Chapter Text
This wasn't supposed to happen.
Threads of light snapped, a fate shredded to pieces.
He was supposed to be sealed-
No..
No...
NO!
Dark tendrils clenched around the blue and red spark, around his child's spark, a putrid curse sinking into it's very existence.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE BROTHER!
The darkness laughed. The spark flickered, it's light and fate shearing off of it like shards of glass.
The tendrils tighten, sinking, dragging-
He will rot with the vile maggots he loves so much.
I WILL MAKE SURE OF IT-
But fate itself shifted.
Light slammed into darkness, pressing against every dark corner with life and pure radiance.
Like eons before, darkness and light battled, and just like eons before, the night broke before the dawn.
Light tore his child from his brother's grip.
The sun rose and darkness fled.
The Light that was Primus, huffed derisively.
A petty and sore loser as always brother..
Primus's blaze settled in a soft glow as he cradled his child close, his gaze gentle yet assessing.
While the corruption Unicron had laid upon his child's spark was easily purged, the cursed he had laid could not be.
For change was his brother's domain, not his. And this change was.. drastic indeed.
Primus's metaphorical optic-ridges furrowed in frustration and dismay.
As he was, his child couldn't be rejoined with the Allspark, lest the curse spread.
The Light that was Primus almost snarled.
Damn you brother..
First Megatronus, then Megatron, now...
How many of my children do you wish to steal from me..?
He turned and eyed the crumbling tethers, their roots slowly fizzling away in his presence without their master to maintain them.
With his brother's shadow no longer obscuring them, Primus could now see their true length, stretching far beneath time and space through the cracks of existence.
Curiosity began to mingled with the Light's other emotions.
Just where were you taking him..?
Primus slowly, carefully, peels back the veil between existence and nonexistence, life and death and finds- Another plane of duality.
Primus's proverbial optics whirl with shock.
He peered inside.
(All of Heaven and Hell collectively shuttered, but knew not why.)
The tethers lead to a near bottomless pit of malice and vice beneath a violently red sky, filled to the brim with corrupted not-sparks. It was a place of unfettered chaos and evil, with darkness slithering and striking around each and every corner. It's very foundations oozed his brother's influence and hatred.
Primus grimaced.
Oh, absolutely not.
He then lifted his gaze.
Above the writhing place of chaos and darkness, lay what was perhaps it's other half. For where there was darkness, there too was light.
Sitting perched upon the clouds, was a city glowing with steel and starlight, it buildings shaped from silver and gold. It's light shimmered and flowed through the streets like bliss unbound by time, but unlike the darkness, it was disciplined, orderly. And, while the not-sparks still bore some signs of his brother's corruption, many of them had seemed to have been slowly purified in the presence of this plain's light.
The Light that was Primus hummed thoughtfully.
This place was clearly another of THE ONE's creations, he could feel it. It's warm light almost sang in kinship with his warmer sun.
His gaze shifted to his son.
The curse was progressing, his child's light being subsumed into something akin to the bodies of the not-sparks, but malformed, unfinished, undecided.
He was now faced with a choice.
This new place of peace and light.. it was not the Allspark, but it could work.
Yet..
..He did not want to let another of his children go.
The Allspark that was Light that was Primus thrummed with pain and sadness.
Primus sighed.
The choice was obvious.. even if he didn't like it.
Dear child.. you who sacrificed everything over thousands of millennia...
He then stretched out his servo towards this strange, glistening city and-
..I pray, with all my spark, that you find solace in your new home.
-An ancient star was reborn amidst a foreign heaven.
Each and every year there are approximately 60,000,000 deaths worldwide. That means there are around 170,000 per day, 7,000 deaths per hour, 120 deaths per minute, and 2 deaths per second.
Of those souls that pass on to the afterlife and don't get stuck in the In-Between as ghosts and spirits that Azrael has to go fish out, only about a 1/3 of them ever make it to the Pearly Gates.
It's a little sad, in Peter's opinion, but, hey! At least he didn't have to welcome a new soul to heaven every half a second (especially thanks to Azzy staggering the souls)!
Golly, that'd be crazy! Imagine that? Not even a chance to begin the Welcoming musical number!
As much as he loved his current position as Gatekeeper, watching over the Pearly Gates and welcoming new, beautiful souls into heaven while St. Peter was out on sabbatical (If the "Gone Fishin'" sign on his office was anything to go by), he probably would have gone maybe a smidge insane if that were the case!
Hm, what's that?
Oh, you thought little old him was The Saint Peter??
Oh nonono! Though, he did understand where most people got that misconception from. He was watching over the Pearly Gates and he is named Peter, so confusion was bound to happen! Heck, even Sera still got them mixed up occasionally!
