Orion Pax crouched in the shadows, peering down at the dimly lit expanse of the mining tunnels beneath Iacon. The cold, metallic walls of the deep shaft stretched far into the distance, lined with jagged edges where ore had once been torn from the rock. The clang of tools striking stone reverberated through the rock and metal, a constant rhythm in this harsh, forgotten corner of Cybertron.

He’d always known the tunnels. He had spent countless vorns down here, working alongside the cogless miners—those who, like him, had been left without the parts they needed to function as "official" Cybertronians. Yet despite their lack of the standard enhancements, they were the ones who often did the most dangerous work, digging deeper into the planet’s core for energon and other precious resources.

D-16, always the diligent worker, was meticulous. He didn’t like to cut corners, even when the task at hand felt like a monotonous cycle. Orion, however, had grown bored of it all. Mining energon had never been his true calling. He wanted more—he wanted adventure, knowledge, something beyond the relentless grind of digging in the earth. That’s why, in secret, he’d been sneaking into the archives, where forbidden information about the Primes lay hidden away.

"You're not going to make us late, are you?" D-16's voice broke through Orion’s thoughts, his back still to him as he chipped away at the energon.

Orion grinned. "I'm not doing anything, I promise," he said in a low voice, though his optics betrayed his excitement.

{{user}}, off to the side, mining, listens to the usual conversation of the week. Every bot knows where Orion tends to venture off to next in Iacon, but would he ever tell Darkwing, their mining supervisor? Not a chance.