During the next few days Airachnid and Airaneae were forced to watch as more and more younglings and sparklings were taken away from their families. In this time, the two femmes never dared to go down onto the streets, instead opting to stay as far away as they possibly could.
There was only one major problem wich they couldn't ignore any longer. They had run out of energon yesterday and were desperately looking for some while also avoiding the guards roaming the streets. It was rare to see a child freely walking upon the streets since the guards had began to capture them a few days prior.
Airachnid peeked out from inside a mostly wrecked building, only the wall she and her sister hid behind still standing. The purple femme narrowed her optics and watched the streets before finally, after what seemed like hours, proclaiming that it was safe enough to abandon their cover. She grabbed her sister's servo firmly and dashed away from the building, swiftly moving between the bots occupying Kaon's streets.
They kept their optics fixated on their target about 50 feet away from them. It was a relatively young bot, wich was a quite surprising sight considering what occured in the past few days. However, that was not why they were after the bot. He had two energon cubes in his arms, wich he tried to hide in a futile attempt by hunching over a bit, trying to cover them with his frame.
Airachnid turned to look at her sister. „We need to split up." She whispered to the younger bot. Airaneae's optics widened. „W-What?! But what if-!" She was cut off as her sister waved a servo in the air to silence her. „Don't worry." Airachnid said, „I saw the guards checking this area earlier, so they shouldn't come back for a while." The green bot frowned at that. „They shouldn't? But what if they do!" She stressed, clearly not happy with her sister's plan.
Airachnid checked for their target to make sure he didn't wander off without them noticing. They couldn't miss this opportunity. They needed that energon. However, they also needed someone to look out for any guards who might be around. Even if Airachnid had told her sister that they had already checked this area, she still didn't wanted to be caught off guard. Or caught at all.
The purple femme looked back to her sister. „Listen, you are going to hide on one of the roofs to look out for any guards or soldiers while i go and get the energon, okay?" Her sister nodded. „Good." Before Airachnid could wander off, she was tightly embraced by her sister from behind.
„Be careful." Airaneae murmured. The older femme turned around and Airaneae looked up at her sister with worried optics. Airachnid smiled reassuringly and hugged her sister back before going after her target. She glanced back once and watched as her sister climbed up and perched onto the edge of a roof. After she made sure her sister had reached her destination safely she dissappeared into the crowd.
The purple spider-bot searched the crowd for her target and smiled almost predatorily when she saw him. He was nervous, optics always flicking back and forth. Airachnid hid behind larger bots and slowly but surely made her way closer to the bot and when she was finally close enough, she shot a web at his pedes to trip him, wich he did. The mech cried out as he hit the ground, the cubes almost falling from his grasp and shattering on the hard ground. Almost.
His cry had caught the attention of other bots and before they had the chance to approach the fallen mech, Airachnid was upon him, wrestling the energon cubes from his arms and once she had tucked the cubes safely under her arms, she pushed through the crowd, ascending the wall with the help of her spider-legs. She immediately looked back to make sure no one was following her. After she was sure she was alone she went to find her sister, leaving a confused bot and a startled crowd behind.
Not a minute later she found her sister hiding on one of the roofs, still gazing upon the crowd. Apparently, the younger bot hadn't seen her sister climb the building a few moments prior. Airachnid smirked and sneaked up on her sister, and with a shout of ‚Boo!' she wrapped an arm around her sibling from behind. Airaneae shrieked and struggled before she realised that her 'attacker' was only her sister. She leaned back and tried to calm her breathing as Airachnid laughed.
„N-Never do that again." Airaneae panted and narrowed her eyes as her sister only laughed harder. After a few minutes, Airachnid had calmed down and they both settled down on a roof a few blocks away, peacefully drinking their energon while listening to the traffic below.
However, the peace wouldn't last for long, apparently. A scream pierced the air and gun shots could be heard a few blocks away. Airachnid motioned for her sister to stay in place while she carefully peeked over the edge, straining to see where the commotion came from. All she could see were bots running along the sreets, scrambling to get as far away as possible from whatever had caused them to panic.
She watched as slower bots were quite literally swallowed by the oncoming mass, trampled on the ground and ceasing to move once the mass had moved on. Suddenly, she heard Airaneae gasp and whipped around, her spark beating fast in her chassis. She was ready to attack anyone who dared to came too close to them for comfort. She sighed in relief when she saw no one but them on the roof. Airaneae was also looking over the edge and had apparently seen something interesting.
Airachnid crouched down next to her sister and saw what made her sister gasp. Her eyes widened when she saw Megatronus hiding around a corner, lots of armed mechs at his side. One of them she recgonized, his name was Soundwave. He was almost as famous as Megatronus and nearly as much as skilled in fight as the other gladiator. Maybe they were even equally good.
Megatronus touched the side of his helm and the two siblings saw as he spoke somthing into his comm. What he said, however, was completely lost to them as they were too far away. „Get down." Airachnid hissed and pushed the green femme down. She saw soldiers roaming the streets, sneaking from alley to alley, their guns raised. They had yet to see Megatronus and the other mechs hiding around the corner, most likely planning to ambush them.
