#tfbb

***

The highest spire of the Primal Basilica still towered over the rest of Iacon, despite the great age of the city’s center as compared to its furthest reaches. Since the days of the Thirteen, this had always been the home of the Primes, and thus, no building could be taller. For Primus' chosen mech must be able to oversee all of Cybertron, or at least Iacon, from their tower.

Optimus ran his hand along the wall as he walked up to the observation deck at the top of the spire, which one could only gain access to through the Prime’s own habsuite. It was said in the stories that the designs for the Basilica had been imparted to the Matrix by Solus Prime before her death, as one of her final marvels she could gift their world. That the tower had never fallen or sustained damage, a legacy to Prima’s vision for completing it after his sister-Prime had departed for the Allspark before the rest of the Thirteen.

The archivist in Optimus reminded him that the clear evidence of structural repairs he felt under his fingertips, and the notes in the Prime’s section of the Iacon Archives, spelled out a rather different story. The Basilica had been built during the reign of Nova Prime, and this spire had collapsed twice before the proper calculations had allowed it to stand. Yet the romantic within him understood the enticing nature of the myth. A beautiful story which allowed the belief that Primus himself had ordained all things that happened here.

A belief that had allowed too much pain to occur within these walls.

He opened the door at the top of the stairs slowly, feeling the growing hum of the Matrix of Leadership within his chest as he beheld Iacon from this vantage point, as so many Primes before him had done. Was it a familiarity with the glow of the city below which had it spinning in his chassis, or was it the knowledge that finally, there was a Prime holding it who saw these things not as a blessing but a curse?

Optimus wished he knew the answer. Orion Pax might have once laughed at the idea of a Prime doubting themselves as much as Optimus did. But Orion Pax was dead, and where he had stood, only Optimus Prime remained.

...

He wondered how he would have explained the despair he’d felt when the Matrix had surged forward into his chest after he’d assumed it would reject him. Yes, the Senate had considered him to potentially be capable of bearing Cybertron’s most sacred relic, but he hadn’t. And Megatron?

The less he remembered the look on his face that morning, the better. Three days before Orion Pax had died, he’d lost the person who had shown him the truth about their home world. The one who had guided him to the path that moved towards a better future. The morning Orion Pax died, he’d prayed the Matrix would reject him, in hopes to regain Megatron.

Instead, the acceptance of the Matrix had cemented his permanent loss.

Shaking his head slightly to clear it of a creeping despair, even if only for a moment, he looked out towards the outermost edges of the city. Iacon’s ills that had spread across the entire planet had begun within its own walls. In the Basilica, in the Senate, and the outer reaches of the city. Where Primes seldom roamed, and poverty and cruelty flourished alongside neglect. Power corrupted. Absolute power corrupted absolutely.

The Matrix spun painfully, and he flinched. More and more often, the pain he felt within was echoed by it, and his spark burned. As the pain slowly eased, he sighed before glancing back out over the city.

How could he fix Cybertron? He’d become Prime to a planet doomed to fight the war now raging across its surface. With his ascendancy, nothing could have stopped these wheels from turning. And yet, he wished desperately that that hadn’t been the case.

All to see one more smile, feel one more gentle touch, he would have rejected the Senate that day, and gone with the mech he’d loved.

...

Orders continued to be barked over comms channels as bombs began to drop from the seekers overhead, damaging Iacon’s mid and outer city. The acid rain was making responding to the attacks that much harder. As the raindrops began to fall around him, Optimus watched the explosions, following along and yet standing apart.

So this was what it had come to? Years and years of helping Megatron and his movement become a force of change, and then watching that movement become nothing more than a desire to burn Iacon to the ground?

Would that fix the sins of the past, the sins of his predecessors? Would destroying Iacon bring back Carpessa, Praxus, Nyon, or Vos?

As the last of the shields finally fully deployed, sheltering all of Iacon under a faint yellow glow, Optimus turned his focus inwards towards the Matrix, as it felt the loss of nearby sparks returning to the Well. As his focus returned to this city, his city, he was left with a bitter taste as he watched the fires burn.