The bounty hunter Alexis was secretive and didn't seem interested in any form of contact outside her female companions. Starscream tried to get her attention, tried to wear her down with his attention and comments, but the female was unaffected by his presence beyond the obvious irritation.

He could have stayed and persuaded her to do what he decided he wanted, but while that Alexis was intriguing, there was something about her that was peculiar, something he decided he truly had no interest for.

Lust only covered so many flaws.

So here he was in yet another universe, this one the strangest of them all. For when he became conscious the Seeker found that not only was he not himself, but he was a humanoid, or the representation of an organic, the holo-form programmed to reproduce a Vildan.

That and figuring out he was on Renth had internal alarms sound, a warning of danger of sorts that make his skin itch and his remote processor twitch.

There was also the knowledge that he had no knowledge. Not of why he was there, why he was a Vildan, or anything that came before. This Starscream had effectively closed himself off as soon as he found himself 'invaded'. Digging himself so far below the subconscious level that the Supreme Air Commander was left with no idea of what the frag was going on.

The Seeker felt exposed in a way that he supposed was the result of being the lone consciousness. He hadn't been an individual in such a while that being just himself was an oddity that puzzled more than relieved.

Whoever this Starscream was, he was formidable, was strong, was someone unlike any of the others he had encountered before, a residual determination flooding through his naturally hot bloodstream, making his hearts beat with impatience.

Staring at his scarlet flesh, he then took in his surroundings.

He wasn't alone. Other Vildan males were chattering around him. They were in what appeared to be some sort of waiting room. He was sitting at a bar, a glass of untouched warm water resting close to his right palm.

A lit data pad was on the counter. Glancing at it closer, he recognized that it was some sort of contract, filled with terms and conditions, and a picture.

Starscream still didn't believe in fate, but these coincidences and chance meetings were starting to seem calculated, almost prearranged.

It wasn't the photo that set him off, not even the internal ping that alerted him to her presence, but a staggering awareness that ripped through his organic body and made his distant Cybertronian body convulse.

Alexis was here.

Starscream felt jittery and irregular. And it wasn't until he found he couldn't stay still, his body energy personified, that he realized he was, rather sickenly, nervous.

He'd come so far, searched so long.

And here the female was, probably a room or two away, closer, if the familiar energy emissions were anything to go by. He was embarrassingly excited, working on aroused, and it was only the reminder that he was in an unfamiliar environment with no insight that had him sitting back down at the bar.

He'd found her before Thundercracker. That, he believed, meant something.

Starscream had a lot of time to think during these peculiar travels. And now that he was confronted with the real female, his ponderings became whispers of something he knew, yet something unexplored, a form of greed that had him considering Thundercracker, and dismissing him so easily. He never considered others before himself. He wasn't about to start now.

Not when what he wanted was so close.

Starscream felt as if he'd been granted power beyond measure, a capability beyond compare.

And he'd yet to see her.

Someone came for him an hour later. He followed the Vildan elder through a long elaborate hallway, stopping at the second to last room. The elder bowed and indicated the door before him, then shut it behind Starscream after he entered.

He smelled her immediately.

Her scent was sharp and striking, causing an image to burn behind his eyelids, his hearts to pump harshly, the smell as provocative as it was thrilling.

The Seeker stumbled when a wave of her energy bombarded his sensors, throwing his Vildan body into a chaos that had him nearly returning to his Cybertronian body from the overloaded sensations.

He took several deep breaths. The Vildans were capable of higher perception than humans. And while the humans had great potential, they had yet to unlock their upgrades.

The room was sparse, was dim. There was a small padded bench waiting for him, a semiopaque cloth barrier separating him from the female.

He sat down. She was too close. He was too near. He needed to back away, needed time to process what he'd forgotten.

Did she know it was him?

Did she even know who she was?

Was his Alexis aware at all inside this other one?

Where the frag was Sunstreaker?

The questions waned as Starscream fell in her thrall, breathlessly waiting for her to speak. If she didn't speak, he would be forced to act. Starscream could only stay still for so long. His barely tampered lust may have been surprising, his lack of patience was not.

