Chapter 2: Dealing with the situation 

Although she was sure that there would be worse ones to come, Blackarachnia decided that today had to rank as possibly the worst morning of her life, not to mention the most embarrassing. Finding the Maximal Airazor in her bed had been, to use a massive understatement, something of a shock, their mutual state of undress even more so. Not surprisingly, the spider's first question that morning had been something along the lines of:

"Pray tell, whither brings you to my bed sans clothing?"

Only the version that passed Blackarachnia's lips was more profane and at a much higher pitch.

After that both femmebots busied themselves with dressing themselves, resolutely avoiding looking each other in the face. As Blackarachnia snapped her breastplate back into position she gazed around her quarters and just barely managed to keep from gawping as she spied a number of sexual paraphernalia lying haphazardly around the room. A whip, handcuffs, nineteen cans of whipped cream (all empty), a plastic dolphin with battery powered fins and an extra long snout that Blackarachnia recognized as Waspinator's and a bucket of soapy frogs.

Blackarachnia's eyes widened comically as she put on her helmet without scooping her long ebony hair up while staring at this last item. Soapy frogs?!?

"Uh…Blackarachnia?" Airazor spoke up, causing the black widow to spin around to face her.

"Didn't I just tell you not to speak?" Blackarachnia said, her voice not carrying the annoyance she was feeling.

"Yeah, but…"

"But nothing!"

Annoyance now in full bloom, Blackarachnia walked over to the window and pressed a button on the control panel. Instantly the glass retracted into the frame, letting in the crisp morning air.

"Well, off you go."

Airazor blinked in surprise. "You're just going to let me go?"

The thought of taking Airazor prisoner had crossed Blackarachnia's mind and had been dumped with lightning speed, the chief reason being that there was a chance, however slight, that one of her fellow Predacons would find out just how she had managed to capture the falcon. She cared little for their opinions about her but she didn't intend to spend the rest of eternity putting up with their puerile innuendo either.   

Looking at Airazor once again, Blackarachnia was momentarily struck by how…cute she looked, her shoulder length white hair framing her face in an almost angelic manner. Mentally shaking herself, she noticed something else.

"Look, just put on your helmet and fly back to your base would you?"

"That's what I was trying to ask you for."

"Huh?"

"You're wearing it."

Turning to a wall mounted mirror Blackarachnia saw that she had accidentally put Airazor's helmet on by mistake. Taking it off she tossed it at the falcon, who slipped it on quickly.

"Now get the slag out of here. And if you breathe a word of this to anyone I swear – "

Airazor looked at the black widow as if she had just suggested a repeat of last night's show. "Are you loopy? As if I'd WANT this broadcasted to my friends!"

With that, Airazor converted to Beast Mode and flew out of the Darkside, leaving the seething Blackarachnia behind her.

*****

As Airazor flew towards the Axalon, her mind refusing to give up the image of that moment in Blackarachnia's quarters (not to mention the six hours spent there last night), she became aware of Gilgamesh One below her. Perching on the roof of the very bar she and Blackarachnia had accidentally met up, Airazor cursed the city's existence for the first time.

Gilgamesh One was founded by a group of people who were apparently born without an ability to understand a situation. Airazor had been there, alongside Optimus, Rattrap and Rhinox to meet the settlers the day their massive fleet of ships had arrived via a transwarp portal and immediately began to build the city. She had watched as Optimus tried in vain to explain the fact that there was a war going on to the settler's leader, who countered this argument with the fact that the ground was ultra-cheap and therefore a prime bit of real estate to snap up. It was all somewhat irrelevant anyway, seeing as how half of the city was built and open for business already in what has been now recognized as the hardest day's work ever. Optimus had been fairly angry that day, mostly because Airazor, Rattrap and Rhinox had deserted him to try out Gilgamesh One's brand new Casino. He had left predicting that it would bring about changes in the Beast Wars.

Of course, he was right, but possibly not in the sense he had expected. A few days after Gilgamesh One's grand opening, the Beast Wars had, to be blunt, stalled. This was thanks solely to the almost unholy number of attractions and shops that littered the streets of what was one of the biggest cities ever built. Various members of each faction would go missing on the day of a battle and be found later in the city, trying out the cinemas, the fine restaurants or the many, many bars.

Blocking the image that the word 'bar' induced, Airazor took to the skies and resumed her slight to the Axalon.

*****

Back on the Darkside it was a case of so far so good for Blackarachnia. It was times like these that she was glad that all of the Darkside's living quarters were sound proofed, given the amount of noise she and Airazor made last night.

Angrily she punched a bulkhead with her claw. That damned drunken night…

It wasn't the humiliation that made her so angry, nor was it the fact that she had let her defenses down so easily.

No, the most galling thing about this whole sordid affair was the fact that she had enjoyed the experience. Every single second of it. And to Blackarachnia, who had never considered herself, to put it crudely, as a player for the 'other team', it was a matter which was causing any manner of confusion.

As she walked, the spider was dimly aware of Terrorsaur and Waspinator talking to each other at the end of the adjacent corridor. A question from Terrorsaur brought her attention around.

"So, what did ya think of last's night show?"

Stopped in her tracks, Blackarachnia listened in on the discussion.

"Wazzzzpinator liked it!" the wasp replied, sipping his mug of energon. "Not know bodies could bend that far."

Blackarachnia stiffened slightly. They couldn't have…

"Yeah", Terrorsaur chuckled lewdly. "Ya know what the best part was? When Blackarachnia beast-moded and…"

The pterodactyl was cut off in his reminisces by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Turning around, he and Waspinator watched a very pissed off Blackarachnia stalk towards them, claws twitching and eyes a deep red. All at once Terrorsaur felt a surge of horror even greater than the time Megatron survived his assassination attempt and meted out some retribution. Waspinator, his survival instincts honed to an extremely high degree by years of bodily harm, immediately shifted to a happy demeanor in the desperate hope that the spider hadn't heard their conversation.

"Oh! How is spider-bot this morn – URK!"

With a deceptively sweet smile Blackarachnia grabbed Waspinator and Terrorsaur by the throats and lifted them off the ground.

"Hello, boys", she said before her voice took on a more sinister tone. "Let's have a chat."

To be continued…