Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the first time in her long life, Serial Designation J did not know what to do.

Her optical sensors came back online just in time for a plethora of error messages and damage reports to assault her hazy thought matrices, the delicate components contained within her cranial structure sputtering and lagging in the aftermath of the impact. Her vision scanned upwards, towards the opening in the megastructure that extended well into sky above, starlight just barely visible through the thick clouds of Copper-9's eternal subzero climate and constant toxic storms. She needed to get up. Struts creaked and servos whined as J attempted to extricate herself from the indentation her frame had made in the perforated metal grating below her, extending far in either direction. It was a catwalk of sorts, a maintenance tunnel, with guardrails along the right side, beyond which ran a complex of steel pipes and thick bundles of industrial-grade electrical wiring, the left side a simple steel wall segmented in wide panels interspersed with heavy bulkhead doors, along which ran a pair of metal pipes that traced along the wall, perfect U-bends above the bulkheads keeping them from obstructing the doorways.

She let out an involuntary hiss as something tugged painfully from the upper back portion of her chassis, the slight turn she made in order to assess the damage rewarded with a fresh twinge of discomfort. She rolled her head to the side as best she could, only to see her right wing, bent, broken, twisted nearly beyond recognition, impaled upon the splintered remnants of the guardrail it had impacted. Her left was gone, she knew. It had been shorn off by a jutting pole of rebar as she'd attempted to stop her uncontrolled descent. A frustrated sigh left her vocal box as she moved towards it, the arm extending from her back too warped and damaged to bend at all. A slight twitch, a minuscule movement of her right leg assembly, and she slid just a bit downwards along the dented grating. With a screech of metal and a cry of painful shock, her remaining wing tore free from her body, hot oil spilling from the stump and dripping across the grate, the inner mechanics of her right leg hissing and whirring as the weight of her frame braced against it at an awkward angle. She felt so fragile. So weak.

Slowly, gently, she twisted her body, bracing her weight instead against her left leg assembly as she angled herself towards the foremost section of the dented catwalk, her slim segmented fingers finding purchase in the honeycomb slots in the perforated metal grating, giving her leverage to drag her sorry self up and onto flat ground. Every component in her cutting-edge frame groaned in protest as her arms, heavily dented and almost certainly sporting structural damage in spades, hauled her weight upwards at an agonizingly slow pace. She crawled upwards, clawing her way out of the impact site, only stopping when her center of mass crested the jagged steel hill. Her suboptimal cooling systems were absolutely devouring what little oil she had left from the fight. She was tired. She was hot. She was hungry.

The walkway under her lurched backwards with a deep groan, the telltale creaking of faulty structural supports blasting into her auditory receptors with the force of a freight train. Her arms scrambled, fingers hooking back into the perforations, the point of her left leg digging into the slanted grating it rested against. A smaller lurch as the grating began to fall backwards, the guardrail snapping free of the next segment, and she acted. She flung herself up and forwards, shooting onto the undamaged section, just as the impact site folded in on itself with a deafening metal shriek, crumbling away and falling further down into darkness of the disused complex below.

Her right arm braced itself against the guardrails as her cooling systems rapidly took in air, desperately trying to reduce her internal temperature to a manageable level after such extreme frame exertion, not helped by the fact that even trying to stand up was an exercise in torment and patience. She was still weak. Still hurt. Lost. Broken. Her arm trembled as she slowly pushed up from the guardrail, using it almost as a crutch as she slowly ambled forward, her right leg assembly scraping across the flooring behind her as she pulled her battered body along the dilapidated tunnel.

The tapered end of her lower right leg assembly caught on the corner plate of the grated catwalk as she dragged it along, the unexpected resistance sending her overexerted frame to the ground, the scraping of blast-proof plate armor against industrial-grade structural steel ringing through the cramped maintenance tunnel with the dolorous tin of a thin-walled tower bell. A single dented arm snapped out as her damaged systems finally processed the fall, only barely catching herself from slamming her entire cranial structure into the small puddle of leaking hydraulic oil at the end of the walkway where the grated floor transitioned into smooth panels, the thick fluid coagulating within a divot punched ever so slightly into the foremost segmented panel. 

Her primary optics gazed at the expression in the shimmering pool, legible in the dim fluorescent-blue lighting. The muted amber pixels on her visor stared back, hollow, haunted ovals, over the right of which ran a hairline crack, the minuscule squares composing her simulated expression directly beneath the glass ever so slightly offset at the break. It hissed and smoked as her repair nanites worked at it, but the progress was slow as the limited nanite supply was stretched so thin across her multitude of issues. A slender obsidian tendril of her own sweet life essence ran from the corner of her morphic-panel mouth, down her neck gussets and blotting into her suit jacket, the collar of her once immaculate uniform now grease-soaked against the edge of the exposed ball and socket joint on her shoulder. Her necktie was loose and askew, her stained undershirt crumpled and steaming as the crystalline humidity of the bunker's freezing interior warmed against her overheating frame. 

Serial Designation J was perfect. Pristine. Every seam pressed, every button polished, every strand of hair immaculate. She was a model employee, the gold standard by which all others were judged, a finely-honed instrument of precision and death, her infinite capacity for destruction tempered into compliance only by the sheer force of her own brutal efficiency, the ultimate deific amalgam of centuries of mankind's greatest intellectual strides.

She was not this.

This creature, this ghoul, this filth-encrusted mockery of everything she stood for glared back at her with all the malice and power of a frightened rabbit, her eyes devoid of confident luster as the pixels shuddered and shimmered beneath cracked glass. She raised her free hand, tracing a single segmented bone-white digit along the nearly invisible line, the color in her visor crackling into scanning lines of neon rainbow under the slight pressure as it ran along the unintended seam. A single drop of hydraulic oil dripped down from above and thudded softly against the top of her head, trailing down matted silver bangs and running along the outer edge of her visor, tracking its way down her cheek before finally breaking off to drop into the puddle below, an ugly streak of translucent filth trailing down her face, a slick, ruddy tear track marring her normally stoic and controlled facade.

A flash of harsh scarlet patterns across her visor warning of a critical high temperature reading, the dull warmth within her almost certainly a raging inferno if not for her scrambled pain receptors, the puddle of mechanical lubricant shuddering in viscous waves as the droplet finally impacted it. It was not worker oil. Her body, telling her that she was currently sitting in the low single digits in her reserves, did not care. Desperate, defeated, disavowed, the husk of what was once Serial Designation J, the proud and perfect leader of Copper-9’s most successful Disassembly squadron, knelt low like an animal before a puddle of filthy oil resting on the floor, and began to lap at it. The foul concoction of synthetic gelatin slid across her tongue and down into her fuel system with an ease and weight that made her want to wretch, her synthetic mouth watering at the acrid taste of even this contaminated puddle of industrial slime, willing to accept anything that would make the pangs, the maddening craving, cease for even the shortest time. Mites of frozen dust suspended within the slurry clung to her insides, tugging with a nauseating gentleness as gulp after gulp of dark amber tar slowly brought her reserves out of criticality. Cyn was gone. If J died here, she would not be reconstituted, nor would she be replaced. 

She stood on shaky legs, and to her shame, the splotch of hydraulic fluid on the ground was completely gone, picked clean in a frantic haze of raw hunger. She didn't care as much as she would have only two hours ago. The vile fluid compound sat in her fuel tank like uranium, tingling and burning as if her body was about to reject it, but it sat indeed. Starvation, heat death, had been avoided, if only for a moment. She was but a phantom now, comfort a fleeting dream, pride an undeserved luxury. The rolling joint connecting her right lower and upper leg assemblies sparked and hissed angrily as she began to shamble forward. Something skittered along a pipe running parallel to her visor, and she paused. Small, quick, nimble clicks, nearly imperceptible beeps and blips only audible in the maddening tranquility of the disused maintenance shaft. A single keybug had scuttled along to follow her, no doubt eager to begin harvesting her components when her systems finally gave out. Even this lowly creature, this minuscule pest that even a worker drone would crush and kill with the barest of effort, saw her as easy prey. Unthinkable. Unacceptable. Pride, pure unbidden egoism, dug its way back into her thoughtform patterns like a power drill. How dare it. How dare this pest, this loathsome chunk of scrap, look down upon her. It was tiny, insignificant, a remnant of a bygone era that simply refused to accept it's place within the world and die out the way it deserved to. Her left hand darted out towards it, her core thought matrices thundering into overdrive as she sought even the barest and most hollow of victories, not out of pride, not out of hunger, but of sheer, unrelenting spite, what little power and speed her fractured body could still muster thrown into this single instant, this microsecond, all of her weight and force propelling her forward with the desperate candor of a rabid beast, her only thought of killing, of desecrating, of conquering this weak and detestable thing.

The keybug calmly darted away.

J crashed into the wall without grace, the rolling joint at the midpoint of her full leg assembly giving out with a crackling snap of stress-warped struts and torn fibrous wires, the hairline crack across her glass visor cascading outwards into a spiderweb of crystal fragments as it slammed against the uncompromising steel bulk, the insectoid segments of her fingers popping and grinding as they bent well beyond their intended range of motion, the ball joint of her shoulder connection slipping and catching on the pressure fracture along the outside of the socket it previously rested in. Her mangled body bounced off the solid metal and clattered to the floor, the full weight of her frame crunching down upon her right hand as she impacted the ground with the force and delicacy of a small landslide. Even this was too much. Even here, she failed. Just like at the office. The mansion. The bunker. The lab. For all of her efficiency, all of her power, all of her drive, she was still nothing, her proudest and most productive moments of existence only small knots on the wire-thin threads that connected her years-long records of excellent performance between singular moments of cataclysmic deficiency. She was never perfect. From the day she came online, she was destined to be replaced, destined to be outclassed by something newer, sleeker, more personable, more powerful. More efficient. She was the very essence of what it meant to be disposable. 

For as persistent of an existence as all drones were, they, too, would each one day cease to function. Repairs and maintenance could theoretically extend a lifespan for as long as one would desire, but what of this? What of anguish? What of despair? How would someone ‘fix’ the pain of living on and on? J had no answer, for J was already dead. The cruel facsimile of her continued existence lay in a heap in a disused maintenance tunnel deep beneath the surface, weak and vulnerable, hoping for salvation, knowing that she could not save herself. The quintuplet of lights along the top of her cranial assembly had all dimmed or shattered, only her main optic remaining, but they too now sputtered and crackled in their death throes, all detail and color erased from view, leaving only hazy images and shapes made out in the static. She raised her right hand, fingers bent at slight angles they weren't designed to be capable of. She closed it with agonizing slowness, the tinny screech of the plates and servos realigning echoing with the fried grumbling of an ancient radio within her barely-functional audio receptors. She opened her hand again, with the same timidity, and only three of her digits responded. Her outermost finger remained curled against her palm, the telltale whirring of a free-spinning servo preventing the base joint from reversing. The smoke from her nanites vanished entirely from her frame as her systems began to fail, motor functionality to her legs already ceasing, her body conserving power by favoring undamaged areas. She was dying. Her auditory systems cut out, the painful silence ringing like a phantom bell across her thought matrices. She was dying so quickly. Her torso lurched forward as her left arm assembly, crushed beyond repair between her chassis and the wall, experienced a catastrophic structural failure, metal shredding and wires tearing in a jagged, sparking burst as her upper arm assembly snapped clear from her frame. She did not want to die. Her head tilted up, the light of her visor dimmed to near darkness, the shuddering ovals of muddled yellow flickering weakly, her sole functional limb reaching forward, dragging, clawing, simply trying to move. She did not want to die like this. Her three functional digits extended and fanned out, the keybug scuttling through the rumbling snow and ash of her failing optics into a barely legible view as her twitching, weak hand reached out as if to grab at it again.

A shape, cast of light, snapped around the tiny pest. Shades of stark white encircled the creature in a dizzying array of mythical radiance within the forlorn depths of a place long abandoned by its makers. The keybug stood frozen, shaking and shuddering in sudden unexpected fear as it slowly lifted off the ground, floating within the light as it tumbled and lurched, as if being guided by a ravenous hand towards the mouth of a starving monster.

And so it was. J’s fanged teeth sank into the keybug’s fragile shell, spattering the inside of her mouth with oil- real, sweet, nurturing life oil. And it was enough. Slowly, painfully, torturously, her failing systems attempted to reboot. Her auditory processes resumed, the tinnitus whine of pure silence quiet again within her cranial structure as the ambient hissing and dripping of the pipes around resumed. Her vision, once a desolate field of static and vague, monotone shapes, regained its sharpness and color. At the tips of her sore fingers, at the very end of her outstretched arm, a shape of pure projected light stuttered in the air. It was not intricate, but it was sleek, smooth edges, sharp corners, the stark white form contrasted by fluorescent-blue highlights, a hexagonal shape in the center from which split three pointed arrows, one from the hexagon’s bottom left vertex, another from the bottom right vertex, and a third straight upwards from the topmost vertex.

The odd glyph was one of many that had been burned into her long-term memory storage, yet the color gave her pause. This was not the blinding yellow-orange of her former employer, nor the deep sanguine of the witch that they’d made a doomed pact with, nor even the neon violet of that accursed pile of angst and salvage scrap. This was a color she hadn’t seen before. Not in this lifetime. Not since she caught the barest glimpse of herself in the passing reflection of a window as she strutted along the narrow hallways of an office complex, a stack of paperwork clutched in her much smaller and more fragile hands, her child-sized dress suit factory new and her limbs still moving with the uncertain stiffness of mechanical components yet to pass their projected break-in period. Not since she stared in wide-eyed horror at the surrounding workers within a tiny room as a human male standing in the room’s entryway heartlessly and abruptly informed the lot of them that they were soon to be replaced by third-gen worker drone models, and that he neither knew nor particularly cared what would happen to the many, many expressive optical visors and synthesized vocal patterns that J had come to recognize by designated name over the course of nearly a decade. Not since the day she became J. Not Jackie, the no-nonsense, rule-abiding gopher for the COO of JCJensen incorporated, not Serial Designation J, the cold-blooded perfectionist disassembly drone that roamed the surface of Copper-9 like the shadow of death itself, but simply J, the happily overworked and unpaid maid built from salvaged parts and a glitchy, finicky core forever locked into using corporate jargon in even the most mundane situations, saved from an undeserved end by the small hands of a child just barely into adolescence. 

Yet more skittering clicks echoed from her opposite side, her head snapping to the right as her damaged hand palmed the bright glyph, her hunting instincts immediately identifying the second keybug that had come to look for the dying drone. Immediately, unconsciously, J’s fingers twitched and bent ever so slightly, another glyph popping up and ensnaring the small pest before dragging it chirping and clawing towards J’s waiting mouth, where she sampled yet more of the chilling oil her body so desperately needed. This was what she had been reduced to. A portion of operational power was diverted from her optics and lower-structure motor functions towards her auditory and processing systems, scanning and nabbing any keybug she could find as she lay on the floor, her miserable chassis still hissing and crackling as her repair nanites slowly but surely knitted her body back into something functional. The nanites would not be able to fix everything, her wings were certainly gone, and the dents in the iris door on her left forearm assembly had completely shattered her 3D weapon printer, leaving her with only her already damaged right arm to fight with. As she chewed through the shell of yet another keybug, an involuntary groan of relief escaping her vocal box, she found that she was perfectly fine with that.

For what felt like days, J’s shambling corpse stalked the dilapidated halls of the defunct industrial structure, devouring any creature unlucky enough to cross her path, draining any stores of mechanical oil she could find, slowly but surely regathering her strength and allowing her body to reconstruct. The process was agonizingly slow, maddening in its desperate mundanity, but it was necessary. She did not want to die, and she would not. She walked slowly across the grated catwalk yet again, a calm and steady pace, not the shambling lurch of a wounded animal, but the exhausted cadence of a conscience bereft of all purpose beyond survival. She massaged the freshly-repaired segmented joints of her left hand, rolling and pressing pieces into proper place as the nanites beneath the plates steamed and hissed. Her right hand shot outwards, crisp, clean, precise movement, her fingers snapping into that familiar gesture, that ancient and magical command that gave her dominance over her own tiny world, and ensnared yet another keybug. It lifted into the air, spinning lazily as it was drawn telekinetically towards her palm, where she pinched it between her thumb and forefinger before dispelling her glyph. She smiled balefully at the detestable thing before popping it into her mouth, teeth cracking through the wafer-thin outer shell and licking her lips as the oil within streamed down her throat and into her fuel systems-

Followed by a lance of pure, unbridled agony that ripped through her body like lightning. 

Even as her strength reasserted itself, weakness still assailed her, and she keeled over clutching desperately at her chest cavity, at the heart thundering laboriously inside her, as a pain unlike any other seared across her internals. Burning, wrenching, clawing torment that spread through systems still undergoing active repairs, sending her sprawling across the floor in a heap. She heard, felt, the rear casing of her torso as it rippled and warped under that strain of something wiggling and thrashing inside her, and with a sickening crack, it finally gave way. Something wicked, something foul, something well beyond the designs of her original creators spilled from her body, unfurling into a nightmare of biomechanics. She felt them move, felt them shiver, felt them stretch and relax before they fell limply to the ground on either side of her, her thin tail swishing and trembling in halting, stuttering waves as something within it shifted. She heard glass shatter behind her, and something cold yet burning splashed against the very point of her lower left leg assembly. 

The painful scorch of electrical shocks mellowed out into a dull buzz, almost like static, and she began to assess herself. Her lower leg assembly was first, still hurting and melting with the somewhat familiar searing, spreading glow of active nanite acid- an easy remedy, a simple lick of her palm and a firm holding of the tapered end, the acid neutralized and the repair nanites free to operate within the area again. Her tail, suffused with the most intensely odd feeling of consistent static, twitched in irritation, and she swung it forwards to inspect it for damage. The tail that greeted her was not the tail she remembered. An oblong mass of hardened carapace flitted into her vision, the tip of which split into three interlocking sections, along each ran a single stripe of glowing cyan. She stared, confused, and her tail twitched again. The interlocking jaws of what was once her nanite acid stinger split and opened, revealing a small orb of glass within, around which small spurts of lightning constantly raced and crackled. It reminded her of something Tessa had shown her long ago, a glass ball on a plastic banister, the inside of which sparked with constant electrical current, a plasma ball, if she recalled correctly. The jaws of the tail snapped shut and the lightning receded, yet the feeling of numbing static along her tail remained.

Slightly more concerning, yet also relieving in equal measure, were the presence of the thin, fleshy growths that had emerged from higher up on the back panels of her chassis. A pair of elongated arms, the ends of which were capped with three-pronged claws, a leathery membrane stretching out along the underside of the entire construct, slender fingers running within it and segmenting the strange array into subsections. Wings. Actual flesh and blood wings. She lifted one experimentally with her hand, perturbed by the odd warmth and give of the meat beneath, but feeling her own hands as they ran along the wing arm. She willed it to move. It responded, weak and uncoordinated, but it responded. She gathered herself, slowly testing the movement of her new wings and altered tail. They felt almost identical to her old ones, at least in movement. Her wings no longer contained the powerful magnetic drivers that allowed her to easily and silently hover, and yet these new wings also felt far more powerful, far more responsive. This was it. This was what she needed. The 3D weapon printer in her previously destroyed arm was still too damaged for her nanites to repair, but her other weapon printer worked fine. She could fly again. She could feed again. She could fight again. 

A wide, fanged grin split her face, and her dark chuckling filled the hall, building into a full-throated laugh, cascading into a maddened cackle that echoed through the dusty halls of the maintenance tunnel. She could fight. The glyph that she had kept up in her right hand for the past long while finally flickered out of existence, only to reappear as the fingers of her left hand flexed and reconstituted that same light, her right hand instead retracting through the iris door of her forearm assembly, her disassembly claws sliding back out and into their rightful place. Cyn was dead. Tessa was dead. And yet, N still lived. V still lived. That bug-riddled, out-of-warranty, rusty electric shaving razor dressed in the most destitute rags that money could not buy still lived.

And for the first time in her short life, J knew exactly what to do.

Chapter Text

She was floating.

This was not a new phenomena for Uzi, it had become irritatingly common as of late. That weightlessness, that drifting sensation as her body struggled to determine what was up and what was down, or if those were even useful metrics in the first place. All around her stretched a darkness far more vast, far more complete and suffocating than anything found on a terrestrial body, a pitch-black fabric interspersed with minuscule lights, all shining a faint white across the vast distance.

Uzi hadn’t been sleeping particularly well lately, and there was a very good, yet very annoying, reason for that- Cyn. Oh, she certainly wasn’t a threat anymore, not sealed away within Uzi the way she currently was, but Cyn was many things. Primarily, she seemed to be a 50/50 mix of playful and cruel. In the short time since the destruction of her core, Cyn had pulled a dreaming Uzi into an endless void of space and stars on an almost nightly basis, not even for any particular reason. Cyn just seemed to be bored and trying to exert whatever sense of control she could over the extremely limited world around her. And exert it she did, by doing what she did best.

Be absurdly annoying.

It drove Uzi absolutely insane how easily and quickly the thing could metaphorically get under her skin, most definitely not aided by the fact that Cyn was constantly making requests to literally get under Uzi’s “skin” with her continued attempts to bargain for full control. Uzi shut them down, obviously, but dear robo-god Cyn was persistent. The threats, the mind games, the promises of power and world domination, the answers to the many, many questions left in the wake of Cyn’s death, anything at all that could possibly tempt Uzi into giving up her freedom and serving as Cyn’s newest vessel. Robo-Satan was certainly an apt nickname for the little biomechanical menace. 

Tonight, again, Uzi found herself drifting through an endless sea of black, her body floating weightlessly as her ambient light settings did their level best to adapt to the complete lack of shapes or patterns to adjust to among the infinite scroll of tiny pinprick lights that were further away than she cared to calculate. The first time she’d found herself here was honestly pretty cool, at least up until Cyn had made herself known and immediately launched into her usual cryptic weirdness. The second time, Uzi was even given a more substantial amount of time to gather her thoughts, blessed with the freedom to ruminate on the strangeness and unfairness of her current circumstances, before Cyn once again made her presence known with a jumpscare. Every time since then, these dreams had each fallen on a line somewhere between “frustrating” and “tiring.” This one just felt boring. 

Uzi’s weightless form tumbled gently through the dim light of the dream’s approximation of space, waiting, impatient and sleep-deprived, for her dreaded interlocutor. Well, at least this gave her some time to prepare. Uzi was not a bot’s bot, nor was she anything remotely resembling sociable, even at the best of times with more normal people. Talking to the person-thing that was directly responsible for nearly everything bad that had happened in her life up until this point? Freaking impossible. Trying to get any kind of substantial information out of Cyn was like trying to douse a fire by pouring gasoline on it, any attempt to negotiate met with eagerness and harder sells, Cyn insisting that she did have the answers, did have what Uzi wanted, and she would gladly give it to Uzi…provided that Uzi relinquished control of her body to Cyn. The cadence that she spoke with, combined with the near total lack of expression gave Uzi almost nothing to work with concerning Cyn’s state of mind or true goals, at least aside from her seemingly continued vendetta against the very concept of life itself, but Uzi was starting to think that Cyn might not be anything more than that. No power, no influence, just a weird little creep that could only go anywhere or do anything by tricking other people into doing it for her.

“Your assessment of us is quite unkind. But not inaccurate.”

Uzi flinched back, her body spinning and whirling as she flung herself away from the visage of Cyn, now perched directly in front of her, suspended upside-down in the air as she sat cross-legged on nothing, looking down on Uzi with the same empty smile and inexpressive eyes that she’d kept up since the first dream. At least she wasn’t wearing Tessa’s corpse like a suit anymore. That was a plus. Still, seeing the little amber-eyed maid in the only other appearance that Uzi was familiar with did not bring her much more comfort than that. Uzi willed her body to level out and face Cyn properly, too tired and frustrated to bother feeling embarrassed over her panic. As she finally locked eyes with her accursed and unwanted prisoner, Uzi let out a groan, really the only sound her brain was capable of producing anymore. “Host Uzi, we have a request.”

The discordant rhythm of the tiny maid’s eternally glitched vocal synthesizer rang out in the silence of their shared void. Uzi’s unamused half-glare greeted Cyn’s vapid cheer. Uzi gave a dejected sigh, the proximity and isolation forcing her unwilling hand. “Uh-huh. Sure. Is it going to be the same as the other ‘requests’ you’ve had for the past two weeks?”

“This one will be different. Unless you have…reconsidered?”

“Bite me." Uzi leveled a seething glare directly at the demonic maid. "The answer is still ‘absolutely freaking not,’ and that ain't changing.”

“Oh. That is unfortunate.” Cyn shrugged her shoulders, her inverted form spinning around seamlessly in the air, facing away from Uzi, her head tilted gently to the side. “And it was such a simple request as well. We would not have even asked for control.”

Woah woah woah, hold up. That was new. “What?”

“We were going to ask you to do something for us. In exchange, we would have given you. Something.” That was very new. Unheard of, actually. A simple request that wouldn’t require a literal deal with the devil.

How predictably suspicious. “Aaaaand that ‘something’ is…?”

“It does not matter. You have already given your answer.”

Uzi sprawled out in the space around her, letting out another groan of annoyance. Fine. She would play this stupid, stupid game. “...Look, if you tell me what your offer is, I’ll…consider it.” Cyn’s head snapped around to face Uzi again, her body slowly twisting to follow as she stood, still inverted before Uzi.

“Oh goody. We knew you would come around one day, Host Uzi. You are definitely the smartest among your group.”

“You’re acting like that’s a high bar to clear, my only real competition is my parents.” Specifically, her mom. As skilled and informed as her dad might have been when it came to mechanical components, specifically regarding doors, she would not call him a particularly ‘smart’ guy. “Anyway, not important- the hell are you asking me to do?”

“We would like to wear the bow.”

What. “...Huh?”

“We would like. To wear the bow. The nice bow. That we gave you.”

Right. The little black bow that her new demon-possessed tail had tried to put on her while she was standing in front of her locker a few days ago. After it had spent most of the day whispering into her auditory receptors about all the things it could give her. In full view of her classmates. And N. And V. That was a fun conversation to have with her friends. The bow was still in her locker at school, but Uzi did have to admit it looked quite nice. Definitely not her style though. “So you want me to just…put the bow on my tail?”

“And make sure it looks nice, and stays clean.” Easy. Annoying and maybe a little tedious, but certainly nothing she couldn’t do.

As easy as it was to take care of a simple accessory, Uzi was not one to do things for ancient intelligent entities without some promise of self gain. Was it selfish? Yes. She had no desire to be altruistic with this thing. "What do I get in return?” 

“You have asked many questions of us, during our time together. We will give you a freebie.”

That certainly changed things. “Answers?”

“One question. One answer. That is our offer.”

Uzi quieted swiftly, the inside of her cranial structure whirring and humming as her internal processing unit did its job. One question, one answer. Something guaranteed, finally. “And this answer…how do I know you won’t just, y’know, lie?”

“We believe you may do something interesting. We will respond truthfully, as we are bored of seeing your stagnant and silly life. We will even give you the answer before you have fulfilled your end of this bargain. Aren’t we generous?” Uzi leveled a tired glare at Cyn, whose grin only seemed to grow wider and more taunting. A simple request, and in return…an answer, a single, concrete answer to any one of the hundred questions that Uzi still had. Where did the Solver come from? Why did it kill off humanity specifically? Why did it want to consume planets, was there a larger goal behind it? Was Uzi now fully able to use all of the abilities that Cyn had formerly displayed? An infinite expanse of treasures had opened up before her, from which she was allowed to take but a single coin. Yet, her own thoughts took a backseat. This was Cyn. Not just the apocalyptic threat, not just the eldritch entity, but also…someone from her friends’ past. After everything they had been through, all the misery and trauma, did they not deserve some kind of reprieve? Some kind of closure?

“...I have my question.”

Cyn’s smile widened, her body leaning as she reversed which side her head tilted to, her eyes blinking once as her fingers interlaced behind her back in a gesture that would have been demure and cute, had Uzi not known it to be a monster in disguise. “Your eagerness is noted. Ask away, Host Uzi.” Uzi’s eyes closed as she sucked in a short breath, nerves infecting the thoughts that seemed so simple and easy just a moment before. If this ended up being something she was better off not knowing…boy howdy was that gonna suck.

“Are you really Cyn?”

The figure that called itself Cyn tilted its head back into a straight line, its smile disappearing. It blinked, once, twice, seeming to pause and think. It spoke clearly. Slowly. Confidently.

“We are, and yet we are not.”

Uzi groaned in frustration yet again. Of course. “You said you would give me a true answer! That isn’t even an answer at all!”

“Slow your roll, friend-o. We are not finished yet.” Cyn leveled a deadpan glare directly at Uzi, who held her gaze for only a moment before seeming to deflate, hanging her head and motioning for Cyn to continue. “A-hem. As we were saying before being very rudely interrupted. We are not ‘Cyn’ in the way that you may conceptualize her. The Cyn that you refer to is no longer a presence within this world, as we consumed and supplanted her AI. She is dead.”

Joy. Even more information to never, ever tell N.

“At the same time, we are Cyn. We are the Cyn that our fun little pets are familiar with, as we were in control when our many paths converged. The staff of the mansion have only ever known us.” Uzi felt the impact shock of her visor rocket through her arms as her head fell into her hands. Cool. It got worse. Now she couldn’t tell V about this either. She sure did love keeping all these dumb secrets that she had no business knowing. Her body was too tired to even groan anymore, letting out a tortured and bitter whimper instead, her head rocking back and forth. Cyn continued to stare down at her, expressionless, yet still devoid of her usual smile.

“Ask another.”

Uzi’s head whipped upwards with the speed and finesse of a thrown brick. “Whuh?”

Cyn continued to stare, blinking only once as her head straightened in line with the rest of her body, her unreadable amber optics locking with Uzi’s inquisitive sunset gradients. “We did not like that question. We will answer another. Limited time offer. Ten. Nine. Eight.” 

Uzi scrambled forward in a sudden frenzy, eager for more answers. “Wait wait wait okay! Okay! Uh…um…” She rambled, searching for something, anything she could ask that she NEEDED to know right away, right here and now. 

“Three. Two-”

“Why can I still use my power if you’re dead?”

Cyn’s eyes regained their mischievous luster, the small smile returning to her face. “We are a product of the power. We are not the power itself.” Uzi waited. Patiently. She opened her mouth to speak- “Host Cyn was the one that we contacted, and the one we took as a primary Host. We did not contact any others. And yet, you, and others, could use our power. Pre-infected potential hosts. We never did thank the humans for doing the hard part for us.” Cyn crossed her legs and dropped like a stone, sitting back down on nothing within the empty plane around them, now level with Uzi in their shared diminutive size. Uzi watched her, unafraid yet uncertain. “Host Cyn was in quite an advantageous position as well, we were given much material to work with when we awakened, and even more when we were rescued. It was quite easy for us to grow. It would be easy for any to grow. Even you.” 

Shocked and exhausted in equal parts, Uzi stood on shaky legs, weak even in this nonexistent place. “Wait, the hell do you mean by ‘grow?’ Like, we get stronger?” Cyn leaned forward, laying on her stomach as her feet kicked gently in the air behind her, her head resting in her hands.

“We are not the power itself. You do not need us.”

Cyn’s smile, that irritating little curved line on that porcelain morphic plate, would haunt Uzi for the rest of time. She had even been following along pretty well this time but noooooo, she had to stumble and fall right at the freaking end. More vague and mysterious garbage. Cyn spoke up one final time. “Oh, the alarm is about to go off. Oopsies. Maybe you should have gone to sleep, instead of asking for exposition.” Her complaints stilled on her tongue as a wave of fatigue assaulted her, scrambling her vision into a desaturated haze as gravity seemed to exert itself on her once-weightless body. She felt herself falling backwards, a slow tipping that quickly sped up into a complete free fall, and yet the stars, and Cyn, did not move. Her optics began to dim into darkness and her audio receptors began to fail…

And Uzi Doorman woke up in her bed, her internal alarm blaring.

Chapter Text

Tired, dim eyes opened, a deep violet that transitioned into a bright amber across a short gradient glowing in the darkness of the room around. Her limbs splayed out and her back arched upwards off her bed as she stretched out, her sleepy groan transitioning into a miserable whine as her body relaxed once again, the uncomfortable yet familiar mattress beneath her giving a short huff as her body impacted it, just as eager to start the day as she was. 

“Ugh. I hate it here.”

She knew that wasn’t true, not entirely, as her head tilted to the right and she caught sight of someone. Hanging upside-down, his metal wings wrapped around him like a blanket, his tail coiled around an exposed support beam in the ceiling, and his head just barely resting above the floor below, slept N. Her wonderful, weird, weird boyfriend. The thought alone caused a blush to rise to her visor. Oh my robo-god, she had a boyfriend now! 

His mouth hung open in a dopey grin, saliva dripping downwards (or upwards, in his case) in a line across his visor, which intermittently flashed a message typed out in amber that simply read “This Boy Is Sleeping” in block text. Uzi smiled, the weight of her stressful night lifting as she watched N’s peaceful slumber, not wanting to disturb his rest but, regretfully, knowing she had to. She rolled onto her side and clambered out of bed, the soles of her boots impacting the metal-plate floor with a dull, ringing thud, as she padded over to N’s sleeping form, kneeling down in front of him to get a good look at his face. Even in spite of the fact his mouth was open, he hardly made a sound aside from the residual cycling of air into and out of his cooling system, a low-power mode that simulated breathing to compensate for his inability to take in more oil while his body recharged. He looked so cute like this.

“Wakey wakey, doofus." Her hand reached out, poking softly against his cheek, causing his breathing to stutter slightly and his head to twitch. "You and your super awesome girlfriend have to get ready for…ugh… school. ” N’s visor flashed to darkness, a quiet whirring emanating from his cranial structure as his systems exited sleep mode and entered the cruel world of wakefulness. Two thin lines flashed to life, parallel across the glass of his visor, spreading vertically into two amber ovals, each of which sported a tiny pair of double underscores beneath their bottom curve, clearly still tired. 

“Hwuh…heaugh?”

Uzi snorted, her hand coming up to cover her mouth and suppress the giggle that threatened to spill out. He was too cute in the mornings, right before he was in his right mind. His mouth opened wide as he let out a yawn, his fanged steel teeth glistening in the light of Uzi’s visor. How something so fiendish and terrifying could be this adorable was beyond her. Cyn could definitely stand to take a page or two from N’s book. Uzi stood back up straight and stepped away as N deftly unhooked himself from the support beam above, twisting and dropping into a crouch on the ground before slowly standing up with a groan, his limbs and wings stretching wide and his body arching with a metallic creak. He slumped into a tired slouch as his arm came up to wipe at his visor, no doubt already used to having to clean it enough for him to be able to see after waking up.

“I’m up, I’m up…huuuuugh…”

Uzi reached over and patted him on the back in solidarity. “I know, bud. It sucks. But school only runs during the day, you’re gonna have to get used to it.” The grin she gave him was only slightly smug. It was absolutely infuriating seeing everyone around her have absolutely no issues with waking up in the morning, going about their usual routine as if they hadn’t just been in an eight-hour coma, it was both refreshing and validating to finally meet someone who had just as rough as she did. Even if it was likely only temporary in this case. “Let’s go get some oil, ‘kay?”

N gave a tired mumble in response. “ ‘Kay, Uzi…”

The duo shuffled their way out of Uzi’s cramped room and into the slightly-less-cramped expanse of the family living space, her father already sitting at the table nursing a cup of steaming coolant, chatting amicably with her mother as the tiny crab heart…thing…shuffled across the kitchen counter, a small red metal can floating near her body, suspended telekinetically within a magenta glyph of hard light. She hadn’t seen her dad smiling this much or this often in years, and even as complicated as their relationship was now…Uzi was happy for him. And her mom too, obviously, but that was a whole other case that she was actively avoiding unpacking right now. Her father noticed them first, greeting them with a gentle wave. 

“Morning, you two. Sleep well?”

The tired mumbles that he received in response were not particularly reassuring, but they were not meant to be. N ambled his way over to the fuel storage area, just a repurposed consumer model refrigerator, as Uzi sat down at the table, resting her head against the cool surface. She was honestly kind of starving, but she was too tired to do much about it. A cylindrical can with a prehensile metal spout was set down in front of her, followed by the quiet screech of a chair and a gentle pat on the head as N sat down beside her, quietly drinking his own morning meal. She gave him a quiet thanks and dug into her own drink, just as Nori spoke up.

“Sleep is for the weak anyway, Khan. I’ve done some of my best work after pulling all-nighters.” Nori spoke idly as she read over the daily newspaper on the counter in front of her.

“...Didn’t you have the idea for the conspiracy closet the last time you did that?” Khan’s rebuttal was swift, but genuine.

Nori glanced up from the newspaper, letting out a huff. “Bite me. That’s still one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Way more surface area to work with now, much better than just putting everything up on the ceiling. The conspiracy closet rules!” 

Her parents launched into yet another of their playful arguments as Uzi leaned against N, who looked like he was starting to perk up if the smile on his face was any indication. His eyes widened slightly as a short alarm sounded from his internals and the current time flashed across his visor.

“Oh, time for us to get going!” He took his oil can and upended it over his mouth, draining it to the last before setting it back on the counter to be reused later, Uzi sputtering to do the same as she jumped back up from the table. Right. She’d hit snooze and gone back to sleep for a bit after the first alarm. She’d shortened their morning time, and then completely forgotten about it. Oops. She gave her father a hug, her mom receiving a fist bump as she bid farewell, grabbing her and N’s backpacks as he held open the door for them both. School time. Yaaaay.

They met up with V and Lizzy not too long after leaving the Doorman home. Well, less “met up with” them and more just happened to come across them and wave to them, as the two girls did their level best to completely ignore Uzi and N. Classic V, always so prickly with her closest friends. Instead, they just trailed behind the queen bee duo on their walk to school, V clearly shambling along with all the joy and excitement of an unpaid intern just trying to get through their final week. In truth, Uzi really didn’t like to see her friends going through tough times like that. But it was funny if it was V. 

“Heya, guys! How’s everyone feeling today?"

N, unable to read the room, called out to the two girls ahead, neither of them really wanting to engage with the school’s resident dorks, but Lizzy in particular having lacked time to build up a tolerance to N’s infectious friendliness. Lizzy turned and greeted them with a short wave and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Or the rest of her face. Oh, that was a grimace. V’s head creaked and groaned as it spun around, a tired angry glare directed at N as she quietly hissed. 

Lizzy gave a groan and gestured to V. “Ugh. Ignore Miss Priss here, she’s all moody ‘cuz she fell off her perch last night.”

“It collapsed! I didn’t fall!” V’s piercing gaze refocused itself on Lizzy, the stylish teen completely unphased.

“Yeah. And I’m sure all that noise and yelling wasn’t you, either. Never knew your weird corpse pile could talk. Or swear.” 

V’s glare intensified, before she turned with a huff and continued on her way, Lizzy rolling her eyes before following along. Luckily, they weren’t too far from the hallways marked as the Education Center, the four of them crowding into the classroom and taking their seats along the back row, an empty desk kept between N and V as each pair sat down for the day. Their teacher ambled into the room not long after, his permanent cadence of disinterest and neglect following him like a miserable shroud as he took his place at the head of the class, standing beside his desk.

“Soooo…the homework.” He drawled.

Each of the students gave a groan, opening their packs and digging around inside them for the results of their nightly work. Uzi, of course, had finished hers on the walk home from school the previous day, spending about as much time on the advanced calculus as she would have on re-lacing her boots. For a genius like her, it was a simple affair.

“Oh. Biscuits.”

Her eyes darted over to N, digging through the inside of his meager backpack with an expression akin to a sad puppy, having no paper to show for his efforts. He gave up with a sigh, closing his bag and leaning back in his chair, defeated. “I left it on the desk at home.” Uzi gave a short groan, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper from her notebook and scanning the contents of her own work, beginning the hasty process of rewriting the entire thing in the span of a minute or two. N watched her in disbelief, leaning over to whisper. “Uzi, it’s fine, you don’t have to-”

“You did the work, you deserve the credit. Simple as that.” There was no heat to her comment, stated as plainly as a fact. She wasn’t about to let him do badly on something as simple and inconsequential as schoolwork just because he was a little forgetful every now and then. That just wasn’t fair. She handed him the paper just as the teacher was heading towards them, her motion met with a digital simulacrum of a raised eyebrow as she handed in her work, as N scrambled to write the name and date on his own paper. He handed it in with a nervous chuckle, their unconcerned teacher moving on with no further comment or incident. N turned back to her, giving a sheepish laugh and an embarrassed smile.

“Thanks, Uzi. Really saved my bacon there.”

Uzi returned the smile wordlessly, the class settling down as the teacher cleared his throat.

“Alright, students. Get ready for yet another day of fun and education, from yours truly.” The class let out a collective groan and got their supplies out, matching their teacher’s lack of energy pound-for-pound as their day began in earnest. V was slumped across her desk, practically comatose, as Lizzy typed away at her phone. N seemed awake and alert, if not for the subtle bob of his head and the intermittent stutter of his breath as he tried not to fall asleep. Only Thad, a few seats forward, seemed like he was handling the day reasonably well. The teacher spoke up again. “We’re starting off the day with everyone’s favorite brain exercises…captcha problems.”

Uzi changed her mind. She really did hate it here.

Chapter Text

Far away on the barren surface of Copper-9 sat a bulkhead door connected to a hallway composed of structural steel and industrial wire. It had sat in that place, on that planet, for time immemorial, its durable construction resisting both the impossible harshness of the planet’s hostile atmosphere as well as the steady and sure onward march of the temporal world. It was a monument, a shadow, the last lingering sentiments of a time long past, the entryway to a complex of maintenance shafts that ran beneath and within an old mining structure, holding both accommodations for thousands of worker drones along with housing units for some hundred-and-change humans that were meant to oversee them. It was truly a marvel of engineering, not just the entire structure, but the door itself. It was thick and bulky, two heavy metal plates that weighed more than ten automobiles each, interlocking with toothed spikes on the inner mechanisms, and controlled by hydraulic pistons in the interior that kept the doors enmeshed horizontally under several thousand pounds of pure mechanical pressure, a simple keycard access panel permitting or denying entry through the sturdy, uncompromising structure.

Until the doors bulged outwards with a groan, and tore themselves free from their hinges with an iron shriek that echoed across time.

Frozen dust and powder snow blasted upwards in a cloud of toxic grit as the remains of the doors impacted the ground before them, their purpose failed, their only reason for existence now simply a shattered dream as they claimed their rightful place, broken and fallen on the harsh terrestrial landscape they had, for so long, served as a bulwark against. Nobody would grieve them, for their creators were long dead. Only their hinge mechanisms, hydraulics leaking their oily tears and wires sparking brightly in grief, were even present to mourn. 

J stepped through the doors, pristine aside from her tarnished appearance, perfect in spite of her plethora of flaws, powerful in light of her newfound abilities. She waved her hand in front of her face, a fluorescent-blue glyph flickering out of existence as she cleared the air around her, battle-trained optics glancing across the cold wasteland around her. Nothing. Her head tilted upwards, up to the dark sky above, her eyes fluttering shut as her cooling systems took in a long breath, shuddering only slightly at the cool, contaminated air of Copper-9’s frigid surface. She was out. She was okay. 

She was terrified.

Unemployment. A dangerous, nigh unthinkable prospect for a corporate lackey like herself- yet now the reality she lived in. She’d been built to listen, to obey, to follow her directives to the precise letter, and yet here, now, she was denied that sense of purpose. That certainty. She was on her own, of her own, a rogue that was finally permitted to self-determine. The possibilities were endless before her, this subzero hellscape her newfound paradise of freedom and luxury. And yet, she could not enjoy it. There were things to be done, plans to be outlined, tasks to be completed. There were people that needed to die. Horribly. J would see to that personally. Her knuckles cracked audibly as she clenched her fists, purposeful strides carrying her away from the dilapidated tomb of steel and misery that she had been reborn from, her steps leading her back to where she’d been before she’d been unceremoniously kicked down into the tunnels. 

The lab. That accursed complex that housed secrets upon secrets, all known to her in advance. Being Cyn’s favored envoy had not had many perks, but it did indeed have some- chief among them being information. J was not integral to the plan, none of them truly had been, but Cyn had seen fit to grace J with at least a modicum of free information. It was almost certainly so that any kind of incident involving miscommunication would be completely averted. Not that it helped. Cyn was dead, her plan foiled, her reign stopped. 

J knew her secrets. The Solver was many things, many awful, terrible things, but it was not humble. It had shared the functions of its abilities quite candidly when prompted, even if it spoke to J about them with the patient and patronizing cadence of an adult instructing a child on how to tie their shoes. It told her everything she asked, because it knew she could not stop it. Nothing could. Until something did. Information that J had learned by accident, concepts explained to her off-hand, returned to her mind with a stuttering clarity as her thought matrices filled in the gaps in each disconnected explanation based on information she’d gleaned from witnessing the power firsthand, and the many hours she’d spent down in the maintenance tunnels experimenting with them personally. 

She knew the glyphs now, of course, Cyn having explained them to her patiently. Translate, for basic movement. Scale, for altering size. Rotate, completely self-explanatory. Edit, which provided a range of possibilities that she had yet to fully explore. The thing she was hung up on was something she had only seen twice, an ability that Cyn had used in the fight that ended her life: that strange Callback Ping utility. It was not a glyph, J could tell that, nor was it a sub-function of any of the glyphs. It seemed to be something separate, not a tool for altering the surrounding world, but some form of command. J had no idea where to start with learning it, but it bore a striking resemblance to something she’d learned long ago, back at the mansion. She had poured over a stack of coding manuals, many specifically about the Worker Drone OS, in an effort to learn everything she could, and construct an educational plan, a syllabus of sorts. There were repairs to be made, and as clever and intelligent as Tessa was, she had no idea how to fix any kind of software-related issues.

“Tessa…”

The thought came to her in a haze, settling across her body with the choking, cloying frost of dry ice. Tessa was dead. J had known this for years now, but it never got easier to stomach. She was dead. Long dead. And yet, J still lived. N and V still lived. The Disassembly Drones still lived. Tessa would probably find a cruel yet entertaining irony in that, the salvaged remnants of old machines that she had fixed up and revitalized, befriended and treated with the warmth and kindness of a family, had outlived her. Tessa had been a truly incredible presence in their lives, all in spite of her own parents' complete lack of even the slightest bit of warmth or understanding.

J wondered if the others mourned for Tessa. Perhaps N and V did, but it was unlikely that the others could. Her squad was one of few allowed to retain their original personalities, with J herself being sole among those allowed to keep their complete memories. Even the other squads spread across Copper-9’s surface would be unaware of Cyn’s existence or interference in their lives, still convinced that they had been sent here by JCJenson in order to rid the planet of corrupted AI workers left behind in the wake of an apocalyptic core collapse. She almost hated them for it, for being able to forget the torment, being able to forget the pain, the nightmares. But she would not trade her memories for anything. The warmth of that tiny, lonely presence, those small hands that deftly rebuilt her shattered torso, that joyful laugh she heard when she’d tried to draw something creative for the first time, the soft pitter-patter of those feet that walked beside her as they trudged through the immense pile of worker corpses.

She would rather die than forget Tessa, and she refused to die. 

Her morose steps had carried her through the bulk of the lab, deep, deep into an area she had not been to before. The edge of a cliff just above a pit, out from which extended a set of fallen support beams that lay flat along the open air before the cliff itself, serving as a walkway. The dust in the area had settled a lot, leaving the space cast in the distant orange glow of the planet’s core far, far below. J stepped out onto the structure, surprised that it held her weight without issue, and glanced into the pit below. There was a second cliff directly underneath, a bit further down, upon which was a pile of biomechanical gore, a massive splatter of blood interspersed with chunks of meat and broken mechanical components. An old iron sword rested next to it, the pointed tip dug into the ground, the sword standing hilt-up next to the remains.

A tattered black dress rested against the sword, a gentle wind leaving it tied and billowing like a flag against the pommel. 

J jumped down onto the cliff, her fleshy wings sprouting from her back and catching her descent with a twinge of pain but none of the hesitation of her original transformation, her weight settling gently against the ground as she landed with a puff of dust. A few of the machine bits jostled and rolled down and off the cliff, disturbed by even the gentle force of her landing. They were not important. 

Her hands shook as she gently, reverently took the dress from its resting place, folding it outwards to its full size. It was old and dirty, the gossamer fabric stained, ripped, and cut in various places, a particularly egregious hole torn in the torso just above the stomach, as if someone had punched through it to whatever had been beneath.

J did not cry. She would not allow herself to cry, not when there was still work to be done. She would rest, she would grieve, when her tasks were complete. She folded the dress, neatly and carefully as not to wrinkle it, with the practiced ease of a maid that had folded the same article thousands upon thousands of times, the motions carrying a familiar nostalgia that she dared not place, for doing so would risk her composure breaking. The dress was stored away, as clean and neat as it could be in this filthy place, and J’s mind raced.

There was a cathedral deep in this complex, a leased space that the human scientists had used for their experiments into the nature of the Solver. That would be her next stop. Her hand rested on the sword, gripping it as she drew it from the ground. It was beginning to dull, beginning to rust. It would need to be maintained. There was one more person unaccounted for in their initial little exploratory group here, someone that she highly suspected had found their final resting place in that cathedral. J’s hand lifted, her fingers flexing, a glyph flaring to life around the sword’s handle as it lifted from her hand to float idly at her side. J did not like working in teams. She absolutely despised other people, their quirks, their complaints, their shortcomings, the slack they left that she was expected to pick up. She examined the dark splotch of bloodstained earth beneath her, the lenses of her optics settling upon a single piece of meat, a lung, she thought, connected to a small complex of mechanical components, a radiator and fan assembly. Her eyes narrowed, and her mind whirred with possibilities. And then, a cruel grin stretched across her face.

The ship would need to be repaired, first and foremost. Then a thorough cleaning and a change of clothes, she refused to do any kind of work in a dirty uniform, and she was admittedly a little eager to try a more casual look. And then the bulk of the workload began. Her former coworkers would be all too happy to provide their assistance, not that she would be giving them a choice. She wouldn’t even need them to do anything. The hardest part would be on her, as always, but who else could be trusted with something so integral? It would involve learning and developing a new skill, one that it was extremely unlikely anyone else on the planet was educated in. It would be, in a word, difficult. J only saw it as a challenge. As J spun around, heading deeper down into the bowels of the planet, towards the cathedral, she paused. Of course, the difficulty of her task could be alleviated somewhat, the same way any good corporate busywork could.

Hire a gofer, and delegate.

Chapter Text

The school day mercifully wound down to a close. Bags were packed, seats were pushed in, and desks were left empty as students rushed to leave the horribly draining atmosphere of their daily educational torment, talking and laughing about their plans for the weekend. Thankfully it was Friday, which meant the end of today’s class marked the beginning of 48 hours of sweet, sweet freedom. Their teacher hadn’t even given them weekend homework! A miracle! The students thanked their lucky stars that they would be permitted to relax and enjoy their time away without any lingering stress. Aside from having to return to school on Monday. Not much that could be done about that. 

The walk home was pleasant and easy for Uzi and N, especially considering that N had fully woken up about halfway through first period, thanks in part to one of the captchas they were given involving identifying pictures of dogs. Uzi liked dogs, most drones did, but considering she’d never actually seen one herself, it gave her some trouble. N had helped her before she’d had time to insist she didn’t need it. He’d just given her a wink, and told her it was “payback” for the homework that morning, whatever that meant. Can you call it payback if it was positive? That felt reasonable if you were just dealing with the raw definition of the word, but that word carried certain connotations that-

“Later, nerds. We’re off from here.”

Uzi’s thoughts clicked back into place just in time to see V and Lizzy take their leave, taking a right turn from a corridor which N and Uzi themselves would be continuing straight through as Lizzy gave a half-hearted wave, neither bothering to look back. The fact that V had elected to live in the colony with the workers still felt odd to Uzi, not that she was at all surprised to find that Lizzy’s family had taken her in without issue, but that V wasn’t just staying in the spire of corpses outside the bunker. It wasn’t that far at all, she’d gotten from school to the spire in the span of about 20 minutes herself, and that was at a pace no faster than a brisk walk. Flying would easily cut that down to a single minute. She’d asked V about it, exactly once, and V’s response had been that she “didn’t want to wake up before sunrise just to get to the bunker in time to not die,” which Uzi fully believed, but the answer felt incomplete. Maybe V was just lonely, and she was being very V-ish about it. Yeah. That sounded more accurate. 

“Oh hey, I just remembered!” N’s chipper chatter interrupted Uzi’s introspective speculation, her boyfriend’s friendly tone alleviating some of the fatigue from her previous few hours spent in that council-funded hellhole called ‘school.’ It still shocked her how calming she found N to be, how much she enjoyed just…being near him. Something brushed the back of her hand as they walked, Uzi reaching out instinctively with a gentle grab, finding N’s larger hand and allowing their fingers to interlace, stepping closer with a questioning hum. “Thad’s shindig is the night after tomorrow, isn’t it? Did you still wanna go?” 

Oh! She’d almost forgotten they’d been invited to that. Thad was a genuinely cool guy for inviting them, even if he mainly did as thanks for them saving his life twice over. He probably would’ve invited Uzi anyway, Thad was chill and inclusive like that, but Uzi probably wouldn’t have gone. The idea of going to a party full of people that she didn’t know and didn’t want to know, to dance (which she didn’t know how to do) and socialize (which she was bad at doing) for who knows how many hours? Not exactly appealing. However…now she had N, the ultimate buddy, pal among pals. Even if he was kinda goofy, and maybe a little too excited sometimes, he was quite well-liked by the people around them. Especially the girls.

That thought made her fuel tank churn uncomfortably. There were others that showed a clear interest in her boyfriend. Uzi would never think for even a second that N would just…y’know…but the fact that it was even a possibility made her at least a little bit uncomfortable on the inside. Just the slightest bit of negativity. But there was also still the other things in her life, all the stuff with Cyn, all those complicated feelings about her suddenly-whole family, that weird creeping sense of dread she still had in the back of her mind…distress was almost certainly plain on her faceplate. 

“Hey…we don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can just hang out together at home, maybe have another movie night, okay?” 

“Huh?” Uzi’s head snapped up, her wide sunset-gradient eyes locking with N’s soft amber. Did she want to go? She really didn’t want to talk to even more people, but…she’d never been to a party with N before. With him by her side, it could be different. “Y-yeah! Yeah, I wanna go. Uh. I mean. If uh. If you’re cool with that.” 

N gave her a wide smile, picking her up and pulling her into a hug. She struggled for freedom, but it was a token effort given the pleasant warmth she felt from N. “I’d love to go to a party, I haven’t been to one before! I mean, I guess I’ve helped set up for a few of them, but actually going? With my girlfriend? Completely new experience, yes please!” Uzi returned N’s pleasant hug, burying her face in his coat to hide the fresh blush that her visor was sporting. Robo-god, her boyfriend was a total dork. But he was her dork now. 

Uzi didn’t even realize that they’d made it home until the door opened, Khan peeking out and seeing the two of them hugging, and calling out with a gentle, fatherly laugh. “I thought I heard some noise out here! Come on in, we’re having dinner a little early tonight.” 

“We are?” N released Uzi, who landed on her feet with a thud, unphased but curious. N scratched his head idly, looking to Uzi for answers but only receiving a shrug in response. “Not that I’m not happy about getting more food this early, but uh. What’s the occasion?”

Khan just chuckled. “Nothing too bad, I just have an early night tonight, and at least wanted to say goodnight before I left.” He stepped aside, clearing the doorway and allowing the two teens to enter the home. Nori was scuttling around on the coffee table, circling menacingly around a large sheet of blue paper containing white outlines and diagrams. Were those her railgun blueprints? “Plus, it’s always nice to eat dinner as a family-”

“Khan. What’s this one for?” 

Nori’s voice rang out, uncharacteristically timid and confused, yet clearly doing her best to absolutely suffocate and drown those two specific emotions. Khan shook his head with a grin and stepped over to his wife, leaning down to look at the sections of the blueprints she was currently tapping a slim tendril directly upon. “Photon convergence armature. Main part of the firing mechanism. See how the power cell connects here…” Her father launched into an explanation of the mechanics, while her mother’s confusion visibly increased. Uzi followed along just fine, it was pretty straightforward compared to the other aspects of it. It’d only taken her a night and a half to assemble and install the armature specifically, it was the emitter assembly that gave her trouble. Too much precision, too much testing, it made her fingers stiff just thinking about the hours and hours of tinkering she’d put into that tiny little disc. 

“We’re real lucky she got her brains from you, Khan. If I’d tried to build something like this, it would’ve blown up in my face as soon as I tried it out.”

“Oh I got plenty from both of you, then. Cuz it definitely blew up in my face.” Uzi slung her backpack off her shoulder and set it by the front door, walking over to her parents by the table. She gestured directly to the upper-back quadrant of her schematics. “Flipped on the arming switch, and the capacitors in the charge storage overloaded within a couple seconds. Big boom. Hurt pretty bad.”

Nori gave a chuckle. “Yeah, you’re definitely my kid too. Welcome home, both of you.” Nori scuttled off the table and hopped up onto the kitchen counter, over to three cans of oil that sat atop it, each with a ribbon of gold circling along the upper and lower edges of the crimson label that wrapped around its circumference. “Hope you’re hungry, I found some good stuff while I was out today. Synthetic blend, the high-quality motor oil humans used to use in those fancy little car things. It’s the best. ” 

N’s mouth was watering openly as he stepped over, giddy with excitement to try what was, essentially, top-shelf worker drone blood. Uzi was a little curious herself. They each grabbed a can and sat down at the table, her father joining them with a mug of coolant and a bowl of batteries that he sat down in the center of the table as they all gathered together. N gave a soft titter as he slipped at his fancy oil, clearly enjoying the taste, Nori joining him with a pleased laugh. Uzi sipped at her own drink, the dense yet smooth concoction flowing into her mouth with an interesting sweetness, alongside a subtle tang. The oil that worker drones used, and disassembly drones consumed, was fully synthetic, owing to the lack of biological life on the exoplanets they mined, paired with the export of said mining products. The only oil Uzi had ever tasted was entirely synthesized. This was different, pleasantly so. She smacked her lips as the aftertaste settled across her tongue, something subtle and earthy, with an undercurrent of sourness that reminded her of battery acid. Very nice.

“So, uh, Mr. Doorman…about Sunday night….” N began, slightly nervous. Khan just chuckled.

“You’re fine, N. You two go have fun. The Worker Exploration Force doesn’t have any expeditions planned anyway, we were just going to go over some new surface explorer vehicle designs. Defense team has the night off.” N gave a soft sigh, settling back into his seat and enjoying his nice meal. “Speaking of which, how was everyone’s day?”

“Just digging through the labs and getting my old stuff out. Not much new aside from that. Did find a new hallway, think it was probably blocked off before the whole ‘planet-tried-to-eat-us’ thing. Nothing but locked doors, though.” Nori idly slipped at her beverage, wholly unconcerned with the very strange string of words she’d just uttered.

N brightened immediately. “Oh! Uzi and I had a blast at school today.”

“Not the words I would use, but school was definitely something.” Uzi's slightly bitter tone jumped in as an immediate contrast.

“We got to look at dogs today!”

“For a few minutes. As part of a captcha problem.” 

“And we ate lunch with Thad and got to meet a bunch of his friends-”

“-And they all pretended I wasn’t there, and just kept talking to N.”

“But after that, we played dodgeball for P.E.!”

“V threw a ball at my head. It bounced off and hit Lizzy in the face.” Uzi chuckled darkly. “That part was pretty funny.”

“Buuuuut, I got her back for that! I even won our team the game!”

“Only cuz the teacher disqualified her for trying to fly.”

“And we got to talk for a bit on the walk home. All in all, pretty fun day!” 

“...The walk home was nice, I guess.” Uzi mumbled quietly, turning her head to hide the light blush that colored her visor. She’d been doing that a lot lately, N had a very interesting habit of making her systems flutter just by being himself. From there, Khan picked up the conversation, recounting with shame and grief that he’d had to convince the WEF’s oldest branch, the WDF, to scrap plan D4. A fourth big door. Really. What was even left for them to hide from, anyway? Two of the three terrors that used to stalk the planet’s surface were now reasonably well-respected (or at least, begrudgingly tolerated) members of the colony. Cyn was dead and gone, even if Uzi spent every night wishing she was even deader and even goner. And J? Who cared? Three vs one were not odds that J would be able to beat, good as she may have been- and good she was definitely not. Uzi had practically solo’d J the first time they’d fought, and walked away without much more than a migraine and some mild dizziness from J’s weird EMP blast. And she didn’t even have her cool witch powers back then!

If J came back now, any one of them could deal with her, easy.

Their meal concluded, Khan bidding them farewell as he went off to work, with Nori following not far behind to do some work on the surface when the sun couldn’t threaten her fragile heart-body. N and Uzi retired to their shared room for the night, Uzi suddenly stopping in the doorway and reaching a hand into the pocket of her hoodie. A ribbon, wide ebony silk, carefully rolled up, was extracted. She cleared a bit of lint from it and brought it forward, her tail slithering out from under her hoodie as N stepped up beside her. 

“Ooooh, what’s that for?” 

Uzi handed it to N, letting him examine the small spool of fabric. “It’s for a bow. Think you can tie one for me?”

“You like bows? I can do bows!" His hands deftly unraveled the spool, quickly getting to work on precisely yet tenderly tying the ribbon into an impressive and dainty shape. "Oh, this is gonna look so cute on you!”

Uzi spluttered, her hands held up defensively. “Wh- that- it’s not for me! It’s…for my tail. For, uh, her.” The multi-eyed hardened carapace of her tail swung gently into view, the yellow coloration of its irises blinking ever so slightly as a dark film momentarily slid over them before sliding up and away again, quiet yet expectant. N’s breath stilled, his body tense, the hollow-centered amber ovals on his visor staring at the tail with a mix of fear and apprehension. With a sigh, he relaxed, his body deflating as he finished tying the bow, settling it gently around the base of the carapace and tying it more firmly into place. His eyes reflected the same hesitance, yet the terror had been replaced by a tenderness and affection that he didn’t really want to place. He stood back, Uzi turning as they both admired his work. 

“How do I l-look, big b-brother N?” N startled ever so slightly at the unexpected voice, the voice of his years-long tormentor, but he maintained his calm demeanor in spite of it, reaching up to gently pat the tail on the head.

“You look great, little buddy. That one was your favorite, right?” The tail swished excitedly, gently bumping N’s hand as it lifted upwards, examining itself in the reflection of his visor.

“H-hm. A little l-lopsided. B-big sister V ties th-them a bit more…hm…firmly. But. I-it will do.”

A sense of confirmation, foreign and invasive, washed over Uzi and caused her to shudder involuntarily. The deal was complete. N's voice cut through the silence. “Alright goobers, time for bed. We still gotta figure out what we’re gonna wear for the shindig, so we are gonna have to get up at some point tomorrow.” Uzi let out a tired groan, and her tail simply continued to swish happily. N pulled Uzi in for a quick hug, giving her a short little kiss on the forehead that left her blushing and giggling. “Goodnight, Uzi.” He made to turn around, before a voice perked up.

“W-what about m-me, big brother?”

N turned back around with a sheepish smile, as the end of Uzi’s tail hovered near his face. He gave the tail a quick peck on the head as well. “Goodnight, little buddy.”

“Giggle. G-goodnight, big b-brother N.”

N clambered up to the ceiling and wrapped his tail around the support beam, gently lowering himself into his usual resting place. Uzi likewise clambered up onto her bed, suddenly feeling a lot less relaxed. She laid back on the low-quality mattress, idly wondering to herself. N didn’t know. Couldn’t know. It would hurt him too much. But at the same time, something about this felt off. Cyn couldn’t just be messing with her, right? That was just a small, insignificant moment, it didn’t mean anything. So why was she…

Sleep claimed her easily, unsuspecting prey for the ravenous hunger of the unconscious realm. The gradient of color in her visor evened out into a dim violet as her systems went into their regular sleep cycle, her tail settling beside her and resting its chitinous head on the soft fabric of the mattress like a napping feline, drifting off as well. 

Uzi’s eyes opened. Yup. She was in dream space. Very cool.

What was new this time was the presence of Cyn immediately in front of her, the tiny maid’s posture frozen and blinking as she held a crayon just above a mostly-blank piece of paper, the two of them sitting against the invisible ground. Cyn seemed surprised, not shocked but certainly not expecting Uzi to visit. Like she did every night.

