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Writhing little things, she watched as the parasitic brood crawled out from within the chrysalis and its devoured flesh—the winged organic creatures eating their way free so that they could go on to implant their clutch in yet another incubator, just for their pitifully short cycle of life to continue anew. Endless, pointless.
How putrid. Organics and their incessant need to indulge in rot never ceased to disgust her.
Pulling away, Blackarachnia narrowed her eyes. For all that she despised these pests—and the infectious venom running rampant across her coding—it would have been foolish of her to ignore the benefits they posed for her… experiments.
Pushed down over and over, a singular wasp remained. Small and runtier than the rest, it struggled to gnaw its way through the caterpillar remains. It lacked aggression, it lacked enough bite to force its way through life and impose its desire to live by dominating over others—she could tell that its fate was all but set in stone. With plentiful of larger fish in the sea, it would die all the same.
Claws poised, Blackarachnia reached out for the wriggling parasite. Instead of finding its way into the stomach of whatever bird felt peckish that day, breaking down in the digestive juices like the caterpillar before it, the wasp would find a greater purpose in serving her and her devices. With it, and many other insects like it, Blackarachnia would reverse engineer a way to return herself back to her technological self.
Thousands of years of seeking a cure, the very organics that doomed her would atone for their crimes and she would find… peace.
A rustle of leaves from behind stilled her hand. Her claws twitched seconds before contact, hair raising on the back of her neck as foreign instincts demanded that a predator skulked through the shadows and set their sights on her.
The mass of flesh that surrounded her spark pulsed in tune with her rising anxiety as Blackarachnia slowly turned. Prey forgotten, the runt wormed its way out from the caterpillar husk and soon along would come a spider to catch the wasp in its web, a bird to pluck the spider up and into its gullet, a stray cat to bat at the bird under its paw, and finally the thundering turn of a wheel as a car hits the feline—crowding over it, caging the still form under its hulking chassis.
Always a bigger fish in the sea, she reminded herself as the visage of Megatron slowly peeled away the shadows of foliage and approached step by step. The edges of his lips turned up before smoothing out, a mockery of glee glinting across the glass of his optics.
Muscles tensing, she forced herself to resist the howl of retreat in her mind. Blackarachnia outright refused to cower, not when she was so, so close to her goal.
"What a surprise," Megatron rumbled, looming over her—exerting his control in the simplest of ways. Height dictated might. "I did oh so hope that my ever faithful servant Lugnut was, perhaps, mistaken in his report regarding your presence here on this dreadful planet. And yet, here you stand before me, Blackarachnia."
Steadying her mind, Blackarachnia focused on regaining control to level the axis. Taking a moment to simply observe, she took in the details of the mechanism who ruled over her in lieu of the Autobot code she trained under.
Megatron looked vastly different from the last she saw him that fateful day the Nemesis crumbled under the same blow that took out its captain. She hadn't exactly stuck around to watch as both succumbed to the explosive Starscream planted, quickly extracting herself in one of the plentiful escape pods like every other Decepticon with a working computer.
Instead of regrouping with the scattered subordinates, she spent her time wandering. Chasing after whispers of the Allspark, putting all of her chips on the hunch that the ancient piece of history was the variable she was missing. Of course, her efforts led her right back to the peripheries of the Decepticons, orbiting the very same lieutenants that drove her crazy day in, day out.
How easy it would be to simply hang her head and fall back in line, like a good little soldier. Her brilliance awarded her freedom to experiment, but only if it benefited the Decepticon cause. Her servitude, without question.
Yet, Blackarachnia desired nothing less. She would not—could not live out the rest of her life in the clutches of another.
Fifty years ago, Megatron appeared a warrior in every meaning of the word. Imposing in silhouette, all sharp edges and archaic armor. Time and failure alone could not curb the drive in his engine that sought victory with every wire that held his being together.
Now? Earth had smoothed his form over in more ways than one, dulling a blade that once was wielded with precision. The sight of him alone did not instill fear and obedience, not with the knowledge that she carried from her precious little Dino pets of his routine failure in squashing those repair bugs.
Lacking the beauty of a Cybertronian touch, just like the rest of the Cybertronians roaming around, Megatron appeared before her smaller than ever. Somehow, by improbable odds carrying her favor, Blackarachnia wasn't the only one physically changed and remade in the image of organic filth.
And so her hackles lowered, confidence spiking. Blackarachnia weaved this web and if she played her cards right, Megatron would find himself at the mercy of her mandibles.
