Quick reminder:
Solar cycle/Cycle → a day.
Stellar cycle → a year.
Tibulen → Tights.
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Both D-16 and Orion Pax have been assigned to a new team a few solar cycles ago.
And while both mechs were some of the most productives in the entire sector, they were assigned to a team that has just lost two of their miners to the betterment of the overall mining rates of their entire sector.
D-16 wasn't very pleased with the change, to be truthful he liked working with Orion, and only Orion.
D-16 was also the leader and the one responsible for their duo, as the one with the higher rank between the two, and it was a relief as D-16 had a problem with authority, more specifically D-16 had a problem with following orders from people he doesn't respect.
But now, he and Orion were assigned with a new team, one that he is not the leader. His new leader is Elita One.
Elita One is too prideful and full of herself, leaning way too much into rules and protocol.
In resume, D-16's neither likes nor respects her. And it has clearly caused fights on the past cycles, fights that were often broken by Orion.
And here they were once again, new cycle, same arguments waiting to happen. He vents and tries to focus on his work.
The mine stank of ozone and stale Energon vapor, thick in the air like something bleeding under the surface. The dull, relentless sound of pistons and high-pressure drills thrum in the air through the narrow tunnel of the energon vein 14-A.
Rocks and dust sprayed like splintering memories. D-16 moves in rhythm, his digits curled around the heavy mining drill. His hydraulics hissed with every motion, pressure building from below, like the planet itself had decided it was done bearing their weight.
D-16 keeps his optic ridges narrowed, servo tight on the drill trigger. Orion works beside him, swift and delicate digits—archivist's servo, not made for callouses, and yet here ge was, digging like the rest of them.
D-16 had been a pit gladiator in the past. Built to tear and survive. But here, in these claustrophobic corridors deep below Iacon, he felt something else creeping beneath his plating.
Fear. Not from the mines. Not because Energon veins keep growing more unstable the more they take from underground each stellar cycle.
He fears for Orion Pax, he fears for the imbecile mech who can't keep himself from danger. He dreads every time Sentinel Prime's name comes up, because he doesn't know what Sentinel did to make Orion fear him.
He watches Orion Pax work for a moment, delicate plating but with firm servos as he carefully drills into an Energon vein. In another life—before exile to the mines—Orion was an archivist, trained in precision and history.
Yet here he was, at the mines, and unlike everybot else, Orion is not even allowed to rise in rank, forever stuck on the lowest miner rank.
Sentinel Prime was a hero, the last Prime, the one who relentlessly risked himself on the surface trying to find the Matrix of Leadership.
Sentinel was their savior, their leader and the bot everyone looked up.
Sentinel Prime was a good mech, the greatest mech.
Right?
But then, why does Orion reacts like that every time that mech is involved?
Why would their hero, their leader, sentence Orion to an eternal life at the mines? Forever stuck as the lowest ranking miner until his spark can't handle it anymore and fade out?
D-16's own spark ache at the thought. And as he adjusts his stance, he catches a sudden flash at the corner of his optics:
Jazz's drill caught against an unstable patch.
The vein shimmered violently—ultraviolet flare under the shifting pressure.
"It's unstable... We gotta go, we gotta move!" Orion's voice cracked with more than urgency.
Elita's command was lost in the first tremor. The mine convulsed. Heat bloomed through D-16's chestplating before he registered the changes, before shards of rock and metal careened toward them.
D‑16's gladiator instincts snapped to attention. The world lurched as the vein exploded outwards—rocks and shards blasting through the cramped corridor. D‑16 stumbled back and slammed his back plating against the wall, servos searching for his jetpack and optics looking for Orion, but he doesn't find that famiar color scheme.
Where is Orion?
His processor and optics double the effort of trying to scan his surroundings for his companion.
Another explosion rips through the walls, sending jagged shards into the crew. The shockwave slams D-16 back. He hits the wall, optic sensors flickering.
