Summary- Losses remain haunting even as some signs for a future spark into place.


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.