Bayverse. Hope never comes easily, not even for Optimus Prime. Optimus's thoughts as he faces execution at the end of The Last Knight. Unabashed attempt at motivational writing. Canon-compliant. One-shot.

NOT meant to be in conversation with the other Optimus My Legacy one-shots unless you squint.

"Get up, get up, get up…!"

Samuel

Those words haunted Optimus's nightmares. They haunted him when his limbs collapsed beneath him. When he tried in vain to rise as his spark flickered out, his limbs falling limply to his chest as he ordered Sam to run.

"Get up, Prime...!"

Ironhide

When the Fallen's foot crushed his fragile chassis, tearing away the Matrix as he struggled to crawl to his knees.

"Optimus! Optimus! Get up! Get up!"

Tessa

When a human child was relying on him and only him to keep her alive. To keep her safe. And he found that he could rise no longer.

Because if he did not rise…

Well.

He did not wish to consider the alternative.

Optimus had been built for combat, a knight. He and Megatron both had been two of many mercenaries for war, enslaved by alien masters. But Sentinel Prime had freed them, and Optimus had chosen a different path. Optimus had chosen to serve the peaceful and just empire that had been built by his Prime. Faced with true freedom, he had left behind his hated weapons of war, and chosen instead to be a scientist and a scholar.

But it seemed he could not outrun his programming, his skill, his destiny. He was built for the battlefield. After the civil war began, there he lived. There, he imagined that one day he would die for the last and final time.

But not today.

"Not today…" His spark kept whispering.. "No, not today."

So he got up. Again and again. He took the beatings till he thought he could not take them anymore. He was far from invincible. Powerful, certainly, but not invulnerable. He felt the damage of every wound, the toll of ages exacting its price.

Sentinel had nearly finished him. Breaking his spirit as he broke the younger Prime's spark. But for Megatron's intervention, he would have died at the foot of the old traitor, partially dismembered, gored through, both metaphorically and physically, begging his once-hero for mercy.

But fate had a different plan in mind. Instead, it was Sentinel who died begging.

After Optimus had ended both enemies, he had wanted nothing more than to lie down and die with them. What kind of victory was this? It was all such a waste. So many lives lost, human, Decepticon, Autobot…And all of it for nothing. Ironhide had been murdered by the soul the Prime had loved almost as much as his own creators. So many earthlings had been killed among the rubble of Chicago that a number could never truly be calculated.

Humanity gradually turned against Cybertronians. All Cybertronians. How could Optimus blame them? He had told their leaders to trust Sentinel, and humanity had paid a terrible price for his misjudgment.

NEST disbanded. All except for a few Autobots scattered to the wind. Sam Witwicky continued to be an advocate for the Autobot cause, acting as a human attaché and liaison between Optimus and various human governments. When Lockdown caught them offguard in Mexico City, the Prime had been forced to watch the loyal, loving young man die before his very eyes, had felt Sam's fragile human heart beat its last. And then, mortally wounded as he was, the Prime had been forced to flee, leaving the shattered boy's body to rot in the dust and debris he had left behind. In the aftermath, when Optimus eventually collapsed inside an abandoned building, he had wondered if he would ever wake. At a certain point, what good was getting up when there was so little left for which to fight?

When he woke from Quintessa's trance, moments away from slaughtering Bumblebee, his own soldier, his scout, his protégé…something shattered inside him. Shocked at himself. Shocked at his own corruption.

"What have I done…?" He whispered in horror.

Optimus barely felt as Megatron fell upon him and ripped the staff away from his numb and stiffened servos. It was too late that he realized what a prize he had let his brother take.

And in that moment, perhaps for the first time, all he felt was true despair.

What was left?

The Guardian Knights surrounded him, ready to render their verdict. As they began to strike him, every blow they landed felt righteous. Every blow felt just. He had failed. Failed so thoroughly that he would have perhaps torn out his own spark had the Guardians not appeared to exact judgment.

"No, Prime, get up!" Cade Yeager shouted as they beat and battered him.

Why?

He was so tired. He had risen and fallen. Fallen and risen. Over and over. So many wounds. So many losses. And all of it to become a traitor himself. How could he have let this happen? How could he have let Quintessa corrupt him? She had turned his grief and his rage, his own soft spark, into her weapon, her Nemesis, and it was his fault.

The Matrix of Leadership screamed in horror from where it resided within his spark and all he could do was hope it would drown out the horror mounting inside his own processor. He was no better than Megatron. "I rise, you fall…" Those words he'd whispered to the original Decepticon traitor echoed in his memories, taking on new meaning. He had fallen. Fallen and corrupted himself.

Here he was, the fool. The last Prime. A Prime that should never have been one at all, who would have lived forever in inauspicious ignorance of his heritage but for the AllSpark's rediscovery. He was nothing but a weak-sparked idealist who'd presided over the destruction of not one world but two.

It had all come to nothing… He deserved this. He deserved death.

From the corner of his vision, he saw that Bumblebee, ever loyal, lunged helplessly for him as one of the great Guardian's swung his sword.

He shot the yellow Autobot an apologetic glance and then closed his optics, his spark kneeling in submission to the fatal blow…

But the fatal blow never came.

There was a clang of steel. Noises of astonishment. And when Optimus opened his eyes, there was Cade, blocking the executioner's blade with a Cybertronian sword.

Excalibur… The Matrix breathed within him. There was something holy and prayerful in its presence that repelled the Guardians from where they'd surrounded him. As they backed away, Cade began to plead with him, urging him to rise from his knees, to join in the final hopeless fight.

"I have failed you." Optimus muttered to the human.

"It's now or never." Cade panted."But only you can make it right."

He knew the way to Quintessa's inner sanctum, that much was true, but who was to say Quintessa would not corrupt him again? Force him to kill those whom he loved?

Please, get up, Cade's eyes begged silently, the human's pleading expression matching the desperation that still filled Bumblebee's onlooking optics.

Forgive me, Ironhide.

Forgive me, Samuel.

Forgive me…

Get up, get up, get up! The Matrix chanted.

Elita-One, Jazz, Ratchet, Arcee, Wheeljack, Leadfoot...

Forgive me…

One way or another, they were all on the precipice of death. Either Optimus would try and fail or try and succeed. Now was not the time to falter. Now was not the time to doubt. With assuming the mantle of 'Prime' had come a promise, a promise to himself and to his people that he would not go down until he was put down, that he would fight for their freedom until the bitter end. That promise had not come with caveats. Cade needed him, Bumblebee needed him. Cade, the man who had saved his life. Bumblebee, the sparkling he had never had. They needed him to lead them to the seat of Quintessa's power. They needed him to fight for them.

Get up, Optimus whispered to himself.

And with that, conviction refounded, the fallen Prime lifted his helm.

And rose.

There would be time enough later for self-recrimination. But for now, all he could do was get back up.

Please review, guest reviews require no registration! And we all know that at the end they defeat Quintessa and all is made right. It does not matter the number of times we fall, but only the number of times we rise. This brain worm came about because I noticed how often the movies have the line "get up" in them. Also, I recommend listening to 'Champion' by Barns Courtney to get a vibe for this piece.