We are very sorry for taking so long to update this story, but we have been very busy lately and we didn't have the chance to put this chapter together before. No more preambles, we left last chapter in an ugly cliffhanger and it's time to move on.

Chapter 24

Starscream's Master Plan, Part 3

It was amazing how contempt could turn into lust.

As soon as he saw a certain golden haired femme getting out of the yellow Autobot midget, Starscream felt the very familiar hit of desire burning between his legs.

He smirked. If he had had his two idiotic wingmates close, he would have waged with them about the amount of time it would take him to add that femme to what he proudly called 'his list'.

But he needed no bets to know it wouldn't take long. A couple of solar cycles, perhaps less… He had had his doubts in the beginning, but now he knew that he was a perfect specimen of human beauty. Not a surprise, considering he was the most handsome Cybertronian ever created. He was certain he would have that Autobot pet on her back sooner than later.

But before that he had a little circus to mount.

He was the first one to notice the proximity of his former wingmates. He could distinguish at the distance the reverberation of Dirge's engine, which caused a grimace on his face. Starscream would have preferred his trinemates' assistance. Despite being a couple of glitches, Skywarp and Thundercracker were capable enough to follow his instructions without flaws, but the Coneheads were an entirely different matter, starting with the fact that they hated him.

Panic started almost immediately. Starscream smirked, relieved to see something more interesting than the stupid stunts the Autobots were performing to entertain their human admirers. It was definitely more gratifying to see the crowd of fleshlings scattering like bugs and screaming with all the power of their vocalizers.

A feeling of nostalgia invaded Starscream as he realized how much he would have loved to be the cause of such fear. He wondered if it would happen again…

He frowned. Of course it would happen again; he would make it happen again. He would return to take over the sky, to honour his name, a name that was feared, the name of the Decepticons Aerospace Commander and soon to be their Supreme Leader…

He sheltered from the wave of running humans by a nearby wall, looking for some trace of Rumble and Frenzy, who were supposed to have arrived already. All he hoped was that the blasted runts wouldn't ruin the mission for once.

Two deadly lines crossed the sky. At least Dirge and Thrust – definitely not Ramjet – had managed to shoot the missiles that would hopefully find their targets. Simple trick, but it had worked. The Autobots scattered in an attempt to stop the Seekers, leaving the task of controlling the human mass to the fleshling authorities.

His moment had arrived. He looked for the Autobots' female pet once again, but he didn't find her where she was previously standing. He spotted her almost immediately, though, trying to protect a group of sparklings from being crushed by the crowd.

Starscream thought that was a perfect example of a very stupid action. Why would somebody put their life at risk to protect others, especially if said others were a group of strangers? Starscream had never lifted a finger to help anybody else, and definitely would never expose himself to pain to protect anybody other than himself. Selfishness was the key to perfect individuality, not to mention survival.

But it was time to mount his circus, to become a parody of all the nonsense that defined the Autobots weak code of honour.

It was time to become a hero.

Carly only started to worry about herself once she made sure the three kids were safely reunited with their parents.

Of course, to say safe was being a dreamer; nobody and nothing could be safe if the Decepticons decided to bomb the Pearl District. Just imagining the massacre was horrifying; she hoped the Autobots would be able to control the attack as soon as possible.

She turned around frantically, looking for Spike. She didn't see him amongst the crowd, but she caught sight of a small girl crying on the corner of an alley. The girl couldn't be more than five years old and by the look of her eyes she was terrified. Her right knee was bleeding; she had probably fallen whilst trying to escape. Carly started to make her way toward the girl when a furious growl sounded somewhere.

Carly's blood froze inside her body. She hadn't been directly involved in too many Autobot-Decepticon confrontations, but she could have recognized that hellish sound anywhere.

Death on four paws, fangs sharp as swords, voracious appetite for destruction, eyes of a devil… Ironhide had told her about the one that had earned the title of master of stealth, although it seemed that that day Ravage had decided to make his presence very clear.

The little girl cried in terror and ran down the alley. Carly turned around slowly, only to be greeted by the deadly stare of the beast itself. She couldn't repress the gasp of absolute horror as she realized Ravage had his sights set on her; despite the urgency of the situation it didn't escape Carly's mind that once again her paranoia hadn't been misplaced. Someone had indeed been watching her, he just wasn't human.

Shaking off the initial shock, Carly began to run. She knew there was no point in trying to outrun Ravage, but if she could at least get him away from the little girl hiding in the alley, coax him into a less populated area and reduce the risk to others…

The sound of her own heart pounding in her chest became almost deafening. She could hear the roar of the Decepticon jets as they took claim of the sky, although they had not flown directly overhead since their initial passing. She wondered what it was they wanted, why they had chosen that day, that place, that time, to launch some ludicrous attack on a group of innocents. There was nothing there to gain, from what she could see…but then again, how could anyone comprehend a Decepticon's mind or reasoning?