"Have you looked over the contract?"

He knew where he was, and what the building served as. A compatibility center that could facilitate coupling. Where the Vildans could go if looking for a companion.

Starscream fought the grin that threatened to form on his mouth at the sound of her voice. He shifted straighter on the bench, involuntarily leaning forward as if to devour her succulent words whole. "I have."

"And you understand what this would mean, if you agree?"

"I do."

This Alexis wanted to get pregnant. And as Vildans didn't believe in artificial insemination, she only had one choice. A consortium. For no matter what the reason, if Vildans became intimate, they also became bound for life.

"I have looked over your," she paused for a moment, her voice filling with what could have been embarrassment. That didn't stop her from speaking, "application. There seems to be a mistake. I was looking for someone who already has at least one comate, who has already…"

"Entered their thezde cycle?"

"Yes."

Starscream saw a faint movement behind the cloth divider as the lights brightened. The female was trying to get a better look at him, he realized.

"I want a contract marriage only," she continued to speak, her tone becoming serious, the embarrassment slipping into practicality. "Another female would be required to help relieve your cycle after I am gone."

"I have had a thezde cycle before," Starscream interrupted her. It didn't feel like a lie. Whatever this Starscream had done, the idea that he had experimented with such a thing was prominent in his mind, a recent, rather curious physical impression that could not be hidden. "…without a female."

"Still… I…"

He cut her off again, somehow gaining great satisfaction when he did so. "Your desire is to become with child. What I do or do not endure after you have achieved this is my concern alone."

Starscream had read through the contract, examined the conditions. She wanted a child. She didn't want a mate. A Vildan child, which meant that her stipulations and requirements were not only abnormal but unprecedented.

For if she conceived, the youngling would be hers and hers alone, to be raised and nurtured by her, whether a female or male. She would take on his family name, but she would not remain with him. Nor would they see each other again. But while he could take another female, she, he somehow knew, would remain committed and alone. Because even a contract marriage was a promise of fidelity to her. What she wanted she wanted badly enough to forsake a possible future with another.

"Why would you want to?"

She caught him there. He planted his hands on his lap. Stared at the fabric barrier. The female didn't know him, didn't know who she was either. Nothing felt right. Intuition and intelligence had him momentarily doubting what he was hearing, smelling and hearing, as he considered the questions that assaulted his warring processor.

He should take her back, let Skywarp examine and help and separate Alexis. That's what he could have done if not for the revelation that what he wanted, he could get right here. Without scheming, without difficulties, without effort or interference. His greed outweighed all common sense. Blaming Sunstreaker for what he did to Alexis made any moral obligation he felt he owed, null.

Surely no Vildan would agree to her abnormal terms, no matter how compatible or beguiling her scent. Family was important to this species, and while they may have segregation aspects to the upbringing of their children, they were also firm on their beliefs of staying together.

"Isn't it enough that I agree to your terms?"

"I already chose someone," she revealed. "But he suddenly… backed out. So, no, agreeing isn't enough. I need to know why."

His answer was swift and uncomplicated, "Because I desire to have a thezde cycle with a female, yet I find I do not require long-term companionship."

"And if there is a child?"

"Then I will help you raise it. Within the conditions that we will not personally come into contact."

"Your family may…"

"My family is not the one making the decision here. I am. They will not contact you, nor know of you. This I promise."

"You don't even know if…" she paused, the fabric barrier rustled softly, then was pulled back completely.

This Alexis was wearing Vildan attire, a light airy outfit that was practical yet highly complimentary. The pants seemed to have been cut along the legs, then loosely stitched back together with thick cording, allowing maneuverability and comfort and skin to show. The top was cut down the middle then sewed tightly back together with thinner cord and tighter fabric that drew attention to the rounded flesh that was secured beneath it.

Her hair was pulled up into a long ponytail. She was sweating slightly which made her skin shine, and her green eyes darken, a compressed staff weapon secured to the right of her hip.

