It had started off simple enough for Knock Out, he supposed. Just another night drive just after the sun had set, to get away from the constant drama back at the base really. There was Swindle, trying to con everybody out of their energon for cheap and barely functional weapons. His fellow gestalt member Dead End, constantly muttering how the end was nigh. Flamewar, bitching about how she had that damned cop right in her sights before his partners stepped in during the last mission, -Knock Out could only guess that she meant Prowl when they were in Japan or wherever- and of course, last but not least Brawl grumbling about how he didn’t have anything to shoot.
So, it was no small surprise then Knock Out decided to take a drive through the timberlands outside of Canterlot just for some simple peace and quiet. He switched on the radio as he drove, the moonlight shining through the tall pines illuminating the red metal that mostly made up his form. Tall, lonely trees flanked either side of the lonely pass he found himself on, and the moon shone down, in a half moon crescent shape. As he turned a corner, Knock Out found himself inside a tunnel, and he let himself speed up just a little, to hear his own 712 engine roar with a long and lonely howl, the tunnel’s acoustics only amplifying it. Now, Knock Out, unlike most cons actually gave a damn about what alt-mode he chose, and made a point on looking up the different vehicles he had a selection of. Now, some of it could just be applied to his vanity really, but in his mind if you were an automobile you might as well look good while being one, right? The specs on this particular model, labeled by the humans as a One-77 for whatever reason, they’d caught his eye. It bore a naturally aspirated 7,312 cc engine developing near 750 Horsepower. Hardly anywhere near what the vehicles on Cybertron could get up to, but it was just nice enough for his tastes.
He’d read, on the website of the car’s constructors out of idle curiosity that the car, and he remembered the quote directly: “It represents what is possibly the world's most desirable automotive art form, with an immensely rigid lightweight carbon fibre monocoque clad in a seamless bodyshell handcrafted from aluminium at its heart.”
Knock Out couldn’t really argue with that. These humans, he had to admit knew exactly what they were doing at times. He remembered this model had been given awards, such as the Concorso d’Eleganza Design Award for Concept Cars and Prototypes, the ‘Best Design’ award by the UK motoring magazine Auto Express amongst a few others. It played into his vanity a bit more that he now knew that his car design had won a few awards simply by looking damn good.
An old disco song was coming out through his alt-mode’s stereo. Knock Out idly hummed the lyrics to himself out of boredom. He didn’t know quite the reason why, but it… resonated with him.
“It was a Monday
A day like any other day
I left a small town
For the apple in decay
“It was my destiny
It's what we needed to do
They were telling me
I'm telling you
“I was inside looking outside
The millions of faces
But still I'm alone
Waiting, hours of waiting
Paying a penance
I was longing for home
I'm looking out for the two of us…”
This old station, and the roar of his own engine were the only sounds his audio receptors picked up for the next half-hour or so as he continued his drive along this lonely old trail, nothing but the horizon and the lines on the road in front of him, the music beginning to fade off into the distance as if it was nothing but a dream. Gave him a good amount of time to reflect on how he ended up in his current situation.
“Hands where I can see them Con!” a feminine voice shouted as a white and blue Autobot pointed a pistol at Knock Out, standing over a mangled body with its chest ripped open. Knock Out’s hands were covered in the distinctive sharp blue tint of Energon as he clutched a T-Cog in his hands. Her voice, Strongarm’s voice dripped with a sense of loss, betrayal.
Tires squealing as he tried to force the hurtful memories away, Knock Out continued onwards into the night.
He eventually paused in front of a crystal glass-like lake, its waters calm, peaceful and silent. No movement came from the lake itself. A Canadian lynx, standing on the other side of the waters had stopped by and paused to take a drink on a late-night hunt. It looked up at him and then ran off into the woodland.
“What’s that old phrase?” Knock Out mused. “Oh yes, there's always a bigger fish.” he smirked. He remembered now, he’d been here once before, when he had his battle the Autobot aptly named Road Rage. He winced, feeling the phantom pains of where she’d nearly shoved his own electric prod into his spark casing.
