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Chapter Text

He fell.  

The sky around him tore past while he descended. It shot into the gaps between plating and stung what protoform it reached.

But it was alive.

And it had been so long since he felt air that was alive.  

He fell and had never felt quite so elevated.

The questions surrounding his presence didn't exactly receive any answers. Not from the doctor on scene, at least. Scalpel had told those curious officers what little he had found.  

"He's powerful, whoever he is," the medic brushed his main servos against each other and ignored the glare Strika was sending him. 

It wasn't like the stranger had told him any answers. The mech hadn't even woken up. Granted, Scalpel had been keeping him in stasis (no reason to have this powerful a wildcard wake up and tug his head off mid-operation), but that didn't need to be shared with the general.  

"Ze blades zhat you retrieved from his crash site are no mere blades; zey can sap a bots energy upon contact."

That both pleased the general and made her nervous. Perhaps she would not agree with that truth, but her expressions were an open book for Scalpel. Or so he believed.

She prowled around the table that they had strapped the stranger to, suspicious, and demanding more information. The scientist obliged.

"His internal chronometer is several megacyles off."

That took Strika by surprise. She asked if it was a malfunction. Scalpel's mandibles twisted in an approximation of a grin.

"No," he denied. "It is mis-set in comparison to our time, but not mis-calibrated."

The general's scowl worsened. So what did that mean?

"Perhaps some form of relativistic time travel?" Scalpel offered with a shrug.

Like any uneducated brute, Strika did not seem appeased by the idea. The doctor moved on.

"I zhink you vill be interested in zis." He hopped up from the desk where he had greeted her to another, higher platform. While most of his legs worked to balance himself, Scalpel pulled up his findings on the main screen. Strika glared at them with narrowed optics; obviously, she had no taste for the scientific findings she saw there.  Scalpel moved to explain them, then. It was no good having the highest general on Chaar unhappy with him.  

"His sourcecode is quite peculiar." One of his main arms pointed at the codeline he'd brought up on the screen. "Zis bit here? I recognized it from another soldier in our ranks."

That took Strika off guard. She asked whose code it was. Scalpel's mouth twisted up again. Oh, she was going to love this.

"Starscream," he answered.

Judging by her repulsed reaction, she did indeed 'love' that.

"Not all of his code matches Starscream's," the scientist continued. "But his sourcecode shares Starscream's specific self preservation algorizms. Zey have been commented out, but I still found zem."  

So what did that mean?  

Once again, he had no answers more detailed than a shrug for her.  

Strika glared at him, the motionless form, and him again. Anything else?

Scalpel obliged. "He keeps repeating a name. Over and over."

Strika looked away from the unconscious warrior to the tiny decepticon scientist.

"Whose?" she growled.

Ah. Always so suspicious. For good reason, of course, but Scalpel was afraid he would have to disappoint her.  

The name was not one recognizable at all.

"Someone named Galvatron."  

He was gone- as they always went- with a blinding light.  

'Cleansing', they called it. Perhaps it was true. Their light had certainly cleansed him of his old terrors, his old person.  

Nothing could scare him now.

It had cleansed him of attachments and old hopes.  

For it had cleansed the universe of all who could have drawn affections or attachments.  

But this time was different than the others.  

This time, it was he who had disappeared into light. He had gone while the other was still trying to reach him. Those screams- echoing and audible even after his vision had whited out the figure- were in his mind. The expression of lost confusion, an episode the other could not be faulted for, costing his ability to reach the light as well as it went blinding, then black.

He was trapped in there, in darkness, with only those screams, those expressions, for company.  

When he awoke-

if he awoke

-it would be alone. He was certain of it.  

Those yells were the last he'd hear of his commander.  

With how often he'd gone through that reality, the pain really should have been dulled.  

But grief was one reaction the light had yet to cleanse him of.

The stranger remained on the table in the adjacent medbay until the decepticons decided what to do with him. Until then, Scalpel resigned to dealing with the dangerous wildcard muttering and twitching through his stasis.  

It was always the same words (or similar enough). They carried out of the medbay to his office where he kept his main experiments at the moment.

Forgive me. Galvatron, forgive me. Please, please, forgive me-

Scalpel grew sick of hearing the muttered pleas and shut the medbay door.  

Chapter Text

The egomaniac was gone. He'd sped off chasing the autobot and left him alone.

The vast size of space around him nearly made him go into stasis out of sheer stress, overwhelming as it was. Thankfully, he kept the reaction down; there was no doubt in his mind that going into stasis would leave him as an unconscious target for all sorts of horrors. Who knew what lurked out here?  

That got him struggling out of the remaining cement goop immediately. He couldn't just wait here for those things to come get him!  

"Come back!" he yelled out for the egomaniac. The other clone could shield him. Or talk to him and drown out the dangerous quiet of space with his bragging. Or just do anything that would make him have company.  

The blue clone didn't return. He grew uneasy waiting around for him to come back. The unease started simply enough, but it grew and grew until it was too much to handle. With an eep, the purple clone fled off of the asteroid he'd been sent reeling into (with the others, when there were three of them trapped in this new unknown situation. He sure hated unknown situations). He transformed into the altmode shared by his creator and shot down to the planet that these rocks were orbiting.

There was nothing there but storms. The turbulence almost killed him many times; the electrical storms were no better. He barely made it out of it all still online. It was enough to make him miss Earth. There, he'd been stuck following his creator's whims out of fear for what Starscream would do if he tried to sneak away- even if those whims were purely suicidal plans to fight against autobots or Megatron.

That sounded better than being alone in those storms. At least on Earth, he could try to call for help if it became a necessary risk to take. Here, no one could hear that. If the egomaniac was still nearby, then he would have heard those that the purple clone had already yelled a few times. The autobot, even. If just to return and finish him off.

He crashed to a stop back on the asteroid with the cement fragments still on it and thought over his options.

None of them were good. They never had been.  

How long would it take for him to starve? Probably not long at all. Oh no, it could creep up out of nowhere and then he'd be a husk, floating in Allspark-knew-where-

Alright, alright, this was getting him nowhere. Of course, he didn't exactly have anywhere to go (he had no idea where he was or what direction Earth was even in from here), but he couldn't stick around. Anything could get him if he waited in one spot alone for too long.

The clone transformed and flew on again.

It didn't take long for fuel tanks to dip startlingly low. He was frightened as soon as they fell below 75% and every notch down from there was just spark-wrenching.  

In rare good luck, he had something to go off of. It seemed Starscream left them with equipment that could come in handy now. Energon seeking scanners were built within his frame. They could break so easily and leave him with nothing to find fuel with again (a reasonable fear he was acutely aware of), but for now they worked.

The clone followed the tracker to the only world within range. It was small. It still felt too large.  

He feared whatever inhabitants would be down here. What if they were stronger than him? What if they could beat him with sheer numbers? What if they were so uncivilized that they could not understand any attempts to reason?

The pink fuel was found in a shed and stolen before he could find any of those answers. He had no desires to meet those who owned the shed. Extra barrels were shoved in his cockpit (despite the anxiety that they would spill open all over his internal circuitry and cause his some gruesome demise) and then he flew off again.

He had no idea what direction he was going in, but it was the same direction as before. Hopefully it led somewhere. Hopefully it wouldn't just take him to the edge of the galaxy and leave him in that grand unknown- forgotten by all, hopeless for rescue.  

No thank you.

It took a few cycles of flying before the next world entered his energon tracker's range. The clone flew to it and applied the same caution as before to searching.  

The energon here wasn't put in barrels or cubes. It ran in little veins and creeks. No aliens had cities or turrets or defenses to keep him from creeping up on any of these creeks.  

In fact, the world was very, very quiet. It was an incredibly, unnervingly quiet. He came to a realization about it then.

There was nothing here. The clone wilted where he stood.

"Frag."

Being alone was far more suffocating than being able to see his enemies. It wasn't like either option was good, but he was starting to miss being trapped in that weird constructicon's cement with an autobot and an egomaniac.  

He started to shut off functions while he flew. Tracking remained online, along with thrusters and the like. The rest went into a partial stasis except when he entered into range for energon retrievals. The disadvantage that put him at would have been terrifying, but flying in total silence for cycles had gotten worse than those worries. One fear was unknown, the other was very much feasible. He chose to address the feasible.

An alert woke him up again. The clone shook off all remaining lethargy at the signals. Life signals- cybertronians! They could be hostiles. They could attack.  

The clone flew down to the small world their signals came from regardless.

It was autobots.  

A prime who looked weirdly rusted (was it contagious? he hoped not; and, if it was, he hoped he was far enough away to not contract such a deadly looking contaminant) and a few soldiers. Autobots didn't travel so far from Cybertron. Were his systems faulty? Had he accidentally gone closer to that planet? What was going on? So many questions, so many new anxieties.

They were a lot smaller than him. Or they would be, if he wasn't so hunched over. He couldn't help it. Besides, keeping himself smaller had kept him hidden so far.  

Reconnaissance. That's what this was called, was it not? He was scouting out the enemy. He was trying to figure out his options. 

Go back into space? They may see him flying. They may shoot him down while he was unable to even see the attacks and then he'd crash dying down to the ground.  

Hide here? They may catch him or they may all go into space without him. Then what did he have?  

Attack? He could be pretty dangerous sometimes. But he was outnumbered. And weren't primes supposed to be good fighters? He didn't like those odds.  

Ask for energon and a map to Earth? What, was he a comedian now?

The clone cringed and continued to watch over the rock he was currently hiding behind; his optics peeked out over the top where his claws were clenched while the rest of him was crunched up behind it as best as it could be. The rusted prime was talking to his troops now. Oh, there were so many of them. How huge of a crowd and just one him. He was doomed! 

Maybe space was better. Yes, he hadn't died yet out there. He'd take those odds.

One of the autobots was rolling his optics at something his commander was saying; the blue light fell round over to where he was hiding and froze there. The autobot was stuck mid-sarcastic-motion and stared down the peeping decepticon.

Maybe they wouldn't notice he was an enemy? Red optics notwithstanding, surely he wasn't incredibly obvious in his heritage.  

The autobot unfroze and started motioning frantically.

Or maybe not.

Well, slag.

Chapter Text

The moment he lifted medical stasis, Strika was there. She was an irritatingly close presence while Scalpel tried to complete his work.  

Like any good scientist, he did not appreciate hoverers. General Strika was, apparently, a hoverer. Her presence had him most displeased.

Still, he was rather glad she was there when the stranger woke up. He was likely intimidating even in the optics of large mechs like her. For a cybertronian the size of Scalpel?  

The mech groaned. One servo twitched before it lifted laboriously towards the dark gray faceplate. It rubbed down it twice before crimson optics opened.  

Those optics were the final piece to his appearance. All in all? He looked like a decepticon. But he was unrecognizable to both decepticons in the room.  

Strika leaned forward overhead. The looming was no longer irritating when it provided such apparent safety.  

"Who are you?" she cut to the chase.  

The stranger stared at her blankly. Perhaps he was not fully aware. Perhaps he was panicking over these new surroundings. Either option worked.  

There was another seething groan while unused limbs moved slowly. The mech set his servos flat on the berth and pushed into a half-seated position. Scalpel scampered back to a taller table and looked down at him.

For whatever reason, he hadn't looked at either of them more than a moment. His attention glazed over them like they weren't even visible. Strika did not seem amused with the apathy.

"What is your name?" she pressed again.

The stranger's voice was somewhat familiar. It carried the hints of a rasp that just screamed 'untrustworthy' for everyone familiar with the infamous 2IC...but they were hints. They were drowned in deep baritone. If not for the Starscream-code that Scalpel had found in this mech, the scientist likely wouldn't have taken note of the rasp at all and connected it to that other, less imposing seeker.  

"My name is Cyclonus."

The two decepticons looked at each other. Neither recognized the name.

"And what faction do you belong to?" Strika asked without much subtlety. Scalpel shook his head at her blunt method of interrogation.  

'Cyclonus' looked up at her flatly. For a moment, he did not respond.  

"Who is the leader of your army?" he asked after that moment had passed.

Strika puffed up in pride.  

"Lord Megatron," she answered.  

It was a pride that Scalpel did not share; not to the degree of the general and her consort, in any case. They were well known for being rather extreme in their loyalty.  

The stranger's expression hardly shifted, but the miniscule scientist still caught the change. It could either be confusion or something more akin to amusement. Only more exposure to this mech would allow him to adjust to reading these specific expressions.  

"Then I am a decepticon," Cyclonus said.  

He certainly looked the part. Scalpel could not say he was surprised with this turn of events, even if Strika seemed momentarily taken aback.  

"Where did you come from?" the general changed subjects.  

There was that flash of expression again.  

"I cannot say."

Monumentally helpful, wasn't he? Scalpel's optics narrowed to slits. His displeasure seemed shared by the general.

"Do you not understand the severity of your situation?" she growled. "You crash down in New Kaon, offer no answers, disrespect a-"

"I know you. I know who you are and I mean no disrespect," Cyclonus interrupted. "You operate a specialized team. You lead Blackout, Spittor, Blot, Mindwipe, Sky-Byte, and him."  

Wait, him? The purple warrior was indeed pointing straight at the doctor.  

Strika's optics were smirking.

"While I have led all of those soldiers before, you're missing an important member of my permanent roster: Oil Slick." She spoke as one confident they'd won an argument. "And I rarely allow him to bring Scalpel along anymore."

Oh yes, he supposed he had gone on a few little trysts before. Since he rarely saw the combat himself, he'd forgotten about spending time on the so-called 'Team Chaar'.  

For the first time in this monotonous conversation, Cyclonus looked surprised.

"He hasn't been killed yet?" he startled.  

The previous confidence turned into confusion of her own.  

"Who?" Strika snapped. "Oil Slick? What are you talking about?"

Judging by how guarded Cyclonus had become- and how he was back to staring at the wall flatly- that wasn't an answer they were going to be getting anytime soon.

Curious.

Quite curious indeed.

The panic was immediate. To be fair, it was immediate for him too. He was the one outnumbered. What were they all screaming about?

His guns came out instinctually. Thanks to Starscream, he operated on constant, thick, ever-present self preservation protocols. Also thanks to Starscream, he did have the means to protect himself. Those instincts were what had let him shoot at Megatron without panicking. The panic came later, when it actually sank in that he had shot at Megatron.

So perhaps it was that part of Starscream that let him keep a fraction of his cool.

"Decepticon!" the autobots were shouting at each other, as if they needed a bunch of voices yelling the same warning for the point to get across. A decepticon? No, really? That was a shocker.

They grabbed weapons and any of Starscream's sardonic insults fled his mind.  

Slag. Now or never- he readied his own weapons in hopes that he'd...what? Shoot them all before just one of them landed a lucky shot at him? This was doomed.  

They were shooting now. The clone dove to one side, scrambled on the dirt for leverage, and almost ran. Almost. Thing was, turning his back on them all made the threat behind him so much more imminent.

One of the autobots yelled at him while he spun around. Did they expect him to hear over the sound of his own energon? Oh. It was just one word being yelled. "Down". He supposed it wasn't too hard to hear that over the chaos.

An energon arrow tore through the air while he was thinking this. A second tore into the end of one arm, right next to his weapon there.

Slaag that hurt. That was it. He was going to bleed out. He was going to die. He was too young to die! He was only a few cycles old!

"Down! Down, decepti-creep!"

Sounded like a fine idea to him.

He dropped flat. "I'm down, I'm down!" he screeched. "Don't shoot!"

One of the autobots looked like a medic. Maybe- a big maybe- they'd keep him from bleeding to death. Or maybe they'd just ask questions he had no answers for and kill him when none came.

That thought became an obsession in the few nanos that passed while the autobots came closer. He was consumed by it until he realized one was already overhead, reaching down.

In a culmination of panic, he willed himself to avoid the reach.  

A moment later and he was pushing back the disorientation of suddenly standing a few meters away.

The autobots were gaping at him.  

The clone couldn't blame them. He'd like to know what just happened himself.

Whatever the teleportation had been, it hadn't put him all that far away. He was still on the same planet as the autobots. The only thing it managed was to get himself even further on their bad side. They'd given him a command and he'd broken it.  

The least it could've done was get him off the planet itself. Instead, it left his tanks low and his head disoriented and his body near a bunch of irritated autobots.

They hadn't wasted time on repeating the old attempt to get him on the ground. This time, they were faster with the stasis cuffs.

When his spark was done panicking over the helplessness enforced by the stasis cuffs, he was able to consider the circumstances and his own continued functioning with a bit of positivity.

They asked a lot of questions.

"Are there more of you?"

"What's your plan here?"

"Where's the rest of the squad?"

He'd been colossally unhelpful in answering because he didn't have answers for that.  Eventually, the prime pushed some of the others away.  

"Calm down," he glared at his team and they went suitably cowed. "We'll take the con back to the outpost and figure things out there. No one needs an interrogation in the middle of nowhere."  

Interrogation?

He didn't like that word. Not one bit.  

That, apparently, didn't matter. They were dragging him away regardless.  

The autobots had a sciff not far. Three of them dumped his incapacitated frame onboard before loading up. A small, grimy looking one sat on the seat next to his head and looked down. The clone tried to figure out what expression would garner the most safety before nervously returning one.

"So," the autobot started. He sounded old. Slag, he looked old. That wasn't necessarily a reason he'd be less scary. Megatron was old, after all. The clone decided this autobot was the scariest of the bunch. It was an opinion very subject to change after the others started speaking again and he found reasons to see them as dangerous too.  

"You got ah name?" the old one finished.

The clone stared at him.

"U- a name?" he stammered.

Starscream probably wouldn't do it. Who knew, maybe that name would send them into a frenzy and they'd kill him. Maybe saying no name would do the same. He didn't know what to do!

The autobot lifted an optical brow to enunciate clearly that he was not impressed. One of the others leaned over in his seat. It was the colorful one who'd first seen him at the start of this.  

"No name?" that one said to the old mech. "That's gonna get confusing."  

The grimy bot just glanced back down at the immobilized clone.

"So you don' have ah name, huh con?" he asked in a tone that didn't really expect to hear he was wrong.

Now that he thought about it...

"No?" the clone 'answered'.  

The old one gave some sort of grim smile while he huffed. He had the distinct feeling he was being patronized and wasn't sure whether he needed to be scared because of that.

"That's stupid," the colorful autobot glared at the clone as if it was his own fault Starscream hadn't given him a name. "Well, I'm not gonna abide to that."

The sciff bumped onward while the younger autobot engaged in ridiculously concentrated thinking. It was written all over his face. The clone felt too intimidated to insult the stupid concentration.  

Suggestions soon started spilling overhead. Most of them were horridly embarrassing. Cloudboy? Please. Flyguy? A protoform could do better.

Skywarp?

...

The youngling paused his stream of awful suggestions at that one. The old mech was glancing at the louder one.  

"You know, 'cause he did that little warp trick earlier," the colorful autobot muttered like he expected to be insulted.

"Not bad, kid," the grimy one looked down at the clone again.  

Skywarp tried not to feel too nervous as he looked back.

Chapter Text

It was completely unexplainable. The fear of the unknown almost kept him from ever attempting it again.

Skywarp tried it anyways.  

The first attempt came after the skiff had come to a stop and the servos had reached for him again. No thank you.

After he'd been retrieved, low on fuel from the strange space-jump thing, he'd gotten shoved into a somewhat functional cell. He'd taken fuel, after looking at it with paranoia but caving to hunger over the possibility of poison and downing it all. With the boost in his reserves, he'd tried the trick again.  

It ended up becoming a short routine. He'd make no trouble, let the autobots guarding him at the moment talk (he knew all their names by now, which at least let him put a designation to their scary faces), hear them mention something like 'questioning' or 'interrogation' and then would warp out of there.  

He had no theories on how he could do such a thing- so far as he knew, Starscream couldn't- but it did offer him a tempting hope. This could let him hide. This could let him escape bad situations. This could let him survive.

If only he knew how to operate it.

Maybe this time would work. Maybe this time he'd warp far enough away.  

Maybe he was going to run out of energy before ever making it off this planet.

Judging by the 11% warnings flaring, that last, horrifying fear was the most likely option.

Skywarp made it to 9% before his frame locked up and he dropped stiffly to the ground.

It was there that he discovered a fear of immobility (at least, that which wasn't caused by stasis cuffs: those had a separate fear attached to them). It was also there that the autobots found him again. Kup's grimy legs planted in front of the frozen seeker's face. Even without being able to look up, Skywarp could tell he was shaking his head back and forth.  

"Stop runnin', scrapheap."

And back he went.

At least he got his fuel up to 90% in his cell.

"He's more trouble than he's worth," Hot Shot moaned after dropping the seeker off.

It wasn't exactly a very reassuring thing to hear. Skywarp wondered what he could say to redirect those thoughts to a more safe place regarding him.  

They didn't bother with stasis cuffs anymore. Not after he'd found out he could warp without them. The drawback for him was an inability to control it well and the inability to make it far away anyways. And the drain on fuel. The autobots didn't seem to think there was a real threat of him actually managing to get away after a warp.

Maybe they were right, he considered with a sinking feeling.

Pondering over that kept him distracted until the far-too-colorful autobot had entered with Kup to retrieve him.

Skywarp checked his internal reserves. They weren't bad. Warping would take a good chunk of that away, but it seemed like he'd still survive the jump from where he was now.

Kup poked the back of his leg (it was almost funny how tiny the autobot was compared to someone of Starscream's frametype, even if his less than pleasant demeanor made him intimidating still) instead of tugging the arm he couldn't reach or something.

"Ah know what you're thinkin'," the old autobot said.

Skywarp believed it. Kup was just extra terrifying in the moment for it.

"And Ah don' think any of us want to chase you down right now."

In other words: don't. There was an unstated or else there as well.

This time, he listened. The consequences seemed more dangerous than the immediate moment. If things got really bad, he could warp away then.

He left those thoughts by the time the tiny soldiers had brought him to a new doorway. It slid open with some effort on the part of the mechanics and then that poke on his leg moved him through it.

The rusted prime (Rodimus, if he had gathered from the other autobot guards correctly) awaited him. Kup stayed in the room behind him, even if Hot Shot left down the hall after the door had managed to get closed once again. This entire base hardly seemed upkept.  

"I just need some information," the seated mech started.

That was what they all said at the start, he was sure of it. Even if he hadn't been in this situation before, his imagination hardly had an issue with supplying ideas.  

"Which one are you from?"

What? 

The overall warframe appearance and decepticon symbol should have answered that.

"I know there are squads in this system cluster, but I wasn't informed that any of you would be coming to land on Kois 4." Rodimus folded his servos before him. He was a little too calm and passive for someone with flame decals still visible beneath the dark rust. "Care to explain that?"

He wouldn't even if he did know.

As it was, he was very confused by this apparent calm. Confusion was hardly reassuring to any of the anxieties running unchecked across his processor.  

"What?" he mumbled.  

The two autobots shared a glance. Rodimus drew his optical brows together in a frown.

"We don't need to be too uncivil," the prime said with a bit more edge than previously. "There's no reason to play coy."

That sounded like something the liar or the egotist could do confidently. Not him.

"I-I don't think- I-" 

Maybe he should warp now? He managed not to, barely.

"Look." Rodimus leaned closer. "Just name your crew. We'll provide a transport back and everything. There's no need for all this obscurity."

Kup muttered something behind him that sounded a bit like a request to not mention any of this 'cuffs and cells' stuff 'back there'. Back where? None of this made sense.  

"A transport?" Skywarp narrowed his own optics, for the moment not considering the consequences of the minor hostility. "To Earth? That doesn't make sense. You're autobots."

One brow shot up. Rodimus did not seem impressed by his argument.

"So we are," he replied dryly. "And you're a decepticon. And we're currently in a ceasefire in most locations while we deal with the galactic situation, so it's our duty to send you back to whatever crew you're stationed with."

A what now?  

A- a- 

What the frag was even going on?

He checked his chronometer. Yes, it had been a good long while of hibernating spaceflight since he and the egotist and the fast autobot had been sent reeling through that spacebridge, but...but-

"I-what?-"

The clone looked between the prime and the other autobot. They had been rather delicate with him, all things considered. He'd expected a triple tap upon capture and nothing better. He just hadn't found room to complain about his relative safe treatment in alternative to those expectations.  

"You're tricking me," he finally declared. Every Starscream part of his mind resonated with the statement. "This is a trick. W-why don't you just ask me what you really w-want to know?"

That actually sent the prime back from his comfortable pose. Instead of leaning forward in intimidation, he had leaned back.  

"Do you really not- did you really not come from around here?" Rodimus asked in confusion rather than his earlier confidence. He glanced at his fellow autobot and mouthed some words Skywarp couldn't catch.

There was a very uncomfortable silence.

Rodimus tried again. "You mentioned Earth. What's that got to do with anything? Are you-"

"Why didn'ya have ah name?" Kup interrupted. Skywarp twisted around to look at the smaller autobot.  

"What?" he repeated like a broken record.  

There was a sigh; the old mech pinched the bridge of his olfactory bracket.  

"What sorta con runs around without ah name?" he 'asked'.  

Skywarp decided the best answer to that was simply saying nothing.  

"How old are you?" Kup changed directions.

Skywarp decided the best answer to that was to warp away.

There were questions that were doubtlessly only going to make the autobots angrier to find the answers for and his heritage was one of them.

Chapter Text

They caught up with him again. It wasn't exactly a challenge for them. Skywarp was tempted to fly off world, go about space, resume his old plan of flying in low power mode. The fear of confusion (and the sheer amount of that confusion he already felt) kept him from doing so. He needed answers. As much as the questions leveled on him by the autobots made him nervous, he'd have to hold out until they explained what the slag was going on.

How long had he been floating through space? Had it really been long enough for some kind of truce to show up?

Maybe if he behaved right, the prime would answer. And maybe the old autobot would leave him alone when it came to making questions of his own. The less they knew about him, the better.

The same went for decepticons. None of them liked Starscream. No one really did except Starscream himself, but Skywarp didn't know where the other clones were.

He would hide what he could. Others did that all of the time. They never got scared from it.

But he was not 'others'. Difficulty was guaranteed for things when he was the one doing them.

He offered to speak with Rodimus again in the hopes that they could start up where they'd left off (where they'd left off, not where Kup and he had).  

As risky as it seemed to offer anything when they held the upper hand, nothing too dangerous came of it. Hot Shot and Red Alert passed him on to Kup and let him go.

Unfortunately, that did put him a bit back where he started.

He fidgeted uncomfortably the entire escorting trip. It did not go unseen.

"You're ah jumpy one," Kup noted.  

Should he protest that? Might make the bot mad. Better to just let the insult rub his non-existent pride (Starscream hadn't exactly left him with much under all the fear he'd handed him).  

Kup made a low sigh and just gnawed on his cy-gar while shaking his head. Nothing more pressing came of it. Skywarp found he didn't like the suspense of nothing coming anymore than he liked the questions that were outright.

Then again, that was nothing special.  

Skywarp never liked anything. Every realization he had was founded on another fear.

A complaint was almost mentally crafted towards his creator, but the clone never let it take its full shape lest Starscream somehow- confusingly- hear it and come to make him pay.

They gave him the run down after he returned.  

It was not a nice run down.

Not in the least.

They explained the 'truce' they had tried to trick him with and showed off datapads and left him certain that they were not actually tricking him.

Which made every disaster they showed true.

Skywarp waited to die of fright and it was almost scarier that he didn't.

"Quintessa noted it first." 

Rodimus got up from the chair he favored sitting in to trudge to the far larger cybertronian's side. He lifted the pad in his servo to show the screen off to the clone. The pictures flickered by at the autobot's leisure: images of shapes, light, some metallic device, long but frail.

"A drone of unknown make tried to slip into the Co-Prosperity Sphere. They shot it down, of course, but scooped up the remains to research it. First thought they had was apparently us. But it wasn't cybertronian in origin. Wasn't Vok or human or any of the other big names either."

So it was a grand unknown? Skywarp hated the unknown. There was nothing scarier than not being able to know how scared he ought to be.  

"They took a while to tell the rest of us. By then, there had already been attacks. In hindsight-" Rodimus sighed. He was as tiny as all other autobots. He looked so much older in that moment. Perhaps it was the lingering rust's fault. Skywarp wondered offhand what (or who) had been responsible for it. "-we theorize it was a scout. That seems to be a likely enough hypothesis, at any rate. Maybe if Quintessa had bothered to tell anyone of their...never mind. No good thinking about maybes."

Perhaps that was true, but Skywarp felt he could indulge in a few regarding his existence and he would rather like it if the autobots did for this story. It let him get as much information as he could on this practically unknown thing forcing enemies into a truce.

"If the drones are scouts, then the fleet is the main approach. We've got a few pictures of it, see-"

The prime paused while he worked with one servo to switch feeds to another image folder.

"Took forever for Perceptor to get a read on their linguistics, but we're finally starting to get some translations. They talk through light flashes and stuff. No one knows what they look like on the outside; we've only seen their tech."

Skywarp looked at the ships on the screen with nervous curiosity.

"For now, we call them the lumen purgatio- the currently formless threat that's trying to burn its way through this galaxy."

Burn indiscriminately? That was so pointless. There was nothing to rule if survivors weren't left over to demand servitude from.

"It's bad, con." Rodimus turned to frown up at him. "You get that? It's bad enough that the Autobot Commonwealth decided to set aside its defenses and let their bigshot captives in Trypticon Prison reach out to New Kaon on their behest."

So the story of this 'truce' went. Personally, he was glad of it. No doubt this team would have killed him or hurt him or used him for spare parts while still alive or (alright, alright, he got his own point)- if not for this truce.

"You keep mentioning Earth, right? I hope you don't like the place. It's gone."

Wait. What?

"It was one of the first places we actually got a glimpse of their fleet itself at. And it was a chance to get a good long look at how they cleanse their planets. Everything on the surface is gone. Razed. Even if the core of the planet is still floating around, Earth itself is destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Skywarp squeaked.

The autobot grimaced.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Destroyed. All of it. We..."

-Didn't have a thing to do

-Didn't have a chance

This-

The clone wanted to shake but was, in the moment, too nervous of the autobot's reactions to give into that. So he let himself be terrified in silence of whatever new hellish scenario the world had devolved into. He liked it better when he just had Megatron and bots and cons and weird Earth things to worry about.

They decided to punt him over to their sister decepticon outpost. The two teams of this sector didn't like to interact much. That was probably pretty reasonable of them. As it was, they set up a meeting spot on a neutral world in this system cluster to drop him off with his kind.

Skywarp was a bit nervous about swapping. At least he'd gotten used to these autobots. Yes, they were enemies and that meant danger and that meant things to worry about constantly. But he had a feel for them.

Now he had to restart back at knowing nothing about his new allies. He hated that starting place. There was only so much fear someone could handle dealing with.

Of course, he said nothing of this with the others. He also didn't humor his original desire: flight. Warping away with some subspaced energon and then returning to his old state of flying across the galaxy in low power. That plan had come along with the desire to run across Earth by luck- that, apparently, wouldn't be happening. And now that he had to worry about formless aliens with an aptitude for burning away anything in their path?

Skywarp stuck with the other cybertronians and let them enact their plan. It was better to be cautious than adventurous.  

Chapter Text

It seemed that his latest scientific curiosity had decided to move into his lab. He rarely left the room wherein Scalpel repaired him and he always returned to it after a venture out to the planetside. As intriguing as it was to have this study in relativistic time travel at easy access, Scalpel rather detested the mech's entitlement. He acted like the berthroom was his. He demanded access to consoles and tablets. He would never answer any of the scientist's personal questions but he had no qualms asking his own as if Scalpel was required to answer them.  

Sometimes, he pretended to ignore them just so this Cyclonus could get a taste of his own non-disclosing medicine. Most of the time, Scalpel just answered. It was curious to see how Cyclonus's train of thought jumped around at each answer. It offered him more information about their possible dimension hopper and- whether Cyclonus knew he was doing so or not- that was what the scientist was most interested in hearing about.

After pressing, a simple screen had been wheeled over to the berth's side. It was not connected to any official databases (they could not trust this mech enough yet for that), but he was able to skim over the extranet in search of simple information. This cycle, that information was a map. One without stars tagged and systems named and information available for the billions of planets in the galaxy. It did not deter Cyclonus from looking. Scalpel let him do so while he worked on completing his own task. A scientist had priorities, did they not?

"What planet is this?"

Optics narrowed into slits, he looked away from his work to see what world of interest the mech had found among the unmarked multitude. The answer was odd to him. It was a rather specific planet to just point out without a reason. So, the question was either rhetorical or it was caution- perhaps wherever Cyclonus originated from had enough differences compared to here that he was now trying to double check on names here before speaking? Perhaps he simply did not want to look like an idiot. He seemed arrogant enough to want to avoid that.

Who is the leader of your army?

He had obviously come here knowing faction names. Autobot, decepticon- the same factions present here. But he had found it necessary to ask who the leader of the decepticons was. There were, granted, changes in leadership from time to time, but Megatron had been at the head for quite some time...and there had never been a decepticon called Galvatron.  

Where did you come from?

He said he could not say. Scalpel found the obfuscation infuriating, but prying information from the unhelpful stranger was like a puzzle.

And he had always succeeded with puzzles before.

"Zat," Scalpel started, crossing the map over to the decepticon database and finding that- yes- there was enough of a name and presence on that planet to warrant it being chosen. Cyclonus's question had not been based in random chance, then. "-is apparently called Viianta."

Cyclonus showed neither surprise or relief.

"Is it populated?" he asked.

Scalpel clicked his frontal claws together. So many questions, so many demands. One of these cycles, the mech would need to understand how reciprocation of information worked.

"Yes. Zere seems to be a cybertronian presence planetside," the scientist pulled up the database's folder on the outer world.  

Once again, no explanation for the interest.  

"What army's?"

Such curiosity. There must have been something of real importance to the strange mech on this Viianta.  

"Neither," Scalpel twitched his mandibles. "It is, apparently, a neutral vorld. No fighting allowed."

One of those worlds. Most of the ones in the more populated galactic sectors had long ago found that enforcing that peace was impossible. Still, a few alien worlds hosted cybertronian bars open to all factions and loyalties and neutral outer worlds like this one managed it well enough. Perhaps that was due to the fact that they were, after all, alien worlds. If an autobot decided to leave the comfortable safety of the Commonwealth to live or visit an alien planet, they likely were the type to shrug off a decepticon sighting- after all, most autobot civilians were still far too disgusted and fearful of weak, squishy organics to willingly chose a vacation on an alien world. Any exceptions were also often exceptions from the deep-seated fear of warframes.  

Personally, Scalpel did not care. He had recorded the information and analyzed it critically, but there was no personal interest in autobots and decepticons and neutral worlds. He could give facts and statistics, but no opinions on the matter. His personal investments were limited to science and breaking boundaries within that field.

Cyclonus did not spoken again. Scalpel glanced his way, only to see the mech had turned his screen away and leaned back stiffly.  

"Vhy do you ask?" the scientist narrowed his optics.

As expected, he received no answer.

Not a vocal one, at least.

Scalpel had already heard answer enough from the pressing questions and silence.

It seemed Cyclonus had something of stake on this outer world. Should he ever request shore leave there, Scalpel would have to pay someone to tail him.  

His own curiosity needed some reward from this ungrateful houseguest, after all.

The planet was called Viianta and it was horrible. There were crowded streets (crowds were so nerve-wracking) everywhere that there weren't large, unpopulated plains of total silence (quiet was so scary).  

In honesty, Skywarp wasn't sure if he'd rather have to face one over the other. He was almost grateful that there wasn't a choice in the matter. The autobots already picked staying in the crowds over waiting on some empty field for their decepticon sister division to arrive to pick the seeker clone up.  

For the first cycle, Skywarp never left the room they'd rented for him. And the next. And then the next passed on and he had stayed umoving in a bland room with noises outside the window and an autobot guarding the door. No decepticons arrived.  

It was the fourth cycle when his guard opened the door he was supposed to be keeping shut and peeked into the room. Skywarp dove behind the berth at the first hint of noise and put his head back over it once he'd pulled himself together from the surprise. An unamused Hot Shot was making faces at him.  

"Hey, decepti-creep."

Skywarp narrowed optics before he could stop himself with consideration for consequences.

You know, insults really don't make me feel safe with this supposed 'truce' thing-

"Why're you hiding?" the autobot tilted his head.  

That was a fragging stupid question.

...mainly because Skywarp had no fragging answer for it.  

There was always a need to hide and never a clear reason for it. That was just how life operated.  

"Never mind," Hot Shot rolled his optics (how rude). "You wanna hit the town?"

Um. The town was rather large and collective and altogether impossible to hit.  

And if he meant go into the town?

Then the answer was clearly, absolutely no.

The clone glared back unamused. The expression could have made Starscream proud. He only had the nerve to make it because half his face and most of his body was still shielded safely by the berth.

"Come onnn-" the autobot wheedled. "Rod won't let me go alone and I'm not supposed to leave you, but I've been waiting jours for someone to take you off our servos and I'm sick of it."  

What a pity for him.  

"Fine," Hot Shot started to smirk. "I'll just risk a lecture and go by myself. You have fun here... All alone... No one protecting the door..."

Skywarp crawled up from behind the berth and frowned down at the tiny cybertronian.  

"Good choice."

The colorful mech hit in in the forearm- really the highest he could reach- and then used that same servo to wave him through the door.

"You and me, decepti-creep. Let's show this place how to party."

How did parties even work?

They sounded intimidating. Skywarp decided to avoid them, no matter what his ridiculous guard wanted.  

"Hitting" the "town" (Skywarp thought it ought to be a crime to call it such, as it was obviously a city of gargantuan proportions with all sorts of risks of attack or getting lost or being targeted or some other horrifying incident) turned out to be as unpleasant as he had figured it would be. It was, however, better than being left alone in that room with no one on the other side of the door. He did not like being alone.  

By some very bad luck (what else was new for him?), they happened to find the exact spot in this city that the other autobots were and Hot Shot's wild coloration got him spotted. Skywarp's size made it practically a guarantee that he'd been seen as well. Oh, they weren't allowed out here, they were going to get it now-

Which, somehow, did not equate to imminent death or horrible pain and instead resulted in Kup booting him into the store he and Rodimus had been shopping at while the prime lectured the younger autobot. Skywarp sat hunched on a bench too small for him and listened to the argument outside. Ugh. He hated arguing. It made him nervous. Then again, that wasn't exactly a high bar to meet.  

Something prickled at his plating after a while. It was almost like...

Skywarp glanced away from the wall he'd been staring at (as if he could see the autobots beyond it fighting) and gave out a squeak. Both the noise and the plastering backwards against the wall behind the bench was far from flattering, but that was rather the story of his life. He was a survivor, not someone who could spend time thinking about the embarrassment he caused himself.  

"A-h, sorry, sorry-" the little cybertronian nearby waved servos placatingly. "I should've said something, I know, I just-"

The words continued for some time before the bot seemed to realize he wasn't being prompted for more. Skywarp stared.  

"...well." They tapered off into silence and then the cybertronian was speaking again (this time at least it was more slowly). "Hi! Um, welcome to my store. Sorry I didn't say that when I- well, when you first- um, when I saw you waiting- Anyway, I'm Tailgate!"  

The bot waved. He was even smaller than the other autobots. He had to have been shorter even than Kup. The latter hadn't exactly helped him to get over a fear of small bots, so the size of this 'Tailgate' hardly was reassuring.  

"So. You want to buy something?"

He didn't even know what this store was for. He had no idea why he was there. Why oh why hadn't he just stayed in the hotel?

Or, if he was to go further back in regrets, why hadn't he stayed on Earth away from Starscream and the egomaniac and the speedy little blue autobot?  

...but Earth was gone. He would have died if he'd stayed.

The thought made him want to shake. Most things did.  

"No?" he replied.  

Tailgate took it in stride. 

"I see. Well, are you waiting?"

Was he waiting? He'd thought that was obvious. Why ask stupid questions?  

"Yes?" he answered.  

And he was, wasn't he? He was waiting for the autobots who'd dumped him on this bench, for the decepticons supposedly coming to get him, for the answers to why everything was so confusing-  he was doing a whole lot of waiting and hadn't seen it paying off lately.  

"Who're you waiting for?" Tailgate pressed. He'd managed to slide forward with every question. By now, the autobot had his servos on the bench's side and was looking up at an angle that couldn't have felt good on the neck struts.  

Why was he so curious anyway?

Or so close?

Where was the fear? Skywarp could break this bot in half easily on a physical level- if he were that small, he'd never get this close to someone seeker-sized. Way, way too dangerous.  

Did he not understand danger?

No, that couldn't be right. Everyone had to, to a degree. Even autobots had to be in constant fear of rebellions and those big warframes waiting outside the Commonwealth barriers.  

Except for now, when they claimed that barrier meant nothing. Right. Because there was some worse threat now. Some planet destroying threat. Something powerful enough and abstract enough to not really register in his processor and that lack of registering made it all the more terrifying.  

"Are you meeting someone?"

The questions just kept coming. And they'd just keep coming, wouldn't they?  

"That nice mech, Kup, he brought you here. Are you with them?"

Kind of? Maybe? He didn't really know.  

Skywarp made a hesitantly noncommittal sound in response. Tailgate's visor just kept widening.  

"I told them they could get a big discount here! Anything to help, right? Oh oh, and I offered them a few of my unused rooms, for transmissions or training or whatever it is you defenders of the galaxy do. Oh! And I could offer a fourth, but there are still some crates in the way- hey- do you want to help me clear that one out? I can only stack so high and short piles don't save room and..."

The talking went on. One shiny white servo had landed on his arm and was attempting to tug him from the bench; to show him the room in question? Probably. Seemed likely. Skywarp didn't understand what was happening anymore. He got up and let himself be led while his mind struggled to rectify with the situation and the talking. The talking just kept going and going and it didn't show any hesitation even though he was a warframe and had scary claws and scary height and all sorts of scary factors helping to protect his image and keep the real threats from jumping on his weakness and-

Great. Now his thoughts were running on too.

Tailgate finished tugging him and was now showing off the room with its short stacks of crates.  

There was still a steady stream of words. They were all such bright words, happy words. He had a voice that didn't sound like it even understood what fear was like.

Maybe it made him a little disarming. A little likable. Someone whose confidence and innocence of danger was both enviable and badly needed protection.

Or maybe that lack of caution and bright voice made him more terrifying. It was hard to tell.

Skywarp wondered if that meant it was up to him to pick: intimidating or not intimidating, his choice. He'd never really had to pick before. He didn't know what the latter even felt like.

He wondered then which was a better choice to make.

Chapter Text

The little autobot was nice.

Skywarp wasn't sure how to feel about that. He was so much bigger than the mech, but that hadn't left him fearless. As with everything in the universe, Skywarp was scared of small things. And large things. Again: Everything.  

Among that were nice things and mean things. Sure, Starscream was clearly one of the latter. Most of the other clones had been as well. So he'd mostly gotten his early life experience with mean people. People that'd stick bombs in his predecessor and blow him up in order to blow up Megatron. He had fair reason to be scared, he thought. All the reasons in the world when that was how his predecessor was treated. And the egotist had left him behind to chase an autobot. He'd left him there for what felt like ages, all alone. It had been horrible. And very rude of him.

So he'd had his experience with mean people.

He was getting his fill of nice ones now. The autobots that had dragged him here had started getting less insult-ready with him, but it was the naïve attitude of the shop owner that seemed the most natural. The others hadn't been nice at first. This one was.  

Skywarp still wasn't sure how to feel about it. He hadn't chosen his pick on whether this mech was intimidating or not.

It seemed he'd have plenty of time to think about it and decide, though. The decepticon sister division still hadn't arrived to pick him up.

Tailgate had already cleared out three rooms before Skywarp had met him. The fourth was cleared with help from the seeker. Still, since it had crates stacked up along the walls, the others were picked to rent first.

At that moment, only one mech was training. The old autobot was chewing his cy-gar where he was lounging against the wall. It meant Rodimus was left with only himself to train with.

If he wasn't uneasy so often, Skywarp could have relaxed enough to chuckle at the sight. Something about a mech trying to fight with themselves was just silly. Tailgate would probably be laughing at it. If he'd noted anything in the last few cycles, it was that Tailgate was easily brought to laughter. He wasn't afraid to be humorous outloud. As it was, only Skywarp was sitting in the corner watching. The others had left to 'hit the town' (again) and he wasn't allowed to leave without one of them. It meant getting stuck with the calmest of the bunch. The oldest and smartest of the bunch too, but Skywarp thought he may have liked their calm despite the threat they posed by having all that experience.

Rodimus paused to rest after another bout of what looked like solo dancing. His optics scanned the room and landed on Skywarp where the seeker was trying not to show his amusement in case that would make one of them mad.  

"Hey," Rodimus spoke through the audible work of his fans and vents. "Want to get up here?"

Who, him?

Skywarp panicked.

"Yeah, you." Well, there went the chance that it'd meant some other invisible person. "I trained with a few warframes before our two divisions were cleared for action, but I haven't gotten the chance since. Wouldn't you know it, but we'd rather avoid each other than spar together."

Skywarp understood avoiding people. It was a very relatable way to socialize.  

"Come on up," Rodimus waved at him.  

That was not really ideal. He wasn't sure he would, no thank you.

"Come on," the prime gestured again. "I need to keep my skills sharp and no one else is free to practice."

Wasn't Kup?  

The old mech seemed to catch him staring.

"Who'dya think has to watch him and tell him where he's goin' wrong?" Kup asked in a voice dripping with rhetorical sarcasm.  

Alright then.

The seeker pushed up and hunched his way over.  

"You train pretty often, I'm assuming?" Rodimus was offering a brief smile.  

What did someone do with smiles? Smile back? What-?

Well, all of Starscream's would look scheming. They weren't really meant to be shared. Wait-

"Don't you?" the prime started again, far less confident. Skywarp gave it the same response as he'd given the first smile: he fiddled with his claws and avoided optic contact.  

"I know how to fight," the clone eventually said when the weird pity-disbelief-whateverthefragtheexpressionwas started up.  

Every con knew how to fight. Newborn clones were no different.

"I expected that." Rodimus moved his balance backwards. "This isn't a real fight though. Try not to kill me, yeah?"

The laugh at the end felt wrong to him.  

Skywarp couldn't say if it was actually genuinely wrong or if it was just his issue with laughing speaking. He never really knew when he'd read a situation genuinely or if his fear was speaking for him.  

After the weird mock fight thing that 'training' evidently was, both participants got cornered by Red Alert. Hot Shot glared over at them when his friend left his side. Or maybe he was just glaring at Skywarp. The gaze moved away a nano later, so he didn't really get the time to decide.  

Red Alert was also nice. Scary nice, but nice nonetheless. She liked to pretend she was clipped and mad and didn't really ever laugh, but, according to the all-knowing wisdom of Hot Shot, she was just doing that because of her job. Seeing as that information came from Hot Shot, Skywarp remembered he was supposed to be skeptical.  

After fixing up minor scratches and whatnot, she'd gone to talk with Rodimus and it almost sounded heated. He didn't get the chance to find out what about (hopefully not him) because Tailgate returned from 'errands' right around then.

The mech came in through the door with a box over twice his height being carried. The size and weight had him leaning back dramatically while the box on top crushed down. It was kinda funny to watch. That was probably Starscream's humor. He wasn't sure he had his own. Maybe being a clone meant only inherited traits and opinions.  

He couldn't say he liked the thought. Being Starscream was a scary mental image.  

Before he'd really finished that train of thought, Tailgate reached his front desk and set the oversized box down. Skywarp caught up to the moment in time to see the autobot cutting through its opening in his usual excitement. The mech was always excited, after all.

Skywarp wasn't sure what to do with the realization that he was disappointed in how fast the task was done; too fast, as it was, for him to get up and help.

Now that -

That could not have been a Starscream trait.  

"Never trained, but more than a decent fighter. Never had a name to give us but quick at accepting the one Hot Shot gave you. Never been anywhere but Earth before but, unless it was some trick of the Allspark when it was there, that's impossible."

Rodimus paused ticking off his digits to look at him pointedly.  

"You want to explain to me how any of this is possible?"

No.  

Not really.

Skywarp lifted his shoulders in negative motion.  

"Look." Rodimus, in contrast to his order, had looked down at his own servos where they rested on the desk in front of him. "I haven't heard anything from our beta team. I don't know if they're coming."

The idea of waiting and waiting, forever, for a team that had died without words-  no thank you. Skywarp didn't like it much.  

"We might just drop you here and go back to our patrols-"

Abandoned in the city? With all these people and noises and colors and scary surprises?

At least he'd know one mech here. He wondered vaguely whether Tailgate would accept a large decepticon warframe that wanted to crash in one of the storage rooms. Better be somewhere he knew about than start on the streets in confusion.  

"Or not. I'd leave that up to you."

Oh.  

Choices.

Skywarp didn't like choices.

"But if we do have you come with us, then I want to have these questions cleared up," Rodimus frowned.  

"That's not a good idea," he tried.  

It earned only flat expressions.

"The part with you coming with us or you telling Kup and I what your deal is?" the prime asked.

Both?

All of it, including staying here alone?

Everything?

"I don't want to," Skywarp replied and ignored how petulantly Starscream it sounded.  

"Doesn't matter. If you're going to be sticking around, you have to be clear with us," Rodimus said. No-nonsense, as always. He was a sparked interrogating leader. "I'm not saying you have to tell any of the others, but Kup and I..."

The words were left hanging.  

Skywarp hunched further.  

"...mmauclon."

The mumble was not satisfactory to either autobot. They just sat there staring patiently.

"...I'm a clone."

Kup grinned around his cy-gar. The seeker got the uncomfortable feeling that the old mech had already guessed it.  

"Alright," the prime started slowly. "And you were cloned on Earth?"

Earth's moon, but eh. Close enough.

Skywarp nodded.  

Rodimus and Kup exchanged a glance.

"So you've never had formal training experience or war experience or..." 

He shook his head and wondered internally whether he had truly been that slagging bad in the practice fight earlier. A pride he didn't know he had much of felt insulted at the idea.

"An' who cloned you?" Kup finally spoke around the cy-gar permanently fixed in his mouth.

No one important.

The most important mech of the universe.

Starscream's own opinions on that were rather neurotically changing.  

Someone important enough to make him like a little lump of garbage to be handled in the optics of autobots, no doubt.  

They were both staring. Evidently, neither were going to back away from the question.  

"Starscream," he muttered.

That was definitely a grin on Kup's part. A big, beaming, vindictive grin.  

"That's unfortunate," the old mech said.

Chapter Text

They were still there.

Skywarp knew that eventually that status quo would have to break. Maybe more planets would get wiped out, maybe this planet would be a target, maybe the sister division would show up, maybe it all would change somehow or other and then he'd have to adjust to that change.  

They were still there on the neutral world, but they'd be leaving eventually and he'd have to know his plans by then. He'd have to have figured out his choice by then.

At least they weren't leaving right away. Skywarp would have time to think about this. He'd have time to figure out whatever answer was the least unappealing.  

So far, his options were...well. Pretty per the typical for him. None of them were comforting, as usual. He didn't really need to feed his inner Starscream's sarcasm and shoved the thoughts away to focus once again on the options themselves (commentary free).

He could stay with the autobots. Rodimus and Kup had offered that (after they'd finished being loud about his heritage) (loud for their own reasons; something about how Kup had figured, based on the two other clones that had been brought to Trypticon Prison after the end of the war [something he himself had been in low-power flight mode during] and Rodimus, in contrast, seemed pretty shocked over) if the sister division never showed up, they didn't mind an extra ally.

He could wait for the division here. It'd mean staying on the planet alone (but not completely alone, just without this team of autobots; he'd still have one contact here, though he had no idea if Tailgate would let him stay in any case) waiting and that meant the city and its crowds and the wait and suspense and even loneliness. He figured that last one was a factor in his fear of isolation, at least. The Starscream in him didn't want to admit to the word. The Starscream in him tended to frag him over just as much as the real one had by making him and so he could just shut up.  

He could...

That was kinda where his options ended. Stick with the bots he did know as they waited here an orn or so longer, then go with them or remain here on his (almost) own.  

Maybe he could figure it out closer to the due date.

Yes, he thought he'd do that.

It would mean stressing over the unknown- or rather, his own indecision- that whole time, but there'd be stressing no matter what. Life was just always stressing. At least this choice, intimidating as it was, wouldn't kill him at face value. The deadly ones tended to be more terrifying than passive choices like this.

Some of them at least liked it here. Skywarp himself didn't think he hated it per se. The crowds and city and noise scared him, but there were still some places he was getting more comfortable with.

The little shop that Rodimus's team often visited to train in was one of those places. The shop owner let them come in whenever they wanted and often even stayed with whatever group was visiting, laughing at their jokes or babbling away when the conversation was given to him.  

Skywarp found himself on the bench of the lobby while the mech chatted and the autobots noisy training could be heard from a room down the hall. Tailgate could have been sitting down there to watch. It probably would have been more entertaining. Skywarp didn't tend to be a very entertaining guy. It was part of his life philosophy: stay small and unnoticed, avoid Bad Things. It didn't have a perfect track record for working, but he still slouched around staying quiet most of the time.

He'd still got roped into explaining the current dilemma to the very much interested autobot. Why Tailgate hadn't just heard it from one of the more talkative ones, Skywarp didn't know. It wasn't something he asked either. Besides, maybe being ignored wasn't perfect. Getting some attention (some non-threatening attention, he was sure to distinguish) was the opposite of floating in space all alone and so it wasn't- it wasn't bad.  

"And what do you think you'll do?" Tailgate interrupted that thought process when he asked that at the end of the explanation. The blue and white bot was leaning over his legs from where he sat perched (a perch that, however much effort for height it put in, still had him dwarfed compared to the warframe).  

"I- ...don't know yet? I don't know y-yet."  

Smooth.  

Skywarp grappled against the biting Starscream voice in his head and shoved the comment away.

Despite the admission of confusion, Tailgate hadn't started laughing. He'd expected laughter, the angry unwanted mocking kind of laughter. He'd expected it from Rodimus and Kup too when they'd finally dragged out his heritage from him (instead, he'd gotten their offer to remain with them should the decepticons never show, despite how the fraternization was no doubt breaking the uncomfortable-alliance's protocols).  

Tailgate just started pitching more offers and options and overall just adding more choices (a frightening thing to see them all stack up and leave him with the responsibility to choose) to his list and seemingly meant for them all to be reassuring in some way.  

The genuine well-meaning (however displaced) took him off guard enough to keep the instinctual fright from really setting in.  

At the moment, at least.

Hot Shot liked the city more than any of the others.

Hot Shot liked to take him into the city more than the others too.  

Then again, he tended to take anyone available out to whatever market or gaming studio or bar he'd decided to visit that cycle. It just happened that Skywarp had been the only one available some of those times- no matter if Skywarp himself would rather not go out.  

This cycle had culminated in the colorful autobot trapping him into another 'outing'. Apparently, Red Alert was busy (Hot Shot sounded very disappointed about that fact), Rodimus was a prime with a reputation (though Hot Shot claimed that he'd been more fun before some 'incident' with 'Team Chaar'), and Kup was Kup (there was no telling whether the old autobot would get overcharged with them all and laugh about it as bonding or laugh while he wrote them up). Skywarp was a bit of a last resort in that way, but at least Hot Shot didn't act like he was disgusting.  

That wasn't even so much a fear thing as a pride issue, he guessed. Probably pride, at least. Starscream had all sorts of information on pride, as the egotist had shown very well.  

It wasn't like he had much baseline knowledge on the concept of friends. If he had at that time, it may have been easier to point down the relief to the hope that he was actually liked by someone else. Liked enough, at least, to get dragged to bars.

This moment of ignorance didn't get to last.

They'd gotten to a quieter bar than normal and snagged a booth out of the way from the large and tiny organics and techno-organics around to take their high grade in private. Or Hot Shot's high grade, at the least. Skywarp had ordered something that wouldn't end up making him senseless. The idea of that was rather unsettling for him.

When Hot Shot said he'd rather have the clone's drink, he'd tried to slide it over in all its twisty-sparkling pink plastic container's glory. It had earned laughter and the autobot pushed it back.

"I wasn't being serious," he shook his head through the chuckling. "That's a protoform's drink. Come'n, don't you want something more exciting?"

No.  

"Well, I do," Hot Shot answered his flat stare. "I'm no kid."

No matter what the others imply, ey? (he wasn't completely blind; he saw the way the others treated this one out of their crew)

Skywarp didn't make that comment either. He slowly picked up his drink again. The insult left him a little stinging. He wasn't a protoform either (even if he had been very recently, in the grand scope of cybertronian lifetimes). The whole thing was drunk fast just to spite the mech who'd dragged him here.

Apparently, spite was something he was capable of too. Pride, spite, what else would show up outside the constant fear?  

"Can't take a joke," the colorful autobot was shaking his head in amusement again. "Alright, decepti-creep, you go ahead and relive your sparklinghood."

Only Rodimus and Kup knew how inapplicable that comment was for him. Skywarp made no move to share details on the matter with the mech across from him.  

They sat there for a while longer while Hot Shot laughed and talked too loudly and made more jokes that the clone didn't respond to-

"What's wrong with you? Do you have any idea what sarcasm is?"

-and overall seemed to be enjoying himself. He'd even gotten up to buy some fancy rust snack for Skywarp in honor of actually enjoying the night. At least Hot Shot was enjoying it. Skywarp didn't really get the chance to enjoy things.

(He thought of the shop and lifting crates and being chatted at as if his Starscream-frame was completely non-existent and felt that factual declaration waver)

Still, he wasn't miserable. Not nearly as miserable as he'd been before in these outings. And the place really did have cybertronian acceptable energon and snacks. And that was pretty nice. He hadn't gotten anything like that on Earth or in space.  

Hot Shot seemed to catch the almost-enthusiasm when Skywarp tried the gift. The autobot was grinning as if he hadn't just spent his own shannix on the decepticon they were sparkling-sitting.  

It seemed most likely that he'd start a chat about the rust snack and talk about his favorite flavors and probably brag a bit (he always managed to find something to brag about in their conversations). That was what familiarity, past moments with the two of them, implied would happen.

It didn't.

The autobot was staring past him. His amusement seemed to have dropped. Skywarp felt a little concerned with this sudden deadening of his stare. Should he leave? Maybe he could find a hiding place in time, just in case everyone in this bar was going to zone out like that. Who knew what sort of virus this could be?  

Instead, the autobot spoke up again.

"What the frag happened?" Hot Shot dropped his grin completely.  

There wasn't a clear answer to that. Or an answer to what the question even meant.

"Um." Skywarp tapped two claws together and watched the motion rather than meeting the other's optics. "What?"

That seemed to shake the autobot back into the moment. Hot Shot stopped staring out at nothing and looked at him.

"You." What, was that meant as a greeting? An explanation? A curse? It kinda sounded like a curse. Where'd the whole excitement go? It wasn't even his fault they were at this bar! It wasn't his fault, whatever that 'you' was implying.

"Why am I here with you?" Hot Shot elaborated with a moan. "We're supposed to be at war. I'm not supposed to see any decepticons unless they're breaking the treaties that have them hiding away from the Commonwealth. I enlisted, sure, but I was only expecting to see you guys on a battlefield."

Maybe if socializing was as difficult for him as it was for Skywarp, the autobot could consider a bar a battlefield. It was certainly a struggle to be here.  

"Alright?" the clone replied intelligently.  

Slag, he sounded like an idiot. His nighly-non-existent pride was trying to hide from him in shame.  

"Not here, not having fun, not-not-"

Was he overcharged? That was probably it. Hot Shot was just overcharged. Just filterless. Just not thinking about what he was saying, even as what he said made Skywarp lose all that sense that he was actually wanted here.  

"Sorry," he muttered, though he felt that the apology should be on the part of the guy who'd just dashed hopes he hadn't even noticed he had. "'s'not like I wanted to be doing this."

And that was fair. Starscream wasn't one for honesty, but Skywarp wasn't Starscream. It was honest: he hadn't asked for that spacebridge mishap, he hadn't asked the egotist and autobot to abandon him in space, he hadn't asked for some alien light show to come burn away half the galaxy. He hadn't asked for anything except a safe box to hide in happily for the rest of his terrified life and it wasn't like that wish had been listened to.

"I know," Hot Shot mumbled, before his voice lifted again. Overcharge was a strange state of neuroticism. Skywarp was glad he hadn't taken high grade. "But I-I'm supposed to hate you! All the vids I got growing up, they all said the same thing about you lot. They never said nothing about getting pit against some alien together and needing to cooperate and going to bars and...Frag. I'm not supposed to like you. When did that happen? When did the world decide it was alright for me to get a soft spot for a decepticon?"

Skywarp didn't have any answers for that. Even when he half-carried a stumbling and unhappy Hot Shot back to the streets in the direction for the hotel, no answers had been offered.  

Not for Hot Shot and not for his own confusion.

They didn't even make it back to the hotel.  

Trying to lug a tiny autobot along was, for one thing, more work than Skywarp had assumed it would be. For another, he wasn't really comfortable with the proximity. Not after Hot Shot had spilled his confusion out and revealed that he himself wasn't actually comfortable with it, no matter how often he'd taken to dragging Skywarp into his messes.  

Red Alert found them in a street with some tracking device in servo. She'd taken in their sorry sight with a serious expression. That was pretty normal for her. He knew, rationally from exposure to her facial expressions, that he didn't need to flinch away from what looked like disapproving anger. Probably. 'Rational' was hardly his base state, after all.  

"Here, he-" 

He what? Had a breakdown talking about how he shouldn't have gotten attached to someone right to that someone's face? Ingested too much high grade? What?

"Um. Engex," Skywarp finished with a helpless shrug. There wasn't much else to say in explanation. He didn't want to go into any details on their talk. He didn't want their talk to have happened.

Did all the autobots see his presence the way Hot Shot admitted to? Was the fact that he was some big purple blotch in their life making them uncomfortable as history warred with the fact that they all somewhat were alright with each other?

He didn't really want to head back yet.  

"I think- I'm going to be out here. A little longer." The seeker tried to shrug again even as the idea of being out in this city all alone set off all kinds of screams internally. Red Alert looked over from the barely-conscious lump of flashy neon colors that had been dumped in her arms to the clone. Skywarp hunched a little further under that glare.

"You shouldn't be wandering," she frowned at him. "You take care of yourself about as well as Mr. Hotstuff here does."

Which was to say, not at all. See? He could get sarcasm. Sometimes. Wait, had that been sarcasm?  

"I guess if you have to be out here...Don't go warping without a full tank of energon."

The medic started on her way again, carrying Hot Shot with an intimacy that he'd never witnessed in his time on Earth (and a very non-Starscream part of him witnessed with more of a pang of desire than a criticism on sappy autobots), while Skywarp stood stuck on the street.

Only after they disappeared did the panic set in.  

Warping was still something he was hardly practiced doing. It did give him an ability to escape frightening situations, which was more than a perk, but it cut his fuel significantly and he wasn't very good at controlling it.

What he'd need was practice.  

What he had now was time to give that a try.  

Skywarp tried to focus on a location he'd like to aim for. He assumed he wouldn't managed to think up anything. The hotel was a no tonight. Earth was gone. The other planets he'd visited on his unwanted space flight were hardly comforting. There wouldn't be a single place that he'd want to go to rather than just deal with being at.  

He figured that, at least.

Instead, his processor summoned up the thought of a small shop and Skywarp let himself blink that direction even as he balanced the shock of thinking up a location in the first place.

The warping didn't take him directly there and his fuel from the bar was effectively eliminated in the venture, but Skywarp couldn't find it in himself to worry over that as he crossed the rest of the distance to the shop on pede.  

It was technically closed. He knocked on the door anyways and that door opened regardless of a closing time. Tailgate craned his neck back to look at him from the floor, visor widening in surprise or recognition.  

A few minutes later, he was sitting on the bench of the lobby while its owner bustled around doing whatever business-y things he did after closing jours. He wasn't sure what that'd be. Asking was a little intimidating. Asking questions in general tended to be.  

To his surprise, he let out a question anyway.

"D-do you need anymore help?"

Tailgate glanced his way over the desk that seemed too tall for him.

"With carry stuff, or anything..." Skywarp tried. "Just. Can I use one of the extra rooms tonight? I can help out, to pay you, I mean-"

He drifted off again.  

That was why he'd come here. It made sense. It didn't have to make sense. As long as he didn't feel on the verge of combusting, he was good and right now, awkward nervousness over the question aside, he wasn't at that verge.

"Did they kick you out?" the little autobot asked right away, sounding concerned.  

Not exactly. They hadn't gotten anywhere near talking about that. He just didn't want to be back there just yet, no matter how almost comfortable it was to be in the same spot he'd been in for a few orns now.  

"No, that's not...they didn't, that's not it. I." The clone wanted to slump. That was nothing new. Catching himself from doing it was different, though. "Th-thought they'd be happy not having me around. For a night. But I can help here, to pay you back for it."

He could help either way. It wasn't conditional on being allowed a safe room to hide out in.  

The metal above the ends of Tailgate's visor creases down. Skywarp assumes it's a smile. It's not like the autobot could deliver a more traditional one without a mouthpiece.  

"Sure! I'm sure I have some deliveries in the back that need to be carried in-and there's organizing for tomorrow-Oh, and I have energon! Would you like energon? I've got some imported but I've never used it but it pr-"

The chatter went on, as seemed typical for Tailgate.

Skywarp ended up in the corner of one of the empty storage rooms while Tailgate talked (it was nice to just let it happen, even if Skywarp rather valued less loud individuals as well; Starscream had been loud, after all) and then wheedled the story of the day's events out of him (which was less nice than just hearing the autobot chatter on) and even tried to go in for a reassuring 'hug' (something that the clone had scrambled away from the approach of and then festered in the guilt of Tailgate's depressing disappointment after) after hearing it. The tiny bot stayed there telling random anecdotal stories until Skywarp's processor finally defragged enough to enter recharge.

Chapter Text

It was showing off. Clearly, that was the purpose of this little pose.

Scalpel did have to admit that this aim had been successful. He was impressed. If he was to bet on reading his commander's mind, he'd say Strika was impressed as well.  

In the courtyard, Cyclonus continued his vicious kata. If Scalpel were a true doctor, he may have been concerned over the movement his patient was exhibiting. Obviously, the mech needed to rest further, let his welds settle more. If he had stuck with the warm up meditation and slow kata he'd started with, it wouldn't put nearly the strain on his repairing state as this rapid movement now was doing. Cyclonus likely needed to stop, no matter how imposing this was. Scalpel, however, was hardly a true doctor.

"He is quite impressive." He clicked his front claws together and glanced up at Strika. She gave him a growl or grunt absently in return. The general's attention was rather focused on the show in front of them. Cyclonus's alien blades flashed in the starlight and Scalpel uneasily remembered their energy-absorbing capabilities. What maniac invented a weapon like that? He was almost envious the credit could not go to him.

"Zere's an over-elegance to it, vouldn't you say?" the scientist looked up again.  

Strika's optics narrowed.  

"No," she answered flatly. "Practice forms are designed to be over-elegant. But he's barely constrained in his tradition now. He's itching to lash out of it."

And what, kill them?  

They hadn't exactly erased that option from their possibility list. Cyclonus may have claimed loyalty to the decepticons, but he hardly seemed trustworthy. Granted, that wasn't all too uncommon a trait among their rejects and misfits, but few others came with the threat that this stranger did. 

"Seems too showy to me-" a different decepticon viewer burbled through his helmet. Despite being invited by Scalpel, Oil Slick's commentary wasn't all that welcome. It only served to remind Strika of his presence and that in turn reminded her of the scientist's odd 'friendship' (alliance, more accurately) with the alchemist who, at the moment, the general had not given permission to leave his post and come here. It was, all in all, just a insubordination that served as a reminder that Scalpel and Oil Slick hardly fit in her military order (all the trustworthiness that those rigid loyalists did manage to have) and that rather left her unwelcomingly snappy with them.  

"A better question, I suppose, is to ask vere he learned zat," the minuscule scientist changed topics.  

In the courtyard, Cyclonus completed another set of what looked very murderous to anyone too near those swords.  

"I recognize some of the style," Strika offered stiffly. She was stressed over this arrival. She was tense and it did not fit her. Oh, to have the chance to say you were responsible for rattling her. Cyclonus was lucky he looked more threat than prey.

"It is reminiscent of Lord Megatron's, from a blade seminar I was fortunate enough to have attended many vorns ago. There, we witnessed techniques that he was the first master of. Not even the rusted creators of circuit-su or metalliko knew them until they saw footage of his fights."

So this visitor was old enough to have attended this meeting as well? The thought did not match the other mysterious data he'd collected: the Starscream code, the dimensional-temporal anomaly, the name he repeated in restless stasis.  

When Cyclonus's kata came to an abrupt end, the tall oddity slid his blades into sheathes on his back and strode their way. The three decepticons were blocking access to the lab that he had taken up a home in so recently, gathered as they were there to watch his show. He did not ask for them to make room and his approach didn't slow despite their presence. He would walk over them all before letting them be an obstacle notable enough to have to ask to move aside. Scalpel panicked and scurried up Strika's leg until he rested at the safely non-pede-height of her shoulder. As Cyclonus stormed past, the scientist decided he had no interest in seeing his departure and its attitude that was oh so willing to ignore the audience (that he had summoned first by leaving his medical berth).

