Chapter Text
Hot Rod woke up slowly, he had the worst helmache right now. His senses returned before his sight did, and he felt he was sitting on a chair that was actually kinda soft and plush. He tried to move and felt the sharp pain of handcuffs around his wrists.
He instantly reacted to that, determined to get these off and see if there was a way he could escape. He onlined his optics to see if there was anything he could use to get himself out of this position–
He was met with the sight of the wide landscape of Cybertron, but not like he'd ever seen it before. The chair he was on was facing a gigantic wall sized window that displayed the view of Iacon from a high up tower. He could see there were tall spires brimming with lights, the winding roads below were full of cars and vehicles driving through roadways. He even caught a transport shuttle zooming past. It looked like the sun was setting, or perhaps the sky just always looked so blood red here, but it was vibrant and alive.
Hot Rod had never seen Cybertron like this before. He'd been born so deep into the war he’d only ever seen these streets as desolate and crumbling. It had been hard for him to even imagine it when Kup had described cities that had once been as populated as Earth. It looked beautiful.
"Oh hey, good to see you're awake."
Hot Rod jerked in his seat, as his doppelganger stepped out of the shadows, holding two very fancy looking glasses filled with sparkling energon. Roddy tried to not obviously stare at it. The fake Hot Rod placed the glass on the table right in front of him, taunting him with how unobtainably close it was. Hot Rod decided to glare at his fake instead, who took his time as he sat down on a plush sofa. The fake Hot Rod smiled, looking smug with his weird tacked-on moustache. He put one leg over his knee and smiled even more.
"You enjoying the view?"
"What do you want?" Hot Rod growled.
"Hey now, there's no need for such hostility. After all, you and I are one of the same, aren't we?"
"I'm nothing like you!" Hot Rod snarled.
"Hey! You don't have to be so rude! I just wanna help you."
"HELP ME?" Hot Rod shouted, he strained against the cuffs, wanting to blast that stupid moustache off of that fakes face. He began to summon his flames but felt a sudden shock through his systems and his outlier ability was forcibly cut off.
"Hey! Chill, man! There's no need for hostility. Look, just hear me out."
"Hear you out? You kidnapped me and my friends and now you've cuffed me to this chair and you're gonna keep me as a slave!"
"Hey look, I'm sorry. I can understand you'd be angry about that. I just thought it was necessary to cuff you."
"Necessary?" he spat.
"I was just thinking the moment you woke up the first thing you'd try and do would be to punch me in the face. It's what I'd do, but I just wanted to talk. So unfortunately I thought I had to tie you up so I could make sure you'd listen to me."
"I don't want to listen to anything you have to say!"
"Hey now, I mean it when I say I want to help you. You've seen this world so far. This place Optimus has created. It's awful. Everything here runs on slavery, there's mechs starving in the streets. It's terrible. And now he's determined to kidnap even more people for his evil regime. I thought it was terrible. That's why I participated in the Maze. I went in there to claim and rescue as many of your poor captives as I could."
Hot Rod paused.
"Rescue us?"
"Yes! There's so many horrible Autobots here who would have treated you so badly! I tried to stop as many of you going to them as possible! At the least if you were stranded here the best thing to happen would be for you to go to someone who'd treat you well. That was my plan, but unfortunately it didn't work out. You're the only one I was able to save."
Hot Rod moved and shifted in his seat. He wasn't sure if he believed this mech or not.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"Would I lie to you? We're practically one and the same, that's why I felt sure I could turn to you of all people. I'm trying to get together a group that can stop Optimus Prime's horrible reign but I need help. I need allies to come to my side, and I saw your outlier powers back there in the maze. I think you'd make a valuable asset in helping to take down Prime."
"You want me to help kill the Prime here?" That sounded horrifying. Though he would admit, even from what little Hot Rod had seen of this Prime he kinda felt like doing that.
"Well, the least, if we get the Matrix off him, and give it to someone more worthy and willing to do something good. Like say, me, then we can finally put an end to all the evil he's been doing for years. After I have the Matrix and I'm in charge, I'll get rid of all the slavery and let you and all of your companions go back home where you belong. Doesn't that sound fair?"
The fake Hot Rod paused, giving Hot Rod some time to think. He wasn't sure what to do.
"Like this we can be heroes, we can save everyone. Isn't that worth putting aside our differences and fighting for?"
"And my friends… everyone else that was captured… you really promise you'll let them go?"
The other Hot Rod leaned back in his chair.
"Buddy, I swear. Cross my spark and hope to die. Once we've destroyed Optimus Prime and I'm put in charge, the first thing I'll do is to let all of you go free back to your home dimension."
Hot Rod stayed silent, he still felt entirely unsure if he could really trust this other Hot Rod. He was suspicious of him, and all the other Autobots of this place, really. But at the moment… he was on his own, he didn’t know where anyone else was or how to get around in this new alternative Cybertron. He needed an ally if he was going to do anything to save anyone else.
