For once it wasn't Scorpia's morning mewling or her own phantoms that roused Airachnid. She was still half in recharge when she felt Optimus sit up beside her, shifting his mighty weight on their berth as he hissed through the fog of her audios.

"Optimus?" She propped herself up with her back legs as they scratched lazily against the berth frame, grabbing Scorpia before she ended up rolling onto the floor. Her sparkmate was standing, optics slanted towards his comm unit as he held a hand over it.

"Apologies, Airachnid. There seems to be some sort of incident... calm down, Wheeljack! What is the issue?" Whatever the Wrecker was saying was too muffled for Airachnid to hear, but Optimus' expression only went grimmer as he listened. "And Agent Fowler is with you? Keep yourself and the humans away, I will be there shortly." Once his unit was off he let his servo fall to his side and struggled with the urge to let the rest of his body collapse back on his berth.

"Grimlock is upset. It is unclear why, but the longer he is emotionally unstable the more damage he is sure to cause." He looked like he'd only just settled himself into recharge before he got the summons, and for all Airachnid knew that might've been the case; she was too cold for him to have been beside her for very long.
"Shouldn't I come with you?" she asked, only to have Optimus shake his weary helm on its rusty hinge.
"I would not advise it," he said, forcing himself back onto his peds. "Your presence may only aggravate him more, and I will not allow Scorpia where danger is sure to lie."

"Not even if he's upset because we're not there?" Airachnid pointed out, helping to push him upright with her longest back legs. Though Optimus tried to support himself he couldn't help leaning his dead weight on her, or maybe he was just reluctant to leave her.

"That is entirely possible... but until I know the cause for sure, I ask that you both remain here where it is safe." He placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it as she scoffed against Scorpia's helm.

"That depends on what you define as 'safe'..." As she pulled her legs back and curled her daughter to her chest, Optimus cupped her sunken helm and prevented her from hiding it any more.

"No one here will hurt you, Airachnid, even when I am gone. Trust me on that, at least," he said gently, tired and soft warmth spilling from his optics. The hand cradling her face stroked along her chin, and though she'd closed her optics she could feel Scorpia tugging on it for her share of affection. Optimus let the digits dangle for the sparkling to nuzzle against but kept the thumb for Airachnid, waiting for her optics to slide open again to see his lips falling against hers.

"Go back to sleep if you wish. You need the rest." He pulled away with a new surge of energy, one that must have been infectious to Airachnid- or maybe that was just Scorpia squirming in her lap, telling her that trying to sleep again would be futile.

"No point in that, if I'm already awake." She shrugged herself up, pushed herself off the berth and followed her sparkmate back to the early morning reality; so early that Ratchet was the only one around to meet them in the foyer.

"Ratchet, set the Bridge to Grimlock's island. My presence is needed there." Optimus gave the command in a well-rehearsed routine, and Ratchet did not question it as he rubbed his tired faceplate while his other hand tapped out co ordinates.

In Airachnid's servos, Scorpia whimpered around the braid of wires jammed into her mouth. "Grimmy?"

"He's okay, sweetspark," Airachnid said quietly, stroking claws gently below her daughter's pout. "Don't you worry about him. Oppy's just going to say hello."

Scorpia blinked up at her mother, then giggled around her braid. "Oppy Daddy!" She grasped for something over Airachnid's shoulder, who only realised that it was Optimus himself leaning down to kiss the sparkling's forehead, with one more for Airachnid herself before he took his leave through the portal. The spider almost convinced herself to run after him, joining him on the island before the Bridge could close, but she supposed Optimus was right. Anything that posed a risk to Scorpia wasn't worth risking at all.

"If you wish, you can keep Scorpia in the med-bay," Ratchet offered as he closed the vortex. "It's a lot quieter there, she won't be disturbed when everyone else wakes up."

Airachnid watched him for any sign that he meant something he wasn't saying, as he was so good at doing, but all she could hear was the painful genuine tone of a tired medic. "...Thank you, Ratchet."

It was only when she set Scorpia down on an empty surgical berth, next to the one Bulkhead lay snoring away on, that Airachnid realised how long it had been since she'd been in a med-bay. The last time she'd been strapped to a table she'd been enduring a mandatory check-up from Knockout, praying to Primus or anyone who was listening that her pounding spark would muffle the two new ones blooming in her chest. But even though she managed to hide them, only one survived in the end. All she had left of her dead son was the memory of his agony, so brief yet so painful, and his blind newborn fear. She'd been so shocked, so overwhelmed with the new reality crushing her that she didn't even see him crawling away from her, still coated in the hot plasma of her raw spark. Didn't even seen him wander right into his sire's sights...

