The six of them squeezed into a rented room above a refueling hall, the kind of space meant for transient dockworkers and shift crews, not a team that had just raised a structure out of ruin. The ceiling was low, the walls thin, and every berth rattled faintly when someone shifted too hard. The light from the lamps on the table flickered, buzzing against loose wires, throwing uneven shadows across dented plating and tired optics.
Cramped, noisy, and worn—but it had what they needed.
Showers.
Recharge berths.
And a flat surface to sit around.
They looked out of place here, a ragged crew with energon stains dried dark against their seams, slag dust ground into the joints of their hands and legs, scuffs and scorch marks layered over their armor. The air clung with the smell of old metal, oil, and the acrid tang of chemicals Mixmaster hadn’t quite managed to wash off.
But the first thing they did wasn’t collapse into berths or slump into chairs.
The first thing they did was clean.
One by one they cycled through the showers, water hissing down drains that hadn’t seen this much grit in vorns. The grime of the arena—dust, slag, spilled compounds, residue that clung to their vents—ran off in dark streams, circling into nothing until their plating gleamed again.
Bonecrusher emerged with his armor scrubbed raw, looking heavier but cleaner, the tension in his shoulders eased. Scavenger fussed longer than he needed to, hands still jittering even as the dirt slid away. Long Haul’s bucket rang hollow under the stream, the dents and scratches showing bare where the filth had hidden them. Mixmaster scrubbed with quick, twitchy motions, restless even in the rinse, steam fogging around his frame. Hook cleaned with the same precision he brought to repairs, every line of his plating wiped spotless, not a trace left behind. And Scrapper, last to step out, bore the look of someone who had carried grime like armor—and shed it at last.
When they gathered again around the table, vents running easier, plating bright under the flicker of the lamps, they no longer looked like workers caught in someone else’s shadow.
They looked like mechs forged clean out of the filth, ready to be seen for what they had become.
Hook waited until the last of them was clean before he moved. His hand dipped into subspace, retrieving his datapad with the same precise motion he used for his repair tools. He set it on the table with a sharp tap that cut through the low hum of vents. His optics swept over each of them in turn, methodical and steady, the medic’s tone turning crisp, stripped of fatigue or pride—only business.
“Alright,” he said, plating gleaming under the half-working lamps. “If we’re going to show up looking like the future, we need more than polish. I’m making a list. Broken struts, missing panels, plating too worn—everything gets replaced.”
His fingers tapped against the datapad in quick succession, a rhythm as clipped as his words.
He pointed first at Bonecrusher. “Your left leg’s still giving under strain. We need a new joint brace before it locks up mid-job.”
Bonecrusher’s vents flared, a low huff breaking from his chest, but he didn’t argue. His optics narrowed, but his silence spoke enough.
He knew Hook was right.
Hook’s gaze shifted, pinning Scavenger next. “Your hands need tuning. The small actuators are lagging. I’ll mark replacements.”
Scavenger ducked his head, shoulders curling inward, muttering under his vents. “Knew you’d notice.”
His hands clicked together nervously, the sound sharper now that the grime was gone.
“Long Haul,” Hook continued without pause, “your bucket’s hydraulics are running hot. You need a new cooling line. Mix, you’ve got a cracked vent fin—won’t show now, but it will if you don’t fix it. Scrapper—your optics are dimmed from slag dust. You’ll need recalibration lenses.”
The datapad screen flickered faint as he finished marking notes, the sound of his fingers moving across its surface sharp in the cramped room.
Scrapper’s optics narrowed.
“And you?”
Hook paused.
“I’m fine.”
Scrapper gave him a flat look. “You’ve been teaching me systems, Hook. Cybertronians are systems.”
The room went still.
Hook’s mouth tightened, but after a beat he looked back down at the datapad. “Fine. My right wrist joint is sticking under fine-tool work. I need replacement micro-bearings and a new optic calibration lens.”
Bonecrusher’s optics narrowed immediately. “You were going to leave that off.”
“I was prioritizing.”
“You were skipping yourself,” Scrapper corrected.
Hook’s fingers stilled over the datapad.
For half a breath, no one spoke.
Then Long Haul rumbled low from where he stood against the wall. “Put it on the list.”
Hook looked up at him.
Long Haul’s expression didn’t shift. “All of it.”
Scavenger nodded quickly, hands clicking with nervous conviction. “Yeah. All of it. You fix us, we fix you too.”
Mixmaster huffed, optics bright. “That is how systems work.”
Bonecrusher gave Hook a look that left no room for argument.
Hook held out for one stubborn second longer, then exhaled through his vents and marked the items down.
“There,” he said. “Happy?”
“No,” Bonecrusher grunted. “But I’m less annoyed.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of Hook’s mouth.
