Chapter 1: News
Chapter Text
"Hey, welcome to Copper news, everyone's favourite... news outlet." A bored, monotone voice droned out of the television.
"Today, we will be covering some absolutely exhilarating stories, such as Layla the blue whale who just turned three-hundred today, wow. Congratulations Layla, how you haven't given up on life yet truly is a mystery to all human and drone kind." The same voice continued, with about as much energy as a flat fizzy drink.
The solitary viewer of the television, Tessa James Elliot, with her emerald eyes glaring at the television. Wearing her usual black dress, laptop on her lap, head slumped onto her right hand's knuckles in boredom. A single mother of four in her early thirties, she had a rare moment of not having to do anything. All her kids were preoccupied with other things that didn't require her attention, her cat Flipflop was also busy sleeping on the couch next to her and there were no projects to immediately work on. The news host on the T.V. who goes by Mr. Vickers was considered a local celebrity in the small town of Copper, known for his deadpan delivery and cynical view on anything he covered was so boring it flipped back around into being endearing.
"In something of a similar variety, the population of Appalachian brown bears has been finally graphed, suggesting they are in the good few thousands." Vickers had to flip the page of the script he was holding, mumbling to himself about nothing in particular whilst doing so. "Despite not being endemic to the region, these wonderful animals should still be welcomed in open arms, maybe even a bear hug. Yeah." He didn't even attempt to make it sound like a joke.
Tessa sighed to herself, the news host definitely wasn't making her feel any less apathetic in her current state. She hoped J would be back from business school soon, not like Copper actually had a business school, more so J locking herself in her room while doing online courses on 'being a boss' or whatever business courses were about. She may have never gotten the appeal of something so dull but if anyone was to be interested in the field, it would be her eldest daughter. Tessa still supported her aspirations even if J's idea of a career was the equivalent of plain tofu.
Looking down at the laptop idly open, the blank search bar of a search engine standing by, she sighed and decided to see if any online news was any more interesting. 'Here goes nothin'.' she thought to herself as she typed in 'Drones & Humans' to see what it had to offer. The second she went on the website she was bombarded with visual garbage.
"Top 10 most scandalous biomechanical romances!"
"Household nuclear reactor melts down in house, leaves massive gaping hole in the middle of the residence, homeowners inconvenienced." 'Didn't one of those end up killing my parents?' Tessa thought to herself, shocked how those things weren't regulated yet.
"Pillbaby accidentally mistaken as golf ball, proceeds to get hole in one."
"Man loses checkers with a giant squid, gets sucker punched by tentacle after trying to argue with it." 'How do you even...'
"Drone says she has evidence of the 'murder drones', is the legend true?" This one came with an image of an insane looking drone with what seemed to be some version of deer antlers soldered onto her head, holding up a polaroid of a blurry figure flying through the sky. This one was local to her area, too.
Tessa closed the laptop as she asked herself why she even bothered, it was always the same silly stories. The news host on the T.V. was prattling on about something to do with the global temperature going down, something everyone at this point knew about. This stupor she found herself in was thankfully cut short thanks to the tell-tale sounds of J's door unlocking and opening, she was finally done with her work for the day. Footsteps followed as J made her way down the stairs. After a few seconds she finally reached the base of the steps, Tessa looked back to face where J was at. She still had those twin pigtails and business suit on, looking nothing like the rest of the population of where she resided. Seeing her like this made Tessa simultaneously proud seeing her all grown up and worried she was wasting her childhood trying to pursue business at the age of nineteen.
"Heya J, got ya classes done?" Tessa inquired J.
"Oh! Hey Tess, yeah all my classes are done for the day. Corporate being as annoying as ever." J responded as she let her hair loose from the confines of the hair ties, washing over her back in long, curly waves. J's inclusion of what Tessa called 'jargon' into her everyday language was of great amusement from the whole family, much to the former's chagrin.
"Why don't ya watch some of the news with me? Vickers is on!" J gave her mother a puzzled look, since she absolutely knows J hates watching the news, especially when the boring local host does it, but any excuse to be around Tessa was worth having to deal with the slight inconvenience.
"I mean... sure?" J shot back after a few seconds of genuine consideration, she was always the calculating type. She decided to make her way to the couch and plop herself down next to Tessa, deciding to give a rare glance to the television. Vickers was now rambling on about the pricing of A4 sheets of paper going up, the local weather being 'autumnal garbage' and the results of the giant cheese wheel race that some people in another part of the world decided to partake in, even though no-one knows why they even do it.
"Uh, Jay" Tessa decided to speak up after a dozen or so seconds of prolonged, awkward silence.
"What is it Tess?" J looked at her mother with slight concern, top part of her white LEDs slighting furrowing.
"I've been wanting to say this for a bit now, all this business stuff has been eating up way too much of your time, I know watching your children grow up is part of being a parent but... just don't throw away your childhood too, okay?"
"I promise I won't, just getting used to having to wear a suit!" J said to herself, proudly pointing at her attire.
"And I think you look bloody lovely in it too!" Tessa responded.
"It's just... what I've been wanting to say is that you still have a lot of youth to go through, and three siblings who all love you too. Just don't rush into things." She added on.
J would never admit it out loud but she cared deeply for V, N and Cyn, even if they often drove her up the wall with their shenanigans. There were many aspects of them she definitely didn't like, N basically being a doormat, just going along with whatever people say or do. V for her antsy, superstitious nature and Cyn for her plain ridiculous situations she constantly found herself in.
"I promise I won't" J repeated, Tessa pulled her into a hug which she gladly reciprocated.
This delicate moment was shattered as the front door was all but kicked in by the youngest of the family.
"Surprise entrance. Giggle, hello mother Tessa and big sister J!" The short, yellow-eyed drone drawled out in a monotonous, text to speech like voice.
Cyn was by all means a one of a kind drone, because of unusual software issues she had a uniquely golden LED colouring, both warm and brilliant at the same time. She was also extremely short, being the height of a young child, despite her hardware being fourteen years old. She struggled emoting and maintaining eye contact so she opted to use out loud auditory gestures to convey her intentions. Her body wasn't excluded from oddities either, she had locomotive issues that resulted in her limbs being wobbly, arms usually curled up to her body whilst resting and legs constantly under the threat of collapsing into themselves, her head also sometimes slunk down which required Cyn to manually readjust it using one of her hands. Despite these disabilities she was shockingly swift at times, and her both mental and physical setbacks didn't ever seem to deter her.
"Big sister J, would you like to play with me?" She quickly added on in clear excitement. J instinctively rolled her eyes at the request, she was about to deny the offer but a look from Tessa made her relapse on the idea.
"Ugh! Fine. Only because Tessa wants me to, and it better not being anything unprofessional!" J decided to reply with. Quick, to the point and conveyed exactly what she needed to. After Cyn managed to cake J in mud one time with her 'improvised outdoor bath' J always had to know exactly what Cyn was up to.
"I assure you it is nothing but the most professional activities, big sister, like rolling around in leaf litter!" Cyn happily responded. J's response was a palm gliding down her visor. Cyn ran back out into the garden and J was reluctantly following, only to be stopped by Tessa's voice once she reached the door way.
"Oh that reminds me, can you check on N and V? They should be inside the treehouse, they've been up there for a while."
"Sure thing bo- Tess, V is probably just going off about old folklore again and freaking out N." J cursed at herself mentally for such a silly slip-up, Tessa's giggling all but confirmed she heard.
J made her way outside, closing the door behind her, leaving the living room back into silence. Tessa looked over at Flipflop as he stirred in his sleep, getting into a better position to continue his napping. Tessa decided to set her laptop aside, getting up and reaching over to a framed picture of her and all four of her kids on the T.V. cabinet. She held it whilst smiling seeing them, all happy together, the three pearlescent LEDs of her older children, Cyn still being a pillbaby, cradled in her mother's arms with her trademark golden stare. 'My parents would've hated me for living like this. Good.' She thought to herself.
Chapter 2: Cryptids
Notes:
More details and edits will be added to chapters as I go along, I'll notify any changes or addons to earlier chapters in the notes of the new chapter.
Chapter Text
Twilight was setting in as the time hit 7:00pm. Closing the door behind her, J took a good look of the outdoors. Their house was by all means situated in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the ancient Appalachian mountain range. The nearest town, which simply went by 'Copper' was a good few kilometres away, despite the remoteness of her home it still all had the modern conveniences: running water, electricity and even wifi! Most people would usually have to spend and arm and a leg to even afford a house, let alone the giant, custom made cabin she resided in. There was a neatly maintained lawn that stretched around the property in its entirety, beyond picket fences was the untamed wilderness, the only sign of interference being a dark dirt pathway made by countless trips of both tire and foot, extending from the front of the house.
J couldn't help but feel out of place, still with her business suit on she felt like she got hopelessly lost on a business trip. For her line of work she should be travelling the world, going from city to city exchanging handshakes and making deals in which could number in the millions in profits. Yet, here she is, having to look after her odd, nature loving sister in a place most of the world doesn't know about. Standing on the front deck, in which stretched through the front of the house, said sister was at the foot of the stairs which lead from the deck onto shaven grass.
"Come on, big sister J, the leaf pile is at the back of the house!" Cyn's voice immediately snapped J out of the internal monologue she was having about herself. For being entirely mechanical, with a voice that wasn't any better, Cyn had a deep appreciation for the natural world. Her common clothes of choice reflected this, wearing baggy camo shorts with a short sleeved yellow T-shirt. Always the type to include the outside world it in whatever bizarre activities she partook in, including gathering up all the leaves in the garden and putting it in the same spot every autumn. This year was peculiarly dry, which the little drone took full advantage of.
"Whatever you say, pipsqueak." J didn't mean for it to come off as rude as it ended up being, the recipient didn't seem to pay attention though as she wordlessly ran to the back of the house. following in her sister's footsteps J was glad about the recent dry weather, despite the overcast weather threatening the possibility of rain. 'No mud to worry about... or slugs, Cyn loves those things' she thought to herself as she slowly made her way around to the back of the house. Just like every year, a massive pile of leaves was situated in the back garden right in the middle of the two trees, slightly further towards the house. Of the two trees there was a smaller one that had a swinging bench underneath it, and the other being older, with gnarled roots exposed to the surface which had a treehouse perfectly situated in the middle, resting on top of the main trunk with nothing but a rope ladder to get up and down from.
J immediately took to sitting down on the bench, the moment she sat down Cyn came from who-knows-where and proceeded to dive head first into the pile of leaves, true to her word she was having a merry time rolling around in the leaves, making what she liked to call "leaf angels" as she tried her best to make a waving star formation with her wobbled limbs. J couldn't help but be amused with her sister's immature antics, maybe Tessa was right, she was growing up too fast. Her deep thoughts were interrupted, like they usually were, by Cyn popping her head out of the top of the leaf pile, hair tangled with what had to be at least dozens of leaves.
"Big sister, would you like to join me?" She said in a somewhat pleading manner. J just shook her head to say no.
"Sorry Cyn, not in the mood having to remove stuff from my hair for hours on end." J decided to add on, she did not want to go through detangling stuff from her hair again after falling into a bush of burdocks during one of Cyn's 'adventures' she was forced to attend. Thankfully, Cyn decided to immediately let up this time and delved back into the autumn pile, completely out of sight, only leaving the sound of some rustling leaves.
"Uh... right then, I'm going to check up on your 'big sister' and 'big brother' for you, ok?"
"Okay." Was all Cyn bluntly muffled out.
"N, look at this thing!" A timid voice squeaked out as the owner, V, held up a book showing something called the 'Hugag'. The treehouse was full of neatly arranged books on a wall shelf, pillows and blankets resided on an old . A single battery powered floor lamp was the only source of light that wasn't from the two small windows giving off the last wisps of clouded daylight, which shone behind V. She was wearing a simple fluffy grey long sleeved sweater with an equally grey knee length skirt.
"Sure is... interesting, V. Looks like a moose had its upper lip all stretched out!" A more chipper voice spoke in response. N, who was wearing matching teal PJs with little dog patterns looked at the illustration with a perplexed look. It was of a truly bizarre build, body build of a moose but with 4 toes instead of hooves, lacking any antlers, almost fin-like ears and its most standout feature being a comically large upper lip that almost looked like a large nose, all whilst wearing the most forlorn expression he ever saw in his life.
"Apparently these things couldn't get back up if they fell down, so lumberjacks chopped trees to the point where if one were to lean on it for rest, it would fall down with the tree!" V wasn't the talkative type unlike her twin brother, more often than not keeping to herself, but this completely changed when she got into her interest of cryptids, turning to discussing extensively about any kind of these strange creatures. She adjusted her large round rimmed glasses and decided to flip to another page.
"And this one was called the hide-behind, it apparently ate lone lumberjacks during the night time, and it could hide out of sight to remain undetected, too!" The illustration this time around was more nebulous, being of a dark figure with a vaguely feline appearance on its two hind legs, front ones wrapped around a tree.
"That one's weird, I can't lie." Was all N could say, while he didn't believe in many of the cryptids his sister did, he found it just as fascinating. The idea of creatures that somehow avoided the prying eyes of both humanity and drones for so long was interesting, even if the descriptions was often plainly ridiculous. Many of them were just hard to believe, such as surviving pterosaurs with bioluminescence that subsided off of grave robbing of all things, what N could only describe as a robot with a tin can for a body or suit, a round head with an ace of spades shaped hood behind it with beaming eyes not unlike some old car models' front lights. 'Flatwoods Monster' was its name, apparently. The whole design looked something straight out of a sci-fi novel of the time it was first 'seen', and N's sceptical side simply left it at that.
V's favourites were definitely the more local legends of 'feral people' who lived in the wilderness, and what was the modern adaption of that with the 'murder drones', being of taller stature, possessing large metallic wings capable of flight, tails tipped with a canister and syringe capable of giving drones rogue malware, or deadly acid, no-one could decide what one, and abduct other drones into the woods to be never be heard from again. V was a genuine believer in the murder drones, using them as a catalyst to explain the inexplicable disappearances of drones in the deep Appalachian wilderness. The disappearances were undeniable, even with all the technology which including location tracking, a messaging system, built-in maps and compasses so they had no good reason to get lost, and when worse came to worst their minds would just immediately transfer to a new backup body. Yet, they still just... got subsumed by the forest, just gone like that, it was an eerie idea, despite all the present safety features that came with being a robot had, it was a wake up call to their mortality.
Speaking of which, V got another picture of one of these murder drones, from a news website that included that lady who she herself became a living myth, Alice was her name, lived completely off the grid and only contacted the outside world to show her less than compelling evidence of the murder drones, she even gave them that name herself. This time it was of one of them mid flight, the picture blurred due to a low shutter speed of the camera. 'Convenient' N thought to himself as he regarded the photo plastered onto the treehouse's wall, adding to a growing collection of images. This particular legend made V completely terrified to go out into the woods in any capacity, and J was too busy being 'professional' leaving only him, his little sister and his mother willing to go outside to admire nature.
"You guys doing good? Might wanna head home it's getting kind of late." The unmistakable voice of J shouted up from the base of the tree, V yelped slightly at the sudden interloper before calming herself down, N was a bit startled too but not to the same extent.
