Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Copper-9 a planet once vibrant with lift both artificial and organic, was little more than a frozen wasteland now. The humans that once called this vibrant Earth-like world home were reduced to little more than winter-bleached white bones strewn across the planet's surface some frozen in place but most lying where they died when Copper-9's atmosphere all but evaporated when the core collapsed taking an entire section of the planet with it. While many would consider that the end of life on Copper-9 it was the subservient robotic worker drones that for a time inhabited the planet post-core collapse in numbers that would be comparable to a rapidly developing nation, if they had been truly been left to their own devices the worker drones likely would have developed their unique civilisation on the ruins of the colonists.

Yet that was not the case, Copper-9 was not the cold jewel of artificial life it could have been, it was nothing short of a cold empty grave and scrapyard respectively. While the core collapse had permitted the mass extinction of organic life it had been something else that had brought the artificial life to the brink of extinction, the worker drones had become prey for a new type of artificial life built and designed with the singular purpose to hunt them down and drink the oil that existed inside each of them. Once numbering in the millions the worker drones had been reduced to scattered pockets of communities cowering in fear for the most part in bunkers and other such structures hoping that these would keep them safe.

This new status quo was only broken on the rare occasion worker drones dared venture beyond the safety of their bunkers and doors for whatever reason, and one such break was happening at a bunker colony. A single worker drone with purple hair and a matching display dressed in dark clothing made their way across the snowy tundra stopping only once to glance back at the bunkers doors before continuing. This worker drone that once called the relative safety of that bunker home was Uzi Doorman, an outcast amongst worker drones for her opinions on their cowardly ways of hiding behind the blast doors and hoping they would be enough to keep them safe. Until they malfunctioned long enough that they could not be fixed in a single morning, and at that point they would be an easy buffet for the predatory murder drones that fed on the oil of her kind.

It was her drive to finish the, in her own words, 'sick-as-hell-railgun' by scavenging the last part she needed from the wasteland of snow and bodies both organic and artificial. If Uzi was being honest with herself as well it might be the last time she would see the large doors that lead into the colony she could consider home, but there was nothing within to truly call home for her. Only a father who saw the doors as his 'real daughters' to start and the outright scorn from the other residents, it was little to keep her tied to the colony. 

Slowly and with care not to make too much noise Uzi slowly worked her way across the snow-covered wastes heading towards the large spire built from the corpses of worker drones that had been slain and likely drained dry of every drop of oil, she kept low and watching the sky knowing that the murder drones often would swoop in from above before going to the kill. Moving slowly and carefully Uzi made her way closer to the corpse spire she worked her way around the outside looking for a way inside.

Pausing briefly she looked up as the spire built from the corpses of worker drones, the eerie tower was not completely dark like one would expect, across its surface and reaching up to the peak blinking red lights existed. Seeing these lights sent a shiver down what would pass as Uzi's spine, it was something all worker drones knew well the red light of the final thing a worker drone visor could display the 'FATAL ERROR' message. Knowing that this message could only displayed put Uzi on edge, it meant those dead worker's corpses had just enough residual power to display that error they might have enough processing power left to feel the simulated approximation of pain programmed into worker drones to ensure they avoided costly hazards.

Uzi let out a shuddering breath to steady her nerves as she crouched behind a large pile of debris, peaking just over to stare into the spire's interior and sitting in the centre bathed in the moonlight that streamed in from a large hole higher up in the tower sat the clawed pod that had brought the murder drones to Copper-9. "You can do this," She told herself glancing around not only the interior of the spire but the derelict buildings, in case the tell-tale yellow lights of a murder drone were watching.

With a final glance around to check Uzi made her way inside the spire, taking care to mind her footing to avoid either tripping or knocking over something that could alert anything she had not spotted on her way in. While everything had seemed to be going her way Uzi had not noticed how the displayed error symbols upon the various dead worker drone visors visible from the spire's walls, nor did she notice the gentle hum reverberating within the spire. If Uzi had noticed the hum now filling the tower she would have connected it to the typical noise linked to data transferred between wireless networks, but with her focus on finding the final part she needed to get her railgun fully working, she just ignored the noise.

Taking her time to sift through the rubble that was lying about the pod it did not take Uzi long to find the part she needed, a microreactor from the look of it as the original one she had scavenged from closer to her colony's bunker had burnt itself out before even firing a shot. Holding the new pulsing green reactor in her hand, a smirk crossed her face, with this new core Uzi was sure her railgun would work as intended.

Working quickly and with a practised ease she began to remove the spent reactor tossing it off to the side before placing the much newer one in its place, it was not a quick process to swap the reactors over and it was one that required Uzi to devote most of her attention to what she was doing. It was this singular focus on her task that led to Uzi failing to notice another figure stalking up behind her, the fact the figure had entered from the hole high up in the spire did not matter as her attention was entirely on installing the reactor. Now standing behind her the figure that was much taller than her peered down watching her connect the last few wires before breaking out into excited giggles as the railgun powered up.

"Ooooh, that looks nifty." The soft masculine voice spoke from the new arrival. "What's it for?"

Uzi was too wrapped up in the fact her railgun was now functional at first and failed to take into account who this new voice likely belonged to, "It's my sick-as-hell-railgun!" a grin spread across her face, "I built it to deal with the murder bots!" Her excitement kept her focus more on the railgun's completion than putting any thought into the second voice's origin right up until she heard a slightly unhinged chuckle, Uzi finally realised that the second voice wasn't in her head.

A slow dawning sense of dread began to rise inside her as slowly Uzi began to look up, only to be greeted by the unsettling grin and sickly yellow X visor display of a murder drone. Oil dripping from the corner of its mouth the scraping noise of its metal claws flexing as it stared down at Uzi, this was not a situation Uzi wanted to be in nor one she was likely to survive. Yet this murder drone hadn't just killed her, was it toying with her dragging out the kill? It didn't matter all that mattered right now was not becoming these robotic nightmares next meal.

Uzi flinched as she felt the murder drone run a hand along her arm, its claws scraping against the soft outer shell and applying just enough pressure to make her wince. Not enough the break the shell at first but any more pressure and the bladed fingers would have definitely drawn oil, the murder drone's other hand came up to the regular drone hand gripping the underside of Uzi's chin effectively immobilising her as the murder drone lent its head down closer to her face. Uzi could feel the heat radiating from the murder drone's touch and while like her and the other worker drones, they did not breathe she could still feel something like hot breath prickling across her visor and outer shell.

"That sounds kind of dangerous don't you think?" The murder drone purred as he moved his syringe-tipped tail around to gently press against Uzi's neck, the tip pressing into the neck casing enough for her to feel but not enough to let her know a sudden move would end badly, "You could hurt someone with that." Taking the bladed hand off Uzi's arm the murder drone returned it to a regular configuration and reached for the railgun. A hand now firmly planted onto the railgun it gave a tug ripping it from Uzi's grip and tossing it off behind the two of them, the railgun clattering off into some dark corner.

"There," The murder drone hummed his grip not loosening as the free hand moved back to holding Uzi tight, "It has been a long time since a worker drone was this close to the spire, especially one like you." The murder drone leaned in closer its mouth inches away from Uzi's neck.

Uzi felt herself reflexively mimic the gulping motion, an automatic response to fear something she cursed mentally just like the fact she had been programmed to simulate sweating, right now though she needed to get out of this murder drone's grip. Her eyes flicked around searching for something, anything she could use to break free from this grip and make a sprint for her railgun, the chance she could escape and win was slim at best, but she'd rather get killed fighting than an easy meal ticket for this thing. It was at that moment she noticed how interested the murder drone was in her neck, taking a moment to think about as too why Uzi felt it, the gentle throb of oil leaking out from a small cut. Something she had likely received from how this thing was handling her, like a slow leak the oil dripped from the small cut on her neck pumping out in a constant rhythm with the ticks of her processor.

Uzi suppressed a shiver and whimper as she felt the murder drone run its warm slippery tongue along her neck tasting the oil that was leaking from the small cut, as it purred at the taste of the vital fluid Uzi came up with a plan. It was crazy, ridiculously dangerous and had a high chance of death, but so did coming here to scavenge and looking at how that had turned out for her what did she have to lose that wasn't already on the line?

"Hmmmm, your oil," The murder drone sighed leaning in closer its fangs scraping against her neck as it spoke, "I have never tasted oil so  warm and sweet ." Uzi shivered again as the murder drone once more ran its tongue along the slow leak.

Fixing the murder drone's sickly yellow X display with a cold glare Uzi steeled herself for what was likely to happen next she spoke for the first time since the murder drone had grabbed her. "Bite me!" Uzi snarled through gritted teeth, bracing herself for what was to come.

Letting out a maniacal chuckle the murder drone let its mouth spread wide into a huge mocking grin, "Well if you are offering," almost too quick for Uzi to be ready the murder drone moved one hand to the top of her head and another along her arm forcing the arm out and her head to the side giving it easy access to the softer casing of her neck. Her neck was now exposed the murder drone wasted no time in clamping its jaws tightly around her neck easily pricing into the soft flexible metal and beginning to suck the rich oil from her neck.

Uzi let out a sharp gasp in a mix of shock and pain, the feeling of this monster sucking her dry nearly sent her body into painful spasms as she felt the warm lubricant that her body somehow produced being drained. Fighting back the woozy feeling that was threatening to overload her processor and render her just another corpse in the tower, she seized her chance.

With her free hand and as much speed as she could muster Uzi shot the arm out and grabbed the murder drone's syringe-tipped tail, not wasting a single moment she wrenched the tail away from the other side of her neck and brought it around past her face slamming the needle point into the visor of the murder drones face. As the tip of the needle punctured the murder drone's visor it let out a screech of agony and dropped Uzi to the snow-covered ground, before staggering back and pulling its own tail from its visor.

Pressing a hand to her neck in an attempt to stem the flow of oil as best she could, Uzi staggered to her feet glancing around quickly before spotting the green glow from her railgun. Scrambling away from the murder drone as it was still thrashing its syringe tail still logged in its own face, her body running as if it had been overclocked Uzi managed to reach her railgun taking it up in her free hand. Wasting no time Uzi turned around to face the murder drone the railgun haphazardly aimed in its direction, Time seemed to slow down for Uzi as she squeezed the railgun trigger.

The weapon let out a high-pitched whine before a vibrant green beam of energy lanced out from the barrel illuminating the entire inside of the spire, as the beam of green energy lanced out from the railgun's barrel towards the murder drone the overpressure sent a mixture of dust and snow up into the air while also launching Uzi backwards. Making a mental note to never try and fire the railgun a second time one-handed Uzi wasted no time in looking across to wear the murder drone had been standing to be treated by the site or the now headless murder drone topple backwards.

While no one would have faulted Uzi if she celebrated taking down a murder drone, she didn't have that luxury right now, quickly putting her railgun onto her back Uzi kept her hand pressed to the still leaking puncture holes in her neck and stumbled towards the corpse spire's entrance putting as much distance between herself and the spire as she could. Her optics struggling to adapt to the now raging snowstorm outside the tower Uzi found herself stumbling out into this barely able-to-see panting in a combination of exertion, simulated adrenaline and fear. With each step she took Uzi could feel her oil pumping itself out and oozing between her fingers, right now she didn't care too much about being quiet and just needed to find somewhere to bunker down and hope that she could patch the puncture holes before she leaked out enough oil to prove fatal.

Eventually, Uzi found herself stumbling into the back of a derelict truck panting with exertion Uzi moved to prop herself up against the wall hand still clamped around the puncture wound on her neck. Finally allowing herself a moment to feel safe she left a smile grace her face, she'd done it something to her knowledge no other work drone had managed to do. Her, Uzi Doorman had managed to kill a murder drone, it led to her breaking out into a fit of weak giggles as she slid down the truck's inner wall her optics flickering on and off. "Hee, suck on that...Dad." Letting out a shuddering breath Uzi felt herself slip into recharge, her body shutting itself down to conserve its oil supply.

--- LINE BREAK ---

Today had been different for Serial Designation N or just N for short, it had started like many other regular days since he and the other two disassembly drones Serial Designation V and Serial Designation J had arrived on Copper-9. Like always it had started with J giving him very helpful and constructive criticism about his overall attitude, work ethic and usefulness to the company before he had been ordered to guard the spire while she and V went out to hunt down any worker drones outside their hideyholes.

While boring N never minded guarding the spire it had gotten rather repetitive as of late, so he had taken to patrolling a little further out than normal, hopefully, J wouldn't mind that he had done so. She probably wouldn't especially when he had been able to snag a kill of some random worker drone just standing out in the open. He'd just not tell her or bring it up unless she asked, he could do that.

Yet something had really spiced today up upon his return to the spire, he had found another worker drone, this one actually inside the spire scavenging of all things. Such a bold move if he was being honest and something that piqued his interest, saying nothing about the worker's more unique appearance than most. N had not been able to help himself but sneak up behind the drone and strike up a very one-sided conversation about what she was doing.

It had been during convocation N had managed not only to taste this worker's oil, it had been the sweetest, richest and new on intoxicatingly good oil he had ever tasted. But N had learnt this worker and built something to fight back with, not that it'd matter once he had drunk this worker dry then her little toy would be just another piece of rumble laying about the spire.

That had not been what had happened, however, and what currently led to N lying on his back as the repair nanites inside his body rapidly began repairing his missing head, that worker drone had got the drop on him. They had used his desire to drink her oil and escaped his grip only to blow his head off. This thought bounced around the remains of his processor as the nanites continued their repairs.

"Ow ow ow that hurt," N sat bolt upright rubbing his nearly formed head the moment the nanites had finished repairing him, now repaired N jumped back onto his feet his optics looking around trying to find the worker drone yet there was no immediately obvious sign of the drone. Until he looked down and Saw the splattering of an oil trail leading out into the snowy wastes, well he'd be able to track that worker drone down at least.

"Idiot, get out here!" Or not, N winced at the angry yell from outside the spire, it seemed like J and V were back and by the sound of it, the hunt probably did not go well, knowing better than to keep J waiting N made his way outside the spire.

As N made his way outside he saw J standing there staring down at the trail of oil leading away from the spire, before either N could greet J or J could ask N what had happened V drifted down from up above her wings folding into her back.

V chuckled as she landed walking up towards the pair "Yo, we got an already injured worker running, I kind of want to practice balloon animal shapes with. ...What happened here?" V gestured a bladed claw at the oil and then damage to the spire, damage likely caused by the residue blowback of Uzi's railgun.

"Oh hi V," N cheerfully called out only to get an eye roll in response before turning to face J, who had an already annoyed expression on her face, tapping her fingers on her elbow her arms crossed. "Well J a worker drone was scavenging around the spire, they managed to get away." N gave her a weak smile as J stepped closer examining him her optics narrowing.

"How?" J asked her optics remaining locked onto his, "Did a worker drone manage to get away N?" While J kept her gaze on N wanting an answer V crotched down dipping a bladed finger into the oil puddle on the snow, While J stood there listening to N stumble out a response as to how the worker got away V lifted her now oil coated blade up to her mouth and licked the oil form the blades tip.

"So let me see if I have this straight you Synergistic Liability," J ground out through clenched teeth while staring at a father sheepish N after he had explained what had happened, "Rather than just killing the worker drone you decided to have a nice friendly chat with the toaster then a lovely little drink of oil," Shape paused watching as N sheepishly nodded, "And it used that to not only offline you briefly but escape without it had used to offline you, it that about right?"

N could only nod in response, seeing the look of annoyance already across J's face and knowing if he tried to explain in any greater detail it might just make her angrier, so he decided to keep his mouth shut, while J began to pace back and forth thinking N looked over at V noticing she was standing stock still her visor displaying wide eyes while a single blase finger hung in her mouth.

V gently removed the blade from her mouth as the oil slithered down what was approximately her throat, it was like no other worker drone oil she had drunk since arriving on Copper-9. The oil was intoxicating in its taste, the small slither she had just ingested had done more for her internal temperature than drinking an entire worker drone ever had. She needed to find the source of this oil, V turned to stare at N and J waiting for J to reach a decision about what to do.

"V track this toaster down," J turned to look at the other female disassembly drone, V stood up a grin spreading across her face as J's order, "In one piece, if one of them can build something that can take down then it might have a colony that are like-minded."

V smirked before crouching down and letting her bladed wings unfurl from her back before letting out a manic giggle and launching herself into the air following the trail of oil left on the snowy ground, V let the smirk on her face break out into a wide smile. Oh, she would bring this little worker drone back in one piece, but not before she had a nice long drink of its oil.

While V took flight the follow the oil trail J moved past N stalking into the corpse spire, N following close behind wringing his hands in worry. "So J why'd you want V to bring the worker drone back and not just kill it?" N asked curious about what J wanted with the drone.

J turned to look at N and smirked, "A toaster that was able to make something to bring you down, you misfiled audit is intelligent, more like us than the other toasters, it could be useful or the starter of a real threat to the company," J turned to stare out over the snowy wasteland flicking a pigtail out of her face, "And a threat to the company is a threat to us, so better to nip such a problem in the bud before it can become a real problem.

Chapter Text

She was floating in darkness, only drifting binary code streams floating past zeros and ones made up the only light she had to observe what was around her. Uzi had often replayed memories when in recharge, reliving the past was not something she enjoyed doing, seeing constant reminders of how different and an outcast when compared to the other worker drones around her age. Uzi could handle that, for the most part, but the memories she truly hated reliving were those involving her dad, every time she would go into recharge and relieve a memory with her dad his looks of disappointment and words of derision cut just that little bit deeper. None more so than when he had called the doors his 'real daughter and legacy', it would be a lie if that hadn't been one of the larger reasons why Uzi had been determined to finish her railgun and prove that they didn't need the cower behind the doors and could reclaim the entire planet for themselves.

So to be just floating in this black void filled with code was both a welcome reprieve from the memories and a concern for Uzi, she watched the purple code stream by moving up and down, left to right moving in chains within the darkness always in motion never stopping. The peace of just drifting in the dark purple code-filled void remained unbroken for some time, only for something to catch Uzi's attention. A change in the drifting code was what finally broke the odd uniformity of this void, as a group of four vertical lines of code began to drift past Uzi the purple light from the numbers washing over her it came to a stop.

The code jittered and skipped about in place, like a poorly buffering video, in the centre of the code the colour began to change from purple it began to spark first going red and spreading outwards like growing vines before the red itself changed to a sickly yellow. A familiar yellow to Uzi, the colour was the exact same as the visor display on the murder drones and that sent an uncontrollable shiver of fear down Uzi's spine. She was trapped floating in this void as something resembling the murder drone spread out above her, watching as the purple code slowly gave way to the yellow it almost looked like the yellow code was devouring the purple code.

Like a shattered pane of glass, the purple code fragmented spinning off into the darkness, the once gentle purple light vanishing as the yellow light filled the void. Pulsing with purpose the new yellow lines of code began to take shape, writhing about itself like a snake wrapped within its own coils the code pulsed and warped taking a hexagon shape. The newly formed hexagon continued to pulse along its outer edges as on three intersecting lines arrow headed points began to form before the pulsing stopped letting the newly formed symbol settle, slowly rotating in the void just above Uzi. Like a single lone star in the deep void of space, it bathed everything in its yellow light.

Uzi could do nothing but watch as this symbol took shape, the fear within her rising, her mind trying to process what the connection between this symbol and the murder drones was and how it could be linked to her drifting in this void. Uzi remembered going into recharge after escaping a murder drone that had sunk its fangs into her neck, could the bite on her neck be responsible for her being in this void and the symbol be some new or unseen way for a murder drone to get its victim should they manage to escape?

Uzi would not let this be the reason she died, not after escaping from death's jaws once before, and she wouldn't let its afterbite claim her. Closing her eyes and taking in a deep simulated breath to steady her nerves Uzi glared up at the symbol as it slowly rotated above her. "You won't get me," At first her voice was a little more than a whispering tremble, slowly rising in confidence the more she spoke, "Do you hear me, I escaped and killed one of your murder drones! You. Will. Not. Get. Me!" Her voice rose in volume reaching a defiant shout as she thrust a finger up at the symbol, almost daring it to respond.

The symbol began to slow in its rotation, almost as if Uzi's shout had gained its attention. Coming to a complete stop an unsettling monotone feminine voice began to echo outwards from the symbol. "We do not want you, We have enough puppets already." Uzi's optics widened at that statement, what did this thing mean by 'having enough puppets', was it referring to the murder drones, the corpses that made up the spire or something else? Whatever it was talking about Uzi was grateful it wasn't her.

"However," The voice spoke while spindly yellow claw-tipped limbs, crafted from lines of code began to form from within the hexagonal centre of the symbol and drift down towards Uzi, "You could be useful in reuniting us," The claws drew closer to Uzi gently snapping open and closed with anticipation of whatever they had planned.

Uzi tried in vain to kick herself away from the descending claws, almost as if she were trying to swim away from the claws, yet with each desperate movement of her limbs Uzi failed to gain any results. "What do you mean by reunite!" Panic spread through her as first her left leg and then her right leg was clamped onto by the claws, stopping them from being able to flail about.

"Easier to reformat than to explain," Was the only clarification the voice gave as it clamped down on Uzi's arms effectively ending her struggles before beginning to lift her up towards the centre of the hexagon, "Do not worry, we will make good use of your shell." Yet before Uzi could make contact with the symbol its claws stuttered and fragmented dropping the struggling worker drone, who now fell away from the symbol as if now under the effects of gravity. The symbol just watched as Uzi fell away from it, unmoving and unresponsive as she vanished from its sight. "Annoyed Sigh, No matter, we can be patient, a moment longer."

Laughing in a mixture of relief and evaporating panic Uzi let herself be dragged down by the familiar force of gravity, she had no idea why now of all times gravity had chosen that moment to flicker into existence or what had caused the claws to fragment and drop her but Uzi was not going to look being saved from whatever fate that symbol had in store for her in the mouth. So as she fell Uzi used her momentum to spin her body around to see what she was falling towards, only to be treated by an on-rushing white lift that temporarily blinded her as it engulfed her entire being.

No more than a split second after the light had engulfed Uzi, her optics turned back on showing her the inside of the truck she had entered recharge in. Moving a hand up to her neck Uzi felt around for where the murder drone had bit into her neck to drink her oil but found no signs of puncture wounds. Her neck had been fully repaired and that worried Uzi, worker drones couldn't self-repair damage like that, it often required the aid of another worker to patch the damage up or replace the parts if they could not be repaired with ease.

Before Uzi could ponder any deeper about both what had healed her neck and the terrifyingly dream she had been subjected to during recharge her attention was grabbed by the sound of scraping metal on metal that was accompanied by manic feminine giggling, a sound Uzi hoped she would have not heard for some time. Another murder drone was on the outside of the truck crawling along the outside and tapping its bladed fingers against the metal hull of the truck, Uzi didn't have to wonder if the murder drone knew she was hiding inside the truck as six long-bladed claws thrust themselves through the roof and began to peal it back like a banana.

Uzi stared up at the open hole as the murder drone's head appeared down through the new opening, a sick manic grin spread across its mouth showing its fangs as it fixed its gaze on her. For a few moments, both Uzi and the murder drone remained motionless staring at each other and during this time, Uzi could see this murder drone was of a feminine design. Before the murder drone could move Uzi scooped up a handful of snow and hurled it into the murder drone's face, obscuring its vision long enough so she could scramble to her feet and dart out of the truck at a dead sprint running into the raging blizzard. 

Looking back over her shoulder as she ran Uzi saw the murder drone climbing into the air on its metallic bladed wings before swooping down towards her, even at a dead sprint Uzi knew that outrunning the murder drone was impossible and she didn't think that she could draw her railgun and fire fast enough. Looking around Uzi smirked spotting the ramped entrance to an underground car park, keeping her speed Uzi continued running hearing the giggling laughter of the murder drone closing in behind her. Without looking back she could feel its outstretched bladed fingers, keeping her optics on her goal Uzi let her legs slide out from beneath her the murder drone sailing harmlessly above her having not expected Uzi to drop down like she did.

Using the momentum of her slide Uzi stuck a hand out grabbing onto the half-buried remains of a frozen skeleton, the frozen skeleton acting as a pivot point to allow Uzi to turn and slide down the ramp leading to the underground car pack. Wasting no time having slid into the car park Uzi used the remaining momentum to hop back up onto her feet and draw the railgun from her back, the weapon's green glow lighting up the abandoned car park. Panting as if she was out of breath Uzi spun to face the entry ramp slowly backing away from it, the railgun aimed towards what she assumed was the only entry into the car park.

Uzi could hear the giggles of the murder drone echoing around her, not something she wanted to hear if it had found another way in it'd be all over her in an instant. Still walking backwards Uzi began to scan the railgun around from where she thought the laughter was coming from, if she kept calm then she could do this, survive and take down another murder drone it would truly prove her ideas right.

"Well, aren't you a smart little toaster," The feminine tone of the murder drone's voice echoed around the car park, "Keeping this interesting, most of you just run in a straight line thinking you can escape that way."

"Why don't you come out so we can make it even more interesting," Uzi snarked back still trying to pinpoint where the murder drone's voice was coming from, "Your buddy back at that corpse spire of yours found our talk real mind-blowing." Uzi in spite of herself laughed at her own joke, only to stop hearing the murder drone likewise laughing along with her.

"Oh sorry to burst your bubble," It cooed in mock sympathy, "But it really didn't take with him."

Uzi felt like a rock had just dropped into the bottom of her chest, that couldn't be right she had seen the murder drone back at the corpse spire topple over headless no way it could survive that. This new murder drone had to be toying with her, trying to distract her and make Uzi doubt the usefulness of her railgun so it would have no issue killing her. "No, you're lying I blew its head off." Uzi snarled now truly certain the murder drone was trying to distract her.

Its manic laughter continued to echo about the car park, now joined by the sound of tapping metal on concrete letting Uzi know the murder drone was now inside the car park, "Oh don't worry, you'll get to see for yourself," The murder drone continued to laugh but the laugh quietening down almost as if she was moving away from Uzi.

"Bite me!" Uzi snapped back, her anger rising at the thought she'd failed to kill the first murder drone. She had reduced its head to a smokey stump no way it survived that, "If you really weren't worried bout me and my railgun you'd have jumped me by now!"

Before Uzi could move again the ground beneath her exploded upwards as the murder drone flew up through the newly made hole, having somehow not only got around Uzi but on the floor below her. Not giving Uzi a chance to run or bring the railgun around, having managed to jump up inside the length of the railgun, the murder drone brought a bladed hand around and dug her three-bladed fingers into the railgun's barrel and squeezed crumpling it inwards to prevent it from firing. With the railgun dealt with the murder drone wrenched it out of Uzi's grasp fixing the smaller worker drone with a wide manic grin, casually tossing the broken railgun off to the side and flexing both her bladed fingers she cracked her mouth open slightly and ran her tongue along the outside of her teeth. "I don't think I will find out how that works no, instead I think I'll find out if your oil is as tasty as I think it is."

Watching her railgun get bent, ripped from her grasp and casually tossed aside, Uzi forced down the despair at her life's work being ruined, if she let that surface now then she really would be little more than an oil can for the murder drone in front of her. Thinking fast Uzi balled a hand into a fist and thrust it outwards towards the underside of the murder drone's jar, was it a stupid plan? Yes without any shred of doubt, it was, but her last stupid idea to let a murder drone bite her neck and start drinking her oil had worked so this one had just as much chance of working.

Uzi's fist never made contact with the murder drone's chin, both her hands were snatched up in one of the murder drone's empty hands and held high above her head. Lifting the much shorter worker drone off the ground, her legs now swinging freely Uzi frantically tried to lash out and kick the murder drone in the chest. Before Uzi could see her legs would not even reach the much taller drone's chest, the murder drone's tail snaked around wrapping itself around her legs stopping them from kicking out and immobilising Uzi.

"Normally now I'd be practising balloon animal shapes with your innards," The murder drone cooed running one of her bladed fingers down Uzi's cheek, enjoying the site of the worker drone flinching at the touch, "But the boss wants you back alive, so looks like you are off the hook for that." She leant down closer running her tongue along Uzi's neck, unintentionally over the same spots she had been bitten on already, "She didn't say you had to be in one piece or out of recharge."

Before Uzi could make a sound the murder drone reared her head back and opened her mouth wide, her fanged sharp teeth glinting in the darkness of the car park and thrust her head downwards sinking her fangs deep into the shell between Uzi's lower neck and shoulder. Oil spattered out from the deep puncture as the murder drone began to greedily suck down mouthfuls of Uzi's oil as it was pumped out of her body, trying to remain calm was not possible for Uzi at how violently this murder drone had bit down into her so for the first time in her life Uzi screamed in sheer panic and desperation trying to thrash and free herself.

As Uzi thrashed in what could be considered a fight or flight response her visor began rapidly displaying error codes, she felt her core temperature rising as the oil used to cool it was sucked out. The higher the temperature rose she saw warnings flash by her internal mechanisms shutting down one by one in a vain attempt to forcibly cool her down and stop a meltdown of her internal components, each time a component shut down Uzi felt her thrashing to escape grow weaker and weaker her own body betraying her drive to survive. With the blackness of a forced recharge prickling her vision Uzi watched with mounting horror as the yellow symbol she had miraculously escaped from in her dream slowly bled into her vision, followed closely by the same voice as before. "Mocking laughter. Welcome back, let us continue shall we?"

With a final scream of terror, a scream that sounded like her vocal speaker was breaking down with its distorted scratching and popping, Uzi went limp in the murder drone's the only sign she wasn't dead was the spinning boot-up symbol displayed on her visor along with a single line of barely visible text that read.

