Summary: When one Prime falls, another rises.
Contact with Seibertron had been established a year before Optimus' death, and ships started arriving not long after, bringing much needed reinforcements.
HotRod came on the first ship. He had been damaged in battle and his entire left leg and hip joint had to be replaced. Kup had come along to make sure that he followed the medic's repair instructions as well as to take over the construction and maintenance of the base once they landed on Earth, overseeing Grapple and Hoist. It was a pleasant surprise to find out Ultra Magnus was on the ship, discovered when the mech had appeared at his small quarters to check on him, because Magnus was one of very few commanding officers who didn't drag him over the smelting pits whenever he deviated from orders. As long as deviation resulted in good things, anyway. Usually got him lectured, though.
Unfortunately, his lovers, Arcee and Springer, hadn't been able to come with and would be taking a later transport; Springer was out on a Wrecker's mission and Arcee said she's wait for him so he wouldn't have to travel alone. And since she had access to certain bureaucratic things, she could also keep track of how the mission was going. General things but Arcee swore she'd be one of the first to know if someone was deactivated.
After disembarking, Kup dropped HotRod off at the repair bay so one of the medics could check his repairs; the stress of transit could have caused hair-line fractures or pulled connections and according to the medic that had repaired him, his self-repair diagnostics wouldn't detect those problems. The repairs to his limb had been so extensive that they had yet to fully assimilate.
ooOO0OOoo
The medic, an apprentice called First Aid, gave him a clean bill of health and directions to his quarters. Along the way, he ran into a group of minibots.
"Hey, guys," he greeted. "Am I headed the right way for blue-12? "
"Why?" one of the minibots demanded, a red one.
"Because he just got in," said a yellow minibot. "Right?"
"Right." HotRod smiled winningly; the other minibots hadn't said anything but were looking somewhat hostile. Some of the larger mechs liked picking on minibots and apparently there were a few here.
"You're in blue-8," the yellow minibot said. "I'm Bumblebee."
"HotRod." He sent a formal greeting along the comm frequency used on-base.
Bumblebee's optics flickered in surprise, then a return greeting flowed back, a little awkwardly. "Sorry, not many people do that anymore."
"My mentor's a tad on the old side," HotRod cheerfully told him. "Got me doing all sorts of things that went the way of the dodo."
"Ah" Bumblebee gestured for his fellows to go ahead without him. "Transform and I'll show you where your quarters are."
"Small problem with that." HotRod watched the minibots walk off, several shooting suspicious glances back at them. He waved. "Can't transform yet."
"Oh," Bumblebee looked concerned. "Cog broken?"
"Nah, limb replacement. Hasn't fully assimilated yet."
"Okay." Bumblebee gestured towards a cross-junction. "It's that way. It's a bit of a walk."
"Move slow and I'll be fine."
ooOO0OOoo
The new arrivals adapted, some faster or better than others. Meeting Prime was an interesting experience; HotRod had heard stories of the Prime his entire existence and that had painted the mental picture of a larger than life mech, all-wise and all-powerful. The real thing was much more down to earth but still awe-inspiring.
Ultra Magnus was assigned to security; he was more than qualified to take over as chief but didn't want to dislodge Red Alert. He was placed as Red's second and some of the first wave Autobots took that as a challenge to see what they could get away with. Which was not a whole lot; Magnus proved himself as perceptive as Prowl where Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were concerned and more creative in their punishment duties, which endeared him to Red Alert, as well as many other Autobots.
ooOO0OOoo
Springer and Arcee arrived a lunar-cycle after HotRod did; they greeted him with embraces and demands for medical updates.
"You up and running yet, squirt?" Springer scuffed his knuckles across HotRod's helm as Arcee hugged him.
"Yup." HotRod twisted out from under Springer's hand, swinging Arcee with him and grinning as she laughed.
Spinning Arcee into Springer, HotRod collapsed into his altform and took off, wheels squealing. "C'mon you slowpokes! "
He led them on a race, delighted Springer chose his groundform instead of his flying altmode. Whooping, he led them into the forest and to a secluded glen. Transforming as he skidded to a stop, HotRod laughed again when Springer transformed and tackled him to the ground. He fought back, getting fingertips into Springer's seams and tickling. He grinned when Springer squirmed and giggled.
Arcee joined them, her fingers small enough to fit inside Springer's seams and get to parts that made him curl up in self-defense. Springer managed to rally himself; neither Arcee nor HotRod were ticklish, so he applied his efforts to stimulating delicate areas.
It didn't take long for their horseplay to turn to interfacing; he had dearly missed his lovers and apparently they had missed him just as much.
