Bad Host

++ Vos (#105RT[XI]) ++

Set high on the edge of a mountain ridge, Vos is a gleaming spire of silver and metallic blues rising high into the heavens. Central to the region is  the Vosian Citadel, home of the Cybertronian Air Command, the training grounds and headquarters of the planetary air force. Composed of multiple towers, spires, obelisks and domed needles, the air through the region and around the polity itself is filled with wings of flying Cybertronians of all kinds that dart in and out among the many landing platforms like flocks of birds.

Far beneath the aeries, closer to the planet's surface, are industrial centers that link the city to the rest of the planet through roads, bridges and mushroom-shaped generator complexes. Vos is rich in energy resources,  making it almost completely independent from the rest of the world; these  energy resources are mined, worked and processed by lower-caste laborers  who cannot fly upwards towards the city's more luxurious heights.

Once Starscream summons Blurr to the lower level, it isn't long before he complies and follows the Vosian ruler down there. Pausing momentarily before he enters the elevator, he glances toward the door as both Nautica and Blast Off take their leave. Good. The last time there'd been witnesses to a thing like this...it hadn't ended up well.

Always better if no one else is watching...

He prepares himself, knowing from Starscream's demeanor that the seeker was suspicious. Now if this had been a few megacycles before--before the races had been suspended, he wouldn't have had a chance at succeeding at this. Starscream was no Shiftlock...she hadn't been expecting the attack at all. This was different. But in the extra time he's had due to the suspension of the races, his handlers have seen to it that he takes advantage of -every- benefit his superspeed could potentially grant him. After all, why not? Tensions are rising...there might come a time when such skills will become -necessary-. And he's certainly valuable--he wasn't easy to come by. At least that's what he's been told, though it doesn't quite explain why they've been teaching him how to better read and interpret others' positional subtleties in order to predict their behavior and more effectively ambush them when they're least expecting it. Doesn't exactly sound like self-defense, in fact that sounds a lot more like an -offensive- strategy, doesn't it?

Maybe Blurr's been wondering about that, but maybe not. Maybe the memories of the training sessions have been force-compressed so that he doesn't specifically remember them, but when the appropriate time comes, he can still call upon the skills learned.

An appropriate time such as this one...

"<Come in, come in>" Starscream says airily, in that deceptively polite voice of his. "< I've been waiting for you>"

But when Blurr arrives in the training facility downstairs, the seeker is nowhere to be found.

The speedster strides in confidently, looking very much as if he is not suspecting anything. So he's trying to get the jump on Blurr, is he? Hah. Starscream may be fast, but even he'd be hard-pressed to land a feat like -that-. He chuckles. "You'll never have to wait long. Not for me, at least." The racer says with a grin. "This is weird, for you, though. You're always flaunting yourself in front of other people, but now you're -hiding-?" he shakes his head. "If I didn't know any better, I'd almost start to think you might have something up your subspace, eh?"

"<Oh, nothing Blurr>" Starscream says, his voice becoming more and more deceitfully pleasant. "<As you know, I've just been busy taking care of.. matters, what with just moving and all. Surprise you, now why would I do that? And I'm not really much one for flaunting unless I know it will gain me something>" Still no sign of the seeker. But room is changing. The ceiling is opening, revealing the beautiful, Vosian night sky.

Blurr looks bored. Heheh...planning the escape route already, is he? Smart move. "What's that about, huh?" he points at the ceiling as it opens. "Making sure you can easily get to the one place I can't go, huh."

The seeker appears now, hovering in his alt mode just above the balcony of the second floor. "What do you mean?" the seeker says in a sly fashion. "I did say I was going to show you around, and this does give you a very decent view of what the house looks like, doesn't it?"

He laughs a little, sounding sinister.

Primus, could he be any more obvious? Blurr leans casually against a wall. "Oh, I dunno, I guess it makes me feel kind of down, seeing it and knowing I'm not one of the -fortunate- few who can fly around like you can. Almost as if you're trying to parade it around, show it off just to make us 'ground pouders' feel inferior. Not really a good impression to leave on a guest..." He pauses, then shrugs.

"...Not that you were ever a good host anyway."

Immediately, even as he's finishing the sentence, there's a mechanical sound as paneling on his arm shifts back and the barrel of a weapon suddenly appears. Wasting no time, he raises the arm and fires it at Starscream in an attempt to bring him down.

"Ouch," the seeker says smoothly, but he doesn't sound hurt at all. "I'm /so/ insulted," he says derisively. He dodges easily, increasing his elevation. "You weren't ever a good guest either," Starscream says dramatically, "you always touched the things I told you not to disturb." And his missile launchers mobilize, shooting several heat seeking explosives straight at the speedster.

"Oh, *boo-hoo*, I touched your *things*!" Blurr insults further. "Meanwhile, you nearly kill me! You're so gonna pay for that." The speedster moves like a flash of lightning, his image blurring as per his namesake. He runs partially up the wall, the missiles striking the walls behind him but falling just short of their target.

