Changing of the Guard

This little tale follows the cartoon and movie continuity. It's set in the first week or two after Unicron is defeated and Cybertron is reclaimed by the Autobots. Rodimus is just settling into his new position as Autobot leader.

Legal jargon: The Transformers are the property of Marvel, Hasbro, Sunbow, Kenner, Takara... did I miss anyone? Anyway, they don't belong to me.

Rodimus stood outside the door uncertainly, unwilling to enter. Lately things had been changing so fast that he was barely sure of which way was up. Now this. He clenched his fists in frustration.

Finally, he gave a sigh of resignation and keyed in a code on the door panel. The door whooshed open silently. He stood in the doorway, feeling as if he was violating a sacred shrine. Before him was Prime's quarters. Which Prime it belonged to was debatable, for Optimus was gone, and yet Rodimus was not yet ready to take his place.

He stepped inside tentatively, pushing an anti-grav sled before him. He jumped, his fuel pump hammering madly, as the door slid shut behind him. He hated doing this even more than he hated his new job. It just wasn't right.

Rodimus gazed around the room, the feeling of intrusion growing every moment. "I'm sorry," he whispered softly. For what exactly, he wasn't sure. Sorry for causing Optimus' death? For inheriting the matrix? For taking over every aspect of his life, including his residence? It was just too awful for him to bear.

And yet, there was no way out of it. The matrix had chosen him, and that was that. He shut down his optics for a moment, feeling the protective covers slide down, as he thought back to that crucial moment, the turning point, where his career was made but his life was ended. Where Hot Rod died and Rodimus began. //Arise, Rodimus Prime// the words echoed in his head.

Rodimus' optics flew open, certain that he had actually heard the words spoken aloud. He shook his head, half amused at himself for his folly. Sure, his new job was nearly a back-breaking task, in his humble opinion, but perhaps he would grow used to it in time. If only they, the Autobots, didn't expect him to be another Optimus. He knew that they didn't expect him to be exactly like his predecessor, but they needed someone who was wise and charismatic, someone who inspired confidence while having all the answers.

"But that's just not me," he murmured to himself. He was used to racing across Earth's roads, as carefree as he could get in a world full of violence and bloodshed, not holding the fate of his comrades in his hands.

He shuddered as he looked around himself again. This base on Cybertron had been Prime's home for millions of years, at least until he had crash-landed on Earth. "Prime," he murmured aloud. It seemed unbelievable that this all-powerful surname now referred to him. Privately, he felt that the only true Prime was Optimus. Once the Autobots had reawakened on Earth, Optimus had remained on the Ark in order to protect the planet. After the war had begun to shift from Earth back to Cybertron, Optimus had returned for a short while. However, the base had been hastily abandoned when the Decepticons conquered their home planet, and Optimus had relocated to Moon Base One. Despite all the location changes, most of Prime's personal belongings had remained here, in this room. There had been little time or space in which to gather up little mementos. Now it was Rodimus' job to dispose of it.

Perhaps dispose was too strong a word. It was not going to be thrown out like a faulty microchip. Optimus' personal effects were going to be stored in some obscure location. Nobody could bring themselves to actually throw out their leader's personal belongings. That would be admitting that he was gone forever. No, the job had fallen to Rodimus to clean out the room and move in.

Rodimus had protested the move before the words were barely out of Magnus' mouth. He was used to small quarters and wanted to remain where he was in Autobot City, but that was out of the question. He was needed on Cybertron, and the commander's quarters were the most heavily shielded and protected areas in the base, aside from the briefing room and artillery storage units. While the Decepticons were lying low for the moment, they could return at any time. The Autobots had just lost their beloved leader, and they couldn't bear to lose another. So the decision was made for him. The quarters were his.

Rodimus moved gingerly about the room, almost afraid of waking the dead, as he set about loading the items onto the gunmetal gray storage units atop the anti-grav sled. He began with the pictures on the wall. He tried not to look at them, but one of them caught his eye. It was a portrait of an Earthen landscape in springtime. The picture added a little color and sunlight to the room, which was windowless. The quarters were in the center of the base, along with other high-security areas. These areas had to be defended in case of an attack, so any quarters with an outside window or viewport was out of the question.

