[open] Just roll through town...

[redcosmedic]

WHO: Knock Out & OPEN
WHERE: Various; see starters, all prompts open unless otherwise specified.
WHEN: February
WHAT: Knock Out's settling into something of a routine.
WARNINGS: TBA if needed.


I. Jeopardy #003;

He's rarely there during the daytime hours, but despite not being able to enjoy most of the amenities offered by the building itself, Knock Out still comes back to his assigned housing each night, as much by habit as by design. This will never be "home", but it's a pleasant enough respite for what it is, and the company he keeps here - Rogue and occasionally Kasia - is a welcome distraction. He's settled in for the evening and begun running a self-diagnostic for something to do, entering a low-power mode that wasn't quite recharge. Dozing, essentially, while still keeping a wary eye out for the two Autobot neighbours that lived across the street.

II. Jeopardy - Big Al's Used Autos;

He does eventually remember to attend where his government assigned job is located. The manager is less than impressed by the time it takes Knock Out to show up (what's a few weeks to someone who lives for millions of years, the medic snips back) but eventually they work out his actual job description. He really can't bring himself to promote these (in his opinion) clunkers, but it turns out they mostly want his imPort presence as a marketing gimmick, and that suits him all right. Most of what he has to do is sit around looking extra shiny and talk car specs with any gearheads that come by because they heard about the transforming imPort. All of which are tenable, and they're paying him decently for it.

III. Jeopardy Assorted;

Jeopardy may be creepy, but it's one of the few Porter cities at the moment that's not snowy, which suits him just fine. He learns his new "hometown" with all its idiosyncrasies. The humming takes some getting used to, especially since his audial scanners can't pinpoint the exact frequency, and that's nothing short of strange for his kind. Subroutines to filter it seem to have limited success at best, so eventually he just gets used to it.

He politely turns down the frequent offers to join the Church of the Ancient Web Mistress, though they routinely come up to him with new offers, seemingly "innocently" having forgotten his earlier dismissals.

The hallucination-like sightings are a little more worrisome, considering that he shouldn't be susceptible to the commonly explaining reasoning - ambient radiation - that supposedly causes them. One of the city's many quirks, and sometimes he'll be found sitting in vehicle mode on alongside the curb on various streets, watching some of these ghostly figures and recording them as best he can.

"Did you see that one?"

IV. Heropa Boardwalk & Beach;

Of any city outside Jeopardy, Knock Out spends more time in Heropa for the warmth of the Florida climate, such as it is even at this time of year. A good portion of it is spend actually outside the city and down near the beach and boardwalk, where he's begun building something of a following since the provided space gives him ample opportunity to revert to root mode and stretch. Heropa, already heavily imPort-friendly in general, is a nice break from Jeopardy where the natives are reserved about their world-hopping neighbours. And sometimes he just wants some quiet time, moving down the beach quite far from the boardwalk for a stroll or to sit and look out over the ocean.

V. Other Cities;

He spends less time in the other Porter cities than Jeopardy and Heropa, and it's mostly in vehicle mode as he cruises looking for interesting things, but he will sometimes revert to root mode when there are fans nearby. While it remained a little disconcerting that humans don't react with either fear or even much shock when confronted with an alien robot over 20' tall, the medic has significantly warmed to the attention, even if he tends to outright laugh when questions come up about what kind of hero he is.

And Knock Out has never needed an excuse to preen, so he is obligingly turning this way and that while a few snapped pictures. Honestly, if humans had been like this on the Earth he was familiar with, rather than merely infuriating and disgusting, he might have actually reconsidered his position on Megatron's plan to decimate the little mudball. "Ah ah, look but don't touch," he scoffed, shooing a few over-eager spectators away with wickedly pointed digits. "I don't want your fleshy little prints grubbing up my finish."

Of course, not everyone in attendance was in a charitable mood. A few had gathered on the edges of the crowd, trading glances in the medic's direction with mutters among themselves about 'another imPort too dangerous to be properly controlled'.

VI. WILDCARD;

Anything that doesn't fit the above starters, or hit me up at sojourney and I'll write you something specific!

Comments

[knaval]

[at some point, knock out gets a text;] dont get mad
but i might have a medical problem

[from his sitting position on the ground, riptide glances over at andy. he's being awfully calm about all this! how cool that he can just turn off his pain sensors. riptide reaches out a hand and awkwardly tries to corral the energon on the ground into one puddle. damn liquids and their spreading!!]

