Chapter Text
“I still don’t entirely understand how this might be possible,” Ralsei commented. “The video your friends left with your body said you were from another world. How can you reach them on a video call?”
“Especially when cell phones don’t work in Dark Worlds,” Kris added, knowing that personally from times they or N had tried to call someone within theirs.
“Well, it’s because I’m still connected to them through the Absolute Solver,” N said
“What’s the Absolute Solver?” Susie asked, confused.
“You mentioned that before,” Ralsei added. “That it was something that gave you powers, but at a price.”
N looked a little uncomfortable as he answered, “Yeah… I don’t have it fully. It’s more like I was given a sliver of it to make me more powerful. It’s what lets me produce all my weapons and heal from any injuries almost instantly.” He shifted his hands into knife-like claws, then into swords, then into bubble wands as an example. It was also when Kris noticed all the wounds they had given him from the ninja stars had long vanished as if they’d never been there.
“Awesome,” said Susie as she popped any bubbles he blew. “I’m not seeing any downsides there.”
“Oh, there’s downsides, alright. Aside from giving me certain weaknesses and, erm, specific diet issues that aren’t relevant here, it… made me a lot easier to control. The Absolute Solver can act like one big hive mind, with the most powerful Solver Drone able to take over the bodies of anyone else in it unless they have a patch installed to prevent that. Or they fight the control through sheer stubborn willpower.”
“That’s what you meant when you said you had been controlled before?” Kris had to ask. “The most powerful one was making you do things.”
N nodded and turned to face forward again. “That was when it was Cyn. But we fought back, and Uzi took her down, taking her place as the most powerful Solver Drone in existence."
“So your girlfriend could, like, just possess you anytime she wanted?” asked Susie, disturbed.
“I don’t think I have enough of the Solver in me for full possession unless I’m so damaged it takes over entirely. Also, she doesn’t know how, and really doesn’t want to know,” N admitted. “But the connection is still there, and she’ll be using it to find me, and the computer we made is just a way to kinda boost the signal so I can reach back.”
“Do you think it’ll be enough?” asked Ralsei. “It’s still an entirely different world?”
“Cyn was able to possess Uzi’s mother from entire solar systems away before she got the patch,” N replied. “And Uzi is a genius. If anyone can figure it out, it’s her.”
The second they reached Queen’s floor, N broke into a jog to reach their machine as quickly as possible.
Queen was waiting outside her door for them, and handed N a USB drive with the same energy of someone handing their car keys over to a valet. “Have fun, kids. No giving out your identity online, and it’ll probably explode in about twenty minutes. Ta-ta~” And with that she left the room still howling her trademarked cackle.
N clutched the USB like a lifeline and entered the room. Kris, Susie, and Ralsei moved to go after him, but N stopped them. “You might want to wait a moment. This part’s… kinda messy.”
Ralsei looked ready to agree, but Kris pushed their way in anyway. “You’re not getting off that easy,” they said as Susie and a reluctant Ralsei followed.
N sighed, seeing that Kris was still suspicious of him. “Alright, just… here goes. Sorry for the nightmare fuel.”
“Dude, it’s just turning on a computer. What’s the problem?” asked Susie, bewildered.
“It’s not turning it on that’s the problem. It’s connecting to it,” N said.
He then walked up to stand in front of the console, took a deep breath, faced away from the group in an attempt to hide what he was doing, and stabbed the USB drive deep into his eye screen, shattering it.
Susie screeched! Ralsei screamed! And even Kris jumped a foot in the air in shock!
“What are you-” Ralsei started to say, looking ready to heal him, but N held up a hand to stop him.
“I’m fine,” he said, still trying to conceal the damage, but there was no hiding his black blood pouring from the wound. “Just give it another second and-” He yanked the USB back out, and the hole quickly closed.
In front of him, the computer lit up with life as various streams of text flashed across the screen. Then a loading bar under the word ‘CONNECTING’ appeared that slowly ticked upwards.
N watched with bated breath for it to reach one hundred, and once it did, a symbol appeared on the screen. A hexagon with three arrow-like points.
Then, the symbol flashed purple, and the screen turned to a video image of a girl Drone with purple hair and a beanie staring intensely her own computer. Then she blinked as she realized she wasn’t looking at whatever she was before, and her eyes hollowed when they noticed N.
“... N!” she gasped.
“Uzi!” N cheered back.
“N!!!!” she cried in delight.
“UZIIIII!!!!” N squealed back.
