Sorry for the delay! This is the final chapter of the episode - but not the end of the story . . .
Musical Inspiration: "Smashing the Opponent" - Infected Mushroom
The puzzle was starting to take shape after so many thousands of years. Kickback had been missing large pieces, and without even a picture to guide him, what he had assembled was crude, malformed and wrong.
He continued to remain close to Airachnid, the old habits and old ways bleeding through the layers of anger and bitterness he wore like the robes of a noble. The twisted flap of his generating chamber stung, inner machinery grinding and whining faintly, trying to close. Inside the gap in his frame, his spark swirled busily, nodules of varicolor light popping free and orbiting their originator, an accretion of spark fragments slowly building. The hive master's generation systems continued to form potential new Insecticon life automatically, regardless of the present state of Kickback's body.
"So you were not . . . ?" He still wasn't certain he'd heard it right, his question dropping off as he second-guessed himself for asking.
"No. I was not always like this. Not always an Arthrocon. I was a Vosian, a rotorframe. Part of a exploration and special operations unit under command of Lieutenant Windburn." Airachnid's voice was heavy with the weariness of an inner burden carried too long. "I didn't learn until later why I had been assigned to Tarantulas. They made me chattel to barter what they wanted from the twisted old mech." She cast her glance downward, staring at and through the cables linked into her torso. "He made no bones about what he wanted from me, trying to court me as if I could possibly desire that disgusting beast in any way." Her lip curled as she verbally spat on his memory; then, as suddenly as the venom started, it petered out. "I guess he became impatient. He trapped me in his lair, incapacitated me, and altered my CNA, changing me into what I am now. He told me that if I was too lofty for someone like himself, he would pull me down to his level."
"I thought only someone like Shockwave had enough skill to manipulate CNA in any meaningful way," Kickback said, morbidly intrigued by Airachnid's story.
"Where do you think Shockwave learned his techniques?" Airachnid asked. "Tarantulas worked with Jihaxus, and their knowledge was passed down, collected and studied by Shockwave while he was still in favor as a Senator."
Kickback turned this over in his processor a moment, before continuing the conversation. "You said Tarantulas wanted you as a mate. Did he . . . did he bond with you?"
"He forced it on me, yes," Airachnid whispered, shame obvious. "He permeated me with the capacity to understand and manipulate the hive mind, as he could. He intentionally manipulated both my CNA and the bond to make certain he could control me at any time, so long as he was close enough to me." She turned her violet eyes towards Kickback. "I was not the only victim of his manipulation, however. You are a product of his evolutionary experimentation."
Kickback's spark visibly retreated further into the safety of his frame.
"What?" he whispered in disbelief.
"When Tarantulas was acclimating me to my new body, teaching me how to use my access to the hive mind, he had me assist him in capturing an entire hive by mentally dominating its master. Forcing her to submit, Tarantulas was able to manipulate her CNA, cautiously changing only a little, to add the potential for much higher levels of intelligence in her descendants. That is how you, Hardshell and Sharpshot came to be. I did not spare the mere drones when Tarantulas sent me back to the hive to collect the rewards of his labors, Kickback. I took you and your brothers because Tarantulas ordered your retrieval."
Kickback sat back, bracing himself on his arms. It was a lot to take in.
Airachnid took notice of the change in Kickback's attitude, his pensive mien and sudden silence. She gave him a moment to ruminate over the information she was handing him, information that had been held back perhaps too long. She looked away once more, towards the pod on the nesting platform, still reaching out to her through the hive mind, seeking a connection, a support to lean on. The fembot kept it at arms length, at least for the time being.
"Tarantulas wanted all of the modified hatchlings, Kickback, but I rebelled in my own way. Hardshell was a bruiser, and Sharpshot a soldier, but you? You were a swarmer, more delicate than the others. I thought he might decide you were weak and try to cull you, so I separated you from the others." Airachnid allowed herself a sly smile and a brief laugh. "I won't lie, Kickback, I was so eager to escape that I saw you as a means of escape. I sold you to Senator Sigil for an enormous sum, enough to buy myself a ship and distance myself from the bond Tarantulas had forced on me. I bartered you for my freedom, but I believed that you would have a much better life than anything Tarantulas had planned."
"Did you?" she asked, glancing back over at Kickback, reading the mixed emotions playing across his field and face.
Memories of hide and seek with Glyph through the multiroom mansion perched atop the cliffs overlooking Polyhex replayed in his mind, an old tape well-worn with time and emotion. "Yeah. I did," Kickback replied quietly. "For as long as it lasted, I did."
"I am no saint," Airachnid continued, seeming to recover her strength and gather her wits as she laid out the circumstances of their intertwined lives before the locust. "If I were ever capable of being noble, upstanding or good, it has long since been crushed out of me. My sparkbond to Tarantulas tainted me more than his scientific manipulation ever could."
