Nothing Personal

++ Nyon ++
Nyon was the capital of Cybertron during the Golden Age, the rule of Nova Prime, when energon was plentiful and the planet's population was at peace.  Now, with nearby Iacon the capital of the planet, Nyon has become a ghetto, and a shell of its former self.                                            
Temples, libraries, energon refineries and places of culture have been all but abandoned, left to corrode and rot away as their patrons moved to the newer, better capital city to the east. Left behind were the low caste and disposable laborers, who commute to Iacon to maintain and keep it, while being denied the privilege of its living quarters. Poverty and crime are rife here, with only minimal police presence to keep it at bay, making it a fertile breeding ground for rebellion and dissent.                         
Blurr wanders into the old heart of Nyon, moving toward the coordinates Hot Rod had given him. It's not the Acroplex, but supposedly a safe haven for people needing to get away from the rest of the world and all its corrupted machinations. And supposedly the others living here are fully capable of defending themselves, despite being Empties for the most part. At least that's what Hot Rod said.
One thing that Hot Rod might not have considered was the fact that Blurr doesn't fit in here at all. In fact, a lot of the rebels living here probably have quite a bit of disdain toward elite caste types like him--would they even believe he was a friend of Hot Rod's? As such, he draws some unpleasant attention. People stare and point and whisper indignantly, wondering what the slag -he's- doing in this neighborhood. The racer just sighs and tries to ignore them, sitting down on top of a crate on the corner of the street...
"Hey! Don't be like that! It's bad enough eveywhere else they judge you by caste - you wanna keep that going here?" Someone is chastising the complainers, and it's a voice that Blurr might recognize.
"Yeah, but just look at him, he's never had to suffer! He's never gone without!" complains a rather beaten up truck-frame.
Shiftlock puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him. "Are we trying to spread equality or just reverse the caste system and continue the misery? C;mon. We need the help of everyone we can get, no matter their caste, and he's here for a reason, which means he's got problems like the rest of us. Cut him a break."
The truckformer grumbles but assents, backing down. Shiftlock begins walking over to see this out of place high caste.
And who should the one she was defending end up being but Blurr, the one who had relentlessly pursued her in the tunnels of Kalis not long before. Does she regret having defended him now? Probably not. He looks up at her, his optics widening in a startled stare.
Shiftlock is surprised, and returns that startled stare by taking a step back cautiously, seemingly shrinking down as her plate flatten against her body, door wings dropping against her back. "...Blurr?" she questions carefully. "... you're not here to kill me, are you?" Well, so much for that training from Blast Off about how to greet people. Hopefully he'll understand. Mitigating circumstances and all.
The others don't think Blurr ought to be trusted, but Shiftlock does have a point. If they are so indignant about what the state is doing, judging the high caste for being high caste would be just as bad. It's hard for someone on the low end though, to realize that some of them might be just as abused--though perhaps in different ways.
The startled gaze fades off of Blurr's face, as he reverts to a less readable expression. "Kill you?" Really, Shiftlock, that is how you greet an acquaintance. But all right, it is a reasonable question to ask given their last encounter. "LookIwasn'ttryingtokillyoulasttime."
"You chased me underground, said I was a terrorist and you started talking about sacrifices. Sometimes, when I talk to you, you'll start to remember things and then you'll just sort of... get this stare off in the distance and everything about you changes," Shiftlock explains, ready to run like a scared rabbit. "I don't know what I did that made you hate me so much, but... I'm guessing it has something to do with the experiments done to me."
"What? Hate you?" Blurr asks, his face still unreadable. "I don't hate you, I never said I hated you." he shakes his head. "It was never personal." He hasn't made any hostile moves...yet.
"So... you're an assassin then," Shiftlock says, straightening up a little. "That's what they say when they attack someone and try to kill them. 'It's nothing personal'. I'm sure for you it isn't, but for me, it's -very- personal. You attacked me more than once."
"I said I -wasn't- trying to kill you." Blurr groans and looks exasperated. "I know I attacked you, but never was I ever trying to kill you." Okay, it might have -looked- that way, but still! Jumping to conclusions. "Attack doesn't always mean kill. Look, I know you're confused, but so am I."
Shiftlock walks over closer to Blurr, and moves a crate to have a seat next to him, facing across from him. "Well what are you confused about? I know I have plenty to worry about. Maybe if we compare our predicament we'll be able to find some kind of clues!" she suggests helpfully.
"Well, maybe you could just start with what's bothering you? I mean, I'm only a hundred eighty three years old, everyone says I'm practically a baby, but that seems like the best place to begin. I'm willing to help if I can," Shiftlock offers genially.
Haha..183 is a baby? Try fifteen. Blurr doesn't bring that up, though. "I don't know, sometimes I just don't feel right. I know that's not very specific, but I'm not sure how else to explain it..."
"I can sympathize. I mean, yeah, I'm 183 but I've only been in control of my body for a couple of months," Shiftlock sighs. She kicks her feet back and forth, hands in her lap, looking at the ground. "I was part of a combiner experiment. They took me right out of nurturing and then tried to smelt me to make sure I was listed as 'dead' so they could do whatever they wanted to me. Then they fused a shifter into me, and she was in control of my body. My voice, my name, my life - everything was in her hands and I could only watch it all happen to me."
