"Uh huh... uh huh... he did what to the central com-?!" Fowler groaned in either pain or exasperation- Ratchet couldn't tell the difference when it came to humans. He mostly let the man tend to himself with the supplies laid out by June, dabbing the red energon from his forehead away with a rag while he spoke into something embedded in his ear- the Earth equivalent of a comm unit, it seemed to be.
"Look, just get him and the rest of his weirdos locked up tight, alright?" Fowler ordered, firmly wrapping a bandage around his arm. "I'm talking Alcatraz level security, I never want to hear this guy's name again unless it's in an obituary."
"Guess some humans hate each other more than we hate 'Cons," Bulkhead remarked, with Miko perched on his ped and driving around a minuature version of Bumblebee's alt mode Rafael had brought in. Ratchet wished the damn thing wouldn't make so much noise, but at least it kept the small humans out of his way.
"Tell me about it, Bulk," Miko said, gritting her teeth slightly as she leaned into a hard right turn. "I remember there was this guy at school back in Tokyo- total jerk, kept stealing all my pencils, had a really nice butt though-"
"Miko!" Jack almost knocked the controller out of her hand with the cushion that collided with her wrist. She affixed an offended pout with her hands on her hips.
"Oh, so it's totally okay for you to drone on and on about 'Oooh, Sierra, can I help carry your books?', 'Oooh, Sierra did you get a haircut?", "Oooh, Sierra, kiss me in the sunset-" Another cushion hit much further upwards, sending her sprawling backwards on Bulk's leg as she protested against the fabric in her face.
Ratchet might have laughed just a little at the exchange if not for concern eroding his concentration. Whatever had put Optimus in such a hurry that he couldn't even return to base, it had everything to do with Airachnid. Either she was in danger, or (more likely) she'd put somebot else in danger. Perhaps it was Scorpia herself. Despite her heritage, she held an innocence that was impossible for some bots to even imagine after so many years of war. It was difficult not to worry about her, especially with Unicron's influence in her veins. The effects of Dark Energon on an adult frame were already unpredictable- a sparkling being infected was so unthinkable in that no-one wanted to even picture the consequences.
They might well have a future Megatron on their servos. Ratchet might have had nightmares from that thought if he wasn't distracted by another groan from Fowler- so full of irritation that the medic might have thought it came from his own vocaliser.
"I don't care what he's sayin' about a 'robot spider island', the guy is a grade A psycho and the day I believe anything he says is the day I start riding a flying pig to work!" The human tried to calm himself with a gulp of water and June flinched away at the mention of a "robot spider" while Ratchet's eyeridge raised of its own accord.
Silas knew about Airachnid. Even if the humans weren't believing him, there was no telling what kind of intel the Decepticons were capable of getting. After all this work, they could snatch her right back from under their olfactories.
Ratchet wasn't sure how to feel about the possibility of losing her, and he was saved from thinking further into it by June's maternal streak kicking in.
"A few days rest and you'll be good as new," she promised Fowler, patting his shoulder before heading out to the main base area. "Come on, kids, it's late and you've all got school tomorrow!" She pulled her white jacket on with a firm look at her son lounging on the sofa with a notebook full of suspicious doodles in his lab. "Jack, that better have been homework you were doing," she warned.
"Yeeeees, Mooooom," Jack droned, kicking onto his feet as she gathered everything into a bag. Bulkhead and Arcee both switched back into their alt modes and loaded up their humans, one promising to have the radio turned up and the other promising it turned off to avoid music taste arguments. Bumblebee stayed in bipedal form though, approaching Ratchet with the look of a bot carrying a question he knew would be answered with a firm no. And yet he was going to ask it anyway. That was Bumblebee for you.
"Uh, Ratch, I... kinda promised Raf I would show him a meteor shower that's happening this evening," the scout chirped, pressing his digits together nervously. "But it only happens out north, and I can't drive that far in time, so-"
"You want me to Ground Bridge you there and back?" Ratchet guessed with the deadpan of a mech who already knew he was right.
"Uh... yep!" Bumblebee nodded, obviously hoping the enthusiam would convince Ratchet to allow it. Rafael was watching the exchange anxiously from afar, slowly edging closer.
The medic beckoned for the human to stop dawdling so far away. Technically he had full command of the base in Optimus' absence, and he would have refused the journey if not for the excitement buzzing in the human's tiny frame. "How long will it take?" he asked in a sigh, almost missing the sparkle igniting in Rafael's now hopeful gaze.
"It'll only take me a few minutes to take pictures, I swear," Raf said. "And then I want to write up a blog post about it, then compare with the previous showers, then-"
"I'll give you twenty minutes," Ratchet allowed, firing up the Ground Bridge with the co-ordinates Bumblebee supplied. The scout transformed and Raf all but dived into the front seat, waving at Ratchet as they drove through the vortex.
With a twitch of his lips, the old medic closed the Bridge.
xx
Optimus ran out into the island glade- and straight into Airachnid's back. Relief filled him more than anger filled her optics as she turned around in surprise.
"And just what the Pit happened to you, Prime?" she asked, servos on her hips like an angry sparkmate berating her husband's late arrival. The mental image drove even more air out of Optimus, leaving his vocaliser in a state as he panted air through his vents to cool his melting engines down.