They stared at one another. Or more precisely, Starscream watched as she looked him over. Her cheeks rushed with blood, her gaze wandering down him, then back up, then back down, before jerking back up and to the side of his face, no, to his ears, as she made sure not to look him in the eyes.

The female came toward him, and put her wrist below his chin. The invitation was obvious. She wanted him to scent her. The suggestion was bold and highly indecent when directed at a Vildan, but the whole exchange between them had already been atypical. He didn't move. Tried to make a show of being offended because of the species he was supposed to represent, when truly he couldn't have been more spellbound.

Her scent, her voice, her energy that rushed through him and left him famished. Starscream had the obscene vision of falling to his knees before her, begging for the chance to have her, to seed her, to fill her womb, no matter what strange physical maneuvers he'd have to perform.

But her actions also proved how desperate she was, not for him, but for the child he could supposedly give her. The female needed him, even though she didn't know who he was. He wondered what ordeal had brought her to this point of desperation, what life this Alexis had lived that his own Alexis was stuck inside.

Again, he wondered where the slag Sunstreaker was. A trickle of something that could have been a revelation tried to make itself known, but his attention was riveted elsewhere, his body ahum.

She stepped closer; his senses painfully heightened. He drew her wrist to his nose. She was exquisite agony, unrivaled temptation. His tongue involuntarily licked a path along her wrist to the tips of her fingers. She tasted as she smelled: organic, a hint of sweat and blood and something untamed that rushed below with the pulse of her body, thickening as he tasted her. The female withdrew her hand.

"You do indeed stir me. I wouldn't have entered this room otherwise. Do you require me? Or shall I consider these negotiations terminated?"

At that remark all the color washed away from her face. She took a step away from him, her eyes seemed to be everywhere and yet looking nowhere, as she thought about what, he couldn't figure.

Then she stirred herself out of some form of stupor, leaned downed and picked up the data pad that held his already signed contract. She backed away from him, returned to the curtain of cloth, pulled it back in place, and sat back down and if she'd never moved.

"When is your next thezde cycle due?" she quietly asked of him, back to being calm and dispassionate.

"If you make contact with my body, it could be a matter of weeks."

He was attracted to her. This body wanted her. He knew enough about Vildans to understand some of their mating practices. He'd done some research when he'd found out all those many years ago that the female had taken one as a mate. Starscream had wanted to use the information as another instrument in antagonizing the then ever so distraught Thundercracker, only for TC to…

His thoughts halted when he realized how silent it had become. He sat there and watched the faint silhouette of the female through the curtain that barely moved.

She came back to the side of his room several agonizing minutes later.

"I'd like to see you first before I make my decision."

He cut back the instinct to smile. Instead he narrowed his eyes at her. Her gaze still didn't meet his, making him feel far too restless. "You have already inspected me."

"Yes. With your clothes on." She jerked her head to the side of her shoulder, her attention going to the wall. She wasn't embarrassed, but seemed very determined. The inference of her words was clear.

He felt unnaturally hot and his blood flowed where he couldn't afford it to, not if he was to disrobe. Not if he was to maintain the illusion of a stoic, unaffected Vildan. How Alexis could have wanted a species that only mated twice a year was something he never, ever understood. Perhaps the female herself didn't have an appetite for physical pleasures. Or just hadn't had the right partner.

"This is… unusual," he carefully uttered. As if everything that had happened between them so far hadn't been so already.

"Do you refuse?"

There was something agonizing in her voice that enticed him. Starscream roughly swallowed, those two hearts of his gladly hugging his ribcage.

The female wanted him to refuse. She didn't want to look at him. She wanted to frighten him away, despite how urgent she was to make use of him.

"I do not."

He stood to his feet and began to unwork all the many buttons on his jerkin, then the ones on his shirt until he could remove it. She watched him silently. Starscream expected her to stop him when he reached for his pants, and then his undergarments, but she didn't, nor did her attention falter from his body.

He bared himself to her, proudly standing before her, waiting with anticipation for whatever she commanded next.