Optimus gets to eat one(1) Decepticon as a treat during the great escape.
Its what OP deserves after keeping his species a secret his entire life.
I'm going to go on a long tangent about snake eaters in Naga society.
All nagaformers fear snake eaters the way canon bots fear sparkeaters. Snake eaters are practically a myth but a very scary myth. They are boogeymen, monsters, and things that haunt Cybertronians' deepest nightmares. If the Autobots had known his species, then Optimus would have been tossed into Trypticon to be experimented on by Perceptor instead of being exiled with the repair crew. Should the Decepticons discover him now, he probably would be executed alongside all of his nonvenomous children.
The Decepticons had assumed that Optimus’s children got their coloring from Megatron’s CNA even if some of them hadn't gotten his venom, but, as it turns out, a lot of kingsnakes are coralsnake mimics.
As hard as it was for Optimus to be separated from his some of children, it was for the best that his nonvenomous babies were kept far away from their vulnerable siblings before they could control their hunger.
Optimus had spent his entire life pretending to be a larger than average grass snake and resisting the instinctual urge to hunt his compatriots. Now that he was finally away from Megatron, there's no one around the speckled kingsnake except his children and fair prey.
GAH yes. Optimus hunger he keeps deep inside him, trained coldness tp not accidently devour his friends. No one can know about his species. All must continue to think hes a weak non venomous naga. While deep down he drools seeing many of the bots around him.
And then of course the separation, while he hates it that his kids are separated from him. He can appreciate the fact that the non venomous ones are constantly near him so he can quell his children's hunger to not attack and eat any bot passing by or their other siblings.
But during the raid Optimus takes down a foot soldier, killing them and devouring their body, calling upon his littlest to feast, to feel what it means to have snake flesh. Commit it to memory and then hone in that hunger for when its really needed next.
They'll strike with more efficiency to keep the body fresher that way.
Sari is horrified that, that same naga is her carrier. But he just holds her close, calling her a good kid before they rush to Trypticon to go away.
Also also yes to king snakes being seen as like the equivalent of sparkeaters, myths and legends, no one can be a king snake, those aren't real.
And then here comes Optimus with his entire life unable to feed off another naga. Oh perhaps that the only naga that had known was Alpha Trion. Ya grandpa trion knows.
