The skeezy Lockdown-muse and his unhealthy obsession with Prowl have been borrowed (with permission) from Rizobact's fic Winner Take All which is on Ao3.

Summary: No-War, No-Factions AU. Festival of the Five: They were two stars circling a single gravitational point. One driven by faith, the other by desire. They came together only with the blessing of the Guiding Hand, and when they did all of Cybertron was caught in their orbit. They weren't destined for each other, but as Primus said: There is destiny, and then there is destiny.

Warnings: Sexual Content, including one (mild but detailed) tactile interfacing scene. Cannon-typical violence. Alien Religion and various issues thereof.

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Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Part Four: Festival of Adaptus cont…

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The more he thought about it, the more wrong it felt. It just didn't really make sense. Prime, Sunstorm and himself were all here. Everything Mirage had ever claimed to care about was here, he should be here too. And he always went to the Festival. It didn't make sense that there might be something more important than this. If nothing else, it was the Prime.

He respected Mirage's decisions, but up until they'd arrived at the Prime's viewing box and Mirage still hadn't made an appearance he'd thought that maybe the noble had asked Prime to be the one to invite them so they couldn't refuse like they had last time. But the time until the races was to start was slowly ticking away and Mirage didn't come, announcing that whatever errand he'd had this morning had finished early and Hound was simultaneously growing worried and curious.

Where was Mirage?

Finally he had to ask. "Prime," he winced when the large mech looked up from the note card he'd been trying to memorize. He forged on though. "Where's Mirage? Why isn't he here with" — us — "you?"

Prime just looked at them seriously. Trailbreaker leaned over from his seat to listen, practically vibrating with eagerness to pounce on whatever character flaw of Mirage's Prime's answer revealed. Finally Prime nodded. "I suppose I've managed to stall long enough. He's right over there," he gestured down to where the racers were beginning to gather.

Trailbreaker's field flared with shock, for once unable to actually say anything.

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Mirage could just barely see Hound from where he was standing, and waved when the green mech practically tried flinging himself from the window when Optimus finally caved and broke the news. Honestly he'd held out longer than he'd thought the giant, romantic softspark could.

Spark feeling light now that Hound was watching and at the same time twisting in fear that he'd see him fail, he turned from the Prime's viewing box to examine his competition. This vorn's Race attracted mostly light and fast frametypes, many military but also a number of racing frames and others. A good mix. Adaptus would be pleased.

"Adaptus," Sunstorm said, walking up and Mirage greeted him with a fond mingling of EM fields, "was a good choice. A good vorn to start a revolution. It's a good omen."

"Does that mean you'll concede?" He didn't actually believe the seeker would, and sure enough those wings came up in amusement.

"And what would that prove to Adaptus or your love?"

"Not a Primus-damned thing," Mirage agreed, even as threat assessment, hard learned from Valkyrie's sometimes harsh teaching, categorized the seeker as one of his primary obstacles. He'd not won a Race of Adaptus yet, but Mirage knew of no other who had the mental and physical flexibility to enter and survive all the contests and do as well as he had, winning three different ones. And despite that, his spark felt even lighter. He and Sunstorm were actually having a conversation that wasn't just a prelude to ravishing each other. He felt like Mirage, which was both more and less than the Herald Sunstorm saw him as. "Blessings to you, Sunstorm," he said fondly. Whatever else happened, the seeker deserved his faith.

"Blessings, Mirage. May Adaptus favor you this orn." He started to move off, then stopped, looking past Mirage's shoulder tire. "The Races are a series of tests," he said absently, and like he often was, no longer focused on the same reality they all inhabited. "No matter the stakes for you or for all of us, the gods do not interfere unless you pass them, but some tests are less obvious than others," and he nodded to what he was seeing-not-seeing.

Mirage looked and saw immediately what Sunstorm had to be referring to. One of the racers was, like most of them, standing with his cohort as they waited to be called to the starting line. Except one of them, stoic as he tried to be, was exhausted and injured enough that how little he wanted to be there showed through.

"If you don't, I will," Sunstorm murmured.

He didn't answer; he just slipped stealthily into the crowd of racers.

