When Airachnid woke up, everything hurt. And it was dark. Very dark. She tried to move, but found she couldn't. With a cough, she settled down in her dark prison once more, her helm spinning. Where was she? What happened? Where is-
Airaneae. Where was her sister?! Her spark began pounding wildly in her chassis and she desperately tried to move. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, something moved and she kept on pushing. Smaller debris bounced off of her frame and she managed to shove parts oft he wall that fell upon her off.
But she couldn't see her sibling.
She blinked and tried to clear her optics from the dust that had fallen into them while she searched for her sister. „A-Airaneae…?" She managed to croak out and winced at how scared she sounded. That, however, was the least of her worries. She couldn't see her sister in the once-alley they had been trapped in, so she began to dig around in the pile of debris once more. She had to be there, surely. Probably all alone. And scared. And-
Airachnid froze as she lifted her energon coated servo and thousands of horrible images filled her mind. She called out her sister's name once more, this time louder and sounding even more scared. She frantically dug around in the pile of debris, recognizing parts of the walls wich stood only a few hours before. Or was it days? Weeks? Ye-
Focus. Airachnid reminded herself. Airaneae had to be here, she was sure of it. She hissed every now and then as she cut her servo or leg, although she didn't pay it much thought as she kept clawing at pieces of rubble to find what she was desperately looking for. All she found was more energon and when she lifted the next piece she gasped and her spark almost stopped.
There was a servo sticking out between the collapsed walls, it was mangled and destroyed beyond recognition. She slowly reached out with a shaking servo and lifted piece after piece, revealing more of the frame of what she hoped wasn't Airaneae. And it wasn't. The arm and helm she revealed beneath the debris were the ones of the bot who had been buried along with both siblings, the rest of him crushed by tons of rubble.
It was a small relief to know that there was still a chance her sister lived so she set out to find the younger bot once more. Hours passed and she had checked every single corner of this damned alley and the surrounding area, but her sister remained unfound. Where could she be? Maybe one of the soldiers had returned and taken her. Or maybe she had managed to free herself of their prison and was forced to flee before Airachnid had woken up.
Suddenly Airachnid noticed how quiet it was. There was not a single noise to be heard, in the whole city of Kaon. The purple femme slowly left the area she had searched thoroughly and wandered on the city's emtpy streets. Everyone was gone as far as she could see. The only bots left behind were dead, lots of soldiers and even more citizens covering the streets and alleys, the energon flowing from their frames forming small rivers that disappeared in the sewers that lead into Cybertron's underground.
As she looked around the city more, she noticed that most of Kaon lay in ruins and lots of buildings were unrecognizeable. What had happened? Obviously it must have had something to do with the soldiers who were roaming the streets a few days prior. Had they known something like this would happen? Had they intenionally caused it in hopes of getting rid of the useless, poor part of Kaon's citizen? Or was it something else entirely?
The purple femme pressed a servo against her pounding helm and squeezed her optics shut. She was exhausted from having to move all this heavy debris earlier. However, she didn't want to lay down and rest somewhere. She'd much rather find her sister and leave this city. Forever. Who knows, maybe the council was still somewhere in the city's center, hiding in their towers like cowards.
Another hour passed and she stood just outside the city's outer parts, looking at the seemingly endless landscape before her and suddenly she felt smaller than ever before. Should she leave the city? Should she stay? She didn't know. It was probably better to stay, she decided, since she could scout out some abandoned buildings for energon. Were they even abandoned? Surely she couldn't be the only one left in this city.
She trudged through the outskirts of the city and found nothing but destruction. And dead frames. The spider-bot walked for another half an hour or so before she slowly came to a stop and frowned. The area the purple femme was in seemed familiar and her spark skipped a beat as she realized where exactly she was. The purple femme began to walk a particular building, or, what was left of it. Striker's home, if you could even call it that, was utterly wrecked, like most of the city.
Unlike before, she didn't start to dig around in the once home because he couldn't possibly have survived that. He had been wounded and didn't get proper medical care, so even if he had, by some miracle, survived this chaos, Airachnid wouldn't have been able to help him. She felt suddenly overwhelmed once more. She was completely and utterly alone, had lost her best friend and sis-
No. She's alive. She had to be, and as long as no one could prove the opposite to her, then she would continue to believe so. She walked around aimlessly for a while longer before deciding to enter on of the buildings that were mostly in one piece, walking up to one of the apartments. Had she ever been in an apartment before? If she was, then she couldn't remember.
