Ep. 1.5 Will You Walk Into My Parlor? [Closed]

[Deleted]

(Set after "It's a Classic!" and "Out of Place, Out of Time")

Organic life is a miracle.






From Tailgate’s perspective at least. It was surprising that this form of life flourished so seemingly easy on this planet. There was not one speck of dirt or drop of water that was teeming with life. And the flora was seemingly unstoppable. Gargantuan pines blocked out the sun with their brimming branched. Ferns and mosses clung to the moist undergrowth while saplings and bushes eked out a living in the shade. The fauna was equally amazing. There was a tremendous variety of beasts here; crawling, creeping, galloping, hopping, and flying all over. Tailgate was a bit jealous. Cybertron’s fauna were boringly similar. Even the supposedly advanced Cybertronians lacked such diversity as they relied on pre-set chassis builds. All the creatures here were uniquely beautiful. Albeit gross. Organic bodily functions still gave Tailgate a shiver down his backstrut. And not to mention they were horribly vulnerable. Even the slightest shift in an ecosystem or environment and a whole species could come crashing down. They were too squishy. How could anything possibly survive out here with such soft body?

Tailgate, once more inundated with free time due to his lack of Autobrand, decided to do something different today. In place of a trip to Haven, he instead decided on a nature walk. It was obvious that these factions would be fighting here on this planet for quite some time. Tailgate figured he should probably get to know the place. Alone he ventured out to a nearby mountain range. Everyone either didn’t feel like tagging along or, as always, were “busy” with Autobot stuff. Tailgate couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. He wanted to be in on the action. He wanted to help, to make a difference. Right now all he is is a distraction, a burden on their efforts. Someone to be brushed easily aside. It bothered him to no end. It was the Prescient Dawn all over again. And he was not putting up with that scrap again. No sirree.

But....if he shackled himself down by declaring his faction....he might not be able to enjoy his current level of friendship with Buffalo Dump. Did he really want to throw away what was probably his first best friend for his own selfish needs? Tailgate needed to think it over. And so he did, as he traveled through the mountain forest, enjoying the peace and quiet as he mulled things over.

And they warned him about Decepticons. Pfff. As if a Decepticon would come out here to a place so pristine.

[Deleted]

The quiet and serenity was one of the few qualities of lurking in the forest that Airachnid preferred. She had a whole bevy of space to herself and was surrounded by a fascinating supply of organic life she had never experienced before. The selection on this planet was truly astonishing. In all of her traveling, she had never seen a planet with such diversity. The macrocosms within this world packed in a expanding, complicated relationship with one another; like a delicate web, every line connected and relied on one another to hold shape. She would have great delight in delicately picking that web apart until there was nothing left.

Another reason for the excursion was seclusion away from her kind. She was at her most vulnerable due to Arcee and her pet's actions. Without her ship and low fuel supplies, Airachnid was no more a danger than the average Decepticon. Well, perhaps not so dire a situation. She could make due with digging her own lair into the mountainside, doing her own excavating for fuel and resources.

At no point did it occur to her to hail for help from her fellow allegiance. She'd rather give herself to the Autobots then to fall in line under the rank and file of Decepticon hierarchy. It took too much work for little pay off and she was too impatient to play their war games. Couldn't they realize there was a whole universe out there ripe for exploring and dissecting?

No, she'd keep to her trees and watch the wildlife teaming on the planet. She'd also pay attention to local chatter on the planet's datanet. There was...interesting activity that she occasionally heard through the human's quaint conspiracy theory forums. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was almost a pattern emerging with paramilitary undertones. Something to keep note on and piece together for she now had all the time in the world until a ship fell into her grasp.

Her solitude was interrupted by the trample of a quadruped, a deer, bounding lightly under her perch in the limbs above. She barely paid any mind to the creature. She'd already caught more than enough to study. They held no more interest in her then the rest of the specimens she had found and picked out. They were a staple of the forest but they had their uses. Such as now.

Something had startled the creature into fleeing the vicinity. Which prompted the femme to pay more attention to the forest floor, her compound optics combing over the pine needle strewn valley. No...no...ah, there you are... She grimaced, showing a delicate point of a fang. One her own kind had found his way into the forest and possibly alone. But one could never tell or be too careful...

