Concrete Surrounding
By SMYGO4EVA
As long as megacycles have drifted by, Arcee always thought she knew Optimus, the leader of their team of Autobots on Earth.
He always seemed to be the Prime that Cybertron had always wanted, before she even met him, and becoming a part of his faction. He always knew the right thing to do; having words of wisdom and the strategies good enough for what conflict there was upon Earth.
The calm and collected type, bestowed upon by the Ancients, he was a symbol of the good that was left from the desolate planet that was once there home; anchored to reality and steering away from corruption, no matter what the cost.
Yet she had never seen him become the monsters that are their enemies, the Decepticons, never seeing him end up swallowed by anger, the poison that was given to him by his greatest enemy, and that was what she feared the most in their battles.
She knew how easily she would lose herself, her processor clouded by hatred, venom tinged in her by what had seared itself relentlessly, and it may as well have made her into a completely different being, someone she didn't recognize in the reflection.
She had never seen him swallowed by the darkness from the ruins of the past.
That has always crept at the back of her mind – what inner demons would eat him alive and make him less than who he was and be like Megatron; to be cruel, ruthless, heartless, and unrelenting, with no one to stand in his way.
If it was up to him, Optimus would never let Arcee or anyone else see him in that state, in the berserker mode that would ravage any goodness that was left and seal it away for all time. Roaring a battle cry that pierced the heavens, his blue optics dipped in crimson, and with no merciful part left in him as he would watch the life ebb away, he would not be the Optimus that everyone knew, just an illusion shattered by the bloodstained warrior deep within him.
Even if he had to lock her away, in a cage to never open until he was of the right processor, to make it a false memory, he would never want to let her or their other comrades behold him in such a monstrous state.
The memory of him, forever punished by what sin would become of him. Concrete surrounding would be what kept him from losing control, what was of now and what would be erased.
She would never see what darkness would eat him alive one day.