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"Do you normally make it a habit to attack your own 'bots sir? I mean it seems a little bit Decepticon-like behavior if you don't mind my saying so if I didn't know better I would say that you're trying to eliminate me…"
The incessant shriek of metal grinding against metal comes to a startling halt just before Blurr can run right into the wall.
He stumbles over his pedes, catches himself against the smooth surface just before he can slam into it face-first, takes a moment to guide heavy, gasping vents through his trembling frame, for his processor to settle after running on pure fumes for the past. Well. However many solar cycles it took for him to run through the galaxy.
Longarm Prime, head of the Intelligence Division of the Elite Guard, is the Decepticon agent Shockwave. Longarm Prime, by nature of his position, has access to most any information on the Autobots that one can think of. Longarm Prime holds the fate of Cybertron in his servos.
Shockwave, undoubtedly, plans to present it to Megatron on a silver platter. Shockwave is currently trying to kill Blurr to prevent him from unraveling his false identity.
What a mess.
Blurr nudges back against the wall with a frown. It's stopped, for the moment, but he's not sure why. Not that he wants to think too deeply about Shockwave or his motivations — that's an exercise in futility if he's ever heard one — but a few reasons cycle through his processor all at once anyhow.
Maybe keeping Blurr alive would prove useful. Maybe it's just entertaining, to Shockwave, to play with his life, lull him into a reprieve and then start the system right back up again.
Heavy pedesteps echoing through the dim tunnels…. somewhat answer his racing thoughts. Blurr shrinks further, the cold metal searing against his back, the cold-hot-cold of his frame cycling rapidly. Like if he presses hard enough, the wall will just swallow him whole. It's better than what his future currently holds, at least.
Creaking, unsteady steps grow louder, clearer, right up until Shockwave comes into view.
The tunnels do little to accommodate his massive frame. The mech is hunched over just a little bit, although his strange antennae graze the ceiling anyhow. The firm set of his shoulders, coupled with the cannon jutting out of his arm, do little to comfort Blurr.
Shockwave continues, every step grating on Blurr's audials, marking yet another nail in his coffin, a pede in the grave, until he stops just out of reach. The once-comforting drawl of his vocals claws at Blurr's plating now.
"Agent Blurr," he hums, "I suppose I should… commend you, for your realization. You have never been slow at anything."
Swallowing harshly, Blurr says, "Is that supposed to make me feel better or what because I can tell you with certainty that it's doing nothing of the sort."
"I simply thought that you should hear this," he tilts his head. "Physically, that is. I thought that, if nothing else, you perhaps deserve a measure of comfort in death." Because I need to make sure, you slippery little nuisance, goes unspoken.
'A measure of comfort' Blurr's aft, this is just pure, unfettered mockery. The few cherished memories that Blurr has with his superior shatter at once; Longarm Prime, to him, had always been a caring mech, gentle and concerned with his subordinates, each and every one of them meaning something to him, unconventional and awkward his appreciation had always been but special in its own way.
And yet, this is nothing to him, Blurr realizes with a lurch. This is just another solar cycle, a momentary distraction to take care of so that he could return to his duties.
Venting out a shuddering breath, servos clenching into tight fists, it's as though the world slows and sharpens into perfect clarity.
There is no need to take this lying down. He is an intelligence agent and an Elite Guardsmech; it would just be shameful to let the enemy escape because he's scared — although mostly because the self-assured gleam in Shockwave's optic digs under his plating like nothing else does.
Shockwave is blocking the only exit. Blurr's pedes burn, his struts ache, the highest-high of the thrill can only last him so much.
With that in mind, Blurr lunges.
There's a gap of space between them for just a moment. Shockwave may be on the defensive, but he clearly didn't expect anyone to be stupid enough to go right for his throat cabling, and the momentary incomprehension is all Blurr needs for the upper servo.
It's dirty in practically every sense of the word. The moment Blurr collides with Shockwave, his servos scramble for purchase against the — frankly ridiculously huge — frame, finally landing on his antennae and yanking. There's an affronted, perhaps confused noise, but Blurr pays it no mind, not until his yanks give way to tugs to a nasty, terrible rip, to one antenna clenched in a trembling servo, idly attached to its base with a few stray, sparking wires.
I didn't expect that to actually work, he thinks, delirious, and maybe Shockwave didn't either, because a frail beat passes between them with absolute stillness.