"Oh! Hey J, we'll be back down right now, Ok?" N knew J wasn't the type to be trifled with, when she said something she meant it.
"Now better actually mean now, N!" She responded, with a sigh N Let V climb down first, she quaintly climbed down the ladder and the moment she got off, N decided to glide down using the wooden rungs like an action hero in complete contrast. J just rolled her eye lights at this, V had a slight look of shock.
"What? It's quick and efficient!"
"It's nowhere near efficient, what if you take the ladder down with you?" J was quick to snap back.
The idle rustling of leaves suddenly exploded out when N's little sister burst out of the pile, she regarded N with open arms which he gladly returned, taking them into a hug.
"Elated, hello big brother N!" Cyn was clearly ecstatic to see him despite only being up in the tree house for an hour or two.
"Hey Cyn." V meekly said, in response said drone turning to her, regarding her with a smile. J with another eye roll and without a word continued to walk to the house, V soon following close behind.
"Saddened expression, home already big brother?" his sister said with a look of slight sadness. Dusk was setting quickly as it often did during this time of year and a faint wind was starting to pick up.
"Yeah... but would it be better if you and I race home?" Cyn's face immediately went back to that of excitement, running off to the front of the house without a verbal start. N chucked as he tried to run after the surprisingly fast drone to the front deck.
Chapter 3: Family
Notes:
Trigger Warning for this one, discussion of parental abuse, stay safe everyone.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Just as J was about to open the door, Cyn came flying out from the side of the house, effortlessly turning to run up the deck and proceeding to dive right through the door, much to J's and V's shock.
"What on earth are you doing Cyn?" A surprised J instinctively spattered out.
"We're just having a race! Just a race J!" N turned the corner not too long after, all J had as a retort was a sneer as she stepped over Cyn to enter the house. V was a bit more helpful, helping her sister up from practically faceplanting on the wooden floorboards.
"I win, big brother! Are you proud of me, big sister?" V seemed to be more interested on all the leaves stuck onto Cyn's hair then congratulating her. This moment was not to last as the mother of the household, Tessa swiftly walked over and lifted up Cyn by under her arms.
"Happy expression, hello mother Tessa!" The little drone was idly kicking her legs in excitement at seeing her adoptive mother.
"How you doin' sweetheart? You got leaf litter all over ya!" Tessa was instinctively picking off leaves from Cyn's hair, in which definitely need thorough brushing through later.
"Don't you think I forgot about you two, enjoyed your time in the treehouse?" Tessa targeted towards both V and N, V gave a small nod and N was too busy struggling to lock the door to respond. From the paranoid behest of V, there were multiple types of locks on the door, which was meant to keep 'the demons of the woods' out.
"Oh yeah, me and V were just discussing about the usual." At this point V started to make her way up the staircase to her room, J was sitting on the couch in the living room with apathy plastered on her face, watching some late night T.V. show. N decided that T.V. time with his mother and older sister would be a great way to spend the evening. Cyn managed to squirm her way out of Tessa's grasp and proceeded to scramble up the stairs on all fours, presumably following V for their 'late night spooky time' as she liked to put it. Tessa simply sighed at all the leaves now on the floor but decided to ignore it past that, making her way to sit next to her daughter. Flipflop saw this as a perfect opportunity to run up to N and start brushing himself against where N's shins would be, trilling happily as N reacted with a light pet to his head.
"Aww, hi Flipflop, missed me?" N picked up the cat and cradled him like a baby in his arms. Flipflop reacted with a chirp and starting to purr loudly, in which made N chuckle.
"Who's my little guy? You are!" Tickling the cats belly, N made his way to the living room, sitting himself on a separate chair of the same make of the cushy couch Tessa and J resided on. Flipflop was plopped onto N's lap, making himself comfortable.
"And I was like, 'Arrested for driving under the influence? I wasn't under the influence of anyone!'" A human male from the T.V. show playing joked about, a clearly added laugh track shortly accompanied the poor attempt at humour. At this point J had her head in her hands, both palms covering her LED eyes. Tessa quickly decided to change the channel, this time it was of multiple dishevelled middle aged men trying to find 'That darn good for nuthin' sasquatch' and running around with guns like children at a birthday party, it was episode four of season eighty-three, the number seasons of which shocked Tessa.
"Gosh, how much seasons about a hairy man who lives in the woods can you do without it getting dull? That's plain ridiculous!" Just as she finished this line of thought, the show transitioned to a CGI interpretation of a bigfoot sighting, the quality of the graphics were inexcusably low, making what was supposed to be a harrowing encounter with an easily 8ft being look silly more than anything. A voiceover with a slightly overexposed microphone chimed in with a shocking statement.
"Some scientists theorize bigfoot may not just be flesh and bone, but potentially an ethereal, biomechanical dimension hopper capable of instantaneous telepor-" The channel was switched again to one of a cooking competition.
"No respected scientists said that." J rebuked, N was sitting there just witnessing the situation, bathing in the absurdity of the statement he just heard. After the moment he noticed the pictured frame on top of the fireplace the T.V. was situated on, seeing a younger version of him and his siblings, along with his mother, a question popped up in his mind.
"Hey Tessa, how come you never talk about your parents?" N said without much thought behind it, Tessa's face slightly shifted into a more sombre one, clearly affected by the question. J immediately picked up on this and shot N a glare so penetrating it could leave a hole clean through the earth.
"Uh right, I haven't have I? Uh well, let's just say they weren't the best people..." Tessa managed to stammer out, J let up her death stare to a more saddened one at hearing her usually chipper mother suddenly take on a quiet tone.
"...But, I think it's finally time to tell you two about them. How do I start..." The mood of the room seemed to change, the atmosphere getting heavier.
"They weren't the best people, I'll put it at that. They were exceptionally rich, being of high class, as some would put it. To keep their 'lineage' going, they conceived me to continue their family line, but they seemed to think they could get away with doing anything, and unfortunately due to their influence they could." Despite N and J being old enough to understand the concepts of abuse, Tessa didn't want to give away the extent of both the emotional and physical abuse she had to endure through, let alone what the drones hired as servants had to deal with.
"Did... they hurt you?" N asked meekly, Tessa's expression told him everything he needed.
"Not just me, but also drones like you and your sisters, they didn't see them as 'people' per say, just tools, means to an end, like they treated me." Having to learn the concept of irredeemable evil was confronting for Tessa at such a young age, seeing the bodies of drones that died to 'accidents' was still a haunting image seared into her mind.
"What happened to them Tess?" J was visibly upset at hearing her mother explain her past injustices, a primordial hatred starting to bubble up in her core.
"Seemed like fate hated them too, they bought this 'household nuclear reactor', some garbage fad item that was meant to replace everything that required power in your house, it must've gotten sick of them too and decided to blow up the manor sky-high and taking them with it, thankfully the few drones that worked there were out for maintenance and I was at a school trip when this happened." It took everything for Tessa not to celebrate that day, she would never admit it to anyone but hearing her parents finally getting what came to them, taking that hideous manor along with them. No more old dusty manor, far too large for three people, no more gross swamp and no more terrible parents, if Tessa could even call them that.
"After that, I inherited their wealth, sold off all their assets, moved here and got you guys! I couldn't be any happier now." The oppressive mood defused about as quickly as a balloon popping, Tessa pulling a complete 180 into her usual self, albeit slightly tired.
"I think that's enough sad backstory, took a lot out of me. What matters now is that I have all four of you, you're all happy which makes me happy." Tessa got up from the couch, J and Flipflop following not long after. N was just sat there, still absorbing what he heard. Hearing that bombshell took the winds out his sail too, as tiredness set in he decided to follow in their footsteps and get ready for bed himself.
A computer monitor lit the room in a dim glow, whatever the light reached was mostly of posters of strange creatures and entities, a neatly attended bookshelf had many books around the fantastical, the whole room was spotless. V always hated anything unkempt or dusty, feverishly cleaning things and sorting them until she saw fit. A bed was situated next to the desk that housed the lone computer monitor and computer tower. She was currently engrossed in a digital copy of 'Fearsome Critters of the Lumberwoods', the book she was showing with N back in the treehouse.
"V." Cyn's voice tonelessly called out from V's doorway. V almost had a core attack as she jumped back to look at her sister, pearlescent LEDs met gold as Cyn's neutral expression went to a small smile, head tilting to the side slightly, still with small specks of leaves in her hair.
"Gosh Cyn, I told you not to just call my name like that, my exoskeleton nearly jumped out of my chassis!"
"Regretful, sorry big sister, I just wondered if we could have spooky time again."
"When have I ever said no?" V enquired, Cyn's reaction was simply attempting to shrug her shoulders as she stumbled into V's room proper.
"Curious, what will we read this time?"
"It's about weird creatures that live in the woods."
Notes:
I'll be planning to make the earlier chapters more descriptive, specifically the characters.
Chapter 4: Morning
Notes:
Chapter 1 and 2 were updated, some minor description were added to the characters (also some clean up).
Chapter Text
An internal alarm went off in N's systems as it hit 7:00am, The drone's eyes immediately shot up looking at the assortment of glow in the dark stars plastered on the ceiling. N's room was full of miscellaneous decals, many of which were of cats and dogs that sat on the wall his bed was pressed up against. His large plush collection that sat in a corner of his room was of the same sort, varying types of animals of wildly different sizes, one of them being a teddy as big as himself. A wardrobe sat alongside a desk that was parallel to his bed on the opposite side of the room, the latter housed messy congregations of papers, pens and pencils strewn across on top of the papers with a laptop as the main set piece, sat in the middle of the desk closed shut. His room was unmistakably his, a cosy feeling permeated the room like a warm blanket of personalization. N near enough leapt out of his bed with excess energy, rejuvenated from the early night he had. Standing up in the same teal PJs he was wearing yesterday, feet slightly sinking in the fluffy carpet that sat in the middle of the room.
"Today's another tremendous day!" He said to himself, toned with beaming optimism.
"Big brother, can I come in big brother?" The muffled voice of his little sister came from behind the oak door that lead from his room to the hallway.
"Morning Cyn, of course you can come in!" Cyn immediately pushed the door open with her whole body, sliding from the small gap she created. In all truth she was waiting for a good ten minutes waiting for N to wake up, wanting to have one of her outside excursions with him.
"Question imminent, would you like to explore the forest later, N?" She haven't had explored the surrounding forest in a good few weeks, and was desperate at this point.
"I've barely even awaken yet, but the answer's yes, I'd love to!"
"Happy, see you downstairs big brother!" And like that, Cyn shot off out of his room's doorway, soft pattering disappearing from his room and down the hallway. N decided to follow suit, opening the door properly and exiting without even pulling back the curtains draped over single window in his room, not like it was necessary with the still cloudy weather. After pulling his body into the hallway, he was met with a set of 4 other doors, one next to his side of the hallway belonged to his younger sister, another that he saw right in front of him was V's, and on the left next to that one was J's. Tessa's bedroom was at the end of the hallway, a few seconds of walking away to reach. It felt comforting to have his entire family in close proximity to him, even if J tolerated no levels of noise. Everyone besides V should be up by now, of which preferred to stay up at night and sleep in to recharge. Tessa in contrast was an early riser, always awake before everyone else, either making breakfast or working on one of her mechanical projects, whether it was making some strange gadget asked by someone or fixing one of their cars.
N made his way down the hallway, having to turn right at where the bathroom was to face the staircase. Making his way down he set foot into the spacious living room, front door visible from the base of the stairs. The kitchen and dining room was connected by a doorway behind and slightly to the right of the stairs, another door to their neighbouring garage resided in a mini hallway connecting to the living room, directly from the right of the staircase. It was a familiar sight to N, many happy memories has left a cocoon of warmth around his mind, the layout ingrained in his psyche. He skirted through the sofas in the middle of the living room, one of which had a sleeping J on, past the adjacent dining room to the kitchen. Meeting the forms of Tessa and Cyn, former of who was reading something on her phone.
"I can't come along today Cyn, I'll be busy fixing up someone's pick up for the day." Tessa was looking at pictures of the absolute state the truck was in, it would take all day to get the thing right again.
"Sad, I want mother to come along."
"I wish I could, but they want it done by the end of the day, and it's gonna be a hand full... but hey, your big brother agreed didn't he?" As she said this Tessa looked up to meet his gaze.
"And speak of the devil, here he is!" Cyn turned around in excitement and ran up to N, bouncing on her heels with an endless amount of energy she carried with her. She was dressed for the occasion already, looking like a girl scout with her outdoor clothes.
"Big brother N! When will we be going, mother Tessa won't be joining, upset stare." True to her word she tried to give N a mimicry of an upset expression.
"Just wait a little bit Cyn, It's still early and I haven't even gotten started yet!" she kept up her saddened look.
"Okay fine fine, let's say half an hour tops, ok? I need to change out of these after all." N hated upsetting his sister in any regard, no matter how trivial the matter at hand was. Cyn brightened back to her small smile she wore so often when seeing him, it was a small ray of sunshine that split through any environment.
"Happy, see you soon big brother!" And like that, Cyn was gone. She darted out of the kitchen and out of sight.
"She's a lot isn't she?"
"Yeah, but I wouldn't have it any other way." N meant that in all sincerity. Cyn was small, acted odd, walked with a strange gate, had an unusual voice and unusual interests for a robot. He wouldn't change a single thing about her, or any of his siblings for that matter, even if J was mean sometimes.
Speaking of J, Cyn's commotion when barrelling her way upstairs woke her up. Groggy with curved lines under her eyes to simulate eyebags, still with her business suit she definitely slept in on. Tired eyes met the more refreshed one of N's as she made a small annoyed grunt, not wanting to put up with anyone right now. N took the hint and gave a small wave as he passed by, J just closing her eyes.
"Morning J."
"Yeah, morning or whatever."
Cyn was happy beyond words as she giddily readied herself to go on a nature walk with her big brother, sitting in her heavily yellow themed room, bows of all sorts of sizes put on almost everything. She triple-checked that she had everything in her backpack, which was also yellow. Mangoes? Check. Back-up mangoes? Check. Emotional support mango plush? Absolutely! Her room was messy with a kid's tent located in a corner, full of all assortment of books about nature and animals. She always loved nature, back as far as she can remember, she had no reason to yet she did, as if some primordial part of her CPU magnetizes to the concept of biological life. Hearing her brother going up the stairs and back to his room added to her anticipation, she hadn't been properly outside for three weeks now, which was three weeks too long for her. A few agonizing minutes passed by as she tried her best to compose herself, well, as best as she could with these wobbly limbs.
The nature of her physical disabilities in particular were of a complete mystery, problems with a limb or two wasn't too out of the ordinary but it usually manifested in them not working at all, and could be easily fixed with software patches. The few times Tessa tried to find faulty code she couldn't find anything actually wrong, besides it coloured yellow because of an incorrectly put code marker which explained her LED colour. On the note of what is the drone equivalent of genetics, Tessa couldn't find any code that could dictate who Cyn's mechanical parents were. It was almost like the yellow drone just came into being one day, created from nothing, or as Tessa often put it 'an angel on earth' and would say 'don't fix something that isn't broken to begin with'.
