AN: Hey, if anybody sees any errors or issues (of the grammatical or spelling variety) go ahead and tell me, I'm pretty good but sometimes I miss stuff. : D

The bolt of energy was so unexpected that it was just about the most effective take-down the Constructicons had ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Pain jolted through every last one of them, first the intense pain of the shot as it exploded against Devastator's right side, and then every bounce and skid of the long way down the pyramid and into the stone quarry at its base. Metal ripped as most of them were forcefully separated from their connected brother in the tumble, adding to the pain and damage. When they finally ground to a halt, half transformed, damaged, and severely disoriented, none of them moved for a good, long while, until Mixmaster pulled himself together enough to assume his mech form—not easy, considering how bent his frame was from rolling head over heels down the pyramid, still attached to Scavenger half the way.

Hazy static filtered over his comm as he lay in the sand, sorting through damage reports to see what would need to be addressed first. "Sound off, who's still functional enough to do repairs?" he asked as the pain was put under a subroutine and he started dragging himself to his feet.

"Oh, Pit, I hurt everywhere. What was that?" Hightower demanded woozily, sounding like he was also getting up.

"Slag if I know. Came out of nowhere." Rampage was already mad, but sounding less out-of-it than Hightower.

"Primus. I don't think… I can transform back, you guys. Could you try disengaging before we go cartwheeling down a hunk of rock next time? Frag…oh, I don't …feel so good…" Scavenger complained.

"Well it's not like it's our fault." Rampage snapped back. "It's whoever fired that slagging laser's fault. I say we go get 'em and teach 'em not to mess with us."

"Cool it, Rampage. We all need repairs after a tear like that. Scrapper, Long Haul, report." Mixmaster ordered. There was silence on the comm.

That was when the three combiners that could still stand realized that there was something very wrong. Very, very, WRONG. A cold sort of dread settled in their little used, minimal combiner bond.

"Find them." Mixmaster snapped, and they achingly dragged their damaged chassis into motion.

Hightower found Scavenger first, since he wasn't far away. "Ooh, you don't look so great, mech. You're losing fluids pretty fast."

"Thanks, that really helps me feel better, High, 'cause I don't already feel like slag." Scavenger bit back acidly.

"Put yourself in stasis, I'll stop up the big leaks until we can repair you."

Devastator's torso piece complied silently and Hightower leaned over his combiner mate to pinch a major energon line closed, frowning in worry. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were designed to come apart without major damage, no matter how they were hit. It boded ill for the other two, and Hightower felt the dread sink further into his spark.

Rampage found Long Haul next. "Oh. Oh, Primus. Mixmaster, you better get over here. Haul looks mostly slagged. I… think he's still online, though."

If anything, it was Rampage's tone that roused Mixmaster to a jog. He didn't think he had it in him to move that fast at the moment, but he found it. "Find Scrapper." He ordered. Pray he's okay, he thought to himself.

Long Haul was mutilated and in emergency stasis. He had caught some of the direct laser energy, resulting in a charred chunk out of what was Devastator's thigh, and the mech was twisted around in a partial transform, metal bent and warped oddly. It was not pretty. Whatever had hit them had hit hard, and it was powerful. Quickly, the combiner leader knelt and began to work feverishly to save his team mate's life.

Rampage hurried on, referencing the pyramid to try and figure where Scrapper would have fallen, and hiked up a small sand dune. Scrapper was at the bottom of the other side.

"Scrapper!" Rampage slid down the shifting slope and stumbled to the heap of scorched metal, cursing his odd mech design once again. His brother was still in combiner mode, as if he hadn't even tried to transform, and was mostly charred black. There was a lot of scrap metal flung about, though he couldn't see the gaping hole yet. Rampage pawed desperately over the slagged chassis, looking for something to fix, searching for some indication of life, and finally just ripped open their combiner bond.

There was nothing there. Only an empty hole.

"C'mon, Haul, stay with us, you slagger." Mixmaster muttered as he worked. His brother's already weak energy signature started fading and pulsing, on the brink of disappearing for good. "No, Pit, fight you fragging slag heap!" His spark shuddered back at the open connection Rampage suddenly tried to make, but he didn't stop working.

"What are you doing?" he barked at the other mech. There was no answer. "Rampage, respond."

"Scrapper's gone." The red Constructicon reported heavily. "He's dead."

