Airachnid didn't wait around to see who her visitor was. Smothering Scorpia against her chest, she rolled aside and crawled into the only hiding spot she could find; a narrow crevice within the cracked fallen spire of the shrine. She hid not because she didn't want to fight, only because she didn't want to fight without knowing who she was up against.
Forcing her legs flat against her back, she stretched her audio range to its limit. Despite the echoes of pain still ringing from her spark, Scorpia knew not to make a single sound.
"Airachnid?" She recognised the voice, knew exactly how far away it was. The heavy peds thumped hard against the shaking ground, louder and harder the closer he came.
"I know you're 'round here somewhere-" A dusty orange faceplate came into view, just as Airachnid aimed her palm towards it.
"Not one more step." She locked onto the wide optic staring down at her, hiding Scorpia in the cluster of her back legs as she prepared a plasma blast.
Despite the threat glowing and glaring at him, acid still bright on her lips, Breakdown looked pleased with himself. "Well, that was easy."
Airachnid coiled herself tighter, ready to spring out in a fray of venom and claws. "I will give you one warning, Breakdown. Get away from me, or I will kill you."
Breakdown blinked, a lopsided wink if not for how his mouth creased, realising she was utterly serious. "Alright, alright… I'm not here to hurt you." He backed away slowly, revealing that he was unarmed as he held his bare hands up. Airachnid didn't move until he was far enough away to pounce on, extracting herself from her crevice without looking away from him.
"Just here to drag me back to Megatron again?" She shot a web behind her back before she fully emerged, securing Scorpia there while Breakdown shook his helm.
"No, I… look, I was ordered to find the Omega Lock with Starscream, whatever that is. But then Starscream never showed up, and while I was looking I saw you in the distance. Megatron doesn't know either of us are here, I swear." Breakdown placed one of his empty hands over his spark, as if that would convince Airachnid not to hurl herself at him.
She lowered her palms, but only by a fraction. Acid still coated her glossa as she rolled it along her fangs. Breakdown wasn't exactly the most threatening of the Decepticons, but she hadn't forgotten how he fought over the Polarity Gauntlet a lifetime ago.
"How do I know you're not lying?"
Breakdown took a moment before summoning the audacity needed to smile at her. "Really, Airachnid, have you seen me trying to lie? It'd be obvious."
Airachnid fixed him with narrow optics, before reluctantly putting her servos by her side before her claws got too twitchy. "Then why are you here?"
"Let's just say I made a deal with someone. And part of that deal is making sure that you're safe."
Airachnid was already leaving him behind before he finished, not interested in any Decepticon dealings or politics. The cage of her legs kept Scorpia sheltered from his prying optic. "I don't need your protection. I can look after myself-"
"I never said you couldn't," Breakdown pointed out, trudging after her from the sound of his scraping peds. "But it doesn't hurt to have some extra muscle-"
"Don't bother." Airachnid didn't look behind her, knowing Breakdown had no ranged weaponry and that she'd hear him if he tried to charge her. He slowed down, but still covered more distance in a single stride than she managed in three steps.
"What if I told you it wasn't just because of a deal?" he called after her. "That it was because I want you to be safe?"
She stopped in her tracks, rust spilling over her peds as the ground still quaked beneath her, as if trying to rival the state of her spark. "Then I'd say your head was full of slag." She didn't add that she'd always thought that, kept her thoughts to herself in some small effort to not hurt him more than necessary.
He tried to say something else, but she was already moving faster than his processor. "Dammit, Airachnid, would you stay still for a klick? I know we had a… rough introduction, but I think in any other case we could have-"
Airachnid turned on him so swiftly that he almost toppled over on his back. "We could have what? Been friends? Swapped stories and armour over energon? In any other world where you didn't deliver me right into the hands of a Unicron-possessed monster?" She tried not to shout, but that only made her hiss at him as she marched close enough to see her bristling reflection in his optic. "You barely know who I am, Breakdown, so don't pretend that you care about me. I've relied enough on the pity of other bots as it is. Just this once, I want to help myself. Do you understand that?"