Afterwards, they lay together, basking in each other's presence and talking softly, watching Earth's stars rotate across the sky.
ooOO0OOoo
Optimus had gone out to meet with the President.
The meeting had been secret and the security had met Red Alert's stringent standards, so how the Decepticons had found out about it was a mystery for the ages. Most of the humans survived, since the Decepticons had concentrated on Optimus, who had led them away. By the time reinforcements had arrived, all that was left of the fight was deactivated drone shells... and a pile of scrap metal that used to be their Prime. Blaster caught a broadcast later than day; Megatron, bragging about the death of Prime over the airwaves to the entire Earth.
But no mention of the Matrix.
*That* was discovered in Optimus's office the next day, carefully placed in a safe only Prowl knew the location of and combination to. Prowl had surprised into stalling when he opened the safe to retrieve some important datachips and saw it there.
Though relieved that Megatron hadn't taken it as well, the Autobots were now presented with a problem; nobody really knew what to do with the Matrix of Leadership. Traditionally, when a Prime was deactivated, it was the responsibility of the Council of Ancients to take possession of it. But the Council had long since been scrapped; Megatron and Starscream had hunted them down early in the war, displaying their disassembled frames on the walls of the ruined Council Chambers.
More than a few Autobots, and some human allies, wondered why Optimus left it behind; had he known, somehow? Sentinel had done the same thing, going to his death while denying Megatron the Matrix.
For lack of any other options, the Matrix had been put under guard. No one knew what methods the Council had used to select the next Prime, so the Matrix was left untouched for months while the officers tried to figure out what to do. Red Alert outdid himself with his security and the guard he insisted on posting was overkill.
The small room the Matrix was housed in became a cross between a museum and a shrine; Optimus had been well-loved and mechs came to pay their respects and gaze on an artifact they had all heard about but never expected to see. And there was a something, some energy that everyone's systems could detect but not evaluate properly, that emanated from the Matrix. It felt a little like coming home after a long mission.
ooOO0OOoo
HotRod stared at the Matrix, remembering the first time he'd met Prime. It nearly made his processors glitch trying to wrap his head around the fact Optimus Prime was gone. Part of him had expected Prime to live forever.
"HotRod? Are you listening?"
Sighing softly, HotRod slowly turned away from the Matrix to look at Arcee, who was frowning at him. "Hmm?"
"Are you ready to go?"
From the tone, she had asked several times. HotRod blinked, seeming to come back to himself, and said, "Uh, yeah. Let's go."
As they left, HotRod couldn't help but look at the Matrix one more time.
ooOO0OOoo
HotRod kept going back to look at the Matrix, to the point that Springer and Arcee started teasing him about it. He couldn't explain it but he *had* to keep going back. Kup was the usual guard when he went; both he had Ironhide alternated for guard duty. Neither had been chosen by the Council of Ancients, but both had been in possession of the Matrix at some point. Oddly enough, both had received the Matrix from *short-lived *Primes, ones not usually mentioned in the Litany since their rule was so brief. Eventually, they gave in to HotRod's insatiable curiosity and confided some of their experiences to him. Ironhide told him about the time he had been giving a tour of the mine he was working at to Sentinel's predecessor when the mine had collapsed. The Prime had been badly damaged and gave Ironhide the Matrix to safeguard it until they were rescued. He had deactivated just as the rescue teams had reached them.
Kup spoke only once about his Prime; never said the name and never said when, but HotRod had gotten the impression that it was way back.
They had been scouting, there was an attack and the Prime had handed him the Matrix before he deactivated. For the garrulous Kup to say little was... disturbing. HotRod figured the two of them had been close and Kup was still mourning, thousands of vorns later. But Kup told him tales of other Primes he had known or heard of when he visited, and he always watched HotRod closely, as though searching for something within his words or actions. HotRod thought he knew something he wasn't saying, but was afraid to ask.
ooOO0OOoo
Something about HotRod had been... off, all day.
It started with a general feeling of lethargy. He was reprimanded several times during the morning meeting for not paying attention and then again during work for almost stepping right off the edge of a platform. He had hoped that getting a good refueling would help, but taking in energon only seemed to exacerbate the problem. The servos in his arms kept glitching, knocking things over when he reached for them, and his depth-perception was way out of whack even though the diagnostics he ran said it was fine. By the end of the day he was bumping into people when he tried to walk around them.