"Vere did you pick up zis all?" he called.  

The dark mech did break his stride then. Though he did not look back at the scientist, he did stop still. What a victory.

"It does not concern you."

Was that so? Scalpel's mandibles twisted in restrained aggression.  

"But your skill does concern me," Strika stepped forward. To the scientist's continued insult, Cyclonus did turn his face to acknowledge her.  

The general tilted her head to one side; thankfully not the shoulder Scalpel was avidly trying to avoid being squished on when sitting here in the first place.  

"I think we should talk," she elaborated with optics curved into a smile. "You could very well have a place among Team Chaar."

Oil Slick giggled from where he still stood ignored. Scalpel noticed the clenching of his fist that Cyclonus made at the sound, though the mech himself did not offer the alchemist any other outward attention.  

"We may talk," the anomaly said in his gruff flatness.  

Despite the insult to superiority that must have posed, Strika did not react to the 'permission'.  

Still, as Cyclonus walked back into the labs- ignoring the trail of oil and drips of energon slipping from his cracked welds-, the scientist continued making a list of his own questions for the normally silent oddity.

Where had he picked up his combat method?

Where did he learn to fight at the mastery he seemed at now?

Where had he found that fascinatingly devious caliber of weaponry?

Scalpel kept his intrigue private for now.  He had little doubt that Cyclonus wouldn't feel like sharing.

The big question of the cycle was hardly one Skywarp had a good answer for.

Are you ready to fight?

The longer this communication blackout lasted, the more certain Rodimus had become that something very unfortunate must have happened to their sister division. The prime itched to return offworld and scout the sector for dangers. The others hardly wanted to. There was a bubble of idealistic safety here. For the last few orns, they'd gotten to enjoy happy passerby's, bars, flashing lights of a lively city, life, normalcy, everything. Everything their little outpost hadn't had. Everything it couldn't, because there they were in reality and that reality was tense and miserable and here there was no such danger among the idealistic bubble existing outside of time.

And yet even that illusion could not last forever. Not when Rodimus was so visibly uneasy and grew only moreso obvious as each cycle passed.

Earlier, the prime had gone up to (presumably) each of them and asked the same question.

Were they ready to fight?

Was he?

Sure, he'd fought on Earth. A little bit. With his fellow clones. He'd even shot Megatron in the face! But his current allies weren't fellow Starscream clones. They lacked that unity and they didn't exert the confidence of belonging in a fight like battling with the clones had. If he had to fight now, like this, he'd more likely freeze up and warp away than shoot someone 1/10th as scary as Megatron in the face.

Rodimus hadn't looked impressed by his half-sparked assurances that yes, he was, he wasn't a complete novice.  Considering that the prime spent his extra time 'practicing', it was little surprise that this activity was lightly hinted at in Rodimus's response to his reassurances.

Not wanting to repeat the last time, Skywarp snuck off to the shop on his own. The previous 'sparring' session he'd engaged in resulted in Kup and Rodimus cornering him to hound him about his heritage because apparently his ability to practice with someone else was as bad as a protoform's. It had been rather insulting. He knew he had Starscream's skill, he knew it, he just- (didn't have his experience? his ability to concentrate past fear? what?)... Just. Trying to figure out how to pull punches with Rodimus had been bad enough, but Kup's talk afterwards had been enough to make Skywarp desire the ability to melt into a puddle of goo and remain in that state. And, with that track record, they'd probably try to come with him to offer 'pointers' or something else that seemed like criticism that made him feel lacking (and feeling lacking made him scared- because what didn't?- and he'd rather avoid that).  

Maybe he wasn't ready to fight. Maybe he never could be. Life felt that hopeless, that doomed, most of the time. But he'd still get himself as ready as he could before the autobots decided to track him down, enter the room too, and watch him with all their commentary stacking up.  

That wasn't to say he didn't end up without an audience. Training was set up to occur in Tailgate's shop, after all, and that meant the shop owner had full rights to be present. Skywarp didn't really mind. For one, the little autobot probably had zero combat experience. He couldn't judge mistakes the way Rodimus and Kup could. For another, Tailgate just wasn't...He wasn't bad to have around. Not really. The autobot team still made him uneasy, despite how much less they unsettled him now compared to the start. Everything did at the start. But Tailgate had no fear of his own to make him hesitate from chatting away and asking for help and sharing energon and all the rest of the activity he engaged in brightly- and that lack had made Skywarp's own uneasiness fade away.

It was startlingly odd to not have that present, but it wasn't so bad either.  

They'd set up a little training room in one of the (mostly) open spaces; a few makeshift targets stood by the far wall, a little shelf carried dummy weapons (and a few real ones), and there was enough space to move around a bit. Granted, it was harder for Skywarp considering he was about double the size of the average autobot on the team.    

Tailgate crawled onto one of the crates leftover in the room to watch. The attention made him nervous, but the clone tried to investigate his options as if he didn't have a little blue attentive visor staring at his wings.  

The first one he tried was a standard stinger. It was an incredibly weak weapon and required him to get far too close to his opponent to be comfortable to Skywarp's style (which was, mainly, distance. Distance was Good). Tailgate giggled from his perch at the look of Starscream-esque disgust the clone shot down at the tiny weapon.

Next was an energy bow like Rodimus favored. Skywarp shot the wall first. And then the next time. And the next. All of the shots didn't need to be mentioned one by one. At the least, they didn't all hit the wall rather than the targets. One shot hit a shelf leftover in the far left corner and the energy cut through one level, tipping a few items through the new crack to the floor.

He wilted pretty bad at that even as Tailgate assured him through more giggles that it was fine. 

The energy bow got dumped back on the weapons shelf, hidden away on the lowest part as if that could erase his own embarrassing attempt with it. Skywarp was so glad that Rodimus wasn't watching that.

Alright, so maybe distance wasn't all that perfect. His attempts with a rifle went better than the bow, but were hardly comfortable. His own missiles worked, but they weren't unlimited.

He supposed-

(the admission came with an uncomfortable shudder)

-that he would have to pick up a way to keep his plating alive if something got up close to him.

So much for sticking to distance.

The close range weaponry built into him already was undoubtedly the set of claws both servo's had. That and kicking, slapping, brawling, the like. His size would make this effective against little autobots. There was no saying how effective it would be against whatever ground troops this alien force may or may not have.

There was no harm in experimenting, he tried to convince himself (and his processor ignored all wishes and went ahead taking that statement and weighing it against the harm of embarrassing himself, accidentally injuring himself, accidentally causing property damage that erased his apparent truce of safety with these autobots, etc: there was always a harm).  

The first attempt was with the sort of bludgeoning ax thing that the prime on Earth seemed to use. It was alright. Skywarp couldn't help but frown at it though. Maybe combat just wasn't for him. Nothing here was really meshing comfortably with him.

(It was a lie, of course; any version of Starscream was ripe for combat and even if Skywarp was trapped being the personification of his fear, he was also still trapped as a version of Starscream.)

"No," Tailgate shook his head from his spot after Skywarp finished awkwardly trying to bash at a dummy target. "That one's not right."

Somehow, he'd gotten roped into doing this stupid feeling training with a commentative audience. At least the autobot sounded more happy and enthusiastic to be there than actually judgmental. Maybe that was why he wasn't wilting every time Tailgate went ahead and said he wasn't using the right weapon.

Whatever it meant to have a 'right' weapon. Supposedly, he'd 'know it when he felt it'.  Skywarp found that highly unhelpful advice. The fact that the shop owner had never used a weapon in his life didn't really add much promise to the accuracy of the advice anyway. It wasn't like Tailgate ever fought. Or Skywarp thought that, at least. Come to think of it, he had no idea. Despite how talkative the bot was, he hadn't shared much about his personal life; no war experience, no general age, no explanation for why he was way out here instead of on Cybertron...And no experience in combat. The thought of a weapon in the little mech's servo's just didn't match up in his mind anyway. Then, for some reason, the idea of his only weapon being that servo led to the image of Tailgate punching something more than three times his size and Skywarp almost laughed aloud himself. It was a ludicrous idea anyway.  

"Try the b-the whatever-it's-called staff?" the bot suggested.

He went along with it, because why not? He hardly had a thought of his own about this.  

The staff was a disaster. He tried to keep it under his arms in some kind of faux-brave starting position, then hit the floor when trying to spin it out of that position to a more hold-able one, then- to top it all off- managed to sweep his own legs after hitting the dummy.

Pushing up from the floor meant returning to the land of the living and that currently was filled with a backdrop of hysterical laughing. The little autobot went at it until he tumbled backwards off the crate. Despite himself, Skywarp gave a hesitant smile too. There was no immediate threat from the amused sounds.

"No, nope, no-" Tailgate said rapid fire when he finally managed to stop laughing enough to crawl back onto the crate.  

Yes, that was about the impression he'd got from the venture too.

"But what else is left?" Skywarp was aware that he sounded whiny. The way his wings sank didn't exactly help contest the notion.

If it made him feel better, it wasn't so much a wheedling complaint as it was the perfectly rational fear that he really was helpless to ever learn any fighting outside wild scratching and missiles.

"What's left?" the autobot crawled forward to the front of his crate and peered towards the weapons shelf.

Ax-bludgeon thing? No. Stinger? Done it. Staff? Tailgate's fit of laughter at the time of disaster was answer enough.

Skywarp grabbed one of the few remaining practice weapons. Here went nothing.  

The prop was lifted up and shaken around a bit while he got used to its feel in his palm. It was less long than the staff, at least. He'd probably not trip on it. Probably. Hopefully. Knowing his luck, he absolutely would. He'd probably impale himself on the dull edge while he was at it.

Skywarp took a few swipes (so far, no self-impaling), tried a few defensive poses (his favorite), and didn't drop the thing on accident, even if he'd most definitely been killed by his imaginary opponent for being so slow this whole time.  

It was a few minutes into this that he noticed there hadn't been any amused or excitable commentary yet. Skywarp glanced over at his audience and caught Tailgate looking his way with his chin resting on both his servos.  

That scrutiny was just a little too intense for his tastes. Seeming to notice it, the autobot shook out of his pose.  

"What?" Skywarp asked in a small voice. Was it good? Pitiful? Embarrassing? Glorious? "Was it-Did-"

Tailgate gave him a round of clapping from his seat before going pensive. The decepticon realized vaguely that he wasn't currently wilting. They'd both gone quiet, somber- like they'd both noted the same cue to be serious instead of either nervous or amused.

"Good." Tailgate said. "It was good. Did you think it-was it comfortable for you? Compared to the others?" the autobot asked.

Had it been?

He was hardly an automatic expert. He moved too slow. He was too clumsy. He thought he still would rather fire missiles from afar. What would a sword do against some being of light anyway?

But that wasn't nearly the amount of arguments he had against all the others.  

"More than the rest," the clone shrugged.  

When Tailgate made no move to add anything, Skywarp felt he needed to elaborate.

"It was right," he said.  

If he'd been paying attention, he may have been surprised to hear- or rather not hear the usual waver in his inherited voice.  As it was, the autobot had his attention instead.

"I knew it!" Tailgate brightened up. The moment for somber speech had, apparently, ended. "I thought you looked happier, from what I saw at least! And you just seem intimidating- good intimidating! Elegant!- with a sword, I think, at least, though that is just my opinion-"

Good intimidating?

If it made the mech look at him with such excited idolization, he supposed he wasn't going to complain about that seeming oxymoron.  

Chapter Text

It was bound to end eventually.

Despite knowing this, it still came as a spark-stopping shock when Rodimus barged into Tailgate's shop in a state of hypomanic alarm.  

The rest of them paused mid-gesture. They had all been visiting in the lobby, since there'd been no customers and Tailgate seemed ready to assume none would be showing up.

All of them except for the prime, at least.

Hot Shot froze with his energon vase halfway to his intake.

Red Alert ceased trying to get at a scrape on the colorful autobot's frame and looked at the doorway instead.  

Kup's words cut off from the story he was currently telling his audience (something very over the top and unlikely and probably embellished and so overall was a story any variation of Starscream would find familiar).  

Tailgate paused his own stream of questions about that story.  

And Skywarp, where he was huddled against the corner between a bench and a wall, didn't really need to freeze up to give his attention.

Kup responded to the interruption first. His easy storytelling attitude was gone quickly enough to be startling.

"What is it?" the old mech greeted the prime.  

The rusted autobot took just a brief moment to respond before the answer came in professionally clipped panic.

"I got a broadcast from the decepticon division," Rodimus said.

Then- "They're dead."

Oh.

While some of those present (mainly: Hot Shot and Tailgate) didn't seem ready to panic as if they didn't see how this related to them, the others went even more quiet.

"It was an emergency broadcast," the prime continued. "Sent postmortem, or very close to it. Their outpost tried to fight off the scouts, but they were outnumbered."

Did that mean-

"We have to get out of here. This whole planet has to evacuate."

The reactions were predictably wild in upset. Skywarp barely caught onto and stamped down on his own warp activating before it finalized and sent him teleporting far out of there. It was a natural instinct to want as far away from the scene of discomfort as could be, as if that distance would keep him hidden safely away from the reality Rodimus was explaining here. The fact that it wouldn't was all that anchored him in place. As hard as it was to sit in fear while the danger was explained, it was better than running without knowing what he was running from.

It was a new rationalism. Hardly any more pleasant than hiding, but Skywarp had determined as best he could (which, for one with uncertainty as their base state, was not much) that it was better to at least know what to be scared of rather than leave the unknown up to his imagination. He'd flown for some time through space in a state of not knowing and, when he finally did reach other people, found out then that the last few years for everyone else were spent fighting some horrifically powerful foe. In hindsight, it left him to quake. He could have run across the lumen purgatio while flying in low power and been burned away without even realizing he was dying or what was killing him or a dozen other horrible things.  

So no- the warp sequence was not allowed to finalize on his watch. He wouldn't separate from the group he knew and then find out in a few cycles that they had flown offworld without him. No, no, bad things happened alone, he wouldn't be alone again, he wouldn't give himself up to whatever dangers wanted to pull him apart while alone.  

"There are scouts in this sector," Rodimus guessed. "They take orns to travel between systems, but Viianta is still far from safe. We've got to go find the scout presence that the decepticon division found, see if we can keep them occupied while Viianta's populace takes the regional spacebridge to Cybertron."

The scout presence that killed the other squadron?

It sounded like suicide and Skywarp was not one for that.  

But it wasn't like he could blend with the populace and go hide on Cybertron. He wouldn't know anyone there. He'd be surrounded by strangers, autobots much less nice than these ones decided to be to a Starscream clone, crowded in by them, again, and no no no-

"The sooner everyone gets off, the better. We'll try to hold whatever scouts may be here off until allied forces arrive, but we all know there...there isn't much they can do."

The dread washing over him again almost led Skywarp to teleport away. There was hopelessness at play here; a hopelessness based in the fact that it was over before it had started.

Why were they even going to go investigate?  

What if they all died?

He'd die with them. He didn't want to die!

(But he wanted even less to be left alone without them)

Evacuations went about as smoothly as Skywarp would assume that sort of activity to go.

In other words, it was pandemonium.  

People were panicking. They'd listened to Rodimus, of course, because Rodimus was a prime. Even this far away from the Commonwealth, that rank meant something. The presence of Kup next to the rusted mech helped give more weight to his news broadcast. Kup was a seasoned war hero from more than just the Great War. The two of them together were believable to the autobots of Viianta, most of the aliens who had respect for autobots, and enough of the miscellaneous neutrals and decepticons to give them all cause for panic. Those that didn't believe it were loud as well, which just meant extra noise.

That's what this was.

Noise. Just a whole lot of sound. Panicking sounds, sounds of disbelief, sounds of denial, sounds of spark-deep fear (and wasn't that familiar?); the city had been uncomfortable before when it functioned as normal, but he found it much worse now.

There were many large transport ships meant for colonizing and whatnot. Those sort of transports could carry literal populaces. Skywarp couldn't help but think about being one mech on board, not knowing how to find anything in a ship the size of a moon, trampled or crushed by crowds, trapped within all that metal and the vacuum of space beyond-  he was rather glad he wouldn't be on board one.  

He'd be on the little (in comparison) autobot ship. The one heading back to explore where the missing division had died and sent their warning from.  

...he was so fragged.  

It was a bit weird that he wasn't limited to just himself in this panic. Normally, he was the only one understanding all the scary dangers everywhere while everyone nearby laughed obliviously and enjoyed their courage. Having that 'everyone nearby' near-collapsing in dread was surreal to watch. Then again, he knew well enough the value of safety in numbers. He'd been made amongst the other Starscream clones and they'd only stood a chance because there were multiple of them. On their own, they would have been doomed in Starscream's grand scheme and just survival chances anywhere in general. There was no saying how much of his fear for his fellow clones had been based in care for them and how much had been his own panic at the thought of losing that safety with their numbers.

The same ambiguity thrived here as well and honestly Skywarp didn't have time to consider it. He didn't want to anyway. That sounded like some sort of philosophy, 'deep thinking' type of scrap, and that in turn seemed dangerous. Somehow. Who knew how. He just assumed danger existed in everything.  

They'd waited two cycles to watch the rest of the planet begin their panicked evacuations. Considering the size of these cities and the farms and ranches out in the more empty areas, he couldn't help but have the uneasy feeling someone would either not hear the warning or would not make it onto a ship. Being left behind on a doomed planet waiting for aliens to come burn him away sounded absolutely miserable.  

As they loaded into the ship, that line of thinking circled round and round. It repeated without pause, even when there were a hundred other worries circling around as well.  

What would it be like to be stuck behind? Not just on a rock in the middle of who-knew-where, without any idea if anyone was nearby, because the only two people around sped off without you, but stuck behind not-nowhere with very much a confirmed threat coming to kill you.

What would it be like to be abandoned, waiting for alien light and then death?

It couldn't be good, it just couldn't, there was no pity to be offered some fate like that-

He'd nervously gone to a very busy Rodimus and asked how to tell if everyone was off the planet. The autobot looked a bit surprised at the question- perhaps just surprised that it was being asked by a decepticon, let alone a version of Starscream (who was, most likely, notorious on both factions for having zero empathetic capabilities present under all that manic ego)- but he said he didn't have time at the moment for a conversation.

Alright. Maybe he'd been too vague. In truth, as scary as it would have been for any faceless Viiantan left behind, he had a specific person to be asking about. Surely Rodimus wouldn't be busy if it was just one mech to ask about rather than a couple billion?

Rodimus still said he didn't have time.

Well that wasn't very thoughtful of him, Skywarp thought through an uncharacteristic flash of insulted ire.  

But it wasn't about to be the end of the topic. He couldn't stay back. There'd be all kinds of unknowns, questions (did he make it? did he evacuate in time? where is he? is he dead?) and Skywarp hated panicking in anxiety over unknowns.

So if Rodimus wasn't going to play the heroic autobot and get the mech safe, then he would.  

While the ship was still loading up (Hot Shot had apparently thought it was okay to run off to a bar and stock up on 'goodies' first, which the other three were vocally not okay with), the clone warped away (Skywarp wasn't okay with it either. Did Hot Shot want to die horribly or get left behind? No? Then he shouldn't be leaving the safety of the herd!!) (How it was any different than what he was doing...). His tanks dropped to an unhappy 49%. Skywarp himself wasn't that unhappy. Actually, he was busy experiencing subdued elation.

The warp had gone further and more directly than any of his earlier ones. He had an intended target location and he went that way, not somewhere in eyesight and random. Oh, this ability was perfect. He could get away from any danger and, now that he'd practiced for an orn or so, he could be assured that his getaway would go somewhere purposefully chosen because it'd be safer!  

It still was a horrid drain on his tanks, but the elation at this offered safety (and at something else, something harder to name; that the ability was nothing like anyone else had; that he had a power he could hold unique over others; that he was more than the weakest of a bunch of clones, he could rub this in their faces, in the face of his creator even- It was a very Starscream attitude, though he did not have enough of a name for the pride to know it) made it worth it.

As such, he wasn't in his usual thrall of worry when he blinked into place in front of the doorway to a closed shop and knocked.  

The worry came a moment later, as the signs of closure hit him and he started to wonder if the autobot was even there, if he was at his home, if he was gone, or trapped, or in danger, or-

The front doors slid open, to his relief. Tailgate stood there, craning his neck up and looking at him in what seemed to be surprise.

"Skywarp?" 

He was surprised, it was there in his voice. It seemed Skywarp's ability to read expressions was not as horrifyingly abysmal as it once was.  

There was a stilted conversation- if it could be called such between the panic and miscommunication- over Tailgate's plans and safety and all the while he just thought of ships taking off and doors closing and being left behind here without the autobots he knew-

"You have to leave," he said, for what felt like the tenth time (seventh, in reality, but that was close enough).  

The smaller mech's visor was bright.

"I know!" Tailgate replied. "But I still have to make sure everything is finished here before I go on board."

So he had a ticket already?

What if they were boarding now?

Had Tailgate told him when takeoff was? (he had, but Skywarp didn't remember it any of the times the autobot had said it).

"You have to leave now," the clone repeated his statement with an additional embellishment.  

Tailgate did not look impressed.

"I'll be safe," he shook his head. "I'm sorry we have to rush off like this too."

'Too'? Was that what he thought Skywarp was here for? To apologize for a separation when they'd only just been getting comfortable together?  

"I'd have liked to have known you better. Maybe in another time-...But we'll both get offworld, so that's good no matter if we can't meet again, right? We'll be safe-"

Yes.

They would.

Skywarp leaned down to grab up the small autobot and then concentrated on Rodimus's ship's coordinates.

A moment later, 30% more of his energon, and he had blinked away to the right direction with an unsuspecting guest in tow.  

Chapter Text

For whatever reason, no one seemed that happy with his decision. Tailgate was stressing, Rodimus was lecturing, Kup was chewing through his cygars instead of using them normally- reactions like that.

It was too late to go back and drop the extra autobot off again, though. So, ill-reactions or no, they were stuck this way for the time being.  

That didn't stop it from stinging whenever he'd hear or see the others so displeased with what he'd thought (at the moment) was a vital plan.  

The autobot cornered him in an empty hallway soon after. The ship was going to be travelling for orns before reaching the location that the decepticons had died at.

The danger behind that statement was not lost on Skywarp, no matter if he tried to ignore it by thinking of all the other problems he had.

At the moment, that was the autobot cornering him with crossed arms and a narrowed visor (and, overall, no intimidation whatsoever, because Tailgate was rather poor at that).  

Apparently, his good-sparked effort to protect the guy from being left behind on a doomed planet was going to be confronted (again. Rodimus and Kup already had given him lectures on it). He'd rather it not be. He didn't want to hear complaints from Tailgate about it. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was dreading hearing disappointment, maybe it was both or neither and he was just as lost as always with his own thoughts. Emotions. Whichever it'd be considered. He didn't know. They all were confusing.

"You should have asked first."

Alright, but no. Why? He'd made a decision. It had needed to be made. There was desperation and time running low and emergencies that required emergency decisions and- 

And the like of messy thoughts on the matter.  

"...'was trying to help," he muttered instead.

It was true, too. Starscream was hardly a helpful mech and neither were any variations of him, but still, Skywarp had been trying to help. Sure, there were selfish reasons at play, but he hardly needed to explain how those personal fears drove him to act.  

"I had a ticket to Cybertron!" Tailgate protested. "I hadn't finished getting all my belongings together! And I-I can't fight- what am I supposed to do if you find those things out here?"

He'd die.

They'd probably all die.

They were doomed!

Skywarp shoved the negative thoughts away for now.

"I can't fight either," he tried, though the autobot interrupted it.

"I've seen you practice! You're going to hold your own far better than I can, that's for sure!"

That wasn't saying much, considering how poorly the clone felt he'd performed in those practices.

All they'd determined was that the both of them were fragged. He felt a very familiar wash of helpless dread.

"I had to. You may not have made it on in time," Skywarp mumbled.

Tailgate's arms remained crossed.

"And you still would have needed to warn me- or, better yet, ask me if I wanted to be abducted."

Maybe.

That seemed like a waste of very precious panicking time. Starscream would consider it a waste of time too. Then again, he'd think that bothering to save anyone who couldn't provide an advantage to him was a waste.

(So why had Skywarp done it?)

It was necessary. He would've spent the whole time forever afterwards panicking over not having knowledge of how the friendly shop owner was fairing on a separate ship. So he'd eliminated the crux of that panic. He'd gotten to prolong their time in proximity and that- what advantage was that? Tailgate couldn't fight, couldn't keep Skywarp safe, couldn't make him avoid fears from outside sources, even if he brought...even if he brought none of his own...

"I had to," he repeated helplessly. "You couldn't disappear. I'm not scared of you."

He repeated it again, stronger in volume as the impact sank in. "I'm not scared of you!"

Tailgate just stared.  

"I'm- I mean, I'm glad you're not, but-"

He didn't get it.

He didn't understand the sheer scope of the impact that statement carried.

"You don't get why that matters," Skywarp laughed quietly. "It's- see, I'm- There were five of us."

Oh. He hadn't explained his origins for anyone but Rodimus and Kup, had he? That had pretty much been dragged out of him, hardly volunteered. He found it easier to keep his vents running when he told it on his own terms.

"I-we-were clones that Starscream made of himself on Earth- Starscream is a big decepticon, if you didn't hear about him out here-"

And, judging by Tailgate's lack of reaction at the name, he probably hadn't. That would've stung the blue traitor who'd left him all alone in space screaming.

"-He made five and we were each a part of him. Ego, lying, sycophantism, she wouldn't tell us what hers was, and cowardice. Th-that was me."

And for once, it was more than just frighteningly intimidating to admit it. It was embarrassing.  

"We weren't made apart, we were-we were together. A group. We felt safe together. I think. I don't know what they thought. And I didn't feel completely safe, but it was better than when I got separated from them. I think- I-I need-"

a group. someone. a lack of fear.

"I wasn't scared of them," Skywarp whispered. "Some of them scared me at times, but I wasn't always in a state of fear around them."

Did that explain it?

Explain the impact?

Tailgate didn't scare him.

He couldn't leave that much of a rarity behind to maybe not make it onboard his evacuation fast enough or have it crash or explode or something that he couldn't be there to at least assist in panicking around.

There was a moment of silence. Skywarp didn't like silence. It made him nervous.  

When Tailgate edged closer, he wilted in even more nerves. What if he'd ruined-?-what if he'd never get-?-

The mech reached over and tried to squeeze a leg (it was all he could reach) in half.  ?? Was he trying to trip him so he'd be helpless on the ground? Skywarp backpedaled immediately. Then, as Tailgate started giggling and explaining hugs weren't meant to be threatening, he forced his spark to stop flaring in so much panic.  

It wasn't retaliation for doing something the autobot was mad about.

It was comfort? For what he'd admitted?

Who knew. People were too hard to figure out to him.

He'd take it, whatever it was, anyway.  

As the flight went on, the unhappiness from Rodimus and Kup over his so-called 'abduction' faded into the odd normalcy of before.  

That in and of itself was a little nice. They were his only allies and they intimidated him but they were still allies. They didn't seem likely to attack. Their disapproval in his own actions hadn't been dangerous in that way, then, but it had hurt.  

So yes. He felt 'nice' was a fair enough description.

But it was even better that Tailgate wasn't mad at him. Still stressing over their danger, yes, but their earlier confrontation had eased their own interactions better. They could sit in the same room together again without it feeling stifling. It was like the shop. It was strange in its comfort.

Skywarp wasn't going to ruin it by complaining over that oddness. He thought their (mostly one-sided) conversations were nice too, after all.

"I missed the war too," Tailgate blurted out a few cycles later.

The immediacy of it took Skywarp by surprise. As he was not one for surprises, he couldn't help but flinch. Luckily, no one else was there to see it besides the speaker.  

They were in the ship's training room alone. Neither were training at the moment, but it was a good place for privacy and Skywarp happened to like melting into the floors of empty rooms. Having Tailgate there joining him in cooperative melting wasn't bad enough to erase that pastime's purpose.  

But he hadn't seen that statement coming. Granted, he didn't understand how to track conversations (how overwhelming could something be?) normally, but he still felt fairly blindsided considering the other bot had been spending the last three breems talking about some game on Viianta he'd enjoyed paying to watch.  

So he said the logical response.  

"What?"

The blue visor crinkled at the edges in visible laughter.

"You told me that you and your siblings were made right at the end of the conflict on Earth, didn't you?" Tailgate didn't pause to wait for a confirmation. "So you missed the war and the scuffles afterwards, like what happened on Earth over the Allspark."  

Alright. But what-

"I missed it too," the bot continued. "I was sparked four vorns before the Great War.  Can you believe it?"

No? That was old. That was like Kup old, or that autobot on Earth in Starscream's memories that was a part of the team harassing Megatron's plans. That was over 10 million years old. That was way too old to fit this mech in front of him, unless Tailgate was just a phenomenal actor. He'd never seemed that much more put-together than Skywarp did. Maybe that was why he hadn't scared the clone, or felt any fear likewise when any autobot ought to have been conditioned enough to see his frame in unhappiness. If he was young, he wouldn't have learned any of that. And if he was young, he was like the other clones and that was something familiar and almost safe- at the least, not terrifying- and- and- 

And he was old??  

"How?" Skywarp stuttered.

It earned a laugh.  

"It's a long story," the autobot said, before proceeding to tell it (that, at least, was not some processor stopping surprise; Tailgate just happened to like talking enough that long story or short, it was most likely going to be told). "I shipped out to some far off planet really early on- I just wanted to have some adventures before getting roped into a business or trying the academy or anything. Anyway, I was doing trash disposal- sanitation was my job-" Tailgate laughed again. "I know. Not very exciting. I wish it could've been flashier. I used to tell people that I worked bomb disposal because I wanted to seem-"

"Bomb disposal?" Skywarp interrupted, before shaking his head rapidly. "No, no, that's dangerous, no. You shouldn't want to do dangerous things."

The autobot gave him a flatly amused look.

"Says the guy on the ship heading towards existential alien danger rather than away. Voluntarily, I must add."

That just left Skywarp looking ahead of himself in stilled error until the other mech took pity on him and changed subjects back again.

"Anyway, I was doing my job this one cycle on Viianta- at the time, it was going to be an autobot colony and I was helping clean coolant tubes for the colonization ships- and I ran into a tiny problem."

Skywarp waited to hear what it was. 

"I ran into a bit of fragile surfacing on my way to the ships and it broke under me."  Tailgate laughed, despite the fact that what he was describing warranted huddling or screaming in a corner rather than amusement. Perhaps it was from the relief of hindsight, since he had not died down there? "I was stuck down in a cave system with scrapped legs trying to set off an explosion with my energon-rations trailer for what felt like a few cycles, maybe orns at most. It didn't really register how much I was dropping in and out of stasis, and my chronometer was too broken to give me the heads-up that whole vorns were passing by."

The entire situation sounded horrifying. Skywarp knew he now had a new fear to consider: being trapped in a cave, alone, legless, while millions of years passed by. It was similar to his own gaps in time (and the horrid world changes he'd discovered passed during them) when flying in low-power.  

"What'dya do?" the clone asked.  

His companion spread arms wide in a celebratory gesture.

"I eventually managed to enact my plan! And some emergency team went out and found me and brought me up to get help- and it was so startling, because there was a city there now, and last I'd checked it was just a few colonization ships landed- and it wasn't an autobot city either!-" 

Then it sounded like the city that Skywarp had just been stuck at for a few orns.  

"So I had to find out eventually that the Commonwealth gave up on colonizing so far away because they were distracted with a war, that I'd missed, that changed so much apparently, and that had been finished for millennias that I also missed-" Tailgate shook his head. "I still don't think I've really grasped everything that happened while I was in and out of stasis. I just try to go along with life, is all."

That sounded like a confusing life to live.

It sounded rather like Skywarp's own inability to grasp everything.  

He was pretty sure he understood why the story had been told.  

"You're old," he said, in an inability to sum it up.

The autobot crossed his arms.

"Technically, yes," Tailgate replied. "But mentally, I was unconscious for over ten million years and only just got the rescue needed to get myself a life on Viianta in the last millennia."

Which was still far longer a life than Skywarp had had since his own creation, but the internal Starscream in his head was laughing over how young that was.

"You're...young?" he amended.

That earned another laugh. Granted, it wasn't hard to earn that from Tailgate.  

"Like you," the autobot pointed at him. "We both missed the war and other rather important events. But we can try to make up for it now, I guess, since we're both trapped heading straight into the fire now."

That was one way of looking at the panic drawing nearer.

Chapter Text

Skywarp was sprawled on top of a mech who was whining out his distress. The monitors of the autobot ship showed a message, received over radio waves that travelled far faster than a doomed-to-be-outrun altmode. The planetside beyond burned as they flew upwards and away- down one mech.  

It had all fallen apart so fast. With the peace of Viianta, it had been hard to remember just how often battles went, just how destructive, how deadly, they were as they went to chaos. Even the flight over was full of the passivity of Viianta, distracting him and those on board from the terror they should have been dreading in full instead of in distraction.

There was nothing to be done now about what they should have done or thought.

It happened like so: a team of autobots, with two unexpected recruits, followed the trail of death left by their allied division. There, they armed up and tried to investigate the source of these deaths. Those origins were found while the team stood away from their ship and, in the panic, one of their number could not return.

It happened like so because they'd insisted on investigating.  

They'd walked into a maw of death, because that maw would swallow their universe regardless.

In times like these, death seemed inevitable. Choices were limited to when that death would arrive. If they rushed it on in an effort to hold off this alien force while Viianta's evacuation made it to cybertronian space? It had been declared worth doing. The end result felt inevitable either way.

It happened like so because they had not accounted to a lack of transformation that one of their members was burdened with. When the time came to flee, they left one behind. When the time came to flee, these creatures would have sooner destroyed anyone left trapped running onpede while their teammates flew or drove away rather than let them escape.  

Really, the burden should have been explained more transparently. He should never have come with the scout force. He should have led the team from the ship. He should have stayed behind because he knew, while the rest of them didn't, that he would not be able to drive if fleeing was necessary. It was his fault, his stupidity, and he should have accounted for it before, before they'd run into danger, before they'd gone out to investigate a trail of death that now they themselves were trapped on.

It happened like so because, Skywarp thought, X, Y, Z, etc, what more did he have to think before the fear of being the next to die faded?

"You see anything?"

The mechs holding field-ready magnifiers shook their heads. Skywarp wasn't one of those mechs. He had a scanner in his servo instead and was flicking his attention between it and the others.  

They'd landed down on the world that the broadcast had issued from. The moment they'd touched down, the clone started panicked observations. So far as he could see, there was no melted planet's crust leaving only a core with glass surface behind. Wasn't that what they'd said the aliens did? Kup shook his head at the question.  

No, he'd dismissed. Their fleet ships do that. Scouts and drones don't have the capabilities. They just look for life forms to give word back that there’s a population to destroy.

All that meant was that the fleets weren't here yet. Skywarp supposed that could be relieving, even if he himself didn't feel much in the way of relief (then again, he rarely did).  

"I've got nothing in the west," Hot Shot said from where he lay against the dust and held the binoculars to his face dutifully.  

But if not ships, then it was just these...'scouts and drones' that had killed the decepticons. How powerful were they? How many would there be?  

"The southern side is clear," Red Alert said from her position.  

He really was useless here. Sure, he had missiles and he'd been given a basic energy blade from the ship's armory, but what was he contributing in the moment?  

Maybe he shouldn't have thought it. Maybe he'd 'jinxed' the whole thing.  

"Alright, keep your optics open. Their behavior indicates they'll still be in this planetary system, if not on the planet itself." Rodimus ran a servo down his face. "The cons came here to get energon on their way to Viianta. If they were killed here, then the scouts are probably still around. That's what they've done on other occasions."

Enough occasions to be making a behavioral list, apparently. Skywarp shifted uncomfortably.

"I-I haven't gotten a signal on th-"

His words cut off when the scanner in his servo blipped.

What impeccable timing, came a voice that wasn't quite Starscream's but wasn't his either.

Maybe it had been a bad idea.

Scrap that. Skywarp could say now, with absolute authority, that it had been a fragging stupid bad doomed desperate suicidal plan, and now they were all going to die for it.

The scout was made of metal. That, at least, was good. That was something that he could fight. Light, on the other servo, was rather impossible to touch.  

It was tall. Cybertronians were tall, but this thing was terrifying in its height. It could be a building. If buildings were sleek ovals that whirred as layers spun and pockets opened and searing heat poured out in beams. Beams, also, could be dodged. Dodging was a technique Skywarp was sadly familiar with doing.  

And as if that wasn't bad enough?

It wasn't alone.  

The scanner lay on the ground of the small planet beeping away as more and more blips appeared distantly. They were forgotten in light of the two that the team were fighting off on their own. The drones carved down from the air and through the ground and moved quite unbecoming of their size.  

All things considered, Rodimus was shockingly calm as he shouted orders and shot energy from his bow towards the pockets that the drones fired their weaponry from. Hot Shot weaved back and forth. Red Alert kept her cool even as she and her little weapon looked tiny in the face of this thing. Kup fired shot after shot from his automatic gun that seemed to almost equal him in mass. And Skywarp- well. He ran out of missiles as fast as he predicted he would and then mostly squealed and dodged and sometimes dodged close enough to the thing to ineffectually bash it with the sword.  

He was rather glad that Tailgate had been left to man the bridge of the ship. If the bot was here, he would witness this embarrassment.  

After a struggle on the battlefield, the first drone dropped offline. The second was weakened. And the scanner had been picked up by a Red Alert that grew frantically concerned over what it said as she yelled the bad news to the others still in combat. Skywarp resisted the urge to flee and leave his makeshift team behind so that he could find safety. He resisted only out of the knowledge that there was no 'safety' for him so long as his processor was coded the way it was.

"We have to go!" Kup roared over the sound of his weapon. The drone was shaking under the pressure offered between those still fighting it.  

No one responded so long as the scout was still functioning. When it did finally drop, the message from Red Alert and order from Kup finally sunk in.  

"How close?" the prime asked, his weapon still in servo even as he leaned over his legs in exhaustion.

Red Alert lifted the scanner to display its screen for the others. "At their speed, we have five klicks before they arrive at this location. If we leave within a klick now, we should make our retreat in time."

It sank in and the panic followed.

"Get to the ship!" Rodimus ordered.  

The best way to do that was to fly. Or drive, in the autobots' cases. And they folded up to do so. If they were fast, they could make it. Skywarp was guaranteed to do it with his own altmode. And he could do it faster if he warped, he knew it...

But they didn't leave fast enough. Hot Shot was pulling on his arm, Red Alert was stalled in her alt, and Kup had braked. The three of them noticed what Skywarp's own nervous need to flee had missed: Rodimus wasn't following them.

Kup was the first to transform again. The prime seemed unhappy with that decision on his part.  

"I said to go-" he snapped.

Sure, he'd said to get back to the ship, to go back to it, but-but- why wasn't he moving?

"Kid..." Kup craned his neck back to look up at him.  

The rusted mech's expression twisted. Skywarp almost recoiled at the faces he made, but managed not to. They were helpless, angry maybe? distressed? even scared?

Yes, scared. Terrified. But what of specifically? Skywarp needed to know, even though the odds were he'd be terrified of the cause too!

"Com'n, hurry!" Hot Shot called from where he'd driven to. Just like the rest, the colorful autobot transformed and was hopping pede to pede in impatience.

"I said go!" Rodimus shouted again and pointed specifically at the two autobots furthest away. "That's an order, you two! Get to the ship right now!"

They looked like protesting, but apparently the chain of command did mean something to autobots too. Red Alert and Hot Shot gave one last protest and then folded down to drive away again. Skywarp started to follow, but Kup called for him.  

Specifically him.

That was unsettling.

He stopped the transformation sequence and nervously padded towards the others.  

"Prime," Kup turned back to Rodimus when Skywarp got close enough. "Ah think Ah know the issue here, but Ah need ya to tell me: why aren' ya transformin' an' retreatin' with the rest of us?"

There was a beat of silence between the trio. Only between them. The noise of the drone scouts doing their destructive work far away (getting closer) was hardly stopped and it made him want to fly away now instead of waiting for whatever the old cranky autobot wanted him for.

Finally, the prime stopped stalling and answered the question.

"I can't."

Rodimus grimaced at the stares that statement got.  

"The rust infection." He lifted darkened arms helplessly and dropped them. "I haven't been able to transform since Oil Slick's mixture got dumped on me."

The name came up as some decepticon in Starscream's inherited memories, but hardly one important enough to have a resume on.  

Kup let out a sound that may have been a strangled sigh. It resonated through Skywarp's audials unpleasantly and he hoped to never have to hear a sound like that again.  

"That slag..." he muttered, clenching his fists. "Ah shoulda been there. Ah shoulda taken that slag instead of ya. Ya know it was supposed’ta be me there."

What did this have to do with him staying around? The drones were getting closer and they were going to die here and oh Primus he didn't want to die-

"You have to get out of here," Rodimus grabbed the shorter mech's shoulders. "Please, you've got to get back safely. Someone has to keep the others safe and I can't run faster than their weapons, so it's got to be-it's got to be-"

The servos were shaken off so that Kup's own could grab rusted arms.

"Even if Ah drove now, it'd be too late," he murmured.  

Oh slag, really? What was the time- oh. Oh slag really. Still, flying was faster, maybe Skywarp still could...or he could warp...or he'd have to get back, he had to, even if they were both too slow he wasn't and and and-

Rodimus whined. It was hardly a noise of complaint. It was just strangled panic or sorrow or something unpleasant.  

"You should have gone," the prime continued that horrid whine. "I could have held them off a while, I, you, you should have gone, we didn't all have to die."

Kup yanked those arms down to slap a servo against Rodimus's back before shoving him towards a confused Skywarp.

"We don' all have to," the old mech said. "Kid, do your trick. Warp him back with ya. It's the only way either of ya are gonna make it to the ship in time."

Now he was being put on the spot. At least now he knew why he'd been kept back here.  

"What?" Rodimus looked between the two in confusion. "Wait, no! I'm not leaving you here!"

Could he warp both? Taking Tailgate the last time had added an extra 10% deficit for his tanks. Could he still try for two now?  

The clone tried taking both by the arms and slipping through space to get to the ship. He felt the familiar approach of the warp, but it held back. It held back, it didn't finalize, he watched his fuel slip down a percent at a time while he only stood there partially out of place in reality.

It didn't take long for the older mech to tear out of his grip.  

"Now's not the time ta be experimentin'," he frowned. The noise of destruction was louder still than it had been before the warp attempt. Skywarp's head felt like it was being repeatedly stabbed behind his right optic.  

"I told ya to get out of here, so get outta here. Prime...Rodimus. Ya know they need ya more than me."

Judging by the protests, Rodimus didn't know that. Or didn't recognize it, in any case.

"So go! Go, go, go!" 

If he'd learned anything from Kup during their orns stuck together, it was that the old guy was a stubborn fragger that'd always get his way. Skywarp might as well make it easy on himself and follow the order now instead of waiting for it to get enforced.

There wasn't really time to consider what impact it may have.

There was not time to think about how Rodimus would act without Kup, how there'd be no more stories, how that grumpy accent wouldn't be able to get snappy or sarcastic with him again.

There was only time to get the frag out of there before all three of them died.

Skywarp tightened his hold on a protesting Rodimus and tried to warp again. This time, the action finalized. Both mechs slipped away from the battlefield and landed together in a heap on the floor of the ship's bridge. Tailgate looked at them in alarm. The vid screens at the front showed Hot Shot and Red Alert closing the remaining distance at their top speeds. They'd make it on in time. Kup's distance from the ship was a different story.  

Rodimus made a choking noise underneath him where the seeker was still sprawled over him. From the way his head was tilted, he'd seen the same thing Skywarp had.  

A half a klick after they'd warped there, a written comm from Kup arrived on the screen. Rodimus had already joined Tailgate at the ship's controls and they were moving it over the surface to pick up Hot Shot and Red Alert. The prime had remained optimistic that they would get Kup after.  It was a sickly false optimism.

Skywarp didn't have time to concentrate on anything but imminent doom until after they'd already taken off. By then, the old autobot's life signal had already dropped off on their way to the battlefield they'd left him at.

It wasn't until they'd already left the planet's atmosphere and cloaked near the edge of the system that Skywarp found enough concentration to check that last comm.

It was all rather enigmatic to him.

Don't regret it, kid.

It should've been me last time. I'm just glad me going to the Allspark means you're getting to stay.

He supposed he was missing some of the details that would clear the enigma of it up. Judging by the way Rodimus had locked himself in his quarters, those details weren't about to be offered just yet.

Chapter Text

This would have happened in a war. Starscream's memories were full of fallen enemies and allies and those that got in the way between those two. He was made with all those memories, even if his severe personality component smothered them. Things like deaths and getting trapped and losing battles all happened in war. Bad situations and lost safe havens and dead allies all happened. If he'd stayed on Earth fighting Starscream's war against Megatron and the autobots, he would have faced all this too.

It didn't make it easier. Apparently, the knowledge didn't help the others much either.

Rodimus hadn't stayed locked in his room for long. He was the commander in this situation. He- as he said (it wasn't like Skywarp understood any of it without his own ranting over it)- had been the one to go through the Academy. He was the leader of this 'Team Athenia' business. (There was more to it too -something about the pressure put on a joked about 'chosen one', a failed battle, the rank he held contradicting with that pressure and failure- but how was that Skywarp's to distinguish and bother with?) He wasn't going to hide from responsibility.  

Skywarp was glad he hadn't. Rodimus kept a clear head. He was a steady sort of guy and it made his lead steady. There was something comforting in that, at least.  

He was nervous.

That wasn't anything new, but he felt like bursting at the seams of his plating.  He couldn't keep going like this, couldn't swallow back this nervousness- he had to get out, had to leave, had to find something comforting in that steady presence, and those weren't very compatible options.  

Compatible or not, Tailgate had supported his muttered desire to go see Rodimus. Somehow, having his idea propped up with assurances made it seem less...impossible to enact.

So he'd found Rodimus where the prime was cataloging mines and asked to 'talk'. Maybe? He didn't really remember what he'd said. It was too stressful to remember details like that. All that mattered was that now he was seated in a private room with the prime and he was pretty sure that had been his goal.  

Tailgate had been so proud to see him go off in search of this confrontation.  

The pride seen there kept him cemented to his seat even as Rodimus started trying to pry the reason for his conversation out of him.

He was in one seat. A nice seat, all things considered. Certainly too nice to be seen on most decepticon ships outside those regal ones that hovered over Chaar. Nice things could so easily be traps. Skywarp kept his claws from intertwining into the mess of metal rings that wove the seat of the chair and instead wound them up into each other.

Rodimus was in the chair. He hadn't had the reservations that the clone had about comfort, apparently. Not likely, seeing as he'd found another weaving metal ring mesh and wrapped it around himself. For someone so stoically a leader, the mech undoubtedly liked pampered comfort. It was something Starscream could very much understand. Skywarp had too much fear for comfortable things and the motives behind pampering to relate to it completely.  

"What did you need?" Rodimus finally broke the awkward silence. "I've got to keep cataloging our supplies. We need to build this barricade as fast as we can."

Oh yes. Their 'plan'. A sardonic voice in his head grumbled at the word. It wasn't much of a plan. (They didn't have much in the way of options, though.) They'd fled to the edge of the system. Star systems sounded small on maps and in travel guides, but they were huge. The scouting drones were huge up close, but evidently were not all that fast. They'd had cycles out here without even a sign of the scouts being more than a half planet's orbit away from the location that they'd landed on not long before.  

The autobot reinforcements were even further away.  

So the commander had decided that the system edge needed to be barricaded as best it could be before the scouts reached it. Since the 'edge' of a star system was a sphere, not a wall, this amount of work had been time consuming and still was far from done. Still, so long as they came in this direction, the drones would be caught in the explosives rigged up before they could reach the cybertronians retreating behind its border. Eventually, the nearest spacebridge would have let the refugees through and admitted the reinforcements capable of taking on scouts.

Only scouts.

No army had figured out how to take on the main ships themselves.

"Oh."  

That wasn't an intelligent answer. Rodimus wouldn't know what to make of it. He could just make the autobot mad or something-

The prime interrupted his claw fiddling momentarily when he spoke up. "'Oh' what? What do you need?"

He didn't sound mad at least. The decepticon waited a moment longer before deciding to bite the bullet and just say it all.  

"I want to go," Skywarp whimpered. His claws continued their fiddling helplessly. They had the habit of doing that, didn't they? Habits were hard to catch and harder to stop. It was a frightening helplessness. "I want somewhere sa-safe."

Still not angry looking, Rodimus just gave him a somber expression. It told him what the reply would be before he even said it.

"There are a few locations safe for the moment, but I can't say they will be for long."

In other words, there isn't anywhere safe.

"I'm sorry," the rusted mech shrugged. "I wish I had a better answer for you, but there just aren't any locations that are going to be safe in the long run. Not from what we've seen here."

It wasn't the answer Skywarp wanted.

"Maybe so, but I w-want one," the clone frowned in petty frustration.

Rodimus stared at him before his vents let out a sigh.

"Kup was right. You're just a kid."

That felt like an insult. When Tailgate called him young, he accepted it. When anyone else did, his somehow-existent pride bristled.  

"And?" Skywarp tried to sit up a little straighter. "You don't want to be safe? The old guy died-"

Probably not the best thing to say if he didn't want to enrage the autobot, but it was too late to bite the words back now.

"Any of you- of us could be next. All of us could be. How am I supposed to- how do I feel alright with that?"

The strength of his statement was surprising to himself, but it had faded by the end into little more than a moan. Skywarp wanted a clear answer. He wanted something, anything, that wouldn't feel like what happened to Kup was going to happen to him.

Rodimus had made another sighing sound before he perked himself up enough to lean forward.  

"Let me tell you something," he started and it was a demand enough that Skywarp just stayed quiet waiting to be 'told' that 'something'. "Not every situation is going to feel safe, let alone be safe. Sometimes, you make a sacrifice to give others that safety and it means sacrificing your own. I'm a prime. That's my job."

Sounded like a slag job, in the clone's opinion.

"Do you know- No, you wouldn't. Um." Rodimus brushed a servo down his face before gesturing at his arms and chassis. "See all the leftover rust?"

Of course he did. That scrap ("rust infection", he'd called it on the planetside when explaining how he couldn't transform with the rest of them) had almost gotten three of them killed. It had almost gotten Rodimus killed (and Skywarp was surprised at how much he didn't want that). It had gotten one of them killed (and the unhappiness therein was odd as well for him).  

And there was still the subdued fear that it was contagious.

All in all, he wasn't about to forget the dark marring Rodimus's frame.  

"W-where'd you get it?" Skywarp asked.  

Maybe- in the least- he could find confirmation that it wasn't going to spread over to him.

"On one of our first missions as a team," the prime leaned back again with an air of casualty. "I'd been in some scuffles and trained for combat more than the others. Partially because I went through the academy, of course, but also because I had Kup as my mentor. He's- he was- very pushy with me. Didn't like me at first, but we both grew on each other, I guess."

This didn't sound like it had anything to do with rust.

He let it get blabbed on about anyways. If Kup was going to hijack the conversation, then that was that. Skywarp couldn't exactly tell the autobot to get on with it (some of the other clones would, of course; the liar would probably be gushing right now about how interested he was in this distracted story, rather than an answer to his fears over a lack of safe places).  

"But my team got assigned to spacebridge 687-030 in an emergency mission and Kup didn't get to go with us. That was-"

Rodimus sighed again.  

"That was why he made you take me. He felt so responsible for what happened in the Magnokor asteroid belt, what happened when he wasn't around and it was just me. It kinda frags me, actually. What happened there was on me. I wasn't a good enough commander to win that battle, that's it."

It was an admission that seemed rather alien to him. Starscream would never say it. Most decepticons wouldn't, from his inherited memory files.

"A battle?" Skywarp muttered. "How are you alive if you lost it?"

The autobot made another shrug.

"It was a fight at a spacebridge outpost in that belt. We were supposed to defend it, but the decepticon squadron that attacked far outmatched us. Team Chaar. You heard of them?"

They were in the memory files too. The clone gave a little gesture of affirmation. He admittingly didn't know much about them.

"They were far more attuned to fighting than us," Rodimus said plainly. "I may have had experience, but my team was made of rookies. We didn't really stand a chance against Strika and her goons."

Then, he must reiterate, how was he still standing?

"You know what happened in the aftermath?" the autobot continued. "I had emergency care to cull the infection, but it left me with consequences I'm never getting rid of. Kup was distraught. He never got over it, never stopped obsessing over how he felt he should have been there instead of me. Hot Shot had to be hospitalized too. Red Alert got even more overprotective than before. It changed everything. Get it? It changed us all and we couldn't go back."

Change often was irreversible. Skywarp hated that.

"I don't like it," the clone growled. "It's not- it isn't- there's no-...What do you do? H-how do you get safe again when change makes your safety go away? Like y-your transformation?"

The infection, the deaths, the alien threat- all of it. It upheaved safety and that was already so rare to find. He hated this all so much, if just for the terror it caused.  

Despite not saying it, something in the autobot's demeanor seemed to hint he too was thinking about their recent botched battle.

"There's only two options in a situation like this," Rodimus said. "You go on or you give up. And in a situation like this, there's no point in giving up."

It just meant laying down and getting fried by the scouts. Or maybe by situation, he was referring to the entire new struggle against this alien force. Ignoring it just meant getting burned away.  

Still-

What was the point?

"I don't see a point in going on, when we can't do anything-" he started, though his own words ran short of putting voice to his thoughts and he garbled into silence. Rodimus frowned.

"Sorry you see it that way," the autobot replied.

And somehow, he did sound disappointed over it. How? He was a con, he was a clone, he was useless in a fight, how would his opinion matter to the other?

The fact that it did undeniably affected him, though it lay subdued under the stressors of the conversation.

"I just- I don't-..."

With a small heave, the prime lost his blanket and stood from his chair. He was near Skywarp in a moment (how frighteningly fast), servos laying lightly on the bigger mech's shoulders. He was very glad that rust wasn't contagious after all.

"Give it a try," Rodimus asked of him. "There's nothing to lose with that. There's nothing to win by giving up, though. So give going on a try. I did it after 687-030, even though I wanted to give up after failing my team and mentor and planet there. And moving on meant that I got to get a place defending this galaxy against these slagheads now, instead of rotting in destitution on Cybertron waiting for the lumen purgatio to kill us all just because I didn't think I could handle combat again."

Give it a try.

Skywarp nodded through the sickly distress around him.

He had a chance to practice the unhappy advice later that orn, when Hot Shot's life signal disappeared while he was out placing more explosives in the slowly building barricade.

Rodimus, though. Rodimus had gone steely and ordered all explosives be triggered distantly while they flew further away from the system to wait for reinforcements. It’d taken a good number of enemy signals out, though many more remained on distant scans. That was enough for the prime, apparently.

He’d be moving on. Protecting the rest of them. Trying to at least get some to survive.

Skywarp may have gotten the chance to practice that same advice, but he was far from achieving the rationality that Rodimus had in the moment.

Chapter Text

If he was a bit less intimidated over complaining about things, Skywarp knew he'd have a whole list of them made out. He had very many reasons to complain, in his nervous-to-admit-it opinion.  

First and foremost was his creation. If not for his creation, none of the rest of this would be an issue. Of course, he'd also not exist and that sort of existentialism was too terrifying to mull over for long. The matter of his creation meant that he, out of all the clones, got stuck with Starscream's most impossible-to-live-with quality. If he'd just been a normal spark in a normal protoform, maybe he could've lived a normal life. Instead, he came into awareness in a place thick with overwhelming, confusing fear and things hardly improved from there.

Starscream hadn't even gotten a name for him! Sure, the rest weren't named either. The egotist, the liar, the sycophant, the...her...None of them had anything at the time he'd been sent reeling through that spacebridge. He'd needed to get a name from an autobot he'd just met (read: gotten cuffed and dumped on the bottom of a sciff by) to get a designation! And now that autobot was dead.

Dead.  

It was bothering him.  

The name and the death both. They were intertwined issues. Hot Shot had come up with the designation 'Skywarp'. It had been alright and Kup had basically just said that was that now. Skywarp was Skywarp. End of story. It'd been nice to have a name.  

But now the guy who'd come up with it was gone, just gone, like they were all doomed to be, and he didn't know how he felt about keeping it anymore.

Of course, that would mean picking a new name and that held enough fear and what if Hot Shot's ghost came to harass him over it? Were ghosts a thing?? He wasn't sure if they'd terrify him or actually be a bit relieving. Probably the former (what didn't terrify him?) but there was a sick longing sense of relief over the idea of at least seeing/hearing someone again.  

That was besides the point. His point was to complain right now. It felt like taking a risk, but he'd already gone through a good two of his grievances and was in too deep to bother stopping now.

So, what next? His creation, his dissociation with his name, what next...

He could complain about the awful situation he was trapped in, but that would involve thinking about inevitable deaths and the ones that had happened and then he'd be thinking of hotel rooms barged into and bars he didn't want to go to and pink plastic curly cups that Hot Shot would say were for sparklings and-  Oh. Too late. He'd thought about it all now.  

Damn it all.

Rodimus's talk had at least given him something to think about. The problem was his own inability to even start considering following the advice when it- and everything else- seemed so daunting.

He needed to approach this differently. He needed to approach it all at the one root he could bear to find.

At least they did have a qualified medic on board. She returned from her own job on the barricade on Rodimus's orders when the Prime decided to blow the thing as is. She was nice enough, probably. She was still a medic (well, nurse). Starscream had a distrust of medics that had transferred over to Skywarp in the form of a phobia.  

Still, Red Alert could probably look inside his head with less risk of completely screwing him over than the others could, so, phobia or no, she was his best option.

That was what Tailgate said, at least, and it seemed realistic enough to him. Tailgate tended to be pretty smart, from what Skywarp could tell.  

They'd actually given talking about it a go. That was mainly because of the autobot, but it had still been a joint effort. So the roommates (there hadn't been many rooms on the ship and there were two more passengers than expected, so, after leaving Viianta, there'd been a slight bit of double bunking) (which, now that two of the crew were dead, didn't need continued enforcement- but neither had gone out to find a different room) kept their door shut and then Skywarp started speaking from where he was huddled at the corner of the walls. Tailgate just sat on the floor and it made him look hilariously short from the perspective of the mech on top of the berth.

The smaller mech dragged out his misery patiently. It wasn't like Skywarp had any experience talking about his, what, feelings (all fears, mostly)? Starscream had a whole lot of experience complaining, but it was never involving exposing a weakness for someone else. Part of Skywarp really just wanted to snap at Tailgate to shut up and stop pushing. Maybe an older, more stable version of him would have. He was rather glad he didn't have the vocal courage to act that way. It was nicer in the end when Tailgate just got to talk.

So the autobot helped him drag forth that list of complaints through a slow process and finally pitched the idea of getting a medic to see if maybe there was something he could do to his code to help tamper down on all the Starscream that dragged him into this state of basic nonfunctioning.  

"But I'm-I don't know if I can," Skywarp whined. "What if she finds s-something? What if she doesn't? W-what if I can never be braver than this?"

What if, what if-

Tailgate didn't seem to understand how concrete the response was. Instead, the autobot scooted a bit forward from where he sat cross-legged and tilted his head earnestly to one side. It was a rather adorable image, all things considered.

"You tried out the new weapons at my old place," Tailgate said. "That could have been embarrassing or dangerous and you still did it. That's more brave than I've been with picking up a gun of some kind."

Alright but-

"And you went out to the planet with the others instead of staying on the bridge with me. That means you volunteered to be a combatant. That's pretty brave too, wouldn't you think?"

It just made him think that he shouldn't have left the ship that fateful cycle (though that, in turn, would've meant that Rodimus wouldn't have come back just because some rust and that left him uneasy to imagine).  

"I get scared too- everyone does! But I think-..."

It was a prompt.

Skywarp agreed to go talk to Red Alert and the autobot acted ecstatic for his sake.

Having another presence in his neural net was highly disconcerting. It brought up unlimited fears of what could go wrong or what she could decide to do.

Instead, the nurse disconnected after a scan and moved to sit across from him. To his great discomfort, the entire group had decided to come sit in on this. Granted, the entire group currently consisted of four cybertronians and one of those was him, so it wasn't exactly a mob of a crowd.  

"There are anomalies in your programmed code," Red Alert started without prompting after sitting down.

The news was both expected and highly unnerving.  

"This is likely where the 'fears' you are concerned over come from. Your self preservation coding is off the charts. Highly abnormal and hardly healthy."

Lovely. Skywarp grimaced further.

"So I'm doomed like this?" he asked helplessly.  

The medical bot didn't look impressed by it. Then again, she didn't look impressed most of the time and the ease she used to have had disappeared when Hot Shot's life signal dropped away.  

"A medic- myself included, though I recommend a medbay for proper tools- can overwrite the coding and replace it with something more standard," she said.

Replacing?

Letting someone else take part of him out and put something new in?

"Or your personality component can overwrite implanted codes on its own. It's a slower process, but far more healthy. There's already a slight corrosion on that line of code-" the self preservation code, he thought she'd called it "-as it is. Have you felt any braver recently?" the nurse leveled a stare at him as she added the last sentence far more dryly than the others. A joke, he guessed. Hot Shot would probably say it was sarcasm. Hot Shot couldn't exactly help him understand the complexities of humor anymore.  

"No," Skywarp shook his head instead of feeding that line of thinking.  

At his side, Tailgate pushed closer.

"I think you act very brave!" he assured brightly and attempted to hug him (probably also as assurance). His arms only managed to circumvent the clone's upper arm.

Though he didn't smile or hug back with so many others watching, the words did cull a bit of his constant fear and that, in turn, was his way of feeling contented relief.  

Still, back to the question-

"It's slow? But you could do it faster? I could go into a fight and not panic or- not-"

Red Alert nodded when it became evident he wouldn't finish. Rodimus just clenched his servos together and loosened them, apparently in thought.

"I can start the process, if you'd like," she answered. "Though, as your medic here, I recommend letting your personality component do more of the job. The more experience you get through age and maturity, the greater strength your personality component will gain. This normally would have occurred during sparklinghood, but considering the unique circumstances of your creation..."

She let it drift off. She knew he'd figure it out.

"Still, considering our own circumstances here in danger, I can see why a quick overwrite could be beneficial. Would you like my help?"

Tailgate just kept looking at him with confident support, but that visor didn't offer an answer for him. Rodimus looked ready to speak his own opinion, but he kept quiet.  

Apparently, they expected him to figure it out.

Making decisions was terrifying enough that he wished they weren't. But he didn't exactly have that option, so he found his voice despite it all.

"I don't- I don't know. The idea of rooting around, o-of changing myself, I don't l-like it. I want this fixed but I don't-"

Did he even know?

He didn't want to not be him anymore, that sort of living oblivion was absolutely chilling, but he didn't really like being him either.

Why'd everything have to be so damn miserable all the time?

Not for the last time, Skywarp offered a few bitter words towards Starscream (and, of course, hoped frantically that there was no way his creator could hear the thoughts, though that anxiety couldn't be culled anymore than the rest of his fears could).

Chapter Text

There were still rather pressing questions about the matter. Not, evidently, for all of them, but Scalpel did not let questions go as easily as the rest did.  

He wanted very badly to pry into Cyclonus's mind once again, as he had been able to do while the mech was still in medical stasis after his crash landing.  

Strika did not want anyone messing with the head of her favored subordinate, however, and Scalpel was left in his laboratory merely watching Team Chaar's sad interactions or listening to Oil Slick talk about what it was like to have Cyclonus as a teammate.  

They visited pretty often, mostly to mix up some dangerous new chemical potion or to murderously complain about the people currently bothering them. This latest cycle had been for the latter. Scalpel wanted to know all he could on Cyclonus and his partner was a good way to get that information.  So far, what he'd determined with Oil Slick's info was that his partner hated the newcomer.

Ze feeling is mutual, I zhink, he'd said in return.

Really, that was the most passion Cyclonus showed. He just didn't care about the others on the team outside the chemical weapons expert. He didn't care about Megatron, despite professing loyalty. There was just something very strange about the vows offered. Watching his attention when it focused on Megatron was somehow very offputting, and that was hardly something the scientist felt often. Scalpel hadn't quite figured out what it was, but he was close.

He was close. Soon, the little secrets that Cyclonus fought to keep hidden would get bared for the scientist. It was his job and his hobby to do so, and Scalpel was very good at meeting his objectives.

They'd heard word from the approaching reinforcements. Rodimus talked for a long while on the main vidscreen and Skywarp just happened to hear some of it (the perks of hiding nearby).  

They were still orns away. They were greatly concerned about the scouts that had been found. They needed to return to the planet the scouts had first been fought on.  

Rodimus hadn't sounded happy to hear it. Skywarp certainly hadn't, but his opinion wasn't really the main army's concern.  

Later, when the clone asked why they had to stick around near the system, the rusted mech tried to describe the still-vague functions they'd noticed from the lumen purgatio. While nothing much was known about the main ships, other than their capabilities to burn a planet down to its inner core, the scouts were better researched. They were drones and probes, finding new systems and sectors of civilization. When a sector was found, they settled on a world, cleansed it of aggressors, and then began a process of self replication that would repeat the action in as many new sectors of systems that a single one of the new drones could fly to. The alliance apparently had decided that the only way to fight the burning light of the lumen purgatio was to burn their own replication factories away. Fighting fire with fire, and all that. Skywarp just saw a result of whole systems burned away to nothing, either by the infallible enemy or by the doomed resistance. 

The call was to inform Rodimus that the ship flying in would be attacking that planet in the hopes that it was the place these scouts would be replicating on. It was, as said, a hope. There hadn't been a confirmation that the planet the decepticons had died on would be the world that needed elimination.  

There could be, though.

It could be scouted first, before the reinforcements arrived and drew the attention of the scouts here.  

Skywarp knew before it even got confirmed that Rodimus would be accepting the heavy-handed hint there. When the Prime did alert them a few cycles later that they would be headed back to scout for that confirmation for the others, he wasn't surprised at all.

When it came down to it, they survived.

Those two words amounted to a world shaking declaration, really.  

They survived.

It was everything his mind was so unconvinced could happen.  

They had survived.

It had felt impossible, but here they were: flying towards the edge of the system once again with scouts on their tails too far to damage.  

It'd been a success and they had lived and they had lived and he was terrified over the enemies flying behind them but his survival left him positively gleeful-

And that was strange for him. Glee wasn't exactly easy to achieve through the sheer amount of fear he lived his life in. But here it was. And it was likely because he'd survived and so had the rest. Imminent death hadn't hit just yet.  

Still, some of the moments on the planetside cut it uncomfortably close. They'd done stealth flyovers, headed down solo, and went down in teams of two. Tailgate was his partner for the latter. The autobot didn't exactly have any experience in a fight before and Skywarp was scared that he'd get himself killed, the rockets given out by Rodimus to combat the scouts or no.  

They had one single unfortunate encounter and he still felt disbelief that they'd walked away from it. The scouts were so very big, after all, and this one had tore up through the ground while he walked in silence (and Tailgate talked over the comms, trying, as the bot had claimed himself, to distract himself from the danger he was in) without any warning. With an 'eep', he'd warped away instinctively. Fortunately, from one perspective, it had only taken him a few meters away. From his new position, he saw the scout dealing with Tailgate's ineffectual attacks easily. Skywarp fired a missile to give it something more pressing to think about and used his thrusters to shoot over to the autobot. From an outsider's view, his warp had likely looked like a strategy to gain distance in order to better fire his weapon. It didn't have to be explained that it had been his own panic winning over thought in the moment.

But he thought about it later.

He thought about it and about what had happened and about how glad he was that Tailgate hadn't gotten himself killed during that mishap.

That alone was strong enough to stick out for him through the glee of survival.  

Tailgate said he wasn't mad.

Tailgate said he was just happy both had made it back and that Skywarp had even thought to (halfway [it wasn't like he had any experience admitting to his own faults completely, after all]) apologize over it.  

Tailgate had spent jours sitting against his side just enjoying proximity and the relief of survival.

Skywarp didn't know what this was in relation to Starscream's memories of interpersonal dynamics, but he thought he had it rather good in the moment (all things considered).

Cycles passed without death. They amounted to orns. The reinforcements remained a beacon of hope. Skywarp didn't have much luck with hope, but he couldn't deny its addictive quality.  

Rodimus continued to check in on everyone and make his calls to the cybertronians coming closer to rescue the outmatched team of four. Red Alert kept to her medbay most of the time, but Tailgate had the habit of dragging Skywarp in to say hi to her regularly. The blue and white bot was just too nice. If she wanted to fall apart over her dead teammates, that was up to her. Tailgate just didn't see it that way and Skywarp let himself be dragged along by the mech without much complaining.  

Because of this enforced proximity, he'd gotten a little less uneasy in both the medbay and with its nurse. Besides, ever since she'd explained how the process of coding and personality coding and personality components worked, he'd gotten to appreciate her a little more. In many ways, Red Alert kept everything together on the ship. And she kept the people on the ship together manually, so that was a plus. Sometimes, Skywarp even questioned why he'd inherited such unpleasant opinions on medics from his creator. They kept people alive and being alive was less scary than being dead. As with most of Starscream's inherited problems, there wasn't an answer from his creator offered and Skywarp was lousy at resisting instincts.  

