The Little Details

by Lady Shockbox

Sometimes you have to pay attention to the little details to realize something not so small about two people you thought you knew. For one mech, he learned that the hard way about Terrorsaur and Waspinator. Megatron's POV. Oneshot. Heavy Slash. Beast Wars

I am never, under any circumstances, going to write a oneshot as massive as this ever again. That having been said, this story is my baby. I always paid extra attention to some of the scenes with mainly Waspinator and Terrorsaur during Beast Wars, and this fanfic idea came to mind. I started in June, got through a few scenes, realized how huge of an undertaking it was going to be to write it, and originally gave up and debated deleting the story altogether. They a bit of inspiration hit, and I got back on track. This story really inspired me to get some serious writing done, so expect to see more fics from me more often. I actually wanted to cry when I finished reading this story through when it was finally done, and I hope this does the same for you as it did for me. I finally got around to polishing it up too so, for those of you who are second time readers, it should look better grammatically.

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Hold it together, birds of a feather

Nothing but lies and crooked wings

Evil Angel - Breaking Benjamin

The song led Shockbox to finish the fanfic "The Little Details," when she originally gave up writing in June of 2007.

On February 20th, 2008, "The Little Details" was nominated for Ultimate Evil Person's Best Romance Fanfic Awards by an anonymous reader On February 31st, "The Little Details" won first place.

i

The little details, you ask?

My, it would only be obvious that any mech with such craftiness as I would note even the slightest detail. The main reason we managed to steal the Golden Disk was with my skill in noting the inconspicuous fine points in nearly any given particular situation. A gift you could call it I presume, yesss, but I had no intention for it to turn out to be a curse… a curse brought up by two mechs that would become part of my crew on the stolen Darkside that turned my understanding of any little details upside down. Forgive me if you fail to comprehend my explanation, but I suppose this would go under the category of being a tragic love story. I'm not much of a character when it comes to retelling stories to anyone - let alone true ones such as this - although I suppose telling this specific account one last time before I try to lock it away in my memory banks will serve it some right. After all, it was this tragedy that completely rewrote how any little detail should be looked at, no matter how incontinently small said detail may be.

It started out like any other partnership: Simple and nothing more than business. Of course, this was only if you did not pay attention to the little details from the beginning as I did.

I remember the first time they were introduced to one another just as clear as my reflection in the Golden Disk. The first time they were established to one another however, myself and the others did notice the immediate silence as their optics met, bright gleaming red against deep illuminant blue. Although my selected crew all had dismissed it moments later when the two introduced mechs acknowledged each other and peeled their eyes away from the opposite Predacon, a part of me knew deep down in the back of my processor that something had sparked between them. As for what, even I was unsure. The details between them in the beginning were merely conspicuous, mostly consisting of the silence between them and their occasional nervous glances at one another, but I know now its never wise do dismiss even the smaller bit of any detail.

Even after we crashed on prehistoric… err… the energy rich planet similar to planet Earth, Terrorsaur and Waspinator remained quiet toward each other still. The awkward silence was just the beginning of the small details. Mind you, only the beginning.

Terrorsaur was normally the stronger of the two of them and, consequently, more dominant. On the other hand, Waspinator was the much more headstrong of the duo. Ignoring the point they were my only two fliers and were often paired with one another for assignments and scouts over our territory - bearing in mind they were able to cover the most ground in the shortest amount of time - little words passed between them. Aside the occasional pointing out of something suspicious when they saw something while flying or Terrorsaur barking orders for some sort of attack when they saw Maximals, they were silent. Whether or not it was the silence of a flier's respect or something entirely else, I was still uncertain. Fliers are strangely oriented mechs. Waspinator was no exception either with his strange vocalization habits and overall odd behavior.

Before we crash landed on this planet, Waspinator was as normal as any of us. Whether his beast-mode altered his core processor programming before the crash jarred his senses, none of us could come to a conclusion on the mech's strange conduct. Even more so, none of us could really understand him, all with his buzzing and speaking in third person.

All of us except for Terrorsaur, that is.

The red Predacon, if you ignored Waspinator completely, had also undergone visible and audible changes to his self. His voice for one was enough to give anyone a headache. And his screech when someone scared him or shot him down was nearly unbearable. Still, he was the only one who did understand what Waspinator was saying to us and often translated. After awhile, we adjusted to the speech patterns of the green and yellow striped wasp, but the fact remained that Terrorsaur and Waspinator were silent with each other.

This is where my paying attention to the little details came into play once more. I was always very observant as Dinobot used to say.

The small glances that took place at the beginning turned into their optics locking with one another once we ended up stranded on the Primus forsaken dirtball. They came into eye contact very often, habitually staring at one another like they were seeing the other mech for the first time. No one else seemed to notice but me, though I still did not voice my observation. After all, fliers are bizarre mechs, and my soldiers were certainly some of the most bizarre.

Then they began ignoring each other completely, perhaps another little detail coming out of the abyss that consisted of whatever was going on between Terrorsaur and Waspinator.

I was not all too sure if the rest of the Predacons noticed, but I for one did. They started the habit of purposely avoiding each other, attempting futilely not to get into those staring matches. They flew further away from each other during flight missions and patrols: Almost as if they were trying to ignore something about the other mech. Even during the new development in their "relationship," the silence still lingered between them like a thick, tall steel barrier.

Until, one day, the barrier was broken like my body when Terrorsaur - the little worm that he was - tossed me like garbage over the side of a cliff after he supercharged himself on energon in a drunken attempt to overthrow me.

Scorponok had filled me in on the situation after Terrorsaur left - sometime subsequent to when I was thrown from the cliff and revived - in detail. I remember Waspinator, however, monitoring the computers for any sign of the red mech intently, silent the whole while. Although the theory of a flying mountain of energon astounded me when Scorponok told me what they found using the ship's scanners, my anger for Terrorsaur even trying to overthrow and kill me overrode the emotions such a discovery. When the long-range sensors on the Darkside's radar, however, indicated the said mountain had been destroyed, my temperament had peaked. How dare Terrorsaur waste such a precious deposit of the energy we needed. How dare he.

Waspinator remained silent, wordlessly standing there with his head down and watching the floor in what I now know was deep thought. That was until Terrorsaur returned.

The pterodactyl came from the western side of the base and swooped in was trying in his best power to keep his wings steady as he flew towards the base, although it showed just how much energon he absorbed. The red aurora and sparking waves that once consumed his frame were gone, replaced by the shakiness, unsteadiness, and instability of someone who was coming down from being overcharged. It was painfully obvious from the shadow of the ship where I stood that he was trying his best not to drop out of the sky unconscious from energy loss. It was when he landed in beast-mode, stumbling and nearly falling over until I revealed myself to him, stepping out of the darkness. He turned pale at the sight of me as I advanced. Oh yesss… I was certainly going to have fun dissembling him like he did me.

He had hastily and clumsily transformed to his robot-mode, stumbling back further and looking up at me with those dull, glazed optics in that of utter fear. He had tripped over his own two feet then, falling onto his back and unable to escape my wrath. Oh, I had every intention of introducing him to the bite force and ripping power of my beast-head hand and the fact I was ten times as powerful as he could ever be. But as soon as I brought my arm bash his face in with my tyrannosaurus head…

"Zztop!"

Waspinator grabbed my arm and held me back.

I had never questioned the yellow and green mech's strength before but now I realized how strong he was. In my surprise, he managed to stumble forward and get in front of Terrorsaur in a protective position, letting go of my appendage roughly as he did so. I brought my fist back and demanded him to tell me why he defied me. More so, I screamed at him to get out of the way, but the wasp, who was often the victim of often getting himself slagged and dragging himself to the CR chamber as of recently, stood his ground. He even seemed to glare at me with those large, deep blue eyes. Terrorsaur had long since lost awareness, laying on his side in a fetal position and trembling in the aftermath of the massive overcharge, but Waspinator looked boldly at me like he was daring me to even attempt hurting the red mech.

Still, my temper had cooled and I lowered my fist, giving Waspinator the flat warning that, if Terrorsaur tried this again, he would be disposed of. Then I gave him the order to put the red traitor in the CR chamber, turning sharply and walking away in a huff with Scorponok following me all the way, the later grumbling something about Waspinator and Terrorsaur being imbecilic fools. I did manage to look over my shoulder and see Waspinator get down on his knees before the semiconscious mech, saying something to him just inaudible to my range of hearing before hoisting him up. He slung red mech's slung over his shoulder as he held on to Terrorsaur by wrapping his arm around his waist.

The touch was almost gentle. Almost due to the fact Waspinator had to hold the other Predacon tightly so Terrorsaur did not slip to the floor and out of his grasp, but it was a little detail all the same. The little details were slowly beginning to add in their numbers…

Waspinator had brought the red flier to his quarters for a good three megacycles - more so to probably let my anger simmer - before Waspinator walked out with Terrorsaur still hanging off him. I said nothing, preferring to not remember the incident involving Terrorsaur's treachery, but Waspinator left him in one of the CR tanks and left. It was another few megacycles before Terrorsaur reemerged.

When Terrorsaur regained consciousness, Waspinator was the first one to see him. Even as the CR chamber platform rose to reveal a slightly shaken Terrorsaur with a very prominent hangover - it served the little bastard right in my opinion - Waspinator seemingly came out of no where. Everyone else aside I was too busy in their own work to pay attention to Waspinator as he addressed the red pterodactyl. Afterwards, they retired to Terrorsaur's quarters to, what I presumed, talk further. When they came out, everything changed.

The silence was broken. Everyone noticed it.

They were nearly inseparable. Whatever it was that Waspinator had said to Terrorsaur or the other way around, something had clicked between them. They had requested to have the same shift times as one another, although Waspinator had made the appeal seeing as Terrorsaur was still particularly nervous about what I felt towards the flying mountain incident. Even when Waspinator was blown to scrap, Terrorsaur would often linger behind after battles to help pick his comrade up to drag him to the CR chamber. As time went on, the other Predacons seemed to become used to it and dismissed it as a close companionship.

Just as well, I noticed another small factor in their partnership. Yet another one of those small details coming into factor, if I may say.

When we discovered a stasis pod in the northern most part of a neutral territory, I sent them out together to dispose of Optimus Primal. My plan was to destroy the Maximal leader so that the other Maximals would either go after the pod on foot or be too disoriented to do anything but to let me take control of their base. I waited for the two fliers to return for several cycles before they came back, Waspinator slightly beat and Terrorsaur panting. According to Terrorsaur's report, Dinobot had prevented them from entirely destroying Optimus Primal because he had to recover Waspinator.

This surprised me somewhat, although not entirely. Terrorsaur did always go back after Waspinator, although that was normally after battles. The thought of any Predacon rescuing a fellow comrade mid-battle was almost nearly unheard of. A small detail maybe. I managed to push the thought aside saying I was disappointed Terrorsaur did not manage to destroy Optimus himself. Terrorsaur countered again saying that there would be no way he would be flying anywhere, namely to where the stasis pod was for recovery. Waspinator quickly agreed with the red flier - maybe too quickly - and seemed pumped at the thought that this mission would be easy. The wasp's immediate response could have also been a little detail I presume…

I sent them out. Later on, when my own personal raid on the Maximal base went astray and we were beaten by the new nuisance protoform tiger in the freezing northern sector - he had called himself Tigertron, the feline Maximal freak - the first thing Terrorsaur and Waspinator did when we got back to the Darkside was to sit on one of the overhangs above the hot lava so they could absorb as much heat as possible. Considering they had been out in the cold the longest and their beast-modes were more sensitive to the cold, I could not blame them. That and the fact their wings were literally frozen solid when they returned back to base. I had heard the wings were the most sensitive on a flier's body, so I could only imagine the discomfort they had to have been in. Still, considering the fact Tarantulus and Scorponok had submerged themselves in the CR-chambers, myself and the two wingmates were the only ones in the room…

What I noticed was the new physical relationship between them.

Terrorsaur was lazily leaning up against Waspinator, the wasp's arm draped over Terrorsaur's shoulders in a comforting gesture as the red mech shivered violently from the cold invading his, rather ironically, cold-blooded frame. Even though Waspinator's own body was more accustomed to warmer whether as well, his beast-mode could adapt and survive in harsh conditions. Terrorsaur's, on the other hand, could not. After all, his pterodactyl beast-mode was an extinct species for a reason. They apparently did not notice me watching as they quietly talked to each other, ice melting against them and dripping from their bodies as the heat of the Darkside's lava pits warmed them. After these events and as time went on again, I'm not all too sure if I was the only one who saw the occasional hand on the shoulder gesture or the friendly nudge, but it was a new physical relation all the same.

I noticed more little details once again. They began making optic contact once more, although it was even more intense than before.

They could be making fun of that spotted cub - Cheetor his name was - or making some rude comment about Scorponok before one of them looked the other in the eye and they would go completely silent. Terrorsaur would often break it by tearing his optics away, but the conversation they had before would be long since over. A new subject would pass between them, but the staring match would start again at a later time. Although the silence was broken, something else wanted to be broken as well. I could not tell you what it was even if I wanted to. It was not silence… It was something deeper. Still, even to this day, I can not come to terms with a word that suits.

Then Terrorsaur broke.

It was not a mental sense, nooo… It was physical. Another stasis pod, this time in the heated, deserted wastelands in the southern sectors, was discovered. I had sent Scorponok and Blakarachnia - one of our newest recruits who had been retrieved by Terrorsaur and Waspinator themselves - to originally investigate the pod, but they became indisposed rather quickly. I sent Terrorsaur and Waspinator after them as soon as I received a distress signal. Although Waspinator had ended up laying on the ground stunned from an energon geyser, he was still functional, though he was just as useless as Scorponok and Blackarachnia. Even when he was picking himself up though, Terrorsaur had cornered Rhinox after taking Cheetor out for the insect. All had gone according to plan until the stupid hawk flew into the pod's scanning range.

In a disgusting use of human terms, the slag hit the fan.

The new Maximal erupted from the pod and Airrazor - as the new femme called herself when she transformed from her beast-mode to her robot form - got into a rather brutal midair fight with Terrorsaur. I was not there of course, but I remember watching through one of Scorponok's many cyberbees. The sight was gruesome. Terrorsaur had gone into a downward spiral with the femme, the two fighting viciously and heading at the ground around a good hundred miles per hour, until Terrorsaur managed to pull out of the tangle and swoop away from her, somewhat less gracefully as the hawk Maximal. He opened fire with his shoulder mounted pulse cannons, but the femme ended up being too graceful. She dodged every one of his blasts before shooting back with her own pulse blast. The shock of the first plasma blast hitting his chest stunned him, making him turn his back on her mid-flight.

As soon as I saw his back turned, I knew what was going to happen. You never turn your back on an opponent.

Unfortunately, before he could turn to face his enemy, he was not able to regain his scrambled senses and she blasted him in the back again, sending him spiraling towards the ground. Then she open fired again with another set of weapons. Femmes with wrist mounted missile darts were a scary thing. Especially when Terrorsaur ended up getting hit full force by the laser blasts.