"You have justified reason to hate me, Kickback. I supported myself on hive hunting, it was all I had left to support myself with - but I enjoyed it," she smiled. "When Sigil called me back to take you in, I did so in hopes that you would grow strong enough to protect me one day from Tarantulas. Your intellect, your ability to communicate with others - you were a direct line to Megatron, and if you could not protect me then the Decepticons would certainly be capable of destroying the old monster."
The spider turned and stared at Kickback. "Continue to hate me, my "son". What did I ever do for you, other than give you a taste of sweetness, enough to make the rest of your life that much more bitter?"
Kickback frowned, confused by the change in Airachnid's demeanor. Telling him everything, baring her spark, then lashing out, trying to drive him away, make him hate her rather than pity her. Was it pride that required she repay a moment of weakness by inviting hell on herself in trying to enrage him? Was it some twist to her mind left by her bond to Tarantulas?
No, he thought to himself, searching out the motive lying behind that smug smile and those defiant eyes: This was a wounded animal constantly on her guard, conditioned to believe kindness was weakness, and intimacy a predecessor to assault.
"A chance at a normal life," Kickback replied, rebuffing her insults. "The war took that way from all of us eventually, but you tried. You can say that your motives were entirely selfish but I don't believe you. If there was no compassion or honor left in your spark you would not have taken me out of the back of that truck. You would not have turned me over to Senator Sigil in the first place."
He leaned in closer to Airachnid. "You want me to see you and treat you as a monster because that's what you believe yourself to be. You hate yourself, but you don't have the struts to offline yourself. You want someone else to do it for you, so you can die a martyr in your own mind rather than live."
The spider's eyes snapped open, apoplectic in denial and anger. Her emotions screamed incoherently in protest as protective layers of denial, deceit and projection were being torn away from the scabby, battered psyche hiding beneath.
"Accept what and who you are, Airburst," Kickback stated firmly, unrelenting. He would not allow her to retreat either physically or psychologically. "You are only a monster if you continue to let yourself be one - if you continue to live as what Tarantulas intended you to be. Fight it! You made me read Megatronus' writings, did you ever read them for yourself? Did you ever think that maybe once there was actually something to what Megatron wrote - to rising up against oppression?"
"If you won't fight it for yourself - if you cannot live with what you have become - then fight to deny Tarantulas the ability to take whatever he wants from you. Even if he did not survive the war, you let him live on in the wounds he left in your spark."
Airachnid was quiet, features softening. She turned away from Kickback, shuttering her optics, a jerking whine rising from her core engines.
The locust brushed a hand over Airachnid's head, reaching out to comfort and support her in the same way she had done, regardless of her intentions, when he was young. She allowed herself to rest her helm against his forearm, surrendering.
Unintentionally she let her guard down too far, and felt the edges of connection establishing themselves from the pod to her spark.
Airachnid jerked her head upwards, eyes wide and panicked. "N-no! No, it's trying to bond with me!" she raggedly gasped.
"Let it," Kickback whispered soothingly. "It's temporary Airachnid; when the pod hatches it will separate itself from you naturally."
"You are certain of this? Certain that that I will not be trapped with a gate in my spark left open for whatever is in inside to access at a whim?" Airachnid asked firmly, struggling to keep the tentative connection at bay, fighting a thousand warm, gentle, searching prods fluttering around her core.
"Positive," Kickback said. "Don't you see what I'm trying to do for you? You know how to access a hive mind, how to speak our language and control drones. But think: I've been altered, hybridized - the bonding will immerse you into my hive."
"So you want to control me too?!" Airachnid spat, straining against the plating that held her fast to the wall, jerking her head and upper body away from Kickback's arm.
"No! Listen to me!" Kickback protested, leaning forward to take hold of the side of Airachnid's face and turn her to face him. "If I can make you a part of my hive then I may be able to override what Tarantulas has done to you."
The spider stopped struggling immediately.
"That's impossible!" she breathed. "Nothing short of spark surgery or death can do that!"
"The spark network of the hive is subject to my will, as are the sparks of everything connected to it. If I had wanted to obliterate your self-will I would have already done so," Kickback explained firmly. "You cared for me once; I will repay you my debt. When the pod has hatched I will release you from the hive mind, and we will be even. There will be more important things to worry about once we return to the Decepticons." He understood that after the abuses she had suffered under Tarantulas' hands, compassion and concern were frightening unknowns. He'd wanted revenge against her for so long, but could no longer bring himself to pursue it. She had been just as crushed and broken as he had been. He genuinely pitied her, and so the locust carefully couched his words in terms and in ways he believed would be easiest for Airachnid to take.
Talk of leverage and manipulation.
Talk of masters and servants.
It eased her, reducing it to a barter; it was less involved. Less threateningly intimate. She could boil it down to Kickback doing what Decepticons had always done - flattening the playing field so that neither could get leverage on the other. They could pass it off to command, if discovered, as removing a dangerous liability that lingered in the potential of Arachnid being controlled by Tarantulas. The potential for freedom, true freedom after so many vorns hung before her like food before a starving animal. Debased and captive, she had little to lose and everything to gain.
