Skywarp Safeguard is having fun and all, but if he'd known going to a nice academy involved this much work and responsibility, he would've passed. A bit of a chaotic wild-child, he's more interested in fun pranks than finishing JAAT homework. It's much more exciting to fill his time with illegal Decepticon shenanigans as the stoic but powerful Cyclonus, vigilante extraordinaire. Even then he somehow manages to procrastinate what's expected of him, like fighting Autobots, in favor of more important things, like hanging out with one specific fan.

Biography

Skywarp was forged circa v.42.165.100 by the Cybertronic Timekeeping Standard along with his trine siblings Starscream and Thundercracker. The three of them were originally raised in the city of Vos in a mid-level tier. They caused enough problems in their group home to be known as troublemakers, and by the time they were nymphs, their patron decided the problem was too much to bear. Being treated as bothersome and unwanted was deeply painful for each of them, and from this Skywarp learned deflection and distraction, and has mostly come to expect people to want him gone.

Their patron presented them with a choice: as they were too annoying to deal with, they could either be split up and no longer see each other anymore, or be given to a different group home entirely. Ultimately, they chose to remain together, but no group home in Vos would take the three of them. The only reason the trine was able to remain together was because of the Safeguard Aerie in Iacon. Founded by Jetfire and Jetstorm, twins from Devisiun, this group home specifically opens its doors to kids with siblings that other group homes may not accept all together. On the lookout to preserve sibling relationships, Jetfire and Jetstorm accepted Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp when they were shipped over from Vos.

Adjusting to a new home, a new city-state, and a new dose of trauma was difficult. As they grew into younglings, Skywarp started to get even more energetic, fidgety, and often deliberately annoying, subconsciously warning people away before they could get close. The trine met Megatron not long after moving, and he dragged them in as sort-of-friends, sort-of-lackeys. Skywarp finds it amusing to irritate him as he makes a good target for teasing, but is also oddly confident in their relationship. Megatron is prickly enough to dislike him even on his best behavior, so he's comfortable being as weird as he'd like, even when he goes too far and invite's Megatron's genuine wrath.

In v.42.168.429, the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology hosted entrance exams for its first set of students. Skywarp sat these exams and passed, to his surprise, along with his trinemates and several other Safeguard siblings. On the first day the JAAT opened, he found to his glee that his trinemates would be rooming next to him along with Megatron, all within easy reach for pranks. When the weather turned extreme the next day, Megatron dragged him along to witness the storm, and the four of them nearly died when a chunk of debris catapulted them into the school library. In the rubble, they found mysterious Primal relics of power. Skywarp took up the Blades of Time and powered up into Cyclonus. [s1e01]

Relationships

Decepticons

While he readily follows his fellow Decepticons onto the battlefield, Cyclonus isn't driven by the same thirst for violence that the others seem to be. He feels calm with his relic, more patient and deliberate than usual, and doesn't really see a point to this fighting. He'll listen to Galvatron's orders and help out his siblings, but he often ends up hanging behind. While the others squabble, he finds his own thing to do. They might not understand his drastic change in attitude from kid form to hero form, but Scourge and Hellscream are just as willing to involve him in shenanigans and then squeal at him when his powers cause those shenanigans to spiral out of control. Galvatron has come to expect that his dramatic demands may be left half-finished when Cyclonus wanders off or gets distracted, and is unusually longsuffering about it. He's not a very good Decepticon perhaps, but at least he's a decent friend.

One might think that dazzling Thunderblast wouldn't get along with stoic Cyclonus, but that is not the case. He picked up on her loneliness and fear by just quietly observing from the background, and she finds him a safe person to be calm around. When she joined the Decepticons, [s1e12] it didn't take long for this unlikely duo to gravitate to one another. They have an odd but genuine balance: Thunderblast can air her uncertainties and imperfections to an audience who doesn't care when she's less than show-stopping, and Cyclonus has someone willing to listen to him when he feels like speaking up, and won't berate him when he disagrees. While they don't fight together often, they make a devastating team when they do, awe-inspiring in a way she is always happy to capitalize on while he fades into the background.

Cyclonus isn't particularly bothered by Triptych's bizarre mood swings and unpredictable behavior, unphased even from his first introduction [s2e08] thanks to lifelong exposure to his ridiculous siblings. He's more wary of the power backlash likely to result should the two of them talk for too long. Accidentally activating his own spacetime abilities in proximity to Triptych's unnerving all-sight often means the both of them are struck by sudden visions of a reality outside their own, leaving them with migraines and meaningless memories. Otherwise, Cyclonus makes a convenient straight mech for Triptych to bounce jokes off of.

