Chapter Text
☆☆☆☆
Orion woke up with a gasp, startled, looking around him in the darkness, feeling his spark painfully beating in his chest. In a panic he felt like he was dying, trembling and trying to get his bearings.
He was on the roof, looking up at the shiny city. He must have fallen asleep over there, admiring the view from the top of the building. Trying to calm down, he covered his face with his hands.
Suddenly he heard movement close to him. Oh, right. He wasn't alone up there.
“Orion?” It was D-16 voice calling him. “Are you okay?” He asked in a soft whisper. “I thought I heard you scream.”
I was screaming?
“Oh. It was just a nightmare, Dee.” Was his answer, still covering his face, he didn’t want to see the worried look on his friend's face. “You don’t have to worry.” Continued Orion, trying to control the trembling on his hands.
“With you, I always worry.” Dee sounded closer. Orion could hear his friend stopping beside him. Waiting for something. “Tell me about your nightmare.” Orion sighed, and at last uncovered his face. Faint streaks of coolant stained his cheeks, and his optics glitched ever so slightly.
“It was so confusing,” he started, “it was some kind of battle, I could almost feel a sword in my hand.” He continued in a soft voice, staring at his hands, like they could hold all the answers he was looking for.
“Were you scared? Is that why—” Dee hesitated.
“That wasn’t the issue, it was scary, but I wasn’t scared for myself.” He said. “I was scared for him.” The last word seemed to resonate with something inside his spark. Like sparkbreak and nostalgia.
“Him?” Dee looked at him with interest. Trying to control his curiosity. It was just a bot in a dream.
“He was important.” Orion finally looked at Dee, his blue optics shining with unshed coolant. He suddenly grabbed one of his friend's hands, holding it close to him. “The mech in my dream felt important in the same way you are important.” His voice broke a little. “It was like I was seeing you, but it wasn’t you.” He stopped, trying to gather his thoughts, thinking of his next words, getting more and more panicky.
“It was just a dream, Orion.” Whispered Dee, trying to calm his friend. “Just a nightmare scaring you, nothing more.”
“It felt so real, Dee. So real.” Dee put his hands around Orion's shoulders, hugging him close, feeling him tremble in his arms.
“Just a dream.” He said, reassuring his friend with his words. “Let's go down, maybe you should rest in a proper place, not here on the roof.”
“Maybe you are right.” Mumbled Orion, hugging Dee for a few seconds, before standing up with slow movements.
“I’m always right.” Said D-16, with a little smile on his lips. “Let’s go.”
“Thank you for looking out for me.”
“Of course.”
Orion knew that his friend should be right, but something inside him was telling him that there was more in the dream he just had.
For a few moments, it really felt like he was taking a peek into another's life. And just remembering what he felt in that dream, all the sadness, the sparkbreak of losing someone who felt so important, made him want to hold Dee between his arms and never let him go.
He hoped that this was just a one time thing. One dream full of battle and pain. But something inside him made him believe that maybe it was some kind of warning.
☆☆☆☆
After that first nightmare, Orion started to get more.
Almost every night he dreamt.
At first, it was a repeat of that same battle, same injuries, same enemy, that same hurt of losing someone important in front of him. He couldn´t stop it, he couldn't save him.
But then, one night, something changed.
The dreams were different now. A little bit blurrier, they were more emotions than real images he could clearly see. Sometimes Orion felt happy in those dreams, fulfilled and loved. Sometimes he felt that there were more mechs around him, always talking to him with joy in their voices, like dear friends keeping him company. But between those friends there was one that was different.
Special.
The one with the deep voice, and the purple colors. Orion felt him always close, but he couldn't really see his face. He sometimes could feel his hands holding his face with so much care and love.
But why couldn't he see his face?
Was he wearing a mask? Or his dreams didn´t want to show him who it was?
Orion knew that there was something weird about his dreams and nightmares. In the deepest part of his spark, he felt like there was a hidden message there, one that he didn't quite understand.
Not for lack of trying.
“I'm telling you, Dee!” They were walking around some part of the city, taking advantage of their free afternoon. “Everything feels so weird in those dreams! It's like I know those bots!”
“Orion, they are just dreams.” Responded the other bot. He was used to his friend's antics, but lately, he couldn't seem to stop talking about those dreams. “Maybe your mind is playing with you.”
“Maybe.”
“You have been reading a lot of myths and stuff from the archives lately, maybe is that.”
“It’s just—”
“Hey —hey. Don't worry, Orion.”
“I’m a little scared, Dee. The dreams keep showing me things.”
“Besides the battle and the bots you think you know?”
“Yes. Some dreams feel like you are there, right beside me.”
☆☆☆☆
Orion didn’t see any of this happening. How could he? Suddenly after all their effort, everything went to scrap.
One moment they were participating in the Iacom 5000, the next Sentinel Prime was sending them to sub-level 50, meeting B-127. How could so many things happen in so little time, it was overwhelming.
The train. Elita joining them. Seeing for the first time the beauty of the surface.
And now, after all of that. Now they were closer to their destination.
“Dee?” Asked Orion, breaking the comfortable silence around them. Elita and B-127 walked in front of them.
“What's wrong, Orion?” Dee looked at his friend, noticing the subtle trembling in his hands, the worried light in his optics. “Orion?”
“I feel —you are gonna laugh.” He mumbled, staring at his hands for a second, trying to find the right words to explain what he was feeling at that moment.
“Maybe, but I will still listen to you.” Responded Dee, trying to grasp what was getting his friend so worked up.
“Yeah…”
“Then?”
“I feel that something is gonna happen…”
“Well, if everything goes as you planned, we’ll find the Matrix.”
“And then?”
“And then what? I thought you wanted to change everything?”