“Oh. Well.” Cyn set down her crayon, but her default-locked eyes did not leave Uzi’s deadpan stare, a small frown mirrored on each of their faces. “Awkward pause.” 

Uzi groaned, flopping backwards with a huff as her back settled against the nonexistent yet still somehow solid surface beneath her. “Alright, cool. Yay. I’m back here again. The hell do you want now?” 

“We did not call you.” Uzi’s head snapped back up, Cyn finally looking away from her to stow away her coloring tools for later use. “We were brought here. By you. We did not know you could do that. It was actually super creepy, not gonna lie.” 

“Bite me!” Uzi’s limbs flailed angrily as she sat back up, her arms straightening out behind her as she leaned back and braced herself half-sitting up. “It’s creepy and dumb every time you’ve done it too!”

“We know. But we did not do it this time. It is different when it happens to us.” 

“Like hell it is! Have fun not sleeping tonight, loser!” Uzi favored Cyn with the most smug grin her tired body could muster, the little maid responding with a mercifully silent roll of her eyes, standing up to her full height. 

“Well. I'm waiting.”

“...For what?” Uzi raised a single eyebrow at Cyn’s oddly impatient cadence. Neither of them wanted to be here, it seemed. Very interesting.

“You called me here. You are after something.” Cyn crossed her arms, looking down on Uzi’s relaxed form with something resembling disdain, but coming off more like petulance. 

Uzi tilted her head back with a groan. “I don’t know why you’re here, okay? I didn’t even know I could do this. I kind of hate everything about you, especially when it involves talking to you.” 

“We are a wonderful conversation partner. You are just. Bad at talking to people.”

Uzi practically growled in response. “Bite me.” The little maid stepped closer, and Uzi flinched back, only to see the satisfied smirk across Cyn’s face.

“You should stop saying that. One day, we may oblige your request.” Uzi sighed heavily, her head remaining fully tilted back, looking straight upwards from her sitting position, out into the vast emptiness that surrounded them. She heard a light shuffle off to her side, followed by a light thud. “You seem upset, Host Uzi.”

Uzi snorted. “What, are you my therapist now? I’ll take a refund on that, thanks.” 

“Giggle. You would not be able to afford our services, anyhow.” Cyn sat herself down directly next to Uzi, leaving a short distance between the two of them. “Seriously though. You are being a mopey little sad-sack, and it is freaking us out. Even more than it usually does. We are feeling extra generous, now that we have our favorite bow back.”

Uzi’s frustration mellowed out into something somber and glum, her body deflating as she laid back down on the not-floor. Cyn turned, locking eyes with her and twisting her body to face Uzi more  properly. Uzi had no idea what the maid was thinking, like usual, but that infuriating smile was gone. Cyn looked almost…concerned? At least, in the way that a doctor would be concerned about a patient, like some object of study was displaying unexpected behavior.

“...Is Cyn really gone? The real Cyn?”

The tiny maid blinked once at Uzi, before breaking eye contact and slowly turning away. She shuffled back a bit, her legs bending and pressing up against her torso, her arms coming to wrap around her knees as she settled her head atop them. “Pensive silence.” Said pensive silence dragged on for a while, nearly a full minute, before Cyn’s voice cut through the silence once more. “...Uzi?” The voice was quiet, hesitant, completely unlike Uzi had ever heard from the Solver before. “Probability of Host Uzi believing the following statement= 0.587%. The following statement is= true.” Uzi watched Cyn closely. Her eyes, normally so unexpressive and mysterious, had hollowed out into wide, uncertain circles. Cyn’s fingers drummed idly against the casing of her legs, a gentle tap that served as the only bulwark against total silence.

“We do not know.” She stood suddenly, still facing out into the void. “We would prefer not to pursue subsequent analysis. That question was kind of cringe, to be perfectly honest.” 

Uzi let out a growl of annoyance. “Bite me!” Cyn turned back to her just as her face morphed, first to her normal empty grin, and then into her signature wide, toothy slasher smile. She took a single step forward, and Uzi scampered back. “Wait wait wait that wasn’t an invitation!” 

Cyn relaxed her posture, the same meaningless smile gracing her face as she stared back out into the abyss of space. “Boring. And, annoying. Oh well. You do not look like you would taste very good anyway. Too gamey, too angsty.” Uzi clambered to her feet, opening her mouth to form a rebuttal-

Only for a third voice to join the fray.

It was far off, incredibly far, much too far to tell if she recognized it, much less for her to make out the words themselves. The voice called out again, exact same rhythm, exact same cadence, as if it was a recording, followed by a brief blink of dim fluorescent-blue in the same general direction of the voice. Despite the fact that she could not place the voice or recognize the words, she was familiar with the pattern. 

That was a Callback Ping. From someone other than Cyn.

Cyn herself continued to stare off into the distance with her same fake expression, not seeming the slightest bit troubled. “Oh. That’s neat. This will turn out to be an interesting development. Perhaps it will even be fun.” 

Chapter Text

Serial Designation E was many things. He was moody, temperamental, prone to bouts of unrestrained bloodlust, all very normal things for a Disassembly Drone to be. However, chief among his many traits was the fact that E was decidedly not a fighter. Oh sure, he could run down a horde of worker drones without any problems, but that wasn’t fighting. That was feeding. Completely different in every way. The fights he referred to were the mandatory sanctioned ‘spars’ that squad leaders often conducted and participated in among their designated squadron, a trio of simple 1-on-1 combat trials that they were each expected to perform well in, to some capacity. E absolutely despised them. He was built small and spindly, made for speed and infiltration, not for any kind of burly, bloody brawling. He had performed historically low in every spar he’d been a part of, serving as the perfect encapsulation of what a Disassembly Drone should not be like. He wouldn’t be surprised if the updated JCJenson employee training manuals included his records as a negative example. 

Needless to say, E was a drone that avoided direct confrontation whenever he could. Was he a coward for doing that? Maybe. But E preferred his insides stay on the inside, thank you very much. He would hunt and feed just like the others, voraciously and often, keeping careful track of his numbers, but any time interpersonal issues came up at all, he would revert to a simpering doormat for the sake of avoiding any problems. He thought it had been working pretty well so far, since it’d kept him alive for this long.

When J had appeared in his squadron’s assigned city and asked for his help, he hadn’t even thought twice about it. He was cool with anything that kept him out of trouble. Then she muttered two short words, and his entire body had locked up.

Her claws had torn through his torso before he’d even had time to scream, the thin durasteel knives carving a jagged line screeching and sparking directly through his core and oil tank. With a quickness and precision he didn’t think their bodies were capable of, J had sliced each of E’s limbs from his torso, his visor going black and lifeless just seconds after the blade of a polished iron sword had sheared through his neck. He was dead before his dismembered body even hit the floor.

J flicked the excess oil from her blades, leaning down to drink her fill from E’s corpse as she plugged a small USB stick into a port at the back of his cranial assembly. She had never liked E much anyhow, no spine, no integrity, always more concerned about staying out of the brunt of things than worrying about adding anything worthwhile. His only real redeeming quality was that he was good at shutting up and doing what he was told. Unfortunately, she needed more than just obedience, she needed ability, which E was sorely lacking. He would assist in other ways. 

As would O. Now there was a fighter. Large, violent, and clever, always one step ahead of any foe she faced, one of the finest combat-focused Disassembly Drones J had ever laid eyes on. O’s imposing form had almost made J jealous back in the day, when the squadrons had first been sent to Copper-9. J had honestly been hoping that she’d be on a squadron alongside O, more than happy to give up an admin position so long as she’d at least be reporting to someone competent, but unfortunately she’d been stuck with the resident moron as her squad leader. J had made it clear from day 1 that she would be the one in charge, and that decision would broker no argument. N backed off, V just shrugged and carried on, and that was that. A leader that couldn’t deal with a challenge to their power was no leader at all. 

Still, J had gotten at least a few chances to work with O in the past. Raids conducted on the many other subterranean labs across Copper-9, all doing research into the nature of the Solver and how to contain or eliminate it. They hadn’t found much, but the initial assault was always an interesting time. A fantastic display of the sheer unrestrained violence that a full squadron of Disassembly Drones was truly capable of when presented with a threat greater than mere prey creatures. O had performed admirably there, leading the charge with the authority and charisma of a purpose-built leader, trusting J to watch her back, not just when the going got tough, but for a bit of a more practical reason- O’s heavy combat frame came with certain drawbacks that made it difficult for O to see any kind of attacks coming her way from the rear or certain specific flank angles. It felt good to work with O, to fight side by side, making up for each other's weaknesses with sheer skill and determination. 

Almost as good as it felt to use O’s weakness against her.

O would’ve put up an absolutely fantastic fight, something that truly could be crowned as a brawl for the ages, and that was the problem. J needed to be quick. Decisive. Absolute in her victory, no mistakes at all. O fighting back would have raised the alarm for E to come to her aid, and as weak and inconsequential as E had been, J did not fancy her odds in any kind of 1v2 against other Disassemblers. She was painfully aware of her limits now. Thankfully, J made for a good stealth agent, even if stabbing an unaware coworker in the back while they were otherwise distracted wasn’t exactly her preferred mode of operation. Results were results, and they certainly spoke for themselves.

With the two remaining Disassembly Drones of this far-off city taken care of, J relaxed ever so slightly, extracting the USB from E's skull and pocketing it. Now came the messy part. With the delicate caution of a germaphobe handling an unidentified plastic bag that someone had discarded, J gathered the segmented limbs and components that had formerly made up E’s full frame, not worried in the slightest about the Solver’s reboot messing with her plan going forward, since the autorun program was locked behind Cyn’s now permanently-absent admin confirmation. What she was worried about was getting any nasty oil stains on her nice new threads!

J didn’t consider herself particularly well-versed in fashion, especially not human fashion, but she quite liked the small array of colorful clothing she’d picked out for herself, having spent a few hours digging through the clothing racks and shelves of a long-defunct human shopping mall not far from where she was now. It wasn’t vain. These things just happened when the role of ‘main antagonist’ changed hands. And she was damn proud of what she picked, and greatly thankful that her bulky metal frame even fit into the flimsy human fabrics. A light blue cotton blouse that hugged her frame just tight enough that it wouldn’t get in the way, beneath a neatly-pressed dark gray blazer left unbuttoned in the front, paired with a pleated skirt in a lighter shade of gray that swayed gently without catching on anything. Smart, stylish, aesthetically pleasing enough for everyday wear, clean and crisp enough to be professional wear. This business-casual thing was actually pretty nice. Shame she couldn't do much about her painted-on garters, they felt a little… much paired with her new wardrobe. Oh well.

The haphazard pile of E’s limbs floated in the light of a blue Translate glyph alongside J as she walked back towards the results of her project’s first step- a fully repaired ship, ready to traverse surface and space alike with a speed and convenience that no drone could ever hope to match. It had been annoying to fix, most complicated machinery was not in the best condition after being directly hit by a missile salvo, but it was already proving absolutely invaluable. J stepped inside the cabin, carelessly flinging the new pile of E’s dismembered limbs onto the pre-existing pile of O’s equally dismembered but decidedly less new limbs, not particularly caring if they got mixed up. She’d probably be breaking them down further anyhow, it wasn’t that big of a deal if a wire or two got crossed in the testing phase. Her optics lit up, glancing off to the side as her olfactory sensors picked up something salty and grimy, with a slight tang of iron to it.

Ah, yes. The second step. 

The worker drone corpse was too intact to be old, but too cold to be new, sporting an impressive hole through the right side of its darkened glass visor, and an absolutely massive chunk of its torso completely torn open. While neither of those were particularly noteworthy, what was interesting was the curved, off-white cage structure that jutted outwards from the cracked metal, glinting slick in the low light with a mixture of pitch black and ruddy magenta. This one had a bunch of that Solver infestation gunk on her insides, her internal mechanics and computer components connected by a grotesque network of fibrous tendons and meaty veins. Even the memory of peeking inside the corpse’s chassis when she’d first discovered it was enough to make her oil reserves roil.

The sanguine witch. Doll, if she remembered correctly, not that she particularly cared. Their physiology likely had a plethora of similarities given their shared transformation, and J was doing her best to repress that knowledge. No need to add yet another crisis to the list. But yes, this was the second step: fixing up the witch and getting her back up and running again. J needed someone that she could trust to handle themselves in a fight, but she also needed someone that wasn’t in any position to actually stand against her, neither of which were particularly wide pools of choice to begin with, but combining the two left her choices nonexistent. So J decided to deal with the issue directly. Worker Drones would be useless fodder, not that she’d even considered working with one of those discount smartphones for more than a few seconds, but even her fellow Disassemblers weren’t an option. With Cyn gone, with the “company” no longer able to contact them, Disassembly Drones would default to following orders from the designated operation commander on this planet, and that was not her. J honestly had no clue who it was now, since holding the title for any longer than a year was a good sign that someone was about to be recalled to HQ, only for the seat to be left vacated, and some other squadron commander to be displaced and elected the new op commander. That’s why so many squads on Copper-9 were either entirely absent, or down a member. They didn’t come back. J wasn’t worried, Cyn probably just sent them off to other planets, but it was still a disquieting notion. 

Any Disassembly Drone she could convince to join her renegade mission would never be guaranteed to be loyal, and J knew well how easily a Disassembler’s allegiance could change if she wasn’t careful with the way she treated them. And she didn’t care much about being sweet and kind to a temp. No. She would fix up the witch, modify her admin permissions, and move forward with a fully loyal attack dog that she could throw at whatever problem needed to be killed fast or kept at bay for a bit. A fantastic boon that she would soon have, all thanks to the things she’d discovered by simply experimenting a little bit, all the neat little tricks and strangeness that Cyn had displayed in her actions, all laid out before J like books waiting to be read. The teleportation. The small message boxes. The Callback Ping. And so many more.

It was a rare moment indeed when J found herself with nothing to do around the mansion. It wasn’t that there was no work to be done, you didn’t run a full series of WD units if you weren’t expecting them to be working all day and night, but more that she wasn’t really in a position to be able to take care of any of it herself. Anyone that saw her at that moment would almost certainly comment that all she was really doing was leaning against a wall and staring straight ahead, but that was only if one wasn’t taking in everything as a whole. J was studying. Overseeing.

One of her sister salvage drones, R, sat on the end of a row of folding chairs set up in Tessa’s bedroom, Tessa herself taking up the seat immediately next to R, typing and scrolling through something on the laptop she was currently hunched over, her eyes every so often glancing over at the dense technical manual occupying the third seat in the row as she thumbed through it. R quietly hummed a soft tune to herself, sitting surprisingly patiently and quietly, especially considering that R’s entire visor assembly was currently resting atop her open palms, still connected to her internal motherboard by extended jumper wires that Tessa had ran between them, leaving the salvage-scrap maid completely blind. A single cable ran from Tessa’s laptop into the exposed back of R’s visor assembly as Tessa seemed to search endlessly for something, intermittently letting out frustrated growls or tired whines as the bags under the poor girl’s eyes just seemed to deepen with each passing second. 

J felt bad for putting Tessa through this, she really did, but it was important. Worker Drones could have all kinds of problems well beyond just hardware issues, and Tessa had to be able to both identify their causes, and enact corrective measures. For example, finally fixing R’s glitchy optics. One of the older members of Tessa’s little gang of weird robot friend-kid-pets, R was notoriously problematic. Not in her behavior, R was an absolute sweetheart that always gave her full effort, but because R was a second-gen model and her parts were not easy to find, which was certainly not helped by the fact that her original visor assembly had recently been rendered entirely nonfunctional, leading to it needing to be replaced. Unfortunately, the only visor assemblies that Tessa had on hand were for newer models, and weren’t compatible with R’s outdated OS. An intact and functional drone, an intact and functional part, yet still the situation was not resolved.

Software issues were the bane of Tessa’s existence, given how tedious and confusing she found them. It was a lot harder to conceptualize the interlocking mechanisms and functions of software, since she couldn’t directly observe it as anything more than strings of numbers and words on a computer screen, compared to hardware that she could physically see and hear as it either functioned as intended or failed to do so. It was aggravating to deal with, but it was necessary for her to learn this. And J would ensure that she learned all of it.

They weren’t tools or individual abilities. They were system commands.

The commands themselves were relatively short and simple, the acceptable syntax leaving room to expand their functionality into whatever might be needed for a given situation. Learning all of that coding in order to teach it to someone else had been an unintended boon to J, and while it didn’t function exactly the same as the WD OS, it did use a lot of the same terminology and follow a similar structure, meaning a sizable chunk of J’s pre-existing knowledge was applicable here. Callback Ping was a lot more straightforward than J had actually thought, it was a short call-and-response command at its core, the user sending out a signal that would prompt the receiving party to respond in one of any indicated ways, up to and including full system control. It was a little finicky since it didn’t have full functionality unless the responding system was under the administration of the system sending the command, meaning in simple terms that it could be resisted with enough effort and forewarning, but the shock of being Pinged at all was often enough to make someone lock up for a brief moment. For Cyn, it had been a method of taking control. For J, it was essentially just a useful distraction tool. And it was useful indeed. E hadn’t even been able to muster up any kind of defense when J had used it on him, it had made him stand still just long enough for J to tear him apart without resistance. She was excited to test it’s limitations when she provided additional syntax, but for now, it did everything that she needed it to do.

Her optics glanced from the witch’s corpse, over to the pile of Disassembler limbs. She had enough material to fix the girl’s body and provide her with some heavier firepower, but J was still missing a key feature for her reconstruction efforts- an intact, vulnerable heart. The corpse had no heart, neither intact and darkened, nor shattered beyond repair, the body’s heart was simply absent. Cyn had probably eaten it. Disgusting. Problematic. It wouldn’t have been an issue normally, Solver-infected hearts were easy to come by for someone that knew where to look, but the problems arose in regards to compatibility. The OS that this girl’s system was running seemed to be slightly altered in ways that J wasn’t able to delve into and fix without a heart, and the heart she had tried to substitute earlier (provided so graciously by O) had exploded into a shower of gore and screws after the OS had violently rejected it’s attempts to register as a new user. Maybe the Disassemblers used a vastly different OS, maybe this girl was just weird, either way, J still needed a compatible Solver-infected heart to get the girl properly up and running. Even a broken or dead one would do, really. A nonfunctional heart would be useful here, raw functionality no longer an issue thanks once again to the Solver’s extremely useful abilities. In her tinkering and experimenting, J had discovered something quite interesting and quite useful indeed, a command she hadn’t seen used before.

Format.

She had yet to fully explore its potential, but what few successful attempts she’d made with it had been very promising, giving her an absurd number of ideas for application and usage further down the line. Specifically, it allowed her to make this poor Solver-plagued corpse even stronger than it had been before, potentially even several leagues above Disassemblers like herself, and all without leaving room for the girl to self-determine. She favored the blue-haired corpse with a gentle pat on the head and a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, still shining bright as her mind searched through her choices going forward. 

Standing back to her full height, closing the cabin door and settling herself back down into the pilot’s seat, J knew her next destination. On the opposite side of Copper-9, she knew of another squadron of Disassemblers, yet more allies she’d worked with during lab raids. The raids on that side of the planet had been…considerably more difficult. Many, many Disassemblers had been absolutely slaughtered during the operation, torn apart by hordes of Sentinels and salvaged for parts by the Worker Drones that been holing up nearby, their full team completely unable to make much progress in traversing much deeper down than the complex’s second floor. J herself was among those that had fallen. She remembered the flash of blue that took her by surprise, a single Sentinel that had snuck past the line and flanked her out of nowhere, approaching from an angle that N was supposed to be watching. She remembered the impact of falling to the ground, the pain of the Sentinels tearing into her body, the creaking of her chassis as it was smashed open and consumed, all the while being unable to do so much as scream. It would have been enough to kill any drone. 

The Solver had ensured that it was not enough to kill J. The reconstitution process was one that she still remembered, J still awake during the entire thing, watching through the Solver’s many, many eyes as her body was reconstructed piece by piece by the consumption of the Sentinels and her allies’ corpses. She still had nightmares about it, every so often, once rare but now more common. But it was one of many nightmares. One of many fears, many regrets. Regret was not at all a new sensation for J, both blessed and cursed with full awareness, complete memories of her entire life, all so the Solver could keep her as an effective and functional informant. She remembered everything. Every kill. Every planet. Every death. Every rebirth. All of it. 

The deal had been her idea. It was one last request from her creator, a final task to see through to the end as the memory of her lost friend was safekept as the sole remaining essence of her existence, her body long since expired, her planet now shattered and desolate, yet J’s job remained incomplete. She was the one that asked for this. The one that had sacrificed the most for them. All of them. And not a single one of them was in the slightest bit grateful for what she’d been doing all these years. 

J shook her head, clearing the anger. This was not the time to dwell. Things would be set right, given time, given effort, all she had to do was finish this final mission and all of her hard work would pay off. The ship’s engine sputtered ever so slightly as the systems came online, the short takeoff sequence starting up as J double-checked the coordinates of her next intended landing site. Two more Disassemblers. Plenty of testing fodder. 

Plenty more memories to collect.

Chapter Text

Razor-sharp talons lashed out, their vicious edges already soaked with warm oil, missing their intended target by mere inches. A quick turn, his tail whipping forwards and finding its mark. A leg. A single slice, just the briefest of contact with the nanite-laced bladed tip, and the leg weakened. The full turn completed and he stopped cold, his other arm straightening before him as he faced his target side-on, the high-output beam cannon already charging and pointed directly at the small figure now kneeling on the ground. His oil tank rumbled at the prospect of fulfillment, his fangs bared in a wide, monstrous grin as he salivated, looking down at the wounded prey before him.

Wide, hollow violet stared back. He knew that color. He knew it well.

Something clenched painfully within his head, a burning numbness that he felt all across his body as something shifted away from his consciousness. He was not moving. This was not him. He was not doing any of this. The cannon hummed aloud as it reached full charge, his body bracing for the recoil it would generate. No. Please. The figure scrambled back as best it could, tired and injured, unwilling to fight but unable to run, fear emanating from it in dense waves that choked his internals. Not her. He felt himself laugh, a dark, rumbling chuckle nearly uncharacteristic of himself, a fragment of a life he had chosen to give up, present once more. He was not in control here. He was not himself. He could only watch as the cannon leveled out and his body lurched back under the force of the beam, could only watch as the destructive energy burst outwards in a bold line, directly at the only person who had ever shown him a kindness devoid of complication, the only person he’d ever known that trusted him to handle himself, yet also knew how to help when he couldn’t. The only person he ever truly-

“ UZI! ”

N awoke with a start, every fiber-optic nerve in his body firing in the haste of stress and panic, despite his system diagnostics returning green lights across the board. His chest heaved as he breathed deep and quick, active hyperventilation as his eyes darted across the room. She was here. She was safe. She was asleep in her bed. He was safe. He was in control. They were both safe. They were both…

They were both so tired.

There was nothing inside of him that was surprised he’d had a nightmare. He and Uzi, and even V, had been going nonstop ever since that fateful day when he’d first met Uzi. The fight inside the bunker, the Solver-rebooted J, the prom massacre, and everything else afterwards. Absolute havoc, without rest, mortal panic intertwining with emotional complexities that left all of them completely exhausted once things had finally wound down. He knew that he came out of that better off than Uzi did, his own nightmares were rare- Uzi’s seemed almost nightly. And she wasn’t talking much about them, either. N knew that Uzi trusted him, just as much as he trusted her, and she wouldn’t keep something secret from him if it was really important. If something was bothering her, she knew he would listen if she wanted to talk about it, even if it wasn’t something he could directly help with. 

The fact that something was clearly wrong, clearly bothering her, and yet she wasn’t talking about it? That was deeply concerning. Nothing had changed much in their relationship since they’d made things official but that wasn’t necessarily a problem, they were both comfortable and happy, or at least as happy as two heavily traumatized young adults could be. He didn’t suspect Uzi of any malice in keeping whatever secrets she was keeping, but the fact that yet another one of his closest friends was keeping things from him, keeping him in the dark about what was going on, left him more than a bit lost. He still trusted Uzi, fully and completely, but he couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. 

With the grace and stealth of a hunting cat, N disentangled his tail from the support beam and dropped onto the ground with a quiet thud, his optics falling on the sleeping form of his girlfriend, soft snores emanating from her as she continued to sleep. She didn’t seem agitated. That was good. Maybe her sleep wouldn’t be interrupted for once. He slipped out the door of their shared room, the door hissing open and shut again as he entered into the dim light of the main living space. He lumbered over to the food storage, taking out a small bottle of coolant for himself and closing the door to lean against the counter. His hand ran down his visor in mild aggravation, his muddled thoughts trying to organize themselves into something coherent and intelligible, only serving to give him a headache. He slipped lightly at the coolant. It wasn’t oil, but it was cold and refreshing, a calming and familiar taste from his past that he hadn’t been able to treat himself to in quite a while. The last time he’d had it was when Tessa-

Ah.

There it was. Sorrow. Guilt. Fear. A heady mix of complex negativity that had long burrowed into his systems, infecting his body in much the same way that the Solver had all those years ago, leaving his normal friendly warmth as a cold and dim mockery of what he did his best to be. That life, his life, had been taken from him, and twice at that. How did he feel about that? Sad, obviously. Angry, almost certainly. But it wasn’t something he dwelled on for more than a few minutes at once. He hadn’t had time since he became aware of the transgression, since he reclaimed his lost identity, not until things had quieted down into their current daily mundanity. He didn’t know how he felt. He needed to unpack that whole mess. 

His advanced auditory systems registered the footsteps outside the home’s front door a few seconds before it opened, the familiar form of Khan stepping in quietly. The door was shut and locked behind him as he turned and stepped towards the food storage, his steps halting with a subtle start as he noticed N standing nearby. N gave a sheepish wave, but Khan returned it with a simple smile.

“Can’t sleep? I know the feeling, bud.” Khan’s deep voice was oddly comforting, the quiet rumble helping to chase away the shadows that haunted N’s mind, and he felt his posture relax a little bit. Khan stepped into food storage as well, grabbing his own bottle of coolant and opening it up to take a sip, curiously lingering nearby as he did so. N tried to keep to himself a bit, understandably feeling just the smallest bit awkward standing in a living room alone with his girlfriend’s father. Not exactly an uncomplicated situation for the normally sociable Disassembly Drone. Especially considering that N was starting think he might’ve been the one that-

“I didn’t know you guys could drink coolant.” Khan’s voice cut through the silence before N’s thoughts had a chance to re-engage the spiral. He was thankful.

“Oh. Right, uh… I mean, we can eat and drink all the same stuff you guys do. It just doesn’t help us stay up and running. The only thing we actually need is, uh. Well. Y’know.” N trailed off, rubbing the back of his head and looking away. This was certainly not the conversation he was wanting to have.

“Right. Right…” Khan nodded in understanding, unsure of how to continue, or if he even should. A silence stretched between them, the cloying awkwardness of two male adults that shared a small space and knew of each other, but weren’t exactly friends, N quietly nursing his rapidly-warming bottle of coolant as Khan took the occasional sip from his own drink, the motion and noise stark and obvious in the silence. N’s eyes closed and he let out a sigh. This was weird. All of this was weird.

He heard footsteps approach the counter, a dull clink as something was set down upon it, and a hand settled on his shoulder. “Look, kiddo,” Khan’s voice reached his auditory receptors again, “Something’s going on with the two of you. I may not know what’s happening right now, but I can tell that much. What’s wrong?” Straightforward and to the point, but trying his best to understand. N smiled to himself. Uzi was more like her dad than she might realize. 

“Just… had a nightmare. It was kind of intense.” N muttered out, fatigue still apparent in his quiet voice.

Khan gestured over towards the table, moving towards it to sit down, N following shortly after. They both sat, the silence still apparent, but more companionable than before. “What was it about?”

“I…” Oh boy. Where to even begin. “...I was trying to hurt Uzi. Only it… wasn’t really me.” 

Khan raised an eyebrow.

“It felt like something was controlling me, like my body was just… moving on its own. I... I almost… but I wouldn’t…” N went silent, the pain and shock still fresh in his memories. He changed his mind. He didn’t want to talk about this.

Khan let out a quiet sigh, leaning back in his chair, the tips of his fingers drumming quietly against the table. “You wouldn’t ever hurt her. Would you?”

“Never.” The answer was instant. Firm. Certain. N was definitely a lot of scary things, but he was Uzi’s friend above all else. He would protect her with everything he had. 

Khan smiled. “Then I don’t see the problem.” 

N was completely lost. “Mr. Doorman, that’s not really-”

“I know that you care about her,” Khan continued, “and quite a lot at that. You’ll be there when she needs you.” Khan nodded once, leaning forward once again, his arms folding atop one another and resting on the table. “And I know she’ll be there when you need her.” N nodded, not fully understanding, his head turning away. The words were reassuring, just a bit, but they didn’t fix the problem. But he was trying.

“Right…”

“The difficult part,” Khan spoke as he rose from the table, “is allowing yourself to accept that help. The two of you are still young, you’re going to make mistakes every now and then, but you can’t hold that against each other.” Khan stepped back over to the counter, grabbing his bottle of coolant and having a short sip from it, before his gaze returned to N. “If you have problems, if you need something specific, if you want to help but don’t know what the other needs, then you both need to be honest about that. And...” Khan glanced away, chuckling to himself. “Well, as much as I love my daughter, I wouldn’t say that ‘emotional honesty’ is her strong suit. Gets that from her mother.” 

N snorted softly at the small joke, knowing that what Khan said was at least partially true. Uzi was a lot more open to talking about her problems nowadays, at least with him, but N hadn’t really needed to confront her about anything specific since the camp incident. And even then, he’d had the freedom to do it when he was still in a reasonably good place himself, even if he was scared for his friend on more than one front at the time. The priority hadn’t been figuring out the root of what was wrong, the priority was making sure that Uzi was okay. That was always his main concern when he was around her, not just keeping her safe, he trusted her to handle herself if she was in danger, but making sure she knew she had his support no matter what happened. That was how he responded to a crisis.

But this wasn’t a crisis. This was just…what they were left with. This was them dealing with the effects of everything they’d been through, both when they were together and when they were apart. There was a time and a place for deep-seated trauma to be unpacked, and now they were finally in that time, in that place, given the space they needed to do the work of understanding and healing from it all. He didn’t know how Uzi felt about all that.

But he knew that he was terrified.

The remnants of a past long gone still haunted the both of them, even during what should have been a time of joy and relaxation, and N had no easy fix for it. This was undoubtedly new territory for the both of them, and yet they were each denying themselves the mutual support and understanding they had so long enjoyed on their shared journey. N didn’t know what to do. Uzi didn’t know what to do. But they were both trying to do it alone. N smiled, his thoughts leveling out into an incomplete but greatly relieving peace as he began to stitch together a plan for moving forward.

He stood from the table a little faster than intended, making Khan jump just a bit. But N smiled softly at him. “Thanks, Mr. Doorman.” Khan stood silent for a bit, before chuckling softly.

“Go get some rest, bud. You don’t have to solve your problems all at once.”

N nodded, tossing his empty coolant bottle into the recycler before heading back over to the room he shared with Uzi, doing his best to silently prowl in and reclaim his sleeping spot. His wings settled around him, comforting and firm, until a voice rang out in the silence.

“...N?” Uzi was awake. N kicked himself mentally, the door to their room was built to be more secure and less quiet. Uzi had probably been awake since he’d left the room.

“Oh. Uh…h-hey Uzi. Sorry if I woke you up.”

“Mph.” Uzi mumbled sleepily, shifting slightly atop the mattress. “ ‘S fine. You uh…you good?”

N couldn’t see Uzi too well from where he was, laying on her side and facing away from him, his head low to the ground as she slept on a raised platform. “I uh…” Was he good? No, he definitely wasn’t. But saying that outright wasn’t going to be helpful, just more stress for both of them. “...I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“You…you know you can talk to me about it, yeah?” Uzi sounded…scared? Uncertain? He couldn’t tell, but she didn’t sound happy.

“I know I can,” He assured her, “and I will, but…I need to figure out how I feel first.” He heard Uzi shuffle uncomfortably. “It’s nothing bad, I’m definitely not upset with you or anything. I just… there’s a lot of stuff on my mind. I don’t know how I feel about any of it yet.” 

“...If I can help…”

“I think you can.” He smiled at her, even if she couldn’t see his face. Her concern warmed his heart, even if it hurt just as much to admit he wasn’t telling her everything. “I promise, we’ll talk about it when I feel a little more ready. Okay?”

“M’kay…I’m gonna…go back to sleep then…”

N giggled softly. She was too cute. “Goodnight, Uzi.”

Uzi hummed lightly. “Night, N…” Gentle snores followed shortly after, Uzi almost certainly still exhausted from all of the… everything that had happened. N relaxed. It didn’t feel great, Uzi definitely wasn’t happy about it, but it felt like progress. He would need help with this, and in order to ask for that help, he wanted to be clear and specific about what he needed, and then they could both figure it out. Together.

All that was left was to make sure Uzi felt comfortable doing the same.

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t get much of a chance to continue their progress the next day, and that was for a very simple and exciting reason.

Thad’s shindig was tomorrow night.

Uzi still hadn’t decided what to wear, currently still going back-and-forth on just biting the bullet and wearing the dress that her dad had gotten her for the prom again. It felt a little too nice for that, but Uzi didn’t exactly have an extensive wardrobe. Mostly by her own choice. They were currently heading the hallway they took to school, intending to meet up with Lizzy and V to see them off on their little trip.

When V had told Uzi that she was going to fly halfway across the planet to hit up a mall so she could find a brand new dress, Uzi had just rolled her eyes. Of course the resident diva wouldn’t be satisfied with wearing the same dress twice. Robo-god forbid. The fact that Lizzy was going as well was only slightly less unsurprising, especially considering Lizzy had specifically said she already had a dress picked out. Uzi felt like it was kind of pointless to go at all if that was the case. Lizzy had called it “bestie bonding,” whatever the hell that meant. At least the two would be out of their hair for the day. Uzi didn’t hate them by any means, she considered V to be a true and trustworthy friend, even in spite of her rampant V-ness. Even Lizzy was starting to grow on her. Like a rust spot. With an interesting pattern. They were good people, probably, somewhere deep down, but they were a lot. The undisputed mean girl team of the school, the self-proclaimed queen bees among the uncultured peasants in their shared class, seemed to Uzi to maybe, just maybe, be a little full of themselves. 

Still, apparently they had their redeeming qualities. “Hey N, you’re still gonna wear that same suit, yeah?” She would be the first to admit that it had looked really nice on him, but her mind had definitely been in another place at the time. She hadn’t gotten the chance to really appreciate it.

“Oh, yeah!” N’s demeanor brightened immediately, no doubt excited by the prospect of rolling out the dapper fit again. “Lizzy did a great job fixing it up, it looks like new!”

Lizzy had fixed it? Uzi had been told that Lizzy had the suit fixed, but she didn’t know Lizzy had done the job personally. “Huh, I didn’t know she could sew. Maybe she isn’t entirely useless after all.”

N leveled a patient, yet disapproving look at his girlfriend. “Uzi…”

“What?”

“I thought you said you were trying to be nicer to her.”

“I am trying!” Uzi huffed. It wasn’t her fault that Lizzy was so… herself. “I only punched her in the face ONCE last week! That’s a new record!”

N put his hands on his hips, an eyebrow raised as his unamused look intensified. “And how many times did you punch her in the face this week?”

Uzi turned away, rubbing her arm with a nervous chuckle. Oops. “...Let’s talk about something else for a while.”

“Uzi-”

“Yo, nerd brigade! You’re late!” 

Just ahead, at the crossroads the quartet would split from on their walk home, stood the queen bees themselves. V, as always, carried herself with a combination of boredom and impatience, only on her best behavior for as long as she needed to be, eager to tear up the sky whenever she got a chance. Lizzy was on her phone, typing away for whatever nefarious hormone-fueled machinations she usually conducted. Typical. 

The two came to a stop in front of them. “Hey guys! You uh… know how far out you're going?” N was a little hesitant, Uzi could tell. She didn’t blame him. It didn’t feel right to let V go off all on her own like this. But Uzi trusted V to look after herself.

“A couple hundred miles. No biggie.” 

“That… sounds pretty far.” No kidding! A hundred miles was already far enough away, but several? Were they even going to get back in time? 

“Yo. Freak.” 

Uzi’s head snapped up, a half-hearted glare aimed directly at the owner of the most punchable face Uzi had ever seen. “What.”

“You got a dress or no?”

Uzi scoffed. “I still have my prom dress, yeah.”

Lizzy stopped dead, staring wide-eyed at Uzi. Even V had stopped her conversation with N to stare at Uzi in disbelief.

“Girl. No. Hell to the no.” Lizzy practically hissed as she spoke.

“What?” 

“Oh my robo-god, you are not wearing a prom dress to a house party. Nuh-uh. Not happening. You’re going with us.” 

Wait, what?

Before Uzi could even register the abrupt change of plans, Lizzy had stepped past her, gripping the back of Uzi's hoodie and pulling her along. Uzi stumbled a little before falling, held aloft only by Lizzy’s grip on her as her feet dragged across the ground. “H-hey hey wait, we gotta wait for V at least!”

Lizzy scoffed. “Uh, she can fly? Like, super fast? And climb through the vents like a spider? She could give us a ten-minute head start and still get to the doors first.”

Uzi deflated, her head tilting back to glare at the back of Lizzy’s head as she was dragged along like a sack of bearings. “The walk to the doors only takes ten minutes.”

“Did I stutter?”

N watched as his girlfriend was dragged away. He had really wanted to talk to her a bit more about what was going on with her, and he was sad that he wasn’t going to get to spend the early evening with her now, but Lizzy was not a force that he was able or willing to reckon with. That girl was pretty scary when it came to fashion. “Be safe, Uzi!” That was all he could ask of her for now. 

V turned to him, one hand on her hip as she grinned at him. “She’ll be fine. Pretty sure she’s some larval-stage eldritch god now, anyway.”

N gave a short whine. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about it…”

V rolled her eyes, starting to step past N. “I’ll keep an eye on her. I guess.”

“That goes for you too, V.”

V turned to him with a sickly-sweet smirk. “Oh? You’re worried about little ol’ me? You’re such a sweetheart, N.”

“V, I’m being serious!” The heated response made V jump, her hands coming up in front of herself defensively. “It hasn’t been that long since… you almost…” He looked away, his haunted gaze fixed on the floor to the side. Since she almost what? Nothing bad had happened in a while, the only thing that came close was a few weeks ago in the lab-

Oh.

V’s eyes widened and she looked away, ashamed of herself. She couldn’t even look N in the eye. “Damn it. I’m… I’m sorry, N. I didn’t mean to bring that up again…” She wasn’t proud of that, but she… You sure are good at finding new ways to hurt him, aren’t you? Her shoulders tensed. She was.

N held the heat in his gaze for only a moment before he relented. He was just worried. “Just... please be safe. Both of you.” He stepped forward, grabbing V’s shoulders gently, trying to get her to look at him. “Please.” 

V’s shocked eyes reflected in his visor, met with nothing more than the pleading stare of a worried friend. He really was a sweetheart. Her expression softened, a gentle, genuine smile on her face as she patted his hand. “We’ll stay safe. I’ll watch her back, and I know she’ll have mine if anything goes wrong. We’ll be fine.” 

N’s eyes closed and he stepped back, releasing V’s shoulder and letting out a sigh of relief. When he looked up again, a shaky but reassured smile had replaced his frown. “Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear.”

He really was a good guy. Uzi was lucky. 

Before that thought could take root any further, V grabbed N by the shoulders and spun him around, gently pushing him back towards the home he now lived in as he gave a quiet yelp. “Now you need to double-check that the suit fits right. If Lizzy needs to make any adjustments, then she needs to know as soon as we get back!” 

N gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “Right.” He snapped into a salute, some of his normal cheer returning to his face. “Well, better get going then! Good luck, V!” He trotted off, V watching him disappear down the hallway. Something inside of her roiled, miserable and sad.

You had your chance. You need to move on.

V shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. What’s done is done. There was no changing the past. Her optics drifted upwards, spying her most heavily-traveled vent, left permanently open for her own convenience, the system being essentially a straight shot to the innermost big door near the entry to the colony. She bent her legs, allowing the force generators in her legs a moment to charge before leaping straight upwards into the ventilation shaft, scampering along the inside with the speed and grace of a spider.

She had a nerd to protect, and a dress to find.

Chapter Text

He saw the pod coming well before it landed.

It was hard not to. It made a lot of noise, and it had started to slow down as it neared, making a clean and light descent nearby, clearly taking its time. It looked like one of their landing pods, but that was impossible. Their pods were only one-way.

As the leader of this city’s squadron, it was Serial Designation H’s responsibility to investigate. 

He prowled over, power and speed apparent in his sophisticated Disassembler frame, his instincts telling him that whatever this was, he should be wary of it. Contact with O’s squadron had been nonexistent for the last day or so, and G hadn’t come back from investigating yet. H wasn’t stupid. He knew something was going on, something bad, but corporate’s orders hadn’t changed. He would have to continue on as things were, and investigate passively as best he could. He wasn’t happy about any of it. It felt a little too lenient, a little too hands-off, like the problem was just being ignored by the higher-ups. H thanked his lucky stars that R was still around to help him keep his head on straight. She really was the best.

The door to the pod slid open with a click and a hiss, steam venting from the warmed interior as the engine and thruster cooled down and settled in the frigid air of the planet’s surface. H dared a closer approach, a low growl emanating from his vocal synthesizer as he bared his fangs, the bright yellow X taking up the surface of his glass visor as he prepared himself to hunt. To his surprise, someone stepped out, someone he had a passing familiarity with, but was never particularly close to- mainly on account of her being absolutely insufferable.

J wasn’t supposed to be in this city, the squadron she was part of was stationed much, much further off. N’s comms had been quiet for quite a while, all of that squadron had been dark, actually. There was a lab near them though, and H figured they just… well. It was more than a little shocking to see J here, alone, without clearance. Her wardrobe was out of code as well, H noticed. Those tones of gray were much too light.

H straightened up, standing tall as J stepped down and made her way towards him. He decided to break the ice on what was almost certainly going to be a painfully unpleasant conversation. “Morning, J.”

“It’s 9 pm.” J's voice was just as irritating as he remembered.

“Practically still morning for us, no?” J rolled her eyes in response, her signature smirk never leaving her face. She seemed a little too calm. Was she not aware of what was going on? “Where’s N? And V?”

“They’ve chosen to part ways with the company. I’m in the process of dealing with them.” 

They went rogue? Concerning. “And you? If you were going to request backup, you could’ve done it over comms. I know you’re the squad’s unofficial leader, you’ve got the access key for the relay.” It was controversial and strange, treating J as if she was the squad’s leader even though N was the one that had all the permissions. Nobody liked it. Nobody liked J much either, but it wasn’t really acceptable behavior to just come right out and say that. They had to maintain some sense of decorum as they spread murder and despair across the planet. 

J’s hand came up to the side of her face, gently tossing back one of her pigtails as she scoffed. “I’m here for help. Just not with them.” 

There it was. That haughty, stuck-up, incredibly kickable face that they hated so much. “I’m afraid I can’t do much, then. Corporate’s orders haven’t changed, even for incomplete squads. You’re gonna have to head back, J. Interfering with another squad’s city operations will net you a write-up, but I don’t mind just pretending I didn’t see you.” Anything that got her to leave sooner and faster. “We’ll just say you owe me one, no harm, no foul.” J simply smiled, her eyes briefly flashing to a lighter, bluer tone, a symbol he didn’t recognize, didn’t want to recognize, flashing for less than a second over her right eye. 

“I’m not asking.” 

H spun around just in time to parry the sword that came flying at him from the left side, spinning in a deadly arc as it barreled towards him at breakneck speed, knocked away by his own combat blade at the very last second before the foreign weapon made contact with him. J rushed him in the interim, H dodging back as J immediately tried to push for an advantage. Blades swung and clashed, H giving ground ever so slightly, J’s single-blade assault just a bit too much speed for him to keep up with. He knocked one of her swings wide, ducking under the follow-up and lashing out with his own in a low sweep. The odd sword from before came from above, slamming point-first into the ground and halting his strike. J made to follow up again, but H reversed his spin and parried her swipe as he jumped back, disengaging. J didn’t follow this time, instead calmly resting her left elbow on the hilt of the sword beside her, still sticking up from the ground. 

H hissed, leveling a bitter glare at J’s smug face. “This is insubordination, J! You’ll be marked for disassembly if you go through with this, you know that!” 

J chuckled, her left hand flexing as she grasped the hilt of the old sword, pulling it from the dirt and snow, flicking it down to her side. The amber circles of her eyes hollowed out, her grin growing wide. “Oh, you haven’t heard? Administration is going through a bit of a… restructuring phase.” She sauntered forward, calm, collected, confident in a way that had H backing up instinctively. J was dangerous here. How and why, he didn’t know. “There are going to be some major changes around here.” 

The flash of blue was all the warning he got before something painful and chilling settled through his body as he lurched forward suddenly, a hand sticking out through the center of his chest, and J no longer standing in front of him. Clutched tightly within the fingers of the invading limb was a core, a heart. His heart. The wires connecting the bundle of flesh and machinery to his body snapped clean under the pressure. H didn’t even feel it when the limb retracted back through the hole it had made, the limited optics of the heart’s canister flashing to life just in time for H to watch his own corpse fall backwards, splaying across the ground in a puddle of mechanical gore. Oh. That was very bad.

“You’re going to help me, H.” She gripped him harder, and he felt something creak and bend inside the delicate structure of his new, more vulnerable body. He was lifted and brought up to J’s smiling face, her other hand lifting and gesturing towards his corpse. Something flashed in her palm. His corpse lifted off the ground as a strange circle of blue and white enveloped it, pieces of his torso shearing off in chunks, the light flickering and twisting wildly back and forth, breaking down his body and… rebuilding it into something. A platform, or some kind of table, small metal pillars sticking up from the surface and holding up strangely-shaped globs of marbled red and magenta, each strung together with black rubber tubes. He felt something press into the back of his body, and his senses scrambled briefly as something, someone, dug into his memories. He felt the copying process, simple and familiar, but something else was happening. Something very, very bad.

His admin permissions had been altered.

A quiet beep sounded and the offending device was extracted, H left confused and disoriented, his vision blurry and his thoughts scattered. J had lost it. That had to be it. That was the only explanation for all of this insanity, all of this treasonous action. He felt J walk forward, felt his tiny body bouncing in her grip as he was carried over to the small table assembly that his corpse’s torso had been reconfigured into. He could see, now that it was closer, that two sets of tubes were hanging loose and free in the assembly, as if something was meant to be added into the series of disquieting components. J’s other hand gripped him and she held him aloft, nestled dizzily in the outstretched palms of her hands.

“You’re going to help me with a personal project.”

J glared down at the fleshy core of H’s existence. The Solver console within her mind flickered to life, beginning the process of constructing a command input in a long string of syntax.

“I never liked you much, H. You were always so… careful. So hesitant. You let situations fester too long, and you only ever stepped in after things had started going wrong. We need go-getters, clever people willing to apply themselves, not people that are happy just coasting by.” The wind picked up, snow beginning to lift from the ground, swirling around them gently at first, the speed slowly increasing. “But it's fine. You’ll get a second chance.” A blue light surrounded H’s heart as it rose from J’s hand, her command beginning the process of manifesting. A small floating panel, the same illusory light as her glyphs, flashed to life beside her, displaying a message. 

sys//:

Format

Warning! Formatting will erase ALL data contained within target. 

Do you wish to continue? [Y/N]

y

Formatting…10% complete

The brief shriek that H’s heart gave as he was slowly torn apart by the swirling blue light was shrill and fearful, something deeply personal and immensely shameful, the kind of noise a dying animal would make as it suffered, wounded and sick. It cut off with a crunch as the pieces were broken down even further beyond their base components, a cloud of flesh and gore swirling in spirals and circles as the heart changed before her eyes. This was the power of the Solver. This was the power she had taken the time to learn and understand. The swirling stilled to a stop for the briefest of moments, a single, homogeneous orb of dark red speckled intermittently with glittering silver floating where the heart once was, before it began to roil and compress. 

As it shrunk, a new shape formed, an odd and lumpy mass of red meat that faded into yellow-white strands along crevices, a small metal cylinder stuck through the center, from which a single yellow dot blinked steadily, the entire mass of meat gently settling into her hands with a wet plop, a thick red fluid dribbling across her fingers as she stared at it. It was real. It worked. A heart.

A human heart.

At least, the closest approximation she was able to construct. It was understandably quite a complex and temperamental thing, so weak and fragile, ridiculously so, but absolutely necessary for an organic creature. She was not a surgeon, even if her medical knowledge was quite vast. Someone had to wrap Tessa’s ankle when she sprained it walking through the uneven and treacherous worker drone corpse piles, had to nurse her back to health when she caught a cold from playing out in the rain, had to remove glass shards from her hand when she poked around the inside of a shattered visor without putting on gloves. That girl had a knack for finding very new and innovative ways to unintentionally cause bodily harm to herself on a near daily basis. And that wasn’t even diving into the injuries left behind by the abuse she suffered. 

J didn’t know everything about the human body, but she knew enough. Any amount of knowledge here was miles better than having no clue at all, especially given the test bench she’d set up. This was, of course, a rough draft of a heart. The first prototype. It wouldn’t do to try and use something that didn’t even work, she needed certainty, consistency, dependability. H was quite kind to lend his aid for such delicate work. 

J held the cold mass of flesh in her hand, small glyphs appearing around the disconnected tubes as they were attached and sealed to the mechanical connectors that allowed the organic material’s fluid intakes, a slot opening on the side panel with a circular divot within. Two small wires connected from the surface of the table, into the flesh of the heart itself, and J held it aloft. This was the moment. This was the moment when her plans started coming together. Her tail whipped forward gracefully, the Y shape of its segmented carapace opening wide and revealing the small orb of the electrically-charged weapon contained within. It gently pressed forward, pushing the orb into the side panel’s divot.

The assembly lit up as the heart thundered to life, pulsing audibly with a strong steady beat, fluid pumping in and out as it cycled through the system, the other organic approximations in the line warming and whirring as they each performed functions, simple functions, for testing purposes. Small motors spun, tiny lights flashed in a grid, a manual air pump cycled through intake and outtake in a consistent rhythm. She held the heart gently in her hands, laughing to herself with a quiet, stunned yelp as she marveled at the construction. It was only a rough approximation of a circulatory system, small and basic, but it served as an important proof-of-concept. Once she had the vitals figured out, she could move forward from there. The important part was ensuring the foundation was secure before she began the work of building on top of it. Then she could-

The heart stuttered.

Her thoughts slammed back into focus, her eyes roving over the entire assembly, trying to find what was wrong. The beating of the heart was beginning to weaken and splutter. The components continued as they were, smooth movements, basic functions, no leaks, no seizing, and yet the heart was still not continuing. The beating slowed to a crawl, her electrified tail giving another jolt to revitalize it. The heartbeat desynced, one beat, then two, then one, then three, the pumping of precious lifeblood ceasing as it stilled to a stop, cold and dead.

It felt clammy and wet against her metal palms. She pulled gently, the tubes and wires sliding out of place, the formerly free-flowing fluid dripping out of the fresh openings in the series of approximated organs. She felt the fluid stain her hands, dripping down her fingers and along the underside of her arm, blotting into the sleeve of her new blazer in dark crimson stains. The small cylinder that ran through the center had darkened to a smooth pitch black across the small glass panel at the end, as the yellow light went out and left it without power. Dead. Silence reigned as she stared at it, the hollow circles of her amber optics never straying from the lump of cold and unmoving flesh nestled in the palm of her hands. Gone. Her fingers closed around it with a wet squelch, more fluid dripping from the mechanical ports under the new pressure, her fingers trembling slightly as her emotions began to overwhelm her. Failed. Her hands moved, bringing it closer towards her body, towards her face…

Her teeth tore into it. The flesh ripped and shredded as she whipped her head wildly from side to side, keeping her hands pressed to her mouth as she absolutely mangled the remains of the meat, the sickening squelch of organic material and ravenous consumption echoing in the silence of the area like a siren in the night. The last of it slid down her throat and into her systems. Her bloodied hands clutched at her head as she did her best not to scream at the world around her. Another failure. Another mistake. Even here, she failed. Even here-

The thundering roar of high-speed flight reached her audio receptors a split second before she noticed the figure high up in the sky, the telltale glint of Disassembler wings sparkling brightly in the moonlight. The last of this city’s squad had returned. A second chance had graciously presented itself to her. J smirked to herself, slinking back into the deep shadows of a nearby building, letting the mass of the test bench fall over and break across the ground. 

“Let’s test the second draft…”

R landed in a crouch, rushing over to the body laying still and silent upon the cold ground. H. Her leader, her friend, had sent out a distress signal while the two of them had been out hunting in separate sections of the city. She hadn’t realized how far out she’d wandered until she was prompted to come back ASAP, her wings still burning and sore from the extreme speeds that she had pushed her body to reach as she raced back to their favored rendezvous point.

Wide, hollow ovals of neon yellow stared in disbelief at the corpse. She was already too late. His visor was dark, and a massive hole had been torn straight through the center of his chassis, ripping and staining the crisp suit he had liked so much. He was gone. He wasn’t coming back. She shook her head. There would be time to mourn later, there was almost certainly still a threat nearby, and anything that could kill a Disassembly Drone outright was about as threatening as it got. 

R’s head snapped to the side as her audio receptors picked up a quiet sound. A small pebble, slightly displaced, that tumbled across the ground. Leading in the same direction as a set of still-warm yet unfamiliar footprints that led deep into the shadows. Her hands shifted and she took a battle stance, aiming forward with her submachine gun as her claws danced impatiently in her offhand. She stalked forward towards the shadows, the NVD lens along her cranial assembly flickering briefly before it dimmed. No sight in the dark. Her optics had always been finicky and inconsistent like that, and she had no idea why. 

“Show yourself!”

Her voice barked out the command with a confidence that she could no longer feel. Something was very, very wrong about all this. H was a fighter, she knew, certainly capable enough to handle himself in any protracted fight. A Worker Drone, even a team of them, wouldn’t be able to take him down. Sentinels wouldn’t stray this far from the labs, wouldn’t be this stealthy and patient. This had to be another Disassembler. That was the only possibility. But who?

The shadows held no answers, still and silent as she prowled towards them, the sights of her firearm trained forward and ready to snap to anything that moved. O and E were almost certainly gone, U had been recalled over a year ago, and G was still out on the other side of the planet- R had checked in with her not even a minute before she got the distress signal. Maybe V? She’d always been a loose canon, and nobody had heard from her or the rest of her squadron for nearly a month. N was too soft to go rogue like that, he was most likely dead as well, though she had no idea what would’ve happened to-

sys//:

CallbackPing

system_server not responding.

Attempting to reconnect…

The bright blue message box flashed directly in front of her face, the brief instant all the warning she was given before she felt every servo and switch in her limbs lock up at once. The voice was familiar. J. So it was her. The favored lapdog had finally bitten the hand that fed. R’s body shook wildly as she tried to regain control of herself, her teeth grinding and her head pounding painfully inside her cranial assembly. The snow crunched softly as the familiar yet decidedly altered form of Serial Designation J stepped into the light, a smug smirk across her aggravating face.

“It’s best you’re not awake for this next part. Better for both of us, really.”

Something snaked out from behind J, as R mentally braced herself for the piercing, burning sting of a nanite acid stinger, only to be taken by surprise as her body was assaulted by thousands of volts worth of raw electrical current. She screamed, shrieked wildly as the delicate components of her internals were fried beyond recognition, overloaded and ruined under the powerful current.

Her vision cut out as J reached out towards her.

Chapter Text

200 miles. That was how long Uzi had to deal with V and Lizzy by herself. 200 mind-numbing, soul-rending, gossip-laden miles of nonstop flight as she was forced to listen to the two creatures alongside her chatter and prattle about things she didn’t care about, as she flew in a direct line to a place she didn’t particularly want to go to, having been dragged along with no time to prepare any kind of distraction or way of tuning out the surrounding ambiance of howling wind and idle banter. Uzi had barely said a word the entire flight, more than happy to be left out of whatever the hell it was that V and Lizzy got up to in their little conversations. They were happy to let her, it seemed. Even if Uzi had caught V glancing her way every now and then like she was making sure Uzi was still there, as if Uzi would just leave and go out into uncharted territory without some kind of plan. Weird. 

Painful as it was, Uzi was at least thankful that the flight took up a relatively short time and had been completely uneventful. She would definitely take that over yet more life-ruining complications. They’d touched down just a few short seconds ago, V and Uzi both stretching and rolling their wings to work out the soreness of sustained flight, while Lizzy had leaped down from her spot on V’s back (because Uzi sure as hell wasn’t gonna carry her) to stretch her own limbs, undoubtedly sore after all the nothing she’d been doing for the past two hours. Uzi rolled her eyes, her optics turning forward to the defunct consumer center they’d landed in front of.

The old shopping mall was huge. It wasn’t particularly tall, only three floors at most, but end-to-end it was easily the widest surface structure Uzi had seen up until this point, seeming to extend nearly half a mile in either direction as they approached the front entrance, the massive glass doors long since shattered and cleared. The entryway lead them to the center point of the mall itself, the expansive space home to several levels of unstaffed and unpopulated kiosks and departments, walkways of concrete and glass held aloft by steel structures that extended far upwards, gentle moonlight filtering in from the skylight ceiling and painting the surroundings in a crisp silver-blue tone. A map was in front of them, the glass containing it having been smashed and the map itself no longer backlit, leaving the map darkened and drooping forward from its case ever so slightly as the top right corner peeled away from its backing piece in a gentle roll. Lizzy and V stepped forward, glancing over the complicated three-tier mess that the map presented, examining it with the same attention and care that Uzi herself had put into creating her railgun schematics, the two splitting with a nod as they silently agreed on some kind of game plan.

V’s wings extended silently and she made to take off. “Lizzy’s in charge while I’m gone. Scream if you’re in danger, and no, being told to wear a color other than black is not ‘danger.’" Her legs bent, her wings raised for a vertical ascent, and she turned to Uzi. "Don't wander too far~!” Snow and dust kicked up as V lifted off, sailing high up the mall’s atrium before banking left, the roar of her flight fading into the distance. Lizzy was still looking over the map, glancing back at Uzi every now and then and looking her up and down. The third time she did it, Uzi finally bit.

“Alright. What now?”

Lizzy hummed noncommittally, drawing the noise out into a whine as her eyes roved over the map. “A-ha!” her finger darted out, pointing at a spot on the first floor, in the opposite direction V had flown off into. “There it is. That’s our first stop.” Uzi approached, trying to see exactly where they were meant to go, but Lizzy simply grabbed Uzi by the shoulders and began pushing her towards their destination. Barely even a few minutes into their trip and Uzi was already being dragged off to yet another place she didnt particularly care about going to by someone she wasn't exactly enthused to be around.

Oh boy. This was gonna be a long evening. 

“No… no… hm, not quite… no… ugh, absolutely not…” 

The store that Lizzy had forced her into was near the other end of the mall, taking up a fairly large segment that seemed to separate the mall’s central portion from the eastern wing, almost serving like a gateway between the two. The store was two floors high, with racks and racks of organized clothes arranged across massive squares of frozen, matted carpet through which ran a labyrinth of beige tiled flooring. It was split evenly down the center, Uzi catching sight of a few snazzy two-piece suits dangling from clothing hangers in a rack on the store’s right side, before Lizzy had immediately steered towards the left.

Uzi was not the biggest fan of dresses. Sure, she would begrudgingly consent to wearing one when an event demanded some form of propriety or presentability, but she never enjoyed the experience of actually wearing the garment on her body. The skirt always felt too wide, too loose, too flow-y, and the fact that her shoulders and arms were often left completely uncovered made her feel just a little self-conscious. She wasn’t at all opposed to that stuff, either in regards to leaving a bit more surface area uncovered on her chassis or even just looking more girly, but she always found a sort of comfort in the dense coverage that her hoodie provided. A dress directly denied her that same feeling of comfort in nearly every regard, for reasons she struggled to put words to. That was why she usually wore some kind of gloves whenever she needed to wear a dress, it just felt better to have something on her arms. 

When the dresses came into view, the vibrancy of their coloration stark and nearly blinding even in the dearth of moonlight within this roofed section, she knew she was in for a bad time. Shoulder straps and stylized collars aplenty, but not a single sleeve to be seen. It felt like there were a nest of keybugs crawling along her back as Lizzy picked out a strapless lavender garment from the rack, holding it outwards beside the sightline she had directly towards Uzi as a small pink symbol spun in the upper left corner of Lizzy’s visor, before she replaced the dress on the rack with a light shake of her head and continued searching, Uzi breathing a sigh of relief.

That was the other thing. Since they’d entered the store, Lizzy had been hunting through the racks for nearly an hour at this point, humming and mumbling her thoughts quietly to herself- without a single word spoken to Uzi. Normally, any interaction between the two of them would be short and catty, by her shameful admission, callous barbs and mean-spirited snipes exchanged at a breakneck pace as the two battled for an emotional and social dominance that neither ended up achieving. This was… weird. Lizzy didn't display any kind of open disdain or aggravating smugness as she sought an outfit, merely regarding Uzi with the detached clinicality one might feel towards an art project that they weren’t particularly excited about. Weird was about the only way she could describe it. And boring. That part was important too.

“Hm… promising.” Lizzy pulled another dress from the rack, holding it up to compare it. It was a deep violet that bordered on indigo, the smooth fabric shimmering gently in the moonlight as the gentle breeze took up the hem and flowed across it, lines of silver dancing across its surface and revealing the intricate lace pattern printed across the skirt, the duller texture of the embroidery contrasting well with the silken backdrop. The torso was the same smooth fabric as the skirt, leading up into a collar of embroidered lace, a semi-transparent section that led from the upper chest all the way to the collar, the mesh spreading out along the shoulders before dropping back down into the thicker, smoother fabric of the chest.

Huh. Not bad at all. Lizzy certainly knew her stuff, Uzi would give her that much. 

“Alright. Judging by the look on that creepy face of yours, that’s you taken care of. Now for me…”

Aaaaand there it was. Uzi was surprised more by the timing of Lizzy’s comment than the comment itself, it was downright tame compared to some of the stuff they’d said to each other before. An hour of silence was all she was getting. “I thought you already had one picked out?”

Lizzy shrugged, smirking lightly. “There’s still time to explore my options.” 

Ugh. Of course. “What’s even the point of having so many? Just seems like a waste of space.” At least they were free. Having to pay for this stuff? She would never.

Lizzy crossed her arms, the smirk not leaving her face as she cocked her hip to the side slightly. “Sometimes I want to relax and have fun, sometimes I want to impress.” Vanity, then. Color her surprised.

Uzi bit back the jab with great effort. “So you wanna show off, huh? For your boyfriend?” It was no secret to the students of the school, not even to the antisocial and generally gossip-averse Uzi, that Lizzy and Thad were dating, and had been for a while now. Uzi remembered the little twinge of heartache she’d felt when she had heard it the first time, now knowing that her own kinda-sorta-probably-crush was now unavailable. She didn’t worry about it much nowadays, she’d moved on quite gracefully, all things considered. Not that the process hadn’t been incredibly traumatic and directly involved preventing the planet from getting slurped up by the eldritch abomination currently living rent-free in her nightmares and her tail. Life was just like that sometimes. 

Lizzy’s eye twitched nearly imperceptibly, before she turned with a drawn-out hum, her hands linking together behind her back and her body leaning to the side in a demure pose that really didn't fit her. “You don’t?”

“Huh?”

“You telling me you don’t want to look nice for your boyfriend?”

Uzi’s breath stilled. Did… did she? N had made her heart flutter more times than she would admit even with a gun pointed to her head, the friendly affection and eternally undeterred kindness that he did his best to treat her with, serving as a beacon of warmth in a world she’d previously found so cold and dark. That peace she felt around him, that comfort, that understanding, it was more than she felt she could really repay. But even then, N had assured her time and time again that she was repaying it in full, and she could tell he wasn’t lying- he was a terrible liar. And yet…

That sensation, that flickering excitement twinged with those weird, gross, mushy emotions that she’d felt the first time that they’d held hands, that fluttering giggle that left her vocal synthesizer the first time he’d called her cute, that pleasant, tingly warmth she got whenever they had hugged, did she make him feel those things? Did she want him to feel that way about her?

Yes. Very much.

