Inferno had taken over six rooms in the third level of the Predacon base. No one knew what for, but they knew that he had almost mauled Quickstrike when the fuzor had tried to find him yesterday. Understandably, Quickstrike refused to go back to the area. Dinobot would have gone, but that night he had ended up in a cage over the lava with his radio disconnected from the rest of his body. Waspinator had reported that according to the raptor’s screams, this had been a painful procedure. Tarantulas woke up hanging upside-down by his ankles over the CR Tanks with no memory of how he’d gotten there. At the same time, Rampage’s quarters sealed themselves. When Megatron went down personally to find out where the slag the crab was, he was accidentally shot with a missile. And it actually WAS an accident; all Rampage had been trying to do was get out of his room!

Around that time, the sun rose. Overdose went happily off to harass the Maximals. If Megatron had possessed any sense of pity, the Maximals would have had it. As it was, the Predacons just sighed in relief and went back to the puzzle of Inferno’s mysterious behavior. Megatron had demanded via radio to know what he thought he was doing, but all Inferno had done was yell something about the time of the year and shut off his commlink. Quickstrike and Waspinator had researched the matter and reported that it was the Earth season of spring. They had no idea why that was suddenly so important to Inferno, but Waspinator mentioned that there were lots of flowers and Quickstrike said that he was going to go bask in the sun for a while. Tarantulas and Dinobot were already outside trying to repaint the autoguns with something less conspicuous than the current pink and white daisy motif.

Sometimes Megatron thought that he was the only sane person in the entire Predacon base.

“Inferno has finally flipped, yess,” he confided in his rubber ducky. “Overdose seems determined to disobey every order I attempt to give her, and the rest of my troops are only marginally better than she is. If not for her occasional ability to attack a Maximal and actually cause damage, I would kill her, yesss.” He decided not to mention that he wasn’t entirely sure that he COULD kill her if it came to it, which was part of the reason she was still running amuck in the Predacon base every night. “And she has a remarkable ability to keep Tarantulas in line,” he added after a moment of thinking it over. It was true, after all. The treacherous spider had been noticeably less treacherous lately. Either he was getting better at hiding his plots, or Overdose’s presence was enough to scare him into being a good, if not entirely sane, little Predacon. “What have I done to deserve this?” he sighed.

“Squeak!” said the rubber ducky as he squeezed it.

“ROYALTY!” Inferno bellowed, barging through the door with a blatant disregard for privacy or tripwires. The privacy issue just made Megatron appeal to his rubber ducky again, this time silently, but the tripwire sent the ant sprawling. “Yaaargh! Royalty!” he said from the floor. “My preparations go too slowly for the good of the colony! I require the drones’ assistance in my work if you are to be taken care of in your delicate condition!” Megatron’s slightly-stunned stare went unnoticed as the ant jumped back to his feet and reclaimed his flame-thrower, which was needed for emphasis if he was going to wave his arms around with his usual lack of notice to property damage. “I have prepared six rooms for food storage, but we do not have time for I alone to gather the necessary amount of food. The enemy colony may attack at any time, and you should not be disturbed.” A thought struck Inferno, and his optics widened. “I have disturbed you! My most humble apologies, my Queen! I will not bother you with the details of the colony; do not worry, for we shall provide for you. Rest, my Queen!”

And with that he saluted, wincing as he smacked himself in the head with his flame-thrower, then turned and ran back out of the room. Well, he would have run out of the room if he hadn’t tripped over the wire again and gone tumbling down the hall. “Yaaaaaaaaargh!” he yelled, but Megatron’s door closed automatically and cut off anything else he said.

Jaw hanging, Megatron could only stare at the spot the ant had been in a moment ago. “What the slag was that about…”

“Squeak!” said his ducky.

He blinked and looked at it. It looked back at him, innocent, yellow, and rubber, with big painted eyes. He looked deep into those painted eyes, and whatever he saw there gave him an idea. He didn’t question it, mostly because he didn’t have any other ideas and he couldn’t think of any way this could really backfire and do any more harm. “All I have to do is wait for sunset, yesss.”

Sunset came, of course. There wasn’t any way to prevent it. At least, none that the Predacons had been able to find so far, and they had been trying pretty hard recently. Because when the sun went down, someone came stalking into the Predacon base. Someone more terrifying than Rampage set free, more childish than Waspinator on a sugar high, more annoying than Quickstrike mooning over his Sugarbot, more set in her ways than Dinobot after he’s been given an order, more irritating than Tarantulas when he’s chuckling at nothing, more violent than Megatron when he’s lost a game to the computer, and, most importantly, crazier than Inferno was at the moment…

“Hello!” she said as she cartwheeled onto the command platform. Dinobot snarled at her, and she smirked back at him with obnoxious cheerfulness. Quickstrike didn’t even look up from his monitor when she twirled past him, but Tarantulas moved until there was a computer bank between him and the colorful femme. It was a useless precaution, but it made him feel safer.

Megatron carefully dimmed his optics, letting them adjust to the sea slug’s wild colors for a moment while she continued doing somersaults around Dinobot for no apparent reason other than to watch him twitch. The raptor tried very, very hard to ignore her, but he found it hard to ignore someone who insisted on telling him about the dinosaur jokes Rattrap had come up with today. The rat had discovered that she would repeat these things to Dinobot if he’d remind her to before she left the Maximal base, and Rattrap had been stretching his imagination ever since in the search for the most creative dinosaur joke he could come up with.

“-and he said, ‘What, do I look like a hamster to you?’” Overdose giggled, and Tarantulas and Quickstrike, the only ones in the room with non-dinosaur beast modes, snickered along with her. At least until Megatron turned to give them an evil look. Dinobot just sat and gritted his fangs. “What’s up, purple guy?” she asked Megatron next, and he turned the look on her. She didn’t appear to notice.

Taking a deep breath, the Predacon tyrant reminded himself yet again that she didn’t really mean anything by her behavior. Or if she did, the message was scrambled beyond retrieval. “My name is Megatron, Overdose,” he said slowly and carefully. “MEGATRON.”

“Megatron,” she repeated obediently, her fins settling into solemn bands of dull brown and blue. Then bursts of neon green broke through, and she widened her eyes at the purple ‘bot sitting in the throne. “Who’s he? Do I know him?”

“Argh,” he muttered under his breath before attempting to smile at the crazed sea slug. She was eyeing Tarantulas, who ducked his head and pretended that he didn’t see her watching him. “Overdose, I have an assignment for you-“

“Does it involve sausage?”

Sausage? Where did she GET these things from? “Not that I know of.” Megatron saw how Overdose immediately lost interest in what he was saying, and he sighed. “Overdose!”

She dragged her attention away from stalking Tarantulas to glare at the Predacon leader. “What?!”

“Inferno is acting strange, and your assignment is to find out why,” he said quickly, then congratulated himself when the femme’s antenna perked up and turned towards him even as she looked back at Tarantulas. He had learned that was a clear sign of her interest. “He’s taken over several rooms in level three, yess, and referred to me having a,” he frowned, “’delicate condition.’ Even for him, that’s odd behavior.” If not outright disturbing…

Tilted almond optics looked at him sidelong as Tarantulas fidgeted nervously. “Why don’t YOU just ask him?”

Because talking to Inferno wasn’t high on his list of things he liked doing. “Don’t question me, nooo,” he growled, narrowing his optics menacingly. “If you are a Predacon, you will obey my orders without question!” He lifted his tail-gun just a little off of the armrest of his throne, powering it up in clear threat.

“Life would be boring if I did THAT.” Overdose made a face as Tarantulas finally lost his nerve and bolted for the nearest exit, but she didn’t chase after him. She turned around to smile at Megatron instead, somehow forgetting to move her feet along with her upper body so that she lost her balance and fell forward. “Hey, look! I found a hexagonal nut!” she exclaimed, happily staying on the floor so she could pry at the nut while Dinobot and Quickstrike both stared at the now-blackened part of the wall she had been standing in front of.

Megatron sighed and powered down his tail-gun again. The normal threats he used on the rest of the Predacons were useless when it came to Overdose. Even following through on the threats was nothing but a waste of energy. She either thought it was funny, didn’t notice at all, or got angry. Or all three, which was kind of frightening. But this time she hadn’t even looked up from the floor, and he could only glare in frustration as she unscrewed the nut and bounced back upright to show it to Dinobot.

“Get that out of my face!” was the raptor’s only comment.

The colorful femme sulked for a moment as he pushed her hand away. “Meanie.” She brightened suddenly. “I know! I’ll show Inferno this, ‘cause he’ll want to see this, right?” Leaping forward to hug Dinobot for no reason whatsoever, she turned on her heel and ran from the command platform. “InfeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeerno!”

Megatron blinked after her, wondering if she was going to obey his order by her usual obtuse way or if her only reason for finding Inferno was to show him some stupid nut she had found. He noticed that the fingers of his hand were digging into the armrest of his throne, though, and he forced them to let go. Dealing with that femme did that to him sometimes…most of the time…all the time…

Dinobot snorted, breaking the silence Overdose had left in her wake. “Slagging female,” he snarled as he walked forward toward Megatron. “She contributes nothing to the Predacons besides useless chatter and-“ The metal under his feet collapsed. “--AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

Megatron blinked again as Quickstrike scurried over to try and help. The panel that the TM2 raptor had been walking on had swung loose, and Dinobot was now hanging over the lava, swinging from his talons and shrieking. From where the tyrant was sitting, it looked like all that had been holding the panel in place was a single bolt.

And Overdose had run out of the room moments before with the nut keeping the bolt it in place…

At that moment, the femme in question was skipping through the third level of the base. Somewhere between the command platform and here, she had forgotten why she had come down to this level. That was okay because she was still marveling at her hexagonal nut. It had done many things in its time as a nut: kept flooring in place, had super powers, fallen in love with a hole in the wall, and, “taken over the world,” Overdose finished triumphantly. “I’m not sure what world it was, but what a world it was!”

“Halt!” Inferno screamed into her face, then gagged as she calmly shoved the nut into his open mouth.

“Take a chill pill, ant-boy,” she told him, leaning against the corridor wall as she watched him cough up the piece of metal. “It’s me. Remember me? Probably not, but that’s okay. The purple guy with the speaking disorder said that I should come down here to do something, and I can’t remember what it was that he said I should do. Now we can be forgetful together! Whatever it was he sent me down here to do can wait, though, because I wanna know what you’re doing!” Her fins waved, oranges and greens cascading through them as she smiled at the Predacon ant. “So! Whatcha doin’?”

One thing in favor of being fanatically loyal to the colony: it didn’t leave much of Inferno’s mind left over to try and sort out what the slag Overdose was babbling about. Therefore, he didn’t worry about it. He merely recognized that the color-changing femme in front of him was part of the colony some of the time, and the rest of the time it was better not to mess with her. “Drone! Have you come to help me gather food for the Queen?” Deciding that she really wasn’t a threat, he turned to pick up the bundle of leaves he had dropped in order to challenge her. “Come, you may help me store this.”

She shrugged agreeably and picked up the leaves that dropped out of his bundle, then tagged along after him. “Why are we gathering food for the Queen?” she asked when he opened the door of a room further down the hall. He threw his bundle in and grabbed the leftovers from her arms as she peeked into the room across the hall. “Ooo! Berries!”

“Those are for the Queen!” Inferno shouted as he grabbed her wrist.

Overdose looked between the hand on her wrist and the berries in her hand. They were red and looked vaguely like the pills she had eaten this morning, which reminded her that she had half a bottle left to take. That’s the only reason she let Inferno take the berries from her instead of throwing Inferno into the nearest garbage compactor for touching her. “Is the Queen gonna be able to eat all this?” she asked as he put the berries back into the room and shut the door.

