Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

"He killed her...the Feint I knew. He killed her."
Blurr's own words keep coming back to him, echoing and reverberating back and forth between every corner of his mind. Did he really mean that? Was she dead to him?
It's late, and Blurr hasn't even recharged once for the past three megacycles. As much as he'd hate to admit it to anyone, he's exhausted---both physically and emotionally. Yes, even the seemingly hyper-energetic athlete has to stop sometime. 
He is sprawled on his berth, staring at the barren ceiling in this tiny hole-in-the-ground bunker of sorts, dreading stasis but knowing it has to come at some point. Even if his body is still, his mind races with a million questions at once. Should he turn himself in like everyone else wants?  What would the Decepticons do to him if he did? Why was Megatron making such a huge deal out of a couple of rogue Autobots roughing up Blast Off a little? Was Arcee all right? Would Jazz really follow through on his promise? Where was Feint? Did she hate him for leaving her?
...would the nightmares ever end?
His thoughts begin to blur together as he starts to drift off, his mind swimming as the exhaustion finally overtakes his frame. However, as soon as he feels himself falling into stasis, he somehow again finds himself awake once more. Only he isn't on his berth any more. He's not even in the same room. Looking about, he finds himself surrounded by the white walls of that isolation chamber he'd spent the first few metacycles of his life in. There were the three chairs, the videopane and the simple circuit slab, just as they'd been all those vorns ago. 
There's a sound, and he feels a twinge of excitement. "Rung?" he calls out, eager to see his only friend. No reply comes...
Something is moving below him, something dark. Like a shadow, seeping out of the cracks between the sections of the floor. Is it a spill? No, it's moving, alive. It grows larger and larger, rising and taking shape. It's...himself...
Blurr darts behind what little cover the room provides as panic grips his mind. How will he ever get out of this??  N-no....not again...! Even if he managed to get out of the room, how could he possibly outrun himself? He backs up against the wall, as the clone approaches, reaching for his arm…
He tries to jerk away, turning his face toward the wall, but there is nowhere to run. He feels his own hand gripping his arm. No...nononono…
Suddenly the wall gives way, and when he looks up again the isolation chamber is gone. Instead, he’s at a track arena in Ibex, sitting in one of the prep rooms. The clone of himself is still there, gripping his arm...no...wait but it is a different clone, somehow...not the one from the isolation chamber. No, it’s...that fembot, the one who could be anyone...Shiftlock. Wait, what was she doing here? Wasn’t she dead...?
All at once, a deluge of voices, faces, and truncated images flood his mind’s eye. Broken memories...pain...guilt...shame...starvation. Pain...there is so much pain and hopelessness and despair...Ratbat probing at Shiftlock with needles. Disposables being whipped into submission. Pit fighters ripping each other apart. Terrified faces reflected in terrified optics...so many of them...it was as if he were feeling all the pain of the entire world all at once….the agony is unbearable. His servos weaken as he slumps against the wall…
But there is a voice over them all, full of consternation and regret. 
"... I didn't mean to--"  It’s his own voice at first, but then it’s Shiftlock’s. 
"Slaggit. I'm sorry. I just... I just wanted you to understand is all. Here... this is gonna hurt me, but help you..."
He feels his strength returning even as Shiftlock herself weakens. But she’ll make it... 
“I'll be okay. I've been in worse shape before."
He offers to help her. He wants to help her...she made him understand…see the truth…and the world for what it was...
“Go home then…”
Home. He is home indeed. The speedster finds himself standing in his Translucentia Heights hab suite now. Shiftlock is there...standing in front of the storage vault in the back. He suddenly dashes toward her...there is something in his hand--something Axle had given him. It was some prototype..he never could remember exactly what the name of it was, but someone, somewhere, sometime, had called it “crude mnemosurgery” before. Shiftlock is on the floor, her optics are wide with shock and fear…
"w-what are you doing? I came to you f-for help! Don't you remember anything I showed--!"
But she is not even allowed to finish her sentence, as he drives the device into the back of her neck, putting her out cold...there is a scream that seems to come from everywhere at once...it’s Feint. She was horrified at this…
"You're hurting her! Why are you doing that?!”
“You don't -- you can't be like that!" 
Blurr doesn’t have an answer for her. He seems frozen in shock...confusion jumbling his thoughts. How could he do such a thing? Those prototypes were experimental, they could have turned her into a mindless drone! No, no this wasn’t real...just some horrible stasis vision! But those words...so familiar...he’d heard them before…
Suddenly he remembered...no...this wasn’t just a dream...it happened...a long time ago. It made sense to him at the time...but how? Why? He can’t remember, and the more he tries to, the more the question just eats at his thoughts...he tries to come up with something, but nothing makes sense. Nothing…
The rest of it is seen through a haze of sorts. He moves about, a thousand questions still burning in his mind. But it all feels so distant, so far away. Like someone else is living his life for him. A life replete with betrayal and death. There are so many screams. Rung...Shiftlock...Feint...so many more whose names he did not even know. He can see them, writhing and moaning in their last moments before their sparks fade forever, their broken bodies crumbling into grey piles of ash and dust...Bodies broken by him. 
