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The wall press in close, his shoulder guards brushing against packed shelves, lined with amorphous scraps of machinery and fragments of bodies. The delicate mechanisms of a hand, sheets of armor trailing filamentous wires; the physician-cum-undertaker eyes him nervously.
A narrow table is spread with gleaming jewels in endless shades. Optics, every imaginable color, solitary and in pairs, and not one among them lacking the dull matte shade of carrion.
Some no doubt scavenged from his colleagues in the arena.
A similar train of thought seems to be occupying the other mech’s processor, if the anxious twitch of his fingers as Megatron’s claws trail over dead optics, metal clinking on glass, is any indication.
“Did you have a color preference?” a slight quaver in the tone.
His hand pauses on a fragile scarlet curve, mouth curling in a humorless smile
“Red, I think.”
A hasty nod and the mech scoops the pair from the table. His voice is steadier now, grasping at the routine of his work, “If you’ll give me a minute to grab my tools, we’ll get your old ones out—”
The sound of breaking glass cuts him short.
“Unnecessary.”
Wires and blue glass shatter in his palm, a useless mass. He extends his hand and the mech drops a new optic into it without a word. He presses the sphere into the empty space and feels it take, living wires twining and knitting. He blinks through crimson crystal.
The physician is watching him with something like horror or fascination.
He smiles and reaches for the second optic.
I’m coming for you, brother.