It was an unnatural feeling being in this room and she couldn't quite figure out why. She assumed it was because she had lived her life on the streets, but there was also something else. The spider-bot began to search the room for energon and when she found none she moved to the next room. There, she finally found some. Upon further searching, she found even more. Easily a dozen cubes, more than enough to last her for more than a week and easily more.
Suddenly, Airachnid felt tired. Understandibly, it was a long and exhausting day for her. She'd woken up to a destroyed city and had yet to find her sister. Her sister. Airachnid felt a stab of pain in her spark. The femme just now noticed how terribly she missed the younger bot. During the day she was more of in a trance, everything had just felt so surreal. But now, the force of everything that had happened hit her like a punch in the face.
She curled up on the floor, leaning against the wall in furthest, darkest corner in the room. There was a berth she could've recharged in, but she didn't want to. It just didn't sit right with her. Airaneae should be here, right next to her, but she wasn't. Something wet dripped from the femme's optics and she quickly wiped it away, refusing to admit that she was crying, even if she was alone. Completely alone.
With a heavy spark, she drifted off into an uneasy recharge, hugging her knees close to her chassis if only to have something to hold onto.
A few hours before…
Airaneae screamed as the walls around them collapsed and her sister dragged her away by the servo before she could've been crushed by a large boulder. Suddenly, Airachnid stopped and Airaneae ran into her sister's back, and then the debris fell upon them.
She woke up only a few minutes later, her helm ringing and vision blurry. It was so incredibly loud everywhere. Gunshots. Screams. The occasional sound of an explosion. She shoved some debris off of her and looked around, ducking when someone passed the collapsed alley she was in. Her sister was nowhere to be seen and so she climbed down the pile and hid in a corner.
It was a miracle her legs still functioned, or that she was alive at all. She dashed from the alley when she thought no one was looking and ran down the street, looking for a safe place to hide. Does a safe place even exist here? Has one ever existed at all? She wondered, failing to notice a soldier perching on the roof, aiming at her. Something exploded next to her and the force of it threw her to the ground. She felt the heat and instinctively curled up, tucking the legs on her back closer to her frame.
After a few seconds, the green bot dared to look up, although everything was a bit blurry. She soon found out why. She was crying. She sat there on the ground, crying her optics out instead of doing something. Anything. Anything to stop this madness. But what could she do? Airachnid would know, but she wasn't here. She was alone, completely and utterly alone. And no one was there to help her.
Suddenly, a voice broke through the chaos. It almost felt like Airaneae was dreaming. Help. It seemed so surreal that someone helped her besider her sister. „-you hear me? Hey!" The feminine voice shouted and someone crouched down before her. While it wasn't her sister, the spider-bot was glad she was no longer alone. Airaneae stared up at the femme with wide optics and the bot reached out with a servo, pulling her to her pedes.
The femme was red and incredibly tall, almost double as tall a Airaneae herself. And she was bulky. Heavy, red armor protected her frame, „We need to leave. Now." And then she pulled the younger bot along with her. „W-What's happening? Why are they attacking us?" Airaneae asked the bulky femme who looked back to her briefly before suddenly covering the green bot's frame with her own, deflecting dozens of bullets that were aimed for them. „I'll explain late. But first, we need to get out of here before we both die."
Airaneae nodded and tightened her servo around that of her savior, trying to keep up with the larger bot. She was mostly dragged along and tripped every now and then, so at some point the older femme picked her up and sprinted towards the city's center. „Scrap." She heard the red femme mutter and suddenly she was set down onto the ground. The were hiding around a corner, the older femme transforming one of her servos into a gun to shoot a mech who had lifted his servo to shoot at them.
The large femme muttered something to herself before turning around to face Airaneae. „Look, there are guards guarding the entrance to the city's center and they'd take you to the other children if they saw you." The femme paused for a second and checked for anyone that might approach them. „The problem is, so many children in one location are a pefect target. For anyone. My team and i were ordered that if we found a child somewhere that we bring it back to the others."
