Author's Note: Hang onto your hats, people! This is going to be wild!

Chapter Twenty: Dark Mirror

Silas growled as he studied the final few seconds of video from Project Fenrir. He started to see the aliens as more than a nuisance or common roadblock. Silas shook his head. A world without pain or death, such was Silas' desire. It was such a noble mission. In spite of this nobility, the one called Optimus stood with the very corruption he sought to remove and thus stood as enemies to the peace and protection he craved. Silas scratched his chin in thought. Few can see the goal I work towards. A long sigh escaped the man's body as he studied the recording before him. With a shake of his head, the worn man rewound the recording for what must have been the thousandth time. Then, he saw it. "Slow motion," Silas said before the video suddenly began to crawl before his eyes. As the feed began to streak with disruption from the alien purple energy, Silas smiled, "Freeze, spectral analysis."

With the voice command, various graphs and readouts filled the screen. The readings seemed too similar to an anomaly NASA recorded thirteen years ago. Silas remembered the event clearly, even all these years later because the same strange energy discovered that day led Leo Darby to the solution for his son.

A voice broke Silas out of his past musings. "What has you so distracted, Leo?"

Silas set his jaw and glared at the assassin who stood behind him calmly, her violet optics scanning the screen as she spoke. Silas would not show weakness! He would stand and prevail and not show how much it perturbed him to know she knew his past name! "It seems one of the Autobot's allies has command of alien energy that offlined Fenrir."

Airachnid's smile seemed to leak from her face like liquid mercury in a broken thermometer. Her optics glittered with nearly the same shade of purple as the energy that arced across the feed before the minicon offlined. The twisted femme slowly walked over to the screen with an intrigued look on her face. "What would a Human be doing with control of Dark Energon?"

Silas looked at the Spiderbot with curiosit, "Dark Energon?"

Airachnid nodded as her optics glowed with glee. She then lowered herself with her extra limbs and vented in mild irritation at Silas' lack of knowledge. "Dark Energon is the antithesis of the fuel of Cybertronians." She scoffed before continuing. "Some believe the substance to be connected directly to a being known as Unicron the Chaos Bringer, but such legends were created to keep naïve bots away from it because it dulls the pain receptors, like cocaine or morphine while enhancing strength like steroids and would have allowed those in the lower castes to cope with their stations more easily."

Silas found himself curious as to how an off-worlder like Airachnid knew so much about organic substances. She's a hunter. The man reminded himself. She would be wise to know how to take down all prey, organic or otherwise. Silas then turned his mind back to the subject at hand and felt a moment of interest in this revolutionary new power source with the potential bonus of rendering his enemies a non-issue by weakening any Titan to the point they could no longer fight him. However, before Silas could take advantage of such power, he needed to know more concerning his enemies' motivations. Silas stood and turned from the data back to Airachnid. "Why were you given such a lot in your lives if Cybertronians are obviously beings capable of self-determination?"

Airachnid smirked, her fangs gleaming like a vampire's in the dimly lit space reserved for study and planning. "Megatron and Optimus both posed the same question to the ruling body of Cybertron once."

If the goals appeared to be the same, Silas thought. "Why did war break out?"

Airachnid methodically moved slowly around Silas to face him and looked at him with an intrigued expression. "Why the sudden interest in Cybertronian history?"

Silas leaned forward in his chair, the back squeaking quietly as he did so. "When The Autobots began to interfere with MECH," Silas mentally shivered but showed no outward sign of discomfort. "I thought we could match your kind might for might." The man shook his head. "In another life, I acquainted myself with certain aspects of your biology." Silas stopped and sighed. "I had missed a fundamental rule of war: If you know your enemy and yourself, you will seldom lose."

Airachnid smiled as she crawled down to look Silas eye to optic, mere inches from his own face with hers. "I will be more than happy to tell you, but I need something in exchange."

Silas raised a brow. "You are not in a position to bargain, Spiderbot."

Airachnid hissed and quicker than Silas could react, sank her fangs into the Human. His neck began to glow hellish purple as the venom ran through his organic tissues. "Silas," Arachnid purred with glee in her optics. "It is you who has no power with me."

"H-How?" Silas managed with every centimeter of his body on fire.

