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The Pit of Famine
“Soundwave, you fool!” Airachnid thought, hissing with disdain.
Clenching her titanium appendages around the latest of her newly acquired henchmen, the ex-Decepticon kissed him to death. The vermin held tightly in her grasp writhed and twitched, its peds shuffling about as they stirred up the lunar dust. She had been at this for what seemed like solar cycles as a sea of Insecticon corpses laid on all sides of her makeshift dais—a rocky hill overlooking a deep pockmarked crater. As the count continued to rocket sky-high while she feasted on a smorgasbord of terror, it was as if she had been transported to a galaxy-far planetoid called Junkion.
“When I get my servos on you, I will rip you apart one circuit at a time!” she vowed internally. “How dare you interfere! Preventing me from exacting my vengeance on ‘Lord’ Megatron!”
By the time the rogue drained the last Insecticon dry, depleting him entirely of both energon and spark, Airachnid withdrew her iron grip. Apathetically, she watched him crumple sideways, twitching in the throes of eternal defeat. As she did this, Airachnid could hardly believe the incredible hunger and thirst she still felt. It was almost unquenchable, lingering on like the bitter rage she harbored toward Megatron and the world at large. The craving, which was terribly ravenous and old, gnawed at her core like a mythical, predatory Sparkeater. It was as if that creature had found a way to burrow into her spark chamber and was demanding its sacrificial dues.
“Pay the tithe!” a hungry voice of entropy demanded.
Airachnid was completely tainted by the ether of chaos, a corruption tying back to the malevolent vestiges of Unicron himself. Not that she ever considered herself weak, but there was a raw power at the pinnacle of her clawed digits vying for release. Her unforeseen metamorphosis from Decepticon to Terrorcon had impacted her greatly, altering her inherent code into something entirely other. She was not completely zombified, yet she displayed qualities parallel to that of the human urban legends involving creatures called “Vampires”. It began to whisper and squirm, like a worm of infestation.
“Come to me,” it murmured.
Underneath her dermal plating, past the cybernetic sinew, Airachnid could not help but admire the molten, dark energon currently flowing through her fuel lines. Her body hummed at a new decibel, the variance like the nocturnal purr a carnivore makes before the ensuing kill. A devious grin came to her humanized face, expressing the thrill of terrible machinations as her amethyst eyes glowed delightedly. Perhaps being trapped on Earth’s orbiting satellite, a regolith wasteland, was not such a bad thing. Between the ongoing Cybertronian War and Humanity’s penchant for curiosity, it was only a matter of time before someone came knocking on her door.
“Until then…I will plot. I will scheme. I will imagine a trillion and one ways on how to destroy my enemies. I will dream of unmasking Soundwave and hearing him scream, before yanking out his manifolds,” she mused. “I will lie dormant, swept away by the winds of history, until all is forgotten. Then when they least expect it, I will rise from the pages of antiquity like a terrible plague.”
Swiping a forearm across her mouth, the rogue cleaned herself of the glowing gore of energon that had been cascading down her chin plate in rivulets. Coming to stand in her favored spider’s crouch, she was pleased with her own council. Then the whisper came again for a third time, buzzing about her helm with disorienting euphoria. “Enter into the deep, a place without fathom. Seek your fate in the riptide of heretical omens, stitched into the fabric of schisms.”
Unsure of what she heard, the ex-Decepticon turned round about in search of the voice. None was beside her, save for the discarded Insecticons exhausted of their life force. Slowly but surely, Airachnid crept forward on her spindly legs quiet like a shadow of the night. Curiosity reeled her in several more steps before she came to a stop all together.
Perhaps it was her imagination?
“Endlessly have we filled our courts with loyalists—Paladins, Rulers of darkness, Principalities, and Powers—seeking out those of like-mind and spirit to our cause. They have been my Sword, bent and shaped to my will, striking with honed precision. Our network is a spiraling web, laying traps inside of traps. My prey is none the wiser, struggling anxiously for freedom, only to tie the noose themselves.”
“Who’s there?!” Airachnid barked, circling in place as her legs kicked up lunar dust. Puffy white clouds danced in loose waves, spiraling helplessly into the thinly tenuous atmosphere. “What do you want?”
“Many are the names bequeathed to one such as I,” said the whisper, echoing like low reverb. “But my true identity is aligned and made plain by one simple desire: the pursuit of knowledge.”
“Cut the riddles,” she snapped. “I have little patience for such trivial mind games. What do you want from me?”
