Chapter Seven
Author's warning: This has some graphic descriptions of violence and pain. Do not read this if you have difficulty reading about such issues.
Prime's senses returned to him slowly and grudgingly. He realized dimly that he was standing, held upright by an appendage of some sorts, the other appendage clenched around his throat. He was in danger! The events of the past few minutes returning to him, he batted away the cobwebs in his mind, forcing himself to full alertness, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his head.
The first thing he realized was that his mask was gone. The second was that his codpiece had joined it.
He made a startled exclamation and locked gazes with a billowing, translucent gray cloud. Red eyes, burning with gleeful malice, held him spellbound, no matter how hard he fought to regain his motor control. "You don't like being stripped nude, do you?" it murmured to him in a conspiratorial tone, actually closing one red orb in a wink. "It's been one of your pet nightmares. I know. I know everything about you now."
"Who are you? What do you want?" Optimus forced his tone to remain even and stern, struggling to regain his composure despite his very compromising situation.
The creature laughed, exposing a set of white, gleaming teeth, sharp as knives. It seemed oddly out-of-place on such an ephemeral creature. "Now, now, Optimus, that would be telling! Now hush, I'm feasting." With that, it thrust one smoky tendril into the Autobot leader's head. Optimus sucked in air as the unbearably cold intrusion sliced into his very mind.
"Fascinating!" it purred. "You have a very unique mind, Optimus Prime. Dark and cramped, filled with so many twisting corridors and sealed doors. I felt your despair as soon as you drew near the Rodimus-mind. Mmm, you will be a fine meal!" It plunged the tendril deeper, relishing the choking sounds of its victim. After so many episodes of torture at the hands of the Decepticons and other adversarial creatures, Optimus had become inured to it, and found it difficult to scream after training himself to hold it back for so long. He now appeared indifferent to pain to friend and foe alike, but it wasn't that he didn't feel pain, it was that he could no longer express it.
"So many secrets. So many disappointments, so many failures, such pain!" it chanted to itself, enthralled as it took the dark emotions into itself, gorging on what to it was a gourmet meal. "Tell me about them; share them with me!"
Optimus twisted weakly in its grasp. It held his mind in thrall, and he had little control over his body. All his strength and power, useless! He tried to pull away mentally, but the creature held him fast, reaching into his memories, searching for a tasty morsel. "You are close with this young one, yet you still hide so much. Let us see what it is you have to hide!" It grasped a memory and pulled it into its victim's conscious mind. Optimus tried to turn away but was forced to watch helplessly as his mind played back his attack on Rodimus over a century ago. The Quintessons had reprogrammed him, brought his body back to a mockery of life. He was granted only the smallest amount of self-awareness, forced to bend to the Quints' will. He winced and felt ashamed as his memory-self punched and kicked Rodimus, then grabbed him from behind, pulling until his chest tore from the stress, bubbling fluids.
The creature greedily absorbed the guilt and shame, already searching for another memory, prying at the closed doors in its captive's mind. A sore spot caught its attention, and it pulled it into view. Optimus suddenly found himself lying on a medberth, the life draining out of him. He knew that he had cheated death too many times, and this time it had found him. Sensation dimmed; his body grew cold and weak. Weeping reached him, and then there was a great nothingness. "Stop!" he cried, squirming in the evil monster's grasp. He was reliving his own death!
Rodimus stirred weakly, agony filling him. His head hurt as if Trypticon had stomped on it and ripped out its innards, and his chest was a blaze of agony. A bolt of pain, fear and misery pierced him, and it took several seconds to realize that it wasn't his own. Optimus!
He managed to force himself into a kneeling position, horrified beyond words to see Optimus in that demonic creature's grasp. "No, let him go!" he begged. He wobbled to his feet, then collapsed, catching himself with arms braced against the floor. "Torture me if you must!"
The creature scarcely spared him a glance. "You are no longer of any interest to me. You, who hold back nothing. But this one has millions of years of repressed memories just begging to be harvested!" Roddy found the strength to stand once more, and the creature threw up some kind of mental force field. The young Autobot pounded on it, to no avail. He was powerless to stop what was happening.
"It's good that you are awake," it spoke to him, all the while delving into Optimus' buried memories. "He has been keeping things from you. Did you know that he occasionally uses sedatives to calm himself? You can bet he doesn't want to share that with anyone!"
Rodimus felt shame and embarrassment through the link. Optimus looked away, unable to meet his sympathetic gaze. "It doesn't matter what he keeps from me! What he shares with me is his choice! I'm not here to judge him. I'll always be here for him, no matter what you show me! Just leave him alone, damn you!"