Quietly and as graceful as the species she was modeled after, Airachnid crawled through the limbs, barely making a sound that couldn't be interpreted as a sigh of wind through the leaves. If she could get ahead of the mech, she could create a simple trap to catch her prey. Nothing too strenuous or damaging. She didn't want him hurt yet. She just wanted him disoriented. Confused mechs tended to babble easier.

Ahead of the path the mech was following was an ideal location. A wide bridge spanned a dry creek bed. Against the left shoulder the hill crowded in with large boulders and on the right, a slope that dropped dramatically down a ravine. There was no room but to take the sturdy bridge, wide enough and large enough to support the game wardens and their vehicles.

Slipping under the bridge, Airachnid made her own modifications on the bridge with venom and webbing. She had to act fast before the mech rounded the bend and stepped onto the bridge but she was used to working in harder conditions than this. Under her careful limbs, she constructed a rather easy trap: the bridge would snap under weight in the middle, spilling its occupant down into a web waiting underneath. She'd effectively made a trap door from a utility bridge. The game wardens were going to be pissed.

Now all she had to do was wait.

[Deleted]

There was barely a sound on Cybertron that compared to the wondrous noise that was the leaves shaking in the breeze. It was melodic, attuning to the power of the wind. And strangely hypnotic. Tailgate could listen to it forever. And he had heard that Earth had this phenomenon called "seasons" and that meant it went from hot to cold. This change brought on a metamorphosis on the flora. He had been told that the soft green leaves would soon turn a plethora of warm colors; a sea of yellows, oranges, and reds would soon dominate the land. And the leaves dried up and got all crispy. Tailgate was eager to hear what rustling crispy leaves would sound like. Probably wonderful.

The game trail he had been taking suddenly shifted. Where before it had been a relatively sheltered path in the forest was now exposed to a barren creek bed. Large and rough boulders littered the area. That wasn't good. Tailgate had been vehemently warned never to show himself to the humans. Even though the area was probably devoid of humans, he didn't want to take his chances. Crossing the creek bed meant a higher rate of exposure. And the bed looked muddy in some places. Tailgate hated getting organic stuff all over his chassis. No way he was mucking through that. Conveniently, a lovely but old looking bridge connected the sides of the creek bed. From ground level it looked sturdy enough to carry Tailgate's weight. And he saw tire tracks in the dirt before the bridge, signifying that humans frequently drove over it. He was small enough anyway. The bot decided he should cross the bridge as quickly as possible to avoid dawdling out in the open.

It was just a plain old bridge anyway.

Tailgate tested out the bridge with one foot first, placing his full weight down to make sure it would hold. When the bridge failed to creak or moan, he was satisfied.

Looks safe to me! He thought in a chipper tone.

Three strides in and the bridge gave a tremendous groan. Tailgate could feel his chassis falling as the bridge gave way.

"SLAG!" Tailgate yelped. The creek bed rushed up towards him and he braced expecting impact at any second. But then he...bounced? Indeed, Tailgate had stopped a few feet from the ground and was promptly rebounded into the air. Upon falling back down into the odd thing softening his fall, he found himself stuck. Glued, rather. Though he still bounced around a little, this time it was the net thing as a whole. Upon the further inspection the net thing turned out to be a giant web of sorts.

A giant spider's web.

Tailgate's spark was startled into furious thudding. Images of giant, hideous organic creatures slithered into his thoughts. The bots back at base had teased him about organic monsters but Ratchet assured him they were fibs. Looks like they were right after all.

"Slagslagslagslagslagslagslag!" Tailgate said in an increasingly panicked tone. He did not want to be digested by giant bugs. Struggling against the sticky threading did nothing but panic him more.

"Oh Primus, somebody help me."

[Deleted]

The mech was much shorter than Airachnid realized. He barely stressed the webbing even with his futile flailing. She clung to the underside of the bridge on the far side, out of sight from the initial fall. While her prey grew used to his confines, she righted the bridge once more and secured the structure with more webbing in case someone stepped overhead. It wouldn't do to have the entire structure smack her when she wasn't paying attention.

Once that minor detail was taken care of, she stood upside down on the underside of the bridge on her eight legs. At once, she let go and dropped down to the web, righting herself mid fall and twisting her form into the bipedal mode, to land on two feet with the grace of a trapeze artist. The sticky thread didn't adhere to her form at all, it would appear.

"You'll wake the whole forest with your carrying on." The curved legs behind her delicate picked out to cling to the web to keep her balance, keeping her hands free. "Stop struggling and I might be persuaded to let you go. But only in exchange of your name." Compound optics picked over the mech's form, assessing...

