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Elita was hard on her team. For a good reason: she was a firm believer in tough love, and if she coddled her workers, they’d get complacent. The harder they worked, the sooner they’d get out of mining for better jobs. (And the sooner she’d get her own promotion.) They could always do better - excellence was the goal, and thus, the standard.
But, contrary to popular belief, Elita wasn’t a complete tight-aft. She could see when a worker had done an exemplary job, and she could compliment them for it. Usually that took a few orns, and even then it was rare, but it did happen.
Yet, it seemed today would be that day. And she’d be complimenting a newbie, no less.
When D-16 had joined her team, she’d been impressed by his history. His files were nothing short of impressive: glowing praise from all of his past supervisors, only a badge away from making supervisor, not a demerit to his name, even the odd compliment from cogged managers. (Elita had never been complimented by Darkwing!) For all intents and purposes, he was the model of a perfect miner.
Of course, the paperwork only told half the story, and it would take more than a good reputation to impress Elita. But D-16 had risen to that challenge and then some - he was even better in the field than his files suggested. He kept his helm down and got to work with no complaints, and he was one hell of a workhorse. He could haul an entire cart packed to the brim with energon up to processing on his own, carry tools and rocks she’d seen some cogged bots struggle with, and he could even keep the piston-heads in line whenever she was busy. Bot was a gift from Primus himself.
Her only concern was how much time he was spending with Orion Pax. Best case, he’d be able to keep him in line. Worst case, there were now two Orion Paxes - aka, twice the helmache for her. But while he was being helpful, she might as well reward good behavior.
She managed to catch D-16 after shift, dutifully cleaning his equipment. Given how tough it was to get bots to not leave their tools on the floor, even that was exceeding her expectations. (The bar really was in hell.)
“D-16!” she called out.
His head snapped up at the sound, and he stood up immediately. “Is there something you need, ma’am?”
“Relax, you’re off the clock. Just wanted to make sure I got to you before you disappear.” She glanced down at her datapad, the figures from the day totalled up in front of her, and she whistled.
“Not too shabby. You plan on making this kind of production a habit?”
“That’s the idea,” he remarked, scratching the back of his neck.
“Well, keep it up,” she urged. “It’d be nice to have some competent workers around here for once.”
He snickered. “Don’t get a lot of talent down here?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Her optics flicked over his frame briefly, and one more thought came to mind. “If I were you, I’d stay away from Orion Pax.”
D-16’s expression turned confused. “Why?”
“He’s trouble. Spend too long with him, you’ll go crazy. Best you don’t get caught up in that mess.”
“He doesn’t seem too bad,” he remarked. “Maybe he just needs someone to help him get his act together.”
“I’ve tried, trust me,” Elita sighed. “It’d take Primus himself intervening for that bot to get his act together. Just keep your digits clean of him and you’ll do fine.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe. Thank you, ma’am.”
With that, Elita gave him a brief nod and went off to finish her reports.
She had a good feeling about D-16 - she got the sense he could go far as long as he heeded her advice about Pax. Quietly, she hoped she was right. Miners had limited options and each of those options tended to lead to a dead end. It’d be nice if she supervised one of the lucky few who managed to dig their way out of these mines.
They could use someone with a bright future around here. If only to have some hope for themselves.
There were many things Elita liked about her job: knowing she was contributing to the health and safety of her planet, the intensity, being in charge of something, the satisfaction of a dozen bots calling her Boss. Besides the dangers and having to put up with Orion Pax on the daily, Elita had little to complain about when it came to her job.
But there were two big problems. First, of course, was Orion Pax and his absurdity. But as annoying as he was, she at least had power over him and could tell him to shut up and get back to work. (He even listened sometimes.)
She couldn’t do that with Darkwing.
It was just a fact that cogged and cogless didn’t get along, and that cogged treated cogless like scrap. Elita knew that just as much as anyone else. But even for a cogged bot, Darkwing was a glitch. He was always shouting loud enough to shake the walls, tossing insults around at every cogless bot he could see, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to threaten dismissal at every perceived slight to his character.
