Ep. 1,- Secret Agent Bot, scene 1 (Finished)

[Deleted]

(Participants: Blurr, Mariah)

Bangkok was an interesting place. Big city, lots of tiny cars, lots of people on bikes. A few parks... and lots of security cameras. Transforming anywhere in the city would be a risky proposal, he could be discovered easily. But that was a double edged sword; he could be discovered easily, but so could the Decepticons he was tracking. Wouldn't you know he'd found blurry, poorly captured footage of what appeared to be an Insecticon. He knew that armor pattern well enough, but the video was too unclear for him to tell which particular Insecticon it could have been. Could have been anyone from Hardshell to Kickback.

But still, the spot of a Decepticon sighting would be a good place to start his search. The blue concept car pulled quietly in to the park's parking lot at dusk that day and waited. His partner was busy investigating another lead in another part of town; for now, he was on his own. Not that he had any plans to engage. Not here. Not around all these cameras. Humans were unpredictable little creatures, maybe they'd stare with mouths agape in awe, or maybe they'd call in the military and fill him full of holes. Either way, this was a covert mission. The less the Decepticons knew about their stalker, the better.

And so Blurr sat there, waiting quietly. He had his radio on of course, but it was quiet. Just a little bit of music so he didn't get too impatient. He had to stay alert, after all. The night dragged on slowly, the streets behind him getting quieter by the hour as the bustling city went to sleep. Slag, and he'd been having fun trying to guess what sound matched which car and seeing if he was right with his side mirror.

It must have been late. Past midnight at the very least. And finally, something in Insecticon looking armor dropped down in to the park. Bingo. Blurr watched quietly, ready to turn his engine on and pursue as soon as the mysterious Decepticon decided which way they were going. If he was lucky, this one was going to lead him right back to the other 'cons...

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Whatever this Decepticon was, it was small. Minicon-sized, with a bit of a stretch. The tech was definitely Insecticon-built, he recognized that pattern on the armor. And yet... something was off. It just stood there for a moment, likely sending out a scanning pulse. Blurr was tense, waiting. It seemed his signal dampner had held up; the 'con didn't look at him any differently than it did the other inanimate objects around.

Blurr felt the impulse to take advantage of the current lack of humans. A quick flipping out of his pistol and a well aimed shot might have been enough to disable it. But he remembered those cameras; if he were to do something like that, he'd blow his cover. More importantly, it wouldn't be able to stay out here much longer. Soon the 'con was going to have to go back to base or risk being spotted by security cameras or an early morning jogger.

No, no... Now wasn't the time to blow his cover, not over a minicon. There were much bigger things going on here, and he wagered the minicon could lead him right to the source if he followed her closely enough. And hey, a chase would be fun if it came down to it. He hadn't gotten to stretch his legs for a race in a long time. The Autobot waited silently, watching intently to see where the bot would go next.

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Blurr tuned his radio to better hear the conversation as he picked up the signal. A human voice from the Minicon, and from the other end the sound of an Insecticon's voice. An Insecticon's voice he knew well enough to place as Kickback's. None of the other Insecticons were as well spoken... and none of them had that hint of Vosian accent. The radio type was close range, couldn't have been broadcast from too far away. The conversation ended in laughter.

Kickback was the last person Blurr expected to develop a spark, much less for what appeared to be a human in a powered suit, but that could be useful information in the future The girl took off, and Blurr turned on his engine. He followed at a distance, lights off as he went down the path through the park. He saw a marina at the edge of the lake. That may have been their meeting spot, but she seemed to keep going.. He advanced quietly, his optics not leaving the fleeing Insecticon.

It was funny seeing boats on a small manmade lake, not that they were big. Blurr shook himself out of his thoughts. Now wasn't the time to get distracted by human oddities! The Insecticon kept going. She was probably headed in to town... good thing she chose such a late hour, very few people would be around to spy her. The concept car turned on to the road back out of the park, pausing for a moment to pick up his target again. There she was, and he was off down the road. Hopefully there'd be just enough traffic to trick her in to thinking no one was tailing her...

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This wasn't going to be the easiest tail he'd ever done, but this was something Blurr could manage. The concept car pulled out on to the quiet street quickly, shifting in to a higher speed as soon as he could manage it. The streets were significantly clearer than they'd ever been while he was scouting the place out, but there were still plenty of cars. Blurr cut in and out of them, swerving around a slow tourist bug with one eye in the sky.

She was moving fast, but there was nothing on the ground as fast as this particular Autobot. He braked and slid in to a lane as she changed direction, just barely cutting through the traffic. Like he was back on the circuit, really; this was easy! Such were his thoughts. Still, he had to be careful, cops were the last thing he needed to deal with; they'd make him lose this trail as fast as he'd stumbled on it. Seeing the girl leap across the street and knowing there was no way through the buildings for another minute or so, he turned sharply and shot through an alley wide enough for the small vehicle to fit through.

