Ironhide un-shuttered his optics and checked his internal timepiece. With a moan, he got to his pedes and stretched, wincing at how stiff his joints were.

Then he stood in the hallway for a few breems. Orion was most likely still recharging, so Ironhide headed to the central area by the elevators, where they'd set up tables and an energon dispenser. The Prime would be all right for a few breems while he grabbed some energon for them.

He got three cubes and then headed to his own room. He hit the button to open the door, and then winced as it swished open. Fortunately the noise didn't seem to wake Chromia, who was stretched out on their berth. He set one cube of energon for her on the table. He wanted to wake her up so he could talk to her, but he figured he should probably let her rest, so he sighed and turned to leave again.

"Hey."

So much for not waking her up. "Hey," Ironhide turned around and watched her stretch, then sit up.

"Do you really have to sit outside Orion's door every off-cycle?" She glared at him, swinging her legs over the edge of the berth.

Ironhide smiled. "I'm sorry. You know I'd rather recharge in here, but…"

"You really think someone's going to try and assassinate him?"

"You never know," Ironhide said as Chromia got up off the berth. She grabbed the cube of energon from the table and walked past him out into the hallway. He followed.

"Well, with how heavily you recharge, an assassin could probably get right past you."

"Whatever," Ironhide said. "Part of it's to keep Orion from wandering off on his own. I don't think he understands that he can't just get up in the middle of the off-cycle and go for a walk anymore."

"He does that?"

"Yeah," Ironhide said. They went back to the hallway outside of Orion's room and stood.

Chromia leaned against the wall and sipped the energon Ironhide had brought her.

Ironhide got out a datapad.

"Check if anyone wants to join the army since last off-cycle," Chromia said. "It's started to taper off, which is going to be a huge problem."

Ironhide logged into the datapad and checked his messages for an update.

"What do we do if not enough mecha volunteer?" Chromia said.

Ironhide stared at the datapad, shocked.

"I mean, I know Orion's being stubborn about not forcing anyone, but even if we wanted to force mecha to enlist… what?" She shot him a sharp glance.

"Look at this," He handed her the datapad, and she took it in her free hand, frowning.

"Pit," Her optics narrowed. "That can't be right… a thousand applicants, in the past joor?"

"So much for tapering off," Ironhide said. "Maybe mecha are finally coming to their senses?"

"Huh," Chromia drank some more of her energon and scowled. "No, I don't trust this."

"Of course you don't," Ironhide said.

"Let me try and figure out what's going on before we get all excited. Maybe something happened…" She connected the datapad to the public databases and checked the news, scrolling through reports and stories almost faster than Ironhide could read.

He got out his cube of energon and drank it while she used his datapad.

"Aha," she said. "That's… interesting…"

Orion's door opened, and he stepped out into the hall. "Good on-cycle," he said. He looked like he hadn't recharged very well. He looked more and more exhausted every orn.

"Here," Ironhide offered Orion the cube of energon he'd gotten from the dispenser.

"We should talk about this," Chromia tapped the datapad. "Do you two have anything to do right away?"

Ironhide looked to Orion, who shook his helm. "What is it?"

"Good news, I think," Chromia said. "A bunch of factories closed late last orn, and apparently the factory workers decided to all apply to join the Autobots, so now we have… more than two thousand soldiers."

Orion blinked, faceplate brightening for a moment. Then he looked solemn again. "That is good news," he said, and waved away the energon Ironhide was holding out to him. Really?

"It's fantastic news," Chromia said. "Except we really need somewhere to keep them all. I know Elita's been working on that, but it's more urgent now."

Ironhide shoved the energon at Orion. "You look half offline," he said. "If you don't drink this, I'll march you down to Ratchet's office."

Orion sighed and took the energon. "I am fine and you don't need to threaten me. I simply didn't recharge very well. I have some things to do in my office—you two can go."

"Okay," Ironhide said.