“Step into my sanctum and find your truth in the shadow of my presence,” the voice commanded. “Let us do away with prying eyes and itching ears. For there are many who seek to profit in my confidence; trafficking secret disclosures for the enemy—a traversing, orbital threat.”
Reality shifted and bent, distorting tremendously until a snap of achromatic light enveloped Airachnid. She could feel the woozy pull of shifting gravities as they pushed her through. Long gone was the Moon and its regolith wasteland as the beastly rogue was roughly exported and imported into a new plain of existence all together. Had she been human, the ex-Con would have fought a terrible sense of nausea and an accompanying need to expel her stomach contents. Yet it was for the simple fact that she was not an organic life form that she was rather thankful.
Though the clutches of disorientation were of none effect, her internal readouts were fritzing something fierce as a long break in the codes could no longer track her current whereabouts. Forthwith, she frowned. After a moment more, they began displaying a single foreign symbol over and over. Evaluating the repetitious hieroglyph, Airachnid determined within herself that it appeared rather spidery and crown-like.
“What in the primal wellspring…?” she questioned confoundedly.
The internal inquiry was quickly swept aside as a distracting chorus of chittering staccatos echoed throughout the darkened corridor in which she currently stood. Looking this way and that, Airachnid found that she was barely small enough to pass through such a narrow space. In her curious surveillance, the rogue also heard husks crunching under her spidery limbs. Beneath her beastly form were unmentionable piles of barnacle-like filth, mucked with a yellowed substance much akin to yolk. Little larvae with pincered tales wiggled in small, black puddles; hungering for attention as they inched their way toward warm bodies.
Suspended from a tall, darkened ceiling were rhythmically swinging lamplights spiked with malice. Their dim glow caused shifting shadows to silhouette a mob of creeping creatures looming before her. Small, almost-humanoid sentients crouched and swayed in place, content to remain in their idled dance. Were it not for the tune of communion they seemed to be purring, Arachnid would have thought these withered and parched beings were petrified.
She realized, however, that frame of thought was quite naïve. They were neither ossified nor frail—they were collectively enduring. Though these things were without eyes, their membranous skulls were focused squarely upon her person. Their intense and undying scrutiny was the key she needed to unlock the veritas behind her suspicion. Their immobility was not a lack of wherewithal—they were following orders.
“Clever,” Airachnid thought.
“Indeed,” the nameless voice of entropy agreed, now fully exerting its presence even within the confines of her mind. The ex-Con froze in place, her senses on high alert. All together the meaning behind her current situation snapped in place like a newly routed diode. The mind games had never ceased, even from the moment she was translated from the Moon. No…she had unwittingly walked into a longstanding, metaphorical Cube match. Too many elements were at play here and not enough time was left before the next move came to pass. “Come, follow the tune I have composed for my eidolon ally. Harmonize to the whisper of the worm as you traverse this shadowed keep.”
“And why should I listen?” Airachnid questioned, not moving an inch.
“My Queendom is naught shy of notable eminence,” the voice explained. “From one monarch to another, I shall not waste time that can never be remunerated.”
Not completely satisfied, but seeing she was limited in options, the Queen of the Insecticons pressed forward. Long, spindly legs plotted a route through the tight corridor using both wall and floor. Maneuverability was marginally difficult for her titanic, eighteen-foot chassis, but not impossible. At first she tried to clamber over the mob of creepy crawlies, yet soon gave up as her spear-like limbs slipped unnaturally. Stumbling forward, Airachnid inadvertently gored several of them—including their pincered larvae—along the way. Her struggles earned loud hisses of reproach from the collective of petrified sentients, but it couldn’t be helped.
Scurrying through the lurking mob and down the passageway, the rogue finally came to the end of the restrictive path as she exited into a cavernous room. Before her was an arched bridge which connected to a floating island with a raised dais at its center. On the throne sat a fowl creature set apart from the rest with free-hanging lanterns affixed on either side in the abyss overhead that passed for a sky. As Airachnid crept along the viaduct, these crooked lanterns expanded from their center, extending an amethyst eye of wrath toward her person.
“Welcome to the crown court,” the Queen of this monochromatic realm hailed. “None, save the closest of my brood, have journeyed this far.” Unlike before where her disembodied voice was a whisper, the slightest proffered word here in the present was a processor-numbing hiss. Airachnid could barely stand to listen to the frequency as it pitched unnaturally, and she fought the instinctive notion to shy away. To flinch was to yield and to yield, was to admit defeat. Stubborn not to be outmatched, the Insecticon Queen held her helm high.
