KNUCKLEBONE

Priya Nair and Knucklebone

A discarded underground boxer and the careful mechanic trying to give him a legitimate career without allowing him to destroy himself.

CURRENT LEAGUE RECORD

Fights: 2
Wins: 0
Losses: 2

Turns Won: 0
Turns Lost: 6
Turn Difference: −6

KNUCKLEBONE — FIGHTER PROFILE

Original Designation: Not recorded
Robot Type: Retired underground boxing robot
Height: 181 cm
Weight: 113 kg

Combat Identity: Relentless close-range boxer and combination pressure fighter.

Knucklebone closes distance quickly, establishes boxing range and attempts to overwhelm opponents before they can settle into their preferred tactics. His main route to victory is to land a quick opening strike, extend the attack through rapid combinations and accumulate damage across the torso, head or defensive limbs.

He is an experienced and technically dangerous striker, but his design is heavily specialised. Knucklebone is vulnerable when opponents convert close distance into a clinch, takedown or mechanical lock.

Years of underground competition have also left his hands and lower-arm striking assemblies heavily worn. His right shoulder currently carries significant damage, leaving his most important striking arm impaired as he prepares for his next fight.

ATTRIBUTES

Power: 6
Agility: 5
Structure: 5
Systems: 4
Endurance: 5

COMBAT SKILLS

Striking: 7
Grappling: 3
Defence: 4
Tactics: 5
Control: 5

SIGNATURE TRAIT

Combination Pressure

Knucklebone’s boxing software is designed to recognise openings created during rapid striking exchanges.

When an opening appears, he does not allow the opponent time to reset. He immediately extends the attack, changing targets and continuing the combination while the defence remains unsettled.

This makes him extremely dangerous when he can keep a fight upright and establish his preferred range.

Signature Technique — Defensive Clinch Frames

After consecutive opponents neutralised his boxing through clinch and ground control, Priya installed reinforced defensive framing systems.

The upgrade helps Knucklebone resist an opponent’s first attempt to establish a clinch, giving him a better chance to maintain boxing distance and keep the fight upright.

The frames do not turn Knucklebone into a grappler.

If an opponent successfully completes the clinch or takes him to the ground, his established weaknesses remain.

THE TEAM

PRIYA NAIR

Priya Nair has spent much of her adult life repairing machines that larger service companies no longer consider profitable.

She survives through irregular repair work, maintaining household machines, mobility units, industrial equipment and obsolete systems for people who cannot afford licensed corporate technicians.

Priya is an excellent diagnostician and a competent practical mechanic. She is particularly skilled at identifying fatigue fractures, impact damage and faults caused by repeated mechanical stress.

Her ability has never provided her with much financial security.

Priya lives in a modest unit with workshop space beneath it. The workshop is filled with salvaged components, ageing equipment and machines waiting for parts their owners may never be able to afford.

She found Knucklebone while clearing an abandoned workshop connected to underground robot fighting.

Most of the valuable equipment had already been removed. Knucklebone remained powered down at the rear of the building with a disposal notice attached to his torso.

Priya initially intended to repair and resell him.

Once she accessed his maintenance records, she discovered years of rushed repairs, overridden warnings and repeated returns to competition before earlier damage had properly stabilised.

She refused to sell him back into the underground circuit.

Repairing Knucklebone cost more than she expected and created a responsibility she had never intended to accept.

It also gave her a challenge she could not walk away from.

KNUCKLEBONE

Knucklebone spent most of his operational life competing in underground boxing venues.

He passed through several owners and temporary repair crews who valued him while he could still win and repaired him only enough to return him to competition.

Years of combat have left Knucklebone with clear preferences, habits and competitive drives.

He wants to fight.

He believes competition proves that he remains useful. He accepts damage as part of that purpose and has difficulty distinguishing voluntary caution from failure or forced retirement.

Knucklebone is intense, controlled and extremely proud of his striking ability. He does not boast theatrically, but he believes he can defeat almost any opponent willing to remain upright and exchange with him.

He respects Priya’s mechanical knowledge and trusts that she will not abandon or deliberately weaken him.

He does not always agree with her decisions.

Priya believes that preserving Knucklebone’s long-term function is more important than any single result.

Knucklebone believes that preserving him without allowing him to fight would be another form of dismantling.

THE ROAD TO SCRAP YARD

Priya discovered Scrap Yard while trying to decide what future Knucklebone could have outside illegal competition.

She initially distrusted the tournament.

Robot combat promotions had spent years claiming that independent mechanics could compete while structuring their leagues around corporate teams, expensive machines and sponsorship money.

Scrap Yard appeared different.

Its entry costs were low. Independent mechanics were welcome. Obsolete fighters, rebuilt machines and converted industrial robots were openly encouraged.

More importantly, Scrap Yard offered regulated competition.

Fighters received technical inspections. Officials could stop matches. Damage and results were recorded. Mechanics retained formal authority over repairs and safety decisions.

Priya saw it as a possible compromise.

Knucklebone could return to competition without being sent back to owners who treated catastrophic damage as an acceptable expense.

Entering still required a risk.

Priya had already spent money restoring systems that could fail again. Knucklebone’s worn hands would remain an ongoing cost, and neither of them knew whether an underground boxer could succeed against more varied fighting styles.

Every team also had to pass a technical inspection, a safety assessment and a short test fight before being admitted to the first official season.

THE TEST FIGHT

Knucklebone’s test opponent was a slow, heavily armoured machine designed to absorb strikes and push forward.

The opponent appeared durable enough to test Knucklebone’s damaged hands but lacked the grappling ability to exploit his greatest weakness.

Knucklebone established his preferred range almost immediately.

He used quick opening strikes to disrupt the opponent’s guard before extending the attack through repeated combinations. He shifted between the torso and head, preventing the other machine from resetting or building forward pressure.

The assessors ended the test after Knucklebone forced a protective shutdown.

The contest was brief, controlled and convincing.

Priya left the test believing Knucklebone could remain competitive if she managed his damage carefully.

Knucklebone left believing that legitimate opponents would be unable to withstand his boxing once he reached them.

Neither fully understood how quickly stronger grapplers could remove that advantage.

The victory does not count towards his official league record.

SEASON ONE STORY

Knucklebone and Priya’s complete Season One story is free to read.

The ongoing story follows their lives before and during the first Scrap Yard tournament, including:

New chapters will appear in the story feed below as the tournament continues.

SUPPORT KNUCKLEBONE AND PRIYA

Season One remains free to read on this site.

After the tournament, Knucklebone and Priya’s complete Season One story will also be collected into a $3 ebook for readers who would like to keep the story or support the project. If you want to wait until next season to read the story for free, you can do that.

Future Scrap Yard seasons will continue their story as the tournament, the machines and the lives surrounding them grow.