When he finally sat back, shoulders straight, he looked over them once more.
“We’ll source the parts tomorrow,” Hook said, voice firm with the finality of a diagnosis delivered. “By the time we stand in front of Megatron again, none of us will look like we’ve been left to rust.”
The words settled heavy but not unwelcome. In the flickering lamplight, six mechs sat cleaner than they had in vorns, the weight of Hook’s list binding them tighter.
That left one last question, hanging heavy in the air.
It clung to them thicker than the steam still curling from the showers, heavier than Hook’s list of repairs. Scrapper leaned forward over the table, elbows grinding into the dented metal, optics narrowed with the weight of it. His voice came rough but certain, striking the stillness like a tool on steel.
Scrapper’s optics lingered on their armor, clean but mismatched.
“Paint.”
The word froze them.
Every vent slowed.
Every optic flicked toward him.
Fresh paint wasn’t just cosmetic.
Not here.
Not now.
It was declaration.
It was identity.
“What kind?” Scavenger asked softly, his voice pitched almost too quiet for the cramped room. As though the wrong answer might shatter the fragile thing they’d built these past days. His hands twitched together, restless against his thighs.
Scrapper’s fingers tapped the table in a steady rhythm, processor grinding, sketching the idea in silence before the words followed.
“We’re a team now. We should look like it. One team. Bright enough to stand out, strong enough to be remembered.”
Mixmaster tilted his head, optics glinting with an edge of manic brightness.
“Lime green,” he suggested without hesitation. His tone was sharp, but the reasoning followed clear. “Industrial. The color of foundation mechs, but bold. Loud. A caste might sneer, but no one forgets it.”
Bonecrusher grunted, the low sound rough with agreement. “Bright like hazard paint. Suits us.”
His optics gleamed faintly, pride already curling behind the gravel in his voice.
Scavenger’s hands stilled for a rare second, his optics brightening around the thought. “No one’ll miss us,” he said, voice soft but glowing with nervous pride.
Scrapper’s mouth edged into a faint grin. “That’s the point.”
Long Haul shifted against the wall, considering it with the same steady weight he gave every load. “Green stands out. Good for a work crew. Good for a build team.”
“It needs something darker,” Scrapper said, dragging the vision out into the room. “To ground it. To show we’re not just workers anymore.”
Hook’s optics flicked toward him, sharp as the cut of his voice.
“Purple?”
The word itself hung like a shadow.
They all thought of it—the Decepticon insignia carved deep into Megatron’s chestplate, the way it gleamed under the arena lights, a color that seared into every processor watching. A mark that demanded recognition, not permission.
Mixmaster’s fingers twitched faster against his datapad. “Purple makes the green harsher. Better contrast.”
“Decepticon colors,” Scavenger murmured, almost reverent.
Bonecrusher’s jaw tightened, but not in rejection. His optics moved from Hook, to Scrapper, to the others, and something settled in him.
“Then we choose it,” he said. “Not because anyone stamped it on us. Because we know what side we’re standing on.”
Long Haul gave one slow nod. “Green and purple.”
Hook’s voice came quieter, but no less certain. “Ours.”
Scrapper’s fingers stilled on the tabletop as the colors snapped into place across their frames in his mind. His optics narrowed once more, and the decision hardened in his chest like cured alloy.
“Yeah,” he said at last, the word leaving no space for doubt. “Lime green and purple. Not because the caste gave it to us. Because we chose it. Because we’re not theirs anymore.”
They sat around the table in silence for a long moment, the weight of what they had chosen settling over them like fresh armor.
The hum of the lamps filled the cramped room, their flicker throwing shadows across plating scrubbed clean but still scarred by labor. Outside, the city’s constant buzz pressed in—engines in the distance, the grind of Kaon’s restless night—but none of it touched the stillness inside.
For the first time, they could picture it.
Six mechs stepping out together, gleaming in lime green and purple, not hidden under the dust of yards or the grime of forgotten shifts.
No longer overlooked.
No longer dismissed as expendable labor.
They would stand marked, bright enough to blind, unified enough to be undeniable. Not broken scraps anymore, but something new—something built.
The image hung between them, so sharp it almost hurt to hold.
Then Bonecrusher cracked a grin, wide and jagged, breaking the heavy silence with the scrape of teeth on steel.
“Guess we’d better live up to the paint, then.”
The grin pulled something taut through the room, and the tension eased just enough for vents to release, for shoulders to shift. Pride flickered in their optics, unspoken but unmistakable, carried in the shared vision of colors that would brand them into history.
The repairs would come first.
Then the paint.
Not assigned.
Not inherited.
Chosen.
And when they stood before Megatron again, no one would have to ask whether they belonged together.