[Deleted]

Metallic clinking made Tailgate stop struggling instantly. There was nothing in the net with him to be making that sort of noise. The sound echoed under the bridge.

tink tink tink tink tink

Movement above him caught his attention. He snapped towards it as best as he could with it glued to the net. Something was skittering in the darkness. Something big. Tailgate's spark was seizing with horrid anticipation.

It stepped out of the shadows. And onto the web.

A giant organic but. No, wait, it was non-organic. And it wasn't a bug....but it only appeared so.

"You'll wake the whole forest with your carrying on."

Tailgate wanted to say something, something clever, but his brain module was frozen in fright. What on Primus's good Cybertron was that? Well, "it" sounded like a femme. She looked like an Insecticon yet she exhibited intelligence way beyond the level of a common bug. She was something else.

"Stop struggling and I might be persuaded to let you go. But only in exchange of your name."

The arachnid femme moved effortlessly on the web as she was apparently immune to its strange glue. All she wanted his name apparently. The strange femme certainly didn't look trustful. And Tailgate had always been warned against strange, insect-like, and possibly aggressive bots. In a moment of panicked stupidity he began to blabber.

"It's Tailgate! Tailgate! Now let me go, please Mrs. Scary-Spider, I didn't mean to break your stupid bridge but honestly who lives under an unstable bridge in the middle of nowhere! It's all just a misunderstanding, I swear, now please let me go!"

Tailgate managed a moment of clarity in his frenzied chattering. A distress signal was sent across the secure Autobot channels.

[Deleted]

Admittedly, the name threw her. Now, how could she forget such a designation as that? Not when she had such fond memories attached. Oh, Arcee... but no, this was definitely not some Lazarus version of the Autobot's partner. This was just delicious irony.

Does Arcee know you? I'll bet she was so wounded by your name. She is so loyal to the memory of her partner. I would have loved to have seen her face when she met you. I'll bet the pain was sudden and betraying.

"Tailgate," she said, letting some of the genuine surprise show. She must not over play her hand. If she was too nice, she'd be too obvious in her intentions. She softened her tone to a dulcet coax. "Why, you're not a Decepticon at all. Forgive the ruse. but one can never be too careful. The bridge can be fixed later. You, however, are another story. Did the fall hurt you?"

She moved closer, with the grace of her namesake but now was not the time for attack. Mid-stride, she shifted her body stance, folding her spindly legs down behind her in a non-threatening droop. Her pretty face showed nothing but open worry. How could she have hurt a fellow mech? How horrible!

While indulging in this little game, the spider was inspecting the bot with the pretense of fussing over his well being. She made a mental list under a file of his own. Small frame type, not bristling with weaponry. Not exceedingly intelligent either. Panicky under pressure. And she hadn't even wounded him yet. She couldn't be sure, but he seemed the type to faint at the sight of his own insides.

"Are you alone? I wouldn't want anyone else to fall through the bridge. They would fall on us."

[Deleted]

The long mountain road stretched beyond the seeable horizon, empty and seemingly abandon.

Just how she preferred it.

Normally, Arcee was content with the open flat desert roads available near the base where she could open the throttle all the way, redlining her engine. However, the twisting mountain roads offered the extra challenge of maintaining high speeds with precision control manvuering.

With Jack away on a class trip, Arcee veered back to a few old habits of running solo. If Arcee wasn’t required at base, she spent her free time on the road always moving, never staying in one spot for too long. It’s how she survived for so long alone on Cybertron towards the end of the war.

You can’t get caught if you’re not there anymore.

Arcee wasn’t trying to avoid her fellow Autobots, she was a ‘bot that liked her space. Plus, as said before some habits just refuse to die.

A burst of wind whipped by the two-wheeler propelling her closer to the mountain side, before she put on a burst of speed correcting her errant path. She'd nearly straighten out again, when a road closed sign appeared without warning around a sharp curve.

"Scrap!" She jerked her front tire sharply to the left to avoid the road barrier. Arcee lost control of her treading, slipping onto her vehicle's mode side, and sliding painfully with a ear-splitting screech along the road. For ten agonizing seconds, Arcee helplessly endured the painfully tearing and rending of the rough asphalt on her exterior frame as her momentum finally expired a short distance before the road block.

