Writer's Note - 'The Quarry' takes place in the Transformers Prime/Aligned Continuity after the Orion Pax storyline but deviates from then on into a AU... or UA really seeing as it's the same universe just with minor alterations to the story. Any of my stories set in the Transformers Prime universe will feature heavy references to the set of novels by Alex Irvine (Exodus, Exiles and Retribution).
Enjoy! - Duma

Earth was a beautiful planet, when you really took a step back and looked at it properly and considered the ageless green forests, the majestic snow-tipped mountains, the endless blue ocean and the serenity of the planet's rolling countryside.

Then there were the deserts, both cold and hot, and unfortunately, to certain misplaced individuals, the golden canyons were far from beautiful.

"Great! We're lost! Completely lost!" Miko was wailing, throwing her hands in the air in a show of drama as she took the lead in front of their far-from-merry band.

"And whose fault is that again?" Jack had shouted back, dutifully attempting to keep a slower pace for the benefit of their youngest member though his anger was making this a hard task. "You always do this! You always get us into these things. Why can't you just take a hint and stay at the base where it's, you know, safe?"

"Who are you? My dad?" Miko scoffed over her shoulder.

"I'm just saying that it's not fair on the Bots if you keep tagging along with them and needing to be watched over the entire time. They have enough to deal with when they go on their missions without having to worry about you being squished," Jack said, glaring heavily at her.

"You heard the briefing; this mission didn't involve Cons. It was a fetch situation - completely safe! What, you just wanted to lounge around back at the silo and listen to Ratchet all day again? You didn't have to follow me so you were the ones who had to go and ruin it all!" Miko huffed, folding her arms.

"Not sure if you remembered this in the introduction video but the Autobots are currently in the middle of a WAR! They have jobs to do and keeping us safe is actually one of them. Decepticons can attack at any time - especially on the 'completely safe' missions. What do you think I was going to do? Wait around, play video games and then see if you came back? Of course I had to go with you!"

"See? There's your problem. You think that you're the one in charge of us, right? You always have to be 'big brother', making sure I'm okay. Why can't you trust me for once? Every time you come along, you drag Raf with you and then we all end up like this!"

Miko cast her arm around the barren ground, not a drop of civilisation in sight. There had only been hills and canyons and dead grass and now they were traversing a short yet wide canyon pathway.

The third and final member of the 'band', Raf, who was quietly shuffling along behind the two arguing teens, sighed to himself and was trying to work out how they had even become separated from the Autobots in the first place. Two Ground Bridges opening at once had always proved chaotic in the past so Raf was just glad they hadn't been transferred back to the zombie-infested Shadowzone. That canyon had been much more narrow and winding, unlike their current location. Still, a misplacement without radio contact was just as bad right now and the only way things could get worse was if...

A noise caught Raf's ear. The familiar sound of metal that he had grown so accustomed to since meeting the Autobots.

Only, it wasn't always a comforting noise and, letting a still squabbling Jack overtake him, he peered over his shoulder to discover a large mechanical robot come climbing over the canyon wall and stepping down behind them a short distance away.

A tall, slender alien robot with sharp fingers and bright red eyes.

"S-Starscream!" Raf shouted in warning as the jet turned in their direction.

Miko and Jack stopped their bickering and immediately turned around. Catching sight of the bemused Decepticon, Jack seized Miko and Raf by the hand.

"Run!" he cried, dragging them after him.

After a few seconds of sudden activity, Miko dug her heels into the ground and pulled her wrist from Jack's grasp, almost bringing them all down in a heap.

"Wait! He's not chasing us!" she had gasped, noticing that Starscream was still watching them but hadn't appeared to have moved. Jack tried grabbing her again.

"Be thankful! Now move!" he shouted, wanting to get as far from the deadly robot as possible. But Miko adamantly tore her wrist away again.

"Oh please! That freak can catch us up in just three steps. What's the point?" she said, not taking her eyes off Starscream.

"The point is, THAT is a dangerous Decepticon and we are easily squash-able humans who, by the way, he doesn't like very much!" he told her, exasperated.

"Then why isn't he coming after us?" Miko asked, gesturing at the Cybertronian. Jack shook his head in exasperation.

"I don't know! But I'm not going to go over there and ask him!" he continued to cry, not trusting that Starscream wasn't going to fly across and scrap the lot of them after sadistically letting them run a little first. Raf had been watching the situation very intently.

"Well, Miko does have a point," he mused. Miko shot Jack a triumphant look.

"See? Even Raf agrees!" she announced but Raf didn't seem to hear her or, if he did, he didn't react to her... compliment?