Mixmaster paused, processor blanking. Gone? Deactivated? But…

The combiner leader stared down at the mech beneath his experienced servos. Long Haul was fading. If Scrapper had gone already, what would stop him from going, too? He hesitated, feeling Rampage's heavy spark just beyond his barriers and sensing his dying brother's spark flutter weakly just below his fingertips, and then made a decision. "Rampage, Hightower, get your afts over here." He growled, resuming his work. "Now!"

His combiner mates were by his side quickly, grim faced and silent. Rampage had one fist to his chest, trying to block out the ache in it that was so unfamiliar and hurt more than anything else he had ever known. They added their skilled hands to the effort of preserving Long Haul until Mixmaster felt his spark waver again.

"His spark is fading." He grunted. "We have to open the bond."

"What? But…" Hightower glanced at Rampage, who was starting to shake under the strain of having his bond open for the first time in millennia.

"Unless we want to lose him too, we have to help him." Mixmaster snapped. "Open your bond. We can't do it without you." He rested his hands above Long Haul's spark chamber and off-lined his optics for a moment, shuddering as he plunged headlong into the shattered emotions and gaping hole of their combiner bond. He reached out to Long Haul and Rampage, throwing ties between them that hadn't been there since they almost lost Scavenger so long ago, mentally turning on Hightower when the mech still hesitated to completely open up. The two other functional mechs reached out to put their hands over his as they surrounded Long Haul's failing life force with their own and willed him to live.

Long Haul was awash in the non-existent place that was not a place between the living world and the Well of Allsparks. It was a confusing place to be in, almost like being caught under water with 300 different rip tides pulling you 300 different directions. He didn't know which one to follow. He didn't recognize anything, not that there was much to recognize in the placeless place, but there were some… feelings he seemed to be drawn to in the currents. One particularly strong feeling was pulling him this way, and it was a kind of nice feeling, as much as he didn't like to admit it. Kind of felt like home. And he didn't remember what he was doing here or how he got here, and he didn't seem to have anything better to do, so he wandered down the current of the feeling.

Then there was this other feeling, a different current strong enough to interrupt the one he was entertaining and get his attention. It was also familiar, though slightly less so. What was it? It took him a while to recognize the source of the feeling tugging him the other way.

Brother? He hesitated on his path. Brothers?

The place that wasn't a place seemed to vibrate around him and take on a vague rendition of real space with a blinding explosion. And then Mixmaster and Rampage and maybe Hightower were there, or their feeling was there, and Long Haul wondered why they were there with him when they usually weren't. Their conjoined feeling reached out to him and connected. Combiner bond? How long had it been since they had used that for anything other than Devastator?

Oh, that was right. That one time, with Scavenger. He got damaged during battle and it had hurt so much…

War.

It wasn't surprising, but something about the memory of war was a little shocking. The other feeling of home faded as Long Haul descended into the memories and horror. Horror. Funny feeling, that. He hadn't felt it for a long time. Had he ever felt it, for that matter?

Mixmaster took a hold of him, almost like that funny wrangling technique he had perfected to get the larger Constructicons to follow his orders and behave, and that was familiar, but also uncomfortable as he remembered how it usually hurt, even though it didn't now.

Long Haul. He heard his name. Come back.

At first he heard Mixmaster snapping the order like he always did and he squirmed to get away from the Combiner leader, kicking back against his hold merely to defy the smaller mech's authority. He grabbed the home feeling and tried to let the current pull him away, but his brothers tightened their grip.

Please. Stay with us.

What was that? Please? Since when did any of them say please? What was going on here? Long Haul paused in his struggles.

They were Decepticons, and the biggest, meanest combiner the Decepticons had at that. They were brothers as well, but they did not get all mushy on each other. Ever. Ever. And certainly not since Scavenger… well, not for a long time had they even really acknowledged they were still family through all of this. Why now, all of a sudden, were they saying please and wanting him to stay?

Then there was another feeling different from the home feeling and his combiner mates. It felt like brother, too, but more like a desperate call for help. What was going on here? Long Haul froze in the confusion, pulled three ways and not sure which way he actually wanted to go, feeling a family pull from two sides and trying to remember what that meant to him. Because he wasn't sure if it did mean anything, anymore. It had once, he knew. But that had been a long, long time ago.

He was pulled back and forth, unable to stay in one place for long but unable to decide which way to go, until suddenly, he remembered.

They were young and inexperienced. They hardly knew what they were capable of yet. But Devastator was the biggest thing on the battlefield and that made him cocky. He waded through Autobots, hardly feeling their shots, waving them away like bugs, and attacked the fortress single-mindedly. There was nothing here big enough to do any real damage, after all.

