*Disclaimer*Transformers and everything related are owned by Hasbro/Takara. I am neither of these entities, and this is fanfic. I am in no way associated with Hasbro/Takara, and no assumption of our association should be made. Characters contained herein, excluding Tarantulas, Megatron, Tigerhawk, Shockwave, Scourge, the Sweeps, Black Arachnia, etc., are my creations and are © 2000 me.
Arachnid Rising
On Cybertron, deep within the ancient bowels of what was once the supreme Decepticon fortress, there was a small laboratory, deserted for gigacycles. Within this lab were some very creepy experiments, all ended mostly due to lack of time, foresight, funding, or a combination of all three. Whose lab was it? Certain elements found around the place could clearly indicate its owner: cobwebs, for one, lined the corners and walls. These weren't ordinary cobwebs, but residue from intricate energon gossamer strands that still glowed with the dim luminescence of spent energon cubes. These could have been made by only one creature: something so despicable, so illegitimate, that it could only have sprung from one creature... Unicron. Yes, the spider would laugh, I am the Last Son of Unicron, lord of darkness and despair. Eater of worlds. Taker of lives. Crusher of dreams. Spider, you say? Yes: all of Unicron's spawn could be considered Spiders- the bloodsuckers of the universe, though not always physically represented as multilimbed webspinners. But one, a spawn of Unicron, found the forms of the eight-legged wallwalkers quite adequate.
The Web
Yes... her venom is potent... the she-spider is capable of her task... but with all spiders she is not to be trusted... no no no no no... Torment. She will only live to torment us. So we must find... find a way. Find a way to control the she-spider. Her mind her her her mind mind... yes... such a sweet luscious juicy spark feeds her mind... perhaps... yes, we must... control.
Shockwave
Galvatron was leaving the planet. Shockwave was left in charge. How many times over the millennia of millennia had this protocol been followed? Shockwave, Ground Commander of Cybertron, Leader of Cybertronian based Decepticons... no, Predacons... had taken charge of the world countless times during the reign of Megatron the First, and then, centuries later, his new form Galvatron and his descendants. Most recently, it was during the Beast Wars, when Galvatron- the great-great-to-a-degree-grand-offspring of the first Megatron- and his crew dashed off in pursuit of Galvatron's rogue younger brother Megastorm, who had cockily taken the name Megatron.
The Web
The world is unguarded. Bring forth, yes, my friends, we must bring forth. There is no defense. No armor. No shell. No carapace. It is juicy, vulnerable. We must sink in our fangs. Eons ago we were born and eons from now shall we still be for time is... yes... must... it is time.
Shockwave
"The protocol dictates you must reformat when you take command," Shockwave said to himself, still reluctant to shed his ancient Decepticon hull in favor of the new, bioengineered Predacon one.
"But..."
"No 'buts'," he reminded himself as he clanked down the corridor to the R Chambers. At the door stood Staghorn, a beetle-Predacon charged in Galvatron's absence with menial guard duty. Staghorn was one of the Predacon Elite's top hand-to-hand warriors, not at all pleased with the fact he wasn't assigned to the Gigastorm as Galvatron's aide.
"Your identification?" he sneered, displeased with the old bolt who was entreating passage to the R Chamber.
"Oh please," Shockwave said.
"Protocol dictates that in times of military lockdown, any person wishing to enter an area classified level-gamma or higher must present proper identification. Please produ--" Shockwave cut Staghorn off with a burst from his photonic data stream generator. Shockwave nodded and keyed in the code to open the chamber door.
"Standard reformat, Staghorn," Shockwave said in his monotone.
Staghorn just nodded.
Six other Predacons were waiting for their commander to arrive before they could be reformatted.
The Sweeps- Scourge's men (whatever happened to him?)- stood at the ready, each in front of a reformatting pod. The Sweep commander- Scowl- saluted Shockwave crisply and began his report.
"Preparing for reformat, sir. Awaiting your order."
"Predacons," Shockwave said to the assemblage, "you're familiar with the drill. Please enter your reformat pods now."
