#like I couldn’t even beat the franks I just painted the same wall till I got to 10000 then fucked around…

[starlooove]

FINALLY got brc and I’m too stupid to figure out how to get enough rep to meet the eclipse gang 😐

[yesnomaybelobster33]

Memories part 2

Knock Out strained his wires as he tried to get...something to happen! ANYTHING honestly, but even with all the knowledge and all the practice the young apprentice just couldn’t get any of the rituals to work. Not even at the simplest level!

Knock Out threw his servos up in a huff as the dark maroon light faded again from his digits for the third time that hour. “I CAN’T DO THIS CONDUIT!” The poor wounded energon miner quickly flinched away from the young mech’s tantrum. Conduit easily healed him up with a few simple words before running after his pupil. Grabbing Knock Out by his wrist he tugged him close into a sort of embrace. Not a hug, Conduit wasn’t the sort but enough it was close and congenial and had quite a lot of contact. Being a mostly blind mech Knock Out never refused Conduit this.

Finding out the the preacher was blind after all the compliments and amazing accurate appearance of vision shocked Knock Out only a little. The mech after all did have faith in “the darkness” of all things. Finding out it was Conduit himself who was the cause of his blindness was a little more shocking but the faith healer was quite adamant that Knock Out would not have to follow the same fate, encouraging him that he could already access the dark road whenever he wanted. Yet another thing Knock Out had yet to figure out how to do.

Conduit held the younger mech’s face firmly in his servos and gave him a hard stare. He was silent as he stared but he didn’t need to say anything for Knock Out to know what he was feeling and trying to get across. “I’ve been practicing forever Conduit, years. Y-you got the wrong mech. I don’t know what else to do.”

“The darkness does not lie to me young one. You are who I was looking for. You just don’t believe despite all the darkness has already given you. A lesser of the faith would be angry with you or think you selfish but I know where you come from. I saw the faithless streets you wallowed in. You have no faith in anything, not even yourself so how could I ask you to have faith in anything else. We will change that. You are trying. You preach so faithfully, you want so badly. Yet you are already welcome, you already here. With me, with the family, with the darkness. In time you will gain faith but till then they’re ain’t no use gunning a dead engine. So, I’ll teach you healing in a different way.

So after that every morning Conduit would escort Knock Out to Fisk, the local reclaimer. A mech of a strange profession. Half faithfully respecting and half black market. He fixed up and gave rites to the poors deceased loved ones for cheap in exchange of any useful parts they still might be harboring. The more parts the lower the price and usually the better the send off. Fisk was a haughty, impeccable mech for the city but he did have a soft side and  truly believed in his work despite the dubious almost sleazy way he achieved it. He wasn’t after all a saint.

The moment Conduit showed up with Knock Out he rolled his optics with a sigh. “Primus be another one! When will you give it up Conduit?”

“This one I’m sure, he just needs time.”

“Of course but until then I have to teach them and when they don’t show anything I’ll be sending them off to the pits with the rest!”

“The pit needs medics, you’re the first stop. I don’t force my disciples to take the road, they have to choose. Just like you chose to tutor my faithless ones till they can be sent onwards.”

“Can’t you at least repaint them for me! Look at this one! He’s practically in his factory paint! I can’t have that working in my shop. I know I do things on the cheap but still!”

Conduits voice boomed in the small shop as rage turned his eyes almost white. “HE WAS REDESIGNED BY THE EXALTED ONES DON’T YOU-”

Fisk was not put out in the slightest. “THE EXALTED ONES HAVE GAUDY TASTES!”

“Ooh you- One of these days your heresy's gonna get you in trouble.”

“I hardly think that can be considered heresy. Does this one at least speak and drive and can lift more than their servos up in prayer dear Conduit?”

“I already have him preaching the good word. He’s a natural so I want him free every end of the week. As for the rest….the gods have given him a blank slate. Knock Out’s nothing more than what he should have been when he rose from the fields.”

“Great~ so he’s a useless weakling.” Knock Ou tfelt a prickle of rage at the undertaker’s comment but Conduit held him back as he lunged forward.

“He is as I said a blank slate. He’s been much too busy with the history and the texts to care about going out and finding himself. You being so….engrossed in the public would be a much better aid in finding a frame.”