Elita bore the brunt of his abuse. She was the boss; therefore, her team’s failures were on her, even if she personally had nothing to do with their mistakes. It was a responsibility she’d accepted a long time ago, but that didn’t make it sting less when she was being screamed at for something that wasn’t her fault and none of the aftholes who’d actually screwed up wanted to fess up to their mistakes.
There was no such thing as a good day when Darkwing was involved, but today had been especially terrible. He’d been hovering over their shoulders like a scraplet eyeing up its next meal, just waiting for someone to make a mistake so he could yell at them. Getting to half quota had been a struggle thanks to his looming presence, and he’d taken advantage of that to needle them.
“Elita-One!” he barked just inches from Elita’s audial. “Are all miners so useless or is your team just defective?”
“My team is doing their best, sir,” she said in the most even tone of voice she could, biting back a number of insults she wanted to hurl at her superior.
“Your best should be better,” he sneered. “No-cogs who can’t even mine might as well be scrapped.”
Elita grit her dentae and didn’t respond. She didn’t trust herself to not tell him to shove his spike into an incinerator. Instead, she just got on her comm and ordered her team to haul their energon cart up and get a fresh one. D-16 and Prowl signaled affirmative, and she turned her attention to her data pad. Despite Darkwing’s comments, they were making good time. They should reach quota by 1500 joors, plenty of time to get a surplus. That would-
“I don’t know why you try so hard, Elita-One,” Darkwing hissed. “Once a miner, always a miner. You’ll still stink of rust no matter what sublevel you’re on.”
Oh, she was going to wreck the berthroom’s punching bag later. She kept her optics trained on the datapad, reading the same line over and over again without internalizing a word. “If you say so, sir.”
Darkwing stepped in front of her, his frame casting her in a deep shadow, and she barely managed to suppress a shiver. He ripped the datapad from her servos, the screen shattering from his harsh grip, while his other servo jabbed a digit in her face. The energon in her veins ran cold and she braced herself for impact.
“Look at me when you talk to me, you little slagheap!” he roared. “You’re lucky I-”
“Elita-One, ma’am!”
Seemingly out of nowhere, D-16 appeared at the pair’s side, nodding at Darkwing in acknowledgement with an awkward, if polite smile. Strangely, he also took a step between them, subtly blocking Elita’s frame with his own. It was an almost protective gesture. Elita prayed he hadn’t overheard Darkwing’s outburst, but Darkwing wasn’t exactly a quiet bot.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” he apologized, turning to Elita and gesturing to the tunnel. “But the team needs you inside, ma’am. There’s, uh, a vein of energon we’re not sure is safe to mine, and we need you to clear it. It’s urgent.”
Relief washed over Elita. It was a flimsy excuse, but anything to get away from Darkwing. “On my way. Excuse me, sir.”
She followed D-16 to the tunnel’s entrance, relieved to put some distance between her and Darkwing. Luckily, he just shook his head in disgust at them before activating his thrusters and shooting up out of sight. Thank Primus. As they went, they passed by a disgruntled Prowl, pushing an empty transport cart.
D-16 nudged her gently with his elbow, looking down at her with clear concern in his optics. “You ok? That… didn’t look good.”
“It’s fine,” Elita sighed. “You get used to it.”
“Primus,” D-16 chewed his lip nervously. “Uh… the whole ‘energon vein’ thing-”
“Not true, I know,” she interjected. “I don’t think Prowl’s happy with you.”
“I’ll survive,” he shrugged. “Is Darkwing always that much of a glitch?”
“Pretty much. Just keep your head down and hope he doesn’t target you next.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Elita thought for a moment, before halting in her tracks and putting her servos on her hips. “You didn’t need to do that, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Help me. You could’ve been hurt. Or worse, fired.”
D-16 shook his head casually. “He was being a glitch. You don’t need to deal with that, you already put up with Pax.”
The words were simple, but it was more care than she’d been shown in a while. Unsure of how to respond, Elita just chuckled. “Fair enough. Now, stop talking and get your aft in gear, buckethead.”
He looked a little scandalized at the nickname, but didn’t protest and just hurried to pick up a drill and get mining again. While Elita trucked off to find a new datapad and get back into rhythm, she made a quick note in her memory banks.