She laughed, a cruel and sadistic sound that sent shivers down the back strut of any bot who heard it. "Before the war…"

Airachnid scurried along the mine shafts as her unique root mode allowed her to traverse the tunnels with ease. The other Cybertronians down in the mines gave her a wide berth due to this and barely interacted with her, but she did not mind in the slightest because she knew herself to be better than the common miners selected for the Pits when the upper castes needed sport. As such, this afforded her some privileges other miners did not have, like actual training for the arena.

It was during one of these sessions she met the bot formerly known simply as D-16 soon to be known as Megatron. Airachnid remembered the encounter fondly. She walked along the mining tunnels and heard a cry of rage. The clang of metal echoed through the mines as D-16 sparred with an as of yet unknown bot. Airachnid watched for a moment, the ferocity and ruthlessness making her cooling fans kick on as she watched the miner train.

"Enough about your…infatuation with Megatron!" Silas growled, his voice cutting her out of the memory.

The Spider looked at Silas in confusion. "How are you still online or at the very least not in stasis lock?!"

Silas barked a short laugh before his dark brown eyes glittered with deep red sclera for a moment. "That's my secret, Spider." He said calmly. "Now, if you would, skip to the start of the war."

Airachnid raised an optic ridge. Then, her mouth turned into an amused smile. "You remind me of My Jack."

Silas raised a brow but said nothing. Instead, he urged her on, "Please, continue."

The rogue Con nodded. "I will admit. You have better manners than he does." Airachnid waved the thought off with a simple motion of her servo and continued.

Airachnid and Megatron dueled in The Pits of Kaon. The Spiderbot hated to admit it, but Megatron proved more skilled. After a fierce match, the femme knew one thing: If she was going to topple the arrogant bot from his glory as Champion of Kaon, the femme needed an edge. No matter how manny tricks she pulled: going underground, silent ambush, or webbing the bot. It all came to nought with the arrogant bot who now saw fit to call himself Megatronus after the Prime who fought his fellows.

"That prideful fool will never best me again!"

Off to the side of her sparse, dungeon-like quarters, Airachnid felt someone approach before she saw them and went for the kill.

The mech crossed his arms defensively and stood in the face of death. The Spider Glitch could respect that and lowered her extra limbs.

The bot before her looked downright diminutive, but his greedy optics told all. The bot's chassis stood out against the grey, relative drab of the quarters around him, what with it being bright purple and gold. He didn't seem to mind so much about the location and had his optics glued to the femme. "My audios pick up much around Kaon, and I couldn't help but overhear you want to wipe the floor with the top gladiator in the Pits."

Airachnid growled and lunged at the mech in response.

"Oh, the cubes I could make with you, Sweetspark!" The bot whispered before he raised his voice to normal and offered a servo. "Designation: Swindle, I specialize in the acquisition and sell of rare fuels, fuels that would leave D-16 breaching Energon at your pedes."

The thought almost overwhelmed Airachnid's Spark at the pleasure it gave her as she visualized the lifeless optics of her opponent bowing before her as he offlined. Then, she looked over at the dealer's wares as he brought them out. Red and green Energon did nothing for her, but the dark violet Energon seemed to call her. Quickly, Airachnid seized the large container and downed its contents.

Swindle only smiled. "Keep winning in the Pits, and I'll keep that in private stock just for you. Do we have a deal?"

After that day, no bot could beat her in the Pits, save one. However as time went on, Airachnid found she needed more of the dark stuff to sustain her performance. Soon enough, her body produced Dark Energon, not that she knew what it was, out of her mundane Energon ration she received to keep her online. She wasn't stupid enough to relay this to Silas with his love of vivisection when it involved Cybertronians and, instead, opted to change the subject. "The war started for me when Arcee was still what you would call a 'narcotics officer', I believe."

Airachnid groaned as she felt Megatron's fist hit her faceplate. She was fast, but even when augmented with her special brand of Energon, she always wound up microns away from being helmless. This fight looked as if it was going to be a repeat until the black femme saw her: a blue two-wheeler femme cheering for her in the stands. Airachnid grit her denta and changed positions. She went from standing with her extra limbs for speed to standing on her pedes and began to slice and dice Megatron until the large mech flew from her to the floor of the arena under the force of her rapid blows where he lay there, motionless and yielded to her power.

Airachnid hissed in delight as she closed in on the prone form of her unmoving prey. With a quick slice through the back strut into his Spark, she could end him, here and now. With that singular thought driving her, Airachnid raised an extra limb to finish him.