More time passed. More conversations and some games and the like occurred. More chances to let Tailgate go into recharge while using his leg as a headrest occurred too.

Time passed and he was still anxious and a step away from panic and hunched around almost everyone, but the occurrences of this passing time didn't let him feel stagnant. So maybe-

Maybe...

Maybe Red Alert had been right. Maybe Tailgate was right. Maybe he wasn't the same coward he'd been at his creation. It did seem like he'd been changing. He'd gotten (or discovered, rather) his warping technique, and he'd never had that on Earth. He'd gotten to a state of contentment, almost safety, around non-Starscreams. He had gone with the others to scout that cycle that Kup died.

It was just slightly, slightly less perpetually scary than before. And now that he'd picked up on that- well. It felt bigger than it probably was. It felt like news that he could one day be as brave as Tailgate liked to try to tell him he already was.  

The fantasy pictures that arose from that were rather fun to entertain. Him, not slouching in terror, but a warrior. That great purple warrior standing with a weapon in servo that didn't terrify its wielder, but instead was positioned calmly in front of anyone he felt worth protecting. And wasn't that alien? Starscream didn't have very many he wanted to protect. Those that mattered to his creator were those of a like mind to him (which did not exist) and who could appreciate the glory he preached about bringing. His was a rather selfish way of valuing others. Skywarp couldn't say his was any different because how could he say he was different from Starscream at all? Weren't they, in essence, the same? Could a clone be separate from the source cloned? He thought that, but he also felt different already. How was it Red Alert explained things?  

He came from a protoform not all that many years ago. A normal cybertronian also came from a protoform, even if they normally had multiple sources of CNA to imprint on rather than just a single one. They carried base coding given by those different CNA sources, but their life experiences gradually overwrote what they had started with; that coding was, in the end, a placeholder. And as they grew and aged and became their own person, they were no longer recognizable as a set of cloned (shared, imprinted) CNA. So maybe...maybe he would end up doing the same. He'd been a protoform. He'd been a clone. In time, could he be just as unrecognizable from Starscream as normal mechs were from those who brought them about?

Maybe. Maybe not. He had only one creator rather than multiple, a creator who'd shared every part of his processor and spark signal- from memories to cognitive coding, and that was what actually made him a clone. Could that be diluted? The image of his fantasy said it could. Skywarp couldn't say one way or another. It wasn't like he knew any answers for anything.

All he did know was that he liked that fantasy and how many things could he say he liked? He liked picturing himself as a strong mech that didn't feel like hiding. He liked picturing the escapades and adventures and single-handed destruction of the lumen purgatio as Tailgate and the others stood behind him in safety cheering him on. Then, when the battle was over and he had survived rather than succumbing to fear or wounds, he could sweep the smaller bot up into the air and warp them both to some vantage point where they would both be safe and sound and happy and together.  

Maybe that, too, was a very Starscream sort of dream. Sure, it was not the usual I'm the leader of the decepticons and they all love my rule thing that the seeker was after, but it was still rather centered on himself taking glory and another cheering for that.  

It was a nice picture.  

It was an unreachable fantasy in the state of cowardly fear he was in now, but it was nice to imagine that, one day, his coding would have sorted itself out enough to let it be real.

That one day, he wouldn't feel a need to hide- that one day, instead, he would protect those standing behind him from needing to feel the fear that swallowed him whole at every moment.  

Yes indeed. It was a nice thought to have, however unlikely.  

And Skywarp thought that maybe he could aim for it. He didn't say it to Tailgate, but he did try to act a little more confident around him and the autobot seemed to notice. It was nice to be roommates. It was nice to have this company. It was nice to hear Tailgate fill his head with promises and declarations that he was brave after all.  

If he could've suspended things there, he'd have been happy to never have to put that supposed bravery to the test.

Chapter Text

The incident on that rugged excuse for a planet-

that place where good decepticon soldiers had died for naught and two autobot's had followed

-was memorable to him.  It was an instance in which he had fought, he had fought off a threat, he had done it while protecting someone else rather than just fleeing to preserve his own life.  

He thought, in the aftermath, that he had changed dramatically enough.  That just maybe he was what Tailgate so stupidly believed he was.  Some sort of relic, some youngling, some stronger warrior type just because he was warrior class.

And the next time it was put to the test, he'd done it again.

He'd escaped with his life and his allies's.  He'd fought instead of running and he'd retreated to the ship afterwards while the autobot laughed in relief over surviving.  They'd flopped on the berth in their room and laughed some more, just because nothing was more giddy than not dying when everything pointed to that happening.  Tailgate had chatted on again about how exciting he was to watch in battle and Skywarp was bashful about it, because of course he wasn't that good.

Except-

Except he was pushing from stasis covered in aches and pains and the haunting ring from his warp drive and he remembered.

He didn't want to remember.  The coping falsehoods were so much nicer than facing what he'd actually done in their next battle, the fact that the ship he thought he'd retreated laughing to with Tailgate had been left unusable the moment it crashed, the fact that he'd run and his warp drive burned for it, burned burned burned

Why couldn't it have just played out as nicely as the incident before had?

There were too many whys to just bother focusing on that one.  

There had always been too many whys since his creation.

They were getting so very very close to the ship that was better armed to protect them.  Maybe getting so near the reinforcements let their guard go down.  Maybe it was just bad luck.

The others- mainly, by that, Tailgate and Rodimus- had decided they wanted to play a game.  Red Alert had sat down at the scrapped up table without complaint as the other two autobots argued over one game or other.  Skywarp slouched in his seat and wondered how intimidating the game would be.  What if he didn't understand the rules?  What if he made them all lose?  What if he was forever banned from game night?  (Would that even be such a bad thing?)

Eventually, after much arguing, the others had slid into their own seats and set their decision down all over the table top.  It was kinda fun, admittingly.  Sure, Skywarp was afraid that he'd play the wrong card and either get laughed at or badly offend one of them, but none of them had acted like he'd done it yet.  Tailgate had won a few rotations seemingly on accident (seemingly, since he seemed oblivious to why the others were choking over that particular card in this particular context that he'd played).  He was either the best at playing innocent out of all of them or he really was and just happened to miss the double meanings of what he was putting down.  Skywarp himself hadn't won that many, but he was content staying low profile, as it was.  Rodimus, somewhat surprisingly considering how responsibly mature he seemed most of the time, was cackling over every very immature option played.  Red Alert shook her head at some of the cards played as if she wasn't amused, but that also seemed hard to believe considering her own participation.  A part of Skywarp wondered how Hot Shot and Kup would've played.

It was, however odd to admit it, fun.

They were loose, they were chuckling, they were distracted from the fact that their ship was flying through space trying to escape horrid enemies.

Tailgate was next to pick up a prompting card and place it on the tabletop.  There were a few snickers from Rodimus as if he was already expecting what sort of cards this was going to be drawing in.  He put his down nearly immediately.  Skywarp glanced down at his own set.  Judging by how the game had gone so far, he was pretty sure he had a winning card for this round.  It also happened to be describing something very unsavory involving the former Magnus and he wasn't sure if autobots would be enraged at any such joke to his expense.  Still, the others won by putting down the most unsavory option.  The clone bit his lip and thought about playing his winning card despite the risk of angering the other three.

He ended up setting down some other one that hardly applied to the round and didn't win.

Skywarp didn't take risks.

While Tailgate started reading off the options with the sort of straight-faced chipper voice implying he had no idea what he was reading, the ship shook.  Skywarp tumbled off his chair.  The table had been a temporary set up; as such, it was hardly connected to the floor like the chairs were.  A moment later, it was crushing down on one of his wings and that did nothing to cull his panic.

The floor rattled again, though this time he thought he could hear a high pitch screeching somewhere distant.  In his audials, maybe?  Had he broken something in his helm forever?? Wait, no, that was an external sound.  

The next shake threw both him and the table into a wall.  Rodimus was crawling towards the helm yelling something.  He couldn't hear what.  He couldn't hear any thoughts even over his own panicked confusion.

It was only when the ship had actually hit the ground of a planet and tore itself apart in the impact that he'd realized what had happened.

Three of them spilled out to the rocks of the planet's surface.  From there, he could finally stumble around and see what had become of the ship.  Its computer had tried to explain the damages as they'd fallen, but he'd been too upset to hear it.  Rodimus had been better at listening to it and had tried to pilot them down to the nearest surface more safely than a crash would have been.  Red Alert had run to help him.  At some point, the walls of the helm had broken and things had shaken further and he'd caught sight of a beam from the dash exploding outwards through the nurse's waist and the bright pink of energon just everywhere, everywhere, soon to be from all of them and why why was this happening what had shot at them when would he be able to move from where he was so frozen in place-

"W-wh-what h-happened?" he screeched to the other two as he scooted backwards away from the sight of their scrapped ship.

Rodimus was the calmest of the rest.  And he was hardly calm.  

"We were shot!" the Prime snapped.  "Our scanners didn't pick a scout up, so we had no preparation!  It-"

"It wasn't a scout."

The interruption from Tailgate lacked all of his usual excitement.  It was said so quietly that both almost missed it.  Instead, they looked his way in trepidation.  The smallest mech was pointing upwards.  

That trepidation only grew as Skywarp let his neck crane back to face the sky.

Through the haze of the atmosphere, he saw a metal mass.  A metal mass so large, so very large, it was all he saw up there.

It covered the sky.

The sky, the whole sky, it was no mere large warship there, it was everything-   

It consumed all vision above and it likely wasn't even in the atmosphere.  

It was huge.

He'd thought that already, but how could he not think it again?

"How far away was our backup?" Skywarp whimpered.  

Rodimus grimaced.

"Close.  Very close.  And our emergency beacon is traceable to here.  But what chance will they stand against that?"

Who was he to say?? He wasn't supposed to be the positive one here!!

"But we can still make it out alive," Tailgate finally brought his face down from staring at the monstrosity above.  "Right?"

No, NO, they were doomed, he was dead, they were all so fragging fraggedy fragged.  

"We're dead..." he muttered painfully.  "We're dead, we're dead, we're-"

A tiny pinpoint sparked up there among the flat gray mass.  From a moment, his panic stalled into curiosity over such a strange little thing.  It was almost pretty, like a single sparkling star.

Then it brightened and widened and-

"RUN!" Rodimus screamed.  

Skywarp could do one better than that.

It was an instinct.  A panic reaction.  It was something that happened before he could rationalize and think and without thought he did not grab the others.  

It was what he had done against that single drone at Tailgate's side earlier the orn.  

But this time, it was a far greater distance than a few meters.

As his processor started to catch up, he realized he was hovering.  Skywarp shook himself into the present and looked about himself.  He was offworld.  Not far enough away to be free of any gravity, but still high enough in the atmosphere to just float among the darkness.

And it wasn't very dark.  There was that light.  That beam shining down from the belly of some horrific metal atrocity spanning over the planet's head.  

Shining down...headed down...hitting what was down there.

Oh frag.  Primus.  Frag, what had he just missed?

It would have just kept firing down that light- eventually, as he'd heard later in his life, it would have fired down the razing heat that would have burned away the planet itself; but first was always the precursor, the cleanse- and searing any lives on that surface away, except for the interruption.

He was almost ashamed to admit that he hardly noticed that very interruption occurring.  The fleet of ships, the warheads, all of it- he registered it peripherally, but Skywarp was far too concerned with his own terror to really understand it.  

His tanks had dropped to 32% with that jump.  A warp back was too great a distance for that minimal fuel.  

No matter (it did matter) (it all mattered) (the warp had mattered because it had been unthinking and it may have- it may have-).

Skywarp transformed and flew back to the coordinates of that crash in panic and terror and the slightest, uncharacteristic inkling of hope.  

A hope doomed to be empty, he knew in paranoia, but he hoped regardless, all the way until he'd transformed again at the overheated bodies of the others.  Maybe if he'd been more clinically minded, he'd have focused more on that state they were left in.  The beam which had spread over the surface had likely caused spark arrest just by overheating spark chambers alongside with frames.  It was not yet a burn but it had, in essence, been a burning light.

What did it matter?

What did it matter, he'd messed this up, he'd lived, they hadn't, no more cards, no more roommates, no more picturing himself as a warrior that would defend the other because he'd fragged up his chance to be that defense the moment his panic instincts had done what they'd always done and ran to save himself like the coward he was.  

Anything could have happened up in the sky above and Skywarp wouldn't have noticed it.  He'd slid to the ground next to a mostly unmarred- if too heated- frame and curled himself around it while his own functions overheated in the stress of total, colossal, failure.

Being strapped to a medberth held none of the false relief that being on that charred ground of failure had.  Being kept in almost-stasis offered nothing but a muted panic over the loss he'd lived through.

He wanted to scream.  He wanted to be back on the planetside, curled around a body he'd ensured wouldn't move again.

He wanted nothing more than to go back and fight that instinct to warp away:

but he couldn't.  

And wasn't that all this functioning had been?  He didn't want to be a coward, he didn't want to be a failure, he didn't want to kill the only mechs he'd cared about besides himself, and he did it all regardless.

The tiny frame wasn't there but it was still so feasible next to him as he drifted in that state of medical unconsciousness and it was torturous just as much as it was a comfort to feel it curled against him one last time.

His warp drive burned and he did not yet realize the word for the sickening sensation was guilt.

Chapter Text

He was in a ship.  It had been hard to tell at first, but the noise and slight rumble of the floor beneath this berth gave it away eventually.  

He was in the ship alone.  No Tailgate, no Rodimus, no Red Alert.  They were dead.  He, apparently, was not.

He should have been elated and relieved by that survival.  

Should have.

Coming out from medical stasis was an irritating venture.  His processor felt groggy and useless.  His frame was too heavy to push into a seated position, let alone defend himself.  

Ugh.  

At the least, the ghostly sensation of Tailgate's overheated corpse was no longer pressing down on him and making his vents feel suffocated under that weight.  His warp drive wasn't burning anymore either.  Maybe it was gone.  Skywarp found he didn't mind the thought.  

But the return of consciousness also meant losing those groggy dreams of that battle going completely differently, of Tailgate's praise for his courage single-servo'dly saving them, of him curled up in recharge against Skywarp's own frame.  

He wondered if he could feel those dreamed sensations again if he returned to medical stasis some other time.  The fact that such a thing seemed tempting should have scared him.  His own energy levels weren't high enough to really acknowledge that.  

Still, he couldn't lay here forever.  This was a medbay.  He didn't like medbays.  Eventually, he'd need to shake this remaining grogginess off and sit up.  Might as well try now.  If he could just grab the energy for it...

There was color in the medbay doorway.  Paint.  Red, blue.  A mech.  Pretty small.  An autobot, then.  One that was walking closer until he'd pulled a seat over to Skywarp's berth and sat down.  The clone stared at him, knowing he should have recognized him and not yet being able to.

"Hello," the autobot tried to give him a smile.

Skywarp stared for too long without offering a greeting back.  He was racking his brain and Starscream's memory files for an answer.  

It was-

Ah!  It was that autobot from Earth, the one that had been facing up against Starscream before his decision to clone himself an armada.  Hadn't he been a Prime then, like Rodimus wa-had been?  

It wasn't like the autobot was really giving him a chance to think about it.

"We're glad to see you up again," he was saying softly.  "I know for a while the medics didn't think your spark would pull through.  A friend of mine taught me enough to know why."  

A servo rested down on the side of the berth.

"I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that we couldn't rescue the others."

Starscream wouldn't stand for this, Skywarp thought half-delirious.  

"Why should I care?" he slurred out, content for the moment with falling back on that inner Starscream.  Maybe when he was a little more conscious, he'd be disgusted with the moment.  He was disgusted with that creator and his slagging cowardice, after all; disgusted for very fair reasons.

"Your spark was guttering from the moment a rescue team pulled you off your friend," the autobot said.  "My friend Ratchet would probably say that emotions were the reason.  Loss, grief.  As I said: I'm sorry."

It brought him even closer to the surface of rationalism.  Skywarp heard his vents choke.  This time, he didn't care at all what Starscream would have thought of such an embarrassing show of weakness.  

"I killed them-" the clone grimaced.  "I killed them.  I should have died down there with them, if I couldn't have remembered to take them with me when I warped...My drive-"  Skywarp perked up, fighting residual stasis to shove up into a seated position.  "My warp engine, is it intact?"

The autobot gave him a smile that didn't meet his optics.

"It's good.  The medics repaired any part of you that got injured."

That wasn't what he cared about.  The clone sneered.

"I want-" it out.  He wanted it gone.  He wished he'd never had it.  It stood as the epitome of his cowardice and all that he'd sacrificed for it.  

He'd drifted silent.  Klicks ticked by.  The autobot waited for a continuation for a while before he leaned back and seemed to grow awkward with the waiting.  

Eventually, he spoke again; this time, changing the unhappy topic.  

"I told you what this ship was, right?" he started with faux cheer, as if the mock joke and friendly tone could ever be real to this total stranger.  "We're on one of the coalition ships founded through our alliance; this one particularly is a piece of a larger fleet only recently finished.  I'm Optimus."

The autobot offered a servo out that Skywarp only just resisted flinching back from in confusion manifested as fear.

"Your medics were Extempaxia and Knockout.  I expect them to come in here again, so I can answer any questions about them now to try to make that easier.  You were that clone from Earth, right?"  

The quizzical/critical stare made Skywarp very uneasy.  What?  Was he that recognizable?  That clone?  Was he the most mocked of them all or something?  Slagging fellow clones, getting actual reputations outside the 'scared one'.  

An orn before, he might have contested it.  Gotten into a sad excuse for offense, said something about not needing to hear about the medics ahead because he wasn't scared of them being strangers or anything.  Being with Rodimus's team over all that time had gotten him to a state where he would do that; the Skywarp from before meeting them wouldn't be able to even consider being defensive through his terror.  

He really wasn't feeling like it now.  

So he just sat there quietly looking ahead with a dull expression.  A part of him knew he was nervous over ignoring someone who held more power than him.  He didn't feel like acknowledging those nerves either.  

"Alright."  Optimus gave another patronizing smile.  "Well, I'll let you chat with them when they show up.  Let's just continue the briefing."

Sounded fine enough.  It didn't really matter to Skywarp what they did.  

"You're going to run into a pretty wide variety of crew members here," the autobot continued.  "Autobots, decepticons, neutrals, quintessons, voks, even some of the humans who'd survived having-" his own grief didn't let him say it with the enforced calm as he'd started the sentence with. "-Earth-their planet-..."

Might as well move on, Skywarp said to him through a glare.  The clone already knew about what'd happened to Earth.  

"We were the team trying to come help Rodimus out," Optimus finally did start again.  "There are three warships here, designed by the engineers of the Co-Prosperity Sphere in cooperation with some of Cybertron's best.  I guess we're a bit of an experiment," the autobot laughed.  It was actually a nice enough sound.  It reminded him a bit of Tailgate's when the tiny mech was too exhausted to laugh with his typical over-energy and instead laughed slower yet as happily.  "But we were a success."

Oh?

Skywarp offered the other a flat expression that at least showed he was giving him attention.

"We won," Optimus nodded.

What?  He supposed that it did help explain how he was even alive on a ship when that monstrous thing in the sky had been burning the planet last he remembered.  

"We hadn't expected one of their ships to be there.  They avoid our scans, for now.  We haven't figured out how to surpass that problem yet.  So we thought we would face the scouts Rodimus reported and take your team back to the spacebridge safely.  But just because we didn't expect it didn't mean that these experimental warships weren't completely unprepared to try out the weaponry we've been designing for a fight like this.  And we won."

So he'd said.

"I guess Rodimus did mention you missed most of the war," Optimus noted his lack of utter shock.  "We haven't managed to so much as get close enough to scratch one of those things before.  This- actually managing to damage that thing- is game changing."

"Good," Skywarp grunted.  

If they actually won, then things weren't as hopeless as they'd been til now.

It still wouldn't erase the cowardice that had killed Tailgate on that stupid planet.

"This was the first time we've actually landed a blow on one of their ships," the autobot said with a somber smile.  They were celebratory words, but he seemed too saddened by the casualties to truly understand his own reasons (that spark of hope among fledgling nihilism that not even Skywarp's grief could ignore completely) to celebrate.

A new voice cut over any others during the slight (awkward) still that had followed.

"There's no shame in admitting it: you're well aware that this first victory was due to me actually being here."

With enough weight to make the ground and berth atop it shudder, a new mech came into view.  Skywarp stared at him with a flash of panicked recognition.  

"You-you!" he stuttered before catching himself.  

But- no.  It wasn't right.  This frame was bigger.  Rougher.  It lacked the casual armor from Earth or the stylish spikes of New Kaon.  And it was larger.  Even more aggressive looking.  A frame that screamed threat! to all those available to listen.  Skywarp listened, all right.  But the fear that came didn't matter as intensely as he knew from experience it should.  Fear had gotten him nothing in life except a dead mech that he cared about.  

The mech reached the foot of the berth and grinned at him.  The similarities furthered apart still more when those jagged dentae appeared.  The other had never had dentae like that.  

"You look like Starscream," the apparition spoke.  

Yes?  He did?  Oh yes, he did.  Er, what, wait, what did he say to that?

"A-and you look like-"

Centuries of fear based in Starscream's memories-

Millennia of decepticon pride-

The greater leader than Megazarak, though one who'd pale compared to Starscream-

"So I do," the large mech spoke over his garbling.  "You're not Starscream, correct?  I'd hate to find out he survived when I so clearly heard he was finally done playing immortal."

All that bumbling incompetence he'd managed to bury under apathy and the unpleasantry of only recently waking from stasis with Optimus was flailing about now.  Optimus had come in here to offer condolences and sad smiles and hollow hopes and it hadn't really felt real.  This apparition had come in here without warning and the shock of it let his personality and the memories of plenty of reasons to panic from Starscream surface once more.

"No?" Skywarp babbled.  "I'm not- don't worry, I'm not, just a clone, but I'm not h-"

The giant interrupted him.

"Good.  You look like him, but you aren't Starscream.  And I look like Megatron, but I am not him either."

Okay.  Okay? 

He was so confused.  

Still, this was (not) Megatron:  The warlord that had foiled assassination attempt after assassination attempt and could hold his own against vast numbers of enemies.  Megatron had been a legend among the decepticons.  Nigh invincible.  The steward of their victory.  He would return them to Cybertron, they all thought it.

This may not be Megatron, but he seemed just as dangerous.

And with that level of terrifying danger as an ally or leader?

The hopeless didn't feel so hopeless anymore.  

"I thought you were heading to the helm to congratulate our pilots on their delivery of the warheads," Optimus spoke up over the moment.  The two warframes pulled away from their own attention on the other as if only now remembering the autobot had been there.

It was hilarious how tiny Optimus was compared to this other mech.  

That made it just as hilarious to see him scolding the other as if oblivious to just how outmatched he was.  

"I don't have to take over all your jobs for you, do I?" the autobot crossed his arms.  There was the briefest snarl from the other, but it didn't make Optimus flinch (even if Skywarp had done it for him).  

"I'll do it in a klick," the hulking mech growled.  "I'm allowed to see our sole survivor here though, am I not?  This is my ship and this is a remnant of my army sitting here, not yours."

Optimus didn't change his unimpressed expression.  The other gave one last huff and turned for the door of the medbay.  His weight left the floor shaking ever so slightly under those steps.  

"One, not your ship," the autobot replied as the other walked off slowly.  "Two, if it was, then you'd at least need to act responsible for it and that means doing the jobs of a captain instead of running around for your own hobbies."

The not-Megatron gave some annoyed sounding 'yes, yes, yes' as he left.  Optimus turned back to him and gave a sigh.  

"You'll have to forgive Galvatron.  He used to be at least subtle in his inability to act decent to others, but that left him when he ceased being Megatron."

So the resemblance was no mere coincidence.  Skywarp was almost smug.  His confusion didn't really let him be.  

"What?" he said instead.  "How-how does someone 'cease' being someone?  I don't..."

The autobot returned to sitting next to his berth.

"Did you hear much about our alliance?" he asked.

Well.  He'd heard it existed.  He'd heard that was why there were sister divisions of decepticons and autobots in remote sectors like the one Viianta's system fit inside of.  He'd seen bits and pieces from news tablets, but he admittingly hadn't looked clearly.  The panic that always built at trying to read those glimpses was overwhelming each time.

Was that enough?  

"I guess n-not," Skywarp muttered, looking down.  

There came that smile that the Starscream in his mind called patronizing.  

"I suppose the long and short of it is that Cybertron was forced to undergo some changes after the threat became clear enough.  At that point, the scuffle on Earth had been over for a good stellar cycle and my team and I had come out as the winners, though it's hard to call it a victory when we lost one of our friends."

They called this recent fight a victory too.  It was the first proof offered that the lumen purgatio could be hurt.  All he could think of was that fatal warp and the warmth of Tailgate's corpse and the inability of Rodimus to at least transform and attempt to outdrive the inevitable.  

He supposed he could understand what the autobot was saying then.  There wasn't much thrill in thinking it.  

"Relating to you: Starscream lost his Allspark shard and died there.  Two of the other clones got captured and the other two escaped at that time.  We've found one-"

"Which one?" Skywarp heard himself ask.  What did it matter?  They'd never got along that well, from what he remembered, despite Starscream's own appreciation of himself.  Then again, he hadn't been able to do much in terms of thinking past fear at the time that he'd last seen them.  For all he knew, they'd been each other's greatest fans.  

"Slipstream."  Seemingly realizing that the name meant absolutely nothing to the purple clone, Optimus elaborated.  "It's what she calls herself."

That at least narrowed it down.  

He wondered who the one missing one was.

He wondered if the egotist had ever made it to civilization after attempting to chase that ridiculously fast autobot.

He wondered why he was bothering to wonder about someone when they were most likely dead.  Eventually, everyone would probably be.

"Okay," he said instead of anything else.  Optimus gave him a moment to ask more questions before continuing his exposition.  With a bit of a huff, he sat back and spoke again.

"We brought the decepticon officers there back for incarceration on Cybertron and it made everyone there happy."

Everyone: autobots, of course.

"Except that our Magnus was battling with injuries left on him by Shockwave and went offline in the hospital.  The temporary Magnus of that time had-" 

Again, he cut himself off, as if he was sad about the fact being reported.  Still, Optimus recovered in a nano.  

"The people wanted someone less raring to mount a draft and invasion against New Kaon.  Since my team had helped take down the infamous Megatron, I was requested for the position."

How bashful a way to say it.  Starscream would never be so quiet over getting a position like that, especially considering that it had come from the will of those he would be ruling.  Skywarp himself understood the desire to be unnoticed.  Too many potential assassins, too many angry people- just not the profession for someone with as many nervous tics as he had about being watched or listened to or anything of the like.  

"You already know what happened to disrupted that entire feud," Optimus spoke up again.  "The lumen purgatio took time to uncover, but by the time we had...we could recognize how dangerous a threat we were faced with.  The autobot Commonwealth wouldn't be able to survive with their own strength.  Don't get me wrong: New Kaon wouldn't have either, the Co-Prosperity Sphere would have fallen, every juggernaut would have fallen like Earth did."

So Rodimus had said.  The gist of it all, at the least.  The tablets had shown the rest, or what he'd dared peek at.  

"You made the a-alliance?" Skywarp 'guessed', with what information he'd already known and the rather elaborate lead-in Optimus had set up for him.

"It had no fans," he gave a thin smile.  "But I think the necessity of it was known by most.  The Elite Guard recognized it.  The council did as well, eventually.  And to be perfectly honest?"

Didn't matter one way or the other to him.  He couldn't say he cared that much for the honesty of an autobot he'd just met.  He hadn't shown off any reasons to demand respect or disrespect yet.  

"I didn't want to do it either.  Prowl was a friend of mine.  Megatron had indirectly killed him, damaged a city I'd sworn to protect many times, abducted and terrorized professor Sumdac, and gave me my fair share of stress and recharge trouble; if the lumen purgatio hadn't appeared, I would have been content to let him stay in Trypticon for good."

A part of Skywarp wondered if that was even possible.  Megatron had always escaped alive from every assassination attempt tried by those hopeful they could repeat his sucess against Megazarak.  Finding a way to break out of the most secure prison on Cybertron could have occurred as well.  It was that kind of confidence in his nigh-invincibility that let Megatron's presence be a (however unwelcome) relief in light of a more pressing foe he could protect them from.

"But why is he- ...that?" the clone gestured at an empty doorway as if to point at the not-Megatron who'd come in earlier.  

That thin smile tightened even more.  Skywarp had the very strong feeling that Optimus was no fan of this 'Galvatron'.  

"Have you heard of a creature called Unicron?" the Magnus asked him.  

Memory files dug up the name and delivered a few vague pieces of commentary put together by Starscream based in old myths read long ago to scare sparklings.  

"I guess," Skywarp shrugged haplessly.  "Why?"

Optimus shook his head.  

"Surprisingly enough, he wasn't just a legend, though there were plenty of them.  In most, he was a large transformation capable creature, very similar in many ways to a cybertronian by design.  Just much larger than we are.  His size dwarfs some stars even.  There used to be all kinds of stories about him, though they tapered off many vorns ago.  Even with recorded events of 'planet eating', the warframe rebellion posed a larger threat to the autobot Commonwealth than some independently roaming super-being."

A rebellion could be rather threatening, for both sides involved.  A strange gigantic transformer roaming space and eating planets could be rather threatening as well.  Skywarp understood the delicacy of having pressingly immediate fears and the fears of the unlikely paranormal.  They both were equal fears, but terror came in many flavors.  

"If he's real, could he just...?"

There was a slight chuckle, but the autobot shook his head again.

"Unfortunately, no.  Even cosmic creatures like that apparently don't fare well against the lumen purgatio.  Galvatron reported that was what he'd said, at any rate."  Optimus glanced ahead at nothing flatly.  "Considering the source, I suppose I can afford skepticism."

Again, there was hardly much lost love there from all Skywarp could see.  Granted, he hardly trusted his own perception in reading people.  Or others ability to read people.  Tailgate, after all, had read a whole lot of potential for bravery in him and look how that perception had been let down... 

"We'd spent three stellar cycles doing as poorly as ever after Megatron and New Kaon made their publicized truce with the Commonwealth.  Our weapons had no effects against their fleet ships.  One on one, we have to struggle against their lowest scouts."  The autobot met his optics again.  "If the contemporary is all we have and it stands no chance, the uncontemporary starts to look at least more promising than just waiting for death.  Megatron got it into his head to seek out legends.  Unicron had enough tempting myths and anthropological hypotheses on him to make him tempting enough.  The planet eating thing- I guess all that matter goes somewhere.  It gets converted.  He's practically a factory, though none of those unfortunate planets exactly asked to be converted into something else."

Interesting, he supposed.  Terrifying, to be sure.  Very unreal, in terms of wrapping his mind around it.  Skywarp wished he could concentrate on all that, but his head just kept going back to the battle and the warp and the dead autobots he had let die despite all they meant to him.  

"Megatron spent a stellar cycle finding him and returning, but by that point he'd already been converted and didn't give us the story on what passed very clearly.  It was the hope, that he'd strike a deal to be transformed as that matter could be, but the result is..." 

Optimus frowned.  

"Well, Galvatron lacks subtlety.  I already said it.  He's brash and cocky and yes, he's powerful; yes, he can take on multiple scouts unscratched; but I feel as though I've lost a chunk of the processing power that used to go into co-leading this alliance.  Stay off his bad side, I suppose, is all I can say."  

That was good advice for how to deal with the old Megatron anyway.  Though Starscream had never bothered following it.  

"What about Unicron?" Skywarp asked.  

As much as he shuddered to imagine some cosmic omnivore floating around near this fleet, he was still rational enough (by a small, small margin, he knew) to wonder over why something that strong wasn't part of this alliance too.  

"The creature took Megatron's deal," Optimus said with a slight lift of his shoulders.  "An 'upgrade' transformation for whatever current BS Galvatron will say his side of the offer was at the time you ask him."

The acronym term was lost on him, but he thought he understood the meaning of the frustrated sentence regardless.  

"And then he left.  Went flying back out into dark space in search of a new galaxy cluster far away from this threat."

The frustration manifested in a grimacing smile, however paradoxical the mix was.

"The sad part is, I don't think that'll be real safety.  We could all pack up and run, but I just don't think it's specifically this galaxy that the lumen purgatio are after.  They'll burn away this whole universe.  What good is running to a new spot if it'll be burned too?  The only chance we have is to fight.  And this latest battle has given us the hope that this method isn't as doomed as it seemed."  

Maybe.  

It was a nice thought.

The lumen purgatio could be hurt.  Anything that could be hurt should have been able to be killed.  Megatron had figured it when he'd sold away his person to transform into something stronger in the face of this fight.  For once, even the inner Starscream respected the sacrifice.  This 'Unicron' thing had run too soon.  

Run, run.  He shouldn't have run.  It caused nothing but failure and missed chances for victories and he despised it.  

"I just hope it was worth it," Optimus was still talking, evidently.  

Skywarp offered him the courtesy of a stare to imply he was listening.  

"I don't know that getting reformatted like that makes anyone a better leader or fighter.  It just means starting from the ground up to prove yourself and earn loyalty and none of us have time to be doing that now."

But Skywarp did see the worth in it.

If he could be pieced together as something new- something strong; something brave- oh, he would do it.  He wouldn't have an orn ago.  The change, the potential loss of self, was far too existentially terrifying then.  

Galvatron was no Megatron, he'd said so much himself.

What he would give to become someone who could say the same regarding Skywarp, the coward who left those that mattered behind to die.  

What he would give indeed.

Chapter Text

It really didn't seem like he needed to be laying here anymore.  Any scratches he'd gotten were already repaired.  His spark was evidently still pulsing on.  Why bother being trapped here anymore?  Then again, it wasn't like he had anywhere else to be.

The medics that came in were odd.  There was an organic looking thing.  It was huge, compared to humans, with a horrific visage of expression and fearsome tentacles.  Skywarp nearly forgot that he was supposed to not take fear of anything anymore and he almost bolted.  Then his self-preservation codes quieted in their typical panic as his mind put a name to the thing and told itself to calm down.  It was just a quintesson was all.

Just a quintesson, the internal Starscream was muttering.  Just the things that tried to war with us before and likely still see only tools to aid in their weak, pitiful little slimy organic lives.

As with all things Starscream, the commentary managed to be a little nervous, a little on edge, and still highly judgmental regarding the object of his fear/scorn's organic half.  

The other medic was shorter than the hovering techno-organic and kept a wide berth from any of those partially mechanical/partially fleshy tentacles with an expression of disgust he didn't even bother to try hiding on his porcelain face.  

Optimus's memo about the medics from the earlier cycle at least gave them names.  It meant he didn't have to spend too much time looking or talking to either.  So he tried to ignore the discomfort of Extempaxia hovering behind him checking on wires leading to different medical ports on his back and neck; meantime, Knockout did his own set of jobs half-caringly and both scientists ended up having what sounded like some sort of spat (banter, maybe?  who was he to say when attitudes weren't actually dangerous or not?) multiple times.  Despite how oppressive the silence had been when he was alone, he really wished they'd leave and take their arguments elsewhere.  

Instead, Skywarp dared to glance at the cybertronian of the unhappy duo.  

The quintesson had said something about him being a decepticon during one of their spats, but where was the badge?  And the hulking size?

"You're a decepticon?" he asked.

Knockout paused in his work to point red optics at him.  

"Yes?" the mech gave a confident smile that almost covered the confusion of his tone.  Or maybe it'd been offense rather than confusion at being addressed.  Skywarp was a little nervous if it was offense, but also he couldn't say he cared all that much if it was.  

"You're a civilian," the clone said, this time without question.

There wasn't that confusion in the other's tone this time.

"So I am," Knockout agreed flatly.  

There were all kinds of questions he wanted to ask there- why bother leaving the cozy civilian life of Cybertron to go to someplace as unhappy as New Kaon?  why risk the danger of rude warframes by showing up to ask for entry into their army when he looked that small and fragile?  why risk danger in the first place, when self-preservation codes screamed to rethink things?

Maybe it would have been good to hear the answers.

Maybe it would have shed more light on why other decepticons became decepticons rather than just knowing Starscream's own filtered version of it.

Maybe hearing about a civilian so struck with conviction they left the life of luxury to risk hate crimes and autobot law and the dirt of Chaar could have helped him find his own inner strength to stay with the decepticons as he knew them.

A whole lot of maybes there.

When both medics unplugged him completely and told him to ditch their science lab in no uncertain terms, one last one arrived.

Maybe he could ask another time, because he certainly hadn't managed to bring it up then.

The ship they were on was rather huge.  He didn't know his way around it, not really.  So this was exploring by following signs and peeking into open doors and halls and hoping he could find his own way back.

On his little expedition, he ran across a room that looked full of screens and boxes and perhaps tools in those boxes.

There were voices in here.  One loud, one soft in a way that just spoke of exhaustion.  He wondered what his own voice sounded like now.  Logically, he knew it was still Starscream's vocalizer, but his own mental perception of it had always been very soft to avoid threats that could overhear him.  It wasn't quite there anymore.  That had been the cowardly clone's voice, Skywarp's voice, even if it had just been Starscream's horrid rasping the whole time in reality.  He'd outgrown it now.  He didn't deserve to be forced to have it anymore- either Skywarp's disgustingly weak tone or Starscream's audial-scratching one.  

The loud voice laughed.  He slid into the doorway, curiosity and something a little like nauseating hope driving him to see with his own optics the two responsible for speaking now (for so much more).  

"...-and of course I will, little autobot!"

Ah.  Galvatron.  

Skywarp was facing the giant mech down now, even if the warlord hadn't seemed to notice his presence.  Near him, Optimus was grinding his servo against his forehead.  

"That's not my- never mind."  A moment later, and a lower voiced comment slipped out.  "I liked the other one better," the autobot grumbled.  "He at least respected me at the end."

Galvatron gave a grin that could only be described as macabre.  Skywarp was disturbed to note how little fear he felt at the gesture, when there was something so magnetically relieving about it.  As long as that grin stood to defend him, he was safe behind it.  No wonder Megatron had so many loyal decepticons follow him slaveringly in a way they'd refused to follow Starscream with.

"Fine then," the large decepticon laughed.  "Optimus Prime.  You like the old suffix better than Magnus, don't you?"

It certainly sounded like they were quite invested in their own conversation.  Skywarp could probably slip out of here without either stopping their own mockery-conversation-thing.  And- all things considered- he wanted to.  Yes, he'd voluntarily come in here, to see the two firsthand again, to see the hulking form of an evolved warlord, yes, how could he have turned that chance down? but-

Why'd he have to stumble across them of all people?  

They'd just remind him of how much everyone here was fighting to keep alive and keep this galaxy alive and he was busy teleporting away from danger and leaving his friends to face it alone like a slagging coward.  

It wasn't like he'd ever not called himself one, but it was only now that it carried such nauseating connotations to it.  It used to just be a picture of survival attached.  Now, it was a picture of someone else, someone looking at the spot where he'd vanished into a warp from, with the slow knowledge dawning that he'd been left behind to die alone.  

Skywarp wanted to rip his imagination out of his brain module.  It had been obsessive for cycles and he couldn't live with it like this.  His talons were certainly sharp enough to deal that kind of damage, but he didn't know what part of his head imagination coding even lay in and was too self-preserving to just rip himself apart like that.

Still, Optimus stood there like he was some paragon of all those sappy autobot values Tailgate and co. had believed in and Starscream had always insulted and now were one of the few things standing in the lumen purgatio's way.  Galvatron stood there as a twisted figure of a Megatron made louder, braver, unmade and remade in a way Skywarp could only envy with a feeling of illness he attributed to his self protesting its own desire to rid of itself.  

All in all, he did not want to see either and he simultaneously did and the confusion of that contradiction made him want to see them less.  Skywarp tried to creep away unnoticed, but of course that was when his presence actually was picked up.  That was just the luck that he had.  

Optimus said hello to him.  Galvatron tilted his head Skywarp's direction inquisitively.

He probably could have left just then.  Too late to avoid scrutiny and that pounding down of shame that their stares offered, a shame that looked like decepticons abandoned on Earth and all those Starscream had failed to lead well and the autobot team that had given him such a different feel for life and they were dead dead dead-

By the looks of things, that would have been it.  Optimus had said hello, gave him a smile, and then seemed to plan on continuing whatever work they were working on.  Instead, Galvatron had brushed the autobot off (leading to an almost amusing frown of frustration there that went unseen by the decepticon leader) to stomp his way over to that not-Starscream standing nearby.  

"Give me a moment, little autobot," he said over his shoulder.  "I'd like to speak to our new recruit here, if you wouldn't mind."

Judging by how Galvatron didn't even bother looking back or waiting for the other, he didn't actually care if Optimus minded or not.  Skywarp winced when a servo landed down on his shoulder, spinning him around and pushing him out of the room in front of the other con.  There wasn't just a usual fear of everything and everyone involved; there was long running experience in memories from Starscream that supplied him plenty of reasons to actually validate the normal fear with that more substantiated one.  

While he thought over the reasons and expression of that wince, he had zoned out of what was actually happening.  Soon enough, he was being turned back around and facing down a remnant of Starscream's past.

Wait.  Alright then, this was a room.  Small, but large enough to give him space to put some distance between them if he wanted to.  So far -wilted down and fearing biting words on his failures or not- he did not want to.  It was odd.

"It's curious.  You're one of the few battle-ready flightframes that we've found out here on these reinforcement missions," Galvatron mused aloud.  His optics were too-bright but they had not settled between approving or disapproving yet.  

Skywarp opened his mouth but had nothing to say.  That was fine.  The warlord had more.

"Most are dead by the time we pick up the civilians.  Even most of the autobot divisions fall before we arrive to retrieve them.  They all go out to battle and hold off the enemy until we arrive to usher civilian outpost populations away- a waste of time, quite frankly, but it's such an inspiring show of determined bloodlust to stand against the unbeatable-"  He tilted his head, a hint of a smile that made Skywarp nervous playing on his lips.  "-isn't it?"

Who was he to say??  He didn't tend to be one of those that stood and fought for bloodlust or the sake of protection or anything suicidal like that.  

"You came from Starscream," the mech paced to one side, former attitude forgotten so that he could brighten this way.  "Starscream never quite understood that appeal.  He'd get his servos dirty to try and overthrow me, but it was never up front."

Galvatron's expression turned to a sneer.

"Megatron was apathetic enough on the methods of that nuisance, but I find them revolting.  There is nothing so pure as combat face to face!  Oh, yes...I would love to have someone who understood that pleasure at my side in a way Starscream never was for Megatron."

That wasn't really something he could say he felt that convicted in, not as similarly as Galvatron here did, but the idea of fulfilling that desire was another story.  He did not feel the 'purity' of fighting close range, but he did understand the longing for having a place by the side of someone who did.

"Y-you're a warrior," he muttered.  It was praise, though his voice was really too small to tout it up much.  It was envy.  

"That I am!" the other laughed.  It was a dangerous laugh.  It was a step away from unhinged- no.  That was wrong.  It was already unhinged, the mech's entire mind was, but he was holding it together.  Hiding it.  Masking it.  He was strong enough to will that away in order to look stable for others, stable and strong.  

Optimus had said that whatever Unicron's upgrade had done, it had ruined him, left him a mess, a mess that couldn't grasp subtleties, that he'd lost a chunk of his processing power, a dozen unspoken judgements laying there about his mental and emotional instabilities.

But Skywarp...Skywarp could have been any other protoform.  Instead, he'd been forged strong.  Forged with all the dangerous claws and size and weapons to defend himself and rip through others.  An upgrade from an average protoform, he supposed, that came at the expense of Starscream's instabilities being dumped on him.

There was no helping what Unicron had left behind on Galvatron's processor and code.  

But he did not let that stop him.  He did not yet fully embrace the possible lunacy left behind that Skywarp thought he'd seen in that laugh.  Instead, he masked it, hid it, stomped it down, all the while embracing the strength his creation left him with.

And Skywarp could do the same with Starscream's inherited instabilities.  If Galvatron could with his unasked-for problems, he could as well.

"And I so enjoy being one," Galvatron continued with a grin.  "There is no life but the one of a warrior, surrounded in excitement and pleasure and fellow warriors.  But you-"

There was the condemnation.  

Skywarp could have melted.

"What did you do on that planet my little autobot pulled you from?" he asked lightly.

Died.  Died next to the others, as he should have.  Left behind a corpse of grief and guilt walking.  

"Crashed there.  The three of us did," the clone answered vaguely.

It earned him a show of dentae.

"Ah, but they're not here now," Galvatron noted.  "But then, they didn't have your little trick.  The one the medics say you've got buried in you- flash, bang, you're somewhere else now.  What's it called?"

"W-warp...warping?"

Who knew?  That was just the word that got come up with in the moment and stuck.  Did it matter?  He didn't even want to remember the word, let alone that he'd done it.  

"So you all crashed-" claws pointed down at a palm in needless dramatization of said crash "-the big ugly light show started-" a rather blase way of putting it "-and..."

There was a sudden and distinct wash of unease.  Skywarp felt himself shifted backwards towards the far wall; he felt boxed in, he knew what came next, he suspected what this whole invitation to conversation was about-

"...what did you do?" the mech kept grinning.

And Skywarp knew what he was after, knew the condemnation, knew that Galvatron knew- There would be no lying otherwise.

"I ran," he choked out.  

Galvatron's dangerous expression stayed there.

"You did.  And I don't need another with Starscream's cowardice at my side."

There had been a pitching for someone to be at his side, a desire for this sort of lieutenant, and now he was already being dropped as a candidate.  A sardonic part of him wanted to laugh at the speed he was thrown aside with.  Deeper still was the irony that he deserved nothing more, after showing that very cowardice on that planet.  And why would he contest this?  Why would he want at all to deny the accusation and then rest in peaceful safety somewhere deep in a ship far from the front lines of combat?

That was the core of it: why would he be disappointed to get the exact mock safety he'd always wanted?  

The why there was undeveloped.  A tearing grief over those he'd let die, a fear of his own fear, a disgust in himself, all of it intertwining but still unnamed for him and and -

and it didn't matter because, reasons or not, he could not stand the idea of being thrown aside right now.

"No!" Skywarp snapped out in interruption.  "I'm not doing it again.  I l-let them die, let him die, because of it.  Take the fragging thing out of me, I don't care.  I'm never running again."

And with that, the giant of a mech's grin widened.  A flash of glossa scraped over the backs and tips of pointed dentae.  

"That's more promising," came a purr that resonated with danger.  

The danger had Skywarp shiver instinctively, but he did not want to.  Instincts aside, he didn't want to be terrified right now.  He wanted approval more than he wanted to run.

He'd never run again

"Good, very good."  Galvatron straightened up almost enough to look official rather than wild.  "You have the frame of a warrior.  Not as strong as my own, but I'd hate to see your own strength go to waste.  You'll have to get that strength first, of course."

A casual lean back put the mech closer to the door.

"Most cybertronians will still need to.  But when you've found that, come to me, won't you?"

One last prideful grin.  Flaring optics burned.

"It won't be civilians that win this war.  It won't even be most of the warframes posing as warriors.  I will win it," he stabbed a claw at his chest.  "I will be the one to do it.  Do you believe that?"

His vents were straining to pull in air and the stress of it on his cooling system should have made him panic.  Maybe later.  He couldn't now.  

Galvatron had already left, but both of them already knew what Skywarp's mute answer had been.

The science duo looked unhappy to see him back.  Then again, he couldn't say much on his ability to read quintesson faces and Knockout's expression intimidated him too much to look at it closely.

No- wait- he couldn't back down.  That was why he was here.  

No more backing down. 

No more caving to intimidation when it came to addressing his flaws.

If he'd never had those flaws, he wouldn't feel so sick, wouldn't have to deal with the fallout of his failure, wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't-

He'd sat himself on the berth after trying (with his best attempt to keep a waver from his voice) to demand they push the other lab junk off it that had taken his place on its surface.  Having received their attention, he tried to address the question that he'd ended up setting aside with Red Alert earlier.  

It's not healthy, both told him.  Not to do it immediately.  Dampen the coding, maybe.  Add a program that would speed along the personality components' overwriting of Starscream's self-preservation code.  But taking it out completely was damaging.  It'd leave an empty space in his person.  

For now, that unpleasant warning was enough to keep him from just telling them to erase his weak self anyway.

"Dampen it then," he decided.

The slagging code that made his instincts so unable to control fear was not his only problem here, though.

There was also the means of his cowardice made available with the frame Starscream had made him.  

The warp drive.

Extempaxia told him that taking out such a valuable and odd part of anatomy was...well, the quintesson phrases for it didn't sound very complimentary.  

It didn't matter what some scientist thought.  This was about what he'd decided and what Galvatron wanted.

"Then dissect it on your t-tables after if you c-care about it so much.  Just take it out," Skywarp said stiffly, before frowning at the sound of his voice saying the words.  

Disgusting.  

It was raspy and shaky.  It wasn't his.  It had never been his.  It was the distinct sound of someone universally disliked and he was done with that association.

"And replace this fragging voicebox," the clone growled with a pointed claw at his neck in emphasis.  

This time it was Knockout that looked skeptical.  He said that was also a stupid idea.  

Skywarp thought otherwise.

"At least alter it," he demanded before he could lose his nerve at the loss of another part of his identity.  "No one needs to hear the voice of the decepticons most useless coward."

Wasn't that what Galvatron had implied?

But it was more than that.

It was Tailgate's corpse and four clones lost without their creator in a chaotic voice that gave him all the conviction he needed to say the statement.

So he was put back on the berth again and wired into horrific looking contraptions and it was, this time, willingly.  

As strange as it was to be willing to go into a medbay voluntarily to get important parts of himself dampened, altered, or removed.  It wasn't quite getting an upgrade that would give him impenetrable armor or unbeatable sword skills or anything of the like, but it was a start.  It was a start.  He could look for those added strengths later, when he was no longer a coward unable to handle any strength he was given.

Yes.

This was the start of something new.

A new life, a new mind, a new self that wouldn't be the disgusting coward that the clone had been made to be.  Galvatron wanted someone strong.  Tailgate had wanted someone strong too, though he'd deluded himself into thinking Skywarp fit that bill.  The present needed someone new and he needed to be someone new that didn't feel so ever crushed by this pain and guilt.  

He'd run.

Galvatron hadn't liked that.

He'd never run again.

The warlord had liked that conviction very much.  It'd gone mostly unsaid, but there was that desire quite so evident in the former Megatron for the strength of someone resonating of his old 2IC but just as evolved into a better being.  A transformed remnant of the past, like the warlord himself was currently alone in being.

Unicron had changed Galvatron into what he was now.  The strange creature wasn't exactly an option for Skywarp, but Galvatron himself was here.  

Tailgate had offered him confidence with plastic swords and card games and conversations.  

Now, Skywarp would use that pitiful confidence to make himself something more worthy of those undeserved praises- someone who wouldn't flee, who wouldn't break over inevitable deaths, who wouldn't fall apart even as a terrifying apocalyptic world did.  

Chapter Text

He'd pinned it down.

It'd taken time, observation.  All thought required both factors.  When it came to the unease that arose when Cyclonus spoke or heard of Megatron, Scalpel had needed to see both the warlord and the alien together and read into those interactions.

During the first meeting that Megatron had with Team Chaar after Cyclonus had joined, Scalpel had paid special attention to the way the newcomer looked at their commander and spoke to him (which, as per his usual, was very little; he was clipped, blunt, and tended to keep silent).  

There was nothing but loyalty displayed there, yet it was a disconcerting loyalty to see: absolute but distant.  

The mix was odd to witness.  He remained a perfect decepticon, but Scalpel just did not see him as truly involved.  Instead, he was there solely for Megatron but he looked at Megatron from the audience or from up close with the same almost-hidden expression in blazing optics.

And finally- finally- Scalpel had a name for it.

It wasn't something he'd observed in others before.  Many looked at Megatron with loyalty; many others looked at him as competition.  The decepticons did operate on a competitive pyramid ruled at the top by one who could throw off the former leader.  Cyclonus didn't show any indication that he wanted to do that.

Megatron always got attention no matter where he went.  That Cyclonus would stare at him so thoroughly whenever he was near or speaking with them or speaking to a crowd shouldn't have been a surprise.  He was the one who'd overthrown Megazarak.  Exiled the failed leader.  Rose up to become something greater than the decepticons had ever faced before.  

It was unsurprising one would want to see Megatron in person.  Many idolized him.  Even Scalpel understood the appeal of getting close enough to witness Megazarak's conqueror.  

But what Cyclonus stared at him with was not awe or excitement over getting to meet Megatron.  It was not even recognition that Megatron himself, in all his glory for the above stated reasons to respect, was near him.

It was hunger.

Not for Megatron, however.  

And that was what was so off putting about it.  If he stared as Lugnut or Strika did- undisguised adoration, a hunger to get as close as possible to their idol- he'd mock it like he did theirs (secretly, of course).  In other terms, he'd understand it.  If he stared as the current first lieutenant, some aft called Starscream, did- obvious hunger for the position- he'd also mock it, as Megatron hadn't come close to getting toppled since he took the rule from Megazarak and the odds of some new guy doing it would be very low.  

This, though...

He was waiting for something else to tear its way out of Megatron.  That was the best explanation he could put together.

And Scalpel didn't know what to do with that.  It suggested insight and knowledge into something that Cyclonus insisted on keeping completely silent about.  

Silent vocally, but the flare of his optics when he bore into Megatron with blank-faced intensity spoke openly of anticipation.  The odd visitor from a different world not only seemed to think Megatron was unfinished now, he seemed excited to see it (whatever that change would be) happen.  He was waiting for something dramatic to occur to the leader that so many decepticons called glorious and he was waiting for that mysterious event with unhidden, wanting, hunger.

Few things unnerved Scalpel.

This intensity of feeling left out of some life changing future knowledge and the hunger Cyclonus awaited it with had managed to do so.

Chapter Text

The new swords were rather like the old ones.  Not plastic training blades, but not all that fancy either.  Just there to cut and that was it.  It didn't matter all that much.  There were constants in life: A sword was a sword, a coward was a coward, and skill was not a lack of skill.  That, unfortunately, was where he landed.

For now.  The fear that he was stuck in place, never to change, never to improve, never to grow, was subdued.  It made thought on the matter just that much easier.  Before, he'd match the fear of having no chance for improvement against the fear of change.  When everything was a phobia, nothing could be faced and nothing could be hidden from.

They couldn't remove the coding.  So it was back to being as all were, at some point in life.  Struggling to rid of unwanted attributes and thoughts, dampening emotions that ran uncontrolled without a yet-in-place emotional filter, pushing through the rampancy of thought and feelings that stood in place of building the being that this mass of newsparked emotions started as...

The new swords had about as much personality to them as he did.  Starscream had made him a one-note version of himself.  

But his own skill with those blades would improve.  The blades he would then choose to wield would as well.  He would fight close to his enemies with a weapon like this- close enough to see them fade, more than close enough to risk his safety.  He would improve and his sword’s quality would improve and eventually that newsparked mess of coward and nothing more would be rewritten in its entirety.

He hoped that much, at least.

Skywarp had been trailing Galvatron around one cycle (under the latter's orders commed in, or perhaps suggestions, or even a plea, it wasn't exactly easy to tell) when the call came to attend to the bridge.  

The call itself was rushed, at least for Optimus.  There was some cryptic worry stated over 'bad news'.  

As if he'd been completely forgotten, Galvatron had stomped his way to a tramline that would take him to the bridge in order to converse with his co-captain.  The clone followed, forgotten or not, because what was he supposed to do?  

Before his own indecision could chew its way into full panic, they'd arrived and the change of space let Skywarp distract himself from the question of whether being told to follow still was an order when the one issuing it simply zoned out of his existence (he couldn't ask, he'd barely spoken a word, it had all been the other since he'd arrived at the commed location nervously).  

Optimus was already speaking to some other deck officer when Galvatron strode in, loudly, announcing he was now on deck, arms waving out to the side, grin flying into place (a total braggart, in other words; here to steal any show Optimus had).  Skywarp just slipped in behind him in an unassuming hunch and found some wall to stand against while his boss went up to the officer platform.  

There, the story came out in a controlled, slow, probably-mournful manner.  The red and blue mech looked somber all the while that he told it.  

From his wall, the clone listened and felt his dampened self-preservation code scramble together to try its best for causing panic.  The news was, after all, hardly good.  The lumen purgatio were closer to Cybertron than ever.  Closer to winning and killing them all.

"-and so," Optimus finished up when the unhappy news was delivered.  "-the Co-Prosperity Sphere is under siege.  The portion of this experimental fleet nearest it is already on their way, but it will be another cycle before they can arrive."

The Co-Prosperity Sphere was huge.  It was built around the entire star system that Quintessa had been a part of.  A contained environment of that size...and still it could not stand the light of the lumen purgatio's weapons?  Oh, he did not like this.  He did not like this at all.

"And the issue?" Galvatron barked.  "You said there was bad news involved here.  When're you gonna be telling us anything relevant?"

The look that the new Magnus shot him could have melted steel.

"For one-" Optimus spewed the words with control that seemed ready to burst apart under the speed with which he spoke them.  "-everyone who has fallen in this siege so far- everyone that will fall when the barricades do- are people who deserved to live and we will not stand by without mourning just because it wasn't us who died."

At the least, the new autobot leader was passionate.  There was a strength in passion, just as there was strength in control and apathy.

"For another, if that is somehow not enough for you, the sphere was near Cybertronian space.  Our colonies and planet will be next.  And our allies from the quintesson resistance will not be able to help at all as Cybertron burns next."

There was a good reason he hadn't liked this.  

If a civilization sphere could fall quicker than the reinforcements could arrive, what chance would a singular planet, however large, stand?

"Is that enough for you?" the autobot finished in that same snappish speed.  

Oddly, Galvatron didn't look like it was.  

"Cybertron won't die if I get there first.  And if it does, it's not as if we don't have a dozen other strongholds to be possessive over."

He-

didn't care?

Megatron had always cared about Cybertron.  He'd cared about Chaar more, true, but that was because he'd been very fond of New Kaon and the freedom for his army that it had offered.  Still, New Kaon held nothing on 'Old' Kaon and everyone there knew it whenever there was no sunrise, no warmth, no bright sky on the free-floating planet.  

"Alright."  With a brief pause to run a servo down his face and pinch it before it flopped aside, the autobot returned to glaring at Galvatron.  "Get off, go," Optimus pointed him off the main walkway where officers stood elevated above the rest of the bridge.  "I'll handle the rest of this briefing myself."

And so he did.  He did a decent job with it too.  The autobot was a good officer.  Leader.  Hero, even.  Hero material, to be sure.  The type of thing Rodimus was made of, Hot Shot wanted to be, Kup would laugh at, Red Alert would shake her head over, and Tailgate would stare at with fantastical awe.  

Slag it.  

Galvatron, meantime, had somehow obeyed that order and Skywarp saw with only slight alarm that the hunched mech's stomping was actually leading towards him.  

It was alright, though.  When Galvatron arrived and stood right next to him against that back wall, it was all alright.  What else would it be?  

They listened to Optimus- 

or maybe only Skywarp did, who could tell how present the other's attention was?

-and eventually the sulking wore off enough that Galvatron started prodding him to speak on the graphs being pulled up or information given in the briefing or the subdued passion Optimus was dragging out from those around when mustering up sympathy for the quintessons cause and their hope to reach the siege in time to 'do some good'.  

Near the end of the meeting, when most everyone was working on assigned jobs and the Magnus had returned to talking one on one with officers, Skywarp replied to one prodding question and the other mech tilted his head to just stare at him.

After a moment, that concentrated attention grew uncomfortable.  He felt himself twitching under it.  Maybe the twitching was what brought Galvatron's attention out of wherever it was so buried in focus.

"You enacted the voice change you said you wanted," he said plainly.  

That he had.

Multiple cycles ago.

It was odd that it was only noticed now, but it didn't seem abnormal for Galvatron himself.  A delayed reaction- or perhaps a delayed comment on it-  who was to say what, exactly, was to be inferred from that about this leader's state of mind?

"Yes," Skywarp said instead, head still tilted aside where he didn't have to feel so intensely dissected.  Thankfully, the other had moved back to the wall and left that staring behind.

"It is good," Galvatron noted with an absent nod.  "Fearsome.  There is nothing more good than that."

(a part of him begged to differ, felt its right was to comment that fear and all of its signatures was no good at all, but it lay still under the weight of a compliment)

Skywarp wished he could avoid how pleased the appraisal made him.  After Tailgate's, he no longer wanted to be affected by anyone's compliments or praise or respect.  It was a very strong desire, but it seemed he had no real power to act on it.  

"Er- thank you," he mumbled awkwardly.  

Galvatron didn't deign to acknowledge the mumble.  

At the least, Skywarp thought, the embarrassing bashfulness wasn't uttered in Starscream's insufferable voice.  

When they did arrive, it would likely be too late.  Too late for the Co-Prosperity Sphere, at any rate.  That would be up to those ships in the fleet that lay closer to cybertronian space.  But the point was that he would fight eventually.  If not now, then later.  So he practiced.  He nervously listed himself as an active and ready combatant.  He wanted to fight alongside Galvatron, if he was to be honest (if he was to want to fight at all).  Optimus had even taken time to ask about his goals and comfort levels and knew this fact.

But he wouldn't get to stay at Galvatron's side.

He had no real qualms with that yet.  He knew he wasn't strong enough to rightly stand in any sort of position that mattered.  Being a bodyguard for Tailgate really hadn't worked out, after all, and Galvatron hardly needed someone to keep him safe.  The mech just wanted someone for the sake of...loneliness, he supposed?  An audience?  A fanclub to witness insanity?  An anchor to keep him from dropping off that edge entirely?  Skywarp didn't know.  

What he did was that eventually he could fulfill it.  

If the choices were autobots or Galvatron, the clone knew who he'd pick.  It was nothing against Optimus.  The guy was nice.  So had Rodimus's team been, after they'd warmed up to him.  And he really, really didn't want any reminders of that team.  

Picking autobots would mean avoiding Galvatron's instability and maybe even hearing enough nice things from nice people that his low opinion of himself could eventually lift just a bit, like his fears had.  It wasn't something he could do.  

He didn't want another set of Tailgate's and Hot Shot's and the rest.

He didn't want reminders of that loss and his failure to save them.  

Galvatron wouldn't have any of those reminders because he was dead-set on creating his own unique little twist on life and the way he treated Skywarp hinted that the clone's current person wouldn't be an exception to that rewriting the former Megatron wanted to dish out to the world.

For now, he had no direction and would allow those here to supply him with one.

Eventually, however...

Eventually, he would have eliminated every trace of Skywarp the cowardly Starscream clone from himself and whatever stood leftover would return to the pinnacle of this resistance.

How odd of him to willingly consider facing off this unbeatable threat from the frontlines.

It was better- he considered- than waiting in the background until inevitable death arose.  By flying to that apex of resistance, he would see if Galvatron could live up to his words and cut this apocalypse short.  Until then, he would grow, lose more fears, overwrite more self-preservation, learn to give his blades that bite Tailgate and Skywarp had both thought they'd have, and eventually create a- a- fearsome warrior that could stand his own against the unflappable odds.  

If there'd never been an alien threat burning through the galaxy, he was sure that there'd have been no autobot-decepticon alliance, no fleet built through the efforts of the greatest engineers in the galaxy, no quintessons on board that very fleet mourning the loss of their sphere, and no way he'd consider the idea of being fearsome or a warrior or both together as anything but terrifying.

The lumen purgatio forced evolution upon them all during his time flying in low-power.  He'd returned to a world that had evolved into alliances, advances, and even strange deals made with strange cosmic planet eaters.

It'd force evolution on him as well.

If he didn't let it, he'd die- just as he should have on that planet with Tailgate.  

And since he'd regretfully survived that, he'd be surviving anything else this fragging world wanted to throw at him.

Chapter Text

The way time passed by was almost eerie.  He'd been on Viianta one moment, then meeting Galvatron, then ushered off with various teams.  Make a name, his new leader had told him without context once.  So he tried.  He trained, he made it to his doctor appointments to check over the progress being made within his coding, he followed orders both neutral and unpleasant without stalling back in unease.  Making a name was far more slow going than it had been for Galvatron, but it wasn't as if Skywarp had a Unicron to just reformat him into something attention grabbing.  So he'd do it the slow way, because that was what he'd been asked to do by someone very important.

He remembered their last meeting before the first separation.  A separation he had told himself could very well be their last.  There was no good pretending such a thing was impossible anymore.  There was no good in hanging onto the hope that, as the hero of his story, he and those close to him were immune to the death dished out to the rest.  That wouldn't be an illusion he used to ignore fear anymore.  It had never been worth much in avoiding fear anyway.  That fear had always come anyway.  At least without pretending, it lost some of its edge.  Or maybe that was the dampened code.  Who knew, who cared.  

The point was, he'd been chosen first to go with some autobot-decepticon team he didn't know on some small mission once they neared the Co-Prosperity Sphere (there was, at the least, a spacebridge near the Sphere that eliminated some of the time flight took).  Before he'd left on it, he'd made sure to visit Galvatron.  Or maybe Galvatron had made sure to visit him.  They'd met and their walk together had taken them down to the doorway of the lab where he'd spent time removing factors of his failed self.  It may have been a coincidence.  The way Galvatron had stopped there, peeking in and staying for some time to stare at the warp drive being experimented on made it seem far less of a coincidence.

He'd been interested in it.  Extempaxia hadn't seemed to care much for his scrutiny, other than perhaps some fear (the first expression from the alien that Skywarp could empathize with).  Knockout had been a little less polite than the quintesson, but the mech just seemed to lack a survival instinct to keep his mouth shut until he'd pushed a threat too far.  It was almost enviable, even if it reminded Skywarp a bit too much of Starscream's stupidity in being dense to balancing prides and dangers.  

None of them mattered.  What brought his attention over was the fact that Galvatron was looking at the lab project with such a keen, though unreadable in terms of motive, stare.  It was a discarded part of himself and he almost worried that perhaps that was all the warlord cared for: his warp drive, not him.  It was a worry he subdued.  Galvatron still sought him out, and far more often than he went to stare at the strange equipment spread over a stressed Extempaxia's desk- an event which, apparently, occurred more than just on that one 'coincidental' stroll.  

I hate to see anything useful wasted, was the explanation given later.  

It was far more than just a warp drive included in that statement.  

And Skywarp would hate to let the other down.  

Missions passed.  Bots were reassigned.  It made it hard to get to know anyone.  The group would include one set of six one orn and three new ones by the next.  Skywarp didn't mind.  He'd rather not get to know any of them.

The missions themselves didn't make sense to him.  The ships tried to fight the lumen purgatio's ships, as they had during the fateful fight that Skywarp had missed, curled around Tailgate's body as he was.  Various locations on the Sphere were already razed, but, without being a singular planet that could be burned to the core, the aliens seemed ready to take their time on the quintesson's empire.  It meant deployment, ship battles, land battles with drones, and on and on and really he wished he could say he knew what was happening but he didn't he didn't he hadn't paid enough attention since that death-

They happened, that was the short of it.  The commanders understood them and understood how to order their soldiers.  That was what mattered.  He could be as lost as he wished, apathetic as he wanted, and it would not affect their ability to give orders.

Maybe it wasn't the best plan.  Maybe understanding all that was happening would be far better for him.  But at the moment? This lacked the stress and fear of understanding and semi-understanding.  He flowed and moved where directed and it kept him centered on just that motion rather than having to worry on the whys.  

For all he knew, they'd already razed the majority of the Sphere.  But that was it.  That was a 'for all he knew'.  And, at current, he knew nothing.

It was a slight lie.  He did know something at current.  He knew that Optimus left him a little uncomfortable.  

The guy was nice.  He was respectful.  Smart, from all Skywarp could hope to discern.  When the mech invited him to join his squad (temporarily, Optimus had promised upon seeing the panic from the clone and somehow guessing to its origin enough to reassure in that way), he'd gotten the chance to even see the new Magnus in fights.  He certainly stood his own against the drones.  It was impressive.  It was also impressive that he could manage his team even while in the middle of fighting his own opponent.  Begrudgingly, Skywarp felt that Galvatron would not manage that multi-tasking.

Being on Optimus's team left him with a few takeaways. 

First, he respected the autobot.  As a leader, as a warrior, both- and Galvatron had said that able warriors were the priority in this new world, so that gave him all the more reason to respect the Magnus.

Second, if he had to, he'd be alright being a subordinate in one of these squads again.  If Optimus asked for him specifically, he'd accept it.  No hassle, no fear.

Third, he wanted to go back to Galvatron.

It was, as evidenced by the first two, no offense to the Magnus.  

It was just the comfort and ease that the others all displayed while their little scouting-sized ship puttered around from one portion of the Co-Prosperity Sphere to the next (or, more likely, one of the home or transport ships to regroup and reassign; last he'd checked, Galvatron was working alongside the very team who had defeated Rodimus's in that asteroid belt and- ...dammit all, he wasn't supposed to think about them now) that bothered him.  It just wasn't comfortable.  He wasn't comfortable.  