He didn't, of course. He couldn't, not without dissecting her spark and seeing which half of it was more alive. Not without putting aside what he wanted and seeing that it just couldn't happen. But looking into his optic, watching him refuse to flinch from her despite how lost he was, she almost believed that he did.
"…I guess I do," he said, somehow fooling both of them with his sincerity. "I didn't mean… I didn't know-" Breakdown cut his excuses off at the interruption from Scorpia, a low whine that must have come from the turmoil of her mother's spark. Airachnid didn't think of keeping her hidden anymore, not when she was already reaching back to retrieve her.
It took Breakdown a few moments to realise what she was holding, and even longer to believe it. "You've… got a sparkling? I thought that it… that it was…" As he trailed off into a trickle of stutters, Airachnid faced him slowly with Scorpia cradled in her arms.
"They were twins," she told him, not dwelling on it as she turned back to her daughter, leaving Breakdown stranded in his scattered confusion. By the time he rewrote his past few vorns on board the Nemesis, Scorpia had been soothed into silence.
"...Megatron's the sire, isn't he?" he asked. Airachnid decided to answer by not answering at all, and even Breakdown knew not to ask again.
"I'm sorry." She didn't know what he was apologising for, and she doubted he even knew. For bringing her back to Megatron in the first place? For not helping her earlier? For all his feelings that she couldn't return?
Airachnid looked away as she shoved a hand against her optics, shoving any tears firmly back into her helm. "Don't be sorry. Be useful." She pushed herself back on her path, listening to Breakdown hesitate before deciding to still follow her.
"Where are you going?"
"Keep up and we'll eventually find out," she told him, focusing only on Scorpia's whimpers and the hazy ruins the distance. If a mech with the attention span of Breakdown could so easily spot her out here, she'd be an easy target for any drone looking in the right direction. She needed cover, just to wait out the fighting. As much as she ached to join in with whatever battle Optimus was in the middle of, she knew better than to risk her daughter's life like that.
If she'd just left Scorpia behind, she wouldn't be in so much danger. If she hadn't insisted on coming here with Optimus in the first place…
Airachnid looked up just before she collided with a rust-crusted city gate, still locked tight amidst the abandoned walls which rose up to scrape the smoke-strewn sky. Through the thin gaps she could see the rest of the city, built more like a military base, lying deserted and decayed. When no one stirred in the streets, Airachnid testing her legs against the gate. Even with all eight of them pushing, it wouldn't budge.
"It would take an age for my acid to melt through this gate, and I don't feeling like flying in by myself. Think you can make us an entrance with that hammer?" She turned to Breakdown, who was still staring gormlessly up at the walls. He noticed her staring expectantly, then rewound her words with a grin as he revealed his hammer.
"I'd be happy to try." He hefted it over his shoulder before charging forwards, yelling as he swung hard at the center of the giant gate. The thick metal boomed, a thunderclap that echoed through the whole city, as his hammer was driven deep into its own dent. He yanked it free and hit again, faster and faster until the metal was chipped away and eventually blown apart by the final blow. Breakdown fell right through the two gate doors as they were shoved open, betrayed by his own momentum and sent sprawling flat on his face.
Airachnid inspected the forced entrance, making sure there were no jagged edges, before stepping over him. "Good work."
Breakdown managed to pull himself back upright, running after her as she paced the main street. "So… what is this place?"
Airachnid scanned the buildings towering over and lining the street, the broken gun mounts and missile launchers, armouries and scattered bullets, slowly recognising where she was.
"We both passed through the Sea of Rust," she said. "Which means… this must be Autobot City.What's left of it, at least."
Breakdown gave the street a much more brief appraisal, scoffing as he tested his hammer against a wall. "Real original name."
Airachnid heard the sound of impacts, and glared at Breakdown before he could hit again. "Don't do that."