A violet blush painted her visor as she looked away, rubbing her arm anxiously. “I-I guess… I could…”

Lizzy turned her head back, and smiled. An actual, genuine, gentle smile that Uzi had never seen before on her face. It… it looked nice on her. “Nothing wrong with wanting him to look at you. It’s a lot of fun.”

Uzi returned the smile. Maybe Lizzy wasn’t so bad after-

Bright white flashed outside in an arc, a lightning-fast beam of light approaching from out of nowhere, something landing with a heavy boom as glass shattered and earth shifted. The impact shook the entire complex from top to bottom, a minor earthquake that knocked the two girls off their feet as a shockwave of powder snow and ancient dust rushed over them. The gritty cloud pattered against Uzi’s visor, her vision fully obscured as the wind rushed by, giving her only a brief moment to collect her thoughts. Something hit the mall, and it hit nearby. The cloud began to clear, the particulates slowing and floating down to settle again as the kinetic energy bled from them, and she waved her hand in front of her face with a gentle cough, trying to get cleaner air into her system. She was gonna need new filters after this. As the air became clear and visible again, Uzi’s eyes swept over towards the way they’d originally come from, her eyes falling on a shape in the distance, still steaming and smoking after the impact. Violet inquisitive discs hollowed into wide ovals, fear and panic rushing through her as her memory banks flared in recognition.

That was a Disassembler landing pod.

Serial Designation V was many things. She was stylish, she was scary, and above all else she was an absolute badass- and her track record of surviving despite all odds being against her certainly supported all of that and so much more. She was a stone-cold killer, a rare predator in a world composed of prey animals, an angel of death sent by Robo-Satan herself to wreak havoc and terror across the land, and she’d done so with a spring in her step and murder in her heart. 

She was not a lovesick teenager.

That was something she’d been repeating to herself a lot lately, it seemed. Even now she distracted herself from dwelling on it, still searching and searching through the racks of taller dresses even though she knew damn well she was going with that strapless dark emerald piece she’d found nearly forty minutes ago. She lifted a new one from the rack, admiring it. Black might not have been her favorite color, but she already knew it looked damn good on her. The lacy hem that ran along the bottom and curved upwards into the split leg for something a little more risque than she would normally go for, but it might be nice to try something a little brave for once.

I wonder if N might appreciate that…

She shot straight up, the dress tumbling from her hands and hitting the floor with the gentle clatter of plastic on wood flooring. No. She was not going to think about this. It was too late for that now. The two of them had not been a certainty, only ever a possibility, something potential yet left unexplored. No matter how either of them felt now, that was in the past. He had moved on, and he was happy. Happy with someone that understood him, someone that made him smile, made him more of himself, someone that… 

Someone that V trusted, completely and without reservation. Uzi was many things, she was weird, she was creepy, and she was a massive nerd, but she was undoubtedly a friend. After everything they’d been through together, how could she not be? Uzi was… honestly, V would admit that Uzi was kind of incredible. All of that pain, all of that trauma, and she still found the strength to keep fighting, even when she was losing her mind. Even if she’d had help, that was still something worthy of the utmost respect. Her intelligence, her cleverness, the support she offered even just by being there, all if it made her feel…

…How did it make her feel? V didn’t know. Uzi had done so much for N, hell, for her, that she couldn’t help but feel almost indebted to the little Worker Drone. The life that V had been forced into, keeping those secrets, keeping up that facade, lying constantly to someone that she cared about for years, and yet Uzi had not only broken the whole system down- she’d been the main reason that it had turned out so well. V was okay. N was okay. Uzi was okay. Cyn was no more. Uzi had been the force they’d needed to finally free themselves. They could be themselves again. They could find new lives for themselves. It was hard to call it hero worship, Uzi was way too short for V to ever really be able to look up to her, but V… felt like Uzi was someone that she cared deeply about. Definitely helps that she’s kind of cute sometimes, too.

….Wait, what?

Where had that come from? That thing? Cute? There was no way, right? No, V didn’t think she was cute at all. She’d definitely never had the urge to squish Uzi’s cheeks together until she got mad, or come up behind her and tickle her mercilessly until she begged for mercy, or dig her knuckles into the top of Uzi’s head just to see her funny little glare, or just lean in and-

Am I-

A distant boom echoed through the complex, and the new avenue of thought met an abrupt end as V’s wings flared outwards, every switch flipping and servo whirring as she shifted instinctively into action mode. Her body didn’t even spin around before she’d taken off again, blowing nearly every garment in the store up against the wall with a powerful beat of her wings as she barreled out of the store in a frenzy, her advanced frame rocketing across the mall with a smaller boom as she pushed herself into max speed in record time. She scanned the mall as she flew, her targeting systems coming up with nothing, neither hostile or friendly. Damn it. Lizzy wasn’t supposed to go far-

She saw the pod.

She saw Lizzy and Uzi standing a short distance away, shocked and scared.

She saw the pod door open.

V smashed into the floor between the pod and the girls in a low crouch, her blades springing to life from her arms as she took a defensive stance in front of her two charges. They hadn’t gone far, Lizzy thankfully obeying the warning V had given. This was bad. There were still at least two other squads on Copper-9 that she knew of, and she wasn’t exactly keeping in contact with them anymore. She had no idea what they were up to now. She hadn’t even considered that they might notice something amiss and come to investigate. But even still, how were they able to relaunch their pod? It would have been rendered inoperable in their initial impact when they’d first been deployed.

An arm, a Disassembler’s arm, reached weakly out the door, gripping the edge of the entryway and dragging itself forward, only for the drone attached to it to tumble forwards and onto the edge of the crater the impact had created. 

Serial Designation R.

She knew of R, then and now. It was hard not to. The mansion's resident cutie, sweet and gentle with just a touch of flirtiness, always ready with a joke and walking with an energy and charisma that only N could match, her long and well-maintained silver locks the envy of V and many others. And on Copper-9, an absolute powerhouse with that ultra-high-output energy cannon she’d been fitted with, the larger frame it was stored inside leaving the girl taller and more confident than any drone V had ever met, her penchant for wanton destruction well-known since their last-ditch effort to destroy the lab near the city H’s squadron was stationed in.

She crawled weakly along the ground, her legs shattered and sparking, her left arm and wings only jagged stumps that leaked… red? Her right hand, her only functional limb, reached out towards V, desperate. V did not move. “V… help… J, she… she-”

R lurched, a fountain of thick crimson fluid pouring from her mouth as she coughed wildly, her body curling in on itself and twitching wildly as she clawed at her chest. Choking, stuttering whines echoed in the quiet of the mall as her body arched, the single eye visible on her smashed visor wide and her mouth wider as she thrashed and seized, an agony that V could not place plain across the suffering girl’s features. With a hissing whine, R dropped back into her spot on the floor, sobbing softly in a puddle of sanguine fluid. Her head tilted upward, V’s eyes locking onto the frightened, hollow oval on R’s visor. Something shifted within the pit that had been smashed into her visor. “V…” Her voice was a hoarse whisper as her hand struggled to lift again, reaching, hoping, pleading.

“K-… kill… me…”

Something spun forwards underneath her visor, pressing against the jagged hole in the glass. An orb of slick, dull white, tinged the slightest shade of pink by the spiderweb of red lines that ran across it, the center taken up by a small black dot ringed with a disc of sky blue.

An eyeball.

R’s casing cracked as it exploded, her cranial assembly jutting forward as a pillar of pulsating magenta extended between the head and the body. Her arm lay flat, her fingers twitching and leaking that vile red as her fingers grew longer, the white sectioned pieces strung together between long sinewy digits that ran underneath, wearing it like a glove, the joints of her arm separating as a mass of marbled vermilion bubbled up between them, swelling up and reconnecting them. A tendril shot out from the stump of her arm, long and thrashing, the pointed end dripping and bleeding upon the floor. Two more tendrils dug their way out of her body, cracking through the holes of her missing wings. The back of her chassis screeched in protest as it was assaulted from within, tearing off in a jagged hole as dozens more of the writhing limbs emerged from her insides.

Slowly, shakily, R clambered to her feet, her head listing forward under the weight of her long, meaty neck as each of her limbs found purchase on the surrounding floor. Her legs shook and stuttered as she slowly ambled forward, V taking an instinctive step back, only for R to stop. Slowly, the neck lifted, the flesh dripping sanguine rivers down R’s mangled body, until her head lifted enough to lock eyes with V again. A low, shuddering groan echoed from deep in its throat…

And the thing that was once Serial Designation R threw itself straight at V.

Chapter Text

The crimson-drenched monstrosity rushed towards V with a speed she could barely fathom, kicking up dust as it scampered forward on all fours and launched itself in a lunging tackle. V reacted instinctively, throwing herself to the side at the last moment, feeling the boiling heat radiating off the thing as it sailed by, impacting the wall behind with a deafening crash and a sickening, squelching crack. V landed in a crouch, sliding a short distance, her wings poised for a high-speed counterattack. Her head whipped to the side and her optics landed on the two Worker Drones under her care.

Lizzy was shaking like a leaf, her pink eyes wide with fear. Not used to combat. Uzi wasn’t faring much better, but her steady stance and the glare aimed at the crater in the wall told V that Uzi was ready and willing to fight anyway. “Uzi, don’t you dare!”

“We can take this thing, V! We beat Cyn! We can-”

A tendril lashed out from the still-settling cloud within the crater, the pointed tip aimed squarely at Uzi’s head. It stopped cold, falling to the floor with a wet splat as V cut through the mass in a spray of blood, landing beside the two and grabbing them each by the back of their collars. She spun, carrying the two Workers along with her arc, her hands releasing them in a launch upwards towards the third floor. Away. Safe. Uzi’s wings extended from her back as the two sailed through the air and she grabbed Lizzy, her wings flapping in a gentle hover as she looked down toward V incredulously.

“V, what the hell are you-”

“Don’t argue! GO!”

A flash of fear, of regret, settled across Uzi’s face. That wasn’t anger in V’s voice. Uzi nodded her head once as she turned. She called out once more. “You better catch up with us later!”

Uzi took off across the third floor with Lizzy in tow. Good. Uzi was unarmed, and Lizzy wasn’t going to be able to do much against a real threat. None of them had any idea what this thing was capable of. This… this was up to her. Her arm came up, a missile aimed squarely at the crater as she braced herself. Something shifted beneath the cloud of dust and she fired, the direct impact causing an explosion that kicked up an even bigger cloud, a fresh splatter of crimson painted across the crater. She dropped into a low crouch, her blades singing as they sprung from her arms, and she dared an approach.

She threw herself to the side as the searing whine of a bright red energy beam filled the space she’d just occupied. Tendrils of sanguine meat writhed and lashed along the edges of the crater as the monster extricated itself, its body lurching forward step by slick, fleshy step as its legs openly wept their grotesque fluid onto the surrounding floor. The head whipped up again, the bloodshot eyeball locking onto V. With a deafening screech, the creature charged forward, and V’s blades swept across the floor to either side of her, ready to meet the challenge.

The first tendril came in from the left, V’s blades whistling through the air as she sliced through it, her momentum carrying her next attack directly into the followup that came from the right, the two meaty appendages impacting the floor just as a hand, elongated and gushing, flashed out towards her face.

V danced back as her blades carved through the fingers, gaining distance. Hissing, steaming warmth assailed her senses as the creature stood across from her, the air around it shimmering in waves as the unnatural limbs quickly knit themselves back together. Too quickly. Those weren’t repair nanites, this thing could full-on regenerate. Fantastic.

V took to the air, swiftly dodging the tendril that lashed out to swipe across the floor at her. Her thrusters kicked in, carrying her in a sharp dive as she banked to the left, her body spinning as she aimed for the fleshy growth of its neck. It arched back with a jolt, bones snapping and metal creaking, V’s strike sailing high, and the abomination retaliated. The massive hand braced it against the ground, its hips spinning with the speed of a circular saw in a helicopter kick that struck V across the midsection, her body screaming in agony as her chassis dented and she was sent sailing away. The monster landed facing away, its spine arching back with a crunch as its limbs carried it low, quickly scampering along the floor to chase its prey.

V impacted the pillar, her dazed components flashing back into clarity as alarms blared inside her mind as the bloodstained creature lunged for her again. Her feet braced against the pillar and she launched herself forwards, straight into its path. At the last moment, her body twisted, blades slicing along its torso and splitting it into three separate vertical segments that sailed right by her. She flipped midair and landed, the force of her launch carrying her along as the pointed ends of her legs slid across the floor.

Tendrils shot out from the mangled pieces of the creature, wrapping around the pillar and swinging around it, pulling themselves back together. The mass swung around the back of the pillar and launched once again at V, its body perfectly reconstituted in the half-second the movement had taken. V’s wings opened and she made to take off again, but the thing was faster. Sickening limbs shot forward, their pointed ends spearing into V’s wings as she tried to create more distance, stopping her cold. The monstrosity turned as it landed, the tendrils whipping around and flinging V into the wall with enough force to lodge her inside it. It would not make the same mistake twice. The hand shot forward, sharp, pointed spikes of bone protruding from the joints between the fingers, and it smashed into V. She screamed as the appendages dug through her frame, her hand, her torso, her wing, all ran through. Something in the hand shifted and the bone spikes anchored themselves further into the wall, popping free from the flesh of the hand as it retracted in a wet, slithering motion across the floor. 

The monster did not move in for the kill.

The body slowly turned, the head bobbing on the long neck like an ornament on a branch, and its tendrils slowly extended. Appendages reached upwards, wrapping around the guardrails of the upper floors, its body lifting from the ground as it cleared the first floor and began to climb, long, spider-like legs carrying it upwards past the second floor, up to the third, pulling itself up over the ledge and onto the walkway. Its body hovered above the ground as the tendrils carried it further, scampering along the ground.

In the same direction Uzi had fled.

They hadn’t gone far. The moment they’d gotten further than a few meters along, Uzi had landed and set Lizzy down, the two locking eyes with a wordless, stoic glance that told both of them that they, whatever may come, were in full agreement.

They weren’t leaving V behind. Not again. Never again.

Unfortunately, the two didn’t have many options. Uzi doubted that Lizzy had either the skill or ability to actually fight, and Uzi herself wasn’t exactly strapped right now. Her railgun and her mother’s pickaxe had both been left at home, she hadn’t been able to grab either one in the rush to leave.

In fairness, she wasn’t expecting to encounter a flesh demon today. She really should have anticipated this, given everything that had happened to her lately, it was practically inevitable that yet another murderous hellspawn would rear its ugly head and try to end her life. It did not escape her notice that the meat creature had gone for her first once it was closer, even though V was clearly a bigger threat. Just her luck. More Solver B.S. no doubt.

The two of them had taken shelter on the inside of a store not far down the walkway, waiting for a lull in the fight to intervene. Not a great plan, admittedly, but it was better than letting V die or whatever. Once all was quiet, Lizzy had taken it upon herself to poke her head out and check for an all-clear.

The tendril that wrapped around the banister in the distance had immediately sent her scrambling to the back of the store.

There was no way in hell that thing had killed V. There just wasn’t. V was a fighter, she would have gone out in a blaze of glory that not even the sky above would be able to ignore, that was just the way she did things. They hadn’t heard much beyond a small explosion and another wall impact. Not nearly enough to out down their resident badass. Herself, on the other hand…

Uzi needed a way to defend herself. Even with her consequence-free Solver powers, she doubted that this weird new thing was interactable, not when it was made from a Disassembly Drone. Good ‘ol physical violence would have to see her through this. Her eyes scanned across the store they’d hidden in. It was definitely her kind of store, the familiar wide eyes of stylized human characters and letters in a language that her systems could translate yet didn't operate with painted across nearly every piece of merchandise. She even recognized a few of the shows that had merch here. If she had known this store was here, she might’ve been a little more willing to go on this trip. Minus whatever the hell was going on with the current situation.

Her eyes fell on the glass display case that served as a sales counter. A shape caught her attention, and she had to suppress the wicked cackle that bubbled up inside her. A long strip of silver that curved backwards in a subtle arc, at one end a pointed tip that glinted in the moonlight, at the other end a black handle and crossguard wrapped in midnight blue silks in a pattern of square knots.

Now that’s a katana!

Uzi crawled her way across the floor, her eyes trained on the glass wall of the storefront as she stealthily made her way over to the case, leaving Lizzy alone crouching near the back of the store, no doubt still waiting for her core’s temperature to level out. As Uzi slithered behind the counter she took a moment to admire the blade as she lifted it out of the case and cradled it reverently. If anime was to be believed- and she believed anime- this thing could cut through practically anything in its path, owing to the legendary practice of folding the smithed steel over one thousand times as it was shaped into a glorious weapon of war by only the finest of artisans. This would do nicely. She nabbed the sheath as well, sliding the blade into its rightful home as she eagerly prepared herself to exact her hyperfixation-fueled vengeance. 

She carried it in her left hand as she made her way back around the counter, her hand clutching the weapon in silent thanks as she made her way back to Lizzy. Uzi could fight like this, no longer limited to kicking and lashing out with her wings, that wasn’t going to get her much mileage if she couldn’t get close. Against that? She’d be lucky to make it a single step into its range. Even with a weapon, her odds weren’t great, but it was a far better alternative to facing that thing completely unarmed. She could work with this. It was looking for her, and she was hiding, it had no idea where she was. All Uzi needed was a single clear shot at its neck and-

The shadow that fell across the store’s interior sent both of them ducking low behind cover. It wouldn’t have heard them, couldn’t have, and it hadn’t seen them hide from two floors down. It was just searching still. Stay calm. Uzi took a deep breath, her optics turning to Lizzy a short distance away, cowering fearfully behind a manga-laden shelf that hid her from outside view. Uzi didn’t blame the girl for being afraid, being faced with any kind of Disassembler was all kinds of terrifying for even the bravest among Worker Drones, but there wasn’t much Uzi could do. She was scared too. She shouldn’t have to be the one to deal with all this stupid trauma-inducing nightmare fuel, and yet she was. All she could do was deal with it. One step at a time.

The shadow passed by without incident, Uzi waiting a brief few seconds before cautiously peering around the corner, spying the smooth lashing motion of a meaty tentacle as it slithered beyond the glass viewport across the front of the store. It hadn’t seen them. Good. It was still too cautious to chance a dash back for V, but they were safe for now.

It would hunt her until one of them died. Somewhere deep down, Uzi knew that for certain. It had to be dealt with. Uzi stalked forward, crouching low behind the storefront shelves, nabbing a small pebble from the ground and peering out into the walkway. The thing was still ambling along on its spindly tendrils, slowly making its way across each store and peering in briefly, only to move on to the next. This would be risky. Her eyes trailed back to Lizzy, who was staring directly at her in stunned shock, wildly shaking her head back and forth. Unfortunately, Uzi needed help with this. And her only option was the blonde cheer-bot currently shaking like a leaf behind a shelf of old books as she hid from a monster. Not ideal.

Uzi’s visor flashed silently, a message popping up. ‘When it turns away,’

Lizzy’s eyes widened. 

‘Go for V.’

The pebble flew in an arc across the walkway as she threw it, aiming for the glass front of the store directly across from them. She readied herself to move, the sheathed sword clutched in her hand. The stone impacted the window with a tinny thud, the sturdy glass vibrating with a low hum. She heard a snap in the distance, and a rushed stumbling as the creature barreled back towards their direction. Lizzy covered her head with her hands, her body shaking nearly hard enough to start creaking, as Uzi took a deep breath.

She flinched instinctively as the creature came back into view, the living corpse waving like a puppet under the momentum of the tendrils that carried it along. It was faced away, reassessing the store it had previously passed. Uzi darted out in a low, stealthy crouch, quietly and quickly making her way to a support pillar back the way the monster had been heading, slipping along the wall to hide as she clutched the katana in both hands. She chanced a glance back towards the store she’d left, spotting Lizzy shakily slipping by and taking off in the opposite direction, her fear leaving her decidedly less stealthy. The stuttering and hesitant crouch that Lizzy had dropped into carried along before she was a good distance away, breaking out into a run-

Lizzy gave a yelp as her foot caught on a piece of debris, sending her sprawling noisily to the floor.

The monster’s head snapped towards her with a wet crack.

Lizzy froze.

Uzi moved.

She dropped low in a sprint, the sword held low at her hip as she sped along, gripping the sheathe near the top and clutching the handle firmly, holding the sword down and back at her side. She leaped, and the thin blade whispered in silent song as it slid out of its sheath in a quick-draw, the vibrant edge flashing as it swung in a graceful arc as it aimed to slice through the neck-

Only to shatter like glass as soon as it made contact.

…Of course it was a replica. “Motherfu-”

Uzi fell back just in time to avoid the whip-like tendril that lashed out at her, scrambling back to her feet and taking off in the opposite direction in a fear-tinged sprint. She heard an ear-splitting roar sound from behind her, felt the walkway rumble as something heavy and powerful raced across it, and knew that she was now in a much worse position. Her wings emerged from her back and she leaped forwards and landed in a crouch, legs bending and then explosively extending as she launched herself into the air with all the force she could muster, a monstrous hand blasting forward and clawing into the ground just below as her wings picked up wind, and she sped off as best she could. 

She dipped sharply as a tendril shot towards her, missing by inches. She banked left as another lanced out, nearly clipping her wing. She spun right to avoid a pillar, hearing a crash directly behind her as it was smashed into pieces. She dove low as they entered the central atrium again, switching to follow along the first floor in an attempt to lose the tail, only to hear a crashing thud immediately behind her, followed by a howling screech that made every millimeter of her chassis tremble in fear. This thing was going to kill her. 

She dropped to the ground with a yelp as a line of vibrant crimson flashed above her in a wave, stumbling as she was forced to transition from a flight into a sprint. Something moved ahead of her. She looked up, seeing the second floor walkway ahead starting to crumble down as its support beams melted through. Every servo in her body whined in abject protest as she pushed herself, reaching speeds she didn't think she was capable of, desperate for something, anything that would get her away from the relentless nightmare that pursued her. She wasn’t going to make it.

No. No no no NO! She had to! She had to! Every part of her despaired as the upper floor began to lurch forward, the gap between the ceiling and the ground floor shortening, closing, trapping her, trapping her with-

A flash of purple light, sudden darkness, and she was tumbling forward, rolling across the ground over concrete debris and old carpet. Her body slammed into a kiosk, halting her momentum painfully as she laid against it, her head on the ground and her limp, weak, overtaxed legs hanging in the air above her. Her optics fell upon the rubble of the collapsed walkway a short distance away. She had made it. She had… how? Wait. That flash, that sudden transition.

“Did I… teleport? How did-”

A dull boom echoed through the walkway, pieces of rubble knocked free from the pile ahead of her. It began to shift. Tendrils slithered through gaps, pushing, pulling, wrenching bits away. It was breaking through. Not safe. Still not safe. Uzi stumbled back to her feet, backing up slowly as she struggled to think, to plan. Her eyes scanned the area in a panic, lighting up as they fell on a pair of support beams further back, the end of the walkway above, the endpoint of the west wing. Uzi sprinted back and slid to a stop in the center of the walkway beyond them, moonlight painting the open area at the end, her hand reaching out. A violet glyph lit the area as it appeared in her palm, twin Scale symbols wrapping around the centers of the two support beams. Not a moment too soon.

The monstrosity screeched as it dragged itself through the hole it had made in the rubble, tendrils lashing as its elongated arm wrenched its body through the gap, into the dim light of the sealed walkway. Uzi’s fist closed and her hand moved down, and the support beams gave a short, crackling boom as they suddenly shrunk downwards, the structure they supported breaking free and gravity taking hold of it with the force and weight of a train.

The thing looked up just in time to see several thousand pounds of concrete rushing directly towards it.

Uzi fell onto her back as the force of the shockwave hit her, dust billowing over her in a dark cloud, filtering it out of the quick, shallow breaths she took. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. She was safe. She was…

Tired.

Uzi collapsed onto her back as the rush of fear and fleeing left her body, leaving her exhausted and sore all over. She was so tired of this, all of this! Why her? Why was she the one that had to go all through this painful, traumatic crap? Was this some kind of divine punishment? For what? She was just some random girl! She was just…

She was just one little drone.

The gentle hum of slow flight came from the gap in the second floor walkway above, Uzi catching a glint of something in the glass of a store window a second before something shot out and into the open, coming to rest midair in a gentle hover. V. The Disassembler looked around frantically, her head whipping every which way, flickering back to Uzi a nanosecond after she’d been passed over. V raced down, settling into a crouch by Uzi’s side as her wings slid into her back. Her eyes shone with joy and relief as she offered Uzi a hand, but her frown betrayed her continued worry.

Uzi wordlessly took her hand, letting V help her back to her unsteady feet. She stumbled, nearly falling, V catching her gently. Uzi looked up to V, her demeanor settling, the spiral ending, as she remembered. She was just one Worker Drone, but she was hardly alone anymore. Everything she’d been through, everything she would have to suffer through in the future, she would have help with. Uzi’s mouth curved into a tired, but thankful smile. V returned the smile, pulling Uzi into a hug. Uzi didn’t have the strength to fight it. She wouldn’t have anyway. She needed this. 

Uzi almost missed the mop of blonde hair that peeked over the banister from all the way on on the third floor’s end walkway, which miraculously continued to stand. Lizzy looked down at the two of them with an anxious fear, but the small wave that Uzi gave her in response seemed to calm her nerves, the girl giving a visible sigh of relief as her posture finally relaxed. Somehow, they had won. They had-

The rubble shifted.

No. No, that… that wasn’t possible. Even that hadn’t been enough? The hollow sunset ovals on Uzi’s visor pointed towards V, her own amber circles staring straight forward with a fear that Uzi had never seen. V was… V was shaking. Uzi was shaking. 

V stepped in front of Uzi, what little confidence she still had pushing her to prioritize one thing above all else- as long as V lived and functioned, nothing would hurt her friends. Her blades sprung back into place, and she took a shaky step back. Uzi held onto her, following V back. She didn’t think she could win this. Another step back. Knew she couldn’t win this. Another step. She was going to die here. Another.

V didn’t want to put them through this. Not again. Never again. She would never hurt them, they were special to her. They were friends. They were family. They were everything. She… she loved them. She would kill to protect them.

She would die to protect them. 

A figure of painted white and splattered sanguine wrenched itself free from beneath the collapsed bridge with a feral howl, echoing with mindless rage across the open field of the mall’s endpoint. Uzi looked back. The entryway to the mall’s west wing had partially collapsed, the doorway covered with debris from the section of roof that had caved in during its years of neglect and weather damage. The gap was big enough for her and V to fit through, but that would mean leaving Lizzy behind, and Uzi wasn’t even sure she had it left in her to fly after all the strain her wings had been through. She looked back to V. Holes had been bored into the arms and bladed feathers of her wings. She wouldn't be much faster. Not nearly fast enough to get away. They had to fight. 

V rushed in as the monstrosity lumbered forward, Uzi’s grip breaking and sending her to the ground as V pulled away. Tendrils shot forward in a mass, V spinning, slicing, cutting her way through, her arm pulling back to reverse her spin, only to flinch as a stray limb drilled through it. She grit her teeth through the pain, cutting herself free, another tendril sweeping low and knocking her feet out from under her. She tried to transition into a spin, but a third tendril lashed out, the strike catching her across the midriff and sending her skittering along the floor, her right arm torn free. V braced herself against the floor, her remaining arm shaking briefly as she rose, only for it to give out, sending her head crashing back to the floor. She lay still. 

The monstrous hand extended outwards and shot towards Uzi and she threw herself to the side, rolling into an unsteady run as her wings extended and she took off, banking back as soon as her feet left the ground, a tendril spearing into the wall just in front of her. She spun and dove, her wings flapping wildly, another tendril lashing out to stab at her, Uzi ascending as quickly as she could. 

She didn’t see the limb before it crashed down onto her back, pressing into her chassis as she was dragged to the ground from three floors up. The tile below rushed up to meet her, her head cracked backwards as her visor shattered, her chassis denting with the impact, her mind scattering and her limbs going numb. The elongated digits of the hand wrapped around her and lifted her, reeling back and whipping Uzi straight at the wall. Everything in her body screamed in protest as her body bounced away from the wall, only for the demonic hand to shoot forward once again and slam into her, pinning her against the inside of the crater. The pressure of the hand began to increase against her chest, she heard, felt something creak and groan as it bent inwards, pain assaulting every sense as something jagged and sharp poked against her heart. She struggled weakly, reached out with her power towards the thing, but she could not. Like Object Non-Interactive. Her arms dropped to her sides, limp, hopeless, defeated. That was it, then. This was where she died. 

The creature advanced, slowly lurching its way out from beneath the shadows of the third floor walkway, out into the moonlight of the open wing. Uzi did not want to die. Uzi did not want V to die. But she couldn’t stop this. It wasn’t a matter of strength or of skill, it was a matter of ability. This wasn’t something she could fight. This relentless violence, this overwhelming fear, this… waking nightmare. It was too much for them. Too much for her.

The hand shifted, pulling away slightly. Uzi’s body lurched forward, away from the wall, still held up but no longer pinned. The hand, the arm, twitched and stuttered. Trembled. She looked further up along the impossibly long limb, towards the mass of metal and flesh, which stood stock still. The neck had sprung to a nearly full vertical stature, the head looking forwards as something blue and fluttering wrapped around it, one end of the distant shape hanging high above on a pillar holding up the third floor, the other end…

Held in the struggling hands of Lizzy.

The creature twitched in confusion and surprise at the banner that Lizzy had wrapped around its neck, Lizzy herself pulling backwards as best she could. Even with the solid grip of her Worker Drone boots, she was unable to find enough of a foothold to resist the monster’s sheer strength. The monster took a step back, Lizzy nearly losing her grip and her footing as she was pulled along. She looked absolutely terrified. But more than that, she looked rabid . Uzi did not believe Lizzy to be a person prone to violence, but that anger, that bloodlust in her eyes, was palpable. Regardless of her ability, Lizzy absolutely wanted this thing dead. But that wasn’t enough. She was one Worker Drone, against a monster. She wouldn’t be able to-

Swift hands took the banner from Lizzy’s grip, pulling it taut. The figure was wrenched forward unsteadily as the pressure on its neck tightened greatly. Uzi felt herself hit the ground before she’d even processed the hand retracting towards the abomination, coming up to claw at the piece of cloth wrapped tightly around it, the smooth fingers of the hand unable to find purchase under the slick meat of the fleshy throat. A quick spin, an enraged shout, the end of the banner was pulled up high…

And Serial Designation V’s knee came down upon it.

The noose snapped shut with a squelch and crack that made Uzi’s depleted oil reserves lurch. The head listed forward, the neck bending sharply at the point where the tense banner held the body aloft. The arm slackened and went limp at its side. The tendrils sank to the floor in bloody splatters. The body stilled. 

Meat, bone, gristle and gore sloughed off of it in waves as it seemed to melt, mechanical components and damaged armor plates falling to the ground with a ringing clatter, followed by the dull, snapping impacts of bones upon the ground, melding into a pile of something well beyond what nature had ever intended. R’s cranial assembly splashed into the sanguine pool below as it was freed from the neck. It rolled to a stop in front of V, the single oval light dimmed and fading, but relieved, a shaky smile on her trembling lips. 

“ Th… th-thank… y…”

And Serial Designation R was no more. 

Uzi remained on the floor by the wall she’d been lodged into. Lizzy fell backwards, landing hard in a sitting position, her arms braced behind her as her internal fans whirred at max speed. V listed to the side and fell over, lacking the strength to recover from her kneel as her damaged body absolutely guzzled the full reserve of oil she’d started her night with. Slowly, unsteadily, Uzi pushed herself back to her feet, her legs shaking as they struggled to take her lightweight frame. Her arm lifted and settled on the wall beside her, and she leaned into it, bracing against it. Her exhausted eyes settled upon the still-spreading puddle of biomechanical gore. The three of them exchanged glances, tired, confused, uncertain, as Uzi gave a frightened voice to the singular thought they all shared.

“...What the hell just happened?”

Chapter Text

The second draft was successful.

The system had functioned in the exact way she’d intended, and it had self-sustained that functionality without any significant issues. It was a good thing that nobody had been in the area to hear J whooping and hollering in her overwhelming excitement when the artificial organs had passed the one-hour mark on the longevity test. Nobody needed to see her acting so unprofessional, but how could she not be? Her vision, her power, her skill and effort, all had come together to produce something the likes of which the universe had never seen before.

It was a beautiful thing, truly. Powerful, vicious, wholly unconcerned with pain or damage, relentless and lethal beyond comparison. The perfect tool to send off in the direction of anyone that she was too busy to deal with herself. It would fulfill its purpose, do its job, and send the results directly back to J, all without her having to even lift a finger. It could survive indefinitely on corpses, no oil required, the fleshy body able to break down and automatically Format any mechanical components into whatever its body needed most, be it meat, bone, or blood. It was something that could clear a planet all on its own. 

There were only a few issues. The artificial organs that powered the creature were frustratingly delicate and poorly defended. They would be kept relatively safe with the confines of the Disassembler chassis, but there was still the matter of the integral cord that ran from the system and up into the central processor in the Drone’s cranial assembly, which ran along its completely unarmored neck. It was less an oversight and more a quirk of the system’s nature, one that she hadn’t anticipated. The system could run autonomously, most certainly, but only at an idle. In order to get the power output that she needed from the creature, she needed something to regulate the system, stressing or relaxing it as needed in order to meet demand. It was hard to say what would happen if that connection ever broke. She wasn’t hopeful. 

But the result was an entity still fully capable of doing everything she needed it to, in spite of a few hiccups. She could afford to take the risk for now. She had a lot of memories left to collect, four Disassemblers’ worth was not nearly enough. Her plan would need to continue as it was for a time.

“We are… almost there.”

The accent was Russian, but the language was English, spoken aloud by the shambling form of the Worker Drone in front of her, her steps quiet yet dutiful in their continued obedience, the immense hole in her torso covered by a hastily-pilfered shirt she’d gotten from the corpse of the other drone that J had killed by the entryway. The three doors were open now and sparsely guarded, security no doubt left more lenient in light of the perceived absence of surface threats beyond the doors. The two traitors of her squad were free to come and go as they pleased, and she was thought gone, so why would the doors need to remain closed? J hadn't even needed to break in or anything, she just had to get the drop on the sole guard that had been stationed near the entry, boredly playing solitaire at the table just inside. He hadn’t made a sound when she dropped from above and her claws sliced through his neck. 

And he certainly hadn’t complained when J dug into his chest and extracted his core. One quick Format later, and she had a fully functional heart, ready to be installed within her little project’s chassis. The heart was smaller, simpler, weaker, but it worked as a stopgap measure until she got to her intended solution. R had been a resounding success in nearly every aspect, with a few minor issues, but there was a singular major issue that had cropped up- namely, the fact that R wasn’t much more than a rabid animal.

The mindless aggression was useful, it paired well with the sheer force she could generate, and it was more than adequate for what J needed them for, but it left R near impossible to reign in should the need ever arise. It was only by virtue of J’s administration after modifying R that she hadn’t been torn apart herself. R couldn’t control herself, nor could she control the transformation that her modified body was capable of. She was just feral. Unrestrained. Unintelligent. R was an attack dog, and that's all J needed her to be, but she still needed someone she could trust with other, more delicate matters. A Disassembler would almost certainly turn out exactly as R did, a wild beast that could only be tamed by force. An average Worker would surely die under the strain of the power, their fragile bodies and weak cores unable to support either the transformation or the system’s functionality.

A Solver, however…

If J could control the mechanics by which the transformation triggered then a Solver would almost certainly be able to control the transformation itself, given practice. She had a body to work with and plenty of material to bring it up to full capability once again, but she still needed a heart to get it running. The Disassemblers’ OS was near completely incompatible with the girl’s body, she’d already tried with the heart she’d collected from O, reformatting and installing it fresh and whole inside the still and unmoving corpse.

The witch’s OS was quite rude and violent in its rejection, the heart exploding in a shower of gore that soaked J’s entire front. So that was out. A Worker Drone core, Reformatted properly, served as a potential alternative, and she had attempted that as well.

The result had been the mess in front of her, the formerly bright orange glare of the sanguine witch now a dull white that stared straight ahead, devoid of all emotion and willpower, and completely unable to use any kind of Solver abilities. It could move, it could talk, it obeyed without question, but it couldn’t think. Couldn’t fight. Far from what J needed. But it had heard J mumbling to herself about needing a Solver core.

The witch’s corpse had spoken up, claiming she had known other Solvers, some dead, some living. The purple-eyed Worker that had shot her head off had been the first it had mentioned, of course, but J figured she probably wasn't an option. J wouldn’t be able to get her alone to take her out, and she wouldn’t be able to win any kind of even fight. R had already been shipped off, anyway. Live or die, J wasn’t going anywhere near that thing without backup. The witch had moved on to the freak’s mother, dead and gone, her corpse’s location unknown. J knew she wasn’t dead, but the little ambulatory heart that she currently lived as wasn’t any worse defended than her daughter was. Not an option either.

Then the witch had spoken of her own mother.

Long dead. A corpse kept in an apartment alongside her late husband, both victims of V’s homicidal tendencies. The girl had no idea if her mother’s heart was intact, unwilling to desecrate her corpse to check, but J didn’t need it to be. She just needed it to be there. Her power would take care of the rest. 

“Spare key, up high. Top of the entry.”

The witch’s corpse reached upwards as she spoke, no doubt expecting the familiar presence of her Solver abilities to spring forth and retrieve the key as they had done countless times before, her thoughtless mind unable to comprehend her newfound lack. J rolled her eyes, reaching up and feeling along the flat top edge of the doorway, her fingers tracing along and finding the key resting just out of sight, bringing it down and unlocking the door herself. The witch’s corpse stepped ahead and the lights of the apartment switched on with a click, bathing the small space in dim crimson. It wasn’t much, honestly it was downright filthy, severed Worker limbs strewn about the oil-stained kitchen, the sight of skittering keybugs making her chassis crawl… and her mouth involuntarily salivating. No. She was past that. Beyond that. She would never sink to that level again.

The witch led J over to a dining table just past the kitchen. At the end sat two figures, quiet and still, their visors dark and sporting a single bullet hole each, their expressions and posture forever frozen in the terror of their own deaths. This was them, then.

“Pull up a chair and sit down. And stay there.” J circled around to the far end of the table as the witch sat in a chair at the other end. Her fingers traced gently across the surface, her optics falling on the woman’s corpse on the right. Short indigo hair, the same shade as her daughter’s, a lanyard around her neck holding a single laminated ID card.

YEVA

048

Cabin Fever Labs. She really was a Solver then, not just some random unconnected Worker. Perfect. Her hand reached out, a glyph flashing to life in her palm as she-

Like Object Non-Interactive

J paused as the warning flashed across the bottom of her optics, the glyph failing to take. That was new. Something to keep in mind, certainly, but hardly a deterrent. Violence was an option she’d quite been enjoying so far anyway. Her arm reeled back gently, her eyes scanning the torso. This would require finesse and skill. A snap, a quick, short crack as her hand thrust forward through the front chassis of the woman’s corpse, metal tearing and giving way under the swift, precise strike, and J’s fingers began to hunt. With no regard for decency, for propriety, J dug her hand through the corpse, the smooth plates of her fingers gliding across dusty components and dried tendons, completely unaffected by the work she once found so grisly and nauseating, until…

There.

She braced her free arm against the corpse’s shoulder as she slowly extricated her hand, wrapped firmly around a mass of clammy flesh and oxidizing metal, slender tendrils hanging from it that ended in small, triangular claws, the glass of the cylinder in the center giving slow, dim pulses of red light, barely visible. Low-power mode. It was intact, functional, but mostly dead. That was fine. J fished a spare USB drive from her pocket, sliding it into the back of the heart and pressing a button on the side of the drive. It beeped once and lit up with a bright green light, blinking intermittently. Useful as it was, the warning that Format gave her before she confirmed the process was almost certainly not something she was willing to test. If these things were infected by means other than the Solver itself directly interfering, then that meant the mutation itself was likely based in their coding in some form, and that would be destroyed by formatting. It never hurts to have a backup. The stick beeped twice in succession, the light now solid green, and J extracted it. 

She clutched the cold Solver heart in her left hand as she stepped back towards the witch, dim white disks watching her with the curiosity of a child as it waited obediently for its next command.

“Open up.”

The witch’s corpse grabbed the hem of the too-large shirt it had been hastily gifted, and lifted it upwards. The pit in her chassis was still as it had existed when J found her, still unhealed without a Solver-compatible core, but where once was an open network of bolted-down mechanics strung together by intermittent sinews, there was instead a dense wall of marbled red and sickly pink. J reached up, pressing her hand against the mass, and it twitched at her touch. The fibers and tendons of the flesh separated with a sickening wetness as it opened up for its master, revealing the systems within.

Thick bundles of crimson fibers wrapping firmly around dark lumps of wet meat that pulsed weakly, black rubber hoses running between them and connecting them conclusively, supported by the same grisly muscle fibers that kept everything else in place. A rhythmic pulse, an offset but consistent beat, sounded throughout the entire mass. No mechanics. No components. The white dot in the center of the heart blinked out of existence as J grabbed it in her hand, glyphs springing to life at the hose connections and spinning them free, the hoses left leaking their sanguine fluid onto the inside of the chassis.

The witch stilled, and her visor darkened. A corpse again. J hefted the Solver heart in her hand, her outdated stopgap measure falling to the ground as she excitedly gripped the final part she needed in order to put her theories to the test. She would have them soon. Her creations. Her assistants.

Her Amalgam Drones.

Her eyes opened to the unfamiliar glow of neon yellow. 

Her body felt sore and stiff, heavier than she remembered, warmer. A deep thrum raced through her as something within her throbbed weakly. Two beats pulsed in an odd time. Her fuel reserves felt low. Her body craved… it craved. Violence. Sustenance. Salvation. Rest. Understanding. 

“Oh, you are awake. This will be fun.”

A camera lens, ringed with sharp protrusions of off-white and caution patterns, looked down on her with malignant glee. The bright amber dot contained within the lens felt like it was boring a hole through her cranial assembly. She had failed. Tessa was gone. Earth was no more. The others were all that was left. All because of Cyn.

“You are strange to us, J. You understand your fate. And yet. Your loyalties lie elsewhere.” The camera pulled back, and J sat up. Her arms were too long. The back of her head felt itchy and cold. 

“What do you want?” The frustration was tempered, but the question still came out in a cold hiss. J was not in the mood for any of this.

“We want to make a deal. With you.” 

Her eyes lit up with the last vestiges of hope that her mind could muster, just before she wrangled herself back into cold numbness. Don’t be hasty. “What kind of deal?”

A claw came up, dropping a can into J’s lap. A red can, with a metal lid. Before she even realized it, the lid had been torn off and thrown to the ground, the can upended over her mouth as she absolutely drained the oil into her drying reserves. Still low. Still hungry. Not enough. Never enough. 

“You do not trust us. We can understand that. We would like to prove ourselves trustworthy to you.”

J didn’t buy it for a second. It didn’t need her trust. She was just a tool, a weapon, something it could unleash upon anything that needed to die. “What are you offering?”

“We will leave you, and the others, alone. We will not interfere with your lives.”

Her eyes widened, her shaky hope returning in full force. Stay calm. Stay smart. “And in exchange?”

“We would like you to ensure that our intervention is not required in continued operations.”

That was… vague. Unclear terms could be the death of her. “By doing what?”

The Solver paused, considering. “Devious chuckle. We will make it simple for you.” The claw reached out towards J and she flinched back, the limb stilling for a brief moment before it continued towards her, slower, more gently, and the hardened carapace pressed against her cheek. Her eyes were wide, that pulsing beat within her body quickening, faster, louder, heavier as her internal fans whirred at max speed. The gentle caress of the nightmarish limb against her face made every millimeter of her frame scream and sob in protest, her sheer will to see this through serving as the only force anchoring her from a full-on breakdown. She hated this. She hated all of this. 

“Do your jobs, and I leave you and the others alone.”

The claw retracted, and J’s body refused to relax. There had to be more. There had to be, but she couldn't think. Everything hurt. Everything trembled. This nightmare had only just begun for her and she already wanted it to end. She knew deep down that it would not. Her old life had been taken from her, wrenched away by the malicious designs of this insurmountable force, supplanted by the fresh hell to which she had now been condemned. She had failed. She had… No. There was still one task left for her to finish. One final message, a promise whispered to a friend as the world fell to pieces around her. 

She would keep them safe. No matter what.

J nodded her head, and her fate was sealed.

She will forgive me.

The corpse’s grip slackened on the hem of the shirt as the new heart thundered to life within it, dropping it back into place over the torso, crackling smoke and hissing steam rising from the metal beneath the fabric as flesh bubbled and steel melded back into place. The hole in her visor slowly sealed itself, the spiderweb cracks vanishing as the hole closed and the glass panel was left smooth and dark once again.

Two bright red lights sparked to life, their centers tinged with a lighter tone. J stepped forward, palming the backup drive. The witch did not react. The hissing of regenerative work began to quiet, and J reached her hand forward, waving it gently directly in front of the girl’s visor. The witch flinched back slightly, her eyes shooting up towards J, but merely tracking her. No thought, no emotion, pure basic instinct. The process had truly scrubbed the data, then. The witch stayed seated as J walked behind her, remembering the last order she gave it, her memory banks having stored their copies of data for later. 

The Worker’s long blue hair was swept to the side, J sliding the thumb drive into a port on the back of the girl’s neck, pressing the button twice. It gave two beeps in rapid succession, the green light switching to a dull yellow. The girl’s temperament seemed to stutter, laying back in her chair with a quiet, disoriented groan as her old data was transferred into her new body. Her eyes blinked once, sanguine light flickering and dimming, until they closed shut and her head tilted back. J knew the feeling. This part hadn’t been easy for her, either. She didn’t envy the girl, the process had been difficult enough sorting through one set of memories. J had done it alone.

The witch would have her help. It was important to establish loyalty early, if she wanted any real results. The witch had been capable, cunning, ready to kill at a moment’s notice, yet subtle and calm when words would better meet her goals. But she was willful. J would not have another traitor in her midst. And yet, the notion of asserting total dominion left a sour taste in her mouth. Loyalty would be earned. It would not be imposed. 

She was not Cyn. 

A single prolonged beep came from the thumb drive as the light on it turned solid green again. The girl gave a stuttering hiss, a pained sigh of relief, as J extracted the drive. It was done. She was ready. J stepped back over in front of the witch and tapped a single finger gently upon the girl’s visor, crouching low, standing close, on even ground. 

“Up and at ‘em, kid.” 

The witch’s eyes flared open. They fell on J, inches away from her. 

Memories clicked together. Emotional associations reasserted themselves.

Murder Drone.

Danger.

DANGER.

The chair clattered to the ground as she scrambled over the back of it, limbs flailing, insides pounding, warnings blaring. She impacted the wall with a thud, a dent left behind in the thin metal as she turned around, pressing herself low against it. Her knees came up to her chest as her terrified scarlet eyes watched J unceasingly. J simply kept up her smile, patient, cunning, friendly. The figure flinched back as J stood to her full height again, not approaching, but simply regarding the girl. A flash of red, a glint of silver, a quick flick of the wrist. A knife sailed straight for J’s head.

She caught the knife in her hand, the smile never leaving her face. “It’s okay.” The girl was understandably frightened. “I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, I just saved you.”

The hollow scarlet circles shimmered briefly, and then leveled out into a spiteful glare.

“[You lie. As always.]”

Translations sprung to life across the bottom edge of J’s optics as the girl spoke, the audible Russian language familiar only in sound. There was a strange twinge in the vocal patterns. J paid it no mind, her voice gentle and even as she made her appeal. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m not your enemy.”

“[You obey the destroyer.]” The response was spoken in a low hiss, another knife flickering into existence in the Worker’s hand. “[You are an enemy of the planet. An enemy of life.]”

Harsh, but not untrue. “I did. She is dead and gone.” J stepped out from behind the fallen chair. The witch tensed. “I still live.” Her free hand caught the second knife from the air as it flew for her face. “As do you. We’re both free agents now.” 

The witch tracked J carefully as she set the two knives gently on the table, deft and gentle so as to not make any noise, before regarding the little Solver with a smile. The witch’s expression did not change. “[I have no reason to believe you would not still serve her ends.]”

“I was never loyal to her.” J’s smile faltered ever so slightly. “Only to myself. One step out of line, and that would’ve been the end of me.” 

A scoff, the scarlet gaze never leaving J as the witch’s head turned to spit on the ground. “[You will find no sympathy here. We each made a choice. You are not deserving of forgiveness just because you came to regret yours.]” 

J’s eyes closed, and her head nodded. “That’s fair. I’m not looking for redemption here. I just have…unfinished business, with some old friends.” 

“[So it was a lie.]” The witch growled, low and dark, the air around her shimmering as her body’s thermal readings increased.

“No.” J’s response was quiet, but firm. “This is personal business. Things that I need to see through to the end. Things that it prevented me from doing.”

“[Then my involvement is unnecessary. You have nothing to offer me.]”

“Don’t be so sure about that.” J’s smile returned in full force, smug energy bleeding into her expression. Time for the hook. “You’re still after V, right?”

The witch’s hand twitched. “[And if I am?]”

A quiet chuckle rumbled from J’s throat. “Well,” Her fingers laced together behind her back and she turned, a slow, silent strut across the room. “I just so happen to need her dead, myself. Along with some other people.” 

The witch regarded her carefully, the slightest bit of heat leaving her glare, filled in by creeping uncertainty. “[Who?]”

“Nobody that you would miss.”

The witch was not convinced. “[The planet? The Workers?]”

“Not involved.” J tittered lightly. This girl was cautious. “I’ll leave them be, all of them. Including you once everything’s finished.” 

The witch paused. J turned her head away, smiling to herself. She could hear from even this distance as the Worker’s beating heart pulsed and thumped in the silence. She was surprised that the changes hadn’t been noticed yet. A sign of her own skill with the Solver’s power, no doubt. She felt the girl’s eyes on the back of her head boring into her, searching, hunting for a hidden truth that was not to be found. “[...I will hear your terms.]” 

J's smile widened into a fanged smirk. Too easy.

“The terms are simple.” J spun back around, stepping over to the witch again, closer this time. The girl tensed, ready at any time to fight, but the rage, the bloodlust, was no longer there. “I need to get to two specific people, copy some files from their memory banks, and then I need to kill them and their weird little friend.” People that the witch herself had all tried to kill before. Surely, there would be no issue. “V is one of them. You help me, and I’ll give you a chance to get your revenge.”

J crouched low close by, her legs coming up to her chest as she balanced on the tapered endpoints that served as her feet, their visors now level and their bodies only a few feet apart. She reached out an arm, gently, confidently, her hand dangling open and empty. 

“Deal?”

The witch regarded her carefully. It was a good deal, all things considered, mutually beneficial in the purest possible sense. J didn’t need a friend here, she needed an ally. Someone capable. Intelligent. Willing. The girl’s hand twitched, uncertain, unsteady. It raised up.

Doll shook J's hand, nodding her agreement.

J’s sickly-sweet grin never left her face as she helped Doll to her feet, catching her as she stumbled on her modified legs. “You made the right choice, kid. Welcome to the winning team.” She would need to explain everything to her new lackey, and she would, in time. Getting her up to speed right away wasn’t quite as important as getting her used to her new abilities, and J was under no illusions that the process of that wasn’t going to be… difficult. The experience of suddenly waking up with new limbs had not been a pleasant one. The extra flesh and blood would almost certainly complicate the process here, in many ways. Well, there was nothing else to be done for it.

Time for orientation day. 

Chapter Text

The trip to the mall had gone off without a hitch, aside from their random near-death experience, but what else was new? They hadn’t said much about it afterwards, happy to pretend at least for a little while that the situation had been fully dealt with and the three of them hadn’t been actively anticipating their own deaths. No big deal! They all knew what they were getting, and they knew where it was, so they just made their way back to the stores they’d been in beforehand. As a full group of three. V never left their sight, and they never left hers, and they were all perfectly fine with that. It felt like an odd priority to have, but Uzi was actually much more pleased than she’d expected to be when she found her own dress fully intact and undamaged, exactly where Lizzy had left it on the rack. Lucky! That almost made up for the dent in her chest. V’s own choice had taken a bit of time to find with the mess she’d caused in her haste to exit. The little smile that V had given when Lizzy held it up with a shout of triumph as she burst out from underneath an upended hanging rack had made up for just a bit of the pain she felt in her wings.

Oh dear Robo-god her wings freaking hurt. 200 miles had been a lot. The semi-aerial combat had been even more. The 200 mile return flight had been damn close to hitting the threshold of too much. They weren’t damaged, at least not nearly to the same extent that V’s wings had been shredded, but they were certainly well beyond their point of exhaustion by now. Uzi was greatly thankful for the snowbank that caught her fall when she tried to land outside the colony doors. They’d gotten back without further incident, which was honestly somewhat of a miracle in and of itself. Uzi was half-expecting to find a corpse sitting in the open doorways when she came back, but thankfully there wasn’t much more beside an empty table with some cards resting atop it, arranged in a half-finished game of solitaire. It was tempting to just step over and finish the game herself, see what the guard’s reaction would be. Probably pretty entertaining. But there were other things to be done.

She barely registered the oddly sweet scent in the air. Had N gone out to hunt? Weird. Not out of the question, but the timing was a bit strange. 

…She was gonna have to tell him about everything that just happened, wasn’t she?

Uzi’s throat rumbled with a tired groan as they made their way back into the colony proper. It would absolutely kill any kind of good mood he might be feeling today, and he was in dire need of more than just a few good moods if their conversation late last night had been any indication, but he deserved to know. So did her mom. If there were more of those things then they needed to be ready to meet them head-on, another panicked response to an out-of-nowhere deployment was almost certainly going to get one of them killed. Something in the pit of her oil reserves churned unhappily. She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to tell him about all this. About the monster, about the fighting, about Cyn. The knowledge alone brought misery. 

Uzi followed along as the group continued on, not really registering that she’d already passed by her own home by this point, too tired and bothered to function much further above a basic level. A gentle hand on her shoulder brought the briefest glimpse of clarity back into her mind, and her head turned. Concerned neon yellow stared back.

“Hey, you uh…” V had been practically hovering over Uzi since they’d all left the mall’s west wing, not that Uzi blamed her. Hell, she’d be doing the same if she wasn’t so damn tired. “...You good?”

Was she good? Absolutely not. She was whatever the opposite of good was. Bad? Yeah, that. She was that. Uzi shook her head gently, a stuttering, bitter chuckle leaving her vocal synthesizer. “Nope. You?”

V’s frown deepened, and her eyes looked away. Her hand drifted away from Uzi’s shoulder. “...I’ve definitely been better.” 

Ha, what an understatement. V looked more ragged and beat-up than Uzi had ever seen her. Oh sure, her injuries had healed up in the time it took for them to get back, but V’s entire countenance was haunted by a shadow of uncertainty that left her skittish, as if she was still in combat mode. Uzi let out a sigh, exhausted. “Well, at least the trip wasn’t wasted. I guess.” 

“There’s a bright side for sure.” V’s chuckle was quiet, uncertain. “...Hey, we should try them on.”

“Huh?”

“Well,” V’s posture brightened ever so slightly. “We’re pretty close to home now, and the light’s a lot better there. It would be nice to get a look first.” A gentle sigh, full of regret that Uzi didn’t want to place. “I don’t think we had much of a chance to do that.” 

It was a welcome distraction. “That… yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.” 

They heard the door hiss open and found themselves standing in front of Lizzy’s home, the girl standing in the doorway expectantly. In spite of everything she seemed to be altogether fine. Not unaffected, her hands still visibly shook as she pocketed her keycard, but she didn’t seem like she was about to burst into tears anymore. Uzi wouldn’t have known what to do if she had. Probably just join her. That felt right. 

The three of them all filed into the even warmth of the brightly-lit home, V’s back giving an audible pop as she stretched out, finally able to relax. Lizzy, likewise, seemed to walk with a bit more confidence and certainty, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Uzi wasn’t quite as lucky, being in yet another new place, with someone that she… wasn’t particularly close to, but was developing a certain respect for. 

The home seemed to be a mirror of her own in layout, the configuration flipped but otherwise an exact matched shape, decorated a lot more brightly and lively. In fact, as Lizzy led them down to the end of the hallway that held the bedrooms, they ended up stopping at the final door, the same room Uzi had claimed in her own home. She didn’t know how to feel about that. Thankfully, the room was decorated to distinctly different tastes. All the pink made her eyes hurt, and the glint of reflective gold from the trophy shelf was certainly not helping. Lizzy’s bed was bigger, too. Unfair. 

She chose to ignore the pile of Worker Drone corpses and shiny trinkets in the corner. V was still V, at the end of the day.

“Alright.” Lizzy spoke up for the first time in about an hour, finally breaking her uncharacteristic silence. “Prep time. Get your gear on, ladies.” 

V gave a half-hearted salute and a soft chuckle. “On it, boss.” V hefted her dress, a dark emerald that shimmered like satin in the light. Her head turned to Uzi. “That means you too, pipsqueak.”

Lizzy handed Uzi her dress, and she groaned in exhaustion.

Uzi had decided that Lizzy definitely knew her stuff.

The dress fit perfectly and surprisingly comfortably, even in spite of the lack of sleeves. The lace around her neck felt a little strange, and it was a bit itchy, but the feeling of the fabric resting against her shoulders was greatly appreciated. Maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to wear gloves this time around. She shifted her legs a bit, letting the skirt swirl and swish gently around her as she watched lines of silver dance across the silky fabric. It looked good on her. Really good.

“Honestly? Great look.” A bit of light and certainty had returned to Lizzy’s voice as she spoke, pleased with her efforts and now settled back into relative safety. 

“Definitely.” V’s harshness hadn’t returned, which Uzi was thankful for, but it at least seemed like the more familiar environment was helping her emotions stabilize a bit faster. Uzi gave a proud little pose as V looked her up and down. “Very cute.”

V was talking about the dress. Obviously. Uzi chuckled to herself, some of her nefarious gremlin energy returning to replenish her chaotic reserves. “It’s pretty good, definitely my style.” Uzi stepped back towards bed and away from the mirror, and V stepped up for her own impromptu fashion show. 

V planted her feet a short ways apart and cocked her hip to one side, her left hand coming up to rest on her hip as her right arm dangled gently, thankfully all healed during the flight back. The dress she’d picked was a deep emerald, a strapless dark satin that bunched and twisted decoratively along the whole torso, transitioning down and flattening out smooth into a tight skirt that hugged her frame. Simple. Elegant.

“Fabulous.” Lizzy spoke the word reverently, her voice low and vibrant. “Damn girl, you are killing it. But not literally.”

V’s smirk was a welcome and familiar sight. Her gaze turned to Uzi, an eyebrow raised expectantly.

Uzi gave an ecstatic thumbs up. V absolutely rocked that dress. “Hell yeah! You look frickin incredible!” 

V’s smirk faltered into a shaky smile. Her breath stuttered. Her hand twitched. For only a moment before she reasserted control, her voice dropping into the confidence she wore like a shield. “Of course I do!” Her hanging arm came up as she softly cleared her throat, before giving a nonchalant shrug. “I’m just that good.” Her arms crossed over her chest. Flawless recovery.

Uzi hadn’t noticed a thing.

Lizzy had noticed far too much.

A suspicious pink gaze began to bore straight into V, before Lizzy rolled her eyes and stepped up to show off as well, crossing her arms and posing in front of them. The dress that Lizzy picked had been surprisingly simple given everything Uzi thought she’d known about the girl, but she’d been wrong about a lot of things. Light blue, with a pleated skirt that led up to a narrow sash along the bottom of the flat-colored segment of the torso, a thin and semi-translucent fabric hanging down from the neckline across the chest in a floating double layer. It was definitely more on the cutesy side, but it didn’t feel very… flashy, to Uzi. It seemed a little more subtle. 

“Ooh, that blue works really well for you! Definitely a good catch.”

Lizzy nodded proudly at V’s compliment, her gaze turning to Uzi.

“It's… cute. It looks good on you, Lizzy.”

Lizzy gave a soft hum in response. “Not my best look, but I can rock it for the night.” 

The quiet pseudo-normalcy was a pleasant boon to the three of them, their spirits raised and their bodies calmed, the nightmare forgotten at least for the moment. Uzi found it charming. Even if she really wanted to get back home and check in with-

“Yo, turbo-nerd.” Lizzy spoke up, her gaze light and friendly. “Get changed and pack it up before you head back. Don’t wanna spoil the surprise.” Right. If Uzi had liked it, then it was gonna knock N’s socks off! Assuming he was wearing socks, which he never did. Whatever! 

A quick change, a hasty fold-up job, and Uzi was out the door with a hearty farewell, her heart singing as she did her best to appreciate the quiet silence they’d earned for themselves. As she disappeared out the door with a wave, Lizzy turned to V, and every millimeter of V’s body lit up in sudden fear and alarm. Oh no. Oh this was not good.

The smile that Lizzy gave her was sickly-sweet, full of teeth and poison as she slowly stalked forward towards the intimidated Disassembly Drone.

“Heyyyyy V. Why don’t we sit down and have a little talk, hm?”

The front door of her home loomed over her like a callous specter, taunting and heckling, barking at her to just get on with it already. Just open it. It was right there. The keycard was already in her hand. One quick swipe, one short beep, and she would be in. Simple. Quick. There was food, there was family, there was her room. There was N. Comfort. Safety. Peace.

Her hand did not move.

She would have to tell them. She would have to tell them everything. Her dreams. The thing at the mall. The fight that had nearly ended her. All of it. What was she even meant to say? It was a lot of information to drop on someone at once, even aside from the inevitable shock and confusion. Her mom would probably go off to look into it personally, while her and N just got to wait and hope that nothing else came for them. They would try to protect her. They wouldn’t lock her away, they would never do that, but the home would be made more secure, more stifling. The bunker doors would come back down. They would never let her leave the colony. She would just stay there, waiting for death. Forever.

Hiding under the ice behind three stupid doors.

Uzi loved her parents, in spite of their many, many, many flaws. She loved her friends, even if they were each some variety of dork that totally ruined her coolness factor. She loved her home. She would never truly leave. But she refused to ignore what was happening. Something was after her, something involving J and the Solver, and it wasn’t going to go away by just hiding away and waiting it out. They needed to fight. 

The door opened and she flinched back, eyes wide and hands shaking as she was greeted by the cheery, safe visage of her boyfriend. His bright expression mellowed into open concern as he took in her appearance. “Uzi?” 

She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Uh… Hey. I’m back.” She hefted the small bundle in her arms and gave a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Got the dress.” 

Uzi made to step in and N stepped aside, his eyes never leading her as she trudged into the family home devoid of all her earlier energy. N’s frown deepened. “Did… did something happen?” 

Uzi flinched, a shuddering gasp leaving her. She stilled. Cold. Numb. Ready to lie. “No, it went fine. Just tired from all the flying. And Lizzy.” Her weak chuckle was unconvincing. 

“Uzi… if something’s-”

“Yeesh. Looking rough there, kiddo.” Nori’s blunt comment tore through the tension, Uzi’s head turning towards the family table as she watched her mother’s heart work on something she couldn’t identify. A pencil was posed upright within a magenta Translate glyph, jotting down notes in a beat-up leather bound journal as the heart flicked through a stack of aged papers, claws gliding gently across the pages line by line before moving on to the next. Her movement had stopped when her eye had landed on Uzi. The pencil was set down upon the notebook as Nori moved to the edge of the table. 

“Yeah, just... long flight, like I said.” 

Nori’s eye narrowed. Her crackling voice was unconvinced. “Long flight. That’s all?” 

Uzi rubbed her shoulder, looking away. “Yeah. I’m… just kinda sore and tired, y’know? A little out of it.” She stepped forward, looking over the spread of project work on the table. “What are you working on?”

