Airachnid (Prime)
- Airachnid is a Decepticon from the Prime portion of the Aligned continuity family.
Long ago, Airachnid was with the Decepticons, where her cruel, cold-sparked, murderous demeanor served her well. But after the Great Exodus of Cybertron, she decided to go solo. Nevertheless, she still feels a sort of kinship with her former allies, so if a group of humans attempted to, so to say, disassemble a Decepticon, she would take offense to it.
These days, Airachnid spends her time engaging in her new hobby: collecting endangered species. Well, parts of endangered species. Mostly the heads.
And if a species isn't endangered? Oh, they will be. She'll make sure of that. And she'll make sure it's a slow, painful process.
Fiction
Prime cartoon
- Voice actor: Gina Torres (English)
During the war for Cybertron, Airachnid managed to capture Arcee and her partner Tailgate. Quickly realizing that Arcee would resist the physical torture she used, Airachnid decided to employ a simpler threat: Tell her the attack coordinates, or Tailgate dies. Arcee insisted she didn't know the coordinates, but Airachnid didn't believe her and killed Tailgate. Moments later, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper burst into the holding room, killing the two Vehicons and rescuing Arcee. Airachnid, however, escaped.
Following the Great Exodus, Airachnid concluded that the war was over, meaning she needed a new way to spend her time. Abandoning the Decepticons, she decided to hunt sentient species, then wipe them out after getting a trophy. Eventually, Airachnid crash-landed her ship on Earth. She initially laid her optics on a lone camper, but was ambushed by Arcee. While Arcee gained the upper hand, she was distracted by her human partner, Jack Darby, and Airachnid webbed her to a rock. Having learned of Cliffjumper's recent demise, Airachnid decided that making Jack her next trophy would be a delicious way to hurt Arcee before finally snuffing out her spark. She chased Jack back to her ship, but discovered too late that the human had snuck out the underside. She spotted Jack just in time to see him hurl a flaming stick into a pool of energon that was leaking from her ship. Airachnid barely managed to escape the explosion, but she was wounded and really pissed. She managed to web the fleeing Jack to a tree, but before Airachnid could deliver the killing blow, Arcee came to the rescue and absolutely wiped the forest floor with the Decepticon. Deciding she had endured enough for one night, Airachnid drilled into the ground and fled. Predatory
Learning of MECH's treatment of Breakdown, Airachnid engineered a distress call which lured Silas to the forest. She made a deal with the MECH agent to give him Arcee —at least, what would be left of her— if he could deliver Jack to her. Silas used the Internet to track down information on Jack and have June Darby kidnapped so Airachnid cocooned her and dangled her from a building in the disused Jasper factory MECH was occupying. When Jack arrived, Airacnid gave him six minutes to rescue his mother. She followed Jack around the factory and, when he eventually found June and claimed victory, she pointed out the task was to rescue mom, not just find her. Before Airachnid could start with the dismemberment, Arcee arrived to attack her and the two enemies fought at length around the building's structure. During the fight, Airachnid was thrown into a container and coated with concrete, but managed to get free and web Arcee to the ground. She was about to finish off Arcee when she was attacked by Agent Fowler's helicopters, and was forced to scan one so she could escape. Crisscross
Airachnid followed a magnetic signal and found Breakdown with a polarity gauntlet. Seeking to obtain the weapon, she buried him underground, but he escaped and she was forced to fight him. Then Arcee turned up with a new partner for her to snuff and she had to fight them as well. When Breakdown activated the gauntlet, she fled in alarm. She later ambushed the 'Con on his way back to the Nemesis, taking the gauntlet from him and reacting with disdain to his suggestion they could take it back to Megatron together. The Autobots caught up with them, and Airachnid used the gauntlet to draw Arcee to her for a little one-on-one fighting. When the battle started to turn sour, however, she grabbed the gauntlet and attempted to flee in her helicopter form. Unfortunately, Bulkhead grabbed her and threw her into Breakdown. Fused magnetically to the 'Con, she was carried back to the Nemesis, where she had no choice but to rejoin the Decepticons. Metal Attraction
Immediately ingratiating herself with Megatron, Airachnid told the Decepticon leader that Starscream had been keeping information to himself, such as the location of the crashed Decepticon ship, the Harbinger. Megatron ordered Starscream to take Airachnid to the ship's crash site and secure the experimental weapon it contained. Once there, Airachnid discovered that the half of the ship containing the Immobilizer had broken off before impact. She webbed up Starscream and forced him to tell her the location of the aft section, but was attacked by the Autobots while leaving. After a brief fight with Arcee, Airachnid was chased off by Optimus Prime, and instead went to find the Harbinger's aft. She quickly located it and retrieved the Immobilizer, then lay in wait as Optimus's team approached the ship. She was able to freeze Bulkhead and Optimus, but some deft trickery by Bumblebee allowed him to sneak up on her and destroy the Immobilizer. She retreated back to the Nemesis where she tried to blame the loss of the Immobilizer on Starscream as well as explain why she left him behind. Unluckily for her, an enraged Megatron roared that by allowing the Decepticon second-in-command to be taken prisoner, she'd just put all Decepticon intelligence at the fingertips of the Autobots. Partners
When the Decepticons located the last part they needed for their space bridge in a human installation, Airachnid suggested she could burrow up under it, but Megatron announced that the time for stealth was past, so she didn't. Once they secured the power source they needed, Airachnid and Knock Out observed Megatron acting strangely and wondered if their leader was losing it.One Shall Fall While the miners gathered up Dark Energon, Airachnid hung out on the bridge and watched as Soundwave played back Unicron's pulse. She reported to Megatron that the hold was full, and they should think about retreating. He responded by leaving her in charge while he went to go and talk to Unicron. One Shall Rise, Part 1
 Plot details for One Shall Rise, Part 2 follow. |
Airachnid returned the Nemesis to orbit to wait. When no further word came from Megatron, she told Soundwave that Megatron might not be coming back. One Shall Rise, Part 2
Notes
- Airachnid is in Generation 1 non-Deluxe Insecticon colors.
- Her unusual head design is reminiscent of both the Disney villain Maleficent and the similarly spider-like Doctor Who monster The Empress of the Racnoss.
- Airachnid went her entire introductory episode without transforming into a true alternate mode, only from biped-mode to spider-legs mode and back. This is due to her not scanning an alternate mode until Crisscross.
- Unlike real spiders, Airachnid has compound eyes.
- The existence of the name "Airachnid" was first revealed when Hasbro filed an intent-to-use trademark application for the term with the US Trademark and Patent Office. However, the application was eventually denied for registration[1], so whether Hasbro will still use the name for the toy is unknown.
- She is not Blackarachnia. Deal with it.