D-16 - good worker. Kind-sparked. Needs to stop meddling in my business.
Every cogless bot cheered when they heard the midday bell chime. Ration break. At 1200 joors, they were allowed one half joor to sit, refuel, and shoot the breeze a little if they were lucky. It was the highlight of every shift, and even Elita was glad to sit on the closest boulder and rest her pedes for a moment. She didn’t even yell at her team for just dropping their tools before taking off for seats, she was that exhausted. It had been a long day - productive, they’d reach quota in just another joor if they kept this pace up, but long.
She rolled her shoulders, her joints creaking as she did. God, it had been a while since she’d gotten an oil bath. Maybe she could treat herself to one when she got promoted? She had been saving her shanix up for a long time-
“Anyone sitting here?”
Elita looked up to find D-16 smiling at her with a few energon cubes in hand. She blinked, before glancing around suspiciously.
“I swear to Primus, buckethead, if Pax put you up to one of his dumb schemes-”
“No schemes,” D-16 assured her, chuckling. “That’s not an answer, though.”
She watched him through narrowed optics, trying to determine any ulterior motives, but ultimately, she deemed him just trustworthy enough compared to Pax to let him sit on the rough floor next to her. Settling in on the floor, he let out a long vent, stretching his arms over his head.
“Thanks.”
“Where’s Pax?” she asked, surveying the cavern for flashes of a filthy red and blue bot. “Never seen you two apart for more than a minute.”
“Glitch ran off on me,” D-16 replied casually, rolling his optics. “Another of his dumb ideas. I didn’t want to get mixed up in it.”
“Smart,” Elita remarked.
The gray bot shrugged, pinching one of the energon cubes between his fingers. Then, to her surprise, he offered it to Elita over his shoulder.
“I don’t need any,” she insisted. “I’ll be ready in a couple-”
“With all due respect, boss, that’s scrap and you know it,” he interjected. “You didn’t get anything during morning break. You need to get something in your system before you shut down on us.”
That made her do a double take, her intake dropping open. “How the hell did you-”
“Does it matter? C’mon, we’ll split them.”
Elita was about to protest again, before her HUD beeped insistently at her, telling her to refuel sooner rather than later. Ignoring the smug expression on D-16’s face, she took his offering, and a few more once he’d divided the rations evenly, chewing on the cubes with a pensive expression.
She wasn’t used to this. She was always alone during her ration breaks, if she even took a break at all. Most of the time, she’d go through her records, clean up her team’s sloppy equipment, or scout out the next tunnel for them to go down, staying on her pedes the whole time. And if she did take a break, no one ever joined her. She’d convinced herself it was because she was their boss, and they knew better than to try to fraternize with a superior - but Elita wasn’t stupid. She knew, deep down, that she was an outcast. Well, that suited her just fine.
Yet, here D-16 was, bringing her fuel and sitting with her - being nice to her. It was weird. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
D-16 didn’t give her a chance to process how she felt about it before he spoke up.
“Sorry about Pax giving you a hard time yesterday. Dumbaft doesn’t know when to shut his mouth.”
Elita snorted, shaking her head exasperatedly. “Tell me something I don’t know. I’m half-convinced that bot has a death wish.”
“Oh, he does, trust me,” D-16 cackled. “I swear, if I wasn’t around, he’d be dead ten times over. He jumps off uptown buildings. Daily.”
Elita nearly spit out her energon, just barely managing to swallow without choking. “He what?!”
“I don’t know how he’s not a stain on the ground yet. Either Primus gave him all the luck in the world or he just has a faulty processor. Can’t tell you which one.”
“Faulty processor,” Elita instantly replied. “No other explanation.”
D-16 nodded sagely. “Yeah, probably. Y’know, one time, he thought he could transform.”
Elita blinked. “Wha- what, did he find a broken cog and thought it still worked?”
“Worse. According to him - his words, not mine - ‘What if we could transform all along, and cogless bots just haven’t tried? Maybe it’s not cogs that make us transform! I can transform, I can feel it!’ Guess how that went.”