His processor flashes in warning as he finally finds his jetpack, but still no sinal of Orion.
His spark ache as the memories of the last cave in return to the forefront of his processor. Oh Primus, what if Orion got stuck on the rocks or was buried bellow the rubble!?
"Orion!?" He screams, spark twisting in his chassis as he doesn't hear a response.
'Nonononono-!'
//ALL UNITS—EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! TUNNEL COLLAPSING!// Elita's shout crackles through the comms but D-16 didn't pay any attention to it, he still has a missing mech to find.
D‑16's optics flicked across the chaos. Sparks, collapsing girders, debris scattering. He finally meets Orion's wide and panicked optics.
He runs towards Orion and stends his servo out, immediately Orion also stends out a servo towards D-16.
Their digits interlock and D-16 can feel the weight on his chassis ease a little. He got Orion, everything will be fine.
His golden optics look deep into reassuring azure ones.
"You with me, D?" Orion asks, also slightly calmer now that D-16 is beside him.
They ran together.
No—they sprinted, like the gladiator and archivist they were before the system broke them.
"On your six," D-16 grunted. "Keep going!"
"D, behind us—!" Orion yells and D-16 dares to glance back, what he see's make his spark bear faster in fear.
The walls twisting with a mechanical groan. Too fast. The tunnel's shape warped, groaned, then lunged, as if alive.
The tunnel shifts—girders warping, ferrocrete groaning. The corridor seems to transform on them, like some ancient thing inhaling its last breath. The floor drops out. D-16 and Orion crash down, slamming onto fractured basalt.
D‑16's chassis rattle, his helm is ringing.
Orion landed hard beside him, digits splaying, optics darting. Then Jazz's scream split the air.
Jazz was farther ahead of them when the tunnel started to collapse, closer to the entrance, but now he was pinned. His knee-joint sparked violently from where it was trapped below some debris of the collapsed wall, Energon was leaking from a split line, too close to the main cables.
Orion dashes past D-16, ignoring the falling debris ,darting into the chaos and disregarding his own safety.
D‑16 scrambled to follow, hydraulics straining as they both shove against the boulder.
//Jazz is stuck!// Orion hurriedly announced into the comms. //Elita, we've got a trapped miner, I'm falling back to assist—//
//Negative, follow the protocol and evacuate immediately.// The infuriating femme responds.
Protocol be damned, D-16 thought grimly. Orion had never followed rules well—and D-16 would not leave the thick-helmed mech behind in such a dangerous situation.
Somebot has to protect Orion when the red and blue mech's hero complex decides to act up.
This is why he didn't want to enter this stupid team.
They shove at the boulder. Nothing. D-16's hydraulics hiss as he strains.
"Orion—" he reached out, gripping the twisted frame— "We're gonna need more lift."
"It's closing," Jazz hissed. "Just go—grab your packs and go!"
"Yeah, good idea," Orion said, too calm.
It kind of fascinates D-16, the way Orion becomes so calm in dire situations, it is as unnatural as silence in chaos.
Jazz sputters. "That's not what I meant—!"
D-16's optics flicked to Orion, who was pulling his jetpack from his back strut. Without a word, Orion jammed it beneath the wreckage.
"You're insane," D-16 muttered. But his servos were already under Jazz's arms.
"Pull him clear!"
D‑16 dug in beside him. The jetpack ignited. Metal screamed. The boulder surged upward, and they dragged Jazz free—just as the tunnel behind them imploded into a debris storm.
The three ran—or more like D-16 an Orion ran while carrying Jazz between them—, bracing against flying splinters.
//Pax?! What's happening down there?// Elita's voice come through their shared comms.
D-16 grits his denta and wipes dust from his optics mid‑sprint. //Protocol is still intact. Standard evacuation. Just do your job, Elita!//
'And stop pestering Orion too', he thinks.
//D-16, Orion Pax. Both of you better exit the tunnel. Right Now.// Elita's voice filtered in dryly.
Stupid femme.
