Airachnophobia (Airachnid X Male Reader)

26: Unnatural Disaster

There was a grim mood about the Autobots. The news about Bumblebee, if it could even be called "news" given its source, had disheartened all of them. While they all knew to take Airachnid's information as likely to be false, it was still a huge blow to their confidence as a team. The scout was a necessary part of their team, a part that Arcee considered family. If he was dead, it had horrible implications for their future. The femme was brooding over her lack of influence in the course of recent events when she was interrupted by Rafael.

"What's all that purple stuff?" The boy asked, pointing towards the map Ratchet had left on one of the monitors. As the team's medic, as well as a scientist, he often left various research related files open on the base's computer system. Arcee looked over, her disinterest quickly becoming concern as she took in the information on the screen.

"What in the pits-" She stood up to get a closer look at the map, which appeared to depict a large swath of Earth's land. The various holographic monitors in the Autobot base all had a green tint to them, but that didn't stop color from being displayed. The bright, steady light from them was a stark contrast to the inconsistent flickering of the human-made lights across the other parts of the base.

As for the map Rafael mentioned, there were a few different spots that seemed abnormal. There was an undulating purple pattern of interference in a few of these areas, and nothing in the map key gave a hint as to what it could be.

Ratchet wasn't immediately on hand to explain it either, as he and Optimus were in the medbay dealing with the prisoner. Optimus had decided against telling the children about what Airachnid had said regarding Bumblebee, since there was no reason to worry them with something that could turn out not to be true. To that end, Ratchet was employing various interrogation techniques to try and get the actual truth out of the lying scrapheap.

"I'm not sure, Raf. It doesn't look good though. I'll go find Optimus and let him know."

~~~~~

"I'm not lying. Why would I lie to you?" Airachnid asked innocently, knowing full well the answer to her own question as she laid under the scrutinizing gaze of Optimus Prime and his lapdog medic. She actually wasn't lying for once, and she had told them the whole story about Y/N and Bumblebee, and what happened on the Nemesis. She knew why they would be in denial though.

"You're insane if you think we're going to just believe what you say at face value. Was your processor chewed on by scraplets while you were on your ridiculous field trip too?" The red and white medic's disapproval was obvious. He continued on a rant about her many sins in the eyes of the Autobots and why they shouldn't trust her, and many obscenities along the way. She wasn't listening, though. Rather, the most prevalent noises in her ears were the hum of the fluorescent lights above her and the sound of the machinery in the medbay going through process after process.

Airachnid could tell things were different for her now. If she were the same con she was in the past, she would have done everything in her power to hold information over the heads of the Autobots until she could squeeze every last concession out of them before forking over anything. It would have been a good strategy for someone with tentative ties to the Decepticons. Now, though, she didn't have any ties to the Decepticons outside of maybe a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster on the Nemesis. On top of that, she was the prisoner of the Autobots, so keeping information from them that could get them offlined would be detrimental for her. No one would be looking for her to undo the restraints she was in, and she would rust in an abandoned base. Besides, if the Decepticons did manage to kill all the remaining Autobots, Megatron would surely continue his warmongering anyway. Airachnid had no interest in returning to a Cybertron in perpetual war.