It was horrifying, even for me, to watch Terrorsaur's body literally fall apart. The blasts blew off several of his limbs and scattered his parts around the ground below. His scream would have probably been the loudest I had ever heard if not for Airrazor's blasts going astray and hitting him in the back of the head, silencing him in what I thought was forever. As several of his pieces hit the earth below, the last thing to hit the dusty ground was his head.

I thought Terrorsaur's would have been loud. Waspinator's was far louder.

The cliffs and deep gorges must have swallowed the green wasp's deafening shriek of fear for his comrade, seeing as Airrazor landed beside Rhinox to assist him without hearing a thing. Still, the wasp must have flown over two hundred miles an hour in his beast form as he zoomed over to the fallen form of Terrorsaur. He landed and stumbled on all six legs before hastily transforming, calling for any help he could on an open Predacon frequency. I remember frowning deeply. Scorponok and Blakarachnia had begun to have consciousness return to them, but they would not be much use to helping Waspinator anytime soon unless the Maximals cleared out. Even they weren't dumb enough to go assist the wasp with the Autobot decedents still lingering around, also still considering the fact they had just had their afts served to them on a silver platter. The tone in Waspinator's voice as he called for help was scared, surprisingly enough for me, and he immediately ran over to Terrorsaur's battered upper torso to check for his wingmate's spark. I knew that frightened tone in his voice had been a little detail.

Looking at the shape of the littered body parts around him, I thought all he was going to get was a mangled interior and a wet pool of energon, no spark in sight.

But he did find it.

The glow from Terrorsaur's chest as Waspinator forced the plate open was dim from the shock of having all his parts ripped apart, but it was there. The silver sparking sphere of light and everything that was the essence of Terrorsaur pulsed weak with shock, nevertheless it still beat its steady rhythm. That was all Waspinator needed to see. The mech forcibly, yet gently, closed Terrorsaur's beaten chest and began to collect his parts quickly. First his right leg, then his left foot, several gears belonging to his thigh joints, his hand, and, after a long list of items had been collected, his head, Terrorsaur's face frozen in a silent scream. Waspinator froze at the sheer agony plastered on his decapitated ally's expression, but the wasp seemed as though he was forcing himself to recover. He had put the other parts down for a moment before, gently, he held the head in his left hand while he, very carefully, used his free hand to ease Terrorsaur's mouth closed. The horrified and pained air that resided in Terrorsaur's face was ease almost immediately, although his face was tense.

Waspinator caressed a pale cheek and the crest on the red mech's forehead lightly with his thumb and index finger. An almost microscopic detail to say the least.

He walked his comrade's head back to his torso before retrieving the rest of the parts and setting them down. Shifting to beast-mode, the wasp stood protectively over the prone, mangled body and went rigid, antennas and wings standing up on end like a watch dog. Salvaging Terrorsaur proved to be a much easier task than expected on my part. Just ten cycles later, Scorponok arrived, Blackarachnia nowhere in sight. It bothered me somewhat that the treacherous widow had gone missing again, but it did not bother me as much as what happened next.

When Scorponok approached Waspinator from behind, making only the slightest noise, Waspinator whipped around and viciously snarled at him, his face twisted in the most menacing grimace that would have even scared me senseless had I been present. Blue eyes narrowed to almost slits, gaping mandibles open and deadly, thorax and stinger erect, his body twisted in a crouching position… Waspinator looked like a feral, wild animal protecting something valuable.

That 'something' was Terrorsaur.

Scorponok had let out a frightened yelp and Waspinator's face quickly recovered, optics returning to their fullest open state and his face holding mixed emotions of relief, thankfulness of receiving assistance, and a tad bit of frustration that no one had come sooner. Turning back to Terrorsaur, Scorponok did not need to be told twice about what needed to be done. He got to work right away. Reattaching the mangled limbs back to Terrorsaur's immobile torso, the grey scorpion had Waspinator watch the red mech's vitals, one of those being his spark. Although Scorponok pretty much hated Terrorsaur to the Pitt and back, my second was seemingly too engrossed in his emergency repairs to care.

Waspinator's show of aggression earlier had scared any thoughts of abandoning Terrorsaur well out of his head. To the point, that sheer amount of over the top aggressiveness was a small detail to me.

Scorponok mumbling about Terrorsaur's body miraculously not getting energon surges yet broke me from my thoughts sometime later as I watched him delicately wire Terrorsaur's head back into place. These would not even be close to all the necessary repairs Terrorsaur would need of course. All the nasty burns around his back torso and dents in his body assured of that, but at least his body being stable again would hopefully assist his spark in not burning itself out… hopefully. Terrorsaur would be in sharp pain if he regained consciousness, seeing as there were still internal damages that needed to be assessed. For one thing, his neck gears would need to be repaired - by organic standards, it was the equivalent of broken - his limb joints would need to be carefully rewired, and, if the pain was great enough already, it would stress Terrorsaur's spark back to the point of exhaustion, straining itself to a dangerous level once more.

The sun was almost completely down now, and yet only half a megacycle had passed since Scorponok arrived. The head was almost entirely rewired so the mech's core processor could begin allowing his body to do minor self repairs, but that would be it.

And then Terrorsaur let loose a scream of bloody murder.

Scorponok fell back on his aft in surprise and Waspinator was instantly shushing and coaxing Terrorsaur, stroking one of the scarlet flier's pale cheeks and the crest on his forehead. It was a small detail, although Scorponok took notice before pulling himself back up to further asses the now abruptly conscious pterodactyl. By the time the scorpion was back on his feet though, Waspinator had already hoisted Terrorsaur up into his arms, cradling the crimson Predacon like a sparkling. Waspinator had ordered Scorponok to look around for more of the red mech's parts before thanking him briefly, taking off into the air towards the Darkside at a speed I thought not physically possible. Scorponok looked like was in shock at being ordered to do something by Waspinator, but he got to work looking for extra bits of the Predacon all the same. I presume now that he was too wired about the wasp snarling at him prior.

Terrorsaur had still been screaming and writhing in pain, but his shrieks had lessened in volume just barely when Waspinator had talked to him and held him to his chest. Diminutive details never fail to be caught by my observant optics unfortunately.

Just as unfortunately, neither did his grating voice fail to make my audios ring.

I could hear Terrorsaur almost a mile outside the ship just several cycles later. Switching to one of the monitors leading to a camera positioned outside our base, I saw Waspinator heading at full speed towards the ship, Terrorsaur still in his arms. As I zoomed in on the video input, I saw Waspinator was clearly exhausted, although his speed never lessened in strength. The red flier in his arms had his perfect face contorted in a twisted combination of searing pain and… fear. Terrorsaur was entirely delusional I realized then and, noticing something being that of another small detail, his face was stained with tears. The pterodactyl Transformer was, along with writhing in agony over his strained frame, sobbing and clutching to Waspinator like he was going to fall and hit the ground below. He still thought he was going to strike the ground the way he did when Airrazor shot him down.

Through Terrorsaur's deliriousness and screeching, Waspinator was still talking through it, probably whispering comforting words back to the other mech in a blind attempt to calm him. It would seem like Terrorsaur was not listening but, the way he tried to relax his body for succinct moments, it seemed as though he desperately was.

By the time Waspinator entered the Darkside, I dropped my audio sensitivity considerably. The wasp came into the control room without even looking towards me once, focused on getting Terrorsaur to the CR chamber and out of the miserable state the red mech was in. Terrorsaur was as stiff as a board and, I realized then, the pain on top of his injures was from his body's mechanical muscles cramping up when he was disassembled. I watched in silence as Waspinator kicked the lift button with a forceful kick, causing the CR platform to rise. The wasp jumped on it and let himself and the other mech sink into the replenishing liquid. Terrorsaur's loud screams, as soon as the warm fluid came in contact with his body, were reduced to nothing more than a gasp and choked sobs. By the time the fluid had engulfed him completely, he was silent. I could barely see through the thick solution of the CR chamber, but Waspinator was holding him close to the surface, allowing me to see the still dazed but now peaceful look on his face.

Waspinator mouthed something to the other bot who, all elements taken into the fact, did not seem to notice, his optics dull and his body going limp. It was when the medical solution began working its magic on him that his body allowed him to begin recharge. Terrorsaur went offline, his head starting to fall back. Waspinator put a hand under it to keep him from injuring his neck further before kneeling down, letting the replenishing juices of the tank engulf his body for a moment while he set Terrorsaur down at the bottom of the pool.

Standing back up again, Waspinator - almost reluctant to leave the other Predacon I noticed to take in another infinitesimal detail - clambered out of the tub, dropping to the floor and looking up at me when his feet were firmly on the ground. We were silent, staring at one another before he, after several clicks, turned and left.

It had been two days since Terrorsaur was inserted into the CR pool, and the repairs were slow going. He was still in unconscious shock without a doubt. Looking at the monitor's again to check on the tub condition, I saw Terrorsaur's repair status was around 78 percent complete. I was relieved at the fact. I had not been able to think straight with Waspinator's constant visits.

The wasp was almost always hanging around the pool, sometimes sitting on the edge to watch Terrorsaur through the opaque gel like liquid. Almost. With only one flier working at full capacity - and this was still Waspinator I'm talking about, as useless as he can be - had taken up both his and the now indisposed Terrorsaur's duties. His monitor duty was temporarily longer as so was his flight patrol. Waspinator did not seem to mind, but he was obviously very reluctant to leave Terrorsaur by the look that flickered in his optics. Small details occasionally bore me, but Waspinator being that protective over Terrorsaur was beginning to feed a suspicion that had formed in the back of my CPU…

I remember the power failing in our base and everything failing along with it. The hover pads, the computers… the CR chambers…

I had to suppress a growl when I realized Terrorsaur's recovery would be delayed further as the hover pads dropped. I had managed to and upright, although Scorponok had landed is a slightly less dignified position, splayed out on his chest with his legs bent over his back. I had briefly wondered how Terrorsaur would have landed had he been here, landing on his legs gracefully like a hawk perched on a branch… a hawk like the one Airrazor transformed into. It dawned on me then that Waspinator, if he ever managed to find the femme, would surely try to kill her for what she did. He would fail nonetheless, but Scorponok broke me from any thoughts further, alerting me that the power was down. As if I did not already know that. I ordered him to call all units to base, assuming it was a Maximal attack, but curiously got the better of me.

Ordering Scorponok to call one of his cyberbees forth, I sat back in my throne while Scorponok radioed the others… proving to me very much to be entirely useless. The scorpion reported back that Waspinator's radio was off and the spiders were not responding to any hails of any sort. Disgruntled but undefeated, I summoned any remaining power from the base into one of the monitors so I could watch what was happening outside. According to the feedback I was receiving now, no Maximals were outside the base or with a ten mile radius. Suspicion getting the better half of myself, I pushed the bee further, determined to get some piece of useful information. If I could not find the Maximals, I would find those treacherous arachnids in their place.

I never go the chance to even properly hone in on their signatures. I found Waspinator instead.

The wasp was, to my surprise, in pursuit of Tigertron, not tailgating the feline so much as to loose his element of surprise. The cat must have been too caught up in what he was doing to notice the rather loud buzzing from behind him. Cats seemingly never get tired of being stupid. Waspinator transformed then, still maintaining his element of surprise for his upcoming ambush, before taking aim and firing. He missed unfortunately, but the blast hit the ground by the tiger's feet and sent him sprawling forward… Face first into a rock. It was ironic Waspinator was not in the cat's position, but at least the green and yellow mech was being useful.

Waspinator did not even see Airrazor until she shot him.

It was a glancing blow thankfully. After seeing her in action for the first time and watching her fly up behind Waspinator, I thought he was as good off as Terrorsaur. She chuckled evenly, watching Waspinator tumble back in mid-flight while trying to regain his equilibrium as she shook her head. I realized then she more or less pitied the wasp for his idiocy. In times like this, I did too…

Until Waspinator regained his balance.

I had to resist the urge to let my mouth drop open in a mindless gap of utter disbelief. Waspinator usually spiraled out of control after a hit like that and crashed into the ground, blowing himself to bits. Here, and after such an accurate hit like the one he had just taken, he had somehow regained enough of his bearings to stop his tumble. Airrazor did not seen too impressed - seeing as she just showed up and had never met the wasp up until now without a doubt - and had resorted to examining her claw like nails.

What surprised me even more was the look of sheer hate that passed over the wasp's face.

The hate obviously was not from being shot and laughed at by the other femme because Waspinator had not even turned to face her. In fact, he knew who it was before he even turned to face her himself. "Waspinator remembers Bird-bot…"

The venom in the wasp's voice was frightening.

It was then, I realized, hat Waspinator had remembered her from the shot that hit his back. It was a pulse shot similar to Terrorsaur's, although Waspinator had immediately ruled out Terrorsaur because one, said mech was still in the CR chamber and two, Terrorsaur would never shoot him in the back.

It was noticeable now, obviously not to the oblivious hawk femme, that Waspinator remembered that she had shot Terrorsaur down with the same weapon. Small details strike back once more.

Waspinator whipped around, optics blazing and his whole body trembling in total anger. "Wazzpinator will SCRAP!"

Airrazor chuckled lightly and put her hands on her athlete like hips. "I'm flattered…"

Waspinator was still shaking in rage when he lifted his gun and aimed. Waspinator never aimed ever. Today, to him, this was an exception. He wanted the shot to count. He fired.

The stinger missile headed straight for Airrazor at a great speed, and I was sure he was going to kill her. Waspinator grinned maliciously in triumph, seemingly avenging his fallen comrade, but it was short lived when Airrazor swatted he missile away like it was a bug like it was him.

Like it was Terrorsaur.

Airrazor glared hard and clenched her fists. "But hardly impressed," she spoke coolly, her wrist mounted missile darts clicking into place.

Waspinator buzzed nervously and stared trembling, bringing a hand to his face to protect himself. The femme fired at him twice, shooting him in the wings with such accuracy that I was disappointed she was not a Predacon. Waspinator, with no wings supporting him in mid-flight, fell to the ground below.

I lost the visual after that, the cyberbee loosing all power. Now Scorponok and I were reduced to waiting in the dark.

Sometime later, Tarantulus returned with a stasis pod in tow, being chased by a large ant. Of course, out of manipulating the ant - who had dubbed himself as Inferno - to join the Predacons, to have Tarantulus' stasis pod explode when it was shot at by Tigertron, to have him attack Tigertron who had followed us, have Inferno get blown up when the Maximals attacked, and for Optimus to attack and scrap Inferno, it was deemed a loss for the Predacons. I punished Tarantulus severely and had him restore power to the base. After he did, Inferno was placed in the CR chamber, Terrorsaur's recovery went back on track, and Waspinator had been detected outside the Darkside walking back to base without his wings.

And then Terrorsaur came to.

The lift began to rise when his recovery was complete and he looked somewhat dazed, though he was completely functional. He seemed surprised to see me and asked what happened, saying all he remembered was fighting Airrazor before everything went dark. I explained that she had… severely injured him and that Waspinator brought him back to base. Terrorsaur perked to attention at me mentioning Waspinator and I signaled to the monitor, saying he had engaged Airrazor and had to walk back… that was all I got across to him, seeing he ran from the room and headed outside.