The wispy entity laughed at his entreaties and showed him the numerous times that Optimus had so very nearly taken his own life. Prime struggled to raise a mental shield between himself and Rodimus, but the creature batted it aside like it was nothing at all. It reached back into Prime's scarred psyche, searching for something particularly damning, prying at the locked and bolted doors that concealed a treasure trove of misery. He gleefully wrenched open one of those doors and plucked out its contents, holding them out for display. Optimus drove down a winding paved road on Earth, snowflakes falling in a white curtain, blanketing him in its chill. Without warning, around the corner careened a battered white van, filled with four riotously laughing humans. The driver wore a look of loopy joy as he suddenly jerked the wheel, bringing the van into the lane of oncoming traffic. He plainly wanted to play chicken with the red semi. Optimus was not about to take any risks, so he slammed on the brakes, but the abrupt motion caused him to skid out of control, unused to the slipperiness of ice. The driver, in his stoned state of mind, finally realized that this was a stupendously bad idea and frantically twisted the wheel and pumped the brakes, but he could not stop the vehicle as it impacted brutally with the sentient eighteen-wheeler. Optimus transformed, rushing over to the van, which had spun around 180 degrees. He could tell instantly from the amount of red liquid and the unnatural angles of the bodies that all four humans were dead. He covered his face with trembling hands, moaning in despair and terrible guilt. He had killed them! He, who had sworn to never harm one of their kind in his life! Back in the real world, Optimus finally managed to scream, writhing in the gray thing's grasp.
Rodimus struggled to cut through the overwhelming sorrow and self-loathing that came at him. "It wasn't your fault!" he yelled. "Those humans were using some kind of drug, and the ice made everything treacherous! It wasn't your fault at all! Don't blame yourself, just let it go! I forgive you!" But Optimus turned his mental self away, a sob escaping, unable to face Rodimus.
The door to the training room began to buckle under weapon fire and blows dealt to it from the Autobots on the other side who had heard the scream and came running. Finally, with a shriek of rending metal, the door caved in and the small group raced inside, weapons at the ready. But nothing could prepare them for the scene within. Rodimus knelt on the floor, beating at some kind of invisible barrier, fluids oozing from several neat puncture wounds in his chest. Optimus was held in the clutches of some kind of bizarre swirling gray cloud, tears forming in the corners of his optics. They could actually *see* his expression of agony. His mask and codpiece lay discarded a short distance nearby. Most of them had not even realized that the mask was removable! The few assembled Autobots were momentarily paralyzed at the sight of their leader stripped in such a degrading fashion, helpless as the creature-cloud did something unfathomable but unmistakably painful.
"Hey! You there, whatever you are! Just let him go and step away, real slow." Ultra Magnus, who had been on Cybertron working out the transfer of several Autobots to Metroplex, fixed this unknown hazard with a threatening glare. He began to reach for his weapon in subspace but suddenly found himself paralyzed! He breathed a curse and struggled mightily, to no avail. Those around him, mostly members of Kup's security force, found themselves in the same predicament. Kup himself pushed past the assembled bots. "Why are you all just standing there gawking?" he scolded, then discovered for himself. "Of all the Primus-cursed, diode-blowin'…!" he growled, finding himself unable to move. Optimus was mere feet away, and nobody could get to him to help!
The emotion-vampire turned back to the being it held in its clutches, immensely enjoying the overwhelming shame that flooded Optimus at having been seen in such a state. Oh, it was even worse than his nightmares! This whole situation was like his worst nightmare come to life! He tried to mentally withdraw, to present his familiar poker face, but the creature laughed and seized him, not allowing him to escape. It taunted him with Alita's memory, how she would never be with him again, how horrible her death at Unicron's hands must have been. Optimus squeezed his optic covers down tight and cried out, pushing against it, but it held fast, plunging its mental "fangs" even deeper, tearing away at the fabric of his mind. The pain seemed to fill his soul, and he screamed until his vocal unit ached. "Stop! Stop it, please!" he begged. "What do you *want* from me?"
"I want you!" it hissed, grasping his head and planting a forceful kiss on his exposed lip components. Prime's expression contorted in unspeakable disgust and revulsion. "I want your mind, your very soul! I will have all of you!" To prove its point, it bit down deeply into his psyche.
"Please, no! Stop, I'll do anything! Just don't hurt me any more!" The ever-growing cluster of Autobots gasped. Optimus never, ever cracked under torture! He was their hero; he was untouchable! But Optimus was well beyond caring what such an open invitation could produce. He just wanted it to leave him alone. His very mind was being ripped to shreds!
"The Matrix. What have you done with the Matrix?" It caressed his cheek with an icy-cold tendril, and Optimus shuddered.