"Heh. Well, then. Gloves off, sugar." His artillery fully mobilizes, and start shooting quadruple rounds into the ground/wall right behind Blurr's feet. The seeker flies after the speedster, aiming several deadly null blasts at Blurr as well. "I was just warming up anyway."

The blasts and missiles slam into the walls, blowing holes through them as debris flies. Hmph...this isn't good. While Blurr isn't exactly having a -hard- time dodging the blasts, he can't do what needs to get done easily like this, either. He needs to lure Starscream away from here, a place where he clearly has the advantage.

"Come down here and fight me like a real mech, you slag-faced coward!" The speedster taunts, hoping to injure his pride and convince him to 'prove' that he can fight on the ground, too. At the same time, he slips through one of the holes made in the walls and darts into another part of the lower floor, away from the balcony. "You stole some information from me last time, didn't you? Well now it's my turn!" He calls out as he begins hacking into a workstation in the office, less for the purpose of actually finding anything useful and more for attempting to lure Starscream away from the balcony and into more cramped quarters. Ah, right...hacking. One of those things his handlers have been training him to do away from the public optic. Ambushing people? Predicting behavior? Hidden weaponry? Hacking? Shouldn't Blurr have noticed a trend here? Someone has a plan for him, beyond racing. But perhaps he's too ignorant to think anything of it.

"Do you take me for a fool?" Starscream snarls. "Why don't you come up here? Oh, that's right, you can't /fly/!" the seeker cackles. He drops a few more explosives near to where Blurr is located.

Then he notices that Blurr has accessed the room where he privately communicates with Megatron in secret. "You idiot! How many times do I have to tell you to keep your slagging hands off of MY things!?" The seeker swoops a little lower, his missiles targeting the console Blurr is trying gain access to.

Blurr smirks. Ha, score. He'd known that would work. When the missiles come, he disconnects from the system and dives behind the terminal, letting it take the hit instead of him. It explodes, sending debris flying again. He then darts across the room and ducks behind a large sculpture. "Too slow!" The speedster laughs. "I already hacked your database! Guess you'd better kill me now!" he taunts, egging the seeker on to keep pursuing him.

"You will pay dearly for this," the seeker hisses. However, Blurr isn't quite successful in making Starscream chase him. It would appear that the seeker is more concerned with making sure his database is re-secured. He's hovering mid air, commanding the database system to recalibrate. However, to no avail, it's too damaged.

The seeker's jet engines make a rumbling sound of frustration, and the seeker turns, unleashing another volley of missiles at the speedster. "This isn't going to end well for you!" Starscream sneers, as the walls open and large laser cannons also start firing upon Blurr.

Blurr jumps back and forth, twisting and somersaulting through the cannon fire. It grazes his shoulders, scorching paint here and there, but the autoturrets aren't exactly sharpshooters. Hmm...Starscream seems awfully frustrated that he managed to get into that particular system. Maybe there's a chance he's really scored some intel of real value. "Oh yeah?" the speedster shouts, moving further away from the balcony. "Make me!" He points the arm-mounted weapon at the seeker again, just to irritate him, and then darts toward the stairs leading back up to the upper floor.

"...." the seeker doesn't say anything. Instead, he commands the doors of the room with the console Blurr just hacked to close and sets the room on quarantine. Then he flies up to the second floor, his optics scanning the area for the speedster. "Your resistance is futile," the seeker says blandly, his null blaster mobilizing.

Before Starscream's optics can detect Blurr, the sound of a laser blast goes off behind him, aiming not for his back but this time for a fancy light fixture just above him. If he doesn't get out of the way in time, it's going to fall on him.

Starscream deftly avoids the fancy light fixture, but it appears that Blurr has succeeded in royally pissing him off. He flies up and straight towards the source of the laser blast, cannons blazing. "I will turn you into slag, I swear it on my spark!" He rages, and lets loose a volley of explosives and a sonic boom, collapsing the walls around him.

Blurr had been behind the bar, and the blasts shred it quickly. Well there goes Starscream's new residence...heh. The sonic boom cracks the walls, and sends him flying into them. But he regains his footing quickly, Shiftlock's little 'gift' to him really doing its work now.

Heh, maybe altering Starscream's memories won't be necessary. It seems he might already have some serious blackmail, now. So the racer decides that's going to be enough. "Haha! Good luck with that!" And then he simply jumps out of a hole the seeker has made in the wall, and lands lightly on a skyspy drone that happened to be moving past. "Later, slag-licker." And then he's gone.

Starcream clenches his fists, optics narrowed. "... Well. That's one more fragger needing to be taken out," the seeker says to himself. "Don't you worry Blurr.. you'll find yourself at the bottom of a smelting pool soon enough." And with that, he turns and flies off indignantly.