Night time had overcome the surface of the prehistoric planet Earth,
and Black Arachnia and Tarantulas were deeply engaged in battle. It is not
exactly recorded for how long they were fighting, but the two Transformers
were throwing everything they had at each other. If they knew what a kitchen
sink was, they would have thrown it as well. Tarantulas was in beast mode
for most of the brawl so he could try out a new strategy he had conjured up
that day, which had Black Arachnia a bit disappointed since she now always
wanted to fight in her new Transmetal 2 robot mode. The blue and gold spider
then grabbed the widow's front right leg and didn't let go of it for several
minutes. Black Arachnia did not exactly recognize the "attack" Tarantulas
displayed to her, but afterwards felt a little tired. She had also noticed
that the tip of her leg was shooting out sparks, even though no damage could
clearly be seen. As she felt weaker by the cycle, waiting for her creator to
finish her, she saw a silver bolt in the sky coming towards her, which wasn't
only the object's description, but his name as well. She thought that her
lover would fight Tarantulas to the death to try to protect her, but instead
he merely helped her to her feet as the Predacon sped away to his lair in
dragster mode. "Are you all right, My One Desire?" the Fuzor asked, as hokey
as usual. She hesitated for a moment, then answered "Uh, yeah, I'm fine",
although she wasn't.
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia had returned to their base, receiving
any repairs as necessary, and not giving their little quarrel with Tarantulas
another thought. Through the next few months, Black Arachnia had changes in
her behavior that did not exactly catch the Maximals' good sides. She had
become rather ravenous when fueling up on energon (not unlike Chris Farley
with a box of bear claws), and she was sounding more like the crude, boorish
Predacon she used to be. Silverbolt had on several occasions told her that
Optimus had ordered them both on a mission into enemy territory, and Black
Arachnia would retort with something like "Well, tell Optimus to shove it up
his skid-plate!" or something to that extent. Silverbolt knew that even for
a former Pred, there is no reason at all why she should act like this, and
asked Rhinox to give her a physical check. "Something is wrong with her, and
I want it taken care of." Rhinox complied, and carried out several tests on
her, trying to locate anything irregular that may interfere with her normal
activity. Finally, he asked Black Arachnia and Silverbolt to sit down. He
told them something that almost made the both of them sick...... "Well,
Black Arachnia, you're pregnant", said the defense unit Rhinox.
The words hung over the three Maximals for several moments then
crashed onto them one by one, much like the Axalon had crashed to prehistoric
Earth three stellarcycles ago. Black Arachnia was flabbergasted as she tried
to ask Rhinox what he had just told her, but only managed to say
"..........uh................ wh........ I-I..." Silverbolt merely stared at
his companion, trying to grasp the theory that his beloved possibly had been
cheating on him. He certainly never believed in sex before marriage, so this
news had a pretty large affect on him to hear that she was with Spark. It
also had a rather humorous affect on Rattrap, who had just now entered. "Eh,
couldn't wait any longe', eh Bowser-Boy?" the rat ridiculed. "How'd ya' do
it? Boid-doggy style no doubt, heh heh heh!" he chuckled to himself, making
a crack on Silverbolt's unusual beast mode. "I didn't do it!" snapped the
normally calm Silverbolt. "Who am I to put Black Arachnia, my one true love,
into a position to give birth when we're not even married?" Silverbolt
exclaimed in frustration, although it was not exactly clear to whom he was
asking the question. Rattrap gave a look that seemed to say "Oh,
please......." then whispered to Black Arachnia. "Well, he definitely put
ya' in some kinda' position!"
Black Arachnia was trying to go into sleep mode in her quarters that
night, but couldn't accept the fact that she was pregnant. What had
happened? Where had she gotten the genetic information to create a brand new
Spark? She and Silverbolt both shared great affection to one another, but
not even with her expert skills of sweet-talking men into bed could she talk
him into premarital intercourse. She was thinking about the past months, but
couldn't remember any time when she may have merged Sparks with another man.
But there was a thought that never left the back of her mind...... and
finally came to her consciousness; the fight with Tarantulas. His desire to
stay in beast mode, his constant attack of grabbing her front right leg, they
fit perfectly into the situation. It was completely inconspicuous as well.
If she had a digestive system she would vomit right then and there. The
reality of the situation finally hit her. She had been raped by Tarantulas!
The actual male spider's reproductive organs are found in its front left leg,
and when mating it grabs the female's front right leg and passes its semen to
the female. The beast modes of Tarantulas and Black Arachnia were,
unfortunately, much more than meets the eye, which wasn't exactly the best of
ironies at this point in time.
She was thinking a great deal about this fact for two or three
megacycles now, wondering what to do. She couldn't tell Optimus or Rhinox of
who the father was, otherwise they would tell her to Ctrl-Alt-Delete on the
Spark inside her. She couldn't live with abandoning her first born.
"Besides, unexpected and unfathered pregnancies happen all the time, don't
they?" she figured. What was she going to tell Silverbolt? How could she
tell him that he would soon be the father of the spawn of a demonic
tarantula? The next morning, after she had finally energized from sleep mode,
Black Arachnia and Silverbolt went on their daily routines, even though they
had constantly flashed strange glances to each other, much like the "we-
didn't-boink-last-night" look. "So........." Silverbolt finally spoke to
her, "how is it doing so far?" He figured that as long as the Spark was
coming, he might as well attempt to appear optimistic about it. "Oh, um.
