Darkness rising

Escape

It's been a week since Optimus confronted Jack. The situation in the base hadn't changed much. Arcee and Jack had seemed to have grown more distant. In the past one week Jack had also visited Airachnid quite a few times. Even vented about his current situation. He didn't know why he was so comfortable at doing that around the frozen Spider-bot. He figured out, maybe it was because she wouldn't be able to tell anyone about it since she was frozen and possibly couldn't hear him. Jack was currently resting in the human area at the Autobot base. Miko and Raf, as always, were trying to beat each other in a video game. Jack on the other hand was lazily staring at everything happening around him.

"That's weird." Ratchet suddenly said.

This caught everyone's attention.

"What happened Ratchet?" Optimus asked as he approached the medic.

"I have been doing some rechecks on the base and it seems like there's a problem in one of the vaults in corridor D." Ratchet informed.

"I can check it out." Smokescreen offered.

"That will be appreciated. Just don't mess with anything." Ratchet told him

"Sure Docbot." Smokescreen said as he proceeded to leave.

Ratchet grumbled something inaudible and returned to his work. As Smokescreen walked past the human area to enter the corridor leading to the vaults, Jack got up from his seat.

"Hey, can I tag along? I am kinda bored right now." Jack asked Smokescreen.

"I don't see why not. Let's go." Smokescreen happily told him.

Jack then got down from the area and started walking beside Smokescreen as he led him to the place. Once they reached the corridor, Jack instantly recognised it. It was the very same corridor where Airachnid is kept in one of the vaults. They cautiously walked around, trying to find which vault Ratchet was talking about. They soon found it. To Jack's horror his predictions came true as it was the very same vault where Airachnid's stasis pod. Smokescreen and Jack nervously looked at each other as they both knew about the reputation the Spider-bot had earned both during the war on Cybertron and during the time she was on earth.

"This can't be good." Jack grimly thought as Smokescreen carefully opened the door of the vault.

Smokescreen activated one of his energon blasters as a safety measure and then entered the vault, Jack following close by. The vault was dark inside and it wasn't easy for neither the bot nor the human to make out anything. Luckily Smokescreen had brought a flashlight along with him. He turned it on and pointed it around the vault, illuminating certain areas with the flash light. But when the light fell on the stasis pod, Jack felt his heart dropping. Most of the ice in the stasis pod had melted and the front portion of it was badly damaged. And worst of all, Airachnid wasn't inside it. Suddenly they heard a noise coming from above them. They looked up and found none other than Airachnid herself, hanging on the ceiling with her extra spider-like legs. She lunged at them, the moment the light coming from the flashlight illuminated her figure. Jack managed to avoid it by jumping away as Smokescreen tried to fight Airachnid, while Jack tried to crawl away. But the rookie was no match for the Deception femme and in matter of moments he was pinned against the wall and had a damaged shoulder which was already leaking energon. Airachnid didn't waste another moment and quickly used her webs to secure him on the wall and even used some of it to cover his mouth so he couldn't alert anyone. Jack, who was still in the room, saw it all with a horrified expression on his face.

Airachnid turned her attention towards the human this time, as a smirk formed on her face.

"Ah, Jack. We finally met again." She said,