Throw Me Away

++ Rust Narrows ++
Almost totally abandoned, the crumbling remains of Cybertron's former capital city now languishes in disrepair. Old buildings in silvers, reds and bronzes are discolored from the wearing of time, flaking and decaying into corrosion and rust, which blows around the streets with every passing vehicle, giving the area its name. The empty streets sometimes host illegal races, and are a hotbed of criminal activity, ignored by local police forces. At the center of these narrow, wheel-spoke pathways is the Acropolex, the former capital building of Cybertron itself in the Golden Age.                                                                        
Blurr does join her, of course! Anything for Feint...he does love her so. Therefore he is not an astrosecond too late in meeting her at her private transport. He pulls her into an embrace upon seeing her. "So...ceremonies? They do that? What're they like?"
While Feint handles Blurr, Hot Rod handles ... doctors. Primus only knows what kind of promises and wheedling it takes to get Ratchet to agree, and further to be the one to put Hot Rod in contact with Rung. Selling them on helping isn't really the hard part; the hard part is who's asking. An old and thick-walled building on the outer edge of Nyon serves as the meeting point. Hot Rod kicks his heels -- literally, he's kicking the wall with his heels in an impatient thump-thump-thump as he waits for misc. guests.
Rung arrives in a timely fashion, but when he sees Hot Rod, he looks unpleasantly surprised. He glances around, saying nothing to Blurr or Feint for the moment. "..."
"Where's Ratchet?" Rung inquires immediately, "he told me to meet him here for a favor?" Apparently Ratchet is either late or otherwise occupied--and Rung is suddenly stuck in a room with a flameo-mech he isn't terribly fond of.
Feint radios ahead to Hot Rod. The table is being set for Blurr's /much needed intervention/. As they travel along she describes various types of ceremonies, both old fashioned and modern. This conversation takes enough time and hopefully will distract Blurr from looking out the window to see where they're going. As they approach the rendezvous point, the vehicle slows down and Feint gently takes Blurr's hand to reassure him. "There's another reason I asked you to come along. There's some friends of yours that have asked to see you, and I thought it might be nice to meet them too. After all, any friend of yours is a friend of mine."
"If I were to guess, probably swearing at a patient in one of his clinics," Hot Rod guesses. He seems oblivious to Rung's dislike, as he greets him with a strained smile -- friendly, but obviously tense, distracted. "He should be here, I hope, but -- did he tell you much? Anything?"
The distraction works fine, but it probably wasn't necessary. Blurr trusts Feint fully. Anything she wants him to do, she must be well-intentioned, right? So he doesn't really pay much mind to where they are going, and doesn't seem concerned when they finally arrive. "Yeah, which friends? You know them?"
Rung frowns, looking a little put out. He's acting like he wants to leave. "Hmph," Rung says, folding his arms and not extending a friendly greeting back to Hot Rod. "No, and perhaps I can tell why, now," he says, giant eyebrows furrowing.
The vehicle stops just across the street from the pre-selected location. "You'll see!" Feint says cheerfully. "C'mon, they're waiting outside. I don't want to ruin the surprise. I really hope it's something you'll like."
The door of the limo-like transport swings upwards, and the little aerodrone steps out, waiting for Blurr to join her. She glances over at Hot Rod and Rung and nods to them knowingly.
Hot Rod glances up with an exasperated huff as Rung confirms complication. "Well, this is going to be enlightening for everyone, then." He nods across the street as Feint steps out with Blurr, and says simply, "He needs your help." He lifts his hand in a wave.
Blurr joins Feint, and is quite startled to find Rung standing there with Hot Rod. Wasn't he supposed to be in jail? He stares at his old friend for a long time. "...."
   "...Rung?"
Rung's frown deepens. He doesn't know what Hot Rod expects from him, but he isn't about to obey Hot Rod like his wish is his command. He glances blankly at Blurr, then looks back over at Hot Rod. "And why should do anything for you?"
"Don't do it for him then," Feint says to Rung. "Do it for Blurr." She stands by Blurr's side and hopes this isn't going to be too much of a shock for him.
"What? It's not -- for me," says Hot Rod, confusion rendering his voice unusually flat. "It's for him. Feint says you were friends. Blurr asked me for help, but I have to admit, not exactly my area of expertise. I hear it's yours, though."
Rung shakes his helm, arms still folded. "And what makes you say that he needs help?" Rung says. "He appears to be in functioning condition, so what's the occasion?"
Blurr looks away from Rung, but remains quiet for the time being. (Wow, amazing right? Everyone cherish this moment.)
