Chapter Text
“You can’t just say that and then not explain!”
Cyclonus smiled, glancing over at Whirl with mischief sparkling in his optics. Of course he could not explain. This was the mech who had once promised Whirl that “Nobody is telling anyone anything, ever.” He was the grandmaster of not telling people things.
“Why did you even say anything, then?” Whirl groaned. He crowded into the windowseat beside Cyclonus and caught his chin with one claw so Cyclonus couldn’t coyly look away. “You’d tell Tailgate if he asked.”
“Tailgate would never,” Cyclonus said. “He’s from a time back when people had manners.”
“I would never!” Tailgate agreed. The fucking traitor. “Cyclonus doesn’t like talking about his past. Except for the songs. He loves talking about the songs.”
“And the arts,” Cyclonus put in.
“Oh yes! And the architecture! All the good things in life,” Tailgate said happily, climbing in between them on the windowseat, treating Cyclonus’s chest like a pillow. He batted at Whirl’s claw until Whirl released their conjunx and settled down between them and the hot glass of the windowpane.
Cyclonus hummed thoughtfully. “It’s better to remember the good things.”
“Yes, yes, I agree and all but blue?”
“I wasn’t aware it was a scandalous color,” Cyclonus remarked, with a straight face because he was a bastard who lived to torment the curious bots of the world and Whirl in particular.
“You huffed disapprovingly when I mentioned people swapping out their faceplates the other day. You have a legit scar on your leg, like a prehistoric urchin who’s never heard of a medic. And it’s not like you got a paint job - I’ve seen you with your arm torn off, you’re purple down to your base plating. Come ooooon, Cyclonus. I’m curious. It’s in my nature.”
“I think it’s better this way,” Tailgate said. “It’d look funny if we were a matched set. People would tease us. Just think of what Brainstorm would say - just awful! Plus, you’re so handsome in purple,” he said into Cyclonus’s chest, because his tiny frame belied what a massive flatterer he was.
“Do you really want to know?” Cyclonus asked.
“Yes.”
“Galvatron had me changed when I became his Warrior Second,” Cyclonus said, face suddenly serious. And aw, fuck it. Those were the magic words that unlocked the secret palace of ‘Whirl never getting to know anything about Cyclonus’s past’. Whirl didn’t even understand what a Warrior Second fucking was, though Rewind and Nautica both promised him it was a translate for ‘bodyguard’ or ‘retainer’ in ancient texts. Not that he’d asked. Whirl would never snoop in Cyclonus’s secret palace of secrets.
“You know, sometimes I think it would be easier to ask Brainstorm to make me a time machine and check for myself than to get you to explain anything about where you come from,” Whirl said.
“That would be a terrible idea,” Cyclonus said.
“Does that mean you’ll explain?” Whirl asked.
“No.” Cyclonus leaned over and pressed a kiss to the side of Whirl’s face. “I love you, but no.”
“Brainstorm, if I asked nicely, would you make me a time machine?” Whirl asked. “Cyclonus refuses to tell me anything about his days before he was old and mysterious.”
Brainstorm raised his hand in a ‘please do not continue’ motion. “You really think it’s easier for me to build you a time machine than you to talk to your conjunx?”
“For sure.”
Brainstorm looked over at Perceptor, focused on his data analysis on the other side of the lab, then looked back at Whirl. “Yeah okay. But we’re not making more alternate timelines. Once was enough. Gonna need some sort of temporal lock so anything you splinter off vaporizes after the jump...hey, Percy! Want to go over some purely theoretical time machine plans?”
Perceptor looked at Whirl, then looked at Brainstorm, then back at Whirl. “You do know I can hear you, right? Even when you’re not talking to me?”
“Well Primus-damn-it you should have mentioned having a superpower at some point before now, Percy,” Brainstorm said. He scooted back on his lab stool until they were sitting side by side. “Come on, it’ll be fun. And you get to safety check me so we don’t kill everyone or destroy the universe!”
“And if that isn’t the definition of fun, what is,” Perceptor said dryly. He shook his head. “It’d be nearly impossible for Whirl to go unnoticed in the past; you’d need to build him an attention deflector suit like Ravage used or he’d get himself killed by an angry mob.”
“And by ‘you’ you mean ‘we’,” Brainstorm agreed. “Come back next week, buddy, we’ll get right on it!”
“I was actually not agreeing,” Perceptor pointed out, with the air of a mech was used to losing a lot of stupid arguments.
Brainstorm had promised the case would take him to an “emotionally resonant moment”, no guarantees which one. Whirl had turned the dial almost all the way to the red, which Brainstorm had helpfully labeled “Long Time Ago”. He hadn’t been sure what to expect. Mostly he’d been expecting the thing to explode and Brainstorm to pop out of the woodwork to give him a PSA on why you shouldn’t ask your friends to make you time machines. He hadn’t expected a war.
He ducked under a sword swing and staggered back, shocked by the sheer noise of it. It looked like Brainstorm’s attention deflector whatsit was working, nobody was swinging at him on purpose. Still, he didn’t want to be accidentally killed either. He transformed and took off, spotting a nearby outcrop of rock where he could spectate.
From that vantage point he could see it wasn’t a war at all. It was the end of a losing battle. There was an army, arrayed in ranks of purple and gold across the field. And then there were the last survivors of some local militia bunched at the center of the mass. Their shieldwall was three bots deep and domed like a forcebubble but it was slowly being crushed between the mass of the army surrounding it. The mechs who hadn’t made it to the retreat to the shieldwall were outnumbered ten to one, poorly armed, and dying quickly.
And Cyclonus was down there somewhere.
