The scars at her waist itched infernally, but a ping in her comm served to distract her from scratching them.

“Optimus?” He was the only one with access to Airachnid’s comm unit, since she’d erased all traces of Decepticon radio numbers and altered her own frequency (that also usually earned a bot a royal beating from Megatron, but with her being dead she assumed he wouldn’t be too worked up about it).

“I hope you are well, Airachnid. I will be bringing Ratchet along with me today-“
“And why is that?” Suspicion made her hiss sharper than usual.

“He wishes to examine you-“

“Absolutely not. I won’t have his hands anywhere near me.”

“I’m not exactly incensed by the thought either,” Airachnid heard the medic grumble at the edge of the comm line, followed by a grunt and a thud of metal as Optimus no doubt pushed him away. “He did no harm to Scorpia, and he will not do any to you.”

Prime had a point, but she’d still have been more likely to allow a Decepticon mnemosurgeon near her than the medic who would have surely killed her if Optimus wasn’t there to hold him back. She didn’t want to have to put her trust, or what little of it she had left, in any more bots than she had to. Ratchet may have been gentle with Scorpia, but she was no sparkling. She was an adult... abomination.

“I’ll be in the clearing where the Ground Bridge point is.” She didn’t wait for Optimus’ reply before switching her comm off. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and all of a sudden she didn’t appreciate the damp stone underneath her. Grimlock had been growling while she spoke to Optimus, but now he whined at Airachnid’s sighs as she hit her helm against a knee spike.
There was no gentle tugging this time, but Scorpia chirped to catch her mother’s attention as she crawled over to her again, holding something else on her digits. With coolant in her optics it was hard to see it at first, but Airachnid recognised the thread-like legs and bulbous black body of her ancestors anywhere. It was nowhere near as large as the spiders who had raised her on Archa Seven, of course, but it still made her smile as it hesitantly tiptoed onto her claws and weaved between them like a miniature dancer.

“At least you still have all your legs...”

xx

“There’s every chance that he might not be with the femmes. He may be recharging, or hunting-“

“Hunting for us, you mean.” Ratchet’s apprehension about Grimlock had not eased in the slightest as he and Optimus pushed way through the dense forest. Rain had fallen heavily sometime last night, and Ratchet had to keep shaking his hands free of water whenever he shoved a fern out of his way.

Though Optimus did not share his fears, he stayed vigilant for any signs of the dinobot being nearby. The two mechs bridged slightly afar from the agreed meeting point with Airachnid, in case Grimlock was with them and he turned aggressive with Ratchet’s presence.

The dinobot lay on his side beside Airachnid as she sat perched on a boulder, and his optics snapped open when the two Autobots entered the clearing. His warning growls shook through Ratchet’s frame and almost sent the medic bolting off into the trees, but Airachnid placed a hand over Grimlock’s muzzle. The stroking of her claws made him fall silent again, and he reluctantly laid his head back down, still watching Ratchet warily with drool dripping between his teeth. The medic shuddered and frowned as he forced his attention on Airachnid.

“Where is Scorpia?” She looked away for a few klicks, just as a rustle in the ferns followed the sparkling being spat out onto the grass and rolling to a bumpy stop at the foot of the boulder, giggling as leaves cascaded down her. Ratchet spluttered as Airachnid leaned down to pick her up.

“You just let her just wander freely without any supervision!?”

Airachnid shrugged as she held the squirming sparkling close to her chest. “She has Grimlock to protect her. And it’s not as if she can get far without walking.”

“She is your child-“

“Which means I can raise her however I wish.” Her optics were narrow slits again, and Optimus knew he was klicks away from another confrontation between the two.

“I doubt a sparkling would be laughing if it was hurt, Ratchet,” Prime pointed out as he moved in front of the medic, blocking his access to Airachnid. All Ratchet could do was grumble about ‘irresponsible Cons’ and let the subject drop.

“Are you ready?” Optimus asked. The already-sour look on Airachnid’s faceplate curdled even more, but she nodded.
“Just get it over with.” The mutter seemed to stop Scorpia’s giggles as she was handed over to Optimus while her mother tried not to attack Ratchet as he approached her.

“I will need you to turn around.” Though his request was as polite as he could make it she still hissed and kept her helm looking over her shoulder with her back towards him. Ratchet wrung his hands out before daring to place them anywhere near her, hesitantly looking closer at her armour.

“...it will be a while still until the legs grow back fully, but they’re healing surprisingly well.” Somehow Ratchet managed to keep his hands steady as they held the stubs that remained of Airachnid’s secondary legs, studying the strange metal with zooming optics. Even if it was on a Decepticon, Ratchet couldn’t deny how fascinating it was to see techno-organic armour so closely; it was thought that no two TO’s had the same molecular structure and compound metals involved in their frames.

Airachnid herself was obviously uncomfortable with the medic’s hands on her, and she crossed her servos to grab her elbows while her legs twitched irregularly. She seemed more at ease when Ratchet asked her to face forward again, but she was still reluctant to lower her legs from her chest. Optimus stood to her side with Scorpia in his servos as she nibbled on one of his digits. He was reluctant to move her, knowing now what type of energon flowed through her veins, but he ached to have her closer to his spark. Imprinting, it seemed, had an effect on sires as well, as Optimus found himself yearning to have his surrogate daughter nearby. There was something ultimately soothing in her soft chirps and trills, something that closed his spark in an oasis of peace. It was the only peace he had known in centuries- even the three years Megatron was away from Earth was wrought with worry in every day at what the warlord might bring back with him.

In a way, when he returned to Earth he brought Scorpia in the form of his dark energon shards with him. Optimus wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Ratchet brushed his hands off his armour and made his report. “All protoform wounds have healed with some minor scarring, and apart from the legs you are in perfect health, Airachnid.” That was only a physical assumption, and Ratchet was aware of it. He knew better than to ask to look at her spark chamber for any spiritual damage. “Now, if I could see Scorpia again...”

Airachnid’s helm snapped backwards to face him, optics narrow and lips tight with suspicion.

“You already examined her.”

“And I need to perform another one, for consistent results.” Both medic and Prime were uncertain of how long they could keep Scorpia’s dark energon problem a secret from her mother, but they both agreed it would be best if Airachnid didn’t know for now- she had enough to concern herself over.

Reluctantly she nodded to Optimus, and he transferred Scorpia from his servos to Ratchet’s. The sparkling whined as she was pulled away from her sire’s spark, reaching out tiny hands and waggling her digits towards him, but Ratchet managed to soothe her enough to cease her squirming.

Airachnid kept her optics trained on them both, trying to keep her faceplate free of any worry. But Optimus recognised her distress, just as he did when Ratchet had taken Scorpia for the first time. He suspected that it wasn’t the mech himself that Airachnid had issues with. It was any bot that she didn’t trust taking her daughter from her- that was what made her hostile. At some point her gaze couldn’t help but flick aside to Optimus, making sure he was still there. He nodded at her, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He supposed he thought it would reassure her in a way. For the same unknown reason, she nodded back.

“All done,” Ratchet announced surprisingly quickly, breaking the two bots’ silent commune.

“Well?” Airachnid asked, taking her child back and quickly scanning her over for any extra marks or devices Ratchet might have planted on her.

“All... systems normal.” Ratchet cleared his vocaliser when it suddenly grew tight with his lie. “Her first armour layer is growing in, and this...” He lifted up the trail of wires hanging down her back with two digits. “...filament is growing even faster. It’s not uncommon for sparklings to have extra growing pieces as their systems fully initialise. I’d recommend having it cut off- painlessly, of course-“

A loud high-pitched squeal interrupted him, and Scorpia pulled her wires closer to her defensively. Ratchet’s optics were wide in surprise that she could even understand him, and Airachnid smirked.

“The filaments stay.”

Ratchet sighed and rolled his now normal-sized optics. “If you insist. Just don’t blame me when she starts tripping up everywhere. Now, with that all dealt with... I see no reason to stay here.” He didn’t wait for Optimus as he walked to the trees where the Ground Bridge would show. Prime saw no pressing reason to stay either, so he gave Airachnid another nod of farewell before following.

“Rafael, I’m sending you some co-ordinates. I need you to open a Ground Bridge at them, alright?” Optimus raised an eyeridge at Ratchet’s comm, to one of the humans?

The medic caught Prime’s quizzical look and glanced away guiltily.

“I’ve been... teaching him how to use it.”

Optimus couldn’t help but smile. “That just may come in handy, old friend.” The gateway home split open before them in a whirl of green.

But just before Optimus stepped into the vortex, a familiar chirp sounded behind him. When he turned on his ped, Scorpia was trying to walk towards him, tripping on her trailing braid.

“What did I say, Optimus?” Ratchet tutted. “That thing would be a death sentence in any battle!” Optimus was deaf to his scoffs though, watching Scorpia intently as she wobbled on her pedes and took tiny steps forward. The most she managed was three before she fell down. He glanced behind her to where Airachnid still sat on her rock, watching her as well with Grimlock’s helm raised.

Scorpia’s lips pursed together in a pout, before wavering as they tried to form words instead.

“O-oppy.” She giggled again at Optimus’ faceplate, melting in a pool of awe and love. His spark was blooming as he swept Scorpia up again and held her close to it, feeling for all the world he knew that she was his daughter. Megatron could have been galaxies away for all Optimus cared about him in those close moments with her. He couldn’t see Airachnid, but he suspected her spark would be no calm place either.

“She said my name.” He almost didn’t recognise his own voice, so soft and quiet as Scorpia nuzzled deep into his chest.

Ratchet could only scowl. “’Oppy’ is not a proper word...”

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Ratchet greeted Rafael with a nod of his helm, but the human seemed to hesitate before returning the gesture. He paused as Optimus emerged behind him, both mechs sensing something was awry.

“I didn’t know you went on patrols with Optimus, Ratchet,” he commented in an innocent tone, though medic detected suspicion layered underneath.

“Optimus detected an unusual energon reading and required my help in identifying the source.” It wasn’t entirely a lie- dark energon in a sparkling certainly counted under ‘unusual’.

“So... what was it?”

Ratchet allowed himself a moment to think. “Nothing. Just a... device malfunction.”

Optimus saw Rafael’s scepticism in his frown, but he quickly hid it by lowering his head behind his laptop screen. The human was smarter than his age suggested. They’d have to keep a close optic on him.

Before he could find any quiet refuge from the day’s events though, Bulkhead marched up to him.

“Optimus, Wheeljack was here and you didn’t tell me?” Optimus was confused at how the Wrecker knew that, but then he caught Miko’s guilty look as she sank into the couch.

Now it was his turn to think fast. “He had stopped by to share some energon stockpiles he had acquired. You were recharging, and I assumed you would not wish to be disturbed.”

Bulkhead only huffed in disappointment. “Yeah, I guess... would’a been too cranky to talk to him anyway...” He skulked off back to Miko with his peds dragging, but Optimus knew a few moments with his human would set him right again.

“Apparently there’s more than one sparkling on Earth...” Ratchet muttered before marching to the medbay, eager to escape from the rest of the day. Optimus decided to follow his old friend’s example for once, and retired to the dimness of his own quarters. No-one stopped to question him on his decision to recharge so early- the Autobots knew it was best to let their leader see to himself.

In the sanctum of his quarters, Optimus let himself collapse. His berth was soft as ever, but his mind was lumpy and filled with unease. He didn’t like keeping secrets. It was far too easy to lie to his team; it made him feel like a Decepticon. He had been one, just months ago when he defeated Unicron with the mech he loathed to call a former friend.

He had been aboard the Nemesis... he had seen Airachnid. His guest quarters had been assigned near his workstation, and occasionally he saw the femme making her own way to Megatron, or the energon store, or wherever else she was headed. Optimus tried to remember... did he sense anything odd about her? Anything significant in her EM field, a fluctuation in her spark signature? She must have been carrying her twins by then, and her pregnancy should have been obvious- femmes always had static in their fields and abnormal spark pulses, especially with two newsparks.

Then again, Airachnid was no ordinary femme. Whether she was more mechanical or organic, somehow no-one registered that she was carrying. Even standing right beside her there was nothing to give it away. Optimus had to admire her stealth even back then.

She cared immensely for Scorpia; that much was obvious. And of course, he cared for her too. She was wholly innocent, the only Cybertronian completely untouched by the war. In a way, she was precious to him. He and Elita never had the chance to conceive their own children before... her death.

At this point, Scorpia was as close as he would get to having his own sparkling.

He wondered if Elita would have been fond of her as well.

xx

“What if they don’t listen to us?”

“They will, Orion. They could have easily just rejected your audience request if they didn’t want to listen-“
“That would just seem suspicious of them though. It would have given our cause valid ground, they know that.” Orion wrung his hands together in discomfort, the light of his optics flickering weakly. “For all we know we could be walking right into the servos of Institute guards, or some other trap-“

“Orion, listen to me.” Elita grabbed his wrists to still them, looking deep into his optics with her own burning brightly. “You’re worrying about nothing. They will listen to you. They won’t take you away without me knowing. I promise.” Her smile was all he needed to calm his spark.

“And if you did, I’m sure Prowl would blow a synapse grid trying to track you down.” All his unease melted into his laughter as it joined with hers. It was the only sound in the grand hall aside from the clack of peds and Megatron tapping his own impatiently while waiting for the doors to the Council chamber to open. His scarred steel armour was completely out of place among the gold and silver of Iacon’s architecture, and he was well aware of it from the tension in his joints and how he avoided the optics of other bots who stared at him. He just wanted to get the whole thing over with.

“I wish I shared your confidence, Elita,” Orion said, stroking the backs of her hands fondly with his wide digits. “But I feel like this will all be one huge mistake.”

Suddenly Elita’s frame tensed, and her optics glanced away. “Listen, Orion... I know someone in there.”

Orion raised an eyeridge. “You know a Senator?” He worked almost alongside them every day and he’d hardly said more than two words to one, yet Elita barely visited Iacon outside of their regular rendezvous’.

“Yes, I... asked him to convince the others to give you and Megatron an audience.” She removed her hands and moved one to clutch her elbow, still averting her gaze from his.

Orion looked at her curiously. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because...“ She took in a heavy vent. “The Senator I asked was Ratbat.”

“The techno-organic?!” Orion’s processor was whirring with the effort of understanding her.

“I knew you’d ask how I knew him... that’s why I never told you.” Elita’s voice was quiet, more so than Orion had ever heard before. He was confused at her sudden nervousness, as well as her reluctance to share.

“When you said you knew a lot of techno-organics... you meant him as well?” She nodded, only looking up when he placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I won’t ask you for anything you don’t want to reveal, Elita. I only wish you said so I could have thanked you for it.” His smile was infectious enough to latch onto her faceplate, and her hand was warm as she placed it over his.

“When you’re in there... I think you could gain his favour if you make a plea for his kind as well as for low castes.”

“You think so?”

She nodded. “He may not show a lot of care for other TO’s, but he’ll appreciate the effort. They don’t want suites in Translucentia Heights or passes into Iacon. They only want fairness- just like the low castes.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Her servos wrapped around his neck as she embraced him, their sparks jumping as their chestplates touched. “Thank you. Good luck, Orion.” She placed a kiss upon his lips, and they would have stayed joined in each other’s servos if not for the sudden outburst at Megatron’s end of the hall.

“Watch where you put those things, buckethead!

“You are the one who needs to watch where her wings go!”

“You’d better go before Megatron starts his own gladiator battle,” Elita whispered and it almost hurt Orion to pull away from her. Drone guards with security emblems on their chassis’ were at the two squabbling bots before Orion ran to them. Three were struggling to restrain Megatron while two held a purple and teal Seeker by her wings and blaster-brandishing servos.

“Designation Slipstream, lower your weapon-“

“Stick a muffler in it, nospark!” Her elbow found the speaking drone’s faceplate and smashed through the visor, but her other servo was already disabled with a stasis cuff. Megatron had allowed himself to go limp, knowing if he struggled then he’d be thrown out of the building. Slipstream was not so wise, still fighting against drone grip with her hands cuffed together and vocaliser straining with curses.

“What on Cybertron was that about?” Orion asked as Megatron was released. The gladiator huffed and rolled his shoulder joints.

“One of her wings banged against by chassis, and she assumed I tripped her up.” His usual frown curled into a scowl. “I’ve never liked Seekers.”

“Well, don’t let the Vosian representatives hear that,” Orion said with a chuckle. Megatron didn’t return it as the chamber doors finally split open, and he was marching inside before Orion had finished his final wave to Elita.

xx

Silas liked to think he was a patient man, given how long he had to wait for the Autobots and Decepticons to reveal themselves, and even longer still to acquire a single part of their anatomy.

The transformation cog gleamed within the titanium chassis of his puppet-former; so generously donated by Starscream, though potential revenge from the pitiful jet was the last thing on Silas’ mind. He was patient, and he was careful. If Starscream came within five miles of the MECH base he would be blown into the sky by the turret defenses. He smiled to himself at the thought of that being the only way the jet would ever fly again.

“Sir. There’s a Cybertronian signature registering on the detectors.” Silas turned away from his thoughts and towards the console of the speaking henchman. It showed a blip surrounded by radar pulses, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

“...And this signature has been identified before?” Silas was sure to keep records of all the EM readings his robotic encounters gave off. It only allowed him to find Cybertronians he’d been in personal contact with, but he was confident that an average reading could be established and used to find all robotic life in an area.

“Yes, sir. We believe it’s the same one of the Decepticon Airachnid.” The masked worker pulled up a profile on the display, showing her image and what little MECH knew about her.

Silas smile grew into something darker. “Yes, I remember her... she was never a Decepticon. But she will make a fine lab experiment.”

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

As Optimus emerged from the ethereal swirls of the Ground Bridge, he realised two things simultaneously. Airachnid had not attempted to contact him ever since Ratchet examined Scorpia- usually nothing he would worry about, considering the spider’s solitary nature- and the clearing was deserted.

Now considering the first fact, he knew something was wrong.

All he found in the open patch of grass and rocks were empty energon cubes and the trampled remains of trees and bushes, but none of the destruction led into the surrounding forest. Even if Grimlock was nearby, something in his ancient biology made his EM field and spark signature almost non-existent. It would be impossible to find him without seeing him from miles away first.
Then Optimus saw the specks of energon on the dirt.

Something was horribly wrong.

Had Grimlock went on a rampage and injured the femmes? Had Airachnid herself lashed out against the Dinobot? A thousand more possibilities ran in terrible detail through Optimus’ processor, and his spark felt like it was dangling over a pit set deep in his chest. His hands were clenched so hard that he almost punched the ground in rage before he noticed deep tracks on the edge of forestry, almost hidden beneath cover of shredded fern leaves. Kneeling down on shaking peds, Optimus saw that the soil was moist and churned in long rows very reminiscent of claws scraping into it. There were stains here as well, but maroon rather than Cybertronian cyan. If not energon, then what?

Optimus knew he didn’t have the luxury of indulging his curiosity any further than that thought, and immediately set to finding more tracks. He was deep in the forest’s heaving body before long, beaded with coolant from the stifling humidity and shielding his optics from the flares of sunlight that found their way through the tree canopy.

One sudden burst of light blinded him enough that he almost missed the giant lump of metal that made up Grimlock’s resting hulk.

Two bots were nowhere to be found, almost certainly injured, and he was sleeping. The fury that consumed Optimus in that moment was enough to block out any signals from his logic centres, and he kicked the Dinobot in the ribs hard enough to dent and fracture any normal metal frame. It only made Grimlock snort and flick his tail dismissively.

“Grimlock!” Yelling into the dinobot’s audios prompted even less of a reaction, and Optimus swore his energon was boiling in his fuel lines. The old Grimlock was well known for sleeping in during the war, but this was something else for the old mech. He stepped back and shovelled vents of air that felt like pushing rocks through his cooling fans.

“Grimlock, I order you to awaken.” With all his anger compressed his voice sounded close to an Insecticon growl. He didn’t like how it grated against his audios, but he couldn’t do much to soften it at this point. “Something... something terrible has occurred. Airachnid and Scorpia are missing.”

Deja vu then hit him conveniently like Grimlock’s tail did as the giant mech shot upward with gnashing denta. Optimus lay sprawled and rubbing the fresh dent in his helm while Grimlock stampeded around his resting place.

“But... me... me Grimlock scare bad things away! Me Grimlock save them!”

“What... bad things?” Optimus struggled to his peds with a hand on his bent backstrut, leaning on a large tree log.

“Two legged... dark... me Grimlock no remember!” He roared in frustration and scraped his servo claws along his muzzle. ‘Two legs’ was a sufficient enough clue for Optimus, though.

‘Humans...’ Even with his processor in a jolted jumble he started to piece together what had transpired in his fateful absence. Red stains on the ground, no lingering EM signatures... but Agent Fowler said the island had been deserted for decades. There was no reason for humans to be on it now.

Unless...

“Grimlock, what did they look like? Did you see them taking Airachnid and Scorpia?” Even in his rampage of panic Grimlock still had enough lingering competence to think, closing his optics and furrowing his eyeridges deeply as if he was trying to contact Primus himself.

“Bad things... capture femmes.” Every word seemed to scrape against his vocaliser. “Spider lady fight back, but... dragged... away... ME GRIMLOCK FAIL!” The Dinobot screeched and rammed into a tree trunk, sending it toppling over as his horns chewed furiously into the wood. Optimus knew he couldn’t just leave Grimlock to decimate the entire island like this, as much as he would have preferred finding the femmes himself; so he approached him slowly with spread palms and small steps. It was how most nature scouts approached wild animals on Cybertron.

“Listen to me, Grimlock. We can get them back.” The rampage paused as great billows of steam rose out of Grimlock’s olfactories, and he turned smelting pool optics down at Optimus. “We can help them... but only if we work together.”
The Dinobot blew stale meaty air in his faceplate. “Me work with Prime?” The thought seemed to curdle in his mind like sour energon, and he scratched his muzzle again before giving his verdict. “Only to find family. Me Grimlock still king!”

“Of course you are,” Optimus agreed with a weary sigh. As Grimlock turned to presumably lead the way deeper into the forest, he noticed the long crossbow-like arrow sticking out of his rear armour. It wasn’t of Cybertronian make, and seemed to be coated in something sticky. But Optimus knew better than to try yanking it out for a closer look- even across species he knew deadly poisons when he saw them, and he wasn’t about to have his death dealt by rabid Dinobot teeth tearing into him.

xx

“You know, Airachnid, the last time we met you never struck me as the ‘maternal’ type.” She turned herself away from Silas, not bothering to waste a glare on him. He didn’t seem too offended by her indifference. “Still, there are so many unknowns about your species. But you’re not a true Cybertronian, are you?” Her shoulders suddenly went rigid, and Silas very much noticed it. “No... you’re just some freak. A grotesque thing that no-one wants anything to do with.” Airachnid heard him turn away from the shuffle of his boots on the metal floor.

“Is that why the father of this little one left you here alone?”

She risked a glance over her shoulder, and her spark almost tore itself in two.

They had locked Scorpia in some kind of cage, not so different from her own apart from scale. Her cocoon had been ripped away and she was left to shiver in her thin protoform, too terrified to even whimper under the goggled gaze of her captors. If her optics weren’t buried in her hands, Airachnid knew they’d be dull to match her spark. Her daughter’s fear vibrated over their bond with enough force to bring even the most battle-hardened mech to his knees.

Airachnid was no mech, though. She knew better than to show any weakness in front of creatures like these. She wrenched herself away from Scorpia’s anguish even as her spark wallowed in it, missing Silas’ surprise at her persistent apathy.

“Well, you’re in luck today, Airachnid,” he went on regardless, folding his arms behind his back and walking a bit away from her. “We do want something to do with you. The way I see it, you are proof that man and machine are not so distant from each other as originally thought. You are a living fusion of organic and mechanical... organic like humans.” Something in Silas’ tone made Airachnid flinch at the link between herself and her captors. “And if we can find a way to make ourselves more powerful, augment ourselves with what components you take for granted, well...” He shrugged off the weight of the possibilities. “Even Megatron might quake in his metal boots at what we would be capable of.”

“Do me a favour and keep him alive when you separate his spark from its chamber,” she muttered into her bloodstained claws, clenching them as if she could see the warlord’s chest split open in front of her. Silas heard the venomous comment and laughed- whether it was in amusem*nt or mockery Airachnid didn’t care enough to tell.

“Always efficiently cold, Airachnid. That’s what I liked about you, during our partnership. Much more tolerable than that fool Starscream, at least.” She glanced over at him again in surprise- the Seeker making a deal with MECH was news to her. The fact that he had survived long enough to make one was even more surprising.

She saw Silas smirking silently to himself before a series of beeps from a computer module drew his attention away from his prisoner.

“System scan is complete, sir, and fluid samples have been taken and documented.”

“Excellent.” Silas leaned down to Scorpia’s optic level with a look that made Airachnid want to tear him apart with all six limbs. “I see no more reason to keep mother and daughter apart.” He nodded, and the two anonymous henchmen lifted the cage door and picked her sparkling up as if she was a wriggling insect. The door to Airachnid’s own cell was only kept open just enough to fit an arm through and throw Scorpia in. Seeing her crying, shivering on the floor made Airachnid’s maternal instincts overload, and against all better judgement she instantly swept her daughter into her servos,

“Shhh, shh, Scorpia.” Her whisper was quiet enough that Silas and his goons couldn’t hear, and its softness combined with the soft strokes along Scorpia’s helm and fraying filaments reduced her howling to choked sobbing against her mother’s neck. Airachnid’s spark hammered with relief and fury; both at the humans and herself for letting them get into this situation. But the relief was far more palatable, so she let it block out the anger for now. All the world was her child, and she held Scorpia like a precious final ammo round in the middle of a battlefield wasteland.

At some point, she started humming. It was an old song with Vosian roots, she recalled, about something called ‘The Pixelite’ that supposedly soothed and watched over sparklings. At least, that was what Dreadwing had relayed to her when they heard an Autobot prisoner singing it to her dying sparkmate in their cell.

She tried not to envision any potential parallels between then and now as she sang it softly to Scorpia. The sparkling was the only one to find sleep that evening.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

With the mosquitoes and birds lacking in conversational skills, Optimus found himself forced to make what humans might have called “small talk” with his unconventional mission partner.

“Do you know how you came to Earth, Grimlock? How you ended up on this island?” He was achingly aware of how little time they had to find Airachnid and Scorpia, but this was the only time he'd ever seen the dinobot being anything close to civil. He wouldn't have another chance to indulge in his gnawing librarian curiosity at what exactly Grimlock was any time soon, so he might as well make the most of it.

"Me Grimlock remember leaving Cybertron, but me no know how here." The dinobot kept his pace steady as he spoke; considering how primitive his processor must have been, multi-tasking was surely no less than a feat for him.

"Well, how did you manage to get off of Cybertron?" Optimus persisted, ducking to avoid an oncoming tree branch overhead. Most Cybertronians left the planet during the mass exodus, after all the energon was lost and no-one had a good reason to stay and risk Primus' wrath, but he strongly suspected Grimlock would have had trouble fitting into a passenger ship.

The Prime almost toppled to the ground when Grimlock heaved his shoulders up in a shrug of reply. "One-eye nerd put Grimlock in travel pod. Then me Grimlock sleep, and wake up here."

'Thank you, Grimlock, incredibly informative. Iacon University should commision you to write lectures for them.' The 'one-eye nerd' he spoke of was obviously Shockwave, which confirmed the most popular story that surrounded the nature of the Lightening Strike Coalition Force's disappearance- that they were captured and experimented on by him. But even that revelation wasn't enough to lift Optimus' sombre spirits. It was hard enough for him to keep his composure knowing that every nanoklick they wasted in the forest was one the femmes spent in enemy clutches, or even already in the Well of All Sparks. He tried not to think of that as an option, though.

The clock was ticking- or, more accurately in the case of his chronometer, flashing as a harsh warning in the corner of his HUD.

xx

Airachnid's weapon connection lines had long since repaired themselves, but they'd be little use to her here. She was in stasis for most of the transit from forest freedom to steel captivity, so there was no knowing how many more soldiers Silas had patrolling the facility, nor how many levels she'd have to tear through to get out. On top of that was the risk to Scorpia- it would only take a stray bullet to destroy her spark and send Airachnid's own into such disarray that neither of their bodies would see sunlight again.

Her comm unit only offered a useless mess of static that hurt her audios fiercely, so she could hardly rely on Optimus for a daring rescue either, as if she was some damsel in distress in a Praxian Playhouse production. Even if he miraculously knew she was taken, knew it was M.E.C.H.'s doing, and discovered their base all in one day he wouldn't risk hurting humans just to save a wretch like her. She knew Autobot morals too well to try hoping for that.

She had no chance, and Silas knew it. That was probably why he didn't bother to post a guard at her cell, trusting the rest of his minions to multitask during their regular duties. In a way his soldiers reminded her of Megatron's Vehicons; mass produced, mindless, blending into each other in a sea of grey obedience. She wondered if any of them possessed sparks, or whatever it was that kept their pathetic organic bodies from toppling over.

Organic bodies. Now she had to wonder how many traits her own mutated frame shared with Earth's creatures.

A sudden hiss thankfully directed her attention elsewhere, and brought her optics down at the smoking patch on the cell floor just next to where her heels stretched out. She was drooling while distracted- how unladylike. The stain was tiny, barely a pinprick burning through the metal, but the rising plume of smoke forced Airachnid to close her talons over it (the last thing she needed was those M.E.C.H vermin invading the only remnant of privacy she had left). She licked off the sheen of venom left on her lips just to be safe, wincing slightly at how it burned her glossa.

But as the pain faded, an idea bloomed in its place.

Airachnid chanced a glance over her shoulder, glimpsing disinterested drones drifting from console to console. They could only see her back and the stubs of her legs. In front of her was a steel wall, black with grime and dirt and glaring mockingly at her. But at the corner where she lay was a vent of sorts, small enough that she could force her hand through if she was so inclined. In a way it was more like a drain set into the wall- for what, she didn't care to think about. But it would lead somewhere, somewhere outside her cell. It was her tiny, and only, hope of escape.

And it would be ample opportunity for Scorpia to prove that she was worth all the trouble of keeping her alive.

Venom seeped thickly from her fangs and coated her lips, dripping onto her talons when she brushed them slowly across her mouth. With her scarred back turned they wouldn't see her squeezing her claws around the grill of the vent cover, melting the metal and changing it to smoking steel putty. She wiped it off on the floor and tried to make the new opening as large as possible; no sharp edges for Scorpia to scrape past and bleed from. A trail of energon would quickly give both of them away, not to mention how the sparkling would squeal in pain and almost deafen her.

Airachnid had worked in some Decepticon laboritories on Cybertron, mostly assisiting with Shockwave's Insecticon projects, and had a feeling that the layout of those on Earth wouldn't be much different. She hoped so at least, turning Scorpia so she faced her chestplates and her helm was just under her mother's mouth.

"Right, I don't know how much you can understand me..." Airachnid whispered, keeping as much malice and general tone of 'what-the-frag-am-I-doing' out of her hushed words. "But I need you to go through here-" She nodded her helm forward at the burnt grill. "-wherever it takes you. Look for... buttons, levers, anything that might trigger something. Anything bright and shiny." Her best hope would be an emergency electricity killswitch, but only Primus knew what an Earth variation of those would look like. "Do you understand?"

"Gah gah," Scorpia chirped against her chestplates.

"...I really don't know what I was expecting." Airachnid positioned her palm to silently leak out a strand of webbing that she wrapped around Scorpia's waist, tying it tight but keeping one end still connected to her weapon port. As she walked she'd draw out more webbing with her, and if there was trouble Airachnid could yank her back to her cell (perhaps not as subtle as an energon trail, but she couldn't just rely on spark projections to know Scorpia was safe away from her). With her meagre preparations complete she set her daughter on the ground, before she could let her common sense convince her how idiotic her plan was (even Starscream could come up with something better... if he had an extreme processor upgrade). At first Scorpia just sat there like a bundle of trembling rocks- considering their shared intelligence it was a valid observation, Airachnid thought. Pale cyan lights swivelled, to their mother's face and the ceiling to the dagger pole walls all around them. Scorpia tilted her helm slightly to the left, before swiftly turning it to the solid wall as if her neck joint suddenly collapsed. Airachnid didn't worry about that. She finally saw it, the pitch black exit to freedom.

Despite the darkness, the hostile hissing of venom traces left behind and the bleakness in her carrier's faceplate, Scorpia actually giggled when she disappeared into it. It was either the sound or absurdity of it that forced Airachnid's spark to match the subdued buzzing of its daughter's.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

The vent sloped downwards, so Scorpia didn't even need prompting to slide down it. The webbing around her waist made a taught line to Airachnid's weapon port, oozing out web strands with each move forward the sparkling made.

Airachnid heard a dull splash echo up from the hole and her spark sank instantly- but only for a moment. Whatever it was at the end of the vent, it wasn't deep or deadly enough to stop Scorpia from chirping in her merry little way. The web kept uncoiling in her hand, so there was nothing stopping the young femme from moving either.

Relentless, just like Optimus. In Scorpia's case though, it wasn't the annoying kind.

If she hadn't been forced to remain near the drain opening, Airachnid might have seen a pair of strange blue lights bobbing underneath the grilles making up the floor of the M.E.C.H lab. She might have noticed that her daughter's faint giggles seemed to sound closer than they should have been.

She did, however, manage to delay admitting defeat and reeling Scorpia back just long enough for the sparkling to find the emergency electricity killswitch tucked away in the floor's maintenance hatch. And if it wasn't seemingly painted the same shade of red as Optimus' armour, she might never have pressed it.

The darkness dropped down like a comforting blanket, and the rise of confused yells from the soldiers was like a lullaby to Airachnid's audios. She had work to do before she could sleep, though.

She pulled fiercely back on the web tether, not stopping until Scorpia popped out of the drain and into her servos. She tried to ignore the unsettling dampness on her armour as she glued Scorpia to her abdomen with the last of her webbing.

While Airachnid worked with a cool efficiency on her freedom, the M.E.C.H soldiers had worked themselves into a frenzy of blind confusion in the few seconds they'd been trapped in the dark. Through her optic's night-filters she saw a few of them trying to feel their way along walls, and others frantically trying to switch their own nightvision goggles on. Some of them froze at the sound of her laugh, and by the time they'd seen the jagged, smoking hole in the bars of her cage she was halfway down the vast corridor connecting the laboratory to whatever else made up the makeshift compound. Airachnid wasn't planning on finding out and knew it was too risky to try digging her way out, so she braced her back legs on each of the corridor walls to lift herself up to the ceiling. There was enough acid left on her claws to cut a clean hole in the panelling, just large enough for her disappear through.

She took a moment to scan the narrow attic space as soldiers started to spill out beneath her, some barking orders and others whimpering in the shadows. It would only take them a few more seconds to see where she'd gone, so she didn't have time to make another hole in the roof.
"Hold on tight, baby," she whispered down at Scorpia, before bending her legs down and springing herself up through the roof beams and into the island midnight.

xx

"Is me there yet?"

"No."

"Is me there yet now?"

"No, Grimlock. I'll tell you when we've reached them, just keep moving."

The Dinobot scoffed and blew air through his face vents. "Prime have weak optics, no see olfactories on faceplate! Me Grimlock powerful, me see all!"

'You couldn't see that wasp nest you stepped on about five miles back.' Optimus managed to resist voicing that thought, not wanting to end up face down in the undergrowth and trampled by peds as big as his whole frame. As the sun set the trees started to thin, and the squashed path in the grass became more noticeable. Airachnid had been dragged quite roughly, either to stop her from fighting back or because the humans weren't able to carry her any other way. In any case, that choice would be their undoing.

Moonlight started to replace the day when they finally saw something that broke up the tropical patchwork of green and brown. The building nestled at the bottom of the island's tallest mountain was clearly dilapidated; cracked glass and roots breaking through the stained concrete.

So then why were there black jeeps parked outside it?"

"Keep your distance for now, Grimlock," Optimus warned, laying himself flat on the Dinobot's back. Grimlock sniffed at the air and copied his passenger, lowering himself to the ground.

"Decepticons?" Even whispering, his voice sent deep rumbles through his frame and the air.

"Worse. M.E.C.H. A hostile group of Earth natives." Optimus was sure he hadn't seen a human before, and Silas' soldiers certainly weren't going to give Grimlock a good impression of them.

"They have spider lady and baby?" A low growl started to echo from the Dinobot's vocaliser, so Optimus answered carefully to stop him from going on a rampage.

"I... strongly suspect so. We can't rush in, though, lest we endanger them." Optimus pressed closer to Grimlock's audios and flicking horns, straining his vocaliser. "I will scout the base perimeter if you keep watch for anything suspicious. Then, only on my signal, we will-"

Optimus' plan ended up never being utilised as a very loud crash interrupted him, followed by bursts of gunfire and a familiar silhouette bursting in a shower of shrapnel out of one of the building's roofs.

"SPIDER LADY!" Grimlock's bellow fought to catch up with how fast he hurtled towards where Airachnid's shadow landed, and the only thing stopping Optimus from flying off his back was how low he was seated on it. Airachnid didn't give them time to meet her though, hurtling past them on her auxiliary legs with barely a glance back at her prison. She paused only at the very edge of the compound, where the ferns started to sprout up and take over the grass, to throw an incredulous look at them both and scoff loudly.

"Took you two long enough."

Scorpia didn't share her mother's disposition though, wriggling in her web wrapping and sticking her servos out towards the two mechs. "Oppy, Grimmy!"
Even as Optimus' spark skipped a warm beat at seeing the two femmes, he knew he'd have to go to them later. He swung himself off Grimlock's back using one of his horns as his other servo switched to his stun blaster.

"No lethal attacks, Grimlock." Optimus wasn't sure if the command would have even registered with him, but he didn't have the time or patience to hammer it in before soliders started to pour from every corner of the compound. Red lasers hit against the Prime's armour just before the bullets followed their course, peppering his hide with holes and the ping of metal casings embedding into his frame.

To a Cybertronian, they were only dull stings against his protected protoform. The soldiers were assembled in tight groups, so the volley of electric volts Optimus shot at them ended up bouncing across them. One by one they fell and the bullets started to cease, until the last group dropped their guns and scattered to the back of the building. Optimus wasn't concerned with hunting down cowards, and the sound of rotor blades starting up confirmed the soldiers cared more about their skins than their honour.

Airachnid seemed to gaze wistfully up at the escaping helicopter as Optimus approached her, wafting away the thin trails of smoke that rose from the scattered bullet holes on his armour.

"Are you alright?" Airachnid lowered her gaze but looked more past the Prime than at him, assessing the comatose bodies behind him. Scorpia beeped and tried to grasp for him, and only looking at her close-up made Optimus notice the energon covering her thin proto-casing. "How did... there's dents in both your armour-"

"You should have killed them," the femme said, blowing air slowly through her vents. Her servos held Scorpia tightly, not minding the energon stains rubbing onto them. Red also covered her claws, but Optimus tried to ignore it. Instead he raised an eyeridge, glancing back himself at the humans he spared.

"Airachnid, I do not waste lives when-"

"You. Should. Have. Killed. Them." Fire and a snarl lept into her voice, and her fangs seemed to scrape against every word before they left her mouth. She glared up at him, rubbing her bloodstained claws together. For once, Optimus had no idea what to say. It seemed no matter what he did she was going to dirty her claws even more with his energon.

Luckily for both of them, Grimlock had found a new toy trying to escape in the chaos.

Silas squirmed and choked in between his jagged denta, trying to force the Dinobot's jaws open and not force the teeth even further into his body. He couldn't even scream with all the blood rising up in his throat, threatening to drown him. When Optimus saw him struggling in Grimlock's mouth, he dropped all sense of careful calm.

"Put the human down, Grimlock! Right now!"

The Dinobot shook his head violently, piercing Silas even more from how the human groaned in newfound agony. Scorpia's face crumpled at the harsh sound, and her chirps were replaced with whimpers. Optimus looked on helplessly, as if he was feeling the human's pain for himself.

"Airachnid, please?" he pleaded, knowing the iron idiot would listen to her if not him.

The femme took a painfully long moment to think about it, the fire in her optics dying away as she rolled them and turned to the Dinobot. "Put him down, Grimmy."

He complied, and Silas fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. His clothes were covered in it as well, ragged where the denta sliced through them. From Optimus' view though, the wounds didn't seem deep enough to have hit any of those vital organs humans had. Silas was in great pain, but he'd live.

"Thank you, Airachnid," Optimus said, but the femme didn't seem to hear it as she started frantically patting her hips and digging in her subspace pocket.

"Where is it, where is it?" she muttered with a hoarse voice, optics wide as hubcaps.

"Where is what?" Optimus asked, bewildered at how sudden the femme's composure melted. Her searching paused, servo stiff, and relief sighed through her vents as a smile showed on her faceplate.

"Never mind, just... some Energel I had saved," she explained, pulling Scorpia off her chest and cradling her. The sparkling's optics still looked damp, but at least she wasn't whimpering anymore. "I thought I might have dropped it during my escape."

Optimus didn't believe her, but he decided now wasn't the time to press for the truth. Airachnid strolled to where Silas' lay and coughed up droplets of blood, poking him with a heel. Grimlock licked at the red staining his denta and sniffed at the human, pulling his helm back and shaking his helm a nanoklick later.

"So, what do you plan on doing with him and the rest of his lackeys?" Airachnid asked, looking to Optimus expectantly. The Prime hadn't considered capturing the source of all this mess, but he knew there was really only one thing to do.

He tapped on his comm unit and selected a seldom used frequency.

"Agent Fowler, apologies for calling so late. But I assure you, this is something you will want to be awake for."

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

"I ain't gonna ask how you did it Prime- hell knows I want to, but..." Agent Fowler shook his head with a chuckle through a wide smile. Optimus always thought it strange how humans liked to combine their positive and negative expressions in such a way. Organics seemed to share a penchant for taking leaps with their logic.

"This what you came to the island for? To catch Silas?" Fowler went on with furtive glances at the bandaged leader on the gurney, waiting to be airlifted to his new cell block home. Grimlock had caused a lot of damage and blood loss, but the man's internals were mostly intact at least. Fowler also hadn't asked how Silas had gotten so many injuries.

Optimus tried to keep his own optics off of the defeated human. "We conducted a brief survey of all the possible base locations and found traces of human activity here. I elected to investigate further, and found a M.E.C.H base at the center of the island."

Fowler nodded in approval. "Not bad for a day's work. My boys'll have the base searched, with any tech confiscated and far away from nutjob hands. Any idea where the rest of the goons went to?"

"I assume they would have other bases of operation established over the country," Optimus surmised. "They may retreat to any one of them, but the absence of their leader should sufficiently demoralise them."

Fowler huffed in agreement as an updraft suddenly buffeted him from the helicopter hovering overhead. He glared at Silas as he was trundled past.

"Not so tough now without your bug-eyed army and stolen guns, eh, Bishop?" he chuckled loudly over the noise of the helicopter's rotors. Optimus wasn't sure if he approved of taunting a patient, but he still had much to learn about human culture. Perhaps it was common among them.

In any case, Silas didn't seem affected by Fowler's mockery. Only one of his eyes could see through the swelling (ironic, considering the mark they left on Breakdown), and it focused intently on Optimus. Even from so far below it made the Prime feel uneasy, as if he was caught in a spotlight.

Silas' breath hissed through gauze as he gave a muted warning. "Keep a close watch on your family, Optimus..."

A team of paramedics hooked the gurney up to cables hanging down from the copter, and panic only started to grip Optimus when Silas was but a dot in the distance.

Fowler seemed to sense a change in the mech's disposition from how he patted his ped. "Hey, don't look so worried, Prime. He can't do squat to the Autobots in a prison cell."

'He was not referring to the Autobots...' A comm ping tore through Optimus' cloudy subconscious, and he allowed it to distract him from the new slew of problems falling down on him.

"The human's President just commed in to congratulate us on neutralising 'the M.E.C.H' threat," Ratchet informed him with a curt tone. "I assume you weren't just checking in on the femmes and their pet?"

With a cautious look down at Fowler as he talked with a group of soldiers, Optimus moved closer to the tree line for some privacy. He decided to leave out Airachnid and Scorpia's kidnapping, instead going for the same lie he passed on to Fowler. He couldn't tell if Ratchet believed him from his contemplative huff.

"It's a weight off our shoulders, certainly, but M.E.C.H is resourceful, for a bunch of humans. Being leaderless may set them back, but it won't be long before we'll face them again."
"As tenacious as the Decepticons," Optimus mused.

Ratchet huffed in agreement. "At least when they didn't have Megatron they had the sense to not attack directly. We can only hope the humans follow their lead in that." There was a pause filled with the chirp of evening cicadas. "There were no other... complications?"

Optimus vented air. "None to report."

"Very well. The humans were asking after you today, Rafael especially, but whatever it is can wait for tomorrow."

Optimus clicked off his comm with a weary sigh as the exertions of the day crashed exhaustion down on him. He sat himself on a rock just outwidth the grasp of the forest, casting cautious looks into the undergrowth where Grimlock and his family was hiding. Either the sunset was playing tricks on his optics, or red optics were watching him.

xx

Optimus' return to Helix Gardens took place during noon, when the smoke was thick enough to block out the skyline and any curious Seeker optics from above.

He was only a mech during his first visit, drunk on the wonders of the city and dwarfed by the night and all its stars. Now he was a Prime, with the fate of the planet perpetually crushing down on him no matter how his strength held. He couldn't stay long even here, with every klick punctuated with an incoming comm ping of a new battle report or a request from his officers.

But his duty today was more important than scout patrols and supply lines.

"Some part of me actually believed the gardens would be left intact," Elita admitted in a sad, muted mutter as she looked over the scattered, shattered crystal shards. The war had taken a heavy toll on the brightness that usually filled her optics, and there was a permanent sheen of ash and dust over her heavier, combat-grade armour. Yet she was as beautiful as the day Optimus first caught her rosy gleam in the sunlight. It almost hurt to look at her, knowing she deserved better than this.

"The Decepticons do not discriminate much in their targets," was all Optimus could bring himself to say. Praxus had almost been wiped out as the Decepticons fell upon it, overwhelming what little defences it had with missles and bombs. All the indulgent citizens could do was run and hope the armoured Enforcers would hold the 'Cons off long enough for them to escape. Prowl had stayed in his quarters for a decacyle after the news of his home city's destruction reached Iacon.

"And here we thought Megatron would save us." Elita didn't laugh at the irony so much as bark out a sob barely muffled by her servo, pretending to cough into her hand instead. She was a shadow of Ariel, the one Optimus fell in love with, but perhaps that was for the best. Optimus wasn't sure if Ariel could have survived this far- Orion certainly wouldn't have been able to.

"Perhaps he wasn't meant to lead in the first place," he tried, already knowing it was an obvious sentiment. "If this is how he reacts to a power he can't have, I dread to think of what he would do with one he could have."

Elita gave a neutral nod in answer, leaning over the broken railing of the smashed bridge spanning what used to be a geode chasm. Now it was packed full of the broken frames of dead Praxians. Her breath wafted over the grave as she forced it out in a sigh.

"Primus chose you personally, didn't he?" she asked, looking over at him as if they were on different planets. "Did... he make all this happen on purpose?" She gestured not just to the gardens but up at the sky, where only the most stubborn stars managed to break through the eternal fog of war. "What does he get out of seeing his children fighting and dying for him?"

Once again, Optimus felt small next her. It was a feeling he never got used to, knowing her processor had much deeper depth than his own. He didn't mind it- if he got used to it, he might stop being amazed by her. "I do not know, Elita."

There must have been something apologetic in his voice, from how she lowered her gaze and servos. "I'm sorry, Orio-Optimus." She was still getting used to his new name, just like himself. "I'm not blaming you for it. I know... you never wanted the Matrix in the first place. But I wouldn't have anyone else being our Prime."

Elita looked up at him with a softness he'd been missing for vorns, closing his spark in a cocoon of pure love that not even the unusual presence of the Matrix could hold back. It threatened to cut off his vocaliser as he tried to speak. "And I wouldn't have anyone else by my side." His hand molded into hers, and the opportunity seemed too perfect not to take.

"Elita... I want you to be my sparkmate."

She blinked, slow at first and then rapidly, as she confirmed what she just heard. Her digits tightened in his grip and her optics were suddenly reluctant to look directly at him. "Are... are you sure?"

Optimus almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. "You are the light and love of my life, the only joy I have in the universe. I've never been surer of anything else. You would honour me with your spark, if you'll let me have it." He hoped his words would compensate for the unromantic-ness of the venue, but if Ironhide could propose to Chromia in the middle of a battlefield then he supposed he was already doing better than him.

Elita almost said something, but then glanced down at the wrapped bundle he left in her palm. She prodded at the hastily tied ribbon around it, raising an eyeridge up at Optimus. "What's this?"

When he smirked, he was Orion all over again. "Is it not traditional for a mech to give his love a gift first?"

A gasp filled Elita's vocaliser as she unwrapped it, and her optics danced with the light of the jewels inset within the grey rock. She carefully held it up to her optics. "It's beautiful, Optimus..." she whispered, catching the light of the jewels on the silver of her faceplate. "Where did you get it?"

"I... acquired it before... all this started. From an old gem seller in Iacon." He recalled the same one Elita had pointed out during their after-work recon, wondering if he'd managed to survive the hurricane of combat that swept through the city every solar cycle.

Elita stared at the gift, rolling it in her digts, sighing to herself and only looking at him after a few long klicks. "Optimus... I love you too. More than I thought I could love anything else. But... I need time to think about this. Time that I'm not sure I have left for much longer."

Optimus shuttered his optics for a klick, trying to fight back the sadness threatening to spill in them. When he opened them, he let the safe emotionless of Primes before him take over. "I would never force you into anything you weren't comfortable with, Elita. Take as long as you need to decide and whatever your answer... as long as you are happy, that's all that matters to me."

Coolant filled Elita's optics, blinked away a nanoklick later before they could betray her. She closed the rock over in her hands, squeezing gently on it before slipping it into her subspace. She looked at Optimus with more than just gratitude, and her helm lay nestled in his neck as she embraced him.

"Take me home, Orion. Please."

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

It took Optimus significantly longer than usual to rise from his berth that morning, and even longer to clear his optics from coolant. He should have known that memory was going to surface at some point... not the worst he could have went through, but his spark was in quiet agony all the same. The last time he saw Elita she'd been wearing that same armour, with the same expression of reproach and guilt.

Sometimes he wished she'd rejected him then and there. Then things might have been different. She might have survived a few more centuries, at least.

By the time he was ready to make an appearance to the rest of the Autobots, it was what humans would have called noon. The others seemed to dismiss his strange late rising and replaced concern for congratulations on dealing with Silas- apparently Ratchet made sure a modified version of the good news made its rounds. Optimus humbly took in the thanks, and only felt temporary relief at the thought of the humans still being in school for at least a few hours when he realised it was the weekend, and that they were already in the base.

Miko was cheering about the "defeat of sicko Silas" and, as Ratchet said, Rafael was waiting for him.

"You've been gone a lot, Optimus," the human observed with an innocence Optimus struggled to find suspicious.

"I can only apologise for my absences, Rafael," he said, acknowledging the flimsiness of his excuse and kneeling to make easier eye contact. "Ratchet informed me you had something to address?"

Raf nodded and opened up his laptop. "Just some more blog posts I dug up..." He tapped at some keys and turned the screen towards Optimus. "There's one here about mysterious tremors around coastal areas... I'm worried it might have something to do with Unicron, with what happened last time he woke up."

Optimus immediately focused on the names of the affected areas, noting how close they were to North Sister Island. 'You would be correct, Rafael, if Unicron was a Dinobot with notoriously loud steps...' He made an affirmative sound, but something in it must have came out wrong from the sudden sheepishness that entered Raf's expression.

"Sorry I keep bringing these up, Optimus, I just... have a lot of free time, I guess."

Optimus scolded himself internally- all his time with Airachnid was affecting his ability to connect with his team."Do not apologise for being responsible, Rafael. I know some Autobots who could learn much from you." The sluggish morning cold around his spark thawed from the pride in Raf's smile. "Are there any other concerns you'd like to bring to my attention?"

For a nanoklick the human seemed hesitant to share, debating with himself before eventually reaching an agreement with his brain. "Just one more." Raf typed something in again, bringing up a stern looking webpage. "This is from one of the usual conspiracy sites. It's talking about a compound not too far from here. Allegedly it's an abandoned military base, but there's been sights of trucks and people in goggles and leather going in at night. I know Silas has been taken in and all, but... it sounds like M.E.C.H to me."

Optimus shared that exact thought as soon as he saw the dark photographs of trucks parked outside rows of buildings. They were re-organising themselves faster than he or Fowler had anticipated. "An astute discovery and observation, Rafael. I will be sure to look into it." He rose to his peds with a stern breath of air pushing past his vents. "For now... I'd best check in on their leader."

xx

"Y'know, Bishop, I ain't an expert on military protocol, but I'm pretty sure 'don't go up against the team with alien robots' is more common sense than a rule." Fowler laughed once again and, as usual, Silas tried to ignore him and the irony of being in the exact same situation he'd forced onto Airachnid. The only difference was his child was lying dormant underground miles away from here.

"Tell you what, I think there's a few Decepticons who'd love to see you right now. 'Specially your little one eye friend, how 'bout we drop them a line once you're up and runnin' again?" Silas knew full well it was an empty threat- as if the US government had the means or the balls to make contact with aliens who actually did want to kill them. Even so, the thought of meeting up with the 'Cons again didn't do much to help his healing. Doctors and medics had asked him what the hell he'd done to end up with more holes than Swiss cheese, but he wasnt saying a word. Partly because he wasn't about to let his newest discovery fall into government hands (assuming they were too lazy to do an extensive search of the island) and partly because had bandages all over his face. It was those bandages that allowed him to keep his composure as he decided to use some personal experience in his rebuke.

"Go ahead, I'll just take my leave while they're picking you out of their teeth." The venom in his threat was wasted from how muffled it came out, causing Fowler to just laugh and grate even more on his ears. At least the bandages helped dampen the sound somewhat.

When Fowler finally sobered from humour, an incoming call stopped him from antagonising Silas further. He turned his back to the cell and pulled a video phone from his pocket, moving out of view as he spoke into it.

"For once it's actually good to see you, Prime."

Despite the pain, Silas gritted his teeth at the sound of Optimus' voice. "Greetings to you too, Agent Fowler. May I ask for a status update of our prisoner?"

"Oh, he's doin' just fine. We're takin' real good care of him..." He moved out of hearing range, but his laugh still echoed down the corridor of the prison. All the other empty cells only amplified the accursed noise and covered the sound of footsteps from the opposite direction.

A pair of guards pulled up to his cell, speaking to the other two stationed by the barred door. Silas couldn't hear the exchange, but it ended with the newcomers replacing them. They seemed to watch them leave, carefully checking along the rest of the corridor, before nodding and turning to open the door. Broken ribs stabbed into Silas as he inhaled sharply, unsure what to expect from them. For all he knew they could have had a vendetta against him, and now he was powerless to stop them carrying it out.

Only one guard entered though, and he pulled a familiar pair of red goggles over his eyes before saluting the medical bed Silas was confined to. "You still have some friends around here, General," he said.

The pain evaporated as hope almost dared to replace it. "At ease, soldier. Who sent you here?"

The guard lowered his arm and cast a wary look behind him. "Delta squadron, or what's left of it at least. They got off the island and managed to recon with the rest. They report that all data collected from the two lifeforms was lost when the base was seized, but that Nemesis is almost complete. All that's left is to set up the command hub and get you inside it-"

"Don't bother," Silas interrupted, trying and failing to seat himself upright without grunting. "I based the schematics entirely off of a training simulation module somewhere in this building. All we need to to is upload Nemesis' command frequency to it and I can control him from right here." The gauze over his mouth creased from the onset of a grin at the prospect.

The guard nodded, almost betraying a smile himself. "Very well, sir. We'll formulate a plan to infiltrate the module and arrange for your escape when the time comes. In the meantime... get well soon. We'll need you in full health." He saluted again, just when the other man at the cell door made a gesture that had his companion pulling his goggles off and rushing to leave, taking up his position on the other side. About thirty seconds later, Fowler and his facetious laughter had returned to mock Silas.

"Hope you're comfortable in there, Bishop. You're gonna be in there for a long, long while."

The bandages creased again, hiding Silas' all too knowing smirk.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

If Airachnid thought caring for a sparkling was a challenge, soothing a cranky Dinobot was a merciless endurance round. She was even starting to miss Wheeljack's company.

"Me no like humans," Grimlock grumbled through a mouthful of gnarled tree branch. He'd been chewing nonstop to get the taste of Silas off his glossa. "Human icky and weak. Not strong like king Grimlock!"

Airachnid kept herself out of wood-shrapnel range as she cradled a sleeping Scorpia. "I can't argue with you there, Grimmy," she sighed, remembering the sweet sight of Silas' broken body in the dirt. If she ever felt like restarting her collection, his head would have made a fine centrepiece.

Of course, if she had to sacrifice Optimus' goodwill to do it, she'd have to bide her time. In the end she'd be better off just starting a rock collection to keep her trinket company.

"Human hurt Airachnid and baby," Grimlock mumbled after the thid branch had been reduced to bark shavings. She couldn't remember him ever using her actual name before. It was surreal hearing anything more than two syllables long coming out of those denta. "Human deserve squish."

"Autobots don't like hurting humans," Airachnid reminded him.

"Autobots weak," he declared. Again, she had to agree. Primus only knew how they'd survived this long, with a skeleton crew against a warship full of Decepticons. Airachnid didn't really root for either side, but she knew which one she'd bet against when it came to wagers.

Still, she didn't have that Starscream quality of poisoning the servo that fed her- literally.

"Don't let Optimus hear you say that, unless you prefer trees over energon."

Grimlock scoffed through a fresh bite of a log, spitting out a spray of wood chunks and shredded leaves. "Prime nothing! Me Grimlock better than thousand Primes! Me Grimlock save family!"

His defiant roars managed to wake up a flock of birds and Scorpia. Airachnid pressed her against her chestplates before she could start wailing. "Optimus helped, though," she mentioned while gently bouncing her daughter. She knew that the Dinobot's dislike was most likely from jealousy or some primal urge to be superior, but something told her to defend Optimus. Maybe Autobot sympathy was contagious.

"Not much..." Grimlock growled lamely, laying down and settling his helm close to her. "Prime not sire like Grimlock." Like always he turned his optics up to her like a pleading turbofox, waiting for her hand on his muzzle. Airachnid wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up his delusion, especially when Optimus was the one Scorpia imprinted on, so she decided to get it over with while the subject was up.

"You will be a good sire someday, Grimlock," she stated slowly, stroking down the length of his jaw. "And you've given me more help than anyone else would." Of course that was only because he barely knew what a Decepticon was, never mind what she'd done during the war in the name of them. "But... I work better alone. It's always been that way. When my time with Optimus is done... I'd rather raise Scorpia by myself. With no sire." It was as much of the truth as she was willing to admit, without thinking of whether she'd ever truly be free of Optimus, or if she'd even survive long enough to see that day. She was envious of Grimlock's mercifully simple processor, which could only accept what was right in front of it. It took a few klicks to fully realise she was rejecting him.

"No... sire?" The boom of his voice made the sadness in it seem all the deeper. Airachnid forced herself to ignore it, still stroking his muzzle.

"There might be room for a sparklingsitter, but yes. No sire."

For the first time Grimlock's denta didn't gnash together or drip saliva; they were hidden by frowning lipplates. The metal under her palm hummed as a long whine resonated from his vocaliser. It wasn't a welcome sight, but it was better than him rampaging at least. If anything, it was the best result she could have hoped for.

With only one servo holding Scorpia she couldn't stop the sparkling wriggling out of her grip and tumbling down near the Dinobot's closed maw, tilting her helm when she heard his whimper. She almost tried copying his frown and stood up, supporting herself on his helm and spreading her servos over it as if trying to give it a hug.

"Grimmy?" The Dinobot's optics flicked over to the sparkling, and the whine suddenly cut out. The tips of his denta showed through a gap as his mouth slowly turned upwards, and Scorpia gave an enthusiastic smile of her own. Her denta were growing in slowly, some sharper than others, and she seemed proud to show them off.

Airachnid was just grateful she hadn't tried biting anything yet.

xx

"Soundwave. Progress update on the Iacon database."

Soundwave automatically obeyed the order, inputting keystrokes to boil down the windows littering his workspace to a simple estimation: 76% decrypted. He couldn't see Megatron's pleased smile behind him, but he did hear satsifaction in his chuckle.

"Excellent. Continue working." Soundwave had already went back to typing before the new order was even issued. He was about to tune out his audios when he heard pedsteps slightly heavier than Megatron's approaching.

"I was told I would find you here, Lord Megatron. I apologise if I am interrupting," he heard Dreadwing say with some surprise. Ever since his failure to kill Optimus Prime, the Seeker had taken to avoiding any more of Megatron's wrath by confining himself to the armoury most of the day.

Luckily for him, their leader hadn't yet encountered anything to flare his anger today. "You are not, Dreadwing."

"I have heard... unsettling rumours amidst other officers." Soundwave still had his cables plugged in, but he made sure to amplify his audio range. "I trust no-one's word except your own, so I come seeking the truth."

"And what would these rumours be?" The tone that snapped into Megatron's voice would have reduced lesser bots into piles of shivering scrap. All it did to Dreadwing was introduce a nervous quaver to his own.

"That... the traitor Airachnid was carrying a sparkling before her departure."

Soundwave had long since perfected the art of eavesdropping, and it wasn't exactly a feat when Megatron hardly bothered to lower his voice. He knew more about the Airachnid situation than anyone else, but still his audios listened closely while his digits tapped and cables leeched through billions of bytes of data.

"That is true," Megatron confessed after an uncomfortable pause. "The sire of the sparkling is still unknown, but the problem has been dealt with. Do not let it distract you from your duties."

Soundwave almost missed a transmission blip from hearing the predictable lies, yet as always Dreadwing let honour bind him into believing them. "I shall not, my liege. But... I have a suspicion as to who this sire might be. And I worry that Airachnid's defection may compromise his loyalty to the Decepticons."

"Oh?" The sudden opportunity to clear his name made Megatron sound even more predatory than usual.

"I have heard that Breakdown has held a particular liking towards Airachnid, ever since he delivered her to us. It could be that the two... interfaced in secret, and this sparkling was proof of their union." Soundwave knew that Dreadwing was only the second mech to make the accusation, the first being Knockout, but at this rate it wouldn't take long for even the slowest drone to connect the dots. He would be the only one left knowing the truth, Breakdown would be outcast, and Megatron would get away with yet another crime against the cosmos. He stopped himself from stabbing his keys as a foreign fury threatened to spread outside the safe prison of his spark.

"An astute observation, Dreadwing," Megatron praised more for himself than the Seeker. "If loyalty is at stake, it may be worthwhile to keep a close optic on Breakdown." Soundwave could only imagine the effort the warlord was making to not make some quip about Breakdown needing an optic.

"I hope that my speculation is false, but it will be a relief to have any more traitors brought to light. Thank you for your time, my liege." Metal scraped together as Dreadwing bowed before taking his leave. Megatron seemed to watch him go before giving the expected order to Soundwave.

"The Iacon database will remain your priority, but increase surveillance on Breakdown. Report any suspicious behavior to me." For the first time in breems Soundwave turned away from his monitor to give a nod, and to ensure when Megatron had left. With no-one else in the room, Soundwave put his database work to the side and pulled up a blank display. He carefully filled it with lines of blue text, meticulously entered and double checked with his internal code banks. Only when everything matched did he hit enter, and the screen filled with a co-ordinate map and a single dot in the centre of it.

Soundwave had always suspected Airachnid would betray them as soon as the chance came. She was the fourth bot to have his tracker beacon secretly installed; the others being Starscream, Knockout and, almost ironically, Breakdown. He would have even put one on Megatron if he thought he could get away with it. Starscream's had stopped transmitting vorns ago, else Soundwave might have gone out and dragged the Seeker back himself. Airachnid's was still mostly functional though, and at least told him that she was still alive. He didn't recognise the island that the map showed, and he decided that was for the best. If he couldn't find her, then hopefully Megatron couldn't either.

He was about to close the display and the logging masker when something new cropped up on the edge of his vision. The frequency channel monitor was filled with all manner of reports and wave trackers, but an unknown signal had wedged itself into the mess. It didn't match any of Cybertronian origin, yet most human ones wouldn't even register. Tracking its origin only made Soundwave even more confused- it came from inside some sort of Earth based building, deep within the crust. On ground level the signal would have been even stronger, and he only managed to trace its target by latching onto one of the data pulses.

If the co-ordinates were correct, it was going to the same island that Airachnid had landed herself on, and presented itself with the signature NEMESIS.

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

Silas had been counting the days silently until this moment, finally free of his bandages and stretching his slowly healing muscles in time with his anticipating heart beats. There were more guards now; four outside his cell and another two who made patrols past at strict two minute intervals. They were expecting him to try a break out. It would have been wiser for them to plan against him breaking in.

The patrol guards passed again, one of them sporting a beard that wasn't there before. One of the stationary guards was on the floor from a strike to the neck from the man next to him before the alarm could be raised, and the others were fumbling for their guns. Not one of them got a shot off before rifle butts cracked down against their skulls, sending all but one sinking to the floor. Three M.E.C.H soldiers against three trained government ones (five, if the patrol put up a fight out of earshot); risky as hell, but then again the whole operation relied on risk. It would have been simpler to just kill the guards, but Silas wasn't in the business of unnecessary casualties. After all, he'd been among them once.

The remaining cell guard produced keys from his belt to unlock the door, and the bearded man wasted no time in a progress report. "We've moved whatever equipment we could from the Nevada base to here, sir. The Nemesis subject is still in the area, and its frequency has been uploaded to the command module."

Silas nodded, expecting as much. "Have the island samples been recovered?"
"Unfortunately, they are secured in a separate building. Going after them would have compromised the overall security of the operation."

Unfortunate, but he wouldn't lose sleep over it. He rose from his bench, clenching healing knuckles and stretching mended bones. "Where is Agent Fowler?" he asked, starting to march out, expecting the others to keep up with him.

The other patrol soldier answered; "He wasn't counted among the subdued agents, sir, but the database logs point towards him being based inside Nemesis' range."

Silas cracked a smile through new plastic teeth as they reached the exit of the cell block. "Then we should let him know about the change in management."

xx

"Something on your processor, Optimus?"

Ratchet caught the Prime staring at June again, fussing over Jack and trying to decipher the source of the bruise on his arm (friendly fights with Miko, no doubt). There was the constant unspoken worry of what Scorpia might mature into, or if she'd even survive to Jack's age. Optimus shook himself, diverting his gaze to somewhere distant.

"When I was... in the captivity of the Decepticons..." he considered carefully, a hand tapping his chin irregularly. "I remember passing by... I was close to her." Even out of hearing range and silent over the humans' game console, Optimus still preferred to not mention her name. "Every time I was near, I felt fluctuations in her electromagnetic field beyond the scope of generator glitches." Just one of the many signs of a carrying femme, which Airachnid must have been for her to have birthed Scorpia so soon afterward.

Ratchet's typing digits paused, and he weighed up his friend's contemplation. "You knew she was carrying from the beginning."

"I didn't register it at the time. I simply followed my orders to decode the database." Optimus meant it more as a statement of fact than an excuse, but even so guilt twinged his spark. "If I had realised it... Primus knows how earlier we could have helped her."

Ratchet chanced a frown, digits still sweeping idly over his keyboard. It was clear he would never share Optimus' feelings about redemption for Decepticons, but for his friend's sake he kept most of the apathy out of the boundaries his low voice. "There was nothing you could do for her, Optimus. She wouldn't have let you help her even if you could."

Only being close to death gave her enough survival instinct to suppress her pride. If Optimus had found her just a day earlier, she may have chased him off with talons flaying his back while her own held Scorpia. Time was always a curious variable.

Optimus didn't know if he was still in Ratchet's attention, but his processor spieled regardless. "If I could sense her... why could no-one else? Surely Knockout at least would have noticed."

The temptation to trump the Decepticon's own medic lured Ratchet in for one last musing. "Techno-organics have never followed the same rules as us. I wouldn't dwell too much over it."

Optimus might have relented to the easiness of that explanation if not for one thing he hadn't mentioned; the swelling of his juvenile spark in her presence, almost gravitating solely towards her. He doubted medicine could have explained anything about it, and was spared from letting it slip by a volley of blips popping up on Ratchet's console.

"Unidentified lifeform sending out a Cybertronian signal." Whatever hundred and one explanations there might have been for it were gone to waste at the beck of Agent Fowler's incoming transmission.

"Prime, have you blown a circuit or something?!"
Optimus was used to the human's bursts of anger, but the static-edged demands manage to throw him off edge. Ratchet himself looked at the screen like it had turned out to be sentient all along, and stepped aside to let Optimus speak to it. "I am confused to your meaning, Agent Fowler."

"Oh, well excuse me for not being clearer, I'm a little busy and confused myself as to why the hell you're trying to run me off the damn road!" Fowler's desperate sarcasm could have been heard from Cybertron, and the other Autobots were starting to migrate to the problem (June herself clamped her hands over Raf's ears, muttering about bad language in the presence of children).

"Sounds like the signal will need some direct investigation," Ratchet muttered, already powering up the Ground Bridge.

"We'll provide backup, Optimus," Arcee offered, gesturing a servo behind her to Bulkhead. "Whatever it is, it sounds like it'll put up a fight."

Optimus nodded. "Very well. Bumblebee, remain here for the children. Ratchet, prepare the medbay for both Cybertronian and human patients." Ever since Rafael's Dark Energon contamination, Ratchet had done well to stock up on Earth's brand of medical supplies. Hopefully they wouldn't be necessary.

Miko glanced over the couch and pulled her headset off, only just noticing no-one had watched her round-winning kill. She swallowed her indignation when she saw the blue glow of blasters. "Get a killstreak for me, Optimus!" she whooped, holding a fist above her head.

"Yeah, kick some clone butt!" Raf rejoiced, still deafened by June's overprotection. Jack made good use of the distraction to sneak back over to Miko's side and take up the second controller.

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

The Ground Bridge took the trio to a patch of desert, already scorched with years of the sun and the concussion rounds blasted from afar melting the sand into sharp glass grains pinging against their armour. Bulkhead stood his ground, safe with his thicker plating, while Arcee ducked behind him and peered out from the guard of his leg. Optimus took his shelter from behind a tower, supports rusted and groaning but still standing tall, as he surveyed their opponent and for any sign of Agent Fowler.

The warning shots stopped and the dust eventually cleared, leaving Optimus staring into a dark and grainy mirror of himself.

Bulkhead's voice crackled over his comm line. "Uh, Optimus, you seein' what I'm-?"

"I am, Bulkhead, and I am... just as confused as you." Optimus resisted another glance over his cover to ensure his optics weren't glitching. "I will draw his attention while you and Arcee find Agent Fowler. Do not come to my aid unless he has been secured."

There was some hesitation, but two voices eventually agreed at the same time. "Got it."

With his open comm feed still crackling faintly, Optimus edged out of safety with a blaster deployed in his servo. The impostor some peds ahead of him let him approach, wielding an identical gun and completely blank optics staring at him. At least he hadn't noticed Bulkhead and Arcee threading up the left side through the cover of the evening.

There was a familiar chuckle when Optimus cleared half the distance between them. "Feeling some de ja vu, Prime?"

Optimus wasn't quite sure what the phrase meant, but he did know what he felt was pure dread. There was a hissed intake of air over his comm feed as Arcee and Bulkhead were hit with their own heavy weights of realisation. "Silas...?"

Another mocking laugh answered his shock. "Not so much in the flesh as in the metal, as you can see." The dark clone waved the unarmed servo over its frame. "I hope you don't mind me borrowing your design. Don't know if you've heard the saying 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'?"

Bulkhead wasn't up to keeping his jawplate bolted as he grumbled, "We've got a saying back on Cybertron- 'talk slag, get fragged'."

Optimus clenched his digits, gripping his composure tightly. "What is it you want, Silas?" He'd dealt with senseless rampages before, but even Decepticon-grade humans must have had reason behind their actions. Their processors weren't complex enough to malfunction on such a huge scale as he was used to.

"Oh, to list it all would take me all night, Optimus," Silas replied, as if they were discussing the weather patterns of the Hydrax Plateau. "I'd much rather just shoot you and be done with it."

Both battle and evasive subroutines wrestled for Optimus' attention then, sending him into something halfway between an aiming crouch and a roll for cover before he noticed the suspicious lack of open fire a full nanoklick after he'd been expecting it. He blinked, still aiming at Silas' shell while its own weapon lowered and its speakers filled with even more laughter. Only someone with the confidence of a tyrant would laugh in the literal face of a plasma bullet.

"Almost had you there," Silas chuckled. "I suppose I'll start at the beginning. Thanks to our... field work on your friends, my organisation now has a full blueprint for a functioning robotic organism. Not as fancy as your kind, of course, we've not yet cracked the secret of artificial intelligence, but I think a drone suits me quite nicely."

Optimus' audials twitched at the new information. He wasn't close enough to sense anything like an EM field or heat signature, wary of anything living being inside the frame, but now he could shoot at the impostor knowing only dead metal would be damaged. He raised his blaster a little higher just before Silas continued.

"I'd turn off your communications for this next part if I were you," the human advised. "You wouldn't want your team finding out about your little... home away from home, now would you?"

Optimus closed off the feed as quickly as he could. Bulkhead and Arcee would be brimming with suspicion, but he'd deal with that later. "Is this blackmail?" he asked quietly, strength staring to fail in his weapon servo.

"If it makes you feel better calling it that, then yes." He could almost see Silas' smirk in his own covered faceplate. "Sure, you could shoot me down right now. But it wouldn't change what I know about you now. Your... alliance with the spider bot and her whelp. Your associates must not know about it. You wouldn't need to block communications if they did."

Optimus didn't usually slip up in such a criminally simple way. He groaned to himself while SIlas grinned miles away. "I have leverage on you now, Prime. You're more than just a soldier, so I'm sure you know how devastating this can be for you."

Optimus opened his vents wide, filling with cool cycles of air as he stood off against his nemesis. "There is nothing you can do to hurt me, Silas," he said slowly. "Better beings than you have tried and failed."

"Not physically, perhaps," Silas agreed, starting to circle around him and forcing him to turn and track his movements. "But... I do know exactly where you're keeping your little family."

"Then you know how far away you are from them," Optimus pointed out, if only to reassure himself.

"Oh, so many assumptions all at once, Optimus. I thought you were supposed to be smart. You don't know where I am, where this signal is coming from. For all you know... I'm right where they-"

Optimus' blade collided with the drone's vocaliser the same moment that the whole frame went limp, toppling to the ground in a useless heap of metal when he pulled his sword out. For once no energon stained the steel, just a faint sheen of hydraulic fluid that leaked from the hole in his clone's throat. It shouldn't have been enough to deactivate it, but he didn't miss Silas' company in any case.

His processor felt too big for his helm, subroutines tangling together in an aching mess that made conjuring a single thought painful. He was left standing in a waking stasis lock, staring at the scrapheap at his peds even as the sound of tires skidding on the sand ahead announced the return of the other Autobots.

Despite his leader's disconcerting trance, Bulkhead decided to give the good news first. "We found Fowler." He opened his passenger door to show the human slumped on the seat, dazed and bleeding but in no serious state. Arcee didn't wait to stop to transform, sliding on the wheels in her peds in a rush towards the Prime.

"Optimus, what the hell happened here?" Arcee had been adopting some of her partner's language, it seemed. "We lost contact with you a few klicks ago and you didn't respond to any pings!"

Optimus found himself summoning a lie automatically. "My equipment must be malfunctioning. I apologise."

Arcee watched him with as much skepticism as she dared, before following his focus down at SIlas' robot. "You managed to take him out?" She prodded the heap of scrap cautiously with a ped, and the jolting movement seemed to dislodge Optimus back into reality.
"I am not sure," he answered, the truth this time while his blade sucked back into his servo. "The injury inflicted was not severe enough to be lethal."

"That's human tech for ya'," Bulkhead huffed in the background. Still keeping her distance, Arcee propped the empty helm up with a digit and looked closer at a small beacon near the base of the neck.

"Looks like it was just... turned off by something," she said. "The relay signal's not online, at least."

Bulkhead drove himself closer, headlights growing brighter as he saw it for himself. "Can't imagine Silas givin' us a break for old time's sake. But hey, least we don't have to fight his freaky puppet."

Optimus couldn't make himself feel Bulkhead's optimism. "Arcee, is it possible to track the source of the firewall?" he asked, to a shrug and a sigh in reply.

"If we had the right equipment and expertise, maybe... but with what we have it'll stay a mystery." She pushed herself back upright and wiped her hands vigorously on her thigh plates. "Cause Primus knows we need some more of those floating around..."

Optimus found himself humphing in a sad agreement only he could make sense of. As the team prepared for extraction he decided to switch his comm feed back on, only now receiving the slew of pings and missed hails from the Autobots. None of those made his energon freeze cold in his fuel lines, though. Buried between two pings from Arcee was one from Airachnid.

He remembered Silas' words, the subtle warning in his broadcast. And then something hollow spread out from his spark, a weightless feeling he hadn't felt since the Matrix had first chosen him. He was terrified.

"Bulkhead, Arcee..." It was all he could do to keep panic away from his vocaliser. "Take Agent Fowler back to base."

Arcee raised an eyeridge and even Bulkhead's lights seem to flicker. "You're not coming with us?" she asked.

"I will investigate this further," was all he said to explain. "Let the team know I will be unreachable for the next few breems."

He knew Arcee wanted to argue, but her spark wasn't in the right place to start up a confrontation. She commed Ratchet and a Ground Bridge appeared a moment later, whisking all three away back to base.

Optimus waited until the vortex had completely faded before calling for his own transport. "Ratchet, summon the usual Ground Bridge at my co-ordinates." It was tricky to map the incoming co-ordinates differently from the outgoing ones in a Bridge and the resulting portal was often unstable, but it was hardly impossible. He was hoping the commotion of the base would stop the medic from asking questions, but evidently Primus wasn't in the mood for giving him much hope today.

"Optimus? What happened out there, why-?"

"He is fine, everything is taken care of, just send the Bridge over." Optimus forgot a "please" in his frenzy to get to Airachnid, but Ratchet didn't seem to register it since a Bridge spawned after a nanoklick. It was just another thing he'd have to apologise for at the end of all this.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

"Uh huh... uh huh... he did what to the central com-?!" Fowler groaned in either pain or exasperation- Ratchet couldn't tell the difference when it came to humans. He mostly let the man tend to himself with the supplies laid out by June, dabbing the red energon from his forehead away with a rag while he spoke into something embedded in his ear- the Earth equivalent of a comm unit, it seemed to be.

"Look, just get him and the rest of his weirdos locked up tight, alright?" Fowler ordered, firmly wrapping a bandage around his arm. "I'm talking Alcatraz level security, I never want to hear this guy's name again unless it's in an obituary."

"Guess some humans hate each other more than we hate 'Cons," Bulkhead remarked, with Miko perched on his ped and driving around a minuature version of Bumblebee's alt mode Rafael had brought in. Ratchet wished the damn thing wouldn't make so much noise, but at least it kept the small humans out of his way.

"Tell me about it, Bulk," Miko said, gritting her teeth slightly as she leaned into a hard right turn. "I remember there was this guy at school back in Tokyo- total jerk, kept stealing all my pencils, had a really nice butt though-"

"Miko!" Jack almost knocked the controller out of her hand with the cushion that collided with her wrist. She affixed an offended pout with her hands on her hips.

"Oh, so it's totally okay for you to drone on and on about 'Oooh, Sierra, can I help carry your books?', 'Oooh, Sierra did you get a haircut?", "Oooh, Sierra, kiss me in the sunset-" Another cushion hit much further upwards, sending her sprawling backwards on Bulk's leg as she protested against the fabric in her face.

Ratchet might have laughed just a little at the exchange if not for concern eroding his concentration. Whatever had put Optimus in such a hurry that he couldn't even return to base, it had everything to do with Airachnid. Either she was in danger, or (more likely) she'd put somebot else in danger. Perhaps it was Scorpia herself. Despite her heritage, she held an innocence that was impossible for some bots to even imagine after so many years of war. It was difficult not to worry about her, especially with Unicron's influence in her veins. The effects of Dark Energon on an adult frame were already unpredictable- a sparkling being infected was so unthinkable in that no-one wanted to even picture the consequences.

They might well have a future Megatron on their servos. Ratchet might have had nightmares from that thought if he wasn't distracted by another groan from Fowler- so full of irritation that the medic might have thought it came from his own vocaliser.

"I don't care what he's sayin' about a 'robot spider island', the guy is a grade A psycho and the day I believe anything he says is the day I start riding a flying pig to work!" The human tried to calm himself with a gulp of water and June flinched away at the mention of a "robot spider" while Ratchet's eyeridge raised of its own accord.

Silas knew about Airachnid. Even if the humans weren't believing him, there was no telling what kind of intel the Decepticons were capable of getting. After all this work, they could snatch her right back from under their olfactories.

Ratchet wasn't sure how to feel about the possibility of losing her, and he was saved from thinking further into it by June's maternal streak kicking in.

"A few days rest and you'll be good as new," she promised Fowler, patting his shoulder before heading out to the main base area. "Come on, kids, it's late and you've all got school tomorrow!" She pulled her white jacket on with a firm look at her son lounging on the sofa with a notebook full of suspicious doodles in his lap. "Jack, that better have been homework you were doing," she warned.

"Yeeeees, Mooooom," Jack droned, kicking onto his feet as she gathered everything into a bag. Bulkhead and Arcee both switched back into their alt modes and loaded up their humans, one promising to have the radio turned up and the other promising it turned off to avoid music taste arguments. Bumblebee stayed in bipedal form though, approaching Ratchet with the look of a bot carrying a question he knew would be answered with a firm no. And yet he was going to ask it anyway. That was Bumblebee for you.

"Uh, Ratch, I... kinda promised Raf I would show him a meteor shower that's happening this evening," the scout chirped, pressing his digits together nervously. "But it only happens out north, and I can't drive that far in time, so-"

"You want me to Ground Bridge you there and back?" Ratchet guessed with the deadpan of a mech who already knew he was right.

"Uh... yep!" Bumblebee nodded, obviously hoping the enthusiam would convince Ratchet to allow it. Rafael was watching the exchange anxiously from afar, slowly edging closer.

The medic beckoned for the human to stop dawdling so far away. Technically he had full command of the base in Optimus' absence, and he would have refused the journey if not for the excitement buzzing in the human's tiny frame. "How long will it take?" he asked in a sigh, almost missing the sparkle igniting in Rafael's now hopeful gaze.

"It'll only take me a few minutes to take pictures, I swear," Raf said. "And then I want to write up a blog post about it, then compare with the previous showers, then-"

"I'll give you twenty minutes," Ratchet allowed, firing up the Ground Bridge with the co-ordinates Bumblebee supplied. The scout transformed and Raf all but dived into the front seat, waving at Ratchet as they drove through the vortex.

With a twitch of his lips, the old medic closed the Bridge.

xx

Optimus ran out into the island glade- and straight into Airachnid's back. Relief filled him more than anger filled her optics as she turned around in surprise.

"And just what the Pit happened to you, Prime?" she asked, servos on her hips like an angry sparkmate berating her husband's late arrival. The mental image drove even more air out of Optimus, leaving his vocaliser in a state as he panted air through his vents to cool his melting engines down.

"M.E.C.H... artificial clone... can't talk." Optimus fell back on a low rock, servos braced on his legs as he tried to regulate his sweating systems. Airachnid hadn't lowered her servos, tapping her claws on her plating impatiently as she watched him in the middle of a meltdown. If she wasn't so annoyed she might have been concerned.

"You were supposed to deliver energon rations two breems ago," she informed him, with slow words to make sure his processor got them all. "And you show up late looking like you got chased by a pack of turbofoxes. I'm not exactly instilled with confidence right now, Optimus."

The Prime wiped a hand over his faceplate, letting coolant ooze from his joints and waver in the evening wind. He looked up at Airachnid, weariness meeting wariness, with only one thing on his mind.

"Where's Scorpia?"

Airachnid might have tormented him with a joke about having eaten her daughter out of fear of starvation, but a trill from behind her leg sounded first. "Dadda!" The sparkling toppled towards him as she tried to run through the grass, and was swept up into his servos when she came within range of them. His chest heaved against her cheek, the heavy pulse of his spark tickling her and making her giggle against his plating. Airachnid stood silent as Optimus held her daughter, impatience waning as he absorbed the sparkling's joy for himself. Scorpia nestled herself near one of his elbows, scraping small denta against his thick servo plating, and only then did Optimus let himself sort through the situation.

"Silas has escaped human custody."

Airachnid scoff over a roll of her optics. "What a surprise."

"He... has managed to construct a drone for himself, based on my own frame," Optimus continued, treading carefully. "There was a confrontation. He knows where you are. Where this island is. He could easily find you again."

His optics flicked up to see a more furious kind of disbelief than he'd been expecting on her faceplate. "Are you suggesting I run away yet again?" Scorpia paused her nibbling at her mother's hiss, and it took Optimus' digit stroking her filament braid to stop whimpers breaking out from her.

"For your own safety-"

Airachnid interrupted viciously. "I know what my own safety entails, Prime. Either you think motherhood has made me soft, or you know I'd tear that piece of slag to shreds if I ever saw him again. So which is it?"

They both knew the answer, but Optimus was smart enough to not voice it. Instead he tried to catch her off-guard and hopefully make her forget what she was even angry about. "... I noticed you were attempting to reach my comm unit," he said to her. "You were concerned for me."

She blinked at him, violet optics now almost as blank as those of Silas' puppet. "Of course I was," she said with a shrug. "With you gone... where else was I going to get energon from? I could dig for it myself, at least, if I had the equipment to find it..." Her voice started to condense into a mumble that told Optimus energon was the very least of her worries.

"I do not doubt your abilities, Airachnid."

Scorpia yawned and stretched in his servos, and as Optimus switched her to his other arm he noticed Grimlock already asleep under a tree. The Dinobot slumbered like the dead, if the dead liked to slobber all over the dirt and scare birds away with the rusty grinding of dormant gears. Though his mouth didn't move, there was a rumble from his vocaliser that was just loud enough to be deciphered over the ambience of recharge.

"He likes to talk in his sleep," Airachnid explained as Optimus edged closer. "Same list of numbers, over and over. I've practically memorised them all by now."

Optimus paused in front of the updraft coming from Grimlock's mouth, handing Scorpia back over to her mother as he knelt down with an audio hovering over where the Dinobot's vocaliser should have been. He mouthed everything he heard silently, eventually clicking it all together the third time it repeated.

"What do they sound like to you?" he asked, looking up at Airachnid as she cradled the sleepy-opticked Scorpia.

"Dinobot gibberish," the spider said dismissively.

"But seperate the first twelve numbers..." Optimus suggested, slowly rising to his peds. "What might they be now?"

Airachnid chewed her lip as she thought, sorting through the list with realisation coming quickly. "...Co-ordinates?"

Optimus nodded. Slowly, with the Matrix pulsing in his chest, he started piecing the past together.

When Grimlock and his team first went missing, their last report was near what was thought to be Shockwave's lab. Just before that, Shockwave had charged his way into the Iacon Vaults and made off with every scrap of data about the relics held within, leaving no trace of them behind. There was the link between Grimlock and the relics... if he was taken into Shockwave's lab, molded into his current beast form, a computer malfunction could have resulted in data being shoved into the Dinobot's processor in a dormant state. Some kind of stack overflow or even a full system dump that might have overloaded his logic circuits. It would explain a lot about his sparkling-grade thought processes.