Convenient that a medic was ported in recently, eh? Side note-- are you immune to radiation?

[killtime]

Nope.

[ But apparently this doesn't bother her anymore than watching Riptide's goo spread all over the dirt. ]

Hopefully I regenerate faster than the radiation fucks me up — [ Shrug!
] — otherwise it's going to get even more gross around here in a few minutes. [ Against all better sense, she crouches down and casually sticks her hand in the energon — ]

Ow, fuck! [ Cool cool cool. Just melted part of her hand off. Nice. Love that burning acid feel. Expressing her delight with her nasty hand with the usual deadpan: ] ...One more reason that you fucking suck, Riptide.

[redcosmedic]

[ Knock Out speeds up and transforms the last few yards away, taking in the spreading pool of energon and snapping irritably, medkit already out. ]

There is literally no version of "don't be mad" that has ever worked on any medic, by the way.

Yes, congratulations, you have "a medical problem". What happened?

[knaval]

You suck, woman! [he says, flicking some energon droplets at her.

as knock out arrives, riptide winces. boy, this is one of the more embarrassing ones.] Er, yeah.

[he pokes at his leg. or... y'know. the hole that's been blown in it.]

So remember that subspace? Grenades don't agree with it. Especially when they don't have pins in them.

[or maybe they just exploded awkwardly by his armour? he's not actually exactly sure how it happened. all he knows is there was a bunch of them and he crumpled like wet paper. seems knock out, medical professional, was actually right about lack of energon affecting his physiology? wild.]

[killtime]

[ Andy doesn't even flinch when he flicks that nasty glittery acid at her. Hurts a little, but not as much as shoving her entire hand in the stuff, and that's already healed almost all the way. An additional bonus is that she hasn't started melting from the radiation yet. There's that too.

Anyway, more importantly, she's now officially outnumbered by transforming robots.

Dryly: ]

I don't know. You look fine to me.

Jeopardy #003

[iliveidie]

The Tower was probably the closest thing to home as could be for any Guardian, but this residence was nothing like that. It was just three people living in a confined space. Well, occasionally two and then a robot that turned into a car. Still, nothing like the Tower.

This place would never be home, Kasia was convinced of that. Yet it was still a place she could go when she wasn’t wandering around or camping out in the desert. Sometimes she would return to leave something in her room, attempt to actually sleep in the bed, or just to watch over the residence at night while the world slept.

Tonight was one of the latter nights. She’d made her way up the roof, not bothering to be quiet about it since no one was asleep just yet. She settled in with Nox nestled into her hood to watch the sunset. If she noticed Knock Out in the driveway below she didn’t let it be known. If he wanted to talk he’d talk, why bother him when he’s resting?

[redcosmedic]

He knows she's up there; his proximity scan covers the whole house and a fair share of the property boundary. Knock Out's diagnostic came back clear as he knew it would, be it's still a nice feeling to know he was operating at peak efficiency. Not quite ready to drop into recharge this early, he blinked his headlights once for her attention.

"What do you make of the city? Jeopardy... quite a strange one."

[iliveidie]

Kasia shifted closer to the edge of the roof and peered down at Knock Out. So he wasn't asleep or recharging or whatever it was that he did.

"Strange is one word to describe it." There was certainly a lot of mysterious things in and around the city. "Have you seen any of the supposed ghosts?"

[redcosmedic]

"Yes," Knock Out replied thoughtfully. With a whirr of metal shifting, he transformed back into root mode; his height made was almost that of the house itself, which made speaking to Kasia on the roof quite easy. "I have, in fact. I've taken recordings of them, but they don't come out very well."

[iliveidie]

She perked up, looking intrigued. "Really? We've yet to see any, just weird critters." Nox had a similar reaction, his small form shifting forward in Kasia's hood so that his glowing blue eye was clearly visible. "«Would you mind sharing some of those recordings?»" he asked.

Heropa beach

[generalgrievous]

The cyborg is already there. He's at the beach most days and right now he is standing very still and gazing out over the ocean as if hypnotized by the sight. He's so rigid that he almost may appear as if he's merely a strange statue planted in the sand by an unknown artist.

On closer inspection, his eyes seem to be welling with unfallen tears, an indicator of the sorrow within the metal casing. His clawed hands are gripped into tight fists by his sides. An outward sign of his internal anger and frustration.

He doesn't notice at first that anyone is approaching.