Airaneae held her breath and waited anxiously for her to continue. „But i'm not going to bring you there." The green bot released the breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding and looked at the other bot with wide, confused optics. „Why?" Was the only thing she said. „I told you already, you'd all be an easy targ-„ She was cut off by the smaller bot. „No no, i mean, why did you capture all those children in the first place?"
The bulky femme looked confused. „What? We didn't capture them, we saved them. This gladiator , Megatronus, started a war and-" Once again, she was cut off by the smaller femme who looked quite shocked. „He started a war? But you were- are the ones who forced us to live on the streets for all our lifes." They didn't get a chance to argue further as an explosion shook the alley walls all around them.
The larger femme turned to Airaneae with a serious expression on her face. „Listen, we need to get out of her as fast as possible. I have a ship that we can use to flee, but we somehow need to sneak you past the guards." She paused for a moment, frowned and casther optics down, then murmured, „But how do we do that?" The smaller bot blinked and gave a small smile. „Well, i may have a solution to that."
The bulky femme looked up with a questioning gaze and her mouth dropped open as the smaller femme's bright colours faded to a dull and lifeless grey. Once she overcame her shock, the red femme smirked, „I think it might be better if you matched my paintjob, don't you think?" Airaneae nodded and changed the colour of her frame yet again to match that of her companion. „Okay, i'm going to pick you up so it'll be easier for you to blend in, is that alright?" The now red spider-bot nodded and the larger femme picked her up, Keeping her close to her body with one arm as Airaneae tried to spread out her limbs as equally as possible to blend in more.
Both of them were nervous as they neared the gate wich had seperated poor and rich bots for decades. As they approached, guards raised their weapons and one of them ordered the bulky femme to state her designation. „Ember, sir." She stated in a monotone voice. The guard stared at them for what seemed like an eternity and finally, finally motioned for them to pass through the gate.
Airaneae carefully opened her optics and looked around a bit and she almost gasped at what she saw. Huge skyscrapers were everywhere, and while she had seem them from afar more than once in her life, being so close to them just made her feel so incredibly tiny.
As her companion carried her through the streets of the city's center, the spider-bot noticed something else, the streets were clean. There was not a single piece of trash to be found, no dried energon coating the sidewalks, or loose cables lying around from an offlined bot. And the buildings were also incredibly clean, not a single spot staining the walls.
While Airaneae was busy looking at the city with awe, Ember had already carried her to their destination, a hangar with a large ship inside, massive cannons mounted on each side, the tips blackened, indicating that they had been used before. Ember set the awed spider-bot down and walked towards the ship, lifting her arm as some of the armor slid aside, typing in something on a hidden screen. The door of the ship opened with a hiss and a ramp lowered down towards the ground. „Quick, go inside before someone sees you." Ember instructed her and she turned around, looking at the bot with a frown.
„Won't you come too?" She asked, halfway up the ramp as her usual green and golden colours faded back in, and the other bot smiled in return. „Yes, but i need to get something first, you are not the only that i'm bringing away from this chaos." Airaneae felt hope flare in her spark, maybe her sister was on board. It was unlikely, but maybe she was there. Airaneae trudged up the ramp and as soon as she walked through the door it shut behind her and she heard as the ramp was tucked in to wherever it was before.
Immediately she noticed two young bots staring at her from a corner of the ship, looking frightened. Airaneae stood there for a full minute, then cleared her throat and spoke. „Have you… um, have you seen my sister?" Silence. „She looks like me just… just bigger, you know? She's older than me." Finally, one of them spoke up. „We're the only ones here, well, except for you." The small voice of a mech rang out. „Ember brought us here…" The other, a femme, added. A few minutes of silence passed and Airaneae settled down against the wall opposite of the other bots. „Are you siblings? You look kinda… alike." She asked and tilted her helm, they did very much look alike, almost as if they were… „We're twins. I'm Athena and this is my brother, Vortex." The spider-bot smiled and introduced herself as well. „My name is Airaneae." Nothing more was said after that, but the awkward tension and fear was gone.
Almost an hour passed before Ember returned, peeking her helm through the door and looking at Airaneae. „Hey, um, could you help me carry something?" The spider-bot hooked her servo into a crevice of the ship's inner walls and pulled herself up, walking towards the exit. Before she could even place a pede on the ground she gasped, looking at what Ember brought with her.
