Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I stabbed the chest of my father with a knife held in my oil-covered hands,

Again,

And again,

And again,

the oil had already gotten cold after the 11th strike, his visor displaying a fatal error message blinking off and on,

My hands started to shake, as i looked onto his face i felt my hands lifting up the knife, this time aiming towards his visor, i could barely contain my laughter

this bastard was gonna get what he deserved,

As my hands were about to further disfigure the monster, they let go, the knife falling down next to the head,

I felt as if i was being choked, i looked down, and i was,

Hands, connected to arms leading up to his body

His grip around my neck got tighter and tighter, as i was slammed into the wall behind me,

i slowly started to suffocate, i try to pry the hands off my neck but they wouldnt budge,

My vision grew darker and darker, before i saw a door open, white light spilling out of i-

Uzi felt a rough, jagged surface connecting to the side of her body, and cold air breezing through her skin, She felt disoriented, her head aching as she slowly opened her eyes,

Everything was blurry for a while, she could barely make out the black blobs around her, but when everything finally swam into focus,

she was greeted by a corpse of a nation drone right infront of her, its head caved in from what was probably a mace

"AGH WHAT THE FUCK"

the sound echoed through the vast tunnels as she yelled, she quickly sat herself up crawling away from the body,

It was officer emily, uzi noticed, now taking a good look at it, shame, she actually liked that one, one of the few officers that was actually nice to her,

Uzi scanned the area, it seems she had passed out during a skirmish, corpses consisting of both empire and nation (mostly nation) littered the tunnels around her, most of their lanterns and flashlights already dead,

Uzi searched through her pockets checking what items she still had, a combat knife, a medkit, a pickaxe, a lighter, an empty pack of cigarettes (she could really use one right now), her judgement rifle, and only 1 round...

shit,

As uzi was inspecting the round, she heard a faint, distant, light tapping behind her, uzi knowing they were footsteps quickly loaded in the round and aimed her rifle at where she thought the sound came from,

Nothing,

She hears it again, to the left, closer this time,

Nothing,

Again, even closer, to the right,

Nothing

Uzi was getting frustrated, she doesnt know where the sound is coming from and it keeps getting closer,

Again, right behind her, awfully close,

as uzi aimed towards the tunnel, she catches a glimpse of a white hood, her hands instictivley squeeze the trigger at the site, wasting her only round,

"SHIT!" Uzi yelled not caring if anyone would hear her at this point. This was really bad, not only has uzi wasted her last round, but shes alone with an enemy jeager,

Uzi remembered how cruel jeagers from both empire and nation were, she even saw one stab an enemy soldat in both of its eyes and cut the hands off during the middle of battle, made her almost feel bad for their victim, almost,

Uzi attempts an escape, trying to remember which routs lead back to her base, as she sprinted through the caverns she heard the jeager behind her, running just as fast- no even faster than uzi could,

Her blood ran cold as she felt a hand tug at her cloak then immediately pulled her into the jeagers chest, a blade is then gently placed infront of her neck,

shit,

shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

Shes going to fucking die, oh shit this was really fucking bad what is he going to to to her is he goingtofuckingkillherrapeherepleasefortheloveofgodhowwillshegetbacktothadohgo-

"Hmm, interesting, looks like the they missed a heretic"

Uzi felt tears well up from the corners of her eyes, Why, why was she crying? She's supposed to be strong, she has been in worse situations before, why now?,

Uzi gulped, "please... please let me li-"

"Shut it," The jeager interrupted, silence filling the space around them before he continues  "how about i give you a favor, i'll let you go, let you run back to your comrades, and do whatever you do"

"but, ill have to give chase, and lemme tell ya i am a fast runner, and if i catch you" he jeager produced a whip from behind his belt, seemingly made out barbed wire, with a blade at the end,

"ill have some fun with you, infact, ill give ya a 5 second head start, what do you think",

"The last one... please..."

"..."