“Even for moi, it seems…” he muttered. He had a feeling what was wrong with Road Rage, he’d seen her condition before on Cybertron. Quite honestly, it was something he wouldn't wish on anyone, not even the slagger who put him in this predicament or even Onslaught himself if only for the simple reasons that they would go even more insane than they already were.
Sure, Onslaught may have tried to hide it the best he could, but Knock Out knew the truth. He may have normally been the hands-off type as the humans called it, but Onslaught did go into battle at times. He just preferred planning behind the scenes, laying out battle tactics, strategies and the like and watching his soldiers do the dirty work. It was only when the plans got botched up by something, or usually someone did Onslaught join the fray, a fury of gunfire and rage spilling energon right and left, his carefully composed mask of calm tranquility dropped. There was a reason Bruticus was named as such, and feared so, with snippets of Onslaught’s personality chip in his mind. Of course, most combiners really weren’t in their right heads anyways, the stress of five minds working together forcing quite the strain on things.
The simple fact of the matter was if he had access to the right tools, and was allowed near Road Rage and an operating table Knock Out might be able to lend a hand. There was, of course, the simple problems of the Autobots not trusting him to actually give the help required. And why should they? In their optics, he was a deranged doctor who ripped T-Cogs out of the living to give to others.
As he took back to the roads once more, memories flashed through his mind.
He supposed it all started, with the Genericons, precursors of sorts to the Vehicons. Frontline, cannon fodder. Knock Out, he could tell at once what he was dealing with via the badge alone. Size was larger than the normal, and the colors were a lighter shade of violet. They were on the run, from battle. Knock Out, suffice it to say, was surprised by their boldness. He knew the spines the bots possessed, or what little they had of them anyways. Now, Decepticon deserters were never treated lightly. Not by a long shot. They were often hunted down by the DJD, the Decepticon Justice Division. By justice, one meant unmarked graves. Of course, that assumed there was enough left of their victims to bury. Traitors, deserters, and any other form of transgressors to the Decepticon cause end up on what was called: “The List”. The Division, fanatic enforcers of Megatron’s ideals -And it was worth saying, even he was disgusted by them and called them heretics- were led by ‘Lord’ Deathsaurus. They hunted down the criminals in their ship, the ‘Peaceful Tyranny”. An oxymoron if there ever was one. And then once the target was found, executed in the most brutally messy way possible. Knock Out knew he was inviting trouble to his door as soon as he helped these soldiers, but he did it anyways. Part of the medic’s code, help whoever asked no matter their beliefs, allegiance, sex or creed.
Now, Knock Out swung to both sides of the fence in his clinic, treating both Autobot and Con alike. He wanted no part of this foolish civil war that was rapidly tearing Cybertron apart. He was neutral and was just one of only three Cybertronians manning the clinic in his home city of Polyhex, alongside Red Alert, and of course, Pharma.
Pharma, what could be said about him? Well, for one he hated Decepticons with a violent passion and was against letting in these Genericons from the start. But Red Alert and Knock Out managed to swing them to their side of things. Now, both Red Alert and Pharma were amazing doctors, it must be said. Both of them had performed four-way fuel transplants at one point or another, with Pharma actually being one of the donors.
They were as different as night and day, with Red Alert being a pacifist who turned into a hovervan and hated fighting of any kind, while Pharma actually defended the clinic against any trespassers with his sword titled Bleeding Edge. Bit of dark medical humor, at a guess. He preferred to take to the skies in jet form, and often used his magnet to pull Cybertronians out of distress.
He was about to send the Genericons back out into the streets, Knock Out remembered when Red Alert spoke up.
“They don’t have weapons for the Prime’s sake! They’ve civilianized, and clearly traumatized at that! What do you think they’re going to do, whimper us to death?” Red Alert pleaded.
“Alright…” Pharma sighed. “Just a simple patch-up job, that should be enough to satisfy Article Seven, and then we’ll turn them over to High Command and ask what should be done with them.”
“And if the DJD show up?” Knock Out had asked. “I’ve heard the Autobot Swerve talk about-”
“That’s all he ever does, talk.” Pharma deadpanned.