“Yes!”

“What a pig,” Overdose said as she pulled out her pills and began munching them. She wandered after the ant as he marched back down the corridor. “The Queen’s gonna be a porker at this rate, did you know that?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, deigning to actually listen to her since she WAS helping him. Or at least following him like she was going to help him. “What do swine have to do with the Queen, drone?”

“Stop calling me a drone! I have a name, even if I can’t remember it at the moment.” She paused as Inferno transformed to his beast mode and crawled out of a jagged hole in the ship’s hull that had been ripped open when the Predacons had crashed on the planet. “Why doesn’t anyone ever repair these things?” she muttered as she squeezed through it. “It’s like saying ‘Hey, we’re open! Spies, come on in and make yourself at home. Everyone welcome,’ or something like that. Spackle and duct tape were invented for a good reason, people!” Inferno had marched off while she was untangling her fins from the pieces of metal that had snagged them, and she jogged to catch up. “Anyway, like I was saying, the Queen’s gonna bloat up like a balloon if she eats all that stuff you put in those rooms. She’s gonna look like a pig!”

Inferno looked at her with his big insect eyes, then dismissed the thought that she was insulting the Royalty. Surely Overdose was as loyal as he was! She was merely using a comparison. But just to make sure… “Are swine large?”

“And fat,” Overdose confirmed, watching him curiously as he stopped in front of a tree and started to strip it of its leaves. “What are you DOING?”

Inferno spat a mouthful of green stuff into a growing pile. “Gathering food for the Queen. As you said, the Royalty will become large, and once the eggs come-“

“Eggs?”

“Yes, drone. The Queen will have many eggs soon, and if we do not gather enough food for the larva,” he spat out another mouthful, “then the Queen’s children will die. The colony will suffer!” He eyed the pile of leaves. It wasn’t large enough. “Now, drone, you will help me.”

“Larva come from eggs?”

“Yes.” He was becoming impatient. Well, more impatient than usual.

“And the eggs come from the Queen?”

“The leader of our colony!” He saluted the colony proudly, which knocked the leaves out of his mandibles. “She will be proud of our labor!”

“That’s nice.” Overdose was still trying to figure out the larva-from-eggs-from-Queen bit. She couldn’t quite imagine Megatron having larva. “Are we talking about the same Queen?”

“The Royalty!”

“Megatron?”

“The Queen!”

“You mean Megatron, right?”

“She is the Queen!”

“Are you sure?”

“The Queen rules the colony, drone. Of course I’m sure!” Inferno saluted again and knocked another mouthful loose. He couldn’t quite figure out how that kept happening. “Now, help me before the enemies of the colony find us. I will make them buuuurn, but…” He paused and looked confused briefly, standard Predacon dogma clashing with ant instincts. As they had been lately, the instincts won. “But we must allow no delays while we are gathering food for the Royalty.”

“Okay!” Suddenly, her imagination could see it all. Pastel baby colors washed through Overdose’s fins, and she clapped her hands. “Oh, this will be so fun! Does the Queen like seafood? I can find all KINDS of seafood for her. Why, I once had a fish that looked like Quickstrike’s left hand-“

Happily talking with Inferno about what the Queen was going to be doing soon, Overdose bent to the task of gathering food for Megatron, who would be very surprised to learn that he was expected to eat everything they were finding, not to mention the part about being a mother. But he didn’t know anything except that Inferno was acting strangely at the moment, and it wasn’t like Overdose was going to tell him since she was busy digging up grubs until the sun rose.

Promising to return to help Inferno hunt for more food, the crazy sea slug transformed to her vehicle mode and made her way to the Maximal base. They saw her coming, however, and directed her via radio to join Depth Charge and Cheetor in Sector Tallories. She wasn’t going to obey the orders, but then Optimus told her that the two Maximals were investigating something shiny.

Off she went.

“Hellooooo?” Overdose called as she landed in a tidy heap in the mountains. Disregarding any damage this might have caused, she transformed and got to her feet. “Depth Charge? Cheetor? Are you heeeeeere?”

“Shhhhhh!” A Transmetal 2 cheetah came out from underneath a bush and glared at her. “The Preds will hear you if you keep yelling,” he hissed in a low voice.

“Predacons? Where?” Overdose spun around, her hands up defensively as she glanced around in wild suspicion. “Where are they? Are they in the trees? They’re in the trees, aren’t they?! DIE!!” Flinging herself at the nearest tree, she began to beat on it with her fists. “Kill the Pred! Kill the Pred!”

Cheetor stared at the psychotic, screaming femme, half-blinded by the violent colors flashing through her fins, half-stunned by the fact that she was attacking a TREE. But what a fight it put up!…or so Overdose imagined. She put everything she had into the epic fight; dodging laser blasts that weren’t really there as she ran around, she punched and bit at the trunk of the tree. Shredded vegetation flew. Knives were drawn and used, and bark filled the air. A single tree limb, left hanging only by a thin piece of bark that suddenly snapped, plummeted downward-

*THUD!*

“Fiend!” Overdose shrieked angrily, picking herself up off the ground and throwing the branch that had just hit her in the head away. “You’ll pay for that indignity!”

“Watch it!” Cheetor yelped, ducking to avoid the flying tree branch. He yelped again as Overdose tackled him head-on, sending them both crashing into the underbrush. They slammed to halt at the bottom of another tree, but the larger fem-bot pinned him down when he tried to get up.

“Fire in the hole!” she said urgently, and she curled into a ball with her fins pulled in protectively.

“What are you talking about?!” Cheetor kicked desperately, trying to get out from underneath the crazy sea slug without hurting her. “For Primus’ sake--it’s just a TREE, Overdose!”

She twisted around until she was grinning into the cat’s face, the mad light in her optics revving to the wattage of standard searchlights. “Not anymore,” she whispered insanely. “Yesterday I found where Rattrap keeps his explosives…”

Cheetor’s eye’s widened. “You mean you…aw, SLAG!” Suddenly glad that she was on top of him, he cringed into the ground as it shuddered and buckled. The air itself rocked, and fire bloomed upward, far too close for comfort. The tree above them rained leaves, twigs, miscellaneous insects, and small wildlife on them.

“Taught THAT tree to be a Predacon!” Overdose laughed to no one in particular as she shook debris from her fins, absently snagging a small furry animal by the tail before it could run away. She considered biting off its head and gnawing on the carcass for a while, but she decided it was too cute to do that to. Besides, she wasn’t really that hungry right now.

“Yikes!” Cheetor shot upright from the small indent he had made in the dirt, immediately starting to scratch at himself. “I itch all over!” he complained as he dug his hind claws in over his ear and scratched vigorously. He paused for a second and examined his hind paw. “Bugs! I’m covered in BUGS!”

“Great, kid. Now the Preds know that you have bugs.” Depth Charge pushed through the underbrush and gave the TM2 cheetah a disgusted look. “The entire blasted dirtball probably heard about your insect problem. Do you even know the meaning of ‘quiet,’ or do you just choose to ignore it?”

“But I didn’t…” Cheetor wilted before the ray’s glare.

It switched to an incredulous stare as Depth Charge got a good look at the area. “You blew a tree up?! Cat, all you had to do was bring Overdose over to our position. Do you WANT to give her ideas?” He shook his head. “Good thing she’s not here yet, or we’d have real problems.”

That made Cheetor stop sulking long enough to look around. “Huh? She was right over there…”

Except she wasn’t. There was a small fuzzy animal of some kind tied to a bush by its tail, chattering furiously, but no Overdose. Cheetor transformed to robot mode and turned a complete circle scanning for her, but there was no sign of the flamboyant sea slug. By the time he faced Depth Charge again, he was panicking.

The ray just sighed tiredly. “That explains this, then,” he said with an aimless gesture at the battered landscape. “Overdose strikes again.”

“Should we try and find her?” Cheetor asked.

“No. Who knows where the slag she is by now.” Depth Charge started back the way he’d come from. “C’mon. Let’s just get this over with.”

If either of the Maximals had looked back as they pushed their way through the forest, they might have seen a pair of flame-red gauntlets and boots following them. Two tilted almond optics occasionally glittered when the boots stood in a sunbeam, but that was before the optics glanced down and noticed that she hadn’t been shifting the colors of her feet and hands. Then Overdose vanished entirely, fading into the forest. All that was left was a childish giggle and the soft sound of footsteps as she chased after Depth Charge and Cheetor.

They were slowing down the further they walked, following faint energy signatures on their radar. Cheetor’s yelling and the explosion of the tree had probably given away their position, but the two Predacons ahead of them were still in the same general area as they had been before. Optimus had ordered Depth Charge and Cheetor to wait for Overdose before moving in closer despite their objections, but now that she had presumably arrived and gone off on her own, they were going to find out what the two Predacons were up to.

“They can’t be looking for anything. I mean, there’s nothing in these mountains, is there?” Cheetor was back in his beast mode because it was easier to get through the underbrush that way. Depth Charge had to make do as he was.

“So maybe they’re building something,” the ray said as he pushed aside a tree branch. He let it go too soon, and it smacked him in the arm. “I hate this planet,” he grumbled. “I don’t care what they’re doing,” he added in a louder voice when Cheetor glanced back at him curiously. “I just want to finish this blasted patrol and get back to hunting X. Slag!”

“What?” This time Cheetor turned to look at him. “What is it?”

Depth Charge glared down at his own chest. “My radar just went out.”

The cat tested his own and narrowed his eyes, baring his teeth and growling, “Mine, too. Jamming field. That means the Predacons-“

“-put up a jamming tower. Right.” The larger blue robot shook his head with a mixture of tiredness and anger. “Slagging Preds. I can’t even tell if Rampage is out there, now.”

“Well, at least we know what they’re doing out here,” Cheetor said. “And if we can’t track them, they can’t track us. Cheetor…Maximize!” He transformed and got his blaster out, smiling with an almost feral eagerness. “Let’s get ‘em!”

Thoughts of tact, planning, and stealth ran through Depth Charge’s mind. Those thoughts were followed by the memory of getting called in by Optimus to run this stupid patrol in the first place. A final thought occurred to him: he was sick and tired of acting like Primal would. Sometimes the Predacons had it right; it was time to stop thinking and just indulge in some mindless destruction! “Let’s,” he answered, taking out his remora-gun.

If either of the Maximals had cared to listen, they might have heard someone whispering, “Yippee!” However, the sound was mostly covered up by normal forest sounds, and at that point it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Overdose had already moved on.

She stopped to coo over a bird nest full of chicks, though, so the battle was in progress by the time she got to it.

“Wazzpinator will DEZZTROY foolish cat-bot,” the wasp was buzzing as he zipped around the clearing shooting his stinger-gun at Cheetor. “Wazzpinator will be victoriouzz! Wazzpinator izz bezzt Predacon ever!”

Cheetor dodged and returned fire. “Waspinator’s gonna be scrap when I’m done with him!” he yelled defiantly, then barely managed to roll out of the way as the wasp fired again. He shot wildly to distract Waspinator. “You picked the wrong cat to mess with,” he hissed, transforming to his beast mode and running up the trunk of the nearest tree.

Waspinator hovered, anxiously waving his gun around as he searched the clearing for the suddenly missing cheetah. “Maximal cat-bot come out to play?”

In the middle of the clearing was a jamming tower, its metal bars a frail barrier for the two ‘bots on opposite sides of it. “We meet again, old friend,” Rampage laughed as he aimed his missile launcher, only to be forced to duck a grenade-disk. “Strange to be on dry land, isn’t it?”