The seven of them backed into their respective pods, Shockwave in the single pod against the far wall, Scowl and two Sweeps at his left, the other three at his right. The pod door slowly hissed closed as the darkness swept over Shockwave's optic sensor. Before long, all the light in the pod save the faint blueness of Shockwave's optic was extinguished.
The Web
It's time. We strike. Tarantulas is pleased. He has ordered it.
Earth
"Something tells me I will not be on this planet for much longer," Tarantulas whispered to himself, in his cave lab. "Perhaps it is time for me to enact my plan B."
Tarantulas rapidly typed in spatial coordinates, logarithmic equations, mathematical formulae... it was as if the spider was packing his bags. Finally, as he entered the last set of figures in, he began fiddling with his own circuitry, opening up his chest cavity to reveal his pulsating spark.
"Computer," he whispered in a raspy voice, "take sample of this spark and record harmonic. Send to these coordinates." A scanning electron beam shot from the computer's sensor node and contacted Tarantulas's twisted core, recording its exact harmonic duplication.
"The moment I am taken off-line, dump all data to communication satellite and transmit."
His purple-and-gold claws glided over the keyboard as he eliminated all traces of this clandestine activity.
Weeks later, as Tigatron and Airazor claimed the body of Tigerhawk as their own, driving out the invasive Vok presence, Tarantulas was finally taken off-line. The dastardly spider was dead, the Maximals and Predacons thought, and both sides rejoiced. They would never again have to deal with that foul arachnid and his machinations again. But even as Tarantulas's shell was immolated by a stray surge of energy, the Spark transmittal protocol he'd programmed before activated itself, sending a multi-encrypted Predacon signal offworld and into the vast reaches of time and space.
The Web
It is here. Very here. We must activate it. Yes yes yes. The Master shall return. Oh yes. We shall begin the Summoning when he arrives... the summoning... of the Dark One.
Shockwave
"Laserbeak returns, O Mighty Meg--" Shockwave said, forgetting himself. In the pod, he'd momentarily lapsed into stasis sleep, and had been dreaming. Long ago, he thought to himself, he had served Megatron and the Decepticons. But no longer: his liege was Galvatron- his allies the Predacons. Peering at the chronometer, the pod indicated it was another sixteen cycles before the reformat was complete. Inside the pod, all seemed quiet and serene. Outside, however, was another story.
Tantrum and Staghorn were fretting over the communications array. "What would Rampage do in a situation like this?" Tantrum asked himself.
"Rampage, Tantrum? You mean Protoform X?" Staghorn snorted.
"No," Tantrum growled. "Rampage the first... the leader of the original Predacons, some of the first animal-based Decepticons... he always knew what to do in a crisis."
Staghorn grunted again, disregarding Tantrum's nostalgic jaunt down the memory corridor. "If you don't mind, Tantrum, we've got this comm to worry about."
The comm room's door opened and Rumble- communications specialist and all around slag sucking slimebag- and his companion Frenzy- a similarly distempered radio jockey- walked in.
"Move," Rumble said in his usual condescending tone. "We'll handle this. Knowing you thunderclouds, you'd just break it." Frenzy took a place next to Rumble. Tech support.
Tantrum and Staghorn just looked at the little pipsqueaks- they couldn't have been more than two meters high- and dreamed of the day when the two would be little more than piles of cinder on the floor. But as for now, there was work to be done.
"That's weird," Frenzy said. "Hey Rumble, take a look at this."
Rumble leaned over to his friend' workstation and grimaced at what he saw.
"It's a communication from the Darkside. But that ship was lost months ago."
"With Megatron onboard, too."
"But I don't think this is from Megatron," Frenzy noted. "Look- it's not preceded with his pretentious Predacon Sigil cover-file. It's just raw data... looks like a schematic outlay and a... by the pit..."
"Wha?" Rumble asked, frustrated with Frenzy's stuttering.
"Slag! It's already infected the entire system!"
"What has?!" Tantrum ordered.
"One of that slag-suckin' spider's Widow Viruses."
The viewscreen in front of them flashed green, then crisscrossed with cyberspace "spiderwebs." Shortly thereafter, a creepy, spine chilling face rez'd in. It was quite unmistakable.
