Chapter Text
If you had asked her before this exact moment, Elita would have said there wasn’t a reckless circuit in her body. She was focused. Her programming pushed her toward success, not risks and the potential of failure. She certainly wasn’t to the point of that one subordinate of hers, constantly breaking into archives and trying to saved trapped coworkers…
…and yet.
It took something to jump after him. Gall, perhaps? An undeniable sense of recklessness she hadn’t let herself explore, before? A sudden flare in her spark, whatever emotion it was that fueled the scream she let echo as she saw him shot?
Whatever it was, it didn’t matter much anymore—she was plummeting after him, and that was that.
(Bee’s scream as she jumped would forever echo in her audials.)
She thought they would have hit ground a long time ago. But that was far from the case—where the hard floor would have claimed her spark and whatever was left of his, it now disappeared out from under them. Arcs of energy—electric, buzzing under the ground—came narrowly close to them, and yet, not a one struck. But they were a source of light, for which she would have been grateful, if it weren’t for the fact that every single one illuminated Orion as he turned more and more gray.
Her eyes—and never you mind if they welled over—narrowed, and she lowered herself into a nosedive.
Her head made contact before her arms did. Without quick reflexes, he might have been thrown away from her, but she reached out, faster than any arc of lightning, and pulled him closer.
The wound burned under her touch, but his frame had already gone cold. Even his eyes—so full of light and wonder, even in the darkness of the mines—had gone out.
“You just had to make me believe,” she seethed, “didn’t you?”
The quick wit she had grown to despise was gone, and his lifeless frame didn’t answer. She pulled him into an embrace, just so that she didn’t have to look at his empty, sparkless eyes.
“I said you would bring us hope,” she wept, “not this! Orion, my god, he wasn’t worth it! Why did you have to be so-”
She choked on a sob, and instead howled her grief into the ground below. Her scream echoed, and thankfully, it masked the sounds of her tears.
She hadn’t cried in ages. Not since she was very, very young. It was a sign of weakness, in the mines. Elita needed to be strong, if she was to survive.
She was strong, yes, and she had carved a path for herself. But then Orion came into her life and ruined it all, and Primus, she loathed him for it.
…but Primus, it had been lonely without his passionate ramblings and bad flirting. It took a journey to the surface to realize just how much she had missed it.
(Maybe that was just constant exposure to Bee’s ceaseless chatter.)
…had she cried like this, when her cog was carved out as a newborn? Or had she been silent, voiceless and scared, like she had been every day of her life after that before Orion came and ruined it?
He had given her a priceless gift—her freedom. Her voice. Her autonomy. Maybe this choice had tossed back it in his lifeless face.
But she didn’t care. He had made his choice. She didn’t have to take it lying down.
And if she had to go back to relying only on herself, to being the only person in this universe she could count on or believe in…
…well. Whether her spark was snuffed out alongside his, or it flickered out trapped and endlessly alone in the dark of the mines, she would die one way or the other.
At least this way, it was her choice.
He was gone.
He was gone, but her spark was still lit—that much she knew. That much, she could feel, deep within her chest, as it flickered right next to the cog of Alchemist Prime.
(The one renowned for his mind. Had she been thinking about it, when she received it, she would have preened.)
But the realization that holy Primus, she wasn’t dead wasn’t quite enough to distract her from the fact that Orion—her stubborn, reckless moron of a former employee—was gone. In fact, even his corpse was missing from her arms.
She tensed. She straightened out her legs to stand—only to find no ground under her feet.
And, in front of her, painted in endless shades of stars and blue, stood backs of figures she only vaguely recognized.
If she had been staring at anything else, she might have looked at the blue sun in front of her, the figures of starlight in front of her, and put two and two together. But there was one in gray, whose back she had stared at as she charged into the unknown.
And suddenly her aching spark lurched.
“Orion!”
There was absolutely no response from anyone. She strained to see better, and, despite his lifeless state, he was glowing.
“What are you doing to him?!”
Still no response.
It was at this point Elita grit her teeth, and began to force her way past the ancient Primes like a barbarian. It didn’t occur to her at all what she was doing. All that mattered was that she get to him.
They resisted her. Even held their arms out to stop her. She thrashed, and even climbed one to see better.
“Stop! Please! He’s my friend! Don’t hurt him!”
As if the dead could feel pain. It was ridiculous. She didn’t even care.
On some unseen signal, though, they parted. No sooner did Elita find her footing did she once again find herself under the intense gaze of Alpha Trion.
It was like the world stopped. Orion—still lifeless, yet lit up like his spark hadn’t been extinguished in the first place—still had his back to her. And yet Alpha Trion stood in front of them both, lit up in starlight.
“Loyal to the very end,” he whispered.
It was reverential. It was almost a question. Even in the face of such might, she stood tall.
“That stubborn little optimist is the only person I’ve ever truly believed in,” she spat. “Of course I followed him!”
She wondered if she should have phrased that differently. That being said, it was the truth, and it hurt—but oh, she couldn’t take it back now. Where once her path had been hers and hers alone, it was one someone had chosen for her. Now, she had a choice—and she wanted nothing more than to stand by him. To help him, in his mission, no matter how stupid or now noble.
Especially now that D had…
It was difficult to say exactly what crossed Alpha Trion’s face. He rumbled approvingly, though.
“We Primes had a High Guard, once. Ones to advise us and to protect us. But more importantly, they were our friends.” Hand on Orion’s shoulder, he continued to speak. “It is a shame that we cannot give such luxuries to him. Instead, he will have you, loyal daughter of Cybertron, to protect him as we cannot.”
Her own frame began to glow, now. Not quite as bright as Orion’s, but almost. There was power coursing through her, filling her every circuit.
(…if she was tasting a fraction of what was coursing through him, she had the distinct feeling she wasn’t quite staring at Orion, anymore.)
“You are one of a kind. Truly, you have earned your name,” he murmured kindly. “And as for our young one, here, I rather like what she said for his name, don’t you, my brethren?”
There was rumbling approval all around her. She was afraid to ask. But she swallowed it.
“…what?”
He turned starlit eyes on her friend, and smiled.
“Arise, Optimus Prime!”