UNWAVERING

I've really been getting into the "Transformers: Animated" series lately. It looks really awesome, and Blurr, for an Autobot, is rather cute! In fact, I'd say he's made it to my list of movie crushes, along with Tumnus from Narnia, and Bobble from Tinker Bell, and several others. (It's a shame he didn't get more screen time; it seems the characters I love the most are the ones presented the least!) Then, one day, it got to the point where I decided to try a full-fledged story. One of my 2010 resolutions was to try new things, to draw and write things that I've never drawn or written before, or else that I don't draw or write quite as often. I feel it's good to branch out, don't you? This thing here is relatively short, as it is an experimental piece.

I'm not too good with robots and machinery, and I have only just discovered the Transformers universe, so I'd really appreciate it if you took it easy on me.

What you're about to read involves an original character of mine, named Melly. She's a human girl with whom Blurr finds himself falling deeply in love. Yes, I know what you're thinking, and I don't care. Surely robots can love as much as anyone else, can't they? They may be giants of steel, but surely they have feelings, too. Besides, like the saying goes, love conquers all. When you sincerely love someone, you love them for what's inside, rather than outside. Melly may seem like a Mary Sue in this, but I promise you, she's not! If all goes well, I'll be writing about her and Blurr again, where more of her character will unfold. This story, in particular, takes place shortly after Blurr was mercilessly ground into a cube in the original series.

Even though they don't show it, I'm more than convinced that Blurr survives, and that, somehow, they find a way to save him.

Characters (excluding Melly) © Hasbro and Entertainment Rights

Melly and Story © unicorn-skydancer08

All rights reserved.

Oh, my poor Blurr, what have they done to you? These were the troubled thoughts that ran through Melly's mind as she regarded her love, Blurr…or what was left of him. The giant, speedy, bright blue Autobot had been reduced to little more than a badly rutted and dented blue cube, about the size of a small television set.

This wasn't the first time something like this happened to a bot, and while some survived being crunched into a cube—and Blurr had a much better chance than others did, because he still maintained his All Spark—Melly shuddered to think about what her beloved bot had gone through. As if being pulverized into a pulp were not enough, their enemies had heartlessly dumped Blurr into an incinerator, along with a heap of other junk; had Melly, along with a few others, not intervened, he would have been toast—literally.

Now, safe at their headquarters, everyone was striving diligently to put Blurr back together. Melly was among the team.

It was a good thing Melly was an expert at this sort of thing; she knew more about machinery than most people, and she knew Blurr better than any of the bots. This wasn't the first time she'd patched him up after a sound thrashing, but never before had she seen him like this. The sight of his brutally mangled metal body tore at her heart, and made her almost physically ill.

Somewhere inside the twisted wreckage, Blurr's All Spark gave a flicker, like a sputtering ember in a fire. Melly smiled feebly, despite the tears that had begun to trickle down her freckled cheeks. "I love you, Blurr," she whispered to him, hoping he could hear her. "You have to be okay. You've just got to be okay."

Not caring whether anyone was watching, she bent down and pressed her lips to the cool, battered metal, kissing Blurr tenderly.

Some people would have thought it crazy, even outrageous, for a human to be in love with a robot. But Melly could care less about what the rest of the world thought.

It didn't matter what Blurr was made of; he was her Blurr, and she loved him more than she could ever love any human man.

Along with her feelings of love, sorrow, and concern, there simmered feelings of righteous anger against the ones responsible for this. Melly would have dearly loved to show those monstrous beasts just what she thought of them, but the wiser part of her knew she would never have stood a chance against them, anyway.

If they could make short work of Blurr like this, there was no telling what they could do to her.

"Don't you worry, Blurr," she vowed, giving the cube a solemn pat with her hand. "I'll always be here for you. I'll stay with you, and take care of you, every minute."

Because Blurr was so badly damaged, it took well over three days to make all of the necessary repairs for him.

True to her word, Melly stayed right at his side, for as much as she could, hardly stopping to eat or sleep. She worked more diligently than anyone else did on the entire restoration team. More than once, her friends Bumblebee and Sari Sumdac, and even Optimus Prime himself, tried to convince her to take a break, but she refused. She focused essentially every ounce of her energy and determination on mending Blurr, on making him whole again. Only when Blurr was back to normal could she truly rest, and her mind could truly be at ease.

It was tough and painstaking labor, but they ultimately got to the point where Blurr was no longer a cube shape, and Melly could actually stand to look at him, without getting too nauseous.

Even then, one of his blue optics was severely cracked, and they ended up having to replace it entirely. Then they had to get all the dents out of him, lubricate his joints, cover his chipped paint, buff up his entire body, renovate his processor…the list seemed endless. Slowly, very slowly, degree by degree, the bot began to take on his old form again.

After a week, he was almost as good as new, though he still hadn't woken up, or spoken yet.

One night, while Blurr was hooked up to a strange system, which allowed his body to slowly charge up, Melly sat with him and kept him company, as she always did. The girl slumped in her chair, looking like a thoroughly wrung-out rag. Her wire-rimmed glasses sat askance on her nose, her eyes were circled and bloodshot due to lack of sleep, and her strawberry-blonde hair was considerably unkempt. Her own exhaustion proved to be too much; her whole body felt like lead, and it was essentially impossible to keep her eyes open any longer.

