TF(OC): Searchin’ Part Three
Rating: PG
Series: G1
Summary: This is the back-story for my OC Tracer. Things quieten down in the war on Cybertron but the Decepticons enter the wrong sector resulting in a battle fought and won and a discovery made
Warnings: Battlefield violence
Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I’ve forgotten… Tracer belongs to me… as do Kicker and Rollback. The Red Alert/Inferno/Firestar threesome can be blamed (in the nicest possible way) on
apathocles
Feedback makes friends. Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.
Searchin 'Part One
Searchin 'Part Two
It had been quiet; too quiet if Red Alert’s mutterings were anything to go by. The longer they went without a report of Decepticon activity, the more paranoid he got.
“Red, it’s a good thing they ain’t focussing here.”
“Inferno’s right. Gives us chance to upgrade and actually relax for a while.” Firestar tried calming him down. Tracer just watched, there was little she could do. She caught Inferno’s optics and he tilted his head, transmitting on a private frequency that she should leave; that he and Firestar had it covered. And that it might be an idea to keep everyone else occupied. Ducking her head to hide a smile, Tracer left, not wanting to intrude. Even after all this time, she still hadn’t quite worked out the dynamics of the relationship between Inferno, Red Alert and Firestar. And she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to try to work it out. As long as they were all happy, the rest of the team was happy.
She left the room, wondering what to do now. On their infrequent downtime, Tracer found herself practicing hand to hand combat with Inferno or Kicker, sometimes Firestar who would teach her how to defend herself, where as the mechs would teach her how to attack. Both were good, she reflected, even if the attack-training sessions tending to leave Rollback fuming at the dents and scrapes they all acquired. Admittedly he had his own ways of subtle revenge; all in the good name of teaching them new techniques in field repairs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pondering what to do meant she wasn’t concentrating so hard on her sensors, enabling Kicker to sneak up on her.
“Hey kid.” Hiding the slight stumble fairly successfully, she glared up at him.
“How can someone your size sneak up on me?”
“You weren’t paying attention again kid.” Tracer grimaced. Red Alert had spent time with her when she first joined, teaching and helping her avoid losing concentration in battle situations where there was a lot of noise and interference. That sort of situation, much like parties, played havoc with her sensitive sensor array, meaning she found it difficult to focus properly. But with Red Alert’s help, she had managed to increase her focus and dampen down her sensors slightly to make it easier to function. The one apparent side-effect of these lessons was that she would get now easily not focus on her sensors when she was completing other tasks. Something that Kicker (and Inferno) was always keen to take advantage of. The mere fact that he was twice her size and could still sneak up on her amused him greatly. Of course, it hadn’t amused Rollback the first time he had done it. The poor medic found out exactly how effective the training sessions with Inferno and Kicker had been when Kicker limped into the repair bay. His comment of ‘you got slagged by a Minibot?’ followed by raucous laughter had not gone down at all well with Kicker. Tracer on the other hand, eavesdropping outside had moved away quickly, lest her laughter be overheard.
“Up for a run across the plains?” He asked, a glint in his optics, interrupting her thoughts.
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Just gimme a klik to check the security grid. I don’t want to come back to Rollback throwing a fit because Red’s had a meltdown. Oh… and we ought to let him know to keep himself to himself… if you know what I mean?”
“Course not and yeah, he might wanna know that.” He grinned trailing behind her, as she checked the security system, making sure there were no anomalies before turning to the communications system and leaving a message for Rollback to stay in the med. Bay for the foreseeable future. Finished, she turned to Kicker.
“All yours. If you can catch me!” She said as she transformed and disappeared down the corridor, something that they weren’t normally allowed to do, but figuring that Red Alert was otherwise occupied and wouldn’t know, she decided to flout the rules.
“That’s cheating!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Blue against red, large chasing small, they flew across the plains at speeds far higher than they should. They didn’t drive blind, both keeping an eye on their sensor readings, Red Alert’s paranoia having suffused itself through the team. Tracer cut her engines as they reached the mountain range that marked this extent of Sector G2.
“Same as always, I win.” Tracer transformed and stretched, waiting for Kicker to reach her location. He huffed before transforming, towering over her. He paused as she held up a hand.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“I can hear… I’m getting Decepticon energy signatures.”
“This far out?” She nodded. “I don’t like that. Why hasn’t the sensor grid picked them up?” Tracer shrugged in reply.
“I have no idea. Maybe the mountains? All I know is they’re here.”
“Slag.”
“Yep.” Tracer paused, activating her comm. system. “Slag… I can’t raise the base.” Kicker stared at her.
“I definitely don’t like that. I’ll head back; raise the alarm and bring the rest of them out here. Me and Inferno’ll get them.”
“That’s a given. I’ll stay here and monitor them. Red ain’t gonna like that the sensor grid’s malfunctioned.” She watched as Kicker transformed and speeded back in the direction they had come from.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
By the time the rest of the team arrived, Tracer had located the position of all the Decepticons she could detect.
“You’ve all but named them all.” Inferno muttered, eliciting laughs out of the rest of the team.
“Had to do something while you took your time getting here.” She retorted good-naturedly, staring up at Inferno. Who promptly lightly cuffed her round the back of the head.
“Ow, hey!” She glared at him before turning serious. “Red… there’s something else there, but I can’t make sense of the readings I’m getting.” Red Alert focussed in on the area she indicated and for the first time since she’d joined the team, Tracer heard Red Alert swear in public.