The Web
The time is right. Now we have taken control and it is time to begin the Summoning of the Dark One... yes... summoning... if only the she spider would not interfere...
Earth
The Deceptitronic Galvatron- a techno-organic three headed cerberus- paced the bridge of the Gigastorm. It had been months since his ship had been disintegrated, re-claimed, disintegrated and re-claimed again and finally marooned on a pre-prehistoric Earth, a planet totally devoid of any useable energon crystals or cubes.
"This is worthless, Needle," he said to his mud-dauber lieutenant. She just stared at him blankly, as was her wont.
"You could say something!" he spat, but Needle retained her silent and quite dull composure.
"What good is a Predacon who won't even speak her own mind?! Stiletto!" he shouted and his green-hued, pescal weapons chief appeared.
"Yes, Lord Galvatron?" she asked in the prerequisite sultry tone.
"Tell Needle to either talk or leave."
"Need--"
Needle stalked off the bridge. More like tromped. She was rather large and bulky.
Stiletto stayed, looking over her liege Galvatron with probing optic sensors. "Is there a problem?"
"This slagging transwarp communications array is down. I can't communicate with the homeworld."
"That's bad. I think I can take a look at it and..."
Stiletto, the cyber-hussy she was, bent to look at the module, arching her vertebral column and protruding her posterior into the air. Galvatron just looked at her, unfazed by her sultry stature.
"Stiletto, is there something you want me to see?" he asked nonchalantly as the she-fish wiggled her posterior section in Galvatron's face.
"No," she muttered and straightened up. "This world is very energon rich."
"I know that, but the historical records indicate it's all stable."
"Well, slag historical records cuz this planet's covered in the raw stuff. Crystalline bombs, I'd say. Just the right amount of radiation and this entire planet is history." Stiletto finished her tinkering, stood up, and shut the access panel with her foot.
"Well, I've boosted the signal transmitter another fifty terahertz, but that's as much as I can give it without taking another system off-line, and with the Maxies about, talking to Cybertron might be the least of our worries."
Galvatron nodded to his lieutenant as she took her place behind him. Galvatron stood tall and adjusted himself before sitting in the thronelike command chair. "Communications systems active," Galvatron said.
>>Comm system active. Awaiting transmission destination.<<
"Cybertron," Galvatron spoke and the viewscreen went dark and returned with the Predacon sigil and a small "please wait- connecting" sign near the bottom.
And in a few microclicks, Galvatron was met with static. This wasn't non-communicative static, but a communication that was under extreme interference.
"Cybertron, this is Galvatron. Do you read?"
The crackling grew louder and softer, as if speaking was going on.
"Stiletto, see if you can get more signal gain."
She opened the access panel and dropped to all fours, making herself available for Galvatron even more. The leader just stared at the screen.
"I repeat: this is Supreme Commander Galvatron to Tryptychon base. Do you read me?"
"..............read.......................Galvatron......................................."
"Repeat."
".............read....loud........Galvatron.........good..................voice....."
"Repeat, Cybertron. Your signal is very weak."
"...reading you loud and clear, Galvatron. It's good to hear your voice...."
And the image began to clear. It sounded like Shockwave, but Galvatron almost gasped- if a Cybertronian breathed- as his face came on the viewer. Twisted, injured, reformatted incorrectly, Galvatron thought. It was as if the one glowing ball of energon on Shockwave's face had been replaced with eight... his purplish silver toned faceplate had changed to hairy scales. And as the communications receiver backed out, more of Shockwave's disgusting form was revealed. He'd been reformatted, all right, according to regulations. But this was something utterly different than the reformat protocols had indicated... this was...
The Web
It has worked! The change... is come is come... we shall rule once all spiders are come... yes.yes.yes......