She would bow to no one.
Not even to this—insidious—creature.
“Who are you? What are you?” Airachnid questioned. “I want the real answer this time.” Lowering her bipedal limbs, the rogue firmly planted her heel struts onto the floating island and took several steps forward.
As she did, twin pillars of lime-green fire erupted on either side of the dais. Two, brutish bodyguards equipped with battle axes appeared as the flames receded leaving no evidence of its existence behind. It was near impossible to distinguish where their heavy armor ended, and skeletal features began. More than likely, they were one in the same. Their helmets glowed a similar color, a long and centered strip, akin to the putrid flames which spawned them.
The two warriors moved several paces forward, their footsteps causing the island to tremble. When they came to stand in front of their Queen, halting rigidly, the blades of their axes clashed together. Forming an “x” with their broadly arched cleavers, the bodyguards barred Airachnid from coming any closer. While their actions overtly displayed their protectiveness and authority, it was also meant to frighten and showcase their dominion. However, Airachnid whose stature was approximately eighteen-feet tall, found their showmanship amusing as they were two-thirds her size. Placing the back of her servo against to her intake, bemusement swelled within her almost stoic countenance. Amethyst optics brightened intensely as they soaked in the situation one pixel at a time.
Peering over the forbidding axes, Airachnid could see the decrepit Queen surveilling her with great intrigue. Just like her protectors and the swaying creatures in the corridor, this unknown variable appeared ancient and decayed. Her triumvirate gleaming eyes which were like beady dots were intensely ablaze. There was no blinking, just a predatorial shimmer of reflective photoreceptors staring back. Upon her misshapen head was a tall crown of calcified horns, the gradient color racing from ashen to crimson.
“You have quite the—obedient—horde,” the Insecticon Queen acknowledged.
The ragged monarch steepled her tri-clawed hooks for servos after a long stretch of silence, the action like a ponderous remark. “Eons were spent scouring the corridors of time, delving through the great bows of endless possibilities. Watching and waiting, under the guiding presence of an invaluable mind.” Slouching back—or at least that’s how it appeared to Airachnid—the gaunt sovereign rested her bony arms on the supports of her throne. As her right digits clacked against the barnacle encrusted stonemasonry, she continued. “The craving for antediluvian hunger summoned our compatible kinship through the branches of shifting realities. Scaling the tenuous limbs lead to an aperture of fractured looking glass and a candle of faith was forthwith kindled. While we tarried on the event horizon, poised to pluck a strand of fate, victory’s savor became as fragrant as a fresh offering.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Airachnid questioned.
Leaning forward the tattered Queen hissed, the notion one of displeasure. “We have summoned the discarded Master of webs to join in a network of vengeful craft. As ransom, we offer a glimpse into our likeness. We are as an Oracle, wielding awesome power with the might of our tongue. Subjugant to None. The Queen of All Encrypts—Savathûn.”
“How could you have possibly summoned me?” the rogue barked. What a ludicrous concept! “My former associate—Soundwave—activated a spacebridge and stranded me on the Moon. Are you saying that you were responsible for my banishment?”
In the span of a nano-cycle, Savathûn winked out of existence and reappeared within mere inches of Airachnid’s twisted, prong horned helm. Her close-up personage was perfumed with the stench of death enhanced by the putrid poison of acrimony. This horrendous detail supplemented the sharpness of her bony bodice, which was laced with tattered, crimson skirts. As she floated in place, her wraith-like raiment undulated in the air like dense cloud cover. “Of a truth, the Master of Webs was translated into an alternative plain of existence in which we inhabit.”
Squinting distrustfully, Airachnid folded her arms. “Are you saying that at the exact moment I and my Insecticon army went through the portal, you brought us into your reality?”
Savathûn’s only reply was her unyielding glare. “What say you, O spidery terror?”
“What’s in it for me?” the rogue asked.
“Retribution,” Savathûn purred, “and victuals to ward off lasting famine.”
Airachnid quieted, genuinely pondering the offer—it was quite tempting.
“Come! Feed the hunger. Pay the tithe,” Savathûn encouraged seductively. “Let us bind our destinies and twist the fates, weaving and connecting two worlds in a clash of supremacy until a darkened collapse. ”
“If you were watching for so long from this…hall of time…then you should know I’m done taking orders. The roles are now reversed—I give the orders,” the Insecticon Queen clarified.