Scorpia let out another wavering chirp as if on cue, while Breakdown stood frozen like a petrorabbit in headlights as he sheepishly put his hammer away. "Sorry."
Airachnid still fixed him with disapproval, but decided to let him go. He obviously didn't realise where the really were, who this really was.
"He's only gotten worse with age..." Airachnid whispered as she stroked claws over the broken metal, the stains of rust and oxidation, even bite marks all over his foundations. There was the usual sign of a Scraplet nibbling away, but most of the scars were clearly from Insecticons. If a hive had settled under him, it would explain why five of them had managed to find her.
Scorpia still squirmed in her servos, restless and anxious and on the verge of crying out again. Airachnid rearranged her, letting her dangle over her arms as Scorpia looked everywhere her wide optics could reach. Unlike her mother, she didn't know enough about what she saw to feel sad, or full of regret. When she reached out to feel the dents in the pitted metal skin, fitting her digits into the ragged scars without thinking of what made them, she did it without an ounce of fear or unease. Despite the pain, the confusion and so many things she wouldn't be able to understand for years to come, a sparkling's innocent curiosity couldn't be dissuaded.
Airachnid let her prod at the dead walls as they walked down that dusty street, as the click of her heels tapped out a lonely lullaby. That solemn beat eventually carried her to the end of that long road, up a slow incline until she was ascending a wide flight of stairs. She stopped halfway up, looking ahead to where they lead, then continuing until she reached the top, beyond the hall full of shadows to the centrepiece of the city.
Another pair of doors, translucent where they weren't covered in gilded dust, lay closed before her. Not as large or forbidding as the gates far behind her, but ultimately more sacred. Though the energy core they shielded had now lain dead for millennia, even the most jaded Decepticon would have struggled to hide their awe at the view straight into such a mighty heart.
Like Scorpia, Airachnid reached out to gently touch the sealed portal. It was colder than anything else in the city, so much that she thought her claws might eventually freeze there. Her talons spread over the opaque surface, eclipsing the intricate network of cables, veins and fuel lines that fed into the dead spark left beyond the doors.
"Hello, old friend," she said, letting her arm fall back to her side; the hand left heavy and cold despite the heat of her palm blasters. She'd never seen Metroplex in his full glory with Optimus, had once felt grateful that they hadn't had to use him outside of his battle station mode. It was only after her time on Archa Seven that she saw the city walk, against the Decepticons own titan Trypticon. She'd cursed his name when they lost, was glad when the Autobots had to leave him behind to rust during the Exodus. She felt like she had to apologise, but it was far too late for that.
An imprint was left burned on the dusted glass where her hand was previously, like ice melting away from a branding iron. Through that small stain of clarity, she saw Breakdown's reflection as he trudged up the steps behind her.
"What's that thing?" He squinted, trying to see past the centuries of grime for an answer. "Looks like… some kind of spark chamber."
Airachnid didn't turn to face him. "It might be."
Breakdown blinked, close enough now to wipe away more of the dust that coated the chamber clear doors. He took in the assortment of wires and tubes, then turned back and re-appraised the city stretched out underneath them. Once again, his processor was slow to get to work, but when it finally got running it was loathe to stop before it finished its job.
"Wait, wait, Autobot City…" He tapped a digit against his helm, as if physically trying to dredge up memories. Airachnid knew the instant he found the right one; how quickly his expression went blank, only to fill itself with the fallen features and twitching optic of a mech gone mad.
"Is…" He gulped. "Is this Metroplex? Are we standing on…"
Airachnid decided to give him some credit by not nodding, keeping her helm completely still as he took in the Metrotitan again, this time knowing he was walking amidst a legend of war.
"Holy slag… I'd only heard stories about him... How he took out the entire Marauder force and helped get the Ark off the ground. Pit, not even my gestalt team could have gone up against him." Breakdown sounded honoured, despite the fact that he was talking about his own side being bested. That was just how impressive Metroplex was.