And the time that he'd been stuck outside his tiny quarters to refuel right when the others had decided to throw an impromptu party?  It had been flat out humiliating.  Some autobot had taken him back to his little pod-esque room and held his servo and talked softly until he'd stopped running his fans so high it hurt- (-but it had hurt worse to see that enthusiasm, camaraderie, those games spread out and played and yelled over and phantom autobots standing behind it all asking why he hadn't warped them to protection too-)- and oh how embarrassing it had been once he'd realized what was happening.

He kicked the autobot out as soon as his brain caught up with his thoughts and ignored the offense she seemed to display at the unexplained change in attitude.  

It was no fault of the autobot herself.  Just...

It made him think a bit of Tailgate.  A weight seemed to sit on his leg, just as one had felt like it sat on his servo's palm, even after his barely-spoken-to-before ally left.  He hated it and wished it felt just a slight more real.  

This was why he couldn't be here, with these autobots, no matter how nice they were, no matter how friendly.  He couldn't.  He couldn't.  

He wondered how long it would be before a reassignment landed him with the one mech who hadn't left him so miserably reminded of his loss and failure.

Until then, he'd improve.  Keep changing.  Keep muting fears.  Keep making a name.

That name, that person, needed to be strong.  Galvatron liked strength.  It made sense to prioritize it.  In a world where light burned so much away, being able to actually land some hits in return felt...not nice, not necessarily, but close to satisfying.

At the moment, he fought with one sword.  It was, at that moment, a training blade.  And, again at that moment, he wielded it in the gym after their scout ship had hooked to a larger transport (still not taking them to the fleet where his commander awaited, but he'd accept this wait and keep on improving to better show off once he did return).  

Skywarp tried to mix it up and dance with his weapon in the way Galvatron would.  It wasn't a fun feeling.  He rather disliked training alone, and training with others, and just plain being visible by anyone.  He was always afraid someone would comment.

That cycle, someone did.  It was the mech who'd just entered the room, slumping his own equipment down and resting before beginning.  Apparently that rest had equated to watching the other occupant of the gym.

"You're holding it a bit wrong," Optimus said from where he was still standing.

It was hardly a pleasant interruption.  It embarrassed him.  He was embarrassing himself in front of the most important autobot commander because he couldn't figure out how to hold a slagging sword-

But it wasn't condescending and it wasn't that degree of nicety that made him feel pitied.

"Here-" the autobot walked over and was moving his servos a moment later.  Carefully, politely, he supposed.  It was a bit weird.  It only got weirder when he'd called in one of his friends, the eliteguardsmech that favored nunchucks, to give out a few other options for wielding comfortably.

By the end of the cycle, he'd heard more information about swords than he felt like he could process.  By the end of the orn- spending every cycle inside listening to that information get dissected and explained and exemplified- he no longer felt as overwhelmed by it all.

Even though the Magnus fought primarily with an axe or the Magnus Hammer, he still had the lessons of the Autobot Academy to help back him up.  The ninjabot knew his way around swords very well, on the other side of the equation, and had been able to teach him far more than Optimus.  Maybe that was why Optimus stopped showing up to the little training sessions.  Maybe he felt Jazz could take it from there and had only interjected at the start to ease Jazz into the situation rather than just dumping Skywarp with a stranger.  The clone almost felt insulted.  The feeling didn't end up arriving.  He simply took the advice and experience he was offered.  He did not yet have the pride that would make accepting such impossible.

Make a name, he'd been told.  Well, he was doing it.  Slowly, yes.  Knockout and Extempaxia would have to check his coding when he returned to see how much more they could healthily dampen now.  Galvatron still wouldn't be impressed by his ability to change up his hold on a sword or two.  But he was still inching along away from the Skywarp who'd ruined so much and that, he figured as he accepted advice and demonstrations, was how names were probably made.

It wasn't like Galvatron had really explained his grandiose comment in detail, after all (and Skywarp felt he couldn't expect anything less from him).

Chapter Text

Recreating a personhood was both difficult and freeing.  On the latter side of things, he rather felt that there was a true chance to leave his fears behind.  A new person not only could lack such debilitating coding, but they could filter what came into their world as company and what that company would speak like and use as hobbies and that would influence the fear he could be brought to experience.

There were plenty of chances to think on this.  After he'd been moved from Optimus's squad to some new one and then from that to another and then finally from that mostly-decepticon team back to the large ship, he knew what qualities of those teammates he'd prefer to have to surround himself with.  Then came the matter of a check up on his code.  Surely, the overwrite was progressing after all that time in battle or crammed in some tiny crowded ship.  There were only medics and scientists who could confirm that hope for him; he had no way of checking for himself.

And it was, upon reaching that lab, a way for him to find more characteristics he would like to keep in his new surroundings as a new person and those he'd rather avoid.

In simplest terms, Knockout had left him with far too much to think about that he'd never, not even once, wanted to consider before.  

In more elaborate explanation, it had been the red mech alone who had been there for him when Skywarp had slipped into the lab for his hopeful confirmation that the battling had made progress on his self-preservation coding.

It was rather empty in the place.  The clone took his seat on a berth that was lacking the old sight (his, Skywarp's, warp drive, dissected and spread out over the top) and the decepticon medic ranted over the interruption even as he mosied over and started to hook up behind the flyer's head.  

After a few awkward moments of wait (filled only with Knockout's chatter on random things he really didn't care enough for to concentrate on it), he finally addressed the emptiness of this appointment.

"There's- where's the other one?  Ex-Extempaxia?"

He could only hope that he hadn't slaughtered the quintesson's strangely musical designation.  

"Oh, he's avoiding me," the decepticon medic said uncaringly.  

That was answer enough for Skywarp.  He didn't need to prod.  Prodding was something his new outlook on life found rather useless, after all.  He'd just take the news as it came.

But Knockout didn't understand that unsaid memo, apparently, since he just kept speaking.

"My partner wanted me to invite him to our quarters, for-"

"Stop," Skywarp interrupted flatly.  

It earned him an unimpressed glare.

"Please," Knockout ignored his order.  "Like you care.  You ought to know better, being a decepticon and all.  We're made of the freaks that Cybertron rejected.  I, personally, find organics and their fleshy-ness disgusting, but my partner and I are still as open minded as any other decepticon.  Anyway, Breakdown's been pushing me ever since I first got stuck in this office..."

He just. kept. talking.

What would it take to shut him up?

A few nanoclicks later, he refocused on that stream of speaking.  "-and now I'm stuck doing two jobs instead of just one until he gets back and I'm this close to filing a complaint about it."

Why don't you? Skywarp asked with his glare.

But he suspected he already knew the answers.  Sure, decepticons took in the rabble that the Commonwealth didn't want; the techno-organics, the experiments, the warframes, the failures; but they hardly all bonded together over that fact.  A complaint either went to an autobot, who'd just short circuit at its undisguised (courtesy of this stupid lack of filter accusing him now) implications, or a decepticon, who's reactions may vary from insult to violence.  Or a neutral or alien and really, was that any better?

It didn't matter to Skywarp for Knockout's sake.  He just wanted his coding changes to be done consistently and that was best accomplished by keeping the same two scientists that he started with.

The good news was that he wasn't stagnating in that regard.  He really was changing, piece by piece.  It was good.  Someday, he could be unrecognizable from the Starscream clone he began as- from the coward.  And, as a perk of rewriting oneself so cognitively, he could choose far more aspects of his life than fate and chance would give him naturally.  He could find a new name.  Find new company.  Determine new traits and interests and opinions.  Already, thanks to these visits to these specific scientists, he was well on his way to getting that new life and...well, the Knockouts of the world weren't going to be much sought out by him when he did finish finding his standards for new company. 

"You know, Starscream got caught with a few techno-squishies in his day, so I'm almost surprised you'd act so naive-"

Skywarp noted that the actual helm connections had already been disconnected from ports and so turned his head to glare at the other without (as much as he could have) fear of a dangerous disconnect.  

"I'm not Starscream," he cut across with a growl that, to his pleasure, sounded so far apart from his old high-pitched, fearful stutter that the old Skywarp would have hid from it.  

At the completely blase way that Knockout reacted to his declaration, he brought his glare back forward and reiterated his internal promise that people like this annoyance would be strictly disallowed from his future self's company.

The one time he did run across Extempaxia after that was by pure accident.  He'd been hit by an unwanted wave of panic and had ran for some sort of dark, enclosed place to hide in.  It was something he'd be upset about later.  In that moment itself, he could hardly register that panic was a cowardly act he was supposed to be immune to.

It was by chance that the hall he'd been searching for a room to hide in also included the room that Extempaxia was hovering in.  

The unexpected panic that had been gripping him loosened in the confusion at seeing his other doctor after orns of not seeing him.  It was dulled so quickly in that reaction that he never made enough noise to draw the other's attention.  Or maybe the other just wasn't going to be giving him attention in the first place.  He was rather caught up in his own actions, it seemed.

The quintesson was flicking multiple screens at once.  Too many for him to see everything, but he still understood that the screens and their rapidly changing pictures all showed the same sort of thing.  Locations.  Ruined, battled, burned, emptied or crowded, locations.  Places on the Co-Prosperity Sphere, if he had to guess based on their appearances similarities to the appearance of those spots he had been assigned to over the campaign here.

Something that felt rather like bad oil seemed to stink inside.  Skywarp wasn't sure what the feeling was, but he didn't like it.  Even without a name for the somatic reaction, he knew what had caused it.

The first solution would've been to just leave that room.

He hadn't.  

He'd stayed until Extempaxia had eventually stopped flicking past all the reported desolations and just hovered there with limp tentacles hanging down.  

Maybe-

Maybe he was supposed to go closer?  Pat a servo on the round creature's back/head/wherever those were?  Tailgate probably would have done something like that.  He'd been overtly tactile with comfort during the time Skywarp had known him.  

Instead, he stood there partially in a room witnessing an ever-silent upset.  The quintesson ended up being the first to move.  Extempaxia had finally turned and moved towards the doorway.  

At a loss for what to do or say- to cower and apologize for seeing anything, to stand strong and act as though he belonged there- he said something stiffly about the other not being in his lab.  

It was stupid of him, but he'd hardly ever known how to speak with others, had he?  (Hot Shot had never acted like he was saying anything blatantly repulsive and Tailgate had talked more than enough for both of them and the others had- no, not the time, not the time) 

Extempaxia had been too-quick in his reply.  Even on an alien, he could see it was too quick.  Practiced.  Defensive.  A lie, or half truth, or shield of some kind.  

Something about being busy, working elsewhere, the like.  The screens behind him showed a far more descriptive answer.

Skywarp never did see the quintesson in that lab again after that.  Perhaps it was just bad timing on his part.  But, then again, he just didn't see many quintessons in the halls or in scouting squadrons after the attempt to prevent the Co-Prosperity Sphere from falling like Earth and the others became evidently hopeless.  

Chapter Text

They retreated.

It hurt to watch.  It did more than hurt.  He again felt that gross oil sensation he'd felt when speaking with Extempaxia before, but it was met with a new emotion.  This one, at least, he knew a proper name for.  The heat from underworking vents, the buzz of slowed processing power resulted from that overheating, the burn in his spark as it strained out as if it could expand wide enough to swallow up the issue.  

He was angry.  

They retreated from a lost cause after damaging only one sole mothership of the lumen purgatio and it left him furious.

There was almost an amusement to it.  He knew that he ought to be relieved they were leaving danger (for now) but he wasn't relieved.  He wasn't happy for that safety.  He wanted more of those mysterious giants of ships to tear apart.  He wanted them to burn and bleed.  He wanted them to turn their ships round and flee into whatever clouded nebula they'd hid in before.  And then to burn there, because he never wanted them to get a chance to return.

Anger was nothing new to Starscream.  It was almost alien to the Skywarp Hot Shot had named.  What the mech he was now felt was a fury unlike the prissy vindication his creator leaned towards.  

But he knew that fury, while different for him, was something others felt naturally enough.

Those like the thing who'd grown out of Megatron and so swayed an inspirational loyalty from him while he was at it.  

If anyone knew what to do with this fury, it would be Galvatron.  While the mech seemed so outright in his noise and danger, Skywarp had seen just how constrained he was; how he practically shook as he reigned himself in for whatever reasons, whatever emotions spiked so passionately in his mind, whatever thoughts drove him on with a vivid outlook no others could see with the same vibrancy-  there was no understanding the details of what occured behind that mind, but Galvatron understood enough despite what others called madness to reign in from displaying too much of that.  

He undoubtedly felt anger, fury.  He managed to keep himself together but he didn't bother with too much restraint.  If anyone knew how to make an impact with hate, it would be Galvatron.  And oh how Skywarp wanted to leave an impact on these slaggers.  

"I want to see you fight."

It came with the delivery of a non-sequitur only a few clicks into the first conversation he'd had with Galvatron in metacycles.  While it had first just been mentions and comments and odd catching up, the larger mech had brightened and said his desire with a happiness that Skywarp knew he couldn't exactly resist.

At first, the clone thought it meant to show off a few drills in a training rink.

It hadn't.

What Galvatron actually wanted was to see him fight, not train in those embarrassing solo stilted drills.  

And it had been a very specific fight that his leader already had planned.  

The other mech led him on a tramline to a portion of the ship full of allies he'd never run across before until they both spilled into a large gymnasium.  Or an arena stage.  This was a training room for decepticons, so who was to tell the difference?

Skywarp pushed back unwanted nervous unease.  There, waiting already (betraying that this was very much something Galvatron had planned to happen rather than spontaneously desired), was a group of warframes that his Starscream-inherited memory files recognized as the infamously dangerous Team Chaar.

"Care to show me how you'd act on that anger of yours against your enemies?  Demonstrate the way you'd tear into those slaggers?" Galvatron whispered, having leaned into his face far too closely.  

Against opponents of this size?  This caliber?  He wanted to impress the other, yes, he wanted to very badly, but- but he'd only fought the scouting drones of the lumen purgatio.  He'd trained with autobots, yes, but that had been different.  Autobots were tiny compared to these fighters.  

One of them started to laugh at the sight of him.  It was disgustingly wet, that gaping maw of a mouth spitting out who knew what as the sound issued.  

Skywarp grimaced.  It was an expression that held no fear, but did hold a sneer of a dark disgust that would have chilled him to see if he had a mirror.  

Without that reflection, he was left without full knowledge of why Spittor's laugh had cut off.  Skywarp was left assuming that he'd merely grown tired of guffawing.  He knew he was tired of laughing.  

Undeterred by any glare promising murderous death down on the heads of those daring to mock him, General Strika lumbered forward.  

"Alright rookie."  Her optics narrowed.  "Come over here and impress us."

She won, but it was close.

Blackout went next.  Despite his disturbing size (the mech was a monster in bulk and height) and his ability to use the ground against opponents, Skywarp had managed to utilize the touch of terror going up against such a gruesome fighter sparked in him in order to move around faster (panic certainly was an effective enough fuel) than he had in his spar with Strika.  The larger decepticon eventually tapped out after the clone jumped over a slamming attack, landed on the giant's back with a strike of his training blade poking down between outward plating until it hit in deep, and (in a flash of inspiration he swore Galvatron had beamed at) twisting one of the con's own rotors down into another gap of plating.  The extra blade had felt so right in his servos, even if it was a scrappy substitute for a sword.

He wanted to step down after that, if he was being honest.  The two duels exhausted him and Team Chaar still had plenty of vicious looking fighters left.

Old Skywarp would have teleported away at the mere thought of going up against Strika.

His current self wanted to step down from exhaustion.  

But the mech he was aiming to become wouldn't show the weakness of exhaustion anymore than he would fear.

So he fought Blot next and lost.  He surrendered to Sky-Byte next.  Then he stood above a surrendered opponent in the form of Mindwipe.  The mech, despite this being only a sparring match, looked as ready to go to the medbay as Blackout had already requested to do (a request that Strika had waved off until the show was finished and the giant of a mech was left to bleed from the twisted rotor and dripping stab wounds in miserable silence).  In actuality...despite technically losing, he'd left his mark on Blot as well (if the arm hanging loose from an injured joint meant anything).  

He was hardly the warrior Galvatron was or near Strika's capabilities, but he wasn't ineffectual.  He'd gotten so much better than his start on Earth.  The inherited battle skills from Starscream were one thing, but he had more than that alone now.

It was built from advice from the ninjabot and Magnus, experience with the lumen purgatio's drones, even the few drills Rodimus had inadvertently taught him- It was pride and desire and determination to be worthy of a spot by Galvatron's side.  

Spittor dragged his large frame forward and left wet to drip out from the parting maw.  

Skywarp didn't dare grimace this time.  Expression carefully flat, he offered this last opponent the courtesy of getting onto the stage before he slid in to strike.  

With the kind of clarity that only came through in battle, he saw what looked like stalling unease in his final opponent and he felt only a wish that it came from a being that far more deserved to fear him.

When he was done, everything hurt.  The aches spread down to the protoform.  Plating was cinched in multiple locations.  In others, it was cut apart.  All of his paint seemed to be scuffed (the biggest complaint Knockout had for him when he came to that lab much later for repairs).  

Galvatron didn't give him time to worry about the pain or repairs.  He'd whisked the smaller mech away from Team Chaar (the veterans, for the most part, in a rather jovial mood despite the aches.  It was confusing.  Or maybe it wasn't.  He felt a certain euphoria of pride as Galvatron marched him along, discussing the brutality his processor was only now realizing it had engaged in; that must be what drove the others to their post-fight joviality as well) and kept his own grip on a shoulder even as they walked along side by side.

Then the reminiscing had ended and the other had looked down at him quizzically.  Skywarp had the sense that he was being obscured of something.  

"The trick you did against Blackout- and that use of his own loosened plating with Spittor at the end there..."

Yes?

He wouldn't prod.  Galvatron would talk in his own time.  Skywarp was here to listen, not to irritate.  

"You prefer two weapons, don't you?" the mech finally spoke up again as if he hadn't drifted off.  The enthusiasm there was slightly disconcerting to hear, let alone have beam down upon him.  

"I.  Maybe?"  Skywarp grimaced.  At least his new voice wouldn't waver.  "I'm not sure what I prefer yet."

Swords to rifles, yes, but one blade or two?  How was he supposed to know?  Then again, his observer seemed to know from watching him make his own impromptu secondary blades in those sparring matches.  Perhaps it was the battle-worthy veteran he should confer to the judgement of.  And...it had felt right to grip that rotor and shove it in.  Two stabs were better than one.

Galvatron was already speaking on again.

"Megatron favored dual swords.  His alt was a rotary, if you can believe it, so I suppose the weaponry was a convenient choice."  The mech paused to drift a servo over his own pointed chin.  "I happen to like cannons or my own servos when I'm tearing others apart, but-"

There was a knowing chuckle.  Skywarp just wasn't in that 'know' yet.

"I have a secret," Galvatron lowered his voice, though there was still thick amusement for now.  "A secret for you."

What was that meant to mean??

"What?" the clone asked out in confusion.

It earned an easy squeeze from the grip remaining on his shoulder.  

"A secret," the other muttered.  "You don't get to see them-it-yet.  But-"

The mech leaned back and his voice lifted again.

"If, let's say, you were to move away from the silly autobot squadrons you've been wasting away with and stepped into a certain available space Team Chaar happens to have open..."

So it had not just been his job to show off for Galvatron earlier

It was an introduction to the team that his leader wanted him to join.  

How nerve wracking.  

...Nerve wracking or not, he knew he'd do it.

Chapter Text

It was rather unnerving to think about time.  At least, in relation to his life and its experiences.  As one who had been made a clone and then proceeded to fly alone and near stasis while the world went on, it was a disconcerting topic to consider.  

In terms of time he'd spent alert since his creation to the deaths of Team Athenia, he'd been functioning for a few orns.  In terms of reality's time, there had been multiple stellar cycles between his time in flight.

So much time lost, so much changed...

He passed the one stellar cycle mark of being alert and in full consciousness in the height of this new war.  Part of that had been spent with Rodimus's team, that short span of time he'd been able to spend with Tailgate, and then the time spent with various small teams during the campaign for the Co-Prosperity Sphere...and orns spent with Team Chaar.

The mark was passed and time kept going.  Another mark was approaching now.  The one proclaiming he had almost spent one stellar cycle with Team Chaar by now. 

It was much longer than any time spent with the other groups he'd allied with before.  The clones?  Less than an orn together.  Team Athenia?  A few orns, but far from a stellar cycle.  The miscellaneous others after that?  The same.  

This had a different feel to it because of that longevity.  And in truth, it wasn't a feel he disliked.  There was a sense of belonging when his time in the group did not end within a few cycles.  A safety, a purpose, an almost camaraderie no matter how he tried to avoid getting attached to those so seemingly doomed (weren't they all? his hope was not to save anyone at this point, but just to make their inevitable genocides hurt the lumen purgatio too badly for them to recover).  

And it was so very long compared to the rest of what little time he had spent alive and alert.  He grew accustomed to it.  There was no more continuous upheaval in where he belonged and who he was with- not when the team survived and kept him even until they reached that one stellar cycle mark.

Once, they were stationed on a rather large asteroid near New Kaon.  While many other advanced teams and branches of the new alliance fleet stayed in the space between the lost Co-Prosperity Sphere and Cybertron, Team Chaar had their own grounds to prowl.  The decepticon homeworld was theirs to watch, theirs to protect, and they would.  They were a very, very capable group of fighters.

Skywarp hadn't done much talking with any of them.  For one, his stupid slagging coding made sure he noted they were intimidating.  For another, he was not a very talkative person.  In the past, he had been in order to whine about his fears aloud.  That chapter was over.  

And what point was there in talking?  The important figures in his life could do all of that action while he merely listened.

That had been the state for some time.  But one cycle, after jours of doing nothing but meditation (something Strika, of all people, had started showing him how to do in order to 'better focus'; judging by her own vicious prowess, he had no room to judge her weak for engaging in such a non-aggressive activity and had picked it up under her 'recommendation' [a thinly veiled order]) in order to continually tell his processor and spark that the coding Starscream had given him was moot, he found himself changing things up.  

This was already time spent together longer than any previous assignment with the same people.  He was bound to have broken his avoidance eventually.

There were a few others outside their asteroid outpost (a former mining colony, they'd judged based on the rusted equipment left behind).  Strika was busy, off attempting to wear her T-Cog out by driving across the surface of the asteroid at straining speed.  Scalpel, the tiniest of their members, was also absent.  Blot was filing reports and delivering vocal updates to their leader wherever Galvatron was currently placed.  

That still left quite a few outside, sitting or lounging on different makeshift benches around a stack of junk that one of them had arranged in a sad pyramid.  

Skywarp found a spot on a rusty oil barrel and sat there.  His entrance was noted with the usual casual-threatening narrowings of optics (the body language of this brand of decepticon was always meant to show off threat) and a greeting-through-insult, courtesy of Mindwipe.  

After the typical 'hey tiny', they practically ignored him.  Really the only talking being done at this time was some dry argument between Sky-Byte and Mindwipe.  Blackout and Spittor were hardly the talkative type when it came to actually having to put thoughts and arguments and reasons and opinions and whatnot together, so neither were involved.  

Eventually, after the discussion over the value of Old Malignus and Destron versus Neocybex (a conversation that was oddly intriguing to him, despite him not before considering that the topic of the worth of archaic languages could be interesting in any degree), the group went quiet again.  Spittor prodded mystery gunk buried in the crevices of his plating.  Blackout picked at his own plating in repetitive boredom.  Sky-Byte stared at the junk pyramid flatly with his terrifying visage of a head set on his fists. 

So why not restart conversation?  It was better than boredom, even if he'd never bothered with this group yet.

He ended up settling on the topic of the team itself.  Or rather, its makeup.

"You've been the same group for this long?" he brightened in surprise after a question about their creation was answered by the poet of the team.  

It was, apparently, a stupid question.  

In his defense, he couldn't really understand the idea of sticking only with one group.  He hadn't yet been with this team for the stellar cycle he would end up staying with them for and his other experiences left him thinking that continuously switching squadrons up was better as it left little room for attachments and inevitable despair at seeing those attachments killed.

"We haven't been in the market to expand in a whole long while," came an answer that only made Skywarp narrow his own optics.  

If they hadn't been in that 'market', why was he here?

"But with this alliance, why haven't you branched out?" he decided to ask.  "New skills, new fighting styles...There are many differences among the fighters of the fleet."

He'd seen enough of them when he did haunt the main ship's training rooms and witnessed others there.  

"What, picked up some civilians?" Mindwipe shook his head.  "No, no.  Team Chaar is set.  We've been the same for vorns, we ain't about to shift around now.  Some of us may leave for a time, but we're still Team Chaar at spark."

"Aye, like I had been for many a vorn," Sky-Byte waved somewhat subduedly at himself.  Then again, the warrior often seemed rather subdued when he wasn't tearing others apart in battle.  It had left his arguments in favor for the archaic dialects of old Cybertron quieted in comparison to his opponents' noise.  "But this madness has reunited us all."

" 'was gone a vorn once too," Blackout grunted from a seat that was far too small for him (it had, in fact, been crushed of its barrel supports and now lay flat on the ground under the mech).  

So separations weren't abnormal, but adding new members- ignoring the advantages they could bring- was?

"Then why did Lord Galvatron say there was an open slot for me if there was no open slot for the other fighters of the alliance?" the clone pointed out.

Unsaid: why me?  Sure, he knew that Galvatron had wanted him to have the position, but why hadn't Team Chaar just gotten a capable fighter sometime before he'd arrived?

"Ah, well, there was," Mindwipe glanced aside uneasily.  "Team Chaar is set, always has been, like I said.  Sometimes some of us can't be 'round, but we still got our base members and, if not busy, we all can still group up if need be.  We lost one of those base members.  Real aft, a slagger named Oil Slick."

"Some loss," Spittor interrupted with what looked like it possibly was a smile (who knew with that awful mouth of his?).  

It earned a glare from the former speaker.

"Hey, Scalpel didn't act all that pleased over it and neither did the general."

"Do either of them ever act pleased?" Sky-Byte noted with a dry tone.  It seemed that, subdued or not, he could still manage snide comments.  Sarcasm, as Hot Shot would call it.  A part of Skywarp distantly wondered if Hot Shot would be proud of him for managing to recognize it now.  The question spiraled from there into internal commentary on how that old team would be disappointed in seeing him with the very decepticons who'd so soundly defeated them that one time- at seeing how they morphed him to better fit into the decepticon stereotype.  Angry, strong, hardly all that kind, though just hardly talkative in the first place either.  He shook the thoughts off.

"Anyway, you got his spot," Mindwipe continued after a moment.  "Galvatron is rather interfering that way.  First, he's the one that offs Oil Slick, then he tells us to take you?  Lord Megatron used to just allow the general the room to make any calls about our team."

Offense built up; Skywarp felt his jaw creak as he ground it shut.

"Did you know him?" Spittor asked, leaning forward with what seemed to be genuine interest.  "Oil Slick?  You been after his spot all these stellar cycles?"

He knew the name only through affiliation, however brief, with Team Athenia.  He knew the name as an image in his mind: the dark unpaintable spots on Rodimus Prime, Kup standing behind after pushing the mech into Skywarp, the driving away to escape danger that the once-red mech could never do.  He knew the name through that and that alone.  

"I have heard of him before," he said flatly after he managed to stop grinding his jaw over the earlier disrespect to Galvatron in comparison to Megatron.  "I had no inclination to take his job or team." 

His life, on the other servo...But that was a chance already gone.  Galvatron was wise to have seen the dishonor such a chemist brought on his trusted warriors names.  

"Eh.  You didn't miss much.  Just wish that lunatic had given us some sort of warning before he went psycho on his own subordinates."

Lunatic?  

The offense returned, though for now Skywarp remained silent.  

"It may not be wise to call our new lord such," Sky-Byte murmured.  It earned him laughter from the others.  At least until they saw that his expression didn't loosen up into a joking one with them.

"Oh."  Blackout's optics brightened.  "You meant it."

The expression that the quiet warrior gave him almost let the clone lose his own offense into temporary amusement.  

"Oh frag that!" Mindwipe laughed.  "It's not like he's here to kill one of us for calling him what he is.  I preferred Lord Megatron to the fool who's taken his place."

He would not touch an ally.  He would not hurt an ally and he would not engage in pointless verbal sparring.

He would not.

But oh how this conversation irked him.  

"We are all loyal to our leader," Sky-Byte said.  "Some moreso than others.  And listening audials are most often connected to open voice boxes."  The orange and blue mech looked his way with enough pointedness that the others slowly did as well.

Something loosened on Mindwipe's expression.  It drew down in something akin to horror.  

Skywarp's own expression stayed flat.  

It stayed such even as the other muttered some praise for Galvatron and his defeat of Megatron and the rest followed suit.  It was amusing, really.  He was smaller than almost every member of this team.  He held far, far less battle experience and was a newcomer none of them had asked for or yet respected.

But he was favored by Galvatron.  

And that loyalty, shared vice-versa by both him and the warlord, gave him a power that his combat capabilities didn't.  

He kept that power throughout the rest of the stellar cycle, even as his combat capabilities did improve under battle experience and Strika's no-holds-barred training.  

This was what he'd missed by spending all those years in low power: the gaining of strength, the earning of respectful fear, the growth of loyalty towards a leader who deserved it.

In hindsight, it was a shame, really, that he'd been too much of a coward to follow the egotist and autobot after that original spacebridge mishap.

There were many chances to fight.  While they were stationed near New Kaon during times of wait, they traveled to locations in need of assistance multiple times over the year.  Double divisions that found scouts had entered their sector, the like.  Whenever they were called to combat those scouts, Team Chaar tore them apart.

They were quite effective.

And, in comparison to the start, Skywarp was beginning to be able to do the same for himself.

Still, despite the joy of tearing drones apart, they never saw a sign of one of the motherships.  As brutal a team as they were, they wouldn't stand up against one of those.  Almost nothing could.  The Co-Prosperity Sphere couldn't.  And, while the weaponry of the alliance's experimental fleet could take them down one at a time, it also barely stood against them.  

So when Strika stormed from the makeshift office of the current outpost they'd set up in after rescuing some ineffectual decepticon division from the scouts on this planet (Skywarp still hadn't buffed away the marks that fight had left on him; he hardly felt they existed at all- how could he, when he merely remembered the rush of springing to the top of one of the giant metal ovals and gutting it with manic stabs?) and said without a filter to soften the blow that the lumen purgatio had started their entrance into Cybertronian space- pushing at the barricade as they spoke- ...well.  It brought them all down from the high they were running after a successful battle.

"Cybertron," someone muttered.  The word, the name, (the impact behind it) passed around on different voices.

"Cybertron."

"Cybertron."

It wasn't the real home of any here, but the blow of that word hit them all.  Skywarp was no exception.  If Cybertron fell, what was there to fight for?  What hope was there leftover after the vanguard of advancement in this galaxy was lost?

Vengeance, he thought.  Equality.  Justice.  If the lumen purgatio were to destroy them all, it was only right that they too be destroyed.  

It left very little behind for the galaxy.  But if Cybertron was lost, New Kaon would be, just as Earth and the Co-Prosperity Sphere had been, and altogether what was left for the galaxy anyways?  

Chapter Text

In one of the battles he'd fought in during the stellar cycle long assignment, Skywarp had almost allowed Blot to die.  

It hadn't been as clean a victory as many of their fights.  There were more scouts than had been predicted; the place was one at which they had already begun their replication process, evidently.  If only it had been evident from the start, rather than a surprise to drop into such a nest of activity.  

Adding to the difficulties, Blackout had managed to get his legs blown off early on and was now both deprived of his ability to use the ground against their enemies and also his ability to move in general.  As it turned out (to little surprise for the snide voice in Skywarp's head), he wasn't very useful without any mobility.

Still, the mech was the brute force on their team and his near-instantaneous disposal left them independently reeling to figure out how they as a team would fight when deprived of their usual dynamic.

So it had been a messy battle.  They'd made do, but it hadn't been pretty.  That was fine.  Flair held a certain appeal to it, but Skywarp had no reason to deny the benefits of flat-out battling without any pleasantries or show.  

One such 'show' he felt no need to engage in when slag hit the fan was the entire prospect of a team.  He blamed a part of it on the heat of the fight itself.  In so much impromptu acting, his processor had no time to function as normal.  He blamed the rest on the logic of the matter.  Logically, if logic were to be built by experience, he would not need to care for the wellbeing of his teammates.  His leader, yes.  His bondmates, battle-brothers, companions, yes.  But he had none of the latter and the former was not here to worry about.  

When Blot had yelled to him as he moved by where the other was laying, Skywarp had felt a pang of irritation at the interruption and offered only a brief glance of attention to the caller.  The decepticon was as grounded as Blackout; pink energon was pooling on the disrupted ground of rocks, torn wires fritzed, and half of Blot's face was melted slag dripping into the stable half grotesquely.  The reason for the yell was evident now.  He had, at first, thought it was just a call to join in whatever mini-fight the other had gotten involved in.  Now he knew it was a request for aid.  Skywarp must have been the first ally to get near enough that Blot could make his plight known.

There was a value to keeping all members of this team.  Blot was rather good at file-work and administrative balancing.  He fought decently enough.  The others knew he belonged there.  

He also loved to brag about his own disgusting qualities as if they were a source of pride.  

How crippled, really, would Team Chaar be without one single member?  How crippled would Galvatron's cause be without Team Chaar? 

Camaraderie demanded he protect teammates.  Protection was already something he'd failed so egregiously at when he'd let Tailgate die to save himself.  

Survival said that keeping the team intact was a wiser way to keep them all, himself most importantly included, alive.  

Apathy or pride or perhaps a different sort of defense than mere physical survival denied it all.  It was a waste of time to stop and drag a heavy, bleeding, halfway-in-alt form to somewhere safe.  That time was better spent destroying the drones until it was that they all lay dead and the entire team as a whole had a safe place to be.  

In the span of a few nano-clicks, this had passed through his mind and- even as Blot was continuing a garbled explanation of his wishes- Skywarp came to his conclusion.

He moved on to one of the many more enemies still standing.

The battle trumped one ally he would feel no crippling grief for losing.  Eventually, he'd lose everyone.  This war hardly looked promising.  They could be hurt, but they couldn't be stopped before the damage was already irreparable.  If everyone was bound to lose, to die, then the time it occurred didn't matter to him and their deaths would not either.  This, he swore.  This, he promised.  The phantom Tailgate had left his presence for the most part and this reprieve seemed only to prove his declaration was successful.  

When the combat was over, a still-alive Blot was furious with him.  Spitting words, angry threats, even insult over being left behind- it all came, as was to be expected should the outcome be that he survive without getting trampled by other drones.  

Despite the distrust, it was hardly that odd an action for a decepticon.  Some were fiercely loyal to each other (something he, even as a creation of Starscream, had been more than capable of before the reality of the hopelessness of this world registered for him).  Others would happily leave teammates to die (it had not, granted, been a happy decision; there was no pleasure, but no shame).  Decepticons were made of individuals, real individuals, like any other army or country or team.  There was always variety within its members.  

They did not hate him for it; they did not like him for it either.  It impressed no one and made no enemies of anyone but an upset Blot.  

It did not matter.

What did?

Not winning this fool's errand of a war.  There was no declaring war on an immovable, inevitable force.  But there was striking back, the burning of their own cleansing, dying light, the pride of their commander.  That mattered.  

This team did not, because he would not gain attachment to them as he had Rodimus's autobots.

Attachment to the doomed was finite and that stage in his life had ended already.

Galvatron was found on the fleet when they returned.  Cybertron was not yet burning, but the barricade of alliance ships and technology spread around its sector had been breached in the time it took Team Chaar to arrive.  

There was sick helplessness to this all.  

There ought to have been additional hopelessness, but Skywarp felt completely unsurprised at the helplessness in the first place.  It was hard to lose hope without an element of surprise to the unhappy news.  

Some of the others gave him odd looks for it.  It was these expressions which brought about the memory of that incident on AXU4.  Some of them had looked that way then, as he gave his explanation for focusing on the fight rather than a downed comrade.  It was an expression that said they realized what the reasons were, but did not themselves understand experiencing them.  He stepped into the battleground for Cybertron without any indication that it grieved him to see this battle occur and, while they could realize that his reasons were built in a pragmatic look, an empirical look at their chances here, a desire to not be hurt by having a hope dashed- they did not themselves understand it.  They still grieved because they still hoped for a chance that this planet would not be lost.  

But then he had never once stepped on the world.  It was easy for him to be pragmatic in thinking over its chances.  This, he thought, was perhaps what Galvatron had thought when he had acted so blase about the survival of Cybertron.  He too had never lived there, as Megatron once had.  Or perhaps it had been some completely other reason.  There was no saying, only assuming.  

A stellar cycle ago, he had still felt panic at the thought of losing Cybertron despite having never seen it personally.

He had truly evolved since then.  

Evolution, transformation: brought on by a need to change in order to survive a new scenario.  Not synonymous to improvement, merely a way to make it past a difficult environment of that moment.  

If the lumen purgatio were to vanish now, his own evolution would do him little good.  He would be left behind, confused, meaningless, too withheld to find new allies and comfortable life, too resigned to nihilistic odds to accept peace and safety.  This situation demanded Skywarp change and, in this situation, that change was improvement.  

He wasn't even Skywarp anymore, in reality.  This transformation of his had gone too far to fit as that coward.  He merely had no other name to call himself.  He had been given the designation by another, after all, and the only alternative his unimaginative-in-that-regard mind pulled up was Starscream.

Still, he could know internally that Skywarp was gone.  

It was almost unfair.

In a different situation, a different environment, the coward could be here looking at Cybertron and maybe, if his coding had also been touched or his personality had overwritten it enough at that point, he could visit it with a kind of innocent curiosity- find oil houses, gape at light shows and fancy sights, grip the safe servo of a friend.  

He- with his altered voice and the armor bulked over the year with Scalpel's care and the personality he now was trapped with- would be useless in that environment.  Absolutely, uselessly lost.  

There was no point thinking on it then.  

Galvatron and apocalypses and a doomed planet were his present and that was what he was transformed into this new person to thrive in.

There were war meetings and panicked rushings and chaos in the halls.  Team Chaar was given their own barracks so, at the least, Skywarp would not have to deal with the chaos outside once he finished his tasks.

With the others busy with various tasks, the clone had invited Galvatron in and they had both enjoyed the peace and quiet of each other's company and an empty room.

This was, in fact, a lie.

The first was that it was not quiet.  Galvatron did not consistently stay quiet, even if Skywarp himself talked in a low growl that never quiet lifted up from that decibel.  

The second was that the room was not empty.  Scalpel had been left there.  Something about not getting trampled, as said by a gleeful Spittor and then backed up by a far less teasing Strika.  

Still, it felt peaceful and emptied from the world to Skywarp and so he did enjoy that company.  

Galvatron spent some time after being asked about the last year giving grandiose stories rather than a clean summary.  From these stories, it seemed the mech had been single-handedly crushing the large ships of the lumen purgatio, creating ingenious battleplans, and leading the alliance to glory.  The autobot Magnus sounded as though he did nothing but stand behind and clap gratefully at every victory Galvatron pulled.  

No matter his idolization, Skywarp was not an idiot enough to not take this all with a grain of skepticism.  

Then Galvatron had abruptly stopped during one tale and looked at him quizzically.

"And you?" the warlord tilted his head, voice at a more normalized volume rather than the earlier bombastic tone.  "How have you done with Strika's team?"

He had received upgrades to his frame that left him no longer the 'tiny one'.  

He had fought and fought until it was the clarity Galvatron had said fighting summoned.

He had made no friends but no enemies and left the others respectfully uneasy with him.

"Well," he answered.  

The warlord smiled wide.  Those disconcerting dentae went onto full show and Skywarp found himself approving.  They spoke of threat, as his whole frame did, and as the clone's did after the stellar cycle away transforming.  

"Delightful!" Galvatron patted one pointy purple shoulder absently.  "You survived.  You must have improved, then.  In danger, there is only survival or stagnated skills.  They are mutually exclusive to each other."

Perhaps that was too black and white, but he understood it.  

He had survived.  He had survived because he had improved.  Had he not, he would have died and Team Chaar would have lived on without him.

"I had determined to," Skywarp said.  "I will burn away our enemies, not cower in some place without improvement."

At that, the already-wide smile carved wider.  Galvatron stood up and cast his shadow over the still-seated flightframe.  

"Wonderful.  I wish to see this," the other declared.  What Galvatron wished, Galvatron received; framed like a mere desire or no, it was an order.  "Is your team available later?  I believe it is time for another show."

The giant of a mech crouched down to put both servos on Skywarp's shoulders and look at him closer.  There was that camaraderie, that partnership, that affection that he forced himself to lack with others.  It was unavoidable here, with him.  

"I want to see you in battle," Galvatron said.  "If you can win against each opponent, I will-  ...You will see.  Incentive enough?"

Very, very much so.

Chapter Text

The fact that Scalpel had been left in that room only interfered with him after Galvatron had swept out.  Skywarp had waited behind for some time, considering what he'd been told and wondering how it would play out.  

Surely the main fleet had not changed too much in his absence.  The gym he had displayed his fighting ability at should remain where it had been last time.  The doctors that had been operating on him ought to be here as well.  

Should...

Skywarp stalled in his pacing to grimace.  

Should he go to them?  Finish what he'd let them start?  See if the last aspect of Skywarp was all the way overwritten by now?

His alternative was to wait for that until later, after the duels, or else to scrap it completely.  The options were muttered, though no answer came from either that action or pacing.

It was here that Scalpel made his presence known.  While the clone had rather forgotten he was there, the scientist slipped down from whatever cabinet he'd been spying in.  Little tacking noises preceded his drop from the upper cabinet level down to the counter of the large lounge of the private barracks.

"You have medics here?" he tilted his head curiously, little frontal legs raising to rub against each other.  

It may have sounded 'curious', but Skywarp read the body language as scheming.  There was just no trusting the scientist.  The motion with his frontal claws only made him look hungry rather than innocently curious.  

"Two," Skywarp grunted regardless.  "They started the manual dampening of Starscream's accursed code.  I worry that seeking them out may take too long; they could be gone, reassigned, recharging, and looking around for those answers would be time consuming.  Time better spent preparing for Lord Galvatron's desired duels."

Little optics narrowed to slits.

"Ah yes.  More of zhose 'duels'.  Our leader razher enjoys zem, does he not?" Scalpel noted so casually that the edge behind it was very evident.  "I vonder who vill die in zis one."

"No one died in the last," the clone noted.  "I pull my punches."

It was that very technique that Rodimus had once tried to show the existence of and he had so awkwardly viewed.  Funny, really, how easy it was now to engage in those mock battles.  

"Not ze last one, no," the scientist said easily enough after a moment.

It was a rather pointed easiness.

Perhaps, Skywarp thought, it was time to leave.

"Vere are you going?" Scalpel interrupted that plan when the flyer moved to go.  

It was none of the other's concern.  

"I must follow my command," he said flatly.  Most everything he said was with such a tone, in truth.  Mindwipe had once said it made him look sparkless.  Skywarp accepted the praise or insult, whichever it was intended as, wordlessly.  

"Ah, but you vere going to see to your code a moment ago..." the scientist scittered along the counter to keep up with his pacing.

What business was it of his?  Skywarp felt his mouth curling into the slightest of angry grimaces.

"It does not matter to me," the clone growled.  It did, but why say so?  It did, but there was a confliction to it.  Would the answers truly be something he wanted to hear?  

Besides, he was no idiot.  He saw the hunger there in his teammate.  He saw the unsaid offer to let the conveniently here-and-now scientist do the job and he had no inclination to accept.

"And vat?  You vant to go to zat fight with it still in, even after all zat consideration to ze contrary?" Scalpel said with the kind of sleazy tone that implied he'd already won some unsaid fight.  "You vere ready to go to zis 'Knockout' a moment ago..."

He made it sound like the clone so much looked forward to the other decepticon medic.  What a joke.  It wasn't as if he was raring to see the doctor.  

"I don't need to," Skywarp shook his head.

If Knockout was bad enough to have digging in his processor with filthy, filthy unabashed servos, Scalpel was bad on another level.  It was already unpleasant to have the mech pull off parts of his anatomy and replace them with new plating or weaponry.  That was a necessary evil.  A vivisection of his processor was not.  

"You'd razher go to the most important arena of your career with ze possibility zat zis coding of yours vill mess it all up?"

No.  

Frag it all, no.  

But it hadn't, in all the time away-

He hadn't-

The pressure (built from that which Galvatron had laid down before departing) was putting a strain on him.  He didn't want to let the other down.  Not when he was being dangled a gift or praise of some kind or other...

"It would be an inconvenient time for ghost coding to flare up," the clone admitted slowly.  "I'm not sure that's how they said it worked..."

But this subtle pressure was still growing, only fueled by Scalpel's insistence (that prying pest) and he felt his resolve leaving in the face of securing safety.  He really did want to avoid letting Galvatron down.  And he always did cave to stress and fear and pressure (the fear of disappointing another wasn't based in self preservation though, was it?  would that truly be affected by this coding or was Scalpel merely trying to get a look into his helm?).  

Perhaps the disappointment- even after all these many orns- was still himself.  He was different than the coward who'd let the others die, different from the weakling who'd been taunted by the phantom feel of a corpse's weight and residual heat pushing into where he was curled against it- he was new, he was changed, he just still wanted to...wanted not to fail...Not in front of this mech.  Not when he wanted so badly to prove himself as a worthy shadow, guard, lieutenant for the evolution of the former decepticon first in command.  

"Zhen let me look," Scalpel offered, as if he hadn't been pushing it before.  

Skywarp grit his jaw together until it and his clenched fists creaked in unison strain.  

"If you so much as tweak one piece without my consent-" he growled as he slid himself down to a position that would let the scientist have easier access to the height of his helm.  

"You'll rip me apart?" the other finished for him with skeptical amusement.

The scientist was tiny.  Fragile.  Useful to the team, but oh, oh so very breakable.  Skywarp turned his face to stare at the decepticon with that flatness that spoke of total confidence.

"Yes," he hissed.  "Don't doubt I could."

The feel of splurting fuels already ghosted across his servo; it would take but one of those servos to grab the aft and split him open.  An ironic end, really: killed by the very strength that his alterations over the stellar cycle allowed Skywarp to have.  

But it would not be necessary violence.  The plan was easy to imagine, should it come to it, but the better scenario was simply for the scientist to avoid sabotage and finish this quickly.  

Scalpel was either very good at bluffing or he wasn't all that intimidated by the threat.  True, he looked on the defense, there was no doubt of that, but -he was hardly shaking.  

"A big, strong fighter like ze one who can capture ze Galvatron's attention?  Why vould I bothering doubting it?"

Fine.  

Enough chatter.  Skywarp returned his face forward and gave the manual commands to bare what ports Scalpel would need for this.  He'd done it enough times with Knockout and Extempaxia (he would not question where they were now, if they lived, if they worked together once more, he would not humor any questions of the like, he would not-)

A few clicks passed before Scalpel had managed to isolate what he was searching for.  There was a 'tsk'ing noise behind his head, though the actual intrigue and glee of the doctor was impossible for him to hide.  Lovely.  

"Found it," the singsong boast came.  

Fantastic.  It only took the same amount of time that it had Red Alert and Knockout and Extempaxia.  There was no boast to be had there.  

"Hm.  Looks buried already, but it's still here.  I'll finish taking it out," the scientist offered.  "Or razher comment it out."

Comment the code line out...

The others had implied it wasn't the wisest move to make.  Not until the personality component had already overwritten most of it.  So had that occurred?  Or did Scalpel simply hold none of the qualms they had?  Neither option would surprise him.  He didn't feel like knowing either answer either.

"Do it."

He thought, in cycles to come, that the ironic part of it all was just how unchanged he felt after Scalpel had gleefully obeyed.  Perhaps his memories altered alongside the lack of coding, erasing its presence in the emotions of their stored files.  

He rather thought that the likely answer was what he remembered expecting before the scientist had even started: the personality component's maturation overwriting Red Alert had been the first to tell him of having already done enough of its job to dampen the blow of commenting out such once-crucial coding.

He stood a victor. 

A victor spattered with the occasional spit fuels and the glow of energon.  A victor with practice blades in servo similarly spattered.  A victor who had done as dared to and defeated his team.  

Galvatron was giving a smirk to rival Sky-Byte's in showy dentae.  

He stood a victor and that was merely the last evidence needed to show how very different he was now from the weak clone they'd brought in over a year before.  

After the duel, Galvatron had steered him along away from Team Chaar (seemingly forgotten by the warlord for now; it was nice to receive this attention, but Skywarp felt that it would be important for his leader to pay attention to his generals and soldiers as well.  Perhaps, if he gained a place closer to Galvatron's side rather than with different squadrons, he could help keep the warlord focused on those sort of responsibilities.  Perhaps).

"You certainly hold your own now."

Certainly.  

"I could do little to harm the lumen purgatio if I was unable to keep up in a fight," Skywarp replied.  

It was almost dry, despite his voice never much changing from the low baritone it was constantly spoken with.  Galvatron understood the humor of it regardless of its growling delivery.  

"Your speed against Mindwipe was truly delightful to witness," the other continued enthusiastically.  "An already fast opponent, beaten by superior speed.  And that angle!  Disemboweling him would have been quite simple."

Quite.  

But it hadn't been a lethal duel.  

Skywarp just allowed his friend to speak on and on, praising "gruesome" techniques displayed with contagious glee.  This approval was nice to receive.  The encompassing pointlessness of the world went translucent for a moment.  It always did when he was around the passion and liveliness of this mech.

"I made it."

Wait- 

Ah, he hadn't been paying enough attention.  Or the words had just not been preempted to start with.  Either way, he focused in on Galvatron in wait for elaboration.

The mech saw him staring up and smiled down.  

"They've actually been finished for some time," he elaborated.  "Unsurprising.  My ideas are always brought to completion."

What a humble proclamation.  The corner of Skywarp's mouth almost twitched up.  

"This would be...?" he prompted, seeing as an actual explanation for this change in topic had not yet been delivered.  

Galvatron brushed a finger over his chin briefly before a grin broke out.

"The little secret.  My gift to you- and from us, to the universe!  The glory it will bring!" the warlord swore.  He was rather caught up on the idea of glory, of life as a stage.

Their walk had led them to new room, one that Skywarp had never seen, let alone entered, before.  He had a hunch of whose it was, but there wasn't time to ask for confirmation.  Galvatron was pulling him in past a mess of broken memorabilia and furniture, past what may have once been a couch before it had been folded in half, past an energon cooler box painted wildly by someone who'd evidently never painted before- past it all until they stood by a desk, or rather a table as it had been tugged from the wall a desk would rest up against, that lay uncluttered except for two long items on its surface.

"These-" Galvatron waved forward to the table and its decoratives.

Skywarp moved closer.  A servo drifted above the dark surface of his gifts, investigating but not yet touching.  There was a caution to touching weapons, after all.  What may look like a seathe could very well be a blade.

"They are Bleedback," the warlord stepped up behind him, leaning against his wings in order to also look down at the table.  "Bleedback blades.  Works of art.  Yours."

It was cue enough.  Skywarp cautiously grazed one's surface metal with a digit before it reached the hilt and his servo curled around it.  

"How?" he asked.  

A part of him knew that Galvatron may not even know the details needed to answer that.  The warlord was no engineer.  These blades, even if Galvatron was the inspiration, had been made by others and their process could very well just be described as 'magic' depending on the large mech's mood.  

"Interested?" Galvatron smirked, moving to the side in order to better face the flyer.  "It was your warpdrive.  I did so hate to see such a weapon go to waste, but you had rightly sworn it off.  As a tool used to flee, it has no place with you.  But reformatted..."

Into what, swords?  He'd almost have prefered the magic explanation.  

"That drive of yours was a mystery," he continued.  "And it is mysterious means that we need in order to win against mysterious opponents.  These blades are made to do more than cut: they sap energy, as your warp drive sapped energy from you and your surroundings.  The lumen purgatio have no visible anatomy, but they are undoubtedly energy.  Everything is."

It shocked him, sometimes, to hear Galvatron display the intelligence that rested beneath, or beside, his madness.  It also pleased him.  He knew that it was there, even as Galvatron himself hid it well.  

"So these could sap their energy, in theory," Skywarp mused as he lifted a sword up and tilted it one way to the other.  "And if their entire being is based solely in that infeasible energy..."

It was alien, but the laughter bubbled up and barked out regardless.  Galvatron smirked.  

"You wished to hurt them.  You may be among the first to actually give them that sharp lesson we all have longed to teach them."

It was truly a gift worth waiting for.  

"Thank you, my lord," Skywarp breathed out, optics still on his blades.  

There was a moment of content silence.  Then Galvatron's interest in silence wore out and he started speaking once again. "I would have merely made one for you and one for myself, but after seeing you dance with two- well.  Their design needed to morph into weapons like these.  They will need to be powered," he added.  "I haven't quite gotten that bit worked out yet.  The warpdrive your predecessor gave us will help once again, as I plan to gift you with a reactor linkage that will be constantly available to you through that transwarp technology, but I haven't been offered a worthy choice for that energy source."

All of which was important, but-

but first-

"My predecessor?" he asked. 

Galvatron spent a brief moment looking confused.

"The one who ran.  We said before that I am no Megatron and you are no Starscream clone, remember?"

A conversation so long ago held, but one he did in fact remember.  Those interactions with Galvatron were more important than any others that had occured a year before.

"I am neither Starscream or that coward Skywarp I first met you as," he declared after a moment of thought.  

It earned another smirk; this time, he felt that he was being kept from crucial information, a joke known to others told as his oblivious expense.  

Then Galvatron stepped away and strolled to a different corner of the room.  Skywarp followed him after a moment, setting his new weapons back on the table top for now.  Once approached, the warlord tilted his head almost playfully and kept him waiting in suspense before speaking up.

"Have I told you of Unicron before?" Galvatron asked whimsically.

Had he-...?  No.  No, Skywarp wasn't sure he had.  He shook his head in silence.  

"Ah.  Well, there's one bit I think I will tell you now."

Optimus had said that this mech's stories of Unicron changed each time they were told.  There was no one accepted account.  Only many, many unreliable recounts.  How was he to know that Galvatron's upcoming one would be any more true?

He supposed he couldn't.  But he rather thought it would be.  It was trust.  Maybe faith was more accurate.  It didn't' harm him to believe a story, did it?

"After he finished the reformat, he explained what, who, I had become and it has all been true."

How much had been prediction and how much was a self-fulfilling form prophecy?

"But he told me more than just the legend Galvatron would become," the warlord changed courses.  "He said that I would find a second.  A supporter who'd follow me with loyalty and strength and intelligence.  The first and second, Megatron had with soldiers like Lugnut.  All three could be attributed to Shockwave or Strika or multiple others.  But it wasn't them he showed me as he crafted my legend.  It was never them.  Their loyalty was to my predecessor.  But when you were brought in..."

Galvatron smiled distantly.

"Starscream was never loyal.  Ambitious, yes, and strong enough.  Cunning and imaginative, though stupidly blinded.  He knew the decepticon way and wanted so badly to follow the traditions of leadership, but he never had the ability to successfully pull off a coup.  He was the lieutenant of the decepticon army and he did manage to wreak some devastation with Megatron when they did force themselves to work together.  There is a reason he stood as the decepticons 2IC, the moments of stupidity and attempted coups aside."

The memories left behind for the clone to observe backed up the claim.  The former warlord and his lieutenant had a chemistry to leading the faction, no matter how they despised each other.  It had kept the autobot commonwealth from crushing their people for vorns.  

"And you-" Galvatron waved at the warrior who hardly even looked like Starscream anymore.  "-you came from him, but you are so very superior.  You are stronger; look at you now!  Fearsome!  You are intelligent and pragmatic and- and-" there was a twisting of Galvatron's expression, a tweak of one optic; it was a glitching sort of motion that left Skywarp uneasy.  "-and allspark knows I'm not-t-t always-s." 

Hearing the admission made something twist in revulsion inside; Galvatron had never once acknowledged himself as lacking in genius before, let alone calling out his instabilities (and it was an admission that he only heard from the other in years to come during rare swings of the mech's mood).  

"You're loyal. You have no taste for leadership, do you?"  The horrid, glitching tone was gone now, replaced by usual pompous brightness.  Skywarp shook his head at the rhetorical question.

"A model warrior," Galvatron smiled slowly.  "If I am a model warlord, I deserve such as my second, wouldn't you say?"

It would be best to have such joint efficiency.

"And that planet-eating monstrosity said I would find one.  A superior Starscream to my superior Megatron, I thought.  He called you by name, I think, and that is my test for you now.  These blades, for you- if you show me in one last way that you are my promised lieutenant."

This almost felt contrived.  Galvatron's "I think" made the certainty of it all waver.  But he would play the game regardless.  

"Begin it," Skywarp nodded.  

Another smile.  

A sly pinch of the optic.  

Then Galvatron began the game.

"He told me a name.  You said, before, that you are not what, who, you once were.  Why bother going by the remnant of a dead predecessor then?  I will give you options and you will chose a new name."

His former one had been given by an autobot he'd just meant.  Why not allow the mech he valued most to give him a new one?  Choosing his own had never been his style, evidently.  

He thought on this resignation to being directed, named, explained, by others while Galvatron busied himself with scratching down a few words on a nearby piece of junk.  His reverie was finally broken when the other called that he was finished.  The scrap metal was shoved into his servos and he spent a few clicks reading each option and feeling their sound in his head, the ring of his spark.

The deja vu from Hot Shot's previous naming session was distractingly strong.  Despite that, he was able to find one without too long or nostalgic a wait.

"That."  The clone pointed at one option after his moment of contemplation.  It spoke of storm, contained and unconstrained, capable of raging, a force of nature.  It was hardly the title of a coward.  

Galvatron looked to the chosen designation and then gave a predator's smile.  "Cyclonus.  You are the wielder of those blades."

The former clone set the scrap sheet aside and looked back at the table behind him.  The acceptance to a position at Galvatron's side was more than a dream, but it felt muted.  Confused.  Not unhappy by any means, but this all lacked a certain logical clarity.

"If Unicron was a psychic of some kind, what did he say on this situation?" he asked.  "What future did he tell you of this war?"

The answer was lackadaisical.  

"He left.  Besides, I never said he could see the future in any way.  Where'd you get that idea from?"

Ah.  Galvatron wished to confuse him.  He would just accept whatever odd stories his leader wished to tell in the moment.  Not, per se, as truth, but just as tales that needed an outlet.  Galvatron had no outlet but violence, but he had not had a lieutenant, a partner, before this moment either.  

Still, on the off chance that this had not all been a trick and the names all rigged to be said as the prophetic one, Cyclonus would ask one more question.

"What would have happened if I had chosen otherwise?" the clone glanced at Galvatron, who lifted both brows at the question.  

"What would have-  You silly thing.  Why concern yourself now?  But-" his voice dropped.  "I would have kept you anyways, I believe."

"Why?" Cyclonus asked.  

This time, Galvatron wasn't graceful enough to give him a clean answer.  Still, it received a shoving pat on one pointed shoulder and a happy enough expression.  

"You know, don't you?"

He was somehow, inexplicably, likable to the mech.  That was it.  

But it was a soft sort of admission that Galvatron was hardly capable of speaking himself.  So he left it to Cyclonus to think and bothered not with a confirmation.  

Chapter Text

Getting near a ship was difficult.  During the battle that had led Galvatron to Cyclonus long before, the victory had come through a means of smaller fighters delivering warheads primarily.  Not one of the alliance soldiers had stepped pede onto the monster of a lumen purgatio fleetship, as none had been left behind to step on.  The damage that it had taken for them to defeat it had left very little behind to reconstruct a picture of life on the thing.  

So where were entrances?

Would there be halls or did the lumen purgatio's alien members not need such spaces to travel?  In that note, if there were drones aboard, would they be in garages or labs or would they be what required hallways?

How would any of them fare on board?  Would they fit?  See and identify enemies to attack?  Or find themselves immersed in an environment that would neutralize them before they could kill any of their enemies?  

As Galvatron's new shadow, Cyclonus had a place in the meetings where others discussed these issues.  Strapped in their hilts to his back were the Bleedback that had been gifted him.  They thrummed there, though unused, and he longed for the cycle that they would be put to use for their intended purpose.

Thus far, he had cut through the spaceborn scouts- the strange, elongated things that the Co-Prosperity Sphere had first found at the start of this- and the drones used surface-side on those asteroids and outer planets and moons that the lumen purgatio had attempted to factorize.  Their fleets would be responsible for razing Cybertron and the other planets, but one unimportant surface would still be used for the scouts to replicate and spread out to further systems, giving calls back to their masters to inform them of when a new civilized place was found.  It was a pleasure to go down and cut through the drones attempting to begin this process.  Team Chaar and many other squadrons had put a pressure on this replication process, ruining the beginnings of the factories on each new asteroid or satellite that it had tried to begin on.

Still, flying with other space-capable cybertronians to disable the spaceborn scouts or landing to cut through drones was not truly landing fatal blows on the lumen purgatio and he knew it.  Or felt such, at the least.

Many meetings he shadowed seemed to agree.  General Strika attended many and was a strong proponent of Galvatron's grandiose desire to cut down the true aliens controlling this venture, not their nonsentient drones.  Others wanted to continue relying on the warheads and long-distance weaponry that had destroyed a few rare lumen purgatio ships.  This, still others argued, was not a sustainable plan.  

"We don't even know how many ships their fleet consists of!" one admiral yelled.  

It was a fair enough point.  As became elaborated by others, they could very well run out of their warhead's resources before every part of that fleet was disposed of.  It could simply be too numerous (or perhaps even self replicating as well, who could say?) for their current long-distance warfare's resources to outlast.  

"We should be cutting them at their sparks-" Galvatron grinned and clenched a fist for enunciation.  "Gut them of their spark chambers and their ships will be of no use!"

Yes.  Let him go, let him use his new blades, let him soak in their energy and teach them what it was like to taste agony.

But, as lovely as the thought was, they had no means.  

So the arguing and panicking continued on.  Every meeting seemed to do the same.  As more ground was lost, as a seemingly endless supply of star-sized ships trudged into that sector, it grew more and more difficult to imagine that their formerly successful strategy would let them keep Cybertron safe.  But what else could they do?  They did not know what the interior of these ships would look like- they did not know if boarding parties would have any room at all to stand, let alone fight.  They did not know.

And every meeting he shadowed Galvatron to only enforced this unhappy ignorance, all the way until- 

Until the cycle when that ignorance was no longer acceptable.  

"It'll be taking a risk," Optimus sighed.  "But we don't have many options here.  Getting into their tech, their fleet, is the only way we can really find out about what these things are and how their ships even work."

One of the vok generals present pulsed.  Cyclonus didn't know how to read vok expressions, but he assumed it meant some sort of agreement.  -A boarding party will need to be risked- they said through written language converted text-to-speak.  The odd monotone was typical of voks, whose own true speech style was not heard by cybertronians.  -Many vok are willing to go.  Take them.  We will not need hollowed walking space as most of you would.-  

Of course.  The population of Nexus Zero were not techno-organic, but rather an evolution of cybernetics and energy.  They were far from the incomprehensible energy beings the lumen purgatio were assumed to be, but they could still avoid many of the handicaps of being stuck in a large metal frame if hallways truly were to be out of the question.

A scientist called Perceptor adjusted a pair of optic-enhancers before speaking.  "It is through data that victory is secured.  We will not defeat this threat until we understand it further."

With that, the idea of a boarding party was agreed upon- even if the details for who, when, and where were left undisclosed and it was many orns before Cyclonus finally heard them.

It was Optimus who had found him.  He'd been in Galvatron's currently empty quarters trying to organize the place so that merely walking around was less of a hazard.  It wasn't the first time he'd undertaken the task and it wouldn't be the last.

The autobot seemed uninterested in all of that.  

Optimus explained what the current situation was, what means they had to take advantage of a window of opportunity, how many different teams would be sent to different hopeful breaching spots, the like.  Cyclonus listened intently.  It was very important to listen to the information behind a mission.  Galvatron didn't tend to, so his lieutenant was double careful to do so for them both.  

"Why tell me?" he finally said when the news had seemingly finished.  

The Magnus was patient, as always.  

"Command has been putting together the teams we believe will perform best in breaching a lumen purgatio ship," the other answered. 

An answer enough.  Cyclonus frowned.

“Will Galvatron be on board one of these ships?  Will he be striking our enemies from the inside as well?”

This time, it was Optimus who frowned.  

“He will be busy leading a separate mission from our command centers,” he replied.  “He did wish to go, but he’s more needed in chasing down the remnants of the rest of their fleet from our sector here while we keep our target trapped.”

He didn’t want to go without Galvatron.  The idea of the two of them going in and carving the first strikes against these fraggers was far nicer than the idea of him going alone.  Galvatron deserved that first blood just as much as he did.  

Still, Cyclonus wouldn’t argue.  

"Fine.  So you think I ought to go, when there are whole armies populations to choose from?"

He knew he ought to.  If for nothing else, then for the blades he wore that were very much likely capable of hurting the infeasible mystery enemies.  

But he didn't mind hearing it from the other aloud.  

"You worked with General Strika's team for the last stellar cycle," Optimus lifted one brow incrementally.  "You're going to be more than an asset for this mission."

Despite Galvatron's absence...

"I hope to be so," he said gruffly.  The blades on his back seemed to increase in their energetic vibrations, though he knew he'd imagined it.  

Optimus smiled sadly.

"I hope so as well.  As much as I can't afford to get my hopes up, I do think this operation has good odds."

Despite Galvatron's absence, he thought again (this time with less spite at those responsible for sticking the other on some other dirty job).  

"They will taste the wrath of this galaxy's warriors," Cyclonus swore.  "-for there is nothing so thorough as the wrath of those with little more to lose."

He'd said once, before, that Megatron had performed the two blades from his altmode for his weaponry.  It wasn't his weapon of choice anymore, but the offhand comment had been more important than either seemingly realized at the time of delivery.  

Megatron had vorns of experience with dual blades.

Galvatron retained all of Megatron's memories, the likely filter dissociating them from his personality component or not, and that meant he could recall all that experience.

Recall.

Explain.

Pass on.  

If there was any one source to truly give him the dissection of swordplay that he needed to master this combat form, he would choose Galvatron.  

He did choose Galvatron.

And his old life's experience let neither of them down.

The cycle that Cybertron's surface cleansed of life was one that tore the sparks from the still living.  Not Cyclonus, though.  It had hit him like a blow, but he was dulled to the travesty of pain that most others felt.  A single ship had found the opening to let their beam of light engulf the planet.  Any life there was shorted out, as Tailgate and Rodimus had in the face of the same indiscriminate weaponry.

For most autobots, the desire to fight morphed from idealistic hope to depressed vengeance.  They had not known life off their precious paradise.  Decepticons were more split.  Some fell into the same despair at seeing that goal which they had often dreamed of returning to conqueror and live upon die with the planet.  Others still had New Kaon to fight for the survival of and were, therefore, still capable of the hope brought from fighting for a homeworld.

Cyclonus did not know what to think.  He felt that every civilized planet was doomed, in this galaxy and the rest.  He did not bother latching onto any world to draw strength from the hope of defending.  

Still, there was a brightness to this disaster.  

A single, vicious brightness.  That very ship was trapped in now by the fleet.  Its company had already left the system, either in an attempt to get the alliance ships to give chase or because they felt there was no need to remain there any longer.  But the one responsible for the surface cleansing was blocked in by those alliance ships that had not, in fact, given chase.  

It was a standoff. 

Long.  Exhausting.  Full of little real action as both sides eyed the other.  The lumen purgatio ship had yet to raze Cybertron to its core, but it also hadn't shoved a lethal hole through the barricade to leave.  

This pause- whatever it may mean on that battlefield level- was an opening for something very different.  Something that had never been tried before (or not successfully, at any rate).  

Eventually, the lumen purgatio ship dwarfed the giants of the experimental fleet and did begin the process of razing the planet, those warheads and weapons of its enemies (which the aliens had to know were lethal, the news of their victory over the ship at that awful place of personal failure had to have reached the rest, didn't it?) be damned.  

In other scenarios, they may have simply attacked and burned that trapped ship away for its insolence.

As it was, Cybertron was gone the moment its remaining people had been taken.  This was a chance to pull data from their mystery enemies and, if Perceptor were to be believed, that was how they'd win.  No more stalemates, no more lost causes.  

And no more inability to see these fraggers up close and pull their life away with his gifted blades.

It was almost enough to make Cyclonus smile, really.  He left the expression to Galvatron instead.

They talked swordsplay and other combat forms many times.

The campaigns ran on and failed and fell to pieces and still they talked as though they could fight off the inevitable.

But it wasn't about fighting the inevitable off, was it?  No.  He'd explained it to the Magnus.  It was about the wrath left behind by those still alive until they too died.  

They talked, drew out katas and forms, wrote on them, and then let them play out.  Again and again, they practiced.  Megatron's inherited knowledge passed on to a warrior the now-gone warlord had met once (on Earth, getting shot at by the clone before the spacebridge mishap) and likely never thought of strongly again.  

Repeat it, Galvatron said with arms crossed.  The gym had been empty and there was a perfection in being alone with the other.  The universe was doomed to die anyway, wasn't it?  But they would die last.  Oh, he saw it.  They would be alone, leftover, if Galvatron did not first manage to live up to his hopeful goal of winning traditionally.  

