#dangit

Waspinator sighed as he typed away on the console he was stationed at. Doing console work was boring, but he really couldn't complain since anything was better than getting blown up for the zillionth time. Waspinator rested his chin in his hand as he looked over at Inferno, who was sitting at the console next to him and clearly enjoying himself a lot more. Inferno's servos were seemingly twitching in excitement, for no apparent reason other than the fact that Megatron told him to do the work. Waspinator couldn't understand him most of the time, and he didn't even bother to as he went back to working on his console.

Of course, peace can never last forever. On the other side of the room was Quickstrike, positioned at his own console and hollering like a banshee to get everyone's attention.

"Hey hey hey! Ah'm detectin' a pod over 'n quadrant Zeta 16!" When Megatron, who was situated in the middle of the room, turned his attention over to the fuzor, Quickstrike turned back to his computer. "Though, ah'm not detectin' any spark signature..."

"Yeeeesss, perfect." Megatron smiled as he pulled out a weird black sphere from his subspace. "Using this artifact that I've reprogramed, I'm positive that our ranks will be growing quite soon. A new warrior with greater strength than previously imagined...!" Megatron let out a hearty laugh. "This project will require everyone here, especially Rampage... speaking of which, where is he?" His brows furrowed as he glanced around the room.

"Im right here, slagger." Rampage's grumbling called out from somewhere beneath them, confusing Waspinator until Rampage, in beast mode, crawled out of the lava beneath Quickstrike. Said fuzor scrambled backwards when Rampage crawled onto the platform besides him.

"Slagger?!" Inferno gasped, scrambling off of his seat and into a fighting position, taking a couple seconds to get his balance. "I'll teach you to insult the Royalty, you insolent crustacean!"

"Oh yeah?" Rampage chuckled, shifting from beast mode to tank mode and pointing his cannon at the ant. "I'd like to see you tr-"

"Inferno, Rampage. Cease your hostilities." Megatron commanded, to which Inferno responded by saluting and going still as a statue, albeit with what looked like angry trembling. Meanwhile, Rampage grumbled something about eating everyone if his spark hadn't been taken hostage.

"Good. Now, Inferno and Waspinator are to go and retrieve the protoform. Me, Quickstrike and Rampage are going to set up the machine. I expect no mistakes." Megatron shifted into beast mode as he spoke, unfurling his wings.

"Override. Yes, my Queen!" Inferno called out his usual catchphrase, but Waspinator tilted his head at the word he had softly mumbled before it. Override? What in the world was Inferno overriding? Waspinator was curious, but before he could debate what it could be in his mind, Inferno had jumped into the air, grabbed Waspinator's arm, and took off towards the blank.

---

For a while, Waspinator and Inferno were soaring lazily above the landscapes. Waspinator had quickly wriggled himself out of Inferno's grasp near the start of the journey, so he was flying behind Inferno in beast mode like usual. However, what wasn't usual was the awkward silence between the two. Normally, all Predacons would be discussing battle plans and strategies while traveling in case of Maximal interference, which was basically guaranteed. But right now there was a really weird vibe coming from Inferno that made the silence harder to penetrate than a 5 foot thick wall of steel. What didn't help was that Inferno was the only one with the funny little gadget that told them how close they were to the pod, so Waspinator had no idea how long this was going to drag out. It didn't help that Inferno was going painfully slow to the point of driving Waspinator crazy.

To pass the time, Waspinator flipped himself over and started counting every living thing he saw. While he was able to get himself up to twenty three, the duo eventually hit a forest, rendering Waspinator's little distraction entirely useless. He sighed inwardly, flipping back over and going back to his own thoughts. It wouldn't be until a few very, very long hours afterwards for Waspinator's desperate hopes of conversation to get answered when he caught Inferno softly mumbling a single word: "Override."

"What izz Ant-bot overriding?" Waspinator asked, glad for an excuse to finally break the silence. His question somehow managed to make Inferno jump in the air and swivel around to face Waspinator. Maybe he didn't think Waspinator had heard him, despite the two only being a few feet apart.

With a weirdly deep yet quick vent, Inferno answered Waspinator's query: "I'm keeping myself fit to serve the Royalty!" ...Okay. That was probably the most cryptic and useless answer Inferno could've possibly given. Waspinator watched Inferno turn back around to focus on the device in his servos, but the silence was broken and Waspinator could finally talk.

"Ant-bot? How long until we reach the pod?" Waspinator pleaded, dragging a long sigh out of Inferno. Strange, he isn't usually this easy to aggravate without insulting Megatron like Rampage did earlier. Maybe it's just that he's still mad about that. After nearly 7 hours. Hm.

"The tracker says that the blank is somewhere in that mountain range." Inferno pointed at a bunch of large black rocky pillars in the distance. "Now quit dragging your abdomen and hurry up so that we don't disappoint the Royalty!"

