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It was stupid. He should’ve left it. The mirror handled two people going into it just fine, it’d be able to handle two coming out of it fine too.
There’d just be another power surge.
That was fine, it should be fine, being anything but fine wasn’t fine.

Charging down the street carrying a mirror on your back was on the ‘not fine’ list.
Cyclonus’s ample size and maneuverability let him swerve between people and occasionally jump over a few, using crates and walls as leverage.
He wasn’t entirely sure what made him bolt, it was something with Thunderhoof. Cyclonus wasn’t sure if he was getting a similar vibe from him as he were the ‘not-Steeljaw’. He spoke, sounded like Thunderhoof, acted like you’d expect someone to.

Cyclonus cursed himself. It was very stupid, he didn’t usually act so stupid, he wanted to bang his head into a wall for his stupidity.
Honestly, this was why he had a few moments to himself before any job. Frustration brought out the worst in him and it was doing so now. With Morgar V being littered with so many power stations it wasn’t long before he came across one. Ignoring it, he continued to one on the edge of the current cityscape, hoping it would take Thunderhoof and his goons a while to figure out which he had entered into.

This one was a awkward shade of cream on the inside, with several greasy marks along its sides and walls where it seems nobody had bothered to clean in months. Its unkempt appearance was only furthered by the fact there was barely anyone around. The few that were around eyed him up suspiciously but seemed not to care about his presence. One of the workers chittered angrily as he approached the generator room, but seemed to go quiet when Cyclonus stood at his full height, removing the mirror from his back and straightening out. Clearly arguing with a large spiked person wasn’t something his paycheck adequately covered.

The main generator room was still the same bland cream colour, but the massive room was also clearly incomplete. It had two huge silver cylinder-shaped generators hooked up to the walls and other machines through a series of thick cables, their presence caused the PA system in this room to emit a low static feedback buzz. While these were the only two, the room was clearly built for at least six generators.

Carrying the mirror in front of him, Cyclonus advanced on the huge cylindrical generators. Their gentle hum slowly increased in pitch as the mirror got closer, the automatic energy sponging system it contained draining the generators power, making the circuitry on the back of the mirror light up.
Leaning the mirror against one of the cylinders, Cyclonus stepped back and inspected it.
His reflection stared back at him with the same ponderous expression.
Cyclonus gave the mirror a cautionary poke. The surface wobbled a little and the tip of his claw sunk in a bit.
“Careful there”
Cyclonus made a short, sharp gasp as he yanked his finger out. He automatically looked at the mirror to see who was behind him. The mirror showed no one, but the smug voice gave it away. So did the sudden hand around his shoulder.
Cyclonus let out a pained cry as Thunderhoof’s fingers dug in, pinching at the softer exposed flesh between his shoulder plates.
Thunderhoof flipped Cyclonus across the room, watching him slam with a dull thud in the middle of the room. Wheezing, Cyclonus looked up at Thunderhoof, the cape covering one side, clinging to him, showing an awkward pattern.

Thunderhoof sighed and plucked at the capes strings, dropping it off and showing off his missing arm.
“I came out on top, but y’know my other self put up quite tha’ fight see?” He grinned, showing the stump of his missing arm off to Cyclonus. There was no exposed flesh, just a shiny, scratched surface.
“Where’s the rest of them?” Cyclonus hissed. He didn’t get up off the floor, but he splayed his hands out and straightened his feet up, just in case he needed to move fast.
“Heh, loyal lil’ runts. I told them to stay outside and only come in if they heard any suspicious noises see? So I gots a surprise for ‘em! Tha’ best surprise in tha’ universe!”