//Yeah no.// Orion vents. //It's about to get messy here.//
They keep running, Jazz slung over their shoulders, each step dogged by collapsing braces and hissing walls.
"We're not gonna make it!" D-16 mutters in silent horror.
"Yes we are!" Orion's voice broke like static. "Go, go,GO!"
Wind shrieks. Debris spirals. But they can see the mouth of the tunnel, and they bolt for it.
At the tunnel's mouth, Elita threw a brace like a javelin. It locked just as they leapt through, the tunnel's last breath snapping shut behind them.
They land hard—Jazz first, then Orion, then him. The brace cracked, sailing off in a screech. All three of them venting hard, their overheated systems cooling slowly.
And D-16, silently, wondered why Orion's optics weren't focused on their near-death escape.
No—he was looking at the skyline, past Iacon's towers.
Dread pools at the back of D-16's processor as he realizes what Orion is looking at.
The gleam of a familiar fleet of transformers descend from the Surface opening towards the Prime tower.
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"That hurt like the Pit."
D-16 sits slouched on the bench of the medbay, forearm plating scuffed, dried energon staining a shoulder seam.
"What'd you expect? The tunnel fights back."
Orion sits beside him, prodding a swollen cable with a wince as he tries to clean the mine dust off from a gash in his tibulen.
"That tunnel was a fragger. Tunnel fought back harder than some of my opponents in Kaon." D-16 snickers.
He watches Orion. The archivist's usual spark was dimmer—some unseen storm behind his optics.
"At least this one doesn't cheer while crushing you." Orion teases back after a moment.
D‑16's optics soften. He watches Orion's servos tremble slightly around the wound—an archivist's dexterity meeting a mechanized trauma.
D-16's optics shuttered. "You were out of line. Talking back like that."
"Darkwing was out of line." Orion refutes, optics burning in defiant fury. "Aren't you tired of being treated like we're slag?"
The words hit harder than the fall. Yes he is, but what could they do? They are only cogless miners.
"Yes, but still. You shouldn't've talked back to Darkwing, you know how volatile he can get when angry. And protocol's there for a reason too."
Orion looks away, looking at the wall and refusing to make optic contact with D-16'.
"Sometimes protocol destroys more than it protects. And is a Spark worth less than protocol?"
D‑16 shifted uncomfortably, noticing a familiar strain in Orion's gaze. Fear and resentment. D-16 can guess about who he is thinking about.
"Darkwing had every right to hit me," D-16 said instead, softly touching the spot where he had been slapped. "I interfered."
Orion's servo hesitated in the air, then landed gently above D-16's own servo.
"I'm glad you are always there, you know. For me." he said. "To get punched in the face in my place. I'm glad you were there with me even if we almost got pancaked by the energon tunnels again."
D-16 feels it again—that strange twist in his tanks.
"Anytime. You drag me into near-death, I'll drag you out."
They share a look. Brief, but weighted.
Everything about Orion, from his appearences, to his personality and actions, it all always shakes and make something twist deep in D-16's spark chamber.
His optics finally lock onto these deep blues again. His spark beats a little faster, with feelings and words only ever thought that now are begging to be said aloud.
D-16 opens his derma and then—
The PA chimed.
«Attention all sectors:
Stand by for a live transmission
from Sentinel Prime.»
The barracks around them light up with whispers. D-16 sits up straighter. Orion stiffens.
The entire sector lits up with chatter. Excitement. Praise.
Not from Orion.
D-16 sat up straighter. "He's back? Already?" He still asks even if he had seen the transformed patrow return earlier.
"Maybe he found the Matrix," Orion said—but it wasn't hope in his voice.
"Come on" D-16 urges Orion to also get up. "We should go before Darkwing and the other higher-ups arrive, you know how angsty they get when we are late for the transmission."
Orion says nothing but obediently gets up and follows him.
The air in the mine's main chamber tasted like ozone and stale energon.