It's doing okay", she replied casually, not looking at her consort. "Oh,
what the Pit am I doing??? Silverbolt, I..." Black Arachnia started, but
then stopped. "What is it?" asked Silverbolt, with an inflection in his
voice that made him sound more worried. Black Arachnia spoke softly after a
moment. "...........Nothing, forget it."
Tarantulas' idea of getting Black Arachnia into pregnancy is not
unconnected to his short video library of Jerry Springer episodes he had
smuggled from the 1990's of modern day planet Earth. He had observed that
there were so many human women who have cheated on their boyfriends and had
kids soon afterwards, without them knowing it, it was inconceivable to
Tarantulas how the human race survived 4 million years of civilization
without destroying themselves. 9 out of 10 of the problems in situations
like that were so complex that they couldn't even be solved by the time the
show had ended. This concept was a bit primitive, considering that they were
the latest in state-of-the-art robots in disguise from an alien world, but it
would cause so much chaos in the Maximal lines and no one would suspect him
of the deed. The new "Maxicon", as it were, would sabotage the Maximals and
not a one of them would have the killer instinct to destroy the young ally.
It was absolutely brilliant. "This is absolutely brilliant! Tee hee hee hee
hee hee hee!" he cackled from his lair, taking his cue from the previous
sentence.
According to Black Arachnia's on-board computer, some months later,
the Spark's development was near completion. The Maximals had been watching
the fallen stasis pods, hoping that one would reveal a blank. They were
always happy to have a fully functional ally join the team, but putting Black
Arachnia's new Spark into a used body rather than a custom built one would
just cut down on what little resources they still had since the inconvenient
demise of the Axalon. Silverbolt was extremely worried about the condition
of Black Arachnia's new son and/or daughter, even though he and everybody
else knew that it wasn't his own. Then one afternoon, Black Arachnia slowly
hauled herself into Silverbolt's chamber. "I... I think it's time. My Spark
ejection procedure just started." Silverbolt quickly got her into the lab,
where Rhinox was hurriedly setting up the equipment to receive her Spark.
The technique for catching newborn Sparks and inserting them into their
bodies is a tedious procedure that must be mastered several times to get it
right. Fortunately, since he was a defense unit without much to do at the
base but rattling around waiting for the enemy to come to him, Rhinox had
gained all the medical knowledge necessary to do it.
Cheetor and Optimus were waiting outside the lab with Silverbolt,
Rhinox, and Black Arachnia inside. This was clearly an operation which
Optimus had felt was inappropriate for Cheetor's teenage optics. Rattrap
would have been there with them, but he was deep in yet another argument with
Depthcharge, which he rather enjoyed doing. Black Arachnia was holding onto
Silverbolt's hand throughout the entire procedure, and Silverbolt never saw
her in a more beautiful state than the one she was in. That may sound a bit
corny, even for Silverbolt, but thankfully since she was a robot, Black
Arachnia never lost her figure or composure when having the Spark, unlike
most human females, so he never really saw a difference. She never exactly
screamed during the delivery, but did groan a bit since disconnecting the
Spark's auxiliary life support functions was sort of painful. Black Arachnia
was in the prime of her existence, and Silverbolt observed in adoration.
Twenty cycles later, Black Arachnia exited the lab, with a beam of light that
seemed to shine itself across her blue face. She walked out with a hand in
her own, but it wasn't Silverbolt's. The hand belonged to her new son.
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia named him Doubledealer, after the
Decepticon from the Great War 300 years ago, and called him 'Dealer for
short. Silverbolt didn't know why Black Arachnia wanted him to have a name
that belonged to the most deceitful of all the Decepticons, but she had
insisted. She knew that her son was from both Maximal and Predacon, so
Doubledealer seemed to fit him just fine. But she would never tell anyone.
Ironically enough, Doubledealer was a Transmetal, who had a beast mode that
was a falcon, and a vehicle mode which was a tank, almost exactly like the
ancient Decepticon. 'Dealer was like any other Maximal, always defending his
comrades in battle, always waiting for the Predacons to throw the first
punch... but there was this strange otherness about him that made all the
other Maximals uneasy. Except for Black Arachnia, who had seemed to expect
the otherness in question. He was quiet and mostly kept to his quarters, and
was apparently an extremely well defined artist, with incredible motor
skills. Whenever he had a spare moment, he would spend it sketching on used
paper that hadn't been recycled yet, or on a computer program he had
developed just for the purpose. His new family liked his technique when he
showed them his work, but not so much the content itself. 'Dealer had a
speciality in the morbid arts, and usually did pieces like planets exploding,
or famous Autobot veterans in a recycling plant, or a little puppy lying dead
with its head two inches off its neck.
