Transformers: Hook. #24: Writer's Choice
Title: Great Teacher Hook
Fandom: G1 Transformers
Characters: Heretic, Hook
Prompt: #24: Writer's Choice
Word Count: 530
Rating: G
Author's Notes: I obey lunatron's title suggestions. This is also the first bit of writing I've completed with my oldest Transformer OC.
Summary: There's a reason Hook rarely has students.
---
"Enough!"
Heretic flinched at the crane's raised voice, optics and visor snapping on. Turning back on-? Smelt it, she'd dropped into a defrag cycle! And, she eyed the circuit board under her hands, it looked like she'd pretty much turned it into recyclable materials.
"As you are obviously incapable of continuing to work in advanced states of fragmentation, stop performing this exercise and go defragment." Hook stood on the other side of the workbench, arms folded. "I will expect you to take a double session with Mixmaster tomorrow, as well as completing the work of this exercise, as well as doing whatever else I assign to you."
"Why don't you just kill me?" Heretic asked before she could edit between her thoughts and mouth. Smelt her for Seeker-wings, that was so not the question she wanted to ask her teacher. He, and the rest of the Constructicons, had... reputations.
"As I was saying about inability to function in advanced states of fragmentation..." Hook shook his head. "Clean your soldering iron and put away the supplies. Leave the circuitboard there. It can be a reminder to you of what happens when a surgical engineer is not at his best."
"Yessir," she said quietly and set about tidying up the workbench. She'd figured out cleanliness and organization long before she got good enough for people to start talking about this kind of apprenticeship; everything being where it was supposed to be had saved more of her patients' lives than the skill people thought she had. That she'd thought she had until she'd wound up under Hook's tutelage.
She wiped off the soldering iron with a damp sponge, then dropped the sponge back into the disinfectant solution the Constructicons kept all over their workshop. She wasn't a bad medical engineer, she knew that. She'd earned that just as she'd earned her place in the Decepticons. But the way people had talked about her, she'd started to think she was some sort of prodigy.
She'd thought getting qualified as a surgical engineer would be easy. They'd told her she was the best of the current batch going for it, so they'd put her with the best surgical engineer in the Empire.
Hook dissuaded her of that notion. He worked her like a factory-drone on repetitive, mind-numbing tasks to force the movement-memories into her servos. He threw her into the forge's heart of Shockwave's experimental labs, requiring her to assist him on the most unique and strange problems that came up. Then he would turn her over to Mixmaster to learn chemistry and chemical synthesis. Rarely, he would have her do a session with Scrapper.
And she was never, ever good enough.
Heretic cleaned up her workstation, aware of the crane keeping a close optic on her. As soon as everything was back in its place, she lurched towards the door.
"Oh, by the way-"
She stopped and turned back to Hook. "Sir?"
"I haven't killed you because you are the first student Shockwave has inflicted on me that shows even the meagrest ability to learn what I have to teach."
"Sir." She couldn't help grinning as she made her way to her recharge berth.
End
Fandom: G1 Transformers
Characters: Heretic, Hook
Prompt: #24: Writer's Choice
Word Count: 530
Rating: G
Author's Notes: I obey lunatron's title suggestions. This is also the first bit of writing I've completed with my oldest Transformer OC.
Summary: There's a reason Hook rarely has students.
---
"Enough!"
Heretic flinched at the crane's raised voice, optics and visor snapping on. Turning back on-? Smelt it, she'd dropped into a defrag cycle! And, she eyed the circuit board under her hands, it looked like she'd pretty much turned it into recyclable materials.
"As you are obviously incapable of continuing to work in advanced states of fragmentation, stop performing this exercise and go defragment." Hook stood on the other side of the workbench, arms folded. "I will expect you to take a double session with Mixmaster tomorrow, as well as completing the work of this exercise, as well as doing whatever else I assign to you."
"Why don't you just kill me?" Heretic asked before she could edit between her thoughts and mouth. Smelt her for Seeker-wings, that was so not the question she wanted to ask her teacher. He, and the rest of the Constructicons, had... reputations.
"As I was saying about inability to function in advanced states of fragmentation..." Hook shook his head. "Clean your soldering iron and put away the supplies. Leave the circuitboard there. It can be a reminder to you of what happens when a surgical engineer is not at his best."
"Yessir," she said quietly and set about tidying up the workbench. She'd figured out cleanliness and organization long before she got good enough for people to start talking about this kind of apprenticeship; everything being where it was supposed to be had saved more of her patients' lives than the skill people thought she had. That she'd thought she had until she'd wound up under Hook's tutelage.
She wiped off the soldering iron with a damp sponge, then dropped the sponge back into the disinfectant solution the Constructicons kept all over their workshop. She wasn't a bad medical engineer, she knew that. She'd earned that just as she'd earned her place in the Decepticons. But the way people had talked about her, she'd started to think she was some sort of prodigy.
She'd thought getting qualified as a surgical engineer would be easy. They'd told her she was the best of the current batch going for it, so they'd put her with the best surgical engineer in the Empire.
Hook dissuaded her of that notion. He worked her like a factory-drone on repetitive, mind-numbing tasks to force the movement-memories into her servos. He threw her into the forge's heart of Shockwave's experimental labs, requiring her to assist him on the most unique and strange problems that came up. Then he would turn her over to Mixmaster to learn chemistry and chemical synthesis. Rarely, he would have her do a session with Scrapper.
And she was never, ever good enough.
Heretic cleaned up her workstation, aware of the crane keeping a close optic on her. As soon as everything was back in its place, she lurched towards the door.
"Oh, by the way-"
She stopped and turned back to Hook. "Sir?"
"I haven't killed you because you are the first student Shockwave has inflicted on me that shows even the meagrest ability to learn what I have to teach."
"Sir." She couldn't help grinning as she made her way to her recharge berth.
End