Optimus opened up his comm unit in a much lighter mood. "Ratchet... I believe I've found the solution to our Iacon database problem."

The medic's voice seemed surprised to hear from his friend so soon. "How so?"

"A long story," Optimus said. "I'm sending a data packet over that contains what I suspect to be the co-ordinates of the relics. Have the Autobots investigate them as soon as possible."

"I will, Optimus. You sound... less troubled than before."

Optimus glanced at Airachnid, with Scorpia swiping up at her chin. "Yes, old friend," he said with a smile. "For once, everything seems fine."

"Well, forgive me for potentially ruining the moment, but..." The pause was just long enough to make Optimus' spark stop beating. "I should tell you the children went home not too long ago... Bumblebee hasn't returned."

Before concern could settle in like an old wound, Airachnid froze with Scorpia secured on her back. She pulled her palm blasters out and aimed out at the undergrowth, optics glowing bright as she hissed;

"There's someone in the forest."

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Ratchet was still waiting for a reply when Arcee and Bulkhead returned from the escort, noting Bumblebee's absence with heavy suspicion.

"He returned before you two... mentioned wanting to take a drive outside, keep his engine running. Knowing mechs his age, he'll be out until dawn," Ratchet put together on the spot. Instinct was nagging him in his own way to tell them just how annoyed he was at the scout being ten klicks late and not even answering comm hails, but he knew the truth would just keep them up worrying.

Bulkhead just laughed at the lie. "You were young once as well, Ratch'."

"If I was, I can't remember it," Ratchet said back, mouth wavering in a shadow of a smile. He'd gone so long without showing one that maybe his faceplate was desperate for something other than a scowl for once.

"Well, guess we'll be going to our quarters..." Arcee stretched her servos up as she yawned- Ratchet had never understood the purpose for almost unhinging your jawplate, but it seemed to be something caught on from the humans.

"Before you recharge..." Ratchet tapped at his databank monitor, bringing up the data packet he'd been scanning through during his wait. "I have your missions for tomorrow."

Both bots squinted at the rows of numbers filling up the screen. "What's that?" Arcee asked.
"Those are the co-ordinates for the Iacon relics on Earth," Ratchet said, almost tempting another smile. Bulkhead gave a wide one of his own to make up for it.

"You serious?" he asked, both him and Arcee moving closer and squinting harder to distinguish between line after line of sacred numbers.

"While Optimus was in his Orion Pax state of mind, it seemed he retained some more distant memories of his past," Ratchet found himself crafting again. "The Decepticons have to decode their data from the database... we now have it straight from the source."

"Well then, frag recharge!" Bulkhead laughed, slamming his fists together. "We can get a head start on the 'Cons while they're still tryin' to translate this slag."

Ratchet rolled his optics. Couldn't he have one day without somebot trying to get themselves lost and killed? "Bulkhead, I'm not letting you go treasure hunting at this hour," he said after a sigh.

"Come on, Ratch', I didn't get to pound any metal on Silas' toy," he begged. "Wreckers never end a day without an aft kicking. You up for it, 'Cee?"

Arcee smiled at the invitation but shook her helm. "There's only so much action I can take for one day, Bulk. But have fun out there- if the Hatchet will let you, that is."

She'd sloped off to her berth before Ratchet could ask her what "Hatchet" was supposed to mean. Bulkhead was still waiting for permission like a sparkling about to open a present, and Ratchet was already feeling like he was in a feedback loop from Bumblebee's request just less than a breem ago.

Optimus would've had him demoted for sending out so many Autobots at once, but he wasn't quite sure what to make of the Prime's judgement recently. And he was in command of the base in his absence and, in this case, lack of orders...

Ratchet looked over the list of numbers and plucked out a set of them before he could regret his decision. "The co-ordinates are near the Earth's equator, so for the love of Primus don't wander off."

Bulkhead raised an eyeridge, actually surprised for a nanoklick that his pleading had worked before excitement took over. "Any idea what'll be waiting there?"

"No, but... whatever it is, it should help us." Ratchet started to type the location into the Ground Bridge's settings, before his digits froze as his optics skidded over one of the input boxes.

Only one of them was for where Bumblebee had wanted to go. At last he knew where the scout was, and he really wished he didn't.

His spark and vents felt tight as Bulkhead awaited the portal's appearance. Ratchet forced himself to finish the configuration before the Wrecker started asking questions.

"I'll keep in constant contact with you," he told Bulkhead, masking any distraught cracks in his voice with a thick coating of optimism. From the look the Wrecker gave him, it must have sounded more disturbing than if he'd just let himself break down in front of him. Even so, Bulkhead just nodded and walked through the Bridge before he could look back.

Alone again in the base, Ratchet let all the air in his systems hiss out in a long sigh. Primus really didn't want him to sleep tonight.

xx

Optimus already knew who Airachnid was aiming at, but he deployed his blaster anyway. If he had to use it, it wouldn't be on his lurking teammate. At least Grimlock was still sleeping.

He tried to keep his aim discrete as Airachnid moved closer to the undergrowth. "I'm going to count to three," she called out. "And if whoever's out there hasn't come out by then-"

Optimus wasn't sure what to expect from Bumblebee, but he was at least smart enough to emerge with his own weaponry trained on her. In fact, he was so focused on her he only noticed his leader by her side at that moment. His optics widened in shock, narrowed in confusion and then finally settled on a hard look at Airachnid.

Bumblebee's frame was shaking in front of the spider, but his vocaliser endured. "Optimus, stand back, I've got-!"

The Prime had been preparing himself for taking aim at one of his own, but his servo still felt heavy as lead as he aimed it at the scout. "Stand down, Bumblebee!" he ordered, forcing hesitation out of his voice like it was a pest.

As he expected, Bumblebee's weapon fell just slightly. Even Airachnid's defensive stance seemed to falter. "But... but she's-" Bee started to protest, cut off by another firm command from Optimus.

"Stand. Down."

Bumblebee glanced between the two bots, blaster barrel burning as bright as his furrowed optics. "Her first." Somehow the chirp managed to sound threatening to both of them.

Still keeping his aim on the scout, Optimus turned to the spider. The look she was giving him could have melted Unicron himself. "Airachnid... please."

Whatever it was that eventually convinced her to lower her servos, Optimus was certain it wasn't a sudden love for Autobots in her territory. This was different from the confrontation between her and Ratchet- Bumblebee didn't have the medic's objective experience, or understanding of the Prime's motives. He'd been fighting Decepticons all his life- all he truly knew how to do was kill one when it was in front of him. Airachnid at least had her child to stop her entering a battle. The only thing stopping Bumblebee was Optimus' word. And his word wouldn't mean anything if he didn't manage to explain himself.

Bumblebee kept his weapon out, but at least it was aiming at the ground. He looked to Prime, and furious chirps and whirrs came so fast that Optimus didn't have time to translate them into Neocybex.

"Please calm yourself, Bumblebee," Optimus pleaded, changing his blaster to hands reaching out to the scout. "I understand you are confused. But Airachnid is not a threat."

Bumblebee's eyeridges dug deep into his whirring optics. "And my aft is made of gold!" he snorted through snippets of blips.

Airachnid kept Scorpia shielded on her back with her back legs. "I'm not going to hurt you, scout," she said wearily. "I have better things to waste my time on."

Bumblebee voiced his skepticism in a burbled scoff. Optimus placed himself between the two before the standoff could start all over again.

"Please listen, Bumblebee-"

"I'm listenin' real hard, cause this better be good," the scout said, folding his servos over like a sulking teenspark. Only when the most surly Autobots caught him in his worst mood did Bumblebee use such a tone- especially never with Optimus before now. He really was mad.

Optimus decided not to waste any time. "Airachnid... found herself carrying a sparkling while with the Decepticons." Bumblebeee's anger dissolved in another burst of shock. "She has since defected from them, for the safety of herself and her child. As of now she poses no threat to humans, or the Autobots." Airachnid glared at him for the assumption, but she didn't bother to deny it.

Bumblebee looked away, processing the new information, and compiling his reaction into a repeat of anger. "So she gets knocked up and all of a sudden all the 'Bots she's murdered just don't matter anymore?"

Despite the blue of his optics, the scout could only see black and white. "Bumblebee, it's not that-"

"How long has this been going on, Optimus?" he interrupted again. "How long have you been stealing our resources and lying to us for a fragging monster?!" He gestured a servo at Airachnid, who only acknowledged the insult with a roll of her optics. She'd surely been exposed to worse.

"I do not blame you for being upset at this, Bumblebee," was all Optimus could say. He hadn't been trained in negotiating with emotional youngsters and had been hoping to put it off until Scorpia's own adolescence. Right now Bumblebee was like a bright yellow timebomb- he'd blow the whole island up if he wasn't defused.

"How are we supposed to trust you when you're off keeping Decepticons-" For once Bumblebee actually cut himself off, optics suddenly settling on a point in the ground. The point turned out to be a curious sparkling crawling towards him, and around then was when Airachnid noticed she had a sparkling missing from her back.

"Is... is that the..." Bumblebee kept pointing at Scorpia, as if she was a baby Scraplet wanting to finish off his vocaliser. Airachnid nodded, seeming to enjoy the scout being frozen by something barely a third of his size. Optimus wanted to scoop Scorpia back to safety, but she was the only one standing in the way of his ranting.

Cautiously shifting his plating, Bumblebee knelt to the ground when Scorpia reached his ped. She sat, staring up at the larger bot with slow blinks. Her optics were more violet like her mother's now, with a small scattering of pattern starting to emerge on their surface. When Bee offered a digit to her, she tentatively took hold of it with all of her own.

"I... I didn't think she'd be this cute. What's her name?" Bee asked quietly.

"Scorpia," Airachnid answered, watching as the scout let her daughter crawl into his palm. She was cradled just a few inches off the ground, nuzzling into his leg armour.

"Uh... hi, Scorpia," Bee nervously beeped, tensing slightly as she clambered onto his knee and reached up to his faceplate. He leaned in closer, trying to lower his vocaliser into a mumble of chirps. Optimus still heard a faint apology of, "I'm sorry I called your Mommy a monster."

Whether or not she could understand him, Scorpia pressed her tiny mouth to his cheek in a kiss anyway. Bumblebee flinched away, but only for a nanoklick before his helm was drawn back in again.

The only bot who could calm him down was the only other one who couldn't speak yet- how fitting.

"Did anyone else follow you here, Bumblebee?" Optimus asked gently, wary of breaking whatever spell Scorpia had put over him. The scout kept his helm down but glanced up guiltily.

"Um, actually..." His top half pivoted towards the undergrowth behind him, and he nodded towards it. There was a rustle and crack of twigs in the twilight, and a shape only slightly bigger than Scorpia herself emerged.

"H-Hi, Optimus." Rafael smiled weakly with a wave.

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

"Sorry we missed the shower, Raf."

"Are you kidding, Bee? This is way better than some flying space rocks!"

Scorpia was hesitant to go near Rafael at first, wary of the heat he radiated and the softness of his skin, but with Bumblebee cupping her helm the sparkling eventually let his small arms cover her. Other than a mutter of 'human germs', Airachnid didn't protest much about her child being passed around like a show-and-tell object. Optimus suspected she was secretly grateful for the reprieve in constantly caring for her.

Even so, he kept himself glued to her side as they watched from a slight rise in the ground. The cobwebs and strings woven through the tree at their back told him she'd made a home out of the spot. Grimlock was only short walk away from them both, but his sleep seemed deeper than the Pit.

"That scout seems quite skilled with sparklings," Airachnid noted with as neutral a tone as she could manage. She hadn't said anything about Rafael's presence. Optimus still couldn't decide if that was good or bad.

"In many ways, he still is one," he said, meant as much as a sad confession as an attempt at humour. A sparkling who'd killed enough 'Cons to fill up a wall with their names. If he'd come from the well just a few centuries ago, his only worry in the universe would have been academy grades and impressing femmes. And if Airachnid had only landed a few parsecs away, fate may have treated her much more kindly.

She picked at a sheen of grime on her talons, studying the undergrowth carpeting their seat. "How long until all your other teammates are out to kill me?" she asked. Her tone was hollow, but her fangs started to bead over with acid that corroded the edges of her words.

"I did not intend for anyone to find you-" Optimus began, almost prepared for her interruption.

"You didn't intend to, yet they managed to anyway." Airachnid blew a long belt of air from her vents, gears grinding faintly in her internals. "Pretty convenient, don't you think?"

Optimus stretched his digits over his kneeplate as his own vents started to labour. She had every right to be suspicious, but it was difficult to keep himself shackled together under so much scrutiny in one day. "Airachnid, do you honestly think I would allow a human child to stumble across your territory?"

She clicked her legs together, noticing Rafael for the first time as he tried to get Scorpia's weight off his shoulder. Optimus was still thanking Primus that it wasn't Arcee and Jack who had to stumble upon his secret. Of course, he would have preferred if no-one had to, but he had to take the small blessings when they presented themselves.

Airachnid betrayed a ghost of a smile as both human and Cybertronian child fell to the ground laughing. "I take it back, then," she said quietly, tracing the armour seams of her leg. "I don't know if I'd rather it was one of your Autobots or a Decepticon hiding out there... my claws have been feeling itchy recently." She scraped them together on one hand and twitched a smirk in Optimus' direction. "Even you wouldn't stop me from carving a 'Con's spark out."

The more Prime stared, the more he found Airachnid's sad*stic glint hard to believe. "Even Decepticons are capable of redemption," he said. "Are you not proof of that?"
Either his sincerity or the question itself made her optics roll as she wearily pushed herself up. "There you go again, assuming I ever was a Decepticon." She sighed, digging her heels into the dirt and facing him with servos crossed over her chest. The shadows of the evening made her back legs look as if they'd grown back with tenfold length and malice. "Are you seriously telling me you wouldn't remove Megatron's helm from his shoulders given the chance?"

Optimus had been given the chance many times before- and each decision to spare Megatron's life haunted him more than the last. Every time he hoped the mech he once called a friend would see reason and stand down, his endless list of victims only multiplied. Killing him from the very start would have made Optimus just as much a murderer as him, but it would have meant Cybertron's survival. It would have meant Elita's spark being spared most of all.

"As much as it pains my spark to say it... the universe would be better off with Megatron in the Allspark," he admitted. Airachnid quirked an eyeridge in surprise, but didn't interrupt Optimus' musing. "Brother or not, his crimes have earned him execution. There is no justification for the centuries of slaughter- I doubt he even believes in his own cause anymore. All that concerns him is proving superiority over all others. He will not stop until all sparks under my protection are extinguished."

"Especially mine," Airachnid muttered, the acid on her teeth starting to drip over her lips. Optimus watched her carefully as he nodded, making his optics to look away as his glossa started to stick to the bottom of his mouth.

"I cannot imagine..." His vocaliser started to fill with something that felt like rust, chopping his words into pieces before he could get them out. "What... he must have forced you through," he eventually forced out. His optics did all they could to avoid looking at her, gazing past to where Scorpia curled herself against Bumblebee- the slumbering evidence of Megatron's evil. "You may not believe me, Airachnid, but... I wish I could have aided you earlier."

The sarcastic laugh he'd braced himself for never came. In it's place was only a quiet mutter slipping past burned lips. "...He never forced me."

Optimus made himself look at her again, but all he found in her place was stirring, empty air. She'd returned to his side, collapsing on the ground like a rock hitting water.

"Not at first, at least," she continued, starting to blink rapidly as her optics stared at a chewed leaf precariously perched on a branch ahead of them. With no wind to stir it, all it could do was cling lifelessly. "I... I encouraged his attention when he first showed it," she admitted. "I thought it might protect me from all that the lesser soldiers suffered. And it did. The more I pleased him, the more I was promoted. But then there was the Exodus. And any loyalty I might have felt towards the Decepticons was long gone." Her optics closed over for a long moment, air hissing sharply through her vents. "I saw a chance to get out, and I took it. I was never meant to land on Earth. But the Harbinger engines failed during transit, and the emergency landing system stranded me here. I might have been long gone by now... if it wasn't for your humans."

Hostility crept into her tone like a predator crouching in shadow as her gaze sharpened to pierce into Rafael, and Optimus couldn't stop himself replying in kind. "Long gone with some native heads in your collection."

Airachnid just shrugged as her optics softened again. "Call it a souvenir." Her voice was devoid of even a macabre hint of humour, only a shell of sound. "The fact is, Optimus... things have changed even more than I'd anticipated. Knockout has gone from a lowly lab assistant to the commanding medical officer. Everywhere I look, drones replace any names I could recognise. Breakdown practically pines for me like a turbopuppy. The only things that have stayed the same are Starscream's stupidity, thank Primus, and... Megatron's infatuation."

If Airachnid had been holding herself together, now the cracks in her composure were starting to split open. "I knew he'd expect me to join him the night that I returned, and I was prepared for the usual evening. But... this time he wanted my spark." Almost automatically her digits started to fan out over the center of her chest, digging into the plating as if to tear them off. "It was always just interface before, a meaningless exchange of fluids. That wasn't enough for him now. That... that was when he forced himself on me." She still refused to look at Optimus, sparing herself from the horror on his faceplate. "His spark was filled with Dark Energon, practically glowing with it. I hope you never see something like it, Optimus. The sight alone burns you. Having to fuse yourself with it... it's like..."

"Your spark tearing in half, with one side lost forever?" Optimus suggested, voice heavy with static. Airachnid was slow to turn her helm, optics wide but dim as they studied him.

"Exactly like that," she confirmed.

"In that case, it sounds much like losing a sparkmate," he said numbly, not noticing the pain in his digit joints as they weaved together in a crushing grip, hands practically fusing together.

"You really loved Elita," Airachnid stated, if only to stop Optimus from subconsciously mangling himself.

"More than I could ever love anyone else," he whispered, finally relaxing his hands as his whole frame went limp and his servos fell aside.

Airachnid shifted along slightly, feeling the frantic mess of his EM field. "The Archa Seven incident... how long ago was it?" she asked.

"I've lost track of the time since." If Optimus thought too much about the timeline of events, his spark often felt like it would implode.

"I read that you launched the Allspark into space shortly after it, so... seven centuries ago, at least," Airachnid guessed. "You've been feeling that same pain all this time, haven't you?"

"...It started to fade after the first six centuries." Optimus thought he could feel her warm palm against the back of his hand if he concentrated, losing himself in the safe memories of her... only to notice it was Airachnid's own talons holding him, sharp enough to wrench him back to reality but with Elita's same aura of warmth. Maybe it was a femme trait.

She jumped slightly when she noticed him staring, but her hand remained on his, as if melted to the metal. The ache in his joints ebbed away, tendrils of gentleness spreading out from where her claws brushed against. Optimus' frame was so low he was practically optic level with her, and sinking closer still into the deceptive calm of her EM field. It prickled and washed back against him, as if welcoming his presence against her.

Optic glows hovering in the darkness, both beams trapped together, Optimus didn't notice how close their lips were together until she wrenched hers away from him.

"I'm going to sleep," she declared, pushing herself up with one servo and firing out a string of web towards Scorpia, snatching the sparkling out of Bumblebee's servos and padding her in her usual cocoon. "If there's any Autobots lurking around here when I wake up, they die." She said so with a particularly bright glare at Bee before she escaped into the tree, the rustling leaves and faint sparkling giggles being the only sign of her presence in the canopy.

"The apple fell a mile away from the tree, I see," Bumblebee buzzed in annoyance, servos still locked up from surprise at the sudden sparkling-grab. "But... she didn't try to murder anyone, at least." He rubbed at his shoulder with a glance at Optimus. "I guess you have been changing her a little."

The Prime managed to unroot himself from the ground even as Airachnid still crawled in the forefront of his mind. "How did you find yourselves here?"
Bumblebee threw his servos up. "Beats me. I was gonna take Raf meteor watching, we went through the base Ground Bridge and... here we were on your own little Mercy Island."

Scorpia had only proved a temporary distraction for the scout's boiling rage. Optimus shuttered his optics before launching into excuses.

"I am sorry if you view my actions as a betrayal of the Autobots. It was never my intention to place my team in danger. But I must ask that you both keep this between yourselves for the forseeable future."

Bumblebee's optic reticules warred with each other, zooming as his eyeridges lowered. "Who else knows?" he blipped.

"Ratchet and Wheeljack," Optimus said. "I will allow the others to know in time."

"Even Jack and Arcee?" He hadn't been expecting Rafael to weigh in, but the human was looking up at him with questions glittering in his tiny optics. Optimus was hesitant to answer.

"...Yes. I do not expect them to be content with my decision. I can only hope they share my belief that all bots deserve the chance for redemption."

Bumblebee chirped a scoff as he turned his fluttering door-wings on Optimus. "Doubt it." The scout went off towards a curious web strung between two tree trunks on the outskirts of the glade, peering at the twinkling dew drops on the strings. Optimus took the time to kneel down towards Rafael. The human deserved more than a plea for secrecy, at least.

"Rafael... please accept my deepest apologies for this. I never wished to place you or any humans in harm's way."

The human's eyes were still curious even as he blinked, but Optimus couldn't have anticipated his reply from such a young being. "I get it, Optimus, really. It happens a lot with Earth wars, y'know. Hardly anything is just... good or evil. There's a lot of grey morality. And maybe that's where Airachnid fits in."

It took some soldiers centuries to learn there was even such thing as a blur between black and white, yet this fragile creature figured it out in just a tenth of the time. Optimus couldn't fight the temptation of a smile. "My Autobots could learn much from you, Rafael."

The human's face went red and he looked down at his shoes even though he was smiling as well.

Bumblebee finally stopped himself nature-watching with a check of his chronometer. "Jeesh, we're about a breem late for Ratchet's curfew. I'm almost tempted to spend the night here if it meant avoiding hi-" Then Bumblebee finally noticed Grimlock sleeping like a very uncomfortable log, and exploded into bleeps that roughly translated into "HOW LONG HAS THAT FRAGGING THING BEEN THERE?"

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

As Optimus called for a Ground Bridge, he heard a distant sigh of relief over the comm line.

"I hesitate to ask Optimus, but... did you come across-"

"Bumblebee and Rafael are safe with me, Ratchet," he relayed, with a cautious look at Bumblebee prodding Grimlock's thick hide with a stick. "It seems they... found themselves deposited on Airachnid's island."

"Well... as long as they're safe." Ratchet's clipped words betrayed the forced calm of his voice. "I can't imagine Bumblebee took the discovery very well..."

"He was within reason to feel upset," Optimus said. "But I believe he will keep this to himself. Rafael as well."

"Let's hope so... or at this rate, even Unicron will know about her."

Optimus huffed a heavy vent. 'She has already felt his influence...' He decided to keep that though to himself though, waiting for the Ground Bridge to pop up in the usual area. He was the first to enter it, Bumblebee and Rafael following behind, and the scout seemed to think the Prime's back being turned meant that his audios were out of service.

"Hey, Ratchet, didn't know you had a bugcatching hobby." The seeds of a smirk uprooted themselves from Bumblebee's faceplate when Optimus turned a weary glare on him.

"Bumblebee, take Rafael home and retire for the evening," he ordered, and even with all the signs of rebellion in his stance the scout knew better than to try disobeying. Rafael gave a small wave of farewell before climbing into Bee's alt mode, and in a few nanoklicks the Prime and the medic were alone in the foyer.

"I don't know why, but I'm starting to doubt his ability to keep his mouth bolted..." Ratchet muttered with thick layers of sarcasm.

"Bumblebee is willful, but he has no reason to let the others know. We have to trust him," Optimus said, emphasising how little control either of them had left at this point. Wheeljack had at least proven a non-threat with how little time he spent near the Autobots in the first place, but with a young mech as volatile as Bumblebee... well, all it would take was a bad mood for him to start blurting out whatever happened to be floating in his processor.

Ratchet's skepticism mirrored that which Optimus struggled to keep hidden. Even so, he put it to one side for now. "Well... as per your orders and Bulkhead's insistence, I allowed him to pursue one of the co-ordinates you sent over." The medic brought up a visual of Bulkhead's vital signs and tracker location.

"Has he found anything?" Optimus asked, grateful for some less clandestine business to distract him.

"Not yet," Ratchet replied. "I told him to conserve his energy and only comm in if necessary." He scanned over his friend, taking in the slight sag of his stance and the off-colour of his plating. "You should recharge as well, Optimus. You've had enough excitement to last a decacycle, let alone one day."

Even if he had the strength to argue, Optimus knew he was right. He nodded goodnight and set off for his quarters, hearing Arcee's faint engine snores as he walked past her door. He was so exhausted, he had his first night without dreams in a long while.

xx

"Agent Fowler, I apologise for my absence yesterday," Optimus said, kneeling down to the human's eye-level. Despite the bandages he looked signifigantly better- that is to say, he was actually conscious now. It seemed he wanted to give thanks in person, now that Silas was locked away properly this time.

"I'm just glad you haven't gone loco like I thought," Fowler said, scratching absently at a gauze over his arm. "And that M.E.C.H's finally been swept under the rug. Sector Seven's staff's been all but gutted now, and anyone who worked with Silas is now sharing a much smaller cell with him."

"And I must thank your army for taking care of Silas' equipment before it could do much more damage," Optimus said.

Confusion flitted across Fowler's face, and he started scratching instead at the slight covering of stubble on his chin. "Uh... actually, my team came in on Silas trying to get his... robot doo-hickey working. We thought it was you who shut off the signal."

Optimus blinked twice, setting back slightly on his bent legs. "No... we had assumed an outside source had interrupted it."

Fowler frowned, looking away before shaking his head. "... Strange. Well, whatever happened, it's over now. You can keep your focus on the Decepticons from now on."

"And we shall," Optimus promised. "Currently we are attempting to stop them recovering Cybertronian relics hidden on Earth."

Fowler didn't seem reassured by the news- his eyes had rolled up to the ceiling before he'd finished turning towards the elevator. "Oh, of course, cause it seems we're a regular gift shop for ancient alien relics. Buy one, get one and a laser to the face free!" He sighed as he entered the elevator, giving a weary look to Optimus. "Good luck in any case, Prime. We're counting on you." Optimus only had enough time to nod before the doors slid shut.

"Ratchet- any news from Bulkhead?"

The medic shook his head from his computer station, limbs moving slowly from the few breems of recharge he allowed himself. "He's been checking in with brief progress reports, but he's yet to find anything..." His digits tapped against his keyboard for no purpose other than to keep them occupied. "Maybe the co-ordinates were off?" he suggested, which is exactly what Optimus was fearing all along.

"Perhaps..." Before Prime could let too many possibilties of relic-empowered Decepticons enter his processor, Arcee and Bumblebee drove into the foyer and, before Jack had even taken his helmet off, Miko was storming out of Bee's backseat and up towards Optimus' ped.

"Yo, Optimus, where the heck's my big metal buddy?" she demanded, with a surly pout even the most angsty of teenagers would have been jealous of.

"Bulkhead is currently undertaking an important mission, Miko," he explained, stepping back slightly so she wouldn't injure herself trying to punch his plating.

Miko groaned up at him, before she spotted Bulkhead's picture on Ratchet's monitor along with his vitals. "Can I talk to him?" she asked, pointing over at the medic's station.

"I wouldn't advise it," Ratchet said. "You'll only distract him."

"Boo." Miko crossed her arms over and stubbornly plopped on the couch. "What's so important that he left me behind for, anyway?"

"The Iacon Relics," Ratchet casually replied, making Miko sit right back up again. Even Jack and Raf were looking over in curiosity- though Raf less so, since he'd overheard the entire process of their locations finally being found.

"I thought you said we didn't have the full database for them!" Miko pointed out.

"Well, we do now," Ratchet said, tempting a smile at the human's spluttering confusion. Eventually Miko stopped trying to figure out at what point she must have blacked out and missed an entire day of exposition and settled for a cry of, "You guys need to stop doing things when we're not around!"

She went right back to sulking as Arcee went to stand beside Ratchet.

"Primus, how long's the big guy been out there for?" the femme asked.

"At least five breems now," Ratchet answered. "We're starting to suspect there's no relic there to find. That... the co-ordinates may be wrong." He seemed to struggle to admit it, using another screen to pull up the supposed relic locations and frowning at it. Arcee twitched her digits, thinking to herself before turning to her Prime.

"Optimus, with your permission, I'd still like to go after one of them," she said. "At least then we'll know for sure if the co-ordinates are right or not."

Ratchet had something to say before Optimus could decide. "Actually, now that I look twice at it... there's one location in particular that's had faint Decepticon signals very recently near it. If there is a relic there, they may be heading towards it now."

Optimus made his decision with a heavy vent. "Very well, Arcee. You and Bumblebee may set out after one of the relics." There was an entirely seperate danger in letting the scout unsupervised near any team members now, but he wasn't about to let only one of his Autobots face off against a whole squad of Decepticons. At least the whole team would be kept busy today.

As Ratchet pulled up the location and started prepping the Ground Bridge, Miko snapped out of her sulk and squinted up at the screen.

"Hey, I recognise that!" She pointed up at the co-ordinate code, with a string of three numbers somewhere in the middle. "646... that's the area code for Manhattan!"

Jack raised an eyebrow in the near distance. "And how the heck do you know that, Miko?"
"Me and my dad- real one, that is- lived in New York for a few months," she said with no small amount of smugness. "You gotta learn new phone numbers quick when you're on the move." Swinging her legs around the armrest of the couch, Miko waltzed over to Arcee with a new spark of mischief in her eyes. "Not only that, but I happen to know just about everything about subway tunnels, which is probably how any 'Cons in New York haven't been spotted yet."

Arcee copied her partner with a raised eyeridge down at Miko. "Pretty convincing argument for making us let you tag along."

Miko shrugged. "With Bulkhead, usually all I'd have to say is 'please'."

"Uh, hey, I need to come too!" Jack protested, running up to take over Miko's place in Arcee's centre of attention. "I mean... how are you gonna stay incognito with all the millions of people in New York, even if you are using the tunnels." Miko stuck her tongue out behind him as Arcee failed to think of reasons for them to stay behind. Even Bumblebee just shrugged when she looked over at him.

"Let's go, then," she said, reverting to alt mode and letting Jack climb aboard while Miko took her place in Bumblebee's front seat.

"You not comin', Raf?" she asked, from the open window.

The younger boy shook his head. "I... think I've had enough excitement for the week. Look after him, Miko!"

The girl gave a thumbs up just before Bee zoomed off towards the Bridge vortex after Arcee, leaving tire treads in his wake. The Bridge closed after a few empty seconds, and just as a peaceful silence was about to settle in there was a rapid beep from Ratchet's console, and a flash of red on the main screen.

"Bulkhead?" Optimus asked, marching over to his friend's side as he started frantically typing.

"Something's wrong... his vitals are dropping," Ratchet said, tone growing hollow with fear. "Bulkhead, come in! Can you hear me?!"

Not even a crackle of static answered him. Raf was frozen with his laptop, watching the two wisest beings he knew reduced to panic by nothing more than a few sounds.

"Open the Bridge at his location." Ratchet rushed to obey before Optimus even finished giving the order. Another vortex spawned, with wafts of smoke blowing through it before Bulkhead's mass fell through and collapsed on the floor. Energon pooled underneath him, deadly black plumes rising from his engines and limbs motionless as if his joints were crusted over with rust.

"S... Starscream..." He groaned through a gurgle of energon in his vocaliser before stasis lock took hold. The silence that followed was anything but peaceful.

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Ratchet blew a grinding sigh through sorrow-clogged vents as he pulled away from Bulkhead's prone frame, heavy as a slab on the medical berth. "His systems have kicked into stasis, thank Primus," the medic diagnosed, swinging a monitor closer to himself for examination. "Self-repair nanites are in highest concentration around his spark, and luckily there's no shrapnel embedded in his frame..." His faceplate crumpled as his optics gleaned over the bottom of the report. "He shows signs of Tox-En poisoning as well..."

Optimus' vents filled heavily at the implications. "There is Tox-En on Earth?" he asked.

"Seems so," Ratchet said, dimming the med-bay lights for Bulkhead's benefit. "It's not fatal, but it will slow his healing. All we can do is wait." He screened off the old Wrecker's frame from view, and turned to Optimus with heavy shoulders. "Should we inform the others?"

Optimus considered with his processor running as many possible outcomes as it could manage through a slog of pain. "...No," he decided. "Not yet. It is best that they stay focused on their mission for now."

If Ratchet disagreed, he didn't show it. "Understood."

There was a faint knocking sound as a tiny fist tapped Optimus' peds, and he looked down into Rafael's disbelieving stare. "Wait, Optimus, you're just... gonna let them think he's alright? I mean, when they come back, they-"

Optimus carefully knelt to better communicate with the human. "I am not content with the decision either, Rafael, but as leader, it is one I must make. For the good of all the Autobots, I cannot allow grief to debilitise my team."

Rafael blinked as his stare wavered, and his voice became quiet. "Everything you do is for the good of the team, huh?"

Decepticon interrogation techniques were nothing compared to a young human's disappointment. "...Everything I try to do, little one."

Ratchet's musing thankfully pulled Optimus' spark away from the shadow of guilt. "He mentioned Starscream."

Optimus straightened his legs, watching Rafael retreat to his laptop out of the corner of his optic. "Which means he still functions somehow."

Ratchet grumbled as he placed a thumb on his chin. "What was he doing in Bulkhead's location? And why not... terminate him then and there? It's not like him to leave loose ends..."

"There is only one bot who can tell us that, and he's currently lying at Primus' door," Optimus answered, casting a look to Bulkhead's faint silhouette behind the protection of the screen.

"Don't say that, Optimus," Ratchet chided. "I've seen Minicons survive worse than this."

Optimus remained unconvinced, hissing steam as he muttered to himself, "And I've seen other Primes perish to less."

A frantic beep came from the base's main computer hub, diving both mech's attentions even more. The screen opened on a map before Ratchet had even reached it, showing several flashing points over a pure white land mass.

"Decepticon signals... near the Antarctic circle." Ratchet didn't try to hide his weariness. Both former and loyal 'Cons were intent on tearing the Autobots' apart on workload alone.

Rafael frowned from behind his laptop, frantically typing something in. "That's weird. Usually the Antarctic is a total wasteland. What would the 'Cons want over there?"

Ratchet mirrored the human's expression as he examined his monitor more closely. "They seem to mostly be drone signals, so it's not a military squadron... they must be retrieving something." The implication that the 'something' was an Iacon relic was obvious to Optimus.

"This must be investigated, but with Bulkhead in such a precarious state-"

"Go, Optimus," Ratchet interrupted. "I think I'm more than qualified to oversee him by myself. And if..." His breath was ragged as it vacated his vents. "If the others return before you, then I will handle them."

Optimus hesitated, looking from the medic to the wide-eyed human, one of only two beings who knew everything he had to hide. "...Very well, old friend," he said, nodding deeply as Ratchet readied the Ground Bridge.

From his perch at the bottom of the platform stairs, Rafael re-adjusted his glasses and squinted up at the base's monitor, counting all the pin-point signals under his breath. "You're gonna take on all those 'Cons by yourself?" he asked, as if Prime was about to dive helm-first into a pool of acid vipers.

Optimus offered him a small, knowing smile as the Bridge vortex spawned behind him. "It would not be the first time I did so," he replied.

xx

Optimus had been flung some ways away from the cluster of enemies, so he could at least attempt stealth if he needed to. Just a few steps in, and he noted that the snowscape before him was different from the one he trudged through with Arcee by his side. He had nothing to radiate his rapidly-fading heat against except his own armour as it slowly froze into a hard shell around his trembling protoform. The air wasn't crisp or brittle either, even when it was howling in a blizzard around him. It hung dense on top of the snow and ice, like a stubborn mist or, more accurately to the Decepticon's presence, smoke. And where there was smoke... well, he knew signs of melted ice would lead him in the right direction.

He scanned the cloud-whipped sky as his comm unit beeped before sounding Ratchet's voice from miles away. "Optimus, I looked into the co-ordinates of the traced signals... they are very close to a set recorded on the relic database. Be careful. They'll do anything to ensure they have an advantage over us."

At least they had confirmation of what the Decepticons were here for, but Optimus still had little idea of what to expect. There was no reason for them to stay or make themselves known if they were only out on a retrieval mission, after all...

"Understood, Ratchet. I am closing in on the cluster as we spea-" The permafrost under his peds cracked as the clouds above were sucked into a vortex of sound, following the sonic boom from formation of jets arching high that could only have been Dreadwing trailed behind by Vehicons. Optimus craned his neck to follow the Decepticons as they raced after a much smaller speck in the sky, one that wasn't so recognisable.

"I have visual on Dreadwing, and another unidentified object heading south. I will pursue until they land," he relayed, before activating his T-cog and shooting across the solid powder as fast as his wheels would allow. The ice offered a treacherous friction that both let him almost match speed with Dreadwing overhead and would have easily sent him toppling to his side if his wheels veered too much. It was a delicate balance that he struggled to maintain, especially with thoughts of Airachnid and how much of a badly kept secret she was now. For all he knew, Bumblebee was telling Arcee all about his close encounter with her sworn enemy just to spite his orders for secrecy, as well as the fact that he'd lied for so long. He was certainly young enough to let pettiness control him, at least.

As for Rafael... even if the human truly did understand that he had to keep so much hidden from the Autobots, his youth made it impossible for him to understand the why of it. Especially when Optimus himself often didn't know...

A flurry of snowflakes belched from his thin smokestacks, only to have another gust of snow swiftly fill his vents and replace it. He could only effectively focus on one issue at a time, so he just had to trust in his team like they trusted in him. It was the only thing keeping them ahead of the Decepticons at this point.

The fleeing speck suddenly dived downwards just before colliding with a spire-like mountain, forcing Dreadwing and his drones to bank sharply and transform just before they hit the ground. Optimus pressed his accelerator down as far his cabin floor would let him, leaving behind huge swathes of tire imprints as his engine roared across the barren plains. A small ridge of rises in the ground ahead was all that shielded him from the Decepticons' view, and he braked just before it as he shifted back to bipedal mode. The momentum of his furious drive carried him part-way up the minuscule hill, and he pressed close to the frozen ground as he surveyed the scene some leagues ahead of him. Dreadwing stood to one side, flanked by Vehicons, and in front of him was... of all mechs, Starscream.

But Optimus was more concerned with the chittering Insecticon who's back he was riding like a monstrous electrequus.

He reached a shaky digit to his comm unit. "Ratchet... Starscream seems to be competing with Dreadwing for the relic... he has an Insecticon under his control."

"WHAT?!" The medic's disbelief almost blew out his audio receptors, forcing him to switch his unit back off to hear the two mechs challenging each other.

"I will give you one last chance, traitor," Dreadwing boomed, loud enough that Optimus could clearly hear him from a distance. "Surrender the relic and yourself, and I will not be forced to send you to the Allspark."

Unfortunately, Optimus could also hear Starscream's laughter as it grated against his vocaliser. "Oh, Dreadwing, how naive of you," he drawled, grinning icicles. "My pet has already taken out one of your drones, and it could just as easily dispatch the rest."

Dreadwing was unphased, aside from the servo closest to his holstered thermal cannon starting to twitch. "If that was true, you would have done so by now," he said carefully.

Starscream's mouth pressed into a jagged scowl even Optimus could see, and his claws scrabbled for grip on the Insecticon's hide. "Calling a bluff is only wise if I'm actually bluffing...." he snarled, ungracefully dismounting the beast and almost falling aft-first into the snow as he threw out an accusing claw at the three Vehicon sentinels. "DESTROY THEM!" he ordered, and the Insecticon squealed loud enough to match his master's trademark shriek.

The drones released a volley of blasts just one nanoklick behind each other, but the Insecticon was already hovering and dodging each one. The secondary servos grabbed onto the closest helm and jolted it upwards with a buzz of paper-thin wings, wrenching the entire shell out of the neck cables rooting it to the shoulders. He still gripped the sparking helm as he flew over the firing line, dropping it on top of another soldier and dazing it long enough to swoop down and spear through its chest with its horn. Now the remaining Vehicon at least had a chance to burn through its armour with frantic shots before the creature clamped its jaws on the gun, tearing the entire servo off and tearing at the rest of the frame before Dreadwing finally unholstered his cannon and finished him off with a single shot through the chest. The Insecticon's dying screech was barely eclipsed by Starscream's agonised howling as his only advantage perished in the snow. The air was now definitely smoking, singed with spilled energon and burning metal of the four corpses strewn like broken toys from Optimus' view.

Now with only the two officers left, he decided to make himself known.

As he emerged from the drift, Starscream still tried to feign superiority. "How do you plan to explain all these casualties to Megatron, Dread-?" His enduring spite was absorbed into a screech as he had to duck to avoid a line of crimson plasma bullets pelting into the snow only inches from his frame.

Optimus called out as the bulkier Seeker reloaded, "Dreadwing!"

He froze just as he deposited the last round into the barrel, only slightly tilting his helm sideways so as to keep Starscream in his sights. "Optimus Prime. I'd have thought our last meeting would have convinced you that fighting me is a very unwise move."

Optimus held his ground as he marched towards the two 'Cons. "I am here for only two reasons, Dreadwing. The relic, and answers."

Dreadwing's vents were visible as huge clouds of steam wafting from him. "Answers to what, exactly?"

Optimus' gaze went just beyond Dreadwing, to where Starscream was still cowering with his helm buried in snow, and a sudden swell of rage took over his vocaliser. "I want to know why that parasite you are shielding left one of my Autobots to die."

Now Dreadwing turned to fully face him, with something bordering mockery in his optics. "It is the nature of every Decepticon to exterminate your kind, Prime. Even those who betray their brethren find it hard to shake the habit."

A paralysing coarse laughter from somewhere unseen robbed Optimus of the opportunity to speak. "Or maybe he just got in my way, Prime..." Starscream was on his peds again, slowly being covered by a device in his claws. Huge plates seamlessly joined together over his frame and a pod-like visor deployed over his helm, highlighting his grin of absolute glee as he was encased in armour over twice his size. As the ensemble came together, horror in place of anger dawned in Optimus' spark when he recognised it.

"The Apex Armour..." Even Dreadwing was shocked by the drastic transformation as the scrawny Seeker now towered over them both.

Starscream couldn't throw his servos around much in his amplified state, but his triumphant expression was enough to show what all his gesturing would usually put across. "If all the relics are like this, then I suppose I won't even need the Decepticons soon enough..."

Chapter 35

Chapter Text

There was a precious pause suspended perilously between the three mechs, hanging on the hinges of their hesitation. Starscream swelled with pride as well as glowing plates of interlocked iron, optics flicking between the Prime and the other Seeker as if deciding which one to kill first. Dreadwing exhaled thick tendrils of steam from his vents as every joint on his frame twitched, and Optimus was still frozen by the hundreds of potential courses of action running simultaneously through his processor.

Dreadwing had already decided on his- attempt to slice through ancient metal tempered by Solus Prime herself. The furious cuts damaged his own blade more than the armour, metal chips and shavings flying off and littering the ice. Starscream's unbearable laughter was at least contained by his glass visor, though it seemed to almost crack from the shrill sound. Just as Dreadwing realised how ineffective his attack was, he was ruthlessly tossed aside like a sparkling's toy.

"Not so strong now, are you?!" he yelled, following Dreadwing's path as his whole frame skipped and skidded across the snow. As he walked he plucked an Earth vehicle off the frozen ground with all the strength of a Metrotitan, hefting it over his helm with clear intention to crush Dreadwing underneath it. He seemed to have completely forgotten Optimus' presence, absorbed in the opportunity to offline a fellow Seeker normally twice his size. Though he couldn't detect any vulnerabilities in the back of the armour (if any weaknesses even existed in the relic), Optimus readied his own blade to charge towards it.

Either the helm protection muffled his audios or he was truly focused on Dreadwing, as Starscream didn't hear Optimus' peds crunching on the hard snow. "Allow me to reunite you with your beloved twi- GAAH!" The collision of sword to spinal strut was enough to knock Starscream forwards and force him to fling the vehicle out of his reach. Somehow the Seeker's flailing servos managed to latch onto Optimus', jolting the blade upwards out of range and trapping the Prime in a grip tight enough to fuse his digits together. He hissed as circuitry twisted together, tiny bridges of electricity fizzling between his digits as the inner workings of his hand were compressed under crumpling plating. It was like sticking his servo in Grimlock's mouth but without all the drool.

"And you, Prime..." Starscream grinned, showing denta in a parody of the pleading smile that begged him for help only months before. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

Optimus would keep the advice in mind for the future, even though he started to doubt there would even be a future for him at this rate. Starscream held both Prime's servos in one crushing hand while the other pulled back into a punching block, aimed for his faceplate no matter how much he wrenched his neck cables away...

But all he felt was a whistle of icy air sailing past it as Starscream pitched forward again, and the vice on Prime's hands was eased just enough for him to pull them free and rake his blade down the front of the armour as he rolled sideways and landed on his knees. Trying to ignore his near-ruined digits, he looked under his shoulder at where Starscream was struggling against a pelting wall of thermal rounds hitting his back from Dreadwing's recovered cannon. While the other Seeker was stunned Dreadwing heaved his sword out of its sheathe and tried another assault on the armour, leaping up to lunge downwards. Any other metal would have been cleaved in two by the impact, but the Apex Armour was barely dented. Twisting himself around, Starscream managed to grab Dreadwing's frame and toss him aside again, this time sending him clattering in Optimus' direction.

"I'm sure you realise, Dreadwing, that if we do not unite against our common enemy-"

"Starscream will destroy us both," Dreadwing agreed gruffly, rubbing his helm from where it left a shallow dip in the ice. The armoured Seeker was shaking the ground with his slow advance on the two mechs whispering to each other. "Will landmines work against the relic?" Dreadwing asked.

"Unlikely," Optimus answered, never taking his optics off Starscream even if it meant staring at his insidious smirk. "Solus Prime built it to withstand anything short of a ground zero nuclear event." 'And sadly we are lacking for any unstable isotopes to fling at him,' he thought. "His only weakness is his severely reduced speed and lack of flight."

Dreadwing's lipplates twitched as well as his wings. "I can work with that, if you draw his attention for now." Starscream was almost upon them and within grabbing distance, and Dreadwing activated his T-cog in time to sweep right over the visored helm and into the strange green wisps streaking the blue sky, seemingly abandoning the battle. After recovering from the whiplash of such a close flyover, Starscream looked out at Dreadwing's flight path with another laugh grating through his denta.

"I always knew you were a coward, Dreadwing- just like your brother!" he shrieked. While he accused Dreadwing with more insults than could be counted Optimus started to approach his blind side, ignoring the pain from his broken hand and using his intact sword servo to strike as he ran past at one of the more obvious seams in the armour. Though the damage wasn't noticeable, Starscream squawked and whirled towards Optimus with a hiss.

"It's just you and me now, Prime... a shame no one else will see me tearing your spark out!" As Starscream drawled on Optimus was already working out his evasion plan, plotting where he would roll and where the Seeker was most likely to hit. He didn't know where Dreadwing had went or what he was planning, but he had to trust that his contempt for Starscream would override his reluctance to assist an Autobot.

Preparing for another attempt at turning Prime's faceplate into a framed wreckage, Starscream was already fixed in one direction when Optimus dove away from it. Even with the bulk of the armour slowing the Seeker down, it was a dangerously narrow window to move in. The only edge Optimus had was the Matrix burning with a sense of danger nanoklicks before it hit him, forcing him to monitor his raging spark as well as pay attention to his environment.

At least he was successfully irritating Starscream by refusing to die.

"Stop dodging, you fool, and accept your fate!" he growled, still failing to catch Optimus fast enough as he lumbered left and right, frantically swiping at nothing. Barely a klick passed before Prime's cables became taught with fatigue, less willing to flex as quickly as he needed to shift himself between positions. If Starscream didn't catch him first, something inside him would snap.

The decision between the two was made in a fatal error in the span of a nanoklick, where Optimus thought he had enough time to aim a slice at a thin-looking seam in the armour's hips. He didn't, and his servo was slammed aside before a ped came smashing down on his chest, cracking his windshields and making his headlights flicker feebly. He was effectively pinned to the ground even as he jammed his sword beneath the ped, trying in vain to push its enormous weight off of him.

With his second greatest enemy literally trapped like a bug, Starscream cackled as he pressed down even harder, driving glass shards into Optimus' armour. "This is where being altruistic gets you, Prime. Trapped at the bottom of the world, being crushed by all its weight." He grinned so hard his denta would have been grinded to stumps if he held it too long. "I'm sure you can find a metaphor about responsibility somewhere in there, but quite frankly, I've never been the poetic type. I leave that job to the librarians like you."

Optimus' shoulder cables threatened to tear themselves apart from the effort of heaving the entirety of the Apex Armour's weight with one servo- the other couldn't even brace himself upright without every one of his digits feeling like they would fall off. Already his chest was caving in, and his spark singed the metal as it collapsed in a deep dent towards his chamber. 'Where are you, Dreadwing...?' It seemed only ex-Decepticons were ever out to destroy his spark recently.

With his spark so close to burning right through his plating, Optimus couldn't see the Seeker flying in behind Starscream until missile on Dreadwing's underside propelled itself into his back. The pressure eased suddenly, cold air flooding Optimus' vents and the compacted metal of his chestplate easing away from the burning barrier of his chamber. Starscream was sent sprawling on his front while the outer layer of his back seemed to melt and meld with shrapnel fragments. The whole armour set was so hot the ice melted as Starscream lay dazed on it.

Dreadwing landed with a strange grace that didn't go with his frame. "Stand back, Prime!" he ordered, wielding three explosives in one hand with digits fanned out to hold them all. At first Optimus thought he was trying to just blow the armour up, but instead Dreadwing threw them all at different points around the thinning ice Starscream was stuck on.

The detonator clicked just as he finally regained his balance, fixing his two enemies with a scornful glare before it was consumed in a cloud of fire and steam. In place of a screeching Seeker in stolen armour was a wide hole leading into an inky blackness lapping at the ice crust. Whether Starscream was still alive beneath the waves mattered little to Optimus at that point.

First M.E.C.H. was disposed of, now Starscream. It was as if Primus was trying to protect Airachnid and Scorpia as much as he was.

The kiss of metal against metal drew his attention back to the final remaining threat- Dreadwing with a grudge and a much sharper sword. "Now that our alliance has served its purpose-"

"Starscream is gone, and the Apex Armour with him," Optimus protested, gesturing to the hole as if it was easy to miss the proof. "The only reason for us to do battle would be to cement our separate loyalties."

Dreadwing scowled and tightened his grip on the hilt. "I do not need to prove my loyalty through combat, Prime. I am referring to the fact that we have unfinished business."

It took a nanoklick for Optimus to realise what he was talking about, and a heavy sigh before he could respond. "I bore no malice to Skyquake, and I regret the role I played in his demise... that is all I can say as recompense, Dreadwing. He was not the first to fall in our war, and he will not be the last. We both know that."

Dreadwing's scowl didn't shift for a long while, and Optimus was about to engage his shotgun before the Seeker finally sheathed his blade. "Very well," he said grudgingly, heavy steps taking him away from Starscream's grave and astride to Prime. "You saved my life today. But I will terminate you the next time we meet." His promise lingered in the sound of a sonic boom and the stench of energon in the snow and burnt fuel in the watercolour air.

"...So be it," Optimus said to himself, curling his damaged digits into a fist despite warnings sprinkled across his HUD. Pressing the fingers together until they went numb from sensor overload, he turned his back on the newly created well and turned his comm unit back on.

"Starscream has been defeated, but the relic has been lost," he relayed, not expecting much joy for an ultimately lost battle.

"We may have bigger problems on our hands right now, Optimus," Ratchet said back, the waver in his voice evident even with him trying to keep it quiet. "Bumblebee and Arcee have returned."

Chapter 36

Chapter Text

Even when he expected it, the silence at the base was a dagger through Optimus' nerves. Everyone avoided his gaze, even Ratchet at his monitor. The only sound was the thud of his peds, and a very faint sobbing from behind the med-bay's screen.

He dampened his vocaliser as he approached Bumblebee and Arcee sitting astride each other, casting glances at where Bulkhead was curtained off even as they tried to keep their helms firmly down. "Mission report," he said, barely managing to keep cracks out of his voice.

"We ran into Knockout with a squad of Vehicons, but the relic was successfully retrieved," Arcee stated, with a confirming beep from Bumblebee. The admittance of the victory didn't seem to help their moods- if anything, Arcee only seemed to break more. "When did Bulkhead get back, Optimus?" she asked, lifting her neck cables to turn a coolant-streaked faceplate up at him. It was only through extreme willpower that he managed to meet her damp optics.

"...Shortly after you departed," he answered quietly.

"He's been here this whole time and you never told us?!" Even with the pained snarl in her voice, it was clear Arcee was restraining the true force of her anger. Optimus would have admired it more if he wasn't the deserving target of it.

"Uh, Arcee, calm down-" Jack attempted to approach her peds but she was already stamping them towards Optimus, craning her neck up to glare at him as if they were equal size. Rafael, the one who'd predicted instantly how she would react, had the sense to stay back behind the safety of his laptop.

"I understand your outrage, Arcee," Optimus said slowly, handpicking each word. With the loss of two teammates already plaguing her consciousness, there was no telling what the possibility of losing a third would do to her. "But the mission must come first. I knew you would want to return upon hearing news of his condition, but you were needed more urgently in New York."

Arcee only flared her olfactories at his sorry, soft gaze. "And where does Miko factor into all that?" she snapped, voice dropping only so the human wouldn't hear her name mentioned.

"...If I had alerted her to his condition, you would have known as well, and the same problem would have occurred," Optimus tried to explain. All it earned him was a snort of what he could only describe as disgust.

"You're really no different from every other commander, aren't you?" Arcee accused, spitting on a tide of static tickling her vocaliser and staining her voice. "You don't care how a mission is done, who gets hurt during or after it, all you care about is-"

Optimus never heard the end of her damnation- somehow a thin voice managed to cut through her anger.

"It's alright, Arcee," Miko said quietly from the medbay, only half of her body showing from behind the screen towering over her. She shuffled out of its cover, towards Optimus with a glance at Jack and the simmering femme at his side. Arcee's scowl lifted, but only slightly as the young girl stopped between her and Optimus, staring at the floor to hide the tear stains under her eyes. "I... I get why you didn't say anything, Optimus. Beating the 'Cons is more important than..." Whatever she was about to say was dismissed with a light shrug. "I'm here now, at least. And I'm gonna be here until Bulk is all better," she said, trying to show a smile as she lifted her head up.

Optimus shuttered his optics, exailing as he knelt to properly address the human. "Even so, you have my deepest apologies, Miko," he intoned, with a hand hovering over the painfully throbbing core of his spark. "I'm sure Bulkhead will recover quickly with someone like you to support-"

He was interrupted by a thud of tonnes of metal hitting rock, and settling above them with grit and dust trickling down from the stony ceiling.

"What in the Pit...?" Ratchet cursed, resisting the urge to follow the other Autobots and stare upwards at the source of the commotion as he checked the base's proximity sensor grid. "There's... a starship on the roof..." he revealed in confusion, as everyone else was already making for the elevator.

xx

"How come everytime I visit I end up gettin' a welcomin' committee?" Wheeljack asked as the Jackhammer's boarding ramp retracted, looking over each face staring at him outlined against Nevada's sunset. To Miko he gave a wink, followed by a frown when she didn't return it.

"What're you doing here?" Arcee asked, more roughly than she might have meant to with the remnants of rage still boiling in her systems. Wheeljack raised an eyeridge, hands on hips and fidgeting with the grenade hanging at his left.

"Well, while ya'll are out blowin' up half the planet, I did the nice thing and went to pick one up for ya'," he said, only slightly offended at the less-than-warm greeting. "I mean ya' made it pretty easy to find them, leavin' the co-ordinates out plain as a Vosian day."

Now that Ratchet finally caught up with the rest of the team gathered on the plateau, it was his turn to snap. "You hacked our system?!"

"Now 'hacked' is a pretty negative term, I prefer 'infiltrated'," Wheeljack corrected with a habitual co*cky grin. "I mean, I've had the Jackhammer's computer linked up with the base's network since the first day I landed- for future reference, get a stronger password than just 'password', Prime. And when I saw that number gibberish, I figured I'd try huntin' down one close to my location."

"If it was that easy for him to get into our database, then it's no wonder Starscream knew where to find one," Ratchet muttered to Optimus with a disapproving huff. Prime gave his own hum as he stepped forward, forcing Wheeljack's attention away from everyone's solemn expressions. The Wrecker deserved to know about his friend's condition more than anyone else gathered there, but it would have to wait until Optimus knew the details of his own relic quest.

"Wheeljack, how do you know of our attempts to retrieve the Iacon relics?"

The Wrecker looked at him like he was trying to explain the entire history of the Primacy to him. "I don't know 'bout no relics, but you watch any news channel on Earth and there's some kind of 'Bot-caused catastrophe on it," he said with a shrug. "I just figure anywhere with 'Cons to kick the scrap outta is worth goin' to. Whatever it was I was goin' after, Soundwave wouldn't let me near it-"

"Soundwave?" Bumblebee cut in with a few more nervous beeps.

"Yeah, creepy fragger was waitin' for me," Wheeljack confirmed. "Lost the relic, or whatever it was he was holdin', but I did take a lil' souvenir for myself." With a renewed grin he pulled something sparking from behind his back. Dangling from a broken wing was a very quiet Laserbeak.

Ratchet's reaction was less than grateful. "Wheeljack, are you fragging glitching?! Soundwave could easily track our location through his drone!"

"Will ya' loosen your bolts, 'Ratch?" The Wrecker groaned, rolling his optics as the downed drone spun on its loose joint. "I ain't as dumb as I look, I made sure he's deactivated before bringin' him in. Tell ya' what, take his lasers out and he'd make a pretty good mascot." Still holding him by the wing tip, Wheeljack dropped Laserbeak into Optimus' hands, which closed around the chassis in case he suddenly tried to fly off, and rubbed the cracked metal chips off his hands.
"Anyway, who died 'round here?" the Wrecker said with a very out-of-place chuckle. "Feels like I just walked into a fraggin' memorial service-"

"Wheeljack..." Arcee stopped him before he set Miko off into tears all over again. "It's Bulkhead."

Like a veil falling from his faceplate, Wheeljack went blank. "...What about him?" he asked through a suddenly struggling vocaliser, with another accusing look at Optimus.

"...You should see for yourself," the Prime advised.

Chapter 37

Chapter Text

The following week was one everyone would have preferred forgotten after it finally ended. Further relic hunts were put on hold; no-one was willing to leave the base unless absolutely necessary. Even Optimus felt compelled to delay his visits to Airachnid, receiving a stiff huff when he told her an 'incident' would force his attention away from her. It wasn't that she'd be craving energon while she waited for him, he'd noticed her stockpiling cubes and using most of them on Scorpia anyway, so her response surprised him. A small naive part of his spark had him believing it was because she'd be lonely, with only daughter and Dinobot for company. That thought was from what was left of Orion Pax though, and Optimus was too wise nowadays to trust him.

Though they felt like months condensed into sunrise and sunset, it took another two days for Bulkhead to exit stasis, and another three before Ratchet would let him leave the medical berth. The whole time Miko was glued to his side, ignoring stubborn vibrations from her phone or attempts by Rafael and Jack to distract her from her parter's condition. It was painfully similar to how Arcee behaved after losing Cliffjumper, except Miko had no on-site quarters to lock herself in. Wheeljack, on the other hand, hadn't returned since he saw Bulkhead's prone frame sprawled so similarly to a corpse, hearing Ratchet recount all the damage both his wound and the Tox-En poisoning did to him. He only asked for the name of the bot who had shot him, and glared at Optimus when he refused to say before leaving in a trail of almost tangible fury.

Even when Bulkhead awoke to find his neck cables bunched in Miko's arms and her face nuzzling his cold metal, the only strength he had was in his vocaliser. He confirmed Optimus' suspicions that Starscream ambushed him on an Insecticon just as he found the 'relic' that turned out to be a canister of deadly Tox-En. Starscream knew better than to directly confront the Wrecker with such a noxious substance in his hands, but Bulkhead was eventually forced to rid himself of it as it started to drain his strength. Just as he managed to heft it over the lip of a volcano, Starscream took the chance to fire from the air right through his back armour. His spinal strut was the only thing that stopped his spark chamber being vaporised by the shot, and even then there was significant denting around the casing.

With time being the Autobots' most precious resource, they couldn't afford to give Bulkhead as long as he needed to truly recover. Every day that went by was one with the Decepticons potentially digging up more relics, becoming more impossibly powerful with each one at their disposal. All the Autobots had were the Phase Shifter and Immobiliser against legions of drones and Megatron himself.

Though Ratchet was the one most reluctant to have Bulkhead back in the field so soon, he gave him exercises to work energon back into his numbed limbs and to encourage his healing nanites to work faster on his weakened nerve conduit. And Miko occupied herself with making sure he did them all, no matter a sudden joint failing or his cables threatening to snap under stress. She was like a much smaller, fleshy version of Ultra Magnus, and even back on Cybertron Optimus never had much success countering the commander's orders when he believed he was in the right.

With that thought in mind, Optimus tried to stop himself from interfering even when Bulkhead collapsed in the middle of a push-up. Just before he entered the base's elevator he heard Ratchet reprimanding Miko for pushing the Wrecker too hard, and the beginning of a very emotional rant that he'd rather not eavesdrop on.

The setting sun was still bright enough to singe his optics before they could dilate their reticules- to be expected from spending the last few days submerged underground and scouring through the databanks of the drone tucked under his servo. It seemed Soundwave was smart enough to not let Laserbeak absorb any vital information about the Decepticon's plans, but there was at least some evidence of where they would strike next for the relics, as well as some codes for comm frequencies Vehicons were known to use. But most useful was what could be done to the drone before returning him, namely implanting a tracking beacon and a virus cleverly crafted by Rafael that would transmit any data screened through Soundwave to the Autobot's own computers. Soundwave would surely scan Laserbeak for any tampering before attaching him, but with luck he shouldn't recognise any human-written coding as malicious.

Optimus almost lamented giving the drone back, having seen what Laserbeak's coding made him capable of and imagining the advantage his assistance would give the Autobots, but there was no telling the lengths Soundwave would go to to retrieve him, or if it was even possible to switch Laserbeak's loyalty as easily as just reprogramming him. Better to willingly hand him over than risk hostility.

The Prime descended from the plateau, settling himself on a crumbling ridge of rock before re-activating Laserbeak. The small lilleth-like bot fluttered weakly in Optimus' hands; jolting once, then twice, before leaping up into the air and shakily hovering. Though the drone was essentially awake, his homing beacon and surveillance equipment was disabled. Laserbeak wouldn't know where the base was or cause Soundwave to come racing towards it until his nanites managed to fix his subsystems for him. But even without his sight, Laserbeak still shot forwards as soon as he was sure he was free, soaring far off to the south. Optimus watched him go up until he disappeared into the glare of the sun, swallowed up by the dying flames, and prepared to ascend back towards the elevator when he overheard what was unmistakably Arcee's voice, albeit much softer than usual.

“Miko?”

There was an unconvincingly quiet sniffle. "Uh... hey Arcee," the young human said less than a league from Optimus in his low hiding place. "I was just..." There were some seconds of silence where she tried to come up with an excuse that Optimus used to flatten himself more against the rock at his back. Eavesdropping was wrong, of course, but... ever since her outburst about Bulkhead, he'd been wary about speaking with Arcee. Time was usually the only cure for spark ache, and he wasn't eager to inflame her any further with some ill-spoken remark. But now he had the opportunity to hear both of them giving voice to whatever he couldn't perceive stirring in their sparks (or, heart in Miko's case), and he knew he'd be foolish to waste it.

"Sitting a little close to the edge, aren't you?" Arcee asked.

"Heights don't scare me," Miko almost snapped back.

"...But almost losing Bulk did."

"Scared you as well." Miko's voice was muffled, as if she was hiding her head. "You looked like you'd snap Optimus' head off."

Both Arcee and Optimus himself couldn't help a small huff of laughter escaping their vents. "Yeah, I... I was out of line," Arcee said. "I shouldn't have gotten so angry, cause... I know Optimus is just looking out for all of us. Just like how Ratchet is only looking out for Bulkhead... but you already knew that."

The Prime vented in relief, hearing first-hand that Arcee had let go of her overriding emotions. The femme's words seemed to have the same effect on Miko, as her reply had lost the sharp edge she'd carried before. "I guess so."

“Bulkhead’s stronger than he looks, you know," Arcee went on. "Big guy like him... getting shot in the back is just another day on the construction site for him. And he wouldn't let a creep like Starscream off him, anyway.”

Miko was silent for a moment, before speaking with a familiar chirp returned to her tone. “Was Bulk really a labourer, then? Back on Cybertron?”

“With his frame, I bet so. The bigger, bulkier bots were always put into the labour intensive jobs; mining, lifting, stuff like that.”

“What did you have to do before the War?”

Optimus would have been on his way, with his fears now washed away, but the tiny part of him that was still a curious Orion Pax kept him rooted in place, just for a while longer. He himself didn't know much of Arcee's past before she came to Earth. “I was born into the Military caste, specialised for scout and saboteur missions," Arcee said, with a hint of pride. "Though, my job was mostly being a messenger before the War opened up a lot more avenues of work for me.”

"And Optimus was a librarian," Miko stated.

"Data clerk," Arcee corrected. "Which... pretty much is a librarian." It was hard for Optimus not to feel just a bit slighted at the two femmes laughing at his inelegant origins. Megatron was a miner before he became a gladiator, yet anyone who laughed at him ended up with a plasma round where their spark chamber used to be.

It was when he realised he was comparing himself to Megatron that Optimus decided it might have been best if he left now. If only Miko's own curiosity didn't force him to freeze in place.

"...What about Optimus' sparkmate? Elita One?" she asked. Either Optimus' audios were tuning themselves high or his spark was starting to bubble up through his throat and melt against his processor. It was all he could think to explain the violent thudding taking over his helm just from hearing Elita's name. He didn't even know how the humans knew of her existence... unless Ratchet had shared the effect of his flashbacks with the rest of the team.

He heard Arcee hiss in air, intaking for a few long nanoklicks, and he was reminded of how much the femme admired his sparkmate from the sorrow that soaked her voice. "Elita..." Arcee seemed to choke at first, clearing her vocaliser thoroughly before she could go on. "She had a... very different upbringing. She was placed in the Art caste, since no other ones would have her."
"How come?" Miko asked.

Even though Optimus already knew the reason, he still felt dread at being reminded by Arcee's long sigh. "She was born without the ability to transform."

"Really?" Miko interjected, and Optimus could almost see her eyes going bug-wide. "But, your whole thing is transforming! Is that, like, even possible?"

"I know it's weird to think, what with Bumblebee's meltdown over losing his T Cog, but it happened.” There was a scuff of plating, as he guessed Arcee was shrugging. “Some bots even removed their T Cogs willingly, members of the Militant Monoform Movement, really weird ultra-religious guys. Anyway, she had a cog, it just... didn't work for her. Something was wrong with her scanner, I think." Hearing Arcee speak of his sparkmate so casually, in past tense and only reminding him that she was lost to him... it didn't make Optimus angry. He wasn't sure what it made him feel, only that his digits were forced to clench themselves against the rock surface at his back and start grinding it to gravel. While he tried to expend the burning heat of energy building exponentially in his spark, Arcee continued; "Since she couldn't transform, there wasn't much hope for her getting into a high working caste. Her frame was too fragile to handle working in the mines, and any gladiator bots would have torn her apart the klick she stepped into the arena. She wouldn't even be allowed into the sparkling farms since her fault was genetic. So, her only option really was Art caste."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Miko said with all the innocence of someone who never spent a day walking through Cybertron's slums.

"Maybe not, but... it was no walk in Helix Gardens. For femmes, at least. Most mechs were lucky, all they had to do was design- buildings, furniture, armour, whatever. But femmes.... they're like... what do humans call them... showgirls? Sure, it looked glamorous, all night spent dancing drunk, surrounded by mechs throwing themselves at your peds, but for many it was a death sentence. Those in training were lucky to get more than a breem of recharge a day- all the rest of their time was spent practicing, escorting, and... other things."

Now Optimus was angry. His optics, clenched close for however long he couldn't tell, flew open to see the air in front of him shimmering from the heat exiting his vents.

"Like what?" Miko asked so naively as Optimus pulled himself back up to the plateau, only dislodging a few stones in his vault upwards. The two sat at the precipice edge of the base's roof, completely blind to his presence, Arcee kneeling in the dust and winglets twitching uncomfortably.

"I... don't think Bulkhead would want me telling yo-"

"Arcee," Miko deadpanned, hands going to her hips. "I'm fifteen. I know how the birds and bumblebees go- or whatever you call them on Cybertron. You're not gonna scar me for life or anything."

Something must have finally alerted Arcee as Optimus walked to the elevator, each step struggling to stay calm when all he wanted to do was slam them into the ground. Her helm inclined towards him, optics going wide with a guilty glint in them. Though a foreign kind of fury was gripping his vocaliser, Optimus gave her a neutral nod; both as acceptance of her unofficial apology, and permission to go on. Just because the past pained him didn't mean it should stayed buried forever.

"Well... okay." Arcee took in a deep ventilation, and whatever she said to Miko was lost behind the elevator doors sliding shut, and the sound of his spark threatening to implode in on itself.

Chapter 38

Chapter Text

If the elevator had taken a nanoklick longer to open its doors, Optimus might have destroyed the interior. The cool underground air rushed in and bathed his frame, taking away at least some of the heat radiating from his spark, and he forced his digits to curl out of the deep indents they left in his palms.

It wasn't knowing Elita had been with other mechs before him that enraged him- no, even Orion Pax wasn't so naive to think a femme as beautiful as her wouldn't have interfaced before. It was the thought of mechs paying for the privilege, and her having no choice but to accept them. It symbolised everything wrong with the Golden Age, everything that he'd sought to fix with Megatron by his side.

Yet all they did was force the hidden, gilded filth and corruption of Cybertron to rise to the surface, like a poison in the planet's roots bubbling through its skin. Optimus chewed on a heavy sigh, raising his shoulders lest his whole frame collapse shaking, and was about to make an early retirement to his quarters when he heard a chuckle from the medbay.

"Tell ya' what, Bulk, I just might be able to beat your push-up record while you're stuck here."

Then another, less powerful laugh weighed down with a cough. "You couldn't beat it even if I lost both my servos, Jackie." As Optimus approached, he saw Bulkhead in the cradle of the surgical table with Wheeljack opposite, sitting on a desk. Thankfully Ratchet wasn't nearby to threaten the Wrecker with surgically removing his aft plates and replacing them with glass.

"Bulkhead, Wheeljack," Optimus greeted, trying to let his grip on anger slip away and the growl in his vocaliser evaporate. "I did not see your ship overhead."

Wheeljack inclined his helm in his own version of greeting. "I made a low landin' for once. Figured I'd try to keep myself hidden for now."

"Did you see Miko up there, Optimus?" Bulkhead asked, trying to sit up despite the pain it obviously caused him. Despite that, there was an undeniable light of concern in his optics overriding anything else.

"I did," Optimus said. "Arcee is currently consoling her. I believe time will let her recover, just as it will do for you, Bulkhead." Seeing the big mech exhale contently, he turned to Wheeljack now. "How long have you been here?"

"Just arrived five klicks ago," Wheeljack answered, pushing off his makeshift seat and leaving a very large and conspicuous dent in the table's surface. "But now that ya' mention it, I should be goin'."

"Aw, come on, Jackie!" Bulkhead protested. "I'm not that put out, I can manage a game or two of lobbing-"

Wheeljack dismissed the insistence with a wave of his servo. "Nah, Bulk, you need all your strength for your nanites. Just focus on gettin' better, alright?"

Bulkhead almost pouted, and even crossed his servos over as much as his chest would allow. "Fine... even though you sound like that medic girlfriend you used to have."

Wheeljack cringed and shook his shoulders as he left the medbay. "Don't remind me, she was Ratchet's sister..." He gave a wave of farewell to Bulkhead, and just as Optimus was realising how much that explained about the medic's dislike for the Wrecker, he was being summoned over by him.

"Before I go, Optimus, you, uh, got a klick?" Wheeljack asked quietly, jerking his helm over to a corner just out of range of Bulkhead's audios. Optimus nodded, and the Wrecker's expression seemed to darken the further he went away from the medbay.

"Bulk said..." Wheeljack had to cough before speaking again. "He said the one who got him was Starscream, and some kinda pet Insecticon. Is that true?"

Optimus nodded, not seeing any way he could contradict it. "Though if you wish to exact revenge against them, I'm afraid I have seen both perish during a mission I undertook." It was a slight lie, as he didn't know for sure if Starscream was taken out by the explosion or if he was still wandering the bottom of the ocean, but it was what the Wrecker did know that would end up killing him somehow.

"That so?" Wheeljack frowned, optics lowering for a few nanoklicks before pulling back up with a new fiery gleam of certainty in them. "Well, we both know where there's one bug, there's usually a hundred of them. And what's to say they won't all go right back to Megatron if we don't get rid of them?"

"You will struggle to hunt so many creatures down, if they exist," Optimus pointed out, only to be answered by a huffed snort.

"You think I just sit on my aft all day down here, Prime?" Wheeljack asked, hands squaring on his hips as if trying to match Optimus' size. "If anyone 'round here knows how to find 'em, it's me. And I ain't stoppin' til' they're all extinct."

Though he knew the Insecticons could become a serious threat if controlled by Megatron, Optimus was still uncertain about allowing a one-mech extermination team after them. "And what will you gain from it, Wheeljack?"

The Wrecker just shrugged. "It's somethin' to do. Keeps my processor off a certain... mutual interest of ours."

Optimus felt his optic lids crease even as the light behind them burned brighter. "You wish to visit her at a time like this?" In an effort to make himself quieter his voice dropped an octave, and before he could set it right Wheeljack seemed to notice the dormant growl at the edge of his vocaliser.

"I think I have a damn right to," the Wrecker said, adjusting his own voice to reflect Prime's and throwing a digit behind him in Bumblebee's direction, while the scout was busy staring at something on Rafael's laptop. "Even ol' Bug Boy over there has seen more of her than me recently."

Optimus tried to cover his groan with an innocent sigh. He wouldn't even ask how Wheeljack knew of Bumblebee stumbling over their secret. "What exactly is your relationship to her?" he asked instead, though from the reply he received he might as well have asked Wheeljack to shoot his own carrier.

"None of your damn business, is what it is." When the Wrecker tried to make for the exit tunnel, he found a red servo thicker than his waist blocking the way. Optimus practically bristled at him, though he wasn't quite sure why. He just couldn't trust putting a mech like Wheeljack alone with Airachnid, even if he posed no real threat to her. In any other situation, it might have been jealousy controlling him, but he couldn't think of anything he would be jealous of. It wasn't that long since he'd last met with Airachnid, after all...

"You may not be under my command, Wheeljack," he said carefully, pushing all reasons plaguing his processor to one side. "But I have the 'damn' right to know why you are so insistent on visiting my charges."

For a few tense nanoklicks Wheeljack seemed intent on staring the Prime down, but he soon realised it was a futile prospect. His gaze lowered as his vents huffed stubbornly. "It's like I told ya'. We have a history. And if you were stuck on an island with your arch enemy bein' the only thing between you and the Allspark, I'm sure you'd want a familiar face nearby as well." When he looked up again it was with dull coals for optics, and the flare in Optimus' spark died down.

"...Very well," he eventually decided, pulling his servo back and letting the Wrecker pass. "There is a point at the south of the island that should serve as a safe landing space. Give my regards to her."

Wheeljack snorted over the whir of his transformation cog. "That all you wanna say to her?" He was driving away before Optimus could ask what he meant, and at the same time the elevator hissed open to admit a tired-looking Arcee.

"Optimus," she said, noticing the Prime to her left. "I... think I've managed to calm Miko down. She said she'd stay up a little longer, to watch the sunset."

Optimus nodded. He was overdue for some good news. "Excellent work, Arcee."

Though the femme's faceplate was bright with the praise, her optics remained cloudy and reluctant to meet his own. "How much... did you hear up there?" she asked.
Optimus's digits clenched together again, but it seemed his anger had burned itself out by now. All that was left was a hard charred lump near his spark. "That does not matter," he answered.

Though she kept her faceplate blank, he could see Arcee's relief filling her optics with a fresh light. "I guess it doesn't," she agreed. Optimus peered over her shoulder at where Wheeljack left tire marks on the ground, still pondering his parting words and trying to make sense of why he'd felt insistent on keeping him away from Airachnid.

"I believe I will retire to my quarters early this evening," he announced to Arcee, before he'd end up giving himself a helm ache. "I will leave you and the others to do as you see fit."

Arcee nodded as he turned to go deeper into the base. "Good night, Optimus."

xx

Though Grimlock trampled an acre and gnashed his denta to pieces when he found the hot spring hidden at the foot of the tallest mountain around, Airachnid could barely bring herself to leave the warm embrace of the water and its thick veils of steam. The liquid soaked into her protoform and nodes, washing away the ache from her joints and the bruises mottling her skin. Even Scorpia enjoyed the pool, though Airachnid confined her to the rocky edge of it and let her splash away.

"Hot water make you go extinct!" Grimlock insisted from the treeline, digging the ground into mud with nervous claws.

"Sure it will, Grimmy..." The spider sighed and settled herself against the opposite edge, two remaining legs draping over it while her other stubby rods submerged themselves in the water. Most bots were right to avoid water, considering how quickly it could rust through armour and weak protoform, but times like this made Airachnid glad to have some organic in her. She could almost feel stress collecting in coolant beads on her protoform and being lost in the pool. It almost compensated for going without Optimus' company for longer than ever before.

Then again, water couldn't feed her. Pride stopped her from comming Optimus for a better explanation than 'Autobot duties' keeping him away, but she was sure to run out of energon by the time he carved out some free time for himself. Not to mention how Scorpia missed him, twisting her braid in her hands and calling quietly for 'Oppy' near where the Ground Bridge usually spawned. To be expected, since for all she knew the Prime was her actual sire, but there was only so much Airachnid could distract her with before her spark started keening as well.

Even now, her chamber held a lonely pulse that all the hot spring water in the world couldn't soothe. She opened her optics, letting her helm tip back against a stone with her whole body submerged, and tried to content herself with watching Scorpia blow bubbles. That didn't last long, as a sharp rending of metal made her sit up and stamp over to Grimlock, still streaming water over her naked protoform. Recognising the obsidian plates under the Dinobot's chin covered with his saliva, Airachnid waited until he noticed her with very guilty optics.

"Grimlock, my armour is not a chew toy," she scolded, snatching the set from his maw and keeping it at servo length as she grimaced at the smattering of dents and drool all over it.

"Sorry, spider lady..." Grimlock grunted, turning his teeth onto a poor palm tree instead after an even guiltier glance over her bare chestplates. Airachnid rolled her optics and dunked her armour into the pool, trying to scrub off the stubborn saliva and the stench of rotten vegetation steeped into Grimlock's mouth. Though the sun was on its way to setting, some stray rays made it through the surrounding trees and dried her protoform for her by the time she'd finished. She set the plates out to dry, away from Grimlock this time, and pulled Scorpia up into her arms. The sparkling nuzzled close to the warmth of her protoform, shivering slightly due to her own soaked skin. Covering her with a hand, Airachnid knelt in the underbrush to find her daughter's own armour, thankfully too small for their Dinobot to get much out of biting.

But when she spotted the iridescent purple plates, they felt far too light in her grip. It was like holding paper and, when she passed the flat of a talon over a chestplate, seemed just as fragile. She'd noticed something like it when she was taking Scorpia's armour off, but thought it was just normal for sparkling plates to be so soft. Now holding it free of protoform underneath, she thought it would crumble in her grip.

That would be something to ask Ratchet about, if Optimus dared to let the medic tag along behind him again. For now, she just tried to re-outfit her daughter as carefully as possible, sliding the chestplate clasp in place just as the sound of jet thrusters pealed overhead. Instinctively she aimed a palm upwards, expecting a squad of aerial Vehicons or, Primus forbid, Starscream himself, to fall out of the sky, but what she saw was much bigger than a single bot. The Jackhammer stood out starkly, a silhouette against the purple ceiling of sunset, and she found herself surprised that she could still recognise it. Grimlock was grumbling and starting to rise from his prone position, but one look at Airachnid told him that the shadow wasn't a threat.

"Looks like uncle Jackie's paying a visit at last," the spider said to herself, drawing a curious chirp from Scorpia. 'And why am I almost always naked when he decides to drop by?' she thought.

Chapter 39

Chapter Text

After a brief debate over the pros and cons of facing an ex naked, Airachnid eventually decided to shrug her armour on after all.

"We're about to have a visitor, Grimlock," she said, securing her last piece of thigh plating. "Don't scare him off. And don't kill him just yet."

The Dinobot rumbled against the dirt with his helm kept low to the undergrowth. "Yes, spider lady..."

Wherever the Jackhammer managed to land, it took Wheeljack ten klicks to navigate through the maze of foliage, and the undergrowth practically spat him into the clearing when he finally stumbled across it. After regaining his footing and brushing his armour clean, he seemed to home in on Airachnid on the other side of the grass, staring and stepping towards them like he was in a dream.

He had such a handsome smile, before she walked up and slapped it off his faceplate.

"And where the Pit have you been?!" she demanded. Whether or not it was harder than she intended, it at least jolted him out of his trance.

"I probably deserved that..." Wheeljack rubbed tenderly at the raw spot on his cheek, tilting his helm over until he saw Scorpia clinging to Airachnid's chest and curiously swiping a servo towards him. "Woah, you've gotten big, lil' lady!"

The sparkling gurgled as if recognising him as well, and Airachnid let him hold her if only so she could cross her servos over in a picture of disapproval. "You still haven't answered my question."

Wheeljack let Scorpia nibble on one of his digits as he spoke. "Long story short, your boyfriend's an aft."

She raised an eyeridge, only realising he was talking about Optimus after a few nanoklicks. And rather than insist he was just the only mech on Earth willing to feed her, she affixed a pitying pout. "What's the matter, Jackie, getting jealous?"

Part of her was glad to see Wheeljack blush and pull his optics down, so obviously embarrassed that even Scorpia gave him a knowing look. "...Maybe," he admitted.

Still pouting, Airachnid gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder as she walked past him. "Don't worry, Jackie, I'm sure a big manly Prime will look after you one day."

The Wrecker's vents spluttered in an effort to protest, before he realised she was joking. "Looks like the lightyears have changed everything except your slag sense of humour," he huffed, kneeling down to let the squirming sparkling fall out of his arms and onto the soft ground.

"And they haven't made your faceplate any prettier to look at," Airachnid quipped back, reaching out one of her back legs towards Scorpia as she stumbled back to her mother's side. And it was just in time for Grimlock to make his dramatic entrance, snarling through a legion of trees and locking optics with the Wrecker.

"WHEELJACK!" The roar almost made a shockwave that brought the rest of the forest down, but Wheeljack barely budged as the main force of it dissipated around him. Even having to wipe flying spit from his armour didn't make his grin fade.

"Grimlock, ya' big hunk of slag!" His outstretched servos made a pitiful attempt to capture the Dinobot as he charged towards him, and Wheeljack was send rolling in the dirt as Grimlock violently helmbutted him, just barely avoiding gutting him with his horns. Though the collision sent a loud clang echoing through the humid air, the Wrecker was back on his peds as if he'd just been brushed by a Minicon, locking Grimlock's muzzle in one servo while the other rubbed his fist into it.

All the noise and confusion just made Airachnid groan and Scorpia whimper. "Don't worry, dear, it's just a harmless idiot ritual," the spider sighed, taking her daughter back into the relative safety of her servos.

Wheeljack somehow heard her over his own giddy chuckles, throwing her a look as he paused in his noogie efforts. "Now who's gettin' jealous?" he asked, releasing Grimlock's maw with one last pat. "You're a lot... bigger since last time I saw ya', Grimmy."

"Ate a lot!" the Dinobot proclaimed proudly, practically wagging his tail and slamming it into some surviving trees behind him. "Lots of energon and metal! Me strong, take good care of ladies!"

"So, what finally brings you all the way out here?" Airachnid interjected while wheeling the Wrecker back to face her, unwilling to risk another round of destruction between the two overgrown sparklings (a normal sized one was enough to deal with).

"Two things," Wheeljack said, holding up three digits before he realised it was one too many and sheepishly lowered one. "A friendly visit to my favourite rogue Decepticon, and a chance for you to get off'a this tropical prison of yours."

Airachnid's expression stayed stone, aside from one eyeridge quirking. "I'm listening."

"What did Prime tell you 'bout why he hasn't been showin' up lately?"

She shrugged, letting her legs click together. "A whole lot of bullslag about 'Autobot responsibilities'." She knew his team would always be a priority over one already damned spark, but that didn't mean she couldn't feel slighted by it.

Wheeljack nodded with a smirk. "Sounds like him... well, a buddy of mine, Bulkhead, got..." He looked away for a nanoklick, filling his vocaliser with a cough of static before going on. "Attacked by Starscream, and an Insecticon. The big ugly bird's already been taken out, so I'm off to do some pest control. Not that I need the help, but if you wanna tag along..."

Starscream's demise, as well as Insecticons being on Earth, was certainly news to her. Pleasant news, considering he was the reason she was put here in the first place, yet hearing of it was like trying to recall a distant memory. Remembering it might bring her some joy, but ultimately the true happiness of it was lost to the past. And that itself was quite jarring, considering how often she'd imagined his death when even Primus would be fed up with his slag and snatch him right off the face of the universe. Though with survival and motherhood taking up so much of her focus, she hadn't had much time to be lamenting old mortal enemies.

"...It has been a very long while since I've felt fresh energon on my claws," she mused, and Wheeljack's infectious grin ended up getting to her.

"You trust the walkin' woodchipper over there to look after the kid?" he asked with another glance at Grimlock, who still thumped his tail into the ground while hopping on each haunch.

Airachnid shrugged. "I don't trust him with much else." If anything, Grimlock was the best alternative to a sparkling sitter she had avaliable to her, and Scorpia was only too happy to nestle herself next to the Dinobot's neck.

Even so, Airachnid hesitated on the edge of the clearing. She hadn't been separated from Scorpia ever since their encounter with M.E.C.H, and her spark wrenched against her chamber walls at the thought of leaving her behind. If anything did go wrong in Airachnid's absence, there was no telling what else would happen to her spark, or the state their bond would be in before she managed to return.

But she knew the island was the safest place for Scorpia. If an Insecticon ended up chewing her spark out, at least she had something to leave behind that wasn't just her own energon-soaked legacy. With that conviction secure in her processor, she turned to follow Wheeljack to his ship.

"So, why did the oh so wise Optimus not think to tell me of what kept him away for so long?" she asked, letting Wheeljack clear the way of flopping ferns and saplings in their way.

"Beats me," he shrugged, slicing through a particularly stubborn barrier of vines with ineffectively stubby digits.

"Maybe he's just sick of the sight of me," Airachnid suggested, intending to be humourous. But rather than give one of his low laughs, Wheeljack paused his efforts and turned to face her with scarred lips pressed together.

"Listen, Airachnid..." He shook his hands free of leaf shreds, blinking before looking at her with a sincerity she'd only seen before on Optimus himself. "Prime does care about you. More than you believe. You should've see the look he got when I said I was comin' over. Pit, even the way he is when he talks 'bout you... And I saw the way you looked at him, back when Ratchet came crashin' in-"

"I don't know what the Pit you're talking about," she cut off with venom coating her voice, though the flow struggled against the growing tightness of her throat and the pounding pulse of her spark. Wheeljack must have known her better than she thought, or her denial was obvious to everyone except herself.