As the friendly joker of the Maximal group, Rattrap had on several
occasions tried to show 'Dealer a good time. Rattrap had caught 'Dealer on
his way outside. "Eh, hey there, kid! Hey, want ta' see 'dis compute' game
I've been playin'? It's pretty fun," Rattrap had offered. He had a game
loaded up that was "shoot-em- up" style, with simulated Waspinators that
appeared to be the only targets in the level. "....uh, no thanks." 'Dealer
said quickly and he was gone. Black Arachnia had come onto the bridge, with
a distressed looked on her face. "Where is he going?" she asked Rattrap,
which what had sounded like was more respect to him than usual. "Eh, I
dunno," he started. "But a kid who doesn' wanna' play video games is
kinda'........ yeeeeech!" Rattrap said wincing.
Megatron was furious to hear that a new Maximal had entered the
remainder of the Beast Wars. This news only enhanced his already bad mood,
since he had failed to interface himself with the Darkside in a new
experiment he had tried that, hypothetically, would enable him to command the
ship with a mere thought. His mood would have been altered if he had known
that he would master the theory back on Cybertron in the not-too-distant
future. "Where are all these Maximals coming from?!?!?!?!?!?!?" he yelled in
frustration. "Hmm, it's almost as if they were multiplying like rabbits!
Tee hee hee hee!" Tarantulas had chuckled to himself at a computer screen.
Megatron turned on the spider in a bit confusion. "What is that supposed to
mean, exactly?" he asked closing in on him. Tarantulas had then realized he
had made a terrible mistake. The Maximals may be listening somehow, he
couldn't give out his plan. He darted behind Megatron on his hoverpad, and
made a clean getaway. Until he suddenly ran into Inferno who was there to
catch him. "The Royalty asked you a question! Answer Her!" the ant said
indignantly. Tarantulas couldn't see anyway out, and told Megatron the whole
story of when he "slept" with Black Arachnia, even though technically
speaking, he never did.
"..................and that's it," Tarantulas confirmed after a few
moments the explanation ended, waiting for Megatron to suddenly beat him
silly with his T-Rex tail. Megatron stared into space, pondering the
situation, then turned to Tarantulas. ".......This new Maximal is your
son????" he asked intrigued. "Interesting.....yes." Tarantulas was quite
surprised to find himself still standing and not getting beaten silly by
Megatron and his tail. ".......And it gets better. I have a cyber-psychic
link between my Spark and his own", Tarantulas said. "I can control his
every whim and he doesn't know it! I got the idea for the link back when I
had mental control of Black Arachnia. Tee hee hee hee hee." "You what?!?"
Megatron exclaimed as Tarantulas turned around to continue his duties. It
was then that Megatron beat Tarantulas silly with his tail, and he fell onto
a boulder that barely protruded from the lake of lava that surrounded the
base. "This just isn't my day...." the spider grumbled to himself.
It was late one night, and Rhinox was once again up at the overnight
shift, defending the Axalon. The Maximals had gotten used to 'Dealer's gory
talent, and liked to refer to it as "a simple hobby". That night, he had a
strange dream, even more unusual than his constant repetitive nightmares. He
was standing alone, in darkness, and something was coming at him from out of
nowhere. The object was now less than seven feet away from him, and it
appeared to be a large, blue and purple head, with three sets of horizontal
fangs, narrow yellow eyes and short pink horns. "Doubledealer..." the head
had said in a hoarse voice, which he would have recognized as Tarantulas, if
he knew who he was. "............listen to me....." the head continued.
".....I am your master. You will obey only my voice, and neither of the
Maximals. You are now my loyal servant. You will do only that which I
choose...." 'Dealer found himself nodding to every word Tarantulas' head was
saying. The dream ended as Tarantulas cackled into the darkness, as he
always did, and a large Spark seemed to come out of his forehead and engulf
all of 'Dealer's sight as he awoke.
'Dealer and Black Arachnia were outside, manned at the gun turrets
recycled from Sentinel's auto-gun system. "What are you thinking about,
'Dealer?" Black Arachnia asked him, since there was really nothing more to
do. "Oh, nothing", he replied, while actually thinking of the imminent
destruction of his comrades. Suddenly, a noise caught both of the Maximals'
attention. Missile fire could clearly be heard in the distance, some three
miles away. "Black Arachnia to Optimus", she radioed. "We've got trouble in
grid Zion. Cheetor's out there and may need backup." "Go ahead with
Doubledealer. I'm on my way", Optimus ordered. 'Dealer transformed to beast
mode as did Black Arachnia, and headed off. If Black Arachnia's auditory
receptors weren't being disrupted by the wind blowing by her head as 'Dealer
carried her through the air, she would have heard him mutter
".....perfect......"
No actual Predacons were at the scene where Cheetor was, although he
did find it extremely difficult to hit the mindless, jet-like robot he was
currently engaged with. This was another of Megatron's experiments that
would apply greatly to his own future on Cybertron. It didn't appear to have
any legs, it had only three pointy fingers on each hand, and the only thing
that made up the robot's face was a flat metal plate that was just below its
beady eyes. "Oh, Primus...." Cheetor thought to himself pathetically as he
fought the object. He had the thing cornered and was about to slice it's
head off with his bare claws, when he was rudely interrupted by a missile
blast from behind him that blew the robot to smithereens. Black Arachnia and
Doubledealer both arrived and transformed into robot mode. Black Arachnia
took note on how minimal the robot's endurance seemed to be. "Wasn't that a
little too easy?" she asked Cheetor and 'Dealer. "Perhaps altogether too
well!" shouted another voice.