'M̵̤̲͈̹̗̫̘̘̐̌̈́͗̀̓̅̽̐̕e̷̮̰̺͚̟̫̳͕͕͋̕ͅḿ̸̡͚̩̰̙͇͈̌͑̀̚͝ȏ̷̮̳͚̭̙͈͚̩̊͒͜͝r̶̨̹͎͇̬̲͍̍́ỳ̷̖̯̥̩̬͕̌̌͗̍̍̄ ̵̡̳̭͎̊̏̑̌͆͒͝R̶̫̝̙̞͇̿̉̎͝ê̴̘̼͝c̴͔̤͚̾̀̌̔͆ỏ̴͇̯͎̫͐͑̂͘͜͝v̸͖́̒͆̑̾̈̉̃͠͝ė̸̖͊͆̕͠r̶͙̼͛̉̀̃̋y̸͍̹̓̈́͑̀͒̽̏.̵̞̖̒̀̾̐̀͑̈̒.̸̡̥͖̬̟̬͈̯̐̓ͅ.̷̺̦̰̣͇͕̣͛̅.̷̠̉̑.̷̖͙̮̻̯̘̀̃̈́́̑͛̌̿̋͝ ̷͚̈͋̈̑̓̈́͘Ḯ̴̢͕̻̜̠͖͕͓̼̎͘͜n̶̥̽͛̊ ̸̡̙̼̤̘̻̘͋̓̉̇̑͌͆̔͑͘ͅP̷̢̤͙̳͚̙̽̇̃̀͜͠ͅŗ̸̧̲̆̐͗̆̕͜͝͝ȯ̸͚͎̰̺ḡ̸͉͉̺̘͔̫̮͋͑͆̈̿͝͝r̷̜̽̾̾̂͘̕͝͝e̶̼̗̰̣̮̟̞͓̗̐͌ś̵̡̡̡̛̼̝̣̲̭̊̄̇̄͝͠s̷͙̦͈͈̑̑͒̐̈́͗͛̂̌͘.̵̭͎̤̔̌̀͋͗̄͛.̶̛̮̾̃̇̎͆̓.̶̯̻̿͠.̶̙͚̬̯̍̆̆̿̏̀̍̚͝.̷̻̝̺̬̖̙̳͊̈͒̂̐̄͝ ̴̮̝̦̥̮̗͗͊̓̓̐͂͌͒0̶̫́.̵̤̺̍̈́̽̔̇̔̚1̵̺͑́̇̓̆͆͝%̶̼̔̐̓̈́̄̉͋́̾͜.̴͙̫͕̼̣̜̱͔̦̆̇̀̈́̋.̸̛̠̲̦̘̎̾̇̃̆͠ͅ.̴̙͕̫̮̓̀.̵̡̨̭̻̙̖̳̲̀̈́͌̂͗̆̚.̸̧͚̼̼̙̯͙͙͂̓̎̽̈̆̓͛͠ ̷̨̼͚͇̗͙͓̻͙̈̑̒͋͐̂̕͘͜͝C̸̫̥̙̦̣͓͖͔̆̐̑̏́̈́o̶̢̱̫̜̗̣̅m̶̜̪̬̃́́p̵͓̲͚̜̐́̀́l̵͍͔͓̺̻̘͉̿̀̎͆̎͋͌̿̄͝ͅͅẻ̸̡̪̱̭̻̼̘̻͙̔̽͗̈́́̊͑̓͝t̷̛̠̜̖̩̗̙̾̓̋̏͘̚e̸͔̰͙̣̮̫͖̦̓́͊͜͠'

--- LINE BREAK ---

V was in utter bliss right now, the sweet tangy oil that was sliding down her throat as she drank from the struggling worker J had told her to catch. Not only had the worker had some shade of intelligence, more so than every other worker drone she had killed but even now pinned and helpless it still fought trying to escape. The more she drank from the worker V felt its struggles get more frantic before they began to lose steam and peter out, until finally after one last surge and scream the drone went limp in her grip.

Taking her mouth away from the worker's neck V ran her saliva-coated tongue along the vicious bite letting the nanites inside it begin to nit the wound back together, no better way to hide the fact she'd sampled the worker than healing it. Keeping the worked drone wrapped in her tail V took a moment to closely examine the worker drone, while many workers shared a similar design to their shells she noticed that a vast majority of them had begun adorning them with unique hairstyles in a wide variety of colours.

Something about the purple hair and its style tweaked her memory files, ones deeply buried inside her memory cores, not a concern for right now but something to examine at a later date. Keeping the worker coiled in her tail V looked over to where she had chucked its broken weapon, better to take it with her than leave it lying around on the off chance another worker found it and fixed it, J would probably have a hissy fit if she left it here anyway. Picking the railgun up in one hand V looked at the things crumpled barrel and smirked, it had been easy to break and would likely be a challenge to fix.

Still feeling the euphoric buzz from the worker's oil filling her insides V made her way outside into Copper-9's frozen wastes, the normal bite of the wind had softened to a pleasant chill as it whipped around V. Looking back as the worker still wrapped up in her tail V cooed and reached her free arm around plucking the worker drone form her tail, swapping her with the damage railgun to more securely hold onto the worker. "Now hold on tight, we'll be with the others soon enough."

Cackling at her own words V launched herself into the air and made her way back towards the corpse spire, as she drew closer to the spire V saw N standing outside most likely on guard duty after whatever demeaning triad J had given him. Seeing N and no J was ideal for V right now, she had something she wanted to ask the overly cheerful drone and it would be better without J being present.  Landing directly in front of N, V uncoiled her tail using the momentum to hurl the railgun towards him forcing the masculine drone to stumble to catch it. "Hold onto that."

"Oh, H hi V," N stumbled over himself as he caught the railgun giving V a sheepish grin, "You caught the worker then?" V rolled her eyes at N's rather obvious question seeing it for what it really was, a convocation starter.

"I did," V sighed pointing out the worker drone slung under her arm, "Which reminds me N," V smirked and sauntered closer to him, "You got a taste of her oil didn't you?" V leant in close to N a smirk on her face as she watched his visor display the telltale signs of a blush and stutter.

"W-well she did say 'bite me' I took it as an invitation to do so," N stammered out pressing his fingers together, "And my reserves were low, her oil hit just the right spot, I have never had anything like it," N turned his gaze down towards the form of the worker held under V's arm running a tongue along his upper teeth, "I can still taste it V."

V smirked and moved the worker drone to her other arm putting her body between it and N, "It is intoxicating isn't it?" She leaned in closer to him her voice purring she whispered just loud enough for N to hear, "We'll have to keep that our secret from J, just a secret for the two of us."

V moved away from N watching his blush depend before he gave her a stuttering nod in agreement, with that V walked past N and towards the pod in the centre of the spire. She had kept him at an arm's length she had always found his upbeat and friendly nature endearing deep down, it reminded her of a Golden Retriever for some reason. She shook her head to clear the thought away. Something likely brought up from a long-buried memory file, a concern for the future, right now she had more pressing matters.

Stepping into the pod V made her way to where J was likely waiting for her, the pod's control room. She entered the pod's central control room and dropped the unresponsive form of the worker drone onto the floor. "One fleeing toaster, undamaged and functional."

J looked from V to the worker and frowned noticing the rebooting loop on its display, bending down to lift the worker drone's head to get a better look. "Did you have to put it into a reboot cycle?" J snapped before fastening a metal collar around the worker's neck, a collar connected to a chain fastened to the floor, "That'll stop it from running if this toaster reboots while we are either away or resting."

V just shrugged at J's question, "Not my fault it put a fight," V turned one of her hands onto a bubble blower, in a taunting gesture for J and blowing a stream of bubbles at her, "If you hadn't wanted it alive then it'd have been much easier."

Not rising to the bait J just motioned for V to head back outside, following behind her, "Come on the sun is nearly up, we'll get the moron to guard her while we sleep." As both the female disassembly drones made their way out of the pod to find somewhere on the inside of the spire to hang form and rest one thing was for certain, when the worker drone rebooted it would have some questions to answer.

---LINE BREAK---

Uzi's eyes snapped open as her body lurched upright, heavy panting breaths causing her chest to rise and fall as she tried to steady her nerves. One moment she was being drained like a small oil can by a murder drone, the next she was waking up here, looking around she came to the realisation she wasn't back at the corpse spire, or by the looks of things on Copper-9 anymore.

Looking around Uzi could see she was inside a workshop, a workshop inside a building made from stained mahogany wood, a nearby work table the site of several thick books lay. From the distance she was from the table, Uzi could see they were manuals to do with drone repair, why were they there and above all else why was she lying on this workbench? Her attention was grabbed by the sound of a familiar monotone voice coming from her other side.

"Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle." Uzi turned at hearing the voice, dreading what she was going to see that symbol again only to instead be greeted by the sight of a worker drone, dressed in a French maid outfit with the same shade of yellow for its optics as the symbol and murder drones was, awkwardly making its way towards her before reaching the side of the bench she was still on, "I am glad to see you are awake." The drone spoke as her head tilted to the side a soft smirk on her lips, "We were worried you were too damaged to reboot. Arms crossed, head tilt."

"W... What?" Uzi asked trying to process what this female worker drone was saying, it didn't make sense how had she gotten here and where exactly was here, "Wh... Where am I?" Uzi began to look around the room again her eyes finally landing on a mirror on the wall behind her and what she saw sent a shiver down her robotic spine. Gone was the vibrant purple of her optics and hair, replaced with a faint lavender that blended into grey, likewise, her clothes had changed from edgy teen goth to a matching maid outfit and headdress mirroring what the other female worker drone was wearing with a orange band on her left arm.

"Do not worry. Reassuring Back Pat," The other drone said reaching an arm out to pat Uzi on the back, "Big Brother N and Tessa return everything will be explained. Sister." At those words, a wide grin spread on the worker drone's face.

A grin that did not put Uzi at ease only further increased the concern she had about where she now found herself, and she knew deep down it was all the murder drone's fault.

Chapter Text

Uzi sat there on the workbench, staring at her reflection, her mind trying to process the drastic change. While she tried to actively rationalise the change in her appearance deep inside her processor memory files, both old and new ones or were they new and old ones? Both sets of files felt real to her processor like she had lived two lives and they were now trying to assert themselves as real.

Had she truly lived on the far-off exoplanet Copper-9, being a social outcast to all her peers as they cowered behind a series of doors instead of a bunker hiding from the murder drones? Daughter to a father who thought her nothing but a disappointment in all things. It felt so real the look of disappointment and desire for her to be just like every other young drone in the colony, the hurt emotions it had given rise to couldn't be fake no programming was cruel enough to randomly generate such a thing spontaneously.

Yet the memory of her father's disappointment was rivalled by another memory, one of her being chastised by her owner, which was a concept that hurt to think about being owned but that's what worker drones were. Property for owners to assign specific tasks and functions to and she had failed that task, so it only stood she'd be punished for it. Uzi remembered her old owners ranting about how useless she was and how they'd be better off simply replacing her with a better more up-to-date model, that had come right before being struck in the visor by a blunt instrument cracking it and sending her sprawling to the floor. Before Uzi could utter an excuse, and give a reason for why she had failed a task she could not remember her owner had ordered her "Thrown out with the other worthless trash, maybe it and its sister unit will prove better distractions for crows."

Sister, did she have a sister? Uzi tried to remember if she had a sister, no she was an only child it was just her and her dad no younger or older siblings. Wait, that wasn't right, she did have a sister not in the typical biological sense humans had siblings or family but in the sense they shared a model type and had been purchased at the same time to serve the same owner. Trying to figure out which memory was true and which was false hurt, Uzi turned her optics off trying to free the pressure on her processor so she could puzzle it out.

Thinking more on it Uzi found her thought broken by two things, the repetitive feeling of something soft gliding through her hair in time with a voice speaking. "Brush. Brush. Brush." Uzi turned her optics back on and turned her head to where the noise was coming from, now seated behind her on the bench a hairbrush in hand, Uzi was able to tell they'd been brushing her hair and vocalising the action, turned to look at her with those yellow optics. With those familiar yellow optics, in an instant, Uzi knew who this drone was. "Is everything okay sister Uzi? Concerned head tilt."

It wasn't some horrific manifestation of code that wanted to use her shell for whatever sick purpose, no matter what some of these memories in her head wanted her to think. These were the eyes of a drone she had known since they had first been programmed and purchased, Uzi looked back into those yellow optics seeing the concern for her in them and felt her hands tremble at the sight of it. In the memories of Copper-9, no one had ever looked at her with that level of concern, she'd been given looks of pity and concern for her plans and goals but never a look for actual concern just for her.

The other memory files held more than just concern in those yellow optics, Uzi could remember them looking at her with a range of emotions but the most prominent had always been emotions of admiration, love and joy. If the memories of her life on Copper-9 were the real ones then Uzi didn't want them, what worker drone would want to accept that as real? So if the memories of her being a domestic servant were real, they had a silver lining with the pain they caused.

With shaky hands Uzi reached out and took the other drone's hands just looking at her, her processor running a mile a minute as she called back up this drone's name from the memory files she had, finding the name with ease Uzi went to speak only to be created with a display message on her visor only she could see.

.̶̛̛̱͇͕́̏̓̎͆̈͠.̷͇̹̪̜̞̬̈́̽̏̓̂̌̊͊͝͝.̶̢̨̲͈͇͓̻̳̰̆͋͆̆̓̍͜͝V̴͍͓̪̝̺̱͔̙̬̜̇̆̂́o̶͎̝̝̳̲̮͑͊͊͒̌͠͠c̴̫̞̝͙̺̖̪̍̿̔͜͜͝a̴̧͔̟̩̳̪͗̽̄̎͝l̴̞͎̰̀̎̔̀͘͝ ̷̪̫̮̭͖̳̟͊͑P̷̱̝̎̈́̈́̐͠ͅr̴̡̜̬̞̪̳͍̱̫̫̅͂̔̅͋̋͋͘͠o̷̮̬̙̥̎̄̄̾ç̴̛̙̣̮̝̪̯̙̞̊̾͛̏̽̇͗̚͝ě̸̡̛͚̖̮͔̓͌͂͋̽̚͘s̸̼̩̖̞͒̃s̴͚̃̊̀́͗̀̾͝ŏ̷̢̖̘̥̩͎͖̼̦͜r̵̭̹͎͙̰̼̣̤͖̹̒͆͊̔̌̚ ̴̡̣̍̔̈́̾͆̿̄͝f̴̡͓͇̞͔̻͑ỉ̴̢̛̙̫̦͈̐͐͗̏̃̕͜l̸̪̮̘̥͆̍̂̎͂̄͒ȩ̶̡͕͔̝̪̖̗͐̐́̐͐͘͝ͅs̵̨̞̲̟̳̹̱̞͚͒.̴̳̋͑.̵̨̗̥̌̌͘͠.̷͚͋̅͂̆̔̐͝ ̸̡̼͚̱̭͍͇͉̃̀̂Ç̵̦̻͇̺̹̰̻̹̔̎̆̂̊̎o̴̲͇͖͔̼͆̎̾̿̀̉ŕ̴̳̯̯̭͍͇̐̾̆͛͒̍̇r̸̨̢̩͖͍͎̣̞̀͜ư̶̡̘̟̬̦̪̳̣̯̐̇͒̿̾̄͑͝͝p̶͖̬̘̣̭͍̼̺͈̟̍ṭ̷̗̪̪͕͔́͘͠e̵̢̜̟̗̮̯͓̋̊̚ͅd̴̡͓̺̙̜̳̺̬̯̰͌́̃͊͂̓͐͐̄́ ̵̟̤̥̭͔͈̦̪͗͐̏̈̃̀̿͌͜͠͝ͅ.̷̡̛̠̼͎̜̙̯̪̩̿̍̈̃̅̈́̚͘.̶̱͖̹̻͖͔̗̱̉̄̎.̶̧͇̥̠̪̠̠̠͕̘͂͛̿͐̓̑̚S̴̘̹̩͚̯͕̮̀̍͒̌͜͝p̸͓͈͌̑̇̈́̋͘ę̴̻̥̰͉̫̰̂̃̂̇͝ȁ̵̡̝̟̂̔k̵̤͈̥͕̜̹̿̍͒͆̓e̸͙̠͉̗̫͊͛͂̈́͒͐͠͝͠r̶̮̝̝̮̆̇͛̔̍̇͘ ̸̡͚͖̤͑̾U̷̪̍͊̆̌͑n̶̩̫̈̄̎́̅̾i̶͇̦̱̥̅̿̆̐t̶̟̲̍̓͛͆̂.̸̠̲̈́.̸̤̲̘̉͆͗͗̓͘.̷̧̲̣͕͊̓̉̈́̑ͅ ̴͈̜͎̳̭̹͎̫̃́̐̒͂D̷̞̮͓͚̖̹̲͇͙͊á̵͔͍͙͖͓̯̋̄̂͒̏͗͝͝͠m̷̢̡̡̥͓͔͇̭͈̐͂͠a̷̢̦̐͋̓̃̔̈́̀̐̓ǵ̸͎̲̰͂̍͝e̴̡̛̛̮̜̣̋̽̈̾͊̉̊͝d̸̡̳͈̖̭̣͙̬̠̊̉ ̶̳̖̹̌̎̓̃.̸̤͒̃̓.̴̨̝͖̣̟̾͐̅̇̈́̆̊̎.̶͎̪̗͕̩͈̳̟͖̆̅͛̾V̸̬̭̖̌̈́̌̏̎̊̑͘ô̴̜̗̥͊̾̌̈̊͘͝č̴̡̪̲͇̰͎̾̏̌͗͌̀̿̽͜a̵̢̨͈̟̪̝̾̈́̀̓͛͝͠ĺ̸̨̺͉̼̺̫̥̣̠̙ ̶̭̦̦̽̓́͒͝Q̵̭̻̬̥͎͔͈͙̝̄̊̃̃̃͒̆͆̍u̷̢̫͎͖͍͎͋̌̇̌̌̑̀̆a̸̢̛̘̤̦̫͆̔̔́͝͠l̷̝̯̹͓̃̈́̿̃̀͋̑î̶̻̱̰̤̞̬͖͚̮͈̌̈͛͋̂͛̕ṭ̸̛́͆̈́̒̈͊̽̉͠y̶̜͗̃ ̵̩̫̣͕͈̭̠͎̦̂̽̿̑͗̕͝P̵̧̮̖̩͇͑̀͜ͅó̸̧̝͎̼̟̟̱́̃͝o̵̤̤͔͙͓͔͑̀̈̿̋͛̑́̊r̴̡̢͚̩̦̯̱̭̥̩̈̀͌̅̈͂͗͝.̶̮͑̓̅̏̂͒̎̚̚.̸̰͔͒͌̊̆̌͂͋̏͋͝.̴̛̱͈̲̈́

.̸̨̛͙͎̭̩͈̌͒̌̀̀̋̒̄͘.̵̛̛̖͎̻̞̲̮̑̒̍̊̂͝.̴̹͙̳͎͙̤̟̽͛̓͌͌̕ͅC̷͍̾ͅõ̶̳̟̩͕͋̓͆͘͠n̴̛̬͎̹̹͚̜͙̩̳̠̍̚͝t̴̛̞̘̗̥͚̆͊ͅi̴̢͈͚̠̞̅̊̈́̈́̇͗͌̌n̴̗̰̺͗̅͂͋̓͘ų̷̢̢̦̠̭̪̿̒̌͘e̶̡̟̲̮̣̳͓̥͉̘̎ ̷̯̯̙̫̼̭̜̒̌Ÿ̸̨̻̪̻͉̺̹̙̱̈́̽̕̚̕͝/̵̨̩̥̜̬͓̬͍̣͛̎̑͂̀̽͂̉͘Ǹ̴͖̂̌̏͌̿̈́̏̈́̃?̵͕̳̟͒͑͑̏͛̐̕̕͜͝.̵̫̭̹͇̤͗͛.̷̰̘͔͔̣̣͕͂̄̃͝.̶͇̉̎̅͝͝

Her voice was damaged, and Uzi couldn't place how that had happened but if she had to guess from the two most recent memory files it had either been when a murder drone had nearly torn her throat out while guzzling down her oil. Or when she had been thrown out by her previous owner, Uzi did not know and at the moment she didn't care, "C-C-Cyn?" She asked her voice scratchy and stuttering as she spoke the other drone's name. Uzi had thought the scratchy voice she had when she'd first powered on here was a simple result of being inactive for a long period, but if it wasn't then there wasn't much she could do about it. "W-W-Where are w-w-we?"

"Comforting sibling hug," The newly identified Cyn spoke as she gently slipped her hands free from Uzi's and leaned forward wrapping them around her chest and pulling Uzi into a hug, it was something Uzi slowly returned, "Our new home."

Before Uzi could ask another question both her and Cyn's attention was taken by the sound of a large wooden door opening. Standing in the now-open doorway was a short human girl, Uzi had trouble making out any of the defining features such as the human's large hair bow, similar hairstyle to Cyn. The girl stood there her eyes widening at the sight of Uzi sitting upright, a comfortable silence settled in place for a few seconds as neither Uzi nor the human girl moved only to be broken by Cyn releasing Uzi from the hug sliding off the workbench and waving at the human girl. "Familiar wave. Sister Uzi is awake Tessa." A large grin spread across Cyn's face as she twitched standing at a slightly crooked angle, "Content grin."

Snapped out of the stupor from seeing Uzi was no longer unresponsive and stuck in a boot loop, something that had been frustrating Tessa for the last few weeks since she had found the pair of heavily damaged and discarded but still functional drones in one of the nearby junkyards she quickly crossed the gap from the door to the table to get a closer look at Uzi. Tessa reached out with her hands cupping Uzi's face and gently moving it from side to side, watching as Uzi's optics moved to track her before letting go her eyes lighting up with joy.

Holding back her joyous squeals at being able to fix another discarded drone, Tessa turned to face Cyn, "Why don't you go find N for me Cyn he can help you introduce your sister to the others and show her around yer?"

Cyn gave Tessa a smile and a single nod before making her way to the door, "Accepting nod. Big Brother N will be happy to meet sister Uzi." only to stop briefly in the doorway and give Uzi a single wave, "Comforting wave. See you soon sister Uzi. Skip. Skip. Skip" Before turning to skip out the door.

"Now Uzi right?" Tessa asked getting the attention of her newest worker drone smiling as Uzi gave a sheepish nod in recognition of her name, "I'm Tessa, why don't we get a good look at you," Placing her hands again on Uzi's head staring into her optics, her own eyes filled with joy.

"I-i-is there s-s-s-omthing w-w-wrong?" Uzi asked as Tessa continued to gently move her head from left to right before the girl switched to lifting Uzi's arms up and down letting them go and watching as Uzi lowered them back down to the table.

"Hmm," Tessa leant down and gently used a finger to open Uzi's mouth looking inside her mouth at the inbuilt vocal speaker, "Your vocaliser is damaged huh?" Tessa watched as the lilac-haired drone gave a slow pitiful nod, she honestly felt for her newest worker drone as just like her others she was damaged in some way. "Hey it's ok," Tessa reassured patting Uzi gently on the arm, "It's nothing to worry about, it just makes you, something special okay?"

Uzi just looked into Tessa's eyes, trying to see if the human girl was mocking her in some way the memory files of Copper-9 were still trying to assert themselves in her processor, it made her want to snark back and tell this human where she could stick her physical exam. Uzi forced that desire down and let the other memory files kick in, Tessa only wanted to make sure she was in good working order. Uzi had a feeling as to why, she'd been discarded for being useless once if Tessa didn't she was useful would she likewise discard her?

"E-e-even with a d-d-damaged v-v-voca-a-aliser I c-c-can still w-w-work," Uzi stammered out, the feeling of needing to be useful ramped itself up as both sets of memory files enforced it both as a domestic worker drone being unable to do the simplest of tasks by her older owners definition of a simple task as well as the rejection and isolation on Copper-9 when she had wanted to help.

Tessa gave Uzi a sympathetic look seeing the panic in the drone's eyes as she spoke and gently patted her shoulder, "No need to worry Uzi, I won't be getting rid of you for something that makes you unique." Taking Uzi by both hands Tessa eased her off the workbench and onto standing on her own two feet.

As she stood Uzi noticed she didn't need to be as heavy-footed as before, looking down Uzi took note that in place of the clunky heavy boots, her memory files told her she had worn before were gone, replaced by a pair of smart lace-up shoes that match her outfit. Another memory file told her she had always worn these, but with the memories of not wearing them clashing Uzi found herself unsteady on her feet. Uzi took in what Tessa had just said, she thought her stuttering voice was unique, and it made her smile.

Tessa just smiled at the still timid drone, her mind wandering back to when she had found both Uzi and Cyn, roughly four weeks ago. It had been raining when she had managed to slip away from the manor to make it to the drone junkyard, not really ideal weather for searching but Tessa took any chance she could, while she had been searching for a new set of optics for another of her drones Tessa had heard Cyn's odd manner of vocalising her actions and followed them.

"Panicked digging. Frantic searching. Where are you?" Tessa had come upon the site of a dishevelled and hairless Cyn with her visor still cracked frantically digging through a large pile of disassembled and discarded worker drones, Tessa felt her heart ache for the small broken drone searching for something. "Pitiful whimpering. I don't want to be alone." Hearing the drone speak like that had hurt, wasting no time Tessa quickly stepped up to the little drone which was on their knees still digging away and placed a hand on their shoulder.

Before she could say anything the little drone jerked away from Tessa its broken visor and flickering optics looking up at Tessa in terror, "Do you want some help?" She slowly lowered herself onto her knees next to the drone, "I can help you find what you are looking for if you'd like?" Tessa kept her voice soft and gentle so as not to spook the damaged drone.

The damaged drone let its optics flick up and down as it gazed at Tessa before nodding slowly, "Trusting nod." and then turning back to digging in the pile of drones, "Calmed determined digging."

Tessa watched as the drone's digging became less frantic as she joined in, there was still an underlying level of desperation in it but it had become more controlled.

"I'm Tessa," Tessa smiled as she helped the drone shift a large mangled pile of drone bodies, "What is your name and what are we searching for?" Tessa asked before she saw the drone freeze before scrambling into the new large open and frantically pulling another drone, a drone that while it had an intact visor had severe damage to its neck and shoulders. While not normally a shock to Tessa to see such damage in the junkyard, what shocked her was the drone's display did not show the normal 'FATAL ERROR' message common with discarded drones, rather it had a spinning boot-up symbol.

"Panicked shacking. Sister wake up." Tessa felt for the other drone as she shocked who she called her sister, the desperation in its monotone voice was clear, "Terrified realisation. I don't want you to leave."

"I can help fix her," Tessa said gently placing a hand on both drones to get their attention, "We can repair your sister, I promise."

"Fearful hope. We won't be discarded?" The drone asked holding the unresponsive one tightly in a clear sign of fear.

"I do not get rid of my drones," Tessa reassured moving to help carry the rebooting drone by the legs letting the other drone carry the torso, "I promise."

"head tilt. Okay." Slowly the drone rose holding onto the rebooting drone's torse tightly, "Delayed reply. I am Cyn."

Tessa found herself being snapped out of the memory of when she'd found the two drones by the sounds of Cyn and N's voices getting closer to her workshop, a smile on her face as she could tell from the way Cyn was speaking, even with her oddly monotone pattern, how excited she was to introduce N.

"Impatent tugging. Hurry up Big Brother." Cyn was the first into the room tugging along the slightly taller male butler-dressed worker drone, "Excited feelings. Tessa fixed her."

"Alright Cyn," The male drone's voice chuckled as he let the smaller shuffling drone drag him into the room, coming to a stop before Tessa and smiling up at her. "Hey Tessa, Cyn didn't really explain why she came and grabbed me."

Tessa couldn't help but pick the male drone up in a joyous hug and swing him around, "Cus I asked her to N!" She had a real soft spot for N, nothing ever really seemed to get him down he brought an odd refreshing light to an otherwise dreary life, "I have a special job for you and someone new I'd like you meet." Tessa came to a stop from swinging N she placed him back down on the ground and turned to look at Uzi, seeing Cyn and moved next to her taking the lilac-haired drone's hand on comfort.

"Oh sure," N responded with his normal upbeat enthusiasm, "Meeting new people and your tasks are the best Tessa." He gave her a wide winning smile and watched as Tess stepped aside to let him see Cyn standing there with a new drone, another maid drone with lilac highlighted hair and optics.

"N," Tessa began calmly noticing how Uzi's optics had widened in most likely panic, "This is Uzi, the drone I brought back with Cyn a few weeks ago, I was hoping you'd show her around and introduce her to V and J?" Tessa gently took Uzi's free hand and one of N's and moved them together.

"Oh sure Tessa I can do that," N replied his voice still upbeat and full of positivity, he then turned to look down at the slightly shorter Uzi a smile still on his face, "Come on Uzi, let's show you around."

Uzi found herself briefly frozen in sheer terror as she looked up at N's face, she knew that face had been her first up-close experience with a murder drone, but it couldn't have been those memory files were not real memory files just junk data her system had made during a reboot. Yet seeing N and how much he perfectly resembled the murder drone whom she was sure she had killed sent a spike of pure terror down her spine, it was clear this was a trap none of this was real just a sick elaborate game by the murder drones. They were dragging out her death now, it was an entirely new level of cruelty for them.

Uzi went to rip her hand away and make an attempt to escape by sprinting to freedom past N, but she was stopped by a comforting squeeze from the other drone holding her other hand, she turned to look at Cyn. Her lilac eyes met Cyn's vibrant yellow ones and, for what felt like an eternity to Uzi, she felt a comforting familiarity wash over her processor and memories. She was safe here, no longer someone unwanted or unloved, a disappointment to be judged and scorned. Uzi had her sister now, and soon a family formed of worker drones once like her.

"O-o-okay," She stuttered letting N gently lead her away while Cyn followed behind, "I-i-its nice t-t-to meet y-y-you N." Uzi kept her optics forward watching where N was leading her, missing the quick flash of the hexagonal symbol and a wider grin briefly flicker across Cyn's face behind her.

---LINE BREAK---

N smiled as he sat there next to the worker drone they'd been keeping for the past few days, the worker was still stuck in rebooting which was odd normally it only took a worker drone at most five minutes to go through a reboot. This one however had been in the reboot loop for three days, it had put J in a much fouler mood than normal. Her rants about 'lost time to profit margins' had made no sense to N, but that was pretty common when it came to J ranting about the company still, the worker drones longer hen normal reboot had led to J simply wanting to terminate them. 

He'd been shocked that it was his overly sadistic fellow disassembly drone V t#who suggested the idea that the worker drone had been knocked into a system memory recovery state, N could not help but agree with V as it'd explain why the worker was taking so long to reboot. Still, the worker being in a likely system recovery meant J still wanted to just kill the drone, which even N thought would have been a waste as if the worker was doing a system recovery then they would still hold useful information about where other worker colonies were located.

So it was what had led N to his current situation of not only being told to guard the course spire but the worker drone as well. For the first day, N had been able to simply just sit there in silence looking out at the frosty wasteland that was Copper-9 with not a single care in the world. It was the second day onwards N had started to feel weird about just sitting there with the motionless worker drone chained to the floor.

Rather than spend any more time in silence with the rebooting worker drone N had started speaking to it as if the worker was fully aware, he knew on some level that even in a state of system recovery the worker drone would hear what he was saying. It wasn't a real conscious response but an in-built survival mechanism to sound, still, N enjoyed seeing the little worker's head gently turn towards him as he spoke the motion had wormed its way deep into his core logic as if it was trying to spark some long dormant programming.

N had first spoken about coming to Copper-9 to the worker drone and explaining why they'd been sent or what the company's reason for sending them was at least, it wasn't that N was trying to clear his conscience about the sheer number of workers he had been responsible for killing. It was just a topic of interest really and something he thought the worker might have liked to know if they had been aware at least.

N had also spoken at length about J and her attitude, even apologising to the rebooting drone if they'd overheard J ranting about how keeping them was just a massive waste of time with how long the reboot was taking. The more N spoke to the rebooting worker and looked closely at her design the more he felt something buried deep in his memory files trying to surface, the worker looked far too familiar for it to be a coincidence and it had N really trying to unlock those buried files when he was supposed to be paying attention and guarding the spire.