They watched Orion leave.

"Elita says she can talk to us now," Chromia said. "Come on."

Ironhide frowned at the back of Orion's helm, then turned to follow Chromia the other way. That mech needed some time off or something.

But they all had too much to do. Ironhide was going to be busy this orn, because he'd talked some of his friends from the Elite guard into coming to help him start training the other mecha in the command element to fight.

Elita was already waiting outside Chromia's office when they came around the corner.

"Hello," she said brightly.

Chromia opened the door and they filed in. It was one of the smallest rooms in the building, and there was barely room for the three of them to sit.

"So, what is this about?" Elita asked.

Chromia handed her Ironhide's datapad and explained the situation.

"Wow," Elita said. "That's… good. Really fortunate, actually… and it looks like the number's still going up."

Chromia took the datapad back. "These mecha are probably only joining because they think we're going to feed and house them."

"Well, we are going to do that," Elita said. "As soon as I can figure out a solution to the groundbridge problem. We can't get a permit, it takes half a vorn to get all the paperwork filed and approved. However I had a mech from Nova Cronum contact me late last orn—we have a really big following there, actually."

"I know," Chromia said. "There were almost as many mecha in the army from Nova Cronum as there were from Iacon… until this on-cycle, at least."

"In any case, there's a mech in Nova Cronum who has some influence over a groundbridge station there who said he might be able to get us limited access to some of the groundbridges. I was actually thinking of suggesting that we all relocate there."

"That would pose problems," Chromia said.

"I know. And now that we have more soldiers from Iacon…" Elita said. "We'll have to come up with something else, and fast. Did you tell Orion about all the mecha signing up? He could probably use some good news—I think something's been bothering him more than normal since last orn."

"Yeah," Chromia said. "He did seem kind of mopey. And we did tell him."

Elita frowned. "Maybe I should try talking to him again."

Chromia shook her helm. Ironhide knew she and Elita had been a little bit at odds about Orion. It was a terrible situation, he had to admit. He had no idea what he'd do if he and Chromia couldn't be bonded anymore.

"I'll find somewhere to keep all the soldiers," Elita said. "And then go talk to him about that. That'll give me a good excuse."

"He's not your responsibility, Elita," Chromia said. "You aren't obligated to try and cheer him up."

"I know," Elita's expression hardened. "Would you please let me deal with this the way that—"

"The way that keeps getting you hurt?" Chromia snapped. "Like how miserable you were last off-cycle after he basically rejected you?"

"That's not what happened," Elita said.

"Oh, really?"

Ironhide wanted to steer the subject back toward something more productive, but he did not want to get in between these two if they were gearing up to fight. Elita wasn't as feisty as Chromia, but she could hold her own against her sister when she was angry.

She looked as if she were about to snap back at Chromia, but then she deflated. "Well, you're not helping," she said quietly. "Excuse me, I have to figure out where to put two thousand soldiers."

"Pit," Chromia said after Elita left the room, putting a hand to her faceplate. "I just…" she threw her hands up in the air. "It's not my fault. She needs to get over it and face reality so she can just… move on and stop… you know?"

"I guess," Ironhide said, "But you…" he trailed off, changing his mind. Giving Chromia his honest opinion on the matter when she was already frustrated…

"But I what?" Chromia demanded.

"Nothing."

"No, you were going to say something."

Ironhide tried to choose his words very very carefully. "She's not listening to you. Maybe… she'll figure things out on her own in time, and telling her what to do is just making her defensive about it."

Chromia huffed. "But I don't want to wait for her to figure things out."

Ironhide nodded. "Yeah, that's definitely frustrating. Well, I'd better go check on Orion. But I'll see you in a joor or so—you're all learning how to fight."

"Oh, right," Chromia said. "That's this orn?"

"Yes," Ironhide said. "And probably most future orns. You all need to practice frequently."

"Sure," Chromia said. "Guess I'll see you then."

