The roar of the departing crowd echoed again overhead, rolling through the metal like thunder. For the first time, Scrapper felt what Bonecrusher must have felt a cycle ago—that this job wasn’t just about clearing the wreckage left behind by gladiators. It was about surviving a system that only ever paid them to break things.
The two of them sat on the edge of the arena floor, backs pressed to the cold wall, the sand-streaked grit rough beneath them. Beyond the gate, the next fight was already raging, the roar of the crowd rattling the wall at their backs, punctuated by the brutal clang of steel on steel and the shriek of hydraulics tearing into each other.
Dust and smoke seeped through the seams, coating their plating in a fine film that clung to every vent and joint. Neither spoke at first, their vents pulling slow and heavy as they let the noise wash over them. In the silence between them was the unspoken truth: they didn’t belong here, but they were here anyway, because the caste had left them nowhere else to go.
Scrapper stared at the dirt ground into his hands, flexing his fingers slowly. Bonecrusher tipped his head back against the wall, optics half-shuttered, looking every bit as tired as Scrapper felt.
Bonecrusher leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, vents pulling steady but ragged under the din of the crowd. His voice carried low, half lost to the clash and roar beyond the gate, but steady enough that Scrapper caught every word.
“I don’t mind the work,” he said, optics fixed on the sand at his feet. “Demolition’s what I’m built for. Always has been. Feels right to bring something down when it’s supposed to come down.”
His jaw tightened, the heavy lines of his frame rigid against the wall.
He paused, vents hissing slow, before the rest came out, rougher.
“But Hook…” Bonecrusher’s hands curled into fists, grime caked into the seams of his plating. “Another cycle of academy fees comes due, and I keep hauling here when I should be home, just to make sure he’s got a future that doesn’t look like this.”
The noise of the fight swelled—a body hitting the sand, the crowd erupting above them—but Bonecrusher didn’t look up.
Not for me, his posture said.
For him.
Scrapper’s optics lingered on him, something tight pulling in his own chest. It was the first time Bonecrusher had said more than a handful of words to him, the first time he’d heard the weight under the brute strength. And for the first time, he understood why Bonecrusher kept coming back, night after night.
Scrapper tilted his head, optics narrowing as he studied Bonecrusher slumped beside him. After a long silence, he let out a short, humorless laugh that didn’t touch his optics.
“At least you like what you do,” he said, the words heavy with something close to envy. “Me? I don’t get to do what I want. They’ll hire me to knock walls down, tear apart frames, drag garbage from the pits. But ask to build something?”
He gave a sharp shake of his head, grit falling from his plating.
“Doesn’t matter that I know how. Doesn’t matter that I can see the designs clear as day. Front loader frame, they say. So that’s it. Demolition, destruction. Never creation.”
Another thunder of cheers rolled through in a wave of sound that rattled the wall behind them. Scrapper kept his gaze fixed forward, fists tightening against his knees.
Bonecrusher turned, frown creasing his faceplate. His expression had shifted, something tightening in his optics that wasn’t dismissal but curiosity, maybe even a flicker of respect.
“What do you mean, ‘see designs’?” he asked, voice pitched low, steady, like he wasn’t about to let the words pass unanswered.
“I mean,” Scrapper said, his tone sharpening, every word carrying the weight of long-buried anger, “I can stand in front of a pile of steel and already know what it could be. A tower, a bridge, a whole city block.”
His hands moved unconsciously, sketching lines in the air that only he could see.
“It’s all there, clear as day. Ratios, supports, load-bearing spans. Like the design writes itself in my head.”
He vented hard, the noise rough, scraping.
“But I can’t even get into a library to learn more. Not with my caste. Not with this frame.”
He struck a fist lightly against his chest, the clang echoing in the narrow space.
“Front loader, they say. Demolition worker. So that’s all I’ll ever be to them.”
His voice cracked harder at the end, carrying more bitterness than volume.
“They don’t care if we’re smart. All they care about is if we can tear something down fast enough to make room for the next pointless rebuild.”
A wave of shouting shook dust loose from the girders, but neither mech moved. Bonecrusher just watched him, expression tight, optics unreadable in the shifting forge-glow. For once, Scrapper didn’t care if it sounded like complaining. He’d carried those words too long to swallow them now.
The crowd roared again as a body slammed into the far wall, the impact rattling the girders overhead until dust sifted down like ash. Scrapper ducked his head against it, brushing grit from his optics, while Bonecrusher didn’t move at all—just sat there, shoulders hunched, letting the noise pass over him like it always did.
For a long moment, he said nothing. His optics dimmed, the glow faint against the haze of smoke creeping under the gate. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and flat, but heavy with something truer than anything he’d said all night.
“You know,” he began slowly, “if Hook had your head for building, I’d never let him step foot in these pits either.”
His jaw worked, tightening as he stared at the sand in front of him.
“You’re right. They waste us.”
The words seemed to settle in him as he said them, heavier than he expected, like something he had known in his struts for years but had never dragged up into language before.
His optics shifted toward the gate, toward the roar of the crowd, toward the unseen match beyond it.
“Waste everything.”
The crowd above them howled again, hungry for blood. But down here, in the shadow of the wall, the words hung heavier than the noise, heavier than the wreckage waiting for them when the gates opened again.
Scrapper leaned back against the cold wall, vents pulling slow, steady breaths through the smoke seeping under the gate. His optics stayed fixed on the iron doors as the clang of the match carried on beyond them, every crash and scream another reminder of where they were—and what they weren’t allowed to be.
“One day,” he said, his voice rough but steady, “I’ll build something anyway. Don’t care if it’s with scrap, don’t care if it’s in the shadows.”
His fists curled loosely against his knees, as if gripping an invisible blueprint.
“I’ll build, because they can’t stop me forever.”
The gate rattled with another impact, sand shifting under their pedes. Bonecrusher turned his head slightly, studying him with an intensity that cut past the haze. No mocking, no disbelief. Just the recognition of a mech who understood what it meant to fight for something no one else thought possible.
Bonecrusher gave a short nod, rough but sincere, his voice cutting steady through the din.
“One day, I hope kids like Hook get to live in whatever you build.”
The words lingered, heavier than the roar beyond the gates. For a moment, the arena’s sounds blurred into nothing—just a distant hum of noise neither of them cared to hear. The dust, the smoke, the rattle of steel all fell away, leaving only the quiet weight of truth between them.
Two mechs working themselves raw.
Not because they wanted to be here.
Not because they loved the pits.
But because the caste had left them nowhere else to go.
Scrapper’s optics flicked to Bonecrusher, then back to the floor, his chest tight with something he couldn’t name. Bonecrusher stayed still, shoulders hunched but steady, the exhaustion in his frame tempered by the flicker of conviction in his words.
For the first time since stepping into the arena, Scrapper didn’t feel entirely alone.