"Were you around when he fought Trypticon?" he asked her, oblivious to why she didn't share his overt fascination. "Just before the Exodus?"
It was surprising to hear Breakdown revealed as a history buff (as well as being normally buff), but not enough so to pull Airachnid's attention on him. She shrugged with her back legs. "I might have heard about it."
"Well, Metro ended up winning in the end. But when it came time for the Ark to leave for good, he had to use up his own energon to get it powered. That's the only thing that took him down in the end; self sacrifice." Breakdown tapped a fist on one of the supporting pillars holding Metroplex's colossal frame together. "If it wasn't for that, I bet he'd still be walking today."
Still facing the lifeless chamber in front of her, Airachnid found herself nodding. "Maybe… maybe so."
A chirp came from her chestplates, and she saw Scorpia looking up, watching her in the midst of her pensive vigil. Even when Airachnid kept her lips sealed, Scorpia knew when she was troubled just as easily as the mother knew when her daughter was. Airachnid put on a smile just for her, stroking her braid while Breakdown indulged his curiosity. She wondered how alike the two of them really were, the sparkling and the ex-Wrecker. Though all Wreckers were like sparklings in some way.
That connection was only strengthened by the sound of a high keening whine; at first Airachnid feared Scorpia was in pain again, but a sharp look downwards revealed that Scorpia was still returning her smile, and that Breakdown was actually the source of it.
"Uh… Airachnid?" His vocaliser shuddered as much as the rest of his frame. "Am I the only one seeing… that?" He was pointing towards the horizon, but it was hardly necessary when Airachnid turned around. Not when what got him so worried was threatening to block out the entire landscape.
And it was only getting bigger as it advanced, a hulking metal mountain crawling along the ground. Sharp purple biolights blinked like city lights, or like the all-seeing eyes of a horrific beast, as Cybertron's sun set behind it; casting it in shadow even as its outline glowed like it was shielding the heat from a nuclear blast. It was so massive that the closing distance was irrelevant; every detail could be seen where it wasn't drenched in darkness- not just shadow, but the metal itself seemed to be painted like a black hole, sucking up any light that dared to hit against it. As if a slice of reality, of the universe itself had been torn away, left only with a vile purple glow to define it, and was now marching onwards to demand an answer for why it was still alive.
Scorpia started crying again, and Airachnid knew she wouldn't be able to comfort her.
"What on…? What is that?" It was the most alien thing she'd ever seen, right on her home planet rather than a forgotten moon light years away. Its legs were still hidden by the horizon line, but its steps were marked by tremors left constantly ringing throughout Metroplex's body. The very same ones she'd felt through Cybertron's core, without even wondering what they were.
Breakdown tried to gulp away his fear, but even with only one optic he couldn't look anywhere without seeing the behemoth. "Whatever it is… it doesn't look friendly."
"Mamaaa!" Scorpia warbled between her mother's plating, shivering even as Airachnid tried to hide her away. Watching the mysterious monster approaching only froze her where she stood, but she couldn't take her optics off it. She was sure that if she did, it would morph into something worse.
Then the violent corona around the titan exploded, a flash of blinding blue light that shot out like a laser towards them all.
"Get down!" Breakdown was already throwing her on top of him as he dived for the floor, shoving her out of the way while covering her with his servos. Airachnid had already shot her legs out in front of her like a splayed barrier, feeling a swathe of heat hitting them and leaking through the thin gaps, a heatwave concentrated into a single burning beam. It only lasted a nanoklick, barely longer, but her armour felt like it was scorched. Scorpia was silent in the safety of her chestplates, wrapped tightly in her mother's arms.
Breakdown only released them when the heat dissipated, and his armour seemed to smoke where it faced the full force of the laser. He barely noticed it, only wafting the wisps away as he scanned their surroundings.
