The boarding rooms smelled of solvent and fresh paint, a sharp, clean tang that sat oddly against the grit still clinging to their joints.
Lime green and purple caught in the lamp pools and threw bright bands across the berths and tool racks, colors that had once been an idea and now read like a claim. The berths had been recessed into the walls with careful hands, each one fitted with its own energon port and a neat loop of cooling tubing. Small lamps hummed above them, casting soft circles of light that made the metal look almost like furniture instead of armor. Racks of spare parts lined the far wall, labeled in Scrapper’s tight script; a single crate of freshly polished clamps had been set within reach, the metal still warm from a quick pass of Mixmaster’s torch.
For the first time, the six had a place that felt like something they had built and could keep.
It was not grand. No banners. No carved plaques. No polished high-caste vanity. But it was theirs: a narrow room made safe by effort and choice, a pocket of order in a world that had spent cycles trying to grind them down. They had moved into it with the same practical reverence they brought to a successful weld—careful, half-quiet, hands checking panels and ports as if to confirm ownership by touch.
A short stretch of cycles passed, enough for the rooms to stop feeling new and start feeling used.
Bonecrusher had already claimed the berth nearest the door without saying why, though everyone knew. Long Haul took the one with the most clearance because no one wanted to hear him scrape against the wall every time he shifted. Mixmaster’s corner smelled faintly of sealed chemicals no matter how many times Hook threatened to ban reagents from the sleeping area. Scavenger tucked small useful things into places no one else noticed, then pretended not to know how they got there. Scrapper kept a datapad by his berth, always within reach.
Hook checked the recharge ports every evening.
No one asked him to.
No one told him to stop.
It was here Hook began pulling them together in the evenings, not to build or haul, but to learn. He chose the hour when the lamps glowed warm and the day’s dust had settled, when hands were clean enough for fine work and the small noises of the cavern felt distant. He took the best bench and cleared it with a few brisk motions, then spread the datapads Soundwave had given him across the table like surgical trays.
The devices lit under his fingers, diagrams blooming into life: energon lines traced in thin blue veins, actuator joints exploded into labeled parts, repair schematics folding open into stepwise procedures. Beside the datapads sat mock joints, scrap tubing, damaged clamps, old braces, and practice housings built from castoff components Scavenger had found and Scrapper had modified into training rigs.
The glow mapped across Hook’s face in pale pools while the others gravitated to the table—scraps of humility in their posture, curiosity threaded through tiredness.
“If we’re going to be on our own, every one of you needs to know the basics,” Hook said, his tone firm but not unkind. “You don’t need to be medics. But you need to keep each other alive until I get there.”
Bonecrusher gave a low grunt. “You planning on not being there?”
“I’m planning for war,” Hook said. “War does not care where I am standing.”
That settled the room.
Bonecrusher was the first Hook walked through, the medic’s motions slow and deliberate so Bonecrusher’s bulk could mirror them without losing balance. Hook showed him how to place a clamp not by force, but by position—just behind the frayed section, jaws perpendicular to the flow, pressure applied in measured clicks until the leak slowed without crushing the tubing.
Bonecrusher’s massive hands were clumsy at first, fingers frighteningly broad for such fine work. He kept wanting to overpower the mechanism, to make the clamp obey through pressure. Hook corrected him patiently, guiding his grip, counting out torque in brief, exact numbers.
“Steady,” Hook reminded him, voice low. “Hold the clamp. Don’t squeeze. Let the seal do the work.”
Bonecrusher’s optics narrowed, pride scraping against instruction. “It’s leaking.”
“It is a training tube.”
“It’s still leaking.”
“Then stop crushing the clamp and let it seal.”
Long Haul made a low sound that might have been amusement.
Bonecrusher shot him a look, then forced his hand to loosen. The clamp seated properly this time. The simulated energon hiss slowed, thinned, then stopped.
Hook tapped the side of the rig. “There.”
Bonecrusher stared at it for a beat, then gave a grudging nod. “Fine. Less force.”
“Correct.”
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
Scavenger went next, jittery and quick but hungry to learn. Hook had him kneel over a mock joint and guided his smaller, faster hands through fitting a temporary brace. He showed Scavenger how to line the splints along load paths, where to place the straps so the brace supported without binding actuators, and how to wedge a thin shim to take up slack without creating a new stress point.
