Summary- Skywarp is mulling over Red Alert's explanation. Despite a few incidents, the group of four still alive remain alive for now.

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. He didn't care about Megatron, despite professing loyalty. There was just something very off about the professions 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 had talked for a long while on the main vidscreen and Skywarp had 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 been, but his opinion wasn't really the main army's concern.

Later, when the clone had asked why they had to stick around near the system, the rusted mech had 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 had been 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 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 call had been 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 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 had cut it uncomfortably close. They'd done stealth flyovers, headed down solo, and headed down in teams of two. Tailgate had been his partner for the latter. The autobot hadn't exactly had experience in a fight before and Skywarp had been 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 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 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.