The two-wheeler laid there still for several moments as her processor caught up with the rest of her. Gingerly, Arcee transformed back to her root mode, remaining were she was on the ground, one arm holding herself up on a knee and the other clenching her helm till the apparent dizziness passed.

Slippin' up a few gears in your old age, aye 'cee? Came an unspoken cheeky voice.

"Shut it, Cliff." Arcee muttered to herself, refusing to acknowledge the phantom any further. She shook her head, clearly the last of the petro rabbits figments frolicking around her optics, and stiffly rose from her seated position.

Casting a glance at her leisure killjoy, a rockslide had apparently occurred recently covering the next twenty meters of road. Arcee frowned. She hadn't read anything about a rockslide in the latest traffic report, hence way she choose this route for the jaunt. A hastily erected and makeshift road block and warning sign were the only available advanced warning to random travelers. Only the remoteness of this mountain road would lend itself to the road block warning being neglected in mention in the report.

"Not one of your finest moments, 'cee." Arcee said to no one, stretching her banged up, but still functional frame. She could almost hear Cliffjumper laughing in the background, but knew it was only a memory. Arcee didn't dwell on it, real-time flashbacks of Cliffjumper happened from time to time when she was alone. If she ignored him- IT- the memory would fade just like all the others. Now, if the flashback had been about Tailgate...her spark froze, skipping a beat. No! She mentally slapped herself for going down that road.

Coming back to her senses, Arcee realized she was hunched, venting hard, and servos hanging onto a boulder for dear life. Straightening up and shaking free her nerves, Arcee paced away from the rockslide and accessed her GPS subroutines. A couple hundred feet back the way she had came was a gravel service road through the woods below. Not her first choice of route, but she really didn't feel like trapising across loose and unstable rocks while exposed in her robot mode.

Changing back to vehicular form, Arcee followed the gravel road down to forest below at a more reasonable and cautious speed. Time passed going onto an hour, Arcee really didn't mind or care for that matter at the moment. The forest fauna was chatty with small mammals scurrying through the fern underbrush. A few squirrels chased each other across the two-wheeler's path at one point forcing Arcee to halt to a stop. One squirrel chittered at her angry for interrupting their chase, before leaping back into hiding among the vegetation. Arcee rumbled in bare amusement.

When Arcee thought she was going to burnt out of boredom at the snail's pace she traveling at, a S.O.S. blared across her comm. channel, immediatlely stopping her in tracks. She scanned through her id log for the source of the distress signal, but discovered it was unknown call log. Some bot was in trouble and close, but it wasn't someone she knew. The only possibility she could quickly arrived to was one of the recently arrived neutrals, with Autobot leanings if they had access to this channel, was in trouble.

Arcee hesitated. She didn't entirely trust most of the neutrals. Their species had endured a long and costly war. She carried some resentment as she and her comrades fought and often gave their lives, while they ran away from the Decepticon threat and hid in safety.

She could easily picture Optimus's disapproving glance as well. They were Autobots, ready to help when needed no matter the circumstances. Arcee pushed her personal feeling at the moment and rushed to the source of the distress beacon. Easing closer, she still caught no sight of any danger, but that doesn't mean its not there. She saw only a deserted bridge-

-a venomous sweet and hauntingly familiar voice carried from somewhere out of sight. Arcee froze in her tracks. Airachnid! Arcee sneered, quickly but quietly transforming to robot mode.

She had no qualms assisting the poor bot now. However, Airachnid's faint utter of a painful name paralyzing in her tracks. Too Late! The flashback of that memory trapped her!

***************

[Deleted]

The foreign femme's inspection was probably one of the most uncomfortable things in Tailgate's recent memory. Her voice, oozing with a sickly sweetness, triggered a part in Tailgate's processor that made him anxious. The kindness she was attempting to give was not convincing. Even the look across her face as she skittered closer only unnerved the Minibot more. Vaguely it looked like she was concerned. Tailgate got the feeling it wasn't concern for his well being. Young as the Minibot, it was programmed into his most basic survival programming, and he knew when to identify danger. The femme was nothing but caring and gentle but that did not necessarily mean Tailgate didn't see her as a threat. She radiated panic and distrust. Though the Minibot could not feel a field around her, he still felt nothing but peril in her presence. Tailgate instinctively retracted his own field back to himself as tightly as possible to prevent himself from betraying any outward emotion.

