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"They've reached the target area," Ratchet said with a sigh as the stat displays on each team member cut out. "Whatever Airachnid is using to jam comms and transponders, they're within its range. We can't see what's happening and won't hear from anyone on the team until they deactivate the jammers or return to the bridge-out coordinates."

"All we can do now is wait." Rosalina nodded and reached out to clasp her husband's hand. "Which will be nerve-wracking."

"No kidding," Raf mumbled as he stared intently at the monitors, as if hoping to be looking directly at them when contact resumed. Roz noticed that he had most of his attention focused on Bee's and Tomoko's stats and video feeds.

"Arcee and Jack have faced Airachnid before and survived," Ratchet grumbled, though his tone sounded a bit forced. "And they have a large team with them. The odds are in their favor, for once."

Tenesha Hargrove stepped over to them with one of her camera guys. "Maybe you could pass the time by doing an interview? Might help take your minds off the mission."

"I can't just turn off my concern for our friends." Roz shrugged and motioned at the sofa the kids usually sat on when hanging out in the Autobot base. "But it's worth a try, I guess. There's nothing else we can do at the moment, so we might as well use the time for something productive."

She and Lucas walked over to the sofa, still holding hands as they sat. Sierra wandered over from the doorway and sank onto the opposite end, flicking a nervous glance over at Smokescreen's video feed before turning back to the reporter. The camera guy turned around to take a few shots of the hub, lingering for a moment on Ratchet and Raf as they watched the monitors.

"So," Tenesha began, "how long have you been on Earth?"

"A little over six hundred years," Rosalina replied. "We wandered through space for many centuries before that, after our homeworld became uninhabitable. The Decepticons and a considerable number of us Pretenders continued fighting the Autobots, but the rest of us realized there was no point anymore, not even for revenge. Our civil war destroyed our home. There was nothing left to fight for. It was a horrible realization that Cybertron's destruction was the only thing that could snap us out of our insanity."

"So, you weren't involved in the war, then? If it took centuries for your people to find Earth ..."

"No, I was up to my neck in it, before the end. Cybertronians have very long life spans. Well, unless something ends it prematurely." Roz glanced away and shook her head. She didn't want to think about any of that. Didn't want to remember the kind of person she once was.

"Oh, you're like the ... well, for lack of a better term, 'normal' Cybertronians, then? The giant ones?"

"We're a recent creation of the Decepticons - 'recent' in Cybertronian terms, that is. We were built to infiltrate organic species if it should ever become a tactical necessity. We were deployed only on a few occasions, and blended in well enough that we were never noticed, as far as I'm aware. The Autobots didn't even know we existed until a few months ago." Roz tried to direct the conversation back to herself and hoped it would move on to more pleasant topics from there. "I'm a little under two thousand years old. We stumbled onto Earth six hundred years ago, changed our appearances to mimic the local population, and just tried not to be noticed. The last thing any of us wanted was to get involved in any more fighting."

"So you watched our history unfold. That's amazing."

"More like, we tried to stay out of the way of your history. Once we learned how superstitious and easily frightened humans were way back then, we did our best to avoid interacting with them. On the few occasions when a human discovered what we really were, they couldn't understand it, so they assumed we were demons and attacked us. Like I said, the last thing we wanted was more blood on our hands, so we isolated ourselves as much as we could. But as the human population continued spreading all over the world, that became more difficult. Eventually, we couldn't avoid interacting with them anymore, so we tried to blend in. We had to disappear or pretend to die every few decades to avoid arousing suspicion, move on and start a new life somewhere else." Rosalina glanced at Lucas and added, "For all intents and purposes, though, we became human - we had to keep our disguises on permanently, get jobs, develop social lives, and I guess it was inevitable that we'd form friendships and fall in love."

Lucas smiled back at her.

"You might say we went native," she continued. "We just wanted to live in peace, but now that Earth is our home and we see what's left of the Decepticons bringing their damned war here, we have to take a stand. I have a family here, and I won't let the 'Cons harm them."

"That's good to hear." Tenesha smiled and cocked her head. "What did you do during the war, though?"

"That doesn't matter," Lucas said, clasping Rosalina's hand between both of his. "That's far in the past. All that matters is who she is now."

_Thank you._Roz smiled, leaned over to give him a quick kiss, and turned back to Tenesha. "I was on the wrong side way back then. I'd been on that side for so long that I didn't see what the 'Cons had become. Now, though, I swear I'll protect my family and friends and this entire world with my life."