But, last time he checked, St. Peter was a handsome silver fox of a winner from Bethsaida. Him, on the other hand? Still beautiful, as all winners were obviously, but he barely looked over twenty-five!
He was flattered though! Just means he's doing his job well!!
And speaking of job..
Peter pulled back the sleeve of his robe to look at his watch.
'Should be here any second now.'
He pulled out the Soul Registry, checked his breath, then put on his most radiant, heavenly smile, ready to welcome paradise's newest winner.
But then-
Something.
Shifted.
The air temperature dropped.
The clouds paused.
The stars above brightened as the rest of the world seemed to dim.
Peter froze, smile straining then.. shuttered.
'What-'
And between one blurred blink and the next.. He appeared.
The blonde haired winner almost choked on his own tongue.
He stood there on the golden path through the clouds, staring down at his hands in curiosity and befuddlement.
Everyone in heaven was hot, this was a fact everyone knew, but this guy-
He was.. gorgeous.
(Skin as grey and smooth as river stone-
-Long, luscious blue hair with only the most tasteful hints of grey that pooled around his bare feet-
-A toga decorated in red and blue embellishments that clung tightly to a body sculpted like a roman god-
-Six utterly massive wings tipped in starlight flared from his back with six smaller wings, two pairs spread from where ears were supposed to be while the third hid the lower half of his face, adorning his head like crown-
-Two halos of gold, one holding the orbit of two celestial bodies, the other three, which intersected beneath a brilliant electric blue star-
-The eyes, oh the eyes-)
White fabric fluttered as the -OhsweetJesus- probably thirteen foot tall Winner cautiously approached his stand.
Then the wings around his face folded back to rest against his jaw.
'OH SWEET FUCKING CHRIST-!'
Annnnnd Peter very nearly dropped The Soul Registry on his foot.
Too pretty. Too pretty. This man was too pretty, way too inhumanly pretty to be a Winner.
"Excuse me," The obvious angel that no one had thought to inform him was visiting the Gate today, asked in a voice so low it sent shivers up his spine holy- "May I be so bold as to inquire where I am?"
There was silence. A way too long silence.
The angel(?) furrowed his beautifully perfect eyebrows.
"Are you alright?"
Peter blinked.
"Bweh?"
It was then that the gatekeeper snapped from his brain's blue screen of death and realized, to his utter horror, that not only had he been staring at the winner(??) for longer than was probably appropriate, but he'd been drooling as well.
Hahahaaa, well, this was embarrassing.
He promptly (read: flusteredly) wiped his mouth and put his fifteen megawatt smile back on in a last ditch effort to recover his dignity.
"Hiya!" He said with a laugh so forced he cringed a little bit internally, "W-Welcome to Heaven!"
The being (yeah, let's just go with that) tilted his head.
"..Heaven?"
"Yup! The Eternal Paradise of the Virtuous! May I have your name please?"
The being paused for a moment.
"My name is Optimus Prime," He rumbles like a distant thunder.
'...Huh. Well. That's.. a name.'
Then again, Peter had seen someone's last name in the Registry literally be Morningbreakfast, so maybe he shouldn't judge too much.
He flipped the Soul Registry to the O name section, turned til he found the 'Op' section, and-
Aha! Sure enough, there it was!
Written in beautifully flourishing golden calligraphy, as all Winner names were (that confirms it!).
Optimus Prime (formerly: Orion Pax)
'Well. That's interesting.'
Wasn't every day he got a full name and last name addendum for a Winner. Souls usually only had one set first name (whether from birth or from choice), and married last names were usually just joined together..
"Formerly known as Orion Pax?" He asked with a raised brow.
The newly dubbed Optimus blinks in surprise; Those beautifully glowing blue irises seeming to spin around the twin blue stars he had for pupils like the rings around Saturn.
(Peter desperately shoved down the urge to sigh like a besotted schoolgirl at the sight.)
"I.. Yes? How did you..?"
Peter chuckles warmly and gently shuts the Soul Registry.
"You were on the list my friend!" He answered happily as he glided down from his stand towards the Pearly Gates.
"List?" Optimus's curiosity was palpable.
Peter pulled the Keys of Heaven from his pocket and fiddled with the lock.
"The Soul Registry to be precise!" He explained, "Makes sure all righteous and virtuous souls who die have entry! Now.."
He turned back, craning his neck to look Heaven's newest Winner in the eye, and spread his wings and arms wide.
"Dearly Beloved," Peter spoke the words he's spoken almost a thousand times since he'd taken over this role, "It is my pleasure to say unto thee.."
Right on que, Heaven's Gates swung open behind him, holy radiance and heavenly choirs spilling out to greet the newest soul destined to walk it's streets.
"Welcome to Heaven!"
And Optimus?
Optimus Prime, Last of The Primes of Cybertron, Leader of the Autobots, Creation of Primus, looked.. extremely confused.