He lets go of her cloak and pushes her forward, and uzi wastes no time running as fast as she could, through caverns and tunnels to get back to her base, stepping over dead bodies, and trying her best not to trip

The 5 seconds were over, she could hear the jeager giving chase,

Closer

Closer,

And closer,

Uzi could see the royal nation base, the evacuation doors still wide open, her legs were growing tired already, but she forced herself to continue,

Uzi then felt a hand grab the back of her head and slam her to the wooden floor, shit, uzi thought, she then grabbed her combat knife and jabbed to the combatant behind her,

He blocked it and tried pinning her hand back down forgetting the rest of her body resulting in her delivering an elbow strike to his face, hurt a bit because of his mask,

The jaeger recoiled accidentally letting her go, giving her the chance to roll each other over and try to stab jeager on the ground, he grabbed her arms trying to push the knife away,

This clearly wasn't going to work, the jeager was stronger than her evident by the fact that he was slowly turning the knife around back to her, until out of the corner of her eye she spots a negotiator pistol, the jeager notices it too,

Uzi quickly threw the knife aside and bolts towards it, and he tries grabs her legs to stop her, but it was too late, she grabs the pistol, not even checking if it had a round in it,

She quickly aimed the pistol towards the jeager,

And then, she squeezed,

His head exploded into a black mist, the buckshot tore through his thin mask and ripped the back of his hood,

The body slumped onto the wooden floor, headless, uzi did too, panting heavily lying on her back, exhausted by the encounter,

"Fuck" uzi said, in a worn out tone, "i really need a smoke"

Uzi then heard a wet noise coming from the body, accompanied by whirring and beeps, she sat up, and saw it "what the fuc- shit!" Uzi quickly looked around, and saw a decapitated arm from an empire mortician beside her,

She immedietly took the arm and in a feeble attempt to kill him again, hit him in the head with it, his eyes appeared on his visor, yellow ovals staring at purple ones,

"Did you just hit me with that arm?"

"...Huh?"

Chapter Text

"did, did you just hit me with that arm" the jaeger said, with quite of an adorable voice, what? Uzi thought, Was he that confused about the fact that uzi used a severed arm of another soldat to slap him in the head?

Okay now that she thinks about it that is kind of an odd choice of weapon, wait but, why isn't it attacking her, is he asking why she had chosen an arm to attack him with before finally torturing her?

Kinda unlikely but what else

"Huh?" She finally let out, feeling her cpu frying at the spot,

He rubbed the back of his head before giving a small chuckle "yeah...sorry its just uh, my head kinda hurts, hey, you new to our squadron? Never seen ya before"

Oh, did something go wrong when this jaeger regrow its head? Possibly, one of his head bulb things were also red possibly hinting at that

Also he seemed awfully kind for a jaeger, maybe it could be a trick? Could he be just giving her false hope just so he could see it crumble, or something actually went wrong with regrowing his head,

"Though... pardon me but, you're a little uhh" the jaeger said, now taking a closer look at her,

"Short, for an empire drone" he continued, looking even closer at uzi,

A pregnant silence filled the room

Shit, uzi thought, before she mentally started begging the lord above that it was the latter

"..." And closer

Uzi eyed the evacuation doors, maybe she could throw the severed arm at him before making a run for it through the maze

"..." And closer

Then, he moved his arm, uzi flinched before noticing that he was moving his hand to his head to give a, salute? "i am jaeger serial designation N! a squire of the 3rd company in the 7th infantry regiment of the Golden empire, nice to meet you"

Oh thank fucking god, uzi thought as she let out a sigh she didnt know that she was holding

Also what kind of name was serial designation N? Did these guys not have real names?

The jaeg- N then continued "im kind of the best jaeger in my regiment, thats not true everybody tells me im useless and terrible"

"Wait" he then seemed to realize what he said before recoiling at himself with his tail straightening upwards "i wasn't supposed to tell you that part!"