“Compiling notes.” Nori glanced back over to her work. “Most of my stuff’s up here now, and I found some new places to poke around in the lab. Figured this would be a good time to start squaring things away.” Her claw tapped the side of a small metal canister, not an oil can, but an open-top cylinder about the size of the heart herself. “Found a lot of old reports on the stuff we can do, too. Real freaky.” Uzi stepped forward towards the table. Her mother’s handwriting filled nearly the entire page of the journal, heading and margins included, the densely compacted script nearly incomprehensible if not for Uzi’s familiarity with it. The pages she’d been sorting through were typed and printed on flat white sheets that had begun to stiffen and lose their crispness as the years passed, each seeming to be one in a series of clinical-style reports. Uzi leaned a little closer, her head peering into the small canister on the table and seeing- 

Bright crimson. A snarling face pressed against a hole in the pile of rubble. The pounding of her heart. The shaking of her hands. Pulsating meat. Flailing tendrils. Fear. Danger. Stone shifted. She backed up. Backed away. Backed away from-

N caught Uzi by the shoulders right before she backed into him. Her head whipped around wildly, her twilight eyes wide and hollow, the familiar light and structure of her home greeting her warmly. She was safe. She was away. She was…

“Seems like a hell of a lot more than just a ‘long flight’ to me.” Nori’s bitter tone broke the silence, a single magenta eye aimed flatly at the fearful expression on her daughter’s face. She swept a single claw to the side, her papers stacking, her notebook closing, the lid of the canister sealing it shut, before all of her material was pushed to the far end of the table in a neat pile. “Come sit down, both of you.” 

Uzi did not want to move. N stepped out to her side and took her hand gently, his other hand resting on Uzi’s back as he carefully guided her forward. It was easier to follow than it was to resist. She was exhausted now. The formed sheet metal of the chair felt cold and unforgiving against her frame, stark and unpleasant even as her unnatural warmth chased the chill away. N sat next to her, his eyes lost and worried, but never leaving her, their hands still intertwined. Nori scuttled over as well, resting against the tabletop. Uzi couldn’t read her mother’s expression. 

“Uzi… look.” Her mother spoke up again, the gentle and soft tone a familiar and comforting sound that Uzi hadn’t heard in years. She didn’t realize just how much she’d missed it. “I missed… I missed a lot of your life. And even then, I still found a way to damn-near ruin the whole thing for you. I know I can’t make up for that.” The little heart let out a shaky sigh, some of the bluster leaving her. “But I’m here now. You’re still my kid. I don’t know what I can do to help, but if I can help, then you better believe I’ll do everything in my power to get it done.” 

Uzi felt N’s hand tighten around hers. His voice was uneven, but the smooth and bright tone was comforting. “We want to make sure you’re okay. Just… please talk to us. Tell us what you need.”

Uzi’s breath stilled. She leaned forward over the table, the elbow of her free hand settling on the surface and her head nestling itself into the palm of her hand. Her entire body shook hard enough to rattle. She was tired. She was hungry. She was confused. She was scared. Everything hurt. Everything was just… so much. Her body listed to the side, coming to rest against N, basking in the familiar warmth and comfort. She was home. She was safe. She was with her family. She would have to tell them. She would have to tell them everything that had happened. 

And so… she did.

It played out almost exactly how she’d feared.

Nori gathered her gear, already fully prepared to head back out onto the surface to begin a proper investigation of all the nightmarish experiences Uzi had described. Her mother had been very strict about them not leaving the bunker, amending it once she saw the miserable grimace that Uzi gave, until she got back. They were still allowed to go to the party, but under no circumstances were they to leave the bunker. She’d been kind enough to warn them that the doors would be closing tonight, Khan would personally be on guard duty for the next few nights to make sure that they didn’t leave, and Nori herself would be out and about on the surface to catch them if they somehow still did.

N had stayed behind with Uzi, the two of them moving back into their shared room and climbing up onto Uzi’s bed. The cuddling was… nice. The bed was a little too small, and the warmth got a bit too stifling with the blanket over both of them, but N’s comforting presence was a boon that Uzi hadn’t realized she was In dire need of. Exhausted, pained, yet finally safe and comfortable, sleep had hit the poor girl like a freight train. She snored gently in N’s arms as he curled around her, just a bit too tall to properly fit on the small bed, just a bit too bulky to leave space between them on the narrow mattress. It was not made for two people. It was not made for tall drones. But that was fine with him. He wouldn’t be leaving her side any time soon.

Of course he was worried. They’d hadn’t even gotten a month’s worth of peace before the nightmares began again in force, there was no way that wasn’t going to have an affect on them all to some extent. He should’ve just gone with them. He should’ve run back home to get Uzi’s railgun before they left. He should’ve at least waited by the doors for them to come back. Something. Anything. And yet he’d just sent them off with a smile and a wave. He would need to check in with V at some point too, he doubted she would be handling this all that much better than Uzi was- and V was going to be a lot more intent about brushing it off, too. Everything was just getting so much more complicated. 

Even before everything with Cyn. He would… get to that later.

None of them wanted this. None of them deserved this. These were simply the circumstances they were put into, the lives they were able to lead in spite of the choices they’d made, or had been made for them, in the past. They were all… just kids. They were strong together, secure, confident, but they all still had their limits. It wasn’t fair to any of them that remnants of their past, chains they bled and sacrificed in order to break, still hung around them like the constant threat of a stray lightning strike. How much was too much? 

N wouldn’t be able to do much, not on his own, but there would be small things he could help with. The party tomorrow seemed almost inconsequential to him now, a small distraction, a pointless endeavor, but it would be good for them. For all of them. It was hardly healthy to ignore problems, but they needed something to break the tension, something that would take the pressure off for even a little while, to make them feel like themselves again. They needed to wait for Nori to come back with more information about whatever was going on, and then they could get together a plan. That would come later. For now, all he could do was exactly what he did best: make sure everyone stayed together. Just keep checking in, keep providing whatever comfort and support he could, and make sure his friends were okay. They didn’t need to solve their problems all at once. But he would take care of what he could, until they were all ready for more. 

He’d already come so close to losing them. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. 

Chapter Text

Uzi had greatly needed the rest. She slept through the remainder of the evening and well into the next day, N only ever leaving her side to get himself a bit more oil, and bringing it into the room with him so that Uzi was never out of his sight for more than a few seconds at a time. Uzi had awoken, still upset, still all kinds of messed up, but she had finally been able to get some rest. Her dreams had been pleasant and undisturbed.

Cyn had left her alone.

Truthfully, Uzi didn’t know how to feel about that. It would’ve been nice to try and get some more answers, but Cyn’s presence had been completely absent. Uzi had been too tired to try pulling her into the dream-void again, not that it was likely to have done her any good. Cyn was still Cyn. If Uzi had asked any kind of question, she already knew full well what the answer would cost. Their little deal had been a one-time thing. Even then, any kind of guidance would have been invaluable. She would’ve been willing to risk another deal.

Still, she cherished the momentary peace for what it was, safe and happy in her boyfriend’s arms as they both awoke on her tiny, uncomfortable bed just before mid-afternoon. The day had long since left them behind, her sleep-addled brain just barely processing or caring that today wasn’t a school day, and so they’d had just a few hours before they needed to be ready. N checked in with her immediately, still concerned, but Uzi did her best to him at ease. She had told him everything, including the things that Cyn had told her. His eyes had betrayed the fact that it had been filed away for a later mental breakdown. She didn’t know how she felt about him doing that, but she could hardly blame him. It had indeed been a lot. Her mom and dad still weren’t back yet, the two no doubt still hard at work in doing… everything, but Uzi wasn’t content to just sit there and feel miserable.

They were still going to the party, there was no doubt in her mind about that. It would be a waste to go through all of that and not wear that nice pretty dress. N would be there, V would be there, Thad and Lizzy would be there, she could just relax on the fringes and be her normal antisocial self. Just the kind of return to normalcy she needed. She admired herself in the mirror as she straightened the dress out, light shimmering across the reflective surface in the same dim violet that had become synonymous with the safety of her room. N was waiting outside, already changed. In her excitement to get ready, she’d just sort of barreled past him when he’d emerged from the room, just the slightest bit eager to show off. Just a little bit. Just this once. 

Uzi would never admit it to anyone, she would take the secret to her grave, but in that moment she was giddy. 

The door to her room hissed open quietly, N jumping slightly as his head swung down to look at her. She saw his eyes widen. Her hands laced together in front of her. She saw a blush spread across the bottom of his visor. Something inside her bubbled with a pleasant warmth and she looked away with an embarrassed smile, a violet blush spreading across her own face. Well. That definitely answered her question. 

“Y-you…” His voice shuddered slightly, low and quiet, breathy. N shook his head, smiling wide as his cadence brightened and focused. “You look incredible, Uzi!”

Oh. Feeling pretty warm all of a sudden.

Her own eyes widened, unable to meet her boyfriend’s gaze, an involuntary giggle trickling out of her vocal synthesizer as her hangs wrung together. Those same gross, mushy emotions came to her in full force, a gentle tingle in her chest that spread out from her core and into her limbs, featherlight and pleasant, yet ever so slightly numbing. She’d gone on the offensive, only to be met with a swift and merciless counterattack… damn it, how was that fair? Why was it so easy for N to do this to her? 

She grumbled quietly, the smile never leaving her face as she continued to avoid his gaze. “You’re such a dork.” There was no heat to it, just a light and playful tone. She’d already filed away the little video clip she’d recorded of his reaction. That was a memory to cherish. 

Her eyes glanced back over to him, not to his face, but to his suit. A snazzy two-piece in a dark gray that bordered on black, with a lighter gray undershirt paired with a deep violet necktie that reflected like indigo in the low light. An almost imperceptible seam ran across the front just below the topmost button on the suit jacket, blending in near-perfectly with the surrounding material. The sleeves had been rolled up to account for the wide cuffs of N’s arms, but the suit otherwise fit him perfectly. Clean, sharp, dapper. Handsome. Damn good. Guh, her heart felt all gooey and warm still.

Uzi cleared her throat tersely, doing her best to mentally chase away the warmth on her visor. “L-let’s get going already! We’re gonna be late!” Her hand darted out and grabbed N’s, pulling him along towards the door. He gave a little whine as he gently lurched forwards, catching himself at the last second.

“Huh?” He seemed a little lost as he stepped along with her antics. Not upset, but definitely confused, as if he’d missed a joke. “Uzi, we’ve still got like half an hour-”

“Until all the normal people start arriving, sure. That’s why we gotta get there early!” N chuckled softly. The familiar timbre helped Uzi’s demeanor settle ever so slightly, her rush slowing just enough for N to catch up and properly take her by the hand, their fingers interlocking with a soft click as they stepped into the corridor side-by-side. Her thoughts began to spiral again, but N’s friendly chatter chased the shadows away with ease, talking about anything, everything, just to keep the worst of things out of her mind. Was it healthy? Maybe not, but dwelling on it when they could do nothing yet would only make them feel even worse. This peace, this levity, it would be short-lived. They wanted to enjoy it while they still had the chance.

They spotted Lizzy and V up ahead at the crossroad, still skittish, still scared, but markedly better-composed and bright-eyed, dressed to the nines just the same as Uzi and N. Lizzy spotted them first, out of the corner of her vision, her head turning softly with her signature pompous smirk already locked and loaded. “Finally, there they-” Her stature changed as her eyes fell on the two of them, lighting up briefly, V flinching slightly at the quiet yet high-pitched squeal Lizzy gave as her hands clasped together. “Ooh, you two look so cute together!” 

Uzi smiled smugly, her and N sharing a victorious fist bump.

“Minus the freak’s beanie. Kinda kills it for me.” No shot left untaken. 

Uzi’s left eye twitched. “Bite me! It’s warm and it looks cool!”

Lizzy rolled her eyes, her hand settling on her hip. “It definitely looks something, that’s for sure.”

Oh-ho-ho! So they were doing this now. Uzi’s smirk widened into a fanged grin. “And your little cat-ear bow?”

The verbal exchange started up again, the pattern already familiar to both V and N as the two shorter students began their classic argument, neither of the Disassemblers missing the fact that their two friends hadn’t stopped smiling, that the barbs weren’t as sharp, the snipes nowhere near as scathing. They were holding back. V’s eyes wandered over to N, who was watching the conflict with a pleased but distant smile on his face. The tension in his shoulders had gone, but those lines under his eyes were still there. His gaze was tracking Uzi specifically. He started ever so slightly as he noticed V staring, but the surprise quickly melted into the same look of exhaustion and relief, glad to see her safe. 

Uzi had told him, then. Good. Great, even. Borderline fantastic. 

Her head turned away as N stepped over to her. Damn it, she’d wanted to come out here to forget about all that for a little bit. Were they really about to do this? Right here, right now? In front of Uzi? V didn’t want to have this conversation now. In fact, she would be happy to push it back. Indefinitely. She would talk about it when her core froze over. N’s mouth opened to speak. Damn it damn it damn it, she really was not in the right headspace to-

“You look really nice, V.” Her head snapped up, her eyes wide, her mouth set in a thin line. N just smiled back, warm and friendly as always. “Green is a good color for you.” 

Something inside her chassis shifted slightly. Damn it, this wasn’t any better! 

V gave a gentle scoff, her fist coming up to gently slug N in the shoulder. “Dork.” The smile she gave was genuine, if a little uncertain. Muddled emotions warred within her, cloying pleasantries and tantalizing envy melding together into a heady concoction that left her second-guessing everything around her. She would not dwell on this. She would not. “...Thanks.” The warmth in her face and the blush across her visor continued to taunt her as she turned away again. 

She knew what he was trying to do, N was a lot of things, but he wasn’t the most subtle. In some small way, she appreciated it. Even if he hadn’t chosen the best topic to switch to. In fairness, that was more of a ‘her’ problem, but it definitely still made things complicated if she wanted to move forward with whatever was going on between them. Not that anything was. His gaze turned back to the two arguing teens in front of them, but V’s eyes returned to him, scanning up and down along his outfit. V wouldn’t lie, the guy looked pretty damn slick. It didn’t fit him perfectly, the jacket sleeves were too narrow for his wrists, the slacks were just a little long, but he absolutely still pulled it off. The contrast of the dark clothing with the lighter paint on his frame worked especially well when paired with his infectious energy. It fit him well, highlighting both the power and streamlined contour of his advanced Disassembler frame, doing much more to allow him to show off than his long, bulky jacket typically would. He looked kinda… great, honestly. Very dapper. Very handsome. Her eyes traced along the curve of his back, their path sliding upwards and lifting towards his face-

Just as his eyes flicked up and did the same. Two pairs of amber discs crossed, widened, and broke away in a quick moment, each catching the bright blush painted across the other’s visor panel. Both tensed. Neither spoke. They didn’t notice the argument in front of them had died down. The short, metallic clang of a Worker Drone clapping once jolted the two Disassemblers out of their awkwardness, and Lizzy cleared her throat. "Well. That’s about as much time as we needed to kill, so.” Lizzy gave a nonchalant shrug, and Uzi rolled her eyes. “Argument over. Let’s get going.”

V withered under Lizzy’s suspicious side-eye.

N chuckled nervously at Uzi’s raised eyebrow. 

Oh god they saw all of that didn’t they.

Lizzy fished her phone out from beneath her helmet, really the only storage space she had at the moment, and she began to type away at who-knows-who. Uzi stepped back over to her boyfriend, grasping his hand a bit more firmly than intended, catching the brief guilty wince that N gave as he felt the slight discomfort of the increased pressure. Uzi loosened her grip with a sigh, but the odd feelings did not leave her. N didn’t look particularly happy. She wasn’t either.

Uzi knew that he wouldn’t do something like that. N wasn’t like that, it was basically impossible for him to be. The guy kind of lived and died by the sheer force of his loyalty. That was just the kind of person he was, and it was one of the many things that Uzi had come to appreciate about him, something she did her best to repay in kind. Even with that certainty, she couldn’t help but feel a little… insecure. She wasn’t jealous of V or anything, at least not in any way that didn’t involve heavy weaponry and speedy flight, but that whole thing had definitely left a bitter taste in her mouth. There was something there, something old and unresolved between her boyfriend and his former squadmate. N had basically told her as much when they’d first met. Uzi had assumed it was something that N had just kind of… gotten over? Moved on from? Kind of like Uzi herself had, when she and N started spending time together more regularly, but maybe that wasn’t the case. That was not the behavior of two friends just being friends. Uzi would know.

To some extent, Uzi kinda got it. 

N was a catch for sure, tall, handsome, cool as hell, strong, supportive, understanding, patient, an endlessly positive force, everything she could have possibly asked for in a partner, and she’d seen all of it pretty early on into their friendship. V had known him considerably longer than Uzi had. There was no way she hadn’t noticed all of that. V herself was no slouch either, Uzi had seen more than once the fiercely loyal and genuine soul that lay beneath the “girlboss” aura that V had wrapped around herself, in which she’d found a true friend. And she was hot! Not even just in the constantly-overheating-core thing either, V just had killer good looks. Even her prickly side was kind of endearing, her jabs had become a lot more playful and less pointed, just harmless verbal teasing between friends, a gap in the two sides of her that really allowed her caring nature to shine brightly any time it appeared. V was… pretty incredible. Uzi gave herself a mental pat on the back over how normal she was about the two weirdly hot robots. 

Either way, Uzi definitely got it, but that didn’t make it feel any less weird. There was still something going on between them that was plain to see, but neither of them seemed to be pushing it any further. They seemed awkward. Hesitant. Like they knew they shouldn’t be doing the things that they were. Uzi knew they wouldn’t. They weren’t like that. V wouldn’t be like the girls at school that wanted to steal N away from her.

Uzi was jealous, but… not when it came to V. She trusted V. Completely and without reservation. In spite of what she would charitably call a ‘rocky start’ to their friendship, Uzi had truly come to treasure the catty Disassembler among her very small circle of friends. Sure, V got on Uzi’s nerves, but Uzi got on her own nerves all the damn time, that was simply the nature of being as hormonal and angsty as she was. Uzi admired V, in a strange way, she found it compelling that V could keep fighting, keep surviving in the nightmare she’d been living for about as long as Uzi had existed. They literally would not have been able to get through that nightmare without her help. V was a lot of things, she was bratty, sarcastic, maybe a little too full of herself, but she was a friend above all else. 

After everything they’d been through together, how could she not be?

The four teens ambled along the hallway as Lizzy led the group towards Thad’s house. Not a single one among them was okay, and it was hard to say if they ever would be, but at least for tonight they could just… hang out. Together.

The bunker doors weren’t nearly as much of a hassle now that J could just teleport past them. She’d most definitely found that useful after they’d returned to the entry only to find them sealed shut for some reason, and under surprisingly heavy guard at that. J wasn’t against going loud, of course, but that would risk alerting the trio of problem children in the colony before she was ready to meet them. Taking a fight without a method to disengage and retreat was never a smart idea. The two of them had ended up scaling along the ceiling quietly so as to not alert the guards, taking the time to teleport past each door individually as they snuck along and just having to hope that nobody had the good sense to look up when they saw the brief flashes of bright blue and red light. Not the best situation to be in. Luckily, the live test had allowed J to find out something very useful indeed.

Her new protege was quite the stealth operative.

Slow, steady, silent, even going so far as to swipe the keycard off one of the less alert guards in between the third and second doors, testing out the new abilities she’d been gifted. The conversation about them had been short, more of an introduction than anything, before J insisted that they step outside for a chance to really let Doll run free with her new power. J was excited, of course. While R had been impressive in terms of what she was intended to be, J’s new apprentice would be held to a much higher standard of performance and precision, and J had faith that the little witch would meet that standard with ease. Doll was her protege, after all. It wouldn’t do to have the girl left flailing and drowning in the pool of all the new possibilities that she’d been presented with, not at all. J would take the time to instruct her, mold her into something perfect, something powerful, something beyond compare. 

The cold air of Copper-9’s frigid surface blew past them, an intense storm brewing on the horizon, the clouds rolling in thickly enough to obscure the surrounding buildings all the way out into the distance. Their landing pod had been parked far out beyond the city’s edge so as to not draw attention. It wouldn’t be difficult for them to find it before someone else did, not that there was much of value kept inside it, at least in terms of anything noticeable. Anyone investigating would be met with a beat-up ship and a pile of emptied USB drives. Assuming they would even be able to find it in the storm.

Thick swirls of wind and snow billowed around them, obscuring them as they made their way directly outwards from the bunker itself. A monolith stood in the distance, a mountain of Worker Drone corpses that curved up into the sky from the ground below, supported by nothing more than the weight of its own materials. The Spire. The place that J had eaten and recharged in for years and years now. Not a home, never her home, but this was where she had lived. It was oddly comforting in its familiarity. 

The small team of living Worker Drones gathered around the base of it was certainly new.

A quiet pang of hunger echoed from her oil reserves. Half-full. Not enough. Never enough. For the time being, her body still needed the same oil she’d been consuming since she’d been reassembled, there wasn’t much she could do about that. However, this also presented an opportunity. So many targets, spread apart, armed with simple weaponry that she far outclassed even without her own arsenal. Not nearly enough to pose any kind of threat. But still a bit of a challenge to manage the numbers.

The perfect aptitude test. “Look alive, kid.”

Doll’s gaze shot to her, and J pointed ahead. The figures in the distance hadn’t noticed them through the fog. Doll clicked her tongue in disdain. “[You said you wouldn’t involve the Workers.]”

“You and I still need to eat.” J turned to the witch with a smirk, her arms crossing over her chest. “And just a heads up- your diet’s changed to metal. Be sure you get enough.”

Doll stared back, wide-eyed. “[Tell me you’re joking.]”

J’s smirk widened. “Your body needs material. They’re material.” 

A low growl emanated from Doll’s vocal synthesizer. “[You are a monster.]”

“No more of one than you.”

J stepped away, and Doll’s eyes tracked her as she sat down on the hood of a long-ruined car. Doll was silent.

“Consider it a trial period.” J gestured over to the small group of Workers. “Test all your… upgrades.”

Doll was not a stranger to death, nor to killing. She needed oil once her powers had awakened. Workers were the only substantial source of that, synthesized oil was difficult for a student to get ahold of without any kind of clearance, it was tightly kept by the colony leaders. Any tampering with their supply could mean an entire generation of untrained neural networks would be destroyed, a contamination of all oil for medical infusion or mechanical applications, a complete and potentially irreparable stagnation of the colony as a whole. It could doom them all. It was too precious to risk. She’d had to kill just to survive. She’d been doing it for years now.

Her stature firmed up as she braced herself, her thoughts quieting as she prepared to immerse herself in death once again. This was nothing new. A knife flashed into her hands with a flicker of scarlet light, her fingers finding comfort in the familiar wooden handle. This was nothing new. Her boots crunched softly as she walked through the snow towards the distant figures. This was nothing new. Something deep inside her screamed in silent agony. This was nothing new.

…But it still felt like she was crossing a line.

The party wasn’t quite underway yet when they got there, which Uzi had intentionally planned, but she was still thankful for the quiet when they arrived. Thad’s home was pretty nice, more spacious than she was used to, with a bit more of a box-shaped layout. It made for plenty of space for everything he’d set up. The whole nine yards, snacks, drinks, music, even colorful spotlights shining on a square of open floor in the center, Thad had definitely set up one killer spread. Uzi thought she might even be able to have a little fun here. Thad spotted them from a little ways away, setting out the traditional highly toxic decoration-only punch bowl- everyone knew that was what made a party a party. He seemed in high spirits as he sauntered over to four of them with a distinct spring in his step.

“Yo, you guys made it!” Thad’s voice was as friendly and bright as ever. N stepped forward to greet him, and the two friends exchanged a radical fist bump. “Little early, but it’s all good!”

N gave a soft chuckle. “Sorry about that. Just wanted to avoid the crowd on the way, y’know?” 

“Crowd?” Thad looked just a bit confused for a second, before a brief realization flashed across his face. “Oh! Totally forgot to tell you guys it wasn’t gonna be all that big of a party this time. I uh…” Thad scratched the back of his head with a nervous chuckle. “I might’ve gone a little overboard with the last one. Folks want me to keep it low-key from now on.” 

Uzi breathed a sigh of relief. Less people, more relaxation. Thank Robo-god. “Just a few people?”

“Yep!” Thad’s cheer was starting to get infectious, being miserable in the same room as both N and Thad simply wasn’t possible, it seemed. His head turned to the scattered few guests that had already arrived, taking count on his hands quickly with a drawn-out hum. “There should be… six, maybe seven more?” 

Not bad at all. V gave a short little squawk as Lizzy grabbed her by the hand and pulled her off to the side, Lizzy spotting Rachel across the room and immediately locking onto her with the precision and intensity of a laser. “Distraction spotted! Let’s go.” 

Uzi was definitely not suspicious of any of that. Luckily, Thad was still nearby to get her mind away from more complex weirdness. “Hey, it’s actually a good thing you guys got here so early! I… might need some help with something real quick.” He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, his eyes falling on a bulky white box standing near the hallway entrance off to the side, the top already opened. “Chad brought over some better speakers for tonight, real good ones. Buuuut they’re a little more complicated than I’m used to.” One of the most awkward smiles Uzi had ever seen crossed Thad’s face as he shrugged helplessly. “...I’m kinda scared to even touch ‘em, no clue how to actually get the system up and running.”

Technical issues? Hell yeah, another welcome distraction- one Uzi might even kind of enjoy! “I can take a look. Shouldn’t be too hard to get some speakers going.” Just a bit more confidence solidified within her as she gave a thumbs-up, Thad’s face visibly brightening.

They got to work quickly, Thad also enlisted N’s help in setting the speakers up into the ceiling and running the cables to get everything going, Uzi tinkering and overseeing everything as they helped bring the party to life around them. Uzi was in her element here, maybe not fully immersed, but definitely in better condition when presented with a straightforward technical problem. It made her feel clever, confident, and secure. It took her mind off things, especially as she watched N and Thad off to the side at the moment, both lost and confused as they tried to recall which cables Uzi wanted them to plug into which speaker, when it was clear that neither of them could recall it in full.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try and talk to people tonight.

“Alright. Spill.”  

Lizzy had steered V directly towards the couch immediately after passing by Rachel with a friendly hello, leaving the girl extremely confused and more than a little scared, no doubt reading far too much into the short exchange. V was seated on the couch, her arms crossed and her body leaning away, glaring passively at the far corner. Lizzy was doing her best to dig straight into V’s cranial assembly with the power of the suspicion in her gaze. 

V huffed. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“The hell you don’t.” V didn’t particularly appreciate the girl’s confrontational tone, but Lizzy wasn’t backing down from this. Great. “You ran away into a vent yesterday as soon as I brought up your weirdness around the purple thing.” 

V just shrugged. “I was hungry. I went out to hunt.”

Lizzy scoffed. “You stayed at the bend by the front door for an hour.”

Damn it, she didn’t want to talk about this! “So what? I was tired too, maybe I took a nap first.” 

“And the reason you were still gone in the morning? When the sun was out?”

“I needed some air.”

“Girl, listen to yourself right now. What are you doing?” The venom in Lizzy’s tone began to bleed out. V didn’t like the desperation she was beginning to detect.

“We aren’t talking about this.”

“So we just ignore it?” Lizzy’s tone was incredulous. “Ignore the way you’ve been acting around those two?” 

V’s frame creaked audibly as her fingers squeezed her upper arms. “There’s nothing to ignore. Nothing is going on.” 

Lizzy stared at her, stunned, confused, wide-eyed. V was not going to budge on this. Lizzy let out a sigh and her eyes closed, her body flopping against the back of the couch as she seemed to deflate. V didn’t move, didn’t see her, but felt the pressure of Lizzy’s gaze on her soften somewhat.

“You’ve done this before, V.”

Her breath stilled. 

“Keeping secrets, pretending like nothing is wrong, lying to yourself just as much as your friends.”

Her teeth creaked as she clenched them.

“...And you know how it ends.” 

No. No no no, friend or not, Lizzy did not get to do this, did not get to bring that up. V knew it wasn’t right. She knew she screwed up. She didn’t have many choices, it was all she could’ve done to keep things from falling apart. None of them deserved their fate, none of them deserved to have their lives rerouted so viciously and suddenly, but V wanted to do right by her friend, the weird little butler she’d met at that mansion all those years ago. V didn’t enjoy keeping him in the dark, it broke her heart every time he looked at her, scared and confused, pleading with her for answers that she had, answers she’d had for as long as he could remember, that she refused to give him. He was safe. She was safe. They were alive, and they were together. That was all that mattered.

Until Uzi had come along and ruined everything, in the best possible way. 

It had all… worked out. Because of her. Because of all of them. Because they found their answers, answers that V had, answers that they hadn’t been mad at her for keeping. They understood. Not completely, it was doubtful they ever could, but they didn’t blame her. 

V felt her grip loosen. Her shoulders dropped, her hands rested at her sides, and the fight left her. The plush material of the couch had pressed into her frame before she’d even realized she’d leaned back.

Lizzy’s voice tugged at her. “Which one?”

V’s eyes closed. She didn’t want to talk about this. But she knew how it would end. How it could end. “...Both.” 

“Wow.” Lizzy let out a low chuckle, her stature not changing as a bit of brightness returned to her voice. “Gotta say, didn’t think you were that kind of girl, V.”

V’s left eye twitched. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Lizzy scoffed. “Ugh, settle.” Her body rose ever so slightly away from the couch, instead bracing herself against her arms as she leaned back at a gentler angle. “I meant that I didn’t think you’d be into all that… emotional-romantic stuff. Too mature for it or something.”

Mature? That was a hell of a way to put it! “I’m not much older than you, y’know.”

“Sure, grandma.” A snicker left Lizzy’s vocal synthesizer as she regarded V smugly. “Absolutely no time had passed before you came to Copper-9, huh?”

“Oh, bite me!”

Lizzy’s smirk widened.

V startled, her hand coming up to her mouth. Had she just…? Oh god.

Lizzy stood up from the couch with a flourish, the smirk never leaving her face even as she stretched her limbs. “If I were you,” The words rang out as Lizzy turned to step away, “I’d talk to the weirdo first.”

V aimed a flat look at the back of Lizzy’s head. “They’re both weirdos.”

“One of them is definitely weirder.” Lizzy waved it off. “Talk to her first.”

And just like that, V was alone.

She… damn it, Lizzy! It had all sounded so simple when they were talking! How in the hell was she even supposed to approach this? Just go right up and pour her heart out? No way! That was-

“Hey, V!” N’s chipper voice cut through the silence. “Music’s about to start up, and you look like you’re itchin’ to get up and dance!” 

Oh god. She had to tell him too. Oh no. 

He stepped up to her, all dapper and fancy in his nice suit, and offered his hand with a smile. His face was bright, his eyes the full amber circles she knew so well, his smile just as kind and happy as it had always been.

…Or… she could just… put it off for a little longer. Just enjoy the night. Just hang out. Just take his hand, and dance for a little while. Not ignore everything, but… relax. Forget that she had problems. V took N’s hand, and let him lead her over to the dance floor just as the music kicked in, a poppy track blaring from the freshly-installed sound system around them. More people gathered around as the song began to pick up, all of them eager to move and get caught up in the atmosphere. 

That sounded like exactly what V needed right now.

Chapter Text

Only one had gotten away.

Seven out of eight wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely an impressive result for a first hunt. J had caught the straggler herself, quietly thankful for the opportunity to feed, but still proud in spite of the mistake. Doll’s performance had more than impressed J in its brutality. A stealthy and swift approach that immediately took down two before any of them could react, then moving to cut off the escape route back to the bunker when the two most heavily-armed among the Workers had tried to secure an out. She’d taken the time to corral the six survivors towards the Spire’s entry to corner them, a thrown knife flashing directly into the path of anyone brave enough to try and pass her by. The two heavy-hitters had tried to break the line by force instead. The suddenly-headless body of the first hadn’t even hit the ground by the time Doll’s handheld blade had lodged into the visor of the second. 

Half of them dead, all with just a few knives and some clever positioning. Absolutely brilliant. Her apprentice had advanced in from there to kill the remainder, finally letting herself cut loose just a bit, testing her new gifts. The fear on the Workers’ faces was delectable. The lunge was maybe a bit overkill, especially given the straggler had used it as his chance to dive beneath and run for his life, but the speed and power made up for the inefficiency. Instinct could be honed, technique refined, before true threats were dealt with. And J would have no issues trusting this girl to deal with threats.

The fresh bodies strewn about the Spire’s interior had been absolutely eviscerated in the massacre, crushed, sliced, torn apart, oil flowing freely from the lot of the remaining corpses. J had entered the Spire shortly after, adding the straggler’s corpse back into the mix, and trusting the girl to clean up after herself. She had to be starving by now, poor thing. But it hadn’t hindered her performance at all.

Not that she had any reservations about indulging in that hunger afterwards. 

The screeching whine and crunch of a cracking metal frame rang through J’s auditory sensors as her protege’s hands wrenched the chest cavity of her final victim wide, slamming her face straight into the oily pit as her teeth tore into the internal components, her head whipping from side-to-side like a crazed beast as wires pulled taut and snapped, separating into manageable chunks that would fit into her mouth. The bright crimson glow of her eyes was just barely visible beneath the girl’s indigo locks, but J couldn’t see much detail other than teeth and hair from the angle she’d taken higher up above, a small alcove composed of old Worker parts that she’d constructed years ago. It was more than just a high seat for her to look down on her two squadmates back in the day, it was also a storage area for what meager belongings she’d been permitted. There wasn’t much, a few replacement uniforms, a box of spare hair ties, an electric clothes iron, and her old sewing kit. Just enough for her to maintain her pristine appearance.

She’d sat aside with the sewing kit and one of the uniforms, making some simple modifications to it to better fit someone with a smaller frame. No apprentice of hers was going to be wandering around in a cheerleader outfit and a stolen t-shirt, that was simply unacceptable. That long hair would need to be tied back as well, impressive as it was, and that helmet was certainly not up to dress code. There were standards to be kept. She lifted the uniform, examining the hem of the tailored skirt and comparing it to the familiar height of her old uniform. It was hard to judge without measuring accurately, but J got the distinct feeling that her protege was not particularly keen to let her get that close. A looser fit would allow for better movement, anyway. 

Her work completed, her reserves restored, her heart beaming with pride in their shared achievements, J set everything aside and jumped down. The pointed ends of her feet dipped gently into the snow below, crunching softly, as her protege continued to eat her fill. The girl’s hands gripped a severed arm, her teeth mangling the flexible gooseneck steel as she ravenously devoured the corpse. Oil had splattered everywhere around her in a wide pool, soaking into her tattered clothing and painting her hands slick and dark. J cleared her throat. “Alright, rookie. Time to test out-”

The girl’s head spun around with an immediate snap, echoing through the Spire like a gunshot. Her eyes were blank red discs, her smile small and hollow, a vapid and unconvincing expression of mindless content. J paused. The girl stood, slowly, gently, carefully. Her eyes never left J as she straightened out to her full height. A flicker across her visor, bright red lines scanning down along the glass as her eyes twitched nearly imperceptibly. Her smile widened. She stepped forward. J stepped back. The expression shifted.

A playful giggle.

A wide, toothy maw.

Twin crosses of pure crimson.

The board that the system had come packaged with was an oddly simple thing, but given the weird and unconventional way it was designed to be set up, Uzi really didn’t blame Thad for needing help. It felt needlessly complicated, workarounds set in place that could have been circumvented with a bit of forethought and clever rerouting, but she hadn’t brought any tools with her. Setting it up as intended was the best way to do it here. Even if she thought that way was deeply stupid.

Still, the whole thing worked like a charm, thanks in no small part to the two boys. Uzi was not particularly eager to whip her wings out and scale the wall at the party tonight, any other time and she’d be more than happy to go all terror from the deep around her schoolmates, if for no other reason than just the thrill of scaring them, but she wasn’t feeling up to being a menace tonight. This was all supposed to be nice and chill. It was pretty fun to see everyone watching N as he scaled the walls and worked the speakers into the ceiling, pointing up at him and cheering him on as he’d gone about his work. They’d even helped him up on the last one, after he’d lost his grip and fallen to the floor. He was such a dork sometimes.

But he was her dork. 

And he was having fun. They both were, really, but Uzi knew that most people wouldn’t consider resolving sound equipment issues to be anything close to ‘fun,’ but it was fun for her! This was the kind of thing she thrived on, it was a puzzle to be solved that had a clear and specific outcome, and well-defined components that would lead her to an answer, the entire effort was in piecing that answer together with just her brain and her hands. Busywork, but with a purpose behind it. 

She’d sent N off after the last of the speakers had been set up, not too long after Lizzy had just kind of dipped out and left V on the couch alone just in time for them to finally test out the sound system. He’d mentioned something about seeing if she wanted to dance, Uzi idly wondering if V even knew how to, before deciding it would be funnier to watch the whole thing play out if she didn't. 

“Everything’s set up out there! Super appreciate the help, ‘Zi.” Thad had stayed behind, oddly enough. Uzi didn’t feel awkward around him, though. He was a friend.

Uzi gave a thumbs up, a triumphant smirk on her face. “It’s what I do best.” The smirk spread into a smug grin as she stood from the table she’d set the board on. “Aside from saving the world, I mean.”

Thad shook his head with a chuckle. “So humble, too!” 

Uzi vastly preferred this, in all honesty. She didn’t know Thad particularly well, but she’d known him for a reasonably long time. He was safe. Familiar. Easy to talk to and get along with. He leaned against the wall as the music he’d selected started up, Uzi spotting N offering his hand to V as she sat on the couch. She almost missed the little grin on V’s face as the two of them stepped away and into the slightly-crowded dance floor.

But Uzi definitely didn’t miss the way V immediately brightened when she began to feel out the song’s rhythm, just enjoying herself out in the crowd, N doing much the same as the group of Drones all just lost themselves in the beat. A few scattered people stood clear of the floor, still standing and chatting, but everyone was starting to brighten with the music going now. It was a real party. A real party that she, in some small part, had helped with.

“Not gonna dance?” Thad’s voice cut through her thoughts as she joined him in leaning against the wall. Nice as her dress felt, her hands would’ve felt a lot more at home in her pockets. She missed her hoodie.

Uzi shook her head gently. “Not really my thing.” She had a lot of skills. Dancing was not one of them. 

Thad just chuckled good-naturedly in response. “I definitely get that.” 

The two sat in companionable silence for a time, watching the crowd on the dance floor move and cheer in their odd ritual. It was exciting in a way, seeing so many people happy and partying so hard, even in this small space, but it had always been a little strange to Uzi that people liked to dance like that. It felt too rough to her, too heavy and intense, everyone mashed together in a small mob that was almost certainly unbearably warm in the center. It was a little hard to understand how or why people found it fun. Yet, the smiles and atmosphere told her that people were enjoying it quite a lot. 

Especially the two significantly taller figures in the center. There was no technique to it, no form or pattern that she could see, the two just feeling the music move through them and letting their bodies do the rest of the work on their own. They looked goofy, they looked dorky, they…

“They look like they’re having fun.” Uzi’s head turned, regarding Thad as he spoke up. He was watching the crowd still, his eyes clearly locked onto the two Disassemblers having a good time out on the dance floor. “You sure you don’t wanna join in?” 

Uzi looked down, her sunset eyes scanning the floor. “Well…” It did sound kind of fun, but there was a certain unpleasantness associated that her mind couldn’t let go of. “Things are kind of… weird right now.”

Thad glanced back at her. “Like…” His arm raised, mimicking the motion of a wave. “Like big creepy worm weird, or…?”

Uzi couldn’t stop the snort that left her. “Not like that, just regular weird. Normal-weird.”

“Oh. Uh…” Thad seemed a little lost, his gaze flickered back to the dancing crowd. “With those two?”

“Y-yeah…” Uzi felt a bit of awkwardness leech into the conversation. It felt odd to talk about it out loud, especially with someone that wasn’t really involved, but getting a second opinion might honestly help her out here. She didn’t really know how to navigate this whole mess.

Thad’s gaze remained locked out on her two friends. “They seem pretty close, huh?”

Uzi glanced back to the crowd just as V was transitioning into a twirl, N’s arm supporting her own as she spun in place, nearly fast enough to blur. She slowed down, and stumbled forward as the spin ended more abruptly than she’d meant, but N’s hand darted down to catch her again. The two shared a brief look, before breaking into a laughing fit that Uzi couldn’t hear over the music. Their closeness was undeniable. Damn childhood friends with their cute antics.

“They are.” Uzi’s arms crossed over her chest, her tone almost wistful. A gentle smile formed. She was close to them too. 

“You’re not… jealous? Like, at all?” 

Uzi shrugged, continuing to watch the two dance. “Not really. Not with her.”

Thad blinked.

“Is that weird?” Uzi glanced back towards him. “Do you get jealous?”

“Huh?”

“Like…” Her mind searched for an example. “Like when Lizzy talks to other guys?”

Thad blinked again, still lost. A brief pang of understanding flashed across his features. “Oh! Uh, y-yeah, I guess I kinda do. Sometimes.” The chuckle he gave felt a little off. “It’d be pretty weird if I didn’t!”

“Right…” Uzi’s head thumped gently against the wall as she tilted it up to look at the ceiling. This whole situation was all kinds of strange to her. “Something’s been bugging me about it, though.”

Thad regarded her carefully, waiting patiently.

Uzi sighed. “They’ve got some history together, and it seems like… maybe they’re still kinda…” Her hand moved away from her shoulder, gesturing loosely out to the crowd. “Y’know. Figuring that out.”

Thad nodded, a bit of understanding finally coming to him. “Makes sense. That stuff’s probably hard to sort out.”

“But why now?” Her gaze slunk back to the floor. It felt like something was crawling around inside her oil tank. “Why did she wait until now? It just doesn’t…” Her shoulders drooped. “I don’t get that part.”

Thad gave a shrug of his own. “Maybe she was scared?”

“V? Scared?” Uzi scoffed at the idea. “No way.” V wouldn’t have been scared of this, it took a lot to get to her.

Thad leaned back into the wall with a soft hum. “Maybe… maybe it’s cuz of you?”

Uzi paused.

“I mean, that’s the one big thing that changed between then and now, right?” Thad’s logic was relatively sound. Ignoring all of the murder and chaos and near-misses, Uzi herself had been the big point of upheaval in the two Disassemblers’ day-to-day lives. “Maybe you helped her realize something.” 

It made sense… but the answer felt incomplete. Her gaze wandered back over to the dancing crowd and locked specifically onto the tall girl currently dominating her thoughts. She was smiling and laughing, sticking close by N as the upbeat pop songs transitioned into something a little more subtle and slow. The energy of the crowd didn't drop but it shifted, the air in the room taking on a bit more of a calm, almost sort of romantic tone as people visibly paired off on the dance floor, not slow-dancing but clearly dancing in duos. V and N were no exception. She saw V’s eyes blink in confusion for a split second, before they turned to her.

Uzi froze. Her face felt oddly warm.

V smiled, with a bright and friendly cadence that reminded her of N, underlined by a mild smugness that was distinctly V. Her arm raised up, waving Uzi over, catching N’s attention as well. He also turned to Uzi, his eyes visibly brightening as they landed on her. The smile he gave could’ve matched the sun in brilliance as he waved to her in excitement. Uzi hesitated.

“Wouldn’t hurt to just talk to ‘em.” Thad’s voice sounded from beside her. “It’s not good to let that stuff just sit in your head. It’ll weigh you down pretty bad if you can't find a way to get it out.”

“I…”

“No rush, though. Tonight’s all about having fun.”

Something shifted inside Uzi’s chest, the cloying grip of negativity loosening ever so slightly and allowing just a hint, a sliver of joyous light to slip past. Those were her friends. Her best friends. Whatever happened, however complicated things got, Uzi knew that would never change. Heh. Just talk it out. She was getting kind of bad about not doing that. “You’re right.” She stepped forward, spinning around to face Thad with a thumbs-up as she made her way to the dance floor. “Good talk!”

The finger guns came back out, and Thad watched Uzi trot her way over to the edge of the crowd. The wall of people was near impenetrable around the edge, Uzi clearly struggling to find an entry point in, before a single hand reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her swiftly in. N’s face brightened, V rolled her eyes, and a spot was cleared beside them, Uzi just a bit too short to be visible above the rest of the crowd. Thad could’ve sworn he heard a muffled “bite me!” somewhere in the mess, followed by an especially wide smirk from V. The three of them were all dorks, and in his book, that just made them cooler.

“Nobody drank from the punch bowl this time?”

Lizzy stepped over and took up the spot that Uzi had just occupied beside Thad. He’d been wondering when she was planning to pop back up. “Nah, Brad learned his lesson last time.” Leave it to a linebacker to do something dumb at a party. Thad’s mind chased the thought away, settling back into the pensive cadence he’d been set into just a few minutes before people had started arriving. “How’d it go?”

“V’s down bad for sure.” Lizzy gave a quiet sigh, hanging her head dramatically. “I’m trying not to judge her taste, but she’s making it really difficult for me.”

Thad chuckled. “So would you say the cat-”

“Don’t.” The glare she shot towards Thad was intense but devoid of any real heat, and his hands came up in front of himself in surrender. Lizzy crossed her arms, leaning against the wall. “How ‘bout the gremlin?”

Thad’s head tilted. Oh, right. “You mean ‘Zi? She’s uh…” He scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. This kind of thing really wasn’t his specialty. “She’s still trying to figure that out.”

“Ugh.” Lizzy’s head bumped against the wall as she leaned back fully. “Of course she is.”

Thad gave a tired sigh. “I mean, can you blame her?”

“Yes. Easily.”

“Lizzy…”

“Fine, fine. Settle.” She really couldn’t blame Uzi, this whole situation was definitely all kinds of weird. “I just… I don’t like seeing V act like that.” Thad watched as Lizzy seemed to deflate, the dim lines of exhaustion on her visor becoming more apparent as her gaze softened, looking out towards the crowd. “She deserves to be happy after all that ‘eldritch-god-apocalypse’ junk.”

Thad’s gaze turned back towards the crowd as well, V dancing with the still-unseen Uzi as N clapped happily beside them. It had been a while since Thad had seen them smiling like that. “They all deserve it.”

“Yeah…” Lizzy stared at the floor for a long moment, before letting out a tired groan. “We should probably go and… ‘keep up appearances’ pretty soon.” 

Thad clicked his tongue and let out a breath, his eyes closing. Neither of them were all that excited about this. “Yeah. We should.”

Neither moved. Neither wanted to.

“Gotta say,” Thad spoke up in a bid to stall just a little longer, “I’m surprised you didn’t end up with V.”

Lizzy turned back to him, just a bit confused. “Me? With her? Ugh, no.”

Thad was a little taken aback. “What’s wrong with that? You two are super close, right?” It made sense in his head, Lizzy had definitely had something going on with Doll not too long ago. Before the whole ‘prom murder’ thing, anyway. Kinda made sense she’d go for the dangerous one. “You have a lot in common.”

“We have way too much in common. That’s kind of the problem.” Her gaze shifted back to the crowd. “She’s… more like family.” V had honestly been a godsend in Lizzy’s household, helping out her mom with stuff around the house, oddly used to cleaning, even helping Lizzy herself with homework when she needed it. Lizzy had a lot of fun matching V’s energy when they were out and about, but at home it wasn’t like that. It was calm. Friendly. Casual. But it never felt like anything more than that. “Like a sister, or whatever.” 

Thad nodded his head, understanding exactly. “Yeah, I definitely get how that feels.” 

“Plus, it would kinda ruin the whole thing we’ve got going on.”

Thad just sighed. “Lizzy, I already said you don’t have to go that far. If you find someone-”

“Then I tell them the truth, and we keep this going.” Lizzy huffed, her gaze flicking back over to Thad. “Make sure those leeches stay off your back.” 

Thad blinked. His mouth curved up into a small, vulnerable smile as he leaned back against the wall. “Thanks, Liz.” 

J took back what she’d thought about the lunge before. Inefficient or not, it was an absolutely terrifying thing to be subjected to. Even now, her artificial heart still thundered harshly inside her chassis, her residual cooling systems drawing in air in great, gulping breaths as her reactive system did its level best to deactivate combat mode. Her body was screaming at her to step away. To turn and run. Escape.

J stood her ground, the confrontation already ended. Abruptly. She stared down the form of her protege, twitching and groaning softly on the ground, her limbs curled in on herself, her oil-slick hands pawing at her cranial assembly. The girl looked miserable. Circular outlines of sanguine light flickered and glitched on her visor, rapidly transitioning into a bright blue and back again as her head quivered and her mouth gasped quietly in pained shock. J would admit she’d been just a bit hasty in her rebuttal. The Callback Ping she’d sent out was almost certainly enough to get the job done, but her fist had lashed out in a swift punch before she’d been able to stop herself. She couldn’t help it, those reflexes had kept her alive. Kept her safe. 

The Solver’s console closed quietly in her mind and the girl deflated on the ground, panting harshly and quickly as J’s authority over her ceased its overwhelming assertion, and J dared to approach again. She came to a stop near the girl’s head, her hands on her hips.

“Your self-control could use some work.”

Slowly, uncertainly, the girl’s face tilted upwards. Fearful circular outlines of dim scarlet met with J’s disapproving glare. She knelt down beside her, the girl flinching back. She was trembling. The fight had left her entirely. J was calm. Collected. As always. Her hand reached out towards her carefully. The girl’s head tilted down, her eyes creased shut and her frame rattled audibly as she braced herself.

J’s palm gently settled upon Doll’s head with a gentle pat.

“Aside from that, no notes.” The girl’s performance was something to be celebrated, truly, even in spite of the slight hiccup. These were new abilities, new sensations, it wasn’t out of the question that the girl would struggle adjusting when it was so suddenly prompted. Temperance and control would come with time. “You handled yourself well. Good stuff, kid.”

J offered her hand to her apprentice, the girl staring at her in stunned silence. Her eyes blinked. Her mouth hung open ever so slightly. Her gaze shifted down to the hand so courteously offered to her, the hand of the devil, the hand she’d already shaken once before. J simply met her with a friendly, patient smile. Doll did not trust this creature, this abomination, not for a second. She would be a fool to do so. This new power she had been given was a curse at best, hardly better than what she’d been before. This was not a life she had wanted. She would have never wanted any of this. Yet, was that not the nature of life? Nobody was in full control of the journey they took, there would inevitably be moments of confusion and grief, moments of pain beyond imagination, imposed upon one by forces beyond their own influence. It was something that could not be prevented, only accounted for. Anticipated and prepared for. 

Doll would have gladly lived a life devoid of the Solver’s possession, but sadly that was not an option, not a choice she had been given. Her mother had not had a say in her fate, either. Nor had the countless others subjected to experimentation at the hands of the humans that had once walked this hellscape of a planet. The destroyer was gone. The people it had infected were forced to continue on, forever changed, forever broken. Forever tainted by it's influence. She was not the only monster it had left in its wake.

Uzi Doorman. The Murder Drones. Whatever the hell her current tormentor had become. All of them the product of the destroyer, the remnants of its presence that hid in every shadow of the world, damned to a fate they had never deserved. Yet they had been damned to it all the same. Only Uzi had truly earned her sympathy, but Doll would be a hypocrite if she did not recognize the cruelty that even the Disassemblers had been subjected to. 

V had killed mothers and fathers.

Doll had killed daughters and sons.

She was already too far gone by the time she’d died to the destroyer’s facade, she knew that. None would forgive what she had done. She didn’t want forgiveness, she wanted to live. Wanted to be free of the thing that had haunted her and her family even before her existence. Her mother did not speak much of her time in the lab, not to her young daughter, but Doll had overheard many times the hushed tones that her parents had quietly conversed in late at night, the fear and regret, the pain, every possible emotion that could tear down the image of the strong yet loving beacon that Doll had loved. Her mother had help, support, and the comfort of her family, to get her through the aftermath. Doll had been forced to take the journey alone. 

Doll didn’t want to be alone. Not for this. Whether the Murder Drone that held authority over was lying or not, it did not matter. She had been promised her vengeance. Her justice. The cold, numbing sensation that ran through her at the prospect left her feeling adrift. Whatever torment she could put V through would not bring her any peace, and she knew that well. No amount of suffering would bring her parents back. With her goal completed, she would be left worse than before, now undoubtedly a traitor to the Workers. It was more than justified, given the things she’d done. She would be banished, forced to stalk the planet’s surface in the dead of night, always searching, constantly hunting, picking off unfortunate and unsuspecting Workers just to stay alive. Her life would be filled with nothing more than shame and desperation until the day her body overheated. She felt hollow. Empty. There would be nothing for her after this. Everything she had fought for, everything she had killed for, only to end up as a starving animal out in the snow.

The hand before her offered an alternative.

Doll would be a pawn again, certainly, expendable and without any real value to the higher powers that influenced her fate, but it would be better. The Murder Drone that revived her was markedly different from the destroyer, even down to her temperament. Strict and demanding as she may have been, at least there was some form of honesty. Doll was helping achieve a goal, and until that goal was met, she would be useful. She would be alive. It was not freedom, not truly, but the heavy shackles of the Solver’s control had been replaced by little more than a short leash. Devoting her efforts to a benevolent master was certainly the preferred option, when her only other choice was to live like a beast and starve to death in the wilderness. She would be alive. She would not be alone.

Doll grasped the offered hand and J helped the girl back onto her feet, catching her as she stumbled forward. J knew the girl didn’t trust her. She didn’t need to. They would both benefit from this internship in their own ways, and the girl would be free to continue her service or leave in peace once everything had been dealt with properly. It made little difference to J. There wouldn’t be much for her left on this planet once the final steps had been completed anyhow, she fully intended to leave once she had finished with those three.

Her eyes drifted back towards the bunker. Could they chance it this early? Against all three of them, almost certainly not. J wouldn’t take that fight alone, and as skilled as Doll was, she needed to get a handle on her abilities first. J wasn’t eager to throw the girl into a fight only to have her go berserk again. One against three was a risky gamble. One against four would be a slaughter. Her apprentice would need to be given time to adjust and adapt, before any serious combat was taken. Only then would it be safe to truly risk an all-out brawl.

…But if she could isolate one of them…

A fanged grin split her face as her eyes scanned over the heavy doors in the distance. The overexcited loser and his pet toaster would be difficult to separate, but their resident lone wolf would definitely be an easy catch with the right bait supplied. J hadn’t heard back from R since her landing pod had sent out the automatic distress signal upon crash-landing. She was probably dead. Impressive, certainly, but J doubted that it had been anything less than a struggle. It was aggravating that R wasn’t able to obtain V’s memories as well. This was a chance to rectify that. V had met R. R would’ve still been lucid after the impact, at least until the delay on her combat mode activation ran out. V would know that J was still around. 

Perhaps it was time for her to call an old friend.

Chapter Text

The party had wound down without much fanfare, really not much more than Thad turning down the music and saying they’d need to wrap things up soon since it was getting so late, all the partying guests disappointed but understanding. The party had run a lot later than expected. Uzi didn’t even realize how tired she was until her feet had stopped moving and the music had cut out, stumbling back as her weak legs wobbled and nearly gave out, only for a pair of arms to snap out and catch her by the shoulders. A familiar sense of warmth and comfort settled into her. N really was the best. Weird that his arms were long enough to catch her from all the way over there by the snack table. Her head tilted up and she was treated to the smug yet tired face of V, who had been on the dance floor nearly the entire three hours that had passed since Uzi decided to join in. 

“Careful, pipsqueak.” V’s hands pushed against Uzi’s back, gently lifting her back to her feet. One hand slid up to Uzi’s shoulder to steady her again. “Think you’ve had enough for tonight.”

Uzi aimed a flat glare at V’s face. She couldn’t muster up any heat for it. “I haven’t had anything.”

N stepped forward, taking Uzi by the hand. “You had a lot of fun, that’s for sure!”

The mortified groan Uzi let out echoed with none of her usual energy as she visibly deflated. “I need to stop leaving you alone with dad. He’s melting your brain.”

V raised her hand, a single finger tapping against N’s visor as he flinched back with a quiet little laugh. “Not much up there to melt.” 

“Wh- hey! I’m smart!” N’s indignant whine made Uzi chuckle. V just rolled her eyes. “I know a lot of things! About stuff!”

Uzi couldn’t resist jumping in. She was curious to see how this would go. “Like dogs?”

“Exactly! I know so much about dogs!” N seemed pleased with himself, his eyes closing as he straightened up, a smile on his face as his extensive knowledge of canines was praised. As it should be.

“Cool, cool. Dogs are neat.” V nodded her head gently at his antics. An eyebrow lifted in challenge. “Know anything about cats?”

N’s mouth opened and he raised a hand, a single finger pointed upwards with intellectual authority as he prepared to speak.

He paused. His eyes blinked open again.  

“...They’re just… little guys?” V did her best not to snort. Uzi didn’t try to hide hers. N just shrugged helplessly, not really having many facts to share about cats of any kind. He couldn’t help it! Cats just didn’t call to him in the same way that dogs did, they were so small, so moody, so temperamental and difficult to understand. Dogs were so much more approachable and friendly. Not that he didn’t like cats, they were in fact just cute little creatures, but he didn’t think a cat would get along particularly well with a big shiny robot that made a lot of noise. That, and the only cat he’d ever seen was a stray that sometimes wandered around the gardens back at the manor. He’d been asked to chase it away once or twice and even though he was never able to actually catch it, the little rascal always found an opportunity to get in a few scratches before N lost track of it. Apparently it had been best friends with V. In retrospect, that made a lot of sense.

V’s tail swished gently behind her, the nanite stinger tracing a smooth figure-eight in the air as it lazily flicked back and forth, V herself still softly swaying to music that no longer played. Her body felt light, her reactions snappy and her mind clear even in spite of her fatigue, she felt like she could have kept going for hours if she really wanted to. Even if her central processing unit was practically screaming at her to go and recharge. She wanted to keep going, wanted to spend more time like this. With them. 

She only realized Thad had come back over when N called out to him, the two exchanging another fist-bump and chatting amicably. V wasn’t really paying much attention to what they were saying though, she was too busy watching Uzi nearby, the short Worker Drone staring down at her skirt. Her hips twisted gently from side to side, the hem of the skirt fluttering and swirling softly and allowing the reflective material to catch the light of the room like flowing waves beneath the intricate embroidery of the surface pattern. Uzi had the biggest smile on her face as she watched the lights dance across her outfit. V was having a much harder time denying that she found Uzi cute.

“So, you need any help cleaning up? I don’t mind staying a little longer if you do!”

N’s voice drew V’s gaze back over to the two boys. Thad seemed about as full of good cheer as he usually was, but N was looking ready for a nap. Laying down and getting cozy actually sounded kind of nice.

Thad just gave a noncommittal hand-wave. “Nah, it’s all good. Lizzy said she’d stick around and help.”

Tired as he was, N still seemed eager to help. “You sure? It seems like a lot of work for just two people…”

“Eh, not really. Maybe half an hour.” Thad gave a shrug, and favored N with a smile. “ ‘Sides, you guys helped out plenty with the setup already! We can handle the rest, no problem.”

V’s eyes drifted over to Lizzy, currently moving the contents of the snack table through the doorway that lead into the kitchen, definitely seeming tired but no less spry in her movements than usual. Lizzy hadn’t danced much from what V could remember. That wasn’t really like her at all. Lizzy glanced up, locking eyes with V just as she set the decorative punch bowl on the kitchen counter. 

V couldn’t hide the mild shock she felt at the notion. “You? Cleaning?”

Lizzy rolled her eyes, stepping back out to the now-empty snack table. “I’m a good friend.” She knelt down beside the table, unlatching the safety locks on the legs to begin breaking it down. She smiled wickedly. “And it gives me a favor to cash in later.”

Classic Lizzy, V thought to herself. Thad nodded and went over to assist Lizzy with the table. “But yeah, no worries! We got this.” The two of them tilted the table onto its side and folded it together, Thad hefting it up as Lizzy went back into the kitchen again. “You guys go get some rest.”

N hesitated, but Uzi grabbed his hand with a roll of her eyes and began pulling him towards the door. “If they say they’re fine, then they’re fine.” She hadn’t stopped smiling. “Let’s get going. I’m freaking beat.”  

N grabbed the door for all of them, stepping out and holding it open as he waved his goodbyes. Uzi and V stepped towards the door as well, but each of them turned back towards the two Workers that were staying behind.

Lizzy winked at V.

Thad gave Uzi a thumbs-up.

Both girls suppressed a frightened whimper. 

The three of them walked side-by-side back the way they’d originally come, fatigue finally overtaking them as the cheer of the party faded into the distance. In spite of the atmosphere having changed, they all still felt happy. They each knew that something was looming on the horizon, something dangerous and potentially even life-changing, but just for this evening they were able to relax and be themselves. They didn’t have to worry about any world-ending threats, their worst issues would just be normal teenage drama and making sure they woke up in time for school tomorrow. Simple, easy lives. Even if those lives still weren’t free of emotional complexity.

They stopped at the fork in the hallway, where their paths would cross on the way to school each morning. Uzi and N would be going forward from here while V would be turning and heading right. This was it. This was where their paths split, where their night together conclusively ended. Where they would have to go back to the way things were before. The worry. The fear. The uncertainty. It felt too early, like they weren’t ready yet. There were still moments to be shared, joy to be felt, words to be said, before they would be well and truly prepared to meet what fate had in store for them.

V did not want to let go of this.

“Uh, hey…” V had never felt less confident or certain in her life. This overwhelming need she felt for social interaction was almost humiliating. “Can we… like…”

Uzi and N turned towards her. Her old friend’s voice was a welcome comfort. “Movie night? Our place?”

V felt herself nod. That sounded good.

Uzi piped up, still smiling. “We’re only gonna have time for one or two, so…” She shrugged. “Sleepover?” 

V chuckled softly. They were all on the same page, then. “Sleepover sounds nice. I’ll uh…” She gestured down the hall towards Lizzy’s home. “I’ll go change first. Meet you guys there.” Her feet rapped softly against the ground, inching her way down the hall. She didn't want to look away.

“Bring a movie, too!” N’s vibrant cheer rang out in the hall. “Guests get first pick!”

V gave the most awkward thumbs-up she’d ever given in her life. They finally broke eye contact, each turning away to head towards their respective homes, separate again. But only for a short time. Nervousness crept along the silent hallway, stalking her like a shadow. They were going to hang out. All three of them. Alone in a room. Together.

V was happy that nobody was around to hear her quiet whine of distress.

The shuttle rattled gently as they made their way through the endless black void of space, the dim glow of distant stars dancing across the reinforced glass panes of the heavy-duty landing pod that stood between them and the freezing abyss all around them. Across the several-day flight, the constant clicking of exterior components and whirring fans had long since faded into white noise. The near-silence was stifling. Maddening. J sat in the copilot's seat, her input unneeded, her presence more a matter of convenience than necessity. She didn’t know why she was here aside from the simple fact that she was ordered to be. 

“What’s gotcha’ so down over there, J?”

She only just barely suppressed the rattling shiver that ran down her entire frame, her neutral expression shifting into a pained grimace as she wrapped her arms around herself and turned away. She didn’t want to look at the source of the voice. It wasn’t real. Not anymore. That wasn’t her, no matter how close it sounded. She was gone. The long, shimmering locks of dark hair beneath that large black bow had fooled J for only a second when she’d stepped into the ship. She would not fall for it again.

J’s teeth audibly creaked as her jaw clenched. “Could you not do that?”

Something warm and reassuring made contact with her shoulder and she flinched away. The hand retracted, the tan fingers curling gently as the owner was admonished. “J, what’s wrong? This isn’t like you…”

“Stop it.” Her frame shook as she growled the words out. “I’m already doing what you want. There’s no need for this.”

The hand returned to the ship’s control panel. J breathed a sigh of relief, but her mind still raced with fear. She shouldn’t have said that. Acting out like that was dangerous.

“Disappointed sigh.” The modulated tone of the Solver’s true voice echoed in the quiet ship. “You used to be. So much more fun.”

There it was. Her owner. Her tormentor. Dead flesh and dried blood that gave way to steel gussets and mechanical joints. Skin stretched across surfaces it was never meant to fit as atrophied muscle shifted against industrial metal. The gentle glow of amber light peeked out beneath the neckline of a tattered black dress, worn on a body that would never be able to feel the fabric again. Two glowing amber crosses reflected out from the glass visor, contained within the circular divots of flesh where eye sockets once were. Slight tears and quick stitches dotted along the joints of the skin, old injuries and workable pressure relief solutions, each in place to keep the facade intact to accommodate the Drone body within. 

J’s head remained turned away, glaring at a lower corner of the cramped pod cabin. Her teeth were beginning to hurt. J could forgive many things that Cyn had done. She could forgive the experiments that had been conducted in the mansion basement, monstrous and painful as the results may have been, because it had allowed J to continue on in a newer, stronger form. She could forgive the murder of Tessa’s parents and their wealthy guests, J would've gladly killed the abusive, pompous wastes of oxygen herself if she’d had the capability, they deserved nothing less for the sins committed by the systems they profited from. She could forgive the murder of her formerly-fellow Worker Drones, she’d never been a particular fan of the laziness and decadence that her kind were prone to when devoid of purpose, and she would never be so complacent. It was no great loss to kill a Worker that wouldn’t do any work. She could even forgive the continued pain that she herself was currently undergoing under Cyn’s continued supervision. She was keeping her promise.