"Am I hearing you guys right?" Jack said, the very picture of disbelief, "Just because the lion at the zoo isn't attacking you, doesn't mean you want to be in the same cage as it." As far as the humans were concerned, Starscream was worse than a wild animal when it came to predictability. In fact, Jack was fairly confident that he'd much rather take a chance with a lion than with a Seeker.

"I'm just saying, he obviously knows we're here because he's looking right at us..." Raf began to answer, half talking to himself.

"And my audio recepters are still functioning as highly as ever," the Decepticon suddenly addressed them, smiling at them in all too recognisably sinister fashion.

The children froze, already anticpating metalic claws to tear the skin from their bodies.

But there was still no attack.

A minute of silence passed. Then another.

Curiosity getting the better of him, the youngest of the three friends found himself taking one tentative step closer towards the Decepticon.

"Raf!" Jack hissed, trying to grab at his sleeve to pull him back but Raf was cautiously watching Starscream who had since dropped the smile and was now coldly glaring back at the tiny human who dared to step closer.

There was still a huge distance between them but, in Starscream's mind, any fleshling that took a step closer to him had taken a step too much.

And yet, there was a degree of curiosity in him too. Why not let the inferior lifeform grovel for a moment longer?

"W-What are you doing here?" Rafael asked, concentrating on not letting his knees shake as he directly spoke to a Decepticon for the first time in his life.

Starscream narrowed his optics and a small growl could be heard coming from his throat. It was enough to make the youngsters consider bolting again. As it happened they backpedalled hurriedly and never turned their backs on the Decepticon Second-in-Command as he settled himself on the ground at the base of the canyon wall.

"You should mind your own business and leave me alone," his raspy voice spoke, "I am in no mood to speak with the likes of you." He started curling and extending his fingers slowly, running the edges against one another as though he were sharpening them. Jack took the hint and seized Raf by the arm yet again.

"Okay! We'll leave you alone! We didn't come here to start any trouble," he quickly babbled, amazed that they were still alive and daring to hope that, since he wasn't on his feet, they might have a chance of fleeing with their lives still. Starscream furrowed his brow and peered at the trio closely.

"I shall then repeat the question you asked me: What ARE you doing here?" he asked, his voice dropping down an octave.

"Nothing. We're just lost," Jack answered hurriedly, still trying to pull the other two further from the 'certain death' zone and into the 'possible death' zone. Starscream curled his robotic mouth into a sneer.

"Lost?" he echoed, "Since when do you get lost? Unless I am woefully mistaken, the three of you have Autobot guardians," he said, folding his long arms. The metal clinked against each other musically. Jack let out a sigh which he was sure that Starscream, all the way over there, wouldn't hear.

"You'd be surprised," he said and glanced at Miko accusingly, "Some of us aren't very good with doing what we're told."

Starscream studied them a moment longer with a critical eye and shrugged.

"I see," he murmured and then glanced upwards, his wings twitching slightly. "Well then, you should hurry and get yourselves un-lost as soon as possible. An Earth storm on its way and I've heard that you organics don't fare that well when you're cold and wet for too long." Jack stopped pulling at the other two and all three of them blinked at Starscream in surprise.

"A storm?" Jack repeated. Starscream shot him a withering look.

"You do know what a storm is, don't you?" he asked dryly.

Jack nodded. "Yes - but how do you know there's one coming?". There hadn't been any indication on the weather reports that a storm was soon to arrive - not since that morning anyway.

Starscream examined one sharp finger and failed to keep the characteristically smug look from his face.

"Unlike your laughable earth technology, we have more sophisticated and more reliable methods of detecting weather patterns and anomalies. Built in sensors, if you will," he replied.

"Cool," Miko said quietly, not loud enough to make it seem as though she were impressed by a Decepticon.

"Are your sensors in your wings?" Raf asked, before he could stop himself. He mentally cursed himself and vowed that he'd have to get that curiosity sorted or he could end up like Miko. His almost-excited question caused Starscream to stop and stare at him, partly amazed.

"What?" he practically coughed.

"Uh, are... are your sensors in your wings?" Raf repeated, for he couldn't exactly go back on himself now, "Because Ratchet told me that your wings are the most sensitive part of your body."

Starscream's face went stone cold and the only way he could have lacked more expression was if he were Soundwave.

"Did he indeed?" he slowly murmured, deliberately pausing between each syllable.

"He said that you're a... a Seeker or something? And Seeker wings are..." The look from Starscream caused Raf to nearly choke on his words. "...th-the most...s-sensitive."