Orion watched as the number of Autobot recruits ticked upward, checking back every few breems. It was still miraculously going up. He should have been wildly happy about it. But it was just another reminder that this was really happening—that they were going to have a war.

He was ashamed to realize that he'd actually been happy that so few mecha were enlisting. If no one signed up then they couldn't fight, and he didn't want to fight Megatronus. But now it seemed that they weren't going to have an easy way out. Orion would have to see it through until he defeated his former friend, or was offlined himself.

They were halfway between two and three thousand recruits when the entry request chimed on his office door.

He called for whoever it was to come in, and straightened his desk a little. Prowl hadn't come to talk to him yet this orn, though he'd received several memos from the former enforcer.

It was Elita.

Orion stood as she came in. "Elita, welcome, I…"

She had a triumphant light in her optics he hadn't seen for a long time, but it faded as the silence stretched out.

"Please sit down," he said.

She looked almost afraid as she crossed the room to sit across the desk from him, and he returned to his seat as well feeling terrible. He didn't know why she was scared, but he hoped she wasn't afraid of him.

"So," she said. "I have some good news about the groundbridge situation,"

"Before any of that," Orion said. "I have to apologize. I…" he didn't know what to say. He had been hoping to see her some time this orn, but now he wasn't sure how much to tell her...

"It's all right—"

"No, it's not all right," Orion said. "It was insensitive of me to leave halfway through our conversation last orn."

Elita looked down at her hands. "I could tell you were upset about something. But I… shouldn't have pushed you about it. You have no obligation to share anything with me."

He should tell her about the trials, and about what becoming a Prime would mean for him. It might be better for her to know that he would forget. She had said she didn't want to give up on him, but if he explained everything and then asked her to give up…

But he didn't know if he could bring himself to do that—even though it would cause her less pain in the long run. He still didn't want to lose her.

"Orion?" she said.

He took a deep vent. "What I was upset about last orn… it's…" He couldn't tell her. Silence stretched between them like a deep chasm.

Elita nodded. "I know you're having a hard time, and obviously I don't understand everything you're dealing with, but I think you're doing very well. You're stronger and better than you think you are."

Orion couldn't quite force himself to smile. "Thank you. I'm sorry… I wish I could tell you everything."

"You don't have to tell me everything."

"Elita... I want you to be happy," Orion said.

She looked afraid again.

"A few orns ago, Yoketron asked me what I would do if I could choose—if I didn't need to be a Prime. I told him I would go back to the Hall of Records, but that's not true. I couldn't go back to my old life and be content—not without you."

She looked down.

"I wish things were different," Orion said. "But I have limitations I had no idea about. And I can't make you as happy as I want you to be. In fact, I'll probably keep hurting you…"

Elita shook her helm. "There's something I want you to know,"

"What?"

"I love you, but… you don't control my happiness. You can't 'make' me happy. The situation is terrible, but it's not your fault, and I'm not your responsibility any more than you're my responsibility. Can't we set all of that aside and just… keep caring about each other?"

Orion stared at her, guilt eating him from the inside. He didn't want to lie to her, didn't want to keep secrets from her. He didn't want to lead her on without telling her how much he was going to change.

But... Yoketron had said he would keep all of his memories from after the Council had appointed him. So the more time he spent with her now, the more he would remember her after he received the Matrix.

"All right," he said. "Let's do that."

"Thank you," she said. "Oh, I almost forgot, I came here to tell you about the groundbridges. I figured everything out."

"Really?"

"Yes," Elita said. "We couldn't get a permit in time to make our own station, but if the station technically belongs to someone with a permit, then we can operate it without one. So I commed the owner of the Council Complex Groundbridge Station and talked him into letting us use his permit to build our own station. We can put it almost anywhere we want. There's a big apartment building that's currently being renovated and doesn't have any tenants, and the owner says we can buy it. It'll work for a barracks until we get something else in place. And it's near some warehouses. One of them can be turned into a small groundbridge station—we probably only need a few bridges since we won't be sending mecha to a bunch of different places at once—and the others can be used for training."

