Summary- A survivor leaves a ruined universe behind.

AN- CW for the last character deaths of this story. Rest assured there shall be no more after this! Also prepare for a tad bit of unreliable narration, in regards to events that may have happened and may just be imagined.


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.


AN- Thus ends part II. The final part of this story will be much shorter, though it will still be quite a few chapters as Cyclonus takes a few dozen centuries to begin to let go and accept new beginnings.