N's door opened again, signalling to Cyn he was finally ready. She hastily zipped up her backpack and slung it behind her back, running out of her door and nearly enough crashing through the door to meet her beloved older sibling. N's attire was of a black long sleeved shirt with dark grey sweatpants, simple and efficient as he would put it. N was a bit surprised by the sudden entrance of his younger sister but quickly broke into a bright smile she knew so well.
"You ready Cy-" He couldn't finish his question as she cut him off.
"Yes big brother!" N could tell she was happy as could be and didn't want her waiting any longer. A slight disturbance from V's room meant their antics caused her to wake up, the door cracked open and V's visor peered through the opening, slightly shaken with glasses hastily thrown on.
"Uh, hey guys, you alright?" She asked with clear sleepiness in her voice.
"Yes big sister V, sorry for the noise, me and N are going to the woods, happy." Cyn put her hands behind her back and swayed from side to side.
"Oh, that's n-nice, hi N..." She gave a weak smile to N as he shot her double finger guns. V said no more than that and creaked her door closed.
N patted himself down and then started to make himself down the hallway but was accidentally shoved aside by his sister in an impromptu race, she roughly turned the corner, tripped on herself and proceeded to fall down the stairs.
"Ouch. Ow. Ouchie. Ow. Ouch. Owie." She said on every stair she hit, once she hit the bottom she bounced back up like nothing happened at all, not a single scrape on her. It wasn't the first time she fell down the stairs and it definitely wouldn't be the last, she was a hardy type and never seemed to injure herself, to the point it was strange. nonetheless, it failed to impact any of the shock as shown on N's hollowed eye lights, Tessa's worried footsteps and J standing up from her sleeping spot. Cyn's mother rushed over to her and immediately checked on her worriedly.
"Gosh darling, you ok? Fall down the stairs again?"
"Rough and tumble. Yes, Tessa, went too fast... again, oops." N made his way down stairs, making sure this time to not follow in his sister's foot steps, or in this case body steps. From her position, J let out an audible yawn as she stretched her limbs, still much tired.
"It's ok, you aren't hurt, but ya scared me there little lady!" Tessa finally let up after looking over Cyn five times for even the slightest dent. Letting her go from the hug Cyn was entrapped in as she regarded N with an uneasy smile.
"Let the stair incident not sour your time, she's all good." She said this in a way that was more to comfort herself.
"Oh don't worry Tessa! I won't, glad she's ok!" N rubbed the back of his head with the palm of his hand, a reaction that came to him naturally to any sort of awkward situation. Tessa walked over and squeezed N in a tight hug which changed the vibe immediately, N gladly hugged her back.
"Just keep an eye on her, alright? Not like I'm actually worried she gets hurt, but just make sure she's safe."
"When would I never not Tessa?"
"Fair." Tessa let go of N from the near crushing hug she put him in, going over to Cyn and kissed the drone on the forehead.
"And you look after your big brother too, ok?" Tessa said as J was just silently looking at the conversation with an unreadable expression on her face, halfway wanting to be sick from the sweetness and halfway finding the interaction kind of cute.
Cyn lead by opening the front door, having to jump up to reach the door handle, locks retroactively unlocked by Tessa. She kept on holding onto the handle as the door starting to swing forward, opening to the outside. She finally let go and looked back at N with what he could tell was a glint of adventure in her Midas touched eyes. He walked to the door as he looked back and waved at his mother, she responded with a smile that could warm up the impending winter until the new year. J had her arms crossed with an undetectable small smile betraying her stoic expression. He shut the door and looked back at his sister who was already on the main dirt path that lead from the house to the wild beyond. The crisp morning air flooding his chassis with an energetic feel as he stood on the front deck.
"Come on big brother, the bugs are waiting." Cyn stuck her tongue for the sake of being weird, like she always did when mentioning her 'bug friends'. N simply smiled and started to take the trek down the path alongside her.
Chapter 5: Abduction
Chapter Text
The house quickly disappeared behind the trees as N and Cyn went down the winding path. An already thin path got thinner as ground plants started to encroach onto the path, oceans of dried dead leaves coating the forest floor. Cyn took to lead the two drone band as she usually did, kicking up leaves in front of her as she walked along. The faint dip of the ground which signified where the path was melded into level with the ground, not like that was any matter thanks to their internal maps which had perfect satellite imagery for a kilometre in every direction. N marked his home as 'home sweet home' with a waypoint and 'Cyn's favourite spot' to the general location his sister liked the most, it was a clearing that had a calm creek splitting it down the middle, Cyn loved playing around and sometimes even in the creek, completely unbothered by her soaked clothing trying to catch all sorts of creatures. He himself would often get involved with the antics, trying to make the biggest 'snow family' during winter. Speaking of snow the first snowfall should land in about a week or two, it was constant and harsh during winter yet so blissfully peaceful, a cold blanket that lay throughout the entire mountain range every year.
"Going to the usual spot?" N asked, realizing they were getting closer to clearing.
"Of course big brother, we haven't been in a while have we?" She was currently looking down making sure to optimize the amount of leaves she kicked with every step, having gotten pretty proficient from years of practice she could lob balls of them a few metres away. Her stature was a massive red herring for the surprising amount of strength she possessed, her kicks were strong and calculated despite her legs being slumped, and she could even overpower people that were much larger than her in sudden bursts. Her energy was unparalleled and was able to get away with sleep times short enough to incapacitate any other drone if they tried to sleep double, she was an anomaly by all metrics.
The forest was quiet at this time of year, only the presence of sparse birdsong could be heard breaking the occasional gust of wind. It was a serene, calming experience, a constant subtle symphony that acted as a backdrop to the natural visage of the forest. Cyn's pace quickened in excitement, usually she would stop to gander at any creature she came across during the spring and summer but apart from the raven here and there, it was barren. The monotone similarity of the autumn clad forest soon gave way and opened up the clearing he was so familiar with.
"What are we going to do today Cyn? Catch frogs again?" There wasn't too much to do but she always managed to make every trip enjoyable in some way.
"Thinking. I don't know big brother, maybe just sit down?" A surprising answer for sure, but N would love to have a moment of just peace shared between him and his sister. They stopped at the middle of the opening to the bank of the creek as an idea popped into Cyn's head.
"Idea. We could have leaf stools!" Before N could even respond she ran back off to the treeline and started scooping up piles of leaves, many of them dropping from where her arms couldn't cradle them. Back and forth she dumped more and more, patting them down in the rough form of stools for both her and N, the latter helping her out with keeping shape. In just under a few minutes they were done, Cyn near enough jumping onto hers and N calmly sitting.
The both of them just sat there for a good while, just taking in the scenery and the flowing creek. The moment was broken as the little drone hoisted the backpack she was wearing to sling it on her lap, fidgeting to get hold of the zipper and opened it up.
"What you got in there?" It was a rhetorical question, he knew immediately it was going to be her mango plush she called 'Mr. Mango', and two of the real fruit that went alongside it, always in that specific order.
"Mango." She held up one of the mangoes to her brother and he gladly took it. Cyn tore into her own one as N slowly took bites from his, she ate like it was the first meal she had in months while N savoured it. He wasn't even halfway done with his when Cyn finished and immediately shot up, he knew she came up with a game to play.
"Hide and spook!" She blurted out to no-one in particular, rising her index finger to point upwards.
"Hide and what now?" N instinctively responded. He knew she came up with something silly, adding new twists to old childhood games.
"I hide, and you try to find me before I spook you!" Was all Cyn had for an explanation. She pointed to a high hill in the far distance in head of them on their left, a good ways away. Despite their built-in maps Tessa didn't like them going too deep in the forest, but N saw no issue with going off the beaten path, plus if he didn't go his sister would definitely be upset.
"We go there, giggle." Cyn was already up, holding her plushie and going off to its direction, somehow taking N's silence as confirmation to go. He dropped his half-eaten snack onto the ground for nature to eat as he followed, catching up to the inpatient drone. Having already hopped over the creek she was nearly at the treeline when N caught up, A clear look of glee painted over her usually expressionless face. With quick steps that were as long as her short body allowed, arms in the same fashion it reminded N of how bigfoot was supposed to walk. They were back off into the forest proper now, clearing completely out of both sight and mind, The trees got thicker and so did the depth of the leaves on the floor. Cyn's stride came to a sudden stop as she saw movement from underneath the litter and immediately pounced with a calculated and precise velocity. N was taken aback at the sudden shift as his sister held up a copperhead snake she just expertly caught.
"Excited, hello little snake!" She allowed the serpent to wrap its body around her small arm, head and one fifths of its body sticking out from where her hand was in front of her. She brought the snakes head to be level with hers, both of them staring at each other, the snake slinking its tongue out after a few seconds.
"Wasn't expecting a snake, good catch!" N was watching with a goofy smile as the snake decided to use his sister's head as a ledge to put its own head on, slowly making its way up her head and onto her hair. She in response giggled as it made its way over and behind her head and onto a tree, she let it slowly come off of her and climbed the trunk.
"Wow, didn't expect it could climb!" N said as the creature looked like it was glued on as it made its way upwards. Cyn was too happy watching it slowly ascend and after a few good moments wordlessly carried on. N continued to follow without a word as the forest got denser still. As they made their way on the incline to on top of the hill, he swore the place took on a slightly unsettling atmosphere, it felt... quiet, almost unnaturally so, only a few chirps and caws from far away birds were audible. His sister didn't seem to pay any mind though as they made their way to the zenith of the hill, being quite flat on the top. The yellow drone veered to a nearby bush as she looked back at her brother.
"You count to ten here, I go hide!" And like that she was off.
"Sneaking... sneaking... sneaking..." The crunch of leaves and the distant words of Cyn were the only sounds he until it quickly faded out, why was it so silent?
"Ok.." Was all he could say in response, despite his sister definitely not hearing it. An unfamiliar anxiety gnawed at the back of his mind as he closed his eyes, facing the bush and started counting down from ten internally. The forest was deathly quiet at this point, no birds, not even the sound of wind were present, it took an uncanny quality to it that wasn't serene in any sense of the word. This wasn't the calming quietness of the fall forest he was used to, a part of him feeling the need to run for some reason, he ignored it. Panicking in the woods was the worst thing you could do and it was probably just a bear at worst, which didn't have any good reason to attack a drone unless it was defending its children. He continued counting down as he tried to push the uncomforting thoughts down into the back of his mind, yet another part refused to completely let go.
The second it hit zero in his mind, he opened his eyes, fully expecting his sister to be standing silently in front of him to scare him and explain away his anxieties. But alas, she wasn't there. He looked around worriedly yet he couldn't find anything to place the worry on. There was nothing he could see! The quietness was enveloping and stifling, he opened his mouth to say something...
Before a word came out, the ever faintest whoosh of wind could be heard from behind him. Before he could turn around to face it he felt something barrel its way right into him, effortlessly picking him up as it wrapped what his now panicking mind could only describe as a metallic claw over his face, in a matter of a second he was well above the trees and into the sky, hollowed eyes looking down as he wanted to scream but a sudden sharp pain shot through his body as many red warnings of systems being disabled flooded his view. He tried to scream again yet he couldn't, his overwhelmed psyche now starting to inexplicably fade as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Cyn waited a good few minutes trying to replicate that one creature V told her about last night, wrapping her arms around the tree she was hiding behind, she wanted N to say 'found you!' and walk over so she could scare him. But she couldn't hear the 'ready or not, here I come!' she expected, just pure, depthless silence. She hadn't noticed until now but the forest was quiet to the point you could hear a needle drop on the ground. Her mischievousness was replaced with unease as she slunk her way back to where she left her brother. He wasn't there.
"Big brother, are you there big brother?" Stillness was all the forest responded with, no warm voice of her brother to be heard, no presence to be felt.
"Big brother N?" At this point the anxiety swelled, she decided to try to contact him using the internal messaging system. Her yellow eyes hollowed as she saw his name was a dull grey instead of the bright yellow it should've been.
Chapter 6: Tragedy
Chapter Text
Cyn ran. Running as fast as she could down the hill her brother disappeared on, getting away from whatever took N. A part of her felt guilty for leaving him but whatever happened was above any sort of rationale, and the last thing her brother would want is whatever got him getting her, too. Reaching the base of the hill she kept up her pace, the trees' density lightening as she burst through into the clearing she was peacefully sitting in only ten minutes prior. A misplaced foot step landed half of her leg in the creek which caked it in chilly mud, the sensation abhorrent but she continued forward in desperation. The clearing was crossed in a matter of only ten seconds as she pulled up her internal map to find the quickest path possible to her home, at this point she had pinged multiple distress signals to Tessa's phone.
The faint dip that indicated the thin outline of the path became apparent amongst the leaf litter as Cyn instinctively started following it, bobbing and weaving across trees to the best of her ability. She couldn't give up now, the path's outline slowly widened as did her eyes, terror mixing with determination as at any moment she could just vanish too but Cyn refused to give in. Before long the distant view of the house started to take form, visage still blocked by countless tree trunks as she picked up her pace even more. She cursed her small body and blessed her relentless stamina as less and less trunks got in the way of the clearing image of her home. The pathway got wider and wider until the leaves couldn't cover up all of it anymore, a few seconds more she cleared the picket fencing around the residence, Tessa outside with her usual dress on with concern plastered on her face as Cyn careened into her with a hug, visibly shaking in fear.
"Woah! Hey, what happened?" Tessa was taken aback at the sorry state her daughter was in, trying her best to comfort the small drone as she started to repeat the same thing over and over between tearful sobs.
"Big brother is gone..."
"Big brother is gone..."
"Big brother is gone..."
J hearing the commotion came to the front doorway, her sister's repeating words giving her a rare look of genuine worry. Tessa looked over with uncertain fear in her eyes.
"Call the cops, something's happened with N!"
Two police cars sat idle around the front of the house, Copper was the type of town where everyone knew each other and lacked any sort of crime, so a large police force wasn't necessary. The two officers, one drone and one human were talking to Tessa, Cyn perched on one of her arms as she hugged her mother, crying into her shoulder. At this point V was awake and did not take the news well, locking herself in her room as she felt an oncoming panic attack, J was stationed outside of V's room in case anything worsens, who she herself tried to keep composed despite internally panicking too.
Cyn didn't say anything aside from the four same words repeated over and over again, not being of many help for N despite being the only witness. Tessa was discussing to the officers about how N had entirely up to date systems that had backups and the backups having backups, no disfunctions to explain his systems going down and a working back up body if he got mortally damaged. After getting this information the human officer glanced a look over to his drone companion who returned the same look, the former walking a few steps away to talk into a walkie talkie. Tessa couldn't catch what the officer was saying so she looked down to where mud smeared her dress during the short wait, not like it was of any matter right now.
"Uh, we're gonna have the rangers visit if you don't mind." The drone officer said, not steeling Tessa's nerves at all.
"Sure, sure do anything you need to do." Tessa was wrought with worry to the point she started to well up with tears, the potential of losing her son weighed heavy on her mind. Their perfect life was turned upside down in just a few hours.
