A/N: So, yeah. New story. I've always loved Transformers Prime, and this one has been percolating in my head for quite some time. Enjoy!
Pathfinder - Chapter 1
"It seems the spider survived her fall."
The smugly amused sentence fractured the steady silence of the starship's cockpit, easily overlaying the gentle background hum of the engine and electronics. Its owner leaned forward in the captain's chair, reaching a servo toward the navigation system. A command was input, and a three-dimensional hologram appeared, displaying the largely blue and green planet that was slowly revolving below the ship.
A sickly, blackish-purple light shone from one of the large landmasses. One spindly claw reached out to tap it, and a shockwave rippled outward, more lights appeared in its wake as it encompassed the planet. There were a lot more than she was expecting. Especially since she was sure that for every light, there were sure to be even more energy signatures that were shielded.
"My, this planet is quite the hotspot." She frowned to herself, somewhat surprised by the high concentration of a Cybertronian signals on the previously insignificant-seeming planet.
She knew that her species had previously had contact with the planet, and that was one of the reasons that she had decided to follow Airachnid to it after disabling her ship. But she also knew that there should only be energon deposits, maybe a few relics she was interested in examining – any sort of active Cybertronian presence should be a thing of the distant past! Perhaps it would have meshed with her knowledge had there only been a couple signals, indicative of warriors left behind in stasis. But the number she was seeing now…
She vented lightly. "I spend eons successfully avoiding the war, and after the Great Exodus, when it seems like things are finally dying down (or at least spreading out) I just happen to stumble across one of the biggest populations of Cybertronians I've seen since? Primus works in mysterious ways."
She pondered for a moment, wondering if her current goal was worth the risk of getting caught up in the situation on the planet below. It was highly likely that the large number of her species on the planet below indicated front line fighting. Knowing her luck, it could even be the leaders and their officers themselves.
Her visor dimmed as the optics beneath shuttered in contemplation. On one servo, her current goal was simply an attempt to satisfy some of her curiosity – and her curiosity had always been on the "dead cybercat" side of the danger scale. On the other, she did have a sense of self-preservation, and it would be a shame to mar her successful record of avoiding the age long Autobot/Decepticon conflict.
She rose from her seat and stepped away from the hologram, moving toward a window that gave a clear view of the actual planet. She folded her arms as she gazed outward, one of her claws sneaking upward to tap contemplatively at the diamond-shaped crest on her forehelm.
"What do you think, Blindside?" she asked, seemingly to thin air. "Worth the risk?"
"Boss, when have you ever been satisfied after denying your curiosity?" A higher pitched, but undeniably male voice asked from behind her. "I don't care much about either side of this war, but if we leave now you'll be grumbling about it for vorns. Besides, the longer you wait, the more time she'll have to slip away."
She didn't turn to see the speaker. Her gaze remained fixed on the planet where her quarry had landed, but then a reflection in the window caught her optic. A small blue light appeared near the purple light on the globe, steadily moving closer to it. Eyeing the new appearance with a steadily growing curiosity, a smirk appeared on her face.
"Well when you put it like that… all right."
On the planet Earth, a two-man team (though one was a teenager, and the other was a giant female alien robot, so technically neither were men) reunited in sheer relief after a mission gone wrong – it had turned out more like a horror flick after the introduction of Airachnid.
Arcee panted for a short moment, gazing at the downed form of perhaps her worst enemy – or at least, her most personal one. She soon abandoned the moment, however satisfying, in favor of checking on her smaller, more fragile human partner.
"Jack! Are you okay?" she asked, stepping quickly toward him and kneeling to rip away the webbing that had him glued to a tree.
"Yeah, of course," he replied unsteadily. He gave her a tired grin and pulled his magnesium fire starter from his pocket. "Survival kit."
She began to smile back, glad that he hadn't lost his good humor, but their reunion was interrupted by the ominous sound of machinery whirring. It sounded like drilling. Arcee whipped around, blasters out, only to spot Airachnid with her spindly extra legs posed and spinning, gouging a tunnel into the earth below her for a quick getaway.
Before Arcee could do anything more than halfway form a snarl, however, a long, sinuous black cable snaked toward the escaping femme, and the claw on the end latched harshly onto her helm. The grip must have been strong, because Airachnid's high-speed spin was stopped dead in its tracks, and she was plucked from her half-formed ditch and suspended in midair. Her long spider legs flailed violently for a moment, but even their reach was too short for her to grasp or hit anything.
"You should have tried leaving a bit earlier than that, prey, if you wished to avoid me," a low, but feminine voice called out from the darkness between the pines.