The three Maximals spun around and found themselves confronted by
Megatron, Rampage, and Dinobot. "Well done, Doubledealer..." said Tarantulas
as he emerged from behind Megatron. 'Dealer didn't reply. He was too busy
holding his head in pain, as a variety of jumbled thoughts were suddenly
racing through his CPU trying to establish what he should do. Cheetor and
Black Arachnia were already in hot pursuit of their attackers before they
received any damage. Black Arachnia used her new ability of telekinesis,
lifted Tarantulas about a mile into the air, then simply stopped thinking
about it. Being a robot maybe 700 pounds in weight, Tarantulas' personal
inertia didn't exactly help him from falling at a mile high altitude, and
fell to the ground with a crash. Where he had been standing was nothing more
than a hole five feet deep, and shaped like his silhouette. "Now that's a
way to get high on life!" remarked Cheetor in a British accent, chuckling to
himself and grimacing pointlessly. Black Arachnia smiled thinly at the joke.
"From there he just wanted to say, 'Hi!'" Cheetor joked again.
"It's really too bad that temper rises too quickly."
Black Arachnia stared at him in a bit of confusion, then resumed with the
battle.
"Let's go."
".....yeah."
Cheetor proceeded to fire his rocket launcher at the two Predacons
sharing the single, indestructible Spark. As the big lug that he was,
Rampage was pretty much an easy target, even though he could handle much more
damage than any other Pred could guess. But Cheetor found it extremely
difficult to actually keep a target on Dinobot. With surprising agility, he
leaped behind the cat, and sent him flying to the ground in what would be
referred to as a karate kick, if they had practiced the martial arts on
Cybertron. Before Cheetor could realize what was happening (Dinobot was
still moving with lightening speed at this point), his claws had been sliced
off from his fingers, and his rocket launcher was ripped from his back and
crushed into tiny shards. 'Old Chopper-face' really knew what he was doing.
He then fired his powerful optic laser at Cheetor's side, sending him twenty
yards away. He would finish him off later. "Stupid kid....." he said with a
snarl. He had always wanted to say that, but knew he couldn't back when he
was a Maximal.
Megatron simply sat back a few yards, watching the fight. "I don't
know why nobody televises things like this anymore...no," he said to himself
leaning back on a boulder.
As the mosh-pit of arguments continued to riffle through 'Dealer's
head, he had failed to notice what had been happening to Black Arachnia. As
Rampage started to toy around with Cheetor, as he always did, Dinobot had
picked up what was left of Cheetor's claws and threw them at Black Arachnia
like ninja stars, pinning her razor-sharp golden wrist sickles to a nearby
boulder. She struggled as hard as she could trying to break free, but
Dinobot was already advancing towards her. "A pity Megatron will never get
the Ark's access codes," he said a few inches from her face. "It's rather
difficult for one to extract such information from a pile of shattered
slag!!" And with that, Dinobot aimed his optic laser at her; right in the
center of her chest, that housed her Spark. She could feel the heat coming
off her body, and closed her eyes in terror, waiting for this freak of
Cybertronian technology to finish her off. But it didn't come. Instead she
heard a voice from her far right yelling "Mother!!! Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!"
Doubledealer was flying at Dinobot, head-on, trying to shield Black
Arachnia from the blast. He succeeded. And as bad luck would have it, the
energy blast from Dinobot's eye failed to hit 'Dealer's chest and managed to
find its way through a small crack that lead to his internal systems.
'Dealer crashed to the ground with a clank, and lay as if dead. Dinobot did
the same, almost simultaneously. Only his cause and effect was from a
powerful blast half a mile away from Optimus, as he sailed gracefully through
the sky in aerial attack mode, with Depthcharge and Silverbolt close behind
him. The three airborne Maximals continued to fire at the remaining
Predacons left standing. Before they let another round of missile fire to
overtake them, Megatron, Tarantulas and Rampage turned and fled. Optimus and
Depthcharge hurried to aid whatever was left of Cheetor that hadn't been
blown to slag, while Silverbolt dashed over to Black Arachnia. "Are you all
right, My Love?" he asked her once she was free. But instead of answering,
she had rushed to her dying son.
Black Arachnia could see gobs of molten iron and steel flowing out
from 'Dealer's structure, and just stared at him, knowing that there was
nothing that she could do. ".....Are you alright?...." he asked her weakly.
Black Arachnia nodded, and Silverbolt knelt beside her. "I'm sorry,"
Silverbolt said to her, putting his arm around her. Black Arachnia remained
speechless and held onto Doubledealer's hand as he laid there and just seemed
to sizzle out. His exostructure was once again left as a blank. Silverbolt
helped Black Arachnia to her feet, still sobbing over her loss, and he didn't
know if she would be able to recover from this trauma. The Maximals gathered
Doubledealer's limp body for the recycling ritual, and they never saw him
again.
"............................Tarantulas...................................!"