"Alright. I'll help you."
The fake Hot Rod gave a large grin.
"Great, glad to have you aboard." He pulled out a little remote control and clicked a button. Instantly Hot Rod felt the cuffs around him unlock and fall to the floor. He sighed as he brought his arms forward and shook the tension out.
The fake Hot Rod held up his glass of sparkling energon.
"A toast? To our team up?"
Hot Rod nodded, picking up his own glass.
"You got it."
They clinked their glasses together and Hot Rod drank his energon down, he hadn't had any energon this good in a long time. Even though a part of him felt like he was doing a deal a with the devil
The energon tasted so rich. He choked on it for how good it was. Tasty additives, some sort of bubbling mixture and it was super tasty. After living on war-made energon his whole life it felt like such a complete change.
"Hey, don't kill yourself already, then we'll never get to implement this plan."
"Sorry."
"Also I just had the carpet fitted, so be careful." The other Hot Rod sounded more upset by that than the idea of Hot Rod choking.
Hot Rod drank slower this time. It was honestly really nice. Was this what Kup was always going on about when he talked so wistfully about what energon used to be like?
"Don't worry. There's plenty more where that came from." The other Hot Rod winked. "So, I feel just to avoid confusion we should use different names. It'll make it easier. So what should I call you?"
"Roddy, I guess. My friends normally call me Roddy."
"Well, you can call me 'Rod then."
That sounded stupid but Roddy didn't comment on the name.
After they finished their drinks 'Rod suddenly stood up. "Anyway, let me show you around my pad."
Roddy followed his counterpart as he led him through the huge habsuite he owned. It was large, the walls were filled with weird prints and colours that looked expensive and kind of tacky. None of it really seemed to go together other than looking fancy, like this Hot Rod was a compulsive hoarder of weird shiny things. Well… Roddy himself compulsively collected weird shiny things. He normally grabbed any junk that he thought looked cool when he was scavenging in the ruins of Cybertron. Though he hoped his stuff didn't look as bad as this?
As Roddy started thinking about this his counterpart suddenly wrapped his arm around his shoulders and jerked him over towards him.
"So buddy. Even though we're working together as partners, there's still things we gotta do," 'Rod said, "Just for the sake of the other Autobots, we can't let them know you and I are in cahoots with each other."
"Right…" Roddy nodded slowly.
"Meaning we gotta keep up this master/slave relationship so no one gets any ideas."
"Are you seriously kidding me?"
'Rod whispered into his audial.
"Prime has this entire city bugged."
"What?" Roddy's optics widened.
"Yep," his counterpart continued whispering, "he has spies everywhere. You never find the bugs but he always knows. You make one off-servo remark and then all of a sudden the guards are at your door and you get a swift trip to the interrogation chamber with Jazz." He leaned back and straightened up. "So just for appearances sake, you gotta act like you're really my slave for now."
Roddy grunted. He didn't like this idea, but if he was telling the truth, maybe it couldn't be avoided.
"I know it's not glamorous but it's necessary. Don't worry, I'm not gonna ask you to do anything terrible for now. Just like… doing some cleaning around here or something." The other Hot Rod waved his servo around the place. The place looked just about as cluttered and messy as Hot Rod's own room back home.
"I guess… I can do that…"
"Great! That's wonderful to hear. I knew we would make a good team. Anyway, I have a meeting I need to get to so I will just leave you to all that cleaning, partner. I know together we can take down Optimus Prime."
"Yeah sure… partner."
'Rod pointed figure guns at him.
"Knew I could count on you, anyway I'll see you later, buddy."
He left and Roddy heard the door lock seal shut. He gave out a long drawn out sigh. Really, he just wanted to get out of here and rescue everyone. But who even knew where they were? Who did they end up with? They could all be scattered across the four corners of Cybertron right now. Right now, it seemed trusting his counterpart was his only hope.
He looked around the messy penthouse. Was this what he could do to help? Do housework for a mech he felt with growing uncertainty did not care about him? Unfortunately, it seemed a necessary act for now. Guess he had to start somewhere. He could do cleaning. It wouldn't be hard. Though he did realise something.
"Where the hell even is anything?"
Hot Rod stroked his moustache as he walked down the corridor. This whole thing was going wonderfully. His other universe counterpart was so gullible. He'd be just the perfect thing he needed to take over from Prime.
He got a notification on his comm. He opened the channel.
::[Hey Goldbug. S'up?]::
::['Rod, where are you? The others all arrived a while ago, we've been waiting for you to get here.]::
::[Just serve everyone a drink. It'll make them happy.]::
::[What do you think I am? I'm not a slave. I'm not doing that.]::
::[Hey, calm down buddy. I'll be there. I just had to sort out some stuff, but I can promise you and the others that it'll be pretty good.]::
::[It better be.]:: The line cut. Hot Rod slowly shook his head. Goldbug was always so impatient.