"You!" Airachnid snarled, instantly recognizing the speaker. "I'll rip out your spark and feed it to you!"
Arcee nearly couldn't believe her optics – Airachnid, captured. And while the spider-like bot seemed enraged, beneath that she also almost looked… anxious.
"You say that, but you aren't exactly in a position to fulfill your threat, are you?" The cable deliberately wobbled a bit, playfully jostling its captured prey. Its owner stepped into the light cast by the distant fire of Airachnid's destroyed ship.
Arcee huddled Jack behind her protectively, and carefully kept her blasters at the ready as she examined the newcomer. It was a femme, though of a different build than Arcee, or even Airachnid. She was taller, with heavier armor. The cable currently detaining the spider emerged from between her chest plate and her shoulder plate. A visor covered the upper half of her face – but what could be seen of her expression was a small smile. It wasn't even an energon-thirsty smile that was often seen on Decepticon faceplates, but something about her still disturbed Arcee.
"Besides, talk like that is why I've come for you in the first place," the stranger said amiably. "You're a very intriguing specimen really, but I never would have decided to capture you if anyone would have missed you. I really must thank you for not making any friends."
Airachnid's face twisted with rage and the strange femme's smiled only widened. Without further ado, the cable lit up with crackling electricity. Her captive gave a short shriek, accompanied by a brief whine of scraping metal as she jolted, before slumping offline. The cable released its grip on her head in favor of winding around her form like a constrictor snake.
The stranger then turned her helm toward Arcee, who stiffened slightly, and shuffled to block Jack from sight a little more. She suddenly realized what had unnerved her (besides the fact that she had so easily stopped Airachnid – one of the most slippery bots she knew).
She had no faction insignia.
"Thanks for the assist. You saved me a bit of trouble."
Before Arcee could respond to the strangely jovial address, the other femme transformed into her vehicle mode – a slick, alien-looking jet of some sort – and flew off at high speeds, Airachnid dangling limply below in her grip.
"Who was that?" Jack asked, still coming down from his adrenaline rush, and confused by the entire encounter.
"I don't know," Arcee replied with a slight frown. "And that's what worries me."
She placed a hand on her com. "Ratchet, requesting a ground-bridge." She glanced down at Jack with a smile. "My partner and I saw something that we should discuss. I'll report once we get back to base."
"Partner, huh?" Jack smirked playfully up at her.
"Junior partner," she shot back as the ground-bridge appeared. "I can still pull rank."
They stepped through the ground-bridge and found the rest of the team waiting for them on the other side. Apparently, Ratchet had told them of Arcee's incoming report.
"Well? What was it that you two have discovered on a routine recon?" Ratchet asked gruffly. "I presume it was something more than the subterranean energon deposits you were sent to look out for."
"Yeah, it turned out not so routine after all," Jack grimaced.
"My scanner picked up a crash landing," Arcee began. "It belonged to a 'Con by the name of Airachnid. She worked as an interrogator back on Cybertron – I have a something of a history with her. Let's just say she's down there with the worst of them."
Arcee crossed her arms and continued. "I tried to call for a ground-bridge back, but the com link was dead; at any rate, Airachnid had already disembarked, so I decided to go after her before she could do any damage," she directed a sincere, but slightly strained smile at her newly-declared partner "Eventually, Jack and I managed to disable both her and her ship."
Arcee paused to gather her thoughts and grimaced slightly, "Airachnid probably would have escaped when I went to check on Jack – she's slippery like that – but before she could tunnel away, someone else got her."
"What, did a new 'Bot show up to match the new 'Con?" Bulkhead asked, somewhat hopeful for reinforcements.
But Arcee was already shaking her head. "You might think that, but no," she turned toward their leader, who had remained silent as he listened. "Optimus, she didn't have a faction insignia."
There was silence for a moment, but Miko broke it before it could stretch too long.
"What does that mean?" she piped up, "I mean, not every Cybertronian has one – do they?"
"Unfortunately, our war spread to encompass most of our planet's inhabitants," Optimus replied gravely, "While some attempted to remain neutral, they were often caught in the crossfire, or deliberately hunted down by Decepticon forces. After it became common knowledge how neutrals fared, the vast majority of them chose a side."
"So someone without a symbol is really rare, right?" Raf asked curiously. "Why would they come here though, if they didn't want to pick sides – couldn't they tell that you guys are here?"
Arcee frowned. "When she spoke, it sounded like she came here by tracking Airachnid – and Airachnid definitely recognized her."
Bumblebee buzzed quizzically for a moment.
