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The life of a High Guard isn’t as glamorous as the stories of D-16’s sparklinghood had once led him to believe. Once, during the Age of the Thirteen and the Quintesson Wars, the High Guard had been the swords and shields of the Primes, divided into thirteen squadrons, each trained to support their Prime’s specific style of command and combat. These specializations persisted, even millions of cycles on, with new guards often being trained in a variety of fighting traditions and eventually selecting the one they preferred most. In the present cycle, many, many stellars after the Primes had voluntarily rejoined with Primus, the Quintesson Wars only a distant memory, the High Guard remained, albeit much smaller, less of a standing army and more of a small order of knights, training and waiting for the day a new Prime would arise.
…If, indeed, such a thing ever came to pass. Since the attempted coup of Sentinel, the pretender Prime, who in the Primes’ absence had attempted to corrupt and pervert the succession process to suit his own whims— only for the Matrix to dissolve in his servos as it was handed to him on the steps of the Basilica, broadcast for all of Cybertron to see— no new Prime had shown themselves. The priests of Primus continued to maintain their temples regardless, doggedly studying the old texts, searching across the planet for mechs that showed Signs of Affinity. The last several vorns had seen a repetitive pattern of candidates being identified, brought to the main temple in Iacon to be put through an elaborate and nonsensical selection process and vetted over an even longer one, and ultimately be rejected by the Matrix. Still, they believed a new Prime would someday come.
D-16 felt much the same. Currently the youngest mech in all of recorded history to be accepted into the High Guard, trained in the fighting tradition of Megatronus Prime, he dreamed of somecycle being able to work alongside a Prime. Perhaps even as the head of their personal vanguard, was his far more secret hope.
If the life of a High Guard wasn’t very glamorous, then that of a High-Guard-in-training was even less so. As a novice, he was largely relegated to grunt work, tedious and uninspired. Less than a stellar ago he and a few of the others had been sent into a cesium swamp to take care of a rabid Ick-yak terrorizing the local energon farmers. He’d been scrubbing the crud out of his joints for decacycles.
And, well— it’s not that he doesn’t think the work isn’t important, or anything. It's just that he knows he’s capable of more.
So when his training group had been approached by a haggard-looking priest of Primus, asking for help tracking down the most recent Primal Aspirant after they’d run off without telling anyone, he’d jumped at the chance. This was it! This was his chance to prove himself!
As he picks his way through the woods, he considers what he knows. He’s not seen this newest candidate before; their paths had simply never crossed. Nor had he really tried to sneak a look— his hopes had been rather dashed when the previous Aspirant, the one from when Dee first joined the Guard, had passed every single test only to be rejected in the end. So he’d learned to temper his expectations somewhat.
All he really knew about this new candidate Prime was that he was called Orion Pax, that he was a red and blue truck, and that this wasn’t the first time he’d run off like this. Out of boredom, apparently. The consensus among the other Guards was that he was going to be dropped as an Aspirant any sol now, and Dee wholeheartedly agreed.
He nearly trips over a tree root in his musings, cursing aloud. His audials catch a faint rustle in the distance, accompanied by the sound of someone talking, though he only hears one voice. Perhaps the other party is simply very quiet?
As he draws nearer, gingerly picking his way through the technoorganic foliage, the voice grows clear enough that he can register the words being said. It sounds like a heated argument, or at least one side of it. He peers through the branches of a large aluminium tree and into a small clearing, where he can see a red and blue mech, pacing back and forth, gesticulating emphatically as he talks to…himself?
“— and I’m saying, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it!” He pauses, as if listening for a response. “No, no, Micronus, that’s not— I didn’t mean knock it literally, it’s just a thing mechs say these cycles.”
A pause. “Where did it come from? I… honestly don’t know, Solus. I guess I could look it up later.”
His pacing reaches one end of the clearing, and as he swivels to make another round, Dee catches a glimpse of the Matrix, visible through a strip of glass across his chassis. This was mildly surprising to see, though not totally; normally Primal Aspirants didn’t get to hold the Matrix to assess attunement and compatibility until much later in their training, and Orion was still fairly new. But what really surprises D-16, what makes his processor stall and every gear in his frame grind to a sudden halt, is the fact that the sacred Primal artifact, that dormant, lifeless piece of metal he remembered seeing paraded out on pedestals for so much of his functioning, was reacting, its core shining a bright blue and flashing with small intermittent bursts of light.
Orion’s finials twitch. “What do you mean “behind you”, Maximo, there isn’t anymech—“ he suddenly turns and locks eyes directly with Dee. “Oh scrap, where’d you come from?”