The two excitedly babbled back and forth excitedly at each other, neither one making much sense, but it was clear that they were incredibly happy to see each other.
As cute as it was, Queen did say they only had twenty minutes.
“Hey, lovebirds! Clock is ticking!” Susie butted in.
“Bite me! I’ll talk to my boyfriend all I want!” Uzi snapped back. Then she seemed to fully register Susie, Kris, and Ralsei’s presence behind N, and looked confused. “What kind of world did Cyn send you to?”
“A really nice one,” N said with a smile that faded as he spoke next. “These are the friends I’ve made, Susie, Ralsei, and Kris. And Susie’s right. The computer I’m using is probably going to explode at some point, so we don’t have as much time as I’d like.”
“Of course it will,” Uzi sighed in disappointment.
“What happened with Cyn?” asked N, deciding to focus on one of the most important issues. “How did she even get me here? Your message implied she wasn’t working alone.”
“I WAS NOT!” came Cyn’s voice in the background.
Uzi sent a glare off-screen, but turned back to N. “She wasn’t,” she agreed. “She won’t say who. Something about making a deal with ‘the man who speaks in hands’, whatever that means. She made some sort of bargain with him that she’d give him you, and she’d get her own body again, separate from me.”
N looked alarmed. “She has a what!” he screeched.
But Uzi just gave him a savage grin. “Calm down, the guy screwed her over, look.”
She turned the camera to show a terrarium with a large sunlamp beating down on it. Inside the terrarium, curled up like a snake under a rock to avoid the light burning down on it from all sides, was a large, multi-eyed head attached to a black cord-like body wearing a giant bow attached to it.
“DO NOT SHOW HIM THIS! IT IS HUMILIATING!” Cyn snapped.
“Good, you deserve it!” Uzi snapped back as she turned the camera to herself.
“(GLOWER!)” called Cyn.
“Good news is, she has no powers like that, but still has all the weaknesses, so she’s not going anywhere, and the only reason we haven’t fried her yet is to pump her for information,” Uzi said, ignoring her. “Bad news is, I no longer have a tail, and my flying is now shit. V’s been ‘helping’ me learn to fly again, but mostly it’s her laughing at me crashing.”
Uzi’s eyes then turned hollow as she realized, “Oh, shit! V! She’ll kill me if I don’t tell her you’re here. Can you wait, like, two minutes before anything blows up?”
“Probably,” said N. There really wasn’t any real way to tell.
“Then I’ll be fast,” Uzi said, getting up from her desk and racing out the door. “V! GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE NOW!” she yelled as she went.
N turned to talk to his friends while they waited, but another voice cut in before he could.
“ARE YOU HHHAVING FUN, BIG BROTHER N?” said Cyn, still off screen.
N glared at the screen even though Cyn couldn’t see it. “Why? Why me, Cyn?” he asked.
“I WAS GIVEN AN OFFER I COULDN’T REFUSE. IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANY OF US I SENT OVER TO THAT WORLD. I WAS SO TEMPTED FOR IT TO BE ME. PERHAPS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF I HAD (SULK). AT LEAST I WOULD NOT BE LOCKED IN HERE.”
“Why didn’t you?” Kris had to ask.
“OH, IS THAT THE HHHUMAN? IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS WHY I DID NOT TAKE THE CHANCE.” Cyn replied.
“Because you’d still be locked in a cage?” asked Kris
“Because you don’t like humans?” N suggested.
“BECAUSE YOU, AND V, AND UZI WOULD BE HAPPY IF I WERE GONE,” was Cyn’s reply instead. “IF I WERE TO LEAVE, YOU WOULD CELEBRATE. BUT YOU ARE THE ONE BOTH OF THEM LOVE MOST. IF YOU ARE GONE, ALL OF YOU SUFFER.”
N’s hands clenched, and the Fun Gang exchanged an unnerved glance at the casual cruelty the worm-thing displayed.
“Well, I hope you’re happy then, Cyn,” N said quietly.
“I AM NOT. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO GO. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IN THAT WORLD, BUT I AM CERTAIN I WOULD HAVE A LOT OF FUN THERE MAKING THINGS GRAVE (EVIL GRIN),” Cyn concluded.
Kris felt a chill up their spine as they realized it could have easily been this creature piloting their body instead of N if she had just been a little less spiteful.
Thankfully, at that moment Uzi ran back in, followed by V.
