(Please see all previous disclaimers)
Mirage followed as Ratchet and a few others dragged Optimus to the med bay. Mirage knew Optimus was in rough shape, but this was way worse than Mirage had thought. For Mirage, the only good thing was that all their precious little ones were elsewhere, as that would make dealing with this easier. Mirage would have helped carry his mate, but Ratchet refused, sensing something about Mirage, though what Mirage had no idea.
Once the bots hit the med bay, Optimus was put on drips and other machines to help the Prime fight this virus. Mirage just watched until Ratchet distracted him. "Mirage, since you are bonded to Optimus and You are the king of Kaon, you will need to be the temporary Prime until Optimus returns to us" Ratchet informed Mirage.
"Me? Prime? Why me?" Mirage asked, having missed most of what Ratchet had said. Mirage's processor was racing in a million different directions.
Ratchet was going to go off on Mirage, when one of the other bots who had helped carry Optimus in spoke.
"Mirage, sir, you need to be Prime until Optimus returns to us or the Matrix leaves him and chooses another. It is so decreed" The older bot said.
"Where is this decreed?" Mirage asked, not sure.
"In the annals of the Primes. If a Prime becomes incapacitated for any reason, if he or she has a mate, the mate will take over until such a time that the current Prime returns or the Matrix chooses a new bot" the older bot stated respectfully, as the older bot had been one of the few older bots from Kaon that had managed to survive.
"And what if I don't want to do this?" Mirage asked, worried about his mate.
"You will have to designate someone to act as Prime who will make decisions like Optimus would" the older bot stated.
Mirage sighed. He knew of no bot that processed things like Optimus, the closest being Mirage himself. Reluctantly and seeing no other choice, Mirage accepted this fate. "Fine, but I do this under protest" Mirage stated.
The others nodded and all but Ratchet and the out-of-it Optimus soon left. Mirage wasn't worried about leading, as he was once the Prince of Kaon, but this whole Prime thing was new. Mirage just hoped and prayed that Optimus would survive the virus and be able to return to his usual roll. Until then, Mirage knew he had his work cut out for him.