#leadfoot

And Optimus hadn’t missed the look of surprise Kira had sent his way when he’d emerged from the cave. One of thinking she was witnessing a ghost.

“Would you rather he be out there for humans to find?” Optimus whispered back, earning a grunt from Ratchet. Of course the medic would not care what happened to the organic natives. Optimus wondered why he ever bothered trying to explain his reasons.

“A few.” Optimus replied to his charge, walking over and picking her up, a smile gracing his face plates. “He was a better fighter than I expected.”

“So I good time, then?”

And it wasn’t just him smiling. They were all smiling, these Autobots who had just committed what should have counted as a war crime.

Gone was the tension, the clenched denta’s and wound up frames. They moved fluidly, walking and speaking in calm motions instead of their usual stomping around for a fight. The massacre had given them a release, a boost of happiness. They had needed to brutally murder to make them feel alive.

The Prime’s optics met Optimus’ across the room where he was seated on the medic berth, Ratchet choosing to focus on repairing him instead of saying what was on his mind. Optimus was almost hoping he would, and definitely would have stood against that war hungry criminal while his friend did so.

“Are there, perhaps, any other mines we could assist in clearing?”

Buklhead, currently loading raw Energon crystals into the processor for refinement, chuckled but it was far from humorous.

“None that we are aware of.” Optimus lied. He knew it would take a simple glance through the base’s computers to call him out on it, but anything to delay him having to relive the scene that had greeted him as he’d crossed through the Bridge was a worthy deception.

Suffering at the hands of humans and harboring a dislike for them he could understand, but the way those Decepticons had been killed was just cruel. Vehicons who fired upon him first he counted as acts of self-defense, though he hated every time their sparks faded. Miners, engineers, simple Cybertronians trying to do their jobs so they could get the life sustaining Energon they mined from a cruel master, those he could not excuse.

And to do so in such a violent manner, not just dispatching them as quickly as possible but drawing it out, making them suffer, choosing to end them in such a gruesome way? What could have possibly happened to lead him to become that?

Not at all deterred by Optimus’ reply, that Prime turned down to Kira and smiled, beginning to speak to her softly as he lightly bounced her up and down in his servo, joining a circle of his peers and engaging in their conversation.

That Ratchet approached, scanning his friend and focusing on the screen as the results appeared. Shifting Kira to his other servo, he allowed the medic to begin repairing a gash along his arm Megatron must have caused.

Optimus could only wonder what the old Warlord must have thought as he’d engaged in battle with Optimus. Did he realize the mech before him was not the same as the one he had fought for centuries before? Did he fear for his life, or see it as a new fun challenge?

Did this fool attacking him reignite his ever-burning desire to make Autobot lives a misery and now he would have to deal with a revived armada of Decepticons hungering for his defeat?

He never should have let them leave the base.

Though, this interaction did give him some clarity on a question he knew Kira would not give a straight answer to. He trusted her, but he knew she was hiding something. More than the Dino Bots.

With such a brutal response to the Decepticons, and so little mention of them, it was only sane to assume not many of them remained on the world they had left behind. Perhaps only three?

There was no plausible way one malfunctioning Ground Bridge could have caused this many Bots to become displaced. And with the rift between the Autobots and the Knights, it was safe to assume they did not make a habit of sharing the same room.

And so if all Cybertronians within the blast radius of whatever it was that caused them to appear on his world had been sucked in, and Kira had made no indication of wanting to seek out three lone dots who did not fit the pattern of the others, then he had to assume they were what remained of the Decepticons of her world. And she knew that.

What else did she know? What else was she hiding? Had he been wrong to trust her?

Letting his gaze drop from that Optimus, he found her already looking at him, face devoid of any emotions he could place. But she did seem to be looking for something in him, her eyes tracking all over his frame, lingering where Ratchet was welding his shoulder strut.

Was she assessing him for damage? Was it done so in concern, or merely a catalog of how injured he was and where would be a good place to strike?

Optimus hated he was now thinking of her reactions in such a way, how quickly his thoughts had gone from trusting her and wanting her guidance to believing she was now a threat to him and his team.

But she had not even reacted to what she had seen and her statement as she’d simply strolled toward the Bridge told him she expected it. He didn’t know if he was more disappointed in how she could allow such a thing to happen, or angry that that Optimus had turned this into something the human was accustomed to seeing.