There were huge piles of energon at the base of the ramp, 6 of them almost stacked as high as her. „H-How…? Why did you- What?!" The femme was at a loss of words, never had she seen so much energon in one day, possibly not even in a year. The other femme chuckled. „Well, we're going to need all that once we leave the city." Then she added, „And possibly this planet…" The bulky femme picked up the first cubes as Airaneae stared at her as if she'd just grown two helms.
„Why would we leave Cybertron?" She seemed very confused and terrified. She had, after all, not even been outside of Kaon, so the prospect of leaving her home planet scared her, rightfully so. Ember sighed and set the cubes down, turning to face the spider-bot fully. „As you've probably noticed, war broke out in Kaon and spread onto other cities all around Cybertron. Vos, Tarn, Iacon and so on." She paused das she saw the shocked expression on the younger bot's face. „What?"
Airaneae opened her mouth, then closed it and opened it once again. „It spread onto other cities already? That's horrible!" She cast her gaze onto the ground, looking sparkbroken. „Indeed, it is." Continued Ember. „Due to the cities attacking each other with large bombs, Cybertron's core was severely damaged and will likely go out." The green femme looked up at her with wide optic's. „Do… do you mean, Cybertron will… die?" The larger femme nodded and confirmed her fear. „I'm sorry."
Time was frozen for Airaneae. Her home planet would die, and there was nothing she could do. Cybertron's spark would extinguish and slowly but surely, everything and everyone on the planet would do the same. „While Cybertron will eventually die, there would still be eneough energon reserves for lots of people to live on for a few centuries. But that's not why we're leaving. Rumors have been spread that a nuclear attack has been planned on Kaon, although from whom we don't know."
The smaller femme was at a loss for words. Someone planned to destroy Kaon? „But what about all the innocents who live here?" The green femme asked. Ember shrugged. „As i said, i've heard only rumors, it could've also been completely false what i heard. But we need to leave the city anyways. Nuclear attacks might sound horrible, but you don't want to know what happens if other cities decide to come here and attack the council, where all the children reside currently. Or worse. That's why we are going to leave. Now."
Both of them started loading the energon into the ship in silence. Whenever Airaneae came onboard with arms full of energon cubes, she could see the twins, Athena and Vortex, play or just talking to each other. Almost an hour passed before they managed to load everything into the storage room of the ship and secure everythig so the cubes wouldn't shatter and spill everywhere once they took off.
The green spider-bot was exhausted after having helped Ember bring all those cubes onboard, so she let herself fall into one of the two co-pilots seats, wich were only a few feet behind the captain's seat. „Comfortable?" Ember asked, amusement lacing her voice. The sleepy bot only nodded and murmured a 'yes' before closing her optics.
She groaned in annoyance as she was shook a few seconds after and groggily optened her optics to a smiling Ember. „C'mon, we have three cabins with far more comfortable berths in there, you can have one." Ember grabbed her servo and pulled the tired femme to her pedes, leading her down a small hallway to the three cabins. One was at the end of the hallway, the captain's cabin, and the other two were on each sides. „You can choose wichever you want, really, i don't care."
The green femme looked at each cabin door, completely baffled that she was going to sleep in a room, her own, at that. She turned around with tearful optics, a smile on her face. „Thank you." Ember smiled and patted her shoulder. „No problem. I'm going to catch few hours of sleep to before we depart. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to wake me, okay?" Airaneae nodded and attempted to open the door only to notice a keypad next to it. The larger femme noticed and told her the code before vanishing in the captain's cabin.
Airaneae entered her room and the door slid shut behind her, leaving her in total darkness for a few seconds before she managed to find the light switch. The room was small and simple, a berth stood on one side, a desk on the other with a lamp mounted on the wall above it. Beneath the desk were a few drawers she could've opened, but was too tired to. Instead she turned on the not so bright lamp above the desk, flicked off the main light and climbed onto the soft berth, almost immediately falling asleep.
A/N: Thank you for reading this chapter! I hope you liked it and would like to know what you think of it. Please let me know if there are any grammatical errors in this or other chapters. Thanks. Btw, this is my longest chapter so far. :D