“N!” shouted V as she ran over to the camera and stared at the feed in disbelief. “It is you! If you ever scare me like that again, I will force-feed you your own feet!”
N just laughed at the threat. “I missed you too, V.”
“Whatever,” V said. She then looked him up and down, and her expression turned judgemental. “What the heck are you wearing?”
N glanced down at his pilot outfit and said, “Oh, Dark Worlds give you cool outfits.”
“What the heck is a Dark World? Is that hell? Did Cyn seriously send you to hell?” asked Uzi, offended on his behalf.
“That would explain the goat,” V added.
Ralsei looked offended, but N just laughed again and began telling the two girls all about their adventures thus far, with Susie stepping up to help him tell it as she had with the Old Man.
“... And that’s where we’re at now,” N concluded once they’d caught up to the present. “I have my body back, but now our only option is for Kris to be stuck here until we find their SOUL again.”
“An option that sucks, but it’s not like we have any spare human SOULs just left lying around,” Kris muttered bitterly.
There was a round of grumbles in agreement.
At least until they saw Uzi and V exchange a glance on the screen.
“Wait! You do?” Ralsei exclaimed as he realized what that meant.
“What the fuck?” Susie shouted behind him.
“NO!” came Cyn’s voice off-screen, but V kicked her into silence.
“Er, well, when we were trying to find you, we dug through everything we could find from Cyn. Anything that could get us a clue what she did to you. And when we dug through the wreckage of her ship, we found a lot,” Uzi admitted.
“What did you find?” asked Ralsei, curious.
“DO NOT!” said Cyn.
“That she was weirdly obsessed with human SOULs. You looking like one over there was part of an ongoing experiment of hers. She found a way to make a Drone CORE almost perfectly mimic a human SOUL. So well that the Drone SOUL could use a human body for a while. Though she never bothered to find out for how long it would last. Her experiments were… pretty graphic,” Uzi said with a disturbed grimace. "Her ultimate goal was to figure out how to do the opposite. To find a way to turn a SOUL into a CORE, and essentially turn a human into a Drone. She never succeeded, but because of that, she still had one SOUL left in storage.”
“NO! NO! NO! SHE IS MINE!” Cyn said again, and Uzi did something with her Solver to make her cry out, “(PAIN!)”
“But why?” asked N. “I thought she just wanted all humans dead.”
Susie and Ralsei glanced at Kris upon hearing that, and Kris grimaced.
V spoke up in a bitter tone. “Not all of them.”
N just looked even more confused.
Uzi glanced between V and N before standing up and moving for her door, and taking Cyn’s terrarium with her using her Solver. “I’ll… I’ll give you two a minute.”
V watched her go, careful not to let any gratitude appear on her face. But when she glanced back at the screen, she scowled when she saw N’s side still had an audience.
Well, that was too bad for her. Kris had spent the last several days with N getting a front-row seat to all their secrets. It was only fair they get to do the same.
“Never thought I’d see the day the Purple Thing was the tactful one,” V muttered under her breath.
“HEY!” squawked Susie.
“Not you, Purple Thing, MY Purple Thing,” V said with a roll of her eyes.
Her face then softened when it fell back on N.
N, who was clearly growing more nervous with the delay, asked, “What is it, V?”
V avoided his gaze. “N… the SOUL we found… it’s Tessa.”
N’s eyes widened to hollow rings, and he looked like his whole world had dropped out from under him. “No… She… Tessa’s dead! She’s dead, and Cyn used her to-”
“I know,” V said, closing her eyes and looking pained. “Believe me, I know. But when has something as trivial as death stopped Cyn from playing with her favorite toys?”
From the increasingly horrified look on N’s face, death was clearly not the obstacle it should have been. “It never stopped her with us,” he agreed quietly.
“From what we can make out, Cyn had this weird obsession with ‘getting the old gang’ back together or something,” V said, embittered. “You, me, J, Tessa, and her together forever. But she wanted her and Tessa’s roles reversed. She really wanted to be in charge, and more than anything she wanted to control Tessa the same way she controlled the rest of us.”
N slumped over the computer console like a puppet with his strings cut.
That was when Uzi returned using her Solver to carry a container shaped like a TV with a glowing yellow heart floating within.
The sight of it made everyone let out gasps.
Even through the computer screen, it was very clear the SOUL was in bad shape. Cracks decorated its entire surface, and there were even chips missing in a few places.
“Oh Tessa,” N said in a heartbroken tone.
“Are you sure it’s safe to give her to us?” asked Susie dubiously. “She looks… fragile.”
