In terms of my mental state, emotions, school work, etc. things have recently taken a turn for the worse. I know that's no real excuse for me to put off getting chapters out so long, but it's all I can really use to justify some days in the past few weeks where I just felt like I couldn't write anything.
I've written this all out in one quick stroke before my mood plunges any further, so if there's any mistakes or anything that seemed rushed/out of place, I apologise in advance.
xx
The vent sloped downwards, so Scorpia didn't even need prompting to slide down it. The webbing around her waist made a taught line to Airachnid's weapon port, oozing out web strands with each move forward the sparkling made.
Airachnid heard a dull splash echo up from the hole and her spark sank instantly- but only for a moment. Whatever it was at the end of the vent, it wasn't deep or deadly enough to stop Scorpia from chirping in her merry little way. The web kept uncoiling in her hand, so there was nothing stopping the young femme from moving either.
Relentless, just like Optimus. In Scorpia's case though, it wasn't the annoying kind.
If she hadn't been forced to remain near the drain opening, Airachnid might have seen a pair of strange blue lights bobbing underneath the grilles making up the floor of the M.E.C.H lab. She might have noticed that her daughter's faint giggles seemed to sound closer than they should have been.
She did, however, manage to delay admitting defeat and reeling Scorpia back just long enough for the sparkling to find the emergency electricity killswitch tucked away in the floor's maintenance hatch. And if it wasn't seemingly painted the same shade of red as Optimus' armour, she might never have pressed it.
The darkness dropped down like a comforting blanket, and the rise of confused yells from the soldiers was like a lullaby to Airachnid's audios. She had work to do before she could sleep, though.
She pulled fiercely back on the web tether, not stopping until Scorpia popped out of the drain and into her servos. She tried to ignore the unsettling dampness on her armour as she glued Scorpia to her abdomen with the last of her webbing.
While Airachnid worked with a cool effiency on her freedom, the M.E.C.H soldiers had worked themselves into a frenzy of blind confusion in the few seconds they'd been trapped in the dark. Through her optic's night-filters she saw a few of them trying to feel their way along walls, and others frantically trying to switch their own nightvision goggles on. Some of them froze at the sound of her laugh, and by the time they'd seen the jagged, smoking hole in the bars of her cage she was halfway down the vast corridor connecting the laboratory to whatever else made up the makeshift compound. Airachnid wasn't planning on finding out and knew it was too risky to try digging her way out, so she braced her back legs on each of the corridor walls to lift herself up to the ceiling. There was enough acid left on her claws to cut a clean hole in the panelling, just large enough for her disappear through.
She took a moment to scan the narrow attic space as soldiers started to spill out beneath her, some barking orders and others whimpering in the shadows. It would only take them a few more seconds to see where she'd gone, so she didn't have time to make another hole in the roof.
"Hold on tight, baby," she whispered down at Scorpia, before bending her legs down and springing herself up through the roof beams and into the island midnight.
xx
"Is me there yet?"
"No."
"Is me there yet now?"
"No, Grimlock. I'll tell you when we've reached them, just keep moving."
The Dinobot scoffed and blew air through his face vents. "Prime have weak optics, no see olfactories on faceplate! Me Grimlock powerful, me see all!"
'You couldn't see that wasp nest you stepped on about five miles back.' Optimus managed to resist voicing that thought, not wanting to end up face down in the undergrowth and trampled by peds as big as his whole frame. As the sun set the trees started to thin, and the squashed path in the grass became more noticeable. Airachnid had been dragged quite roughly, either to stop her from fighting back or because the humans weren't able to carry her any other way. In any case, that choice would be their undoing.
Moonlight started to replace the day when they finally saw something that broke up the tropical patchwork of green and brown. The building nestled at the bottom of the island's tallest mountain was clearly dilapidated; cracked glass and roots breaking through the stained concrete.
So then why were there black jeeps parked outside it?"
"Keep your distance for now, Grimlock," Optimus warned, laying himself flat on the Dinobot's back. Grimlock sniffed at the air and copied his passenger, lowering himself to the ground.
"Decepticons?" Even whispering, his voice sent deep rumbles through his frame and the air.
"Worse. M.E.C.H. A hostile group of Earth natives." Optimus was sure he hadn't seen a human before, and Silas' soldiers certainly weren't going to give Grimlock a good impression of them.
"They have spider lady and baby?" A low growl started to echo from the Dinobot's vocaliser, so Optimus answered carefully to stop him from going on a rampage.
"I... strongly suspect so. We can't rush in, though, lest we endanger them." Optimus pressed closer to Grimlock's audios and flicking horns, straining his vocaliser. "I will scout the base perimeter if you keep watch for anything suspicious. Then, only on my signal, we will-"
Optimus' plan ended up never being utilised as a very loud crash interrupted him, followed by bursts of gunfire and a familiar silhouette bursting in a shower of shrapnel out of one of the building's roofs.