Lucas slipped his arm around her shoulders and she leaned closer to him.

"Sorry if I skirted an uncomfortable topic." Tenesha aimed an apologetic smile at her before turning to Lucas. "If my understanding is correct, you didn't know Rosalina was an alien robot until recently?"

"We've been married for ten years, but I didn't know any of this until one of her people outed all the Pretenders in the Groom Lake base." He raised his free hand. "Before you accuse her of lying to me for all those years, ask yourself what choice she had. She was just trying to survive. Besides, if she'd told me the truth, I would've thought she'd gone nuts or was just messing with me."

"I still feel horrible about it, though." Roz intertwined her metal fingers between his flesh ones. "At first, the poor guy thought I'd killed his wife and taken her place. When I created this identity, I was careful not to use anyone's name or appearance. Rosalina Mendoza was a complete fabrication."

"It took a while to convince me, but I finally realized she was telling the truth all along. Rosalina's past identity may be fake, but she's the woman I married ten years ago. She's the woman I love. Always has been." Lucas kissed her again and smiled.

Her phone beeped before she could say anything. She took it from her lab coat pocket, read the text message that had just come in, and beamed.

"They're finally letting me see Bobby!" She threw her arms around Lucas and laughed with joy.

"Bobby's our son," Lucas said to Tenesha after holding Roz for a long moment. "We adopted him. He hasn't seen her since the day she was outed, but I've been trying to make it happen for a long time. They've finally okayed it."

"That's wonderful!" Sierra grinned and reached over to pat Rosalina's shoulder. "How soon will you be able to see him?"

"They're bringing him to the base this afternoon." Roz cupped Lucas's face in her hands and gave him a long, passionate kiss before hopping off the sofa. "Sorry to cut the interview short, but I need to get ready to meet him."

"Not a problem." Tenesha smiled and reached out to shake Rosalina's hand. "Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions, and I'm happy to hear your good news."

"Thanks!" She grinned, turned to Lucas, and grasped his hand. "I need to put on something other than this lab coat."

She and Lucas hurried across the room. Behind her, Tenesha turned her attention on Sierra

"I see you're concerned about Smokescreen."

"Yeah. I hope he's okay." Sierra took a breath and let it out slowly. "I hope they_all_ are."

---

"Miko," Bulkhead shouted, "don't do anything stu-"

Ashanti glanced up just in time to watch the girl fling herself off what was left of the ice shelf a mile above.

"Woooo-hooooooo!"

Ashanti caught a glimpse of Miko's explosive-filled backpack before the girl activated her armor's stealth system, rippled, and vanished.

"Too late." Ashanti didn't waste time sighing or shaking her head. "Everyone, regroup at my position."

The blips in her HUD indicating all the human and Autobot members of her team changed course and began converging on her. She took a quick glance upward and spotted a half-dozen of the support unit diving toward her, their armor's built-in thrusters slowing their descent. Past them, Optimus, Steve, Khalilah, Tomoko, and Bumblebee found a sloping piece of ice and compacted snow to slide down to the bottom.

"Contact rear," Chang snapped from almost directly behind her. Ashanti spun, raising her rifle into firing position, and froze at the sight of Airachnid digging something out of the snow. Like her clone Tomoko, the alien robot was the size of a small house. She stopped digging abruptly and aimed a beatific smile at the hole in the ground.

"Jack! So nice to see you again!"

Ashanti stormed ahead, motioning for Chang and the others to follow as Airachnid shoved her hand into the hole and clamped her fingers around Jack. In Ashanti's HUD, Smokescreen and Ultra Magnus hit the slope, following the others. Bulkhead's human-size doppelgänger joined them a few seconds later.

"Jack's too close," Steve said over her comlink. "Can't get a clear shot."

Come on, kid, remember the EMP generator in your armor. One zap and he could get away from Airachnid, assuming he wasn't panicking too much to think straight.

Airachnid glanced over her shoulder, sneered at everyone else, and shifted into her half-spider mode. She clenched her fingers tighter around Jack, raised her other hand, and pointed its palm-mounted blaster at the charging humans.

_Oh, hell._The team's new armor was covered with a crystalline layer that would refract her beam weapons, but the memory of Dawson being boiled alive on the _Nemesis_after taking three direct hits was still too fresh in Ashanti's mind.

