Disclaimer: TFA © Hasbro
Warnings: More screwing with continuity, somewhat spoilerish for "Transwarped," and hints of one-sided(?) affection.
Summary: Even if they didn't see her, she was always watching out for her mechs.
Notes: First off, this is not a sequel to "Operatives." It is, however, set in the same continuity established in that story. For everyone who was hoping to see the Lady Prime again, here you go.
She had only been a Prime for a relatively short while, promoted 'posthumously' only a stellar cycle or two before the Great War finally ended. Her rumoured deactivation was a timely one; after her promotion to Minor the whispers that the Intel bots would be made obsolete grew more prevalent and she had begun to search for some means to protect those in her unit.
She had, quite by accident, stumbled upon an entity believed to have been made obsolete back in the earliest days of the war, a division that had at that time been called Special Operations. Spec Ops was supposedly the basis for the modern Cyberton Intelligence; Mirage Minor had discovered that Spec Ops had actually gone underground, controlled separately from Cybertron Intel, and became Black Ops.
It was comprised of mechs and femmes, some still prominent figures in Cybertron Intel and various other aspects of the Autobot army and some believed long deactivated, who were willing to do the things that the higher ups weren't willing to do.
The head in those days was an ancient mech designated Punch, a veteran of those early days who still remembered the other founders of Black Ops. It had amused the femme Intel bot greatly to find that the ancestor she was named for was a founding member of the organization, and had willingly accepted the invitation to join Ops. She had risen quickly in the ranks, her fierce protectiveness of those working with her giving her an edge along with the invisibility field generator that she had long kept a secret from her Intel superiors.
Even so, Mirage had been shocked when Punch requested a meeting with her one late night and handed over leadership to her.
"I'm an old bot, Raja," he'd said, using a variation of the nickname he claimed that her ancestor had used as his Ops call sign. "There aren't many more cycles ahead of me. You're still young, with many stellar cycles ahead of you. You'll be a good leader, I'm sure of it."
Not too long after that, Punch had gone quietly offline. The Ops mechs and femmes had mourned him just as quietly, and silently accepted Mirage as their new leader. She took to the position with dignity and grace, using her mentor's nickname as part of her call sign: Raja Minor.
Mirage would never, ever ask her agents to do anything she wasn't willing to do herself, often throwing herself directly into the line of fire. The rumours that Megatron was going to attempt to plant a double agent had grown too prevalent for her to ignore, and Mirage herself began to investigate. The only information she was able to find was that the mech being planted was designated Shockwave before the unit she was stationed with was attacked.
She barely escaped with her life, pieced back together by a trainee medic called First Aid. Realizing that it would be easier to continue her investigation from the shadows, she pleaded with him to report her lost and presumed deactivated. The medic had balked at her request but finished patching her up. Mirage slipped away the moment her repairs were finished, using her invisibility filed to remain hidden and hitched a ride back to Iacon with the other survivors, all the while wondering how her disappearance would be explained. She was surprised when First Aid followed her request, and her official status was 'deactivated in battle.'
She awaited an opportunity to catch the mech alone; when it came, she revealed her presence to him and offered a formal invitation to become part of Black Ops. His willingness to maintain her cover impressed her, and they could definitely use a personal medic to tend to others who, like her, were believed offline.
It was nearly a full stellar cycle before she found out about her promotion, and she jokingly stated that she was changing her call sign to Lady Prime. While a few did call her that for a short time, the rest of her mechs simply started calling her Raja Prime instead. Over the stellar cycles the Prime was dropped entirely and she was officially Raja over the comm waves.
Yet even as a tentative peace settled and many Intel bots were reassigned to more mundane tasks (although some were kept at Cybertron Intel as record keepers), Mirage didn't stop searching for evidence of Shockwave infiltrating the Autobot ranks. She remained behind her invisibility field whenever she ventured out of the Ops base, located several miles beneath Cybertron Intel itself. She roamed the hallways, always looking for someone who didn't fit, something that would give the Decepticon infiltrator away.
In the process, she found many mechs and femmes who she invited to be members of Black Ops. Moonracer, a sharpshooter who was almost obsolete in a world where soldiers weren't truly needed anymore, became her eyes and ears in the Peacekeeper force that had developed from the Autobot army. Hound, a scout who would have one time been a boon to the army and was almost wasted as an exploration mech, was practically her right hand and was talented with creating holograms that could fool even the most advanced cameras. Smokescreen, a mathematician and tactical genius, was her connection within the scientific academy. And Cliffjumper, with superior observational programming that was mistakenly seen as a glitch in the boot camps of the Autobot regular army forces and the only mech that continued to call her Lady Prime over the comm waves, was perfect to help her watch out for any sign of a Decepticon hiding in their midst.
And find a traitor they had, shockingly enough in the office of the head of Cybertron Intel, when Cliffjumper had run a scan on "sensitive information" that Longarm Prime had requested be disposed of.
There wasn't enough evidence – yet – to prove that Longarm Prime was anything more than an informant for Shockwave. Mirage had ordered Cliffjumper to observe and report, and taken Blurr's mangled frame to First Aid. They had been forced to contract outside assistance, Mirage insisting on absolute secrecy, and thus far Wheeljack had maintained his silence.
They had fortunately saved Blurr's spark, although it would still be some time before he was online again. Wheeljack was working on a means to allow the new protoform to match the speeds capable of the Intel bot's prior frame, and First Aid was monitoring Blurr's spark that was being held in a stasis pod until it could be introduced into the new protoform.
And Mirage silently, invisibly, moved between watching the two working to keep her newest recruit-to-be online and keeping an eye on Cliffjumper. She had no trust for Longarm at all, and she worried that Cliffjumper was too close to the fire for her comfort.
The invisible spy moved closer to the red mech who was secretly recording a conversation between the Prime and Ultra Magnus, resting a hand lightly on the back of his chair. Sooner or later, something was bound to happen, and her Jumper was going to be right in the line of fire.
And she would be there to watch his back, whether he could see her or not.