AN:

All right people! Here it is, the latest and greatest plot lemming come into fruition! As stated in the description, this is an AU story based out of the 2007 movie-verse created by Michael Bay and tweaked extensively with my own creative license as the muses dictate.
This story is going to be mostly focused on Starscream and my OC and takes place right after the battle of Mission City at the end of the first movie. Also, I have taken some liberties regarding characterization and design for some of the characters in this story by mixing some attributes from several other TF universes. So mainly, imagine Starscream less like a Dorito chicken and more like a cross between his traditional G1 appearance and Armada personality.
If anyone seems OOC then it's my sisters fault! Also, this story is likely to be quite dark.

Have fun and don't forget to review!

Warnings: This story will contain elements of mental/psychological/physical abuse, child neglect, mild use of human/Cybertronian language, and human/Cybertronian gore. Rating may increase in the future. This will be the only warning!

Disclaimer: I do not and never have or will own The Transformers or any of the transformers characters and franchise. I only own my OC's and the plot.

Beta read by my wonderful sister, subterraneangem, who never fails to complain about my use of apostrophes.

Always

"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."
~John Kenneth Galbraith

Chapter one

/Four days after the battle of Mission City…/

The ruins left after the battle of Mission City were abandoned.

Human crews of soldiers and the combined efforts of rescue teams from all over the country had worked tirelessly to evacuate the ruined city. After the evacuation effort was finished and the media had covered the disaster of the week, the city was left empty. For a few days, soldiers and forensics officers worked to collect any remaining evidence of the Transformers, as their race had been collectively dubbed, before they also left.

All that was left was a ruined husk, barren and broken streets of caved in buildings and rubble.

The government had made up some slag-strewn cover story saying that there had been a radiation leak in the center of the city as a result of the 'haywire prototypes' that had gotten out of a robotics lab. The city was thus declared unfit for human habitation.

The humans had collectively decided to cut their losses and go elsewhere. The city was no longer worth rebuilding and they had no desire to return to the place where so many lives were lost. The city itself was to be fenced off and treated as a no-entry zone.

Mission City was simply to be forgotten.

Now Starscream was not normally one to question the pathetic natives of this planet, but it amused him greatly that the humans feared their government so much that they believed its lies so readily.

Radiation spill indeed, the battle damaged seeker thought spitefully.

He supposed he should be thankful that there wasn't any human filth hanging around. He was effectively trapped in the ruins of the city until such point in time that his self-repair systems kicked in and he could get off the planet. His com-link was down, he couldn't transform, and he was severely low on energon.

In short, he was grounded.

In long, his fellow Decepticons had left him to rust in a slow and painful manner on this pit spawned dirtball of a planet.

The Decepticons had no loyalties to the seeker.

It wasn't even that he had been abandoned that really bothered Starscream, it was that he had been abandoned because he let himself get caught foolishly attempting to shoot down Megatron.

The seeker cursed and fumed, lashing out at one of the few buildings that still stood, remembering how he had let his arrogance cloud his judgement in the heat of battle.

He should have known it wouldn't be so easy.

His plan had been so simple. All he had to do was fall into formation with the human piloted jets and bombard Megatron with his missiles. The humans alone could not hope to damage the massively armored mech with their toys, but they did provide good cover for Starscream to end his mighty leader.

That is, if they hadn't found out that he wasn't one of their own.

Starscream had just aligned his sights on his soon to be former leader's ugly faceplates when the human jets had turned on him and starting firing at his thrusters without warning.

He had panicked and fired, missing Megatron by inches.

When the enraged mech's optics made contact with the seeker's alt-mode, Starscream had turned tail and ran like a coward. The human jets were easily disposed of in his hasty retreat and he managed to fly out to the outer edge of the city before his thrusters gave out. He went into stasis lock shortly after crashing into a building.

His entire plan had ended him up in this nightmare of an existence.

He was a fool to think he could destroy Megatron on his own.

He needed more time to plan and recover, plant seeds and find those who would follow his lead rather than the insanity that their leader had lost himself to. However, it would be a long time before then, if ever. Because he was too proud, too arrogant, and thought that he could take down Megatron by himself.

He should have died.

But his continued existence was nothing new to Starscream. For reasons unknown even to him, Starscream would always, inexplicably, survive.

Unfortunately, his continued survival also meant waking up half dead and in indescribable amounts of pain was also nothing new to him.

Starscream had barely been able to transform back to his root mode upon his return to consciousness -more than likely damaging himself further in the process. It had between excruciating to say the least, but it was better than staying trapped underneath the collapsed building. Not only had the dust and debris clogged his vents but also his seeker claustrophobia had gotten the best of him. Hence the slightly panicked eruption of seeker from the rubble.

He could only be thankful that there had been no one else around to see his disheveled state.

By the time he had collected himself enough to catalog his damages and get his bearings, the battle had long since finished.

Starscream could only assume that the Autobots had won, seeing that he was still functioning. Had Megatron come out undefeated he most assuredly would have been hunted down and off-lined. Worse, held in front of the tracks and humiliated as a traitor -a traitor that failed no less.