He made his way down the stairs, taking the elevator to the lower levels. Since the Citadel was always bugged, and there was always secret police on every street, if you wanted to have a meeting and not get overheard you needed to go somewhere else.
Hot Rod quickly reached the catacombs that led into the Maze. These corridors had been here since ancient Cybertronian times. Grapple once excitedly explained that the last Quintessons on Cybertron may have used this place as an escape route during the ancient uprising, but Hot always listened to Grapples prattling with half lidded optics. But still, this Maze had uses, not just for playing fun games collecting slaves, but for being able to hold secret meetings in places Red Alert and Jazz would never be able to find.
Hot Rod stopped in front of the carving of the original Prime banishing the Quintessons by holding the Matrix aloft. Hot Rod knocked his hand on it and only a few moments later the door opened up and he stepped in.
"Hey Buggy. See? I told you I'd make it."
Goldbug huffed.
"Yeah, and you're late. Everyone's been getting so impatient, this better be good."
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Don't worry."
Hot Rod stepped forward. In the tiny room was a collection of mechs, mostly minibots. They were all the mechs that had participated in the Maze but been unable to catch a single slave. Hot Rod could sense how bitter and disgruntled they were just from the fizzle of fields that struck him as he entered.
"Welcome gentlemechs!" Hot Rod shouted, clasping his hands together. The others looked up at him with mild disdain, "Thank you all for coming to this meeting today. How are we all doing?"
"How do you think we're doing, 'Rod?" Trailbreaker huffed.
"Look, I know it's been a tough week, but I called all of you here for a reason. I think it's time we all looked critically at how Optimus Prime has been handling things. He'd been leading us for nearly four million years and sometimes it feels like we get none of the benefits. He sits in his half of the Citadel with slaves everywhere and with all the best energon for himself, and what do we have? Barely any slaves and energon that's nowhere near as nice. I mean, just look at how this Maze thing went. He easily could have divided the slaves out equally between each one of us but he devised this little game to give us an 'equal chance' and somehow he comes away with six slaves and most of us come away with none. All the rest go to nobles like Windblade and Mirage."
"You're one to talk, at least you managed to get a slave," Brawn shouted.
Hot Rod raised his hands.
"Only thanks to good luck. Right place, right time. I could have ended up just as unlucky as any of you, but that isn't the point. The point is Prime has failed to reward us time and again for our efforts. Even though we're the ones who fought against the Decepticons and have enacted his will. We deserve better, a leader who valves the efforts of his followers. We deserve a new Prime."
A hush descended over the Autobots.
"You couldn't possibly be suggesting-"
"It's time that Optimus Prime's reign came to an end," Hot Rod declared, "he needs to be replaced with someone who will actually reward their soldiers for their efforts and treat them with the respect they deserve. It's time he was replaced with someone better. Namely… me!"
The other Autobots all looked skeptically at him.
"And why would you make a better Prime?"
"Just hear me out. If I'm made Prime I promise that all of you will finally be fairly rewarded for your efforts. Each one of you will get free slaves for all your military service and hard work. And also even more energon."
There was an excitable murmur amongst the crowd and Hot Rod's grin only grew.
"But we can't launch a strike against Prime. It'd be suicide. We'd be put to death."
"Not if we follow through with my plan." All optics in the room turned to Hot Rod. Good. He had their attention now. He carried on.
"The only problem with trying to kill off Prime is that unfortunately despite all his faults he's still quite liked by a good chunk of the planet. Whoever kills him is going to be immensely unpopular, and winning people over is going to be an uphill struggle. Which is why I propose a different idea… we get a scapegoat to kill Prime. Then the public's anger will all be focused on him, we can have that person executed and then we'll all look like the heroes for stopping Prime's murderer."
"And who's this scapegoat gonna be?"
"It's not gonna be me," Cliffjumper snarled, "it's always me you get for these crazy schemes."
"Oh no, my friends. It won't be any of us," Hot Rod said, "it'll be my counterpart from the other universe."
There was a gasp and murmur from the Autobots.
"He'll kill Prime?"
"Oh yeah. He doesn't know my full plan. So far I've convinced him that we're working together to stop Prime's evil regime, and afterwards we'll free all the slaves and let everyone go. He's so gullible. He'll fall for anything I say."
There was an excited murmur now amongst the talking.
"We let him think he's saving the world and we let him kill Prime and then we execute him and then we carry on taking over the rest of the other universe. And then when I'm Prime I promise I'll make sure that slave distribution is equal amongst you all. More equal gifts for my loyal followers. What do you say?"
This time Hot Rod got a round of applause from his audience. His smile continued to grow.