Knock Out undergoes the Rite of the Autobrand...twice. Optimus mulls on the last branding ceremony he was a part of.
AN- I edit out small grammar/spelling mistakes the day(s) after I post each chapter, but do try to catch any large ones before any readers have to see them. As always, this fic is operating without a beta, so these mistakes are sadly inevitable.
My knowledge of the Act of Affiliation and Rite of the Autobrand come from the IDW continuity, so we're operating mostly from that.
And Ultra Magnus being an insufferable lecturer pre-rite also takes inspiration from there
First had been the Act of Affiliation.
If they'd still been in a war, maybe Knock Out could've skipped that. But Ultra Magnus gave no grounds on the matter.
He'd been forced to listen to lectures from the big mech, take tests, and finally undergo the act.
It was a good stellar cycle later before he had, with the help of Arcee, Bumblebee, and Smokescreen, pressured Magnus into giving him the Rite of the Autobrand.
The symbol was small enough, but it still interrupted what had formerly been a smooth, perfect chassis.
Knock Out brushed his fingers over it and looked in one of the (many) mirrors he had in his apartment. Without anyone else in here to see, the medic had gone thoughtfully quiet.
He had never taken on the decepticon symbol. He had never been all that loyal to it; the perks were getting to do whatever he wanted and also have the security that the faction would likely win. That was it.
In my view, you have each acted as a Prime
Loyalty, pah. What was such an abstract concept anyways?
It was carving this ugly thing into his perfect chest and feeling proud of it. It was suffering through each of Magnus's horrid lectures just so he could get to this point- just so he could feel as if he was one of them.
They'd all given him compliments afterwards. Lookin' good. Proud of you. Welcome to the team.
Knock Out brushed over the brand again absently.
He wondered what Breakdown would have said about it.
And he hated, absolutely detested, the fact that he could not say, with any confidence, that he knew what his old assistant would have thought.
She rapped on the wall outside and interrupted his thoughts.
"Hey." Arcee smirked at him. The medic tossed the datapad he'd been looking over onto the one berth. The two-wheeler followed the motion with her optics. "What were you doing? Having second thoughts?"
A quick thought of stone faced Magnus and his long winded lectures answered that implied question easily.
"Oh no. Believe me," Knock Out laughed, "I know this code thing in and out."
From her look, she didn't believe him. Likely because it would be hard for any mech to read up on every code and law in the few weeks he had been here.
They were skipping the Affiliation step. As he had once suspected, such processes got rushed in wartime.
The speed made him feel vindicated. He couldn't help but assume he was the fastest autobot to have ever been accepted.
And he didn't exactly care for disappointment enough to ever look into whether that assumption was right or not.
"What's it like?" he asked despite knowing what it had been like when he'd done it.
Just because he remembered his experience...
Well. It certainly couldn't hurt to try to hear what it was like for others. Whether or not he could understand it-
"It's not gonna hurt, you wimp," she mocked with a laugh of her own. They held optic contact while they shared mutual amusement.
Knock Out almost let it stop there. Then he mentally slapped himself.
"Yes, but what was it like?" he repeated. "What was that cycle like for you?"
"Ah." Arcee folded her arms and moved to lean against the hallway wall. She smiled nostalgically.
"It was vorns ago now. I was with Tailgate, at the time. We went through the Rite together. Then we got to use the ceremony as an excuse to party with the rest. Let me tell you, Jazz's parties are not to be snuffed at."
Having never met the mech, Knock Out couldn't exactly contest that.
But all of this did sound like a nice idea. He wished Wheeljack hadn't already used up the last of his high grade stores. They could've all drank tonight, after (or before, he didn't really care) leaving the base to drive around. After all, they could do that now. They technically could have for a day or two, but Knock Out had wanted to save that surprise until after he was officially affiliated among the bots of this universe; so neither he nor Breakdown had left yet. Tonight? He absolutely would.
Arcee seemed to notice that he wasn't thinking about her story anymore.
"Anyway, I thought I'd drop by to tell you we're all ready. Are you?"
More than ready. He was impatient.
Knock Out offered a smarmy smile.
"Of course I am," he purred confidently. It just made her raise an optic ridge.
Before answering, Arcee looked him over (which Knock Out couldn't exactly berate her for).
"Sure you want to do this?" she asked dryly. "It's going to mar your look."
The medic considered how his reflection in his own time had looked. How it had looked after that first little ceremony. How it looked after he had fled cybertron.
All things considered? He had liked that aesthetic. He'd liked the shout of loyalty it proclaimed to the world of ungrateful little brats on cybertron.
"Meh. It'll interrupt my symmetry, but I think it'll make me look better than ever."
She shook her head with that little grin of hers.
"Well, you'll carry it with a certain flair," the two-wheeler said.
A moment later and she added: "But you'll carry it. That's already more than you did with the con symbol."
It seemed the others had noticed as well then.
She waved him forward. "Come on, then. When you're prepared, Mr. 'of course I'm ready'."
He rolled his optics at her. The little red circles had remained red against black, even after he had taken on the autobrand in the other world. They would never become blue unless his paint job did.
There was a line he wouldn't cross after all.
"Hey-" Arcee patted his arm briefly, like one would pat someone else's pet. The analogy left Knock Out less than pleased. "As rushed as all this is, which means as suspicious as I am, I'm...I'm real happy you're doing this. I'll be cheering you on."
Well, that brought all the happy satisfaction back again.
The servo drifted onto his shoulder to confidently grip it. Orion wished he could share that confidence.
"But...I have not..."
Something felt so wrong about this. The glaring purple icon on Megatron's chest seared into his mind. It would be his in a moment.