“I don’t care where we are,” Depth Charge snapped back. “I’ll still kill you!”

Waspinator nervously poked his gun into the branches of one of the pine trees surrounding the clearing. A few trees over, a fanged shadow with glowing eyes crouched lower on a branch, concealed by evergreen needles as he waited for his prey to come closer. The wasp buzzed to the next tree, and the shadow watched him closely. Another tree…closer…yes, closer…perfect…

“YAAAAAAAH!”

“Whoa!” The sound startled him, and Cheetor frantically backpedaled, aborting his leap a little too late. Careening off the branch, he collided with Waspinator anyway because the wasp had whirled to face the other side of the clearing where the battle cry had come from. The tangle of Maximal and Predacon crashed to the ground, screaming the entire way down while Overdose darted towards the fighting crab and ray.

Rampage looked up when the shrill cry cut across the sounds of metal-on-metal, but the fact that Depth Charge was about to shoot him in the head with his remora-gun naturally distracted him from the blur of color racing at him. Tripping the ray got rid of that threat for the moment, but then Overdose was there. All he had time to do was drop his head to one side as something rushed at his face.

Whatever it was sliced past his wide optics, but it caught on his crab legs. Rampage roared in pain as Overdose twisted the knife, the rest of her body slamming into the Predacon’s chest knees-first with the full force of her sprint behind her, and the impact threw them to the ground. Her free hand went over his other shoulder and hit the dirt first, and she shoved off with her legs, springing into a one-handed flip that dragged the knife dug into Rampage’s beast mode legs after her. At the same time, Depth Charge, who was still on the ground after being tripped, grabbed for the nearest part of his enemy…and three crab legs came away in his hand as Overdose’s flip ended with her on her feet and her knife free. Rampage scrambled to his feet and stared at the crab claw still laying on the ground, then at the colorful femme in front of him.

“You--!” he shouted, and he took one step forward, feeling lopsided without half his beast mode’s legs.

Overdose dropped into a crouch and grinned up at him. “I’m gonna GET you…” she crooned madly, and Rampage stopped in his tracks as her colors rippled to gray and black.

A hand wrapped around his ankle and jerked before he could do anything else, sending him to the ground again. Depth Charge punched his other hand into the crab’s throat, and Rampage gagged even as he twisted around and kicked out, catching the ray in the shoulder with his heel. It wasn’t a damaging blow, but it shoved Depth Charge far enough away that Rampage could get back to his feet. Overdose was still in a crouch, her eyes swirling with brilliant colors while her fins were dull black. Tilted almond optics studied him, that mad grin widening as the crab saw Cheetor limping towards them and Waspinator nowhere in sight.

Rampage wasn’t stupid. He turned and transformed to his tank mode with a growling shriek of pain and fury. Depth Charge dove out of his way, reaching for his remora gun as the tank thundered into the trees. The ray pursued him without a word to the approaching cheetah.

“Rrowr! How do ya like that?” Cheetor snorted and picked a clump of pine needles out of one of his joints. “We’d better blow the jamming tower and get back to base, Overdose…Overdose?” He looked around, but the sea slug had disappeared. “I wish she’d stop doing that,” he complained.

Meanwhile, Depth Charge had lost Rampage’s trail and had taken to the air to look for him. It was amazing that a tank could just vanish, and the ray cursed at Rampage as his search turned up nothing. It would help if the pine trees weren’t so densely packed in on the mountain slopes, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that short of clear-cutting the forest, and Primal would protest that. Of course, Optimus protested about EVERYTHING he did…

What was that?

“Overdose,” he muttered as he circled around for another look. Sure enough, there was a bright orange figure waving at him from the top of a pine tree. Even as he watched, the top of the tree bent to the side, then snapped off. The femme clinging to it fell with an audible yelp of panic, and Depth Charge sighed. He couldn’t decide whether he was exasperated or amused by the sea slug’s antics most of the time, but he had to admit that she was growing on him. Sort of a like a fungus, really.

Distracted by the idea of Overdose being a fungus in disguise (which really wouldn’t surprise him that much, come to think of it), Depth Charge circled again, this time low enough to see that Overdose was flat on her back on the ground, her fins a pale blue and her optics dark. “Great, she knocked herself out,” he muttered, and he looked for a place to land. There was a clear spot close by, and he transformed to his robot mode to walk back to where she’d been.

She wasn’t there anymore.

“I’m getting used to you doing this,” Depth Charge said to the pine trees towering above him. “I know you’re still around here somewhere, Overdose.”

“Yep!” the femme’s voice said cheerfully.

He turned his head towards where the voice had come from, taking a step nearer to the closest tree. Impatient, he reached his hand out, waving it to each side slightly to test if she was there. “I don’t have time for this! I’m looking for Rampage.”

“I know where he went,” that merry voice said from the tree trunk.

Depth Charge touched the tree and felt around it. Her voice was coming from here, but… “Are you going to show me where he went, then?” he asked, impatience tempered by puzzlement. He took another step forward and leaned to the side so he could glance behind the tree. She wasn’t there. He straightened back up and tapped his hand against the tree trunk again. “Overdose, where-“

Tilted almond optics glittered into view directly in front of his face, faintly transparent until they hardened into solid colors. “Oh, all right. Spoilsport.” The rest of her body shifted back to her normal range of colors, giving up the chameleon game for now, and Depth Charge blinked at her. She was hanging by her knees from a branch above them, upside-down with her face in front of his own. If he had taken one more step forward, he would have smacked into her.

“He’s in the caves,” she said into his face, “but you’re not going to be able to find him. Inferno mapped them out for the Predacons, so he probably knows where he’s going. You’ll just wander around and get lost if you go down there, too.”

“Slag.” He considered it. “Show me where these caves are.” Just in case Rampage tried this again.

“Okay.” Overdose shrugged upside-down and released the tree branch. Depth Charge started to try and catch her, but she had already landed on her hands, and he was left holding her legs. She kicked them and giggled, and he let them go, giving her an odd look as she remained in a hand-stand. He followed her slowly as she calmly walked away on her hands. “If you marked each turn in the caves with a piece of chalk like the humans used to,” she said as she went, “you might be able to find your way back. Then again, Rampage might double back and erase all your marks, and then what would you do? Get covered in bat guano, probably. Do you think that a bat would taste good?”

He found it strange to talk to someone walking on her hands, but this was Overdose. It wasn’t that much stranger than how she normally acted. “I have no idea, and no interest in finding out.” He could practically see a new burst of inane chatter coming, so he tried to head it off with a different topic. “How do you know that stuff about what human’s used to do, anyway?”

“I studied them,” she said simply, then paused and glanced up under her shoulder at him. “I don’t quite remember WHY I studied them, but I did. It was fun. I learned some WEIRD things from them!”

“Like kissing,” Depth Charge muttered, remembering.

“Yeah.” She smiled a dreamy, upside-down smile. “Like kissing.” Giving herself a little shake, the fem-bot turned forward and began ‘walking’ again. “Of course, there were a couple of real stiff-necked Maximals studying some of the same history I was looking at, and they kept on saying how shouldn’t practice anything I learned about, but I wanted to know how I was supposed to know what the humans were talking about if I didn’t try it out. I mean, I KNOW I’m not a human; it doesn’t mean some human things aren’t fun to do! For example, there was this one guy named Jack the Ripper who-oh, we’re here. See?” She pointed with one hand at the river in front of them, then crashed to the ground without her hand’s support. “Ow.”

Depth Charge helped her to her feet again, wondering how a ditz like her could possibly remember anything like human culture, but he walked over to peer into the dark cavern the river gushed from. He was cautious, but his radar was working now. There wasn’t a trace left of Rampage except for deep tread marks in the mud of the river banks. Wading into the water, he stooped to enter the cave.

Something brushed against his leg, and he looked down to see a colorful bunch of fins pass through the light the cavern mouth let in. Overdose’s beast mode belonged in salt water, but apparently she didn’t care. Her antenna touched his fins as he walked deeper into the river, and the gentle contact made him shiver slightly in memory. He had been in her base, thinking that she needed his help, and her fingers had brushed over his face…

The femme transformed, standing in the water next to him as he stared down at her. “I told you, you’re not going to be able to find him in here.”

He shook himself from his memories. “Maybe not, but I want to see how far the water goes, at least.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. I’m gonna go back to base, then.” Turning to go, she started in surprise as a hand snagged her by the waist and drew her back. “Hey!” she said indignantly as it pressed her against the side of the larger male Maximal. “What are you-“

“Just so you know, Overdose…” Depth Charge used his other hand to capture her chin and turn her face to the side, towards him. She went still, her eyes sparkling in the darkness as she stared at him and her hands halfheartedly pushing against his arms. “…I’ve never been described as a ‘stiff-necked Maximal’,” he finished softly, and he lowered his head.

After a moment, Overdose stopped even pretending to try and get away.

Optimus knew she was coming. She had radioed in to tell them that. She probably knew that it made him want to assign her to another patrol. Despite how Cheetor had reported that she had been a help during the fight, Overdose was still chaos incarnate as far as Optimus knew. It wasn’t that she TRIED to cause it (well…most of the time); it just seemed to occur around her. Frequently.

Knowing this, therefore, he wasn’t actually that surprised when the crazy sea slug showed up dragging a gigantic squid behind her. “I named it Francis,” she said with a happy smile when Silverbolt informed him that the squid and company had arrived.

Optimus looked at the giant rubbery mass of seafood, then at Overdose. “That’s…nice, Overdose.” He tried very hard not to sound like he was humoring the crazy person, but he knew he was. “Is there any reason that you brought…Francis…here?”

She smiled again as a tentacle almost as thick as her leg twitched far too close to the ape for comfort. Francis feebly convulsed, and Overdose kicked it in the head. “Down, boy!” she yelled at it, then looked up at Optimus. “Oh, he’s not going to be staying here, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she assured him. “It’s just that…well…” She paused and looked slightly embarrassed. Since this was a look she more commonly caused on THEM, the Maximals drifted closer. Silverbolt and Blackarachnia were manning the gun outpost above them, but Rattrap, Cheetor, and Rhinox stood behind Optimus and waited with interest as Overdose shifted around and kicked Francis a few more times. “…it’s for Megatron,” she finally mumbled.

“Megatron?” Was this some new plot by the Predacons? Optimus blinked at her and hoped she would drop a hint or two. He assumed that the Predacons had found it as hard to question Overdose about the other faction as the Maximals had. She usually refused to say anything about them.

“Yeah.” The squid twitched again, and Overdose sighed. “It’s like this, ya see: Inferno and I are getting a bunch of food together for her. He’s edible, isn’t he?” she asked anxiously, pointing at Francis. The Maximals looked at each other, and finally Rhinox nodded. “Good. I was kinda worried about that. I mean, we’re trying really hard to find stuff that won’t upset her stomach. We can’t upset her when she’s like this.”

“Like this?” Optimus repeated. What the slag did Megatron need FOOD for?

She nodded earnestly. “It wouldn’t be good for her while she’s in such a delicate condition.”

“Delicate condition?” He was starting to feel like he was an echo.

“Oh, you know.” The Maximals looked at her blankly, and she sighed. Leaning forward, she beckoned until Optimus bent down to put his audio next to her. “It’s her time,” she whispered.

“…her?” he repeated dumbly. He had automatically assumed she had simply been misspeaking, but now that she was saying it in his audio…was she really referring to Megatron as ‘her’? There weren’t any female Predacons besides Overdose, was there?

Overdose giggled and clasped her hands together, still whispering as she said, “Megatron’s gonna have EGGS.”