In the start he was always ecstatic to see and hear Sentinel Prime, but now? After so many stellar cycles he spent together with Orion?
Now something about these briefings always made D-16's frame tense, optics narrowing even before the static resolved into Sentinel's hologram.
They stood with the others — miners, techs, and the cogged supervisors. Everyone gathered like obedient children while the glowing blue of Sentinel Prime's projection stood tall, pristine as ever — his helm unbowed, his armor unscuffed.
‹Hello, Iacon.
Hello to our industrious miners.
I salute your sacrifice.›
The barracks cheer. Orion doesn't. D-16 politely claps, because even with his growing suspicions, he still wants to believe and respect Sentinel, because if he doesn't then that means his entire life may have also been a lie.
Orion Pax stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, posture a little too still. The way he always was when Sentinel was speaking.
‹We searched again for the
Matrix of Leadership...
and now return, empty-handed.›
Somebot vents loudly nearby. Another hopeless scout. Another message telling them that they were buried here, mining energon because of a war no one talked about. That the surface was still unlivable. That survival depended on obedience.
Orion's optics drop. D-16 glances at him from the corner of his optics.
There it was again.
That faint crease between Orion's brows. Subtle. But always there. A little frown that tugged at the edge of his mouthplates, quickly smoothed out into something neutral, something blank.
The others didn't notice.
They never did.
But D-16 wasn't like the others.
He'd learned everything he could about Orion. Every twitch. Every little intake and shift of his weight. Every time Orion sat close but never leaned in until invited. Every time he offered warmth but never demanded it in return. And every time Sentinel's name was mentioned, Orion locked just a little more down than before .
‹But despair not.
For tomorrow...
I declare this cycle's Lacon 5000 starts!
A city-wide race!
Everybot gets a day off tomorrow!
No shifts. No mines.
Just a celebration of Cybertronian prowess!›
The announcement flicked joy through the barracks. Orion's optic lowered, his joy too forced, too brittle.
D-16 keeps watching Orion instead of the hologram of their leader that is still talking.
‹We may have returned
without the Matrix,
but hope reigns! Remember:
failure doesn't mean defeat!›
When Sentinel shifts suddenly — one of those sharp hand gestures he always make when trying to get his point across— Orion flinches.
Barely.
But it was real.
A faint twitch in his shoulder plating, a flicker behind the optics. Like an instinct burned into his neural net.
D-16's chest plating tightened.
Orion had never mentioned being close to Sentinel. He never really talked about before the mines — not unless it was in quiet, vague terms. A "position" at the Iacon Archives. "Research." A few names that had meant nothing to D-16. But he had said Sentinel was part of why he was here.
D-16 hadn't pressed. Orion rarely asked questions about his time in Kaon's arenas. It seemed only fair to return the courtesy.
But now…
Now, he wasn't sure he should've let it go.
Because Orion didn't just dislike Sentinel Prime.
He feared him.
Not openly. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But D-16 had been trained to read weakness — and more importantly, to recognize when someone was working too hard to hide it.
And Orion Pax? Orion was trembling. Inside. Carefully concealed, sure. But every part of him was wound tight.
Sentinel's speech droned on — more platitudes about sacrifice, about continuing the energon quotas. About how their work kept Cybertron alive.
D-16 felt his fingers curl into fists.
He waited until the transmission ended. Until the miners started to murmur and shift. Until Orion turned to move away with the rest of them.
Only then did he reach out and catch Orion's elbow. Orion stilled instantly — didn't jerk away, but didn't lean in either.
D‑16 watched him. A predator of the underground. Gladiator to the pistons. But his spark cracked a little.
Something was wrong.
He didn't know what it was —not yet— but he knew the shape of someone carrying a secret. He'd seen it too many times in the arena. Fighters who lost their edge, stopped sleeping, cracked under pressure. They'd carry the weight until it broke their frame in two.
Orion was cracking.
Quietly. Carefully. And no one else saw it.