Not like that, his teacher interrupted one movement and drilled the correction (a minor, minor detail) in for cycles after before smiling and declaring Yes, like that.  Magnificent.  Minor detail corrected for, they'd moved on to the next set of poses.  

The kata was more difficult than any of those preceding- it was, in fact, said by his teacher to be one few others attempted to learn.  It strained him and yet still there were a list of more difficult forms awaiting him as he progressed through those styles Megatron knew (the warlord had hardly mastered all, but he had learned and taught many in his own combat journey to find the ones he meshed with best) and Galvatron would share.

It should have been daunting.  

The apocalyptic odds of survival he and those around him had should have been as well.

Cyclonus did not let either give him pause.  

The breach involved chaos when a cramped ship flew towards the mass that was their target, flew past scouts, watching other breaching ships get burned to nothing by lasers- all of it was panic, messy panic, fear, aggression, as the packed-in soldiers waited to see if they would be among the lucky that managed to land against the featureless surface of the lumen purgatio's ship.  

They did.  

Their vehicle latched on, despite the smoothness of the monstrous ship they were breaching, and carved through the walls to board.  

There were no traditional halls, but there were shafts containing supports, beams, cables, wires, and other technology.  Even if the aliens themselves did not need space to move, their technology required some space to function.

Perfect.  It all was.  

They split up to record more.  He saw a vok speed away down one shaft deeper into the ship.  A cybertronian left down the right.  He slid down the left.  

There was no visible sign of life around him, but that meant nothing.  They could be here now, laughing at the mortal who thought he would fight them when he could not even see them, let alone land a strike.

Cyclonus's mouth crawled into a smile.

Let them believe what they would.  They would learn soon enough.  He pulled his weapons from their seathes and watched them pulse with slight light in the empty shaft- they had absorbed energy nearby, however slight from a lack of proximity; the pulse would grow stronger the more he closed the down on that proximity.  These would be his guides.  These would bare whether or not a life form was nearby; they would bare that based on whether life energy began to drift into them.  His Bleedback would reveal life energy just as they would force it out of his enemies and into the blades instead.  

This was all he had desired since beginning the campaign at the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

He wanted them to bleed whatever their equivalent of energon and oil was.  And oh, they would.  Today, he would be giving them a lesson, much like his commander gave over swordsplay; a lesson that would be swift and vicious and leave them with a long overdue knowledge of what pain meant.

The weapons made by Galvatron sparked in his servos as if anticipating the taste of the cleansing light that their wielder so longed for them to bite into.  

Chapter Text

Once, when training, he'd needed to stall at a certain movement. In the past, he'd been unable to master it correctly and that hesitation from experience was not easy to banish.  Galvatron had stepped behind him and prodded him into place.

Go, the warrior gestured impatiently.  Never stall.  

And so he didn't.

Hesitation was a thing of the past, built from a cowardice that was also long banished.  

Still, some warriors could not afford to rush into everything without a single hesitation- the kind meant from caution, pragmatism, rather than fear.  If Galvatron would not be that warrior, then he would be for them.

Just not now.  Not after the other had already puppeted him into the position he needed to continue. 

So Cyclonus did.  The alterations to his frame- those which almost placed him up at the warlord's height by now- had been made skillfully enough that extra pieces and bulky armor shifted seamlessly around in fluid movement.

Finished, he glanced towards his teacher and saw a wide grin in return.

Like that.  Just like that, Galvatron had promised.  

Like that- perfection.

Cyclonus's mouth twitched into just the slightest of smiles and repeated the movement without hesitation just to show he could.  

Given a few more centuries, Cyclonus imagined he could master all those techniques that Galvatron had at his disposal.  As it was, he had been given less than a stellar cycle from the point in which the first drones entered the sector of space Cybertron's system lay into the present mission-  and it was during that span of time that those techniques had begun being bared for him.

He would return, alive, to his commander, also alive, and learn more, the rest even.  Given centuries, he swore he would.

For now, he felt a confidence that he would stand his own with just that knowledge he now had.  

There was no word on how the others were faring.  It didn't matter.  This moment put him in danger and so it was his danger he'd be focused on.  Until they called him back, there was no helping it.  

The shaft was far too quiet and empty as he walked.  His pedesteps provided the only sound, a clipping echo.  Lovely.  His attention remained on his blades in wait for one to give him an alert of life nearby.

At one point, his comm alit with the synthetic voice of a mind-to-voice translator.  

«There's an opening deeper in.  I'm approximating near 600 kilometres from the exterior wall.»

A vok, then.  The rest of them were undoubtedly in the same shafts as he, stuck moving along parallel to that wall rather than deeper into the ship.

«We can meet there, then.»

Ah.  A teammate whose voice he recognized.

«From deeper inside, we can find a way to a piloting center or something else of use for the others» Mindwipe (tall but slim and more than capable after vorns with Team Chaar, a decent choice for a cramped scouting mission) continued.  «Do you see-»

The first voice interrupted.

«No.  You cybertronians are mortally slow.  Even if you had the space to walk or fly or drive here, it'd take too long.  And a ship of this magnitude is impossible for us to explore in our allotted time frame.»   There was as much of a mental shrug as could be implied through the translator and comm.  «I'll report what I see.»

And leave them all unable to reach that spot.

It was just reality.  He could not strip down to energy and slide along narrow wireways.  It was merely not possible for him as a cybertronian.

«I cannot scan how large this cavity is.  There is dust and energy preventing accuracy.  It's huge, though.  Very bright.  Like their own contained little nebula on a much smaller scale.  Maybe that's all this ship is inside: a couple hundred kilometres of metal wall and then just a huge cavity trapping a tiny scaled nebula.»

Nothing about this ship was small.  It was larger than most dwarf stars, let alone rivaling the size of planets.  Still, he understood the message.  A nebula contained many, many stars as well as those being born and the remnants of those that had died to create it.  There was no fitting such a thing inside this ship even if its magnitude seemed impossibly large in comparison to cybertronian fleets.  

A spark ran over his blades and interrupted any interest in what his teammate was finding.  

One was near.  They'd tasted its energy.  

Cyclonus paused in walking and turned around.  The Bleedback reacted.  So he had passed it, then.  

Another step closer.

No response from the air of the shaft; all the response he needed from his gifted weapons.

He'd found one. 

Both swords jabbed together before ripping to either side.  One flared with activity and the shaft around him brightened as well.  There was no physical response- no resistance from a body for his arm to push past- but he was sure he'd struck it.  There was a flare and then only his sword was alit.  Dead?  Or had it run and called for help?

It was only after they grew wild with sparks once again that he felt he could declare that there had been an SOS involved.  There were more now, flooding down through tiny spaces none physical could ever hope to move through.  He fell into an aggressive stance before beginning to lash out at the unseen again, just as he had carved through the first.

They were invisible.  Unlike vok, they had no form to mold their energy and light into; or, at least, they chose not to.  The light was there, but forms held no feasibility.

Fighting light seemed oxymoronic.  It was a fool's errand, an impossibility.  Light was a force of nature, not a being or creature that could be touched by another being or creature.  

There was a power in doing so despite those odds.  

Cyclonus ripped through and watched the pulses spike and exhaust into darkness.  A scream, perhaps?  A warning sent out to the rest?  A coincidence?  He would offer his optical memories to the scientists on the fleet and let them decide.  For now, he had a massacre to attend to.  There were still more in this immediate area investigating the deaths of their comrades.

The Bleedback in his left servo sparked.  Cyclonus swung it and it flashed up bright even as the space nearby did as well.  That brightening and then the fade that left the air empty and his blade bright could only mean one thing based on what he'd experienced here.  He'd carved another apart.

This was easier than all those stellar cycles without landing a blow on these aliens had implied.  His weapons alerted him of one’s proximity, he struck out, and Like That, they extinguished; their energy added as fuel to his Bleedback as their lives flickered away.

They bled that day, as they were meant to, as they should have long before- it was time they feel the bite they felt so immovable dealing upon others indiscriminately and he was more than pleased to be the one to introduce them to it.  Another swing, another flare of life, another victory.

The feed shut off.

For a long moment, no one spoke.  An organic in the room cleared their throat.  Someone tapped at the desk in front of them.  

Cyclonus did not find it awkward.  He did not find it to be anything.  It merely was.

They had needed to see all the information they could after the different teams returned.  Each shared their memories so that the alliance could attempt to put together a picture: 

Beings of light, oddly solid ships on the exterior and oddly hollow interiors, enormous energy.

Behavior that could be dissection by those more suited to the task.

Language that could be uncovered, again by those who knew linguistics.  

Combat that could seep the life from these ever-untouchable creatures.

He knew little about the rest, but the lattermost of that list he knew quite well.  Some in this conference looked, in fact, uncomfortable with how intimately he knew it.  Really, it almost amused him.  The soft-sparks were inevitable, but there was nothing graphic in how the lumen purgatio seemingly died (perhaps they were upset by his bloodlust and violence, but such a thought only barely occurred to him).  They were light and died when extinguished.  There was hardly a gush of arterial pink from each slice and cries of pain from each gutting movement.  He would not have stopped (nor minded) if there had been, but the point was that nothing truly disturbing in terms of violence had been visible on screen for those civilian scientists and professors who could not see the color of energon without going queasy.  

So the civilians were most silent.  The science teams were desperate to pull out as much useful information as they could.  The military members just wanted to see something that'd help them win out of what the scouts brought back.  It was one of those who spoke up directly to him rather than amongst each other on the videos.

"Congratulations," the unknown femme said over crossed arms.  "You're the only scout member who seemed to do the trick when it came to killing these fraggers.  I want your weapons duplicated and handed out in some form or other."

The other praise trickled in.  Not necessarily in a subdued way, but Cyclonus wasn't truly listening to the volume or words.  Their approval meant nothing.  Not those that came for the mere footage with no care for its owner nor those directed at his own spree of killings.  It happened, just as the day had, but it happened without the thriving life that taking the lumen purgatio's had.  

And yet, by the end of the meeting, he felt the room had grown unbearably loud.  People he did not even know the names of, and would not bother to learn when they were doomed to inevitable death eventually, gave him meaningless comments.  The memories had long since stopped playing and still they had not felt it fair to let him go, resume his life, away from pointless approval and this noise in general.

Still, there was someone in the room being oddly quiet.  Ah.  Reigned in, for now.  He understood that speaking loudly now would earn ire from this conference.  It often earned ire from his audiences, but Galvatron was rarely in the mood capable of noting that fact.  This quiet now was a matter of lucky timing.  Eventually, it would wear out and then the loud speech would begin.

Cyclonus would be gone with Galvatron in tow by then.

For now, he appreciated the effort that reigning himself in must be for his commander and basked in the pleased expression carved dangerously on Galvatron's face (an expression which had been there throughout the video feed).  

That was the only approval he needed outside of the whirlwind he'd forced those bastard aliens to reap that cycle.

When he left, it was to be pounced upon by the waiting mech already outside.  Little wonder Galvatron had been the first to leave, then.  If he was to be so constrained inside the conference, it was only to be expected that constraint be freed when it was finished.

Cyclonus allowed the arm to squish over his neck and shoulders and shove him along.  He was led this way to a more emptied (though not completely absent of others, who were giving side stares at the two new occupants and edging away) room and both were positioned by the leader of the duo to stand in front of a wide vidscreen playing at being a window.  

The view was not an empty Cybertron nor a weakened alien vessel, but of the distant stars visible when looking away from such a depressing sight.  It was a view of stars in their galaxy, of galaxies far past theirs visible only as pinpricks of light, of galactic clusters farther still given the same fate: of billions of lights that the lumen purgatio had not yet snuffed for them.  

Perhaps that was why Galvatron led them here.  A poetry, of sorts.  Something beautiful, relaxing, to stare at while he himself waxed poetic on battle and war and the deaths Cyclonus had caused on that ship.  

Or perhaps it was just a random room chosen with no thought on why.  Who was he to bother determining?

"You've tasted their lives first," Galvatron said, a mix of jealousy and glee within the statement.

Both were understandable.  Galvatron also had deserved to get that first blood, not some random soldier (even if he was not random, not after he had been chosen singularly by this mech).  The glee was unavoidable at seeing, whether first hand or through the attached memory files brought back, those smug abominations get ripped apart.

"And it was beautiful- so beautifully done," the warlord was continuing, attitude shifted to one of passive happiness for now.  "I could listen to such a concert for the rest of my life."

"'Listen'?" Cyclonus repeated.  

It earned him a grin and then Galvatron was separating their limbs in order to turn and face him, arms now freed to gesture grandiosely.

"Of course!  Violence, combat- it's music!  The symphony of destruction and anthem of agony!"

Perhaps.  It was not a music he heard, even if he had been pleased to land a blow on the aliens today.  There was simply a difference in sensation regarding it, he supposed.  

Interrupting the thought, Galvatron stepped closer and set his servos around the base of Cyclonus's tall shoulders.  

"And you- you are a composer, a performer, the musician," he continued his analogy.  

But it could not be right.  Galvatron was the only 'composer', he was a follower, he was- ...what did it matter?  He would take the compliment.  Primus knew it made his spark pulse in a contentment that his views on life rarely allowed anymore.

Chapter Text

When it came to Team Chaar, it had not taken him long to find the company he preferred.  He should not prefer any, he knew.  It was hardly pragmatic to be making friends in this world.  Still, it was impossible not to notice who he was not irritated around and who he was.  

On the whole, Strika was a good commander and he respected her.  Scalpel was a glitch and only still alive because he was their only medic.  Blackout, Spittor, and Blot were all hardly mentally stimulating company.  Mindwipe was a braggart and that truly only was tolerable in Galvatron.  Sky-Byte was a good conversationalist and shockingly intelligent when compared to many other Team Chaar members.  

It was Strika and Sky-Byte he preferred the most.  And it was the latter who started a new form of teaching for him- one quite different than the combat that Galvatron taught him so often.

Rather than exploring combat techniques and fighting styles, the mech had wanted an audience to speak on different matters.  They felt onesided, as if Sky-Byte just needed to speak at all regardless of audience, and so Cyclonus had little reason to turn the chances down.  It did not require his interaction and so he would not grow attached to them.

Besides, he learned from them.

He learned of the cadences in poetry, of the enunciation of archaic languages, even the purposeful movements of dances of old- he learned what he had never asked to nor needed to and yet, in truth, would not sacrifice by any means.  

Old ballads, low-sung verses, poems that could not truly transfer to Neocybex but whose charm lay in their original languages- the longer their time alive stretched on and on, the more he learned from it.  He was hardly excitable enough to get overcharged and belt out human ballads like Sky-Byte had on more than one occasion (lover of the archaic as he was, he claimed that 'art' came from any era or people; more than once, Cyclonus had debated introducing Galvatron to his technical teammate, as Galvatron seemed far more appreciative in 'arts' than he himself was [the likelihood of his commander flipping at something Sky-Byte said he didn't agree with was too high for the 'introducing' part of that debate to win]), but he could appreciate the languages and their buried history that he was picking up.

Perhaps he had Sky-Byte to thank for being able to even recognize what it was Galvatron was speaking of whenever he waxed poetic about 'symphonies of destruction' or 'anthem of agonies'.  The genius of his commander's ramblings certainly came into more clarity once he too understood their archetypal basics.  

It was (Cyclonus theorized; he did not, after all, have a way to confirm it) likely leftover knowledge from Megatron's processor muddled in with Galvatron's own unique processing; a melding agglomeration of drab literary intelligence with colorful creativity.  Galvatron was, after all, nothing if not colorfully creative: the colors with which he saw the world were not even all colors that the others could optically witness the mere existence of.  The Megatron of old had been a speaker, holding a calm to him that his predecessor hadn't and charming much of the army with that contrast to Megazarak (or at least was so implied by comments overheard and Starscream's memories).  Galvatron was likely far more unstable and violently loud than Megazarak had been and still Cyclonus would take him over that exile or the intelligent stability of Megatron, would choose him time and time again.  

It was something he felt the reasons for clearly, even if he could not vocalize them.  

What did that matter, truly?  He followed Galvatron through loyalty: an emotion based process.  He built that loyalty out of the security, the confidence, the safety in the face of fears that Skywarp had felt from him upon their first meetings: also emotion.  Feeling.  And feelings were meant to be felt (shocking, he knew), not heard.  

Besides- as much as he did feel his reasons clearly enough, he felt helplessly certain that actually explaining them to another would be a task too complicated for him to undertake.  It was a weakness, a stunting, on his part, but Cyclonus refused to address it.

For a few vorns, Optimus had tried to get him to be a teacher instead of a pupil.  Cyclonus had to wonder if he'd even be considered if not for his presence at Galvatron's side.  He had gone from a no-name low-rank soldier to a face seen by almost every member of the alliance; it was a face that stood unspeaking behind a co-captain of that alliance in videos, public events, etcetera.  He never spoke, was never introduced, and still his name was whispered like gossip until it'd spread through the entire army's knowledge.

That fame, however odd it was to hold, made him a desired candidate for many different recruiters and their edges.  He turned almost all down on principle.  The Magnus was allowed into his room for energon and the chance to at least pitch his idea.  Cyclonus respected him enough to allow that.

It wasn't the first time Optimus had pulled him aside for a question or request.  The Magnus seemed to respect him vice versa.  It might have had something to do with him being the first to end lumen purgatio life firsthand, though a few others had matched that activity as the orns turned to stellar cycles turned to vorns.  It may have had something to do with the short tenures he'd spent as Skywarp working with the autobot's squadrons.  

It did not matter.

This time, Optimus had wanted him- as someone with Starscream's old experience with flight and armada leading mixing with his professionalism and pragmatism- to help two other warframes in the younger or even new flyers.  Those protoforms retrieved from Cybertron early on in the fleet's creation had long before been sparked by the (similarly retrieved) Allspark, but they had been sparked to a chaotic, hopeless war and exile inside a universe that had lost their homeworld.  It was a creation that struck similar to his.  He made conscious effort to avoid the protoform newsparks.  

But Optimus's request did not sound completely pointless.  These were not all newsparks.  Two of the cadets were as old as he was, having been created the same stellar cycle; or rather reformatted as a combiner team, but what difference did it make? That was as good as being created anew.  Cyclonus was not Starscream.   Gavlatron was not Megatron.  The Jettwins were not whoever they'd been before their reformat.  Their processors, for one, hardly resembled whatever mechs they'd been before.  Or so, at least, he was told before his first attempt at meeting them.  There was an unsaid request there to be kind to the 'kids' that had been left with instabilities from their experimental origins.  

The cadets already had a splitspark set of warframe flyers that had been their drillmasters since soon after this flight and flight combat program for the protoforms had begun.  Cyclonus allowed Skyquake and Dreadwing to introduce themselves to him and ordered the cadets to give their own introductions.  It was all very formal, despite the young age of those involved.

A hypocritical thought, perhaps, coming from one not much older than most in the terms of cybertronian life cycles.  He still felt far older than any here.  Even the ancient warframe twins that could have rivaled Sky-Byte in terms of archaic knowledge.  He did not introduce them anymore than he had introduced his commander to the poet.  If Sky-Byte wanted company, he would find it himself.  Cyclonus was not in the business of helping others socially unless it was to be holding Galvatron back from pulling heads off allies in the midst of an overcharged (for those that were not Cyclonus himself) game night.  

Most of his time was spent with Team Chaar or Galvatron, but he still paid his visits to the task for some time.  It had not taken too long to come to a conclusion about the other two decepticons.  While Skyquake was apt to upset some younger cadets with his volume and his brother tended to scare others still with a perpetual scowl, both had complete rapport with the autobot experimental combiner twins.  Under their tutelage, Jetfire and Jetstorm had already become talented flyers and already showed every sign of having taken on their teacher's philosophy of honorable combat.  

He told Optimus not long after that he would not be returning to either those lessons nor the ones that involved all of the cadets together.  

His blunt reason were the two warframes already there.  

They were good with the duo and decent enough with the newsparks.  Cyclonus was not.  He was too impatient.  His expectations were not as high as either seeker's.  The both of them held high standards and snapped only slightly less often than they were overly restrained.  He held no standards for a set of autobots.  Nor, if they weren't autobots, decepticons or neutrals or aliens.  His only expectation for others was for them to die at the fires of the cleansing light.  And without expectations, why would he bother blustering with snapping or acting embarrassingly stoic when he was proud?  

The training attempt did not last long.  Not long after, Optimus had taken him aside and explained that members of the quartet reported feeling uncomfortable with him.  

Heh.  'Members' implied there were only a fraction of them that thought it.  If he cared to be a betting mech, he'd put his stakes down on all four wanting him gone.  

There was no room to judge by any means.  Galvatron was his teacher and he would want no other to intrude upon that.  The autobot combiners had their teachers and did not want some silent giant to interrupt their sessions.  Besides, they'd been learning far removed practices from him.  The seekers taught respect, formalities; their pupils listened over eagerly.  Cyclonus did not care for respect (though he cared less for disrespect).  If all things must fall, why bother?

Why bother?

A question like that could break a mech if it went unanswered for too long.  Cyclonus had resigned to finding no answer outside of just, vengeful retribution and that kept him sane.

He could say that was it, all, everything.

And he did.  That was, by all intents and purposes, his answer.  

The poems of his teammate and music of his commander and complimenting pride seared in his memory and spark forever spoke of additional reasons, but he let them lay subliminally and refused to consider them answers to that dilemma.  He was almost afraid that- if he did consider them- their presence in his world would collapse away: either not a significant enough reason to bother with building a miracle (a hope, however sad, that he would see the lumen purgatio die before he did) at all or that they'd flee from him just then out of a jinxing luck (how fitting to his life, his history, that whatever made his spark keep away from complete emptiness would be killed as soon as he acknowledged his care for it).  

Chapter Text

When they had lost Cybertron, it had been a blow to many.  When Chaar was lost as well, most cybertronians felt the galaxy itself was lost to them.  When the galaxy itself was lost, what blow was there truly?  It had long been expected to the autobots and decepticons who'd watched their homeworlds burn.

The ship that they had boarded outside Cybertron had been far too large to tug along with their fleet.  It had been left when the other lumen purgatio pulled back for a return attack.  They simply weren't ready to keep such a prize when they were being pinched between very much alive forces.

Leaving it meant leaving a wealth of knowledge that could, perhaps, have given them the answers needed to win.  It did not matter.  It didn't matter.  

They flew on and on as decades passed to centuries and the galaxy with its space bridges and dead colonies were left in exchange for dark space and what did it matter?

They could not outfly the inevitable, but they had as one decided to prolong it.

Even after leaving that position behind, Cyclonus still saw the occasional cadet that he could recognize from those classes.  One cycle, he saw one in a position that he would not allow himself to consider familiar. 

He had been striding in the direction of the washracks (although his path there conveniently ran across Galvatron's current quarters, as he knew from unfortunate experience that he may have to prod the mech to join him; the alliance morale did not need to see their leader go rusted and filthy just because solvent and oil baths never crossed his mind as a necessity) when he heard the flaring vents and choking noises.

It was a sound he recognized, though he did not want to.  Panic.  Unhappy panic.  A breakdown of unhappiness.  Whatever it was called did not change what it was and so he forwent putting a name to it and peered inside the closet where the culprit's noises issued.  

He could have walked away.  

But that would relegate the problem to another and he was more responsible than that.  As Galvatron's lieutenant, he had an unfortunate responsibility to the alliance army (despite knowing they were doomed and feeling little need to give them false hope or help).  

So he looked down at the cybertronian curled tight against the wall of the hall supply closet and knew his own visit to the washracks was going to be sadly delayed that cycle.  

The cybertronian was a cadet, one of the newsparks (or considered such, despite their own young lifespans having lasted longer than many of the original generations of aliens on board the fleet's ships).  The wings and thrusters and overall build spoke of warframe heritage, or at least flightframe donors.  The silver and red and orange paints were truly garish (not that Galvatron's current purple was much better, so he did not judge much on paint aesthetics anymore), but what did cosmetics matter either?  The newspark was not as small as many autobots and still far from as large as a standard decepticon.  Most of that small generation sparked on the fleet were.  They were given CNA donations from cybertronians of civilian size and warframes (and them only, despite the organics who had tried to petition for their own donations; Cybertron was gone and its remaining cybertronians were not about to allow what few protoforms remained of their future to be diluted by organics that could very well repopulate without protoforms) and, while a singular donor tended to carry the majority of traits such as size, the additional CNA was all needed to keep the protoforms in question from becoming clones.  

Despite being proper newsparks, they still acted as foolish as his predecessor had as a young clone.

This one was making quite a fuss.  Curiosity was not an emotion Cyclonus often experienced, but duty was.  It was, to be fair, duty to Galvatron, but that did equate to Galvatron's desire to win this war and so the war effort (read: survival) was not to be ignored.  He paused in his movements until the newspark came to the unavoidable conclusion that he had, in fact, stopped to investigate her and pretending otherwise wouldn't make him go away.  

Fists grinding into her face one last time, she dropped her servos down and glared at him.  'Glared', was, perhaps, too strong a term.  Her neck was cranked back to even stare into his face from her seated position, her optics were too wide to really count as intimidation, and her expression wreaked with the same distress he'd evidently interrupted her in.  

Neither spoke.  She shifted back to put more space between them.  

Perhaps another would have crouched to reach her height better.  Cyclonus remained where he was, towering in the doorway and stiffly asked for a designation and reason for her position (hiding rather than working).  The cadet rubbed optics again and glanced to the wall rather than up at him.

"F-firef-fly," she mumbled.  

When it earned no response, the newspark evidently thought he wanted her to elaborate (he did not; he merely hadn't had a response to offer).  "It's a h-human thing, I s-saw it on some movies a-and thought it would b-be a groovy name..."

Human films.  What a way to get a name.  Couldn't she have waited for someone else to give her one more fitting?

(He thought of human songs that had floated into his memory cores unasked for but unavoidably [playing quietly in his mind in soft moments when the inevitability of destruction was just slightly more numbed than normal]-  Of Sky-Byte rehashing human poetry [insulted by Team Chaar for being sappy or organic or stupid and yet the complaining members still came to poetry readings in proximal teamly support]-  Of nights that he almost felt like offering to take Galvatron to an officer rec room where he wouldn't immediately scare off the others and letting him watch the alien entertainments being offered [they were not autobot propaganda films, they were not decepticon second-rate production]) (He thought of it all and it was chaotic and felt bitter in his tanks and he attributed blame [perhaps unfairly] to the little bot in front of him that brought it all on with a human designation and an attitude he held forbidden for himself yet still, at inopportune moments, felt creep against his helm inside)

"And why aren't you in your quarters?" he asked without any inclination of humoring his running thoughts.

The cadet glanced to the other wall.  

"I's not curfew yet," Firefly said obstinately.  "There's classes now, not r-recharge."

The speech patterns bothered him, though Cyclonus had no answer as to why.

"Then head to one."

It was common sense to do so, after all.

(Common sense was not a commodity young bots had, no more than they had courage, duty, pragmatism, anything- they were cowards or they were overeager fools like Hot Shot had been and this cadet was no exception, but there was no excuse for not having the offending coding tugged out to stop wasting everyone's time-)

"N-no!" Firefly spat, interrupting thoughts she was unaware of.  "I don't want to train!  I don't want to fight!  I don't want to be running for my l-life or fighting for i-it forever.  I just-"

She broke off to choke, vents spinning on again.  

"I just want a place to live.  Really live.  No one here lives.  It's all 'run here, train that' and n-no progress made on how to e-ever get a galaxy safe again."

There never would be any.  

No more than anyone here lived, by her standards.

"There's no better choice," Cyclonus said flatly.  

Someone had explained it to him, what felt like long, long ago by now. 

There are a few locations safe for the moment, but I can't say they will be for long.

You know what happened in the aftermath?  

It changed everything.  Get it?  It changed us all and we couldn't go back.

There's only two options in a situation like this

You go on or you give up.  And in a situation like this, there's no point in giving up.

"There's no safe haven left that won't be found.  There's no colony that will let you have some life you've seen in your 'movies'," he frowned while she grimaced.  "So either do nothing or at least learn how to be an asset in the hopes that eventually the fraggers that ruined it all will be gone.  What's there to lose in doing so?"

There's nothing to lose with that.  There's nothing to win by giving up, though.  So give going on a try.

Someone had explained it, all right, back when the delusion that running away would give him idealistic safety someplace or other.  That someone had died in proof of just how true his words had been.

But as hopeful as Rodimus had been that going on would eventually get the rest a world where they could be safe again, Cyclonus went on out of the hope that he could wreak equal destruction on the invaders.  His dream victory left the universe with nothing but ashes, but at least there would be no light left to take glee in their own victory.  

Kup was right, that dead Prime had said long ago.  You're just a kid.  A kid that wanted to run, not to train, not to fight; a kid that wanted to feel safe in a safe galaxy.  

Delusional.  Rodimus had known it with that comment.  

As delusional as this cadet.  

Cyclonus did crouch then, if just to scare the newspark into springing up from her pout to her pedes in defense.  

"Get out," he ordered.  "You're wasting time like this.  Nothing useful comes from being overwhelmed."

Firefly looked at him in distraught.  

"B-but I don't want to fight a l-losing battle.  I just want-..."

Safety, peace, happiness.  They both knew she'd said as much already.

His flat expression seemed to offer too little for her to bother elaborating on her wants again.

"I never got to s-see a safe galaxy," she finally muttered, or moaned, or whatever despair it counted as.  

(Me neither.)

The thought was, unsurprisingly, unallowed to proceed out.  He twisted it until it was more suitable and acceptable a mental complaint.  

(Did she think she was the only newspark born into disaster?  Did she think she was any more entitled to a peacetime none of the others would receive either?) (Did she really think that one substitute combat teacher was going to offer any sort of hug or sympathy or had that not crossed her mind before she'd spilled her spark out?)

Newsparks, he passed it off as.  They were foolish.  They held no filter and their processors did not realize the need for such yet.  Their own coding was wild, untamed, chaotic, probably full of undue panic and polarized, simplistic views on everything they felt; in time, their personality components would do their job and rewrite such useless immaturity.  

Until then, he would not need to 'mingle' by any means with the cadets.

Not when they were undergoing the crushing reality that peace and homeworlds and careers and life was all simply an impossibility- 

Cyclonus had told the cadet to find one set of twins or the other from her trainings and left knowing they would be more equipped to handle that.  It hardly registered that he did not need to direct her that way at all.  But even if it had, he would not have cared.  What was there to care about in a world without life?  Even the newsparks understood such a simplistic fact (or perhaps understood better even then the rest).

It was forgivable for a newspark to want idealistic safety.  They didn't know better.  

But the rest of them ought to.

He'd found a datapad waiting in the delivery slot by his quarters when he'd finished cleaning in the washracks.  It was sent to all major officers, courtesy of the ever-slow but ever-hopeful science division.  This time, they thought they'd found yet another useful piece of data in the information scouting teams years before had brought them.  Cyclonus was not apt to believe them.  False alarms like this occurred far too often.  They spouted a reason to hope, a chance built out of one tiny theory built out of one tiny detail seen in the corner of a screen replaying memory feeds and too many fell for it each time.  

Not he.  

Not he, because he was still young enough to understand what Firefly did and panicked in trying to deny:

Because there was nowhere safe.  There was no idyllic second chance for a life in a galaxy that hadn't been destroyed.

The information still stared him in the face, some new linguistic claim to be made.  His servos clenched the datapad hard enough to spread webbing cracks over its surface.  

There was no casual life that offered more professions than just fighting in the apocalypse.

There couldn't be.  Not after all this time.  

No matter how the scientists propped this latest ineffectual discovery up, this couldn't imply what it did.  

But the universe had hardly let him prepare for awaking from near stasis flight to an apocalypse to start with and it wasn't going to let him prepare for this new likely-useless information to sink in either.  It decided an interruption was deserved.

And it was an interruption that- after making his spark pulse painfully and his processor pang and his vents stall short- would need to take priority over what the science division had sent the now-cracked datapad.  

Cyclonus had left his room in search for Galvatron immediately.  

Chapter Text

In flight form, it did not take long at all to reach Galvatron's quarters.  Every ship on the fleet had the same general layout and Cyclonus had demanded an officers quarter near him-  one outside Team Chaar's in order to be in closer proximity to his commander's room.  It was in part because of pride (he wanted this fleet to understand that he was the most important mech in keeping Galvatron stable, when their fear of his instability was so painfully evident), in part because of structure (if he was the [unofficial] first lieutenant, he ought to be positioned closer), and in part because of being reasonable.  The latter was his driving reason.  If he was keeping Galvatron from setting up some valuable generator to explode or destroying the decorations that 'insulted' him or shooting someone that looked at him funnily enough that they somehow psychically told him he was a failure (or...the point was across, he believed), then he needed to be close enough to act in time to stop him.  

But when he did reach the other's quarters, there was nothing explicitly dangerous occurring.  Galvatron was standing near his cooler, facing a wall he'd painted himself and just barely glancing over to even note someone had entered his room.

"Mighty Galvatron," Cyclonus greeted as he stepped in.  The mech offered him a grin, of course, but returned (too quickly for Cyclonus's liking) to staring ahead of him again.  "You called me?"

With a cryptic call, to boot.  One that felt far too grandiose for his liking either, or at least would until he received further information on it and understood the purpose of the message.

"Yes."  

The word was almost hissed out.  Ah.  Then it would be one of those moods today, would it?

"You said we've picked up an opportunity in the fleet's proximity," Cyclonus continued to prompt.  

The grin no longer facing him notably widened.  It always did when Galvatron was amused at his second's 'inability' to understand something at face value.  Cyclonus accepted the apparently amusing criticism.  

"Yes I did," the mech drew the words out again through his smirk, evidently humoring him.  

One of those moods indeed.  

"I awoke to a strange sensation today," the other continued, this time without the exaggerated enunciation of every word (small mercies did exist in a world that offered none large in the face of apocalypse, it seemed).  "It was a familiar presence, nearing me..." Galvatron's optics nearly gleamed.  Cyclonus did not enjoy that it was so intently directed at what was, undoubtedly, a simple wall.  Still, the other stared at the paint splattered metal as if he could see an infinite universe far beyond it.  

"What presence?" he stepped cautiously closer.  The caution was not for his commander, but for the news itself.  The strange, cryptic, grandiose news that had been messaged to him and sent him flying here.  

Galvatron smiled.  It was not a happy expression.  Gleam in his optics or no, he did not seem as eager as he tried to look.  

"Who else?  I suppose lady fate was bound to cross our paths again."

At the continued wordless waiting from Cyclonus, the other mech elaborated impatiently.

"For frag's sake, Cyclonus, I'm talking about him!  My maker!"  Galvatron waved at the wall violently.  "Unicron!  He's in this galaxy, he's near!  Do you know what this means?"

A few possibilities arose, but he had no clear answer.  

It was better to just wait for the mech to speak on his own, besides.  Galvatron may be insulted at actually having what was phrased as a rhetorical guessed upon.  

"No," Cyclonus shook his head calmly.  He kept that calm as he looked back at the vibrating, overactive frame of his commander.  "What does it mean?"

When the rest of the fleet was delivered the news, there was understandable panic.  Cyclonus tried to focus in and hear some of the comments and news.  It was his responsibility to listen at least some bit to the occurrences of this army.  

There was also the fact that Galvatron wanted him to play a large role in his plan.  While he was normally more apt to consider the commander's plans as genius, he was not as apt to like himself in such a frontward row on such matters.

Megatron had truly been braver than he'd considered before.  Stepping up to a planet-eating celestial beast to demand a favor took nerve that Cyclonus wasn't sure he had.  Or, at the least, he did not have such nerves when the plans were being announced to the entire fleet by an all-too-gleeful Galvatron.  

Over a screen from the ship the Magnus was currently residing on, Optimus looked cautious about it all.  The science teams were split between thrill at the possibilities and similar caution.  Cyclonus felt his plating burn at all those optics focused on him, or at least all those arguments centered on him as though missing that he was standing sentient and present enough to hear them be tossed around.

He was no one's puppet, an infallible loyalty to Galvatron or no.  He did not enjoy standing for treatment that acted as if he was one.

Still, he understood the necessity.  He did.  He understood how, if his commander's idea was true, the battle could be finished with far more ease than current.  He understood that he would do it simply because of Galvatron's excitement over the possibility of escorting him to receive a 'gift' of his own from the being who had made him out of the former decepticon warlord.  It made him content to see Galvatron so excited.  

Besides, it wasn't as if it would be a reformat.  

You've already been created anew, the other had said in private discussion with him over this rash plan.  A sentiment Cyclonus agreed with.  He did not need his personality skewed into instability.  Galvatron provided all of the inspiration they needed as a duo and he played the role of calm reasoning.  If both were to take on the former's role, they would lose their effectiveness.

It was almost an insult to his commander- it likely would have been read as one if another had heard the thought- but it was not.  In earlier cycles, even he might have considered it so on the shallow level, but now...Now he knew why they functioned well together, why Galvatron would win this war as he'd promised to, why he could stand behind the mech loyally and yet play an almost equal role in the victory; it was based on his task, on how he kept Galvatron on track and focused and that part he played gave them more effectiveness than the warlord had had with just the Magnus at his side.

Cyclonus had already been remade as himself, leaving behind the clone just as Galvatron had left Megatron behind.  They had used far different methods, but both were completed.  If Unicron were to reformat Cyclonus now- 

It was unacceptable.  

If Galvatron demanded it, he would try to understand the reasoning, but until that point he had no plans to offer himself up to the planet reformatting processing that would leave him useless to his position as a lieutenant to his companion.

It was good, then, that Galvatron did not want that.  

He was merely interested in the transwarp drive left behind in his Bleedback blades; the drive that had but a small power source to warp from rather than a supernova or nebula or event horizon (or powerful, massive, energy-abounding giant pilgrims capable of factory formatting on a planetary scale) to pull energy from.  

It was not a poor plan.

It was an unlikely plan.

The odds of running across this thing again had to have been low.  'Lady Fate', Galvatron had said.  The odds of universe destroying aliens might have been as low as well.  Who was Cyclonus to say?  Probability was hardly a practice he was well versed in engaging in.  

Unlikely or not, the fact was that Galvatron was not alone in sensing the slow flight of a behemoth uncomfortably nearby (relative to star systems and fleet speeds, at least) anymore; not after scanners had gone wild and hysteria or thrill seemed to infect everyone who knew.  

Odds were interesting, but Cyclonus would not waste time on them when the present was already arrived.  

So he was snatched by Galvatron on the way to what was supposedly a conference (he should have been suspicious when he himself received no alerts; by this period of time with his unsaid position as Galvatron's lieutenant, he received many irritating pings and alerts from the officers getting called to meetings) and shoved through an airlock gracelessly (this, he thought as he spun slowly in a stupid cartwheeling motion he was too frustrated to interrupt, was exactly what he deserved for not being suspicious at the above situation) in order to take matters into their own servos.  

Still, while he accepted this with a patience he only displayed for Galvatron, his own passive acceptance of this new task stalled just ever so slightly when they did reach their target.

But who wouldn't stall in the face of something so much a behemoth that it could be missed entirely in a flyover as just another planet?  

At the least, Galvatron was confident enough for both of them in meeting this monster (coward, he labeled internally, but how could he not when the creature had run instead of fighting with the smaller mortals?) to demand a favor.

Chapter Text

Galvatron's speed was quite incredible.  If he still had that infernal warp drive, Cyclonus would have managed to keep up just by teleporting to each new location.  As it was, he had to be tugged along or else risk being left far behind.  

A consequence to that speed was how fast it wore the warlord out.  While he'd dragged Cyclonus along for some time, he was now the one getting dragged at Cyclonus's much-slower (but far more enduring) speed.  It was an experience that they'd likely never have to repeat, with exception for their return journey, and that was one singular piece of good news (no matter how oddly fun it had almost been).

All thoughts on their journey over faded when Galvatron started pounding on the top of Cyclonus's cockpit and rapidly demanding he stop.  It was a command the lieutenant followed and his commander pushed off the jet's altmode to hover outward on thrusters and point.  

"That's him!" he hissed and then repeated it four more times before Cyclonus was able to transform and join him.  

The pointing led his attention to a mass that, by all his passive sensory scanners, wasn't much more than just a mass.  Upon running a more attentive, higher-level scan, he saw the life sign fluctuations and the incredible energy seemingly sustained inside, barely registering on passive scans because of how it was contained within the mass.  Or body, he supposed it could be called.

While he was content at this distance, the mech at his side shot forward on thrusters and Cyclonus had no choice but to follow as they moved far, far too close for comfort.  Metal rose far up, to either side, below them, as though it was a near infinite wall- or as if they were floating a few kilometres from one of the alliance's ships.  

Anything the size of a planet looked like a wall when viewed from so uncomfortably close.  

Nothing moved.  No arms shot out to attack them, no cannons appeared from slots in metal to shoot at them, no voice acknowledged their presence.  It was almost insulting.

"Unicron!" Galvatron screamed at an audial aching pitch.  Cyclonus grimaced.  

But, finally, they were acknowledged.

Metal shifted.  Bronze, so dulled without a nearby star, went entirely dark when the sliver of startling light peeled open; first in a slit the width of an arm, then a body, then a shuttle, all the while rounding out until it was an oval rather than a slit of opened plating.  The cybertronian duo hovered in the spotlight bathing them from a violet optic far, far too big for any being to rightfully have.  

There was more shifting metal throughout, internals in the planet eater factory grinding against others unseen through the outer plating keeping Unicron this misshapen sphere.  Of course there would be, he thought numbly.  Unicron had already been described to him as a 'transformation based creature', so why should he be surprised to see those mechanisms moving?

From speakers of an unknown location, a growl rumbled out in response.  

"What?"

It barely registered as a voice.  It was a sense, not words.  It shook through his frame, rattled plating embedded in protoform and sent wires wild.  How could he consider it a voice taken in by audials when it seemed far more a somatic experience attacking his frame itself?

"You remember me."  Galvatron, mercifully, lowered his voice from its previous demanding yell.  

There was no acknowledgement of the statement at first.  Then, the behemoth's rumble issued out again.  

"I remember leaving you to your hopeless games with the assumption you'd never pester me again.  Why are you here now?"

This was Cyclonus's cue.  They'd discussed that much on their flight over.  Galvatron wanted him to demand a favor from this thing and then let both leave 'even' with each other in that life experience.

It may have been his cue, but the lieutenant said nothing, not even as his commander tilted his head at him incredulously.  

"A power source," Galvatron nudged Cyclonus, bumping him to hover a little closer to the monster.  

Oh, yes.  Right.  A power source.

How incredible of the other to even stay on topic in the face of this creature.  Cyclonus thought himself unflappable, but even he drew limits; evidently, this experience was proving that ancient, nigh extinct creatures of a bygone era and evolution capable of reformating planets after eating them was something that tiptoed past one of those limits.

"Ah- yes-" 

An optic the size of a small ship narrowed shutters at him and any more words were washed away.  If the optic was already that big, how large would the creature's face be?  How large would it all be when it spread out of this spherical shape into that of a body?  

Galvatron muttered something that sounded suspiciously like another 'frag's sake' and Cyclonus bit down irritation.  He reigned the commander in to stay on topic how often and the other felt he was more justified to complain over having to do the same this one time than he would be?  

Irritation acknowledged, Cyclonus returned to the more pressing matters of the moment.

"We need a power source and you happen to be one," his commander talked on after the brief insulting mutter finished.  "So let me hook up our transwarp technology to your energy source so that my second here can use it."

Rather demanding, wasn't it?

Cyclonus wasn't all that sure demanding a monster of this size was going to get them very far.  Why hadn't this thing been fighting alongside them?  It could do damage.  He was sure it could do damage.  

It was that more than anything else which made him lose his awed silence and speak.

"I have been gifted weapons capable of drawing away the life force of any living thing, including the alien beings of the lumen purgatio," he explained flatly.  "While they draw that energy in, they require a power source to remain stable and powerful enough to begin this process."

"Interesting," Unicron rumbled in a tone that sounded like he didn't truly find it so.  "And why should I listen?  What offer is there for my benefit?"

Was it not enough to kill those pieces of slag?  To destroy their hope of taking this universe?

"Because if we had fleets equipped with weaponry of this caliber-" he freed his blades from their containment and slowly tilted it in emphasis, "-we would suck their life out in whatever ships they attacked us with.  The widespread devastation wreaked would be glorious, simply glorious, and we will merely need a power source in order to make it feasible before that energy from shed life begins to fuel those blades," Cyclonus answered.  Beside him, Galvatron laughed.  

"And if the Bleedback were to be replicated and your energy, through his transwarp technology, keep these weapons online until we find our enemies, imagine it- imagine the glory, the bloodshed!"  The mech flashed pointed dentae into a set smile in promise.  "We merely find ourselves too drained in requirements to make this reality, but you-  you would meet every requirement for a nigh unlimited power source!"

There was a wordless rumble that shook through Cyclonus's frame painfully.  Unicron, it seemed, did not see the joy that they both did.

“I told you before: I will not join your sad armada and play pretend at war.  There are still vorns left before every part of this current galaxy is gone and I will live in them until the end arrives."

Cyclonus felt his jaw gritting.  This- (fragging, gigantic, powerful) thing looked mighty enough in this base state, but he was weak.  Disgusting.  

And his jaws ceased their struggle so that he could open his intake and say as much.

"You-" he pointed at the ship-sized optic without intimidation.  "You call our efforts sad.  You call our fight for vengeance play pretend.  You consider yourself an evolutionary peak because you have all the means to be so, but you are nothing but a coward."  

Thrusters tilting him farther forward than Galvatron, he dropped the offending pointing claw and crossed his arms.  It was dismissal.  Insult.  What had Unicron done yet far but dismiss and insult them?

"You have energy, but are too weak to ever use it.  I came to petition you in respect, but a coward like you deserves none," Cyclonus growled.  "Give yourself one more use in life before you run off to hide in your cowardice again and let us take our power source."

The violet optic shuttered to an angry slit once more.  Cyclonus felt no fear.  If this creature killed him, then it killed him.  He would die anyway.  That was an inevitability he had long known.  

"A power source," Unicron replied.  "The source of my energy.  My flame, /spark/, you would mean.  Me."

He didn't laugh.  That was an expression of intimidation and scorn best left up to Galvatron.  Where Galvatron displayed his energetic threat, Cyclonus glowered and displayed unphaseable stability.  It was their balance and both knew it intimately, understood it.  

So he did not laugh, but he had never wanted to do so in mocking scorn as naturally as he did then.  

Instead, Cyclonus remained as still as before and tried not to let any twitch or movement show.  He would be unphaseable here, no matter his audience.  He had shed the lifebloods of light itself.  This creature paled in that light's shadow.  

"You."

There was another silence.  Cyclonus stayed unmoving.  Behind him, his commander hovered closer until it was he who stood at the smaller mech's side.  

More metal shifted, somewhere beneath the crusty outer plating of the spherical alt form Unicron held.  

"The last offered me an exchange."

Ah.  

Then he was getting through.  If Unicron felt he could dismiss them completely, he would never have spoken thus.  

But he couldn’t dare offer anything like what Megatron had (a mystery of which he still knew no solid answers; only the consequences; only the consequences left on Galvatron’s psyche and those - those, he could not risk).  His sanity and stability were vital to him and his commander both.

"There is respect required for a deal to include a mutual offering," Cyclonus shot back.  

Galvatron nudged at his side and laughed.  Casual.  So very threatening.  The gleam in his optics was all dare, no mirth, as he faced down his origin alongside him.

"A well made point, my Cyclonus.  Our deal is just a demand, it seems."

They.  They were demanding a favor from a creature that so dwarfed cybertronian life, with implied threat and less implied insult.  

The gall they shared, Cyclonus thought in slight amusement.  It was a thought he didn't bother to humor, but didn't bother to ignore either.  It was too content to dismiss, after all.

When they did return, it was with the beginnings of the means that would leave the alliance capable of weaponry that would forever alter the course of their apocalypse.  

And still Cyclonus did not hope that the newly supplied weapons would truly give the majority of them survival.

Cyclonus hope for very few things.  It left him to be pleasantly surprised, at best.  And, otherwise, it left him without disappointment so that he could remain fully focused on his job serving Galvatron.

Chapter Text

The science team had been thrilled to receive the energy source.  Production for cannons utilizing the same energy-devouring technique of the Bleedback on mass scale began quickly.  Galvatron hoped to see a lumen purgatio mothership drained of life within the vorn.  Cyclonus did not often hope, but he would be pleased to see that become a reality as well.

When the prototypes were finished and equipped, broadcasts talked of nothing but them for an orn straight.   Galvatron wasn't displeased with this.  It left his hope to be publicized and meant swaying thousands to supporting him: the lunatic they before shied away from but now had braved a myth itself just to get them this weaponry.

Any support for Galvatron was good news to Cyclonus.  He may have been loyal for centuries now, but his loyalty had never been the shared opinion of the masses before.  If it were now...If others were to understand his genius...

The idea was a nice one, undoubtedly. 

And no matter what public opinion thought, he knew well enough that Galvatron would be most interested in his lieutenant’s loyalty over that of strangers he'd never met.

Cyclonus did not often receive visitors.  Sometimes, a member of Team Chaar came.  They would discuss strategy or leave to train (or propose a game, but Cyclonus always refused).  They were the only visitors he received.

The exception was, of course, Galvatron, but he hardly considered the commander a mere visitor.  Half of the items in this room belonged to him (or were gifted by Cyclonus so that Galvatron had seats and energon to use when he dropped in).  

But Galvatron had the access codes to this room and Team Chaar weren't quite social enough to visit often.  

When the ping of someone requesting entry rang through his room, then, Cyclonus did not know who was bothering to come.

He remotely keyed the door open from where he sat (working through an incredibly long epic that had been written by ancients and gifted to him by Sky-Byte as a test to see how fluent his Old Malignus had become) and turned round to stare it, and the mystery visitor's, way.  It was the only acknowledgement he offered, that stare.  Until he knew who it was, he wouldn't bother standing.  

The figure on the other side was just familiar enough to send his system recognitions that he'd seen the other before but lacking in details like when or where or who they were.  Not immediately, at least.  It was as good an indication as any that he'd likely only seen them once and not bothered to think on them again.

But that was a lie.  He had thought of this person before.  At least, he'd thought of what issues over youth and memories and the idea of life that had arisen in his thoughts after that confrontation.

With that, the trickle of recognition heaped itself into a clear answer.  

It was the distressed cadet.  Firefly, she'd called herself.  

And here he was really assuming that he'd never see that one again.

"So.  Um, you're probably wondering why I'm here."

Not strongly.  But yes.  He was just a bit curious.  

And curiosity was a flame to him.  Fan that flame too much and it may flare up into something that felt a little too like life.  There was a reason curiosity was so tapped down upon by the world around him.  It had been since Team Athenia's death and only the slightest flames sparked up since then.  Galvatron, of course, but that was less a curiosity and more a depth of loyalty he had not even known could exist (the memories from Starscream certainly had nothing like it).  That visit to Unicron a few orns ago had brought its fair share of curiosity as well.  That kind was textured with excitement, danger, an arrogant sort of pleasure brought from talking the creature down.  This was a far more passive curiosity.  The cadet sitting awkwardly on his usual stool (he sat on Galvatron's, as he always would when the alternative was giving it to some stranger) was no threat.  There would be no arrogant pleasure from talking down to her.  But the way that she'd crossed his path again (sought him out, as it were; knocked on his own door) did keep him interested enough that he had accepted her halting request to come in.  Without that tiny, lifelike flame of curiosity, he'd have easily said no and shut that door once more.  

It was enticing to experience, even in such a small, passive way.  It was too enticing.  Cyclonus would have to watch himself.  If curiosity brought a life to him that brought on connections and hope and love with any but the mech destined to win this war, he would merely repeat what he had with Team Athenia.  That was life.  Loss.  Not the flare and thrill of an individual, but the reality that- in this world, with this threat- all those individuals would die and lose the very 'life' they touted so important.  

Enough of that.  He was mildly curious over Firefly's decision to show up specifically for him and would offer enough attention to see it relieved.  No more, no less.  

"I..."  

She glanced aside.  One servo rose to drift over a cheek in a motion likely meant to hide the face behind it.  Most likely, she didn't even consciously see it that way.  It just meant she was intimidated by him.  Maybe he ought to offer some vocal response to her prompting rather than sticking to nods.  Then again, it was she who came into his room to speak with him and it was she that the burden of that conversation relied on.  

"I keep hearing a-about our new defenses," Firefly started again.  "The other cadets keep talking about them."

Then she had returned to her training after all.

Good, Cyclonus thought.

(A part of him disagreed; a part that wished younglings could find the branch of work in life they wanted to rather than being directed to one by others) (A part heavily outweighed by the reality that there were no options outside the alliance fleet and even that was hardly a guaranteed survival)

"And you got those for u-us.  You and the co-captain."

Of course.  Galvatron knew of Unicron like no other had and could create a dream for large-scale Bleedback.  He could do anything, really.

Firefly dropped her servo and faced him, head tilted.  Inquisitive.  No anxiety, in the moment.  

"The twins say you always talked about him," she said.  "That you always said that he'd win for us."

Perhaps.  Or perhaps the rest would die, but Galvatron and Cyclonus would succeed in destroying the last vestiges of the lumen purgatio.  Either were considered victories for him.  

"Yes," he said simply instead.  

There was a brightened expression like hope before nervousness sent Firefly hunching again.  

"The broadcasts say that it was captain Galvatron's idea to go get our new defenses."

Cyclonus's mouth twitched.

"It was.  It was all Lord Galvatron," he confirmed.  "We are now equipped to challenge our enemies, thanks to him."

This was where- if he was still working with the cadets and their two current teachers on this ship- expressions would be getting incredulous or amused at his expense, like he was some sort of blowhard fanatic (as if they hadn't been back when Galvatron was Megatron).  

But not here.  Firefly didn't act like he was spouting nonsensical propaganda.  

"Then y-you meant it?" she asked.

 Every word. 

He'd believed it ever since his first conversation with Galvatron, still as Skywarp.

“Will he- um, cap-Lord Galvatron- actually win?” 

There was that twitch again.  She was so young.  Skywarp had been so young.

“No other will give us better chances," Cyclonus answered.

Whether that victory was seeing this world engulfed into oblivion rather than giving it to the lumen purgatio- or if it meant portions of the universe surviving for this fleet to populate and rebuild-

Whatever victory, it was still Galvatron who gave the odds.

It won't be civilians that win this war.  It won't even be most of the warframes posing as warriors.  I will win it.  I will be the one to do it.

Do you believe that?

And he had, since the day he heard it.  He always would.

Firefly's wings perks up behind the stool.

“Can I help?” she straightened up.

One cadet?  Help Galvatron win?  He didn't see how.

“Return to your lessons."

It was, apparently, not the answer she wanted to hear.  

“No!  I mean- I j-just."  Firefly started to wilt, but caught the movement and stayed stiff.  That, more than anything, made her next words be received.  "Is there a way to help him- and you- not with just learning to f-fight and-...”

She didn't want to fight.

Didn't want to train to fight, didn't want to live in constant war and then annihilation.  

But now, rather than hiding while that despair crushed down, the cadet was looking for a different way to help.  To help, specifically, Galvatron's spearhead efforts to destroy their alien enemies.  

The twitch was unavoidable the third time and remained in place just a nano longer than before.  

A youngling wasn't going to be able to walk up to Galvatron and ask to personally help him.  Chances were he wouldn't even notice their presence or requests.  

But with his lieutenant as the middlemech, a youngling could at least give helping their single hope a try.  

Hadn't Skywarp, long before he joined Galvatron's side as Cyclonus?

And- in the hindsight of orns later- it was rather nice to have someone so eager run the more menial errands he was swamped with.  It left him more time to spend strategizing with Galvatron and joining his side at meetings, training, recreation, the like.  Galvatron himself never really noticed their new, eager assistant, but Cyclonus (and Firefly, through exposure to her ‘boss’ influencing her own opinions) never faulted him for it.  He was busy thinking on a grander scheme, oblivious to the menial.  

And that-

That was why he was so convicted by Galvatron’s bragging oath when they’d first met was not baseless.

It was interesting to see that same conviction grow in the new errand-runner.  Cyclonus felt something akin to pride the more he saw of its growth, the more often Firefly slipped casually and referred to Galvatron as 'mighty' or ‘lord’ rather than ‘captain’ just as Cyclonus would.  That was his influence.  He was influencing someone, making an impact on their life for the better.  Removing that fearful and depressed desire to escape reality and live and replacing it with the eager drive to help the mech who’d offer them victory.  

It wasn’t curiosity, but Cyclonus couldn’t deny that his presence in the growing loyalty to Galvatron rising throughout the fleet (and on a far more personal and strong basis here, with their newly swayed cadet assistant) was like a flame to his spark as well.

Chapter Text

It had been the hope to find a ship within the vorn.  

Finding one sooner in this current galaxy seemed like too high a hope, too little odds.  That underestimated the rate of spreading with which the lumen purgatio engulfed universes.  In hindsight, much later, it wasn't as surprising that they'd found them here so quickly.  Their drones were sign enough of their process.  Settle.  Multiply.  Search.  An exponential way to flood a galaxy and just as exponential a way to cover a universe.  Cyclonus had always found this exponential quality of theirs disconcerting with the drones.  Graphing their progress went from a comprehensible slope to a vertical line that stretched into infinity, no end, just growth far larger than any graph could handle.  Or, in this case, more growth than a universe could handle.  They would burn away life and all the while their drones and scouts and smaller ships would multiply and multiply and pack into space and crush against each other when no space was left and still continue to multiply- 

and then what?  

What, exactly, happened when a limit was hit?

Cyclonus didn't know.  He didn't care to know.  At the point in which that exponential growth was threatening the very space of a seemingly limitless universe, their war would have already been lost.  He would have already lost.  

And that was an outcome neither he nor Galvatron would accept.

A quarter of a vorn had passed of quiet space travel before he was given any warning that they'd stumbled across their prize.

That warning came in the form of rushing pedes, an overeager sprinting bot slamming a bit against a doorway when they didn't slow enough, and then a rapid knocking on his door.  

That, he thought in resignation, would be Firefly.  She really needed to learn how to rush down a hallway with a little more grace.  Flight, for one, would be an acceptable option.  Or speedwalking.  Not this clumsy running and crashing into things (no matter how minisculely inspiring it was to see such displays of eagerness for their cause).

He ceased his cycle's meditation without much frustration and keyed the door open.  

"Cyclonus, sir, you should get up quick!" the cadet skidded into his room as soon as it was opened for her.  "There's big news and Lord Galvatron should hear it, but I couldn't get into his office-" (which was, of course, just his apartment in all its glorious mess, but who were they to not humor Galvatron's desire it be called his office?) "-and you should hear it too and both of you should-both of you should-"

On an organic, he believed the term would be 'out of breath'.  It wasn't an equivocal inflection, but Firefly was paused from proceeding to new information regardless.  She often seemed to do so when she got over excited.  

It was one part frustrating and one part comforting.  If someone this young could be this inspired at helping Galvatron's cause, maybe more of the newspark generation could as well.  From there, perhaps their teachers and tutors and then...Well.  Too many decepticons still seemed to prefer the former Megatron to their current unquestionable leader and Cyclonus couldn't avoid the ire such stupidity brought him.  

"I heard it when I was grabbing your morning energon- the scanners went off this morning, I overheard from one of the science bots getting theirs- we've got-we've got one-" Firefly continued her choppy report.  In her typical pattern of late, it tried to contain too much information at once and thus was broken into mere portions of each point in order to squish as much in as she could.  It was fortunate that Cyclonus could decipher her and then himself deliver the news he understood to Galvatron.  

This was preferable, faults and all, to the nervous stuttering of the stellar cycles before.

"A drone, which means-somewhere, a ship!" she finally explained.  "You should get to the others soon, Lord Galvatron ought to be there when they plan an attack!"

Yes.  

Yes he should be.  It was his dream, after all; his vision.  The other commanders couldn't plot without the mech who'd sought out Unicron a second time just to give them this vision.  

Cyclonus stood quickly and joined his assistant in the hall.  She was looking really all too pleased.  Such a display was unnecessary.

(It was also satisfying; it always was to see her enthusiasm to aid Galvatron and his path to gain victory for them all; others could afford to show some of that enthusiasm as well, really)

"Oh, and your energon is waiting outside his office since I assumed both of you would convene there-"

Of course they would.

She'd picked up on their patterns well.  A worthy intern, as the Magnus referred to her as (a human term, evidently) and Team Chaar had taken to goading him with.  He let them comment as much as they wanted; it wasn't like he was really listening, not unless their words had relevance to Galvatron's mission.

They received the call from Optimus and other top officers when convening in Galvatron's quarters.  The information they had was still limited, but it was too late to restrain the duo from their own beliefs that this was a turning point.  There'd been no sign of a mothership itself (which was what they planned on turning their weapons upon first) but the tiny blip on their scanners had been an alert enough.

A scout.  And where scouts were found...

It took only a few more orns to find the ship itself.  It was alone, at the moment.  Most seemed to be unless they'd found interference, as they had at the Co-Prosperity Sphere and Cybertron.  Without known interference, they merely sent out their scouts to consume sectors and only came to those planets with identified life (multiple ships only arrived when that life put up a sophisticated fight).  They could do so very quickly after a scout found something, after all.  There'd been no specific identification, but most of the alliance just assumed it was some form of transwarping as well.

They hoped to find an answer to that mystery once the ship was made a tomb for its inhabitants.  They would leave it but a derelict and that...That, they would search every piece of until they understood their until-now vague enemies.  

On the cycle that they finally reached attack range with the lone ship, Cyclonus had stood on the bridge and watched the alliance leaders broadcast a call to every other ship of the fleet.  They faced down a vessel larger than Unicron- a vessel model that dwarfed many stars and consumed life in many systems before- and the average member of this alliance was horrified at that proximity.  Not Cyclonus.  Soon, they would not be fearful either.  They would be euphoric.  Euphoric witnesses of the annihilation of their supposedly infallible enemies, witnesses to the turning point of this before-unwinnable war.

He remembered that fleetwide call for all the vorns of his life after.  The way Galvatron had summoned all control over himself and stood at the side of the Magnus, speaking out in a clear order that would have befit the Megatron of his memories.  It was still Galvatron's words, his voice, but the mannerisms were one of command that could not go ignored.  No matter how many of the leftover decepticons felt about their current warlord, they would recognize the intensity of that order.  They would follow.  They did follow: alien, autobot, decepticon loyalists, all.  

The call for preparing weapons rang out and then they fired.  

A cannon from each ship stabbed out through the black ink of space and then, dancing briefly on its surface to taste at their prize, engulfed the lumen purgatio's vessel in violet energy.

On the bridge, he lay witness to death he had once created with his blades when boarding a single one of their ships before- this time on a scale that affected every alien on the behemoth of a vessel before them.

A turning point indeed.

Chapter Text

He fell, burned, underwent the last vestiges of cleansing that the lumen purgatio were able to offer.

He fell and grieved, grieved for those yells he'd heard before the light had swallowed him, grieved for a world forever gone, grieved for a hope that one leftover derelict had unfairly left them with.

He fell, survived, walked again, stood for all those that would never stand again.  

In hindsight, he almost wished they had never explored that ship, never discovered the world's end within.  If they hadn't, he would not have been strung along with the rest in believing there would be survival, a new world to live in, a world he would remain forever at a living Galvatron's side in.  

The benefit of hindsight was, they say, a glitch.

The light of the Bleedback appeared so very different from that of the lumen purgatio's.  It was dark light; violet, hungry, almost translucent.  Bright enough to see but paradoxically not bright at all.  Theirs was sheer light, whiter than any fire ought to be.  Theirs was still energy.

And so it put up no danger to that of the energy-absorbing Bleedback enveloping the alien vessel.

They had dealt a killing blow.  Galvatron had stepped back on the bridge and Cyclonus had stepped forward and they watched the screens together.  His commander was grinning; flashing sharpened dentae like some organic predator trying to eat some other living organism.  A fitting appearance, truly.  Cyclonus himself did not smile, but he never needed to.  The other could read him without barrier.  Galvatron knew well enough what satisfaction he was displaying behind the same blank face he almost always wore.  

The massive ship was dark after the Bleedback finished its work.  Still sleek, still featureless, but no longer carrying any form of luminescence.  No longer carrying life.  

It had been cleansed.

At that sardonic thought, Cyclonus felt the inappropriate desire to laugh.  Or, considering the grief these aliens had put them all through, perhaps it was an appropriate desire.  No matter.

He remained there for many breems after, watching teams be directed to restrain the vessel's aimless movements and board it with the tools to cut into the central cavity a vok on their last boarding party vorns before had reported there being.  He stood at the bridge and watched this turning point ever so slowly play out.  It was a laborious process, commanding.  Cyclonus was rather glad he was not one of the commanders then.  It was far simpler to merely be the blade, the warrior, directed at another's whims to strike the enemy.

When a servo landed on one of his tall shoulders, it interrupted this long reverie.

"See?" Galvatron said lowly, just to him.  "I told you before that I'd be winning this thing with you beside me."

Oh, but he hadn't ever told him that.  He said that no other would win, but that he would.  That he alone would win against impossible odds and a lieutenant would be helpful, but not vital enough that victory wouldn't come without.  

Cyclonus did not mind the new spin Galvatron's mind was applying to his memories.

They came back with strange news.  Mysteries, computers that looked nothing like computers, a language still offputting to decipher even after the vorns spent attempting to find translations.  

They spent stellar cycles with that derelict.  Pulled it apart.  Listened to the ghosts of recorded language.  Admired the constrained nebula taking up the grand majority of the ship's interior. 

It was so very unlike any vessel designs that they'd seen in their galaxy.

Or in their universe.

That- he supposed in hindsight- was a good precursor to the theories that came next.

Had the lumen purgatio not built ships, they would never have been identified as life forms at all by any in his home galaxy.  Not for another couple million years in the least.  They had lived within their nebula, in their (according to the data pieced together from those alien databanks) own home galaxy, as masters.  Builders.  Long ago having shed life as cybertronians or organics knew it.  Spending their time crafting light and those nebula where stars were born and the collecting of material left after stars died.  They would have been assumed as natural forces and the    thought of aliens, sentience, intelligence, crafty little fragger minds, would never have bothered to arise.

Their home wasn't good enough though.  

Cyclonus had listened for the cycles of theories, designs, evidence, additional theories, and it changed little of his opinions on the things.  It functioned only to give them added danger and he was no fan of learning they were even more threatening than assumed before.  Still, it was good to know the enemy, no matter how despairing it could be to learn of them.

The lumen purgatio were truly aliens.  They slipped through something the scientists were currently calling 'unspace' to enter new universes.  Those very scientists were thrilled to discover confirmation that such a 'multiverse' existed, but even they were not immune to the dread that settled in when all were quiet and their stories could be mulled over.  These things had done all of this before.  Not, as previously assumed, to other galaxies, but to entire dimensions.  They cleansed them of life, collapsed them with the replication process of scouts and drones, and then left.  Unimpacted by the absolute annihilation of a univerrse left behind.  No punishment.  No barrier.  They could leave with all their lives while the universe left behind was simply void.  

And then they would repeat it all.

This universe- Cyclonus's entire world-  ...it was nothing to them.  It was a blip.  Here, then gone.  Forever.  Made a void, he and all he cared about included.

How many other Cyclonus's in this 'multiverse' had been erased the same way?  How many had watched their Galvatron's and Team Chaar's and Team Athenia's get burned away in cleansing light?

It was an unpleasant thought.

He would not be among them.  He only wished there was a way to keep any others from facing these who thought they could lay judgement on alien dimensions.  

When he wandered parts of the captive vessel, he could not help but think of this.  Cyclonus had walked inside one of these ships before.  It was a memory he was rather satisfied with.  He'd walked in one and killed those invisible life forms his blades found, just as the alliance had killed this ship.  Then, it was overbearing.  Intimidating.  Offputting to know that there were organisms around that could not be seen.  

He prefered it to the vessel he explored now.

These ships weren't right like this.  

It was an encompassing feel just a slight away from that of death.  Death would come with stains and corpses or just a sensation of danger.  This was merely emptiness.  A void.  

It was what they left in their wakes, if the science teams were right:

worlds, species, complete universes; all burned away, exponentially crowded, and then emptied.

They were life, perhaps.  But life, when killed en masse, left signs of death.  They did not.  And so he could not consider them true life.  They were capable of burning away planets, but they themselves were nothing.  Unlife could not die, but its absence could erase it from the existences it plagued.

This was far more offputting than walking a hall stained with energon and draped with corpses.  Cyclonus found he did not explore their prized derelict on his own very often.

Chapter Text

That won't last forever.

Keep walking.

There isn't much of a choice here!

Just a step; rinse, repeat.

With everything at stake?  You don't trust in the power we hold now.  

This dead alien ship was far from inviting but it was still more inviting than thinking about anything.  

The thoughts didn't stop.

Take the risk

Keep the path 

Eternity

Limited

It wasn't his choice to make and he was glad for it.  

But it was his life- all of their lives- that would be ruled by the choices made when the arguing did eventually end.  

