Devastator: Origin of the Constructicons

They stood like that for a long beat, the alcove holding them close as if it understood the new shape it had been forced to contain. Hook’s palms still smelled of energon and solder; his shoulders had a new set to them, as if the weight of a future had already started to settle into his joints. His repair kit rested in subspace where it always waited, no longer something he had to think about carrying. It was simply part of him now—ready when needed, like the work itself. Bonecrusher loomed at his side, a silent column of muscle and dust, watching every face as if his life depended on making sure none of them slipped away. Scrapper turned the comlink over in his hand like a relic he hadn’t expected to touch—its edges bit into his fingers, cold and real. Long Haul’s pedes planted steady, an immovable line in the echoing room. Mixmaster’s optics darted from the device to the door and back again, already working through possibilities he didn’t yet have the words to voice. Scavenger kept his hands clasped to hide the tremor that had started as fear and was settling into something fiercer. They were no longer just workers at the pits, no longer only the faces that passed in the smoke and heat. Megatron had named them. He had given each a place and a purpose, and the alcove had swallowed the names whole until nothing sounded the same. The thought of being claimed sent a cold thrill through them—not comfort, not quite, but a charged sort of belonging that tasted like danger and promise at the same time. Outside, the arena’s roar had dwindled to a distant rumble. The Kaon streets beyond the heavy doors lay under a slick of smog and neon, quieter than the night seemed to deserve. For a moment none of them moved to leave; their shifts were done, their bodies wanted rest, but something in each held them rooted. Two days sat between them and whatever came next, and the time felt both like a breath and a countdown. Scrapper finally let the comlink rest against his palm and spoke, voice low and rough with the shock of it all. “That… actually just happened.” No one laughed. No one scoffed. They only let the silence stretch and settle, each of them turning the new truth over in their processors, feeling the hard edges of a choice that had been set before them and the slow, steady pull toward it. Scavenger’s voice hung thin in the smog-heavy quiet, his hands twitching against each other as if to stop the clicking. “He… he named us. Told us what we are. Like he already knew. Like we’ve always been a team, even if we didn’t say it.” His optics darted from face to face, looking for something solid. “So… what do we do now?” Long Haul shifted his weight, the loader racks creaking as he rumbled deep in his chest. “He said two days. Soundwave will tell us where.” His tone stayed flat, but the weight in it made the words land like iron. “Feels simple enough.” Yet under the calm, there was a warning—nothing about this was simple, and they all knew it. The others didn’t answer at once. The streets buzzed faintly with neon hum, the silence between them thicker than the arena dust still clinging to their plating. What Megatron had left them wasn’t just orders. It was a choice they hadn’t made yet. And the pull of it pressed heavy on all their frames. Mixmaster tapped restless fingers against his leg, optics bright with calculation, and the words came out clipped but honest. “If we do this, we’re walking away from the lives the caste chained us to.” His voice ran tight with consequence, but underneath it a spark of hunger glowed—an appetite for something bigger than the slow rot of their assigned roles. “No going back.” He paused, optics flicking toward the comlink in Scrapper’s hand. “And maybe that was the point.” Bonecrusher looked down at Hook, who stood straight despite the long night, energon still faintly marking his hands. The older mech’s pride had always been a rough thing—more like a flare than a soft warmth—and it cracked through the gravel of his voice now. “He wanted you as his medic,” Bonecrusher said. “You. And he already trusted you with his life.” The words lingered, heavy and unforced, and in them was a confession Bonecrusher had never thought to make aloud: that his sacrifice had purpose, that someone had seen it and answered. Around them the alcove hummed with small noises—metal cooling, a rag being folded, a distant murmur of late-shift workers—sounds that suddenly felt like the soundtrack to a hinge turning. No one rushed to fill the silence that followed. Each of them was thinking through the same hard fact in their own way: this would change everything, or it would break them. Either way, it would not let them stay the same. Hook swallowed, but his gaze didn’t waver. “I told him not without you,” he said. “Any of you. If we’re going… we’re going together.” The words landed like steel against stone. For a moment none of them moved—just six mechs standing under the arena’s shadow, each one caught between the weight of what they had been and the pull of what they might become. The silence after was heavy. Bonecrusher’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, pride and worry tangled in his chest. Scrapper’s optics dropped to the comlink in his hand, the little unit suddenly feeling like both a chain and a key. Mixmaster shifted on his pedes, processor already running equations, formulas, projections of futures that had never been