And then upon further reflection, he became disappointed at himself for being disappointed in Kira for not stopping such behavior when she was just that, a human. Someone who should not be carrying such a burden and definitely not be blamed for the actions of the Bots around her.

If only she had not found these Bots first but rather his own team, he could have saved her from that life.

An all too familiar tone rang out from the base speakers and Optimus spark jumped. Finally, Agent Fowler had some news. Maybe he had a new base prepared for them to leave immediately. He could only hope.

“What is that?”

So lost in his musing, he had not noticed the group disband and Optimus now heading for the hallways, Kira back on the catwalks. All optics turned to him and Ratchet for a response.

“A proximity alarm.” the medic replied. “Agent Fowler has landed on the roof.”

Optimus felt the entire room freeze, could practically hear every Autobot’s body jolt, and felt the temperature plummet as the retreating Optimus froze, his back still to them. “Who?”

Whirring told everyone the human agent was descending in the elevator now. In mere seconds, Optimus would be free from these violent, manic Autobots and his base could return to order.

“Agent Fowler.” he repeated. “Our liaison to the human government and military.”

Too late Optimus noticed the absolute terror on Kira’s face as the doors opened and the human male stepped out. “You know, Prime, finding somewhere large enough for-”

Faster than anyone could react, Optimus had marched across the room and drew his sword, arching it through the air and slashing it down onto the human.

---

Jazz was used to near death experiences. Part of the mission, he liked to say when the younger Bots came to him with their processors too loud and they struggled to find recharge. It was simply a hazard of the life they had chosen.

He’d also experienced many times in which it felt as thought his life was ending, but he was merely witness to something so terrible that only death would save him from the pain. Such a feeling occurred when he’d left Cybertron as the planet had all but fallen apart. He was sure only death would have saved him from the all-consuming pain he’d felt in his chassis, almost as if his very spark was exploding within him.

He experienced that same feeling as he watched Kira charge the human, throwing herself beneath Optimus’ blade as he brought it down to embed into the catwalks, the metal crushing the weaker materials beneath it as it sunk deep into the structure.

Anything beneath it would have been crushed, obliterated, slashed, maimed, dead. She was dead.

Before he’d had the chance to blink, Optimus was yanking his sword back and rotating his wrist so the sword was in the correct position and he prepared to swing sideways, stopping the blade inches from a face.

Kira’s face.

She stood over the human male, who was curled on the metal with his hands over his head and whimpering, with an expression almost identical to the one Optimus often wore when defending her. Talk about a caregiver and his sparkling.

It was in this moment in which a silent standoff occurred that Jazz understood what had happened. Kira had charged the human agent, throwing herself at him so their momentum would take them out of the Prime’s attack.

But Optimus was not going to let him live.

“Move.” he growled.

“No.” she replied, keeping her shoulders squared and her chin raised high. “We need him.”

Three simple words and her fate was sealed.

Jazz was used to betrayal by humans, hell he expected it from every one they met, but he’d never thought to prepare for hers.

She had know this human was coming, and she’d allowed it.

She had been there for the death of their fellow Autobots. She had been there when they’d discovered what the humans had been doing to the Autobots they’d killed. She had been there, crying when she thought no one was looking, mourning her friends. And now she had allowed a human government agent to get close to them, to corner them.

How could she do this? How could the one they had loved as their own, raised from a sparkling and trained to become a ruthless Decepticon hunter in her own right, do this?

Was she tired of them? Was she tired of betraying her own species for aliens? Was she tired of the running, and the hiding, and the uncertainty? Did she dislike Cybertron, loathe her new home planet where her movement was so restricted and her resources limited?

Or, had this world’s Optimus gotten to her somehow?

One glance at Ironhide and Jazz knew he wasn’t alone in his thoughts. She said it had been only hours before she’d met up with Ironhide but there was no way of knowing if what she was saying was true. Yes, they had been on this planet for a couple hours but interdimensional travel was fickle. Days for some could be hours for another.

If she had made a deal with this Prime, they could have had days to plan this trap. Unless she was being trapped. Forced by this version of Optimus to get her team into one place so they could be herded to their demise. If so, she was in as much danger as they were.