"Just like I said, still got a slag sense of humour," he said, with a sad smile tugging at his lips. "I'm actually am a lil' jealous, to be honest with ya'... wish I could get a femme to look at me that way."

Now she had something else entirely spearing her spark through- a normal bot might have called it guilt. After all, he was the only mech she hadn't felt the urge to kill since the Exodus. "Wheeljack..." She reached her talons out to him, breezing the tips against one of his hunched shoulders. His helm snapped back up when he felt her, and he tried to resurrect his easy lopsided expression.

"I just think you'd make a good couple, is all," he said, wringing his digits around the length of vine trapped within his hands. "You're already pretty good parents." When her phantom touch didn't budge, he finally looked at her optics again. "We had some damn good times together, though, didn't we?"

Airachnid felt a solemn nostalgia twitching on the edges of her lips. "Yeah. We did."

Wheeljack nodded and blinked slowly, and it was as if her voice managed to reset something inside him. Turning back to the tangled obstruction, he managed to tear through it with a single swift pull of his servos. "Not much further to go. I should'a landed just around this clump of-"

As he pulled the trailing curtain of leaves aside, he saw something that made him want to snap them closed again.

"Wheeljack!" It was a muffled peal of a voice that Airachnid didn't recognise, but she could tell it was from a female. She tensed, expecting Arcee to come bristling out of the branches, but when Wheeljack moved aside all she saw was a very tiny shape leaping over stones and roots towards them. The second human she'd seen in the past week, yet this island was supposed to be completely cut off from them? Airachnid would have cursed Primus if she thought he was even listening to her anymore.

"MIKO?!" Wheeljack was just as surprised as Airachnid, and he only remembered to hide the spider behind him when the young human skidded to a panting stop by his peds, the strange pink-tipped antennae on her head bobbing with every deep breath.

"Don't just stand there, get in the ship!" she wheezed out. "There's something after me, I swear there is, there was this massive roar and all the trees were shaking-"

Noticing Wheeljack's frozen stance, Miko took another colossal breath that swelled her chest up. "Okay, yes I know I shouldn't have stowed on board and I know Bulkhead will be mad at me and I know I was stupid but-" As valiant as Wheeljack's effort to conceal Airachnid was, it seemed there was nothing that could be hidden from a hyperactive teenager.

"FREAKY DECEPTICON ALERT!" Miko squealed, diving behind Wheeljack's ped and still pointing at where Airachnid's heels pierced the ground. Her head only popped up again when seconds ticked by with a suspicious lack of blaster fire, and threw an incredulous glare up at Wheeljack. "What are you waiting for, blow her up or something!"

"Do you want to tell her or shall I?" Airachnid asked, deadpan weighing her voice down.

Wheeljack shrugged, starting to get that guilty sparkling look about him again. "I'm worried about which of us is gonna tell Prime."

Chapter 40

Chapter Text

Their wedding was hampered somewhat with the orchestra of bombs and gunfire surrounding them, dampening their soft vows and rattling them to their spark cores as their lips joined. A wartime wedding- unheard of, but certain to be more popular among young Autobot couples now that their leaders had one.

Optimus knew it was traditional to shed all formal armour in the berthchamber, protoform and sparks laid bare to each other in the twilight. But he could only fiddle with the clasps of his chest's base plating as he awaited his new wife's presence.

Maybe she was just as nervous as him; trying to slip her dress armour off without it clattering to the floor in the next room. He couldn't hear anything through the door, only his own vents and the dull thud of his spark as it anticipated the heat of another.

It dampened his audios, making him miss the gentle click of the door opening. There was a cough from the doorway, and he turned to face it.

It was the first time he'd seen her down to her protoform, and it hit him like a hammer to his backstrut. Silver skin, blending into the moonlight softly pooling from the windows, magenta and rose biolights trailing across her thighs and framing her hips. Her servos hung low, digits twisting together, and her helm was kept low to hide her faceplate. Awe spread through his frame in subtle vibrations, in tune with the thrum of his spark as it started to flare impatiently in its chamber.

"And here I thought you could never be more beautiful."

His hushed praise finally brought her helm up, with a smile that could have shamed Crystal City with its brightness. Her optics were tiny cyan smolders in the gloom, flicking curiously over his still-covered frame.

"Having trouble with your armour?" She meant it as a quip as she gestured over him, but nerves ended up cracking it in half and filling the latter one with a tremor. She kept smiling anyway.

Optimus gave a half-smile attempt back, barely holding himself back from running to her. He couldn't do with just staring at her like a lovesick turbofox- he needed to feel her, hold her spark and look into her optics as love fused them together...

"Twitchy digits," he confessed in a low, scratch-filled voice. "You know... how nervous I-"

She'd already reached him, placing her digits under the huge span of his hands and slipping further underneath, to where his armour still clung to his body and kept him separated from her. He felt her in his protoform, pressing in only for a nanoklick and leaving him begging for a centuries more worth of her touch as his plates finally fell to the ground.

War had painted his protoform with a tapestry of scars and still-healing rust bruises, the real reasons he'd been reluctant to expose himself. His warped skin against her smooth, it was like slices of day and night laid beside each other.

Elita didn't back away, staring up at him with creased eyeridges. Instead she hovered her digits over his thickest scars, the side of his chest torn in half and the gutting cut from Megatron himself pitting his abdomen. Only the smaller stitches felt the relief of her touch, shivering underneath her digits despite their warmth. He watched her as she watched him, seeing her optics tracing every groove. She was fascinated by him.

Her peds carried her closer, bringing her lips to the scar at his side. "You're gorgeous, Optimus," she whispered against him, flicking her angel's gaze up as her vents caressed him.

He wasn't, but he would have believed Kaon was made of gold if she'd said so in that moment.

Somehow Optimus made himself stop staring at her, bringing his hands away from holding her faceplate. One trailed down her spinal strut, dipping into the glass biolights lining it, while the other threw itself out in the direction of the waiting berth. "Shall we?"

He led her towards it, but she was the one who pulled him down on top of her, smothering his mouth with a kiss that burst fireworks along his glossa. They melted into each other, like mercury spilling over the sheets, moans only breaking the silence if they manage to slip past the seal of their lips. Iacon could have collapsed around them both and Optimus wouldn't have noticed, because Iacon wasn't Elita.

Pleasure-swamped klicks later, Elita was the first to break their kiss, venting hard against his lips. "You don't have to be gentle with me, Optimus," she told him, trailing one hand off his faceplate and down his chest, in a straight path for his interface panel. "I'm ready for anything..."

"I know. I'm more worried about myself," Optimus admitted, his voice devolving into a growl when her digits found a place at home in his codpiece seams.

"Why's that?" She purred against his lips in a teasing smile, massaging the whole length of his spike through his plating even as it started to soften from the heat it radiated.

"I might not be able to leave you after this," he warned, burying his face in her neck as a long moan ripped through his vocaliser. She always was good with her hands...

The merciless teasing finally ended with a click as she finally pressed the release, with his spike unfolding out along her abdomen and transfluid already beading across its length. Where most femmes might have panicked at the size, Elita only gave a raised eyeridge up at him.

"And you've been hiding that from me all this time?" she tutted, arching her back slightly to let it rub against her with a tantalising friction.

"Every mech has his little secrets," Optimus groaned back, pressing his helm against the crest of hers and keeping one servo holding himself upright, the other snaking by her side and reaching for the open panel between her legs.

Just like that, the tables had turned with Elita stifling her moans and shuddering under him. He didn't need to wait for her to release her valve to him, circling the wet rim with a single digit where the most pleasure nodes were clustered together. Hearing her whine, gasping with every move he made inside, was an accomplishment far greater than a battle victory. He was making her moan, filling her with ectasy like he'd always dreamed of doing. He could have listened to her whisper his name all night and still be wanting to hear her just one more time.

"Please, Optimus... please..." There was a mumble of 'frag' lost in the spasm of her body, still grinding vainly along his spike. He was just as anxious to get to the main event as her, but not enough to miss out something so important.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" He pulled his digit free of her valve, coated in bright lubricant as he grazed it up her protoform, through the center of her chestplates and in a circle where her spark chamber would be. The interface and spark bond was always combined, simultaneous as mech and femme gave each other entirely to themselves.

She looked down at the glowing trail left on her body, at some point registering that he wanted to see her spark. His own was already starting to beam out as his chest plates slid apart, the pure brilliance of it only being released when his chamber spread open.

The blue-veined light floating in the darkness almost looked like her optics.

The glaze of fascination returned as she watched his soul bared to her, waiting for her trust to show itself. Her digits ran between the razor-thin seams that would pull her chestplates apart, bringing her own spark out in offering.

All the playfulness of their foreplay had dissolved in her, but she let the plates part and kept herself firmly planted on the berth as a white glow, tinged slightly in pink, starting to bleed from her.

"I love you, Orion," she whispered, tugging him back down with her servo entwined in his.

"And I love you, Ariel." His soft promise went somewhere against her throat as their sparks reached for each other, tendrils of energy grasping like hands and pulling one into the other.

Optimus awoke before his spark could live through the agony of losing her light again. The coolant that soaked his frame during recharge had long since dried into a thin, uncomfortable crust over his armour, and the usual thudding echo in his helm was accompanied by a piercing, impatient beep from his comm unit.

"About damn time, you fraggin'-!" Wheeljack's voice was a tornado of curses that Optimus could barely decipher in his sluggish state. He groaned as the chorus of aches in his processor spiked into a painful crescendo.

"Calm down, Wheeljack," he managed to groan, forcing himself upright on his berth. "Are you with Airachnid?" As much as he didn't want to admit it, if there was anything wrong she was most likely to be the cause of it.

"Yeah, and... we've got a problem," Wheeljack said, his rumbling vocaliser coming across as crackling static.

Optimus inhaled, almost scared to ask, "What kind of problem?"

There was a pause, as if Wheeljack was just as wary of answering, before he finally revealed, "A very small and pissed one called Miko."

Chapter 41

Chapter Text

Not even Megatron bellowing into his comm link could make Soundwave budge from his vigil on the Nemesis flight deck, waiting for any speck in the clouds spilled around him to come closer; anything that wasn't just a trick of the fading sunlight; anything that looked even remotely like Laserbeak. The emptiness thrumming through him was from far more than just the absence of his drone's weight hanging off his chest, and it had leeched off his spark ever since he returned with the Resonance Blaster. Megatron was pleased enough at having at least one Relic in his possession, but Soundwave would have happily threw the trinket away in return for his drone. The only thing that stopped him pursuing Wheeljack, who he still remembered dangling Laserbeak by a snapped wing, was the seizure of his spark when he felt him plunge into stasis. It meant the pain he felt was so great, so debilitating that he turned himself off just to escape it- and Soundwave couldn't even track him down.

Not until a breem ago that is, when his signal popped up out of nowhere, coming closer with every nanoklick, and Soundwave's spark erupted from a dormant sense of relief.

Clouds were moving in front of the sunset, freezing vapour on his frame when he finally saw something that wasn't just from wishful thinking; a pair of wings soaring in from the west, barreling through the bloated white walls stretched out between them. It took all of Soundwave's remaining self-control to stay rooted to the flight deck, waiting for Laserbeak to reach him first, barely flinching when his drone slammed home and shrank into the hollow of his chest. Laserbeak didn't often speak, but now he erupted in chirps and frantic chirring as he settled tightly against Soundwave. Though his wings managed to sink into their slots, one of them still trembled along its length, and there were half-healed scars near its joint. But he still managed to fly back, like a spider retreating to its web.

Half-cradling, half-carrying his drone, Soundwave kept a brisk pace through the Nemesis with barely a glance at the curious stares from Vehicons he brushed past- though if he did glance, they wouldn't have known it. He resisted the urge to retreat to his quarters, instead routing to the comm center. Even while offline, there was every chance Laserbeak could have harvested something from the Autobots.

And as he hooked himself into the console, transfer cables thrumming from the data flowing through them, he saw he was right. Within Laserbeak's internal databanks was a single file, the only one created since his capture last decacyle. The video channel was absent, corrupted, but the audio was as clear as if he himself was in the Autobots' fold.

"Airachnid?"

"Who else would be on this frequency, Optimus?" Even without the introduction, the spider's voice was utterly unmistakable, just an octave above a hiss as it always was. Hearing it from beyond her supposed grave, beyond where she had any right to be and where he'd left her, was almost enough to make Soundwave's cables jolt out of their ports. But he only tightened them, as if he could wring clarity out of the recording and Optimus' static-laden sigh.

"Just making sure. I'm afraid there has been... a complication of events recently. I would rather not disclose much detail, but I will be anchored to the Autobots for the foreseeable future."

There was another sigh, feminine despite its depth. "And just how far do you see that going?"

"For however long is necessary."

"Which basically translates to, 'you're on your own'?"

"All I can do is apologise. But my responsibilities to my Autobots override all else. Do you have enough energon set aside?"

"I'll make it last. Wouldn't want you having to scuff your peds on the Ground Bridge over."

"Airachnid-"

"Don't try and feel sorry for me, Prime, I hate when you do that."

There was a pause, crackly and tense, and in it Soundwave noticed how hard his digits were gripping the edge of the console. "...How is Scorpia, at least?" Optimus eventually asked.

"You tell me, you're the one she imprinted on."

"But you are the one connected to her spark."

"...She can hear your voice. It makes her happy."

"I do miss her."

"Well, that's your problem to solve."

Immersed in the waves of new data, entirely foreign contexts and facts even he struggled to grasp, Soundwave didn't hear Breakdown knocking on the edge of the room's open doorframe.

"Yo, Soundwave? Megatron's been bugging me about adjusting the nav-radar receptors up top buuuuut I don't really know what they are, so-" Breakdown cut himself off before Soundwave had a chance to do the same to the recording. Shoving himself off the frame, almost stumbling in his haste to get closer, he looked like he'd just found his optic grown back overnight with the other staring wide at the screen.

"Is that... is that Airachnid's voice?" He was hushed, to better hear the lilt of her vocaliser that somehow managed to cut through the air even as a collection of frequencies through a speaker. No wonder so many suspected he'd sired the spider's child; Soundwave would have bought into the belief if he wasn't already burdned with the truth. "She... she's alive! Haha!" Breakdown fell back, stumbling again over his shaking peds, with a hand to his helm as it stuttered almost absurd laughter. Soundwave might as well have not been there, but the former Wrecker's joy was as short-lived as those of his companions. His expression seemed to simmer, a grim realisation slowly leeching out his relief.

"Wait, that means... Megatron's gonna be hunting her down, isn't he? Cause she... was carrying a sparkling. Or something like that." Of course there was far more to it than Breakdown would have been able to comprehend, but Soundwave wasn't likely to explain it to anyone. Whether or not Breakdown was expecting a response, he was already running all the worst case scenarios through his processor, each one flickering in his optic and casting a dark shadow over the yellow glass.

But Soundwave had already decided what to do even before Breakdown walked in. A clutch of digits tapped his keyboard, and the recording blinked out of existence with a confirmation of deletion replacing it. Even Laserbeak seemed to relax with the evidence now wiped from his drives.

Breakdown, meanwhile, was still watching the screen, as if his one optic was glitching on him. But after some nanoklicks he accepted what he saw with gratitude emptying his vents in a shaky sigh. "You're... you're a damn good mech, Soundwave, y'know? I'd say I owe you, but... I don't think I have much to repay with."

Soundwave was expecting Breakdown to ask why he was just as hesitant to let Megatron know of Airachnid, but that was overestimating him. The mech left in the next nanoklick, like fleeing a crime scene. Looking back over his screen, Soundwave wondered if erasing the evidence was really so easy as just clicking a few keys.

xx

"Here comes Sleepin' Slagger at last," Wheeljack grumbled, just as Optimus burst through the ferns. The Prime scanned over the undergrowth, expecting to have a pair of tiny fists slamming against his ped, but thankfully Miko was kept off the ground by Wheeljack's palm as she leaned back scowling against his chest. Airachnid wisely kept out of the circle of tension, perched on a low-hanging branch and dangling her razors.

Optimus had been preparing his confrontation even while pelting through the forest, and his vents were full of leaves and thorns as he tried to predict how Miko would react. But that was the problem with Miko- she was utterly unpredictable. "Wheeljack, would you care to explain how one of my humans was allowed aboard your ship?"

The Wrecker practically swelled with anger, and the only thing stopping him from marching up was keeping still the equally angry human in his hand. "Don't pin this on me, Prime! I'm not the one lettin' them run around, gettin' into places they shouldn't be!"

Optimus couldn't help bristling even as he fought to keep his voice level. "No-one is at fault here, I am just saying-"

"Both of you, shut it!" The interruption was so loud, so forceful that both mechs thought it came from Airachnid at first. But Miko was the one standing red-faced and panting, looking as if she also couldn't believe she just talked back to a pair of mechs several times her own size. Wheeljack set her back on the ground, as if too scared to hold her any longer. Miko sighed, brushed her shirt down and cleared her throat before turning a wavering frown up at Prime. "Optimus, I was the one who decided to stow aboard," she said, with a look back at Wheeljack. "Cause I saw his ship down at the bottom of the cliff, and I was just curious... I was still inside when he took off. So it's not his fault I ended up here." Her frown deepened, a hard carve on her face as she pointed accusingly at him. "And anyway, you got no right to be giving out lectures when you're... working with a freaky Decepticon!"

"Ex Decepticon," Airachnid corrected from her branch, prompting Miko to look up at her with something bordering a hatred that no fifteen year old should have felt for anything.

"You can call it anything you want, lady, but that doesn't change that you tried to hurt Jack! And you're in on this as well, Wheeljack! And I bet Ratchet is as well- that's why you were all talking together when I slept over, isn't it?!" She was making herself dizzy with how quickly she whirled around at them all, so her glare wasn't wasted on just one bot.

As usual, it was up to Optimus to defuse her. "Miko, please calm down. There is more to this than just Airachnid."

"Like what?" she snapped, and now Wheeljack stepped in with perhaps the only thing that could distract her from her betrayal.

"Like the fact Prime found her with a newborn sparkling," he said, and like a Sharkticon on a hook Miko's head whipped back towards the Wrecker.

"Sparkling...? Like..." The dullness in her eyes shattered into bright shards as a grin spread rapidly across her mouth. "LIKE A ROBOT BABY?!" A high sound that Optimus couldn't even name shrieked from her, and the dirt underneath her feet was trampled by her frantic jumping. "I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew there was one!"

Even Airachnid was starting to look disturbed by all the commotion the human was making, and it as Optimus' turn to step back in. "Miko."

She stopped mid-jump, almost toppling on her rear as she forced her enthusiasm to compress itself. "Right, right, I'm... I'm chill." She coughed again, as if getting out the rest of the squeeing whines in one go, and planted her hands on her hips; to Optimus, looking like a shrunken administrator. "Alright, Optimus, I dunno who else knows about your secret second family, but I've got a deal for you. I won't say a word to anyone if you let me go with Wheeljack on his bug hunt."

Optimus was already shaking his helm before she finished. "Absolutely no-"

"Come on, Prime, she's done worse and survived," Wheeljack said with a scoff, and Miko beamed a particularly bright grin up at him. Optimus frowned, though even Airachnid didn't look so adverse to the idea of travelling with a human. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to reassure or terrify him, but it was two bots against one. Even if one of them was a Prime, there wasn't much he could do to change the tide of consensus, short of plucking up Miko by her shirt and carrying her scrambling back to base in his digits. Though his neck cables protested, Optimus forced himself to nod assent with a sigh.

"And I wanna see the robot baby when we get back!" Miko added.

Chapter 42

Chapter Text

Though his spark was pulling him towards Scorpia, Optimus made himself stay just long enough to oversee the mission preparations. Even if he wasn't happy about it, such a small team going after an entire Insecticon hive (and never mind a human tagging along), there wasn't much he could do to stop it. Not even the wisdom of the Thirteen constantly nagging in his chest could stand against three of the most stubborn souls in the galaxy.

“Take patience with the human, Airachnid, she can be rather… hyperactive. Like a sparkling entering its childhood phase.”

Airachnid just smirked at his warning, casting a glance over to where Miko was tapping her boots impatiently on the Jackhammer's boarding ramp. "I'll know what to expect with Scorpia, then. But are you sure I can be trusted around one? A human?”

Optimus sensed a mockery lurking in her tone, but he chose to answer it sincerely. “You had chances to harm Rafael when he and Bumblebee appeared, but you didn't take them. Whether or not that was due to my presence, it is proof enough that you can at least control yourself around humans. And regardless of that, I'm sure Wheeljack will prevent you from any acts of aggression.”

Whether Airachnid agreed with him on that, her shrug didn't say. “Well, we’ll see about that. At this rate, I'll happily pair up with anything that doesn't have a Decepticon badge on it.”

Optimus had more to say, a build up of questions spilling out of his processor all at once in a messy stream, but Wheeljack was quick to dam the flow. "Prime, if you're done flirtin', I'd like to get somethin' done with the day before nightfall."

And at his peds, Miko was busy turning the ramp into an impromptu concert stage. "Gonna go kick some buuug butt! With Jackie and a freaky buuug mama!"

"I hate her already," Airachnid decided.

Wheeljack just snorted while Miko was too busy drowning everything that wasn't her own voice out. "Somethin' tells me she'll grow on you," the Wrecker said.

"Oh, great, so she's infectious now." Airachnid's groan only made him laugh, and in turn her fangs deepened her scowl.

"Not like you're thinkin', but now you mention it... yeah, she is kinda." Wheeljack leaned down and tapped Miko on her shoulder, stopping her from attempting a powerslide, and gestured towards the interior of the Jackhammer. While the human scrambled inside, Airachnid turned back to Optimus on the fringe of the landing site.

"You might have some trouble wrestling Scorpia away from Grimlock, but I'm sure you've faced worse than several tonnes of paternal-charged anger," she warned, though like Optimus some sincerity ended up leaking in where she might have otherwise kept it fimrly out.

Prime nodded, almost deploying his battlemask when he felt a smile threatening his faceplate. "And I know you've survived worse than..." He trailed off, not quite sure if he knew where he was going, or if it was safe to go there.

Whether it was one or the other, Airachnid's optics still flickered with that sad look that didn't suit her. "Sometimes I think you overestimate me, Prime," she said after a sigh.

"Or it may be that you just underestimate yourself," Optimus suggested.

Airachnid seemed to find the thought amusing. "Either way, at least one of us is definitely wrong."

Optimus knew when he was faced with a debate that he wouldn't win, thanks to the stellar cycles spent having to match wits with Elita One. "That is one way to look at it," he conceded, and Airachnid looked quite proud of the small victory over Prime's processor. Or maybe she was just glad to be right about something.

"Come on, lovebirds, I ain't gettin' any younger here!" Wheeljack called out, banging on the side of the Jackhammer's hull like sounding some kind of gladiator bell.

"What does he mean by love-" Optimus was muttering under his vents, shaking his helm when he decided it didn't matter. "Good luck, Airachnid. Take care of yourself."

The spider hesitated for something, another flicker across her optics too fast for Optimus to recognise, as they flicked from him to Wheeljack and then back again. "You too, Optimus." The two rods hovering over her shoulders seemed to inch lower towards the ground, and spindly as they looked they both managed to support Airachnid's weight as she lifted herself up, just enough to press her mouth against Optimus' cheek.

Whatever it was that stopped Prime from flinching away still had him paralysed while Airachnid loaded herself into the Jackhammer. He could only move one servo, lifting the shaking digits up to where the imprint of her lips still tingled just inches aside from his mouth. Whatever he was expecting to find there, an acid stain or some kind of ethereal bruise, evaporated against the smooth damp sheen of his own face.

Still cradling his cheek, it was only some klicks after the Jackhammer and Airachnid faded from sight, into the dappled white-and-blue beyond, that Optimus realised he was in love with her.

xx

Though the Jackhammer was built for two passengers, Miko was content to seat herself in the space between Wheeljack and Airachnid. It was the best place to focus her eyes, still wide even while squinting above a pout so intense it must have hurt, up at the spider so casually trying to not take a slice out of her.

"Wheeljack, why does the vermin keep staring at me?" Airachnid eventually had to ask.

"I think she likes ya'," Wheeljack said, and his smirk would have been pelted with something if Miko had anything to throw at him other than a glare.

"Do not!" she protested, springing to her feet and clenching her hands into laughably small fists by her sides. When Wheeljack didn't offer to retract his heinous suggestion, Miko chose to ignore him and turn her attention back on Airachnid. "I'm just... trying to think what your baby must look like."

Airachnid scoffed, kicking herself back in her chair with servos folded just under her chestplates. "Tiny. Eats a lot. Optics far too big for her helm. Does that help?"

But the human was too busy squealing again to notice sarcasm, making Airachnid think there was something wrong with her vocaliser. "It's a girl! Awww! Does she have a name?"

Airachnid twitched an eyeridge, trying to sense if the human was using some kind of Earth form of contempt on her. Why would a creature be so invested in the offspring of an entirely different species, after all? "...Scorpia," she answered after a suspicious pause, and almost worryingly Miko seemed to faint when she heard it. But she was still making noises even a turbofox would have had trouble hearing with her legs kicking the air, so Airachnid just rolled her optics and turned them to look elsewhere around the ship.

That strategy worked for all of five nanoklicks, before Miko regained herself and said in a very bad whisper to her left; "Pssst, Jackie... who's the dad?"

"I'm done talking about this." Airachnid was already rising out of her seat, half with legs and half with rods, and scuttling over to the other side of the Jackhammer where she knew she'd find a bench to stubbornly sit on.

Though her back was turned to them both, she could still hear them over the dull roar of the ship's engine. "...Guess I said something wrong?"

"Trust me, Miko; if you did, even I wouldn't be able to stop her if she really wanted to web ya' up like a fly." Airachnid was glad she decided to face away, since she didn't have to hide her smile. Still, it would have been nice to see how the human would have reacted to the thought.

"What's the story, then? How did Optimus... find her, or whatever?" Miko tried to lower her voice, but someone usually so loud had a very different concept of what 'quiet' was to most people. Even so, Airachnid wasn't in the mood to scare her silent.

At least Wheeljack had the decency to tune his vocaliser lower, though still not low enough to escape range of her audios. "From what Air herself told me, she left the 'Cons after... havin' her sparklin'. Then Optimus found her in a forest, probably durin' a patrol. Since then he's been bringin' her energon, eventually relocatin' her to that big island you saw. 'Course, he didn't know the place was already home to a cranky Dinobot..."

"A what?" Whether or not it was intentional, Miko was instantly pulled away from all unanswered questions about Airachnid as a thousand more about Grimlock took their place. Airachnid heard Wheeljack huff one of his small laughs that he always had when he smirked.

"Oh, you'd like him, kid," the Wrecker said. "He's a lot like you but in a much bigger, much scarier body."

"Hey, I can be scary!"

"Haha, I'm sure ya' can, like Bulkhead when you're between him and an energon banquet."

Whatever was said beyond that, Airachnid mostly drowned it out. Her lips had been tingling ever since they touched Optimus' faceplate, and she was still trying to convince herself why she let them. Not to just annoy Wheeljack in all his jealousy, not to throw Prime off his eternal guard. She just... wanted to. Not even her spark, sitting idle in its tight chamber after a brief flare, could explain why.

She still hadn't reached an answer when the Jackhammer landed, amidst another forest with oak trees instead of palm and with dirt less sandy than she was now used to. It was like where she first hid herself, among the bracken and leaves where Optimus still managed to find her; she even recognised the cave yawning open before them through the viewport, but from much longer ago.

"Isn't this an energon mine?" She didn't need to ask, having helped scout the cave for Megatron herself, but Wheeljack's nod at least reassured her.

"Used to be. 'Cons must have picked it clean and abandoned it, cause it's where I've been seein' all the Insecticon drones going into. Whichever one's controllin' them is hidden deep in there, and he ain't comin' out without bringin' the whole swarm with him."

Though she had to scramble onto the passenger seat and stand on the very tips of her boots to see, Miko still managed to budge between them. "So what's the plan, Wheeljack?"

"Well, kid, there's several tried and tested strategies to clearin' out a hive of ugly-aft bug beasts. I can't remember most of them, so I'm just gonna blow the Pit outta it and hope for the best."

It was exactly what she expected from Wheeljack, yet Airachnid's optics were still rolling. "If it's underground, couldn't you cause a cave-in?" she mentioned, recalling one of the main problems Shockwave had with domesticating Insecticons was stopping their hives from collapsing.

Wheeljack looked away to think it over. "With enough mines placed 'round the weak points... yeah, that could work. Save me a lot of random explosives as well. Speakin' of which, you still got that grenade I gave ya'?"

Airachnid blinked and her hand went deep into her subspace, talons brushing past the meteorite she kept nestled near the surface and eventually hitting the hard casing of the grenade she'd completely forgotten about until now. "Surprisingly..." she muttered. All the times she could have used it before were gone now, but mostly she was just relieved it hadn't gone off while still hidden away.

Wheeljack smirked, as if telling himself she just kept it to remember him. "Least you got it for an emergency. Right, Miko; you scout round the perimeter and take a record of it, that way I can see where to place the mines."

The human dug around in her own subspace- though much smaller than a Cybertronian's and on her rear for some reason- and retrieved a pink device from it. "On it!"
As she sprinted down the Jackhammer's ramp faster than it could descend, Airachnid couldn't help pouting after her. "How does she get to go scouting?"

"Cause a human's a lot harder to spot than a wanderin' techno-organic with a slammin' hot body," Wheeljack said, all fact and only a little bit of flirt- but just enough to make one of Airachnid's razors snap up to his neck.

"More like 'slamming in your codpiece' if you don't shut up," she said, but didn't resist against Wheeljack pushing her leg away from slicing at his neck cables.

"Hey, I'm sure Optimus would agree," he chanced, but Airachnid just switched to pointing a talon just inches from his optics.

"If this is about me kissing him-!"

"I never said anythin' 'bout that," Wheeljack interrupted, optics wide enough without the claw threatening to carve them out. "Pit, I assumed you done it lots of times with him."

Airachnid lowered her hand, sinking back into her chair and suddenly unable to lift her optics off the ground. "Actually... that was the first," she confessed, and even hearing it out loud didn't give her any insight into why she'd waited so long.

"Ohhhh..." As the realisation took its time soaking into Wheeljack's processor, Miko returned panting and baring her device high over her head.

"All done!" she gasped, doubling over against the foot of the passenger seat and handing the pink thing over to Wheeljack.

"Nice one, kid," the Wrecker praised, and whatever he was watching took much shorter to absorb than it did to record. By the time he closed the screen over, his optics were cold with calculations and hoard of incendiary equations only Wreckers and scientists would ever bother with. "Now you stay here, I'm gonna go place the mines." He paused at the top of the boarding ramp, turning towards Airachnid. "You wanna come this time, your majesty?"

Airachnid chose to sneer at his tone. "If you're going to act like that, I'll eat the human by the time you get back."

Wheeljack shook his helm even as he laughed. "Honey, you and I know that ain't good for your figure."

Both her and Miko watched him go, heard his peds scuffing in the heavy dirt outside, and only when they faded from hearing did Miko ask, "Is Wheeljack the dad?"

Airachnid almost burst out laughing. "He wishes he was." Part of her almost wished it as well, but it was a part she would have sooner had assassinated than let out for anyone to see.

Still, she'd probably have preferred company with it than with Miko's rambling. "So did you leave the 'Cons so your daughter would have a better life? Or maybe you fell in love with an Autobot and wanted to be with him, or maybe-!"

"Maybe you read far too many romance stories," Airachnid scoffed. "No wonder your species has such small processors, you fill them up with slag at such a young age."

"Hey, I'm fifteen years old!" Miko protested, with a pout that would have been perfectly placed on any sparkling.

Airachnid thought she was joking before she realised humans live such shorter lives, and still laughed through a smirk. "Try fifteen thousand years. Give or take a few vorns." The war had lasted for a hundred thousand of them, probably more, so even that wasn't impressive to a Cybertronian. But it shut Miko up for a few seconds, before she found something else to interrogate her about.

"You're not related to the Insecticons, are you?"

Airachnid's optics spilled a new brighter glow as one of her eyeridges arced dangerously. "What on Cybertron makes you say something like that?"

"Well, Optimus said... you were a techno-organic. And they're not like normal bots, obviously. Insecticons don't look normal either, and you're both bugs, soooo-" The human was too busy making circles on the floor with the tip of her boot, and she didn't notice the clutch of talons reaching down to pluck her off the floor until she was already in the air, squealing much less annoyingly now. Airachnid's talons didn't breach skin, but they did grasp tightly to the back of Miko's shirt as she dangled off her hand in front of her frown, and the hisses that came from it.

"If you must know, I assisted Shockwave in controlling them for the Decepticons, during the war," Airachnid informed Miko through a film of venom over her denta. Miko at least didn't try to struggle, instead matching Airachnid's frown and at least trying to compete with her burning glare. "But if you dare imply that I'm part of some primitive, barbaric slave species-"

For once, Airachnid interrupted herself as an idea hit her processor like a meteor impact, ripples across her circuits making her talons fall limp and drop Miko. Luckily (or not) the human landed on her lap, and managed to clamber back to the ground by the time Wheeljack was stretching in the ship's door.

"Right, let's blow up and blow out before I need to invest in some bug spray-"

"Wheeljack, wait." Airachnid rose from her seat, holding up a servo. "Before you arm the mines, I want to try something."

Both Wheeljack and Miko gave her curious stares, though Miko was mostly preoccupied poking at the new holes in the back of her shirt. "'Something' being...?" The Wrecker waited for an answer that Airachnid only gave when she was halfway off the ship.

"Something you just need to trust me on," she said, with a glance down at Miko. "In fact, your... human was the one who made me think of it."

As she descended onto solid ground and approached the open mouth of the mine, she heard Wheeljack's muffled voice asking, "Miko, what did you do now?!"

Chapter 43

Chapter Text

"I have to say, Dreadwing, you're looking even more pipe-logged than usual. Someone eat your rations when you weren't looking?"

Knockout's diagnosis didn't help shift the scowl scratched permanent on Dreadwing's faceplate. "You would do well to exercise some acknowledgement over Lord Megatron's current concerns, Knockout," the Seeker growled, with his wings practically bristling. "Our leader's foul mood affects his soldiers as well- his loyal ones, at least."

"Trust me, Dreadwing, on the inside I'm just as mopey as him," Knockout deadpanned, turning his attention to more important matters than Dreadwing's secure position as president of the Megatron Fan Club- namely the frequency detector in his hands, and its annoyingly blank screen. Supposedly it would pick up the unique calls found in an Insecticon hive, even one leagues underground, and supposedly this was exactly where his constipated companion tracked a creature suspiciously similar to an Insecticon from a distance just that morning. "Hm... you're certain you saw it fly here?" he asked, sweeping the detector over the horizon just to be sure there wasn't an Insecticon hiding himself under a log somewhere.

"I know what I saw better than any toy you can conjure from your subspace," Dreadwing insisted, and Knockout could practically hear his denta grinding themselves to dust.

"Cool your thrusters, I just don't want us wasting any of Lord Megatron's valuable time chasing after-" A clutch of claws suddenly appeared on his chest, pressing down on the immaculate paint and stopping Knockout from wandering helm-first down a cliff face dropping away right beneath their peds (and also preventing him from any rants about how claws didn't react well with polish). Knockout reeled himself back with a heavy vent sucking air in, and he tried not to look down for too long. The main reason he'd never liked the thought of reformatting as a Seeker despite the spark attacks it would have caused Starscream- deathly fear of heights.

But just as he was about to retrace his steps into the cover of the trees, Dreadwing went and made his life difficult again. "What's that down there?" he asked, and the cruel hook of curiosity forced Knockout back to study the empty patch of dirt at the foot of the cliff despite vertigo making his gears clench. The first thing he noticed was the squat starship parked at the fringe of the trees below, mostly camouflaged by the leaves, but that wasn't what caught Dreadwing's attention. It was the speck of fractured black armour glinting in the low sun, jagged peaks jutting from its silhouette and its mirror image slowly approaching opposite.

"It looks like..." Knockout already knew what it was, and Dreadwing realised a nanoklick later.

"Airachnid!" The Seeker's wings flared wide and smacked into Knockout's back, almost sending him barelling down the cliff, but he was too focused on anger to pay any attention to the medic's panic. "We should tell Lord Megatron at once-!"

Now Knockout had the opportunity to interrupt, and he took it with relish. "Now hold on, Dreadwing, let's not be hasty..." The medic was tempted to put his own claws on the Seeker's chest, but his survival instinct outweighed his snarky one. Instead he settled for holding a digit up, and it somehow stopped Dreadwing from soaring down to sweep the spider right back to the Nemesis. "That other shape looks like an Insecticon to me. And if there's a hive down there like we suspected, it could be rather... beneficial to observe their behaviour up close. For science. And I'm sure Megatron would be very grateful for the data." A habitual grin found its way onto his faceplate before he could squash it back down, but something about the flash of denta made Dreadwing's struts lower themselves inch by inch, and by the time his wings lay flat he was only frowning fiercely. At least he couldn't scowl a bot to death just yet.

"If we lose her again, the fault will lie solely on your shoulders, Knockout," Dreadwing warned, and he was dragging himself further back into cover to watch her. With his engine snarling, he was like a predator waiting for an ambush.

"I'm willing to take that risk," Knockout said, still smiling away as he slipped beside him while trying to avoid the barbs of stray undergrowth. Just as he magnified his optics, the device holstered by his side started crackling with the faint trills of a greeting far below. But there were two audio bands, from both Airachnid and her Insecticon friend. He 'd heard the rumours way back on Cybertron that Airachnid spent more time in Shockwave's lab than anyone had any right to, that she'd managed to tame a whole feral hive just with her optics, but he'd never imagined having a chance to see it for himself.

At least that was what he told himself he was interested in, trying to ignore any genuine concern for the spider for his own sake. Even from far away, it was so difficult imagining her as being a mother to anything, that there was even a faint bud of light left in her spark. He'd seen it for himself after all, a dim purple bulb sputtering behind cracked chamber glass, and some kind of engraving he didn't think to ask about over the core. To most she was walking proof that Primus had abandoned his children, to him she was a mine of biological miracles. But most of all, she was smart; enough to survive this long in an alien wild without exterminating the local population, too smart to be blinded by loyalty to something she had no choice in to begin with, and certainly too smart to be knocked up by any random mech that caught her optic. Little wonder that Breakdown was so infatuated by her, and that he still felt the shock of Megatron's revelation that she'd been pregnant for Primus knows how long.

The detector was thrumming now, like the hive had come alive in Knockout's palm, and he could see the Insecticon only an inch or so away from Airachnid. The sounds were curious but fading into a strange familiarity, like she was an old friend even though she was centuries senior to the buzzing creature. Clicking punctuated with chirps, mandibles scraping together and something else even the best of Cybertron's medics couldn't decipher reached out towards Airachnid... only to recoil back with a shriek to rival one of Starscream's tantrums, and before Knockout could even blink the Insecticon was tearing at Airachnid's frame like a rabid chainsaw. Even Dreadwing was shocked, every molecule in his body tensing, and he seemed torn between leaving her to the savagery or trying to save her for Megatron's wrath instead.

While the spider frantically tried to shove the huge mass of screeching plating off of her with only two back legs and Knockout ached to turn away, a white mech he only vaguely recognised emerged from the starship. Even from a distance Knockout could hear him yell, "Airachnid! Get back onboard!" Then he seemed to click something in his hand, and there was a dull orchestra of booms before the cliff all but disintegrated from underneath the two Decepticons. Rolling rocks and crumbling stone fell in a nightmare avalanche around Knockout as he collapsed helm over peds, and by the time he came to a shuddering stop amongst the trees the starship was already hovering in the sky, zooming off along the slipstreams a nanoklick later. At least he had his question answered, saw how Insecticons actually did react to Airachnid; with the same fury and malice as every other sentient creature.

"Wheeljack..." Sadly Dreadwing survived the sudden shifting of the Earth's plates, and he was shoving debris off his armour while glaring after the ship, wings fluttering so intently they might end up carrying him into the sky by force of sheer rage. "I should have terminated him as soon as I landed on this cursed Pit of a planet..."

Knockout tried to ignore the fact he could hardly stand on his numb legs and the dents now gracing over half his armour surface for now, looking every other way for any other rabid Insecticons on the loose. "Well... look on the bright side. We now know Airachnid is alive, and working with Autobots. I know you just get so excited around traitors, after all."

Dreadwing's vents huffed with a cloud of dirt billowing around him as he kept staring upwards, even though the ship was gone from sight. "I could flag that pile of rust down in five nanoklicks-"

"Don't bother, it's better in the long run if they think they got away for now. Besides, Airachnid may well perish from her wounds," Knockout suggested out of sheer desperation to return to the relief of his buffing pad; though medical records told him long ago it would take more than a single Insecticon to finish her off. Whether or not Dreadwing knew it as well, he pinned his wings down and marched out of the ruins of the cliff, towards the clearing where Airachnid held her ill-fated audience just a klick ago. The dirt was stained with jet exhaust and energon, and what once was an angry Insecticon was now a crushed sparking mess of plating and circuitry beneath a slab of rock. Morbidly it reminded Knockout of flyswatters humans used on their own household pests.

"I look forward to seeing how you plan to explain this to Lord Megatron," Dreadwing said, and if he wasn't Dreadwing Knockout might have said the winged aft was laughing about it.

"Quite easily, actually," Knockout said back, and his smile was almost genuine as he gestured towards what remained of the Insecticon and the barred off cave behind it. "The hive has been dealt with. That was the whole point of this mission, wasn't it?"

Dreadwing's mouth fell just enough for Knockout to notice him getting somehow angrier, and his talon firmly jabbed at a large dent in the center of Knockout's chest. "I will still be informing him of Airachnid's survival, as well as your failure to capture her."

Forcing his smile wider, Knockout swiped Dreadwing's claw aside with a simple wave and fought the urge to shove past him. "Whatever helps you recharge at night, Dreadwing."

Chapter 44

Chapter Text

Optimus found his way to Airachnid's clearing on autopilot, heedless to the branches scratching against his paint or the insects scurrying between the gaps of his peds. Despite the pounding frenzy making a mess of his processor, his spark burned clean and hot on what he could only describe as relief; yet that was the last thing he wanted to call it.

The leader of the Autobots falling in love with a Decepticon... even one so similar to Elita in such abstract ways. Tabloid networks would have had a field day, if they still existed. But how could anyone blame him, knowing her as he did? The Airachnid he had known for the past few months was, at the root of her being, no different to a hundred past Autobots he'd once known. She was stubborn, abrasive, antisocial and certainly destructive at what he could only assume was her worst. But also loyal, if only to herself. Fiercely intelligent; not like a scientist, more like someone who had to learn a whole world of information in very little time, and adapted to do just that. And capable of loving back, despite how hard she tried not to. Even Megatron had seen it in her, a spark of complete defiance that he couldn't even try to control. So he tried to burn it out, and only succeeded in creating another for her to nurture, to perhaps one day destroy him.

For all that and more Optimus wanted to admire her, to love her guiltlessly, but centuries of corpses and battlefields still stretched endlessly between them both. And the unbreakable fact that, as much as he would try to fool himself into believing otherwise, she would never replace Elita.

Though Elita had killed just as many as her. For different reasons and different outcomes, but the body count was still the same. A dead spark didn't care if it died for a greater good, or if it was just to satisfy a bloodlust. Murder was murder no matter the circ*mstances, and Optimus had his own fair share of energon on his hands. If Elita had taken up a Decepticon badge during the war, fought under Megatron's banner instead of his and killed his own soldiers, would he have still loved her? Would the love in his spark have managed to burn through the iron shield of his anger, the one taking the shape of an Autobot emblem?

The questions only made his helm ache, and he had to ignore them else go mad trying to answer them all. For now, he had other things to worry about. Like a cranky Dinobot kidnapping his adopted daughter.

"I will not say it again, Grimlock, put the sparkling down!"

"No! She Grimlock's baby, she like riding on sire's back!" Grimlock's claim was backed by Scorpia's squeals and giggles as she curled into the nape of the Dinobot's neck, holding on tight while he stamped and lunged around the clearing, but all Optimus could imagine was her falling off and being trampled.

"Primus, give me strength for once..." Optimus bunched his cables, waited for Grimlock to complete a circuit, then leapt for a ridge jutting out above his hind leg. With the Dinobot's spinal strut bucking with every step it was difficult to scrabble onto his back, but Optimus managed to hold on long enough that a well-timed lurch forwards propelled him between Grimlock's shoulders. With one hand braced on a horn, the other reached out and swooped up Scorpia to the safety of his chest. She chirped happily even while he tumbled through the air, rolling in the grass to land safely away from Grimlock's lashing tail.

"Dadda can fly!" Scorpia giggled once Optimus set her back on firm ground, flapping her servos like a pair of bird wings and clapping her hands together.

"Not quite, little one," he said quietly, smiling despite the hard impact the ground had on his aft as Scorpia rolled in the flowers, sending wisps of pollen up in small whirlwinds around her. Autumn had already taken over much of the forestry back home, but it had yet to turn the island's tropical trees to rust. For all the sparkling frolicked, she was suspended in an indefinite summer.

Grimlock had finally noticed that his shoulders were suspiciously sparkling-free, and he dropped his maw down to Optimus' level. "Prime always steal from Grimlock..." The mighty sigh of air from the Dinobot's vents could have bowled Optimus over if he wasn't prepared for it, but he always kept his cables tensed when he was nearby.

No, what caused Optimus to end up sprawled in the dirt was the klaxon-screech pealing from Scorpia's mouth.

"Grimlock, what did you do?!" Optimus' audios were still crackling as Scorpia kept screaming, spasming and thrashing in the grass like something invisible was attacking her, and he was caught between wanting to hold her and knowing he might only end up hurting her more.

Despite the Prime's accusation, the Dinobot over his shoulder looked just as shocked with his jaw slack and all rows of denta grinding together, every cord in his body straining to shy away from the scene. "Me Grimlock do nothing! Me Grimlock..." He trailed off, too worried to even defend himself, though Optimus knew he wasn't at fault anyway. Whatever it was causing Scorpia so much distress, he only trusted one mech to find it.

"Ratchet! Come in immediately, there's something wrong with Scorpia!"

"Optimus, calm down, what exactly is the problem?" Though Ratchet kept his voice professional, Optimus could easily hear concern breaking through over the line. Scorpia's cries were so loud, he wouldn't have been surprised if they were leaking through his comm unit.

"I don't know, but... she's in pain, she won't stop crying and screaming and she's spasming-"

The medic struggled to get a word in edgewise to Prime's panic, but one piece of advice made it through to Optimus' audios. "Just try and keep her stable, I'll be right there."

Whatever 'stable' meant, Optimus at least managed to edge Scorpia closer to his hands by the time Ratchet's Ground Bridge appeared only ten nanoklicks later. Grimlock backed away to the treeline, and Optimus reluctantly pulled away to let the medic examine her.

"What was she doing before she started screaming?" Ratchet asked while carefully taking a firm hold of her helm, forcing her to look upwards while the rest of her tiny body flailed wildly. As if he wasn't already worried enough, Optimus felt his gears clench at seeing Ratchet handle her so roughly. But he knew what he was doing, and he'd just have to trust him despite a surge of protective instincts boiling over from his spark.

Like Ratchet, the Prime had to almost shout to be heard over Scorpia's shrieks. "Just... nothing. She wasn't doing anything, it just... happened out of nowhere."

Ratchet might have hummed to himself, but Optimus couldn't hear. He pressed a digit above each of her optics, pulling the lids open and studying them for a nanoklick before releasing them. "Her optics aren't flickering, so it's not a processor flash. But I can't give her anything for the pain until I know what the cause is... are you absolutely sure she wasn't doing anything beforehand? You didn't see her put anything in her mouth?"

Optimus shook his head wearily, aching to cradle Scorpia or at least save her from the hard ground and Ratchet's probing grip. He could hear mumbles of words in her wails, but it hurt his spark too much to listen to them. "No, she was just rolling on the ground, playing... Grimlock had her on his back before, but he wouldn't hurt her."

"Don't be so sure..." From the side, Grimlock whined solemnly at Ratchet's suspicious glance and mutter. But Optimus didn't get a chance to deflect Ratchet's skepticism with the medic busy at work; palming parts of Scorpia's shaking frame, retrieving a pulse amplifier from his subspace and holding it over her heaving chest, even stopping to wipe away streaks of coolant on her screwed faceplate. But whatever he saw, felt or heard, he kept to himself until he was finished and her screams finally started to dwindle. Avoiding Scorpia's uncontrolled limbs, the medic placed a hand under her back and lifted her up slightly towards Optimus. "Hold her close to your chest. Keep her calm."

Optimus was only too glad to obey, closing his servos around her and eveloping the chaos of her EM field in the calculated tranquility of his own. "What is wrong with her?" He was almost scared to speak, thinking anything could set Scorpia off again just when she was starting to soothe.

Ratchet sighed with a shrug, and the sound seemed to add centuries to the millenias already weighing on his shoulders. "Physically, nothing. At least nothing I could find. Optimus, even if I don't know much about sparkling care, I've never heard of anything like this. Pain like this can't just... come out of nowhere."

Optimus was about to argue against that, but he bit his glossa until he felt energon drip down his throat. "Do you have any idea what might have caused it?" he pressed, letting Scorpia muffle her sniffles against his chest plating.

Ratchet scratched at his chin plate, every vent another sigh. "Well, there's the issue of her brittle armour layers... it may be that the inner dermal layer cracked and injured her somehow, though I can't detect any serious fissures in her frame. Her symptoms are similar to spark arrest, but it's impossible for a sparkling to have one. I mean, her spark won't fully bloom for another few years at the very least. I... could try doing a full frame scan, but I'd need to bring her into the base's medbay-"

"Do it, then," Optimus ordered, shielding Scorpia from Ratchet's splutter of protests.

"You mean parade Airachnid's child in front of the entire team?!" And then he was groaning before Optimus could reason with him. "Where even is Airachnid? Even where she's concerned, a sparkling's pain is an electromagnet to its mother, she should be here."

Now Optimus struggled to keep his EM field at ease, and Scorpia squirmed with a chorus of whimpers. "She is... on a mission with Wheeljack. And Miko."

"WITH MIKO-!?"

Optimus held up a hand to keep Ratchet's outburst at bay, for all the good it would do, forcing his tone firm and unbreakable. "I am not happy about it either, Ratchet, but we don't have time for me to explain. If Scorpia is in any kind of danger, I need you to find it as soon as possible."

The line Ratchet's mouth made could have cut through steel, and his optics were like concrete as he groaned on a whole new level of reluctance. "Right..." He hefted himself up on creaky joints older than the rest of him, turned his glare on his Ground Bridge controller. "Bumblebee was the only one in the foyer when I left. I'll go through first and make sure the coast is clear."

"Hurry, please," Optimus said, though Ratchet was already through the portal as soon as it spawned. Lifting up from his knees, slow and steady with barely a tremor in his burdened servos, Optimus still felt Scorpia's vents in harsh stutters against his hands. He wasn't sure if it was any better than hearing her screech louder than an Insecticon, and Grimlock's worry hadn't budged as he eased closer.

"Is baby okay?" he rumbled, dipping his snout down and nudging Optimus' shoulder. The Prime slightly rearranged his cradle, freeing one hand to pat the Dinobot's trembling jaw.

"She will be, Grimlock. I promise, we'll make sure she is-" The sound of a vortex popping into existence interrupted him, and he wasn't worried by it until he saw the look on Ratchet's face.

"Optimus. Leave Scorpia here." His voice struggled past the iron clench of his jawplate, each word bitten off by gritted denta.

The Prime set Scorpia down next to Grimlock, fighting against the pull of his spark and how she still held onto his digits. "Why?"

Ratchet gulped, looking down at his peds for a nanoklick before having to close his optics completely. "It's... it's Arcee. She's demanding to see you."

Chapter 45

Chapter Text

In all the years of the war, Optimus had many chances to be terrified. He'd marched into Primus' own spark chamber, the wastes of battlefields old and fresh, the maws of Metrotitans and even the Chaos Bringer himself with only the Matrix to ensure his survival. He'd faced down Megatron across armies and empty plains, pitted himself against monsters of the warlord's own creation and those far beyond what he could ever hope to control.

But walking into his own base with Arcee standing servos crossed, a glare loaded in her optics, was the most difficult thing he'd ever had to do.

At least she made it easier for him by doing away with greetings, and not giving him a chance to speak first. "Ratchet told me you needed urgent medical care, but you don't look that injured to me, Optimus." Her tone would have made many of Megatron's interrogators envious, maybe even Airachnid herself.

"Arcee, I..." Optimus made the fatal error of opening his mouth before knowing what to say to her. Whether or not she could sense it, she took full advantage of the heavy silence that coated his glossa.

"I've suspected there's been something going on behind my back for a long while now, so now I want the truth. What the Pit have you and everyone else been hiding from me?" Arcee jabbed a digit towards Bumblebee behind her as he tried to hide himself behind a platform support. "Either you tell me right now, or I go solo from now on. And that's not a threat, that's a promise."

While Arcee welded a scowl to her faceplate, Bee was shaking his helm hard enough to make his processor rattle. "Optimus, I swear I didn't tell her anything-"

But Optimus was already halting his plea with a hand raised in front of his solemn expression. "It is alright, Bumblebee. She deserves to know." He didn't doubt that the scout wouldn't compromise the secret, but regardless he wouldn't have blamed him for relenting under Arcee's questioning- especially if she gave him the same glare she was giving Optimus right then.

In the time it took Arcee to lay out her allegation, Optimus had been debating with ways to reveal the truth to her, from keeping it vague enough that she'd only be angered by being kept in the dark to just outright fabricating something. But she deserved more than that. She deserved a long overdue honesty.

"We have been... harbouring a former Decepticon, and a sparkling. Both of which would have otherwise been terminated by Megatron." Optimus forced himself to keep eye contact with Arcee, even as her optics swelled with surprise and her vocaliser was choked with shock. Whether it was from the news itself or the fact that Optimus revealed it so readily, she spent enough nanoklicks having to absorb it that Bumblebee managed to slip just out of range of her wrath, but still close enough to eavesdrop.

Arcee vented, blinked, bit her lip and forced her digits into tight fists, all the while struggling to look at him. When she eventually did, the glare hadn't softened. "Who else knows about them?" she asked quietly.

"Myself, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Bumblebee-"

"You mean everyone except me and old Bulkhead?" she cut in, throwing a servo towards the med-bay where thankfully Bulkhead recharged deep enough to not be stirred by her anger. Though Optimus knew now he'd have to let the Wrecker know, before Arcee gave him her own bitter version of the situation.

She was frowning under the shadow her dipped helm cast over her faceplate. "Show me them."

Optimus wasn't sure if the demand was any better than the outrage he was expecting. "Arcee-"

"Don't. Just... take me to them. Now." Her voice was steel warped under the weight of obvious betrayal. Hearing it hurt his spark almost as much as Scorpia's pain did, and Optimus knew better than to refuse her. The Ground Bridge was still humming wide open behind him, and he let Arcee trudge into its embrace first before following behind, with Bumblebee's hurried peds trying to keep up.

A thousand scenarios, each worse than the last and culminating in one femme standing over the other's gutted corpse, flashed in Optimus' processor before he stepped back onto the island, with relief flooding ice through his vents with Airachnid still nowhere to be seen. Ratchet had stayed behind to guard Scorpia, and he almost tried to hide the sparkling behind his back before he saw Optimus and Bumblebee emerge behind Arcee. Grimlock didn't seem to know what to do with himself, cowering in the sunset shadows of the trees and sniffing in Arcee's direction, and he wasn't exactly hard to notice with his horns spearing through the ferns.

"That's the Decepticon?" Arcee asked after a few moments, barely noticing the sparkling cradled in Ratchet's servos. Optimus' mouth hung open but again nothing came out, and Arcee must have taken his silence for a yes. Grimlock made small tremors as he emerged from cover, and Optimus realised that Arcee was the only femme other than Airachnid or Scorpia that the Dinobot had met. Which at least meant he wouldn't try to swallow her whole, if his attitude towards the other two was anything to go by.

Arcee watched the Dinobot approach with hesitation, anxiousness, but no hint of fear. Her winglets barely twitched as she turned toward Ratchet instead, looking down at the trembling child in his servos. Scorpia's whimpers were muffled by the tiny fingers lodged in her mouth, and her optics were brighter than the sun perched on the horizon. She looked up at Arcee with curiosity and an innocence that had no right existing in a species so used to killing each other. There was no indication that she was the spawn of a Decepticon, nothing aside from the dull grey of her proto-armour or the rosy tint of her eyes.

But whatever Arcee saw when she looked at Scorpia, it wasn't a source of joy. She broke the contact swiftly, switching her stare to Optimus and trying to say something that, in the end, didn't want to be said. She kept trying to take vents, preparing her vocaliser, but she didn't seem to think he was worth words anymore. All she did was shake her helm, heave a sigh to move planets, and activate her T Cog. It was still whirring over the squeal of her engine as her wheels tore up the grass on her way back through the Ground Bridge.

For once Bumblebee had kept silence through the whole revelation, clearing static through his broken vocaliser only after Arcee was gone. "...Well, at least she didn't yell," he said, a poor attempt at easing Optimus' grim knowledge that he'd lost one of his teammates so quickly.

"That is what worries me the most, Bumblebee."

But Optimus had a whole other slew of worries flying overhead, in the form of the Jackhammer making its return. The ship's landing was clumsy, flattening several saplings as its thrusters abruptly cut out. The door opened and before anyone could reach it Airachnid was spilling out onto the ground, all legs scrambling in the dirt. She was a blur of black and blue as she almost slammed into Ratchet and tore Scorpia from his servos. It happened so quickly that Optimus only noticed how heavily energon was leaking from her frame when stood trembling with back turned towards everyone, legs dangling limp as she panted like a hunted turbofox. Bumblebee helped Miko down from the Jackhammer's loading dock, and for once the human was completely silent as she hung on the scout's servo. Grimlock was back in the cover of the trees, the only safety he had from so many things happening that he didn't understand.

"What on Cybertron happened, Wheeljack?" Optimus whispered as the Wrecker approached, though Wheeljack seemed just as bewildered as Optimus as he stared at the proud femme now cowering to herself.

"We got to the hive and everything was fine until... Airachnid tried to communicate or something with one of the bugs. At first I thought it was actually listenin' to her, but then... it got angry. Screeched like you wouldn't believe, and attacked her outta nowhere." Wheeljack winced as he recalled whatever gave Airachnid such deep weeping wounds. "I got her back onboard, blew the charges around the hive and she even lobbed her grenade out just to be sure. She was silent the whole way back..."

"That explains Scorpia's distress, then," Optimus mused, wondering how the pain could have been so distinct when mother and daughter were so far from each other.

"Somethin' happen with the kid?" Wheeljack asked.

Optimus nodded, describing how Scorpia seemed to be having a waking nightmare and, as he was obligated to do, informing Wheeljack of the situation with Arcee. He finished just as Airachnid flinched away from Ratchet and hissed at him, shielding Scorpia like a precious gem.

"I think you should go talk to her, Prime," Wheeljack suggested. "She won't try and claw your head off, at least."

Optimus doubted it, but he would have approached her regardless of whether he was welcomed or not. Ratchet seemed convinced she'd scratched him and was scanning his servo armour as Optimus edged around her. "Airachnid?"

The spider flinched from his voice, but she didn't shake as much seeing him. She raised her helm just enough that her voice would carry over to him, though her vocaliser seemed almost as bad as Bumblebee's. "I want everyone else off my island. Now."

"Ratchet should take care of your injuries first-"

"I said everyone," she snarled, shaking from a flare of anger now more than anything else.

"...Very well." Optimus gave the order to Ratchet and Wheeljack despite their protests, and Bumblebee didn't argue as he followed with Miko. Even Grimlock relented and retreated deep into the forest. Airachnid only seemed to calm when the only other spark she could sense was Optimus', and she seated herself in her favoured clearing with Scorpia clinging to her chestplates. Optimus followed her, keeping his distance until she found a perch and motioned for him to join her.

"Wheeljack told me of what happened," he said quietly, reluctant to disturb the quiet she'd shrouded herself in.

"I'm sure he did," Airachnid said softly. With sunset fading and a dark dusk pulling itself across the sky, her glistening wounds were like bright rivers crisscrossing her scarred armour, tributaries trickling onto the ground, yet she didn't even try stemming them. Either the pain didn't matter to her, or her spark was too numb for her to feel it.

"Do you wish to talk about it?" Optimus asked. If she wouldn't let anyone stitch her wounds, he'd at least try to ease the ache on her processor. She didn't refuse, but there were a few more klicks of silence before she knew what to say. And even then, she spoke slowly through a slog of sharp memories.

"...I've always been able to control the Insecticons. I was there when Shockwave was taming them, I watched the first one he modified look at me like I was... like I was a queen. That was the first time I felt like something loved me. And I've never realised how pathetic that was until now." She gave a mocking laugh and didn't give Optimus a chance to make her see otherwise. "I did everything right with this one. I walked slowly, I kept optic-contact, but... something still snapped in him. I saw it in his optics, just before he..." She angled her helm away, pressing Scorpia closer to her chest as her vents suddenly hitched.

"The control works both ways when I tap into it. I see into their sparks, they see into mine... I think he saw something he didn't like."

Optimus watched the stars in her energon dripping down the rocks they both sat on, tried to draw focus off the immense pain trying to form a diamond shell around his spark. "You have gone through many changes since leaving the Decepticons. I would see it as a blessing in disguise," he suggested.

Airachnid made a noise, but it wasn't one of agreement. "Is that really supposed to make me feel better?" Her voice was still cracked, but when her faceplate showed itself again he saw she was at least still able to smile. One of the hands around Scorpia dropped limp to her side, dipping into her subspace and latching onto something that didn't need much rummaging to find. "Call me superstitious, Prime, but... times like this, I like having something to anchor myself to. Nowadays it's Scorpia, but before... it was this useless lump of rock." She held it between two claws like it was a trapped bug, and even in the twilight it glimmered as bright as the day Optimus first offered it to Elita One-

The similarity, and the links snapping out from the impossibly possibility forming in his processor almost crashed every system connected to it. "...Where did you get that?" he asked slowly, utterly failing to make it a casual question. His voice was too thick with hope or fear or whatever he was supposed to be feeling.

Airachnid looked to Optimus in confusion, then to where his optics focused- the small meteorite shard that she still idly passed through her claws. She shrugged indifferently. "I've had this ever since... Archa Seven. Why?"

"That... That's what I gave Elita when..." Optimus revealed, stunned almost into complete silence, hovering a servo close to hers with optics still riveted on the shard. "How-how did-" His stammers immediately ceased when epiphany struck him cold on the ground.

"...Airachnid, what I'm about to ask may seem inappropriate but... I need to see your spark chamber." There was no other way around it, but he still felt guilty posing the demand to her. And her reaction was only expected, rapid blinking and fangs clicking together in her gaping mouth.

"Wh...what?" Only two bots ever normally saw another's spark chamber- medics, and sparkmates. Optimus was neither to Airachnid, unless...

"Airachnid, please, it's... I would never ask such a thing if it was not important. But there... there's only one way I can know for sure... please." Knowing the true depth of what Megatron put her through, taking her spark when she had nothing else to give, he felt all the more dishonourable at asking her to bare it. But his plea was desperate, and he didn't try to hide it. And somehow it still convinced Airachnid after a long moment of consideration- or she just trusted him that it was vital. Whatever her reasoning, she carefully placed Scorpia safe by her peds and, claws flexing and vents battling to stay stable, let her damp chestplates slide apart. Each shift of metal and click of gears and hinges in her frame took eons to complete, and when it was finally done Optimus felt like he was millenias older, staring hard at his only hope for closure or, if Primus was truly merciful, an answer to what became of his wife.

The casing was a smoky translucent white, with thin embedded lines that bled a faint purple glow from the guarded light of Airachnid's spark. The shock of white now on her chest was such a stark contrast to the darkness of her outer armour that at first Optimus thought his optics were glitching at first. But when they adjusted to the light, within the maze of lines he picked out a faint series of engravings on the casing. Airachnid's optics widened further when Optimus pressed his faceplate closer to read into the lines, and her servos instantly shot up to cover the chamber as the Prime suddenly pulled back with a gasp.

"What...What is it?" she asked frantically, looking down under her palms at whatever it was Optimus saw. She wouldn't have found it unless she knew where to look, like Optimus did, and even then she might not have understood what it meant.

Over her spark chamber, the tiny lines formed together to spell out very faded, foreboding letters, in the same signature that Elita chose to have carved onto her chamber.

Orion.

Chapter 46

Chapter Text

Though Airachnid couldn't see the message for herself, she could feel its imprint under her claws as she passed them over her spark casing in a frantic, confused scrabble. Neocybex glyphs, twined together so she couldn't easily decipher them by touch alone, but it seemed to say 'Orion'.

"...What does it mean?" She asked it mostly to herself, too quiet for Optimus to hear in his distant, shell-shocked state. It felt like her spark was a time bomb, swelling like an inferno against the clear walls of her chamber with whatever secrets it held. She'd never seen the Prime so... lost, so unsure of whatever it was he was thinking, not even when he first found her cowering from the rain with Scorpia. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what it was that he saw.

It was only when her chestplates had sealed again and the thrumming light of her spark cut out that Optimus recovered, only barely. His vents were heavy, and his cooling fans groaned like they were made of lead. At Airachnid's peds, Scorpia whimpered and hugged her mother's legs as Optimus knelt before her. "Airachnid... listen very carefully to me." It was hard for her to disobey with her claws loosely held in his hands, and his optics flickering behind a film of so many emotions she couldn't even name half of them. "That stone you have... that is what I proposed to Elita One with."

Airachnid blinked, claws tightening around the limp clutched between them and Optimus' palm. "Well, it's not as flashy as a ring, but-"

Optimus was already shaking his helm. "No, Airachnid, that is the exact same stone." He sounded like even he couldn't believe it, but at the same time like it was the only possible answer. He released one of her hands, folding both over the claws encasing the lump of ancient coal. "May I?" he asked, and Airachnid let it fall between her talons into his palm.

Like she used to, he rolled the rock between his digits for the longest few moments of her life, like he was deciphering some code written on its pitted surface. He sighed and closed those digits over tightly, as if he wanted to grind it into the metal of his palm. "...I memorised every ridge, every smooth and grainy surface of it in the time it took Elita to accept it. Either my memory is fading... or it has somehow found its way back to me," he told her slowly, dragging his helm up to force his optics against hers. "The name on your spark chamber... was my own, before I became Prime. A long time ago, I was Orion Pax..." Something hardened in his throat, forcing him to gulp deeply, though it just formed a burning shell over his optics instead. "And you were Ariel."

It was a name she'd never heard before, not even in passing, but it exploded in her processor, a flashbang of memories that weren't hers almost blinding her as the sleeper bullets finally shot through. Airachnid blinked rapidly, and when the afterimages were gone she knew what he was trying to say- and shaking her helm automatically at it. "Optimus, no, no, it... it doesn't make any sense-"

She was leaning back, away from the intense flare of his optics, but his free hand snapped to one of her knees, a firm grip anchoring her in place. "It makes perfect sense and you know it does, Airachnid!" Though his voice was hushed, desperation gave it a jagged growl. "She died on the same planet you were born on, you can't remember anything before Archa Seven, you..." His vocaliser couldn't keep up, and it dissolved into a universe weary sigh. He let go of her, and she could feel the strength draining from his frame as his hand slipped away.

"Elita, please..." It was a plea like thousands she'd heard before, but for the first time she couldn't do anything to answer it, to wipe away the coolant welling under his optics or soothe his EM field fizzling with a long buried anguish now struggling to stay hidden. Whatever frenzy was tearing across his spark was given a distant echo in Scorpia's, and the sparking hid herself away behind her mother's peds.

Airachnid had to close her stinging optics, bowing her helm as it swung like a heavy pendulum. "I'm...I'm not Elita, Optimus. You know she's dead. You told me yourself." She didn't need to know Elita to know that she was nothing like the femme who managed to trap Optimus' spark so easily, so utterly for eternity after her own had faded away. Whatever kind of femme could wield that kind of power over a mech, Airachnid wasn't one. Optimus would realise that after the denial faded away, if he wasn't already realising it.

When she was brave enough to open her optics again, he had the face of a bot who'd just watched his lifeline struck down in front of him. She'd seen the face often enough on other mechs to recognise it, even if his only lasted a nanoklick after she looked at him. Something else had wrenched his focus away, and her audios were tuned enough to his hushed tone that she could hear the voice of his medic over his comm unit.

"Optimus, come in! You're needed urgently, there's... we suspect something's happened to Arcee. Her signal's gone off the grid and she isn't answering any comms. I... I think the Decepticons have caught her."

Forever the dutiful leader, Optimus was already on his peds, though he kept his face angled away from her. "I have to leave for now, but I will return. I..." Each word was thicker than the last, and he had to force static through his vocaliser before it would let any others through. "I hope when I do, I can convince you of the truth, Airachnid."

But Airachnid had already decided that she wasn't about to leave Optimus alone until all thoughts of her and Elita were wiped away, until he realised what the truth really was. "I'm coming with you."

Optimus was almost at the clearing when she announced it and he paused, looking back at her as she scooped up Scorpia and marched towards him. Either he'd disciplined himself to hide emotion until better times or something about her voice convinced him to stop looking at her like she was a beacon of something lost long ago. "I would strongly advise against that," he told her. "This is a... potential rescue mission for Arcee."

Even if she wasn't eager to kill the Autobot anymore, Airachnid wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing her again, if ever. She shrugged as she sent out a signal to Grimlock, listening for him tearing through the forest somewhere behind her and hopefully coming to batter some sense into Optimus. "Well, I knew I'd have to meet the whole team sooner or later."

"She will attack you," Optimus insisted. "And I'm not sure if I could stop her."

Airachnid scoffed. "Could, or would?" She was thinking it, didn't realise it hissed out loud until she saw the the impact it had on Optimus. Hurt painted across his face, rooted him to the ground so that not even Grimlock's arrival made him budge. Maybe it was harsher than she intended, but at least it stopped him seeing Elita in her. She could deal with someone hating her, but love... if that was what Optimus thought he was feeling, she had to stamp it out of his spark. For both of their sakes.

Optimus was about to say something while the pain was still fresh, but the Ground Bridge spawning behind him drew him away from her. "Give me a klick to explain that you will be accompanying us." She could tell it wasn't what he was planning to say, but she nodded as he walked through the veil of the Bridge. When Optimus had disappeared she handed over Scorpia to Grimlock, setting her down by the Dinobot's peds. The sparkling looked up at her, optics blind to the sparkbreaks that just happened and brimming with curiosity. She was almost unable to bear her own daughter's gaze. Scorpia loved her because her mother was all she had in the universe. Optimus convinced himself he did because she was the last remnant of Elita. She was too smart to fool herself into thinking otherwise.

Turning her back on Grimlock, ignoring his plaintive growls and Scorpia's chirps as she walked forward, she braced herself for the barrage that would greet her at Optimus' home.

xx

If not for Knockout's fortunate lack of wings, Dreadwing might have just landed right in the middle of the Nemesis' command center to let Megatron know Starscream's much prettier sister was still alive. But he was always more loyal to regulation than ambition, and he obediently took the long way up beside Knockout with denta grinding all the way. And when they were onboard, he had to waste even more time with a Vehicon sweep down before being allowed further in (Primus forbid Megatron allow any human particles to infiltrate his ship through his own soldiers).

Knockout at least managed to dodge protocol, literally ducking beneath the brushes and fans and making for the safety of his medbay. He could predict what Megatron's reaction would be to Airachnid not being in the Pit, and he wasn't eager to be anywhere near ground zero when it happened.

Surprisingly, Breakdown was actually doing some work when Knockout entered. He glanced up from the drone armour plates he was banging back into shape, but otherwise didn't shift focus from his task. Ever since the news of Airachnid's defection and her alleged demise, the ex-Wrecker had absorbed himself in anything distracting or menial, getting more done in four vorns than he had in the years since he first landed on Earth.

Knockout almost didn't want to break his efficiency streak, basking in all the free time Breakdown's new work ethic gave him, but he figured he was bound to hear the truth sooner or later. Wiring his helm to a datapad, he transmitted a selection of optic feed images featuring Airachnid before holding the pad under Breakdown's optic. "Your girlfriend's still alive and well, by the way," he said, prepared to have the pad snatched out of his hand and his servo almost wrenched from its socket. But the moment didn't come, and when Knockout looked aside Breakdown was just staring at the images like they were something infectious. A yellow optic noticed Knockout staring suspiciously, and Breakdown reflexively took the pad with a shocked expression far too slow-spreading to be genuine.

"That... that's... i-incredible!" Like he was at many things, Breakdown was terrible at lying.

"You already knew, didn't you?" Knockout asked. For a nanoklick Breakdown seemed about to protest, but then realised how pointless it would be.

"...Maybe." He clutched the datapad close to his chest, tapping his digits nervously on the edges. "Who else knows?"

"Dreadwing and, in a few klicks or so, Megatron-" As Knockout answered, the pile of plates held together by force of permanent scowling, otherwise known as Dreadwing, was walking past the medbay, on his determined way even deeper into Megatron's good graces. Breakdown noticed him before Knockout did, and he marched through the west door just as Dreadwing was moving past it, practically ambushing the Seeker by piling onto his wings.

"Breakdown, what is the meaning of this?!" Dreadwing recovered quickly for a mech with several tonnes of sparkbroken ex-Wrecker dragging on his peds, turning the entire corridor into an orchestra of squealing plates and groaning vents.

"I'm... not... letting you... tell Megatron!" Breakdown all but bolted himself to Dreadwing's legs, slowing his pace to a stumbling crawl and ensuring Earth would destroy itself by the time he managed to get to Megatron.

Knockout watched the show from the doorway with equal parts confusion and disbelief, though not so much the latter considering this probably wasn't the stupidest thing Breakdown had ever done. All of this, for a disgraced techno-organic who couldn't play nice with other bots?

Then again, even Knockout had done worse for femmes from centuries ago, none of them as special as Airachnid. "Oh, for Primus' sakes..." Thanks to several reluctant check ups on Starscream, Knockout knew a Seeker's wings were both their greatest strength and weakness. Dreadwing still had his own free and flapping frantically, and Knockout threw himself at them before he could think better for himself. The cables strained and wires snapped taught as Dreadwing tried to shake the medic off, at the same time trying to inch forwards with his peds reduced to dead weights. Though his paint was chafing against the wings, Knockout thought he was doing a good job until Megatron waiting at the end of the corridor made them all freeze.

"Knockout. Breakdown." Each of their names sounded like sandpaper scraping against the warlord's glossa. "Why are you trying to disable my Second In Command?"

"...He was being very unco-operative during a check-up, my liege," Knockout said.

"I was doing no such thing-!"

Megatron all but ignored Dreadwing's protests, bringing himself in front of the three mechs in less than three heavy strides. He plucked Knockout off of Dreadwing's back like holding a Scraplet between his claws. "More importantly, where were you when I was SUFFERING SPARK ARREST?!"

Knockout felt what remained of his paint almost peel away from the force of Megatron's demand, red optics glaring brighter than all the polish in the world. "L-Lord Megatron, I... I was investigating the Insecticon lead with Dreadwing as you directed. If I had known you were in need of aid-"

"You would have known if you were inclined to answer your comm line!" Megatron drew himself back, swollen with rage and nanoklicks away from smacking something against a wall. It seemed Breakdown was about to be the target as he sheepishly unwound himself from Dreadwing's legs, but Megatron managed to restrain himself with a vent of equal depth to the Pit. "Dreadwing, I expect a full mission report after Knockout does his duties properly for once." He was already walking towards the medbay when the Seeker started to protest.

"But my lord, my findings concern a potentially severe threat to-" Dreadwing knew to stop when Megatron turned back, optics glinting dangerously.

"Unless it is news of Optimus finally meeting the Allspark, it can wait," he decreed.

"...Very well, my liege." Dreadwing swallowed his pride as Megatron and Knockout disappeared behind the door, keeping his composure intact until he set sights on Breakdown trying to slink away. He blocked the nearest exit with wings spread wide, the tips grazing either side of the corridor. "As for you, count yourself very fortunate that I am sympathetic to how slow your processor works. But attempt something like that again, Breakdown, and I will personally assure that you join the likes of Starscream overboard!"

The whole time Breakdown was staring at something behind Dreadwing, hardly even registering the Seeker's threats as the second one decided to announce himself. "Why, I do believe my audios are burning."

Dreadwing snapped his wingspan closed, to better turn himself and face Starscream standing proudly behind him just out of range of a well-aimed servo. Confusion and fury fought each other in Dreadwing's spark, the only thing that stopped him from striking at Starscream right where he stood smirking. "How do traitorous scum like yourself manage to keeping living?" he asked quietly, digits twitching for the warm security of his thermal cannon.

If Starscream heard the venomous growl, he didn't answer it. "Considering you have a bad habit of following Megatron around like a lost turbopuppy, I'll assume he's not far away. So if you'd like you get out of my way-"

Dreadwing made his claws into fists, casting a deadly shadow over Starscream as he took a step forwards. "If you intend to seek Megatron's forgiveness for your defection, you will find it severely lacking."

Breakdown had almost successfully escaped the scene between the two Seekers, but even he had to stop and watch it unfold. From a distance, Starscream seemed more annoyed than scared by the fellow Seeker's display."Now Dreadwing, do you really think I'd trouble myself with getting onboard if I didn't have something to offer?" He motioned behind him, and a pair of Vehicons appeared with something dangling between them, dull silver and stained blue plating with faint groans humming from a tired engine. Either Breakdown's optic was glitching... or Starscream had brought a battered Autobot onboard.

Chapter 47

Chapter Text

Out of the tense twilight and into a battlefield of simmering arguments, Airachnid almost ran right into one of Optimus' legs. The plating was hot to the touch, the cables underneath coiled with something he was struggling to keep restrained. In front of him, his medic was too busy burning his optics and vocaliser out to notice her arrival. Likewise, she was too wrapped in the atmosphere of suspended rage to take in much of the Autobot's base, a place few bots with a Decepticon insignia ever saw and left alive.

"Optimus, no, this is where I draw the last line. Primus knows what's happening to Arcee right now, and you want to bring along her... the one who murdered her teammate in front of her!?" As he dramatically waved a servo, he finally caught sight of dull black plating behind Optimus, optics narrowing as the Prime moved aside to let her past.

"It was her own suggestion, Ratchet," Optimus insisted. "She is the only one here who knows the layout of the Nemesis, not to mention guard patrols and defensive measures waiting for us on board." But Ratchet didn't seem to be listening to him. As soon as Optimus was no longer a wall in front of Airachnid, he marched up to her in cold swathes of old fury.

"You think just because you've left the Decepticons that everyone's forgotten what you've done?" His vocaliser was a hissing thing, rusting with grudges, daring her to strike at him. Airachnid was almost impressed at how controlled his anger was, considering how long it must have been stewing away for.

"Ratchet." Optimus matched the medic's growl with one of warning, but for all Ratchet glared he and Airachnid were the only living souls in the room.

"You think you can just waltz into our home, cower behind our own leader's goodwill and expect us to-?"

"Ratchet! Enough!" Airachnid had never heard Optimus snap his vocaliser at anyone, and apparently neither had Ratchet. The medic blinked in shock at the Prime's snarl, and the fire in his eyes was extinguished by the time Optimus forced himself into the space between the two bots. All trace of the vulnerable metal shell she'd left of him on the island was gone, and only a small part of her was relieved. "I will not waste any more time arguing this, not with a life at stake."

Though Ratchet nodded and grumbled, his optics were still smoldering away when Airachnid pushed past Optimus to put herself under them again.

"I can get us all onboard the ship, with minimal risk of running into a patrol," she told him, claws gouging into her hips. "So unless you'd rather send a team of corpses to rescue Arcee, I suggest you get used to my company for now, medic."

Ratchet made the face of a mech swallowing something bitter and broken, most likely his own pride, and it was still lodged in his throat when he grumbled, "Get on with it, then." He threw his helm in the direction of Ground Bridge controls, and she was only too happy to immerse herself in the calibrations. Even so, it was hard to ignore Optimus when he walked up beside her, back to the wall and facing out to the open foyer.

"You didn't tell them?" she asked, not shifting her optics from the screen.

"No," he answered quietly, a ghost of sadness casting a veil over the word. "Now is not the time." That was implying there ever would be a time for spreading desperate lies of miraculous rebirth, but Optimus changed the subject with a rough cough. "How will you get us to the Nemesis?"

"It's fairly easy to link one Ground Bridge to another, so long as you can lock onto the other Bridge. You just need to be careful no-one tries to get in from the other side." Airachnid sighed as she finished setting up the link, pulling on old databanks of standard Decepticon scouting knowledge. Barely ten klicks after being told she was a dead Autobot, she was giving lectures on Bridge set up to her alleged sparkmate. It wasn't the strangest experience she had, but it ranked somewhere in a top ten list. She stepped back from the controls, listening to the Bridge framework humming and watching the portal spark. "If the guard schedule hasn't changed since I left, then there'll be two Vehicons guarding the Bridge, at least one at the controls. Kill them quickly enough and they won't raise the alarm."

"Noted." Optimus nodded once and slipped away, and she watched him exchange words too quiet for her to hear with Ratchet. When she amped up her audios, she only caught the end of the conversation.

"I'm telling Bulkhead everything when he wakes up. At least... so Arcee won't tell him anything before we can," the medic said, while Optimus gave another single nod.

"I understand. Just answer me if you can... where is Bumblebee?"

As if out of nowhere, the yellow scout lunged into the foyer with fists up and peds skipping back and forth. "Alright, Optimus, let's go, I'm ready to kick some Con-" The war dance ended abruptly when he saw Airachnid standing in front of the buzzing Ground Bridge, and his optics whirred in and out like broken cameras. "She... she's coming with us?"

Once again, all Optimus had to do was nod.

"Why do I feel like I just walked into a bad Tyrest opera?" the scout beeped to no one in particular, though Airachnid could have been asking herself the same question.

xx

Two dead Vehicons later, and Airachnid was leading them through the dark corridors of Megatron's last stand against the universe. She and Bumblebee were more suited to the slinking than Optimus, whose peds were like anvils dropping on the ship's hull, yet somehow they successfully wreathed through the Nemesis' maze to where, according to Airachnid, prisoners were stored away and forgotten about.

"I recognise it," Bee confirmed, his whirrs dimmed down to latent chirps. "This is where they held Fowler a while ago."

Airachnid was busy scanning the closed entrance, whispering the while. "Thanks to Wheeljack's own escape, Megatron started placing at least two guards with every prisoner. We're much deeper into the ship now, so gunshots will attract attention. Be quick." She said it to both of them, yet she seemed determined to pretend that Optimus wasn't right next to her. To be expected, considering... the mess that Optimus had made of what should have been a celebration. If he was even right about it.

But for now, he tried to keep his spark and processor a blank slate, nothing but a list of tasks he needed to do. Find Arcee, and get her to safety. Whatever came afterwards wasn't as impatient as him, it could wait.

With Airachnid hanging back on lookout, Optimus and Bumblebee flanked either side of the prison door and burst in together, lighting the stagnant air up as they took down the two Vehicons opposite each of them. The third drone in front of Arcee's dangling figure was more stubborn, but Optimus managed to drag him in range of a well-aimed blast from Bumblebee.

"Arcee!" The scout disregarded all notions of stealth as he stumbled up to the chained femme, tipping her heavy helm up and fearing any bruise or cut that would greet him.

Instead, there was only a tired smirk from her. "About time you showed up..."

Optimus sighed in relief, sweeping optics over the dead drones to ensure none decided to come back to life and inevitably glancing up at Airachnid holding sentry down the corridor.

At least Bee managed to stay focused on the mission. "Your signal just went blank, what happened?"

"S...Starscream..." Arcee coughed as if just saying his name had a toxic effect, keeping herself limp so Bee could more easily release her. "Turns out he came back from the dead, decided to drop out of the sky and haul me off as a goodwill gift to Megatron."

Bumblebee snapped open the stasis lock on her left wrist, holding her as she sagged to the ground, but he hesitated on the other lock. "Look, Cee, before I release this cuff, there's something you should know-"

Optimus realised nothing was blocking the line of sight towards Airachnid the same instant Arcee did. "WHAT THE PIT IS SHE DOING HERE?!"

"Ah, too late." Bee clicked nervously and, in a not-quite shining moment of glory, pulled Arcee up over his shoulders before releasing her last cuff. "Please don't hate me, Cee!" he pleaded, running out with the femme thrashing wildly against his plating.

"BEE, IF YOU DON'T PUT ME DOWN THIS FRAGGING INSTANT-!" Arcee was reduced to hoarse muffles as Bumblebee very bravely clamped a hand over her mouth, risking denta through his digits to keep her quiet.

"I'll meet you at the Bridge!" he called back to Optimus and Airachnid, both of whom were still trying to put together how a bot like Bumblebee survived the war until now.

"Is this how all heroic Autobot rescues go?" Airachnid asked as Optimus pulled up next to her.

"Usually they go much worse," he admitted with a shrug, and he wasn't quite sure why she was laughing when it was true. Still, it was refreshing to hear despite the strange way it pulled on his already-sagging spark. No, not strange... he knew exactly why now.

He didn't notice she was moving ahead until she looked back at him, inclining her helm into the corridor. "Drones will be coming this way from the ration stores, so our best bet back to the Bridge is going outside the med bay," she explained, already heading off while he was still trying to gather himself. How she managed to concentrate on anything right now, juggling half-remembered patrol patterns and directions with the mass of confusion he'd no doubt seeded in her spark, he could only attribute as even more proof that she was just Elita in a different frame. And he needed all the proof he could get if he ever hoped to convince anyone else, especially Airachnid herself.

Ahead of him, she inched her legs along the wall as if she could sense what was behind them, sliding along after them as they tapped away. She only folded them when they reached a wide junction, the corridor branching off in two different directions. Optimus thought he recognised the outside of the medbay, from when Megatron managed to fool him as Orion Pax, and he followed closely behind Airachnid as they crossed the deadly open space between them and the corridor ahead.

They only made it halfway when the med bay doors hissed open.

"Well, unless you find a way to fix this, Knockout, know that I will have every layer of your protoform removed with a laser scalpel-" Megatron didn't so much freeze in front of them, it was more like every system in his frame shut down simultaneously. Even his cooling fans stalled, only for a nanoklick before the blades whipped up in a flare of potent rage Optimus had only rarely seen across miles of battlefield. But the warlord wasn't focusing the lens of his fury on Optimus for once- it was all reserved for Airachnid, caught like a turbofox in headlights.

"You... YOU! AIRACHNID!" Optimus was already shoving Airachnid forwards as Megatron regained control of his limbs, his servos thrashing at the air as he aimed his plasma cannon and turned the space just behind them both into a charred pile of rubble from the caved-in pile wall. They ran blindly; Optimus pushing her onwards and around corners, expecting to greet a squadron of Vehicons at every one. The frantic ricochet of Megatron's shots and the bitter ozone billowing from each one followed behind them, almost as close as the warlord himself giving chase. Hearing ragged, hoarse vents almost buffeting his back, Optimus was on the verge of sweeping Airachnid up and just carrying her when she seemed to recover. No longer dragging herself through the halls, she stabbed her peds into the ground with each lunge forwards so that Optimus struggled to keep up. Other blasts from behind joined in, smaller rounds from drone ion barrels as Vehicons flocked to Megatron's aid, and Optimus felt stings skimming his back armour. Getting his own weaponry out would take too much time, when one nanoklick of distraction could mean a bullet through his helm. The only thing that saved him from deeper wounds was constant movement, skidding around corners and following Airachnid as she tried to lead them back to the transport room, their only safe haven.