“Red?”
“It’s Soundwave.” Curses were echoed all round, only Tracer seemed to be in the dark as to the reasons. “This is going to have to be quick and deadly.” He quickly outlined the plan to them, nodding as they took their positions. Kicker grabbed Tracer’s arm as she passed him.
“Stick close to Inferno or me, don’t let him know you’re there.” He warned, a pleading tone entering his vocaliser. Puzzled by the warning, she crouched next to him and waited.
“Who is Soundwave?”
“Soundwave is the Decepticon’s number 3, master communicator and tracker. He’s got better audios than Red. We wondered what he was doing; he hadn’t been seen in battle for several stellar-cycles.” Tracer felt her spark sink, suddenly realising that Soundwave probably already knew they were coming. Red Alert’s short nod as she glanced over at him confirmed her suspicions. It seemed like a suicidal run.
“But why do I need to keep clear of him?” Even to her own audios, she sounded like a petulant sparkling.
“Because he won’t hesitate to interrogate and break ya and use your skills against us.” Beginning to wish she’d never asked, she looked around suddenly nervous.
“Take it as a compliment…” Firestar commed her. “You’re the best at what you do and Soundwave is good at taking the best and using it to his advantage. Besides, I doubt Inferno or Kicker would let anything happen to you if they could help it.” Tracer didn’t have chance to process a reply; caught up in the battle as Red Alert ordered the charge and they rushed down to meet the Decepticons head on. Judging from the immediate barrage of weapons fire as they crested the pass, they knew and were expecting the small team of Autobots. Through the laser fire and smoke, she caught sight of the large blue mech. standing impassively at the rear of the battle. Putting him out of her processor, she ducked and rolled to avoid a Decepticon firing at her, before firing back. She was unaware that his optics never left her form as she moved through the battlefield, firing shots where she could. She could hear Inferno and Kicker yelling loudly, almost rejoicing in the destruction they were causing. She could hear the impacts of every single weapon; the crunch of metal as it folded under the impact, the spatter of energon and coolant as it landed on the ground. The cries, the screams, the barked orders and finally, cutting through the noise, an order to retreat.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She landed on her knees, thrown out of the way by a retreating Decepticon. Watching them fall back, she inadvertently locked optics with Soundwave.
“I know of you.” She had never heard him speak, yet she knew it was his voice she could hear. “You are mine.” Before he turned he raised his arm, sending a wave of harmonics across the battlefield; creating static and disrupting audios and communications. Shocked, Tracer stayed on her knees, any strength she had left suddenly draining out of her as the noise infiltrated her audios. Disorientated, she staggered when Rollback helped her up and grabbed onto his arm lest she fall over. She could see Red Alert having a similar problem; Inferno holding him up.
“Come on now. We’ve got to get away from here.” She could just hear Rollback speak and nodded, managing to place one foot in front of the other without falling over.
“We need outta here now!” Kicker roared. Before her stabilisers could adjust to being upright, Tracer found herself slung unceremoniously over Rollback’s shoulder strut.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Put me down!” Red Alert’s shriek of outrage sounded in her audios, thoroughly convincing her that they were indeed working again.
“Damage report?” Firestar asked, looking over them all.
“Minimal.”
“Nothing here.”
“I’ll be better when I’m back on the ground.” Holding back a laugh, Rollback gently lifted her off his shoulder and returned her to the ground before continuing. “There’s not much damage Firestar. Self-repair systems can take care of most of it.”
“We should have taken more damage. We were outnumbered.” Red Alert sounded puzzled.
“Let’s not worry about that until we get back to base.”
“But…”
“Red! Not now. Let’s just get back to base and report to Prime. He needs to know.” Inferno snapped, worry tinging his tone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They were all sitting around in the common room, trying to relax. Inferno had brought out some high-grade and they were trying to ignore the nagging doubts that had arisen as a result of the battle earlier. Tracer was leaning up against Inferno, contentedly sipping her high-grade and listening to the others chatter. She heard Red Alert enter the room and slump in a chair, muttering his thanks as Firestar passed him some high-grade.
“What did Prime say?”
“Not much he could say. I don’t understand how he managed to hack into the security grid to evade detection. We need to find out where they’ve gone and what they’re doing here.”
“Which we’ll help out with tomorrow. It’s not our sector. Relax Red, we’re allowed to recover from our injuries.” Firestar pressed him back down into his seat as he made to get up, leaving her hands resting on his shoulders.
“I heard him…” Tracer began stopping suddenly as Inferno sat straight upright and she fell backwards into the space left behind him.
“What?”
“Before we left. I heard him.”
“That ain’t good.”
“No, I must inform Optimus of this. It may well be that for your safety we have to move you.”
“What?”
“That won’t do no good. If he wants her that bad, he’ll get her wherever she is. More sense if she stays here where we can protect her and not where he can actually do some real damage.”
“Erm… I’m still here guys. And I’m not going anywhere.” Five pairs of optics turned to stare at her at the sound of determination in her vocaliser. “I’m here to do my job, same as the rest of you. Don’t see any of you running scared, so why should I?”
“Kid’s got a point. Besides, next big battle, we’re gonna need her to find everyone.”
“Fine. Just be on your guard. I don’t want to have to replace any member of this team again.” Red Alert drained the rest of his high-grade and left the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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Part Four