Optimus straightened up in shock and gaped at her. “WHAT?” The other Maximals looked at him expectantly, but he could only stare at the brightly-colored femme bouncing on her toes in front of him. She looked incredibly thrilled to have told him the news. “Overdose…you can’t be serious. If Megatron told you-“

Her optics went wide. “Nooooo. INFERNO told me. I think Megatron’s shy about it, ‘cause she hasn’t said a word about preparing, but Inferno knows what to do. I’ve been listening to him. See?” She grabbed one of Francis’ tentacles and held it up proudly. “For the good of the colony!”

“Whoa!” Rattrap laughed. “Ya really are listenin’ to Inferno if you’re callin’ Megs a ‘she’!”

“But she IS,” Overdose insisted. “Inferno told me all about it, and that’s why I’ve got to get Francis to the Predacon base before he starts to stink. Megatron’s gotta eat him to get her protein up. And you guys should declare a truce or something,” she continued earnestly as every Maximal except Optimus began laughing. “The stress would be really bad for her, and Primus knows that it would be horrible if something went wrong! I can get Rampage to help me, and I KNOW Inferno will stay away if you guys just promise not to attack the colony, and I think Waspinator understands that he needs to help the Queen during such a strenuous period. Um…Quickstrike will go along with us, and I’ll take care of Tarantulas and Dinobot.” A dark ripple of colors washed through her fins, and she grinned evilly. “They’ll help me.” Bright colors returned to her, and her grin turned into a cheerful smile. “All I need is a truce from you. You’ll do it, right?”

“No way!” Cheetor said. “A truce with the Preds? We can’t--”

“Wait,” Optimus interrupted. “Overdose,” he continued more slowly, his mind racing, “does Megatron know what you’re doing?”

“Sure! Why wouldn’t she?”

“Has Megatron actually SPOKEN to you about this?” the ape asked persistently, and Overdose frowned. “Did he give Inferno orders to bring in food?”

The frown deepened. “Ummmm, now that I think about it…she didn’t seem too happy about what Inferno’s doing. She wanted me to ask Inferno what he’s doing, but I guess I got a little distracted. I never reported back to her.” She looked thoughtful. “She probably knows, though. It’s her condition, after all. Right?” Smiling uncertainly, she watched as a restrained, gleeful expression settled over Optimus’ face. “Right?”

“Right, Overdose,” he told her in a soothing voice. “In fact, why don’t you go over to the Predacons early today to arrange the details of the truce and help Inferno? You’ll do it yourself, won’t you?”

Overdose’s smile faltered. “But won’t Megatron want to know about it?”

Optimus used his most persuasive voice, “But you don’t want to disturb him…er, her…with petty little details, do you? It might not be good for her. In fact, why don’t you arrange everything, and I’ll tell Megatron when it’s all settled. It’ll be a nice surprise.”

“Yeah!” Her smile returned full-force, and she grabbed a couple of her squid’s tentacles. “Talk to you later, then!” she yelled over her shoulder as she hauled Francis away.

“What was THAT about?” Blackarachnia asked when the crazy sea slug was out of sight. The Maximals all looked at Optimus, who had a positively demonic grin on his face.

He stared after Overdose and chuckled to himself. Poor, poor Megatron. “We’re going to get a little payback for everything Megatron’s put us through, Blackarachnia. If this works out right, he’ll be humiliated by his own troops.” He laughed again, and the others exchanged glances.

“How?” Rhinox asked.

The grin widened. “You’re not going to believe what Overdose thinks he’s going to do…”

Once again, Megatron turned to his rubber ducky for help. “A giant squid. She walks into the base WITH A SQUID when the sun is still up. Does she explain why? Of course not, noo. That would be sane, rational behavior, yesss, and I’ve given up expecting that from anyone on this planet. Except for you,” he amended, turning the rubber ducky over and squeaking it. “And Inferno has expanded whatever it is he’s doing to EIGHT rooms, now.” Megatron sighed and settled back in his hot tub, letting the rubber ducky float away. “My troops are all insane, yess.”

If Megatron had known what his troops were doing at the moment, he would have added several more words onto his description. They wouldn’t have been very flattering.

“Wazzpinator not underzztand why crazy-bot izz a Predacon now,” Waspinator whined as he squinted at the sun. It was bright and sunny out today, which had resulted in the assembled Predacons (minus Megatron) squinting as they looked at Overdose.

Tarantulas poked at the dead, reeking hulk that was Francis. “How appetizing.” That was another result of the bright and sunny day: squids didn’t do well in them. “Are you sure that Megatron would WANT to eat this?”

“The Royalty will have ‘strange cravings during her pregnancy’,” Overdose read off of Bob the computer’s screen. “Hey, are the larva going to look like Megatron or ants, Inferno?”

“They will look like-like-“ Inferno blinked, confused. “They will look like part of the colony,” he said after a minute.

Overdose stared at him, then looked around at the other Predacons. Rampage and Dinobot were glaring at each other, Quickstrike was looking very nervous because he was standing between the two, Tarantulas was wondering out loud what squids tasted like, and Waspinator was still whining about it being the wrong time of the day for Overdose to be a Predacon. None of them looked the same. “Well, that tells me a whole lot of nothing. Bob, run a search on the reproductive abilities of every beast mode here; specifically, what the eggs are like.” She thought a moment and added, “Hack into the Maximal and Predacon databases just in case they have something.”

“Like, totally, dudette.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Like, okay, dudette.”

“I’m going to reprogram you someday soon. Have I mentioned that?” Overdose asked calmly.

“Like, yes.”

“Oh, good. I’d hate to think I’d missed telling you.” Shoving the gray computer into subspace, Overdose turned to the others and smiled cheerily. Dinobot snarled. Tarantulas hid behind Waspinator. “Now, I’m sure you all want to know why I called you here…”

“Yes, drone! Why have you taken me from my duties?! The colony needs me to complete my task!” Inferno saluted the colony, and Overdose copied the move.

“Yeah, right, whatever,” she muttered before saying in a louder voice, “We’re all gonna be helping you, Inferno, even the Maximals!” That got the ant’s attention, and the others gave her surprised looks, too. “See, it wouldn’t be good for the babies if Megatron gets stressed out right now, so Optimus said that the Maximals won’t bother us while-“

“Wait a nano.” Tarantulas waved his hands to interrupt. “Look, I’ve already told you two that your idea is crazy. Megatron is NOT going to have eggs,” he snickered despite himself, and Rampage and Quickstrike joined in. Dinobot seemed insulted by the very idea. Waspinator was just confused. Inferno was enraged by the laughter, but the cold look Overdose gave Tarantulas made him abruptly stop laughing. “Er…anyway, the Maximals won’t believe that Megatron is actually, uh,” Rampage was laughing still, but Tarantulas gulped as Overdose examined her fist. “They won’t go along with it,” he finished in a rush.

“It’d be hilarious if they did,” Rampage chuckled. “Can you imagine the look on that dumb saurian’s face?”

Overdose gave him a baffled look, not understanding why Megatron’s expression would be funny. “But Optimus told me…”

“Never!” Dinobot snarled, speaking up for the first time since the femme had dragged them all out here and told them the news. “We will destroy the Maximals, not have some blasted truce with them. You are both insane!” He pointed a claw at Inferno and Overdose in turn, then turned on Rampage. “We are going back to the base. Now.” The crab only kept laughing as the raptor stomped away, but Dinobot stopped and growled over his shoulder. “NOW.”

Rampage’s laughter turned into a strained yell, and he clutched his chest over his spark. The pain made him go down to one knee, and Dinobot smiled. A moment later the raptor was offline and in no condition to torture Rampage’s spark.

“Thanks,” the crab rasped at Overdose.

She slammed Dinobot’s head into the ground one last time for good measure, then glared up at Quickstrike, Tarantulas, Waspinator, and Inferno. They were all gaping at what was left of the raptor, and Quickstrike was trying to wipe splatters of mech-fluid off himself without being obvious about it. “You’re all going to help me.”

“For the good of the colony!” Inferno agreed immediately.

The others were more uncertain, but Overdose got to her feet holding Dinobot’s disconnected tail like a whip and offered Rampage a hand up. “Will you help?” she asked, innocently widening her optics.

“Are you kidding? You’re asking me to help Megatron through his pregnancy.” Rampage grinned. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. But what about him?” He pointed at the pieces of Dinobot, which were already moving towards each other again as the Transmetal 2 technology kicked in.

Overdose casually punted the raptor’s head into the distance. “I’ll deal with him.”

“Ah don’t know,” Quickstrike said. “Yer sayin’ the boss-bot’s a femme?”

“Yep! Ain’t it great?” Overdose beamed. “We’re gonna have EGGS soon!”

The fuzor blinked at her, then sighed. “Ah guess Ah’ll help ya.”

“Wazzpinator will help Queen-bot!” the wasp buzzed proudly. “Wazzpinator alwayzz thought ant-bot wazz crazy, but now Wazzpinator zzorry. Wazzpinator likes eggzz!”

Tarantulas shook his head. “I keep TELLING you, Megatron’s not going to have eggs! I’m not going to go along with this and get in trouble-“

“Who said you had a choice?” Overdose put in, and Tarantulas fell silent as she stalked towards him. The spider backed away, but she jumped forward into his face. “You’re helping us, or else!”

“Okay,” he squeaked.

She bounced happily. “All right! Let’s go gather food, then! Wait a second…I’ll be back. I’ve gotta go tell Optimus that we’re all for the truce.” And with that, Overdose ran off towards the base, leaving the other Predacons with Inferno.

They looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him. What else were they supposed to do? Quickstrike was just going along with the majority, Waspinator’s beast mode had instincts that told him how to deal with a ‘Queen,’ Rampage thought it would be hilarious to watch Megatron deal with this, and Tarantulas…well, it wasn’t like he was filled with joy, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked Rampage’s idea. Inferno, of course, couldn’t understand why the others weren’t as zealous as he was, but he was happy that the Overdose drone had persuaded them to help. He had no idea that the other Predacons were laughing behind his back at what he told them to collect for the Queen to eat.

Overdose had Bob crash the Predacon base’s security system so she could access the communications console. Once there were no pesky password screens to get through, she found it simplicity itself to place a call (although she found that 1-800-Collect didn’t work for some reason) to the Maximal base.

Silverbolt answered. “Overdose!”

“Greetings and salutations upon you and your descendants after you,” she told him solemnly. “Just calling to let Optimus know that the rest of the Predacons agreed with me about the truce thing,” reluctantly, but she didn’t add that, “and Francis is well and truly dead. Do you know any good recipes for dead, stinky seafood?”

The bird-dog fuzor blinked. “Uh…no, I’m afraid not. I’ll tell Optimus, though. And Overdose?” He hesitated, but she only watched him expectantly. “…is Megatron really female?” Silverbolt asked in a quiet, worried voice.

“Yep!”

“Oh. Oh, no.” Silverbolt seemed dismayed by the news. Overdose began pushing buttons on her console at random, which drew the fuzor’s attention back to her. “I’ll not delay you from your duties any longer. Farewell.”

“Bye-bye!” she said to the blank monitor. “Wonder what that was about?” she asked a light-bulb bug sitting on a support beam above her. It merely blinked its bulb at her in reply, so she stood on her chair and smashed it with a fist because blinking lights were irritating her today.

“Overdose!” Megatron rumbled from behind her. “Where are the others?”

The colorful femme sat down again and began placing a long-distance call to a place she’d been to once. “Outside.” The computer replied by giving her an error message. “What’s wrong with this thing?”