They must have been close when she started shouting out directions in advance for him. "Right! Left! Through this doorway-" Just before she managed to dive for the passage with the Ground Bridge just beyond it, a plasma round melted through the top of the framework and reduced the opening to a hoard of broken metal and bent supports, everything above crashing down in an avalanche of sparking wires and snapped paneling. Airachnid's legs twitched, as if she debated trying to pull the rubble aside, but with Megatron just turning the last corner she was already heading further off, skirting around the room to the second entrance on the other side. Optimus caught a glint of Megatron's optics as he wrenched himself around to follow her, and the flare of red light held more fire than all the magma pits in Darkmount. On one hand, the rage made his aim frenzied and inaccurate and was possibly the only reason they were still running. On the other... he stopped himself thinking about what that rage would make him do if he caught them, with the claws-on-steel sound of Starscream's voice lilting ahead to distracting him.

"I'm sure Lord Megatron's newest pet won't object to me visiting the flight deck, at the very least. Only been onboard for ten klicks and I already feel like I need some air-RACHNID?!" The Seeker got the exclamation out just as Airachnid propelled herself up on her legs and slammed a fist into his jaw, still running while he crumpled with newly cracked denta, not even trying to trip Optimus up as he passed.

Behind him, the constant drilling bass of stampeding peds paused. "Starscream?! What on Cybertron- of course! You are working with Airachnid!"

"What?!" Starscream's outrage was somewhat slurred as he flicked his glossa against dislodged denta. "My liege, I-I arrived bearing a humble gift in return for your generous mercy, and this is the thanks I get?!" For once in his life, the Seeker was actually useful in giving Optimus and Airachnid enough time to reach the other entrance without a barrage of bullets trailing behind them. At least, until Megatron loudly refocused his drones.

"What are you all looking at?! GET AFTER HER!"

The order went out as the door slammed shut behind them, and they would have sagged strengthless against it if not for a much more worrying struggle happening right in front of them; Bumblebee trying to pull Arcee into the Ground Bridge portal, and Arcee very determinedly holding onto a railing. Not even Optimus marching up to them made the tug-of-war end, with Airachnid sealing the door shut and webbing the mechanism gaps for good measure.

"Bumblebee, let her go. Arcee, what is the problem here?" he asked, completely expecting the utter shock she gave him once Bee relented and let go of her ankles.

"What is the prob-? Optimus, I'm not setting one damn ped through that Bridge until you tell me what the frag you and Bee are doing with Airachnid!"

"Again, I never told her a thing, Optimus," Bee put in, though Optimus almost wished he had.

"Arcee, please, this is neither the time or place-"

The femme aimed her optics as glowing daggers at him, while the familiar war drums of programmed peds approaching thumped outside the door. "You've already lied to me once, Optimus, I'm not gonna wait just so you can do it again!"

Airachnid growled as she finished up her weaving, layering the door with a screen of webbing. "Just tell her already, for frag's sake!"

At the time, Optimus wasn't quite sure what Airachnid meant by telling her, so he foolishly went with the easiest revelation at just four words long. "Arcee, Airachnid is Elita One!"

Like someone plunged her into a vat of liquid nitrogen, Arcee went numb, which is partly what Optimus was hoping for. All that moved was her optic lids, blinking rapidly as if she could see the words coming from his vocaliser and didn't believe a single one. "Wh... wha... no... Optimus, what?" Bumblebee showed the complete disbelief more violently, optics bulging and vocaliser threatening to break itself even more from the torrent of chirps and beeps he was trying to get out. He knew exactly how confused the mere notion made them, how impossible it would be for them to connect everything to the truth, and as much as it hurt him to force it on them so early, he'd learned his lesson from keeping secrets.

"Please, just... take her back to base, Bee, I'll explain everything when we're out of danger!" Despite Optimus' recent penchant for avoiding explanations, Bee just nodded slowly and nudged Arcee, a glitching mute trapped in shock that was yet to give way to even more anger, towards the vortex waiting for them. They vanished just as the door started to strain, fists and plasma battering against the steel, Optimus' only shield from the Decepticons impatiently waiting behind it. The gap between the two door halves split, revealing a Vehicon visor just as Optimus unloaded a plasma shell into it. With the webbing holding the creaking infrastructure together, only Megatron himself should be able to get through. And he was most likely already outside.

Optimus stepped up to the Ground Bridge as Airachnid finished flourishing with the controls, and he knew he didn't have time to ask what she was doing. "Airachnid, come on!" She looked up from the panel and gave him a look that almost managed to rival Megatron's, that of a tyrant looking down at an insect or something equally chilling, before forcing her helm downwards and motioning for him to go through first. He was halfway into the embrace of the portal when she followed behind, a servo outstretched behind her and hovering over the control console.

"One last thing to do..." With talons fanned out, she gouged them into the controls and yanked out the guts of the navigation system, wires still clutched in her claws as she had them both fall back into the Bridge just before it closed for the last time.

Chapter 48

Chapter Text

Optimus stepped out onto... not the cold metal floor that he was expecting, nor into the confused cacophony of questions that would plague the Autobots all evening. The grass was damp with dew frosting each blade, the green muted under the moonlight, and he knew if he looked around he'd find a bare patch of earth trampled by an impatient Dinobot lurking not far away.

"You changed the Bridge co-ordinates?" he asked, watching Airachnid press a hand to her forehelm with her back to him and the legs trembling.

"Don't act surprised about it, Optimus, you... you fragging imbecile!" She snapped around, fury like fireworks bursting on her faceplate. “What on Cybertron were you thinking, blurting out something like that!? Never mind whatever you've got Arcee or the rest of them thinking now-”

“Would you rather I just let the Decepticons overwhelm us where we stood?” As empathetic as he was, knowing he had no right to share the knowledge, the suspicion like a web of knives suspended perilously over his spark, it was hard to keep his tone under control. “I had to tell her something, Airachnid, else she wouldn't have left.”

“And you think the best solution is to feed her some lie about me being someone I'm not?” she asked, everything in her body language accusing him.

“It is not a lie, Airachnid-” He thought he sounded certain of it, but she still threw his conviction back in his face with a scoff.

“Call it whatever you want, Optimus, but don't pretend that I'm anything like Elita, dead or alive. It's not fair... to either of us.”

Optimus knew she was right about that, at least. And as he tried to accept that she heaved out her exhaustion in a sigh that stretched out for light years, marching over to a rock slammed down at the edge of the treeline and sagging down on it.

“That’s not even the worst thing. Megatron… he knows. My only advantage over him is gone. My own fault, I know, but…” Her face was firmly hidden by the claws veiling it, and she gave no notice to Optimus kneeling down beside her.

“That doesn't change anything,” he said quietly. “He can't possibly track you, not with the Ground Bridge disabled.”

“But he won't stop trying," Airachnid insisted, practically gouging her claws into her helm. "He'll scour every inch of this planet for me, just so he can prove that no-one can run from him.”

Optimus could believe Megatron being that determined, but whether he was that capable was something he thankfully doubted. “Every one of my Autobots have managed to hide from him for over twenty stellar cycles. He is not as perceptive as you might think," he told her, and her reluctant laugh at the thought of the mighty Decepticon warlord searching under rocks for Autobots lifted up his spark from those dark depths that were always waiting for him. Truth be told, he could feel them becoming lighter and shallower, ever since he saw the stone in her hands. Even the cruel reality of Megatron, with all secrets torn to pieces by now, he felt lighter than he could ever remember, as if he could float on clouds like a Seeker and visit Primus himself in the heavenly Allspark, just to thank him for this second chance.

With the echoing ping in his comm unit, he almost believed that was the god deciding to answer him for once. But no, it was just a signal that every Autobot capable of comming him was so desperate to reach him that their pings took several klicks to reach him all at once.

Airachnid must have heard the persistent chime from his unit. “Leave me if you must, Optimus. Don't let me keep you from putting out the fires you started.” It was a subtle accusation, but a warranted one. If he hadn't turned his unit off on the Nemesis, he'd have been greeted with their voices, angry and bewildered, all clamouring for attention. And lulled by the near perpetual peace of the island, he was reluctant to face it even if he was prepared. So he only sent out pings in reply, a simple message showing he was still alive but in no mood to speak. He doubted he could defuse the situation he'd created in his current state of mind anyway.

But most of all... he just didn't want to be away from her. And after some thought, he decided to admit it.

“I am not sure if leaving you alone tonight would be wise.”

Airachnid angled her helm around to show him quirked eyeridges. “I'll hardly be alone, Prime. But… we’re both exhausted. I won't force you to leave if you'd rather stay.” Even her legs seemed to sag, dangling limp from her back as she shoved herself onto her peds and wearily moved towards the trees.

"Where are you going?" Optimus asked, already making to follow.

"To check on Scorpia," she answered the obvious answer, still moving forwards.

“Before you go, Airachnid…" Optimus struggled to only walk after her, hesitant in dragging her into awkwardness all over again. But it was necessary, and the one thing he wouldn't try avoiding. "I said I would convince you of the truth, when we returned.”

She stopped, and he mirrored her. Her legs chipped into the dirt as she sighed. “You're really not going to let this go, are you?” she asked.

"Not until we reach an agreement, whatever it may be." In better words, until they reached a truth they could both accept. And if that ended up with Optimus being wrong... then so be it.

Airachnid faced him slowly, optics dim but lovely in the morning mist. "In that case, it might be best to go somewhere more private."

"What could be more private than an island in an ocean lost among the stars?" Optimus asked, watching Airachnid's lips curl into a knowing smile.

"I have somewhere in mind."

xx

The trek up the mountain was well worth the view; in front of a gale-carved cave was a spear of rock jutting out over the stars, a bridge to the moon hanging low and bright over the ocean of trees below and the ghostly mist hanging over them. Beautiful as it was, Airachnid didn't see it often. The lofty heights, so close to the clouds and the endless possibilities space hiding behind them, only made her pine for her blades. Unlike a Seeker obsessed with speed, snapping sound barriers and the rush of wind flaking paint away, she could hover in one place for breems before she tired of the ever changing horizons stretched to all corners below her. Space was where she belonged, but the skies were often good enough for her. To perch herself in the clouds, a shadow over all life and out of Megatron's claws... to have that taken away from her by those same claws, being reminded of it was almost too much for her.

Still, she hoped the sight would impress Optimus. But it wouldn't distract him from what he wanted to say, the empty pleas and promises she could see coming from just one look at his optics.

So rather than wait for him to choose one, she decided to take control. "Do you care about me, Optimus?" she asked, and though he was jolted from his admiration he didn't need to think about his answer.

"Of course I do."

But she was shaking her helm, expecting the blind agreement. "No, you don't. You care about my role. Not the spark within it, just... who I'm supposed to be. A mother, a rogue... your dead sparkmate." She thought it would be easier than this, even refusing to meet his optics and see his spark breaking for herself, but the lump bubbling in her vocaliser refused to fade away. And her processor was blank, filled only with the imprint of his faceplate the moment he got the whole idea planted in his head. "If I really am her," she continued, "...How do I know you're not just still in love with her? That all I am is just a… cheap replacement for her?” She collapsed again, onto another hard seat of rock just within the cave, and she only saw Optimus' peds approaching her after a long klick of silence.

"After all this time..." He knelt before her, stones crunching under his plates, and his voice was low even with the echo of the cavern around them. "Every time I look at you, Airachnid, what do you think I see? A Decepticon? An enemy? A monster? No..." He lifted a hand up, tentatively slipping it under one of her own, digits achingly warm under her talons. "I see a beautiful femme, with a beautiful mind, who deserved so much better from the universe who changed her. My spark knew that long before my processor accepted it, and longer still before I had proof."

He sounded so sure of it, each word leaking coolant by itself, that she almost believed him. But she wouldn't have survived until now if she was that naive. "Whatever kind of light you see in me, Optimus, it isn't there. It's just a shadow of Elita... whatever's left of her." Her claws pulled out of his warm grasp, instantly chilling again as the breath of the heavens gathered around her, and they seemed to give her what words to say even as she choked on them. "The femme you fell in love with doesn't exist anymore. I'm all that's left, and I can't give you what you want. I'm sorry." She stood with his limp servo and all her guilt spilling out her lap, leaving him behind with only one thing stopping her from leaving; a soft trickle of words from Optimus' vocaliser.

"...I didn't know you were Elita when I fell in love with you."

Something shot up from the ground to root her in place, maybe Unicron's claws reaching up so high to tear her down into the Pit. That would have been preferable to facing Optimus with his helm inclined like a preacher before a god and his optics like shining pleas; beacons of his utter devotion to her, to Elita, to whoever she really was. But it was for her, even she couldn't deny that. "No matter if you are Elita or not... I love you, Airachnid. Despite the flaws, the history left behind you, everything that tells me I shouldn't. If anything, you are living proof that Decepticons can change. That peace is possible for our species. Above all... you've proven that I can still love. If you must look at my spark, carve its core from my chest to see that it is true, then I will not stop you. But please... do not think that I only love you for what you once were."

The space between them was bottomless, and he bowed like his spark was at her mercy, clutched in her shaking, twitching claws. Any denial she had left was eroded away, leaving her no choice but to accept that the leader of the Autobots, the last Prime, was in love with her. Not a femme from centuries ago, not whatever he'd fooled himself into thinking she was. Here was a mech who knew how many of his brethren she'd killed, who knew she'd carried the spawn of his archnemesis, and he was broken under the burden of his love.

With any other mech, Airachnid would have been proud of herself. With Optimus, all she wanted to do was show him how wrong he was. When she spoke her voice was so hushed, scared to make itself known, that she almost didn't recognise it. Maybe it was Elita was being resurrected after all this time. “And how long has this been for?” she asked, and by some miracle he managed to hear her.

“Longer than you would think," he answered, almost begging her to look at him, to see how brutally honest every confession was, how much the truth freed him. When she finally did, his servos were parted in one half of an embrace that she all but fell into, fusing into his arms and burying herself deep in the hearth of his spark, so close she could almost touch it through his chestplates. The envelope of warmth closed tight around her, the love bursting forth like a broken dam from the inferno humming away ceaseless under her helm, was unlike anything she'd ever felt across light years, across any lifetime she might have had, and she never wanted to leave it. Energon brought to a boil and dormant, almost extinct emotions roared so loud in her audios that she didn't hear herself sniffling, almost sobbing against him, didn't even feel the coolant dripping down her faceplate until Optimus tipped her chin upwards and pressed a gentle thumb against the tears. She closed her stinging optics, letting more fall freely under the lids, already knowing when to lean into him. The moon cast a behemoth's shadow over them joined together, lips pressed so gently that Airachnid almost thought she imagined it, almost expected to open her optics and wake up on the Nemesis with the whole stellar cycle nothing but a dream. But he was still there when they opened, still cradling her faceplate, still looking down at her with more love than she would have thought possible in the whole universe.

“Airachnid…” He whispered the moan against her again and set fire to her nodes, holding her closer and not leaving her mouth for a long time. Her fangs nipped softly, unsure of what to do with themselves, but her glossa fit perfectly against his. No mech, not even Megatron, had made her forget herself so utterly with just his mouth. He cupped her helm, stroking each crown with electric shocks arcing through her, landing warm palms on her neck and further down still, past the twitching mess of her legs and, unless she was just imagining, inching under her aft to lift her up and let her melt into him. She wasn't sure when she started moaning, voicing the sharp pangs crashing into her spark, but once they began they couldn't stop, not even when Optimus pulled back and left the air simmering in every tiny gap between them.

“I...I won't ask you to do anything you're not comfortable wi-” It wasn't what she was expecting from him, from any mech, but she was so desperate to feel him again she didn't need to hear all of it, smothering his lips with her claws around the shuddering plates of his helm. Being with him, here in the cradle of his spark, was the closest she felt to comfort ever since she left the Decepticons. She'd been a mother for so long, she'd forgotten what it meant to simply be a femme with needs that consumed her, ignited every diode and made her spark a wildfire bursting from her chest.

Optimus must have felt it, the static charge rapidly building between them and the heat their cooling fans barely managed to keep up with, as he caressed her; digits gliding over her armour seams and masterfully teasing the clasps holding the plates to her sweating protoform. She wouldn't have minded if he just tore them off, almost wanted him to, writhing in his lap against the bulge of his codpiece. Instinct and desire and all primal things in her processor drowned out everything else, everything that didn't matter, and all she cared about was basking in how much he loved her.

Despite his clogged vents heaving against her, codpiece straining between his legs, Optimus broke the kiss one last time to ask her, "Are you sure you want this?"

It was as if he was in as much disbelief as herself, glued together with an impossible love that wouldn't have survived only a few vorns prior. Airachnid pressed her forehelm to his chin, every plate pounding against each other, and let her body speak for her. Panels sliding apart, baring the bright pink glow of her valve to him, she let him feel how much she ached for him. "I know I do, Optimus. Please..."

It was hard to see exactly what was happening in his optics even as she lost herself in them, but they flared for a nanoklick before he closed the blue fires over and pressed his lips to her neck, soft murmurs against the cables contrasting the hard pulse before her valve as his spike escaped his open codpiece. And the thrust inside her was so jarring, so sudden and full of need that her fangs cut her lips as she whimpered.

“Am I hurting you?” Optimus asked instantly, frozen against her even as his spike throbbed thick and hot around her folds, already soaked in the glow of her lubricant.

She shook her helm with shaky vents, trying to regain some kind of control over herself even as she collapsed around him. “No, it's… just been a while. Keep going...” And he obliged, oh so slowly sliding into her despite the lube and her grasping, greedy walls coaxing him to take her all at once, her claws drawing hard lines into his armour as she held tightly. He swelled inside her, moaning and clenching and flexing as he held her, and she wondered how the Pit she'd lived without this until now. His mouth soothed every inch of her, both body and spark, while she pushed herself up in a steady riding rhythm and groaned loud enough for the whole planet to hear and envy. It was more than interface, more than just the spill of fluids from a mech trapped in her web. Pleasure ran like an overloaded current between them both, a link that said 'I love you. I want to make you feel like this'. Only one thing in the universe could have joined them together more...

“Wait… wait, Optimus... “ Airachnid held tight onto his waist, gasping long after he listened and brought himself to an aching pause. Even without it rubbing against every node buried inside her, his spike made her tremble as much as his low optics looking down at her.

“Worried about it ending too soon?” he asked heavily, voice almost as thick as his cord, and she almost smacked him for that almost-smug tone it had, knowing full well how good he felt to her, how the breems they spent blended and faded away into nothing more than the moon getting lower and lower behind them. She didn't want to break that spell, yet... if she was right, it had to be done. Just as he knew that he had to tell her about Elita, however painful it would have been.

“If… I am Elita… her memories would still be in my spark, wouldn't they?" She had to speak slowly, her vocaliser unused to anything more than a moan and whine of his name by now. But even at the mention of the dead femme, the glaze of lust masking his optics dropped away. And when he realised what she was suggesting, she thought he was going to peel himself away from her.

“We don't have to merge, Airachnid, not... if you don't want to.” He was cradling her helm again, forcing her to know how sincere he was, but she'd already made her decision.

“I do, Optimus. I want to… we both need to know for sure. Please…" Her helm was against his chest, hovering over the hammer beat of his spark, and she heard the plates over it whirring before they started to part. The light that spilled from the gaps was blinding enough, as if the entire Allspark was contained within him, but the chamber itself was a planet-bound supernova of pure white and the faintest, brightest blue that filled his optics. The core was a milky swirl, a galaxy with glowing arms brimming with stars and wisdom and everything that made a Prime who he was. And the fabled Matrix, gilded gold embedded with something so ancient she couldn't think of what to name it, filtered its light through like a prism.

Somehow it was harder to bear her own now than it was earlier that day, knowing how feeble it was when compared to his. When her faint violet glow surfaced, inexplicably baring the faint scratch of his name, the white of his spark seemed to seep through her casing and strike at the core of her existence, harder than any passionate kiss or rough thrust against her.

"Are you ready?" Optimus asked, still holding her helm so gently, and she nodded against his digits even as doubts caught up to her. His chamber opened first, the Matrix itself splitting apart, and the burst of light within him was somehow even brighter. And then her own, the cage of her broken spark wrenched apart with a thrumming release. It was his spark that dangled on a thin line between them, the outer umbra wisping out to touch her own. Only the fact they were still joined together, that he was moving inside her again, stopped her from flinching, even as the core of that bright orb flew out and swallowed her own whole.

And she, Elita One, remembered everything all at once.

Chapter 49

Chapter Text

Much further away, in the moon-drenched desert, the scene wasn't nearly so tranquil.

"Bee, if you don't tell me where Optimus and that fragging glitch he's with are, I swear to Primus-"

"How am I supposed to know where they are?! If you had just went through the Bridge with the entire fragging 'Con army behind us-"

"Both of you, calm down!" They'd been arguing from the nanoklick their peds touched back at base, and they'd finally breached Ratchet's breaking point. The medic-forced-peacekeeper took in both Bumblebee's and Arcee's stares, one quivering blue glow and one a razor fire that tried to burn through his armour. It was only slightly worse than what he'd been expecting from Arcee on her return. And Bulkhead, who knew just about everything by the time Ratchet heard the bickering from the foyer, was wise enough to stay in the safety of the medbay.

"The fact is none of us know where Optimus is right now, and he isn't answering his comms," Ratchet said, steady under the weight of Arcee's glare while Bee took the opportunity to back away from her. "But we know he's somewhere safe, and he'll come back when he feels it's necessary."

Arcee broke her glare to scoff and laugh all at once, a desperate mixture from a strained vocaliser. "You're telling me right now isn't necessary enough?!"

"I'm not saying I agree with him avoiding the situation like this, but-" He never got the chance to finish as Arcee surged towards him, like a rabid turbohound pouncing on an ambush.

"For all we know, Airachnid held him back and the reason he never came through the Bridge is because he's right back where I was, in Megatron's claws!"

"No, Arcee," Ratchet said slowly, though part of his spark carried a similar worry when he didn't see Optimus or Airachnid follow behind the rest of the team. "I know for a fact that Airachnid would not help Megatron, not anymore."

"Of course you'd say that, Ratch'," Arcee muttered, shaking her helm and moving away as he tried to approach her. "Because you knew all along that there was a Decepticon under our protection and you never said a fragging thing about it! Am I the only one here who hasn't lost her fragging processor?!" She was pleading to no one, her faceplate stretched with confusion taking over her raw anger at being even more thoroughly deceived than she'd thought. The depth of the betrayal was now taking its toll on her, draining her of strength as her servos fell limp and she suddenly came close to collapsing. Ratchet was there to brace her frail shoulders, forcing her to face him as the fire in her optics burned down to icy coals.

"Arcee, listen to me." He said it gently but firmly, kneeling so his face was level with hers as he held her. "Who do you think the parents of that sparkling you saw were?"

She didn't want to look at him as the realisation came slowly, a trickling epiphany as she pieced together what she saw on the Nemesis; the background details she hadn't noticed at first in all her anger, how terrified Airachnid looked at the sound of Megatron advancing behind the door. "Not... not her and Megatron?" She said it mostly to question herself, a quiet disbelief as she tried to imagine anything as innocent as the sparkling she saw with Optimus coming out of those two evil sparks.

"Would you go back to a mech who forced something like that on you, Arcee?" Ratchet asked quietly, letting one servo fall from her shoulder. She blinked, eyeridges furrowing, and she was shrugging the rest of him off of her before a stubborn scowl reasserted itself over all the other emotions fighting each other in her spark.

"That doesn't excuse anything," she declared, stoking the fire again even if it was just to convince the medic and herself that she was still angry. "It doesn't make up for everything she's done."

"No, it doesn't," Ratchet agreed. "But ever since she escaped from the Decepticons, all she's done is for the benefit of her child. That's the only reason Optimus helped her. He believes she can change, and..." In a rare moment of uncertainty, he hesitated on admitting just how much Optimus and perhaps Airachnid herself had managed to convince him, despite the doubt still clouding the evidence he'd been faced with time and time again. "And so do I," he finally confessed. "Because sometimes that capacity for forgiveness is all that separates us from the Decepticons."

Arcee was smart, she knew all that without Ratchet having to tell her. But just because the knowledge was there, of Optimus always having far too much faith in other bots, didn't mean she could put much faith in it. "You know he also believes she's Elita One?" she asked, almost laughing at just how ridiculous it was, above all else. There was a flicker of surprise in the medic's optics, but not enough to convince her that he wasn't already aware of it. "Cause I don't know if I can trust someone who looks at a monster like Airachnid and sees someone like Elita in her."

And Ratchet knew she was right, feared just as much as she did at how delusional Optimus might be in his lingering grief, but he wasn't given the chance to agree. At the main console, Bumblebee was trying to get their attention with a nervous stutter of blips.

"Uh... guys?" They both went to either side of the scout, staring up at the screen and the bright text it displayed, blinking rapidly as if all their optics were glitching as they tried to take in the words given so simply, so blankly through the coded systems that couldn't possibly understand the magnitude of what they were saying.

'NEW SPARK SIGNAL DETECTED. DESIGNATION: ELITA ONE'

Only Ratchet recognised the island outline shown imprinted on the display, but it hardly mattered with shock rippling through all three of them, replacing all logic and reason and rendering their processors blank slates and their vocalisers useless, stuttering things.

"Is that... is that right?"

"No... no, no, it... it can't... she can't be..."

Only Ratchet had a handle on his shock, despite his being the most intense of all. All he said through a thick veil of what might have been hope, or some kind of naive joy, was, "It seems we owe Optimus an apology."

xx

Optimus wasn't quite where his spark ended and his beloved's began, when he finally overloaded against her with their sparks a dancing supernova between them, or when he fell into a recharge that seemed to last for years. Because when he awoke; the cool stone underneath him, the rich morning outside starting to creep into the cave and, just as he'd seen and hoped for in all his dreams, his sparkmate still curled next to him in the embrace of his servos, he felt like he'd slept for the first time in the centuries since he thought he'd lost her for all time.

He only let his optics open once he was certain he could look at her without coolant filling his optics or his spark threatening to engulf itself. The shafts of sunlight reaching in set fire to the gold on her resting helm, the soothing shadows of their alcove blanketed her black armour, still reflecting the stars of their night spent together, and the honeycomb glow of her optics lay dormant and peaceful under her lids. He could feel her spark as a gentle simmer next to his, two candles flickering and wreathing flames together. As both Airachnid and Elita One, his sparkmate past and present and for all time, she'd never looked so beautiful to him as she did now.

She woke slowly, a thousand different lives passing by each time she blinked, and she didn't seem surprised to see Optimus in each of them, lying there in front of her with the soft glow spilling from his optics.

"Good morning," he said, patiently waiting for her to recover from the leagues of sleep and fighting the consuming urge to hold her again and lose himself in her spark. She hummed, a gentle lurch of her vocaliser, before tilting her helm up at him.

"Is that really all you have to say?" she asked quietly, though the amusem*nt was still there. And it was obvious why; a night of planet-shattering interface with a thousand lost memories flashing between every climax, a reunion that transcended all borders of the Autobots and Decepticons and even the Allspark itself, and that was all he had to greet it with?

Of course Optimus had far more than that crowding his vocaliser, the love and gratitude and tears battering against each other until they were just stuttered sounds. All the words in every language in the galaxy wouldn't have helped him tell her how he felt, so he settled with the only thing that could. Even with their nodes still so numb, their lips tingled together with something stronger, sweeter than just electricity.

“You're quite good at kissing, Optimus," she admitted in a mumble, not quite pulling away from him even after they parted, accepting the cradle of his hand behind her helm and the play of his low vents against her neck, his voice a growl across her cables that crossed over the span of lost centuries.

“Would you love me if I wasn't?" It was a question they'd both asked each other in those better days. Whether or not she remembered that tiny flash of detail from so long ago, the same evenings he was thinking of with high grade and half-healed scars and Darkmount in flames around them, she smiled- though not as much as he was expecting, the embers of her optics dimming as they flicked away.

"Optimus... what I remembered-"

His digit was over her lips, not quite touching them, before he could stop it, desperation turned into a reflex. "Don't," he whispered, trying so hard not to make it sound like a plea. "What happened in the past does not matter right now." It would at some point, inevitably. But he'd make most of all the time before then. "This moment... you and I... that is all I want to care about. Anything else can wait."

For a long few klicks they just pressed against each other, forehelms met, a silent agreement passing between them. Then her claws, Airachnid's claws, slid off his audial fins as she made to push herself up. "I should still go get Scorpia."

She was at the mouth of the cave, the sunlight drenching her, when he was on his own peds and reaching for her hand. "I'm sure Grimlock is taking good care of her..." It was perhaps the only time he'd ever put faith in the Dinobot, but as Airachnid's claws fanned out to close around his hand it seemed the faith was well founded. Or maybe she was just as grateful for any excuse to stay with him.

"If you're really so confident in him... there's a hot spring underneath this cliff-" He knew he caught her off guard when he swept her into his servos from the squeal she tried and failed to turn into a less humiliating gasp. She kept glaring up at him until halfway down the mountain, when she relented to a pout that he could only ever think was adorable, even with her legs twitching in irritation. But as much as she tried to hide her complacency, the guilty and almost grateful resignment to being carried by someone else for once, she could never hide how her spark swelled against his, even with walls of steel between their chambers. Optimus let her stay silent, because for longer than he could remember his spark felt whole, and he was left speechless as well.

Following the dull roar of the waterfall and the screen of mist trickling through the ferns, Optimus found the spring simmering in the noon heat; studded with jewelled ripples as the sun scattered itself on the water. Insects clumped into lazy buzzing bundles and leaves sagged under the weight of condensation, but trees overhead kept off the worst of the heat from Optimus' burning back as he lowered Airachnid into the pool. The water met her armour with bliss and sighs, gentle waves washing off the messier aspects of their night together, and she reclined against the rocky edge with mist over her closed optics. She only opened them a few nanoklicks later when she heard the snap of metal clasps and scrape of plates together, and found they were coming from Optimus slipping so casually out of his armour.

"What are you doing?" she asked, eyeridges furrowed as she looked up at him over the deep grey of his protoform, his chest plates piled beside him. Part of him knew how she was struggling to not stare at the naked patches, like a human watching someone strip fabric away.

"Keeping you company, obviously," he answered, the steam obscuring his smirk as he joined her in the warm water. Though the pool could fully submerge Airachnid and her legs, it only came up to Optimus' waist. He wasn't quite sure what she was snickering at until he looked down and saw his entire lower half swallowed in the swirling blue, and his bare chest with its faint scars and packed cable muscles reflected back at him. Airachnid was still laughing as he surged towards her, splashing between a wave that crashed between them and cleared to show Optimus pinned on his back, on the shelf of rock that fringed the edge of the pool, with his sparkmate sprawled on his chest and somehow so much smaller yet so much stronger against him. The water was warmest on their mouths, just after long kisses, and Optimus only broke away early to confess one last thing, one last hope he had stored in the deepest part of his spark, back when it was cold and closed.

"Do you know how I knew you were still alive?" he asked her, and her surprise was enough prompt to go on with his hands cradling her face again, just to know she was there and she was real. "Every day... after Archa... I would look inside the Matrix for you. I'd ask Primus where your spark was, if you were safe with him. He never answered. For the longest time, I only thought that he was sparing me worse news from what I'd always feared. Or that he was just ignoring me. But now I know... he never answered because you weren't with him in the first place."

Airachnid blinked at him, her faceplate harder to read than a slab of Ancient Kaonian as the surface underneath went through a hundred different emotions all at once. She, or a part of her only recently resurrected, was trying to pick which one to show, which one she was supposed to be feeling, and luckily for Optimus she decided on delight. Their faceplates mirrored each other, long forgotten joy blending into one shared feeling of love and closure and justice in the universe; if not there in the whole of it, just on that one blue planet among billions, that was good enough for Optimus.

Then another wave drenched them, much less welcome than the splashing before, and Optimus was left floundering and spluttering like a Sharkticon on land until the water cleared from his unprepared tanks.

"GRIMLOCK!" At the Prime's bellow, the Dinobot held back from smashing his tail into another mini tsunami, seeing the steam rising from Optimus' frame as anger boiled away most of his goodwill. Airachnid retreated to the shore of the pool, tipping water out of her audios with undisguised laughs at Optimus' scowl.

"Hot water make you go extinct!" Grimlock insisted, smashing his ped down for emphasis and accidentally kicking even more water into Optimus' face. All smiles washed away in that nanoklick, and only one thing stopped Optimus from charging forwards and bowling the Dinobot over.

"Where is Scorpia?"

Grimlock snorted and tried to scratch at his maw with a laughably small servo. "Me leave baby with scaredy yellow bot," he said. Optimus blinked, and as suddenly as it came the rage was gone. Grimlock could only mean Bumblebee, here on the island and most likely as furious as the rest of the Autobots he'd abandoned last night. The past was catching up much sooner than he was comfortable with, and even Airachnid seemed uneasy at the news.

But of course she would be. It was her daughter in very unpredictable hands, after all.

Chapter 50

Chapter Text

His armour was refitted and protoform quickly dried under the beat of the sun overhead, but nothing could have eased Optimus' nerves as he slipped towards the clearing where Bumblebee would be waiting. Airachnid followed, though not closely. Optimus didn't blame her when she seemed to disappear into the safety of the ferns behind him, and almost wished he could join her and just slip away into the wild, where the Matrix was just a trinket and the war was just a bad dream from a distant past.

But Primus had given him enough mercy for now, by resurrecting his sparkmate. Optimus still had his duties to fill, and his legend to live up to. Even though the Autobots would surely be doubting it now, certainly as much as he was.

But Bumblebee didn't notice him standing at the edge of the clearing at first, too focused on the sparkling swatting at the digit that dipped up and down in front of her, occasionally poking her helm and making her burst into giggles. Scorpia was getting bigger, the size of one of Bee's lower servos now, but the scout didn't seem to mind the heavier weight as he held her. And likewise, Scorpia was just happy to have something to grab onto with a warm spark beating against her.

Optimus didn't announce himself, too entranced by Scorpia's joy and smiling to himself at the scout's gentler side coming out in full with her. But then Bumblebee looked up, and he would have jumped in shock if Scorpia's weight wasn't holding him to the ground.

"Optimus!" His optics clicked and whirred wildly as they stared at the Prime coming closer, and Scorpia chirped loudly when she saw Optimus. "Ratchet... thought it was a good idea to send someone over. Tell you about what's happening at the base and stuff..."

"I can only imagine the chaotic state I must have left everyone in. I apologise for my selfishness, Bumblebee." Optimus decided not to point out that it was Airachnid that sent them both back to the safety of the island, not with all that had happened in just one night.

But Bumblebee was surprisingly understanding, especially for a bot of his age, his optics a soft accusation-free glow even when they weren't on the squirming sparkling in his servos. "It's no problem, Optimus. We all figured... some circ*mstances mean we need to sort ourselves out for a while. Ratchet said it at least, we all just nodded." The scout laughed in a flurry of beeps, but they were hollow sounds that seemed forcefully implanted there, not grown naturally from his spark. Optimus guessed it was the sound of a mech trying to stay friendly in the midst of a leader who'd dissolved all the trust he'd managed to build up in just one decision, but if that was the case Bee would have done a better job of covering it up. No, this was the unease of a mech struggling to accept something, and Optimus recognised it painfully well. When Bee spoke again, it was with great effort as if his broken vocaliser had finally decided to give up.

"Anyway... Primus, how do I say this..." He kept his helm bowed, especially when Optimus stepped closer with his furrowed, seeking expression. "What you said on the Nemesis, about... about Airachnid. It looks like... you were right. Sometime last night, uh... Elita's spark signal came back online out of nowhere. And it pointed right here." Bumblebee laughed as he said it aloud, as if it was a joke he was dredging up from his memory banks and not a twist so cruel, so unexpected that not even Unicron could have put it in place.

At least it saved Optimus the job of having to prove it, when he was the only one who could see every moment spent with his love locked away in Airachnid's spark. "I see."

That was all he could think to say, and all he was willing to. If Bumblebee was wanting to ask any further, he seemed to sense it would be a wasted effort. Instead he gently repositioned Scorpia in his servos, still avoiding Optimus' optics. "So, uh, where is... Airachnid, I mean Elita, I mean..."

Before the rustle and snap of leaves behind the Prime announced Airachnid's arrival, he felt the anchor of her spark nearby as it approached and settled by his side. "Bumblebee," she greeted, neither warm nor cold, no indication of whether or not she'd been eavesdropping. By contrast, Bee stood like a stag in headlights, staring at this infamous femme that was the exalted Elita One this whole time and trying to decide if he should be kneeling before her or not. His shock, the realisation finally becoming concrete in his processor, took some nanoklicks to pass and he had to shake his helm to snap himself out of it. He took small, nervous steps forwards and held out Scorpia.

"I kept her warm for you," he said quietly, not quite looking at her as she went to take her daughter back. Even the sparkling went still at her chestplates, blinking big optics up at her mother who must have seemed like a completely different femme now. But Airachnid still guarded her with the same determination, soothed her with the same soft hisses. The only thing that changed was the warmth from her spark as it wreathed around the sparkling, for it was brighter than ever, so much that Optimus and perhaps even Bumblebee could feel it.

She looked down at her sparkling, cradling her, before making to leave again. "I'm sure you have business to attend to, Optimus. I'll still be here when you've finished it." Though it hurt him to watch her go, Optimus knew better than to follow. Under that warm glow was a torrent of confusion, lingering denial and overwhelming sadness that he knew he couldn't get rid of no matter what he told her. Just as he had to be alone with his team, she had to be alone with the truth and whatever else she'd hidden from him in their bond.

Bumblebee also watched her leave, as if expecting her to suddenly dissolve into the Elita from holotapes and legends if he stared for long enough, and only Optimus' patient gaze on him made him give up trying.

"How are Bulkhead and Arcee?" the Prime asked, rightfully anxious of the answer that Bee gave after a low whistle.

"At first there were a lot of questions and... things I'd rather not repeat, but Bulkhead's taking it surprisingly well. I've never been able to tell with him, though. Arcee on the other servo... she took it about as well as you'd expect. Still hasn't come out of her quarters."

Optimus screened his optics and sighed. "I was a fool to try and deceive her for so long. "

"Hey, I'm kind of impressed you managed to keep it up until now. I tried stealing her buffer pad once, the same day she burst into my quarters in middle of the night just to get it back." Bumblebee blipped a laugh at the memory, though his mirth disappeared when he saw Optimus' face as hard as ever. "Not, uh... that that's the same thing, but-"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Bumblebee," Prime said gently, placing a hand on the scout's shoulder. "But right now, all that will help is a chance to be alone with Arcee and my team, to explain myself properly."

"Right. Sure. I'll... get the Ground Bridge called in."

The portal snapped in place a few nanoklicks later, but Bumblebee held onto the hand on his shoulder before Optimus could step towards it.

"Optimus, can I ask..." The hand gave a small squeeze in approval. "Is she gonna come back to base at some point? Aira... Elita, I mean?" His tone didn't say whether or not he was looking forward to it. It was only uncertain, as to be expected with any Decepticon badge being allowed into their only safe haven.

Optimus gave himself a long moment to think before answering. "That will be her decision. I will not force her into an environment where she does not feel welcome."

Bumblebee blinked, looking from the Prime's hand to his face like both were turning to rust before his optics. "But she's... she's Elita One! I mean, she's practically our leader as much as you are!"

Optimus let his hand drop, again choosing his words with surgical precision. "...She was Elita One. A long time ago. But we cannot expect her to be the femme we remember. It may be that the life of an Autobot simply does not suit her anymore."

Bumblebee's expression darkened. "You mean... a life without torturing bots for fun?"

If Optimus had still been holding his shoulder, he would have left a deep dent in the plating from how his digits curled into fists, just for a split nanoklick. As quickly as flare of anger faded, his voice remained brittle. "Though I understand your concern, I will ask that you do not speak of my sparkmate that way, Bumblebee."

The scout stepped back with fluttering door wings as Optimus approached the waiting Ground Bridge, mumbling. "Right... sorry."

xx

Even if the Ground Bridge wasn't so thoroughly destroyed, no one was allowed on or off the Nemesis. Vehicons managed to lose themselves in repairing the damage to the corridors, scrubbing away plasma residue and welding over bullet holes, helms down and visors dull in every effort to make themselves blend into the hull.

The officers, all herded into the Command Center and cowering on the bridge, weren't nearly so lucky.

"Of all the monumental mistakes to make, the myriad of ways that you could fail at something so simple, HOW DID YOU LET A WRETCHED TRAITOR LIKE AIRACHNID ESCAPE ALIVE?!" Megatron's fury was enough to swell the chamber with scalding air, vibrating through the ship's bulkhead and sweeping across all the mechs gathered before him. Dreadwing was the only one spared, standing sentinel behind the warlord with accusing optics narrow and claws twitching on the handle of his cannon. No one would be trying to escape unless they were really so eager for an instant death.

"I should have known from the beginning that she would have bewitched one of you into helping her, one of my very own officers..." Megatron paced before them like a caged bull, almost scraping each mech with his claws as they twitched and sliced at the air. Then he stopped before Knockout, almost gouging his chestplates with a talon as he jabbed it at him, making him flinch violently away with a whimper.

"You, Knockout; who's to say you didn't know she was carrying this whole time? That even you were too weak to sacrifice a measly newspark for the good of the Decepticons?" Even if Knockout had the wits to defend himself, Megatron had lost interest in his cowering before he could try. His gaze flowed like molten magma to the mech beside the medic, twice his size but trembling just as much.

"And you, Breakdown, the one who had spark pangs for her the entire time she infested my ship. Your betrayal would be so obvious that only you would be dumb enough to go through with it!" His optic struggled to stay open, so much that he almost wished both both of them had been ripped out just so he wouldn't need to see the depth of Megatron's rage scarred deep into every plane of his faceplate. Yet even when it cooled dangerously in front of Starscream and his pinned wings, the effect was somehow even more terrifying.

"Starscream... do I even need a reason to have your wings wrenched off and melted into scrap?" The warlord wrenched himself around, as if the sight of his disgraced officers disgusted him, while Soundwave at Starscream's side was all but forgotten.

"In the early days of the war, I would have had every one of you under a Cortical Psychic Patch for the slightest hint of betrayal," he informed them all. "So count yourselves very fortunate that I am impatient, and merciful. And that it is clear enough who the traitor among you is..." Only now did he focus on the Communications Chief, who refused to even shiver or incline his visor in the red light scanning over him. His frame gave nothing away, every cable and gear made of stone, yet Megatron grinned as if he had Optimus' corpse spread out before his peds.

"Soundwave. Just how much have you been hiding from me behind that mask...?" If Megatron was expecting an answer, some kind of confession, he didn't get one. All he got was confused yet relieved glances from the other officers, all of them so much less loyal than the one under the guillotine. Even Dreadwing wasn't quite sure what was happening, not when Soundwave was the only Decepticon he didn't constantly suspect of plotting murders.

"Well, I will pry the secrets out of you if I must," Megatron continued, leaning close enough that his denta filled the reflection of Soundwave's visor. "And I will leave you more of a husk than you already are." He straightened, claws behind his back, and gave an iron-cold order to the mechs still trying to numb their nodes to the fear filling them. "Knockout, Breakdown, prove to me that you both still deserve to live and take Soundwave to the med bay. Restrain him if you must and prepare the Cortical Psychic Patch."

Both mechs had three optics wide, but only Knockout was brave enough to voice his confusion. "But... what about the Iacon database, my lord?"

Megatron's grin somehow became sharper, the denta within becoming daggers. "Well, we don't need all of Soundwave to decode the rest of it." He didn't even look as his servo snapped out, claws carving into the drone hanging off Soundwave's shoulders and roughly yanking him away from the safety of his crevice, claws around his frantic wings so he couldn't even fly away. It was so fast that Soundwave didn't have time to deploy his cables, and Laserbeak's screech was cut off by the intensifying pressure of the grip holding him. Megatron clutched the bird like a dead Scraplet, careless and brutal, and even though he stayed silent Soundwave's horror was etched into his stance.

"I'd suggest going peacefully, Soundwave, lest something tragic happen to your little pet," Megatron suggested, turning Laserbeak's frail chirps of panic into low whines of pain and fear as his grip became crushing. "If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear."

And just like that, the slinking shadow of the Decepticons became as powerless as a newborn, one with a beloved toy dangling just out of reach. Whether or not he was guilty, he could do nothing as Knockout and Breakdown lead him out of the Command Center, nothing but look back and watch his only friend struggle and cut himself on the vice of razors all around him, and Megatron's optics glowing like he'd already won the war.

The door closed, leaving only three mechs and one defeated drone in the room, though Starscream was trying his best to escape by sneaking along the bridge holding them over the chasm of empty computer stations.

"I am not finished with you, Starscream," Megatron snarled, each word like a hook in the Seeker's wings that hauled him back before the warlord's glare. "Your only bargaining chip for my approval is nowhere to be seen, so you have five nanoklicks to convince me not to turn your worthless frame into a ship anchor."

Though Dreadwing stayed silent through the whole display, seeing Starscream almost leaking himself made him stifle a chuckle. "I-I-I had more to give than just the Autobot, my lord! I swear, please, just... let me show you-" The Seeker reached into his subspace, claws scrabbling desperately on something very familiar to Dreadwing.

"The Apex Armour?" Megatron said, after Starscream placed the collapsed relic at his peds. "The very same you took from Dreadwing's grasp?" It was clear he wasn't impressed, and Dreadwing almost hoped this would finally be the day Starscream was sent to the Pit.

But as always, he had an ace on hand. "N-Not only that, my liege! Here, I have another relic! There I was, along the treacherous ocean, hunting ceaselessly for weapons to finally defeat the Autobots, when I find this waiting, practically begging to be taken!"

The strange rod he held up, golden with jagged ridges and slightly tarnished, looked like useless decoration to Dreadwing, but the reflection in Megatron's optics was bright as he took it in his free hand, the other still squeezed tight around Laserbeak. He studied it, turning it this way and that, dragging a talon along the ridges, before nodding once.

"That will do, Starscream. You are excused."

The Seeker's trembling stopped, his optics creased in suspicion, and Dreadwing shared his confusion. But Starscream took the dismissal and ran with it, literally running away from Megatron while he was distracted as fast as his heels would let him.

Dreadwing, meanwhile, coughed once into his hand. "My lord, forgive me, but I am... confused."

Megatron looked up from the peculiar relic. "Oh?"

"You demand that Airachnid be tracked down and killed for her defection, yet you pardon Starscream despite his own desertion and the numerous past attempts to usurp you. I do not understand why you would forgive one yet forsake the other."

Megatron smiled, likely expecting the question to come to him at some point, and held up the object so Dreadwing could see the dull gold finish and teeth lining its length. "This relic is more important than all those we have combined, Dreadwing. The fact that we have it tilts the scales of war so far in our favour that no matter what the Autobots do, they will not stop us. Not as long as we have it."

Dreadwing had never heard of anything so powerful, not even items forged by Solus Prime herself. That wasn't what he was wondering about, though. "But Starscream does not know that," he pointed out, and Megatron gave a quiet laugh to himself as he shook his helm.

"No. He doesn't." Megatron's claws tightened around the relic, mirroring the grip around Laserbeak who'd all but given up struggling. '"Do you really want to know why Airachnid's death is so important to me, Dreadwing?"

"As your second in command, it would be helpful to know," the Seeker answered uncertainly. Megatron made to move past him, leaning into his audios to speak quietly.

"I will only say this. Breakdown was not the father of her dead child."

Then he was passed, setting himself at the master control console, throwing Laserbeak's dented body down and hooking him into the databanks, completely ignoring anything else. Dreadwing wasn't quite sure what to make of the new information, not at first. It meant he was wrong when he voiced his concerns to Megatron, that he knew who the sire was all along...

And the only way that was possible was also the only way his actions made any sense, every one up to now. Like everyone else he left the Command Center, suddenly uncomfortable with being near his leader.

Chapter 51

Chapter Text

Once again, walking into his team's base gave Optimus the distinct feeling of walking in front of a firing squad. Almost everyone was waiting for him, barring Wheeljack and Miko, the only two that would be so easy to speak with. Some gazes were as bewildered as Bumblebee's was at first, some surprisingly sympathetic, others guarded from everything except extreme caution. Bulkhead was still in his medical berth, but he sat up with just the strength of suspicion and distrust in his spinal strut. Even the humans were there to smother him in guilt, though Jack was the only one utterly confused out of the two of them, half shielded by Arcee's legs. She'd decided to emerge for his return.

Optimus guided his gaze steadily over all of them, though he kept away from Arcee until he knew he couldn't avoid her any longer. Each feature on her faceplate was sharp enough to sting, and everything in her frame brimmed with hurt. However much of it was at being lied to, and however much at knowing her beloved mentor was now her sworn enemy, Optimus couldn't possibly have guessed.

"Arcee..." He took one step forward, and though she didn't flinch her optics flared that much brighter, like warning flares.

"Whatever you've got to say to me, you can say to everyone else as well," she said, bitterness soaked deep into her vocaliser.

She couldn't have been more wrong, but Optimus was in no place to contest. There was no room for any more secrets or lies now. Everyone would get the same uncensored truth today. "Very well." Optimus raised his optics, forcing himself to watch when the trust he'd spent so long building with his team crumbled apart. If it hadn't happened already.

"I am not sure what Ratchet has told you all, so I will start from the beginning. As some of you already know... I have been sheltering Airachnid since her defection from the Decepticons, following the birth of a sparkling forced on her by Megatron." Only the humans were shocked, tiny faces twisted with the grim feeling, but Optimus couldn't take any time to console them.

"And as some of you also know... it has come to light that Airachnid is... actually Elita One. My sparkmate, and once a dear friend to some of you." Now the shock rippled out further, even hitting those who already knew. "I do not expect any of you to accept this as an excuse for my controversial decisions, and my deceptions. And I do not expect anyone to forgive her or myself, knowing this fact about her." Like film over water, wherever he looked he saw angry blue lights still insistent on accusing him, which made having to turn his voice into steel much easier.

"But I remain adamant that my decision to protect her and her child was the same one any Prime would have made. Regardless of who she was in the past, she is a refugee from our enemy, and in all the time I have sheltered her she has made no attempt to harm any Autobot, or any innocent human. Above all... she is still my sparkmate. She is still my other half, and I do expect that she be treated with that in mind. And that is all I have to say." He wrenched himself away from them before the inevitable volley of confused questions and thick betrayal could pelt him, going where only the truly hurt would follow him for more answers. But he didn't make it to the safety of his quarters, not even halfway there before he simply sagged and collapsed against the wall. So early in the day, and he was already exhausted, his shoulders and spark starting to crush together.

His joints were already stiff by the time he heard the grim sound of peds thudding closer to him, and he braced himself for the snarled insults he only deserved. But they never came. Ratchet just sat next to him, old cables creaking and plating protesting, groaning lightly as he rested his spinal strut against the wall. If not for the Matrix powering him, Primus' blessing permanently carried in his ageless frame, Optimus might have been in the same state as his friend. Yet despite their similar ages, Ratchet had the ability to make anyone feel like a helpless sparkling in his presence.

"How did I do?" Optimus asked, half dreading the consensus.

Ratchet didn't answer for a long moment, so Optimus knew it wouldn't just be something thrown out to make him feel better. "I think you handled it as well as you could."

"Yet Arcee still hates me."

"I wouldn't go that far-"

"You didn't see what was in her optics, Ratchet," Optimus interrupted, closing his own over before they started leaking at the memory of how much she wanted to claw at him in that moment. "You didn't see how her entire body tensed when I named Airachnid my sparkmate."

Again Ratchet didn't answer for at least a klick, though it was more from having so many things to say and picking the right one out of all of them. And the one he chose was already obvious to to them both. "How else would you feel, Optimus, knowing your closest friend killed all your other ones?" At least he didn't add on 'knowing your leader was covering it all up', else even Optimus' strengthened spark might not have survived the guilt.

"If I'd known this was the path Primus had in mind... if I'd just realised who she was earlier, so much of this ache could have been avoided. I wouldn't have had to lie for so long." His helm collided heavily with the wall now, dim optics staring up into the gloom of the ceiling.

"Primes don't have to know everything, Optimus. Especially not in a case like this," Ratchet said quietly, but even the tug of that millennias-old gentleness couldn't pull Optimus' helm out of the shadows of his own guilt. "Did she seem more like Elita, after you... bonded?"

That was the one question Optimus was terrified of answering, because he didn't know. Even bathed in their memories, bringing them back out of the dark and drenching her in the love of centuries, she seemed no different that morning to the femme he'd known since Scorpia's birth, other than how much more beautiful she looked to him. In truth, it had been so long since he'd last spoke to Elita, the one he remembered, he feared that his memories were wrong somehow. That death made her more special, more precious to him than she actually was in life. What if Airachnid's and Elita's actions were always identical, both of them equally cold and warm, capable of the same good and evil, yet he fooled himself into only remembering Elita as a saint? What if Elita truly had been standing in front of him this whole time, yet he'd been too blinded by sweet memories to see her?

"...I am still not sure," he said with immense effort. "She needs time to process this, like everyone else."

"And if she rejects the part of her that's still Elita?" Ratchet asked. "What then?"

"...Then that will be her choice to make."

Ratchet said nothing, not even a neutral huff of air, and when it was clear Optimus had nothing else to add he struggled back onto his peds. "Come on, then. You can't spend the whole day sulking here," he said gruffly, holding a hand out that even Optimus couldn't ignore. His frame still felt heavy with years worth of rust in his spark, and it was a wonder Ratchet managed to lift him up without toppling back on his aft.

"You didn't believe me at first, when I said she was like Elita," Optimus said, not quite knowing why he did.

Ratchet shrugged, fighting against a sad smile. "Well, just because I'm old doesn't mean I'm always wise."

With that, they trudged in a soft silence back to the foyer. Optimus wasn't sure what to expect on his return, groups of whispering bots or even just an empty space with everyone gone in disgust, but surprisingly everyone was gathered around the main computer screen. Some glanced back at Optimus, but curiosity seemed to override their hostility as they didn't spend long staring before their attention went back to the screen.

"What is this?" Ratchet asked, easing himself to the front of the group to look at the monitor for himself.

"A recent post I found on a conspiracy site," Rafael explained, staring down at his laptop. "The photo's a little grainy, but..." He zoomed in, which did the same to the projected image showing a huge object surrounded by a fiery corona as it entered the atmosphere.

"A meteor?" Bee suggested, before Ratchet stepped closer and pointed at an emblem on the side of the object.

"No... a Cybertronian escape pod."

Then they were all staring back at Optimus, as if expecting him to confess to knowing about the pod all along. It was something he felt he'd have to get used to for the next long while.

"Set the Ground Bridge to its landing area," he ordered, slipping back into command as it was all he could think to do. "We must investigate before the Decepticons have a chance to reach it." Though there was some hesitant inaction, the bots eventually drifted to their battle positions around Optimus as the Bridge powered up. Though when Arcee stepped past him, he could almost feel the barbed wire in her EM field scraping across his plating.

xx

"So... lemme get this straight." The new arrival, Smokescreen, vented deeply for the third time since entering the base, creasing his forehelm with closed optics. He phrased each impossible statement with a gesture of his hands. "Elita One is alive."

"Yes," Optimus said.

"But she's a Decepticon."

"A former one, yes."

"And she got cosy with Megatron and knocked up with his kid?"

"That is a very condensed view, but yes."

Smokescreen sighed, blinked, warped his faceplate in several confused expressions. "...How long was I out for, again?" Out of all the reactions to the news, Smokescreen's was the easiest to deal with. It helped that Optimus brought him to a quiet corner of the foyer, away from where the other Autobots could give him opinions before fact.

"I'm sure you realise that this is a... very complicated time for my team," Optimus said, quiet despite the fact no one was in audio range anyway. "I do not wish to burden you with our own internal issues, but I do ask that you remain sensitive to them."

Smokescreen blinked and threw his hands up as he glanced nervously around the powder keg he'd just been escorted into. "Hey, trust me, I don't wanna cause any more trouble. I'm just glad to be outta that pod and... well, just having the chance to roll with a Prime. Anything you need me to do, just point me to it and I'll get it done."

Ironic that the most trustworthy member of his team now was the one who'd literally just joined it in the last five klicks. "Your enthusiasm is much appreciated, Smokescreen."

"So, uh... is it alright if I ask where Elita is right now?" Smokescreen smiled as he asked, but his nerves showed through in how he rubbed the back of his neck.

"She is in a safe place," Optimus told him. "And she will remain there until she is comfortable with Autobot company."

Smokescreen's smile dropped, assumedly from surprise. "Oh... okay, sure. It's just, Alpha Trion had a lot of stories about you two- when you were Orion Pax, I mean, how she encouraged you to go before the Council in the first place and stuff. It'd be cool to... see her for myself. Even if she's a Con, ex Con now, I mean." He was frantic to cover up his mistake, hands flailing in defense, and despite his youth Optimus couldn't help having respect for the mech.

"I'm afraid I must put her safety first and foremost. But I shall ask if she would be receptive to visitors." It was unlikely she would, especially any unknown Autobots, but Smokescreen's doors perked up at the promise. "For now, it would be best if you familiarise yourself with the base. After that, Ratchet can supply you with duties."

Smokescreen nodded eagerly with a salute, ambling off with caution towards approaching the other bots scattered around the foyer. Though Optimus felt safe in the corner, he knew this wasn't a time to just stand back and watch his team wrestle with all that had happened in just one day. Especially when he heard the commotion from the med-bay, only muffled shouts until he moved closer with his audio against the door. Miko and Wheeljack had finally shown up while the Bots were gone, and Rafael did his best to fill them in. But whatever argument they'd gotten into with Bulkhead in their absence, it was still going on when they returned.

"As if Optimus keeping secrets like this wasn't bad enough, I find out my closest friends were doing it as well?!" Like most Wreckers Bulkhead tended to keep his anger simmering and bottled up, so hearing it come out in such an intense fireball, even from behind inches of door, almost made Optimus flinch away.

"Bulk, buddy, you know I wouldn't have done it unless I had to-"

"And what the Pit was making you do it?!" Bulk cut across Wheeljack's plea. "It's not like someone stuck a compliance chip in your head and if you told me your spark would've exploded!" Then the two devolved into a crossfire that only Miko's tearful voice managed to stop.

"Bulkhead, please don't yell, we're sorry! We didn't mean to hurt you, or... anyone else."

Bulkhead's sigh was so immense that Optimus felt it vibrate through the wall. "Miko, I know you were just trying to be good, but I thought I could trust you! I thought... you could tell me anything."

"It wasn't my secret to tell, Bulk. And it wasn't Wheeljack's, either."

"...I know."

After that point Optimus wasn't sure if he could bear to listen any further, and luckily as he pulled away from the med-bay he had something else to focus on. The computer was beeping insistently, demanding everyone's attention again.

"Two disturbances in one day?" Ratchet grumbled as he brought up whatever the base's sensors managed to find.

"You bring any friends along, Smokescreen?" Arcee asked, calm for only as long as she could pretend Optimus wasn't in the same room as her. Jack was even more unreadable, curled small on the couch next to his partner.

"I didn't have many on that prison ship, so I sure hope not," Smokescreen said with a grimace. Ratchet managed to make sense of the report the computer coughed up for him, but he just hummed louder.

"It's a suspiciously large Decepticon signal reading," he said. "Mostly drones, perhaps the Nemesis itself."
"Are they trying to dig another mine?" Bee asked, actually managing to act like nothing was awry among them.

"It seems so, but... hang on." Ratchet looked closer at the screen, tapping as quickly as the windows on the monitor popped up and faded away, then groaning at what he saw. "I fear this is something much more disruptive than a mining operation... they're digging in the area of an Relic co-ordinate."

Only Smokescreen was excited by it, pumping his servo in the air. "Alright, first day and already I'm tracking down magic stuff!"

Optimus was starting to have doubts about the merits of his enthusiasm, but at least it was a welcome change from the surly gloom that saturated the base that morning. "Usually I would not send an untested soldier into such an environment, but we need as many fighters as possible. Anyone who would prefer to rest after the fight for the escape pod is welcome to."

"No way, Optimus, there's no such thing as too many Cons to pound!" Bee chirred, punching one of his palms eagerly.

"I'm comin', too," Wheeljack said behind them, who must have left the med-bay without Optimus noticing. "My blasters are due for some good target practice."

And though Arcee kept her mouth clamped shut, she was drifting into position near the Ground Bridge. Everyone that was able would be going.

Optimus nodded first to the soldiers, then to Ratchet as a signal to fire up the Bridge. Smokescreen went pelting ahead with a battle cry of his own, forcing everyone else to chase after him before he ran helm first into a Vehicon patrol. Wheeljack just laughed at the panic Smokescreen caused, walking to the vortex just as Optimus pieced together something from Airachnid's own memories that flashed during their bond, something very very unfortunate for him to know.

"Wheeljack?"

The Wrecker turned to face Optimus, completely oblivious to what was coming. "Yeah, boss?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like a word with you at some point about the... specifics of your relationship with Airachnid during the war."

Wheeljack started to furrow his eyeridges before his optics went wide under them, and his jaw went slack with the heavy guilty gulp of a mech once caught interfacing with his superior's wife. Which was fitting, considering that was exactly what Optimus saw in Airachnid's spark.

Chapter 52

Chapter Text

Airachnid felt Optimus leave, actually felt the warm anchor of his spark weaken as the distance between them increased so suddenly, and the shock of that ember going out had her collapsing against a tree. Each vent was a hoarse struggle, her optics burned and her coolant swelled all over her shaking frame. It was like her spark was a fever, or a virus her entire body was trying to force out. In a way, now that it was split open with all her secrets and truths from a life she never lived spilling out in waves of nausea, it was. More than just memories she only half-remembered, more than having everything she'd thought or believed about her life completely drowned out, smudged away into nothing more than faint tendrils she couldn't grasp when before they were the only solid foundation of her entire existence. In the wake of the bond, all that was left was painful, smoldering ruins, so similar to what Megatron had left behind.

"Mama?" Scorpia cowered against her chest, cuddling close to that core of chaos, the only thing that could truly comfort her. But even so, there was something new in how she looked up at her mother. Something guarded and cautious that wasn't there before, but which made tragically perfect sense to Airachnid. Because of course this spark wasn't the same one Scorpia had basked in for five vorns, growing so slowly beside her dead brother. It wasn't the same one that cradled her to sleep every night. The glow was dim, the rhythm of its pulse unfamiliar and strange, wrenched out of its tempo by the past falling like tsunami over it. But it was still her mother's spark. That was all Airachnid was sure of right then, the fact that she was a mother. Anything else terrified her too much to think about.

"I'm fine, darling. I'm... fine." Even as she stroked and mumbled against Scorpia's helm she wanted to dig her claws into her palms, tear through her armour and protoform just to stop it all shaking so much. Elita, Airachnid, wouldn't have been this pathetic. She couldn't even look at her hands without wondering why they weren't plated in pink, why her digits curved into claws that wouldn't stop dripping energon, why her mouth burned with acid on a rising tide of purged energon that clogged the back of her throat. She wanted to hunt, to cry, to kill something and comfort it at the same time. Most of all, she wanted Optimus. She wanted someone to tell her who she was now, after everything she'd seen and felt from the eyes of a femme, of herself, who would have been better off in the Allspark.

"Spider lady?"

Grimlock was usually very easy to hear approaching, but Airachnid hadn't even felt his earthquake steps with how much she was already trembling. She kept her face close to Scorpia, just in case her optics were wet. "Yes, Grimlock?"

But despite appearances, the Dinobot was not easily fooled. He sniffed once before growling deeply, like the predator Airachnid was struggling to keep a leash on in her spark. "You hurt!" he declared, which was true on very many levels. She was hurting, and she caused hurt. So much of it, to so many old friends. The graveyard of once friendly faces flashed in front of her optics, forcing her to squeeze the leaking lids closed and lie through her fangs as always.

"I'm not hurt. I'm... it's complicated. I don't want to talk about it."

Grimlock growled louder, the sound vibrating through her like an accusation. "Did dumb Prime do something?"

"No, dumb Prime didn't... well, he did. But it's not his fault." Airachnid must have snapped to his defense too quickly. Grimlock's lips fell down, instantly covering his denta and he blinked as he tilted his helm.

"You... like dumb Prime?" He had to think about it almost as long as she did, processing and accepting the idea that out of all the mechs in the universe, she was lumped together with the most important one.

"Yes," she admitted, quietly as if it was still a secret she had to keep. "I like him a lot. I... I love him." And that was the only other thing she was sure of being, someone who was in love with a Prime.

Grimlock still had that blank feral gaze trained on her, but even if he didn't know what 'love' meant he could hear what she meant in her voice, no matter how she tried to hide it. His tail flicked only slightly, his eyeridges furrowed and his helm fell low to the ground, as if the realisation weighed his entire body down, or maybe he was just surrendering to it. Airachnid knew the feeling intimately.

"I'd like to be alone for a while, Grimlock. Please," she asked. "Take Scorpia with you."

But the sparkling was refusing to be pulled away from Airachnid's chestplates, clinging tight to the armour with high-pitched groans. "No, Mama!"

It was the first time Airachnid had heard her so distraught, felt her tiny spark so frantically clinging to her mother's despite how shattered it was. "Nooo," Scorpia insisted again, mumbling with rapid vents against her plates, keeping her optics hidden even though Airachnid could feel the thin tracks of coolant shedding from them. Out of everything she'd ever done against Autobots or Decepticons, she'd never felt as guilty peeling her daughter away from her, for her own good.

"You have to go, sweetspark. It's better that you don't see me like this." Scorpia was still trying to grasp for anything that would take her digits, slipping them against the side frames of Airachnid's helm as they sloped down either side of her faceplate and as she gave a sparkbroken kiss to her daughter, one last proof of her love before handing her off to Grimlock.

"Mama..." Even bundled up in the Dinobot's claws, Scorpia kept her servos stretched out towards Airachnid because she just didn't know what else to do with them. And Airachnid couldn't watch her leave, because she knew she couldn't stop herself tearing her right back into her embrace. But soon the earthquakes faded, her spark became numb, and she was as alone as she could wish for. All she had left for company was her own thoughts, and when night came she hadn't even scratched the surface of them.

She hadn't even noticed the time pass until a Ground Bridge opened not too far away, and like a hot iron plunged in water her spark started sizzling and spitting fire. It tugged, pulled, wrenched in her chamber to go to its partner, but her body was too stiff and her will too weak. Optimus had to stumble across her, slashing vines and ferns out of his way with a very new and shiny looking sword. The blade didn't reflect the starlight overhead, rather it seemed to steal their glow for itself, and from her viewpoint it was if Optimus' entire frame was bathed in the light, as if he was some kind of specter coming to take her away. It was hauntingly similar to what she thought of him when they met in The Circle, stumbling in the darkness after a number spent under sweltering lights and crashing into the same clumsy, awkward and achingly charming mech she knew as Orion-

And if she went any further down that line of thought, she'd start crying again.

"You've been busy," she noted, watching Optimus heft the giant thing off his shoulders and place it point-down into the soil, like it weighed nothing more than a twig. Just looking at the thing made her even more exhausted.

"How long have you been here for?" he asked, and the concern drenched her aching spark like a cold balm that she had to shrug off to keep her dignity.

"Since you left," she answered quickly.

"And where is Scorpia?"

"Safe. With Grimlock again."

Optimus didn't say anything for a long few moments, letting the night insects fill the silence, before kneeling down in front of her with the sword forgotten by his side. "Are you alright?"

Those three words, or maybe it was just that voice, tore down every defense she had left, and let the floodgates fly open. "No, Optimus, I'm... how can I possibly be alright?" She hid her face, away from how Optimus' beautiful gaze would soften and tempt her to throw herself against him for all the safety he tried to offer.

"Are you in pain?" If she answered yes, she knew he would tear the island apart if it would somehow cure her. So of course she could only give one answer.

"No. I don't... think so. It's only when I think that things get painful." The night was hot and muggy, and she forced it into her vents as she lifted her helm up. "...What did you see in my spark, Optimus?"

As always, his answer was carefully constructed. "Nothing that it didn't want me to see."

"Or nothing that it thought you didn't want to see?" Airachnid probed, already known no mech, Autobot or Decepticon, would keep on loving a femme knowing every single detail of her two lives.

"I only gave you my own memories of... the past, that which your own spark complemented. I did not look where I knew I had no right to."

Of course he was telling the truth. Airachnid wasn't sure if he was even capable of lying, especially not now that everyone and their grandcarrier knew about the secret he'd been hiding away on this island. And he certainly wasn't capable of forgiving someone whose countless murders he'd seen branded into his spark.

So that left Airachnid with the task of confessing it all to him.

"The bond brought back... everything, Optimus." And that everything started to burn in her optics again, forcing them closed. "Everything from when I was Ariel, when I was Elita... right up to Archa Seven. Right up to... those spiders. And more after that. Things I'm suddenly not proud of, even though... all my life, all Airachnid's life, I mean, I... I was doing what I thought was right. It's like... both halves have been torn apart from each other and when I try to look at where the damage is... it hurts."

Optimus knew when to listen, and he knew when she'd given up on saying anything more. He reached a hand towards her, hovering so lightly on one of her legs. "You're not damaged, Airachnid-"

And then her leg kicked sideways, knocking his touch away from her. "You can't say that. You don't know everything I've done, everything... that's happened to me. Elita would have killed herself before letting herself become something like me!" After all the breems spent sitting and thinking and waiting for an answer, that was the only conclusion she could come to, and hearing it out loud from the crackling wreck of her vocaliser was the breaking point. She fell, to what side she couldn't tell, but Optimus was there to catch her before she met the ground. And once she was in his servos again, there was nothing she could hide. Furious tears and whimpered screams and the keening howls of stranded prey was all she could offer, each vent a stuttered mess that only carried out more sobs. In the weeping, broken cascade of pleas, there was only one that Optimus could understand.

"I dont... I-I don't know... who I'm supposed to be..."

And by the time he knew what to say to her, she was calming down. Slowly, so slowly, the cries subsided into pitched hiccups and shaking sniffles. Optimus still held her, solid and sentinel like his spark, and wiped at the coolant covering her face.

"I know you're hurting, my love. I can feel it. And I would give my whole spark to you if that would soothe your own. But you don't need to know who you are just now. All of this, it's... it's never happened to anyone else."

"Why me, then?" she asked past a choking clog of self-pity. "You have that Matrix, that link to Primus, so... why did he choose me?"

"He rarely speaks to me. But... perhaps this was the only way to spare you. By giving you a second chance on Archa Seven." Optimus held her chin up at a slight tilt, easy for her to break away from, and his smile was so gentle, so beautiful that Airachnid wanted to believe him so badly.

But this beautiful mech, the one who'd followed her to the Allspark across centuries of the deepest despair, deserved the truth. "...I'd rather have just died." She pulled away from his clean warmth and all its naive promises, rising to her peds and finding herself leaning against a much less hospitable tree that was quickly marked with thick gouges; and with Optimus' servos suddenly limp he couldn't bring her back. Airachnid almost thought he'd just left until she heard him speak again, in a tone she could only describe as horrifically sincere.

"I felt much of the same when our bond first broke."

Airachnid thought she'd misheard, or perhaps he had misheard her. She turned her helm back to face him, noting that he hadn't moved at all. "What do you mean, Optimus?"

"The Autobots needed a leader, but... at the time, I didn't believe it should have been me. A Prime that couldn't protect his sparkmate wasn't worthy of the title, or the Matrix." He didn't so much move as drift towards her, until he was by her side and she could feel his EM field turning to ice.

"There was one day... the same day I returned to the Iacon Tower, to an empty berth for the first time with my spark like an open wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. I stood on the highest balcony, looking out at the wasteland I'd turned our planet into... villages razed into nothing more than scorch marks, the ruins of cities, graveyards stretching out on all sides. And I thought... it would be so easy to leave it all behind. To join you in the Allspark, where I thought you'd gone, where you were safe from Megatron. Just one step off the edge... and it all would be over." The confession was so thick, so rusted that Optimus only stopped the tears flowing over his hard-lined face by the force of his willpower. If Airachnid had any more of her spark left intact, it would have been breaking just from listening, knowing that even with Primus on your shoulders it was so easy to feel worthless.

"It wasn't a sudden realisation that stopped me, some message from Primus that pulled me back from that edge," Optimus went on, with a smile struggling despite everything. "It was a soldier bringing me energon. If I'd spent one less nanoklick thinking about it, or that bot had paused on the steps up... I wouldn't be here. On Earth... or with you." This time when Optimus reached out to her, a hand on her shoulder, she didn't flinch away, because his love pouring out was the only thing she was aware of.

"What I'm trying to say is that... time is sometimes the only cure. Time to think and talk and... to love. You're hurting right now, more than anyone else in this galaxy. But it won't last long. The strongest aches always pass eventually... even if they take years. And whoever you choose to be, now or then, won't change how Scorpia adores you... or how I feel about you."

Airachnid almost crumbled all over again when that hand on her shoulder squeezed, forcing the warmth into her, and she had to wreathe her claws through his digits to stay standing. "...Who do you think I am, Optimus?"

"You're the femme I love. That is all that matters to me."

And after all this, Airachnid actually managed to believe it. This time when Optimus held her she never wanted to let go, shrouding herself in the infallible confidence and security of his spark, letting whatever pain was left fade into a gentle numbness. If time was all she needed, no matter how long, if it was spent with Optimus then it wouldn't be wasted.

But if she wanted to spend it with him, there was one more obstacle in the way. Or several of them, most of them much bigger than her.

"Optimus, after last night... I don't know if I can spend one alone. If you'll have me...I'd like to join you with the Autobots."

Optimus stiffened, not in the way she was secretly hoping for. "Are you sure?"

"I have to face them at some point. For better or worse." She was looking up at him, still in the circle of his embrace, watching his optics crease and their light waver ever so slightly.

"But we can wait," he said. "I won't bring you there if you feel at all uncomfortable-"

"I want to go, Optimus," she insisted. "I... I need other voices to get rid of the ones in my head. Even if these ones hate me."

Optimus looked unhappy, opening his mouth only to close it a nanoklick later when he realised it would be pointless to argue her reputation with the Autobots. "Would you like to bring Scorpia with you?"

Airachnid had already decided. "I'm not going to use my child as a shield, Optimus. I don't want to be seen as just a helpless mother by them. Whatever they have to say to me... I want to hear it as Airachnid and Elita. Whichever one they'd rather see me as." Though she could already guess which one they'd find more comfort in. Optimus was the one who knew first hand what they thought of her, what kind of viper nest she was walking into, but if it was as bad as she was expecting then he seemed to think she could handle it.

"If that is what you wish, I will be with you." He kissed her forehelm, making her smile and tingle from such a chaste display, before releasing her and saying something through his comm unit. In that muffled conversation he tried to hide, she heard a name that in all her personal chaos she'd managed to forget.

"Will Arcee be there?" she asked after Optimus clicked off. He looked as uneasy as she felt, but he had good news.

"I have been told she has retired to her quarters for the night."

Airachnid sighed in the humid, all too forgiving night. "Primus only works in small blessings, I see."

Chapter 53

Chapter Text

Optimus lead the way through the Ground Bridge, sword balanced on his shoulders like a shining knight, yet Airachnid felt wholly defenseless the nanoklick she set her heel on the floor of the foyer, filled with bots that clamped their stares onto her as soon as they saw her emerge. And she recognised almost every one, the glint of their Autobot insignias flashing up from deep memories in her spark. Just as she looked at Optimus and saw both Airachnid's and Elita's precious moments with him, so she did with the soldiers that used to look at her with the same respect they gave their Prime. And knowing that respect had all but dissolved by now, replaced by only the wariest kind of curiosity, she felt a whole new and great sadness form a heavy hollow in her already-drained spark. Even Wheeljack, the only other Autobot who looked past her reputation even if it was only because of her frame, had narrow optics on her. Optimus said nothing as he stood in front of her, only moving to pull his sword down to his side in a barrier.

Strangely enough, the mech Airachnid didn't recognise was the one she was most comfortable facing, the only one brave enough to approach her. He couldn't have been much older than Bumblebee, though unlike the scout he was utterly unafraid of her. In fact, the way he peered at her was weirdly similar to how Scorpia did.

"So... you're Elita One?" he asked, the same question she'd been asking herself on an endless loop since that morning. Airachnid looked to Optimus, for some kind of cue on what to say, but he only inclined his helm towards the young mech. He'd brought her over, but it was up to her to sell herself to these Autobots.

"I... suppose I am," she said, trying to avoid glancing at any other faces trained on her. "Though I'm known as Airachnid nowadays." Despite her efforts her optics strayed onto Ratchet, short enough to keep his harsh gaze unreadable and long enough for the mech to now be bowing in front of her when she looked back at him.

"Smokescreen, ma'am. I've heard a lot about you." It should have come in a voice slogged with caution, but for all his youth Smokescreen sounded like he was greeting a herald of Primus, even had that glint of awe on the edge of his optics as he tilted his helm up at her.

Airachnid wasn't sure if she should have been flattered, or bewildered. Both was the safest bet. "And yet I've never seen you on Earth before," she said.

"Well, I only crash landed earlier today, on top of a squad of Decepticons." Smokescreen pushed his backstrut straight as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "Then I blew them all up with a shot to a fuel line, and then I got that big sword for Optimus-!"

"Kid, she ain't interested in how you hid behind a rock while we were busy keeping the Vehicons off," Wheeljack cut in, nudging Smokescreen in the back before he went on an ego-fueled spiel and throwing a wink at Airachnid she never knew she needed so much, especially with the other Autobots all converging in on her (though the Wrecker seemed to falter as Optimus glared at him for some reason). Smokescreen more or less faded behind them all, smoothing over where Wheeljack collided with his frame and mumbling, "She might be..."

"So I know I already said sorry for calling you a monster that one time, but I kinda feel like I have to say it again..." Bumblebee's guilty blips trailed off, just as Bulkhead shoved in front of him with the most guarded expression she'd ever seen, every inch of his faceplate locked down.

"Were you... really her? All this time?" he asked, his jawplate actually struggling to move as he formed the words. Though when was the Wrecker ever not tense... and how did Airachnid know that about him?

She didn't, but Elita did. She'd just need to get used to sifting through what she had left.

"I only realised at the same time everyone else did... when Optimus bonded with me," she answered, struggling not to cast a look back at him and instead focusing on her claws as they tied themselves together in a sharp lattice in her lap. "I don't know what he's told you about me, or all that he's done for me and my child, but I do know what my spark is telling me. Elita's spark. As her... I see you all as friends." The last word almost came out as a question, one she still wasn't quite convinced of the answer to. And from how his optics narrowed so slightly, Bulkhead wasn't convinced either. "Even if you doubt it, Bulkhead... I know that a Wrecker takes all the friends he can get."

And for the very first time, Bulkhead faltered in the face of words he hadn't heard for centuries, since the day he decided to join the Autobots, and only then from one femme. He was still frozen when Wheeljack thudded his chest lightly.

"Don't we know it..." He moved in front of Bulk now, sparing the larger mech the need to shield how his whole frame underneath his face seemed to collapse. "So, where's Scorpia?"

And just like that, Elita might not have even existed from how attention immediately dogpiled onto her daughter instead.

"Is she alright?"

"Hey, I wanna see the sparkling as well!"

"Wait your turn, kid, we all got here first!"

While Smokescreen wrestled to re-secure his place at the front of the team, Airachnid felt herself smiling as she went on an automatic newsreel about Scorpia. How big she was, how heavy, what words she could try saying and whether her braid was still tripping her up. But even as she spoke, hooking the mechs with all their paternal urges bubbling up with the irresistible lure of an adorable sparkling, she listened to the other two Autobots who drifted somewhere further down in the foyer. Optimus and Ratchet stood apart just enough from the others that they weren't caught up in the conversation, and just close enough for Airachnid to hear them.

"What are you thinking, old friend?" Optimus asked.

"...I'm thinking about why we had to wait so long before we found her," Ratchet answered after a long, sigh-drenched pause, leaving Airachnid to wonder at how tired he sounded as he approached her for the first time, cleaving a path in between the excited chatter of the other mechs.

"What do you remember of me... Airachnid?" Such a simple question phrased like an accusation, leaving Airachnid chilled with the realisation of how her once-familiar role had so suddenly switched from interrogator to prisoner. Or maybe that was from just how much she knew about this old, proud medic, and how hard it was to choose just a handful of memories to prove who she was.

One of them almost made her laugh, so that was the one she went with. "...The first time you saw Megatron, harping on about Kaon's castes, you leaned across to me and you said it was like listening to a rusty Minicon being sent through a smelter." It was so easy to say it because she was there, both as Elita and Airachnid, forced to endure a speech crammed with truths that Megatron only believed in for as long as they were useful to him. And one memory lead to another, even as Ratchet's optics bulged over his slack jawplate. "You also said your main reason for becoming a medic was getting to see femmes without their armour. And you thought Optimus didn't hear you that time, until he made your helm ring with a backhand across it."

Everyone laughed, even Optimus allowing himself a lovely chuckle; everyone except Ratchet. The medic's expression was stuck in a swamp of shock, rippling waves of confusion crashing against a cautious but overwhelming joy that quickly broke on the shore of his grin, the laughter falling hard and eager from it as he reached down and pulled her close, swelling his servos around her so his spark's warmth could pulse against her, a inferno stoked back into life after so long spent just dying away.

"Welcome home, Elita..." Airachnid was still trying to get used to being hugged, only having distant memories of being so enclosed by other bots, but just hearing the relief in Ratchet's voice, different yet so similar to Optimus' and so much like the young medic she once knew, made her own servos slowly hug back. Over his shoulder she saw Optimus sharing the feeling, a smile sweeter than cured energon that seemed to last forever- or at least until he heard something before anyone else, a flurry of cursing from the elevator that Airachnid hadn't noticed was there until its doors slid open.

"Damn secret alien crap, think just cause they can kill ya with one step that they can just cut you off... " The human, one she hadn't seen before but bristling like Starscream on a particularly bad day, marched up to the railing of the platform that made him level with Optimus' waist. "Since no-one seems to be answering their damn comms, I gotta come down here to-" He was pointing across at all of them, inevitably seeing Airachnid when Ratchet released her from the embrace and then trying to leap back into the elevator.

"DECEPTICON!" He was clearly bigger than the children she'd seen, yet somehow more terrified of her than all three of them combined (though where Miko was concerned, she seemed to lack anything like a preservation instinct anyway). But the flight behind safety only lasted for a few seconds as he glanced to all the Autobots, wondering why they weren't panicking as well.

"...Friendly Decepticon?" he asked, squeaking slightly from fear.

"It is a long story, Agent Fowler," Optimus said, with the ghost of that smile still lingering.

xx

In hindsight it all went much, much better than what Airachnid was anticipating. She was still alive, at least. Still walking, still sighing and heaving under the weight of so many sparks crammed into her chamber. But each step seemed to get easier, even without Optimus at her side or Scorpia in her servos. The former was waiting for her in his quarters, somewhere in this concrete maze the Autobots called home, and the latter would be safe and sound with Grimlock until tomorrow.

Things had gone so well, in fact, that she should have expected to hear Arcee behind her.

"Is that it, then?" The Autobot, still as stubborn as both Airachnid and Elita remembered, was shaking as the spider turned to face her, barely holding herself back and clawing into her palms. "You have a kid, get everyone to feel sorry for you and we're all supposed to forget what you did? All our friends that you killed? The fact that you still worked for Megatron despite hating him as much as the rest of us?"

Airachnid watched her fists get tighter with each cracking word, her peds shift as she struggled to keep them planted. "If you're going to hit me, Arcee, just do it already. I've been expecting it for a long while now."

Arcee scoffed in disgust at the invitation, venom practically dripping off her glossa like Airachnid's could. "And give you an excuse to go running back to Optimus? I don't know what you did to him, what you said that made him think he cares about you, but I know it's all lies. That's all you're good for, lies and deception and making every single living thing around you hurt."

She was trying so hard to not cry as she hurled the insults. Airachnid knew if she glanced at the femme's face, she'd see the same kind of tenacity and desperation that let her survive where Tailgate perished. Or maybe she feared seeing the opposite, the wariness and questioning stare she fired at Elita the first time they saw each other in the dust of Iacon. She'd changed almost as much as Elita herself.

"Quite frankly, I don't care what you think of me, Arcee," Airachnid lied, still staring at those digits twitching so eagerly, so impatiently to claw at her. "I'm not going to stand here and plead for forgiveness because you and I both know that's beneath us."

"Why are you here, then?"

"To be with my sparkmate, and secure a future for my daughter."

Arcee tried to spit up a laugh, but all that came out was a lump of static. "Bullslag. You'd have killed that sparkling by now if she didn't get Optimus to pity you."

And now Airachnid was the one dulling her claws, hauling herself back from a lunge at Arcee's spark chamber. She sighed, grating through her vents, speaking slowly. "You know hating me won't bring Tailgate back. Just like how me killing Megatron won't bring my dead son back. But I'm going to do it anyway, because the look on his face when his spark bleeds out will be the only thing that can replace the nightmares of him."

"Then you know exactly how I wanna do the same to you," Arcee said quietly, dangerously.

"Well, there's nothing stopping you now," Airachnid told her, raising her optics to the coals of Arcee's for the first time. "Unless... you're worried you might actually be killing Elita as well."

The Autobot's optics flashed like a seizure, and she surged forwards so quickly Airachnid was expecting that to be the tipping point, the nanoklick before she finally felt her spark being torn out. But Arcee stopped just short of her, baring a warped face and snarling damnations. "You're not Elita. If you... if you were even half the femme she was, you would have never became a murderer. You're an abomination with her name slapped on. You're nothing but a fragging mockery of everything she stood for!"

"...You may be right about that," Airachnid conceded.

"I know I am." When Arcee whirled around, trudging back the way she'd come knowing there was nothing else Airachnid could say, Elita knew she had to have the last word.

"You joined the Autobots after the fall of Vos... when Chromia found you and Tailgate escaping the ruins. To you, it didn't matter what symbol a soldier showed, you hated all of them. You kicked and scratched anyone who came near you and almost took Ironhide's optic out. Only one bot was able to make you calm down... because she knew you were just frightened. You'd spent so long running from the fighting, you didn't know which side of it was good or bad."

Arcee had stopped, but she didn't turn back around until the other femme finished. Her optics were still burning, still full of hatred, but wide so the emotion wasn't so concentrated now. "...Is that all you have to say?" she whispered, most likely because she knew how weak she'd sound if she went any louder.

"Just one more thing... if you lay one digit on my daughter, the part of me that is still very much Airachnid will bury every piece of you at every corner of this wretched planet."

Each time Arcee blinked at her the optics filled more with coolant, but she was marching away again before any of it could spill down her faceplate. Airachnid wasn't so lucky, feeling the sting behind her lids the whole way to Optimus' quarters.

Chapter 54

Chapter Text

As if Megatron's ego wasn't already battered enough by Airachnid's impossible survival, the loss of the Star Sabre was enough to made his spark crackle with a fury Unicron would have been proud of, if he was still awake in the purple veins of his herald's chamber. Though by now some Decepticons were convinced Megatron and Unicron were just two sides of the same sword, equally deadly.

Knockout thought so, at least, and certainly so did Soundwave while he was chained to the table. The disgraced officer must have hoped he'd just been forgotten about by now, but Megatron was turning the med-bay dark with his scowl as he marched around its walls.

