He has no plan, no destination, not even a name. He left it behind with a transformation into a rusting piece of ancient junk tottering down human roads through the dusty desert, pleading with empty communication lines. Do not trust humans, he warns, do not be in contact with them, and it's a cold, bitter irony that he makes this announcement in their tongue, a human tongue.

They are hunting us.

It's – he shouldn't be surprised. Another betrayal – his leadership record is made up of betrayals. Megatron, with him and then against him – Megatron, tearing Jazz apart. Humanity, protected at the cost of the AllSpark, of his own life, of the lives of Jazz and Jetfire and more – humanity, exiling them. Sentinel, his mentor and friend – Sentinel, standing over Ironhide's crumbling shell.

And humanity, again, humanity hunting down Autobot and Decepticon alike with no regard for who had done what – they gunned down their protectors like their enemies. And as his failed to stop them, as he found scenes of destruction, able to do too little, too late, as his contact with the others went dead, it turned from betrayal to something else, something like war, because betrayal meant that there was trust first.

Do not trust humans because he did and see where that got him. He has nothing left but energon bleeding out from where the rockets struck – he thinks there is still one lodged inside his body – he needs Ratchet and it would be easy to call, old friend I need help and Ratchet would come –

And that would put him in danger and that is the last thing he wants, because he is selfless, he has always been. It is the mark of a Prime. He is selfless and that lost them the AllSpark, he is selfless and that lost him his life, he is selfless and he lost everything for a planet and a species that turned on him. He is selfless and he could accept humanity taking his life out of fear – after all he has already given them everything, why not just hand them his spark so that they no longer have to deal with his war? – and if it were that easy he would do it.

But there are others. There are Autobots, his comrades and friends, that he has sworn to protect, and he cannot forgive their deaths at humanity's hands. He made an oath to protect humanity but he made a similar one for those under his command and they, the Autobots, should have come first. Should have.

And he failed them. Every spark that goes out is extinguished by a human, a human that is still alive to kill because of everything he did for their species.

He chose humankind over his own kind, and now he sees that he chose wrong.