Unlikely Friends

[Breakdown, where are you!?] Knock Out snapped through the commlink. It was four breems past the designated time frame in which he and his assistant planned on meeting up. The plan was simplistic and should have gone down without any kinks in the schedule. Breakdown was more than capable of following orders and plans, and today's scouting mission was practically going to be effortless.

Then why is he so late!?

Knock Out's scanners and radar had pointed out to him that he was in the right position, just on the corner of a street in a rather shady human settlement. Knock Out sat parked unknowingly beside a pawn shop, ignoring the many flesh creatures scrambling to and fro on the side walk beside him. Some would stop to admire his physique, commenting on his perfect gleaming rims or his flawless paintjob,  that looked rather radiant in the late afternoon sun.

That was the only thing he could tolerate with humans. Their taste in convertibles was impeccable.


[Breakdown, if you're not here in the next half breem I'm leaving. Do you hear me?]

Nothing. Not even static. What the slag was going on? Was their commlinks on the fritz? It was rather unusual, for he would had been notified by his HUD if it was offline or damaged.
There was the possibility that Breakdown had gotten himself in some sort of trouble. It wouldn't be the first time, Knock Out thought, thinking back scornfully on his reckless style of fighting. On the bright side, better Breakdown's paint job getting scratched up this his.

Out in his perpetual vision he barely registered a dirty looking male human exiting the pawn shop with a paper bag in his hand. He opened the top of the bag, revealing a bottle of cheap whisky. He quickly opened the bottle, sneering to himself as he struggled, and finally taking a long swing.

Knock Out ignored him, but once the human's eyes spotted Knock Out sitting on the curb, he early spat out his alcohol.

Jackknife was suddenly infatuated. He never saw a car so beautiful...so exotic and perfect in his entire life. Of course, spending the majority of said life hopping from prison to prison left his love for fast and powerful cars unquenchable, but Jackknife knew when to pounce on an opportunity when presented to him.

Knock Out couldn't believe his sensors when abruptly a greasy looking human was suddenly touching him. His oily fingers and palms where smearing his flawless finish, rubbing on the wax that he worked so tirelessly on. The human desperately tried to see if the door was open on the passenger side, and found it was not, tried the same thing on the drivers. Knock Out hissed in pain when the human used his elbow to forcefully try to shatter the window open.

"That's it!" Knock Out snarled. He flexed his car door, opening it with such force that when it hit the human in the stomach he was sent sprawling on street. Jackknife stared at the inside of the car, completely ignoring the fact that the car suddenly opened its door, by itself, but was rather rapt by the interior.

The high tech sound system, the navigational view screen, the pristine leather seats...wait...
The door snapped shut and suddenly it was falling apart. Parts shifted and switched places and started to form a figure...and it stood up.

Jackknife sputtered, the grip on his whisky went slack and it shattered on the ground. Knock Out glared at the disgusting human and reached down for him.

Jackknife yelped in panic as the robot plucked him off the ground and straightened to his full height, and lifted him up to eye level. Jackknife's skin registered warm air being expelled off the robot and his hearing picked up the internal whirr of its inner workings. Its eyes were lustrous and looming, narrowing into angry slits.

"What were you trying to do there, human?"

Jackknife didn't know what to think. Was he on some sort of drug? He hasn't shot up in a while, and the only addictive substance he ingested today was alcohol. Maybe someone laced his drink with acid?

"Answer me human!"

Jackknife's mind was trying to conjure up a reply, but with the whisky he had drank earlier his mind was clouded and moving at a sluggish pace. He squirmed instinctively, avoiding the robot's death glare. At least this was better than dealing with Jailbot. That crazy murderous refrigerator didn't know a damn thing about handling inmates, often just satisfying his sick hobby of carnage and destruction.

There was a sudden commotion behind him and Knock Out shifted his attention to it. Knock Out
didn't know what to think of the white ice cream truck driving towards him. It was pasted with crude hand drawings of different types of frozen desserts. It was gaining speed quickly and then suddenly it...changed.

It wasn't anything like a transforming sequence Cybertronians were capable of. This ice cream truck shook on its tires, vibrating and rattling. Then suddenly the whole frame seemed to implode, decompressing its size considerably. Knock Out stepped back when suddenly it's new form presented it self...it looked more like a slender white box with a simple black screen for a face. It had a simple green smiling smirk and was...floating in the air?

