Chapter Text
An empty chasm occupied the space behind Optimus' windshield and in the newly formed cavity where the Matrix rested. Once, when the Matrix was still just a fable to her, she wondered what kind of god would give Her people such a powerful object to aid them only to take it away and completely disappear from Iacon. Even now, she hadn't directly interacted with Primus. Her god had spoken at her when she was revived in the bowels of Iacon but never had Optimus properly spoken to Primus. She wondered if she ever would, if it was even something She allowed to happen.
Maybe once Primus had been a more loving creator, tending to Her creations on a more personal level. Maybe even once, Primus had been the one to teach the Matrix bearer about the mantle they had taken up and how to navigate the Maxtrix's changes. That was certainly not the case now. Maybe an absent god, a neglectful creator was what they deserved. By way of the downfall of the Primes, all of Cybertron had abandoned their creator and thus She had abandoned them in turn.
Optimus had wedged herself in an alcove high above everything else, watching from the alcove's balcony as bots hurried from one place to another. She hated herself for hiding from her people but it was necessary to keep them safe, a price she would willingly pay to keep herself from harming one of those whom she was sworn to protect. She was an abhorrent malady, a stain upon the record of those who had held the Primacy before her. Would it be blasphemous to wonder if perhaps Primus had made a mistake in choosing her?
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
The meeting was not going well. Even by Optimus' standards, which were low as a baseline because she was still learning how to be in a leadership position. Her new high command consisted mostly of bots she had known as a miner, those she trusted without a doubt. Ironhide and Prowl, two bots Optimus had known prior, but had never exchanged more than a few words at a single time with, were shaping up to be trusted comrades. But even so, they cast wary glances at Optimus as she sat at the table's helm, going through a plan to cut off a Decepticon supply route.
She knew why they looked at her with a guarded suspicion, like she was prone to bite someone's helm off if they so much as vented in her direction the wrong way. That didn't make it any easier to endure. If anything, knowing why they regarded her like they did and knowing they were right to do so, made the guilt drilling into her spark in painful bursts just that much worse. They thought her a monster and they were right. Not a single thing Optimus did would ever dissuade them from that.
Her grip on the table's edge to keep her servos from shaking tightened until she heard the metal groan softly from the force. She still had to appear strong for her people, even if they feared and distrusted her more than she wanted them to.
Jazz began to go through their known intelligence on the Decepticons and it took everything within Optimus to maintain focus on what her longtime friend was saying, her thoughts continuing to drift down darker and darker paths.
"Optimus." A low voice and a servo on her shoulder startled Optimus out of her thoughts.
She looked up, finding Starscream at her side and the rest of the meeting hall deserted. Embarrassment flooded her circuits as she tried not to panic about wondering just how much of the meeting she had missed.
"I can fill you in later." Starscream's optics dimmed for a moment as she likely checked something in her HUD before returning to their usual ruby red glow, the stern look on her faceplates never once subsiding. "Do you intend on wallowing forever?"
She leaned in closer to where Optimus sat. The words, "It's been over a deca-cycle since you last drank from me. I know you're starving yourself on purpose," went unsaid but Optimus knew they existed in the space between them regardless. In an ideal world Optimus would not be purposely denying herself energon but it was in the best interest of everyone if she was running on fumes, nowhere near her full strength that might end a life unintentionally.
She hoped that if she barely had enough energon to sustain herself that she would be less of a threat to those around her. Even if they were in a war against the Decepticons, Optimus wanted as few deaths on both sides as possible. She knew she would likely be responsible for many deaths as Prime as the war dragged on, so the fewer that were by her own servos, the better.
"If holding myself responsible for my actions and keeping myself away from those who I could harm is wallowing, then yes, maybe I'll wallow forever." It was a petulant thing to say, especially to someone as deeply duty-bound as Starscream was. Optimus knew she was just trying to do her duty and aid her, the current Prime, but she couldn't help it when it felt as though Starscream was being overly callous while she was so freshly vulnerable in a way she had never been before. She had almost killed someone who up until very recently had been her closest friend and maybe something a little more, maybe Optimus deserved to be a little petulant due to that.
"You'll end up dead before any good can truly be done. Is that what you think your people deserve? Another dead leader and no means to a better future?"
Optimus flinched as though Starscream had struck her.
"Better that I am dead than one of the people I am bound by the Matrix to protect."
The seeker sighed heavily, her gaze pinning Optimus where she sat. "You almost killed someone we are at war with. A war which will ultimately have casualties on both sides, if the leader of the Decepticons died by your servo it would only serve to benefit us."
"But I LOVED HER!" Optimus shouted, immediately growing quiet; her words echoed in the room as she shrank in on herself. She'd never said that out loud before, had rarely admitted that to even herself within the safety of her own thoughts. Tears pricked the edges of her optics and a painful pressure built in her chassis. She spoke again, much quieter. "I think part of me still loves her and that didn't stop me from nearly killing her. I am every part the monster the Decepticons will now paint me as. I deserve every vicious, hateful thing that will be spread about me."
Silence filled the space between them far longer than Optimus liked, each beat of silence was a brutal strike to her spark. It was an agony she was not prepared to endure.
