Skill

It was tempting to take advantage of a rare quiet opportunity to explore some new technique he had not yet mastered, but practical considerations guided him back instead to his preferred Oregar forms, the most efficient hand-to-hand combat kata for a cybernetic organism of his general design. He was still being tested.

The decision made, he let that consideration fade away also. He had not been given any time limit on his use of the facility, and he would only require another five hours of rest before the skills assessment, so he rose into the starting position of the first form, level one, and began the slow precise movements, every shift of his limbs calculated to maintain the exact same speed throughout the full extent of the form.

When he started the fifth form, still at the same speed, a noisy sigh emanated from the corner of the room, and Rumble transformed out of his cassette mode: he had been concealed among the loose equipment stacked there. “You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me,” he declared, and stomped out of the room. Cyclonus ignored him: Rumble could be chastised for breaking discipline by others, the responsibility was not his. He didn’t let the interruption break his own flow.

He completed the fifth form and returned seamlessly to the level two complication of the first form, where every movement had to be initiated at the start of the movement two before it, and the speed doubled. He was halfway through the third form of that level when Rumble stomped back in with Soundwave and gestured at him. “See! Don’t believe me? He’s still doin’ the same weird slow-mo thing!”

Soundwave looked down at Rumble and then up at him. “Cyclonus. Identify training program.”

“Oregar single kata, complete,” Cyclonus said, maintaining his flow. “Several hours remain in the sequence. Do you wish me to accelerate?”

“Wait, you wanna keep training like this for hours?” Rumble said. “Aw, come on! Soundwave, I’ll go nuts—”

 “Continue as you wish,” Soundwave said, so Cyclonus let them fall from the foreground of his consciousness again. A brief time later Soundwave left again, leaving a sullen Rumble sitting by the door glaring at him. Cyclonus had only completed the fourth form when he burst out again, “Why the hell are you even doin’ this? You’re big enough, you should be bashin’ through Autobots in the simulator like tin cans!”

“The full Oregar kata produces a reflex speed acceleration of six percent which persists over a week,” Cyclonus said. “It is the single most effective exercise program a warrior of my general configuration can follow, although its effects can be improved upon by a combination of other kata, which take more time. Merely clubbing simulated Autobots produces no benefit to a warrior who has recently had time in the field, and very little even to an idle one.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Rumble said, sounding mystified. “Ore-whatsit? I can’t even find this stuff in the archive.”

“If you are interested, I will upload a copy of my personal database,” Cyclonus said. He finished the fifth form and continued into the first movement of the third level, which he had initiated three movements before, and doubled his speed again.

“Whoa, what just happened?” Rumble said.

“I have begun the third level,” Cyclonus said. “I will cease responding from the fourth level onward when my processor must be fully dedicated to the kata, so ask whatever remaining questions you have now.”

“Are you gonna get faster?”

“For the fourth and fifth levels, yes,” Cyclonus said. “The sixth is a precision level. The subsequent levels will evolve out of the previous ones and are unpredictable.”

“This is seriously the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Rumble said. “Hey, you mind if I get some of the others? Frenzy’s gotta see this.”

“I am carrying out my own orders. I do not know the parameters of yours,” Cyclonus said. “Do as you wish within them.”

Rumble left and returned with Frenzy as Cyclonus entered the fourth level. They spoke, but he was only distantly aware of their conversation and presence: they were not significant. All his focus was on maintaining speed and initiating each movement sufficiently far in advance. He was approaching the liminal state, beginning to feel his way towards the advanced levels.

And then halfway through the sixth level he fell into it, and time and conscious decision dropped away. There was only the unyielding imperative of the kata, each movement simultaneously dictated by the ones far before it and shaping the ones far ahead, an unending flow forcing all his circuitry to align for optimal efficiency. He knew when others came into the room and looked at him, but his emotional system did not activate, even when Starscream came in and watched for a while, arms-folded, and then sneered, “I’ve never seen anything this stupid in my life. What’s he going to do on the battlefield, ask the Autobots to dance with him?”

“Starscream, you’re being even more of an idiot than usual,” Megatron said, from the door. “Shoot him.”

“What?” Starscream said.

“You heard me,” Megatron said. “Go ahead and shoot him.”

Starscream shrugged and fired his weapon. His stance, the movement of his arm, the alignment of the gun, the charge of the weapon, all fell into the imperative. The blast shot past Cyclonus’s head and struck the wall harmlessly as he continued.

“What the hell, Screamer, somethin’ wrong with your targeting systems?” Rumble sniggered.

“Be silent, you twerp, there is nothing wrong with—”

“Again,” Megatron interrupted.

“What?” Starscream looked at him.

“Again, Starscream,” Megatron said.