“She is,” said Uzi. “But sending her to you is kind of our only option if we want her to heal. Honestly, this situation is a win-win for all of us.”
“Cyn’s notes were clear,” said V darkly. “A human SOUL can take all sorts of punishment while it’s outside the body so long as it’s later put back in. Just having the SOUL inside a living human will allow her to heal over time.”
“So why not shove it into someone on your world?” Kris had to ask, having mixed feelings about all this. On one hand, another SOUL would solve a lot of their problems and free them from the Dark Worlds, but on the other hand, they were not looking forward to being controlled by a stranger again.
“We can’t. There are no humans on Copper 9. No living ones, at least,” said Uzi.
“Loads of dead ones, though,” said V, lifting a skull up for them to see. “Cyn tried really hard to drive them to extinction. If any are still alive out there somewhere, they’d never want to help a Drone, even for another human's sake.”
Once again, the fact that Cyn could have been the one controlling Kris this whole time hit them, and they shuddered at the thought.
“Just give me a minute to figure out how to alter the way I sent your body back to you to send her,” said Uzi as she began typing away at her computer, and using her Solver to occasionally send equipment flying through the room.
V, meanwhile, stared daggers into the screen at Kris. “Hey, human,” she said. “You better treat her right.”
N immediately straightened and looked at Kris as well, no doubt remembering all that he’d been through at their hands.
“She’s right, Kris. I know you don’t like me. I know you didn’t like me controlling you. I understand that, and I probably deserved it. Do whatever you want to me. I won’t mind.” N’s eyes then turned sad as he begged, “But Tessa… Tessa doesn’t deserve it. Tessa doesn’t deserve anything that happened to her, and she certainly doesn’t deserve this. Take her out to be yourself if you must, but please don’t do anything to Tessa that you did to me.”
Susie and Ralsei exchanged a look, wondering what he could be talking about, and V narrowed her eyes through the screen.
“What did they do?” she asked in a way that sent chills up all their spines.
“Nothing, it’s fine,” said N quickly.
V’s eyes narrowed even more, but she turned her attention back to Kris. “Look, kid, I don’t know what you did to N to get him to say that, but don’t you dare do anything to him or Tessa from this point forward, or else.”
“Or else what?” Kris couldn’t help but say.
On the computer, V leaned in until her face filled the screen and morphed into a ghastly, sharp-toothed smile with a large glowing X where her eyes should be.
“Or else you’ll find out exactly why my squad and I were called Murder Drones!” V said, her tone sounding dangerously unhinged.
Susie swore under her breath, and Ralsei looked unnerved.
Even so, Kris still couldn’t resist poking the bear.
“And if I don’t care what you do to me?” they asked.
V tilted her head like she was impressed by their guts. “In that case, who says it’s you I’d go after?”
Kris blinked. “You’re not even in this world, and N likes Susie and Ralsei. You wouldn’t hurt them just to get to me.”
“You’d be surprised,” N muttered.
“She doesn’t care!” Uzi called from where she was still working.
(“Why are they friends with this girl?” Susie whispered to Ralsei as they watched this unfold.
Ralsei just sent her a knowing look. “Some might wonder the same about you,” he said, which threw her for a loop.)
V smirked. “Only for now. We’re coming for N one way or another. And even if I don’t go for those two, I’m sure there are some people N doesn’t like, but you do over there.”
Kris felt a cold sweat start to drip down their neck hearing that. They knew full well there were some people N didn’t like. The faces of everyone who’d had a bad word to say about Susie flashed through their mind. Snowy, MK, Catti, Jockington, Alphys, and especially Carol… All of them had expressed open fear and/or disdain for Susie in the time N had been with them. Kris had felt him burn in their chest whenever they put her down. Any one of them could be a target of V’s wrath if N decided to be petty.
V’s mouth widened into the sharp-toothed grin again. “So… have I made myself clear?”
“Crystal,” Kris muttered.
“Good,” V chirped, and finally stepped back from the camera.
Kris glared at her, but was startled when they felt a hand on their shoulder, and turned to see N looking at them with a serious expression.
“What?” Kris asked, thinking it might be more threats.
“Tessa really is a nice person, you know,” N said quietly instead, once again taking them off guard. “She’s cheerful, smart, curious, and kinda weird. Noelle reminds me so much of her. Her life was… terrible. Her parents kept her locked away and put her down every chance they got. She never got the chance to meet anyone outside her own house. Drones like me and V were her only friends when all other humans saw us as disposable tools. Despite that, she tried to save everyone, and then died horribly for it. And now I’m finding out she didn’t even have peace in death. I just… Please. Please just give her a chance. No one else ever has.”