"Let's not waste any more time, Knockout," the warlord growled, throwing very frequent glares down at Soundwave that he didn't bother acknowledging. "I will get the Star Sabre, if I have to slice off Optimus Prime's entire servo for it!"

Knockout was sure he'd do that anyway just to spite the Prime, but he knew better than to even mutter that as he tried to calibrate Soundwave's demise. "Be patient, my liege. Ever since that Autobot break-in the Patch has been put under much tighter security. I need to wait until the software has fully initialised."

"Just get it done." Even though Megatron didn't grab him, Knockout knew how close he was to tearing into the walls. So with enough prayers to Primus, or Unicron, or whoever the Pit was still listening to him, he was finally met with the software interface on his screen. Now all that was left was to plug the transfer cable in, heavy in his hand as he looked underneath Soundwave's cold frame to find his data port and-

Groan when he found the port sealed shut, just as Soundwave's processor scans went dead on the monitor behind him.

"Oh, come on, Soundwave, now you're just being childish!" The medic hissed the curse in his vents, yet Megatron still turned around like he was magnetised to bad news.

"What is the problem, doctor?" he said slowly, each word a death threat in of itself that had Knockout cowering in the safety of the table.

"Well, m-my lord, somehow he's... managed to put himself into stasis lock. And since it's self-induced, it's very unlikely the reversal methods will-"

Knockout hesitantly raised himself up from under the table, only to find Megatron-sized hole torn in the wall instead of the warlord himself. "...Work." He let the cable fall to the ground and weighed up the benefits of trying to weld the hole shut or just welding Soundwave to the table in petty revenge.

Megatron, meanwhile, was brushing seared metal shavings off his frame as he carved a warpath through the Nemesis. Each step forward was a quake, each vent a snarl flung out from the Pit, and the only thing that spared a thousand poor drones from getting in his way was Dreadwing popping up at the end of the corridor.

"My lord?"

Megatron stopped like he'd just hit a wall, one that managed to knock some lucidity into his burning processor. "Dreadwing. At least there's one mech I can still count on around here..."

The Seeker kept his frame solid, though his fallen wings betrayed his unease as he saw how much of his leader was on the verge of exploding into dark fireballs from rage. "I thought you were overseeing the administration of the Psychic Patch on Soundwave?"

"I was, but... he is much more stubborn than I anticipated. He's managed to induce stasis in himself, and the Patch refuses to connect." His anger only built on top of itself as he recounted it, and Dreadwing had to resist the urge to take a step back.

"That is unfortunate, my liege. Why not simply terminate him, if you are certain of his betrayal?"

And Dreadwing wish he did step back as Megatron leaned in, fire in his vocaliser and lava in his glare. "Because in that processor, he knows something I don't. And I will not let him slip away to the Pit before getting it out of him."

Dreadwing felt his vocaliser stall, turning his words to incriminating static before he managed to reboot it. "Is there anything I can do to assist?" He would have given his wings if it meant he never had to see such hatred in a bot's face ever again, even that of his leader.

But thankfully it seemed to evaporate as Megatron straightened, looking elsewhere as if wondering himself where the intensity came from. "No, no, continue with your duties. I have a more immediate concern to be dealing with in any case... for once, the Autobots are dangerously close to exceeding us. I will not stand for it. I must undertake... drastic measures." He'd moved past Dreadwing by now, towards the corridor that eventually lead to the flight deck, but the Seeker felt a rare curiosity pulling him around.

"Such as, my lord?"

Megatron stopped as he turned back to face him. "Robbing the grave of a Prime," he confessed, though more as an unpleasant task rather than an act of shameless heresy. "Only then will I be given the power of the Forge, and then the power to defeat Optimus."

Usually Dreadwing would have offered to accompany him, but... his wings dropped low just at the thought. So with loyalty winning out against instincts screaming in his spark, he let Megatron go on as he continued on his way across the med-bay, pausing outside the huge rend in the wall that he was sure wasn't there before now. At first it was just to try figuring out how it ended up there, but then he heard something from beyond it that bolted him to the floor, hidden by the rest of the wall.

"Chop chop, Knockout, the skies have been missing me." However long he'd spent wandering Earth's wastes, Starscream still sounded as despicable as ever. Of all the things that had Dreadwing questioning Megatron's processor function, it was the decision to let the traitor live and, on top of that monumental blessing, give him a free T Cog that left him wondering what kind of effect Earth had on his leader.

At least Knockout was there as a rock for Starscream's waves of smugness to break up against into useless foam. "I'm sure they're missing you a lot more than any of us... if it were up to me, Starscream, I'd have you melted down into a T Cog."

"But it isn't up to you, is it? Megatron must have all his officers running at peak efficiency, after all... where has our exalted leader ran off to, anyway? I can see what direction he's gone..."

Dreadwing heard Knockout muffle a snort. "Knowing him, it will likely involve Dark Energon and a very, very bad idea. I'm sure you have experience of that, Starscream, minus the Dark Energon." Usually that kind of talk against Megatron would have had Dreadwing dragging the speaker into a stasis pod for a day, but eavesdropping had numbed his instincts of fealty, at least until he'd heard all they had to say.

Though it only took one mutter from Starscream barely breaching the edge of Dreadwing's audio range to make the Seeker's entire spark numb. "If only you knew, Knockout... Skyquake did, at least."

"What was that?" Knockout asked, as a slow realisation dawned on Dreadwing that would have sent him charging through the med-bay to tear Starscream's helm off if he wasn't still frozen to the ground by sheer will.

"Hm? Nothing, nothing, just... lamenting." Starscream was oblivious to the eruption barely holding itself together just a wall away, happily smug with all his failed experiments and acts against Primus.

"Well, don't strain yourself, or you won't have much energy left for sulking and scheming," Knockout said, and he seemed to finally make Starscream join Soundwave in stasis as that was the last sound Dreadwing heard before the distant whirr of a drill behind the thick thud of energon boiling in his helm, all over his shaking frame, that managed to thaw him free of shock.

In that instant, the nanoklick it took for him to turn and head for the ship's vault, Dreadwing made his decision. The Forge had been laying in there all this time, not even guarded by a lock when only three bots onboard were strong enough to even wield it. Dreadwing was included in that trio, yet he still struggled to pull the weapon from its suspension. Not just because of all his years of loyalty, the centuries spend toiling in Megatron's shadow only to find nothing at the end of the trail but a traitor standing over his brother's corpse, playing him like a puppet on Dark Energon strings. Rage, betrayal running deep in his cables, both gave him strength and weakened him with uncontrollable thoughts of staining the ship blue with Seeker energon. And then... then he would wait for Megatron. And with Solus Prime at his back, he'd demand answers and justice.

Or... perhaps he would seek it elsewhere. Away from the Nemesis, from Megatron, from all trace of Dark Energon.

"Out of all the bots I've expected to betray Megatron, I have to say you were never on that list."

Though shock laced through his frame, Dreadwing managed to keep a hold on the Forge as he turned towards Knockout's voice at the door of the vault. No doubt Starscream was abandoned in his stasis, and that Dreadwing's eavesdropping wasn't as subtle as he'd hoped.

"Do not attempt to stop me, Knockout." He tightened his claws around the divine hammer, but Knockout only shrugged.

"I won't. Though don't expect me to keep silent to Megatron when he starts interrogating us about your disappearance."

"Good." Dreadwing held the face of the Forge in his other hand as he marched slowly towards Knockout. "Let him know who plundered the vault. Let him know that he is running dangerously low on loyalty."

The medic gave no reply, but he moved aside as Dreadwing drew near, wincing slightly at the hurricane of his EM field whipping against him. Dreadwing followed Megatron's path to the flight deck, intent on leaving no Ground Bridge co-ordinates to betray him even more, but just before he reached the hallway junction he stopped. The first hint of Megatron's downward spiral into what he could only call madness came before the Seeker had even arrived on Earth and suddenly he wondered if perhaps he was just the last one to notice it.

"Knockout... did you know?"

The medic raised an eyeridge. "Know what?"

"Did you know Airachnid was carrying, before her exile?"

Knockout's optics widened visibly even with the distance between them. "...I did," he eventually confessed.

"Then perhaps you made the right choice," Dreadwing said, turning his back on the medic and the Decepticons.

Chapter 55

Chapter Text

Airachnid never told Optimus about her run-in with Arcee, no matter how much he asked about the coolant trails on her faceplate or the raw throb of her spark. She just wanted to forget it, pretend for just one more night that everything was fine. Optimus was at least willing to grant that blessing, picking up from where they'd left off in the hot spring and sending her off to another very blissful recharge in his servos.

"I don't think I ever want to leave this berth,” she told him, melting against his frame with the rest of her mind lost in the softness underneath hers, softness she hadn't realised she'd been missing until she felt it sink all around her.

"That makes two of us..." Optimus liked to stroke the edges of her crown, soothing any throbbing aches in her helm with just light touches and warm air from his vents. He used to do the same to the thinner pipes of her helm... Elita's helm. She was still getting used to separating the memories out, and Optimus treating her like no time at all passed between them didn't help with them all blending together. Though maybe that was exactly what he was trying to do, convincing her that Airachnid and Elita were just different names for the same bot.

In some ways, it was like how after the Matrix transformed him, Primus’ light bleeding through the seams of his armour and lancing from his optics. Orion became Optimus, and she was still just a dancing femme shot up further than she deserved to be. No matter what he said to her, it took her a long time to accept that Optimus was still Orion past the glamour of the Primes.

And now he'd become someone else again, that beautifully awkward mech she knew all but eroded away by the years, the war like sandpaper on his spark. “You've changed so much, Optimus…” She mumbled it, half out of a hope that he wouldn't hear, but his audios were always tuned to her voice.

“Am I still the mech you fell in love with?” he asked, rumbling against her helm.

“You always will be," she breathed.

They gave each other one last kiss before finally allowing themselves to return to reality; donning armour, straightening cables and heading out into the uncertain wild awaiting them in the foyer. As Airachnid stubbornly kept herself from looking at which Autobots were awake, Optimus only realised he’d neglected to inform the children of their new visitor when he saw them crowded together around their television, freezing in place with long glances at Airachnid; ones that she tried her best to ignore for now as Optimus approached Ratchet.

“Where is Arcee?” he asked, with relief hitting Airachnid hard on top of a strange sort of regret.

“Still in her room," the medic answered. "Can't say I blame her…”

Optimus let out a low grunt that she tried not to think as accusatory. “Airachnid, will you be comfortable here without me? Just for a little while?”

“Of course, Optimus,” she lied, watching him return to the block of rooms they'd just entered from, still watching when he turned a corner just to avoid the awkwardness of facing Ratchet with past hostility still hanging over them. But she couldn't keep staring into empty space, and when she turned around the medic only glanced at her in that cautious way as he watched his monitor.

"Did you rest well?" he asked after some silence.

"Yes... very well." Airachnid looked over the rest of the space, catching Smokescreen's optic while he sat with Wheeljack, seeing him flash a grin with a thumbs up at her (which made her slightly suspicious about whatever that Wrecker slagger was telling him). She didn't see Ratchet's face, but he seemed to smile past the huff of his vents.

“Are you… considering bringing Scorpia here?”

“If I believe she’ll be safer here, then yes..." She looked over Bumblebee trying so hard not to stare at her, then Bulkhead squinting skeptically at her. "I don't think Grimlock would fit through the Bridge, though,” she quipped.

That managed to get a laugh out of Ratchet, his usual scoffing bark that tried to be sarcastic but didn't quite succeed. “Well, the humans are keeping him on a leash for now... more or less." That was the only thing stopping Airachnid from sending herself back to the island, the human 'Fowler's' agreement to keep watch over her second family and Optimus' assurance that they'd be safe.

"Though, speaking of humans..." Ratchet trailed off in a mutter as he cast his optics over at the children, who were still examining Airachnid closely with those sharp and beady eyes. Jack especially forced a glare on her, though she thought it was a wasted effort on his part.

"Why do they stare at me?" she asked.

"They know who you are now," Ratchet said. "Who you really are. Though in the case of one of them... he may need extra convincing."

Just what Airachnid wanted, yet another confrontation with someone who hated her. "Is that really wise?"

"Jack is the eldest, and even then older in mind than in body. There's no guarantee he'll forgive you, but... it would at least tell him you're not out to hurt him."

Airachnid knew she'd need to pave some peace with the human at some point, and the Elita in her was trying to tell her it wouldn't be as difficult as she thought. Then again, he was Arcee's partner. And Optimus was most likely having a very similar conversation with the bitter femme... if he could do it, the least she could do was try.

"I don't need forgiveness anyway," she said, not knowing exactly what she did need. If she knew, would she be here among bots who just a vorn ago would have torn her apart? She sighed as she forced herself towards the humans, and the closer she got the further the other two drifted away from their friend as he kept glaring up at her.

"Jack," she said quietly with the slightest nod.

"What do you want?" She was almost impressed at how closely he managed to replicate Arcee's hatred in just one snapping sentence, especially without a vocaliser. Bending her legs, she tried to copy what she often saw Optimus do when speaking with those so much smaller. Up close, she could see how much Jack struggled not to flinch with his tiny body trembling.

"I know our last encounter was under... unfortunate circ*mstances," she said on the current of another sigh. "But looking back on it, I didn't understand why you were so desperate to save your carrier. Not until quite recently. I... severely underestimated how powerful that kind of bond is."

Jack's eyebrows wrestled with each other over rapidly blinking eyes. Whatever he was expecting, she hadn't delivered it. "So... what are you saying?" he asked.

"That in hindsight, I shouldn't have been so surprised at the lengths you went to to rescue her. And if I've known what I know now, I may not have even taken her." The whole situation, even looking at it as Airachnid, reminded her painfully of M.E.C.H taking her and Scorpia captive. She didn't want to even remember it.

Whether or not Jack was able to sense that, with his inferior human scanners, he seemed to accept what she said even if he wasn't in a position to believe it just yet. So he moved onto that question Elita had been trying to avoid. "Why did you want to hurt Arcee so much?"

Why did she? Even as Airachnid, she never saw her as a nemesis. Every Autobot back then was equal to her, they all begged and died the same way even if some took longer than others. She could have ran into any other Autobot she'd left sparkbroken and her need to torture wouldn't have changed.

"...She was the easiest of the Autobots to hunt," she said, the only conclusion she could come to. "And the easiest to torment. That was what my instincts told me. I don't have much love for hunting anymore nowadays, so your carrier need not hide herself from me."

She must have been right about humans having such weaker senses, from how Jack's eyes went wide and inevitably glanced over to where his mother had been shielding herself behind a stairwell. Airachnid watched her slowly inch out, as suspicious as her son, grateful at least that she didn't need to repeat her plea to her. But just as June reached Jack's side, there was another appearance in the foyer that interrupted anything Airachnid might have said.

"Jack!" The spider moved aside just as Arcee lunged for the human, kneeling and pulling him close even as he tried to escape her servos when the surprise wore off.

"It's okay, 'Cee! I'm fine, let go!"

Arcee was probably staring daggers across at her regardless, but Airachnid paid her no heed (partly because Optimus was watching). June had migrated closer to the Prime, away from Arcee's over-protectiveness, and Airachnid went close to the ground again to speak with the human. Surprisingly, June actually looked more scared than her son, but when Airachnid made no move to abduct her again she seemed to calm down.

"So... you're the reason Optimus was asking me about single parents," she said, betraying her nerves with a frequent rub of her elbow.

"Was he, now?" Airachnid looked up at Optimus, but he had his optics pointed sideways to avoid the guilt of gossip.

"Jack told me that you had a child now... a sparkling, I think they're called?"
"Correct." Airachnid felt herself easing as much as the human, motherly pride starting to bloom inside her, but again they were interrupted; this time by the hyperactive human sidling between them with big eyes.

"So... can I see the robot baby now?" Miko asked, and though Optimus looked down at her with disapproval Airachnid couldn't help but laugh. She nodded to Optimus, who put aside the steel glint on his expression as he relayed the agreement to Ratchet. The medic then finally completed the chain by bringing up the link to Scorpia's current babysitter.

"Agent Fowler, do you have the sparkling with you?" Optimus asked.

"Damn thing won't stop following me around and trying to bite my pant legs, so that's a yes," the human replied, batting away something off screen. "Just how the hell do you guys have kids, anyway?"

"Same way humans do, bud," Wheeljack called out. "Mostly by accident."

"Gross. Anyway, please tell me you'll be taking her back, cause I..." Fowler trailed off as he looked down, seeing something no-one else could. "...I think she just smiled at me! Aw, what a sweetie!"

Airachnid let her fangs pop out over a proud smirk. "Not even humans resist the sparkling charm." Scorpia giggled somewhere in Fowler's presence, and it took another few moments for the human to remember he was supposed to be talking as he quickly straightened himself again.

"Uh, you still wanting her, Prime?"

"If you don't mind, Agent Fowler."

"Aw, fine... we'll be over ASAP." The video link disappeared, with Miko going off squealing in excitement, but just as the screen went clear something else popped up.

"Incoming message from... Dreadwing?" Ratchet voiced everyone else's confusion as he read out the Neocybex, and Airachnid especially felt fear snap out in her spark. Even on Cybertron, Dreadwing had been one of Megatron's most trusted soldiers.

"What does it say?" Optimus asked, drawn behind Airachnid by the pit that suddenly yawned open in her chamber.

"Only that he wants to meet with us." Which in reality could have said anything, especially from a Decepticon. But Optimus only thought it over for a few moments before he made his decision.

"Everyone, take defensive formation," he called out, though he pointed to Wheeljack as the Wrecker stood up. "Wheeljack, you remain here."

In one nanoklick his expression went from 'mech in a weapon cache' to 'Seeker forced to walk on the ground'. "Like slag I will! I got more right than anyone else to jam that fragger's wings right up his-"

"And what if this is a trap to leave the base defenseless?" Optimus cut in, leaving the implications of Airachnid's fate unspoken.

Wheeljack still looked sour, bless him, but he sat back down like his aft was made of lead. "...Fair enough."

Airachnid watched the Autobots leave, noting that whatever Optimus had said to Arcee it stopped her throwing a poison glare over her shoulder at the spider.

xx

The fact that Dreadwing's choice of a meeting spot was so shrouded in mist, ambush spots stretching out in every direction, was enough to have Optimus' weapons already on full charge as he lead the way out of the Ground Bridge (he considered bringing the Star Sabre, but he thought it best to be saved for facing Megatron). Smokescreen and Arcee aimed diagonally while Bulkhead and Bumblebee covered behind them. When Dreadwing eventually did show, alone with something braced over his shoulders, he didn't seem surprised at the welcome party arranged for him.

"I am not here to fight you, Autobots," he called, hauling the mighty tool off his shoulders and slamming it into the ground between them. "I am here to give you this." The mist lingered around the golden handle, the silver face and the glowing blue highlights wreathed around it, but the artifact still shone like a white dwarf set into the earth.

“The Forge of Solus Prime?” Arcee asked quietly.

Bulkhead was more cynical than confused. "Could be rigged to blow..."

Optimus was still trying to believe that the Decepticon's latest advantage over them was now being offered to him like a scrap of energon. “What do you ask for in return?”

“...Only that you use it wisely," Dreadwing said, wings shrugged low enough that his grim tone could only be telling the truth. Even if it was a truth Optimus didn't comprehend, despite all the proof he had of Decepticons being more than their master's deeds.

"What has prompted this, Dreadwing?" the Prime asked.

"A shadow of disgrace has fallen upon the Decepticons... one made of Dark Energon," the Seeker confessed. "Anything with Unicron's taint running so deep within it is not something I wish to be part of. I give you this in the hope that Solus Prime might somehow purge the evil... and because I know I cannot make Megatron see reason on my own."

"If you can't go back to the Cons, where will you go?" Smokescreen asked, drawing a perplexed look from Dreadwing as if he hadn't noticed him standing there. Or maybe because he wasn't expecting having to answer that question.

"Cybertron, ruined colonies, anywhere far from here, where I can hide from vengeance. Both my own, and Megatron's," he answered, closing his optics over before turning around and starting to disappear back into the mist rapidly creeping in.

Smokescreen nudged Optimus' side with his blaster, rough whispers almost made loud from his excitement. "Optimus, let's get him on our side! We've already got Airachnid, and this one can fly!"

Optimus would have never considered any bot like Dreadwing as a potential traitor, but... if he'd already gone this far, he might as well have branded himself with the Autobot emblem. And there was no telling how useful he would be, with so much knowledge of the Nemesis and Megatron's plans, knowledge even Airachnid didn't have. He looked to his other teammates for approval, Arcee especially, but even she gave no argument. Maybe their conversation had exhausted her too much to give any.

"Or you could join us, Dreadwing," Optimus called to him, pulling him back from the edge of the mist. "Help us to avenge fallen mechs like your brother."

Wings still suppressed, Dreadwing did not turn as he thought over the offer. "...You would have an enemy, a traitor in your ranks?" he asked quietly, as if the haze was growing thick in his vents.

"You would not be the first to change where his spark lies," Optimus said, waiting patiently for Dreadwing to make his decision. Whether he'd slip away or trudge back, the Prime couldn't say... but he was glad when the latter happened and Dreadwing crossed the distance between them.

"...Until I see my home restored, placed in better hands, and my brother given justice, I shall work with you, Optimus," he decreed, optics somehow brighter in the fog. "After that, I make no promises."

It was as much Optimus could hope for, and perhaps what would be best in the long run. "Very well, Dreadwing."

Chapter 56

Chapter Text

When Fowler delivered Scorpia to the base, she became very popular very quickly.

"She's so cute I'm gonna cryyyyyy." After so much squealing beforehand, Miko could only give whispers as she wrapped her arms around the sparkling as big as her whole body. Scorpia didn't seem to to mind, chirping as she tried to stretch her own servos around the human. Jack and Rafael were just as curious, but they knew better than to interrupt Miko finally getting her wish for a robot baby. Even Wheeljack only crouched near her, watching Scorpia's wide optics peering over the human's shoulder.

"Well, she's... big. I suppose that's healthy," June said from the sidelines, standing next to Agent Fowler.

"Damn sharp teeth too," he added, reaching down to rub at his gnawed ankle. Behind them, Ratchet and Airachnid stood side by side as Scorpia soaked up the attention.

"At least they like her," Airachnid muttered, filing her fangs together.

"A child of any species is hard to not fawn over," Ratchet said, watching Scorpia tug curiously on Miko's ponytails.

"Even an enemy's child?" Airachnid asked, wondering if she'd ever look at her daughter without seeing Megatron's shadow somewhere behind her.

"Not an enemy any more. After all, she takes most after you..." The medic trailed off, averting his optics, instantly giving Airachnid suspicions that he was hiding something from her, something about Scorpia. But she'd had enough shattering secrets to piece together already, she didn't need another.

In any case, Optimus returned before she could start any kind of interrogation. Behind him, in the shadow of another giant relic, trickled in Smokescreen, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Arcee still suspended in her air of surprising calm...

And Dreadwing.

"What the slag is he doing here?!" Wheeljack formed a bristling wall in front of the returning Autobots, aiming his blaster even though he'd need to shoot through Bumblebee to even hit Dreadwing. It partly explained why the Seeker was wholly unbothered at the glowing threat.

"Lower your weapon, Wheeljack," Optimus commanded, doing the same with the hefty hammer balanced on his shoulders. Though the Wrecker wasn't known for obeying orders, he eventually pulled his blaster down when he realised he was outnumbered anyway. With everyone else equally confused, those who had humans instantly gravitating towards them, Optimus gave each of them one of his blanketing gazes, focusing especially on Airachnid and Ratchet as the medic pulled Scorpia out of the Seeker's line of sight.

"Dreadwing has decided to aid us in our efforts against Megatron," he announced.

"Only due to current circ*mstances," Dreadwing gruffly reminded him, sweeping an equally piercing glare over the team as they swelled around him, more suspicious than cautious. Airachnid tried to make herself into a shadow, until she knew what to make of Megatron's other most dangerous agent being so close to her. It seemed to work as Dreadwing simply ignored her, or perhaps just didn't notice she was there.

"Prime, would it kill you to call before you go off recruiting war machines?" Fowler groaned from somewhere at the front of the mass, more annoyed by the whole situation than anything else.

Dreadwing quirked an eyeridge at the human's complaining, leaning down slightly to spotlight his optics on him. "I remember you, fleshling." It was only an observation, but it was hard not to hear it as a threat when it came out of that scowl carved into the mech's face. Fowler was wise enough to back away behind the the relative safety of Smokescreen's legs, though Dreadwing's red stare still easily punched through the metal.

"And we're supposed to trust you?" Ratchet asked, snatching the Seeker's attention.

"If you wish," Dreadwing said. "Though apparently I'm not the only Decepticon you've taken in..." He'd known Airachnid was there the whole time from how quickly his glare snapped to her. Even as Optimus stepped between them, breaking the burning line of contact with the Forge dragging his servo down, Airachnid felt her spark still seizing itself.

"What do you know of Airachnid's defection?" Prime asked, with no small amount of warning in the question.

"You mean, what does Megatron know?" Dreadwing corrected, somewhat amused. "The fact that she is still alive was enough to enrage him. I doubt he cares much for other details."

Though her spark still spat out aches, Airachnid forced herself out of Optimus' shadow to face the Seeker herself. "And what about you, Dreadwing? What do you think of another traitor like yourself?"

He didn't seem shocked at being confronted, or even angered at her presence. He was a picture of pure passiveness as he answered. "I am impressed that you've survived this long." It was an edged compliment, one that suggested she should have been dead by now, something she already knew.

When it was clear Dreadwing had nothing more to add, Optimus turned towards the idle bots still guarding themselves from the former 'Cons optics. "Return to your duties, Autobots. Smokescreen, I will trust you to relay what you've learnt of the base to our new arrival."

"Got it, Optimus!" Smokescreen was fond of saluting to the Prime whenever he could, and he was already zooming off down the base's corridors with Dreadwing plodding behind.

"Stay away from my Wreckers or you're gonna regret it!" Miko hissed, pointing a lethal finger up at him as he walked past.

"Will I, now? I'm trembling in my casing," he deadpanned, not even glancing down at the human as she kept aiming at his back. It was only a slightly more hostile display than Wheeljack was giving, squeezing his glaring optics narrow as he growled under his vents.

"You believe this slag, Bulk?! The fragger kills Seaspray, kidnaps you, and now he's got a free snoopin' pass all over the damn base!"

Bulkhead only rumbled from his engine. "That's rich coming from someone who helped hide away another Con..."

"Hey, this is different and you know it-!" Wheeljack jabbed Bulkhead's chestplate and made himself a very likely target for being thrown into a wall, if not for Miko stepping in to shriek the two apart. Airachnid took advantage of the distraction to scoop up Scorpia from near Ratchet's peds, soothing her muffled whimpers as she listened to the exchange between the medic and the Prime.

"Optimus, doesn't this seem a little... convenient for you? One of Megatron's most loyal officers leaving him at the same time as him finding out Airachnid is with us?" Whether or not Ratchet noticed her in audio range, he didn't seem to mind her listening in. After all, she was part of the command circle.

"You suspect Dreadwing of working undercover?" Optimus asked.

"I didn't live this long by believing everything I was told."

"You have a point, old friend, but surely Dreadwing would not bring us such a powerful relic if he was only going to betray us." Optimus adjusted his grip on the Forge, gleaming gold under his palm and so similar to the Matrix Airachnid had seen, yet also much more alive. Maybe a Prime's touch is what brought it to life.

Ratchet was still skeptical as he eyed the relic. "I... suppose so... at least we can make proper use of the Forge."

Optimus nodded, hauling the hammer back over his shoulder (and narrowly avoiding accidentally smacking Wheeljack across the helm with its face). "For now I shall place it in the safety of the vaults with the Star Sabre." He turned to where Smokescreen and Dreadwing had disappeared into, as Airachnid tried to stop Scorpia squirming as she grabbed at the air towards him.

"You... did tell Smokescreen to stay away from the vaults, didn't you, Optimus?" Ratchet asked, causing Optimus to pause very suddenly down the corridor.

"...I did not." When he started moving again, it was with much more haste despite the hammer doing its best to slow him down. Airachnid liked to think that was Orion flashing back into existence, in all his awkward glory, while Ratchet just rolled his optics.

xx

Hours later Airachnid was still trying to piece together the day's events, trying to understand how a mech like Dreadwing could genuinely throw away years of allegiance, when he decided to sit himself down beside her. Everyone else had settled back into their own groups; Arcee with Jack and June, Bumblebee with Rafael and Scorpia chirping between them, Smokescreen with the hyperactive human trying to blend in with the Wreckers, and Optimus wearily discussing something with Fowler. Small wonder then that Dreadwing found himself in Airachnid's little corner of the base, tucked away from any questions other than those haunting their own processors.

"I see I've started a trend of treachery," she said quietly, after a stretch of appropriate silence.

Dreadwing let a growl hiss out his vents, but it was quiet. "We both have our reasons for leaving Megatron." Airachnid huffed in the closest thing she could offer to agreement, focusing on her claws as she scratched at the golden highlights. Her back legs were growing back, slowly, but they were still too short to effectively distract her.

"...You are very different from the femme I knew on Cybertron," Dreadwing confessed, again not quite as a compliment.

"I could say the same about you, one of Megatron's own bodyguards now sneaking behind his back." Airachnid didn't look at him, but she thought she felt air from his wings twitching.

"As I said... I had my reasons," he repeated.

"Does anyone need a reason to get away from him?" she asked, with more venom than she meant to let out. But thoughts of Megatron always filled her spark with something acidic.

She didn't know what to expect from Dreadwing, certainly not sympathy, but after a rumbling pause he gave small doses of it to her, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. "I know little about what he did, but... I am sorry if he made you suffer."

He'd arrived to Earth long after she fell pregnant, but it was obvious he knew what had happened in his absence. For all she knew, Megatron gloated about it. "I think you already know he did much more than that," she snarled, scarring her palm with how tightly her claws clenched together. She might have cut right through her own wrist if Dreadwing's low voice didn't make every inch of her frame freeze in place.

"I know much more now than I did before... Elita."

Hearing her name before from Autobots, those who knew who she was supposed to be, didn't prepare her for hearing it from a Decepticon. Especially when there was no hatred, no rightful malice behind it; only a dull sorrow.

"...Optimus told you?" Airachnid hated that she had to whisper, else she didn't know what her vocaliser might do.

"With all the sincerity of a mech reunited with his true love," Dreadwing said. "I suppose, then... that you are not a traitor for returning to the Autobots."

If that was supposed to make her feel better, it failed miserably. Though she didn't know why he'd want to make her feel better... or why he was even here. "What do you want, Dreadwing?" She forced himself to face him now, even with her helm hanging heavy from her neck.

He blinked, surprised at the question, or maybe because she managed to meet his optics. "To restore our home in rightful hands."

"I mean, what do you want right now, from speaking to me?"

The longest pause came as he tried to answer, letting his wings hang limp down his back as his optics started to dim. "...I want to know how you accept everything you once believed being revealed as nothing but a lie."

To Airachnid, there was far too much familiar hurt in his voice for him to be lying. "You're assuming I've managed to accept it... even now, I don't know if I'm talking as Elita or Airachnid. Or if there's any real difference between the two."

"I understand the feeling," Dreadwing intoned as she crossed her servos over her knees.

"How could you possibly understand any of that?" she muttered, turning her face away from him again.

"You forget I am only a half of one spark," Dreadwing said. "Even as a fledgling, I... questioned which parts of my spark were my own, and which were simply taken from my brother. Whether it was possible to have a thought that was purely my own and not just influenced by him." He huffed out bitter air, almost laughing to himself as Airachnid turned back to him. "Ironic... it was that same struggle that helped push me away from Megatron."

"You didn't know how much of what you believed was just taken from him." Airachnid recited from a thought she once had far too long ago to count. Dreadwing let his wings flutter once as he nodded.

"Precisely. You never had a choice in joining the Decepticons, but I did. Skyquake, too. We..." He stopped, grunted annoyance at himself before correcting. "I joined because at the time, I believed it was a just cause. I thought we could bring a better era to our home... before we ended up destroying it."

Talk of Cybertron gave Airachnid ideas far too wise to come from herself. "Megatron managed to fool many bots at first. Most who should have known better are dead now."

"No thanks to us..." Dreadwing suddenly became very weak through a long sigh, as if the weight of his own wings was crushing him. "We know both the allure and pain of death, Airac... Elita. Losing my brother was, still is, an endless ache. I can't imagine what losing a sparkling felt like."

Airachnid blinked, a flash of confusion before she realised that Megatron didn't know about Scorpia. The only child he knew about was the one he killed. Grief and relief fought each other in her spark, with the latter winning out as she watched Scorpia try to waddle towards her, something flapping in her hand. "At least I only lost one of them."

Dreadwing followed her bright gaze, optics widening as if he'd just seen a tiny ghost. "...Twins?"

Airachnid nodded, reaching out to pull Scorpia into her lap. The sparkling fixed Dreadwing with a wide stare, glittering curiosity up at this strange sour-winged bot, with red optics somehow recognisable to her. Or so Airachnid feared as Dreadwing studied her daughter, watched her chomp small fangs around the braid of wires dangling out her helm.

"She is quite lovely," he decided, twitching a smile as she chirred at him. Airachnid let motherhood melt in her spark as it always did, took the flimsy white sheet clutched in Scorpia's hand just as the sparkling's attention was pulled somewhere else, to Optimus standing over them both.

"Is everything alright, Airachnid?" he asked, casting glances aside at Dreadwing.

"Of course." She narrowed her optics up at him, a silent complaint of overprotectiveness, but Dreadwing had already risen to make room for the Prime. He nodded to them both before going on his way, wings held carefully aloft as he waded across the foyer to another realm of privacy.

With Optimus now beside her, Airachnid looked down at what Scorpia had been holding. Some kind of very thin datapad, crossed with thick lines of black and purple and gold... a crude scribble of herself with a smile far too big for her face. Another depiction of Optimus towered over her, thick blocks of red and blue making up his body.

"Miko has been teaching her how to use crayons," Optimus explained, tracing himself on the paper with a smile.

"What are crayons? Some kind of... radioactive weapon?" Airachnid wasn't sure why her question made Optimus laugh.

"No, they're for drawing. Making pictures like these." He peeled another sheet out from under the first, this one scrawled with Wheeljack next to a Grimlock that took up the rest of the whole page. And another, and another, most featuring Airachnid with Scorpia as a smudge next to her, others crowded with Autobots and one devoted to just Arcee as blue smudges. Though the last ones were something very different... they were pink. The shape of Airachnid, but pink. They looked more like Elita than she felt.

"...At least it will keep her busy," Airachnid said, handing the sheaves of paper to Optimus as Scorpia yanked one of them out, the drawing of Arcee. Then she clambered back down from her mother's lap, stumbling in the direction of the blue femme as she silently sat near Jack.

"What did you say to Arcee this morning, Optimus?" Airachnid asked, watching Scorpia tug on Arcee's leg.

"I told her what she needed to hear," he replied, also observing.

"Which was?"

Optimus waited until Arcee had accepted the sparkling's gift, a distant smile on her face, before answering. "An apology from Primus."

Chapter 57

Chapter Text

Knockout would have been lying to himself if he said he wasn't inspired by Dreadwing's easy betrayal. He even caught himself eyeing the other sealed away relics; the Apex Armour, despite how garish it would look on him, could shield him from even Megatron's vicious blows. Even the Resonance Blaster could serve him well against a squad of Vehicons at his heels.

But he still had work to finish before he could even dream of defection. And he didn't fool himself into thinking his survival odds were any better than Starscream's on a good day. Speaking of Starscream, he still had him (and Soundwave) both locked in stasis. 'Maybe if I do the T Cog transplant badly enough his spark will just give out halfway through,' he thought. Knockout was far too good at his job for that to be a possibility, but he could always hope.

He almost forgot about the giant tear in the med-bay's wall until he stumbled across it just as Dreadwing did, and saw Breakdown trying to sneak across the floor ('trying' being the operative word considering how he plodded with his peds) to where Soundwave lay dead to the world.

"The one time he shows up on time to work and I'm not even there..." Knockout scoffed under his vents, but resisted the urge to break the suspense. Whatever Breakdown was up to, it could be very lucrative for Knockout to know... and unlike Knockout, the former Wrecker was far too stupid to know he was being eavesdropped on.

"Soundwave... I dunno if you can hear me, and... well, we're not really friends or anything. But... I know, for whatever reason, you care about Airachnid like I do. So like you helped me, I'm gonna help you. Try to, at least." Breakdown rubbed his elbow nervously as he made the offer, moving his hand to the back of his helm before he had a slow-forming epiphany that had his digits snapping together in front of his wide optic. "I know! I'll... I'll try and get Laserbeak back. Even if he's just a pet, he must mean a lot to you. I think Megatron's got most of the database decoded anyway, so... he won't miss him much." He leaned into Soundwave's static frame as he gushed, as if expecting the Comm Chief to leap up and embrace him in gratitude. But all that came was a thrumming thud coming closer from the south side of the ship, loud enough that even Breakdown in his unfocused state took notice of it.

"Speaking of Megatron, I think he's on his way... scrap." He looked to each of the two exits available to him, glancing between them before he finally saw a third one offered from the rift in the wall that Knockout just managed to hide behind before Breakdown's optic picked him out. Though it was properly a moot effort, considering the Wrecker didn't even see the medic flattened against the intact wall as he rushed himself through the hole towards whatever safety he had from Megatron's wrath.

"...He really is an idiot," Knockout muttered, pulling himself the other way through the hole so he was already at ground zero when the tidal wave of warlord fury hit.

"KNOCKOUT!"

The medic was surprised Starscream wasn't stunned out of stasis by Megatron's bellow as his lord swelled into the room, clutching something Knockout didn't quite care to recognise. "Yes, my liege?"

Megatron stalked across the med-bay, casting glares over Soundwave and Starscream's frames laying opposite each other on their tables. "Would you care to enlighten me on where my fragging Second in Command is?!"

For another suicidal nanoklick, Knockout almost considered keeping his word and telling the truth, if only to save his own armour. But those red optics were not ones you could confess betrayal to. "I... witnessed Dreadwing heading to the ship's flight deck, but I don't know where he could be now."

Megatron slashed at the air with his denta, but turned away with a current of his hot rage swamping over Knockout as the medic sagged with relief. "One fragging disaster after another... was it before or after Airachnid left that everything started going to rust?"

Knockout couldn't tell if he was being rhetorical or not, and either way he couldn't think of an answer. He was entertaining a much more dangerous question, one that had been clawing at his processor since day one of her defection. "...Sir, why do you hate her so much?"

Like a tank's treads hitting a rock, Megatron paused quite suddenly, betraying his surprise. Even the grip on whatever he'd brought back from Cybertron faltered. "... Hate?" It was liked he'd been snapped from a trance as he shook his helm at the word. Even his optics seemed dimmer now, sapped of whatever had been making them burn. Knockout was grimly reminded of those times Unicron was infesting the warlord's spark.

"No, Knockout. I hate Optimus. I hate the council that made war a necessity. I don't hate Airachnid. I... " Megatron trailed off, distracted from whatever point he was trying to get across before the anger took hold again. But he was too late; his optics grew sharp again as he shook the brief sympathy out of his helm. "Never mind that. There's more important matters to address now." He slammed his servo down... or rather, he slammed a servo down on the table in front of Knockout.

"Is that... a severed limb?" he asked over a wave of nausea, despite how many operations he'd gone through with hardly a hitch from his tanks.

"From a Prime's grave," Megatron confirmed. "Liege Maximo's, to be precise. You will attach it to me. Now." He was securing himself to a surgical table before Knockout could even attempt to argue, what with Starscream still awaiting his operation. But he knew well where his priorities were best placed, so he only allowed himself a sigh as he prepared the transplant procedure (and tried not to look too closely at the stolen servo as its ancient paint peeled away). Megatron refused the offer of stasis lock, and he seemed to stare at his servo while Knockout oiled his saw for slicing through it. Even when the metal filings flew up with a screech and his empty fuel lines were cut open, he didn't shift his gaze or even growl in pain. Not even with his servo was limp, powerless, and the Prime's arm was welded its his place. It was only near the end of the procedure, when the dormant nerve nodes were being linked to his frame, that he looked elsewhere, over to where Soundwave was trapped in his own mind.

"It's quite funny," Megatron mused to himself over the bubbling sound of soldering, only the slightest edge to his voice. "Soundwave's sire took on Liege Maximo as his gladiator name. If I killed him now, it would be with his own father's hand..." He tensed each of the Prime's claws one by one, forming a jagged fist as Knockout finished the internal circuitry against all his common sense. When the monstrosity was done, Megatron took precious klicks to admire the new appendage further; watching the red gloss reflect his optics under the harsh med-bay lights, scoring the claws across his palm, just enough time for Knockout to move onto Starscream's gratefully innocent transplant.

The Seeker was still swimming under the effects of stasis when Megatron found that the Forge was gone, so at least he didn't feel too much pain when the warlord tested out his new servo by repeatedly imprinting his faceplate into the Nemesis' hull.

xx

With the humans returned to safety and the sun low outside the base, Optimus gathered his uneasy team and its newest addition in the foyer. Airachnid was content to keep herself outside the circle, watching Scorpia doodle away on sheets of paper Miko left behind for her. But Optimus knew she'd be listening closely, no matter how her processor seemed to be elsewhere.

"So, Dreadwing... we've let you in our little home," Ratchet said through his gritted, lingering suspicion. "Now for you to start talking."

"We would greatly appreciate all that you can tell us, Dreadwing," Optimus added, if only to soften the sour command. It didn't help improve the Seeker's expression.

"Very well," Dreadwing intoned after a tense pause. "I am unaware of what you might already know, so I shall simply reveal everything as I know it." He cast his optics across the Autobots gathered around, only passing over the Wrecker's glares to dismiss them. "After my arrival on Earth, it seemed that nothing was amiss. All that was known was that Airachnid fled after having a child, the sire... unknown. Megatron expected her to perish without the Decepticons, so he turned his focus to finding the Iacon relics. It was only after Airachnid's survival was discovered that he... became enraged, obsessed with finding her and whoever who might be giving her aid. His prime suspect for the latter was Soundwave."

Dreadwing seemed to anticipate the confusion that rippled through the assembled bots, as he paused to let the information seep in. The only one not surprised was Airachnid... though that might have just been part of her act, Optimus assumed. She didn't betray much past the mask she showed for Scorpia's sake, and perhaps her own as well.

"Why would Soundwave of all mechs be helpin' her?" Wheeljack asked, hostility forgotten in the wake of bewilderment.

"I do not know," Dreadwing said. "His motives were always unclear to me. Megatron was to perform a Cortical Psychic Patch to uncover the truth, but Soundwave was able to induce stasis on himself. As far as I know, he is still in a static state." He waited for more questions, and only continued when none came. "As for Megatron's plans, all I know is that he is in possession of a pair of very powerful relics, ones that Starscream brought to him to earn his favour back. Each one was identical, shaped like... some sort of key."

The realisation that hit Optimus was like an uppercut from Primus himself, a shock of cold terror around his spark that even Airachnid felt with her helm tugged up towards him. If finding Elita was a celebrated surprise, this was its polar opposite. Orion would have collapsed and even Optimus was struggling to stay composed knowing someone, anyone like Megatron had possession of the Autobots' only hope for returning to Cybertron.

"The Omega Keys..."

"The Omega what now?" Arcee asked.

"Ooh, ooh, I've heard of them!" Smokescreen chimed, shoving himself forwards to take Dreadwing's spotlight. "Alpha Trion mentioned them once, that they're, uh... a backup system for the planet! You get the keys, and then boom, everything's a-okay again." He crossed his servos and grinned like only a young mech could, something most soldiers had forgotten how to do this far into the war. Optimus wished he could share his hope, but unfortunately he knew it wasn't as simple as that. The details could come later, though.

"Four of such keys exist, and all are needed to activate the Omega Lock. The Lock is what restores the planet in the wake of disaster," the Prime explained, still failing to hide his grim tone.

Arcee was the first to piece together that which Optimus was already fearing. "If Megatron has two of them, that means the other two are still out there somewhere."

"And we must find them immediately," Optimus added. "Megatron knows what they are, and what kind of advantage they give him over us. If he succeeds in restoring Cybertron, he could only so easily establish himself as its tyrant."

Dreadwing seemed to accept that without argument, in fact he seemed most unsettled by the notion of a planet ruled by Megatron (though Bumblebee was a close second, struggling to stop his vocaliser bubbling over with beeps).

"Well, fittingly there's only two database files left unchecked," Ratchet said, bringing each of them up on his monitor. "One reads out like a co-ordinate set, same as the others, but the last... I have no idea what it's supposed to represent."

Optimus looked over the final file himself, but even he couldn't understand what it was. Pixelated lines filled the screen rather than coded numbers, like a broken jigsaw. "Keep trying to decode it, Ratchet," was all he could advise. "In the meantime, we must retrieve the third key before Megatron does."

Ratchet nodded, betraying weariness in a sigh. "I'll set up the Ground Bridge. It's in Egypt, so keep your windshields up. I'm not having sand tracked all over the place when you get back..."

As the medic trudged towards the controls, Dreadwing moved closer to Optimus. "If I may, Optimus, I would volunteer for this mission," he said. "I know what the key looks like firsthand. And... if Megatron is there, then I have a duty to face him."

Optimus was inclined to allow it, but Airachnid had brought herself to the Seeker's side. "If he's going, then so am I," she decided, fully expecting him to let her go.

"Airachnid, you are in no shape to fight against Megatron-"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Even with only a few of her legs available to her she managed to lift herself up enough that she was level with his chest. Dreadwing couldn't see the glare she was giving Optimus or see the glint of her fangs, but he instinctively took a step back as Optimus tried to defuse her. Though he'd never been able to discourage Elita from taking part in suicide missions and risky raids before, why would Airachnid be any different in her stubbornness?

"It means you'll only get yourself hurt," he said firmly, an argument that he put to her hundreds of times before with little to no results. "You'll have your chance to face him again, I promise. Just not now."

They stared each other down, linked sparks burning in their shared glares, but it seemed Optimus was more intent on keeping her alive than she was at getting her overdue revenge. She violently pulled her optics away, reluctantly setting herself back down on her heels.

"Fine... but when that chance comes, don't expect me to keep him alive," she huffed, bordering on a hiss.

"I don't," Optimus told her quietly, though perhaps too late as she stalked away in a bitter stride. Elita didn't hold her anger for long, but with Airachnid... he just didn't know what to expect. He tried to calm a sigh as he turned back to Dreadwing and his infinitely more predictable processor. "Can I truly trust you to retrieve this Omega Key?" he asked, hoping to see the answer in the Seeker's frame rather than words. Dreadwing's stance didn't shift, didn't betray any hidden motive he might have had as he scoffed.

"Prime, if I was planning on betraying you then I would have done it by now," he said curtly, swiftly turning away with a rush of air whistling through his wings portal. And before Optimus could even move away Smokescreen and Arcee promptly took the Seeker's place before him.

"Hey, I wanna go too, Optimus!" Smokescreen said, wringing a fist in his other hand. "I'll keep an optic on him for us all."

"Count me in as well," Arcee added, not quite as enthusiastic as the mech but confident enough that Optimus knew nothing would hamper her abilities.

"And I'll bring that Phase... thingy with me as well!" Smokescreen offered. "Let's see Megatron try and catch me when I'm slipping through walls!"

It was a good plan, but Optimus narrowed his optics down at the young mech. "Smokescreen, did I not instruct you to stay out of the relic vault?"

"Well, yeah, but... I was only looking, I swear!" Smokescreen kept his grin plastered but the dip of his door wings betrayed his guilt. Beside him Arcee's winglets fluttered in amusem*nt, and even Optimus might have smiled in better circ*mstances.

"You may both go," he said. "Take whatever you would deem necessary."

The two bots nodded, Smokescreen a little too eager to escape the Prime's probing gaze, and went to take their positions in front of the humming Ground Bridge. Only Dreadwing remained, trying to see where he'd fit in with the formation when something tapped on his ped. Scorpia flapped something up at him, and Dreadwing had to kneel to take the drawing carefully in his claws.

"What is this?" he asked, scanning the scribbled blue and yellow lines like they were an ancient language.

"Fwonywing!" Scorpia announced, pointing up at Dreadwing's face as he squinted at the giant black scowl she'd arced over his faceplate, the jagged attempts at his wings hanging down his back.

"...I don't frown that much," he grumbled, though he slipped the drawing into his subspace as he put himself at the head of the mission detail.

Chapter 58

Chapter Text

Even with the medic's warning, Dreadwing wasn't quite prepared for the flurry of sand that scraped against his faceplate as he stepped out from the safety of the Ground Bridge. Smokescreen wasn't hindered at all by the gritty lashes the wind threw up, storming ahead like he was diving into battle. Himself and Arcee had enough sense to stay back, even if it meant being near each other. Of all the Autobots he'd met that day, she was the hardest to measure... and therefore the most dangerous. For a femme who had to live with her archnemesis, knowing she was her leader's sparkmate, she looked astonishingly calm as she diligently scouted through the sand. Did Autobots just hide their anger better than Decepticons, or was she an exception? Whatever the case, Dreadwing kept a wide stretch of space between them both.

"I am surprised at how readily the Autobots have accepted my assistance," he said slowly, if only to fill the gusting silence and distract from Smokescreen's childish noises.

"I guess we're just desperate for the help," Arcee replied with a casual shrug, casting her optics around the barren dunes. "What do the keys look like again?"

"Gold metal, jagged like it has denta, with a thin handle. You will know what it is when we find it," Dreadwing answered, remembering the relics clearly as well as the greedy glint of Megatron's fangs as he held them.

"If we find it, more like..." Arcee scoffed as she kicked at a crest of sand, as if she hoped the key would be hiding underneath it, or more likely just because she needed to kick something. The force behind the sand flinging up in the air betrayed the storm beneath her smooth composure, the same one Dreadwing had been holding together ever since he left the Nemesis for the last time.

"May I ask a... personal question, Arcee?"

The femme glanced over her shoulder at the Seeker, confusion masking that anger more successfully than her forced peacefulness. "Go ahead, I guess."

"How do you stop yourself wanting to kill that who took another from you?"

The confusion cleared very quickly from Arcee's face, and she turned away with a sigh. "You mean, how do I hold back from tearing Airachnid's spark out?"

"I was referring to Starscream, but... I suppose the spider will do just as well," Dreadwing said, following behind Arcee as she seemed to wander aimlessly now with her helm pointed to the dusty ground.

"I guess... I just tell myself that killing her will send me to the same place she's heading to. And that place sure isn't the Allspark." A sound reasoning, but not one Dreadwing could use for himself. It seemed all Decepticons were fated for the Pit... though at least that meant he'd have an eternity for revenge against Starscream.

"I only wish to go wherever my brother now dwells," he intoned, hoping that Skyquake's spark managed to find rest somewhere even if his body still walked as one of Unicron's puppets. "Until then... I will finish whatever business I have left in this life."

If Arcee had anything to say to that, she kept it to herself. In fact she didn't speak again for another few long klicks, crouching in the sand and sifting her digits through the grains. "What was Airachnid like? In the Decepticons?"

It was the first time Dreadwing had heard her say the spider's name without a drop of venom. "...Practical," he answered, recalling stories he'd heard of Airachnid's duties rather than actual memories of her. In truth, he knew more about her as Elita than he did as Airachnid. "Her behavior was… typical for one forced under Megatron's command," he added.

"Optimus said you were the ones who got her off Archa Seven."

"A bounty hunter retrieved her," he corrected, also remembering how the spider seemed to regard everyone in Megatron's command room that day with a natural born hatred. "We just gave her something to do for the duration of the war."

Arcee scoffed again, rising from her knees and dusting off her palm against her knee. "And she did a great job, I'm sure..." Her low mutter didn't quite hide how her denta clamped tight together.

"You still hold a grudge against her?" Dreadwing asked.

"Same as the one you have against Starscream," she reasoned.

"Skyquake was taken from the one place he should have found peace,” he said with a sad shake of his helm. “Your partner was killed in a time where death was common, and necessary."

That made Arcee stop cold in the gritty wind, winglets flared like twin warning signals as she glared at Dreadwing. "Tailgate's death was necessary?"

"From Airachnid's view, yes," Dreadwing said cooly, almost amused at such a small bot trying to stare him down when he'd survived disapproval from the likes of Megatron. "She had a duty to extract information. You had a duty to protect it. No one can fault another for following orders."

Arcee's winglets jolted, limp flutters as her glare eventually died away with her anger. "...That's very similar to what Optimus told me," she confessed quietly.

"The Prime has more wisdom than most Decepticons would care to admit," Dreadwing told her, not quite admitting whether or not he counted among them. And before Arcee could decide for herself, Smokescreen summoned them.

"Hey, guuuuuys?" The two bots followed his voice through the grainy mist, abruptly arriving in front of a structure like sandstones piled on top of each other, tapering to a sharp point at its apex. Smokescreen stood outside the entrance, a slab of darkness leading into the rubble. "I dunno about you but if I was gonna hide the key to my planet's survival somewhere, I think I'd put it in a fancy pyramid," he suggested, all too smug at being the one to find it.

"You're not one of the Thirteen though, Smokescreen," Arcee pointed out, but she smiled as she shoved the mech on the shoulder to move past him-

But Dreadwing's hand on her shoulder stopped her from going into the shadows. "Wait." His voice was low, a whisper as his senses strained in the crackling evening. His wings tilted and flicked against a blanket of electric currents filling the air, and his audios snapped with static. "I sense... something approaching."

It was a verdict that arrived just as Megatron did, not by Ground Bridge but by his own engines, tremors breaking under his peds as he slammed into the sand not far behind them. Dreadwing didn't wait for him to rise up before he shoved Arcee into the dark haven ahead.

"Go, Autobot! Hide in the-"

But she struggled out of his grip, forcing herself by his side. "Like frag I will! Optimus sent us all out to fight Megatron, so we-" She stopped herself as Smokescreen happily took her place and pelted past her, and she groaned as he retreated into the pyramid. "So I'm not going anywhere."

Dreadwing didn't have the time or will to argue with her. "Then stay out of my way," he grunted, pulling his sword free of its sheathe as he marched out to meet the mech he once followed. Shock was the only thing that stopped Megatron immediately opening fire, his cannon forgotten by his side as his narrow optics hardened like cold coals. His new servo, almost glowing in the low light with the ghost of a Prime around it, seemed more stiff from rage rather than neglect.

"Dreadwing... what would your brother say, if he was alive to see you betray your leader?" Megatron seemed so focused on his former SIC that he didn't note Arcee just behind him as she slipped away between the shrouds of sand- or maybe she was just an exceptional sneak. Either way, Dreadwing stubbornly levelled his optics on Megatron's to keep her hidden.

"He would thank me for no longer fighting for the cause that disturbed his slumber in the Allspark," he told Megatron through clenched denta. "And he would tear out your own spark, knowing how you treat your own kin."

Megatron huffed at the threat, letting his own sword slide out under his heavy cannon. "Sentiment befits you no better than an Autobot badge does. What did they promise you? Justice? The return of our home? You of all bots should know they can't give you that, even with the Keys.” He stretched out his unarmed servo, the one stolen from the Primes, in an effort of amnesty. “End this foolish farce, Dreadwing, and I am willing to forgive this treachery. In return, Starscream will be yours to do as you wish with.”

As much as he wanted to believe it, Dreadwing instantly recognised the false charisma, the habitual lies of the mech he’d agreed to follow so long ago. His denta formed a sharp grimacing barrier for his growls. “And why on Cybertron would I trust the word of a rapist and a sparkling killer?”

Of all the things to respond to such a hostile question with, Megatron chose to grin. “You had no issue with doing so before.”

Either the reminder of his millennia-long complacency, the victorious glint of the warlord’s fangs or the thought of Scorpia, the last scrap of innocence their kind had left, coming from such a vile spark, compelled Dreadwing to drive his blade through his chamber… only one thing stopped him from charging forth through the sand; another bot already doing so.

“Now, Arcee!” The femme’s peds launched in a swirl of grit just as Dreadwing gave the command, carrying her through the air and bringing her blade down on Megatron's shoulder before he could turn around. The hard plating around his back deflected the brunt of the blow, but the tip found an armour seam to slice through that left his weaponised servo dangling uselessly from a stream of energon more purple than blue. Arcee rolled as she landed in front of Megatron, barely avoiding a savage and desperate swipe from the warlord as she retreated out of his reach, not quite fast enough to avoid an aching impact against her spinal strut. She'd done her part at least, now it was Dreadwing's turn to put him down while he was dazed.

“Not only did you let a grave defiler back into your trust… you became one yourself!” The Seeker became a razor whirlwind as he flared his wings and lunged with his sword over and over, blind with fury and grief as he took every flinching chance to strike Megatron. “Do you blame Unicron for it?” he bellowed. “Is his stain on your spark so great that you take no responsibility for what you've done?!”

Already scored with scars and dents, Megatron fell backwards as he tried to dodge a sweep from Dreadwing's blade, unable to aim his cannon or parry the blows. In one last attempt to save his spark he grabbed the edge of Dreadwing's sword with the Prime's hand before it could hit him. The edge should have carved through his palm, left him panting in agony as his claws fell off in a gush of energon… but Megatron managed to hold it off, fangs bared and ancient cables bulging as he fought against Dreadwing's force. It wasn't his own servo, so he couldn't feel pain from it even as it bled all over the sand. And it was much stronger than a mortal bot’s limb, pushing against Dreadwing's rage with only the slightest effort.

“Who said... Unicron had anything to do with it?” Megatron grunted, pushing himself back upright and already winning the lethal battle of strength before he pulled the blade aside, leaving the Seeker open to a strike from his other limp servo. He had to move his whole body to swing it against Dreadwing's helm, but it dazed him enough that he toppled backwards and the roles were quickly switched, Megatron standing over his former soldier with a blood drenched blade.

“Of all the mechs to have a soft spark for a wretch like Airachnid... I'd have thought you were better than that,” he said through a grunt like rusty gears grinding together in his vocaliser.

Dreadwing stared down his own sword turned against him, saw Arcee still lying limp not far away, and spat at Megatron's peds like Skyquake might have done to Starscream. “You never thought she was a wretch when you pined after her…”

Megatron's optics were too narrow and bright for their colour to be clear, a sickening glow of red or violet as he wrenched the sword back for the brutal final cleave-

"Yoo hoo, Megsy! Looking for this?" For the first time in the young mech’s life, Smokescreen's obnoxiousness actually proved useful. He stood at the foot of the pyramid behind them, unmarked and unfazed as he waved a Phase Shifter-clad servo to Megatron, letting the young moonlight hit the golden metal of the Omega Key in his hand.

"...What? How... NO!" Megatron's anger took a while to catch up with his processor, just long enough for Dreadwing to kick against his codpiece and snatch his sword back as it fell from his energon-soaked hand. The Seeker didn't waste any more time on the warlord, throwing Arcee over his shoulder as he pelted towards Smokescreen.

Though the femme was in no state to run just yet, she was still conscious enough to work her comm unit. "Ratchet, get us a Ground Bridge ASAP!" And to the medic’s credit there was a vortex ahead of them just a nanoklick later, all they had to do was reach it in one piece while Megatron tried to aim his cannon with just one servo. Wayward plasma blasts turned the sand around them to smoldering glass, almost hit the Bridge itself, but the Autobots were too far ahead for them to impact any further than just behind them.

Smokescreen seemed aware of this as he stopped just before the Bridge, either waiting for Dreadwing and Arcee to catch up or just wanting to gloat and enrage Megatron even more with another wave. "Bye bye!” He quickly realised his mistake when Megatron decided to pull his sword free of his servo and hurl it like a spear towards the Autobot, and if he didn't leap backwards in time just as the Bridge closed he might have ended up skewered, like the scrap of coloured paper that fluttered out of Dreadwing's subspace as he lunged towards the portal.

When Megatron went to retrieve his blade, calm only out of confusion, he only glanced once at the sparkling’s torn drawing before crushing it in his claws and throwing it aside with a scowl.

Chapter 59

Chapter Text

Wheeljack took longer than Airachnid expected to approach, seating himself next to her like Dreadwing aside from his tired, limp and lazy limbs dangling from hunched shoulders. Airachnid had always thought he looked rugged, weary but not weak. Now he just looked old.

"So how'd a dame like you end up in a place like this?" he asked, only some of the obvious exhaustion managing to break through his voice.

"Are you asking Airachnid or Elita?" she asked back, not sure how else to respond. Wheeljack didn't seem surprised at her doubt, or bothered by it as he shrugged.

"Can't really tell the difference between them," he admitted, rolling his neck with a hand rubbing the back of it. "Course, I... didn't know you as well when you were shelling out Autobot orders." He shrugged again, as if it was easier to let his frame speak instead of wasting words.

Airachnid remembered her days filling in for Optimus well enough, even through the aching haze of nostalgia, to smile at that. "I remember you, always on Ultra Magnus' detention list.”

"Hey, that guy had it out for me, not my fault!" Wheeljack jabbed his digit at the air as if he was defending himself against the universe itself. She knew that feeling well enough, once again simmering in her own thoughts.

"So you kept saying…” The excuses he piled on Optimus and Magnus and any commander who tried to rein him in, she almost wished she could remember some of them. But it was still so strange to think of all the soldiers and officers she'd once known as enemies as old friends instead… which is why she didn't like to dwell much on the concept, why she kept herself apart from the other natural Autobots. Wheeljack at least wasn't a natural Autobot… like all Wreckers, he had some classic Decepticon in him. And like all Wreckers, he refused to acknowledge it. If only she could make herself so blind to her own nature.

"I told ya' though, didn't I?" Wheeljack asked, a rough scrape against her hazy conscience.

"Told me what?" she asked back, forcing all the usual contemplations right to the back of her mind.

"That you and Prime would make a good couple." He grinned, almost smugly, as if he'd known all along who she really was. That would have explained why he was never scared of her, why for the longest time she felt like he was the only bot she couldn't just kill and be done with.

But why didn't that stop her from hurting everyone else? Why wasn't there some hesitation, some faint echo of familiarity when she had Arcee or any other number of former friends under her claws? She couldn't answer them, but she couldn't stop pleading with herself. It was a cycle that would have torn her apart… if not for Wheeljack having another question entirely to pull her out of it.

"...I ever tell you I got a kid of my own?"

Airachnid blinked, legs snapping out in shock and almost grazing the Wrecker’s already scuffed armour. "Since when?"

"Just before I landed on this rock. Guess my firewalls ain't as good as they once were..." He chuckled, a small sound from the cavern of his spark, as he pulled something from his subspace. The disk was just smaller than his palm, a holographic projector that beamed out a wavering picture of a sparkling shockingly similar to Scorpia. "Took this just before I... before I left her with one of my Wrecker buddies. Her name’s Strongarm."

She couldn't have been older than a few breems in that picture, optics still glued shut and protoform still damp and soft. But even looking so young she still had her sire's features, the hard curl of her tiny mouth and the tight shrug of her weak shoulders around her face, as if protecting herself from something. Airachnid only realised just how small Strongarm really was when she noticed the blanket around her was actually Wheeljack's own servos.

"She's gorgeous…” Airachnid had to whisper to stop her vocaliser straining. Still her claws twitched, her spark pining for her own daughter even though she was only a short walk away, watched over by the beeping scout and the ailing Wrecker. She shook herself free of the need, settling her legs back where they belonged. “Who’s her carrier?" she asked.

Wheeljack had been looking at the picture with the soft love of a far away sire, but now his expression turned to steel. "...A femme that didn't deserve her,” he answered as he closed the projector. There was enough bitterness there to make Airachnid curious, but masked with enough hurt to stop her probing further. Instead she glanced over her shoulder at where Scorpia rolled in Bumblebee’s lap, copying his chirps with splutters from her glossa while Bulkhead made an enclosure with his massive servos.

"...If we get through this, maybe she can have a playdate with Scorpia,” she mused, the first time she'd looked to the future instead of lamenting on the lost past.

Wheeljack’s smile returned halfway, a hopeful huff leaving his vents as he held the projector tightly. “If we get through this… I'll look forward to it.” He pocketed his memory of Strongarm, pushed himself up with servos creaking as he stretched them out. “In the meantime, think I'll drop in on Grimlock, see if he's eaten any of Fowler's Friendly Firesquad. You wanna come?"

She almost said yes, but eventually just shook her helm. "I think it's best that I stay here. Tell him I said hello."

Wheeljack nodded, scarred smile and optics brighter now, his frame seemingly cured of its fatigue just by resting beside her. Though maybe the Wrecker was just eager to get away from Optimus as he approached, abandoning whatever work he tried to occupy himself with. He stopped before her, watching Wheeljack retreat before taking his place beside her like a heavy ghost haunting her.

"Are you alright?" It was a question he seemed to ask purely out of habit.

"I'd feel better if my claws were around Megatron's neck cables right now," she said, barely masking bitterness at being confined when her vengeance was just a Ground Bridge away. She'd have slipped through it herself if she wasn't so sure someone would have stopped her, most likely Optimus himself, whether or not he really did trust her.

The Prime didn't speak for a while, not until after she lay her sunken helm on her curled-up knees. "You know the real reason I didn't let you after Megatron?"

"What would that be, Optimus?" she asked numbly, expecting a wisdom-weighted lecture on the value of patience or something equally as naive and useless and quintessentially Autobot.

Her sparkmate did not meet that expectation, though. "The same reason I didn't allow myself to go. We would have both destroyed him," he answered, strangely solemn and bitter at the same time. As if slicing up the only bot worse than her in the galaxy would have been a bad thing, but for the wrong reasons.

"...I don't understand you sometimes, Optimus," Airachnid admitted, unfolding her knees from her chest with a hand over her neglected subspace. Optimus took that hand in his own before she could reach for the only thing she did understand about him, the last relic she had of Cybertron and the femme she used to be.

"Do you believe that I love you?" he asked, as if he could see the meteorite shard burning warmly in her subspace, almost rivaling the soft simmer of his optics.

"Of course."

"Then what else is there to understand?" And how could she argue with a tone like that, with lips still so tender against her own? She could feel the warm flow of air from his mouth, that searching current reaching deep to her fluttering spark and covering it wholly. His kisses weren't quite the same as those she remembered, but that may have been her fault. Elita didn't have acid on her glossa, fangs between her lips, so Optimus never had to be careful with her. And as much as Airachnid wanted to reach as deep as he did, she held back. She didn't quite trust herself enough yet, to stay calm while her spark was an unfamiliar inferno, while she struggled to keep her claws still between his gentle thick digits and while her legs fought the urge to pull his body closer to her own.

At least Ratchet's return interrupted things before they could go any further, for better or worse.

"Oh, get a room, you two..." The medic's tired scoff had both bots springing apart, more from shock at his appearance than shame at being caught. Optimus waited until his back was turned before sneaking another kiss to her, but Ratchet was too busy operating the Ground Bridge to berate them any further anyway. From the vortex at the other end of the base Smokescreen and Dreadwing came barreling through, with Arcee draped over the Seeker's shoulder, and it winked out as they skidded to a stop before the other Autobots gathering around them.

"Mission... accomplished," Dreadwing intoned through hard vents, pulling Arcee down from his shoulder and supporting her wobbling frame.

"Nailed it!" Smokescreen cheered, holding up the Omega Key and flipping it between his digits like it was a trinket (before Optimus wisely snatched it out of his hand).

"What happened to Arcee?" Ratchet asked, taking over from Dreadwing with a servo around her waist while Bumblebee supported her shoulders.

"Got smacked disabling Megatron's plasma cannon… but I'll be fine." She tried to shrug off the assistance, but was still stumbling instead of walking as she was herded towards the med bay. Bulkhead quipped something about "not being the only cripple in the base" as Airachnid watched her limp away with a sour knowledge glazing her optics over; for once not because of who she was looking at, instead because of who she was thinking of.

"So Megatron was there..."

Dreadwing followed her stare, his mouth pressed into an even harder grim line as his vocaliser rumbled behind it. "I sensed desperation in his movements, the way he tried to bargain for my return... the more he believes that he will lose in the end, the more reckless he will become."

Where Megatron was concerned, that was obvious to any former Decepticon. A reckless warlord was an infinitely deadly one... knowing that, Airachnid scooped Scorpia up from the ground into the safety of her servos before she could try waddling after Arcee.

“Well, only one key left to find now!" Smokescreen said, leaning against Dreadwing and not realising the scowling Seeker clicked the Phase Shifter on his wrist until he ended up toppling right through his frame.

“Actually, Smokescreen, while you were gone I set out to further decrypt the final data set," Optimus said as the rookie tried to not make himself look any more ridiculous. Airachnid reached out a leg that he could use to pull himself up, masking the lilts of laughter over Scorpia's giggles, while Optimus placed himself in front of the base's main console.

"It is not a set of co-ordinates like the others..." He passed his digits over the keyboard until a grainy bundle of blue pixels spread over the screen. "It is an image.”

And the image slowly came into further focus, resolving into a sharp and familiar outline as the Autobots studied it, especially familiar to one in particular...

"Hey, it looks kinda like me!" Smokescreen blurted out a full nanoklick after everyone else had already realised that. At least he managed to figure out what it meant if there was an Omega Key inside him a little bit faster, from how quickly his enthusiasm drained away. "I-I mean... I've never seen that handsome mech before in my life-"

"Just get your aft in here, Smokescreen," Ratchet called out from the med bay.

"Yessir..."

xx

Even as the harsh sand whipping his frame turned to glass from the heat of his anger, Megatron didn't budge from where he'd lost his key, his literal key to claiming Cybertron for himself. He'd failed the first time, leaving himself nothing but ashes and corpses to rule over... this time, he'd orchestrate Cybertron's rebirth. He'd carve the planet's path from the very beginning.

That dream was all that stopped him giving up, the hope burning acidic and raw in the purple umbra of his spark, so bright that he doubted it was all his own desire... that doubt made him look again at the scraps of dusty paper still littered over his peds, too tattered now for him to re-examine. Yet he still stared, wondering why Dreadwing had such a useless thing in his subspace, until a dull beep against the roar of wind in his audios pulled him back to reality.

"Lord Megatron, there has been a development that requires your intervention." It was a drone's voice, the standard emotionless statement that Megatron never bothered to differentiate between different models.

"What sort of 'development'?" Megatron growled, almost impressing himself at managing to control the near-constant caustic anger flowing hot under his protoform.

"Following your departure, Starscream had retreated to a location somewhere in Earth's far southern hemisphere, with the Apex Armour in his possession. A squadron of drones followed him, suspecting that he had treachery planned, and... well, they have not returned. We were hesitant to take further action without your command."

Megatron clenched his scarred claws, catching wisps of sand between them. An unexpected betrayal followed immediately by a painfully predictable one. "Has the Ground Bridge been repaired yet?"

"Negative, my liege, we are still calibrating-"

"Then supply the co-ordinates of this location and I will investigate it myself!"

Whether out of fear of being to slow or due to some hardwired instinct, the drone didn't hesitate in answering. Megatron fed the co-ordinates into his navigation unit and went chasing through the gritty maelstrom after them.

"The only ones who follow orders around here are the blasted drones... has it really come to the point where loyalty must be programmed?" It was useless musing, but it helped to vent his anger before he entered the frozen slipstreams around the Earth's south pole, melting through the icy clouds as his spark hardened against the cold. Frost-crusted oceans and wastelands of snow instead of sand disappeared beneath him, the distance between his fist and Starscream's wretched face dissolving with every nanoklick.

Though even as he contemplated beating the betrayal out of his pathetic soldier, he was surprised at how the Seeker didn't even try to hide himself on the icy island he'd taken refuge on.

"Starscream!" Even encased in the Apex Armour it was obvious he was already terrified before Megatron bellowed after him; a mech didn't shake that much just from the cold. "What manner of fragging half-processed slagbrained treachery is this?!"

Starscream only half paid attention to the warlord rampaging after him, letting his optics dart elsewhere around the island and its sharp forests of frozen rock. "M-My lord... I was not planning betrayal! I... I was undertaking a personal scout of this area! Following... reports of mysterious signals originating from it!" The Seeker was hardly adept at lying, but this attempt was the most laughable Megatron had ever witnessed.

"Mysterious signals..." Megatron would have spat if his mouth wasn't filled with dry frost and disgust. "Is that what you call stealing my relics, running away like a coward? Only you would be stupid enough to forsake your amnesty so soon after it was granted to you!"

The Apex Armour only barely brought the Seeker to height with Megatron, but Starscream could have loomed over him in heels like spears and he would have still cowered under Megatron's glare. He pressed his back against a rock spire as Megatron marched onwards, putting on a very good show of terror and self-pity...

But it was a show that he couldn't keep up as a shadow started to fall over Megatron, one that greatly amused the Seeker for some reason as he started cackling behind the glass his pod. "You think me stupid, my liege? You are the one who just walked into an ambush!"

Megatron paused, again stilled by confusion as the shadow started to narrow over him. By the time he looked up it had already become a cone of impact, a screeching mass of metal suddenly descended on bladed wings. It pinned him to the hard ground, grating him against the rocks and digging deep into his armour with frantic strikes. Red optics, golden armour flashing in the ice, razors glinting as they gouged at him; by the time Megatron managed to escape from the whirlwind he was already covered in cuts. His heavy vents only made the wounds bleed more, but the cold air froze the energon as it bubbled out.

"What... on Cybertron-?!"

The wild beast returned to its perch at the top of the spire, like a Seeker adorned in bloodied knives and rusted metal and a predatory glare, so similar to its relative still screeching with laughter below.

"BEHOLD, MEGATRON!" Starscream still managed to keep his dramatic flair with the bulk of the Apex Armour, throwing his servos out as two more creatures emerged at either side of him, bristling with horns and plates and even harder than the frozen earth around them. "I have discovered something mightier than even your Dark Energon... DINOBOTS!"

Megatron had already scanned the so-called Dinobots before Starscream announced them, calculated his chances at surviving against the three, instantly rejecting the thought of retreating. Not when his sword was already drawn, his dangling servo forced back into its socket as the nanites stitched his weaponry circuits back together. Dreadwing's betrayal had hurt... but Starscream's would only give him a good excuse to send him to the Pit when he won.

"What are they waiting for, then? Another Predacon era?" This time Megatron did spit, energon and bile hitting the ground just short of Starscream's peds. "Or maybe they're just wondering why on Earth they're taking orders from a rat with wings?"

The insult at least wiped the insipid grin from Starscream's face before he gave the attack order.

Chapter 60

Chapter Text

For all Smokescreen whined and flinched within the med bay (only putting a brave face on when he thought the femmes were looking over), it was laughably simple to extract the Omega Key hidden within his frame. Whatever Alpha Trion was thinking with such a risk, the odds of Smokescreen even landing on Earth and finding the Autobots so astronomically low, at least it meant Megatron never had a chance of retrieving the key for himself. Though it wasn't the first miracle Optimus had been blessed with; finding Elita again after so long must have been even more improbable.

And he didn't even want to think of how unlikely it was that, of all Decepticons on Earth, Dreadwing would change where his spark had lain for more centuries than he could still remember. Even more so when Optimus realised that, ever since Smokescreen's operation, he hadn't seen the Seeker in the foyer. Arcee, still nursing her wounds, noted that she glanced him trying to cram his wings inside the elevator to the plateau, but it seemed no one was overly concerned about him. But the night was only getting darker, and Optimus knew he couldn't let it slip by in sleep just yet.

He turned to Airachnid as she cradled her yawning daughter, trying to suppress one herself. "Airachnid, take yourself and Scorpia to my quarters. I will join you once I am ready."

Even after explaining himself she still spent the rest of the evening looking scorned, not that he could blame her. But her legs, bundled up at her back, betrayed that she wasn't as angry as she looked.

"...You still don't trust him?" she asked after a pause, one that was all she needed to gauge what he was planning to do. Or maybe she saw it in his spark. Nowadays it was hard to differentiate what she knew from him and what she knew by pure instinct. It was almost jarring, to see how she could still make him hesitate with their bond so neglected until now.

"It is no longer trust that I am concerned with," he answered.

She looked up at him for a few longer nanoklicks, almost like Scorpia often did with her unbreachable curiosity, before she just nodded. "Don't be too long."

Optimus parted with a faint kiss on her skeptical frown, making his lonely way to the elevator. Dreadwing must have heard his approach, the whirr and grind of the winches carrying the Prime upwards, but he didn't move at all from his perch at the edge of the plateau. When Optimus saw him he half-thought he was looking at a statue, some ancient guardian saved from the rust of centuries by a casing of stone. The wind made faint whistles through the gaps of his wings, and their minute flickering was the only movement Dreadwing betrayed as Optimus brought himself beside him.

"Earth has lovely skies,” the Seeker said numbly, optics pinned upwards at the scattered darkness. His wings seemed to struggle against their joints the longer he looked, fighting the urge to take off and coast on those cosmic clouds. On Cybertron it was often rumoured a Seeker couldn't survive if they couldn't fly, for then they wouldn't be a Seeker at all.

"Not even Iacon had such a showcase of stars,” Optimus added. “May I join you?"

Dreadwing’s claws tightened, but he did not decline. “I am not planning an escape, if that is what concerns you enough to be here.”

“I know that,” was all Optimus said as he lowered himself to sit with him. The horizon ahead was a stark white line of moonlight separating ground from sky, almost as blatant as the line between grounders and Seekers in Cybertron’s Golden Age. There was no such thing as a low-caste Seeker, and surely one of Dreadwing's skills would have lived a comfortable life already before Megatron’s empty offers for equality. Yet Dreadwing did not carry the pride of his kind any more. Sitting there over the plateau, dangling above the barren ground rather than soaring, he carried only regret. Maybe that was why he refused to fly, if it was as heavy as his tone.

"The mech that I fought today is not the same one I agreed to follow into the Allspark. Certainly not the same one my brother would have gladly died for." He didn't sound disappointed, as if he was hoping to be given proof that leaving the Decepticons was the right decision.

“Neither is he the mech I once befriended,” Optimus admitted, something he'd long since accepted by now. “Sometimes I doubt if he ever truly was… what compelled you to follow Megatron so long ago, Dreadwing?" What had gone so differently between them, for Optimus to know instantly what the Decepticons took too long to realise; that all Megatron had to offer was death?

At least Dreadwing didn't seem to be in denial anymore as he scoffed. "The same promises that every tyrant makes,” he answered. “A better society, one built on justice over the ruins of the old. A planet we-” He caught himself treating his brother as if he was alive, with a cough of cold static correcting his mistake. “...A planet I would be proud to fly over. I was not from the same depths he'd been born into, but I knew what place he'd come from. I thought he would have wanted to destroy that place… not just drag everyone else down there with him.” Dreadwing sighed, casting optics again to the sky in a desperate sense. “It all seems so pointless now, doesn't it? In trying to save our home, we only lost it forever.”

“Not forever,” Optimus hoped. “Not for much longer.”

Dreadwing nodded only once at the reminder. “The Omega Keys… if they work. If we can keep them in the right hands. I am too well acquainted with tragedy to remain hopeful on that...” He blinked a sad red eulogy, turning a low helm towards Optimus. “But with the fortune Primus has given you, Prime, perhaps he will be kind to us this one last time.”

“...I have more than just Primus to be grateful to,” Optimus said, not expecting anyone with a Decepticon badge to have such faith in him of all bots.

Again, Dreadwing nodded only once, turning back to the lofty dark heavens just out of his reach. "I will not keep you here longer, Optimus. I know you will be missing your sparkmate."

The ache in Optimus spark was from more than just the distance between him and Airachnid, but he knew his business here was finished for now. He pushed himself back up, and seeing the horizon from a better height he only now saw the sunlight starting to bleed over it, the bruises of morning starting to show through. He'd spent far longer sitting with Dreadwing than he first thought. He left the Seeker to his thoughts and fading stars with one last musing to occupy him for the dying night.

"I do not expect you to see the Autobots as friends, Dreadwing... but I do hope you can find a better home on our Cybertron."

"...I hope so too, Prime,” Dreadwing said back quietly, only when Optimus had reached the elevator.

The base seemed colder than it should have been after the hours spent up top, everywhere except his quarters. In that safe warmth he found Airachnid and Scorpia curled together on one side of his berth, so small on the colossal surface, smaller still in his close embrace as he held them both gratefully to his chest.

xx

Megatron may have lacked use of his plasma cannon, dazed from fatigue with the once invigorating rush of fury in his fuel lines now more like heavy sludge keeping him weighed down, but he still had advantage over two of the Dinobots. He could still fly.

The winged Dino struggled to keep up with its feeble flapping, unable to match the speed of Megatron's engines and thrusters pushing themselves over their limits, hauling his fans into overdrive just to carry him out of range of the raking claws below. The frozen air suspended in the clouds hit him like a wall as he smashed through, slowing him enough to let him survey the battleground before his plummet back to the blinding white Earth.

The winged beast saw him reappear out of nowhere, but Megatron had already moved into a nosedive to clip past the ground-dwelling creatures, sharply turning so he could slam against the most dangerous looking one with horns rearing out of his helm’s wide crest. His armour cracked against one of them, but the Dinobot himself spilled across the hard ice, almost stumbling into the water all around them while Megatron carried himself another safe distance away.

One temporarily down with two to go… but his tanks were drained dry. He was running on vorn-old rations and coolant now, with another much darker kind of energy starting to leech from his spark in place of pure fuel. A voice that wasn't all his own bellowed out to the advancing Dinobots, far stronger than he should have been able to muster.

“You call yourself mighty beasts?! Yet you allow yourselves to be treated like nothing more than puppets, by a mech who cowers behind ancient trinkets!" A claw ripped through the air, hovering a sharp accusation at Starscream still hiding in the Apex Armour’s prison. And the sweeping bellow from the pit of his chamber cracked like a whip against the beasts, forcing them just a step backwards. The Dinobots’ heads heaved themselves towards Starscream as well, sunken in the ground and filling the air with rust-laden grunts, the same challenging steel in their narrow and simple optics.

Understandably, even with the Armour hiding his wings and shakes, Starscream looked even less confident now. “What are you waiting for, you half-thawed imbeciles?! He's right there, destroy him!”

The remaining grounded Dinobot, spinal strut bristling with plates jutting out like an armoured forest, was the first to try and make his vocaliser good for something other than growls. "Snarl... no... follow weak! Snarl...follow king!"

Yet even as he made the declaration, Megatron's target had regained his balance with only some ice stains on his back, completely unhindered from butting his horns brutally against his companion. "Snarl no king, Slag king!" His grunts thundered over the clank of clawed peds thumping the ice underneath in a static stampede.

And from above, the winged Dinobot had dropped down to snap his wings at the warring pair. "No need king! We all king!” he cawed.

"ENOUGH!" Again Megatron's alien call was like a war cry over leagues, crashing hard into the Dinobots and even making Starscream flinch. Wherever his command came from, the hot rush in his empty fuel lines and something that couldn't have been energon screaming around his boiling helm, he knew he could use it better than his weapons. If he could not fight these monsters… he would control them instead.

"I am your king. And I order you… to turn on your false master.”

Even before the command had fully left Megatron's vocaliser Starscream knew his fate, already panting and whining in snatches of pitiful screeching, almost suffocating in his bubble. “W-W-What?! No, no! Y-You can’t-!”

With a rear of his head Slag threw him backwards like a sparkling swatting at a doll, horns flipping him so he landed on his front and saw his smack against the ground. As he wearily lifted his cracked visor all he saw was Snarl’s tail viciously sweeping towards him to pierce the Armour’s seams with glittering spikes. And again Slag was gouging horns against the metal, scoring it deeply and leaving Starscream petrified in its shell. Even if he managed to escape and regain use of his wings he would have been snatched out of the air, by the Dinobot already soaring down to do just that. He couldn't pierce the metal, but as his claws scratched wildly they managed to push into the broken glass over Starscream’s face. Through the hole Megatron could hear the Seeker’s pleas for mercy so clearly, the manic screams and whimpering as he was forced out of the Apex Armour by hooked claws.

"Swoop smash birdy?" the winged Dino chirped, pinning Starscream down with a thorned ped curled around his neck, almost choking out his cries.

"NO! No, no no, p-please, I BEG YOU!"

Through the maze of pitted metal, spikes and spears and glinting razors surrounding the Seeker, Megatron was glad to see his optics so dull and his face twisted with the terror he brought upon himself. How he wanted to see the remains of the wretch’s spark littered on the ice, his wings in shreds and his tormenting vocaliser thrown out to the ocean… but that looming presence in his spark wouldn't let him. Not just yet.

"Let him live,” Megatron said reluctantly. “For now."

As if sensing the disapproval at his own order, the Dinobots took their time in standing down, eventually letting Starscream scramble back upwards only for him to throw himself down again at Megatron's peds. “M-Master, please, I… I only sought to enlist them for the good of the Decepticons-!”

“Spare me your sad excuses for once in your life, Starscream,” Megatron groaned, completely disinterested now that he knew he had to wait to spill the traitor’s guts. “You will leave, and you will return with the Nemesis. Understand?”

Starscream nodded wildly, not meeting the warlord’s glare as he tried to push himself upright before he embarrassed himself any further. “Y-Yes, my liege, at once!” He turned, saw the Dinobots still bristling at him, and practically leapt into the dark air before deploying his wings and deserting the site of his complete failure. Whether or not he actually returned did not concern Megatron, all he wanted was the chance to evaluate these Dinobots properly.

“Slag, Snarl and Swoop…” He said each of their names slowly, carefully, trying to remember where he recognised them from. “Are you creations of Shockwave?” he asked, remembering the scientist mentioning them among a hoard of a hundred other projects he had running during the war.

The Dinobots were not nearly as intimidating now, keeping their distance with curved faces riveted on the ground at Megatron's peds. Snarl made his namesake sound as he stuttered an answer. “Shock… wave build Dinobots. Dinobots fight, then sleep, then cold, long time cold!”

“Swoop wake up first… see screechy bird! Swoop no like!” He flared his wings as he shook his tapered head furiously. Slag remained silent, only glaring under heavy optics.

Megatron watched him with an equal glare, eventually turning it on the rest of him. “I am Lord Megatron, and you all serve me now. We are still at war, and you will serve your creator’s cause. In return for your obedience, I will give you energon and peace.”

It was a generous offer for these creatures, only met with skeptical grunts. “If Dinobots no follow?” Snarl asked.

“Then I will do to you what I should have done to Starscream,” Megatron answered, silencing all but one of them with that grim promise. Slag snapped his denta and marched forwards, raking his horns defiantly at the empty air.

“No need leader,” he insisted. “No want orders… but need fuel.”

“Then you'll behave, if you're not too dumb to know what's good for you.” Megatron stared him down, daring him to try and stab one of those horns forwards, but for all Slag’s hatred he couldn't act on it. Snarl kept his helm averted, chewing on something sour, and Swoop still fluttered his wings as he combed through the claws on the ends of them.

“One Dino missing,” he mumbled. “Only three. Was four.”

“I'm sure he's around here somewhere,” Megatron dismissed, whirling away from them to watch the still water horizon ahead, hearing mighty sighs of relief as he moved. “Take sentry, Dinobots. Watch for the arrival of my ship… of your new home.”

As he focused on the sky, he only then noticed the darkness fading to a blood-shower of pale pinks, purples and the faintest blues for the day ahead. He'd spent the whole night wresting control from the beasts, and now the sunrise lit the sky like the purple umbra of his burning optics.

Chapter 61

Chapter Text

For once it wasn’t Scorpia's morning mewling or her own phantoms that roused Airachnid. She was still half in recharge when she felt Optimus sit up beside her, shifting his mighty weight on their berth as he hissed through the fog of her audios.