Cyclonus straightened up to a low crouch, noticing the phoney Thunderhoof had no reflection.
“If there was a fake Steeljaw, you’re not the original Thunderhoof, and it’s related to the mirror, why isn’t there a phoney Swindle?”
“Heh, now y’see here’s tha’ interestin’ bit. Only people who mess with this get reflected. Good Ol’ ‘Hoof was tha’ one to test it out when that sleeze brought it to ‘im, so he ain’t done enough to get done. You on tha’ other hand, you messed straight with tha’ circuitry givin’ it a good ol’ poke about eh?” the Not-Thunderhoof grinned with a borderline psychotic gleam to his eyes “Le’s see if he can say hello!”
Not-Thunderhoof reached into the window and grabbed Cyclonus’s horns, his reflection stood up as Not-Thunderhoof yanked him from the mirror.

Cyclonus didn’t have much time to react, as a full-body copy of himself fell from the mirror, pulled along by Not-Thunderhoof. The copy dropped to the floor and instantly cracked, the new Not-Cyclonus’s face drooped on one side as the spiderwebs of shattered lines split it’s face in two. No words came from his duplicates mouth but a harsh, cracked screech.
“Pitiful” Not-Thunderhoof raised his foot and brought it down on the Not-Cyclonus, shattering the duplicate entirely. “Takes us a while to get less fragile” Not-Thunderhoof smirked.
There was undoubtedly something entirely unsettling about watching yourself crack and shatter. Cyclonus’s quills stood alert and twitched nervously as he stared at the shattered pieces of himself.
“Now then, shall I kill ya’ now? Explain my plan a lil’? Or maybe I could reflect myself again? Afta’ all I gots enough power to do so now!”
-
“I really really didn’t know! I knew it supposedly had a lot of storage space but I wasn’t told there was a whole castles-worth!” Swindle grovelled a little. Thunderhoof however was just pretty pissed off and was going to vent it all on Swindle.

Gavin acquired one of the metal cooking-implements from the wall, the long thin spike looked as though it would be adequately painful when stuck into various places on a being’s body.

“Castles are kinda boring, shall we just fuck off outta here?” He distracted the two Seibertronians.
“Yeah… yeah tha’ small ones got tha’ right idea! I can settle tha’ score with that mirror-me!” Thunderhoof dropped any interest in Swindle.
“Wait, you were reflected too!? Just like Steeljaw!” Swindle instantly got his attention back
“From tha’ sounds of it, I did better, got tha’ miserable scrap’s arm off!” Thunderhoof grinned, motioning with his hands the move that destroyed the duplicates limb “But ‘e still got me in ‘ere...”
“Shit, if there’s ‘nother you out there he’s probably onto Cyclonus” Gavin brandishes his metal rod
“Oh, he’s ‘ere too? Yous came with a freakin’ rescue party Swindle? It ain’t even been a full solar orbit on ‘dis world!”
“Well your lackeys got the idea that I ‘off’d’ you! As if I’d do so to such a wonderful customer!” He grinned, putting on the smarmy charm again “Cyclonus and his pe-, uh, accompaniment happened to be around at the time”
“Yeah he got your goons to attack us instead!”
“So? You lived!”

Thunderhoof turned with each back and forth between the two as if watching the words go between them.
“That’s not the point! You just wanted to save your cowardly hide! At least with a missing arm Cyclonus will be able to tell it’s not the real Thunderhoof, I guess”
“Why would you care? You know nothing about what he’s really like or who he is!”
“Eh, he’s the designated driver. You don’t have a ship right now and I doubt Hoofy here’s gonna let me take one”
“Yous a smart little thing” Thunderhoof butted in “But neither of yous is smart enough to have noticed those things up tha’ stairs are movin’ about”
“Ah.”
Several footsteps and alien murmurs were muffled by the walls but the noise of a small army making it’s way through the castle halls was loud and obvious.
-
Cyclonus pulled himself upright as the mirror’s surface wobbled ominously.
“I ain’t that stupid but I’ll simplify it for ya’. This thing ‘ere was a ‘peace offering’ to end a war, see? But it was actually a trap, neva’ got sprung tho. So tha’ small army inside ‘as been waiting for centuries to attack, see? They all became immortal, sturdy ‘glass replicas’ like me long time ago, they ain’t gonna shatter at the drop of a hat like ordinary glass nah nah” Not-Thunderhoof swung for Cyclonus making sure his brief explanation wasn’t opening a window for the latter to escape.