The hall was scored with a carpet of ash, a direct mark of where the laser had passed over. Airachnid kept her peds off the ground, wary of any heat absorbed by the ground as she carried herself on her auxiliary legs. She studied the long scorch mark, tracing it up the stairs and all down the length of the hall, carrying on behind her until it stopped before the doors of the spark chamber. And in that chamber, she felt something. Not in her sensors or instincts, but in the pit of her spark. It felt like Optimus, but both distant and multiplied, and only a fraction of what it truly was.
The laser had been pure concentrated energy, but it wasn't intended to destroy. She realised that when she followed the new light in her spark, and saw it bleeding through the windows of Metroplex's core.
"Oh my Primus…" It was a dim glow at first, the first flickering embers of a newborn fire, but in the space of a blink it bloomed into a supernova. It was just as brilliant as she remembered, even more so, a wildfire of searing white being fed by a web of vibrant blue energon. Even though he'd emptied his tanks for good, the surge of new energy must have kickstarted his fuel converters and sent them into overdrive, throwing all its resources into waking Metroplex up.
And under the hum and buzz of dormant systems shaking their rust off was the sound of a T Cog turning itself, and in turn every slab of metal around it. Including the ones Airachnid was standing on.
"Breakdown, get up!" Airachnid tore herself away from the reborn spark to pull the Decepticon off the floor. "We need to leave!"
Even with all her legs working together, he was heavier than he looked. She only succeeded in tugging him towards the exit as he fixed her with confusion. "Huh? But what if there's another blast? We'll be right in the middle of it-!"
"There won't be." She let him go, deciding to lead by example instead. "Now unless you want to end up crushed between his plating, move!" She headed for the stairs and, securing Scorpia where she needed to be, leapt off and transformed before she hit a set of steps, roaring off over Metroplex as he trembled and quaked, battlements and spires vibrating and shaking off their debris. Also below her was Breakdown, who must have finally noticed the working spark that wasn't there before, racing over the shifting street in his own alt mode, smashing through the gate as she landed a good distance away on the crest of a shattered planetary plate. But she could have been on the other side of the planet and still heard the Titan's wake up call, a proud announcement that almost echoed from her own spark.
"Metroplex… systems online!"
He stretched, and the planet shuddered. It was like a continent was coming to life, rising out of the ground in a veil of dust and grit. An entire building moved, then a cluster of them, until they formed a limb that shoved against the ground as Metroplex pulled himself out of Cybertron's graveyard. There was so much changing, so much being displaced, that all Airachnid could see was roads and streets disappearing until the hurricane faded, leaving behind a deep chasm where Autobot City had sat just klicks beforehand, and a shadow covering its entire width in darkness.
Metroplex didn't stand before her, but he didn't need to. Just kneeling made him taller than a combiner team. His face was like a mural, something ancient and foreboding, and it would have commanded her attention even if he wasn't looking right at her. How he managed that when his optics were hollow, practically blind, she couldn't say.
"I heed the call of the last Prime," he intoned, barely moving his mouth as he blanketed the air with the force of his vocaliser. "And his sparkmate."
For the first time since she could remember, Airachnid was speechless. What would be the point in saying anything, when she would only be drowned out? What of importance could she possibly say to this living relic?
He made no sign that he recognised her, nothing beyond being Optimus' bonded. She could have been the same Elita he spoke to the day before she went to Archa, and he still would have acknowledged her the same way. He didn't have the capacity for names beyond that of those who commanded him.
Whether or not he was waiting for an order, his automatic sensors still seemed to function. His helm snapped to the horizon, facing the other beast still coming towards them.
"Enemy detected. Initiating combat procedures. Target identified; Trypticon." He rose upright in a single mechanical motion, towering so high he could have broke the atmosphere line and grasped at Cybertron's moons. He marched out to meet Trypticon- Airachnid didn't even want to think of how he was still alive- slamming his peds with each step and leaving the femme behind with a burning spark, a gaping sparkling and a very confused mech by her side.
"...What did he mean 'sparkmate'?" Breakdown asked.