Fisk sighed exasperatedly but tugged Knock Out along. The moment he started his first job everything changed. Fisk was brutal with his expectations, demanding and damn near abusive he made sure there were no mistakes whatsoever. He demanded perfection from day one and Knock Out couldn’t always comply but like any good sadist, Fisk poured on his own form of aftercare after every berating, every beating, every threat. He spent hours teaching, instructing, caring in every and all things he could give. He buffed, polished, and painted, straightened, and corrected till everything was as he liked it.Till it was acceptable.  Knock Out learned quickly. Grew to love the attention doing a proper job got him. Grew to love Fisk in general. Fisk wasn’t like Conduit, while they were both kind and terrible in their own right Fisk was just something more. He wasn’t a real mech, he was almost a story. Born as a loadbearing dolt at the docs he’d made enough money and seduced enough higher-ups to get him into medical school and while to be frank it wasn’t the job for him he’d utilized what he did learn and turned it into something he loved so he’d never have to lift a box or trudge through an enemy line ever again. Being filthy rich and generous without being a righteous fake he was everything Knock Out could ever hope to find in another mech. Even if now he could hope for so much more.

Fisk likewise took a shining to young Knock Out himself despite never showing it very well, considering he never once gave up being belittling or terse in any way despite Knock Out showing much more promise than the others Conduit had sent his way. No, he showed his love by keeping the little mech around, showering him in gifts, helping him get the best frame one could find in Kaon for his size and asking the mech to go home with him to his personal apartment. Where he was almost a different mech.

He certainly wasn’t the first mech Knock Out had opened his panels for but it was certainly the first time it ever felt good to connect with someone. For a while things were good. Not great considering he was still an illegal mech who was wanted by recallers for being a nonfunctioning scrapheap and fueling with nothing but church energex after living on dregs for so long left him constantly sick and achy with excess charge most days but it was certainly better in general. Knock Out was happy, comfortable. He even...started to believe a bit. Believe that there could be selfish gods out there who hungered for faith and energon so badly that they would be willing to grant miracles. Believed that if he just kept appeasing them that everything would stay…...okay.

Except it was believing that lost him his safety.

Fisk, after all, was a mech who knew what he liked and what he liked was being in control and being a slagger in every part of his life. It was his defense mechanism and his kink. He liked mechs with tough metal who would push back but never step out of place….at least when it was his authority. And for the most part, Knock Out was okay with it because he’d never had anyone like Fisk before in his life. He’d put up with Fisk when he was just his boss just fine so it couldn’t get much worse than that and... it didn’t, but the night Fisk tried taming Knock Out something in him just snapped.

There had been chains and lines of hard light rope and demeaning words. Loving backhanded praise and fondling till things were starting to turn out fine….until Knock Out wanted to be cheeky. Knock Out knew full well he wasn’t going to get off scot-free but as soon as Fisk's slender digits made contact with his face everything went….dark. Knock Out never expected the old gods to be so….caring. On the road everything was dark and starless and he was…..broken again. He could feel the old pain, struck by his old fears. Trapped. There were warm words in his processor. Sinister words, filled with seething rage. He tried to tell them no, tried to convince them that this was what he wanted and that everything was okay….but it wasn’t. He loved Fisk and he took a little pleasure in fighting, in rebelling, in pain but he only found an ironic pleasure in being belittled when he knew there would be praises later. Deep down though he was tired, he didn’t want to be some mech’s lesser….not  Fisk’s, not anyone’s. It seemed the dark ones really did know him best.

When he returned to reality Fisk was slamming him into a wall. As a mech who rode the dark road himself, he wasn’t going to be bested by a new mold who just found the path. Still, as Knock Out lurched forward and purged his tanks all over the floor Fisk was quick to comfort his young love despite his missing arm and leaking side.

The smell of tungsten and carorath soothed the pounding in his processor as Fisk lit up his cygar. Everything in the small room was a mess but even Fisk had more common sense than to indulge his OCD before his traumatized apprentice. “Honestly I never thought that holy fool would ever find the disciple he wanted. The twins favor is hard to garner.”

“I didn’t mean to, I promise.” Knock Out carefully touched the raw edges of Fisk’s shoulder joint. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know. That’s not how the twins work.” Fisk took another long drag on his cygar before tossing it into a tray on his desk so he could return to comforting Knock Out. “We need to get you back to Conduit. If he finds out what I’ve been doing with you now that you’ve showed your promise he’ll kill me.

“I don’t think I can do what he does Fisk. I don’t want-”

“Quiet! Yes you do.” The two were silent and Knock Out had to force back tears.

“I don’t want to leave you.” Fisk shifted slightly in shock. That hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. He pulled the sullen mech as close as he could and held him, their faces pressed just together.

“I know, but we’d never work out. You’ve proved too much to be just another pet of mine. So it’s either back to the church... or the pits for you now.”

Knock Out chose the church but even after everything, he couldn’t return to the dark road. He didn’t like what he had to do to reach it, what he had to return to. Still, Conduit taught him everything he knew, he still gave sermons for the congregation when the other healer was out recruiting, but there came a time when Conduit realized Knock Out’s fear.