“He transformed into a waste disposal bin?” Elita guessed sarcastically, barely holding in her giggles.
“He managed to compress about a third of himself before he got stuck,” D-16 snickered. “It took me three days and five bottles of lubricant to pry him open.”
Elita couldn’t hold it in anymore - she broke down in hysterics, laughing until her belly panels hurt and she doubled over. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard- hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she laughed, period.
Once she managed to get control of herself, she grinned at D-16, who had a fond, faraway expression on his face, no doubt thinking about Pax. It was gross and kind of cute at the same time. Elita sighed.
“What do you see in him, really?”
He blanched, his head whipping around to look at her with wide eyes and an open intake. “What- I- how did you know?!”
Honestly - did he think he was subtle? Him and Pax being head-over-pedes for each other was the worst kept secret in the mines; everyone knew at this point. Everyone except for them, apparently. Elita rolled her optics.
“Does it matter?” she parroted back at him.
He had the sense to not try and deny it. A flush appeared on his cheeks and he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Um… he’s… I don’t know how to explain it. Pax is just-”
The violent screech of the bell, signaling the end of ration break, cut him off. Everyone snapped to their pedes, hurrying back to their equipment and prepping to start work back again. D-16, no doubt grateful for the distraction, dusted his servos off and pushed himself to his pedes. Elita sighed and did the same.
“Back to the grind,” he remarked.
“Shouldn’t be much longer if everyone pulls their weight,” Elita assured him. She adjusted her comms… and before she overthought it, she turned and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Thanks, buckethead.”
D-16 gave her an encouraging smile, gently bumping her side with his elbow. “Anytime, boss.”
Before she got too sentimental, Elita turned back to the cavern at large and hurried off to resume work, calling for all her rust-buckets to join her at the south side of the cavern. Any thoughts of exhaustion had been thoroughly zapped from her head.
Bad days were becoming more commonplace.
No one wanted to say it out loud, but it was getting harder for mining teams to reach their quotas. Shifts were longer, they had to drill through more rock before reaching energon veins, accident rates were slowly climbing. Elita pushed her team harder than ever to get them through the dry spell, but was a bit more giving with her compliments to make up for it. Still, she could sense the resentment from her team from a mile away.
One night, after a particularly rough shift, everyone was dragging their pedes as they stomped to put their equipment up and clean up. Before they did, Elita pulled out in front of them and halted them.
“Drop your drills here,” she ordered. “I need to run maintenance and inventory. You hit the washroom and try and get some of the rust off your afts.”
She didn’t need to inventory, that was the floor manager’s job. But they didn’t need to know that. She had a reputation to keep up, after all. Couldn’t let them think she was doing something out of the goodness of her spark.
They didn’t need her to tell them twice. Everyone threw their drills on the floor, uncaring of where they landed, and hurried up to use up the rest of the hot water. Elita sighed, resigning herself to at least another three joors of work - drills needed proper maintenance after every shift, and the last thing they needed was more setbacks.
She reached for one of the biggest drills, hoping to get the heaviest and most annoying pieces out of the way first - but a servo snatched it up before she could, dragging it out of her reach.
“What-”
She glanced up, only to be met with D-16’s sympathetic grin.
Elita scoffed and straightened up, servos on her hips and giving him the best glare she could muster up with her charge being in the state it was. “Are your audials malfunctioning? I thought I told you to hit the washroom.”
“No, I heard you,” he confirmed, hoisting the giant drill over his shoulder. “I just chose not to listen.”
“You really have been spending too much time around Pax.”
“Guilty,” he chuckled. “Real rule breaker over here, aren’t I?”
Elita shook her head, rubbing her temples. “Look, D-16, I’m not interested in your scrap right now. I have a ton of drills to clean and inventory, and-”
“And it’s going to take you all night to try and get through them all on your own,” he interjected, his expression sobering and his tone brooking no argument. “And considering you look like you’re about to power down any second now, I think the sooner you get back to your berth, the better.”
Elita wanted to protest and say she didn’t need help, but… maybe it was just her exhaustion messing with her processor, but the offer didn’t sound half bad. Many servos made light work, and while she liked to consider herself strong for her frame, D-16 would be able to handle the larger tools that she’d struggle with.