Hurriedly placing the pictures in the storage units, he moved on to the bureau, feeling as if his hands were being burned by touching the personal effects. He picked up several wafer-shaped crystals and studied them. They were used to store music, being much more sophisticated than Earth's CDs and a far cry from cassette tapes. Perhaps it would relax him to put one on. He flipped through them briefly, noting the diversity, from classical music recorded on Andros Three to light rock by Earthen artists. There was actually one or two rock songs. Rodimus selected a relaxing piece and felt better as soon as the soothing strains began to waft through the air. He was surprised that he actually liked quite a few of the songs. He hadn't thought that he had much in common with Optimus.

He turned back to his task, this time taking longer to arrange things carefully in the storage unit. He scooped up an armful of items from the desk and carried them over. As he leaned over to deposit them inside the unit, a cubical item slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor. Rodimus stooped to pick it up. As he grasped it, he accidentally pressed a button on the side. With a soft glow, the cube activated and showed a picture of Alita One smiling sweetly, holding a crystalize flower.

Rodimus nearly dropped the picture cube. He steadied it in his hand and sat down on the edge of the recharge berth, flipping through the pictures curiously. Each image faded out at the touch of a button, to be replaced by others. Most of them were pictures of Alita -- Alita waving at the imaging scanner from the entrance to this base so long ago, when it had been brand new; Alita hunched over her desk, hard at work on a battle plan; Alita posing with her smoking gun and a satisfied smile on her face; Alita and Optimus staring into each other's optics lovingly, obviously a candid moment. Rodimus started guiltily, hitting the switch forcefully on the cube, watching the inner glow fade away. He shouldn't be looking at such things. Optimus' private life was none of his business. He tossed in the cube with the other items, hardly daring to look at it.

He swept the desk clean in one stroke, carrying the remaining items over to the unit and dumping them in. He bustled around the room, trying not to get sucked in by anything else. Polish, paint, wax, miniature spare parts -- all the little things that Optimus had stored here were cleared away. Rodimus paused, glancing at a small container of delicate pink paint, half-used. So Optimus hadn't been spending all of his nights alone.

Rodimus felt a grin spread across his face, which quickly faded at the thought of Arcee. He had to confess, he got a thrill out of arguing with her and trading verbal jibes. He had come close to asking her out, just to grab a can of forty-weight, but had chickened out at the last moment. He liked her as a friend, sure, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to take the relationship one step further. Circumstances had decided for him. Rodimus Prime was an entirely different persona, and Arcee hadn't adjusted to it yet. Besides, he saw how she and Springer had begun to look at each other, as if they were discovering each other for the first time. It hurt, certainly, but not as much as it must have hurt Optimus to learn that Alita had been killed in a Decepticon raid shortly after he had returned. In a way, Rodimus was glad that he was not that close to Arcee. Then perhaps it would not hurt as much to lose her.

Rodimus turned toward the recharging bed. He was nearly done now. He cleared away some items that remained. Once again, something slipped out of his grasp. As he bent down to retrieve it, his hand grazed a panel in the wall. It sprung open, revealing a small niche. Inside was a data pad.

Rodimus dropped everything on the bed and reached down, carefully removing the pad and examining it thoughtfully. What could it be? What was so important that Optimus would hide it in a secret compartment? He almost never allowed anyone in his quarters, even to visit, except for Alita. With all that went on in his job, he wanted to keep his private life as private as possible. Could it be some top-secret plans? If so, then it was something that Rodimus should know about.

He turned on the pad and waved a tiny metal rod in front of it. This allowed him to bypass the login screen and access the data. Kup had given the rod to him in order to access Optimus' files, since the leader was no longer around to use them or to give his successor the passwords. Rodimus sat down on the bed and scanned the file headings curiously. It didn't look much like a battle plan to him. The file headings were arranged by date. Perhaps it was the minutes of some top-secret meeting. Hmm... no, the files were too long for that. He accessed the first entry and skimmed it briefly. He had barely gotten past the first paragraph when it struck him. Dear Primus, what was he doing?