“Anyways, Swerve told me he’d seen the aftermath of what happened when Deathsaurus and Tarn got through with one of their… victims. Traumatized him for six months, he wasn’t able to speak in that time. Said it was the worst thing that ever happened to him!” Knock Out exclaimed.
“What, seeing the DJD?” Pharma asked, head tilted and eyebrow raised. He’d been carefully watching this one Genericon, who seemed to be the leader of the trio that had been brought in. He was a contrast to the other two, to be sure. While they sported dark purples and various shades of gray, the third was much brighter in color tones. Flashy, even. Starting from his red face and yellow optics, one could look downwards to see the rest of his paint job. His chest was mostly blue save for the silver-white vents near his shoulders and bore a shiny yellow cockpit in the center of his torso plating. His shoulders themselves were blue which stretched down to his elbow joint where it changed to a stark bone white. This color pattern continued throughout the rest of his body.
“No, not being able to speak.” Knock Out corrected him and Pharma chuckled a little. Now Pharma, you hadn’t seen him work. There was a certain fluidity in how he did his healing and mending, you just didn’t build hands like that. Despite his many flaws, Pharma was a master. Any patient that came into his ward, chances are you were probably alive and well even if you had been ripped in half by a Dynobot’s jaws. Pharma was the best medic alive, and that was the end of it.
Knock Out found himself ripped out of his memories by a screeching of tires as something attempted to swerve out of his way, and then he crashed headlong into them with a horrific BANG!
It was with a drowsy consciousness that Knock Out finally awoke, and he realized with horror he’d hit a civilian driving home in her old Bugatti Type 50. He knew the car at once, considering how recognizable it was from any other vehicle on the road. And how could you not? It stuck out, like some dangerous black widow. Befitting of its driver really as Knock Out would later learn. The car was old fashioned but beautiful. It's paint style was a mixture of black and red The sides and hood was all red stretching out almost into the shape of a drop. The rest of the car was a sleek and shiny black, a nice wheel cover stretching up and over the wheels in a very curvy design. The trunk of the car was relatively small compared to the rest of it, sticking out like a jagged lump on its back with two spare tires hanging off of it. The roof curved over the seats smoothly comfortably seating one person. Or at least, that’s the way it should have been before Knock Out smashed into this work of art on wheels. There was another car in the area, one that had pulled up upon seeing the crash, some generic brown sedan. He didn’t care for the model, so he didn’t recognize what or who made it. He did however, recognize exactly who was getting out of the sedan to help however. Agent William Fowler and his daughter, Sunny Flare.
He watched with fascination as Fowler worked diligently on his patient. She was a woman around his age, with cyan skin and spectacles that had fallen off her face. He couldn’t see either of them clear enough, but with the front window gone he could make out some movement as the organic stabilized his patient.
It amazed him how similar his moves were to his own. Sure, this was hardly a clinic, but he could tell the similarities. He’d been at the operating table, in a war and while this human hardly had anyone trying to kill her, her silent pleas of desperation to her god and the sheer isolation were very similar to what he’d worked with back on Cybertron. It was all-too sickeningly familiar to the mech. He’d wanted to get away from all of this, and yet Onslaught had dragged him on his little crusade simply because Knock Out had nowhere else to go.
Carefully, he gave the human femme a once-over with his onboard scanning equipment. Broken bones, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Severe spinal injuries, and yet somehow she was miraculously clinging to life. Knock Out never gave humans a lot of credit, but after tonight his opinion would probably be changing for the better, he mused. They certainly had this strength about them. Something far stronger than any Cybertronian steel.
Knock Out then noted something else, and it wasn’t his damaged finish. During the crash, he’d been knocked back into a telephone pole as he believed the humans called it and his fuel line had been breached. Combine his energon with that of the already leaking oil from the woman’s car and an explosion could very well be imminent.
Now, if he transformed, he could very well easily leave the human to her fate, but no. He would not. This went against every code in his medical creed. Besides, he caused this with his own carelessness, and now he had to clean up his own mess.