Starscream tapped his heel, slightly annoyed.

"I suppose there is no point in denying it then, is there?" he said and then 'fluttered' his wings proudly. "I'll have you know that these wings are the most important part of my entire anatomy," he began. "Without them, I might... Wait!" He stopped and his glare returned. He gazed at the children with a thunderous look. "Are you trying to find weakness? Some wretched trick? Spying for your precious Autobot caretakers?"

"No! No, we're sorry!" Jack cried, remembering their situation and instinctually grabbed at the other two again. Starscream had a look that could be mistaken for amusement as the three human children stumbled over their own clumsy feet in an effort to put even more space between them and him.

"I know there's a storm coming," he called half-heartedly after them, "because my wings tell me of every atmospheric change in the air, down to the air temperature and humidity."

Raf looked back at him, as intrigued as he was terrified and he involuntarily slowed down.

All Jack could hear was an evil entity trying to lure them in with intrigue, wanting to keep them around so as to finish them off at his leisure.

Miko had stopped altogether, sharing Raf's feelings of terror and excitement at the chance to converse with a deadly alien robot that had a penchant for murdering his enemies in brutal fashions.

There were times that the humans genuinely wondered if their chances of survival were higher with Megatron than they were with Starscream. Starscream, after all, had more than once proven that when it came to blood-thirst, he was always parched.

Said Decepticon in question, however, was reaching up and tenderly stroking the bottom of his right wing, triumphantly casting a look in the children's direction from the corner of his eye in a coy fashion.

Jack was almost beside himself; why were Miko and Raf so determined to get skewered by a Decepticon and end up as human kebab!?

"I can pinpoint a storm's arrival by the most minute wobble in the air's density. Small electric currents and the sort wherever I am in the sky," Starscream was saying and he rolled his shoulders and his wings twitched again.

"Like cat whiskers. Or insect antennae," Raf murmured to his friends, the scientist inside him more intrigued than before, "It would be great to have something like that. No-one can ever predict the weather right." He quickly realised he was getting too relaxed and immediately went on the defensive as Starscream seemed to fidget and tense his claws again.

His grip on his wing tightened ever so slightly.

"...Yes," he murmured, "they are one of a kind. Primus was at his best when he gave me them."

Primus.

"That's their...Creator/Father thing that lives in their planet or something," Jack briefly clarified in his mind, remembering the many fleeting history stories that the Autobots had regaled them with from time to time.

A fresh wind began to blow and, with it, the first few drops of rain.

Starscream perked slightly as cool splashes tap tapped against his metal skin and ran in rivulets down his smooth chest. In the distance, a rumble of thunder rolled across the darkening skies and Starscream briefly felt a twinge of remorse. The sound of thunder always reminded him of...

He glanced down to where the youngsters had been standing. They had now taken refuge underneath the overhang of a large rock several feet away from their previous position, huddling closely together under their jackets like cowering rust mites.

Starscream sneered at their foolishness; he had told them about the storm. Pathetic creatures.

The arrival of the storm was the reason that Starscream had sought to land in the first place and await its passing. It wasn't that he couldn't fly through a storm (for he could - quite well) but, being a 'Rogue Con', energon was something he couldn't afford to waste in dodging lightning.

"So what's the deal, Screamy?" Miko suddenly called across, ignoring Jack's pained attempts to keep her quiet, "What you hear for? Sent by Megatron, right?" It wasn't until the Seeker turned blazing optics in her direction that Miko was suddenly reminded of her underground encounter with the Decepticon before and how terrifying he actually was. Her breath hitched in her throat and she regretted everything she had said and done.

"It's hardly any of your business," he replied and, much to their horror, rose slowly up onto his feet, casting a tall and sinister shadow over them. They cowered under their jackets, preparing to run if needed. "Pah! You aren't worth the energon to kill," Starscream spat, "I may not have been sent by Megatron but I do have business of my own to attend to."

"Is that business anything to do with slaughtering Autobots?" Jack asked sharply, scowling up at the enemy robot.

Starscream flicked a claw at him. "Not this time. I'm only preserving my own wings."

"Are you running from something?" Raf then asked, his brain trying to work things out. He must have been close to the mark because Starscream's smug expression fell and he curled his fingers into fists.

"Didn't I say that it wasn't your business?" The distant sound of a Ground Bridge opening alerted all four of them and Starscream looked mildly alarmed. "Ah, it's just as well that your Autobots have found you," he coughed, striding away smoothly but decidedly briskly. "After all, this precipitation will grow worse and your frail organic bodies will weaken. Farewell."

He was gone before the youngsters had a chance to move.