It was frustrating and exhausting, and his processors felt like they were running at half-speed. One of the officers had noticed and ordered him to visit the repairbay, though he bypassed it in favor of his own quarters because it was closer. Stumbling through the door, he wasted no time in crawling onto his berth, which was empty because Arcee and Springer were on duty, and with a relieved crackle of static he sank into recharge.
ooOO0OOoo
Kup was on guard the night it happened. He had kicked back his chair, put his pedes up on the wall next to the only door and gotten comfortable. Then started when the door unexpectedly opened and HotRod walked in; no real surprise, as other Autobots had come in to observe the Matrix of Leadership and HotRod had been a frequent visitor. The room was under surveillance and the Matrix was alarmed, so Kup's presence was mostly attributed to Red Alert's near-obsessive adherence to security protocol.
"Evening, lad," Kup called. He frowned when he noticed that HotRod was... not right. His optics were flickering and his mouth was forming words, but Kup couldn't hear anything. He stood from the chair and strode to HotRod's side. "You feeling all right?"
Heat went up his spinal relays when he finally heard what HotRod was mumbling; the words spoken when a new Prime had been chosen and was receiving the Matrix.
"With reverence I accept the Matrix. With honor I assume the title of Prime."
Kup grabbed HotRod's arm, "HotRod! What-" and broke off when was shoved away. Lying on the floor, Kup could only watch as HotRod, moving like a sleepwalker, smashed the case and picked up the Matrix. Amidst the alarms going off, Kup could hear a beautiful sound, a shimmering note. The room flooded with bright light and when it cleared, HotRod had changed.
HotRod calmly placed the Matrix in his chest, wider and deeper now, and closed the panel. As the younger mech's knees buckled, Kup scrambled to his pedes and managed to catch him before he hit the ground. Reinforcements arrived just as he was lowering HotRod, gaping at the changed features of his apprentice and friend.
ooOO0OOoo
It was the weirdest dream he had ever had. He was surrounded by bright, cool light that cradle him softly, and he felt surrounded by presences, a chorus of voices talking to him; he thought he heard Optimus among those voices. He couldn't make out more than a word here and there, mostly his name.
He had the impression he was being asked to do something; something important, something that would be hard. The hardest thing he had ever done.
"Yes."
ooOO0OOoo
He onlined to see Kup staring down at him, sadness darkening his optics. "HotRod? Are you functional?"
"Yeah. Um, I think." What the slag was Kup doing in his quarters? HotRod started to sit up, and promptly fell over.
Kup caught him, servos whining softly with the effort. "Careful, lad. Take your time."
Why were Kup's servos working so hard? The old coot had carried him off the battlefield on several occasions and never had a problem before. Looking around, HotRod saw that he was in the Matrix room. That'd explain Kup's presence, but... "How'd I get here?"
"You were Called," Kup told him solemnly.
"Called?" HotRod repeated, confused. "Who called me?"
Kup rested a hand on his chestplate. "This did."
HotRod looked down in confusion; when had his chestplate gotten reformatted? Then he noticed how much smaller Kup's hand looked. His head shot up, optics wide.
"The Matrix Called," Kup said softly. "You're the new Prime."
ooOO0OOoo
The chorus of voices stayed with him for a few joors, and he sat listening to them while the rest of the Ark's officers talked and fretted around him. The Matrix informed him that his designation was now Rodimus, and guided him through the new programs and upgrade files that had accompanied the Prime reformat, before gradually fading away.
Optimus's presence was the strongest in the chorus and he was grateful for that, even if it was just an echo of a dead mech; he wasn't sure he could do this without help. Each Prime left their experiences behind and drawing on them was much like reading a story; all the information was there but the emotion was dulled, a faint wisp of what it should have been.
Rodimus lost orns as he adjusted to the Matrix, going through the experiences of the previous Primes and learning how to keep those 'memories' quiet until he needed them.
Tradition dictated, the memories told him, that a Prime followed the wisdom contained in the Matrix and kept things as they always had been. That wasn't going to happen; Optimus had laid much of the foundation for going against traditions and Rodimus intended to follow his example. Optimus was the first Prime to not follow his predecessors in a long time, wanting to change how things had always been. Make things better, life easier.
Optimus would have been successful, had Megatron not declared war and changed everything himself.
The adjustment to his new position took longer; the social status of his two lovers had been raised along with his and neither of them had any idea of what they were supposed to be doing. Springer had led the Wreckers, had been successful at it, but that was inadequate experience for now being a Prime's Consort; and Arcee, normally quite confident and level-headed, found the sudden celebrity to be disconcerting. Not to mention that it was really, really weird to be taller than Springer. And he had to fight down the urge to handle Arcee like the most delicate crystal; she was so much smaller than himself now.
ooOO0OOoo
"C'mon, hit me!" Arcee scowled at him, hands on hips and feet solid on the sparring surface.