That is, of course, until Shockwave screeches, guttural, thrashes against Blurr's hold, claws blindly digging and tearing until he can toss him to the side. The loud snap as his antenna is fully separated from wires hanging out of his helm is the most satisfying sound that Blurr has ever heard.
Heaving, stumbling, Blurr falls back. The antler digs into his servo, denting the soft metal there. Shockwave's single optic bores into him, narrows, and—
"You've just killed yourself," he spits, energon running rivulets down his helm. "Do you understand that?"
He sounds afraid.
Blurr's spark beats wildly, charge building under his plates. Good. Shockwave doesn't get to just walk out of this encounter. Not after this, after everything, lying right to Blurr's face, to the entirety of the Intelligence Division's face, to all of Cybertron.
So caught up in the energon rushing his helm, roaring in his audials, he misses when Shockwave straightens back up, and only returns to focus when the mech bodily grabs at his own single antenna.
"Frag!" Blurr yelps, servos coming up to grab at the invasive claws, desperate, to which Shockwave decides to turn the sharp tips right on the softer metal. "Let me go let me go let me go—!"
Pain is all he can think of, the sensitive receptors in his antenna screaming against the feeling of sharp nails digging deep into them. For a moment, Blurr has visions of Shockwave pulling, pulling, pulling until it rips clean out of Blurr's helm, but Shockwave does nothing of the sort.
No. Shockwave slams him helm-first against the tunnel walls, and in Blurr's disorientation, plunges his claws deep into his left optic.
Blurr shrieks. Kicks and snaps at Shockwave's digits as if he bites down hard enough — if he can bite them at all — Shockwave will stop. Will back off and back into Longarm, with the gentle smile and carefully-curated air of boringness. Will reveal that this was all just a terrible nightmare, a test, even, and they can return to who they were before.
It never happens.
Shockwave's claws dig in deep, just until he can get a firm hold on the sputtering, cracked optic, and yanks and tugs and pulls until Blurr can feel the wires snap one by one and he can’t see, one optic gone and the other flickering on imminent shutdown from pure agony alone, but he knows instinctively that Shockwave is standing there with the glass remains held idly in one servo while the other tightens its grip, slowly, on Blurr’s antenna.
He’s not entirely sure what happens. One pede connects with Shockwave, he thinks. The servo still holding on to his trophy clenches and juts out.
Blurr vents a heavy sigh when the pressure atop his helm abruptly lets up and he’s dropped to the floor, unceremoniously, struts giving out under the limp weight just as quickly.
Trembling servos come up to cover what remains of his left optic. The right optic travels up the treads of Shockwave’s struts and lands on the stolen antler lodged firmly in the soft protoform of his torso. It looks like he dragged it up a bit, maybe, the tear visible against the bright pink energon that sluggishly leaks out. Stained claws come down to hover over it.
At Shockwave's strangled noise of outrage, Blurr just can't help himself. "That seems bad."
He ducks and rolls to avoid Shockwave's fist coming down on his frame and braces himself against the wall, steady on the floor, struts tense and ready to leap. They're at a stalemate. The predatory gleam that Shockwave had eyed him with at the beginning of their confrontation has shifted into something else — not quite fear, but maybe closer to a sort of understanding.
Blurr is aware of the effect his appearance has on others, even to those intimately familiar with his line of work and accomplishments. He's smaller than most, frailer, built for speed and definitely not strength. He can concede to that; In a situation like this, he's unlikely to come out of it as the victor, and especially not against a mech like Shockwave. All heavy weaponry and brute force, even if he favors the non-combat side of things.
That is, of course, if they were relying on strength and head-on fighting alone.
Blurr is also aware that a good number of his colleagues think of him as chatty, neurotic, inane. Allegedly not a single cohesive thought in his processor. Most of what he says goes through one audial and out the other, and it's easy to tune him out, according to a surprisingly good-natured jab from Cliffjumper, considering his tendency to add in three different asides in a single sentence. Not much of what he says is worth paying attention to… so long as you weren't a target, that is.
Blurr watches as Shockwave takes a minute step back.