He was out on the other side with a flourish just as quickly, cutting off an old pickup truck puttering down the road. They were reaching the technology district. If she got much higher, his signal dampner would keep him from being able to track her... and soon she'd be too high up to see. Too public a place to transform and get on top of the buildings... or so he thought until he passed a parking garage. Blurr blasted through the closing auto-rail and shot up around the complex. There were a few almost-scrapes, but this was nothing. He'd gone through tighter courses in Iacon under heavy fire. After about a minute, he reached the top.

Now he was getting somewhere. The concept car's engine roared as he pitched it over an impromptu ramp and landed on an adjacent rooftop. Now that he was out of the spotlight for the cameras, he could transform and pursue on foot. And with a whirr and familiar sound, the robot crouched on the roof, making a quiet leap to the next one. His bright blue optics picked out the escaping Insecticon easy, and a quick grapple cable assisted jump brought him to the line of buildings she was ascending. He was grateful for the lack of lighting on top of these buildings; they'd hide him a bit better than the streets below. He kept his distance, but continued his pursuit. He really hoped no one had caught him breaking so many laws back to back...

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Scrap. Of course the big cricket armor would have some kind of way to see behind it. Still, the situation wasn't totally lost; she couldn't send a signal without risking a trace to Kickback, and she hadn't seen his alt mode. And then she veered off to the side, leaping on to the side of a building. Was she TRYING to get them all discovered? Sure it was late, but the Decepticons being exposed was probably the opposite of their MO right now.

And then she taunted him. He might not have been able to scale a fifty story building, but he could make the jump to one of the smaller closer ones. Stepping stones. Blurr put in an extra burst of his phenomenal speed, and even without his grapple cables cleared the street to a shorter building, giving the big bug a taunting grin. "IsthatthebestjumpanInsecticoncando? Bo-ring. I'veseenBulkheadjumpfartherthanthat!" He called out with a laugh and a cocky eyebrow raise.

"Ifyoureallywanttoimpressme, you'dhavetobeatmeinarace. Notthatyoucould," Blurr said confidently, banking on distracting her. Maybe Kickback would make another transmission while she was distracted... and maybe he could trace it this time. Or hey, maybe he'd get a fight on his hands. It'd been a while since he fought a Decepticon, after all... even if it was a human girl in Insecticon armor. "I don't suppose you'd give up and tell me where Kickback is huh?" Blurr said more slowly, somehow managing that feat.

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Blurr was amused by the insect armor crawling behind some decorative ledge work. So she wasn't ready to completely reveal the existence of Cybertronians on the planet, and then she tried taunting him. He had to admit, for a human her Neocybex was pretty good! He'd definitely heard worse. She didn't seem to catch his comment about racing, which was kind of a downer. He'd wanted to know how fast something like that could go.

Blurr laughed at the comment of him being an Autobot dog. So she was trying to bait him in to moving too? Not bad! Pretty smart on her part, not that he was going to take the bait. After all, humans couldn't sit around in power armor for nearly as long as an Autobot mostly full of Energon. If he waited her out, she'd have to leave that armor... or good ol' Kickback would appear and cut the chase in half. Win-win situation, kinda!

"C'mon,I'mobviouslynotadog. ReallyI'dsayI'mmoreofacat, whatwiththeinsectchasingandall," Blurr shot back, shrugging off her comment about not being able to touch her. His grapple line was more than long enough to get him up to miss big-in-her-servos, but right now? Yeah, he really didn't have to. He just had to stall her out, at least until she had to bail. And anyways hitting her would probably drop her halfway to the street, and that would just be a mess for the both of them.

"What'sthematter,ladybug? ScaredofonelittleoldAutobot?" He jeered again, staying ready to duck out of the way. Insecticons didn't usually have lasers so far as he knew, but better safe than sorry!

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Unfortunately for Mariah, Blurr wasn't going to be the one to draw first. Or at least, he wasn't going to be the one juuust yet. A good old witty Mexican standoff... sort of. Why she was clinging to the side of the building instead of leading him off somewhere else was a mystery. Maybe she was trying to stall him until Kickback showed up, at which point he'd finally have the missing piece to his own data bomb. If the cons were trying so hard to stay hidden, having one who (apparently) controlled a company exposed would really bust their thrusters.

"Not my fault you're too slow," Blurr shot back, raising a hand in a gun shape and miming firing a shot from it. He'd seen it on one of those television programs and thought it looked cool, even though he wasn't ready to initiate a brawl yet. That wouldn't do for his plans at the moment. Plus, he'd never seen Insecticon armor like that in battle; he didn't need any nasty hits putting him out of commission for a few days.