The Predacon leader sighed and walked forward to look over her shoulder. “It was damaged by the crash. Depending on the weather, it might reach as far as the Maximal base.” Megatron frowned as he brought up the communications log. “Which it has. Who--?” Overdose wriggled around in her chair until she was looking up at him, grinning merrily, and he sighed again. “You.” As the Predacon tyrant, he knew that he should punish her for treachery, but what was the point? She wouldn’t care. He had put her in a cage over the lava once for beating up Dinobot against his orders, and all she’d done was toast marshmallows until she picked the lock and escaped because she’d gotten bored. “Why?” he asked wearily.

“You’ll see,” she said in a sing-song way. But suddenly she smacked herself in the forehead and sprang to her feet to run out of the room. “But I’ve gotta go help Inferno!”

Megatron only stared after her, thinking that he really didn’t want to know anymore.

Overdose didn’t notice as she skipped through the Predacon base. All she noticed was how nice and sunny it was outside, and that Dinobot had almost pulled himself together where she’d parted ways with the other Predacons. She studied his pieces intently. “What am I going to do with you?” she asked no one. “I’d kill you,” and a large part of her mind wanted to do that, “but Megatron said I shouldn’t, and then there’s that weird thing you do to Rampage. It really hurts him, and I don’t know how it’d affect him if you died. Besides,” she added with a smile, “it’d be cool if you could teach me how to do that trick with Rampage. I wonder what the connection between you and him is?” It was a thought that kept bugging her just frequently enough that she knew she was forgetting something when she was bothering Rampage with questions.

“Ah, well,” she said dismissively. “Killing you will have to wait. I have another use for you right now if I can find something to use.” Eyeing the Predacon base in speculation, she mentally constructed what she wanted out of things she had seen laying around inside, and then she set out to actually make it.

And that was how the Predacons were able to drag much more food back to the base than even Inferno had anticipated. Efficient little make-shift cart in tow, Overdose led Dinobot back to the base with mountains of leaves, grubs, insects, carrion, and Francis. The raptor protested the entire time, but the psycho sea slug just dragged him if he wouldn’t walk by himself. It was easier to haul the cart that get pulled along by Overdose, he discovered, and so he grudgingly did as he was told since she had jammed something into his transformation circuitry before he’d come back online.

Soon, he promised himself, he would make her pay…

“Incoming transmission,” the computer said.

“From who?” Megatron asked as he turned off the monitor he had been observing his troops with. All of the food-gathering activity was bewildering and slightly alarming, but it seemed harmless. Anyway, if they were all cooperating, it couldn’t be that bad.

“From Maximal base.”

Were Overdose’s words coming true? Would he now see what she had been calling the Maximals for? Megatron wasn’t sure he really wanted to take the call, but he accepted it anyway. Optimus appeared on the screen. “Ah, Optimus Primal! How good of you to call. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Hello, Megatron,” Optimus said calmly. “I’m calling on behalf of all of the Maximals.” There was a muffled…giggle?…in the background. But since Overdose was annoying Dinobot at the moment, it couldn’t be her. So who was..?

“For what?” Megatron said in most congenial voice. “Calling to surrender, yess?” It was worth a try.

The ape smiled a little, although he appeared to be trying to keep a straight face. “Oh, haven’t you heard?” He paused until the Predacon reluctantly shook his head. “Overdose negotiated a truce between us until you aren’t in such a delicate condition.”

“What?” the tyrant asked blankly. Those were definitely giggles. In fact, it sounded like several people were trying very hard to muffle laughter and failing.

“We Maximals are very concerned about you right now, Megatron,” Optimus said with every sign of worry. “We’ve decided that you shouldn’t have to deal with the stress of combat when you’re in such a state, so at Overdose’s prompting, we negotiated a cease-fire with the Predacons. You can lay your eggs without any risk of danger from us.”

Megatron choked.

In the background on the Maximal side, someone (it sounded like Rattrap) suddenly burst out laughing hysterically, and that set off the others in the room. Optimus was obvious struggling to keep himself from joining the rest. “You will tell us how things are going, won’t you?” he asked. “How many you have, what you name the babies…” He finally lost control, and the transmission ended with him doubling over with laughter.

“OVERDOSE!!!” Megatron roared.

“I am NOT pregnant.”

“But Inferno told me you were!”

“I’m not, nooo. Inferno was mistaken.”

“Well…he is kind of stupid like that…”

“Good. Now that we’re in agreement, you can tell the others-“

“No, I didn’t say that. I’d believe you, but Bob confirmed that Queens have eggs in the spring. So Inferno’s right, and you’re just confused.”

“I’m not pregnant!”

“Oh, don’t be so shy! This is great news! Do you know how many you’ll be having?”

“Grrrr…Overdose. For the last time. I. Am. Not. Laying. Eggs.”

“Sure you are!”

“I can’t have eggs, Overdose! I’m MALE!”

“No you’re not!”

“…..”

“The Queen is the ruler of the colony. You’re the Queen. The Queen is female. Therefore, you’re female. See? Inferno told me!”

“But I’m not-“

“Stop denying it! It’s great to be a femme!”

“No it’s not!”

“Are you saying that there’s something wrong with being female?”

“Uh…no. I’m just saying that since I’m NOT a female-“

“Stoppit! Denial can only hurt you! I’ve been telling Rampage that a lot lately.”

“But-“

“Don’t worry! We’ll take good care of you. You’ll see!”

“But-“

“Are you hungry? I’ll have Inferno bring you something to eat.”

“But-“

“Remember, you’re eating for more than yourself now. Ooooh, this will be so fun!”

“Get back here!!…Overdose? Slag…”

“Royalty! I have brought you nourishment!”

“Inferno! I want you to listen very closely, yesss. I am NOT female. I can NOT have eggs. Your beast mode is overriding your logic circuits. I don’t know how you got the others to go along with this, but I’m ordering you to stop this insanity NOW. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my Queen! The stress of ruling the colony has obviously made you distraught. For the good of the colony, the drones and I will care for you and the eggs. Soon this troublesome period will be over, my Queen, and we will have many larva to aid in our fight against the enemies of the colony!”

“…you’re not listening to me.”

“Do not fear, my Queen! I have set up a nursery, and there is plenty of food in storage. You will be well provided for!”

“Look, you stupid ant, I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE EGGS!!!”

“Ah, so the Overdose drone was correct. Your mind is unstable with the strain, and you refuse to believe your own body. My Queen, my most humble apologies, but for the good of the colony I will take the Overdose drone’s advice to prevent harm to the eggs or you yourself…”

“What?! Blasted ant, get back here-unlock this door! INFERNO!!…slagging piece of scrap, when I get my hands on you…computer, override door lock, voice code Megatron.”

“Access…denied. Voice code is, like, no longer recognized.”

“WHAT?! Bob, what are you doing in the computer system?! Get out of there!”

“Like, totally, no. You’re, like, not going anywhere, dude.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

**Dinobot to Megatron!**

“Dinobot! I’m in my quarters; get over here and unlock this slagging door!”

**I wish I could, Megatron. Grrarrrrr…unfortunately, I seemed to be locked in a storage compartment, and I was radioing YOU for assistance.**

“You can’t get out?”

**It’s too small for me to even move. Overdose put me in here somehow.**

“…slag. I’ll radio Quickstrike-“

**Don’t waste the energy. Tarantulas, Waspinator, and Quickstrike are in on this. Or more likely, they’re too afraid of what that blasted rainbow child will do to them if they don’t do as she says.**

“And Rampage?”

**Um…well…Overdose, uh, gave me a choice about that.**

“…dare I ask..?”

**If I force Rampage to do anything, she’ll either do what she did to Tarantulas to me, or she’ll do worse. I’m, er, not even going to try.**

“This is the final insult. No more, nooo. Overdose!” Megatron shut off his commlink and turned to the locked door, powering up his tail-gun. He really liked this door, too. It had prevented various Predacons from getting access to his quarters, and it had lasted quite a long time. Now, however, it was nothing but a barrier.

*BlamBlamBLAM!!*

The door fell outward with a satisfying clang, and Megatron lowered his tail-gun, the murderous gleam in his optics unabated. He took a step forward-

--and Overdose’s head popped into sight around the door frame, tilted eyes wide. “Should I knock?” she asked timidly. “I could have opened the door myself, you know. That was polite, but, um,” she looked down at the door on the floor, “a bit overdone, in my opinion.”

“Overdone,” Megatron repeated. “Overdone? Setting up nurseries and truces on the assumption that I’m having children against all logic-you don’t think THAT is overdone?” He stalked forward, and the femme shrank back into her fins, little ripples of panicked colors chasing each other across her body. “This has gone on long enough, Overdose. You know very well that I’m not pregnant. I KNOW that you’re intelligent enough to know that. You can pretend that you’re too insane to walk straight, but I’ve seen you put that aside when you want to.”

She had her back against the wall, now, her eyes uncertain. “But you ARE going to have eggs. Inferno told me so.”

“THINK, Overdose,” Megatron demanded. “Whatever you did when you bargained your way into the Predacon, do it now! I’m sick of dealing with a-a-“ the only insult that came to mind was the one Dinobot had just used, “-a rainbow child! If you’re a Predacon, either act like it or go annoy the Maximals!” He powered up his tail-gun again and shoved it into the colorful femme’s face. “Now, Overdose,” he growled, “give up this nonsense, or die.”

Overdose blinked at the weapon touching the tip of her nose, then at the Predacon holding it. Slowly, she nodded, and the colors drained out of her fins, leaving only her eyes full of brilliant greens and blues. “You want me to act like a Predacon right now?” she asked softly. “Fine.” Her arm shot up, the heel of her hand hitting the tip of Megatron’s chin. His head snapped back with the impact, and Overdose ducked under his tail-gun as he fired. Her left leg kicked out, sweeping his feet out from underneath him so he ended up flat on his back with her boot on his neck. One of her daggers was in her hand, and she dropped down to place it directly over Megatron’s right optic even as he started to grab for her ankles.

He froze, then slowly returned his arms to his sides, staring at the knife-tip in morbid fascination. The darkened ‘bot kneeling beside him shifted slightly, and a tiny screeching noise came from the dagger scratching across Megatron’s optic, making the Predacon contain a flinch. “Overdose…ah, this wasn’t what I meant, noo…”

With a small, spiteful smile, Overdose flipped the dagger around in her hand. Before Megatron move, however, he felt that sharp tip nestle in under his chin. “Get up,” she ordered in a venomous tone that didn’t bode well for the Predacon tyrant’s future. “Slowly.”

He obeyed, reluctant but practical. She hadn’t killed him yet; if he went along with her, there might be a chance of getting out of this alive. “Overdose, perhaps we can come to some kind of agreement-“

“Shut up,” she spat, “and transform.”

Feeling the knife blade dig in fractionally, Megatron shut up and beast moded. He whipped his head to the side to bite her, but she wasn’t there anymore. Instead, a heavy weight settled on his back, and the dagger’s edge slid along his neck. “Tsk, tsk,” she said as he slowly brought his head back around to face forward. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Why are yo-“ A slight burning cut on his neck brought his words up short, and he swallowed hard. Cutting his throat might not kill him immediately, but a combination of animal instinct and the knowledge of how helpless he would be offline kept him from fighting against the knife on his throat. Her heels prodded his sides, and she leaned forward along his back.

“Level three,” she hissed in his audio.

Humiliating as it was to be used as a riding animal, when it came down to it, humiliation beat having his throat slit. Megatron headed for the third level of the Predacon base. Overdose wasn’t actually that bad of a rider; she shifted her weight with each step, settling herself in front of his jets comfortably. Of course, there was the fact that she was holding a knife to his throat, but nobody was perfect.

“Tarantulas!” Overdose shouted as Megatron carefully walked down the corridor.