An unmistakable ranger's vehicle pulled over next to the officer cars, much to Tessa's surprise at just how quick they got there. The officers' reactions were to go back to their own, much help they were. From the driver's side of the ranger car a drone with light lavender LED lights with equally coloured hair stepped out, she must've been a decade older than Tessa at least, having a look of experience on her face. From the opposite side rounded another drone of the same age, lacking any hair with white LEDs, visible stress lines under them and wearing an attachable moustache. Both of them were in the typical green uniforms she expected for forest rangers. The purple haired lady approached first, holding out a hand for a handshake.
"Hello Miss Elliot, Nori Doorman at your service." It was exclaimed with an inappropriately professional tone, despite the first impression Tessa couldn't help but feel a motherly inclination coming from the drone.
"Just Tessa is fine." Using her free hand she returned the handshake, slightly sloppy with her current state of mind. Up to this point Cyn didn't utter a word or move at all, finally breaking from the despaired trance as she looked over to Nori before nestling her head back into Tessa's shoulder with a whimper.
"And I'm her husband, Khan." Said the other drone who went side to side with his wife, with a noticeable lack of confidence in his voice. Tessa also exchanged a handshake with him, slightly more composed this time.
"We're here for a missing persons report correct? What happened?" Nori's bluntness was becoming quite apparent already.
"I don't know! My daughter went into the woods with her brother and came back screaming and crying about how he disappeared, hasn't said a word since." At the mention of her brother Cyn noticeably tensed.
"Well, then, she'll be the primary witness in this, mind if we go inside and talk a little more, bit cold out isn't it?" Khan chimed in, trying to hide his anxiousness with a parallel of his wife's confidence.
"F-fine we'll talk a bit more inside." She was hardly the type to entertain visitors, the current situation warranted it however. She wordlessly gestured her arm she just used for the handshakes to motion them inside, going over to open the door.
"Just sit on the couch, shouldn't be hard to miss." She let out a humourless chuckle. Nori and Khan just exchanged glances before continuing forward onto the deck and through the front door, by the time they entered Tessa was standing up from the couch trying to clean the mud from her dress, giving up with a frustrated sigh and sitting back down. Cyn was still glued onto her side, looking over at the couple with a saddened face still on. Khan and Nori felt the stifling environment that now haunted the house, the moustached drone wore it clearly on his face while the purple haired one tried to keep a straight face, but it was also wavering into concern.
On top of the stairs, J was listening in on the living room with V behind her. V was an absolute mess, waking up to hear your brother inexplicably went missing was bad news to almost anyone, but to her it was like the world was ending. Her usual organised look went out of the metaphorical window, even lacking her glasses completely. J was doing better for the most part, still with her business suit on and hair now back up into twin pig tails, but she was just as worried.
"They brought the forest rangers over!?" V was getting more panicked by the second.
"It's fine, they're here to help aren't they? No one better to find him then them." J responded. V didn't say anything after that, instead trying to swallow her panic to eavesdrop on the conversation going on downstairs.
"Sweetheart, ya gotta tell them what happened out there. Please." Tessa was pleading with her at this point, the guests were being patient after being explained to why Cyn didn't want to talk to them, they seemed to understand all too well. She didn't take to strangers well, even if warned beforehand, always quickly running out of sight and into her room where she would stay until she knew they were gone. This time it was very, very different.
"Sigh, fine. I will tell you mother Tessa." She didn't want to pay any mind to the visitors to the side of her, despite not being intimidating in any way she couldn't look at them, her throat would tense up even thinking about them for reasons she couldn't pin on.
"Big brother and I went to the clearing, then I wanted to play hide and seek with him." After a shaky breath she continued.
"Nervous. We went on top of a hill and big brother stayed by a bush to count down, I hid away and after some time passed it got all quiet, I checked, he wasn't there anymore." It took everything for her to say that despite the lack of reason to why it took everything, Cyn broke down into more tears as she tightened her grip over her mother. Khan and Nori were giving each other concerned glances, not helping Tessa's own rising nerves. The old drone stood up with a hurried swiftness he himself didn't know he was capable of, followed by his partner.
"Sorry to keep it brief but that's all we need to hear. In situations like these every second counts, we'll find him." Nori's assurance felt forced and tacked on at the end, faux determine lacing her words. At this point the both of them had a knowing look in their eyes which didn't help alleviate the pressure Tessa felt, Cyn's grip tightening confirming she felt the same. Without even a goodbye the both of them left, Khan closing the door behind him as the sound of boots descending the deck faded away.
"We heard everything." The shaky voice of V called out, making her way downstairs with J not too far behind. Seeing two of her children in such sorry states broke her heart as she herself stood up and tried to hug V with her free arm, the recipient gladly accepting it all while J looked at the three of them with a forlorn expression on her face, the last thing the rangers said echoing in her mind.
Chapter 7: Investigation
Chapter Text
The moment Khan entered off the deck he came to a standstill, Nori giving him a look of uneasiness. His wife only reserved concerned looks for the most dire circumstances, the atmosphere was heavy with uncertainty as the cloud cover thickened and darkened in the sky. Missing persons cases were never fun, even when the majority of them ended in a matter of hours and rarely days at worst. Some though were completely beyond any reasonable explanation which the both of them hoped this disappearance wasn't the case, they'll find him, bring him back to his distraught family and everything can be back to normal, but the nature of it said otherwise.
"So... kid goes out into the woods with his sister, last seen near bush, forest goes silent, the sister comes back screaming and crying about how he just went poof out of existence?" Nori broke the silence with a statement that all but confirmed his fears, it had way too many signs.
"Let's just go to the area first." Was all he could respond with, in their haste they forgot to ask about the exact location. Not wanting to walk back in on a clearly distraught family they relied on context clues and their internal maps, first of which being the disturbed leaf litter which formed patted down declines in the ground. Starting to follow they both noticed how far the steps were from each other, distance between them way too far for the drone that caused them.
"Quite the runner, ain't she?" Nori tried to lighten the mood, how a drone with a height that barely reached her hip could make such long strides was lost on her, Khan however was too focused on following the trail which lead into the forest. For a while they cautiously followed the footsteps, few droplets of water started to descend from the skies as they pushed forward, the usual ambience took a more sinister turn from the bliss they knew the forests for. Finally the trees took a sudden stop as they entered the clearing. Now disturbed piles of leaves and a half-eaten mango laying by the side of the creek.
"Must've been the clearing she was talking about, now to find that hill..." Khan said more to himself than to his wife, inspecting the mundane leaf stools he assumed the kids made.
"Say, ever seen a drone with yellow eyes before?" Nori only had to steal a glance to notice the piercing yellow the drone had, unlike any other LED colour she saw before.
"Nope. Never, she's a unique one isn't she?" Khan was equally as interested, he's seen LEDs from white like his, to brown to blue to orange he thought he saw them all, but never seeing a single drone with a hint of yellow up until now. Realising he was getting off track from the situation he took notice to a large hill in the near distance.
"Think we found the hill." He knew that his wife knew he was nervous, he wore it on his sleeve as she tried to hide it but he knew her all too well with how she was looking down at her boots. Stepping over the creek and making their way over back into the forest to where the potential location was they both took notice to the quietening wildlife, only a few chirps of birds were audible as they neared the base of the hill. It wasn't the first time the two experienced the forest going silent, but it never lost the creepiness that put them on edge, the forest never went silent for no good reason. The giant marks of pushed away leaves from where Cyn stumbled down earlier confirmed it was the correct place, the ascent was relatively steep, nothing they couldn't handle with their experience but steep nonetheless. At this point the forest gave way to complete and utter silence besides the faint pattering of rain once they reached the peak of the hill, both of them expressing clear concern on there face. A large bush sat in the general middle of the formation, only evidence anyone was ever there was the foot prints by the next of it.
Nori took out a device she made herself, what was basically a metal detector turned into a 'drone locator' as she put it, without a word she activated the device with a ping sound as it gave its feedback.
"Nothing." Nori's device had a reach of a good several kilometres, even an athlete that trained their entire life traversing these forests couldn't go that far in the amount of time, let alone an inexperienced drone who had no interest of the sort. Khan brushed his moustache with his finger as all rational trains of thought came to a stop.
"Looks like it's another case." He admitted after a sigh. Great, just great.
"Yeah, now let's get out of here! Something's clearly off and the weather's getting worse." His wife exclaimed.
The drive back was a quiet one, both of them were on edge still as they drove back to the town. Telling the mother they couldn't find him was a hard job to do, it felt like worsening a situation despite it being the right thing to do. They never have had to deal with such a textbook case of a missing person who disappeared into the woods, they heard countless stories from neighbouring settlements of people going missing without a trace, but never in their own county. Most missing people were found almost immediately with only a few unsolved ones dispersed over the past few decades, but those always were about humans going missing and with rational explanations to what happened, this was the first time Copper dealt with a unexplainable drone disappearance which were always much harder to explain.
The vista of the town came to be, a small but pleasant place in the middle of nowhere, dipping into a valley before slightly rising along with a mountain's incline. Kilometres of pure untamed forest surrounded it like a natural veil, a safe haven in the middle of indifferent wilderness. It only had what it needed, a school, a small police station and a library no larger than a small store alongside other things that made a town a town. They continued down the main street and eventually pulled over to the ranger's headquarters, both of them getting out still without a word as another drone was walking by, who stopped dead in their tracks.
"Hey hey hey, how ya doin' guys?" Thad was what many would call the stereotypical 'jock' type, a backwards cap and jersey adding on to it, he had pleasantly green eye lights with blonde hair and always carried a friendly disposition. He was completely out of place from the area of the world he lived in but a welcome change to the usually quiet residents of the town.
"Someone's gone missing." Was all Nori could say, usually she would entertain the chipper drone but the grim circumstances couldn't warrant it. Thad immediately took notice of the tenseness that exuded from the two drones as he slumped his shoulders slightly.
"Oh. Hope they're found..." He said with a tone unusual to him, the rangers looked worried out of their minds so he just gave Khan a wave as he silently continued past them. Once he was out of sight Nori looked over to Khan.
"Let's just get this done, ok?" Khan didn't like the lack of confidence in her voice, giving her a meek nod as they entered the building. He knew something was terribly wrong and so did his wife, she was the headstrong type who always saw the optimistic outcome to things, one of the many reasons he fell in love with her. But this time the optimism was absent which gave him a strong sense of unease, her reaffirmations of the best case rang completely hollow which didn't help. The building was typical for their line of work, a front desk that was used as an entrance, walls adorned with maps, racks and shelves full of town memorabilia for purchase. Making their way past into a hallway past the desk they went entered a room on the left. Entering the room it was used for paperwork, having a table in with a chair as the middle set piece, walls being lined with propped up guns and decorations of deer antlers, wall cases of the native bugs that lived in the area above a single window with a few mounted taxidermy animal heads dispersed throughout the room.
Khan wordlessly sat on the solitary chair and sifted through the countless scattered papers and binders to find the correct paper work, Nori noticing the correct papers falling onto the floor as she picked them up and handed it over to him.
"Here."
"Thanks." Khan responded as he got a pen sitting idly on the table as he started the arduous process, occasionally asking Nori for information he didn't catch.
"Name?"
"N."
"Really, just N?"
"Yep, not like we're the ones to judge with weird names."
"Fair." Khan chucked with a slight hint of pain under it, forcing fond memories out of his mind as he continued to work. Many boxes had to be ticked and many sentences had to be filled out, names, location of where N disappeared and the testimony of his sister. An hour passed as he was engrossed in the seemingly endless questions thrown his way, only the pattering of rain against the window with interjections of his wife's soothing voice being the only sounds aside from his gliding pen. With his tenacity combined with the help of Nori he eventually got it done.
"Okay, should be done now." He made sure to triple check it for even the slightest of mistakes, lest he has to do the whole thing again. A sudden question popped up into his mind, intertwining hope with dread.
"Do you think we'll actually find him, Nori?"
"We have to, we can't let the forest take him like it took our daughter."
Chapter 8: Monster
Chapter Text
N's LEDs fluttered open. He had no clue where he was, the side of his body felt sore and an alien feeling of cloudy fatigue washed over his mind. It was like a weight was placed onto his soul, downed his body and thoughts, core heavy with a crushing spiritual tiredness that sapped all the energy he would usually have. He felt awful. His body felt like it was filled with lead, unable to get up from the wall he was positioned on, head upright leaning onto... what he thought were tree branches? Looking to his side he noticed whatever room he was in was woven with bare branches, completely covering the room which lacked any harsh angles, like it was made by an animal instead of man. The floor was blanketed in what had to be pilfered pillows and bed covers, with all sort of patterns and materials. N connected the dots in his mind as he realized this was no room at all. It was a nest.
Panic flooded his systems, as well as it could in his current state. He tried to open his internal messaging system but it was blanked out, small purple lock right next to the option. He never saw or even knew he could have his systems locked up like that, he tried many other options but they were all for not, every back up were also locked which added made his rising panic even worse. Internal map? Disabled. GPS? No dice. Even his compass was disabled. Exhausting all his other options he went to his final resort, the backup body, his final hope was just behind the settings option as he opened it. Going past a multitude of even more locked settings he went down to the- it wasn't there. Unlike the rest of the other options which were locked out by what had to be some rogue program infecting his systems the option to transfer his mind to his other body was completely missing.
Confusion gave way to horror, he had to escape, a light opposite to where his position was the only thing illuminating the dark nest he found himself in. The view of the outside was rain with a backdrop of tree branches, wherever he was it was high up which added to his hopelessness, but it was the only option. He forced to start moving an arm but it refused, trying with no avail with his other arm and legs he realized he was stuck in his own body. It was like sleep paralysis, but he wasn't just dreaming, it all felt too real, feeling the hardness of the branches on the back of his head, twigs digging into his hair. His only exit was right in front of him, he had to leave, see his family again before what put him here comes back.
With all his might he slumped his head forward, the only part of his body that retained any sort of motor function. He never felt so vulnerable before, he hated it. He was about to close his eyes to cry before what he thought was movement came from a pitch black part of the room. For a good few seconds he just stared in the general area, refusing to let his gaze off of it. He was terrified of something jumping out at him, not like he could really defend himself. Painful anticipation and complete silence apart from the faint cacophony of rain on the trees' branches outside as his eyes tried to find any more activity, yet nothing was detected.
A purple, horizontally extended 'X' silently blinked on to the left of where he was looking at. He completely froze, fear disallowing him to even blink as he stared at the symbol with hollowed eyes. Whatever the owner of the symbol was stepped forward, no sound being audible despite his systems being on full alert. Five smaller oval lights of the same colour turned on in an arc above the symbol, adding to the terror he felt. It looked similar to an LED of a drone but they were way too vibrant, glowing even, were those eyes? He didn't want to see the full image of this mechanical monster, but his wishes weren't granted as it took another deliberate step in to the light coming from the entrance, illuminating the figure with a gloomy glow.