Shockwave
The door opened. Light poured in. Shockwave re-exerted his spark and activated his singular optic sensor. But instead of getting a panoramic view of the R Chamber, he was met with an excruciatingly disturbing sight. Instead of the one, wide R Chamber he was used to, there were eight narrow and compact R Chambers, stacked on each other. There was a disgusting purple and green hue to the entire room, too, as if some creature had exploded, spilling its guts all over the walls. But it wasn't some alien's innards coating the chamber, but a thin patina of green and purple... chitin... the walls were alive. All but one of the other CR Pods were intact, all covered with the violet shells- the other was open and empty. And Shockwave's own pod had cracked out of this... egg... as he'd emerged. Rumble, Frenzy, Tantrum and Staghorn were all nowhere to be found. But as a ditanium-alloy plate clattered to the ground, it gave Shockwave cause to look up. Above him was a crisscrossing of glowing blue cyber webs, and among the net were four compact bundles- two normal sized and two rather small- Rumble, Frenzy, Tantrum and Staghorn, portions of whose bodies were visible- all melted away and corroded. If a Cybertronian could have vomited, he would have now. Shockwave turned to the other five pods and each had a blinking green light, indicating the autoroller inside was in 100% condition. Shockwave looked at his own body, and realized he had gained a Beast Form.
"Shockwave," he said, and halted at the sound of his new voice: slithering, slimy, if a texture could be applied, a deadly hiss cut with the horrible sound of a spider's web being spun. "Shockwave... beast mode." Shockwave shifted and contorted, and before he knew it he was a low-slung violet spider, two dagger sharp petapalps glistening with cybervenom to the front, a set of nimble spinnerets on his abdomen. But he wasn't a normal organic-to-robot Predacon... this was a new form, blending normal organics and old-style Decepticon technology. He was Deceptitronic.
"Computer, release R Pod hatches."
The computer whirred and clicked, and the sounds of the vapors releasing from the R Pods could be heard, but they did not open.
"Shockwave, Terrorize." His contortion from beast to 'bot was similarly grizzly... splitting and shifting parts slithered from position to position, a living goo that was inorganic. As the humanoid- roughly humanoid- form stood erect, it produced two large cutting blades from what used to be the creature's jaws. Slicing open the chitinous casing on the first R Pod, Shockwave released the transformer within...
Out poured disembodied goo, what remained of Shrapnel of the Sweeps. Something had liquefied this one. Its health light must've been malfunctioning. Similarly, Shockwave attended to the second pod, slashing at the easily-broken yet surprisingly resilient shell, opening it with ease. He brought out a very weakened Predacon, whose R Sequence had not fully completed. Patches of bare endoskeleton showed through chunks of rotting biomatter. Large tufts of dark hair stuck out at odd intervals and it too seemed to have the alt-form of a spider, much like Shockwave.
"Identify yourself," Shockwave said in his new hiss.
"....Scythe... Predacon Elite..."
It had been Scythe previously, but this new form didn't seem to suit him at all. As Shockwave was resting Scythe against the back of the R Pod to restore the flesh that had not been included, a transparent crystalline nodule on his left ankle began to glow. Scythe pushed Shockwave to the side and stepped forward. In the chamber, there began radiating a faint fluorescent purple glow, and Scythe stretched his arms out to the side. Immediately, the bare patches on him filled in with bulky protomuscle, and that protomuscle began to cover itself in myofibric microcables, and tension bands attached themselves to the Cybertron's endoskeletal struts. He was a Transmetal 2, infused with an alien energy presence that made him capable of healing himself. Before long, Scythe formed into an agile knife spider, whose legs were edged with razor sharp blades.
"Scythe, Terrorize," he said quietly. Shockwave looked on his new-born comrade with astonishment. Was this Scythe, the great huntsman who could smell a Maximal spark from the next system? He seemed so beastly, feral. Shockwave didn't like it.
The next pod held Thundercrasher, a Destructicon. Her large form usually shifted from bot to beast, an alien looking three horned rhinoceros-like creature with armored plates down its back. But as Thundercrasher emerged from her pod after Scythe had slashed the shell away, she had become something sultry and, to Shockwave, interestingly sexual.
"Blackarachnia... Terrorize," she said.
"Blackarachnia?" Shockwave queried. "That's not right."
"What are you looking at, legs?" she asked Shockwave.