Airachnid blinked, opened her mouth slightly, before only letting an exhausted sigh through. "I have no idea," she lied.
xx
Optimus and Grimlock were the last to leave. Smokescreen and Knockout were already long gone, ripping up the wasteland between them and the Omega Lock, while between them and Trypticon lay only a flimsy barricade of Autobots and Dinobots. Megatron was still only a speck on his titan's shoulders, blind or just uncaring to the other Autobots slipping past him. All he cared about was crushing the ones right front of him.
Trypticon advanced slowly, still weighed down by his own mass and the toxic fuel coursing through him. Each step took a klick to land, but it also brought him a league closer to where the Autobots stood their ground. Optimus couldn't tell where he was heading, not without waiting around to see what lay on the horizon ahead.
So, with one last look at his soldiers, at Dreadwing orchestrating them against their impossible enemy, at the remains of the Vehicons still crawling towards them on wet trails of Dark Energon, he left on Grimlock's back, on the same heading as Smokescreen.
They were in the middle of the Sea of Rust, having emerged in the cover of a wreckage older than the war itself with Trypticon already waiting for them, which meant Metroplex's remains would be on the other side. He just needed to get there, forced to take a longer route around the sheltered outskirts to avoid the barren plains that would see him dead.
Grimlock said nothing as they pushed on. Not even a quip about Optimus being heavy, or about needing his help. In some way, Optimus found his silence more chilling than the Metrotitan ever-present behind them. He switched his comm unit back on, only to have his audios assaulted by a hundred pings from the same frequency. Once the wavelength cleared, he opened up the line to Earth.
"Optimus, finally!" Despite being light years away from the action, Ratchet sounded as if he'd just gone a round against Megatron himself. "I've been trying to comm you for the past hour! I have bad news-"
"So do I, old friend," Optimus cut in, letting Grimlock bound across the wastes without any steering. "Megatron has somehow revived his warship into its true form; Trypticon."
"What?!" The medic suddenly regained enough energy for an outburst. "B-But Trypticon… I thought he was terminated centuries ago!"
"No matter how old the corpse is, Dark Energon can still bring it back to life," Optimus reminded him, shuddering at the memory of their fight against Megatron's first zombie hoard.
"I'm getting too old for this… well, to make matters worse, the Space Bridge is completely burned out. We don't have enough energon reserves to power it. I can't bring anyone back in an emergency… including Airachnid."
Optimus hadn't even thought of calling in more Space Bridges, but knowing they weren't even an option now filled him with more dread than he thought his spark could hold. Before he could even think of a response, anything to fix the situation, Grimlock demanded his attention with a vicious buck of his spinal strut.
"Prime. Look behind!"
Despite their rapid stampede, Trypticon had hardly changed size. Still sitting bloated against the sky, unhinging his jaw like a mechanical snake as if he intended to devour anyone who came close, the Autobots were like insects he was trying to swat aside. Or, in this case, trying to trap in a bug zapper.
Optimus alone recognised the attack pattern, and knew that running would do them no good. Like a fountain of molten magma, Trypticon let loose a lance of energy that cut through the ground below him, slicing along Cybertron's surface as he pulled his helm back to direct it. The beam was coming right towards Optimus and Grimlock in a jagged course, too wide to escape. Optimus brought up the Star Sabre in a futile, desperate attempt to block or displace it…
But Grimlock acted faster.
The Dinobot faced the laser without hesitation, and stretched his own jaw wide to unleash his own weapon. A jet of flame shot out from him like a glowing spear, meeting the plasma beam and, right before Optimus' own optics, absorbing and dissipating its deadly energy before it could hit. Somehow something as basic as fire managed to beat back the laser, melting the loose electrons and fueling the flame further by stealing Trypticon's own heat energy.
The two forces fought against each other, briefly back and forth until all the combined heat collapsed into a single shattering explosion, like an orb of magnesium hit with a solar flare. Optimus covered his frame with the Sabre, squinting against the glare as Grimlock turned to run again. Hopefully the light was bright enough to shield them from any scanning optics, though it meant Optimus couldn't see who was still standing. He opened a new line on his comm link.