Making his choice, with of shifting of mechanical parts Knock Out transformed, which caused both Fowler and his offspring to stare up at him in quite frankly understandable trepidation.
“Fuel line’s been breached, you three need to get going now!” Knock Out stated quickly, without hesitation. “Be careful with the woman, spinal fractures. She needs proper medical treatment, like yesterday!”
“E-Excuse me?” Fowler barked out as he began moving the woman to his own car. “Me, take orders from a Con?”
“No, take orders from a medic,” Knock Out replied. He’d also noted the way Fowler was carrying the woman, and how he held her tighter than should have been normal for any random person just stopping to help. He also noted that Sunny was casting nervous glances at the woman every now and then. “Now get in!” he barked, even as he transformed back into vehicle mode, and both of his doors opened.
Fowler and Sunny shared a brief look, and then a look back at the trashed car and the fuel leaking from it with electrical lines dangling dangerously above it and beginning to spark. Then, they made their choice.
Fowler, as he wrapped gauze around the woman’s neck handed her over to Sunny as he took the driver’s seat.
“Floor it!” he yelled, and Knock Out didn’t even need to be told as his tires squealed and he peeled off into the distance just as a large fireball was visible in his rearview mirror.
“So… so what do you get out of this?” Sunny asked, her voice growing ever more dangerous with each passing moment even as she stroked the woman’s hair as she rested in her lap. Knock Out winced, he could see where she was definitely Fowler’s daughter. “I mean, aside from helping to clean up a mess you caused, Decepticon.”
“Honestly?” Knock Out mused, even as he drove up the road to Canterlot, his onboard navigation system set to the nearest hospital. “Absolutely nothing, I’m just doing the right thing.”
“Yeah, forgive me if I don’t believe you for a moment,” Fowler deadpanned. “You nearly got my w-Er, Ms. Cinch killed, and the jury’s still out on that I should point out!” he snapped, not noticing his little slip-up.
“So that explains things…” Knock Out mused. “Don’t think I’m stupid, I saw the way both you and your daughter caressed her. Even without your little slip of the tongue, I would have figured it out eventually. So, wife huh?”
“Ex-wife,” Fowler corrected. “Sunny and I… Well, after certain events me and Cinch slipped apart. Sadly, as part of the divorce settlement Cinch gets to see my daughter once a month. I… I uh may have tagged along just to be careful.” he admitted tugging at his tie a little.
“Overprotective father, whose daughter happens to be involved in an Autobot crusade to hunt criminals like me down?” Knock Out sighed even as he rounded a corner. “Yeah, can’t entirely say I blame you for watching her every move.”
“It’s not just that,” Sunny corrected. “Doubtful you remember this, but there was an… incident last year at this big event called the Friendship Games. Well, I call it the Fiendship Games but that’s beside the point.”
“Been surfing the web, or at least the darknet. Rumors abound of two magical girls going at it, and I caught Youtube videos of vines emerging from portals around a dirt race track for bikes,” Knock Out admitted. “I assume Ms. Cinch was involved in this somehow?”
“Well, indirectly, yes. She was the former Principal of my high school, Crystal Prep. Me and my friends, I’m ashamed to admit helped Cinch push this other friend of ours -if we can even call her that after the shit we pulled- into just using a power she didn’t understand.” Sunny sighed in a mixture of self-disgust, and guilt.
“And that led to the magical girl battle, right?” Knock Out guessed.
“Yeah,” Sunny continued. “Suffice it to say, nobody was pleased with all of this. Including my dad. He divorced my mom soon after he found how much danger I’d been put in,”
“Must have been rough,” Knock Out sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sunny replied, brushing his concerns off. “Glad to be out from my mother’s thumb actually,”
“We’d been growing apart for years anyhow,” Fowler picked up the story “Both of us, getting far too wrapped up in our jobs for our own good. A divorce was inevitable really. Her putting my only daughter in danger was just the last straw. But, all the same really…”
“You still care for her, right?” Knock Out surmised.