Carly glanced over her shoulder, eyes watering as she gulped in air with ragged breaths. Ravage was dangerously close behind her; there was no doubt that he would be able to reach her with a single leap if he chose to do so. But at least he was following her, that was her only concern in that moment.

Ravage growled again, baring his fangs as his optics caught her gaze. He seemed to be enjoying the chase, whatever his purpose, and it made Carly shiver to think that unless she could reach one of the Autobots, she would be feeling those sharp fangs and claws tearing at her skin in a matter of minutes.

"Leave us alone!" she shouted angrily as she continued to run, children and adults alike scattering around them. "You decepticreeps are all cowards, attacking innocent people like this."

Ravage simply growled in response, swatting away a young male in his path with a vicious paw.

"If you wanted to get at us, why didn't you just attack the Ark, huh?" she shouted again, unsure of where her audacity was coming from. "You're pathetic, do you know that…a pathetic cowa –"

Carly couldn't finish her insult as Ravage suddenly pounced. She screamed as the robotic panther leapt cleanly over her, landing neatly in her path and rounding on her immediately. He snapped ferociously as Carly came skidding to a halt, falling heavily on her backside.

So that was it, her valiant attempt to distract one of the Decepticons fiercest fighters was nearly over. All that was left was for him to tear her apart and then he could go about killing more innocents… Shivering, Carly began to back away.

"Bumblebee! Hound!" the young woman called pleadingly, almost ashamed that she needed to call for help. "Spike…please…help me!"

Carly continued to drag herself backwards as Ravage positioned himself over her, his optics narrowed into two lines of hate. His growl seemed to reverberate throughout her entire body as she looked back for any sign of her companions, but they were nowhere to be seen. A whimper escaped her lips; she knew her life was over.

Suddenly, something small and hard impacted the panther's shoulder, immediately drawing his attention away from his prey. Carly followed the direction of Ravage's angry stare, and to her surprise found a young man riding back and forth on a black motorbike.

"That's right, kitty cat, why don't you pick on someone capable of fighting back, huh?" the man goaded, stooping to collect a soda can before hurling it at Ravage. "Come on, get on the bike," he then called, shifting his attention to Carly.

Carly scrambled to her feet as her improvised saviour threw another can before bringing his bike level with Ravage's front paw. She took the man's hand as he offered it to her, and pulled herself onto his bike, taking a firm grip of his waist as he drove recklessly back towards the alley by which she had first attracted Ravage's attention.

"No! What are you doing?" Carly shouted over the roar of the motorbike engine. "You'll lead him back towards the crowds going this way! We should turn around!"

The young man's green eyes flashed with something Carly didn't recognize as he turned and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, because you looked like you knew exactly what you were doing," he said with a sarcastic tone. "I happen to have a plan, so how about you hang on like a good girl and let me take care of this."

Despite the fear still pulsing through her body, Carly couldn't help but scoff at the young man's impudence. "Excuse me?" she snapped, looking back once again at the Decepticon following them closely. "Just who the hell do you think you are? I didn't ask you to come to my aid, and for your information, I had a plan too." It was a complete lie, of course, but for some reason Carly felt an instant dislike toward her saviour. "For starters, I wasn't going to lead Ravage right towards that small child there!"

Much to Carly's distress, the young girl she had seen earlier had left the relative safety of the alleyway and was wandering the street. Her left knee and face were now bleeding as well, obviously she had fallen again in her panic, and her tears ran freely as she screamed frantically for her mother.

"Stop!"

"No way. If you want me to trash this loser then-"

"I said, STOP!" Carly demanded, thumping the young man's side with her fist.

"Arrghh sla…shit woman!" he cried in angry surprise as the motorbike spun and skidded to a halt. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Saving this small, defenseless little girl," Carly said spitefully as she climbed awkwardly off the bike and ran to the child, immediately wrapping her in a protective embrace. "Shh, it's ok, it's ok…"

"Oh, you've got to be joking…" the man muttered to himself. "Fine, fine, do what you must! But don't blame me if things go wrong!" With that, he straightened his bike and took off again, this time heading directly towards the oncoming Ravage.

As he drove at full speed toward Ravage, Starscream wondered, not for the first time during the night, why the slag Soundwave had sent that slagging cat from hell instead of the two idiotic runts he had requested in the first place. But almost immediately he realised the stupidity of such question. Of course, the answer was obvious: it was because Soundwave hated him.

All that Starscream could do was hope that Ravage had been instructed to play along, but he knew he was being too optimistic. He could almost see the image, the fragging telepath emotionlessly punching the button on his shoulder and speaking with that annoying, monotonic voice that Starscream loathed so much.