Predacons appeared out of doorways along the hall, gaping comically at the blackened femme mounted on their fuming leader. Tarantulas eventually broke through his astonishment enough to come forward. “Tehehehahehe, yes?” he asked, uncertainly eyeing the dagger Overdose had positioned across Megatron’s neck.

Inferno had seen it, too. “My Queen!” he exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing, drone?!”

The Transmetal tyrannosaur started to order Inferno to get Overdose off of him, but a subtle movement of the dagger scraped his vulnerable throat in warning, and he shut his mouth with an audible click. The femme perched on top of him patted his head gently. “The stress was too much, Inferno,” she soothed the ant. “He snapped, and I’m really worried that he might harm the eggs while he’s like this. I think it’s best if we keep him in his beast mode until he’s laid them. I just want Tarantulas to put a transformation lock on him, okay?”

Inferno hesitated, his instinctual need to guard the eggs at all costs clashing with his need to serve the Queen. Megatron was obviously unhappy with this all…but wasn’t he ultimately serving the colony and therefore the Queen by doing what the Overdose drone said? It was for the Queen’s own good, and it would protect the eggs… “Okay.”

“Tarantulas?”

The spider chuckled nervously. “I have one in my lab.”

Overdose cocked her head to one side, and Megatron gasped. A drop of mech-fluid splattered on the flooring. “Then shouldn’t you go get it?” she asked.

“Y-yes, hehehe. Uh, I’ll be right back.” Tarantulas turned and ran.

Rampage watched him go, then looked back at Megatron. The tyrant was gradually lifting his head higher and higher in response to the building pressure on his throat from the knife, and his tail lashed from side to side apprehensively. Overdose’s face showed no expression whatsoever other than her swirling eyes. Quickstrike and Waspinator were barely peeking out of the room they had been in, and Inferno was standing at attention, apparently trusting Overdose. The cold look in Overdose’s eyes was chilling, but Rampage loved the fear. Megatron practically sweated it, and Quickstrike and Waspinator weren’t much better. Granted, Rampage wasn’t causing it himself, but it was pleasant anyway.

“Isn’t there food to be gathered?” Overdose asked, and her voice held only the mockery of innocence. Megatron swallowed hard, then winced as another drop of mech-fluid fell from his throat.

Inferno wasn’t exactly bright enough to notice anything other than his duty. “Yes! My Queen, you will be well taken care of!” Saluting, he whirled around and marched down the corridor, snagging Waspinator by the antenna as he passed. Quickstrike scrambled after them, not wanting to be left behind with the psycho sea slug watching at him from the back of his leader. Rampage only leaned against the wall insolently.

Mech-fluid had collected in a tiny puddle at Megatron’s feet by the time Tarantulas’ vehicle mode roared back up the corridor. The spider transformed to his robot mode and stood uncertainly on one side of the tyrannosaur. Overdose only continued to stare at him impassively, and his imagination cringed at the thought that she was probably coming up with new ways to torture him behind those sparkling optics. The longer he hesitated, however, the more time she would have to think them up, and his hands barely shook as he offered the transformation lock to her.

Overdose didn’t even deign to glance at it. Instead, she slid away until she was hanging off the opposite side of Megatron’s back. The T-Rex staggered with the weight shift and started to turn his head towards the femme only to grunt as the knife dug in. “Put it where I was sitting,” she ordered calmly when Megatron froze.

If the glare Megatron was giving him was any indication, Tarantulas would be dead the moment the transformation lock came off again. Then again, how was that any different than normal? He really should be doing something about all the people wanting him dead. The Maximals wanted him dead, the Predacons wanted him dead, Overdose wanted him dead…

He grumbled about it under his breath with false bravado as he attached the transformation lock between Megatron’s shoulder blades, right at the base of his beast mode’s neck. It made sense to put it there since it was pretty much impossible for Megatron to twist his head around enough to get it loose, but Tarantulas wished that it was somewhere further away from the mouthful of sharp teeth Megatron sported. Sure, Overdose had the T-Rex under control at the moment--that wasn’t saying she wouldn’t suddenly decide to let him go just to watch him maul Tarantulas. As soon as the transformation lock activated, the spider jumped away and sighed in relief.

Megatron eyed the treacherous spider with scant favor, but Overdose sliding all the way off his back distracted him. Almost automatically, he whipped his head around to bite her-

--her fist thumped him on his snout right between his nostrils-

--and he recoiled with a surprised yelp of pain. Tyrannosaurs have very hard skulls; if she had punched him with the same amount of force between the eyes, it would have done more than irritate him. However, like sharks, his nose was vulnerable, and he ducked his head protectively, taking a step back as Overdose raised her fist again. Rampage laughed, and Megatron turned to snarl at him. The snarl died, though, as the situation finally got through to his stunned mind.

Rampage was standing there laughing, and Megatron had seen that look on his face before. It was one that came out when the crab was tormenting a Maximal, fellow Predacon, or some poor animal. It told the world that the killer had a new victim…

And Dinobot wasn’t here to stop him this time. Locked in his beast mode like this, Megatron was essentially helpless.

“Happy Birthday, Rampage,” Overdose said quietly as Megatron backed away nervously.

The crab stopped advancing on his ‘master’ for a second. “Birthday?”

She shrugged. “A day when people give someone gifts. Don’t you like it?” She gestured at Megatron, who stared back at her with frantic eyes when Rampage nodded.

“Tarantulas--” Megatron started to order.

“I’m, tehehe, staying out of this,” Tarantulas said before the tyrant could continue. The spider pressed against the wall and edged around Overdose, putting her between him and the increasingly-desperate T-Rex.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, Megatron?” Overdose asked sweetly. “I’m acting like a Predacon, aren’t I?”

“This isn’t what I meant!” The T-Rex shot a look over his shoulder at the corridor behind him, but Overdose was blocking it. He backed away from Rampage some more, and the crab allowed him to, amused by the fear rising off of the tyrant. “I didn’t want you to do THIS!”

She cocked her head to one side, apparently puzzled. “So you DON’T want me to act like this?”

“No!”

“Then what DO you want me to act like?” Overdose tapped a finger against her lips, her entire attitude a cruel parody of confused innocence. “Maybe you want me to help Rampage take you apart?”

“No!” Megatron gulped as Rampage laughed. “No, Overdose, I…I want you to go back to how you were!” His voice was higher-pitched than normal with terror, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the murderous crab in front of him!

“Are you suuuuure?” Overdose coaxed. “Are you absolutely, positively, completely, and without a doubt certain that you want me to be how I was before?”

“Yes!”

“I’ve got to know for sure that you’re sure.”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Absolutely, positively, completely, and without a doubt?”

“Yes!”

“Say it.”

Despite the killer stalking him, Megatron had to glance over his shoulder at her. “What?!”

“Say it.” Overdose studied her nails, not even looking up when Rampage’s fist shot out and sent Megatron into the wall. Tarantulas stifled a chuckled from behind her as the T-Rex painfully gathered his feet back under himself and heaved into a standing position again. “Say that you’re absolutely, positively, completely, and without a doubt certain that you want me to be how I was before.”

Dizzy, Megatron shook his throbbing head in a futile attempt at clearing it. “I’m absolutely, positively,” he saw Rampage’s other fist rushing at him too late to dodge, and the wall came at him again. This time he drooled mech-fluid when he tried to get up. “Completely, and without a doubt certain, Overdose!” he finished hurriedly as Rampage’s hand seized him by the back of his neck. A moment later he could only gurgle as the crab’s other hand slammed up into the FRONT of his throat.

“Really?” Overdose giggled, and colors burst through the blacks and grays dominating her fins. “Did you hear that, Rampage?”

“Yeah,” Rampage said absently as he strangled Megatron. “That’s nice, Overdose.”

“Put her down.”

“Huh? You can’t be serious.”

Tarantulas flattened himself against the wall, trying to will himself invisible as the huge crab ‘bot turned to face Overdose. She grinned at him, unaffected by the glower he directed at her. To someone who didn’t know any better, the femme seemed to be the weaker of the two. Roughly three-fourths Rampage’s height and much more slender, Overdose generally appeared to be softer with her rippling fins framing her from head to feet. Rampage looked like he could crush her easier than even the semi-conscious T-Rex in his hands.

Then again, looks were often deceiving around Overdose.

“Of course I’m serious! That can’t be good for the babies,” she told the crab. “You can kill her AFTER she lays the eggs.”

Rampage shook his head, half-resigned, half-angry as he opened his hands and let Megatron fall to the flood with a thud. The T-Rex’s jaws gaped as he gasped in air. “I can’t believe you really think he’s going to have eggs,” the crab muttered.

“Sure she will! Inferno told me so!” Overdose gave him an earnest look. “Can you help me get her to her quarters? You too, Tarantulas.”

The spider edged forward reluctantly as Rampage shook his head. “It’s not physically possible, Overdose,” the crab said as they lifted Megatron between them. “Do you believe everything Inferno tells you?”

“Yep! I’m gonna be a good soldier for the colony,” Overdose said proudly, then looked puzzled when both Rampage and Tarantulas started laughing. “What?” They just exchanged a look and kept on laughing as they helped her carry Megatron away.

Megatron contemplated his throne’s armrest. He couldn’t sit on his throne in beast mode, but after two weeks stuck in his beast mode, he had discovered that he wanted to chew on things. The armrest looked about right. Unfortunately, he didn’t really want a half-chewed armrest when he finally could transform again. It took an effort of will not to start gnawing on it, though.

What he couldn’t decide was whether it was because of T-Rex instinct or the ‘care packages.’ He hadn’t wanted to chew on things during the first three days of free time, so it had to be the packages. The first day of being stuck in beast mode he had stomped around the base, snarled at everyone, and generally been in a bad mood to an extreme. Since he hadn’t had a choice in the matter, however, he had gradually calmed down slightly. To his surprise, it had actually been kind of nice to relax. It may be an enforced vacation, but vacation was vacation, and he hadn’t had one ever since the Beast Wars started. There was a truce with the Maximals (who he was sure were laughing themselves sick), so they wouldn’t be attacking; Overdose was terrifying, bullying, and/or talking the Predacons into working with each other and at least confining themselves to laughing behind his back; and Inferno kept on bringing him food. While some of it was strange and disturbing (he had flat-out refused to eat the vegetation or grubs, but Overdose had insisted he TRY Francis…and the squid hadn’t tasted that terrible for being a dead, reeking hulk), it was also food HE hadn’t had to expend any energy getting. He was starting to feel like he should be waddling around, the way Inferno kept pushing food on him.

All in all, by the third day he was almost enjoying himself. He could get some devious plotting done without having to worry about Maximal attacks, daydream about what it would be like to rule the universe, and, well, eat. There was the whole pregnancy issue, but if he stayed in his quarters and pretended to be sleeping when the sun went down, he could manage to dodge Overdose (except for the random times of the day she showed up with yet more food and ‘greetings from the Maximals,’ but she rarely stayed long enough to say hello before she was gone again). He was used to ignoring Inferno by now, and the other Predacons played innocent (badly) whenever he caught them laughing.

Except for the ‘care packages,’ life wouldn’t have been too horrible. But on the third night, Optimus showed up with Overdose. The Predacons had readied themselves for an attack, but the Maximal leader had only smirked and handed Inferno a bundle. Inferno hadn’t allowed Megatron to expose himself to a possible attack, so Megatron had only been able to watch at console inside the base as Inferno had unwrapped the bundle.

“The Maximals have decided to help Megatron,” Optimus said in a disgustingly sincere voice, “by dropping off what we like to call ‘care packages’ every night from now until he…uh, SHE lays her eggs.”