Although he'd never dream of defecting himself, Cyclonus understands why some Decepticons wanted out. Sixshot was a good teammate for a time, but he could see them growing more and more discontent from the start. [s1e09] He doesn't know why they left, but he doesn't begrudge their leaving, [s2e15] despite the wounded attitudes of his fellow Decepticons. When Drift joined, [s2e11] the mech's unearthly senses helped him tap into something that only others like Cyclonus or Triptych could see, and once again he could tell Drift didn't quite fit among their faction. When he left, [s3e14] Cyclonus sincerely wished for him to find a place he belonged. It may not be very Decepticon of him, but he relates to feeling outside of the group enough that he doesn't feel betrayed by their defections.

Other Factions

Cyclonus is not really here to fight, not in the same way Galvatron and Hellscream are. Nevertheless he still finds the motivation to throw himself into battle when needed, often teaming up with Scourge to target Ultra Magnus. The Autobot is surprisingly slippery for a grounder frame, and the near-instant retaliatory lightning makes landing a hit on him more of a pain than a victory. Cyclonus has been zapped often enough from a mere moment of inattention and now skirts the battlefield warily, preferring to only get involved if absolutely necessary. Magnus is a bit stuffy but seems a good sort overall, and he's not really sure why they need to be enemies in the first place. That's his opinion of all three original Autobots, actually. Optimus may be less conservative than Galvatron, but he's generally nice. The Mistress of Flame defnitely has a grudge against his sibling and commits a little more greivous harm than Cyclonus would like, but he would be lying if he said he didn't understand the impulse to stab Hellscream.

Facing the Elite Guard is something of a challenge. They aren't as good at avoiding his surprise teleportations as Magnus is, but their uncanny ability to find one another and have each other's backs just means he's usually in for a fight of three or more instead of a one-on-one. Elita 4 in particular is hard to beat with the way she can play with gravity and zip away laughing while he's still trying to get his bearings. He's pretty sure that they could curbstomp the Decepticons as a whole if they really tried and hopes Galvatron will be careful with the banter around Elita 1 so he doesn't provoke them into doing just that.

As soon as the Predacons formed, [s3e05] Cyclonus knew they would not be a group to mess around with. Their leader Abominus is more intimidating than Galvatron at his grandest, and with Sixshot among their ranks, any dirty Decepticon tricks would already be known to them. Beyond that, Cyclonus finds himself unnerved by Airachnid, a fact she obviously is happy to take advantage of. Being around her feels... off, like there's something inside her that makes spacetime upset, and he isn't keen on sticking around to figure out why.

JAAT

Skywarp is a resident of Room 3 in the Navitaneon dorm of the JAAT. Megatron, Starscream, and Thundercracker are all in rooms close at hand, which makes planning any Decepticon activities fairly easy, assuming he actually remembers they planned something to begin with. At least his roommates are mostly wrapped up in their own problems and don't notice when he does something suspicious. Swerve is fun to chat with, until he gets a little too chatty. Skywarp has accidentally freaked out Breakdown more than once by covertly teleporting back to their room and startling the poor mech half to death. He likes Springer well enough even though they don't really run in the same circles among the student body, and he respects the way the former gutter child is willing to answer some sensitive questions about his history. Underbite can be a little overbearing, so he avoids dealing with him as much as possible.

He hasn't exactly made any best friends at the JAAT yet, but there's plenty of people aside from his siblings and Megatron who he'll hang out with on the regular. He's embroiled himself in some spectacular prank wars against a variety of people, like Starscream's roommate Flamewar, angry little Cliffjumper, and the self-proclaimed professional irritant Whirl. It's (mostly) good natured, and his prank rivals give as good as they get, especially Whirl. This would be wonderful if it weren't for Whirl's best friend, Tailgate, who just so happens to be Skywarp's dorm neighbor in Thundercracker's room. When Tailgate is around, Skywarp becomes useless.

As one of the first people Cyclonus met after powering up, [s1e01] Tailgate has a very particular impression of the Decepticon hero. A very eager, infatuated impression of the Decepticon hero, one he boldly and regularly proclaims at any given opportunity. When Skywarp first heard Tailgate singing Cyclonus's praises with a smitten sigh, he nearly faceplanted in surprise. The ego boost was nice and all, but then Tailgate took it upon himself to pursue Cyclonus, going so far as to run into active battlefields to flag down his personal favorite. It's both annoying and endearing, and Cyclonus always prioritizes getting the little minibot to safety over whatever enemy he's dealing with, originally because of how dangerous it was to have a youngling around a brawl, but now he's increasingly touched by the enthusiastic sincerity of Tailgate's affection. His siblings tease him relentlessly, Megatron groans at the sappiness, but Skywarp cannot deny it: Tailgate's crush is mutual.

