"Who are you and what do you think you're doing here?" Four red optics narrowed in suspicion as a helmeted head regarded the impudent machine who'd flown in uninvited.

The visitor smirked, twitching her wings. "My name is Slipstream. As for why I'm here, everyone else got their afts handed to them in that spectacularly stupid battle. I figured I had some time to look around." She did so. "Not much, is it?"

The other sneered, showing white, pointed teeth. "This is my home. It, and everything on it, belong to me." She turned, sunlight glinting off the golden helm she wore. "Including those worthless fire-breathing oafs who should have fried you before you got here."

Teeth, Slipstream thought. Like an organic. Not dental plates like a full machine. Not like us.

Then again, that much was obvious just by looking at her. For starters, her shape was strange, full of points and twitching appendages. Second, although the purple plating looked hard and unyielding, and Slipstream could see that at least some of the other's body was metallic like hers, there was a layer of something else over most of it, something hard and chitinous.

Her claw twitched. What would it be like to touch that? she wondered. Probably disgusting.

"I know who you are," she said finally. "You're that half-organic who hung out with the Decepticons for a while. I heard them talking about you."

"What are you supposed to be, anyway?" she sneered, coming closer. Close enough to touch if she'd wanted. She still didn't. "Some kind of creature from this stupid little planet?"

"Not this planet." The four optics narrowed dangerously. "Another one. Full of spiders." She shuddered. "I took my name from the things that changed me. It's Blackarachnia. Or at least, it is now."

"Spiders." Slipstream sneered. "Whatever those are, they've got to be ugly, judging from looking at you."

The appendages on the other's - the spider's, then, Slipstream thought - shoulders twitched. Slipstream edged back.

Then the other quieted, a smile spreading over the strange face. "Oh, I'm a freak?" she purred, reaching out and running a hand along the other's wing.

Slipstream twitched in surprise. "Get off me -!" She reached out to push the other away, but the sensation felt so - distracting. Slaggit, that wasn't supposed to feel good. Not from a misshapen half-organic.

"If I'm a freak, what are you? You look just like Starscream." The strange optics shone. "Prettier, though."

"Well, of course I'm prettier than that narcissistic bolt bucket," she answered, a smile spreading over her long face.

Then she stopped, realizing what she'd just said, and pushed the other, hoping she'd chosen some spot that would hurt. "Get your deformed little servos off of me -!"

The other stumbled, but quickly recovered and lunged. One of the strange appendages flicked out. Alarmed, Slipstream dove out of the way and tried to take off, only to feel the stinger pierce her wing.

A cold sensation spread outward from the spot where it had pierced her, and she felt her wing grow heavy. She struggled once again to take off, and then landed with a heavy thud.

"I said you were pretty," the other purred, her clawed hand reaching for Slipstream's wing again. "You liked it. Until you started thinking too much."

"Can't feel it now," Slipstream retorted. "Whatever you did made my wing numb, you incompetent idiot."

The helmeted head tilted. "Did it? You sound disappointed." The claws skittered down her wing and over the glass of her cockpit. Slipstream shivered in spite of herself at the touch, so close to her spark.

Or to what passed for her spark, she reminded herself. Where the others had a gleaming core of energy, swirling with life, she had only a tiny fragment. She and the others like her had only shards, splinters of the AllSpark that Starscream had planted inside their chests to give his creations life. Not even his creations, his clones, mere copies of himself.

Even if she was crazy enough to let some half-organic mutant who'd injected her with Primus knew what blend of venom and virus touch her, like she wanted it, like she needed something, like anyone could ever deserve her...

...once the other saw what she kept hidden under the hatch in her chest, this would be over. Before it had even begun.

"I said get off me, you freak!" she snarled. Although her whole body felt leaden and her wings might as well have been lifeless scrap, she still had some control over her arms, and she used it now, frantic to shove the other away.

The four red optics widened in surprise, then narrowed in anger. She kicked, sending Slipstream sprawling. Chest aching, Slipstream glowered up at her.

"What's gotten into you?" Blackarachnia scowled, leaning over the Seeker's prone form. "I touch you, I flatter you, I ignore obvious insults, and you repay me by trying to shove me away?"

Her stingers tilted. Slipstream threw up a hand, too slowly. She snarled in sudden pain, and then the icy feeling spread through her frame. This time there was less venom, and she could still feel it flowing through her circuits, a cool electrical sting that wasn't entirely unpleasant.

Her wing, too, was beginning to tingle as sensation returned, a similar prickling feeling spreading through its circuitry. She fluttered it, not sure whether she meant to soothe the burn or increase it.

"Maybe I should just keep giving you this." Blackarachnia's frown twisted into a smile. "Maybe I should numb you until you can't feel anything at all, and then do whatever I like with you, knowing you can't get anything out of it."

Slipstream growled. "Why, you vicious little -!"

Scoffing, the other turned away. "Or maybe you don't deserve even that. Maybe I should just leave, and let those firebreathing oafs come and kick you off my island."

Slipstream's optics narrowed as she stared at the strange, bulbous abdomen jutting from the technorganic's back. That's revolting, she told herself, trying to look away. Much better that the other leave her alone than do... whatever the slag a half-organic would want to do to her.

"Wait," she heard herself gasp, a claw reaching feebly toward the other.

Blackarachnia turned, smirking. "Wait?"