Remembering herself as Elita was something Airachnid could at least get used to. But the more she thought about who she was now, the more she wished she'd died on Archa Seven. That's what everyone had believed for so long… that's how it should have been. At that moment not even Scorpia's loving gaze and pawing hands around the meteorite token Airachnid handed to her could have convinced her otherwise.

She removed herself from the med-bay before she did something stupid, blunting her claws against her palms as her back legs fought the urge to plunge into her own protoform. Ratchet didn't notice her return, glazed optics on his screen and nowhere else. It was like the Ratchet she'd once known had honed himself over the centuries, hacking away at his spark until only an intense focus was left behind. A self-made Empurata, when put like that, but even with his helm and hands intact the medic looked more husk than mech with the computer's light making up most of the glow in his optics.

"You didn't wake this early back on Cybertron," she said, seating herself some distance from the medic.

"Because on Cybertron I had my own lab, my own... 'peaceful' schedule," he said, only slightly shifting his attention from the screen. "But nowadays I have to share my time with the soldiers. I like to get work done before the day has to start."

Airachnid nodded. "Smart."

"You're one to talk, though," Ratchet went on. "You and Optimus never rose before sunhigh, after the wedding."

Airachnid blinked, talons tightening around the shard that wasn't between them anymore, the one that hung from her chest the day her spark became one with Optimus'. "You remember it?" she asked, with only a small smirk. "I'd have thought your data banks would be covered in dust by now."

Ratchet narrowed a sharp glare at her, but couldn't stop his smile blooming wider. "I remember the hope that came after it. That naive feeling that everything would turn out fine… back when that was worth believing."

Even after all this time, Airachnid knew the feeling well. "If it wasn't for me, everything might have been fine after all…" She stared at her tangled talons as she mumbled, not seeing Ratchet reach over to grab her servo.

"Don't say that," he said, a tone as firm as his grip tugging at her attention. "Don't you ever blame yourself for all this. It was Megatron who took you away from us. It was him who started this war… him that ruined our home. It's all his fault. Don't you dare forget that."

He let go, but Airachnid still felt like she was caught in a vice. Her hand remained suspended in the air, twitching numb claws as an energon cube was dropped onto her palm.

"Best to have some before it's all gone," Ratchet told her, one piece of advice she could actually find herself believing. Airachnid drank, finished the cube just as the rest of the base's inhabitants came trickling in.

"Where's Optimus?" Arcee asked, having enough courtesy to scan the rest of the foyer before focusing her suspicion on Airachnid.

"Humans summoned him to my- to Grimlock's island," the spider explained.

Arcee raised an eyeridge, a portrait of distrust. "You didn't go with him?"

"No." That was all Airachnid would reveal until Arcee stopped treating her like a bot just out of quarantine for the cybonic plague. Not that it would ever happen at this rate, but it was all she could remain hopeful for.

Arcee didn't shift her expression, instead just turned herself away from Airachnid and followed Bumblebee to the exit. "We're going to go pick up the kids, Ratchet. Won't be long."

By now Smokescreen had only just finished a marathon of yawns, lingering in the hallway entrance. "Can I just go back to sleep, then? I gotta recover from getting sliced in half!"

"Smokescreen, you don't even have a scar from the incision," Ratchet informed him with a sigh and a datapad in his hand. "And since you're already up, you might as well make yourself useful. Go take inventory of the rations."

Smokescreen blinked twice at the datapad now in his hand, and made a dramatic display of groaning so loudly that his spinal strut almost bent in half. "Awwww, come on! This is drone work!"

"Then it won't be too much for your processor to handle," Arcee quipped just before she shifted, roaring away in her alt mode before Smokescreen could muster a comeback or even throw the datapad in her direction.

"Is she always like that?" he asked Airachnid while Ratchet struggled not to snicker.

"No, she's usually worse," the spider answered honestly.

xx

Optimus hadn't seen Grimlock since he brought Airachnid to the base, but the Dinobot hadn't changed much since then. In fact the Prime didn't know if he suffered more from deja-vu or the splitting ache in his helm from being swatted over the length of a turbohound track. He peeled himself out of the splintered tree trunks under his frame, vision flashing with rusty silver rampaging back and forth and that lethal tail still lashing at the air. Unlike Optimus the humans knew better than to get within range of it, and unlike Optimus Wheeljack knew but just didn't care enough to stay away.

"Look, Grim, I ain't a fan of the company either but you don't see me turnin' the whole place into mulch!" The Wrecker rolled aside just as Grimlock tried to take a bite out of him, roaring at the snapped nets, cords and webbing that tried so vainly to keep him restrained. Some were even scorched from embers that seemed to fly from the Dinobots mouth, flaming drool that hissed as it hit the rutted ground with his earth-shaking stampedes.