This wouldn't be a problem if Tailgate didn't loathe Skywarp. Somehow, he's convinced himself that Skywarp is a bully, a condescending jerk, and a troublemaker. No matter what Skywarp tries to disabuse him of this notion, bad luck and poor timing always make him come out looking even worse. Tailgate's polar opposite treatment of Cyclonus and Skywarp is doing quite a number on Skywarp's self esteem, and he's beginning to think everyone would be better off if they could have just the hero without the kid...

Family

The most important people in Skywarp's life have always been Thundercracker and Starscream. They're a very close trine, forced even closer by the way they were made to choose between each other and a stable home when they were young. They often bicker or outright fight, rag on each other's interests, and undermine any attempts to change or experiment. But also, they defend each other, keep each other's confidence, lift one another's spirits with debatable success, and will always, always choose their trine before anything else. Skywarp is happy to follow where they lead, even if it means making unwise decisions or ignoring his misgivings. He'll brush off their teasing, he'll be the silly unimportant one of the trio, he'll even take a fall for them if he really has to. They chose each other, and that means he can't afford to feel miserable about what they do or say sometimes. Nobody else was going to choose him, and by Primus he is going to remain loyal to his siblings no matter how bad it feels to be Skywarp these days.

Being shunted off to the Safeguard Aerie in a foreign city-state may have let his trine stay together, which Skywarp will always be grateful for, but he's never gotten particularly invested in his new home. His patrons Jetfire and Jetsorm are happy to play along with his pranks and encourage his fledgeling whimsy without pressure to "live up to" some imagined potential, as his caretakers back in Vos rarely did. He still thinks of himself as more Vosian than Iaconic, but the name Safeguard is at least one he can use comfortably.

The rest of the Safeguard kids learned pretty quickly to only engage in a prank war with Skywarp if they were willing to give it their all. To their credit, some of them did, like Hotlink, a geek who could always whip something up and get Skywarp good. It's nice to see some of them around in the JAAT too, and he makes sure to wave at them in the halls. They're not his trine, but all his Safeguard siblings are still cool.

Attributes

As Skywarp:

He's a size 4 jet, a frametype often called a "seeker" as it's relatively common. He's a decent if distractible flier, prone to pulling tricks just to entertain himself. On more than one occassion he's forgotten to watch where he's going and collided conefirst into a building or another flier. When Megatron manages to bully him and his trine into flying him somewhere, he has to be extra careful so as to not drop his passenger.

Skywarp has always had difficulties paying attention, and his relic the Blades of Time hasn't really helped. He knows it's alive, after a fashion. There's someone in there, just one, buried so deep as to be nonexistent most of the time, but... sometimes he'll get flashes of excruciating awareness of each millisecond passing, or an instant proprioceptive sense for the whirl of Cybertron hurtling through space at such precise angles and speed. It isn't usually words, feelings, or any real communication (although he'd certainly prefer that) but Skywarp can tell when his relic is trying to say something with the same stilted awkwardness he often feels as Cyclonus. It just has to resort to something so impossible to ignore that even his processor doesn't skip over it.

As Cyclonus:

With the Blades of Time, Cyclonus has a bigger frame, greater strength, and a multitude of new powers. Some of the typical relic upgrades he received include bleeding blue with innermost energon, swift healing, an internal comms system that allows him to speak with other relic bearers, and a well of subspace in which he can store items. He chose his name in a moment of panic when Tailgate asked him, glancing at the storm surrounding them and blurting the first word to come to mind.

His alt mode is a swifter, sleeker jet meant for stealthy strafing runs and high altitude soaring. His individual abilities are:

• the Blades, a sword that can split in two and slice the fabric of reality apart or knit it back together
• teleportation and spatial distortion, something that comes in handy when trying to get somewhere fast but makes him prone to get lost
• storms of paradoxical energy bursting out of the severed skin of reality. This is an unpleasant experience even for him to weather, so he tries his best to mitigate these energy leaks instead of weaponizing them
• warping time itself, in the form of time loops, seeing or experiencing alternate timelines, and time travel. By far his most unpredictable and least controllable power, Cyclonus tries desperately not to pull on the time-related portion of his abilities
• a staid, silent determination that makes him like an unshakeable rock in the midst of the spacetime storm that is his power. While some of this is certainty lent by his relic, most of it is simple social awkwardness

Trivia

Motivation:

Loyalty to friend and family, boredom, a sense of peace and direction and control found in hero form, and desire to impress his crush

Hobbies:

Singing as a form of stimming, prank wars

Favorite Food:

Literally anything sweet, especially helium poppers