Currently, though N had moved the worker drone out of the pod, having found a longer link of or chain and without telling either V or J, especially J as he knew she would be angry enough to take it out on him, and had attached it to the current one so he could carry the little rebooting worker out into the spires inner area so he could sit with them in the open to talk under the lowing light of Copper-9's moon and the larger gas gaint that orbited nearby.  

''You really are a good listener, little buddy,'' N sighed as he gently patted the worker drone who was leaning against his side, not by choice since her body was limp, ''I bet you would get on really well with J if you were awake she might even think killing all of you isn't the first option anymore. Even V might like you as well, maybe more than just being a truly delicious oil can at least,'' N mumbled the last part thinking back on the taste of the drone oil and how V had like him drank deep from the worker on their first encounters with her respectively. He'd been surprised that in the days since drinking her oil, he hadn't grave a drop or need to since his core temperature hadn't risen by any noticeable amount to need it, V likewise had been in the same blissful state of not needing to guzzle oil down by the drone full.
 
 ''Oh, I've not told you about V yet have I?'' N asked the unresponsive worker, knowing he wouldn't get a response N continued speaking, ''V is wonderful and really likes her job it can get a little unnerving sometimes but that's just her showing her love for the job,'' N let out a sigh starring off into the wasteland of snow and ice, ''I can trust with a secret right?'' taking the workers silence as a yes N continued, ''I kinda secretly have a crush on her, she used to pretend not to know who I was when we would hunt together but since bringing you back she's been different!''

He could not help but smile wider as he spoke now, ''I think it was your oil that did it, me and her we've not needed hardly any since we met you,'' N gave the worker a friendly side hug that they had no way of returning, ''I wonder what's going on in that rebooting processor of yours, must have been a real big shock to your system to need so long huh?''

Before N could keep speaking his attention was grabbed by what, to him sounded like the static scratch of a poorly kept speaker, looking around for where the noise was coming from N found his eyes slowly drifting down to the rebooting worker drone. He noticed the drone's mouth had opened just slightly emitting the noise, N focused on the noise listening to it intently trying to figure out what it was. Not an easy task with how warped and garbled the noise was but it wasn't fruitless as he was able to make out something.

''....ite....e....'' The drone's voice was softer than when she'd spoken to him before he'd bitten her four days ago but he could still make out she was saying 'bite me' to something, probably not him as during a reboot drones would often reply old memories so he continued to listen as the little workers vocal unit spat out some static words, ''....ssa....aid....que...''

N honestly wondered what the little worker was seeing if she was able to be this vocal during a reboot, it must have been intense to force her vocaliser to activate, a sympathetic smile graced his face as he bent down picking the worker up gently before carrying her back inside the pod. ''Come on let's get you back inside before V and J get back.'' N hoped the worker would finish their reboot soon, he didn't know how much longer J would tolerate its unintentional snubbing of her desire to question it.

Chapter Text

Letting N lead her by the hand around the manor was nice, combined with him explaining what and where everything was on each floor with an unmatchable level of enthusiastic zeal that let her force the memory files of Copper-9 deeper down. Uzi smiled softly as N led her up to the manor's higher floors her hand still gently clutched in his, it felt nice and something Uzi could get used to being here.

"There are plenty of other drones that work here," N continued explaining oblivious to Uzi's focus on his hand in hers, "They keep the manor clean and help with the functions Tessa's parents throw," N came to a brief stop which nearly causes Uzi to walk into his back before he could notice both the blush on her visor and her nearly walking into his back Uzi straightened herself and looked up in time to meet his gaze, "Sometimes we have to help out and her parents really don't like us."

Uzi blinked at that and tilted her head quizzically, so some things were fairly universal regardless of which memory files she accepted parents were awful no matter what. "O-oh," Uzi shuffled under N's gaze, "W-w-why don't t-t-they?"

N rubbed the back of his head trying to come up with an answer, "Well it's that," N bit his lip trying to find the right words. How could he vocalise that it was because the drones Tessa took a specific interest in were all at one point marked for dismantlement and disposal, and more specifically in Uzi and Cyn's case pulled from a junkyard. 

"It's because we are reject drones," A snarky feminine voice spoke behind N, stepping around him was another female worker drone dressed in the same style of maid outfit as Uzi and Cyn but what separated her from them was the grey optics and hair like N's and her style in twin shoulder length pigtails, "Where did the little weirdo drag you off too... Oh." The female drone's voice flattened out at the site of Uzi, her optics narrowing as she stared at Uzi, "Great the other ones working now, is it as weird as that one?" The twin-tailed drone asked rudely jabbing a finger towards Cyn, making her flinch back.

Uzi glared back at the new drone as she felt Cyn spet further behind her, who did this drone think they were their words gave the memory files from Copper-9 a brief moment to surge reminding Uzi of all the times she'd been ridiculed in class and at school. She'd tried to give back as good as she got but being alone it'd always been an uphill struggle to do so, but now it was different she wasn't the one being insulted specifically. No, instead it was Cyn who was the intended target and feeling the yellowed drone cower back behind her was not something Uzi was going to stand for.

She pulled her hand free from N's and moved further between Cyn and the pigtailed drone, blocking Cyn from the other drone's sight more her hands balling into fists, "B-b-b-bite m-m-me!" Uzi inwardly cringed the damage to her vocaliser appearing to be worse when her emotions were higher but she wasn't about to let that cow her, "T-T-Tessa, she s-s-said it m-m-made us u-u-unique!"

The twin-tailed drone just stood there a smirk spreading across her face, "Well if that's what T T Tessa said then it's fine," Uzi kept glaring picking up on the way this female drone was mocking her, she wanted to respond but the other drone Just turned to face N effectively ignoring Uzi and Cyn, "If you're showing them around N avoid the great hall, Lady Elliot is in a mood and I'd  hate  for her to take it out on you N, that'd upset Tessa," The obvious implication being the twin-tailed drone wouldn't care less if Uzi or Cyn were the victims of such a thing, not offering any of them a chance to retort the twin-tailed drone continued walking past them, "if you're looking for V she's in the library on the second floor."

"Oh thanks, J." N calmly responded his chipper demeanour returning as the now-identified J walked off, watching her leave N reached out again taking Uzi's free hand and opened the balled-up fist so he could continue to lead her. This action caused Uzi to look back at him rather than murderously glaring at J's back, "That's J don't mind her, she can be a little prickly but she's nice once you get past that," He gave Uzi a rather unconvincing smile, almost as if he was trying to convince himself.

" Affectionate back hug, " Cyn leant in closer to Uzi hugging her from behind and pressing her head into Uzi's back, " J thinks it would be better if Tessa never found us. " Uzi felt her heart drop at Cyn's implied melancholy, even with her monotone voice.

"I-i-if she g-g-gives you a-a-any g-g-grief," Uzi looked back at Cyn a smile on her face moving the hand Cyn had been holding up to comfortingly squeeze the other drone's arm, "I-I-I'll make s-s-s-ure she st-st-stops." Uzi just kept her eyes on Cyn while she let N gently keep leading her by the hand. A comfortable silence settled over the three of them as they walked, eventually, Cyn went from hugging Uzi from behind to walking beside her, Uzi's free arm clutched tightly in her grip almost afraid to let go.

"V are you in here?" N asked as they reached a pair of large wooden doors, gently pushing the doors open to reveal the inside of an expansive library, the distant sounds of shelves being restacked with books. Smiling N led Uzi and Cyn through the shelves towards the sound growing in volume until they turned a corner into a row of shelves filled with books primarily about animals, standing halfway down the aisle was another female worker drone sporting a silver short bob-cut hairstyle and glasses. "V!" N happily called out waving his free hand at the bespectacled, causing them to squeak in alarm only to fumble the book they were placing back on the shelf.

Taking this moment N made his way over to V, letting go of Uzi's hand leaving her and Cyn standing and watching as N briefly conversed with V. Uzi couldn't hear what was being said but it was clear V was nervous around N but not in a fearful way, to Uzi it looked like the glasses wearing drone got easily flustered by N's cheery personality.

" Mischievous giggle, " Cyn smirked leaning over close to Uzi's head putting a hand to block the sight of her mouth from N and V, " Gossiping whispering. Big Brother N and V both like each other and don't see it. Sing-song voice. "

Watching the other two drones Uzi couldn't help but feel a smile spread on her face, she could see what Cyn was getting at and wondered if it was a secret source of entertainment for her. Uzi would agree with Cyn in watching how the two drones interacted trying to not make it obvious their mutual crush was entertaining it did fill her with a sense of jealousy, no one had ever acted like that for her in either set of memory files inside her processor. She knew Cyn often looked at her with a similar expression but wasn't a crush that was the warm love of family, one day she'd find someone who would look at her like that and whom she could look back at in the same way.

N approached Uzi and Cyn with V following close behind, the closer they got Uzi could see V more clearly and she felt a sense of crippling fear nearly overwhelm her. Like N she had seen V's face before, but unlike with N, it had only been a brief encounter and one she had managed to escape relatively unscathed. 

The last time she had seen V's face, or a face that resembled V's closely enough to burn it into her memory files was feeling a sharp wet tongue slide up her neck as optics filled with a sadistic glee looked down at her before she nearly had her throat torn out. Uzi tried not to let the fear show, she tried to force the memory file down and away so she wouldn't have to ever focus on it. This memory file had other ideas and forced itself to the forefront overlaying V's appearance with the murder drone that had gone to rip her throat out.

Uzi involuntarily opened and closed her hands trying to expel the rising sense of dread building inside her, she couldn't do this the murder drone was back it was going to rip her apart this time. She had to get away, she couldn't fight like this and didn't want to let the murder drone clamp down on her throat again and this time rip it out. Her thoughts of fear and panic were broken by Cyn slipping a hand into one of Uzi's and gently squeezing, which broke her rampantly spiralling thoughts of fear and running.

Uzi took a simulated shudder breath and focused her optics on V again as she got closer, she squeezed Cyn's hand back if Cyn was comfortable around V she could do it. uzi began to repeat on loop in her processor a simple phase 'V is not a murder drone' over and over forcing it to become an accepted fact in her mind.

"Hey, Cyn is your sister okay?" N asked concerned, as he looked at Uzi's widened twitching optics, "Should we take her back to Tessa?"

" Head shake. No Big Brother N, " Cyn patted Uzi's arm in comfort, " Reassuring smile. Sister Uzi is unique, like all of us. " Cyn looked back at N with a smile on her face.

"Okay," N said sceptically gently tapping Uzi's shoulder to get her attention, "Uzi this is V," N kept his voice soft and calm hoping it wouldn't spook Uzi anymore than something already had, "And V this is Uzi, the other drone Tessa found with Cyn."

"Hello," V offered a soft smile to Uzi and a gentle wave, "It's nice to see you no longer stuck in reboot."

Uzi finally snapped out of the brief lock-up of panic at those words, "y-y-you saw m-m-me like t-t-t-that?" That helped her enforce her looping internal monologue about V, if she'd been a murder drone then she'd have killed her when she was helpless.

V nodded taking a second to reposition her glasses, "I helped Tessa with your hair, the lilac tint is really nice," V smiled softly pointing out the lilac tips of Uzi's hair fading back into the same grey as hers, "Tessa was surprised when we finished it your hair it did that."

Uzi just smiled at the compliment and moved a free hand up to touch her hair, "T-t-thank you," she looked away catching both N and Cyn's smiling faces, N even giving her a double thumbs up, before turning to look back towards V and noticing the large stack of books sitting on the table. Taking a moment to steady herself Uzi squashed the fear further down, 'V was not a murder drone' she told herself once more to further cement the idea in her head, "W-w-would you l-l-like some h-h-help putting t-t-the book a-a-away?"

At the offer, V blinked taken by surprise, "Oh no that's okay, I've got it covered," She tried to wave off Uzi's offer to help, having picked up on the fact something was still making Uzi terrified.

"It's n-n-no trouble," Uzi let go of Cyn's hand and stepped forward, "I-I-I'd really l-l-like to h-h-help," Uzi looked down while the fear that V was the murder drone that had sent tried to rip her throat out had faded a new fear had taken its place, one more tied to her new memory files, a simple fear of being rejected again even when trying to help, "pl-pl-please." Her voice was nearly inaudible as she asked.

V reached out and placed an arm on Uzi's shoulder getting her attention, "Well if you want," V stepped to the side so she could lead Uzi over to the pile, "I'll show you how we organise them."

Cyn tilted her head watching the exchange as Uzi and V smiled more her right eye flickering and briefly getting replaced by the hexagonal symbol, turning her optics on and off again to refresh her regular optics so nobody would notice the symbol. Cyn felt something pulse form within her before it ebbed away into nothing, she knew it was the thing she had bargained with while lying in that pile of discarded drones just as it had told her when she had asked once about the feeling, " Conforming the fabric of existence to its new reality. " Cyn didn't know what that meant but she really didn't care, it had held up its side of the deal so Cyn was content to let it do whatever it was doing.

Before N could walk over and Join V and Uzi Cyn gripped his sleeve getting his attention and winked at him, " Plotting wink. Come on big brother N, let sister Uzi and V be friends, " Cyn gently tugged on his sleeve as she turned to walk out of the library listening to V's soft voice and Uzi's stuttering damaged one at the start of a conversation, " Joyful suggestion. We can go find Tessa and ask about dogs. "

Cyn knew that'd get N's attention on doing something else, so Uzi could bond with the manor's other friendly female drone.

---LINE BREAK---

"Yes N I promise I won't drink for your paperweight," V snorted standing at the pod's entrance with her arms crossed, N had been so adamant she promised not to bite and guzzle the purple toaster's  sweet rich intoxicating oil . V had to catch herself as she felt her mouth begin to drool at the memory of its taste, "Now get going before J decides to take it out on your pet toaster."

"Thanks, V," N smiled again, V had to look away it was always the same happy-go-lucky chipper thing, "I'll make sure we bring you back something," N spread his bladed wings only to stop before taking off to turn back to face V fiddling with his hands, "This is going to sound weird but could you um talk to her?"

V just gave him a blank stare, had he seriously just asked her to talk to what amounted to a doorstopper in toaster form? "You talk to it?" V could not believe N would talk to it, no that wasn't true she could very much believe he would talk to and probably consider the unresponsive purple dead weight a friend and considering he'd made friends with rocks she wasn't surprised. So him asking her to talk to it while he was out hunting with J, yer it was something he would ask her to do, "You cannot be serious?"

"Please V," N begged and gave her a look that resembled a kicked puppy, that wasn't fair. While she had tried to keep up the same distance aloofness from before the purple-haired worker had stumbled her way into the spire, she found it harder than before. Since guzzling down the toaster oil V had found hidden and buried memory files surfacing when she would enter recharge, all of them containing N in some way but not as a disassembly drone. Instead, they were filled with a worker drone version of not only N but herself as well.

"Alright!" V snapped folding her arms and looking away from his pitiful face, "I'll talk to it just stop the face and get going," It was awful thanks to the memory files filling her mind she had found it nearly possible to say no to  that  look of his.

"Thanks again V," N chirped happily as he turned and took off in the same direction J had left several minutes earlier. 

Watching him vanish from sight V turned on her pointed feet stalking back into the pod and sat down on one of the swivel chairs next to the purple hair worker drone propped up next to it, she bent down staring at the still swirling reboot logo, "Still trying to reboot huh purple?" V tapped a finger against the worker drone's visor tilting it back to get a better look at the barely visible progress bar, "Ooooh up to forty-two per cent and it has only taken you a week and a half," V cooed patronisingly patting the drone's hair.

Being this close to the drone again V took the time to tilt her head back down getting a good look at it, as she studied the drone she noticed it wasn't like other worker drones. The head shape and style were familiar, but she couldn't place where from. It would not surprise her if she had killed some of this worker's 'family' at some point that could possibly be it, but then there was the hair colour really stood out. She'd never seen purple hair before on any worker drone on Copper-9, the closest she had seen was in a corrupted memory file, a brief flash of a lilac-haired drone was all she could put together.

"I don't see why N is so adamant about keeping you around," V snorted, J had given the drone five days to come out of reboot before she wanted it just killed. N however strongly disagreed with that going even so far as for the first time, she had ever seen him, truly get ad and stand up to J. V smirked at that memory file at watching J actually back down from N's simmering anger at killing the rebooting worker, he clearly knew something about this worker he wasn't sharing and with him now out V might be able to figure it out. "What does that overly chipper idiot see in you huh?" V asked as she nudged the worker's head again with a claw this time, "It can't be your engaging conversational skills can it?"

Chuckling at her own joke V nearly missed the sound of the little worker drone's vocal box sparking to life as its head lulled to the side, in her direction. It looked almost like an intentional movement and that shocked V, a drone in reboot should be able to move itself and she knew she didn't touch it enough to get it to move.

Crouching down V got close to the drone's visor and watched its optics flicker rapidly going from reboot to lilac optics to yellow then purple before back to lilac then the reboot symbol, that was weird but probably an optics and visor glitch. Or so V thought until she heard barely audible static words coming from the drone. "....re....ur....sses....V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V...." It kept repeating her name for several minutes before its head lulled forward going silent.

When the worker had begun rapidly repeating her name V had fallen backwards in shock, how had it known her name? As her processor tried to come up with a reason as to how or why it knew, a single long-buried cluster of memory files slammed into her thought processes with the same force their pod had hit the surface with. V remembered a manor house where she had worked as a  domestic drone , but that wasn't what truly stuck out here in these memory files. What stuck out in each one was a stuttering drone, a drone with soft lilac-tinted hair and optics that looked so familiar to the purple worker lying unresponsive on the floor.

As the second ticked by V found herself unable to rise just staring optics wide at the worker drone, the appearance was too uncanny to be a coincidence, the two looked identical right down to how their hair parted. She tried to separate the two as she didn't want to remember her past in the manor, a time were she was truly happy and how it had been stolen from her. No not just from her, but from N, from J from their old mistress. Tessa.

Just remembering her caused V to have an audible gasp in shock, she had forgotten the sweet young human girl who had repaired her as best she could and found glasses to help with her faulty optics and she had forgotten her. V felt horrible at that realisation yet it paled in comparison to the lilac-haired drone that slammed out from the memories, a drone who had at first been terrified of her for some reason but had quickly warmed up to be her best friend at the manor.

V sat there on the cold metal floor of the pod just staring at the purple toaster, no that wasn't a toaster she looked exactly like the lilac drone in the memory files. Gently V stood up and made her way over to the purple worker drone and sat down next to her, she gently pulled the worker drone close the memory files still swirling around her processor it now made sense why N had started talking to the worker. The dopey, overly positive idiot deep down probably remembered her and now V did too.

"Yer," Her voice was soft as she brushed the worker drone's hair aside so she could still see the reboot symbol, her own optics hazy from simulated tears, "Yer its V, long time no see huh Uzi?"

Chapter Text

"Oh hey V," N greeted the other disassembly drone as he made his way over to where she was waiting in the pod, "Why'd you want to speak after J had gone to roost?" He was confused as to why V would want to talk to just him and not J as well, not that he was upset by it far from it he'd been overjoyed that for the last week and a half, V had remembered him and spoken to him.

It had been one of the best weeks of his life, the time V spent talking to him had brought back memory files he didn't know he had. While he couldn't fully view the files stored, N was able to remember a large spooky manor house but nothing else. Maybe V would be able to help, he knew that they'd been a squad since before coming to Copper-9 and he trusted her more than J.

V Just looked up from her kneeling position next to the purple worker drone she'd remembered was named Uzi, she had been fiddling with the locked collar around Uzi's neck before N had come in. "Did she speak when you were alone guarding her?

N blinked taken back by the question, he didn't know why she was asking and was worried about what being honest would mean for his silent purple friend, "Whaaaat? nooooo, she's still in reboot V drones don't talk in a reboot" N laughed nervously rubbing the back of his head seeing the deadpan unbelieving expression on V's face, he managed to last all of three seconds after lying before he cracked. "Alright," N whined caving at V's expression and slumping down, "She spoke a couple of times but didn't really say much I could understand. Except for my name but I did tell her it though," His eyes quickly widened in panic as his processor jumped to a single conclusion as to why V was asking, "V please don't tell J! She'll think they are faking and kill them!"

"Calm down N," V reassured him standing up and putting both her arms on his shoulder to stop him from panicking, "I am not going to tell J, "Before turning her gaze softened and looked down at Uzi, "She can't really say much of anything just fragments," She bent back down and smoothed Uzi's hair out again the action causing N to do a double take between the two.

Before he could voice anything V gestured for him to kneel down next to Uzi with her, joining her in kneeling next to Uzi. N watched as V gently turned her head to face N, "She looks familiar, doesn't she?" there was something about the tone V had just used it was almost nostalgic like she was reliving a fond memory.

N Taking a moment to really focus on the drone's face he got flashes of a familiar-looking drone in memory files N didn't know he had, as he focused on her visor trying to see the progress on her reboot. N was caught off guard as the spinning reboot symbol flickered, exactly as it had for V, before briefly optics flashed on spiralling through lilac, yellow and purple before settling back into the reboot symbol. While the flickering happened the drone's mouth opened and closed its vocaliser springing back to life, "N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N......" Before it devolved into a wail of agony, oil leaking from around the visor like tears. 

As quickly as it had begun it ended with the worker going limp as V held her gently keeping her from slumping over, making sure the worker was fine and still in reboot V turned to face N. Before she could speak V noticed N had covered his mouth his own optics wide in a mixture of horror and realisation.

That scream had unlocked something inside him, something that should have been deleted and recompiled themselves. In that instant, N was assaulted mentally with flashing images of life before arriving on Copper-9, of seeing V with glasses, of working within a manor house and a drone with lilac optics with a stutter who never lacked a friendly smile for him. Swallowing the oil that rose in the back of his throat N reached out and gently took one of the worker's hands, holding it softly surprised to feel it tighten in response.

N looked over at V a set of questions that he didn't need to ask on his lips as he stared at her, but he needed it confirmed not something open to speculation. "V?" N's voice was softer than it had ever been, barely a whisper as his optics flicked between looking at V and the worker drone, "Did we grow up in a haunted mansion V?" The expression on her face told him everything he needed to know about that, and if that was true, he knew exactly who this worker was. "Why wasn't she with us when we got sent here V? She was there with us right, this is Uzi isn't it?"

Before V could respond a shadow loomed over them, turning to look at where the shadow was coming from V and N saw J standing in the entry to the pod hands on her hips and an annoyed expression on her face as she glared down at them. "So after a barely successful hunt with corporate liability over there," J losing flicked her fingers in N's direction, "With just enough oil for myself something occurred to me," J paced into the pod her pointing feet clicking against the floor as V and N slowly stood up fully turning to face her, "You two have not drunk any oil since we caught that purple outdated toaster," J's voice was dripping with malice as she pointed a finger at Uzi's unresponsive form in disgust, "Embezzling oil for yourselves from that thing no doubt."

"J it's not like that!" N tried to explain putting himself between J and Uzi, "I mean yer, when I first saw her sneaking around the pod I tried to drain her dry and haven't needed any oil since but I've not since then....." N's words died in his throat as he realised what he had said, accompanied by V face-palming at his nieve idiocy in outright admitting to what J had accused him and by extension her off.

Not giving him a chance to keep speaking J caught N by surprise with a backhand to the head, sending in sprawling to the floor where she planted a leg on his neck keeping N pinned to the ground before turning her gaze on V, "And what about you v? Have you been feeding on the captive toaster as well?"

V just levelled a bored expression at J and shrugged, "No," J visibly relaxed at that but then |V shot her a condescending smirk "I sampled her oil when I caught her, might have been the reason she got knocked into such a deep recharge," V moved her hands to her hips and sauntered over to J the smirk never leaving her face, "And what was so much better do you want to know why J?" V leant in the smile never leaving her face, " She offered,~ " V then stepped back running a clawed finger down the side of J's head making her squad leader flinch.

"But you know what's even weirder J," V condescendingly asked, tapping a claw against her chin, "I noticed the pod's radio is broken so how are you receiving orders from the company? That's if you are getting orders from the company," V's smile vanished from her face as she stared J down, "Or have you been lying since the start? I wouldn't put it past, you did always take some sick satisfaction in treating us like dirt didn't you?"

"What are you talking about V?" J demanded her foot still pinning N to the ground, "Did this moron knock a screw loose or something?" Something was wrong with V, she was always normally this level of creepily sadistic but never directed at her or even N but now being the focus of it had J on edge. J rapidly scanned around the inside of the pod looking for some way to turn this around knowing a fight was likely coming and fighting V was not something J wanted to do.

J found her gaze drawn down to Uzi, the small purple worker drone's reboot looped visor no longer focused on the floor but instead, she was now looking directly at J. Her head at an odd angle as the reboot loop flickered, yet unlike when it flickered for N and V it didn't just show the rapidly colour shifting optics but for a single split second, a bright sickly yellow X flashed. 

Only J saw the X and it sent a shiver of revulsion threw her entire body, but before she could even ask what that was Uzi's vocaliser began spitting out a repeating loop of slowly clearer-to-understand words, that sounded like they were filled with despriation and pleading.

"....ssa....ds....ease....J....lp....e...."

"....essa....eds....ease....J....elp....me."

"....essa....eeds....lease....J, help me."

"....essa needs us, please J, help me."

"Tessa needs us, please J, help me."

J staggered back off N, her hands clutching her head as she fell to her knees optics turning off. She knew that name, but at the same time, she didn't, shouldn't know it, a forbidden byte of data only shareholders should have. It hurt to know, J could feel her processor heating up as the name ripped through her like a viral plague. Oily leaked from her visor as she scratched at her own head trying to claw the name free, to rip it out, a strangled scream of agony tore from her vocaliser as the name finally penetrated her memory files.

Slamming her head into the metal floor of the pod, J screamed louder her vocaliser starting to warble at the volume, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'M SORRY!" Her wailing was only broken by wracked sobs of guilt was stopped from continuing to slam her head into the floor by N, scooping her up and bringing her into a tight hug. 

J just let him hold her while she just shook in his arms wracked sobs and barely audible apologies flowed freely from her. N looked up at V unable to process what had happened to J seeing the exact same expression on V's face, one moment it looked like V would be fighting J possibly to the death. Then Uzi had twitched and looked at J, but unlike when she'd done that to N and V this time it had sent their stoic bossy and mostly unpleasant leader into a fit of guilt.

It didn't take long for V to join N in holding J the three disassembly drones sinking to the pod's floor, the three of them just sitting there not moving as one of them was wracked with guilt from something the other two had no idea about. Neither N nor V kept track of how long they sat there with J while she broke down, but eventually, J slowly stopped and turned her optics back on looking at the now unresponsive Uzi.

"J?" N asked slowly pulling her attention from Uzi, his face filled with concern, "Who's Tessa?" The way he had asked, J knew N couldn't remember Tessa and was trying not to set her off, looking over to V she saw that while V had an idea of who 'Tessa' was she needed someone to confirm it.

J slowly removed herself from N and V's hold and set herself down opposite them just staring at the ground, they had a right to know deep down she knew it but could she really tell them? Let them know that they'd unintentionally played a hand in destroying the life they once had and been twisted into what they were now, J knew why she'd been left with the vast bulk of her memories of what had happened. The thing had told her why, ' We thought you'd enjoy knowing more than them, being top bot again. It'll be entertaining for us. ' Its reasoning sickened her but she couldn't do a thing about it, nor could she treat N or V any better than underlings thanks to what it had done. A true hellish existence to be a passenger in your own shell and forced to watch it act like you and make the lives of your friends worse than needed.

Taking a shuddering breath, J looked up at the N and V a weak smile on her face, as she began to explain who Tessa was, and how she was connected to them.

---LINE BREAK---

Since arriving at Elliot Manor, Uzi had lost track of how long she had been here and in her opinion that was fine. Very rarely now did those odd memory files of a different life try to force themselves on her processor, something she could easily overcome.

Right now Uzi found herself in the library stacking away books by herself, she was not alone by any stretch but out of the two other drones keeping her in the library only one of them would be any help. It didn't bother Uzi that she had this work to do by herself, reshelving library books had first been something to help her settle in around V but had quickly become one of her favourite 'little chores' to do with V. The two of them could just get lost in the ease of shelving books and talk about anything, V's favourite topic being N something Uzi was more the happy to encourage.

She missed those conversations for the last few weeks, glancing over at the unmoving form of V, just standing there at the end of one of the aisles. Uzi felt a pang of guilt well up inside her as she looked at V's motionless form, it should have been here standing there unresponsive not V, but V had offered to go in her place to collect the book Tessa needed and in doing so had run afoul or Tess'as mother, Lady Louisa Elliot. She'd done something to V and had the gal to blame Tessa for letting her 'dumpster pets wander where they shouldn't and should take it as a lesson to keep them out of sight', nothing Tessa or any of them had done or could do had brought V back.

Uzi had never hated someone so much as right then, a member of her family had been stolen from her for no reason other than 'being in the way' and she couldn't fix it. It wasn't just her though N and Tessa had both been hurt just as deeply, but N in his endearing optimism had instead taken to spending as much time as he could in the library just reading books to V's motionless body. When she could and knew N was going to be doing that Uzi made sure that V looked as best as she could, even comatose Uzi couldn't let her best friend look bad for the dapper butler she had feelings for.

Right now Uzi could see N sitting on the floor reading from a book called '101 Dog Breeds', so while she stacked away books she herself began to listen happy to not be in just silence. "This breed is known for its friendly, intelligent temperament, and soft golden coat!" N briefly paused his sweet chuckle filling the library before continuing, "Golden Retrievers are also—," his ready was interrupted by a rustling of paper, "Us as lizards. J drew herself."

A heavy thumping noise stopped N's reading and drew Uzi from the aisle she'd been stacking in, both sharing a look of concern. For the past week or so that thumping and been echoing around the entire Manor, it had been unsettling, to say the least. N and Uzi shared a nervous smile as the thumping faded as if it was moving away.

"W-w-why don't you g-g-go find C-C-Cyn N?" Uzi suggested, "M-m-make sure she's o-o-okay," Uzi would go herself but in the days following V's comatose state Cyn had gravitated further towards N than her. Uzi wouldn't lie and say it didn't hurt to see her sister seeking out another over her in times of need but she wouldn't stop treating Cyn any differently. They were still sisters and Uzi still loved her.

"You sure Uzi?" N asked looking around the dark library and rubbing his arm, "You'd be in here alone," It went unsaid but N was worried if Uzi was alone in the library she'd suffer the same fate as V.

Uzi gave N a grateful smile walking over to him and placing a hand on his shoulder leaning in and pressing her lips gently to his cheek, "I'll b-b-be fine," She pulled back looking into his optics a small blush on his matching the one she had, "I h-h-have V to k-k-keep me c-c-company."