Why purple? Why the color of the destroyer?
It was not the first risky decision Megatron had made- after all, he had taken on the name of one of the Thirteen. Of the Fallen.
So far as Orion could tell, Megatron liked to push at the barriers of acceptance. Shock value and thought provoking imagery- he wanted to create both.
"You have earned these stripes," the gladiator flashed a smile of sharp dentae.
How?
"You earned them long ago. And I fully believe you will do more for our righteous cause."
The brand stared at him.
Why was it purple? Why were they called decepticons?
"For you," he corrected. "I...I hope I will not let you down," Orion mumbled.
Why did this feel like betrayal?
Surely, he was in need of far more mental recovery than either of them had first thought. It seemed his time in stasis had taken a heavier toll on him than mere lack of memory; adjusting to being on a warship hovering over a planet far from their home, with only Soundwave as a recognized figure other than Megatronus, and with the gray mech seeming...
Orion did not want to think that thought. It disgusted and terrified him.
But it was impossible to not feel how off Megatron was.
"Oh, Orion-" the silver mech's grin grew until it pulled painfully at his scarred face. "You never let me down."
Deception. Deception.
But why?
When- and how- had he failed Megatron? Why could he not remember such a failure but feel it in their fields, in the very air between them?
The purple brand remained on the otherwise gray mech. It would be on him next. It would go on now, while Megatron returned to the bridge to speak to his army.
When had he gotten an army?
It felt so rushed. He had hardly regained awareness, felt thrust into a confusing, alien world, and already Megatron was shoving him into the medical bay to receive his brand.
He would not even stay to watch Orion receive the symbol; the brand he himself had apparently created for the army he had brought into being.
Why would Megatron not stay?
This entire time, the silver mech was brief with him. He had rushed the archivist to say he would join this cause of his and then withdrawn as if that had been all he had wanted.
Or perhaps he was too scared to spend excess time with him; as if that would reveal what the vorns had changed and erase this illusion of time travel.
But if that was so, then it was futile; the illusion was cracked to begin with. Orion could not escape how wrong everything about the word he had returned to felt. And primarily among that was the being in the body of Megatronus. No matter how wide he made his smile or how much comforting praise he spewed, Orion did not see his old comrade within him. Only a caricature, marred by a war that he himself had been in stasis for.
This new Megatron would want Orion to follow the lead of his other followers; the archivist would address him as 'lord' and show only the utmost respect.
How distanced it seemed.
The gladiator left while he stood outside the medbay. He would not stay for the branding. There would be no pomp or circumstance; there would be no pride and affection.
Orion entered alone. He did not give any words on the cause. He had no ruler present to ceremonially pledge loyalty to.
There was only the burning pain of the brand and the cold distance left behind.
"Welcome back to the winning team," the doctor had said.
Winning team? Why had cybertron devolved into teams?
But far more concerning:
Welcome back?
Why did that imply he had ever strayed from Megatron's cause?
Knock Out, busy cleaning the brand of any mistakes, did not seem to notice the misery of Orion Pax as the archivist mulled over the confusing choice of words.
And now here they were.
Knock Out's face was clenched in its smile. But the autobrand was far from as painful to administer as the decepticon counterpart. A large part of the ceremony among those ranks was built in pain. The autobots did not have such a foundation.
The inhabitants of the outpost circled around the crouching mech. It was customary to be on a knee for this ritual. It was customary to respect the loyalty this brand signified.
Not loyalty to a leader, but to the cause itself.
The creeds, the laws, the beliefs; the long and short of which had already been read by Knock Out during his free time- and, before that, during the time when cybertron was rebuilding.
Nearby, Breakdown watched as the perfect smooth chest of his partner was brazed into the square shape of the autobrand.
It wasn't right. It wasn't.
But there was nothing he could do about it. There never had been any chance of reaching Knock Out, after all- with the medic, it was always him that reached to you. The other simply never noticed otherwise.
Maybe...
He looked away from the porcelain faceplates to stare at the others. Ratchet was deep in concentration as he welded the brand on. Arcee had her arms crossed and looked borderline proud. Bumblebee was watching with a youngling's excitement. Neither wrecker looked hostile, though Wheeljack didn't look like he was paying attention at all.
And the Prime himself had the tiniest of smiles on his face.
Maybe this wasn't so bad. Maybe this- this room of support- was what the both of them needed.
Maybe that's why Knock Out had brought them here to start with.
It was a comforting enough thought. So Breakdown watched the rest of the ceremony with that word in his mind.
Maybe. Maybe.
Nearby, Optimus offered the final words of the Rite to a slowly standing Knock Out. The brand glowed hot to the touch on the mech's chassis.
He thought of the last branding ceremony he had been a part of, however unwillingly. He thought of how it had been a trick, a trap layed down by one pretending to be the Megatronus of old.
Though he had seen no evidence of it yet, a part of him still knew this could be a ploy for trust. Several decepticons had initiated similar ploys in the past, and Optimus had believed them out of hope.
Deception.
He looked at the relieved expression of happiness on the latest recruit.
Deception.
Optimus sorely hoped it was not.
And at the center of the ceremony, Knock Out accepted the final vial of energon. The last step of the ceremony.
The Rite would be over with this energon. His loyalty would be proclaimed in words and on his chest.
No matter how unnatural it would be, he would continue to try for that final bit of praise Optimus had offered- for the ability to say, despite the odds, despite his instinct, he had acted as a Prime would chose to.
So he rose, no longer an autobot in memory-
But one of this new world as well.
And he basked in the accomplishment.
AN- If you enjoyed, please leave a comment! :