And then: "This is war and you are leader now, you must now act in the best interest of your people. As I am duty-bound to you, you are duty-bound to the people of Iacon. I hope you always remember that."
Optimus clenched her servos into fists, trying to tamp down their trembling as she fought with her emotions to keep them in check. Starscream was right and all she was being was selfish. She had to be better than this.
"You're right," she admitted, standing from her chair and walking to the door. "Whatever we once had or might've had is dead and gone, as it has been since she shot me and let me fall to my death." Optimus fled the meeting hall before her emotions could fully catch up to her.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
The world was stained red and the pink of fresh energon. Its colors dripped down, down, down, covering Optimus and painting her in the violence of the world she now partially led. She looked down, finding herself in a tangle of crimson vines, their thorns scratched her plating and dug into her protomesh. They drew energon but Optimus didn't feel pain, not even as the vines wound around her frame and encased her until she could no longer move without being caught on sharp thorns and pinned in place by the tendrils that wrapped around her wrists and pedes.
A sword materialized in the air in front of her, gleaming silver and dripping with a menace so strong that she could taste it— heavy and acidic on her glossa. An invisible mech wielded it, or perhaps it acted on her own as it raised higher in the air and pointed its sharpened tip towards the center of her chassis, right where her spark and the Matrix lay.
She did not brace for the attack, did not even flinch as the sword pulled back and drove into her chassis, cutting through armored plating and protomesh and cables and wires until it sliced through the Matrix and nestled into her spark. As energon poured from her frame in a violent river, Optimus knew that it was only her own violence that had begat her brutal end.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
The Decepticons had struck another energon plant, destroying the infrastructure and extracting as much energon as they could before the plant had gone up in a massive explosion. Optimus had barred herself from personally engaging in the attack against them. It had been brutal, Ironhide's report had informed her, seven of their own dead and many injured, still resting up in the medbay as the medics fixed what they could. Optimus hated herself more for not having been on the ground to aid her Autobots.
She was coming to believe that her actions were cowardice disguised as taking the moral high-ground. Optimus felt her self-hatred grow and bloom with its jagged petals and razor-sharp thorns more and more with each passing solar cycle. She had to change before she was at fault for more deaths. But how could she do that? How, when every action she took was paved in more spilled energon than she had ever intended?
Elita rested her helm on the table in the meeting room, Optimus could see just how the stresses of war were already weighing on her Second. Her plating looked a duller pink than it should, like it had when their mining quota was randomly increased for the quarter and they had to work double, or even triple shifts to catch up on the demand. As captain, Elita had always worn the stress of mining to a greater degree than anyone else in their division had. She seemed to be treating war in a similar manner.
"There's another refinery on the eastern border that has weaker defenses than I'd prefer. Without fortifying it, I think we can expect the Decepticons to hit there next." Elita sighed heavily, covering her helm with her servos. "With the High Guard siding with Megatron, they certainly have a military advantage based on skill and raw firepower alone. I don't like our current odds."
"We'll manage. We don't have much of a choice." Optimus said, hoping if she spoke positively they might actually have a chance in this war.
"Primus spoke to you when you were remade. Has She already abandoned us? Energon flows freely in the streets and the miners are free, but will we stay that way if Primus turns Her back on us and the Decepticons subject their dissenters to a different kind of slavery?"
Optimus bit her lower derma, not wanting to agree with Elita even though it seemed that she was right. Had Primus already cast them aside? "I think this is one of those instances where faith is to be our only solace. We must trust in Primus and our own abilities to bring us out on the other side."
"I can only hope that you're right."
She prayed for everyone's sakes that she was right as well.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
Optimus wasn't sure where she was or how she might have gotten there. She stood in a grand hall in a pool of light streaming in from one of the hall's many ornate stained glass windows, this one depicting a teal mech framed in gold being stabbed in the spark, that same mech exploding in a patchwork burst of color in the window pane to its right. She was painted in prismatic shades by the light, her servos were washed in a deep gold that sparkled and danced on her plating.
She stepped out of the pool of light, deeper into the hall and towards a dais where a gold chalice sat atop a table wrapped in chrome vines. Her steps echoed, bouncing off the high ceilings and marbled floor. The stained glass portraits lined the higher parts of the walls, each depicting a different scene. In one, a mech with cobalt plating and wings of gold kneeled before the teal mech with a hand over their own spark, the other reaching up towards the teal mech. The next window showed the teal mech hunched over the cobalt mech's neck, thin streams of pink ran in ribbons down the cobalt mech's frame. Next to that one, the teal mech stood in a halo of golden light, the Matrix held high above their helm with a small crowd at their pedes.
Something within her urged her forward, ever closer to the chalice. Optimus' steps grew hurried as she was overwhelmed with an intense hunger that craved to be sated, her glossa dry and heavy in her intake as her tanks gnawed at themselves, demanding a sustenance she did not currently possess.