"Bulkhead, come in!" The frequency crackled as the electromagnetic surge of plasma still hung in the air, and Optimus felt relief at the Wrecker's eventual answer.
"Optimus, did you just see that?! We almost got fried!"
"Is everyone alive?"
"Yeah, luckily we weren't right in the middle of it. Just some refraction burns here and there."
Optimus sighed, casting a look over his shoulder to where the Autobots still fought behind the explosion's lingering cover. "Listen closely, Bulkhead. Trypticon's plasma beam is highly dangerous, but it can be manipulated by a magnetic field. If you see him preparing for another strike, counter it with the Polarity Gauntlet." He wanted to curse himself for not thinking to warn the others earlier, but even with the Gauntlet it would be difficult to divert a weapon as powerful as Trypticon's. Then again, Grimlock had managed it with just a basic fire attack. A relic may not affect the Titan directly, but once the energy left his body it was no longer protected. And with such a strong bot wielding it… who knew what might happen?
Bulkhead seemed to sense Prime's doubt, compiling it on top of his own. "Uh… right. I'll try."
Optimus switched to Ratchet as Bulkhead cut off, once again hit with a barrage of pings.
"Optimus, can you hear me? Are you still there?"
"Still here, Ratchet. There was an… incident that needed taken care of." Grimlock let out a smug snarl beneath him. Optimus focused ahead, watching for the outline of their destination to appear over the horizon line. "Do you have Airachnid's location?"
"She's finally stopped moving, so give me a klick… she's on the other side of the planet." Ratchet sounded impressed, and Optimus sas why when he transmitted the coordinates over. "Must have been flying the entire time to cover that distance from where you started."
"Far away from the fighting, at least," Optimus conceded. "Her comm link isn't registering, I can only assume she turned it off. I'm on my way to Autobot City, which should take me past her-"
"Autobot City?" Ratchet caught onto his plan much more quickly than he was prepared for. "Optimus, you're not thinking of…? I mean, it's the only way you'll beat Trypticon, but-"
"I understand the risk attached to reviving Metroplex. Which is why I will be his handler," Optimus pointed out; in fact, himself and Ratchet were the only ones who did know about the true risks involved. He hadn't been completely open about the details of bringing Metroplex back from the Allspark. The Omega Lock could repair his major systems and give him a temporary fuel supply, even kickstart whatever flickering embers were left of his spark. But Metroplex would be in no state to fight by himself, not against a Dark Energon-enforced Titan.
Two features distinguished a Metrotitan from an ordinary bot. One was their immense size, with stories of moon and even planet sized Titans running rampant during the Golden Age. The second, known only to those who'd ever operated a Metrotitan, was their ability to be controlled by someone completely separate from their colossal bodies, someone who could tap into their sprawling roads of nerve nodes or even directly into their spark. A Titan's processor could malfunction or their optics could go blank behind cracked optics, and they could still fight with a pilot guiding their movements.
That was why Optimus' presence was needed; he could summon Metroplex from anywhere on the planet's surface. But he could only control him from a close distance, close enough to feel the impact from every hit rattling through Cybertron's bones. Close enough to feel every mistake spear through his spark, joined to the Titan's by the thick spindle of the Matrix.
"Even if all else fails," he continued, "Metroplex's and my own sparks will be the only ones in danger. And I will sacrifice mines if it means taking down Megatron once and for all."
Ratchet scoffed, but not wholly from disapproval. "Things like that were a lot more believable when you didn't have a family to go back to."
The firm grip on Grimlock's horns loosened slightly, with Optimus caught off guard by the medic's reply. "The Autobots have always been my family, Ratchet. And if Cybertron falls here… where else will my family go?"
"...There's always Earth," Ratchet answered, hidden hope showing through despite how offhandedly he tried to put it.
"Earth is not our home," Optimus reminded him. "It has sheltered us, but it is not where we belong, Ratchet. We owe it to the humans to leave their world in peace."