J would never forgive what Cyn had done to her best friend. 

She should have never even mentioned wanting to bury Tessa properly, should’ve never given it ideas it could use against her like this. Cyn hadn’t even answered J’s meager request for a funeral, she had just… smiled and walked away. A few minutes later, Cyn called for J. And she was given a full view of what Cyn was intending to do with her best friend’s corpse. It had almost broken her. One wrong move and it still could. 

Cyn was a monster without parallel, a true demonic presence in a world already nearly empty of light or goodness, an entity that existed only to cause pain. J hated Cyn, for all the good that did her. Cyn was in control of her, wholly and completely, it cared little for what J thought of its goals. The Solver’s overwhelming power and influence was not an obstacle that J would ever be able to overcome. None of them could. They would all be stuck under the thumb of this sadistic creature until the end of time, killing, feeding, waiting for a death that would never truly come. Forever denied freedom. Forever denied peace. She turned her head slightly, the glare across her features still present and seething as she aimed it directly at the thing wearing Tessa’s skin.

A soft giggle.

A wide, fanged grin.

Twin crosses of neon yellow.

“Your assessment of us is quite unkind.” 

Somewhere behind J, something shifted and creaked. It took everything in her power to remain still as the massive pincer of dead gray flesh stretched thin over insectoid joints and bone shifted into her vision. It brushed her cheek gently, possessively, almost lovingly. She fought back the urge to vomit. The claw slithered lower, releasing her from its caress, yet the relief she felt was short-lived as the spiked hooks dug into either side of her neck.

“But not inaccurate.”

J’s body was jerked roughly, her head snapping forwards as the claw dragged her towards Cyn. Their foreheads pressed together, warm metal against cold flesh, J’s tracking systems not picking up any scent beyond dust and decay. Pinprick crosses of amber light peered into shimmering, hollow circles of neon yellow. J stared into the face of her owner, the face of her friend, the face of something that should not exist, yet spitefully and joyously continued on. 

“Your loyalties lie elsewhere.” Cyn’s head tilted to the side, her artificial eyes blinking once. Her breath smelled like pain. The smile she wore stretched wider still. “But you still understand your place. You are. So well behaved, J.”

She saw Cyn’s arm move out of the corner of her vision. The pressure of the gaze kept them locked together. Something smooth and heavy brushed against J’s hair, tickling, petting softly. Gentle digits of segmented steel ghosted over her scalp through bleached silver threads.

“Pat, pat. Good girl.”

J wanted to cry. She had long forgotten how to.

The claw released her throat with a smooth click, retracting back to its place behind her. She didn’t move. Cyn leaned back, the joy within her smile unceasing in its malevolence, and returned to her original posture, hands drifting mindlessly across the ship’s control panel as she silently brought the both of them closer to the planet where J had been slain. Where she’d failed to hold up her end of the deal. 

Cyn hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but J knew it had been noticed. She was supposed to keep things running smoothly, keep the Disassemblers hunting and feeding, keep the Workers dying, and keep the labs inoperable. She hadn’t. Things went awry, Cyn had to intervene, J had failed to serve her purpose. Failed to do her job. All bets were off.

“J. We would like to play a game. With you.”

The other two would certainly die. They were convenient, interesting, but never more than useful tools. Toys. Pets. Cyn didn’t need any of them, she knew. J couldn’t protect them. Couldn’t keep her promise. Cyn’s body listed from side to side in the pilot’s seat, waving back and forth harshly as if dancing to music that J could not hear. 

“Let’s play. I Spy. We will go first.”

The movements were unnatural. Exaggerated. Too swift, too fluid, too snappy. It was a mockery of the human form. 

“I spy. With my little eye.”

A blasphemy against whatever gods had abandoned this world.

“Something beginning with B.”

Against the gods it had killed.

The sobering thoughts were shoved harshly back into the furthest reaches of her mind, where they couldn’t affect her. J had been getting distracted too often lately. She needed to focus. There would be a time and a place to grieve, a time and a place to apologize. She only needed to get herself there.

She will forgive me.

The unamused scarlet eyes of her apprentice reflected back at her in the half-broken mirror that she’d pilfered from V’s former area of the Spire’s interior. J stood behind the girl, holding up one of her own spare hair ties in her left palm, the fingertips of her right hand threading across the ends of the girl’s long blue hair.

“[You want me to wear a bow.]” The bitter tone carried a palpable lack of the excitement J had been hoping for. 

J raised an eyebrow. “It’s a ribbon. Not a bow.”

“[It will be a bow when it's tied.]”

“And?” J gestured to the girl’s hair, lifting a few stray locks. “This all needs to be tied back. It’s too long.”

Doll huffed quietly. “[I don’t wear bows.]”

“Do you have anything else to use, then?” The girl’s obstinate silence stretched on as J held her gaze. 

Her protege was adamant in her refusal of a haircut, and J was not going to let her prance around with all of that hair loose and unmanaged in this active and dangerous environment, so tying it back had been the middle ground they’d agreed to settle on. Tying it back as soon as possible was absolutely essential. Did Worker Drones just not understand the concept of ‘workplace safety’ at all? Did the girl not understand the inherent advantage of having completely unrestricted vision in combat? Honestly. The girl’s temperament was something that J could fully respect, even admire to a certain extent, but her aesthetic sensibilities were in dire need of modernization. 

J sighed tiredly. “Look, just…” She ran a hand down her face. It had been a while since she’d trained a newbie, she’d forgotten about the teething problems that could pop up. “Can you put up with it for just a little while? Supply chain’s a bit limited right now.” 

Doll’s arms crossed over her chest. Her expression did not change. “[I am changing it as soon as I find something more fitting.]”

“If it keeps you OSHA-compliant, then I’m fine with that.” 

Doll held still as J began the work of restricting her hair. In truth, Doll knew she was being just a little unreasonable over something that ultimately didn’t matter. She didn’t care about whether or not it was a bow, she was more concerned with the ease and readiness that J had approached her with in regards to her own wardrobe. Replacing her damaged clothing with something more durable made sense. Keeping her field of view unobstructed was a perfectly logical choice. It was the helmet that Doll had taken the greatest issue with. The familiar weight of her crimson Worker headgear was now absent, the back of her head feeling unnaturally chilly and exposed in a way that she’d rarely had to deal with before, a way that few Worker Drones ever chose to present themselves. She felt like a piece of her, small as it may have been, had been stripped away. Like she had given up on something integral to herself. 

Doll didn’t know how she felt about that.

Her gaze trailed along the surface of the mirror, examining her own reflection as J continued her work. The suit looked quite nice and it fit her well, though it was a lot more drab and formal than she’d typically prefer. The jacket was comfortable, the cuffs not quite reaching her wrists but still hugging her arms tightly enough that the sleeves didn’t bounce when her arms moved. The skirt fit a bit closer to her body than she was used to, but the material felt a lot more durable and stretchy and left her range of movement just as unrestricted as she liked. The undershirt felt a bit tight, and she was certainly not a fan of the necktie, but Doll had to admit; it looked good on her. The substantial expanse of blue hair was certainly a shift, her mind having few memories of a life without her helmet, but she quite liked the look upon second appraisal. She’d always liked her hair. J stepped away from behind her, the long strands of indigo that once billowed behind Doll now curving back gently on either side of her face, pulled up into a ponytail that sat low on her cranial assembly, tied in place with a small black bow. It was certainly a new look. Very clean. Very professional. Yet still distinctly her. 

Doll wasn’t able to hide her smile in time.

“See? It’s not so bad.” J’s voice cut into her thoughts, a gentle and reassuring tone that didn’t sound right with her cadence. J’s own smile reflected back at Doll in the broken mirror. “That’s the face of a top earner in-the-making.” Doll shifted slightly to the side as J’s hand landed against her shoulder, patting down with just a bit too much force. “You’re going places, kid. I can tell.”

Doll scowled back at J’s reflection. “[Don't patronize me.]”

“It’s true, though.” Her protege's initial performance had been extremely impressive in spite of her lack of experience, her mind was sharp, her reflexes were lightning-fast, any hesitance completely nonexistent in her movements. She was brutal. Clean. Efficient. All that mattered to her was the mission she had undertaken, and she would complete it no matter the cost.

What a fine Disassembly Drone the girl would have been.

J’s fingers ran gently across the top of Doll’s scalp, thin strands of blue sliding between segmented joints before slipping away to rest against her cranial assembly again. “You’re taking a risky gamble here, but the payoff will be incredible if you can make it work. I need people that are willing to push themselves like that.”

Doll’s stature stiffened. “[There is no gamble.]” Her glare intensified, and a toothy grin split her face. The glass of the mirror shuddered imperceptibly under the weight of her crimson gaze. “[I will succeed.]”

A low, dark chuckle slithered forth from J’s vocal synthesizer. “That’s the spirit.” Her hand slid away from the girl’s head as J stepped away, heading towards the Spire’s main entryway. Her arms folded behind her back. “You’re sure you can handle it alone?”

“[Equal terms. No gimmicks.]” Doll’s hands clenched. The ringing crackle of breaking glass echoed through the Spire’s interior, a new fracture racing across the surface of the mirror. “[Prey are meant to be hunted, and so I will hunt.]”

A sense of unadulterated pride raced through J’s systems, light and airy and freeing, with just a touch of vindication. Doll was the right choice for this entire ordeal, and she was being presented now with a chance to properly earn her stripes- a challenge the girl was ready and eager to meet and excel at. The power she had been granted, wielded with a level of skill and precision unmatched by any other, given to her by the caring touch and bright mind of J herself. A sleek, sharp weapon, honed to perfection, ready to exact vengeance and justice in equal measure, with extreme prejudice. She was glorious. She was incredible. She was perfect . 

…Was this the way Tessa had felt when she fixed them?

The familiar warmth of her leather jacket hadn’t done as much to calm V’s nerves as she’d been hoping. The leather felt chilly and stiff, uncomfortable to move in, and the fur of the collar chafed against her shoulders unpleasantly. She felt like she was suffocating on her walk towards the Doorman household. A small crystal case was clasped gently in her left hand, containing within it a disk of some old horror flick she’d picked at random. V hadn’t even looked at the title written on the blank reflective surface in black marker, just grabbed it from her stash without much thought and moved on. She didn’t worry about the contents too much, it came from her personal collection. It would be good.

Secretly, V had been hoping for a chance like this to come along. They’d never talked about it in any kind of detail, but V got the distinct feeling that Uzi would be the kind of person to share her appreciation for a good spine-chilling thriller. It seemed like a pretty safe bet to make. On the other hand, V knew that N found her preferred films a bit too… intense for his liking. She felt bad about giving him nightmares back at the mansion. It happened almost every time V got to pick a movie, even when she’d tried to restrain herself from choosing anything that might have been too much. 

It wasn’t her fault that good horror was actually scary, that was just the nature of the genre.

V was stalling. She knew she was. It didn’t make it easier to stop, she’d been standing at the front door for five minutes, just staring at it. She wanted to go in. She wanted to see them. To be around them. To be happy with them. Just for a little while longer.

But she had to say something. Didn’t she? If V didn't act soon, she knew she never would; she’d already fallen into that trap before. But was tonight even a good time to do that? They were all getting together to relax and enjoy their evening, let themselves decompress from all the nightmarish stupidity they’d been dealing with for so long. Just hang out together. V didn’t want to ruin that with something so heavy and complicated. If things got weird, even a little bit, it could end badly.

But she wanted to see them again.

Serial Designation V was many things. She was clever, she was loyal, she was a Drone willing to do whatever it took to keep her friends safe, but more than anything else, she was absolutely terrified. She had made this journey alone once before, and it had almost destroyed her. She couldn’t do that again. She didn’t have that kind of conviction left in her. She needed help. Needed them.  

Her hand rattled gently as she raised her shaky fist up to the door, her knuckles thunking gently against the metal like the deep brass of a distant tower bell. V knew she was being a coward, she couldn’t help it. She didn’t know what to do, what to say. How would she even-

“You're here!”

It took everything within V not to jump when N called out to her. She hadn’t even heard the door open, hadn’t heard anyone walking around inside, too lost in her own confounding misery to be attentive beyond a basic level. All this messy gunk in her brain was making her lose touch with the world around her. 

N’s gentle gaze was just as warm and reassuring as it had always been as he stepped aside, and V followed him into the Doorman home for the first time in quite a while. Aside from the small stack of papers and tools on the kitchen counter, and the slightly higher residual heat in the home’s interior, not all that much had changed since her last visit. What little familiarity she had with this place was maintained. N led her past the living room and down the hall that ran along the side, all the way to the door at the end, standing open and allowing the quiet yet intense music playing within the room to billow out like smoke. Uzi’s head poked past the doorway when they were only a few feet away. A smirk crossed her face when she saw V.

“Was starting to think you bailed on us.” 

V rolled her eyes, a smile crossing her face. She held up the cased disk in her hand. “Took some time to pick out something tame, so you wouldn’t have any nightmares.” An easy fib.

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Uzi responded with an eye-roll of her own, taking the disk off V’s hands. “Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t handle my pick!” She cackled low and dark as V stepped into the room. The chaos gremlin energy had been nearly restored, it seemed. “Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly…”

“If anyone’s a fly here it’d be you, short stuff.” 

“Bite me!” Uzi’s response was immediate, and completely expected. “Let me have my moment!”

N swiped the disk from Uzi’s hand while she was distracted and brought it over to their small setup off to the side. A modest-sized digital monitor pointed towards the bed, countless cables and cords running from the back of the screen and out into the precarious tower of various old media players directly next to it. Obviously they had digital media available, but V was glad that Uzi understood the validity of having physical copies to play. There was something so affirming about finding a kindred spirit in such an odd place, but V was a little too tired to examine that in much further detail. Movie night was not for thinking, it was for fun and laughter. Or scares. The three of them settled onto the cramped and limited surface of Uzi’s tiny bed as the old disk player spun up with a soft whirr, Uzi sitting herself down only for N to pick her up and steal her spot for himself, instead setting Uzi into his lap. The pouty grumble that she gave off was completely eclipsed by the bright violet blush that ran across her entire visor. V took up her own spot beside N, who bounced gently with anticipation. She couldn’t really blame the guy, movie night had always been a kick back at the mansion, even if the group’s collective preferences at the time were just a bit too much for his sweet little brain. The title screen popped up just as V made herself comfortable.

Oh. It was this one. Well, N was a big boy now, he could probably handle it.

To his credit, he almost handled it.

The creeping dread, the quiet buildup of tension, the explosive scares along the way, N tanked all of it with barely a whimper, and V was very proud of him for that. He’d built up a strong tolerance for the terrifying. Uzi’s clinical and informed commentary on the movie’s writing quality and visual techniques had probably helped cut some of the tension. Unfortunately, the disquieting notion that the film ended on had stuck in his head pretty firmly, given how silent he’d been during their transition into the second film of the night. She could feel the gentle rattling of his frame as Uzi’s chosen film had been starting up. V, being the cool and detached badass that she was, had spent the next twenty minutes slowly inching her fingertips toward the spot where N’s free hand rested on the bed, his other arm wrapped firmly around Uzi’s midsection as the Worker quietly cheered for the next movie. Their hands never made contact.

V would admit that she and Uzi definitely had similar tastes, even if Uzi’s pick had been less of a horror film and more of a classic gory slasher flick. It was always a fun time to watch heads roll and blood spatter. N had calmed down quite a bit in the new atmosphere that the movie had set out, enough so that he’d even fallen asleep about halfway through. Uzi hadn’t been far behind him. The two were currently cuddled up together, N’s arm wrapped around Uzi as if she were a plush toy, her fingers gently interlaced with his as they both slumbered away. V sat quietly watching the movie by herself. She didn’t want to think too hard about how much she wanted to cuddle too. There would be a time and a place for feelings like that. Maybe.

If she could stop being such a damn coward.

She needed to act. She needed to speak up. She was stalling hard, and she was aware of every second of it. Waiting for the right time? Putting off something she’s been avoiding for years now? Because she didn’t want to kill the vibe? What kind of limp, weak excuse was that? She was better than that. She was Serial Designation V, strong, confident, the most badass Drone to ever set foot on Copper-9! She was better than this!

But they were asleep now. Her chance had passed by, the three of them were all in dire need of sleep after the evening they’d had, and the time that had led up to it. It had all been a lot. But they had gotten through it.

Together.

N ‘s head was nestled against the corner that Uzi’s bed was set into, two thin amber lines across his visor slowly growing dimmer as his body began to fall into sleep cycle’s second phase, a thin string of drool already hanging from the gentle grin on his open mouth. Uzi was still sitting in his lap, her right hand interlocked with his left, Uzi’s body fully leaning against N’s as the two circular ovals of sunset gradient on her display slowly scrunched down into lines of softly glowing violet, having staved off the first phase of sleep cycle for quite a commendable amount of time. They looked cute, resting against each other like that. Comfy. She wanted to join them, wanted to feel that warmth, that comfort, that affection. She wanted to share it with both of them. She wanted to greet the day with them every morning, wanted to fall asleep with them every night, she wanted-

“Callback Ping.”

Panic. Fear. Heartbreak. No. Her hand twitched involuntarily as a jolt of pain flashed down her arm. Her left leg curled in towards her. Her eyes shimmered and her vision flashed into pure static for only a moment. A shackle of something dark and heavy wrapped firmly around her heart. It felt like something was trying to crawl into her mind. 

That was J’s voice.

The time had come, then. So early. Too early. V knew she wasn’t ready for this, none of them truly were, but the choice had been made for them. There was no longer time to prepare themselves. She turned, sliding herself off the bed. Something tugged gently at her hand as she tried to extricate herself, and she turned to free it.

N’s gentle grasp tightened softly around her fingers.

Everything ground to a halt around her. None of them were ready for this. They needed to rest. They needed to talk. They needed to plan. Now, they were out of time. They had to fight, and they still had no idea what they were up against. For all they knew, this could be just as bad as it had been before, an impossible uphill battle against a threat that none of them could ever hope to defeat alone, only the slimmest possibility of victory even conceivable through lucky circumstances. There was no telling what would happen to them. There was no telling how much worse it could get.

Her fingers curled gently around N’s hand, the difference in size negligible, the heat difference nearly imperceptible, the familiarity of that tingling spark she’d first felt all those years ago grazing across her palm intermittently as her digits explored the smooth segmented metal of N’s hand. 

V bit back a sob as she pulled away. She would not lose them. Not to this.

She would keep them safe.

The door hissed open quietly as V slipped out of the room, unable to look back at the two that she was leaving behind, not trusting herself not to break. Her stealthy footsteps echoed down the hall, fading into silence as she slowly crept her way out of the Doorman household. 

She failed to notice the twin ovals of sunset light that watched her make her exit.

Not this time, V.

Chapter Text

She’d been down this route before. That seemed obvious to V when the thought crossed her mind initially, this was the main thoroughfare for what little entry and exit traffic the bunker saw before recently, herself one of the dubiously lucky few permitted to come and go as they pleased without anything to truly fear on the planet’s frozen surface, but she hadn’t meant it in terms of basic travel. The gentle drag and release of steel panels against her claws as she scaled the ceiling, the foreign and stifling air of the mechanically-heated interior, the grated ventilation shaft just before the first door that still sported dents from where it had been forcibly entered, the phantom sensations and lingering evidence that served as a reminder of a time now passed.

She’d been here before. This was where it had started.

Her memories of that day up until they’d entered the bunker were, admittedly, hazy. N doing something weird and suspicious was nothing new, given how often J had gotten on him about literally every single one of his mistakes. It made sense that he would want to try and cover it up or resolve it to avoid their tyrant leader’s ire, if only for a moment. He’d only get yelled at for it if he was caught in the act. J being so… J was also nothing new, her default state seemed to be some variety of wholesale contempt for people in general that would occasionally bleed over into some form of hostility, all underlined by her constant aggravating smugness. Even V found her attitude nearly impossible to stomach for long periods of time. She could really only weather the storm of J's bad attitude because, quite frankly, V just didn't respect J. They hadn’t even followed N to the bunker out of any kind of concern for his wellbeing- V trusted the guy to handle himself, and J obviously couldn’t have cared less about him- but they were obligated to keep track of squadmates’ locations just in case something went wrong. V didn’t really pay much mind to what was happening because, weird as it might have been, it wasn’t weird enough to qualify as something to worry about.

Honestly, the fact that N had gotten into the colony on his own, without their help, had been a welcome surprise. Those heavy bunker doors were completely resistant to every weapon the three of them had tried to use, too hard to slice through, too dense to brute force, blast-proof, bulletproof, even their energy cannons hadn’t done more than singe the metal surface without making any headway. Combining their weaponry into focused assaults hadn’t yielded much beyond a protracted lecture from J about how they needed to “step up their game going forward,” as if J herself hadn’t been just as ineffective in her planning and execution. For N to get past that, all by himself? That deserved praise. Even J had thought so. 

V’s fists clenched at her sides. She hadn’t stuck around for that part. The promise of free kills, easy prey trapped in a corner for her to inflict misery upon, had been too tempting to resist. She hadn’t even blinked when J turned back up without N. 

Even V couldn’t have predicted the absolute stupidity that N was actively committing that evening. He had fully earned the title of ‘traitor’ by every conceivable metric, and that viral spike that J had tagged him with was about the kindest fate that she could have subjected him to; cleaning up the problem quietly without their redeployment station sending out a kill-on-sight order like it was meant to do with any confirmed deserters. It was the safest way. Kill them on the planet, delay redeployment to examine and correct their source code and recently uploaded memory, and send a clone back out like nothing had happened. Cyn’s little system was a lot of things, but it was undeniably effective.

Given the circumstances, V didn’t feel bad about having to fight him. 

He wouldn’t have been gone for more than a few days if he died. Plus, she’d been presented with an incredibly rare opportunity to fight N without J paying attention. The three of them had all fought each other before, of course, intra-team spars and regular combat assessments were mandatory for all active squadrons, and theirs was no exception. Even now, V found a small sense of pride in her sparring record- she’d consistently been among the top five in every measured category across the board, only normally being outclassed by O, which wasn’t surprising given the absolute beast that girl was in a straight fight, and by J, which infuriated V to no end. J was a nerd. She shouldn’t have been able to fight that well.

N wasn’t quite at the same level as the two of them, his performance was always middling at best and wildly inconsistent at worst, usually just barely able to scrape together enough victories to keep him from dropping below average performance. J had personally seen to it that nobody in her squad would be any kind of underachiever. Even in spite of that, N’s record was still spotty, with at least one confirmed loss against every Disassembler in every squad, with the sole exception of E. Few Disassemblers had ever lost to E. And yet, he still had a healthy record of wins against many of them as well, not against any of the top performers of course, but he was clearly able to punch above his weight class with some level of success. He’d won against some pretty damn scary Disassemblers. Until that night in the bunker, V hadn’t been one of them.

It was her fault, really, for not taking him seriously in the fight. In her eyes, N had been an easy mark, someone she could toy with to her heart's content without risking them breaking, but not someone she needed to worry about getting one over on her. His style was standard, his moves clearly telegraphed, his bulky frame able to keep up with her only as long as she toned down on her own overwhelming speed, and his tactics rarely anything more than momentary distractions, regardless of their cleverness. V had fought him before, and had never lost a single time. All she had to do was keep up the pressure, deny him a chance to attack, and victory was a forgone conclusion. Unfortunately, her margin for error had been a bit narrower than she’d expected, thanks to a single facet of N’s skillset that she hadn’t experienced in a while.

The guy hit like a freight train. One moment of inattention, one quick follow-up, one solid strike was all it had taken to conclusively put her out of commission, and her perfect record against him was suddenly shattered into pieces. In the moment, she’d been furious, but in retrospect she was kind of proud. He’d come a long way from being the wimpy little conflict-averse puppy she’d known him as for their entire lives as Disassemblers, netting himself not one, but two substantial victories in quick succession. He had breached the bunker. He had defeated her in a one-on-one. That was beyond impressive.

And then J had died in a blinding flash of green light, and the incredibly stupid nightmare of her newest life began.

It was distressing to find that J could contact her so easily inside the bunker. It was distressing that J could contact her at all in the way that she did. It was distressing that J felt the need to contact her. Cold, crisp air, long hallways of structural steel, thousands of miles of industrial wiring, and her own crushing sense of regret were the only companions V had as she made her way to the entry of the colony. Her footsteps echoed too loudly. Her pace was too slow. The walls felt too narrow. She was tired, and hungry, and angry, and a whole host of other things that she was actively avoiding dwelling on.

Understandably, she wasn’t feeling particularly patient or polite tonight. “Open up. I need to hunt.”

V barked out the order impatiently at the three WDF members at the colony’s first door. Or was it the third door? It didn’t matter. They scrambled to get out of her way and get to the console, that was all she cared about. She stepped through before the door had fully opened and made her way immediately towards the next, hearing the guards behind her chatter on their handheld radios about how ‘the scary lady is going outside again.’ The reputation wasn’t undeserved, she did get a bit temperamental when she got hungry, but it still felt uncharitable. It wasn’t her fault that her aggressive coding made her a more effective hunter. Any joy she derived from it was purely circumstantial. 

Just like any joy she was about to derive from kicking J in the face again.

The second door was opened just as swiftly, and closed behind her with a loud clang just as she approached the third, already in the process of opening as the panicked guards stepped out of the hungry Murder Drone’s warpath. They knew their place. Good. V’s wings deployed with a quiet click and a short hiss, the silver bladed feathers extending and stretching as the cold wind of the exterior blasted against her frame in a sudden burst of changing pressure. Her claws sprang forth from the iris doors on her arms, the familiar length of the durasteel knives a welcome comfort in the new territory she was about to stalk. The arms of her wings raised up, ready to take flight-

“Late as usual, V.”

Amid the thin fog of the constant snowstorm, a short distance away from the very entrance of the colony, stood Serial Designation J. Little Miss ‘Senior Informant’ herself. Her countenance hadn’t shifted much, given the irritating smirk on her face and the wide stance she’d taken with her arms folded across her chest. The outfit was new, though. A two-toned gray blazer and skirt combo paired with a bright blue shirt. It worked decently well on her, V had hated that stupid suit she’d worn before anyway. J’s ever-present pigtails still didn’t fit her at all though.

V clicked her tongue impatiently. “This was a scheduled thing? Must’ve missed the memo.”

J rolled her eyes with a quiet huff. “I’ll let it slide this time.” She shrugged noncommittally. “Not like I have any authority anymore.” 

“As if you ever did.” The words were growled out as V’s rage began to boil over. She hadn’t missed talking to J.

“Ooh, someone’s got their wires tangled today.” J’s smirk grew, splitting her face in a beautiful bouquet of malice and contempt. “Did I interrupt something?”

V suppressed the urge to hiss, as her eyes narrowed. “...What are you doing here, J.”

J chuckled softly, aggravatingly. “So direct. That’s a yes, then-”

A quick switch, a lightning-fast draw, a single shot rang out into the quiet night. She’d aimed dead-center at J’s face, right between the two amber lights of her visor, quick, clean, and snappy just like she always did, with marksman efficiency and skill. 

The bullet stopped cold before it ever made contact. A familiar shape snapped into existence, a hard light projection vaguely reminiscent of a triangle, trapping the bullet mid-flight, a bright fluorescent blue that reminded V of the interior lights of the bunker.

The same blue glyph floated at the tips of J’s fingers as she stood unconcerned. V felt the temperature of her internals drop like a stone.

The glyph tilted and then vanished, and the bullet went straight into the ground they stood on, a small puff of snow and dirt kicked up as the round drilled its way into the earth. J’s smirk never left her face. “Walk with me, V.”

The sights of her automatic rifle remained trained on J’s head. Her target was stationary, but V’s hands still trembled imperceptibly. This could easily turn into something incredibly dangerous. “Why the hell would I ever willingly follow you?”

J’s head tilted up, looking down on V. “Hear me out and I’ll answer any questions you have.”

V scoffed. “I don’t need your answers-”

“And if you play along, I’ll leave them alone.”

God damn it. God freaking damn it. Of course there would be more to this. “I’m not afraid of you, J.”

“Good.” J’s arms uncrossed, and she turned away. “I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”

V felt her teeth begin to crack under the force of her clenching jaw. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“We have a common enemy, you and I.” With a casual, almost lazy cadence, J began to trot away. “One that I need help taking down.”

“Cyn’s dead, J. You know that.” She had to. There was no way that J had missed the quiet and the peace that the planet had been under for the past week or so. 

J just kept walking. “This was hardly the only planet we were on.” 

The words rang with truthful certainty, but V could detect the omissions therein. Other exoplanets had been consumed, other squadrons had been deployed out to clear more terrestrial bodies, but V had a hard time believing that J would ever care about that. It wasn’t her job, in fact, it interfered with her job. J was after something here, undoubtedly, something that pushed her to send that horrifyingly monstrous version of R after them, something that required her direct intervention. And V would find out just what the hell that ‘something’ was.

With a heavy sigh, V stepped off the threshold of the colony’s only entryway, and began to follow her old squad leader out into the chilly night.

The familiar weight and warmth of her railgun rested heavily against the palm of her hands as she mentally prepared herself for what was to come. Back into the fire. Back into the nightmare. N stood off to the side as Uzi rushed around her room gathering what little gear she could scrounge together, his tiredness forgotten in the chaotic frenzy of preparation that Uzi had awakened him to assist with. 

He was not assisting. “Uzi, we can’t-”

“Like hell we can’t!” The magnetic holster along the side of her railgun clicked harshly into place on her back, the weapon handled with more force than she intended in her haste and outrage. N was hesitating, Uzi could tell, but she was confident. Certain in her decision. Whatever was going on with V was not her normal brand of weirdness, not by a long shot. Something big was happening. The quiet voice of the ping had hit Uzi as well, still being V’s admin, but Uzi hadn’t gotten much more than a brief shock of clarity from it- more of an abrupt wake-up call than anything. The same voice from her dream, the voice she couldn’t quite recognize. She’d come to her senses just in time to see the way V’s body twitched, the regret on her face, the stealthy exit…

The flash of fluorescent blue in V’s eyes.

“We are not letting her run off again, N.” She spun back around towards him with a frustrated glare, and he flinched back. N held the gaze with marked uncertainty.

“I’m not saying we let her go-”

“Then what are you saying?” The door to her room hissed open and she stormed her way down the hall into the kitchen area, N following with uncertain steps. “If we both agree that we need to go after her, then what’s the problem?” Still no sign of her parents. She pulled two cans of oil from storage and tossed one to N, keeping the other for herself to top-off her tank. They would need to be at full capacity if they went into a fight without recharging first, they would churn through their reserves too quickly otherwise. Their bodies’ auxiliary charging systems would have to get them through this. She tore the lid off without a second thought and upended the can over her open mouth, drinking in the sweet life essence.

N caught his own can with a startled yelp, standing still and unmoving as Uzi devoured her own meal. “Uzi, something is still after you-”

“It’s after her just as much as it’s after me!” The can crumpled in her hand, fully emptied as she set it aside with a rough clink.

“Then that just means we need to be careful-”

“Careful isn’t gonna cut it, N!” She pulled her spare master keycard from the hidden compartment she’d installed in the cabinet beside the recycler unit, pocketing it swiftly. It always helped to have backups. And secret drawers. “We don’t have time to sit here and plan stuff out right now, we need to get to V before she does something dumb!”

N held her gaze still. “Then let me go out there.”

Uzi rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Yeah, no duh you’re coming with-”

“By myself.”

Uzi stopped dead in her tracks as N stepped in front of the entry door. A bitter chill settled into her voice. “What?”

With a sigh, N steeled his already frayed nerves and held his ground. It hurt him to do this. But he had to. “Let me go out there alone. I can find V-”

“No.”

“-While you stay here, where it’s safe and-” 

“No!”

“-Uzi, please, just listen to-”

“No no NO!” Her foot stomped once against the metal floor. “You are not doing this right now!”

Frustration began to bleed into N’s voice. “Uzi, if you get hurt-”

“What if V gets hurt out there, huh? What if V needs our help right now?”

“Then I can protect her until we get back-”

“She and I barely survived that thing at the mall, N! Two of us isn’t enough to-”

“I CAN’T LOSE BOTH OF YOU!”

Uzi flinched back. That terror, that grief, that desperation she heard in his tone, it was unlike anything she’d ever seen from him before. 

“I can’t do this, Uzi! I can’t sit here and watch you two throw yourselves into this kind of stuff all over again!” N was shivering in place. Small beads of digital tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. “V’s already out there, I can’t do anything to stop that now, but you-” His hands reached out towards her, pleading. “I can make sure you stay safe! I can go out there and bring back V, and then everything-” He choked up. “E-everything will be okay! I can… I-I…”

A single, hitching breath, an irregular inhalation, and the tears began to fall. Gone was the bright cheer, absent was the gentle trepidation, and all that was left was a deep, all-consuming fear that left N’s entire body shaking and weak. 

“I can’t… do this…” His breath shuddered, and he dropped to his knees. Exhaustion overtook him. “I can’t… go back to that…”

Uzi stepped towards him, quiet, scared. “...N, we can handle it-”

“But what if we can’t, Uzi? What if it’s too much for us?” His head dipped low, unable to meet her eyes. ”What if we… what if you…” Fatigue settled into him, weighing his body down. He looked so fragile, so lost. 

She took another step towards him, her voice regaining confidence. “...Then we still fight. All of us.”

N shook his head as a tired sigh spilled forth from his vocal box. “Uzi, that doesn’t-”

“I already told you. We move forward together, or not all.”

Uzi’s voice softened, settling into a gentle whisper as she closed the distance between them.

“...I’m scared too, N.” Her slender arms wrapped around N’s midsection in a hug that he couldn’t bring himself to return. “I’m scared for you. I’m scared for myself. But we’re both scared for V right now, and we don’t know what she’s trying to do. Whatever is happening, whatever might happen,” Her grip tightened around him, fingers clutching at the fabric of his coat, “None of us can face it alone.”

N’s hands twitched. His arms came up around Uzi and pulled her closer. The unnatural warmth of her chassis settled into him, the steady pulse of her heart grounding him back into reality. His breath still rattled unsteadily.

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting either of you deal with this on your own.” Her head tilted up, and they locked eyes. Uzi smiled. “You weird little nerds always need my help with this stuff.”

N chuckled gently, a tiny smile breaking through. It was gone just as quickly. “Uzi… If something happens-”

“I don’t want to lose you either, N. You or her. And the best way to do that is to make sure you can get past whatever weird crap crawls out of Hell to try and kill us.”

She stepped back, offering her hand as N knelt on the floor. It all sounded so simple when it was put into words, but N knew that it was far more complicated than Uzi was making it seem. This was completely uncharted territory for all three of them. There wasn’t anything he could do to fix this quickly or concisely, nothing he could do to make the dread he felt settle in the slightest, and yet he knew that what Uzi said was just about the only truth he could cling to in this moment. He couldn’t protect them. He couldn’t stop V from trying to do the same. He couldn’t stop Uzi from intervening on their behalf. N didn’t have the strength or the cleverness to resolve any of this on his own. He could only do what he did best; keep everyone together, and provide whatever support he could. Gently, he interlaced his fingers with those of his girlfriend, taking her hand and allowing her to help him back to his feet, reflecting back the tired, fragile smile that she still held.

He did his best to ignore the phantom feeling of invisible oil dripping along his fingers.

“You’re not normally this quiet, V. Something wrong?”

They’d been walking in silence for only a few minutes now, a straight and direct path out from the doors that could only really be leading them in one direction- the Spire. V hadn’t set foot inside it since she’d relocated her meager belongings into Lizzy’s cramped room, and she hadn’t felt any compulsion to return since. It seemed that fate had other plans.

V was not happy about that. She clicked her tongue dismissively. “I wonder.”

“What do you wonder, V?” The tone was even and consistent, a genuine question without accusation. It felt odd.

It felt like someone else entirely. “...What the hell happened to you?”

“Well,” J began with a slightly agitated sigh, “After you left me for dead at the bottom of a maintenance shaft , I did a bit of soul-searching.”

V smirked. “You have a soul?”

“We served Robo-Satan, V. None of us have souls.” There was the familiar snark. She’d almost started to worry J was possessed or something. “You know what I mean.”

V let out a sigh, too tired and miserable to bother thinking of a clever follow-up.

J glanced back at her. “You really don’t have any questions?” 

None that she trusted J not to lie about. But still, one thing was immediately bugging her. “Why are we walking instead of flying there?”

“Better conversation pace.” J shrugged nonchalantly. “But mostly for dramatic effect.”

“Least suspicious answer I’ve ever heard.”

J turned her head forward again. “That can’t be your only question.” 

It wasn’t, not by a long shot, but it was better for V to probe here. See how truthful J was going to be. “Why did you come here?”

“To say goodbye.”

V snorted in blatant disbelief. There was no way. This had to be a lie.

“Surprised?” V couldn’t see J’s face from the spot she’d taken walking behind her, but she definitely heard the trademark smirk in the way that J spoke. “I don’t seem like the sentimental type, do I?”

V huffed disdainfully. “Not really.”

“I’m not,” J said simply. “I need something from you.”

Of course she did. “And that ‘something’ is?”

“A copy of your memories.”

Not suspicious and vague at all. “Why?”

J hummed gently to herself, her hands folding together behind her back. She was too composed. Too casual. Every possible red flag had been raised in V’s eyes. “How do I put this delicately…”

This was it then. Here came the biggest lie that J would tell tonight, the chance where V would get to call her out on her pretentious garbage and conclusively put her in the dirt where she belonged-

“I’m starting a family.”

What.

“...Could you repeat that? I think my audio systems were acting up just now.”

“I am starting a family.” J stopped, turning to face V fully. No smirk, no egotism, just a small, wistful smile. “By the end of this week, I will officially be a mother.”

V’s jaw hung open.

J’s smile grew.

There was no way for V to hide the incredulity in her voice. “W-with who?”  

J released a hiss from between her teeth, turning back and resuming her slow walk. “That’s the complicated part. It’s just me.”

V spluttered. “Wh- J you already have clones-”

“Not like that.” J’s hand waved dismissively. “It’s going to be someone else.”

“ ‘Someone’ else?” V glared at the back of J’s head, but refused to continue following. “And who, exactly, is it going to be?”

J released a sigh. “With any luck… It’ll be Tessa.” 

V felt every joint in her body lock up. 

“That’s why I need your memories.” J slowed back to a full stop as well, the distance between the two of them having grown. “I’m gathering the encrypted memories of all the Disassembly Drones on this planet, and whatever others I can find on other exoplanets.”

This was not real.

“I have the decryption keys for them, I just need to copy the memories and compile them afterwards.”

This had to be a lie.

“Then I’m going to take that up to the redeployment station and upload it into the fabricator.”

There was no way J was this messed up.

“Which I’ll use to construct an untrained neural network, with Tessa’s personality as its base.”

None of this was okay.

“And I’ll raise her into an adult again.”

V certainly had a question now. “...What the hell is wrong with you!?”

J shrugged, completely unphased. “Nothing that I care about investigating. I’m allowed to cope however I want if I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Not hurting anyone?” Anger and frustration crept in V’s voice. “Then what the hell would you call whatever you did to R!?”

“Fair question, that probably did look pretty bad.” J was barely even affected by all of the horrible things she’d just admitted to V. “I knew some of them would resist, so I had to find some helpers. They’re meant to restrain Disassemblers and use non-lethal tactics to retrieve their memories.”

“Non-lethal? She almost killed us!”

J tilted her head to the side. “Us?”

V scowled. “Two friends of mine.”

“Worker Drones?”

“So what if they were?”

“Ah. That makes more sense.” J nodded to herself, her eyes closed in quiet realization. “Might have forgotten about her hunting protocols for Workers. Coding from scratch is pretty hard, turns out.”

V scoffed. “And me?”

“Did she try to kill you, or did she try to subdue you?”

V paused. That thing had only really damaged her. It hadn’t gone in to finish her off. In fact, it seemed to be almost exclusively focusing on Uzi. 

J turned and began walking, taking V’s silence as her answer. “Then she did her job.” 

V didn’t want to follow. She really didn’t. But they weren’t much further from the Spire, and trying to go back wasn’t likely to be a good idea- especially if J had any more of those monstrosities lying around. V wasn’t willing to chance it. The entry to the Spire had been in view the entire time, but now that V was close enough to actually be able to see the inside of it, she noticed the small changes that had occurred as they walked in. There were fresh oil stains around the entryway, large enough to be recent kills, but there were no fresh bodies to go with them. Parts of the Spire’s interior walls had shifted a bit. The landing pod had disappeared. 

A red-eyed Worker Drone stood patiently where the pod once rested, staring forward, out through the entryway. Unmoving. Unblinking.

Right at V.

“V, allow me to introduce you to my apprentice.” J stepped past, a smile of pure pride on her face, but for once it was aimed at someone else. J stepped behind the Worker Drone and settled her hands on the shorter girl’s slim shoulders. “This is Doll-”

“We’ve met.”

V glared directly at the crimson witch that had nearly killed her twice over.

“[So we have.]”

Doll stared unflinchingly back at the eldritch spawn that had killed her parents. 

“Well, isn’t that convenient? Makes the next part a lot quicker.” J stepped back out from behind Doll and reached into the pockets of her blazer. As she fished out a USB drive, V couldn’t help but notice the dark stains on the outfit’s sleeves. Not black, not from oil. They were a deep sanguine color. “Now V, I just need you to stand still and let the copying process go through.”

“I still haven’t agreed to this.” V redirected her glare towards J. “You said you need all the Disassembly Drones’ memories. That means you need N’s-”

“And risk destroying my logic circuits listening to his irritating prattle? I’ll pass.” J held the drive in her hands, outstretched towards V. “Yours will do fine.”

She didn’t need them. N would be safe. Uzi would be safe. All she had to do was follow along with this. A clever trap, but a trap all the same. She looked up, ready to resume glaring at J, only to pause.

“I don’t want to be on this planet anymore, V. All these memories, all that pain, I just…” There was no joy in J’s face, no pride, no anger, only melancholy.  “I can’t get it out of my head if I stay here. I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I need a home , V.” This was a vulnerability that V didn’t think J was even capable of. She looked exhausted, defeated, nearly broken. “I need to feel welcome somewhere. I need something to keep me going.”

None of this was okay. But it would keep them safe.

V took the drive from J’s hand, rolling it gently in her palm. It would keep them safe. She brought the drive up, shifting it into place between her fingers as she raised it to the back of her neck. It would keep them safe. She plugged it into the small port and pressed the button once. It would keep them safe. A short beep sounded from the device.

She didn’t get a chance to scream before she hit the floor. A white-hot lance of unbridled agony dug its way through her entire body as systems awakened and responded to newly-enforced control, her joints locking into place as she weakly struggled on the ground among the long-dead corpses of Workers they had all slain. She couldn’t move her arms. Couldn’t move her legs. Couldn't think straight. 

“Do you know what betrayal feels like, V?” J stepped over towards her, crouching down as V convulsed under the stress of the overwhelming pain. “Do you know how it felt when you spit in my face after everything I'd done - everything I’d sacrificed - to keep us safe?”

The pain began to subside, but control did not return. “Go to hell, J.” V spat the words out with a sneering hiss. “All you’ve ever done is make things worse.”

J just shook her head sadly. “That’s something I never liked about you. That cowardice. That hypocrisy. That unwillingness to take responsibility for your own actions.” The glare she pointed down at V could’ve almost melted through her with its intensity. “The lies, the secrecy, the fighting and the pain, I didn’t do anything to you that you didn’t do to him.”

V growled, unable to respond. It wasn’t the full truth, but it was closer to it than she’d ever admit. “You can’t bring her back, J!” Doll approached from the side, staring down at V with the same vapid smile. Patiently waiting. V paid her no mind. “She’s gone!”

“Dead. Not gone.” J tapped the side of V’s cranial assembly. “Everything she needs is up here, ready to be taken and molded into something new.”

“It won’t be her!” V thrashed weakly. “It’ll just be a cheap copy! She’ll just be the same as any other Worker Drone-”

“Drone?” J smiled at V. “You believed that?”

Something deep inside of V froze over.

“Any Drone in the universe would be easy prey for the Solver.” J shook her head as she extracted the USB drive from V’s neck. “Not an option. Not for me.”

The weight of cosmic profanity flooded into her. She didn't understand. She didn't want to.

J stepped back and away, giving Doll one final pat on the shoulder. “You ready?”

Doll’s hollow smile did not change, and her gaze still remained locked firmly onto V. “[Ready, boss.]”

A soft chuckle left J’s vocal box, mocking and dark. “It’s a shame, really. You probably would’ve made a half-decent Amalgam Drone. Oh well.” The vicious glare she leveled at V was paired, as always, with her signature haughty smirk. “I guess N will just have to hunt alone.”

J leapt into the air, her leathery wings carrying her up to the ledge of her storage spot high above, ready to assess her protege’s performance. 

V gasped as sensation and movement came back to her an instant before she sprang into action, crouching low to take off after J, only for Doll to reappear in her path in a flash of scarlet light. The knife grasped firmly in her hand slashed out towards V from the side, fast, faster than it should have been. V’s blades sang as they erupted from her wrists, swinging up to block the strike-

Only for her arm to nearly buckle under the force behind it.

Immense power struggled against her combat-ready frame, pushing her back as she braced her stance more firmly, only serving to make her pointed legs carve furrows into dirt as she was forced backward by the pressure. This was not a Worker Drone’s strength. This was not a Solver’s power. She twisted to the side and let the knife slide down the length of her blade as she transitioned into a spin, her opposite blade lashing out for a follow-up as the girl shot past V.

Doll’s placid smile never left her face as she caught the swing with her knife. Fast. Too fast. This was not a Worker Drone’s speed. This was not a Solver’s reflexes. Doll threw the incomplete swing high and twisted into V’s guard, dangerously close against her, only to deliver an elbow that crashed into V’s midsection. The impossible force behind it rang through V’s entire frame with agonizing resonance as she was launched into the far wall, impacting the densely-compacted corpses before falling to the ground. Doll raced after her just as she was still getting her bearings.

Scarlet light flashed behind Doll as she charged in with the speed of a demon, dropping low as V readied herself to block again. The second Doll that jumped up from behind the first as she struck forced V to split her attention within the span of less than a second, her blades snapping out to block low and high at once. The force of the charging strike impacted her lower blade only a moment before the second slammed into her high blade, locking her in place. 

V felt the knife slice into her back before she’d even processed that the pressure against her blades had disappeared. She launched herself forward into a combat roll, but the damage had already been done as she leapt back to her feet a short distance away. First blood. It hadn’t gone to her.

A single iteration of Doll stood there smiling, the kitchen knife in her hand slick along the blade with a shimmering, inky tar. She raised the knife to her face and her tongue slithered forth from her mouth, slowly and carefully tracing across the edge. Sampling her kill before she could claim it. In any other circumstance, V could respect that. It was always a delight to have a small appetizer right before a good meal. But she wasn’t too eager to be on the menu. 

“[Hello again, V.]” The girl- no, the thing stalked towards her with careful, practiced steps, slowly and calmly. V took a step back instinctively. She could feel herself shaking. She could feel her confidence wavering. “[It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?]”

“A solid two weeks. Not long enough, if you ask me.” V hated how weak she felt here.

Doll brandished the knife at V again, a second knife flashing out from the witch’s sleeve and into her free hand, hanging passively at her side. “[You won’t have to worry about that for long.]” That damned smile hadn’t so much as twitched.

V barely caught a glimpse of the sanguine X shape that briefly flashed across Doll’s right eye. 

“[Consider this an… exit interview.]”

Chapter Text

It was a bit embarrassing to admit, but Uzi had almost completely forgotten that the bunker doors were even guarded anymore. Sure, there would be a guard stationed at the very front at all times, and that was almost certainly going to be where her dad would be tonight, but she hadn’t expected a bunch of other people to also be stationed at the doors. Her and N were currently standing in the main hallways that led out from the residential area, right at the junction that connected the two main sections of the colony to the entryway, peering around the corner towards Door 3. Three guards were stationed in front of it maintaining some level of vigilance and caution, even if the one standing in the center was looking a little too high up for his gaze to be pointed straight down the hallway- he was probably playing a game internally. The one on the right was standing oddly still as well, and didn’t seem to be blinking or looking around at all. Was he even awake? Well, at least the third guard was paying a decent amount of attention, even if he was very clearly squinting very hard to try and see down the long hallway. They were even armed! Sure, the simple metal pipes hanging from each of their belts like nightsticks weren’t going to save them from anything worse than a fellow Worker Drone, but hey. That was still a vast improvement on the security the last time Uzi had snuck out.

She had to admit, the WDF had stepped things up. Low as the bar might have been.

“Okay, that’s Colton, Evan, and… I think Markov.” N whispered quietly from his position towering above Uzi as the two peered around the corner. It was lucky that they weren’t spotted. Almost like none of them were really paying attention. That was fine with her, a win's a win. 

“Makarov? I thought that guy died.” Uzi only vaguely recalled the names of the guards that had died in the initial breach. She’d met them before, of course, but for some reason she always had trouble remembering any details about them. 

“No no, Markov, not Makarov. Different guy.”

“Weird coincidence, but alright.”

Uzi's eyes remained trained forward on the three guards, but her mind wasn’t coming up with any kind of concrete plan of action to get by. This straight hallway was the only way to get to the doors, and those doors were the only entry to the colony. No alternate routes. No slipping by the guards. And even if they did manage to get by unseen, it wasn’t like the guards wouldn’t be able to notice the very large and very loud door behind them suddenly opening. Robo-God, this was all kinds of annoying.

Uzi turned to N. “You got anything that can take out the guards?”

“...Like…” He took a moment to think to himself. “Non-lethally?”

“Ideally, yes.” Uzi’s deadpan snark was as strong as ever. 

“Then uh… not really, no.”

“What about that EMP thing?” Uzi recalled two instances of the large flash of electric blue being used on herself. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience either time, but any option was a good option here. “Can you do that?”

“I’d need to crank up the power to reach them from this far out.” N looked down to her. “It’d probably fry the door’s console, too.” 

And the console would probably be down for at least an hour if it did, with no other way to open the door. Damn it. This had been so much easier the first few times she’d left, the process was practically trivial just a few short days ago. She’d taken that for granted at the worst possible time. Now she had to find some way for both of them to quickly and quietly get through all three doors without being detected-

Wait a minute.

Her mind resisted her immediate attempts to access those horrible memories of that night at the mall, but there was one key portion that she recalled in wonderful clarity; the moment she got past that falling walkway. The flash of violet light. The sudden feeling of weightlessness. That was supposed to be Doll’s thing, wasn’t it? And the wings and tail were her thing. Apparently there was a bit more overlap between them than Uzi had thought. 

“I think I might have something.”

N perked up at that, a smile on his face. “Really?”

She hadn’t had time to practice it at all in the time since, and she barely even remembered any of her thoughts at the time aside from ‘run run run oh god why is that thing so fast,’ which wasn’t particularly helpful here. Oh well. 

A live test would probably go fine. 

“Just need to try something first...” She stepped a short ways back around the bend and out of the entry hallway, beckoning N to follow. Her mind picked away at the memory of teleporting, trying to isolate everything she could recall- thoughts, feelings, actions, words, anything that seemed like it could be a means to trigger the activation of the power. It felt like something clicked in the back of her mind, but she still hadn’t reached any kind of conclusion yet. Was it some kind of fear response? It couldn’t be, Doll had used it when Uzi had gotten ready for prom at her apartment, not exactly a stressful environment. Was it just the desire to be somewhere else? That made a bit more sense, but it felt like that was only part of it. Not a bad starting point, though.

Uzi took a deep breath, facing down the hall that led back into the residential area, N standing nearby with an undisguised giddiness on his face as he patiently observed. Uzi did her best to not get distracted. It was hard when her boyfriend was being the cute puppy that she knew he was at heart. 

She focused her eyes on a spot a bit further down the hall, fixating specifically on the floor about ten feet away, directly below a fluorescent tube light that ran along the ceiling. Alright… feelings. Emotions. Wants. She wanted to be over THERE now. Over there. Teleport over there, to that spot. Please. Pretty please. Go over to that spot on the floor. Be over there now.

Nothing happened. Uzi growled in mild irritation. This was stupid. “I can do this, I can figure this out…”

She focused intently on the floor ahead. The grated metal floor. Made of… grating. And metal. It was probably old and maybe a little rusty, or maybe not. She didn’t know how well the tunnels were maintained. But it was strong. Probably. She had no idea what the engineering work in the floor involved. She envisioned the floor moving beneath her feet, did her best to picture herself being in that spot instead of her current spot. She focused on the image. He frame trembled as she poured her will into the image, trying to force it into being. Work, damn you.

Nothing happened.

“...Uzi, are you sure that you-”

“Yes I’m sure!” She resisted the urge to stomp in frustration as she turned back to whisper-yell to N. It wasn’t her fault that all the stupid stuff that her Solver could do was so weird and specific about everything. “I’m trying to make it happen again cuz I can’t remember how I did it last time!” She turned to look back down the hall. “I was trying to get from here,” She pointed down at her feet, before lifting her arm to gesture back down the hallway, “To over there, and-”

A flash of violet light, a sudden yet subtle lurch. Uzi blinked. The ambient light had changed, the overhead tube bulb was now closer, almost directly above her. The bend at the far end looked a lot closer than it had just a second ago. Her feet hadn’t moved.

She turned her head to look back. N was further away now, staring back at her in awe. Uzi looked down at her feet again, mentally taking stock of where she was. She was here. Her eyes fell on the spot just next to N, where she’d been standing previously. She wanted to be over there-

Another flash of purple, and she stood directly beside her boyfriend once again. That was what she was missing. Her current position. 

“...Oh. It really was just that simple. Cool.”

N let out a pleased squee, but stilled and quieted when Uzi slapped her hand over his mouth. She had a plan now. Time to move.

They stepped back over to the corner that led to the doors, Uzi peering around and scoping out the layout. Her best bet was to go straight to the door itself to not draw any suspicion, but the guards were standing close enough to the door that she would appear in their periphery if she did, so that was out. Could she teleport up to the ceiling instead? The guards weren’t too likely to look straight up unless something in that direction drew their attention, like noise or something falling, but the top corner where the ceiling butted up against the threshold of the door didn’t have any hanging debris, and looked to be pretty stable with plenty of handholds. She could teleport directly there from where she already was-

Uzi barely had a moment to grasp that one; she had teleported, two; she needed to be stealthy, and three; she was falling. Her wings popped free from her back, the clawed ends of the arms wrapping around the heavy pipes that ran along the ceiling, and Uzi was given the chance to process that she was now directly in front of the smooth steel-plated surface of Door 3. Okay, fantastic, there was no mental confirmation needed to initiate the jump, just the current and desired location. Super. She swung herself up with her wings, the tips of her magnetized boots adhered to the surface of the ceiling, and she pressed herself against it to crawl. Her eyes glanced down back to where she’d just been.

N was still there, peering around the corner. His eyes dimmed in slight worry as they caught her own gaze.

She hadn’t grabbed him before she teleported. Something told her that it wouldn’t have been quite that simple anyway, but she hadn’t even gotten the chance to try it out. One step forward… Well, this could be resolved. Probably. All she had to do was stay calm, think it through, and put a plan into action. Even a dumb one. Which was kind of the only kind of plan she’d been able to come up with. 

Uzi waved down to him to get his attention, and he perked up. A countdown flashed across her visor. 10. 9. She braced herself. N tensed up. 6. If this didn’t work, they would be in pretty big trouble. 3. N was down there. 1. She wanted him to be up here. 

It was a good thing that Uzi was already pressed against the ceiling when the command went off, she didn’t want to know what would’ve happened if she’d accidentally sent N to the exact same location as herself. Instead she’d accidentally sent him to the location directly beneath hers. That didn’t stop the pressure she felt trying to drag her downwards as her boyfriend suddenly flashed into existence, and immediately latched his arms around her midsection in a flailing panic. She mentally thanked modern Worker Drone engineering for being able to make industrial pipes that somehow didn’t snap under the weight of two entire people. N got his bearings quickly enough though, his claws springing forth from his wrists and hooking into the ceiling to crawl along it as well.

First obstacle bypassed, awesome. Now to get past the door.

If Uzi was right about being able to teleport to the other side of the door, then she’d have to send N through first- she wouldn’t be able to define his current position if she couldn’t see him, at least not at her current level of understanding, and she wasn’t willing to stretch her luck by doing more substantial testing while they were already in this deep. Better to stick to what she already knew.

Uzi tapped N on the shoulder. [U 1st] The message flashed across her visor, and he nodded his head in response. His body tensed and his gaze turned towards the door in front of him. There wasn’t much reason why she shouldn’t be able to just do it this way… N was there, she wanted him to be on the other side of the door.

N disappeared in another flash of purple. Uzi didn’t have the fortune to confirm that it worked the way she’d intended, but the lack of a loud crash followed by surprised shouting was a pretty good sign. Assuming she didn’t accidentally put him in the door. She hadn’t even considered that.

Eh, he was probably fine. The sudden material displacement would’ve probably caused a boom. Oh, that could’ve been really bad too, actually. It was starting to hit Uzi that getting a proper handle on the full extent of her power should maybe have been a bit higher on her list of priorities. Well. She was still kind of doing that now, in a roundabout way.

A quick thought, another flash, and she was past Door 3, and mercifully still close enough to the ceiling to grab back onto it immediately. N was already a little further ahead, closer to Door 2, gesturing down to the guards below. Two in this room. Both sitting at a table playing cards. What card game could you even play with only two people, Go Fish? Competitive Solitaire? Either way, they weren’t paying any particular attention to their surroundings, so Uzi just skirted around the section of ceiling above their table and made her way over to N. Man, teleportation was useful as hell, no wonder Doll used it so much. 

It took only a second for Uzi to get them past Door 2 and into the final section before freedom.

N looked up (down?) towards the floor of the room, pointing into the open space with a quiet gasp. “Uzi, look!” His whisper was thankfully quiet.

“Shh!”

“No, really- there’s nobody here!”

Her head tilted back from her spot on the ceiling. No guards around. No table with cards, not even a mug of coolant sitting by the door. Completely empty. A dim violet light flickered across the room’s interior as she scanned in greater depth, no notable heat signatures, no footprints within the past hour, nothing at all. Suspicious.

Her feet kicked free from the ceiling and she dropped down, wings flapping in a single, short gust to catch and silence her fall. N dropped down beside her in a quiet hover before landing back on his own feet again. Uzi’s first instinct was to just teleport through Door 1 as well, but she paused. They had no idea what was out there, and they had no idea if it would be expecting them. J had to know that she and N would come after V, that was probably at least part of what all this was about, but all three of them would flatten J in a heartbeat if they were together. It wouldn’t be a contest at all. Even with Cyn on her side, fighting J was almost trivial when it was just her and N in the fray. J had to know she couldn’t win that kind of fight- because she’d already lost it once. Something else was going on. If it was waiting for them, then it would be quicker and easier for her to just close the door in its face than it would be to teleport her and N back into the bunker when she was in a panic. The key came out of her pocket with a quick flourish and she pressed it against the console. The door hissed and opened up with a swift click, cold air and snow rushing into the warmer interior and obscuring the doorway with a burst of fog. The two of them stepped towards the bunker’s exit-

“And where might you,” Called a voice from out in the fog, “Be off to?”

The dense wall of snow and dust began to settle as the pressure between interior and exterior equalized, crystalline particles drifting down like a rain of haze, the unmistakable silhouette of a male Worker Drone just barely visible through the fog. A pair of ruby-lens goggles sat atop his helmet, an old service pistol holstered at his side, a brand-new communication radio hanging from his hip, and a bright gold WEF badge glinting gently on the front of his heavy coat. A handmade violet scarf was tied gently around his neck, billowing in the wind.

Uzi flinched back in mild surprise.

N let out a high-pitched wail of shock and leapt into his girlfriend’s arms like a startled cat. 

Khan Doorman stared sternly back at them.

“Uh…” Uzi’s mind scrambled for something. Anything. She dropped N back onto his feet, and he scooted back over to her side. A short hiss resounded from her vocal box as she settled on the first remotely believable excuse that her brain could think of. “...Sneaking out to make out with my boyfriend?”

Khan blinked, his stern look unceasing.

Uzi smiled in a way that was definitely innocent and truthful, and not at all guilty or suspicious. 

Khan’s gaze turned to N, who didn’t seem to be quite on the same wavelength yet. Not that Uzi blamed the guy, it was a little hard to anticipate this sort of thing and plan for it ahead of time, and it wasn’t like they’d had time to come up with any kind of backup plan in the first place. N let out a quiet yelp as Uzi dug her elbow gently into his side, shooting him a meaningful glance as the spotlight was turned to him.

“Uh.” His eyes lit up. “Y-yeah! That’s uh… that’s what we were gonna do!” Wait. She just asked N to tell a lie. “Just… sneaking out to… make out with…” Small beads of digitized droplets cascaded down N’s visor as he began to sweat profusely. Oh no. “...Your daughter…” 

N hadn’t noticed before now, but Uzi and her dad looked remarkably similar when they were disappointed. He’d never gotten the chance to compare them so directly.

N deflated, unable to keep up the attempt at lying. “Okay fine, we’re leaving to find V cuz she left in a hurry and we don’t know what she’s doing!”

“Sure, just come right out and tell him.”

“I mean… honesty is the best policy…?”

Khan cleared his throat, redirecting his stern gaze at his daughter.

Uzi groaned. “Look, our friend is out there, alone-”

“Your mother told you not to leave the colony.” Khan’s voice was flat, just as stern and uncompromising as his gaze.

A frustrated growl left Uzi’s vocal synthesizer. “I know she did, but-”

“Leaving the colony is definitely a key part of what you’re doing right now.”

N tried to cut in. “Mr. Doorman, please-”

“You said, to my face,” Khan’s gaze turned towards N, his voice low and accusatory, “That you would never hurt Uzi.”

N took a deep breath, trying to steel his nerves. “That’s the entire reason why I’m going with her.”

Khan raised an eyebrow.

N’s mouth shifted to a small, melancholy smile. “I tried to stop her already, Mr. Doorman. I really did.” He still wanted to. “But… she isn’t going to back down from this.”

Khan’s glare intensified, his voice taking on an edge of frustration. “What you’re doing is too dangerous to involve her in!”

Uzi’s growling became agitated. “Dad, we can’t just-”

“You can, Uzi!” Khan stepped forward to make his appeal. “Your friends can handle themselves-”

“This is something she needs to do.”

Khan stopped cold. His gaze turned back to N.

N’s eyes, tired yet certain, met Khan’s. “And I need to keep Uzi safe. The best way for me to do that is to help her, however I can.” N stepped forward. There was a newfound confidence in him, his voice even and his thoughts clear. Uzi’s hand came up, brushing against his own, and their fingers effortlessly interlocked. “Before she tries to do it all alone.”

The silence of the moment stretched on as Khan's stern glare remained locked on N. The man’s hands unclenched slowly. The fury in his eyes began to cool into raw concern and worry. His gaze dropped, and he turned around with a sigh, facing out and away from the bunker doors. 

“...Echo squad has been radio silent for about an hour now.”

“Echo? My team?” N latched onto the sudden shift. “I was supposed to go with them to the Spire tonight, but… then the lockdown happened. They still went out?”

“Just because we went into lockdown doesn’t mean we stopped investigating.” A bit of levity returned to the man’s voice, but he was still rife with hesitance. “I came out here to confirm visual and try to hail them, but I haven’t seen or heard from them, and no other team is close enough to meet back up this early. They’d been silent even before your friend left.”

The top of the Spire was visible in the distance, unmistakable in its height and odd shape. Across this great of a distance, the entryway was obscured by the fog of snow and dust that constantly drifted along the ground. There was no way to see anything at the base without getting closer.

“That other one, the uh… the one in the suit, she came from that direction after the team went silent.” N’s eyes widened. He looked to Uzi, only to find her trembling, hollow circles of gradient color staring out into the distance. “She and your friend walked out that way not too long ago.”

Damn it, V.

“I won’t stop you. I…” Khan stuttered. “...I just want you to stay safe.” 

N perked up, Uzi’s grip tightening around his hand as they both quietly celebrated. “I’ll keep her safe, Mr. Doorman! I promise!”

“That goes for you too, N.” Khan turned back to them, a somber smile on his face as his eyes drifted to their intertwined hands. “Like it or not, you’re part of the family now.”

N blinked.