[redcosmedic]

It's actually quite impressive that the cyborg doesn't notice an approach of someone his size, but when Knock Out sees his expression... well, he isn't exactly the most genial with it.

"Three-quarters of this planet is water, it's hardly a sight worth crying over," he deadpans.

[generalgrievous]

Startled out of his sad memories, Grievous immediately growls at the intruder, hand instinctively moving to the inner pocket of his cloak. But then he pauses, looking up.

"What do you want?" He asks gruffly.

[redcosmedic]

A quick passive scan is all Knock Out needs to formulate a better - and less antagonistic - reply. "Checking on the well-being of a fellow inorganic," he says smoothly. "No harm in that, surely?"

[generalgrievous]

The cyborg is silent as he looks over the other intently. He still doesn't look pleased, although that can be difficult to tell through the immobile mask.

"Do you think that I am like you?"

III

[queenofseers]

[ Cassandra doesn’t like Jeopardy, to be frank. It’s full of cultists, there are strange noises everywhere, it might be from another dimmension, and it’s just generally unpleasant to do research in, even if that’s a necessary thing to do. She’s forced herself to come today, but she’s fairly certain she’ll get nowhere- it’ll just be another damn day looking for something and finding nothing.

And just went she thought it couldn’t get any weirder? ]

You are a talking car.

[ Not as weird as it would have been a year ago, but weird. Speaking of which: ] You’re one of them. Knock Out?

[redcosmedic]

[ In a completely unenthused tone when he recognizes her voice: ] Oh. You.

[ and then haughtily: ] That's right, I'm "one of them". And now you've seen my alternate mode, illustrious as it is! No, you may not touch.

[queenofseers]

I wasn’t going to.

[ She really wasn’t. God, this is just too weird. She turns to study him a little more, already questioning the logic of this. ]

What exactly deems whether you’re a car or not? How come Riptide’s the only boat I’ve seen?

[redcosmedic]

All Cybretronians have a base frame type, ground-types are the most common, followed by fliers. Riptide is part of a particular sub-class, Hydrobots; his t-cog is naturally disposed for watercraft alts.

[ If a car can preen under her study, he's absolutely doing it. And he's waxed quite recently, so he does look very nice - and he knows it. ]

As for why I'm an automobile, I rather liked this model when I saw it after coming to Earth. It suits me very nicely.

[queenofseers]

Wait, so you can change? Huh. That's good, I guess, I'm just not familiar with the...lore, here.

[ Honestly, he answered that far more willingly than she expected. She looks around, remembering his initial question. ]

What, did you see one of the...ghosts? I keep thinking they're around, yeah. Yet another way this city feels freaking cursed.

big al's for 200, alex

[planetary_bonds]

[There's a guy poking around one of your cheaper models (okay, they're all cheap, but this one particularly looks like it's ready for the scrap heap). This probably isn't an unfamiliar sight at this point - it's not uncommon for gearheads to loiter around the cheapest models so they won't be pressured into buying something ridiculously expensive. A common ploy by those who just want to see the shiny transforming agent.

He doesn't really look like the type to be a gearhead, either, because he's clearly wearing the local casino's uniform. Which means he's got a nicely pressed suit and has his hair slicked back, and even the highlights and facial tattoo don't do much to offset the classy feel the uniform is designed to give. By the time Knock Out comes over, he's scuffed his polished shoes due to experimentally kicking at tires a few times, but otherwise seems unruffled. There's nothing that really sets him apart from the less-than-committed "buyers," other than the fact that his stare is rather intense. But that's just his face...right?]

What's the price range on this one?

[Blunt guy.]

[redcosmedic]

Above "not worth it" and slightly below $3000.

[ Knock Out and the manager may have had a few discussions about the mech's approach to sales pitches, all of which the medic has ignored. What are they going to do, fire their biggest draw? ]

You look like you can afford better than this lot.

[planetary_bonds]

[The sales pitch might be less than impressive, but it gets an amused half-smile from Yusei.]

You overestimate my worth. [He inclines his head towards the jalopy, seemingly still interested.] And you underestimate this one.

[redcosmedic]

[ Knock Out tips his head, amused as well. ]

I've taken a scan of it, I know exactly how much I'm estimating it.

[planetary_bonds]

So then, you could tell me what type of engine is under that hood?

[Even if Knock Out tells him, Yusei's still gonna take a look for himself. But it's always good to get a second opinion.]