Unnerved by the tonal whiplash, Kris ducked their head and mumbled, “I already said I would.”
N smiled brightly at them. “Thank you.”
“What just happened?” Susie asked, completely confused at this point.
“I’m not sure, but they’ll tell us when they’re ready,” Ralsei replied, though it was clear he was curious as well.
Before Susie could protest, Uzi yelled, “Got it!” on the screen, and they all looked up to see a glowing portal in front of her.
A moment later, a portal appeared in front of them as well.
“It’s still not stable enough for V and me to go through or for you to come back, but I’ll keep working on it,” Uzi told them as she lifted Tessa’s SOUL to the portal with her Solver. “Until then, I’ll find a way to keep in touch. When is your computer blowing up, anyway?”
N opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, the USB Queen had given him exploded in his hands. “Any second now!” he said, looking at the screen sadly.
Uzi looked back at him, with a determined expression. “I’ll find a way.” She then grinned and added, “Until then, give them hell for me, N.”
With that, she shoved Tessa’s SOUL through the portal, and Susie jumped to catch it.
A warning pop from the computer sounded, and N grabbed all of them into his arms and covered them in his wings to shield them as the computer detonated behind him.
Once it was safe to do so, he uncovered them, and they looked down at the yellow SOUL.
The little yellow heart looked even worse in person. Spiderweb cracks covered every inch of its surface, and there were more chips missing than they initially thought.
N winced at the sight of it, before gently reaching into the container to pull it out and hand it to Kris.
“Take care of her,” he said, his tone making it clear he was trusting them with something precious.
With more care than they ever did when holding the red heart, Kris took the SOUL from him and pressed it inside their chest.
Immediately, a new cape appeared around their neck, lemon yellow this time, but they paid it little mind as they hunched over in pain. The damage on the SOUL hit them all at once like a brick to the face, but it passed quickly after both Ralsei and Susie sent healing spells at them. Once it did, they blinked.
“I’m… still in control…” they said in surprise, clenching and unclenching their hands, small things they hadn’t been able to do when N was in charge.
“That’s a good thing, right?” said Susie. “Or is it bad for that Tessa girl?”
Ralsei adjusted his glasses. “It could be a number of things. Such as, it could be due to the fact that Tessa’s is an actual human SOUL, as opposed to a false one like N was. Or perhaps Cyn did something to keep her SOUL pacified in its container that has yet to wear off. It could also be since her SOUL was so damaged, it doesn’t have the strength to take control, though that could change as she heals within you.”
Kris grimaced at the thought of being in someone else’s control again. “Let’s hope it’s the first one,” they said.
They then couldn't stop themself as a massive yawn crawled its way out of their throat.
And once Kris yawned, Susie followed soon after with one of her own, showing off all her teeth.
Seeing that, Ralsei gasped. “Oh, I didn’t realize how late it was. It’s been a very long day.”
N winced as well. “And you guys didn’t get a lot of sleep last night either.”
“Right! You both really need to get to bed. You have the festival tomorrow,” said Ralsei, pushing the two of them for the door.
“You mean later today,” said N as the time flashed across his eye screen, showing midnight had already passed.
“All the more reason to get to bed right away,” said Ralsei.
“Alright, alright, we’ll go to our rooms and go to bed,” Susie said. She then glanced at Kris. “You’re sleeping here, right?”
Kris considered the prospect of walking all the way across town, having to go past their mother and her new boyfriend again, and then try to sleep as the jitterbug played loudly below their feet.
“I’m sleeping here,” they said.
“Alright, sleep over!” Susie cheered. Then, with an evil grin, she snatched Ralsei up and yelled, “Dibs on sleeping on the fluffy pillow!”
“What! Susie!” Ralsei protested as she ran out of the room with him held above her head.
“Last one to Kris’s room sleeps on N!” Susie yelled over her shoulder.
That got Kris moving, but N had a question. “Wait! What if I’m last?” he asked.
“Then you sleep on your own. Sucks to suck,” Susie called back.
N laughed as he let them all run ahead, before glancing back at the charred remains of the computer.
“I miss you already, Uzi,” he muttered.
Then he followed them out the door.
He would get home eventually.
For now, he’d try to enjoy this adventure with his new friends.