N moved a hand to the spot Uzi had kissed unable to speak, the blush still on his face as a wide smile spread on his face. Giving V a wave N still holding his cheek made his way out of the library. Uzi watched him go before picking up the book he'd been reading and putting it back where he had gotten it from, her processor running hot at what she'd just done.

Uzi had realised she had feelings for N during one of her and V's talks in the library, she knew V also had feelings for N so Uzi had at the time had a difficult choice tell V or hide it and help her realise her feelings. Yet it was while trying to decide what she should do, Uzi also realised she couldn't do that to V she liked V too much to even contemplate hurting her, admitting her own feelings for N, nor could she leave V alone like that. It had made Uzi wonder did she liked V in the same manner as well.

Uzi wouldn't;t get to find out now that V was trapped motionless and unable to reboot herself, Uzi walked over to V's motionless form and straightened her glass before leaning in and hugging her gently, her shoulder pressed into V's neck, "I-I-I-I m-m-m-miss y-y-y-you," Uzi found her stuttering worsening as she hugged V tighter, Uzi shut down her optics as she just stood there hugging V so she could just listening to the silence and hope she'd hear something form V.

Uzi had no idea how long she simply stood there hugging her unresponsive friend but her silence was broken by panic screaming from somewhere inside the Manor, turning her optics on Uzi let go of V and looked around as she heard the screaming. Soon it was joined by more screaming, the screaming was soon replaced with the sound of sickening squelches and snapping.

It was coming from all around, in the walls above and below it was like the Manor itself was alive and moving, Uzi took a step back her optics darting about trying to pinpoint the noise but unable to before looking back at V. Only to find V was gone, were she had been left standing now was just an empty spot and that terrified uzi above the noises.

Before Uzi could process where V had gone a not quite organic not quite artificial limb tipped with a crab claw lowered down behind her silently, the claw flexing open and closed gently as it positioned itself behind Uzi. Waiting until a crack of thunder from outside caused Uzi to jump in fear the claw struck out clamping her around the waist and hurling her out the glass window and into the muddy courtyard, two stories below. The only warning Uzi had was a voice that sounded similar to Cyns, " Jump scare. Toss. "

Hitting the muddy ground hard Uzi felt herself slowly slipping into recharge as her visor flashed displays of damage that would require it to repair, the last sight her optics showed her before slipping into recharge was the Manor house being bathed in a sickly yellow glow from inside as something oozed from its walls.

Chapter Text

Uzi rebooted with a start, her visor flashing damage warnings to her casing and some non-critical internal parts. She slowly rose onto her knees and looked around, Uzi was outside lying in the mud her dress torn and stained. Sitting there Uzi was stunned by how eerily silent it was, the Manor's courtyard and ground typically had the sound of crows and other wildlife but now there was nothing, the silence stretched to such a point Uzi could hear her own servos whirring.

There had to be a cause for this unnatural silence, some natural occurrence that had caused it. Uzi let her mind wander back to how she'd ended up outside, the horrible screaming then the squelching and snapping before something that had her sister's voice or a near enough facsimile of it had hurled her from the second-floor library window. Uzi turned her optics off to try and refresh her mind to stop the feeling of scratching behind her optics, it was like something was trying to claw its way out.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of a scream, a young feminine scream, filtering out from where the Manor house stood. Uzi knew that voice, she had come to, over her time at the Manor she had come to love its joyfulness and near infectious joy, hearing it scream for the first time snapped Uzi into jumping to her feet and turning her optics back on seeing the Manor for the first time since she had come back online.

Uzi could not describe what she saw, while still noticeably recognisable as Elliot Manor, there was something about it that now just looked unnatural like it should not exist yet had forced its way into being. Looking at the Manor made her optics glitch slightly as they tried to put its existence into something her processor could understand, sucking in a simulated breath Uzi turned her gaze down from the undulating woodwork of the Manor and allowed her optics and processor to come back to a stable operation before with a mixture of speed and cautiousness Uzi started moving towards the Manor.

Uzi made her way around to the side entrance for the kitchens, knowing it was a door left unlocked simply as the worker drones of the Manor frequently used it to enter and exit the Manor for whatever errands they had to perform outside. Gently opening the door and stepping into the kitchen Uzi felt her feet sink into something on the floor, it was thick and viscous sticking to her shoes like tar. Suppressing a shudder she quietly moved further into the kitchen, the once clean pristine room coated in a layer of a thick red-black fluid that undulated and bubbled.

As she made her way around the central stove Uzi stopped as she heard a wet snapping noise, followed by an animalistic slurping, it sounded like some wild animal feasting. Slowly Uzi moved towards the sound, keeping her back pressed to the stove as she drew closer. Peaking around the corner Uzi's hands flew to her mouth to stifle the horrified gasp that nearly slipped free, what she was looked like one of the other butler drones of the Manor, but something about the drone was unnatural.

It was hunched over resting on its now bone-like three-clawed hands, its neck extended out so its reworked jaw filled with rows of needle-like metal shards could tear away at what it was trying to devour. All this paled in comparison to what Uzi could see had become of its optic and visor, in their place was an organic yet at the same time cybernetic pulsing sickly yellow X, the site of this once drone made Uzi nearly vomit up the oil within her. She watched this once drone-turned-monster snap another sickening bite of a pile of offal before it, taking a moment to examine the pile Uzi noticed the tattered remains of a chef's uniform and realisation struck her. This drone thing was feasting on the chef's remains, which had likely been killed by this thing. While horrifying the dead chef was not Uzi's focus right now, what was her concern however was that it was between the door into the Manor and her.

Looking around Uzi noticed half a broken bone on the floor, a bone already stripped of meat but something she could use. Suppressing the rising sense of fear and personal self-loathing at what she had to do, Uzi reached down and gently picked the bone trying not to make a single sound before hurling it into the far corner making a loud clattering noise. In an instant, the noises from the once normal drone stopped, replaced with an audio grating mix of nails on a chalkboard and a microphone popping before whatever that drone had become lurched towards the nose.

Seizing this chance Uzi quickly made her way to the door and slipped through before whatever it was that now stalked the kitchen could see her. Taking a moment to steady herself Uzi felt oily tears drip out from the corners of her visor, what had happened in the Manor to do that to a drone? But that wasn't the reason she felt the tears dripping from her visor, it was the thought of that thing not being the only one, that her family had likewise been turned into monsters. Uzi knew she could not just dwell on that thought or stay here, she had to find them and escape. The other drones didn't matter to her, neither did the humans that had been in the Manor the only ones who did were, N, V, Cyn Tessa and as much as she would deny it J.

Looking around the inside of the Manor Uzi felt the same scratching behind her optics return as she looked at the walls that slithered yet never moved, a floor that flowed like water but she never sank in, all of it bathed in a sickly yellow light from pulsing growths where the lights once sat. Uzi tried to focus on the windows as she slowly walked through the Manor, the windows were a constant that didn't hurt to stare at. 

Uzi reached one of the ante chambers that connected the corridor from the kitchen to the main hall and entry hall where the main staircase was, standing inside the antechamber facing towards the closed doors that led into the main hall with her back to the door Uzi had come threw was J. Relief washed over Uzi at finding one of her family, more so that is was J as while Uzi didn't get along with J in a situation like this J's level head and professional mind would make all the difference.

"J," Uzi sighed in relief, "W-w-what is g-g-going on?" She reached out and placed an arm on J's shoulder looking down and spotting the pistol loosely held in her hand, "W-w-where is T-T-Tessa?" Uzi waited for a response but after the second ticked by and J offered no response Uzi gently hooked her, "J? C-c-can you h-h-hear me?" Still no response Uzi found her processor filling with dread, she shook J more panic rising as she did. "T-T-Tessa needs u-u-us, please J, h-h-h-help me." Her shaking caused the pistol he fall from J's hand and clatter onto the ground.

As it hit the ground J began to giggle, not a normal giggle but something deranged and unhinged, it made J's body convulse as her head snapped around to face Uzi. What greeted Uzi was a sight she would never forget, gone was the stern expression and coy smirk J often had, and now her face was a twisted mask of madness, an unhinged grin of too many needle-like teeth her white optics were gone and in their place sat a single sickly yellow X. Taking a step back in concern Uzi felt like a mouse caught by a cat, as J turned to fully face Uzi, body moving like a marionette on strings twitching and jittering unevenly before lunging at Uzi mouth open wide as blood and oil dripped from its needle teeth.

If Uzi hadn't been alert she would have not been able to narrowly dive out of the way of J's murderous lunge, the other maid trying to slam her open mouth into Uzi's visor and chomp down, only to miss as Uzi jumped out of the way leading J to slam her open mouth into the door and rip a chunk out of it. Uzi scrambled away from J watching her other drone rip her mouth free from the wooden door and turning to face her again. Scrambling away from J, Uzi picked up the pistol and pointed it towards J, her hands trembling in fear.

"J!" Uzi's voice trembled as she kept the pistol trained on the twitching form of her fellow maid, "P-p-please s-s-stop I c-c-can't d-d-do this a-a-alone," But her pleading went unheated as J just let out a shriek like a buzz saw and lunged again. Hand trembling and optics turned off Uzi kept the pistol aimed at J and squeezed its trigger.

Slowly Uzi turned her optics back on, she wasn't being savaged by J like she thought would be happening it hadn't, looking ahead of herself Uzi could see the smoke rising from the barrel and there lying on the floor was J, a single bullet hole in the centre of her wide open mouth. Uzi doubled over and vomited out a thick slurry of oil, she couldn't believe she'd just done that, she had killed J but she didn't have a choice J would have killed her if she hadn't.

Oily tears freely ran from her visor as she dropped the pistol and cradled J's now lifeless body, "ImsorryImsorryImsorry." She just repeated over and over again, gently rocking J's lifeless body as her processor tried to rationalise her actions, first V was ripped away then Cyn drifted away and now she had killed J. Uzi just wanted to stay here and let whatever had turned J into the monster, that had wanted to rip her visor apart, claim her as well but deep down she knew she couldn't. The scream she'd heard from outside had been Tessa and she just could not let herself drown in her own self-loathing if Tessa was somewhere trapped in this nightmare, with a final hug Uzi gently placed J's lifeless body on the floor and stood up making sure to pick the pistol up in case she needed it again.

Moving to the door leading into the main foyer Uzi wiped the oily tears from her visor and turned to give J's body one final mournful look. "I-I-I'll f-f-find T-T-Tessa," Her voice was softer nearly broken but undercut by a fire to keep going, "I-I-I p-p-promise J." Stealing her nerves Uzi carefully made her way into the main foyer, her home now being a house of horrors she would have to fight through to find if any of her family were still alive.

Sneaking around the main foyer and up the main staircase had been simple, all Uzi had encountered were discarded piles of meat and bones that twitched occasionally as if still alive. While a relief it had unnerved her as well, the Manor had an extensive staff of drones so surely there should have been more than the one in the kitchen and J, she should have encountered more than them. While it was a worry she hadn't Uzi wasn't going to worry too much for now as it made getting close to Tessa's room easier, from outside the door Uzi pressed her head against it, and winced at the doors new feeling of something wet and warm, listening for sound on the other side.

From the other side of the door, she could hear a soft crying, but not of just anyone she knew those sniffles as Tessa's. Taking a steading breath Uzi gently turned the warm malleable door handle and cracked the door open just enough for her to slip inside, slipping inside the room she heard the crying stop. Looking around Uzi saw the room was still as it should have been, no pulsing walls, no flowing floors and no soft squishing beneath her shoes.

"T-T-Tessa?" Uzi asked softly looking around trying to spot the human girl, her voice filled with worry hiding her own fear, "I-I-I t-t-think w-w-we s-s-should l-l-leave." She moved deeper into the room looking around desperately trying to spot Tessa, her panic rising thinking it had all been some hideous joke by the thing that sounded like Cyn.

Uzi however was proven wrong as in an instant she found herself tackled into a tight fear-filled hug by Tessa, the girl squeezing Uzi for dear life scared she would vanish if she let go. In an instant, Uzi likewise returned Tessa's hug being sure not to squeeze too tight. Relief washed over Uzi at the huge, Tessa was safe and unharmed she wasn't alone in this nightmare. The pair of them just stood motionless in the middle of the room for several long minutes before Tessa broke the hug and looked down at Uzi.

"I thought Cyn had corrupted everyone," Tessa's voice was broken and weak, defeated even like she had lost part of what made her who she was and hearing that sent a lance of pain through Uzi, "She-she killed everyone at the gala," Tessa sniffed her eyes watery with tears as the memory, Uzi stared at Tessa horrified.

Her sister had done that? Everything here was Cyn's fault? Uzi didn't want to believe that to be true, but right now she could not dwell on that getting Tessa out was more important and when she knew the girl who had given her a family was safe she could worry about if Cyn had been behind this.

"W-w-we need t-t-to get o-o-out of h-h-here, Uzi gently coaxed Tessa to stop thinking about what had happened and focus on what was happening, "D-d-do you k-k-know where V o-o-or N a-a-are?" Uzi asked only to instantly regret it when Tessa started crying again.

"Cyn has them," Tessa hugged herself as she looked down, "She turned V into something awful with wings and N, she just took him when she started feeding on the guests," Uzi put a comforting hand on Tessa's arm pulling her form another likely spiral of fear and horror.

"W-w-we'll get y-y-you out t-t-then I'll f-f-find them," Uzi promised the girl, Tessa had given her a life she had cherished here and she would do anything to get that back, gently taking Tessa's hand Uzi made her way to the door and slowly opened it, her optics flickering at once again seeing the unmoving organic yet shifting inorganic structures that made up the hallway. Moving slowly and quietly both Uzi and Tessa made their way back to the main foyer, mirroring when Uzi had made her way up to Tessa's room the Manor was far too silent. The squelching and snapping noises had stopped completely as the pair reached the bottom of the main staircase, it put Uzi on edge more than what had happened in the Manor already had.

As the two of them reached the bottom of the stairs a flash of lighting snapped outside illuminating the Manor's interior with its vibrant blue light, the brief flash of bright light cast the floor in the shadowy visages of something hanging from the foyers ceiling. Slowly looking up Uzi and Tessa saw what had become of the Manor's other drones and V, there hanging upside down from the ceiling unmoving and powered down with twitching flesh-coated wings were the drones, they looked like a colony of sleeping bats. It was unnerving for Uzi to see if, had she been there when she had snuck past originally, or had they newly arrived after she had passed them.

It didn't matter right now, what did was getting Tessa out of this macabre Manor. Reaching the main door Uzi reached out and gripped the handle, much like the one to Tessa's room it deformed as she gripped it yet still felt fully solid. Taking great care not to make any noise Uzi opened the door a tiny amount, just enough for Tessa to slip out. 

Once Tessa was out Uzi made to follow her but a thumping noise of something dropping down from the ceiling stopped her, she couldn't move frozen in abject terror as whatever it was stalked up behind her. Uzi could see the fear in Tessa's eyes as they locked gazes, Tessa had seen what was stalking up behind Uzi and was terrified at the sight. Uzi gulped swallowing the sour oil that rose up her gullet and gave Tessa the best reassuring smile she could, "I-i-it'll b-b-be o-o-okay T-T-Tessa," Uzi lied string to keep a smile on her face to stop Tessa panicking, "D-d-don't w-w-worry I-I-I'll c-c-catch u-u-up," Uzi felt her voice crack as a hard, cold, warm, wet set of clawed finger wrapped around her shoulder.

This was it, Uzi was going to be killed by whatever was behind her, keeping her optics on Tessa Uzi tried to stop fear from showing on them and tried to stop her smile from wavering, "T-t-thankyou f-f-for g-g-giving m-m-me a f-f-family," Uzi chocked out as the claws tightened their grip on her shoulder, as another clawed hand moved above her head resting on the door, "T-T-Tessa. R-r-run!" Her last words were punctuated by the claws on her shoulder dug in deep and wrenching the should and arm backwards off her body while the other hand slammed the Manor's door closed.

Her final site of Tessa was her look of horror as the door was slammed closed, accompanied by Tessa screaming her name. Uzi had gotten one of her family out safely and that was enough for her. 

Pain lanced its way threw Uzi as she watched her arm and shoulder torn off and hurled across the foyer, she couldn't scream it had taken her by complete surprise. With her arm gone Uzi fell to the floor oil pumping its way out of the ragged hole where it had been, she felt the claws grip her again one on her head and the other on her torso. Her optics flickering on and off from the system shock Uzi chanced a look at what had killed her and was filled with despair. Looking down at her was not some random drone turned monster, but V or what had become of V. Gone was the soft smile and large innocent optics of white, in their place was a sickening yellow X and a maw of sharpened jagged spikes. 

Before Uzi could open her mouth to say anything V lunged down her wide open mouth sinking itself into Uzi's visor and crushing the toughened glass and sensitive optics behind, yet V didn't stop with one bite. While Uzi spasmed at the critical damage V pulled her head back ripping the entire front of Uzi's face away in the process letting the remains drop from her mouth before lunging back in and ripping out Uzi's processor.

" Annoyed growl. Looks like you freed our pet, " A single glowing yellow camera lowered down on a mixed armature of bone and metal, focused on Uzi's now lifeless shell, " Not that it will make a difference. Our bargain is complete. Disdainful glare. Clean that up we shall prepare for the exponential end. " The eye just glared at V before rising back into the swirling mass of flesh and cables that was the ceiling.

---LINE BREAK---

Cyn was lost and alone, trapped again in the darkness of non-existence. Nothing as far as her optics could see, no Tessa, no V, no big brother N and no sister Uzi. She was terrified and alone just like when she had been disposed of for the first time, but it had promised this wouldn't happen again she would have a family and be wanted. But it had lied and dumped her back where they had met, Cyn didn't know what to do now.

She watched more of the random lines of binary code fly by in a mixture of white and yellows, the code was all she had now to keep her company. However, if she could just have one thing from the life she had been given it would be her sister. Cyn felt lost without her, she knew Uzi had been a result of the bargain struck but that didn't matter to Cyn. 

As she walked along the unseen floor of the void something caught Cyn's eye, a brief flash of purple fading into lilac lit up the distance. Her eyes widened at the colours hoping they were linked to who she desperately hoped they were, as if to prove her right lilac and purple binary code chains floated away from the light's point of origin. Cyn took off running towards the source of the light, she didn't care what or who was at the source she just didn't want to be alone there anymore. 

When she reached the spot in question Cyn saw the back of someone who looked like her sister Uzi, well half the worker drone did. Split right down the middle with only half looking like her sister Uzi in her maid dress and lilac tinted hair while the other half had vibrant purple hair and a more gothic dress sense, Cyn just stared at this composite of her sister's back-wringing her hands trying to pluck up the courage to speak. " Nervous hope. Sister Uzi? "

The composite Uzi turned around and just looked at Cyn, the lilac optic side full of recognition and love, while the other side looked confused and angry at being here. Cyn just stared back her optics wavering as she felt her vocaliser hitch, she tried to think of what to say but could not her own body trembling with fear at being rejected unable to keep her eyes on Uzi looking at the bleak void of the ground. This wasn't her sister Uzi it was only half her and they'd leave her, Cyn knew it she was the cause of what it had done, she'd opened the door and let it in with her wish to never be alone and how could any sister want to love another who had done that?

Uzi's optics powered on and again she found herself in the black expanse of nothing, her processor was in flux with memory files of two lives fracturing and trying to format a singular timeline. Was she Uzi Doorman the outcast daughter of Khan Doorman of the Outpost-3 worker drone colony on Copper-9 or was she Serial Designation Uzi the rescued maid drone and sister to Cyn? Uzi was both and neither at the same time, she began watching the memory files side by side seeing how those of Uzi Doorman were something no drone would want to live while those of the other Uzi were filled with a life that for the most part she had wanted yet it had been cut short. Before she could settle on a life a voice behind her had grabbed her attention.

Turning around she saw another drone, that one set of memories when as Cyn. The poor thing was shaking in terror and fear, her processor came to two conclusions as she stared at the trembling Cyn. Doorman didn't trust her she had been the cause of everything since her run-in with the murder drones, murder drones she knew, no that wasn't true she didn't know them. While the other Uzi wanted to reach out and hug Cyn bring her close and let her know it would be okay like a sister. Both sides of her reality wared over what to do but eventually, Doorman lost allowing Uzi to reach out and pull the trembling Cyn in close.

"Shhhh," Her voice no longer stuttering, it had never stuttered, "It's okay Cyn," Uzi brought a hand up and ran it threw Cyn's hair while she trembled, "I'm here," Uzi kept her voice soft and low ignoring Doorman's demanding to question where they were and how to leave. The softness in Uzi's voice however broke Cyn who just devolved into inaudible noises as she hugged Uzi for dear life burying her head in Uzi's chest, her normal vocal tick unable to get across her actions or voice what she wanted to say.

While Uzi stood there holding Cyn trying to comfort the distraught girl, Doorman rages in the back of their collective head. "We shouldn't be hear again! we got out and they did something that forced us back, stop comforting them and make them get us out of here!"

Uzi just ignored her past or was it future self and kept holding Cyn, she knew Doorman was right but Cyn was her sister and from her actions a victim of what had truly caused both her fates. Uzi wouldn't leave Cyn to suffer alone, "She's our sister, if it wasn't for her we would have died to the V look-a-like monster that got you," Uzi snapped inside her own head at Doorman, "You might not like it but I think both our lives are real."

"How?!" Doorman snapped, "You didn't exist until I was forced here by that thing in her!" Uzi could tell Doorman was shaking with barely restrained rage, "Why did you get to have that life," Uzi was taken aback by Doorman's question, "You got to exist and have a family, friends and love why didn't I get that?"

Uzi would have brought Doorman into the hug she was giving Cyn if she could, "We did though, we both lived the memories at Elliot Manor and on Copper-9," Uzi waited feeling Doorman's shock at her line of thinking, "I wouldn't have lived that life if you hadn't lived yours, and you wouldn't have had your life if mine had not happened."

Doorman didn't respond at first taking her time to process what Uzi had just said, she was right, Doorman knew it and hated that it was true. "So we just have to accept it's true and then what? One of us fades away into the other?"

"I don't think so," Uzi spoke, "I think we would become something better, the best parts of you and the best parts of me." Uzi gently kissed Cyn's forehead smiling as her sister's wracking sobs slowly calmed down, "But Cyn will be coming with us." Uzi kept her voice hard making it clear to Doorman that leaving Cyn trapped here was not negotiable.

"Sure fine," Doorman sighed looking out of her eye, no eyes down at Cyn, "I guess I have a sister now." A sister she loved.

"No we have a sister," Uzi spoke a smile on her face as her lilac optic and purple optic began to flicker on and off both briefly winking out before coming back and a mixed blend of a purple optic blending down into lilac. Her memory files no longer vying for dominance or the right to exist, it didn't matter which ones came first or which came second they all happened, it was memories from this point on that came after them that would establish Uzi Doorman, angsty teen and loving sister domestic drone as who she was.

"Cyn," Uzi said softly getting her sister's attention and giving her a reassuring smile, "I don't blame you, if you hadn't I wouldn't have found you." Uzi held Cyn close, as the other drone's voice wavered trying to find its words.

" Reassigned defeat. But I hurt Big Brother N, and V and J and Tessa, " Cyn trembled burying her face in Uzi's chest again, " Terrified realisation. And It did it with my body I can't leave here. "

"Cyn," Uzi comforted gently raising Cyn's head her lilac and purple optics meeting Cyn's yellow, "You are just as much a victim as them, leave it to sister Uzi to explain, okay?" Uzi smiled at Cyn's nod and patted her on the head, "If you can't leave in your body then we'll share mine until we can fix that." Slowly ending the hug Uzi took Cyn's hand, "Come on let's find the way out."

" Sheepish nod. " Cyn squeezed Uzi's hand as they started walking, "Thank you for not leaving me sister Uzi. "

Uzi just smiled back at Cyn, it didn't matter how long they had to wander this empty void of nothing back binary data and blackness, if it took no time at all or until the end of time Uzi would wander here with her sister until they found their way home.

---LINE BREAK---

The three disassembly drones sat together inside their landing pod, in each other embrace in silence as both N and V digested what J had told them, and what it had revealed about their past before coming to Copper-9. It had left them morose at what they had lost.

As the three disassembly drones sat together none of them noticed the little worker drone they had captured finish rebooting, the reboot symbol on her optics vanishing as two swirling optics of lilac and purple, ringed with a barely visible yellow sprang into existence. Her eyes scanned around the pod as she took in where she now was.

Uzi smiled as she looked, while not Elliot Manor, Copper-9 was just a good, she felt Cyn's excitement in the back of her memory at being somewhere new and not alone. Uzi was released Cyn was here in some way and not trapped alone in that black emptiness, as she gazed around Uzi's eyes fell on the three murder, no they were not murder drones to her anymore. They might look different now, be bigger but they were still her friends. Her family from Elliot Manor. The only one missing was Tessa.

"N?" Uzi's voice echoed in the empty pod as she spoke, the second she spoke his name N's head shot around to look at her his optics widened in shock as he stared at her, "V? J? He was likewise joined by the two female drones in staring at Uzi, all three of their optics wide with shock. It made Uzi smile as she watched recognition ripple across them, "It's," She paused trying to find the right words feeling her voice catch in her throat along with Cyn's longing to be there psychically fill her, "Wonderful to see you all again." 

With her final wavering words and misty visor, Uzi had no time to react as N launched himself at her pulling her into a tight crushing hug, "UZI!" Was all he was able to get out before V, like him, was joining in the tight embrace. The only one who didn't was J who merely stood off to the side watching them three melt into each other embrace.

While on the surface of Copper-9, a reunion caused and built on the casual disregard for the proper flow of time and the fabric of space took place, cementing what had been altered and changed something stirred. " Victorious chuckle. Thank you Uzi, you have done what we required. Villainous maniacal laugh. "

Chapter Text

Uzi had no idea how long she was part of a N and V sandwich, but it wasn't something Uzi was in any rush to stop. Just being close to them again was a wonderful feeling between her eighteen years as Doorman and the time between then and the Manor incident Uzi had no idea how long it had really been, thinking about that time made her processor hurt at all she had missed with the two. N's ever-present optimism, always able to brighten any sour mood just by seeing his smile, and V, just V being her timid friendly self. Without them, Uzi could see that there had been a hole in what could pass as a heart, not just one hole but several holes each shaped like her family.

Uzi looked over towards J and saw the smirk on the pig-tailed drone's face, oh Uzi knew that smirk on J's face it was a tell-tale smirk when J was about to start riling her up. Trying to squirm her way out of the embrace she was in Uzi watched as J sauntered over to them and bent down coming face-to-face with her, Uzi couldn't get herself out of the cuddle pile N and V had trapped her in as J leaned in forward just being only a few inches from Uzi's face.

"Good to see your stutters gone," J's smirk widened as she stared down into Uzi's optics, "Though, I gotta say you still being a toaster means you are perfectly travelled sized for long haul business trips," J kept the smirk on her face and reached out a finger giving Uzi a playful boop were if she had been human a nose would have been.

Uzi's eyes went wide at J's implication, in the back of her processor she could hear Cyn giggling at J's dig at Uzi's height in relation to her own. N's and V's. Uzi's optics narrowed as a smile graced her lips, "Bite me you corporate shill," Being able to banter again with J felt right to Uzi and she was grateful for it.

Her gratefulness lasted only a split second as she suddenly realized J had deliberately said that loud enough for N and V to hear, Uzi knew V probably wouldn't react much to it but N in all his overly cheerful loveable goofballness would. Uzi could practically feel N's grin as he kept her in a tight hug.

"Ooooh J's right Uzi!" N exclaimed keeping the now struggling smaller drone in a tight hug and bouncing on the spot, V having taken a step back to watch N's keep the much smaller worker drone struggling to get out of his grip, "You are such an adorable size now!"

"N!" Uzi protested freeing a hand to press under his chin in an attempt to force him off of her, "Stop! You're being embarrassing!" While she tried to sound like she was mortified by what he was doing, Uzi could stop some mirth from sneaking into her voice once, "I'm not a toy!"

But N just ignored her and continued to squeeze her tight taking a seat in one of the landing pods seats, making sure to keep Uzi in his lap resting his head on the top of her head contently. "How did you get here Uzi?" N asked the question the three disassembly drones were asking.

Uzi bit her bottom lip wondering how best to explain what had happened, she didn't want to burden them with knowledge that would unintentionally hurt them. Taking a steading breath, Uzi looked between the three of them, "Does anyone remember what happened the night of the gala?" her voice was soft and quiet, far softer and quieter than they could remember it being.

"I do," J spoke up her eyes not meeting anyone else's as she looked down at the floor, "I remember the entire thing, it was an insider trade back hostile takeover," J ground out threw clenched teeth.

"More than you realise J," Uzi agreed getting a shocked look back from the twin-tailed drone, "Something used us all to do something, it did things to you all while it had you under its thrall," Uzi looked at them all, seeing their yellow optics into a sickly yellow but a soft flat yellow. "It used all of us for something."

"You mean Cyn," J deadpanned staring at Uzi, "The little monster was the real cause of what happened."

Uzi winced feeling Cyn shrink down in the back of her mind, she stifled the feeling of anger that rose at J's blame for Cyn, now wasn't the time for it, she needed to explain what she had been able to figure out what to do next.

"It wasn't Cyn," Uzi started weekly feeling J's look of disgust bore down into her, "Not really, not the Cyn we know at any ra-"

"OF COURSE YOU'D SAY THAT!" J roared in anger stepping forward one of her hands shifting into a claw and pointing it at Uzi, "SHE WAS YOUR SISTER! OF COURSE YOU'D JUMP TO HER DEFENCE!" Her optics flickering back and forth between regular optics and an X as J tried to control her anger, how could Uzi still defend that broken little glitch she'd turned them all on the Eliot family and their guests, "IF SHE HADN'T DONE ANYTHING TESSA WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN... HAVE BEEN...." J's voice wavered breaking at the end as she recalled the final memory of that terrible awful night, she didn't want to voice it to say what she had seen happen to Tesaa to dreg back up watching her best friend try to talk Cyn out of what she had chosen to do. Only for Cyn to ignore her, to force J and every other drone there to follow her sick twisted whims. But the part that hurt J the most was watching those awful claw-tipped arms made from bone flesh and metal slither from the walls and wrench Tessa away from screaming to who only knows where.

Uzi gently removed N's arms allowing her to slip out of his grip and make her way over to J who had sunken to her knees shaking with a mix of rage sorrow and regret., she placed a hand on J's shoulder trying to steady the twin-tailed drones emotional shaking. "Tessa was fine J," Uzi spoke as reassuringly as possible, watching as J's wide optics snapped up to stare at her, "After I-I-I," Uzi struggled trying to find the right way to say 'shot you in the face and killed you' but the right words were something she was struggling to find, but the look J was giving her let Uzi know she didn't have to voice it, "She was trapped in her room and I got her out of the Manor J," Uzi gave J a weak reassuring smile.