"I can't!" Rodimus protested, hands raised. "What if I hurt you?"
Arcee, her engine revving, grabbed one of his hands and tossed him over her shoulder. Rodimus hit the floor hard and before he could recover, Arcee was on top of him. Head ringing from the blow, Rodimus could only stare up at his lover. Another angry rev and Arcee was hitting his chestplate, right over his energon pump. It stuttered, sending pain through him.
"I haven't changed, you slagger!" Arcee hit him again, making the world grey and pixilate as his systems flirted with offlining.
Rodimus gaped at her, stunned by the vehemence.
"I'm still the same!" Arcee was leaning on his chestplate now, shouting. "You're the one who changed!"
Arcee visibly retrained herself from hitting him again, leaning back. Rodimus felt her systems reset.
"You won't break me, Roddy," she said quietly. "You can't."
Arcee slapped the side of his helm. "Now get up and spar with me for real this time. You need to adjust to the reformatting."
ooOO0OOoo
Ultra Magnus and Kup treated him much like before; with a little more respect perhaps but still willing to kick his aft when they thought he needed it.
Thank Primus.
For the rest of the crew, the adjustment to a new Prime was rocky; Optimus had been in charge so long pretty much everyone automatically expected him to be the same, and there were some who even thought he'd be a pushover because of his age and inexperience. Ironhide had been insulted on his behalf, and spread tales of Optimus's early reign, regaling everyone with stories of things that went wrong, things that went not as intended but turned out well anyway (that bit about Optimus using loading equipment to repel a Decepticon raid on a dock was *hilarious*) and things that went right. Optimus had been completely unprepared, having just reached his majority when he the Council appointed him Prime; Ironhide had delighted in the reactions to that.
Prowl had been helpful too, having gone through the handing over of the Matrix before. He was also not given to emotion where work was concerned, taking Rodimus as he was and telling him when he thought he was wrong and why. But it was difficult, even for one as reserved as Prowl; Rodimus had seen him gazing sadly at something Optimus left behind one day. The reminders of Optimus's presence were all over the base, and outside it.
The basketball court had been empty, until the one day Jazz had gone out to shoot hoops alone. It was another lunar-cycle before the court was regularly used by anyone but Jazz and two more after that before the first game was played.
ooOO0OOoo
It was the noise that caught his attention first; the sound of an air-filled ball hitting a hard surface drew Rodimus's attention to the window in his office. It looked directly onto the basketball court, where Jazz was shooting hoops.
Rodimus blinked in surprise; he had never paid much attention to the basketball courts, never cared for the game, and so had missed the fact they had been empty.
"He used to play one-on-one with Optimus," Prowl's soft voice broke through.
Rodimus blinked again and focused on Prowl. "What?"
Prowl toyed with the datapad he was holding, optics on his bondmate. "Jazz used to play basketball with Optimus. He also captained one of the teams."
ooOO0OOoo
But things evened out, eventually. He learned how to be a good leader of an entire people, drawing on Optimus's experience, and his lovers adjusted to their roles as his spokemechs. Keeping up with the day to day was slagging boring but he liked meeting with the human leaders; he'd always been a peoplemech and apparently had gained a diplomatic bent somewhere along the way.
It was through those contracts and negotiation deals that Rodimus discovered he was better with diplomacy than Optimus had ever been and the memories in the Matrix confirmed that. Rodimus had been reviewing various contracts with the humans when he noticed it; Optimus had been taken advantage of on several occasions. Giving more than he had gained. A couple of those contracts had to be renegotiated not too long after he became Prime and the unscrupulous humans had tried to take advantage of his inexperience.
ooOO0OOoo
"Wait. What's this?" Rodimus looked closer at the contract, then scrolled further down. "I believe you're trying to pull a fast one, Mr. Simon."
The human had the audacity to look confused. "I assure you, Rodimus, I'm doing no such thing. Your predecessor agreed to these terms three years ago."
"Well, that was three years ago," Rodimus said softly. "And I am not Optimus Prime. We are going to change these terms."
ooOO0OOoo
But Optimus had been the better warleader. Rodimus wanted to dive into a fight like he'd always had. He'd been in charge of battle units before, small groups that had an objective to complete before disbanding. Being in charge of an entire army was different. Prowl was trying to help, same with Ironhide. It wasn't going well; Rodimus just didn't have the head for those kinds of tactics. The Big Picture, Battlefield Version was something he couldn't wrap his head around easily, even if he drew on the Matrix.
ooOO0OOoo
"Slag!" Rodimus collapsed across the table with a thunk, making the holodisplay flicker. Banging his head against the table's surface was more than the device was willing to put up with and it shut off with a small click.