Black Arachnia muttered to herself, her eyes more fiery red than usual.
and Black Arachnia and Tarantulas were deeply engaged in battle. It is not
exactly recorded for how long they were fighting, but the two Transformers
were throwing everything they had at each other. If they knew what a kitchen
sink was, they would have thrown it as well. Tarantulas was in beast mode
for most of the brawl so he could try out a new strategy he had conjured up
that day, which had Black Arachnia a bit disappointed since she now always
wanted to fight in her new Transmetal 2 robot mode. The blue and gold spider
then grabbed the widow's front right leg and didn't let go of it for several
minutes. Black Arachnia did not exactly recognize the "attack" Tarantulas
displayed to her, but afterwards felt a little tired. She had also noticed
that the tip of her leg was shooting out sparks, even though no damage could
clearly be seen. As she felt weaker by the cycle, waiting for her creator to
finish her, she saw a silver bolt in the sky coming towards her, which wasn't
only the object's description, but his name as well. She thought that her
lover would fight Tarantulas to the death to try to protect her, but instead
he merely helped her to her feet as the Predacon sped away to his lair in
dragster mode. "Are you all right, My One Desire?" the Fuzor asked, as hokey
as usual. She hesitated for a moment, then answered "Uh, yeah, I'm fine",
although she wasn't.
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia had returned to their base, receiving
any repairs as necessary, and not giving their little quarrel with Tarantulas
another thought. Through the next few months, Black Arachnia had changes in
her behavior that did not exactly catch the Maximals' good sides. She had
become rather ravenous when fueling up on energon (not unlike Chris Farley
with a box of bear claws), and she was sounding more like the crude, boorish
Predacon she used to be. Silverbolt had on several occasions told her that
Optimus had ordered them both on a mission into enemy territory, and Black
Arachnia would retort with something like "Well, tell Optimus to shove it up
his skid-plate!" or something to that extent. Silverbolt knew that even for
a former Pred, there is no reason at all why she should act like this, and
asked Rhinox to give her a physical check. "Something is wrong with her, and
I want it taken care of." Rhinox complied, and carried out several tests on
her, trying to locate anything irregular that may interfere with her normal
activity. Finally, he asked Black Arachnia and Silverbolt to sit down. He
told them something that almost made the both of them sick...... "Well,
Black Arachnia, you're pregnant", said the defense unit Rhinox.
The words hung over the three Maximals for several moments then
crashed onto them one by one, much like the Axalon had crashed to prehistoric
Earth three stellarcycles ago. Black Arachnia was flabbergasted as she tried
to ask Rhinox what he had just told her, but only managed to say
"..........uh................ wh........ I-I..." Silverbolt merely stared at
his companion, trying to grasp the theory that his beloved possibly had been
cheating on him. He certainly never believed in sex before marriage, so this
news had a pretty large affect on him to hear that she was with Spark. It
also had a rather humorous affect on Rattrap, who had just now entered. "Eh,
couldn't wait any longe', eh Bowser-Boy?" the rat ridiculed. "How'd ya' do
it? Boid-doggy style no doubt, heh heh heh!" he chuckled to himself, making
a crack on Silverbolt's unusual beast mode. "I didn't do it!" snapped the
normally calm Silverbolt. "Who am I to put Black Arachnia, my one true love,
into a position to give birth when we're not even married?" Silverbolt
exclaimed in frustration, although it was not exactly clear to whom he was
asking the question. Rattrap gave a look that seemed to say "Oh,
please......." then whispered to Black Arachnia. "Well, he definitely put
ya' in some kinda' position!"
Black Arachnia was trying to go into sleep mode in her quarters that
night, but couldn't accept the fact that she was pregnant. What had
happened? Where had she gotten the genetic information to create a brand new
Spark? She and Silverbolt both shared great affection to one another, but
not even with her expert skills of sweet-talking men into bed could she talk
him into premarital intercourse. She was thinking about the past months, but
couldn't remember any time when she may have merged Sparks with another man.
But there was a thought that never left the back of her mind...... and
finally came to her consciousness; the fight with Tarantulas. His desire to
stay in beast mode, his constant attack of grabbing her front right leg, they
fit perfectly into the situation. It was completely inconspicuous as well.
If she had a digestive system she would vomit right then and there. The
reality of the situation finally hit her. She had been raped by Tarantulas!
The actual male spider's reproductive organs are found in its front left leg,
and when mating it grabs the female's front right leg and passes its semen to
the female. The beast modes of Tarantulas and Black Arachnia were,
unfortunately, much more than meets the eye, which wasn't exactly the best of
ironies at this point in time.
She was thinking a great deal about this fact for two or three
megacycles now, wondering what to do. She couldn't tell Optimus or Rhinox of
who the father was, otherwise they would tell her to Ctrl-Alt-Delete on the
Spark inside her. She couldn't live with abandoning her first born.
"Besides, unexpected and unfathered pregnancies happen all the time, don't
they?" she figured. What was she going to tell Silverbolt? How could she
tell him that he would soon be the father of the spawn of a demonic
tarantula? The next morning, after she had finally energized from sleep mode,
Black Arachnia and Silverbolt went on their daily routines, even though they
had constantly flashed strange glances to each other, much like the "we-
didn't-boink-last-night" look. "So........." Silverbolt finally spoke to
her, "how is it doing so far?" He figured that as long as the Spark was
coming, he might as well attempt to appear optimistic about it. "Oh, um.