“Nesting materials!” Overdose broke in, practically bouncing as she stood by the Maximal’s side. “They’re bringing us nesting stuff! Isn’t that nice of them, Inferno?”

The ant nodded and began a speech of grateful acceptance on behalf of ‘the Queen.’ Rampage, Tarantulas, and Quickstrike lasted about six words before they ran for the base, where their howls of laughter weren’t QUITE as audible, and Optimus grinned. Overdose, Waspinator, and Inferno stared after them uncomprehendingly.

True to Optimus’ word, the Maximals had dropped off a ‘care package’ every night since, and most of them had a hard time concealing their glee. Inferno was delighted, and delivered each package to Megatron’s quarters faithfully, expecting him to make a nest out of them. Megatron had begun to suffer from the urge to chew on things. Pent up frustration, perhaps? It wasn’t that the packages didn’t contain soft grasses and a variety of other things that really DID make a comfortable nest; it was the hand-written cards contained in each package. Each one was signed by every single Maximal. And Inferno insisted on showing the other Predacons…

Megatron had originally thought that he would die from embarrassment, but now he could only hope that other Predacons or, if he was lucky, the Maximals would laugh themselves into the lava.

Then there had been the card addressed to Rampage with a note from Depth Charge that had been…interesting. He had read that one aloud to everyone before giving it to the crab. Everyone EXCEPT Rampage had been hysterical, and the crab had been completely mortified, insisting over and over again that he. Was. Not. Gay. Overdose just thought it was a cute way for the ray to ask for a date. The Maximal who brought the next ‘care package’ found herself pinned to the ground while Overdose and Inferno tried to restrain Rampage. Fortunately, Blackarachnia recognized Rattrap’s handwriting when Rampage shoved it in her face. It hadn’t helped the widow’s case any when she’d started laughing hard enough that she couldn’t stand up, but eventually she convinced Rampage that the card in his hand was a prank resulting from a letter Overdose had dropped off for Depth Charge the day before.

“Letter?” Rampage had asked blankly.

“The one you wrote to Depth Charge,” Blackarachnia said between giggles. “He REALLY lost it over that!”

“WHAT?!” The crab spun to stare at Overdose. “What letter?! Where did you get a letter from me?! I haven’t written any letters!”

“Oh, yeah,” Overdose said as she contemplated the sky. “I forgot about that…” She shrugged. “What do you mean, where did I get it? I wrote it, of course.” Blackarachnia began gasping for air between giggles, and Rampage could only sputter incredulously. She shrugged again. “I figured someone should break the ice between you two. I mean, there’s obviously a magnetic attraction going on, here…”

“He’s trying to kill me! I’m GOING to kill him!”

“So you have issues. You shouldn’t let them get between you.” Overdose smiled, then whooped in excitement and sprinted into the base with Rampage on her heels swearing that he would tear her limb from limb.

Megatron had only burrowed into his nest and tried to block out the sounds of two lunatics running around his base, breaking things (and people, if Waspinator’s shriek was anything to go by) and screaming at each other for the rest of the night. Inferno reported later that they managed to avoid damaging anything vital, but they had fought their way across the ship, gotten Waspinator stuck in a ventilation shaft, put Quickstrike offline with a stray missile, and ended up in the CR Tanks as forfeit for losing a bet with each other about how far they could throw Tarantulas. They had apparently enjoyed it all immensely.

But that had been two days ago. Right now, Megatron found that once again he was eyeing the armrest of his throne, and he dragged his attention away with some difficulty. He looked around the control platform instead.

Rampage was arguing with Overdose and Inferno about whether or not they should go hunt more squids. Overdose was citing something about protein being plentiful in seafood, which would be good for the eggs. Quickstrike and Waspinator were helping Tarantulas try and get Bob out of the Predacon computer system, and all three of them were glaring at Overdose occasionally as her whacked-out computer laughed at their efforts. For once, Tarantulas hadn’t resented being ordered to do something by Megatron; by now, every one of the Predacons was heartily sick of Bob’s strange speech patterns and erratic behavior. Overdose had solemnly sworn that she would reprogram her computer…as soon as Megatron laid the eggs.

Dinobot, of course, was still missing. Presumably stuffed in a box somewhere, his commlink appeared to no longer be working, so he was either he was dead, offline, or there was something wrong with the raptor’s commlink.

Megatron really, really wanted to chew on something.

“Like, dudes, incoming transmission,” Bob’s monotone announced. “It’s totally from the Maximal base, dudes.”

“Shut up, Bob,” most of the Predacons said automatically, then blinked as the message sank in. For once, the computer had something important to say. For most of the two weeks, Bob had been citing the reproductive abilities of every Predacon’s beast mode, listing live births and egg sizes until even WASPINATOR had been ready to bash the computer to bits. Overdose had shrugged it off and refused to ask Bob to stop.

“Like, shutting up, dudes.”

“Wait! Put the transmission through,” Megatron ordered. Silence greeted his command, and he sighed. “Overdose…”

She grinned sheepishly. “You’re all gonna have to apologize to him. He gets sensitive when anyone besides me tells him to cram it.”

The Predacons muttered; the Predacons protested; the Predacons complained; and the Predacons mumbled, “Sorry, Bob,” in a ragged chorus because the Predacons were deathly curious about why the slag the Maximals were calling THIS time.

The monitor lit in front of Megatron lit with the image of Silverbolt. “Megatron!”

“Yesss..?” the tyrant asked warily. He was learning to dread the infrequent calls the Maximals made ‘to check up’ on him, but so far Silverbolt hadn’t personally taunted him. Not that it made him like the Maximal any better, but it was a thought.

The fuzor fidgeted uncomfortably, and the Predacons edged closer behind Megatron, drawn to the sight like sharks to blood on the water. “Well,” Silverbolt started, “I’ve called to apologize. Over the past couple weeks I’ve come to realize something about myself, and it’s made me feel incredibly guilty. I’ve realized that all this time that I’ve been fighting you…” Silverbolt looked down as if he ashamed, and Megatron wondered in a vague, hopeful way if Silverbolt was going to defect to the Predacons. The fuzor’s next words ended that thought as he looked up again with his spark in his eyes, begging for forgiveness, “…I’ve struck blows against a female. I hope that you can forgive me, Megatron, for chivalry demands that I never hurt you. If there’s any way for me to make it up to you-“

Whatever else Silverbolt was going to say was left unspoken as Megatron’s tail shattered the screen. The tyrannosaur bellowed, furious and frustrated, and Inferno hurried forward to try and soothe him as he stomped on the broken console. It took a while, but Megatron finally stopped throwing parts of the monitor around and just stood on it, head hanging as he panted.

“Hey, I was watching that,” Tarantulas said plaintively, and a muffled snicker went through the others. They assumed innocent expressions when Megatron’s head snapped up, though, and the tyrant could only glare at them while Overdose blinked, puzzled by the laughter at what she saw as a heart-felt attempt at apologizing.

“I’m going for a walk,” the T-Rex said with icy control, and he turned to stalk from the control platform with Inferno hurrying after him.

“Bugs! Will Megatron eat bugs?”

“Probably not. We can try, though. How did you gather bugs, Overdose? Most of these are flying all over…”

“Oh, I didn’t. Hold this deer, Rampage.”

“I’m not sure it can still be called that at this stage in its decomposition, Overdose.”

“Then how’d ya git ‘em?”

“Huh? What? The bugs? Well, they were grubs at the time, but they’ve obviously grown. Don’t touch that box, Quickstrike!”

“Ain’t it food?”

“Um…yeah. Kind of.”

“Oooh, zzhiny zztripe!”

“Where’s that, Bug-boy?…uuuuh, why’s there a sticker on ‘ere?”

“I put it there.”

“Let me see, freak. You and the wasp can take this ‘deer’ up to Megatron’s quarters.”

“But-“

“Wazzpinator not-“

“Or I can kill you and leave YOU in Megatron’s quarters.”

“I didn’t know they could move that fast.”

“It takes proper motivation. Why does this sticker say ‘In Emergency, Eat Me’?”

“Because. Hey, where’s Tarantulas?”

“He’s still working on the computer. What’s in here, Overdose?”

“Don’t open it!”

“Overdose…”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Overdose..!”

“What? You really don’t!”

“Just tell me. What’s in here?”

“An emergency snack.”

“I can see that. Can’t you ever give a straight answer?”

“That’s my final answer.”

“Wha--? ARGH! Overdose, just tell me what’s in here!”

“Um…well, remember Dinobot..?”

“……”

“See? You didn’t really want to know.”

“…you could have at least put air holes.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

At least they let him out of the base. Sure, they wouldn’t let him fly (Overdose had taken him aside and…convinced…him not to), but at least he could take walks around the area. With an escort, that is, but enduring one of Inferno’s panic attacks was enough to convince him of the wisdom of allowing the ant to tag along. Despite his constant attempts to convince Inferno that he really wasn’t having babies, the ant wasn’t listening to him. He would do whatever it took to protect the colony, up to and including locking Megatron in his quarters if he wandered off without someone to guard him again. So, Inferno got to come along when the T-Rex went walking. The walks had actually been helpful in that he could get away from the others, and he had also found a few places to set up more autoguns to cover the perimeter.

Megatron wasn’t looking for new places to hide autoguns today, however. He wanted to rip something apart, and an unfortunate animal of some kind ended up as the ripee. The tyrannosaur wasn’t really that hungry, but after tearing the poor mammal to bloody shreds, the appeal of fresh meat as opposed to the carrion Inferno normally brought him…

He was tossing his head back to swallow a mouthful when he saw the Maximals standing beside him. He froze for a long, horrified moment, suddenly aware of the fact that he was outside the Predacon base, stuck in his beast mode, with only Inferno along to protect him. The food went down in what seemed like a solid lump as Megatron whirled to face Optimus, Rattrap, Blackarachnia, and Silverbolt. They in turn studied the blood-covered mess of a Predacon standing in front of them, growling defensively and lashing his tail as he glowered at them, the remains of his meal scattered across the landscape. To them, it looked like Megatron’s beast mode had taken over with a vengeance.

Vengeance, not surprisingly, was on the top of Megatron’s growing list of Things To Do When I Can Transform Again. There were a lot of people he wanted to mangle for what was happening, but Optimus was right underneath Overdose on the list. The femme had eventually told how Optimus had convinced her to keep the truce a secret, and Megatron had been able to guess from how the Maximals reacted to the situation that the Maximal leader was responsible for things getting out of control. Just thinking about it made Megatron want to chew on something. Specifically, Optimus.

Inferno had been watching the approaching Maximals with caution but no particular alarm. After all, there was a truce, and they HAD been dropping off ‘care packages’ for the Royalty. He saw no reason to disturb Megatron while he fed, but now that Megatron had seen them, he seemed to be distressed. “My Queen, perhaps we should return to the colony,” Inferno said worriedly.

The Maximals all grinned when Megatron winced and shot a glare at the ant. “Don’t want ya ta get stressed out,” Rattrap said in a helpful kind of way, and Inferno nodded vigorously. Megatron winced again.

“Right,” Blackarachnia seconded with a LOVELY smile. “The stress of being outside exposed to the elements might harm the eggs,” she said earnestly, and Megatron growled at her, but Inferno was already beginning to chivvy him in the direction of the Predacon base.

“Shall we accompany her?” Silverbolt asked Optimus with perfectly sincere concern. The other three Maximals almost lost their hold on their laughter while Megatron half-heartedly snarled at them all, but Optimus reined his in enough to answer the fuzor.

“Of course, Silverbolt,” he said gravely. “Inferno, we’ll just be flying escort for Megatron. Just in case, you know.” He deliberately didn’t say in case of WHAT, and Inferno glanced around in paranoid protectiveness. “Maximals?”