Her apparent satisfaction of him not being a Decepticon was not too reassuring either. Tailgate had been told that all Neutrals lived in Africa, at the DMZ, or else they risk getting pulled into the conflict. And all Autobots were supposed to be report back to base back every once in a while. Even so, if she hadn't been there in some time, someone would have warned him about the crazy spider femme who lived under a bridge. Though she might just be a complete rouge. Then again who lives under a bridge? His mind flickered with remembrance at some human myth about odd creatures lived under bridges and ate those who dared crossed.

Primus, he hoped she wouldn't eat him.


"That's a pretty big hole in the bridge. I think anyone could see that. Unless they're blind, no one's falling through there." Tailgate replied neutrally. The initial panic of falling down had worn off and Tailgate attempted to gather his incoherent thoughts. First things first, there was a giant spider femme who looked as menacing as that sounded. She hadn't killed him yet, which was a plus. Maybe she was just a crazy, bridge-dwelling hermit. The question was if he trusted her enough to divulge more information.

"...so...you live under a bridge. I guess that's...nice. Bit dark. Little musty. Could use some work." Tailgate tittered calmly, albeit a bit nervously. Distracting her might buy him some time. From what exactly? He had no idea. But Tailgate was gifted in the art of derailing a conversation and getting off topic. And he figured that as long as he was doing the conversation directing, it would work out. Somehow.

"Uhm," Tailgate gave a wiggle in the web. "'Preciate the safe landing, but this gunk can't be good for my lacquer. Can you let me...uh, down?"

[Deleted]

Despite her best efforts at appearing calm, even charming, the little Bot wasn't falling for it. Ah well, there was no fooling some of them, especially the timid ones! Which was a pity. Airachnid had been looking forward to some chit-chatting before getting to the real meat of the situation. Why were mechs so keen on rushing to their demise? She'd been perfectly open to an amiable discourse.

"Oh, I don't live here. What a perfectly imbecilic thought. What would I do if it rained? Which, trust me, it happens to do so often." She waved off the answer to the question. Never his mind what she was doing under a bridge. It was rude to be so nosy anyway.

"Down is a long way. Care to reevaluate your question?" She tapped at one of the anchoring lines of the web with a long, spindly appendage. The tap sent a vibration thrumming through it, jiggling the entire suspension in what was likely a nauseating and unsettling manner. "There are a lot of sharp rocks down there. I believe they are a type of schist. Trust me, a few flakes of that under your armor is noticeable." She chuckled as if joking.

[Deleted]

Flashback!

The underground chamber echoed with the dripping of an unknown fluid. Low-power lights created a cascade of impenetrable shadows along the outer edges of Arcee’s sight. The two wheeler hung limp, utterly drained from her capture and dangling prisonment for an immeasurable time.

The enemy (and creepy) femme, Airachnid, sauntered around the imprisoned autobot tirelessly. She grilled Arcee in a disturbing friendly mixture of teasing and demanding tone of voice for any and all information the femme autobot knew. Arcee refused despite the chronic strain on her limbs and the painful stabs littering across her weary frame.

A cruel smile spread across Airachnid's face. Woefully familiar words entered Arcee’s audioreceptors as her energon frozen at the sight of her dear partner and comrade was dragged into the damp chamber semi-conscious. A rush of panic energy took her, thrashing against her restraints and crying with utter fear. Nothing.

She knew nothing. Could do nothing to save HIM.

The shadow of a raised limb passed over her face plates, followed by the spilling of living energon. The impact of energon flecks lightly upon her cheek sent Arcee over the edge.

“TAILGATE!”

End Flashback!

Arcee gasped as she felt herself being sucked back into the present reality. She heaved hard, drawing in the cool forest air to calm her overheating systems.

Easy, Cee, it’s over now. Has been for a long time. Whispered a ghostly voice, steadying the trembling soldier. Arcee tentatively stood up and cracked open over-sensitive optics to the afternoon light. Seconds passed, Arcee’s helm snapped abruptly to her left, the current situation returning the forefront of her processor.

With a hard grim expression and a soft swoosh of her right arm-blade, Arcee proceeded purposely through the underbrush towards the deserted bridge. The voices grew more prominent at her approach. Disregarding the other bot’s voice deliberately, Arcee narrowed in on Airachnid's words with a razor edge focus. She pinpointed the spider femme’s approximate location out-of-sight under the bridge.