I watched through the nearby monitor as he ran out to greet Waspinator. The wasp was not heavily damaged, but he was limping and his wings were blasted off. It was obvious it took him so long to reach base because he had to constantly shift to beast-mode and crawl due to the surges, and it was not any faster crawling about on six wasp legs than it was walking in robot-mode.

Terrorsaur called out to Waspinator when the wasp did not notice him. Waspinator snapped to attention… and stared stupidly at Terrorsaur.

They stood there, staring back at one another at least thirty feet apart for half a cycle, almost like their staring matches they had when they first met. Then Waspinator lunged for Terrorsaur, sprinting the distance between them aside how tired he looked, and wrapped his arms around the red flier's neck, burying his head in Terrorsaur's shoulder.

Terrorsaur recoiled slightly and, after a moment, wrapped his own arms around Waspinator's upper torso and buried his head in Waspinator's own shoulder.

The physical relationship they shared was one thing, but this was something entirely new all the same. Whatever it was, I had to consider it a little detail.

They stood like that for sometime. To point out a little detail at random, I thought I saw Terrorsaur caress the spot where one of Waspinator's wings had been shot off. Just as well, for another tiny detail that I noted then, I thought I saw Waspinator trace his fingers over the spot where Terrorsaur's head had been blasted off of his body.

When they broke apart, almost reluctantly I noted - an undersized detail once more - they resisted optic contact as they walked back to base.

Then Waspinator stopped. I leaned forward slightly.

Terrorsaur turned back to Waspinator, raising an optic ridge at his wingmate. There might have been a concerned look in the other Predacon's optics, but the camera did not focus in on them that far. "What is it?"

Waspinator was looking to his side, purposely away from Terrorsaur. Had he had his wings, they might have been erect with the radiating nervousness that came off the yellow and green wasp. After a moment, he sighed lightly and swallowed hard. "…Terror-bot want to go with Wazzpinator to mountain in sector Tanna-16 to watch sunset? Izz pretty-"

If I remember correctly, I leaned forward more to the monitor. It was if I was watching a television show and not two of my fliers.

Terrorsaur smirked, his lips curling up slightly and his optics narrowing playfully. "Why are you asking me?"

I leaned forward so much towards the monitor I thought my optics would short out from strain. Waspinator did not do anything, but he continued to stare off to his direct left so he did not have to look at Terrorsaur. I thought Waspinator might have stood there forever and, abruptly, Terrorsaur smiled at him, reaching forward and ruffling the top of Waspinator's head like he was a sparkling. To note a small detail, before Terrorsaur pulled his hand away, he kept in on Waspinator's head a tad longer than he should have.

"Consider it a date."

Consider it, "I was stumped stupid." I turned off the monitor so as to not kill my optical feeds.

When the two came back inside, Waspinator sat inside the CR tank for a few minutes so his wings would rematerialize. Terrorsaur sat beside the tank the whole time, looking a tad bit happier than usual. Another small detail. When Waspinator was finished, as I suspected, they asked for a leave to retire to Tanna-16. They weren't on duty so I did not really have a say on whether or not I should keep them in the Darkside - they weren't on duty after all - so I let them go. Both mechs wasted no time in leaving.

Tanna-16, mind you, had a huge mountain in the center of the sector. It was in Predacon territory, true, but it was far from barren like the other sectors that we claimed as our territory. Truth be told, I had only seen it once. It was a gorgeous landscape, rich in energon deposits probably judging by how well the plant life thrived. It was surrounded by a forest, was complete with a large lake, and had, without a doubt, the best view of the sunset you could ever see. While the Maximals were more eastward and got an excellent view of the sunrises, our territory was more westward, giving us the best view of the sun's setting. I had never watched the sunsets, but I could imagine they were a stunning thing to behold. This planet was a pain in the afterburners, but it was a beautiful thing when it was not trying to get on your nerves by getting dirt in your joints.

I ordered Scorponok to let me use one of his cyberbees, and he allowed me to do so without a single moment of hesitation. I sent it after Terrorsaur and Waspinator to see exactly what they were up to, and a part of me felt foolish for spying on them. It was a harmless thing for me to send a cyberbee to watch them, but I felt better about it all the same.

When the bee said, via the Predacon computer system, it had arrived and found Terrorsaur and Waspinator, I activated the visuals.

Genuinely, I was so surprised that my mouth fell open.

Waspinator was laughing heartily as he pushed Terrorsaur off a high branch in a large tree overlooking the massive lake. Terrorsaur screeched in surprise and fell into the water with a loud splash. The watery surface of the lake rippled and sparkled in the sunlight like a glassless mirror. Waspinator chuckled evilly - a playful evil snicker to clear things up - and laughed as Terrorsaur came back up to the surface, flailing and shifting to beast-mode as the red mech attempted to get out of the water. After a few clicks of flapping his wings erratically, Terrorsaur shifted back to robot-mode when his systems adjusted to the shock and he glared up at Waspinator, optics dark and narrowed. Waspinator stifled laughing for a moment, afraid he had truly upset Terrorsaur… until Terrorsaur smirked evilly at him. Waspinator audibly gulped and backed away from the edge of the branch he was perked on. Terrorsaur's smirk broke out into a wide grin and he sank out of view. Waspinator peeked over the side of the branch, looking for Terrorsaur, only to scream in surprise and loose his grip on the branch as Terrorsaur erupted from the water and flew up behind him, yelling loudly in his audio receptor.

"AIRRAZOR'S A GLITCH!"

I felt myself smile slightly as Waspinator fell into the water, splashing about in a wild manner as Terrorsaur had. The scarlet pterosaur stood on the branch in robot-mode before diving in after his companion. Waspinator buzzed loudly as Terrorsaur splashed him from when the red mech dived in. Waspinator shifted to robot-mode, glancing around for Terrorsaur, until Terrorsaur lunged at him from under the water and pulled him under. I watched intently as Waspinator and Terrorsaur proceeded to play wrestle about in the water like sparklings, splashing each other, forcing each other under water, and laughing the whole time.

For a moment, I forgot they were my own soldiers.

I must have watched them do this for at least a megacycle. After that, both water logged Predacons dragged themselves out of the water and laid themselves down on the grass to regain their bearings, breathing heavily and laying side-by-side. Waspinator eventually shifted onto his back and stared up at the clouds, occasionally pointing out that they looked like various shapes - he mentioned something about someone's stupid rubber ducky, though I was, uh, positive it was not, err, mine - and Terrorsaur occasionally snickered. After awhile, Terrorsaur stopped replying to Waspinator and the wasp glanced down at him, seeing Terrorsaur slipped into recharge. Waspinator smiled at him lightly - do not ask me how with the awkward shape of his mouth - and shifted to beast-mode crawling off and occasionally twitching his antennas. Finally, after sometime, he stopped, his wings and thorax erect, just before he dropped his wings and thorax, forcing his antennas low.

I had no idea what he was doing until he crept closer to a small bush. He actually stopped, twitched his antennas, and let his thorax waver before lunging forward the bush. There was some sort of struggle until Waspinator pulled away, a large rabbit in his beast-mode's jaws. He was actually stalking a rabbit. I was sure now that he had picked up on the strategy when he had ambushed Tigerton that one time earlier the same day.

When he returned to Terrorsaur, he set the rabbit down just as the red mech woke up, sluggish and almost forgetting where he was by the look of it. The sight of Waspinator brought him out of his daze and he noticed the rabbit. Of course, our beast-modes had to eat and, buy the look of Waspinator stepping back from the rabbit, he was offering it to Terrorsaur. The red mech had just woken up today after his encounter with Airrazor after all, so his beast-mode must have been starved.

Terrorsaur shifted to his pterodactyl form, glanced up at Waspinator, and said something just out of my audio-shot. Waspinator dropped his antennas apprehensively and, slowly, he took a step forward, taking a part of the rabbit's leg in his mandibles. Terrorsaur grabbed a hold of a shoulder with his upper beak and, like two predators sharing a single prey, they tore it in half. They ate it in silence, messily mind you, and they retired back to the water to wash the blood and bits of fur off.

Once that was taken care of, they took to the sky and headed for the mountain ledge. I had the cyberbee follow them.

Then sun was starting to descend in the distance and, although not a full sunset, it was still stunning. Terrorsaur shifted to robot-mode, whistled, and commented to Waspinator that it really was a pretty sight. Waspinator buzzed, flattered at the comment, and sat himself on the edge of the cliff. Terrorsaur seemed a bit apprehensive - he would deny it, but I was sure he was horrified of falling now after what Airrazor made him go through - but he sat himself next to Waspinator, a tad closer than you would usually sit next to someone. It was a small detail, and anyone else would have surely missed it.

Waspinator seemed nervous with Terrorsaur so close, but he seemed to attempt to brush it off like it was nothing. They sat in silence for a few cycles, and Terrorsaur said something inaudible before Waspinator asked him what he said.

"I said thanks for inviting me out here."

"Oh. Well… thankzz for coming with Wazzpinator."

They went silent again, watching the sun set in the distance, and that seemed to be all that would happen. I smiled faintly to myself as I moved to deactivate the monitor.

"You know Waspy, you were right when you said that cloud looked like Megatron's rubber ducky. I swear, there is nothing more deformed or ugly in this entire universe. Why the slaggin' Pitt does he even keep that thing!" Terrorsaur cleared his throat and screwed up his face. "My name is Megatron, yesss. I love acting stupid and talking like a total idiot who pretends to be smart. I like to snuggle with my rubber ducky because it is squeaky, floats on water, and has a no CPU processor just like me! Rubber ducky, you're the one! You make bath time lots of fun~"

Whether or not it was Terrorsaur's expression, his voice impression of me, or his horrendous singing, Waspinator burst out laughing, falling backward and nearly crying because he was laughing so hard. I swear, my face turned so red, it might have been the color of Terrorsaur's ruby optics. If I were there next to him, I would have punched him. Treacherous bastard.

Waspinator sat up again, tears pricking his optics as he forced himself to be reduced to random irregular giggling. Terrorsaur smiled at him brightly and Waspinator smiled back, the wasp turning back to the sunset giggling every so often.

Terrorsaur's expressions fell, his face neutral, and he continued to stare at Waspinator. Almost sadly. A little detail by itself all the same.

Waspinator's field of vision had drifted to Terrorsaur again, as though he was going to say something about the sunset they were watching or about what he said about the rubber ducky bit, but he stopped short when he noticed Terrorsaur looking straight back at him. The red mech's ruby optics were enhanced with the red glow of the setting sun as he and Waspinator made eye contact. The rather laid back look Waspinator had on just clicks before had faded so that he and Terrorsaur's faces remained neutral. Several more clicks ticked by and neither had said nor done anything.

I watched intently as Terrorsaur very, very slowly leaned forward several centimeters, just barely noticeable. Yet another one of those small details. Waspinator seemed to recoil somewhat, the upper part of his left wing twitching nervously. Waspinator's and Terrorsaur's faces remained neutral, although Waspinator did return the gesture and leaned forward somewhat himself, bringing his face closer to the pale one of his wingmate. Terrorsaur tensed visibly, the muscles of his beast mode's wings and other organic patches tightening and bringing themselves closer to his body so they stiffened against his frame. What was going on now suddenly became inevitable and I found myself, to my own surprise, not taken aback.

The gleaming sun cast itself over them, their shadows trailing out behind where they sat like long, tall silhouettes as their frames were engulfed in the fiery inferno of the sun. They ignored it. Nothing mattered now except for the intense look to their staring optics and not so silent silence. Their actions spoke louder than anything. It was not silence anymore. Not as apprehensive as before, Waspinator edged even closer, his large blue optics gazing back at the suddenly very apprehensive optics of Terrorsaur as he repositioned himself. Now they were inches apart, literally breathing on each other as the sun continued it's decent into night. It was then Waspinator's optics went offline, his mouth parting open just barely. Shuddering very slightly, Terrorsaur dimmed his optics without turning them off completely as he leaned forward even further, his own lips parting as his head tilted to the side somewhat.

I had always imagined what it would be like to kiss Waspinator. Not out of perverted thoughts like the ones Tarantulus harbored in that scheming mind of his, but out of the fact his mandibles were a rather awkward shape. Although I guess that did not matter to them.

Waspinator had closed the distance and pressed his mouth against Terrorsaur's. Terrorsaur's face turned a light shade of red that would have contrasted with his pale metallic skin dramatically had the sunset not hid most of the blush while Waspinator's wings went slightly more rigid. For a brief moment, the kiss had little movement. Almost as if it was pseudo. Just a click after it started, Waspinator melted right into Terrorsaur, the wasp gently leaning forward more and opening his front mandibles just slightly to run them over Terrorsaur's perfectly formed lips. Terrorsaur shivered slightly and leaned back, submissive towards the slightly younger Predacon. It was something to see, I'll tell you. A Maximal might say it was romantic the way the setting sun was playing off against their armor, engulfing them in a flaming, amber glow. Terrorsaur's optics remained barely online as he and Waspinator sat there, seemingly as not intending to end their kiss anytime soon. Terrorsaur still seemed incredibly nervous and continued to leave his optics online just ever so slightly as if the other Predacon would reject him at a moment's notice. At this point, realizing how uneasy Terrorsaur was, Waspinator made the move to shift his hand up and down Terrorsaur's right arm, almost as if to coax the red mech out of his radiating overwrought state. It apparently worked, noting the scarlet flier shuddered and shut down his optics fully when Waspinator's hand traced over his arm's sensitive compacted wing.

Without even knowing what I had even done, I had turned the monitor off. There was not anything more I had needed to see.

That very night, just about two megacycles later when the sun had set over to the west, the two returned to base. Scorponok had returned to the control room and was watching the monitors when he alerted me to their return. As if I already did not need to know that. The computer had already signaled they had come back to the Darkside before the grey mech had even spoken a word. It was days like this I had to question his intelligence. I had to give him some credit however. The two mechs approaching were three cycles past the curfew I had given them. Scorponok seemed more than eager to get them in trouble, more so Terrorsaur. Those two did not get along too well with their clashing personalities, concerning Terrorsaur's treachery and Scorponok's blind loyalty.

The first thing to come out of Terrorsaur's mouth when he and the wasp entered was a rude comment towards my second. At least he was acting like his normal self. I had to admit that Waspinator was unusually close to Terrorsaur though. They weren't sharing a hover pad, but their pads were unreasonably close. Blast my noticing of even the most negligible detail. Scorponok snapped back and I had quickly intervened, growling at Terrorsaur to keep his blasted beak shut. The red mech had obliged, but not without a quick snort and mumbling something incoherent to my audios under his breath. I did not bother to comment back though, not after the way Waspinator had followed him out of the room like a puppy and had cast a nervous look over his shoulder at me. He had seen that I saw him do this and immediately looked away, following Terrorsaur out. I kept quiet. Very unnatural of me but I did so anyways. There was no way Waspinator could've possibly known I was watching him and the other red mech earlier. He was looking over his shoulder to make sure I did not lash out at his partner.

The phrase "partner" struck out at me like a stick. It was going to feel like a heavy duty steel pole in a few days.

