Chapter Text
"D-16, Don't do this...."
That was the last thing he said before being torn apart by the miner himself, then everything went black, pitch dark black.
He was dead, most definitely. Welp time to return to the Allspark.
...
Who was he kidding?! He wasn't going to return to the Allspark! He was going to drown beneath the Pits of Kaon!!
Even if he did the Primes would shred him to pieces!
No, no, nononononono!
This is the Worst!
Sentinel took his time mentally screaming into nothing, as loud as he could muster for no one would hear him.
What was he going to do?!
Ugh...
...
This was a long time to die...
Usually, you just go.
Offline. That's it.
...
Why is this taking so long?!
Maybe he's already in the Pits and this was his punishment!
Forever drifting in this black void, no lights, no music, no reincarnation, just this lonely abyss of nothingness.
Was he even moving?
...
He decided to think.
The first time in a while.
He thought of Iacon, the cybertronians who inhabit the glorious sparkling city, and the power that he formerly welded in his servos.
Those ungrateful Miners especially D-16 and Orion pax, surprise! He actually remembered the other one's designation.
He built a perfect city!
But the bots can't even see it!
The Primes were Pathetic, losing countless battles, and they had the nerve to give a speech about the good and justice or whatever.
He was doing them a favor.
No, you're not
What do you mean 'not'? And who are you?
I'm your guilt
Guilt?
Ha! I don't have guilt!
Of course you do, but you were just denying it.
You didn't do them a favor
You didn't build a perfect paradise
The Miners had every right to defy you
You were Selfish and you knew it
Sentinel covered his voice receptors, he won't listen to these false truths of a crazed bot.
But they are the Truth Sentinel
YOU WERE HORRIBLE
YOU'RE LUCKY THAT PRIMUS WAS.
MERCIFUL.
Light blue coolant started to flow from his closed optics.
I just wanted to be remembered...
And you are...
As a fake, phony prime.
....
There was silence for a while in his helm; the guilt's voice was gone, but it left him to think of his choices.
The more he did, the more he realized how awful he was to his people and the Primes; he manipulated them into believing he was a hero, a savior.
But he wasn't
And he did all of that because he wanted to be remembered.
He took the one thing that made a cybertronian, a cybertronian, and forced those who didn't have a Cog to mine away for his debt to the Quintessons.
He made the cybertronians who have Cogs deliberately hate the Miners, thinking that the other are inferior to their species.
He basically created racism!
On top of that, he killed the Primes, the Primes!
And those poor Miners....
He knew that they were struggling but he wouldn't know the length of the struggle, cause he never was a Miner.
Thoughts ran through his helm, but then he was pulled with lightning speed, and the void around him started to shape itself into a moving tube of shooting stars.
Sentinel didn't have time to react to anything.
He felt a source of light behind him and turned to face it.
Everything went black.
Again.
Then he heard voices, muffled voices.
'I can hear you ya know'
But nothing came out of his glosa, only groans.
Fortunately, his noise was able to stop the bot's annoying conversation; why can't they do it somewhere else?
Sentinel began to online his optics, propping himself from what seemed to be a berth and a horribly uncomfortable one at that.
Arachnid better have an explanation on why he was recharging a Miner's berth.
His nonexistent eyebrows furrowed but quickly turned to confusion.
'This isn't his quarters, where is he?'
He looked at the two cybertronians in front of him, they were big and bulky, possibly fighter jets.
But they were no Arachnid.
"Who are you? And where am I?"
The two bots looked at each other, exchanging a nod, the one from the right walked forward to him and cleared his pipe.
"Welcome! Young bot to the world of Cybertron! We welcome you with open arms!-"
Said the mech with his arms wide open.
Sentinel was still confused and was considering that he might be insane.
"-And you will be working as a Miner"
Miner? The mech must be joking; he's talking to him, Sentinel Prime, for Primus's sake.
He chuckled surprisingly shocking the two jets.
"A Miner? No, you must be joking because I'm. A. Prime" he said with a smile.
The two mechas were stunned by his answer. 'Finally realizing, huh? You nutjobs' They turned to one another.
"Ok, let's huddle"
Both of them held on to the other's shoulder blades, ducking down to have a 'secret' conversation, which
Sentinel could hear very clearly.
"Ok, I think he's defective"
"No surprise there very Miner's defective"
"Oh! You're right, they don't have cogs!"
"Exactly, so we just gotta tell him his designation and throw him to the mines, you know to acclimate"
"Good plan"
Sentinel was getting really annoyed so he shouted out.
"I can hear you ya know?!"
"No, you can't! We're in a huddle!" One of them shouted back then turned to continue their talk. Whispering.
Once they were finished with their topic, they turned and walked back to him still on the berth.
"Welcome to the Miner's team! Your designation is 'ST-14'."