It went on for longer than it had any right to. Whirl alternated between pacing and muttering “Just fucking surrender!” at the losing side. He didn’t like routs unless he was on the winning side.
A jet swooped down towards the field and the army pulled back to clear a space for him as he landed and transformed. Finally someone he recognized! And wherever Galvatron was, Cyclonus was sure to be nearby.
Galvatron signaled to his troops - because they were definitely his troops and the fighting stopped. “Defenders of the lower temples!” Galvatron bellowed. His voice seemed to shake the very rocks of the valley. “There will be no victory for you here today! If any of your leaders yet live, let them come forth and bargain for your lives.”
The shieldwall rippled, then broke. They dug their shields into the dirt in front of them, sheathed their swords and brought their lances to rest behind their shields. Two mechs stepped out from the front line. One was tall and slender, with white finials and absurdly pointy shoulders. The other was Cyclonus.
Oh, he looked different, but it was unmistakably him. His frame was a lush velvet blue, except for his arms smeared purple with gore. His bearing was proud, rigid, unforgettable.
Galvatron turned to the white mech. “Your name, soldier.” Whirl had to adjust up the gain on his audials to hear him, the near-silent movements of the crowd increasing like the roar of a river.
“Montalon.”
“I give you a choice, Montalon. Promise me your loyalty. Swear to me your spark and prove your use. If you do this I will spare your soldiers.”
The white mech ground their spear into the ground and answered in defiance. “My only loyalty is to the Lower Temples!”
The point of their spear clattered to the ground as Galvatron struck it down with his axe. Whirl glanced away before the beheading but he couldn’t mistake the sound. When he looked back Galvatron had shifted to point his axe at Cyclonus.
“And you. Is your loyalty also only to the lower temples? You cannot save them. You can still save your soldiers.”
Cyclonus stood silent for one awful moment. He looked to the head of his fellow commander, greying in the dirt at his feet. “Tell me the price, Lord Galvatron, and I will meet it.”
A great wailing rose up from the defeated soldiers behind him. Cyclonus hunched his shoulders, but did not turn to look. One of the soldiers tried to break away, a jet in black and gold, before being hauled back by his fellows.
“Peace, soldiers of the lower temples!” Galvatron called. His soldiers moved to circle them, weapons braced and shields raised. “I offer you mercy, for his sacrifice. Do not waste it.”
Whirl couldn’t tear his optic away from the black and gold jet, held up by three mechs and sobbing in their arms, all military composure gone.
Cyclonus stood like a statue, like an icon of an old god cast upon a plinth. But when Galvatron asked his name he answered in a voice ravaged by grief. First love, perhaps.
“I offer you the same bargain. Become my Warrior Secondus. Prove your worth and then swear to your spark to me, in fealty until death. If you do this I will offer your soldiers mercy, Cyclonus of Upper Tetrahex.”
“Who will I face, and when?” Cyclonus asked.
“You will face me. Now.” Galvatron said, voice warm with mirth.
If he hadn’t been looking so closely Whirl would have missed Cyclonus flinch. “Very well, Lord Galvatron,” Cyclonus said the name like a snake spitting venom. “Arms?”
Galvaton waved dismissively at Cyclonus. “Keep both swords. If you can cut me, the battle ends.”
“Understood.” Cyclonus said.
“Back three paces!” Galvatron bellowed. He raised his axe and dropped the pommel against the ground three times, the ranked soldiers retreating in an answering stomp-stomp-stomp. A matched set of guards with tall shields pushed their way to the front, forming a circle to mark the battlefield.
Galvatron hefted his axe and said, “Draw your weapon and attack, Cyclonus of Tetrahex. May you not disappoint me.”
Cyclonus stepped back, then back again, dropping his hands to the sword on his left. Then he was off, springboarding off a shield to swing his sword at the back of Galvatron’s neck. Galvatron moved the haft of his axe to block the cut and the blade rang out, shattering.
Whirl had taken Galvatron’s challenge to be a duel to first cut. He realized his mistake on the first swing of Gavatron’s axe, which caught Cyclonus across the shoulders as he landed. Cyclonus staggered away, broken sword in hand and pink streaming down his back like a cloak. The fight did not end.
It wasn’t that Cyclonus was a poor fighter, though Whirl expected he’d already been beyond exhaustion when the duel started. It was that the blades he was using were fucking useless. Cyclonus landed a stroke across Galvatron’s braced forearms and didn’t make a scratch, though the blade squealed in protest.
“A smart swordfighter never lets his blades grow dull,” Galvatron commented, as he rammed the pommel of his axe against Cyclonus’s helm, knocking him to the ground. Galvatron strode forward and raised his axe to make the final, fatal blow. Cyclonus lay there, releasing both his swords to sink his fingers into the dirt. He looked up at Galvatron and made no plea to stop.
The axe swung down and Cyclonus finally lurched into motion. His legs kicked out, throwing his body onto his side and knocking Galavtron off his feet. The axe buried itself in Cyclonus’s shoulder but his other arm was snapping up to grab Galvatron by the neck and drag him down onto his own axe.
The crowd couldn’t have been quieter if you knocked them all dead.
Galvatron’s knees hit the ground and he wrenched himself upright, revealing a cut half the length of his chest, gushing pink. Galvatron touched his hand to the cut and then took hold of the axe handle. Cyclonus’s left arm lay limp on the ground, the shoulder nearly severed. When Galvatron tore the axe free Cyclonus made his first noise of the fight, a ragged moan.
Whirl had seen corpses in better shape.
But slowly, oh so slowly, Cyclonus raised himself to his knees. Galvatron passed his axe off to some other soldier and took Cyclonus by the chin. “You may prove useful after all, Cyclonus of Upper Tetrahex. Now swear yourself to me.”