Terrorsaur and Waspinator had been sent out on a recon mission to the north, where the physical aspect of their pairing began, and I had not heard a word from them for several megacycles. When the alarms, however, went off to alert me to their return, I was more than surprised to look through the monitors and see what I saw.

Terrorsaur and Waspinator were charred, laser burns covering their battered frames. Terrorsaur was worse off I suppose, seeing as very little remained of his wings. They were so badly burnt that they were scalded white, some of the leather skin even missing in places. Circuitry was revealed, they were obviously weary, and they could not even fly straight. Waspinator kept of dropping altitude and speed, flying erratically like he was buzzed on high grade and Terrorsaur was too worn to even keep his equilibrium evened out. Scorponok had turned to me to ask if he should radio them before they entered, but I opted to let them come in and explain things to my face.

When they entered, I forced myself to wear as stern of a face as possible. The reason I had to force it that way was because I was afraid it would turn to a look of mute horror if I did not control it. Their injuries were even more gruesome in person.

Waspinator was limping heavily in his beast-mode - with six legs mind you - while Terrorsaur staggered forward on his beast-mode's ridiculously short legs. When they managed to make it to stand before me, I demanded what happened. Tigertron - if my memory served me correctly - had been the only Maximal in the region they were in, and I was miffed as to how a single Maximal could inflict such horrible damage.

Waspinator intervened immediately when I snapped at them, demanding if Tigertron, of all Maximals, had done this to them. Perhaps Waspinator had thought the harshly stated question had been directed at Terrorsaur, noting that he immediately spoke up. You could call it a small detail if you see it fit I presume. He claimed Tigertron had not done this to them and Terrorsaur responded by explaining a "monument" had. Waspinator readily agreed and I demanded them to explain themselves. Terrorsaur went into a long tirade how they were gunned down by a tower that shot a powerful energy blast at them on a floating island and, all throughout his explanation, he began to sway on his feet more. No one else seemed to notice except for myself and, only obvious to me, Waspinator. The list of small details never seemed to end.

By the time Terrorsaur was finished, he was incredibly unsteady. As soon as he mentioned that he and Waspinator barely made it back, he had no energy left. He squawked weakly, rolled his head back for a moment, and fell over on Waspinator.

Waspinator made a high pitched buzz - almost like a gasp or a grunt maybe - as Terrorsaur fell on him, forcing the Waspinator to collapse on his stomach.

I turned away, too preoccupied with the newly acquired information as a schemed to pay them any attention. After a plan formulated in my mind to use the island Terrorsaur and Waspinator found to my advantage, I turned back to Waspinator and Terrorsaur.

Physical contact between them was not new to me, even taking into account their kiss I had seen prior, but how intimate it looked now was.

Terrorsaur had relaxed his body on Waspinator, probably trying to find comfort in his partner, and Waspinator was quietly buzzing things back to the red mech. Both of them seemed genuinely comfortable, aside the pain from their wounds affecting them, and I was taken aback. To block my surprise, I turned to them fully and Terrorsaur noticed, lifting his head off his partner. I told them to get to the CR chamber and, without another word, Terrorsaur collapsed on Waspinator again, causing the green wasp to buzz out loud again.

After I told Blackarachnia and Scorponok to head to the flying island, Terrorsaur and Waspinator had picked themselves up. They never went to robot-mode - I could not imagine how horrible their injuries in robot-mode must have been - as they entered the tank.

When I say "tank" and do not use the plural version of the word, I mean they went in the same one. Whether or not one of them was too tired to drag himself to another CR chamber, it did not matter. Terrorsaur collapsed on the platform and Waspinator hit the switch to lower the platform with a burned claw. As the lift began to lower into the tank, Waspinator laid next to Terrorsaur - I presume he thought I was not looking, though he should have know no small detail ever escapes me - and wrapped a protective arm around the scarlet mech while casting a burnt wing over him as well. Terrorsaur responded by turning his head and shoving his beak under Waspinator's beast-mode's head.

In a matter of moments, they were in the healing solution of the tub. Whether or not they too delusional from their injuries to care for whatever display of affection they publicly showed for one another was beyond me. Perhaps they did not realize what they were doing.

Or, perhaps, they did not care what me or anyone else thought. They were in love.

I shook my head at the thought. It was too trivial and too abrupt to be love. It was probably just a mere care of infatuation of some kind…

Sometime later, when they came out of the tank, they had shifted to robot-mode, stretching their gears and battle ready. Neither of them looked or acted like they had earlier, so I dismissed them and ordered them to go back to the island to assist Blackarachnia and Scorponok. Both seemed nervous in doing so - they obviously remembered what happened - but they complied anyways.

As they flew off, I watched them closely through the monitors. They flew closer than they normally had before. Another minuscule and seemingly innocent detail.

Three megacycles later, I got word from a battered and shaken Scorponok via the Predacon radio frequency that the island crashed.

He explained to me that Blackarachnia had betrayed him and thrown him from the island via a trap door in the floor, but he managed to survive somehow. Blackarachnia had gained control of the island but, for some reason, she lost control and crashed the whole thing. I asked Scorponok how he and Blackarachnia managed to get inside, and he said she had tricked Terrorsaur into shooting at her to activate the tower's defenses. The tower fired at him and Waspinator and Scorponok claimed that they managed to get inside while the weapon was recharging.

When he closed the link and I sent the newly repaired Inferno to pick him up, I radioed Waspinator and Terrorsaur.

I got no response.

When Scorponok, Inferno, and Blackarachnia returned, I still got no answer to my previous hail on the two Predacons. Blackarachnia was severely punished - not destroyed mind you since she still had some use - but Terrorsaur and Waspinator did not broadcast back in the time it took me to do even that. I usually do not get nervous or anxious on a regular basis, but I debated asking Tarantulus and Inferno to go looking for them. I held back though. Two more megacycles after that - and nearly six or seven megacycles total with absolutely nothing from them - I considered sending Tarantulus and Inferno to look for their bodies. After eight or ten megacycles, I was positive they were dead, probably crushed or killed in the crash and I was about to order Tarantulus and Inferno to find their mangled corpses…

Then we received a faint radio transmission.

I nearly jumped out of my throne at the sound and, immediately, I demanded Tarantulus to intensify the link. Tarantulus did so and, for a click, I wished he had not.

The most horrified and agonized screams I had ever head screeched at full volume through the link. Tarantulus immediately turned the volume down, but it did nothing to ease how horrifying the sound was. I thought it was Terrorsaur that was screaming. The strained tone the voice held sounded enough like him. Then Terrorsaur started talking through the link.

Though "talk" might have been too weak of a word. Terrorsaur was sobbing. Waspinator was the one screaming in pain.

I was so caught off guard and so horrified that I barely caught anything Terrorsaur was saying. I could barely understand him over the sounds of Waspinator's anguished cries and Terrorsaur's occasional incoherent blubbers. As far as I heard, he and Waspinator were trapped in a cavern created by rubble from the island crash and Waspinator was pinned - possibly impaled, although I was not sure due to Waspinator's cries deafening what Terrorsaur said - under a heavy mass of rocks and trees. Terrorsaur could barely assess the situation because he had no room to move inside the cavern, but it was obvious they needed immediate help. I ordered Inferno and Tarantulus, seeing as Scorponok and Blackarachnia were still in the CR tanks, and told Terrorsaur I was sending them assistance. Terrorsaur thanked me a little bit too mercifully. Another little detail.

Even before Tarantulus and Inferno left the room and before the radio link was fully cut, Waspinator screeched out a single word.

"TERRORSAUR!"

And the response literally was a whack over the head with the metal pipe I mentioned earlier.

"Shhhhh, Waspy, you're gonna be okay. You'll be okay, love."

My core processor essentially crashed.

I felt as though I might have fainted out of the shock alone. A Predacon leader such as myself was almost reduced to that. It was such a surprise. Without a second thought, still recovering from the overall shock, I shut off the link.

Even as Tarantulus and Inferno left, my anxiety grew as I thought more about what Terrorsaur had said. Were they really lovers? Of all things, lovers? I was even more anxious than before as I waited for them to return or for them to call back via the radio. I received the radio transmission first.

It was Inferno - the newest recruit was already blindly loyal I noted, though I hated him using the title 'Queen' for me - and I could hear Waspinator crying uncontrollably in the background. He sounded so much like a sparkling when he cried, I would have thought he was one. I preferred it to the horrific screams I had heard prior however, and I could hear Terrorsaur gently talking to the wasp in the background. I could not make out what Terrorsaur said to his wingmate, but Tarantulus explained Waspinator had been seriously impaled with a large branch from a smashed tree. Thankfully, he had been run through on the right part of his upper hip, missing all vital circuits and systems. Unfortunately, as Tarantulus put it, he was in beast-mode and had his entire back crushed, severely damaging his beast-mode protection systems. With those protection systems damaged, he was having brief energon surges that were so painful and damaging that, had Tarantulus and Inferno not found him sooner, he would have died.

When I asked about Terrorsaur, they were quiet. I was afraid that he was more injured than he had let on earlier and demanded for an answer. Tarantulus replied and, for a moment, my memory circuits jarred themselves in my skull.

When Inferno uncovered them, Terrorsaur's immediate reaction was to snap his head around and bare his teeth in the most menacing and feral snarl they had ever seen. A mental image of Waspinator snarling viciously at Scorponok when the wasp was guarding Terrorsaur after he was mauled by Airrazor came to mind. A severe case of déjà vu struck me. Perhaps it could've been another little detail.

Inferno cut in that they would return in several cycles and closed the link. I waited patiently until they returned.

When they did, Terrorsaur entered first, carrying Waspinator in his arms. Waspinator himself was in beast-mode, curled tightly into a ball and whimpering in pain, but I still could not help but gap at Waspinator's condition. The wasp had a large branch sticking out of his beast-mode's upper thorax area - it was thick but short, leading me to believe most likely Terrorsaur had snapped he ends on either side off so the injured insect could be more easily transported - and his entire form was crushed in places. Waspinator looked incredibly lethargic and, just by looking at the way Terrorsaur's lips were moving, I was sure the scarlet mech was talking to him softly in an attempt to keep him awake. A small enough of a detail I suppose noting that Inferno and Tarantulus did not seem to notice. I did not that they were keeping their distance from Terrorsaur, more nervous of him due to his response to them finding him and Waspinator than anything else.

The feeling of déjà vu came back when Terrorsaur immediately went for the CR tank and kicked the lift button in a manner similar to the time Waspinator had done the same with Terrorsaur screaming in agony in his arms. Terrorsaur jumped onto the lift and allowed him and Waspinator to be dunked into the pool, further giving me the eerie sense of realizing this situation was nearly entirety the same when Terrorsaur had been hurt and Waspinator had protected and carried Terrorsaur in his own arms.

There was a small difference in situation I noticed though. When Waspinator was gently set down in the resolution of the CR chamber and Terrorsaur gingerly pulled out the wood impaling his partner, Terrorsaur got out and sat on the edge of the tank, looking at nothing in particular. His whole body was tense and he never looked at anyone, taking extreme interest in the floor below him. When Terrorsaur had been in Waspinator's place and Waspinator in Terrorsaur, the wasp had left. Terrorsaur never moved an inch from the tank like Waspinator had when Terrorsaur was hurt to do his duties.

Tears pricked the corners of Terrorsaur's optics, though they never fell. A small detail all on its own.

Three megacycles later, Terrorsaur never moving from his spot, Waspinator emerged from the tank.

Scorponok and Blackarachnia had already emerged from their own tanks several megacycles earlier and had been briefed on Waspinator's condition. When the sounds of Waspinator's rasped buzz penetrated everyone's audios, even they glanced over nervously towards the chamber - no doubt Tarantulus had gossiped about Terrorsaur's menacing snarl towards him and Inferno before Scorponok mentioned Waspinator's own snarl towards him when Terrorsaur had been hurt - with apprehensive optics.

Terrorsaur whipped around and, without a second thought, kicked the lift button with his heel. The lift rose and Waspinator lied limp on the lift still in beast-mode, trying to get a grip on his surroundings. Terrorsaur walked up to him and kneeled before him, saying something under his breath towards the newly repaired mech. I never caught on what they said, but Waspinator did transform back to robot-mode and stood up shakily. Terrorsaur immediately helped him up - a bit too eagerly I noted, being that of another little detail - and they went off to retire to their quarters.

I would have thought things would have gone back to normal. They did not. And it started when they were late to monitor duty the next morning.

Both Terrorsaur and Waspinator were late for duty and several hails lead up to nothing. After about ten cycles, Terrorsaur responded tiredly and hastily, saying he and Waspinator would report in five cycles. I would have punished them for being late for their duties, but I let it slip that one time. After all, they had both been through a lot the previous day.

When they reported for duty, they never said a word to one another. It was too big a detail to be considered small.

They never spoke once during monitor duty. Not even once. I did notice that their chairs were oddly closer to each other than ever - a miniscule detail once more - but they never addressed one another verbally. Even on patrol, they never said a single thing to one another. Truth be told, this went on for about a week or so. Everyone at this point noticed. Occasionally, Terrorsaur would be sitting next to Waspinator during monitor duty or they would be working in silence on a generator or motor of sorts and either one of them would stifle a laugh or some sort of grunt of approval or playful sarcasm. Several times, they did this during patrols as well. Almost as if they were having a silent conversation with one another…

The thought was absurd. Bondmates did that. Unless…

No. I told myself that would never work between them. If it could work, by some random miracle, it was way too soon.

Then Terrorsaur and Waspinator asked for a leave to have some recreational time to themselves outside the base. It was suspicious enough, noting I never heard them talk to each other one about organizing up another one of their dates but I let them go anyways. Even as they left, they said nothing to each other.

My suspicions got the better of me. I ordered Scorponok to send a cyberbee after them. Scorponok did so without a word and I sat back in my throne. We never activated the visuals because the cyberbee Scorponok sent out only had so much energy - limited visual time, no audio, etc - because he did not have the necessary materials to fix some of them. It did not matter much to me though.

I needed to know what was going on between the fliers. This was not like them to not say anything for weeks and then somehow go on one of their 'dates' without verbally toughing base with one another.

An audience - made up of Inferno, Blackarachnia, Scorponok, and Tarantulus - had gathered when the computer chimed that the bee had located Terrorsaur and Waspinator in sector Tanna-16, exactly where their mountain hideout was. I remembered it as the place they shared their first kiss suddenly, and I was momentarily wondering if they had gone off to watch the sunset again like they usually did. It was a bit early for watching the sunset though - it was five 'o clock this planet's time and the sun set around seven 'o clock - so I asked the computer for the exact location. It chimed back, monotone and lifeless, that they were inside a cave and not on the ledge where I would have thought them to be. Surprised, I asked the computer to begin visual feedback.

A speculation formed in my CPU. And it did not disturb me like I would have liked it too.

The monitor flashed on.

What I saw confirmed several things, although I was surprised about none of them.