Feint decides to radio Rung directly. << I don't know how aware you were of his creator's attempts to erase and rewrite his memories, but his new handler, Cipher, has taken it a step for the worse. There's some kind of reprogramming going on that triggers him to a state of complete control by someone else. He's been injecting himself with neurotoxins to 'help control his emotions'. I call rubbish, and Cipher's outright lied to me about how far this goes. Blurr won't listen to anyone because he can't fathom that people in power might not have his best interests in mind. I was hoping you might be able to assess how much damage has been done, and maybe help us find a way to undo it. >> She nods to Hot Rod. "Agreed."
"Like I said: he /asked/," Hot Rod repeats. "He said he feels like he's doing things he hates, but he can't stop himself. He said he wanted to get away from people who were feeding him slag and find out what's right." He echoes Blurr's words with a twist and a harder glint in his eye than is his usual. He's not playing. "Earlier today he killed several people who were staying in a shelter and arrested Shiftlock, another mutual friend of ours, I believe. If you know anything about the way Shiftlock was treated the last time she was in Senate hands, you can see the concern."
Rung frowns. "He asked?" he folds his arms. He just sighs, placing a hand on his fore helm.
"No." He turns to leave. "If you knew Blurr like I do, you would understand."
Blurr watches Rung turn away, looking sad for a moment, though he doesn't try to call him back or protest in any way. It's almost as if he hasn't quite decided how he is going to respond to the psychiatrist yet.
Feint can't believe what she's hearing. She can't believe that someone whom Blurr implicitly trusted and leaned on so heavily would turn his back on a patient - on the mech she loves - and dismiss him as if he weren't worth saving. The lights on her body suddenly glow with an intense brightness.
Furious anger expands from her like the concussion wave of a bomb blast, slamming up against Hot Rod and Rung (who may or may not feel it depending on their player's consent); Blurr is missed because Skid's teaching has given her enough control that she can fine-tune her psychological assaults to specific directions. It doesn't last long, like the flash of a lightning strike, but it's just as white-hot.
"How DARE you!" she snaps, hands balling into fists, stepping forward, towards Rung. "He came to you for help and you turn him away like so much -scrap-? I /do/ know him as well as you -IF NOT BETTER-, and I know how important you were to him! How DARE you brush him off like this! /What kind of psychiatrist are you/?!"
"If -- If /I knew Blurr/--." Hot Rod sputters in disbelief. "What crucial piece of information am I missing that lets you turn and walk away from someone killing against his will? From someone who called you a /friend/?" His outrage begins muted in comparison to Feint's, but swiftly -- mysteriously -- grows to mirror her anger.
Blurr is strangely unresponsive to all this. He just stands there, with a neutral expression on his face, as if waiting to see how this is all going to play out.
Rung stumbles backwards, affected by Feint's blast of white hot anger. He leans against the wall for support, sighing in exhaustion.
Then he glares at both Hot Rod and Feint. "Excuse /me/? I'd beg to differ! I was the one the IAA pathetically called in because they were afraid Blurr wasn't a project worth /salvaging/. I was his first contact with outside society as well as the one responsible for putting Blurr in functioning order! If it hadn't been for me, you would have never met Blurr and would be without a conjunx endura! You think that just because you've interfaced with him that makes you an expert on him, well I'm sorry to burst your bubble but neither of you know a damn about him. Because if you did, you wouldn't have wasted your time asking me to come here." A pause. "Once upon a time, Blurr might have called me his friend, perhaps even his amica endura, but those days are past. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd rather not get arrested." He heads for the door.
Feint's spark sinks. "I'm sorry Blurr. I didn't mean for it to turn out this way. I had thought maybe this might have ended up happier... " She trails off into silence for a moment, defeated, frustrated, hurt.
Ununtrium-levels of determination surge up within her. Oh no. No, it's not going to end like this. One more 'no' to throw on the pile and file under 'duly ignored'. She stands up, vents briefly, cooling her interior. "Fine then. You give up, you transform your head down into your body and hide. It's more than just endura, Rung. Blurr saved my life. -Twice-. If that doesn't make him someone worth fighting for, I don't know what is. For someone who's supposed to be insightful and perceptive, you are /incredibly blind/."
Tone heated, Hot Rod says, "I don't have to know a damn to give a damn!" Which ... might as well be his motto. He doesn't say as much as Feint, but what he does say mirrors her tone. He stands stubborn and still with fists clenched as he watches Rung leave.
Finally, after Rung vents and starts to storm off, Blurr seems to snap. "Rung...no! Wait! Please...don't leave me again. I--"
He stares after the psychiatrist, optics wide and pleading. "...I want to be your friend."
