Chapter Text
Time.
A finicky little thing, especially to gods, for no god fears it while fearing it's affects, while the gods themselves aren't perturbed by the passing of time, their followers are, for eventually, their followers will die and they will be forgotten.
Now where were they? ah, of course, the knight was drifting through the void, but that would be presumption, for the void and its lord are one in the same.
Shaking their head, they decided to sort out their thoughts and get to the point, time in the void works differently, as it is the space between reality, or should we say realities, all with their own cycle of time, each residing in the void, what might be a blink could be thousands of years and what could be an eternity could in reality have been a couple of seconds.
They would watch each reality through the void, gaining knowledge on how they function, what kind of inventions are created, what race rises and falls, though, one peaked their interest, one where automatons thought to be emotionless roam free, building their own society, only to be shunned by their creators, their creators, wishing them nothing but death, sent other automatons known as "disassembly drones" to hunt all the now no longer free automatons.
It is... saddening to see something like this, they couldn't help but think of the vessels, simply made for a purpose and then discarded, another thing they noticed about this reality, it contained void, it is normal for a reality to contain void, but it meant something else for the knight.
An access point.
The knight wished to see this world with their own eye(socket)s, so this gave them the perfect opportunity to go on a little adventure, a little adventure that might last years but a little adventure nonetheless.
They couldn't help but feel giddy, it would be embarrassing for anyone to see them like this, the very concept of nonexistence, the nuclear one, they who create all through their dreams, looking like a child about to receive a new favorite toy.
They sensed something with enough void in it to allow them to enter.
runawayrunawayrunaway was the only thing going through her mind, hoping that her family had gotten to safety, she lay there, waiting for the nanite acid to kill her, she devoted her final thoughts to her family as she feels herself shutdown.
When the knight arrived in this reality, they noticed the severe lack of shell that they had, so they decided to scavenge around, wandering around, they couldn't help reminiscing about their time in hallownest, an ancient and fallen kingdom it was, it had the air of something that was once great, shining proudly through the wastes, when they looked around at their current surroundings, they felt none of that, all that they felt was a great tragedy and loss of life, sifting through the white-powder-that-wasn't-wyrm-ash, they managed to find one of the automatons, it would have been a great shell, had it not been utterly destroyed, sighing, they decided to use one of the many domains that they had.
Time, they felt the very fabric of reality twist at the tips of their claws, time began to unwind in the small area around the body, the strings of fate pulled straight, they saw her life, her future, her past flash before them, damage reversing itself, the body began to become whole once again, as the process continued on, the knight began seeing how this automaton had passed on, it seemed as though it was melted by an acid and beaten with some kind of blunt object, a slow and painful death, the knight felt sympathy for the poor creature, as the process ended, the body was whole, allowing the knight to possess it, it's void entered the machine, the systems of the automaton began to turn back on, the knight used the "optics" to see as they saw a pop up in the visor for "system scan", deciding that it's better to be safe than sorry, they give the affirmative, feeling some internal process happening, they decided to wait and let it finish, after a couple minutes passed a small pop up appeared informing them that all systems were operating properly.
With that dealt with they noticed a "chat log" insisting it be opened, they decided to ignore it and continue on with their exploration, it was then that they noticed that it was night time, remembering their little monologue about the circumstances of these automatons, they decided that it would be wise to find to hide in order to learn how to operate this body to it's fullest.
And so they began to wander, searching for somewhere safe, stumbling on unsteady feet, they saw a building with several corpses around it.
With that, they entered what seemed to be the most secure building, what they assumed to be a bank, walking past the skeletons of long dead beings, it seemed that many had come to this place to withdraw currency, they themselves didn't see why they didn't simply keep it with them, and why would they even trust a place like this, the last time the knight had trusted a place like it, they had to chase down the the thief who stole their geo to a hot spring.
Shaking their head, they went deeper into the bank, noticing the locked vault, a mischievous thought entered their mind, what if I steal from this bank as revenge, the idea seeming more and more appealing by the second, they decided that they needed a way in, sighing to themself, they thought long and hard before it hit them, the shade dash, they looked excitedly at the vault as they looked into their hammerspace and found the shade cloak, putting it on, they ran as fast as possible towards to vault, activating the shade cloak just before hitting it, they felt ecstatic, they would successfully break into a bank today, and then they remembered why they were in the bank in the first place, ah right, the disassembly drones. Looking around, they realized that they couldn't have picked a better place, who would attempt to get in a vault just to close it, the disassembly drones wouldn't even think of looking in here, a warning decided to make itself the knights center of attention, low battery%, the knight scoffed as they looked at the built in instructions telling them how to recharge, following them, they took a charger and looked for an outlet, by what could only be considered divine luck from bad architecture, they found an outlet in the vault, plugging the charger into it, they looked at the next step, telling them to place the other side of the charger into the "charge port" on the drones body, luckily, the instructions were simple enough to understand, they plugged it in their neck and felt themself fall asleep.