'Uncanny' is the best word he would describe what he was seeing, it was definitely a drone of some sorts but it was way too tall, N himself was already reaching the higher limit on how tall drones could be, but this thing was easily at least a head taller than him. Its body was nothing remotely like he saw before, it lacked any sort of clothing, allowing him to see that its arms and legs weren't the bendy hoops of shiny metal of any normal drone but instead were of the same colour of the comparatively normal central chassis. The forearms were of a particularly odd shape, almost like an ice cream cone that had a cuff of diagonal black and purple stripes, a relatively normal hand bar the large size was at the end of it. the legs were equally odd, being more human in shape than drone but with vast differences, thighs being half diamond shaped which repeated the shape from where the knees would be. Stubs on the ends gave it what were by all means peg legs, said legs were bathed in black up until over midway of its upper thighs, being patterned at the 'cuff' with the same pattern the arms had, which was also found on the base of the pegs. Its hair was of a purple colour, yet it didn't look unnatural, being wild and messy but puffy, strands going down to its neck and only a few of the hairs clumping together at a time. The last feature N noticed was the strange canister that was tipped with a long syringe, both of these being connected by a long jet black tail that idly swayed to-and-fro, canister pointed downwards which was full of a mysterious purple liquid that had the same vibrancy of its visor and 'eyes'.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing, mind wracking with explanations but it couldn't even start rationalising what he was seeing. He thought his mind might be seeing something truly incomprehensible and his minds was filling in the gaps with a cryptid he was more familiar with, but he just couldn't believe it. It was way, way too real to be an illusion or anything, he could see every detail, the sleekness and shininess of the metal with the meagre light that bounced from the entrance, the glowing purple casting faint light into the dark surroundings, it was undeniable. The weight of what he was seeing finally hit him, it WAS real. Everything V told him about was spot on, everything he just thought was ridiculous was true down to it kidnapping him. The beast continued forwards, every step deliberate and without sound, N in response started to tremble, he was fearing for his life looking at something he didn't believe existed was looking back at him, at least he thought it was looking back at him with the giant X where its eyes would've been.
It continued, slowly until it was right in front of him, swapping out one of its hands with the same claw he saw earlier. At this moment he thought this would be the last he got to see of the world, staring at a monster that would rip his head off, plunge the knife like fingers into his visor or crush him like an empty can. It used said claw to grab both of his cheeks as it turned his head slowly from side to side, seemingly inspecting him all with the same unchanging symbol that plastered its face. It opened its mouth, baring long canine like fangs in what he thought could be a grimacing expression. He noticed the smell that came off of it was... lavender? It gave off a slight smell of lavender, but without the kick perfume usually had, more so coming off of an actual flower itself, this didn't help the terror he felt in the slightest however.
"N-no... please..." He murmured out pathetically, tears welling up from under his eyes, the trembling getting even worse as the fatigue engulfing his body refused to relent. He couldn't even fight back, at complete mercy of this creature and he had a feeling it didn't know the concept of mercy at all, still staring back without any change in its expression.
"Don't kill me..." He thought this would be the last thing he would ever say, his life ending before it could really begin, He closed his eyes, beginning to think over the best moments of his short existence, his loving family-
"Huh- What? No!" He was ripped from his thoughts by the drone speaking, in perfect English no less, with a voice he was least expecting, it carried an almost 'rebellious girl' quality to it. The X on its visor changed into two piercing purple ovals and the grimace it... she? The prior expression she had on was completely dropped into a slight sneer, looking almost disgusted at the idea.
"I'm not gonna do that, gosh." N was in complete shock from what he was hearing, still unable to believe this monster was capable of speaking, was this some sort of mimicry it was using to lure him into a false sense of security? He regarded her with a face that mixed bewilderment with nervousness, fear interlacing within it. She dropped the sneer she had on her to a more neutral expression, both eyes slowly blinking at him all while removing the claw she had on his chin.
"You aren't?" The question came out awkward, his life felt like it was on the line just a few seconds ago and now the thing that stole him was looking like he was in the wrong! He didn't believe this murder drone one bit, yet he couldn't sense any sort of sadism coming from her voice, it seemed genuine. The fatigue he was still wrought by hit him hard, his vision going fuzzy. Her visor suddenly went dark for a moment before having the X return, he braced to be killed again but instead he was lifted from shoulders as she continued inspecting him all over without a word. his limbs uselessly flailed as he was now visor level with her, she was looking behind him as if to see if anything was amiss or damaged, but he noticed apart from the soreness he felt on his side he wasn't harmed in the physical meaning. The tiredness he felt when he first got abducted came back with a vengeance as the fuzziness of his vision got even worse, the last thing he took in before falling back to sleep was his abductor taking him off to somewhere.
Chapter 9: Questions
Chapter Text
N awoke again, this time keeping his eyes closed. All the weakness he felt 'earlier' dissipated aside from a slight ache from his side, did he dream all of that up? Maybe a branch fell on his head, knocked him out cold and now he's finally woke up in his room, even Flipflop was purring right behind him! His beloved cat sounded way deeper and usually slept cuddled in N's arms instead however...
He opened his eyes, it was pitch black which was definitely not like his room, his bed didn't have the patterns he remembered, a weight was wrapped around his torso and on top of his head. He reluctantly looked upwards slightly to see the lower part of a drone's head resting on his, partially covered by his now messy hair. Looking down he saw two sets of those forsaken metal claws gripping onto the middle of his rubber midriff, tight but only enough for the sharp tips to slightly dig into his clothing on the sides. Much to his dismay his situation was all too real, he was kidnapped by some monster who knows where and she was... hugging him? He noticed she was giving off heat too and a fair amount of it, like a flesh and blood creature instead of the usually cold chassis of a robot.
The realization of the position he was set in, being hugged of all things like a teddy bear by a giant cryptid that was purring like an oversized cat. He tried to budge forwards but was immediately rebuked by her pulling him closer effortlessly, letting out a low growl. Ignoring the warning he tried to move one of his arms slightly in which he had control over again, he gripped the side of what he thought to be some weird elevated mini-nest because of its rounded shape, what he was doing was foolish at best and tried to pull himself out of the iron vice he found himself in.
"Mine..." the murder drone quietly muttered out in her sleep, followed by a growl as she positioned her tail as some sort of makeshift barrier from the edge and him. He instinctively retracted his arms to get them away from the large needle like point the end of tail had, looking at it, before panic started to rise as he noticed it pointed to exactly where his core was.
"Get- Get off of me!" He screamed, at this point he didn't care about what repercussions this could cause, he had gotten extremely uncomfortable being held by a complete stranger and he wanted to get off no matter the cost. Starting to kick his legs around as he grabbed onto the other's forearms to push himself away, he managed to surprise the captor as she immediately relented her claws as she stirred from her sleep, propelling N out of the makeshift bed entirely. Softly hitting the plush floor he started to back up, not bothering to stand as he used his arms behind him, kicking his legs away from where he thought the nest was until he hit a wall. He couldn't see nor hear a thing, his eyes darting around uselessly as they desperately tried to pick up any sort of light. How this creature was capable of turning off all the glowing parts was a mystery, but he knew that she could see him.
The X he dreaded to see so much appeared right in front of him, he gasped as his eyes hollowed from fear again, he couldn't even hear her! He was in no better position when he first woke up, being backed up into a wall with this thing staring back at him, tears threatening to spill again as she just stared at him. He had no idea what he was doing but he slowly pushed himself upright using his legs, while she kept her gaze right into his.
"Stop, p-please! I don't want to die..." The confidence he gained by standing up was dispersed now, a few tears falling as he raised both of his hands in a surrendering posture. He truly got to see the scale of her, his eye line barely reaching her collar, even though she was quite hunched over. She was of truly monstrous proportions, towering over it made him feel so, so small. Much to N's relief the same thing happened again, her eyes going from the dastardly symbol to the same purple ovals from earlier, yet this time they carried an expression that looked... hurt?
"I would've done that already if I wanted to." She said bluntly but the hint of pain was clear in her voice. N couldn't believe himself but he felt guilty, for once he stood up for himself and now he's mentally back-peddling.
"Look I'm sorry, okay? You just scare me... a lot." No point in not being honest, he's gone this far.
"Ok..." She simply replied with, staring at him unblinking. He came to the realization she was almost definitely socially inept, figures considering her being out in the wild for her whole life, mind being still too busy with immediate survival to question what exactly she truly even was. An explanation to why she kidnapped him in the first place would have to come later. Just after his small epiphany she looked like she was about to grab him again, he tried to back up even more despite his body being up against the wall.
"No! No touching!" He never had been touched by someone outside of hugs from his mother and little sister, and it felt wrong. She looked taken aback by his sudden outburst as he shrunk back in fear of retaliation, expecting some kind of physical response yet she just stood there which he found endlessly eerie.
"I didn't mean to be- I-I'm sorry, but it's not right to just touch someone, I barely know you!" He realized the last two things he said were rude, even if it was directed at what he thought was an apex predator, but he considered what she said earlier. If she wanted him dead already she absolutely would of done it by now, let alone with how he's responded, he couldn't trust her but it felt wrong not to.
"Oh, sorry." She said the correct words but not with the correct cadence, it didn't sound sarcastic but it didn't have the remorsefulness something sincere should have either. He shuddered mentally, everything about her was just so off, her demeanour and posture just didn't feel right.
"And please don't grab me like that, not by my face and not anywhere else without my permission." All she gave in response was a small nod, only noticeable by the shifting of her eye lights and the odd glowing headband, former which still had a look of sadness. Why N added on the last part he did not know, not like he could see himself actually wanting her to touch him in any way. He just wanted to go home but a dismal voice in his head told him that won't be happening any time soon, it just reminded him of how devastated his family must be, are they still trying to find him? They have no clue he's still actually alive being kept away by a being the rest of the world didn't even have concrete evidence on. He wanted to cry but he knew he had to stay strong, at least when facing this thing... it felt wrong calling her a 'thing', but he had not a single clue if she saw him as anything more than something to keep alive until she got hungry.
Her visor alongside the rest of her lights started to dim slightly, head from what he could tell turning away from him, he guessed this was the end of their conversation. He felt relieved, setting up some boundaries between each other even if it was likely she didn't even understand the concept. She seemed to be fine allowing him to communicate and trying to understand him to best of her ability, but if this was genuine and not a mimicking tactic he couldn't tell. By this point the other drone just left him in the dark, he just decided to sit trying to feel around for an edge of a blanket to rest in, he won't be sleeping for a long while but he needed to lay down.
Finding a pillow with a particularly fluffy coating and covers of a similar material he tried his best to pull the covers over him, doing it in the darkness made a mundane task frustratingly difficult before the covers were lifted by themselves to cover him fully. He poked his head out in confusion before being greeted with the purple eyes he's finding himself already being familiar with.
"Goodnight." Was all she said as her eye lights became one with the surrounding darkness again, he tried to listen for footsteps but even with his advanced senses he just couldn't hear her! It was like she was floating, stepping with such deliberate proficiency it was like she was a ghost. From a corner of the void of the room he was in he could at least hear the rustling of covers, signalling she was back in whatever they were both in earlier.
N thought about many things as he stared at what he thought to be the ceiling. Why did she seemed so concerned with his health before he passed out? If she's truly sinister, why did she just tuck him in for the night? Does she have a name? How and why was she purring... did she like hugging him? And most importantly what was her goal; why did she steal him from the woods? There was no good argument from the devil's advocate to why she would do it on a whim, he doubts she understands the moral issue of abducting somebody, so could he even blame her?
He just didn't know. The true nature of her existence is what confused him the most, just what is she? Maybe she referred to her own 'species' with a name, maybe she didn't, and maybe she didn't care about it at all. All of this just reminded him about V, she was definitely not doing well, he had to be gone for at least almost two days, but it could be days longer. His twin was always so anxious about even the smallest of things, so losing a family member without any disclosure to what happened to them must of had a terrible effect on her. Cyn definitely wasn't going to take it well, one time he went to Copper unannounced and she threw a massive conniption over it, she was usually the sweetest soul he ever met but when she didn't know where her loved ones were up to at all times she showed a rare temper they didn't know she had. He stopped himself from thinking about his family any longer, it wouldn't do him any good, opting to just blankly stare at the endless inky blackness instead as he closed his eyes in melancholic resignation.
Chapter 10: Progress
Notes:
Apologies this took so long! Mental state has been a real hurdle recently, do expect updates more often from now on though.
Chapter Text
Morning couldn't come any sooner, the small entrance finally started to receive light, it wasn't enough for N to see anything inside yet but it was at least something! His kidnapper was tossing and turning the whole night, her quietness giving way to a new sense of restlessness, she was struggling to sleep for reasons he didn't know. N needed to see if he was truly high up as he crawled his way to the entrance trying his best to be sneaky. The 'doorway' was almost perfectly circular, being made from particularly warped branches, he was in awe in both the strength and precision the murder drone must of had to weave this den in the way it was.
His hands reached the lowest bent branch that composed of the entrance as he peeked outside, being greeted with an endless view of trees with where their trunks split off into smaller branches. Raining quite moderate it gave everything he could see in the dim early morning a damp upper coating. He decided to finally look down, finding himself to be high up, in fact much higher up than he was anticipating, also taking notice that the nest was seemingly carved into a upwardly concave cliffside judging by the rock face that ran until the bottom of the barely visible wet forest floor.
N felt queasy, never the one to take high up places well as irrational anxieties about him somehow managing to fall off, there was no way he was capable of getting down by himself. He couldn't turn around before feeling a large hand pull him back, he whipped his head around to see the murder drone dragging him away from the entrance, her face had a mix of tiredness and a hint of what he thought could be apprehension?
"I wasn't trying to escape! Don't-" He instinctively spat out without finishing his sentence, realizing what he was doing definitely looked like he was trying to find a way out of this place, not like if he did somehow manage to climb down a tree and ran off unharmed she could just immediately give chase. She was totally capable of getting both him and herself up so what would stop her from getting down and finding him in seconds, maybe this time she would tear him to pieces or pierce those claws through his chest or even-
"Don't what?" Quirking a brow at him the drone was ripped from his thoughts as she awaited him to finish his sentence. N's eyes hollowed out as many ways to finish what he said ran through his mind, all of them just ending up muddling into his mind so he just decided to be honest.
"...murder me?" A fallen face was what he was given as a response, the taller drone got onto one of her knees as she softly placed one of her monstrous hands softly on his shoulder, he flinched at the suddenness of her action.
"Look, uh... N is it?" How did she-
"H-how do you know my name!?"
"Your system's name is N, is that your name?" She asked, not aware of the complete violation of privacy she admitted to, while he felt violated in that regard there was way more immediate issues to address first.
"Yeah, it's N." The thought from last night popped into his mind, she definitely understood the concept of names, so did she have one?
"N, I won't hurt you, and I mean that." What he thought was about be a beginning of a full speech was cut short from the speaker, her way of talking was stilted and awkward that carried an unwavering uncertainty, every word felt deliberate and carefully chosen but it was like she couldn't articulate it properly.
"You know what." N gulped down his nerves as he continued.
"I'll trust you- but please get off of me..." He had no reason to trust her but there was no point in saying so in the situation he was in, his fear of her was still fresh and still felt threatened by her presence. The purple drone took her hand off of him as she stood back up to her full height, making N feel like a bug in comparison as he sat staring from the floor. N reacted by shrinking into himself further in order to make himself seem smaller, as if he was reacting to an approaching brown bear, half from his fear and half from the question he was about to ask.
