Inspiration for Vortex's spike: (furaffinity dot net/view/5940133) lower one (NSFW - requires an account)
Inspiration for Prowl's spike: (furaffinity dot net/view/8531340) (NSFW - requires an account)
New warning: Genital mutilation

To read the complete chapter, head to Ao3
archiveofourown dot org/works/637909/chapters/1175494

Starcrossed 3: Breaking Frames
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Prowl kept his fear carefully to himself as the two guards dropped him to his knees on a dais in what he took to be Lord Vortex's berth chamber. It had a grand berth and it was part of the Lord's chambers, at any rate. He would have tried to escape but he'd already calculated the odds and it would only leave him injured for longer. He was pushed forward by a hand on the back of his neck while his arms were both yanked out and back.

It hurt, straining cables and gears, but he did his best to settle into the posture. There was no point to expending energy in struggle when there was no escape yet.

A door opened and heavy, measured steps entered the room, coming over to stop in front of Prowl. A dark, cold field washed over him and the low rumble of powerful engines filled the air.

"What made you think you could touch something of mine and get away with it?" Vortex asked, a growl behind the words.

There really wasn't a good answer to that, so he went with the truth. It wasn't as if he was likely to survive until dawn. "I calculated that it would not be discovered."

Claws grabbed his helm and pushed, forcing his head up and back further than it was designed to go, stretching the cables in his neck.

"You calculated wrong," Vortex snarled. "Nothing happens here that I am unaware of." He released his helm, snapping the head back down. "Tell me, what do you think will happen to you?"

"Tortured and deactivated, likely in a public execution," Prowl answered with the same even tone despite the fear trying to take hold. He did not want to hurt. He definitely did not want to deactivate.

Vortex chuckled darkly. "Eventually," he said, and stepped back. "First... oh, we're going to have so much fun before then. Bind him and get out," he snapped at the two guards.

They moved quickly, dragging Prowl up to his pedes and yanking his arms up over his head, fastening them into chains that had lowered from the ceiling. His ankles were locked into cuffs attached by a long bar, identical to the one he'd seen used in the videos on other victims, forcing his legs apart.

Task completed, the guards fled the room and Vortex stepped forward, looming over Prowl. He wrapped his hand around the right side of Prowl's neck, the tip of one claw resting on the spot where Jazz had licked and kissed while Prowl overloaded.

"Does he care for you, or are you a plaything?" the rotor questioned.

"I don't know," Prowl admitted the truth no matter how much it hurt. He knew what Jazz had said, but there was no telling how real it was. Not at such a young age.

"And you?" came the next hiss as the claw began to dig in.

A small sound came out of Prowl as the pain began to register and he committed to protecting Jazz as much as he could. "I have wanted him since his mechling upgrade."

Vortex snarled at the words and sank the rest of his claws in. "A servant wanting his better," he mocked. "Pathetic. Almost as pathetic as him letting you touch him." He twisted his hand and pulled it out, bringing a cluster of wires and torn plating with him.

Prowl screamed. He didn't spend the energy to resist. He didn't know how to shut down the feed from his sensors, but with the full attention of his processor directed at it, it didn't take him long to dull the pain to a dull throb and close off the fluid flows that had been ruptured.

"Oh, you're going to be a fun one," Vortex said with leer, watching him. "I'm going to strip away every part of you that he touched, everything you used to pleasure him." He grabbed Prowl around the neck and lifted up until the Praxian was dangling in his hold. "Starting with these," he snarled, then leaned in and sank sharpened denta around Prowl's lip plates, bit down and tore back, ripping them off in his mouth.

Ice blue optics blazed pure white and unseeingly bright with pain like Prowl had never experienced. Reflexes made him thrash, try to pull away, anything to escape the one who was hurting him. Even if he hadn't been bound it would have been ineffective. He wasn't built to take on a Kaonite.