"Optimus?" She propped herself up with her back legs as they scratched lazily against the berth frame, grabbing Scorpia before she ended up rolling onto the floor. Her sparkmate was standing, optics slanted towards his comm unit as he held a hand over it.

"Apologies, Airachnid. There seems to be some sort of incident... calm down, Wheeljack! What is the issue?" Whatever the Wrecker was saying was too muffled for Airachnid to hear, but Optimus' expression only went grimmer as he listened. "And Agent Fowler is with you? Keep yourself and the humans away, I will be there shortly." Once his unit was off he let his servo fall to his side and struggled with the urge to let the rest of his body collapse back on his berth.

"Grimlock is upset. It is unclear why, but the longer he is emotionally unstable the more damage he is sure to cause." He looked like he'd only just settled himself into recharge before he got the summons, and for all Airachnid knew that might've been the case; she was too cold for him to have been beside her for very long.
"Shouldn't I come with you?" she asked, only to have Optimus shake his weary helm on its rusty hinge.

"I would not advise it," he said, forcing himself back onto his peds. "Your presence may only aggravate him more, and I will not allow Scorpia where danger is sure to lie."

"Not even if he's upset because we're not there?" Airachnid pointed out, helping to push him upright with her longest back legs. Though Optimus tried to support himself he couldn't help leaning his dead weight on her, or maybe he was just reluctant to leave her.

"That is entirely possible... but until I know the cause for sure, I ask that you both remain here where it is safe." He placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it as she scoffed against Scorpia's helm.

"That depends on what you define as 'safe'..." As she pulled her legs back and curled her daughter to her chest, Optimus cupped her sunken helm and prevented her from hiding it any more.

"No one here will hurt you, Airachnid, even when I am gone. Trust me on that, at least," he said gently, tired and soft warmth spilling from his optics. The hand cradling her face stroked along her chin, and though she'd closed her optics she could feel Scorpia tugging on it for her share of affection. Optimus let the digits dangle for the sparkling to nuzzle against but kept the thumb for Airachnid, waiting for her optics to slide open again to see his lips falling against hers.

"Go back to sleep if you wish. You need the rest.” He pulled away with a new surge of energy, one that must have been infectious to Airachnid- or maybe that was just Scorpia squirming in her lap, telling her that trying to sleep again would be futile.

“No point in that, if I'm already awake.” She shrugged herself up, pushed herself off the berth and followed her sparkmate back to the early morning reality; so early that Ratchet was the only one around to meet them in the foyer.

“Ratchet, set the Bridge to Grimlock’s island. My presence is needed there.” Optimus gave the command in a well-rehearsed routine, and Ratchet did not question it as he rubbed his tired faceplate while his other hand tapped out co ordinates.

In Airachnid's servos, Scorpia whimpered around the braid of wires jammed into her mouth. "Grimmy?"

"He's okay, sweetspark," Airachnid said quietly, stroking claws gently below her daughter's pout. "Don't you worry about him. Oppy's just going to say hello."

Scorpia blinked up at her mother, then giggled around her braid. "Oppy Daddy!" She grasped for something over Airachnid's shoulder, who only realised that it was Optimus himself leaning down to kiss the sparkling's forehead, with one more for Airachnid herself before he took his leave through the portal. The spider almost convinced herself to run after him, joining him on the island before the Bridge could close, but she supposed Optimus was right. Anything that posed a risk to Scorpia wasn't worth risking at all.

“If you wish, you can keep Scorpia in the med-bay," Ratchet offered as he closed the vortex. "It's a lot quieter there, she won't be disturbed when everyone else wakes up.”

Airachnid watched him for any sign that he meant something he wasn't saying, as he was so good at doing, but all she could hear was the painful genuine tone of a tired medic. “...Thank you, Ratchet.”

It was only when she set Scorpia down on an empty surgical berth, next to the one Bulkhead lay snoring away on, that Airachnid realised how long it had been since she'd been in a med-bay. The last time she'd been strapped to a table she’d been enduring a mandatory check-up from Knockout, praying to Primus or anyone who was listening that her pounding spark would muffle the two new ones blooming in her chest. But even though she managed to hide them, only one survived in the end. All she had left of her dead son was the memory of his agony, so brief yet so painful, and his blind newborn fear. She'd been so shocked, so overwhelmed with the new reality crushing her that she didn't even see him crawling away from her, still coated in the hot plasma of her raw spark. Didn't even seen him wander right into his sire’s sights…

Remembering herself as Elita was something Airachnid could at least get used to. But the more she thought about who she was now, the more she wished she'd died on Archa Seven. That's what everyone had believed for so long… that's how it should have been. At that moment not even Scorpia’s loving gaze and pawing hands around the meteorite token Airachnid handed to her could have convinced her otherwise.

She removed herself from the med-bay before she did something stupid, blunting her claws against her palms as her back legs fought the urge to plunge into her own protoform. Ratchet didn't notice her return, glazed optics on his screen and nowhere else. It was like the Ratchet she'd once known had honed himself over the centuries, hacking away at his spark until only an intense focus was left behind. A self-made Empurata, when put like that, but even with his helm and hands intact the medic looked more husk than mech with the computer’s light making up most of the glow in his optics.

“You didn't wake this early back on Cybertron,” she said, seating herself some distance from the medic.

“Because on Cybertron I had my own lab, my own... ‘peaceful’ schedule,” he said, only slightly shifting his attention from the screen. “But nowadays I have to share my time with the soldiers. I like to get work done before the day has to start.”

Airachnid nodded. “Smart.”

“You’re one to talk, though,” Ratchet went on. “You and Optimus never rose before sunhigh, after the wedding.”

Airachnid blinked, talons tightening around the shard that wasn't between them anymore, the one that hung from her chest the day her spark became one with Optimus’. “You remember it?” she asked, with only a small smirk. “I'd have thought your data banks would be covered in dust by now.”

Ratchet narrowed a sharp glare at her, but couldn't stop his smile blooming wider. “I remember the hope that came after it. That naive feeling that everything would turn out fine… back when that was worth believing.”

Even after all this time, Airachnid knew the feeling well. “If it wasn't for me, everything might have been fine after all…” She stared at her tangled talons as she mumbled, not seeing Ratchet reach over to grab her servo.

“Don't say that,” he said, a tone as firm as his grip tugging at her attention. “Don’t you ever blame yourself for all this. It was Megatron who took you away from us. It was him who started this war… him that ruined our home. It’s all his fault. Don't you dare forget that.”

He let go, but Airachnid still felt like she was caught in a vice. Her hand remained suspended in the air, twitching numb claws as an energon cube was dropped onto her palm.

“Best to have some before it’s all gone,” Ratchet told her, one piece of advice she could actually find herself believing. Airachnid drank, finished the cube just as the rest of the base’s inhabitants came trickling in.

“Where's Optimus?” Arcee asked, having enough courtesy to scan the rest of the foyer before focusing her suspicion on Airachnid.

“Humans summoned him to my- to Grimlock’s island,” the spider explained.

Arcee raised an eyeridge, a portrait of distrust. “You didn't go with him?”

“No.” That was all Airachnid would reveal until Arcee stopped treating her like a bot just out of quarantine for the cybonic plague. Not that it would ever happen at this rate, but it was all she could remain hopeful for.

Arcee didn't shift her expression, instead just turned herself away from Airachnid and followed Bumblebee to the exit. “We're going to go pick up the kids, Ratchet. Won't be long.”

By now Smokescreen had only just finished a marathon of yawns, lingering in the hallway entrance. “Can I just go back to sleep, then? I gotta recover from getting sliced in half!”

“Smokescreen, you don't even have a scar from the incision,” Ratchet informed him with a sigh and a datapad in his hand. “And since you're already up, you might as well make yourself useful. Go take inventory of the rations.”

Smokescreen blinked twice at the datapad now in his hand, and made a dramatic display of groaning so loudly that his spinal strut almost bent in half. “Awwww, come on! This is drone work!”

“Then it won't be too much for your processor to handle,” Arcee quipped just before she shifted, roaring away in her alt mode before Smokescreen could muster a comeback or even throw the datapad in her direction.

“Is she always like that?” he asked Airachnid while Ratchet struggled not to snicker.

“No, she's usually worse,” the spider answered honestly.

xx

Optimus hadn't seen Grimlock since he brought Airachnid to the base, but the Dinobot hadn't changed much since then. In fact the Prime didn't know if he suffered more from deja-vu or the splitting ache in his helm from being swatted over the length of a turbohound track. He peeled himself out of the splintered tree trunks under his frame, vision flashing with rusty silver rampaging back and forth and that lethal tail still lashing at the air. Unlike Optimus the humans knew better than to get within range of it, and unlike Optimus Wheeljack knew but just didn't care enough to stay away.

“Look, Grim, I ain't a fan of the company either but you don't see me turnin’ the whole place into mulch!” The Wrecker rolled aside just as Grimlock tried to take a bite out of him, roaring at the snapped nets, cords and webbing that tried so vainly to keep him restrained. Some were even scorched from embers that seemed to fly from the Dinobots mouth, flaming drool that hissed as it hit the rutted ground with his earth-shaking stampedes.

But to Wheeljack he might as well have been a sparkling throwing a tantrum. He gestured to a team of shaking humans who threw out another coil of chains as thick as each of their forearms, and he anchored one end around a tree while dodging another swipe from Grimlock’s tail. Optimus approached carefully, using Wheeljack's distraction as an opportunity to get close enough behind the Dinobot where his tail couldn't just bat him aside.

Spotting the Prime with a typical “what took you so long?” look, Wheeljack waited until Grimlock made another lunge forwards before ducking and throwing the other side of the chain to Optimus. Before Grimlock realised what had happened the Prime was already running underneath him and threading the links all around his legs, tying them all together so he tripped and crashed to the ground when he tried to step forwards. He'd only be dazed for a few nanoklicks, but that was enough time for Optimus to get the rest of the chain around his neck and keep it pinned down with his weight on the Dinobot’s snarling and bucking head, the tree anchor already cracking and bowing from his strength.

Wheeljack knelt before the gnashing cage of teeth and foul smoke, practically ignoring how Optimus struggled to keep Grimlock under control. “Talk to me, buddy, what’s the problem?”

Grimlock only hissed and grunted at the Wrecker, before finally ceasing his struggle. "Me, Grimlock... me king Dinobot! Other Dinobots need king!"

"What 'other' Dinobots?" Optimus asked, tightening his grip on the chain collar. As if one of Grimlock wasn't bad enough.

“Team! Grimlock lead Dinobot team!” he insisted, agitating himself all over again. Optimus struggled not the force Grimlock down as he tried to piece together what he was saying.

“You mean… the other members of your squadron? They were changed by Shockwave as well?”

“Swoop, Snarl and Slag,” Wheeljack said, a dark glaze over his optics. “Those were the other mechs that went missing back on Cybertron.”

Grimlock grated mighty incisors together, as if confirming it. “Me no feel them… me think dead for long! But Dinobots wake up! Cold, empty, alive! Dinos... in trouble…”

Over Grimlock’s sour growls, a fourth voice made itself heard. “I know where they are.”

Through a parting of terrified humans and broken tree boughs, Dreadwing approached the mechs with wings barely brushing the destruction around him.

“Dreadwing? What are you doing here?” Optimus couldn't draw his weapon at the sudden intrusion, but Wheeljack needed little prompting to take aim at him.

“You got some big bearings showin’ your winged aft ‘round here, Con,” he spat, tracking the Seeker’s every step even when he stopped, with only enough attention paid to Wheeljack to roll his optics at him.

“After our discussion, Optimus, I took it upon myself to find Megatron again,” Dreadwing explained. “Not to confront him, just to know where he had retreated to. It was easy enough to track his course through the clouds from our first site of battle, to an area in the Earth’s southern hemisphere. When I found him, he was standing off against Starscream and three unidentified beasts. I believe those are your missing Dinobots.”

“And how did you know where to find me?” Optimus asked, dismounting from Grimlock before the Dino decided to send him flying where no grounder should try to reach.

As if reading the Prime’s fears, Dreadwing took the chance to look proud of himself. “A Seeker knows how to read the sky. I spotted human activity around this island, and sensed a strong Cybertronian life signal from your Grimlock.”

The Dinobot barely paid heed to the unfamiliar mech, too concerned with untangling himself and breaking free of the trunk he was cuffed to as well as making the tiny soldiers run for cover again. Wheeljack didn't once look away from Dreadwing, didn't lower his weapons.

“How do we know you haven't got a whole team of Decepticons waitin’ nearby to ambush us?” He was about to close the distance between himself and Dreadwing, but Optimus pressed a hand down on his puffed chest to hold him back.

“Wheeljack, curb your suspicion,” the Prime ordered. “Dreadwing has no reason to betray the Autobots, after all he has done to help us.”

Dreadwing gave a small nod. “If you would allow me, Optimus, I can give you exact co-ordinates for Megatron's location.”

“That would be much appreciated, Dreadwing. But after that, I must ask that you return to base.”

Dreadwing’s shoulders fell as he blinked at the command. “Optimus, I-”

“You haven't recharged for a whole solar cycle, and your performance will only worsen the longer you remain online. You have done more than enough for now, Dreadwing. Let yourself rest, for your own sake,” Optimus added, not admitting that it would be much easier not having to worry about Wheeljack trying to shove a grenade between the Seeker’s wings.

“...Very well,” Dreadwing said reluctantly. “Megatron is making his stand near where our fight over the Apex Armour took place. Just follow the noises to the frozen island.”

With one call to Ratchet and his Ground Bridge (after a well-deserved sigh of relief from Agent Fowler) it really was that easy to find Megatron. The hard part was fitting Grimlock through the vortex.

Chapter 62

Chapter Text

With all of Grimlock's enthusiasm and the effort that it took for Optimus and Wheeljack push him through the Ground Bridge, the Dinobot ended up barreling out and rolling across the expanse of snow like a nuke set loose. Most of it melted beneath him from the heat of his vents, covering him in a slick sheet of water as he snorted out flakes and clawed into the hard frost to steady himself.

"Grimlock feel them! Grimlock hear them fight!" His determined roar echoed all throughout the barren white as he rampaged onwards, kicking back a heavy storm of powder that buried Wheeljack and Optimus before they could follow.

"Wait up, Grim! Don't start the poundin' without us!" Wheeljack shoved himself through the thick snow, having to shift to his alt mode just to keep up with the Dinobot. Optimus had just as much trouble even with his larger wheels churning against the ice, but Grimlock made himself stop just before a cliff edge that sloped down to a frozen ocean, with a small white island so near from so high up that a bot could have picked it up in their hand. Even he wasn't stupid enough to try walking across the sheets of ice- or, more likely, he recognised the grey figure on the island marching amidst the white just as well as Optimus did.

If the other Dinobots were really down there, Megatron had found them first.

"Grimlock's team... Grimlock's brothers..." The Dinobot snarled out ropes of saliva that foamed around his gleaming denta, gouging the permafrost under his claws like the hard snow was just white paper. Something held him back, far more powerful than Wheeljack's cautionary servo held in front of his chest.

"Stay back, Grim," Wheeljack said, leaving Optimus surprised at hearing something sensible coming out of a Wrecker's mouth for once. He deployed his blaster on his other servo as he edged further towards the cliff. "We should see what's going on first-"
He must have been focusing too much on the warlord ahead, from how surprised he sounded at stepping into thin air and tumbling down the cliff's slope to land with the crunch of ice shattering beneath him. And with nothing around to cover the noise, Megatron was quick to spot him as he tried to pick himself back up.

"Dinobots! Deal with the Wrecker!" The warlord sounded much closer with the ground quaking after his command, thanks to the stampede of monstrous metal beasts that erupted from behind him, only shadows of the mechs Optimus remembered back on Cybertron. Wheeljack was still left sliding on the ice as he tried to scramble away, throwing a frantic look upwards to where Grimlock had already launched himself off of, despite Optimus' attempts to warn him of his weight cracking the ice apart.

Yet Grimlock's furious bounding towards the island kept him afloat by sheer force even as the ice dissolved into a thousand shards in his wake. And even more shocked than Optimus was Megatron, left as frozen as the ocean and stunned Dinobots surrounding him as he faced on the rabid brute rapidly approaching.

"What in the name of...?!" Whoever Megatron was about to plead to was lost to a sky-shaking roar as Grimlock made one last desperate leap towards his brethren, clearing the length of a gestalt in one move as his plating collapsed in midair; a shower of rust flakes falling to stain the snow brown. From so far away Optimus could be forgiven for not recognising the sound of a long neglected T Cog finally whirring to life, shifting the Dinobot's appearance so drastically that by the time he landed before Megatron he was almost unrecognisable. What hadn't just been moved elsewhere on his body had been replaced by entirely new golden armour plates hidden somewhere deep in his secret and primal anatomy; only the impatient razor lash of his tail, the knives jutting out from his frame and the savage red glare trapping everyone in place were what still made him out as Grimlock.

But he still had the courtesy to announce himself, just in case anyone was still in doubt.

“ME GRIMLOCK KING!” A beacon shot out from his mouth as he bellowed, so close to melting Megatron in half before the warlord managed to throw himself backwards far enough. The hiss of melting snow, the stench of charred frost on the wind carrying the heat all the way to Optimus and Wheeljack confirmed that yes, that was actual fire coming out of the Dinomech's mouth, and it was keeping Megatron pinned behind against the nearest cover.

"Never knew he could do that…" Wheeljack didn't mention if he meant the jet of flame still arcing out the Dinobot's maw, or the fact that he still had a working T Cog. Optimus had only just managed to lower himself down the cliffside now, shaking from much more than just the Arctic cold.

"To think I let Scorpia play near that mouth!" he hissed to himself, left crouching in a rare kind of fear amidst Grimlock's shattered tracks across the sea. He rose slowly only partly from fear of breaking the ground further as he witnessed the Dinobot do what no mech in centuries had managed to do- stare down Megatron. Even as the fire faded, the warlord didn't challenge the new arrival, didn't even take aim at him as Grimlock swelled and stretched long-forgotten cables and cords, swinging his new helm slowly with a new plate bolted over his mouth, no doubt the only thing keeping the fire from erupting again. Then, still snapping his tail along the ice, he decided to be either extraordinarily bold or typically dumb in turning his back to Megatron. Instead he faced his teammates one by one, each still in a stasis-like trance.

"Lightning Strike Coalition! Snarl, Slag, Swoop!" Each Dinobot bristled as they were named, and even Optimus almost flinched from the echo of Grimlock's roar. There was an empty silence afterwards that stretched out as far as the snowscape went, as if Grimlock was unsure of what to do with his new audience. His tail fell limp behind him, dragging sharply across the ice like the words dragging themselves out of his processor.

"Grimlock... I... asleep for centuries..." He seemed to struggle with speaking past the plate over his mouth, or maybe he couldn't keep pace with his own thoughts. Optimus couldn't tell from the distance, and even Wheeljack knew better than to try getting closer.

"But... Grimlock survived!" The Dinobot's tail sliced at the air as if to prove it, every growl gaining volume again in the silence he commanded. "Grimlock find Autobots! Grimlock find team again! Grimlock still king!"

His tail shot out again, this time hitting the side of Megatron's sword and wrapping itself around its hilt before the blade could come anywhere near striking distance. The lash wound itself tight enough to leak energon, yet Grimlock's hisses only came from anger as he faced the warlord and his complete, absolute terror.

"You... Megatron... you took us. You try and make us Decepticons! But Dinobots are Dinobots! Dinobots follow no one!" And with one simple swipe of his tail, one that Optimus had felt before and felt again even from so far away, Megatron was hauled right over Grimlock’s helm like a ragdoll and slammed brutally into the permafrost behind him. Optimus winced and even Wheeljack let out a hiss at the sight of Megatron crumpled on the ground, shuddering amidst a storm of disturbed snow. Once the veil cleared and the leader salvaged enough strength to push himself up, he was greeted by a circle of his former soldiers closing in on him, all following Grimlock’s example by taking up robot forms and looking no less deadly than before.

"Shockwave creator... but Grimlock is king!" Slag’s beaked cowl almost snapped along with his own mouth, and Snarl shot out an array of bladed spades from his back to make the point even sharper than those arching from Slag’s own spine.

Swoop wasn’t as intimidating as his brothers; even so his folded wings reflected a razor’s edge as they scuffed together in the wake of his screech; “Grimlock, Grimlock!”

And Grimlock himself faced on the praise gladly, closing off the circle by standing behind Megatron and letting his shadow on the snow speak for itself.

In hindsight, Optimus might have thought, Megatron's next decision was actually one of the smartest decisions he'd seen the warlord take. Inching slightly closer to the scene with every nanoklick, the Prime was close enough to hear Megatron's last order into his comm unit.

"Starscream… hold the Nemesis' position." The Dinobots might have ambushed him then, but his T Cog was just fast enough in getting his jet thrusters activated. With every exit blocked by bots, Megatron's only option was to get out with his alt mode, and he was long gone behind the clouds and blinding Arctic sunlight too fast to even leave streams of steam trailing behind. He might have broken a sound barrier somewhere far away, or that might have just been the Dinobots and their victorious chorus of trumpeting wails and screeches, laughter that could have re-awakened Unicron in the Earth’s core. Even with the threat gone, both Optimus and Wheeljack approached cautiously so their audios wouldn't short-circuit.

Hearing the other two mechs approaching, Grimlock slapped his tail flat against his back before turning to face them. In his new form he still made tremors with nothing but his steps, towering over even Optimus. Up close his golden details shone stubbornly and competed with the glint of the ice, and his red optics could have still easily melted holes through solid steel. None of that stopped Wheeljack slapping him on the chest, even when he had to stretch his peds to reach up.

“Y’know, Grim, you almost look just like you did back on Cybertron. Just as ugly, at least.”

Grimlock didn't glare down at the Wrecker as he usually might have, instead it was as if he was trying to melt the ice beneath him with nothing but a pensive stare.

“Grimlock... not remember transform,” he said in his new uncertain, sluggish tone. Insecure of his new mode, flexing the digits that replaced familiar claws, trying not to growl as he spoke. “I… forget to walk… forget to think. But I see brothers, and remember. Remember everything.”

It was strange, bordering surreal to see the brute Optimus had known as Grimlock being so reflective, making fists by his sides not to punch with, just to occupy himself as dark parts of his processor awakened. Even the other Dinobots gave their leader puzzled looks as he faced them, almost ignoring Optimus as he gave Grimlock a more gentle pat on his servo.

“You did better here than I ever could have, Grimlock. I see why the Dinobots would only have you as their leader.” And hopefully with his own bots to lead, Grimlock wouldn't be so eager to challenge Optimus at every chance. The Dinobot gave a blank look to Optimus’ sincerity, letting his optics simmer silently as they went from the Prime to his team.

“Grimlock missed them… didn't know why. Thought I could… replace them with femmes. But femmes not mine to take. Not anyone's. Like Dinobots, they led by no one. But they protected by Prime. Like I protect Dinobots. I see now.” It was a stilted comparison, but one that Optimus couldn't help agreeing with. Was the Dinobot always this insightful, intelligent just without the means to show it? All the Prime could do was nod, with Wheeljack left literally speechless between them.

“Me still wish spider lady was here,” Grimlock mused after a moment, drawing a muffled laugh from Optimus.

“You and me both,” he agreed.

Still holding his tail thankfully flat, Grimlock turned to his team and their skeptical glares across at the Autobots. “Dinobots, Autobots are friends. Prime will save planet. So be nice!”

Optimus couldn't help but wonder which planet he meant, Earth or Cybertron, but he couldn't ask Grimlock for clarification with Slag stepping out to bristle his horns at his leader. “Grimlock not boss of Slag!” he snorted, despite admitting the opposite to Megatron just a few klicks ago. Maybe only Grimlock’s processor benefitted from his T Cog, though he didn't even need to remind Slag with Snarl literally butting in to defend his leader.

“Grimlock boss of all Dinobots! Would Slag rather be Decepticon?!” And it wasn't long before Swoop joined in with chirrups like nails scraping against stone, pushing the Autobots to the outskirts of the manic and senseless argument in a bid to avoid getting in the way of any claws. Optimus only tuned his audios high enough to hear Wheeljack's assessment by his side.

“Looks like we've made some powerful new friends. So why the long face, Prime?"

Other than the knowledge that Megatron would doubtless return, and the ever present burden of keeping his new charges subdued, Optimus had one chief concern chipping away at his concentration. "...How on Cybertron are we going to herd these Dinobots back to the island?"

Wheeljack blinked, and laughed with a slap on Optimus’ back that rang harshly through his frame. "Wait til they tire themselves out, then just throw ‘em through the Ground Bridge. Should only take five klicks. Or… ten, since it looks like Slag still has an attitude after all these years."

Chapter 63

Chapter Text

Dreadwing had roused himself from his cave by the time the Autobots returned with their humans, taking in every suspicious glance in his stride. He could have saved the Matrix itself and the team still wouldn't have trusted him yet. Even so, with Smokescreen still busy slacking off his chores they seemed content to leave Dreadwing in the same awkward position as Airachnid; having to keep the organics entertained, whether they wanted to or not.

Luckily for her, without Scorpia on her lap the humans seemed much more interested in harassing Dreadwing, and Airachnid had little else to do but watch the massive Seeker be brought to the edge of sanity by nothing more than a pair of nosy children.

"Come on, Dread, you can't always be this boring. What did you do back with the Decepticons?"

"You mean other than kissing up to Megatron?"

Understandably Dreadwing scowled at both Jack and Miko's probing attempts (despite being the youngest, Rafael was wise enough to not participate), though perhaps more at the latter's cutting mockery. "If you must know, when not undertaking missions I spent my time wisely, training and perfecting my aerial maneuvers.” He paused in glaring at the children only to shift his narrow optics over to where Bulkhead watched vigilantly from the sidelines, no doubt being the only thing stopping Dreadwing from just swatting Miko aside. The ex-Con settled with scoffing at the ex-Wrecker. “Not that Autobots would know anything about that..."

As if Starscream wasn't proof enough that his kind’s rumours were all true; Seekers really didn't like being around grounders if they couldn't make themselves feel better than them somehow. Airachnid almost copied Miko in rolling her optics.

"Jeesh, you must have been popular on Cybertron," the human scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest as she occupied Dreadwing's ped as a leaning post. Oh, how tempted he must have been to step on her.

"I will ignore your sarcasm, human, since I know such a primitive lifeform cannot muster any better form of wit." Airachnid saw Dreadwing flash a smirk to himself, so proud of the tiny blow he'd managed against Miko, only to have the human not even acknowledge it enough to be offended.

"Whatever. Come on, Jack, you owe me a rematch on Guts ‘n Glory." The Seeker was left more bewildered than annoyed as the humans literally abandoned him, focusing instead on their pathetically tiny screen and the mystery device hooked up to it. Airachnid had assumed it was some kind of shield generator (it would explain how such fragile creatures had survived this long, at least), yet when Miko knelt to activate it there was no crackle of an EM field or shimmer in the air; all that changed was that the screen wasn't blank anymore.

Curiosity brought Airachnid closer, though even when she squinted she couldn't decipher the human’s cryptic squiggles flashing on the screen in a spray of red. "What does that say?"

Both humans shot her a look of confusion. "You can't read it?" Jack asked, still fighting the urge to flinch as he met Airachnid's optics. Miko was busy with untangling a pair of controllers from a nest of cables, too busy to notice Dreadwing approaching to shove himself back into the center of attention, almost as if he craved it.

"Just because we speak your barbaric language does not mean we can understand its glyphs,” he explained curtly. “An Iaconian can mock a mech from Kaon’s vocaliser, but they'd be lost in a matter of klicks if they tried walking down a miner’s street.” And how ironic that such a comparison was made in the Dreadwing’s own Tarnian-drenched tone, the only trace of Vos about him being his wings. Not that the humans registered it, they only blinked blankly before turning back to the screen.

“Sounds a little like Japanese,” Miko mused, and she must have given an example of it when Airachnid suddenly couldn't understand anything she said. Dreadwing looked like he'd just heard a bomb going off somewhere, sending the human into a fit of laughter. “Don't try and learn it, I think that super-powered alien brain of yours can only take so much."

Dreadwing didn't appreciate the advice. "On Cybertron, such disrespectful glossas would have been torn out by now.” Airachnid had done enough worse herself to know he was being completely serious, but fortunately Miko wasn't even paying heed to the threat.

“Ooh, that reminds me; Jack, you know how to do the special spinal rip move?” Airachnid still couldn't decide if the human was too brave or just too stupid to be scared, but whatever the case it seemed to be infectious from what little concern Jack showed to Dreadwing's scowl.

“No, cause that's what you killed me with last time,” he reminded her, holding his controller limply in contrast to Miko's excitement as she flashed through different screens in a blur.

“Only cause you didn't press the right buttons- here, copy me.” The humans’ screen settled onto one venue, an arena of some kind with hideously organic combatants on either side, and Miko seemed to move one of them with twitches of her controller and its curiously arranged buttons. With just a few taps from her fingers, the screen filled with a flurry of punches and thuds that almost surprised Airachnid; how long had it been since she'd fought like that against someone?

“Miko, slow down! You know I can't remember all the button combos!”

“Sorry, Jack, not my fault you don't know how to block!”

It took longer than she'd like to admit for Airachnid to realise that these humans treated fighting like a game, as long as it wasn’t their lives on the line. The competitive grunts and hisses of defeat, so similar to those she'd heard during the war’s… no, during her darkest hours; but without the edge of true pain, without the weight of likely death behind each sound. Autobots, Decepticons, unlucky neutrals, they all sounded the same when they were desperate to survive.

Somehow, Dreadwing didn't get such grim reminders as he watched the simulation play out. "This program encourages pointless slaughter?" he asked, just as Miko finished literally smearing the ground with her opponent.

"Yep!” She punched the air as Jack groaned and threw his head back in defeat. He let the controller fall now that his avatar was left in pieces, and only now did he notice how closely Dreadwing and Airachnid were leaning in to see.

“Don't tell Mom we're playing it, she kinda freaks out whenever there's blood,” he pleaded. “I mean, she sees real blood enough at the hospital, you'd think she'd be used to it by now.”

Airachnid knew how wrong he was, but said nothing. Dreadwing pulled back from the screen with a scoff. “Our battle simulators are far more advanced than this primitive projection.”

“Oh really?” Miko slung her arm over her seat and gestured up at Dreadwing with her controller. “Then try it for yourself, big guy.”

Dreadwing almost flinched away from the human’s offer, as if expecting the controller to fire a laser through his armour. But when Miko's continued shaking of it left him unmarked, he stretched out two claws to pinch it away from her. With such large digits he had to carefully tap the buttons as he hunched over the controller, a sight that would have made Unicron himself at least snicker. Every other nanoklick he would glance up at the screen, tracking the movement of his character and testing kicks against Jack’s. The more he tapped his claws the more he creased his faceplate in concentration.

"Seems like a juvenile waste of time to me,” Dreadwing announced after a few cautious klicks.

"Then give back the controller,” Miko said, only to have the Seeker snatch it closer towards him.

"No, wait your turn,” he muttered, guarding his moves and watching the game more closely now. Either the device was more lenient to fellow machines or Jack was profoundly terrible from how quickly he lost against even Dreadwing’s slow inputs, groaning to himself once again as he endured Miko’s endless taunts.

"That's it, I give up. This game hates me.” He pushed himself up amidst Miko’s protests and, just a second before throwing his controller down, pulled his arm back and offered it behind him instead. “...You wanna try, Airachnid?"

Though she knew it wasn't dangerous, Airachnid still hesitated at accepting it. She'd tried to ignore the virtual massacre, not so much out of disgust as out of fear. The sight of violence, real or otherwise, made her… unpredictable. And she doubted that even Elita’s influence could curb the more hidden instincts she'd tried to forget about since Scorpia's birth.

But Optimus advised connecting with the humans somehow… and though Jack’s hand shook he still held it out towards her, almost like a peace offering. Airachnid resisted the urge to check if Arcee was watching as she stretched her claws.

“I… suppose so.” The controller fit her small hands much better than Dreadwing's bulky servos, but her claws scratched harshly against the plastic as she tried to grip the buttons. So she employed the more precise edges of her legs, one on each trigger she'd seen Dreadwing using. Twitching her razors only slightly at first, experimenting with what the screen showed, she quickly realised how to win just like in a real battle. Dreadwing was more powerful here, but with his own hands being obstacles he couldn't stop her from flitting around him in a flurry of knives and fists.

If only real bots were so easy to kill… Dreadwing-no, his character, was in bloody shreds like Airachnid's own claws had raked right through the screen. She had to hold them tight in her lap to control them, holding back a grin at the carnage she'd wrought, energon thudding like thunder through her fuel lines when all she wanted was to soak the floor in it… so long since her last kill… so long that all she could imagine was Megatron under her talons.

"Cheater." Dreadwing’s pout was obvious in his sullen voice, but he took on a whole new expression when he turned towards Airachnid, mirroring the human’s strange displays of shock. She didn't know why they stared at her so, not until she noticed how hard her fangs cut into her stretched lips, how her legs gouged the controller so deep in her frenzy. Not until the sweet flood of energon faded from her vision, and she finally pried her claws apart from each other. Blinking made her optics burn, but it was all she could do to clear her head.

How long had it really been since she'd been pushed so far…? She let the controller fall as her legs snapped safely behind her back, out of any harm’s way.

"You always were a sore loser, Dreadwing." Lapping at the wounds on her lips only slightly stopped a snarl rising on her vocaliser as she turned away, leaving behind the suspicious stares and slaughter. If any of them wanted to follow after her, they were smart enough not to try.

"Don't look so pissed, Dread, I'll play against ya'!” Miko piped up, growing fainter the further Airachnid walked. “Come on, best of three rounds! If I win, you gotta fly around and let me ride in you."

"I would rather join Unicron in the Pit than even imagine that, human."

At that moment, Airachnid would have happily went with him if it meant being somewhere else. She needed space… somewhere quiet. The med bay. Scorpia would calm her down, somehow. She rubbed at her face with tense claws, wiping away any trace of energon from her mouth, but still couldn't make herself go further than the bay’s entrance. Her spark was still swelling uncomfortably, how much had Scorpia felt of it? The sparkling already knew more about her than Elita knew herself. How much else could really shock her?

Airachnid hoped to never know the answer, but finally pushing herself onwards she saw the real reason for her spark simmering so violently in its chamber. It was Scorpia’s own fear, from the cold medic’s hands and sharp needles piercing her aching protoform-

"What are you doing to her...?"

Ratchet tensed at once, snapping upright and letting go of Scorpia as if by reflex. She pulled herself further away from him, to the very edge of the table and its array of glinting instruments, and crawled gladly into Airachnid's servos as soon as she was close enough. Other than her wide optics and tight grip, she seemed unharmed, but that didn't make Airachnid’s glare any less deadly.

"I... thought that while she was here, I could scan her for any health issues,” Ratchet explained, folding his empty hands over themselves as if to distract from the lack of actual scanner held in them. Airachnid narrowed her optics to daggers, distrust flooding through her like a rich poison.

“And you didn't think to ask for my permission first?” She fixed him in a glare that left him speechless, fumbling for more excuses when she budged it only to focus on where the scanner actually lay far out of his reach, placed on top of a datapad. Holding Scorpia closer, she kept one hand on her wire braid while the other reached out towards the pad. As Ratchet had said, the scanner’s results were shown alongside a thorough log of Scorpia's progress dating back months, despite this only being her second examination. One furious swipe took her to the first entry, and the truth of Ratchet’s first diagnosis.

"'Brittle armour'...? Dark Energon infection?!" The shock of a cold despair through Airachnid's whole body was all that stopped her crushing the pad in her claws. She knew that wouldn't erase the reality it described, and didn't know yet if it was the worst it had to offer. But what could be worse than Dark Energon… a sick joke of inheritance from Scorpia’s sire?

"Airachnid… please stay calm-" Ratchet unbolted himself from the floor, approached her like a rabid animal only to be pinned back in place by her legs unfolding from her back, a subconscious defense that rose to protect all she had left.

“‘Symptoms worsened over time…’ How long has she had this?!" Airachnid held the datapad’s screen towards him, forced him to see Scorpia's fate in his own words. The guilt was carved deep into his expression, only fueling her fury further.

“As you can see...I only noticed it during her first exam,” Ratchet confessed, dropping his optics as soon as he thought it was safe to. “I didn't think… I'd hoped it would improve naturally.”

Airachnid could only find his plea pathetic, a mumbled almost-apology at being too cowardly to tell her the truth. The eldest Autobot was also the weakest, how predictable… she put Scorpia down with her itching claws, raising her legs as her servos lowered, watching Ratchet foolishly think he had a chance to escape when something in his comm line tilted his helm sideways.

“Optimus is requesting a Ground Bridge, so-” His one exit was quickly barred by a maze of her legs, blades so close to slicing across his armour like plasma through steel, with her bristling self filling the doorway gap. The concrete wall itself crumbled around the anchored razor tips, and Airachnid trembled to stop tearing through the entire outpost.

“Don’t try and get out of this, Ratchet! You kept this from me all this time, secrets about my own daughter!” Her hiss set her vocaliser on fire, acid burning against the wounds already on her lips. Some of it must have splattered Ratchet, from his his armour smoked silently over his wincing face.

“We… I didn't think you'd be-”

“Be so upset?” she finished in a vicious snap, fanning her claws to rip through the air so close to Ratchet’s pitiful face. “So angry, that my daughter could survive all this only to end up like her sire?! I risked my life, both our lives to get her away from that monster!” Her voice cracked like glass against stone, but she hardly cared. It was a miracle she was even still standing in place, with her spark boiling her own energon and the undeniable, incurable need to… to hunt, to kill, to just do something with all her brutal urges, the thing she was made to do for longer than Elita had even existed for.

She might have killed Ratchet right there, whether or not Scorpia was watching, if not for the voice and sharp edge cutting into her neck, sharper than her own acid streaming down her chin.

“Stand down, Airachnid.” Behind her Optimus spoke like she was a criminal rather than his sparkmate, icy authority taking a hard grip on his vocaliser. That revelation was what brought Airachnid back from the Pit. That, and the realisation that the muffled but piercing screech in her audios wasn't her own hissing or nightmares echoing back at her; it was Scorpia crying.

Chapter 64

Chapter Text

Optimus had to fight against every instinct as a sparkmate, as a sire and even as a Prime to stop himself running to Scorpia as well. He had to let the Matrix drown out the pull towards Airachnid and the wailing sparkling, force his peds to meld with the concrete floor and his spark to shield itself against the pining he felt from his wife as she cradled her daughter.

“Don't cry, don't cry, sweetspark... please…” She whispered the plea against Scorpia with lips pressed tight to her forehelm, so manic and desperate that it might have been more for her own sake than anyone else’s. Her hushes faded along with Scorpia's whimpers, though there was a moment of false peace before she turned on Optimus again. Both her servos held Scorpia in a vice grip against the safety of her chest while one of her legs clutched the datapad at a distance, as if it was as infective as what it described.

“Did you know about this, Optimus?” She slammed it against his chest as she hissed, forcing him to take it from her. Optimus didn't need to look at the datapad to know what it was, but he had know how much she'd seen of it. When he saw that she'd scoured the entire thing, he knew he couldn't lie to her.

“I did,” he said, silently wondering how long Primus had been waiting before deciding to spring this on them all. Airachnid still held the edge of a razor close to his chest, so close she could have punctured his spark chamber before he would even realise it. Only now with them so close to killing him did Optimus realise that all her legs had finally grown back, just as Ratchet predicted. That didn't bode well at all for Scorpia.

“...And when were you going to tell me?” Airachnid asked, each of those knives twitching impatiently a they hovered on their stalks.

“Air-”

“When were you going to tell me that my daughter is tainted by Unicron?” The only reason she didn't scream was because Scorpia was so close. Optimus could tell from how her voice grated itself to pieces on her fangs, each hiss full of acid that sizzled in the silent air that followed it. Neither Optimus or Ratchet had anything to answer it with, and Airachnid quickly realised that.

“Just as I thought," she spat, pulling her legs back. "You weren't going to.”

Optimus didn't even know if she was right or not, couldn't convince himself that he would have told her at some point. Between Megatron, the relics and the Dinobots, he was just grateful for surviving until now. "How could I have possibly found the right opportunity to, with all that has happened?"

Airachnid scoffed as she took a step backwards, scraping the air with her razors. “I'm not as fragile as you might think, Optimus.”

“I don't think that, Airachnid.”

“Then you were worried I'd get angry? That I'd snap and go right back to the Decepticon everyone knows I am?”

Optimus blinked, caught off guard for the first time. He'd known that something was wrong with her as soon as he'd heard the humans' account of why she'd left, only came in time to see her snarling at Ratchet. That was exactly what he'd feared had happened, as much as he hated to admit it. He wanted so badly to believe that Elita and Airachnid were one and the same, but the evidence was against him.

“What else would you call threatening an Autobot just for being in your way?” he asked, moving out of the med-bay's entrance towards Airachnid and meeting her glare stoically while Ratchet hesitantly placed himself behind her. The medic still shook from his encounter with her, but as Airachnid turned her glare on him he did not budge. As she looked for an understanding she couldn't see, she found herself unable to face them for much longer. At last her anger had died, leaving behind hissing cinders that stung Optimus' spark as she shoved past him.

“If I ever get upset, Optimus, it's not because of who I am," she told him over her cold shoulder. "It's because I have a damn good reason to be. Don't you dare keep secrets like this from me ever again.”

She was almost gone, storming out of the med-bay with sharp claws around Scorpia and thankfully no blood on them; but in a centuries old tradition that defied his common sense, Optimus never could just let her have the last word.

"I did not ask if you knew why Soundwave let you live, Airachnid. I'd expect you to have the same trust in me."

Airachnid stopped in her tracks, hard enough to dent the concrete with her heels, but rather than slash at the nearest throat she just pushed herself onwards until she was out of sight. She didn't even hiss a curse at Optimus. That's how he always knew if Elita was truly in pain, as much as she'd usually try to hide it.

Against that aching instinct in the pit of his spark, he did not follow her. Instead he turned on heavy peds, handing the damned datapad to Ratchet's more capable hands. "What did you find that upset her so, Ratchet?"

The medic held the pad in one hand before throwing it aside, leaving it clatter on a table. "Scorpia's condition is getting worse," he said bluntly. "Slowly, but the deterioration is obvious. She doesn't seem in pain, but it's only a matter of time before..." Ratchet didn't even know how to say it, other than to just sigh against his hand as he rubbed his face, trying to scrub the weariness away.

Optimus felt as bad as he looked, going so long on just a few breems of recharge even without his own team clashing with itself. “What can we do?” he asked, though he didn't quite know why he bothered.

“Wait and see," was all Ratchet could say. "There's nothing that can be done for Scorpia just now.”

“And what of Airachnid?”

“Again... wait and see. She has every right to be angry, and she needs to calm herself down. In this state, she's still unpredictable." Ratchet settled a hand on his old friend's shoulder, and how heavy it seemed to Optimus told him just how exhausted he was. "For now, for the love of Primus, go get some rest. I'm not about to carry you if you collapse."

Optimus didn't have the energy to argue, only managing one last question as he was nudged to the doorway. “You don't want to know why I was gone?”

Ratchet scoffed as if it was a bad joke. “At this point I figure the less I know, the better for everyone.”

xx

For a while now Knockout had finally gotten used to having Soundwave as a resident of the med-bay, so that he didn't almost lose his spark out of his mouth whenever he walked in and noticed him strapped down on the operating table. The fact that he was still as terrifying in stasis as he was awake was testament to Megatron's poor choice in officers (as if having three of his inner circle betray him by now wasn't enough proof of that).

But it wasn't Soundwave that gave him the fright of his life as he entered. That honour went to Breakdown, looming over the sleeping mech with wide hands firmly planted on his chest. Once Knockout recovered in silence from the shock, grateful that Breakdown was too oblivious as ever to notice, he realised that Soundwave's chest wasn't as empty as it was nowadays- now Laserbeak was integrated with the plating, with Breakdown helping him nestle into the dead cavity. The drone was practically glued to Soundwave, yet the mech remained dead to the world no matter how Breakdown tried to force a reaction from him.

Only a Wrecker would be stupid enough to think that slapping around a bot's spark would shake them from stasis, but Knockout didn't really care enough to stop him.

"You know Megatron is on his way back," was all he said, knowing his liege failed when he heard Starscream panicking from the other side of the ship. “Won’t be much longer until he notices that thing is missing.” He nodded towards Laserbeak and his feeble twitches against Soundwave, but Breakdown didn't listen. He gave one last shove to Soundwave's chest, one wilting glance at the mech's faceless face, before letting his helm hang limp.

"...Why can't you just wake him up?" Breakdown asked, feeble and whining like a child.
Knockout shrugged from a safe distance, turning his back to the whole futile spectacle. "It's not my job to.”

"Bullslag!" Breakdown bellowed, with a creak of something being crushed in his hands. "You never gave a frag about your job before, as long as there was someone for you to cut up! You think I'm just gonna sit back like you and watch as Megatron gets us all killed for... for a slagger like Unicron?!"

As much as Knockout wanted to ignore the tantrum, the flurry of scalpels that flew through the air and embedded themselves in the wall next to him forced him to pay attention, if only to avoid any more near-misses to his finish.

"No, I don't think that," he said in a weary sigh, a complete contrast to Breakdown's thunderous anger. "I think you're not smart enough to know when to stay out of things that don't concern you."

"This ain't about how smart someone is!" Breakdown went on, broken metal falling from his fingers. "It's about doing what's right!"

If he wasn't in immediate danger of being reduced to scrap, Knockout would have laughed himself out of the room. But here he had to settle for a smirk. "How noble. Then why don't you go crawling to the Autobots along with Dreadwing and Airachnid-?"

Breakdown's hammer smashed a dent into where Knockout's helm was just a nanoklick before. "DON'T TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!" The ex-Wrecker heaved through gritted denta, his only optic almost bursting from its socket and leaving him literally blind with rage. Knockout sat crouching under the hammer still caught in the wall, knowing it was entirely his fault that he was left cowering there. Breakdown was angry enough without being reminded of the femme he'd never have.

"Airachnid didn't deserve what she got when she came here," Breakdown said quietly, low vents taking away the last of his fury as he freed his hammer with a mighty pull. "Even you have to admit that, Knockout..."

As he picked himself back up, Knockout held back a quip about being the only reason Airachnid escaped detection before her defection. Sometimes being alive was preferable over being the better mech. "Only if you admit that the only reason you're upset about Soundwave is because he's your only link to her."

As Knockout expected, Breakdown was left paralysed in shock. "How... how did you-?!"

"Soundwave is the only one who could have known she was alive before Megatron, and the only way you could have known was from him. If I can work that out in under a day, then Megatron will have you strung overboard in even less time." Knockout informed him while he was still rapidly blinking his one optic. Even if he hadn't eavesdropped, he would have easily deduced it eventually.

Breakdown lowered his hammer slowly, not quite willing to shift it away as he studied the floor. "I'm upset for a lot of reasons... she's just one of them."

Knockout didn't bother deciding if he was telling the truth or not. He wasn't about to waste what little time he had left by now. "Kick and scream about it as much as you want, Breakdown, but I am only concerned with leaving this Primus-forsaken rock alive. And if that means keeping Soundwave in limbo, then I'm not about to throw that away.”

He turned his back, hoping Breakdown would just take the hint and leave before he dug his grave even deeper. Alas, even that was assuming too much of him.

"This isn't just about survival, Knockout. This is you being a coward. You don't want to die for anything bigger than yourself, cause yourself is all you give a slag about." He didn't quite sound angry, more disappointed than anything else. But that was his own fragging fault for expecting anything better from Decepticons than what he'd gotten in so many centuries.

"You figure that out all by yourself?" Knockout scoffed, busying himself with prying the scalpels out of the wall and rolling his optics in relief when he finally heard the hiss of a door opening.

"...You know, if I'd known mechs like you back on Cybertron were wearing Decepticon badges, I would’ve went to the Autobots instead in a sparkbeat.” The floor shook as Breakdown finally fragged off, taking his last words with him. Knockout had only been lumped together with him since he landed on Earth, but he knew right away that was the smartest thing he'd ever hear him say. He wondered at that for a klick, a limp hand on the scalpel grip, before shaking his helm and muttering to himself.

"You were wrong, Megatron, there is a sparkling on board..."

Behind him the door hissed again, and he groaned at the thought of another sparring match with a doomed mech who just didn't know when to give up- only to find Megatron standing at the entrance instead. The warlord had no injuries; only half-healed wounds and fading bruises, dents and chips in his armour that he refused to fix. Both servos, his own and the stolen Prime's, hung heavy by his sides, not even able to clench their claws into fists. His face didn't show fury for once; if it did, Knockout wouldn't have been nearly so unsettled. Apart from the dull red glow of his optics, he looked as lifeless as Soundwave.

"...Lord Megatron?" Knockout approached cautiously. "Are you feeling alright?"

Megatron blinked, a slow shuttering that saw his optics flicker from red to purple, such a subtle flash that Knockout doubted if he even saw it. With those optics he looked down at Soundwave, a blank stare that didn't seem to recognise Laserbeak amidst the dull and dusty navy plates.

"Are you absolutely certain there's no way to see Soundwave's memories?" he asked in a rust-coated voice.

Knockout took a moment to answer, once he was certain Megatron wasn't close enough to simply slice him in two. "Not while he's in stasis, my liege," he eventually lied.

In contrast to what the medic expected, Megatron only nodded once. "Very well. Kill him."

Knockout now emphathised with Breakdown in being paralysed by shock. "That... seems rather drastic, are you su-?" Megatron was leaving before he could finish the question, his back turned to Soundwave as if he was already certain he was dead.

Knockout called after him, "Where are you going now, Lord Megatron?"

"Home," the warlord answered from down the corridor. "If Starscream attempts a coup while I'm gone, kill him as well."

Finally, something to make Knockout smile that day. "Gladly, my liege." Of course the smile was gone as soon as the door closed, leaving Knockout alone in what he suspected would soon become a morgue, with only him left alive to sort through the bodies.

He shot a glare towards the first victim on his slab, deaf to the world and the whine of Knockout's buzzsaw as it slid out of his wrist. "You know, Soundwave, for a dead mech you know how to make my life far more difficult than it should be..."

Chapter 65

Chapter Text

"When Dinobots get to beat up Megatron?"

It was the fifth time one of the beasts had asked that, three of them credited solely to Slag as he tried to entertain himself by carving up tree trunks with his horns. But this time it was Grimlock, bowing low to Wheeljack's level so his masked pout would have maximum effect. ever since they'd returned to the island the Dinos constantly switched between their robot and beast modes, but Grimlock seemed to favour the former. The Wrecker had known him too long to not know all his tricks by now, but he gave the Dinobot a pat on his snout anyway.

"Soon enough, buddy, soon enough,” he promised, feeling a low growl under his palm from Grimlock's maw just as it was knocked away by Slag stamping up to slam into his leader's side.

"Slag not like waiting! Slag want fight!" The tricera-bot kept nudging Grimlock's side even as he toppled over, rolling onto his taloned peds under the cover of a giant dust cloud to ambush his impatient soldier.

"GRIMLOCK SAY WHEN DINOS FIGHT!" He lunged at Slag and scraped his denta along the Dinobot's side, a mortal wound on any other bot but barely a scratch to these rowdy walking tanks. Slag seemed more amused by the attack than angered, morphing into his beast mode and slapping his tail against Grimlock's jaw just as they were slammed by another of their group literally leaping into the fray.

"Snarl wanna join too!" His armoured plates protected him from Swoop's sudden airborne strike, and dirt soon covered everyone's armour as they jostled and rammed into each other. Wheeljack had seen it countless times before in his own squadrons, friendly fighting that honed the skills and sparks of brothers-in-arms. And unlike Wreckers, these ones had much less chance of dying in the field. He understood Agent Fowler's shock at how brutally these friends treated each other, but couldn't help also finding it hilarious how the human's jaw seemed to hang off its hinges.

"Now that the Pentagon knows this lot is on the loose, Megatron's gonna be the least of our worries," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and inching back as far as possible from the destruction the Dinobot's wrestling would surely cause. It wasn't just the tropical heat making him sweat a river, and even Wheeljack standing in front of him like a living shield didn't seem to make him any less anxious.

"They're rough 'round the edges, sure, but with some trainin' these guys could take on the entire Decepticon army by themselves," the Wrecker said. "Pit, they did near enough in the war."

"As long as they do it far away from me, they can have Megatron's sorry hide all to themselves," Fowler said, ducking suddenly as Swoop careened overhead to get a better vantage point of the fight. Wheeljack just shook his helm, pushing himself upright and facing the carnage head on and calling out to the ringleader.

"Listen, Grim, I'm gotta head back to base. You gonna be fine here with your new friends?
The Dinobot nodded with a servo around Slag's neck, preventing him from shifting into robot mode. "Grimlock keep Dinobots under control. Grimlock king!"

"You damn well better, else I'll be stuck with the property damage paperwork..." Fowler dusted himself down and quickly followed after Wheeljack into the cover of the trees, sighing in relief with the shade protecting him from both sun and death by Dinobot. Wheeljack let himself smirk at the human's discomfort as he opened up his comm channel.

"Yo, Ratchet, could do with a Ground Bridge here if you're not too busy countin' your rust stains."

"You know, Wheeljack, it's times like this I wish I just let you die from that servo you lost in Tesarus," the medic grunted, just one of many regrets he had stored away.

Wheeljack scoffed, knowing even the most grumpy of medics wouldn't let even the most irritating of bots die on their tables. "Yeah right, would've just gotten your sister to patch me up anyway..." He quickly closed the channel before Ratchet could yell at him, glancing down at the human as he tried to wipe his forehead dry. "You wanna shortcut back home?"

Fowler looked up at the Wrecker with a sudden bout of wide, darting eyes. "Uh, I actually have some more work to go over back in Washington, urgent stuff..."

In his limited experience of working with them, Wheeljack hadn't thought humans would be such bad liars. "You're still scared of Airachnid, ain't ya'?"

Fowler blinked, opened his mouth to protest, then sighed and deflated all in one nanoklick. "Of course I am! You'd have to be either a moron or five stories tall not to be!" A crash from the clearing nearby and the sound of Grimlock roaring made him pause and reconsider. "Then again, the two aren't mutually exclusive..."

Wheeljack took a knee in the undergrowth and gave himself a rare moment to be serious. He didn't know if Fowler had been given the whole Elita One story, and he wasn't about to give himself the job of filling him in. "Look, I know she left a bad first impression on you humans, and she ain't exactly popular with Autobots. But she's changed. I wouldn't even recognise her nowadays. And I'd even say she's the most valuable soldier we've got."

Fowler still looked skeptical, staring past Wheeljack to where the Dinobots had calmed down only slightly. "Even better than the Dumbobots over there?"

"Swoop heard that!" There was a screech somewhere above them, but the Dinobot was knocked off course by a stray tail and crash-landed in the dirt far from Wheeljack and the human.

“That's not the problem, Wheeljack," Fowler said with a sigh, bowing his head into one of his hands. "My superiors didn't know that Optimus had Decepticons livin’ right under our noses, but now that this place is swarmin’ with even more unpredictable machines I'm gonna have to come clean about everything. You know how hard it is to convince just one officer that you're all worth the collateral damage you cause?”

Wheeljack was caught off guard by the human's secrecy, but he had enough experience with tight-bolted officers to know exactly why he was so worried. “Trust me, I know...”

“Then you'll also know that convincing a whole room of them staring down their noses at you is damn near impossible."

There was a pause as Wheeljack struggled with what else to say. It would be hard enough reassuring a fellow Autobot in this situation, but humans were literally a whole other league of being. "Well... I can't exactly vouch for the likes of Dreadwing, but we know what we're doin'. Optimus knows what he's doin'. He wouldn't be in charge if he didn't. As long as humans trust that, there's nothin' to worry about."

The human's skepticism lifted, only so slightly to replaced by a hard edge of resolve. "You better be right about that. Cause I'm the one who's supposed to be keeping you all under watch. And I'm the one who cleans up any messes you make." Despite his size, structural weakness and obvious onset of heatstroke, Fowler almost managed to make Wheeljack feel threatened. He was walking back to wherever his team was waiting just as a Ground Bridge finally appeared behind Wheeljack, hiding all sight of the Dinobots but failing to muffle the sounds of competition.

"I swear, it's like someone shrunk Magnus and put him in a flesh suit," Wheeljack said to himself after one last glance at the human stumbling through the undergrowth, wondering if he was regretting not taking up the offer of the Bridge.

xx

Airachnid didn't make it far before she found herself on the floor, her back plastered to the wall as she desperately curled around Scorpia, as if that alone would help save her. She didn't cry, but her optics itched furiously like something was impatiently crawling just under the surface of the glass; her numb spark could only feel the dullest ember of those closest to it, coupled with her daughter's confusion and fear.

"Oppy in trouble?" Even if she couldn't possibly understand why her mother was upset, Scorpia could piece together enough to trace the blame to Optimus. In her optics, this would be the first time he was anything other than a loving sire to replace her real one. This would be the first time she'd ever been disappointed... for her sake, Airachnid hoped it wasn't a moment she would remember well.

"Yes. He... did something bad. He didn't mean to, but... he hurt both of us." Airachnid deflated with a heavy sigh, knowing there was no use in feeling bitter about it but still unable to stop herself. Even without knowing about the Dark Energon, Optimus' mention of Soundwave cut far deeper than she knew he'd meant it to. For how could he know why the Decepticon let her escape, yet didn't help her once before then?

Was that just Elita being hurt, or herself being stubborn?

...Was this what Arcee felt, every time the Autobot looked at her?

Thinking about it only made Airachnid ache more, sinking lower as if she could melt into the floor and just disappear under the planet's skin. She almost pined for the solitude of Archa Seven... almost, until she remembered how thin the line between that and loneliness was.

"I love you, Scorpia," she whispered, dry lips and hidden fangs pressed to her daughter's helm, digits trembling across the braid of wires snaking down her spine. "You know that, don't you?"

Of course she did; even a sparkling understood love better than she ever could. Scorpia nodded as her confusion faded, drowned out by a bloom of something warm and beautiful that Airachnid knew she didn't deserve to be given. "Love you, Mama."

"I'm... so sorry..." Airachnid buried herself against her daughter, collapsing into herself and forming a jagged cage around her frame with her legs.

Anyone who walked past might have mistaken her for a shuddering pile of scrap, yet Ratchet didn't take the hint as he approached from the other end of the corridor. She could tell it was him, his slow steps due to age more than caution- though there was plenty of that as well in his heavy stride. There was a creak of old joints and a grunt as he lowered himself next to her and her bristling razor-coated shell. She moved the legs aside only to check if he was still there after a few silent klicks, and he had the gall to smile at her through the cage. A breem ago in this same situation she would have sliced through his faceplate, but he didn't even flinch as she lowered her knives.

"Still so sure that it isn't my fault, Ratchet?" she asked, more like a hiss than a question. "That my own sparkmate doesn't trust me enough to tell me that my daughter... that she might as well be dying?"

"That isn't what's happening here, Airachnid. You know that. " For some reason Ratchet whispered to her as she clutched Scorpia, perhaps too hesitant to raise his voice any higher. Or perhaps knowing he wouldn't be able to keep up the mask of optimism otherwise. "Just because her armour is... naturally weak, it doesn't mean she can't have a normal life. For all we know, this might just be temporary, or it might not even be an-"

"Stop." Airachnid's helm swung like a heavy pendulum, coming to rest on Scorpia when she could no longer hold it upright. "Just... stop lying to me, please."

To the old medic's credit, he didn't persist in the denial. He went silent, for so long that Airachnid thought he might have fallen into stasis. Instead he was just thinking of what else to say to her, how to hand over his blame to her.

“Fine," he said, still stubborn in his whispers. "I know you don't want sympathy, or any promises I can't keep. So I'll only say this. Don't blame Optimus, Airachnid. Would you have really felt any better about this, hearing it from him?”

“...No," she admitted. "But at least I would have known.”

"And what would you have done, if you'd known?" Ratchet asked. "If you knew from the very start what would happen, before she was even born, would you have done anything different from then on?"

There were implications there that Airachnid couldn't stop hearing; would she have killed Scorpia herself, knowing she was doomed anyway? Would she have aborted the newsparks, given into that temptation that haunted her grim pregnancy to just tear them from her chamber and forget about them? Knowing how much she'd love her daughter, how much she'd still ache for her lost son, could she have gone through with it?

Or maybe there was more to it than that. If she'd known all along who she really was, would she have joined the Decepticons? Would she still have taken as many lives as she did? Would she have ever found the truth any other way?

Ratchet still looked at her, waiting for an answer.

"...I don't know," she said. "I try not to think about things like that. All I care about is what's happening now..." A chirp from her chestplates had her instinctively holding Scorpia to her chin, nuzzling the sparkling with a sigh. "What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to protect her?"

"You do what every mother does," Ratchet told her. "You keep her close, keep her happy, and keep her loved. Then hope for the best."

Airachnid huffed in her armoured cocoon. "I suppose medics do that more than any other bot."

Ratchet's vents mirrored hers, a heavy gust of stale air released in a shaky sigh. "I still haven't quite gotten used to it," he confessed, rubbing a hand over his weathered face as if he could somehow smooth the dents out himself.

Now it was Airachnid's turn to watch him with pity, though Scorpia distracted her as she gurgled around digits stuffed into her mouth like a makeshift pacifier. She let the sparkling bury her low warbles against her chestplates as she waited for Ratchet to speak again, or just leave her to her silence again. But it wasn't happening, at least not as far as she could see from the medic's stoney face.

"Your hinges will be getting rusty if you sit here any longer," she told him, and he seemed to jolt from a long sleep as he eventually took the hint with a minuscule smile.

“I'm not leaving until either you go and get some rest, or until one of us goes into stasis," he said firmly, with a low look at Scorpia in Airachnid’s lap. The sparkling’s distress had completely sapped her energy, leaving her curled up and silent aside from a whistle of tiny snores. Airachnid sighed as she pushed herself up on her back legs, careful not to jostle the sleeping sparkling.

“I suppose I can't be upset if I'm asleep…” She reasoned quietly with herself as she walked away, towards the quarters she shared with Optimus. She didn't look back at Ratchet, but she knew he'd be watching even as he answered a comm from far behind her.

"You know, Wheeljack, it's times like this I wish I just let you die from that servo you lost in Tesarus… WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT MY SISTER?!"

Resisting the great urge to glance at the medic’s outrage, Airachnid stifled a smirk along with Scorpia's audios as she slipped into the room- almost stumbling in shock when she found that someone else was already in her berth.

At least he kept to his side of it, vents trembling with mighty and distant groans in his recharge. Scorpia stirred when she heard them, a warble escaping from behind her hand while the other flopped towards Optimus’ still body. Airachnid brought herself to the empty edge of the berth; letting her optics trace the tired lines of her sparkmate’s face, the permanent firm lock of his jaw that could have ground his own denta to stumps. He looked his age only when he rested and let the mask of a Prime fall, yet even when they were closed his optics still made themselves so inviting behind their lids. She hadn't realised how much she'd missed him like this… still the same mech she would wake up to every morning, centuries ago.

“Even when you're sleep, you're still as handsome as ever,” she whispered, hovering a hand so close to his cheek but not daring to touch. His vents let out a warm ghost of air across her arm, digging under the armour to make her protoform tremble. Holding Scorpia to her chest, she let her heavy helm fall to the berth surface, only turning her back to Optimus when she felt her optics closing over. A lazy hand found her sparkmate’s servo, and she gently draped it over her as she curled against him. It tightened its embrace around her just as she joined Optimus in recharge.

Chapter 66

Chapter Text

Despite Optimus' warmth still lingering across her frame, Airachnid knew she was alone again when she awoke. As always, the berth was so much larger without him sinking into it with her. Scorpia still lay in her servos, curled into her chest with all the trust a sparkling could give.

She really had no idea what kind of disease was infesting her spark. Airachnid tried to be grateful for that as she pushed herself upright, wiping her face and armour down with her claws. Whether or not she was ready to face Optimus and the Autobots again, she was sure she'd meet them in the foyer if she ventured out the door. She could try and sleep the day away in blank dreams, or hope that no one else heard the death threats she hurled at Ratchet. Despite her protesting senses, Airachnid chose the latter and almost clawed Wheeljack’s face off when the Wrecker suddenly greeted her outside the door.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty. Or afternoon. I never understood how time works around here.” If he knew how close he just came to death, he kept it well hidden. He’d had plenty of practice in that around her.

“How long have you been waiting out here?” Airachnid asked tightly, willing her spark to stop trying to pound out of her chestplates.

“Couple’a breems. Optimus asked me to stand guard, at least until you woke up.”

Airachnid narrowed her optics, making to march past him. “I don’t need a guard.”

“I know, and he knows. It was just if you needed dragging out of your recharge.” Somehow he managed to walk past her stubborn steps and take the lead. “Come on, he should be in the main hangar.”

She could hear the rest of the team already, a patchwork of vocalisers that increased in volume with every step. Scorpia was too big for web cradles now, but she was almost tempted to carry her on her back in the sling that kept her safe as a newspark. Anything to trick herself into thinking she was out of harm's way if she was kept close enough to her mother. As appealing as that illusion was, she settled with just carrying her in her servos. If she acted like everything was normal, maybe everyone else would follow suit.

Even so, Airachnid hesitated before the foyer. From the voices she heard, it seemed every other Autobot was gathered to hear what Optimus was saying. Wheeljack almost had to drag her from out the corridor, pulling her into the gathering with Optimus' back facing her and his Autobots staring past him. As always, she was as inconspicuous as a Seeker parked on a highway and instantly created awkward silences as effectively as an Enforcer at a party. Scorpia at least seemed to like the attention, chirping up at the staring faces as Airachnid took her place at the edge of the gathering and avoided Optimus' gaze. She knew he'd be smiling at her, and she didn't want to see it.

“You were sayin’?” Wheeljack injected into the silence, prodding the meeting back to life.

"I was saying... at least we have our own Space Bridge now," Arcee said, alerting Airachnid to the drastic change that the Ground Bridge had undergone. Just as she'd said, a giant gunmetal portal identical to the one floating in Megatron's slice of space had replaced it. The Forge of Solus Prime lay leaning beside it, the gold sheen reflected brightly in Scorpia's wide optics and even in the Bridge's dark rim.

"We have a portal to Cybertron, but without the rest of the keys it will stay as nothing more than ruins," Optimus reminded them, still unable to take even small victories in his stride.

"Can't we just make another two keys with the Forge?" Smokescreen asked, the only one who would think it was that simple.
"Unfortunately, the Forge's power does not work that way, and I would not wish to waste it with attempting to recreate them."

Ratchet pitched in to the questioning after a sigh at Smokescreen’s suggestion. "Would Megatron know where the Omega Lock is?"
"I would not expect him to,” Optimus said. “The location is only revealed when all four keys are linked together, and through ancient datapads he would not have access to." Every Autobot before him had the grim looks of lost bots etched into their faces. Only Dreadwing kept his expression empty, for Decepticons never showed their fear.

"Dreadwing, could we infiltrate the Nemesis again and find the keys onboard?" Optimus asked, knowing it was their only real chance at retrieving them. Dreadwing kept his heavy thoughts to himself for long nanoklicks, before finally letting them out in a sigh.
"I would not advise it. I would have brought the keys myself if not for them being under heavy guard. The risk is just too great."

Optimus made great effort to limit his despair at nothing more than a low grunt. "We are at a stalemate, then... Airachnid, do you have any suggestions?"

Airachnid blinked in surprise. She wasn’t expecting to be called on, content to just stand and listen, but Optimus still looked to her for her own verdict. As if this was a proper command meeting, and she was still his equal. Hadn’t they both made the decision to meet Megatron at Archa Seven like this, so long ago?
"…I suggest that we consolidate our strength, and wait for an opportunity to retrieve the keys to reveal itself,” she said, hesitance making the words come slow to her vocaliser. “As long as we still have half of them, Megatron can’t make any moves on Cybertron. And he can’t launch a direct assault without knowing where this base is."

She thought it was the most sensible course of action available, but Bulkhead scoffed at it. "Sit on our afts and do nothing until something happens, my favourite strategy..."

And of course Arcee wasn’t eager to support anything out of Airachnid’s fangs. "Can't we use the new... 'Dinobots' somehow?" she asked, prompting a snort of laughter from Wheeljack.

“You kiddin’? Just the weight of them all would make the Nemesis crash before they’d do any good. That’s like sending a whole army of Bulkhead’s up there. No offense, buddy.” Even with that addendum, Bulkhead still punched him in the shoulder.

Optimus stretched his patience thin as he tried to bring focus back to the meeting. "Furthermore they only listen to Grimlock, and I can't trust him to lead such a delicate operation. Airachnid is correct, there is nothing we can do just yet. We must simply be patient. Back to your stations, Autobots.” Not even hearing the decision from Optimus’ own vocaliser helped to cement it, but the Autobots could do little to argue against it. Though they didn’t show it, everyone was scared. Sitting around and doing nothing would only make them even more so. As Airachnid watched everyone drift numbly back to wasting time and trying to forget the war existed, for once she couldn’t pity them. Not when she knew the feeling intimately.

Out of the corner of her optic, she saw Optimus in the midst of a plan to approach her when his comm unit interrupted him. She took the chance to put distance between them, giving herself a closer look at the new Space Bridge as Optimus spoke behind her.

“Yes, Agent Fowler? I see… yes, I understand. It should not be a problem. I will send him over.” There was a pause as he closed the comm line. “Smokescreen, your presence is required- “

“Oooh, you got a team of Deceptidrones for me to wail on? Or is it another one of those Iacon relics-?”

“No, the humans wish to evaluate you,” Optimus corrected, somehow maintaining patience even as a clang of Smokescreen hitting something rang out. “As a recent addition to the team, as well as a new resident of this planet, they want to ensure that you aren’t dangerous.”

“Ha! I’m as dangerous as they come when a Con is in my way! Just send me to them and I’ll knock peds off! Or… whatever they use to walk. They’ll be impressed, is what I’m saying.”

Ratchet sighed once again in weariness by the Bridge’s control panel, so grateful to be sending the young mech away. Airachnid watched Smokescreen shift to his alt-mode, some kind of tacky human-made frame, and stood aside just as he went roaring towards the Bridge’s vortex.

With Smokescreen taken care of, Optimus turned to Dreadwing while he still stood in his permanent vigil. “There was also mention of their… reservations at having former Decepticons in our ranks…” The Seeker levelled a cold stare at the Prime that told him he would need to be put into stasis before he would willingly go near government humans.

“I shall tell them you’ll be unavailable, then,” Optimus wisely said.

“Good,” Dreadwing decreed.

Airachnid listened closely to it all as she dragged her claws down the Space Bridge’s frame, silently reading the Primal Vernacular glyphs etched beneath them. Scorpia too reached out a tiny hand to stroke at the cold and scarred metal, somehow both worn and elegant at the same time. It was identical to every other Bridge she’d seen, yet built in less than half the time. Was it really so simple as just walking through it to be on Cybertron again? Or any other planet? She’d been stranded on Earth so long that the thought almost made her spark stop.

"Airachnid?"

She dropped her roaming claws at the sound of Optimus’ voice, not quite turning to face him. “You made it into a Space Bridge with the Forge,” she said as calmly as she could. “Rather ingenious. Does it really work?"

"We have not tested it, but it should be fully operational." Optimus stood by her side, seemingly sharing her own fascination with the portal as he too glazed optics over the ancient designs and writings. Even so, she was hesitant to ask…

"...Can we try it?” she said, not much louder than a mutter. “Can we go to Cybertron?"

From the silence that followed that question, she realised they were completely alone in the hangar. Even Dreadwing had decided to take his leave. There was no one else to stop them from leaving, just for a few klicks, no one except Optimus himself.

He looked down at her, optics so clear that she could see her own desperation reflected in them. The stern face of a Prime would tell her no. But then the mech who wanted to know everything, who would have travelled to another galaxy just to see what it was like, who she first fell in love with, Orion Pax, smiled at her.

"If you wish,” he said, leaving her to wonder where he’d been all this time as he calibrated the Bridge’s co-ordinates. In less than a klick, the way back home appeared in front of her like a long-lost ghost. It looked the same as any other portal, but she swore she could hear Cybertron through it; the taste of processed energon in the air, the blare of impatient traffic and a warm, familiar view greeting her when she woke up beside her love.

The memories rushed so fast in her processor that she almost forgot that the planet was dead, before she stepped onto empty dust. The ground beneath her was still, the vacant air hanging limp around her as the decay of a thousand years threatened to choke her vents with anguish. Buildings she might have recognised now lay in ruins, spilling their innards across the landscape as their corpses so slowly rotted away. What little slithers of sunlight that managed to make it through the wreckage were sucked away by stains of rust and ancient energon. With no-one to carry and nothing to support, the roads lay barren like the dark veins of a dying animal.

In this wasteland, only one structure still endured. The Hall of Records, half caved-in and scorched by the last efforts to take over what little the planet had left to offer the Decepticons. It was all so wrong, but what else did she expect? This was what home was. Dead and forgotten.

“…This is Iacon?” she asked, holding Scorpia tighter as dread clawed deep into her chest.

“What is left of it.” Optimus stood bolted to her side, shielding her from the cold that seemed to come from all directions; a perpetual ice that didn’t come from wind or snow, it simply just was. Though Scorpia didn’t cry out, she shivered in her mother’s arms as Airachnid forced herself forwards across the grey desert of dust. The only sound was her low vents and the lonely click of her heels stabbing the scars of the ground.

“The last time I saw Cybertron was during the Exodus,” she said to herself, tracking through the leftovers of that time. “Even then, it hadn’t looked so… broken.” She creased her olfactories to stubbornly force a tear of coolant back into her optic. “No wonder we all left.”

“If it upsets you, we can leave at any- “

Airachnid grabbed Optimus’ servo before it reached her shoulder. “No. I can’t leave just yet. I…” She released his hand, letting it fall slowly to his side. “I want to see everything that Megatron did to our home. I want to see what he left behind before we make him answer for it.”

With that, she continued her pilgrimage. Optimus didn’t follow so closely behind now. She had no way of knowing whether Scorpia knew what she was looking at, the legacy of her people being nothing more than a planet left to rust and a war that refused to end following them wherever they went, but the sparkling didn’t make a single sound. It was as if she was mourning the home she never knew.

Even so, there was one sight that made Airachnid smile. On Iacon’s outskirts lay a familiar courtyard that few knew about even in the Golden Age. With its dissected statue of Solus lying at her peds and the once glorious stained-marble floor left shattered, Airachnid recalled the countless evenings spent practicing while Orion watched from behind a datapad.

“Do you remember when you’d watch me dance there?” she asked softly.

“How could I forget?” Optimus asked in return. “Solus herself burned with jealousy when she watched you move.”

“Oh, stop it.” Airachnid would have swatted at him if he was close enough, dragging her heel through the ruins of her sweet memories. Back and forth along the shards of marble, like she was sharpening her heel into a knife or just warming up for a dance. As a hunter as well as a dancer, grace and poise were just part of her job. A dancer positions herself so carefully, slinks across her stage and dives for her audience just as a hunter does for her prey.

In that regard, at least, Elita and Airachnid were not so different. Though it had been countless cycles since she had the time for a waltz, she found herself swaying to a once-forgotten song that found its way past her fangs. Her vocaliser simmered its low hums, until she found the strength to be louder and let the lilt echo throughout the rusted ruins. She set Scorpia down on a clear slab of stone by Optimus’ peds, not pausing to see how he looked at her as she fell into her song. She couldn’t recall where she’d heard it, or even what it was called. But it hit the chords of her spark so closely that she had to play it to herself, closing her optics to forget the cold wastes around her and replace it with what once was, if only for now. If she would see Cybertron restored only once in her life, she would happily keep it safe in her mind, her only regret that Scorpia couldn’t see what she once did.

In the trappings of her fantasy she didn’t even realise she was dancing until Optimus caught her, not at all rehearsed yet so perfectly timed. He balanced a hand against her back as the other held her servo, happily letting her back legs caress his face as it hovered over hers.

“I thought I’d never see you dance like that again,” he confessed, with the same awe that she’d never been able to understand. Airachnid slowly righted herself, legs pushing off the ground to release her from Optimus’ dip. She didn’t feel herself moving, yet her joints throbbed exactly as they did when she danced. The dust on the stones marked the path she took, a thousand lines that wouldn’t be the same if she’d tried it again. And if she needed further proof, Scorpia stood trying to copy her mother’s moves on wobbly peds. Airachnid swooped her up just before she tripped again, and faced Optimus’ reverence with the only emotion she could muster- sadness.

“We’ll dance again when the war is over,” she decided, swiftly turning away from him before he could read any guilt on her face. Optimus said nothing to that, but she was sure he was as confused as she was.

Because it wasn’t Orion she was thinking of when she danced. He was her first love, but he didn’t teach her how to move. He didn’t teach her how to survive, or how a bot was supposed to love. And she hated knowing that there would always be another, when Optimus loved her so dearly.

She loved him too. Too much to keep lying to him.

"Do you still want to know why Soundwave let me go?” she asked, when she reached Iacon’s edge and found nowhere else to run. “Why he's been trying to help all this time?" She forced herself to face Optimus as he thought of how to answer. He took long enough to tell her that he hadn’t expected it to come up again, or at least so soon.

"All I want to know is who we can trust,” he eventually said. “Anything other than that does not matter to me.” His answer somehow told her both everything and nothing about what he suspected the reason was. But no matter what he thought of it, or of her, nothing had changed. He looked at her no differently than the day he realised who she was, and with no less love.

Airachnid had to root herself to the ground to stop herself running up to kiss him. Even her vocaliser failed her as she tried to comprehend just how she found a mech as perfect as Optimus. No matter what, she knew who she loved. Past, present or future would never change that.

"…I don’t know if we can trust him,” she eventually managed to say. “Even if he released me, Soundwave could have stopped Megatron from... he could have intervened. He could have done something other than just ignore it like everyone else-"

She might have rooted herself, but Optimus closed the distance between them in two strides to take firm hold of her shoulders, leaning down to look into her optics. "Airachnid. You know there's no use in thinkin of 'ifs' and 'should haves' right now. It's those thoughts that almost killed me centuries ago. I won't let them do the same to you. Not after all you've been through."

Thankfully he embraced her before her tears could spill over her optics, with Scorpia caught between their bonded sparks in a cradle of shared adoration- for each other, and for the chance to start again.

Behind Airachnid, the empty space between Iacon’s ruins and the abandoned battlefields beyond grew dark as Cybertron’s star disappeared behind the battered horizon, leaving behind a sky that was like bruised skin stretched thin over a corpse. Out of everything she’d seen that day, the sight of such vast and inescapable darkness made Scorpia whimper for the first time.

"This is no planet to raise a child on,” Airachnid said quietly, holding her daughter closer.

"This won't be her planet,” Optimus told her. “Hers will be resurrected... it will be beautiful. Better than before."

"Is that a promise you can keep?"

Optimus took hold of her closest hand, pulling it close as he knelt before her and let the setting sun split its last rays on his bowed helm. "For you, Airachnid... Elita... I would cross a sea of galaxies to see your smile on the crest of a starlit wave."
Even if she’d snatched her hand back, Airachnid couldn’t have possibly hidden her blush behind it. "You remembered that from our bonding vows."

"And I stole it from the inscription on the shrine to Solus. You were always too busy dancing to read it," he admitted. If it was anyone else but Optimus she might have smacked them in a sulk; but it was Optimus, so all she could do was laugh against Scorpia’s helm. Optimus returned to her side when she recovered, but as she made to take his hand her claws instead dipped into her subspace, pulling out the last untainted remnant of Cybertron. The meteorite, her wedding gift, caught the very last ray of sunlight just before it bled away, and Airachnid let Scorpia clutch it like a good friend.

"Do you think she knew?" she asked.

"Hm?" Optimus stared off at the silhouetted horizon, too distant to have heard her.

"Scorpia,” she clarified. “Do you think she knew... that we were sparkmates all along?" The sparkling gave her mother a wide-eyed look, as if teasing her for the question, but Optimus didn’t give an answer. Airachnid looked up at him expecting to see him lost in thought, but rather than the gentle face that had guided her here, she was met with frozen steel amid wide, terrified optics.

“Airachnid. Take Scorpia and run,” he commanded hoarsely, not taking his sight off the horizon for a nanoklick.

“What?” Airachnid tried to turn and see what had left him so petrified, but Optimus shoved her backwards before she could get more than a glimpse.

“Run, now! Stay out of sight!” Optimus turned around only to bellow at her, shifting his shotgun into place and aiming it towards the skies ahead. Any other soldier would have obeyed without question, but Airachnid had to waste precious nanoklicks of her escape to see what the threat was.

And she instantly regretted it. Even from a distance, even in the darkness, she recognised those red optics that seemed to find her wherever she went, and the purple stain of Dark Energon burning behind them.

If she could see Megatron, then he could see her.

Knowing that was what finally got her running.

Chapter 67

Chapter Text

Whether it was his medic’s intuition talking or the fact that both Optimus and Airachnid were missing, Ratchet knew that something was wrong. Any attempts to ping the Prime’s comm unit were in vain, and it was only when he started checking the Bridge calibrations that he was hit with a storm of static from the comm channel he'd left open.

“Optimus, where are you?” He had to recover from the stray crackles still stinging his audios before he could ask, but Optimus practically barged over the question before it was even out his mouth.

“There's no time to explain, Ratchet; get me a Bridge at Airachnid’s co-ordinates and send the rest of the team over!”

Anyone who'd been an Autobot as long as Ratchet had knew better than to argue with that tone. He opened up his servo-panel, having to dig through to find Elita’s long-thought-lost signal. With how old the record was, he was certain it was glitching out when he realised where it placed her. But no matter how much he refreshed the display and furrowed his eyeridges in confusion, her location didn't change.

“Airachnid's? But… Optimus, she's on Cybertron! Did you send her there with the Space Bridge?!” He hurried back to the Bridge controls on desperation to confirm it, but Optimus’ stern growl, as well as what it revealed, froze his servos in place and his spark in the middle of a frantic pulse.

“Yes, but that doesn't matter! Megatron is here, and soon his entire army will be as well!”

At this point, Ratchet didn't even want to know how it happened. All he was concerned about was doing as he was told, broad and fast-flying digits still managing to hit the keyboard buttons with surgical precision. He'd found Airachnid's signal in an instant, but she moved so fast and unpredictably that it was impossible to lock on for longer than a nanoklick. With a Ground Bridge he could have just placed a portal near her and waited for her to run into it, but a Space Bridge took just enough longer to generate that she'd be long gone by the time it appeared.

With this pace, at least Megatron would struggle to catch her as well. But Ratchet knew that would be little comfort to Optimus, just as it was to him.

“Dammit, I can’t get a lock on her position… I'll have to use your co-ordinates instead. Try to not move too much.”

“Just get a Bridge open, NOW!” There was another burst of static, a suspicious sizzle like plasma hitting metal just before the comm channel collapsed. Though he winced from the loud gunfire, Ratchet worked through it to calibrate the Bridge to Optimus’ position. He was so used to building the Bridges that he didn't even need to look at his digits as he set it all up.

“Primus, help me… Arcee, Bumblebee! Get everyone over here!” He called over his shoulder, hoping that whoever was nearest would hear the command over the crack in his voice.

Luckily Arcee was only just outside the hangar, and the remaining team trickled in behind her.

“Ratchet? What's going on?” she asked, throwing her confused glance between him and the Space Bridge humming in its struggle to summon a portal.

“Better make it quick, doc, we gotta go pick up the kids,” Bee warned, though Ratchet chose to ignore him since Arcee was almost always the one to accept hard news better than anyone else.

“No time to explain, apparently, but Optimus is up against Megatron on Cybertron-” As he expected, his answer was quickly cut short by an indignant chorus and the woosh of the Space Bridge finally forming.

“What?! When did he leave?!”

“I was not aware that we would be facing him again so soon.”

“Yeah, so much for waiting for the right opportunity.”

Ratchet resisted a scowl at Bulkhead's scoff just as strongly as he resisted punching the Bridge console. “That doesn't matter! Right now, he needs you all with him so get a move on already!”

Ratchet employed his signature ‘nagging doctor’ voice, combined with a fierce jab towards the waiting portal, that had everyone rushing through it without another sound. Not even Dreadwing protested as he solemnly strode through the bridge, T Cog already hissing before he disappeared through it. Whatever reservations they had about facing Megatron now, they'd just have to suck it up and deal with them.

He allowed himself one sigh, a very deep one, before he tried Optimus’ comm link again. “Optimus, are you still there?”

“Yes, Ratchet… I apologise for yelling.”

Either he'd managed to find a safe spot while the rest of the team joined in, or he was near death and desperate for a clear conscience. Either way, Ratchet rolled his optics. “I'd say you had a right to. Where's Airachnid?”

“When I first sighted Megatron I told her to run and hide. Is she still moving?”

Ratchet checked her signal again on the Bridge console’s screen. “No, she's stopped a long way from your position. I'll get her back home-” But his digits didn't manage to reach the keys before a jolt throughout the base almost threw him backwards.

“What the…?”

“Ratchet? What is happening?” Ratchet’s audios were torn between Optimus’ confusion and the familiar hum of the elevator descending behind him. He turned just as its doors opened, lines of armour-clad humans (or at least, what passed as armour for humans) marching out and surrounding the hangar. With how quickly they placed themselves, identical rows of faceless soldiers, they could have easily been mistaken for mass-produced drones; all except one who emerged last from the elevator, shielded in a suit as she purposefully carried herself towards Ratchet.

“Step away from the console, Autobot.”

She spoke like she expected him to obey, but with the number of guns surrounding him he wasn't about to object. “And just who are you supposed to be?”

The human produced a badge from somewhere in her jacket, as if it would mean anything to him. “US Director of National Intelligence, aka the reason you're still on Earth and not floating in space somewhere. We’re here on special Sector Seven directive orders to temporarily contain, supervise and ensure co-operation from all current Autobots.”

With the sudden storm of soldiers, the rest of his team busy fighting for their home planet and the knowledge that Airachnid was still waiting for a Bridge, it was a rare moment where Ratchet was left speechless. He gave another frantic glance at the Space Bridge, groaning quietly at the sight of guards already stationed around it, before he managed to find his vocaliser.

“You've never had any concerns before. We've been nothing but co-operative and upfront all these years-”

The human held up a finger, so small and insignificant and yet still able to cut him off. “All these years, until now,” she corrected. “Seems that your leader has developed a habit of taking in stray Decepticons without any authorisation. Your kind is already a national security risk just waiting to happen, we’re here to ensure that that hasn't already happened.” She met Ratchet’s glare, almost challenging him to argue. But before he had the chance to, she looked away and focused instead on a black-clad soldier who clattered up to her.

“East and West wings clear, Miss Mearing. No sign of the Autobots anywhere.”

Other than the slightest tilt of an eyebrow, she didn't seem shocked at all. That made her questioning stare all the more dangerous.

“Where are the Decepticons and Optimus Prime?” she asked Ratchet, while he swallowed his nerves and mustered the most disinterested tone he could find.

“Do I look like everyone’s keeper?” he huffed. “I'm just the medic. They don't tell me where they go unless they get hurt on the way there.”

She clearly didn't buy it, and her expression didn't change. “If you say so. I suppose we’ll just have to hunt them down ourselves.”

From how confident she sounded, she must have not known they were on Cybertron. Ratchet tried to not be too amused. “Good luck with that.” Then he allowed himself another glance, this time at the base’s main computer and the bewildered humans trying to decipher the glyphs on its screens. “But if it'll get you off my back, I can try pulling up their general co-ordinates,” he offered, just vaguely and bored enough that the human didn't suspect a thing.