He looks away and clenches his fist "biscuits" before sighing and looking back at uzi "well, honesty is the best policy"

he chuckles before putting a hand on his chin in a wondering gesture "Also i cant seem to remember seem to remember the past 3 hours of my life" 

"Ah, but i'm sure that'll sort itself out" he says while waving his hand horizontally as if he was putting what he just said aside before finally resting his hands on his hips

Uzi stood there awkwardly trying to process everything he just said before forcing herself to respond,

"uh-huh, i, uh, have to... Go" she says before swinging the arm some how making it point to the evacuation door,

He looked confused as she took her first steps, and as he looked like he was about to say something she felt a wave of a sharp, pounding, pain, emenating from the side of her head

It caused her to drop her improvised weapon and reach under her helmet so she could rub her head as a feeble attempt to relieve some of the pain

"Oof, hit you're head in something?, hold on i think i can find some hydrocodone here" he looked around, spotting the body of what was once a mortician,

He walked over to it before crouching down and grabbing a blue vial and green bottle from the morticians kit,

He poured the vials contents into the green bottle before throwing it at uzi's feet, causing a blue mist to appear around her,

Uzi could already feel the pain fading as the hydrocodone seeped into her system, "thanks, i guess" she said adjusting her helmet before turning around,

As she began to walk to the evacuation door again before she heard N's voice "hey uh, you do know we are not authorized to go through there right?"

Shit, uzi thought

"Plus y'know theres a maze behind those doors and, you could get lost" he continued as uzi looked back at him seeing him point towards the door,

Damn she really forgot he was an empire drone, 

a short pregnant silence filled the room once more,

Uzi finally answered "oh, uh, yeah, i uhh... Forgot" she was terrible at this, uzi thought, no way in fucking hell he would believe that

Fortunately for her, he did, "alrighty then, hey, lets go back to point bellum, after J and V are done checking the dead bodies"

God damnit,

They traversed through the vast tunnels and caverns of the battlefield again, heading to point bellum

As N walked, he stabbed each nation drone body he passed by with his sword

Behind him was uzi, who was mentally panicking out of her mind, she constantly looked back, seeing how far they had traversed and how far away base was,

God fucking damnit, she thought, shes gonna have to run all the way back to her base again, and theres gonna be even more enemies thats gonna try to catch her

J and V she remembered him calling them,

god, she really needed to smoke, 

They had arrived at point bellum, a manufacturing compound, still covered in bodies of nation and empire drones alike

Uzi was used to this kind of sight, she had served 16 years in the war after all,

N was still new though, uzi could tell since she was now beside him and could see visible discomfort and... Something else, on his face

"Hey uh, you okay big guy?" Uzi said, lightly tapping him on the side

N perks up at the gesture "oh uh, yeah, just... It..." He trailes off "Nevermind"

They pick a table to sit on, waiting for the rest of the empire drones to come, 

"Hey uh, you mentioned other empire drones here?" She said, while picking up a lighter and a cigarette pack from the corpse of a nation officer, "yeah, 2 others, what about em?" He responds while tilting his head to the side

"Yeah, uh what are they like?" Uzi said as she sat down, flicking the lighter and bringing the flame up to the cigarette in her mouth,

She felt a warmth in her chest before removing the cigarette, letting out a series of small puffs of smoke while she leaned back,

She felt more relaxed now

"Oh you'll love them, first theres V" uzi notices a slight blush on his face as he moved his head to the side a bit

"Shes a lancer and shes the one of the best soldier in the entire regiment, shes also, one of my oldest friends," he looks back at uzi "she may be a lancer but the stuff she does would make her fit in perfectly with the jaeger corp"

"yknow, one time while she was ripping apart a nation drone alive, i asked her to watch the surface with me" 

"And there was another lancer and a soldat nearby so she acts as if she doesnt know who i am!" He chuckles grimacing slightly "but im sure its all just a practical joke, Infact sometimes she even does it when no one's around us!"