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She felt herself turn back on, which she didn't expect as she died from the acid, looking around, she found herself in an unfamiliar place, with a charger plugged into her neck, the chat logs keep making itself noticable, she opened the logs, several text popped up into her view, from him.
Door_lover:Honey, did you make it?
Door_lover:If you did then would you please send a text back.
Door_lover:please send a text back, little uzi is worried.
It continued like that, text after text just asking if she's alive, she couldn't look away, reading each and every one of them grow more desperate, until she saw the last text.
Door_lover:I'm going out to search for you.
Reading that, she panicked, he would not survive being out here, she quickly typed a text.
Oracle_of_delphi:no need for that, love.
Oracle_of_delphi:I can take care of myself.
She sighed in relief when three dots appeared near her husband's chat name.
Door_lover:YOU'RE ALIVE!!
Door_lover:I mean, I never doubted that you'd live, I was just worried for uzi's sake.
Oracle_of_delphi:well, there is no need for that, please tell her that I will be there, you just need to have patience.
With that, she ended the conversation, inspecting her surroundings, the area was incredibly dark, it seemed to be a locked vault, her first thought was how did I get here, she moved her hand to unplug the charger in her neck, it met some resistance moving upwards which suprised her, looking down at herself, she realized that she was wearing some sort of cloak around her dress, it was then that she saw a new message in her chat.
LOS:it seems that you have woken up.
The name was as unfamiliar as much as it was mysterious, whoever sent it would know of why she is still alive, she decided to take a risked and sent a text back.
Oracle_of_delphi:Who are you?
LOS:For a self proclaimed Oracle, you don't seem to know everything, but that doesn't matter, I have an offer for you, my assistance in returning to your family, and in return, I will get a vessel, whether it be you that's the vessel or you create one for me do not care.
Nori thought about it, this deal seems like a steal on her part, baby drones are incredibly easy to make, and if this beings assistance is what brought her back from death then she wonders what it can help her with, deciding that there would be more pros than cons, she sent a text back.
Oracle_of_delphi:on one condition.
LOS:oh? Do go on.
Oracle_of_delphi:when you are given your vessel, you will be placed under my care.
Her text was followed by silence, an agonizingly long silence, she feared that she may have angered them with that one text and that they would take back the deal.
LOS:Alright, I accept it.
Relief rushed through her body as she sighed, she decided that she would test their "assistance".
Oracle_of_delphi:if you wouldn't mind me asking, how can I get out of here.
LOS:Do you see the cloak you are wearing? Good, think of going intangible while you wearing it.
Though she could teleport using her solver, she wanted to test if they could help her, the thought of becoming intangible filled her mind, nothing being able to touch her as she observes the world, she felt her body being covered by a dark substance, becoming pitch black colored, and just as quickly as it came, it disappeared, so there was merit to their assistance, looking at the vault door, she ran at full speed towards it, allowing that feeling of intangibility to rush through her, she felt strange as she phased through a steel door, and just like before, it ended quickly and she was on the other side of the door.
She contemplated she what she accepted, just how risky and stupid it was and just how screwed she would be if they turned out to be evil.
Turning to the exit, she made her way out of the bank, looking up, she saw the moon in the middle of the sky, while this meant that she wouldn't be burned by the sun, it also meant that the murder drones were out, she made her way to the general direction of where she thought the bunker would be at, and she began the long walk to her new home.
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Nori is many things, a lady of science, a loving wife, a doting mother, possessed by an evil program that made her implode a planet, but she isn't a fool.
She knew when something was wrong, she was cold, which should be impossible, the solver made sure of that, and she knew the distinct feeling of something eldritch occupying her mind, and by process of elimination, it has to be LOS.
And suddenly, the air became tense as the realization set in, it was a miracle that she managed to get out of the CYN's control, and now she just landed in the hands of another eldritch entity, great, wonderful, just dandy, Her line of thought gets broken when a small chibi figure with eight eyes, four arms and a tail for legs appeared on her visor as if it was the most normal thing in the world, a text box showed itself next to it reading "are you alright? You seem tense, has something happened?", she ignored that she was asked a self answered question, and instead, asked the first question to come to mind.