How can we?  These things are trying to erase this whole dimension and then slip out of it without any consequences.  They've done it before.  What power do we actually hold now, with that information; prima facie, what are our odds?

Keep going.  

When the rest die, when the world burns, just step and step step step on

We believe we've found a means to isolate them.  Erm, as I mean it, well.  Trap them.  

The shafts were too empty.  

He could have wished for some of the aliens to have lived.  To ghost these spaces.  He would cut them down and it would give him some ounce of control over the moment.  

If this works, we could find another world-

No.  

Steps.  

Walking.

No more of this.  

The idea wasn't revealed all at once. 

That was the difficulty of it, really.  If it had come in one fell swoop, he would have adjusted in a required rush.  Instead, they stagnated yet did not.  They kept dissecting every part of the ship, spending stellar cycles, vorns, deciphering language and working mechanisms of these things.  Generations of organics passed.  Cyclonus felt something uneasy about that when he thought too hard on it.  If he had been born and then died during this period while the lumen purgatio's alien functions and languages and technology were being researched, he would have died before any answers were provided.  As it was an uncomfortable thought for him, he hadn't spent long putting himself in one of the organic's situations and just considered himself thankful that vorns were blips rather than lifespans for him.  He would have detested dying before the lumen purgatio's methods and weaknesses therein were uncovered.  

Still, the prolongevity of it was tiring and kept him waiting and waiting on edge to hear the full answers rather than little hints here and there.

Scalpel said that science was not an immediate art.

Firefly tried to say the same, citing what she'd overheard those like Perceptor saying whenever a new piece of the discovery was made public knowledge.  Even deciphering completely unknown languages from another found civilization took time.  But all those civilizations that could be met at moments of contact still had common origins.  He was reminded of Earth, his birthplace system.  The humans there had technically had their first contact with cybertronians, but the adjustment to their world was easy for those very cybertronians making camp in Detroit.  Starscream had not spent his time there among their city and its technology confused; it was something he passed off to his clones, even if Skywarp had been doomed to find that city and its technology terrifying.  That technology wasn't alien, wasn't really startling in hindsight.  Neither still was the fact learned in hindsight that its origin was a cybertronian being reverse-engineered and mixed with human design.  

On ancient Cybertron, different clans and factions and empires had their own languages, their own civilizations built away from exposure to the others.  Yet when they met and clashed and began to translate the others based on nothing, it wasn't a process that took as long as their current task in the present did.  Each of these factions had a common origin, whether they were very different cultures or not.  Their life came from sparks, the same base of protoforms, the same CNA, the same biological structure.  And, as millennia passed and a united Cybertron reached for the stars, they discovered the same applied to all those civilizations they found out there.

Aliens looked so very, very different, acted different, spoke different, and still came from the materials spewed by stars that cybertronians had.  

It really wasn't much of a uniting factor-  just a stretch, in truth-

...Until something alien to all of that entered their lives.  Until something that did not obey any of the rules that they, as a universe of uniquely intelligent life, always had.  Origin points.  Base rules.  Things so far, far away on the social and evolutionary scale that they hardly registered.  Things that become the fronthold of importance in the study of their cross-dimensional visitors now.  If one early cybertronian faction had taken stellar cycles to understand the alien dialects presented by the other cybertronian faction they'd stumbled across, could they really be expected to be any quicker at understanding the dialects and mechanics of something that did not share anything they did?

Firefly reminded him of that all multiple times over the passing stellar cycles.  It was nice of her to try, but hardly changed the fact that he couldn't adjust when this all felt like prolonged stagnation.

Every stellar cycles, every century, that passed felt like the lumen purgatio came closer to succeeding and here they were still waiting in some lonely galaxy with a derelict vessel trying to understand what success even meant for those aliens.

He wanted to learn they had a means to win.

He wanted to win.

If he'd gone through all this slag to reach this point, he just so badly wanted it to be worth it.  Let them all die.  A more poisonous hope: let him live.  Let Galvatron live.

Let the investigations finally end and let a clear path lead to action.  

And slag but let it happen soon.  The wait was driving him mad and he was meant to be the stable one.

A vorn and a half before, Unicron had been found and his aid in this war argued over.

Now, Cyclonus heard it argued over once again.

Rather than being at an official meeting, this was one of many arguments taking place in a more private setting.  At current, Galvatron's quarters.  Its owner was standing tall over the others present, making looming and hardly-subtle threatening gestures.  The Magnus was the current antagonist to that obstinate anger.  Near the wall, Firefly was taking notes and glancing rapidly back and forth between the two speakers.  Cyclonus watched from the opposite wall in apathy.  

"I've been quite clear before," Galvatron seethed, even as Optimus kept his little vid-display of evidence in plain view to shake the weight of that seething proclamation.  "We have the weapon needed to destroy their entire army.  With Unicron's energy, it will wipe this entire universe clean of their disease!"

Optimus- as he had every time this conversation was had- did not look convinced.  

"At least consider the alternative.  We may have a way to keep every other universe safe from our tragedy.  We may have a chance at offering a new home to every survivor."

His earlier view was a lie.  It was not apathy.  Not even Cyclonus could maintain apathy with little promises like that hovering around, creating false lives and fantasies in his mind.

"We don't need an alternative!" the other co-captain waved an arm in a threatening motion.  "Our Bleedback will kill them all here!  We can't risk wasting our fuel source on a wild plan we have no assurance works as well as our weapons do!"

The Magnus didn't accept that.

"Unicron's spark isn't an unlimited supply.  They-" he jabbed at the screen showing formless light "-run off of overwhelming universes through just that."

Galvatron growled, but stomped a leg back to swing his arm down.

"We take this chance or we accept the inevitability that Unicron's energy will run out or he'll be killed and then we all will die.  It's a risk or it's a certainty," Optimus finished with a frown.  "Do you really want to hold out on giving us the go-ahead to proceed until it's too late to at least try?"

For all any of them knew, Galvatron could be that stubborn.  The Bleedback were his idea and he wasn't the type to have his efforts replaced by someone else's ideas. 

Cyclonus didn't have the patience to wait in this limbo of decision making any more than he had for the vorn of deciphering that had preceded it.  

"Lord Galvatron."

The other three faced him at his stiff interruption.  Only one of those three attentions mattered.

"Let's confer alone."

There was one last look of frustration and, oddly, amusement shot towards Optimus and then Galvatron was stomping over to meet him at the door.

They did not speak until reaching a place they had visited together long before.  This was a different ship than that they'd stood on then, but all the alliance fleet vessels had identical models.  The screens showing starscapes beyond their walls and borders were placed in the same locations on each one.  

It had been at one of these 'windows' that Galvatron had praised him for cutting through the lumen purgatio on that ship outside Cybertron.  

Cyclonus rather like these viewing locations since then.  They were peaceful.  Places to meditate.  Places to gather thought.  Places to appreciate what beauty was left out there, what magnificence the stars and gases of galaxies and space had to offer.

He did want to have a view like that without the looming danger of the lumen purgatio sharing that view with him.  

Best of all, they were typically private places.  If one was crowded, he could merely fly a short distance to the next window port.  And privacy was the best setting for getting through with Galvatron.  Too many people meant too many distractions and the commander would not take everything said to spark with distractions.

They could have conferred in Cyclonus's quarters, but it felt less oppressing here.  With the window to the magnificence their ship hovered in, they could weigh the words spoken instead of speak merely because it was their duty to do so.  This felt willing, rather than the Magnus trying to persuade his co-captain to acquiesce on a vote.

Cyclonus turned his head from the sight of the stars to face the other.  It was somehow unsurprising to find that Galvatron was already facing him rather than being swept up in looking at the view.

He was the first to speak.

"I recommend you accept the proposed plan."

It earned him a lopsided expression from Galvatron.  

"Wait-" Cyclonus lifted a servo to preemptively interrupt any comments.  "I have been thinking on it.  Yes, there is no assurance such a plan will work.  But if it does..."

In a plan led by some cybertronian scientist called Brainstorm and a quintesson inventor called Inquirata, the very unspace so abused by their invaders would be used by the alliance against them.  It was a wild idea, one with science and dimensional mechanics he did not quite understand, but one not without its appeals.  They wished to construct a portal of their own that could send the fleet into this unspace and allow them to travel to a different world.  More importantly, they wished to cut this very universe off from that option afterwards.  

The lumen purgatio would be trapped within.  Free to burn and cleanse and multiply until the entire universe they were trapped inside collapsed.  Completely unable to slip free and try again in another world. 

It was a very, very appealing idea in concept.  The problem was that it was mainly just a concept.  The energy source currently transwarped for the mass-scale Bleedback weaponry would need to be diverted to the portal and to whatever device would be built to cut this dimension off from the rest.  

But if it did develop into a concrete, feasible option?

"Our enemies came to this place to cremate us all and then leave to do it again, with our resistance just a blip for them to forget," he spoke again.  "If this plan succeeds, we will be the ones to escape a burning universe.  The place they came to torment will become their own graves rather than ours.  We would live.  They would die trapped and helpless to resist their own destructive doings."

A smile briefly crawled into place, betraying just how appealing Galvatron found that fantasy.  

"It's not a very personal way to kill them," the larger mech said instead of acknowledging the appeal aloud.  

Cyclonus tilted his head.

"No.  It is not.  But it would be very effective."

"Only if it works," Galvatron replied.

Yes.  Only if it did.  But they wouldn't know if it could or couldn't until Galvatron gave his part of the permission for the engineers to proceed.  

"And it won't just be a way to give the lumen purgatio the fatal fate they've delivered to so many before.  If this works, we could find another world.  A safer world, a living one-"

"I like danger-"

"Fine, then, just a living one," Cyclonus adjusted the dream.  "The point is, we can survive and we'll do that together.  This inevitable death, whether we win in killing them all as well or not, it...It's not our only fate anymore.  We can live.  And you can have all the danger you want, facing off against foes that we could never find in this world."

"It does sound rather glorious, doesn't it?" Galvatron humored him.  

Yes.

It did.

A world of fighting and life and home bases to return to and enemies that were not invincible nor unlimited-  A world that he could tear through foes alongside Galvatron and then return to a homeworld to fuel and relax and listen as Galvatron told stories grandiosely- 

It did.  It sounded so very glorious, so very peaceful, so very satisfying.  Merely killing the lumen purgatio, avenging their world, was not enough anymore.  Satisfaction would only come if the two of them continued their fateful journey together.

And this wild, this stupid, this mystical brainchild plan of imaginative scientists offered to realize that fantasy.

Chapter Text

It was ending.

That was the truth, though hardly an easy truth to face.  It wasn't that Cyclonus wanted this life prolonged any further.  It had started in fear, and friendship, and tragedy.  Grieving.  He'd hated grieving.  It curled beneath his plating like an uninvited parasite, feeding off the warmth his spark gave the soft metal of protoform and kept it from ever reaching the nerves of his outward plating itself.  It lay over that very spark and dampened it; it lay in fuel tanks and stirred them up unpleasantly; it made its mission destroying him.  Oh yes.  He hated grief.  

And from that beginning, it had changed into hopeless cosmic battles and constant exile.  But those vorns had carried purpose.  A loyalty to a cause, to a companion.  He did not regret them.  He had grown rather dependent on them.  Still, he wished that they could have forged their team under better circumstances.  Less helpless ones.

Wished.

A wish was a dream.  Not quite a hope.  Hopes were based in chances.  Dreams were based in helpless desire untethered by the chances offered in reality.  

And that was what made its new presence in his life a difficult truth to accept.

It was too much to hope for and yet it was happening without him even daring to have hoped.

Cyclonus would not complain.

He wanted so badly to see this finished.  

He wanted just slightly less to continue on after that ending.  To live and create a life without the lumen purgatio's shadow.  Galvatron would want danger and action, but that he could comply on.  

Slightly less, he weighed, because declaring a desire to continue on did not specify the how in place.  Continuing on as just the two of them with this fleet- its Magnus, Team Chaar, Fireflight, the rest- left behind...He would adjust.  He would grieve, but he would not be sparkbroken.  He did not prefer it regardless.  Continuing on without Galvatron...Never.  Galvatron represented hope and loyalty and the life that this world had kept him from reaching in full.

He would rather see to the erasal of the lumen purgatio and he himself than find a new world without his one attachment.  Immortality was a fool's trap; he would gladly choose death when the alternative was a grief that could hardly be considered life.  What would be the point of living in that world?  What would be the point?

But ending this...

There was a point, whether he survived or not.  

And now it was finishing, without his control.  Others were doing all the work.  Placing the different barriers in different locations, celebrating over oil and high grade and whatever organic equivalent alien's drank- finishing up.  Closing off this universe.  Creating a karmic trap for its destructors.  

It wasn't an easy truth to face when he'd never faced such hopes before, but Cyclonus welcomed the shock of it all.  

It was ending.

He felt he was ready.

After the last barrier was put in place, the atmosphere of the fleet was high.  Cyclonus's attempt to walk to his quarters from the debriefing saw him dodging three overeager jets, getting slammed bodily by a tiny autobot that hit his leg, and having the unpleasant experience of a group of vok fly by barely visible.  The latter left him with static popping along where the energy of the aliens got too close.  At one point during the far too celebratory cycle, he'd even gotten bombarded by the two autobot jettwins on their way to the bridge (and his way to opening Galvatron's quarters).  Skyquake and his twin were close behind and began an apology on the part of their charges.  It was cut short when Galvatron's door admitted the mech himself, ready to investigate the noise, and all four of the others managed to disappear in retreat before he could fully step outside.  

Now, with the last part of the unspace barrier in place and the device to usher the survivors to a new far less doomed world, this celebration was dragging on for cycles at a time.  He had escorted Galvatron to a few different wildly ecstatic rec rooms before, but now was merely taking the opportunity to stay in his own quarters and the quiet they offered him.

At one point, Firefly had entered and asked him if he wanted to go to the main gym on this level of the ship, for "a bunch of really cool looking oil cans" or the "games everyone is setting up" and the like.  Cyclonus had turned the offer down and earned a shrug.

"You should," his assistant had said.  "But I did expect you'd say no."

Celebrating wasn't truly the type of activity he felt like engaging in.  Perhaps when they had slipped into another world, when their science team had found a way to let their gateway device fit the entire fleet rather than acting as a narrow doorway...But whatever the case, not now.  Even if those like Sky-Byte would likely be there engaging in far more respectable ways of 'partying' (he was not truly adverse to poetry readings and ballad singings, even if he would not admit that to anyone at the moment).

"Don't stay in here all night!" Firefly waved at him and then sped away to rejoin her fun.

Really, he thought in the face of that, he had allowed her to get far too casual around him.  Ah well.  What mattered was that she was respectful to Galvatron and, in that, she was.

Cyclonus had found a tablet of an Old Malignus epic- some story of questing to prove worthy of consorting with another city's prince- and leaned against his couch to continue reading where he'd left off last.

That should have been his night.

The first warning came in a unique form of siren.  The walls of the ship were not thick enough to block off sounds of running steps or stupid younglings breaking mach 1 in the halls.  When the familiar, long-zoned-out ambiance of those noises stopped, it caused a prickle of unease.  It took a moment to realize what that unease was stemming from, since he had spent vorns zoning out the sounds of the hall unconsciously.  When the answer arose, it made him curious.  Why the quiet now?  More than curious, it unsettled him.  It was a warning.  A siren of total silence.

The next warnings came altogether, muddled and mixed and rushed in a manner that he only adjusted to through sheer experience in emergencies.

His room shook, his comms blared, the lights blinked in warning low-power red.  

Cyclonus tumbled from the couch and moved immediately to where his Bleedback hung on the walls.  They were slid into their hilts behind him even as the floor rattled beneath him.

Checking his comms as he entered the hallway, Cyclonus was able to decipher some amount of sense over what was happening.  There was a graphic sent of this ship's structural integrity flaring in red alert.  A chunk of the outline was gone.  He  felt confident that the part of the ship missing on the graphic was also missing outside of that picture.  The fact that it included those gyms and rec rooms that so many were meant to be enjoying now was not lost on him but also not something that he would spend time thinking on.

With such damages to structural integrity, this ship was as good as lost.  It would take time to be ruined completely, but it was time he would best spend getting off of it and onto another.  

His comm systems hadn't just received a graph of this ship he stood on.  The status of the others was also disturbing.  Everything was.  All died.  Not this close to their goal.  Not while just waiting for the engineers to finish giving them survival.  Surely not.  

The razing fire cutting parts of their ships asunder should not even be a death sentence now.  Not after they'd found a way to kill those celestial-sized ships before they could attack them.  But they'd lost that aggressive defense, hadn't they?  Those weapons gathered energy from Unicron but did not any longer.  Because that source- and, after much discussion, the Allspark itself- was directly fueling their ability to close this universe off from all but the device that would act as a gateway for their departure.  Damn it all, but this slag made him furious.  Being aboard a dying ship hardly gave him a chance to do much in terms of fighting back.  No, no, he was not helpless.  He would finish this accursed world.  

He had to find Galvatron.  

Cyclonus pushed down unstable halls towards the life sign isolated among the many others left over on the map of the dying ship.  First...Before Galvatron...

It stung to consider moving for anything first.  But Cyclonus understood this situation, as much as he hated it.  He'd lived through one so similar on the surface of a planet that the lumen purgatio had forced Rodimus and Tailgate and himself down to.  He would not be useless here as he had then.

The floors shook again; he tripped against one of the rattling walls and felt it reverberating through his own plating.  This entire hall's structure was falling apart.  The entire ship's structure was.  Damn it, damn it!  This was supposed to be the end.  They'd close the universe off, leave behind a parting gift to burn it away, and then it was over.  Finished.  He was greatly looking forward to the lumen purgatio and the apocalyptic world they'd heralded in to be finished.

Why couldn't it have ended without a struggle?  

There wasn't time to complain.  He needed to take stock of the situation, to find Galvatron, to see his odds.  

He knew before the confirmation came that those odds would not be pretty.

It was smaller than he expected.  Taller than Galvatron at full extension, but compact in its rested state.  Already connected to the nearest universe through unspace.  Ready to use, though not to use on a fleet.  

That was no longer to be an issue.  

The thought was inappropriate, perhaps, but Cyclonus didn't acknowledge that.  What mattered to him now was taking this somewhere not currently under attack and slipping through with Galvatron.  

Shoving it in subspace, he slipped through a gaping crack in the ship to speed on the outside of its walls towards a still-intact bay.  He'd heard in the final battle leading to Megatron's original imprisonment that Omega Supreme's altmode was capable of transwarping great distances (similar to Skywarp's small jumps but on far, far larger scale) as a result of absorbing transwarp energy from a spacebridge in overdrive.  It hadn't been a poor idea from the perspective of alliance engineers no longer worried about such things as decepticon rebels and autobot isolation.  Cyclonus tugged one of the prototype shuttle's doors open when he reached the ship bay and shoved the gateway device inside.  

Now he needed only to find Galvatron.  

The life signal showed him to be near one of the vast surfaces of the lumen purgatio ships attacking.  Four of them were visible when he piloted the shuttle out.  The derelict they had been settled for so long near had never let him forget how large their vessels were and yet to see multiple blocking the fleet off felt more colossal than even seeing so many near Cybertron or the Co-Prosperity Sphere had.  

Cyclonus flew from the shuttle once he reached the life signal.  Galvatron was visible alongside other warriors, facing off against those tall drones that scuttled over the ship's surfaces in defense.  They were torn apart easily.  Every warrior out there knew how to cut past these drones by now, but all paled to the sheer brutality displayed by Galvatron.  For a moment, Cyclonus just watched.  Impressed.  Proud.  He had chosen the right combat master long ago as Skywarp.  There were oils dripping from Galvatron's talons, splattered against his frame, painted with the death of his enemies.  Even if those enemies were not the true threat.  Even if killing a million drones would never once strike a blow against the lumen purgatio.

That dose of reality brought him from his reverie and he sped to where the petty battle was occurring.  It was merely a last stand for those who had already lost when their fleets began to be torn apart; warriors who knew that, knew their failure, and strove to drown it out by at least dying on their pedes with their weapons tasting battle.  

He transformed from his flight and crashed to a crouch on the surface.  There was no need for magnetization in order to stick there; the lumen purgatio motherships had more than enough mass to draw the forces of gravity towards their surface.  The Bleedback sat on his back buzzing with preparation to steal the life energy nearby, but he ignored them.  

Claws tearing out of the top of one drone and frame riding its broken crash to the ground, Galvatron finished his current opponent.  His optics landed on Cyclonus where the smaller mech was standing motionless staring back at him.  

Perhaps he wondered why his lieutenant wasn't fighting too.

Perhaps he didn't notice the motionlessness at all.  It was difficult to know what may be registered or not in that mind.  What mattered was that he'd been seen and had taken the warlord's attention.

"Cyclonus!" Galvatron smiled wide at him, showing every sharpened dentae in his mouth and the oils spattered against them (only a mech that grinned while tearing opponents apart need worry of such contamination, but it would not surprise Cyclonus if his leader rather liked the stains).  "Join me!"

Yes.  He would.

But not how the commander wanted him to.  Cyclonus would not fight drones alongside him until both were caught in the purging flames of these vast ships.  

They would be joined in company, but it would be Cyclonus leading.  

Galvatron would fight here forever, caught up in the violence and thrill of combat, the feel of death in the air and on his claws, the symphony he so adored.  He would expect Cyclonus to do the same at his side, although he would be so caught up in battle that it wouldn't likely strike him if his lieutenant wasn't.  The point was, he'd battle without pause as if he alone could overcome these odds without dying first.

But Cyclonus knew how this went.  

Not this time.  If he had to run one last time in order to fulfill his vengeful directive, he would.  

Galvatron would fight here forever but his lieutenant wasn't going to allow him to.  They had a universe-spanning justice to mete out and survival to look forward to.

There wasn't any time given to let Galvatron complain; Cyclonus grabbed the larger mech's arm and tugged him away from his charge into inevitable death.

It made the other mad, unsurprisingly.  

We're leaving, Cyclonus demanded (sending the shuttle to warp a galaxy away even as Galvatron attempted to shred the door and return to his battle; only then did he stand and pull the other to a less destructive means of anger).  Despite the fury.  Because of the fury.  

It wasn't pleasant to see that anger, but he didn't feel nearly how he expected.  There was no guilt over a betrayal.  He hadn't betrayed anyone.  Not himself for running.  Not Galvatron for keeping him from battle.  

He'd done what needed to occur.  

And now the rest weighed down on them.  This universe.  The universe they would enter in its stead.  Their responsibility.  

Galvatron had hissed and torn at a non-essential wall and pounded at it, distracted.  Let his disapproval be very known.  It didn't sting.  (What did?)

"Stop."  

And he was obeyed.  

"We had to go.  This fleet is lost.  This mission is not.  We can complete it.  We will complete it."

Like a switch, Galvatron went into still thought.  The contrast to the former movement should have been unsettling.  Cyclonus was used to it.

"And this?" he finally spoke up after this pause.  The mech waved at the shuttle around them.  No attempt was made to hide the way his optics fell on the gateway device sitting compact on the floor.  "Don't try to lie, I can tell you have a plan with all this.  Share it."

Of course.

"We find a location that the lumen purgatio will not immediately kill us at," Cyclonus began.

(The first step was already quite difficult; they spread exponentially and it seemed that one was on his scanners, however distant for now, no matter where their spacebridge tech took them)

"There, we begin this thing's start up process and self destruct sequence.  We leave.  This universe dies trapped.  We do not."

(how simple, put like that) 

(how deceptive any simplicity was when every location felt thick with threat and luck seemed always to bid him a failed fate whenever hope lifted)

"We couldn't remain there," he added.  "All there are doomed.  For all I know, we will be killed before we manage to make this thing work."

He was not the most optimistic mech.

Still, his companion had not regained that earlier anger.  It could return at any second, of course; his neuroticism hardly afforded safety in expected stability.

"Oh, we could have died and still could while doing this plan of yours," Galvatron said calmly.  "But it will be worth it.  Because we won't.  I won't let either of us die."

Such confidence.

Overconfidence, truly.  Reality and empirical evidence suggested they were doomed.  A single mech and his lieutenant did not have any grounds to act so assured in victory.  

That kept him more slumped than he ought to have been.  

"You were still wrong to make me run."  In contrast to the words, Galvatron seemed more amused than upset.  "Our priority should be killing each and every one of those slaggers.  Victory will never be victory until we kill them all.  But..." 

The large mech gave an easy roll of his shoulders and head.

"We can do it- you and I- someplace else if that's what you wish.  Winning with the others or by ourselves hardly matters so long as the lumen purgatio are dead."

Once, Cyclonus might have felt the same.

His priorities now were to survive together, to reach a new world safely, to live on together elsewhere.  

He didn't bother to argue it.

"This gate will tear apart this dimension after use," Cyclonus argued.  

In silence, both heard the conclusion.  

Different though their priorities may be, they would still both get their goals through this action.  

Galvatron moved to look out the cockpit.  For another moment, they let silence envelop them.  

"Where should we do this?" he finally asked.  

It felt odd to have an opinion questioned for.  He naturally expected Galvatron to choose a place.

"I have no preference," Cyclonus said after a moment.  "We need only to let this dig into a source of energy, dormant or not, and I believe it should work."

If only the engineers had made a manual or the like to go with it.  

Galvatron let his head lean back to grin at him.

"We are decepticons.  My decepticons.  We win this at our homeworld."

Cyclonus drew his brows together.

"Cybertron?"

Every planet in that galaxy would surely be burned to a dormant core by now.  Why bother?

It earned a laugh, however unhinged.  

"No, no.  That's what Megatron's fools always felt their homeworld was.  But I say it is the place where we were welcome to conquer and live exactly as I- well, my predecessor- deigned."  Galvatron finally let his frame follow where his face stared and turned around.  "We go to Chaar."

And it carried little surprise that New Kaon would be considered the homeworld of his commander.  Neither of them were their creators or predecessors.  They had no loyalty or memories of Cybertron.  

The red skies and chaos of Chaar felt far more fitting for Galvatron.

He hoped that the universe this gateway would drop them through had a Chaar of its own.  Cyclonus found he rather wanted to see Galvatron on a New Kaon still thriving.  

The transwarp energy sent them to the remnants of a spacebridge that Cyclonus had known about through proxy: they exited in the Magnokor asteroid belt and from there the journey to Chaar's remains did not take long.  The long, still ships of their enemies seemed more numerous than ever, but none turned to fire upon the shuttle.  Yet, a pessimistic internal voice noted.  

When he stood from the controls after bridging them away, it was to find Galvatron standing close over him.  

"Is this to your liking, my Cyclonus?" he spoke plainly.  

What was he to say to that?  There was nothing about this cycle that fit to his liking outside their so-far continued survival.  Had Galvatron's mood shifted again to anger and left him now commenting sardonically on both their disappointments?

"Have I fulfilled what I swore to you?" the mech continued.

Ah.

Cyclonus looked up at the flat expression looming overhead and cracked a tiny smile.  

"You've surpassed it."

Even if their victory came at every other survivor's expense.  

The sobering thought left him more hunched than typical.  The weight of the cycle had been bearing down from the first moment of quiet flight he'd had and hadn't alleviated since then.

"Then why act so defeated?  You wanted a new world," the other pushed against his shoulders to keep him standing tall.  "You will have it.  I will have my goal as well, but we will get your world for you."

There was a flash of something on the previous flat expression and then Galvatron smirked. 

"Do you believe that?" he added in nigh-whisper.

The familiarity of it stung just as much as it pulsed with that original hope.

"I have to.  We have to survive," he whispered in return.  "You have to survive."

If nothing else-

If this world died and the next did as well and all of unspace was made void by these invaders-

If every other mech he'd known- Strika, Sky-Byte, Tailgate, Rodimus's team, Firefly- all of them with all their tics, their smiles, their voices and habits- If all had to die, at the least Galvatron must live-

They were heading in for one final hope and, should it fail, the death of a suicide mission and he felt all the conviction built over vorns of standing at this mech's side build near a combustion point.  They might fail.  They might fail, but they couldn't, they couldn't, he couldn't lose everything after all he'd already lost-  

"Well!" Galvatron stepped back brightly and looked out the cockpit.  "It seems we are here.  Ready to head down?"

His mouth parted, but only a stiff “-Lord Galvatron-” slipped out.

The dull, cold core of what had once been Chaar waited outside.  The gateway waited here, compact on the floor and ready.  

Waiting for them, but he was not ready; not until he felt they had finished, as if saying one more declaration or receiving one more smirk would change their fate below, guarantee them success.

"I love you," Cyclonus admitted desperately.  The mech in front of him wasn't just a warlord, his commander.  He was his friend.  The feeling seemed to be likewise shared, but Cyclonus had not been the one to say such affections before.  It was Galvatron who praised him, Galvatron who said the occasional comment of adoration while Cyclonus stood stifled by the proper rules, his own belief that feelings were to be felt and experienced as emotions rather than discussed, spoke of, said aloud and oh but he would not go to his death without finally giving his own acclamation of their companionship-  

Galvatron moved, lifted an arm, stroked behind his head and pulled him close against his mass-

Cyclonus shook the fantasy off and saw his commander's usual grin displaying itself as a little smile (he already knew; of course he did, he'd undoubtedly seen the adoration grow long ago).  

It was far more tender than whatever lies he dreamed up.  

What life offered was better than the lies he crafted.  

Now, he supposed as he stepped back to pilot, they were ready.

And with that, their shuttle crashed atop the gilded surface of a long-cold planet's core and they strode out to finish the struggle that had caused such tragedy and evolution for both.

Chapter Text

Chaar's current surface was entirely smooth.  Level.  Dull metal.  

They stepped onto it and Cyclonus felt the death of the world was palpable around them.  Even Galvatron had lost his grin, optics narrowed in something almost like-

Ah.  Well, loss felt more fitting to one who had grand hopes for this decepticon homeworld.  After his change from Megatron, Galvatron had come to this planet multiple times.  It was his.  It was gone.

But across unspace, there were other Chaars.  Living Chaars.  Cyclonus would give his commander one.  And it would never replace the original and all of the pain that original heralded in.

They began to walk from the shuttle in silence.  

The sky of New Kaon was meant to be red, but there was no sky here.  No atmosphere.  No more than there was a true surface.  Instead, the dark of space itself was their sky and it was full of ship metal.  The lumen purgatio hovered in this system.  How they spared so many motherships when the first vorns of this invasion suggested there were very few, Cyclonus did not know.  Within a breem, it would not matter.  This scourge would be gone.

The gateway that would be responsible was in its compact state in Cyclonus's arms while they walked.

"It is a waste."

He glanced over the device to stare up at the speaker.  It was prompt enough for Galvatron.  The mech waved out over the bland surface of a dead core and the virus in the sky.

"Losing all of this.  My predecessor was weak in comparison to myself.  If he had sought out Unicron for a reason other than these things which have sent us running now, I could have had this place in its life."

It was believable to his lieutenant.  Such was the blind faith put into his commander's skills.  

"I would have unified this universe as an empire under my direction," Galvatron mourned.

Cyclonus did not feel the loss of having no universe to unify in tyranny, but he mourned as well.  He mourned the loss of this universe he was created in as a whole.  He mourned their upcoming deaths, should they not survive.  He mourned for their very existence in a world of pain and deaths and crushed hopes.  But he did not feel lost within grief.  No.  Not so close to survival, victory.  And, should they both fail to make it out, this universe would still be the graves of the lumen purgatio.  Other Cyclonus's in the infinite dimensions outside of unspace would never have to face the sickening apocalypse he had.  It would be his last relief if he and Galvatron were to fall now.  

Perhaps it was stepping pede on the surface of their last stand, but Cyclonus felt more at ease with such a thought now than he had before admitting to Galvatron how much he cared for their companionship.

Immortality alone, survival, was hardly appealing; he would rather die with the relief of success in his mind.  

"You can do so in our next world," he replied after their pause.  It earned him a sideways smirk.  

"And you will stand by me there," the other declared rather than questioned.  "That, or we will both be the pyre of our enemy's death here."

What a simplistic way to view this.  Either way was a victory when framed as such.

"I will stand by you through either."

Through everything.

And part only in death.  

Once, as Skywarp, he'd had the honor of being graced by sharing a medbay room with a mech he most certainly felt deserved his own room amongst this place.  How Galvatron had been injured, he did not know.  There had not been reports of a battle recently.  He himself was merely going through his check up with Knockout and Extempaxia.  His coding required such visits every time he returned to the main fleet from a small mission.

The energon lost at least implied that Galvatron was there for a true medical reason rather than his check ups.  It made Skywarp feel like he was inconveniencing the doctors by being here.  He tried to ignore it.  It was just his coding speaking, just as the desire to crawl under his berth was.  

Instead of acting inconvenienced or disapproving that he was there, Galvatron spent most of the time either snapping at the medics, telling grandiose stories about his injuries to the tools on the far wall, and occasionally shifting to direct a comment towards the seeker on the other berth.

Occasionally.

They spoke, whenever he returned, but Skywarp felt they weren't ready to speak.  Not truly.  Not until he had rid himself of the qualities that Galvatron had judged poor.  Running.  Cowardice.  Weakness.

It was not so here.

"I had a companion once," Galvatron said, breaking off some story he had been telling while previously facing forward at nothing.  Skywarp had turned his way at the unexpected comment.  He hadn't thought that the warlord would find it worth it to speak to him.  Not until he did something of worth, at the least.  

"A seeker.  Looked a bit like you.  He was my second.  He followed me everywhere, fought at my side.  He was loyalty defined.  Admirable, really.  A perfect second should be loyal as much as they should be capable and he was both.  But especially the former.  It was what made him a companion rather than just another officer."

No.  Skywarp dragged out Starscream's memories and could not say he'd ever seen an 2IC who was anything like that.  The only seeker was Starscream himself.  That one would, of course, 'look a bit like him'.

"W-who?" he asked from his own berth after the silence became obviously prompting.

Galvatron gave him a grin.

"The name doesn't matter.  He's gone now."

Starscream, then?

"We could only be parted in death.  I miss having that companion by my side, really I do."

It was Starscream, it had to be.  He did not know of another decepticon 2IC who fit the descriptions of a flyer like that.  But Starscream was never like that.  Never a companion, even at those times when he wasn't slapping explosives on Megatron's back.  

Then it was a lie, a fabrication, built up around the idea of what Starscream could have been.  A lie misconstrued over what Starscream had once appeared as before arrogance and fundamentally differing ideas on the future upended any preliminary camaraderie.  

Skywarp nodded to the thought and decided that was it.  

Cyclonus thought back on it, created it, and understood differently.  

It may have been an expression of hope based in what Starscream had once offered before antagonism began, but the companion was no fabrication.  He recognized it for what it was: him.

Full from its compacted state, the silver arms of the gateway forked above their heads and met together.  They felt so frail.  Surely this could not be the technology everything depended upon.  

Inside the frail silver arms, the little platform glowed and the air seemed to waver.  

Galvatron stood back and begun to speak again on the waste of this universe.  It was a loss, yes, yes, (but his thoughts were not focused on the words when he was preoccupied trying to set the gateway up)

"Is it working?" Galvatron interrupted himself, arms dropping mid-gesture to look at where Cyclonus was kneeling by the base of the device.  

Was it?

It would have been best if an engineer had survived and was with them now to answer that.

"I believe so," he answered flatly.  The flyer stood despite the aches of stress and stepped halfway into the central dome.  It did not yet feel like stepping into another world, but who was he to tell what unspace would feel like?

"Come," Cyclonus turned and lifted a servo.  It wasn't impatiently.  He had unlimited patience for the one whom no others had any patience for.  

The other mech listened to his direction naturally.  When on the fleet, he listened to the Magnus as well but there was an edge of playful frustration there.  Resistance.  Cyclonus rarely encountered resistance and rarely offered any.  

As the other took his servo and stepped inside, he felt for the activation panel.  Two would leave.  In return, it would do its own branch of self destruction.  The air inside the dome shifted.  

"If this doesn't manage to tear us apart, I suppose we'll-"

Galvatron's easy tone cut off.  His servo went stiff in Cyclonus's.  His optics were frozen outside.

Outside, where the shuttle they'd arrived in flared in the heat of a beam of burning light and seared away.  They'd been noticed.  

They'd been noticed, they were out of time, out of time, outoftime-

He should have tightened his grip.  Kept the other from wrenching out.  

Should have

A phrase inherently haunting

"Galvatron!" he yelled.  It was rare he address the other without an honorific.  They both appreciated those honorifics.  

There was no time to include one.

Not while the other shoved out to the seared ground outside and stared upwards in fury and-

and something alien to Galvatron's expression.

No.  

"Galvatron, you must come back!  There is no time!"

The air fractured to arms of its own, gliding over him, reaching and pulling and pushing.

Far above, another set of pinpricks lit.  He'd seen them before.  Seen them on a planet with another set of companions.  Seen them grow in brightness and size as the light fell closer and closer.

Until he'd warped alone.

He would not warp alone this time.  He would not leave alone.  This gateway could not admit him alone.  It could not.  It could not.  

"Come!" Cyclonus yelled and tried to move away from the platform to manually grab his companion's arm.  Despite it, Galvatron had not moved; his face upturned, he seemed frozen by the sight above them, by the light encroaching down.

Silver faceplates reflected it brightly.  The blue and purple crest atop his head glinted dully.  That light lowered closer and the reflections grew in brilliance.

Come.  Come come come.

Move.

Please.  

Those faceplates started to move, turning sideways to stare at him and- for once- Galvatron looked unsure.  The constant overconfidence, blind naivety and assurance of invincibility, absent.  

"Cy...-cyclonus, I-"

Something tugged against his back and he could not break free of its hold.  What- the gateway.  The device behind him, still activated, keeping him amidst its territory.  

Move!

No!

He wanted to scream for Galvatron to hurry.  He wanted to roar for this thing to release its hold on him.

He had no time for either.

Vision blurred.  It was unlike the blurring of injury.  This was a warping.  Pieces of the view in front of him tugged away.  Colorful shards that seemed infinitely distant replaced those spaces.  Unspace, he thought.  Not yet!  

Still, it would not let him free.  A field lay inside this pointed dome; these fragile arms were too strong to break from his desperate efforts to get free, get free, at least die alongside the other rather than watch him die from in here.  

He was barely somatically aware that his fists pounded against the gateways barrier.  Still, with vision spread out and torn to slivers of sight, he would never forget seeing the world beyond that barrier.  The light crushing down.  The glint on painted metal.

There was a buzzing in his audials.  Perhaps a result of the fires outside.  Perhaps a part of being crushed into unspace.  It did not block out all sound.  The yells- the screams- the pounding- audible still.  Audible still.  Audible forever-  it was a despair that would never leave.

Vision blurred, but the light encroaching was whitening what remained out.  The silhouette of his commander- his friend- 

He couldn't lose it!  He couldn't lose sight of it!  Please pleaseplease!

That shadow was all he had left!

No credence was given to the internal mantra of despairing pleas and demands.  His vision whited out and, with that, even the silhouetted shape of Galvatron was gone.

The tug behind him increased, had been increasing, though he hardly noticed.  Hardly cared.  How could he?  It hurt.  Not the unreal dissociation slipping him among the colorful shards of a space that didn't exist, but what sounds still rang in his head, what vision he'd lost.  

It hurt.

It hurt.

There was a darkened red around him now.  Clouded.  A sky.  An atmosphere that appeared this dulled maroon.  He was falling down the darkness.  Whipped by the air of this atmosphere.  This living atmosphere.  His universe had lost living air long before.  It stung to feel it once again.  It stung, life did.  Because he didn't want it.  He didn't want it.  Not without Galvatron.  It was meant to be the both of them or none at all.  Never did- Never did want to-

The sensation leftover from the gateway slipped off of him for good and left him merely to the mercy of the drop through the sky.  The last vestige of what had happened, gone.  The gateway admitted its fare.  The ashes of his commander wouldn't enter.  So now it would automatically begin its second task.

It would rip through the stabilizing fabric of that universe now that it was closed from admitting others.  The blinding exposure of light that had burned through his last remaining reason for survival would now be torn apart.  They would be as erased as Galvatron now was.

It was no relief at all to know.  

He could have transformed.  Flown.  It would have eliminated the danger of falling.

The inescapable life around him was too suffocating to consider it.  If he died on impact, he would hardly grieve.  If he lived, all he would have lived for was a life spent grieving what had just occurred.  Cyclonus did not transform.  He let himself fall limply.  

If he never awoke, then he would be no worse than Galvatron was now.  It was no loss to him.

He'd never wanted to live forever.

He'd wanted to finish a life worth living in victory and this-

this did not qualify.

Chapter Text

In that state of stasis, thoughts oozed and fired and had little coherency.  It was pitch, but flashes arrived too fast to be clear but completely visible nonetheless.  A shadow.  Silhouette.  Searing away.  Like the yells vanished.  A flash brought it back to let it sear away again.  Everlasting purgatory of repeating failure, loss.  The incoherent thoughts followed the same patterns.  

Forgive-

Forgive me-

Please forgive me-

But Galvatron was never one for forgiveness.  Why should the presence of his death act any different?

Then stasis crawled away.

The fog left and with it went those visions.  The last visions he had, no matter if they were mere reminders that his commander was dead.  

Cyclonus heard the groan before he knew it was he himself making the sound.  Something was applying pressure to his face and that as well took awkwardly long to realize his own servo was responsible for.  

He was awake.

Alive.

In his same body, feeling his own face, looking through his own optics just as he had always done in the world he came from and abandoned now.  That he alone survived.  Alone.  

Disorientation faded and Cyclonus was able to take stock of his situation.  There was a tiny mechanism sitting up on his berth, glaring at him.  Glaring with multiple optics, red, narrowed into little suspicious slits.  He recognized those optics.

No.  

Those optics were dead.  Their owner was gone.  

(Galvatron was gone; the rest lived on, but not his, not those he'd known)

Scalpel was here, in front of him, but Scalpel was likewise dead.

In the moment, Cyclonus felt extreme distaste for the engineers who'd decided interdimensional travel was the path they would take.  He was the only who had followed it through to its finish and what did that leave him with?  Total strangers wearing the faces and pasts of people he'd once known.  

He had no place here and yet here he was.

An invader in a universe where he ought not exist.  The Skywarp here, if Starscream should create or had already created one, would not have met his Team Athenias, his Galvatron, his pressures in the furnace molding him into Cyclonus.  The names alone would not come to the clone without either party involved.  And would either be involved if the lumen purgatio were to never arrive here?  Cyclonus could be a nonfactor.  A being that never existed here, that never would.  This could act as an alternate universe parallel to his own all it wanted, but there were portions of his own that had no coding in this one's writings and the entire entity of Cyclonus was one of them.

He had no place here.  

Alone.  No companion.  No familiars from his own universe.  Surrounded by faces he knew and did not know here.  

Faces he would have to meet again, hear introductions for, vital conversations with, all again, all again, it repeated, never ended, why had he awoken?

There was, of course, the technical reason.  Someone had lifted medical stasis.  Judging by the two present in the room, Cyclonus felt confident that it had been Scalpel.  

But his was a more metaphorical question.

And to it, no easy answers arrived.

If there was any solace in his stasis, it was that his mind could not string any thought together to completion.  There was a mercy in that incoherency.  It numbed reality, for reality could only be grasped if thoughts could string that reality together for the mind they belonged to.  He'd known he was grieving, known he wanted forgiveness from Galvatron, known sometimes in the waves of clarity that he wanted that forgiveness for surviving when the other didn't before that clarity washed away and left him knowing he was in grief but unsure of the complete, coherent, sharp pain arising when he knew why.

That solace was gone when stasis was lifted.  The world around him was perfectly put into words by his thought and his mind numbed nothing.  

The world around him lived brightly.  Chaotically.  Full of decepticons mulling around.  A world thats biggest worries were restarting a rebellion war they had already officially lost.  

A world he didn't belong in.

He wasn't supposed to be awake.  

A world that would force him to belong until their priorities became his, their battles his, their planets his to tread on.  

He was given total life again and he did not want it.  He did not want to repeat this.  Did not want to restart.  It spat on the life left behind.  It was tedious.  It was overbearing to consider doing it all again: improving, gaining status, finding purpose.  

There was no alternative but to do so again in his new world.  It would allow him nothing less.  There was no ending in finding a new world.  

That had been the idea, hadn't it?  A second chance for life?

He alone had received it and- alone, solitary- it felt more a burden than blessing.

It was only logical they question him.  Upon awakening to Scalpel and the looming frame of general Strika, he'd known exactly what came next.

If a stranger had dropped through the sky of his home, he would have demanded answers as well.  

Even as the ever-suspicious Scalpel scattered away, the general wasted no time in beginning the interrogation.  Cyclonus would have been amused at her angry urgency if he could find it in himself to be amused at anything.  

"Who are you?" Strika growled only a few nanos after he'd even awoken.  

Ah, but she could forgive him for not rushing to answer.  He was still rather disoriented.  It took time to put answers together.  Safe answers, at the least.

Strika wasn't interested in giving him time.  

"What is your name?" she prodded after his pause seemed to have worn her patience thin. 

They would hardly recognize the name.  It seemed rather unlikely a Cyclonus existed in most living dimensions.  

So he would give her that much. 

"My name is Cyclonus."

The two decepticons exchanged glances.

"And what faction do you belong to?" the general asked next.  

Ah!  Right to it.  They were in war, then.  Worried about autobot spies or the warriors who swore loyalty to Megazarak's memories and arrived on decepticon outposts to make violent statements.  They had no understanding of a world without such concerns, no understanding of a world burned into nothing and flooded only with a force that replicated until the space of the world could no longer fit them all.  No understanding.  

Fools.  He would be crushed into the values and wars they found important?  He would find no stress in them at all.  Their wars would pale in their entirety to what he alone had survived in his home.

Still, it would likely be important to find allies here.  He had to be ready for this universe's Galvatron, if the mech did not yet exist.  Perhaps he did.  Or perhaps this dimension was far enough back temporarily that it was still Megazarak on Chaar's throne.  Perhaps still, there was no familiar leader in this world and its history was unrecognizable to that he hailed from.  

This was an interrogation, no?  The goal of an interrogation was to find answers to settings and plans.  He may as well take advantage of questioning.  

"Who is the leader of your army?" 

It was Strika that answered.  She spoke the name with a pride and loyalty she'd never issued Galvatron's name with.  

"Lord Megatron," the general answered him.  

A part of him wished to be frustrated over how she displayed her loyalty to the inferior precursor's name when his version of Strika hadn't for her commander at the time.

But it was truly a small issue.  He could not issue the passion for frustration over it.  

And, at least, it gave him the answer he needed to find an impromptu place in the allied forces of this dimension.  

"Then I am a decepticon."

For as long as it took before Megatron sought out a planet-eater and became the mech Cyclonus had known.

It was thought with conviction enough, but that confidence wavered under the presence of a single word.

If.

If Megatron sought Unicron out-

Not when.  

There would be no lumen purgatio in this universe.  He'd succeeded at that much.

Here, there may never be a Galvatron.

Without the alliance taking the allspark and its fleet's members, there may never be the younglings he'd recognized only cycles before.  Firefly could be irrelevant here.  Remembered by himself as a bright, moldable assistant, but so much more than dead in this universe.  Never to exist in the first place.  

And those alliances wouldn't arise either.  The two doctors he'd had as Skywarp wouldn't have reason to meet, let alone work together.  Dreadwing and Skyquake would shoot down the autobot younglings they'd tutored in a different world.  Team Chaar would, at least, be together.  That much did not rely on the lumen purgatio.  

So much had.  Galvatron.  His Galvatron, shared experiences and all.  The newsparks and alliances.  

Still, planets still stood.  Chaar.  Cybertron.  Earth.  The Co-Prosperity Sphere.  Everything that had burned where he came from.  

It would almost have been easier if they'd burned away his memories with everything else they'd taken from him.  Galvatron's last yells rang in his head and he felt despairingly sure they always would (it was more frightening to think they could stop, eventually; that he could just walk away from all that Galvatron meant to him now and leave the screaming guilt in memories behind- No.  No no, he wouldn't, no, he couldn't).  For a moment, they drowned out what Strika was saying next.  

" -did you come from?" 

Ah.  Even if it felt safe to answer, he would not have.  That was private.  Intimate.  He could not share it with strangers.  They would not grasp the weight.  

"I cannot say."

It did not seem easily understood by the general.  

"Do you not understand the severity of your situation?" Strika's optics flared in threat.  Her looming grew closer overhead.  "You crash down in New Kaon, offer no answers, disrespect a-"

He had no passion to listen to her misunderstand his status here.  Cyclonus moved to interrupt the stream of anger.  

"I know you.  I know who you are and I mean no disrespect.  You operate a specialized team.  You lead Blackout, Spittor, Blot, Mindwipe, Sky-Byte, and-" he pointed at Scalpel, seemingly taking the scientist by surprise.  "-him."

"While I have led all of those soldiers before, you're missing an important member of my permanent roster: Oil Slick."

There was something more too.  Some added words on Scalpel.  Cyclonus did not listen to them.

But there was his first link lost to his universe.  In his, he'd never met Oil Slick.  Heard of the mech, yes.  Detested him for what role he played in kicking off the life he'd created; in dealing out cosmic rust to Rodimus Prime, he'd spelled the death of Kup, the rest of Team Athenia and with them Tailgate, his own failure when he'd warped that last time...It led him to Galvatron and he would never chose otherwise, but detesting the cowardice that was chemical weaponry displeased him still for its role in the deaths of his first, short lived companions.  

And he was meant to be dead.

That confusion led him to slipping out of the stiff confidence he'd hoped to conduct this interrogation with.  He wasn't supposed to let anything slip, but-...

"He hasn't been killed yet?"

Considering that he was disoriented from awakening from stasis so recently, he felt he could offer himself some amount of grace for slipping.  That reasoning did not mean that he did.  Any mistake was still a mistake.  An error on his part when he was meant to be stronger than that.  

The general had no inclination of understanding this storm of thoughts.  She'd stepped back and her optics had widened briefly in confusion.  Strika was not one for containing emotions all that well.  She made up for it with the sheer ability to slag whatever witnesses there were for errors.  

"Who?" she snapped through confusion.  "Oil Slick?  What are you talking about?"

The future.

Nothing.

Not a future that would occur.  

Still, when Galvatron arose here, Oil Slick could still be killed.  Hardly a loss.  

So perhaps a future, perhaps a partial future, perhaps nothing at all-  whatever the case, he would not say more of those questions built out of his previous situation to these two.  They did not need to know.  Let the knowledge of that universe and its horrors die whenever he did.  It was not a burden he would share with any others who would offer hollow condolences without grasping the true tragedy of it all without experiencing it.

Cyclonus went quiet then in that determination and no amount of this Strika's and this Scalpel's questioning could bring him forth to share again.

Chapter Text

He never spoke with any of them on it.  Scalpel would have liked to hear it all, but he was at the end of the potential list to tell the truth to if such a thing was tempting at all.  

This Strika was very similar to the one he had known.  This one was far more suspicious of him for the first stellar cycles.  She wished to know of his origin.  He did not say.  She was suspicious of his loyalties.  He reassured her that they lay with Megatron.  They did, in part.  They lay in the future Megatron's existence offered him. 

Then there were differences between his original and this one unrelated to him and his presence here.  This Strika liked to strike up conversations with her consort, who was, in his opinion, quite dense.  Not dislikable, but Cyclonus had no time for his energy and limitless praises bestowed on Megatron (Vorns later, when Lugnut volunteered among a few others to join Megatron on a voyage to look for the allspark, Strika moved to talking with him loudly over a screen.  Cyclonus avoided the hall that would pass by her room.  He had no interest in overhearing such intimacy unguarded).

If there was anything that seemed to win Strika over, it was his battle style and blades.  The Bleedback had retained their capabilities even after travelling through unspace to this universe.  How that worked and how they recognized this alternate Unicron- wherever he was floating- as its power source, Cyclonus could not say.  As for his style, Strika was quite approving.  It was similar to the techniques of her idol, after all.  A bit more unconstrained, she said at one point and offered to teach him the constraint that such a technique needed in her optics.  She had no reason to know that the wild flair came from Galvatron's take on his predecessor's battle knowledge.  He accepted her offer, if just because he did not wish to give her a reason to question him in that regard.

As for the others- well, they seemed the same as those he'd worked with before.  Oil Slick was the only addition he had not previously worked alongside and Cyclonus despised him.  It likely went noticed.  Scalpel poked him over it.  Scalpel prodded over anything, however.  An undisguised distaste for their chemical weaponist was nothing unique.  Oil Slick himself had already been warned by Cyclonus that he would die.  The when and how and by whom were left unsaid and unknown and the other had laughed at him for it even as he was in the precarious position of Cyclonus's grip.  Whether or not he would ever follow through on the threat was uncertain.  It likely would not occur.  Not until Galvatron rose again and did the task himself.  Still, Cyclonus found that he had been pleased to feel the revolting mech squirm.  

At first, he had only seen Strika and Scalpel.  The latter asked far too many questions.  The swords intrigued him.  The strange mech that fell from the sky intrigued him.  Cyclonus did not care how badly he intrigued him; he had no plans to tell Scalpel anything.  This one was more insufferable than the one of his universe.  He fed off of Oil Slick and vice versa.  They were an irritating duo.  

When Strika had finally decided he wasn't some sort of spy sent to bother Lord Megatron's Glorious Plan, she'd offered him new quarters.  Real quarters (the lab could not qualify as one).  Cyclonus had not accepted the offer until Oil Slick's visits to the laboratory's owner became insufferably common.  

At the point in which he'd left the medberth behind for good, Cyclonus had adjusted to a simple fact: he was alive here now.  He could love or hate it as much as he so wished, but there was no unspace device ready to send him elsewhere.  One cycle, he thought he could hear his thoughts in Galvatron's voice telling him to make a status here.  Secure a position among a decepticon team and await the time in which the familiarity of Galvatron could arise again.  Secure it, for he was going nowhere else.  This place he had entered had no exit.  

That same voice sometimes argued internally, pushing the idea that any Galvatron that rose here would not be the familiar one.  Cyclonus's thoughts- whatever voice they seemed heard with, they were still his- ignored that for now.  

So through time and alleviated suspicions on Strika's part, he was given entrance to Team Chaar.  Their own token mystery bot: a stranger who refused to speak of just why he had dropped from a space rupture onto New Kaon.  Blackout sometimes forgot this fact and asked him who he was.  Cyclonus determined that Blackout was an idiot.  Then again, he was on the team for his size and strength.  Strika was the only brain he needed.  It was a status shared with Spittor and, to a degree, Blot.  The rest were no idiots.  Mindwipe was borderline psychotic in his own delusions, but quite capable of strategy and well educated.  He also was rarely amongst them.  Cyclonus took his spot easily while the supposed hypnotist was off on his own.  He may not devote much time to talking about himself, but he still found himself accepted enough.  It was very strange for an unknown to jump all ranks and land a position in Team Chaar.  The fact that this before-unheard-of mech had done so kept him respected by any outsiders who otherwise would have picked fights in their stores or the streets of New Kaon.  It was almost amusing how often fights got picked here.  Galvatron would have liked the place.

Stellar cycles moved too fast.  There was training.  There were battles.  He fit in well with Team Chaar.  They were not known for exemplary teamwork to start with.  Strika understood the chain of command from her position atop it, but the rest seemed to work independently.  He was independent on a battlefield as well.  With Galvatron, he had found a balance of teamwork.  Not here.  Not with them.  So he worked on his own and, at the end, looked over a thoroughly defeated battlefield.  That was Team Chaar's version of teamwork.  None complained about it.  Yes, if he were to leave one on their own to die injured as he once had left a different version of Blot, they'd disapprove.  Even if their plans weren't micromanaged by their commanding officer, they were expected to look out for each other.  

It wasn't that the members liked each other.  And yet, to one measure, they did.  Their newest member had not yet found a way to fit into that measure.  

It was just one more way that he stuck out from them.  Perhaps in time...But perhaps never.  He was an alien.  A member of a different universe.  On one, rare occasion, the starkness of that reality had brought another mech to mind.  He'd asked Scalpel to confirm that this mech's planet existed in this universe and found some solace in learning it did.  The Tailgate that Skywarp had known had a gap in time wherein vorns had passed without his presence.  To Cyclonus, this entire dimension was a gap.  He'd not been present for any of its passing time.  It mirrored his own to a degree that he had not been caught off guard by any of its history, but it was not his.  It was not his.  

But he would need to adjust to it.  One so rigid in a solar wind broke apart; only the flexible remained.  Knowing that hardly made it easier.  Cyclonus couldn't muster enthusiasm here.  Couldn't seek out companionship or laughter.  He could not remain rigid to adjusting at all, but he would not muster excitement over living here.

By the first vorn, Scalpel had almost seemed to lose interest in him.  If apathy had gained him anything, it was that.  The scientist could go shift his interests elsewhere.  Cyclonus had never been prepared to humor them.  

Chapter Text

The alliance fleet had consisted of the largest ships in cybertronian history.  They'd been meant to fight off the massive vessels of the lumen purgatio, after all.  Here, such a threat was unknown.  The decepticon's had far larger warships than the autobot commonwealth.  The commonwealth had the omega models.  The latter had won out, historically.  That wasn't here or there.  Far more applicable to him was that Team Chaar typically had one of two posts: their base on New Kaon, where Strika took the leadership in Megatron's absence whenever the warlord had need to be offworld, or their ship, which paled in every way to the fleet Cyclonus had once lived on.  Still, it was not a useless vehicle.  It had enough recharge centers for more than their number (wise, he judged, considering that new members were a possibility).  It was far slower than anything with transwarp energy may be, but that also was bearable.  

His room (which he had confiscated during the team's first time off New Kaon after recruiting him) was simple.  Quiet.  The walls were built to keep outside sound away.  He was glad for it.  The teammates sharing proximity on this vessel were almost all very loud people.  In his own quarters, he couldn't hear them sparring or verbally spatting; couldn't hear Blackout misunderstand a biting insult towards his intelligence or Oil Slick mocking Spittor over being his next potential test subject; couldn't hear anything to distract him from his own mind.  

In that ship, it was easier to hear ghosts.  On New Kaon, the chaos outside kept him occupied.  He feared that fact.  He worried that keeping occupied would leave him one cycle with no ghosts at all.  It was history, after all.  It was over.  He did not wish it to be over.  Cyclonus clung to the false comforts silence offered.  

It was most often Galvatron.  Why not?  The other voices were technically alive once more here.  Most of them, at the least.  Occasionally, a thought seemed voiced by the chipper cadence of the newspark he'd once inadvertently recruited and that sent him into an unhappy state.  

There was no reason to let it affect him so.

Sure there is, the chipper mental voice taunted.  I won't be back.  Maybe the rest can be met again, but you know I was a unique product of your circumstances.  

It felt ill fitting for such a happy tone to bring out such a spiraling thought.  

But by far, the silence let him draw on one other specifically.  Almost hear him.  Almost feel that he was there.  That a slip of his spark had gone through unspace with Cyclonus and lay disembodied among his mind.  Wouldn't it be comforting?  Only if it were real.  And what odds were there of that?  Still, until he had disproved it completely, Cyclonus found himself balancing amongst the limbo of drawing comfort from the imagined conversations and letting go of them completely.

Maybe you should, his thoughts said one silent cycle in Galvatron's tone.  I'm gone, aren't I?

It was a rare moment for the faux ghost to admit such.  On normal occasions, it was all bragging and overconfidence befitting its original voice's owner.  Such a being so believing in himself could not consider himself defeated.  Even if he was gone and dead and gone, it was still here now.  Thoughts clashing with thoughts may have just been a conversation with himself, but it was still a conversation.  

On other occasions, their brief missions or offtime vacations were far approaching and he was busy with drills and tasks on New Kaon.  During those circumstances, he rarely had these mental visits.  That fact unnerved him.  He didn't want them to drift away.  They may not have been wholly comforting, but they were still a form of relief.  

I'm not going anywhere, 'Galvatron' would sniff.  You swore you believed me when I said I would win the last war.  Can you really assume I'd leave you now?

It left him hollow after.  Slumping down against a wall was not altogether uncommon for him.  The tainted thoughts came as a relief, a salve for hurts, but left him more hollow than ever.  Exhausted.  

Drills became more common occurrences.    The strain of pushing physical boundaries kept his head clear of that exhaustion.

Socializing did not become more common consciously.  It merely was inevitable once he had been accepted into Team Chaar.  These were familiar faces and yet had nothing familiar shared at the start.  Gradually, that changed.  Inevitably, really.  What was almost curious to him was just how that familiarity grew in comparison to the predecessors he'd known.  

In his last world, Cyclonus had been young and inexperienced upon first being introduced to these warriors.  His inexperience was multifaceted; not only had he been in few battles, but he carried no unique education besides that which Starscream inherited to him.  Sky-Byte had rather intrigued him then with his stories and poems, his ballads and languages.  A maturing Skywarp had taken interest in learning those ancient dialects and reading the virtual library of collected transcripts his teammate had to offer.

Cyclonus had no need to introduce himself to Sky-Byte with such curiosity nor require teaching on those matters.  As it turned out, this difference set off a new chain of events regarding moments spent with that teammate.  Rather than introduce him to one of his favorite Destron poems, Sky-Byte's first branch out in interest regarding his newest coworker was related to an argument over the themes of Old Malignus philosopher Alkalin's stance on the sociology of emotion versus Destron poet Ironscrew's view on the emotion-to-vocalization cycle.  It was a very intriguing subject for Cyclonus, who adhered to the latter on such matters and lived his example in allowing feelings to be felt rather than botch turning into words.  

This first discussion set them on equal ground.  On a ground far different from that Skywarp had needed to crawl to.  Sky-Byte had taken him to multiple poetry readings or one of the few museums on Chaar devoted to (decepticon or rebels or anything not based in autobot philosophy) art.  Skywarp would not have wished to.  With the exception of Galvatron at that time in his life, he had been adamantly opposed to doing anything like that with anyone.  It was too similar to Hot Shot dragging him to bars or energon cafes.  That had left him attached to the colorful autobot.  That had left him in pain when the bot died.  The lumen purgatio had not allowed him to loosen in that regard.

Cyclonus had no energy to resurface loyalty and love for a new companion at the moment; it was still devoted to Galvatron or the ghost of his memory and moving it to too many others in the present could untether that memory.  Could let that history drift into the past.  Could lose what it felt like to hold such a companionship.  Cyclonus could not do it.

But that aside, he was clinical enough in compiling notes on the situation.  There was an Earth game that Starscream had briefly noted before the clones creation.  It reminded him a bit of this now.  Dominos, he thought it was called.  They would all be stacked next to each other and then pushing one would cause the rest to fall.  There was no stopping the motion once the first had dropped.  This new world was much the same.  It had so many recognizable faces, but his very existence as Cyclonus rather than a cowardly clone kicked off a different train of dominos than Skywarp had.  

Thinking about me? the memory-voice latched onto that train of thought even as Sky-Byte was still touring him through replicas of archaic language devices.  

Thinking about what'll happen when I do show up here?

No.  

Cyclonus was not.  

Because even then, at that point in which he was still chained to the past, he was able to apply the events regarding two different Sky-Byte's to the potential Galvatron that would arrive here.  

No.  

But the cracks had started growing.  In time, he would not be able to deny it so completely.  And what then?  Would he accept this world as his own?  Accept that he would not know anyone here as he had his own versions of them?  What then?

“What then?” he asked aloud when he was alone in his quarters once more.  He could almost picture the other standing in there with him, even if only his voice- and only a memory of that- was truly there.  

You wait for me, one thought said with a familiar set of jagged dentae.  You know I’ll be back.

You create a life again, another contested with just as much familiar expression.  You recover from what the fraggers did to the rest of us, like you did before.

But he hadn’t before.  He’d evolved, transformed, but Skywarp’s pain had always remained.  Just...dulled.  Everything had dulled as Cyclonus.  

It was dull still now.  He almost wished it to hurt as sharply as loss had when he was young.  

“Why?” he bit out without much inflection.  “There is nothing here.”

There’s always a fight! the voice laughed.  There’s always a battle to adventure through!  

“Then I fight.  Adventure.  Until I run to rust.  What point is there in that?”

What point was there in not doing so?  He frowned at the empty room, let it curl into an angry grimace.  He could live out millennia more in stagnation or he could at least clash blades and complete jobs.  Starting with accepting his position in Team Chaar rather than living through it in dreamlike passivity.  From there…

Maybe the dull state would spark life once more.  

Then, when the Galvatron of this universe did come into being and call out his need for a lieutenant, Cyclonus would not be too much of a shell to fit that request.  

Chapter Text

Decades moved into vorns.  Cyclonus remained alive but stagnant and the call to change such a status grew stronger each cycle.  It would mean leaving behind old ghosts.  It would mean accepting that every face here was a complete stranger, no matter how close he'd been to their visage in a previous world.  Acceptance was at the root of all his resistance in this new world.  This saccharine, suffocating, naive world, as he viewed it.  He had made his place in an apocalypse and felt awkward in trying to belong here.  Felt out of place, out of time.  And still stagnating in just that stiff attitude grew more unbearable.  

Assisting Team Chaar was not the same as loyalty to the unit.  Neither still did assisting the decepticons make him loyal to their cause.  He cared very little for their cause.  He cared very little for any cause, in truth.  The unified and despairing situation of his last world had made every faction pale here.

Over the vorns, he tried to speak with Galvatron.  Not just the memory, the thoughts that played in the other’s voice.  The predecessor.  He never spoke on his old life with the mech, but he wanted to find a sign of what Galvatron would want from him by speaking with the far more subdued mech his body currently belonged to.  But Megatron was not the Galvatron he knew.  A part of him knew, hated to know but knew regardless, that he never would be- not even if or when he sought Unicron out.

The displaced mech also looked out for signs of the lumen purgatio.  They had been erased.  Surely, they had been destroyed.  Galvatron had not died for nothing; all those others had not lost their existence for failure.  He himself was not here, suffocating, for nothing.  They were gone.  

But he could not easily accept it.  They had defined his world.  Defined his life.  Should they arrive here, he would watch another universe die as his own had.  How could he not keep watch for any signs of their surviving existence here?  

To some relief and some expectation, there were no signs...for now.  And were none for every vorn that passed.  It grew more and more likely that he truly did have a lifetime laid out in front of him now that would go uninterrupted by horrors from unspace.

While it took time to fully put into words, Cyclonus had eventually done so.  He had named the emotion that compelled him whenever he saw the Megatron of this world on decepticon broadcasts or in person on New Kaon.  He had determined what drive kept him anchored to a memory that a part of him had known from the start was gone.

It was a faith.  A stifling, horrible faith.  One that kept him chained to a past that could not return.  

It was no question of if Galvatron arose or not in this universe.

He couldn't continue to delude himself by thinking that it was.

It was mere fact.  Galvatron was gone.  His Galvatron was gone.  Any one who arose here in this universe would not share their history.

Of course, he would still choose for that Galvatron to replace Megatron.  He always would.  But-  

But...

It would not rewind time.  

Nothing could.

At some point, that faith in his old Galvatron would need to dissipate.  His obsessive hanging on to the impossible would need to face that fact.  Maybe when it did-  Maybe moving on was an option.  A better option.  Maybe something good could come of life again.

But vorns had passed while he was hostage to a sick delusion.  How could he break from that now?

Every time Megatron appeared on a broadcast, Cyclonus saw his future.  Hungered for it.  Even as his spark felt like it was being squeezed apart at the realization that it would not be the same.  

You know I'll be back, the phantom would say with the same confidence and blind ego as the original would have.  

Cyclonus felt the need to press his servos against his helm at the thought.  

It was not a matter of whether or not this Megatron transformed into a more desirable being.  He would not be back.  He would not.  No amount of mental voices could say otherwise.

At the point in which he did indeed shove his palms against his head and growl out to an empty room, Cyclonus shifted.  It was no longer a matter of holding off, no longer a collapse in the captivity of loss.

This world was not his, but he was in it.  He would not let it pass by him as the elements did, untouched and unimpacted by his presence.  He would live in it, regardless of his own love or distaste for it.

It felt too magnanimous.  The exhaustion threatened to keep him there, pressed against the wall, growling and frustrated and tired.  He alone had survived a threat that had erased an unknown number of dimensions.  Falling to exhaustion now when such a threat no longer existed was, frankly, pitiful.  Galvatron would be disappointed.  All of those he'd known in that former world would be.  No matter if they were forever gone, that much of their memory could still affect him.  

The idea was comforting but he was done with it, free of it.  They were gone.  Their memories would not want him to see these alternate faces as perfect replacements.  It was unfair to them to desire perfect replacements.  It was just as unfair to those here to expect them to retain all the experiences they'd had with him in a different universe.  

The idea was comforting but it was a sickening comfort.  A delusion that suffocated.  Its comfort was a hollow trap and Cyclonus...Cyclonus was no coward, to choose the easy pain over ridding himself of a hostage status.  

Exhaustion or no, the mech did not sit down to recover on his way out of the room and into the bright, ugly, noisy chaos of New Kaon.  

Team Chaar did not often fight autobots.  Such was the result of autobots typically being in isolation, as was the style of their planet at this time.  Spacebridge repair teams and the occasional elite guard scouts were all that truly left the commonwealth's borders.  

