Empire
Ironhide: In His Stead

The halls echo around him. The steps a fast staccato, he ignores the suffocating atmosphere that saturates every air molecule in the building. Nothing catches even a short moment of his attention as he runs past empty conference rooms and vast chambers filled with gossiping bureaucrats.

"Damn it!" he growls when a small number of these simpering fools known under the title politician dares to slow him down. If luck is with him he might even get the change to shoot one or two of them if they annoy him enough. But sadly, he remembers that such behaviour wouldn't look all that good in his file.

Really, he thinks while he tries to find his way through the annoying mass known as district senators. I don't have the time to wait for them to finally fill out the paperwork to move their rusted afts out of the slagging way!

The message he received this morning was clear enough to encourage his haste. 'Come fast!' it said, the clumsy way the letters were formed proclaiming the sender as obvious as a signature. 'Prime wants to proclaim him Protector'.

Damn it to the pits and back, he growls again. This time the curse comes silent, hidden like every good Guard Commander's intentions should always be. Showing his anger in this situation would be as detrimental to him and those he considers his own as jumping from the highest temple spires without wings would have been. Definitely painful, probably deadly and oh so humiliating in its pathetic mess.

When he finally arrives at his destination, the heavy gates falling shut behind him like a predator's teeth once it's caught a tasty prey, he can only stare at the farce playing out before his eyes. There they stand: the mighty Orion Prime, mien as empty as a broken spark's last glimmer of light; and the two heirs. The younger of the two fidgets with nervous energy, as if looking for an escape route but not able to find any. The older one, head held high in a futile attempt to look like the proud recipient of a great honour, seems as afraid as any untrained soldier shoved into a battle zone ever could be.

"Prime," he calls into the void of sound arising before the ruler of Cybertron can speak the final words in this shame of a ritual. "I request my right as Protector's Guard."

The only answer he receives is a gaze as hot and angry as a cannon's fire, the words 'You dare to defy me' hanging like a tainted blade between sovereign and faithful warrior. For a moment, not even the unremarkable sighs of cooling systems can be heard, as if the planet itself is waiting for Prime's verdict.

Then... a nod.

The one called Ironhide shivers in relief. Now I can make it right again, he thinks when the small forms of his cherished heirs hurry to his side. And when they hide behind his back, like the young children they are, he cannot help but smile.

Let them have this moment, he thinks. They grow up too fast anyway.