permitted to them. Scavenger hugged his arms tight, trying to still the tremor in his hands, but there was a light in his optics no overseer had ever sparked. Long Haul stood steady, loader racks creaking faintly, the only sound he made as the weight of unspoken vows pressed heavier than any cargo he’d hauled. They weren’t just workers anymore. They weren’t just scrap collectors and demolitionists and loaders. Megatron had pulled them into something larger, something dangerous, something that felt like destiny—and now Hook had bound them to it with words no one could deny. And then, almost as one, their comm units chimed. A single ping echoed between them, sharp and metallic in the still night. Confused, each mech checked his account. And every one of them froze. [Transfer complete.] Scrapper frowned. “Transfer?” Another line appeared. [Credited: 200 shanix.] Six pairs of optics widened at once. For a long moment, they only stared. Bonecrusher’s vents hitched, disbelief rough in his voice. “That—can’t be real.” The numbers glowed steady on each of their displays, undeniable. Scrapper turned the comlink over again in his palm, optics wide as though the weight of it had doubled. Mixmaster’s fingers twitched, restless, already tallying what that much shanix could buy—supplies, compounds, tools that had only been dreams until now. “It’s real,” Mixmaster said, scanning the code with sharp optics. “Clean transfer. Not a forgery.” Scrapper’s optics narrowed. “From Megatron?” Mixmaster tilted the display, reading deeper. “Authorized by him. Processed through Soundwave.” He spoke with the clipped certainty of a mech who read numbers like weather—facts that didn’t bend to hope. The datapad’s glow reflected in his faceplate as he ran through transaction hashes in his head, confirming the chain, the origin, the unbreakable link back to the account that had signed their names. Behind the technician’s calm, a small, savage excitement flickered; at last there were resources that could be bent to intention, not just squandered on rations. Scavenger let out a trembling laugh, hands clattering. “I’ve never had that much. Not once. Not ever.” The sound came loose and raw, half-joy, half-disbelief. He kept turning the sum over in his optics like it was fragile and might dissipate if he looked away. For him the digits were more than currency; they were proof that the nights he spent fingering through trash and ore had finally meant something to someone with teeth enough to pay for it. Long Haul’s jaw clenched, his voice low. “Megatron doesn’t waste time. He said we’re his.” The hauler’s steady tone carried the weight of someone who measured the world by loads and deadlines. He didn’t celebrate as the others did—he catalogued, he accepted. The transfer had translated Megatron’s words into metal they could feel in their hands, and Long Haul’s calm registered that the dangerous promise was now real. “Proof,” he finished. Scrapper closed his fist around the comlink, optics hard as he looked at the others. “No turning back gets harder once you take money like this.” His grip was more an anchor than a threat. The comlink felt like a brand in his palm, an obligation hammered into the skin of his chassis. He said what everyone knew but had not yet named: credits this large didn’t come free. Taking them was a pact. No one said it aloud, but the thought passed through them anyway: if the assignment was not what it seemed, if the promise turned into another chain, they could still give the money back and walk away. Maybe. But the longer the numbers glowed in their accounts, the less possible that felt. Hook drew a slow breath, his words quiet but firm. “Then it’s settled. We don’t go back to what we were. We move forward—together.” He finished speaking, and the alcove seemed to exhale with him. The declaration landed and stayed, a hinge closing. Around him their features shifted—relief, fear, resolve, hunger—woven together into something that looked like readiness. Outside, the Kaon night kept its neon hum and smog, but inside the alcove time had narrowed to two days, a comlink in a palm, and a transfer that had sealed their course. The Kaon night stretched silent around them, the streets a haze of flickering neon and thin smog, but none of them really saw it. Each mech could feel it instead—the weight of the transfer humming low in their systems, a steady thrum like an extra pulse. It wasn’t just money. It was proof. It was tether. It was the cold stamp of a future already tightening around them. Bonecrusher’s heavy vents still rasped from the night’s labor, but now they came slower, more measured, as if he were already pacing himself for what was ahead. Scrapper still held the comlink tight, his knuckles white around it. Mixmaster’s optics darted, restless, calculating the ways shanix could be stretched into tools, compounds, equipment he’d never been allowed to touch. Scavenger’s hands kept twitching like he might lose it all if he didn’t hold on. Long Haul stood steady and silent, but the rigid line of his jaw said he understood the load they had just picked up. Hook, smallest but standing tall at their center, felt the hum of the credits in his account like a vow burning under his plating. They weren’t just workers anymore. They weren’t just six strays the caste had pushed aside. They were Megatron’s now. His builders. His test. His investment. And in two days, Soundwave would tell them where to go.