“I know, I know. And I want to change it, but there is something else.” He stopped. Staring at his own hands, for a second he saw a pearly white paint job covering his arms instead of his usual blue. It was just a moment but it froze him. “With every step closer I have this horrible feeling in my spark…”
“Oh, Orion.” Whispered Dee in a soft voice.
☆☆☆☆
Sentinel was a traitor.
Sentinel wasn't a real Prime.
He took their chances of a better life, he robbed them of their t-cogs and their future.
“He killed them all.” Whispered Dee, trying to control the sadness and rage in his spark. His fists trembling in frustration.
“Not all of them.” Said Alpha Trion, the last surviving Prime. “But a great number of my fellow Primes fell to Sentinel’s sword.”
“Oh, Primus.” Orion was feeling sick, between Alpha Trion´s words, and the memory he had shown them, he just wanted to sit down and weep.
“I can't believe it.” Dee's voice sounded a little louder, and a lot more angry than a few seconds ago. Orion looked at him, worried.
“Dee?” Orion tried to touch his friend's shoulder, but Dee moved away from his grasp. His frame all tensed up.
“Just —let me think for a little.” He replied, his voice tight.
Orion saw his friend walk away, putting distance between them. Dee couldn’t go very far inside the cave, but at least he could find a little corner to think for a few moments. Elita and B-127 were sitting close to Orion, still trying to understand everything they had discovered in the last few hours.
Orion sighed, feeling defeated. Everything was getting out of control and he didn't know how to fix it.
“Young one.” The Prime called out to Orion, getting his attention. The young miner had to tear his optics away from his friend's silhouette to look at the older bot.
“Alpha Trion, Sir?” He asked, standing in front of the Prime. After everything, Orion still couldn't believe that one of the Thirteen was still alive.
“Your name is Orion, right?” He asked. Orion nodded. “You remind me of a friend of mine.” A little smile on the Prime's face, like he was remembering something long passed.
“Friend?” Orion couldn’t stop his curiosity, it wasn’t every day that he could hear real life stories about the Primes, told by a Prime himself.
“Yes. He too believed in a better future for all of Cybertron.” The Prime stopped for a second, staring intensely at the young bot in front of him, like he was trying to see deep into his spark. “And he too had a very important person in his life.” He said, looking at the place where Dee was pacing around.
“Oh!” Orion could feel himself blush. “Dee is just my friend.” He half mumbled, still flustered. The Prime laughed softly.
“For now.” Said Alpha Trion, with a knowing look in his optics. “Take care of him. All of this is going to affect him heavily.”
“He is just frustrated and hurt.” Responded Orion, trying to explain his friend's behavior. He heard Alpha Trion sigh at his words.
“And that could lead to anger.” Alpha Trion stared at Orion, his big hand softly touching his shoulder, like he was trying to give him some comfort. “And anger can be really dangerous.”
“We’re just cogless bot, it’s not like we have the power to be dangerous.” Was Orion’s answer, a sad expression on his face.
“In that you are wrong, my friend.”
After those words, Alpha Trion gave them the means to change their future and the future of all of Cybertron.
Transformation cogs.
Alpha Trion gave them the T-cogs of the fallen Primes.
Orion knew, the moment that the cog rested inside him, that something was right at last. Excited and happy he looked at his friend. And in that moment he knew.
Dee was changing faster than he could keep up.
Oh no.
☆☆☆☆
Was this the price for change? Did they have to risk their friendship for the power to get a chance for a future?
What about our future? What about us?
Orion didn’t know what to do. Dee was getting farther and farther away from him. Alpha Trion had been right, the anger was consuming his spark faster than he could do something about it. He was losing his friend to his rage and sadness.
He understood the injustice, but Dee was starting to think about extreme measures to get the change needed faster.
Everything happened so fast. Getting captured by the High Guard, Dee and Starscream fighting.
That cannon pointing at the sky like a beacon. Is that really Dee?
In the end Orion didn’t get the chance to talk to Dee after that fight. Sentinel’s minions found them, and now they were separated. Orion was scared, what if he was too late to help his friends? What if Dee was too far away from him to listen to his words?
He couldn’t let himself fall into despair.
They had a plan, Elita and the High Guard, all of them were ready to fight for change and for the future, for vengeance and justice. But with the distance to Iacon city getting smaller, something inside Orion was telling him to hurry, that they needed to get there faster or something terrible was going to happen.
He couldn’t have known that tragedy was waiting for him In Iacon.
Death and resurrection.
Dee couldn’t recognize his friend, standing in front of him, alive again. Changed by the power of the Primes and the Matrix of Leadership glowing inside his chest.
Megatron couldn’t recognize himself. Megatronus Prime’s t-cog, pulsing inside of him, was giving him some strange feelings. For a moment, looking at Orion’s new frame, he saw another; a beautiful white and gold bot standing in front of him, staring at him with love in his optics.
Who was he? Was he real? Was his mind playing tricks?
“Dee, please stop this.” That was Orion’s voice, getting to him through the fog all these new emotions were drowning him in. He stumbled, putting a hand on his head. Too many feelings, and images he couldn't really understand.
“I —Orion.” He whispered, stopping, staring at his friend, trying to understand what he was feeling, his spark feeling like it wanted to jump out from him. “It hurts.” He mumbled, trembling a little. Orion took a step closer to his friend, worry on his face.
“Dee?”
“I can’t —I can’t.”
Orion saw the instant when Dee lost consciousness, and ran to his side in a matter of moments, stopping just in time to catch him before falling. But he didn't count on the fact that the moment he touched his friend, something inside him sang softly, an overwhelming happiness mixed with sadness consumed him.
After that, darkness fell around them both. The last thing Orion heard was Elita and B.127 calling his name.
☆☆☆☆
End Chapter 1