Even with the noise that Optimus heard in Airachnid's comm, the island was large enough that he could barely pinpoint where a disturbance could be. It took precious seconds for his comm unit could pick up her co-ordinates, but even with them Optimus knew it would be unlikely that she- or the beast- would still be there by the time he reached them. But at least he knew where to start.
The co-ordinates took him to the other side of the island, pelting past vine mazes and vaulting over fallen trees and scuffed dirt pits. He burst out into a wrecked clearing, littered with shredded ferns and uprooted trees leaving a trail deeper into the forest. There were energon stains in the dirt under his peds, but he doubted it was Airachnid's or Scorpia's. Hoped, at least.
Following the trail showed him more destruction, grass and bushes torn under colossal claw marks gouged into the packed dirt. He tried to tread cautiously, anticipating an ambush by whatever monster was prowling nearby. Sunlight streaming through tree gaps occasionally blinded him, and when he heard the distant roar-echoed crash of foliage he was lost in a flash of light as he whirled towards it. He grunted as his optics tried to recalibrate themselves and he leaned against a tree trunk, trying to get himself into shade. He caught a glimpse of dark grey metal rippling under gold and red steel, a lashing tail slipping out of sight and the stench of something raw and smoky rolled towards him. It reminded Optimus of the fumes that primitive energon processing gave off; the streets of Tarn and Kaon had permanent clouds of the stuff draped over skytops and laced in the air. It reminded him of Megatronus. He didn't like it.
But he forced his olfactories closed and followed the reek and all its bad memories, more grimy grey metal disappearing into a tree cluster when he emerged from his hiding spot. His previous assumption at the Predacons' extinction was beginning to change as he gauged the size of the thing's shadow screening through the trees ahead. It looked as big as Alpha Trion, maybe even more so. Optimus almost wished he'd brought Wheeljack with him.
He emerged from cover again, bolstering his peds against the earth quaking beneath giant steps, his audios ringing from a grating roar and the frown under his battle mask growing with every worry-racked klick. If he was having second thoughts about facing such a beast, how would Airachnid have fared against it? Worst, how terrified would Scorpia be?
That was all assuming they were both still alive.
Ahead, all he could see of the creature was the swishing tail, razor end catching the sunlight and throwing it back off down its undulating back. He tried to associate it with anything else he might have seen on Cybertron, but Even from this distance he heard a heavy hum of vents opening and closing, the whirr of cooling fans beating back the tropical heat and the unmistakable growl of a predator on the prowl. Hopefully Airachnid was well out of sight, leaving Optimus to dispatch the hunter himself.
With the thud of its footsteps vibrating through the ground and almost unbalancing him, he planned to sneak up on the thing and see exactly what he was dealing with. The trees were too drawn back from the rubbled clearing to offer him any decent cover, and there was the danger of being trapped underneath them if that tail decided to whip around and knock an entire line down. That only left the open, trampled grass as a route towards the beast, and if the thing decided to turn around all he would have to defend himself was his shotguns.
As he timed his approach, Optimus couldn't help but remember something Ironhide had once said, just after the war had started and when the Matrix still burned its foreign presence in his spark chamber. "Them guns ain't gonna do ya' no good when there's Deceptipunks left, right, and fallin' out the fraggin' sky, Prime. Six nanoklicks reload time, best possible fire rate'a two shots a klick, solid plasma rounds?" He tutted and sighed, then slapped Prime's nearest servo. "Primus sake, Optimus, yer' the fraggin' leader a' our sorry aft army and yer' brandishin' pre-Golden Age weaponry! See if Ratchet'll let ya' get upgrades- no, make 'im get you somethin' just a little better than those things." Both Ironhide and his worn advice were long gone, and ever since he spoke those words Optimus had only heeded them after Archa Seven, letting Ratchet graft a rapid fire trigger and extra ammo wells into his gun mechanisms, but nothing more. He wasn't as attached to his weapons as he knew other mechs could be, but it was more a matter that back then, when he was still lost within the depths of the infinite wisdom of the Primes, he wanted to preserve what little he had left of Orion Pax, of his original body. He just had to hope that his shotguns still weren't as useless as Ironhide had decreed them to be.
But he could ponder on that later. Now, he was Optimus Prime with a duty to perform.
A very large, very threatening, very angry duty.
Closer to the creature he could see better the folds of metal rippling as the titanic body moved, the spiked spinal strut arching out sharp rib-like structures that shined like black sunkissed steel. He couldn't see the front or sides without compromising stealth, but the metal was clearly Cybertronian, which only baffled Prime further. He'd never seen any native animal as large or lumbering as this on Cybertron, not even in the Rust Sea. Not to mention the question of how such a thing landed on Earth without either Autobots or Decepticons knowing, and whether this thing was 'Bot or 'Con...
The earthquakes paused, the swishing tail hovering in the air and looming long and low over Optimus. The sound of vents was pitched up, growls now a low contemplative rumble. If he could see its optics, Optimus was sure they would be wide and searching for prey. His shotguns whirred as a neck bulging with cables swung a behemoth head towards him- as it turned out, the optics were red and narrowed, set into deep pits astride a wide muzzle full of denta, lip plates barely fitting around them, even when they were pulled back. Vocal fluids frothed and dripped from the daggers bared at Optimus, fat droplets splattering on the ground as the monster began to walk closer.
"Fellow Cybertronian!" Somehow Prime amplified his vocaliser louder than the ambient growls filling the air, edging backwards and blinking from the wave of corrupt stench billowing between grinding teeth. "I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and guardian of the natives of this planet." He imagined Airachnid rolling her optics at him if she was nearby, as he was hoping, and it gave him some strength to continue. "On my authority as Prime and by the power of the Matrix, I command you to stand down and submit!"