He ignored the moving wall to one side of him, pounding on the weak spot next to the fortress door, ignored the panicked shouts from the new hole as he ripped sheets of metal away, until one came high and shrill above the rest.

"Fire!"

Devastator turned, almost in slow-motion, as light grew in the opening and a bolt of energy exploded at him. It was close, and powerful, and Devastator tried to swing away, lifting an arm, but he was too late. None of them really remember falling, but when the static cleared a bit they felt the deep, throbbing pain in their sparks that came from their brother.

"Scavenger!"

None of the rest of them were really hurt—sore, maybe, but not particularly damaged. They flocked to their brother, charred and smoking on the ground, in emergency stasis and leaking his life fluid much too fast. They knew plenty about building and they were fast at repairs, but they couldn't be fast enough. The shot had clipped Devastator's side too close to Scavenger's spark and the pain was driving the rest of them into fetal positions. So they curled up with their brother and waited, trying to hold his spark in place until help arrived.

The Decepticons retrieved them quickly and they were rushed back to Kaon. Scavenger managed to hang on long enough to get repaired and everything was okay. Except it wasn't. Megatron tore strips off all of them for being so stupid as to get shot, for being weak and giving up when they were still perfectly capable of fighting. Mixmaster got the worst of the war lord's rage, being the team leader, and when Megatron was done venting his anger on them for the failed attack, they slunk away to hide from the scorn of their comrades. They were the scape-goat and they were labeled for their weakness.

Mixmaster disappeared into the labs for a long time. After a week, his brothers started to notice that his bond was unnaturally quiet and blocked. Long Haul, Rampage, and Scrapper had cornered him eventually to ask him what was going on.

Mixmaster had given them the strangest look, almost grimacing. And the only explanation he offered was, "Family is a liability."

He shouldered his way past them and they stood there staring after him for long after he was gone. Because he was right. They were liabilities to each other.

And that was the day their bond had started growing cold.

Long Haul curled into himself in the placeless place, the word liability echoing in his mind. He drew back from his brothers, but Scrapper somehow seemed to draw closer, and his feeling was of warning now. That was when the hate current came. And it was strong and scary, and it swept Long Haul up into it and sucked him away from the other feelings before he could do anything about it. It surrounded him and Scrapper was screaming at him now to go back, so he fought it. But the connection with his other brothers was weak and though he tried hard, it was too late, the current was too strong, and it pulled him down and down and down…

Were they screaming out loud or in there bond? Was it individual, or collective? Could any of them tell the difference right now? Did it matter?

Their brothers were dead. They had had Long Haul in their grasp, cradled in their life, and then suddenly he had slipped out and another hole collapsed into their combiner bond, like an unclogged drain. The pain…consumed them. Like brands in their chests, their sparks burned with an unquenchable fire, and they would never be the same again. Nothing could make it stop.

But they were Decepticons, and they struggled to contain it, to adapt and adjust. And eventually, they did. It felt like eternity, but it wasn't. The war still raged on mere miles from where they lay curled up to each other and their cold brother, caring after so many years of denying it. And as they had so many years ago, they ran from their bond and closed it off, hiding from each other and retreating from the emptiness. They could not handle it.

Finally, Mixmaster twitched. His optics onlined and he saw smoke and explosions over the lip of the quarry. And he knew what they had to do. So he crawled to his feet, optics locked on the signs of battle raging just out of sight, and started, so slowly, towards it.

"Where are you going?" Rampage asked numbly from behind him, but he didn't stop or look back.

"We have to fight." The Constructicon leader growled. "We have to fight."

Revenge. He wanted revenge for his fallen brothers like he had wanted nothing else ever before. And the desire seemed to feed off the fire in his spark and gave him strength, until he was diving into a transformation he wasn't sure he was capable of and roaring towards the fighting, Rampage and Hightower following him like demons as the anger consumed them, too. It didn't matter now, what happened. They would never be complete again.

The battlefield felt their entrance, but yielded very little satisfaction. Mixmaster was next in line, meeting his end at Jetfire's hands. Then Hightower, in the middle of the airstrike with no cover, and then Rampage when a set of stone pillars fell on him and he was too tired to move, too tired to care.

Only a couple miles away, Scavenger woke with the loneliest feeling he had ever had and he didn't understand why. An enormous thing flew by overhead, black like a crow but with blue and red, too. It smashed through the rocks hovering around the pyramid and the Harvester exploded like a little star, just like his spark, and Scavenger offlined his optics, feeling his spark melting through him, and quietly deactivated in the stone quarry, where nobody noticed and nobody cared.

And thus ended the Constructicons.