"Wazzpinator wazz... Going at Ant-bot'zz pace...?" Waspinator mentioned, now thoroughly confused. Inferno ignored the statement and finally sped up, not bothering to check if Waspinator was behind him.

The wall of silence returned, but now it felt more like a threat than any sort of awkwardness.

---

Arriving at the mountain range, the duo weaved their way through a sea of stone pillars as they continued to track the pod. However, Waspinator was getting pretty scared by the speed at which Inferno was going, especially while watching the ant nearly ram into nearly every pillar he flew past.

"A-Ant-bot!" Waspinator called out, more scared of his companion getting hurt by his own unstable flight patterns at this point than the consequences of breaking the terrifying silence. "Zzzzlow down! You're gonna run into a rock!"

"No!" Inferno turned to look at Waspinator without stopping. "We must get to the blank before the Maxi-"

Then, the inevitable happened. Inferno crashed into a large pillar of rock, sending both himself and the crumbling tip of the pillar tumbling towards the ground. Waspinator, acting out of nothing but pure instinct, dove down faster than he thought was possible in order to catch the falling ant before he got impaled by the sharp rocks littering the mountain. He barely realized he was screaming as he reached out for Inferno, scooping him out of the air seconds before the ant could reach his demise.

Waspinator simply stopped and hovered in the air for a bit, both bugs catching their breath after that. Waspinator could feel Inferno's claws tremble hard as they dug into his chitin, but he didn't care. All he could comprehend right now was the sounds of their breathing, and...

"Override, override, override, override, override..."

"Ant-bot'zz overriding again." Waspinator noted with concern in his voice as he gently brought Inferno down to a flatter and safer part of the mountain, transforming into root mode while still keeping a good grip on Inferno.

"Override... I-I must! It's for the colony!" Inferno tried to get out of Waspinator's grasp before getting bodyslammed to the ground by the wasp. "Let me go! Override. We must g-get to the blank!"

"We can go get the pod after Ant-bot tellzz Wazzpinator what he'zz overriding!" Waspinator dug his hands into Inferno's shoulders.

"Urhg! It doesn't matter! Override. The Royalty demands this!"

"Wazzpinator doesn't understand Ant-bot'zz obsession with Megatron!! If Wazzpinator tried to please him as much as Ant-bot doezz, Wazzpinator would be so-"

Realization hit Waspinator like a Prime, and suddenly everything that the ant had done that day either made way more sense or changed its meaning entirely.

Inferno was fighting a stress-induced stasis lock.

"Of course you couldn't - Override fraggit - understand the respect that the Royalty deserves!" Inferno interjected, not allowing Waspinator to process his realization for too long. "Override!! You couldn't understand your own processor!"

"Rezzpect? How can Ant-bot rezzpect a bot that doezzn't even care about him?!" Waspinator fumed as he pressed down on Inferno. "Dragon-bot hitzz Ant-bot! Dragon-bot ignorezz Ant-bot! Dragon-bot overworkzz Ant-bot! Dragon-bot almost KILLED Ant-bot!!"

"Wha- I- Override." Inferno sputtered as he tried to come up with some sort of retaliation. "B-Blasphemy! When has the Royalty -Override- tried to kill me?!"

"When Dragon-bot tried to kill Prime! Doezzn't Ant-bot remember?! It would've erazzed Autobot'zz, and by extension, Maximalzz, from existence!"

"Nonsense, that was -Override- purely for Predacon benifi-"

"INFERNO YOU'RE A MAXIMAL PROTOFORM!!"

Waspinator's sudden screech took both of them by surprise, leaving the two insectoid Predacons stunned as the words echoed throughout the mountain range. Panting hard, Waspinator got off of Inferno, instead sitting down beside him. Thankfully, Inferno didn't try to get back up.

"I-I..." Inferno choked on his own words. "Override... Th- Megatron would've ... erased me?"

"Dragon-bot would've erazzed everyone but Wazzpinator and Spider-Bot." Waspinator admitted. "The Maximalzz saved you."

Looking over at his ant friend, Waspinator was surprised to see him crying. "Ant-bot?! What'zz wrong?!"

Strangely, Inferno laughed, covering his face with his own trembling servos. "I- hic- I d-don't know! My world just... Broke. I don't know what to do."

"Well..." Waspinator tapped a digit on his mandibles. "Ant-bot could let himself go into stasis-lock, let Wazzpinator go get the pod, and let Wazzpinator take both the pod and Ant-bot to the Maximalzz?"

"How'd you- ...Yeah, ok. Megatron doesn't deserve it after this." Inferno let his optics shut off, but gave Waspinator one last little piece of info before fully locking up. "The tracker broke in the fall, but I remember the pod was that direction." Inferno lazily lifted one arm to point in the direction of the pod.

"Thankzz, friend." Waspinator looked in the direction of the pod. He didn't know what they were going to do with it, how to carry both it and Inferno to the Maximal base, or even if the Maximals would let them join in the first place. But there was one thing for certain: Him and Inferno were not going back to the Predacons.