D-16 shifted subtly, just enough that his arm brushed Orion's. A quiet nudge. Not even a full touch.
Orion startled. His optics flicked to him. D-16 raised a brow ridge. Didn't say anything. Just looked.
D-16 interlocked his servo with Orion's.
Orion hesitated. Then, slowly, exhaled, his shoulder plating loosened slightly.
D-16 looked back to the projection. Sentinel was still speaking. Still praising the sacrifice of the miners. Still pretending this was a noble endeavor.
But now D-16 wasn't listening at all.
'What did you do to him?' he thought, watching Sentinel's face with new suspicion. 'What did you take from him?'
The others dispersed once the message ended. The usual complaints. Talk of the next shift rotation and another collapsed tunnel in Sector Nine.
D-16 didn't move. Not until Orion stepped away. He caught up fast.
"Hey," he said lowly, close enough that no one else would hear. "You okay?"
Orion blinked at him. For a moment, D-16 thought he might lie.
Then he smiled.
Soft. Small. The kind of smile Orion gave when he didn't want to answer — but wanted him to know that he'd noticed the concern.
"I'm not," Orion confessed gently. "But I will be."
But Orion didn't meet his optics. And that already was answer enough.
D-16 didn't press. He just fell into step beside him. Quiet. Present. When Orion's digits brushed his, D-16 caught them on his again. Just for a moment.
'He doesn't have to tell me' D-16 told himself. 'He doesn't owe me anything.'
But his tanks twisted all the same.
Because if Sentinel Prime had hurt him— If Orion had been cast down from the towers to the mines for uncovering some truth—
'Is that why he flinches at shadows and and—'
D-16 stops walking. His processor stalled on a detail he hadn't wanted to see.
He turned, slowly, to watch Orion move ahead — and his spark clenched at the soft drag in Orion's gait, like he was favoring a hidden pain or feeling...phantom pains.
D-16's can feel his own processor starting to overheat.
"Did he hurt you?" He asks, voice barely above a murmur.
Orion stops and his deep blue optics flashed up at that. Wide. Bright. Not angry — scared.
But it was gone in an instant, buried beneath that frustrating, unreadable calm.
"No," Orion said. Too fast. Too clean. "He didn't."
D-16 didn't believe him.
He wasn't sure when he'd started noticing it — the way Orion's whole frame seemed to withdraw whenever Sentinel was mentioned.
The tiny, hidden winces. The little shifts of weight, like every mention of Sentinel's name brought something heavy down onto Orion's entire frame.
D-16 had seen the signs before. He had seen gladiators flinch at the mere shadow of a whip. Miners shrink at the echo of command tones.
And now, here was Orion Pax, clerk-turned-miner, still glowing bright but hiding something so deep inside his spark he'd sooner let it corrode than speak it aloud.
"Whatever it was," D-16 said at last, voice low, "it doesn't scare me."
Orion opens his derma — as if to deny, or explain why it should— but he says nothing in the end.
Only nods once, almost imperceptibly. They didn't speak again for the rest of their shift.
But D-16 made sure to walk slightly ahead of Orion in the tunnels that day — one hand always on the drill, the other on the hilt of the tool he'd long since sharpened into a blade.
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That night, when they recharged, D-16 pulled Orion into his arms first. No hesitation. No slow sidling up like usual.
Orion blinked at the sudden contact, startled. D-16 pressed their helms together. His claws cupped the side of Orion's helm, gentle.
"Recharge," he murmured.
Orion hesitated. Then exhaled, shoulder plates dropping as he melted into the embrace.
Their sparks didn't sync —not this time— but the ache between them did.
They still hadn't said the words.
But now, as D-16 held Orion in recharge, with his chin behind the curve of Orion's helm. Venting with him until their vents synced. He pressed his servo over Orion's chestplate and felt the pulse of his spark — soft, fast, alive.
He would protect that spark with everything he had.
Even if it killed him.
Orion made a soft sound in his rest — and clutched D-16 tighter in his sleep.