“No orders given, only an opportunity,” the sovereign enigma explained as she distanced herself. “While we yet abode in the counsel of dreams, it was foreseen that hordes of my enemies will amass on the very moon you now inhabit. In years to come, they will be on the horizon of a new golden age. Perhaps, if you delay until we wake you, there will be a feast spread wide before you. Ripe for the taking!” Airachnid began to practically salivate at the prospect of food, her tank gurgling near empty as the gnawing hunger crept in again. Savathûn took to floating in circles around the newly awoken Terrorcon, continuing to wear a seductive groove into her potential alley’s brain module.
“Surely after such a meal with tender morsels, this could give rise to greater source of power. Power for revenge.” As Savathûn spun her trap, she swooped over to face Airachnid. Unfurling her right arm and tri-clawed servo, a fiery lime-green orb erupted in the space above. Conjuring an image in the flame, Savathûn allowed the rogue watch as a strike team with awesome abilities stormed a scarlet keep. Their strength took on many different hues which glowed much like…energon. “Tarry and abide the times of latter centuries. Test your mettle. Allow that unyielding hunger to rise. Feed on their glory.”
Airachnid’s amethyst optics flicked to the ground, her resolve swiftly decaying to rust.
“In a show of good faith,” Savathûn said, snapping out of existence, “We bid you leave with our most gallant, Unyielding Terrors—our Knights.”
At the mention of the bodyguards, still holding their axes in an “x”, the rogue studied them. Quickly, their cleavers broke apart as they came tromping before her. As the island trembled under their heavy steps, they stopped, and took a knee. Holding up their weapons, they bowed their heads as all the realm went totally silent; holding their collective breaths.
“Take it,” Savathûn’s voice whispered. “Take our benevolent endowment.”
Airachnid never felt more honored.
“Rise!” she commanded.
The Knights did as they were instructed and the Terrorcon feasted.
The Moon//The Scarlet Keep
Battle Arena//The Pit of Heresy
Hashladûn drifted round about, her tattered skirts in blood-red flurries, as she paced through the archway of an ancient pagoda. Biting tirelessly at a glowing claw, anxiety ebbed at her countenance. The conflicts of war in the nearby arena, normally a soothing balm, was of none effect. Her stomach was ravenous and cold with entropy. She could hear the efforts of her champion sword bearer come to naught as the crash of an axe slammed against the ground. Forthwith a powerful, rushing wave of concussion and dust rippled outward from the zone of impact.
The daughter of Crota ceased her gnawing as she gazed upon a new champion standing in The Pit. The colossal Knight who dripped with amethyst ichor withdrew his terrible axe from the stonemasonry and stood tall like an unyielding effigy. As per their ritualistic customs, the victor would hail their master, and present an offering. Yet, they dishonored her as they walked toward the scarlet pagoda, opposite from her own. The Ascendant Wizard shrieked with indignant fury.
While she was too preoccupied with her anxieties, she somehow missed the fact that abominable urchins had begun amassing at the far side of The Pit. What were these creatures of metal? Hashladûn’s rage ballooned, pressurizing quickly as a mixture of worry and confusion filled her. These filthy wretches appeared to be swarming around an eighteen-foot arachnoid giantess with glowing jade eyes who was holding one of Hashladûn's own Acolytes like a plaything. Watching closely, the daughter of Crota beheld the Knight as he knelt before their lordship and presented his blooded cleaver. The unnatural courtiers made of living metal which surrounded the spidery usurper, whooped in strange, mechanical noises as they took to flight like dusty moths.
The exchange was nothing short of heretical.
Entirely denying the Sword Logic.
It defied everything her Father—Crota—had been.
Hashladûn realized the Acolyte that the metal monstrosity had been clutching was now staggering across the broken arena floor towards her. It's movement was rather unorthodox as it stumbled foolishly. “Acolyte!” Hashladûn called, hissing with palpable disdain. Her eyes never left the sacrilegious exchange, “Gather our forces! Escort me back to the Scarlet Keep. My reign must continue.”
Though the Hive foot soldier had come to kneel before her, it continued to sway as if afflicted by an unknown ailment. "Rise, worm! Your Queen has spoken!"
The Acolyte rose to its feet and slowly drew nigh to the descendent of the Osmium Throne. "Our Queen..." it mumbled, seeming to struggle to conjure even those few words.
Hashladûn drew back as it came closer, ill foreboding souring the air as she also noticed the swarm of mechanical insects beginning to billow forth at the motion of their master.
"Our Queen..." the Acolyte began again, "has told us to feed". Its mouth split unnaturally, and wriggling antennae burst forth from its mouth as the undying hunger continued to spread.