D-16 feels suddenly very unsure of himself, his mission having abruptly taken on an entirely new significance. He feels simultaneously gripped by awe and the need to show deference. He steps forward slowly, trying not to tremble, helm lowered, so he can only see the other’s blue pedes. “I— I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He feels a playful tap on his chin, and his gaze automatically snaps up, optics wide, to see the Prime-to-be grinning widely at him. “Hey, no need for all that, I’m just a—” The other’s blue optics suddenly fall to the High Guard insignia on his pauldron. “Aw, slag, you’re here to take me back!”
D-16 resets his optics, snapped back into reality by the other’s childishly dismayed exclamation. “Yes, I’m here to escort you back, my Pr— Aspirant Pax. Follow me and—” Pax immediately tries to make a break for it, transforming and zooming into the trees. “Hey— HEY!”
He’s forced to transform and give chase, reluctantly, even if his tank alt is incredibly unsuited to the task. His treads are all-terrain, at least, but he’s not built for maneuvering, and moving though and around the gaps in the trees is difficult. His only advantages lie in that Pax’s paint scheme makes him incredibly easy to follow, even at a distance, and that he seems to be facing a similar issue with maneuverability, his truck chassis being too broad to traverse smaller gaps.
The chase zigzags through the forest, Pax maintaining a steady lead, Dee unable to close the gap due to the difference in speed, much to his frustration. The Primal Aspirant seems to find his persistence amusing, laughing as he purposely veers into ponds and muddy ditches. Cleaning his treads is going to take chords.
The truck in front of him turns around to drive backwards, flashing his headlights a few times, shouting, “Hey, you’re pretty good at this! Too bad you’re never gonna—”
His taunt turns into a loud, high-pitched shriek as his back wheels suddenly encounter air, having gone right off a ledge. He immediately disappears from view, the scream continuing for a few nanokliks before it abruptly ends with a loud WHAM!
Dee brakes hard, transforming and skidding to a halt right at the edge of the drop. His spark pulses frantically in his chassis as he brings himself to look over the edge, expecting— terrified— to see a mangled, brightly-colored corpse at the foot of a cliff.
What he sees instead is Orion Pax sprawled out on his back in robot mode, groaning, having just gone off a ledge just a few mechanometers high and fallen into a ditch.
This idiot…!
Idiot or not, he was Dee’s responsibility right now, and he’d gone and gotten himself hurt. He was going to be in so much trouble.
The tankformer lowers himself into the ditch and scrambles over to crouch beside the fallen bot, checking him over for wounds. Thankfully, Pax doesn’t look injured, just dazed. He resets his optics a couple of times as Dee leans over him.
“You’re making this way harder than it needs to be, you know that?” Dee can’t help but scold the other bot as he pokes his armor here and there, looking for a reaction to some unseen internal damage.
“Yeah, that was the plan.” Pax squints up at him. “Also wow, you’re like, REALLY pretty. Like, really really pretty.”
“Uh,” Dee says, stupidly, feeling heat rush to his faceplates, before scrambling for some scrap of composure: “That-that doesn't matter right now. We have to—“
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you, go back to the temple,” Orion gripes, letting Dee tug him up to a sitting position to check him over for injuries. Other than mud, and a few small dents, he doesn’t seem hurt.
“Any pain?”
“Nope.” The Matrix flashes, and he frowns, “No, Vector, I don’t want an aerial alt. I like driving.” It flashes again. “NO, Amalgamous, I don’t want to be a triple-changer, I’d be too big to sneak away from classes.” Another flash. “Okay, a beast mode MIGHT be cool, I guess, but—” The Matrix starts glowing, and he sighs. “They’re all fighting again.”
“Did, um…did… Megatronus… say anything?” Dee asks, shyly.
Orion Pax stares at him. “He said “what?” Because he just woke up. Because he was napping. Because he’s old.”
“Oh,” says D-16, feeling a little embarrassed. “I see.”
The other bot just looks bored, now. “You’re just like the priests, always asking me to ask them random scrap.”
Which raises another, very pressing question. “Do the priests… know you can speak to the Primes?”
Pax bursts out laughing. “Psssht, nah, I keep telling them I can’t hear anything so they’ll fail me faster and I can go home already.”
D-16’s jaw nearly drops off his face. ARE YOU STUPID?!??
“I don’t know why it’s taking so long for them to just let me go. Like, all the last Aspirants said they could hear it, but they all got let go.”
BECAUSE THEY WERE CLEARLY LYING!!!
Pax taps his chin thoughtfully, “I thought if I just said I couldn’t hear anything, I’d get kicked out by now, but it’s taking them so long, for whatever reason…”
THEY TOTALLY KNOW YOU CAN HEAR THEM!!!!!!!!
D-16 can practically feel his processor overclocking itself trying to process the other’s sheer stupidity. It takes mentally reciting one of his favorite Megatronus stories to keep him calm and not completely lose his mind. “Okay. Okay. HAVE you considered that…maybe…you’re underselling yourself here?”