It's doing okay", she replied casually, not looking at her consort. "Oh,
what the Pit am I doing??? Silverbolt, I..." Black Arachnia started, but
then stopped. "What is it?" asked Silverbolt, with an inflection in his
voice that made him sound more worried. Black Arachnia spoke softly after a
moment. "...........Nothing, forget it."
Tarantulas' idea of getting Black Arachnia into pregnancy is not
unconnected to his short video library of Jerry Springer episodes he had
smuggled from the 1990's of modern day planet Earth. He had observed that
there were so many human women who have cheated on their boyfriends and had
kids soon afterwards, without them knowing it, it was inconceivable to
Tarantulas how the human race survived 4 million years of civilization
without destroying themselves. 9 out of 10 of the problems in situations
like that were so complex that they couldn't even be solved by the time the
show had ended. This concept was a bit primitive, considering that they were
the latest in state-of-the-art robots in disguise from an alien world, but it
would cause so much chaos in the Maximal lines and no one would suspect him
of the deed. The new "Maxicon", as it were, would sabotage the Maximals and
not a one of them would have the killer instinct to destroy the young ally.
It was absolutely brilliant. "This is absolutely brilliant! Tee hee hee hee
hee hee hee!" he cackled from his lair, taking his cue from the previous
sentence.
According to Black Arachnia's on-board computer, some months later,
the Spark's development was near completion. The Maximals had been watching
the fallen stasis pods, hoping that one would reveal a blank. They were
always happy to have a fully functional ally join the team, but putting Black
Arachnia's new Spark into a used body rather than a custom built one would
just cut down on what little resources they still had since the inconvenient
demise of the Axalon. Silverbolt was extremely worried about the condition
of Black Arachnia's new son and/or daughter, even though he and everybody
else knew that it wasn't his own. Then one afternoon, Black Arachnia slowly
hauled herself into Silverbolt's chamber. "I... I think it's time. My Spark
ejection procedure just started." Silverbolt quickly got her into the lab,
where Rhinox was hurriedly setting up the equipment to receive her Spark.
The technique for catching newborn Sparks and inserting them into their
bodies is a tedious procedure that must be mastered several times to get it
right. Fortunately, since he was a defense unit without much to do at the
base but rattling around waiting for the enemy to come to him, Rhinox had
gained all the medical knowledge necessary to do it.
Cheetor and Optimus were waiting outside the lab with Silverbolt,
Rhinox, and Black Arachnia inside. This was clearly an operation which
Optimus had felt was inappropriate for Cheetor's teenage optics. Rattrap
would have been there with them, but he was deep in yet another argument with
Depthcharge, which he rather enjoyed doing. Black Arachnia was holding onto
Silverbolt's hand throughout the entire procedure, and Silverbolt never saw
her in a more beautiful state than the one she was in. That may sound a bit
corny, even for Silverbolt, but thankfully since she was a robot, Black
Arachnia never lost her figure or composure when having the Spark, unlike
most human females, so he never really saw a difference. She never exactly
screamed during the delivery, but did groan a bit since disconnecting the
Spark's auxiliary life support functions was sort of painful. Black Arachnia
was in the prime of her existence, and Silverbolt observed in adoration.
Twenty cycles later, Black Arachnia exited the lab, with a beam of light that
seemed to shine itself across her blue face. She walked out with a hand in
her own, but it wasn't Silverbolt's. The hand belonged to her new son.
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia named him Doubledealer, after the
Decepticon from the Great War 300 years ago, and called him 'Dealer for
short. Silverbolt didn't know why Black Arachnia wanted him to have a name
that belonged to the most deceitful of all the Decepticons, but she had
insisted. She knew that her son was from both Maximal and Predacon, so
Doubledealer seemed to fit him just fine. But she would never tell anyone.
Ironically enough, Doubledealer was a Transmetal, who had a beast mode that
was a falcon, and a vehicle mode which was a tank, almost exactly like the
ancient Decepticon. 'Dealer was like any other Maximal, always defending his
comrades in battle, always waiting for the Predacons to throw the first
punch... but there was this strange otherness about him that made all the
other Maximals uneasy. Except for Black Arachnia, who had seemed to expect
the otherness in question. He was quiet and mostly kept to his quarters, and
was apparently an extremely well defined artist, with incredible motor
skills. Whenever he had a spare moment, he would spend it sketching on used
paper that hadn't been recycled yet, or on a computer program he had
developed just for the purpose. His new family liked his technique when he
showed them his work, but not so much the content itself. 'Dealer had a
speciality in the morbid arts, and usually did pieces like planets exploding,
or famous Autobot veterans in a recycling plant, or a little puppy lying dead
with its head two inches off its neck.
