Notes: This and the following three parts or so were my favorites to write of this whole series.
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Arriving at the cave Waspinator had been using as his base of operations, Terrorsaur looked over the rag-tag group with interest, taking them all in. Inferno looked like he'd seen better days. One of his optics was cracked and dim and it appeared that his propulsion systems weren't in working order, likely rendering it impossible for him to fly. Terrorsaur didn't know the other mech, who seemed to be composed of mismatched parts. He wondered for a moment if Waspinator, being himself, had put the unfortunate creature back together wrong. The strange-looking Transformer seemed to be aware of his surroundings, though how much so was up for debate. He was in much worse shape than Inferno and it looked like his weapons weren't activated, though whether this was by design or by accident, the pteranodon wasn't sure.
He glanced at Waspinator, who was slumped a little and covered in volcanic ash and dirt, but still completely intact and alert. Terrorsaur took a moment to appreciate the irony of the fact that his former partner was the most whole out of the three of them.
Then he looked down at his hands, now sleek and metallic purple. He studied his clawed fingers, weighing his options. He could easily overthrow the three of them, if he wanted to. Whatever had happened to him when he fell in the lava apparently hadn't happened to either of the insects; they still looked the same. And the other looked too out of it to be much of a threat. Inferno was glancing at Waspinator as if awaiting instructions; it seemed the green mech had assumed the role of leader. He had been working hard, this much was obvious. But did that make him their leader? He was hardly capable of taking care of himself!
"I'm the most powerful one here." Terrorsaur mused, a smug grin crossing his face. Inferno growled at him threateningly, and he just snorted, dismissing any hint of danger as too unimportant for him to concern himself with it. "I could-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence because the barrel of Waspinator's striped blaster was suddenly aimed squarely at his face.
The pteranodon took a step back, hands raising defensively. "What the slag, Waspy?!" He wasn't afraid of the overgrown bug; the gesture was purely reflexive. No, more than anything, he was annoyed.
"We doing thingz my way." The hand holding the weapon didn't lower. Behind Waspinator, Inferno sprang to his feet, ready to defend if need be. "Wazpinator put Inferno and Two-head back together. Wazpinator fixing thingz; working hard. Didn't bring Terrorsaur back here so he could take over. Not going to let you ruin thingz."
Inferno wasn't much of a threat. Terrorsaur didn't think so, at least. He simply stepped out of the sub-commander's line of vision, making sure to stay on his blind side. The ant looked disoriented for a moment, and Terrorsaur smirked, turning his attention back to the smaller mech, who's weapon was still trained on him.
"You're not going to shoot me, Waspinator." He scoffed, taking a step closer and reaching for the blaster, "So just gimme that thing." It usually wasn't that difficult to manipulate Waspinator; he wasn't that bright. "And even if you were going to shoot me, it wouldn't do much good. My new body can handle a lot of damage." He moved to grab the weapon as a show of just how little of a threat he considered the bug to be.
Waspinator tensed, taking a step back to keep the distance between him and the now-transmetal pteranodon. He didn't want to shoot his friend, but he'd been trying his best to keep things together and he wasn't going to let Terrorsaur take that away from him.
Terrorsaur advanced, closing the distance again. "Give me the blaster, Waspinator. I know you're not going to shoot me. You know you're not going to shoot me. Inferno knows it and I'm sure that sorry heap knows it as well. So just give it up now."
It was the way he said it that got to the smaller mech. The pteranodon had always been arrogant, but that condescension was usually directed elsewhere. Now, having it directed at him, it hurt. Terrorsaur, once some one so familiar, had become some one he didn't even know any more.
Waspinator fired.
