It's a Thankless Job

Knockout is a medic for the Decepticon cause and he knew, no matter whatever he does, he was always overlooked.

Yes, medic is the crucial part of the war, helping you heal and fix whatever problems you have to live and survive another day, but sometimes can be overlooked to many Cybertronians. However, despite being a medic, Knockout had made a habit to disassemble any parts rather than fix them-since he's more of a anatomy medic rather than a CMO like the red and white bot he had been battling recently.

Today, was just like any other day.

He had no one to fix lately, and the only company he had was an already dead soldier drone (what was it called? Vehi-something-con?), just recently died while being carried down by his brothers in arms.

Of course, Knockout had no remorse for them, but at least, he had something to pass the time.

But Knockout was also curious, always curious as he wanted to know what makes this soldier drone the way it was. Sure, he had fixed every drone and high officers in his office and even disassembled few dead drones once in few lifetime, but that curiosity always flows dangerously, even if he had disassembled them before.

Grabbing the laser scalpel, he went to work.

He removed the weapons first, which was the most important and crucial part of dissecting. He didn't want to risk the weapon going ablaze in his med bay and trying to explain to Megatron and Starscream why his office went on fire for no reason; lessons from the first hand experience of course.

Apparently, this Vehi-something-con had small throwing knives as a secondary weapon with the blaster as its primary weapon. How interesting.

Putting the knives away to the tray he had at his side, he looked for the blaster from the dead's arms as it was customary for them to put it in there when not in use. Of course, he can disable the weapon, but when the owner is dead, its impossible to disable as he need the mech itself to be alive in order to do such trick.

Pulling and cutting few armors he can use as an spare parts for future armor, he found the said weapon and with high precision, he removed the weapon from the arm, ignoring the bright, blue energon blood that was flowing through the table, dripping on the floor and smearing both his servos and armor.

Normally, he would freak that it was ruining his paint, but he couldn't bring himself to care as he was used to do some few dirty jobs in his office-as long as he can clean it back up.

Taking the weapon itself next to the knives, he studied the inside mechanism of the drone's arm, trying to figure out what makes them to bring out the gun out. Of course, he had seen it before, but he wanted to see it how it works again.

Wire and wires of them were bunched up together, each colored differently as he poked each of them. Blue was for main line, red for pain receptors, yellow for movement, green was sensation and black were 'muscles'. He stared at the main line that kept the Energon Blood flowing, still dripping out after he took the weapon out.

The weapon was essentially the part of the drone, by judging how the wires were connected to it and as far as he was concerned, the drones use their Energon Blood as bullets to shoot out from their weapon. Well, at least he got a possible back-up if a drone needs a replacement, not that he care really.

Grabbing the rag that was close by, he wiped the blood off of the table and the weaponless arm so he can continue his curious findings. There are, after all, so many gears and interiors that he can take apart and study with.

He worked inside of the arm, taking apart armor to armor, ignoring the wires and energon lines so he can use them for spare parts and setting few pieces apart by sizes, color, and value. He removed the hand guards, leading him to the protoform that was underneath.

Knockout snorted, the Protoform was good as dead as it is partially to what humans say 'unprotected' armor, or 'naked body', but every gear. Every plate. Everything is valuable.

However, that Protoform arm is in the way of removing other remaining gears, like shoulder armors, so he activated his favorite, fast 'scalpel' to cut both of them off.

There were few grinding and buzzing and the blue energon went flying everywhere in the dim-lit room. Knockout tsk-ed as he realized that he'll have to clean the wall later. No matter, the protoform arms were off and he threw them into the discard bin.

Now that the arms was gone, Knockout went to work on removing the pauldrons. The shoulder armors were large, so Knockout had a little bit of trouble removing it from the protoform and had to hold his grimace when he heard wires ripping. After managing to get the cauldrons off from the protoform, he cleaned the inside to get rid of any 'scraps' into the discard bin, being mindful to wheels and pistons begin connected together.

After the shoulder armor was cleaned, dissected and sorted into various bins of recycle. He headed on to the most exciting part; the faceplate.

Knockout learned that every drones, he had dissected have very unique facial structures, and he started to wonder if they're not drones at all. Oh well, they're soldiers.

He went on disconnecting the face, which turns out to be a mask and he set of to the side so he can study the hidden secret behind on this dead drone.

This drone, he noted, is a femme and he can tell due to the fact how soft its faceplate look and looked like it was sleeping as opposing to other dead faceplates he saw were either by horror or surprise. This one seemed to be in peace, as if it was finally free from the fighting.

How stupid.

Knockout continued on removing the helm, separating each gears and wires as valuables as he sorted them. The helm slowly started to disappear until the protoform was only left.

Knockout hummed as he looked at the protoform helm and face. This one very unique, he noted, as he brushed the dead femme's cheek, which was cold to the touch. In the middle of war, this drone somehow must've escaped from its pain by accepting death.

"Tsk, the head's in the way."

a click, a grind and another splatter of Energon hitting the wall and floor was enough clue to what Knockout was doing. Then, there a muffled sound of something dropped and Knockout was now faced with chasis. He can work more easily now, since it's not in the way of getting rid of the neck area.

He worked a bit more, now the easiest part is there which is separating armors and gears from the upper and lower area of the protoform. Knockout had to say that he's nearly halfway done with collecting the spares.

Gear after gear to armor after armor, the drone was now barely unrecognizable as it was stripped down to to bare protoform, minus the legs which he'll do it later. All he needs to do is to remove the pelvic plate and he can remove the unnecessary part into the disposal bin.

He doesn't need to see the dead drone's protoform, but he can't avoid it. At least this drone is dead, it doesn't need to be alive to see its own dignity being stripped.

Heh, how silly.

Knockout looked up to see his table was flowing with light glow of Energon. The sound of drip drip can be heard as it slipped off from the observing table and fell to the floor. Normally it was unnerving, but Knockout welcome that sound with relish. He may be a Medic, but the sound of dripping Energon blood was soothing and he had to savor it until the next unfortunate soul was taken to the Well.

Oh well.

He went back to work again, finally removing the pelvic plate and removing the protoform from the legs to dump it off into the disposal bin (The fact that the blood kept on flowing wasn't helping, but Knockout couldn't bring himself to care. It's for science). With that one finally removed, he went on working on the legs.

the legs are the most hardest part, as there were few more transformation cogs that needed to be rearranged in order to remove it from the protoform, but it also has the less armor. Knockout worked from the pede up, removing wheels and plates that was once the back of the vehicle.

Once that was done, he discarded the protoform remaining legs and took a sigh.

That was a refreshing quench of curiosity, but it still grew. That is until the sound of door opening was heard and a audible gasp.

"Knockout...what you been doing?"

He smiled, fiddling his servos as it was getting more smeared with energon blood. Curiosity growing more and more as it covered more in the wall.

"Knockout?"

He only smiled.