Scavenger’s fingers moved fast, almost too fast, clicking against the scrap joint with nervous energy.
“Slow down,” Hook said.
“I see where it goes.”
“Seeing where it goes is not the same as placing it correctly.”
Scavenger froze, then forced himself to breathe through his vents.
Hook leaned closer, one hand steadying the practice joint while Scavenger adjusted the brace. “You don’t need finesse. You need enough control to stop the frame from collapsing until I can take over.”
Scavenger tightened the last strap. The mock joint held.
He stared at it, optics bright and a little stunned.
“I did that.”
“You did.”
A short, eager laugh broke from him, thin but proud. “It stayed.”
Hook’s mouth twitched faintly. “That is generally the goal.”
Long Haul’s lesson was all leverage and sequence. Hook taught him stabilizers—how to lift an injured mech in stages, keeping the center of mass aligned, where to slide support slings so limbs didn’t torque under an uneven hoist. He ran Long Haul through the choreography: set the lift points, take tension, check alignment, lift two inches, lock, reassess.
The loader tested the motions slowly, hydraulics humming, learning to trust the pause between lifts.
Hook stressed the one rule that made all the difference. “Move only what you can support. Never let a lift create momentum a damaged joint can’t survive.”
Long Haul’s visor stayed fixed on the practice frame as he adjusted the sling. “If the frame is too heavy?”
“Then you do not move it alone.”
Long Haul glanced toward Bonecrusher.
Bonecrusher folded arms. “What?”
“You heard him.”
Bonecrusher grunted. “I can lift.”
“I can carry,” Long Haul replied. “Different.”
Hook pointed at both of them. “Exactly. If one of you lifts wrong, I repair the damage. If both of you coordinate, I might not have to.”
Long Haul absorbed that with a slow nod. He lifted again—two inches, lock, reassess. This time the damaged mock limb stayed aligned.
“Better,” Hook said.
Long Haul’s rumble was quiet, satisfied. “Useful.”
Mixmaster’s crash course smelled of solvent and antiseptic. Hook walked him through disinfectants and compounds—what sterilants cleaned without corroding sensitive contacts, which washes neutralized outgassing from quick-cure resins, and where strong acids would eat through bonding straps before they saved anything.
He showed Mixmaster the balance between too strong and not strong enough: an overzealous sterilant that blistered sealant, a weak one that left residue and infection risk.
Mixmaster leaned over the samples, optics bright, scribbling ratios and cure times in a rapid, excited mutter. “So this one strips residue but leaves micro-pitting.”
“Yes.”
“Useful for old sealant removal.”
“Not on living frame contacts.”
Mixmaster paused. “Obviously.”
Hook stared at him.
Mixmaster amended, “Now obviously.”
“Better.”
He handed Mixmaster another vial. “This one.”
Mixmaster sniffed it through his vents, then tilted it under the lamp. “Mild.”
“Safe.”
“Boring.”
“Safe.”
“Safe is frequently boring.”
“Alive is frequently boring,” Hook said. “Dead is simple.”
Mixmaster went still, then nodded once and marked the vial with more care than before.
Each lesson was quick, grimly practical. Hook focused on triage and patchwork—the clamps, the braces, the safe lift points, the right compound for the right job. Nothing heroic. Nothing elegant. Only the small, essential motions that bought time.
They drilled the basics until hands and joints moved on memory.
A clamp to stop a bleed.
A brace to hold a limb.
A sling to carry a frame without snapping a damaged strut.
A wash that cleaned without poisoning the wound.
Enough to buy them time.
Nothing more.
But when the others finished, Hook turned to Scrapper.
The architect had stood back through most of it, arms folded, optics tracking every instruction as if measuring the stress in Hook’s voice. He had not looked eager. His mouth had been a thin line. But he had not been dismissive either; his posture read like a hinge waiting to be set.
Hook stepped closer, lamp light catching the edges of his face.
“You’re the one I need most trained.”
Scrapper’s optics shifted to him.
Hook’s voice lowered into something quieter but sharper than before, the kind that made small details matter. “If something happens to me, I need you to help me.”
