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Shiftlock's testing is over, and her evaluation was completed. At long last, she had received what Ratbat had denied her through her meddling: A knowledge of what society intended her to be, and the same basic 'upbringing' that everyone else on the planet had. She knows her function. She knows her /place/.

She isn't sure what to think about that.

Sitting alone atop the twisted steel of a half-melted building, looking out over the vast orange expanse of the rust sea as the sun sets, she has been giving time outside of the Forge, out from under the protective shadow of her pseudo-parent, to do some thinking. Even though she's learned to sit still for at least a few moments at a time, she still prefers to keep a little motion. She kicks her feet and idly bobs her doorwings.

Lurking in the shadows of the half melted building is her assassin, ex and perhaps soon to be murderer. For the time being, he hides behind a rusty pile of scrap on the highest floor of the building, watching Shiftlock through a gaping tear in the ceiling.

Then, suddenly and without warning, he leaps out from behind the scrap pile and hauls himself onto the roof, drawing his rifle in the meantime. In a nanosecond, Drift is right behind her, holding his rifle to her helm, a savage expression on his faceplates. But he doesn't pull the trigger.

"If you're going to kill me, can I at least know what I did to deserve dying?" Shiftlock asks, still kicking her feet back and forth. "Most of the memories I had from when Mercury was combined with me are fading, and I can't seem to hold onto them no matter what I do. Pretty soon the only thing in my past I'll remember is being carried off in a Harvester and jettisoned into a smelting pit, and crawling my way out. Well, that's if you don't put a big plasma hole through my brain module, that is."

Drift presses the gun harder into her helm, his optics narrowing. He doesn't respond for a moment. "Give me one good reason why you /don't/ deserve dying," he snarls. He shoves the gun forwards, perhaps bludgeoning her in the helm unpleasantly before pulling the weapon back and resting it casually on his shoulder. "I'll humor you. Convince me not to kill you."

"ow!" Shiftlock rubs her helm, not appreciating the bonk. It left a little scuff mark. She looks at her hand; there's some flecks of copper paint from where the weapon chipped it off. "How about because I haven't even -lived- yet?" she suggests. "I got hijacked straight out of nurturing, almost killed, and then I got picked up out of the Dead End. Last thing I remembered was being promised that everything would be okay if I just went with the enforcers. I blacked out. After that..." She squints. "it's all kind of fuzzy, because -someone else- was controlling my body and I was kind of... I dunno, it was like I was dreaming? I remember trying to help some people. Trying to repay good for good. Then it's black again and i wake up and there's this silver and blue person named Mecury -pulling herself out of my body-, and I'm back to square one."

She looks over her shoulder at Drift. "And for some reason now you're trying to kill me. You said I'm a betrayer... what did I do? How did I betray you?"

"Nope, not a good reason," Drift hisses at her, and aims his gun at her once again, finger hovering over the trigger. But he doesn't press it.

After a moment, he steps away and turns around, holstering the rifle. "I suppose you don't remember the first time we met." He scowls. "Apparently I'm just some random stranger who wants to kill you."

Shiftlock just looks down. She shouldn't have snuck out and away from Barricade. He told her not to but she just wanted to run, finding out what she would have been assessed as anyways. She wasn't sure if she should be happy or sad. The decision only left her more hollow than before. "No, I'm sorry. I don't remember that. I'm just guessing that I'll be paying for whatever mistakes Mercury made while she was controlling my body. It isn't fair, but there's nothing I can do about it."

"I remember that you were really important," Shiftlock explains. "There's a big fuzzy patch back in those memories, something about Blurr hurting me. The next thing I remember is 'find Drift' and worrying that you were dead and it might be all our fault." She rubs her head again. "... Then I remember you trying to kill me in Kaon."

His optics flash angrily, and his hand goes to his gun again, but he doesn't take it out. He regains his composure and looks her in the optics. "And your feelings? What do you feel for me? Or what do you remember feeling for me, if you did at all?" Drift says thinly.

"I remember that we wanted to protect you. Both of us -- Ugh, I wish it were easier to remember! -- Mercury and I both cared about what happened to you, we wanted to keep you safe and fueled and maintained. You were our most important person," Shiftlock says, looking into that angry face. "Then something happened to you. You weren't the same anymore, and we blamed ourselves for that. Now...? Now I don't know who you are anymore, and you scare me to death. The sweet, sad Drift in my memory that I wanted to try to fix the world for is just... not there. Now there's hate and death in your eyes and I don't know what went wrong."