And… it’d be nice to have someone there with her while she worked.
“Just try and stay out of the way,” she conceded, shaking her head. “And watch your digits. We don’t need a medbay visit this late, buckethead.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckled.
They didn’t talk much as they went through the menial tasks of cleaning, polishing, and putting away a team’s worth of equipment, but they didn’t need to. They made a good team, silently lifting, scrubbing, and shining efficiently. Despite the ache in Elita’s frame, it only took them two joors to get through the first half of machinery.
D-16 was the one to eventually break the silence.
“I’ve never seen you topside,” he remarks.
“What?”
“Off the clock, I mean,” he clarified. “Pax and I run into a couple other miners while we’re off shift, sometimes. Never seen you, though.”
Elita bit her lip. “Iacon’s a big city.”
“Yeah, but we can’t exactly go anywhere we want,” he pointed out.
Annoyingly, he was right. The trains only went to a few designated spots around the city and without being able to transform, most cogless bots were limited to a small section of Iacon. Even then, most collective spaces either were too expensive for cogless to afford going to or just outright banned them from entering.
Being cogless meant all of their options were limited.
“I didn’t realize my downtime was so important to you, D-16,” she tried to deflect. Unfortunately for her, D-16 was just as stubborn, if not more so, than she was.
“Only cause your promotion’s not gonna mean slag if your gears strip before you get it,” he shot back. “When was the last time you thought about something that wasn’t work?”
It did take Elita a few seconds longer than it should’ve to think of something, and that was all the answer D-16 needed.
“Elita, that can’t be healthy. You-”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion on my life, D-16,” Elita snapped, glaring at him. “I’d worry more about yourself if I were you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get these drills cleaned before morning.”
With that, she snatched up a brush and polish, and started scrubbing at a patch of rust on one of the drills hard enough to strip the faded paint away.
D-16 was smart enough to not push the issue further, just opting to shut his mouth and get back to work. Still, despite her lingering annoyance, seeds of guilt grew in the back of Elita’s processor as the minutes ticked by. She knew he was just trying to look out for her, and it was more than anyone else had done for her in… her entire life. She didn’t know how to handle it.
Thankfully, they managed to finish the last of the equipment checks by 2100 joors, just enough time for them to hurry back up to the bunk rooms and crash for the night. Elita let out a long sigh of relief, before turning to her fellow laborer. The gray bot held up his servo for a high-five, and while Elita might usually ignore something so corny, she humored him. The clang of their servos colliding reverberated throughout the equipment room, a harsh yet satisfying sound.
“If I could give you a bonus, I would,” she joked, stretching her arms over her head. “I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “But you should recharge before you crash. I don’t think Darkwing will want to find you powered down on the floor tomorrow.”
She nodded, and the two of them trudged up to the bunk room with a comfortable silence resting between them despite Elita’s previous outburst. She was grateful he hadn’t pushed the subject of her rest, or lack thereof.
As she settled into her berth, barely able to keep her optics open, she made another note to D-16’s profile.
Good worker. Kind-sparked. Needs to stop meddling in my business.
Push for promotion to supervisor in next report.
While the bunk rooms were undoubtedly spartan, the miners had been allowed a few small luxuries for their small amount of downtime. The strat-ball machine always had a few bots lining up to play, there was a well-used punching bag hanging from the ceiling, and someone had even managed to get a set of cards for the occasional cyber-poker game. Still, for the most part, on the rare occasions everyone was both awake and up for having some fun, the miners generally had to resort to making up their own forms of entertainment.
The most popular option, by far, were the strength contests. Around five or six bots would compete and see who could lug around the most weight or hold a pull-up the longest. It was the stupidest and most pointless thing Elita had ever witnessed in her life. They were miners - all of them were strong, it didn’t matter who was the strongest as long as they all pulled their weight! But the contests weren’t against protocol, and no one was being overly stupid, so she kept her mouth shut.
It was annoying though when she was trying to get her reports done and constant cheers and shouting kept distracting her. Seriously - it sounded like they were watching the Iacon 5000, not a casual match between friends. The bunk room’s open design made every noise echo too, which didn’t help.