As the friendly joker of the Maximal group, Rattrap had on several
occasions tried to show 'Dealer a good time. Rattrap had caught 'Dealer on
his way outside. "Eh, hey there, kid! Hey, want ta' see 'dis compute' game
I've been playin'? It's pretty fun," Rattrap had offered. He had a game
loaded up that was "shoot-em- up" style, with simulated Waspinators that
appeared to be the only targets in the level. "....uh, no thanks." 'Dealer
said quickly and he was gone. Black Arachnia had come onto the bridge, with
a distressed looked on her face. "Where is he going?" she asked Rattrap,
which what had sounded like was more respect to him than usual. "Eh, I
dunno," he started. "But a kid who doesn' wanna' play video games is
kinda'........ yeeeeech!" Rattrap said wincing.
Megatron was furious to hear that a new Maximal had entered the
remainder of the Beast Wars. This news only enhanced his already bad mood,
since he had failed to interface himself with the Darkside in a new
experiment he had tried that, hypothetically, would enable him to command the
ship with a mere thought. His mood would have been altered if he had known
that he would master the theory back on Cybertron in the not-too-distant
future. "Where are all these Maximals coming from?!?!?!?!?!?!?" he yelled in
frustration. "Hmm, it's almost as if they were multiplying like rabbits!
Tee hee hee hee!" Tarantulas had chuckled to himself at a computer screen.
Megatron turned on the spider in a bit confusion. "What is that supposed to
mean, exactly?" he asked closing in on him. Tarantulas had then realized he
had made a terrible mistake. The Maximals may be listening somehow, he
couldn't give out his plan. He darted behind Megatron on his hoverpad, and
made a clean getaway. Until he suddenly ran into Inferno who was there to
catch him. "The Royalty asked you a question! Answer Her!" the ant said
indignantly. Tarantulas couldn't see anyway out, and told Megatron the whole
story of when he "slept" with Black Arachnia, even though technically
speaking, he never did.
"..................and that's it," Tarantulas confirmed after a few
moments the explanation ended, waiting for Megatron to suddenly beat him
silly with his T-Rex tail. Megatron stared into space, pondering the
situation, then turned to Tarantulas. ".......This new Maximal is your
son????" he asked intrigued. "Interesting.....yes." Tarantulas was quite
surprised to find himself still standing and not getting beaten silly by
Megatron and his tail. ".......And it gets better. I have a cyber-psychic
link between my Spark and his own", Tarantulas said. "I can control his
every whim and he doesn't know it! I got the idea for the link back when I
had mental control of Black Arachnia. Tee hee hee hee hee." "You what?!?"
Megatron exclaimed as Tarantulas turned around to continue his duties. It
was then that Megatron beat Tarantulas silly with his tail, and he fell onto
a boulder that barely protruded from the lake of lava that surrounded the
base. "This just isn't my day...." the spider grumbled to himself.
It was late one night, and Rhinox was once again up at the overnight
shift, defending the Axalon. The Maximals had gotten used to 'Dealer's gory
talent, and liked to refer to it as "a simple hobby". That night, he had a
strange dream, even more unusual than his constant repetitive nightmares. He
was standing alone, in darkness, and something was coming at him from out of
nowhere. The object was now less than seven feet away from him, and it
appeared to be a large, blue and purple head, with three sets of horizontal
fangs, narrow yellow eyes and short pink horns. "Doubledealer..." the head
had said in a hoarse voice, which he would have recognized as Tarantulas, if
he knew who he was. "............listen to me....." the head continued.
".....I am your master. You will obey only my voice, and neither of the
Maximals. You are now my loyal servant. You will do only that which I
choose...." 'Dealer found himself nodding to every word Tarantulas' head was
saying. The dream ended as Tarantulas cackled into the darkness, as he
always did, and a large Spark seemed to come out of his forehead and engulf
all of 'Dealer's sight as he awoke.
'Dealer and Black Arachnia were outside, manned at the gun turrets
recycled from Sentinel's auto-gun system. "What are you thinking about,
'Dealer?" Black Arachnia asked him, since there was really nothing more to
do. "Oh, nothing", he replied, while actually thinking of the imminent
destruction of his comrades. Suddenly, a noise caught both of the Maximals'
attention. Missile fire could clearly be heard in the distance, some three
miles away. "Black Arachnia to Optimus", she radioed. "We've got trouble in
grid Zion. Cheetor's out there and may need backup." "Go ahead with
Doubledealer. I'm on my way", Optimus ordered. 'Dealer transformed to beast
mode as did Black Arachnia, and headed off. If Black Arachnia's auditory
receptors weren't being disrupted by the wind blowing by her head as 'Dealer
carried her through the air, she would have heard him mutter
".....perfect......"
No actual Predacons were at the scene where Cheetor was, although he
did find it extremely difficult to hit the mindless, jet-like robot he was
currently engaged with. This was another of Megatron's experiments that
would apply greatly to his own future on Cybertron. It didn't appear to have
any legs, it had only three pointy fingers on each hand, and the only thing
that made up the robot's face was a flat metal plate that was just below its
beady eyes. "Oh, Primus...." Cheetor thought to himself pathetically as he
fought the object. He had the thing cornered and was about to slice it's
head off with his bare claws, when he was rudely interrupted by a missile
blast from behind him that blew the robot to smithereens. Black Arachnia and
Doubledealer both arrived and transformed into robot mode. Black Arachnia
took note on how minimal the robot's endurance seemed to be. "Wasn't that a
little too easy?" she asked Cheetor and 'Dealer. "Perhaps altogether too
well!" shouted another voice.
