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.