Taking a running start, Arcee took to the air, in an impossible display of grace and agility for a Cybertronian. Grabbing the bridge’s far ledge, the blue femme flipped and swung feet first underneath into the unsuspecting Airachnid.

[Deleted]

Vibrations rattled his frame. The nauseating feeling was doubled when the spider femme reminded him he was quite a ways from the ground. Cybertronian metal was durable. Tailgate didn't know exactly how durable, but he wasn't in a hurry to find out. He wasn't built for that kind of bodily stress. Plumbing doesn't call for falling from great heights.

The strangers tone had changed. She knew her guise of friendliness was gone and it was clear that she meant business. Tailgate could not fathom what in the Pits this stranger wanted from him. He wasn't even in a faction but she didn't need to know. Any information he could present to her would likely be outdated or irrelevant. Nobody wants, or needs, to know that Bulkhead stored energon gummies in storage closet 35B or that Bumblebee collects old soda cans. And honestly that would be all he could contribute. No one really told him anything "important". Again, she didn't need to know. If it came to it, he could always fabricate details or information. Tailgate was evidently good at convincing people if he managed to make bots back at base believe he was a bomb disposal prodigy.

"I'll take your word for it," Tailgate told the femme in regards to the schist comment. He allowed himself to peek down past the webbing to see if she was telling the truth.


Tailgate cringed. She was.


"Can you,uh, let me...go, then?" He asked feebly. Something inside him twinged painfully in anxiety. The Minibot could feel she wasn't going to let him go so easily.



And then the other femme attacked.

[Deleted]

Airachnid could feign forgetfulness very easily. It was a small, but significant factor in tearing down someone's confidence and giving them just a tiny push to unstable them. Interrogation, in its truest, artful form was about the smallest of details. A mispronounced name, a vague look suggesting nonrecognition could convey one very important detail to the captive: they were not important and any ramifications surrounding their death was easily dealt with.

However, Airachnid truly never forgot a name and a face. Call it a crutch on her part, but she never fully considered herself done with a victim unless they were well and truly dead. She'd lost very mechs in her life and wasn't going to forget them because as far as she was concerned, to quote the overly exploited fictional character, the game was still afoot. When she got her hands on them again, they'd just take up where they left off until she finally dispatched them in a suitably appropriate fashion. It was always a matter of when, not if.

Tailgate, and not the squirming tyke in the webbing before her, always brought a pleasant feeling to her when she thought of him. Not because the mech had been terribly amazing (he'd been a halfway decent soldier and a boring victim) but because he'd given her Arcee. The femme was just...sublime. No one had truly taxed Airachnid's skills (beyond another wretch she would get her hands on if he were still alive) and captured her attention. The spider lady's devotion to Arcee was nearly like an twisted ardor. She just couldn't help herself when the femme was about.

And she should have realized the silly sot would be about because here, in her grasp, was another Tailgate! Not nearly comparable to the last but the name alone was too perfect. As much as she knew the violent femme, and Airachnid liked to think she knew her better than everyone else, this mewling mech before her wasn't fitting of her company! He was a disgrace, really, to the skills and hard edges that the lovely femme had honed herself into. It really wasn't the spider's fault if she allowed herself to relax in his presence. She hadn't expected to hear from her darling femme for quite some time.

Which was why Arcee easily booted her right off of the web.

With a startled cry, Airachnid felt two solid feet connect into her site and brutally shove her slight weight off of the solid surface by sheer momentum alone. The impact unlatched every leg she had and sent her tumbling off the side and down in a confusing tangle of limbs and left the web bouncing under Arcee and Tailgate.

Partway down the ravine, Airachnid caught herself by triggering a transformation sequence that utilized better footing in this locale. If Tailgate had thought she was creepy before, having the guise of a mechanical spider clinging to rock wall was nightmare inducing. She smiled up at the two, wiggling her sharp talons and placing one hand over her spark.

"You do know how to get my attention, Arcee. Do you know this morsel?"

[Deleted]

Arcee had collided with the deceptive spider, sending the decepticon crashing to the ground below. Pushing off the spider after the initial impact in a quick motion, the blue femme sailed in a back flip and grabbed an underside bridge support to avoid the sticky web. The spider femme appeared to collect herself after her violent ejection from her latest toy and instead sizing up Arcee delectably, causing the two-wheeler to squirm in her armor.

“You do know how to get my attention, Arcee. Do you know this morsel?"