Starscream stared at him, and then whirled and fired a dozen blasts, each one a thousand points of data falling into the endless flow; Cyclonus moved around them. “What is—it’s some kind of trick!” Starscream burst out. “He’s generating a force field—”

“He’s reached the advanced levels of an Oregar kata,” Megatron said. “As long as he’s successfully maintaining the kata, you can’t do anything within range of his sensors that his systems can’t adjust for. Cyclonus, end at the next point of harmony.”

As soon as Megatron gave the order, Cyclonus knew there was one coming forty-three movements away, at the end of the twelfth level; he moved towards it steadily, with accelerating speed, until he at last reached it and came to a halt. It hadn’t been far enough for maximum benefit, but Megatron was regarding him with a bright gleam in his eye. “Do you know the pair kata?” he asked.

Cyclonus inclined his head. Megatron took off his cannon and rested it against the wall, and took up position opposite him. “I won’t make you work up the whole way again,” Megatron said. “Start at the third level.”

“As you wish,” Cyclonus said. Megatron beckoned his hand, begin, and Cyclonus swept the first blow towards his optics as he turned swiftly out of its way.

“Whoa,” Rumble muttered.

Megatron clearly didn’t make a routine of the kata anymore, but it was evident almost at once that he had mastered it to a far higher level than Cyclonus had himself. Cyclonus let him control the flow, Megatron directed the movements that required the faster reflex-speed to him, and they began the climb back to the liminal state together. Starting at the third level made it far more difficult to reach without falling out of the kata, but by the start of the fifth level, Cyclonus knew without question they were going to reach it again. Megatron was slightly slower, and he had shorter reach, but his sheer power compensated; he moved through the kata with such force that his movements lingered in the air, palpable.

They fell into the liminal state at the end of the sixth level, and from there it was pure exaltation. Cyclonus had run the pair kata a dozen times with the master he’d dug up on Mintus 5, who’d taught him both versions, and once he’d taught it to Grimlock, they’d run it on a regular basis, fifty times, sixty perhaps. But it was clear to Cyclonus that Megatron must have run the complete kata at least one million times. He evolved the levels in surprising yet natural directions that flowered into even more astonishing complications, ones Cyclonus had never seen before even in ancient holographic records, exchanges of blows that climaxed in dizzying sequences of spiraling movements; they moved without a pause around the chamber, through all three dimensions, around other Decepticons who’d piled in to observe even as they startled leaping and diving out of the way, each action forming yet another part of the pattern.

The points of harmony flared like starbursts as they swept through them, one after another. The levels flew past. Cyclonus normally wound up at the thirtieth, and the highest he’d ever gone before even in a solo kata was fifty-third. Quantum processing limits would be hit at the ninety-second level: he’d read speculation that once past that point either the kata would break or a different state would arise, but he’d never found a record of anyone reaching that far. They blew through the fiftieth and onward without a pause; Megatron was pushing their speed to new levels. At the eighty-ninth level they fell into a close-quarters sequence of exquisite violence, every blow concentrating all the power of their bodies, the culmination of eighty-nine moves reaching fruition; each one at killing speed and force and each one avoided by mere microns, and Cyclonus became suddenly and vividly aware of death joining the kata, an invisible supervising master, waiting to seize any who faltered.

He did not falter, even for an instant; he felt suffused with delight, and across from him Megatron laughed suddenly aloud, an almost wondering joy, and Cyclonus realized even as they moved onward that the final culmination of the kata was death; a simultaneous movement into another realm of existence, and for one instant he half longed to go even so far, to pursue the purity of form to the very end—

But he and Megatron both had other work to do. They turned aside simultaneously and spiraled out into one final deadly graceful exchange that ended with them standing motionless, arms extended to full length, each one barely, barely brushing against the surface of the other’s armor. The liminal state fell away; Cyclonus lowered his arm, and bowed to Megatron, who was grinning at him in pure delight. “Soundwave!” he said over his shoulder.

“Yes, Megatron,” Soundwave said, from near the door; Cyclonus became aware more consciously that there were nearly a dozen soldiers crammed around the edges of the room watching open-mouthed.

“Put him on tomorrow’s raid, and rank him warrior, first class,” Megatron said. He laughed aloud again. He seized Cyclonus by the shoulders and shook him. “No wonder you got out of the Autobots’ hands without a scratch. I can’t wait to put you in the field,” he said, exultantly savage. “They aren’t going to know what hit them. Go fuel up, and get some rest. We launch at 0430.”

He thumped Cyclonus on the shoulder once more and turned away, swinging his cannon back onto his arm without a pause before striding through the door, a degree of fluidity added to his movements. Starscream had been watching with narrowed optics; he turned and left immediately afterwards. Soundwave nodded to Cyclonus once and followed them out. Cyclonus glanced round at the other Decepticons, most of them eyeing him back, a little uncertain: he was still a new quantity to them, and now revealed as a deadly and powerful one, who might as easily be cruel or malicious as not.