Terrorsaur's mouth was open in a silent moan, Waspinator nipping at the cables of the red mech's neck tenderly as the crimson Predacon laid against the wall, Waspinator between his legs. I will swear to this very day that I heard Scorponok choke on his own voice box at the sight. He had surely not been expecting that. As a matter of fact, no one in the room expected what we were now seeing. Blackarachnia had immediately begun screaming at me to turn the stupid monitor off, Tarantulus' mouth was gaping at the sight - whether or not in enjoyment was beyond me, seeing the sick perverted mad scientist he was - and Inferno was merely silent the whole time like a loyal, obedient soldier.

I was suddenly glad the audio was not working. Terrorsaur bucked violently and arched his back excitedly; letting out what was probably a loud, shrieking moan of pleasure the way his mouth moved as Waspinator bit down hard on a sensitive cable. The silver and scarlet Predacon clawed at the wasp's back in a blind attempt to draw the other Predacon closer as Waspinator's glossa darted in between the cables. Blackarachnia at this point left the room disgusted and forever more scarred. Tarantulus decided to bug her about it and followed her out. Inferno, not trusting the spiders alone in the 'colony', in turn followed Tarantulus out. Scorponok was about to turn the monitor off until I addressed him not to. He had looked at me like I was out of it until I assured him that I was going to watch because I needed to make sure they did not try anything. He seemed to understand and left me, hastily mind you, to work on some random project of his.

I needed to know several things, one of those things being why they were doing this. I was always more observant with noticing the little details.

Terrorsaur was panting in quick, shallow breaths as he squirmed against the other mech on top of him. Waspinator quickly stopped his movements by straddling him, hooking his legs around Terrorsaur's waist and keeping him in a still position. I could not help but grin at the situation. Terrorsaur was usually more dominant than Waspinator in everything. Now things were on the other table in a sense. In turn, Terrorsaur's right leg flew around Waspinator's waist, hooking him in place as Waspinator's left hand trailed innocently down to Terrorsaur's right hit strut. I wondered just how loud Terrorsaur shrieked in bliss when the wasp slipped his fingers in the seam and yanked at the wires. The red mech had arched his back painfully as his mouth flew open in a cry of ecstasy. Waspinator, I noticed unexpectedly, used his other hand to force open his chest plate, revealing his spark.

I leaned forward slightly in surprise. I never imagined Waspinator to be like that… It was an intense thing to merge sparks together in a physical spark bond. Bonding cables were easier to use in a sense because, for one, the intensity of climaxing was not as extreme. Although, I guess it was a smart move in a sense. If they tried cables, they could end up slipping into bond-mode if they stayed connected too long…

A part of my processor pokes at me that, perhaps by some fluke, they were bonded. I forced the thought out of my mind.

Without having Terrorsaur notice - the pterodactyl was too busy with focusing on Waspinator's other hand still inside his hip seam - I watched as Waspinator skillfully unlatched Terrorsaur's chest plate and opened it, revealing the red mech's burning spark. It dawned on me then that, the last time I remembered Waspinator looking at that spark - when the wasp had checked to see if Terrorsaur was still alive after Airrazor shot him down - it was not burning nearly as bright as it was now… Unless they had already done this before. The thought did not bug me as much as I would have liked it too. Terrorsaur squeaked at the cooler air from the darkness of the cave invading his entire body and he shuddered violently. Whether it was just the coolness and out of anticipation for what was coming, I did not really want to contemplate. Waspinator leaned forward somewhat towards Terrorsaur's audio receptor, whispered something to him, and the red mech nodded in approval, optics offline as he arched anxiously. Waspinator suddenly lip locked with the red mech - somewhat gently in a sense even though Waspinator did not exactly have proper lips to begin with - just before he thrust their chests together.

It was not the first time I saw them kiss, but it was the first time I saw it this intense. Especially considering the fact they forced their sparks together.

Terrorsaur was silently screeching into the other mech's mouth, white hot bliss overriding all else in his processor. Waspinator looked as though he was on the same page as his partner, opening his mouth slightly more and tilting his head to the side as though to introduce the red mech to his glossa. Terrorsaur seemed to calm down somewhat, clutching at Waspinator's shoulders like they were a precious lifeline as his jaw opened further for the wasp. Waspinator's hands, in turn, were also locked on Terrorsaur's own shoulders, Waspinator's gracelessly shaped mouth moving against Terrorsaur's perfectly shaped lips like they had done this hundreds of times before.

Then, of course, my curse for noticing those details came into play again. Terrorsaur moved his right hand - this was the one facing the cyberbee's camera - clamped on Waspinator's left one. The wasp seemed to get the idea and grabbed onto the red and black hand given to him, both of them grasping the other's fist as their sparks reached the breaking point. Their bodies jerked convulsively - Terrorsaur had been the first to climax at the hand of sensory overload and overheating his spark temperature just clicks before Waspinator - before their frames locked up prior to going completely limp. Waspinator collapsed against Terrorsaur and the mech under him slumped against the wall, optics dim and their chests still forced against one another.

I had thought they had completely off lined until Waspinator moved first. The green and yellow wasp maneuvered his chest away from Terrorsaur's - their sparks separating in the process caused him and the ruby Predacon under him to tremble in the aftermath of their forced spark fusion - as he shakily covered Terrorsaur up, his hands tracing over the Predacon's opened chest plate as he closed it shut. The red mech under him laid perfectly still, optics still offline, as the wasp did this, just before the blue eyed mech maneuvered his hands to close his plate. At this point, Terrorsaur had brought his optics on somewhat, a glazed look to them similar to when he had overcharged on that damn floating mountain of energon. While Waspinator's whole being seemed unsteady on himself, Terrorsaur seemed slightly more stable, although his coordination was something I would have laughed at had the situation been different. As Waspinator settled down next to the other Predacon against the wall, Terrorsaur attempted to reach out to trace the outlines of his wing mate's face, although his hand barely missed and he ended up touching the wall lightly. Waspinator seemed somewhat concerned as he addressed the other mech quietly.

Although, Terrorsaur shifted his arm again so he did touch the other mech's face, just before he lightly touched his lips to the green and yellow striped wasp's. Waspinator returned the gesture by pushing himself against the other Transformer as they slipped down to the floor, both sprawled on their sides. Terrorsaur, again, threw his right leg over the wasp's leg before Waspinator threw a rather protective arm over the red mech's shoulders just as they both broke off, optics dimming as they prepared their systems for recharge.

Waspinator said something to the other mech and Terrorsaur mouthed something back before falling into deep recharge. It was one of the small details, although my optical sensors could not follow the movement, making it impossible to tell what they said to one another just by reading lips… well, Terrorsaur's at least. I have no clue how I'll ever be able to read Waspinator in that sense.

But I had a gut feeling I knew what they said. It's not that it bugged me, but I still was not all that ready to truly believe they meant it. After all, the aftermath of sensory overload can be like being overcharged. Sometimes you can control yourself, sometimes you can not. Still, I could not help but think about it.

Waspinator's face looked sincere. "I love you."

Terrorsaur's was just the same. "I love you too."

I turned off the monitor then and radioed the others, telling them not to confront the two Predacons about what they saw. They seemed more than willing to comply, seeing as they wanted to pretend they never saw what they had to begin with.

When Terrorsaur and Waspinator returned that night, no one said anything. Neither did they, but it was obvious they were walking on air. They retired to Terrorsaur's quarters for the night and that was the end of it.

Then the ghost happened.

The reason I say "ghost" is because hate fills me every time I mention its name…. Starscream, the treacherous worm he was. Oh yes indeed…

Terrorsaur had been roaming the halls, making sure all the systems were working due to the massive energon storm that was surging overhead the ship, while I had Waspinator working on a computer program. The energon storm outside was so powerful it had shocked him and sent him flying backwards. I snarled in frustration at the wasp's idiocy - he was acting so innocent too the way he buzzed and looked at me stupidly when the console zapped him - and I ordered him to get back to work… just as Scorponok radioed me that there was an electrical fire on the lower deck. A mental image of Inferno popped to mind, but Scorponok had already clarified it was electrical, undoubtedly due to the massive shock that went through the computer moments earlier. I ordered Waspinator to fix the program and then assist me on the lower deck as I left to help my second.

Not much happened. The fire was not as big as I would have thought it to be, but Scorponok needed help nonetheless. I helped him douse the flames, but the smoke that filled the room afterward was nearly unbearable.

Then we heard footsteps. That was when he saw Waspinator through the smoke. Ominously, lightning from outside illuminated his form.

I was momentarily outraged that Waspinator had taken so long to come down before I noticed Terrorsaur was behind him, standing in the doorway to the lower deck chamber. The pterodactyl's optics were wide in shock… Perhaps even fear. He was obviously standing as far away from the wasp as possible.

There was something wrong.

"So there you are." Scorponok stated, narrowing his optics behind his visor. Not out of aggression mind you, but even he was having difficulty seeing through the smoke.

Then Waspinator, or what used to be Waspinator, spoke.

"Yes… here I am at very long last!"

Terrorsaur cringed in the doorway and, to add a small detail to the already huge list I had formed, he looked like he was going to break down, his optics constantly on Waspinator and his entire form in obvious panic and, a bit too obviously, his optics had moisture built up in their corners. For everything they went through and Waspinator's voice now, something very bad had happened to the wasp. His voice obviously had to do with it.

"What happened to your voice?" It was stupid of me to ask maybe, but it provoked 'Waspinator' either way. The wasp's facial features never changed - even for having mandibles and the features of an insect, he was usually much, much more expressive than he was now - as he paused a moment before continuing.

"Allow me to present myself…"he said in that screeched voice of his. It was like Terrorsaur, although Terrorsaur's voice was deeper and not constantly strained to the point of sounding like nails on a chalkboard. This voice was, and the higher pitch never helped to ease the sense. Finally, "Waspinator" spoke up again. "Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Battle Fleet!"

Lightning and thunder flashed and rumbled loudly outside as if on a sort of sick cue. Terrorsaur - as you'd guess, I have to input another little detail here - he mouthed Waspinator's name. For a second, I thought I saw a tear stream down one of his pale cheeks.

Waspinator turned his head slightly, as if to acknowledge Terrorsaur was there…

Terrorsaur ran.

He was scared of Starscream. Either that or, as I would have suspected, he was scared for Waspinator, or whatever happened to him at least with Starscream in his body.

After calling a mandatory meeting - I had Blackarachnia drag Terrorsaur out of his quarters to come down, the poor mech was near hysterics probably - Terrorsaur seemed very controlled as we all gathered in the control room. When I asked Starscream where he came from, he said through the computer. It was now fairly obvious that the computer frizzing out on Waspinator and the electrical fire were that of Starscream's doing. Then Starscream mentioned he had to possess Waspinator's body in order to properly communicate with us.

This is the point where Terrorsaur made a low strained squawk. Anyone else might have thought it was just a random twitch of sorts, but I knew Terrorsaur was horrified Starscream had taken Waspinator over… judging by the smug look on Starscream's face - or Waspinator's face, since it literally was Waspinator's body - Starscream knew that too.

Holy Primus in the Pitt and Matrix, I thought my spark stopped pulsing when I realized Starscream, through Waspinator, knew everything.

Terrorsaur, to recover from his random outburst, inputted that he himself witnessed Starscream coming out of the computer. It explained why Terrorsaur had been as disturbed as he did from the beginning but, even now, I could see he was beginning to break down again.

Starscream, throughout the entire meeting, occasionally glanced at Terrorsaur with a cruel smirk. Eventually, Terrorsaur left without being asked to be dismissed. Scorponok glanced at me as if I should yell at him, but I could not find my voice to do so. Starscream seemed disappointed at Terrorsaur leaving, but the malicious pleasure that was held on his face from being the cause of Terrorsaur's early departure was more than obvious. For having little facial expression with his new face, you could read him like a book.

After the meeting was dismissed, Starscream was given the option to explore the base by myself. Of course, he seemed suspicious of my generous offer but he took it anyways. Of course, I was not actually planning anything against him, but I did want him to get used to the base. I was not entirely sure how long he was going to be a resident of Waspinator's shell, but it would be smart either way to let him get to know his way around the ship.

Still, I wanted to keep an optic on him. I sat back in my throne and watched through the many monitors as Waspinator stalked up the hallways gracefully, his hips swinging in a trademark Seeker fashion and his steps sure and steady. I was not surprised he was second-in-command during his time. He acted enough like one and had the confident air of a powerful mech radiating off him like steam of a heater.

He ran into Terrorsaur.

Immediately, I knew something was going to go down. Terrorsaur was sitting in the hall - knees to his chest and hands grabbing either side of his head in some sort of conflict with himself, and Starscream stopped dead in his tracks, his wings dropping dangerously and his head lowering. Terrorsaur, a second later, snapped his head up, looking directly at Starscream. He wore a Maximal-in-the-headlights look and, mixed in so much that it was a little detail, he wore a look of mute horror.

For the record, it looked like he was crying.

Starscream lunged for him. Terrorsaur was on his feet in a second, ready to run, but Starscream beat him to the punch. Starscream had Terrorsaur pinned and pressed between the wall and his body cruelly.

For a click - a horrifying one - I thought he was going to rape Terrorsaur.

Starscream purred viciously and cupped Terrorsaur's cheek, breathing heavily on Terrorsaur's face. He caressed the outline of Terrorsaur's jaw, softly mind you, before he dug his claw like nails into Terrorsaur's synthetic flesh. Terrorsaur cried out and attempted to fight back, although Starscream forced his right leg between Terrorsaur's own to cease the red Predacon's attempts to escape. Terrorsaur cried out and struggled to get away once more, but Starscream grabbed his chin forcefully and made the red mech look at him.

"I do not understand you…" Starscream spoke coolly, his blue optics narrowing on his stolen body. The word "stole" seemed to fit, noting that he stole Waspinator from Terrorsaur. Terrorsaur said nothing to Starscream, though his optics were wide with fear. "The idiot that formally held this body was a total buffoon who could barely walk a straight line let alone speak like he had an IQ higher than that of a drone. Even with that, here, of all things, I see that he's wooed a mech entirely out of his league!" He edged his face towards Terrorsaur's, their lips inches apart. "How fascinating… whatever did you see in the wasp?"

Terrorsaur was hyperventilating, more than likely due to how close Starscream was than anything else. Starscream scowled and, with a flash of moment, punched Terrorsaur in the gut hard. Terrorsaur nearly doubled over and his breathing came out in rapid, strained squawks further angering Starscream. The ex-Seeker turned Predacon wasp grabbed Terrorsaur by his chin again and forced him to look up at him, using his other hand to trace the contours of Terrorsaur's arm wing. Terrorsaur shuddered violently and tried his best to resist arching into the touch, gritting his teeth the whole way.

Starscream smirked. "You know you like it." He leaned close again and brushed his mandibles over Terrorsaur's cheek as he continued to stimulate Terrorsaur's wing. The red mech struggled valiantly to resist the Decepticon commander's touches, and he let out a low sob. Starscream let a cruel feature cloud his face as he nipped Terrorsaur's neck gently. "I could make you overload here in a click. Waspinator could never do that no matter how well he knew your body. I can do that for you right now…" Starscream grinned cruelly and gripped the tip of Terrorsaur's wing.