Rung turns around indignantly. "Him saving your life doesn't mean anything. And you--" he says, pointing at Feint, "are the one who is blind. Your unflinching dedication to Blurr has erased your ability to see fault in him. And one of these days, it will spell doom for either you, or your friends." He glares at Hot Rod. "Well, damn you. For being an ignorant fool. You are guilty of the sin you are trying so desperately to alleviate--which is naivete about the all the atrocities the government commits behind closed doors. Congratulations, you've succeeded in not practicing what you preach."
"What?!" he cries, at Blurr, but he hesitates. "No," he says bitterly, "No you don't. You don't know what you want at all. Which is why you're letting other people decide for you."
Blurr just looks so...crestfallen. As if his world was just shattered into pieces. "So you're giving up on me..." he says quietly. "You don't care any more..."
Feint tries to put her arms around Blurr and pull him towards her in a hug, trying to soothe him and comfort him. "Fine," she says with equal bitterness to Rung. "If you have no patience for such a young spark, I'll do what you obviously have no capacity for. I'll march straight into the pit - /gladly/ - to try to help Blurr. Of course he doesn't know what he wants, he's only fifteen metacycles old!"
Maybe it's the big words, but Hot Rod seems stuck in outraged disbelief with only a flicker of confusion for Rung's words. He watches Blurr with a twist of his expression and shakes his head. "We'll figure something else out. Third time's the charm," he tells Feint.
"You are foolish," Rung snaps. "to think that Blurr is above any blame. Fifteen metacycles is actually a damn long time to figure out how to make a decision. Both of you are just too proud and ignorant to realize the error of your ways." Rung looks angry, yet torn. "I won't let you do this to me, Blurr--I am above your manipulation." He shakes his helm. "No... you were the one who gave up. A long time ago. And I can't do anything about that."
Blurr stares at Rung as his once closest and only friend seems to have completely shunned and rejected him. All this time, he had hung on a small glimmer of hope that Rung might accept him again, that one day when this was all over, maybe, just maybe, they could go back to the old days, when things were -simpler.- But now that light has been snuffed out.
And just as Feint lost her composure, Blurr loses his. Except his reaction is far worse than hers or even Hot Rod's. As all that rage and grief and confusion wells up inside of him, he rushes forward, grabbing the psychiatrist by the neck and pinning him against a run-down building nearby. "-I- gave up?! -I- seem to remember being the one who came to YOUR clinic, begging you to let me back into your life, but YOU refused! You let them...turn you into something -else-, someone I don't even know any more! The Rung -I- knew would -never- run from the law, even if for some reason he did manage to land himself in jail! He would've -accepted- his punishment like a -good-, upstanding mech. If only Axle were still alive, I'd ask him to erase YOU from my memories! But since he's not here anymore, I guess I'll just have to erase you from my -life- and hope I can forget about it!"
There's a slight whirr as his weapons emerge from his arms to point directly at Rung's head. "You belong in jail, Rung. But that's far too merciful. No, I'm going to -destroy- you, beyond recognition, so that even if I stared at your dead body some day down the line, I wouldn't even -know- it was you!" With that said, he shoves the lean mech -through- the already crumbling wall and into the defunct building.
Rung just let himself be flung around like a rag doll. He doesn't resist Blurr, instead, he just stares at the floor, avoiding optic contact. "And I can only say the same for you, Blurr. Don't deny it. This was your choice. The Blurr I knew is no longer my friend. He is dead. Gone. I cannot help someone who chooses to be someone else."
Wife. Teacher. Mother.
Feint opts for the latter. The temper tantrum is going to stop, post haste.
Focusing every ounce of her ability on Blurr she invades his senses like the crashing flood of water from a burst dam. She does not aim to cause pain or pleasure, does not transmit any emotion; she instead overloads his sensors with the booming command to shut down and go into an induced stasis lock.
"I'm sorry," she says gently to Blurr. "But I can't let you do this. Someone has to show you loving discipline, teach you right from wrong. This is -wrong- and you will -stop now-."
"No!" Blurr insists. "This is all your doing, Rung! Everything that I've been through! Every last bit of it! You brought it on me, and you brought it on -yourself-! You -let- them corrupt you!" He shouts, as he fires at a helpless Rung on the ground, the shot tearing through the mech's slight body.
But as he stares at his one-time friend lying there on the ground, his voice lowers, even breaking. "You...I wish you'd just left me alone... let them throw me away..." His expression hardens, and he raises his weapons to fire again, but before he can do so he suddenly collapses as Feint forces his systems to simply shut down right then and there.
"..." Rung cringes when Blurr opens fire on him. "Fine.." he says quietly. "I'll take the blame--who else will? I knew you before anyone else did."
His expression crumples as Blurr wishes death upon himself before collapsing onto the ground. "What good is it.. the past is the past and can't be changed. But even if I could, I wouldn't. I would never change us meeting for the first time.." And with that, he limps out, disappearing into the darkening Nyon.