"It's time for you to get to work!"
They each grabbed one of his shoulder blades and began to drag him to a mechanical door. Sentinel tried to struggle, but he was no match for them.
He tried to dig his pedes to stop them too.
"Wait! Wait! I'M NOT A MINER! I'M A PRIME! A PRIME!!!!!" He tried to convince them with all his might.
But alas there was no proof.
"Yeah, and I'm with the High Guards," said the mech, filled with sarcasm and doubt.
They continued to drag him through the halls and once they reached the entrance of the mines, one of them dialed the password.
Sentinel could hear the door swiftly sliding open behind him, which made him struggle even more than before. He was thrown onto the hard, unforgiving cave and landed on his side with a loud clang.
He got up to go back through to the other side but the two mechas closed it before he could even reach for it.
He ran to the door and slammed his fist, multiple times at the metallic barrier.
"How dare you! I'm a Prime and you will open this door, this Instant!"
And what do you know it opened.
Sentinel held a smug look on his face plate, but it didn't last long because the mech's fist came out of the entrance and struck him right in his charming face.
He fell back down to the hard, stoned ground, caressing his cheek plate.
Before he knew it the door was closed. Again.
Well, he better find an exit.
He stood up, still rubbing his cheek, and before walking, he dusted himself to get the grime off.
With nothing to do, Sentinel started to look around and observe the Energon mines; as much as he hated to admit it, it was actually quite beautiful.
The rocks were dark, making the crystal blues of Energon shine brighter than how it was in the city of Iacon.
They were like stars brightening the fabric of space.
Sentinel didn't know how long he had been staring at these beautiful pools but he felt like he could stare at them for hours upon end.
Then He heard dozens of voices coming from the other side of the mines.
He could hear Bots flying and devices carving the Energon itself.
Miners!
He usually doesn't communicate with the Miners but this is a special occasion, a very special one.
He thought about a Regal, elegant entrance with his thrusters and wings, he tried to transform but failed to do so. He blinked a couple of times confused why isn't he transforming?
And for the first time, he looked at himself, and his optics widened.
His regal blue turned dull, the golden highlights were nothing but unpolished gold, and his wings were no more, gone as they had never been there.
His dull blue armor didn't even cover all of his frame, the only parts that still had their color were his chassis, forearms, helm, and hips, but his legs were still the same.
His other parts were gray.
He never felt so vulnerable in his life.
All of his limbs were simplified, not having the complicated edge like when he was a prime.
He looked at his chassis only for his horror to be true.
His T-Cog was removed.
How?!
Where is it?!
Sentinel searched his form for any sign of his T-Cog, well Megatronus's T-Cog but nonetheless it was his now!
How could he lost it?!
Now is not the time to worry about your cog! Spoke his processor.
You need to get out of the mines remember? So go to them and ask for the exit!
Right, the exit.
He had never run such a long distance before but to scrap with it! His survival comes first!
He deeply inhaled, lightly jogging in place before launching himself forward To the Miners. This was his only chance so he gotta make a count.
Running wasn't exactly a strong suit but he would do anything just so he could survive this.
"Help! Help!" He called out
Fortunately, one of the Miners heard his call and turned to him.
They were a black bot, tall, skinny, possibly a femme, and they had a very familiar-looking set of purple optics.
The more he got closer, the more he could recognize the bot.
"Thank, Primus! I was-"
He couldn't even finish his sentence, he reeled back upon seeing who the bot was.
"Arachnid?"
The femme was already walking towards him with a sour look on her face.
Arachnid looked different still the same but different.
She was shorter than before, she only had one pair of optics, and she didn't have any of her spider appendages, plus her legs didn't have her loop thingies anymore.
Aside from the difference she was still the same.
Before Sentinel could even recover from his shock, Arachnid was already scolding him.
"That's Captain to you Miner; where were you when we were here working our shifts?!"
Wow, he didn't know what to say to her. The last time he saw the femme was when she was defending him from Orion Pax and the High Guards.
His glossa was dry.
"I-"
"UP there in Iacon, there are a lot of cybertronians who need Energon and so do we! Who do you think you are?! A princess who gets what she wants?"
Wow...she is still as sassy as ever.
"Ummmmm...."
Sentinel avoided her piercing glaze like the plague, Arachnid can be so scary when she wants to be.
But she wasn't happy, despite her shorter stature, just a Teensy wincy bit, if someone even looked at them they would think that they were the same height until they pulled a ruler out.
Arachnid pulled him to face her.
"Well, you're not! So get up there and Do. Your. Job!"
His former secretary pushed him into the mining grounds and handed him a giant spin saw, he needed to tell her that he was new to this otherwise....
He was going to humiliate himself in front of the Miners.