Orion blinked. "That's… that's wonderful."

She nodded.

"When will you be able to secure all of this?"

"Oh, I've already got deals drawn up and arranged, I just need your approval. So probably by our ornly meeting, I can have everything ready. Except that I've agreed to let Ironhide and some of his old friends from work teach me how to fight—along with my sisters, and a bunch of other mecha."

He frowned—something about that made him uneasy. "Are you… sure you need to learn to fight?"

"Well, Ironhide seems to think it's important," Elita said. "And it would be good to be able to defend myself. I might even end up on a battlefield some orn, so yes, it seems like a good idea."

He nodded, though he definitely didn't like the idea of her on a battlefield. He supposed he couldn't stop her from learning, though.

He looked back down at his datapad. "Another unrelated question," he said. "I know the reason we've had so many volunteers this orn is because of some factories closing, but…"

"Chromia's suspicious about that," Elita said. "On the news they said it was strange because the factories were all successful. Closing had nothing to do with running out of credit."

That was strange. But not what he had been concerned about. "I want to talk to them," Orion said. "I don't think I've met many of the mecha who've volunteered to fight for us, and I want to be the kind of commander who knows his soldiers."

"Well," Elita said. "We can gather them all together soon. Probably the earliest we could be ready for them to move in will be… I don't know, a couple of orns. But we could have them all meet together before that if you want."

Orion nodded. "Perhaps early next orn?"

"I'll make sure that gets arranged," Elita said.

They talked more about the specifics of the buildings Elita and Chromia were planning to purchase, but then their conversation drifted to other topics. Orion almost forgot about the war as they fell back on the familiar things they'd enjoyed discussing back before everything had gone wrong.

And then, halfway through a sentence, Elita stopped and put a finger to the side of her helm. "Sorry," she muttered to Orion, then frowned. "Oh… Oh, I'm sorry, I completely forgot. I'll be there soon."

Orion shot a guilty look at the datapad on his desk. He wondered how many memos from Prowl he'd missed while they'd been talking.

"I have to go," Elita stood and headed for the door. "Thank you for talking with me," she called over her shoulder.

Orion stood as well. "Wait," he said, and came around the desk.

She stopped and turned to face him.

He embraced her, enfolding her in his arms and resting his faceplate on the top of her helm. It felt good to be so close to her, even though her spark was no longer in sync with his.

After a brief eternity, Orion let go, and Elita left, and he remembered that he only had a few joors before he had to meet with Yoketron to start the Primal Trials, and he only had a quarter of a vorn until he had to be ready to receive the Matrix of Leadership and leave his former life behind.

He should tell her about all of that. He should warn her.

But not this orn.

Mirage walked in silence through the empty, narrow aisles between factory equipment. He tried to ignore the smell of the place—old grease, grime, and rust—as he contemplated his purpose here.

Mainspring had asked him to go to the factories and look around in an effort to determine why they had suddenly closed. The Autobots were already much less naïve than they had been earlier, and while he could tell they were relieved to have so many recruits, they were suspicious about it.

He wondered how long it would be before they found out that the mech who had owned these factories had actually sent all of the workers a memo recommending that they join the army. That was likely to get into the news at some point.

He also wondered if they'd ever find out that these factories closing was actually going to undermine the Autobot cause in the long run.

He still wasn't sure if he'd made the right choice.

He didn't think his guests knew what it was like to be a high tower noble. There were always things to do, places to go, mecha to talk to, games to play, challenges, parties. There were triumphs and terrible failures. There was intrigue and love and hatred and friendship. Life was long and fascinating and fulfilling.

He'd thought, initially, that he could teach his guests how to think like him—that he could educate them in the careful politics of the elite and thus help them gain power and credibility.