But why defend the human?

Optimus had never raised his blade to her while in control of his own mind and everyone knew he would not hurt her, but is that what she was counting on? Did she know she was the only one who could continue this plan?

Did they need to play along to keep her safe?

That had to be the reason. It had to. In no other universe did it make sense that she would betray them like this.

Too focused on his spiraling thoughts, Jazz did not notice the approach of the foreign Prime until it was already happening, Optimus moving just as fast as he raised his own blade and in one simple move sliced through his variant’s arm, the appendage and sword crashing to the ground.

“Do not touch her.” the foreigner growled, raising his weapon once more to rest against Optimus’ spark.

Jazz was sure there would be a fight, a second round of what had been going on earlier in the cave only this time a real fight to the death and not a simple little squabble. He was sure Optimus would throw himself as his doppelganger for even daring to step in at this moment. But it never came.

Optimus leveled his mirror with look, not smug or taunting, but very close to it as he took a step back. “There’s that monster.”

Jazz couldn’t help but huff as the Prime of this world stumbled back at the words, seeming to realize what had happened as he looked down to the severed arm and then who it had belonged to.

When those you cared about were on the line, when you had already lost so many, you become something that will do anything to protect them. They all knew this. They knew that was why Optimus had become who he had become. It was to protect them, to protect her.

Kira had never been in danger today, but that Optimus had assumed she was and in response he had acted with violence first and reason second. He now understood why they acted as they did, understood the thought they did put into their actions, the necessary violence that guided their paths.

The human man slowly raised his head, looking from Kira to the two Optimuses with wide eyes. He was wise to not say anything.

“We are leaving.” Bending to retrieve his severed arm, and the sword, Optimus moved to begin walking out the base.

Jazz took a step forward, and then another, ready to retrieve Kira and join his Prime as they left this rocky prison behind, but before he could reach her, she ran to the human controls and hit a button.

Alarms wailed, the screens turned red, and an automated voiced called out “Lockdown Initiated”. A moment later there was the sound of something heavy rolling into place, locks securing it.

“No we’re not.”

Kira had done that willingly. No one had forced her, Jazz was close enough to grab should she had felt she was in danger. She was purposely got them all into this base and intentionally placed them into a lockdown situation within this rock with a human agent.

She had betrayed them.

 If he wasn’t so sure he would live to regret he would have pulled his blaster and killed her right there. Ironhide seemed to have the same idea and Jazz watched, frozen, as he pulled his blaster and took aim.

Kira turned to the sound of his cannon charging without a blink and raised her chin, ready to die.

A second before he fired, Ironhide turned and changed his target to the base’s wall.

“You do that you’ll bring the whole thing down.” she tried to interfere, tone so bland it was as if she was commenting on the weather.

“We’ll survive.” Ironhide shot back. He probably wasn’t right but no one was in their right mind.

“I won’t.” she answered, and while it should have had no power over his decision Ironhide hesitated, and Jazz knew she’d managed to talk him out of it.

Moving his focus from Ironhide to Optimus, Jazz found his Prime still standing where he had been walking before Kira had revealed where her true loyalties lay.

No one could possibly be taking this harder than him. He’d raised her.

Sure this would be what set the Prime off one more and this time he did not leave her unharmed, Jazz prepared to watch their human ally turned enemy die. Optimus was, after all, accustomed to killing those who had once been a friend but ended up the enemy.

But it never came. After a moment of standing eerily still, so still Jazz was sure there was something wrong, the Prime wordlessly turned and began down one of the corridors of the base, the Knights parting for him after the noise had drawn them from their endless sparing.

Bumblebee followed firsy, then Jolt, then Wheeljack. One by one the Bots turned, joining their Prime as he disappeared into their newly appointed prison, until only Ratchet, Ironhide and Jazz remained.

The lieutenant was sure each of their processors were screaming with questions, but his main one was not why but what? What had happened to cause this betrayal. What had they done? What was she doing? What could they do to get her back?

What were they going to do with her? What punishment fit this crime?

Ironhide turned first, Ratchet following a moment after and Jazz finally pulling his optics away from her,  Whatever answers she may of have, none of them would listen to her now, nor would they believe her. They needed time to process what had happened and grieve.

“You’re hurt.”