Vortex watched silently until Prowl had recovered enough of himself to see again, then made a show of baring his denta in a grin, displaying the torn, energon-covered plating he held in his mouth before chewing it slowly, grinding the metal and licking his own lips as he swallowed. He brought Prowl back in and drew his glossa over the wounds, sucking at the energon there, then pressed his mouth to Prowl's audial. "And when we're all done with that, you'll watch me do the same to him."

"No!" Prowl couldn't stop the reflexive denial, a thoughtless demand that it not happen. "Not his fault."

"Yesss," Vortex hissed as his engines revved. "I need the status I'll gain by breeding him, and I don't have the time to wait for another hapless noble family to whore out their creation. That pretty bit of frame is mine, and I'm going to cleanse it of your filth."

Prowl engine growled, a sound that he didn't even recognize as his own. "Hurt him and you can't breed him."

"He will kindle," Vortex snapped. "Even if he doesn't want to, I'll find something he wants badly enough, once I'm done breaking his spirit." A knowing sneer. "You, perhaps? Your life?" Vortex let go of Prowl's neck, letting him drop. "It's a shame, he didn't have to suffer this way. I needed him to like me well enough to drop a few heirs before I really enjoyed him." He turned away with an exaggerated shrug, going to the wall and opening a compartment there. "But plans change, and this will be far more enjoyable." He turned back around, holding something Prowl didn't recognize, a short black cylinder. His grin was hungry. "I can't wait to hear him scream while I tear into his valve, can you?" He snapped his thumb up, and a low flame erupted out of the end of the tool.

Infrared informed him it was hot enough to melt thin plating and maybe half the wires in his frame, but not a lot more. That was an instrument meant to hurt, not kill. Scrambling, Prowl focused everything inward, even his optics dimming almost black as he found the controls to regulate sensor input and shut them down.

His entire frame went limp. Still conscious, but without sensor feed going in, his protocols refused to send commands out.

Vortex frowned as his victim went limp and snapped the torch back off, stalking over. He slapped Prowl across the face once, then harder, with claws, tearing through plating. Nothing.

He growled and pulled a cord from his wrist and shoved it into a jack on Prowl's neck. "Let's see what it's done, then," he muttered to himself while he pushed his awareness forward, forcing a link-up with the still mech. He slammed face first into some of the most complicated firewalls he'd ever encountered. So his plaything was fully aware, just not of his frame.

Vortex unplugged with a growl. Annoying, but he could have that fixed soon enough.

SxSxSxSxSxSxSxSx S===================S SxSxSxSxSxSxSxS

Prowl jerked back into connection with his frame with enough speed to catch the scream being torn from him by the sudden input. He knew there was a mech next to him speaking, but his processors were too tattered to make enough sense of it. He was sure it was the monster that had broken into his systems and made changes, then locked them in place. He still wasn't sure what the changes were, but obviously one was to turn his sensors back on.

Vortex's face loomed in front of him, taking up most of his visual feed. There was a huge grin on the rotor's face and his mouth was moving in speech that gradually became clearer.

"...happen again," Vortex finished, looking into Prowl's slowly focusing optics. He patted the facial plating where he'd torn through, sending fresh sensory input up to his victim's processor. Prowl flinched away, though the sob that joined it was more from the still-jumbled mess of his processors and the effort it took to pull his firewalls together. Spark-deep instinct demanded he protect them over his frame.

"You're dismissed," Vortex said to the hacker, who was unplugging from Prowl's neck. "Get out."

The small mech bowed and backed out of the room. Vortex couldn't be bothered to watch as he turned back to Prowl. He lifted the torch and flipped it back on, holding it in front of his optics. "Now... where were we?"

Pale ice blue optics focused on the torch, and Vortex could easily read what his victim was thinking. Face? Optics? Throat? Wheels? Interface panels? The list of places it could really, really hurt was extensive.

He grinned. Those would all come, eventually, but right now he had a very specific list to work through.

To read the rest of the chapter, head to Ao3
archiveofourown dot org/works/637909/chapters/1175494