As she drew closer, the chalice now close enough to reach out and grab, a stream of golden light fell upon the dais, illuminating the chalice and the pearlescent pink liquid it held. The hunger grew more intense and something nestled within her chassis urged her to place her derma upon the chalice, to drink the liquid within. Unable to even consider resisting, Optimus complied and took the chalice in both servos and raised it to her intake. The vessel was warm to the touch, something about it hummed in satisfaction as she tipped it up enough for the pink liquid to flow into her intake.
The warmth poured into her, pooling in her tanks and spreading out into her limbs and enveloping every part of her frame. She drank the last of the chalice's contents and set it back down on the table, dimly noting that her servos now glowed like she had absorbed that golden light. The sensation expanded, larger and larger until there was no part of Optimus that wasn't touched and consumed by the light.
Optimus Prime felt herself burst from the inside out, exploding into a glittering cascade of gold.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
She awoke under the stream of a cold, sterile light— acutely aware of a great hunger she needed to sate.
"Oh good, you've returned to us." A gruff, but not unkind voice remarked. Ratchet.
"What happened?" Optimus attempted to sit up, a sharp pain lancing through her frame as the world around her spun.
"Easy now, you went into stasis lock from a lack of fueling. I ran some med-grade through your lines but you'll still need to actually fuel properly. Your fuel levels are still dangerously low."
Optimus let out a long ex-vent, knowing the med-grade wouldn't be enough and she would have to accept Starscream's offer once more, much sooner than she had wanted.
"As Prime, my fuel needs must be the lowest priority. There are many others who need fuel before me."
"'As Prime,' you have a duty to your people to stay alive. You can't possibly manage to do that with your systems running on fumes. You're still mortal and you sure as Pit still need to fuel. Being revived and remade by Primus doesn't exclude you from that." Ratchet gave her a withering look and Optimus knew there would be no winning this argument.
"I'll fuel later, I promise."
Ratchet raised her optical ridge skeptically but didn't push it further, hopefully that was enough to keep her from bringing it up again until after Optimus had talked to Starscream.
⟡ ⟡ ⟡
"You keep looking at me like you want to say something but it never comes. Spit it out before you blow a gasket." Starscream's plating ruffled as it shifted back into place after transforming, the late-cycle sun catching on her crimson paint in a way that made it sparkle as she moved.
Optimus winced, shifting nervously on her pedes. It was Starscream who had been the one to initially offer herself up as a source of lifeblood for Optimus, so why was this so nerve-wracking? "Would I be wrong to hope your initial offer still stands?"
She watched as Starscream's optics swept over the small balcony, searching for anyone to overhear them. "You would not. Does this mean you've ceased being a complete and total bolt brain about fueling?"
Her fans kicked on to counterbalance her frame heating up in embarrassment. "Not entirely of my own volition, but yes, you could say that. I just don't think it's entirely fair I consume your energon and you get nothing in return."
"It's both my duty and honor to serve the current standing Prime in any way that I am needed. You're not forcing me to do this, if that's what you're worried about." Starscream said as she leaned back against the balcony's railing, basking in the sun's glow.
"If you're sure. But can we… do this somewhere more secluded?"
Starscream nodded. "Your berthroom then."
The closer to Optimus' berthroom they were, the more the constant hunger grew into an unbearable, excruciating gnawing in her tanks. She kept walking, her only solace was the hope that lifeblood would be enough to fix herself. Even knowing that Starscream was perfectly okay with being fed from had no effect on the guilt still ever-present that weighed heavily on her spark. She feared that she would forget her own strength and kill Starscream, or even just take too much energon from her, unable to stop herself in her hunger.
The door slid open and Starscream sat on the edge of the berth, craning her neck to the side to give Optimus better access to her main fuel line. She cradled the back of Starscream's neck with one servo as she had done the first time and sank her derma into soft silicone of Starscream's fuel line. The instant the tangy, sweet energon that sustained Starscream hit Optimus' glossa, everything within her frame relaxed and the tension in her struts completely evaporated. Slowly, ever so slowly, the hunger dissipated and the incessant low fuel warnings in the corner of her HUD vanished and Optimus regained a mental clarity she had not felt in over a deca-cycle. It was a wonder how many of her internal issues could be solved with the energon from another mech's lines.
She forced herself to unlatch from Starscream's fuel line and wipe any trace of energon from the corners of her intake. "Thank you," Optimus whispered, feeling the guilt nudge its way back to the forefront of her processor amidst the relief she felt after properly fueling.
Starscream smiled softly, even as her optics briefly flickered— a clear indication of low fuel levels. "Of course."
Wordlessly, Optimus crossed to the other side of the room and retrieved a cube of energon tucked away in a cupboard, likely left over from its past inhabitant that she had never bothered to add to the building's communal fuel stores. She handed it to Starscream, who took it with a nod. "I apologize if I've sounded ungrateful about what you know about the Matrix and its… changes. In no world would I be able to navigate this without someone who knows of my new condition and at least partially how to deal with it. I owe you a great deal."
"Just try to stay alive and promise me to not purposely starve yourself and I'll call us even, deal?"
Optimus shoved down the guilt and any other nasty, residual bad emotions she had and nodded. hoping that what she promised was not intentionally empty. "I'll try."