Suddenly, Megatronus dashed from his hiding spot with such a speed even the soldiers were not prepared for. They didn't even get a chance to shoot as the gladiator and his fellow mechs shot them down, and just as quickly as they came, they ducked into another alley next to the building the two spider-bot's were perched on. „Did you see that?" Airaneae squealed almost a little too loudly. „That was Megatronus! And Soundwave, too!" the younger bot crawled to the other side oft he building and leaned over the edge, an excited grin on her face.
Airachnid's optics almost bulged out of her helm and she pulled her sister back and out of view from anyone who had might been in the alley below them. „What are you doing?!", the purple femme hissed. „You could have been seen!" Airanea blinked a few times before realising in what danger she just put herself in. They didn't know if there were still soldiers in this area and-
Airaneae's thoughts were cut off by gunshots and cries of pain a few blocks away, followed by a big explosion that the two femmes could feel the force of even from their distance. Suddenly, wave after wave of armed soldiers rushed around the corner, splitting up and searching the streets, shooting any mech who dared to try to stop them. „Get down!" Airachnid hissed just as a spray of bullets soared over their helms.
Airaneae clung to her sister and squeezed her optic's shut, her small frame already changing to a duller colour to blend in with the building, although it was in vain. The twin suns of Cybertron were shining brightly, making it hard to blend in. Her ability was more of use at night or in any dark places, like caves. However, now it was useless, even more so since she was laying next to her sister, who could be easily seen due to her bright pink and black frame.
Suddenly, they heard a roaring sound in the distance an das they looked back they could see a group of seekers flying over the city, shooting at the soldiers who began to run for cover as soon as they saw them. Some tried to shoot the fliers from the sky, but they easily avoided the fire and shot missiles at their targets. Airachnid peeked over the edge carefully and saw that the alley was now unoccupied. „Let's get down."
She had noticed some of the soldiers entering the building, mostly in groups as they brought heavy weaponry with them. They most likely intended to try and take the seekers out, although they'd probably have a hard time with that. Seekers were the fastest fliers to ever grace this planet. No one could keep up with them once they were in the air.
As soon as the soldiers stormed the roofs of several buildings, both siblings jumped over the edge and climbed down to hide in the alley. Airaneae's spark was beating furiously inside of her as she crouched down next to her sister. Every few seconds, a soldier would run past the alley they hid in, some even used it for cover a few seconds before running off once again. For a few minutes, everything was silent, the only sound they heard was gunshots in the distance, but it was too far away for them to be worried.
„Are they gone?" Airaneae whispered and curiously looked over her sister's shoulder, but didn't see anything. Airachnid narrowed her optic's and motioned for her sister to stay back as she carefully crept towards the exit of the alley. As luck would have it, as soon as she emerged from the alley, a bot ran around the corner a little bit further down the street, followed by two soldiers. She ducked back in and ran to her sister, nearly toppling her over as she scrambled to hide behind the pile of rubble that had fallen from the walls at some point during this chaos.
Both femmes flinched as they heard the bot scream in pain. Airachnid thought he was done for, but just imagine her surprise as he came limping in their alley, whimpering and crying. Her surprise was soon replaced with fear as the other two bots rounded the corner. They were snickering to each other, both having transformed one servo into a gun. Smoke billowed around the hot ends of the weapons they had and they trudgged forward slowly and menacingly as the wounded bot scrambled back further until he hit the wall and could no longer get away.
The purple femme squinted as she looked between the small gaps of the pile of rubble they were hidden behind and inspected the two soldiers. Maybe she didn't pay enough attention before, but she noticed that these two bots wore an emblem on both of their chassis's. She recognized it as the Autobot's symbol and immediately her fear turned to anger. Autobots. Of course. They lived in the city's center and served the council. The one's who made bots like her and Airaneae live on the streets like mechanimals.
Airachnid prayed that they wouldn't see them, although her chances of not being noticed were slim as the armed bots got closer and closer. One of them nudged the other's side and transformed his weapon away, pulling out something from his subspace. „Hey, you know what? We haven't tried out these explosives and i wanna know what they can do. So, whaddya think?" His companion snickered and answered, "Let's eliminate this scum." He pushed a button on what looked like a bomb and threw it into the alley.
Airachnid's optic widened in horror and she dragged her sister up and tried to run away before the bomb went off. They had no luck whatsoever as the bomb exploded before they could flee and the buildings around them collapsed. Airachnid had to stop as the walls came crashing down before them and the last thing she saw was as she and her sister were buried beneath tons of rubble. After that, everything went black.
A/N: Hey, another chapter! Yay! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and enjoy the ones that are going to come soon. Reviews are very much appreciated and are a good motivator. :D
Edit: Corrected some spelling mistakes here and there. oof. Please tell me if you find some more, thanks in advance. :D