The both of them are silent again

"Soo obviously a lot of mutual respect there" he continues "but secretly," he moves his hand to the side of his mouth and leans towards her, speaking in whispering tone "i actually kind of have a crush on her"

"You cant tell her okay!" He quickly yells before giving a slight chuckle,

He looks at her again with a panicked expression

Uzi responds by doing a zipping motion on her mouth before giving him a reassuring smile

"Uh then theres J, our officer" he continues, giving an obviously forced smile at the mention of his squadrons officer

"she is uh, kind of strict and, uh, always trying to make me do the best i can, she may be a little harsh and also called me worthless and terrible" he continues

"But, shes always trying to push the squadron to do better" yeah, hes definettly making her look better than she actually is, uzi thought, puffing out another stream of smoke

"Hey!, i just realized you never really told me your name" N questioned tilting his head to the side once again, 

"Oh, shit um" uzi responded before thinking for a second, "uh, serial designation U, but call me uzi" 

"Hm, nice name!" N said, before noticing the sound of the pitter patter of his comrades and a yellow light coming out of a tunnel in the corner of his eye, 

He perks up, turning his head at the tunnel

"Oh hey they're back, you'll-" he trailes off once again, as he turned his head back to the direction of where uzi sat, before noticing she was gone, only thing marking her presence was a cigarette pressed into the table

"u-uh.." he looked around the compound in confusion, wasnt uzi just here?

"IDIOT" he heard, clearly from the voice of his officer

Uzi RAN out of the compound, panting as she quickly picked up the first gun she could see which was an honour pistol from the hand of what was once a rook,

Behind her, a lancer crouched on the roof of the left factory, giggling as she noticed live prey bolting towards their base,

"yo! We got a heretic out there i kinda wanna practice balloon animal shapes with" she said as she walked over the edge toward where J and N were

"What happened here?" She questioned, noticing the red bulb on top of N's head,

"Synergistic liability over here must have tripped and knocked his own ass offline" J answered as she slapped noah causing him to do a system reboot,

"Moron bot, hello?" J continues, clicking her fingers at his face,

His eyes widened when all of his memories hit him all at once

Him noticing the purple figure in the caves,

The flash of buckshot from the negotiator pistol

The staticy figure that called itself uzi faded into the body of a nation drone,

Uzi, was a nation drone,

She, was his enemy,

"Oh" N said, his face turned into an expression of worry as he turned his head, following the track of footsteps to a tunnel, leading towards the nation base,

"ohhhhh!" N said, realizing at what just happened,

"I- uh- mm- uhh" he stammered trying to explain what had just happened before deciding, fuck it, and just blitzing right after uzi,

J sighed as they both gave disapproving looks to noah before gesturing to v to follow suit,

As uzi sprinted back towards her base again before she heard the suppressed gunshots of a whisper rifle behind her before she saw bullets impact the rock around her,

Damnit, uzi thought before she pointed her pistol where she thought the gunshots originated from and let off 3 rounds, the cracking sound almost deafening her due to the enclosed space she was in,

Two of the rounds hit N in the shoulder and abdomen, causing him to hiss in pain and pull out a first aid pouch

Uzi turned around seeing a throwing axe being flinged at her, she braces as the axe only serves to knock off her helmet, she looks back up only to see a charging lancer running straight for her, V, uzi remembered N calling her

Uzi sidestepped V's lance pushing it out of the way as she bashed the lancer in the side of her head with the honour pistol,

Before uzi could shoot the downed lancer she flinches at the sound of 2 other gunshots from N's whisper rifle and the officer J's talon revolver,

Uzi took another route to her base away from the line of fire from N and J

There,

She could see it,

The white light and concrete of the nation base,

She stepped foot from the right entrance of the base to the wooden ground once again, bolting towards the evacuation door, 

Uzi heard the war cry of a charging V again, uzi stopped narrowly avoiding the lancer before shooting her 2 times in the back as she impacted the wall, 

Uzi turned around immedietly blocking the sword of the empire officer before pulling out a mace and whacking off the talon revolver in her hand and striking her in the head, knocking off her shako

Then, uzi felt a pounding, sharp, stinging sensation in her shoulder, "FUCK" uzi said before lifting her honour pistol and firing 2 more rounds at him making him duck for cover,

Uzi immedietly turned around heart pounding as she dashed inside the dark tunnel behind the evac doors as she heard the sound of gunshots and throwing axes narrowly missing her,

V, J, and N all gathered up infront of where the nation drone had just escaped, the first one left supporting herself with her lance, the officer left dealing with a terrible headache and the jaeger slumped in dejection

J pinched the bridge of her nose groaning in frustration,

"God fucking damnit N"