Instead, they were called out to put down rebel decepticon uprisings, pirates, mercenaries, any of the galactic rabble that became too much of a problem to decepticon security or colonies.  

Whether they were aliens or autobots, Cyclonus would put in the same effort in fighting.  He was not attached to any of the beings here, after all.  He had never known them.  It was his job to follow Strika's direction; it was Megatron's expectations that he do his job; and it was the potential warlord following Megatron who would know he had always done as commanded.  There was little energy to argue else wise.  Why should he?  

Besides, combat was not as pointless as many other situations.  He did not seek it out, but he never complained when they would be called out to some outpost or other.  

Not long after coming to his decision to rid himself of hollowly comforting delusions, they were sent to deal with a pirate attack on a barricade world.  There were many of those opponents; their ships were flooded with fighters and those enemies had piled out to take what they desired from the outpost attacked.  Team Chaar numbered six for that mission.  It had, at some moments, almost been a challenge.

In truth, Cyclonus relished the opportunity to use his Bleedback.  They were relics, just as he was; the very last links to an eradicated dimension.  They worked as intended here, never for naught of energy.

After the battle, Team Chaar had reconvened to take their fair share of energon from the outpost supplies and then prepare for departure.  It was during that time that the others congratulated or insulted each other, slapping shoulders, laughing, all similarly covered in oily black bloods.  The rotary of the group caught Cyclonus walking by and mentioned his part in boarding the very ships the pirates had docked above.  

"Killed all the pilots, made the things drop.  It was impressive," Blackout admired.  

Before, he would not so much as grunt at any comments leveled his way unless they came from the general.  She, at least, he felt compelled to answer.  Those like Sky-Byte would also get responses from him, but those were in conversations on far different topics than himself or his combat ability.  

Now...

There was an almost amusing amount of effort required to push a response out.  The realization that he needed to move past the idea of familiar faces from memories was a long time coming, but its gradualism did not soften the blow.  He'd grown used to staying unresponsive.  He'd grown used to fighting back any opportunity to begin the avalanching process of seeing any of these faces anew.  

And he'd determined to lose that viewpoint.  

They were not the Team Chaar of his memories.  Strika and Sky-Byte and even Scalpel (in his own insufferable way as he fed off of his partnership with Oil Slick in all of the worst ways) had already made their own names in his memory files.  They were not met as the previous ones had been and did not act on a history they did not have with him.  They were unique.  New.  It had been exhausting to face that before.  It was not as exhausting now, as he readied himself to begin that process with the rest.  

So instead of passing on as though he'd heard nothing, he'd offered Blackout a nod and then walked on.  

It was a start.  It toppled those dominoes irreversibly.  

And, as time passed on ever more, Cyclonus found himself content that he had done so.  

They were no memories.  No replacements.  It seemed unfair to treat them as replacements, then.  It was far fairer for him to see them as they were now, here, in this universe, with this Cyclonus who'd fallen from their sky.  He still felt no loyalty for their cause, but they seemed to be suspicious enough of that fact; so long as he fought the battles they pointed him towards, they had no qualms with a lack of loyalty.  It was an acceptance he had not looked for and one that made it just a little more rewarding to acknowledge them as allies that he was only just getting to know rather than those he’d had for vorns in another world.

The suffocating bonds of that stifling faith loosened further still.

There would still be a century before any events on Earth occurred.  Still a century before the war resurfaced, Starscream would clone five fragged up newsparks, and the commonwealth would settle a decisive victory.  

Sometimes he wondered (really just in passing) what would happen after.  Without the lumen purgatio, would the decepticons mount counterattack after counterattack on Trypticon Prison?  Would the Magnus he'd once allied with be put in that position here or remain a Prime?  Even in those rare times that he felt those passing wonders, he never bothered to attempt answering them.  Strika would, undoubtedly, wish to know what he did.  It was vital information.  It could prevent Megatron from ever getting trapped on Earth and setting off the course of events which happened half a century later there.  Cyclonus did not care.  

Perhaps it made him a faulty decepticon.  

But he only took up that brand out of loyalty for Megatron's future and Galvatron's memory.  Nothing more.  History could pass as it pleased.  He would act inside it as any piece did.  That was living in this universe; being as any other here was rather than acting as though he held some outside knowledge.  

If anything, his only real curiosity was in wondering how life would progress for the vorns to come without the lumen purgatio in play.  He wondered if he would visit any of the locations he had seen burned...Likely not.  He could not- he could not keep living for memory, in memory.  

He could not.  He would not.  

The ghosts remained, but the stifling hope, the suffocating loyalty, the sick grief that sourced from it, could not challenge such a mindset.  Such bindings faded and Cyclonus...While he did not feel alive, no longer felt stagnating in the apathy such a delusion had brought him.  The very concept of living again was no longer impossible.  Its appeal was still one he was uncomfortable approaching, but- by this one century remaining mark in time- it was the 'adventure', the fight, the challenge, he had accepted that he was set out on.  

Chapter Text

"We're gettin' offtime soon."

What fun.  

Cyclonus did not have 'fun'.  This offtime would be like any other recreational vacation he spent among this team.  Like nothing.  

Despite his own thoughts, the rest of the meeting center gave various roars of approval to Blot's statement.  Oil Slick started off talking about finding new resources (test subjects) from wherever they went.  Scalpel, perched in all his tiny menace on the chemist's shoulder, seemed eager to follow down that track of conversation.  Spittor was saying something of his own, but Cyclonus didn't bother trying to translate the wet noises his speech consisted of.  

Their absences of the stellar cycle were Mindwipe, who was working what he called his 'side job' holding psychic sessions for any tourists interested on the decepticon colony of Iioti (tourists were, for good reason, not exactly allowed to even approach Chaar; this was the decepticon homeworld and a war center that had to remain on guard against the possibility of autobot infiltration and attack.  The colony outposts were a different question altogether and a very active ploy for gaining revenue for the cause and drawing in galactic allies to their plight), and Blackout, who was doing...whatever he did during his time off from active duty.  Strika also was not at present among the group at the moment, but that was instead due to the fact that she was talking (quite loudly) to her consort over the long-distance comms in her office.  The wild search for the allspark hadn't reaped any results yet (though it would, he knew), but Lugnut never seemed to consider the very possibility that it may end up being a failure.  It had been ordered by Megatron and led by the warlord, after all, so surely 'glorious victory' would occur.  That it would, eventually, stumble across their goal still did not make Cyclonus feel that it had been a very well equipped mission.  Still, travelling semi peacefully (any ship with Starscream, let alone Blackarachnia, Blitzwing, or Strika's consort, could never be all that peaceful) on a quest, however unlikely, was an oddly appealing idea.  Perhaps he had missed a chance, not volunteering to join the thing; but knowledge of all that would crash down on Earth had kept him from considering it at the time.

All that this meant was that the upcoming 'offtime' of which Blot spoke would consist of the currently active Team Chaar members and would likely be a short, there-and-back run on some world or other.  Quite unlike the peace and adventure of floating through space in search of something so unlikely to be found.  Most offtimes he'd engaged in since the slow decision to engage in anything at all had been dry.  Full of loud fights on the flight over.  Then full of loud fights at whatever mansion or camp they hijacked.  And then, unsurprisingly, loud fights on the return trip to New Kaon.  If he were to even try to have fun on one such trip, it would be inherently impossible.  Quietly reading, slow katas, or meditation all would be completely impossible to enjoy when the sounds of decepticon brutes were yelling at each other and throwing their teammates into walls.  

"So soon?" Scalpel said from where his tiny claws were latched into Oil Slick's shoulder.  It let him stay there even if his partner moved.  Like a avain cassette from the romanticized pirate plays of ancient cybertronian culture.  The latter thought took all menace away from the otherwise unnerving scientist.  "Ve just got a trip to Camia four orns ago."

"Maybe we're returning there," Spittor- rather characteristically- spat.  

Scalpel's optics all narrowed into familiar slits.  

"Ve made enemies zhere?  I look forward to our 'vacation' zhen.  Camia vas far too comfortable wizh us before."

If it was truly a battle, there was no need to have called it otherwise by stating they were getting offtime.  But that wasn't really worth stating a complaint over.  Nothing ever was for him.

Blot shook his head.

"Nah.  We got a guy out on some far-off neutral world that really really wants to meet us.  Strika's gonna make us go and try'an' get some of the arms he's dealin'.  The rest of the time we're there is all free."

Even when he smiled, Blot was disgusting.  He took great pride in that fact.  Cyclonus did not approve, but he approved of very little.  More than once, he'd been told to 'lighten up'.  

He had not.

And had no plans to do so.  

Currently on the rotating roster of Team Chaar, Sky-Byte leaned his mass forward towards Blot.  

"Where will this rendezvous world be?" 

Perhaps he'd lied earlier.  Cyclonus was capable of experiencing the dim emotions required for 'fun'.  Currently, he was amused.  It was rather amusing, after all, to watch the ever-prideful-on-the-surface Blot lean back away from the rather intimidating visage of his curious teammate.  Many had the same reaction to Sky-Byte.  Skywarp certainly would have screamed and run from a smile containing all those dentae.  

"Eh," Blot shifted uneasily.  "Think it was called Viianta or somethin'?"  

Any other thought was washed out in static.  Cyclonus sat still on his seat and heard the name repeat in the static fog, over, over, over again.  

There had been a point, in this universe, where Cyclonus had seen every familiarity as a familiarity. 

That point had passed.  

He would meet any new challenge, event, person, as just that: new.  No matter how recognizable they seemed on the surface, he had accepted that he did not, truly, recognize them.

Viianta would be no different.  

Yes, he had been there before.  Long ago.  As a different individual.  As a Skywarp still drowned in fear whilst also learning the delights of attachment.  The planet he would soon be landing on would look the same as that one had, undoubtedly.  It was not the same, though.  There would be no hotel with Team Athenia, no getting dragged to bars by a young autobot soldier or sulking nervously down colorful streets in their midst.

This was just a new planet to visit.  A new set of opportunities.  One he would miss by remembering the past, but...

But opportunities alone belied that new experiences could be earned.

A mix of nervousness and a bit of excitement lay beneath the usual apathy.  

There was no choice on his part to go or not.  It was where his current unit was going.  But he expected that he would be doing more exploration of those areas outside his planetside's room than he typically would during outings like this.

This thought rose again when he was on the planet itself.  Viianta was a strange place.  It took longer to reach than almost any other flight he'd been stuck on with Team Chaar thus far.  Its outer rim status, along with being a neutral world, made it a truly disconnected place compared to many worlds.  Scuffles between the decepticon faction vying for recognized galactic sovereignty and deadly small rebellions against autobot civilians were simply unregistered here.  They knew, of course, that wars continued on between many different planets of the galaxy at large, but Viianta itself seemed to understand its limited communication with the galactic center and thus its own registration of the events far from it was muted.  

There was a decently large cybertronian presence here, mingling in with dozens of techno-organics, organics, and other cna based species.  It was too loud.  Too colorful.  Cyclonus felt the helmache inevitably approach from this fact, but he would not return to the apartment their contact had rented out for them.  Instead, he walked down crowded streets and through colorful vendors and ignored how he stuck out amongst the others.  There were taller, larger, beings passing by, but he was aware that his demeanor could very well be responsible for the wider berth he seemed to have unconsciously gained.

Still, he found himself approaching the city sector he'd known from another world.  The Viianta here wasn't the planet he'd been on before.  No more than Megatron here would ever be Galvatron from there.  It was a part of his acceptance.  Still, the layout was the same in some places (different in others, but that spoke to the century left of change) and this sector was one of those areas.  

Absent travel led him to a backwards street that had a view of a shop across a crossing backstreet ahead.  

Cyclonus stopped walking there.  

This wasn't his former universe.  These weren't his memories reborn.  The shop ahead of him was not one he'd ever stepped inside before.  This was not a chance to protect what he had failed to before, because this was not the same shop as that one was.  It was separate.  Not endangered by the looming presence of the lumen purgatio and the stupidity of a cowardly clone.  Then this was the beginnings of a unique train of events, was it not?  One unmarred by former memories no matter if more than a few pangs of failure and shame arose in regards to the Skywarp of old.

Those determinations left this a new ground, unwalked ground.  

He did not approach the shop.  He did wait there for some time considering it.  Watching.  There were quite a few customers bustling in and out for a jour before visits to the shop seemed to die down.  Its owner would come outside sometimes to wave one off- perhaps a regular?  Cyclonus did not really know what it was like to live on this planet or run a business in general.  There weren't many guesses he could give.  

When that first jour was up, business slowed to a near stop.  The large transparent doorways in the front of the shop showed its interior partially.  It was shaded, but still discernible.  The autobot would sit at his desk, sit on his desk, lay upside down off his desk with his head facing the door that no new customers had entered in some time...

At one point, he'd slid off the desk and left the building, disappearing behind it before returning with three crates- each his size- stacked in his arms awkwardly.  He ought to have gotten help with that.  Someone ought to have noticed and offered help.  

There was a ping for him later in the cycle.  Likely a comm telling him to regroup.  Playtime's Over, or the like.  Cyclonus ignored it for now.  

This was not his world, he thought.  This was not his world.  

This was a new world.  And it had brought him to this planet to see a ghost who was not a ghost, who was a different individual, a total stranger, someone he had not met-  

but someone he could meet.  

This was a new world.  

He had reached that point and begun to move on.

And, after the motion of moving forward had already been occurring for stellar cycles, he could start to treat this as such.  There should be no past grief to hold him back; only caution, residual apathy, and the question over how he could break free from the dull repetition of living with Team Chaar year after year.  

Cyclonus did not walk all the way to the front of that shop that cycle.  He did not on any day of their stay there for business, even if he made it to the observation spot each cycle.  The crates and supplies went painfully carried by a tiny mech while he watched and wondered why he could not seem to go out there and help.  The dangerous looking customers that entered made his own battle systems hum, but he did not storm forward to check their behavior.

He knew even after they had left that Viianta was not a chance event, however.  He would return to it.  Sooner than later, he would.  

In a moment of clarity, he was rather surprised he had not already before this point.  His first great failure revolved around a separate version of the mech he'd seen here.  If fate was to cross their paths here, he would not allow such a deadly failure to occur again.  

Chapter Text

The chance to return was not as easy coming as the first visit to Viianta had been.  It didn't matter.  That first visit had occurred naturally, through fate.  It had been a message.  Now, he would follow through with that message and the means were fatefully allowed to be artificially produced.  

As Team Chaar had no reason to return to the distant planet, Cyclonus would have to find a different option.  For some time, he mulled over what options those might be.  In time, he realized that he was really only left with two; leave unexpectedly or leave with a warning.  The latter played to protocol.  It acted as though he adhered to the chain of command he himself rather considered himself outside of in regards to the decepticons of this world.  

It was the more appealing option, all things considered.

When he had tracked down Strika, it was to find her in her office.  The general held far more jobs than just bashing helms in combat.  It was a cost of rank.  The responsibilities of officers.  He remembered handling many of those duties that Galvatron could not seem to bother concentrating on (at least before he was satisfied in Firefly's ability to handle some of that drab work).  It was not a responsibility he considered himself willing to commit to with the decepticons here.  Strika most often handed filework off to Blot (a surprisingly competent person in that regard, despite what one might think) or Scalpel (who complained over getting the additional workload whilst at the same time obviously relishing the chance to find any blackmail material at all amidst the files being sorted through) when she either couldn't get to them herself or else was choosing not to.  Cyclonus was never given the work.  He'd made it clear the first time she'd thought to bring it up with him.  

The office lay on one of the upper floors of that dome.  It was easier to merely fly to that level's open flight bay and walk to her from there.  He did so after a cycle spent investigating those shuttles and streamlined vessels free to be taken out to voyage through the galaxy.  There hadn't been many choices in that regard, but one was enough for him and there were, at least, more available than one.  

Having determined that he would be capable of traveling out to Viianta without needing to take Team Chaar's favored ship (something that would undoubtedly go frowned upon), he decided it was time to go inform his general that he would be taking leave.

With perhaps a bit too much confidence in getting his way and a tenseness attributed to worry that he wouldn't get it smoothly, Cyclonus entered the office.  His presence silently demanded attention and Strika's obliged, glancing up from a desk far too cluttered with multiple databoxes and cylinders to be multitasking on at once.  

He informed her stiffly that he planned to leave for a few orns.  It received no confrontation.  Strika shifted a few of the boxes and cylinders around to reach for what seemed to be a schedule.  There was a slight hum while the general looked it over.

"Go ahead.  Mindwipe can take your spot," she dismissed.  "He's due to come in soon anyways."

Wonderful. 

He planned on leaving that cycle.  Why not?  He would use his presence with Team Chaar to demand a ship out of those he'd scouted already and he hardly had possessions to bring with him outside of his weapons and fuel.  

"You've never bothered to get leave before," Strika noted, not exactly sounding surprised but still looking over the data with interest.  "Impressive, really.  That's vorns of uninterrupted dedication."

Yes.  Though not to the cause or to the warlord she herself devoted such uninterrupted dedication for.  It hardly mattered.  

"Where are you planning on going?" the general glanced behind herself at him.

Cyclonus, unsurprisingly, didn't bother to change his flat expression.  

Strika's optics narrowed, but she did nothing more than growl as she turned around.  "Of course."

They had, as she'd already said, spent uninterrupted vorns together by now.  She should have known better than to think he would answer personal questions.

The first visit was very similar to that off time the team itself had spent there.  He paid to recharge inside the ship he'd brought and docked in the city and thus avoided the hassle of hotels (that it cost more to convince the dock owner to let him stay in a parking spot was not considered much by him).  

Then he approached Tailgate's shop to the distance of the same street from before and stopped there.  

He offered his support from this hidden distance.  It may have been more support for himself and his purpose here than it was for an autobot who, in this world, had no way of knowing he existed.  

There were a few instances that made him bristle- a few passersbys that made him feel a danger was present- but none ever forced him to reveal himself.  Yet.  He would, in time.  He would not wait and then leave the autobot to live on without ever interacting, just comforted in getting to see him and see that he was safe.  The purpose here was to-  ...to- ...in time, at least-.  In time.  

The second occurred half a stellar cycle later and Strika had shown piqued interest once again when he went to arrange leave for himself.  

"Learned what you were missing out on, did you?" she teased as she signed off permission for him to go.  

Cyclonus didn't answer.  He felt the question was rhetorical.  

The visit itself passed as those earlier had.  There was a peace to them.  A hungry peace, a still happiness.  Seeing Viianta- that shop especially- offered such to him.  It just felt so...picturesque, perhaps.  Undisturbed by threats like those he'd known in another world.  

It surrounded this place.  It surrounded that mech.  Skywarp had thought him naive, almost dense, for it.  A little odd.  Fearless, but Skywarp couldn't understand fearlessness and so he thought it odd.  

Claws wrapped on a wall that he half stood behind, Cyclonus stopped trying to put words to the feeling and merely let himself note the undisturbed picture out there.

Strika was not the only one to notice.  As his visits remained around a half a stellar cycle apart (with the travel times to Viianta, he was forced to space them out), his allies seemed to realize that they were no longer the only ones who rotated through their active spots on Team Chaar and away for themselves.

By far, his most unhappy incident had occurred when he reached the vessel he had confiscated that cycle and nearly jumped when a different mech stepped around the boarding ramp.  Upon noticing who it was, he was almost regretful that he hadn't jumped afterall.  Striking out and accidentally impaling Oil Slick could have been easily excused if he had.  Whatever the case, Cyclonus had too good a grasp on his own nerves and the chance came and went.  

The chemist, after wasting time with greetings, had made himself comfortable up against one of the extended poles of the ramp in an effort to crowd him and then got far too friendly for the flyer's taste.  There was the usual comment on him leaving, like those the rest gave when they saw the schedule was rotating him out.  Why Oil Slick talked so casually around him was a mystery.  It could not have been hard for him to note that Cyclonus glowered at him, and the threat that had been issued over a clenching embrace earlier upon his arrival here could not have gone forgotten.  Perhaps his slip about the chemist's death during his first cycle awake here had never gone forgotten by Scalpel.  Perhaps, even, the scientist was putting Oil Slick up to this.  If so, he was somewhere currently unseen rather than in his usual place on the tall mech's shoulder.  

"Am I keeping you waiting?" Oil Slick tilted his head after some time of idle chatter.  Cyclonus had not moved from the spot he'd been ambushed in.  He stood there stonily.  "My apologies."

The words practically oozed.  

Cyclonus remained stony.  

"Well, don't let me keep you.  Surely you're trying to get some time away from us.  Understandable.  We all need breaks."

They all took breaks quite commonly.  All but Cyclonus.  He had a credit built up for this after vorns of never rotating off of the roster.  

"So, wanna tell, hm?  You got a pretty con waiting for you out there?" the chemist leaned closer.  It was unwelcome.  As was the curiosity.  There was a very uneasy sense to Oil Slick digging in this regard.  He and his companion both could keep their claws out of Cyclonus's business.  Especially Viianta.  Especially Tailgate.  

Whether or not there was truly menace and implied threat there, Cyclonus had been left angry and unsettled over the interaction.  The soured mood followed him the entire flight, no matter how he considered that he ought not feel as defensive over a situation based in interactions he had not yet introduced himself to begin.

Perhaps it was that which gave him a push.  Or perhaps it was just watching Tailgate carrying loads that he should have had help with one too many times from the shadows.  

But on that trip, Cyclonus had not remained in the adjutant street.  It was a stagnation of its own kind, doing nothing but watching and waiting.

There was no harm in at least introducing his existence.

Chapter Text

Viianta very distantly orbited a far off blue star that showed as a very small circle in the dark sky from the surface.  It was bigger than the other stars and much, much brighter but not much of a cheerful sun.  The thin atmosphere of the planet didn't help in that regard and so the sky was rather dark in daytime and night cycles both.  Still, it was always pretty neat to get to watch that distant star show in faded lightness on the horizon in the mornings.  Tailgate reasoned that that was why he operated his shop with an early schedule.  It let him sit on top of the roof of the place and enjoy the dim sunrise; by knowing he had to open doors early anyways, he would just end recharge before the star would appear and then enjoy a city bathing in what morning light was offered (not much, but it was the thought of the matter).  

This cycle was like the rest tended to be.  He had a new shipment coming in that he'd need to deal with later, a relatively common occurrence.  He likely wouldn't have that many customers to get in the way of restocking and organization; also a relatively common occurrence.  For now, he'd watch the thin atmosphere particles catch the light on the horizon and issue a dim glow.  A little cube of pink energon sat between his ankles as he leaned back to watch it.  

Then it was on with the day.  Tailgate got the lights on in his place to make it look invitingly open from the outside windows and slid in place behind his desk.  So much of his job happened from there.  It was better than rusting in a cave system or disposing of waste all his life, he supposed, but quite honestly, Tailgate rather liked getting to go out back and carry in new shipments or organize his shelves.  It let him move around.  He'd done enough sitting in place during all those vorns trapped underground.

A few people came in and obliged him in conversation while they browsed.  He liked it when customers and visitors were talkative and friendly, even if he never saw them again.  Tailgate got up from the desk during a lull of customers and tried to jump around.  Calisthenics, and whatnot.  Then it was back to the desk again.  

And finally he was given the pinging alert that a shipment had been dropped off out back.  Since no one was in the shop at the moment, he took his chance to deal with the new stuff now.  

He really did like it out here.  There was so much life and chaos to this city on Viianta.  It was nothing like the colony operation he felt like he'd been at just a few years before.  He wished he hadn't missed all those vorns involved in letting this place grow and take form into what it was now.  But he was making the best of it now.  He wasn't missing any more sunrises or chances to stretch out and move.  

Tailgate carried the first batch of crates into a free storage room through mostly muscle memory.  He had the habit of stacking them rather high to cut down on the trips back and forth needed and, as a result, couldn't see over the top of that stack.  Then again, sometimes the boxes were too big for him to see around just on their own.  He was rather small for an autobot and they erred on the small side to start with.  

On his way back, he missed the shadow.  He missed it until he'd already picked up the next load and turned around with it in his arms right into the mech the shadow belonged to.  

Tailgate lost his grip on the boxes with an 'eep'.  It was lucky there was nothing valuable inside.  

The mech overhead took a slight step back from the crash.  The three boxes sat on the ground in various positions of being tipped over.  Tailgate recovered quickly and moved to pick them upright again.  Before that, though, it was courtesy to see the reason he'd been interrupted.  The former waste disposal bot looked up into a face he could only describe as stern.  Other than the slight parting of a mouth that closed into a line when the surprise of all the crates dropping wore off, the expression being worn was almost hostile in its flatness.  Maybe that was just a misrepresentation of a stony expression based on the fact that its owner was towering overhead in all his pointy glory.  Tailgate didn't consider it hostile, not with the soft open-mouthed surprise he'd seen a minute ago displayed there.  It'd just been an accident was all.  

"So sorry!" he waved his servos in friendly apology.  "I didn't mean to bump into you there."

The mech didn't respond.  It was a little sad how frozen he seemed at the little accident.  Maybe he was shy.  If so, Tailgate would try to reassure him that he was fine.  

But before he could speak up, the other had looked back down to the crates on the ground again and spoke instead.  

"Need help?" the mech asked.  

Some of the others he sometimes caught energon with might tell him that it was a dangerous voice.  Deep, a bit raspy, fitting a tall warframe painted in decepticon purple.  They were all autobots and neutrals and the occasion organic he'd recently met on the findafriend kiosks he had more than once caved to using.  All people who'd seen the various autobot-decepticon wars.  All people who'd actually been aware of the last few millennia.  People unlike him, in other words.  They had reasons and experience and stories to fall back on when they saw decepticons and felt like they were in danger of being ripped apart or abducted helplessly or melted in an acid pit somewhere.  

Tailgate...didn't.  He'd missed all those life events that would have given him such cautions.

This mech in front of him was unquestionably a warframe and the tips of two greatsword's hilts were visible peeking up from between his tall shoulders and neck.  Plenty of people walked around Viianta with fancy weapons.  Plenty of people on Viianta looked deadly.  Sometimes, he would watch one taking energon or organic food alone at a bar stool while he sat with small chatty civilian frames and wondered if that intimidating figure being avoided by intimidated patrons felt as displaced and lonely as he had ever since reaching the surface of this wildly different world and time.  

It wasn't hard at all to find an answer for the stranger.

"Sure!" Tailgate decided.  

He crouched to pick up one crate and saw the other kneel with cautious slowness, like he was worried he'd break the things on the ground just by moving with normal speed.  Either that or he was worried about spooking Tailgate himself, but the minibot didn't get the sense that that's what it was.  

"They're not too fragile, don't worry," he started, waving at each one and feeling the chatter come easily.  "This one is just coils, extra wiles in spools, you know, and this one is just new parts for training dummies for people that fight and stuff, they won't break either, and this one is synthetic furs! Because there turns out to be a good market for that here, anyway, they're really soft, super soft! and they definitely won't break.  And at this point you're probably wondering what I even specialize in selling in my shop and I couldn't tell you!"  Tailgate giggled.  "A bit of everything, I guess.  Anyway, you can pick-"

Claws scratched the exteriors of the boxes as the mech grabbed the crate of training dummy parts and bulk supply of furs.  Tailgate almost wondered if he'd picked them on purpose or just by chance and left him with the lightest box (tightly packed synthetic material got rather heavy no matter how lightweight a single piece was alone).  He'd take it either way.  It wasn't as though he couldn't carry any heavy crate; Tailgate didn't look it, but he was actually rather strong.  It was a big part of being able to deal with some of the nonsentient tankers in waste disposal.  A total stranger that felt guilty after running into a blinded-by-his-load minibot wouldn't know that though.  

They stood again and he took the lead, head poking over the top of the crate in his arms.  

"This way, just follow me!  I'm just going to drop all these in my storage rooms for now."

Organizing came later, after all.  It was best to get all the new supplies out of the open.  

It only took a few trips to finish. After that, Tailgate knew he really ought to get started on actually organizing before this place got even more cluttered than it already was (not to mention that he really should have been in the shop itself in case any customers did arrive).  Instead, he plopped down on the closest box and looked up at the guy that'd given him a helping servo.  

"Hey, thank you!  You really didn't have to do all that, but thanks-"

The other didn't move other than the most incremental of nods.  

Well, help aside, it was about time for an introduction!  He was pretty sure that'd have been the social thing to do back in his old time period and that much couldn't have changed in this modern world.  

"So, what's your name?" the little autobot asked.  

The quiet mech stayed silent for a long enough moment that Tailgate felt sure he wouldn't be answering.  Surprisingly, he did.

"Cyclonus."  

Well, now he had a name for the unlikely, no-doubt-a-decepticon friend.  

"I'm Tailgate!" he introduced and waved rather than offered a servo.  Not yet, at least.  The mech- Cyclonus- didn't seem like the type that'd take it.  He certainly wasn't the type to offer a wave back.  Tailgate didn't let it get him down.  Past, present; he'd always been a bit friendlier than most people he ran across and tried to remember that when his enthusiasm didn't seem shared.  Appearances didn't actually give the most correct assumptions, after all.  

Conversation didn't exactly get any smoother after that.  Cyclonus had hovered there and Tailgate had sat quietly for a bit, waving his legs from his seat and wondering what next?  The mech answered it by asking if he needed help putting anything away.  Maybe it was based in something the people he got together with here would call stupidity, but Tailgate had shrugged and said sure.  He explained where some of the supplies went on the shelves and felt comfortable that nothing was getting stolen from what he could see.  The occasional visitor popped in and Tailgate would help them out cheerfully all the while noting that Cyclonus would remain stationary by whatever shelf he'd been at last before the door's opening interrupted them.  

Then the shelves were all restocked and there was no more 'help' to offer.  

"Do you...get any more next cycle?" the mech asked stiltedly.  It was rather like he wanted to hear an affirmative, to show up again and carry boxes around that the autobot was used to carrying alone.  

Any more shipments?  No.  Tailgate explained as much and swore he could see disappointment through the stiff demeanor.  

It made him feel a little bad.  And maybe a little melancholy for himself too.  He'd tried to get friends in this new Viianta quite a few times and it still felt like most of those connections were lacking.  This mech could walk out the door and never be seen again.  What then?  Would he feel like he'd missed an opportunity for cycles to come?  This wasn't really any weirder than meeting people at little meetings meant to introduce strangers together and hope a friendship stuck.  

"They come every five cycles, typically," he found himself elaborating.  "Between that time, I have to find which things to throw out and what stuff to keep and where to put it, you probably saw the mess, hah."

Cyclonus didn't laugh at his lightsparked tone.  Or really change his facial expression at all.  But he did shift against the wall behind him.  

"...Sounds busy."

That was the point of a job, yes.  

"It is," Tailgate agreed.  

There was another pause.  A 'beat', he'd heard it described by less awkward people enjoying humorous plays and films.  

"You operate this solo."  Something apparently noted by the newcomer.  "Do you ever need help?"

Help with boredom and loneliness and the confusion of being stuck in a world that seemed like a futuristic dystopia to him, yes.  

Start with manual labor like crate lifting, though.  Start there, get to the rest later.  

Tailgate smiled with his optical band.  

"Sure," he echoed his answer from the first question the mech had asked him this cycle and prepared to see the other again another day.  

Chapter Text

At the end of the fifth cycle in which his new acquaintance had showed up at his shop, Tailgate felt that Cyclonus might be comfortable trying something a little more normal than just standing around cleaning shelves in his shop with small talk (mostly from him; Cyclonus was not talkative) making it all function as somewhat socializing.  The wait had felt a bit necessary before he offered to socialize to that more normal degree, just based on some of the attitudes he'd seen from him thus far.  He didn't want to scare the other mech off by asking too much (even if what Cyclonus might think was 'too much' may be what others thought was normal) all at once.  Viianta was a good place to have awakened to the knowledge that different people thought different things were acceptable and nice and expected.

There were, after all, all kinds of different social normalicies here.  For one, the planet was a melting pot of cultures and people and they were out isolated away from what worlds they originally came from.  It was a lot to keep up with!  Tailgate wasn't stupid.  He knew that the first dozen stellar cycles he'd spent in this world had left him competely offbalanced.  Anyone could tell him anything about what the world was currently like and he'd accept it.  How could he not?  It'd been 10 million years.  He'd barely known anyone that old before.  Rusty cranky mechs, maybe.  That was the picture in his mind at the time.  He'd been rusty when he'd gotten pulled out of that cave system.  It'd been treated over a stellar cycle and left him looking as ageless as most cybertronians did for most of their lives.  The point was, 10 million stellar cycles was a lot.  A whole, whole lot to miss.  If a big war could've happened, and then some other battles after that point, who was to say what else had everywhere?  What manners existed and which had morphed?  What expressions were still common and which would earn confusion?  

There'd been a mech earlier on that had offered him answers and he'd taken them eagerly, hopefully, just overwhelmed with everything he had to catch up on and so, so very relieved that someone was so willing to help with that.  The memory was more sour now.  As it'd turned out, Getaway hadn't exactly ever had his best interests in mind.  A nice wakeup call that all had functioned as.  Tailgate shook the thought away.  Point was, Viianta was full of all different people with different customs and different gestures and different manners and he'd been trying to get a feel for what this new mech's were like in the last few days.  Since he'd stuck around, it seemed that there was an interest there.  Being expressed through chores and general proximity and more than a fair share of awkwardness, but an expressed interest in remeeting all the same.

So Tailgate had closed his shop down and then caught up to Cyclonus where the other was on his way out the back door.  

"Wait-" he skidded to a stop from running to reach the other and giggled (just a bit) at how Cyclonus seemed to step back from that speed in alarm.  "Um."  

Smooth.  Real smooth.  

Tailgate shook that thought off to and went ahead with his offer.  

"Do you want to grab an engex?  There's a few good neutral bars in this part of town."

For a moment too long, the other was silent.  Tailgate felt that a good portion of that quiet came from surprise.  It was the way Cyclonus's mouth would part, just slightly, that gave him the impression.  It never seemed like an expression the culprit himself noticed he was doing, but Tailgate caught sight of it still.  His face was still stern, but it was a little uncertainty or lost-in-thought and it eased that unapproachable stern-ness (Tailgate felt very little guilt making up words) just a bit.  

The pause left him wondering if he'd overstepped after all.  It had seemed normal enough, but who was he to say what was socially acceptable and what wasn't these days?  The hunt to find those sort of answers had driven him to someone that had just taken advantage of his well meaning desire to find out what was okay and not-okay in this new world; after Getaway, Tailgate had just decided that everyone had a different weight for 'okayness'.  That mech had, after all, weighed that manipulating and conditioning someone who'd trusted him to his plans had been okay.  Most others wouldn't weigh it that way.  

Thankfully, the worries were unfounded.  Above him, the flyer stopped looking out over an infinite distance and instead looked down near (not at, but Tailgate found the shyness kinda endearing) his optic band.  

"I..."

The voice was stiff as ever.  Maybe even more so than it had been on the first day they'd met and talked.  But it was speaking, stiff or not.  

"...would like that," Cyclonus answered.

Tailgate's visor beamed.

He ended up doing all the organizing for it, but he didn't really mind.  Cyclonus had wanted to do 'something else' (whatever that meant; Tailgate didn't pry for now), so he'd arranged for them to meet up later in that night cycle for the fuel.  Of course, it was the company that was the real point there, but fuel was a good excuse.  That much, it seemed, hadn't changed at all over the millions of years gap in time.  Getting oil or engex was always been a common method of socializing; from getting to know someone new to enjoying vorns-old friendships, a can or cube was always an acceptable platform to chat over.  

So he'd given out directions and the name of the place and the time he'd get there (after a brief recharge, to pass the time Cyclonus had seemed to need before being available again.  A jour only at his recharge station was enough for him; it wasn't like one cycle made that much of a difference on a cybertronian) and a brief discussion on whether or not they wanted to rendezvous first elsewhere.  Tailgate did almost all of that talking, but he was pretty sure they'd both decided to just meet at the bar itself.  

Then there was a stilted goodbye (Cyclonus didn't seem to do waving, but he did hover after already saying farewells and that sort of hovering would have meant waving for just about anyone else).  There was a whole lot of nervousness.  Tailgate put that down to excited anticipation and a touch of apprehension-  not for meeting up again itself, but at the idea that he'd show up alone there and have to deal with the rejection jours later after finally accepting his new friend wasn't showing up.  That thought wasn't at the forefront as much as it could have been, which was nice.  He'd much rather be nervous over excitement than worries.

Finally, after scrubbing off and making sure his place was locked up, Tailgate drove out to the bar they'd decided on earlier.  No one was waiting outside when he arrived and transformed, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.  He'd just peek inside and see if Cyclonus was already there.  

The bar was dim.  That was a part of its ambiance though.  A nice, dim place to go relax and get high grade.  Or some different kind of overenergizer, if you weren't cybertronian.  But this establishment was mainly a cybertronian haunt.  Tailgate wasn't sure he'd ever really seen a wide variety of organics or techno-organics here.  What he did see were a lot of decepticons.  That was the thing about neutral bars; they tended to attract a lot of decepticons and that, in turn, kept some of the autobot population from coming in.  Not Tailgate though.  Because, as the people he had gone out to here before with said, he was dense.  He just didn't feel threatened by any patrons here.  But its overall dim ambiance and the option for booths rather than the bar itself, mixed with the patrons here, seemed like a good mix for Cyclonus to feel comfortable at and so this was the place that came to mind when Tailgate was choosing the location for their get together.  That's what this was.  That's what he was doing now.  Getting together with someone.  Someone he'd met by chance rather than got matched up with by one of the kiosks he'd played with before.  He practically could buzz with excitement and happiness.

As he stood there with all this in mind, the minibot rather missed that someone had come up behind him.  A sharp finger poked one shoulder and Tailgate's attention shot around and upwards.  His spark relaxed after finding the culprit of the motion.  Cyclonus didn't offer an apology for the scare, but he hardly seemed maliciously amused that a scare had happened in the first place.

"There is a booth, over there," the tall cybertronian used the offending claw to point beyond Tailgate.  "It is ready for us."

Someone had gotten here early then.  And here he'd half expected the con to wait outside for him to arrive.

Tailgate would've found the booth eventually just by wandering around, as he did with most of his dining ventures with friends, but- while he hadn't waited outside the building to go in and claim a table together- Cyclonus had apparently waited near the inside entrance for him to cut back on all that searching around for where he'd already grabbed them a booth.  

And waiting on that booth's table when they arrived were a few items already.  One can of the house blend of high grade and one funny looking twisty shaped cup with a curly straw sticking out of the energon inside.  Cyclonus waited for him to sit down before taking the seat by the can and looking pointedly at the other container.

"I ordered during the wait," he started.

That much, Tailgate had rather figured.  Although he hadn't gotten here later than the assigned time they'd picked, so there shouldn't have been much of a wait at all.  Apparently, Cyclonus had arrived early enough to get seating and energon and Tailgate wasn't sure if it was suave or if the other had just been too nervous to arrive at the chosen time.

"Is this one for me?" Tailgate pointed at the odd twisty cup.  The consistency and color of the energon within was not high grade, so it was probably one of the flavored default fuels they served here.

"Yes.  If you want it."  Cyclonus's brows drew together and he spoke again.  "It is-...There is no reason not to order differently if this is not to taste."

He'd probably order a high grade to go with it (because if one of them already was going to get at all energized, both of them might as well), but other than that?

"No, I want to try it!  I like trying new things-" he reassured.  

And this- all of it- was a new thing.  Viianta was a new world and Cyclonus was a new acquaintance and the strange drink was a new flavor of fuel and Tailgate felt ready for all of it.  He'd been facing this new world for a few centuries now; that was enough footing found to stop facing it and start finding a satisfied, happy, not-lonely place in it.

Chapter Text

It ended up being a pretty nice outing.  The weird curly cup drink wasn't bad and Cyclonus didn't end up really drinking his own can, so Tailgate got his dose of high grade just from sharing that.  There weren't too many distractions in the rest of the bar, so that didn't have to be worried about.  He'd done most all of the talking, but neither really seemed to mind.  Sure, he wished Cyclonus would talk a bit more too.  Maybe talk about himself.  Since, well, that hadn't exactly been done yet.  Tailgate had no idea what his life story was.  

In an effort to make that look okay to do, he talked a bit about himself.  Not some of the bigger things, no.  Getting trapped out of time, his run in with Getaway, how very much he'd like to find a place in the world- not really the sort of things to talk about so early on with someone.

The most he got out of the other was that Cyclonus did not live on Viianta.  He didn't know where he lived or why he was visiting this planet or anything like that, but it did give him a bit of insight into his new friend.  Other than that, he'd just said something about having ordered (and enjoyed) what he'd gotten Tailgate in the past when he was "younger" (something explained after the minibot had prodded persistently about why he'd just happened to get the weird fun cup thing otherwise at random) (the comment had the side effect of revealing that Cyclonus- though he may be visiting the planet on an impermanent basis- had been here at least once before).  The rest was small talk done all by Tailgate while Cyclonus judged some of those small talk topics as useless and earned responses erring on the defensive (but things couldn't have been expected to go with completely perfect agreeance), or else just sat quietly listening with seemingly interest.  

When they'd finished and walked out of the bar together, the decepticon had asked about how crime was during the planet's dark cycle.  Tailgate had asked, after answering, where the other was staying (just in case he was worried about himself and wanted to hear a native's assurance).  No answer had been offered.  No escort had been either, maybe because Tailgate had said crime wasn't really too bad at any part of the cycle.  So that was it, then.  A little awkward, a bit too much one-sided conversations, but really quite fun overall.  Nice.  It'd been nice.  

Tailgate was practically dancing by the time he'd transformed and stepped into his place again.  

Maybe just nice had been a bit of an understatement.  

There were three more outings (they'd all been nice too, even if Cyclonus still wasn't offering much vocally even by that last of those) before the cycle came that brought reality back around.  Really, Tailgate should have seen it coming ever since finding out that Cyclonus didn't live here on Viianta.  If he was just here as a tourist, well.  Tourists left to go back to their own homes.  That was kinda the point.  

Still, it felt kinda abrupt when it actually did happen.  Cyclonus had been in his shop standing around for a while before he'd spoke up.  Since normally he didn't speak up until the shift ended or similar, Tailgate had been a bit taken off guard.  Still, no one was shopping at the moment and probably wouldn't be.  It wasn't a busy part of the week.  So he'd just glanced over with interest from where he lay on top of his front desk when Cyclonus started talking.

"It was nice to meet you."

It felt a little out of the blue, but that seemed like the mech's style.  Not on purpose, but he wasn't really great at saying the typical social things any more than he seemed to grasp social cues.

Tailgate flipped his head off the edge of the desk and looked at the tall purple mech upside down.  

"Yeah, I'm glad I met you too!" he agreed.  

But why say it so...

Tailgate froze, visor shrinking tighter.  "Um."

With whatever weird form of conversation this was, Cyclonus was smooth in replying to the unspoken question the minibot hadn't even put to words in his own head.  

"This is my last cycle on Viianta," the mech said flatly, glancing away from Tailgate's visor to look ahead at a wall instead.  "I must return."

What to?

Where to?

Really, why did he know absolutely nothing about the person he'd so recently befriended?

"Return...where?" Tailgate asked even as he flipped right-side up and looked closer at the other.  "Can you tell me just something about whatever you do as a job?"

The pause that followed left him pretty sure that, no, Cyclonus couldn't.  Or wouldn't.    

But then the mech had looked off to the transparent shop doorway and relaxed a tense jaw just enough to speak.

"Away," he vaguely answered the first of two questions.  "Towards the decepticon empire, or the unmitigated territory they call such.  I've a duty to a commitment made to a small group and shall continue to have it until I am no longer their allies."

He wasn't sure if this first admittance of working with decepticons was worded so convolutedly because Cyclonus himself did not feel attached to the faction or if it was out of guilt or worry that Tailgate would react adversely to hear such attachment and so he played aloof.  

Tailgate himself had (in his opinion) far more important things to think about than confirmation that the warbuild was allied with the predominantly warbuild run faction that apparently came to infamy during his millions of years stuck in a cave.  It'd been so easy to assume the other was a decepticon from the moment he'd looked up over spilled crates into the towering red optics far above.  Assuming wasn't fair, but it'd happened anyways and he'd never really cared if his new friend was part of any army or not.  That was the spark of the matter.  He didn't care about that.  Right now, he still didn't.  He cared about an abrupt goodbye (because that's what this was; that was clearly what this convoluted approach to a farewell was.  He was more than a little peeved that Cyclonus couldn't have given more warning about this; he was apprehensive of how, in a few jours when the other was gone, he'd start really grasping that the fun little stilted conversations and helper in the shop and engex dates were gone).  

So he changed subjects from the topic Cyclonus had actually given a little personal information about himself up for and tried to figure out what normally came next when someone had to leave for a while (he hated how aware he was of how he was desperately hoping that this was just for a while rather than permanent; not just a fun thing to have occurred that ended briefly and faded into nothing but a forgotten memory rather than some important life changing continuation, like so many other things seemed to do in his life).  Ah!  Right.  Share contact info and plan, however vaguely, to meet again.  If he hadn't been so thrown off by how abrupt this was, he'd have remembered that easier.

"Do you have a comm?" Tailgate spoke up.  

The look Cyclonus shot him almost left him laughing.  Had he not heard of personal comms before?  It was like he came from another world entirely; some place where there was hesitation and strong silence and apparently people didn't just call each other for friendly chats.  

"Like a side comm, not a work or faction line.  I can give you mine and then we can chat!"

The other's mouth became a tight line.  What, did he find that risque or something?  

"Chat?" the mech repeated back to him.  

Yeah.  Chatting.  Pretty average stuff.  

Tailgate once again fought down a giggle.  

"Here."  The minibot plopped off the desk and padded over to the knee height on the other.  "I could send a short-distance frequency your way that'd give you mine.  Then you just respond with your own and then we'd both be able to do it from all over the galaxy."

This time, the expression he earned didn't make him want to laugh at all.  It was somber, but surprised.  Like the flier hadn't been expecting to get confirmation that someone he'd been loitering around with for cycles now was actually interested in staying connected.  It made him a little sad to see and a little happy as well, since he'd be disproving such a sad notion.  What a weird combo.  Life tended to hit him with a lot of weird combos.  

Tailgate set a servo on purple plating and kept his head tilted way back to look into those ruby optics.  

"Can I give mine to you?" 

Cyclonus accepted.

The next cycle, Tailgate got to work knowing that there'd be no loitering around or carrying extra boxes done on the part of someone he'd so recently met.  It wasn't nice.  There hadn't even been a chance to go off to whatever ship lot Cyclonus was leaving from and say a real goodbye.  Cyclonus had left sometime within the recharge cycle and had replied to Tailgate's written comm asking which lot his spaceship was at with a short message informing him that he was already offplanet.  He felt rather more irritable than normal while setting everything up to open the shop and moved for his chair without any of the excess energy he normally had.  If that chair wanted to drag him in and strap him down into its eternal depths, he didn't think he'd care.  Such was his mood until he actually had made to get on the chair itself.

When he slumped down behind his desk at the start of the next shift, Tailgate noticed something a bit out of place on top of the cluttered surface.  Or...not so much out of place as it was in this place: an item added rather than shifted around.  

The minibot reached out and pulled a blank tablet (and the data stick laying on top of it) over his way until it dropped from the edge of the desk to plop in his lap.  He picked up the stick first, looking at it front to back and then back to the front again.  Huh.  Well, he didn't exactly recognize it but it would be easy to port into or to stick it on the second mystery surprise.  Speaking of that, Tailgate set the data stick back on the desk gently and poked at the tablet instead.

It was a pretty plain thing and he found it empty inside when he onlined it.  Empty sans one item, at least.  No files, no downloads, to programs to plug into; just one short note.  

Of course it was short.  Cyclonus was always short with his words.  This even felt like it was more words all at once than had been spoken during the few cycles he'd been here.

All it said was that there were some old poems and stories on the datastick that had come from many a bygone era before.  All were roughly translated, though the original scripts were still there too (not that Tailgate could read them, probably; he may have come from a long time ago before his accident, but he wasn't borderline prehistoric).  It was cool, no matter if he'd have to stick to translations.  It was obviously a gift.  A gift was typically decided on by the giver through A- caring enough about the receiving end to try to find something they'd like and B- being familiar enough with the gift to know whether it met that first criterion.  If they were familiar with the options before choosing one to give away, that was a look vice versa into their own life experiences: experiences that had led them to familiarizing themselves with the options in the first place.  

In better and easier words, Tailgate had a pretty good idea that Cyclonus hadn't just grabbed a random thing that he knew nothing about to drop off here.  This was something that had been prepped, thought over.  It may just be something that the quieter mech liked himself.  

The singular line in the message pointing special attention to one of the enclosed tales seemed like evidence for this growing suspicion.  Even if he hadn't written it explicitly, Tailgate had a feeling Cyclonus had intended to say this is one of my favorites or something along those lines.  Or maybe he hadn't even consciously been meaning to say it, but the minibot doubted special attention had been given to some story that the other detested and wished only to inflict as shared misery on someone else.  That just wasn't very likely, was it.  

During their outings, Tailgate had been the one to do most of the chatting.  The vocal talking, at least.   But Cyclonus had let some of his own comments or opinions slip through.  His tastes in engex based on what got ordered, his apathy for his job, his unhappiness leaving Viianta to return to it, his favorite books...Not said outright, of course, but... that silent conversation had a charm of its own, didn't it?

Chapter Text

It hadn't taken him long at all to be the first to reach out.  The gifts left behind had cheered him up quite a bit and Tailgate had felt his mood lighten from that.  The grumpiness from earlier went subdued.  It'd mainly been based on the feeling left after finding out the other had already left without so much as giving him an extra chance to say goodbye; that all just felt like a statement implying the time spent getting to know the other hadn't meant that much outside the temporary to the mech.  The gift?  It implied the opposite.  Even if it meant Cyclonus had somehow broken into his shop during Tailgate's recharge to leave it there on his desk, it had spark to it.  Like all the heavy lifting and stuff had.  The guy didn't talk much, but he obviously put a high value in helping actions and leaving gifts.  The breaking in part would have to be talked about (even if, hell, Tailgate didn't think he'd be that adversed to just giving the other the official keycode when [not if] he got back here if they kept up long distance at the rate they were currently going; all he had to do was ask, not jump straight into bypassing locks and sneaking around).  Leaving him with what he had though?  Tailgate found it kinda romantic.  The eager drive to ask him if he needed any help around the shop was starting to lean that way in his view too, if he was to be honest with his own processor.  Anyway, that was kind of the point.  Little gestures changed in the mind's perception after more about the gesturer came to light.  Add up enough of those and-

...Well, this!  His first text went out quickly, not long at all after finding the goodbye gift.  He was the first to reach out, but that reaching out itself happened often enough on a cycle by cycle basis because it almost always got a reply back to prove he wasn't being a pest.  The responding written comms always came much slower.  Maybe they were getting extra deliberated over.  It was always a bit harder to tell with people when communication was limited to the written.  

But it worked.  It didn't drift away until it all was too subdued to really pursue any longer.  Tailgate kept up without running out of things to say.  Sure, they were typically pretty basic comments.  He'd mention something that happened at the shop that day.  He'd send a joke he'd run into that cycle (and get just slightly disappointed when those were never really responded to).  And he'd ask questions!  They were basic questions too, though, for the most part.  Things like <how's the flight?>  They always got basic answers in return.  The flight was good.  Three days later?  The flight was still good.  A bit of prying into how long it was and how it was being taken alone convinced him that it must have actually been a horridly boring thing to be stuck with.  A small ship all alone without any stops to stretch the old stabilizing servo joints and tour around?  Cyclonus didn't ever say he minded.  Truth be told, Tailgate was suspicious that he actually didn't.  However he managed to avoid boredom continued to be a life secret, as that wasn't one of the things that got pried on.  Keeping everything basic kept it relaxed, after all.  Dense though he may get himself called, he wasn't completely inept in not scaring or ticking his new friend off.  

He hoped, at least.

The datastick provided him with a part of the world he'd never really delved into.  He regretted never having dove in before the further he made it through the enclosed files.  This was full of culture, some predating him!  And that felt...Weird, really.  He was so used to feeling like the displaced antique.  The guy older than most veterans of the first great war apparently were.  But these were actually antiques.  In perspective, he stopped feeling quite so hopelessly old (without having really aged mentally without life experiences, which, really, was the hardest part).  They were full of other good stuff too!  Stories, fiction, that he'd started getting rather engaged with after getting used to the fictional medium.  The epics were exciting, even if sometimes stuffy.  The dramas were also exciting, also stuffy, and contained more-...well, different- emotions through the relationships that built and died throughout their text.  Some of the translations were iffy and he couldn't understand the ones that went untranslated at all, but he chugged his way through what he could.  Maybe when Cyclonus visited again or vice versa, he'd get the other to help him with some of that language barrier.  The idea of getting taught the original glyphs for these pieces of history was nice.  He had a feeling that he wouldn't have felt that way before falling into that cave system ten million stellar cycles before.

Since he wasn't really that used to reading or fiction or strange poetry and the like, he'd started on smaller files and gotten asituated.  Once he felt that he had a grasp enough on it, Tailgate went for the file that Cyclonus had inadvertently called his favorite.  He hoped that his earlier readings would have him used to this all enough that he could get the most out of it.  Despite that stress, the worries went mostly unfounded.  He understood the story, he was pretty sure.  

And he'd been eagerly waiting for the cycle he'd get to read and finish it, if just so he could tell Cyclonus he had.  

That jour, he laid back against the bench in one of the storage rooms (they had recently become his most common place to sit back and read) with the file up in his processor and the comm opened excitedly.  Currently, Cyclonus was still in his flight.  Tailgate checked that status every once in a while because he wasn't sure the flier would actually tell him when he'd landed without prompting (he hadn't exactly been good in that area when it came to informing Tailgate he was leaving at the cycle he had).  The empty flight left him pretty free to talk.  Free to read.  Now free to talk about reading, because the autobot now had the exposure needed to do so.  

So he settled back comfortably and messaged out first.  They chatted about the files left on the datastick for a while.  The poem he'd read last, the script for an outdated play, and, finally, the one that the other seemed to care for most.  Once they got to it, Cyclonus had given even shorter responses than normal.  It only made his assumption feel more backed up.  

<I liked the book!> Tailgate wrote him.  

The extra short responses moved back into normal (for Cyclonus) ones.

His assumption felt confirmed by that.  So it really was one of his favorites.  And he'd been at least slightly on edge to find out Tailgate's opinion on it.  Tailgate's opinion had mattered.  

If he'd been constructed with a mouth, he'd have been beaming wide.  

As time passed into orns and the conversations continued- grew easier, really- that invisible smile got even more chances to arrive.  He loved getting the ping alerting him to a new message.  He liked getting to talk about the gift and then, when he’d read through all of them, some other literature he’d found from libraries that Cyclonus would then go read as well just to dissect its literary functions for them both.  He liked talking about random customers and different paint jobs and history and really just anything that came to mind.  Cyclonus didn’t outright say it, but he liked to listen.  

By the time the distant mech had sent some short note without much warning to preclude it about how he hoped to head back to Viianta within the next few orns, Tailgate just about fell off his desk at both the blunt timing and the glee it brought.  He’d been worried, all those cycles ago.  Worried about how to actually get to know someone better over comms at such a distance when that someone was so short and stern and quiet in person.  It’d been more than a welcome surprise to gradually realize that the worries wouldn’t end up coming to into the light. 

Chapter Text

Cyclonus never really talked about his job and whatever it entailed.  All Tailgate really knew was that he lived somewhere in decepticon territory.  That was a pretty wide margin for options.  The exact system or planet was never volunteered up.  Neither was the name of his job or any details given on his team other than that 'one' of them had been the mech to introduce him to the literature he seemed to care about more than anything else.  Tailgate had gotten used to that kind of talk.  It was just the kind of stuff Cyclonus said; he didn't really seem to approve of any other 'possession', talked like the universe was doomed, and overall did not allow any light shed on the kind of things he cared about.  At least, not other than a few things: ancient poetry, nigh-extinct languages (that one rather interested Tailgate, considering how the mech made mentions of how cybertronians would be extinct eventually and all forgotten; for such an attitude, he'd held onto ancient civilizations rather closely), and Tailgate's opinion.  The latter was never outright said, but, really, neither were the former.  As a whole, Cyclonus didn't like to be very forthcoming in opinions.  Did he like his mysterious team?  Did he like what they did?  Tailgate had no clear idea.  He didn't know who the team was or what sort of decepticon business they got up to.  The topic never really came up.  

So this sudden volunteering in information on them took him a bit off guard.

The comment came one cycle when Tailgate was out getting himself some energon goodies and the newest brand of oil that the closest bar was serving.  It was a little longer than he'd come to expect from simple greeting messages, which was the first warning that it would be relatively unprecedented.  He distractedly crushed the energon goody into liquid to inject into his fuel port while reading it.

<The team I work alongside is taking shore leave.  It does so on occasion and takes the currently active members together for this leave.  As there is no ulterior job, there was a session of suggestion to find a place to go.>

Alright...

Tailgate didn't quite understand the urgency this apparently should elicit.  At least he now knew that, whoever this team was, they did do things like shore leave.  It sounded like a chance to vacation or something.  He wrote back to say as much.

<Time off sounds fun!>

There wasn't the usual delay this time.  Cyclonus sent his reply quickly.  <They picked Viianta.>  

It sounded far from happy.  Why?  Tailgate didn't know.  Why would he?  It wasn't like he'd heard anything about what the other's coworkers and him did on their shore leaves.  

<Alright.  You'll be here to visit then!> he tried, at a loss of what direction this conversation was taking.

The optimism wasn't shared.  

<They picked it to get at me.>  Text or not, he could almost hear the seething behind that.  <I don't know how he found out, but he's trying to cause a problem for me.>

This just got more confusing.  How who had found out?  It wasn't making much sense.  Tailgate tried to get some clarity on that last elusive sentence.

<Who?>

That never got an answer volunteered.  Instead, Cyclonus sent back a warning.  

<Don't interact with any of them.  If you see them coming, find somewhere else to be.  Whatever game they're trying to play, I won't allow it.>

A bit too stiff, a bit too demanding, but more than a bit worrisome as well.  Tailgate couldn't help but wonder what this 'game' consisted of if Cyclonus was this worried about him meeting any of his coworkers.

He promised he would try (and demanded some descriptions of the others, because how was he supposed to avoid them if he had no idea how to recognize them?  It'd finally gotten the flier to budge and give out some information on his mysterious team) and then reiterated a happiness to see the other soon.  Cyclonus had come back to visit Viianta four times now.  Even if this time would be more tense and possibly full of sneaking around (Tailgate found himself more than immature enough to be enamored by the stupid excitement of that idea), it was still coming even sooner than either could've planned when based only in Cyclonus's 'off time'.  As much as the other seemed stuck on the negatives of this upcoming visit, the minibot himself was far more focused on positives.

Nothing came of it for a while.  There'd been no comm to warn him that Cyclonus had arrived on the cycle he had, but Tailgate was able to adjust pretty quick to surprises.  A towering purple grumpy warframe waiting for him outside to grab a new delivery (for whatever reason, the delivery bay was Cyclonus's favorite place to greet him every time he arrived on Viianta) qualified pretty well as a surprise.  

Anyway, the point was, they'd had a few cycles without anything happening to warrant how stiffly on edge Cyclonus was.  They mostly stayed in the shop.  His friend seemed to find it more comfortable.  Especially the extra storage rooms.  Maybe because they had no windows.  Poor guy really did not want any of his teammates interacting with them, did he?  

But staying in the shop forever was really not ideal.  Tailgate rather liked going to what he was now considering their neutral bar.  He liked getting taken on flights over all the wasteland areas of Viianta.  He liked going on walks, even if it did draw some stares sometimes (he had a feeling they could be a whole lot worse, considering how distant and neutral Viianta was compared to what he heard of more important central worlds).  During one of those walks on this visit, Cyclonus had frozen up.  They had been strolling along a half wall separating one busy area from a slightly less busy industrial area.  It was more than tall enough that Tailgate couldn't see over it.  His much taller walking companion very much could, in contrast.  

It had been Cyclonus that had steered them this way to start with.  The industrial side over here was mainly just factories and storage bays and overall pretty nondescript; the hope was that they wouldn't really run into a lot of tourists out here.  Judging by how those red optics lay glued to some sight on the other side of the concrete half-wall, that hope had let them down.  

"Um..." Tailgate pulled gently on Cyclonus's servo; the claws had gone tense under his fingers.  "Cyclonus?  You alright?"

Despite trying to pull attention downward, Cyclonus didn't look back down at him as he spoke up; his optics glared off at something unseen.  

"Excuse me."

And then he was stepping over the half-wall, servos twitching.  Tailgate pulled himself up enough to poke his helm over the wall and vaguely see the giants in the shadows that Cyclonus was ushering away.

Something dimly luminescent shifted towards where his visor was peeking over and he was left feeling the uncomfortable certainty that the acid green glow had been staring back at him before it too turned back to get shoved away by an angry Cyclonus.  

That had been his first exposure to what he finally learned afterwards was 'Team Chaar'.  They were a very dangerous decepticon force supposedly made up of some of the most skilled warriors the renegade people had to offer.  Tailgate felt almost prideful at finding out that meant Cyclonus counted as 'one of the most skilled warriors' in that regard.  He'd figured for a long time that the mech was some sort of great warrior.  Maybe it was the height or the glowy swords or just how pointy the other was.  He'd managed to make friends with a top tier swordsmech.  Tailgate couldn't deny that he would like to see some sort of demonstration.  He didn't press for it yet.  If Cyclonus had wanted to hide all of this, then he either wasn't proud of it or he was shy about admitting to it all. Should one of his storage rooms ever be used to demonstrate what someone who actually knew how to fight could do, it would come at that guy's own call.  

Anyway, back to the point here.  This Team Chaar group was here on Viianta, supposedly not for the first time (although the first time didn't get explained other than Cyclonus snipping that the planet had seemed tolerable and he'd chosen it for his own off time for that reason alongside the fact that it wasn't a decepticon world; his subtle preference for neutrality was just another unanswered piece of the mystery).  Their presence here was explained like a conspiracy when it came from Cyclonus's words.  He seemed to think he couldn't leave Tailgate's general proximity in case some of them showed up to...do something.  Whether that ranged from killing him to just having a benign talk to gossip about his purple pointy friend, Cyclonus never said.  

The cycle that their walk had gotten interrupted, he'd commed to tell Tailgate to go lock up in his shop as discreetly as possible and then wrote that he would try to be out there after making sure the team was back in their hotel.  Tailgate had just asked why the interruption had happened in general.

<Because one of them followed me early today and called the others over.  I could have expected nothing less,> Cyclonus tagged on after and, as text, there was no saying whether that was bitter or just slagged off.  

But Tailgate hadn't accepted enigmatic replies and had demanded the full(er) story once he had reached his shop.  And locked up inside of it, because why not play safely?  If Cyclonus was worried, there was probably a reason other than simple jealousy or embarrassment.  

So he got the name of Team Chaar and its individual members' names to match to the descriptions that had been sent orns before.  And he got the conspiracy-esque story on why they were there.  Piecing it together just made it sound like one of them, 'Oil Slick', and his 'pest' (or 'Scalpel', if Cyclonus was using actual names other than furious insults), had found out where Cyclonus was spending his offtime and had pushed the rest of the team to coming here for...some unknown but menacing purpose.  If there was anything the autobot could get out of the story, it was that his friend really didn't like either of those two mechs.  

Despite attempts to warn them off, Cyclonus had sounded unnervingly despondent that they'd bust in anyways one night over high grade.  They won't stay back, he'd muttered.  They're boneheaded fools.  If they plan on being correctional about what I have here, they will be acting on it.  

It was getting to be a very uncomfortable visit, at this rate.  Tailgate hardly had some magic solution for that ready.  Still, there had to be something.  

"What if we stopped delaying it then?" he finally interrupted another quietly stilted set of worries the next morning.  Bleary ruby optics had glared at him (as it turned out, Cyclonus did not have the best response to getting overcharged).  

"You're suggesting just walking up to the rest."

Tailgate shrugged.  

They didn't go with that.  No more than they went for either of Cyclonus's preferred options: murdering them all or ditching the planet in secret (or both, in that order) (both of which were also not truly options when the mech would mutter something about 'can't risk Galvatron' or similar, none of which Tailgate had any way to decipher).  He really did not react to stress well for someone so notoriously apathetic.  

Instead, after much deliberation, they'd decided to walk up to one.  Just one for now.  And not so much walk up as invite him to meet up at a different location.  Even though Cyclonus was certain his teammates already knew the location of the shop, he still didn't want any of them showing up in a wide perimeter near it.  

Tailgate had managed to convince the grim mech to let him sit up on his back for the walk over to the bar.  Even if it had gotten a scowl when he'd first asked, Cyclonus seemed more content like this.  Awkward teammates trying to interfere in their lives or no, Tailgate rather liked getting his piggy-back rides and getting to see the world from a tall place for once.  

They didn't get the chance to let him slide off and enter the bar together like mature people.  Some really big mech had turned a corner from a separate street at around the same time they had exited their own sidewalk and Cyclonus had stalled up short.  

"Sky-Byte," the mech whose neck Tailgate's legs were wrapped around spoke up flatly.  The big mech jumped in surprise and turned around.  Big shoulders shifted to let a big neck swing a big head over to face them and Tailgate stared hard.  

All three were awkwardly silent for a moment.  

"We'll be heading in there," Cyclonus nodded incrementally at the bar despite how obvious the statement was.  "But since we have already run into each other, I will introduce you now."

A finger pointed upwards at the minibot perched up between his shoulders.  

"It's Tailgate.  The name you all were after.  Tailgate."

And said bot went ahead to say his first words to the first of his friend's teammates he'd run across:

"Oh wow."  Tailgate's optic band was wide.  Sky-Byte's visage was looking between Cyclonus's face and his own.  The sophisticated first words continued to spill out.  "That's a lot of teeth!"

Instead of getting mad, Sky-Byte just lifted and dropped his shoulders.  

"So it is," he agreed, said 'teeth' parting as he spoke.  

They got along casually enough for the rest of their meeting.

Most all of the talking occurred between the autobot and Sky-Byte.  Cyclonus had sat next to Tailgate and both stared ahead at where their guest sat across from them, but he did not add to the conversation much.  His unhappiness at the meeting made the minibot a bit sad.  Still, he hadn't tried to put a servo on the mech's leg for comfort after the first time trying had ended up with it getting shifted off.  

Sky-Byte asked quite a few questions and Tailgate engaged best he could.  Which, honestly...was pretty good.  He was an easy guy to talk to, once his face had been adjusted to.  For the most part, they talked about his job, Sky-Byte's job, their hobbies, some entertaining stories.  Then, conversation moved to him and Cyclonus.  The poet had expressed his surprise at having originally heard that his silent teammate was wandering around with one of the townspeople; other than museum visits and discussions over ancient literature, it seemed Cyclonus hadn't left his teammate with much of an impression stating he was looking for connections.  There was no anger at finding out otherwise, from what Tailgate could measure from the healthy laughter and seeming happiness at finding out his purple ally wasn't "a complete hardaft".  As to their proximity and meetings themselves...

"And you are consorting?" Sky-Byte pointed with his cup between both.  

Cyclonus didn't answer.  Tailgate didn't know the answer.  

"What about you?" he shifted the conversation cheerfully.  "Do you have a- umm- consort?"

It was a popular word amongst decepticon culture, from what he could gather.  During his original time, people had just said sparkmates and that was it.  A long time had passed since falling into that cave.  He'd learned to just accept the changes.  

"I'm afraid not," the large mech sighed, still smiling.  "Other warriors are only interested in battling and I find myself desiring more from a consort.  It seems, however, in that regard that, despite my galactic fame in poetry, most potentials run off the moment they see my visage."

Tailgate crossed his arms and narrowed his visor.  

"Well, that isn't fair."

Sure, it was a startling face, but...

But Cyclonus could be called startling too.  Dangerous, deadly in appearance and his constant frown did nothing to dissuade that.  And Tailgate didn't notice it.  The weight of that purple armor next to his own as they sat together left him more than happy that he'd never been stalled by that kind of first impression.  

Sky-Byte glanced between them again and his optics crinkled into a smile again.  

"Perhaps it is not," he returned.  "But it is so rare to find someone who thinks such." 

It was a vote of approval.  

Tailgate knew, by the end of that visit, that he and Cyclonus had won over an ally with at least one member of his team.  

If he'd thought Sky-Byte was big, he really wasn't steeled to see the rest of them.  Granted, he wasn't supposed to see the rest of them in the first place, but things hadn't gone to plan.  After meeting "the most tolerable" of Cyclonus's allies (his words, of course; Tailgate had cheerfully found him more than just tolerable), there had been no attempt to meet the others.  

"I'll tell them to stay back and- with any luck- Sky-Byte will back me up on that," was the exact phrasing for said attempt.  The comms implied that the plan had been going well enough.  Though also full of mocking directed at Cyclonus that seemed to be irking him.  The latter frustrated Tailgate.  He wasn't just going to stand for this!  He wouldn't let his friend get harassed just because he happened to be friends with him.  Nuhuh.  Nope.  A nice, strong sentiment that he unfortunately had no way of backing up himself.  