"Gone! I don't have it!" he stammered.
"Where is it? Tell me! Or I will make you very, very sorry." The being exposed its collection of teeth threateningly.
Prime cringed, more afraid of its mental fangs than anything else. "The Decepticons have it!"
"You lie!" it hissed. It twisted its hold on his mind, tearing through the layers of mental fabric.
"No, I swear it! Megatron has it now! Just *look* at the memory! I'm not lying!" He was oblivious to the cries of shock and disbelief around him. He wanted so desperately to get free of this awful, awful demon!
It probed his mind roughly, almost viciously, pulling out the fresh memory and prodding it to verify its authenticity. Seeing it was true, it shrieked in fury and lashed out, delivering a stinging slap to Optimus' exposed cheek. Though it seemed to be made up of smoky wisps, the blow ruptured the metal-alloy skin, causing a trickle of lifeblood to run down his face. Enraged, it plunged into the violated robot's mind, ripping and tearing at the barriers that protected Optimus from the countless painful memories that he had pushed to the dark recesses of his mind.
He had long ago learned to suppress and bury his painful memories, whether it was harmful or beneficial. It was his defense mechanism; it helped to keep him sane. He had to force himself to continue on, to press on as if nothing had happened, for the sake of his Autobots. If he faltered, they would be lost. He could not afford to indulge in his many regrets, and time after time, he shoved the painful incidents to the back of his mind and locked them behind a solid door. If he did not, they would soon overwhelm him and drive him crazy. Now this demon-creature was ripping through his finely-crafted defenses, bringing a tangled jumble of excruciatingly painful memories to the forefront of his mind. Optimus struggled to rise above it, but they all pulled at him, demanding his attention all at once. He arched his back and screamed once more, fists clenching so tight that they left dents in his hands.
Rodimus reached out with what strength he could summon, trying to help his dear friend keep ahold of himself as the sudden backlash of explosively released memories thundered down upon him. He pounded away at the invisible barrier, realizing that he was the only one that could move at all. He could see the others just barely managing to twitch as they fought to get free and save their tortured leader. Magnus looked particularly haunted – Optimus was one of his closest friends, and it was pure agony to see his mind torn apart piece by piece. They all felt so helpless!
Optimus had lost all awareness of the outside world, crying as hard on the outside as he was on the inside. He had never thought it possible to feel such pain, such violation! He gathered his shredded psyche as best he could, drawing it into a tight, protective ball. The being pulled open another door, this one spattered with Transformer lifeblood, and unleashed a jumble of names and faces. It happily paraded each before Prime's beleaguered mind, every one of them provoking a sharp stab of guilt. Like Rodimus, Optimus remembered each and every Autobot whom had died under his command. Some of the faces were somewhat blurred due to time and unclear memory, but others were razor-sharp. "I'm so sorry!" he whimpered, wanting so badly to apologize to the accusing faces that crowded him. He would gladly give his own life to give them another chance!
The *thing* reached into Prime's violated mind, finding another delectable memory that he had kept from Rodimus. This one was over a century old, but that was quite recent by Transformer standards. They had responded to a distress call from a small Autobot mining colony, only to find that most of the workers had disappeared. The rescuers had gone into a large cave to investigate. Optimus and Rodimus had gone ahead of the others. Rodimus stopped to investigate a pool of congealing lifeblood as Optimus continued on. Suddenly the elder Autobot leader bolted from the small chamber he had been investigating, grabbed Rodimus, and forcibly dragged him into another, larger chamber a safe distance away. Then he had turned away, ripped off his mask, and was violently ill. Roddy had been sick on several gruesome missions, but Optimus had always remained impassive and told him, with some bitterness, that he too would become hardened to such situations. Prime had refused to say just what had gotten to him so badly. In a slightly quavering voice, he had called for a demolitions team to come and blow up the cavern, and under no circumstances were they to enter it. In addition, contamination-warning buoys were to be placed around the planetoid. Then he had left the cave and refused to ever speak a word about it again. Now the creature finally gave Roddy the answers he had sought. In horrible, vivid Technicolor, what Optimus had seen passed through their link to him – bulbous, translucent, slimy creatures had pinned the Autobot mining crew to the walls and were slowly devouring their bodies. Some of the partially digested robots appeared to be harboring larvae of the creatures, maturing as they ate away at their hosts. Rodimus wished whole-heartedly that he had not discovered what Optimus strove so hard to keep from him. A pang of guilt stabbed at him – that was no way to feel! Optimus should not have had to bear this alone!