But instead, the opposite had happened. He had realized that his entire world was fake.

He reached the end of the aisle and turned to stare down the empty row of benches and tables and equipment. There were better ways to run places like this—ways that made use of better machinery and skilled operators and mechanics. But updating everything would cost so much that it would take more than a hundred vorns to make up for it. It was cheaper to crowd mecha so close together that they could barely move, and force them to work long orns on assembly lines for nearly no credit.

He had been here just eight orns ago, and had watched them work. He'd wondered at first what would possess anyone to stay here, and he was ashamed that it had taken him more than a joor to realize that if they quit their jobs at this factory, they would probably starve.

He couldn't even imagine that.

The ability to turn invisible had coaxed him down from his tower on occasion. He'd gone to see some of Blurr's races, and he'd enjoyed strolling through the historical streets of Iacon Central from time to time, so he had known that common mecha resented the nobility. But he had thought they were simply jealous, or that they were confusing his mecha with the government. The Council was corrupt—everyone knew that—but the high tower nobles were merely misunderstood.

He had misunderstood.

He had never known exactly where all his credit came from. He had asked when he was a youngling and he still remembered that conversation with his creators. They had emphasized that they didn't need to worry about it, because they hired servants to do their finances. They had explained that mecha should do what they were good at, and that Mirage had been sparked for parties and politics, not accounting. If you started to lose credit, that meant it was time to have your hiring manager find you some new servants to run your finances.

When he'd been given his mod, and the opportunity to live in his own tower, he had been informed that his main income would be from several factories throughout Iacon and Tagan Heights, but he hadn't looked into it further.

Then he'd overheard some of the mecha from Autobot talking about poor conditions in factories and other work places and had decided to investigate.

He could still remember the vivid scene from his first time here. It had been noisy, overcrowded, and overwhelming. He had watched mecha with scratched paint jobs and corroded faceplates working side by side, some chatting, others focused grimly on their work. He'd witnessed a femme lose a finger in the machinery, and then listened to her complain to her neighbor in a voice tight with pain that she didn't have enough credit for a replacement, or even to go see a medic about it.

He'd watched an older, sick-looking mech cough rust flecks all over his workspace while the mecha around him winced and tried not to get too close to him. He'd collapsed at one point, and for several breems his neighbors had cast furtive, uncomfortable glances in his direction. Then a supervisor had walked in their direction and someone had finally reached out and shaken the sick mech back online.

He took in a deep vent, and stared up at the high ceiling before turning to walk down another empty aisle.

This was his factory. His luxury had been paid for all these vorns by femmes who couldn't afford to see a medic about a missing finger and mechs who were so covered in rust they could barely walk. He had thought he was a member of some third party, separate from the evils of the Council. But really, though he hated to admit it, he could no longer deny that he and his peers were part of the problem.

And as terrifying as it was to give it all up—to abandon the perfect world that he'd lived in his whole life in favor of one where mecha suffered and starved, to fire his servants, close his factories, and hand over every scrap of credit he owned to the Autobots—he had to. He couldn't bear the knowledge that he was responsible for the conditions these mecha had been enduring.

He reached the end of the aisle, listening as the lonely walls creaked in the wind. This building was about ready to fall apart, and it wasn't the worst of them, and he still had factories in Tagan Heights that he hadn't gone to see. He might have to make up an excuse to leave for a few orns to tour the rest of his sources of income and see if he needed to close them too.

But for now he would go back and invent something to tell Mainspring. He was afraid that they wouldn't want to use his money if they knew where it had come from, so he couldn't tell them. It would be better if no one ever found out.

And hopefully, life in the army would be better for his employees than life in the factories, even though it might be shorter.

Mirage gave his property one last glance before leaving the way he had come. He would tell Mainspring that he hadn't been able to figure out who'd made the decision to shut down. It would remain a mystery, as long as he could keep it that way.