He hastily switched off the pad and shoved it away from himself, fuel pump pounding furiously. Now he felt worse than ever, lower than a Rigellian snail. What did he think he was doing? He was listening to Prime's music, looking at his pictures, and -- Primus help him -- reading his personal log. Taking over as leader of the Autobots had been very difficult, but taking over Optimus' personal life seemed to have been no trouble at all. Didn't he have any respect for his fallen leader, the one that he had practically killed? He had no business nosing about Optimus' personal possessions, rifling through them. He felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Yes, he was very curious about Optimus, but that gave him no right to do what he was doing.

Rodimus stood up abruptly. Here he was, sitting on Optimus' bed as if he owned it. Well, he thought guiltily, he did now. But that didn't mean that he had to go through all of Prime's belongings and violate his privacy. Rodimus gathered up all of the items that he had dropped and placed them in the container with an air of finality. There -- it was done. Or was it?

The data pad, still sitting on the bed, caught his eye. There was no denying it -- he was dying of curiosity. In a sort of daze, he walked over and picked it up. What sort of things did Optimus write about? What could be so personal that he would go to the trouble of hiding his log in a secret compartment? Besides, reading it might help him out, give him a few pointers. He'd like to know how Optimus handled his beginning years as leader of the Autobots. Rodimus may have troubles fitting in to the stereotype that Optimus had formed -- at times he felt like a square peg being forced into a round hole -- but that must be nothing compared to what Optimus had faced. He had started from scratch after being rebuilt by Alpha Trion, gathering warriors and turning them from a rag-tag bunch into an efficient fighting force to be reckoned with. He had inspired confidence and won the trust of those who were afraid to trust anyone after Megatron and the Decepticons had invaded their cities. What Optimus had done was nothing short of miraculous -- no wonder he was such a legend. Rodimus couldn't hope to live up to his name -- not unless he had some inside help, some trade secrets. Those secrets were right in front of him, literally in his hands.

//How would you feel if Optimus read *your* personal log?// a voice whispered in his head.

Rodimus nearly dropped the data pad. "It's not the same thing," he hissed, partly out of anger, and partly out of shame. "He doesn't need to know my inner thoughts to lead."

//Oh, isn't it?// the voice continued, unsatisfied. //Doesn't seem to be much difference to me. All I know is that you're holding Optimus' private log in your grubby little hands -- a record of his most private thoughts. If he had wanted anyone to read it, he wouldn't have hidden it.//

"But I need to --"

//Oh, come off it!// the voice sneered. //Do you really *need* to read it, or is it just to satisfy your morbid curiosity? You're just dying to know what thoughts rattled in that mind of his, what he was truly feeling behind that stoic mask. Face it, Roddy, you're nothing but a voyeur, peering voraciously into a world that you have no business seeing, violating what little privacy the poor guy had. Leave him alone, let him rest in peace.//

Rodimus hung his head in shame. Despite all his arguments to the contrary, the voice -- most likely his conscience -- had spoken true. Optimus had succeeded on nothing but his intuition and guts, and he would do the same. He knew that he would never become as great as his predecessor, but that was because his own mind wouldn't let him classify himself in the same category as his hero. Rodimus turned toward the storage unit, thought better of it, then turned back to the recharge bed. He knelt and replaced the data pad in the little niche in which he had found it. He didn't have the guts to delete it, and he didn't want someone else stumbling upon it. Besides, it made him feel better just to have it nearby -- that Optimus had managed to have some sort of a private life, and that he could too, if he didn't let himself get overwhelmed. He promised himself that he would return the tiny metal rod -- an encryption breaker -- to Kup at the first opportunity. He would allow himself no more temptations.

It was time to let Optimus' memory lie at rest. And to give himself a chance to prove himself.

The End

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