"No, you don't!" Snow erupted from the ground to Airachnid's right and Arcee's human-size body burst through the cloud. She pulled the full-auto shotgun from her back and aimed it straight at Airachnid's left optic. Airachnid snarled and raised her hand, lifting Jack directly into Arcee's line of fire. Arcee's mouth and optics opened wide and she snapped the gun down as she fell back toward the ground. She landed, sending up a white puff, and glared up at her old enemy.

"Hold your fire," Optimus said over the comms. Ashanti checked her HUD and found his blip approaching Airachnid's position from behind her. "We must get Jack away from her first."

"Well, I see you've gotten your hands on a Pretender body." Airachnid smirked and reached out to grab Arcee. "I believe I'll help myself to it. Once I disconnect you and link up to it, oh, the things I'll be able to do with my Jack."

Before Arcee could react, cylindrical device the size of a human forearm thumped into the snow directly under Airachnid.

"Arcee," Miko called out, "flashbang!"

"Ten seconds," Arcee said before closing her optics, crouching, and becoming inert. Shutting her mini-me down to protect it from the anti-Cybertronian flashbang, Ashanti guessed.

"Keep your distance, 'Bots," Ashanti said an instant before the flashbang detonated in a burst of light and a sensor-scrambling pulse. Airachnid cried out and collapsed, her arm slapping to the ground and dislodging Jack from her grip. He scrambled away from her as Miko reappeared between him and the giant spider-bot.

Grinning, Miko pulled a sticky bomb from her backpack and tossed it onto Airachnid's forehead. She followed up with the rest of the bombs, slapping them in place all over Airachnid's chest and back. Ashanti smirked. The bombs had been enhanced with synthetic energon and should be enough to ruin Airachnid's shit.

Arcee's body reactivated in precisely ten seconds, glanced around, and rushed over to Jack as he picked himself up.

Airachnid grunted, twitched, and jerked as her systems recovered from the flashbang.

Far behind her, Optimus leaped off a cliff and landed in a crouch with an earth-shaking thud. Everyone spun toward him, including Airachnid. She started to snarl at him, but then she seemed to notice the bombs stuck to her torso. She reached up to pluck the one on her forehead.

Miko flashed a feral grin and held up a detonator. Airachnid's face twisted into a shocked expression as she realized what was coming. Miko sucked in a deep breath as her thumb descended on the button. "Fuck her right in the pussy!"

Airachnid aimed a suddenly confused scowl at her. "Wh ... what?"

The bombs detonated at the same time and Airachnid briefly disappeared inside multiple green-tinted explosions, her scream almost drowned out by the thunderous boom.

Everyone advanced on her before the flashes faded out. When the smoke cleared, Ashanti found her sprawled on the ground, twitching, numerous pieces of her armored "skin" torn off and strewn around her. The bombs attached to her back had blown two of her spider legs clean off.

"Approach with caution," Optimus said.

Ashanti glanced at Tomoko. "Probably be a good idea to immobilize her."

Tomoko nodded and aimed both palm-mounted web launchers at Airachnid.

Airachnid jerked upright and snarled. Tomoko let out a startled grunt and jumped backward. Airachnid surged forward and lashed out, scooping up four members of the support unit before anyone could adjust their aim. She gripped all four in her left hand and held them directly in front of her, preventing anyone from getting a clear shot.

Optimus crept up behind her, pointing his enormous rotary cannon at her but keeping his finger off the trigger.

"Ah-ah." Without even looking over her shoulder, Airachnid lifted one of her spider legs and pointed directly at him. "Drop the gun and get out of my way."

"We cannot allow you to escape." He lowered the gun, but didn't drop it. "You're outnumbered. It's over."

"I still have the advantage." Sneering, Airachnid held up the struggling humans and moved her hand over to clamp her fingers around a man's head.

He moaned softly, but remained composed otherwise.

"No," the woman beside him whispered. "Don't do it. Don't do it. D-"

Airachnid twisted his head off as if opening a beer bottle. Everyone stared in disbelief and Ashanti's heart pounded. Her hands shook and she just barely stopped herself from pulling the trigger.

The woman screamed and tried even harder to wriggle out of Airachnid's grip. "You fucking bitch! I'll fucking kill you! You hear me, you cunt? I'll-"

"Drop your gun now." Airachnid smirked at Optimus. "Or I'll kill another one."

Ashanti sucked in deep breaths through clenched teeth as he tossed the cannon aside and backed away. She glanced around to find Miko, but the girl had disappeared again. Even her blip had vanished from Ashanti's HUD.

