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“Nice barrack,” Arcee remarked as she took in the lowest level of the ship. It was a spacious room, made into something of a silk nest under Airachnid’s jurisdiction.
“There are benefits to being the only girl,” Airachnid replied with a smile. Truthfully, she had saved the space for the insecticons. It felt good to finally have company.
Arcee leaned back into the webs with pleasant surprise. “These are really comfortable.”
“Of course, what did you expect?” Airachnid said proudly. “Don’t answer that.”
Arcee laughed. That made the Airachnid smile.
One night, Arcee was on reconnaissance, so Airachnid was alone again. She settled into the silent silk and closed her optics. She wasn’t sure how long she had slept before, from above, a metallic hiss dripped into her ears.
“Aren’t you a doll…”
Airachnid’s eyes shot open to find two violet optics staring down at her from the ceiling. Dozens of lenses reflected Airachnid’s face like a shadowy, shattered mirror. Airachnid was supposed to be the only one in the solar system with those hybrid optics.
She leapt to her feet. Had the other Decepticons attacked? No, she refused to believe that. In any universe, she would work alone before she worked willingly with those Decepticons. She opened her mouth to shriek for reinforcements, but purple-eyed Airachnid tapped a claw to her lips.
“I wouldn’t. Unless you want my soldiers in the engine room to start pushing buttons.”
“You- what?” blue-eyed Airachind exclaimed.
“Do you really not have your insecticons here?” purple-eyed asked as she walked headfirst down a wall, never breaking her gaze. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m just here for a bit of energon. And I had to meet you.”
Blue-eyed Airachnid raised her claws, ready to fire steel webs.
“Right to the chase, of course,” her double drawled. “Well, you must know I like to collect rare creatures,” purple-eyed Airachnid said pleasantly. She bared her fangs with a grin. “And what could be rarer than you?”
Blue-eyed jumped out of the way as her double lunged. She shot a barrier of silk between them, using the darkness to scurry onto the ceiling. “You really want to see which one of us is stronger?” she mocked, but felt a tremor in her voice.
“Maybe I want to see what it will take to bring you back to being me,” purple replied, cutting through the web and circling around. Blue-eyed shrank away.
“For example,” purple-eyed said daintily, “Do you know what became of dear, glitch-brained Breakdown in my world?”
Fear vanished from blue-eyed’s mind. She lunged at purple’s back but was met with six long dagger-like arms. They flicked her away with quick, deep slashes. Scrap. So that’s what that felt like.
“It was really too easy,” purple-eyed continued. “Poke his ego to get him away from his ally, then make him think I was-” she faked a swoon, “wounded and helpless. Next thing he knows,” she remarked in sing-song, “he’s in a web and missing his head.”
Blue-eyed let out a furious snarl and opened fire.
"Shouldn't you be taking notes? You’ll have to protect yourself from them all eventually,” purple asked even as she ducked and dodged. She cackled. “Were you dragged in on Breakdown’s back like I was? Or were you silly enough to initiate a deal?”
Something in the blue-eyed Airachnid felt a pulse. With spider limbs slashing wildly, she managed to grab onto purple-eyed’s wrists and land a devastating kick. Blue managed to pin the other against the ground when the door behind her, sealed by purple’s silk, flew open with a bang.
For a moment, Airachnid thought the noise of the fight had pierced her wall-to-wall webbings and Arcee or Breakdown or any of her allies had arrived. Instead, she stared down- an insecticon. Massive scales shifted over his back. Pinchers clicked viciously. He was bigger than the destroyed pods had made her think.
“Oh, Airachnid,” purple-eyed sighed, not trying to break free. “You have such potential. The fighting ability of an insecticon-” she grinned cruelly- “but a mech’s brains.”
Blue-eyed cried out as something like a boulder crashed into her. The insecticon slammed her into the opposite wall. The webs there kept her armor from cracking, but just barely. She has no time to be dazed as the insecticon lunged with teeth bared to tear off her arms.
“You should have been keeping watch with the others,” purple-eyed Airachnid said to the insecticon, rising and dusting herself off as blue-eyed desperately jabbed the insecticon a few inches back. Purple-eyed grinned again. “But I suppose you follow your queen where she needs you.”
Blue’s spark surged in fury. This was how she used her own family?
This is how I would use them?
Like that, the will to fight abandoned her. Blue-eyed Airachnid collapsed, hiding behind her arms, and the insecticon reared up to crush her.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Stinking breath flew over her, claws screeched to either side of the floor. Realizing she was still breathing, Airachnid warily looked up.
The insecticon’s visor was brighter, looking at her with something like curiosity. He pulled slightly back.