"I hold you to your word, son," Airachnid relented, glaring at Kickback with all the threat she could muster.
Kickback feigned a superior smirk. "And what could you possibly do to me if lied?"
The tiniest fraction of a smile curled the edges of her lips. "I'm sure I'd think of something."
The spider closed her optics and relented, letting the walls of her resistance fall. The burgeoning spark inside the pod completed the connection.
A sentient mind, infantile and innocent, snuggled up against Airachnid's spark, and with it came a rush of super-awareness that expanded her consciousness across several thousand bodies.
She cried out in startled shock, drowning in sensory input from every Insecticon linked into the hive, unable to make sense of the flood of information assaulting her singular consciousness. The femme's engines roared and she vented erratically, her processor glitching under the burden of being submerged inside the Insecticon super-organism.
Suddenly the burden was relieved, a strong presence pushing away the extraneous and irrelevant data bleeding over from the hive as it went about its collective and individual business.
I've got you, she could hear Kickback think. This isn't the same as pushing your will onto the hive from outside it. You're enmeshed in us-me. Adjust your air-fuel intake and try to shift down to a lower gear. Start thinking about Tarantulas. I-We will search for his resonance in you and reverse it.
Airachnid didn't dare open her eyes, the mixing of her own sensory data along with the torrent pounding into her processor was agonizing. She wondered how Kickback could even move with all of this going on in his head all the time, every day, how his processor didn't simply melt after a few breems of exposure. She tried to drown out the endless mental noise with memories of the mech she hated most.
The unhatched spark that had bonded to her was still with her, soaking up excess sensory input and thought as if it were trying to help her. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just hungry for mental stimulation, dry soil waiting for the thunderstorm of its siblings and kin to soak it with their psychological impressions, making it germinate and sprout into self-awareness. Whatever the reasons, she was grateful to it as it assisted her in pushing back the hive-connection to reasonable limits.
Airachnid could not see, could not feel that outside the walls of her inner world, Kickback was disconnecting the energon lines, fixing them to himself, carefully removing the plating that held Airachnid cocooned in place. What good was freedom, he reasoned, if it was only mental?
Diligently he worked, mentally and physically, tracing over the waves and code of her spark. If only he had known her before all this, it would be easier to find the Airburst under the Airachnid. If the bond still existed it was old and largely in disuse, perhaps weak enough that when he severed the connection to the hive mind, the old bond would die right along with it.
The femme could feel Kickback searching her out; for a split second the old terror and revulsion reflexively rose before she forced it back down - she could feel Kickback's inner self in return.
Deep within his core there was a genuine kindness and a capacity for deep affection, nestled around memories of "big sister" Glyph, and - to her embarrassment and shame - around memories of herself, caring for him. Airachnid gave off a wave of self-loathing. Her actions had prevented Kickback from becoming a complete, unrepentant monster. She had saved him from the fate she thought she'd suffered, and here and now, he was trying to return the favor in a cosmic karmic loop.
The fembot was grieved, and in trying to reach out to connect just a little more with the happy memories of her the locust possessed, the old sparkbond flared angrily.
Tarantulas was definitely alive.
Kickback saw the dark swirl over Airachnid's mind, the permeating waves of twisted, black-sparked hate bubbling to the surface. He wasted no time and assaulted it with the force of his will, and the collective willpower of every Insecticon spark connected to him, seizing it, absorbing it into himself, and severing the connection to Airachnid's mind.
Across Decepticon territory, every last drone paused and raised their heads in a warcry.
...
*Airachnid!* Megatron's voice rasped over the comm-line. *What is going on out there? Give me a status report, immediately!*
The spider snapped out of momentary stasis as if startled out of a nightmare. She touched limbs to the floor to steady herself and rubbed her helm-
It dawned on her that she could move! Patting herself down with her hands, looking at legs, whole abdomen, and curled pieces of plating scattered around her on the floor, she could hardly believe it. As she quickly came to her senses, she felt an immediately difference in her mind as well: She was alone with her thoughts, for the first time completely, since she had once been called Airburst.
*AIRACHNID!* Megatron roared, impatient.
Fumbling for her communication panel, she quickly accessed the Decepticon main frequency. "My apologies for the delay, Lord Megatron. Is something wrong?"
*Funny, as I was going to ask you the same thing. The Insecticons simultaneously shouted - have you done something to Kickback?* he accused threateningly.
Airachnid quickly looked over to where Kickback had been: The locust had connected himself to the nesting platform, lying on his side - weary but, but alive, and smiling at her.
She smiled back.
"Nothing to worry about, Lord Megatron. The pod generation is on its way as you desired, although Kickback has a minor injury due to the size of the pod; If you so desire, my liege, send Shockwave with a first aid kit. Otherwise? I think everything is going to be okay from now on."
[FIN]