"Wait! I-"
"No excuses!"
Said the Captain as she linked a jetpack onto his back, activating it in an instant and sending him flying into the air.
When the thrusters started to even out, Sentinel was trying to balance his weight with the device and he was struggling, flailing his hands around and kicking in the air.
He wasn't used to this at all!
They weren't anything like his thrusters and this was really hard to control.
Arachnid was at the forefront, guiding a fleet of miners towards their destination. Sentinel protected his faceplate with his forearms while maintaining a firm grip on the spin saw.
When the femme passed his form, she grabbed Sentinel by the collar dragging him along to stay in flying formation.
Sentinel was screaming, still covering his face until he realized he was being dragged by Arachnid, He looked up to see the femme staring at him with an annoyed face.
"Heh Heh... Sorry..."
The femme rolled her optics at the incompetent mech, not only was the bot slacking off while on shift, but he was also slowly down their mining process.
She let go of the mech's collar.
Sentinel reactivated his thrusters, nervously following behind the Captain.
In front of the fleet the walls opened revealing an Energon riched cave.
"This is it! Dive!" The Captain barked.
The fleet flew into the narrow mines and turned on their headlights, landing on the stoned ground, the mission begins.
"Column team, Go!"
The mechs and femmes who had polls ran in to start the setup, extending the columns, clawing the cave to stay open and securing them in their places.
Once the setup was complete a mech gave a thumbs-up.
Arachnid nodded in response and pulled out her drill for the second phase of the mission.
"Everybot who has mining equipment! Follow me!"
The femme activated her thrusters and flew into the lower chamber, a fleet of bots went in after her along with Sentinel.
The cave paved the way for them, hollowing out a path for the bots to follow.
"Come on and pick up the pace! This mine isn't going to be opened for long!"
After Reaching the end of the cave they landed and started drilling for the Energon.
"Where the on button this thi-"
Sentinel searched for the the activation button on his mining equipment, guessing of course. Then it turned on suddenly and took the mech by surprise.
"Oh! Here we go!"
Then he hesitantly started to mine along with the other bots. Everything was going accordingly, no accidents nor mishaps and He's pretty sure Arachnid was staring at him from behind.
He somehow got used to the work, mining was like a stress-relieving activity.
He never thought he'd think that.
There was a rumor once when he was still a prime, that he was a workaholic.
He denied the accusations in public but behind the golden walls of his quarters, the rumors were true. He likes to work and organize his missions, events, speeches, etc.
One time when he was calculating the Energon that he needed to deliver to the Quintessons, it took him hours to write down, long enough that he passed his recharging time.
Arachnid had to drag him away from his table.
Good times.
He just didn't like it when he was the Primes's Secretary, they always gave him too much.
He continued to cut and collect the Energon, throwing them into the nearby cart.
Then he hit something hard.
Everybot was already evacuating the premises with the Energon, ready to return to the headquarters. Arachnid stayed behind making sure all the units were there.
She counted everybot except.... the slacking mech.
She grumbled and turned to the mech, who was still mining, maybe he was making up for being late.
Until she saw that the Energon was, in fact, not Energon.
"Don't mine that!"
But it was too late, the stone broke and the chamber began to close with a shake. Sentinel noticed that the tunnel moved.
Before he knew it, he was being dragged by Arachnid again. He looked behind him and saw the chamber closing in on them.
"Everybot evacuate to the entrance now!"
Both Arachnid and Sentinel activated their thrusters, flying through the tunnel to get back to the cave where everybot else was.
But Sentinel was losing his balance.
They both saw the light and went to it.
Through the opening of the entrance, the tunnel had closed completely.
Arachnid deactivated her jetpack and landed right at the edge of what used to be the tunnel.
While Sentinel was spinning in the air and flew right into the opposite wall with a loud crash, then he down, hitting he head on the stoned ground.
Upside down.
He heard a pair of pedes walking to him, as he opened his optics to see the Captain looking down at him with an angered expression.
"Ummmmm....Sorry?"
*At The Mining Headquarters *
"What were you thinking?!"
Sentinel flinched back from the volume of her voice.
"I... wasn't..."
"Wasn't?! This is not your first time here!"
Every bot was watching the scene unfold in front of them, it's been a long while since the captain was this irritated.
"You put every bot in the fleet in danger because of your incompetence!!!"
He didn't dare explain to her why because he knew that she would take it as an excuse either way.
Until a mech spoke with a robotic voice.
"Captain"
"What?!"
The femme turned to look at the bot with venom in her voice, then she realized who it was and calmed down.
"*sigh* What is it 'Soundwave'?"
Soundwave?
Sentinel turned to look at the bot.
"This was his first time here as he was forged this cycle"
Arachnid's optics widened realizing her mistake.
"Oh, Scrap"