The Resolute was screaming. Across every deck, the lights flickered in a panicked staccato as Sky Lynx gorged himself on the ship's primary hypermatter reactor. He wasn't just taking power; he was rewriting the physics of his own broken shell. This was a hunger that went beyond mere survival—it was the reassertion of a titan.
Inside the Research Deck, the air shimmered with the heat of molecular reconstruction. The two shattered halves of the Predacon drifted closer together, held aloft by a swirling vortex of magnetic force and golden sparks. The metal groaned, a sound like grinding tectonic plates, as the Cybertronian alloys began to "unlearn" their original shapes.
System Integrity: 42% and rising.
Nano-Repair Protocols: Active.
Scanning for viable local templates...
Sky Lynx's mind, now fully integrated into the Resolute's mainframe, swept through the ship's tactical archives like a wildfire. He needed a form that would allow him to survive this galaxy—something that would blend into their military infrastructure while maintaining his superior dual-nature. He felt a flicker of disdain as he bypassed files for standard T-12 starfighters and flimsy speeder bikes. He required mass. He required presence.
He found the files he needed in the heavy ordnance hanger logs.
Scanning for a Form:
Search Query: Heavy Deployment Aerial Unit.
Result Found: Low Altitude Assault Transport/carrier (LAAT/c).
Sky Lynx's digital eye lingered on the dropship. It was a sturdy, industrial beast with long, flat wings and a cockpit that sat like a defiant head at the front of a thick neck. He liked the aesthetic—it was functional, brutal, and when he saw the "Wampa" monster art painted on the nose of one unit, he felt a spark of kinship. In a world of sterile clones, someone had tried to give the machine a soul.
This will be the Bird, he decided. The Vulture of the Republic.
Search Query: All-Terrain Heavy Combat Unit.
Result Found: All-Terrain Tactical Enforcer (AT-TE).
Next, he analyzed the six-legged walker. It was a low-slung predator of the ground, covered in heavy armor plates and bristling with turrets. Its primary mass-driver cannon was a crude but effective weapon of pure kinetic force. It had a prowling, insectoid gait that his Spark recognized from the ancient beast-wars of his youth.
This will be the Beast, he decided. The Panther of the Siege.
The Reconstruction:
In the lab, Captain Rex and Master Voss watched in stunned silence as the scrap metal began to liquefy. The gold and blue alloys of Cybertron didn't just melt; they flowed like living mercury, wrapping around the frames of the very technology they had just scanned. The magnetic clamps of the lab began to spark and smoke, unable to contain the sheer physical pressure of the expanding mass.
"He's... he's mimicking our hardware," Rex whispered, his hand hovering over his DC-17 blaster, though he knew deep down that a sidearm would do nothing against a creature that was currently drinking the ship's heart dry.
The two halves of Sky Lynx didn't fuse into one solid lump. Instead, they split into two distinct, transformative components, mimicking the symbiotic relationship of the Republic's transport system.
The upper half of the debris elongated. The metal flattened into the wide, industrial wings of the LAAT/c. Vents and pipes began to snake across the hull, glowing with internal blue energy that pulsated like a heartbeat. The cockpit at the front didn't house a pilot; it housed the cold, calculating intelligence of Sky Lynx's primary processor. The blue and gold colors of his old life bled into the Republic's militaristic grey, though a stubborn streak of gold remained along the wing edges—a permanent reminder of his royal lineage.
Below it, the secondary mass of metal collapsed and rebuilt itself into the six-legged frame of the AT-TE. The mass-driver cannon on top hummed with Cybertronian power, its barrel glowing with a lethal, concentrated heat. The smaller laser turrets shifted, their joints becoming more like articulating claws than static ball-mounts.
The Dragon Awakes:
Then came the true marvel.
The LAAT/c component descended, its magnetic clamps locking into the spine of the AT-TE with a thunderous clack. In the Republic's military, this was a transport maneuver. For Sky Lynx, it was a Recombination.
The wings of the dropship angled back like the fins of a Great Dragon. The cockpit of the flyer craned forward on a thick, armored neck, while the legs of the walker became the powerful, earth-shaking talons of a titanic beast. The mass-driver cannon shifted to the "tail" position, acting as a devastating rear-guard weapon, while the front laser turrets glowed with a predatory, golden light.
The dragon stood nearly twenty meters tall, its head brushing the ceiling of the Research Deck and leaving deep, jagged furrows in the reinforced durasteel flooring.
[TRANSFORMATION COMPLETE]
The silence that followed was broken by the sound of a thousand servos locking into place. The giant's head—the nose of the LAAT/c—swiveled slowly to look at Master Voss. The monster-face art that Sky Lynx had mimicked seemed to sneer in the dim light, the painted teeth looking terrifyingly real on the shifting metal.
Through the ship's speakers, Sky Lynx's voice finally returned. It was no longer a distorted ghost; it was a resonant, thunderous baritone that carried the weight of a thousand years and the crushing gravity of his ego.
"I must admit," the Dragon rumbled, his neck cables whirring as he looked down at the Jedi, "your 'walkers' are dreadfully slow, and your 'dropships' lack any sense of grace. It is like being clothed in cardboard and rusted iron. However..."
The massive mechanical beast took a step forward, the floor plating buckling and snapping under his weight. He flexed his wings, the hydraulic hiss echoing like a sigh of bored contempt.
"...as a temporary suit of armor, they shall suffice. Now, I believe we were discussing my 'analysis.' Who would like to be the first to explain why I shouldn't vent the atmosphere of this vessel for even thinking about stripping my Spark? I have endured the judgment of Alpha Trion and the fire of Megatron; do you truly believe I will suffer the indignity of being 'salvage' for a group of organic clones?"
Kaelen Voss didn't ignite his lightsaber. He stood his ground, though the sheer scale of the creature made him look like a child standing before a mountain. He could feel the raw power emanating from the machine—a vortex in the Force that felt like neither light nor dark, but pure, unyielding Will.
"We meant no disrespect, Sky Lynx," Voss said, tilting his head up to meet the glowing gold optics. "We thought you were a dead relic of a forgotten age. In this galaxy, we are used to machines that do as they are told."
"A relic?" Sky Lynx's head tilted, a low, mechanical growl vibrating through the deck. "I am the hero of the Dead Universe. I am the shield of the Prime. I am the one who stared into the void and told it to move aside. And if you wish to survive the journey to this 'Coruscant,' you will treat me with the decorum my status demands. I am not your weapon, Jedi. But for the right price, I might consider being your salvation."
Sky Lynx flexed his new, six-legged grip, digging his talons deep into the deck plates. He felt powerful. He felt new. He was no longer a Predacon of Cybertron, nor a soldier of the Republic. He was something new—a Dragon of the Stars, and the Republic was about to learn that some relics are better left undisturbed.