Terrorsaur gasped and grit his teeth hard, his body arching on its own accord against his will entirely. For a moment, it looked like he might give in. Surrender to the touch, give himself up… then he froze, onlined his optics, and glared. It was the most spiteful, firey, Pitt raising, furious glare I had ever seen from my red flier. His voice dropped to a very dangerous tone.

"I don't want you."

Starscream's optics narrowed. "Excuse me?"

Terrorsaur's flared his optics. "I don't want you!I want Waspinator!"

Starscream was even more outraged at Terrorsaur, though he was more surprised than anything else. "Are you saying the moron could outdo me in a berth? His idiocy actually appeals to your-"

"I LOVE HIM! THAT'S WHAT APPEALS TO ME!"

A part of me, a small part as small as the little details, was not surprised. Another part, the larger one, was. Terrorsaur found the strength to move his arms and he punched Starscream in the jaw hard. The Decepticon turned Predacon recoiled and fell on the floor hard, looking up and blinking dumbly at Terrorsaur. For a moment, it reminded me about earlier today when Waspinator had his own body and was not possessed by the merciless spark of Starscream. Waspinator had been so innocent and clueless then, and Starscream looked very clueless and almost innocent now. It was probably due to the fact the ex-Seeker had not expected such an outburst from Terrorsaur, but he looked so much like the real Waspinator all the same.

Before Starscream could recover, Terrorsaur ran, turning a sharp corner and darting towards the quarters hall. For a moment, I thought he would run into his own room, but he banked hard and darted into Waspinator's, locking himself in. His quarters were probably safer than Waspinator's quarters, seeing Starscream probably knew the pass code, but I presume Terrorsaur felt the closest to the actual Waspinator that he fell for in the wasp's room instead. The minute details kept on coming, and this was just another one of them.

When I called everyone down to the control room again to come up with a plan of action, Terrorsaur did not show.

A battle strategy was discussed, Starscream claiming we should attack the other undamaged side of the ship between the gun ports. Personally, the plan did not appeal to me, more so because I never would have thought of it myself. Still, either way, we went on with the battle plans. Terrorsaur did eventually emerge from the safety of Waspinator's quarters - reluctantly if you mind - and joined the rest of us.

Before we left, I caught Starscream approaching Terrorsaur out of the corner of my optic. I quickly ordered everyone out, hoping to prevent another repeat of what I saw on the monitors. Starscream obviously was not going to let Terrorsaur forget his offer. Either that, or there would be some sort of confrontation for Terrorsaur punching Starscream in the face. Whichever, I did not want Starscream anywhere near Terrorsaur.

After attacking the Maximal base and succeeding to claim it from the Maximals, we met in the Axalon Brig. Starscream was obviously proud of himself, his optics bright with a gloating self-confidence. It almost reminded me of Terrorsaur, but Terrorsaur himself, in my onion, was nothing like Starscream. Even as Tarantulus mentioned the fact that if we were at the Maximal base that our own base was unprotected, I debated on leaving Blackarachnia and Terrorsaur at the Axalon to remain under Starscream's command while I returned to the Darkside with Tarantulus and Scorponok. A mental picture of Starscream cornering Terrorsaur came to mind. I suppressed a shudder.

Leaving Terrorsaur with Starscream was out of the question.

In an attempt to keep some sort of peace, I ordered Terrorsaur and Tarantulus to return with me back to base while Blackarachnia and Scorponok remained at the Axalon under Starscream's command. I would have had Inferno stay with Starscream as well - after his display towards Terrorsaur in the hall, there was no way I could trust the ex-Decepticon - but Inferno was still recovering in the CR-tanks from nearly getting scrapped three days prior. It was probably no better leaving Blackarachnia with Starscream then it was giving Starscream a total run of our newly acquired base, but my only other logical choice was to leave Terrorsaur with Starscream.

I was not going to do that. Terrorsaur, surprisingly, had different plans.

"Starscream? How… how come he gets promoted?" Terrorsaur's tone of voice was tart and, despite the situation, I was not going to put up with that attitude. Scorponok looked almost giddy as I pulled away, intending on giving him a good punch to get him back in order, but I held back for a moment when Terrorsaur looked away.

He glared hard at Starscream. Starscream stared back at him emotionlessly.

Before I realized what I had done, I had slammed my tyrannosaur head into Terrorsaur's head, crushing his helm between the jaws of my beast-mode hand.

I turned back to Starscream with Terrorsaur's head locked in my tight grip. "Thus you are rewarded for your loyal services." I lifted Terrorsaur up by his head and the Predacon hung limp in my grasp as if any movement from him would provoke me to crush his skull. I managed to catch a glimpse of his optics, expecting to see a wide and fearful look to them, but I was only met with cold and hateful crimson eyes glaring back at me.

He was horrified of Starscream, true, but there was no way in the Pitt he was going to let the Decepticon out of his sight. Especially with Waspinator's body.

Still, I continued nonetheless. "…And thus you are encouraged to keep your beak shut." I threw him forcefully across the room to get my point across, though even I noted that my throw might have been harder than it should have. Scorponok had to duck to avoid the red mech colliding with him, and Terrorsaur crashed into the floor on his side shoulder first, rolling and crashing into the nearest console. The console itself dented in the side, but otherwise remained undamaged.

Terrorsaur laid there for several minutes before getting up. Before Tarantulus, Terrorsaur, and I left, the scarlet flier sent a glare towards Starscream. Starscream glared back.

Then the stupid Seeker betrayed me.

I caught the activity on the monitors outside our base. Surprisingly, Rattrap and Cheetor - the two most irritating of the Maximals as I personally put it - were crawling on their stomachs towards the underside of our base, seemingly for a surprise attack. I was personally taken aback strongly, noting the two mechs certainly weren't that of the suicidal type, but they were still a threat nonetheless. I told Tarantulus, who was standing conveniently nearby, to activate the lighting and weapons systems on the underside of the ship. Wordlessly - although I thought he might have chuckled maliciously under his breath - he activated them. In a matter of moments, as the guns took aim, the other Maximals attacked. Tigertron, Airrazor, and Rhinox opened fire, although our weapons kept them at bay easily.

When they made a move to retreat, Starscream showed up and told them to continue attacking.

Terrorsaur squawked behind me in shock. I paid him little heed. My vision turned red.

For a moment, I was glad Optimus had showed up. The ape had punched the treacherous Seeker right in the chin and sent him crashing headfirst into a boulder. Starscream fell to the ground with a thud and went limp, obviously stunned from the violent attack on him. I could literally feel Terrorsaur leap to attention behind me and, before I could say anything to the red mech, he had darted from the room and had rushed outside the base. I did not have the composure to stop him. My sheer anger for Starscream overrode anything else and I, briefly, realized Blackarachnia had to have been involved as well. Scorponok was, to be blunt, not the brightest bulb in my box of soldiers, although he was one of the most loyal aside Inferno. He would never go against me. Blackarachnia would.

I fumed, knowing Blackarachnia had to do something with Starscream backstabbing betrayal, and my temperament flared violently.

Through the monitors, I saw Optimus corner and grab Starscream by the shoulder forcefully and toss him aside like he was nothing. Starscream landed hard on his back, sitting up just barely before Optimus advanced on him again. The Maximal leader's wrist mounted weapon aimed at the ex-Decepticon's face and Starscream drew his gun - or Waspinator's to be a tad bit more truthful - and glared at the gorilla, narrowing his blue optics. Those optics were menacing all on their own, and I realized just how much Terrorsaur must have missed Waspinator. Those cold, heartless blue eyes did not suit the wasp at all. The joyful, carefree ones of the real Waspinator did. I suppose that could be a little detail in its own way.

Starscream's bold air disappeared a few clicks later and the Seeker began to beg.

"Beg" is probably the wrong word, but I'll use it regardless. He became very nervous as he backed away from Optimus tensely, afraid as if the Maximal would pull the trigger. As he continued to back up, I noticed the raw energon shards behind him. Starscream did not. I also saw Blackarachnia on the tip of the Darkside with her gun drawn.

Terrorsaur, barely out of view, was flying high over the scene like a hawk, optics locked on Starscream.

Starscream finally looked over to his immediate right, sensing the black widow's presence, and called out to her to take out Optimus. The spider did not aim for Optimus, but aimed for the raw energon behind the ex-Seeker. Waspinator looked behind him and noticed the energon, optics wide as he realized his fatal mistake.

Then the energon surge hit him full force. His body convulsed and he fought to control himself, his body sparking and near entirely immobile. Terrorsaur was too much out of sight of the monitors, so I could not exactly what he was doing. Panicking I'm sure, but the red mech had yet to make a move.

Blackarachnia was going to destroy Starscream.

"You've betrayed me!" It was not a question. It was a flat out exclamation. It did not seem to affect Optimus or Blackarachnia in the slightest, but Terrorsaur was another story. As the red flier shifted somewhat, enabling me to catch a glimpse of him through the monitors. I saw a morbid fear and merciless anguish etched onto his face. Consequently, I realized with a start, Terrorsaur felt as though he had betrayed the real Waspinator.

The morbid fear came from the thought that, if Starscream was killed, Waspinator would be scrap. The merciless anguish came from the fact Terrorsaur realized there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt he betrayed Waspinator because he could not save him. He failed to protect him.

Blackarachnia pulled the trigger.

Starscream's facial features went neutral with fear as the oncoming missile approached, heading strait for him and the energon right behind him. As it neared at well over 100 miles per hour, his face became more panicked as he struggled fruitlessly to move. Optimus turned to him, smirked, and said something in the Spanish Earth language that meant goodbye. It seemed appropriate at least, although I fail to understand why the Maximal leader. The ape took off via his jet pack and Starscream lived up to his name realizing his sealed fate.

He screamed.

Somewhere, just outside the monitor's range of visual feed, I heard Terrorsaur scream too. It was entirely blocked out when the missile hit its intended target.

Starscream's scream was immediately silenced. Terrorsaur's own scream raised a pitch higher for the briefest of moments before being drowned out as well.

The detonation was massive. The entire plateau Starscream was on exploded in one of the most violent eruptions of exploding energon I had ever seen. It would be a sight to marvel had it not been the death of two mechs in one setting. Starscream I did not care for in the slightest due to his betrayal, but he was still useful nonetheless. Had he been loyal, there was a chance I could've won the Beast Wars hands down. Still, I cared nothing for him now.

Nonetheless, we lost Waspinator. He was stupid, clumsy, and a total idiot who blew himself up all too often. He was loyal either way however and now he was dead.

When the explosion died down, Terrorsaur screamed bloody murder. That scream still sends shivers down my neural net.

"WASPINATOR!"

It was horrible.

Terrorsaur screamed again and dove for what little remained of the plateau. He swooped and landed with little grace, stumbling as he went, as he ran across the desolate remains of the landmass, energon radiation still crackling through the air like a mist. Terrorsaur was stumbling as he went, occasionally getting his foot jammed into a bit of rock face as he ran, but he kept on screaming Waspinator's name, begging for the dead mech to say something.

I was sure Terrorsaur knew Waspinator's spark was extinguished, but I was not going to call him via the radio and remind him. I was tempted to call my other soldiers to let them knew not to radio to the scarlet mech, but I was sure they already knew what was happening.

There was a small detail I was sure they were not going to notice, though. Terrorsaur was in hysterics, even after he came to a full out halt at the plateau's center before he fell to his hands and knees, beat the ground with his fist, and screamed. I knew Terrorsaur's loud screeches were nearly unbearable to hear to begin with, but this was just agonizing beyond the point of having your audios burst. Had there been some form of glass nearby, I was sure it would shatter.

And then Terrorsaur took off blindly, heading straight for the sky and flying as fast as he could away from the plateau.

Scorponok radioed me a second later, saying he was coming back to the base and had seen Terrorsaur, and asked me if he would radio Terrorsaur back. I told him no instantly and, almost as blind as Terrorsaur retreat, I ordered Scorponok to radio Tarantulus and Blackarachnia to assist looking for possible pieces of Waspinator… if any remained. I was planning on asking Blackarachnia why she had double crossed Starscream after she had already betrayed me by joining with him in the first place, but, for the most part, Scorponok seemed skeptical at finding the wasp alive - he had mentioned to me he had seen the massive explosion from a good three miles away with no difficultly whatsoever - but he acted like is was eminent to be searching for spare parts. The thought sickened me for a moment and I wondered where Terrorsaur had gone.

A megacycle had passed. Terrorsaur had not returned and my other thee soldiers were still prowling around the plateau. By the time the sun had begun to set in the distance, all they had found were a cartful of the Predacon's remains. Parts of a torn arm, pieces of a severed leg… the list went on, but abruptly ended when Tarantulus overturned a large rock to look for any extra pieces of the well-believed-to-be-deceased wasp.

Waspinator's mangled torso was what Tarantulus found. The wasp's head lied a few feet away, but that was not what made Tarantulus scream in surprise.

Waspinator's spark, plainly visible for all to see through the gaping whole in the wasp's dismembered chest, was still pulsating. It was weak, but it still glowed with the essence of life barely hanging on.

Tarantulus was too stunned to radio me, so Blackarachnia did instead. Scorponok was still running over from his point on the plateau to see what was happening, but I supposed he would be as useless as Tarantulus when it came to trying to say anything about the wasp's miraculous survival. The widow asked me for directions, and I immediately ordered her and my other two minions to bring him back to base immediately for emergency repairs. I was not sure how long the wasp's park could last after such a traumatic incident and being exposed to the energon rich climate for such a long time.

They came back right away a few cycles later. As Tarantulus and Scorponok put the wasp's parts into the nearest CR for immediate repairs, Inferno emerged from his own CR pool. I ordered him to go find Terrorsaur, fully knowing the red pterodactyl would not answer any radio hails. When Inferno asked where he should look, I, without thinking, told him to look around the mountain in Tanna-16. It made sense after I realized what I had said. That was the only place outside the Darkside where Terrorsaur - or Waspinator - went. They were usually together, but I figured Terrorsaur was hopelessly telling himself it would just be him from now on.

He thought Waspinator was dead.

As Inferno left, Tarantulus told me it would be best for his systems if his body was only slightly rebuilt before being put into the CR chamber. I only told him to do what he thought was best. It was another megacycle before the wasp came out of the CR-tank, dazed and only a torso without limbs. Waspinator was close to delusional when he came out, and I was almost expecting Starscream to be laughing in my face a second later. When he buzzed and, as soon as he could recognize his surroundings, asked where Terrorsaur was in that almost childlike voice… I knew it was the real Waspinator.

Scorponok and Blackarachnia helped to carry the wasp into an examination room where Tarantulus proceeded to reattach the wasp's limbs and other parts that were blasted off. The tarantula explained that Waspinator would need another run in the CR-tank to fully recover, but he would be fine nonetheless. Waspinator did not seem to be paying attention though. The wasp's optics had dimmed and the young Predacon looked like he was focusing on something unseen, or at least pretending to not listen to the spider's speech. For the most part, he looked deeply in thought.

Just as Tarantulus finished the repairs, the spider accidentally knocked into the table more that he would have liked and, ironically, Waspinator's head promptly fell off. The wasp yelped in surprise and groaned. I snorted, more out of relief that something seemed to go back to normal for the most part, and picked up the wasp's head.