What on Cybertron?

The panels on each side of the robot fell down, and robotic tendrils of arms shot out at lightning speed. They knocked Jackknife from his hands, clasping around the human's wrist. The human screamed out in horror as he flew towards and past Jailbot, striking a store window across the street.

Jackknife's whole world exploded in pain as he was thrown through the window. The glass shattered and shards and slivers rained down on the man.

Knock Out stepped back, totally lost at the moment. Who the slag was this robot? Why was he openly attacking this human? Why was it still smiling at him like that!?

As more questions flooded his processor, it had retracted the length of its arm and now the human was flying back towards their direction. Knock Out had to hop out of the way, for he didn't want any organic matter on his finish. The human was now bleeding significantly but that didn't stop the robot from smacking him repeatedly into the pavement.

Was...this some sort of failed experiment of a Decepticon? Knock Out mused internally, signalling the start up of his x-ray sensors to take a look at the inner structure of the robot. Interesting design...but nothing compared to his own inner workings or even that standard Cybertranian drone.

The white...thing...didn't stop its reign of terror as it unleashed its fury upon the unfortunate human. More tendrils shot out from its frame, wielding a saw like weapon, pincers...and feathers?

Knock Out offlined his optics and audios at the sight, slightly turning away from the scene. He was obviously well adjusted to violence and death and the philosophy of survival of the fittest. In addition, being a doctor as skilful as himself had eventually caused him to be impervious to feeling squeamish by seeing such...horrific sights such as this one right now.

But he didn't know what subconscious prompt had made him look away, hearing and seeing nothing. But eventually, the part of him that loved everything and anything to do with medicine, killing, and simply sadistic fun made him online both his sensors.

Jailbot had just about finished his butchery of the runaway inmate, his limb body hanging from a poisoned wrist. Jailbot turned towards Knock Out, and for the first time machine and machine regarded each other personally. Knock Out straightened to his full height, narrowing his optics and pulling his lips thin across his face. He would not show anything but disdain and superiority to this failed experiment of a Decepticon. He was superior and prettier. This slag heap didn't even possess an alt mode!

Jailbot was hard to read for his simplistic facial expression had morphed and turned down into a frown. But inside Jailbot, he was alight with curiosity. This was the first time seeing such a mechanism, so foreign and fascinating. Jailbot felt the slightest pangs of jealousy run through his curitry, but it was quickly sliced in half once he thought about The Warden.

He was the Warden's Jailbot, trusted friend and guardian. Superjail would most likely crumble and burn to the ground if he wasn't there to oversee the daily operations. He didn't have time to feel jealous of some strange foreign robot. He had duties to do and only he could carry them out.

Finally, with Jackknife safe in his possession again, Jailbot moved to return to his home of Superjail. But before he left, he half turned to Knock Out. His frown blurred on his black screen and then he was smiling again. The panel on his right side fell down and a tendril zipped out and darted behind him.

It plunged into the wind shield of an unfortunate parked car, and it retracted and zoomed back towards Knock Out.

Knock Out's optics widened in surprise, and instinctively subspaced his energon prod and was ready to pounce on the insane robot. But it's claw suddenly stopped in front of his face as he pulled up his prod to block.

Dangling there just two feet in front of him were fuzzy red decretive dice.
Knock Out's engine rumbled in confusion and looked up across the street to Jailbot. His pleasant smiling face was leering over at him, and he twitched his tendril, as if asking him to accept the gift.

Knock Out awkwardly held out his left hand and the dice were dropped into his claws. Jailbot, now pleased with himself, made a few buzzes and beeps, and surprisingly Knock Out understood.

"Thanks for catching Jackknife for me!"

Maybe it was because he too was mechanical and metal, or some sort of uncanny kinship, but Knock Out understood.

He nodded, smirking.

Then Jailbot rose up, and just as quickly and rapidly he arrived, he departed...smacking Jackknife occasionally onto the roof tops of shops and houses as he sailed past.

Knock Out didn't quite understand what just happened...but he knew for sure Breakdown wouldn't believe him even if he sent data spurts to back up his claim.

But that didn't matter.

The fuzzy dice did suit delightfully well with his paintjob and interior, and he planned on showing off his new gift proudly.

-End-