The three Maximals spun around and found themselves confronted by
Megatron, Rampage, and Dinobot. "Well done, Doubledealer..." said Tarantulas
as he emerged from behind Megatron. 'Dealer didn't reply. He was too busy
holding his head in pain, as a variety of jumbled thoughts were suddenly
racing through his CPU trying to establish what he should do. Cheetor and
Black Arachnia were already in hot pursuit of their attackers before they
received any damage. Black Arachnia used her new ability of telekinesis,
lifted Tarantulas about a mile into the air, then simply stopped thinking
about it. Being a robot maybe 700 pounds in weight, Tarantulas' personal
inertia didn't exactly help him from falling at a mile high altitude, and
fell to the ground with a crash. Where he had been standing was nothing more
than a hole five feet deep, and shaped like his silhouette. "Now that's a
way to get high on life!" remarked Cheetor in a British accent, chuckling to
himself and grimacing pointlessly. Black Arachnia smiled thinly at the joke.
"From there he just wanted to say, 'Hi!'" Cheetor joked again.
"It's really too bad that temper rises too quickly."
Black Arachnia stared at him in a bit of confusion, then resumed with the
battle.
"Let's go."
".....yeah."
Cheetor proceeded to fire his rocket launcher at the two Predacons
sharing the single, indestructible Spark. As the big lug that he was,
Rampage was pretty much an easy target, even though he could handle much more
damage than any other Pred could guess. But Cheetor found it extremely
difficult to actually keep a target on Dinobot. With surprising agility, he
leaped behind the cat, and sent him flying to the ground in what would be
referred to as a karate kick, if they had practiced the martial arts on
Cybertron. Before Cheetor could realize what was happening (Dinobot was
still moving with lightening speed at this point), his claws had been sliced
off from his fingers, and his rocket launcher was ripped from his back and
crushed into tiny shards. 'Old Chopper-face' really knew what he was doing.
He then fired his powerful optic laser at Cheetor's side, sending him twenty
yards away. He would finish him off later. "Stupid kid....." he said with a
snarl. He had always wanted to say that, but knew he couldn't back when he
was a Maximal.
Megatron simply sat back a few yards, watching the fight. "I don't
know why nobody televises things like this anymore...no," he said to himself
leaning back on a boulder.
As the mosh-pit of arguments continued to riffle through 'Dealer's
head, he had failed to notice what had been happening to Black Arachnia. As
Rampage started to toy around with Cheetor, as he always did, Dinobot had
picked up what was left of Cheetor's claws and threw them at Black Arachnia
like ninja stars, pinning her razor-sharp golden wrist sickles to a nearby
boulder. She struggled as hard as she could trying to break free, but
Dinobot was already advancing towards her. "A pity Megatron will never get
the Ark's access codes," he said a few inches from her face. "It's rather
difficult for one to extract such information from a pile of shattered
slag!!" And with that, Dinobot aimed his optic laser at her; right in the
center of her chest, that housed her Spark. She could feel the heat coming
off her body, and closed her eyes in terror, waiting for this freak of
Cybertronian technology to finish her off. But it didn't come. Instead she
heard a voice from her far right yelling "Mother!!! Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!"
Doubledealer was flying at Dinobot, head-on, trying to shield Black
Arachnia from the blast. He succeeded. And as bad luck would have it, the
energy blast from Dinobot's eye failed to hit 'Dealer's chest and managed to
find its way through a small crack that lead to his internal systems.
'Dealer crashed to the ground with a clank, and lay as if dead. Dinobot did
the same, almost simultaneously. Only his cause and effect was from a
powerful blast half a mile away from Optimus, as he sailed gracefully through
the sky in aerial attack mode, with Depthcharge and Silverbolt close behind
him. The three airborne Maximals continued to fire at the remaining
Predacons left standing. Before they let another round of missile fire to
overtake them, Megatron, Tarantulas and Rampage turned and fled. Optimus and
Depthcharge hurried to aid whatever was left of Cheetor that hadn't been
blown to slag, while Silverbolt dashed over to Black Arachnia. "Are you all
right, My Love?" he asked her once she was free. But instead of answering,
she had rushed to her dying son.
Black Arachnia could see gobs of molten iron and steel flowing out
from 'Dealer's structure, and just stared at him, knowing that there was
nothing that she could do. ".....Are you alright?...." he asked her weakly.
Black Arachnia nodded, and Silverbolt knelt beside her. "I'm sorry,"
Silverbolt said to her, putting his arm around her. Black Arachnia remained
speechless and held onto Doubledealer's hand as he laid there and just seemed
to sizzle out. His exostructure was once again left as a blank. Silverbolt
helped Black Arachnia to her feet, still sobbing over her loss, and he didn't
know if she would be able to recover from this trauma. The Maximals gathered
Doubledealer's limp body for the recycling ritual, and they never saw him
again.
"............................Tarantulas...................................!"
Black Arachnia muttered to herself, her eyes more fiery red than usual.