"Do... you have a name, since you know mine it only seems fair." He mustered up the courage to ask, as little courage it would usually be to ask someone something so simple. There was a good chance she didn't even have a name, her face becoming unreadable again apart from the apparent tiredness.
"Uzi." Was what she responded, N was surprised at her not just having a name but a name of a gun of all things, he honestly liked it, like his name it was definitely unique, fitting for such a uniquely odd drone.
"That's a really nice name! I think it fits you perfectly." She thankfully took that as a compliment, a faint smile replacing the frown she had. N felt warm for a moment for getting both a name and a smile from Uzi, even if he found her horrifying the expression was pleasant, like a cute sticker on the gun she was named after. Uzi's tail was swaying slowly behind her as she just... continued to stare at him, N taking the weird pause to get up and compose himself a bit better. After getting up she abruptly let a long, drawn out yawn as she reached her arms up in a stretch before going on to all fours and stretching just like a cat who woke up.
'Weird...' N thought to himself, she just doesn't purr like a cat but also stretched like one. Everything about Uzi was so fascinating to him, from the short time he's known her she's exhibited such animalistic traits despite not even being biological (at least as far as he could tell), to her peculiar mannerisms of getting uncomfortably close, touching him without permission and her strange need to check on his physical state, the last one in particular was confusing. His interest faded back into anxiety as the reality of his situation started to sink in again, he realized he was just standing there for what was probably ten seconds when thinking and she had moved back to her previous position after the stretch, purple eyes boring holes into his very being.
"I'm uhh, gonna go this way." This was just an excuse to be out of her piercing line of sight, it felt like she was looking into his soul, it didn't feel judgemental but it wasn't welcoming either. Finding a dark corner to retreat to he made his way over as Uzi's gaze finally relented, doing the same as him as she turned off her LEDs and disappeared into the darkness again.
After waiting for a few minutes N needed to do some more reflection, considering her adamant nature about not hurting him. Up until now he didn't believe her one bit, but after the interaction he just had started to sow seeds of doubt in him. She wasn't doing anything that was hurting him, all her actions seemed misguided and almost needy, but what would she want from him? And that smile too, it was sincere and he had no doubt about that, reminding him of his younger sister's smile, in fact it looked almost identical which he found strange. It was becoming brighter outside, even if the difference was slight and he couldn't see much past the faint glow his LEDs gave off, it did bring him a bit of comfort as he closed his weary eyes.
From the other side of the room Uzi laid back down in the small nest she made for herself, curling into the fetal position in attempt to hug at least something, even if it was only her own legs. Her heart felt pained, she was so lonely for so long and she finally found a perfect drone. N was perfect in her eyes, she had to have him. Yet every time she tried getting close he pushed her away, it was so unfair, not knowing how to approach such a situation she just followed what the other disassembly drone tried to do with her, but every physical advance seemed to scare N away.
She shrunk into herself more, tail moving over to her front side in the same position it was when she was hugging him earlier as she let out a low whine. It felt amazing to finally be able to hold someone in her arms, it gave her core such a warm fuzzy feeling that touched her soul, yet N proceeded to panic and was scared of her. It hurt. It hurt to see him being afraid for his life, and from her no less! She hope he would warm up to her in due time, he hated to have advances on him, just like how Uzi hated the advances from... her. She looked over to where N was, being able to perfectly see in the dark as he sat on a wall, eyes closed but not asleep. She felt bad making him so scared, she didn't mean to, and she hoped he truly trusted her that she wouldn't hurt him.
The compliment N gave her only a few minutes ago gave her a great sense of hope, she had to mentally fight herself back not pouncing on him there and hug him. It felt wonderful being complimented, the same fuzzy warmth from whenever she touched him overtook her systems. Even just having someone here with her felt amazing, not even anyone trying to steal or fight her until she 'found' N. Talking about her finding him he was in the middle of the forest, hands over his eyes, the fact such a perfect drone could be lost in such an unforgiving environment and she was glad he was unscathed, he must of been scared.
When she initially took N back to her den she made absolutely sure he didn't even have the slightest scratch, making sure beforehand to not leave a single dent or scrape on him aside from the mandatory injection of her nanites to make him fall asleep. Didn't want him to possibly push himself off of her whilst flying. After seeing he was physically ok she had to change the administrator to her own, seeing N's prior admin went by 'Tessa'.
Must of not been a good admin since he was deep in the wilderness, swiftly changing it over to her own as she decided to disable any systems that could accidentally give away both his and her location along with anything else she deemed unnecessary.
She refused to let anyone else have him.
She needed him.
She loved him.
N is hers.
Chapter 11: Effects
Notes:
This took me SO long to write I have no idea why.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tessa found herself back on the couch, this time not paying any attention to the television but instead the small drone curled into a ball on her left side. Three days have passed since N's disappearance and the youngest family member wasn't taking it well in the slightest. The small drone curled into herself even tighter, knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around her legs, small tears a constant trickle down her visor from her squeezed shut LEDs. Cyn hadn't of slept for a good two days, staying up and exhausting herself from worry.
"You tired girl?" A question she already knew the answer to Tessa reached one of her hands over to her daughter to pick her up and hoist her onto her lap, Cyn responded by silently nestling her head into the crook of Tessa's neck and let out a few warbled sniffles. Ever since N went missing the yellow drone had mostly gone mute, only speaking when she thought it was absolutely necessary to communicate in that way.
Standing up she started to make her way around the couch and to the base of the stairs, looking over to the front door that had the amount of locks on it nearly doubled, how does V even know how to install those things? The rest of the house's windows and doors also had more locks which was getting to the level of being concerning, even the doors inside weren't an exception.
A feeling of despair hung in the household, a critical piece abruptly ripped away from them that only intensified as Tessa made her way up the stairs. On the stair well's walls hung framed pictures captured many moments of their lives, some solo portraits, others pictures of them in front of historical monuments from holidays of years past, a still instant of time showing their happiness. Reaching the top of the stairs Tessa tried to not pay attention to N's slightly ajar door, swallowing the pain in her heart she swiftly opened Cyn's room door with her free hand.
The drone in her arms was put under the covers of her heavily yellow themed bed and had the plush covers pulled up to her shoulders, Cyn looked back at Tessa with bleary eyes and a quivering frown on her lips.
"You want Mr. Mango, darling?" Tessa reached over to the foot of the bed to pick up the stuffed mango plushie Cyn loved since she was a pillbaby and brought it over to her, the recipient weakly wrapping her arms and bringing it into a hug. Tessa brushed some of the drone's unkempt hair and giving her a kiss on the forehead.
"Get some sleep gorgeous, send me a message if you need anything."
"I miss big brother."
"We all miss him, but we have to stay hopeful; they'll find him." She said this to steel her own nerves more than anything, as hopeless as the situation felt Tessa had full faith in the forest rangers to find her lost son, his nebulous disappearance notwithstanding. Cyn said nothing else as tiredness claimed her fully, eyes dimming down into a faint 'SLEEP MODE' spread across her visor, much to the relief of Tessa.
Closing the door as quietly as possible the mother of the household was happy to have her most affected member of the family at some level of peace, even if temporary. Next one to check up on had to be V, who on the inverse was sleeping in even more than usual, having locked herself in her room for the whole day. She knew V enough to know she tended to become even more reclusive when upset and had a worrying behaviour of bottling up her emotions until they boiled over into depressive episodes.
"V? I'd like to talk." Knocking on V's door with a soft yet authoritative voice she heard the drone on the other side jump, shuffle around then walk up to her door, creaking it open slightly with only her head visible. V's glasses were put on hastily and slightly askew, usually well kept up hair being dishevelled and a general aura of uncharacteristic sloppiness.
"H-hi Tessa, what do you want to talk about?" Her voice was small, even for a soft spoken person like herself.
"A few things, may I come in?" V immediately knew she was in for a talking to, brushing some rogue bits of hair away from her visor.
"Oh, ok..." She opened the door a bit more to invite Tessa in, before walking off to turn on a dim floor lamp, giving the room a greyish hue instead of the usual dusk. V always had a knack for the dark, preferring it over the harshness of fluorescent ceiling lights or sunlight. Walking in and sitting on the end of V's bed Tessa immediately took notice to how much many more pictures of the 'Murder Drone' creatures were stuck onto her wall compared to everything else, V loved the fantastical but this was to the point of an unhealthy obsession.
"Uhm, am I in trouble?" Her voice tapered off to a saddened murmur, she shrunk into herself slightly.
"'Course not darlin', ya done nothing wrong! I'm just a bit concerned about you staying locked up in your room all day."
"It's just- I know losing your brother has taken a toll on you, it's taken a toll on all of us, Cyn only just went to bed after a few days and J has been head deep in her work ever since." Tessa tried to stifle her own feelings on the subject, but she needed to stay strong for her other kids.
"I-I'm sorry Tessa I didn't mean-"
"You got nothing to say sorry about V, you owe no apology to me or anyone for that matter, I just want to make sure you're ok is all!" V wasn't looking any better, her face telling she wanted to say something.
"Something on your mind, girl? You look conflicted."
"Do you-" V took one of the many pictures of the Murder Drones from her wall and showed it to her mother, this one being a diagram of what a female and a male of the cryptids might look like.
"Do you... think N was taken by one of these!? From everything I've looked into it all lines up perfectly! The way Cyn said he disappeared, the fact we can't contact him at all! I- I-" V's words got caught in her throat, Tessa was reeling from the sudden verbal barrage that was sent her way. So that's why she had so many pictures of them all over in her room! As ridiculous as she found the idea of murder bots living out in the woods it was undeniable how coincidental it all was, what actually happened to N was completely lost on her.
"I just don't know! Something happened to him and nobody has a single clue what! For all we know it might as well been a murder drone that took him and-" V was in tears now, dropping the diagram onto the floor. Tessa stood up and wrapped V in a hug who hastily returned it, sobbing into her dress for a while.
"It's going to be okay." Tessa said, sitting back down on the bed, V sitting besides her.
"And if ya want my personal opinion, I don't think a robot with irons or peg legs for feet stole our precious N." The drone chuckled at that, which made Tessa smile.
"We'll have him back in a week, he'll have some crazy harrowing story missing crucial details and people will have to theorize what happened for decades to come."
"I hope so."
"I hope so too."
J was sat in her room, unable to focus on her work properly, turns out business lessons takes a back seat when your brother disappears without a trace into the woods. J's stoic nature betrays her actual feelings, internally she was freaking out, N was the happiest person she ever saw and he had no reason to disable his systems and run off. Sure, J was aware she could be grumpy whenever someone disturbs her whenever she's busy (which was nearly all the time) but as the eldest sister she needed to be a great example for her younger siblings.
Being ever sceptical she tried to explain away his disappearance, maybe he fell down a deep brook that messed up his systems, but they all had waterproofed circuitry and it didn't explain the fact she couldn't message him. Finding N's name being greyed out gave her core a bit of a jump, now it gives her a great sense of dread and a new fear of the place she lived in. J wasn't cut out for this or to live in a place like this!
"Hey J, just checkin' on ya. Not busy are you?" Tessa's sweet voice reverberated through the door.
"Nothing going on, come in." Hearing this her mother gently opened the door and took a step into J's heavily corporatized room.
"I've spoken to V and Cyn already, I know you like being concise so I just wanted to ask if you're doing well." J was just going to be honest about how she felt, there was no point trying to hide her feelings to her mother.
"I'm... worried Tess. It's weird not having him around pestering me or playing along with whatever weird ideas Cyn comes up with, or both."
"We all are, I've already talked to your siblings about it and they're not doing the best." Didn't surprise J in the slightest, V was always the emotional type and Cyn was... definitely more 'action speaks louder than words'.
"Can you promise me one thing though, please be a bit more understanding with those two, nothing wrong with being a bit snappy but they're going through a lot right now." J wasn't fairing much better, yet she was determined to keep a strong face.
"I'll try."
"You always do." Tessa let out a dry giggle before leaving, not wanting to 'drag it on' as J liked to put it. Seeing the door close J stared blankly at her laptop screen, not actually having done anything for what had to be an hour at this point. She thought over about the short conversation she and Tessa had, N was always the one to entertain the other two and without him around V would just stay in her room all day, and she doubted the universe could handle another meltdown from Cyn. Grabbing a piece of paper she started to scribble down ideas of activities she could do with them, work could wait.
Notes:
I'm planning on updating most of the earlier chapters, it would also be appreciated if you guys suggest what you would like to see in the story next chapter!
Chapter 12: Hunger
Notes:
All prior chapters had small edits to them, now onto your scheduled awkward robot soon-to-be romance.
Chapter Text
N's eyes slowly blinked his eyes open upon hearing Uzi getting up, it was bright enough outside to see a good amount of the nest's inside. The rain finally decided to let up, the fresh smell of disturbed soil even reaching all the way up to where he was.
It was something he always liked, the feeling of going outside right after it stopped raining and taking in the cooler air, moist ground and the one of a kind smell was one of a kind, even if for a fleeting moment he could just... enjoy at the least of those things.
The murder sat up from her makeshift bed and let out a yawn along with a particularly drawn out stretch, she was only asleep for several hours yet the tiredness in her eyes were completely dissipated. N felt awful and hungry, despite being a robot he still had to eat, even if way less was needed than what biological life required. Man-made options such as synthesized oil were obviously out of the question, not like he enjoyed the stuff anyways; too manufactured. The only other option was definitely in short supply in this time of year, berries and fruit were out of the question completely, leaving meat as the only option.
"Uhm, hey N." Uzi walked up to him with a gait unnaturally smooth thanks to her strangely shaped legs, N looked back with a few visible stress lines from tiredness and regarded her with a weary smile while awaiting her continuation.
"I'm gonna go get something to eat, do you need anything?" Even from a metre away he could feel warmth wafting off of her chassis, seeing heat radiating out of her breath in visible waves. It immediately worried him, drones only ever got that hot if they were overheating from some hardware issue.
"Uzi, are you okay? You seem to be really hot!" Uzi responded with an embarrassed smirk and a faint blush dusting her visor, she took that as him flirting. N's LEDs hollowed out, he did NOT mean it in that way.
"I mea- I meant uhhh, you're really, REALLY warm Uzi." The response this time was of offense, he definitely didn't mean it like that.
"No no no Uzi I didn't call you-"
"I'm fine. Just need to eat is all. Do you want anything to eat, N?" N flinched from her forwardness and serious tone, she seemed to understand N wasn't trying to insult her which he was thankful for.
"I would like something, if you don't mind." Uzi turned herself to the entrance of the nest, seems like she'll choose what to get for him, not like he had anything particular in mind. N looked over the messy nest and a thought popped up, maybe he could rearrange things to be neater as a make up for his accidental insult.
"Hey Uzi, would you mind if I sort out your home? Maybe like put the pillows against the walls and smoothen the covers a bit?" Uzi gave a small nod yes after a few seconds in thought, before walking to the entrance and unfurling her wings which made N jump.
