#starformers

Isa Sumdac was lots of things- a talented engineer, a loyal Imperial, and-much as she hated to admit it- somewhat oblivious parent. But she wasn't stupid.

And when your daughter knows things she shouldn't be able to know, has hunches that almost always turn out to be correct, and- most damning of all- occasionally moves things without so much as twitching a finger-

Well.

She knew what that meant.

---

“But why do I have to hide it?” asked Sari, face streaked with tears. “Did I…did I do something wrong? Am I ba-“

“No!” Isa can’t interject fast enough, and clutches her trembling daughter close. “You did nothing wrong. You’re just…”

A potential Jedi (traitor)? A force sensitive (threat)?  

“You are my daughter, and you are special. Not bad- never bad," she said, a barely audible tremble in her voice. As her young daughter falls into an uneasy sleep in her arms, Isa didn't think about the deaths of thousands of Jedi, didn't think about the ‘mercy’ given to children whose midichlorian counts exceeded normal levels, didn't think about the hollow eyed children that stalked the shadows of Imperial events-

Force help her daughter.

Force help her.

---

Most civilians went their entire lives never seeing a Grand Admiral outside of official events. Isa Sumdac wasn't most people.

“It’s been too long, Isa- one might think you were trying to avoid me,” said Grand Admiral Megatronus. Isa’s knuckles were white where she gripped her mug of caf, but the smile she flashed at her companion was nothing but polite.

“Avoid you, my friend?” she laughed, knuckles growing even whiter. “You’re mistaken- I've simply been…busy, lately.”

“I suppose homeschooling a child and working as diligently as you do would be difficult.”

The mug slipped between Isa’s fingers, falling to the ground with the tinkling of shattered ceramics. “S-so you've heard about that, then?” Isa tried to keep her voice steady, but the attempt seemed pathetic even to her.

Megatronus (call me megatron, he’d said, long long ago when the world had made sense) smirked, eyes glinting with something Isa couldn't decipher, but didn't trust. “Is it that unusual for a father to check on the well-being of his daughter?”

If it had been anyone else, it wouldn't have been. But Megatronus (megatron) wasn't anyone else.

“N-no. I suppose not.”

“Of course,” he continued, and Isa knew that whatever he said next wasn't something she would like. “It wouldn't be too difficult for me to arrange for her schooling- somewhere where you could be assured that she’s receiving the best education possible. Unless, of course, that’s not the reason you decided to oversee her education.”

 “O-other reason? Of course not.”

---

“You need to go.”

She couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them- but they were close. She knew it. Her daughter knew it too.

“M-mom-“ tears were streaming down her daughter’s face (eight years old, she was only eight years old) and a few strands of red hair had fallen out of Sari’s normally neat buns. With care, Isa brushed them out of her daughter’s face, trying to convey just how much she loved her into that one action.

“R2B2 is waiting for you at the space port. A ship is ready to go- Bee knows how to fly it. Go somewhere out of the way- somewhere where they can never find you. And…and I will always love you, my daughter.”

This time, the tears were hers.

 Soooooo yeah. Originally I wasn't going to genderbend Isaac, but I didn't want Sari to be a clone, and I really wanted her to be both Isaac and Megatrons daughter so compromises had to be made. I almost gender-bended Megatron, but the Empire is reaaaally sexist. And I wanted this AU to sort of run concurrently with Star Wars canon (like, they aren't the main characters of it so much as they exist in the universe while the normal OT trio does their thing) because I am odd like that. 

Bumblebee is R2B2 because reasons. Kid-appeal character reasons.

Ratchet (not his actual name, but he never tells anyone his actual name) is a really old, slightly overweight Twi'lek medic whose a veteran of the Clone Wars (he's still male, btw). 

Bulkhead is a wookie engineer (haven't thought up a real name for him but Bulkhead is his nickname), and lives with Ratchet and Optimus on a transport ship. Or something. 

Orion 'Optimus' Pax is a human (I don't think he'd look like his human error self, because of reasons) and runs a transport ship or something with Ratchet and Bulkhead. He's Sari's half-brother, because Megatron is a player (No. I AM your father- Nooooooooooo!) though both he and Megatron are oblivious to this. He feels like he should/could be doing something more, and eventually joins the rebel alliance. 

Prowl is a survivor of the Jedi purges, and was a 17 year old Padawan to Master Yoketron when all of that went down. After that he nomaded around the galaxy, doing his best to survive, until he stumbled onto terrified eight year old Sari Sumdac and accidentally started to train her. He's still not sure how he got talked into this. He really, really dislikes her astromech R2B2. 

 Megatron(us) is a Grand Admiral of the Empire, and is just under Darth Vader on the list of 'people everyone thinks will eventually betray Palpatine and take over the Empire'. He had/is still having maybe?/no one knows let alone them/ a thing with Isa Sumdac. 

Lockdown is a deserter Clone bounty-hunter who is extending his life-span through extensive use of cybernetic parts. He and his 'brother' Boba Fett are either BBHFF 's (best bounty hunter friends forever) or going at each other's throats. He was the clone personally responsible for killing Prowl's master Yoketron, and has a sort of villainous crush on him.

Sari is a force sensitive that somehow managed to slip through the net the Empire put up to catch force sensitives. She grew up in Coruscant with her mother, Isa, and knows perfectly well who her dad is. She doesn't like him very much. She's also now Prowl's 'padawan'.