“Course I do, she used to be my wife at one point!” Fowler told him in return. “Sure, I’m a cold-hearted bastard at times, but I’m not emotionless. Now, can you do me a favor and shut up and drive?”
Knock Out sighed, and complied. Eventually, not even an hour later they pulled into a nearby hospital. The former neutral turned Decepticon watched anxiously as doctors and nurses rushed out upon seeing Ms. Cinch’s state and put her on a gurney before rushing her inside with Fowler following. Sunny stayed, however, and patted Knock Out’s hood when nobody was watching.
“Never thought I’d say this to a Con, but… thank you,” she whispered and looked as if she was about to dart off to her father’s side but before she did so she added: “I’ll be sure to tell the Autobots about this, maybe put in a good word for you okay?”
‘Well, that was unexpected…” he muttered to himself in pure, unabridged shock. Even as he watched Cinch get led inside, his mind flashed back to years long since passed.
Knock Out had been growing suspicious for a while now. It was near what he knew to be the war’s end. Slag, if he’d heard correctly the war was already over now that Megatron and Optimus Prime had sat down for peace talks. And so life went on, at least on the surface of the Polyhex Clinic. Like I said, Knock Out had been growing suspicious for a while now.
Tarn was supposed to have burnt out his T-Cog long ago, from rapid over usage to the drug called Nuke. No thanks to this over-reliance of the stuff, it was unsurprising to no-one when the infamous warrior’s Cog finally went. It was a great load off everyone’s minds. And yet, Knock Out had heard several nasty rumors that Tarn’s very distinctive tank alt-mode had been sight several times all over parts of Cybertron, ranging from the Sea of Rust towards the now-rebuilt city of New Kaon. The rest of the Decepticon Justice Division had been either rounded up, or destroyed long ago. Helex, Kaon, Tesarus, Vos, they were all in prison. ‘Lord’ Deathsaurus, had his spark blown out personally by Megatron’s fusion cannon after a prolonged and quite legendary aerial battle for supremacy.
He had famously stated after walking over the Con’s rusted corpse: “Justice? Please, give me a break. Now that’s just bad comedy. Now, let this stand as an example to anyone who gets the intelligent idea of filling his shoes.”
That swiftly put an end to things. The Decepticon Justice Division, in its most infamous state, was no more. The last of an ugly, dirty era had simply been swept away like rust in the wind. If Tarn had any sense, then he’d headed for the hills. But apparently, Tarn’s lust of the spillage of energon overcame any sense of reasoning he might have had, and now he’d been supposedly spotted once more, this time in Iacon of all places. The former Autobot capital. Knock Out had to give him points for sheer outright nerve. Tarn, whatever his many faults must have had bearings of sheer chrome steel. No, make that titanium.
But the obvious question was, where was Tarn getting his T-Cogs from? Knock Out had a sneaking suspicion, and he didn’t like it one bit. But it had to be confirmed. For the past few cycles, Pharma’s personal ward had been deadlocked to all but his personal handprint.
No small problem really. Normally, he wouldn’t think of doing this, but time was of the essence. Pulling out a small pistol he kept for self-defense, Knock Out blasted the door open. In front of him was Pharma, hands swapped out for chainsaws and also in front of him was Red Alert of all bots, chest sliced open and the rest of his body mangled beyond almost all recognition. The only way Knock Out was able to identify him, in fact, was the coloring and the distinctive paint job the former Protectobot bore.
“I should have known…” Knock Out growled, switching one of his hands out for a medical saw on pure instinct. The other hand still clutched his pistol. “You’ve been awfully quiet as of late. Thought it strange you stopped taking patients when you yourself said: “Life must persist.” At first, I thought it was because the war ended, but then the occasional patient showed up in my clinic and every so often, after I’d turned all the lights off for the night I’d come back next morning and find them missing. Now some, I would assume they’d gotten better but others? Backstreet, remember him? He was infected with the rust virus! There was no way he would survive the night! I’d just tried to keep him placated while his spark slowly faded away. I often wondered what happened to him. Now I know.”