"Ravage, eject. Operation: Starscream deactivation."

Starscream shook his head. No, it couldn't be… What benefit would Megatron obtain by killing him even before his mission started? It made no sense… his hated leader wouldn't waste the priceless opportunity to have a spy inside the Ark…

Or would he?

Frag, no… Starscream reprimanded himself again. As much as Megatron hated him, the slagger needed him, of course he needed him… otherwise he would have stepped on him the moment he entered the Nemesis transformed into a pathetic puddle of flesh and bones.

But no matter what, Starscream needed to know how willing Ravage was to play the game.

The answer wasn't very clear as Ravage stopped and waited for him, an open challenge. Starscream tested the breaks of his primitive ground vehicle and managed to skid right when the cyber panther made a first attempt to impact him with one of his front paws. Starscream stopped beside Ravage's head, finding the moment he was looking for. It was then or never, the Autobot female pet was out of audio range and such opportunity wouldn't present itself again.

"What the slag do you think you are doing, Ravage? You could've killed me!"

A growl was his response. Of course, Ravage was not the talkative type, not with him, at least.

"You are supposed to lose this one, or did Soundwave conveniently forget to tell you that? No matter what Megatron said, I'm still your superior officer and I'm ordering you—"

Ravage attacked again, this time finding his target. Starscream and his motorcycle abandoned the floor and crashed against the wall.

"Aaaaah, damn you!" the young man cried in pain as gravity returned him to the hard ground, his leg hitting against the fallen motorcycle.

If Ravage was playing along he was definitely a very bad actor. Knowing Soundwave, it was likely that he hadn't instructed his accursed pet to go for the kill, but instead had ordered him to do as much damage as possible without involving deactivation. Being an expert human hunter as he was, Ravage would have no problems in making Starscream bleed.

The ex Seeker cringed when he felt the proximity of Ravage's paws again, but just when he was expecting more pain, a small object hit the robotic panther's head and a thick cloud of grey smoke invaded everything.

Coughing, Starscream managed to see the blurry figure on the other side of the cloud. It seemed like the human femme had somehow managed to access some kind of smoke weapon, apparently made for distraction purposes.

"Come on!" the Autobot female pet cried to him. "Run!"

With tears coming from his eyes because of the smoke, Starscream managed to get up and initiated his own operation – namely, getting the frag away from Ravage – but he tripped on his bike and fell heavily on his stomach.

"Oh great! What a saviour you turned out to be!" he heard the female telling him as she continued to call Ravage's attention by throwing all sort of objects at him.

He heard the ground rumbling as Ravage headed toward his original victim. Starscream closed his eyes, trying to protect them from the irritating smoke but mainly he did so out of frustration. It was so humiliating; he was supposed to save that human flesh bag to gain the Autobots' favour, but the situation was turning out to be the complete opposite of that.

Punching the ground in frustration, Starscream decided to avert the course of the situation… again. There was much more than a mere farce at stake; if he failed in that stunt, he would not infiltrate the Autobots and thus would never recover his true body.

He wouldn't let that happen.

Ignoring the smoke and embracing the rage, he climbed onto his motorcycle again and aimed at the dark silhouette that had already reached the main street.

It was definitely a now or never situation.

The following seconds were not very clear. Not even when the smoke of his own thoughts dissipated was Starscream able to remember exactly everything that had happened in such an insignificant amount of time.

He didn't picture Ravage as an ally, or anything remotely close to such concept. He saw an enemy in him, a rival that had to be destroyed. That was a real battle, and real pain had to be the result. Pain, of course, not destined for him.

Before he could realize what was happening, he felt the world collapsing around him. He saw his bike breaking in pieces beneath his body, right after crashing into Ravage's face with the speed of a torpedo.

Then pain made itself present, making him feel alive and returning time to its normal pace.

He fell, hitting his arm on a piece of his shattered bike and tearing the delicate skin covering his bones. The sight of his own blood reminded him about his own fragility, but the kick of what he would later address as adrenaline was far from being over.

Then he saw her again, emerging from within the debris. She kneeled hurriedly beside him and grabbed his arm, the one that was not bleeding.

"Are you insane? What the heck are you trying to prove? You could've died!"

What was she still doing there? Why hadn't she run?

Behind her, a furious Ravage recovered from the disaster he had made of a nearby building and was looking for revenge. One of his optics was cracked, and Starscream knew for sure that Ravage wouldn't forgive him for that.

Starscream felt, more than saw, the sharp claws that pounced at he and the femme, the intentions to kill more than clear.

Oh slag…

The time had come for him to momentary put aside his philosophy of selfishness; if he wanted his body back, he had no choice. Knowing he would repent it, Starscream grabbed the girl's arms and dragged her towards him, turning around and protecting her with his body. He saw the terror in her eyes as he felt a sharp and very intense pain in the right side of his torso.