Explains how she gets up here, but where were they stored? They were absolutely gigantic, way larger than any living flying creature of today. Appearance was odd to say the least, massive blades that looked like large feathers made up the bulk of it, where the actual part where the bones would lay had a strange hoop that split the wing in two, nothing connecting the wings to said hoop could be seen. They shot out of her back like a pocket knife, in a flash he couldn't catch, like a bug that moved too quickly for his eyes to pick up the movement.
Without another word Uzi promptly hopped out of the nest with a confidence only someone who had done an action hundreds of times before would possess. After some silence the whooshing of air could be heard as she took off, leaving N alone in here for the first time.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up, deciding to get to work immediately to pass the time whilst she was gone. He didn't know how long Uzi would take, but he doubted it would take her long, being a literal killing machine and all. He started off by smoothing the covers down in the nest, getting rid of any arcs sticking out and moved the more comfy and plush covers on top of the less comfy ones. All the reported missing bed covers over the years were definitely answered by the existence of her nest, tents having unnaturally massive gashes in them with nothing stolen except the covers.
Just as he was finishing up the ground he picked up one with a particularly nice feeling to it, an idea popped up into his mind.
"What if I make a mini nest for myself..." N spoke to nobody in particular. In all honesty Uzi's little 'bed' did look cosy, in a primordial animal in their den sort of way. N shuffled a bit closer to Uzi's bed to start his own, completely oblivious to his newfound boldness as he tried his best to make the rim of a nest, this one not being elevated and way smaller.
Turns out making a nest propped up on nothing was a difficult task, like baking- ok, maybe not as difficult at baking, Tessa made it seem so easy! After a while of thinking of Tessa's cooking and trying to make the rough shape of a nest he got something close enough, having to use pillows to get the shape done. It was slightly ovular and had three pillows he particularly liked, he hoped Uzi wouldn't mind.
N went to pick up the strewn around pillows and propped them up onto the sides of the nest, pulling the covers on the edges in the same fashion to make it transition to the pillows more naturally. He was three and a half quarters done before he heard Uzi's arrival by the rush of air from her wings, gliding gracefully to the entrance. N turned to look at her and saw Uzi with a whole fish grasped in a set of claws, blades slightly digging into the thing.
"Hi N, got- woah..." Uzi's words were lost on her, scanning her newly renovated home. The fish was dropped to the floor and he hand changed to normal as she transitioned onto all fours and went around inspecting every nook and cranny with an uncanny swift speed like a cat finding a new toy. N just looked at her befuddled but what he thought was happy chirps coming from Uzi quickly calmed him, he walked over to the discarded food on the floor and it was a fully intact fish minus the scratch marks, head and all. The smell of it made him gag, he didn't really know what he was expecting but he could absolutely not eat raw fish.
"You made a nest for yourself?" Uzi looked giddy.
"Well, yes Uzi, I did!"
"It looks nice." Uzi kept on looking back and forth from both beds, seemingly happy that N put his close. He only now just realized the proximity of the two but oddly enough... he didn't feel uncomfortable about it, Uzi really was just a lonely drone who was happy to have someone with her, and by now he had no worries about the possibility of her hurting him. After finishing the inspection and finishing off the pillow ridge herself Uzi went back on two legs and walked over to him with a quizzical look.
"You haven't eaten? Is it not good enough?" Her expression shifted into being more downcast, N's eyes hollowed in response to the shift in her demeanour.
"What? No it's perfect Uzi, it's just- I can't really just eat a whole fish without it being cooked at least." She thought for a moment before she realized what he meant, eyes lighting back up into something more neutral.
"Oh, right..." She palmed her face with her hand before picking up the fish and thinking hard on what to change her free one into, eventually settling on a device that looked like a blow torch.
Uzi then promptly 'cooked' it, as in blow torching the poor thing until its skin was nothing more than flaky carbon. Absolutely no care was put in to the procedure nor was any forethought put into the fact she was doing it somewhere so flammable, it was a miracle it didn't light the floor on fire! N looked at her what she was doing with wordless bemusement and slight horror, an undeniably nice action being executed in front of him with all the grace of someone falling off a ladder. It was funny to an extent, Uzi carried such an elegance to the things she already new yet was so clumsy when it came to doing anything new.
"Uhh, that's not how you cook something Uzi..." The murder drone gave him the now desecrated fish, hot to the touch there was no way any of the actual meat was cooked to an acceptable degree.
"Really? Looks cooked enough to me."
"Do you just eat the thing raw?" He flinched right after saying that, as it may of come off rude.
"Bite me! Cooking stuff is too much of a hassle and... I don't know how to do it, I guess." There wasn't any actual bite behind her words, more so coming from her naturally.
"Sorry Uzi, just curious. Would you... like me to teach you how to cook stuff? It's not that hard. Unless you're making cupcakes." Uzi's face changed to something he thought could be of nostalgia, he was fully anticipating Uzi wouldn't even know what those were but it seems she did, weird.
"Anything for you, N." Not what he was expecting for an answer, that was the kind of thing you would say to your partner, not someone you've essentially just met a few days ago. N just chalked it up to her awkwardness but it seemed a bit too chosen out to him.
"Well, let's get started then! First of all we need to be mindful to not set the den on fire..." The nest started to fill with N giving directions to Uzi who was eagerly listening to him, telling her how to prepare cuts of meat and how long you'd need to cook them and how to tell when something is ready, N letting all his anxiety wash away for a while.
Chapter 13: Courting
Notes:
Sorry this almost took a month to come out mental health has been a real pain lately, I'll probably rewrite this one in the future but it's better to get something out for now.
Chapter Text
Uzi's courting could of not been going worse. Everything she was trying was blowing back up in her face, first of all the inadequate nest she provided N, he himself rearranging it himself and improving the thing tenfold. Giving a good home was crucial and she failed. Second was giving her future mate anything he asked for within reason, after days he finally asked for something to eat, she provided him exactly what he wanted (and had to catch over a dozen fish to make sure it was of the highest quality) and it ended up with him teaching her a life skill!
Was any of this even necessary? She doubted N was even aware of her advances, Uzi wanted to be more forward at first but he responded negatively to physical touch. She was very aware of how horrible unwanted advances could be and N definitely wanted to take things slow, whether she'll be successful in claiming him at all hung heavy in her mind. For now she decided to just do what N wants her to, to the best of her abilities.
Didn't make her yearn any less for his touch though, wanting to hug him, hold him in her arms as she rested her chin on the top of his head as she contently purred in their shared nest. That would have to come later, hopefully. For now N making his own next to hers was enough to satiate her desires.
"Can you turn your hands into anything you want?" Uzi snapped out at hearing N's question, she forgot he was asking her tonnes of questions out of the blue, not like she minded him doing so though.
"Oh, yeah, as long as I can wield it and imagine it that is..." She showed this off by switching out both hands with puppets of both her and N, she swore his eyes turned into stars with how enamoured he was.
"Woah, cool! How is that possible?"
"I have no clue. Just always been able to do it." She swapped her hands over to the knife like claws she often wore by instinct, N flinched back a bit at the sudden reintroduction of the claws that made him fear for his life twice now. Uzi's LEDs hollowed out from his reaction and changed them out to her default hands immediately.
"Sorry Uzi, I-I know you didn't mean to hurt me." N rubbed the back of his head with an expression which Uzi saw as... shame?
"You shouldn't be saying sorry N, it was my fault... I scared you." The mood became downtrodden as Uzi's eyes darkened into remorsefulness. She cursed herself internally for using such counter intuitive measures to check of N's physical health, she's much larger and stronger and a worker drones are fragile. So easily he could of been cut or scratched or stabbed, the thought of his oil staining her hands from her own negligence was harrowing.
"Uzi? You ok? You seem kinda out of it-"
"Ok? Yeah I'm ok, okay?" Uzi's mind was a mess, so many intrusive thoughts mixing with her ever present instincts left her in a foggy state. She hated it. Why can't she just love him without having to worry about hurting him, why won't he reciprocate her feelings?
"I'm just curious, why did you do the whole looking at me thing when we first... met?" More like stolen from the woods, but he was lost in the woods though, right?
"Oh right, I was... checking you out?"
"UZI!" N's face exploded into a blush that covered half the screen, in vain desperately trying to cover it with his small hands. Uzi didn't have a clue why he reacted like that but seeing him react like that, a low rumble starting to vibrate from her core and tail starting to sway, this was much better then the spiral she was caught in only seconds prior.
"What? I was!" She gave him a quizzical look, N was casting his head aside to hide his fluster painted on his visor. The murder drone didn't have a clue to why he was acting like that, but the blushing had to be a good sign, maybe he was reciprocating after all.
"You don't- I get what you're trying to say but you don't say that!"
"Why?" Uzi couldn't read the room if it was an audio book. N's blush calmed down a bit but it was still visible on his screen, he never had anyone flirt with him before and the first time being from a near feral cryptid threw him through a loop.
"That's the kind of thing you say to someone you like, as in REALLY like." She did 'really' like him though! He was cute, adorable even, he was perfect for her! She was considering just throwing out the courting process entirely and just straight up telling him but decided to bite her tongue, it was a long process and she didn't want him possibly rejecting her for not being good enough.
"Uzi, look. Do you know what flirting with someone is?" He calmed his voice down to ask another question, this one he was sure he already knew the answer to already.
"Flirting? I don't I guess or whatever, bite me." She realized N was going to teach her about another thing, yet another failure on her part. 'I am terrible at this' she thought to herself.
"How do I put this..." N was racking his brain on trying to explain the concept, especially a concept someone of his age would've picked up on naturally over time. He had no experience outside of watching the rare romance movie V loved watching and he was taught better to ever take those sort of movies at face value, they definitely weren't a realistic depiction of how relationships start and flourish but it was all he had on the subject.
"So, if you like someone, you... say certain things to to win them over." He used his hands to make a quote gesture, Uzi gave a confused look at that which conveyed to him she didn't understand said gesture.
"I meant win by like, getting them? Having them as a partner I suppose and it's an indirect way to achieve that." He wasn't describing it well, N did know enough that romantic relationships weren't something you had to compete over.
"Wait- it isn't some sort of a competition but that's not important right now, I'm just saying that certain phrases like what you said are told to someone you're interested in." Thankfully it seemed like Uzi finally understood, her confused expression lightening.
"I see. N, I was checking you out."
N just sighed in defeat, head hanging low. She doesn't see the connotation behind it in the slightest, not like he blamed her, growing up in the middle of nowhere and... being some entity that was considered a relatively obscure legend to the masses. Only thinking about this now did Uzi have parents? Is Uzi the only real murder drone out there or were they truly some odd unknown entirely different build of drone? He didn't want to ask her about the possibility of parents, if she did have them she didn't mention them and didn't want to possibly bring up a sore subject.
"Thanks for seeing if I was hurt, I appreciate it." He rubbed his arm and a much smaller blush dusted under his eyes, this one coming on more naturally. Uzi was so confused by everything N said, it was just what she was trying to do but more... forward? Was this a weird round-a-bout way to him saying he actually liked her being more forward, or on the contrary was the drone truly naive to the courting process? Love is confusing. Him completely ignoring her throwing caution to the wind and directly telling him about her 'interest', as he put it, of him.
One thing did resonate with her though, this won't be some competition. Competition implies there was even a remote chance anyone else could get in her way, Uzi really meant it when she said she would do anything for N, if anything or anyone threatens him or get in the way of them being together she wouldn't stop at nothing in protecting him. Being out of other options, showing her physical prowess to him and making him feel safe was top priority now, maybe sprinkled with some of that 'flirting' he just taught her about.
Her tail swaying and purring grew more intense just thinking about it, N just took up to laying down on his nest and relaxing, seeing her unresponsiveness as the end of their strange interaction. Uzi was so hopelessly in love with him and she had to have him, herself not knowing how she'd react to rejection so she had to make sure it didn't happen.
Plopping herself on her own nest many daydreams entered her mind about their future together, if N wanted to take it slow that was fine! As long as it wasn't any longer than a few months. Imagining the things they'll do in the future together as a couple, her tail's vial tapping on the base of the bed. She looked over to N, he was looking at nothing in particularly before his gaze snapped to hers, giving the purple drone a sweet small smile.
"You ok Uzi?"
"Just seeing if you're ok N."
"It hasn't even been fifteen seconds."
"I know. Just like staring at you." N gave an amused hum at that, Uzi really was like a cat, definitely more on the terrifying tiger side then on the cute small house cat side but like a cat nonetheless, she even acted like one! It did remind N of his cat along with the rest of his family, but getting himself upset over that was not going to do him any good.
He just couldn't bring himself to even conceiving a serious escape plan, Uzi was... surprisingly nice to be around, she was understanding, albeit misguided in her actions but was fully capable of learning and improving on herself which he appreciated. She listened to what he wanted to her and tried her best to respect his boundaries, even if she was pushing the limits often. For a reason he couldn't place on, he hated the idea of leaving Uzi to be by herself again, she seemed so attached to him already and seeing her face genuinely brighten just by his presence added to his apprehensiveness on even imagining leaving her, being here just felt right.
On the other hand, Uzi turned in her nest, hugging herself and imagining N being in her arms. She was happy with the small amount of progress they got today, him blushing must of been a good sign what she was doing was getting somewhere. As unorthodox as this courtship was, maybe it will all work out in the end.
Chapter 14: Winter
Chapter Text
The first snow came a week late, if N had to guess. He had been trying to adjust to Uzi's more nocturnal life style and was sleeping in to the early afternoons at this point. The snow was blowing in the direction to the entrance of the nest, snow piling up at the entranceway. His reaction was excitement; N always went out to play in the snow with his little sister, Cyn always ran straight into his room and near enough dragging him off his bed to go outside. Only this time he wasn't in his room, he was stuck up somewhere high with a strangely friendly cryptid keeping him hostage? It didn't really feel like a hostage situation in spite of it showing all of the signs, Uzi wasn't intentionally threatening him and he hadn't even suggested the idea of going outside.
He really, really wanted to. Uzi wouldn't mind taking him outside, surely!
Speaking of her, she herself was stirring in her sleep, somehow she always knew when N woke up and was up with him within a minute.
"Afternoon, N." She fluttered open one of her eyes to regard him, the strange orbs on top of her head glowing one by one like some sort of loading bar, sluggishly sitting up in her nest when that was happening.
"Good afternoon Uzi! How did you sleep?" Uzi responded with an exaggerated stretch of her arms with a complimenting yawn, before deflating back into a hunched position. the silver haired drone before her was clearly excited about something, probably the snow outside. She smirked internally at that, cute.
"Fine. Has the snow outside gotten you excited?" Her tail started to lightly thump against the nest with her own excitement, seeing her mate happy never failed to make her happy in return.
"Yeah, I always liked playing outside when it snowed..." His look became something wistful before adjusting himself, much to the confusion to Uzi."
"A-and talking about outside... maybe we could possibly, potentially... go outside? N-not that I dislike being in here it's comfy and all but I... miss being outside." He looked to his side, bracing for the refusal coming his way which never came. He glanced back at Uzi, the murder drone having an alien sense of anxiousness on her purple LEDs.
