Disclaimer: Transformers © Hasbro

Warnings: mild TF swearing and possible mech/mech implications depending on how you look at this.

Notes: Inspired, oddly enough, by the back-and-forth comment thread over on the LiveJournal community tf_ic_prompts between myself-as-Cliffjumper and tiny_green_leaf-as-Mirage. Methinks we enjoy bouncing them off one another entirely too much. On the plus side, it gave me this idea, so...

Off-Target

Lighten up. Have some fun. Sure, it was that simple.

Except it wasn't. Not for him, anyway.

No one really understood his reasoning for being constantly on-guard, for always keeping track of what was going on around them. It wasn't like he couldn't hear them talking, after all. Not like he didn't hear the comparisons between himself and Red Alert and the debates on which of the two was more paranoid.

What none of them seemed to realize – or, if they did realize, what none of them seemed to care – was just how many times before arriving on this little organic world that his and Red's "paranoia" kept mechs from being killed in their own berths or cut down unexpectedly in the supposed safety of their own base. No, every one of them seemed to think that it was "safe" with the Decepticons' base in the middle of the ocean... as if that somehow negated the fact that most of the enemy were aerial-types and that Soundwave's slagging cassettes likewise were flight-capable and still small enough to slip through any cracks in the security grids.

Oh, no, not at all; there's no danger, it's just the glitched mechs being paranoid again.

So, frag all of them.

There was only so much Red Alert could do with the security systems, only so much that he could catch on film. Where those measures might fail, he was always able to observe. It gave him a reputation as being confrontational, and twice he had accused someone who was actually innocent (oddly enough, it was the same mech both times), but he didn't much care if the others liked him or loathed him.

Slag it to the pit, let them hate him. So long as he was still able to keep their ungrateful skid-plates alive, he could care less about any of that.

Drawing back from his thoughts – stream-of-consciousness thought was a valid meditation tool, and he employed it when completely alone – he subspaced his gun and moved to check the target he'd been firing at while lost in his own memory banks. A few shots had gone wide, a few more off just enough that had the target been an enemy the wounds wouldn't be fatal, and only one dead-center.

One kill shot out of nearly a dozen. Definitely not his best shooting, and yet it continued to suffer the longer they were on this world. Cursing subvoc to himself, the red minibot yanked the target down and headed for the incinerator, already replacing his mask of paranoid belligerence.

If he had known that he was being watched the whole time, from the moment he stepped onto the firing range to the astrosecond that he left, he made no mention of it to anyone. Sometimes the best course of action was to keep his own counsel.