Slipstream stammered for a moment, then mirrored the other's expression. "Well, if you're going to pounce on me, sting me halfway offline, and put your claws all over me like that, I might as well get something out of it."

Blackarachnia pouted, fangs glimmering, as she walked back over to the other's prone form and leaned down again.

"No apology for me?" she murmured, running her lips and teeth over Slipstream's neck cabling. "Just more insults?"

Slipstream tilted her head back, offering the other better access, shivering as the fangs slid over the sensitive cabling. Then, feeling the other's claws sliding down to her cockpit again, she smirked and reached up again, wrapping a claw around the other's helmet and tossing it aside.

Blackarachnia's head jerked up as soon as she realized what Slipstream had done. "No!" she shrieked, quickly bringing her hands to her head.

The venom still slowed Slipstream's systems, but she managed to catch and hold one of Blackarachnia's wrists. "Don't. Won't do you much good anyway. I've already seen."

The technorganic sighed and lowered her arms, her stingers sagging in defeat. "You've got a point."

"So this is what you look like," Slipstream cooed, staring at the other's forehead and shuddering. The plating parted in the middle, exposing a pulsing mass of circuitry and soft flesh. Red lights gleamed inside the twisted mass. Tiny optics? Some strange organ or growth? The Seeker wasn't sure.

Whatever the spider's head was made of, it looked sensitive. Ignoring the other's angry hiss, she brought her claw to the pulsing, dark mass, caressing it lightly. It felt soft and yielding, entirely different than the metal of a full machine. She shivered, half-disgusted, watching Blackarachnia's array of optics narrow in pleasure.

"You're even uglier than I thought," Slipstream smirked.

"What?" the spider snarled. "You lying lowlife! You said -!"

"Relax," Slipstream snapped, sliding her cockpit open, revealing the spark chamber beneath, the shining sliver of the Allspark that her creator had placed inside it. Around it, energy swirled as a thrill of desire raced through Slipstream's circutry. Still, it was nothing like the sphere of crackling, blinding lifeforce the others possessed. Blackarachnia had wanted her before - or at least enjoyed toying with her. But there was no way the spider, misshapen or not, could possibly want her now.

"This is what you wanted to see, isn't it?" Slipstream's optics flashed as she stared at the other's alien features. "So look."

"Well, well, well." The technorganic chuckled. "So that's why you've been calling me a freak all this time. You don't even have a real spark."

She stood for a moment, leaning over the Seeker, the blue light from the Allspark fragment illuminating the cloven face. Then, slowly, her own chestplates slid open.

Slipstream screeched in envy, seeing the bright light from a true spark, bright and full, watching the lightning dance its erratic electrical dance. Mesmerized, she almost didn't notice the rest.

She couldn't have said what they were, growing around it, membranous and pulpy and filled with some fluid the Seeker didn't even want to guess at. Tiny wires crisscrossed their surface, shining brightly in the light of the technorganic's spark. They pulsed to the rhythm of its motion, throbbing more quickly as their owner stared into Slipstream's chest.

"Your squishy bits are in the way," Slipstream mocked. "We'll never be able to spark-merge with those disgusting things in the way."

"No, we won't," the other answered, her lip curling as she leaned closer to the other. "Not with a pathetic little half-spark like that one."

Slipstream glowered up at Blackarachnia, the energy wheeling crazily inside her chest, her circuits burning with the cyber venom. "Oh? Let's see if this is spark enough for you!"

Willing herself to gather as much energy into the fragment as she could, no longer caring whether it might injure some sensitive organic part, she hurled it directly toward the light inside the other's chest.

Blackarachnia threw back her head and keened as the bolt of energy pierced her chest, her spark gleaming all the brighter as the new energy filled it.

Slipstream stared. What had happened to the organic parts? Had she hurt the technorganic? She couldn't tell.

Then the alien head lowered, its optics blazing, the red spots in its center flaring with light. The fanged mouth curled into a lopsided smile, and the technorganic, pressing her body closer to the Seeker she had trapped beneath her, let fly with a bolt of energy of her own.

It lanced into Slipstream, its heat and light too much for her to bear. It scorched her as it tore through her cockpit, the tiny Allspark fragment gleaming brighter and brighter as it fought to contain so much energy.

Slipstream's circuitry burned with its fire, and she shrieked, a high, wild sound she wouldn't have thought even her vocalizer capable of making. Her circuitry burned with it, everywhere all at once, every part of her frame alight with sudden and terrible ecstasy.

Her vision filled with white, and she knew she wouldn't be able to stay online for long. Was this an overload, she wondered through the haze clouding her optics, or had she finally managed to get herself killed to prove a point?

Before she could even guess at the answer, everything faded to blazing, stinging white.

###

She awoke to something nuzzling her face. Something hard, like metal, but somehow different. Then she felt fanged lips meet hers, and understood. She opened her mouth, wanting to deepen the kiss, and wrapped her hand around the head above her.

"You put your helmet back on," she muttered when the other finally broke the kiss. "There was no need to do that." She frowned. "You ugly little malformation."

"You're awake," Blackarachnia answered. "That's good. Some Decepticons might take it as a compliment if they permanently deactivated someone that way. I'm not one of them."

Slipstream propped herself up on one claw, twitching her wings in amusement. "Don't tell me you're getting sappy on me."

The technorganic chuckled. "Sappy? Hardly." She reached over to run a purple claw over the cover to Slipstream's cockpit. "Let's just say I might have a reason or two to keep you around."