“See that you do,” was all she said, gesturing to her soldiers to let him pass.

Once he reached the console, he wasted no time. The humans had no idea what a Cybertronian comm interface looked like, so despite his hammering spark they didn't even stop him sending data packets straight to Optimus’ comm link. And finally his fast typing came into use.

‘Did you get all that, Optimus?’ He’d left the channel open, though he hadn't heard anything from Optimus side since the humans arrived. A few klicks after he sent the packet though, his weary dejection echoed in his audio.

“...There’s no way to get the Bridge open?”

‘Not while they're here, he answered. Can you imagine if they decided to go through, or if Airachnid appeared and decided to attack them?’

“She wouldn't do-”

‘She would,’ Ratchet managed to interrupt as if he knew Optimus would deny it, ‘if she or Scorpia were being threatened.’

There was some silence that Ratchet had to fill with mindless typing as Optimus made his decision.

“...Very well. Keep the humans from activating the Bridge. I'll go find her myself.” The channel closed, and Ratchet wasn't keen to open it again. He shut the console down as he left it behind, confronted by the human and her armoured entourage.

“Anything?”

“No,” he said with a shrug. “Seems they've gone off the grid. And don't bother checking it yourself, you wouldn't understand a word of it.”

She looked behind him at the towering console, as her eyebrow shot up even higher. “How convenient…”

Ratchet reluctantly allowed the soldiers to surround and escort him away from the hangar, if only so the human wouldn’t hear his bitter mutters.

“More like ironic, that someone in charge of the country’s intelligence can't even read.”

xx

"Agent William Fowler, you've been brought here today to account for your... questionable actions regarding your assigned handling of the cybernetic extra-terrestrials known as the Autobots."

With the blinking camera in the corner, the shadows in the hangar’s ceilings and the three medallioned men arranged in front of him like a tribunal, Fowler took great effort to not feel threatened. By contrast, Smokescreen didn't even break a sweat (assuming robots could sweat). "Get on with it, then, I'm sure you wouldn't want them left unsupervised for very long."

"Don't you worry about that; we already have a squad dispatched to bring them in." The officer sat furthest to the right gave Smokescreen another cautious glance before leafing through the file on his desk. From how many pages he heard being flicked, Fowler knew it wouldn't have anything good inside it.

"Now, why don't we start with the most recent incident... the discovery of the rogue cybernetic organism on North Sister Island. The so-called... Dinobot.” The officer framed the word with his fingers as he read it out. “You didn't report its existence to higher command. In fact, the first we heard about him was from the criminal Silas, and this was dismissed as a deranged rumour."

Though he knew they were just starting him off lightly, Fowler still scoffed. “You think I knew about that any sooner than everyone else did? I was there when Silas was apprehended, and just like every other officer there I didn't see a damn robot dinosaur walkin’ around!”

The second officer, the only one he recognised as General Bryce, was unphased by his insistence. “So you’re denying that you intentionally withheld this knowledge?”

“Yes. Write it down in big letters if it'll make any difference.”

“Very well. We’ll just move onto more incriminating matters.” Bryce examined his own file as Fowler tried not to gulp. “Like the fact that civilians have been involved in Team Prime’s activities who are neither qualified or trained to take part in this level of-”

Up until now, Smokescreen had the grace to remain silence. But now he kicked himself out of his bored pose just to land Fowler in even more trouble. “You mean the kids? Well, sure; they're a little squishy and their tiny voices get annoying, but-” Smokescreen shut himself up when he noticed Fowler’s bright-eyed panic and the dead-eyed shock of the other officers, but it was already too late.

“...Did he just say kids, Agent Fowler?” The leftmost officer preferred to stay silently scowling, but now he cracked his mouth open to let out some barbed indignation.

“He's… referring to the children of our civilian volunteers,” Fowler lied around his heart as it pounded in the pit of his stomach. “They like to visit the outpost, but I assure you they're in no danger whatsoever.”

That assurance had no effect on anyone’s disbelief. “Are you suggesting that you encouraged minors to get involved with top secret military operations?!”

“If they were any kind of threat, the whole world would know about the Autobots by now!” Fowler argued. “And if these civilians were a liability, they wouldn't still be around. They're a valuable asset to Team Prime and the key to humans co-operating more effectively with Cybertronians. Isn't that right, Smokescreen?”

Since his slip-up, the Autobot had tried to blend into the background as much as possible, but considering how big he was that meant ‘not at all’. He glanced between all the humans as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I'd rather catch a movie with one of them than with any of the stiffs around here- uh, no offense.”

Smokescreen’s apology didn't help ease anyone’s outrage, and Bryce gave Fowler a cold look before moving on. “Regardless, we’ll be investigating these civilians more closely at a later date. Now onto the… urgent matter of this meeting. The new additions to Team Prime, including Smokescreen.”

Again the Autobot seemed surprised at being mentioned. “I thought I already introduced myself.”

“Not when you landed on this planet, you didn't. Agent Fowler is supposed to report every new extra-terrestrial arrival as soon as it’s confirmed.” Bryce handed a sheet over to Fowler as his steady stare took on an icy quality. “However, we are willing to overlook this if you can explain why two former Decepticons are now being housed inside a secure government facility with their sworn enemies.”

Fowler had seen the government profiles of Dreadwing and Airachnid before. He only skimmed over them before launching into his defense. “The key word there, General Bryce, is former. You were all so worried that Optimus had went over to the Cons for good, what's so unbelievable about the reverse happening?”

The rightmost officer was quick to answer. “The fact that these Decepticons have never seen fit to change their minds until now.”

“They've been fighting their war for a long time,” Fowler reasoned. “Maybe these two just want it to be over, no matter what side they're on.”

Two of the three officers’ glares faltered slightly, but the silent one took the chance to make his skepticism known. "Do you seriously expect us to believe that crap, Fowler?"

"It's not crap, sir, it's an... unforeseen complication. And it's not unheard of for enemies to switch sides-"

"In our wars, maybe not,” Bryce interrupted. “But we don't know a damn thing about the Decepticons beyond what the Autobots have told us. How the hell are we supposed to take the word of two of them that they won't cause trouble?"

"If I may point out, sir, one of them is a special case.” Fowler held up her profile for emphasis. “Airachnid is known to have never been loyal to the Decepticon cause-"

“Yes, Airachnid.” The officer almost spat her name out as he looked at his own copy of her record. “The one who's ranked as most dangerous just below Megatron himself and who actively assisted Silas. Are we supposed to believe that she's feeling guilty about it?”

Fowler knew there was no getting around that, so he didn’t even try denying it. Not even Smokescreen defended her, though that might have just been his common sense kicking in and keeping him quiet.

Two officers waited impatiently for an answer, but General Bryce sighed and gave Fowler a better chance to explain. "Will, you of all people know how dangerous that thing is. What the hell were you thinking not alerting us sooner that she was under Autobot protection, right under our noses?"

Even now, Fowler wasn't quite sure what he was thinking at the time. Maybe the fact that she was a mother as well as an Autobot was that much of a shock to him. But her daughter was the one thing he hadn't revealed, and he doubted she would have helped change any attitudes about her mother. So he stayed quiet, weighing everything he’d heard about Airachnid against everything he now knew, and only then gave his answer.

“By the time I knew about what was happening, I saw no reason to think of her as a threat anymore,” he said. “And neither did the Autobots. Especially not Optimus."

Whatever suspicions they still had, neither officer could find a flaw in his reasoning. He knew that, even before Bryce sighed again in resignation.

"No, he wouldn't,” he agreed, searching for another piece of information among the scattered records. “Not if... could you explain the circ*mstances again for clarification?"

Fowler cleared his throat, only half in preparation for the explanation that he couldn't give with a straight face no matter how much he rehearsed it. "According to Optimus, Airachnid is in fact an Autobot that was long thought to be dead, named Elita One. As far as I know, Elita and Optimus were... romantic partners, or whatever giant space robots would be."

“Sparkmates!” Smokescreen corrected with a grin more out-of-place than the rest of him. “I wasn’t around for their bonding ceremony, but I heard it was a national holiday and every Autobot was there to…” He trailed off when it was clear his enthusiasm wasn't catching on.

The officer sat to the right coughed as he asked, "And what made this revelation come about?"

"I still don't know, but I've seen the proof,” Fowler insisted. “We know that each Cybertronian has a unique spark signal, and I saw Elita's for myself. It had been inactive for centuries, and when it came back online it pointed right to where Airachnid was. Whether you believe it or not, that surely can't be a coincidence."

"I suppose not..."

The scowler to the left still didn't budge his cynicism. "Assuming that this thing really is friendly now, that still doesn't make the other Decepticon any less dangerous. Especially since he's refused to show up.”

Though he’d accepted most of Fowler’s logic up to now, Bryce made a sound of agreement. “Yes, this Dreadwing was said to be Megatron's most loyal officer, yet one day he decides to betray him? What spurs on something as drastic as that?”

“Well, if you're really planning to bring the rest of the Bots in, you can ask him yourself.” Fowler was just glad to have gotten past Airachnid, too exhausted to manage a better reply than that.

But before the interrogation could dig any deeper, the room’s only door slammed open as a soldier stood slumped and panting against the frame. "Um, sir... sirs, there's, uh... we have a problem."

Other than some disgruntled looks, the officers were hardly phased by the interruption. "Well, spit it out already,” Bryce ordered.

"The... Autobots, sir... they've… all disappeared from the outpost! All except one, and he won't say where the others are."

There was a second of silence, what should have only been a second before chaos broke out, but Smokescreen’s reaction ended up stretching it out much further.

"Awww, what the Pit?! They started the big battle without me!" He whined like he was on the edge of a tantrum, going so far as to kick his peds together on the floor as every officer faced Agent Fowler.

"What is he talking about, Fowler?" Bryce asked slowly, just as Fowler was turning his own glare up to Smokescreen.

“Yeah, Smokescreen, what are you talking about?”

The Autobot froze, gulped and, yes, there was actually a trickle of something like sweat falling down his face as he stuttered. "Uh… we, uh… had a, sorta... plan to get back to Cybertron and finally beat the Decepticons. Didn't think it'd be happening so soon though-"

"Clearly,” Fowler cut in, burying his face in his hand as he wondered what other secrets Optimus had managed to stockpile.

While he was busy regretting his life choices, Bryce turned back to the messenger while he stared up at Smokescreen. “Send out some engineers to the Omega Outpost, see if they can't figure out how they got off the planet,” he ordered. Though the young soldier was still heaving from his run and entranced by the robot in the room, he knew better than to linger any longer. When he'd disappeared, Bryce locked back onto Fowler. “As for you, Agent Fowler, we're not done here. But you might as well make yourself useful and go make sure those kids get home safely."

The three officers cleared their papers, stood up, retrieved the camera and left him to both wonder how he'd gotten through the grilling without losing his job, and to regret taking this job in the first place.

"Once again, stuck babysitting... might as well just hand in my badge and open up a daycare.” Fowler sighed as he wiped his suit down, shooting a glare up at his partner in attempted crime. “You too, Smokescreen, you're driving me there!”

“Aw, come on!”

Chapter 68

Chapter Text

For the nanoklick that Optimus allowed Megatron and Airachnid out of his line of sight, furiously hissing to Ratchet down his comm line, they’d both managed to disappear completely. Though disturbed by his frantic plasma volleys, the planet was as dead and barren as it always was, as if the arrival of Megatron was just an illusion. But Airachnid had seen him as well. She wouldn’t have looked so terrified otherwise.

“Airachnid, can you hear me?” Optimus’ frantic hiss into his commlink was met with nothing but a taut silence. “Airachnid, come in!” Still nothing, even when he tried to force some life into his unit by cracking his palm against it. With a curse boiling under his glossa, Optimus threw it out towards the wasteland that seemed to swallow Megatron up, only to soon spit him back out like poison.

No doubt he’d left to gather the rest of the Decepticons, or just to try and ambush the Prime. In any case, Optimus wouldn’t stand down. Airachnid had hopefully hidden herself well, and he wouldn’t endanger her by trying to find her. Instead he set himself against the horizon, a statue left standing amongst the ruins as he reached far into his subspace. All the Iacon relics were safe in the base’s vaults, except the one only he could wield.

The Star Sabre had accompanied him ever since he first held it, nestled into his subspace as deep as it would go. He didn't draw it just yet. He just made sure it was there, ready for when he needed it. With a tight but waning grip on the handle, he waited for Megatron’s return and the arrival of his Autobots.

The familiar hiss of a Bridge opening sounded behind him as he closed his subspace, but he didn’t turn to greet the bots that piled out of it. Likewise, they didn’t stand down until they were certain there was no one else lying in wait for them.

“Where’s Megatron?” Arcee straightened, aiming her blaster upwards for everyone else’s safety but still keeping it out for her own.

“He has retreated, but not for long.” Even with so many other guns around him, Optimus was reluctant to turn and face his soldiers. Half from fear of Megatron’s inevitable return, half from the knowledge that he could have prevented this premature stand-off.

As the other most experienced Autobot present, Bulkhead knew that better than anyone. Optimus could hardly blame him for sounding bitter. “With his whole army following behind, I bet,” the Wrecker muttered.

“We still have time to escape, though!” Bumblebee whirred with all the hope he had left. “If we can just find Airachnid, we can- “

“You would abandon our home just to save yourself?” Dreadwing didn't sound surprised, but then again he never did. The scorn in his voice masked anything else that might have been there. “Typical Autobot cowardice.”

Bumblebee’s fury caught in the broken circuits of his vocaliser, a splutter of beeps that barely cut through the Seeker’s scowl before Optimus silenced him. “I am afraid Dreadwing is right, Bumblebee. If we forfeit Cybertron now, we might well never return to it. Megatron is desperate enough now to try anything. We must stand our ground.”

The scout’s optics still flared, but he bent his helm in understanding. Beside him, Bulkhead slammed his fists together. “Whether it’s one Con or a hundred of ‘em, I ain't leaving.”

Despite her anxious glances towards the horizon, Arcee nodded. “We’re yours to command, Optimus.” Even Bumblebee quickly disposed of his sulk to blip in agreement. Even amidst the corpse of their planet, surrounded by what they stood to lose, they were still as loyal as ever. Even without Airachnid near, Optimus was grateful.

“Shall I take an aerial scout?” Dreadwing offered, opening the vents of his wings impatiently.

Optimus shook himself, forcing him into the mind of a commander. “Up to the outskirts of Praxus,” he ordered, nodding towards the one neon-sprinkled ruins far ahead of them. “Megatron is likely to deploy his army on the Hydrax Plateau, or the Sea of Rust. Anywhere open where he can gather them together.”

Dreadwing bowed his head, either in a show of respect or just obedience, before activating his T Cog and leaving the scorched ground behind for the barren slipstreams of a long-dead sky. What little sunlight was left barely illuminated his frame against the dark backdrop of clouds choking out the stars above. Above or below, Primus could not watch over them either way. But as long as Optimus felt the Matrix burning in his chest and the Sabre buried away, he knew he was never truly abandoned.

“Autobots, I know the odds are against us. They always have been.” He turned to face each one of them, the tiny army he’d managed to gather and protect all these years. “But all is not lost. Megatron may have numbers on his side, but his army of mindless drones lacks that which makes us Autobots. We have our honour, our resilience. And we have the knowledge that we have survived worse than this.”

He had much more to say, but Arcee spoke up before he could go on. “You don’t need to do the whole inspirational speech thing, Optimus.” Though there was a smile in her voice, her expression was set in stone like a commander’s. “We knew what we were getting into when we followed you to Earth. Sooner or later, we would have all ended up back here.” She kicked the silent dust at her peds in emphasis as Bumblebee somehow compressed his beeps into a harsh growl.

“But this time, we’re not leaving without a fight.”

“And if any of us end up in the Allspark after this, we’ll be taking some Cons to the Pit on the way there.” Bulkhead sealed his vow with the crash of his wrecking balls slamming together. Each Autobot stood shoulder to shoulder before him, a wall of bristling armour and bright optics. Though his battlemask hid his faceplate, Optimus felt a proud smile thriving behind it. Despite what was to come and what had been, he knew he was one of very few fortunate mechs in the universe.

“Prime.” From his comm link, Dreadwing’s voice echoed amid the whistle of air flying past him. “The Nemesis is arriving from the east, though it seems Megatron is flying ahead of it. I will stay near the ship to take out any aerial reinforcements.”

“Understood, Dreadwing.” Optimus considered asking the Seeker to search for Airachnid as well, but closed the link before he’d be tempted. Best not to have their only aerial advantage be distracted.

Beside him, Arcee managed to keep a brave face even as she watched the horizon for Megatron. “What should we do?”

Optimus tensed his T Cog, silent until he saw the faintest shadow against the sky. “What we do best,” he answered. “Transform, and roll out.” He shifted into his alt mode, with his Autobots just a nanoklick behind him, and pushed onwards towards the empty battlefield. He heard their engines above his own, a trio of thunderous iron-clad resolve behind steel hearts. The more he rattled over the rocks and ruin of his home, the more certain he was that the growing fury in his spark was relative to his approach to Megatron. And sure enough, as the Autobots came upon the edge of the Sea of Rust, unchanged even in the wake of war, he knew that the dark cloud ahead of them was the Nemesis. Closer still was the faint shape ahead of it, so much smaller yet so much more threatening. Even from this distance, with his helm tucked away behind his alt-mode’s armour, Optimus could feel the warlord’s glare burning through his own.

As the dusty miles between the two mechs fell away, Megatron tilted towards the ground in a beeline to Optimus, tumbling through the air rather than flying. Whether or not he was planning to crash into him, Optimus didn’t slow down. His tires trembled as a hidden fist gripped itself tightly, waiting for Megatron to be just low enough, just close enough, to send it slamming through his chest.

But Megatron had other ideas. His descent revealed a squad of drones trailing behind him, six of them splitting off into three on either side of their leader. Just as Optimus registered their shapes against the dark sky, they let loose a volley of lasers that kicked up the dirt in front of him and sent him skidding into the cloud. The other Autobots were faster to react, skirting around the scorched ground and driving under the drones to get out of range of their guns. While they went on ahead, Optimus circled and acted like he was planning to retreat, drawing the lasers towards him to give the others a chance at reaching the other side of the flat plain. Angling his mirrors, he saw Arcee speed ahead as Dreadwing came in above her, shooting down the drones while they were distracted. Now Optimus had to focus on avoiding the flaming frames falling as he wrenched on his brakes, almost toppling over from how quickly he stopped. Once the centuries of dust cleared, he found the skies empty. Megatron had disappeared, as if the sea’s ruins somehow screened him. Wherever he was, Optimus knew it wasn’t far away. He throttled forwards again to join up with the Autobots, while his radio suddenly jumped to life.

“Optimus?”

“Ratchet.” The one voice he hadn’t expected to hear, especially for the nanoklick that he’d hoped it would be Airachnid’s. But despite that disappointment, a medic was always useful. “Are you still being detained?”

“I managed to bluff my way out, said I needed some fresh air and they actually bought it.” Ratchet scoffed a bitter laugh at the humans’ expense. “But I don’t have long until they order me back. Have you found Airachnid?”

“No, and she refuses to answer her comm link.” Optimus swerved to avoid a smouldering impact crater with two Vehicons melted together. “Either it is malfunctioning, or she is purposefully ignoring it.”

Ratchet sighed with such force that it was almost as if he was driving right beside him. “Typical Elita behaviour… she doesn’t want to retreat, Optimus. If this is truly our last stand against Megatron, she would rather die than miss it.”

Optimus almost lost his grip on the ground as his brakes jammed; he knew Elita better than any bot in the galaxy, yet he hadn’t thought that she’d be so intent on getting her revenge against Megatron. “For once, I dread to think that you are correct… but she has Scorpia with her. She wouldn’t put her daughter in such danger-”

“As far as Airachnid is concerned, Scorpia was in danger from the nanoklick she was conceived.” Ratchet paused, a sharp intake of air following his memory of Airachnid’s fury at him. “Whether by dark energon or by her sire, she knows that her daughter will die one day. Taking down Megatron is the only hope she has left.”

Ratchet was sombre enough for both of them, yet Optimus still struggled to stop his spark running heavy from sorrow. His engine stalled and then slowed, though he was only halfway to the Autobots as they fended off a squad of ground troops.

“…Is there no way to Bridge her back to safety?” he asked through a clogged vocaliser.

“Not when the controls are still out of my reach,” Ratchet answered. “Even then, I doubt she’d even use it. However…”

“What is it, Ratchet?” By the time the medic spoke again, Optimus had reached the rest of his team.

“Hold out for a little longer, Optimus. I’ll see what I can do.” Behind Ratchet’s request there was a faint voice that must have been human, just before the link closed.

“Dammit…” Optimus pushed his engine to its limit and activated his T Cog as it hit its max speed, flying forwards to send a fist cracking through an unsuspecting Vehicon’s faceplate. He wiped the energon off his knuckle, holding the drone down and shifting his gun out to fire a round through its chest. But just as he finished that one off, a duo started closing in on him with laser shots peppering his armour. He grabbed the barrel on one, ignoring the heat searing against his palm as he lined it up with its friend’s spark chamber. And dumb as only a drone could be, it kept mindlessly firing until its partner fell to the floor. Optimus then crushed the gun in his hand and sent its wielder soaring towards another group of Vehicons approaching.

Now that he had time to assess the field, he saw Bumblebee running and firing shots at drones chasing after him while Arcee took a close-combat stance. For every soldier they took out, another three seemed to replace them. Bulkhead seemed to be having more success by clearing a path towards them with his wrecking balls, but his back was left open for attack.

“Arcee, Bumblebee! Flank around Bulkhead!” Despite the dissonance of metallic crunching, plasma fire and heavy vents, they managed to hear Optimus’ command. Abandoning their own targets, both bots headed to the Wrecker with Arcee vaulting over the shoulders of drones in her way. In the time it took to reach Bulkhead, there were more than enough drones behind him for them to take out.

Now it was up to Optimus to take out the leftovers, with his sword in his servo and his shotgun in another. The Star Sabre was tempting, but not worth using on drones. Only a true Decepticon would do to be felled by its blade.

Besides, he didn't need a Prime’s weapon to be a Prime. The recoil of his gun helped to drive his sword through armour and protoform alike, leaving the Vehicons too cautious to come in range of his melee attacks. Though more lasers hit him than he managed to dodge, his sword also helped deflect some shots as he decimated their ranks. The last drone went down with a blade through his abdomen, leaving Optimus to shake the energon off while his team stepped over the carpet of fresh corpses towards him.

“Where’d Megatron go?” Arcee asked, retracting her servo blade.

“I lost sight of him during the diversion,” Optimus answered, vents left wide open to cool his exerted systems. “If he’d returned to the Nemesis, Dreadwing would have seen him.” He glanced up at the sky, only able to see shadowy outlines of flying mechs with no hint of which one was their own Seeker.

“So he’s hiding.” Arcee made her contempt at Megatron’s cowardice well known as she spat. “Probably planning to ambush us.”

“Where’s the rest of his army, though?” Bee asked, following Optimus’ gaze before but now casting nervous looks around his frame. “I’d have thought Starscream would be out by now.”

“Or Breakdown,” Bulkhead added. “I was looking forward to rattling his helm, see if there really is anything in there.”

Just as he clanked his wrecking balls together, Dreadwing swooped low and landed on his peds beside him, sporting scorched metal across his wings as he kicked a drone carcass aside. “All aerial units terminated,” he reported. “ Though I suspect reinforcements will be imminent.”

“Was there any sign of the other officers?” Optimus asked without turning to face him.

“Negative. Megatron has also disappeared.”

“Maybe he’s trying to wear us down with Vehicons first, then he’ll send in his heavies to finish us off,” Arcee suggested behind lagging vents, already burning through her energon reserves. If she was tired already, the mechs wouldn't be far behind her.

Optimus heard each soldier through half-tuned audios as he studied the Nemesis looming above them, waiting for any hint of reinforcements or Megatron himself. For every inch of the warship, a hundred more drones could be waiting for their time to attack. And that was assuming the ship’s own cannons didn't just simply blast them away.

“Whatever the case, I fear that we have barely put a dent into his forces.” Optimus tried not to sound as sure about that as he really was.

Despite his efforts, Bee let out a downtrodden buzz. “Even with all the dents they’ve given us already…” He turned to check how battered his servo was, but he froze as soon as he raised his optics. “Uh… looks like we’re in for a few more.”

Optimus had already seen the rising tide of Vehicons on the Nemesis’ prow, a uniform line of drones waiting to fall upon them. And right in the center stood a figurehead standing tall over the planet. In a sea of purple, Megatron's diseased optics shone both the brightest and the darkest.

“Speak of Unicron, and he shall show,” Dreadwing recited, reaching for his thermal cannon wherever he kept it tucked in his subspace.

“Somehow he followed us all the way from Earth... “ Bee’s voice was hushed to hide the tremor running thick through his voice. But his was nothing to the quake of the ground as Megatron leapt down and slammed into it with a fist towards Cybertron, Vehicons trickling down after him like they were tethered to his very frame.

Optimus managed to keep his balance in the wake of the warlord’s arrival, optics locked onto him with nowhere to escape unseen. The only path available was right towards the Autobots, who were still left reeling by the force of his peds.

Only Bulkhead seemed undisturbed, rolling his neck with a growl. “Ready for round 2?”

“Always.” Surprisingly, Dreadwing was the one to answer for the Autobots. And most surprisingly of all, the Wrecker and his enemy nodded in agreement. Megatron's threat was so great that even hunter and prey joined together against him.

Optimus wondered how well that applied to Airachnid, only briefly as he waited for Megatron’s charge. His servo reached for his subspace again, closing instinctively around the Star Sabre’s handle. As he heaved the blade out it seemed to cut right through the pocket dimension, slicing through the thick air as a beacon of light as bright as Cybertron’s core once was.

If Megatron was phased by the Sabre’s glow, he took great care to not show it. Those purple optics seemed to absorb the light completely above a cluster of sharp denta pushed towards a smile.

“I'll be honest, Optimus, I did not expect to find you here,” the warlord confessed like he’d just bumped into an old friend he didn't recognise. “You and your new pet spider. Did she die already? I'm disappointed. I hope your survivors will prove more entertaining.”

Optimus kept his growl low in his vocaliser, refusing to be baited. “This ends here, Megatron. Before, I showed you mercy because I'd hoped, however unlikely it was, that you would see the error of your ways. But now I see that that is an impossible hope. So I will give you one last chance; hand over the Omega Keys and surrender, or be sent to the Pit for your crimes against our kind.”

Megatron’s laughter seemed to echo across the entire planet, like the groan of the Nemesis’ mighty metal chassis. “And why would I take that offer when I could just wrench that Sabre from your servo and strike it against your spark?” He gestured with his stolen servo, so dull and dead. “Why would I want to save Cybertron, when it has done nothing for me in turn? Our planet was doomed from the start, Optimus. I was glad to see it go up in flames, the corpses of Autobots lining every street. Which is why I had the Omega Keys destroyed.”

Optimus almost lost his grip on the Star Sabre, rapid blinking optics as he prayed he'd just misheard. But the warlord’s shark grin told him otherwise.

“Liar.” Optimus could think of no mech he trusted less than Megatron, especially with bluffs. “No Iacon relic can be destroyed.”

Megatron’s pride didn't even falter. “You doubt the powers of Dark Energon. Why else would I come here, other than to bury their remains?” Whether or not it was true, his confidence was smothering every single hope the Autobots had left. His fusion cannon was set towards Optimus’ helm, but even the glow of its barrel couldn't compete with the toxic glare of his optics. It was impossible to tell where Megatron ended and Unicron’s possession began.

“So I’m afraid that if you want my surrender, Optimus Prime you must take it from my dying vents.”

The distance between the two armies was less than half now, and the ground seemed to simmer despite the sun being long gone from the impending massacre. Mist rose up like smoke, or like the dusty remnants of lost sparks trying to claw their way out of the poisoned atmosphere. Even when facing death, it was hard for Optimus not to be poetic about it.

But warlords had no use for poetry. Warlords looked at a battlefield and thought of only whether they won or lost. And it had been so long that Optimus doubted either of them could remember which field was a victory and which a failure, not when they all looked the same, blended into the same wasteland of grey dust and battered rust.

Optimus looked at his old friend with his defiled spark, his warped mind and brimming optics, and saw only hatred reflected. Whether it was his own or Unicron's, he didn't want to know because he knew it made no difference. One way or another, he'd soon never have to see it again.

“As you wish, Megatron.” The snarl behind his battlemask seemed to echo from the Matrix, with the voices of a hundred more fallen Primes joining his own. Time seemed to slow, with a giant mass of plasma heading right towards him. He pulled the Sabre up to block it, letting the ancient blade take the searing fire as more shots followed after. And now time sped up, every nanoklick like a rapid pulse in a processor that could barely keep up with what was happening. Optimus deflected every bolt of plasma as he pressed on, not even realising that he was running until he lowered the Sabre and watched the Decepticons charging.

This time there was no click of T Cogs, only the furious strike of peds on dirt and the hum of blasters charging, just before the lightning crash of plasma volleys turned the Sea into a blind tide of smoke and charred rock. Neither army knew when they'd meet each other, not until they collided into energon stains and mangled metal.

But a Bridge showed up before that could happen; a spear of light that came down to split the field in half and force back every bot charging towards it. Servos shot up to shield squinting optics, even as they tried to look closer at the mysterious portal.

“What the Pit-?”

“More reinforcements?”
“Whose Bridge is that?”

Optimus had no answer to any of the confusion, still covering his optics with a hand as they tried to look through the light, as bright as the Star Sabre itself. But the Bridge was so huge that he couldn't see the plain beyond it, still blind despite the new source of swirling light. Over the hum of the portal all he could hear were stray laser blasts, so meagre compared to the orchestra that fired just nanoklicks before even with his audios tuned to their maximum.

He never saw what emerged from the Bridge, because for the first time, the Autobots were on the wrong side. He heard it in his boosted audios over his roaring spark, a voice he never thought he'd be so grateful to hear.

“ME GRIMLOCK KING OF CYBERTRON!”

Chapter 69

Chapter Text

A short while earlier…

Even with all of Optimus’ lectures about how fragile humans were echoing in his processor, Ratchet was still sorely tempted to just shove the soldiers “guarding” him aside. It was one thing being imprisoned by smaller and weaker beings, but he would not be treated like an old relic by them.

But he had to behave himself for now; even as he replayed the sounds of gunfire and lasers light years away in his audios, and as he yet again faced the insufferable blonde woman the nanoklick he stepped out of the elevator.

“Enjoy your trip?” she asked, somehow squeezing drop of sarcasm through her deadpan voice. Ratchet huffed and stepped over her in a single stride.

“Excuse me if I want to make my imprisonment more comfortable,” he muttered, almost stumbling over the squishy barricade that formed around his peds just as he was about to step on them and render their bulletproof armour as useful as a frame welder in a blizzard.

“Oh, you’re not imprisoned, bot,” she said as he was forced to face her again. “Not yet. That all depends on how you explain what these are.” She gestured to her left, where a new line of soldiers pulled up with a device to every two men’s shoulders; the Iacon relics pulled straight from the base’s vaults, including the Omega Keys.

Ratchet struggled to keep his optics off the Forge still lying against the Space Bridge, struggled to do anything that wouldn’t give away what he knew. If these humans were really so paranoid, there was no telling what they would do with the relics if they knew of their power.

“I… I have no idea,” he lied, scratching the back of his neck to stop coolant running down his back. “They look like some kind of analysing equip-”

“Look more like weapons to me,” the human interrupted, though only the spark extractor really counted as one. She advanced on Ratchet with the delusion that she was threatening, or at least as threatening as her authority was. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, you Autobots have secretly been stockpiling alien technology! Not only did you not inform us of their existence, you violated our agreement to share any and all technology!”

Ratchet scowled at being reminded, having to forfeit almost all the tech he salvaged from Cybertron only to be repaid by primitive human machines. “I told you, I’ve never seen them before! Where did you even find them?”

The human raised an eyebrow, and looked to the closest soldier to provide an answer for her.

“Uh… in the basem*nt, Miss Mearing.” He struggled to hold the Phase Shifter up, clutching it to his chest with both arms, but he was still making a better attempt than the four tasked with hefting the Omega Keys.

“That’s usually where you hide things, isn’t it?” she asked Ratchet, baiting him to try and deny it. But Ratchet stayed silent, a million different plans flying past his optics before he could latch onto him. He had a sudden empathy for what bearing the Matrix must have felt like.

“I suppose… Optimus must have hidden them away from everyone else,” he suggested, slowly enough to sound like he hoped it wasn’t true.

Another sharply crooked eyebrow stabbed towards him above a suspicious sneer. “Is that so? Your own leader keeping secrets from his team?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time…” Ratchet put just enough bitterness in to make it believable without delving too far into how Optimus sometimes made him wish he’d just stayed behind and rusted on Cybertron. But if he didn’t think of something soon, Optimus and the rest of the Autobots would be the ones rusting. They couldn’t hold off the entire Decepticon army on their own, and he couldn’t send them any reinforcements without access to the Space Bridge.

Which meant he needed to trick the humans into letting him use it.

“Look, give me another chance at trying to locate him,” Ratchet offered. “Let him answer any questions you have about those... things.” He gestured at the Relics like they made him as uncomfortable as the humans, with the spark extractor in particular giving him shudders under his armour.

The human narrowed her eyes so much she might have been trying to squeeze her optics out. “…Fine,” she said, arms crossed on her chest as if she was guarding it. “One more chance, then we’re taking you and these trinkets in for detainment.”

Ratchet nodded, saving his sigh of relief for when his back was turned. He turned on his comm unit, but it wasn’t tuned to Optimus’ channel. Instead he pinged the last mech he’d ever want to speak to, and the only one who could get his plan working.

“Optimus?” he asked, knowing he was wrong.

“Oh, I wish,” Wheeljack answered, no doubt with a grating quip ready to deploy if Ratchet hadn’t so swiftly ignored him.

“Finally, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for ages!” Where Wheeljack was concerned, it wasn’t hard to fake exasperation. “Look, I don’t know what you and the other bots have been up to, but the humans have the entire base locked down! You need to get back ASAP and tell us what the Pit is going on!”

He paused to give Wheeljack, or ‘Optimus’, time to respond. “Uh.. Ratchet, I told you, this ain’t Optimu-“

“I’m sending a Bridge to your location,” Ratchet went on, only needing to approach the console to send the humans scattering away from it. “Bring the others with you if you can, they’ll be needed as well.”

By the time Wheeljack realised who the ‘others’ were, Ratchet had put in the island co-ordinates. “…Roger that, Doc.” The link closed, though the tension in Ratchet’s spark only coiled tighter like the portal that burst into being behind him. The humans around it jumped back and shielded themselves against its glow, as if they were worried about getting sucked in. Only their leader seemed as unphased as ever, squinting up at Ratchet from beneath a head across her oh-so expressive eyebrows.

“He should be through in the next klick- er, minute,” he said, and hoped.

“He better be,” she warned. “Else we’ll go and drag him through.”

Half a klick passed and the portal still shimmered bright but empty, like the last breath of the Allspark. Ratchet rubbed at the rust on his palms, fighting the urge to storm through the Bridge himself.

‘Come on, Wheeljack, do something stupid like you always do…’

But the last of his time passed with the blink of an optic, and the humans closed around the Bridge again with full intent to take it.

“Looks like Prime is more reluctant than you thought,” their commander told Ratchet, a silent smirk passing across her face just before she turned to the closest group of soldiers. “Strike team alpha, form up on the portal. On my signal-“

But Wheeljack and Grimlock both beat her to it. “Comin’ through!”

“OUT OF ME WAY!”

“What the hell-?!” Years of military training and experience seemed to dissolve in the wake of Grimlock’s peds turning the entire base into a miniature earthquake, Iacon relics dropping to the ground as their bearers suddenly lost all the strength in their arms. As soon as the Dinobot cleared the Bridge he scrabbled at the ground with his claws to stop his stampede, but still almost trampled half a dozen men as they scrambled out of the way. With the size of his body and tail, he was almost as wide as the entire silo and half as tall, making it a miracle that he even fit through the Bridge’s frame.

No wonder Wheeljack looked so smug, riding between his shoulders. “Someone call for the cavalry?”

Grimlock himself was a sight to behold, but the rest of his team was never far behind. A blur slung itself out of the Bridge and climbed up to the silo’s ceiling, circling the air and blotting out the lights with his wings before soaring down to land above the base’s road entrance. While the soldiers tried to track Swoop’s movements and decipher what the Pit was happening, Slag and Snarl took up positions beside Grimlock in a bristling display of horns and armour. Everyone, even Ratchet himself, was forced into silence by the racket of growls- everyone except Wheeljack, of course.

From his vantage point, he took one sweeping look at the trembling humans training useless guns on him and his mount. “Sheesh, you weren’t kiddin’ about the lockdown, Doc,” he huffed.

Above his shock, Ratchet felt the urge to snap about unwanted nicknames. Instead it jolted him into action before anyone else, digits moving too fast to see across the Bridge’s controls as he reset the previous co-ordinates.

With frantic looks to the frozen soldiers, it seemed Mearing gave up on trying to control them and instead turned on Ratchet. “Step away from that console, bot, or my men will open fire! That’s an order!”

Ratchet looked over his shoulder, at the shaking finger pointed up at him. “There’s only one person on this planet that gives me orders,” he said. “Even then, I don’t always listen.” He yanked on the lever and respawned the Bridge while expecting to feel bullets peppering his armour, but the Dinobots seemed to command more respect than any human superior did.

“Wheeljack, take the Dinobots back through the Bridge!” he called out. “It’ll take you to Cybertron!”

Still holding onto Grimlock’s neck, Wheeljack gave a mock salute. “Well, I am feelin’ a lil’ homesick.” With whatever sorcery he used to control Grimlock, he steered the Dinobot back towards the portal and charged through. And with a chorus of screeches and trumpeting grunts, the rest followed suit with Swoop leading overhead as he dove into the swirling blue.

Even as they left, the chaos of terror and shock still left the humans frozen solid. Not even their superior’s fury could get them moving. “What are you all waiting for?! Detain him immediately!” Mearing seemed intent on turning her hand into a spear as she kept jabbing it up as Ratchet, who was a nanoklick away from closing the Bridge. But just as his digits closed around the lever, an echo came from the road entrance.

“Hey, don’t leave without me!”

Ratchet blinked, and in that time Smokescreen had already skidded to a stop in the foyer while in the midst of transforming, blind to both soldiers and guns. “Smokescreen?! How the-?!”

“Kids are safe and sound, so don’t think you’ll stop me joining the action this time!” He grinned at Ratchet as his helm emerged from his alt mode, and his optimism faded only slightly when he finally noticed all the guns about to train on him. Even that sight didn’t distract him from the parade of Iacon relics laid out before him, once only seen from behind several inches of steel in the Vaults. Even if the humans were still guarding them, they probably couldn’t have stopped him sweeping them all up into his servos like a sparkling in an energon store.

“Hey, thanks!” He could have been entirely sincere for all Ratchet knew, because he was already transforming again and heading for the Bridge before he could see Mearing’s ever-growing outrage.

“Put those down! I am in charge around here and I forbid any unsanctioned transport-!”

“I don’t think he can hear you anymore.” Now Ratchet closed the Bridge with a weary servo and tired smile, knowing that the full might of the Autobots was where it had to be.

By contrast, Mearing might have popped a gasket by now if she had any in her trembling joints. She looked from empty Bridge to her inept soldiers, and then back to Ratchet with a glare like Unicron’s own.

“You have just intentionally sabotaged a federal investigation! I swear, I will have you and every single one of your friends rounded up and shot back into space!”

“I’ll be in charge of that, Director.” The voice came from the elevator, a human that Ratchet was actually glad to see for once. “Special Agent William Fowler.” He presented his badge to Mearing over the platform, but she seemed to recognise him without it.

“Yes, I know who you are,” she said with narrowed eyes. “The one who was supposed to be keeping an eye on these things!”

Fowler descended to ground level to properly challenge her glare. “Well, if your department hadn’t gotten paranoid and called me away from my business then I would be keeping an eye on them, ma’am.”

“Well then, Bill, since you’re such an expert in these affairs, care to explain why some of your bots just disobeyed direct orders and went off with an arsenal of potentially dangerous weapons?!”

“The Iacon relics?” With the faint smile that he almost dared to show, Fowler almost seemed to be enjoying himself. “They’ve already been catalogued! None of them pose any danger to humans! Right, Ratchet?”

The medic was still sighing from relief, caught off guard for a klick. “Er… I would hope not.” He avoided looking at Mearing, but he could hear the frustration boiling over in her voice.

“Dangerous or not, my orders still stand. I was told to bring in all the Autobots and their technology-“

“Only if there was any proof that they were working against us,” Fowler interrupted. “Or did you forget about that part?”

Mearing scoffed after a pause that only proved Fowler right. “More like I wasn’t expecting to keep your badge after this.”

Now that she wasn’t trying to bite his head off, Fowler turned to Ratchet again. “Ratchet, where are the relics and Autobots currently?”
“On Cybertron, assisting in battle against the Decepticons,” he answered, wondering if Mearing would even be surprised that he’d been lying this whole time.

“See? By confiscating that tech, you might as well have doomed us all to getting stomped on by Decepticons,” Fowler went on before she could cut in.

“In fact, if this goes well we might finally be able to return to Cybertron,” Ratchet added. “Permanently.”

Mearing looked fully capable of and intent on launching a missile strike of retorts, but the medic’s suggestion left her silent for the longest time Ratchet had heard since she walked into the base. “Is that so?” she eventually asked.

Ratchet nodded with a careful smile. “And you need never have to worry about us again, ma’am.”

Mearing watched the medic, then the agent, blinking slowly. “…I think we’re done here, then.” She swiftly turned, letting the force of air slap Fowler because she couldn’t do it herself. “Let command know that the situation has been handled,” she told the nearest soldier, giving a signal to the rest that had them all piling back into the elevator. Again, she stood at the head of them, and she only glanced once at Ratchet as the doors closed.

“Give my regards to Simmons!” Fowler called out after her, laughing quietly to himself as the base was left deserted.
“About fragging time!” Ratchet muttered, practically sinking to the floor under the stress that seemed to dissolve into his armour. Only his console kept him standing.

“Was almost expecting to come back and see the whole place gutted,” Fowler admitted. “What did I miss?”

“Optimus and Airachnid found Megatron on Cybertron.” Ratchet straightened himself with a sigh. “I sent the Autobots through just as the humans showed up, then I brought the Dinobots and Wheeljack through to help. Everyone’s there… everyone except me.”

Fowler stood beside his console with an empathetic shrug. “Yeah, it’s a bad feeling, stuck behind a desk while everyone else does the fighting.”

“Well, someone has to make sure they can get back in one piece,” Ratchet said. “Speaking of which…” There was still one Bridge he had to do, just one to set his processor at rest. He found Airachnid’s co-ordinates, and this time they stayed in one place long enough for him to lock on. With everything set up, he pulled the Bridge’s control lever…

But nothing happened. No burst of light, not even a hum from the power cables. He had to pull the lever three more times before he realised what the problem was.

“Oh, scrap…”

“What? What is it?” Fowler asked as Ratchet struggled not to collapse.

“The Space Bridge fuel supply… it took so much energy to Bridge the Dinobots that it’s completely drained. And we don’t have nearly enough energon stored to power it.”

“You mean… the Bots can’t get back to Earth?”

“Worse.” Ratchet gulped as his hand fell limp from the Bridge’s powerless controls. “It means I can’t get Airachnid and Scorpia out of there.”

xx

Megatron may have only returned to the Nemesis long enough to rally his drones together, but that was still enough time to order Knockout into the command room, with no instructions other than to ‘stand by’.

Even amid a war for his home planet, the medic found himself no more useful than a bystander as he watched the bloodshed below from the Nemesis’ exterior cameras. Not that he was complaining. Even without the dust of centuries covering the planet, he wasn’t about to risk his finish for a tiny squad of Autobots, not when a few drones could take them out just as easily.

“Never one to get your own claws dirty, eh, Megatron?” Knockout inspected his talons as he muttered, dragging a scalpel across them to sheer off the grime and chipped paint that came with his job. With one hand done, he looked across at the camera screen with surprise to find the Autobots all still standing. There was a thud from above as someone, most likely Megatron himself, slammed into the flight deck, and then a cloud of dust as the drones feel to the ground.

Knockout waited for the two armies to clash with a faint sort of anticipation, the kind only a spectator could feel. How many bodies would be filling his med-bay today, he wondered.

Bu despite the full might of the Decepticons being on the front lines, he heard a hiss behind him as the door to the command room opened. And as soon as he saw who it was, he wasn’t surprised at all that he was instead cowering inside the ship.

"And where are you off to, Starscream?" he asked the bug-eyed Seeker, with a glance at the Apex armour clutched like a lifeline to his spark.

“Didn't you hear him?” Starscream jabbed back, looking ready to fly right through the ceiling at any sign of danger. “He destroyed the Omega Keys! Our one chance at restoring Cybertron, gone because he's a sore loser! I'm getting out of here while everyone else is busy getting slaughtered!” He spun towards the exit on heels that must have been shaking as much as his limp wings.

“You really think you'll get far with the Apex Armour dragging you down?” Knockout pointed out, wondering how such a scrawny frame could hold up such a hefty relic. Even now Starscream had to drag it as he looked over his shoulder at the medic.

“It doesn't matter how far I get,” he said through clamped denta. “As long as I'm still alive by the end of this mess, I’ll count that as a-”

Starscream must not have been paying much attention to Knockout’s expression, else he might have expected the digit that tapped sharply on his shoulder. He turned with flared wings that instantly fell in the shadow of the mech behind him, one that wasn’t even much bigger than the Seeker but which still managed to loom like a ghost. And from the way Starscream froze, he might as well have been one.

“S…S-Soundwave?! I… y-you’re supposed to be-!” Starscream tried to lift his claws towards the mech, as if he expected them to pass right through his frame, but his servo seemed far too heavy to move. Soundwave raised his own arm, as if he was mocking the Seeker, revealing the Resonance Blaster tucked into his hand. Even without the silent threat, he likely could have snatched the Apex Armour from Starscream’s grip just as easily as he did.

By contrast, Knockout wasn't surprised at all by the appearance. After all, he was the one who cut Soundwave’s restraints off. And Soundwave could always just wake himself up again.

Now that the relic wasn’t weighing him down, Starscream jumped back and scrabbled to the nearest door, then around the room in a panic before finally stopping at Knockout’s side. Though he aimed his rockets at Soundwave, who still hadn’t moved more than a servo, a rare strike of intelligence stopped him from firing them. Or maybe the effect of one relic scared him more than the thought of losing another.

"You... were supposed to kill him, Knockout!" Starscream snarled, practically spitting in Knockout’s face with a hypocrite’s fury.

"And you were supposed to oversee the safety of the Nemesis while Megatron was gone, Starscream,” the medic said as he wiped at his faceplate, not budging his smirk at all. “Neither of us are very good at our jobs, are we?” Though Starscream’s mounting rage was amusing, Knockout instead looked behind the Seeker to where a dark shape was flying from the same corridor Starscream came from. Laserbeak shot straight for Soundwave’s chest, latching on as soon as he was close enough. By the time Starscream noticed the new arrival, Soundwave had already created an escape route for himself. The Ground Bridge showed his shadow just before it winked out of existence.

With only two mechs left in a room full of treachery, Starscream didn’t seem to know where to look. “…Whose side are you even on, Knockout?” he asked quietly, all simmering and sulking and knowing that he’d been beaten at his own game, one he didn’t even know he was playing.

For once, Knockout had to think about that. He watched his reflection in Starscream’s armour, studying it for the answer.

“…The one that’s winning,” he replied. “Same as you, though I suppose we have different definitions of what ‘winning’ is.” He turned just as Starscream tried to face him, with a glance at the ship cameras. Now there was no one on the field, not even corpses.

“Don’t you have some fleeing to be getting on with?” he asked to silence, allowing himself another smirk when he heard the door hiss again behind the harsh tap of heavy peds.

Though it seemed Starscream’s cowardice was just masking his preservation instinct, from how soon his departure was followed by Megatron. Knockout saw no wounds on the warlord, not even a splatter of foreign energon on his armour, but the protoform seemed to swell beneath its shell like his spark was on the verge of exploding out in jagged shards of Dark Energon. And for all he gladly tormented his second-in-command, Knockout could hardly speak in the presence of their enraged lord.

"My liege?” Knockout kept his distance, but Megatron came closer with every thunderous step, his shadow creeping ever larger and more cancerous across the floor. “Do… do you require medical atten-?”

“Where is the rest of my army?!” The voice that ordered him was not that of his liege’s; instead it was something corrupted and visceral, something swarming with rust and rage.

“Uh… w-well, all our drone forces have been expended, Lord Megatron.” Knockout backed away from the warlord’s looming glare, but the shadow still managed to catch up to him. “I assume Breakdown is still on his mission for the Omega Lock… and I'm afraid Starscream has all but deserted us. To be expected from the likes of him.” He tacked on the insult with a nervous smile, but his mirth only seemed to fuel Megatron’s anger as his denta clashed against each other.

"Out of my way!” The claws that shoved him aside were just inches from tearing his shoulders open, right down to the stiff cables. Knockout only avoided potential maiming with his quick reflexes, but he was still left with a gouge in his paint as Megatron stalked deeper into the ship.

“Lord Megatron? Where are you going? What… what are you planning to do?”

Knockout didn't think he was going to get an answer, not until Megatron stopped at the door leading straight to the engine room. He didn't face his medic as he gouged his claws against his palm, as if he suspected all his betrayals in that single moment.

“I would advise leaving the ship, Knockout… unless you favor your chances in not being crushed by his walls.”

So overridden with fear, nursing his shoulder as well as his spark, Knockout didn't have long to appreciate still being alive, not when he realised what Megatron was really warning him about.

“His…?” Knockout cast blinking optics to the monitors on either side of him, finding the Autobots on the edge of the barren battlefield just as his energon went cold.

Like Starscream, he left in a hurry- but in the opposite direction, towards the elevator that carried him far too slowly towards Cybertron. For the first time in his life, encased in coolant and ragged vents, he cursed Seekers and the fact that he wasn't one.

Chapter 70

Chapter Text

As the glare of the Bridge faded, Optimus saw that the battle was already half over. Vehicons who hadn’t managed to get away lay torn apart and trampled across the ground; swatted aside by Grimlock’s tail, speared through by Slag’s horns or caged in by Snarl’s plates. Even those who managed to take to the air quickly enough were swiftly chased down by Swoop.

“Finally, someone else who can fly…” From afar, Dreadwing huffed at the sight of another pair of wings, before leaping up and transforming to join the aerial effort.

In all the chaos, Optimus first thought the flash of supporting blaster fire was from his own soldiers. But all of them were still frozen, unsure of how to even jump into the fray. Instead the shots came from Grimlock… more specifically, from Wheeljack riding on his back.

Before Optimus could even wonder how Wheeljack stayed on without being flung halfway across the planet, another dust cloud kicked up and covered his optics as Smokescreen pealed to a stop in front of him.

“Sorry we’re late.” He transformed, letting the devices stored on his seats fly up in the air before he caught them in his servos. “Anyone want a relic?”

The sight of the Iacon relics spurred the Autobots out of their lingering shock, and they surged towards Smokescreen. Bulkhead grabbed the Polarity Gauntlet while Arcee helped herself to the Immobiliser. Bumblebee was left with the Spark Extractor, and Smokescreen kept the Phase Shifter to himself. Optimus didn't need any relics to fight, but he took hold of the Omega Keys just to know that he still had a chance at saving Cybertron.

“It is good to see you, Smokescreen,” he said with a relief-soaked smile, storing the Keys deep in his subspace.

“Thank Ratchet for that.” Smokescreen rolled his shoulders as Grimlock shook the ground behind him. “I just managed to get through the Bridge before it closed with a bunch’a humans on my tail.” A fist suddenly popped out of his intangible chest, distracting him for a nanoklick as he grabbed it and pulled the unwitting drone through his body, firing a shot through his spine as he slammed into the floor.

“Looks like we came just in time, too.” Smokescreen stepped over the fresh corpse and surveyed the others left scattered by the Dinobots’ rampage. But there were still some stragglers left, not quite willing to desert just yet as they homed in on the Autobots.

“Well, what are we waitin’ for?” Bulkhead banged his servo on his chest, waking the Polarity Gauntlet as it started to hum on his wrist. “Let's kick the dust off these things with some Decepticon aft!”

“Right behind you, Bulk.” And Arcee meant it literally as she vaulted onto the Wrecker’s shoulders, just aimed the Gauntlet at a group of Vehicons attempting to flank them. One nanoklick they were spaced apart, the next they were smashed together into a useless mound of scrap, a perfect target for the Immobiliser as paralysing energy enveloped them all.

With the rear covered, Bumblebee and Smokescreen took on the bolder drones head-first; Smokescreen distracting with punches that never managed to land on the ghost of his frame, allowing Bee to throw the Spark Extractor right in the middle of them. Smokescreen sank through the floor just before the weapon activated, avoiding the veil of death and springing up just outside its area of impact.

Optimus had the most powerful weapon of them all, yet he hardly needed to use it. A single swipe of the Star Sabre sent any advancing soldier flying backwards in a heap of tangled electronics. Another squadron was sent careening as his comm link fired with a message from Dreadwing.

“Prime. Aerial forces have been neutralised, but there’s one left in the air. Too fast for me or the Dinobot to chase down. It may be Starscream attempting desertion.”

Optimus looked up, struggling to pick out anything in the murky mess of stars and smoke. But he eventually spotted the drone as it flitted away from battle.

“I see it, Dreadwing. Though seems too small to be Starscream…“

Before he could look closer, heavy footsteps approached behind him, and he had to look away to deal with the assailant trying to ambush him. Arcee finished him off with a blast to the head, just before Optimus’ Sabre struck through his chest.

“Looks like Laserbeak to me, Optimus,” Arcee said, only with a slight huff from her vents. Of course she would know best, with her scouting optics. “Which raises the question of where Soundwave might be.”

“Probably sent his bird looking for easy targets,” Bee suggested by her side.
“Or to find Airachnid before we get to her!” Smokescreen added. Optimus looked at the Autobots gathered around him, only now noticing that every Vehicon was gathering rust on the ground. Dreadwing landed amidst a carpet of corpses, paint scuffs marking where he’d been shot at but otherwise unharmed. Were the relics and Dinobots really that powerful, or was Megatron’s army that easily overwhelmed?

In any case, Wheeljack seemed very proud of himself.

“I think our job here is done, Grim.” He dismounted with a careless leap, landing amongst the fresh graveyard as he sauntered up to the Autobots, flanked with the other Dinobots. “You startin’ another war without us, Prime? I’m hurt.”

Behind him, Grimlock grunted as he shifted from beast mode to his more compact, but no less intimidating, robot mode. “Dumb Prime still alive,” he noted with a sniff. “Maybe not so dumb after all.”

Wheeljack glanced over Optimus’ shoulder, optics silently counting the bots gathered behind him. “The gang’s all here…” A brief scowl showed through for the brief moment that he looked at Dreadwing. “But where’s Airachnid?”

“She ran off when Megatron was sighted,” Optimus answered. “Hopefully she has hidden herself somewhere safe.” Optimus would know instantly if she was in danger, but other than his own anxiety roiling away his spark remained silent.

Grimlock leaned down so he could glare right into Optimus’ optics, as if he was examining the glow of his spark through them. “Spider lady better be safe, else Prime gonna get scrapped!”

Optimus wasn’t about to draw the Dinobot’s anger out any further, but before he could even beat back the threat there was a commotion behind him as the Autobots shifted into battle positions.

“More reinforcements?” Smokescreen grumbled. “These guys don’t know when to give up!”

Ahead of them all, the Nemesis’ elevator was descending from where it still hung like a bloated insect in the sky. It was too far away to see who was being delivered, be it another squad of drones or Megatron himself.

The Autobots tensed with blasters at the ready, but all that greeted them was Knockout scrambling off the platform like there was a bomb on it.

Bulkhead wasn’t too disappointed. “Finally, someone to beat up who isn't a drone.” He rubbed his wrecking balls together in anticipation, but Optimus held him back with a hand.

The medic had no ranged weapons that Optimus knew of, but that wasn’t what told him to stand down. This wasn’t some last-ditch attempt to attack, this was a retreat right into enemy arms. Where Decepticons were concerned, that meant something had gone horribly wrong for them.

Seeing that their Prime had folded his shotgun away, the other Autobots hesitantly followed suit with the Dinobots still bristling at the frontlines. Ironically, Dreadwing was the only one still armed as he carefully trained his thermal cannon on Knockout’s approaching frame. But as the distance between them closed, he holstered it behind his back.

“Don't attack!” Knockout called out in a vent-laden beg, slowing his frantic run to a jog and finally a slumped walk. “Please… I'm not here to fight you. It's clear I won't win anyway.”

Arcee narrowed her optics at him, still cautious even though he was doubled over in desperation. “What do want, then?”

“I've come to warn you…” Knockout swelled with a gulp, barely managing to balance his spinal column. “Megatron has retreated back into the Nemesis.”

Bulkhead scoffed. “Coward.”

“Why should we be worried about that?” Arcee asked.

Knockout shook his helm, as the processor inside struggled to keep up with his glitching vocaliser. “You don't understand, the Nemesis-”

“It isn't just a warship,” Dreadwing finished in a hushed realisation, pushing himself to the front with optics stretched wide. “Knockout, are you saying Megatron has reactivated-?”

He never had the chance to finish his question; despite his rush, Knockout’s warning still came too late.

“Prime!”

Megatron stood miles above them on the prow of the Nemesis, yet his voice shattered through the air and stabbed shards through every Autobot’s audios, as if he was bellowing inside their helms. The Dinobots winced and clawed at the ground in pain, and Optimus almost lost his grip on the Star Sabre as every tense nerve node packed into his frame was squeezed even tighter.

“You think adding a few beasts and toys to your arsenal will help you now?!” Megatron glassed his optics, burning a vicious purple from the very pit of his rotten spark, over the torn and fallen bodies of his soldiers, barely even registering that he was the only Decepticon left. Perhaps Unicron had blinded him.

“You are outmatched, Megatron!” Prime called out, barely matching the warlord’s world-quaking pitch. “Even if you outnumber us, your power is dwindling! Not even your own soldiers will fight for you!” He swept a servo towards Dreadwing and Knockout, though the medic tried to hide himself behind Bulkhead, and held the Star Sabre aloft with the other.

The sour glow of Dark Energon tried to match that of the Sabre, and Megatron’s denta glinted from the distance like a sheath of knives.

“You may say that now, Optimus… but I still have one bot under my control. More than a mere soldier... a titan whose very shadow will have you drowned in fear!” With each word his scowl morphed more grotesquely into a smirk, like a crooked valley lined with rocks.

“What is he talking about…?” Smokescreen seemed scared to even ask, as if he sensed the tremors before anyone else. They didn't come from the ground; again they vibrated through the air itself, a violent crash of airwaves being battered by the crunch of ancient shifting gears and the screech of metal. Beneath the chaos was a single distinctive sound, one that every Cybertronian recognised by instinct. The sound of a T Cog.

Every Autobot looked to each other, wondering where the awful cacophony was coming from, but Dreadwing and Knockout already knew. They looked to the Nemesis- not in shock, or in awe. Etched into each faceplate was nothing but pure fear and horror as they watched the Nemesis shift its massive plating. The stern separated into two halves, swinging down to touch the planet as a pair of supports, and the entire hull split apart with a mighty groan. Somehow Megatron managed to stay standing on the prow, even as the metal pulled back to reveal an orange horn that jabbed towards the sky, accompanying Megatron’s claws.

“Yes… yes!” The warlord bled the vile purple light that seemed to bleed through his peds, infecting everything he touched. “Arise, my warship, in your true form! TRYPTICON!”

Optimus had already realised who was being brought back from the dead, but hearing his name was an all new shock to his systems. His spark seized, burning against the back of its chamber like it was trying to flee from his body. Not even the Matrix gave him courage, not when it balked from such a heavy presence of Dark Energon.

A tail crashed against the ground, the planet itself sinking beneath the titan’s weight, and when his optics opened they were the exact same shade as Megatron’s, and seemed to lead to the Pit itself.

“Trypticon obeys his one true master.” He didn't move his jaws as he spoke, didn't need to when his declaration carried itself out like a crack of thunder. A single swipe of his tail sent a dust storm across the plains, and a single step could have easily flattened an entire force of Autobots. Optimus knew that because Trypticon had done so enough times during the war.

Faced with such a towering beast, even the Dinobots and Grimlock cowered. “That… big, big Grimlock…”

Trypticon’s arrival seemed to take an age, yet time slowed to a crawl as everyone watched it in dreaded disbelief. Now the crawl ended, and everything seemed to go even faster now to make up for the lost time. Trypticon was already starting to advance on them, just one step away from trampling them all.

“Autobots, fall back!”

Only a handful of the bots present could have even recognised the infamous titan before them, but everyone knew when to run with or without being ordered. Almost everyone, at least.

“Like Pit I will!” Wheeljack marched forwards as if his blasters would do him any good. “That oversized can opener don’t scare me-!”

A single giant ped slammed down almost a mile in front of him, but the dust cloud from its impact reached him in nanoklicks. Even if Wheeljack was suicidal enough to push on, the shockwave of air sent him flying backwards to where the Autobots were already retreating. And as the ground was flattened, the very dirt under Trypticon seemed to swell with the taint of Dark Energon.

And, as always, with Dark Energon came the zombies; clawing themselves out of the grip of death to amble towards the Autobots. Even those without legs pulled themselves across the ground like leaking slugs, entire limbs squirming forwards as they searched for their owners, or for Autobots to bludgeon and poison.

Not slowing for a moment, Arcee looked backwards and tried to aim the Immobiliser towards the shaking horizon. She managed to hit some of the re-animated Vehicons, though she wasn't aiming for them. Despite Trypticon being a massive target she missed him three times, but even when she landed a hit the energy didn't even reach over a quarter of Trypticon's plates.

“The relics aren’t working on him!” she cried out.

“I’m not surprised, considering how big that thing is!” Bulkhead called back, as his attempt at using the Gauntlet on Trypticon also met with failure and even pulling the Terrorcons together wasn't effective enough. Bumblebee didn't even try throwing the spark extractor when its range wouldn't even reach Trypticon's knee, let alone his colossal spark chamber, and he doubted it would even work on the zombies when their sparks weren't moving them anymore. As for Optimus, he wouldn’t waste time trying to push them back with the Star Sabre. One swipe from the sword managed to damage the ship before, but anything fueled by Dark Energon was almost immune to the power of a single Prime.

Dreadwing was slightly ahead of everyone in the race for shelter, but he slowed as he pulled a detonator from his subspace.

“Allow me to assist!” He dug his peds into the ground, twisting to face Trypticon as he pressed his digit down on the trigger. A chorus of explosions rang out as light and smoke poured from Trypticon’s helm, and he started to tilt precariously. Dreadwing must have planted mines along the Nemesis’ bow during the battle, and they stopped the titan right in his tracks...

For five nanoklicks, before the smoke cleared and showed Trypticon with barely a plate out of place. Megatron had been knocked off his helm by the blast, but now he stood on the titan’s shoulder as he continued his march onwards.

“...They didn't even dent him…” Dreadwing held his useless detonator limply as an all new breed of fear gripped him, one that he had no idea how to deal with. The only solution available to him, the same one forced onto the Autobots and Dinobots, was to flee.

But just because there was only one solution didn't mean there was only one way to do it.

“Optimus, wait!”

Optimus stopped running just moments after Smokescreen called out to him. The Prime had to skid to slow his momentum, twisting to see Smokescreen trying not to crash into his leader. The other Autobots and even Dinobots paused when they saw Optimus falling behind, each one fixing Smokescreen with various levels of disbelief depending on how well they knew what he was like.

“I have an idea…” He looked at the Phase Shifter still clamped onto his wrist, and he twisted the dial with optics far too bright for a mech being chased after zombies. Then he thrust his servo out towards Optimus. “Grab my hand! And Dreadwing, you take my other one!”

Optimus blinked once, but one look at Smokescreen’s relic told him what his plan was. He smiled proudly behind his battlemask.

But Dreadwing only gave the rookie a confused glare. “What?”

“The Phase Shifter makes its wearer and everything they're touching intangible,” Smokescreen explained in a hurry. “If we all link up, we can slip right through the ground and no one can follow us!”

Dreadwing eyed the relic skeptically, but eventually let the Autobot grab his claws. Knockout instantly latched onto his other hand with a crushing grip as he muttered. “This better work, Autobot…”

“Come on, quickly!” Smokescreen urged with optics on the advancing horizon. Optimus was already joined with the other Autobots, and Bulkhead linked them to the Dinobots. The last to take hold was Wheeljack who tentatively joined hands with Knockout, reluctantly completing the circle.

Smokescreen wasted no more time putting his plan into action. “Brace yourselves… now!” He pushed himself forwards, faceplanting right through the ground and, as he'd hoped, taking everyone else down with him. Entire layers of Cybertron’s underworld slipped away around them with every nanoklick, each bot holding on tighter as they fell through the planet; but no matter how far they went, Megatron’s sneer followed them.

“Yes, Prime, run and hide! Show your Autobots how fearless you really are! My army will still find you, even in death!”

Chapter 71

Chapter Text

After what felt like a whole day of non-stop flying, Airachnid didn’t so much land as she did crash into the rust-coated ground, T Cog barely registering when to shift because her processor had been focused so intensely elsewhere. Her legs stretched out just before impact, heels digging in deep and leaving thin gouges behind her as she tried to slow herself down.

When she finally skidded to a stop, her legs burned almost as much as her rotors, with almost half her paint job scraped away by the rough wasteland beneath her. But she didn't even look at the damage, hardly felt the ache in her overworked rotors after so long spent doing nothing but growing back.

Still holding her servos like a vice across her chest, she only unfolded them when all she could hear was the whistle of dust through her vents, and the tiny muffled breaths against her frame.

Scorpia had been strapped in tight to her mother’s pilot seat the entire journey, with barely a sound as Airachnid hurried to get her as far from Megatron as her fuel tanks would allow. Now she clutched her mother's chest, still enveloped in her servos as Airachnid pulled herself upright.

Her balance was shaky, legs still aching from the rough landing. In the shade of a fallen structure, a shrine of some kind, Airachnid braced herself against the worn metal as she sought safety. She never liked being left out in the open, especially on a planet she no longer recognised.

As Airachnid lowered herself against a crumbled wall, Scorpia tentatively climbed down to sit in her lap. “Mama?”

“Shh, sweetspark.” Airachnid had to whisper as she tuned her audios as far as they would go, vigilant for any hint of danger. She thought she almost heard laser rounds sizzling somewhere under the rustle of dust caught in the breeze... but her daughter’s voice chirping up again threw her off it.

“Where's Oppy?”

With a clipped sigh, Airachnid ducked her helm as her vocaliser rasped harshly. “Shush! You need to stay quiet, Scorpia!”

The scold came out louder than she intended, thanks to her stretched-out audio range. Before Airachnid could soothe her, Scorpia flinched away from her mother's looming optics with a whimper.

And just like that, her spark was struck with a lance of hollow static that made her gasp in pain. The spider had slaughtered entire species without a second thought, but the coolant-tinged fear from her own daughter flooded her with more guilt than she thought she was capable of. And it wasn't just because of Elita’s influence creeping in like it always did. The bond between mother and daughter, stronger than even the one between sparkmates, was starting to crack where Airachnid's spark was still mending after all this time. She'd thought Megatron was the only threat to Scorpia… but she could just as easily hurt her daughter as her warmongering sire could.

“I'm sorry, sweetspark, I didn't mean…” She tried to cup Scorpia's face, but she still pulled away from her mother’s touch. When the sparkling finally did let a claw stroke her helm, her optics still brimmed with coolant.

“It's just very important that you listen to me right now,” Airachnid explained gently, whispering against Scorpia’s helm. “You need to do everything I say, else we could both end up getting hurt.”

Scorpia sniffled, tugging on the tangled wires that fell down her neck. “Is Oppy hurt? Why’d we leave him?”

“He’s fine, baby. He's very brave.” Airachnid reached out for the ember of her spark while trying to find a path to Optimus’ own. This far away she wouldn't be able to feel if he was injured, but she still searched for just a flicker of her sparkmate. She’d know if he died, just like when he thought he felt her spark going out so long ago, but she wasn't about to wait around for that stab of agony.

“...So we need to be brave too,” she told Scorpia, combing gentle claws across her braid. “Okay?”

Scorpia blinked her wet optics, chewing on a frown as she nodded up at her mother.

“That's my girl.” Airachnid kissed Scorpia's forehelm, tucking her close to her chest again. With her daughter soothed, she continued her scouting attempts with audios pointed north and optics scanning everywhere they could reach. But she couldn't hear anything but her own hollow vents, couldn't see anything but the slow crawl of dust across the horizon.

Even when Airachnid eventually dropped her guard, it felt like a long while before Scorpia spoke up again.

“Mama?” This time she was so quiet, Airachnid wondered if she'd even said anything before she saw her daughter peering up from her chestplates.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“What this?”

Airachnid blinked in confusion. “This?”

Scorpia climbed down from her lap again, balancing herself on her knee while her peds wobbled and sank into the sandy rust below her. “Here,” she said, stamping her peds like throwing a mild tantrum. “Went through big shiny door, then… came here.”

Airachnid blinked again, this time cursing herself silently for not explaining anything sooner. She hadn’t even thought of how overwhelmed Scorpia must have felt, stranded on a world full of death when the only place she'd ever known was Earth. This was her first impression of her home planet, treading the same ground she would have been born on in better times. Or perhaps never born at all.

“This is Cybertron,” she said. “It's… where we come from. Me, Optimus, Grimlock, everyone like us. It’s where we all used to live.”

Scorpia lifted a ped up, watching the sand trickle back into the wasteland, then turned her attention to leagues of scorched metal laid out around her, completely oblivious to how many bots were buried in every direction.

Or perhaps not as oblivious as Airachnid thought, from what Scorpia told her next.

“...Don't like it,” she decided, scrambling back into her mother's lap like the ground was trying to swallow her whole.

“I don't either,” Airachnid admitted. “That’s why you were born somewhere else. But it didn't always look like this. Not on the outside, at least.” She sat back and watched the skies, the patches of bare darkness where stars would shine through before disappearing behind the thick smog from fires lit centuries ago- as if other worlds only dared to glance at the ruined shell of this one for an instant, for a terrible glance of what might happen to theirs one day.

Or, depending on how many light years stretched between her optics and the stars, what might have already happened. Cybertron wasn't special with its home-grown apocalypse, after all.

“If you looked at it from just enough of a distance… it used to be beautiful.”

From afar or from ground zero, the planet held no allure. Its Golden Age was a joke everyone was in on and which no one laughed at, all glittering armour plastered on thick to hide the decaying skin underneath. Airachnid had the privilege of seeing just about every level of Cybertron’s crumbling society; once part of the deceptive facade, shining smiles to distract from the energon running through the back alleys, then pulled through the cracks with her sparkmate being elected as Primus’ champion, thrust into a world of warfare she doubted she would have lasted long in even without Archa Seven sending her right back to square one, to the unfamiliar underworld on the other side.

Without Archa Seven, she might have known Cybertron was doomed regardless a lot earlier. Elita seemed to know that from the very start. Without Archa Seven… she wouldn't exist. Scorpia wouldn't exist.

Airachnid looked at her daughter again, lost in those beautiful optics so like her own with only the lightest flecks of blue light showing through, only just registering that she’d asked something.

“What happened, Mama?” Scorpia repeated, tugging on her mother's servo.

Airachnid took hold of her hand, every single tiny digit laid across a single claw, as she contemplated telling her the truth, the only truth she could bare to tell her.

“...I'm afraid you won't know until you're a lot older, sweetspark,” she said.

Scorpia blinked once up at her mother, those streaks of blue almost interrogating her further, but she looked away with acceptance. No matter how strong the bond between mother and daughter, she couldn't possibly know what Airachnid was actually thinking, couldn’t possibly understand it. The loss of her brother so young was bad enough, any more anguish could break her poor poisoned spark in half.

“Why we here now?” she asked instead, watching the shifting dust again as it trembled in the dead breeze, crawling across the wastes along with the shrug of the planet's death throes.

“Because Oppy’s going to try and fix it,” Airachnid told her, almost laughing at how simple it sounded. “But it's not going to be easy. That’s why we had to leave him. So we don't get in the way.”

Scorpia still held onto her mother's chest, clinging like only a sparkling desperately could. “Does Oppy…?” She didn't finish her question, and though Airachnid probed her spark for the rest of it she couldn't find what she meant. Maybe Scorpia didn't even know, too young to put all her thoughts into words. Airachnid could only guess at how to answer.

“Of course he loves you, sweetie. Just like I love you.” She pulled warm servos around her daughter, but Scorpia’s spark wasn't soothed. It crackled like a broken bulb held aloft in a bright cavern, its struggles barely noticed in the rest of the light. Static arced as a hostile fuzz started to take over, threatening to cut off Airachnid's bond as something sinister closed in on Scorpia’s spark.

“Mama…” She whimpered a nanoklick before Airachnid’s panic kicked her in the processor.

“Scorpia?” Airachnid tried to pull her spark closer, but another sensation was tearing at her focus. This one was physical, a tremble underneath her as the ground seemed to shift and quake under an unknown weight. Vibrations send dust and grit up into the air, clouding the horizon even as a shape seemed to form in the storm. Something colossal and strange, unmatched by anything else on the planet… feeling it arrive almost scared her as much as Scorpia's scream did.

A wail, a cry of agony, it pierced her spark harder than her audios, like a laser arrow gutting through her and leaving behind nothing but a searing, frantic wreckage as she fell apart. Whether that was Airachnid’s feelings or her daughter’s, she could no longer tell.

“Scorpia! What's happening, what's wrong?!” Airachnid held her tightly, claws and back legs pressing into her armour trying to find where the pain was coming from. Scorpia squirmed and swatted at some invisible force, trying to writhe out of her mother's grip.

“M-Mama… it h-hurts, Mama!”

“I'm here, baby, Mama’s here… just… try to stay still-”

Another scream, far too loud to come from such a small femme, ripped through Scorpia's vocaliser as she fell limp on the ground, convulsing like a hollow puppet filled with electricity. Airachnid didn't dare pick her up again, not when she could so easily snap a strut or be hit with static feedback. She could only sit back and watch as her daughter was seized by the same tremors shaking the planet to its core, coolant streaking her face as a grim and familiar glow started to bleed through her chest.

“No, no…! Scorpia!” Airachnid choked on her denial, even as she felt the Dark Energon reaching out to poison her daughter. It was cold, as cold as she remembered, like the icy jaws of a beast closing slowly around them; so slow because it knew they had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape its hunger.

Scorpia didn't scream anymore, even as the pain mounted. She couldn't even whimper, bleeding her tears as she clawed at her chest, curling up as if to stop something crawling out. Her armour, brittle and pliable as it was, was cracked along its surface, purple veins creeping like ice along her frail body, covering her in Unicron’s mark.

And still, all Airachnid could do was watch, just as she watched her son's spark go out so many moons ago. That empty space in her spark where he should have been, which Optimus had almost managed to make her let go of, now burned with a threat to finally take his sister with him.

“Don’t… don’t, please…” Airachnid didn't know who she was pleading to, but didn't know what else to do. Coolant and acid mixed together at the back of her throat and hit the ground in thick drops that shuddered with the force of her cries, as much as she tried to muffle them.

She'd thought she had more time. Even just one more day with her, one more day to show her what their home was supposed to look like. She shouldn't be dying here. She shouldn't be dying at all.

In a kinder universe, she shouldn't have even existed. Airachnid made a fist, scoring her palm deep with her claws, as she tried to push herself up from where she knelt in the rust.

As if she wasn't angry enough, she heard the snarl behind her. Another one joined in by the time she turned around, and when she faced the Insecticons all five of them were now spitting towards her. She didn't wonder where they'd come from, or how long they'd been stalking up to her. She knew they were in striking distance, as old wounds started to itch beneath her coolant-stained armour. But they held back, scratching the ground as it quaked again.

Her back legs clicked, every wire coiled under her tense muscles, as the Insecticons rustled the film of their wings together. She licked her lips, acid dripping past her denta as she pressed her glossa into one of them. Her frown was coated in a corrosive shine as she threw their chorus of snarls right back at them.

“I'm only going to say this once.”

The Insecticons chittered, a nervous sound that rolled out like the crunch of rusty gears. The largest, the one who met Airachnid’s optics, crouched and growled, as if contemplating leaping for her.

Whether or not this worked, Airachnid had to try regardless, ignoring the throbbing scars from her first attempt. She didn't move her optics, not an inch from the creature’s red glare, imagining Megatron in its place as acid bubbled past her throat. Her legs snapped wide, razors glittering on each end as she rose herself up, twice as tall and towering over the Insecticons.

And when she spoke, acid flying out and fleeing her rage, she could have stopped a gestalt in his tracks.

“Get. Away. From my baby!” She had to spit out the rest of the venom building up in her mouth, hitting the ground just in front of an Insecticon, just before it tuned aft and ran. The others quickly followed, a hive mind even in defeat, and the leader gave a weak screech as he took to the sky.

Airachnid knew they'd listened to her; not just fleeing a threat, they'd heard her command, and obeyed without second thought. Whatever had blocked her from their frequency before was gone now, dissolved like the dust that hissed around her acid. Even so, she didn’t collapse until they were out of sight, scrabbling back to where Scorpia still lay in the shadow of the fallen shrine. She bent over her daughter, her dulling optics and the jerking shudder of her chest as dust filled her vents. She'd stopped moving, only the slightest twitch and the cold husk of her spark showing she was still alive. For how much longer?

“I'm here, baby… I'm here for you.”

She swept Scorpia into her servos, heedless of how the Dark Energon burned against her skin or of the familiar sense of dread trying to ambush her again. With acid still hissing on her lips, soft claws on her daughter's braid, Airachnid felt her daughter somehow manage to sleep. Her spark calmed, the storm leaving hardly a trace in their bond, and even the dread that seemed to follow Airachnid since that awful night seemed to leave her alone. Megatron wasn't here, she told herself, and she wouldn't let him hurt them anymore.

But someone else was. She heard his heavy peds under the mysterious earthquakes that seemed to slowly get closer.

Chapter 72

Chapter Text

They might have been falling for breems, or just a few nanoklicks. All Optimus knew was that one klick he was tumbling through solid metal and ore, the next he was thrown across a cavern floor like he was a turbofox’s chew toy.

He rolled to a painful stop, covered in dents with digits aching from holding on so tightly. He flexed them slowly, groaning as he tried to pull himself upright. One servo braced itself on solid ground, but the other only found empty air. When it eventually did find something to hold, it was the very edge of a chasm that dropped so far into Cybertron’s core Optimus thought he could see the faintest glint of the Allspark’s husk at the very bottom. Around them stretched an endless cavern, swollen with musty daylight from somewhere leagues above, letting everyone know just how small they really were within the planet's depths.

This far down, none of his sensors worked as they should, and even his comm link was just a hiss of scrambled static. The Matrix itself shivered as the bottom of Optimus’ spark chamber collapsed, and as he pulled away very slowly from the edge. Falling back with blessed solid ground on each side of him, he let his helm limp sideways as the other Autobots tried to regain their bearings.

Smokescreen managed to avoid being slung over the cliff, instead crashing against a smooth wall of metal and landing on his shoulders with his legs in the air. He blinked slowly, checking the Phase Shifter as it sparked on his wrist, before breaking out a grin that could have lit up the entire cave. “Holy slag, it actually worked!”

Wheeljack was the first who managed to get himself vertical, gingerly holding a servo as a thin stream of energon leaked past his digits. “Y'know you could have just held my hand!” he cursed, trying to stem the bleeding from the bite marks on his arm.

Behind him, crumpled against another wall with the rest of his Dinobots, Grimlock tried to shake the guilt off himself. “Grimlock get hungry when scared!”

Closer to Optimus, his soldiers lay on the uneven ground like scattered corpses. Only their groaning gears showed they were alive before they stirred.

“How far down are we?” Bumblebee asked, still bolted to Arcee's hand as he helped her upright.

“Gravity would have started pulling us across the planet instead of down it after a few miles,” Dreadwing said, pulling Knockout onto his peds before he could start bemoaning any scuffs on his armour.

“I'd like a word with gravity then, it owes me a new backplate….” Bulkhead rubbed at his spinal strut, still tender from his Tox-En experience, as he hobbled against a wall. He didn’t lean against it very long, pulling away swiftly when he felt tremors ringing deep under his hand. Wherever Trypticon was above them, they could still feel his peds as if he was right on top of them.
Arcee seemed the most alert bot among them all, eyeing the cavern and the ceiling thrust up high above them, rivulets of dust trickling down as the cave shook.

“Looks like we’re on one of the mining layers.” She looked further out over the cliff, to where other caves were carved along the sheer walls, then to the cave that stretched out further behind them all. “We used to use these tunnels for scouting during the war. They always lead out to the surface eventually.”

“You sure?” Smokescreen had managed to roll back onto his peds with his helm upright on his shoulders where it was supposed to be. “ Cause wherever we are, the Phase Shifter can just take us somewhere-” Just as he was getting smug again, the Shifter gave one last crackle of sparks before its light died away, now nothing more than a useless wristband. Smokescreen had never looked so devastated, and Arcee almost rolled her optics out of her helm as he let out a cry of grief.

“There's light coming from somewhere, so there must be a path out,” she said, pointing to the fact that they weren't all stumbling over each other in the dark. “We just need to find the source, and make sure no one's waiting for us outside.”

“Swoop find way out!” The winged Dinobot hopped on his claws, literally jumping at the chance to be helpful. “Swoop fly fast! Swoop best Dinobot!” He took off before his friends could argue with him, careening over the cliff and soaring upwards in the mighty cavern around them, small as a speck and only visible by the glint of mystery light on his wings and beak- before he disappeared into the metal heavens. It was unclear if he'd ever come back.

Smokescreen, now recovered from the loss of his relic, drew everyone's focus away from Swoop with a clap of his hands. “Good to know we’re not trapped forever, so let's address the giant dinosaur stomping around like he owns the place.” He jabbed a digit upwards, like he could spear through the cave with just a fist. “Just what the Pit was that thing?!”

Everyone was thinking the same question, everyone except the three mechs who could give the answer.

“Trypticon was a Metrotitan,” Optimus explained slowly, confirming every fear that now sank deep into every faceplate he saw. “Originally he was located near Kaon, and loyal to Megatron from the day he was activated. But all this time… I thought he had been destroyed.” Once again, everything Optimus thought he knew came crashing down around his shoulders. Trypticon's revival changed everything, negated every single advantage the Autobots might have had.

And every ‘Bot there knew it, giving each other solemn looks in the grim dusk. Arcee in particular turned to Knockout, backed into a corner with Dreadwing as they frowned over their own part played in the war that brought them all here.

“That's what you were trying to warn us about?” she asked. “The Nemesis being Trypticon?”

Knockout looked at her, nodding once with an old sigh that rattled past his vocaliser, a rusted sound that didn't fit at all with the luster of his frame. Beside him, Dreadwing pushed himself into the light, still frowning under hooded optics. He seemed to fight against a scowl, already once a victim of Dark Energon resurrection.

“Just before the Exodus, there was a final battle between Trypticon and Metroplex,” the Seeker said slowly. “As you know, Prime, by the end of it, Trypticon was heavily damaged by your Aerialbots.” His wings twitched once, a fin swatting Knockout forwards into the array of cold and tired optics staring at him. The medic coughed and habitually wiped at his armour.

“Rather than leave Trypticon behind to rust,” the medic explained, “Megatron ordered that he be reformatted into a warship. The Nemesis Protocol. Something capable of keeping up with the Ark.”

Optimus listened with narrow optics and a bright flash of overdue realisation, as he remembered when he first caught sight of Megatron’s ship on the Ark’s radar. He'd never asked where it came from, never wondered much about it. Both sides tended to keep their technology secret until the very last nanoklick, when they had to debut them to level the war field.

“Go on,” Optimus said, wondering if Megatron would have ever managed to chase after them without the Nemesis, without Trypticon’s corpse left on his doorstep.

Knockout continued without meeting anyone's optics. “Well, his T Cog was removed during the procedure, to ensure that even if he did wake up, he wouldn't wander off… but with Dark Energon, anything can be repaired. Or replaced with something worse...” He trailed off with optics flitting and settling only for a nanoklick, like a pair of impatient flies trying to find somewhere to rest.

Smokescreen scratched at his helm, for all the world looking like he'd just swallowed some sour energon. “I’d heard about Trypticon, but… I always thought they were just sparkling tales.”

“I remember watching that last fight against him,” Wheeljack muttered, leaning against one of the walls as his shoulders sagged. “Too dangerous for even us Wreckers to take part in. I always did want a chance to go up against him… but not like this.”

While hunched near Optimus, Bumblebee gave out a defeated buzz. “We can't hit him with relics, we can't hit him with explosives… what are we supposed to do?”

Apart from some solemn grunts from the remaining Dinobots, no one tried to answer. The silence in that cavern was so total, so engulfing and telling of the state of every spark clustered together there, that when something did scrape against the pitted metal surrounding them, everyone turned towards it with guns first and faces second.

“Swoop’s back already?” Wheeljack asked, still holding his blaster steady regardless of who was approaching. The other Dinobots gave skeptical growls as they hefted out ancient swords and blades, placing themselves on the very front line of the barricade of bots. By the time Knockout decided to chip in with his buzzsaw brandished before him, the medic already knew that he wouldn't need it against the mech emerging from the shadows, as if he was a part of them all along.

“Soundwave…” Dreadwing said the Decepticon’s name warily, not with the scorn he usually reserved for Megatron’s other blind followers. Still, he kept his thermal cannon aimed straight ahead.

Despite the barricade of blasters and blades waiting for him at the dead end of the tunnel, Soundwave paused only once before continuing his slow approach. Optimus watched every step he took, first allowing him to close the distance before he saw a servo going behind his back, the Prime’s shotgun humming with the power of a loader plasma shell in that same instant-

”Wait, Prime!”

Knockout had dived in front, shoving the barrel upwards before Optimus could let off a shot. The Prime was too surprised to be angry, but he still glared down at him as his weapon let go its built-up charge. Knockout gulped, unhanding the gun and backing away from the suspicious optics now drawn on him.

“He isn’t here to fight,” he said.

“How do you know that?” Bulkhead asked, one blaster on Soundwave and the other now angling towards Knockout. The medic looked more offended at the threat than scared of it.

“Because I’m the one who let him loose when Megatron wanted him terminated,” he informed the Wrecker, making sure everyone else heard as well. “And I doubt even his most so-called loyal soldier would still be working for him after that little incident.” He planted his hands on his hips, showing off his confidence that he wasn’t in any danger.

It was true that Soundwave had been mysteriously out of commission until now, but Optimus found it hard to believe that even he would turn against his liege. He was helping Airachnid, not the Autobots. He might have only came here to see if she was among them. But if he did come to help them somehow…

Still watching Soundwave approach with something held behind his back, he kept his blaster aimed upwards as he retracted his battlemask. “Why are you here, Soundwave?”

Now that he was addressed directly, the Comm. Officer stopped in his tracks. He seemed to wait, perhaps hesitating behind his blank mask, before pulling his hidden servo out towards Optimus. When his digits fanned out, they were shown to be holding the last two Omega Keys.

