Title: Consort - Betrayal
Author: Femme4jack
Continuity: AU Fusion of G1 - Bayverse - Aligned Continuity Family - IDW (in other words I'm picking and choosing stuff I like and making things up)
Characters: Optimus Prime, Jazz, Prowl, Mirage, eventually Optimus Prime/Mirage Summary:Mirage's secret is uncovered.
Notes:for White Aster for her winning bid on the FandomAid Help Somalia Auction on livejournal. Not sure why Prima is a femme, but she insists, despite canon stating otherwise. *Shrugs* I always give them all the same equipment anyhow.
Chapter Warnings: Memories/visions of violent sticky interfacing of dubious consent and torture
Mirage deactivated his disruptor shield in the wastelands between Iacon and Polyhex so he could initiate a wider scan than the technology allowed. He was in the ruins of an old neutral camp that his Lord has ordered razed earlier in the vorn. The buildings, if they could have been called that, which the neutrals had used to shelter themselves from acid rain had never been sturdy. Now they were merely piles of thin scrap metal in random heaps on the ground.
After a quick scan showed no other signatures in the vicinity, a datachip popped out of his wrist. He placed the chip underneath a large plate of corroded roofing, then added a glyph to the seemingly random bits of graffiti already on it. A noise at the far end of the camp had him freeze and scan again before reactivating his disruptor shield just to be safe. A starving glitchmouse scuttled out from underneath a different pile the direction the noise had come from. Mirage stared at the creature as it scurried its way into another pile of wreckage, likely searching for traces of dried energon that the orns and acid rains had not worn away.
"You are sure of what you saw?" Optimus asked, bitter sadness and anger settling into his spark. Jazz, sitting next to his scout looked as cold as Optimus had ever seen him.
Hound, for his part, looked miserable. The master spy, whose loyalty was now in question, was someone he considered a good friend. They had served on Jazz's team since near the beginning of the war when the noble had been sent to Prime as a "gift" from a high ranking house in Crystal City in exchange for certain protections. When Prime had diplomatically turned down the offer to take the young noble as a consort, Mirage had offered his services in a different manner, forsaking his House and refusing to return to the Towers. Being an Autobot, he had said, and serving his Prime in whatever way Prime saw fit, was more important than serving his House.
Time and time again, Mirage had been the source of some of the best intelligence they had on Decepticon strategies. The mech had clocked countless orns inside Darkmount itself, and Hound had been involved in several of Mirage's extractions from that formidable fortress. The green mech recalled the near starved condition the spy was often in at the end of a mission, as well as the brutal treatment the noble had received the one time he had been caught and had managed to escape. How was it possible that he had been a Decepticon agent all along?
"I happened to have my scanners on maximum, and was simply in the right place at the right time on my route. I picked him up deactivating his shield while I was still out of his range. I knew something wasn't right. He was not supposed to be in that sector, so I quickly put up a hologram and masked my signature. A joor later, a small unit came from the direction of Polyhex, scanned the area, found the signal he left, and took the chip."
"You didn't attempt to recover the chip before they came?" Prowl asked.
"Negative. I followed protocol and didn't blow cover, felt it was more important to get back here without Mirage any the wiser, and I didn't know how long he would stay, or if he would stay until the chip had been retrieved. I dropped the hologram after the unit was well out of sensor range, assuming Mirage had already left. No reason for him to be there once they'd picked up his drop."
Prowl nodded and turned toward the silver mech sitting beside the scout. "Jazz, what is Mirage's current status?"
"He is between covert missions and was assigned to patrol the Tarn borderlands. He is due to report back in two orns."
"Find some pretext to recall him, without tipping him off, then take him into custody," Optimus said in a tone that was flat. "I will interrogate him myself."
Every mech in the room stiffened. The word Prime had used was not the typical glyph used for questioning, or even a processor hack. Optimus planned to interrogate the noble spark-to-spark, as was his ancient right as Prime. No one could resist a Prime spark with the power of the Matrix behind it, but it was a line Optimus had never before crossed.
He had also never been so thoroughly betrayed.
No one objected. It was harsh, horrible, but there was truly no better way to ascertain the extent of Mirage's betrayal. What would be left of the spy by the end of it was anyone's guess, and would depend, in part, whether Mirage chose to resist.
"Ya sure ya want t' go down that road, Optimus," Jazz finally asked.
Blue optics met the purple visor. He knew what Jazz was referring to, what demons he fought as the darker presences in the Matrix attempted to exert their influence at times beside when they were specifically called upon. "In this case, I have no doubt that such action is completely justified. You are all dismissed." Optimus stood, but before the portal to the secure conference room irised open, there was a shimmer in the corner as the subject of their conversation revealed his presence. Even as the remaining mechs in the room stood up in shock and activated their weapons, the spy knelt with his helm touching the floor, his arms spread wide in a ritual gesture of complete surrender of the right to his spark.
"I am here to turn myself in, admitting freely that I have been a double agent for Megatron," he said even as Hound, Jazz and Prowl all pinnned the nonresistant noble to the floor at Prime's feet.
Optimus's optics were nearly white with intensity as he stared at the spy, who must have followed Hound all the way from the camp. Finally, he turned his gaze to Jazz. "Prepare him for questioning and contact me when he is ready. Not a word of his betrayal to anyone who was not in this room until I have ordered otherwise. I will be in my quarters." Optimus gave the perfectly still Mirage a final look. The spy never once lifted his helm from the floor.
