This came a lot later than I was expecting it to, even compared to how long later chapters have taken for me to put up. January wasn't a good month at all for me- school work, exams, and just a general mood of depression that really sucked any motivation or drive I might have had to write out of me.
I'm better now though, so I decided to get this finished and out before it has a chance to hit again (which is why it's much shorter than I'd like). On that consideration though, there's no reliable way for me to say if the next chapter will take this long or if this was just a crappy phase that'll never happen again. I'm hoping it doesn't.
But I apologise in advance if it does. Whatever happens, I won't abandon this. I owe you all that much at least.
Edit: A slight addition that I only thought of a few hours after finishing (or thinking I finished) the chapter has been slipped in to Airachnid's paragraph.
xx
With the mosquitoes and birds lacking in conversational skills, Optimus found himself forced to make what humans might have called "small talk" with his unconventional mission partner.
"Do you know how you came to Earth, Grimlock? How you ended up on this island?" He was achingly aware of how little time they had to find Airachnid and Scorpia, but this was the only time he'd ever seen the dinobot being anything close to civil. He wouldn't have another chance to indulge in his gnawing librarian curiosity at what exactly Grimlock was any time soon, so he might as well make the most of it.
"Me Grimlock remember leaving Cybertron, but me no know how here." The dinobot kept his pace steady as he spoke; considering how primitive his processor must have been, multi-tasking was surely no less than a feat for him.
"Well, how did you manage to get off of Cybertron?" Optimus persisted, ducking to avoid an oncoming tree branch overhead. Most Cybertronians left the planet during the mass exodus, after all the energon was lost and no-one had a good reason to stay and risk Primus' wrath, but he strongly suspected Grimlock would have had trouble fitting into a passenger ship.
The Prime almost toppled to the ground when Grimlock heaved his shoulders up in a shrug of reply. "One-eye nerd put Grimlock in travel pod. Then me Grimlock sleep, and wake up here."
'Thank you, Grimlock, incredibly informative. Iacon University should commision you to write lectures for them.' The 'one-eye nerd' he spoke of was obviously Shockwave, which confirmed the most popular story that surrounded the nature of the Lightening Strike Coalition Force's disappearance- that they were captured and experimented on by him. But even that revelation wasn't enough to lift Optimus' sombre spirits. It was hard enough for him to keep his composure knowing that every nanoklick they wasted in the forest was one the femmes spent in enemy clutches, or even already in the Well of All Sparks. He tried not to think of that as an option, though.
The clock was ticking- or, more accurately in the case of his chronometer, flashing as a harsh warning in the corner of his HUD.
xx
Airachnid's weapon connection lines had long since repaired themselves, but they'd be little use to her here. She was in stasis for most of the transit from forest freedom to steel captivity, so there was no knowing how many more soldiers Silas had patrolling the facility, nor how many levels she'd have to tear through to get out. On top of that was the risk to Scorpia- it would only take a stray bullet to destroy her spark and send Airachnid's own into such disarray that neither of their bodies would see sunlight again.
Her comm unit only offered a useless mess of static that hurt her audios fiercely, so she could hardly rely on Optimus for a daring rescue either, as if she was some damsel in distress in a Praxian Playhouse production. Even if he miraculously knew she was taken, knew it was M.E.C.H.'s doing, and discovered their base all in one day he wouldn't risk hurting humans just to save a wretch like her. She knew Autobot morals too well to try hoping for that.
She had no chance, and Silas knew it. That was probably why he didn't bother to post a guard at her cell, trusting the rest of his minions to multitask during their regular duties. In a way his soldiers reminded her of Megatron's Vehicons; mass produced, mindless, blending into each other in a sea of grey obedience. She wondered if any of them possessed sparks, or whatever it was that kept their pathetic organic bodies from toppling over.
Organic bodies. Now she had to wonder how many traits her own mutated frame shared with Earth's creatures.
A sudden hiss thankfully directed her attention elsewhere, and brought her optics down at the smoking patch on the cell floor just next to where her heels stretched out. She was drooling while distracted- how unladylike. The stain was tiny, barely a pinprick burning through the metal, but the rising plume of smoke forced Airachnid to close her talons over it (the last thing she needed was those M.E.C.H vermin invading the only remnant of privacy she had left). She licked off the sheen of venom left on her lips just to be safe, wincing slightly at how it burned her glossa.
But as the pain faded, an idea bloomed in its place.
Airachnid chanced a glance over her shoulder, glimpsing disinterested drones drifting from console to console. They could only see her back and the stubs of her legs. In front of her was a steel wall, black with grime and dirt and glaring mockingly at her. But at the corner where she lay was a vent of sorts, small enough that she could force her hand through if she was so inclined. In a way it was more like a drain set into the wall- for what, she didn't care to think about. But it would lead somewhere, somewhere outside her cell. It was her tiny, and only, hope of escape.
And it would be ample opportunity for Scorpia to prove that she was worth all the trouble of keeping her alive.
Venom seeped thickly from her fangs and coated her lips, dripping onto her talons when she brushed them slowly across her mouth. With her scarred back turned they wouldn't see her squeezing her claws around the grill of the vent cover, melting the metal and changing it to smoking steel putty. She wiped it off on the floor and tried to make the new opening as large as possible; no sharp edges for Scorpia to scrape past and bleed from. A trail of energon would quickly give both of them away, not to mention how the sparkling would squeal in pain and almost deafen her.
Airachnid had worked in some Decepticon laboritories on Cybertron, mostly assisiting with Shockwave's Insecticon projects, and had a feeling that the layout of those on Earth wouldn't be much different. She hoped so at least, turning Scorpia so she faced her chestplates and her helm was just under her mother's mouth.
"Right, I don't know how much you can understand me..." Airachnid whispered, keeping as much malice and general tone of 'what-the-frag-am-I-doing' out of her hushed words. "But I need you to go through here-" She nodded her helm forward at the burnt grill. "-wherever it takes you. Look for... buttons, levers, anything that might trigger something. Anything bright and shiny." Her best hope would be an emergency electricity killswitch, but only Primus knew what an Earth variation of those would look like. "Do you understand?"
"Gah gah," Scorpia chirped against her chestplates.
"...I really don't know what I was expecting." Airachnid positioned her palm to silently leak out a strand of webbing that she wrapped around Scorpia's waist, tying it tight but keeping one end still connected to her weapon port. As she walked she'd draw out more webbing with her, and if there was trouble Airachnid could yank her back to her cell (perhaps not as subtle as an energon trail, but she couldn't just rely on spark projections to know Scorpia was safe away from her). With her meagre preparations complete she set her daughter on the ground, before she could let her common sense convince her how idiotic her plan was (even Starscream could come up with something better... if he had an extreme processor upgrade). At first Scorpia just sat there like a bundle of trembling rocks- considering their shared intelligence it was a valid observation, Airachnid thought. Pale cyan lights swivelled, to their mother's face and the ceiling to the dagger pole walls all around them. Scorpia tilted her helm slightly to the left, before swiftly turning it to the solid wall as if her neck joint suddenly collapsed. Airachnid didn't worry about that. She finally saw it, the pitch black exit to freedom.
Despite the darkness, the hostile hissing of venom traces left behind and the bleakness in her carrier's faceplate, Scorpia actually giggled when she disappeared into it. It was either the sound or absurdity of it that forced Airachnid's spark to match the subdued buzzing of its daughter's.