By Any Means Necessary

Chapter 1

This started out as a really odd dream, turned into an equally weird plot bunny that I tried to ignore, because it was just too weird and crazy, I didn't think anyone would like it, but the plot bunny kept biting and I finally wrote it.

Starscream watched helplessly as another sparkling became weaker, its spark slowly fading. He let out a frustrated growl as its spark finally went out completely.

"With the loss of the Allspark and the Fallen's knowledge of how to restore it our entire race will become extinct and all Megatron cares about is destroying Optimus Prime," he said angrily turning away from the lifeless sparkling.

"Would it really do any good if Megatron was here? What difference could it possibly make?" Thundercracker asked.

"Megatron has almost half our forces on earth fighting the Autobots, the other half is dead or out of communication range. As long as the Autobots aren't initiating any attacks against us we should be putting all of our resources into finding new sources of energon to keep the sparklings alive," Starscream replied, walking over to look at the last remaining sparkling.

"You don't even know if having more energon will keep the sparklings alive, no one has ever tried growing them like this, at least not through the entire basic development stage. Maybe the only way to keep sparklings alive is with the Allspark or to have a femme carry them, this whole experiment could have just been a waste of time," Thundercracker pointed out.

"Then maybe we'll just have to find a femme to carry the last sparkling," Starscream replied.

"Sure and where are you going to come up with a femme willing to do that? There aren't any Decepticon femmes left and I don't think any of the Autobot femmes would be all that thrilled to help bring another Decepticon into being, especially a clone of you, one of our most skilled fighters," Thundercracker pointed out.

"Who said anything about a willing femme? We'll kidnap one of the Autobot femmes and keep her here until the sparkling is born," Starscream replied.

"You do realize the Autobots won't take that too well, they would hunt us down and kill us for kidnapping one of them," Thundercracker said.

"Well then it's a good thing they don't have a clue where our base is, we'll just have to disable the femmes communication abilities before we bring her back here. If Optimus Prime is stupid enough to send the few remaining femmes into battle when they're the only way he knows of that we can create new sparklings and no one has questioned that decision then they're all fools or have given up any hope of being able to produce enough sparklings to continue our race. I refuse to give up so easily," Starscream told him.

"What's the point of even trying to get this to work, if we're going to have to use Cybertronian femmes anyways and we already know there aren't enough of them left to sustain our numbers naturally, what good does kidnapping one do?" Thundercracker asked.

"It will keep this sparkling alive while I try to find a way to keep them alive without the use of femmes. I refuse to allow this sparkling to die as long as there is anything I can do to try to keep it alive," Starscream replied.

"Alright, I'll help you, but do you really think the sparkling will survive long enough? It's such a sickly looking little thing," Thundercracker asked walking over to look at it, "You sure this is your clone and not Scalpel's? It's so small, even for a sparkling."

"The energon line was twisted so it didn't get as much as the other sparklings, unfortunately I didn't find out until I noticed how much smaller it was than the others. Its internal systems developed at the same rate as the other sparklings, but it didn't have enough energon to grow in size as well. In the end it may actually have worked to its advantage as it seems to be able to survive with less energon than the larger sparklings needed which is why it's still alive. Now that our energon sources are completely depleted even it won't survive long which is why we need to move quickly if we're going to keep it alive," Starscream said.