Setting her datapad down, she stormed to the middle of the bunk room, where a table had been set up for tonight’s competition of choice, an arm-wrestling contest. Jazz and Wheeljack were the current contestants, surrounded by chattering bots who Elita was certain were betting on the outcome. Prowl seemed to be officiating. Storming up to the table, she slammed her servos down, startling everyone, and glared at the offending bots.
“I’m glad you’re having fun, but some of us are trying to get work done,” she hissed. “Can you keep it down, please?”
“Aww, come on, Elita,” Jazz chuckled, immediately turning back to Wheeljack to continue. “It’s not a big deal!”
“You might not have anything better to do, but I do,” she scolded, pinching her olfactory sensor. “So try and tone it down a bit, alright?”
“What, you don’t wanna join in?” Wheeljack asked. He then slammed Jazz’s servo onto the table so harshly, it left a dent behind. His yelps of pain didn’t faze Elita.
“And waste even more time? No thanks.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, Orion Pax popped up next to her, grinning like he’d just found the Matrix. “You should join, Elita! Come on, it’ll be fun!”
General noises of agreement shot up around the circle, and a few bots cheered for her to give it a shot. She had to admit, it was a little tempting. She’d been working hard all day… maybe she’d earned a quick break?
She shook her head, batting Orion away. She could take a break when she was done. “Frag off, Pax.”
True to form, D-16 came to stand next to Orion, his servo coming to rest on Pax’s shoulder. They really weren’t subtle in the slightest, were they?
“Leave her alone, Pax,” he implored.
Elita was about to thank him for being the only reasonable one in the room - until he glanced over at her with mischief in his optics. She should’ve known he’d have a mischief-making streak - he was Orion Pax’s best friend for a reason.
“If she’s scared of losing, who can blame her?”
A shocked chorus of ‘oohs’ went up around the group. Her optics went wide, and she let out a shocked laugh.
“Excuse me?”
D-16 shrugged, grinning. “I’m just saying, it’s a smart move! If you know you’ll lose, why even try?”
“Oh, you wanna go, buckethead?” Elita demanded, her face splitting into a wide, dangerously sharp grin.
It was a terrifying expression on her, but D-16 didn’t back down. He just chuckled, his servos coming to rest on his hips. “If you wanna lose so badly.”
That did it. Elita turned, and Jazz and Wheeljack instantly shot up out of their seats to give the new contenders room to sit. Excited cheers echoed around the room, and Elita’s audials picked up a few bets being made between various spectators. She’d scold them later - right now, she planned on making D-16 eat his words.
They settled in across from each other, and Prowl insisted they shake on it before beginning. Elita didn’t wait for his signal - the moment she and D were in position and had their servos clasped, she was pushing his servo into the table as hard as she could. He was momentarily taken aback by her intensity, but he easily matched her and they were locked in a standstill in mere moments.
“Damn, guess all that overtime’s been good for something,” he remarked, grinning at her.
“Keep talking, buckethead,” she scoffed. She didn’t want to give away that she felt like she was trying to topple a skyscraper. Primus, he was strong.
It took a few minutes of harsh, agonizing force, but she managed to get his knuckles to touch the tabletop. Her victory was rewarded with cheers erupting around the room, and she indulged herself by bowing after she stood up. D-16 rolled his optics while he rubbed his servo, smiling audial to audial.
“Best two out of three?” he offered.
“You wanna lose twice in a row?”
“Hey, I wasn’t prepared - I know what I’m up against now!”
Elita grinned, casting a challenging look at the crowd. “I hope the rest of you got your shots already - we’re gonna be here all night.”
Their spectators seemed just fine with that - as she and D-16 settled in for round two, the chaos in the room was louder than ever. Somehow though, Elita found she didn’t mind it anymore. As she and D-16 went for 7 rounds, with her ultimately winning 4-3, she had one of the best times of her life. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed or smiled so much.
And despite his loss, when she had shook D-16’s servo out of respect, he was grinning just as much.
