Traction vs Breaker

[RipRaw]

Traction played with the battle sim controls setting it up for another round of practice training. The scenario was simple enough, playing out like a level on some first person shooter game.

Battlefield consisting of destroyed buildings and crater pocked boulevards. There was rubble everywhere, plenty of cover from direct aerial assault but no true fortifications. Fires were burning amongst the carnage leaving heavy columns of smoke reducing the effective range of aerial combatants. It was a setup that favored Traction with her all terrain bike mode, while at the same time being a combat sim that put her out of her depth.

There was also enemy mobs and allies, a handful of each. She almost forgot to put those in too. It meant there was more than just her opponent of today to worry about.

The objective for Traction was to “rescue” an npc ally on the far side of the map. Supposedly the npc was an Intel officer who had some vital information on something that really didn’t matter. She had limited time to save them and retrieve the data before they died from their injuries.

Trax grinned up at Breaker. She would be lucky to win this one but heck, Breaker was a big aft target and she was rather small. She pushed the execute button.

Both bots were dropped into a random location on the map.

Trax glanced around the battlefield and flinched at some explosion not too far off. She checked her locator and found the weak mayday signal from her objective. Carefully she stepped out into the open, picked a path among the debris, transformed and rode off in the general direction kicking up a dust trail in her wake.

[Bomblast]

Breaker entered the battle simulation and took a moment to get his bearings. He wasn't too far away from the objective he was supposed to protect. Around him were a number of wrecked buildings. There wasn't much space between them and not much room for him.

"Hmm. Cramped confined space and defending the area from a much smaller opponent." He muttered to himself.

Breaker drew his Thermo Mines and dropped the three mines in various places around the objective area. Then he transformed and took to the skies, patrolling the area and keeping his wits about him as he searched for Traction.

"Alright, let's see how this goes down."

[RipRaw]

Trax happily scooted along as a missile impacted the ground just to her right. She was flipped up into the air and landed back down on her tread. A pure fluke. If she had tried it out for practice, she would have landed on her fender. Quickly transformed back to root mode, and sought cover by a fallen wall.

"Ha, you missed sucka!"

Trax drew her rifle and returned fire at the offending npc seeker. She distracted the A.I long enough for a pair of rockets fired from npc ground forces to impact the flier. Trailing smoke, oil and energon, a third rocket exploded the enemy jet. Safe for the moment, Trax surveyed the area to see if she had drawn any wayward attention.

[Bomblast]

Breaker spotted some commotion not to far from his position. He couldn't tell what was the cause, so he decided to go closer and check it out, leaving the A.I. and his mines to protect the objective. Breaker flew closer to the area where he saw something happen, but there were too many buildings in the way to see anything.

"I hate being so needlessly destructive." He muttered to himself.

As he circled the area, Breaker started charging up his Buster Cannons.

[RipRaw]

Traction did not spy Breaker, either due to the distance or the smoke. Feeling safe again, or safer than before anyway, he transformed again into her bike mode and headed in the direction the rockets had been fired from.

When she got closer, she realised the terrain was blocking her path to the allies. It would cost her too much time to backtrack, she had to keep going forward. As she came around one corner, she almost collided with an enemy scout. She let loose with her Neutron repeaters, burning through over a third of her ammunition to drop the ‘con. She felt less guilty about overkill in this case than she would have if she merely disabled the enemy mob.

"Better you than me."

[Bomblast]

Breaker hummed to himself as he lined himself up with a particularly large building and he opened fire with his Buster Cannons. He continued to fire them as he swept the beams across the area, hoping to level a few of the buildings that were blocking his view of the ground. Before long, the beams cut out and needed to be recharged. Breaker banked to his left as a couple of the buildings collapsed. He circled the area, waiting to see if he flushed anything out as he waited for his Buster Cannons to recharge.

[RipRaw]

Before Traction had even got a chance to make her exit, a building to her right came crumbling down. She searched and eventually saw something, someone, flying overhead in the distance and heading in her direction.

She judged by the size of the flier that it was Breaker but she had no better identification than that. Trax shrugged and took the opportunity anyway. With a calm steadiness not born of experience, Trax took careful aim with her Riot Canon adjusting for distance, target speed and everything else her limited training had taught her, and fires six rockets in quick succession. She then reloaded while waiting to see the results.