"Pitiful." Airachnid released a sinister chuckle. "You actually care about these tiny, fragile creatures. That's why I'll win every time." She turned abruptly and pointed at Tomoko. "You're coming with me. Thanks to your friends, I'm going to need more spare parts."

---

Tomoko stared at her, trembled, and whimpered. She shook her head and wrung her hands. "N-no, please ..."

Airachnid clamped her fingers around the woman's head and Tomoko thrust her hands up.

"Stop! Alright, alright! Just don't hurt anyone else!" Tomoko shuffled toward her, still whimpering and shaking even harder.

No._Arcee held Jack's hand and watched Tomoko approach. _No, don't hurt her, you bitch!

"I knew you'd see reason." Airachnid aimed a smug grin at her young clone. "You're me, after all."

Tomoko gaped at her for a few seconds before her expression shifted into a murderous glare.

Airachnid lowered her free hand to the ground in front of Jack and Arcee. "Climb aboard." She seemed to think of something and nodded at the dead man's head. "Pick that up first."

Jack sounded as if he'd just stifled the urge to vomit. "What?"

"Since you blew up my lair the last time we met, I've been forced to start rebuilding my trophy collection."

"Christ," Chang groaned softly.

Oh, hell, how long has she been at it? How many people has she killed since our last fight? This can't continue. One of us has_to take her out._ Arcee glanced at Tomoko and almost took a step back upon seeing how much her glare had intensified.

"No," Tomoko whispered. "No more."

"What?" Airachnid snapped her hand back to her captive's head. "Do what I tell you or-"

"You can't be allowed to keep murdering people." Tomoko raised her arms and launched a glob of webbing straight into Airachnid's face. Airachnid grunted and stumbled backward. One of her spider legs buckled and she toppled over, sending up a huge puff of snow on impact. Her three captives and the body tumbled from her hand as she pushed herself back up. She shifted into her bipedal mode and staggered around blindly, tearing at the webbing.

Tomoko fired more webbing at her, missed the next several shots, but finally splattered one around Airachnid's legs just as the alien psycho finished ripping the gunk off her face. The webbing wrapped around her ankles and she let out a startled grunt and fell over again. Tomoko fired another half-dozen times, pinning Airachnid to the ground and immobilizing her arms and legs. Airachnid continued struggling for a few more seconds, but stopped moving when Tomoko glanced around, stomped over to Bumblebee, and yanked the gun from his hands.

"Uh." Arcee stepped in front of Jack and watched her march back to Airachnid. Tomoko pointed the upscaled FN-P90 right between Airachnid's eyes. Airachnid stared back at her, then her smirk returned.

"When you kill me, make it hurt. I'd do the same for you."

Arcee shook her head and sneered. Wow. That's fucked-up, even for her.

Tomoko's hands shook and she backed away with a shocked expression. She lowered the gun, stared for a few more seconds, and finally turned away.

"I am not you." She trudged back to Bee and handed the gun over. Bee reached up to put his hand on her shoulder and emitted a sequence of soft beeps and honks. Tomoko shrugged, crossed her arms over her chest as if hugging herself, and kept shivering.

Arcee turned to contemplate Airachnid. Her enemy gazed back with a smug smile and arched a brow plate. She glanced at Jack in time to see some of the color drain from his face as he realized what was about to happen. He took a slow breath and pulled himself together.

"She's too dangerous to keep around. I understand that." He shrugged. "Hell, the last time we fought her, I told her that I was gonna kill her, and I meant it."

Arcee nodded.

Optimus stepped closer. "Arcee ... she is helpless."

"Yep. Just like most of her victims." Arcee glanced around. "Anybody got a grenade?"

"My pleasure." Ashanti hurried over and plucked a grenade from her belt. Like Miko's sticky bombs, it was enhanced with a few ounces of synthetic energon - enough to take Airachnid's head clean off.

Jack turned to meet Optimus's gaze and said, "Sometimes you've got to put the rabid dog down."

"Well, how about that." Airachnid sneered at Arcee. "Why not let your pet human do it? _If_he has the bearings for it."

Arcee took the grenade and strode over to Airachnid's head. "Fall back, everyone."

"I'd ask the same of you that I asked of her." Airachnid nodded at Tomoko. "You _know_I'd take my sweet time with you."

"You're not worth another microsecond of my time." Arcee shoved the grenade into Airachnid's mouth, pulled the pin, and grasped Jack's arm. They joined everyone else retreating from the blast radius. She turned back and caught a glimpse of Airachnid struggling against the webbing enveloping her, suddenly panicking now that she knew she was about to die.