Elita had allowed herself to occasionally daydream of how many ranks she could climb in her life. But not even in her wildest dreams had she ever thought she’d become the second-in-command to a Prime. But here she was: Commander Elita-One, right-hand bot to Optimus Prime, helping to execute the vision of a brighter, better Cybertron. One without the injustice they’d suffered under Sentinel. It was so beyond anything she could’ve conceived of that it still felt like she was dreaming. Just an orn ago, she’d been slaving away in the mines to pay off Sentinel’s debt, and now here she was - laying on a comfy berth in Iacon’s highest tower, with a Prime’s cog in her chest and the admiration of all of Cybertron at her digit-tips.
But all of it had come at a hefty price.
Just because Sentinel was gone didn’t mean they weren’t still in danger. They still had to get rid of the Quintessons for good, and now they had an even bigger problem on their servos. The Decepticons had been officially recognized as a threat to Cybertron’s safety, and their leader had been declared public enemy number 1.
Megatron.
It was a harsh, unforgiving name. Elita had to admit, it fit him perfectly, even if it was sacrilege against the Prime he called his idol.
She didn’t know what was worse - the fact that he had become such a brutal monster, or the fact that she still saw so much of D-16 in him. The bull-headed stubbornness, the unimaginable strength, even something as simple as his helm shape or the twitching of his lips when he was holding back the filthiest insults. It was all the same. It broke Elita’s spark.
Because she understood.
She’d been just as furious when Sentinel’s betrayal had been revealed; how could she not be? She’d devoted her entire life to climbing her way through a system rigged against her, all for the betterment of her planet, and it turned out her efforts had all been to facilitate Sentinel’s cheap tyranny. When D-16 had his outburst in the Primes’ cavern, she’d agreed with every word he said, even if she hadn’t said it out loud.
But he’d taken it too far. If he’d just killed Sentinel, she’d have more sympathy for him, maybe even defended him. But starting a rebellion? Hurting her and Bee when they’d tried to hold him back? Inciting violence across Cybertron?
Murdering Orion Pax?
It hadn’t just been Orion who’d died when that blaster shot went off. D-16 died with him.
Gone was the bot Elita had spent ration breaks with, trading stories about the Primes and geeking out over weaponry. Gone was the bot who fought tirelessly to make life easier for his fellow miners, who spent long nights working overtime to boost their numbers. Gone was the bot who’d defended her from Darkwing, who’d stood up to injustice with a quiet, simmering rage that he channeled into honest, hard work.
Distantly, she knew that she couldn’t be feeling half of what Optimus was. Orion and D-16 had been attached at the hip, bordering on co-dependent, always laughing, and sickeningly in love. Elita wondered if she’d ever have someone who looked at her the way Orion and D-16 looked at each other when the other had their head turned. Logically, she realized that she and D-16 had been casual friends at best.
But when she didn’t have any friends to begin with, that was enough to break her spark.
She was lucky enough that her role as Optimus’s second in command meant her processor was kept busy with a huge workload - conditions she thrived under. But, on bad nights when she was supposed to be recharging, she’d sprawl out in her berth, staring at the ceiling, and wonder if she could’ve done something to prevent all this. Maybe she could’ve fought back when the High Guard psychos were spewing their anti-Prime rhetoric, calling them out on their scrap. Maybe she could’ve just approached him after getting their cogs from Alpha Trion, been a shoulder for him to lean on the way he had done for her before. Was there something, anything she could have done to stop his spiral before it began?
She didn’t know, and she’d never get the answers to those questions.
As she laid in her new berth, recharge evading her, she went into her memory banks and dug up every image of D-16 that had been filed away. Complimenting him just after he’d joined her team. Him stepping between her and Darkwing, subtly defending her. Sharing energon cubes together during ration breaks. The two of them cleaning up equipment late at night. Their arm-wrestling contests, always close and always the highlight of her day, if not her week. Calling him buckethead.
She was tempted to wipe them from her processor, so she’d never remember the first real friend she’d had, and how she’d lost him.
She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
But she did promise herself that if Optimus didn’t do it first, she’d be the one to kill Megatron for murdering Orion Pax and D-16.