Chapter Text
The Iacon 5000.
Just the thought of it made Chromia’s spark seize up with excitement. She had been preparing for this moment for her entire life! A chance to prove herself—a chance to move beyond all the meager, insignificant races she had won in the past. Everything she had achieved in the past had been for this. Everyone in Iacon, including Sentinel Prime himself, would be there!
“Whatcha smiling so big for?” came a voice from the other side of the training room. Chromia turned to see Swindle a few steps behind her with a huge smirk on his face. She promptly set down the polish that she had been applying to her glossy blue chassis. Her fellow racer was endlessly curious, not to mention a cheat and something of a pathological liar. She catered to his questions all the same.
“Just imagine being the first over the finish line at the Iacon 5000!” Chromia breathed excitedly to him. “With Sentinel watching, too!”
“Yeah, I can imagine it,” Swindle sniggered. “Only ‘cause I’m gonna be the one to win.”
Chromia sniffed, her faceplate rumpling dubiously. “Yeah, right. You wish, Swindle. I’m obviously going to be the first to finish.”
“Look, Chromia,” Swindle said, “just because you’ve got a massive fan following doesn’t mean that you’re a better racer than me. I’ve beaten you handfuls of times!”
Chromia stifled an explosive laugh. Swindle certainly lived up to his name.
Although the two of them had both garnered a huge following, Chromia’s was arguably larger. As one of the only successful female racers of her time, Chromia was idolized by many citizens of Iacon for her speed and energy.
Swindle, on the other servo, was almost as much of a fan favorite as she. He was well-known for being charismatic as well as fast, and Swindle took his reputation very seriously. The popular beliefs about him were true, too—he could charm almost any femme out of her wits.
Yet there was a side of Swindle that Chromia was sure no one in Iacon would ever be ready to see. He was a gambler, a troublemaker, and a frequent visitor of Iacon’s detainment sector. He could always bail himself out, of course—he was a racer and had enough money to last him a lifetime.
Well, Swindle was a fan-favorite all the same. Even among the miners.
Chromia saw them on occasion during training sessions and occasional errands. She had learned something interesting about them from even her minimal interactions with them: they always had one of two expressions on their faces. It was either a dejected sort of hopelessness that made even Chromia’s spark ache, or a type of sober determination. Chromia found it sad that the former was a far more common sight than the latter. In fact, she rarely saw a miner with a remotely hopeful or determined look on their face anymore. Well…except for one.
She didn’t know his name. She wasn’t even sure if she would ever learn his name. But she didn’t need to know his name to know what type of mech he was. He always looked resolute in whatever he was doing, whether it be carting energon around or even doing something so simple as getting on a train accompanied by his fellow miners. He fascinated her in a way no other bot had before.
Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of his scuffed red frame and forcibly keep her optics from following him. She hated that it was a conscious choice. He wasn’t anything special, really—just another cogless miner. Even his model was relatively simple. A strong frame, an unobtrusive head crest, and the bright red paint which was part of what set him apart from the other miners. Though his paint was scuffed and his frame was dented, he never looked dull or dejected like many of his companions.
Once, their optics had met. The miner and one of his friends had been unloading energon onto a transport, and Chromia had been on her way to the raceway for a few hours of practice. He had turned around, his friend right behind him, and had stopped short when he saw her.
'Probably because I’m such a well-known racer,' Chromia had thought amusedly to herself at the time, ignoring the telltale nervous leap of her spark. But she had stopped to acknowledge him anyway. His optics were an electrifying blue, like her own, and for a moment she had held his gaze. That is, until the other miner, a black and white bot with a bright blue visor, had grinned broadly and exclaimed, “Hey, check it out! It’s Chromia!” At that point, she had dashed away without looking back.
She laughed internally at the memory. He was just another cogless miner, and she knew it. There were hundreds of others just like him. She swiftly pushed the thought out of her mind as she turned to Swindle again. “Well, good luck tomorrow, Swindle.” She stood and stretched briefly before turning to go.
“Good luck to you, too,” Swindle said, and Chromia was surprised to hear something like genuine sincerity in his voice. “Don’t get too distracted.” This last comment had a strangely dark undertone to it.
“I won’t,” she said with a faint smile. “See you from across the finish line!”
Swindle snickered. “Right, whatever.” Chromia gave him a grin and a quick wave before she left.
The Iacon 5000 came and went, and Chromia’s prediction of victory came true. Despite some unexpected circumstances(such as the sudden interferences of miners Orion Pax and D-16), the day was, at least in Chroma’s optics, a huge success.
Yet her joy was only ephemeral.
Mere days later, the whole of Cybertron was turned upside down. D-16 became Megatron, Orion Pax became a Prime, Sentinel was brutally murdered, and her life of racing was over—just like that. All because of some lowly miners!
No words could encapsulate the anger and helplessness Chromia felt at having her life, her passion…her joy…torn away from her so mercilessly. All because some slagging miners thought they knew what was best for Cybertron.
She knew she never should have spared the cogless a second thought. They were nothing but trouble. It was stupid of her to have even locked optics with a miner, let alone think well of one. They were the reason she had lost it all. So Chromia vowed never to lend them her help, never to fall for a pair of electrifying blue optics ever again.
But some promises were simply never meant to be kept.