She released a muffled, "Nooooooooooo-"

Whump!

The shockwave slammed into Arcee and she staggered back a few steps before regaining her balance. She watched the shrapnel that was once her enemy's head arching through the air and plopping into the snow all around the limp body.

"It's finally over." Jack sighed.

"One more." Arcee held her hand out to Ashanti and waited for her to give her another grenade. To Jack, she said, "Just want to be sure. Someone wanna give me a boost?" She motioned at Airachnid's torso.

Tomoko nodded and trudged back to her. She picked Arcee and Jack up, one in each hand, and placed them gently on the rogue 'Con's chest. Arcee smiled up at her and noticed Miko sitting on her shoulder.

Ah, so that's where she went when she disappeared. Probably planned to ride along and be our ace in the hole again if Airachnid got us to leave with her.

"We'll need to get her chest plate off."

"I've got it." Smokescreen hurried over and, after pulling for nearly thirty seconds, managed to tear through the webbing and rip the armored plate off Airachnid's chest, exposing a glowing sphere encased in an intricate mechanism. It had a metal framework with transparent sections, and inside was what appeared to be a swirling, pulsating red mass of energy. Its pattern was interrupted periodically by violent twitching and lashing around. Its activity lessened gradually over the next few seconds as they contemplated it.

"Huh," Jack muttered. "So that's what a 'spark' looks like."

"Most of them aren't that color. And the weird, jerky motion of the energy inside indicates something was seriously wrong with her, just as I always suspected. If it's left intact, someone insane enough could rebuild her body and she'd be right back at her sick, twisted shit, even if she couldn't remember recent events." Arcee glanced up at Smokescreen and Tomoko. "One of you get ready to grab us and run like hell."

Tomoko nodded and held her hands out. Arcee pulled the pin and dropped the grenade into Airachnid's spark chamber. Tomoko scooped them up and sprinted away. The blast breached the spark and the secondary explosion ripped most of Airachnid's body apart and knocked Arcee and most of the humans off their feet. Streams and tendrils of red energy poured from the remains, whipped through the air, and dissipated.

Arcee got back to her feet, took Jack's hand, and helped him up. "Now it's over."

He nodded, took his helmet off, and put his arms around her. She smiled, held him for a long moment, and then kissed him. When they parted, she caught a glimpse of Ultra Magnus in the corner of her eye, walking over to Optimus.

"It had to be done, sir."

"I understand. While it does not feel like the 'right' thing to do, it was without question the correct thing to do. If I had been more willing to take decisive action, the war might not have dragged on as long as it has."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Optimus," Arcee said. "There's definitely a line that shouldn't be crossed. I've come close to crossing it a few times, back when the war was at full throttle."

Soft sobbing caught her attention and she turned to find one of the support-unit members kneeling beside the man Airachnid had killed. June stood behind her, leaning over to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Tomoko walked over and gently picked up the body. "I'll bring him home."

"Thanks," the woman whispered. She stood and walked away slowly, and several others gathered around her.

Tomoko glanced around, walked over to the man's head, and picked it up with a nauseated grimace.

June walked over to Jack and gave him a long hug. She stepped back and embraced Arcee.

"As a nurse, I know I shouldn't feel this way," June muttered, "but I'm glad that bitch is dead."

"Heh. Me, too."

"Once we're out of jamming range," Ashanti said, "I'll request a cleanup crew to get rid of Airachnid's remains and search for her lair." She sighed. "We'll have to find any other 'trophies' she collected since the last time we ran into her, track down their families, and try to give them whatever closure we can."

"I'll be happy to let someone else handle that," June said. "I think I've seen enough."

"Me, too." Jack put his arm around Arcee's waist. "Let's go home."

"We've got movement," Chang said suddenly.

"I see it," Ashanti said, pivoting and glancing around.

Jack put his helmet back on and locked the seals. "Now what?"

"That tunneling thing," Miko said. "The thing that almost sucked Terwilliger into the ground, before he set off the avalanche."

"I thought that was Airachnid," Khalilah muttered.

"Probably something she found on the Harbinger," Steve said. "Maybe an automated defense system or an autonomous weapon."

"I'm seeing more than one." Jack sucked in a quick breath and glanced at Arcee. "Over a dozen."

"Twenty," she replied once she'd confirmed what her own sensors had picked up. She ran back to where she'd dropped her shotgun, grabbed it, and snarled, "Ah, fuck me!"

"Everyone, find cover." Optimus pointed at the cliffs. "And prepare for battle."