For just a moment, he allows a deep feeling of pride to settle underneath his plating. Unnerving a… character like Shockwave certainly wasn't easy; honestly, he hadn't even meant to, but he'll take it and gladly. Curious, he shifts as if to leap forward, and observes with no small amount of malicious glee when Shockwave tenses up, puts an arm out, as if to, what, shoot Blurr? Scruff him? Either way he's already admitted some sort of defeat, so—
Except Shockwave is, ah. Quite aware of himself being on the back pede. Is, unfortunately, making the sound decision to give up and retreat, but if Shockwave thinks he can outrun Blurr of all mecha in the first place then he's already a fool, and if Shockwave thinks that Blurr will take this lying down then it's a wonder how he made it so far in Intelligence.
An open secret about the Nexus is that the systems are old. Old, and held together by what practically amounts to electrical tape and a prayer. There have been countless incidents of a 'bot being transported halfway across Cybertron because they ex-vented on a control panel too hard or stepped on a certain tile at a weird angle.
Blurr, injured and exhausted, understands that there is little he could do to stop Shockwave from running off, even with an opening in his torso. Blurr, Intelligence agent and Elite Guardsmech, understands that the profession does not come without risks, and that many mecha in either profession have offlined for far less.
Blurr, hardly hesitating, readies himself and slams right into the wall, the whirring and clicks of a temporarily disabled system coming back online following soon after.
“Do you really think that you can just walk out of here consequence-free oh no I don’t think you will—” The door slams shut in front of Shockwave. “—if neither of us come out of this then so be it!”
There’s a dull screech as the walls begin closing in. It takes a moment, Blurr thinks, for Shockwave to catch on. When the mech whips around to face him, his optic is wide, the narrow slit of it trembling in a sea of red.
“What have you done,” he rasps. “Agent Blurr, what have you done?”
Blurr steadies himself against the wall. Or, as much as he can, considering its slow, slow crawl into the space.
“Well I can’t just leave you alive can I especially with the mountains of Autobot intel you possess and really if I hadn’t done it then you probably would have—” he grimaces when Shockwave slams against the encroaching wall, the resulting noise grating on his audials, “—and either way this would have ended with me offline so isn’t it only logical to take the pragmatic approach and remove a threat to Cybertron while I’m at it? That’s your whole thing isn’t it being logical?”
The cold metal presses insistently against his back, nudging him ever closer to the center of the quickly-shrinking room, but Blurr doesn’t move.
Rather, he’s perfectly content to watch Shockwave’s increasing desperation, first with another slam against the wall, then with a shot of his arm’s cannon. The wall doesn’t so much as budge in the other direction.
Finally, that dead gaze lands on Blurr. “Agent Blurr,” he says, “We do not have to do this.”
Closer. “Oh but we do I can’t trust you and you can’t trust me I bet the nanoklik we’re out of here you’ll just turn around and incinerate me with that cannon of yours, don’t you take me for a fool, Shockwave.”
Closer. “I—wouldn’t,” his voice drops into a familiar cadence, soft and soothing, “Neither of us have to become scrap," pleading, "Surely, you know some way out of this," shaking, "Blurr—"
Closer. Their frames press against one another. They couldn’t move even if they wanted to now.
Sickening creaks give way to snaps as Shockwave’s remaining antenna bends under the pressure and promptly gives way, Blurr’s own feels like it’s being pressed into his helm, and all the while Shockwave’s single optic bores into him with increasing desperation as they fold into one another.
Blurr laughs, high and reedy, the pain hardly even registering in his processor, because good, Shockwave should be desperate, should be afraid, should face his humiliating, painful death head-on just as so many others did at his servos.
They're being fused together, kind of. The leaking energon from their wounds mix until it isn't quite clear who is bleeding what from where. If Blurr focuses enough, he thinks he can feel Shockwave's energon pooling into his own scrapes and cuts, coursing through and integrating into a dying system.
They're the same, they carry pieces of each other inside themselves, they're special to one another in the worst kind of way. Something about that is comforting to Blurr, his processor working overtime to focus through the admittedly-self-inflicted misery. A measure of comfort in death after all.
“I hope this was all worth it for you,” Blurr gasps. “I hope no one ever finds us.”
Joints bend, plating cracks, ragged vents slip from both, they have mere nanokliks left. There’s a noise croaking from Shockwave’s vocalizer, and Blurr thinks he’s going to say something, but—it never comes.
The walls clamp shut around them with a final, deafening shriek.