“I was once afraid….once basked in the small light of Primus and you will not hear me mock those who do, for Primus and what he became are important...but they are so small. So INSIGNIFICANT! So….tainted by those who think they know him better. We can’t rely on him, he is but a mech like us, born to a grander legacy but he is not an exalted! He died like any other, scattered and squabbled till he tore himself apart. Left us here in disarray. His light is a false one. Protective, kind…. but an illusion. The darkness is vast in its power and not many have the courage to travel in it...but you do and come a time you will see.” It was the morning after that lovely sermon Conduit took him to the long ride to the Pits of Kaon. Where he lived and studied under doctors quite a lot like Fisk….except they had much more investment in saving patients and only reclaimed organs and parts when the poor gladiators had no one to care about them to tell them not to. Life in the Pits was alright, he often saw Fisk and while they still held an….uncomfortable attraction for each other Fisk was good at keeping them distant enough in their continued friendship. There were a few other doctors and even gladiators who took a shining to him in those days and that made work and learning easy but he never had quite the same drive as he did with Fisk. His work with Fisk was….for the better part eternal but the gladiators he fixed up were only going to come back worse the next time around no matter how good a job he did till eventually one cycle there was just nothing even the best medics could do for them.  It left a dismal taste on his glossia. Knowing everything he was doing was pointless. So he shied away from most of the others. 

Who he spent his time with most were Conduits other disciples. Thin haunting mechs that made it no wonder why the other fighters fought so hard to stay undamaged. With their hollow jawed faces, red optics, and dark purple and gold paint, they all looked like they were from another world. Before, Knock Out had thought them failures like himself, mechs who just couldn’t get to the road or...didn’t want to be on it despite it’s gifts but they weren’t. Instead, they had been blessed by different exalted ones, mechs unable to reside under Conduit’s teachings but needing a place to work and thrive regardless. They weren’t as scary as they looked. They accepted Knock Out easily and while they were a tad pushy knowing that he was blessed by Sana and Creatrix like Conduit, they understood his reluctance. They all assured him they all found their faith in the undergrounds of the Pits. Knock Out was glad to have their company even after so many years under Fisk's tutelage he couldn’t bring himself to reframe and repaint to mark himself as a disciple himself. They assured him his already red optics were enough.

 Learning kept him busy, despite his rather poor commitment, so the work still grew easier and easier till he had quite some time on his servos and while at first most of it was spent going back to the church it slowly devolved into watching the matches in the pit. And slowly he grew attached to a few of the fighters. One more so in particular, one he never even spoke to. Painted black and sloppy blue with a rust-colored face he was too young to be in the Pits but much too old for Knock Out. He’d already lived and served his function and was made nonfunctional by it. With no place left to turn, he went to the place every downtrodden mech did. Still, Breakdown didn’t act like a downtrodden mech. He was proud to the point of recklessness and so flagrant in his self-assurance that he fought and taunted to the point that it got him seriously injured in even the only win/ lose battles. So much so that he lost more than he won. Being built for speed and defense he tried to act like a powerhouse and often paid the price. Still, he was charming, funny, and an underdog who wasn’t afraid to lose to shake his opponents and make them crack even just a little. Because of the good show he always put on he was paid a winners wage regardless, honestly it was only fair since he spent most of it on medical treatment anyway so it never left the Pit.

Then one day the old scout’s luck gave out. He wasn’t as well as his attitude suggested and during a fight, he just…..collapsed before even the first blow. Knock Out remembered the crowd going nuts, mechs and femmes all fans screaming and jumping to life in the seats. Knock Out remembered feeling the same. He’d seen a few of his well-acquainted friends get carted off by FIsk and they got little less than a prayer to the exalted from him….but seeing Breakdown fall made his spark burn. He wasn’t a big name in the Pit, not enough at least for the medics who could have saved him to care so when the ones he got had done all they could and called him a lost cause it was easy for Knock Out to sneak into the room they had left him in to die.

Knock Out hadn’t thought of the dark road or it’s exalted ones more than he had to since studying at the Pit, but he still believed, he still went to give sermons every end of the week, even gave a few for the rest of the disciples even though Rivet was by far the best at it, but now he sat at the edge of a dying mech’s slab he’d never spoken to begging the hidden gods for his life, the Twins for their power. And they were kind enough to answer, no ritual, no sacrifice, just blind care for their dear little worshiper who needed them so.

Knock Out felt the old pain return to him, felt the burning of Sana’s gift as she used him to save the mech, felt the throbbing pain in his processor as it tried to tear him apart, but none of that hurt as badly as the screams he received when Breakdown startled awake.

Knock Out knew he’d been an eyesore but the way Breakdown screamed….he might as well have been looking at a monster. He remembered that night, weeping in the arms of the disciples, of his coven, to never again ask for the Exalted’s gifts…..the pain just wasn’t worth it.