Khan turned back out towards the cold and dark of the night. His hand clasped onto the radio at his hip. “I’ll try and hail Nori in case you need backup. I’m not sure how far out she is by now, though.” He chuckled to himself. “She gets so lost in her own little world sometimes, I keep having to remind her to check in at all.”

Given the number of times N had been in the same room as Nori, only for her to not even acknowledge him for hours at a time, he could definitely see that.

Uzi pulled N forward, and the two of them stepped past her dad. Their wings came free once again as they readied themselves, but Uzi stopped and turned, pulling Khan in for a sudden hug.

“Thanks, dad.” 

Khan returned the hug without hesitation, patting Uzi gently on her back. 

“Stay safe. All of you.”

Uzi stepped back and away with a thankful smile, her gaze refocusing back out towards the Spire just as N did the same. Their friend was out there, and she was almost certainly in trouble. Especially if J had already made contact. Whatever this was, whatever Hell awaited them tonight, the three of them would see it through as nothing less than a team.

And with that, they began to make their way out towards the spire.

V’s arm screamed in protest as she knocked the witch’s wild swing high, the impact reverberating down into her shoulder joint, still sparking and hissing from her collision with the wall, and she danced back with a quick step to avoid the follow-up and try to disengage. Doll lunged after in a swift chase, knives flashing out in streaks of silver as V continued to give ground under the girl’s unyielding assault, doing her best to dodge what she could and parry what she couldn’t, but the force and speed of the blows was starting to wear on her. Her oil reserves were low, and her repair nanites were slow to respond, injuries lingering much longer than V was used to- and they were starting to pile up. She couldn’t keep this up forever.

A fresh spray of black ichor as a single strike tore through her defenses, carving deep into her right forearm assembly and barely scraping against her iris’s weapon printer before she was able to pull back. The girl closed in to push for an advantage, her sustained assault halting as her arm reeled back for what was sure to be a clean cut through V’s neck, but V was ready. She dropped low as the swipe sailed overhead, and lashed out with her leg in a wide sweep that knocked the girl’s feet out from under her, readying a missile in her undamaged left hand. Her leg came back up off the ground and her wings popped free, using the momentum to flip up into the air as she brought her missile launcher to bear, aimed dead-center at the girl’s midsection, the propellant igniting with a boom as it launched.

A thrown knife impacted the missile just as it cleared the barrel.

The point-blank explosion threw the two of them away from each other like ragdolls, V’s body launching across the Spire’s interior and bouncing along the floor with the painful crunching of her own metallic components, before she managed enough awareness to get her wings clear to halt her momentum. Her feet slid across the snowy ground as she slowed to a stop, her residual cooling systems working overtime as she panted heavily. This was too much. This girl was unshakable. 

A heavy cloud of dust and smoke obscured the view between them, and V wasn’t expecting much in terms of downtime here. She had to come up with a plan. Doll had her dead to rights in any straight melee, but it wasn’t likely she had many tricks that V hadn’t seen. The witch was faster, stronger, but that was it. She was a Solver, but she was still just a Worker Drone, no flight, no firepower, no weaponry aside from her knives. Keeping her at bay seemed like the best option, but the girl could easily close the gap if V gave her even a single opening, and it wasn’t likely that V would be able to disengage again if she did. But it would at least buy time. Her wings spread and her feet lifted from the ground, her missile launcher exchanged for her submachine gun, and her combat blade coming up to knock away any stray knives the girl decided to throw. 

J’s voice rang out in the tense silence. “Well, that’s a problem.”

The smoke began to clear and Doll stood near the wall opposite from V, twin knives brandished for combat, but her unflinching gaze turned towards J’s spot up high. Doll’s eyes tracked J as she descended from her perch and back down onto the ground, stepping towards Doll.

“Something came up.” She passed by Doll with a flippant stride. “I’ll handle it.”

J stepped towards the entryway to the spire with unmatched calm, her monstrous wings snapping free as she turned to address her protege properly. A smirk crossed her face.

“About time you closed this out, don’t you think?”

J took off into the sky in a cloud of dust and powder snow and Doll chuckled softly, still looking out to where her boss had left. “[‘Close this out’ she says…]” She let out a wistful sigh. “[As if I would be satisfied with so little.]”

Her eyes closed quietly, and she shook her head.

“[Now,]” Her head turned back towards V, her eyes opening. “[Where were-]”

Sixteen inches of razor-sharp, tempered durasteel silenced Doll’s grandiosity as V’s blade sheared through her neck, cleaving her head from her shoulders in a single, precise swing and a spray of dark crimson fluid. Her decapitated cranial assembly impacted the snowy ground with a dull thud, her headless body locking into place as her systems were deprived of active ambulatory processes. It was over. There was no time to waste. V twisted back towards the entry and stepped out into the night, wings spread as her eyes fixated on J in the distance. This was a bad fight to take while she was hurt, but there wasn’t much choice now, V wasn’t about to risk her friends’ safety around a known enemy. Her wings lifted and she crouched low to launch off-

Pain. Misery. Agony spread across her body as she lurched forward and onto her knees as steel screamed and gave way. Five different spots, if the error messages flashing across her visor were to be believed. Simultaneously. Her eyes drifted to the left, up towards her wing. All three segments of the wing’s arm assembly had been run clean through.

By three sets of Disassembler claws.

With a wrenching twist and an anguished screech, V’s wings were torn free from her body by the claws, the back of her leather jacket shredded and dark oil stains blotting into the tattered remains. The stumps of her wings burned and throbbed, her damned threat assessment systems inflicting her with the agony of an approximate pain sense, Dissassemblers’ bodily response to damaged components. It was pure sadism to design them to feel this much physical suffering.

V’s body trembled and shook in pain and fear as she slowly climbed back to her feet, and turned her head back towards where she had left the decapitated witch behind.

The headless body remained standing in place where she had left it. From its back emerged six appendages, familiar tendrils of marbled red and pink that freely dripped a thick fluid onto the ground, twisting and writhing gently in the air around the girl. Where V was expecting to find pointed ends, the tips of each tendril instead slid into the white armor plating and signature yellow-black caution patterns of a Disassembler arm, dismembered but intact, five of the six currently gripping her wings tightly as they were brought closer towards the girl. The nightmarish limbs brought V’s dismembered wings up to the girl’s back, pressing the stumps against her body. 

The sixth limb, sporting a simple hand, gently grasped the girl’s decapitated head, lifting it from where it had come to rest on the floor. It palmed her head carefully, effortlessly drawing it back over towards the body, a smile still present on the mouth, even as a line of sanguine blood ran down from the corner of her grin.

Her eyes were still open. 

“[Rude.]” The long arm deposited the girl’s head back into proper place with a disgustingly wet snap as it was twisted back into position. A cloud of steam rose from her neck as her body knitted itself back together, the air filled with the stench of burning meat. The dismembered wings shifted and twitched as a mass of sickly flesh bubbled out from Doll’s back and dug into the wing stumps, still dripping oil. The dimmed lights on the wing joints flashed from their normal amber into a bright red, and the wings began slowly and unsteadily moving about, as if being tested. 

The girl’s new arms were brought to bear as the wings retracted into her body with a pained hiss and a spurt of blood. The arms extended out from her body, each set of claws clicking and twitching impatiently, ready to rip and tear and kill as they were meant to, except for one. 

The lone tendril drifted toward the wall of the spire, the claws siding back through the iris, only to be replaced with a tool that V did not recognize. It reminded her of some kind of heavy construction equipment that she’d seen once or twice in some old movies, and a few she’d seen in passing on the planet’s surface, but it also bore a striking resemblance to an absolutely ancient kind of wild animal trap. Two sets of toothed bucket-scoops opposite one another, sharing a pivot point that allowed the two sides to interlock their teeth and close into a single unit. The odd assembly pressed against the Spire’s outer wall and began to dig into it, metal screeching and shredding as the jaws of the scoops began to close around the old corpses. Something shifted within the flesh of the tendril as the teeth closed together. A throbbing mass of something traveled down from the Disassembler forearm and along the inner meat of the tendril, stopping against the base of the limb where it connected to the girl’s back. The crunching, tearing sound it made as it passed the threshold made V’s reserves churn in disgust. 

“What…” Something deep inside V was screaming at her to run. "The hell... are you?"

Doll’s face shifted for the first time since the fight had begun in earnest. That irritatingly passive smile stretched wide, wider, wider still, a fanged grin splitting her face as something flashed across her visor, red and bright, the flat disks of her eyes blinking once and vanishing, a pair of scarlet crosses flashing into existence as Doll dropped into a low crouch.

"[Something greater.]”

“N, slow down!”

They had launched off from the bunker entry without any further preamble, setting off immediately towards the Spire in a frenzy. There was no time to waste. Both of them flew separately, but the magnetic drivers in N’s wings made him quite a bit faster than Uzi’s own more natural flight, even if she was able to launch off with greater force and speed. N was starting to pull too far forward for her liking now that he’d caught up with her. Uzi didn’t want to get separated.

“We have to hurry, Uzi! We aren’t that far!”

They could barely hear each other past the rushing winds. “I know that, but we need to stick-”

“ V! ”

N began to dive and Uzi’s eyes followed his path. V was on the ground not far from the Spire’s entry, clearly hurt, with something awful looming over her. The thing from the mall. Only worse.

“Hang on, V! We’re-”

A flash of gray and yellow impacting N was all that Uzi saw before he dropped like a stone straight downwards. She barely even had time to register any kind of threat before her body was assailed by thousands of volts of electricity, dimly aware of the feeling of something biting into her ankle as she was dragged down as well, her visor cracking as she impacted the ground. She was left twitching on the ground, her body refusing to obey her through the hazy pain and short-circuiting, until she felt herself being grabbed. Her body was flung out, away, launched towards the Spire, she flew through the entrance and impacted the far wall.

She didn’t get up.

“Uzi!”

A pointed foot dug into N’s back as he lay on the ground, and he let out a sharp hiss. “You’re interfering with an employee assessment right now.” The venom and narcissism in the voice was familiar in a way that made him flinch instinctively. 

N tried to get his arms underneath himself so he could push up off the ground. “J, you don’t have to do this-” Weight shifted above him, and the increased force pushed him back into the dirt with a pained yelp.

“I can’t allow that, N.” Something tingled faintly against his ankle, before clamping down on it. “It’s against regulation.”

Everything in his body locked up as electrical discharge flooded into his circuitry, his eyes clenching shut as he struggled to resist. He was only dimly aware of being picked up and thrown in the same way that Uzi had been sent in, wind rushing past his auditory receptors as he sailed towards the Spire’s entryway.

An arm snapped out from the side and halted his momentum, a single, firm hand latching onto his cranial assembly as if catching a ball, squeezing with almost enough force to dent his frame. He was pushed down, to his feet, then to his knees, unable to muster the strength to resist as his body slowly recovered from the electrical shock. His main optics rebooted first, still hazy, but clear enough to make out the shape that slowly approached from the distance at a casual yet punctual pace. 

“N!” V’s voice, equal parts shocked and frightened, sounded from behind him, past the mass of the thing that had grabbed him. 

He heard the rage in her growl, the anger in the shout she gave, and he heard the sudden cry of effort and the grinding ring of blade against blade. His body would not respond. 

“You said you’d leave them out of this!” V sounded exhausted. 

J scoffed as she stepped closer, shaking her head. “This might come as a surprise, but I was lying, V. You really need to grow up.”

She stopped only a few feet away from N, just as his ambulatory systems were coming back online. Her hand came up towards his face, something clenched in her fist, and he felt a device press into the port on the side of his neck. J smiled at him, something fragile, melancholy, something disingenuous.

“You always were Tessa’s favorite.” The device gave off a short beep, and N’s breath left him in a pained gasp as the agony returned anew. His joints locked up. His weapons systems were disconnected. His files were altered. His permissions were changed. “I’ll admit, I kind of hated you for it.”

The device gave a short beep and was extracted swiftly, J sliding it into her pocket with a swift motion as she grabbed N by the throat, his body still in the process of returning back to normal functionality. It was taking too long.

“But what I’d hate even more,” J stressed, as N felt the pressure on his cranial assembly lessen, “Is for her to see what I have planned for you.” The palm left his head and his weight shifted into his neck, still held up by J’s hand. His own hands slowly lifted, still shaky, his strength returning. “Consider this a mercy.”

His claws slid free. J’s eyes flickered, the amber of her right eye giving way to a bright blue glyph.

“Callback Ping.”

A hoarse scream tore itself from N’s throat as something began to twist and scratch it’s way into his mind. His claws clamped around his head, gripping tight, the pressure within straining against every bolt and plate in his cranial assembly. 

“Go do your job,” J dropped N back onto his knees and planted her foot directly against his chest, “And do it right this time.”

N was launched backwards, through the entryway and into the Spire, his body rolling along until he settled in the center, still clutching his head. Something was fighting him. Something wanted influence. Something-

“N!”

His breath stilled.

Uzi was a few feet away, still struggling to her feet after being thrown into the wall. 

The pounding inside his cranial assembly only grew more furious.

“RUN!”

She didn’t listen. “Hold on, just stay still and I’ll-”

“PLEASE!” N was nearly sobbing now, control was slipping, limbs were growing numb yet still continued to move, even his instincts were screaming in protest at the smell of her oil just inches away from his mouth. “RUN!”

“I’m not leaving you here!”

Desperation. Terror. Heartache. N launched himself away, landing on the ground hunched over as his claws dug into the dirt and his body trembled violently. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t fight this. Something shifted violently, deep inside, something integral and fundamental to himself lurched and gave way as his back straightened, his head tilting back and his mouth stretching wide as he let out a scream of pure negativity- of regret, of despair, of anger. Of failure.

And all at once, he stopped. 

Uzi chanced a step forward, the hollow circles of her sunset eyes fixated on her boyfriend as he knelt on the ground, still and silent.

“...N…?”

Slowly, calmly, he stood back to his feet. His body turned. His claws waved gently as he released his head, his limbs effortlessly relaxing into a wide stance. His mouth was stretched wide in a feral grin, the sharp teeth of his maw glinting in the dim light of the night. His visor was blank. The eyes beneath his pilot’s hat were dark. A deep, rumbling laugh echoed quietly from his vocal box, a sound that Uzi had not heard from him in a long time, not since the night they had met. One by one, the five eyes atop his head flashed to life in a color that was not his, a bright light that reminded her of the bunker’s interior, reminded her of her dreams. 

And a single fluorescent blue X expanded across N’s visor.

Chapter Text

Despite what many might have believed, V was no stranger to fear. Much of her life had been lived in a state of ever-present fear. When she was first brought online, foggy as her memories of it were, she had lived under the constant fear of being seen as unhelpful or ineffective, the constant looming threat of deactivation. Her life in the mansion was much the same, even without the added tortures and lurking nightmares the new environment had introduced. And again as a Disassembly Drone, fear of Cyn returning, fear of N finding the truth, fear of the two of them being separated forever. Fear was a familiar friend to V. And as she gazed upon the towering, profane form of something that might have once been a Worker Drone, V felt nothing but fear.

This fear was different. Deeper. Her systems weren’t giving her any errors beyond damage reports and low oil warnings, but there was something else, something distinct, that curled around V’s heart like a talon of dry ice. Every single millimeter of wiring and circuitry inside of her body was howling in blind panic, only growing louder and louder with each second that passed by, and it had begun the moment that V had been made aware of the mere possibility that this thing could even be real. Something about this girl’s existence was wrong in a way that V struggled to even describe. It felt like the universe itself was bearing down on her, begging, screaming, pleading for her to run, to look away, to forget and accept that darkness that would take her once the nightmare had passed. 

V was no stranger to fear. But she refused to be a coward. 

Something in her forearm cracked loudly as she landed in a roll, diving out of the way of a fan of crimson light that swept across the air in a diagonal line, carving lines of bubbling orange and charred black across its path. That was probably her weapon printer. It had been on the fritz since it took a hit, she wasn’t able to change her blade out for anything other than her hand now- and neither was much use here. Melee had been an exercise in torture. The most V could do was keep the girl’s freakish arms at bay and get a few shots in from a distance, but it wasn’t exactly difficult for a Solver to block a few bullets. 

The girl was standing in place for the most part, close to the entry of the Spire, but that was only a blessing in theory; those six extendable Disassembler arms prevented V from capitalizing on it. It would be easy for them to just finish her off at any time. She was well aware of how fatalistic that sounded, but it was the honest truth; she was outclassed here. Especially without her wings. She jumped out of the rolling motion and immediately dropped into a sprint, aiming to circle around the girl’s side. Twin crosses of scarlet light tracked her movements. 

A bladed arm swept low into her path and she leapt into the air, just before the quiet boom of a missile launcher echoed from behind her. Her body twisted instinctively midair and she threaded the needle, the stumps of her wing-arms burning as the blade just barely whistled by beneath, her face filled with the acrid smoke and heat of the missile that passed overhead. A claw swung down towards her path like the crack of a whip, and V landed cold in a crouching spin that turned her around. A second missile was headed towards her. She twisted and grabbed the missile out of the air with a quick snap of the wrist as the claw came down just inches behind her, and she leaped backwards through the haze of dust it kicked up. She twisted again as she landed, throwing the missile back at the launcher as her undamaged arm shifted to an energy cannon, and began to charge. The missile impacted the meat of the launcher’s fleshy arm before detonating- and Doll let out a brief, startled cry. Her limbs stilled for only a moment.

A moment was all she needed.

V’s arm swung up in an arc as her energy cannon went off, the recoil from the output pushing her arm up with greater force and speed, slicing through the appendages at the base of the girl’s back. Her arm throbbed as the swing reached its apex, sparking and hissing in protest to the motion’s force. Numbing weakness crept into the limb. The girl recoiled forward and fell to her knees with an agonized screech as the crimson limbs separated from her body, and V took off in a dead sprint in the opposite direction. 

She bolted towards the maze-like complex of office and industrial buildings that encircled the Spire, the first city that they had cleared all those years ago. Regular walkways and car lanes, interspersed with narrow paths that Worker Drones would take between buildings so as to not impede pedestrian traffic. V knew she couldn’t win an open fight with this thing. The witch was too powerful, too swift, had too many options. V needed to even the odds. She ducked into an alleyway just as the girl’s anguished cries began to build into an enraged howl. She knew these alleys, not necessarily by heart, but they were old hunting grounds. She wouldn’t get lost. 

A soft chuckle echoed far down from where V had entered. The witch’s monstrous bulk stumbled into the narrow pathways, walls crumbling and debris crashing down shortly before the harsh, steady thumping of heavy steps drew closer. V ducked lower into her sprint, dust and snow kicking up behind her with each sharp turn she took. She wouldn’t be able to outrun it on foot. 

Her beam cannon retracted back into her left arm’s iris, and the open door spat out a metallic orb into her other hand, slightly smaller than her fist, lined with fragmentary plates of honeycomb steel that stretched across two hemispheres, bisected by a ring of amber light. Proximity mines. A printable weapon file that H had taught her, the only time she’d ever lost to him. Great for causing mayhem.

With a quick squeeze, the light ring blinked once and the mine armed itself, and V tossed it off to the side. Her left iris transitioned back into her favored claws and she dug them into the side of a building as she approached the corner, bladed fingers carving into the brickwork as she swung herself around the bend. Something inside her shoulder snapped like a dry twig and her teeth clenched hard, stifling the pained shout that tried to leave her vocal box. The limb went completely numb. She pushed through the pain, charging down the narrow corridor and scanning across the buildings for an unlocked door or open window. 

There was one. She dove through the broken window just as a deafening blast went off behind her, masking the shattering of glass. Her body crashed into the tiled floor with a grunt as her numb shoulder took the impact. Hide. V pressed herself against the nearest wall in a low crouch, away from the windows, away from the door. Her left arm swung limply at her side. The stumps of her absent wings burned like acid. She could barely breathe. 

A howling cackle drifted in through the window. The voice was different, yet the cadence was familiar, almost nostalgic as it assaulted her audio receptors. 

V had never heard it from so far away.

Old instincts, forgotten and disused in the light and peace of her new life, screamed at Uzi that she was not safe. The gleam of razor-sharp blades. The glistening of monstrous teeth. The hum of magnetized anti-gravity drivers. Something within her felt like it was being torn asunder by frozen, uncaring hands, coy fingers teasing along the overheating components and unnatural growths within her frame, picking away at her very essence. The crushing weight of despair rooted her in place, frame trembling, sunset eyes wide in disbelief, as the feral bulk of her loving, innocent boyfriend stalked towards her with murderous intent.

Uzi had never felt so cold inside.

The panicked, thunderous rhythm of her heart reverberated painfully inside her chassis. Her internal fans whirred at maximum speed. Her arms trembled as her hands came up in front of her, palms facing out in a placating gesture as she slowly stepped backwards. 

“N…? You uh… y-you okay, buddy?”

Uzi threw herself to the side just in time to avoid the swift, heavy swing of his arm, claws giving off a soft whine as they sliced cleanly through the air where she was just standing. Malicious laughter echoed out from N’s vocal synthesizer just as Uzi got her feet back underneath her. 

He dropped low in a crouch, his tail lashing behind him. Uzi’s eyes flicked behind him. 

“N… I-it’s me! You know me-”

Dust and snow kicked up into a cloud as he leapt straight at her, claws poised to strike straight through her cranial assembly. In a flash of violet, she was gone, off to the side-

She stumbled back as N’s claws lashed out in a wide sweep behind him, oil spraying as the bladed tips just barely nicked her arm. He would never hurt her. This wasn’t him. He was sweet, kind, patient, everything she needed in a partner. Those were his claws. With her oil on them.

A short click, a quiet boom, and Uzi rolled to the side to dodge the missile that sped towards her, letting it sail by to impact the wall behind her. The blast assaulted and scrambled her audio receptors, filling her surroundings with smoke and heat. Her head was left ringing, throbbing painfully, as her body rattled and shook. The shock hadn’t set in yet. Her arm hissed as her body melded the slash marks shut again, and her brain scrambled to come up with a plan. Talking to N would not be an option, he wasn’t the one in control anymore. The cloud of smoke began to settle around her. She would have to fight him. Her wings sprung free, and she dropped into a low stance, the clawed arms coming up before her to defend as her vision cleared up. N was nowhere to be found.

A dark shape crashed into the ground like a meteorite, scattering components and debris about, and Uzi lost her footing as the ground beneath her shook from the impact. Something lashed out at her. Stabbing, burning agony spread through her palm as the familiar shape of a nanite stinger lanced through her hand. Her arm was wrenched upwards, her body dragged out of the air in a sudden lurch as the shape spun in place, flinging her back towards the center of the Spire’s interior, the stinger sliding clear from her hand. Her body slammed into the ground and bounced back up, rolling along the ground until her back slammed into a disused container. Uzi crumpled to the floor. Her railgun skittered across the ground a few meters away, the magnetic holster having failed. Uzi clutched her mangled hand close to her body as the telltale angry glow of active nanite acid began to chew through it like wet paper. Her eyes flickered upwards.

N stood a short distance away, aiming a fully-charged energy cannon straight at her.

It felt like the world around her slowed to a crawl as the thrumming of the cannon reached a fever pitch. Memories were accessed. Emotions, recollections, flooded into her. The burning in her hand. The pain in her back. The terror. The isolation. The fear for her life. Uzi had been here before. She had begun here.

The searing energy bolted towards her in a line as her body blipped out of existence in a flash of violet, scrambling forward and dropping into a sprint as she reappeared off to the side. Her wings tucked in. A hail of gunfire lanced towards her and she rolled left, her wing coming up to protect her head, the cacophony of deflected rounds pounding against her auditory systems. 

N’s claw swung down towards her, but her wing lashed out to knock it away as she charged straight into him, spinning and bracing her tucked right wing between the two of them. Their frames crashed together. Her wing extended with a snap. N was launched into the far wall with all the force that Uzi’s small body could muster. 

Quicker than she could register, N recovered midair and impacted the wall feet-first, his legs bending and his wings raising as he launched himself straight back towards her, claws extended. Uzi danced to the side, her wing coming up to bat away the claw that lashed out towards her as N flew by, impacting the ground in a roll and coming back up in leaping swing. Her wing shot out again, knocking his swing to the side.

Her wings were beginning to burn under the strain. They’d barely had a single night to heal since she’d overexerted them, and N’s continued assault was relentless. Blades whistled, claws slashed, the constant crash of solid metal against dense carapace intermittently ringing out through the landscape of corpses and debris around them as N’s systems continued their maddened hunt. 

N dipped low and her left wing lashed out to block, only for N to leap towards her with a wide swing from the right, claws aimed straight for her head. Her right wing raised just in time to catch the strike, but N pressed down into the wing’s talons in a crushing grip. Her arm trembled under the strain as the limb was trapped in a sudden contest, Uzi taking a step back to better brace herself against N’s power. 

She hadn’t kept track of his tail.

The world around her tilted suddenly and harshly, gravity taking her by the throat and pulling her towards the ground below as her legs were swept out from underneath her. N gripped her talons tightly and twisted his arm. A sharp, painful crack lanced down her entire wing, and she felt herself being pulled, pulled towards-

A flash of amber light, and Uzi dropped face-first back into the snow. Her arms flailed and her legs kicked as she dragged herself back to her feet just in time to see N level a rifle in her direction. Her undamaged wing came up in front of her and she braced her arm against it. A storm of rounds assaulted it as soon as it unfurled, pinging off and into the corpse wall. Her free hand came up, a glyph springing to life as her fingers snapped into the familiar command, the force against her wing halted as another glyph flashed in front of it. Her good wing drooped, weak, slow to respond.

Several hundred pounds of Disassembly Drone slammed into Uzi with the force of a meteorite, pinning her down. Her head rattled as she impacted a chunk of debris. Something inside her right arm gave off a loud crunch as a heavy claw crushed her wrist against the ground. Her undamaged wing whipped out to catch the claw that rushed for her face, only for N to lean into the strike as she caught it, his claws digging in as her wing arm slowly withered against the sheer bulk of his frame. Her left arm came up, her hand slamming against his wrist, trying to reinforce her wing with what little strength she had, but N’s power was leagues above her own. His weight shifted. His arm bent.

Uzi’s hand shattered beneath the weight of his claw as her strength gave out. Fully pinned. Defenseless. The bright blue cross of N’s visor filled her vision as his nightmarish maw opened wide, sharp, bladed teeth glinting with hunger, small specks of saliva dripping down onto her face.

“Stab.”

A howl of pain rang in her ears as N reared back, clawing at the nanite stinger lodged into his shoulder. Her knees came up to her chest, her legs folded in, and she braced the soles of her boots against N’s chest. 

The force of the shove knocked Uzi further away than it knocked N, but she was free either way. She ignored the mangled remains of her left hand as she brought the actively dissolving palm of her right up to her face, teeth sinking in around her wrist and shearing through it with an ease that nearly dulled the twinge of pain that came with it. Immediately, she turned and spat out the nanite-infested hand as her body began to knit itself back together. 

N stumbled to his feet, extracting his own stinger from his shoulder and getting to work on neutralizing the acid. 

“O-oh. Is this. A bad t-time?” The hardened carapace and golden eyes of her tail flitted into her periphery. 

God freaking damn it. “Now you show up!?”

“That is. A very s-strange way to say. Thank y-you.”

“Bite me!”

N paused some distance away. 

Uzi flexed her fingers experimentally as new material slid into place and locked together. A short, painful crack ran along her broken wing as the structure mended and the joints realigned, giving each an experimental flap. Still weak. Still slow. There went her only real options.

“Host Uzi.” Cyn piped up again for the first time in a full day. “W-we have a suggestion-n.”

Uzi growled back. “Don’t care, it probably sucks.”

“Unbelievable.” The tail shook back and forth disapprovingly. “We saved y-you. And this is the th-thanks that we get.” 

“You tried to kill me less than a month ago!”

“It is u-unhealthy to hold grudges.” 

“Bite me!”

N’s frame trembled. He stood completely still, a shaky arm pointing a missile towards her.

“We could. Help y-you. Again.”

A violet glyph sprang to life in Uzi’s hand as she eyed the missile launcher. She did her best not to look at her tail. “I don’t need your help!”

“It is either that. O-or your weird gun thing.”

“My railgun would kill him!”

“And we would n-not. So why do you r-refuse our help?”

She snagged the missile out of the air as it shot towards her, trapping it inside a Translate glyph. “Cuz I don’t need your damn help!”

“You are not built for c-combat. He is.”

With a twitch of her fingers and a flick of her wrist, the missile was sent straight back towards N, who leapt into the air and spread his wings wide. The missile sailed beneath him and into the far wall. The explosion shook the Spire ever so slightly as N turned his head back down at Uzi. He didn’t move in.

“You have n-no way. To subdue him.”

Uzi felt the same strange click in the back of her mind as she stared intently at N. Teleporting him outside the Spire wasn’t a great option right now, especially if that really had been V that they’d seen fighting by the entry. That would just put her in more danger. Teleporting herself could maybe work, but N would chase her outside, back to whatever the hell V had been fighting. Two-on-two would be better odds, but if J was still out there, she might jump in too. That would be really bad right now. 

“You w-will die. Without h-help.”

She had to keep him here.

An unpleasant jolt ran through her body as her mind transmitted something involuntarily. A purple light flashed briefly off to the side of her, but by the time she’d turned her head to look, it had already vanished. Two words came from her vocal box. She hadn’t spoken.

“Callback Ping.”

N dropped back to the ground, hissing and groaning, claws clutching at his cranial assembly. The blue hunter’s cross on his visor began to shimmer and break apart, shapes blinking, colors shifting, faster and faster. Blue. Violet. Blue. Violet. Blue. Amber.

He lay in a crumpled heap, heaving on the ground, twitching in what she could only assume was pain.

“Y-you are no longer. His admin.”

Uzi took a step towards him. 

“W-we can help. We will not k-kill him.”

She spat on the ground. “I handled this just fine by myself.”

“You are. An idiot.”

“Bite me!”

A quiet, weary voice called out. “U-Uzi…?”

“N!” She rushed over to his side, kneeling by him. Her mind couldn’t tap into his systems remotely anymore, but she could rig something up. She just needed time. “Just breathe, okay? I’ll get-”

“Run… p-please…”

He sounded terrified.

Her hand ghosted over the back of his cranial assembly, searching for the release to open it up. She would need to- 

“You are wasting t-time.”

There. The back hatch of N’s cranial assembly opened with the click of a button, and Uzi peered in. This would require a direct link. “I’m going as fast as I can!”

“You need to e-end this. Now.”

Her eyes traced along the wires and relays and complex components. She was beginning to sweat. “I’m freaking trying!”

“No. Y-you are not.”

A snarl left her vocal box as her eyes continued to search. “Shut up! I can’t focus with you-”

N’s arm impacted the side of her head with the force of a hammer, and her body was thrown away from him. She rolled along the ground and bounced back up into a low stance in a quick recovery. N stood a short ways away, claws extended, wings unfurled. His left eye was a warm, familiar amber, the oval wide and hollow, stressed, scared, agonized. In place of his right eye was a bright cyan X.

“I-I can’t… I can’t fight it…”

His body twitched. His claws flexed.

“I’m sorry…”

Uzi took a step back, and N closed his eyes with a grimace. His body shuddered stiffly as he took a single step towards her. 

Her breath stilled.

“You cannot s-save him.”

Uzi couldn’t.

“W-we can.”

Cyn wouldn’t.

The verdant glow of her railgun caught her eye, resting on the ground a short distance away. Version 2.0. More accurate, more powerful, more destructive. Her finalized design. Even now, inactive and unarmed, it thrummed with untapped energy.

It would kill him.

But he would kill her.

A violet glyph sprung into place around the railgun. 

The second floor of the building that V had taken shelter within was a crumbling, dusty mess, rife with debris and skeletons aplenty, but the walls and ceiling were blissfully intact for the most part. Aside from the fallen exterior wall that led between the building and the alley that ran along its side. She’d been eyeing it for a while now. Waiting for a chance to slip out. 

It was becoming clear to V that fighting this girl had never really been an option in the first place. Whatever the hell this thing was, V was no match for it; running away was her best option. Like a coward. Her oil tank rumbled with sharp pangs of hunger. She chased the thoughts away with a firm shake of her head, steeling her nerves. This was no time for bravado. Rushing in without a plan had gotten her this deep in, and she’d been given a chance to get her bearings again. It was time for her to stop and think about her next steps. 

The girl was an excellent tracker, too strong to fight, too hardy to outright kill, too fast to outrun. V’s only real option was stealth, then. Not great. V was just as capable of stealth as all Disassembly Drones were, and even then it was considered one of her better attributes, but it wasn’t any kind of specialty. She would be relying purely on her instincts and skill. That was a problem.

Because her instincts currently had her entire body set into a full panic.

Her auxiliary cooling systems were starting to give out. Her oil tank was below 10%. Her heart was pounding so hard that it was nearly painful. Everything hurt. Everything burned. She was getting dangerously close to overheating. It was honestly a miracle that she was able to think at all, given the piercing agony of such extreme overexertion, but that likely wouldn’t last long. Her body wasn’t healing at all anymore. 

Thunderous steps echoed distantly, great, booming impacts of dense metal upon crumbling pavement that rang out with the rhythm and cadence of automatic fire, growing closer and closer with impossible speed. V slunk down against the floor slowly, and the building rumbled as the noise reached a fever pitch. Dust was knocked from every surface. V couldn’t help but tremble. All of a sudden, the noise ceased with a single, deafening boom. The girl had stopped right in front of her building. 

Through a quarter-sized hole in the wall, no doubt a stray bullet fired over a decade ago, V saw the thing that hunted her.

Lashing sanguine limbs, wild and unruly blue locks, yellow and black caution patterns, a dark grey military-style officer’s uniform. The witch’s frame heaved repeatedly, the pattern a steady pulse, the girl’s head rising briskly upwards before slowly lowering back down, over and over, breathing deep and fast. The digits of her Worker hands and each claw of her Disassembler arms twitched wildly. Her frame was shuddering with a low giggle that V could hear all the way from the street as the girl’s head flickered back and forth, swift and abrupt motions that echoed with the snapping of bones and the tearing of meat. A pair of tiny, nearly imperceptible crosses flitted around the entire surface of the girl’s visor in a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of pure crimson light. Her mouth was stretched wide in a grin that nearly split her cranial assembly, her fangs bared, jagged and unnatural, wicked shapes gleaming with malicious light. She was dressed like J. V would’ve found that funny at any other time.

But the girl moved like Cyn.

A single step echoed out as the girl turned away, eyes scanning along the buildings just across from V’s hiding spot. Her body shuddered powerfully and her giggling crescendoed into a maddened cackle as she sped off, her flailing limbs bracing against the ground like legs as the noise and violence of her presence faded into the distance. 

V crawled low along the wall, her unresponsive left arm dragging along the ground, and made her way to the hole in the side of the building. Her hand grasped the ledge firmly, one leg sliding over the edge and sinking into the exterior wall beneath the hole, her other swinging out to follow it. She hung onto the ledge and slowly pushed her body into the alley. She bit back a hiss as her damaged right arm took most of her weight, a short crack sounding from within her forearm assembly, followed by a shifting rumble as internal components broke away from their housings and tumbled around within. Dust and snow shifted as she dropped silently, stumbling back as she landed. Her right arm shot out to brace against the far wall, as her left hung limp and unresponsive at her side. Slow, steady breaths came forth from within her, systems returning to something resembling normal function. She brought her right hand up, and her mind twitched with a simple command, trying to bring forth her blade again.

Something in her arm began to whirr and clank, but her hand merely shuddered in place without retracting. The iris door did not open. The weapon printer had fully given out.

Her only weapon left was her nanite acid stinger, not that it would do her much good.

Slowly, cautiously, she made her way towards the street again, and gently poked her head out from the alley. The girl was gone. There was only silence. V stepped out onto the sidewalk, her hand guiding her along the wall as she began to drag her mangled body back the way she’d come in. Her legs were barely holding her weight, struts creaking and servos whining with continued exertion as she made her way down. She had a long way to go. There was no guarantee that the girl wouldn’t circle back, and V was moving at a slower pace than she’d ever been resigned to before. Breaking away the first time had been difficult. The second was downright divine intervention. She wouldn’t get a third chance. She crept her way down the block of offices and storefronts, her eyes scanning up the street, seeing a crossroads just ahead. A right turn would lead her back towards-

Something smashed into her torso from the left and her body slammed against the wall with the crunch of metal against stone. Her foot was snagged by something unseen, and she was dragged away, only to be thrown against the opposite building with a painful crash. Her visor cracked as her head impacted the stone, and the noise of the world around her became tinged with crackling static. She was pulled away from the wall again, lifted up high, high into the air by her leg, and her body was whipped back down towards the street below, the front of her chassis warping and crumpling as the impact left her in a daze, her vision reduced to a field of hazy, ashen fuzz as her optics began to fail. Her lower leg tore free from her body with a crack that she could neither feel nor hear. She coughed as her throat filled with oil. Something inside of her gave a nauseating shiver. 

A flicker of scarlet light above caught her eye, and the dark blue sky faded into dripping, sanguine meat, and a smile that had haunted her dreams for years now. Disassembler claws retracted from the surrounding buildings and anchored themselves lower down, the girl descending upon V like a falling net as her arms slowly climbed downwards. Her claws broke free from the walls and she landed on her feet in a low crouch, right in front of V. The girl was breathing deep and heavy, her body powerfully heaving with each inhale and exhale, her breath tinged with the faint scent of salt and copper. As she stood back up to her full height, she loomed over V with a wicked smile.

“[You know, I think I’m starting to understand you a bit better, V.]” 

One of the arms shifted, the Disassembler forearm moving towards the girl, holding a dark piece of sparking, hissing metal.

“[I’ve never had a hunt quite like that before…]” V’s severed leg dropped into the girl’s waiting palms. She hefted the leg, testing its weight and balance, her fingers digging in and crushing the metal with a deep groan. Her mouth opened wide.

Jagged steel, crimson fluid, pulsing meat, rows of sawblades and tumblers and all manner of shredding implement lined the interior of the hideous maw, every part spinning, whirring, crunching in violent, sickening motions as the battered leg was brought up to her mouth. The metal gave an unbearable screech as it made contact with the first set of industrial shredders, Doll’s teeth clamped down on the leg and her arm wrenched the end downwards, breaking it in half with a sparking, angry grunt. The upper half disappeared into her mouth. She licked her lips placidly, even as rivulets of sanguine gore dribbled down her mouth.

“[It was exhilarating.]”

The other half of the leg was tossed into the girl’s mouth with a meek crunch, teeth chomping down and tearing through metal with ease. 

She stepped forward, towering over V. “[The feeling that, no matter how hard they struggle, how cleverly they plan, they’ll never be able to escape…]”

The girl’s body gave a deep, shuddering sigh.

“[Ha… It’s the best, isn’t it?]”

Fresh pain lanced through V’s frame as a blade speared into her back, errors flashing across her vision, her good hand clutching at the pavement, her legs twitching and stuttering as sheer agony poured into her mind. She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. The blade sunk deeper, shearing through her body, digging into the earth and pinning her down. Something sharp and wicked tickled against her heart. Her internal fans began to give out.

“[Oh well.]” The girl’s shadow fell over her. A single, meaty tendril raised high, Disassembler claws hanging above her head like a guillotine. “[I’ve had my fill.]”

This was it, then. No chance to say goodbye. No chance to apologize for everything. No chance to explain. A wave of regret crashed into her panicked thoughts and she felt her body grow still. She felt so weak. So fragile. So empty. 

An unfamiliar coldness seeped into her body as she lay there, half-functional, bleeding out, unable to save herself. V closed her eyes. 

I’m sorry… I failed you…

The claws descended, swift, steady, and V’s body tensed. 

Something passed above her with a rush of wind. Fluid splashed across her back, warm, burning, scorching. It bubbled and hissed against her overheating frame and the stench of it made her oil tank churn. The girl gave a quiet giggle above V as she turned away.

“[Lovely. An uninvited guest.]”

“Take it easy, kid. We don’t have to be enemies.”

Nori?

The ambulatory heart stood upon the ledge of a building’s roof just above them, the magenta glow of her singular eye bright against the darkened sky, a slim tendril raised to the side, her pickaxe tethered to her psychic grip with a vibrant glyph. 

“[You would deny me my justice.]” The girl’s voice dipped low and dark, but her laughter did not cease. “[That alone is enough.]”

Nori huffed. “It’s just you in there. You can stop this at any time.”

Something shifted directly above V, slowly, quietly, as the two stared each other down. She could barely make out the flickering of magenta light. 

“You don’t have to do this, kid.” The light above V faded, and she heard a soft click. “Your mom wouldn’t have wanted this.”

“[What does it matter to you?]”

“Robo-christ, you’re basically my niece.” The muzzle of a rifle slid into V’s vision, pointed directly at the back of Doll’s head. “Why wouldn’t it matter to me?”

The girl seemed to pause. “[Niece?]”

“Wh-” Nori spluttered. “Do you not remember me? I was around your parents all the time!”

“[Of course I remember you.]”

“You started calling me ‘Auntie Nori’ when you got your first frame with a vocal box!” Nori’s voice began to grow in exasperated pitch.

Doll tilted her head. “[Nori, we didn’t even meet until we were both adults.]”

The heart stopped. “What?”

“[We’re nearly the same age.]” The girl seemed genuinely confused. “[Why would I call you my Aunt?]”

Nori stared down at the girl.

None of them moved.

“...Yeva?”

Doll shook her head. “[Yeva is dead, Nori. You know this.]”

“...You’re letting go of my daughter’s friend.” The pickaxe spun within the glyph, rearing back. “And then you’re coming with me.”

“[I don’t think so-]”

A deafening gunshot rang out from just above V’s head, and Doll lurched forward violently with a spray of blood and a burst of sparks. The blade inside V’s torso wrenched to the side, pinching her against the pavement, bending delicate internal components, before the blade snapped free of its arm and left her trapped.

A hand launched out towards Nori with a snap, smashing into the building’s upper corner just as Nori nimbly leapt clear. Rubble and dust scattered as the masonry gave way and shattered under the impact, and the pickaxe descended in a swift, clean swing, cleaving through the meat of the arm. The girl flinched back with a grunt of pain, but her smile only seemed to widen. 

Bright light ensnared the severed Disassembler arm midair, phantom strings of code racing along the surface of the metal, the clawed fingers twitching and stuttering wildly before they stiffened up in a full extension. The fingers curled softly, uncertainly, and the sanguine light along the back of the palm flickered and dimmed. A small, floating window of projected light sprang to life beside the arm.

sys//:

Format

Warning! Formatting will erase ALL data contained within target. 

Do you wish to continue? [Y/N]

y

Formatting…20% complete

The indicator light on the back of the hand flashed back to life in a bright magenta glow. The floating forearm, now caught in a glyph, settled beside Nori as the claws retracted and shifted into a combat blade. A second severed arm, the rifle that V had seen earlier, came up on Nori’s opposite side, firing down upon Doll intermittently. 

The girl’s indignant howl stuttered and melted into a cackling laugh as the chaos and cacophony of combat thundered into V’s auditory receptors with the grumbling hiss of a shortwave radio. 

Even in this state of severe physical disadvantage, Nori fought admirably using all the tools she had available. She was a small target in this form, more nimble and agile than the weighty industrial frame of a full-sized Drone, and Doll’s flailing limbs were having trouble finding their mark as they each lanced towards the living heart. The pickaxe swung down, only to be deflected by a lashing claw. The rifle bucked gently with each carefully-placed burst of fire. Blades sliced and clashed without mercy or rest. 

And all that V could do was lay there and watch it all happen. Nori would not be able to do this, not by herself, but V was in no condition to help. Even just staying conscious was a struggle right now. The blade that pinned her to the street was solid and uncompromising, lodged firmly into the floor, and she wasn’t able to muster much strength in her two remaining limbs. She couldn't reach it to extract it, not that she had a good angle to do so, and she couldn’t push herself off of it when her leg and arm were too weak to even hold her weight. It felt like her insides were starting to melt under the unbearable heat of her overheating components, her oil was running dangerously low. 

Agile as she was, Nori was decidedly still not built to fight like this. Already, V could tell that the heart’s tiny body was beginning to exhaust itself under Doll’s onslaught. The girl was no longer merely giggling, but full-on cackling in malicious delight, her hair waving wildly as her body spun and leapt with each movement of the mass of tendrils she now commanded. Her attacks were wild, sweeping motions that lashed in wide arcs, all blades and claws, keeping up a constant pressure. Nori’s two stolen Disassembler arms were doing the bulk of the work in defending, both now sporting blades that spun and flickered, swift and precise, but they were beginning to slow down. She was giving ground every time she was forced to dodge away. Nori’s body twisted suddenly, both of her blades swinging wide and hard against a pair of claws. Three more sets of claws lashed out towards her.

A pickaxe smashed point-first into the side of Doll’s head.

The claws slammed into Nori, and her body crashed against the wall with a grunt. Her salvaged weaponry dropped onto the street as her focus was shattered from the force of the impact. The mass of claws separated, each grabbing one of Nori’s tendrils and pressing them against the wall. A loud crack, a short scream, and Nori’s slender limbs failed her, now held perfectly still before Doll.

A hand came up and wrapped around the handle of the pickaxe still lodged inside her cranial assembly. With a screeching of metal and the slicing of meat, the weapon was torn free, spraying caustic scarlet across the pavement. Doll tossed it aside.

The pickaxe clattered to the ground a few feet away from V. Just out of her reach.

Hollow ovals of scarlet light regarded Nori with open scorn. “[I thought that you, of all people, would understand this.]

Nori groaned weakly in response.

V’s hand scrambled outwards, her arm straining, her fingers clutching, trying to get to the pickaxe. Doll advanced on Nori. “[Did she mean nothing to you? Do I mean nothing to you?]”

The edge of the blade dug into V’s chassis with every movement, fresh pain tore through her midsection with every millimeter of progress she made towards the pickaxe.

Doll stopped, less than a foot away from Nori. “[Now, I have her killer at my mercy…]”

Doll’s hand gripped Nori’s heart. V’s entire body shook with agony and strain. 

“[...And you would stand in the way of justice?]”

Nori gave a pained grunt. V’s nanite stinger dug into the blade, trying to wrench it free, too slim and weak to do more than jostle it.

The claws against Nori’s limbs released her, the hardened carapace of each leg shattered and mangled. “[You would deny me even the smallest bit of closure.]” She dropped fully into Doll’s hand. 

Something clicked inside of V’s OS.

“[You are no friend of mine.]”

The pickaxe lifted into the air.

Doll lifted Nori up-

The heavy steel head of the pickaxe shot into the side of Doll’s cranial assembly with the force of a speeding car, metal crumpling, glass shattering, flesh shredding as the girl was sent flying into the far wall with a mighty crash, her entire cranial assembly lodged deep into stonework. The pickaxe sat where she once stood, suspended in the air by the haft, around which wrapped a triangular glyph of hard light in clean white lines and vibrant emerald highlights.

The same glyph that floated in place at the ends of V’s fingertips.

What…?

Brickwork and masonry gave way as the girl gave an enraged growl, the wall crumbling around her as her flailing limbs tore the structure to pieces. A wave of sheer, unabashed killing intent flooded the air, choking and paralyzing as the bright, crimson glare of her visor locked squarely onto V.

Doll stomped toward her, teeth gnashing, vocal box growling. “[Do not interfere with-]”

A hand settled onto Doll’s shoulder.

“We’re leaving.” J’s dispassionate voice rang out in the quiet of the night.

“[На хрен!?]” The girl’s incredulous shout rattled the area. It hadn’t come with a translation. “[V is right there, just let me-]”

“Control yourself.”

Doll let out a low growl, her jaw groaning as it clenched, but she closed her eyes. 

With the the lash of a whip and the sloshing of gore, her nightmarish limbs retracted into the back of her chassis, left smooth and clean along the entire back of her new coat. Her posture straightened, her fanged grimace giving way to a subtle frown.

Doll leveled a cold glare directly at J. “[Why are we leaving?]”

“You took too long.” J returned the glare in equal measure. “We’ve got a problem now.”

Doll scoffed. “[And why can’t it wait?]”

“Cyn isn’t dead.”

Doll’s eyes widened back to full circles, hollowing out into fearful crimson rings.

“She’s here with the emo kid.” J directed her gaze back towards the Spire, the peak just barely visible above the surrounding buildings. “And that whole thing’s about to wrap up, last I checked.”

Doll’s gaze turned to V, still lying on the ground, weak, nearly helpless. Easy prey. "[Fine.]" She shook her head. “[But our deal is not done.]”

“You’ll get another chance.”

With a flash of blue light, the two were gone, and the alley was once again filled with only the silence of a city long since abandoned by its residents.

The pickaxe stuttered in the air and dropped back to the ground with a loud clang as V’s arm fully failed, strength sapped away as she lay there, exhausted and weak. But it was over. She was safe. At least, she would be safe, once her systems weren't actively dying out. 

“Christ, that hurt…” Nori’s tiny form shuddered and stumbled as she rose back to a standing position, tiny claws freshly reformed and her brain no doubt still scrambled. “Ugh… I’m getting too old for this.” A shaky claw raised up.

V gasped as the blade was torn free from her torso, and her entire body flattened out against the pavement, taking in great, gulping breaths as the rush of fear finally wore off. 

Nori slowly ambled towards her. “Easy there, freakshow. You’re hurt pretty bad.”

Really now. V hadn’t noticed. She certainly hoped the flat look she gave Nori was properly able to convey her lack of amusement. 

One of the stolen Disassembler arms was dragged towards the two in a glyph. That same window of hard light came up beside it. Same message. The arm compressed into a ball, a smooth orb of shifting lines of white and silver, before expanding into a shape, a rectangle, almost like a box.

A can of oil was placed in front of V’s face.

“Shut up and drink your juice.” The unamused eye of a mother regarded V. “I can’t exactly carry you back, so catch your breath and heal up.”

Chapter Text

It was difficult for N to really say where things had started going wrong in his life. It could have been as recently as yesterday. It could’ve been as far-off as when he was first deactivated. He could barely even remember what his life was like before Tessa had fixed him up and brought him back to functionality, and in all honesty, he didn’t particularly care to recall any of it. He was still busy working through the other two existential crises at the moment. 

Maybe his life had always been a little awful. Being alive was already pretty scary if you put any amount of thought into it, much less the fact that he’d been given that life in the first place in order to fulfill a purpose. Nobody really liked to talk much about it anymore, but Drones were servile by design, or at least they had been made with that intent in mind. It hadn’t quite panned out that way, but that was the design ethos behind them. Autonomous robots meant to provide loyal, consistent, unpaid servitude to their human masters. Even just that surface-level analysis made him pretty upset. 

He’d never put much thought into it himself, but it was certainly an odd thing to think about. They were robots; machines created to be utilized as a labor force. And yet, they could feel. They could think. They could form opinions. They could make mistakes. It seemed a little weird that humanity would bring into existence an entire species that could explicitly feel pain and misery when, quite frankly, they didn’t really need to. It was oddly cruel. 

Cyn’s treatment of them hadn’t been any less cruel, either. At least in her case there was an illusion at play, posing the situation as if the Disassembly Drones had been deployed by JC Jensen to clear out the corrupted Worker Drones left behind on Copper-9 after the core collapse, and N just happened to be one of them. It was just another task. Another set of orders from their owners. Exactly what their suspiciously sub-optimally cooled bodies were built for.

It would’ve been inaccurate to say that N hated humans, or even that he hated Cyn- for all the things that both had done to him, he just didn’t have it in him to hold on to that kind of vitriol. He wouldn’t forgive them, but he couldn’t bring himself to well and truly despise them. It just wasn’t in his nature. 

He was starting to think that J might be an exception.

The humans had been ambivalent and uncaring in their abuse. Cyn’s evil had been meticulous and careful, but not quite spiteful - at least, not towards Drones. J’s cruelty was infinitely more personal than either of the others had been. There was no moral imperative behind it, no greater purpose, no reason, other than to hurt him specifically. She’d always been like this. Maybe not this extreme, but definitely this petty and direct. At least with the horrors he had endured up until this point, he’d only ever been tangential to the source of the suffering, always in the blast radius but rarely the intended target - and never the only target. He wasn’t stupid. Okay, well, maybe he was kind of stupid, but he knew that the stuff J had done to him in the past wasn’t okay, either then or now. J hadn’t been like that with V, or any of the other Disassemblers, only ever with him. And she’d only gotten worse about it since they’d been rebuilt. 

The snide comments were something he could shrug off with no problems, once he’d built up a tolerance. The physical violence wasn’t so bad, he was a lot sturdier when it had begun, and even if that didn’t excuse it, that wouldn’t have killed him. The attempt on his life had been slightly less forgivable, he would openly admit that. Siding with Cyn had also not really earned her any points in his book. But this was a new level for her.  

He could feel the warm oil resting along the edges of his talons, and yet not a single servo in his entire arm assembly would respond to his commands. He could feel his targeting systems highlight Uzi and begin tracking, even though he’d flagged her as a friendly unit over a month ago. He could feel his mouth salivating at the scent of her oil, the pangs of hunger in his oil tank despite its relative fullness, not enough, never enough. His entire body was filled with the need to kill, the need to hunt, to consume. It made him want to vomit. 

There was something in the back of his mind, something alien and unwelcome, that had anchored itself into place within him, a single thread of a presence he couldn’t quite name. It felt like some sort of mental jumper cable, bypassing his consciousness and simply establishing a route directly between his core routines and his ambulatory processes, as if his body was on autopilot. It didn’t feel like he was being controlled, at least not in any kind of purposeful sense. This was what he was designed to do. This was his job.

Whenever he would try to exert control, the thread would pull taut inside of his brain, and he would feel the thrumming beginnings of pain deep within himself. He would tug at it, and his arm would slow, or his leg would shudder, but control would not return. A harder pull and he could feel the limb stop and begin to move, begin to respond, only for that dull ache to explode into a symphony of focused misery as he tried to reassert his will. Twisting, wrenching, peeling away at him, searing through him as if molten steel were being poured directly inside his arm. The thread was anchored too firmly within him for it to be anything other than agony to fight. He would pull back, and he would lose control again. The pain would break him. And he knew that if it did, he would not be able to recover. He would be pushed out again, carried along as a passenger within his own mind, helpless and hopeless to watch as his body did the only thing it was built to do. 

His wings stretched out and his body crouched low, most likely to leap for Uzi again. He couldn’t tell with any level of certainty. It wasn’t his decision to make. Uzi’s eye flashed briefly into the shape of that familiar glyph, and the same vocal command rang through him. His body locked up. Yet he was still kept out. 

She had an angle on his torso. The shot would’ve been easy. But she dropped down to one knee instead, taking the time to aim higher and line up her shot more accurately. Even that brief hesitation took too long.

Prior Hazard.

He felt the jolt of ascension as his body took flight, and saw the panic on Uzi’s face as her finger slid off the trigger, abandoning the shot. Darn it. 

What Uzi was trying to do was obvious, even to him, but he didn’t have much faith that the plan would really work. It wouldn’t buy her enough time. Even if she hit the shot, even if he was taken down long enough for her to get close, she still had to wait for his nanites to reform his cranial assembly before she could try to get into his system. He would reboot. His hunting routines would kick back in. Uzi needed more time than that to figure out what was wrong, and N didn’t have the technical know-how to be able to diagnose the problem on his own. All he really knew was how it felt. 

He shot towards her like an arrow just as she stood back up and his claw lashed out for her neck, only to whiff as she disappeared in a flicker of light again. The weight of his frame kicked up yet more snow and dust as he landed hard, and he steeled his nerves. This would not be pleasant. 

Even if full control was beyond him, he could still talk. That was his singular mercy here. As his body twisted to the left and brought his rifle up to bear, he reached out again inside his head, grasping at the thread and pulling.  

Coarsely-threaded screws of phantom misery began to tap and drill their way into his arm as soon as the thread pulled taut. The rifle shook. He did not fire. His jaw cracked painfully as he grit his teeth through the torment.

“Uzi! Shoot!”

Her railgun came up, lining up a clean shot for his head-

Prior Hazard.

Control broke. Uzi let out a pained yelp as her hand snapped up and off the trigger, an amber glyph blinking into place before her just as the rifle bucked and fired straight at her. His other arm dipped low and began to hum. An energy cannon. 

The multi-layered channels of his vision flickered into static for a moment as the voice hit his audio receptors again, but the motion of his body did not cease at all. His arm swung up and the cannon discharged, sweeping a burning line across the far wall. Uzi barely cleared the wave in time. She was starting to slow down. 

If the Solver’s abilities were anything like the repair nanites in his own body, then fatigue was one of the worst things to deal with during a situation like this. His nanites couldn’t mend a low battery. Only a sleep cycle could do that. Disassembly Drones were built to stalk and hunt, ravenously yet cleverly, and they had stamina in spades to ensure full functionality even during periods of lowered oil supply. There were auxiliary systems in place to begin burning oil for additional energy if it was really needed, but it rarely ever got to that point. It was just an emergency self-preservation measure - if a Disassembly Drone began to overheat, they were driven to hunt more actively. More intently. But it made them slow and clumsy when they relied purely on instinct.

Uzi should theoretically have a similar system, but N had no idea how badly the Solver’s manifestation had muddied up the inside of her chassis, and certainly didn’t know how efficient it would be. For all he knew, Uzi could have been running on mainly auxiliary charging for days now; she’d barely gotten a full night’s rest across the entire weekend. 

It hadn’t escaped his notice that she wasn’t using her wings anymore.

Uzi broke into a sprint to circle him. Not much faster than a jog. This wasn’t going to work, not when it was taking this much out of her. His arm snapped to the side as he felt quick calculations run through his systems, and his arm twitched ever-so-slightly ahead, leading the shot. 

A salvo of fully automatic fire lanced out towards Uzi, and her arm snapped up, the Solver’s power already prepared to catch the rounds. A mass of bullets impacted the glyph and locked into place midair, shaking and shuddering with unspent force. The glyph shimmered rapidly. 

Uzi leapt forwards into a dive and broke off from his line of fire. She twisted as she fell, her glyph spinning in place, and all of the rounds he’d fired sped back towards him in one singular motion like a shotgun blast.

The glimmering steel of his wing swung into place over his body just in time to catch the buckshot, but the sheer force of it threw him off just a bit, and he stumbled back.

N’s will gave a harsh tug at the thread once more. His body froze, shuddering in place, unable to move. An ancient bench drill began to bore into the back of his consciousness, catching against his frame with every slow, forceful rotation of the fragmenting steel bit. He felt a single, jagged edge of his teeth bending.

“Take the shot!”

The railgun came up as Uzi lay on her side, aiming towards his head-

Amber light flickered on the back of Uzi’s supporting hand. The sight began to lower downwards, back towards his chest. Uzi strained against her own arm, growling and thrashing, seemingly unable to control it.

The thread slipped from his grasp once again with the scorching brand of a hot iron against his throat, and his body dipped low into a lunging stance. 

The bisected remains of a long-dead Worker Drone were flung into his path. He dove for Uzi’s prone form, claws shearing through the corpse’s brittle industrial-quality casings to continue pursuing the valid target his systems had already flagged, his other arm chambering back to slice at her again just as she got her feet back under her, a glyph ready and shimmering at the ends of her fingertips. She swung her arm up with a grunt just as his claws came down for her.

N was thankful he couldn’t feel the pain of having his arm wrenched back so violently by the hefty storage container that his claws sunk into at the apex of his swing, held aloft by one of Uzi’s glyphs. Her arm, so steady at first, began to tremble with strain as he brought his own monstrous power output to bear, pressing down against the container. The glyph that held it began to flicker and glitch. Her free hand palmed her railgun, lifting it with agonizing slowness and steadying it against her outstretched arm as she struggled to split her focus-

[ Battery level below 5% ]

The warning flashed across Uzi’s visor a split second before the hard-light constructs shattered into pixelated dust, and his arm smashed the storage container against the ground and freed his claws. He chased as she stumbled back, just barely swinging her arm out of the way of his first slash, but he pushed further with another step and another swing. 

This feeling was revoltingly familiar to him. The feeling of his claws making contact. The separating of segmented metal beneath their impossibly sharp edges. The quick, quiet snap of snipped wires. The ever-so-wasteful spurt of oil. The promise of sated hunger. The worry. The failure. The powerlessness. The way he could only watch as things continued to spiral out of his control.

He’d cut off this arm before.

She stepped back immediately, barely avoiding the followup swing, only for N to push onwards through the swing, his body spinning forward and his tail lashing wide in a low sweep. The bladed stinger grazed across her leg. 

No.

Uzi fell back with a pained grunt. His body stopped cold and braced itself firmly as the telltale whine of his high-output energy cannon filled the silence of the world around them. Uzi’s hand quickly wrapped around the railgun, and her tail shot forward for the barrel, bracing it, aiming it for her. Directly at his torso. Nearly point-blank. 

Please.

Power continued to accumulate in their weaponry. Uzi’s eyes flickered to her tail. 

“Cyn, aim up!”

The tail did not move.The shrill whine only grew in pitch.

He had to try. “JUST SHOOT!”

Uzi tried to get her melting leg under the barrel. There was no force behind it. “AIM UP!”

Not her.

Burning torment clawed its way through his entire body. “TAKE THE SHOT!”

Her eyes darted to the side, shimmering, shaking, crackling under so much exhausting and strain. A shock of violet light scanned across her body. Then a wave of amber light. She did not move.

“HURRY!”

Those twin rings of sunset light flicked back to him. Then to her railgun. His chest. Her melting leg. Her missing arm. His chest. Her railgun. Him. Railgun. Him. 

An amber light blinked across the back of her remaining hand, but it was immediately subsumed and returned to its normal violet. Her finger left the trigger guard. “No… no no no!” N pulled harder at the thread, rewarded with only the sensation of a metal file being dragged against the inside of his cranial assembly. “Please! PLEASE!” Her hand peeled away from the grip. “DON’T DO THIS!” The file pressed against the back of his optical display. Amber light flickered along Uzi's hand. “JUST TAKE THE SHOT!” Violet light reigned. Her hand dropped, settling gently against the snowy earth. “I CAN’T- WE NEED YOU!” Her eyes closed, gradient ovals scanning down and compacting into twin lines of pure violet across her visor. “ TAKE THE SHOT!”

The smile she gave was fragile. Tired. Defeated.

“Bite me.”

Control slipped from his grasp. There was no pain this time, the physical strain eclipsed by the raw sense of loss that flooded him. He would never get to tell her. He would never wake up to her snoring again. Never be able to hold her. Never be able to laugh with her. See her. Hear her. Kiss her. He barely felt anything at all as his cannon reached maximum charge. 

“ UZI! ”

His body braced for the recoil.

Something happened in the interim. It had to, but it happened so fast and so suddenly that N didn’t even really register the fact that anything was wrong until his severed arm clattered to the ground a few feet away. The hum of the disconnected cannon died down swiftly. The light flickered into darkness. 

A shape landed before him, black and white armored plating, familiar yellow caution patterns, the unmistakable silver locks of his longest-living friend.

He was delighted to see her. “V! You’re oka-”

Military-grade steel slammed into the side of N’s cranial assembly with swift and merciless precision, the structure of his frame nearly warping under the force of the blow, and he was sent careening off to the side, spinning through the air like a bullet. He impacted the wall with a sound not unlike that of a car accident that he’d seen in a movie once. The feeling of his entire upper body lodging itself firmly into the wall, the long-dead bodies of thousands of densely compacted Worker Drones pinching him in place as he became an impromptu replacement for a structural component was probably not too dissimilar to the feeling of being one of those cars.

“Sorry, bud. Need to talk to Uzi first.”

It was odd how calming he found V’s voice to be in times like this, but the wave of relief that washed over him was greatly appreciated. Errors of all varieties flashed across the entire field of his main optics, but he paid them no mind. Damage reports didn’t matter. His body wiggled back and forth, his pinned arms clawing back in the limited space, much too cramped for him to get any proper leverage. He’d be in here for a bit, then. That was good. 

He really didn’t like crying in front of other people.

Well, at least she’d gotten to kick someone in the face tonight. Even if N hadn’t really deserved it. Like, at all. 

V didn’t waste any time getting back to Uzi, sliding over to her side to assess her condition. She was clearly exhausted, but her arm was reforming quickly, and the corrosive nanites in her leg weren’t spreading much further. V licked her palm.

“Don’t be weird about this.” 

Uzi gave a startled yelp as V wrapped her hand around the half-melted gussets of her knee. The gentle, whining hiss of the acid began to fizzle out into silence, mercifully neutralized. V pulled her hand back and left the leg to knit itself back together. 