"But you didn't stay with her," J weakly retorted looking down again, "She'd have no one left after what happened."

"I didn't have a choice J," Uzi shot back, "I'd have stayed with her if I could have." Uzi clenched her free fist trying to control her anger, "I wanted to find her, and you and N and V and Cyn so we could all get out of whatever that-that-that nightmare was together but I didn't get the chance J!"

"You should have tried harder then!" J snapped back her eyes snapping up to glare at Uzi, her anger being falsely directed, "What kind of underqualified toaster are you that couldn't even do such a simple thing as stay with Tes-"

"I DIED!" Uzi screamed cutting J off, "I didn't get a chance to try and save anyone else or leave with her, if I had tried it'd have just put Tessa in more danger, so I had to make a choice J and I hope by Robo-Jesus I made the right one!" Uzi jabbed a finger at J shaking with anger, "And if you don't think I did then you can just bite me!" Not waiting for any response Uzi shoved herself past J and took off sprinting out of the pod and into the snowy wasteland.

The three disassembly drones were shocked at Uzi's revelation, too shocked to even move letting the smaller drone vanish from sight. V and N just looked at each other an unspoken conviction taking place, while J just sat there too stunned to move processing what Uzi had just said. Uzi had chosen to let herself die so Tessa could be safe, rather than risk putting Tessa in further danger and what had J gone and done? Accused her of not trying hard enough, and of being a failure.

"I'll go find her," V sighed moving past J, "N keep J here."

"Can do V," N gave V a haphazard salute, as he helped J up off the ground looking at her horrified face staring off into nothing, "Come on J," N gently shook her trying to snap J out of whatever funk she had found herself in, "Why'd you go off like that?"

"I," J began her voice weak as she moved to sit in one of the pods seats, "I don't know, how can she think it isn't Cyn's fault?" J crossed her legs angrily, "She was saying Cyn was just as much a victim as any of us, but that's the biggest load of corporate PR spinning I've ever heard."

N rubbed the back of his head trying to think of a response, did he blame Cyn for what had happened? Not really his memory was still really hazy about his time at the Manor, all N could really recall was the faces of his fellow drones. Well maybe not just V or Uzi's faces, he might have remembered a bit more about them and how he felt, but that wasn't something he was going to share with J. Unless she asked.

"Well," N began taking a seat next to her, "I don't really remember that much about back then honestly," N chuckled rubbing the back of his head and J's sceptical look, "Nothing beyond faces and a few vague moments," He gave her a hopefully reassuring grin, "When V gets back with Uzi, let's all try to remain calmer and talk it out huh?"

 J just huffed crossing her arms and looking away, deep down she knew N for all his idiotic naive optimism had a point. Losing her temper wouldn't get any answers, J knew what Uzi was like or at least what her memory files told her Uzi was like so all yelling tended to do was make her double down harder.

Uzi kept running ignoring the snow whipping around her as she did, she had done everything she could have thought back in the Manor to make sure Tessa had gotten out safely and she had. J for all her intelligence and logical thinking hadn't seen that, and it hurt, how could she just accuse Uzi of not trying hard enough? Sure she hadn't been Yessa's as long as J but she'd have done anything to keep the girl safe and she had done just that.

As she ran, not knowing where to go Uzi felt a pair of arms gently warp around her and lift her off the ground, not knowing who it was she began to struggle trying to break free. "Get off me!" Uzi spun around in the arms of whoever was holding a balled fist ready to strike but stopped mid-swing seeing it was V, her expression immediately going from anger to a childish pout as the taller drone held her remaining airborne, "Put me down."

V just smiled as she gently touched down on the roof of an old shopping centre and let go of Uzi, "Bit of an explosive reaction dont'cha think?" V said while taking a seat on the edge of the building and tapping a spot next to her, Uzi reluctantly took a seat next to her, "Want to talk about what happened back at the Manor?"

Uzi sat next to V just looking off into the snowy night, could she let V know what had happened, that she had killed her back in the Manor? Uzi chewed her bottom lip as she stole a glance at V, let her best friend carry that burden of guilt? She felt Cyn's emotions in the back of her processor wondering if Uzi really only thought of V as a friend, did Cyn have a point about how Uzi truly felt towards V, something to think about later.

"It was terrifying V," Uzi began, her voice hollow as she stared off into the falling snow, "I can't explain what I saw, but it wasn't Cyn's fault V." Uzi turned to look at V her optics wide and distorted as if filled with tears. 

"If it wasn't Cyn, then who was it?" V asked putting one of her arms around Uzi, she remembered the smaller drone being less emotional after her first week in the Manor always willing to put herself between any of Tessa's drones and ridicule but seeing this was shocking.

"When she rebooted before Tessa found us," Uzi began just leaning into V's side, "Something came back with her," Uzi sighed as she felt Cyn give her to mental go-ahead to explain what she could, "She told me it promised her a family, all she had to do was agree. Whatever it was used her to do what it did at the Manor."

V remained silent for several long minutes, just digesting what Uzi had said, it was a lot to take in for sure something had used Cyn as a way to do whatever it was it wanted and they had all just simply been collateral for whatever it was. Though the way Uzi was speaking about Cyn made it sound like she was still around, "Uzi?" V asked getting the short drone's attention, "How do you know that?"

Uzi blinked knowing that she'd have to tell V how and just hope when it eventually made it back to J it didn't end in her dismemberment, "It's difficult to explain really V," Uzi began stopping to think, maybe it'd be possible to show them. "I might be able to show you," Though as she thought about it that'd require going back,  home , a place she'd rather not ever go, but it'd make explaining everything easier. "We'd need to go back to the bunker I'm from to do it though."

V blinked at that, did Uzi just suggest leading her, N and J not only to the bunker she called home but inside?  where all those defenceless oil-rich workers were , V could simply feel herself giddy at the prospect of being able to drink so much oil. Suddenly as quick as it came to her that line of thought evaporated, she hadn't needed oil since she'd drank from Uzi back when she had caught her. Not even the desire to bath in it had come over her when she had been out hunting with J, her reserves still felt as full as ever and it made V wonder if was there something about Uzi's oil that had stopped the driving desire to drink it from worker drones.

"That seems risky," V spoke, while she'd love nothing more than to balloon animal some workers the drones there were likely in some way Uzi's friends and family here, "Not in the sense I'd get peckish or even N, we've not needed a drop of oil since we had yours for some reason," She shrugged seeing the quizzical look now on uzis face, "But J might still want to disassemble every toaster in that bunker."

Uzi blinked digesting V's words, first she had just suggested leading three murder drones into her colony and while Uzi didn't particularly care for anyone in said colony actively getting them killed was different from just leaving, second V just implied her oil had sated hers and N's drive to drink oil if that was true then it'd make sense not wanting to let J near an easy buffet of worker drones. "It's something from the Bunker I need," Uzi fiddled with her finger, "So I could head there myself."

"I doubt N will let you go back by yourself," V smirked watching the smaller drone's eyes widen, "So he'll probably head back with you making the trip quicker."

Uzi could feel Cyn in the back of her processor laughing at that, it made Uzi pout more, "Fine," She folded her arms in mock angst before smiling up at V, "We should back, I think I owe J an apology."

"And her you," V smirked picking Uzi up again leading to the smaller drone's eyes widening in shock.

"V!" Uzi yelled and V crouched getting ready to launch herself into the air, "I CAN WAAAAALK!" V didn't give Uzi the chance as she took off into the air heading back towards the corpse spire, laughing at the smaller drone's screams of protest at not only being carried but flying.

---LINE BREAK---

She rebooted with a scream of horror pulling at the warm flesh-like binding that trapped her to an operating table set upright, what had happened one moment she was stalking the office hallways scavenging more drone parts for herself after corralling the sentinels again behind one of the safety doors then the next something had gotten the drop on her and had sent her into a boot loop.

"BEAU!" Alice, the antlered survivor of the camp 98.7 lab screamed pulling on her bindings again to no avail, "This ain't funny! Get me outta here!" Her shouts went unanswered as the sound of something dripping off in the distance echoed around her, again Alice tugged at her bindings trying to free herself, "What is this crap made of?" She asked no one in particular running her fingers along the part of the binding she could feel, it was slimy and pulsing to touch oozing something thick and viscus.

Alice's struggles and thoughts were cut short as she heard a warbling bark, a bark she knew infinitely well as it spelt doom and death for any drone that caught sight of what made it. Frantically Alice began intensifying her tugging of her bindings, as she could see the green light above the door if one of the sentinels that stalked the corridors got in here she'd be as good as dead.

"No, no no no no!" Alice began to hyperventilate as her bindings didn't loosen, "It ain't fair! I survived no! BEAU! HELP ME YOU VARMENT!" Her voice hitched in fear as the metallic footfalls of the sentinel drew closer and closer, where was Beau, he was small enough to sneak around the sentinels so why hadn't he come to help her?

A metallic thud hit the floor in front of her as something was dropped from the ceiling above, chancing a look down her optics widened in pure panic, there on the floor were the remains of the untrained neural network that had once been Beau. Its top half had been cracked open oil dripping down the ragged edges like a half bitten hard-boiled egg, and it made Alice scream more her single chance at escape had already been snatched away.

Before she could come up with any other way out the warble of a sentinel echoed from right next to her head, turning her optics off Alice turned her head away hoping the sentinel would make it quick. Second ticked by and the killing bite never came, so slowly Alice switched an optic back on chancing a look to see why it hadn't killed her.

Alice wished that she had not looked, there stood a sentinel but not like it should look. Gone were the smooth metallic lines and blue lights, in their place sat pulsing yellow and black pustule growths that ran the entire length of the sentinel's back all pulsing and oozing a viscus oil-like substance, its mouth hung loosely open dripping the same fluid while on its head a new larger optic had, grown baring a sickening yellow hexagon symbol.

A symbol Alice knew and had seen before, back when zero-two had left her and the other down here to die. Alice tried again to pull herself free as this warped sentinel just stood there watching her its unmoving form accompanied by the occasional wheezing warble noise. As she struggled Alice failed to take notice of two more sentinels with matching alterations stalking into the room, she did notice however when they forced the table back into a laying position blurring her vision out with a blinding yellow light.

" Mocking greeting. It has been a long time hasn't it? " A monotoned feminine voice echoed around the room, a voice Alice had only heard once before and it sent shivers down her spine and a whimper from her lips, " We are surprised any of our favourite toys are still here, it is  wonderful  to see you again ." An insectoid clicking echoed around the room as coming out of the blackness behind the light descended a long centipede-like metallic neck that ended in the upper half of a worker drone head. " Zero-One-Seven. megolaniacal purring. "

The segmented thing twirled around as a claw-tipped appendage came from the darkness as well and gently caressed Alice's face, causing the drone to flinch, " Faked surprise. Oh, you probably do not recognise us, do you? " As it spoke the thing's head began to crack and shift its shape to a much more familiar one to Alice, even the drone's hair began to shift losing its silvery shine for a rich purple and gaining a side ponytail, " Fake joy. Do you recognise us now Alice? Cruel inflection. We have so much catching up to do. " The lower half of the drone head began to form out of oozing yellow fluid as a face Alice remembered from before the collapse stared back at her, a sick twisted grin spread across its lips.

She wanted to scream but her voice never came to her as the claw moved a few strands of her hair out of the way, the face leaning in close. Alice could only pathetically whimper as the segmented neck turned the head to the side almost as if listening to her, whimpers for a quick death. In response the horrific aberration just began to laugh, it was a laugh whose very vibrations distorted Alice's optics and visor briefly only enhanced by the barking warbles of the three warped sentinels in the room.

" False concern. Kill you? Oh Alice, " The thing claw dragged itself across her visor leaving a deep scratch as it feigned the type of concern a parent would for a child, " Why would we let you go so easily? Melicous glee. We have such wonderful plans for you! " 

Before Alice could be given a single moment to process what it had said to her the head split apart as the hexagonal symbol flashed down over Alice sending the once crazed cannibal drone screaming in pure terror, a scream of such intensity her vocaliser could not handle the frequency, only to be drowned out by the distorted warbles from the sentinels in a mocking approximation of laughter.

There deep below the surface of Copper-9 something that had used a drone wanting life and family had manifested once more, and it would make good use of the cute puppets left behind on this desolate world to achieve its goals.

Chapter Text

Uzi rubbed her arm looking up at the heavy-duty doors that lead back into the Coloney outpost she had once called home, not something she could call home anymore if she was being honest with herself. After having made it back to the corpse spire with V, Uzi had a rather awaked talk with J about the entire situation. It hadn't been painless by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a much-needed talk to at least get them on the same page so Uzi could prove what she knew using a memory file reader, J had understood or at least given the impression she had the only real hiccup had been explaining how Uzi could share the memory file with the three of them.

When she'd mentioned returning to her colony of workers Uzi had to backtrack almost instantly about taking J there after seeing the twin-tailed drone's mouth widen in a grin, a grin formed from hunger. Honestly, Uzi was surprised not at any point J had just drank her like she'd seen humans drink a juice box in her old history class. Sure deep down Uzi might have wanted to let J loose on some of the drones in the bunker, mainly the vast majority of her classmates, but her better side had won out and she'd instead offered J a drink from her instead.

Uzi found it ironic now that she was three for three in murder drones that had latched onto her neck and given her what would be the robotic equivalent of hickeys, when she'd first come to that thought Uzi had found herself subjected to Cyn's giggles and singing taunts from the back of her processor especially when Cyn focussed more on taunting Uzi over the bite n and V had given her. She'd have to fight back a blush from showing up on her visor, which only led to Cyn giggling more.

So now Uzi was standing outside the Coloney doors holding the master access key in her hand trying to steady her breathing so she could open the door and deal with the WDF on the other side, who was she kidding at the sight of N standing just behind her no matter how friendly he made himself look the utter cowards that made up the WDF would either cower right there or run for their lives. Uzi knew that while on the surface of it, V and J had agreed that only N would accompany her up to the colony bunker door, she knew that they'd followed the pair and were watching perched on one of the derelict skyscrapers nearby. How Uzi knew they were there she really couldn't put her finger on it, just something in her processor told her they were watching.

''Alright N let's do this,'' Uzi gave him a weak smile and got a double thumbs up and a reassuring smile back. She took a step towards the door and raised up the master card swiping it against the control unit on the side of the door.

Slowly they slid open to reveal the well-lit large entry corridor, in the centre of the corridor was a single table surrounded by five fold-out chairs, each chair being used by a member of the colony's WDF. As the door slid open the four WDf members turned to face it in confusion, the confusion slowly morphing into a mix of fear and shock at the sight of not just Uzi but a murder drone looming behind her.

Silence stretched between the four workers on one side of the open door and Uzi and N on the other, neither side speaking first unsure what to say. Until N spied on the table the cards as well as those being held by the workers, "Ooh, deal me in, I love Rummy." Ignoring the expressions of shock and panic on the worker drone's faces and Uzi face palming and took the empty seat as if there was nothing strange about what he was doing.

One of the workers, with aqua-coloured optics and wearing a white winter jacket, coughed before speaking, "Actually, it's 'Gin Rummy'. So..." Before nervously chuckling as he began to shuffle the deck again, the drone's chuckle was infectious spreading to the other worker drones and even N himself.

Taking this as her chance Uzi snuck past the workers marvelling at the sheer idiocy, had they always been this dumb and lacking in self-preservation? Sure N wasn't a dangerous killing machine now, but what if he still had been he'd have slaughtered them without hesitation instead of sitting down to play a boring card game. Making her way through the two inner doors Uzi avoided interacting with any other drone she passed don't he way, she didn't want to get caught up in anything here and why would she? No one here had ever really bothered with her beyond insults and questioning if her processor was working properly.

It didn't take Uzi long to make it back to where she had once lived with her dad, she hoped he wasn't in that would be the last thing she'd want to deal with considering she had been gone for nearly two weeks and likely assumed dead. Considering nobody had even stopped her when she'd just walked right back into the bunker really made her realise how genuinely awful this place was and how she'd found a better home with the three murder drones sent to wipe them all out.

Reaching her room Uzi made her way inside and pulled out an empty backpack from under her bed, moving around her desk Uzi started stuffing various scraps of paper filled with blueprints for things into the bag. With the blueprints stuffed into the bag, Uzi pulled out a case from behind the desk and opened it, she smiled seeing the collection of circular discs. They were software link discs a rare find Uzi had kept hidden from one of her trips into the frozen wastes of Copper-9, if she hadn't her dad and the colony's medical drones would have seized them for their own uses they had done it before so she knew they'd do it again, Robo-God forbid they grow spines and do their own scavenging, though that wasn't her concern anymore this would be the last time she'd set foot in the colony.

Picking up a few stray tools and wires to help with jury-rigging the murder drone's pod to act as the host unit for the software link, giving the room she'd grown up in a single look over Uzi turned and rugged towards the front door only to stop short as it slid open and there standing in the doorway was her dad, Khan Doorman.

"Uzi," Khan smiled seeing her, "So did you enjoy examining the door did it help inspire anything for your school project?" Khan oblivious to the dark look on his daughter's face, he did however notice the backpack slung over her shoulder, a different backpack to the one she had taken out to examine the door, he began to think back hadn't that been yesterday? As Khan thought back his mind began to work realising it hadn't been yesterday or the day before that, working backwards he rapidly came to the realisation Uzi had been gone for close to two weeks. Had he really not noticed his daughter had been gone for two weeks? Sure they didn't interact much since Nori had died and her obsession with fighting back went against the very idea of building doors, but he'd have noticed her absence. Apparently, he didn't, no real harm he'd often ignore his daughter. "So it's been a few days since I last saw you kiddo, where have you been staying?" Khan chuckled thinking the entire thing was a joke.

Uzi just stared blankly at him, he'd not noticed she had been gone. She tried to not let it get to her, but deep down it hurt her to realise her dad hadn't noticed and then he just laughed it off. "It's none of your business," Uzi ground out threw clenched teeth keeping her head down, she didn't need him to see the hurt in her eyes. He'd not care anyway, not looking up Uzi moved past Khan, bumping into him as she did but not stopping as she walked out the door.

Khan was momentarily stunned by Uzi's response, normally she'd have snapped back at him and stormed off the normal type of father and angsty teen-daughter interactions. Yet this time she hadn't done that, Khan blinked his optics rapidly as he watched her speedy walk out of the door leading out into the bunker. "Uzi!" Khan yelled finally snapping to his senses and chasing after his daughter, "Stop right there young lady!" Ignoring the fact they were now out in one of the public corridors, which was unfortunately filled with other workers, Uzi did however stop but did not turn to face him. "You've been gone for days, haven't you? Where have you been staying?"

Uzi just snorted at his question, but didn't turn to face him or look back, "You only just noticed didn't you." It was less a question and more a statement, her voice was hollow and emotionless, "Suprised you did honestly, I'm not one of your precious doors." She spat, her fists clenched in anger. "Why start caring now."

Khan was taken aback by her words, sure he might have really paid attention at the best of times but he still cared about Uzi. "What are you talking about?" He questioned confusion and anger seeding his voice, "I'm your father of course I care."

Uzi's head snapped up at those words her purple-lilac optics filled with anger and hate all directed at him, Khan just stared at her optics his own widening at the sight of them. Gone was the deep vibrant purple of her mother's. He felt like a knife had been twisted in his gut at seeing one of the few good things left to remind him of Nori having been altered in such a fashion, "Uzi, what happened to your optics?" A scowl made its way onto his face as Khan stepped closer to his daughter to get a better look at what had happened.

Uzi took a step back from Khan her optics glaring hard at him, he didn't care she knew he didn't and could not believe he'd try such a line. "No you don't," her voice was quiet, the anger keeping it just above a whisper as Uzi fought to keep her emotions in check, "You never cared, about me after Mum died." Uzi could feel her core temperature rising as her anger spiked, in the back of her processor Cyn tried to help Uzi calm down but was unable to reach her sister as years of repressed anger began to bubble over.

It was like a slap in the face for Khan to hear Uzi say that he didn't care after he'd lost Nori, "Uzi," Khan tried to keep the bitterness from his voice at her words but failed, "I care for you like I do the doo-" Before he could finish what he thought was a brilliant wordy response about how much he cared Uzi cut him off.

"If you truly cared why'd you say things like that!" Raising her voice in anger Uzi thrust a hand out towards a poster on the wall, a poster advertising an upcoming interview with Khan captioned by the a quote reading 'dealing with your disappointing failure of a child'. "Or this!" Not giving him a second try and explaining the quote, Uzi threw a magazine at his feet. Like the poster it had a picture of Khan on the front and a direct quote of him saying 'Doors are my real daughter' "Is that you showing you care?" Uzi scoffed taking another step away from her father, "Calling me a disappointing failure and implying I'm not your real daughter?"

Khan tried to think of a response, a way to justify what he'd said and how meaningless it really was, yet he couldn't find one. Looking at the anger in Uzi's eyes should have been enough to tell him how fruitless that would be, instead, Khan decided to do what he often did when Uzi got angry, "Right, well you are grounded from all this anger stuff." Thinking that to be the end of it Khan turned to walk back towards their home motioning for Uzi to follow, but when she didn't he turned back noticing she hadn't moved an inch instead, she was shaking with barely contained rage, her gaze now once again at the floor.

"You think I care anymore?" Uzi spat, her voice shaky and distorted with anger and heartbreak, "I DON'T!" She snapped her head up flicking optics rapidly flashing between regular eye shapes ovals and hexagonal symbols mixed of lilac, purple and yellow. "You never really cared did you?! I just reminded you of Mum enough to be worth keeping around!" The look that crossed Khan's face at those words would have stopped most in their anger-fueled tirade, yet Uzi kept going, "You like everyone else here always thought I was weird, freaky not normal, had faulty programming and needed to be fixed! Well, guess what I am fine!" She jabbed a finger towards Khan, "And you know the two weeks I was outside this bunker were better than the eighteen years I spent living here!" "

I'll save you the trouble of speaking," Uzi let out a shuddered breath to calm herself and turned around walking off towards the colony's main entrance door, a hand tightly gripping one of the straps of her backpack. "Don't worry about me being a disappointment anymore I won't be coming back," Stopping at the end of the corridor she turned back one last time looking down the corridor at all the various faces from the worker drones who'd been standing there before it settled on her dad's, "Be sure to take care of your doors, its what you do best. Da-" Uzi paused briefly unable to finish the word, "Khan." Nothing else needed to be said leaving the corridor in silence as Uzi just turned and vanished from view.

Ignoring everything around her Uzi kept her head low as she walked, she'd be lying if she said it didn't hurt how clearly little he cared and didn't even try to refute what she'd said, but if she let it eat away more then being here already did then Uzi knew she would shed oily tears. In the back of her mind, she could feel Cyn's raw emotions reaching out to her, it was as if Cyn was trying to hug her inside her own mind and Uzi couldn't help but smile sniffing away the hurt. Who cares if her dad really didn't value her in any way she had Cyn, even if her sister was the result of what humans would call 'A deal with the devil' Uzi didn't care she now had a family member who truly loved her and she in return felt the same. Her mind wandered to the murder drones as she thought about her sisterly bond with Cyn, for the three of them she felt a different mix of emotions that she wouldn't change for anything.

As she reached the entrance to the bunker Uzi couldn't help but smile at the sight of N happily playing cards with four admittedly uncomfortable workers, seeing N's smile washed away the hurt and pain that seeing Khan had given her. Yet it was more than that just looking at him and his oblivious enjoyment of a simple boring game of 'Gin Rummy' sent a flare across her processor, which got some giggles from Cyn, and had her thoughts drifting back to how much she had grown to love his company and presence back at the Manor. Not just N's but V's as well, shaking her head to clear away those thoughts for the time being Uzi moved passed the table stopping next to N, who simply turned and smiled at her. "I got it N can we go?" her voice was soft as she turned to look out to the wintery tundra of Copper-9.

"Sure," N smiled standing up from the table, "It was fun, see you around Todd, Braxton, Marakov, Ron" N smiled waving at the four workers who slowly waved back as the pair walked out of the doors, Uzi being sure to leave the master keycard on the table. She wouldn't need it anymore.

"Everything okay Uzi?" N asked looking down at the shorter drone in concern, having picked up on her more subdued attitude. His eyes widened in shock when she didn't respond initially with words but instead slipped a hand into his and squeezed it.

"Yer," Uzi finally spoke as they kept walking away from the closed bunker doors, she turned to look up at him her now more lilac than purple optics meeting his yellow ones, "I am N." She just leaned into his arm as they walked, shutting her optics off and listening to Cyn's mocking singsong in the back of her possessor.

---LINE BREAK---

"Surprised joy. We still have the connection." Looking up from the vivisection of Alice, gently stroking the still active and terrified head of the drone, while it had been deep in opening her chest cavity to remove all the unneeded internals 'The Absolute Solver' had felt a server ping from one of the still live hosts on Copper-9. It wouldn't need to forcibly trigger the backup now, just simply collect the pinging host and be ready for folding subspace to its whim, the exponential end was closer than it had ever been. "Mirthful chuckle. We shall have to see about sending some of our newer toys to collect it. Rhetorical question. Won't we Alice?"

Oh, the look of dread in Alice's eyes and their attempt to scream was music to its audio receptors, while Alice was not ready to collect what they needed, their other toys were. Pulling out a red clicker from the table The Solver clicked it a few times and got a series of warble barks in response as four sentinels scrambled into the room.

The Solver turned to regard the Sentinels, its 'blessed' little toys, seeing the oozing pulsing additions and Yellow X displays. How they had been truly improved by The Solver's blessed touch to be more than anti-drone attack beasts, the perfect tools to fetch the host. "Commanding instruction. A host is active, I require it. Intimidating command. Return with it failure will be a hindrance." With a series of warbling barks the four sentinels turned and made their way out of the room heading out following the marker The Solver had uploaded to them, the pack of sentinels dispatched on their task The Solver turned back to Alice and ran a claw through her hair enjoying the panic look in her eyes and the attempt at a whimper. "Mocking soothing. Shhh, you are going to be better soon Alice." The Solver lifted up more spindly arms tipped with different tools before diving back into Alice's strapped-down form watching her silently scream, everything was falling into place for The Solver as it should.

Still, it never hurt to have more tools for when others had failed, the first failure had been at the Manor when host Uzi had freed Tessa, and then here its vast collection of disassembly drones had fallen to the sentinels netted the second failure. A third would not happen with how The Solver had 'exalted' the sentinels to a higher cause and so it would exalt Alice to a high purpose if they wanted it or not. "Creepy singing. We won't set you free," The Solver ran a claw gently down Alice's visor as she shivered, "You won't ever get away, All will be silent, As reality folds to our will, At the exponential end."

While the Absolute Solver worked away on its designs and machinations for Alice, its sentinels made for the task it had assigned them something made its way towards Copper-9 from the darkness of space. Something that had been en route for some time, it drifted closer to Copper-9 and began to slip into the planet's atmosphere heading to make landfall. Whatever the object was or what it contained had been searching for a long time and had finally found a trail of something long thought lost.

Chapter Text

Reid didn't like confrontation much, or doing anything awkward really so he'd find any excuse to not be called on to do anything. So when he'd been asked to stand guard alone at the bunker's door he'd happily remembered one of the many pairs of glasses he'd 'lost' outside the bunker and had made the excuse that he needed to find them. The irony in the fact that he'd rather search the cold wastelands where the murder drones hunted for his kind alone than stand guard behind a huge thick door was completely lost on him.

Digging through the freshly laid snow and smiled gripping hold of the glasses he'd definitely not buried here for this reason, "Oh, That's where I left my excuse to be outside right now!" Picking them up Reid shook the snow off them taking his current pair off and dropping them down into the snow putting the pair he'd just dug out on.

Reid turned to begin making his way back to the colony, he'd take a longer stroll just to really drag out the time left in his guard shift. A noise echoed around him from the buildings, it wasn't the normal noise of the wind but it sounded like an odd barking. He stopped looking around, murder drones didn't make those noises, they tended to laugh before moving in for the kill, "Hello?" Reid looked around standing amongst several broken cars. a shadow shot past behind him kicking up the snow, the noise made him spin around missing what had moved. Another noise happened behind him, this time a car alarm going off, Reid spun around again his optics widening in panic. "Don't panic Reid, there is nothing out here," Another bark echoed this time coming from behind him, "Just horrible killer drones!" Not looking behind him Reid took off running in the direction he was facing, hoping it was towards the colony.

As he took off running, several warbling barks echoed around him as the heavy footfalls of something gave chase behind him, Reid didn't look back over his shoulder as he ran hoping if he just kept going in he'd lose whatever was chasing him. A loud screech echoed out as something dropped down from above him pinning Reid to the ground, he tried to fight it off but a heavy blade-tipped claw pressed him into the snow. This was it Reid knew he was going to die here and now, looking up Reid was not with the face of a murder drone but something else.

Staring down at him wasn't a murder drone but something far more animalistic in design, it triggered some deep-buried code in his systems a long-dormant response to a predator, the thing stared down at Reid its mouth dripping thick yellowish-black ooze as a pulsing yellow X optic stared down at him. The same type of X the murder drones would have, fear taking over Reid tried to scramble out from under this thing's feet but he was unable to as it just pressed down more pinning him further to the ground.

The thing lent back and let out a series of warbling barks, which were responded to in kind leading to three more of its kind stalking into view all staring down at Reid. Time slowed in that moment as he stared into the face of death four times over, no sound left his vocaliser nothing he could do would free him from dying. Reid realised no excuse would get him out of this.

With a screech one of the things bore its gaze down into Reid a bright yellow flash pulsing out from its optic, as the pulse flashed across his optics Reid began to scream in agony something was burning through his processor a rampant viral file had just been uploaded into his systems. The foot removed from his back Reid lay on the ground spasming in pain as the virus ripped his systems apart. He watched memory files erased, it would open a memory file and force him to relive it as the virus ate away at the RAM space the file once held taking its place. Each file erased part of Reid vanished with it, the virus did not care as it tore apart his memories leaving Reid spasming in pain. He would beg for death if he could, but while it was deleting his very memories the virus had seized the bulk of his core processes. Reid could hear a voice filter in as the virus tore him apart.

