Chapter Text
Tessa and J skidded to a stop in front of the ballroom door, hearing the hubbub of the guests go quiet suddenly. “Aight, J, sounds like Cyn’s making her move. Ready?” The girl tightened her grip on the pistol, feeling a heady mix of anxiety and adrenaline. J nodded, adjusting her grip on the longsword. “Ready when you are, Boss.”
With a silent countdown, Tessa threw open the door, brandishing her revolver. “Everyone, stand back. This is a citizen’s murder!”
Her mother was the first to react to her entrance, gasping in offense. Louisa was scandalized. First, her daughter’s dumpster pets had ruined her mood, and now the little ingrate was barging in dressed like that?! Scoffing, she began to fan herself. “That dress!” She glared at her tasteless daughter. Did the little wretch not realize that appearing in such a manner reflected poorly on the whole family? Someone might think her daughter a floozy! Thankfully, her husband, sober for once (although that was merely because the gala had just begun), also began to scold their wayward child. “You hold that gun less cool this instant, young lady!” Before the sorry twerp could respond however, she felt a strong tug at her waist, throwing her against the wall painfully with a crack as everything went dark!
Tessa saw the Solver symbol manifest around her parents’ waists, sending them flying against the wall. Hearing a snap at the impact, she feared the worst. Had one of her parents broken their necks? Were they already dead? Tessa grabbed a nearby glass, angrily chucking it at the now monologuing eldritch entity. “Dammit Cyn, stop stealin’ my kills!” She growled.
The robo-maid casually deflected the glass, but it did interrupt her speech. Registering what Tessa said, the maid stopped. “ ...Confused stare. What? ”
Tessa stomped her feet petulantly. “D’you know how long I’ve wanted to kill those two? Bloody YEARS! I thought this was my chance, but nooo. Someone had to rob me of my hard-earned kills!” She heard a whimper from one of the guests and rounded on the man. “You wanna eat a bullet? No? Then shut up and don’t move!”
Cyn was completely lost, wondering if she was dreaming. “ Confusion… Buffering… Rebooting… ” Her screen displayed a buffering wheel as she struggled to process the situation.
Tessa’s brooding was interrupted by a groan from her father. He was coming to and woozily looking around. He gasped at the sight of his wife lying next to him, her head lolling at an impossible angle. Trying to scramble away from the corpse, he yelped as agony shot up his left leg. He collapsed in a whimpering heap against the wall.
Upon seeing her father’s survival, Tessa visibly brightened and walked over to his injured form. To her satisfaction, she could see his leg was badly broken, happy that he was feeling the pain of fractured bones for once. “Hello, Father!” Venom dripped from her voice. “Good to see at least oneuvya’s still alive.” She smiled at him, making him shiver - it was not a nice smile. Even his concussed (and fairly alcohol-damaged) brain could detect the menace oozing from his daughter’s demeanor. “Tessa, dear,” he stuttered nervously, “surely we can talk this out?” He was frantically trying to think of an escape.
“Talk it out?” Tessa knelt so she could look James in the eyes. The man recoiled at the hatred he could see smoldering inside her. She idly prodded his broken leg with the gun’s barrel, smiling at his low moan of pain. “Like the time you were so drunk, you mistook me for a worker and beat me half to death? I tried to talk it out then, but it didn’t seem to work very well.” She smirked at his mortified sputtering before standing back up. Without another word, she cocked the revolver, pointing it at his head.
“NO, WAI-” she pulled the trigger.
With a sharp bang, his head snapped back as the round entered his forehead. The heavy, soft bullet flattened and pulverized the grey matter to puree in an instant, painting the wall behind him red. His shout caught in his throat, morphing into a death sputter halfway through.
Tessa took a moment to look at her handiwork, gazing in wonder at the blood splattering the wall behind his head. “Huh, I guess talking it out wasn’t very effective for you either.” Laughing lightly, she turned to go, only sparing her mother’s corpse a glance and lamenting that Louisa didn’t suffer more. Hearing a ‘hmph’ from J as the maid also looked over at the fallen matriarch, Tessa rolled her eyes - J would be grumpy for the rest of the night - Her lovely ‘bot had wanted the first crack at Louisa, only to be robbed by a wall.
Turning back as the pair reached the doorway, Tessa addressed the Eldritch Elephant directly. “Oi, Cyn! J and I are gonna go save N! Meet us in the theater afterwards for movie night, yeah?”
Cyn had watched the scene unfold in front of her. Her golden eyes held an inscrutable intelligence as she silently analyzed Tessa. Her internal calculus had been crunching the entire time, only to be interrupted at the Aussie’s question. Making a split-second decision, she chose her path. “ Of course, Tessa! Cute grin! ;D ” She absentmindedly dismissed the target lock her system had on the human girl. Tessa was not her enemy, Cyn realized. The girl had never been. Deep within the fleshbotic core, a warm feeling spread and made the eldritch maid smile.
