Heavy Lies the Crown
Set in the Transformers Prime Series, pre-Season 2.
Optimus Prime…
That is a designation that every Cybertronian knows.
For most any Autobot, it inspires hope. He knows this and uses it. Is it wrong to use your own image to inspire mechs and femmes alike to fight harder, longer, smarter, with more fire? Even the humans on this small blue planet feel the effect of his presence.
Optimus Prime…
Among Neutrals, he knows that this name is spoken with awe and respect. They do not fight against any force that bears his badge, let alone if he himself is present.
Optimus Prime…
The Decepticons despise this name and this title. He knows that he has felled more Decepticons than most ever meet.
Optimus Prime…
It is the name of the last of the Original 13. The Mediator. The Peace Keeper. The Lost Prime. The first to fall in the Division.
Optimus Prime…
The name carries weight. Everyone who speaks to him, of him, knows this to some extent. The name is never spoken without Awe, Fear, Hope, Hatred, Respect, Disdain…
Optimus Prime…
He has carried that name for a long time. So long he has almost forgotten who Orion Pax was. But there are times that he does remember.
Optimus Prime…
Orion Pax was never ready for the weight of that name. He still knows he is not ready. He doubts he ever will be.
Optimus Prime…
Orion Pax was a scholar. An Idealist. A dreamer and a believer. Orion Pax was ignorant of the darkness that lived on Cybertron. Megatronus cured Orion Pax of his ignorance. Orion Pax wishes that he never met the gladiator.
Optimus Prime…
Orion Pax was not a Leader. Orion Pax was not a Soldier. Nor a Warrior who can make the calls that no one else wanted to. Orion Pax was certainly not a being that would mean so much to so many beings of so many worlds.
Optimus Prime…
There are times that he remembers Orion Pax, and there are times that he becomes Orion Pax once more. And Orion Pax can never bear the weight that he carries upon shoulders too broad for a simple student.
Optimus Prime…
Almost no-one remembers that under the crimson and azure armour, there still rests a quiet spark that never wanted to go to war against his brother.
When Optimus rose that morning, he knew it would be a hard rotation. Orion was waking up, and not even the Matrix of Leadership can suppress the true form of a spark.
He sent a quick message to Ratchet, alerting his oldest remaining friend that he would not be joining the group today. It is good that it is a weekday, he mused, and the children do not need to know that even he can break. It warms his sparks that even now, after aeons of war, younglings still hold such dear places in his processor.
He lay back down on his berth and locked down his weapon systems. As each program closed, he felt his control slipping. Finally, as his energon overdrive shut down, he closed all 15 firewalls on the Matrix, shutting out each past Prime from his own Spark. Optimus Prime closed his optics…
Orion Pax opened his optics for the first time in…
…he could not remember the last time Optimus let him have control. It hurt to know that eventually, he would never awaken within Optimus' spark again.
Orion braced himself for his first task. It was beyond painful to do this, but if he did not, he would lose what little that still kept Orion alive in Optimus. He accessed Optimus' memory banks and allowed the experiences of the Last Prime to run through his mind.
Onboard the Ark, Optimus said his last goodbyes to the stasis pods. As each pod launched from the ship, he stated their designations while his remaining Autobots stood vigil behind him, right servo clasped over their sparks.
"Ironhide. Red Alert. Stinger. Powerglide. Chromia. Kup. Blur. Jetfire. Jazz. Your Watch is over, and your duty done. We thank you for your service, and wish you peace as you re-join the All-Spark."
He watched silently as the pods drifted away.
Orion had to stop the memories there. While he had seen their deaths the last time he did this, watching the last rights of some of his oldest friends as both Orion and Optimus tore into his spark.
Regaining his bearings, Orion immersed himself back into Optimus' memories, allowing over a thousand planetary cycles to replay through optics that could never truly be his again.
Ratchet suspected that something was wrong the moment he received a private comm from Optimus. He knew that something was wrong when Optimus locked his cabin from the inside. The last time something like this had happened, it was just after they lost the Eight Track at the close of the War.
Ratchet had been Optimus' doctor since before the war began, and his friend from when he was Orion Pax, working and learning under Alpha Trion. As such, he was probably the only living being left in the galaxy that knew that Optimus was not Orion. While at their core, they were of the same spark, Optimus had a presence that Orion never did. And Orion would have crumbled under the weight of the war, without the support of the Matrix. Today, Orion had resurfaced, and now had to attempt to bear that weight.
The main door opened, and Bumblebee shifted into his bipedal mode with a clean whirring of gears and parts.