Drift gives her a tormented look. "I knew it," he says, bitterly. "I should have known it would come to this. I wasn't who you wanted me to be, I couldn't live up to your standards, changing was hard. And I knew it was only a matter of time before you left, and moved on. So I was living in constant fear of you leaving. I was inadequate, you were dissatisfied. But I couldn't let you be the one to leave. I was tired of experiencing the pain of rejection. So I had to tell you to leave me alone before you decided to do the same. I never thought you would move on so quickly, and leave me in the dust. But you did. You left me to make love to my enemy. I'm done asking questions. Wondering why you did what you did is a waste of time. The world is cruel, and no one cares. That's all." He looks away.

"... Drift our -- my -- memory was repeatedly destroyed," Shiftlock says. "Ratbat had us wiped over and over and over so that we couldn't tell his secrets. Blurr did it too. We didn't remember our own /name/. How could we know what we were doing to you if we couldn't even remember our own /name/?" She looks back to the sunset, away from Drift. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I hurt you like that. I just wanted to make everyone happy, but... I didn't make anyone happy."

"The damage must be catching up now that Mercury is gone, which is why everything's fading from me. Drift, I didn't want to hurt anyone, least of all you, but I failed at that. I failed at everything. I failed to help you or protect you like I wanted so... if you kill me, will that make you happy again? That's all I ever wanted for you, so... maybe in death I can give you what I couldn't in life."

"No," Drift says, shaking his helm, "no it won't. It won't change anything, it won't make me happier. It won't make me feel less hurt, or more wanted. It doesn't do anything."

But he takes out his rifle anyway. In fact, he also takes out a second weapon, but doesn't do anything with either for the time being. "But that doesn't change the fact that I can't exist like this anymore. It's too painful. After Gasket died, I vowed to never let myself be left or rejected ever again." He raises his rifle and points it at her. Then he does something unexpected and points the other weapon at his own helm. "Only one of us is going to walk away from here. You choose. Me, or you."

Shiftlock smiles up at him, sadly, lovingly. "You're still important to me, and I still want you to be happy. I still remember feeling like you were my most important person, and when I look at you, I realize that feeling never left." She shutters her optics. "I choose you over me. Go ahead, because I love you and I want you to live."
Did she really think Drift could kill her like that? Without a struggle, neatly subjecting herself to his cruelty? If she did, well, she was wrong. But how can anyone really know with Drift? One can't, he's as moody and flighty as a Katy Perry song.

She'll hear the sound of a weapon clattering to the ground. If she turns her optics back on, it will be just in time to see Drift pressing the trigger on the gun to his own helm...

Thank goodness for a little bit of training. She winces at that sound, expecting death, but when it does not come, she opens her optics in time to see Drift trying to kill himself. Cue the canned laughter as the mystery solving teens take the rubber mask off the villain and the credits roll. It's a return to the familiar and predictable.

Shift is up quickly (and that is something she does well) and she attempts to swat the gun out of Drift's hands. "Didn't I just say I wanted you to live!?" she chastises him. That dropped gun? It's in her hands now, and this time she's pointing it at her /own/ head. "You want that so badly? Fine, we both go together!" she threatens, trembling. "Every time I try to make someone feel better it all goes wrong! I'm tired of never knowing what direction to go in! You're older than I am!! Aren't you supposed to know what to do, how all this works?!"

Her swatting the gun knocks his aim off and delays his pulling of the trigger about half a nanosecond. The gun goes off. Half his helm blows away, and his brain module is partially exposed. His face can no longer even be recognized as a face. But she's saved him, at least. Kind of. He's not dead. Yet, anyway, but if she doesn't rush him somewhere ASAP, he will be...

Shiftlock's questions are going to go unanswered as Drift has opted to remove his capacity to respond to her. You can almost see the little angry squiggle cloud over her head as she looks at his damaged body. "... yeah, I remember -this- all too well." She struggles to pick him up and slump him over her frame as she transforms. She only knows one place to take him: Congratulations Drift, you're going to Decepticon Medical.