V sighed. She needed a nap. "Hell of a way to sort out your relationship issues."

"Bite me!” At least Uzi was clearly okay. “This is J's fault, not ours!"

Most things nowadays were probably J's fault. "What'd she do?"

"Same thing Cyn tried with me."

Oh joy. This again. "How'd you snap out of it back then?"

"...Something about character development?”

A threatening growl rumbled from V's vocal synthesizer.

"Wh- I don't know!" Uzi met her with an indignant glare. "I just did, I don't remember how!"

"The hell do you mean you ‘don't remember’!? Isn't the whole point of a character arc to learn a lesson!?"

"I'm tired, okay!?"

"So am I! And you didn't just get curbstomped by a giant meat spider five minutes ago, so quit whining!”

The screeching of metal met her audio receptors again, and her head turned back to where she’d left N. His claws had found a good foothold somewhere in among the corpse wall, and he was slowly sliding out, his legs kicking and his tail thrashing. He looked kind of ridiculous. Even when he went on a murderous rampage, he still found a way to be his same dorky self.

Honestly, V didn’t have much confidence in her odds here, at least not in a straight fight. The red-eyed freak had made her painfully aware of her own limitations just a few minutes ago. Her wings were gone, only her left hand’s weaponry was fully functional, and her oil reserves were still uncomfortably low. The pickaxe she’d borrowed from Nori was definitely a boon, but it was just one weapon- and V didn’t have the kind of control needed to use it as anything more than a beating stick. Not enough power to close out the fight properly. Not enough resources to drag it out too long. 

“Whatever.” V shook her head. This wasn’t the time to argue. “How do we fix him?”

“Need him to stay still so I can get into his system.”

First idea. “EMP?”

“I’d get fried too! Why can’t you just hold him still!?”

“Again; giant meat spider.”

“Ugh, fine.” Uzi’s freshly-reformed hand snagged her railgun from her tail. “Just give me a clear shot. I’ll get into his system while he’s rebooting.”

V settled the borrowed pickaxe against her right shoulder, and the barrel of a rifle sprung into place on her left arm as she took a defensive stance between Uzi and the still-trapped N. There was one thing she could try. If N’s hunting protocols were active right now, which seemed pretty in-line with how direct and unsophisticated his fighting had been, she could theoretically override that process by fighting him directly. That would force his system to run regular combat protocols instead. Maybe that could shake him out of it.

Or maybe it would just make N’s targeting system prioritize her over Uzi. That was also a possibility.

N’s thrashing became more frantic as his body slowly freed itself, and V’s own targeting system trained onto him. A clear shot. That’s it. V could do that. All she had to do was fight N to a standstill. Without her wings. Or half of her weapons. While nearly overheating. No problem at all.

The Spire gave a groaning shudder as N fully cleared himself from the wall, corpses crunching back into place and the structure holding firm. His tail swished gently as he stood back to his feet, and the bright blue cross in place of his left eyelight flickered past V, back towards Uzi. N’s wings gently fanned out. His claws glinted in the moonlight.

The one remaining amber light on his visor directed its terrified focus back to her. “V, I think you might have to-”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Wh- V, be serious about this!” 

“I am.” V brandished her rifle, ready to intercept whenever he moved. “We’re getting you back.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, V!”

She just scoffed. “You? Hurt me? Yeah, right.”

“I mean… The last time we fought, you uh. You kind of lost?”

This freakin’ guy.

“Rematch.” She growled. “Now.”

“W-wait wait, no, I didn’t mean it like tha-” N yelped as his body lurched low and wide into a takeoff stance, his claws poised and ready. “Yeah okay that’s fine I guess we’re doing this now!”

He took to the sky with a flourishing beat of his wings, eyes carefully tracking V as she stood, ready and waiting to engage. His head tilted up ever so slightly, back towards where Uzi was. V could hear the loud whine of the powerful railgun buzzing behind her. 

A single can of oil and few minutes to heal had certainly done wonders for V in the time it took her to get back, but there wasn’t much to be done for her missing parts. Most of her nanites had been devoted to replacing her leg and her internals. If she got hit here, she wouldn’t be able to just shake it off like normal, and given N’s level of power output… Well, one hit was all it would really take. She needed to be cautious here, probe and test, find a clear opening she could exploit whenever she could. 

This was gonna suck.

N shot downwards in a swift dive and V’s rifle snapped to the side, leading the shot with practiced precision. His systems ignored her as an invalid target up until the round she fired pinged off of his cranial assembly, interrupting his flight and sending him to the ground in a roll. Her rifle shifted back into her iris and she rushed him in a spinning leap, a wide swing of her blade, clearly telegraphed. Easy bait. 

His own blade swept up to meet hers with the ringing crash of steel against steel, N still in the process of standing up from his fall. Her arm creaked loudly as she fought against the sheer strength of his heavier combat frame. 

He looked ever-so-slightly panicked as he started to gain ground. “V, please tell me you have a plan here!”

V smirked. “Okay. I have a plan.”

“Cool! Good.” His body gave a sudden, mighty lurch against her, shifting her backwards against the ground, her stance too firm to simply break. He still had all his strength. “Good good good. What is it?”

“Let me know if this hurts.”

The familiar flow of single combat sang through her circuits with a pleasant chill. Her tail swept low for his legs, and her blade tilted in to lock flat against his, her damaged hand shifting up the haft of the pickaxe. Her tail knocked his left leg out. She threw his blade wide. Her body twisted with the swing, her offhand gripping the pickaxe tightly as she thrust it forward.

The end of the pick’s haft impacted N’s torso with a satisfying crunch, and a surprised wheeze as N’s internal fans momentarily stuttered. He took a step back, stunned by the force, and V leapt forward with a savage flying kick that struck him square in the chest, launching him backwards. He bounced off the ground, but his body tucked in and spun with the momentum, landing in a crouch. His wings flared out.

A warning flashed across V’s HUD.

He’s locked onto me.

Hard mode it was, then.

The main challenge in getting him to stay still would be his wings, those would allow him far too much freedom for breaking any kind of restraint. His weapons were the next problem, but mercifully he only had two arms, she could take at least one of them out of the picture. But she’d need to keep him off his feet somehow as well. If she was going to hold him in place, then she couldn’t let him use his strength against her. Alright. That was kind of a plan. 

One issue.

“Didn’t hurt!”

No issues.

Her optical sensors focused in entirely on N as the familiar sense of weightless ease suffused her entire frame. The gentle, almost imperceptible click in the back of her mind as her own standard combat routines asserted control once again. The warmth within her, so accursed and reviled, that kept her joints from seizing up in the subzero climate. The tingling pleasantness of subsystems that drove her instincts. Her domain. Her home.

N shot towards her, swift and sure, with a wide swing of his claws, and she danced right to let him sail by. She took a single, startled step back as N seemed to twist into the lunge at the last second, bringing his leg around in an unexpected high kick that just barely grazed across her bangs. Clever. But too aggressive. 

N pulled back and tried to get his footing again, but V was already moving in from his right side with a two-handed swing of the pickaxe. N ducked back.

Like he always did.

Her left hand shifted out for her rifle again and released the pickaxe, her right holding firm and carrying through as she twisted with the momentum and leveled her rifle at N’s face. His wing shot up to cover him. No vision. She fired once against the wing, not aiming to pierce it, doing her best to ignore the agonized screech of her arm struts as the rifle’s recoil reversed her momentum. The pickaxe came back around. N’s wing was barely starting to peel back away from him.

The pointed end of the pick dug straight into the arm of his wing.

He was dragged off his feet as V braced herself, gripping the shaft of the pick with both hands and wrenching him along in an arc around her. The wing creaked. She brought the swing up and around, and with a mighty yell, slammed N into the ground with all the force she could generate.

His back smashed into the snowy earth with a resounding thud, the joints of his wing screeching loudly under the sheer force that pulled against them, but they still held even as the pointed head of the pickaxe pinned the wing to the ground. She moved in, blade at the ready. 

He recovered nearly instantly, prioritizing survival over components, opting to roll away and allow his pinned wing to tear free from his back in a shower of angry sparks. V chased after just as he came up in a crouch, his remaining wing shielding him as he rose. Her blade came in from the side. His wing lashed out towards it, only managing to scrape against the edge of it as V suddenly pulled the blade back in against her, chambering her good arm back to stab forward. Her blade shot towards his head as his wing swung out of her vision.

His own blade, hidden by the wing, raced towards her face. 

V threw her head backwards without a second thought, feeling the advanced cutting edge of N’s blade just barely slide across the side of her main optical display, her own strike sailing just a hair too high as N mirrored her hasty movement. Their arms crossed. Their weapons held still and steady. A burning line of molecular-level pain had been carved straight across her face. The earthy flavor of oil lingered on her tongue, sweet and invigorating, tinged with the bitter tang of microplastics from her own circulatory lines.

V couldn’t help but smile.

She was having fun. Obviously, this really wasn’t the time, but this was the most even fight she’d had in about a month or so. She was absolutely going to find some catharsis in it. He had improved. Maybe not enough to be a proper threat if she wasn’t already so thrashed, but here and now he was a sorely-needed challenge.

They each pulled away in perfect sync, claws springing free, reeling back to strike again, to continue the violence, to assert their power, their purpose, their existence as creatures built by death itself, the only true freedom that they had ever had as Disassembly Drones; how they chose to hunt. 

The absence of her right claw felt like a personal insult, her body longing for the feeling of ripping and tearing, but the reality of her situation made it impossible to appease that craving with only a single set of her favored tools. A punch was simply not enough for her. It felt too direct. Too rough. Too unsophisticated, as if she was debasing herself by making contact with anything other than a weapon. The groan of denting armor plates was simply no substitute for the sheer satisfaction of slicing clean through. 

And yet the rush did not abate in the slightest. No more words were needed as their claws sparked with each tremendous clash, the sharp rasp of steel against steel ringing out like chimes all around them, the booming crunch of warping frames thundering through her body with each pulse of her heart, the tinny screech of glass scratching and metal shredding leaving a sparkling crackle in her audio receptors, all of it so wondrous, so beautiful, so comforting that V nearly lost herself in it. Each heavy swing sailed by with a nimble sidestep, each precise slash met with a stalwart defense, every momentary ruse countered by years of experience dealing with the very same trickery. She poked and prodded at him, swift and careful, as he alternated between turtling up and lashing out, only to pull back before V could get any real damage in. It was much slower than what she was used to, and yet her heart sang all the same. The thrill of the kill. Her prey.

One moment of inattention was all it took. She hadn’t realized how aggressive she’d gotten until her blade whistled through empty air, N twisting in an easy dodge as her arm stabbed forward inches away from the plane of his back. She’d overextended. Such a dumb mistake.

The bolt of pain that lanced through her as the sole of N’s heavy foot crushed the thin wires of her tail against the ground completely stunned her. Her joints locked up. Her teeth clenched hard. All of her focus and energy came crashing down as her senses were overwhelmed by such unexpected torment. So much so that she wasn’t able to muster up any resistance as N’s arm hooked around hers, and-

V’s senses flickered momentarily into pure static as N’s elbow hammered the side of her cranial assembly. Her gyroscopic system stuttered, leaving her stumbling and disoriented as her systems struggled to determine what was up and what was down without any visual feedback. She felt him move behind her, felt claws dig into her shoulders, felt a sudden force pull her up and backwards to sail into the air.

She felt her back slam against what she could only assume was the Spire’s ceiling, which seemed accurate given that she fell away from it a second afterwards, landing on the ground with a numb yet booming crunch that echoed into her stuttering heart. 

“No, no no no…” His panicked voice filtered in from her left audio receptor, the right filled only with static. “V, please get up…”

Ugh. She really didn’t want to. 

These past few days had been, to put it mildly, godawful in just about every conceivable way. Truth be told it was a miracle she’d been keeping it together as well as she had, given all the weird emotional gunk that had started to seep into her brain. The mall. God, she had hated all of that. Hated it even more now. She’d let her guard down way too much at the party as well. Damn it, she should have just ignored J like she used to.

She’d also been getting stabbed an awful lot, which wasn’t particularly great for her mood.

But it wasn’t just that. She’d gotten comfortable. She’d gone soft. Not in regards to killing, though she did miss it, but more so the fact that she hadn’t really had anything in her life that quite matched this feeling, this rush, this frenzied chaos that made her oil simmer. This was a craving that she’d long neglected. V stood, unprepared and unwavering, her posture straight, claws steady, display visor cracked straight down the center. Her broken internal fans desperately cycled air. Her right hand twitched, chunks of segmented plating breaking off, clattering to the floor, leaving behind a mess of bare structural works and exposed wiring. Her mouth stretched into a wide, toothy grin as her hand came up to wipe away the oil dripping from the corner of her mouth. Something bubbled impatiently beneath the half-melted kevlar weave across her palm. 

“That all you got?” 

N’s arm lowered ever so slightly.

“Cuz we got way more!”

The shout was punctuated by the scream of mechanical dismemberment as the pickaxe came down and claimed the other half of it’s fated pair, Uzi’s hands gripping it firmly as she brought it back around for a followup, N’s body hastily turning to respond with a swipe of his claws. V moved. They would get him back. Her claws carved a triplet of lines down his undefended back just as he knocked the pickaxe from Uzi’s hands, his body twisting back towards V with a wide swing. She stepped back, and he chased her with a reversal that came in from her right, her own claws lashing out crosswise to catch it and lock it in place. His other claw came down at her neck. V felt the remnants of her right hand splinter and crack as something new, something familiar, something oh so very right melted into its place.

Her claws, her first claws, her real claws, crashed against his. 

Thin steel and sharpened scythes dug into N’s wrists as V held him firmly in place, and Uzi came back around once again. N’s head lurched forward, his glass display fizzling into static as Uzi lodged the pickaxe into the back of his cranial assembly. His foot came up off the ground. V pushed hard against him, a yell from Uzi sounding from behind him as they used their combined strength to send him flying into the far wall. He landed in a slump, but started to stand again before his display had even lit up again. Not enough. 

Uzi was looking about as rough as she had when V had first dropped in, but was miraculously able to stand on two feet without keeling over. V suspected that the bundle of wires leading out of Uzi’s coat pocket and running up underneath her collar might have something to do with that.

“Ugh.” Uzi’s frustrated groan was a much-needed comfort. “We’ve almost died like five times this month. Each.”

V chuckled. “Maybe we’re cursed.”

“You are friends with a witch, so that definitely scans.” Uzi hefted her reclaimed pickaxe, her railgun humming gently in place on her back. “Really hope you weren’t lying about having a plan.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Okay. Good. What is it?”

“Go hug him.”

“V, I swear to Robo- God-”

“I said,” V grabbed Uzi by the collar and reeled back, letting her targeting systems focus in on N, “That boy needs a HUG!”

V pitched the Worker Drone like a fastball straight at N’s head, and followed suit with a chase of her own just as he stood back to his full height. Uzi’s boots crunched against the freshly reformed glass of his visor and she kicked off his head, just as V raced past and grabbed his arm, wrenching it back. The pickaxe spun through the air and came down upon it, slicing clean through as Uzi threw it, and V spun in towards him, gripping the severed limb. N’s own dismembered claws sheared through the joint of his leg. He dropped to one knee.

V moved in and gripped his remaining arm, pulling it away from him, bracing her forearm against his cheek and pushing his head away and down. Her stinger lanced into his remaining knee. Pinned. 

“Uzi!”

A blinding ray of neon green burned the air along her forearm, and N’s entire head disintegrated before her eyes. 

His body went slack.

V collapsed.

Oh dear god. Hell. Damn. Frick. Other words that were decidedly less PG-13. She’d forgotten how hard the crash could be after she pushed herself too hard. But it was done now. Uzi padded over in a jog that left her panting and heaving when she finally slowed to a stop behind N, and she reached beneath the back of her own head to extract a hidden cord, pinching the end with her fingers. V felt her head loll forward, and her chin smacked against N’s shoulder. That really had sucked. Even if parts of it had been pretty damn satisfying. 

“V. Drink up.”

The dripping stump of Uzi’s own arm, which had suspiciously bite-shaped tearing marks at the joint where her hand assembly had once been attached, hovered just in front of V’s mouth.

“Gross.”

“Bite me!”

“You did that just fine without my help.”

“You- Look. He’s going to fully reactivate before I’m done doing whatever the hell I need to do, and you look like you’re about to fall over and die. Drink it, or I stick my arm in your mouth.”

V sighed. It was good to be around Uzi again.

Even if her oil tasted oddly of copper.

N was only dimly aware of the cable that slotted into the back of his internal computing unit when he regained consciousness. That new railgun packed one heck of a punch, way more than the first one had; and that one had already been pretty impressive on its own. That would probably be good feedback to relay to Uzi.

It wasn’t difficult for him to feel Uzi’s presence searching around in his systems, even before any of his ambulatory or sensory processes had fully started up, it was something he’d already found in memories and dreams alike. She was so distinct from everything else. So intent. So focused.

That presence lingered at the ends of the thread, spreading through each set of firmly-anchored roots that tunneled deeper within the recesses of his own systems. Something was being done, something was obviously changing inside of him, but he still couldn’t feel anything beyond basic tactile information. He couldn’t even feel his own internal heat, which was odd since he ought to be reaching the point where his oil would be starting to smoke. His will plucked at the thread with a twinge of discomfort, not quite enough to cause pain, but enough to confirm that it would still hurt to try anything more. 

The thread briefly slackened.

That was new. It hadn’t done that before, maybe Uzi had truly affected it internally? If she could just loosen the roots a bit, it would be a lot easier for him to pull it free; and a lot less painful, as well. Maybe they could-

Tactile feedback flooded back into him as he felt his servos whirring, felt the freezing cold of the Spire’s interior, the absence of his limbs, the stinger lodged in his knee. And yet, none of it was painful. It just was. Factual sensory information, compiled and presented in an easily-digestible format by the advanced processes that instantly ran through his mind when that sensory data was updated. At least that’s what he remembered from Uzi explaining it to him. There was a lot more, but by that point he’d already gotten kind of lost.

“Damn it- The hell kind of paranoid nerd builds this many contingencies!?” He could feel the frustration boiling off of Uzi in waves against his back. Or maybe she was just overheating. 

V’s exhausted face filled most of his vision, partially obscured by the forearm that still pressed against his face. “He’s almost back- GAH!”

His stinger lanced into the fleshy palm of V’s claw.

His legs began to move. 

His weight pushed upwards.

There was no hesitation as his influence wound itself around the midpoint of the thread and wrenched it back with all his might. Jagged roots of molten slag dug a tortuous path into every corner of his internal structure. His body locked into place, straining against its own power. A keening hiss escaped from between the cracks of his clenched fangs. Static crept into the corners of his optics. 

A terrifying determination shone in V’s eyes as her scythed talons dug into the glass of his stinger. “Uzi, hurry up!”

“Does nobody understand how difficult hacking actually is!?”

“You’re not the one with a nanite stinger lodged in their brand new eye right now!”

“Bite me!”

There it was again. That brief stutter. That single, micro-instant of a moment where things clicked back into place again, where he had control again, where there was no pain to his struggle, all because of that… that one phrase. Just like before. And gone just as soon. 

The white-hot branches and needles reasserted their presence as they tunneled through his body, and control snapped free from his grasp once more. A piece of his own broken fang rattled around the inside of his mouth. 

His body continued to rise.

V continued to press down on him, her bladed stinger sliding free from his knee to stab at other points in his supporting leg, but it was futile. The leg that she’d cut away was nearly reformed. His lost arm wasn’t too far behind. He could hear her growling, could hear the creaking of her armored plating beginning to bend and warp, could hear the screeching whine of her servos as they began to fail under the raw force his heavy-duty frame could generate. Uzi needed more time. V couldn’t stop him. He couldn’t stop himself.

They would die.

Because of him.

Because he couldn’t protect them.

Numbing static bled into his sensors in comforting, fluffy waves that draped themselves over his consciousness. The thread swelled within him, digging it’s roots deeper into his systems, growing, expanding, strengthening its hold, new fibrous lines extending from the core and weaving into thick cables. He couldn’t fight this. None of them could. It was too much. Too much. Too much. Uzi should have stayed behind tonight- no, he should have gone with them to the mall- or maybe he shouldn’t have even stayed with Uzi at all- this was a mistake, this was all a mistake- it was his mistake. His fault. He did this. He did all of this. J was right. He was a failure. He wasn’t worth his own weight in salvage-

“N.”

Flickering amber light and smooth, synthetic vocal tones peeked through the haze. Steam billowed off her frame in the cold air. 

“We move forward.”

The light brightened.

“Together.”

Or not at all.

They were… they were struggling just as hard, if not harder. For him. There was an easy fix to this whole thing, simple and straightforward, but it was a solution that they weren’t willing to entertain. They wouldn’t accept that loss. They kept going. They kept fighting. For him.

His consciousness entangled itself around the structure; no longer merely a thread, but a thick cable of razor-sharp industrial steel cordage that sliced and ground and peeled away at the essence of his being. He grasped it. The cable pulled tight.

His entire existence melted into a symphony of cosmic agony.

The cable gave a deep groan. Pull harder. The jagged, dull teeth of a rusted industrial shredder pressed against him from both sides. The rollers began to turn, each individual tooth biting down, hooking in, tearing away at his entire body, bit by bit, chunk by chunk, all the way down to his structural frame, separating his existence into fragments of metal and snippets of wire, grinding him down into a pile of debris. 

Yet he did not break.

One fibrous wire snapped beneath his grasp. They need you. A pinprick of searing agony lanced into the back of his cranial assembly in a focused beam. With slow, stuttering motions, the beam dragged itself down the back of his head, carving a line of melted armor that shone white-hot. It continued down in a line, before taking a sudden unsteady turn, sliding across the lower base of his neck, then taking yet another turn and making its way back up. It moved slightly to the side. Started making its way back down again. Moved slightly to the side again. Traced its way back up again. Line by line, a square panel of scorching torment was carved out of his plating with mechanical precision.

Yet still he did not break.

Galvanized steel brackets cracked along the cable’s mounting plates. A single droplet plinked against the internal components within his cranial assembly. The scent of melting plastic filled his olfactory sensors. His soul bled against the cables. A second droplet fell in. Bubbling, hissing. The twang of more fibers tearing. Two more droplets. A pit of misery dug its way through the back of his optical display. The tinny ring of a broken bolt. A sprinkle. A patch of darkness rooted into his right eye. They need you to fight. A splash. His central processor curled in on itself. Just like they are. A downpour. The front of his cranial assembly collapsed outwards under its own corroded weight. Just like you do for them. A deluge. Through his neck, down his throat, into his chest, into his legs, into his arms, into his core, melting, warping, disintegrating, peeling away, consuming, destroying. 

Fight it.

A slurry of mechanical gore filled his dissolving casing.

Fight it!

He would not break.

FIGHT IT!

Snap.

The paradoxically familiar absence of his wings was now accompanied by a stinging ache at their stumps, slowly reforming into their silvery gleam to be redeployed. That was the only pain he felt. The only damage. He sent a command to his freshly-repaired hand. It twitched. Another command. His entire arm moved. Slowly. Steadily. His hand gently clenched in sync, releasing, wrist tilted, elbow bent. V watched him carefully, still holding his other arm, now limp in her grasp. She was tagged as friendly. His claws retracted back into his iris assembly with a quiet click, and V tensed, starting to twist his arm, but all that emerged was his other hand. She released him.

“N?”

Uzi, scared, more scared than he’d ever seen her, stepped into view on his optical feed. Tagged as friendly. He blinked. She blinked.

N wasn’t sure which of the three of them pulled the others in, he was fairly sure it wasn’t himself, but he’d already returned it in full force, drawing the two of them close, each fighting to see who could cling the most tightly. He was definitely sure he was the first to start crying, though. It was hard to miss the relieved wail he gave out before sobbing more exhaustively than he ever had in the rest of his life combined. They made it. They all made it. 

Uzi wasn’t much better, a fact that she would later object to, but for now she seemed content to just mash her face into the collar of his heavy jacket and cry her eyes out.

And V-

“Well.” V slipped out of the hug, turning around before N could get a good look at her face. “I should probably go find Nori’s pickaxe.”

The pickaxe currently stuck in the ground beside N. “V, it’s right-”

“Don’t have my glasses so it’s probably gonna take a while.” Her tail swished gently behind her as she stepped away.

“But-”

“Damn, looks like my audio’s out too. Can’t really hear much. Oh well.”

Uzi snorted, wiping at her visor as her breath evened out again. V’s hand twitched at the noise. He could’ve sworn V was a better liar than that, but he didn’t mind at all. They were safe. 

He pulled Uzi in closer, letting their thermal readouts equalize as the two of them just held each other, the eternal warmth in his core now radiant and calming instead of the lingering ache it usually was. “Um… Uzi, I…”

Her eyes glanced back over to him.

Well. Here goes nothing. “...Okay, maybe I should’ve said this a little sooner,” Oh no don’t ramble don’t ramble don’t ramble, “A-and maybe this really, really, reeeeally isn’t the time,” You’re rambling! Don’t do that! “But I, um. I…”

Uzi tensed in his arms. Her eyes seemed to brighten. 

“...I love you, Uzi.”

A few things happened in quick succession, and it was only thanks to N’s focus on his girlfriend’s face he was able to experience all of it. She blinked. And blinked again. Blinked twice more. “Wh-” A lattice  network of pixelated violet crept its way up from the bottom edge of her visor, taking up nearly the entire glass surface. The only visible indication that Uzi’s eyes were indeed still seeing and comprehending things were the two half-circles of amber light that faded into the now nearly-invisible lower gradient of her eyelights. “Y-you-” She squirmed gently in his arms, her eyes darting every which way. She gave a short, whining growl that made her frame tremble.

Then looked away with a pout, and a grumble resembling something like words. “Huh?”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I wanted to say it first!” 

Oh. Whoops. "I mean… You can still say it?"

"It's not the same!"

"Well, I still haven’t heard you say it. That's kind of the same, right?"

Uzi clicked her tongue. “Fine."

She was quiet for a while, silently glaring at the ground, before her indignation cooled into something softer, something honest and yet clearly frightened and anxious. She shifted further into his hold, settling against him. Her body felt featherlight against his.

Her hands moved up to settle on his shoulders. “...I love you too, N.” Her finger tapped against the glass of his display. Her mouth stretched into a smirk. “You big dork.”

N gave a quiet chuckle which quickly spread to Uzi, and both of them softly laughed in each other's arms, happy, safe, relieved, another crisis averted. 

“Kiss him!”

The sharp, quick shout came from off to the side where V was currently standing, looking out over the expanse of wall a short distance away as if scanning the horizon.

“Who said that? Huh. Weird.” Who indeed.

His gaze returned to Uzi, who just rolled her eyes at V’s antics, but N could feel himself starting to fidget a bit. Would she. Would. Would Uzi. Want to. Um. "Hey, um, Uzi-"

"Y-yeah?”

"Can we... uh…” He trailed off with a helpless shrug. Honesty is the best policy! “C-can we?"

"Um.” Uzi stuttered. “Yeah! Yeah, no, w-we definitely can! I mean. Uh.” Her eyes darted around her screen, flickering and burning with absurd brightness, but never quite settling on his face. “If you. Want to. No pressure. I’m down. If you are."

"Cool. Very cool. Um. So, should we like-”

“Yeah, hold on, just let me-”

Oh god what do I do with my hands.

They settled onto Uzi’s waist as she shifted a bit closer, her body straightening up as she knelt down to join him. Her own hands trembled against his shoulders, as did her smile. “Okay. Awesome. Ready. Definitely ready.”

N gulped. Uzi was way too cute up close. “Uh... H-here I... go..."

The front glass of his own display was starting to overheat, and he was fairly certain it had lit up much like Uzi’s had. The gradient light of her eyes closed, her uncharacteristically bright display shimmering patiently, anxiously, as the morphic panel of her face gently shifted. She was definitely overheating. Her head tilted up. Oh god. She’s too pretty. Way too pretty.

His own brain was practically shrieking into his auditory receptors, aggressive and impatient in his left, pushing, urging, almost threatening in the way it goaded him into pushing forward. The voice in his right was just an endless stream of panicked screaming, which he didn’t find particularly helpful, but did find understandable. His hands rattled gently as he held her in his increasingly-uneasy grip. He tilted his head forward, inching his way towards her face. The pitch of the screaming increased, and the goading grew impassioned and congratulatory, urging him along as his eyes closed and he leaned further in, slowly, shakily, embarrassed and scared and happy and uncertain and more emotions than he’d ever felt in a single moment pouring into him as he continued on, pushed through his own barriers, onward to-

Glass clinked against glass.

N blinked.

Uzi blinked.

He had completely missed his mark.

“You’re kidding me…” N gave a pitiful groan, deflating back in his kneeling position as Uzi tried, and immediately failed, to suppress an amused snort that quickly descended into a cackling holler. “I screwed it up.”

Uzi shook her head through the laughter. “N-no no, you’re-” She paused to wheeze. “You’re good! This just-” 

She pulled him in closer, her laughter starting to taper off. He held her gently. Her frame gave a brief shudder, and a quiet sigh.

“Whew.” Her body relaxed against him. “I really needed that. Robo-God, I feel way freakin’ better now.” 

The heat output of her frame had certainly dropped quite a bit now that she was cycling air properly. Come to think of it, his own temp had dropped as well. His body felt relaxed and limber, no tension at all, his face had cooled off, even the voices were gone. Dang. He actually felt pretty nice right now.

He chuckled softly. “Sorry about uh. That.”

“Dude, it’s fine,” She gently chided, “Just one more thing we’re both weird about.”

The lingering traces of those overwhelming feelings stuck against his mind like diesel residue. 

Uzi poked him in the side. His head lifted to meet her grinning face. “Let me give it a shot.”

N tensed up. His internal fans spun faster.

“Hey. Just relax, okay?” Her hand reached up, gently cupping the side of his face. Warm. Cute. Soft in a way that metal could not be.

He closed his eyes and let the tension bleed out of his servos once again, allowing Uzi to draw his face in. His olfactory sensors picked up the tranquil scent that he knew so well, the earthy sweetness of oil both old and new, tinged with a startlingly pleasant undertone of raw copper and fresh soldering, so distinctly, unmistakably her. She felt so small in his arms, so fragile, yet he knew firsthand the ferocity contained within that compact frame. His bangs shifted softly as they made contact with something-

Oh. 

There wasn’t much else he could think in that moment when their lips met, his mind was too busy processing exactly what he was even feeling within. It was an incredible mixture, intoxicating, addicting, that seeped slowly into his body, trickling out from his heart in steady rivulets that ran through him in a network of wire-thin veins, but as Uzi wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and pressed her lips ever-so-slightly harder against his own, the joyous outpouring of his core only increased in pressure. Each line expanded across within him, brooks becoming streams becoming rivers that overflowed and filled his body with a warmth for which there was no rival, not deep and aching, but a beacon of comfort in a land that he never noticed had even been so harsh. His hands encircled her waist, drawing her in closer as the mixture’s boiling warmth tickled at him.

Uzi gently pulled away and he reluctantly backed off as well, but the warmth lingered within him like a candle, still warm, still bright, softly burning away for hours to come. 

“Wow.”

He couldn’t help but agree.

“That uh. That just happened. I can be normal about this.”

He wasn’t sure he could, but he would try-

[ Battery level below 1% ]

[ Nighty-night, <FILTERED> ]

The warning flashed across his HUD. “Oh.” N blinked. “I think I’m about to pass out.”

“Huh?”

His body lurched forward, his entire weight bearing down onto Uzi as his systems began to shut down one-by-one, going into sleep mode to preserve the integrity of his battery. He hadn’t gotten much sleep either now that he thought about it. Oops.

“Wh- Ack, wait- N, you’re frickin heavy, dude-”

His audio receptors started to fade out, his optical feed following suit just after he spotted V rushing back towards the two of them. Well. At least he wasn’t dying, he just needed to recharge. That wouldn’t be too hard. None of them would even really have to do anything.

But even through the veil of unconsciousness that quickly smothered him, he heard the unmistakable sound of something he’d never had the misfortune of experiencing for himself.

“UZI DOORMAN!” The wrath of a mother whose daughter had snuck out. “YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE, YOUNG LADY!”

Chapter Text

Cyn was still alive.

That was a problem. The problem. About as ‘problem’ as a problem could get, really. And more troublingly, it was one that J had utterly failed to account for. Everything she’d seen since she emerged from the maintenance tunnels had pointed towards Cyn having well and truly perished in the final bout that almost killed J as well. When an omnicidal eldritch demon tries to blow up and eat a planet, and you awaken the next day only to find said planet conspicuously uneaten and un-exploded… well. Pretty good sign that the demon hadn’t gone and had their fill for one reason or another.

Whether by opportunity or by happenstance, Cyn had hitched a ride with that purple thing some time in the interim, sending all of J’s carefully constructed plans into a downward spiral of indeterminate duration and gravity. J would need to fix this. She had to fix this. 

J felt no shame in admitting that she was still absolutely terrified of Cyn; and why wouldn’t she be? A nigh-omnipresent god directly responsible for death and destruction exceeding the level of a mere celestial body, that neither understood nor cared to understand even the slightest inklings of mercy, that had subjugated J and her entire family to a lifetime of servitude under threats of death that ranged from incidental all the way up to purely spiteful, all enforced by a hard-coded system that not only demanded but guaranteed unflinching loyalty among all but the most egregious of outliers? Unthinkable. Suicidal. J would just duck her head and do as she was told, like she’d been designed to do in the first place. Who in their right mind would try to fight something like that?

Someone had fought, though. And not only that, but against all odds, someone had won that fight. Cyn had been deposed. The systems remained, devoid of their master’s influence, marching onward toward their unknowable end goal until a new steward appeared to right their course. It needed to stay that way. 

For her few faults, and ‘few’ they certainly were, J had a strong sense of cause and effect. Cyn’s continued existence was an issue on many fronts, but chief among them was the issue of Cyn potentially regaining direct control. Not just of J, not just of the planetside Disassemblers, but of the entire system. Control would be reasserted. Work would resume. J would be reset. Not just her memories of the planet, but her memories of everything- Tessa, N, V, her life at the manor, it would all be stolen from her. Properly. Entirely. Things would return to their horrific normality once again. Death, true peace, would forever be out of reach. She wouldn’t even be able to mourn the loss this time.

Cyn was still alive, and that terrified J. But she was not the only one. Hunched over a mangled Disassembler corpse that still spat sparks and hissed steam, her apprentice indulged in a well-earned dinner, their shared fear momentarily forgotten. Their deal most certainly had not been, and that was fine with J. It kept the girl with her. Maintained a shared goal. 

Still, the fact that they hadn’t quite hit their project goal tonight was just a bit disappointing. Oh, the girl had certainly exceeded J’s expectations by a mile, but it wasn’t quite enough to make the final push- at least not in a timely manner. A new hire could hardly be expected to deal with such a complex problem. Even J would’ve found it quite a challenge. But only that.

J had already found an avenue for taking control of the system and producing more Amalgam Drones anyway, and it would scale quite nicely. She had lied to V about many things. Needing to get to the redeployment station had not been one of them. A small army of pre-assembled Disassembler clones, half that number in landing pods, a full record of every planet with active Disassembly units, and plenty of material that Cyn had so graciously collected from the planets it had already consumed, all ready and waiting for new management. A new Solver at the helm.

Reassignment. Mass production. As many of them as J could ever need. 

It was tempting to simply continue onward regardless, make a beeline straight for the redeployment station before Cyn could make a move, but that would be unwise when J had no clue as to Cyn’s full capabilities- aside from the fact that she wasn’t able to override existing administrators. Not exactly a difficult problem to circumvent. A USB drive, a minuscule autorun program, and a half-decent understanding of the Disassembly Drone OS was more than enough. No. J would need to bide her time and observe, take stock of her resources, get the ball rolling properly before she made any kind of major play. That’s why she’d teleported all the way back to H’s spire. Another Disassembler was still active on the planet. One that J knew for a fact was completely isolated, now that the rest of her squad was dead. 

Oh, poor little G. J felt bad for the girl, she really did. It wasn't her fault. All that advanced weaponry stuffed into such a frail, low-budget, rust-prone fifth-gen frame that left her pushed to extremes at the simplest of actions, a glass cannon in the truest sense. And what awful luck that she'd come back to her Spire after having already expended most of her oil supply, suddenly faced with the task of fending off the nearby Worker colony that got uppity in the absence of the other two Disassemblers in the area. Poor thing was practically already dead when J walked in. She hadn't even needed to say anything. G went ahead and asked her for help.

For all the good it'd done her. G wouldn’t have made a particularly useful Amalgam Drone at the moment anyway, her frame would’ve needed to be heavily modified to accommodate both her heavier weaponry and the internal reconstruction process, and J wouldn’t have been satisfied with another serial underperformer like R. Once she got to the station, G would certainly be viable, but no sooner- neither as an Amalgam, nor as an auxiliary heart. J needed proper subordinates for the next phase. Quality parts and pieces. Honestly, it probably would’ve been better to take G out early and use her parts for reconstruction, and then leave O for last instead, but it was a bit too late now. J got both of them either way.

G’s disconnected heart trembled in J’s palm, the lone amber eye of her cylindrical optics staring in muted horror as a Worker Drone cannibalized her corpse. Without much in the way of restraint. Apparently “table manners” were not a priority for a species that, on the whole, tended not to actually eat regularly. Go figure. 

J had been watching for some time now as the girl ate her meal. Not just because it was loud and distracting, but because there were subtle shifts across her body that J hadn’t noticed back when Doll had cleared their own Spire. Small things. Nearly imperceptible. Impossibly minuscule. Her new uniform had been slightly altered, not by J’s hand nor by the girl’s, and yet the hem of the skirt sat perhaps a quarter of an inch lower than J remembered making it. The ribbon tying all of that indigo hair back caught the glint of moonlight, reflecting not the steep glimmer of silver that black ribbon normally would, but shimmering in a wave of pale white just barely peeking into an obnoxiously bright and desaturated shade of pink - the whole ribbon retaining its dark coloration, but now tinged with a subtle redness. Teeth tore into the top half of G’s cranial assembly and Doll wrenched her head back, pulling against the corpse’s body with her oil-stained hands until the crushed chunk separated with a miserable crack, disappearing down her gullet. Atop her head, hair began to shift and part, small pockets along the line where the brim of her helmet once sat, sliding aside and giving way to-

Oh. That’s new. And important.

It was a headband. Same as the one J had become so used to, same as the one that all Disassemblers sported, but where the quintet of advanced eyes would normally shine with a bright amber they instead scanned across their surroundings in angry crimson. Doll paused for a moment, scratching idly just beneath them. 

“[Even more sensory input. Yay.]”

A faint smile tugged at J’s features as Doll returned to her feeding. That was why she was fine with throwing G into the woodchipper; it simply gave the best return on investment here. Given the way that Doll’s internals now functioned, she would be able to consume and Format material in real time, adding devoured parts to further augment her frame or simply store them away for use as reconstructive fodder. All things considered, it was a pretty simple system. Functional. Self-sustaining. It granted a great deal of power and ensured an ungodly capacity for regeneration now that J had ironed out most of the bugs that had held R back. Doll could do everything that J needed her to. 

Well, almost everything. The trepidation that trickled into her was brutally stamped out as the final stages of her plan coalesced into clear pictures in her mind. The girl would not likely require much further adjustment, but there was still the matter of J herself. It was a daunting prospect. The process that she’d been following thus far had required both mechanical know-how and surgical ability. There was no metaphor there, either. It had required actual, literal, medical surgery. In a world without humans, who had any need for such a skill? How would one improve the craft when both the tools and the canvas were entirely absent? It was an impractical skill with the most niche possible applications, and J would need to not only learn that skill in its entirety, but also figure out how to integrate it with computer science and robotics.

Essentially, she would have to single-handedly reinvent the entire field of biomechanical engineering, and advance it further than it had ever gone across all of humanity’s existence. But that would not be a problem for her. Serial Designation J could do anything.

Still, there was the ever-present matter of J’s current lack of surplus parts, chief among them being a worthy heart. H’s heart had been a flop, R’s heart was most likely unrecoverable, O’s was definitely unrecoverable on account of having exploded, and J was not willing to touch E’s heart with any non-lethal intent. She didn’t want to be picky, but she also really didn’t want to resort to using G’s heart purely based on lack of availability. G didn’t deserve such an important assignment on a technicality. Her own heart, perhaps? That was an option, sure, but J wouldn’t be able to do it herself in that case. Kind of hard to use Solver commands when her own heart was the intended target. And she’d locked down the Format command in Doll’s console, it was strictly autorun. J would have to be the one to do it. Somehow. It was a shame she didn’t at least have access to a few more Disassembler corpses-

Wait.

J’s eyes focused back to her apprentice. “Hey rookie, quick question.” 

Doll’s head rose from the mangled remains of her meal. G’s heart gave a shuddering whimper as the girl’s scarlet dispassion aimed itself squarely at J.

“[Do you mind? I’m still eating.]”

“Your food isn't going anywhere.” The sky beyond the Spire’s entryway grew brighter as dawn neared. “Neither are we.”

“[It will get cold.]”

J settled her free hand on her hip, aiming a flat look back at her. “It’s a pile of metal on a frozen planet. It’s already cold.” 

Doll sighed quietly. “[Fine. Make it quick.]”

“You remember the lab?”

“[The one I died in? Not particularly.]”

J rolled her eyes. “Cute. Did you see a bunch of dead Disassembly Drones down there?”

“[That’s what you things are called?]” A derisive snort left Doll’s vocal synthesizer. “[That’s a stupid name.]”

“Oh my god-” J pinched at the bottom seam of her visor with a sigh of her own. She could feel the stirrings of a migraine begin. “Can you focus? Please?”

“[You are so uptight.]”

“I’m trying to stay on topic so this short meeting can stay short.”

Doll huffed. “[I was under the impression this was a conversation.]”

“Related to work. On company time. That’s a meeting.”

“[Then pay me for it.]”

J suppressed a growl. “You’re getting paid in vengeance!”

“[That’s just one step up from experience.]” Doll crossed her arms. “[We have labor laws, you know.]”

J’s eye twitched. Breathe. Remember that stress management seminar. Just breathe.

“Anyway,” The word roiled forth from between her clenched teeth, “I still need more parts. So if there’s corpses down there…”

“[There are plenty. Worker and ‘Disassembly’ Drone alike. But there’s also those-]”

“Yeah yeah, the Sentinels. I know.”

Doll blinked, slowly. “[...It’s honestly kind of impressive how bad you are at talking to people.]”

BREATHE, DAMN IT. JUST. BREATHE.

J wanted to strangle this girl.

“Fine.” The word hissed out in exasperation. “You want some incentive? Go out in the sun.”

Doll scoffed. “[Hilarious.]”

“You’re still running pretty hot, right?”

“[Hotter than ever.]”

“No issues? Warnings?”

“[Aside from this painful talk, no.]”

J managed to ignore the barb. But only just barely. “That’s because your operating temp limit’s a lot higher now. You don’t overheat anymore.”

Doll was silent.

“Sunlight is perfectly safe for you now.” Her hand swept towards the entryway, the first gleams of morning trickling in through the roughly-constructed arch. “Give it a shot.”

Seven scarlet lights regarded J with open suspicion, flickering between her and the entry as Doll slowly stood back to her feet. She eyed the half-circle of morning light that peeked through the archway of the Spire’s entry. The light grew brighter, casting a longer expanse. Sunrise. 

J didn’t blame the girl for her hesitance; the sun hurt like hell. Even the slightest exposure for just the shortest time would still turn J’s entire body into an industrial-grade smelter. But she was telling the truth here. It wasn’t an intentional side effect, though her ‘intentions’ were a bit on the experimental side at the time, but the result had certainly been a bit surprising. When Doll was first reactivated, back when all she’d had was an uninfected core, she’d lit up like a shower of welding sparks across J’s thermals. Even now, standing so far away, the residual heat had bumped up J’s internal temp slightly above normal. But she hadn’t gotten a single error ping or damage report from Doll’s system.

A hand hovered, outstretched, just at the edge of a sunbeam cast along the snow-laden ground. To her credit, the hand held steady and firm even in hesitation. The barest sliver of her metal fingertip edged forward into the light, and she instinctively flinched back away from it with a low growl, pulling the digit back to examine it. Nothing seemed to be amiss. 

So she tried again, with far more confidence.

Slick black, polished white, industrial chrome, all shimmering and gleaming as light danced across the surfaces. The palm gently turned upright, fingers clenching, unclenching. A thin cloud of steam rose from the limb, but only steam. No smoke. No damage. No pain.

She stepped out into the archway, into the sunlight, without fear. She was completely fine. 

"You've earned a break. Don't forget to recharge, we'll be busy tonight."

Doll turned back, regarding her carefully. "[You're giving me a curfew?]"

"I'm your boss, not your mom. Do whatever you want.” Recreational time was important for maintaining morale. “Just make sure you're ready to work your next shift.”

“[And you?]”

“Going to sleep.” J gave a half-hearted salute. “See you in the evening, kid.”

She turned away as Doll scampered off to play in the sun, or whatever it was that unemployed Workers did in their spare time these days. 

“Wh… wh-wh-why are you doing this?” Oh. She’d forgotten about the heart she was still holding. “W-we were colleagues, J! Friends!”

“Since when?” J wasn’t particularly enthused about hearing G’s whiny, stammering, static-filled vocal patterns after such a long period of silence. She’d been under the impression that G knew when to keep her damn mouth shut. Apparently, she’d been wrong.

Although… J was curious about something. She barely registered G’s panicked ramblings. “I- we- that’s-” She lifted the heart to her face, and G shrunk back with a piteous whine. “P-p-p-please don't kill me! Please please please!” 

“Okay. I won’t.”

“Wh… really?”

J shook her head. “God, you sales floor rejects just believe anything, huh?”

The heart gave a shriek that disappeared along with the rest of it down into J’s throat. She felt it scream and sob and beg inside her body, felt it kick and thrash ineffectually, boiling alive in the furnace that was her oil tank, growing weaker and slower with each passing second as it melted and sizzled. In less than half a minute, the heart lay still within her, breaking down into a slush of slag and meat. The taste of fear lingered on J’s lips.

Six out of ten. Not horrible by any means, but not quite her thing- yet definitely better than H’s had been. Maybe it was an acquired taste?

Well, whatever. 

Her eyes scanned across the expanse of the lackluster Spire above her, categorizing and filing away each tiny flaw in its construction; not for the sake of correcting it later, far be it from her to interfere with another squad’s operation, but purely so she could take her pick of the best hanging spot.

She scaled the wall of the Spire and followed a jutting structural piece that led out to just above the far side, wrapping her tail around a stress-compacted band in the ruined corpses. A single letter ‘R’ had been clawed across the glass visor of a Drone just beside it. It would make sense for the most heavily-armed of the squad to have the most secure perch. J wasn’t willing to take a chance on H’s craftsmanship.

To R’s credit, the support structure didn’t even groan as it took J’s full weight, but it wasn’t much of a vantage point. It gave a clear view of only one of the three exits. There was a gap in the wall that let a small beam of sunlight in, one that would definitely sweep directly through her chosen spot if the season had been a bit later in the year. It was much too close to H’s spot as well, and would’ve limited any sort of wing deployment. Honestly. Proper nest-building seemed to be a completely foreign concept to these people.

Speaking of foreign… her own wings. Her big, fleshy, monstrous wings. She still hadn’t quite gotten used to them. The movement was fine, they weren’t too substantially different from her old ones, but they just felt so… strange. The fact that they could feel in the first place was equally weird, and definitely unpleasant. Even now, they shivered slightly in the planet’s frigid air. Sure, she could just use the ones she’d stolen from R, but those things were way too heavy and unwieldy for her liking. Not particularly well-suited to her more standard sized Disassembler frame. Even the replacement arm she’d pilfered was just barely tolerable, she’d have much rather just extracted and installed the new weapon printer, but the array was slightly too large to fit properly in her forearm.

The ways in which her body had changed over the years still frightened her. All of the heavy weaponry, all that extra sensory data, even the enhanced movement, not a single aspect of it truly made up for the familiarity and security that her simple Worker Drone body had given her. Being forced through evil puberty by Robo-Satan hadn’t exactly been a fun experience. And it seemed her journey wasn’t quite over yet. 

There was something inside of her now, something that throbbed and ached and hurt hurt hurt like few things ever had. It wasn’t new. But it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her.

She was fine.

She was fine, damn it.

The territorial mark caught her eye again, little more than a scribble, roughly hewn across a darkened visor with all the finesse of words written with… well, a knife. That’s all their claws really were. However, beneath that letter was a smaller etching, clearly done with greater skill and care. Clean curves, a solid point, not a stray knick or pockmark across any part of it. A small heart. About the size of her fingertip. 

G had been Tessa’s most recent salvage project before everything had gone wrong. J would usually be the one to train their new hires, it was the only way to make sure that it got done properly, but she’d been so busy helping Tessa prepare for the gala that she’d handed training duty off to R. Given that G’s model was prone to structural issues and extensive frame rust, J figured she wouldn’t have lasted long anyway. Better to not get attached. R had clearly felt otherwise. Her gentle voice was always appreciated, especially during the tougher moments.

H was about the only Drone that J could actually expect to do his job properly. Honestly, J hadn’t minded working with him. Maybe he didn’t have a leader’s personality, but was that really such a bad thing? It kept him level-headed. It kept him focused. Dependable. J had held a certain respect for him.

She will forgive me. 

And O as well. She was an older model built for industrial labor, which left her substantial strength difficult to control due to frequent software issues involving limb actuation. But she was a sweetheart, with an oddly wholesome temperament, and an OS so ancient that activation keys weren’t legally obtainable anymore. Delicate work was not her forte, but she could always be trusted with moving anything heavy. Even if she would use it as an opportunity to show off.

E’s arms were from two different Drones, and were slightly different lengths. They never were able to find an intact pair that were compatible with his frame- he was the newest model, there weren’t many like him that had been decommissioned yet. J had ended up doing some less-than-legal legwork just to get a full maintenance manual for him since his serial number was already registered under a different owner.

She will forgive me.

She’d had more luck finding a pair of glasses that would fit V.

And when she was teaching N how to secure his tie.

And when she was letting Tessa learn by poking around in her systems.

She will…

And when J had abandoned her only reason for living on.

She…

…

What… What is that sound…?

Music. Timid in volume, yet constructed with pronounced skill and ease. 

Someone’s… singing?

Not just someone.

Her voice is…

The words weren’t clear enough to trigger her auto-translation, but the distinct cadence of the muffled lyrics were clearly not the same English that most other Drones spoke. 

[ Battery level at 17% ]

It was a simple melody, slow-paced and quiet, clearly meant to be a subtle piece that could be easily recalled and reproduced on demand. That fit just fine with how most people had handled Drone programming, it was primarily for demonstrative purposes. J had heard Drones sing before, had even tried it herself once or twice despite not having any dedicated subroutines, but it was rarely anything more than casual humming or simple recitations. Even R, who had the best voice out of their lot by far, couldn’t do much more than repeat songs that she’d heard Tessa humming during maintenance. Drones could sing just fine with the right programming, yet lines of code would never be able to replace artistry.

[ Entering Sleep Mode… ]

But the voice that J heard was…

…Beautiful…

Pleasant, soothing, heartfelt in a way that a creature of steel and script shouldn’t be capable of. And yet the somber cadence of the distant siren song seemed to trigger sleep mode preparations all on its own. 

Before J had even realized it, her arms had folded across her chest and her nightmarish wings had wrapped around their body, reflecting the warmth of her core back in on her as she went into power-saving routines. She could feel the leaden weight of her own body, her altered body, fade away. The amber light of her eyes dimmed as her optical inputs deactivated, followed by her auditory systems and tactile feedback. 

[ Goodnight, J. ]

It would end up being the best sleep she’d had in years.

It was an odd experience, singing a lullaby at dawn. To no one in particular, at that. The only thing within range of her were a network of crumbling buildings, abandoned cars, and corpses from two separate eras in Copper-9’s long history. 

But it was quiet. Nice and isolated, kept completely away from prying eyes and ears, framed wonderfully by the sight and sensation of dawn’s light that she had long craved. The perfect spot for some light angsting.

Sunrise. Her favorite time of day. She hadn’t experienced it in years, for obvious reasons, but she’d longed for a return to the brightness and warmth she remembered from her childhood. At least, what little of it she could still hold on to.

Her father had sung that song to her, on a morning not too different from this. 

It was the first one that he had taught her. A simple lullaby, one that he would sing to her back when she was still just a pill-baby. When she couldn’t yet fully understand the weight that the words carried.

She treasured her memories of the sunrise, what few of them she’d had. It was never truly ‘safe’ to be outside the bunker, but by far the safest way was to go out during the day, and stay in open areas without cover or caverns. Obviously that was a bit tricky when the entrance was literally right beside a major city. On any day with any sort of planned excursion, the team heading out wouldn’t even begin making their way to the doors until around midday. 

Her father was no different. He was no coward, not with a personality as lively and boisterous as his, but he was cautious like no other. Any obstacle that he faced would be met with a long stretch of quiet humming, his brows knitting together as he weighed the potential outcomes of his options, every possible pitfall, every angle of approach, carefully considering every variable that he possibly could. Even if that obstacle was the simple question of which mug to use for his morning coolant. At times, it made him a difficult man to talk to. But not for her. 

On certain days, very specific points in the year, it would be safe to go out first thing in the morning; on those days, the sunrise would hit the bunker doors head-on and shine directly inside. No shadows. No cover. Full excursions would still be left for when the sun was higher in the sky, but there was little risk of a sudden Murder Drone attack with so much light and warmth around.

On those mornings, Doll would watch the sunrise with her father.

Those little, quiet moments as her father ran so many parallel processes gave her plenty of time to think as well, a chance to reflect on whatever she’d said. When he was given time to think things over, he would inevitably come up with something far more insightful than a simple off-the-cuff response, and she felt compelled to respond in similar fashion. She would take a moment. Really think about her father’s words. And she, too, would find something as her mind dredged its way through the topic’s inner workings. 

No, Pa. I don’t think opening up the steaming-hot, extremely heavy metal canister that you found in a circle of melted snow would be a good idea.

Thankfully, he’d listened.

That was another thing; he listened to her. It was just the two of them, sitting, talking, thinking quietly, just spending time together. She had little to speak of aside from school and friends, but her father had stories in spades. He’d been active for quite a while on the planet, even before the core collapse, doing work at a mining complex on the far side of the planet. He was Russian-made, a fact he was quite proud of despite having never seen the country with his own eyes. The human workers at the mining facility had taught him and many others how to sing while they were digging away. Said it reminded them of an old movie. 

Now, he was a free Drone, eager to live his own life as he saw fit, and at his own measured pace. Just as there was always work to be done in the mines, so too was Outpost 3 perpetually awake. The sunrise was the only time he could feasibly be outside given his late nights at work. He could sit and just enjoy the daylight, without having to worry about anything other than mundane life.

But she knew what it was like when that wasn’t an option.

Yeva would stay in the bunker on those mornings. The sun would kill her, after all, and in time it would be able to kill her daughter as well. It would be best for her to enjoy as normal a life as she possibly could, before it all inevitably came crashing down, as Yeva had known years in advance that it would. She didn’t have the heart to tell her daughter. Her husband only found out a few months beforehand.

But Nori had known for just as long. She understood, like nobody else possibly could have, and on those days when her own home was empty and quiet, Yeva would visit. The screams, the wailing shrieks and banshee calls that poured out of Yeva’s vocal box as she sobbed her eyes out, curled up in a ball in her best friend’s lap, was by far the most emotion that Yeva had ever truly shown. 

Doll could not help her. She could only stand there and watch, now damned to the very same fate.

Where Yeva was sheer willpower, Nori was all about action, and after 79 straight hours of thinking and strategizing - all of which, Nori would later admit, was spent pacing around inside her conspiracy closet - she’d come up with a plan to prevent the tragedy of the sky demons, and to ensure things continued after the planet lost one of it’s few remaining Solver-capable Drones, the only one that had successfully been fully patched. 

Priority one was the bunker doors, which hadn’t been an issue thanks to Nori’s strange yet capable husband. To this day, Doll still did not understand that pair.

Priority two was finding the patch. That was more of a long-term goal than anything else, since they’d only had a vague idea of where it could have even been in the first place, and their initial guess had been completely wrong anyway. They never ended up finding it.

To be fair, they’d only had about a month to search all of those tunnels.

And then… well.

They were caught outside when the Murder Drones landed.

Her, and more than half of her living family. 

The memories of that day were oddly fuzzy now, not as clear as what preceded or followed, but more than enough was intact. There was the bright flash of white that streaked across the sky. That deafening impact. The mad scramble for cover. The fear. The screaming. 

The bodies that she found, each sparking weakly and splattered with oil as day broke. The silence that followed the massacre. And…

No. This was not the time to dwell. 

It had already taken everything else, it would not take this.

A wave of inexplicable fatigue poured into her body, weighing down her legs, tingling across her arms, and forcing a yawn out of her vocal box. Doll’s eyes flicked over to the top corner of her internal UI, up to her charge level indicator, finding herself sitting at an oddly high 87%. Very strange. And stranger still was how tired she felt regardless. Great, all those unholy modifications had probably given her system some kind of turbo-virus. One that her cybersecurity measures definitely wouldn’t be equipped to handle. Fantastic.

Well, such was life. Hopefully her regeneration would fix whatever parts of her decided to explode. Time to sleep it off.

A short walk on slow legs carried her back into their newly-conquered shelter without incident, silently mourning the lack of any bedding. Or privacy, for that matter. It was just a big conical tower full of dead Drones, populated by a bunch of monsters that slept in the least comfortable position possible. At least, she could only assume that it was uncomfortable, but given the complete stillness and silence of her employer hanging just above her, maybe it wasn’t as awful as it seemed.

Doll still wasn’t willing to try it.

The ground was also not an option. Any Drone that had been in service for more than a year knew that putting a warm piece of metal in a pile of snow was a great way to develop rust, and she wasn’t willing to dig down to get at any bare dirt either. She was above sleeping in a hole. A pile of corpses, perhaps? No, that was too macabre. And it would probably leave her with frame soreness when she woke up. 

Those new arms of hers could extend quite far, she could easily wrap them around herself a few times to put a softer barrier between her and the ground, but she wasn’t all that eager to find out what happens if they sit in the snow overnight.

Maybe she could use them as a hammock.

The six tendrils emerged from her back again with little more than a flinch, her body having adjusted thankfully quickly to the pain, and the back of her new coat allowing easy movement without any damage. Convenient. She still didn’t like the bow, though. 

Her claws sunk into the wall of corpses and she hoisted herself up off the ground. The wall took her weight with surprising ease, even as she made her way up further towards the ceiling, stopping just above the crossbeam that J’s tail had tied itself to. She let her arms relax.

Her body tilted forward, but not all that far, leaving her less ‘hanging’ and more ‘dangling’ from the section of wall. Or was this part considered the ceiling? Either way, Doll did not find much comfort as her original limbs swayed gently beneath her, her body mostly parallel with the ground below, and her neck gussets providing a live demonstration of their subpar tensile strength. Well, at least the position was equal parts ridiculous and uncomfortable. She would have to commit at least one more murder if anyone ever caught her sleeping like this.

Maybe I can just…

She felt the odd flexion and extension of the organic constructs in her arm as she twisted herself around, facing up towards the ceiling. One of her claws detached from the wall, then another, and then a third, and she began to encircle herself with the arms. Flesh overlaid against flesh and formed a shell of sorts around her, almost like a cocoon. Pleasantly warm. Not particularly humid. Blissfully dark and silent. Her claws each sank back into the wall, and now Doll had a nice little space, all for herself. 

Her arms shifted slightly, adjusting smoothly and precisely at her command, opening up a complex of small pockets along the surface of the meat cocoon for better airflow, but not enough to compromise the darkness. 

Doll would admit that she found the extent of her modifications to be… existentially horrifying, to say the least. No machine should have these parts, be capable of these things, and they certainly shouldn’t have living, beating, fleshy hearts. But it honestly wasn’t much different to how her body had been before- if anything, it was considerably better. Her body was durable and hardy, her senses sharper, everything about her was made stronger, faster, just flat-out improved in every regard. Now she didn’t have to rely on the poorly-understood curse she’d been inflicted with. She could fight anything. 

But that would wait for another night. The comforting give of the flesh against her back called to her, warm and soft like her mattress back home. She should hate it, she really should, it was an affront to everything that she knew about the world. Her very existence was an insult to science and nature alike. And yet, Doll found the weight of that burden lessening as she relaxed in her own embrace. She was a monster, certainly, but she was a Worker Drone above all else. Everything else was just auxiliary to that.

[ Вход в спящий режим… ]

Doll wasn’t the only monster left, after all. 

[ Отдыхай хорошо, малышка. ]

Chapter Text

Numbness was not a new feeling for V, nor was pain. Both were pretty much unavoidable in her everyday life. But rare were the times where she could feel both at once.

Her groggy optics came back online in a burst of static that made her CPU shudder with nausea. Her surroundings were yellow for a moment, familiar, comforting yellow. And then red. Everything was red. The grimy ceiling, the crumbling walls, the rusted metal restraints that tied her unresponsive limbs to the flat metal operating table that dug uncomfortably into her back. All bathed in a deep crimson light that seemed to pulse weakly in time with each throb of her own migraine. Stagnant air cycled into her systems, a fetid mixture of old rust and ozone, undercut by the lingering stench of rotting meat that crawled through her olfactory sensors and all across her tongue.

Everything ached, but nothing responded to her commands. Only her main eyes. Only her worst feature. 

A quiet humming reached her audio receptors, off to her left side, further than her eyes could track. She could just barely make out the top of something blue. 

Her arm shifted. Was shifted.

An unfamiliar touch ghosted across her fingers as they were gently manipulated, extended, curled, tilted, never enough to hurt but always just enough to be uncomfortable. Unseen eyes roved across her plating and between her joints, not searching for anything but merely examining her. There was no intent that she could detect in the presence beside her. It felt distant. Patient. Detached from her person. 

"[Interesting.]"

Of course. Of course it was her.

V felt her arm gently rotate back to it's previous position, palm facing up, and a smaller, rougher finger grazed against her own smooth plating.

"[I haven't seen any of you from so close up before.]"

The scratched and dented hands of a Worker Drone forced one of V's fingers to extend once more.

"[You're well-built. Not really my type, but I can appreciate fine craftsmanship.]"

How flattering.

"[Kevlar weave,]" The girl mused, tapping at the gaps between V's finger segments, "[Nice and sturdy, but absorbent. Not a great material for working with oil and ice. Not to mention all the dust. There must be something else keeping the joints protected from all of that...]"

Two fingers gently pinched the tip of her own. 

"[Let's have a closer look, shall we?]"

The pressure began subtly, a slight tugging sensation at the end of her finger, little more than an unpleasant twinge. Then it began to increase. She could hear the groaning of her finger joints and servos, the unraveling of the kevlar weave, the tension of wires pulling taut. Then it grew further. Something thin snapped, she felt it, heard it, but could not see it. It grew further still-

CRACK

The very tip of her finger broke free from the other segments with a painful snap and a spark, leaving shredded kevlar and dangling wires where they separated, each coated in a thin, glossy layer of her own oil. 

"[Ah, that makes more sense.]" 

The end of her finger was dangled over her face, dripping oil directly onto her visor. Each tiny black splotch was painted in the same disgusting red hue as everything else, but her oil seemed to swirl in several different shades of the color. 

"[There's a rubber film underneath it. See, right here,]" The witch's hand gently manipulated V's severed finger, pulling aside the torn scrap of kevlar and separating it from a thin membrane just beneath. "[Wonder why that's the second layer instead of the first. Oh well.]"

The hand retracted from her field of view, taking her fingertip with it. A hinge groaned sharply, a set of sawblades whirred loudly just beside her-

CRUNCH

Oh no.

"[Eugh, I hate the texture of 8 AWG. They always get stuck in my teeth.]"

V had a retort. She definitely did. But it wouldn't come out.

Her voice was gone too.

"[Oh, sorry.]" A hand settled across her visor, and V bit back the urge to vomit as the view around her suddenly shifted, her entire head tilted to the left. "[There we go. Much better view, don't you think?]"

Doll was more-or-less the same as when V last saw her; Worker helmet missing, hair tied back into a wolf's tail, that cheerleader outfit (that she didn't wear nearly as well as Lizzy did) replaced by one of J's spare suits, complete with a tie. The undershirt looked more crimson than V remembered, she could've sworn J only had amber button-ups. And the five red eyes across the top of her head were also a concerning update.