"Ooooooh… Wazzpinator hazz a headache in his whole body…"

A managed to promptly shove the wasp's head back into place and he yelped in discomfort as I forced his head back into place on his neck. Blackarachnia took this as a good time to mention that she had to play along with Starscream in order to find out his true intentions. I kept my eyes on fixing Waspinator's head back onto his own shoulders, but I commented on how smooth her performance was… aside from what little confidence it inspired.

The Waspinator piped up with the inevitable question. "Who Starzzcream? What happen to Wazzpinator?"

A click later, I heard someone skid to a halt in front of the doorway.

I looked up instantly - I presume everyone else did as well, but Waspinator was the only one I clearly saw sit up to look over at the red mech - and was almost taken aback by how torn Terrorsaur looked standing there in the doorway. His facial expression was that of utter despondency before he looked up and saw Waspinator. For a moment, a flash of fear might have brightened his optics, but the hopelessness turned more to something like a sad frustration. I was not really sure how to put the words into place, but he did not look hopeless anymore. He still looked upset.

Tarantulus fixed the table from its slightly horizontal angle to its vertical and Waspinator strained to sit up. Terrorsaur immediately walked into the room - at a pace slightly faster than the norm, noting another little detail again - and Inferno replaced the flier's place in the doorway, stating the obvious that he had returned with Terrorsaur. Waspinator looked up at Terrorsaur with a questioning look, almost concerned, but Terrorsaur seemed almost apprehensive about approaching the wasp.

He was afraid there was a part of Starscream that remained in the green and yellow striped Predacon.

Waspinator looked over at us and asked us for a moment alone with Terrorsaur. It had to have been less than even a click, because everyone had cleared out instantly. I spared a glance at Terrorsaur questionably, and I thought the red flier was on the verge of tears. He was looking anywhere but at me or Waspinator and kept his optics glues on his feet. Without another word, I left. There was nothing I needed to say.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Terrorsaur scramble onto the examination berth and wrap his arms around Waspinator instantly, burying his head into the other's mech's shoulder like the world would end if he let go. Waspinator managed to sit up fully and wrapped his own arms around Terrorsaur.

I walked into the control room and sat in my throne, activating the security cameras in the examination room to see what I could find out. Curiosity must've gotten the better of me I now realize, but I was literally dying to figure out what they were saying. I almost sound like a human addicted to one of their soap operas, but I'm sure now I was addicted to the blossoming flower that was Terrorsaur and Waspinator.

Through the monitor, Terrorsaur had pulled himself away from Waspinator and was sitting on the berth with his legs dangling over the edge and facing sideways to Waspinator. The wasp was hunched over slightly and leaning forward to Terrorsaur, as if he was just listening intently to something the red flier had said prior. I was sure that the scarlet pterodactyl had explained that Waspinator's body had been possessed, and I was also sure the red Predacon mentioned how cruel Starscream had been.

Waspinator's face was neutral, like he believed what he was hearing but did not believe it happened to him. "…Wazzpinator is fine now. Zzee?" Waspinator looked down at himself for a quick second before looking back up at Terrorsaur. "Nothing change that. Wazzpinator alwayzz be Wazzpinator."

"But…" Terrorsaur let his optics drift downwards and I noticed he had taken a particular fascination in the dark grey floor.

Waspinator was staring at him expecting him to reply, blue optics fixed on his partner before, abruptly, Waspinator reached out and gingerly took Terrorsaur's chin firmly in his hand. Making the scarlet flier look back up at him, the yellow and green striped wasp stared intensely at his wingmate, dull blue optics locking with fiery bright ones. The stare was just as intense as the time they had first met. Terrorsaur's ruffled his nonexistent eyebrows as the crease on his forehead became more visible, indicating he was upset.

"I… I thought you were gone when I heard the explosion… When Starscream took over you…" he dimmed his optics and forcibly looked down, as if he was ashamed to even look back up at the other Predacon. "It was like you were gone for good. I thought Starscream was going to stay inside you and that you'd never get back. Waspinator…" There was an unintelligible sound that filtered through the speakers from Terrorsaur then, and the scarlet mech shook his head in frustration. "Starscream knew I wanted you back! He saw it! When he managed to get a cycle alone with me when Megatron was not looking, he teased… damn it, he taunted me about it! He tempted me to let him drop me unconscious into overload! And he knew I couldn't do anything about it to stop him because he was you."

The last word spoken was almost a cracked sob, although I could not be sure. Terrorsaur's face was away from the camera so I could not clearly see. Waspinator seemed neutral though, hunched over slightly as so the soreness in his entire body was limited. Gently, Waspinator spoke up after the silence between them went on for less than ten mere clicks. "Waspinator is Waspinator; not Starscream. Terrorsaur does not need to worry about Starscream anymore because he is gone…" Waspinator's hand found itself on Terrorsaur's shoulder. "And Wazzpinator is not going anywhere."

Terrorsaur whipped around, making Waspinator loose his grip on Terrorsaur's shoulders, and I did see traces of what suspiciously looked like tear stains down his cheeks. It became rather definite when I saw the liquid dripping off his chin and onto his lap. Apparently the mech had not bothered to wipe them away yet.

"But he took you from me!"Terrorsaur's shriek was loud, but it did not seem to phase the wasp. I could've sworn I'd heard it from where I sat now just down the hall and not through the speakers of the throne. Terrorsaur suddenly whipped back around and rubbed at his face angrily, growling in frustration. "And I can't keep my slaggin,' fraggin' emotions about it under control!"

There was another silence between them as Terrorsaur rubbed at his optics with the heels and backs of his hands in addition to occasionally his forearm fervently, frustration, anger, and even anxiety radiating off the Predacon. Still, Waspinator merely sat there, waiting for the other mech to calm down. Then, after what seemed like three or two cycles, the wasp tried again, his voice calm and at a comforting tone. "Terrorsaur?"

The red mech looked up abruptly, optics narrowed not in anger, but more than likely they were swollen that way in reacting to his intense rubbing at them. Terrorsaur's face was a mix of psychological anguish and an obvious portrayal of some form of mental conflict. Waspinator had seen enough. The green and yellow mech leaned forward - he winced at the still present pain in his newly repaired body - and cupped Terrorsaur's face in his palm with the gracefulness I only seen in him when he was possessed by Starscream. Sharp tipped digits traced over Terrorsaur's pale jaw line comfortingly and Terrorsaur shuddered, leaning into the gesture as he reached his own hand out and, very carefully, stroked Waspinator's right antenna. Waspinator, with that done, finally reached out and clasped Terrorsaur's shoulder in his free hand, leaning forward and catching Terrorsaur tense, almost trembling lips with his non-existent own. A choked sob ripped itself from Terrorsaur's vocal cords as he offlined his optics, his own free hand reaching up to stroke at the contours of Waspinator's chest.

Then they stopped.

It was not a small hesitation like the small details I had taken note of around them. They full blown stopped and broke apart, regarding each other entirely with their optics alone. I almost thought something wrong had been done, that one of them crossed an invisible line of sorts, but they sat still, simply looking at each other as if they were having a secret conversation of their own. A silent one like the silent stares they gave one another when they met.

Terrorsaur cracked a infinitesimal smile at the mech in front of him - it was barely noticeable unless you observed the inconspicuous details in as much fact as I - and Waspinator seemed like he was returning the gesture right back, clicks before Terrorsaur leaned in and kissed Waspinator once more. Waspinator's hand that was on Terrorsaur's shoulder began to roam down his back to rub at it in a calming movement, his other hand still holding Terrorsaur's face. Terrorsaur's own hand continued to trace Waspinator's chest plate, drawing imaginary lines over his partner's broad front while his other hand came to rest on his shoulder.

The monitor was turned off then, I realized, when I looked down and saw I had turned it off for my part unbeknownst to even myself. Letting out a long sigh, I contemplated whether or not to turn it back off before, after a moment, I decided against it. There were things that were up to those two alone, and I was not needed to watch every moment of it.

But my mind had drifted back to their silence. It was not silence. That detail was infinitesimal enough for anyone who had not been so keen as to their relationship as I was. When Terrorsaur and Waspinator pulled away, the way they looked at each other, I knew that they had exchanged words. The silence between them was not silent at all for them. It was the fact the words were unheard by me or anyone who weren't as connected as they were to one another.

Like bondmates.

I forced myself not to dwell on the thought. No. They could not be bonded. I refused stubbornly to accept it. It did make sense however, seeing as those strongly connected through their sparks after bonding could hear one another's thoughts, but my processor could not process the fact that Terrorsaur and Waspinator ever would bond… together at least. Primus, the facts all added up and I just could not make myself believe. Perhaps it was a fluke of sorts. Everything was happening so fast! Maybe they read the look in each other's optics instead of using the legendary telepathy bondmates shared with one another.

"Perhaps" was as weak word as "maybe" or "possibly." Weak enough to easily be overpowered by "definitely."

I had barely enough time to dwell on the facts further. The aliens attacked us.

Not right away of course, but it was only just a few weeks later after Starscream arrived and departed from the Predacon ranks. Inferno found an alien disk of sorts similar to that of the Golden Disk and I forged a truce between the Predacons and Maximal forces to translate said disk. Rather ironically however, the alien scum that made themselves known on this world several times before contacted us prior to translation even going under way. I was not surprised in the least, taking into account that I had figured out they would come before even trying to attempt to decipher the Golden Disk look-alike. To say the least I had… much bigger fish to fry, yesss.

The alien "ship" landed

A fluke almost all on its own, although the ship landing was not the first of things to happen. An energy anomaly in one of the sectors was detected on our computers, so I sent Inferno to check it out. I would have sent Terrorsaur and Waspinator for the record but, as expected, they were at the mountain at Tanna-16 again. I did not bother to send a cyberbee after them this time. I did not hassle to do that anymore.

When Inferno returned with another Golden Disk - marking the location of other devices created by the aliens that had troubled us with the flying island prior - I made a temporary truce with the Maximals to decipher it. Terrorsaur and Waspinator, with that said truce underway, had more time to themselves and went off on their own much more often. Even as I sat in my throne alone and translated the disk, I occasionally caught glimpses of Terrorsaur and Waspinator walking by the control room heading out to Tanna-16, to their quarters, or to their shortened duties due to the truce. A nudge in the shoulder there, hands brushing over hands here, and, very often, I caught them looking straight into one another's optics.

Then the truce was over. Optimus Primal sent Tigertron into our base and he found out everything I had translated from the disk. It did not matter anyways. The aliens came for us.

We detected another anomaly from a large desert sector and, hesitantly since the Maximals found out about the aliens, I sent Waspinator to investigate. Of course, this resulted in the wasp getting his skid plate kicked by an unarmed Rattrap. This did not surprise me, but it did little for my confidence. Waspinator had radioed us in - us being Scorponok, Terrorsaur, and I - and told us what happened. I suppose he did not tell us all that happened, noting the wasp's voice had taken on a slightly more pained and high pitched tone. Taking into account Waspinator's horrible luck and Rattrap's dirty street fighting, the poor idiot had probably been kicked right between his legs. Terrorsaur did not say a word to Waspinator through the radio connection and Waspinator said nothing back.

After the radio link closed off, Terrorsaur remained eerily silent until, as if on random, he burst out laughing. Scorponok immediately snapped his head in the red flier's direction, but Terrorsaur had calmed himself down just as quickly as he had started. It stumped me, but it further fed my suspicion of Terrorsaur and Waspinator speaking telepathically through a… a bondlink.

Of course, I was not going to believe that in the slightest then. Then.

We found the Maximals - consisting of Optimus Primal and the rat at least - trying to get into the device and claiming Airrazor was inside. There might have been a brief smirk of satisfaction that crossed Terrorsaur's face, but I was not sure. Nonetheless, we helped the Maximals get inside. The rest of the day consisted of, how should I put this, "getting our sorry afts whipped" by unarmed Maximals after we attempted to betray them. Optimus Primal somehow managed to activate the device as well, causing the device to brighten like a light bulb. As I retreated with a nearly unconscious Terrorsaur and Scorponok in tow, the device erupted like a volcano, sending a huge beam of luminescence towards the darker of the two moons.

By the time we got back to base, Waspinator was already there on one of the monitors. He alerted me that the device had revealed the second moon to be some sort of alien machine. It spelled bad news, although I made myself keep my cool. Speaking of which, I knew I smelled a rat when it came to the darker and smaller of the two moons, and I knew it was not Rattrap.

Terrorsaur and Scorponok took a quick dip in the CR-tubs before Terrorsaur and Waspinator went off to one of their quarters for recharge. Scorponok volunteered to stay on duty to monitor the device - probably more so to suck up to me than anything else - and I let him. Needless to say, he only lasted about two megacycles before he fell into recharge himself on his post. I debated waking him up, deciding not to, and briefly debated calling up Terrorsaur and Waspinator to take his place.

A part of me told me I would only catch them making love again, so I took on the task of monitor duty myself.

For the next day, nothing happened. The device was on mute almost, waiting to take us all out. I devised a plan of course, as I always did. While I sat in my hot tub for several megacycles, I realized that a transwarp explosion could possibly destroy the device. It was incredibly risky - said transwarp explosion could create a large quantum surge - but it was a risk worth taking. I was not willing to die an unsuccessful Predacon commander on a remote planet without accomplishing something.

I sent Blackarachnia and Tarantulus to install the transwarp cell inside one of the prone Maximal stasis pods inside their ship. I had sent Inferno with them to make sure the spiders did not try anything and, as I presumed, they did. Tarantulus and Inferno ended up unconscious and Blackarachnia taken prisoner.

And then the device activated.

The device itself unraveled itself in space and shot a destructive thermal beam at the entire planet. Our own base was in total chaos as the temperatures outside the base rose and the landscapes nearly torn apart by the assaulting blast of energy the device was sending at the whole planet. Everyone was in panic, but I merely prayed that my plan would work.

It did. Optimus took the stasis pod and flew it out into space as to crash it into the mouth of the device to save us all. It was supposed to be Tarantulus taking the device up, but this was so much sweeter. Gaining direct access from the transwarp cell Tarantulus installed, I locked the hatch that would allow Optimus to escape. I gave him a final farewell through the pod's communications camera and cut the link before Optimus crashed into the device.

The device exploded and Optimus with it.

The whole planet must have shaken from the massive explosion, causing all the lights to momentarily go out in the entire base before the emergency lights came on, but it was a sweet victory. That was until we got an emergency message from the computers.

As I suspected, a quantum surge was approaching. The problem was I did not expect it to be as massive as it was. Of course, I realized I had calculated wrong when I came up with this plan. The quantum surge only should have been as large as the stasis pod Primal was in, but the exploding device had taken the surge created and carried it along with it in its explosion, increasing the devastating effects tenfold and mass tripling its overall destructive power.

The look of sheer horror that crossed Scorponok's face was as presented as usual. Terrorsaur and Waspinator merely looked at one another.

To insert the third to last small detail I would ever notice from them here, they looked as though they were scared for one another.