Arcee shook her head. "She didn't sound like she was hunting a bounty, though I'm sure Airachnid has one."
"Didn't she call Airachnid an 'intriguing specimen' or something?" Jack reminded his partner. "She sounded more like a mad scientist of some sort than a bounty hunter."
There were various reactions to that statement.
Ratchet frowned in contemplation, "Describe her to us. Given that she is a neutral and a femme – and perhaps a scientist – this 'stranger' is already part of a very small group. Perhaps we may be able to identify her with further description."
"She was about as tall as you Ratchet, maybe a little taller. Slim, with medium-coverage armor all done up in dark grey, teal and black– it didn't have a shine to it at all, so she might lean toward stealth; I didn't detect her at all until she got the drop on Airachnid, and from what I could tell, neither did her prey. She had a visor covering half her face so I couldn't see her optic color, and a helm crest shaped like two diamonds stacked on top of each other," Arcee's optics flickered toward Ratchet for a moment. "Now that I think of it, her armor… Her armor was all rounded edges. She also had antennae on either side of her crest, looked retractable."
Jack noticed the emphasis she had put on the last two list items. "What do those mean about her?"
"It means that she might be older. Maybe a lot older. Curved armor and antennae like that are considered old-fashioned," Arcee informed him, deliberately not looking over toward Ratchet again.
Miko didn't notice (or didn't care for) her attempt at tact. "What, like old doc bot?" she asked incredulously, "The way you described her sounded pretty cool, but now she's retro-granny?"
"Old?!" Ratchet spluttered.
Bumblebee whirred anxiously, hands held up in a calming manner. Ratchet harrumphed at him, but subsided into grumbling as Arcee hastily continued her description.
"From what I could tell, her vehicle mode was some sort of Cybertronian jet – but it was probably modified, because it didn't look like any of the usual models I've seen. Probably the most unique thing about her was the way she captured Airachnid in the first place, though. She used a data relay cable," she paused. "Looked a lot like Soundwave's."
"So what is she, a scientist or a spook?" Bulkhead asked with a slight frown.
"She could be either, or both," Ratchet stated. "However, regardless of her occupation, I am sure that I do not know her. Too many of her features are distinctly uncommon, enough that she would stand out in my memory banks if she were there."
"Hmm," Optimus rumbled in a contemplative hum. "While this is indeed a mystery, perhaps our efforts would be better focused on more readily solved problems. With our lack of knowledge about this unaffiliated Cybertronian, it is difficult to determine whether she would be a potential benefit or detriment. Additionally, it may be that her only goal in coming to this planet was to capture Airachnid, and upon completing it, she has already left for other stars."
He shook his head.
"I do not believe it prudent to worry about her as of now. While we shall remain vigilant as always, there is little point in focusing on this particular issue without knowing more."
Arcee nearly said something, not quite liking the general feeling of unfinished business, but restrained herself to merely wishing fervently that whatever the mystery-bot had in store for Airachnid would be painful.
Meanwhile, the 'mystery-bot' cheerfully dumped her newest acquisition into one of the stasis pods in the back of her ship, which was currently high in the orbit of the blue and green planet below.
"It's always pleasant to achieve maximum results with minimal effort," she hummed to herself, placing a servo on her chin as she looked Airachnid over with avid interest.
"Uhuh. Right. Why did you want this particular one, boss?" Blindside spoke up, deadpan and slightly dubious. "She seems like a real piece of work from what we saw in her ship."
"Precisely. Quintesson work, to be exact," she replied with relish. "Presumably you remember the Insecticons?"
"Yeah. Not the nicest bunch."
"Well, where do you think the Decepticons scientists got the idea, nay, the blueprints for them?"
"Her, I'm guessing."
"Precisely," her smile widened a stream of readings scrolled across the inside of her visor. "Examples of the Quintessons' techno-organic experimentation are difficult to come across in the first place, given how stridently most of my race attempted to erase any evidence of their influence. I've never really had the opportunity to study one before, so catching sight of Airachnid back on Jheriz was particularly serendipitous. She's not only the progenitor of an entire race in the Insecticons, but her sterling personality means that she also has extremely low chances of inspiring an attempt at vengeance against me for taking her."
"And you do like to look ahead, Farsight," he spoke her name with a strange mix of teasing familiarity and disuse – he usually only referred to her as 'boss.' "So this one's basically a perfect target for you, then."
"Precisely."
In the dim lighting of the back half of her ship, Farsight's reflection in the stasis pod before her – blithe smile and all – looked almost menacing.
"We'll learn so much together."