“Ah, there’s the hitch,” muttered violet-optic Airachnid. “Crush her! Obey your queen!”
The insecticon shrank back again from blue-eyed Airachand. Blue-eyed slowly rose to her feet. She could read his mind more clearly than the insecticons who never got to break out of their pods. He was going to tear in half between her will and the other Airachnid’s. Her stomach twisted. She hadn’t meant to give an order, but it was keeping her alive.
She reached out carefully and the insecticon let her touch his face. “It’s okay,” blue-eyed Airachnid murmured. Her sense into his thoughts was becoming clearer. Confusion, anger, fear. And some sadness. He wasn’t used to having choices to weigh.
“I’m so sorry,” Blue whispered, caressing the creature’s tough shell.
“There cannot be two queens,” the insecticon hissed in a rough voice, shrinking down and grasping his head.
Airachnid nodded silently that she knew.
Suddenly, a web snagged the insecticon’s head from behind, grabbing blue-eyed’s fingers with it. Blue-eyed Airachnid hissed and tried to tug free as the insecticon thrashed in alarm. He tumbled against the ground, sticking fast.
“Useless brute,” purple-eyed hissed, dropping the silk. She readied her cannon fire and gazed out to the engine’s direction, her sixth sense piercing through walls. “My armada,” she ordered coldly. “Take the ship.” She slowly stepped toward her blue-eyed double, relishing her terror. But Blue had expected the audacity, and with her hands still stuck, kicked up, jabbing Purple in the stomach.
In the few seconds that bought her, her optics shot toward the now open door. She pulled in the fullest gasp her vents could hold and let out a shriek. High pitched and bestial, able to cut though many levels of the ship.
Blue-eyed tore loose, the silk stinging her hands fiercely, but her double lunged first, slashing for the throat. A struggle ensued, nearer than either Airachnid liked.
Breakdown appeared in the hall outside with a handful of vehicons. The crowd ran on for the engine room where the deadly insecticon hum was rising, but Breakdown pivoted to his conjunx.
Violet-eyed Airachnid reared her head to spew out venom, but it was scattered out into the air as a hammer slammed into her side.
Blue-eyed shakily rose again, but exhaustion was beginning to take hold. So she shut her eyes tight and reached her mind to the engine room.
The missing side of her family. She could feel the insecticons rushing about, dodging blaster fire and tearing through wires, regardless of the electric shock it gave them. She tried, but their burning fury was too much to calm.
She looked up to Breakdown, who had managed to grasp purple-eyed by the base of her spider limbs. Purple struggled as Breakdown glanced at Blue, silently asking what to do with her.
Blue reached carefully forward. Her double gave an angry hiss, but stopped, startled, when Blue gently placed a hand over her cheek.
This Airachnid had the hive. There was nothing Blue-eyed could do to change that. She sadly looked over her other self’s face. Vicious. Cruel.
“I forgive you, you know,” she said gently, caressing her mirror image’s cuts.
Violet’s optics snapped wide. Then she scoffed. “Whatever. I already won where it matters.”
Breakdown took the cue to let go just before she could stab him in the side. Purple-eyed Airachnid transformed, drilling into the ship wall. The insecticons flew just behind her, leaving the engines alive; Purple-eyed Airachnid had seen what she came for. Blue-eyed Airachnid numbly watched.
As the enemy vanished from sight, there was a stirring behind her and Breakdown.
Airachnid gasped and limped quickly over to the insecticon. Breakdown protectively followed, but let her draw near to the creature.
He had been left on the suffocating web. Airachnid hesitated for a moment, searching for his thoughts. They were tired. Confused. Frightened. She cut him free.
The insecticon shakily rose. He glanced over the hole in the wall, cool night air breathing in. He looked upon Airachnid- and lowered himself to one knee. “My queen.”
Airachnid threw her arms around his neck, clinging like a lifeline. “Promise never to call me that,” she insisted. The insecticon stiffened in confusion, but he didn’t feel her try to seep into his mind. She simply hugged his head. He looked over to the other enemy Decepticon- Breakdown- and he was smiling in assurance.
“Do you have a name, guy?” Breakdown asked.
The queen- Airachnid, stepped back to look the insecticon in the face, intrigued by the question.
Still dazed, the insecticon shook his head. He was not like Hardshell or the fiercer warriors who earned individual names. He was merely part of the hive.
Airachnid smiled tearily, gently touching his face again. “Don’t worry. I already came up with a list.” She hugged him yet again.
The insecticon was frozen and puzzled for a few seconds longer. Then, carefully, wary of her size and injuries, the insecticon lifted an arm around Airachnid- and returned the embrace.