"Who the hell are you?" The sentence crawls out of her mouth without her having any intention of it ever leaving her mind, fortunately, the figure didn't seem to take offense as another text box appeared, "it's me!!! LOS, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that you are unable to recognize me, and I hold no blame to you for it." That answered that question, and before she could ponder on anything, her mouth moved on it's own.
"What are you?", this seemed to give them pause as they contemplated how to answer it, eventually, they replied with an answer as short as it was intriguing, "that's complicated", it answered nothing and everything, no knowledge on what they were, but enough to connect that they were some kind of otherworldly being, and so she decided to push for answer, "then why not give the short version?", this seemed to make them ponder for an even longer time, however, before they could get their answer out, she heard a scream.
A familiar scream, tinged with russian rage, was heard throughout the street, she immediately knew who it was, Yeva, another drone from the camp she was experimented on, though sibling drones weren't a thing back then, she was the closest drone to being her sister, so the moment she heart her, she immediately booked it to the direction of the scream.
When she arrived at the scene, she saw Yeva trying her best to fight off one of the sky demons, of course, Yeva's solver was significantly weaker than her own, so she couldn't sprout wings and a tail or pick up extremely heavy objects, thus, Nori decided that the best course of action was to pick up a nearby wrecked car and throw it full force towards the sky demon.
When it realized that a giant chunk of metal was flying at incredible velocity towards it, the only thing it could was let out a very loud "HUH!!" before the moment of impact, it went down faster than she expected, though she doesn't believe that it's dead, so with a frantic wave, she urged Yeva and her family to run, poor little doll was hiding in a car, if Nori hadn't come, she would have likely been traumatized, she probably is traumatized, to a much lesser degree.
With LOS forgotten, she followed street signs that she recognized to be pointing to locations near the bunker, after several hours of tense running, they had to hunker down as the break of dawn stopped them and they had to go into hiding so as to not be cooked alive. They sat down on the closest peice of furniture, which just so happened to be a couch, the four of them sat down, they weren't exhausted, no no, they went through much worse in cabin fever labs. They were worried about Doll. She had a haunted expression on her face, she clung to her mother like a koala does it's mother, whimpering. It didn't take long before she began crying, it started with a light sob before it devolved into full blown crying. Her mother held her with a firm grip whispering sweet nothings in her audio receiver, trying her best to calm her daughter down. Her husband joined in, hugging the both of them in a soft embrace. [Shhhhh, it's okay now, daddy and mommy are safe, you are safe. We won't be leaving you anytime soon.] The both of them held her closely, not letting go as she cried her core out. On her visor, LOS appeared and looked at the display with concern in their eyes, but they felt as though they were intruding on something they weren't involved in, so they stayed silent. Eventually, Doll began to shut down after crying for so long, tired from running and the crying, Edmon let her stay in her mother's arms as he approached Nori. Nori looked at Edmon, she wore a regretful expression on her face. "I'm... sorry I couldn't be here earlier, I could've stopped her from being traumatized so badly." [It's not your fault, you couldn't have known where we would've been.] He told her, pausing. [Besides, we would be dead if you never came.] Nori looked sheepish for a second before nodding and beginning to talk with them to pass the time, waiting until the sun went down, eventually it did and they continued their weary trek through the streets to the bunker.
After some wandering they saw some familiar signs and knew, they had found the gargantuan doors of the bunker.
"Open the door, Khan, Yeva's family and I are stuck out here." each word was followed with a loud banging sound.
Eventually, the door creaked open, Yeva and her family rushed mumbling words of thanks to her, but fell deaf on her audio receivers as her lover and daughter embraced her in a warm hug, her lover looked to be in disbelief, barely believing what he's seeing, it was a sweet moment only broken by the doors closing, she looked at uzi, she was sobbing, downright crying onto her dress, she picked uzi up and set her head on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, it seemed to work as the tension faded from uzi as she buried her face in her mothers shoulder, the walk to their new home was silent but lovely nonetheless, when they finally got there, the first thing she did was put uzi in bed(despite her complaints of how I'm not sleepy and I want to spend more time with you), when she herself went to bed, she noticed that the strange coldness was gone, she could think of only one being that could br behind it, the same being who allowed her to live with her family again, and save her sisters family, and all of a sudden she felt slightly guilty over the amount of suspicion that she held for them, so many things were avoided because they decided to assist her, hell, their deal wasn't "I'll bring you back to life and you will make me a body" it was "I help you get to safety and you make me a body" there wasn't a single mention of her being brought back, and she never saw any hidden threats in their text, nor did she sense any kind of hostile or malicious intent from them, she could feel them in her mind, watching, listening, yet the only feeling that oozes out of them is curiosity, so she decided that she would push her suspicions aside for the moment.
But she will get answers from them, guilty conscience or no.