I barked at them to get back to their stations, as so they did. Scorponok positioned himself by one of the computer to reroute the ship's power back to the shields again while Terrorsaur monitored the incoming surge, optics wide and reading the scanning readouts on the computer carefully. Waspinator stood beside him, probably doing his best to calculate said information without panicking.

To place a second to final minute detail I would ever see from the two, Waspinator's hand found its place over Terrorsaur's, squeezing it gently.

Terrorsaur did not even need to look down. His hand, once flat against the cool surface of the computer console, flipped up and grasped Waspinator's hand with his own, visibly squeezing back firmly. I had noted that and how they suddenly looked to each other suddenly, no longer staring at the monitor they were supposed to be watching.

Their optics had locked with one another for, what I failed to realize, the last time. At the moment, it was not really a small detail.

The situation too dire for any of us to become distracted, I gave to order for one of them to stand by and watch the monitor by the CR chamber. Snapping their heads towards me, and realizing I had seen their small display of what they felt towards one another, their hands immediately separated as they glanced at me with surprised looks. Looking back at one another once more, Waspinator said something inaudible amongst the alarms rising in volume. Terrorsaur sent another glance back at me before he tapped Waspinator on the shoulder and gestured towards the monitor by the CR chamber. Waspinator made another gesture back as though saying Terrorsaur should go.

Instead, Terrorsaur leaned over and, maneuvering his head to the side of Waspinator's helm where I could not see, made some sort of movement. Anyone else would have presumed he had said something in the other mech's audio, but I knew he had kissed Waspinator lightly on the cheek. It was now bluntly obvious they had known what I'd seen and was still seeing but, to my surprise, they did not seem to care. If only they knew about the times I had watched them and already known all along…

Then again, perhaps they did. I'll never know now, will I?

And then Terrorsaur turned slightly and smiled at me lightly, the corners of his pale mouth just barely hinting onto smile at all. I was too surprised to even consider it a small detail.

Before I could regain my bearings, the surge only a mere twenty clicks away, Waspinator had moved his pad over to the computer station by the CR chamber and Terrorsaur turned away to look back to his computer, looking towards Waspinator again for a brief moment before he returned fully to work. I presumed now that Terrorsaur probably told Waspinator to go to the station when he kissed him, Waspinator now having no choice to oblige himself to leave his partner's side. It was also the last time he would ever stand beside Terrorsaur.

And finally, the surge hit the planet's atmosphere.

The base shook like an earthquake and, as debris began to fall from the ceiling from the great force, a piece nicked Waspinator's hover pad. Desperate enough as he tried to control it before, the piece caused him to loose his handling on the pad, making it jerk forward as he fell off it with a yelp and, ironically, into the CR chamber. The same one he delivered Terrorsaur to when he supercharged himself on the flying mountain, when he was disassembled by Airrazor, when they shared the tub together after being shot down by the flying island, and the same tub from when Terrorsaur delivered Waspinator when he was crushed under the debris from the island wreckage.

Terrorsaur looked over, a fearful look in his optics when he heard the other mech's cry, but a relieved look passed over his face when I saw that he noted Waspinator had only fallen in the CR chamber. In my own distraction, a piece of debris clanked the back of my throne, causing me to fall from it and hit the ground chest first with a loud clunk rather painfully.

And the surge hit the base full force. You could never understand the sheer power of it unless you survived a Quantum Surge as massive as this one.

Even as I began to get back up, the surge particles blasted their way through the shields, disabling them and making them useless so we were faced with the full wrath of the pulsing surge. The blasts of blinding light struck my frame, causing me to cry out in pain as the surge manipulated my superstructure. Arching my back in throbbing anguish, I barely had enough will power to look forward towards where Terrorsaur and Scorponok were.

Terrorsaur was biting back screams of agony, his back arching uncontrollably as his body tried to spasm from the massive energy. He resisted I noted, trying his best to keep control of the hover pad long enough so he could attempt to crash land it into on of the consoles as to keep himself from being over the lava. Without a doubt the worst place to be when you can not control your hover unit. The red mech knew he was in serious trouble now, but he, without a single doubt in my mind, was thankful he sent Waspinator out to the monitor by the CR chamber instead of himself.

Unfortunately, Scorponok was an entirely different story altogether. The grey mech had lost control of the pad and, to my horror, was barreling straight towards Terrorsaur. Terrorsaur saw this and, unable to stop his own crash course with Scorponok, braced himself, feebly trying to keep his hold on the pad.

And then they crashed into one another.

The force of it was so strong that they flipped off both their pads and dropped towards the lava below them, their pads crashing into the computer console Terrorsaur had been aiming for. I was not sure, through the haze my mind was producing, whether it was irony or just plain cruelty Terrorsaur was not over there with the pad wreckage where he would have been safe. Scorponok screamed in pain and fear for the fate that awaited him as Terrorsaur, for a brief moment, did nothing. He did not even shriek once as he fell, still focusing on resisting the pain.

And focused solely on Waspinator. I presume that was the last thing to ever cross his mind.

From the angle I was at, I could barely see the two as they hit the lava. Scorponok screamed so loudly that I thought my audios would implode. They almost did when Terrorsaur finally shrieked. It was completely feral, like some animal was bathing in the pain of being eaten alive by unbearably hot agony, and I realized it was even louder than the time Airrazor shot him down or when he thought Waspinator was killed when the wasp was possessed by Starscream. Terrorsaur had hit the molten liquid feet first, but Scorponok had landed on his side. Scorponok's death was quick I presume, seeing as his shriek died down and silenced, but Terrorsaur's did not.

I watched in hazy mute horror through my own pain as his body went through a seizure like state briefly as he was engulfed, the red mech desperately trying to reach for anything to grab hold of. Finally, his screech was muffled when his head finally went under and his screams entirely ceased, his hand still reaching forward through the lava. Finally, his hand weakly went limp on itself, the black fingers curling barely as though attempting to make a fist while he completely sank from view.

Terrorsaur was dead.

I fell unconscious.

And the surge was over.

I woke up sometime later, dazed and unable to think straight for several cycles before my systems fully rebooted. I felt… different. My body felt somewhat heavier and yet did not have the weight of my fleshy beast-mode. Confused, I attempted to stand, stumbling on my own two feet. I remembered Terrorsaur and Scorponok abruptly and, resisting the urge to look to the lava pit where they fell, I settled for looking down at myself. My body was entirely… reformed. I would have dwelled on it further had the splashing of CR liquid from the CR Chamber had not broken my thoughts.

Waspinator poked his head from the liquid, fully awake and completely normal. I noted then that the Chamber had protected him from the… rather intriguing effects of the surge. The wasp buzzed happily to himself, realizing he was not dead…

And then he looked around the room for, what I presumed to be, Terrorsaur.

A wave of pity and what could only be described as shame washed over me for the briefest of moments. It was overcome by the fact that, with Terrorsaur and Scorponok gone, the amount of Predacons I had were dropped by two. With the disadvantage, it would be smart now to attack the Maximals while they were, hopefully, still down and out. Waspinator saw me then in his search for his partner, blinking in surprise and cowering slightly at my new form shadowed in the darkness of our base, but I assured him it was me… And our plans to attack the Maximals. Waspinator was looking at me, but I could steadily see the panic rising in him. His optics were scanning the room more and more frantically for the red mech he did not see.

He suddenly froze, wings standing erect and sight fixated on the two crashed hover pads imbedded in the computer console… across the room and over a pit of lava from where Terrorsaur once stood.

It was the final little detail I ever noted concerning Terrorsaur and Waspinator.

Not so small of a detail, as I turned my back to leave and hopefully have Waspinator follow, was the wasp getting out of the tub shakily, taking a weak step forward, and finally burying his face in his hands.

ii

Megatron sat on his throne, idly tapping the console in what appeared to be boredom, as his red optics locked on the computer screen before him. Although, his mind was ensnared thought completing what used to be the reality of his rather turbulent flier duo. He had suddenly, with a silent electric jolt in his mechanical brain and with no more doubt in his mind, come to a conclusion about the relationship they once shared… just as the computer screen beeped rather annoyingly at him. Growling, he began to type at the console to bring up more information on the screen before him. It felt nice to have an actual hand to work with instead of that fleshy tyrannosaur head. Even speaking of which, he loved his new Transmetal body. It moved much easier than his old form and the overall look of it suited him. At least, for once, dealing with the troublesome aliens had finally come with a useful and positive outcome.

Although not entirely positive. Two of his soldiers were dead. Scorponok and, much more of an emotional loss for one of the Darkside's resident's, Terrorsaur.

The computer screen made a sudden loud blip and showed through one of his many security cameras Cheetor and Rattrap walking amongst the barren landscape that once was a beautiful backdrop. The sector name popped up in the corner of the screen. Tanna-16. It was then Megatron realized it was the same area Waspinator and Terrorsaur often vanished to when they went off to exclude themselves from both factions. However, according to the scans he had taken from the area just about a week after the devastating Quantum Surge, the entire mountain they had always stayed at was entirely destroyed, the entire landmass nearly entirety gone and reduced to nothing but rubble. The forest around it was destroyed as well, and even the lake had evaporated entirely, nothing but a crater in the surge's wake.

He remembered when Waspinator found out. Already torn and distraught by Terrorsaur's abrupt death, the shaken wasp had completely broken down and had taken off, flying out of the control room and vanishing outside the base for several mega-cycles. He had still refused to talk to anyone even then, locking himself in, not surprisingly, Terrorsaur's personal quarters.

He leaned back slightly and stared at screen, letting the facts and the recollection of the wasp's and pterodactyl's past sink even more. After several seconds, rather reluctantly, he maneuvered his steady hands over to the communications linkup right on the console of his chair. It was when he realized where Waspinator was that he stopped his hand. It took much more energy to send a personal message to someone within the base instead of using the room-link communicators. Seeing as energy was what the Predacons still desperately needed, he had come to the abrupt conclusion that it would be easier to use the room-link.

Besides, he knew where the wasp was.

He entered the ship's room label for the space he wanted. Terrorsaur's quarters. Although Megatron had already personally had Inferno clear Scorponok's old quarters - the scorpion-tech did not have many personal items anyways - for possible new arrivals, when he asked the fire-ant to clear Terrorsaur's as well, the wasp wigged out and went into a blind rage. Waspinator had actually threatened to kill Inferno if he even tried to go near Terrorsaur's room. It was not the threat that had made Inferno recoil and Megatron decide against clearing the dead Predacon's room, but the dangerous, overly emotional tone and ice in the wasp's voice had. And deep down, that tone scared him.

"Waspinator," he asked through the link after the satisfying blip of the computer saying the connection was clear. "Waspinator, are you there?"

He got no reply at first. It did not surprise him much. The once peppy wasp flier was nothing like his past self. In a sense, his past self had died with the red mech that he was in love with.

"What?"The response was so flat and harsh that, without the humming buzz beneath its tone, it would have been impossible to tell that it was even Waspinator at all. It was not the tone that the purple tyrant had come to be anxious around whenever he heard it, but it sounded more like the wasp had been bawling his vocalization unit out… again. His voice was rasped and the buzz was temporally gone from it, making him sound vaguely like a mech with none of the vocal glitches he was plagued with. Although, seeing the situation, Megatron found himself preferring the obnoxious buzzing of the wasp's real voice.

It was then he realized how much he sounded like Terrorsaur.

Shaking the sinking feeling off, Megatron addressed the wasp again. "Cheetor and Rattrap are in our territory and I need you and Inferno to dispose of them," he said carefully as to not upset him. He had only seen Waspinator upset just a few times - he remembered the time Waspinator attacked Airrazor after she disabled Terrorsaur - and it was now that he wished to never see him like that again. Although, even taking the past times the wasp had been upset over something - note while Terrorsaur lived - he was as happy as a newly created sparkling compared to his present self. Just as carefully, he started again. "They're in sector Tanna-16 by the original main mountain face…"

There was a choking sound on the other line and a low, whining buzz. Megatron cursed quietly under his breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. He could not take this anymore. The fact of dealing with an overly emotional insect over the loss of his… Lover… was beginning to drive him crazy. In a homicidal sense, no, but Megatron was beginning to feel the effects of Waspinator's wounds getting to him too.

There were no more small details to take note of anymore.

Sighing, Megatron draped a hand over his face and sighed in minor aggravation and pity for the wasp. "Waspinator…" he began, "If you want… Just take the week off… No patrols, no curfew, just… Get yourself together…" He paused and sagged in his chair slightly. Inferno could take the rodent and the annoying cheetah easily and handle Waspinator's duties until he started working his fair share again.

Waspinator went silent on the other line. "Th-Thanks… Wazzpinator was thinking about making a marker for Terrorsaur… Maybe for Scorpion-bot too if Wazzpinator has extra time…" Waspinator trailed off for a brief moment, and Megatron swore he heard Waspinator stifle a low sob. It hurt loosing someone close to you - Megatron had never lost anyone personal to him but he knew it had to have hurt badly - and Waspinator was clearly trying to manage it. Before Megatron could say anything, Waspinator cut him off. "Wazzpinator going to move into Terrorsaur's quarters so Megatron can have Wazzpinator's room for new Predacons…" It was then the Predacon leader swore he heard the wasp let out a dry laugh. It was dry and had no humor in it, although it was something other than his cries and that icy voice. "Wazzpinator can't seem to give it up."

Megatron's facial expression did not move at what he imagined was Waspinator probably giving a thin, untrue smile through the agony of loosing his wingmate. "That's fine Waspinator. Have your belongings already been moved?"

"Yezz," the wasp started, the nearly invisible smile to his voice remaining still. "Everything else in there is junk. Terrorsaur always said Wazzpinator needed to stop…" There was a whining buzz on the other side, and Megatron realized the wasp was going to start at it again. Anything that had reminded him of Terrorsaur had sent the wasp into a hazed sobbing fit. The mech even refused to use that one CR tank anymore that he and Terrorsaur had used over the times that they had their relationship going on. "He said Wazzpinator need to stop collecting… random…" his voice faltered dangerously on the verge of tears again and he stopped mid-sentence. Before he could even break down over the secured link however, Megatron cut in.

"I'll have Inferno work on that right away. Just… take care of yourself…" With that, he cut the link just as he heard a rather loud sob force its way through the speakers of his throne.

He sagged in his chair further as he stared out ahead of him, not paying any heed towards the monitor before him. Contemplating further, he had reached the conclusion he had wished to reach. They were not just partners, friends, or even just lovers. It went deep enough that it hit home as to how real the situation between them once was. Although he had told himself it was not true before, no matter how real the evidence was, the abrupt new development and Waspinator's agony over the events that took place truly verified it.

They were bondmates. Fragging Bondmates… and, through all the tears Waspinator shed over loosing said mate, they obviously had been for a long time. The smallest detail of all had avoided him… and it was not even truly small to begin with at all. Waspinator loved Terrorsaur and the scarlet mech loved the emerald one right back. It was sitting in front of him the whole time.

Megatron sat there alone for several long cycles before calling Inferno up to take out Cheetor and Rattrap.

iii

The little details, you ask?

…Well, all the little details just weren't so little anymore.

Fin