“So you’re going to get yourself an invariably invincible army to take over whatever you want” Cyclonus snarled ducking below Not-Thunderhoofs fist.
“Ey, yous learnin’!” Not-Thunderhoof cheered as it swung its foot, knocking out Cyclonus’s feet. Cyclonus fell into the motion and rolled forwards, ending up behind the Not-Thunderhoof. Cyclonus kicked out behind him only to hit where the Not-Thunderhoofs missing arm should be. Taking the opportunity Not-Thunderhoof grabbed the outstretched limb with it’s good hand and flung Cyclonus over it’s shoulder, slamming him into the floor again.
Doubling over on the floor, Cyclonus sprang back at Not-Thunderhoof. Grabbing him around the waist, he forced him backwards as he ran hunched into the stocky blue ‘Seibertronian’. Not-Thunderhoof dug his heels in, trying to stop Cyclonus from pushing him any further. Cyclonus responded by letting go and jumping forwards, headbutting it in the chin. The attack sent Not-Thunderhoof staggering backwards as Cyclonus stood at his full height.

“Ooh I’m saving yous all for myself” Not-Thunderhoof smiled. He proceeded to scream and charge at Cyclonus with his head down, attempting to ram him with his horns. Cyclonus grabbed his wide horns and instead vaulted over the charging duplicate. Not missing a beat Cyclonus kicked out in mid-vault slamming his foot down onto Not-Thunderhoofs lower back sending him sprawling forwards, his chin making a crunching grind of a noise as he slammed into the ground.

There was some babbling from the sidelines as one of Thunderhoofs goons barged it’s way into the room. Both combatants turned to look at the startled furry entity, who glanced between the two of them as many more goons started filling the corridor behind it. Its attention was mainly taken up by the lack of an arm on Thunderhoofs part.
“It sounded suspicious boss” The lead one uttered, still slightly scared of Thunderhoof even if he was somehow missing an arm.
“Yous all FOOLS!” Not-Thunderhoof barked at them “Grab him! I’m busy!”
The goons looked nervously between the two before streaming in after Cyclonus.

Cyclonus groaned, half-hoping the severely obvious lack of a limb would have given the imposter away, even to these buffoons, but they quickly scrambled towards him. Turning tail, Cyclonus found it an easy leap to jump over a cable and up onto one of the smaller machines in the room. Some of the goons clumsily clambered up to meet him while most tried to claw at his legs. Casting a glance upwards, Cyclonus saw that Not-Thunderhoof had slipped into the mirror while no one was watching. The goons continued their attacks, many claws scraping at his foot-plates as other fingers tried to worm around his ankles. Rattling his quills, Cyclonus kicked out at the goons below, stomping on their badly placed fingers while casting a few punches out to his sides, trying to ward off the ones on the machines with him. Not waiting for more to climb up and cut off his other side, Cyclonus carried on running along the machine tops, far more nimble than the horde of goons below. He cleared them easily, only for them to swarm back around him a few moments later.

Fortunately, their rather moronic nature kept them from making too much progress, the ones that did met with a harsh blow from the spikes along Cyclonus’s arms.
Unfortunately, from his fairly open side Cyclonus was struck full force at his waist. Winded and searing with pain, Cyclonus struggled against the object that struck him as it continued to push him. He was forced along for a few feet until he was thrown off the machinery, sliding into the wall. Wheezing and coughing, Cyclonus could barely see what was in front of him until it moved closer. Not-Thunderhoof had come back, it seemed.
“See all I really needed to do at that point was just calls them out, I really am saving tha’ pleasure of killing yous all for myself” He leaned down with a devilish smirk, before grabbing Cyclonus’ neck and forcing him to look towards the mirror.
Slowly climbing out the mirror was a tri-cloptic alien with slender legs, with more following it.