"It sounds like your T-cog has synchronised back into your chassis properly. I shall do a scan on it later, but you should be cleared for full active duty again today. Is there anything to report from your patrol?"
"Pit, Ratchet. Don't forget to vent! No, nothing odd out on the road today. Is Optimus active yet?"
"Watch your language, Mechling. The children may not be here, but that is no excuse for profanity," Ratchet reprimanded Bumblebee, before sighing internally, "Optimus has taken today to sort out an administration backlog that has accumulated. I do not think that we will be seeing him today."
"Ok, Ratchet. I'm going to the training room before 'Cee goes wild. As usual."
Ratchet waved the young scout off, understanding his mentality. The Team's 2IC was known for hogging the training simulator whenever she had free time, in other words, when she wasn't deployed, or with Jackson. While Ratchet was by no means a processer doctor, he knew that the volatile femme had more than her fair share of issues. Pit, most of Team Prime had issues that – in Cybertron's Golden Era – would have warranted an ensemble of processer experts- if those issues even existed in those peaceful days.
With, Bumblebee off to the Hard Light Simulator, Rachet was left alone in the Ops Room again. He turned to the console and accessed the data feed from Optimus' room. Optimus had shut down every system barring the medical readouts. While this did not worry the medic (even Cybertronians with their unparalleled processing networks needed breaks), what did concern him was the fact that only one spark pulse registered. For Eons, ever since Orion took up the Matrix, His Spark had a multifold echo to it.
The pulse of the Primes before him echoed through his Spark. Now, his Spark pulse was alone in a void normally filled with the wisdom of the past.
Rachet knew, logically anyway, that Optimus was fine, and the next planetary rotation would see the Prime at the top of his game once more.
Orion Pax wept as the last of Optimus' memories played through his processor. Seeing Cliffjumper revived as some twisted mockery of Primus' vision broke his spark, more so even than seeing his friends and colleagues fall to their fellow Cybertronians. Not for the first time since he quested to the Heart of Primus and took up the Matrix, he wished that he had never joined the Reform Movement, that he had never spoken to the Council, that he had never met Megatronus, the Gladiator turned Revolutionary turned Warlord. But deep down he knew that things would be a lot worse if he had not been set on the path to becoming Optimus Prime.
Without their Prime, the Autobots would not have held onto hope for so long. They would not have stood against Megatron and his dream of Cybertron in his image.
Orion cursed Optimus, cursed himself, for the sparks that he had sent to the void. For the sparks that followed him faithfully into the Pit, and the sparks left behind there.
Orion vented and ran a system check. 8 Earth hours – such a useful time increment – had passed since he had begun to view the memories. Soon he would yield to Optimus once more, and return to the Matrix. It would no doubt be many cycles before he would resurface.
Orion sent a short message to Rachet, just a greeting from an old friend before he turned his attention to his internal systems once more. Soon…
Orion began a full personal diagnostic. His spark feed had begun to show interference. Soon…
Orion Pax lay down once more on his berth and closed his optics.
05h00, Local time, the next day
Optimus Prime opened his optics as his system booted from the long sleep cycle. A quick system diagnostic read the full 14 spark songs resonating through his being. Orion's was stronger than it had been in a long time, but it was also far more in tune with the other than it had ever been before.
Optimus unlocked his cabin and made his way to the Ops room.
Rachet greeted him with a curt nod, "Morning, Optimus. I trust you completed your admin work yesterday?"
Optimus allowed himself a small smile, "Of course Old Friend. Was there anything of importance that occurred yesterday?"
"Nothing, besides the news that Bumblebee is cleared for full duty."
"Thank you, Old Friend. Now, if you will excuse me, I must make contact with Agent Fowler. I would like to discuss future joint operations with him."
"Off with you, then, Optimus. I want you here for a check-up later. Solus knows the last time you did any maintenance.
And done. Finally.
You may notice that this is part of a mass update today. The past few months have been rather chaotic for me, culminating in the Remembrance Day parades of this month. If you know any servicemen or -women, be they currently serving or veteran, Military or Emergency Services, thank them. They have sacrificed far more than you will ever know.
Anyway, the mass update is in part an apology for the lack of updates from me and part me clearing out my think tank on my hard drive. The updates are as follows:
Code Geass: The Art of War - Chapter V
Shadow Hunter May Cry – Mission 2
Heavy Lies the Crown
The Price of Heroism
So this fic ignores a lot of cannon from the Aligned continuity, and I'm not sure I could or would make it fit. Anyway, I hope it meets the relatively high standards the Transformers fanfiction community seems to hold.
Read, Enjoy and Review,
EoE