Though Optimus wasn’t quite sure he was even seeing them until he heard the hitched intakes all around him.

“The last two we need…”

“They might be a trap or… some kind of decoy-“

“No.” Optimus silenced everyone with his certainty as he studied them, the intricate glyphs across their golden surface and jagged handles to be held only by a Prime’s chosen. “These are the Omega Keys. They could not be anything else.”

“So Megatron didn’t destroy them after all!” Bumblebee chirped, thoroughly confusing those who arrived too late to hear about their supposed destruction. For everyone else, it was a blessed confirmation that they still had a chance to win.

“Unicron must not be completely controlling him, at least,” Arcee said, allowing a cautious smile to spread as she watched Soundwave wordlessly hand over the Keys. Optimus weighed them in his hand, wondering how such powerful relics could feel like nothing more than normal metal in his digits.

He wanted to ask Soundwave where he found them, and how he found themselves hidden here. He wanted to ask if this meant Megatron had truly lost everyone, every soldier who might have willingly followed him into the Pit. Most of all, he wanted to ask why he helped Airachnid, why he cared about her, more so than any Decepticon should have.

But he didn’t. Perhaps because he wasn’t ready for the answer yet. He managed only one question before Soundwave turned to make his departure.

“After all these years... why are you helping us?" Optimus reached out towards Soundwave, not reaching him but summoning his attention regardless. It wasn’t clear where Soundwave was looking, but he inclined his helm towards the Omega Keys hanging by the Prime’s side, then to Optimus’ face. His mask was etched with a straight line, one that reached to either side of his hidden faceplate and which wavered with a voice that almost made Optimus buckle to the floor.

“Don’t try and feel sorry for me, Prime.”

Airachnid’s demand from so long ago, so long before Optimus would know how necessary it was for her to say, was still clear through the grain and static of Soundwave’s recording chip. Its waveforms cleared his face quickly, but the sound still hung heavy in the air as Soundwave left it behind, melting back into the cradle of shadows ahead. Even though Optimus didn’t take his optics off the mech, he couldn’t tell where his frame ended and where the darkness began, nor how Soundwave got a hold of that voice, and he could have spent breems trying to figure it all out if not for Smokescreen barging into his back.

“Alright, we’ve got all four now!” Before Optimus could focus on him he had jumped off to somewhere else, practically dancing with excitement that he seemed hoping to spread to everyone else. “All that’s left is to take care of the big fragger and waltz up to the
Omega…“ He trailed off when he noticed no one else was joining in, and that Optimus was shaking his helm at him.

“No, Smokescreen. We cannot defeat Trypticon, and I will not risk losing anyone in trying to.” His Autobots looked up briefly, with none of them sure if they’d even agree to an assault against him. “Even if we were able to inflict damage on him, his Dark Energon supply would keep him going far longer than any regular bot. As long as the link between Trypticon and Megatron exists, there’s no stopping either of them,” Optimus concluded. Not even Wheeljack or Grimlock seemed suicidal enough to argue with him on his decision.

In fact, the only one who didn’t seem to believe him was Smokescreen, now burning up his energy with frantic pacing. “But... there must be something we can do! We can’t just lay down here and wait for Megatron to find us!”

Though Smokescreen was right, of course, Optimus was about to explain to him why they had no other options when something he could only label as Orion, endlessly positive and curious and so like the young mech before him searching desperately for an idea, slipped exactly what they needed into the Prime’s processor. There was another option. One no less dangerous than waiting, but one that would see far more bots surviving to see Cybertron’s future.

“The only bot that could stand a chance against Trypticon perished long ago,” Optimus said slowly, only just starting to believe that it may be possible. “But with the Omega Lock… he may rise once again.”

And like a ripple from a stone flung into a deep pond, realisation flitted across the uplifted faces of the Autobots. Even Knockout and Dreadwing looked up, almost daring to be hopeful.

“You mean… Metroplex?” Arcee asked, barely louder than a whisper. By contrast, Smokescreen barely calmed down.

“The Metroplex? You mean, I could see… we could actually bring him back?”

“A Titan against another Titan?” Wheeljack grinned. “I’d pay to see that.”

Just at the suggestion of matching Trypticon’s power, the mood covering the cavern flipped entirely. It was a cautious optimism, but growing the more everyone thought of raising the mighty Metroplex from the Allspark. Only one bot remained skeptical, one who had more than enough experience of dealing with sparks from beyond the grave.

“A bold plan if you can pull it off, Prime,” Dreadwing told Optimus. “But do you even know where this Omega Lock is?”

Still gripping the two Omega Keys, Optimus pulled the remaining two from his subspace. “Indeed I do.” With all four finally gathered in his hands, he spread them out carefully, with a hard grip lest they dissolve into the air, before slamming two of them together. The two ridged stalks met, then clicked together as they reconfigured themselves. Another Key joined the fused contraption, then another, until all four hovered in front of him and beamed out a projection that covered almost the entire cave. It was Cybertron, from younger and better days, with a single blip north of its equator.

“Right there. Near where Iacon once stood.” Optimus let everyone see exactly where the Lock was located before deactivating the projection, allowing the Keys to shift back into their individual components. Dreadwing blinked once it disappeared, and said nothing more of whatever doubts he had. Perhaps he was planning to ask more, but Swoop’s return swiftly distracted everyone as he screeched back into the cave from where it went into darkness and crashed to the floor, almost knocking Bumblebee over.

“Swoop found way out!” He flapped his wings together as he faced the back of the cave, where Soundwave had appeared and just as quickly disappeared from. “Hole leads down, come out back there!”

Optimus moved past him, turning on his headlights to investigate the darkness properly. He didn’t expect any sign of Soundwave, though the tunnel was surprisingly long ahead before it started to climb upwards and out of sight. If Arcee and Swoop were right, it should eventually take them out to the surface.

“Good work, Swoop,” Optimus said, helping the Dinobot onto his peds after he transformed still sprawled on the floor. “You came just in time. Now that we have a way out and a plan, I see no reason to stay here.” He started off, leading the way into the tunnel as the others followed behind. It was a silent climb, though the air bristled with questions that no one was quite sure about how to ask, or perhaps that was just the tremors getting more intense the closer they came to the surface. Either way, Smokescreen was the only one willing to break the shaking silence.

“Uh, Optimus… what exactly is the plan? I know we have to get to the Omega Lock, but how are we gonna manage that with Trypticon after us?”

Optimus stopped around a corner, where fading daylight streamed in above them, from the mouth of the cave network they just traversed. It was a short climb to the surface over broken steel rungs and crumbled walls, and he decided to wait until the light was in reach before giving orders.

He filled his vents, eyeing the bots before him as he silently assigned roles to each one. It only took three nanoklicks, since most of them would be doing the exact same job.

“Smokescreen; as you are fastest among us, I will entrust you with reaching and activating the Omega Lock.” He piled the Keys into one hand and held them out towards the mech. “While you do that, the rest of us shall distract Trypticon.”

Smokescreen blinked, looking from Optimus to the Keys and back in shock as a grin filled his face. But before he could take them, Knockout barged into him and took his place in front of Optimus.

“Now hang on, Prime, I am the one with speed here! And, ex-Con or not, I'm not about to put my paint on the line just to buy some nanoklicks for the rookie!”

It was typical that, even at the end of the world, Knockout would still be complaining about someone taking his job. Optimus just counted himself lucky that Starscream hadn’t tried crawling his way into the Autobots, while Smokescreen elbowed Knockout back out of his spot.

“Oh come on, you really think we'd trust you with the Omega Keys?” Smokescreen jabbed the medic’s chest, just avoiding having his hand swatted by a wicked pair of claws.

“Look, I think it’s pretty clear that I’ve ditched the Decepticons at this point,” Knockout told him. “Why on the Allspark would I sabotage our planet’s future for that maniac marching around up there with his army of the undead!?”

Before any armour ended up dented, Optimus sternly shoved the two mechs apart. “There isn't time to argue about this. Smokescreen, take Knockout with you. He will be useful if you run into any Vehicons.”

Smokescreen scowled, but he knew better than to question his orders. He threw Knockout a glare over a scathing smirk. “Try and keep up, Con.” He pushed off towards the shaft of light before the medic could retort, already climbing up by the time he reached the wall.

Bulkhead stood by the Prime’s side, almost hissing in a new flood of doubt as the two-mech team raced each other to the top. “Optimus, even if they both push their engines go the limit there's no way we can keep Trypticon off their tails! All we can do is slow him down!”

“That is all we need to do, Bulkhead. As long as Smokescreen and Knockout reach the Lock, we just need to hold out until then.”

The Wrecker looked down, not quite believing in the reassurance. Behind him, Bumblebee emerged with his own misgivings bubbling up as unsure blips.

“What about you, Optimus? Doesn’t Metroplex need someone to command him, like Trypticon needs Megatron?”

Optimus had been hoping to have found a way around that fact by now, but nothing came to him. “That is unfortunately true… I cannot fight with you today, Autobots. I must find Metroplex. Even when he is revived, he will only respond to the call of a Prime.”

None of the Autobots looked resentful, but their disappointment was clear. The Dinobots might have called him a coward anywhere else, but now they stayed silent. Not even Grimlock took the chance to insult him. In fact, the lead Dinobot walked out in front of Optimus, having to kneel in the tunnel that could easily fit everyone else.

“Me go with, Prime,” he said definitively. “Me carry. Grimlock faster than Prime.”

There was no hesitation in the offer, no grudge or reluctance. “Thank you, Grimlock. I’ll see you up there.”
The Dinobot nodded to the Prime, for once treating him as an equal, before summoning his small army and taking them towards the surface. They didn’t so much climb as simply shove all the obstacles out of their way, clearing a much easier path for the rest of them.

As they waited for the Dinobots to pass, Bulkhead spoke up again. “I get why you have to go, Optimus. I know you’d be right beside us if you could be. But since you won’t be… shouldn’t we need someone else in charge?”

Optimus hadn’t considered that, but it was a very good point. With how chaotic and unpredictable this mission would be, a leader would be vital to keeping everyone alive. Grimlock could handle his own Dinobots, but as for the Autobots… none of them had shown they were capable of leading each other, not when Ratchet had always taken over the running of the base. Bumblebee and Smokescreen were too young and reckless, Arcee too impulsive, Bulkhead didn’t have the right processor for tactics or logistics, and as for Wheeljack… absolutely not.

There was only one bot he could leave in charge and know he was right for the job, even if the others wouldn’t want to follow him.

“Dreadwing!”

The Seeker looked up from his silent trance, pondering things that no-one would ever know or ask about. It was unclear if he’d been listening to any of the past exchanges. “Yes, Prime?”

“I’m sure you already know this is your chance to fulfil your pledge,” Optimus told him. “Can I trust you to take lead in my absence?”

Dreadwing looked at the hand offered towards him, blinking sharp red optics below eyeridges that rose ever so slightly in surprise. His wing flaps twitched, unsure of what to do with themselves. Optimus had never seen him look so uncertain, almost anxious about the offer. Whatever kind of indecision he was struggling with, he seemed to swallow it back as he took Optimus hand in a grip of firm claws.

“Understood, Prime.” It was only when Dreadwing let Optimus’ hand go, with the decision solidified, that the protests started.

“Optimus, are you sure? Dreadwing in charge?” Bulkhead sounded like he regretted even mentioning it to him, while Wheeljack marched over and shoved himself between the two mechs.

“Wait one Primus-damn klick, you expect me to take orders from the one who got all my buddies killed?!” Wheeljack’s anger was divided equally between Optimus and Dreadwing, though he seemed most likely to pull his swords out on the latter.

“They knew the risks of being a Wrecker,” Dreadwing told him, with neither malice nor compassion. He spoke like a mech who said only the truth, and who was bored of it. “If I didn’t kill them, another Decepticon would have. Don’t you want this chance to end the war for good, so the others don’t have to die?”

Wheeljack rounded on the Seeker, his scars digging deep into his scowl- but before he could prepare a threat, Bulkhead placed a hand on his shoulder.

“…He’s right, Jackie. If we don't stick together against Megatron now, they'll have died for nothing.” Bulkhead only removed his hand when Wheeljack pulled his servos away from his sword sheathes, though his anger still burned bright in his optics.

“Quite frankly, Wheeljack, I don’t expect you to follow orders from anyone.” Optimus said, forcing the Wrecker to face him by standing between him and Dreadwing. “I do expect you to fight for your planet. No more than that.”

Wheeljack glared up at him but eventually let his frown fade, only slightly as the fire in his optics died down. “…Alright, Prime,” he relented, still chewing on his lip. “I can fight for that much. And I’ll make it my last fight if I have to.” He removed himself from the cluster of mechs, busying himself with clambering towards the daylight of the battleground waiting ahead for him. He was almost out by the time Dreadwing issued his first official order.

"Up to the surface, Autobots.” He spoke with enough confidence to spur the others into trusting him, or so Optimus hoped. “Hopefully Knockout and Smokescreen will have gotten a head start by now. We should seek out Trypticon and draw him away from their route towards the Omega Lock.” Dreadwing took the lead, climbing rather than flying to allow the others to catch up with him.

The remaining three Autobots looked to Optimus one last time, before agreeing they had nothing else to argue about as they followed Dreadwing out. Optimus was the last to leave, or he would have been, if Arcee hadn’t let herself lag behind.

“Will this work, Optimus? Without you around?” she asked, turning around to face him over the ridge of a pitted chunk of ore. Optimus stared up at her from the bottom, hauling himself over the Dinobots’ debris.

“It must work, Arcee,” he said. “That is all I can say.”

Arcee watched his face for a moment, trying to see if he had any other secrets hidden in the scarred metal, before nodding once. “Okay.” She turned away to continue her ascent, but something else pulled her head back. “While you’re out there… try and find Airachnid as well.” She didn’t look at Optimus as she made the request. “I’m sure she’ll wanna be here to kick Megatron’s aft.” She shrugged her winglets, as if it didn’t even matter to her before she pulled herself up over the mound with a lunge forwards, almost reaching hazy daylight now.

Optimus wasn’t sure if she could still hear him, but he spoke anyway. “We have already lost Elita once, Arcee. I swear to you, we will not lost her again.”

There was a slight pause in her progress that might have been her acknowledging him, but she was lost in the light before he could be sure.

Chapter 73

Chapter Text

Airachnid didn’t wait around to see who her visitor was. Smothering Scorpia against her chest, she rolled aside and crawled into the only hiding spot she could find; a narrow crevice within the cracked fallen spire of the shrine. She hid not because she didn't want to fight, only because she didn't want to fight without knowing who she was up against.

Forcing her legs flat against her back, she stretched her audio range to its limit. Despite the echoes of pain still ringing from her spark, Scorpia knew not to make a single sound.

“Airachnid?” She recognised the voice, knew exactly how far away it was. The heavy peds thumped hard against the shaking ground, louder and harder the closer he came.

“I know you’re ‘round here somewhere-“ A dusty orange faceplate came into view, just as Airachnid aimed her palm towards it.

“Not one more step.” She locked onto the wide optic staring down at her, hiding Scorpia in the cluster of her back legs as she prepared a plasma blast.

Despite the threat glowing and glaring at him, acid still bright on her lips, Breakdown looked pleased with himself. “Well, that was easy.”

Airachnid coiled herself tighter, ready to spring out in a fray of venom and claws. “I will give you one warning, Breakdown. Get away from me, or I will kill you.”

Breakdown blinked, a lopsided wink if not for how his mouth creased, realising she was utterly serious. “Alright, alright… I’m not here to hurt you.” He backed away slowly, revealing that he was unarmed as he held his bare hands up. Airachnid didn't move until he was far enough away to pounce on, extracting herself from her crevice without looking away from him.

“Just here to drag me back to Megatron again?” She shot a web behind her back before she fully emerged, securing Scorpia there while Breakdown shook his helm.

“No, I… look, I was ordered to find the Omega Lock with Starscream, whatever that is. But then Starscream never showed up, and while I was looking I saw you in the distance. Megatron doesn’t know either of us are here, I swear.” Breakdown placed one of his empty hands over his spark, as if that would convince Airachnid not to hurl herself at him.

She lowered her palms, but only by a fraction. Acid still coated her glossa as she rolled it along her fangs. Breakdown wasn’t exactly the most threatening of the Decepticons, but she hadn’t forgotten how he fought over the Polarity Gauntlet a lifetime ago.

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

Breakdown took a moment before summoning the audacity needed to smile at her. “Really, Airachnid, have you seen me trying to lie? It’d be obvious.”

Airachnid fixed him with narrow optics, before reluctantly putting her servos by her side before her claws got too twitchy. “Then why are you here?”

“Let’s just say I made a deal with someone. And part of that deal is making sure that you’re safe.”

Airachnid was already leaving him behind before he finished, not interested in any Decepticon dealings or politics. The cage of her legs kept Scorpia sheltered from his prying optic. “I don’t need your protection. I can look after myself-”

“I never said you couldn’t,” Breakdown pointed out, trudging after her from the sound of his scraping peds. “But it doesn’t hurt to have some extra muscle-“

“Don’t bother.” Airachnid didn't look behind her, knowing Breakdown had no ranged weaponry and that she'd hear him if he tried to charge her. He slowed down, but still covered more distance in a single stride than she managed in three steps.

“What if I told you it wasn’t just because of a deal?” he called after her. “That it was because I want you to be safe?”

She stopped in her tracks, rust spilling over her peds as the ground still quaked beneath her, as if trying to rival the state of her spark. “Then I’d say your head was full of slag.” She didn't add that she'd always thought that, kept her thoughts to herself in some small effort to not hurt him more than necessary.

He tried to say something else, but she was already moving faster than his processor. “Dammit, Airachnid, would you stay still for a klick? I know we had a… rough introduction, but I think in any other case we could have-“

Airachnid turned on him so swiftly that he almost toppled over on his back. “We could have what? Been friends? Swapped stories and armour over energon? In any other world where you didn’t deliver me right into the hands of a Unicron-possessed monster?” She tried not to shout, but that only made her hiss at him as she marched close enough to see her bristling reflection in his optic. “You barely know who I am, Breakdown, so don’t pretend that you care about me. I’ve relied enough on the pity of other bots as it is. Just this once, I want to help myself. Do you understand that?”

He didn’t, of course. He couldn't, not without dissecting her spark and seeing which half of it was more alive. Not without putting aside what he wanted and seeing that it just couldn’t happen. But looking into his optic, watching him refuse to flinch from her despite how lost he was, she almost believed that he did.

“…I guess I do,” he said, somehow fooling both of them with his sincerity. “I didn't mean… I didn't know-” Breakdown cut his excuses off at the interruption from Scorpia, a low whine that must have come from the turmoil of her mother's spark. Airachnid didn’t think of keeping her hidden anymore, not when she was already reaching back to retrieve her.

It took Breakdown a few moments to realise what she was holding, and even longer to believe it. “You’ve… got a sparkling? I thought that it… that it was…” As he trailed off into a trickle of stutters, Airachnid faced him slowly with Scorpia cradled in her arms.

“They were twins,” she told him, not dwelling on it as she turned back to her daughter, leaving Breakdown stranded in his scattered confusion. By the time he rewrote his past few vorns on board the Nemesis, Scorpia had been soothed into silence.

“...Megatron’s the sire, isn’t he?” he asked. Airachnid decided to answer by not answering at all, and even Breakdown knew not to ask again.

“I’m sorry.” She didn't know what he was apologising for, and she doubted he even knew. For bringing her back to Megatron in the first place? For not helping her earlier? For all his feelings that she couldn't return?

Airachnid looked away as she shoved a hand against her optics, shoving any tears firmly back into her helm. “Don’t be sorry. Be useful.” She pushed herself back on her path, listening to Breakdown hesitate before deciding to still follow her.

“Where are you going?”

“Keep up and we’ll eventually find out,” she told him, focusing only on Scorpia’s whimpers and the hazy ruins the distance. If a mech with the attention span of Breakdown could so easily spot her out here, she'd be an easy target for any drone looking in the right direction. She needed cover, just to wait out the fighting. As much as she ached to join in with whatever battle Optimus was in the middle of, she knew better than to risk her daughter’s life like that.

If she'd just left Scorpia behind, she wouldn't be in so much danger. If she hadn’t insisted on coming here with Optimus in the first place…

Airachnid looked up just before she collided with a rust-crusted city gate, still locked tight amidst the abandoned walls which rose up to scrape the smoke-strewn sky. Through the thin gaps she could see the rest of the city, built more like a military base, lying deserted and decayed. When no one stirred in the streets, Airachnid testing her legs against the gate. Even with all eight of them pushing, it wouldn’t budge.

“It would take an age for my acid to melt through this gate, and I don't feeling like flying in by myself. Think you can make us an entrance with that hammer?” She turned to Breakdown, who was still staring gormlessly up at the walls. He noticed her staring expectantly, then rewound her words with a grin as he revealed his hammer.

“I'd be happy to try.” He hefted it over his shoulder before charging forwards, yelling as he swung hard at the center of the giant gate. The thick metal boomed, a thunderclap that echoed through the whole city, as his hammer was driven deep into its own dent. He yanked it free and hit again, faster and faster until the metal was chipped away and eventually blown apart by the final blow. Breakdown fell right through the two gate doors as they were shoved open, betrayed by his own momentum and sent sprawling flat on his face.

Airachnid inspected the forced entrance, making sure there were no jagged edges, before stepping over him. “Good work.”

Breakdown managed to pull himself back upright, running after her as she paced the main street. “So… what is this place?”

Airachnid scanned the buildings towering over and lining the street, the broken gun mounts and missile launchers, armouries and scattered bullets, slowly recognising where she was.

“We both passed through the Sea of Rust,” she said. “Which means… this must be Autobot City.What’s left of it, at least.”

Breakdown gave the street a much more brief appraisal, scoffing as he tested his hammer against a wall. “Real original name.”

Airachnid heard the sound of impacts, and glared at Breakdown before he could hit again. “Don't do that.”

Scorpia let out another wavering chirp as if on cue, while Breakdown stood frozen like a petrorabbit in headlights as he sheepishly put his hammer away. “Sorry.”

Airachnid still fixed him with disapproval, but decided to let him go. He obviously didn't realise where the really were, who this really was.

“He’s only gotten worse with age...” Airachnid whispered as she stroked claws over the broken metal, the stains of rust and oxidation, even bite marks all over his foundations. There was the usual sign of a Scraplet nibbling away, but most of the scars were clearly from Insecticons. If a hive had settled under him, it would explain why five of them had managed to find her.

Scorpia still squirmed in her servos, restless and anxious and on the verge of crying out again. Airachnid rearranged her, letting her dangle over her arms as Scorpia looked everywhere her wide optics could reach. Unlike her mother, she didn't know enough about what she saw to feel sad, or full of regret. When she reached out to feel the dents in the pitted metal skin, fitting her digits into the ragged scars without thinking of what made them, she did it without an ounce of fear or unease. Despite the pain, the confusion and so many things she wouldn't be able to understand for years to come, a sparkling’s innocent curiosity couldn't be dissuaded.

Airachnid let her prod at the dead walls as they walked down that dusty street, as the click of her heels tapped out a lonely lullaby. That solemn beat eventually carried her to the end of that long road, up a slow incline until she was ascending a wide flight of stairs. She stopped halfway up, looking ahead to where they lead, then continuing until she reached the top, beyond the hall full of shadows to the centrepiece of the city.

Another pair of doors, translucent where they weren't covered in gilded dust, lay closed before her. Not as large or forbidding as the gates far behind her, but ultimately more sacred. Though the energy core they shielded had now lain dead for millennia, even the most jaded Decepticon would have struggled to hide their awe at the view straight into such a mighty heart.

Like Scorpia, Airachnid reached out to gently touch the sealed portal. It was colder than anything else in the city, so much that she thought her claws might eventually freeze there. Her talons spread over the opaque surface, eclipsing the intricate network of cables, veins and fuel lines that fed into the dead spark left beyond the doors.

“Hello, old friend,” she said, letting her arm fall back to her side; the hand left heavy and cold despite the heat of her palm blasters. She'd never seen Metroplex in his full glory with Optimus, had once felt grateful that they hadn't had to use him outside of his battle station mode. It was only after her time on Archa Seven that she saw the city walk, against the Decepticons own titan Trypticon. She'd cursed his name when they lost, was glad when the Autobots had to leave him behind to rust during the Exodus. She felt like she had to apologise, but it was far too late for that.

An imprint was left burned on the dusted glass where her hand was previously, like ice melting away from a branding iron. Through that small stain of clarity, she saw Breakdown’s reflection as he trudged up the steps behind her.

“What's that thing?” He squinted, trying to see past the centuries of grime for an answer. “Looks like… some kind of spark chamber.”

Airachnid didn't turn to face him. “It might be.”

Breakdown blinked, close enough now to wipe away more of the dust that coated the chamber clear doors. He took in the assortment of wires and tubes, then turned back and re-appraised the city stretched out underneath them. Once again, his processor was slow to get to work, but when it finally got running it was loathe to stop before it finished its job.

“Wait, wait, Autobot City…” He tapped a digit against his helm, as if physically trying to dredge up memories. Airachnid knew the instant he found the right one; how quickly his expression went blank, only to fill itself with the fallen features and twitching optic of a mech gone mad.

“Is…” He gulped. “Is this Metroplex? Are we standing on…”

Airachnid decided to give him some credit by not nodding, keeping her helm completely still as he took in the Metrotitan again, this time knowing he was walking amidst a legend of war.

“Holy slag… I’d only heard stories about him... How he took out the entire Marauder force and helped get the Ark off the ground. Pit, not even my gestalt team could have gone up against him.” Breakdown sounded honoured, despite the fact that he was talking about his own side being bested. That was just how impressive Metroplex was.

“Were you around when he fought Trypticon?” he asked her, oblivious to why she didn't share his overt fascination. “Just before the Exodus?”

It was surprising to hear Breakdown revealed as a history buff (as well as being normally buff), but not enough so to pull Airachnid's attention on him. She shrugged with her back legs. “I might have heard about it.”

“Well, Metro ended up winning in the end. But when it came time for the Ark to leave for good, he had to use up his own energon to get it powered. That’s the only thing that took him down in the end; self sacrifice.” Breakdown tapped a fist on one of the supporting pillars holding Metroplex’s colossal frame together. “If it wasn't for that, I bet he’d still be walking today.”

Still facing the lifeless chamber in front of her, Airachnid found herself nodding. “Maybe… maybe so.”

A chirp came from her chestplates, and she saw Scorpia looking up, watching her in the midst of her pensive vigil. Even when Airachnid kept her lips sealed, Scorpia knew when she was troubled just as easily as the mother knew when her daughter was. Airachnid put on a smile just for her, stroking her braid while Breakdown indulged his curiosity. She wondered how alike the two of them really were, the sparkling and the ex-Wrecker. Though all Wreckers were like sparklings in some way.

That connection was only strengthened by the sound of a high keening whine; at first Airachnid feared Scorpia was in pain again, but a sharp look downwards revealed that Scorpia was still returning her smile, and that Breakdown was actually the source of it.

“Uh… Airachnid?” His vocaliser shuddered as much as the rest of his frame. “Am I the only one seeing… that?” He was pointing towards the horizon, but it was hardly necessary when Airachnid turned around. Not when what got him so worried was threatening to block out the entire landscape.

And it was only getting bigger as it advanced, a hulking metal mountain crawling along the ground. Sharp purple biolights blinked like city lights, or like the all-seeing eyes of a horrific beast, as Cybertron’s sun set behind it; casting it in shadow even as its outline glowed like it was shielding the heat from a nuclear blast. It was so massive that the closing distance was irrelevant; every detail could be seen where it wasn’t drenched in darkness- not just shadow, but the metal itself seemed to be painted like a black hole, sucking up any light that dared to hit against it. As if a slice of reality, of the universe itself had been torn away, left only with a vile purple glow to define it, and was now marching onwards to demand an answer for why it was still alive.

Scorpia started crying again, and Airachnid knew she wouldn’t be able to comfort her.

“What on…? What is that?” It was the most alien thing she'd ever seen, right on her home planet rather than a forgotten moon light years away. Its legs were still hidden by the horizon line, but its steps were marked by tremors left constantly ringing throughout Metroplex’s body. The very same ones she’d felt through Cybertron’s core, without even wondering what they were.

Breakdown tried to gulp away his fear, but even with only one optic he couldn't look anywhere without seeing the behemoth. “Whatever it is… it doesn't look friendly.”

“Mamaaa!” Scorpia warbled between her mother's plating, shivering even as Airachnid tried to hide her away. Watching the mysterious monster approaching only froze her where she stood, but she couldn't take her optics off it. She was sure that if she did, it would morph into something worse.

Then the violent corona around the titan exploded, a flash of blinding blue light that shot out like a laser towards them all.

“Get down!” Breakdown was already throwing her on top of him as he dived for the floor, shoving her out of the way while covering her with his servos. Airachnid had already shot her legs out in front of her like a splayed barrier, feeling a swathe of heat hitting them and leaking through the thin gaps, a heatwave concentrated into a single burning beam. It only lasted a nanoklick, barely longer, but her armour felt like it was scorched. Scorpia was silent in the safety of her chestplates, wrapped tightly in her mother's arms.

Breakdown only released them when the heat dissipated, and his armour seemed to smoke where it faced the full force of the laser. He barely noticed it, only wafting the wisps away as he scanned their surroundings.

The hall was scored with a carpet of ash, a direct mark of where the laser had passed over. Airachnid kept her peds off the ground, wary of any heat absorbed by the ground as she carried herself on her auxiliary legs. She studied the long scorch mark, tracing it up the stairs and all down the length of the hall, carrying on behind her until it stopped before the doors of the spark chamber. And in that chamber, she felt something. Not in her sensors or instincts, but in the pit of her spark. It felt like Optimus, but both distant and multiplied, and only a fraction of what it truly was.

The laser had been pure concentrated energy, but it wasn’t intended to destroy. She realised that when she followed the new light in her spark, and saw it bleeding through the windows of Metroplex’s core.

“Oh my Primus…” It was a dim glow at first, the first flickering embers of a newborn fire, but in the space of a blink it bloomed into a supernova. It was just as brilliant as she remembered, even more so, a wildfire of searing white being fed by a web of vibrant blue energon. Even though he'd emptied his tanks for good, the surge of new energy must have kickstarted his fuel converters and sent them into overdrive, throwing all its resources into waking Metroplex up.

And under the hum and buzz of dormant systems shaking their rust off was the sound of a T Cog turning itself, and in turn every slab of metal around it. Including the ones Airachnid was standing on.

“Breakdown, get up!” Airachnid tore herself away from the reborn spark to pull the Decepticon off the floor. “We need to leave!”

Even with all her legs working together, he was heavier than he looked. She only succeeded in tugging him towards the exit as he fixed her with confusion. “Huh? But what if there’s another blast? We’ll be right in the middle of it-!”

“There won't be.” She let him go, deciding to lead by example instead. “Now unless you want to end up crushed between his plating, move!” She headed for the stairs and, securing Scorpia where she needed to be, leapt off and transformed before she hit a set of steps, roaring off over Metroplex as he trembled and quaked, battlements and spires vibrating and shaking off their debris. Also below her was Breakdown, who must have finally noticed the working spark that wasn’t there before, racing over the shifting street in his own alt mode, smashing through the gate as she landed a good distance away on the crest of a shattered planetary plate. But she could have been on the other side of the planet and still heard the Titan’s wake up call, a proud announcement that almost echoed from her own spark.

“Metroplex… systems online!”

He stretched, and the planet shuddered. It was like a continent was coming to life, rising out of the ground in a veil of dust and grit. An entire building moved, then a cluster of them, until they formed a limb that shoved against the ground as Metroplex pulled himself out of Cybertron’s graveyard. There was so much changing, so much being displaced, that all Airachnid could see was roads and streets disappearing until the hurricane faded, leaving behind a deep chasm where Autobot City had sat just klicks beforehand, and a shadow covering its entire width in darkness.

Metroplex didn't stand before her, but he didn't need to. Just kneeling made him taller than a combiner team. His face was like a mural, something ancient and foreboding, and it would have commanded her attention even if he wasn't looking right at her. How he managed that when his optics were hollow, practically blind, she couldn't say.

“I heed the call of the last Prime,” he intoned, barely moving his mouth as he blanketed the air with the force of his vocaliser. “And his sparkmate.”

For the first time since she could remember, Airachnid was speechless. What would be the point in saying anything, when she would only be drowned out? What of importance could she possibly say to this living relic?

He made no sign that he recognised her, nothing beyond being Optimus’ bonded. She could have been the same Elita he spoke to the day before she went to Archa, and he still would have acknowledged her the same way. He didn't have the capacity for names beyond that of those who commanded him.

Whether or not he was waiting for an order, his automatic sensors still seemed to function. His helm snapped to the horizon, facing the other beast still coming towards them.

“Enemy detected. Initiating combat procedures. Target identified; Trypticon.” He rose upright in a single mechanical motion, towering so high he could have broke the atmosphere line and grasped at Cybertron’s moons. He marched out to meet Trypticon- Airachnid didn’t even want to think of how he was still alive- slamming his peds with each step and leaving the femme behind with a burning spark, a gaping sparkling and a very confused mech by her side.

“...What did he mean ‘sparkmate’?” Breakdown asked.

Airachnid blinked, opened her mouth slightly, before only letting an exhausted sigh through. “I have no idea,” she lied.

xx

Optimus and Grimlock were the last to leave. Smokescreen and Knockout were already long gone, ripping up the wasteland between them and the Omega Lock, while between them and Trypticon lay only a flimsy barricade of Autobots and Dinobots. Megatron was still only a speck on his titan’s shoulders, blind or just uncaring to the other Autobots slipping past him. All he cared about was crushing the ones right front of him.

Trypticon advanced slowly, still weighed down by his own mass and the toxic fuel coursing through him. Each step took a klick to land, but it also brought him a league closer to where the Autobots stood their ground. Optimus couldn’t tell where he was heading, not without waiting around to see what lay on the horizon ahead.

So, with one last look at his soldiers, at Dreadwing orchestrating them against their impossible enemy, at the remains of the Vehicons still crawling towards them on wet trails of Dark Energon, he left on Grimlock's back, on the same heading as Smokescreen.

They were in the middle of the Sea of Rust, having emerged in the cover of a wreckage older than the war itself with Trypticon already waiting for them, which meant Metroplex’s remains would be on the other side. He just needed to get there, forced to take a longer route around the sheltered outskirts to avoid the barren plains that would see him dead.

Grimlock said nothing as they pushed on. Not even a quip about Optimus being heavy, or about needing his help. In some way, Optimus found his silence more chilling than the Metrotitan ever-present behind them. He switched his comm unit back on, only to have his audios assaulted by a hundred pings from the same frequency. Once the wavelength cleared, he opened up the line to Earth.

“Optimus, finally!” Despite being light years away from the action, Ratchet sounded as if he’d just gone a round against Megatron himself. “I’ve been trying to comm you for the past hour! I have bad news-”

“So do I, old friend,” Optimus cut in, letting Grimlock bound across the wastes without any steering. “Megatron has somehow revived his warship into its true form; Trypticon.”

“What?!” The medic suddenly regained enough energy for an outburst. “B-But Trypticon… I thought he was terminated centuries ago!”

“No matter how old the corpse is, Dark Energon can still bring it back to life,” Optimus reminded him, shuddering at the memory of their fight against Megatron’s first zombie hoard.

“I'm getting too old for this… well, to make matters worse, the Space Bridge is completely burned out. We don't have enough energon reserves to power it. I can't bring anyone back in an emergency… including Airachnid.”

Optimus hadn't even thought of calling in more Space Bridges, but knowing they weren't even an option now filled him with more dread than he thought his spark could hold. Before he could even think of a response, anything to fix the situation, Grimlock demanded his attention with a vicious buck of his spinal strut.

“Prime. Look behind!”

Despite their rapid stampede, Trypticon had hardly changed size. Still sitting bloated against the sky, unhinging his jaw like a mechanical snake as if he intended to devour anyone who came close, the Autobots were like insects he was trying to swat aside. Or, in this case, trying to trap in a bug zapper.

Optimus alone recognised the attack pattern, and knew that running would do them no good. Like a fountain of molten magma, Trypticon let loose a lance of energy that cut through the ground below him, slicing along Cybertron’s surface as he pulled his helm back to direct it. The beam was coming right towards Optimus and Grimlock in a jagged course, too wide to escape. Optimus brought up the Star Sabre in a futile, desperate attempt to block or displace it…

But Grimlock acted faster.

The Dinobot faced the laser without hesitation, and stretched his own jaw wide to unleash his own weapon. A jet of flame shot out from him like a glowing spear, meeting the plasma beam and, right before Optimus’ own optics, absorbing and dissipating its deadly energy before it could hit. Somehow something as basic as fire managed to beat back the laser, melting the loose electrons and fueling the flame further by stealing Trypticon's own heat energy.

The two forces fought against each other, briefly back and forth until all the combined heat collapsed into a single shattering explosion, like an orb of magnesium hit with a solar flare. Optimus covered his frame with the Sabre, squinting against the glare as Grimlock turned to run again. Hopefully the light was bright enough to shield them from any scanning optics, though it meant Optimus couldn’t see who was still standing. He opened a new line on his comm link.

“Bulkhead, come in!” The frequency crackled as the electromagnetic surge of plasma still hung in the air, and Optimus felt relief at the Wrecker’s eventual answer.

“Optimus, did you just see that?! We almost got fried!”

“Is everyone alive?”

“Yeah, luckily we weren't right in the middle of it. Just some refraction burns here and there.”

Optimus sighed, casting a look over his shoulder to where the Autobots still fought behind the explosion’s lingering cover. “Listen closely, Bulkhead. Trypticon's plasma beam is highly dangerous, but it can be manipulated by a magnetic field. If you see him preparing for another strike, counter it with the Polarity Gauntlet.” He wanted to curse himself for not thinking to warn the others earlier, but even with the Gauntlet it would be difficult to divert a weapon as powerful as Trypticon’s. Then again, Grimlock had managed it with just a basic fire attack. A relic may not affect the Titan directly, but once the energy left his body it was no longer protected. And with such a strong bot wielding it… who knew what might happen?

Bulkhead seemed to sense Prime’s doubt, compiling it on top of his own. “Uh… right. I'll try.”

Optimus switched to Ratchet as Bulkhead cut off, once again hit with a barrage of pings.

“Optimus, can you hear me? Are you still there?”

“Still here, Ratchet. There was an… incident that needed taken care of.” Grimlock let out a smug snarl beneath him. Optimus focused ahead, watching for the outline of their destination to appear over the horizon line. “Do you have Airachnid’s location?”

“She's finally stopped moving, so give me a klick… she's on the other side of the planet.” Ratchet sounded impressed, and Optimus saw why when he transmitted the coordinates over. “Must have been flying the entire time to cover that distance from where you started.”

“Far away from the fighting, at least,” Optimus conceded. “Her comm link isn’t registering, I can only assume she turned it off. I'm on my way to Autobot City, which should take me past her-”
“Autobot City?” Ratchet caught onto his plan much more quickly than he was prepared for. ”Optimus, you're not thinking of…? I mean, it's the only way you'll beat Trypticon, but-”
“I understand the risk attached to reviving Metroplex. Which is why I will be his handler,” Optimus pointed out; in fact, himself and Ratchet were the only ones who did know about the true risks involved. He hadn't been completely open about the details of bringing Metroplex back from the Allspark. The Omega Lock could repair his major systems and give him a temporary fuel supply, even kickstart whatever flickering embers were left of his spark. But Metroplex would be in no state to fight by himself, not against a Dark Energon-enforced Titan.

Two features distinguished a Metrotitan from an ordinary bot. One was their immense size, with stories of moon and even planet sized Titans running rampant during the Golden Age. The second, known only to those who'd ever operated a Metrotitan, was their ability to be controlled by someone completely separate from their colossal bodies, someone who could tap into their sprawling roads of nerve nodes or even directly into their spark. A Titan’s processor could malfunction or their optics could go blank behind cracked optics, and they could still fight with a pilot guiding their movements.

That was why Optimus’ presence was needed; he could summon Metroplex from anywhere on the planet’s surface. But he could only control him from a close distance, close enough to feel the impact from every hit rattling through Cybertron’s bones. Close enough to feel every mistake spear through his spark, joined to the Titan’s by the thick spindle of the Matrix.

“Even if all else fails,” he continued, “Metroplex’s and my own sparks will be the only ones in danger. And I will sacrifice mines if it means taking down Megatron once and for all.”

Ratchet scoffed, but not wholly from disapproval. “Things like that were a lot more believable when you didn't have a family to go back to.”

The firm grip on Grimlock's horns loosened slightly, with Optimus caught off guard by the medic’s reply. “The Autobots have always been my family, Ratchet. And if Cybertron falls here… where else will my family go?”

“...There's always Earth,” Ratchet answered, hidden hope showing through despite how offhandedly he tried to put it.

“Earth is not our home,” Optimus reminded him. “It has sheltered us, but it is not where we belong, Ratchet. We owe it to the humans to leave their world in peace.”

The line stewed in silence for some long moments, and Optimus spent them watching Trypticon over his shoulder. He thought he saw Dreadwing strafing the skies with Swoop, or perhaps Megatron himself trying to beat back the assault, while the ground troops leapt and dived and danced around Trypticon's defences just to stay alive. He wondered how far away Smokescreen and Knockout were, if they'd even make it to the Lock. And he wondered if Ratchet was right, if Earth could become a safe haven if all else failed.

The medic didn't press the point further when he finally spoke again. “Just don't be stupid, Optimus. And find Airachnid, for Primus’ sakes! Keep each other out of trouble.”

Despite everything, Optimus found himself smiling at the medic’s plea disguised as a groan, and most of all at the thought of reuniting with Airachnid. “Understood, old friend.”

It was only when all comms were off that he noticed how Grimlock’s back sagged under him, and how his vents blew heavily across his haunches. His pace hadn't slowed, but it was clear he was struggling.

“How… farther, Prime?” he panted, trailing drool as it flowed over his overheated mouth. Optimus pushed himself up high on the Dinobot’s back, trying to see what lay ahead. Beyond a thin gauze of grit, he thought he saw Metroplex’s spires coming into view.

“We've cleared over half the distance, Grimlock. Just a little more, and we'll reach-”

He was swiftly drowned out by the familiar hum of an incoming laser, so sure that Trypticon had managed another plasma beam that he skidded to turn Grimlock around- only to find the Metrotitan still trying to throw the aerial fighters off him. The light came from somewhere else, far left of where the grand diversion was taking place. Just looking at it made his optics burn, but it was nothing compared to the searing heat in his spark. He knew without seeing where it had come from, where it hit like a sword of ultimate, unlimited energy like Cybertron hadn't seen for millennia.

The Omega Lock had been activated, and it had found Metroplex’s remains. But his spark shouldn't have been reacting to it so violently, not this far from the event site. Unless…

He brought up Airachnid’s co ordinates again. Only a Prime could truly summon and control a Metrotitan. But if one was bonded to a Prime…

He tried to contact Airachnid again, frantically searching for any sign of her frequency. A link popped up eventually, but he didn't get to hold the hope that it was her for very long.

“Optimus, it worked! We got the Omega Lock powered and… holy slag, it's really him!” Smokescreen’s frame practically vibrated from how his wavelength trembled, or perhaps those were just tremors from mighty peds. “Metroplex is up and running!”

Optimus watched the dead Metrotitan rise one last time, still colossal despite the distance, still struck by awe after so long since witnessing his sacrifice. “I see him, Smokescreen. Excellent work.” He almost didn't realise how quiet his vocaliser was, not until Knockout dropped in to snatch some of the praise.

“I helped as well, you know. This teenspark barely even knew where to stick the keys in…”

Optimus barely listened, still bearing witness to Metroplex’s revival as he trudged over the quaking landscape, a fortress on his last mission to save their planet. His spark had calmed down, but there was still an echo of fire that must have been from Airachnid.

Did she even know what she'd just been dragged into?

“Both of you, stay in cover until Trypticon is defeated,” he ordered, cutting of Smokescreen in the middle of another ramble. “I'll comm the others and have them rendezvous with you at the Lock.” Trypticon noticed Metroplex now, two impossibilities coming to collide, and the screech of rage could have torn the atmosphere asunder. He almost didn't hear Smokescreen’s question as he steeled his audios.

“What about you, Optimus?”

He studied the distance between the two behemoths, the smudged bots below scattering as Trypticon bounded towards his enemy like a slow-motion hunting hound. Despite the massive fighters, Optimus focused on the speck careening through the sky, a furious slipstream aiming right towards Metroplex. But before Megatron even came within striking distance, he was swatted aside like a scraplet.

“I must find Airachnid,” Optimus said, as Megatron spiralled to the ground on a trail of purple smoke. “As soon as possible.”

Chapter 74

Chapter Text

Airachnid couldn’t move. Welded where she stood by awe and reverence, still dwarfed by Metroplex’s shadow even though he was at least a mile away by now, she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to move. By her side, Breakdown hardly made a sound from his gaping jaw, whereas Scorpia could barely contain the current of chirps that thrummed past her vocaliser. Even when Airachnid webbed her safely behind her back, she still squirmed in excitement she couldn’t quite understand. Maybe it was just an infectious feeling caught from her mother’s spark, one Airachnid was more than happy to indulge in just this once, just when she needed it the most.

“Hey, Airachnid?” Breakdown had been silent for a long moment, still only whispering as if scared of catching Metroplex’s attention. “I meant to ask… what’s her name? The sparkling’s, I mean.”

Of all the things to ask at a time like this…

“Scorpia.” Between Airachnid’s back legs, she trilled again as Breakdown smiled down at her, nodding in approval.

“That’s nice. She seems to agree, too.” Scorpia let out a chorus of chirrups, as if the wave of agony from just a breem ago never even happened. Maybe it was just all the commotion from Metroplex, seeing such a giant and not having to be scared of it.

And who could blame her for it? Before Metroplex, everything else became nothing more than a smudge in his shade, as insignificant as a loose bolt among the millions that kept him together. Nothing short of a nuclear warhead could have slowed him down as he marched to meet Trypticon, let alone the distant pinprick shooting towards him, foolish enough to get in his way. Metroplex hefted up a servo as long as a building, and swatted the disturbance aside like it was no more than a bothersome fly. It didn’t even try to avoid the limb coming down to shove it aside, instead spiralling on its new sharp trajectory straight downwards.

“What is that thing?” Airachnid asked, peering at the mystery flyer as it fell despite its stubbornly smoking engines. At first she feared it was Dreadwing, accidentally caught in Metroplex’s way, or perhaps a drone scouting ahead for whatever purpose, but then its descent took its frame towards where she and Breakdown stood.

The lower it sank in the air, the closer it came; she only recognised the plasma cannon mounted on its front just before it spat out a volley of burning bolts towards them.

“Get down!” She called out the warning, yet her limbs still refused to move. She couldn’t even push herself over, frozen like a useless statue before Breakdown had the sense to dive at the ground and drag her down with him. Plasma slammed around them, melting the rust flakes covering the topmost layer of metal, and Megatron didn’t so much soar over them as fling himself the distance needed to crash nearby.

And crash he did, his half-completed transformation barely breaking his fall as he skidded in a tangle of bruised plates and dented, battered metal. His peds tried to grip the hard surface tearing his armour apart even more than it already was, scrambling for purchase until he finally managed to stop himself with claws gouged deep into Cybertron’s shell. By that time, Breakdown managed to push himself back up. Airachnid was still left sprawled on the floor, every limb weighing more than she could hope to lift. It was an effort to even sit up, pushing off the ground with her back legs with optics forced wide open- the only parts of her body that weren’t cast in stone. Perhaps she was so terrified, her body simply refused to even try escaping.

Megatron stumbled out of his own wreckage, looking for all the galaxy like he wanted to tear it asunder with his bare claws. He flexed them as if he was preparing for it, spitting out globs of curdled purple energon as he forced his limp to hide itself. He only seemed to notice Breakdown as an afterthought, narrowing his glowing bruised optics at the former Wrecker.

“Well, well, Breakdown.” His lips split like a jagged scar as energon dribbled from the edges, releasing a voice that echoed from somewhere much, much worse than the pit of his spark. “You may not have found the Omega Lock, but you have found a traitor. I trust you were just in the middle of terminating her?” He didn’t even look at Airachnid, yet she still shuddered, fighting the urge to check on Scorpia when her biggest threat was right before them.

Breakdown did look at her, a sorrowful gaze that she wanted to slap right off his face. But trying to raise her servos was futile, she couldn’t even aim her palms for a ranged defense. The only thing that stood between her and Megatron was someone who was about to get himself killed for his trouble.

“No, sir,” Breakdown answered, turning back to face Megatron head on. If he was at all unnerved by the light bleeding from the warlord’s optics, he hid it remarkably well.

“No?” Megatron repeated, taking a single step forward to brand his clawed peds in the rust. Breakdown fought a flinch, only stumbling onwards when he was sure Megatron wouldn’t come any closer.

“You may see her as a traitor, but… she was never a part of the Decepticons in the first place. And she’s too valuable to be killed.” He almost sounded like he was being serious. Airachnid couldn’t tell if he was just stalling for time or if he genuinely was stupider than she’d ever expected.

Megatron co*cked his helm, giving the impression that he was considering the proposal. “Is that so?”

Breakdown nodded eagerly, and Airachnid was struck with the horrifying realisation that he actually thought he could persuade Megatron. “Especially at times like this, where everyone is trying to desert you,” he added, oblivious to his own doom. “Shouldn’t we be trying to gather our strength instead of scaring it away?”

“Breakdown…” Airachnid could hardly whisper, still fighting against the phantom weight keeping her limbs pinned to the ground. But even if she wanted to help him, if she was able to, she knew she couldn’t. Not if it meant putting Scorpia at risk.

Still ignoring her, Megatron gave Breakdown a crocodile’s grin, so much more deceiving than tears. “Everyone is deserting me, you say? Including you?”

Breakdown tensed, as if he only just realised what a horrible mistake he made in not running when he could. “No, no, my liege! I would never… I’m the only one you have left! Surely that says how loyal I am!”

Megatron shook his helm, a heavy pendulum that could have knocked someone else’s right off their neck with enough force. “If you are really so intent on proving your worthiness to me, Breakdown, do as I command.” He lifted a servo, the stolen Prime’s limb, and crooked its claw towards Airachnid. He regarded her like a piece of tasteless scenery, not even noting how she scrabbled to pick her tonne-heavy frame off the ground. “Kill her.”

Breakdown blinked his single optic, between his lord and the love he was fated to never have. He leaned towards her, as if hoping to help in his last moments, but even he knew better than to try it.

Airachnid didn’t know what choice he would make, didn’t know which one she wanted him to. Whatever happened next… one of them would die.

He weighed his hammer in one hand, as if calculating how quickly he could kill her with it, but when he faced her it was only long enough to shake his helm, angling his optics towards her palms and the blasters he knew were embedded in them. As if warning her not to fight, not to do anything. He turned to Megatron, placed himself firmly between the warlord and the spider, and gave his final answer.

“…I said no.”

Airachnid couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see Megatron past the bulk of his frame, but she could perfectly imagine what happened next. In a single instant Megatron lowered his accusing servo, only to sweep up his other one and, not even needing time to aim, planted a readied round of plasma fire right into Breakdown’s chest. She could smell the metal burning, see the searing wound starting to spread through his back plating.

‘I’m so sorry, Breakdown…’ The only thing that stopped her crying out was fear of Scorpia’s reaction, Scorpia who hopefully had no idea was what was happening. Her vents hitched painfully as he collapsed on his wavering legs, falling to his knees among the barren dust as his energon stained it a sickeningly bright blue. Now that he’d fallen, she could see Megatron approaching over the view of his sagging head.

“I give you one job, Breakdown, and once again you disappoint me.” Megatron had the grace to sound disappointed, as if he didn’t ache to see the light leave another’s spark by his hand. “But thank you for that enlightening lecture on what a bot’s spark is worth. It’s clear now that yours isn’t worth the energon it pumps.” He methodically loaded another bolt of deadly energy, and aimed it at Breakdown’s helm.

Despite the many gory hunts she’d lead in a past life, the executions she’d perfected, the countless corpses she’d skinned and piled high on empty planets, Airachnid couldn’t watch. Her neck hung limp, forcing her optics away as she blocked her optics from the sound of the plasma ripping through his face and the gurgling of Breakdown’s dying vents, the smell of frying circuitry and half-processed energon spilling out of his chest, of fresh fuel dripping from the hole in his head.

Instead she watched the clash of Titans far ahead, through the gap of her servo where she was forced to look to avoid seeing Breakdown’s corpse and collapsing to the floor all over again. Despite the distance, the size of the two giants had hardly diminished. They’d finally reached each other, throwing punches so heavy they took an age to hit their target, like a slow-motion stand-off between wind-up toys.

But Metroplex’s movements were too slow, too clumsy and unwieldy. She’d seen him fighting Trypticon before, on the other side of the battle. He’d calculated every strike, every attempt to unbalance his opponent so that it at least weakened his defences. Here… it was like he was swatting blindly at him, hoping something would eventually land.

Because he was blind. She’d seen it herself, the empty sockets and cracked glass scattered around their edges. His battle protocols told him where his enemy was, but with his sensors surely just as broken as his optics he’d have only the roughest idea of what to do against Trypticon, who was only bolstered by his long stasis and the Dark Energon that awoke him.

…But how did she know that? That burn deep in her spark had returned, only adding fire to her confusion and the frustration of her stone-leaden limbs, of being completely helpless. The longer she watched Metroplex failing, floundering as he was pummelled by Trypticon’s attacks, the more that aching, hopeless feeling grew.

Why did he get resurrected, just to be killed all over again?

Why wouldn’t he just punch him already!?

A fist flew through the air, being dragged on the end of a string by the force of a hurricane… and she only realised it was her own when she heard it clang against the ground, as if her arm really did weigh as much as Metroplex himself.

In the distance she heard a similar impact, and a retaliatory roar that tried to blow the atmosphere away as the ground quaked anew with the sound of the sky falling. She didn’t need to check, not when the subtle pull of her spark confirmed it for her. Her servo did weigh as much as Metroplex, every single limb… because she was the one guiding his own. Optimus had tried to explain it to her, to Elita, when they first arrived at Autobot City, but she’d never quite understood it.

Now that Megatron finally noticed her, eyeing the fist she planted in a newly-created dent and the energon starting to pool into it, she was very grateful that she was quick learner.

"And you, Airachnid…” He spat out another lump of congealed energon, as if her name left as vile a taste as the Dark Energon in his mouth, stepping over Breakdown’s corpse like it was nothing more than a pile of scrap. “You must be proud of yourself. Entrancing not one mech, but two of us. Though I suppose Breakdown wasn’t very difficult to manipulate.”

Airachnid levelled her optics at him, sharpening her glare to a knife-edge as she pulled her fist back. The weight was slowly dissolving, settling into her cables as she adapted to Metroplex’s link. Not that she wanted Megatron to know that. “No wonder you haven’t managed to kill Optimus yet,” she muttered. “All you do is talk.”

“Then allow me to get right to the point.” Megatron’s sword was out in an instant, and she only just got her legs up in time to stop it slicing towards her. All eight of them pushed hard against the blade, thick metal straining to withstand its edge as her spark tried to keep Scorpia calm at the same time. Megatron tried to force his way through her shield, until he gave up and pulled back to strike from a different angle.

“First you, then Soundwave, then Dreadwing… you’ve left nothing but a trail of treachery behind you!” He swiped furiously at her with his sword, glancing blows off her legs as they snapped to defend every new opening he found.
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your pets on a tighter leash!” Airachnid spat, kicking out with her primary legs and only managing to hit empty air. Her focus was torn in half, leaving her relying on instincts more than anything to survive his onslaught while she tried to blanket Scorpia from her own terror.

“Is it not?!” Megatron accused, taking to wide arcing sweeps of his sword to try and knock her off-balance. “Is it not obvious enough that everything fell to pieces the moment you arrived?!”

A bolt of blind fury shot through Airachnid’s spark, breaking through her bond with Scorpia and honing her mounting weariness to a sudden razor point. She landed a leg on his bladed servo, pushing it down with her claws and scraping the sharp metal as she forced her face into his, delivering her reminder to him on flecks of acid and snarled rage.

“Everything fell the moment you forced your spark into mines!”

Megatron tried to fight against her weight, bared every row of knife-edged denta as his optics glistened with a toxic coating of thick purple poison, spreading wider and wider in their deep hollow sockets...

Not from surprise at Airachnid’s strength. He wasn’t even pushing against her anymore, not when his audios locked onto a sound that sapped everything from his metal bones.

“What is that…?” His pupils drifted, searching for the source of the wails and whimpers that Airachnid was all too familiar with. It was too late to try soothing them now, not when Megatron had already heard the keening cries.

“I…” She gulped, already knowing her lie wouldn’t work. “I don’t know what you’re-“

“That sound…” Megatron lifted his other servo, the one that killed Breakdown. “That cry… coming from your back!” He swept the servo down, clamping it onto her legs and pulling them forwards before she could brace herself. She was forced around, facing the battlefield horizon as Metroplex and Trypticon still pummelled at each other. She didn’t even care that Metroplex was still losing, not when her secret was finally out to the one mech she’d tried to hide it from.

Other than the groan of heavy, ragged vents, Megatron was silent for so long that Airachnid almost fooled herself that she was just having a nightmare; that she’d wake up next to Optimus in their Iacon berth, pink plating set aside and her dusky protoform warm against his… but then Megatron released her from that fantasy, just as he did long ago, letting go of her legs as she fell towards the dirt. She managed to turn herself back just before she toppled, wrenching the sight of Scorpia away from him as she wailed even louder.

Before her, Megatron had the look of a mech who’d just watched himself dissolve in a mirror. “A… a sparkling?” His claws twitched, optics blinking rapidly as their purple light dimmed. He placed a fan of talons over his chest to feel his spark, as if surprised to find that he still had one. “Not just any… my sparkling.”

“You have nothing to do with her,” Airachnid insisted, forced to rip her away from her back from her unbearable cries.

Once again, Megatron ignored her, only focusing on the whimpering child cradled in her servos. “I thought I’d… I thought there was only one.” He shook his helm, still blinking away the purple that stained his vision as he tried to believe what he was seeing.

“That was her brother,” Airachnid explained through gritted fangs. “The one you killed.” Another flare of fury consumed her spark, only making Scorpia even more distraught. Airachnid held her closer, trying to calm her with as many whispers as she could muster past the acid on her glossa.

But Megatron was not as dazed by shock as she’d thought, from how he picked up on one her frantic mutters. “Scorpia?” Somehow, the way he said it made Airachnid’s head pulse with pain. “An interesting name… I may keep it. Would save time teaching her something else.”

He placed a single ped forwards, and Airachnid took three backwards. “You’re not going anywhere near her.”

Megatron co*cked an eyeridge, wisps of purple still infecting his optics as he dragged his glossa over his denta. “And who are you to keep me from our daughter?”

“Her mother. The only one who’s kept her alive this long.”

Megatron still paced forwards, watching Scorpia swaddled near her chest as she scrambled backwards. “A resilient one, then. She would make a fine Decepticon-“

Airachnid threw a blast of energy at him, along with a rope of webbing. Both missed him by a mile, but she couldn’t just watch him advancing without some kind of strike at him. “She’s a child, not a soldier!”

Megatron’s strange, almost proud expression, soured like the energon in his veins as his mouth formed a thick knotted frown. “Says the one who brought her onto a battlefield! Now hand her over-!”

He stretched out his servo, the one that threatened her with the same fate Breakdown met, and in that same instant Scorpia let loose an attack of her own. It was a concentrated wave of agony, twin to the one that had left her writhing on the ground, and it mirrored itself in Megatron’s possessed spark, twisting the shards of Dark Energon in deeper to intensify the searing pain, the sensation of fuel sizzling away under his protoform.

“What…” He swallowed a groan, trying not to double over from the paralysing ache deep in his chest, deeper than his claws were willing to reach no matter how they scratched at his plating.

“What have you done to her?” He dragged his optics up, flashing purple at her as he fixed Scorpia with a glare to match the one Airachnid saved just for him. The sparkling made no sign that she recognised him as her sire, all she did was whimper in fear.

“You did this to her, Megatron,” Airachnid told him, taking the opportunity to place as much distance between her and him as possible, despite the temptation to strike now while he was down. “Every moment of pain she’s ever suffered is all because of you. Because of that fragging poison you filled her spark with!”

He watched her retreating, clawed at the soft ground as he tried to right himself. “I… I don’t…” The hand over his spark fell as Scorpia’s reflected pain faded, only because of how far away she was from her sire. His murky optics swirled with a thousand thoughts, many that Airachnid didn’t want to guess at, as he slowly stood up right.

“I’ve felt this before… but not like this. It was… because of her? Because she was alive, and I never even knew it?” It was more like thinking out loud than seeking an answer from anyone, yet he looked to the land behind him as if searching for one anyway. The Titans were at rest, each frozen in their battle stances as if someone had cast them in iron and bolted them there forever more. For once, the ground was absolutely still. No shake of stamping peds or echo of fists colliding miles above. For the first time since they both arrived on this Primus-forsaken world, it was completely and utterly dead.

Megatron watched those statues, the wounds and dents scattered over the battered monuments, for so long that Airachnid might have thought he had become one of them. But he turned back to her eventually, with optics a pure red that didn’t dare to shine as they faced her.

“You still wish to fight me, Airachnid?” he asked, so weary and exhausted that it was like listening to a ghost. He took her silence as his answer. “Very well. I think you’ve earned a fair chance.” He took hold of his cannon-armed servo, worked his claws into the weapon until it came free of its mount. Then he tossed it aside, far out of his easy reach. In fact it went so far, it landed next to Breakdown’s body.

Airachnid looked from the detached weapon to Megatron, back and forth in suspicion. “Since when have you ever cared about fighting fair?”

Megatron rubbed at the bare metal now revealed on his servo, only meeting her glare with hooded optics, still stubbornly red. "Believe me, Airachnid... I did not want it to come to this. Having a god in your spark does... very strange things. Gives you impulses... needs that you can't disobey. I’m sure you can sympathise with that."

Airachnid might have, if she was hearing it from any other mech in the galaxy. "You're trying to blame Unicron for all of this?" She didn’t know why she was so shocked, when this was the same mech who blamed Optimus for making their planet uninhabitable, for daring to fight back when he was slaughtering innocents by the dozens.

And yet, Megatron still argued without an ounce of self-awareness. "A poor excuse, but the only one I have. If I'd known that first sparkling was ours...” He recoiled, as if he’d managed to feel a fraction of the pain she did when she felt the newborn spark disintegrate. “If I'd known you were carrying, this would have ended very differently.”

Airachnid held back from firing something at him, if only to see the deep lines in his face, the regret sunken into them; to hear how pathetic his pleas were. "Do you ever listen to yourself speak?” It came out quieter than she wanted, but any louder and she was sure her voice would crack. “Do you understand what you're trying to justify to me? It wasn't Unicron's voice in your head that told you to start the war. It wasn't Dark Energon that left our home in ruins. That was all you.”

She knew it was Elita talking, both brands of anger fighting to be heard. Megatron’s expression fluctuated, as if he was reprogramming it to show a scornful confusion instead. "Since when did you care about the war?” he accused. “Cybertron was never your home, Airachnid. Autobot, Decepticon, bots like you didn’t care what badge they wore. Your kind acts for yourself and no one else. Before… I admired that about you.”

Airachnid bit her bottom lip, driving her fangs in deep to stop from screaming at him and his empty apologies, sucking up the leaking energon to quench her throat as it was baked dry by the heat of the rage from her spark. “I do have someone to fight for, Megatron,” she told him. “And I don’t care if you believe it or not.”

Megatron hardly looked impressed by her confidence, or her ever-slipping self-control. “Are you going to keep trying to pass yourself off as something noble, or are you going to fight?”

Airachnid had been waiting for this moment ever since she left the Nemesis. Elita had been waiting ever since she died on Archa Seven. But not here, not with the stakes so high. Not with her daughter having to watch.

“You gave up your weapon… so I’ll give up my shield.” She gently pulled Scorpia away from her chest, moving sideways so Megatron never left her sight. Only when she found somewhere else to secure Scorpia to did she move her optics, webbing her tight to the jutting spire of scrap so she couldn’t get lost, or turn around and have to see her parents fighting to the death.

Airachnid checked over her shoulder, making sure Megatron wasn’t sneaking up on her, and wrenched herself back to Scorpia. She peered up over her thick blanket of web, face soaked with coolant and optics still leaking more as they searched her mother’s face for answers. Airachnid thought she felt her spark breaking, but it was a dull shatter in the numb expanse of her chamber.

“I’m so sorry for this, Scorpia… it will be quick. I promise, just… please forgive me.” She pulled Scorpia’s head close, just feeling her daughter close to her, before placing a firm kiss on her forehelm, underneath the brittle armour to her shaking protoform.

“Motherhood has made you so affectionate.” Megatron watched her rise without Scorpia in her servos, his observation so easily sounding like mockery. Suddenly Airachnid missed the weight that had kept her limbs pinned down. Her arms felt so light without her daughter, her spark so lost as it had to leave her behind…

She faced Megatron at her chosen distance, wiped her lips on the back of her palm. “I’ve just delivered a dose of delayed response venom through her protoform,” she informed him. “If I win, it will pass harmlessly through her tanks. If I lose…” She sucked in air for comfort, but only found her own poison fumes wafting back at her.

“If I lose, I’ll activate it and we’ll both die.”

Megatron’s expression changed only minutely at the news. “You’re bluffing.”

Airachnid forced a smile, knowing he would think that. “Is it really so hard to believe that I’d rather have her dead than in your grasp?”

Megatron studied her, then came to the conclusion that she was telling the truth, however much it hurt her. He almost looked like she felt. “After all that anger about our son… you’d kill our daughter just to spite me?”

“You’ve already killed her, Megatron,” Airachnid told him, spreading her back legs wide to take on his assault. “Do you really think I have anything left to lose?”

Megatron contemplated that, only wasting a nanoklick on it before he launched himself into a head-long charge towards her. Despite her pounding helm she was ready to counter it, bring her legs forwards to vault over Megatron’s frame while it lay low- but he expected it, grabbing hold of her ankle and yanking her back down to slam her into the ground. The impact dazed her, but she had a mouth full of acid ready for when Megatron flipped her over. He brought up an arm to shield his face from the splatter of venom she spat past her lips, giving her long enough to roll aside and escape his shadow.

“What’s the real plan, Airachnid?” He sent his blade skimming over her helm, only missing because she ducked in time. “Stalling until the Autobots get here and finish me off for you?”

He made three more strikes as he spoke, each of them glancing off the shield of her legs. “No Autobots,” she said, hoping she was wrong. ”This is between me and you and no one else!” She jabbed her razors at him at every opening, risking her defence for any chance at hitting him. One leg managed to dig itself into one of his armour seams, drawing energon but costing her a long wound across her shoulder. Megatron allowed her a moment to notice the gash, knowing that he would do much worse to her soon.

“And that is precisely why you will lose!” He drew his arm back for a heavy chop towards her helm, instead embedding his blade in the ground as she fought through the bane to scramble out of the way. While he pulled his servo free, stumbling backwards from his own strength, Airachnid got in close to slash at his face. Three thin scars lanced across his cheek and wept energon over his mouth; he gargled it away as he roared and shoved her a league away with a swat of his other servo. Her legs came up too late, and she tumbled across the rusted graveyard like a ragdoll thrown aside by a bratty sparkling.

That only made her think of Scorpia, leaving her weightless and hollow with anguish as Megatron came ever closer. He walked, not expecting her to get back up by the time he reached her.

With one servo trapped under her body, she fought against the crippling fear with the same helplessness that Metroplex gave her. Her claws kept scraping against something hard, something she was trying to release until she realised what it was.

Clutching it tight in her hand, all five talons hiding it, she summoned enough strength to flip herself up on her back legs, sliding aside as Megatron lunged at her.

“I know why you really killed Breakdown,” she told him, loud enough to command his attention as he kept trying to make a solid hit. “Not because he refused to kill me. You would have wanted to do that yourself anyway.”

“Shut up and give me a challenge already!” The energon over his face had dried quickly, a thin layer of purple-stained cyan that cracked away as he snarled at her. Airachnid kept dodging his lunges, knocking away his blade when it came too close.

“You killed him,” she went on, almost enjoying his frustration,” Because you just couldn’t see from his perspective!” The swipe of his sword had escalated to a flurry of frantic stabs, each one desperate to make a match to the wound on her shoulder. She waited for the perfect angle, the perfect chance to counter him… it came when he tried to go right for her spark, making her twist her whole body aside and giving her perfect access to his weapon.

“Allow me to help you with that!” Forcing his blade downwards again, this time she used it for support as she launched herself up, two legs pushing down his shoulders and a fist of talons uncurling to reveal a sharp, jagged shard of rock, glittering the same colour as the energon dripping from both of them, as she slammed it deep into Megatron’s optic.

She didn’t have time to retrieve it before he bellowed, a shriek of pure agony as he bucked his head and pressed a hand to his gouged socket. She made a hasty dismount, leaving him to spasm and bleed as he tried to pull the meteorite out.

Behind him, silhouetted like the planet was a stage, Metroplex carried out a similar attack on Trypticon, who still hadn’t resumed his onslaught. Dark Energon had been what kept him walking, had been his link to Megatron and vice versa. Now that Megatron was no longer possessed, bleeding out the poisoned energon by the quart, Trypticon was as useful to him as a visor, one built for bots with both optics intact.

Even if she died here, at least the Autobots would be victorious. At least she’d be buried somewhere that wasn’t just an endless warzone.

Now gasping out his pain, Megatron faced Airachnid with one optic and a bleeding, hideous hole, heedless to the quaking ground as Metroplex beat his Titan into the ground. Energon still drenched him in a patchwork purple and blue flood, but the loss from his tanks didn’t slow him at all as he arced his sword towards her. Again she rolled to dodge it, but it clipped one of her loose legs and left it dangling uselessly from her back. She still had seven left, but now she was off balance. He threw all his weight behind his strikes, making less attempts at hitting her but much more powerful impacts when he managed to.

She focused on his blind side, leaving it patterned with a tapestry of gaping wounds by the time her shoulder started slowing her down. Yet he still moved with as much fury as a gladiator at his prime. No matter how hard she hit and clawed, he refused to go down… in some places his armour was too thick to even pierce through.

Yet she still persisted, drawing back on her remaining legs as she dived aside from his sword and claws. She was running out of options, and out of energon. In a fit of desperation, she dredged up a strategy from somewhere far back in her cluttered memories. She flung herself over to his other side, landing heavily and, pivoting on her heel, swung it with all her carried speed to crack against Megatron’s helm-

Only to have it swiftly caught in his palm before it could hit, the ped easily crushed between his talons. With all the energon on his face and the shards of optic glass sticking around the bleeding socket, his grin looked more ghoulish than even he would have possibly ever managed.

“I haven’t seen that move in a very long time,” he told her, slowly, as if savouring the fact that she was completely immobilised. “I almost killed the last bot who used it against me.” Trapping her ped even tighter, he effortlessly pulled her over his helm and smashed her into the ground. The impact was an earthquake through her frame, needles sent firing through her nerve nodes as her helm pulsed like an endless warning siren. The constant tremors underneath didn’t help, as Megatron stood over her and immobilised her pinned legs with the weight of his peds pushing down on them.

“Do you know how he managed to survive?” he asked her, kneeling to loom over her fully with a mighty set of claws encompassing her chest, eager to rip her spark out. “Because he gave up. He knew I was better, and he simply gave up. That’s what smart bots do when they’re out-matched. Are you as smart as you think you are, Airachnid? Or do you still think you can win?”

Airachnid tried to pull her glossa over her cracked lips, couldn’t even summon any more venom to throw at him. The only acid she had left was tucked in her vocaliser, and she croaked it out on shaking vents.

“What are you waiting for? Do it, you… fragging coward…!” She had the command ready to deploy, an instant of pain before there’d be no more at all, anything to protect Scorpia. Anything to keep her away from this monster…

Megatron hesitated, scowling at her goading but making no move to finish her off. If he left her here and went to retrieve Scorpia herself, she’d just kill the sparkling anyway. There was no way for him to win both ways… just as Airachnid had intended.

Perhaps that was why he decided to kill her, just for the nerve of outwitting him. Airachnid watched him pull the blade back, knowing it was aiming for her neck and calculating the exact moment to save her daughter. She refused to close her optics, wouldn’t die without burning her last glare into his optics like a lifelong brand.

That was how she saw Megatron toppling forwards, blown off of her by some invisible hurricane, before she felt his weight evaporating off her frame. She craned her neck vertically to see where he landed, but only saw a dark blue jet soaring over her. From her angle, it looked like he was flying in an upside-down world, skimming the ground as the solid sky tried to drag him back down. When she rolled herself over, stumbling onto her peds, all that was left of Soundwave was the contrails that followed behind his wings as they tore through the air.

With nowhere else to look, she turned her optics downwards; only now realising she was on the very edge of a colossal chasm, like a scar gouged out of Cybertron to match the one stinging on her shoulder. This was Metroplex’s resting place… and it would soon be Megatron’s, when he eventually lost the strength keep himself from falling into its depths, claws only just holding onto the edge she stood upon. As well as only one optic, he also only had one servo, his original one, to keep himself secured with. His other must have come free, unable to take the strain of holding him up, or perhaps unwilling to keep the rest of his body alive.

He knew she wasn’t going to pull him back, and he didn’t embarrass them both by begging. Airachnid knelt, watching the many stages of denial flashing past his damp, crusted face, and kept his claws right where they were with a clump of webbing. She didn’t want him to fall just yet.

"I want you to know, Megatron, that I'm not killing you for the Autobots. I'm not killing you for Optimus. I’m not even killing you just to hear you scream." She spoke slowly, rehearsing each line in her head before giving it a voice. But there were so many of them spilling from her spark, so many things she wouldn’t get another chance to say that they all eventually came out on a tide of venom.

“I’m killing you because you took our home and our families; but that was never enough for you, was it? You had to take me as well! You had to take my son, and the life that I should have had, the life that I DESERVED with the mech I loved!” Her fury had her digging her claws into the chasm’s edge, something for her to cut with Megatron too far below her. She didn’t care if he didn’t understand the truth of her anger just yet, left literally hanging on her words as she breathed deeply.

“There’s two names I want you to remember,” she told him calmly. “Two names that will haunt you when Unicron takes you back to the Pit. The first is Antares. Our son, the name I gave before you murdered him.”

Airachnid let her claws drift over to Megatron’s, over the webs that kept him anchored and captive. She leaned into the darkness of the abyss, where only Megatron’s blood, his single, fading optic and a hazy mist of yellow at the very bottom gave any light, and whispered close to his audio.

“The second… is Elita.One.”

Her claws sliced through the webs, releasing his grip so quickly that he couldn’t even lunge for purchase again. She watched him fall, watched his optic grow wider but smaller as his final realisation hit him almost as quickly as the floor did. He wasn’t alone when he died. As the chasm swallowed him, so too did the swarm of Insecticons lying in wait in its pit. One soared up to grab him, then another, each tearing and ripping at his battered armour to feast on the still-warm protoform underneath. They didn’t mind the stench of Dark Energon from his wounds, or how he still tried to fight them off.

Airachnid watched until the darkness took him for good, and until she sensed the Insecticons at peace. She had to swing her helm up, so heavy it was with steel-lined thoughts and, she thought, a swarm of regrets. Though that might only have come from who was watching her at the other side of the chasm, so far away that his dark plating blended together into its own independent shadow. Behind him, Metroplex stood alone with a collapsed mountain at his peds. Soundwave held a weapon of some kind in his servo, whatever he’d used to knock Megatron into the abyss, and with a twitch of his servo he sent it falling after his body. With that done, he still didn’t leave. Airachnid thought, behind that visor, she could feel his optics locked onto her. She wondered how long he’d known about who she was, if he even did. Soundwave had never been so simple to figure out.

"Kasimus..." She muttered the long-lost memory on the subtle wind, not knowing if he could hear her, if he was even listening so far away.

“Airachnid?” She jumped to her peds, stepping backwards in confusion. She turned slowly, only having to wonder for a nanoklick if she’d just imagined the voice.

But it was just as she’d heard and hoped. Optimus stood behind her, Grimlock by his side and Scorpia curled in his servos. He looked at her shoulder, at the similar leaking scars and the dents driven deep around her chest, but they only told her that she’d been in a fight. The aching pulse of her spark, the pride in her optics, those are what told him that she won.

Even so, she collapsed into his servos more a weeping wreck than a victor. Scorpia found her place next to her spark, completely oblivious to what she came to close to doing.

"Shh... shh, Airachnid.” Optimus held her so tight that she was sure he would never let go. “It's over. It's all over."

Airachnid nodded against his chest, staining it with coolant as her vents shuddered against the tide of more static-filled sobs. It was over. They’d survived, they’d won. Yet as she cast a look over her shoulder, finding only empty space where Soundwave had stood, she couldn’t make herself smile.

"...Take me home, Orion.”

Chapter 75: Epilogue

Chapter Text

He found her on her island, watching the dark sky and its many scattered stars, like wayward glitter on an endless canvas. She would have heard the Bridge opening behind her, but she didn’t turn to face it.

"I thought I'd find you here." Optimus brought himself beside her, drinking in the warm breeze from the distant beach.

Airachnid half-turned her head towards him, then nodded up at the sky. "I was showing Scorpia what she was named after.” Optimus followed her gaze, to the Scorpio constellation hanging above them. It had been a stellar cycle since he’d last seen it in this or any sky, and so much had changed since then he wondered if it was even the same cluster of stars looking down at them.

Scorpia especially had changed so much since then, growing more every day as her armour layers came in; dark purple over a dusky pink protoform, like a muted copy of her mother. Soon she’d be too big to fit in Airachnid's arms.

“Daddy! Want hug!” Scorpia wriggled and stretched out her arms as far as they'd go, trying to grab Optimus’ own. The sparkling’s grin was one that could make even the coldest mech melt, and Optimus was powerless to disobey as he scooped Scorpia up and nestled her close to his chest. With his spark pulsing against her cheek, she trilled softly.

Airachnid watched as Scorpia curled her braid around her digits, still small enough to look like a toy engulfed by Optimus’ embrace. “Where is everyone else?” she asked.

“The Dinobots are at the starport, awaiting the arrival of another one of their own,” Optimus told her. “Grimlock is eager to introduce you to Sludge.”

Airachnid blew out an amused huff. “That would be interesting.”

“As for Dreadwing, he is leading an aerial scout over Cybertron’s surface in search of Starscream. So far, there has been no sight of him. Wheeljack left some time ago, to retrieve his daughter. The other Autobots are saying their goodbyes to the humans.” He knew Airachnid wouldn’t want to join in with that. The humans had bonded with the Autobots closely, so much so that she didn’t quite believe that they’d so readily leave them behind. She felt that she’d just be intruding on it.

“They’re really going to leave them?” she asked.

“Cybertron needs them more,” he said, “And the humans understand that. Though… I think Ratchet will choose to stay behind. Deep down, he seems to like Earth more than Cybertron.”

Airachnid didn’t laugh like Optimus thought she would. "In another life, I think I would have liked Earth too,” she admitted.

"You don't have to leave it behind. We can always visit-"

"No.” Airachnid cut him off instantly, hugging herself tightly. “No... too many bad memories." She turned back to the sky, losing herself to the stars again. She’d been like this ever since Cybertron, ever since she faced off against Megatron. She didn’t like to talk about what happened, and he didn’t ask. He looked down at Scorpia dozing in his arms, wondering how much of what Airachnid had experienced was locked away in the bond with her daughter.

“Airachnid…” Optimus breathed in deep. “When we came back, Ratchet gave Scorpia another examination. Just a brief scan-“

“And?” Airachnid didn’t bother getting angry at having her daughter examined without her permission. She seemed beyond emotion for such small slights as that.

“…The Dark Energon has all but disappeared,” Optimus answered. “She’s as healthy as she can be.”

Airachnid blinked, her broken back leg twitching dramatically as she pulled her face up. She didn’t seem to believe him at first, skepticism giving her face a stone-hard veneer, but she knew Optimus would never lie to her.

“…B…But how?” She peered intently at Scorpia, as if trying to see evidence of it written on her skin.

“He seems to think that Megatron was the true source of the Dark Energon affecting her spark,” Optimus explained, gesturing to the gurgling sparkling as she rolled against his servo. “When he died… so too did the link between them both.”

He waited to see the relief on her face, the smile that would bloom into a grin as he kissed her; but it never came. “I should have killed him long ago.”

“He is gone now, Airachnid.” Optimus took a tender hold of her shoulder, the one still healing from Megatron’s blade. “That’s all that matters.”

Airachnid looked at his hand, lacking the strength to shrug it off. She wasn’t convinced, and it was unlikely that would change. Optimus sighed and let her study the stars again, glancing at his internal chronometer.

"We should be heading back soon,” he said, “for the ceremony-"

"I'm not going, Optimus." Airachnid interrupted him in a fell swoop, having prepared it with such effort that it was clear she’d just been waiting for him to bring it up.

"Why not?" Optimus asked. She hadn’t made any hint before at wanting to avoid such an important event, no reservations or doubts… but this was his sparkmate, who never admitted anything like that if she could help it.

And now here she was, having to face all three all at once. She forced herself to face him, keeping her optics low. “Because... you and I both know Cybertron is no place for my kind. It never was, and it never will be. In the end, it doesn't matter who I once was. You can't convince an entire planet to accept me, and I wouldn't want you to try. It’s best for both of us... if I simply leave.” Her tone cracked at the very end despite her efforts, and she flashed a smile regardless. It wasn’t the one he’d been waiting to see. “I hear Regulon Four has some pleasant summers.”

Optimus hadn’t even thought to prepare for something like this. He’d been so sure that everything was okay, that the hard part was over with. Was this why she’d been so withdrawn, so unwilling to return to Cybertron again? “Elita-“

“Don’t.” Optimus knew better than to speak on with the sudden leap of fire in her optics. “I'm Airachnid. I am not an Autobot... or a Decepticon... I'm not even a good mother.” She looked down at Scorpia dwarfed in his arms, cradling her face with her claws as if worried she’d fade away. “I can't give Scorpia the life she deserves... whatever life she can have. But at least this way, I know she'll be cared for. As long as no one knows who sired her... or carried her, then I'll be happy with that.”

Optimus listened intently, desperately trying to find the right thing to say. The thought of losing Airachnid, Elita, again after all they’d been through, after they’d come so far… he couldn’t even think of it as a possibility. "You would have your child grow up without her mother?"

"If it meant no one would hate her for what her parents have done, then yes. Without hesitation.” And Optimus knew she meant it when she looked at him, and then down at their daughter. “She won't even remember me, it's... it's better this way."

She refused to look straight at Optimus again, perhaps fearing he’d manage to make her stay, or just hiding the coolant threatening to spill out of her optics.

Optimus didn’t speak for a long moment, silently asking himself if Scorpia knew what was happening, if she could have made a difference in her decision. But all she did was yawn and point lazy half-opened optics up at him, simply enjoying being alive. Optimus wondered at what age most bots ended up losing that feeling, as he took Airachnid’s shoulder again.

“Allow me to show you something, Airachnid. One last thing. If it does not convince you to stay with me, then I will not stop you from leaving.”

Airachnid looked at his hand, then at the face of the mech so utterly in love with her. “...Very well,” she replied.

Optimus nodded, a grateful smile taking over as he called in another Bridge. He lead her through it, then up the main stairs of Metroplex’s interior. With his job done, the Metrotitan had assumed his city form again and became the Autobot’s main harbour while they rebuilt Cybertron. Optimus sometimes heard his spark thrumming through the walls.

Airachnid stumbled on some steps, dragging her heels behind her, aggressively and stubbornly wishing to be somewhere else while Scorpia delighted in Metro’s shiny new walls. Optimus pulled Airachnid up the last few flights, depositing her on the landing that lead outside to the grand balcony overlooking the city's main street. She knew what lay beyond that door, had walked down the very same street and eventually lead Breakdown to his death, and she fixed Optimus with a dangerous scowl.

“You’re not trying to trick me into doing this ceremony anyway, are you?”

Optimus shook his head, still smiling. “No. Look outside.”

Her scowl softened into a pout, and she reluctantly marched over to one of the drape-drawn windows. She stood there for some klicks, and when she pulled away from the cover of the drapes she looked as if she’d just born witness to the Allspark itself.

“There’s… there’s thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands,” she said, drawing blanks with her expression from the shock still coursing through her.

“Yes.” Optimus had seen them all himself, as well as the banners, posters, flags, countless other celebrations bearing himself and his beloved- all of them showing how she looked now, not during the War. “Cybertron wants to welcome its leaders back home.”

Airachnid blinked, shook her head, looked through the window again to be sure of what she was seeing. "Do they... do they know?"

"Yes.” Optimus had made sure of it, letting every spark coming back home know of Elita’s survival. “But you can see yourself that that knowledge does not keep them away."

Airachnid gulped, hanging her mouth open with no idea of what to say. Scorpia caught wind of her mother’s hesitation, peering up at her from Optimus’ cradle as if to judge her final verdict.

“…I won’t... be alone out there, will I?” Airachnid asked.

The sun rose up and bled light through the slit in the door, cutting a bright column between them. Optimus kept smiling, closing his hand over her own and squeezing her talons with his wide digits.

“You won’t be. I promise.”

Airachnid stared at his smile through a film of coolant, the crescent of soft lips that managed to soothe her like nothing else in the galaxy, and nodded. Around them, Metroplex’s spark hummed as if he was watching in approval.

Still holding her hand, stabilising and mirroring the tremors along her protoform, Optimus pushed the door open. The new dawn ahead of them was blinding, but its warmth was all that the two of them could wish for.

...

Iacon heaved, but Kaon lay as empty as the day it was abandoned. No one patrolled its streets, no one came to clean up the ancient energon stains or the truly dead Metrotitan on its border, no spies overhead or optics along the walls saw the lone figure walking down the pitted pathways. His peds didn't drag, the loneliness hardly sagging his shoulders. He walked and walked with a silent purpose, one he'd been preparing for centuries. When he finally stopped, it was at the foot of what once might have been a starscraper; now just a mangled shrine to Megatron's war, and one of the last havens for Cybertron's vagrants.

Somewhere within the rubble, red optics narrowed to slits and further still to a razor-sharp glow, until they recognised who was waiting for them. Like a shadow detaching itself from the walls, the beast slinked forwards like a ghost of scarred black plating, something dragging like a burden behind it. The figure knelt down to greet his old friend, the last two survivors of a long-gone age, and the beast bowed his head gratefully to the comforting grasp of long digits. Then he inclined his head lower, as if asking a silent question. The answer came just as quietly, heard only by his own processor over the tentative remnants of a once-unbreakable telepathic link.

"She is safe now, with the one she deserves."

The beast closed his optics, gathering his tail close to his lithe body. The creature seemed to say something with his low growl, perhaps another question accompanied by a light flick of his tail against his master's leg. The mech nodded once.

"Agreed. Rumble and Frenzy will be waiting for us." He turned away from his companion, allowing him to leap onto his back and seamlessly integrate with the rest of his plating, just like the drone nestled in his chest plating. The tail flicked out behind him, kicking up the remains of Cybertron’s very last war, and curled around a leg as the mech transformed into a sleek jet, shooting through Kaon’s empty streets, higher and higher, taking to the stars and far beyond.

As tempting as it was, he avoided flying over Iacon. She deserved to live in this peace she made, without him hanging over her.

xx

THE END

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