I did this...all of this…
Why can’t I explain my own past actions! What in the name of Primus is wrong with me?! 
Something occurs to him. Rung! That’s it. Rung will tell him what’s wrong, and he’ll fix it! He always did, and always does. 
Why didn’t I think of that in the first place? 
Iacon. Rung has a clinic here, doesn’t he? Yes, he does. Just a few blocks away from the Skyline Tower. Blurr makes haste down the street, heading for the gates of the facility. Ah, but it’s late--the doors are locked. He peers through the fence though, and sees lights still on inside the building. Checking his chronometer, the racer realizes that the work cycle has just ended, and Rung is probably still there, wrapping things up as he usually is. He’ll hack one of the side entries, and surprise Rung in his office! How fun that will be. Moving quickly and stealthily over to a small door on the east end, he begins doing just that. The door eventually gives way, allowing him inside the building. There’s a clinic worker standing in the hallway just inside, his back turned…
Coming up behind him, Blurr intends not only to surprise Rung but also every single one of his employees as well. He does so easily, with the speed that he moves. Swiftly, silently, he rushes up and pulls a short blade from subspace, grabbing him by the neck and driving it deep into the back of the mech’s head. Fuel and body fluids spurt as he rips the weapon out...there is a shout. Another worker had witnessed it--a fembot. Dropping the body of the first worker, he turns his attention to the femme and fires twice in her direction without hesitation. The blasts hit their marks, both of them striking her square in the chest. She crumples, energon flowing freely from her wounds and from her mouth. But wait, that face is familiar...is that Arcee?
It doesn’t stop. He continues in a similar fashion, ruthlessly and efficiently slaughtering every worker in the entire clinic. Some try to run, to hide...but he finds them before they can get far. At first they seem to just be strangers...nameless faces...but if he looks closely he can see that they are not in fact strangers. He knows them all…. there’s Swivel, with her head severed. An eviscerated Backdrop...Hot Rod, only grey and without his vibrant red paintjob...even Quickswitch, his halfway-transformed body mangled and motionless. But Blurr...feels nothing. He knows only what he must do...Finally, there is one last unfortunate spark left besides Rung...but he doesn’t kill this one yet. Instead, he drags him up to Rung’s office, shoves the door down...holds a gun against the worker’s face. Rung is horrified...his optics are full of fear. He doesn’t know this Blurr...this monster...this killing machine…
It’s all so wrong...so terrifying...and yet Blurr can’t seem to stop himself. He maims the worker in front of Rung. Once, twice, three times...slow, step-wise dismemberment until the psychiatrist gives in...breaks down...begging… sobbing… 
Blurr wishes he could beg and sob too...he wants to scream. He wants to beg Rung to forgive him, to fix this….to answer the burning questions in his mind….This wasn’t what he wanted! He doesn’t even know how it happened! When did it start...how did it all go so wrong?! But no, he says nothing, mutely clamping stasis cuffs onto his friend and dragging him off to Primus knows where. He desperately wishes he could tell Rung everything...his questions, his fears...but somehow he can’t seem to speak a single word. 
And then they’re pulling Rung’s spark out of his chassis, putting it away! No…! He needs Rung...to answer the questions...to fix everything! Only Rung could do it! He’d done it once when no one else could, he could do it again! But there is nothing he can do, but stand and watch as the psychiatrist’s optics go dark, and his body falls lifelessly… 
“N-nopleasenotanotherone…” Blurr is speaking to no one, because no one else is here. Here, in this tiny underground makeshift habsuite where he had been the entire time. Jerking to full awareness, the racer scrambles into a sitting position, staring about the room. Rung...was not here. He’d transferred to Deltaran, hadn’t he? Relieved, yet anguished at the same time, Blurr buries his face in his knees, suddenly wishing desperately that Feint were here. She would have been with him through all of this...if only he’d let her. Why did he have to push her away? 
Is this what I wanted? To be alone? 
Oh, but what use was it to wish for something long gone? He’d said his goodbyes, and now, it’s too late to take them back. But somehow, he just can’t get her off of his mind. Can’t stop thinking about her...missing her terribly...and feeling alone. Suddenly he just wishes he could go back, all the way back to when he really had been alone. Alone in that isolation chamber back at the IAA. When it had been just he and Rung. Everything was so much simpler, then...maybe it would have been better if he’d just stayed in there his entire life, blissfully unaware of everything that went on outside. Yes, that would have been better. Ignorance would have been better than pain...
Category:Cutscenes