She even found it within herself to laugh at him. A quiet, breathy chuckle, but impudent nonetheless. "Well look at who the cat dragged in. My, you're a sight for sore eyes. Last I heard, you were dead, Lord Megatron."
Mirth wiping off of his face, Megatron scowled. "Then you are lacking in information and respect," he spat. "You have abandoned your lord and master. What do you have to say for yourself? What defense could you conjure to explain your whereabouts?"
"Oh, I've been around. Here and there," she answered, lazily gesturing to the left and then to the right. Blackarachnia shuffled back ever so slightly, her hand lowering to scrape against the bark of the tree to confirm its position. To reassure herself of its existence, a shield if needed. "I arrived on this planet not that long ago, I assure you. Can you really blame me for wanting to get my bearings straight?"
"And yet you have ignored my recent summons. This is inexcusable." Silently, he moved closer. "Or, are you to attempt to convince me that your failure to heed my rallying call was yet another coincidence set about by happenstance?"
"Oh, that little announcement?" In carefully measured steps, she leaned back against the tree. Crossing an arm across her abdomen, she let her chin fall into the open and waiting palm of her paw. "I must have missed it. I've been so busy you see."
"Busy with what?"
"A little project of mine, nothing that would interfere with you and your plans—and I would just hate to bore you with the details of it all." Cocking her head back, helmet scraping the chrysalis to waste, Blackarachnia bore her fangs in an approximation of innocence. Tacking on, "My lord."
Silently, Megatron regarded her. Blackarachnia stood her ground.
At his continued silence, she began to say, "Surely you should have seen this coming, neither of us were under much illusion that my allegiance to the Decepticons wasn't purely on a transactional basis. You provide me with the resources to rid myself of this disgusting flesh and I give you a triple changer or two. I've upheld my expectations–"
"You know," he interrupted, volume steady but ringing across her audio receptacles with a steady static. "I quite liked you better broken."
His words stole a meek gasp from her throat, muscles in her neck tightening. Megatron need not lay a single digit on her to choke the life out of her.
Still reeling from his admission, Megatron turned away from Blackarachnia. Almost conversationally, he peered up between the foliage of the trees, "When you came to me, a revolting sight to any sensible mechanism, I found myself amused by your desperation. The Autobots left you for scrap, scum on the bottom of their pedes. They wouldn't even dignify a second excursion to confirm whether you perished or not, turning away as you looked up begging for salvation."
The mass in her chest writhed. Impossibly, he could see through her—wrenching the haunting imprint of Optimus leaving her behind. He had to have seen her, had to have witnessed her struggle for life, and still he left her.
"I gave you that salvation. I saved you from a fate of starvation, I graciously granted you a structure and resources you lacked—a second chance that an abomination like yourself barely deserved—and this is the thanks I receive in turn? Insolence?"
Vulture-red optics returned back to her. Blackarachnia quivered like a simmering vat of emotions. Rage, disgust, and agreement worst of all.
"Very well then. If this is the move you wish to play, then by all means, let me leave you to your little project," he rumbled, a smirk returning to his lips. The whiplash of his mood made her knees weak, the tree bearing the weight of her body as she slumped into it. "Let your follies be your undoing once more. When you have shattered into pieces, you will come crawling back to your rightful place as my willing Decepticon servant."
Her fists clenched, little punctures in the flesh of her palm drawing blood.
"As I have done so before, I shall receive you then with a generous welcome, my dear."
He turned to leave, with the unspoken promise that he would return for his carrion once the time was right. She watched his retreating backside, disappearing into the shadows as succinctly as he arrived to disturb her brokerage of peace.
With a cry, Blackarachnia whirled around and slammed her palm against the tree—crushing the remains of the chrysalis skin. Her claws dug into the bark and scratched jagged lines down as she sunk to her knees. She sputtered, a frothy film crowding the edge of her lips as the reigns to her breathing broke away from her unconstrained and wild.
Head bowed, Blackarachnia slammed her fist down against the earth. She slammed it again for good measure.
For a moment, she truly thought… Well, it didn't matter what she thought.
Hand stilled against the ground, a beetle crawled between the grooves of her bracer. Pinching the creature, she pulled it out from under her armor. It wriggled in her grasp, legs thrashing for release.
Blackarachnia sat back on her haunches.
Might makes right, even if it meant that she brute forced her way into becoming the bigger fish.