“Of course you realize there’s no way you can prove any of this. No security cameras in the entire clinic. Doctor-Patient confidentiality, you must understand. Besides, who likes Big Brother watching them anyhow?” Pharma sneered. “So yes, I admit I took up Tarn’s offer to try and find replacements for his cog. Rare condition, but treatable. Trouble is, he doesn’t want the treatment, not buying what I’m selling. He just wants his next fix.”
“So, what? You started selling organs to Tarn just for a bit of cash on the side!?!” Knock Out exclaimed, appalled.
“In the beginning, despite my best efforts, patients just kept dying on me. Demand increased,” Pharma stated calmly, with a small sigh. “A pity really...”
“So you started killing them.” Knock Out said in disgust, lunging for Pharma with his saw-blade only for the medic to block it with his own weapons.
“No, I started making judgments on their survival rate,” Pharma corrected him, even as sparks flew, before he kicked Knock Out backwards into a wall. A pistol clattered the floor, and Pharma crushed it under his heel strut. “Sometimes if they really were clinging to life, I just… let’s say helped them relax their grip,” he remarked, his voice silent as the grave before he smirked and held a hand up to his audio receptors. “Oh, you hear that? Sirens. Police on are their way. That little door you blasted in? Tripped the silent alarm. While we’ve been standing here talking, they’ve come running. Now, obviously, I can’t let them find me, so… toodles.”
With that, he vanished through a trapdoor in the floor. Knock Out screamed in rage, and frantically rushed over to Red Alert.
“Listen… Listen buddy, gonna fix you up real fast you understand? I’ll… I’ll get you proper help!” Knock Out cried as he desperately tried to mend what he could with a nearby laser scalpel and using his other hand to try and refit Red Alert’s T-Cog.
But it was all for naught, as Red Alert’s optics began to fade, and his body began to turn a distinctive dull gray color. And then, he heard the sound of a weapon cocking.
“Hands where I can see them Con!” a feminine voice shouted as a white and blue Autobot pointed a pistol at Knock Out, standing over a mangled body with its chest ripped open. Knock Out’s hands were covered in the distinctive sharp blue tint of Energon as he clutched a T-Cog in his hands. Her voice, Strongarm’s voice dripped with a sense of loss, betrayal. And why shouldn’t it? After all, he’d saved her once. He remembered the day all too well.
There’d been a police shootout not too far up the road, some civil dissidents and anarchists and both Strongarm and her boss, Prowl had been caught in the crossfire. Prowl was none the worse for wear, a few patch-ups from Red Alert had been all that he’d needed but Strongarm on the other hand?
Well, that was a different story entirely. A few unlucky shots near her spark casing, and she was bleeding energon profusely. It was only with the fast work of Knock Out that she’d survived the operation, and that wasn’t counting the long road to recovery she’d been on just trying to learn to walk and transform again. Knock Out was there as well, helping her every step of the way alongside her Conjunx Endura. Ironically, that happened to be the very same Genericon colored in that flashy red, white, and blue paint job -Nacelle, he’d learned his name was- that Strongarm had bonded to.
And now both officers stood holding Knock Out at gunpoint, and cuffing him. Well, trying to anyways. He had, just before he’d been cuffed, managed to shift to vehicle mode and dart out the front doors of the clinic. Knock Out, now he knew this wouldn’t make him look good in the eyes of the law, but who would believe him that Pharma was the true culprit? The answer, nobody. He was a star in the eyes of Cybertron, and the sheer idea of him doing organ transplants for wanted criminals was simply unbelievable in anyone’s mind.
He had nowhere to run, and he knew it. Well, nowhere to run except into the claws of the former Elite Guardsman and now wanted criminal and Combaticon Onslaught.
In the end, he wondered if it was worth it. Just running like he did. Now his reputation was ruined, and the only place he had solace was in a wrecked ship full of almost completely insane Decepticons and various other criminals who would give Pharma a run for their money. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire as it were.
Eventually, he made his decision and sent a coded transmission on an old Autobot frequency channel saying one simple thing.
“I’m turning myself in.”