Autobots

## Guardian Knights

Cybertron's **Guardian Knights** were a mythical group of warriors that arose long ago on Cybertron, but vanished over time into myth and legend with little trace of their existence behind. Some time in the past, the knights fought against the "great deceiver" Quintessa, stole her control staff, and set out aboard a ship into deep space in hopes of finding worthy allies on another world. By the fifth century C.E., the Knights landed their ship on Earth, a world that in reality was the resting place of Unicron, inhabited by a species called Humans. In Dark Ages England, they made contact with a native man, Merlin, who promised to keep their existence a secret.However in 484, Merlin asked them to help his people fight against the imminent threat of destruction by invading Saxons. Judging that Camelot was proof of the worthiness of mankind, the Knights decided to render assistance to King Arthur's forces. The Knights granted the staff of Quintessa to Merlin and combined into a mighty gestalt dragon. As Dragonstorm, the Knights easily wrought devastation against the enemies of Camelot. Afterwards, all knights of both species celebrated their alliance. Later in time, the knights ship was relocated to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, wherein they slumbered in stasis along with Merlin's corpse and the staff.

By the 21st century, both the Knights of the Round Table and the **Knights of Iacon** had fallen into legend. Thanks to the efforts of the Order of the Witwiccans, Dragonstorm was misbelieved to merely be the exaggerated story of a catapult. In the meantime, another knight came to Earth in search of the Last Knight, prophecied to be crucial in the struggle against Quintessa, who was moving Cybertron towards Earth. Though this knight was shot down by the TRF, he succeeded in giving a talisman to Cade Yeager. Yeager and Merlin's descendant Viviane Wembly boarded the HMS *Alliance* and travel to the undersea ship where the knights slept. Cade Yeager inadvertently woke a damaged knight, who began to attack the apparent intruders, only to be gunned down by the TRF. Two more Knights arrived minutes later and wreaked havoc among the TRF, but they were themselves cut down by a newly-arrived Optimus Prime, under the thrall of Quintessa. In short order, Optimus seized the staff, escaped, was knocked back to his senses, and then lost the staff to Megatron and Quintessa's new Decepticon allies. The knights soon recovered and reactivated themselves before they went outside.

Outraged that the Prime had been in Quintessa's service willingly or otherwise, the knights beat down Optimus, with them judging him to death and one preparing to execute him. As Yeager attempted to stop this, his talisman transformed into the fabled Excalibur, which he used to stop a knight's blade. Recognizing Yeager as the Last Knight, the knights stopped attacking and joined the **Autobot**-Human alliance against Quintessa. The knights boarded the Autobot ship to travel to Quintessa's base on a hanging section of the newly-arrived Cybertron. From the ship's hull, the knights once more combined into Dragonstorm and took flight against Quintessa's forces. Dragonstorm also dropped Optimus into battle against Infernocus. The allied humans, Autobots, and knights emerged victorious, by stopping Cybertron from consuming Earth's energy and forcing Quintessa and the Decepticons to flee. Soon afterwards, the knights once again formed Dragonstorm to fly alongside the Autobot ship towards their nearby homeworld. After the conflict with Quintessa, the **Cybertronian Knights** were made the elite defenders of Cybertron, created to honor the Guardian Knights, given with the task of responding to any threat, no matter the size, to their homeworld and people.