Or hadn't, at the least, until an opportunity had presented itself in the now.  

They'd been at the shop again.  There was a single customer, side-eyeing the big flier that was standing next to Tailgate's desk but doing nothing other than that.  Incredulous expressions like that happened on occasion, but it wasn't an issue.  The expressions waiting outside after a couple knocks had rapped against the main doorway, on the other servo...

The doors were big enough to admit even tall guys like Cyclonus, but at least one of the mechs outside was not going to manage to squeeze in judging by how only some part of his chest was reaching the top of those doors.  The rest were hardly that much smaller.  Maybe the spiky one with the arms that nearly draped against the ground or the red one that had decided to make a fashion statement by wearing a cape, but the rest?  It was his turn to make an incredulous expression as he stared dead at the door.  They shadowed the door.  The current customer glanced over at the commotion and eeped, disappearing into the shelves (Tailgate couldn't blame him).  The ones with visible faces were grinning, though it didn't exactly look reassuringly friendly.  The spiky one lifted one of those long arms and gave him a wave that matched his grin.  He had the strong feeling that he was being threatened by the cocky gesture.  

Next to his desk, Cyclonus had started shaking in withheld fury.  Since his shop was not a place that needed to get ripped apart by a fight, Tailgate hopped down and approached the door before his friend could do anything to start one.  The doors keyed open manually and he offered a wave of his own.  

"Hi there!  Welcome to Tailgate's."

While Cyclonus picked himself off the ground from the shock that had hit him after Tailgate had casually marched to the door to say hello, the minibot craned his neck up to look at his...erm...customers.  

Far above, one pair of red optics decorated in black paint narrowed. 

"So.  You are Cyclonus's little distraction here," the bulky con started slowly.  Her voice sounded filtered, though the mask over her face may not have been a mask at all and the voice may have just been her natural one.  "I did not expect that distraction to be an autobot."

Well, she made that sound like some sort of vile curse word when said like that.  

"Vy not?" a different voice piped in.  Tailgate glanced around until he found its source: a tiny silver mech with a bunch of sharp pointy legs sitting on the green arm-guy's shoulder.  "Ve hardly know enough about our newest teammate to assume anyzhing on his tastes...or loyalties."

Oh?  He was doing a good job sounding like an aft.  

The mech and his perch matched two descriptions pretty well; the descriptions Cyclonus had seemed to hold the most actual emotion towards.  Scalpel and Oil Slick.  Well, when it came to first impressions, they weren't doing a great job endearing him either.  

"St-"  At last nano, he considered that maybe he'd pacify them better if he tagged on some ranking that these war people apparently held nowadays.  "General Strika," he corrected himself.  "Right?  Hi."

Smooth.  

The optics so viciously painted around in black symbols narrowed even further.  

"Can I help you all with anything?"

Or are you here to waste time?

"Cyclonus."  Strika looked over the mech, where he'd finally positioned himself a bit in front of the minibot.  "If you'd told me you wanted to go search for a consort, I could've given you advice."  

There it was again, that word and whatever it definitively meant.  That definition may have been unknown, but Tailgate knew when he was being insulted.  Just because of his size?  No, the creepy little science guy was way tinier than him.  It was the little red symbol he had on him.  A symbol he'd always had, because all civilian frames were given one from the moment they came into existence.  That much hadn't changed in 10 million years.  

He crossed his arms pointedly.  

"What I told you was to stay away, general," Cyclonus said lowly, a restrained, livid calm, in response.  "This is not Team Chaar's business."

There was a short, gurgling laugh.  It stole his attention away from the big general to the pair of scientists.  

"Right, right!  This is our offtime.  It's meant to be spent enjoying ourselves and that's what he's doing."  

Oil Slick's comment didn't put Cyclonus at ease one bit, if the flexing servo shifting just ever slightly up as though to grab a blade meant anything.  

"Enjoy yourself elsewhere," the flier growled.  

At least no one had started shooting anything.  All in all, this seemed to be going quite well.  Insulting, offending, a little scary, but nothing too bad!    

"You've been hiding much," Strika spoke up again, stepping closer to Cyclonus; he just looked at her flatly enough.  "You've always been rather secretive.  I can't say it improves the unit, this...lone turbofox act of yours."

Again, no blows yet, no shots fired.  Had to speak for something.  Ugh.  Tailgate almost wanted to just lay down and tell the ground to swallow him now.  He hated feeling this awkward.  

A pede landed near him and then the spiky one of the group was crouching down next to him, skull-face smiling behind the green fog of his helmet.  

"Come now, you all," Oil Slick tilted his helmet affably.  "We're scaring the little thing."

Not too badly, they weren't.  Not enough that he didn't feel confident glaring up at that smug face.  Or rather, smug faces, he supposed.  Scalpel's optics were all narrowed at him gleefully too.  

"Civilians, you know.  Such a delicate constitution.  I'm sure we don't need to crowd."

In contrast to his condescending words, Oil Slick drew a servo over the minibots head to crowd even more.   

"After all, if such a useful compatriot as Cyclonus thinks the bot has a purpose, I'm sure we could find one too."  One claw plopped on his helm and lifted to drop down again.  Tailgate realized he was getting patted.  Not even in a condescending way so much as a threatening one; it was a statement to Cyclonus.  A threat to watch Cyclonus squirm or eg him into a fight.  Was that how Oil Slick wanted to play it?  Not on his watch.  

Tailgate dropped his crossed arms and then swung one up to punch the helmet that had gotten way too close for comfort.  He was a tiny bot in comparison to gigantic warframes, but he'd been built to carry and tug very heavy loads of waste around.  The punch sent Oil Slick off balance from his crouch and onto his aft, both elbows of those long arms hitting the ground behind him to check himself.  The weird fog or liquid or whatnot in his helmet kept moving around and making it hard to see, but he was pretty sure he caught sight of an open mouth.  The shock made him feel just a little vindictive.  He was not about to be some tool that was used as leverage or threat against someone he really liked.  The last person that had tried to make him a tool was long gone now and Tailgate planned to keep it that way.  If Getaway had gotten thrown out of his life, these afts could as well if they kept trying to be jerks like this.  

For a moment, the rest of the crowd had just stared at the little scene.  The giant quiet guy (Blackout, he thought) looming over them all looked like he was shaking in laughter.  Strika's optics had lost their more antagonistic glare.  Then the moment broke as Scalpel jumped down from Oil Slick's shoulder and skittered over to him.  

"How very cute," the small scientist hissed.  "But you really shouldn't have-"

Feeling overconfident from not getting immediately slagged upon punching one of their own, Tailgate kicked out at the silver con and watched the tiny body's little legs flail in the air as he got bunted over to crash into Oil Slick's chest.  

The contagious confidence faded right after that moment and he nervously glanced back to where Cyclonus and Strika had been facing off.  He hoped he hadn't declared war, he hoped that wasn-...

The worries subdued.  Strika had joined the giant behind her in shaking with laughter.  Hers was far more audible, though just a short bark really.  The red con flashed a rude gesture over to where Oil Slick was standing up again, Scalpel shielded in his palm looking murderous; judging by the gestures sent back, this was just their normal form of amused interactions.  Despite his smaller partner's expression, even Oil Slick's scowl had shifted into amusement.  Maybe vindictive amusement.  Maybe promising an assassination later.  It was hard to say.  

The general grabbed one of Cyclonus shoulders and gave him a short shake; her optics were still amused when they glanced back down at where Tailgate was shuffling in semi-embarrassment.  He hoped that none of this was going to get into the newsletters later this cycle (what would that even look like?  Local shop owner attacks innocent visitors? Hah).  

"Perhaps you did not misjudge," she said to Cyclonus even as she kept her attention on the autobot's still-clenched fist rather than the red symbol on his hood.  

Hearing that they weren't about to get stuck in a fight, or comments on how he was 'plucky' for a minibot, or the bit of 'friendly' ransacking of his shop that followed by semi-cheerful warriors, was all good and nice and whatnot.  He was happy to find out that he wasn't going to get slagged that day and that Cyclonus wasn't either, sure.  And the respect offered after getting into a scuffle was reassuring too.  But the reactions of Team Chaar didn't really matter that much in comparison to just one of their member's.  

When he'd glanced over to Strika and her subordinate after punting Scalpel, Tailgate had perfectly seen the expression on his companion's face.  Cyclonus's optics were burning.  It was a hungry approval that matched the slight upward curve of one side of his mouth.  It was more passion than he remembered ever getting to witness from the mech before then.  

It was not the last time he saw such slips of emotion from him after, though at least he didn't tend to have to punch someone to earn it most of those times.  

Chapter Text

Viianta really was a pretty nice planet.  He'd been on it ever since getting stationed out here back during the expansion era and hadn't stepped off it since.  Granted, he had no idea how to.  Tailgate didn't have a ship and he hadn't exactly crawled out of the cave with much money.  Due to his, erm, unique circumstances, he'd been given some boost in setting up a life again when he got pulled out and introduced to the bustling neutral city formed in his absence.  It'd got him on his pedes and dragged in some revenue and was actually pretty fun to do.  Business, he meant.  Originally, he'd wondered if he should go back into waste disposal.  He knew how to do it and waste was one of those parts of life that was never going to go away.  He could be gone for billions of years and there'd probably still be waste.  But Tailgate had never liked that job.  That status.  Why else would he have gone around lying about being on a bomb disposal team instead?  Trash disposal wasn't flashy at all.  He'd been young.  The young tended to like being flashy.  

The shop he ended up using his boost to start wasn't flashy either.  But Tailgate hadn't been young anymore.  It was a satisfying job, actually.  He sold just about everything that came into his servos and got to see a bunch of different people both from customers and from going out to explore the city himself.  Even though attempts to find a group of friends in this new world hadn't been all that successful, he was happy here.

The point was, Viianta was nice.  

But that didn't mean he was dead set on staying in that place forever.  

There was an issue of proximity to deal with.  Wherever Team Chaar tended to live (Cyclonus still refused to say), it wasn't close to the outer edges of the galaxy.  Three quarters of any time off was spent just on the flight there and back rather than actual time on Viianta itself.  

Tailgate had brought this up plenty of times over comms, but on the most recent in-person visit, he trapped Cyclonus into talking about it with him.  Or rather stood in front of the door to that storage room while trying to keep the other sitting on the bench through the power of glaring alone.  If Cyclonus decided he was leaving, this was hardly going to be that effective of a barrier.  Thankfully, he stayed put to just deny every argument made.

"Your shop is here," Cyclonus stated the obvious.  Was it convincing enough?  Not to Tailgate.  

"I can restart a business somewhere else.  Doesn't have to be this exact place, but that doesn't mean I can't do it," he retorted.  

It would be a lot of work.  Cyclonus spared nothing to point that out.  But he'd done it before.  He'd done it before in the midst of the most chaotic part of his life.  He could build a career again.  

So the flier went about a different tactic.

"The neutral worlds in that region are not the same as those out here.  They are far more hostile.  They are caught in crossfire.  Dangerous."

And that much couldn't be denied.  But not every argument had to be denied; Tailgate accepted that a different place would be dangerous, weighed that against his own pros vs cons, and chose to vote for a move anyways.  

"What am I supposed to do if you're in danger?" Cyclonus grumbled.  

That really was the center of it all, wasn't it.  The fear that this would end in disaster.  Tailgate didn't like being scared either, but he wanted to cut down on all that travel time that kept them apart.  He liked Cyclonus.  He liked him a whole lot, as it turned out.  

"Do what you do when your team is around.  Do what you always do and protect me."

It was impossible to miss the flash of grieving, but hopeful, emotion that vote of confidence elicited.

Tailgate had taken this all so much slower than he had with Getaway.  That mech had been confident and the confidence had been reassuring; he'd known how to interact in the world and Tailgate had only just gotten thrown into that world recently.  There'd been a speed there for sure.  Tailgate had been desperate to fit into the new time he'd dropped into.  He'd been naive enough to not even look for any signs that what was happening wasn't right.  

The proximity problems had really made that impossible here.  There hadn't been a huge rush.  Even if, in a way, there had been.  They hadn't actually been on the same planet together that many times.  Not even ten, actually!  But the actual amount of time passed since they'd first bumped into each other was pretty long.  

But with his thoughts on moving closer getting more incessant, Tailgate came to a conclusion.  He'd been taking this slow, but leaving his shop and stability on Viianta behind was a big step.  And before a step like that got taken, there'd need to be a bit more answers in regards to certain questions.  A bit less hiding.  

Tailgate found Cyclonus downstairs on the main floor; the shelves, the lobby, the storage bays, most stuff was down here.  Ever the sophisticated mech, Cyclonus refused to recharge anywhere except on the floor next to a recharge station in one of the storage rooms.  And that was just if he stayed the recharge cycle there instead of his ship in the first place.  

At the moment, he was down there laying uncomfortable alongside a wall and looking over a data pad.  He glanced up when Tailgate entered.  There was a pause before both silently figured out what to do next.  Cyclonus shifted up until he was sitting rather than laying down.  The minibot shuffled over and plopped down near him.  It wasn't quite sitting up against the other, but it was close enough.  

"Can you please tell me something?" he started.  

There was a prompting silence.  Tailgate filled it with a sigh.  

"You haven't really told me much about yourself," the minibot elaborated.  "And, granted, I haven't really either.  Not to say we both don't know each other, but...I just...I think it'd be kinda important to find out a bit more.  How are we supposed to find a good neutral world near where you're at if I don't know where you even live?  And- just in general- I mean- I don't really know what's expected in general, per se, but I think we're supposed to know a bit about where we came from before, you know, meeting..."

He drifted off.  The room stayed silent.  Cyclonus looked to the wall away from him.  Tailgate plopped his chin onto his servos with another sigh.  

They stayed that way for a bit before he couldn't handle staying quiet anymore.

"Okay.  I'll go first, how's that?" 

There wasn't really an answer.  Shocker, that one.  

"So I didn't always live out here on this planet and I haven't always done business as a job," he started, letting his servos drop so that he could better perk up.  "I got sent here from Cybertron for my old job about, well...ten million stellar cycles ago by now.  Pre-Great War."

If he was expecting to see shock there, he was disappointed.  Cyclonus was still just staring off (although he'd at least moved from facing completely away to just looking at the floor in front of them both).  

That actually was a bit of a shock for him instead.  Most everyone always flipped out when they heard that.  

Alright then...Tailgate shrugged and found something new to talk about.  

"That's the only big secret I've got, actually.  I missed all that time in my life.  Got trapped in stasis under some unstable ground and had to wait all that time before I got found.  I'm still trying to figure out details for what occurred in that gap of time."

Cyclonus gave an almost imperceptible grunt.  

"What about you?" Tailgate asked after another pause.  

There was a twitch of the other's mouth, almost curving it into a frown but stopping before it could express so much.  

"It's okay.  It's okay if you don't want to share."

It hurt, but it was okay.  

Tailgate really did wish that his friend didn't feel like he couldn't talk to him.  But it seemed that he did.  And they'd have to go about that slowly then too.  He felt the concrete under his palm shifting as he inched his servo slowly over it.  Cyclonus didn't shoved him off when it did reach his plating.  

The servo remained, then.  Sitting peacefully on warmed metal while a much larger servo started its own slow, twitching journey over to meet it.  

"I like to talk, I'm sure you've noticed," the minibot started up again with a laugh.  "Can I complain about my old job to you?"  He didn't really wait to get a confirmation.  "I don't really tell a lot of people about it, mostly because it requires telling them about my little incident in stasis over all those vorns, but when I do get the chance, I like to complain about it.  It wasn't too awful, I guess, but this shop is so much better.  On that old Cybertron, I got sent into waste disposal-" he paused to laugh again.  "Isn't that just sad?  I dealt with trash.  I would've until the day I grayed out, I think, if I hadn't driven that cart out onto the unstable ground."

Cyclonus made his little grunt again to prove he was listening.  By now, his claws had gotten close enough that Tailgate could shift his digits over to tap against them.  

"So.  Yeah."

His servo kept shifting until it finally wrapped around two of those claws.  At this angle, it was the best he could manage to hold the servo itself.  

"Garbage disposal.  What a job, huh?  When one waste unit gets lost, I guess the rest don't even bother to go out and look for them.  What difference does it make if one garbage bot dies?"

This time, the baritone actually spoke up.  

"None."

Tailgate swung his visor up to the other's face in surprise: both at the fact that he'd talked and at the blunt words.  Something in his spark seemed to curl around the crystal there in hurt.  None?  Really??  That was the worth that was gonna get weighed in?

"It makes no difference if anyone dies," Cyclonus started up again.  "Even the greatest of beings will die and when all those that remember them inevitably follow, their gravity well is lost forever."

Well.  At the least, that wasn't an insult specifically to his own worth.  But it wasn't exactly the positive outlook he was hoping for.  The hurt loosened its noose, but his visor narrowed in dry amusement.  

"You're a real happy fellow, you know."

One of those cone shoulders twitched up.  

"It is just the truth," the mech defended.

Was it?  Well, it wasn't a very fun truth, in any case.  Everyone dies?  Yeah, saying that really wins people over.  

He was more amused than actually offended at that thought.  Tailgate couldn't stop himself from picturing a party of airheaded folks sipping fancy fuels and trying to talk about the political weather or literal weather or whatever with the guy who'd just gloomily tell them that the heat death of the universe was drawing nearer.  At least he kept himself from snorting at the picture, even if he couldn't help but imagine it.  

For a little bit, at least.  But a few gradual shakes turned into giggles and that became a laugh.  When he was done, he settled back against the bigger mech's hip and let his helm drop a bit into the enclave where Cyclonus's waist was.  He tended to get a get a bit depressing sometimes; that was hardly new.  Even the poems and books he tended to prefer were the tragic ones on life's empty attributes.  Tailgate just kept his head resting there and felt content in the closeness.  There could be as much doom and gloom said as was possible and he'd still be able to feel content in just this momentary not-doom.  

Cyclonus's closest arm moved in slow jolting motions until it was sitting around the minibot and keeping him in his little alcove.  

He spoke soon after.  

"You weren't just a waste disposal bot."

While Tailgate perked up at the sudden speech, Cyclonus kept on looking ahead stiffly.

"A being is more than their origin.  You were forgotten in time, not because of disposability, but because all are forgotten," he clarified stiltedly.  

That was hardly much less gloomy.  Tailgate felt a need to remind him that positives had happened; how else could he have been here now if things had never made a turn for the positive?

"Someone got me eventually," the minibot pointed out.  

The arm tightened incrementally.  

"And I am more than grateful for it."

It left him with a feeling so very different than the brief hurt of earlier.  Tailgate felt his spark reaching, stretching, happy.  He snuggled in closer to the spot above that pointy hip plating.  

"You really do wish to know about me," Cyclonus broke the comfortable silence first.  Despite its phrasing, it wasn't a question.  The minibot at his side made an affirming hum as he nestled his head into a better position on the softer plating of the flier's waist.  

"You may believe it," the mech warned.  "You may not.  It hardly relies on your belief to have happened.  But on my life..."

Cyclonus sighed.  

"I joined Team Chaar because they found me first.  I...had landed on their planet from a rupture in the atmosphere."

Tailgate could hardly contain himself.  If he got too visibly excited, he might scare the other off from continuing.  So he restrained the urge to jump around clapping and listened as calm as he could.  

"Like a transwarp incident?" he asked.

He hardly knew a lot about transwarping and stuff, but it seemed like the right answer.  Maybe Cyclonus had been working on a spacebridge or something?  That was a weird image to have.  The bot rather thought that any mundane origin didn't seem to fit his companion.  

"No."  Cyclonus shifted until his arm was untangled from the smaller mech and leaned forward away until they were no longer resting against each other.  "A dimensional incident.  I am not from this universe."

The mech stood up and left Tailgate behind to stew on that.  

He found the other standing amongst the shelves in the dark store.  Just moving around little items, likely to keep himself distracted.  Tailgate knew he'd made enough noise that the other had noticed his approach, but he stayed quiet a minute to watch regardless.  The store was a bit creepy with the lights on such low power.  The glow of their optics at least gave him a bit more brightness in that regard.  Maybe he needed to lay off on binging horror vids.  

"So, um.  If everything's just gonna die, why get all this organizing up to perfection?" he tried to joke.  

Cyclonus shifted to look past one tall shoulder at him.  

"Now you are getting it," the mech replied.  Tailgate was almost sure that it was supposed to be a joke too.  

With the still broken, he padded over to the other.  They stood there for a moment.  Maybe both were just unsure what to say next.  Maybe Cyclonus was just waiting on him to start.  No pressure though, right?  

"You want to, um- Wanna sit down again?" 

While there wasn't much of a vocal answer, Cyclonus did follow him back to the more comfortable and seemingly private room.  This time, Tailgate went for the bench and patted next to himself.  No need to sit on the floor, really.  Why Cyclonus seemed so apt to do that was lost on him.  There was nothing that great about shunning comforts.  

When the warrior had moved silently over and sat there, Tailgate tried to think of what to say.  

Perfect words weren't really easy to find.  He didn't want to hurt the other accidentally or sound...he didn't know.  Patronizing?  Silly?  Shallow? (It was the last that carried the most fear; how did one with so little life experience sound anything but shallow when talking about an experience completely unique to this one mech?) But he couldn't spend forever worrying about the perfect words because eventually silence would just convince the other to leave.

"I believe you.  About what you said," Tailgate started, looking up into guarded faceplates.  "I'm really happy you told me too.  To be honest, it explains a lot."  He laughed.  "'Cause.  Um.  Well, maybe it doesn't explain that much, but still...I mean, you never talk to me about the war or tell me off for being an autobot or complain about decepticons or support them either and I have wondered sometimes why you don't seem to resonate with any of that any more than I do."  

Cyclonus gave a brief scoff, though it wasn't directed at him.

"Those armies are foolish," he replied.  "They will not play war with each other forever.  There could be far greater focuses than just petty territorial disputes."

Well, Tailgate agreed for the most part, but that was because he'd missed out on all the different wars and skirmishes and didn't have much of a connection tying him to them.  

"What about where you came from?" the minibot asked brightly.  "Was there a war there?  Was it over?  Was your world similar to this one now?"

The arrogance that had arisen when deriding current factions faded into something guarded once more.  

"The factions prominent here existed there," Cyclonus answered, optics narrow.  "But the scuffles between the commonwealth and decepticon empire had finished."

Then it sounded a bit like the world that Tailgate had lived in before that fateful drive out into the wastelands.  

"Peace sounds nice!" he brightened.  

Apparently, he'd misread.  Cyclonus's mouth curled down.  

"It was not peace.  They had come to a truce, true, but neither the commonwealth nor the empire's territory had a chance to enjoy that.  They were forced into peace by-"

He cut off.  Tailgate noticed that his optics were brightened, though hardly burning.  More...whited out faintly.  

"There is a critical difference between my universe and yours here," Cyclonus finally started up again.  "Mine had an additional factor yours does not.  There were creatures there, aliens; they came and burned whole worlds away.  Every world."

Oh.

Yeah, that did sound markably less nice.  Tailgate's bright expression fell.  

"There were so many there," the other mech muttered, optics half-shuttered.  "A whole fleet of survivors that just kept hanging on despite how inevitable our deaths were.  There were bonds there that will never forge here because circumstances will never push such people together.  Teachers and pupils.  Belligerent friendships.  Lovers.  Never to arise here.  Never to exist."

But...

Tailgate thought getting displaced ten million years was hard.  All the waste disposal bots he'd worked with and hung out with and considered friends had long ago left Viianta.  But...they could be found again.  If he really tried, he could probably either dig them up or news on them of some sort.  

Unable to exactly tell him anything that would do justice to that sort of situation, Tailgate just tried to give nonvocal support.  He wasn't dense enough to not understand sometimes Cyclonus just wanted a friend that could be near but wasn't always talking.  

After a while, though, he felt safe to speak again.  

"Did you- did you have a lot of friends there?" he asked in a small voice.  

Cyclonus tilted his head, seemingly thinking about a question.

"I had a commander," he said in return.  Tailgate guessed that either meant the officer was a friend or else the closest he'd gotten in a dying universe.  "When I was with that fleet, I served a mighty commander.  Lord Galvatron.  I served him until the very end; until I heard him die while the space around me erased itself and I alone remained existent.  I failed him."

And the murmurs caught sometimes when the others shifted too much in recharge while Tailgate was still near enough to overhear suddenly made more sense.  The pleas for forgiveness that remained spoken only as the subconscious voice drifted free through stasis.  The pleas that could never be granted outside that sleeping subconscious, as their target was irreversibly dead.  

Tailgate's visor dimmed in empathetic misery.  Having to find out someone was dead had to be hard enough, but thinking that it'd been his fault?  He wouldn't be able to deal with that kind of constant regret.  He wasn't sure he'd manage to get close to anyone else out of fear that he'd 'fail' them too.

Yet here Cyclonus was: friends with him.  Unarguably.  Tailgate knew he cared about the other, but he was confident that went both ways.  

He started to apologize for all the stuff that had happened in a separate universe, but checked himself in time.  Cyclonus got upset when he apologized for things that he had no role in, like an order of engex being out of stock when they'd go out or something similar.  He could very well do the same here.  

Instead, he patted the other's arm and thought of other replies to make instead.  

"But what about you?  How'd you get out?"

No answer came.  

"You don't have to say," Tailgate added, awkwardly.  "I don't have to ask questions if you want to avoid thinking of it all."

Contrary to the words, the next sentence spoke was another question.  "What about the alien thingies there that did that?"

That did get a response.  Cyclonus shifted so that his back rested against the wall instead of leaning his balance forward towards the door.  

"I check for them every stellar cycle.  They have not shown a sign of arriving here.  For now, it is easy to believe that they are truly erased.  But if they never show again, that will not stop this current age from ending, finishing.  All ages will."

So he said, in some form or other.  All people die, all memories are forgotten, all empires fade.  Before, Tailgate had found it a quirky habit of his to just be dramatically negative.  Before.  

They didn't open up all at once.  Some pieces of stories came orns later.  Some probably hadn't come at all by now.  Tailgate hadn't been that wrong; even now, he was pretty sure that Cyclonus was shy.  Talking in general about memories or opinions on matters or feelings just was something that made him uncomfortable.  Tailgate was rather the opposite.  Now that he felt confident that he could trust him, the minibot tended to talk far too much about memories and opinions and emotions and whatnot.  

During that visit wherein he first heard of Cyclonus's curious entry into the lives of his teammates and eventually a certain autobot himself, Tailgate had finally wheedled out that the mech was most often stationed on the infamous planet Chaar.  As it turned out, Tailgate could definitely not just go back there with him and live it up on the decepticon homeworld.  There were all kinds of security screenings that disallowed even neutrals from visiting- let alone living there- without dealing with a bunch of red tape.  

So they'd eventually compromised enough to look over a map of the surrounding area.  The hologram had been set on the floor and Cyclonus knelt officially next to it even as Tailgate had laid propped up on his elbows while his legs kicked in the air behind him.  They'd decided to venture out to a few of the neutral worlds that lay much, much closer to Chaar than Viianta did (not to say they were actually all that close to the homeworld system wise; they most definitely weren't).  That tour had been fun, even at the one point that Team Chaar's ship had decided to close down on theirs and demand they come inside the larger vessel to "chill out" (a phrase that, after asking Sky-Byte, he'd found out had been made popular in some parts of the army by a guy named Blitzwing) together. 

They continued to feel a bit oppressively dangerous, but nothing happened.  Cyclonus and Tailgate stuck next to each other whenever Team Chaar decided to get cozy and the unspoken rule to not touch Cyclonus's...whatever they thought he was...went observed.  For that, he was pretty glad.  No matter how approving some of them seemed to be at times, Tailgate was still acutely aware that these were the exact example of people making it impossible for him to go live on Cyclonus's current home base.  

Once they had finally separated from the team (Cyclonus with a searing glare and Tailgate with bright, excitatory waving that wasn't actually feigned), he was flown back to Viianta.  Some choices were mulled over and made.  

And then he bought himself his own little space ship with the finances he had from selling his shop and made his way into space for the first time all alone.  

The neutral planet chosen had a place he rented upon landing and Tailgate tried to set it up with enough accessories to make it feel like home.  And his friend- ...well.  It was time to be a bit more honest.  A better title was: the mech that seemed just as interested in making him a consort as he was vice versa.  'Twas a bit of a mouthful, but Tailgate more than talked enough to be alright with any length of mouthfuls.  Anyway, Cyclonus would come make the trip from decepticon territory over and they'd get used to getting more incredulous expressions than had been earned in the outer rim when they'd go out into the town.  His partner would give back dangerous expressions in return.  He was just as much a grump as ever, but Tailgate could understand why he would be; the whole 'death of all things' spiel stopped being baseless after finding out where the hopeless mindset came from.  Still, it wouldn't do to be miserable forever.  Maybe everything did die.  Maybe everything was forgotten.  But he certainly felt the moment as the present and he was content enough at living it.  And,- 

(-he thought whenever Cyclonus would let him sit up on his neck for walks through a city or with his team present (no matter how they laughed), or whenever he just sat passively with Tailgate propped up on his leg in order for the minibot to play some card game with the deadly members of Team Chaar (he never joined, but he was there; he was there for these moments, occasionally cracked the sign of a smile at these moments, and it was enough), or those times when both would have too much high grade and Cyclonus would lose the stiffness altogether if Tailgate convinced him hard enough to sing him a ballad, whether ancient or something from a popular imported film-)

-well, he felt pretty confident that Cyclonus was content with the present too, no matter what darkness the future possibly offered.  

Chapter Text

It was a cruise.  

Tailgate had been the one to run up with a pad showing off tickets and the descriptions of the business itself.  

"Look at it!" he had shoved the screen up towards him.  The excited bouncing kept Cyclonus from actually being able to read at that moment.  It didn't matter, in turn.  The issue had been more than talked over during the preceding jours.  

The actual business was based in the outer rim.  That was likely the only reason he'd eventually caved.  Chances were decent that, out there, it'd be a good spread of aliens and differently aligned cybertronians who all- faction or not- had a preference for the wild neutral diluted attitude of the outer systems.  They could hardly go on an autobot tourist cruise, after all.  Not as a couple, since Cyclonus wouldn't be able to go at all.  The empire didn't exactly have a tourist industry and so their deception alternative would be some 'worthy quest' that would sight-see inadvertently.  Something like that would also only be an option for one of them.  The neutral tourist industry in this busier part of the galaxy implied in name that they could safely vacation together.  But there were too many restrictions half the time.  Either an uncomfortable amount of forms and promises anyone vaguely warframe in shape would have to sign to get on or bad service given to commonwealth citizens by those making assumptions or holding grudges. 

All of this kept Cyclonus suspicious of any proposed 'vacation'.  

None of that kept Tailgate down.  

It was admirable how much sheer persevering motivation the bot had.  For the most part, Cyclonus was fond and proud of that trait of his.  The minority of the time, he exasperatedly dragged himself along some new excessive plan.  This cruise that Tailgate had gotten so dead set on taking was one of the latter moments.  At least outwardly.  He'd bought the tickets and they'd flown out to some large space station near the outer rim of one galactic arm and just let his partner do all the celebrations and excited talking on the matter.  When he did talk, it was to complain about how pointless it was for things like tourist cruises to exist.  For all that complaining, he'd caved fast to the bright hopeful blue visor that had waved those tickets at his face and seemed rather content to sit on their berth, looking out at the sights of space beyond their vidscreen window while Tailgate ran around the room accessorizing it.  Because of course he'd brought decorations.  A picture here, a statuette there, all from the habsuite that he had on Raeyann, the neutral world that the autobot had moved to stellar cycles before.  And, while technically he was still active on the roster and did spent time on Chaar, Cyclonus tended to spent the majority of cycles on that world as well.  He was very familiar with seeing some of these decorations loitering around.  

As someone who'd seen every accessory and decoration and bit of life from a separate world get burned away in light, Cyclonus found possessions rather mortal.  Mortal, as in mortality.  Borrowed time.  Finiteness.  Very much temporary.  Just like this cruise and any cruise offering a vacation plan that had lasted in the business environment for vorns before as if it would continue to last forever after.  In shorter terms, he was not much one for possessions.  Tailgate was a different person than him in that regard.  

Cyclonus wouldn't change that for the (either) world.  

Content with 'personalizing' the room they'd be sharing and the quality of room service, Tailgate had decided he wanted to go visit some place from this floor's map called a 'gift shop'.  It seemed he'd guessed rather smoothly that Cyclonus had no interest in the sound of such a place, so the autobot ran off to it alone and left the mech resting on that berth.  

It was a nice view.  It was a fair trade, truly; Tailgate would enjoy whatever money-trap of useless items he went to browse and Cyclonus would enjoy the stars.  They had a better fire once one had seen so many of their lights blocked out.  

And in the quiet, with only the hum of a ship to give him ambience, he felt meditative.  It was that quiet, truly.  The silence left him alone and sometimes- 

sometimes alone was what he needed.  

And sometimes, even still, he felt the whisper of a servo, giving him pushes whenever the future felt a little too daunting.  How odd it was for the past to wish itself so gone on his behalf.  

The door slid open some time later to break him free of timeless reverie.  Tailgate bounced in lightly, arms full of apparent souvenirs.  Some held logos belonging to the cruise's company.  Others were propping up future sights and destinations on route.  He supposed souvenirs were, by some nature, mere advertisements and swallowed down annoyance.

The minibot let all the little items slide onto a small table included in the quarters; he picked one up to hold at optic level even as he glanced back at Cyclonus.  

"I know, I know."  Tailgate motioned with the little metal round thing (he couldn't actually tell what it was).  "Possessions are useless and temporary and a waste of money except money is a possession too and therefore also pointless."  

True enough.  He hadn't said it though.  Hidden in the shade of his helm's hood, one brow raised.  His partner made a tiny snorting noise to withhold laughter.  

"Here, I got a couple of these 'card' thingies that the clerk recommended; we can send 'em out to all our friends."

Right.  Because Tailgate was oddly convinced they had a comfortable, friendly social circle.  

The ease was endearing.  It may have been the only reason such an illusionary friend group even worked.

"The rest are kinda useless," the smaller mech continued on with a happy shrug, looking at his pile of souvenirs.  "But I liked getting them.  The gift shop here is fun!  I had a good time there."

And that was the point.  They were here to have a worthwhile time together.  Or apart, doing the separate activities that contented them, but together still.

"I'm gonna set them up all over our place back on Raeyann!" Tailgate continued, speaking his vision with a grandiose spread of his digits as though picturing souvenirs encased on the walls of a distant room.  "Anyway, how was the view here while I was gone?"

The question led Cyclonus to glance out the vid-screen again; his shoulders shifted in not-quite a shrug.  "It was peaceful."  He approved of it.

Tailgate's visor was displaying the expression he'd learned was smug.  

"There's more shops on the other levels.  At some point, I'd like to get to them too.  But first, we can order something to the room to fuel on and just enjoy that peaceful view that this pointless glamorous ship is offering us."

Ah, and so the jab ran its full circle.  He kept himself from letting a smile of his own slip free.  That had been a rather roundabout way to get to the point.  

"And I know you think this entire industry is useless or temporary too, so that counts for the room and the engex and the gift shops and the view and..."

Yes, the point had gotten across.

That smug look was altogether too confident from where it was tilted up at him (Tailgate had wandered over to the berth in order to hit him with the maximum attention of that expression); altogether too confidently smug and adorable.  

"Soo.  Frivolous use of time or not, are you happy here?"

More than I deserve to be.  

Cyclonus didn't vocalize the emotion.  He felt his rare smile and brief nod were enunciations enough.  Should they ever not be...he would just hope that Tailgate informed him.  His own philosophy on emotions and words shouldn't compromise the very happiness he did not deserve to have obtained here.  It would not compromise it.  

The roundabout way of asking if he'd had just as much fun staring out a vid-screen window as the other had shopping completed, Tailgate crawled up on the berth and clunked against his side to look at the view too.  

The experience was so very peaceful.  There was a quiet there still, just as there had been as he had been in here solitary.  But it was not the same form of silence.  

Tailgate broke that quiet every once in a while to make some observation.  Whether that was pointing energetically at some bright star or saying what some constellation looked like to him at this outer territory's angle, it was always refreshing and a bit odd.  Tailgate's feedback had the habit of being a bit like that.  

After some time, the bot had gone still, helm laying against his leg plating comfortably.  The light stasis was understandable, considering how busy they'd both been over the orns just to make this vacation work.  Tailgate deserved to rest.  Besides, he liked having the other lay against him like this.  

The quiet of this exhausted recharge left him with only his own mind, though.  His mind and all the voices that thoughts came and went with.  Even as his claws were gently placed around the smaller frame, the vaguest sensation of a separate set seemed to rest curled around one point of a shoulder.  Its owner seemed to be there in his peripherals: enough to see expressions, but staying away from direct sight.  It could never withstand direct visualization, if simply because there was nothing there to be sensed.  

"Why now?" Cyclonus muttered into the cabin.  The bot resting against him continued on in content stasis.  

The servo pretended to shift around and poke at his shoulder teasingly.

What?  Has it been a while? the vision in his peripherals spoke back.  Not waiting for another vocalization, the voice went on.  You hadn't gotten a chance to show me your new roommate.  Not directly, at the least.  

The pang that followed- the pain that came from knowing he couldn't ever introduce Tailgate to this or any other erased figure in reality- was duller than it had been in vorns past.  

"Strika's team keeps me rather busy," he thought aloud.  "And Tailgate rarely rests enough to give moments of silence like this up to..."

You don't have as much time to think about me, the vague form of the commander he'd lost tilted his head, a smile evident there even with his form restricted to the corner of Cyclonus's vision.  

It hurt.  It did not hurt as much as he felt it should.  

"I'll never forget anything," he heard himself defend. 

Stop, you.  Galvatron seemed to shake his head in amusement.  You knew this was going to happen in time.  It's not forgetting.  It's just letting memories do what they're supposed to do.  

Almost as though the ghost noticed it was acting too out of character for the part it was playing, silver faceplates left the subject of dulling memories and looked down at Tailgate.  

You've had plenty of distractions to keep your time preoccupied, the comment came snidely.  That much, at least, sounded natural for its supposed speaker.  

"Yes," Cyclonus agreed.  One servo drifted up from Tailgate's back to rest on his helm instead.  Always gently, kept back by a fear of hurting his much more minuscule companion.  "This is Tailgate.  You've seen him."

After all, the vision saw all Cyclonus had, witnessed every moment of his life and the thoughts that accompanied it.  Even still, Tailgate did not have total reason to know how deep the affection for the friend he'd lost went; was unaware of how the feelings of missing, of wishing the lost mech was there, played out.  It was not easy for him to say as much.  It wasn't easy for him to talk on anything.  That hadn't frustrated Tailgate into quitting.  Not yet.  And if they'd reached this point?  Maybe not ever.  Cyclonus would learn to speak before that frustration arrived.

Oh, I have.  I like him enough, Galvatron voiced approval.  He's spunky.  And he couldn't have picked a better consort than you.  

"I like him enough too," Cyclonus repeated the understatement with an edge of amusement.  It faded as his thoughts went somber.  Went to this moment, this peace.  All of them.  Both of them.  His consort and his companion.  Here, in the same space.  An happy scenario that only he could see and that- that alone- flayed past some of the more dull aspects of long-past hurt.  "But- still."  His optics shuttered briefly in a sigh.  "I wish you were with us."

Sure, the phantom smirked.  But don't let my absence stop you from living with everything you've got here.

And...

And he wouldn't.  He hadn't.  Not in stellar cycles.  He was happy.  Far, far happier than he either deserved or had thought vorns ago that he would ever manage to be.  

The vague shape that was only present when Tailgate wasn't awake kept that smirk there, that familiar, desired, nostalgic expression.  Cyclonus had been Galvatron's best side; he'd functioned as the best of the commander, had kept the other focused and anchored.  And Galvatron had given Cyclonus the strength and direction he'd needed then to become who he was.  How fitting his memory continue to push him towards his better development potential.

It was his own imagination speaking, he was sure of that, but hearing it in the other's voice did help push a realization he'd already had; that he'd had long ago and been hesitant to admit.  What he had now was his present treasure.  Looking back merely distracted from the wholeness of that present; he did not have to feel guilty at noticing he was no longer looking back often.  In time, this present treasure could end as well.  It would end.  All things did.  

Cyclonus would not stress over that inevitability.  It would come when it came.  There was no reason to rush the pain and miss the present.  There was no need to hang on to the losses of the past and there was no need to shield from future loss to come.

Whatever came next in the grand political or military or even wildly alien scheme, it would not be faced alone.  He had a cause.  Outside that cause, he had his alignment with a team that he'd grown mildly attached to and a warlord that would or could eventually change the status of their world forever.  Within it, he had the place on Raeyann.  He had Tailgate.  He had a whole universe to explore together, if that was the direction their adventure would take them on.  Before, when he had pulled away from starting any new paths, from opening any new doors, he had existed on in a state of stagnation.  It had not been living.

Any journey ended.  

In some ways, the mortality of those journeys was what made them livable to start with.  

Cyclonus slid down against the metal of the berth and held Tailgate against him there.  Enjoyed the proximity for just a brief moment before reaching out to plug them both into the recharge station at their heads.  

His optics shuttered and arms tightened around his sleeping partner.  In the moment- with the stars on the vidscreen and the warm decorated lived-in look of this temporary room and the other cuddled gently in his arms- Cyclonus felt no fear.  

And so the scene closed as recharge overtook conscious systems and the smile that had crawled into place in still happiness stayed present through the approaching stasis.  

Chapter Text

"Look, sit on down and stop throwin' such a fit.  Ah'll clear up any problem ya've got, alright?  Ah know that puce ain't your favorite color and you're mad at gettin' that paint dumped on ya and a bit panicky over who dumped it on ya, but there's nothin' at all to worry about.  Except bein' painted splotchy puce for a bit, but that ain't that big of a deal.  It's more...ah, right.  Yeah, it's more the kid responsible that's botherin' ya.  

"Ah guess ya should get some explanation for what ya saw.  Well, ya ain't related to command, so as long as ya keep your vocalizer jammed about this all, Ah guess Ah'll tell mah side of the story.  Thing was, Ah wasn't there for the start of all this.  Still, Ah got told the rundown many times and think Ah can handle relaying it to ya.  Been told plenty of times mah storytellin' is up with the best of 'em.  Impatient to get started?  Fine, fine.

"It started out with this team's first real high stakes mission.  They got sent out to one hunk o' rock among a bunch of rocks; some place called the Magnokor Asteroid Belt.  There's a spacebridge there that mah boys were supposed to protect an' Ah didn't get the chance to go with 'em.  But they didn' end up bein' the only ones out there!  A mean group of cons, Team Chaar, came outta nowhere and attacked 'em.  They got their cans kicked!  Ah shoulda been there for 'em.  Ah really shoulda.  But thing was, they put up a good fight, even if they did lose.  

"An’ this is where we get into the mess ya saw today.  After they got tossed around by Strika an' her goons, some very strange events happened.  Now Ah'm gonna tell ya how it all went down."

On a large asteroid thats only interesting feature was the spacebridge built upon it, a team of autobot soldiers finished a scuffle with a rock lord and all but collapsed strutless in confidence that their fight was over.

By all means, the fight with the common yet dangerous creature was over.  But they fell into ease too soon.  What could be expected from virtual younglings?  Their laughter was audible over the unprotected local frequencies even as some sat on the rocky ground or else slammed against each other in easy camaraderie.  Such behavior was completely oblivious to how they were not alone on that asteroid body.  Laying against the ground some distance away, a strike force sent to this distant asteroid belt watched their target spacebridge and the interference they would need to push past in order to reach it.  

One of these warriors watched the battle play out and had little interest in watching the friendly aftermath.  His job was to identify strengths and weaknesses and give that analysis to General Strika so that she could finalize their attack plan.  As he always did, the job was accepted wordlessly and completed without second thought.

The bowmech was the most prominent of the threats there.  The warrior said as much to the others before he called the surveillance good enough.  It would be an easy battle; most fights with autobots tended to be.  But it would not be without any challenge.  The Prime would pose a problem and the outlier with the iron defenses would be pesky.  

Still.  

Still, one of them knew ahead how this battle would have played out in his absence and the victory then had lain with Team Chaar.  It would lay with them again.

“So they got real toasted out there.  But it wasn’t as bad as it coulda been.  For whatever reasons, Strika called her boys off an' they left ‘em alone.  Ah’ve never known Strika to back down from a challenge before, but Ah don’ have all the details of that story so who’s to know what happened there.”

The autobots were collapsed in various locations when the Elite Guard had approached.  It was rather fortunate for the less-experienced autobots.  Had such a distraction not arrived, some others may find their living status interesting.  Spittor, at the least, could not be trusted to not swallow opponents and melt them in his disgusting chemical tanks.  Oil Slick held far too much interest in that mechanism and would likely eg the mech on in order to witness the chemical breakdown uninterrupted.  With the Elite Guard narrowing down on them, such pastimes were hardly options.  

Unlike the younger autobots, the Elite Guard held experienced fighters.  It was still not a completely fair match-up, but there may be a challenge.  Strika had said as much in excited anticipation.  The lust for bloodshed was hardly satisfied without a challenging opponent and a true battle.  In that, Cyclonus could agree with his commander.  

But instead of getting that chance to fight, the current decepticon warlord ordered his most prized strike force to retreat.  

There was undoubtedly messy context behind such a confusing order.  Cyclonus had not cared.  He and the rest of Team Chaar had returned to their ship and left the spacebridge in the servos of the Elite Guard.

While those on board complained in their frustration at being held back from a good fight or confusion over the orders (the currently active members were quite loud on such matters; Sky-Byte, Mindwipe and Scalpel had spent almost a vorn off of the active roster, leaving them with the far less restrained and play-sophisticated of teammates sans Blot), one of their members moved for his own docked vessel where it lay alongside a few others in the underside of the team's official ship.  With a retreat called, the entire operation to take Cybertron through spacebridge had failed.  Considering that it had failed in his native universe, Cyclonus hadn't felt surprised.  Another attack on 687-030 would not occur, if the Rodimus of those millenia-old memories was to be trusted.  

It was a little odd to be considering those old memories.  It had been a little odd to have played out one of those stories told, knowing its outcome and that he had not been a part of Rodimus's story in that erased universe.  But his current course of action felt odd as well, he considered as he stepped into his ship and left the others.  

“Point is, they backed off an' Rodimus’s team survived.  If Ah can be thankful for any of that incident, it’s that they lived.  Allspark knows what Ah’d have done if they hadn’t.”

The timeframe was compiled in his processor.  It relied on assumptions that much of that timeframe would play out as it had in his former universe, but such assumptions had seemed rather backed by how oddly unchanged so much was at his additional presence.  There had been some differences; Tailgate would not be on Viianta in five stellar cycles, as he had during a panicked time in a separate dimension; Scalpel was taken on more missions with Team Chaar than Strika implied she desired and, by all guesses, it seemed to be a response on the part of his partner to Cyclonus's undisguised threats...But then events like the battle for spacebridge 687-030 played out with so many of the same marks even with his presence.  The grand majority seemed to.  And that was what this timeframe ran on the assumption of.  

If Strika's team had faced off against the autobots on that rock, won, and then were called back to New Kaon, then it meant that Megatron had likely already been lost in space with Starscream and the autobot guardian Omega Supreme.  Such a transwarp incident only just proceeded an earlier transwarp that had sent two clones and a doomed autobot to some corner of space.    

The very same cycle.  This all had occurred earlier today, most likely.  

In this vessel, it would take a few cycles just to reach the location where the cowardly clone had been abandoned.  Still, there was no reason to assume that path would differ from that which Cyclonus remembered taking and so the opportunity remained.

He'd talked it over with Tailgate-  it had, in fact, been Tailgate that came up with most of the passion for this plan.  The minibot was the driving force behind how a passing thought had become actual action.  As much as Cyclonus had mentioned curiosity over how the clone here would fare, he had not planned on interfering.  His consort had taken that curiosity and run with it until it had been impossible to rid the scheming from either minds.  Tailgate was too soft to do nothing about some youngling flying alone and afraid in space.  So they had written out the timeframe, mapped out locations and flightplans, and determined where to dump the clone once he had been pulled off the course that would take him on years of pointless, low power flight.  Not with them, no.  Cyclonus did not like the idea of having an alternative version of his youth with him in his life.  But- with what information Tailgate had wheedled from him over the last century (at this point, the autobot had wheedled just about everything except his own alternate's existence; the Tailgate of that universe had never been so much as hinted at), they'd found an option fitting enough: one that had shown a good track record in that other world and who were in a rather convenient spot for him now.  

Yes.  The plan could mainly be blamed on Tailgate.  But- when the signal on his ship rang out to alert him of a cybertronian's proximity- the clone and his upcoming unsuspecting guardians would not get enough insight to ever bother blaming that correct origin.

“Anyway, little did they know it then, but one of Strika’s goons hadn’ retreated like Rod thought they had.  So while mah boys got carted off to safety by the guard, this slagger was makin’ his own plans.”

He'd been alive for a little less than an orn and he already felt he had enough terrifying experiences racked up to call himself wise with the world.  It seemed like every klick just gave him a new phobia!  There was the steady ticking down of his fuel gauges to worry about.  There was the sheer horrible emptiness of space.  There was-

...There was the slagging ship that had just appeared above him!  

The empty, lonely, no-one-to-hear-you-scream silence of space had been awful, but that didn't mean he'd wanted this!  There could be autobots on board and they'd shoot him down, or ask questions, or ask questions then shoot him down, ohhhh no.  Or there could be decepticons and they could see right through him to his origins and then shoot him down too, because who actually liked Starscream except maybe the ego part of himself??  Or aliens!  Aliens that would do who knew what horrible, horrible, scary thing to the lone cybertronian they'd found flying around who-knew where...Oh, maybe he'd stumbled over territory lines and broken laws or treaties or something.  He hadn't known!  Would they listen to those protests before just killing him indiscriminately?  Knowing how cruelly fearful the universe was, probably not.  

The tractor beam hit him as he transformed and the litany of panic continued to escalate their symphony until cutting flat at entering the ship itself.  

Something grabbed his arm.  Something that belonged to a big, towering, intimidating looking body with red optics and a frown searing down at him.  Something unhappy, ohh, unhappy, he was dead, fragged, fragging dead, deadly fragged-  

The panic and unspoken pleas to be anywhere but there culminated until something other than fear was twisting at his spark, at his internals, twisting and tugging and the grip on his arm left while the mech stood back and his fuel roiled and head blurred- and then he was gone.

“Granted, none of us know what those plans were, but we sure do know what the outcome was.  We’ve been stuck with it for almost a stellar cycle now, after all.”

Briefly, at least.  

He floated in root mode in confusion for too long after seemingly arriving out into the emptiness of the void once again.  Space?  But hadn't he just been...?  And there was a horrid ache in his fuel tank, prompting the clone to look at the gauge in suspiciously mounting fear.  It was validated quickly.  He flailed a bit, keening soundlessly in space while trying to cope with the fact that a chunk of his preciously rare energon was gone.  Now he was even more doomed to starve!  Except that he was still in more or less the same part of space and that ship was tugging him back in again.  

Slag it all.

This time, he'd bolted before he got the chance to get grabbed again.  Sadly, but rather fitting his lot in life's luck, there hadn't been anywhere really to bolt.  There was only one other door and it seemed to lead to a cockpit that he was locked out from.  The room he was trapped inside with an unknown mech (threat) was messy, had some sort of makeshift berth that he tripped over at one point of his game of dodge-the-creepy-stranger, and was cramped.  Too cramped.  Space had been the opposite.  Neither were good or reassuring or anything but terrifying.  But what wasn't?  

As he tried lurching for the cockpit door again at a lack of any other thing to try, the clone felt that unwanted contact again.  It wrapped around his other arm this time and his forward momentum jerked to a stop.  Great.  Now he was getting held off the ground by one arm and-and-what exactly could he do about that?  

The grip loosened again to drop him a bit more gravitationally comfortable on his pedes and he took the chance to back against the wall.  A horrible position, he felt justified in adding.  But what else was there?  

Anything was better than in this trap.  Maybe he could...

"Don't."  

The other mech stepped in too close (but what wasn't too close, by his tastes?).  "That warping trick?  Don't bother again."  

Only through intimidation and low fuel did he manage that.  

The bigger mech backed off to go rifle through the messy stuff in the room.  Rifle for what?  A weapon?  Some horrific high-tech interrogation device?  His low whining was unavoidably present and practically constant.  So far, it had earned some sort of disgusted death glare from the stranger (which hardly helped his nerves and that was why he was whining in the first place!).  But why...-A pair of stasis cuffs got lifted up in answer and the clone practically keened in fear.  

"Wait, let's think a-about this-"

The last time he'd been in those, it got him landed in cement with the autobot and egotist and summarily abandoned to his sad fate!  

"Arms out," the mech growled impatiently.  

Uhuh how about instead, he didn't and the cuffs went away and the situation deescalated?  How would that be?

Not tempting to the stranger, apparently.  The mech grabbed at his arms again and slapped the cuffs over them.  Their charge did seem to be on high, judging by how he was not immediately paralyzed.  Small comforts.  

"Bu-but-b-but I have an irrational fear o-of stasis cuffs-" he whined with Starscream's voice and tugged against them.  It was strange, hardly notable through his fear, but the clone thought he could hear the last half of that sentence muttered by the stranger.  

The possible mind-reading at play there hardly soothed his nerves.  

Nothing about this weird, random, horribly confusing situation did.  

“From the sounds of it, the kid doesn’ know either.  His side of the story is as confused as ours is.  Not that he likes tellin’ it anyway.  Even now, he says it gives him the ‘heebie jeebies’.  Mah main takeaway to that is that we never shoulda let him see so much Earth nonsense.”

Sadly, no explanations were offered.  

His abductor had dropped him into a corner and dropped some sort of datapad on top of him jours later as though in afterthought.  Other than that, the weird guy (that quite possibly was rivaling Megatron in terms of a scariness quota for him) spent all his time in the cockpit.  

And it was a lot of time.  Cycle after cycle crawled by while the clone wanted to melt into the floor and out of this situation.  Maybe it was just the stress of all that time passing with no end or answers in sight that led him to actually poking at the datapad or shuffling around the junk of the ship.  He understood absolutely none of what he found.  That didn't seem that unusual for him.  His mind was doomed to never understand.  Now wasn't that a new fear to stress over?  Being stuck in confusion forever sounded awful!  He just wanted this all to stop.  

Except eventually the flight did and the clone started wondering if he'd actually wanted the ship to stop after all.  Now he had to deal with whatever the flight was over for.  An execution?  Some other unsavory option?

When the big flier left the ship after upping the charge on the cuffs to keep him from sneaking off, it was not with any offered answers.  

Figures.  

“Other than the kid, it was Hot Shot who got the second worst of it.  He’ll tell the story now with a whole lot of fightin’ on his end an' single-servo'dly almost defeatin’ his opponent.  Take it with a smidge of potassium, Ah say.  Hot Shot tells stories with as much embellishment as Ah’m told Ah do.”

Unlike their decepticon opponents, the autobots hadn't retreated very far.  The Elite Guard ship that had been approaching at the time Megatron had called in the retreat was nowhere in sight.  They'd likely already wandered off to whatever new fiasco was occurring elsewhere.  The spacebridge itself had no cybertronian presence around it at the moment.  Instead, life signals seemed to originate from a settlement a bit more hidden in the system.  Judging by its make, it was a relief center set up by the Elite Guard before their ships had departed.  If there were extra autobots down there, their presence may inconvenience his drop off.  Observation, then, occurred before action.  

Inside the small encampment, the different autobots of Team Athenia meandered about their recovery.   The Prime was covered in rust made through Oil Slick's prefered blend.  The medic of their team was right over him, trying her best to clear the rust off and administer treatments to keep the spark alive and let the limbs regain some movement.  Better treatment would have to wait for hospital care, although cosmic rust never truly went cured.  It left plating marred and transformation impossible and joints stiff for a lifetime.  

Others talked at communication stations, likely to their command on Cybertron.  And another still...

Good.  The young, foolhardy wannabe-warrior without a leg was scooted off to enjoy the starlight a little too far from his fellows.  He would make his demand through that one.

“Ah do hate that he had that happen to start with, though.  Wish Ah coulda been with ‘em all.  It’s mah job to protect ‘em an' look what sort of disasters and fiascos happen when Ah’m not.  In this situation, fiascos does seem the right word for it.”

Hot Shot was having a scrappy few orns.  First, he'd gotten his leg ruined and Red Alert had amputated it.  Fragging Red Alert, he could have still fought!  Now he was completely useless!  Then there'd been the panic when the whole team got lumped together surrounded by the type of ugly slaggers he'd grown up watching in all his favorite action history vids and they were even uglier and scarier up close.  And after that, they'd all gotten carted back here and treated with some emergency medical aid and told to wait for Kup to bring a ship to take them back to Cybertron within the next few orns because the spacebridge nexus was shut down.  It was like being a kid or something!  He didn't want to have to wait until some other bot finished towing a spare ship over to give to them in charity.  And to top it off, had he mentioned he had no leg?  Ugh.  The pain sensors in that region had all been dealt with, but it was the thought that counted.  Hot Shot hated this field trip.  

He hated having to see Rodimus in so much danger and all movement-less.  

He hated watching Red Alert lose her cool at the fact that so many of them were injured and only the actual hospitals on Cybertron could deal with them.  

He hated the gigantic servo that had clapped around his head and tugged him off the ground. 

...wait.  

Hot Shot started to flail with as much fervor as he could.  Even without a leg, he could flail with the best of them.  And he could burn things!  And he could- he could-

Apparently, not do as much as he'd like.  There was a claw tapping just a bit at his vocalizer and a servo palm over his face and he couldn't even see where he was getting lugged around to.  

Finally, his attacker seemed to think they were both far enough away that he wouldn't be able to alert the rest of the team to his location.  Hah, stupid con.  His comms would work fine and they could track his energy signature.  Hopefully.

The servo over his vocalizer finally moved and Hot Shot wasted no time in making all the noise pent up thus far.  

"Let me down, decepti-creep!  You're going to regret this, you big- you- you!"  

In fairness, his ability to give scathing curses that'd send even the biggest of decepticons wilting home to their programmers was a little...lacking, he could admit.  If only the old guy, Kup, that'd been teaching their team was here.  Now that guy, he knew how to insult.  

"I-! I mean it!  If you don't let me go now, I'll turn you into even uglier slag!"  

The Team Chaar member didn't give any change in expression.  Hot Shot could admit it was intimidating.  

Slaaag, come on.  Come on!  First his leg, now this?  He didn't want to get brutally murdered somewhere!  

"Let m-"

With little fanfare, he felt himself dropped.  Huh, with all his flailing and panicking, he'd rather missed that they'd changed surroundings to...a ship?  Yeah, looked like a ship.  A ship that he was currently sprawled on the floor of, because his one good leg hadn't caught the fall and he'd rather gracelessly faceplanted after that.  

Hot Shot wiggled around until he was on his back and able to see his attacker.  It was one of those guys from Team Chaar (one of the ones who'd slagged the whole team effortlessly, so he was fraaaged now).  At least it wasn't the one that had gone around eating people.  Watching that happen to Red Alert had practically deactivated his spark. 

A bit disconcertingly, he realized that the pair of red optics above him weren't the only ones in this ship with him.  Some other con was on the floor like him, grimacing at the other two and- a closer look showed- seemingly stuck in stasis cuffs.  

The Team Chaar guy spoke up for the first time and left Hot Shot uncomfortably wilting despite his desire to be nothing but obnoxious in the face of intimidation.  

"Skywarp," it rasped as the mech looked over to the other con.  "Play nice."

Play nice?  What, was he about to get his other leg tugged off by a decepticon that couldn't even get himself out of stasis cuffs?  Hah, hardly.  

Then the bigger one was leaving them alone and the ship underneath and around him started to rumble.  Hot Shot grimaced at the shaking floor.  Scrap.  There was a sound from the slagger across from him that seemed to unhappily agree with the sentiment.  He glanced away from his own sorry state to his current roommate.  Skywarp, the big guy had called him?  The con seemed to notice he was staring and froze up under Hot Shot's scrutiny.

"Uh.  Hi."  

Instead of spitting raging insults or saying a polite hi back, the cuffed decepticon just made some sort of whining sound.  

“‘Course, Hot Shot also tells the story with more snappy insults than likely happened too.  We let him tell it like that, ‘cause it makes him happy.  Do Ah believe it?  ‘Course not.  Kid was prob'ly scared outa his processor."

The ship didn't actually fly for very long.  Maybe it was just trying to get up into oribit around the planet.  Considering the fact that his team was grounded for now, it was actually a smart enough plan.  

Then the pilot had walked out, grabbed him off the ground effortlessly, and carried him into the cockpit away from 'Skywarp' (who hadn't even said anything much other than a shaky observation that Hot Shot wasn't cuffed [as if he could do much with just one leg] and a few nervous sounding requests for him to not [crawl] go over over to him and somehow beat him up) (at the least, it was nice for his confidence and ego to see a live, real-aft decepticon act intimidated of him, but it was also completely uncanny because why was a live, real-aft decepticon from all the vids and documentaries scared of him??  They weren't even supposed to feel anything but bloodlust so far as he knew).  

Hot Shot had been plopped onto a chair and held by one shoulder to keep his one stump from unbalancing him enough to tumble off.  The boogeymech had moved behind him and lowered his head enough to talk lowly in the autobot's audials.

"You're going to contact that team of yours," the decepticon hissed.  "You're going to relay what I tell you to."

Stupid bravery wanted him to say that, no, he would not.  Even he recognized the stupid part of that bravery and kept quiet for now.  

"Tell them that you'll be traded back to them unharmed.  It will require something in return."

Oh yeah?  Like what?  Did he want Rodimus in exchange?  They weren't stupid enough to make that kind of deal.  Money?  The spacebridge access codes?  

"They'll take the clone in the other room with you.  Not to a prison.  Somewhere safe."

Hardl---....Wait.  Weren't these kinds of deals supposed to ask for something in return?  He'd never heard of one being used to drop something extra off instead.  Maybe his favorite vids didn't quite cover every form of adventure in life.

Slag it, why'd the confusing stuff have to happen to him?

“But other than those two, it’s Rodimus who had to deal with the spark of the matter.  The kids just got to be confused bait and bargainin’ chips.  Rod was the one who actually got somethin’ out of the guy who caused all this trouble for us.  He’s always makin’ me proud, that boy is.”

When Rodimus had first gotten the comm, he'd felt his spark stall up.  Red Alert had brought him back to focus in the moment, but she sounded distressed enough.  The others were all injured.  He was the most injured of all and he was also their most experienced fighter.  How would he manage to protect the others when he could barely stand upright without shaking back to the ground?

It was worth stressing over, but that didn't mean he could afford to panic forever.  Even if he'd barely show himself as a defending front, limbs shaking and bow jittering, he'd still stand in front of the others and keep them as safe as he could while getting Hot Shot back.  

Despite the fear that this was all a trap and first he then the others would be attacked and likely killed, the ship that dropped his subordinate did not actually attack.  The warframe commanding it had done nothing more than shove a separate, smaller warframe towards them while Hot Shot hobbled out in a hopping motion until Red rushed up to sweep him into a more stable hold.  

A series of comms had cleared most of the orders of this exchange up, but Rodimus was hardly satisfied with them.  

"Listen here," he tried to straighten up and look strong, rust be damned, after the rest had retreated back.  "I'm a Prime.  I can't just harbor a criminal and be expected not to hand him over to justice.  How am I supposed to keep this from getting out to command?"

The decepticon- one recognized in databases as Team Chaar member Cyclonus- was not moved by the comment.  

"I believe that's your responsibility now," the looming warframe retorted.  

Aft.  

"Why us?" Rodimus changed tracks. 

There was barely a tilt of the head there.  

"You won't imprison him or kill him," came the answer.  

How confident of the con.  Rodimus lifted one rusty brow incredulously.

"And why's that?" he argued.  "Any and all decepticons captured by autobot soldiers are to be charged and taken to Trypticon-"

Cyclonus interrupted all further thought.  

"You call Skywarp a decepticon, but you make a blind assumption," the warframe stepped closer.  Rodimus couldn't step back, even if he hadn't been trying to present a strong-leader front; the rust wouldn't let him.  

It was good that his team had retreated back with Hot Shot to the main encampment.  This was an interaction between him and an enemy that had returned after retreating just to pull strings and make demands.  Rodimus felt a little stronger doing it alone than if the others could see the way his limbs shook with effort.  

"That mech is a clone.  He was sparked no more than three orns ago," Cyclonus continued.  

Three...

Three orns?  

Blue optics widened despite themselves.  The motion earned what seemed like a smug twist of the mouth on the part of the warframe looming overhead.  

"The genetic source is a decepticon with vorns of experience and war and general annoyances, but his clone has done nothing yet except fly through space in confusion; his source made him to fight his battles for him, die in his stead, and offered him nothing in exchange except the unstable processor of one built completely out of one facet of personality: for Skywarp, fear.  Tell your medic to look in his head and you'll confirm that fact.  You would not take such an inexperienced being, a clone that has no background with anything but fear, and throw them in a cell to rust in terror when you have the knowledge that they are as young as your newfound rust infection is."

And...

It was true.  Rodimus wouldn't.  He couldn't.  

Even if he really did not like any part of the idea of hiding from high command, keeping track of a warframe, or, perish the thought, trying to convince Kup of any of this.  

"Alright..." the Prime frowned.  "Maybe you're right.  Maybe I won't.  But you're still putting an awful lot of hope in the chance that I'll do what you want me to."

"Hope?" the decepticon scoffed.  "No.  If I so much as catch a glance of him being paraded towards Trypticon on your autobot channels, you will all perish.  You know very well that your fight with us so recently was lost.  It would be of no struggle at all to repeat such and turn aside the chance to spare the defeated a second time.  Even on Cybertron, I would find a way to reach you should you fail to keep this side of our deal."

As much as that confidence made him want to shudder just a bit, Rodimus wasn't sure how likely it was the threat could be backed up on if the decepticons had no idea where he was at all times.  Still, it wasn't like that mattered.  Cyclonus was right, after all; if this was a clone that was less than forty cycles old, he couldn't in good conscience give him up to get the same just treatment as any other decepticon would get on Cybertron.

Rodimus felt a headache building behind the aching pain of the rust and sighed.  It was the first of many to come.

"An' that's how we ended up with our very illegal stowaway.  Since we're mainly stationed offworld, it hasn' been too much of a problem, hidin' things from command an' all.  Rodimus got a real chewing out from yours truly when he explained the seeker hidin' under a berth in that camp when Ah came by to fly 'em home.  Other'an that, Ah guess Ah'm just as much a sucker as he is.  Kids are kids, whether they're big-aft slaggers or minibots.  Took Red Alert's report to convince me not to do anythin', an' there was a whole pain just tryin' to figure out what to do with him when we went back to Cybertron to get the others fixed up, but thing is...Well, ya saw us all earlier.  Ah guess we're not too stiff about havin' the troublemaker around anymore.  Ended up leavin' him at that base while we went to Cybertron to get repairs an' see the war end an' all he did was call every jour to find out if he'd been abandoned or not.  Got more nerves in one big body than any being has any right to have, Ah'd say, even if he has been loosenin' up over the cycles.  Since the war ended real soon after restartin', we just spend most our time as a team floatin' around in our ship and runnin' errands for the Elite Guard an' no one gets a chance to see our stowaway.  Try an' keep it that way, will ya?

"Ah mean, yeah, he's a pain in the aft, but not in a menacin' way.  No reason to go gettin' us all in trouble and gettin' him locked up.  Ya gotta drag him out to anythin', practically.  He ain't much of a threat when he won' even get out of his room sometimes.  Mandatory washracks?  Kid was a problem before, but because Hot Shot went behind smarter backs to make him sit through that one Earth film, eh, Psycho, now he'd rather rust out than get in one without gettin' dragged in.  Believe me when Ah say that we weren't all too pleased with Hot Shot for that, even if he is rather pleased with himself. 

"Still, compared to the start, we've all gotten a lot more used to each other an' the kid has gotten some of that panic out of his system.  He's already gotten into a groove of spattin' and hidden prankin' that's practically routine for 'em now.  Doesn't matter what Hot Shot denies, anyone with optics can tell he's gotten in too deep to consider the 'con anythin' but a rival friend.  He's a bad influence is what he is.  With that little warpin' trick of the kid, Hot Shot's 'pranking lessons' are turning into a right pain.  An' Rodimus has started tryin' to use him as a way to spar and practice fightin' more problematic warframes, so Ah can't say they're seein' each other as enemies much anymore either.  So long as they don't start another kinda sparrin', Ah won' have to give 'em a talkin' to, if ya check mah drift.  This team is full-on autobot, believe me.  We're not con sympathizers.  Most of the kids here grew up on scrappy made propaganda, really.  Makes me a bit surprised they've managed to get past the barriers an' make a friend that looks like Starscream (that's another story for another time though, really).  

"Anyway, we still have no understandin' of why he got dumped on us.  Considerin' the elusive source of this drama, we prob'ly never will be gettin' that story.  Ah well.  We're stuck like this now, history and explanations or not.  An' outside havin' to hide all this from command an' getting painted puce, it's not all that bad after all."