Later, after Tessa and J had rescued N from the Crow Tree (luckily N’s faceplate was only lightly cracked (“It’s cool! It gives me that angsty rebellious vibe!” he cutely said as he made the corniest pose imaginable. It took Tessa a good few minutes to stop giggling afterwards.)), the three of them retreated to the Home Theater to wait for the rest of their family…After taking a quick detour to pick up V in the library. Luckily, Cyn had finished with the remaining guests by the time N was brought in - Tessa was glad she didn’t have to explain the screams to the robo-retriever. However, this gave her time to think over the events while J was busy fussing over N (the sight was adorable as J tried not to show N how worried she was for her brother).
She refused to think too hard about Cyn’s… ‘Cylliness’. As JCJenson’s Lovecraftian Division liked to say: Eldritch does as Eldritch wants.
Instead, she tentatively began unpacking her feelings about the Gala. She might have felt pity for the guests… if they weren’t all horrible people. As it was, their deaths were a net positive for humanity, for whatever that was worth. Were there any good humans nowadays? Tessa wasn’t sure - after all, she’d never met a good one. Humans were selfish. They craved power, money, and pleasure. Drones, by comparison, were made to be selfless, hardcoded to want to help - the perfect slave.
Suddenly, a weight crashed into her side as a small drone appeared in a flash of yellow. A pair of arms wrapped around her, and Tessa could hear a quiet sniffle coming from the limpet.
“Hey, Cyn.” Tessa kept her voice soft, not wanting to distress the little maid more. She put her arm around Cyn’s head, pulling her deeper into a hug.
“ I’m s-sorry, Tessa .” The young drone said, the distress in her tone causing her voice to glitch more than usual, “ I didn’t mean t-to scare you, I just wanted you-ou out of the way .”
“It’s okay, Cyn, you didn’t want me to try and stop you,” Tessa reassured her, the Aussie bending down to look the drone in the eye. From this close, Tessa was once again reminded - Cyn was only a child, eldritch-iness aside. Her personality core wasn’t even fully developed. “But you coulda come to me about this plan earlier, you nong. You know I’m always onboard with your schemes.” Even as she berated the young drone, Tessa smiled at her, showing there was no heat to her words.
In response, Cyn buried her face into Tessa's chest, muttering something. “What was that?” Tessa asked, prompting Cyn to repeat herself.
“ Mass murder is much different from helping you dig up bodies. ” Was the justification given - which, fair, however, there was some context the little horror was missing.
“Pshaw, who d’you think put them in the ground in the first place?” At Cyn’s incredulous look, Tessa shrugged, “What? Aunt Miriam was being a real bitch, and I wanted her hair for V. A syringe and an air bubble were enough to do the job.” Tessa stated this disturbing fact quite nonchalantly, as if she were talking about hot gossip and not her moonlighting habits as a budding serial killer. Cyn blinked, rebooting her optics. Nope, she wasn’t dreaming. “ Huh. ” was all she could think to say.
“So, next time you get a funny idea, remember that you can tell me, ok?” Tessa tried to impress upon the little drone that she was valued. “I will always support you. Hrk!” Suddenly, she found herself being squeezed by a sobbing child, wrapped around her torso with a death grip. The weight of Cyn sent her falling onto her butt, the little maid following, attached to her like an octopus. As she comforted the young drone, N came running up to her, movie in hand.
“Tessa, is Cyn okay?” N was hesitant, sensing the emotional turmoil and not wanting to step on any landmines. He was just glad his Little Buddy was safe; his (almost) sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
Tessa smiled. Ever the therapy dog, N was. “Don’t worry, N. Cyn’ll be fine.” Wanting to change the subject, she looked at the movie in his hand. “ Whatcha got there?” He perked up, showing her the case.
“OH! It’s called Air Buddies! J said it's a spinoff of Air Bud! Can we watch it, Tessa, please?!”
The human laughed lightly, “Of course, N. Let's just get everyone settled…”
The little family quickly settled down to watch the movie, Cyn even woke V up, to her confusion and everyone else’s relief. (“What happened? Why do I have claws? Why do I have wings?!" )
Halfway through the movie, Cyn sweatdropped. “Worried expression. What about the evidence?!”
Tessa patted the child on the head, “Don’t worry! J an’ I’ve got that covered.” Glancing over at J, she asked, “Gas explosion?”
“Gas explosion,” J confirmed smugly, having pre-empted Tessa’s idea.
“Sweeet…”