As Thundercrasher- Blackarachnia- looked at Shockwave, a pulse of painful energy jammed itself into Shockwave's core processor. He looked at her blankly.
"I profess my undying allegiance to you," he said, more monotone than usual.
"Excellent," she grinned. "Blackarachnia to Tarantulas. I'm active."
"Good," a voice cackled from all around. "Report to me immediately."
The Web
The she-spider cannot... no... cannot be trusted. Must be vanquished. Venom is potent but venomous is as venomous does.
Shockwave
She stood a meter shorter than Shockwave, but was still quite imposing in spite of the difference. "Your cackle unnerves me as always," she said. "But I am glad you have revived me." This was not the same Blackarachnia from Earth. Tarantulas had perfected the cloned programming since implementing it all those gigacycles ago. This version- Arachnia 6.0beta- was perfect. But the spark upon which it was laid made all the difference. The Maximal protoform he'd infected has such a strong will, a sense of differentiation from other Predacons, that the shell program was broken before it took effect. Thundercrasher was fully loyal to whoever called himself "leader." And "leader" was now Tarantulas.
"Ravage," Tarantulas cackled as Shockwave and his escort entered the control room, "is dead..."
"Then the Golden Disks..." Shockwave said, unable to contain his curiosity. He despised arachno-bots- the Nebulan Maijin Zarak and his binary-bound entity Scorponok, Spinnerek, one of Gigatron's first Predacon Generals three centuries ago, Tarantulas especially- but Tarantulas's mission had been one of Shockwave's pet projects in the past.
"Both destroyed." The spider was having trouble keeping his amusement secret.
"And this makes you laugh because?"
"I have all of their information inside my brain, and Megastorm, that fool, thought them destroyed."
Until now, the source of Tarantulas's voice was unknown, seeming to come from the walls of the chamber rather than a singular speaker. Now, as Shockwave's octupled optical sensor acclimated itself to the near pitch-black room, the source was revealed: it WAS the walls of the chamber. The chitinous shell he'd noticed covering the walls of the rest of the stronghold ceased at the doorway to this room, which he'd identified as the control node for northcentral Cybertropolis. Now it was spiderwebs, everywhere. Thick as an inch in some places, the gossamer glowed blue white as it clung to the walls. But beneath the webbing was something else entirely: organic protomuscle. By the Pit, Tarantulas was converting the entire building- no, all of Tryptychon- into...
"My body!" he cackled, finishing Shockwave's thought.
"By the Matrix," Shockwave cursed, the most offensive thing he could think of. "What have you done?!"
"Your surprise surprises me... I thought you knew of my ambitions..."
"I knew you had ambition... I NEVER thought you insane enough to follow through."
"Your intuition needs work, my friend," the spider chuckled. The light began to rise and the pulsing core of the room could now be seen without spectral filtratrion. It looked like Tarantulas before he left Cybertron- the thin frame sat upon the command console chair, but it was less anthropoid and more... more fused to the chair itself. Biomatter had crept up over the Predacon armature, mingling with the technology in a horrid blend of technology and organics.
"I'm going to be ill," Shockwave said as the... head?... of the monstrosity peered his direction.
"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Shockwave," Tarantulas- or the thing on the chair, but who else COULD it be?- snickered. "You knew what to expect when I 'recruited' you... you know how I operate."
"Indeed," Shockwave replied. "What does my 'recruitment' entail?"
"Loyalty... commitment... a modicum of secrecy. While my plans will be revealed in the future, for the moment I wish to keep a low profile..." the monster chuckled in that sickening cackle of his.
"And what's her position in all of this?" he asked, indicating Blackarachnia.
"She is to be my queen... to rule at my side..."
"And mine? What incentive will you offer me?"
"Your ambition for eons has been to rule Cybertron. Thus the world shall be yours to command."
"For my silence?"
"And your duty. Acceptable terms, I daresay."
"Agreed." Shockwave crossed his arms and nodded. "When shall I begin my duties?"
"As soon as you've been educated..."
"Educated?"