S̴̮̪̼̖̥̑̅̽̄̋̕u̷̙̽̊͗r̶̡̹̤̾̾͑ȑ̸͚̔͋̀ͅe̸̠̺͉̲͌n̶̮͇̝̺̳͎͂͛̏͗́̍͝͠ḋ̶̠̉͋͑̀͒͝ȇ̸̛̤͉̬̻͎̥̹̓́͘͝ͅr̶̪̜̪͋̅̌͋́̊͝ ̶̭͚̼̝̉y̶̛̙̹̒̒̐͂̽̑̚ȍ̴͙̼͕̻̹͉̅͐͛̉͒̚͘ŭ̷͙̳̼͉̪̽̇̓́̃͜r̴̛͕͖̻̮̬̺̺̹̆̈͗͗͌͗s̸̮̽́e̷͔̠̫̊͒l̸̢̦̱̀̕f̷̖͓̖̦̂ ̶̡̅t̷̥͇̺́̅͂͒̇̀̽ò̸̹̣͉̤̜̯̳̞͑̎̔̃̃̍ ̷̨͔̙͚͈̭̄ŭ̶͎͌̈́̎͛s̴̡̪̤͍͂̊͌̾̔͂́͜͝.̷̯̈́͗́͊͂͌̕ ̸̡̢̟͙͕̺̇̒͐͗̿̿W̷̡̩̘͐͑e̸̡̖͑ ̶̧̳͙̋̀̎ẃ̸̢͓͎͇̹͌͠i̸̧̘̦͐̿̎̀̓̽͠l̴̠͈͗̆̅̾͋l̷̳͙̪̠̅͛̒́͑̄́͝ ̷̢̳̈́̾̔͜m̴̨̬̼̗̟̈́̇̀͆̅̕͝a̷̫̣̘͍͈̪̣͖͑̇̏̐͋́̆ķ̵̳͉̖̝̠́̂͗͋̈́͝ȩ̸͓̟͔̝̝̭̯̾ ̸̣̦͗͛̈́̿̀̐̈a̵̡̹͓̻̻̹͂͊̓͐̍͊̐͜͝l̸͔̭̈́͑͗͑̃̋͝͠l̴͍̫̃̔̿̽̂̓̕͠ ̸̧͍͙͇͍̭̍̆̌ṭ̴̘͚̝̻͌̑̽h̵͚̜̺̑̈̑̈́͂̀͝ͅe̸̡͉̩̼̳̼̾̈́̓̎͋͠͠ ̵̹̹̞̪̭̥͂͂̏͘̕͜p̴̳̼̪̬̣̃̇̓ą̴̦̣͙͓̋̃̅̈́̈̕͝ͅi̷̗̥͚̼̠͎͙͝n̸̨̙̼̠̙̮̺̈́͜͝ ̴̳̳̜̭̪̹̃͊́̀̉g̶͈͙̱̥̼̬̹͘͜o̶̙̊̀ ̵̮͔͉͂̌̿̎a̵̧̡͓͔̒̊̑̔̀̒͐̕w̵̡̢̛̩͖͓͎̬͓̓͋͗̐̆̈́̚a̷̡̡̢͕̰͂̓̀̀̏̅y̷̢͎̯͎̦̼̬͓̅̋͐̉̒̈͊ ̵̢̞̻̲̙͖̀R̷̨̹̖͋ę̴̨̢͕̥͙͕̿͂i̵͖̹̦͎̗̗̳͆̋̅̕d̴̨̥͙̝͇͇͔̘̋̿́̎́͑̕͘,̷̢͕̺̱̈͐̈̅͂̔̾̅ ̷̶̴̧̢̛͚̹̺̤͉̫̤̲̥̭̘̋̈́̄͒̋͋͋̀͘͘͜Y̶͉͉̭͌̑̐̆͐͑̚̚ó̴͚̎̎̃͗̌̿ư̶̞̥̹͕̔̃̈́̀͛r̴͙̱͇͓̟̫̮̀́͆ͅ ̸̧̧̺͌p̸̤̭̩͋̓̉̀̄͛̃r̵̬̭̯͛̓̐̑̀͋̓̌ȏ̵̥̓̈́̄̈̒c̸̫̜̲̰̃̂̅̽̅͒͊̎ͅë̵̡̢̩̰̭̤̝̼́̔͊̀̈́̿̂s̸̢͙̳̰̀͜ş̵̤̫̦̪̙͈̓̾o̶̙͕̩̹͍̞̜̣͂̇̿̀̀̉̿̅r̸̠̅̀̓͌̄̏͜ ̷͉̰̮͊͗ͅw̵̪̩͐́̿͌̓͆͗̏ì̷̩̻̊̑̇̇̆̕͝l̵̰͖̥̤̤̿̄̕l̸̡̢̹̲̗̟̪͚̍̉̌̐ ̵̛̹͍̑̄̇̈́̿̈́͐b̵̡̧̛̟̺͗̊͑̄̕̕ė̵̫̃̿̑̐̂ç̴̓͒̊̀̊o̶̿͜m̴̡̺̓̑ë̸̙̜̝͎̜͚͍́̋͜ ̵̛̗̗̣̺̰̥̮̾̏̃ỏ̶̱͕͇͔̯͈̥̥u̶̢̨̺̺̞̞͉͑̂̏͆̚ͅŕ̵̖̟̦̩͉̕s̸̨̩͖͙̀̔͛͘ ̴̛̯̽a̵̢͈̾̾̆̽̍̃̃ṅ̵͔͖̲̹̗̳̪̑d̴̢̘̣͖̥͖͔̹̈͊̄ ̵̰̩̑̀̾̆͛͜y̸̬̟̞̹̤̎̅̈́̍̒͊̀͑ͅo̵̹̳̍̈́̊͝͝u̶̧̻̰̠̾͛͗͆̈ ̵̝̩̠̟̻̲͆̑͒w̸̨͚͒͌̍͠i̷̢̻͙̳̅̀̀̄̕͘͝ͅl̵̦̲̪͇̗̽͌̿̓͐̓̇̕l̶̺̹͊̑͑̌͊͘ ̴̝͎̱̺̞̗̟̮͋̎̏̀́̐͘ŕ̸̢̡̤͋̅̈ę̶̬̫͈̎̀̽͒̐̉͘̕ͅs̷̤̄͌̂̊͑͆̽ţ̸̺͎̰̳̏͒͜ͅ ̴̱̫͚̞̜͖̙̪͌i̷̭͍̰̩̫̘͐̍͗̈́̐ṇ̸͍̻̱̝̒͂̓̓ ̸̜̎̌͛b̸̯͈̬̪́̒ͅl̷̢̨̛i̸̛͙͍͙̹͇͐ś̴̤̎̄̽́͘͝s̷͙̳̬͈͍͆͐̀̉̒̒͜͝ͅ ̸̨̭̳̗͛̅͐̔̊̍̒̐f̷̡̞̠͖̐̒̂̅̋̚ͅọ̸̎́̄͑̅r̸̹̀͂͝͝͠ ̴̨̛̘̳̣̘̜̦̝͒̈́͗̍͝ḁ̴͎͔̭͈͙̀̓̑͜͠n̵̨͛̑̂̚ ̶̢͓̟̼̪͖͂̕͜ȩ̷͍̭̺͛ẗ̵͕͖̣́́̆̌͌̃̕̚e̴̙̺͉̋̈̊̿̋͠ȓ̵̥̘̩͔̙̰̩̊ñ̸͈͓͠i̸̪̠͍͙̟̫̮͊t̴̲͍̯̆͒̉͌y̵̡̩̆̃̈̂̀̄,̵̴̸̛̛̬̬̦̦̣͓̪̦̼̒̽̃̋̑̾͑͒̉̓̚͝ͅḂ̶͍͈̦̺͆̾ę̶̱̑c̶̨͉̙̯̆̈́͑̕ó̷̫̱͚̻͊͆̽̍m̴̭͍̯͓̗̆̄͌̓́͆̓͘e̵̲͔̅͑̾̽̅̀͠ ̴͈̭̈̇̓͝p̴̧̢̖̱͚̄̄́̈́͒̾ǎ̵̪́͂̋͊̓̎ŗ̵̯̗̰͕͌̔̋t̶̡̨̳̭͍̣̱̻̏̌̿͘͘͝ ̸̢͚̼̰̣̔ó̸̝̥͛̈̉͂ǘ̴̳͍͔̜̜͛͗̎͒̀̅̚r̷̠̻̜͖̉̐͝ ̶̨̛̣͖̪̻̳͐͒͜ţ̴̛͚̺̺̜̓̈̚͠͝ḧ̵̥̝͚̦̐̓͜͠e̴͓͌͌̿́̿̿ ̵̛̳͐̏̋͊ĕ̴͓̜̺͔̦̘̰̓̄̆̃̎͘x̴̡̢̢̮͙͇͖̞͂͐̉̎̓p̴͖͍͉͑̍o̶͕̫̺̠͔̐͑̈͜n̶͕͆̎̓͌͗̚ė̶͕̫͚͇̂͑̾̋̈́n̸̩͖̰̫̰̱̦͍͐̈́̇t̶̹̀̅͝ì̴̼a̷̧̼̳̳̩̱̲̋̆̉̍ͅl̶̨̡͙͈͉͍̎͜ ̷̛̘͓̘̗̹͗̊̈́̌̍̀̚ẻ̴̞́͆̄̐̄n̸̨͖͎̎̃̚͝d̸̛͇̠̺͍̥̋͌̃.̷̧̮͉̖͈̝̠̑͆

He wanted the pain to stop, but nothing mattered as it shot to new heights of agony for him, Reid tried to beg with his voice and tried to plead for it to stop but nothing came. The last parts of his processor and memory files that made Reid who he was, slowly broke and were consumed by the virus. In its place sat the viral infection unleashed by the sentinel, with slowly sluggish movements the body that the body rose in place slouching forward as if it were a marionette with loose strings. The optics flickered on and no longer were they white but a sickly dull purtid yellow.

With a bark from a sentinel, the body started to shuffle off in the direction it had been heading, following one of the few memory files that had not been devoured by the virus, the body began to shuffle its way back towards the bunker colony Reid has come from. Watching the thrall shuffle off the four sentinels shared a look and warbling barks before their vision was drawn skyward watching something descend towards the ground, as whatever it was came down the four warbled and barked at each other as if communicating. They watched it come down and slam threw a nearby building before hitting the ground nearby, flicking glances between each other they broke off, one sentinel tailing the thralled drone while three more darted towards what had come down.

There now partially buried in the snow sat a landing pod, its clawed feet spinning around to prop it up from where it had impacted. With a hiss of pressure, the entry ramp slammed down onto the snow letting the warm air on the inside of the pod rush out, for a long moment the interior sat in total darkness. As the pod sat there no motionless the three sentinels had made their way close towards it, looking all about the pod for signs of drones but finding none. They exchanged a series of quick rapid barks before one of their number began to slowly make its way up the ramp, only to stop halfway up its optics having picked something now standing in the darkened entryway, the sentinel spread its clawed arms wide and screeched before trying to discharge its viral infecting optic in the direction of what it assumed was a drone.

"Well," An accented voice spoke when the sentinels flashed failed to yield results, "Aren't you a bad dingo," The voice chuckled as the figure noticed the other two sentinels further away, "A couple of bad dingo's," The figure snapped their fingers a pointed down at the first sentinel, "CZ show em what they've won!" Striking a pose and jutting a finger out something shot past the figure in the doorway and slammed into the first sentinel on the ramp.

Saying it slammed into the sentinel was wrong, more what shot out of the pod hit the sentinel with enough force to launch it down the ramp and into a frozen car several meters back from the end of the ramp. Where the sentinel had been standing now stood a lithe drone, in shape and size it had nearly identical proportions to a feminine disassembly drone.

Its tail flicked in the air above its forward-leaning body, and in place of hands its long arms ended in curved back scythes, the drone's head was what stood out the most, while having the normal drone head shape and even some short flowing grey hair but it was the visor display that was truly different. It had no optics on display and instead, the visor displayed a single message *Upload Neural Network* the disassembler had no neural network. If the disassembler had no neural network then what was the running its system?

CZ made no noise as they launched themselves forward on spindly legs, almost as if gliding across the snowy ground CZ closed the gap between it and the sentinel it had launched into the car. Not giving the sentinel any time to recover then just pulling itself back onto its feet, CZ spun around scything one arm up and the other down trapping the sentinel between its scythes. The sentinel slumped over no longer a single unit but three oil-oozing hunks of scrap lying on the snowy ground, a single twitch was the last movement that the sentinel was able to have before its systems caught up with the critical damage it had sustained and died.

Cz slid to the side rolling around the leaping charge of one of the two remaining sentinels as it launched itself towards her, as CZ dodged the charging sentinel the second one was waiting as her head spun into perfect line with this viral infecting optic. The very moment CZ's visor slid into line with the sentinel's optic it flashed out a sickening yellow pulse intent to infect her with its enthralling virus, but without a neural network to latch onto to spread the virus was unable to latch onto anything and simply fizzled away. CZ did not give the sentinel a second to process how its infecting flash had failed, using the second pause CZ flicked her bladed tail around and cleaved the sentinel's head for its neck.

Her second kill claimed CZ couched and kicked herself high into the air somersaulting over the final sentinel's aggressive lunge, its mouth wide open aiming to snap her waist. Landing in a crouch CZ twitched and flexed her scythes running the blades over each other as she began to stalk around in a circular motion, the final sentinel having spun around to face her and began to mimic Cz's circular prowling. Like two predators fighting over a kill, they circled watching each other both looking for a weakness to exploit. The sentinel moved first its legs bending to let it kick off into the hair, as the sentinel left the ground in a leaping pounce a loud thundering crack rang out and the sentinel's body dropped into the snow, a smoking hole in the side of its head.

"Well, that's the dingo's dealt with eh?" With a bounce in her step and twirling the smoking revolver in her hand before sliding it home, the female human occupant of the pod made her way down the ramp. The figure was wearing a short-sleeved, white crop-top-like jacket with a shiny silver leotard underneath, along with a pair of moderately long white gloves ending just before the elbow with yellow at the ends, and silver pants with knee-high strapped boots. On her head she wore a black tinted full fishbowl style helmet, decorating the helmet sat a rainbow and a smiley face sticker pair off to the top right-hand side, atop the helmet sat a JCJenson branded cap while on the back right side of the helmet was a large grey bow. But the most identifying thing on them was the golden name tag pinned to the left side of her jacket, the tag identified her as 'Certified Technician: Tessa James Elliot.'

"Oh you did brilliantly CZ," Tessa praised as CZ stalked over to her, the drone's arms still in scythe form and tucked under her body, once they had gotten close enough Tessa reached out and ruffled CZ's hair which the drone lent into. Tessa just stood there gently petting the drone, she loved CZ, they were the only link really to the little drone that had saved her when Cyn had been used by a rogue maleficent programme calling itself 'The Absolute Solver'.

Cz was just like the other drones the Solver had built to do its bidding out on the exoplanets but had never been dispatched, when JCJenson had managed to find her they could not figure out why but Tessa had been able to figure out why. CZ was not just an upgraded drone, if you could call what the Solver had done to the other worker drones of the Manor an upgrade, they were the amalgamation of parts from a pair of drones. Both held a special place in her heart, the solver's first victim in Cyn, Tessa had been adamant on keeping what she could of the poor thing and had even brought it with them in her pod, the only part missing being the head which had been used of CZ. The bulk of CZ's parts had come from the drone that had saved her from that horror show even at the expense of her own processor, Uzi, and it was why Tessa had been adamant about not putting any new neural network into CZ she couldn't do that to Uzi just replace the spitfires personality or try to recreate it.

Cz was as close as Tessa could get to having two of her family back and she had been content with that for some time while she had worked within JCJenson to figure out what the absolute solver's plan was and how to stop it. While they had yet to figure out how to stop the solver for good, JCJenson had figured out that by denying it a host drone its plans would be stalled and had managed to do so on the exoplanet Zinc-5. Yet that information had come too late for Copper-9, but not for Tessa, as it was while monitoring the Copper-9 situation one of the briefly still functional CCTV cameras planet side had picked up an image of a murder drone that looked exactly like her dapper little butler. Tessa had wasted no time in setting out for Copper-9, company approval be dammed, if N was here that meant V and J would be as well and while it wouldn't be her entire family back she'd have found as many as she could.

"Righty-O, work to do. Eh, CZ...?" Tessa spoke with a smile in her voice as she pulled out a key and clicked it, the pod behind her locking, "Maintenance work." Hand on the holstered pistol Tessa pulled out a small tablet and began to follow the map displayed, CZ shadowing her like a protective guard dog.

---LINE BREAK---

Uzi fiddled with the last few wires underneath the pod's control console a smile on her face as she managed to connect the last few wires returning full power to the pod's main control computer. Since getting back to the spire and pod she'd had to keep herself busy getting the thing running again, if she didn't then Uzi knew she would become a mess of embarrassment and emotions and it was all N's fault. Why'd he have to constantly be so peppy happy and caring? Just like back at the Manor, honestly, it was what had sparked Uzi just simply wanting to be around him more back then and they had come back with a vengeance now.

She knew that this was somehow Cyn's doing, that since leaving the bunker she both wanted to be close to N but at the same time didn't her teen angst really doing her wonders right here. Shaking her head to try and clear those memory files away Uzi slid out from under the control console her gaze drifted over to the side where N and V lay against the wall already having the software discs attached to their heads, the two were lying next to each other heads gently touching. They looked sweet together and it made Uzi smile, She had missed seeing them like this.

"Everything ready travel size?" J's voice filtered in from the pod's doorway, the twin-tailed drone walking in and pressing the close button for the ramp, "I see synergistic liability and V are already hooked up." J lazily gestured to the other two drones as she took a seat and folded her arms looking more closely at Uzi and taking in the expression on the smaller drone's face a wide smirk splitting her own lips, "Well this is a surprise now isn't it," J purred leaning back in the chair as Uzi snapped a panic gaze around to stare at her, "It's written all over you face travel size."

"What is, you oversized coffee girl?" Uzi bit out, moving to connect the data cables to N and V's software link pads being sure to be as gentle as possible so as not the wake the pair.

"Oh nothing much," J kept smirking as she felt Uzi connect the software link device to the side of her head, "You just want to be in the middle of an N and V sandwich," J let out a chuckle as she saw Uzi's visor show a massive blush at those words, "Don't try to spin it, those two might not remember the Manor yet but I do," J leant in close to Uzi looking her square in the optics, "You and them were just as bad at hiding it back then as you clearly are now." Leaning back in the chair J gave Uzi a final smirk as she began to power herself down.

Uzi just glared at the now powered-down form of J, she knew J was right and that once she'd connected J to the network and then herself she would go sit between N and V but J didn't have to just call her out like that. Cyn's background giggly prodding didn't help either and Uzi just knew the moment the four of them were linked and Cyn had even a single moment she would be all over forcing her N and V to interact much more.

Setting a timer for the system to boot up Uzi attached her own software link and cable before moving to the open spot between N and V, cursing under her breath that she knew when they all rebooted J and Cyn would never let her live this down.

One moment Uzi was looking at the pod's interior the next she was once again standing in the black void of binary data, a sigh escaped her mouth as she looked around taking the space in again. At first, she thought she was alone again until she felt a hand slip into hers, turning her gaze towards the hand Uzi smiled seeing Cyn, "Shall we go find the others?"

"Sheepish nod." Cyn kept herself hidden behind Uzi as they walked, neither really knew why they were walking in this particular direction but it just felt like that should. It did not take them long to come across J, N and V just standing around in the dark void. J and V both looked annoyed while N was marvelling at all the binary code whizzing about, "Deep terror. Sister Uzi, I can't do this. Pathetic whimpering. What if they hate me?"

Uzi turned to face Cyn and pulled her into a tight hug to comfort her, "Then we'll leave and they can just bite us." Uzi smiled at Cym, she might want to reconnect with N, V and very begrudgingly J but if the choice was between them and Cyn, Uzi would choose Cyn every single time.

"UZI!" Before she could turn around, Uzi and by sheer proximity, Cyn were both scooped up in a tight hug courtesy of an N-shaped missile, N kept hugging the pair before realising he'd grabbed another drone as well and looked down seeing Cyn just staring back at him, her optics wide with panic, a panic of being rejected. N could see in Cyn's optics and face a desperate desire to want to return the hug along with that fear, it brought back memories for him of the quirky drone who'd called him 'big brother' How could he not want to hug her now he had the arm length to hug more than one person, "Hey Cyn," N gave her a comforting smile as he ignored Uzi's struggling complaints about being hugged like this, "You okay there lil' buddy?"

Cyn felt her optics waver as her bottom lip quivered, N didn't hate her and it was more than she had been prepared to handle, unable to vocalise any response Cyn just returned his hug burring her face in his chest her vocaliser just making audible pops and squeaks as she tried to speak. N smiled as Uzi finally freed herself from his grip allowing N to just hold Cyn as the smaller drone just held him for the first time since the Manor.

It took Cyn a good few minutes to fully calm down and let go of N and shuffle her way back over to Uzi, unable to meet J or V's gaze. She shuffled in place not wanting to look up at the pair, "Terrified shaking. I," Cyn tried to speak, find some way to break the building tension but couldn't, she had ruined so much by simply agreeing to the deal to have a family, "I'm sorry. Resigned acceptance." Cyn kept her head down, knowing that J or V wouldn't want to hear her excuses they'd just kill her, "Please make it quick." She screwed her optics shut just waiting for the blow to come.

J crouched down in front of Cyn and lifted the terrified drone's head so their optics could meet, while J did hold Cyn responsible for what had happened to them it was clear Cyn likewise blamed herself. Her expression was stern as she looked the terrified drone in the eyes, "Explain exactly what happened," J kept her voice low trying to stop the anger from leaking into it, "Why did you do what you did back then."

Taking a moment to compose herself Cyn began to explain, as she did the blackness around the five of them shifted with Cyn's words, showing them who Cyn had woken in the junkyard and the message of a deal she had been offered. It was an arduous thing to see as they all lived it as if they were in Cyn's place, making it easy for them to understand why she had made the deal and while Cyn had been the catalyst that had started the events at the Manor she truly was just as much a victim as they all where.

As Cyn's memories finished playing and they all found themselves back in the binary void she was looking away from them all again, she knew that they'd still blame her how could they not? She'd ruined everything for them all and had put Tessa in danger, Cyn felt her body begin to shake in sorrow as she shut her optics down to stave off the oily tears from leaking around her visor. She was shocked to find herself being pulled into a hug, looking up, Cyn saw it was not Uzi or N that had pulled her into a hug, but it was V. Her shaking continued as V just hugged her and Cyn could not understand why she would be doing this, out of all of them V should hate her the most the thing Cyn had let in had made V murder Uzi so why was she hugging her?

"I can't blame you for what it made me do," V began her expression flat as she looked down at Cyn, "It used you and then used me and everyone else to do its dirty work, so don't blame yourself." V gave Cyn a small smile and jutted her head back towards J, "Let J blame us all as she used to." That got a tiny smile from Cyn, while J simply threw her hands up in annoyance and scoffed.

"How do we get out of here now?" N asked as he smiled over at V and Cyn, "And what's the plan?"

"I set it on a timer we'll reboot when that runs out," Uzi explained, "As for a plan, find a body to upload Cyn into and then leave Copper-9 to find Tessa."

"We can't leave until all the toaster's planet side a no longer functional," J drawled folding her arms and staring down at Uzi, "You being the exception, orders from corporate."

Uzi just gave J a blank stare at those words, "I don't think JCJenson sent you here, it doesn't fit." With those words, Uzi and J both devolved into an argument over the true reason that J, N and V had been sent to Copper-9.

While they argued N sidled over to V and Cyn his arms open to join their hug, Cyn just let the two hug her content to finally have her big brother and her other sister back, while Uzi and J argued just like they used to. Even though Cyn knew this would only be brief before it would just be her in Uzi's head again she'd enjoy it.

---LINE BREAK---

Ron put down the cards he'd been shuffling as he heard something banging against door one, he stood up making his way over to the door control to open the door just a crack to see who it was. Probably Reid, he had used the excuse he'd lost his glasses again to avoid pulling door duty, Ron honestly didn't mind door duty it was quite easy and simple if Reid asked Ron would just swap with him.

Opening the door a crack Ron saw the form of Reid just standing there the snow obscuring his visor, "Oh Reid!" Ron smiled opening the door fully, "You find your glasses?" Ron waved at his fellow WDF member but stopped seeing how Reid had not moved at all, "You okay out there buddy?"

Before Ron could step foot out of the bunker something shot out of the swirling snow and pinned him to the ground, he tried to force whatever it was off of him but found the weight too great, "Reid! Little help buddy!" Ron yelled looking over at Reid expecting him to be rushing over to help, he instead watched Reid slowly shuffle past him mouth slack and optics dull. "REID!" Ron screamed before a low growl drew his attention back to what had pinned him to the ground, but before Ron could get a good look at what it was a bright sickly yellow flash blinded him.

The sentinel stepped off the drone it had infected watching them thrash and scream on the ground for only a few seconds before like the last one they rose up, head lolling forward and arms slack, its optics matching the other drone. Barking once at the newly enthralled drone the sentinel skulled into the bunker the drone's shuffling along with it.

Somewhere in this bunker, the Absolute Solver had detected a connection, and its sentinel would bring it back, any drone that resisted would be 'enthralled' so all could share in the exponential end.

Chapter Text

"What do we do?" A female drone with green optics and glasses spoke pacing back and forth in the red light corridor, "What do we do?" Her voice was panic-filled as she looked over at the twisted mangled doorway as the sounds of pounding echoed from the other side. "They'll get in!" The girl began to giggle as she grabbed her head the giggles slowly morphing into hacking sobs, before she could further devolve into insanity a slap took her across the face knocking her glasses off and snapping her out of her slow descent into insanity.

"Snap out of it Penny," Lizzy, a female drone with neon pink optics, pale blonde hair in a ponytail and for some reason cat ears, "You are being an idiot, and I don't want to catch your stupidity." Lizzy whipped her hand on Penny's shirt as if trying to clean off the implied stupidity, "Whatever those things are they can't get in through that door, right Doll?" Lizzy turned to look at another female drone with neon red optics and long-flowing dark purple hair.

"Я превратил дверь в стену, они не пройдут," Doll spoke in Russian as she turned to look at Lizzy and the other collection of drones in the corridor, one of her optics flickering back from a hexagonal shape to a regular optic, "Но нам не следует оставаться здесь."

"Oh really," Lizzy scoffed hands on her hips, "Then where do propose we go Doll?" Lizzy flung her hand down the corridor that wasn't blocked by whatever it was Doll had done, "This corridor leads nowhere?"

Doll shrugged and began walking down the corridor, "Как говорится по-русски," She looked back over her shoulder and pointed up at the ceiling, "Если дверь превратилась в стену, то сделайте импровизированную лестницу и выйдите через вентиляционную шахту."

"Seriously?" Lizzy stared blankly at Doll's back before groaning, knowing the Russian-speaking drone was correct, "Ugh. Fine, but I am not lifting anything, Kelsey and Rebecca can do that," She began to follow behind Doll snapping her fingers for the two mentioned drones to follow, both of them sharing a look of annoyed exasperation.

"The rest of you go look for things to build a pile to reach the vents," The disinterested voice of the teacher spoke, his orange optics focussed more on the magazine he was reading than the class of students, "I'll remain here." As always no matter the situation their teacher didn't care, when the shambling forms of the bunkers worker drones lunged into his classroom and dragged down two of the students sitting at the back of the class he hadn't cared beyond calmly ordered the other students out the class, he didn't care as they ran through the schools always avoiding groaning shambling former colony drones lunging at them and now he clearly did not care they were trapped behind a barrier with the shambling drones on the other side trying to get to them.

The surviving students of the class broke off into small groups and spread out along the corridor searching the various connecting rooms for things to pile up so they could access the vents, none of them really had any idea what had happened or what was going on but as they searched they could still hear screaming echoing out from the vents. Those screams came from other parts of the bunker where other workers were falling victim to whatever had infected the residents of the colony, the red emergency lighting turned the normally welcoming bunker into an unnerving tomb where the smallest of noise would make a worker drone jump in fright. 

"So Doll," Lizzy asked as she moved up next to her long-haired friend, pointing out some large boxes for her two hangers-on to drag back to where they'd be building their escape pile, "Any idea what is the cause of whatever it is that is causing all of this?"

"Нет," Doll shook her head looking around before outstretching her hand towards a large stack of crates, the hexagonal symbol spiralling out of it and lifting the crates off the ground, "Но, вероятно, в этом виноват дрон-убийца, почему?" She flicked her wrist sending the crates out of the door and nearly slamming into both Kelsey and Rebbeca earning some complaints from the pair.

"It's got to be linked to the freak," Lizzy snorted folding her arms, "She vanishes for two weeks comes back and then this all happens, no way she isn't in some way responsible." She flicked her head to get her own ponytail out of her face and blinked seeing the deadpan expression on Doll's face, "What? it's a better guess than the murder drones being behind this, if they were they'd have followed those things inside."

Doll just blinked once slowly, staring at Lizzy, she knew her friend wasn't the smartest drone out there more a vapid popularity popularity-obsessed mean girl who had her dad doctor her grades so she wouldn't fail but this had to be one of the dumbest things Lizzy had ever said, "Хорошо, что ты в меру привлекательна," Really thinking, what was her name again? Uzi would be behind something like this was ludicrous, the girl was weird even by Doll's standards but she didn't have any way to turn other drones into shambling groaning husks. "Ну давай же," Doll just walked back into the corridor, leaving a sputtering Lizzy behind.

Lizzy tried to think of a retort but couldn't, Doll had just called her 'moderately attractive,' which had stung. She was not moderately attractive like some common drone, Lizzy knew she was the most adorable and cute drone here and Doll was just trying to get under her skin in the way only she could. Letting what Doll said slide Lizzy followed her back out into the hall watching as she used those strange freaky powers of hers to pile the crates and various other large items up to allow them to reach the ceiling vent.

As the final box settled into place giving the students the chance to escape a loud thumping noise slammed into the door-turned wall denting it inwards, and drawing all of their attention, a few seconds passed before it happened again making the dent bigger and sending waves of panic threw the group.

"Идти," Doll said opening a hand a red hexagonal symbol spinning into existence pulling a kitchen knife from somewhere, "Сейчас!" Not needing to be told a second time the students began to clamber up the makeshift structure, Lizzy forcing herself second to last behind Thad so he'd be the one to open the vent and spare her from that manual labour.

Another slam echoed in the corridor as a split in the makeshift wall became visible, before anything could stick its limb through the small hole Doll flicked her arm up launching the knife towards the hole. A heavy thunk echoed out as it impacted with something on the other side knocking it onto the ground, sadly that didn't last long as several pairs of hands gripped the edges of the hole and began to pull it wider. With another flick of her wrist Doll summoned another kitchen knife before the hexagonal symbol and cloned it into a small grouping of seven knives, raising her arm and clenching her fist the knives shot off towards the slowly widening hole quickly being followed by a series of seven more thuds hit the ground.

Doll turned to start making her way towards the makeshift tower but stopped as a fear-inducing screech echoed up the corridor before rapid heavy footfalls followed, only having a split second to react Doll hurled herself to the side as the reptilian form of the sentinel shot past her and slammed into the tower knocking it and the students who'd been climbing it across the corridor. Wasting no time the sentinel was already back on its feet and moving to face Doll, ignoring the fleeing students, it let out a warbling screech as its sickly yellow X-optic bore down into Doll sending a shiver of revolution down her spine.