Optimus sat in his meditation pose, intending to delve into the vast realms of the Matrix that were ordered and peaceful. Places that had been increasingly difficult for him to access as of late. He wished to commune with Prima, who, like him, had never desired to fight, but had taken that mantle up for the protection of their kind. Normally, she was a great source of wisdom for him. But this orn, even Prima's memories gave him no serenity and did nothing to calm and center him
Prima's large fingers, scarred and scored by centuries of hard work, dug into the plating of her consort's thighs which she pinned to her berth with near brutal strength, jamming her thick spike into his tightness with a violence that surprised even herself. He took it, chanting encouragement to her rather than flinching in pain as she laid on his frame all of her frustration and rage at their lack of progress and their recent losses to their former masters. His lithe, slighter form, built originally to pleasure and entertain their former masters, belonged to her, spark and frame, to be whatever she needed. Comforter, confidant, lover, and now, the recipient of her brutality.
She had not even bothered to ready him for herself when she had stormed back into her quarters, stained with multiple fluids from the most recent failed battle. The dryness of his valve added to the friction and sent lances of pain up her spike with each thrust, and she welcomed it, punishing them both for what they could not achieve. He was hers. A Prime needed at least one being with whom she need not be noble, and he was honored to comply. With a keen she slammed into him a final time and emptied herself, her hot fluid scalding the raw, scratched walls of his valve. She rested there a moment, her helm against his, ventilations cooling her frame when fans alone could not. When he attempted to kiss her, to initiate a more loving interface, she pulled herself out of him harshly. "Clean me," she ordered, lying back on the berth to allow his gentle, knowing hands to sooth away her anger.
As her consort began his ministrations, she turned, and looked directly at the one who observed her memory. "You need this," she said in a tone that was harsh and knowing. "You must have someone with whom you do not have to be the patient, wise leader. Someone who will gladly take the worst of you so you can be at your best the rest of the time. He offered this to you. Perhaps when you refused, he offered it to Megatron, on one of his missions? He is consort by coding. This is what he needs to be. You refused a gift, and now it is being used against you."
Ignoring the rest of her words, Optimus focussed on the brutality he had witnessed, which he was loathe to admit had left his own spike straining hard against his panel. "I do not need that!" He snapped back at her, turning away so his optics would no longer be drawn to the damaged valve of Prima's consort, whom he knew from other memories that she truly cherished, and cherished her in return. He was one of several, but favored among them, and would eventually die to protect her. "If that is what it means for a Prime to take a lover, I want nothing of it," he muttered, retreating from the memory that did nothing to prepare and center him for what was to come when he interrogated his top spy.
Optimus heard her laugh at him as though from a great distance as he retreated from the memory. "Your frame says something very different than your words, Optimus. Take someone else before you explode and hurt a mech far beyond a little damage to a willingly offered valve. You know you want to. Why else are you interrogating him yourself?"
"Slag off," he muttered to his hallowed ancestress, the first and greatest of their kind.
Optimus willed his consciousness to return to his frame from its journey into the pit-spawn artifact. But before he had fully onlined from his failed meditations, another memory coalesced before him. Nova, who would become known as the great explorer once the Quintessons had finally given up the war, had a trembling mech chained to his berth, every plate of armor removed to reveal the terrified mech's hypersensitive protoform underneath.
"Optimus!" Nova said warmly, approaching him and gripping his forearm, pulling their helms together like the closest of companions. An electro whip hung from his other hand. Noticing the direction of his gaze, Nova lifted the whip and flicked it at the writhing, struggling form on his berth, whose vocalizer shorted out with the scream. "That one was caught selling information to the Quintessons shortly before we drove them from the planet. One of my servants! Can you believe it? Would you care to witness his punishment? Perhaps it will give you ideas of what to do to your spy before you take his spark?"
Optimus pulled himself away in horror, fleeing back consciousness to the sound of Nova's laughter.
"Everything's disabled that should be," Jazz reported from outside of the solitary holding cell. "He disabled it all himself, but I locked it down, at his request. He's already downloaded all of his codes for me. I didn't even have t' ask nicely. Also gave me the contents of his latest drop, which, if he's bein' truthful, is a set up, designed to draw several Decepticon Ops agents into an ambush with false information 'bout an operation of our own."
"Which could, in turn be a set up for us," Prowl said.
"Which is what I will determine," Optimus said in a tone that would tolerate no arguments. "Hold off on any action until I am finished."
Jazz hesitated, clearly about to offer again to do the deed himself. Optimus ignored the comms that briefly buzzed between his two officers before Jazz vented and sent a burst of code that opened the portal to the cell beyond, then another burst that lowered the force shield at the far end of the portal. Optimus had to duck his large frame to enter, and when he was inside, his bulk took up most of the small space. With a wave of his hand, he signaled Jazz to secure the cell.
Mirage was prone on a berth, magnetic restraints pinning his arms and legs, invoking in Prime's processors echoes of ancient memories of other captives, slaves, and lovers, which he ruthlessly suppressed.
The noble, his elegant lines and highest quality frame, forged to be everything a powerful mech would desire, looked as lovely as Optimus could ever recall, and he inwardly cursed the far-too-sentient presences in the Matrix for agreeing and whispering suggestions of what could be done to such a captive. He felt his spark surge with desire, whether to punish for betrayal or to utterly possess and take back what should rightfully be his, he could not be certain. He almost turned to leave the cell, intending to take Jazz up on the offer to ascertain the truth through a processor hack. But then he heard the sound of Mirage's chest plates parting, and a warm blue light reflected on the sterile walls of the cell as the noble offered his spark without being ordered or asked.