Pax just waves a servo nonchalantly. “Pfft, no way. Just ‘cause you’re super cute and you’ve got those optics that put the stars to shame doesn’t mean you can convince me I wouldn’t be the worst Prime ever.” He frowns. “I didn't mean to say that part out loud. Maybe I do have processor damage.”
“Clearly.” Dee manages to tug the other bot to his pedes. “Right. We’re going back now, and that’s final.”
Those big, bright, utterly clueless blue optics reset a few times in his direction. “Whoa, what’s with the hurry? Did something happen?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then what’s the rush?” In one smooth motion, Pax manages to somehow twist in his grip so that he’s holding Dee’s arm and not the other way round, like an old-fashioned gentlebot escorting their date to a ball. “C’mon, just ditch and take the sol off with me. There’s this big festival they hold once a stellar down at the wharf, and—”
“Will you quit it?!” Dee finally snaps, yanking his arm out of the other’s grip. Pax suddenly goes quiet. “All this running off and— and lying to the priests, and skipping out on lessons, and doing whatever you want, it’s just making everyone else’s lives harder. YOU might not care, but this stuff is serious to them! To me! You should be honored to be chosen for such a role,” he adds, quietly, optics lingering on the Matrix.
“Look.” Pax’s voice is uncharacteristically solemn. Dee’s gaze goes up to the other’s faceplates, the other’s expression now tired and resigned. “I know how serious this is, okay? I just— I haven’t been allowed outside the temple unless it’s under supervision—” YEAH, BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOU’RE PROBABLY THE NEXT PRIME, Dee thinks— “—and I just wanted to be by myself for once.”
He fidgets in place. “When I got picked to be an Aspirant, I thought it was kinda cool, at first, but it’s just test after test after test and no one will actually tell me anything. And I can’t ACTUALLY leave until the Matrix makes up its mind. But I just… I miss the docks. I miss my friends. I miss being free.”
The sound of chestplates opening startles them both. They look down in surprise to see the Matrix pop right out of Pax’s opening chassis and into his servos.
It glows faintly, and Orion’s optics widen. He says, softly, “You’re really okay with that?” It blinks twice more.
“They’re saying it’s my choice if I should stay or go.”
He then looks up, directly at D-16.
“What do you think?”
Dee startles. “What?”
Orion shrugs. “Well, a Prime’s supposed to serve their people. And the High Guard serves the Prime. We’d be working together. So, do you think I’d make a good Prime?”
The tankformer silently considers him, looking at the scuffs and the mud and the leaves sticking out of his armor.
“I think you need a solvent shower.” He says, flatly.
“Okay, and?”
“And,” Dee continues, picking a leaf off a finial, “you’re kind of weird, but you don’t seem…horrible.” He brushes away a few twigs snagged in the other’s shoulder plating. “You actually take the time to listen to the Matrix and what the previous Primes are saying, but you still make your own choices.” He leans forward to wipe dirt off the end of Orion’s nose. “You know who you are without needing anybody to tell you.”
I envy that about you, he doesn’t say.
Pax’s grin widens. “Aaaaand?”
“And nothing,” Dee huffs, leaning back. “Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”
“Aw.” He looks down at the Matrix for a moment, then unceremoniously pops it back into his chest. “I’ll give this thing a try for a little longer then, I guess. Plus, it means I get to hang out with you, so that’s a plus.” He frowns down at the newly-instated artifact. “Don’t you “welcome back, cheater” me. None of that “arise, Optimus Prime” stuff either, knock it off.”
Oh sweet Primus they’d already picked a name for him.
“Let’s just get back to the temple,” Dee mutters, feeling a little lightheaded.
Pax scrambles after him as he begins quickly walking away. “Hey, wait! What’s your name?”
D-16 returns to the training halls late that sol, making his way to the canteen out of habit, even though he isn’t that hungry. All those fried energon treats Pax had insisted they try at the street festival had been filling enough.
He gets himself a half-cube at the dispensers and goes to sit with the three older Guards who’d taken him under their wings. They’d been a large part of helping him adjust early on in his training. Starscream had been hostile at first, especially because of his high test scores, thinking he was out for his position as future Captain, but they’d managed to hammer out something vaguely friendship-shaped over the course of several dozen mutual beatings in the training room. His occasional flares of jealousy could be annoying at times, but Dee had learned to tune him out.
He sits down heavily in his usual seat, staring blankly into his cube as if expecting it to provide answers to all of life’s questions. A visor, a monoeye, and a pair of sharp optics all turn to look at him.
Starscream reaches out to poke him with one spiky talon. “What’s gotten into you?” He hisses.
Dee’s face drops into his servos. “We’re going to have a Prime again,” he groans, “and he’s so stupid!”