"Your Neocybex is pretty good for a human, it's too bad Kickback didn't teach you a native language on top of it!" The Autobot said in slightly accented English. Hey, he had to make use of that language at some point or all that side learning was gonna go to waste! And wasted time was no good at all. Blurr stood at the ready, waiting for the human Decepticon to make a move. So far they were doing a whole lot of not moving, but hey, the more time he had to ready his cards the better...

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Oh, she was getting impatient? That meant good things for the Autobot, most likely. Or she was getting ready to open fire with some kind of unexpected weapon, which would be bad. Still, he seemed to be getting under her skin. Maybe he'd be able to worm some information out of her? She was probably smarter than that, but hey, worth a shot. But how to go about getting the information out of her...

"What do I want? I want to know when Kickback decided to grow a spark, for one," Blurr retorted, hoping to get under her skin further. "A Decepticon caring about a human? AND building her a minicon to ride in? I wonder what secret project you're from," Maybe a little harsh, but hey, Kickback wasn't exactly Dr. Cogwheel here. He was more of a Shockwave really, like a little mini one with better depth perception. Except significantly taller, or so he'd heard. Blurr had never actually seen Shockwave in action to compare.

Still, maybe that would get her rilled up enough to accidentally spill some information. "Kickback chew that rust bucket for you all by himself?" Blurr asked, not missing the chance to take another jab at the big ol' bug. If he was working with someone else, maybe she'd slip up and blab about it. Or maybe she'd shoot him with some hidden laser on the mech suit.

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Hm... that was an unexpected outcome. The girl wanted to talk now. He'd almost been hoping she would charge him for a fight, but hey, not having to sit around fixing himself for a few hours was always welcome. Somewhat reluctantly, Blurr nodded in agreement. "All right, but as soon as I see you readying a weapon our truce here is off. So come on down, I won't bite," He called out, crossing his arms and stepping back far enough that there was plenty of room for the big bug.

He waited for her to come down. He stayed ready of course; this was a Decepticon, 'deception' was part of the name. Still... A truce was a truce. That meant no weapons or threats. Not that he thought he'd need to threaten her; if she wanted a fight, she was going to have to start it herself. Blurr cleared his throat and gave a bit of a bow, moving quick enough to blur himself to the human eye as his name implied.

"Sotellme," Blurr started before he could remind himself to slow down. Considering his fellow Cybertronians had difficulty following him, slowing down for a human was almost imperative. "What's your deal? A human Decepticon makes about as much sense as a car without a drive shaft. That's got me more interested than anything else."

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Blurr didn't like where this was headed. Sure the big cricket looked unarmed, but looks could be deceiving among their kind. Still... If he wanted to get anywhere with this, he didn't seem to have much of a choice. She wouldn't be able to escape him easily if she tried to bolt, that much was certain. Especially if he wasn't trying to keep as low a profile now.

"Okay then. Lead on, but no funny business," Blurr answered, waiting on the big cricket to make a move. He'd follow behind... just hopefully she'd avoid the road in her giant cricket suit. A giant robot bug landing in a big city street was the last thing either group needed, really.

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Blurr thought it was kind of funny that a tiny human was threatening him. Yeah it was still a threat, but coming from something so small he couldn't help but be amused by it. He figured she was talking specifically about Kickback, and then the girl's suit launched off. Keeping up this time was much simpler; rooftops were a breeze compared to the roads here. Why couldn't Kickback have picked somewhere with less cars to contend with on the roads, like almost anywhere else on the planet.

Still, playing keep-up with a suit of armor containing a human was a lot more interesting than what he'd been up to otherwise. Bumper to bumper traffic was almost like torture sometimes, but at least he had things to keep him occupied while he was waiting in those situations. Blurr leapt from rooftop to rooftop with ease, his light frame allowing for minimal loud thunks that would worry the inhabitants. Or so he hoped anyways.

Eventually the buildings got shorter again until they arrived at a peaceful little river. And she disengaged her armor. He had to admit, she wasn't what he'd expected. Her features didn't match the ones of the natives. So Kickback had grabbed someone from somewhere else on the globe, huh? He must have been busy with whatever horrid experiments he was running. She made another threat and went off in to the bushes. Either she was running away or she had to do that thing humans were always doing to remove waste products.

Still... the Autobot made a quick scan of the armor suit while the girl was doing whatever in the bushes. He quickly found the power source, and a quick little yank freed it from its place. That was one less threat for Blurr to worry about... though the sudden loss of signal might attract Kickback. Still, if he cared about this human, that meant he'd at least have a bargaining chip if things came down to that. Wow, that was a really underhanded way of thinking. Blurr sneakily stuck the power source in his storage pocket. No need in leaving it just lying around where it could be reattached... whether she'd seen him take it or not.

