#my general impression of tfa Elita One- Blackarachnia: silly mean white cheerleader

[alicefromwhichplanet]

Spoilers for Heroic Nonsense Chapter 21

* I’m in a productive mood during traveling 🧳

One morning, Optimus wakes up quite early. He goes out of his room and finds in surprise that the ship is above the water, and waves of fresh air is flooding into the cabin. He moves swiftly across the hallways and finds the exit he always used. The slide door is unlocked. He climbs up the stairs and opens it, greeted by the first ray of sunlight and fresh, moist morning air.

Before he could lean on the handrails and enjoy the beautiful morning on the lake, he is startled by a loud noise of flight engine. Optimus freaks out. He almost stumbles over an exposed pipe.

If Megatron finds him wandering around before everyone else is up… it might be hard for him to explain. He quickly hides himself behind a chimney. Just then, he hears the jet lands in front of his hiding place.

It’s only Blitzwing. Optimus relaxes. The triple changer doesn’t seem to have any company. He might have just come back from an errand to the land. He looks quite sneaky though, even a bit panic. Optimus could sense the nervousness in his magnetic field from the short distance. He’s holding a small datapad in his hand— a book? It doesn’t look like one of the humans’ books.

Blitzwing is panting for breath. He looks around fearfully, hands fiddles clumsily as he tries to put the small datapad into a pocket compartment around his waist. Just then, a black shadow leaps down from the chimney and lands right before Blitzwing. The big decepticon backs off and screams. Even Optimus gasps.

“Hello, three-face. Missed me yet?” The familiar idle, greasy voice. Blackarachnia is back in town. Optimus instinctively flinches. Blitzwing doesn’t flinch, but Optimus sees him tensing up, tightening his hold on the data pad.

Blackarachnia smirks with contempt. “What are you flinching from, three-face? Ashamed to see me? Did you pee your bed last night?” She steps forward. Blitzwing’s mouth corner twists in disgust, but he somehow convinced himself to stay rooted there. He only stuffs his data pad further behind himself. But of course, such small gestures won’t escape Blackarachnia’s optics. With her ommateum rolling their way, Optimus knows Blitzwing is in danger. Yet he doesn’t have the courage to get out of his hiding place and remind him. He could only watch what is about to happen.

Blackarachnia makes a threatening hiss, and one of her tentacles stabs towards Blitzwing’s shoulder. Blitzwing gasps and turns to avoid, exposing his hand holding that precious datapad. Blackarachnia acts quickly, giving a hard punch to Blitzwing’s elbow, making him yell in anger and pain. In just two seconds, the data pad falls into Blackarachnia’s sharp-nailed hand.

“What is this? Three-face? Your secret love letter to Lugnut’s big ugly wife?” Blackarachnia sneers with a sharp laugh, lightening the screen as she quickly dodges Blitzwing’s desperate hand. The triple changer looks totally pissed. His face swings to the purple angry one as he shrieks: “Give it back to me! You malformed organic pest!”

Blackarachnia grimaces at the curse. She shoots out a spider’s thread towards the chimney and climbs up with only one hand. She takes the data pad in her other hand and browses it swiftly with her digits. Optimus feels his spark leaping into his throat. Blackarachnia is just a few inches from him. He will be discovered sooner or later if she climbs to his side of the chimney. Optimus looks desperately around. There is another chimney across from him, but the distance between momentarily stops him. He’s afraid that his movements would catch Blackarachnia’s attention again.

Under the chimney, Blitzwing roars like an angry child. A scorching fire pillar shoots from his shoulder cannon. The aim is just inches away from Blackarachnia. She has to jump down to avoid being burned. She holds Blitzwing’s data pad high above her head.

“Be careful where you aim, maniac.” She says coldly. “Make one more move and your precious little book will turn to ashes. Now, let me have a look…”

She ruffles up her poisonous tentacles, holding the data pad under her nose and begins to read it through. Blitzwing’s angry expression turns into a mixture of frustration and desperation. He looks like he’s going to cry in any minute. Blackarachnia’s optic ridges rise in interest as she stares at the corner of the data pad.

“Who’s B.B.? Your boyfriend?”

“None of your fragging business!” Blitzwing screams. Another wave of nasty curses spurts out of his mouth. Blackarachnia sneers. She takes the data pad and walks towards the handrails, waving it casually over the water.

“Just say one more disrespectful word and I’ll sink your doodle down the filthy lake. Now, behave yourself and kneel…”

Before she finishes, the data pad is already snatched away from her. Blackarachnia turns to look furiously around. Optimus is standing a few steps away from her, holding the data pad tightly against his chest.

“Enough of this, Blackarachnia.” Optimus says with a serious tone. He doesn’t know he can one day be this tough in front of Blackarachnia. “This belongs to Blitzwing. You shouldn’t play with his beloved things.” Ignoring Blackarachnia’s impending tantrum, Optimus walks straight past her and gives the data pad to Blitzwing. He can’t help but sneaks a peek as he hands it over. It’s not a book. It looks like a picture of a seeker. At the lower right corner there are two squiggly capital letters, written in blue, quite obvious for anyone to ignore: B.B.

He doesn’t want to prob into Blitzwing’s privacy. So he hands the picture over quickly without a second look. He stands before Blitzwing with a protective gesture, watching him putting his precious data pad into the compartment into his cockpit. He looks overwhelmed by his emotions, and is now trembling all over. He manages to murmur a “thank you” amid angry sobs, walks quickly towards the trap-door and disappears into it.

Optimus is speechless. He hasn’t seen Blitzwing like this ever before. From Blackarachnia’s words, he can guess it’s not the first time she played him like this. He has saw her teasings other bots around them in his earlier days. He was used to it, and tended to turn a blind eye on what she did to bots he didn’t know much about. He would just shrink back into his own safe place, his bookworm world. But today he feels her way of talking extremely harsh and cruel. It could be because she became mean after the spider’s bite. But there remains the another possibility of him being the one to have changed, developing sharper optics and a more sensitive spark, and can no longer bear witness to things as such.

Stuck with mixed feelings, Optimus turns and walks away. He avoids Blackarachnia’s eager, questioning optics. He isn’t ready to face her right now. Especially not after he came to realize what she almost did to him once at the party. Blackarachnia follows him, hissing curses under her breath, calling him coward and traitor, that he even dared to stand up against her after being the cause of her miserable life. Optimus feels energon racing in his audio receivers. It takes all his self control to stay silent, not to talk back— he’s not sure what he may say, but after all these years he’s suppressed all his negative feelings towards her, never said anything bad about her— he believes if he ever gets the chance, he will say something very hurtful.