"M.E.C.H... artificial clone... can't talk." Optimus fell back on a low rock, servos braced on his legs as he tried to regulate his sweating systems. Airachnid hadn't lowered her servos, tapping her claws on her plating impatiently as she watched him in the middle of a meltdown. If she wasn't so annoyed she might have been concerned.
"You were supposed to deliver energon rations two breems ago," she informed him, with slow words to make sure his processor got them all. "And you show up late looking like you got chased by a pack of turbofoxes. I'm not exactly instilled with confidence right now, Optimus."
The Prime wiped a hand over his faceplate, letting coolant ooze from his joints and waver in the evening wind. He looked up at Airachnid, weariness meeting wariness, with only one thing on his mind.
"Where's Scorpia?"
Airachnid might have tormented him with a joke about having eaten her daughter out of fear of starvation, but a trill from behind her leg sounded first. "Dadda!" The sparkling toppled towards him as she tried to run through the grass, and was swept up into his servos when she came within range of them. His chest heaved against her cheek, the heavy pulse of his spark tickling her and making her giggle against his plating. Airachnid stood silent as Optimus held her daughter, impatience waning as he absorbed the sparkling's joy for himself. Scorpia nestled herself near one of his elbows, scraping small denta against his thick servo plating, and only then did Optimus let himself sort through the situation.
"Silas has escaped human custody."
Airachnid scoff over a roll of her optics. "What a surprise."
"He... has managed to construct a drone for himself, based on my own frame," Optimus continued, treading carefully. "There was a confrontation. He knows where you are. Where this island is. He could easily find you again."
His optics flicked up to see a more furious kind of disbelief than he'd been expecting on her faceplate. "Are you suggesting I run away yet again?" Scorpia paused her nibbling at her mother's hiss, and it took Optimus' digit stroking her filament braid to stop whimpers breaking out from her.
"For your own safety-"
Airachnid interrupted viciously. "I know what my own safety entails, Prime. Either you think motherhood has made me soft, or you know I'd tear that piece of slag to shreds if I ever saw him again. So which is it?"
They both knew the answer, but Optimus was smart enough to not voice it. Instead he tried to catch her off-guard and hopefully make her forget what she was even angry about. "... I noticed you were attempting to reach my comm unit," he said to her. "You were concerned for me."
She blinked at him, violet optics now almost as blank as those of Silas' puppet. "Of course I was," she said with a shrug. "With you gone... where else was I going to get energon from? I could dig for it myself, at least, if I had the equipment to find it..." Her voice started to condense into a mumble that told Optimus energon was the very least of her worries.
"I do not doubt your abilities, Airachnid."
Scorpia yawned and stretched in his servos, and as Optimus switched her to his other arm he noticed Grimlock already asleep under a tree. The Dinobot slumbered like the dead, if the dead liked to slobber all over the dirt and scare birds away with the rusty grinding of dormant gears. Though his mouth didn't move, there was a rumble from his vocaliser that was just loud enough to be deciphered over the ambience of recharge.
"He likes to talk in his sleep," Airachnid explained as Optimus edged closer. "Same list of numbers, over and over. I've practically memorised them all by now."
Optimus paused in front of the updraft coming from Grimlock's mouth, handing Scorpia back over to her mother as he knelt down with an audio hovering over where the Dinobot's vocaliser should have been. He mouthed everything he heard silently, eventually clicking it all together the third time it repeated.
"What do they sound like to you?" he asked, looking up at Airachnid as she cradled the sleepy-opticked Scorpia.
"Dinobot gibberish," the spider said dismissively.
"But seperate the first twelve numbers..." Optimus suggested, slowly rising to his peds. "What might they be now?"
Airachnid chewed her lip as she thought, sorting through the list with realisation coming quickly. "...Co-ordinates?"
Optimus nodded. Slowly, with the Matrix pulsing in his chest, he started piecing the past together.
When Grimlock and his team first went missing, their last report was near what was thought to be Shockwave's lab. Just before that, Shockwave had charged his way into the Iacon Vaults and made off with every scrap of data about the relics held within, leaving no trace of them behind. There was the link between Grimlock and the relics... if he was taken into Shockwave's lab, molded into his current beast form, a computer malfunction could have resulted in data being shoved into the Dinobot's processor in a dormant state. Some kind of stack overflow or even a full system dump that might have overloaded his logic circuits. It would explain a lot about his sparkling-grade thought processes.
Optimus opened up his comm unit in a much lighter mood. "Ratchet... I believe I've found the solution to our Iacon database problem."
The medic's voice seemed surprised to hear from his friend so soon. "How so?"
"A long story," Optimus said. "I'm sending a data packet over that contains what I suspect to be the co-ordinates of the relics. Have the Autobots investigate them as soon as possible."
"I will, Optimus. You sound... less troubled than before."
Optimus glanced at Airachnid, with Scorpia swiping up at her chin. "Yes, old friend," he said with a smile. "For once, everything seems fine."
"Well, forgive me for potentially ruining the moment, but..." The pause was just long enough to make Optimus' spark stop beating. "I should tell you the children went home not too long ago... Bumblebee hasn't returned."
Before concern could settle in like an old wound, Airachnid froze with Scorpia secured on her back. She pulled her palm blasters out and aimed out at the undergrowth, optics glowing bright as she hissed;
"There's someone in the forest."
xx
As expected, Silas in the last chapter got a pretty negative reception from everyone. But not to worry, I'm not planning for him to show up again with the whole Nemesis Prime subplot now over and done with. Besides, Airachnid now has bigger problems to deal with...