Chapter Text
Iacon’s ceiling level houses the majority of flighted Cybertronians, but it isn’t completely inaccessible to grounders. Any bot can board a train and be delivered straight to the spark of it, marked by its tallest and most tightly secured tower: the Hall of Records, home of the ancient Archives.
Optimus fondly recalls the last time he’d visited the Archives. Of course, “visited” is a generous word. He’d been Orion Pax, small and cogless and very much not allowed inside the Hall of Records. He found his way in anyways. Illegally. Been chased by the omnipresent Iacon Security Division, KDK-12 being the meanest and most familiar with him, despite never being able to get his name right. It had been a fun time, breaking in for hidden knowledge and being pursued with intent to kill. He misses it. He misses most things about that time.
“Orion!”
Elita is nudging his shoulder, this time hard enough to make him shift on his peds.
“Hm?” Optimus tears his optics away from the train window and realizes they’ve stopped moving. “Oh.”
“You seem distracted,” Elita says as they walk onto the station platform. “You okay?”
Optimus pauses by the railing and peeks over. It always amazes him how much of lower Iacon is visible from the ceiling level. He remembers falling from the Hall of Records while being… pursued…
Falling…
The Prime’s new gyroscope does not appreciate such a vivid memory recall. He grabs onto the railing before he can stumble backwards, his vision darkening. He shuts his optics and shakes his helm, and the vertigo is gone. He looks at Elita, hoping she hadn’t seen him jolt.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m good,” Optimus replies.
Whether she’d seen it or not, he can’t tell. Either way, she smiles at him. They walk along the road that winds around the base of the ceiling level’s buildings for grounders, greeting bots in passing. Elita does a fine job at preventing anyone from stopping them for a chat. Optimus wouldn’t have minded, but he appreciates the femme’s dedication to ensuring they’re on time.
Even now, she runs a tight ship, he thinks as he glances over at her concentrated expression.
Optimus spots the Hall of Records up ahead, and the small crowd already gathering around the entrance. He takes a deep vent in. This is it. His first major exercise of Primal authority.
“He’s here!”
“It’s the Prime!”
“He’s actually going to do it.”
The crowd parts for them. Elita sticks close to Optimus’ side, her helm on a swivel. Her gaze lingers on someone for a moment, but he can’t tell who, and now he’s standing before the doors of the Hall, ornate and gold and even taller than him.
Optimus turns around. The crowd, filled with both fliers and grounders, has grown noticeably fuller. All optics are on him. Skeptical. Hopeful. Expectant.
Primus, help me speak…
“Information should be safeguarded,” Optimus begins, more abruptly than he means to. “Sentinel got that part right. But information should only be safeguarded from bots who want to destroy it, not from anyone who just wants to learn. That part, he got very, very wrong. I’m going to change that today.”
He looks to Elita, with whom he’s entrusted the code for accessing the Hall’s security systems. She nods, walks a few paces away to the doors, and uses a cable from her forearm to plug into the access panel on the wall.
“A security team will still patrol the tower day and night,” Optimus continues, “but from dawn to dusk, the doors will stay open, including access to the Archives.”
Heavy pedsteps accompanied by a furious growl catches the Prime’s attention. A familiar flier approaches, pushing his way through the crowd straight for Optimus. He knows that yellowish mask and purple visor anywhere.
“This is outrageous!” KDK-12 shouted. He’s followed by his fellow Hall guard, the one Optimus can never remember the name of. “Most bots don’t need access to the Hall or Archives. Their functions don’t require the knowledge within them!”
“You threaten to disrupt order, just as you always have!” The other officer adds.
They’re on the steps now, approaching Optimus with wide EM fields pulsing with hostility. An unfortunate move on their part, since KDK-12’s field touches Elita.
“We can talk about this,” Optimus says, taking a half step back now that the two are uncomfortably close. “But not here, and not–“
“We don’t want to talk,” the red-masked officer seethes, armor starting to flare out. “We want you to stop this foolish publicizing of the Hall.”
“We don’t care that you’re the Prime now,” KDK-12 spits, jamming his pointer digit into Optimus’ chassis. “You’re just as defective as when you were Orion Pax.”
Despite the tension in his own frame, Optimus vents and shakes his helm.
“You two really need to learn some manners,” he says. He glances behind them, then gives them a smile. “I know someone who can help with that.”
Elita grabs the fliers by their back armor and yanks them away from the Prime. KDK-12 stumbles and the other nearly falls backwards, both shouting at the suddenness of it all. Their focus goes to the femme standing in their way and they stalk forward, not taking her flared plating seriously in the slightest.
“Back off,” Elita hissed, “or you’ll be arrested for threatening the Prime.”
“We won’t tolerate having some no-cog mining bot rule over us,” the other officer says. “Primus made a mistake!”
He activates one of his blasters and aims at Optimus, who backhands it upward right as he fires. Most of the crowd cries out and ducks, but three bots run out to help the Prime and Elita subdue the ISD officers. KDK-12 throws a bot off and takes a swing at Optimus, whose battle mask snaps on just before his fist connects.
Optimus stumbles back with a grunt. He shakes his helm and refocuses. Radiating vitriol, KDK-12 pulls his other arm back, but even running on pure instinct, Optimus beats him to it. He rams his helm into KDK-12’s as hard as he can. Sparks fly and glass cracks. A moment later, KDK-12 is the one stumbling, except he ends up on his knees, helm in his servos and wobbling.
“Don’t worry. Gyroscope’s an easy fix,” Optimus says as he grabs KDK-12 by the scruffbar to keep him down but upright. “Expensive for a flier, though.”
The officer scowls at the Prime, but he’s already too busy admiring Elita’s handiwork to mind anything he snarls back at him. The femme has the other officer pinned on his chassis, holding both arms behind his back while she calls for backup.
“Nice work,” Elita says when she looks over at Optimus.
“Hard to beat yours,” he chuckles.
Elita notices that the mechs they’ve detained have gone quiet and are making optic contact with each other.
“Whatever you two are planning, you can forget it,” she says with a roll of her optics.
Just a few moments later, a squadron of aerial Elite Guards of warbuild frame types comes up over the walkway railing. They transform, hover down, and land with a heavy thunking that hushes the crowd.
“KDK-12, you are under arrest for assaulting the Prime,” one of the Guards states, while another arrests his fellow officer.
Once the two bots are hauled off by the Elite Guards, Elita looks over at Optimus and crosses her arms.
“Well?” She asks in an amused tone. “You gonna just stand there, or are we showing bots like them that Iacon doesn’t run on functionism anymore?”