But to Wheeljack he might as well have been a sparkling throwing a tantrum. He gestured to a team of shaking humans who threw out another coil of chains as thick as each of their forearms, and he anchored one end around a tree while dodging another swipe from Grimlock's tail. Optimus approached carefully, using Wheeljack's distraction as an opportunity to get close enough behind the Dinobot where his tail couldn't just bat him aside.

Spotting the Prime with a typical "what took you so long?" look, Wheeljack waited until Grimlock made another lunge forwards before ducking and throwing the other side of the chain to Optimus. Before Grimlock realised what had happened the Prime was already running underneath him and threading the links all around his legs, tying them all together so he tripped and crashed to the ground when he tried to step forwards. He'd only be dazed for a few nanoklicks, but that was enough time for Optimus to get the rest of the chain around his neck and keep it pinned down with his weight on the Dinobot's snarling and bucking head, the tree anchor already cracking and bowing from his strength.

Wheeljack knelt before the gnashing cage of teeth and foul smoke, practically ignoring how Optimus struggled to keep Grimlock under control. "Talk to me, buddy, what's the problem?"

Grimlock only hissed and grunted at the Wrecker, before finally ceasing his struggle. "Me, Grimlock... me king Dinobot! Other Dinobots need king!"

"What 'other' Dinobots?" Optimus asked, tightening his grip on the chain collar. As if one of Grimlock wasn't bad enough.

"Team! Grimlock lead Dinobot team!" he insisted, agitating himself all over again. Optimus struggled not the force Grimlock down as he tried to piece together what he was saying.

"You mean… the other members of your squadron? They were changed by Shockwave as well?"

"Swoop, Snarl and Slag," Wheeljack said, a dark glaze over his optics. "Those were the other mechs that went missing back on Cybertron."

Grimlock grated mighty incisors together, as if confirming it. "Me no feel them… me think dead for long! But Dinobots wake up! Cold, empty, alive! Dinos... in trouble…"

Over Grimlock's sour growls, a fourth voice made itself heard. "I know where they are."

Through a parting of terrified humans and broken tree boughs, Dreadwing approached the mechs with wings barely brushing the destruction around him.

"Dreadwing? What are you doing here?" Optimus couldn't draw his weapon at the sudden intrusion, but Wheeljack needed little prompting to take aim at him.

"You got some big bearings showin' your winged aft 'round here, Con," he spat, tracking the Seeker's every step even when he stopped, with only enough attention paid to Wheeljack to roll his optics at him.

"After our discussion, Optimus, I took it upon myself to find Megatron again," Dreadwing explained. "Not to confront him, just to know where he had retreated to. It was easy enough to track his course through the clouds from our first site of battle, to an area in the Earth's southern hemisphere. When I found him, he was standing off against Starscream and three unidentified beasts. I believe those are your missing Dinobots."

"And how did you know where to find me?" Optimus asked, dismounting from Grimlock before the Dino decided to send him flying where no grounder should try to reach.

As if reading the Prime's fears, Dreadwing took the chance to look proud of himself. "A Seeker knows how to read the sky. I spotted human activity around this island, and sensed a strong Cybertronian life signal from your Grimlock."

The Dinobot barely paid heed to the unfamiliar mech, too concerned with untangling himself and breaking free of the trunk he was cuffed to as well as making the tiny soldiers run for cover again. Wheeljack didn't once look away from Dreadwing, didn't lower his weapons.

"How do we know you haven't got a whole team of Decepticons waitin' nearby to ambush us?" He was about to close the distance between himself and Dreadwing, but Optimus pressed a hand down on his puffed chest to hold him back.

"Wheeljack, curb your suspicion," the Prime ordered. "Dreadwing has no reason to betray the Autobots, after all he has done to help us."

Dreadwing gave a small nod. "If you would allow me, Optimus, I can give you exact co-ordinates for Megatron's location."

"That would be much appreciated, Dreadwing. But after that, I must ask that you return to base."

Dreadwing's shoulders fell as he blinked at the command. "Optimus, I-"

"You haven't recharged for a whole solar cycle, and your performance will only worsen the longer you remain online. You have done more than enough for now, Dreadwing. Let yourself rest, for your own sake," Optimus added, not admitting that it would be much easier not having to worry about Wheeljack trying to shove a grenade between the Seeker's wings.

"...Very well," Dreadwing said reluctantly. "Megatron is making his stand near where our fight over the Apex Armour took place. Just follow the noises to the frozen island."

With one call to Ratchet and his Ground Bridge (after a well-deserved sigh of relief from Agent Fowler) it really was that easy to find Megatron. The hard part was fitting Grimlock through the vortex.