So she folded her arms over the edge of the cool table upon which Blurr lay, and let her head drop onto her arms. In no time, she was out like a light. She didn't know how long she lay there, dead to the world, but it must have been some time; for the next thing she knew, something was nudging her lightly, and someone was calling her name softly through the void.

"Melly?" said a familiar voice. "Melly?"

The sound of that voice snapped Melly back to reality in an instant.

Opening her eyes and lifting her head expectantly, she saw, to her delight and blissful relief, that Blurr was awake and alert, watching her intently. A look of gentle concern filled his face.

"Blurr!" The name tore from Melly's throat like a sob. "Oh, Blurr!"

"Are you all right?" Blurr asked her.

Tears welled in Melly's eyes at the question, and the soft, tender way the bot asked it. She knew that she ought to be the one asking him that.

"I'm fine," she said, removing her glasses and dabbing briefly at her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "I'm just glad that you are. You sure had us worried, love."

Blurr smiled, knowing what the girl was talking about. His body might have been busted, but his memory hadn't been totally eradicated. "Ah, it takes more than that to get rid of me!" the blue bot declared boldly. "Trust me, sweetie, I've been through worse scrapes—and by that, I mean a whole lot worse!"

Notwithstanding his mile-a-second jabbering, Melly just laughed, even as the tears coursed steadily down her face. Hearing him speak to her again was nothing short of pure music to her ears. "So, you finally decided to join the living," she said, as she wiped her cheeks and returned her glasses to their usual perch on her upturned nose.

With a subtle hint of humor, she added on, "For someone who's usually so speedy at everything, it took you long enough!"

Blurr continued to smile at her for a time, then his face quickly sobered.

"I…hope I wasn't too much of a bother," he said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. "I hope you didn't go to a lot of trouble, for my sake."

"Are you kidding?" spoke up Bumblebee, who'd entered the room just then. "Melly's stuck to you like glue every day, for the past week! She's never once let you out of her sight."

Sari, who was right behind Bee, looked positively thrilled to see Blurr. "Blurr!" she cried, making a swift beeline to the table and hugging him fiercely round the neck. "You're okay!"

"Of course, I'm okay," Blurr replied, somewhat wryly. "Never been better."

"Good to see you're finally up and at 'em, Zippy," said Bumblebee, as he sauntered over himself.

Blurr frowned at the black and brilliantly yellow bot, at that last bit.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" he said reproachfully. "I've told you once, I've told you a hundred million times! The name's Blurr, not Zippy!"

"Oh, relax, Blurr," said Sari, giving him a playful shove. "You know Bee only means that to rib you!"

"We're all just happy that you're still here, with us," Melly added mildly, laying her hand on Blurr's bulky forearm. "We could have very well lost you forever."

Hearing the somberness in her tone, Blurr's scowl faded.

"Have you really looked after me all this time, Melly?" he couldn't help asking, at length. "I mean, I sensed your presence now and again…but surely you didn't stay with me, the whole time?"

"Of course, I did," Melly said simply. "You needed me, Blurr. I couldn't leave you, not in your sorry state."

Bumblebee put in his two cents' worth. "Melly slaved practically night and day, to put you back into working order," he said.

"None of us could ever pry her away from you, even if we had used a crowbar," Sari added on.

For one of the precious few times in his life, Blurr seemed at a total loss for words. All the blue bot could do was stare at Melly in stunned disbelief. No one had ever showed such devotion to him before. Sure, he'd always known Melly cared a great deal about him—but if this wasn't a sign that she truly loved him, he didn't know what was. Knowing the genuine depth of the girl's love and loyalty was nothing short of overwhelming, and it humbled Blurr to the very lowest of his circuits. Suddenly, it was almost worth it to have been crushed into a cube to begin with.

Melly just smiled at Blurr's dumbstruck expression, and she slipped her arms around him, as far as they would go, and clung fervently to him, nuzzling her cheek against his broad chest plate. Now Blurr felt a pang of shame in his hard drive—shame that he hadn't told Melly more often how much she meant to him, how much he loved her.

He knew he'd often taken her for granted in the past, and that mortified and shamed him even more.

Sometimes he wondered why the girl would even bother with someone like him in the first place, why she ought to care so much.

Somehow, Melly seemed to read Blurr's troubled thoughts.

"I love you," she told him again, as if that compensated for everything.

Still cuddled up against his chest plate, she continued, "What else matters, Blurr? Like they say, love excels all. It doesn't matter who you are, or what you are, or what you do. You mean more to me than anything in this whole world…or better yet, this whole galaxy. No matter what happens, I'll always look out for you."

Had Blurr been human himself, he definitely would have started crying there and then, and in fact, his optics filled to the brim with a thin, transparent fluid. Placing one large hand against Melly, and stroking her with the lightness of a feather, the blue bot replied in a slow, clear voice, "I love you, too, Melly. I hope you know that I shall do my poor best to look after you, too."