The void had been a cold, silent predator, but the awakening was worse. It was a cacophony of digital screaming and sensory static.
..
...
.... Ah....
.... [RESTORING ENERGON POWER]
... I .... I m... . I'm ...Ali..ve.?
The thought flickered like a dying candle in a gale. Sky Lynx's consciousness felt fractured, a thousand shards of memory trying to piece themselves back into a coherent whole. The last clear image was the white-hot flash of Megatron's fusion cannon and the look of hollow grief on Optimus Prime's face. He remembered the sensation of his molecular structure unraveling, the glorious gold and blue of his chassis turning to stardust. He had died a hero—a concept that still felt strange and heavy in his processors.
But how? I shouldn't be functioning at all. I remember losing power, watching my core lose its luster. I remember the absolute finality of the dark. I remember dying.
He tried to perform a basic system diagnostic, but his internal HUD was a wreckage of error codes and red-lined warnings. His Spark—the very essence of his life—felt thin, like a wire stretched to the breaking point. It was no longer the roaring furnace of a Predacon king; it was a guttering ember, barely clinging to the housing of his chest.
And then, there was the heat.
It wasn't the warmth of a Cybertronian sun or the familiar thrum of a recharge slab. This was a crude, surging electricity. It felt like needles of fire being driven into his neural relays. Someone was pumping a foreign current into his chassis—something jagged, unrefined, and distinctly organic.
So why am I alive???
The realization hit him with the force of a kinetic strike. I clearly lost power. My batteries were spent. My Energon was dry. So it must be something or someone outside my shell that powered up my systems. Someone has salvaged me. Someone is poking at the corpse of a god.
Indignation began to stir. It was a small, hot coal of pride that even the Dead Universe hadn't been able to extinguish. The "Magnificent Sky Lynx" was not a "something." He was not a curiosity to be toyed with by scavengers.
Might as well have a look, he thought, his digital voice dripping with a ghostly sarcasm.
He attempted to engage his optics, but the servos were fused shut, melted into place by the heat of the vacuum. He tried to move his magnificent wings, but he couldn't even feel the connection to his back. He was a prisoner in a shattered tomb of his own metal.
But Sky Lynx was never just a body. He was a master of the airwaves, a creature of data and signal. If his eyes were blind, he would find another way to see. He began to push his consciousness outward, drifting like a phantom through the very power cables that were feeding him. He followed the electricity back to its source, sliding through the copper and silicon of a world that felt alien, primitive, and dangerously unprepared for a guest like him.
He felt the hum of the ship around him. It wasn't the rhythmic, living pulse of a Cybertronian vessel. It was a utilitarian thrum—the sound of a warship built by hands that didn't understand the soul of the machine.
Then, he heard them. The voices.
On the Research Deck:
In the center of the specialized laboratory, the two halves of Sky Lynx were suspended by heavy-duty magnetic lifters. Thick, shielded power cables were snaked into the open wounds of his chassis, pulsating with a rhythmic, artificial blue glow. To the clones standing below, he looked like a pile of exotic junk; to Sky Lynx, listening through the lab's internal comms, they sounded like children arguing over a loaded weapon.
Standing at a nearby console was Captain Rex, designated CT-7567. His helmet sat on the table beside him, his brow furrowed as he watched a stream of data that made no sense to him.
"Sir, we were able to power the relic," Rex said, his voice echoing in the sterile room. "The ship's computers are having a hard time talking to it, though. It seems to be running a different OS software entirely. It's almost... organic in the way it handles data."
Jedi Master Kaelen Voss stood next to him, his arms folded across his chest. He looked at the shattered remains of the golden titan with a mixture of reverence and suspicion. "Can you operate any of its systems, Captain?"
Rex shook his head, gesturing to the monitor where thousands of lines of code were scrolling at a speed the Republic's droids could barely track. "It will take some time, Commander. Just by a cursory look, whoever built this software was a genius. It runs on another level compared to any other software in the Republic. It's not just a set of instructions; it feels like it has a personality."
A small, green figure moved into the light of the holoprojector. Grand Master Yoda looked up at the wreckage, his eyes narrowed as he leaned on his cane from across the galaxy.
"Use it to help fight, we can?" Yoda questioned, his voice a rasping whisper. "Against the Separatists, we could? A powerful ally, this metal giant might have been."
Again, the clone trooper stated, "It's too sophisticated to transfer to any of our ships, General. Even then, there is no guarantee it would even work. The technology might be incompatible with our gunships or walkers. The hardware is as alien as the software."
The Silent Predator:
Inside the "relic," Sky Lynx's vanity flared. Sophisticated? Alien? He would have laughed if he had a vocalizer. I am the apex of my species, little clone. You are trying to read a library with the mind of an insect.
But as he listened, his concern grew. They wanted to use him. They wanted to strip his mind and put it into their "walkers"—those clattering, bipedal tin cans he had seen in the ship's local memory. The insult was almost enough to jumpstart his spark on pure fury alone.
He began to siphon more than just data. He began to pull the power. If they were going to feed him, he was going to eat until he could stand again.
He followed the cables back into the ship's mainframe. Within seconds, he had bypassed their firewalls. He saw the ship's logs. He saw the war they were fighting—the "Separatists" and their droid armies. He saw the "Republic" and its clones. It was a messy, sprawling conflict, devoid of the logic of the Great War he had left behind.
They are children playing with fire, Sky Lynx realized.
But then, he found something in the archives. A name. Coruscant. The capital.
If they took him there, they would dismantle him. They would find his Spark. They would see the Matrix-touched core and, in their "genius," they would try to cut it out to see how it worked.
I cannot allow that.
Sky Lynx felt a surge of desperation. He needed more than just a trickle of power. He needed a jumpstart. He looked at the cables again. He could sense the ship's primary reactor—a massive, pulsing heart of hypermatter. If he could just reach out and pull...
I was a hero for Optimus, Sky Lynx reminded himself, his thoughts growing clearer as the energy filled his banks. But to survive these 'Clones,' I must be the Predacon again. I must be the predator.
Back in the lab, Rex noticed a change. The monitors began to spike. The blue glow of the power cables shifted to a deep, menacing gold.
"Sir! The energy signatures are jumping!" Rex shouted, reaching for the manual override. "It's drawing more power than the lab can handle! It's pulling directly from the reactor!"
Kaelen Voss stepped back, his hand flying to his lightsaber. "It's not a relic, Rex... it's awake."
Sky Lynx's optics didn't turn on, but a sound began to emanate from his shattered chest—a low, mechanical growl that vibrated the floor tiles and sent a chill down the Jedi's spine.
I... am... Sky... Lynx... he thought, the words echoing through the ship's internal speakers in a distorted, haunting chorus. And I am... not... scrap.
The power surge hit its peak. Lights across the Resolute flickered and died. In the darkness of the lab, the two halves of the golden titan began to groan as the metal started to knit itself back together, fueled by the stolen heart of a Star Destroyer.