[Bomblast]

Breaker had just fired his Buster Cannons when he saw he was taking fire. He executed an aileron roll to his right, causing the beams from his Buster Cannons to miss. Most of the shots from Traction's Riot Cannon missed, exploding harmlessly nearby, but the last one clipped Breaker's wing as he rolled. Breaker started to tumble out of control, so he transformed into his robot mode. Breaker slammed into the ground and rolled to break his fall. When he came to his feet, he had already drawn his Grenade Slinger. He crouched as best as he could and started to move to a clearer area so he could transform and take off again.

[RipRaw]

Amazed that even one of the unguided rockets actually hit her target, Trax was unsure what to do next. The flier came to ground where she couldn’t see, intervening terrain and rubble blocking line of sight. The clock was ticking, but if she didn’t finish this opponent off here and now, they very well would likely get her. Trax transformed and headed off in the general direction of the fallen. Stealth and caution thrown to the wind in the need for speed.

[Bomblast]

Breaker heard someone transform nearby and then heard an engine rev. He cursed to himself and made his way to a clearer area. He jumped into the air and transformed into his jet mode. He oriented himself with the area he was meant to be defending and took off at full speed, going three times the speed of sound. On his way, he could see a trail of dust being kicked up by Traction. Breaker was able to easily over-take the Minibot and he made it back to the objective. He transformed and landed on top of a building after making sure his mines were still in place. One of the mines had detonated, but the other two were still active. Breaker drew his X18 Gatling Laser as he waited for Traction to get within range.

[RipRaw]

Traction could only watch and listen as Breaker rather hurriedly left the immediate area. The sonic boom only confirming the immense speed that Traction could never meet. She judged by Breaker direction coinciding with the direction of her objective that the large flier knew the target’s position. There was no now two ways about it, she had to either disable or destroy Breaker in order to win. She’d rather not have to all the same but she could do in a sim what she was reluctant to do in the real.

Trax changed her course to head directly for the site, as much as the terrain would allow. She too k her time to avoid any npc patrols. Eventually she got close enough to sight Breaker once more, and immediately sought cover. She didn’t know if she had been spotted and she certainly didn’t know that he could see her dust trail. Trax transformed and despite her reluctance at hurting what she knew to be her teammate, she readied her Riot Canon. If she had picked her cover right, she should be just inside the effective range of her gun.

[Bomblast]

Breaker lost sight of Traction as she got closer. He wondered for a moment if he should drop down to ground level to try to engage her. Breaker knew the fight would be over very shortly, provided he could ever land a hit. He had strength and endurance on his side, but Traction had speed and agility on hers, not to mention the fact she was much smaller and harder to hit to begin with. In the end, Breaker decided he would be better off at a distance. Now his only problem was the fact that he couldn't see his opponent.

There was a loud whirring as Breaker's X18 started to spin up. Breaker fired off a couple of bursts from the X18 into some random buildings, hoping to clear his line of sight a bit and also to flush out Traction.

[RipRaw]

Traction froze at the sound of Breaker firing away. A dozen seconds passed and she realised she wasn’t dead, let alone targeted. She peaked out from the cover and saw what her opponent was doing, although she was sure why. She mused that maybe he was attacking her allied npc’s. Still, now was her chance. Trax levelled her Riot Canon at Breaker and let looses another barrage of six rockets. She quickly reloaded with the last clip she had, transformed and began to race closer to her target using the rockets as a distraction. She needed to get much closer to be sure of successful hits from her guns.

[Bomblast]

Breaker couldn't hear anything over the sound of his weapon firing. He looked to his side too late. He saw the rockets Traction had fired. He attempted to dodge them, he took a direct hit from one and got clipped by another two. Breaker fell from the building he was on top of as the other three rockets exploded. He got to his feet and winced. His chest armour was blackened and smoking. Breaker stored his X18 and quickly climbed on top of another building before drawing his Grenade Slinger and letting loose a couple of grenades in the direction he assumed Traction would be heading.

[RipRaw]

One grenade landed to Traction’s right, close enough to shake her and rattle her joints, the other annihilated the cover she was heading for leaving her very exposed and in the open. With no better options coming to mind, she transformed as quick as her T-cog could spin, and opened up fire with her Proton Path Blaster on breaker’s position. She walked forward while firing, ready to dodge further grenades and hope for the best. Trax was good at hoping for the best, the worst hardly ever happened to her. Surely Breaker couldn't get a head shot with a grenade launcher, and the X18 didn't seem to have her range yet.