"When we ran out of element zero. Turns out it was being used as a kind of poison to keep Mercury -- that's the Shifter's name -- forcibly merged to me. We would be sent to do horrible things to people and then they'd wipe her mind afterwards so she wouldn't remember doing it. Once the e-zero ran out we started de-merging and Hot Rod rushed us to the free clinic. That's when Mercury separated from me and went home," Shiftlock explains. "The bad thing is... now everything she did, I'm being blamed for."
Blurr listens, but has a slightly suspicious look on his face. "Or you're just using that as an excuse for everything you did." he says, folding his arms. "How does anyone else know it wasn't the -other- way around? That it wasn't -you- in control, and just using her abilities?"
Shiftlock seems hurt. "How would you even know what that's like, Blurr? Have /you/ ever had someone controlling your body against your will? Why would I even lie to you about that?" she asks, frowning.
How would Blurr know, indeed? Oh, the irony. "I didn't say I know what it's like, but you could just be saying that to make y--" He stalls suddenly, stopping mid-sentence.
  Something flashes before Blurr's mind...all those faces...all those voices. So many of them. The guilt...the shame...all that pain and starvation and anger. It's too much...
He falters suddenly, stumbling backward off of his seat. Much in the same way he had on that one fateful day all those stellar cycles ago. The day Mercury gave him a part of herself.
"-- Blurr?!" Shiftlock is worried for him. Doesn't matter that he attacked her in the past, he's hurting -now- and she might be able to do something about it. That's all that matters right now.
She jumps up and goes over to him to try to help him out. "Blurr, are you all right?"
Blurr is on the ground, clutching his head for a moment. But he sits back up when Shiftlock comes over, and...oh no, he's got that empty look on his face again. That look he'd had back in Kalis, when he'd seemed determined to hunt her down and kill her dead...or whatever it was he'd been trying to do...
Shiftlock knows that look and she goes her best to lunge for Blurr, tackle him and try to either hug his arms to his sides or pin him to the ground; her intent is to restrain him if she can. "Oh no you don't! I'm not going to let you hurt anyone, I'll save you Blurr!"
As Shiftlock lunges, Blurr's weapons emerge from their compartments, and high energy photons crackle through the air toward her oncoming form. She should have expected it, at least, but maybe she should have run -away- instead of towards him.
Meanwhile, some of the other empties try to rush to her aid, including that truck fembot from earlier. "I told you he was up to no good!" she shouts, as she gets her own weapons out.
Shiftlock may not be Blurr's speed but she's pretty fast in her own right; she moves just enough to let the photon charges graze past her sides. "No, get back, all of you! Don't hurt him, this isn't his fault! They did something to his head!" She doesn't care if she gets hurt; she's going to try. She's going to try to help Blurr because it's the /right thing to do/.
Shiftlock tries to grab for Blurr's weapon arms to restrain him.
Actually, it -is- his fault, but no one’s realized it yet.
Shiftlock may be fast, but Blurr is faster. She manages to knock some of those shots off course, but doesn't quite manage to grab him. He darts away from her, moving off toward some of the fleeing empties. Not -all- of them could put up a fight, sadly enough, though the ones that could were busy trying to protect Shiftlock. He runs up behind them and shoots one of them right in the back, sending the poor mech to the ground. Without another moment's hesitation the speedster goes for another, coming up on the side and slamming the second shot into the side of the empty's head. It explodes into a mass of energon and bits of brain module. He continues in a similar fashion until the entire group is either dead or bleeding on the ground. Or both. And then he goes for that truck femme from earlier, aiming to shoot and cripple but not kill.
Shiftlock is horrified by what she's seeing but she wants to stop it before any more damage is done. She shouts at everyone to scatter, transform, drive for their lives, as she shifts her right arm into a grappling hook. She's no great marksman, but she's going to try to lasso Blurr if she can.
The grappling hook flies, but Blurr dodges it easily. Too bad Blast Off's marksmanship's skills haven't quite rubbed off on her yet. The truck femme is shot in the lower leg, and she stumbles, falling forward onto her face in front of the racer.
Quickly, he reaches down and drags her to her feet, then pins her up against a wall, his guns up against her chest. "You know what you did, Shiftlock. Stop making excuses for your own behavior and turn yourself in so you can face what you deserve." He pushes harder. "Or she dies."
The fembot shakes her head weakly yet desperately. "Shiftlock...no...d-don't...give in..."
Shiftlock does what any good future Autobot would do.
She puts her hands up. "All right, just don't hurt her, please! I'll do whatever you want!" It's bad enough someone else just died and she couldn't stop it. She tries not to think about it, because the reality would be the slug to the gut her traumatized psyche just can't handle right now.
Blurr nods and drops her, letting her fall rather unceremoniously back to the ground. She groans in pain, but she'll be fine so long as she gets some medical attention in a reasonable amount of time.
"Good. You're coming with me, -now-. Resist, and -more- of them die." He states, gesturing toward the rest of the empties, most of whom are now cowering behind various forms of cover. And that flat, serious tone as well as the fate of those unfortunate mechs who now lay dying makes it quite obvious that he isn't bluffing.
<< Tell Hot Rod what happened! >> Shiftlock quickly radios the injured femme, before walking towards Blurr, grappling arm shifting back into a hand, kept above her head. She says nothing, just looking at Blurr with great sadness and disappointment. She tried to reach him. She really did.