Scrapper blinked, surprised enough that his hand loosened on the stylus at his hip.
“Me?” His tone was blunt and practical, the shape of the question more inventory than challenge. “Why not Bonecrusher, or Long Haul? They’re stronger.”
Bonecrusher looked faintly smug.
Hook ignored him.
He pushed the datapad into Scrapper’s hands with the exactness of someone setting down a tool. The device warmed where Scrapper’s fingers closed around it. Schematics reflected in his optics—joint housings, splice access panels, annotated cut sequences, energon line routing, clamp angles, structural stress maps drawn over Cybertronian anatomy.
Things Hook knew Scrapper would read faster than speech.
“Because you see things like I do,” Hook said, each word deliberate.
Scrapper’s gaze stayed on the datapad.
“Structure. Ratios. Stress points. You know how things fit. That’s what medicine is—understanding how a frame holds together. Cybertronians are systems. You already understand systems.”
The sentence landed like a set of tolerances being established: specific, non-negotiable, practical.
Scrapper felt the weight of it in the datapad’s slight heft, in the way the lines on the holo made sense inside his head as if they were beams and not wounds. The lamp light threw their lime and purple across both their faces as the meaning settled—technical skill folded into care, design translated into the language of survival.
Scrapper looked down at the glowing schematic, optics narrowing until the holo’s lines sharpened into something tactile in his mind. Slowly, methodical as any craftsman setting a brace, he set his finger to the joint Hook had pointed out and traced the repair path.
He saw it.
Not as flesh.
Not as mystery.
As structure.
A compromised line. A load-bearing point. A failing support. A reroute. A reinforcement. A temporary brace until the proper repair could be made.
The logic was immediate and familiar. The same calculations that told him where a beam would fail now told him where a splice would tear and where a clamp would hold.
Hook watched the recognition settle.
“I’m not asking you to be a medic,” Hook said, softer now. “I’m asking you to be ready. If I’m down, the rest of you will need someone who can think like me.”
The words landed quiet but heavy.
Hook’s vents tightened on the last line as if he had tied the sentence into a strap and cinched it tight. He watched Scrapper the way a mech watched a patient learn to breathe on his own—expectant, careful, pride folded low.
Scrapper let out a low vent, the sound almost like an intake of air, the weight of the responsibility settling into the set of his shoulders.
He looked at the schematic again.
Then at Hook.
Then at the others, who had gone very quiet.
Bonecrusher’s smugness had faded. Long Haul watched without expression, but his attention was fixed. Mixmaster had stopped scribbling. Scavenger’s hands had stilled around the practice brace.
Scrapper nodded, sharp and decisive, the kind of affirmative that sealed plans into action rather than raising questions.
“Alright,” he said. “But you’d better not make me use it.”
Hook allowed the faintest smirk.
“That’s the plan.”
The smirk was small but real, a brief easing of the tension between them—promise and warning braided together. For a moment the boarding room felt steadier, as if two measured hands had closed around the same tool and found a common grip.
Then Hook tapped the datapad again and brought up another schematic.
Scrapper’s mouth flattened.
Hook’s smirk sharpened by a fraction. “You agreed.”
“I agreed to learn emergency support. Not your entire medbay.”
“You agreed to be useful if I’m down.”
“That sounds like your entire medbay.”
“It starts with energon-line stabilization.”
Scrapper looked at the diagram, then sighed through his vents and leaned closer. “Fine. Show me where it fails first.”
Hook’s optics warmed with approval.
“That,” he said, “is the right question.”
Around them, the others relaxed by degrees, the room returning to its small sounds: Scavenger testing the brace again under his own breath, Bonecrusher tightening and loosening the clamp until the motion stayed controlled, Long Haul checking the sling sequence without being prompted, Mixmaster labeling safe washes with grudging precision.
The war effort would demand more than weapons and walls.
It would demand mechs who could survive long enough to keep fighting.
Hook had accepted the title.
Now he was building the redundancy beneath it.
In the warm light of the boarding room, surrounded by mock joints, scrap pieces, spare clamps, and the colors they had chosen for themselves, the six learned the first rule of staying alive together.
No one waited helplessly.
Not anymore.