The line stewed in silence for some long moments, and Optimus spent them watching Trypticon over his shoulder. He thought he saw Dreadwing strafing the skies with Swoop, or perhaps Megatron himself trying to beat back the assault, while the ground troops leapt and dived and danced around Trypticon's defences just to stay alive. He wondered how far away Smokescreen and Knockout were, if they'd even make it to the Lock. And he wondered if Ratchet was right, if Earth could become a safe haven if all else failed.
The medic didn't press the point further when he finally spoke again. "Just don't be stupid, Optimus. And find Airachnid, for Primus' sakes! Keep each other out of trouble."
Despite everything, Optimus found himself smiling at the medic's plea disguised as a groan, and most of all at the thought of reuniting with Airachnid. "Understood, old friend."
It was only when all comms were off that he noticed how Grimlock's back sagged under him, and how his vents blew heavily across his haunches. His pace hadn't slowed, but it was clear he was struggling.
"How… farther, Prime?" he panted, trailing drool as it flowed over his overheated mouth. Optimus pushed himself up high on the Dinobot's back, trying to see what lay ahead. Beyond a thin gauze of grit, he thought he saw Metroplex's spires coming into view.
"We've cleared over half the distance, Grimlock. Just a little more, and we'll reach-"
He was swiftly drowned out by the familiar hum of an incoming laser, so sure that Trypticon had managed another plasma beam that he skidded to turn Grimlock around- only to find the Metrotitan still trying to throw the aerial fighters off him. The light came from somewhere else, far left of where the grand diversion was taking place. Just looking at it made his optics burn, but it was nothing compared to the searing heat in his spark. He knew without seeing where it had come from, where it hit like a sword of ultimate, unlimited energy like Cybertron hadn't seen for millennia.
The Omega Lock had been activated, and it had found Metroplex's remains. But his spark shouldn't have been reacting to it so violently, not this far from the event site. Unless…
He brought up Airachnid's co ordinates again. Only a Prime could truly summon and control a Metrotitan. But if one was bonded to a Prime…
He tried to contact Airachnid again, frantically searching for any sign of her frequency. A link popped up eventually, but he didn't get to hold the hope that it was her for very long.
"Optimus, it worked! We got the Omega Lock powered and… holy slag, it's really him!" Smokescreen's frame practically vibrated from how his wavelength trembled, or perhaps those were just tremors from mighty peds. "Metroplex is up and running!"
Optimus watched the dead Metrotitan rise one last time, still colossal despite the distance, still struck by awe after so long since witnessing his sacrifice. "I see him, Smokescreen. Excellent work." He almost didn't realise how quiet his vocaliser was, not until Knockout dropped in to snatch some of the praise.
"I helped as well, you know. This teenspark barely even knew where to stick the keys in…"
Optimus barely listened, still bearing witness to Metroplex's revival as he trudged over the quaking landscape, a fortress on his last mission to save their planet. His spark had calmed down, but there was still an echo of fire that must have been from Airachnid.
Did she even know what she'd just been dragged into?
"Both of you, stay in cover until Trypticon is defeated," he ordered, cutting of Smokescreen in the middle of another ramble. "I'll comm the others and have them rendezvous with you at the Lock." Trypticon noticed Metroplex now, two impossibilities coming to collide, and the screech of rage could have torn the atmosphere asunder. He almost didn't hear Smokescreen's question as he steeled his audios.
"What about you, Optimus?"
He studied the distance between the two behemoths, the smudged bots below scattering as Trypticon bounded towards his enemy like a slow-motion hunting hound. Despite the massive fighters, Optimus focused on the speck careening through the sky, a furious slipstream aiming right towards Metroplex. But before Megatron even came within striking distance, he was swatted aside like a scraplet.
"I must find Airachnid," Optimus said, as Megatron spiralled to the ground on a trail of purple smoke. "As soon as possible."
xx
73 chapters down (with this being my longest ever written up till now), two to go. Someone might die next time.