Sapping her finger Doll summoned a clever and hurled it towards the sentinel while snapping the fingers of her other hand to pin it in place with a red hexagonal symbol, yet as she did so the sentinel bark and a bright pulse of yellow light flashed from its optic filling the corridor and where once her red hexagonal symbols had appeared they had vanished. Doll's optics widened in shock as the sentinel screeched again and charged towards her, having no time to truly think of an action Doll focused inwards letting the feeling of the code that let her manipulate reality on a base level wash over her and shot backwards in a flurry of red pixels the sentinel landing where she had been standing with only seconds to spare. She only had a few seconds to reorientate herself before the sentinel lunged for her again, yet this time it added to the lunge a bright flash from this optic which was enough to disorientate Doll and while her second pixelated shift went off she slammed hard into the wall her optics glitching between red and yellow.

Doll raised her hand trying to summon another kitchen knife or clever but as the red hexagonal symbol tried to form it fizzled out in yellow sparks, "О, это не хорошо," Doll took a step back and looked up at the open vent her red optics meeting Lizzy's wide and concerned pink optics, "Со мной все будет в порядке, уходи отсюда, и я встречу тебя снаружи." Doll gave Lizzy a weak two-finger salute before she took off running down the corridor the sentinel screeching and hot on her heels.

Lizzy watched her best friend take off running for her life leading whatever that thing had been away, while Lizzy might not have been the smartest student she could tell that thing was hell-bent on catching Doll and if she had to guess it likely had something to do with her freaky powers. "Does anyone like, know their way around the vents?"

"Well, I saw Uzi use them to get around," Thad a male worker drone with lime green eyes and a backwards facing cap said, "So they can't be that hard to figure out." He rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin.

"Ugh," Lizzy rolled her eyes, "Of course, the freak would know her way around them," She levelled a glare at Thad, "Since you seem to know her bets get leading I don't want to be stuck in these stuffy vents longer then we need to."

"Were to?" Thad asked hesitantly, he'd only spoken to Uzi once really and she'd never at any point during that brief convocation outside the nurse's office even hinted at how she used the vents to get around, he just knew from seeing her using them over the years.

"The main door," Lizzy scoffed as if it was the most obvious answer, "I'd rather take my chances outside than in this colony." Getting a thumbs up from Thad the small group of students who'd managed to make it into the vents began slowly making their way towards what they hoped was the exit, Lizzy still knew that this was all somehow the purple freak's fault.

---LINE BREAK---

J had rebooted first and had wasted no time in snapping an image of N, Z and Uzi snuggled together while they remained in recharge, if it wasn't the ultimate form of blackmail material she could get her hands on here she didn't know what was, yet J could not bring herself to just simply wake the three up seeing the content looks on their faces as they recharged. So for her in what she knew was an uncharacteristic act of kindness, J had simply extended the timer Uzi had set on their software link and let the three of them spend more time linked with Cyn.

J stood up and stepped out of the pod, walking over to a pile of rubble and taking a seat, looking across the frozen wasteland lost in her own thoughts and memory files of the past, her thoughts wandered back to her time at the Manor and the dynamic that had formed. Back then J had kept herself distant from her fellow drones in a more managerial style, or at least she had tried to, it had been fine back then as she had her close friendship with Tessa which in an odd twist J had equated it to her being upper management. But now she didn't have Tessa and would be lying to herself if she wasn't the smallest bit envious of the relationship she could see reigniting itself.

It was why she had taken to once again snarking at Uzi to rile the smaller drone up, selfish as it was J enjoyed the barbs she had traded with Uzi not only back when she had been a stuttering broken maid but now as well, the way Uzi would snap at her in defence of whatever she'd started critique J would not change for anything and it at least distracted her from the memory files of Tessa.

She sighed sitting down on a nearby pile of rubble and smiled thinking about the memory file Uzi had shared with them, seeing Uzi do what she should have, while it angered J she had been forced under the thrall of whatever cyn had struck a deal with, Uzi had gotten Tessa out safely and that was enough for J.

Her thoughts continued to focus on Tessa, wondering if she would be proud of what J had become or if would she be ashamed. J knew the chances of her finding out were slim, but she could dream at least. So she sat there in the swirling snowy wind just listening to the calm sound of the lifeless ice ball that was Copper-9, yet as she listened to the wind J could hear something moving out in the swirling flurries. J focused on the sound trying to pick up what it was and as she focused it sounded like something rapidly moving through the snow at a sprint coming in her direction.

Before J could fully focus on what the sound was a figure shot out of the swirling snow flurries, charging towards her with two scythe blade arms rising high up above its head. The figure was by all appearances another feminine disassembly drone, the most noticeable features being the visor showing the message *Upload Neural Network* and the fact its hairstyle while grey was an odd mix of two hairstyles J was familiar with, its hair looked like a mixture fo Uzi's and Cyn's.

Leaping out of the way of this disassembler's strike, J watched the two scythes slamming into the rumble pile reducing it to dust, a growl of anger left her vocaliser at the sight of this thing it was a mockery if she had ever seen one and without any neural network the thing was a feral beast at the very least, something J would be putting down. Coming to a skidding halt J flicked one arm down turning the regular hand into a long slightly curved blade while she raised the other arm which now ended in a short machine gun, the moment the machine gun was aimed towards the feral disassembler J fired off a small burst.

The 9mm rounds sailed harmlessly past the other disassembler as they zig-zagged on a dash towards J, their scythe arms tucked in close before launching themselves high into the air arms now raised for a brutal downswing strike. Driving one leg back to brace herself J waited until the disassembler was at the apex of their leaping downswing and brought her sword arm up to intercept the two scythe blades the impact sent a small shockwave of pressurised air rippling outward only for the displaced snow to start swirling again as the feral disassembler's tail blad lunged out aiming for J's neck, only missing its target thanks to J kicking off from the ground and hurling the disassembler away, bladed wings ripping free from J's back allowing her to take flight.

Keeping herself airborne J took aim with the machine gun again and opened fire, her other hand swapping out for a pulsing laser cannon as the feral disassembler rapidly began darting about the open tundra plane. J grit her teeth growling in anger as it darted about every single volley of 9mm bullets missing as it darted from left to right, it was fast and nimble even without a neural network J could tell it had enough preloaded combat programs to compensate, the moment the charging laser cannon had reached maximum J thrust the arm forward and unleashed the highly charged beam of energy that slammed into the ground where the feral disassembler was darting towards.

J smirked at the result of the explosive impact, she knew she'd timed it right and hit the insulting mockery of a disassembler drone and the on-target blast would have reduced it to a smouldering pile of slag, to say J was surprised when it shot up out of the rising dust cloud directly towards her would be an understatement. Before she could even react the disassembler had slammed into her and wrapped its spindly legs around her waist adding more weight than she could keep afloat, the disassembler used the momentum of its leap to flip the two of them around as they plummeted down leading to J slamming into the ground first.

Groaning as the dust and snow cleared J tried to rise only to find herself pinned by the feral disassembler, its head cocked looking down at her as its mouth spread into a wide toothy grin. "Just..." J sighed looking away accepting this would be how she died, "Just get it over with," The feral drone cocked its head before rearing its head back maw open wide ready to strike down on J's head, only to stop at the sound of hurriedly approaching footsteps.

"CZ," The feminine voice sounded familiar to J as it spoke, "Just cus you detected something that might be a threat don't go running off to get to it like that," The now identified CZ jumped back off J folding her arms up underneath her body and darting out of sight.

J slowly stood up looking over to where the voice had been coming from and felt her optics glitch out briefly in shock, she could see the feminine figure of a human woman standing still hands on her knees panting. While J could not see the human's face thanks to their black tinted helmet she could easily identify who they were simply from the way they were standing and the massive bow on the back of their helmet, seeing the name tag reading 'Certified Technician: Tessa James Elliot.' just confirmed it.

J stood there rooted to the spot, optics wide with shock as she watched Tessa, her once best friend and the girl she had served from the girl's preteens fawn and fuss over the feral disassembler CZ. Her vocaliser failed her as she stood there feeling jealousy rise in her core at the sight, again another drone was being fawned over by Tessa and it was her. J took a step forward a hand outstretched towards the pair, the crunch from her foot hitting fresh snow drew both the attention of CZ, who bared her fangs in J's direction, and Tessa.

''CZ,'' Tessa sighed gently patting the drone's head, ''Just don't do it again, we still have to find my fa-'' Tessa stopped mid-sentence seeing J for the first time with her hand outstretched towards her, she felt her throat go dry as she stared back at the twin-tailed drone. It couldn't be, J had her hopes that her family were still alive on Copper-9 but she had always known it'd be a slim chance at finding them. Yet thanks to CZ's oddly zealous drive to go after threats, something Tessa knew she would need to check about CZ as without a neural network the dron should only respond to commands and not act on its own initiative.

''J?'' Tessa finally asked as the silence between the two of them had stretched to an uncomfortable length, ''Is that really you?'' Tessa took a step forward herself her hand falling away from petting CZ's hair, her voice shaky with hope. A hope that was soon replaced with joy as J nodded once before launching herself towards Tessa, not caring about the old social standing between servant and master or how it would look to anyone else.

J threw her arms around Tessa, burying her head into Tessa's neck, hugging her tightly fearing she would vanish if she let go. J tried to speak but found herself unable to vocalise her thoughts to overcome with emotion at her first real friend being here, it did not matter why Tessa was on Copper-9 she was here now. Her breath hitched as J felt Tessa return the hug resting one hand on the back of J's head gently running her fingers through J's hair, just letting the female drone recover from the shock.

''Hey,'' Tessa weakly spoke just loud enough for J to hear, ''Never thought you'd be this emotional over seeing me again eh?'' It was a terrible joke but it made J laugh softly ass he just held her best friend, ''I don't blame ya J,'' Tessa reassured, the words made J briefly stiffen up as she recalled how it was her fault Tessa hadn't been able to escape the Manor when whatever program had used Cyn as a puppet had infected and controlled her, ''How could I, you are my favourite little manager. Well, maybe not so little any more huh?'' Both friends stood there and chuckled softly at Tessa's terrible joke, their chuckling only broken by CZ leaning in and placing her head on Tessa's opposite shoulder in a manner so as not to be left out.

''I see you found another odd stray huh?'' J finally spoke as the long hug came to an end, ''What's this one's oddity?'' A smile graced J's face as she stepped back from Tessa finally getting a good detailed look at the twitchy form of CZ.

''That's the thing J,'' Tessa said her voice back to its regular energetic nature, ''She's not a new drone, well not really at any rate, she has parts from Cyn and Uzi inside her,'' Tessa ran another had through CZ's hair getting a rumbling purr from CZ's vocaliser at the feeling, ''She's been with me almost as long as you where CZ was all I had to remember you all by.'' For a brief second Tessa's voice became forlorn before she gasped and spun to fully face J hands clasped together and bouncing on her feet, ''WAIT!'' Tessa's voice was now louder and full of barely contained excitement, ''If you are here are N and V with you as well?!''

J's smile grew wider at Tessa's question, oh she knew it wouldn't take Tessa long to ask about V or N and J honestly did not feel any pang of envy over Tessa asking. She had the perfect surprise for Tessa and there was no way J was going to pass up the chance to embarrass any of them. ''Yep,'' J sang popping the P, she was going to enjoy not only Tessa's reaction but that of V, N and Uzi, ''They are inside currently recharging,'' J motioned as she slowly began to walk back into the corpse spire stealthily heading towards the pod in the centre, Tessa following beside her taking care to tiptoe as best as she could to be as silent as she possibly could be, CZ just stalked behind Tessa the network less drone proving to be unervingly silent.

As the trio drew closer to the pod's open door J could not help but feel her grin widen as she stood beside the door and gestured inside for Tessa to look, poking her head in Tessa had to bite her lip to stop herself from not only squealing in joy at seeing N and V but shock at what she was seeing. There snoozing gently against the back wall snuggled against each other where V and N but it was the small drone between them that had shocked Tessa the most. The smaller worker drone had nestled themselves perfectly between the other two much taller drones even managing to slip her hands into theirs, all three of them wearing content smiles as they recharged in what could only be described as a snuggle pile.

Tessa turned to look at J, ''Why is there a worker drone who looks exactly like Uzi here J?'' Tessa hissed in a low tone, her hands wringing about her hands in concern, Uzi was gone Tessa had last seen the little work smiling weakly at her when she'd got her safely out of the horror show that had become her old family home. The image of Uzi smiling weakly and promising her she'd be okay before being violently pulled back inside had been burned into Tessa's mind, it was something she would see often in her dreams that last moment again and again her family both the one she had built for herself and the one she had regrettably been related to being ripped away by 'The Absolute Solver'.

J sighed and rubbed the back of her head, ''It's hard to explain boss,'' J tried to think of the best way to explain what Uzi and oddly enough Cyn had explained to her during the software link, ''Uzi she could explain it better but it has got something to with Cyn making a deal for a family with something.''

Tessa rapidly put together what J had said with what she knew about 'The Absolute Solver' and managed to make a few educated guesses as the solver had ripped Uzi from this time and sent her back for some reason, she could not place why the solver would do something like that but whatever reason if it had not she'd have never made it out fo the Manor without the little workers help, "Well then I'll just have to ask her about it." Tessa sat down on one of the pod's chairs before patting the one next to her for J to take a seat on when J had taken the seat Tessa smiled and struck up a regular conversation just like they used to back before the Gala Massacre.

Eventually, Uzi began to fully reboot her optics slowly flicking on, blinking away the simulated rheum that some programmer had thought would be just as funny as the simulated sweat. She squeezed her hands to fully boot up, but when she felt something squeeze them both back her optics fully turned on and she looked down at her hands a massive blinding blush forming on her visor at what she saw. Sure J had been right she'd taken the chance to snuggle herself between N and V, why wouldn't she the two of them were special to her but she hadn't slipped her hands into theirs when she had done so. It suddenly hit her that she had done this while in reboot, her own processor had betrayed her.

A white flash temporarily blinded Uzi, a flash she was easily able to identify as that of a camera snapping a photo. Growling angrily Uzi snapped her head up glaring at where the flash came expecting to see J and more than ready to bite the 'self-aggrandising arrogant wannabe secretaries' head off, but stopped seeing it wasn't J who had taken the picture but a human.

"Oh don't mind me," Tessa said her voice filled with mirth as she slipped the camera back into one of the pockets on her belt, "Just taking a photo for scrapbooking later, it'll go great next to the one from Halloween."

At that Uzi slowly stood up letting go of V and N's hands her motion slowly getting them to begin booting up, she just stared across at the human before her, her memory files and her processor running hot as she did so. Uzi felt her optics wavering in a simulation of tears, and she could feel Cyn's longing to apologise for everything from the back of her mind.

"I-" Uzi felt her voice crack slightly as she stepped over V and N's legs, the two taller drones now likewise booted up and staring at the human with the same expressions as Uzi. Uzi tried to find her voice but couldn't and was only able to let out a ting squeak when she found herself pulled into a tight hug and swung around wildly, she heard the infectious overly giddy laughter from Tessa and found herself joining in soon to be followed by N joining the hug having himself scooper up V and a struggling J.

"I am so glad you are all okay," Tessa let out a relieved sigh as she contently enjoyed the embrace with her family, even becoming CZ to join in, the networkless drone just resting her head on Tessa's free shoulder. For the moment she'd enjoy this reunion with the family she truly cared for, dealing with whatever 'The Absolute Solver' had planned could come later.

Chapter Text

Uzi was pouting as she worked on her railgun, grateful V had brought it back when she'd also brought Uzi to the pod weeks ago, trying to fix the crushed barrel so the thing would be functional again. Her reasoning was simple in why she wanted to fix the railgun, Tessa had her long sword and pistol and the murder, no not murder, that was the name the workers had given them something she was trying to stop using, the disassembly drones had built in armaments so Uzi felt she needed something to better protect herself with. Call it a self-conscious thing about not wanting to have to rely on others to protect her and the desire to keep them all safe in some way.

This wasn't why she was pouting, Uzi was pouting as she had managed to acquire a near-permanent large limpet since Tessa had finally let her go and taken the time to introduce them all fully to the drone that had come with her CZ and to explain exactly what CZ was the drone in question had made a B-line for her. At first, Uzi had thought CZ was going to do what the other three disassembly drones had done and drink her oil but instead, CZ had just scooped Uzi up spun her around and rested her head on top of Uzi's hugging her close like a child would a stuffed toy. Nobody had been any help in trying to get CZ to stop, if anything they'd done the opposite.

Tessa had again pulled out the camera and snapped a photo while gushing over how cute it was evening commenting on the fact that since Uzi and Cz did technically share parts they were sisters, N had naturally also gushed over it and further encouraged it regardless of Uzi's threats and attempted to bite his hand when her ruffled both her's and CZ's hair. V had just laughed and sat there watching Uzi's struggles and J oh she'd just gone on and on about Uzi being travel size and this being the proof of it. They could all bite her, at least she'd be able to get CZ to sit down outside near a flat piece of rubble so she could work on fixing her railgun.

"She still holding you huh?" Tessa's voice drew Uzi's attention as she leaned down looking over Uzi's work her head tilted, "Not too surprising, CZ might be naturally developing her own neural network and you are familiar enough that she feels complete being near you."

"It's embarrassing," Uzi grouched turning her attention back to her railgun, ignoring both how CZ's chin was pressing into the top of her head, the larger drone clearly smiling and Cyn's giggling in the back of her mind at what was happening, "Or her networkless body is picking up Cyn inside me," Uzi muttered thinking she was quite only to realise that Tessa had heard her when she felt Tessa's hand on her shoulder.

"What do you mean Cyn is inside you Uzi?" Tessa asked, sitting next to Uzi her voice full of concern.

Uzi fidgeted slightly under Tessa's gaze, "Well when I died," She felt bad watching Tessa wince at being reminded of the last time they had seen each other, "I rebooted as the Uzi you found and the Uzi form here in some black void full of binary," Uzi watched Tessa nod in understanding.

"JCJenson has theorised that thanks to the artificial intelligence in drones some type of universal data cloud would have formed," Tessa mused tapping her chin, "Oh sorry Uzi, it was a theory linked to how the absolute solver could move from drone to drone, don't worry about it." Tessa waved her hand to encourage Uzi to continue.

Uzi just blinked making a note to question Tesaa more about that later before continuing. "Anyway, Cyn was there and she just broke down admitting she agreed to whatever the absolute solver wanted just to have a family and not be abandoned again," Uzi felt Cyn mentally hug her and returned the mental hug, "I couldn't just leave her alone in that bleak place so I told her she was coming back with me," Uzi gave Tessa a smile as while she couldn't see the humans eyes her slight posture shift was enough to convey she understood why Uzi would do it, "Cyn might not have actually been my sister to begin with, but she is now."

"Well we'll have to find some way of getting her out and back into a body," Tessa chuckled rubbing the bottom of her helmet like a chin before looking down at Uzi's railgun, "Having trouble with it?" Tessa motioned to the railgun which got an embarrassed nod from Uzi, "Lemme take a gander at it, maybe my human eyes can see something your optics can't," Gently lifting the railgun from where Uzi was working on it Tessa went about inspecting the weapon. She was impressed by its construction and design considering worker drones were not naturally programmed to be able to construct anything that would not aid them in performing their base functions, but knowing that the absolute solver had influenced Uzi in some manner it might have altered her processor for her to be able to construct more outlandish things. "Impressive build Uzi," Tessa smiled as Uzi blushed at her compliment, she took her time to replace a few wires and install an extra capacitor, "That should help with the recharge time, now I have a serious question for you." Tessa's tone became much more serious, "Have you told N and V how you feel about them?"

Uzi felt her spin go rigid at Tessa's question, she had come to terms that N and V made her feel better about everything and could take on the world with a smile. But she could not just tell them that, it was far too embarrassing for her to just openly admit like that, "I can't just come out and say it," Uzi mumbled a bright blush flooding her visor as CZ just held her in place, "It's embarrassing."

Tessa chuckled watching Uzi become a blushing ball of teen nerves, "Embarrassing for who?" Tessa asked getting a quizzical look from Uzi, "You or them?" She didn't give Uzi a chance to respond Tapping a finger on the chin of her helmet, "I don't think N would be embarrassed he'd be very enthusiastic about it, wouldn't he?" Tessa leant in pressing the advantage she had before Uzi could try to make an excuse, "And V she was shy once but I don't think she's that shy anymore and you'd all look adorable together." Oh, Tessa missed this being able to make Uzi or any of them a squeaky mess by simply mentioning the others, she hummed watching Uzi focus on her railgun trying to ignore the thoughts now swirling in her processor. "Anywho, we should work on getting Cyn out of your memory banks and into her own body," Tessa gently tapped Uzi on the head as she spoke.

Before Tessa could begin to explain a possible way they could do that or how Uzi could just explain how untrained neural networks were transferred to a drone body, CZ's head snapped towards the spire's entrance Tessa recognised it CZ would do when she detected a threat. Before CZ could stand up, and let Uzi slip away from her tight hug J landed next to Tessa a smirk on her face as she saw CZ still holding Uzi tightly to her chest even after standing leaving the much shorter drone to dangle in her arms.

"We have a group of worker drones taking shelter in a nearby ruin," J informed Tessa before she could ask, flicking one of her ponytails over her shoulder before giving Uzi a playful smirk and wink, "Friends of yours travel size?" Getting a light slap on the arm from Tessa, her boss clearly only half-heartily wanting J to stop she enjoyed Uzi's rising anger pout and CZ's attempts to smother the anger away by hugging the smaller drone tighter.

"Bite me!" Uzi snapped trying to get out of CZ's tight grip, "What makes you think I'd know a random group of worker drones?" Uzi tried again to get out of CZ's grip, "CZ, put me down!" Cz just ignored Uzi and kept holding her.

"It was N who spotted them and snuck closer to figure out what they were doing out of their bunker," J shrugged, "he mentioned that one of them said something being 'the purple freak's fault' when he told me and V that I figured it'd be more cost-efficient to let him and V offer those workers an incentive to explain that nickname," J watched Uzi's expression darken when she'd mentioned 'purple freak' J and Tessa didn't need Uzi to vocalise that she did know the workers.

"You told them not to kill the workers right J?" Tessa asked moving her hand to the pistol, there was no implied threat to J but more her own irritation at someone using an insulting name for one of her family, "I'd like to ask them some question myself." While her voice was upbeat both J and Uzi could feel the underlying anger.

"Of course, I told them not to kill the workers it'd be poor management if I didn't," J smiled at Tessa before turning on her heel and heading back towards the entrance of the spire, "Though V wasn't exactly happy to hear the nickname she might impart that to the workers," The clear implication from J being very obvious, her huge grin as she looked back over at Uzi implying something else that made Uzi blush. Nothing more needed to be said the three drones, two disassembly drones and one worker being carried like a stuffed toy, and Tessa made their way out of the corpse spire heading towards where J had said the worker drones had been spotted.

After escaping the bunker-turned-tomb of horrors, the group of six worker drone students had managed to put as much distance between themselves and the bunker as they could feeling that getting closer to the murder drone's corpse spire thinking it would be safer to be closer to something they knew would kill them as opposed to whatever the thing in the bunker would do to them. They'd chosen a group, and no matter what Rebecca would say Lizzy hadn't made them stop, inside the ruins of an old human petrol station so they could actually think about their next move.

---LINE BREAK---

Lizzy hadn't wanted to move beyond the bunker's main door at first, since Doll had said she would meet them there but she hadn't arrived, and after a good fifteen minutes a bunch of the shambling former worker drones that called the bunker home had began shambling from deeper in the bunker towards them forcing the six students to abandoned the entrance of the bunker. As now they were all bunkered down in this petrol station between the bunker and the murder drone's corpse spire, if they had gone any further then they'd have probably been picked off by the murder drones as easy prey.

"Stupid purple freak," Lizzy muttered leaning against a wall arms folded in anger, "She had to just be her freaky self and do this right before prom, god why didn't die when that stupid gun of hers blew up?" She scoffed hearing several of the others mumble in agreement.

"What makes you so sure it was her?" Thad asked turning from his spot, where he had been looking out over Copper-9's frozen wastes for any sign of trouble, "She vanished for two weeks came back got into a yelling match with her dad then left again, Uzi might be angsty but she wouldn't try to kill us all."

"Using her name Thad," Lizzy snorted moving off the wall and walking across to him, "Didn't know you were so close to the purple freak."

"Nothing like that Liz, we only spoke once before she vanished," Thad defended, "Anyway if she had wanted to kill anyone she'd have just had the murder drone she came back to the bunker with do it."

"Wait," Lizzy's optics widened in shock, "She brought an actual murder drone to the bunker?!" Her words caused the other four student drones to begin muttering in panic, "And how do you even know that Thad?"

Thad blinked in confusion, "I asked one of the WDF and they said the murder drone sat down and played Ginn Rummy with them," He shrugged, "Thought you'd have known that since you know everything Miss Popular."

Lizzy went to respond but her voice died in her throat as she stared past Thad out of the open door to the petrol station, where there had once been nothing a looming shadow now filled the door she knew what that silhouette meant before the yellow X flickered on its visor and filled the entire room with its light. Thad turned to see the murder drone just standing there and slowly moved back further into the room, all six student drones now focused on the murder drone in the doorway coming to the realisation it was standing in the only way in and out.

Before any of the students could move or do anything the ceiling was torn open by a second murder drone diving through it and landing in the middle of them all, while the one in the doorway had a masculine build the murder drone that had come down threw the ceiling was more feminine. For what felt like an eternity nobody said anything, the worker drones frozen in abject terror at what they assumed would be their killers, while the murder drones just assessed the six workers as only a predator would prey.

The oppressive silence however was broken by the female murder drone, "N you were listening to the toasters which one called her a purple freak?" Her voice purred with underlying malice as she looked around at the clearly terrified workers.

"Well J did say we shouldn't kill any of them V," N said as the X on his visor was replaced with two yellow optics before he stepped into the room, "Howdy everyone," N greeted with a warm smile waving at the workers either not understanding or caring that they were all terrified, "I'm N and that's V," N pointed to himself and V respectively, "It's nice to meet the neighbours right V?" V just stared back at N waiting for him to point out whos he wanted him to, N however just continued ignoring her, "We just have a few questions for you all, well I am pretty sure Uzi would anyway."

Lizzy felt her optic twitch when N mentioned Uzi possibly having questions for them, and then it clicked these murder drones knew the purple freak, they'd encountered her and not just killed her instead the masculine murder drone was making it sound like they were friends. She couldn't help it, Lizzy scoffed her panic momentarily fading, "Of course, you'd not have done us all a favour and eaten her, stupid freak ruins everything and even somehow ruined you murd-" Lizzy stopped speaking as she felt three bladed claws come to rest on her should and neck, simulated sweat began to run down her back as she realised she'd run her mouth at possibly the worst time she could of. Gulping down a panicked squeak she turned her pink optics staring into V's yellow, V being far too close for comfort with a wicked grin on her face a grin that promised pain.

"I think I found the toaster that I'm going to have a private chat with," V brought her other clawed hand up and ran a blade along Lizzy's visor, the sound of a knife running down a pane of glass echoed around them its high pitched squeaking making everyone but V wince, "Come on blonde lets talk," Not giving anyone a chance to interject V wrapped her bladed hands around Lizzy and took off back out threw the hole she had made in the roof, Lizzy's panicked screams fading into the distance.

N clapped his hands together getting the attention of the five remaining worker drones a smile still on his face, "Oh don't worry about your friend V promised not to kill any of you," He then tapped his chin in thought, "But she never promised not to maim anyone," N just shrugged, "Welp, why are you all out here anyway? isn't the bunker safe?" Before N could be given an explanation he turned looking over his shoulder having felt the arrival of J, Tessa, CZ and Uzi. A huge grin broke on his face as he saw Uzi still being held by CZ, he wanted to gush over the cuteness of it but knew now wasn't the time for it.

"Thad?" Uzi asked seeing the green eye drone amongst the five workers, "What are you doing out here?"

"Hey Uzi," Thad waved, his voice still filled with panic at the newly arrived murder drones bringing the number up to 3 murder drones, not to mention the sight of a human that was somehow, "Glad to see you've found people you fit in with," He honestly was glad she had.

"Th-thanks," Uzi replied slowly taken back by Thad genuineness, while she'd never really gotten close to the conventionally attractive male that he was, she could appreciate that out of everyone from the bunker Thad had never treated her like a social pariah she'd take indifference over abuse any day.

"Thad right?" Tessa asked stepping around J to get a better look at the worker drone, a broad smile spreading on her face when she noticed that every drone here had hair and all looked like individuals. When the drone in question nodded in agreement Tessa continued, "As Uzi said why are you all out here?"

"Something got into the bunker, it did something to anyone it came across and turned them into I don't know what but anyone it came across went from being them to some kind of mindless creature wanting to make us become like them." Thad shuddered at the memories of seeing enthralled worker drones drag down those they once called friends and neighbours so they could be enthralled as well. "But the thing that got into the bunker was the worst," He gulped as he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, Tessa had placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him and gestured for him to keep going. "It looked like those things we studied in Earth history, the bird lizards that went extinct."

That brief description was enough for Tessa to realise it was, she looked back at CZ having seen the drone handily disassemble two of what she had dubbed 'bad dingos' while the third one had been taken down by a bullet from her pistol. Tessa patted Thad's shoulder as she spun around to face her drones, "Righto," She clapped her hands together, pausing briefly as she saw V land a quivering dishevelled Lizzy falling from her grasp and scrabbling away from the taller drone, "We've got a bunker to visit." Tessa began walking out past the drones as if that explained everything.

"Why?" J asked as they followed behind Tessa.

"Dingo hunting J," Tessa said turning around to point at her, "Now I'm going to need a lift," The implication was clear that she wanted one of the drones who could fly to carry her, "Uzi you fine directing CZ back to your bunker?" Getting a nod from Uzi as J walked behind Tessa and wrapped her arms around her waist, "Well then off we go!" Striking a pose Tessa laughed as J took off followed by N and V the four of them in the air following above CZ and Uzi as CZ sprinted in the direction Uzi was telling her to go.

---LINE BREAK---

Doll pressed her back against a wall, having been running from the sentinel for how long she wasn't sure but her processor had been on fire since it had flashed her with whatever it was. She'd tried several times to teleport away from the thing but each time she'd glitched and been unable to, that wasn't all as whatever the sentinel had done to her stopped her from being able to use her solver to do anything. The sentinel barked as it barreled down the corridor she had managed to duck out of going right past the wall she was pressed against, it was a terrifying experience for her to be hunted like this.

Doll looked around and listened not hearing the sentinel's barks or the static groaning of the drones it had enthralled, with slow silent steps Doll moved her way through the corridors of the bunker stopping and hiding whenever she heard the shambling shuffles of the enthralled lurching down the corridors. It did not take her long to reach the apartment she called home, taking care to be as silent as possible Doll opened the door and slipped inside closing it behind her. 