He didn't go invisible, but he moved unremarked if not unnoticed. Conversations chattered around him. He submitted to one final subspace scan from an official and politely greeted a priest who traced Adaptus' blessing on his two shoulder tires and carefully he made his way to the trio, who didn't even notice him. The green racer was obviously military — serious military, a shocktrooper or similar — while the two black and whites were Enforcer subcaste, one probably the clone of the other (or both clones of a third mech who wasn't present) they were so similar in frametype.

Silently he listened to the conversation, and what he heard made his spark seethe. Nothing was said outright but when it came to talking around the truth, these military mechs were amateurs compared to the highest members of his own caste. Two of them — the racer and the uninjured Enforcer — were friends, and were working together to trap the other Enforcer into a bonding he, it was obvious just looking at him, didn't want. The Race allowed the mech to refuse being Chosen, but the officials couldn't control other pressures. It was a perversion of everything the Race was.

For a moment Mirage imagined going invisible, then putting his wrist-blade through the green mech's spark. It was a detailed fantasy and if most of him was disgusted by such a cold-sparked act, then the part of him that had been nurtured under Valkyrie's tutorage and the part of him whose faith had been kindled by Sunstorm's belief in the literal truth of the gods both agreed that this mech deserved to die for abusing Adaptus' blessing like that. Mortilus — god of death, assassins, and harsh justice — would certainly approve.

But would Adaptus?

No. Adapt and overcome, was this vorn's lesson and test, and as the two heretics turned away to examine the parts of the course they currently had access to Mirage glided forward to speak to the victim.

"What can be done?" he asked softly when he was sure his two tormentors were out of audio range.

The Enforcer's doorwings flicked up sharply — he hadn't noticed Mirage there either. This close he could feel the desperate hum of his EM field and it wasn't hard to respond with concern and comfort. After a moment those doorwings drooped again. "There's nothing you can do."

"That wasn't my question," Mirage said kindly. "I asked what could be done?" The Enforcer blinked and shook his head, but it didn't really matter because a plan was forming. "Do you have a blank data chip?" Mirage didn't, of course, because everything not physically part of his frame had been removed prior to the race, and with a tiny flicker of hope the Enforcer handed one over. Quickly Mirage encoded his message and gave it back. This had never been done but… Embrace change … he didn't think Optimus would mind. "Take this to one of the priests. Any of them."

Hope gave him confidence and he drew himself up, confident and authoritarian as befit one of his caste as he subspaced the chip. "Thank you."

A message pinged Mirage's communications as the other mech left. A large file and Mirage opened it cautiously.

Inside was detailed dossiers on all the race participants — including himself, though it was missing his training at the temple of Mortilus — and a tactical analysis of the first leg of the race, which was all the mech had been able to see from their vantage point.

The gods provide indeed!

He looked across the field and saw Sunstorm looking back, an inscrutable expression on his face and he wondered what, if anything, the seeker had seen.

He didn't have much time to ponder. He set his attention to examining the information the Enforcer had given him. An edge was an edge, and he didn't have a tactical processor to chew the information while he did other things and spit it back when needed; he needed to go through and absorb and analyze what he could while he had time.

Which wasn't much time at all. He'd only finished skimming everything and tagging anything that looked important when Optimus stepped down onto the field to give his speech. All the non-racers had been cleared away in the meantime. Mirage hung back from the podium as Prime took his place, allowing the other racers to get close; he existed in the strange limbo of believing in Prime but also even more so believing in Orion and so let others who needed to bask in the gaze of a god-chosen Prime their chance.

Optimus didn't address the crowd. He kept his words for the racers. "All of you know why you're here. You want to prove yourselves. To the gods, to your loves, to all of Cybertron. Just by coming here you've proven yourselves to me… unfortunately Adaptus is not so easily impressed." A few of the racers, and much of the crowd laughed. "Go with my blessing."

Good job Optimus, he thought, as the priest stepped forward to say the more formal prayers and they were herded into position at the starting line. Engines growled and turbines whined as they all jockeyed for an ideal position. EM fields crackled with excitement, the feeling ricocheting from racer to racer, creating a feedback loop that ramped up their systems and Mirage had to leash his own field, focus on modulating it as he had when he'd been younger, or else risk burning out his engine before the race even began.

"RACERS TO YOUR MARKS!" Optimus bellowed over the noise, and they — the racers and crowd both — roared wordlessly back.

"GET SET!"

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tbc