Starscream had always wondered what Ravage's victims felt when he tore them apart.

Now he knew.

Carly couldn't repress the shriek of terror that escaped her lips as the full weight of both Ravage and her protector pinned her to the ground, the man's arms wrapped around her. She inhaled deeply, trying to build enough courage to move, and couldn't help but notice the sweet scent of sweat-mixed cologne emanating from his body.

But that wasn't all that she noticed.

For starters, her male companion wasn't moving; she could feel the unmistakable warmth of spilt blood spreading between them. And second, Ravage was no longer attacking…in fact, he was backing away.

Carly strained to look behind her, and to her relief found the unmistakable forms of Bumblebee and Bluestreak advancing, their weapons firing relentlessly.

She returned her attention to the man still lying on top of her; to her relief she found him beginning to stir. Green eyes slowly opened and met her gaze as she gently pushed him off her, his blood more than obvious as she moved him.

"What…? Where is that mechanical bastahhhhh…" he said as he looked frantically about for Ravage before doubling over in pain, clutching at his side.

"Hey, just take it easy now, you're hurt," Carly said as she sat beside him, gently taking hold of his unhurt arm. "And don't worry, Ravage is gone. My friends came just at the right time, see."

He sat up straighter and turned to see the two Autobots approaching them; Ravage had disappeared. He returned his attention to Carly. Despite the pain and slight hint of humiliation, he couldn't help but revel in the young woman's stunning looks.

"Guys, it's about time you showed up!" Carly said, addressing her robotic friends. "Where's Spike? And Chip? Have you seen them?"

"They're ok, Carly, Hound's got them. Are you–"

"And there's a little girl," Carly said, cutting Bumblebee off. "I got her to hide in the alley; someone needs to find her parents. Could one of you take care of her please?"

"Don't worry, I'll look after her," Bluestreak said, immediately heading for the alley the woman had pointed to.

"But what about you?" Bumblebee asked with concern. "And your friend? Do you need me to call Ratchet? Or a human medic?"

"Yes, please fetch someone, he's bleeding badly," she said as she removed her jacket and attempted to press it to Starscream's side.

"No!" he responded even as Carly still spoke, leaning away from her attentions almost defensively.

"Yes, Bumblebee. Please get some help."

"No, really, I'm fine. It's not necessary."

"So, do I get someone, or not?"

"Get someone."

"Don't. Really, I don't need help."

Carly rounded on the young man as Bumblebee hurried off to find a medic. Despite his heroic actions the man's stubborn attitude was reawakening her original feeling of dislike towards him. His wandering eyes and the almost flirtatious smirk on his face wasn't doing anything to abate that feeling either.

"Really? So all this blood is just my imagination running wild, huh?"

"Like I said, I'm fine." His attention dropped momentarily to her chest. "More than fine, actually."

Carly threw down her jacket and placed her hands on her hips. "Right, I get it. Tough guy. Thinks he's God's greatest gift to the planet. Yeah, I know what guys like you are like. Well fine then. You don't want my help, don't take it. Pfft, and there I was thinking I should do something to say thank you."

The man looked as though he was going to say something harsh, but stopped himself. After a long pause his expression softened. "Ahh, look, I'm sorry. It's just that…well, I…ahhh…I don't like doctors. I'll be fine, really, although…" he lifted his torn shirt and winced at the site of the large gash in his side. "I could use your help fixing this. Maybe…maybe you and one of your Autobot friends could drive me home? If you don't mind, that is."

Carly regarded him for a moment, unsure of what to make of his sudden change in attitude. There seemed to be sincerity in his eyes, and certainly his gaping wound spoke of his need for help. She glanced over her shoulder to find Bumblebee making his way back to them, a medic closely in tow. Turning back to her companion, it was obvious he was contemplating running away. If he could manage such thing, of course.

Sighing in resignation, Carly picked up her blood-soaked jacket. "You promise that if Bee and I take you home, you'll let us help you? You won't just send us away and let yourself bleed to death?"

"Yes, yes," he said, grimacing and holding his side again.

"Well…I still think you should see a doctor, but if you won't accept any other help then I guess I have no choice. Come on, Bumblebee will drive us."

With that she placed his arm around her neck and wrapped her arm around his waist, carefully helping him to stand. "By the way, I'm Carly," she said.

"Sean," he replied with a wince. "Sean Latta."

To be continued.

Finally, we arrived to the part that many of you wanted to see since the beginning of this story. Stay tuned to know if Starscream will manage to gain the Autobots' trust. We promise a much faster update this time. Thanks a lot for your support and opinions. We always love to hear from you.