Knock Out smiled, his saw blade glowing blue with spattered energon as it cut through the plating that had been Breakdown's chest.
The chest plate had been thick and broad, sturdy metal protecting a warrior's spark. Now it was a mangled, twisted mess, pitted with dents and breaks crudely welded back together again. The paint covering the metal, once a smooth, deep navy, was a heat-seared rainbow of sickly greens, iridescent blues, and broad spots of charred black.
But worse than the condition of the plating was the creature living beneath it, a parasite leeching off the once-active sensory systems of the machine whose frame it inhabited.
Knock Out's partner had died - how, he still wasn't sure - and this thing had moved into his body, like some obscene scavenger or squatter. It had moved with Breakdown's limbs. It had spoken with Breakdown's vocalizer, the familiar voice twisted by a strange accent into something half-familiar, half-alien.
He'd spent long hours making it pay for its thievery. He'd sawed off the dead hands, gouged deep wounds in the twisted remains of his partner's legs. The frame that had once housed his partner had been a wreck before he'd started. Now, it was half scrap.
Technically, he should have been experimenting. Testing the responses of the creature that had taken over Breakdown's frame. Discovering what it had done to take control of Breakdown's systems. How its control worked. Whether it had any limits.
It had stared back at him from the optical arrays it had no right to borrow, the yellow lights bright with horror. It had cried out from a stolen throat, gears creaking as it wrenched the mouth plates apart.
Knock Out smiled. He'd liked that. It was only fitting to watch the leech use the parts it had commandeered to scream.
He'd come up with reasons to amputate limbs and saw through plating, of course. They were well-reasoned answers, backed up by careful logic. He could claim he'd amputated the hands, for example, because finding spare parts on an alien planet was difficult. He could explain away the gouges in the legs by claiming he'd needed a look at the sensory arrays. After all, the human might have tampered with them.
But Lord Megatron would never believe those flimsy excuses, and he would only overlook a few of them. He wanted revenge, yes, but not nearly as badly as Knock Out did.
Which meant Knock Out had a job to do.
He smiled, his sawblade glowing blue with spattered energon as it cut through the plating that had been Breakdown's chest. Fun as playing with the leech was, he'd never get the answers Lord Megatron wanted by mutilating already-dead extremities.
And he wanted a look at the little virus as much as Lord Megatron did. His optics brightened, lit by sparks as his sawblade moved. The creature wailed in two voices: one loud and familiar, the other so soft his audio receptors could barely pick it up, an eerily wet, raw sound.
The twisted metal fell away and he found himself staring the parasite in its optics. Its real ones: tiny, beady, and overflowing with water.
"Hmm," Knock Out murmured, grinning. "I didn't know human optics leak when they're in pain."
Then again, he thought, leaning in and widening his own optics to get a better look, maybe they don't. By all accounts, the parasite that had taken up residence in his partner's chassis was an unusual little human.
Its frame was bulky for a human's, big like Breakdown's had been. It had once been healthy and brawny, at least for one of the little beasts. But its chalky-white skin made it even paler than the other pink-hued humans Knock Out had encountered, and he gathered such a thing couldn't be healthy.
He might have ascribed the ashen look of the human's external organ to the torture. He had been at it for a while. Or to starvation. He didn't know if being hooked up to Breakdown's systems meant it could live on energon, or if it also needed organic nourishment - and he certainly hadn't provided the creature any of that. He didn't know much about organic anatomy, but he supposed either could be plausible explanations for the human's paleness.
Except that, in addition to looking pale, it also bore a latticework of scars almost as extensive as those twisting their way across Breakdown's body.
And stranger still, the human appeared to be nothing more than a head and torso, connected to Breakdown's motor and sensory nets by an intricate array of wires stretching out from its head, neck, and back, linking via crude connections to the circuits leading out from Breakdown's empty spark chamber.
Knock out laughed, a cold, eerie sound of amusement and rage, as he reached behind the human, wrapping a claw around the wires.
Its optics widened, and the optics in Breakdown's head widened along with it, their gears making a soft sound as they shifted.
One of Breakdown's optics was missing. A cold yellow light flickered in the scarred socket.
But that mutilation hadn't been Knock Out's doing. That had been this human's work. He'd claimed Breakdown for an experiment - just as Knock Out had, in his turn, claimed it.
"Don't," two voices cried, both panicked and broken. "Don't disconnect me - I need -"
"Don't disconnect you?" Knockout purred. "I'd think you'd want me to do that, skin job. It would put you out of your misery." He grinned, letting go of the wires and gingerly pulling his claw free. "But if you want more pain, I'll be glad to oblige."
"No -" the human croaked, Breakdown's voice a booming echo. "I - listen, Decepticon. I - it wasn't me who killed him, or my men. It was one of you - a Decepticon - the female one. The spider."
"Female? Spider?" Knock Out tilted his head, unfamiliar with the alien words. Humans had two frame types, and "female" was most likely the word for one of them. But what did that have to do with machines like him or his kind? As far as the other word, he had no idea what that one meant. And he wasn't about to interrupt his time with his prisoner to research organic terminology.
Then his optics brightened with a sudden revelation. "Airachnid," he hissed, his voice cold.
Why the human would call Airachnid "female," he didn't know. But she was the only one of her kind among the Decepticons. And Breakdown had been sent out on a mission with her. A mission he'd never returned from, until this freeloader had shown up wearing his body.
Knock Out revved his saw blade again. The human might be lying, of course. But if it wasn't - well, then. It seemed he had further revenge to take.
He snickered again. That would be fun.
The human nodded frantically. "Yes. Her. We - we found the body. I was injured. My men used it - put me in it - saved me. That's - that's all. Please. Don't blame me -"
"- for killing him? I don't." He traced his claw along the ruined plating almost tenderly, smearing energon on his fingertips. His faceplates twisted in distaste at the mess, but it couldn't be helped. He didn't mind nearly as much as he might have otherwise. "Don't worry, skin job. I believe you."
"Thank God," the human panted. He guessed the word must be the humans' version of Primus.
"Oh, don't thank your deity yet," Knock Out said, reaching a claw toward the human's face. It winced, its head moving. Then, realizing the sharpened metal was still coming for it, it froze, forcing itself to be still.
Wise choice, Knock Out thought.
"I said I didn't blame you for Breakdown's death. But there's still that little matter of experimenting on him while he was still alive. And that was your fault, I'm afraid."
Two sets of optics widened again. "No - !"
"I wonder," Knock out taunted, carefully positioning the very tip of his claw under the round, still leaking optic. "Will my removing your optic hurt as much as it hurt Breakdown when you removed his?"
He winced at the substances leaking onto his clawtip and the gelatinous feel of the optic just above the tip of his claw. This would definitely be messy - and the mess wouldn't be anything nearly as familiar as leaking energon.
"Still," he murmured, as much to himself as to the parasite trembling under his claw, "there's only one way to find out."