She fought the urge to glance at the mech beneath her. Her Tailgate was gone. The silent mantra whirled about her processor in a mad storm.

Arcee kept her hard gaze on Airachnid, knowing she couldn’t lose focus when dealing with the traitrous spider. A trembling clenched fist was the only indicator of the lingering turmoil that still brewed below the surface.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Arcee sneered in a clipped tone. Bantering with Airachnid was like throwing salt on an open wound as the humans would say, so Arcee refused to allow the spider much opportunity with her verbal game of tease.

“Now, dance, “ the sounds of armor plates shifting echoed as the ion repeater formed in her right arm and prepared to fire at Airachnid’s many feet. Not taking her optics off the femme spider, Arcee dropped to the ground and slashed at the web holding the trapped mech.

“Free yourself out of those webs and get the pit out of here,” Arcee said sternly, hoping the mech would listen. “You’ll only get in my way.”

[Deleted]

A blessed few micro seconds passed as the strange femme tumbled of the webbing. The sheer force of her sudden departure and the arrival of the other femme onto the web managed to partially dislodge the Minibot from its gluey surface. It was not the smoothest of transitions. Flung into the air while still stuck to the web, Tailgate was rattled around as the bouncy webbing stilled itself after a while. In the struggle, his left arm and most of his upper torso had ripped itself clear of the structure. Though his chassis was clearly covered in leftover sticky residue.

The menacing femme didn't stay out of sight for long. She rose from the shadows beneath them, skittering up in a transformed state. Much to Tailgate's dismay, she was now much more arachnid in appearance. Rather than the extra spindly appendages sticking out behind her, they now held her odd thorax like chassis above the ground. She was truly an arachnid now.

"You do know how to get my attention, Arcee. Do you know this morsel?"

Morsel? Primus on a piston.


The spider apparently knew the newcomer. Tailgate had never met Arcee face to face but he had heard her name around the base. An Autobot come to save him? Tailgate felt equally humbled and relieved. They really did care. Should they both get out of this alive, Tailgate would owe them two times over for saving his sorry hide. He really should stop getting into such shameful situations.

The Autobot backup femme sliced some of the remaining stubborn threads with ease. As she did, he sent a little private pulse from his field so that only Arcee could register it. It emanated panic and guilt in the fashion of I'm sorry I got into this mess please help me she's gonna eat me!

“Free yourself out of those webs and get the pit out of here. You’ll only get in my way.”

"Y-yes ma'am!"

The Minibot struggled to free himself from the remaining glue. The jumbling had loosened it a bit and his free arm made things a little easier. Tailgate had only the bare minimum in the weapons department. He readied his standard pistol, transforming his free hand into it, as he prepared for a fight. Not that he could do much to help. He'd probably end up getting in the way. Again. He stumbled hurriedly over the unstable webbing as the two femmes duked it out. The webbing was mostly flat but one corner steadily rose towards the side of the bridge where it was anchored. Tailgate was planning to climb his way up to the top of the bridge using that web anchor...

...that is, if no one attacked him on the way.

[Deleted]

Arcee wouldn't be Arcee without sending a barrage of hot shots blistering the air Airachnid's way. The spider could read the intention in the hard lines of the other femme's plates. She fairly sang her anger and hatred in the trembling extension of her arms and the wounded look that transformed her face. The fake spider drank it all in before scrambling along the rock wall, serrated feet ticking along the rocky surface and slipping here and there where the mineral didn't provide traction.

The shots slammed into the wall behind and around her. One lucky shot seared by a leg with a blistering trail but the spider was already fleeing around the corner of the ravine, existing it before Arcee could get a truly good shot in and bring her down. Airachnid suspected that if she were brought down in this small ravine, she'd have a hard time getting back up. She wasn't fleeing the scene just yet. Oh no, she still had business with the dear nemesis and her new friend. But taking them on when Arcee had the literal high ground was dangerous.

Disappearing around the bend, Airachnid found footing on the ground, scrabbling up the side of the ravine and heading for the denser treeline to hide her and provide height. In the trees, she would be at a further advantage and could keep an eye on the two Bots as they tried to escape. It was over do time for a game of cat and mouse between the two femmes and the Con was already looking forward to the new twist to the game.

Let's see if you can get that Autobot out of here before he dies.

Chuckling, Airachnid aimed a shot at the bridge, intent on bringing it down on the two as they tried to climb out.