"So... Kickback, huh? You sure got bad luck ending up with him," Blurr commented, mostly just thinking out loud. After all, what harm could she do without her fancy armor?

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To say Blurr was a bit surprised by the girl's answer was a slight understatement. Kickback, one of those horrible Insecticons to crawl out of Shockwave's laboratory (or wherever the Decepticons found them) being a father. This was some kind of joke, right? Did this girl just not know what the Decepticons had been for millenia? Apparently not, or she wouldn't have tried to say all the Decepticons weren't mindless killers. Well, okay, maybe not mindless... but certainly mass murderers across the board.

"Maybe spending some time on this little planet changed him, but you obviously don't know the Decepticons if you're trying to say they're not insane mass murderers," Blurr replied, frowning. "Did he remember to tell you how Megatron killed Cybertron's core with Dark Energon? Oh, or maybe he forgot to tell you about the experiments he did on Autobot civilians during the war?"

Yeah. Someone hadn't properly educated this girl. Kickback growing a spark was surprising, but he knew what he saw. This girl was probably part of some twisted experiment for him. "You can try to defend him, but I can tell he didn't tell you what the Decepticons are actually like. If you think the bots on our side are bad, somebody's left out some important information on the 'con side."

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Sentinel? That was her best dirt on the Autobots? Wow. Yeah, it was pretty bad what Sentinel had done, but those were secrets that died with him... if there was even any truth to them. He'd heard the Council had been involved in some nasty stuff towards the lower castes, but the Autobots were fighting against the caste system as much as the Decepticons.

"Maybe Sentinel did stuff like that, the Council was up to a lot of shady business that it kept secret. If Sentinel did that stuff, Optimus didn't know," Blurr replied, annoyed. What did this human know about Cybertron's past? Why was he even entertaining this little debate? ... Well that last one was easy, because it was something to do. "And in case you didn't know, the Autobots don't like the caste system any more than the Decepticons did. Optimus was on Megatron's side before your side started the war!

But Megatron declared his war on everyone who wasn't on his side; we didn't have a choice but to stick with the equipment the Coucil was offering. You can compare Optimus to Megatron if you want, but Optimus is the only reason little planets like this aren't slave worlds under an even worse despot than Sentinel," Yeah, that seemed good enough. It was really weird having to explain this kind of thing to people who hadn't lived through it. It was like having to explain that stars were hot and Energon made good fuel. Crazy!

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It was kind of sad to see a kid so disillusioned with her own race. But from what he'd gotten off of the other Autobots at times, having a hard run in life would do that to a person. Some more easily than others, of course. Still, trying to convince someone like this to change their minds was the job of other bots who were better at the debating thing. Him? He'd probably just end up making the situation even more difficult for someone else. Blurr just shrugged and grinned.

"Sure, if you say so. Humans are weird. So, what's an Insecticon doing in Bangkok?" The special agent asked, getting the topic back on rails. He'd heard these 'break the secret agent and get him on your side' speeches countless times, this was gonna be another one of them if he didn't change the subject. Besides, he needed information, not a riveting debate.

"And what's so interesting about Earth that he spent ten years here?" he followed up, crossing his arms at his usual speed. One of these days he was going to knock himself silly moving so fast.

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Blurr's attention had shifted subtly away from Mariah while she deflected his question and demanded to know why he was here. He was scanning her armor suit again. Surely something like that had a hard drive on it, something to store the operating system and stored data. If he could get that, he wouldn't need to rely on his less than stellar persuasion skills to get the information he was after. He raised an eyebrow and shifted his optics back on her face when she asked if he was going to kill her.

Blurr saw what he was looking for and moved like a bolt of lightning, plucking the black box from inside the armor as the cables attached to it tore loose. "SorrybutIdon'tkillhumans, gottarun!" Blurr spurted out before dashing through the bushes Mariah had used to obscure herself. She'd probably try to use the armor to try to catch him, but luckily he'd already snatched the power core. Hopefully that would keep her distracted long enough for him to transform unseen and get away.

He ran at top speed towards the road. He'd transform just as he was bursting through the trees, merge with traffic and be off. What a surprise that he'd managed to salvage this little encounter; he was sure he'd have to cut his losses and run, but who knew what useful information this little black box had? Blurr transformed and burst through the trees, the concept lamborghini taking off at probably illegal speeds for a few turns. For now, he had what he needed. Hopefully the girl had her cell phone on her so she could get a ride back home... and hopefully she hadn't seen his vehicle mode before he shot off in to the night.