"S-sure, just let me come with you. Don't want any uhm, animals attacking you or anything." Her behaviour was suspicious, to put it lightly. Weren't most large predators hibernating by now and why would Uzi care about one getting to him, she's the most dangerous thing around! Any animal foolish enough to challenge her would end up running away with their tail between their legs, if they're lucky. N didn't have an issue with the idea of Uzi being by his side, in fact he expected so, yet her usual confidence she carried was suddenly gone. What could possibly scare a murder drone?
"I'm fine with that, don't want another drone stealing me or anything." He forced out a laugh in an attempt to lighten the situation, Uzi did not like it. She rolled her eyes before standing up and getting close, way too close up in N's personal space. Before he could question what she was doing Uzi swooped N up into a bridal style carry. N's breath hitched as he looked up at her, fluster dusting his face.
"What? You said you didn't want someone else taking you?" She flashed him a cheeky fang-filled grin, making his blush worsen.
"Besides, don't know of any other way to bring you down." She started to walk over to the entrance, slow deliberate steps which were so fluid it felt like N was floating instead of being carried.
Her wings shot out from behind her back with a faint shing sound, like a knife scraping against another. N braced himself by instinctively holding onto Uzi as she hopped out of the nest. For a moment he felt completely weightless, being stolen by gravity as Uzi dived down with her wings close to her body before spreading them out and shoot upwards into the sky. The silver haired drone yelping in surprise and gripped on her tighter as she carried him off to somewhere far off, the wind and flecks of snow hitting his head as she went at speeds to rival a fighter jet.
Eventually Uzi started to slow down and softly descend before touching the ground, N didn't even realize she did until he opened his eyes. To say the spot Uzi chose out for him was stunning would be a drastic understatement, a cliff formation with a large waterfall that fed into a plunge pool and a stream carrying off the water deeper into the forest. The snow piled up to the banks and small chunks of ice floated on top of the water, carried down the stream. The whole visage was serene, a backdrop of rushing water the only sound he could hear apart from his own breathing.
"You like it? It's my favourite spot I've found."
"Like it? Uzi it's gorgeous!" N's jaw was on the floor, drinking in all the scenery with every scan of the place over another thing to appreciate he missed made itself known.
"I like to come here when I just want to sit down, think about things in peace..." Uzi walked over to the bank of the plunge pool and sat down cross-legged, tail swishing in the snow making an arced indent as she patted the ground next to her, beckoning N to sit next to her. N accepted the offer and sat down, cross-legged like the drone next to him, he couldn't help but be reminded of sitting with his sister like this but shook the thought out of his head. No good to mope around, he'll see his family again one day, he tells himself.
"It's a lovely spot Uzi, how did you find it?"
"Aimless wandering mostly, being by yourself gives you plenty of free time." Her accompanying laugh felt more like to soothe herself than anything genuine, he can't imagine how it must of been for her to be alone like this for so long. For a while they just sat in silence, Uzi was mindlessly staring at the water while the orbs on her head shifted in different intensities of purple, almost as if they were scanning the general area. From what her LEDs told him she seemed a bit on edge despite not looking at anything in particular, N was growing worried.
"Are you doing ok? You seem stressed, Uzi..." She jumped at his words, eyes hollowed and the band on her head ceasing the colour shifting immediately.
"I'm fine." He knew she was lying, and with a confidence he's built up with her he decided to push a bit.
"I don't think you're fine, want to walk with me and talk about it?"
"No." Her expression becoming more aggressive as she stared him down, he shrank a little as his own eyes hollowed. The murder drone had an innate ability to make everything more intense, even the forest around them seemed to recoil a bit. Her anger soon faded back into something more distraught, stress lines started to appear under her eyes as she casted her eyes back to the water in what he thought was shame.
"H-honestly a walk with you would be kind of nice, sorry for... that." N gave a shaky dual thumbs up as Uzi got up, he raised with her and started to make their ways down stream.
"So, what do those orbs on your head do?" In the middle of a conversation N had to finally pipe up about what the strange band across her head was, his curiosity about them was getting too much and he just had to know.
"Oh, those? Thought you'd ask sooner, but they're uhm... sensors? Kind of? I can see out of them even when my main 'eyes' are closed, but only if I want to.
"Ahh I see, so that's how you know when I wake up? Do they do anything else?"
"Sure is, I can also make them see the heat coming off of stuff, makes finding let's say, you much easier." Uzi was more relaxed now, even though she was still scanning the skies every few minutes as if she was anticipating something. What that something could be N had no clue, he decided not to push her about it any further though, even if it worried him.
"So thermal vision then? That's awesome!"
"Sure is helpful, along with my hearing, I could hear a twig snap way further than my eyesight if I concentrated." She was trying to impress him and it was working wonders, N kept on asking all sorts of things about her anatomy and she gladly responded with as much detail as possible. A deep, soft rumble started to reverberate out of her chest as N kept on admiring her capabilities that steadily grew in intensity.
By now it was starting to get dark and the snow was starting to pick up again, even though Uzi preferred the nights she was mirroring N's sleeping schedule to spend as much time with him as possible throughout the late afternoons and evenings. Thankfully N was putting in the effort to change his sleep schedule, becoming more crepuscular in an attempt to mirror her own.
"Think it's time to go to the nest Uzi, weather's getting a bit wild. You can uhm, p-pick me up." He started to blush a bit, remembering how she swooped him up so effortlessly before. This time wasn't any different, even carrying him with the same bridal position as she spread her wings and shot up into the sky, N probably wouldn't even get used to the sensation of ascending so quickly, it was exhilarating. He decided to close his eyes and focus on the adorable purr that was coming out of Uzi's chassis as she cleared swaths of forest, returning home in only a minute.
Uzi fluidly stuck the landing into the nest, both of them had good amounts of snow in their hair. Instead of letting N go immediately she carried him over to his own nest and sat down with him in her lap.
"U-Uzi what are you doing?" He was blushing pretty hard as he felt her warm, purring body pressed against his own, usually he would push her away but honestly... this time it felt nice.
"Trying to clear up your hair, got quite a bit a snow on your head, not like I could tell easily." N's blush somehow worsened even more at the compliment.
"Oh wait I'm not supposed to be-"
"N-no Uzi, please stay, it's kind of nice." Uzi was extremely happy to hear this, purring intensifying as she started to thread his hair without another word, getting rid of any ice chunks with help of her body heat and getting rid of any knots. She was planning to say something in response but it didn't feel necessary, N was clearly enjoying it and that was satisfying enough. Uzi was so, so happy with him willingly letting her be so close to him, being able to touch him and this time around, it felt way more natural than the times she forced physical contact. After making sure his hair was rid of any specks of snow and hair was silky smooth she started to shift, getting him off without actually moving him, N looked at Uzi with mild surprise as she gave him a smile in response.
"Ok, your turn." She said before suddenly flopping her head onto his lap.
"My turn?"
"Yeah? I need my hair to be cleaned up too you know." She looked up at him with a small blush of her own and an expecting look, N couldn't really argue with that, she did just give him the best hair do he's ever had. N was a bit sloppy compared to the more refined method of the purple-haired drone, trying his best to mimic how she did it. Uzi was enjoying it a ton, her purring couldn't get any louder, eyes closed and focusing on his touch. At one point N had to glide his palm across one of her sensors and her whole body jolted before her head nuzzled into his palm, demanding more of it. He gave her what she wanted and started to rub small circles on them, it felt oddly intimate doing this, but he came to the realization he was fine with that.
Notes:
Robo romance yes... YES!!
Chapter 15: Boiling
Summary:
Oh my, Cyn's gone feral.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"No! Cyn, quit it! Stop trying to eat the abacus!" J scolded Cyn, picking up the item and the offender with it, still hanging on by her teeth while her body limply swayed. J shook the abacus roughly until her little sister finally lost grip and tumbled onto the living room floor.
"Ouch. Not my fault it looks like a candy ring, big sister J." She gave said sister an irritated stare while V stifled a laugh from behind her. The continued absence of N has made Cyn ravenous, her initial depressive episode boiled over into a horrible and aggressive attitude, refusing to come out of her room unless she was forced to by their mother. J and V didn't have the courage to get Cyn out of her bedroom themselves.
"I'm trying to be nice here!" J's was at the end of her patience, even if said patience was short to begin with. She was trying her sincere best to fill the void N left since he went missing, whilst she couldn't mirror his energy (seriously, how was he so chipper all the time?) she tried making up with what she thought Cyn and V liked.
Turns out J's idea of 'fun' is different to most people. She's learnt a lot from only this afternoon, mostly that her sisters' interests are even weirder than she previously thought. She tried to combine her love for business with V's love for the supernatural and Cyn's love for... anything that's nature-themed and gross, yet with all her efforts to incorporate these in her own special way they didn't enjoy it.
"Angry pout. I don't want to count Mr. Mangoes' tax rates, he avoids them like a good fruit." She picked up tore apart yet another paper that had concepts Cyn couldn't be bothered to understand, a drone like her should be outside having a tea party with a family of snow people she created, with her big brother. Her big brother... she didn't have the slightest clue where he could of went, and she still blames herself for his disappearance, her anger is mostly spilled out from her own self-loathing, if she didn't have that stupid idea of going out further than mother Tessa allowed she wouldn't be without N and sitting in the living room with her deadbeat big sister.
"Oh come on, tax rates are a fascinating idea!"
"Taxes are lame and you're lamer!"
"Why you little-" V was watching both of her siblings start to get in a one-sided argument with each other, more like Cyn mocking J's obsession with all that boring stuff that would be filed in papers. She did appreciate the attempt from J to mix the two together but cryptids definitely weren't the kind to care for 'the correct way to do a handshake before a meeting' and neither did she. J and her got along relatively well but she had to admit she was pretty difficult at times, finding herself silently agreeing with her younger sister more often than not, even if Cyn's way of expressing so were unusual, to say the least.
"Murh murh murh, blurh blurh blerh blerh." Cyn was mockingly making one of her hands into a facsimile into a mouth, moving it up and down along with her equally teasing nonsense talk. V knew where exactly where this would end up if she didn't intervene and she did not want the yellow drone aggressively biting into the pig tailed one's arm or leg again, the one time it got that far it ended up being extremely oily and V did not want it happening ever again.
"Uhm, J I think this is-" She tugged on her arm but J didn't acknowledge her, completely locked onto the offending drone who was purposely winding her up.
"Why do you have to be so difficult Cyn!? I've been trying my absolute best to entertain you and you're being SO difficult! What would your big bro-"
"What." Uh oh. J definitely went too far now.
"O-ok guys, we should probably stop now..." V tried to de-escalate the situation the best she could but the low growling coming from the little drone on the floor signalled it was too late.
"J, you know that's a sore spot for her, seriously?" She whispered to J after tugging on her arm hard this time, thankfully it got her attention and the look of 'I just messed up' was written all over her face.
"I-I thought it would-" J whispered back, only to see V was locked onto Cyn this time, eyes hollowed and jaw dropped.
"J, when did Cyn have... fangs!?" She snapped her head to see her enraged sister. Cyn's pose was like of an animal, half way between a cat in ambush and a frog ready to leap right at them. Her own eyes were rings and a fierce snarl plastered on her face, this time with two small fangs on her upper teeth, looking like some sort of robo-vampire. How does a robot even grow canines? Cyn was odd but this was plain ridiculous! The little drone was slowly closing in on the two, though she was focused solely on J, the growl in her throat getting louder as she neared.
"Hey hey hey Cyn w-we can come to a compromise, just stop being all scary for us o-ok?" J tried to mediate the situation but it was all for naught, it only made Cyn approach further. V was positively freaked out now, she did not need a vampire for a sister and her instincts were screaming at her to run.
"Mom, mommm Cyn's acting weird and she has teeth!" V bolted off to the kitchen where Tessa was, leaving the pig-tailed drone alone with the feral one. Cyn having a way to actually grip onto the things she bites is a harrowing one, the last time she was bitten by her was bad enough (even if J did admit she kind of deserved it after pranking Cyn with an empty christmas present) but with the newfound fangs alongside her pre-existing strength the small drone could easily rip J's arm off if given the chance.
"C-cyn we can talk this through, alright?" The plea fell on deaf ears, the recipient way too rageful to listen or care to. J defensively raised her arms, rather have a forearm missing than the front of her visor whilst Cyn stopped stalking towards her, now at perfect striking distance. Her grit teeth split apart, fully showing off the fangs to the world as she poised to strike, going completely still. J froze with her, anticipating to be mauled by her own sister of all things.
"BITE-" Cyn pounced with intent to take a chunk out of J but a hand snatched her by the back of her shirt at the last moment, mere inches away from J's face as Tessa brought the aggressor up to her eye level, holding Cyn up like a kitten who was caught being too rough.
"Surprised. H-hi mother Tessa." All of Cyn's anger was immediately dashed into shamefulness, unable to look at her mother so she took to staring down at the floor.
"Yeah, Hi. Did you try to take a chunk out of J again?"
"Reluctant nod, big sister J made me upset."
"What did I say about biting things that make you upset, gorgeous? You know better! " Tessa took to checking Cyn's teeth with her free hand, much to her surprise two small fangs were present. V took this opportunity to go back to J's side and shook her a little, snapping J out of being frozen in place to glare at her.
"And where did you get those teeth! Drones aren't supposed to have little fangs, did you add them yourself or something?"
"I would never mother Tessa, they came in by themselves." J and V just watched the other two as Tessa bought the youngest into a hug as Cyn started to sob into her shoulder, the whole teeth situation would have to wait.
"Girls, what actually happened? I've never seen her that worked up before." While Cyn was definitely being irrational J did start it, as much as it hurt her ego to admit that. The words got stuck in her throat so V took the mantle to do the explaining.
"J and Cyn were playing but she didn't like what J was offering her, they got into a fight and then J said something about... about how N would react to her behaviour." Cyn tensed at the drop of N's name, pressing herself further onto her mother as she began to shake slightly. She only ever did that when she was really upset.
"Is that true J? You should know better than that..." The disappoint on her mom's face hurt. She looked over to V who also was starting to tear up a little which didn't stifle her guilt any less.
"I'm sorry Tess, I didn't mean to- I know talking about him effects her and I'm sorry about that."
"I'm not the one to be saying sorry to but I don't think Cyn's in the mood for one right now. I don't blame either of your but please be more understanding with her, she's going through a lot." Tessa decided to leave it at that, walking off to the stairs while asking Cyn about her fangs, the drone not giving any sort of response.
"Hey, J? I just wanted to let you know I do appreciate what you're doing but maybe next time you should ask us for what we would like. I know you like being your own boss but sometimes input from others is better." J was taken aback by usually shy drone's forwardness, V wasn't the type to talk much but her opinion definitely helped with trying to wrap her CPU around the other two's interests.
V decided to sit down on the nearest couch and turned on the TV to some channel with a show about competitive window wiping. J decided to follow suit and sit on the opposite side of her sister.
"How did Cyn get those fangs anyways?" J said, she was still utterly perplexed where they came from.
"Honestly, with Cyn? There's no use to question it." J simply hummed in agreement to that.
Notes:
By the way I do read every comment I get, I just don't know how to respond unless it's a direct question. ;-;
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