He didn't know if the brute could even understand him, let alone reply, but the head turned slightly to the side and the lip plates drew forward, entire body turning itself around and claws chewing up the ground as the taloned peds repositioned themselves. Optimus didn't dare move while caught in the red headlights glaring down at him, and his vents were scarcely whistles in the wind. The tense seconds passing between them were marked only by the rhythmic swish swish of the beast's tail, sunlight still glinting across its sword and taunting Optimus' focus. The slobber on the denta was beginning to dry as they moved apart, making room for a snarl of rumbling, bitten words pushing out between them.
"Me Grimlock no care about Prime! Me Grimlock KING!"
There was an instant of confusion before Optimus felt himself land against a wall of trees as the tail he so warily regarded came whipping around and slamming into him. A scattering of warnings sprang up on Optimus' HUD as his optics flickered, servos sprawled in the undergrowth as his entire frame groaned from the hard impact. The earthquakes had started again, and were coming closer towards him with every second he spent trying to pull himself back onto his peds. His weapons had to be switched out as he braced his servos on a tree branch, leaving him as vulnerable as a drone set against a Metrotitan. But as he tried to slow his vents and let the pain in his newly warped cables ease, his processor only just analyzed what the beast had said.
Grimlock...
''Grimlock?!' Optimus had heard the name before, he had no doubt about that. During the war, on top of the Wreckers and the Aerialbots, there was the Lightening Strike Coalition Force. They were mostly thought of as a poor man's version of the Wreckers, with all the cockiness and none of the discipline, led by the mech who called himself Grimlock and went out of his way to oppose every order Optimus put towards him. The rest of his coalition wasn't any better than their leader- Snarl liked to live up to his name with every word he spoke at command meetings, and it was worth a prayer to Primus if Swoop ever showed up to one. Even so, their fateful disappearance (following disobedience of direct orders, he had to note) had struck a blow to Optimus ranks, and losing an entire squadron didn't do favours for his public image in the optics of already skeptical soldiers.
But now their leader was here, changed into some kind of... animal. And about to charge right into him if he didn't get out of the way in five klicks.
Rolling out of the way, Optimus heard the former Autobot-turned beast collide with the trees where he sheltered just moments ago, and took up a new defensive stance with his shotguns.
"Grimlock, I know you know who I am!" Optimus continued, his booming voice bolstered with the knowledge that this wasn't some kind of Decepticon-engineered threat. "And I know you can understand me, so I will not ask again. Stand. Down!"
The drooling muzzle shook fiercely, splattering fluid again. "Me Grimlock no follow Prime! Me do what me want!" Optimus never remembered Grimlock as a well-versed mech, but this new speech of his was more suiting of a week old sparkling than a commando unit leader. But if this was a new body he was occupying, then it was unlikely that much of his processor would have survived such extensive host reformatting.
Taking quick steps backwards, Optimus thought over a new strategy.
"And what does Grimlock want?" he asked carefully, his battlemask scorching from the heat of his vents trapped against it. 'Primus, let me leave here to find Airachnid, at least.' He had to believe that she managed to escape the area with Scorpia, at least with him distracting Grimlock now.
The brute tilted his head again, almost surprised that he wasn't challenged again. His strange smaller front servos drew together, his optics narrowing and looking away for a klick before spreading his jaws wide.
"Me Grimlock want SPIDER LADY!" And the confusion was back as fresh as ever.
"You want... Airachnid?" Optimus wondered if his impact had damaged more than just his armour as he tapped on his audios. But Grimlock's earnest nod proved that he heard right.
"Me want pretty spider lady and little girl!" he said, his tail starting to wag back and forth. "Me want family! Me be good sire!" In the midst of his excitement his oversized olfactory ports flared and his lip plates made a shape as close to a frown as possible.
"Prime no be good sire," he decreed. "Prime too dumb and weak! And ugly!" Optimus wasn't sure how the last one was relevant, but he knew better than to argue when he was within snapping distance of Grimlock's jaws.
"'Spider lady' is under my care, Grimlock," he said slowly, shifting his position on his peds. "And you tried to hunt her like some rogue Insecticon!"
"Not hunt! Me Grimlock not hurt anyone! Me wanted to catch spider lady and girl! Me Grimlock be good sire!" he insisted, bobbing his head up and down. Optimus suppressed a sigh, wondering how he could have forgotten how stubborn the original Grimlock was.
"And if Grimlock agrees not to harm me, will Grimlock help find 'spider lady' again?" His weary question was met with a defiant growl and more head shakes.
"Me Grimlock no help Prime! Me find family by self! Me Grimlock kin-" Before he could finish his proclamation a black blurr suddenly launched onto Grimlock's muzzle, lost in the motion of him trying to shake it off with an annoyed roar. But the white starting to spread over his jaws muffled his cry, jolting his head to a stop as it was caught in a stringy mass of webbing gluing his mouth closed and his head to a side of his neck. Even as Airachnid stood on his restrained head he was starting to pull free of the bonds, but at least she was unharmed. More webbing was spiralling out of her palms as she worked to pacify the beast below her.
"What are you waiting for, Prime, the return of the Cybertron Knights?" she was yelling down at Optimus, still stunned that she was alive- alive- and well enough to be taunting him "Get over here and put your aft to use for once!" The effect of her sharp words was dampened somewhat by the sparkling cooing wrapped in the safety of her back legs, but the armour dents Optimus was still rubbing had taught him that sometimes he should just shut up.