"Optimus!" A horrified female voice cried out, but he was oblivious. Andromeda managed to push her way to the head of the frozen crowd until she was also overcome with paralysis. "Gods, what's happening to you?" Rodimus looked over at her, regretting that she had to see her mate in such a state, but hoping all the same that she could make some kind of difference. But he feared that Optimus would no longer respond to stimulus from the outside world. He had even begun to shy away from Roddy's gentle emotional embrace. Cursing, the young Autobot began to punch and kick at the unseen barrier. He could do nothing to help!
The demon-creature had glutted itself on the most delicious agony it had ever tasted. He had been quite correct – Optimus Prime's labyrinthine mind had provided it with delights beyond measure. Never had anyone presented such a challenge! It looked around the mindscape with pride. Every door had been ripped nearly off its hinges, and the corridors lay spattered with blood, which oozed from cracks in the very walls. Only one barrier remained. At the very back of the cramped hallway lay a massive, red door, with iron bars nailed across its surface. It reached out slowly, caressing the barricade with almost orgasmic delight. It had already indulged in the most delightful feast it could recall, but the most succulent nugget still lay unclaimed, just waiting to be taken. "Don't touch that; please don't!" a weak, plaintive voice whimpered. It smiled cruelly. This pathetic creature should know by now that to beg would only increase its enjoyment! It reached out and began to rip away the bars that stood between it and its prize. Optimus, in the waking world, twisted violently in his tormentor's grip. "STOP!" he screamed out, his vocal unit shorting out from the sheer volume and force of the desperate cry. There was something behind that door, something so awful that it had been locked away a lifetime ago. It was Orion's memory, he knew, but that was all. Whatever it was, it was so horrendous that he had erased all traces of it from his conscious mind. He knew that that door must not be opened! His mind screamed in frantic protest as the door was ripped clear off its hinges and flung aside, the creature pulling the buried memory into the searing light of day. Nononononono!
He was no longer Optimus Prime. He knew nothing of war, nor did he care. Orion Pax was a young, spirited robot who had his entire life ahead of him. Yes, he currently held a menial job at the docks, but he was studying to be a doctor and had just completed his first semester. And Lord-Governor Imperious wished to see him. Him! Orion cared nothing for politics, but he had just happened to meet the leader of the governing Cybertron Head Council at a rally that Magnus, his longtime friend, had dragged him to. Imperious' optics had scanned him from head to toe, and though it had left him with a distinctly uneasy feeling, he had still relished the attention. He had been invited to the governor's private quarters to discuss his future. He had left for his destination that day with his optics shining. But things had gone so terribly wrong….
He had thought that it was a joke when Imperious kissed him. He had laughed and pushed the Autobot elder away. But Imperious had shown him that this was no laughing matter, and if the young Autobot was not willing to give him what he wanted, then he would take it by force. Orion was robbed of his innocence, the older robot heedless to his pleas to stop, the searing physical pain ripping through him, betrayal eating at him like acid. And later, when it was finally over, he was smothered by a sense of overwhelming shame. Had he done something wrong? He had given the wrong impression, brought this on himself somehow! Surely such a great Autobot elder, the powerful Council leader, would not do this without provocation! It was all his fault, all his fault!
Rodimus watched helplessly, a hand clapped over his mouth, tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks. No! Poor, poor Optimus! This simply was too awful to be true! He had lived with this all his life, stuffed down so deeply that it had become buried but surely never completely gone. How had he managed to go on? More than ever, Rodimus admired his strong spirit. Optimus was a survivor, more so than anyone had ever imagined.
Prime's voice was hoarse and raspy, his vocals damaged. "No! It's not true; it never happened! It was just a bad dream! Please, dear Primus, let it all just be a dream!"
"But it's not," the creature murmured almost seductively. "That filthy pervert raped you, hurt you, betrayed you! You trusted him and he tore away your innocence! You have lied to yourself about it your entire life! Imperious raped you, and you can never change that! All the wishing in the world won't make it go away."
A collective gasp went up from the few Autobots that actually had made sense of the creature's words. Ultra Magnus could only stare miserably, a cold fright spreading through him. Everything suddenly made chilling, horrible sense. He hung his head. He should have known, or at least suspected, from the way Orion had behaved that terrible day! Part of the blame was his.
This latest blow was simply too much to bear. Optimus simply shut his mind down, fleeing into its farthest recesses. His body slumped, lifeless, optics going dark. The demon creature had done what no one before it could – it had succeeded in breaking Optimus Prime. Now it was unopposed, and it poured its smoky essence into the limp body in its clutches. The Autobot leader's optics began to blaze a frightening red. It smiled, enjoying this powerful, sleek new body. Optimus was his, body and mind. It had won.