"SPIDER LADY!" Grimlock's bellow fought to catch up with how fast he hurtled towards where Airachnid's shadow landed, and the only thing stopping Optimus from flying off his back was how low he was seated on it. Airachnid didn't give them time to meet her though, hurtling past them on her auxiliary legs with barely a glance back at her prison. She paused only at the very edge of the compound, where the ferns started to sprout up and take over the grass, to throw an incredulous look at them both and scoff loudly.
"Took you two long enough."
Scorpia didn't share her mother's disposition though, wriggling in her web wrapping and sticking her servos out towards the two mechs. "Oppy, Grimmy!"
Even as Optimus' spark skipped a warm beat at seeing the two femmes, he knew he'd have to go to them later. He swung himself off Grimlock's back using one of his horns as his other servo switched to his stun blaster.
"No lethal attacks, Grimlock." Optimus wasn't sure if the command would have even registered with him, but he didn't have the time or patience to hammer it in before soliders started to pour from every corner of the compound. Red lasers hit against the Prime's armour just before the bullets followed their course, peppering his hide with holes and the ping of metal casings embedding into his frame.
To a Cybertronian, they were only dull stings against his protected protoform. The soldiers were assembled in tight groups, so the volley of electric volts Optimus shot at them ended up bouncing across them. One by one they fell and the bullets started to cease, until the last group dropped their guns and scattered to the back of the building. Optimus wasn't concerned with hunting down cowards, and the sound of rotor blades starting up confirmed the soldiers cared more about their skins than their honour.
Airachnid seemed to gaze wistfully up at the escaping helicopter as Optimus approached her, wafting away the thin trails of smoke that rose from the scattered bullet holes on his armour.
"Are you alright?" Airachnid lowered her gaze but looked more past the Prime than at him, assessing the comatose bodies behind him. Scorpia beeped and tried to grasp for him, and only looking at her close-up made Optimus notice the energon covering her thin proto-casing. "How did... there's dents in both your armour-"
"You should have killed them," the femme said, blowing air slowly through her vents. Her servos held Scorpia tightly, not minding the energon stains rubbing onto them. Red also covered her claws, but Optimus tried to ignore it. Instead he raised an eyeridge, glancing back himself at the humans he spared.
"Airachnid, I do not waste lives when-"
"You. Should. Have. Killed. Them." Fire and a snarl lept into her voice, and her fangs seemed to scrape against every word before they left her mouth. She glared up at him, rubbing her bloodstained claws together. For once, Optimus had no idea what to say. It seemed no matter what he did she was going to dirty her claws even more with his energon.
Luckily for both of them, Grimlock had found a new toy trying to escape in the chaos.
Silas squirmed and choked in between his jagged denta, trying to force the Dinobot's jaws open and not force the teeth even further into his body. He couldn't even scream with all the blood rising up in his throat, threatening to drown him. When Optimus saw him struggling in Grimlock's mouth, he dropped all sense of careful calm.
"Put the human down, Grimlock! Right now!"
The Dinobot shook his head violently, piercing Silas even more from how the human groaned in newfound agony. Scorpia's face crumpled at the harsh sound, and her chirps were replaced with whimpers. Optimus looked on helplessly, as if he was feeling the human's pain for himself.
"Airachnid, please?" he pleaded, knowing the iron idiot would listen to her if not him.
The femme took a painfully long moment to think about it, the fire in her optics dying away as she rolled them and turned to the Dinobot. "Put him down, Grimmy."
He complied, and Silas fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. His clothes were covered in it as well, ragged where the denta sliced through them. From Optimus' view though, the wounds didn't seem deep enough to have hit any of those vital organs humans had. Silas was in great pain, but he'd live.
"Thank you, Airachnid," Optimus said, but the femme didn't seem to hear it as she started frantically patting her hips and digging in her subspace pocket.
"Where is it, where is it?" she muttered with a hoarse voice, optics wide as hubcaps.
"Where is what?" Optimus asked, bewildered at how sudden the femme's composure melted. Her searching paused, servo stiff, and relief sighed through her vents as a smile showed on her faceplate.
"Never mind, just... some Energel I had saved," she explained, pulling Scorpia off her chest and cradling her. The sparkling's optics still looked damp, but at least she wasn't whimpering anymore. "I thought I might have dropped it during my escape."
Optimus didn't believe, but he decided now wasn't the time to press for the truth. Airachnid strolled to where Silas' lay and coughed up droplets of blood, poking him with a heel. Grimlock licked at the red staining his denta and sniffed at the human, pulling his helm back and shaking his helm a nanoklick later.
"So, what do you plan on doing with him and the rest of his lackeys?" Airachnid asked, looking to Optimus expectantly. The Prime hadn't considered capturing the source of all this mess, but he knew there was really only one thing to do.
He tapped on his comm unit and selected a seldom used frequency.
"Agent Fowler, apologies for calling so late. But I assure you, this is something you will want to be awake for."