A photonic data stream burst from Tarantulas's dais into Shockwave's central processor, thrusting teraquads of data into Shockwave's already packed CPU. "So," Shockwave said as the stream subsided... "You're doing this to attract Unicron..."
Leonus Primal and Grand Magnus stood, ready to fire, at the hatch of their small shuttle. "Think it's safe?" Primal asked.
"No, but when's that ever stopped us before."
They'd received a signal from an outpost on the outer portion of Cybertron's gravity sphere. Something had... happened... on the surface, and communications were down. The outpost had experienced communications failures before, but this was like no other. The video static had a distinctly different pattern- instead of parabolic fuzz, it looked fractallized, like a spider's web. Not only that, but they couldn't receive transmission from ANYWHERE in radio range- despite the fact their receivers had just been repaired. The Scylle had gotten the transmission just as the blackout ended.
"You don't think it's Legs again, do you?" Leo asked.
"Not sure..." Magnus growled, "This seems like his MO, but I can't be positive... he's never tried anything on this grand a scale before, unless he was doing it for the PSP."
The halls of Tryptychon had never been so quiet... and disturbing. "I don't like it," Magnus said quietly, lifing his large blaster rifle to charge.
"Since when did we have to like it?" Leo replied, kicking a door down. With a sickening crack, his paw-foot crashed through a layer of chitinous shell covering the port. "I don't like this," he half chuckled. Then he was overcome by a dark attacker.
Scythe's healing factor and general disposition made him a tough opponent, but Leonus Primal and Grand Magnus were seasoned veterans of battle, having seen countless battles in the past. Scythe was a hard fight, but not unbeatable. Leonus's blaster tail was cleft from its setting, sending it skittering across the R chamber floor. Grand Magnus switched to beast mode- a large Bangerian owlbear- and leapt at the spider, ripping and clawing at him, striking him repeatedly with his massive paw. Leonus Primal's beast body had taken damage while in robot form, causing him great difficulty in transforming.
The two commanders held Scythe at bay while the Incorrigable hung in orbit, its shuttlecraft the Skylle being assaulted below, not by Scythe or Tarantulas's other minions, but by the moonbase itself: the Skylle's computer systems were being eaten by the Widow Virus.
"Rampart!" the first officer yelled to the engineer. "See if you can patch in a comm channel to the boys."
The megasloth nodded to his voridile commander, and began working his large yet deft fingers across the control panel. "Getting a feed from Primal's comm... Magnus's is offline, it seems..."
!!-Watch out for those razors, Magnus!-!! Leo's voice crackled, staticky.
It was met with !!-...don't gotta tell me twice, Primal-!! from Grand Magnus.
"Razors?" Snapjaw said to herself.
"'swhat the man said, Snapper," replied Rampart. "Lemme see if I can boost the gain."
==ELIMINATE ELIMINATE ELIMINATE ELIMINATE== the speakers shrieked.
"What in the Pit is that?!" Snapjaw hissed, covering her aurals.
"Another channel... commands maybe?" Rampart replied.
"Turn it off!"
"Can't... looks like we've..."
Rampart howled in pain as energon radiaton surged through his body.
"Medics!" Snapjaw ordered. "To bridge, stat!" She rushed down to Rampart's writing form, kneeling.
"Don't touch me!!!!" he shrieked, the blue and green radiation playing tapdancer in intricate patterns on his shell. "You'll get it..." his voice changed. "Too..." it hissed in a low cackle. Rampart stood up, his optics shifting from dark blue to neon green, his arms changing from the way they normally drooped to a menacing arch, his fingers twitching in what seemed to be anticipation. He lunged at her, grasping, but hugged only thin air as the much swifter Voridile transformer dropped and scuttle-slithered under the command chair. "Not a chance, whatever you are," she said, dropping into the ventilation systems. "ATTENTION CREW" she said over the shipwide address. "WE ARE UNDER ATTACK FROM WITHIN... DO NOT HESITATE TO SHOOT UNIT RAMPART ON SIGHT... MAINTAIN SILENT RUNNING FROM HERE ON IN."
Then radio silence. Magnus and Primal were on their own.
To Be Continued...