The seeker had managed to hunker down and wait it out while the humans scoured the ruined city. In the meanwhile, Starscream had attempted to repair what he could with his nonexistent supplies. Finding any parts among the rubble was not a promising prospect.

Starscream cursed.

The humans turned out to be annoyingly efficient creatures when motivated properly.

So with little hope and even littler success, Starscream had been picking through the destroyed city in search of anything that he could use to repair himself.

For three days he had been scrounging like a starving glitchmouse. The seeker was beyond frustration at how low he had fallen. Starscream, he who had been second in command of the entire Decepticon army and successfully led thousands of troops into battle, now was nothing more than a pitiful excuse for a seeker.

His spark churned unhappily at the amount of rage and self-depreciation he was feeling -although it might just have been because he was so low on energon.

Of all his non-essential systems that were currently offline, be it from his damages or to conserve energon. His self-diagnostics remained steadfast in their attempts to alert him of all that was wrong with his frame. It was one of the few things that Starscream could not turn off and the constant reminders popping up on his HUD were not helpful in improving his mood.

The seeker paused in his half-sparked searching to rest on the remains of a two-story building.

Starscream frowned as he checked his levels for the umpteenth time in the last four joors -his energon reserves were not lasting as long as he had hoped. He had, fortunately or unfortunately, had two cubes of energon stored in his subspace. However, he was currently unable to access them, his subspace systems having been heavily damaged as well.

Frag.

With a low snarl the seeker stood once more, his back struts creaking from the abuse Starscream put on his frame.

He couldn't afford to sit and wait for his self-repair systems to heal him. He refused. Even if he was injured to the point of death he would keep moving. He had too.

If he didn't he'd go crazy before his self-repairs got anywhere close to finished.

That is, if he didn't deactivate first from energon deprivation.

The irony of his life never ceased to amaze him. Mostly it was just frustrating though.

Right now he just needed to prioritize. First thing on the list was to repair his subspace. Not just because he needed energon -which he desperately did need- but because he also needed to be able to access his weapons systems.

If an Autobot were to stumble upon him now, he would be completely defenseless. Defenseless, not helpless.

Starscream was certainly not helpless. Even damaged as he was and without his weapons systems, he still had his wits about him and decavorns of experience. This was certainly not the first time he'd been in this kind of situation and would not be the last -if he survived.

The Decepticon army was not kind to its members.

Even if he got himself repaired enough to get off of this insipid mud speck he still wouldn't be in the clear.

Megatron or no Megatron, he would be targeted instantly as a traitor. No, if he wanted to return to the Decepticons, it would have to be as their leader.

But he was getting ahead of himself again.

If Starscream ever wanted to get his revenge on Megatron, he would have to repair his subspace access first.

Priorities, he reminded himself vehemently.

Priorities.

Not so far away a small form shifted underneath a thick layer of rubble and debris, coughing dryly at all the dust in her throat. She couldn't breathe!

Why couldn't she breathe?

Small swollen hands came up to rub the painful crusts away from her eyes and large brown orbs blinked open and panic flowed freely through the young girl as her lungs began to burn. Everything was dark and she couldn't see past her own grime covered hands. There was dust everywhere, in her nose, in her eyes, in her mouth.

She couldn't breathe!

The young girl coughed again, this time not able to catch her breath as easily afterwards.

She needed to get out of here, but she didn't know where she was to start with.

Where was her mama? Why wasn't her mama helping her up?

Her mama had taken her shopping, the girl remembered. She had been so excited to go shopping with her mama. Normally she was always told no, but this time her mama had said yes because she was a big girl now.

Tears welled up in those dark brown eyes, leaving salty trails of mud on her face.

Everything had happened so fast! There had been explosions everywhere and soldiers telling her mama where to go. They had been running, but there was so many people... She remembered her hand slipping out of her mama's grip and getting lost in the crowds of screaming people. There were people bumping in to her on all sides and she had fallen down and skinned her knees.

The people just kept running over the top of her, stepping on her fingers and tripping on her legs.

Crying, the young girl had crawled underneath of something to hide and wait for her mama to find her. The people kept running and pushing past, all desperate to get away from something she couldn't see.

All she heard was one explosion after another, each one seeming to be louder until she could feel the ground shaking underneath her palms. Then there was one last explosion and she felt something hit her head before everything went black.

And now she was alone in the dust and dirt, she couldn't see and she couldn't breathe.

So she did what any young girl would do in such a situation.

She started crying. Loudly.

She cried until she couldn't anymore, and then continued screaming despite the pressure in her lungs and the spots in her vision. There was no room for the scrawny girl to stand in the small hollow formed by the rubble around her, but even if there had been, she knew she wouldn't have been able to stand. Even now she could feel the darkness creeping into her vision -a swirling spotted mass that made her dizzy. The small girl screamed until she went hoarse and her ears throbbed from the shrillness of her own voice.

The girl started gasping, her cries continuing with renewed force as she scrabbled at the rubble walls with dirty and bruised hands.

She couldn't breathe!