"Indeed." Prowl's dry voice made Rodimus look up; the tactician was frowning at the area the battle simulation had been. "That was... disastrous."
Leaning his chin on his hand, Rodimus poked the display back into life and scowled at it; 3-dimensional Decepticons were caught in mid-motion, stepping over dead Autobots and gleefully hauling away energon cubes under Megatron's smirking gaze. "Yeah, disastrous."
Understatement of the vorn.
Prowl's frown deepened as the mock-battle ran, displaying in glorious color the Autobot defeat, all orchestrated by Rodimus.
"I'm gonna get us all killed."
Prowl hummed in reply, distraction in the sound. Rodimus looked over to him gazing at the display, one finger tapping the table. "Perhaps I should go with Ironhide's suggestion," Prowl mused.
"Do I wanna know?"
Prowl's gaze switched to him. "He suggested a support beam as an instructional method."
Rodimus thought for a minute. "Think there's one in storeroom 9c."
ooOO0OOoo
He had been Prime for almost a year when Skyfire got the call. It was sent over a frequency the shuttle had not used since before he had been lost in the ice, coded with an encryption only he and one other knew.
Starscream, calling to ask for assistance, promising intel in exchange for asylum.
Red Alert succinctly proclaimed trap, and the others weren't very far behind him. But this was an opportunity they couldn't afford to pass up, so Rodimus ordered Mirage in for recon, with an emphasis in caution. Part of the contact message had stated that Starscream was not being monitored, which Mirage was to verify.
If he thought the situation legit, he was to make contact; Skyfire gave Mirage a memory chip, one Starscream would recognize as belonging to him. That chip was to be the method of communication, since direct communication was impossible with Soundwave on base. Message exchange was the only choice.
Rodimus found himself fidgeting the entire time Mirage was gone, worried that he had made the wrong choice and sent one of his mechs to his death.
Mirage returned thirty-eight hours later, with the news that Starscream was sincere.
And that he had been holding a recharging sparkling when Mirage had managed to catch the Seeker alone.
ooOO0OOoo
"He wants to get the sparkling out of there, sir." Mirage managed to keep the incredulity out of his voice during his debriefing. Mostly.
Mirage had commed Rodimus on a private line as soon as he had hit the base perimeter, telling Rodimus he needed to talk to him as soon as possible. Rodimus, in a fit of unusual paranoia, had casually excused himself from the rec room and made his way to his office. Mirage was there by the time he had arrived.
Rodimus couldn't help but gape for a klick. He shook himself, resetting his audio sensors. "Okay. Weird, but okay. Do you know if the sparkling was split-sparked or if we're going to have to add a bondmate to this equation as well?"
"No, I don't believe so. Prime, I - This is going to sound very strange, but..." Mirage hesitated, then continued at Rodimus's expectant expression. "I have reason to believe that the sparkling is Optimus."
Rodimus felt his processors glitch, the world flickering as he rebooted. "Optimus?" he managed.
"Yes, sir." Mirage placed a datachip on Rodimus's desk. "Starscream wasn't expecting my arrival, so he could only download part of the program that was used to regress him, but it seems legitimate."
Rodimus put in a spare pad and data scrolled across the screen, technobabble of the highest order interspersed with diagrams scrolled past. It was almost as bad as one of Perceptor's reports.
"Optimus is *alive*?"
"As a sparkling, yes. Starscream kept calling him 'Optronix'."
"Optronix?" Rodimus blinked. "Why not Optimus?"
Mirage opened his mouth but Rodimus waved his hand. "Never mind. Rhetorical question."
"Prime, as ludicrous as the idea may seem I believe Starscream has become emotionally attached to Optronix, and wishes to leave to keep the child safe."
Rodimus vented a sigh. "That's going to take some doing, especially if it's the both of them."
"Although he is not actively monitored, Starscream seems to be confined to base," Mirage agreed. "But he is confidant that he could manufacture an excuse to leave and take Optronix with him."
"He would," Rodimus snorted. Starscream's arrogance was legendary. "But okay, we'll assume he can. You up for another briefing? Gonna need Prowl and Jazz if we're going to have a chance of pulling this off."
"I'll be fine," Mirage assured him.
"Great." Rodimus gestured him to a seat. "Grab a cube while I get everybody together."
As Mirage slid into the seat, he softly asked, "Is this to be kept between officers?"
Rodimus paused, thinking. "Yeah. You, me, Jazz and Prowl only. For now."