“Beast mode!” Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, and Rattrap responded cheerfully, and they paired up to fly above the glum tyrannosaur.

Megatron plodded along, wishing that the humiliation would just hurry up and kill him. “I hate you, yess,” he snapped at Optimus, and the rat riding on the Maximal leader’s back merely gave a mocking salute. “I’m going, you slagging excuse for a Predacon!” he yelled at Inferno next, then groaned as the ant immediately began to apologize for upsetting him. That cued Silverbolt to fly closer so he could continue the apology he had begun earlier, and the other Maximals maintained a respectful silence so they could listen to the T-Rex grind his teeth.

They hovered, chuckling to themselves, when Megatron was forced to stop and cough up his meal, and that gave Inferno and Silverbolt something new to fuss about all the way back to base.

“Morning sickness!”

“No, Maximal sickness.”

“It’s gotta be morning sickness.”

“It’s not morning sickness, Overdose. I’m not having eggs, remember?”

“No.”

“Well, I could hope, yess.”

“It’s been two weeks. Any idea when you’re due?”

“…go AWAY.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“GrrRRRRrrrr…”

Megatron was chewing on his throne’s armrest when Overdose dragged Tarantulas onto the control platform. Literally, she dragged him. The spider kept TRYING to get to his feet, but she was moving too fast for him to succeed. The other Predacons didn’t even look up from their continuing attempts to reprogram the Predacon computer systems, but Megatron spat out a piece of the armrest and raised an eyebrow at her as she threw the spider at his feet. Had she caught him plotting something treacherous? Was he responsible for Bob the computer’s continued presence? Had he stolen some of the gathered food stores for himself?

“Give Megatron a physical,” she ordered flatly, and this time the others looked up in surprise. Megatron’s eyes widened.

Tarantulas gaped at her. “What?!”

“It’s been three weeks,” Overdose said in that same level, reasonably, completely insane tone of voice. “I want to make sure she’s healthy and the eggs are doing fine.”

“Um.” Tarantulas looked to the others for help, but they suddenly became very busy again. Inferno was on level three, reorganizing the food stores and making sure the nursery was spotless, leaving Tarantulas to deal with Overdose’s new twist to the situation. And right now she looked about ready to twist HIM if he didn’t deal with it quickly! “Er…okay, Megatron,” he began awkwardly, “do you want to go down to my lab?”

The Predacon tyrant’s mind raced. “My quarters are fine,” he said coldly.

“Oh. I guess that’ll work.” The spider shrugged and started to follow the T-Rex from the command platform, but Overdose’s hand snagged him by the shoulder, turning him to face her.

“Try anything funny, and I’LL be laughing,” she promised. “YOU, on the other hand…”

“Tehehe…hehehehehe! Right.” He gulped nervously, staggered when she released him, and turned to walk hurriedly after Megatron.

The tyrant was waiting for him in his quarters, and he started pacing the moment the door closed securely behind the spider. “You know what the result of a physical will be just as well as I do,” Megatron said, “but it occurs to me that Inferno might listen to you if you tell him without Overdose present, yesss. Make it official enough to convince him that you actually DID a physical. I’ll distract Overdose. According to Quickstrike, Dinobot is in a box in one of the rooms on level three. Get him out and into a CR Tank. If we can convince Inferno, then between us we should be able to convince Overdose.” He turned to regard Tarantulas. “Understood?”

The spider had the guts to laugh at him. “Why should I do any of that? Having Overdose torment YOU instead of me for once is the best thing that’s happened around here since Scorponok died. I have every intention of letting it go on for as long as possible!”

For a moment, Megatron was too angry to speak. Then a cunning look entered his optics. “Why? Because if you DON’T, I’ll make you regret it.”

Tarantulas looked skeptically at the transformation-locked ‘bot in front of him. “Yeah, hehehe. And how’s that?”

The tyrannosaur leaned forward and whispered, “I’ll tell Overdose YOU’RE the reason I’m not going to have any eggs.”

“Where’d you say that box was?”

“-and she asked ME to walk with her!” Overdose skipped around outside the blast doors happily, having adjusted to the way the Maximals tended to fall down laughing when she told them about her night at the Predacon base. “It was so much fun! She’s never asked me to go with her before, so I was really excited, and when we got back Tarantulas told me that everything was fine with Megatron, except he seemed really nervous and said I should come back around noon so he could talk to me some more. Why do you think he wants me to do that?” She paused and waited expectantly for someone to answer her question, but the Maximals were too busy trying to breathe between spasms of laughter to say anything. “Well, I’d better get going. Maybe it’s about Megatron’s due date!” With a goodbye wave, the insane sea slug took off.

Eventually, Blackarachnia recovered enough to go inside the base and try to find Silverbolt, who always avoided the other Maximals’ tendency to laugh at Megatron’s situation. He found nothing funny in the Predacon leader’s condition, and he spent his time trying to find a way to apologize to ‘her.’ The Maximals found it hilarious that Megatron apparently smashed another monitor every time Silverbolt called.

“How long do you think she’ll keep this up?” Depth Charge asked from flat on his back.

Rattrap, in a similar position, shrugged and chuckled. “Dunno.”

“Overdose IS persistent,” Optimus said as he sat up. “If nothing else, we’ve had three weeks to build defenses Megatron never gave us the chance to before.”

“What do you think Tarantulas wants to talk to her about?” Rhinox asked nobody in particular.

Overdose took one look at the tyrant picking at his chewed-up armrest and froze in mid-step. “You shouldn’t be in your robot mode!” she wailed. “The eggs!”

Megatron forced himself to smile. “Overdose…about the eggs…Inferno has something to say to you, yesss.” He glared at the ant standing beside him until Inferno reluctantly stepped forward.

All of the happy, industrious energy seemed to have drained out of him, leaving him slump-shouldered with shocked grief. “The Queen doesn’t have any eggs, drone,” he mumbled, and Megatron flinched slightly at the title. “There will be no new soldiers for the colony.”

The femme blinked at him, then sighed in exasperation. “Inferno, you shouldn’t let the Queen convince you of things when she’s like this,” she scolded.

“It wasn’t the Queen,” Inferno said numbly. “Tarantulas told me.”

Tilted almond optics narrowed as they swept over the gathered Predacons and fastened on the spider. He was trying very hard to hide behind… “How did YOU get loose?” Overdose asked indignantly. “You’re the emergency food stash!”

Dinobot snarled. “Fool! There are no eggs, so you don’t need food!”

“No!” Overdose shook her head in denial, and her eyes narrowed further. Her hands curled into shaking fists, and she took a step towards Megatron. “NO!”

“Yes,” Megatron snapped. “There are no eggs, no larva, and…” the smile came easier this time, “…no reason for the truce with the Maximals. Which makes the situation perfect for a surprise attack, yess. They won’t expect it, and it may be time for our complete victory!” The sea slug transformer stared at him for a moment more before the color trickled out of her fins, leaving her ashen. The Predacons watched her nervously, Inferno edging between the throne and the femme, but Megatron relaxed as a matching smile curved her lips. He congratulated himself on appealing to her bloodlust. “Are you with us, Overdose?”

“Of course, Megatron. I’ve always been with you.” The darkened femme slowly paced forward, brushing Inferno aside without appearing to notice him, and her smile turning into something more predatory when she finally stopped before his throne. “I spent three weeks preparing for eggs, now didn’t I?” she asked with that false, mocking innocence, and she leapt forward. The Predacon tyrant started to lift his tail-gun, but Overdose was too close. He did manage to get his other arm up defensively, but she slammed it into his chest and held her nails in position to rake down his face. With any other ‘bot, that wouldn’t have been a threat. But Overdose painted her nails with poison… “And I. Want. Eggs,” she hissed, face-to-face with him.

He made himself meet her optics. Dinobot and Inferno had realized they couldn’t shoot Overdose without her damaging her hostage, and so had Megatron. “There aren’t any,” he said as calmly as he could.

Those swirling optics narrowed to mere slits. “Then I suggest you find some by the time I come back,” she purred, and her feet braced against Megatron’s legs. Jumping straight up, she vanished into the darkness above the command platform even as Inferno and Dinobot shot after her.

Quickstrike looked between the two frustrated Predacons and the ‘bot sitting motionless in the throne. “Uh…are we gonna go kick Maxi kiester, or what?” he asked.

Megatron continued staring straight ahead, but his hand dabbed at the tiny cut on his forehead. To his relief, there wasn’t any mech-fluid, so Overdose’s nail hadn’t pierced that far. “No,” he said in an almost absent voice. “I have a new mission for you. All of you.” Now he turned his head to look at the fuzor, then at the other Predacons. Rampage and Tarantulas seemed to have found Overdose’s demand incredibly funny, but they stifled their chuckles in the interest of self-preservation. “Find me an egg!”

Optimus looked at Rhinox. Rhinox looked at Rattrap. Rattrap looked at Silverbolt. Silverbolt was already looking at Blackarachnia. Blackarachnia looked at Depth Charge. Depth Charge looked at Cheetor.

As one, they all turned to look at Overdose. She beamed back at them, her fins rippling with rapid-fire color changes of excited yellows and blues.

“You’re kidding, right?” Cheetor asked uncertainly. She shook her head and upped the wattage of her smile.

“Ya gotta be kiddin’,” Rattrap insisted. Overdose shook her head again. “Dere ain’t no way-ya can’t tell me-“

Overdose just smiled hugely and giggled. “Yep! Inferno’s already calling it ‘my Princess,’ and I told Tarantulas he should baby-sit it since he was so certain she wasn’t going to have any and Megatron’s already said SHE’S not going to be the one to care for it. But I’ve been up for a couple days in a row now, so I’m gonna go sleep.” And with that, she bounced through the blast doors and into the base.

The Maximals were left to stare at each other in disbelief. “Megatron laid an egg.” Optimus made the statement first. “MEGATRON actually LAID an EGG.”

Silverbolt, who by now had been persuaded that Megatron couldn’t possibly do what Overdose had just told them he’d done, looked understandably confused. “How?”

“Do we want to know?” Blackarachnia asked wryly.

“HEY!” Overdose bounded back into their midst. “Did I mention that Tarantulas figured out her beast mode already? A turkey! Is that neat or what?” And she left again, leaving stunned silence in her wake once more.

“A…turkey,” Rattrap said slowly. Just as slowly, a grin spread across his face. “A more ‘ppropriate beast mode…”

“Well, that explains it,” Rhinox said, and he joined the others in laughing.

A faint echo of the Maximals’ hilarity reached Overdose were she had made herself comfortable. Drowsy after the ups and downs of the last few weeks, she stared at nothing. “Bob?”

“Like, dudette?” her computer responded. Despite Rhinox’s attempts at dissuading her and uninstalling the computer himself, Bob had invaded the Maximal computer systems as easily as he’d gotten into the Predacon ones in order to keep the sea slug updated on events at the Predacon base if necessary.

“Don’t call me that. And are tyrannosaur eggs SUPPOSED to be that small?” she asked with sleepy curiosity.

“Information, like, totally unavailable, dudette. Do you, like, want me to complete the gnarly report on, like, the Predacon reproductive abilities?”

That would practically guarantee she’d go to sleep soon. “Yeah.” About a sentence into Bob’s report, however, she shot upright, completely awake. “What?!”

“Dudette? Should I, like, repeat it?”

“Yes!”

So Bob did.

Outside the blast doors, the Maximals could clearly hear Overdose’s ecstatic reaction:

“I CAN HAVE BABIES!!!!!!”

“I’m going on patrol,” Depth Charge volunteered immediately.

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