"NO!" A femme voice cried out. "Let him function!"

The cry for mercy broke the Spiderbot's concentration. Airachnid looked up to see what bot would dare to rob her of her prize and found the blue optics of the same femme looking at her and quickly took the position of victory by placing her left pede on Megatron's back. The crowd roared in approval and response.

Something in Airachnid's Spark jumped when she searched the crowd of spectators and saw the blue two-wheeler smile and nod in encouragement. Airachnid's processor spun and almost overheated as she tried in vain to identify how she felt in that moment. Confusion, happiness, frustration, and desire all clumped together in a shapeless mass in Airachnid's processor as the storm of emotion flowed up from her Spark.

That night, Airachnid found her quarters raided by police bots in spite of an attack on a comedy club in the entertainment district of Kaon a few hours earlier which took most of the local police to that area. Of course, Swindle proved to be a cloaked bot as soon as Tailgate walked in the room.

"Come with us, Airachnid." Tailgate said as he glared at her, his mind made up. "Don't make this harder on yourself than it already is!"

Airachnid looked around, her honed battle instinct pinging like wild because something was missing. Airachnid received her answer as Arcee dropped from the ceiling and tackled the gladiatrix to the floor.

"Don't fight."

Airachnid's optics glimmered with a mixture of confusion and shock before the look settled into hatred. "Your betrayed me!"

Arcee only returned the outburst with a look of bewilderment aimed at Tailgate who shrugged in response.

"I think that glitchy enhancer she's on fragged her processor."

Airachnid glared hard at Tailgate. "You'll regret those words, you carrier-fragged half-bit!" The drugged-out Spiderbot looked back at Arcee, and her voice changed to a hauntingly playful tone. "I'll make sure you know my pain, Arcee. Just…wait." The Spider smiled at Arcee in a sickly fashion for the first time of many. "I will keep you in pain!"

Silas growled at at her. "I'm not your personal therapist!"

Airachnid shook her helm as she produced a large container of Dark Energon from her subspace. "Why don't we work together as a true unit?"

Silas looked up at the container with a hint of fear. He hid the trepidation expertly and held Airachnid's optics with a light glare. "What do you have in mind?"

Meanwhile at Omega One, Jack sighed…er vented as the case may be, Now with his fully Cybertronian body. It had been a long day for them all, and the sun just now began to dip below the mesa. As Jack got up to look in on everyone, he noticed Miko in perhaps the cutest position possible for her. The younger Yokai calmly dosed away on Bulkhead's huge servo with the green giant in recharge against the wall. Bumblebee seemed almost ready to ho to recharge himself, but Raf and his carrier could be heard, if Jack turned his audios up, dueling in the SAFE. Optimus anD Ratchet talked with his Mom off to the side about the day's events in hushed tones. Jack knew one thing: Between him becoming a full Prime and Miko's true self, it had been a crazy couple of days.

The day proved to be far from done with Team Prime. A moment before it happened, Arcee and Jack felt a ripple across their Bond from The Twin Matrices and started moving as detected from the relics. Before they could make it to the Ops Center, however, a hellish roar of agony ripped everyone from the3 peace of the approaching night.

"PARASITES! YOU SHALL ALL PERISH!"

Every blaster in the room reluctantly targeted Miko with the exception of Bulkhead.

Jack felt the Matrix in his Spark softly urge him up to the ailing Kitsune. "Hold your fire."

"What?!" Ratchet questioned. "Are you shorting out, Jack?!"

Jack looked closely at Miko's eyes. "Stand. Down."

True, Miko's eyes glowed familiar purple as her body stood on Bulkhead's servo. However, the unfocused and far away nature of the gaze told the young Prime Unicron's attention and thus his speech did not pertain to anyone in the room.

"I SHALL NOT BE BOUND WITH TWO INSECTS!"

Bound to two? Jack puzzled in confusion as Miko passed out once again. Not "bound in two"?

Jack looked between Arcee and Optimus to see what they maid of the odd statement buy The Chaos Bringer.

"I have a grave suspicion, Jack." Optimus said in controlled unease. "Silas found and used Dark Energon on himself."

No, Arcee thought as she felt an impressive dread rise in her tank. Airachnid wants you, Jack. If she knows Silas is your father…

…and Silas wants power, what if they enacted…? Even as the thought traveled over his Sparkbond to answer Arcee, Jack almost purged. "Aw frag!"

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