The Shadow of Kaon

Fake smiles

Clank-clank-clank...

Only this quiet sound was hearable in the medbay as the small metal spoon knocked inside the beaker, slowly turning the liquid from dark yellow to purple inside it.

It was an interesting result.

The cherry red medic's mind was occupied by mixing, analyzing, and writing down the datas of the liquids on the table before him, and the different types of reactions their fusing resulted in.

Only the work kept him busy from thinking about what happened. He lost his two best friends on the same night, and this made him turn toward the only thing he could think of. Work.

Breakdown was too kind to this world, but the femmes... he didn't know what to think about them. It was even the good pronouns for the twins if they are together? Or are they equally using she?

It was one of the easier questions among the hundreds he didn't know how to answer.

"Knockout..." The mech froze at the voice which came from behind his back, close to the entrance. "Can I come in?"

Speak of the devil.

"What do you want?" He asked without turning toward the flier, trying to look busy with his work.

"I... need your help to erase some marks from me." The femme kept a short silence, waiting for his answer. "If you don't want me to be near you just give me your buffer, and I will-"

Knockout sighed and lifted his gaze toward the ceiling.

"Sit down. I will be with you in a minute."

He heard the little scraping sounds as the femme sat down to the medberth behind him and got comfortable, then she went silent, waiting for him patiently.

"Which one are you now?" The medic asked while mixed together another pair of liquids.

"Do you really have to ask this, bootleg?"

Knockout turned toward the femme after putting the test tube back next to the others. To his surprise, she looked... calm. She looked too innocent, too proper, without any trace of the lunatic she was yesterday night. Her wings flatly laid to her back motionlessly, and her hands rested on her lap in the same fixed way.

"So... Darkwing?" He asked, still not convinced.

The little flier nodded with a light smile.

"The one and only."

Knockout stared at her for a moment, holding back a not too kind answer before he decided what he will do. He was a medic, it was his job to take care of the injuries of others, putting aside what he thought about them.

"Show me what I have to erase." He said finally.

Darkwing slowly motioned to her thighs, then her wrists, and tilted her helm to the side to point to the dark bite marks on her neck too. With her last move, her wings twitched for a half second, but too shortly to let the mech know it really happened.

Cautiously, and with a hint of curiosity Knockout approached the femme and examined every part of her frame. New, painfully deep scratches were lined across her chassis, but something told him that her optics weren't so tired looking and dark circled because of those scars. He only had to take one look at her seemingly resting hands to see the fractures on them and realize that the reason why she didn't move her servos was different. With these wounds, even the smallest movement could feel like hell. The thin metal digits were like she would have repeatedly hit her hands against something very hard. Even looking at it was hurtful.