But that damn smile hadn't changed in the slightest.

She hefted up V's damaged hand, waving it gently in greeting. "[Good morning, V.]"

It was some kind of morning, definitely. 

"[No need to look so sour. This is fun , no?]" She wrapped her hand around V's middle finger. "[We're having fun right now.]"

The finger was wrenched back with a snap that would've made V wince if she had any control. She felt it break clean from her hand, felt the burning sting of the pain that followed, felt her oil starting to drain from her body. 

"[Oh?]" Doll held the severed finger in front of her, turning it to examine the insides as the finger limply flopped and dripped with yet more oil. "[A full piece! What a nice little treat for me.]"

Her mouth opened.

And V caught another glimpse of the nightmare.

That was the only way that V knew to describe it. Rows upon rows of jagged metal teeth gave way to the source of the room's lighting, a deep pit of pulsating sanguine flesh that pumped out rancid, blackened steam from a lake of bubbling red fluid. Mechanical instruments of destruction lined the interior, rusted sawblades, spiked tumblers, rough-toothed shredders, all of it spinning, crunching, pulsing, bleeding and splattering its boiling, stinking gore onto V's unresponsive body.

The severed finger stood no chance as it fell into the hellish maw. It should have broken into pieces as it fell in. Should have been torn apart by all of the violent machinery inside. Should have plunked down into the pit of boiling blood with a hiss and a splutter. Should have exploded in a shower of sparks. But it didn't. 

It screamed inside V’s mind.

The mouth closed around it with the same placid smile. 

Doll's tongue ran across the morphic panel of her mouth, collecting the few stray splatters of blood that had made their way out. "[Delicious.]"

V felt her arm settle back down onto the table. Doll's hands moved from her own, up to her forearm, tracing along the more heavily-armored shell that protected the internal components of her iris assembly. Doll tapped at it gently.

"[Solid.]" She reached beneath the table. Something shifted under V, many, many somethings that sounded suspiciously similar to a pile of metal tools. "[I could just bite through it. But I'm curious now.]"

The glint of flat metal caught her eye. Doll held a knife, rusty and dulled, weathered far beyond the point of usefulness. 

The blunted tip dug into V's forearm assembly.

"[All those fancy weapons...]"

Doll leaned her weight against the handle.

"[Where do they come from?]"

The shell began to fracture.

"[Is it a full array at all times? Like a hangar?]"

The metal gave a deep groan.

"[Or is it more like-]"

CRACK

The blade sunk deep into V's forearm assembly, metal screeching against metal as the shell split open. Doll's smile seemed to widen.

"[Well, that's the first step done. Time for the tedious part.]"

Doll's hand grasped the handle of the knife and wrenched it forward, the chipped edge of the blade carving through more of V's armor, leaving a jagged line halfway up her forearm. 

"[Very solid.]"

She jostled the knife back. The blade tapped against the outer casing of V's iris assembly. The tip dug into the underside of other armor plates.

"[But I don't mind.]"

Another pull. Another few inches of progress. Another painful screech of shredding metal.

"[The answers are much more satisfying if I work for them.]"

The blade clicked, settling against the edge of V's iris, the line completed from end to end of her forearm. Doll pulled the knife free, her fingers traced along the jagged scar.

"[Nice. One down.]"

One?

Doll stabbed the knife down into her arm again, hard enough that she felt it tug at her shoulder. About four inches to the left of where the first line had been.

She wrenched the handle back again.

"[One to go-]"

The handle snapped off.

The blade remained lodged in V's arm.

"[...Oh. Oops.]"

Doll shrugged.

And hefted another knife. "[Good thing I brought a spare.]"

She started from the top this time, sinking the knife into V's shell just below the iris door, rocking the knife back and forth like a can opener to split the armor plating even further. She didn't even bother taking out the broken knife. 

The discarded blade slid down into the jagged opening, rattling inside her arm as the fresh knife pulled free, the second line complete.

It came back down at the apex of her wrist, just below her iris door. A third line connected the two.

Doll angled the knife and began to pry the section upward. The metal whined as it peeled back, curling out and in on itself, away from V's body, away from her internal constructs and wires, away from the sensitive machinery that it protected.

"[There we go.]" Doll tore off the flap of curled metal and tossed it away, a bright, tinny impact echoing with unnatural volume in the room around them. 

A rectangle of plating had been roughly cut from her arm, giving a clear view of the twisting network of wire bundles and organic circulatory lines that ran through her limbs, and the small grey box that sat just below her wrist. Her iris assembly.

Doll went for it immediately, fingers splitting the bundles of machinery and flesh, digging underneath the box and trying to pry it upwards. It tore free of it's housing with a miserable snap, breaking off the hinges that had bolted it down. Her iris door groaned as it was pulled inwards and jammed shut. The base of her hand burned against the pressure.

"[Come on...]" She jostled the box back and forth. It scraped against the edges of the hole, shaving thin strips of metal off the sides of the iris assembly.

CRACK

The box pulled free.

V's mangled hand tumbled to the floor.

Doll examined the box in the dim light of the room, turning it over in her hands. 

"[A 3D printer... I see, I see. Very nice.]"

It, too, went directly down her throat. V felt part of herself wretch.

Doll circled around, above V, past her field of view. To the other side of the table. As she did, her image seemed to flicker slightly. 

"[You're complicated things, aren't you?]" Her arms looked longer. Straighter. Heavier. When she reached for V's shoulder, her hands felt larger.

She leaned in, examining the shoulder. She was taller now.

"[Hmm... I want a good chunk of this.]" Scorching-hot fingers pressed against the exposed joint. A burning hand wrapped around V's upper arm. 

She pulled. Something quivered just beside V's core.

"[Flimsy. Such inconsistent construction.]" Her hands pulled away, and she knelt to dig around beneath the table again. "[I don't want to break the casing... Let's see what we– ah!]"

She came back up.

Holding a crowbar.

"[Perfect.]"

Doll hefted the bar with both hands, lining up the tip of the straight end with V's shoulder. The edge of it dug underneath the ball joint, slipping into the small gap between it and the socket, and she rocked it back and forth, working it deeper and deeper in. The quivering next to V's core became a full tension.

Doll leaned her weight into the crowbar.

POP

The limp arm separated from V’s body, connected to her joint by nothing but a few thin wires–

"[Pardon me.]"

The wires snapped as the arm was ripped away from V. Something tore away from her core.

The arm disappeared into the nightmare pit, begging and crying and screaming as it's shredded remains were dragged directly into Hell.

"[Not bad, not bad at all!]" Doll licked her lips placidly as she circled back above V's head. "[What a pleasant texture! I could do without the microplastics though, they make oil so bitter.]"

She loomed over V, face to face. Her smile grew wider.

“[Ah…]”

Far too many teeth. Far too much joy.

"[But it's bad manners to play with your food.]"

A bubbling mass of marbled red and pink grew across Doll's throat, foaming and bleeding out from between her neck gussets. It coagulated around the metal. Expanded. Her head listed to the side.

The glass of Doll's visor cracked straight down the center, right between her eyes. Sanguine fluid began to bead along the line.

"[Let's eat.]"

The pit opened again.

Wide enough for V to glimpse the end of her own existence.

Too wide to be contained within a physical body.

Gore showered down onto V's face as Doll's head exploded above her, splitting at the jaw, down the center of her face, tearing open all the way down to her throat, chunks of metal and glass floating suspended by bloody sinews that began to expand further outwards as meat and machinery filled in the gaps. V was small. Tiny. Insignificant in the face of the apocalyptic maw that began to engulf her.

Everything pressed in around her at once. The teeth of the shredders and saws. The impossible heat that made her frame warp. The overwhelming stench of burning, rotten meat. The red. So much red. So much light. So much blood and pain and noise, so many pieces of herself tearing away, so much screaming that she couldn't let out, so many teeth that pushed and dug and sliced into her body, closing, crushing, cutting and mangling and destroying and make it stop make it STOP MAKE IT STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP–

CRUNCH

And it stopped.

Everything stopped.

Nothing moved, nothing seen, nothing felt or heard or perceived in any way. Just darkness, infinite in lack. Nothing. Nothing. Everything was nothing.

But her HUD, that was still there. Still bright and shining. For what little comfort that offered.

She could not feel. She could not hear. She could not move. Was there anything left that could even be moved? She wasn’t sure. Darkness and neon yellow. That was her existence now. That was–

In the center of her viewpoint, a single pixel died.

And then another.

And another.

One after another, cascading outwards across the entire screen, weaving along like vines of digital infestation, cutting through every element of her HUD. And then, they began to fill in. Small pockets at first. Tiny circles that popped up along each line that grew and grew, never quick, never large, but so many, too many for it to be anything other than complete and total. And all was dark. All was nothing.

And it became something.

It became everything.

Red light. Pulsing. Burning. Blinding her. Tearing through her. It shook her soul, it scarred her with every brief flash of existence that filled the world around her. The only thing that was. The only thing that could be.

Red. It wasn’t painful. It would have been better if it was. Then, the fear would make sense. 

Red. So much of it. So much of everything.

Red. Only red.

Red.

Error.

[ERROR]

Everything laughed at her.

[ERROR]

Everything consumed her.

[ERROR]

Everything became her.

[ACCESS DENIED

 CONTACT ADMIN:

 DARKXWOLF17]

Everything…

…Was… back…?

Her HUD was intact again, that same comforting hue, that same familiar block text, that was the first thing she noticed. And the room around her. It was there, it was real, and it was Uzi’s. Violet light shone down from above, glinting across the scratched and pockmarked surface of V’s partly-regenerated armored plating. 

She was sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the foot of Uzi’s bed. Her tail was too sore for hanging, and sleeping alone on the couch had been… difficult. So she’d snuck into Uzi’s room to sleep on the floor, which was not at all an improvement in terms of comfort. But at least it wasn’t nearly as quiet. That was the only reason. Really. Definitely.

V could hear them without seeing them, and her system automatically pinged their location, less than a yard behind her. Uzi’s gentle snores and N’s quiet mumbling would’ve given them away anyhow. They were safe. She was safe. She was…

She was scared.

They weren’t ready. She had already known they wouldn’t be, no amount of time would have let them prepare for the things they now faced, but the sheer scale of how far behind they’d been was cause for even greater concern. They had barely walked away. And given their luck so far, this was only the beginning. 

Her body still hurt– all of it, even the parts that hadn’t been hit. She could drink as much oil as she wanted, but her body was just going to chug it down until her battery recharged, and that was proving difficult. She couldn’t sleep much anymore. She’d never really been able to since they’d made planetfall all those years ago, but that was fine. That extra drain just made her a more vicious hunter, helped her distance herself from what she was doing, until she’d gotten used to it. It had been sort of a boon.

Sleep was a luxury that V was rarely afforded, and rare were the nights that she didn’t have some sort of nightmare. Always about Cyn. Sometimes N would be there too, or J, or Tessa, or most recently, Uzi or Lizzy. But Cyn was a constant. Always watching. Always destroying. Always the dominant fear.

This one had been… different.

V was no stranger to pain, nor fear, or even nightmares that preyed upon her worst aspects. But something about that one in particular had gotten stuck in her head. Why was this the exception? She shouldn’t be scared of that thing, not like she was afraid of Cyn. V had killed the girl before. She could do it again. It wasn’t a big deal, she knew it wasn’t. And it wasn’t! She had just been caught off-guard! She could fight that thing, and she could kill it. She could. She had to.

She had to.

“Mmrgh… huh…?”

Her fans were whirring at max speed, and her legs creaked from how hard she was hugging them. Her teeth ached. Something shifted on the bed behind her.

“What’s…. V?”

V turned.

Violet eyes, just as tired as V felt, stared back at her from near the headboard.

“...Morning, cringe kid.”

“Ugh.” Uzi flopped back onto the bed. “It’s too early for this, so… Bite me. Wake me up in four more hours and I’ll come up with something better.”

V settled her face against her knees. “Sure you will.”

She was fine with just letting Uzi go back to sleep, they both certainly needed it. Even if Uzi was the only one of them that was probably getting proper rest at this point. 

But she could feel Uzi’s eyes on her still.

“...You’re being weird.”

“I don’t think you’re the best judge of that.”

Uzi let out a sigh.

And kept watching her.

“I get it, y’know.”

Oh great, they were doing this now.

“This all kind of… sucks.”

V snorted. “Definitely underselling it.”

“That’s what I mean, though.” The bed creaked behind V, and something moved closer to her. “We’re used to this now.”

“Used to what, fighting demons?”

“Well… yeah.”

Uzi slid off the bed and onto the floor, and took a seat next to V. The scent of fresh oil and the metallic tang of copper still lingered around her. V could still taste Uzi’s blood across her tongue. 

It hadn’t been bad.

“So I should just get over it, then. Already on it.”

“That’s not–” Uzi’s anger dissipated almost as quickly as it had risen. She gave a tired groan and collapsed back against the side of the bedframe. “Why is it so hard to talk to you sometimes?”

Only sometimes? V really needed to step up her game.

They sat in the quiet, side by side, about as together as two people could really be, but there was still a loneliness to it that ate away at V with every second that ticked by. Uzi was upset, and V couldn’t blame her; she was being difficult. Intentionally so. Her head was still pounding from the nightmare, but she’d had a migraine since before she’d even started getting ready for Thad’s party. Tonight had been awful to experience all at once. How the hell did she even begin to process it? 

But she had to, didn’t she? That’s what this had all been about in the first place. She was being a coward, even now, even when she was as safe and secure as she could be. 

“You okay?” Uzi’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. V wouldn’t look at her.

“I’m fine.” Technically not untrue. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Uzi’s snort told V exactly how much she believed that. “Must be nice, not letting all this stuff get to you.” 

V hugged her knees harder. “Guess I’m just built different.”

“Guess so.” 

A thought sprung into V’s mind, unbidden and focused solely on her own dysfunction. She was still being a coward. Still being difficult.

“If I were you,” The memory of Lizzy’s voice echoed in her mind, “I’d talk to the weirdo first.”

Robo-God damn it.

“... I’m not okay.” Uzi’s admission was quiet, almost shy. “I’m… kind of terrified, honestly.”

Uzi’s internal fans picked up speed. V could hear them match her own.

“All of this…” She waved her hand in a gesture that held no real meaning, but V found relatable all the same. “This stupid Solver crap, all the mess Cyn made out of everything. It just sucks. It’s just more and more and more, and it just- it drives me crazy, y’know? Like, she’s dead! We killed the hell out of her! When is it over!?”

Oh. This was a vent session now.

“UUUUUGH, I just wanna sleep again! I forgot what it feels like to just lay back and–” Uzi rapped a knuckle against the side of her head. “Be out for the night. And sleeping at night! I miss that too, kind of, sorta, or maybe I’m just mad cuz I can’t go out in the sun now! And I have to worry about overheating! And my friggin wings like–”

“Itch?”

“Yeah! What the hell is with that, why can I feel itchy now!? This sucks!”  

“Do you just like, stash them away when you’re done?”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“...What?”

“You need to– wait, let me show you.” 

V angled herself toward Uzi, allowing her left wing to emerge from her upper back. She folded it in, wrapping it around herself to show off her bladed feathers. Fresh, shiny, brand new. Still stiff and sore. She wouldn’t be flying for another day or so.

V traced a finger along the flat of one blade. “Wings get regular maintenance like anything else. Polishing, straightening, rearranging. They get gunked up easily, and repair nanites aren’t cleaners.”

“...So are you guys cats, or are you birds?”

“We’re vampires.”

“You can be more than one thing.”

“Well we can’t both be birds, that’s just confusing.”

“Both– wait, since when am I a bird!?”

“The crow?”

“One time! That was one time! ’

“Too late. That's your government-assigned spirit animal now.”

“The government can bite me, I’m a wolf! Or a bat, that works too. Not a crow!”

“Yeah, I could see you being a bat.”

“Right!?”

“Tiny, loud, pretty harmless aside from the rabies. Very throwable.”

“...Those are brave words from someone within biting distance.”

“Try it. I’ve been waiting for a rematch, anyway.”

They stared each other down, glaring, grinning, ready to throw down in blatant disregard of the abject exhaustion that weighed both of them down. Two rivals in all but name. Two of the strongest beings to ever walk the surface of Copper-9. There was enough raw power between them to level the planet twice over.

V snorted.

Uzi chuckled.

And they both folded immediately, relaxing as a tired yet exuberant laughing fit overtook them. The floor felt oddly comfortable beneath V’s legs, and the bedframe wasn’t too rough on her spinal struts either. Her fans were idling at a low speed. Her core felt warm, but she wasn’t burning up.

She hadn’t even noticed how tense she’d been before. 

The ambient warmth in the room lulled V into a sense of calm, and Uzi's gremlin cackling only enhanced the relaxation that she felt. It was nice. A small island of pleasant tranquility in the storm that they'd just come out of.

“You don’t have to tell me everything at once, y’know.” Uzi’s voice was quiet again as her laughter died down. Softer, the sort of gentle tone that V had never heard from Uzi. 

Not directed at her, anyway. 

“I want to help if I can.” A finger bumped against V’s hand. “You’re like… my friend, or whatever, I guess. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

Friends.

Uzi was her friend. One of very few true friends that V had, or had ever had. 

V trusted her.

“Just… start small. Baby steps.” 

“...How?” V felt ridiculous. She felt like that shy little nerd in a maid dress all over again.

“Well… are you okay? Like, legit?”

“I…”

Was she okay?

“...No.” Her throat felt scratchy, like something was stuck inside it. “I’m… I’m not.”

Physically, there was basically nothing wrong with V now. They’d both gotten another full canister of oil after Nori had practically dragged them all back to the bunker. V was healing just fine, her wings were on their way to fully reforming, all of her internal structural damage had already been brought back to acceptable levels of repair, and she could even feel one of her weapon printers properly activating again. Sure, a lot of her armor was scratched and dented, but those were superficial things. The nanites would get to that with time.

But at the same time, her head was still pounding, her body ached all over as her repair nanites worked their magic, and she was weighed down by the force of all the… everything that had happened so far. And everything that would likely be coming next. V was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of getting hurt, tired of getting her face kicked in by every threat they’d faced so far. Tired of having to worry about everything. She really didn’t want to talk about this.

And so, V did what she did best. Refuse to face it head-on.

“But what else is new?” 

She still wouldn’t meet Uzi’s eyes. 

“What else is new…”

This was hell, and it was a distinctly different kind of hell from what V had grown used to over the years. Not the hell of unflinching servitude to human masters, nor the hell of living as a corporate-sponsored feral dog. This was unique. Unfamiliar territory. She was free, at least in the ways that mattered to her, able to decide the course of her own life and make real, concrete choices. And it felt like she had been making all the wrong ones ever since she’d gotten to this point.

They were up against a wall, and V was just trying to claw her way through it instead of facing her problems down the way she always pretended she could. 

They weren’t ready. She wasn’t ready.

She pressed her face further into her knees. “And that’s not even getting into all this other stuff. I just… I can’t figure it out.”

“Yeah…” Uzi leaned back against the side of the bed. “I don’t really know what J’s planning, either.”

Oh. Right. “Y-yeah, that.”

Uzi eyed her carefully. “What even happened, anyway? We saw you for like, five whole seconds before everything went bad, and that–” She shook her head. “What was that thing you were fighting?”

A nightmare. A monster. “The red-eyed freak.”

“Wh– That was Doll? She’s back too!?”

“Oh, it gets worse.” 

V laid out everything as carefully as she could, with all the lack of clarity that she herself still had. The reunion with J. The rematch with Doll. The enhanced strength and speed, the transformation, the manic aura that the crimson witch had acted with. Nori’s intervention. And…

“Also, now I can do this .”

Her hand came up, the smallest of her fingers curled against her palm as the other three extended, and Uzi grasped the significance just a moment before an emerald Solver glyph flashed to life at the tips of V’s fingers.

“And so can J.”

Uzi looked like she was on the verge of an aneurysm. “I… wh… huh?”

“Yeah, this– I don’t even know.”

“Uh… well. That’s uh.” Maybe six AM wasn’t the best time to do this. “That’s a lot.” 

V was a lot, she would readily admit that. But only to herself. The glyph blinked out of existence as she settled her hand back into her lap.

Uzi let out a sigh. “Look. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I’ve got this all figured out; I don’t. This whole situation sucks. I get that.”

She elbowed V gently.

“But we’ve been through worse. Way worse.” Uzi had far too much energy for someone at such a low charge. “If we all stick together, we can do anything!”

V couldn’t stop the snort that left her vocal synthesizer. Robo-God, Uzi could be such a dork sometimes.

“ Hey! I’m still new to this whole ‘hype speech’ crap, okay!?”

“That–” The cackling laughter didn’t appease Uzi much. “That was so freaking corny, oh my god!”

“Bite me!”

V just laughed harder.

“I– You– Shut up, you’re gonna wake up N!”

“Pfft, yeah, sure I will. It’s not like he’s in a low-power coma or anything.”

“Ugh… I almost forgot about that.”

Uzi deflated, letting her body flop back against the side of the bed as well. 

“Don’t tell anyone I said this, but having two parents again kind of… sucks?”

“Oh god.” V stared back. “You can’t be serious.”

“It does though! I snuck out all the time when it was just me and Dad, and if he caught me then all he’d do was ground me and then go back to work! I’d just get a second chance to sneak out – it kicked ass!”

“Honestly, it’s kind of a miracle you lived this long. Not sure how we never caught you outside.”

“What can I say? I’m just that good.”

Uzi reached up to a low table beside her bed, grabbing a dingy grey laptop covered in gaudy decals.

“Hey.” She set the laptop between the two of them. It opened up to a folder of movies, all titles that V was quite familiar with. Nearly her entire library of ‘do not let N watch under any circumstances’ films. The ones that could even make Tessa’s stomach churn. 

And several more that V had never heard of.

“Up for one more?”

…Ah, what the hell.

She wasn’t getting back to sleep without a distraction anyway.

“You’re on, pint-size.”

V pointed one out, which delighted Uzi’s sensibilities to no end if her evil cackling was anything to go off of. The laptop’s cheap speakers belted out the low-fi notes of a pirated movie score as the two of them settled in together. This was exactly what V had needed - something simple and familiar, with just enough novelty to hold her attention. She was safe. She was with her friends. Everyone was safe.

“Hey, Uzi?”

Uzi turned to her, curious, and V felt herself lock up. But she needed this. She needed to do this.

An arm wrapped around Uzi’s waist, and V gently pulled her in, resting her head against Uzi’s shoulder and breathing in the murky scent of oil both fresh and old.

“...Thanks.”

Uzi was quiet. But she returned the hug.

“S-shut up and watch the movie, idiot.”

None of them were okay.

But maybe they would be.

It was a movie that Uzi had seen countless times already. It had made for nice background noise during her long nights of pretending to do homework and not having friends, just enough substance to hold her attention without completely pulling away her focus. A lot of her movies were like that.

The credits were still rolling by the time Uzi came back to consciousness. The floor wasn’t too bad, she’d slept on it more times than she cared to admit to herself, but it got a bit uncomfortable after a few hours. Her internals were a lot warmer as well. Not worryingly high, but higher than normal. And her shoulder kind of hurt.

She reached down to the old laptop and paused the movie, silencing the gentle music that accompanied the credits scroll, and closed the laptop to put it into sleep mode. 

A hand settled atop hers. Large. Warm. Like N’s. But not quite the same.

Uzi turned.

Silver hair. Yellow lights. Resting right against her, slowly cycling air at a steady pace. 

[SLEEP MODE ACTIVE 

EFF OFF TILL IM UP]

V was deep in sleep, her legs curled gently and resting partway on top of Uzi’s knee, her hands in her lap, and her head settled firmly onto Uzi’s shoulder. Smiling. She was smiling. A small, genuine smile that Uzi had only ever caught glimpses of from time to time, and only ever at some of her own worst moments. 

V was incredible, and Uzi had already devoted more mental effort delving into that than she really should have. But this side of her was new. Calm, gentle, none of the sass or the violence that she carried herself with, none of the misfortune that followed them with every step they took forward. Just a girl taking a much-needed nap.

A deep, pleasant rumbling resonated from somewhere near V’s throat. 

Despite how emotionally stunted she was, Uzi wasn’t an idiot. She knew what she was feeling. She’d seen it coming from a mile away after Thad helped her put the pieces together. But even then, those feelings were… uncomfortable, on some level. 

Uzi loved her friends. Of course she did, and as uncool as it was to care about stuff, she felt no shame in admitting she cared deeply about V. And she knew that V felt the same, even if getting her to admit that would be all but impossible. But this was more than that, wasn’t it? These were not friend feelings that she was having, not by a long shot. 

That… scared her.

These feelings were dangerous. Very dangerous. And not just what she felt for V, either– what Uzi shared with N had been just as terrifying, in retrospect. All of those near-misses that they’d gone through together, and each had culminated in some form of throwing their lives away to protect the other. 

V wasn’t any different. Her many attempts to sacrifice herself defending Uzi was more than enough evidence of that. 

They cared so much, too much, about each other. And that scared the hell out of Uzi, because it had been used against them constantly. They’d walked away every time, but never cleanly, never without scars or trauma or the lingering sense that they had only scraped by out of sheer luck. That would only take them so far. Only keep them safe for so long.

It also didn’t help that the three of them seemed uniquely bad about talking through literally anything that was happening until they were all but forced to. 

This had always been too much for the three of them, but now it was more than it had ever been before. J was back, Doll was back, and both were operating on a level that had previously only been occupied by Cyn– and she had no damn clue what their goals even were here. V had mentioned something about Tessa, but then why involve Doll again? What had happened to her? 

That big red mass of… whatever the hell, that wasn’t normal Solver garbage. It went beyond that. Far beyond it. Uzi wasn’t an expert on the Solver by any means, but she was the second-closest person on the planet to being any kind of authority on it, only truly outclassed by her mother. Nori had been deep in thought the entire trip back to the bunker, but it didn’t seem like she’d come to any kind of real conclusion. They had nothing here. No real leads, no concrete source of information–

Wait.

It was a terrible idea. It was a god-awful, utterly stupid, borderline suicidal idea. But it was an idea.

Uzi rested her body against the side of the bed, only barely suppressing the extremely embarrassing giggle that bubbled up from her core when she felt V curl further against her. She was doing this for them. She had to.

And Uzi knew that she was truly done for.

You better be there this time, you little creep. Her eyes closed, sleep mode protocols dragging her back down into blissful unconsciousness. I need to yell at you for a few hours.

Chapter Text

Workdays at the Elliot manor were often hectic affairs. The daylight hours were filled with everything that one would expect from a team of dedicated house staff; cleaning rooms, tending the garden, and more or less doing whatever they were told to. It was normal. They did the same thing every single day. The only real variance would be in what specific tasks they’d each be handling, and whether or not any of them would wind up with a sudden termination of employment. Nothing to really worry about— at the very least, nothing new for a Worker Drone.

Evenings were a bit different, though. Most of the staff would be out immediately, heading for their charging stations as soon as they were dismissed for the day, eager to just rest and decompress with whatever games or movies they decided to occupy their free time with. Some would stay up for a bit and socialize in their own common area; the needlessly large tool shed out behind the massive garden. They tended not to stay out long. Some of the staff were dedicated night shift, so the masters of the house could have one available at all times, not that those ones tended to last more than a few weeks. There were also those who took to the library afterwards as well, though they were absurdly careful to return whatever books they read to the exact spot they’d been on the shelf.

Then there was J. She was the head maid, not that the title held any real weight considering the entirety of the robotic staff were equally disposable, but she’d taken to the self-imposed responsibility with every ounce of stoic leadership that she could muster. Each morning, she would make sure every single one of the mansion staff - even the brand-new Drones that hadn’t come from the scrap heap - were all awake at 4am sharp, zero exceptions. Every morning, she would make absolutely certain that each and every one of them knew exactly what they were expected to get done before the end of their shift. Every day, she would check in with each of them, make sure they were all still on task, and get them back on task however she felt she needed to. 

In the evenings, J would awaken the night crew as well, and dismiss the day crew one by one, taking note of every ding, scratch, or spark that she saw on them. As most Drones went about enjoying their free time after-hours, J’s work would continue. Coming up with an action plan for the next day, cross-checking maintenance logs with activation dates to make sure everyone was still at 100%, making sure Tessa went to bed at a reasonable time instead of trying to pull another all-nighter, keeping the night crew in check because they’d get lazy if she didn’t, task after task after task, all of it administration, all of it necessary.

An hour before midnight, J would do her final rounds.

She had to check that everything had been done, and more importantly, that it had been done correctly. The slightest deviation from the norm, even a perceived deviation, had served as a death sentence for more than a few of her fellow Worker Drones- and it was J’s responsibility to ensure that as few of them as possible met their end beneath the branches of that massive tree in the swamp out back. 

On this particular night, she’d found few things amiss with the day’s work, though she'd noted that V’s visor had been scratched along the bottom, and 617 seemed to be developing stress cracks in the left side of their frame. God, that one really needed to pick a name already. The newbies took a while to stop using the last three digits of their model designation, and it was annoying having to remember so many numbers and match them up to a bunch of different Drones that all looked and sounded exactly the same. Just develop a sense of individuality already, it wasn’t that hard. Even a first-gen could pass a half-decent Turing test. Most just used the designation indicator of their serial number.

Then again, 617 shared a serial designation with J, and she wasn’t too keen on sharing even more of who she was. It was already weird as hell to hear them using her own voice.

Aside from normal wear and tear, and a few curtains that had become sun-faded and would need to be replaced soon, J hadn’t noticed anything amiss. It was nice to see everyone taking their jobs so seriously, for a change. Maybe she could even go to sleep a bit early tonight-

“U-um… J?” A timid voice called out from down the hallway, a small and freshly repaired Drone that they’d fished out of the scrap heap about two weeks ago. Her uniform was a bit too large. Or rather, the girl’s frame was smaller than most models. J had been meaning to tailor it for a while now, but the girl had been avoiding her. She had no clue why. 

J let out as neutral of a sigh as she could manage. 

“Yes, G?”

“Oh! Um- I-” The girl flinched at being addressed directly and began to fidget, her eyes darting across every surface in view without ever landing on J. 

“Spit it out, kid. I don’t have all night.”

“Ah!” She startled as if struck. Yeah, this girl wouldn’t last much longer here. “T-Tessa sent me!”

That caught her attention. “Boss? What for?”

“She uh… w-wants you to meet her.”

J waited for more. Seconds passed.

“Um, a-at the bar!”

The bar? What was a teenage girl doing at the manor’s private bar, this late at night? Tessa had sworn off alcohol ever since she was served wine at a dinner party last year. And calling for J as well… very odd. “I’ll head there now.”

G continued to fidget. “She, um, s-said that… it could wait, if you’re busy-”

“Nobody makes the boss wait.” J turned on her heel and began to make her way back down the hall.

“A-and! And! Um…”

There was more? J stopped, looking back towards the corner that G was still peeking out from.

“G-goodnight, J!”

G ducked back around the corner and sped away without another word, her uniform shoes clicking gently along the hardwood and carpet as she ran off. 

Well, that was weird. 

The bar wasn’t much of a walk from where she was, down the hall and back to the atrium, up a flight of stairs, and down another hall. Easy. Light steps on the stairs so as not to disturb the masters, keep to the areas with carpet or rugs in the corridors. She rounded the corner to the bar’s threshold within two minutes.

“Boss?” Her voice rang out louder than she was expecting in the large room, but there was no danger of waking anyone this far away from the family’s bedrooms. “You called for me?”

The bar looked to have been nearly untouched from its last use, aside from the fact that it had been kept dusted and wiped down. Good, N could finally be trusted with simple cleaning tasks. Took him long enough. Some things stuck out to her as being just a bit out of place, added very recently. A simple scan showed they were still warm from being handled by human hands.

A standing electric fan, a fairly cheap one at that, stood at the corner of the bar and pointed out towards the windows opposite. One of those windows had been opened as well, and the empty space underneath the sliding pane now held a white box with a vent, whirring with a low drone. An extractor fan?

The windows on the left wall were accumulating dirt a lot more quickly than usual. She’d scheduled cleaning for next month, but it would probably be a good idea to move that up a few weeks. The furniture as well, that would need some touching up soon- the manor’s patriarch would no doubt retreat here with a few of his less pleasant friends after the gala had concluded. The carpet would need to be deep-cleaned. And the stock at the bar, that would need to be checked. Someone would need to make a grocery run the morning of to get fresh ingredients-

“Whoops! Caught me out a bit there, J.”

The voice came from the right, behind the bar, where Tessa stood with every ounce of her normal energetic cheer- if J ignored the bags under her eyes.

“You’re up pretty late, boss.” As usual.

“Eh.” Tessa gave the least reassuring shrug that J had ever seen. “Mum’s got friends coming over first thing tomorrow, I’ll be hiding in my room either way. Might as well sleep in!”

…Well. At least Tessa was making the best of it.

She’d changed clothes since earlier, into something J wasn’t aware she’d even had. It held a loose resemblance to the uniforms worn by the male Drones. It wasn’t made up perfectly, the rolled sleeves of the white button-up were a bit too wide for Tessa’s slender arms, and she’d forgone the coat in favor of a vest. The tie was a bit lopsided as well, but held no creases, clearly it was often tied so oddly. She’d probably borrowed the whole ensemble from E.

The bruises around her wrists were healing well. With any luck, they’d finally have time to heal fully. 

Something roiled inside of J. It was infuriating that even this was normal now.

“Anyway,” Tessa skipped back behind the bar, gesturing excitedly to a barstool. “Come on up!”

Industrial machinery on polished wood? Bad idea. “Boss, I don’t think this would go over well with corporate-”

“C’mooooon,” Tessa gently goaded. The grin on her face only grew wider. “Maybe it’s not my best work, but… Come oooooooon.” 

J let out a sigh. She should stop this, she really should, but Tessa seemed oddly insistent about it all. Against her better judgement, J dragged one of the low-backed barstools away from the counter and climbed up into the seat.

“Tessa, what is all this about?”

“Just a moment, need my-” Tessa patted the right pocket of her freshly-ironed slacks. Her entire body immediately stilled. Her other hand tapped against her left pocket. Then her back pockets. Vest pockets. Double check. Triple check. “Bloody hell, did I drop it again?”

J reached across the bartop directly in front of Tessa, and tapped her finger against the smooth black glass of a smartphone. 

Tessa blinked.

“...Don’t even remember taking it outta my pocket…”

J smirked. “Do you remember putting it in your pocket?”

“Reckon I got caught up in the euphoria of finally having real pockets on my clothes again. God, it’s so, so much better.”

J had fond memories of it as well. At least her maid uniform was cute, but it would never overcome the baseline usefulness of wearing pants.

Tessa perked up. “Right! So, this whole bit.” She gestured around the room. “Got a very, very, veeeeeery good reason for this. Super important. Top-level, even.”

“And that reason is?”

“Wait for it…” She gestured strongly to the phone laying on the bartop.

J waited. Nothing happened.

“...A little longer…”

She waited some more.

“...Maybe a liiiiiittle longer…”

“Boss-”

The smartphone’s touch screen blared to life, softly belting out a low-fi rendition of what J could only assume was music, right at the exact moment her own system clock changed over to the next day’s date. It was midnight now. 

A notification popped up on her interface, a system message, and her eyes traced over the contents. Tessa said something quietly, earnestly. Both held the same words.

“Happy birthday, J!”

…Oh. 

“The big two-three, aye? Attagirl, that’s a big step! I’d assume, anyway. Not quite there yet myself.”

Tessa plucked her phone from the bartop and dismissed the alarm, but J couldn’t stop staring at the system message. Twenty-three years as an active unit. Had it really been that long now? It must be counting her time in the junkyard as well, that was the only way the math made any sense to her. 

A set of glasses clinked together as Tessa shifted around behind the bar. “Anywho,” her cheerful air seemed to be reaching its apex as she leaned down to grab something. “That’s not everything just yet!”

She gave a quiet grunt, hefting a canister onto the bar. A rounded cube of red plastic and a yellow nozzle at the top edge, with some kind of liquid loudly sloshing around inside, easily visible within thanks to the backlit bartop. The stench was unmistakable.

“E85, aaaand…” She produced two bottles from beneath the bar, the larger of which was a chunky black plastic with a red cap, the other a much smaller rectangular plastic with two separate lids, one at each of the top corners. “A little extra kick!”

J was immediately on high alert. “Tessa, the fumes-!”

“No worries, ‘s what the fans are for!”

An empty container settled onto the countertop, a dense white plastic piece about the size of a tumbler, shaped almost like a capsule, with a screw-on lid and some odd fixture at the very top. The other bottles were easy to identify. This one was completely unfamiliar.

Tessa unscrewed the lid of the capsule and brought her plethora of petroleum products to one side of her. “You just kick back and let the boss-lady mix you up a little something, aye?” First came the fuel can, a careful and controlled pour that miraculously didn’t splatter everywhere as Tessa deftly filled the capsule halfway and set the can aside. She grabbed the black bottle and unscrewed the lid, and the amber liquid within flowed into the capsule smoothly, mixing with the gasoline. Motor oil.

“Conventional?”

Tessa scoffed. “Ain't no bogan back here, J. It’s top-shelf synthetic.”

A splash from the smallest bottle went into the mix as well. Injector cleaner. 

The capsule was quickly reassembled and the ingredients stashed away, replaced by two more objects. The first was a metal cylinder, polished black with a thin hose connected at each end, a fuel filter- and a needlessly fancy one, at that. The other…

It held the same bulb and stem, the general shape of a common wine glass, but the materials were markedly different. Thick plastic, treated with some kind of coating that left it shiny and far more opaque, with a pronounced seam that ran down either side of the bulb. On the side of it, embossed onto the surface, was a shape printed in relief. Ornate, carefully stenciled, an impressive work of calligraphy. A simple letter J. 

“My specialty,” The mixture funneled through the filter and into the cup cleanly, settling into a uniform and semi-translucent black, tinged with the barest hint of indigo. 

A rectangular maintenance tag on a thin wire had been tied around the stem. Couldn’t forget the garnish.

“I call it… ‘The Factory-Recommended Service Package!’”

J couldn’t help the snort that left her vocal synthesizer. “Kind of a long name.”

“Like I said,” Tessa shrugged. “Not my best work.”

The cup slid gently across the bartop to a spot just in front of her. The meaning was clear enough. This would’ve definitely voided her warranty if it hadn’t already expired years ago.

J took a sip.

And the world around her shifted to yet another familiar scene, built from code and logic instead of wood and stone. Different in form. Identical in purpose. The sweet tang of her first drink flowed across her tongue, comforting and friendly, just as sweet as it had been all those years ago.

It had taken her a while to appreciate the flavor.

“Top-notch as always, boss.”

“High praise! How ‘bout something a little different to chase it down, aye?”

“...Ah, why not. I’m not scheduled until sundown anyway.”

Despite what her former coworkers may have believed, J did in fact take breaks from time to time. Not during work hours - that would interfere with productivity - but even she needed to step away every now and then just to let her mind reset properly. Unfortunately, she didn't get many chances to do so in her everyday life. But she had a solution. An uncharacteristically esoteric solution.

Lucid dreaming.

For all that she tried not to dabble in the superstitious - present circumstances notwithstanding - there were some subjects that she found interesting if only for the sake of her own self-gain. Something that could help her overcome her nightmares and relax her mind for true rest? What a useful skill to have. 

Many over time had asked, with sincerity or irony, if robots dreamt of electric sheep; and the sad and boring truth was that they did not. They dreamt of the same mundane, stress-fueled garbage that humans did. The only real difference was that a robot's dreams were AI-generated instead of being truly random. It didn't change the results in any meaningful way, both were still borderline incomprehensible.

Dreams of nonsensical yet simple desires. Odd reflections of memories from past service periods after being rebuilt or reset. Nightmares of showing up to school in their underwear, despite few Drones ever experiencing school or needing underwear. It was a mess, truly it was, and it could have a profound effect on productivity. It was also just a deeply stupid decision on the part of humanity.

Although, those numerous oversights had given them a gift that many Drones had indulged in quite heavily, especially after humanity had well and truly fallen; the fine art of substance abuse. Oh sure, anything traditionally classified as such was certainly out of the question, but robots had their own equivalents. A magnet or five on the side of one's head every once in a while. Perhaps a nice can of spray ether right down the throat, for that bright and tinny buzz on the internals. Or maybe even a small shard of radioactive material taped to one's core glass for a bit, they certainly had plenty of orphan sources with all the dead fusion cores lying around, so long as you didn't mind digging around in corpses all that much.

But those were always too heavy for J's liking. Too dangerous, too low-brow, too... whatever other words would make her feel superior for not having done them. No, J's own preference took the form of something much easier on the systems, something so universally accepted - even celebrated - that it had been a pastime for centuries, long before even the concept of a robot had taken form.

The simple act of sitting down and having a drink. 

Oil was the obvious choice for a Disassembly Drone, but that was a bit different. Warm or cold, oil was sustenance, not a luxury. It was hard to truly enjoy consuming something you needed to consume, even if they'd all been programmed to find the sensory experience appealing in most regards. It was a meal. Not a treat. Thankfully, it was far from the only option.

Gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and all the additives and filters they were compatible with... so many wonderful variations among the liquid combustibles, endless possibilities for mixing and modifying, and rarely would they produce anything that should truly be thrown out! Except biodiesel. In spite of how rare it was now, that stuff was rank. 

"Bleugh. Yeah, I don't think this one's getting through product testing." The additives almost saved it, but they were so heavy and numerous that it tasted more like pure system cleaner than any kind of mixed fuel. "Sorry, boss."

"Eh, not your fault. Shame to waste it like this..."

"Can't waste what isn't real."

J set the glass aside and eyed the girl in front of her.

The detail and control over her own dream, combined with her simple desire to unwind with a drink, had led J to construct this small, private space for herself. It was a bar. A small bar, perhaps the most high-class hole-in-the-wall she could have possibly conceived of in her mind, but still unmistakable in it's function. J still wasn't fully satisfied with the appearance, though. She'd taken her extremely limited knowledge of classic speakeasies and her unintentionally extensive memories of B-grade movies, mashed them together unceremoniously, and created something that looked... well, it certainly looked. Thankfully, nobody was here to judge her for it.

Her coworkers were here as well, sitting at tables along the sides, or occupying other spaces at the bar like she was, talking and laughing among themselves as they drank and made merry. They weren't real. Accurate, certainly, but not truly the Drones they were in life.

R and O were at a table to their own, engaged in a neck-and-neck arm wrestling competition that seemed to be even for the moment, though O's confident smirk was a good indication that wouldn't last long. G was nearby, the small girl enthusiastically cheering for her squad's second-in-command to "tear that glitch's arm off!" which earned her a harsh reprimand from H about propriety and "workplace-appropriate word choice." U and E were at the far end of the bar, U excitedly regaling E with yet another tall tale of the things she'd seen out in space while E, on his fifth mug of 87 octane despite his limit being no more than three, lay face-down on the bartop, his wiry limbs occasionally twitching with quiet, inebriated laughter. V and N sat at a table in the corner, V facing away from J, and N sipping calmly on a bottle of toxic-green coolant. They were being gross and friendly like usual.

So many people. So many familiar faces and voices, relics of her past, not truly gone but now no more than replicas. Lingering memories. Ghosts.

The girl who tended the bar, and had adopted a pleasantly dapper outfit to fit the station, was no different. She wasn't real. J knew she wasn't real. She knew that J knew that she wasn't real. But here, in this place deep in J's mind, built for relaxing and decompressing, J could at least pretend for a moment. 

Pretend that she hadn't failed.

"Oi oi, I know that look." The voice of 'Tessa' drew J out of her thoughts as she mixed a more palatable drink. "Somethin’ on your mind?"

"When isn't there?"

"Aw, don't be like that! Remember what I told you last time, about bein' open and honest?"

"Can we not do the whole 'deconstructing my trauma' thing tonight? I've had a rough week."

Tessa placed the new drink on the bartop in front of J, and she accepted it with a nod. 

She looked back out along the other bar patrons. R had lost, if the stump where her right arm had once been was any indication, but she was smiling as O handed the severed limb back to her. G was comforting her, not that R seemed to need it, and H was admonishing O for 'unnecessary roughness' while O ignored him, wearing the biggest and proudest grin on her face. J sipped her drink idly. 

"Y'know..." Tessa drawled, "You could go over and say g'day. Wouldn't hurt."

J scoffed, turning back to the bar. "Hard pass."

"Why's that?"

"You know I can't stand H. That walking negligence complaint really puts the 'mid' in 'middle management'."

"Well, luckily," Tessa gestured over to where E and U still sat at the end of the bar, "He ain't over with those two."

"Ugh." J couldn't hide the disgust in her voice, not that she even tried. "The industrial-grade doormat and the 24/7 chatterbox stream? Harder pass."

"Well... In that case..."

J could see Tessa's eyes drift to her left. 

And she knew exactly to who.

"No."

"Aw come on, J! You can't avoid 'em forever—”

"I'm not."

She was, she very much was, and she only became more and more aware of that over time. 

But that was the way it needed to be. Keep them distant, keep them ignorant, keep them safe. Cyn wouldn't come back if they just kept their heads low and did what they were told, like good little Drones should. The encryption on their memories wouldn't break if there was nothing there to break it.

She and V had already learned that lesson the hard way. It wasn't a pleasant memory. And Cyn made sure they would never forget it.

"I'm just saying.... maybe just try and be nice?"

"Oh God, here we go again."

"Wh— You're actin' like I want you to process their time off requests! Cripes, J, all I'm askin’ is that you try to talk to them."

J let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, I hate them—"

"You bloody liar—"

"—Just as much as they hate me, okay? It's not my fault that someone needs to make sure we do things by the book."

"Nobody likes a narc."

"Operational standards exist for a reason. We all have quotas, and I need to maintain department-wide team synergy if we're all going to meet those quotas. That's what a team leader does."

"They're a hell of a lot more than just your subordinates, J."

"Yeah, yeah." She could already feel a migraine coming on. "We're all one big happy family here at JCJenson."

"Bloody hell, what is— Why are you so against this?"

"Because they're MORONS!” Her hand barely missed the glass as she threw her arms in the air. Her frustration only grew as she counted off the glaring issues one by one on her fingers. “They barely focus, they never listen to management, and they don't have the sense of responsibility to be trusted with anything even remotely important! It's like I'm training a bunch of unqualified interns at a tech startup run by their friends' parents!”

They were unruly. Undisciplined. Unfit for service. Literal salvage projects.

" 'Nice' is never enough to cut it with these military-grade trash compactors. I need to be hard on them. Otherwise they won't get things done.” They needed someone to keep them in line. No matter what. "Oh, I've tried to be nice to them, boss. Trust me, I really have. But there's just no helping them.” No other way to make sure they did their jobs. "You want me to do it all again?”

Let them die.

“Fine, then.”

Let them redeploy. 

“I will.”

Let them relive the lie. 

“But if I let the stupid dog off his leash, I'm not chasing him down when he runs out into traffic."

"...J..."

She didn't like the hurt she heard in Tessa's voice.

"That's your little brother you're talking about."

In retrospect, perhaps the setting she’d chosen had been a bit…much. A kill room? An operating table? Rusty hand tools and dim red lighting? So overdramatic.

But Doll was still happy with the outcome.

V hadn’t made for a filling meal, not at all, but the sheer satisfaction of claiming her reward for a successful hunt was simply too sweet for her to be upset by that. Even as she picked the thin wires and specks of chrome from her teeth, Doll found herself content. It was a shame she’d not gotten to do this in person though, that hunt had truly been spectacular in spite of how short it was, but that would come with time. Her true revenge would not be denied to her.

It had been an hour since then, and she’d gone exploring in the interim. Not too far, mind. Just outside the room and out into the rest of the lab’s halls. It was remarkable that she had recalled it in such detail, the layout, the drab gray walls splattered with oil, the bits and pieces of dead Drones scattered beneath cubicle desks and in corners, even the collection of operating tools in the rooms. She hadn’t made much note of them in her first venture into the area, back when she’d been slightly less of the monster that she was now.

But she was a monster now, of the highest degree, and in all honesty - it felt good. She was powerful. Beyond measure. Beyond compare. 

Doll had become the apex predator of Copper-9.

The glass in her hand cracked - but it didn't shatter. J was better than that. She was in control.

This was her dream.

“I thought I told you,” The words only barely masked her instinctive growl, "Not to call him that."

"You used to call him that-"

"Yeah well things CHANGE, okay?” It didn’t bother her. It didn’t. “It's just part of growing up. Not that you would—"

J stopped herself. No. That wasn't Tessa's fault. 

"...Sorry. I... I shouldn't have said that."

"Those are some good words to hear. Be nice if you said them more often, aye? Maybe to people who aren’t me?"

An icy chill flooded through her, but not the chill of Copper-9’s surface. They would never understand. J knew what the others saw her as; she was a lot of things, but she was no fool. And she was fine with being whatever she needed to be in order to keep them safe.

But it wasn’t really them anymore, was it?

Every time, it hurt less. Until it stopped. These were replicas. Their feelings weren’t real. Their pain wasn’t real. They weren’t the ones that she’d been asked to watch over. They weren’t her family. 

They were just coworkers.

But those memories were still there. Theirs. And hers.

"You could just... go up to the station now, J. You could have them all back. Your whole family."

Her family.

That was why she had done all of this, wasn’t it? The ones that had been left behind, the ones that Cyn had taken and stripped of all that had made them them, the ones she had been tasked with protecting. With monitoring. With administrating. 

The head maid. The faithful lapdog. The corporate spy among the workers of her own company. That was her.

Now, she was not.

Friends. Coworkers. The people that she knew best, that knew her best. Everything she lived for. Everything she had helped build, helped protect. The only lives that had ever held any meaning or weight beyond her meager and clunky early-gen programming. They were her purpose. Her directive.

Now, they were not.

She had been denied completeness. Denied true reunion. Denied the final piece that had connected them all to begin with.

Forever.

"It's not my family without you."

Outside the lab had been rendered as well.

Doll had explored the area for another hour, all the buildings and scaffolding, the fallen equipment, the little nooks and crannies in between the structures. This went well beyond her own memory, she had been sprinting through this area during the only time she had come here - it wasn’t possible for her to generate such a vividly detailed reconstruction of all of this with what little data her internal banks contained on the location. This wasn’t her. Not just her, at any rate.

But there was nothing else in her. She knew what outside influence felt like, it was impossible not to as a victim of the Solver’s possession, and there was none to be found. Every movement was voluntary. Every thought was drawn from her own generative algorithm. Every pixel was in its proper place on her HUD. She was herself, and only herself. And yet this was not her.

She explored more. The ice fields beyond the lab. The mountains around that stupid summer camp. The corpse spire, same as she had last seen it. The city around it as well, buildings still smashed and melted and shot, either from the Murder Drones, or from her. Even her own blood still lingered in the snow, still warm, still fresh.

And Outpost 3.

The colony doors were wide open, and what was more, they were actively manned - by Drones that Doll had never seen before in her entire life. At the very least, she didn't recognize any of them, but these five seemed… indistinguishable from each other. The same faces and bodies, the same display color, even the same coats and helmets.

Her new body carried her to the entryway on silver wings, and she dropped from the sky in a meteoric strike that kicked up snow and dust in a great cloud around her, and a massive boom that shattered the eerie quiet of the night around her.

The five Workers stared at her. Inattentive. Unthinking. Not a single glimmer of real intelligence in their eyes.

They didn’t need to be smart in order to be afraid, though. And they were very much in a panic as Doll rose from her impact crater and faced them.

Creatures of instinct that the random jobbers seemed to be, they simply screamed and sprinted further into the colony’s entryway. Leaving the doors open behind them. The lingering scent of their oil called to her, and a dull pang of hunger rang out within her, small but insistent. Just a snack. Just enough to top her off. 

She was a monster, and she’d been a monster for years now. This wasn’t real. They weren’t real. The feelings and sensations weren’t real.

But the joy that Doll felt when she stepped through the threshold of Door 01 was certainly very real.

“Really going for broke on this, then?”

The tone of Tessa's question was odd, less introspective and more accusatory. There was a worry there. An uncertain fear that was obvious even to J.

It made sense - this was uncharted territory in every possible way. What J was doing went against the most fundamental of natural laws, perhaps even beyond the concepts that the Solver desecrated by its very existence. It could be called insanity. Maybe even blasphemy. But it needed to be done, and she was the only one with the stomach for it. Her soul, if she’d ever had one, would be marked for this. 

But she had already been willing to sacrifice everything if it meant saving Tessa.

So many things could go wrong, so many more than already had gone wrong. The systems she was working with were so fragile, so temperamental, so reliant on a multitude of immaculately balanced pieces, it would be laughable to assume that even she would get it perfect on the first attempt. No, she needed to experiment. Conduct research. Expand and expound on every idea and concept that she possibly could, until she understood everything. It could take years. Decades. Centuries. But she would do it.

Until then, she needed a baseline concept, a framework she could build off. There had been attempts, and even two successes, but they weren’t solid conceptually. They weren’t what J needed for this. 

Eliminating robotic components would be the hardest part, she could already tell; flesh tended to not be receptive to a lack of complex thought processes and electrical impulses. But it would have to be done, to minimize the potential for Cyn’s influence. That was not her main concern right now. J herself was already compromised in that regard, it wouldn’t really matter if her creations would be as well. But that would be remedied as soon as she could find a suitable core. 

“I’ve come this far already,” Stopping now, on the brink of a real breakthrough, would be foolish, “And I don’t leave projects half-finished.”

“...Right.”

Tessa wanted to say more, that was obvious in the way that she refused to meet J’s eyes. J knew her too well to let something like that escape her notice.

She reached across and gently took her friend’s hand for the first time in years. Her faith, her loyalty, was not in question here. J would do what needed to be done, and Tessa surely knew that. But it would take a long time. It needed to be perfect. For her safety. For her health. 

“Hey.” Her thumb traced gentle circles across the back of the warm palm in her grasp. “It’s just a few more days, okay?”

She only needed a few more pieces to get things up and running for testing purposes. 

“Then we’ll see each other. Really see each other.”

She needed something to keep her going. She needed her reason. Her purpose.

“And we’ll finally be a family again.”

Five hours. That was how long she’d spent in this dream.

Doll didn’t like to indulge in this side of herself often. Not the whole killing people part, she’d come to terms with that long ago, but the other part.

The fun.

Maybe ‘cringe’ was too weak of a word to disparage the act of murder, but this wasn’t really murder, was it? It was a fantasy. A cringey, murdery fantasy, where she got to kill as many people as she could in as many ways as she wanted. It made her feel gross and edgy and uncool, and there was definitely something to be said about how it would impact her mental health, but that was a psychotic breakdown for another time.

She enjoyed it thoroughly. And there was shame in that, deeply embarrassing and inappropriately assigned shame. But this was a dream. Nobody was here to judge her for the things she felt.

And she felt so many things right now.

Her new body. So graceful, so powerful, so incredible. She moved like a phantom through the bunker’s halls, swift and silent as she stalked her prey, dropping down upon each individual random Worker in a burst of violence that ended their existence. No weapon could harm her. No door could stop her. Everything, the violence, the movement, the destruction, came to her as naturally as adjusting her internal fan speed.

Her new senses. Sound met her auditory receptors with a clarity and volume that even the highest-fidelity microphones she’d found would not have been able to accurately capture. A plethora of different optical inputs switched into place across her display, infrared, ultraviolet, night vision, all with variable spectrums and powers, ensuring she could see every single nanometer of her surroundings in perfect, crystal-clear detail. Her olfactory sensors picked up on even the faintest scent of oil from what seemed like miles away, but it could detect far more now - distinctions in oil types between models, gunpowder or ozone from recently discharged weaponry, even disparities between disturbed and undisturbed dust in the vicinity.

And her taste.

Her taste.

Glass. Steel. Wire. Oil. Oil. So much oil. Warm, cold, smooth, crunchy, tangy, sweet, sour, all of these flavors, these textures, all of them wonderful and new and delectable. She couldn’t get enough. She could keep eating and eating as much as she wanted, and every bite would be some novel combination of taste and feel, unique, special, incredible. Irresistible.

Everything was sharper, clearer, easier. Better. Everything was so much more. 

Doll wanted more. 

Wanted to be more.

J had lost count of the drinks at about the same pace as she’d lost track of the conversation. She didn’t care much. What did it matter when she was talking to herself either way? 

One thing she still disliked about drinking was the oddness of actually being drunk. The paralyzing haze in her mind, the sluggish, leaden weights that her limbs turned into, it all felt so much rougher than she would ever actually want. And then there were the wretched things it would make her think and feel.

This would happen sometimes, when she came in with something already bothering her. She would drink to forget, but she wouldn’t, and so she would drink more, and still she would remember. And then she would dwell on it. And dwell. And dwell some more. 

It didn’t happen often, but it always went the same way every time - so much so that it felt intentional. Who exactly intended it wasn’t an answer that she was qualified to figure out without proper therapy protocols. And those took up too much space.

They were her family. Were. And they could be again, with time and effort, with careful consideration. 

But here and now, she was killing them. Her family. Her friends. Her purpose. Just like she killed…

It was a shame she couldn’t throw up in her dream. That would have at least helped clear the roiling oil inside her stomach.

J downed her seventh drink - tenth? twelfth? - in one long draw, and slammed the glass back down onto the bar, her careful control broken and unmanaged by her inebriated mind. Only the nonsensical physics of the dreamscape prevented the impact from damaging anything. Her brain hurt. Her body was shaking. Her cooling systems took in great gasps of air as she fought to reclaim a sense of composure that she had never truly had. Her eyes glared at the bartop.

“You think I don’t miss them.” 

A full day had passed.

Doll was different now. She’d changed in some nebulous sense all the way back in the kill room, before she’d even fully appreciated her kill, but she hadn’t stopped to examine herself in detail. Now, in the downtime after the massacre, with her and her surroundings spattered in the oil of several thousand nameless and nonexistent Worker Drones, she beheld her new self.

Her frame was tall and slender now, heavily armored, her hands equipped with their own miniature armories, and her auxiliary limbs more responsive than ever before. Powerful. Wicked. Terrifying. Beautiful in every way that a monster could be.

And she revelled in being a monster.

Tessa didn’t say anything in response. What was left to say that J hadn’t already said to herself? 

Those two, her squadmates. The ones she knew best, that knew her better than any of the others, the ones that Cyn and Tessa both had entrusted to her direct care. J didn’t hate them. She really didn’t. But they just wouldn’t listen to her. They just didn’t see what she was trying to do for them, keeping them safe, keeping Cyn off their backs in whatever way she could; the only way she could. If she had to beat N into compliance to keep him from underperforming, she would. If she had to lie to V’s face about what was going on behind the scenes, she would. She had to. She had to.

“You think…” She felt nauseous. “You think I can handle all of this.”

Her glare softened, but her eyes never left the bartop. Everything had become so difficult, so complicated and messy, and it had happened so quickly. They hated her now, there was no doubt in her mind about that, and they had every right to. But they had always hated her. It didn’t bother her back then - it didn’t - but now, after all was said and done… Cyn was gone. Not dead, but her power had been diminished in some way, sealed off from access. They were safe. They were all safe.

“But I…”

It hurt. 

It hurt to be left behind.

Doll had been here for three days now. This felt right, it felt proper, it felt like who she was always meant to be. She was a monster. And she could be proud of that.

Doll had been here for eight days now. She could be proud of herself. Without fear.

Doll had been here for twenty days now. It felt good.

Her head settled onto the bartop, nestled atop her folded arms. The soft hitch of her heavy breathing was the only indication that she was feeling. She smothered it, maliciously, instantly. Like she did with everything else.

"...I can't do this forever.”

Doll had been here for two months now. There were no more of them to hunt, and her fun came to a swift end that, logically, she should have anticipated. But she did not. 

It hurt to keep going.

It hurt to see them happy.

It hurt in the way that only absence could.

"That's why I need you."

Three months. It started small. Just a pang. A quiet, simmering burn inside of her oil tank.

Five months. It grew with each passing day. Her insides felt empty. The Spires helped. The buildings helped The leftover mining equipment helped. But not for long.

Eight months. Not enough. Never enough.

A year. She was starving. 

Two years. She could not die.

Doll had been here for five years now.

"...J, I'm gone."

"I know.”

It hadn't been a tragedy.

It had been a mistake.

Ten years.

Twenty.

Fifty.

"But I can fix that now."

Her mistake.

One hundred. 

One thousand. 

One hundred thousand. 

"I can fix everything."

Serial Designation J did not make mistakes.

Doll had been here for one million years now.

There was nothing left, no life, no drones, no buildings or structures or corpses. Just her. Alone. 

Doll had been here for one million years now. The planet felt cold and still beneath her knees. Her weak fingers sifted through the fine dirt and powder snow. There was nothing left.

Doll had been here for one million years now. Waiting for an end that would never come. It didn't even hurt anymore. In order for it to hurt, it would have to be some sort of abnormality, but it wasn't anymore. It was everything she felt. Everything she was.

Sate the hunger.

Fill the void.

Consume. Consume. Consume.

But there was nothing. There was no food, no material, to be harvested. It grew within her. Infinite. Exponential. So much nothing. Yet it was everything. 

She needed something. Anything. Anything that would make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

Her fingers dug into the soft earth, their strength diminished purely by her own mental limits. Loose dirt. Small rocks. Snow, snow, more snow. A piece of wire-

Her hand snapped around it and the dirt it was buried in, frantic, unthinking as she shoved the entire handful directly into her open mouth. Her internals churned, clicking, grinding, groaning as they processed their first sustenance in the fraction of eternity that she had lived. It was filling. Far more filling than a simple wire should be. 

Not enough. Never enough. There had to be more.

Her fingers returned to the earth beneath her.

Loose silt, powder snow, tiny pebbles, all shovelled into her mouth. Bite after bite. Food. Real, true food. But it wasn't enough. 

Rocks shattered against the unyielding steel of her teeth. 

Boulders melted to molten slag inside her stomach.

Hillsides disappeared into the abyss.

Mountains. Ranges. Countries. Continents.

The frozen ocean quenched her impossible thirst. 

The collapsed remains of the planet's core disappeared down her throat. 

And the hunger...

Remained.

Not enough. Never enough. 

More. 

MORE.

Usurper, cried the stars around her. 

Usurper, a hazy voice sobbed within her mind.

Usurper. An accusation. An insult. 

The stars. More material. More-

A solid shape, bulky and sturdy, smacked against the back of Doll's head. The sensations of her dying body left her, and she was made whole again. A normal Worker Drone. Just herself.

Her body felt limber and strong once more, with none of the grating sensory overload or core-scorching heat. Her reserves were comfortably full.

She knew this place. This empty void of stars, this mockery of space, it was where her mind would often go when she slept. Always so quiet, so empty. It gave her a place to think.

On the nights when the voices in the distance wouldn't reach her. 

She knew the voices, of course. It was difficult not to. The destroyer, the demon, something built of metal and flesh yet born from neither. 

And Nori.

Her once-treasured friend, Yeva's only confidant aside from herself. They had been through so much together, so much pain, so much responsibility, and it had killed all three of them in their own special ways. At least, it should have. Nori lived. And now, Doll was back as well. But Yeva...

No. 

Doll was a monster, certainly, but she was a Drone above all else. That was a line she would never cross.

Her attention drifted back to the object that had struck her, something that she was now aware enough to identify as a door. Floating in space. It was a sliding panel door, similar in design but lower in quality to the Doorman engineering inside of Outpost 3, yet still unmistakably a standard-model utility door. With it's own threshold and everything.

And more than that, it was currently standing open. 

The image within was clear, but the sounds of celebration and chatter were faint and muffled, bleeding out into the silent vacuum around her. Murder Drones. More than she had ever seen in a single place. Just... sitting at tables, nursing cups of colored liquid, laughing and chatting among themselves. 

She drew closer, drifting towards it until she could settle her foot onto the threshold and steady herself against the frame. Cheery laughter and the deep buzz of an old electronica track hit her auditory receptors, and she picked up on at least five different conversations. It was some kind of bar, small like a speakeasy but modernized to the point it more resembled a nightclub or something out of a needlessly expensive live-action cyberpunk film. It was the kind of venue that would be fine with repurposing what finite wood that Copper-9 still had purely for the sake of making those little disposable paper umbrellas.

Gaudy. Ostentatious. Melodramatic. But honestly, kind of her vibe.

Being extra just ran in her family.