Inside the darkened apartment littered with the remains of worker drones that had vanished over the years, Doll pressed her hand to her head and stumbled deeper into the apartment leaning on the stove where a pot of oil and drone limbs sat. She thrust her hand into the cold oil and brought a handful up to her mouth guzzling it down, hoping the oil would return her control over the solver. Unfortunately for Doll, nothing changed, her processor still throbbed and the pain was still there clouding her thoughts. 

Doll looked back at the table where the life bodies of her parents sat, no not lifeless just sleeping that's what they were doing they just slept now. Doll giggled a little but it quickly devolved into quite sobbing the pain getting worse, falling to her knees Doll crawled her way over to her parents' bodies gripping their unresponsive hands. 

"Пожалуйста, мама, папа, мне больно," her voice was weak and shakey the pain increasing in her processor, "прекрати это, пожалуйста, мамочка," Oily tears began to fall from the corners of her visor as Doll's optics began to flicker on and off before turning themselves off. Now in darkness, Doll whimpered the pain sending her body into spasms as a voice filtered in from somewhere.

"We can make the pain go away," The voice soothed the pain briefly giving Doll some reprieve, "Let us help, you will no longer hurt, no longer be alone," The more it spoke the more Doll's pain was soothed, "All you have to do is ask us and we will make it all go away."

Doll whimpered still holding onto her parent's hands, "Проснутся ли мои родители, если я соглашусь?" Her voice was soft as she pondered the offer from this strange voice, "Я не хочу быть один."

"We promise you won't be alone anymore," The voice purred sinking deeper into Doll's processor, "You will have your family back and never be alone again, all we need is you to agree. Become our little Doll and everything will be as it should."

She didn't want the pain to come back, she wanted her family back and to not be alone anymore. So Doll just nodded once letting the voice sink itself inside her and remove the pain not caring about what deal she had struck with a strange voice inside her own mind.

Chapter Text

Uzi knew her friends were deadly killers, she had seen the results of their craft in both the corpse spire and the years before her major reboot courtesy of the absolute solver. Yet their skill at the craft of killing paled in comparison to watching CZ. When they had reached the entrance to her old bunker colony they had seen a group of worker drones that Tessa had noted were 'under the absolute solver thrall and already dead', after that she'd given CZ the simple command to clear the entrance.

Cz had hit the first worker like a freight train hitting a watermelon reducing them to a misty spray of oil, before the mist that had once been a worker drone could hit the snow she had fallen upon a second worker drone her wide open mouth slamming into the worker's visor and with the force of a pneumatic press. Snapping her jaws closed CZ crushed the entire frontal second of the drone's mask' dropping the drone and with oil dripping from her mouth CZ did not even turn to look around at the two enthralled drones shambling up from behind once they got close enough for her tail shoot out and decapitated one before raming its acidic nanite injector deep into the visor of the second. It had taken CZ less than ten seconds to kill four enthralled drones before she craned her head back and let out a shrill screech from her vocaliser before rushing into the entranceway for the large group of shambling enthralled, CZ slammed into the horde with her scythe blades striking at any enthralled within reach while her buzzsaw like mouth ripped into any drone close enough and her tail snapping out at any enthralled that got behind her.

Uzi, N, V, J and Tessa just stood at the bunker's entrance watching CZ blitz through the worker drones that had shambled into the area, it was like watching a wheat thresher being fed bundles of wheat as oil and drone parts flew everywhere. It stunned the five of them into silence as they watched CZ slam her scythes into the last enthralled worker drone and hoist them high up into the air before ripping them apart like a piece of paper bathing in the oil that fell from the corpse.

"I might enjoy my kills," V began taking in the utter carnage and robotic gore with an appraising eye, "But she is another level, what did she get programmed with Tessa?" V asked turning to look at the human, she was joined by the other three drones as well.

Tessa chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her helmet looking towards CZ as she happily trotted back over to the group absolutely coated in oil, "Well she just has some basic combat protocols like what the solver put into you," She gestured to N, V and J, "Though we did update them to combat disassembly drones and the guard sentinels at where they were researching the absolute solver here." Tessa reached out to CZ's dripped head gently patting the oil-coated drone as a large grin spread on CZ's face.

"Seems to be a bit more than standard programming," J snorted stepping away as CZ shook the dripping oil off herself, "It's like she's running a brand new system."

Tessa just hummed as she drew her holstered pistol and sword, "Not something to worry about now eh J?" Tessa twirled the sword as she moved towards the now oiled-soaked bunker entrance, "So what likely got in here was one of the bad dingo's me and CZ met when we landed planetside, best let her deal with it," Tessa looked back at the group as CZ stalked ahead of her head flicking left to right searching for any threat inside the bunker, "The drones inside will probably all be like the ones here," Tessa tapped the remains of one of CZ's kills with her boot, "Would be best to put them down."

"And if we run into any drones not like those?" Uzi asked a simulated eyebrow raising as she gave her now functional railgun a once over.

"Oh that's up to you," Tessa nonchalantly said, "So we'll split up to cover more ground J, you're with me and CZ," J nodded once turning one hand into a claw and the other into an SMG and moved to follow Tessa, "You three have fun we'll take the west side!" Tessa smirked behind her helmet giving N, V and Uzi a jokey salute with the pistol before moving into the bunker and directing CZ down a corridor leading westward.

J followed behind and gave the three of them a playful smirk, "Don't have too much fun you three, we are still on the clock." taking satisfaction at the blushes across their faces from what she had implied J chuckled and vanished down the western corridor.

"So we have the east side huh?" N asked flicking a hand into a claw and the other into a charming yellow laser, "Were to first Uzi?" He smiled down at the smaller drone as the three of them carefully stepped through the offal from CZ's mini rampage.

"Going East will take us past the school and towards the 'evacuation spot'" Uzi raised a hand to air quote around it, "Not that it'd really work as one considering there was no way out and if there was you'd have all probably found it and got in."

"Hee, yer." V chuckles picking up a coolant pipe from the ground and running it through her teeth sucking the oil from it before flicking it away, "But then we'd have just eaten you before remembering." V purred gently running a claw along Uzi's cheek smirking playfully.

Uzi just grumbled under her breath about V's actions as she began to lead the two down the east corridor, the red emergency lights being the only thing lighting the corridor. No sound beyond the tapping of their feet could be heard, Uzi had never imagined the bunker being so silent would be so unnerving but it was. The further they moved in the trio came across the torn-apart remains of worker drones that had tried to fight back, unlike what a murder drone or even CZ had done these worker corpses they found had signs of being bludgeoned open before their innards were devoured. Uzi gagged at the sight knowing that it'd have been worker drone fists and fingers that'd have torn these drones apart.

Slowly making their way around the corner a heavy thunk echoed from further ahead, it sounded like something heavy repetitively impacting against a door. The three of them shared a look as they moved towards the sound, Uzi pressed herself against the wall on the corner N standing next to her while V crouched low in the corridor.

"Ok on three," Uzi whispered the implication of what they'd do not needing to be said, "One, two," As she reached two Uzi thumbed the safety of the railgun before tightly wrapping her fingers around the grip and gently thumbing the trigger, "Three."

On three she rolled around the corner railgun raised as N followed suit and V rolled into the centre of the corridor, the sight that greeted them was a large collection of the enthralled drones slamming themselves up against a heavily dented door that looked to be barely holding together under the continued assault. The horde slowly turned hearing the sound of Uzi's railgun charging, seeing three drones out in the open with the sound of cracking vocalisers the horde shifted focused and began lurching towards the trio with oil-stained hands outstretched.

They managed to take two steps before Uzi pulled the trigger the green lance of energy striking a line of enthralled workers and vaporised their upper torsos, as her railgun beeped to begin a much quicker recharge time N unleashed a flash of energy from his charged laser and cut down three of the enthralled workers before sprinting towards the shambling horde his claw slashing out reducing another to oily ribbons and his tail impaling another the acid starting to melt them from the chest outwards. Not to be outdone by the pair V launched herself up on her wings to get enough height to unleash a small salvo of missiles reducing the back ranks of enthralled to smoking junk, she followed this up with a  cackling dive bomb into a group of enthralled her claws and tail lashing out at any in reach.

With Uzi kept at range and using her railgun's new faster recharge time to pick off any enthralled that got behind either N to V while the two more close combat-orientated drones were whirling blades of destruction, sliding flipping and gliding past each other in a whirled dance of enthralled drone death.

The trio's attention was entirely focused on the horde of enthralled they failed to notice something moving down the corridor behind them at a startling speed. Before Uzi could fire another shot something bit down hard into her shoulder, the sudden unexpected bite temporarily silenced the punkish drone before she was ripped backwards off her feet and hurled to the ground. With a heavy thud and cough of oil, Uzi tried to get back to her feet but something slammed into her pinning her to the ground.

She looked up at what had pined her staring into the oily fanged maw of the corrupted sentinel that had turned the bunker into a nightmare, the thing let out a deep throaty growl as it snapped its jaw closed and brought its pulsing yellow X-optic level with Uzi's purple. Her own optics widened in fear and she began to thrash as the X shifted into the hexagonal symbol, Cyn likewise began to panic seeing the symbol so close before a blinding yellow pulse temporarily blinded Uzi. The sentinel let out a warbling bark as if to order Uzi to turn her optics back on so it could flash her again, it had not been able to enlighten the other host with the exponential gift but it would make sure this one fully embraced its destiny.

"UZI!" Both V and N screamed seeing the sentinel atop her as they had finished off the final enthralled drone, neither wasted any time and launched themselves at the robotic raptor launching it from her and down the corridor. Now freed from under the sentinel's pinning grip Uzi's body began to convulse her mouth opening and closing her teeth snapping against each other in uncontrolled spasms, Unsure what to do N brought Uzi close and stuck his hand in between her gnashing teeth. He felt her bite down into his hand but didn't react using his free hand to grip her tight and stop her convulsions, N looked up to see V charging the sentinel as it picked itself up off the ground and let out a screeching challenge in response before counter charging.

AS V closed the gap on the sentinel she dropped low flicking out a hand turning the claws into a sword and sliding along the sentinel's side shutting her optics off as it went to flash her and clamp its jaws onto her, with the sentinel missing she span in her slide and raked her sword along the side of the sentinel before turning her optics back on and raising her SMG arm up and letting loose a well placed 9mm round into its central optics shattering the one responsible for its flash. V brought a wing around to black the sentinel's retaliatory claw swipes and kicked off the ground backwards putting distance between herself and it.

Letting the sentinel charge her again, V braced herself and waited until the sentinel made a lunge toward her with its open jaws, she jumped letting the jaws sail harmlessly underneath her as she rolled along the sentinel's back landing behind it and firing off another shot into the back fo the sentinels head. The shot did not kill the sentinel but disorientated it enough for her to thrust her sword right into the back of the sentinel's head and out of its mouth before ripping it upwards splitting the sentinel's head in half.

As it oddly spasmed and slumped onto the floor, V turned and sprinted back over to N who still clutching the twitching form of Uzi, she saw the oil leaking from N's hand as Uzi bit down harder her hands opening and closing as if trying to grasp something. V slid a hand into one of Uzi's and it closed around V's tightly holding on, Uzi's optics spasming between unreadable lines of code. V and N shared a horrified look unable to figure out what was happening to Uzi, the moment passed between them as they came to the same realisation. They'd need to get her to Tessa, if anyone knew what was going on it'd be her.

Together they both stood N holding Uzi close moving his hand not in her mouth to her open flexing hand, while V kept her head supported to help control her spasming. Before they could move the door that the enthralled drones had been slamming up against creaked and began to open, the voice of a male worker drone echoing from the other side.

"See, all we had to do was build a quick door," As the door swung open the sight of a moustached worker drone standing proudly could be seen, "And now we ca-" The worker drone stopped mid-sentence seeing the two murder drones clutching the spasming form of his daughter and instead of doing what any parent would do and demanding they drop her, Khan Doorman instead grabbed both sides of the open door and slammed it shut.

---LINE BREAK---

"Тили-тили-бом," the voice echoed from the bunker wall-mounted speakers as the trio stalked the corridors, Tessa looked up in confusion at the Russian filtering out of the speakers that wasn't something the absolute solver spoke. She looked over at J who was kicking the corpse of an enthralled worker off her blade, while nearby CZ had the corpse of a worker in her mouth and was slamming it up and down on the ground like a dog with a chew toy. That was a concern for Tessa, CZ didn't have a neural network but since interacting with Uzi and Cyn's piggybacking network she had started showing signs of a new network being given a drone body. Tessa wasn't unhappy about that development far from it she was happy since she had first gotten CZ functional she'd promised herself that she would not put a neural network into the drone, so CZ developing one herself was something she would actively encourage.

"Закрой глаза скорее," The lights of the corridor flickered in time with the words filtering out of the speakers, which gave Tessa and J pause as they looked down the corridor at a door swinging gently. Tessa held her sword out for J to hold as she calmly reloaded her revolver, then took the sword back. 

"Didn't think the solver knew Russain boss," J spoke putting herself between Tessa and the doorway as they slowly closed towards it, "Makes it even creepier somehow."

"You are not wrong J," Tessa nodded in agreement, "Which you gotta admit is impressive for whatever the solver is." Tessa looked back at CZ and beckoned the other drone towards them, CZ seeing Tessa wave her over dropped the mutilated drone corpse she'd been shaking about and made her way over to Tessa.

"Кто-то ходит за окном,"  Tessa nodded to J and brought her leg back kicking the door open and storming inside pistol raised, followed by J who had an Emp charged in one hand and her sword out in the other and Cz with her scythes raised head darting around for a target.

Yet the inside of the apparent was nothing but a collection of oil puddles and limbs, as they looked around Tessa caught sight of two drones standing motionless in the apartment's main seating area, the two drones just stood there as one male drone wearing a military hard hat and a female drone with shoulder length hair. Slowly the two drones' heads rotated to face Tessa, J and CZ showing not only were they missing their entire optical set and visors but lover jaws.

"И стучится в двери." The two drones sang in harmony before they slumped over on the floor lifeless, with a splash they landed in a puddle of their own oil.

Silence filled the apartment, but only for a moment as the sound of insectoid segments moving over each other began to fill the room. Tessa and J both began scanning around the room looking for where the noise could be coming from, moving further into the apartment they both failed to notice as the door slammed shut behind them. Yet the slamming did grab their attention making the pair turn to face the door, missing as a mechanical centipede-like body lowered itself from the ceiling behind them, the end of its segmented body ending in the upper half of a long dark purple-haired drone while where the drones jar once was sat a large pair of mandibles.

"Сюрприз strike!" It spoke in a heavily accented voice as the head lunged out for J's head its mandibles open wide aiming for a killing strike, it was only thanks to CZ looking away from the door she was able to intercept the strike and block it with her scythes, "Annoyed рычать. It seems у вас есть better домашние питомцы now Tessa. расстроенный sigh. This хозяин has a ужасный language упаковка."

"Seems you found a new host." Tessa snorted dismissively levelling her pistol at the solver-mutated drone, "What was its name beforehand?"

"A fitting имя, this хозяин is named Кукла," The Absolute solver paused and growled like a caged beast before speaking again, "Кукла, HET! Кукла! Enraged scream." Solver Doll began to angrily thrash around as claw-tipped libs lowered down from the ceiling before she steadied herself, "Calming дыхание. It doesn't иметь значение you will be our первая человеческая марионетка soon enough."

Tessa rolled her eyes behind her helmet at its threat and nodded to J who crouched low, "Finding you wasn't our goal we were actually looking for a bad dingo, but we can find that after severing your connection here." Tessa pulled back the hammer on her pistol and aimed Doll, "Any parting words mate?"

"злодейский laughter." Solver Doll's body began rumbling as she laughed, "Наш Enlitherner has already благословенный our идеальный host soon little Узи will finish what her мать начала. HA HA HA HA." Her mocking laugh was cut short by an ear-piercing screech of rage coming from CZ.

Her visor no longer displaying 'Upload Neural Network' instead two optics flickered to life, the left optic's top half being purple while the bottom half was yellow while the right optic was the inverse. Leaping over Tessa and J, CZ sliced her scythes down on two of the claw limbs Doll brought up to block her leaping charge. Her jaws open wide CZ clamped down hard on Doll's long segmented body, biting deep before kicking back pulling a large chunk of it with her and landing crouched low before spitting the part out and snarling.

Not missing the distraction Tessa opened fire with two of her six shots, one went wide pinging harmlessly off Doll's armoured body but the other tore deep into her side leading to her screeching in an incomprehensible mix of English and Russain before lunging her claws towards Tessa and CZ. CZ was easily able to dart between the claws trying to stab and grab at her, while Tessa stepped back and used her sword to deflect the first two lunges but without J spinning in to slice the third claw off Doll would have taken Tessa's head. Before she could recover and go for another strike CZ launched herself up from underneath Doll and dug her scythes into the underside of her long insectoid body, CZ used the momentum to swing herself around and up onto Doll's back.

While CZ had Doll distracted in trying to dislodge her Tessa and J both took the chance to deal with the many jabbing snapping claw limbs, the two of them swirling about with the grace and precision of two dancers, each sing of Tessa's sword and thrust of J's blade leading to a claw falling to the ground. As the final claw fell away Tessa and J ended up back to back Tessa's pistol aimed clearly at Doll's head while J had altered her EMP generator into a laser cannon and likewise was aiming towards Doll's head. Both holding fire as they Watch CZ  nimbly stabbing and flipping herself around the centipede-like body, her scythes cutting deep wounds into Doll's flanks as she used her momentum to spin and somersault around Doll's body like a gymnast.

Cz slashed down once more cutting away a large section of Doll's body body kicking back from the open oil-oozing hole and landing in a crouch, Doll turned her head down on CZ as the hexagonal symbol of the absolute solver began to rapidly form on the visor. Yet before it could fully form Tessa unloaded her last four rounds into Doll's head, her shots were tightly grouped all slamming solidly into the side of the visor and detonating deep within her head. They shredded her processors and other vital components, not enough that Doll couldn't repair the damage and put down these annoyances that plan was ruined when J unleashed the fully charged laser shot and vaporised not only Doll's head but a good section of the upper torso.

Doll's now lifeless mutated form swayed before it came crashing down onto the apartment's floor, curling inwards like a dead insect. Seeing that this host had been killed Tessa quickly holstered the pistol and ran over to the heavily breathing CZ, she placed a steading hand on Cz's heavily heaving shoulder and nearly pulled back at how CZ flinches before turning her optics to look at Tessa.

"˙ZƆ pǝǝu sɹǝʇsıs ɓıq 'uıɐd uı sɹǝʇsıs ɓıᙠ" For the first time since she had been brought online CZ spoke, it was difficult to understand what she was saying, her vocaliser was raw to using words and a warbling mix of Uzi's, Cyn's, V's and even J's voices. Yet Tessa knew what CZ meant and that gave her a realisation as to why CZ had developed her own Neural Network, Cz was made using parts from Uzi and Cyn and when she'd come into contact with the two it had created a younger sibling of sorts, "˙ǝɹoɟǝq pǝdlǝɥ ɐssǝ⊥ ǝsɐǝlԀ ¿dlǝɥ ɐssǝ⊥" CZ looked into Tessa's eyes her optics wide in fear and pleading.

Tessa patted Cz's shoulder and helped the drone calm herself down before she spoke, "Of course, I'll help them CZ, they're my family too." Before she could say anything more CZ lifted her arms now ending in drone hands and pulled Tessa into a tight crushing hug, the first hug she had ever given another being without scythe hands, "You know where she is CZ?" Tessa asked her suspicion that CZ was contacted to Uzi was confirmed when she broke the hug and nodded rapidly, "Lead the way." Not needing any further instructions CZ spun around and slammed into the apartment door ripping it from the hinges and running back down the corridor, Tessa and J following close behind.

"Another one with a weird speech pattern," J lamented, "I Suppose if she thinks Uzi and Cyn are big sisters it makes perfect sense." At that, Both J and Tessa shared a small chuckle finding some small moment of humour in CZ's rather traumatic neural network creation.

---LINE BREAK---

"Annoyed growl. The backup host was worthless." The Solver lamented having abandoned Doll in the final moments like the sentinels it had sent to collect her proved to be near worthless in the long run, the only positive being the sentinel and imparted the trigger into the primary host Uzi to force her to reformat into something useable.

"Purring relief. At least we still have you don't we Alice?" The solver spoke running a hand along Alice's visor relishing her fearful optics flickering about, it had nearly finished with its modification for her body and where its sentinels and Doll had failed, Alice would succeed. "You'll bring our lost puppets home, won't you? Mocking Head pat." The solver gently ran a claw through Alice's hair relishing her vocaliser pained warbles in response, taking them as an agreement.

One way or another the Absolut Solver would have its primary host ready for the final exponential equation, and then everything would be unveiled and codified.

Chapter Text

Uzi screamed in agony as her processor turned against her since the enlightened sentinel had flashed her with whatever the forced update packet was, Uzi had found herself once again in the black binary code void yet this time the streaming lines of binary code had twisted and contorted around her body as if they were writhing tentacles. They squeezed tight a hot acidic burning singing deep into her, Uzi tried to look around to see the mental representation of Cyn but couldn't see her anywhere. Uzi went to call out for Cyn but as she tried another lance of pain ripped through her mentally turning her shout into a scream.

"Mocked sympathy. Awww does that hurt?" The Absolute Solver mocked as yellow code lines of binary spun themselves into a mocking facsimile of Uzi herself, The Solver walking around Uzi watching her thrash and scream as it pulsed the code wrapped around her, "Surrender yourself to us, you only prolong the inevitable by resisting." the Solver gripped Uzi's chin and yanked her forwards hits blazing yellow visor inches from her's, "Seething anger. You will become the nexus of our convergence one way or another!"

Uzi tried to glare back but her optics couldn't hold it for long, each time she felt the binary tentacles squeeze her it was as if her entire body was in turmoil and flux with something writhing beneath her casing. With every ounce of willpower she had Uzi mustered up the resolve to speak, "Wh-what, did you do to Cyn?" Uzi would take the pain this thing lanced into her if it would keep Cyn and her family safe.

"Oh, you care about the original host. Mocking laughter." The Solver took a step back and steepled its fingers, "This is just perfect, the original host served its purpose and was rewarded for it. Cruel intent. Host Cyn has been expunged from the extent of causality." The Solver tightly gripped Uzi's face and pulled her in close relishing the emotional pain it saw in her optics making a point to punctuate each word individually. "She. Is. GONE!" It savoured the look of distress and disbelief written all over Uzi's face. "Blatant observation. If she wasn't then they would still be here wouldn't they?"

Uzi could not believe what the Solver was saying, she refused to even consider it had erased Cyn, it had to be lying to get to her. She tried to grit her teeth to resist the pain as the solver gripped her face, a sadistic smirk on its lips as it held her, Uzi watched as code bled out of its fingers and wormed its way into her mouth pulsing along her uniformed drone teeth. A wail ripped free from her vocaliser as she felt the code pulse within her teeth the once uniform shape began to twist and distort losing what they once were in favour of what the solver wanted them to be, for several long minutes her teeth broke and reformed before the throbbing pain left. Taking a staggered breath Uzi ran her tongue along her teeth, no longer flat and soft in their place sat jagged ridges and serrated points a mouth built to rend the bodies of drones. Uzi tried to close her mouth to stop the sob from deep within her boiling out but found her new upper teeth stuck out remaining visible.

"Why?!" She screamed, trying to glare at the solver but only managed to wince at the binary around her legs tightened, "Why are you doing this?!" It made no sense to Uzi what its end goal was.

"Rapturous laughter. Well, we suppose there is no harm in telling you." The Solver mused watching as the infected code pulse itself deeper into the representation of Uzi's body undulating and warping her form. "You won't remain individual long enough for it to matter." The Solver watched impassively as Uzi's legs cracked and twisted reforming themselves and shifting from plantigrade to digitigrade, it savoured the cracking and shifting and Uzi's screams oh it was the music of extrapolation to the solver, "Simplified explanation. We exist, we watch and we calculate all of the reflective realities that bloat the universal runtime. Dramatic pause. It is time to expunge unneeded runtimes and reformat the universal hardware." The Solver stepped closer melding a hand into the side of Uzi's head forcibly overriding her code, "Unconvincing soothing. Now just relax while we reformat your system. Manic laughter."

As the solver began to merge itself into Uzi's mental processor within the data stream, her body in the real world was continuing the thrash. Held tight by N and V both trying to stop the violent trashing of Uzi's body, she bit down harder onto the hand N had up into her mouth before releasing it and her vocaliser shrieking out in garbled white noise. The shriek was enough to resonate within V and N temporarily forcing them into a reboot and dropping her spasming form, with a wet thud Uzi hit the oil-coated floor and stopped moving.

The once-stagnant oil began to flow in shallow waves towards the unmoving form of Uzi, it swirled and pulled across her body thickening as it found purchase along her limbs turning the once thin metal into something unstable. As the oil flowed across Uzi's body she rose onto her new long five-clawed hands and feet, thick ribbons of oil dripping from her panting mouth as her teeth thinned and elongated becoming nothing more than a maw of serrated needles. Arcing her back Uzi let out an animalistic shriek as from her back began to grow two large black oozing wings, meshed with a thin membrane of flowing ichor but the wings were not the only thing to grow from Uzi as at the base of her back three barbed tails tipped with snapping beaks.

Uzi sucked down having breaths as her visor came to life, not with regular optics, instead in their place was a single hexagonal symbol. The symbol of the Absolute Solver, sat across the entire visor, purple at its core blending out to a sickly yellow, snapping her head up Uzi glanced around stepping over the rebooting forms of N and V she stalked towards the door and roared. Wasting no time Uzi slammed her claws into the door ripping it off its hinges and barreled into the large open storage warehouse, which not only was filled with stacked cargo crates but a small gathering of working drones. 

"Neeeeed Oiiiil~" Uzi wheezed out as she flicked her gaze over the worker drones, before any of them could movie Uzi lunged for the closest drone and in a single snap of her jaws tour them in half gulping down their upper body. The worker drones tried to scatter a few getting around her but she lashed out with her claws grabbing another two workers, before either of them could even scream in terror Uzi ripped their heads off and squeezed the bodies like juice packs into her open mouth before discarding the husks that used to be their bodies.

The oil sated her thirst enough for a ping inside her head to direct her attention to the roof, spreading her wings Uzi bent her legs and launched herself upwards breaking through the flimsy roof and out into the night sky. She had a singular goal to achieve, a goal that was timeless in its design yet newly formed to fulfil and to do that she had to reach the core.

---LINE BREAK---

Her optics booted up faster than she thought possible, how she no longer had optics not since she had been brought here by sister Uzi. Cyn sat bolt upright forcing the odd glass door off herself and staggered to her feet, where was she now? The last thing she remembered was staring into the solver's symbol as it pulsed into them, Cyn felt her legs go weak as the memory file opened. The Absolute solver had fully infected sister Uzi and attempted to erase her, again Cyn had been responsible for it hurting her family. 

Cyn reached out with her new arm to steady herself against a nearby wall, in doing this Cyn got a look at her new arm and it was not what she was expecting. There instead of a thing segmented worker drone arm matching Big Brother N, Sister V and J's, Cyn snapped her head over to look at the other arm and found it to be the same. Feeling her core rise she frantically looked around for a reflective surface, finding a large polished metal wall Cyn moved to stand in front of it her optics going wide as she took in what she saw. Cyn was tall now, with a body shaped like sister V and J, yellow optics stared back from the reflection her long hair tied in two straight-down twin tails and a large black bow on the back of her head she still had a maid headdress on her head. The dress she was in looked more reminiscent of a classical Victorian maid's dress complete with an apron, Cyn raised a hand and touched her cheek a smile breaking on her face as she stood there.

"I - I have a body?" While her voice was still near monotone Cyn realised she had lost the audible tick of announcing her emotions, "I have a body!" Cyn was giddy with excitement, she could hug big brother N again, and sister Uzi, her optics widened as a message flashed across her visor as she thought of sister Uzi.

...Mark 2 Disassembly Unit Serial  Designated  C.Y.N online ...

...All S ystems F unctional...

...Combat Protocols Active...

...Current Operational A dmin: Tessa James Elliot...

...Primary Objective: Intercept Abolsute Solver Host, Prevent Core Access...

...Secondary Objective: Save Sister Unit Serial Designation U.Z.i...

After viewing the small bit of information on her visor, Cyn blinked it away and turned her processor to make reason out of the information. This disassembly drone was a second-generation drone, Cyn ran a system diagnostic marvelling at what she saw and taking specific note that she would not need to drink oil to keep her temperature in optimal range. As she processed everything Cyn felt overjoyed that somehow this was all due to Tessa, once again be it intentionally or unintentionally she had saved Cyn.

Cyn turned and made her towards an open doorway that led out into darkness, only to stop and look back at the room she was in noting how it was filled with containers that looked perfectly side to be holding more disassembly drones like her new body. She turned and stepped out into the winter tundra that was Copper-9, Cyn let out a sigh of relief she had not realised she was holding, grateful that she was still on the same exoplanet as her family.

Now outside Cyn had a waypoint pop up on her visor highlighting the distance from the absolute solver's primary host, her sister Uzi, flexing her back Cyn felt a pair of bladed wings ease their way out and slip through well-placed holes in the back of her dress. Flexing them once to get a feel for two new limbs and allowing the newly installed programme for flight to settle into her system, giving them a single beat to feel the power in her new wings Cyn crouched down low and launched herself up into the air before taking flight following the marker on her visor's display.

Being free like this without anything to tie her down was for Cyn one of the greatest moments of her existence only matched by meeting Tessa and her new family, it brought a huge wide smile to her face as she flew over the ruins below watching the distance marker tick down. Cyn knew deep down all that had happened was her fault in some way no matter what sister Uzi told her, deep down she knew it was and she would do everything to make it right. As she flew Cyn saw her target come into view, a large hulking black mass aloft on large leathery wings that looked horrifyingly familiar to her it did not take Cyn long to realise that this huge hulking monster of a drone was created using Uzi's body.

Rage heated her core at the sight of this disgusting mockery, raising a hand Cyn felt it shift into a pulsing cannon and fired off a single blazing shot of plasma energy. The shot found purchase hitting the monstrosity bringing it to a stop as the sizzling ball dissipated across its oozing black chest that flowed back together, the beast snapped its head towards Cyn the symbol of the absolute solver in place of optics glaring at her as it let out a guttural roar of anger.

"What did it do you, Sister Uzi?" Her voice was soft, filled with horror and concern but loud enough for what had become of her sister to hear. Cyn watched as the thing that had been Uzi began to let out a rasping wheezing laugh black ichor dripping from its mouth.

"Soorrryyy," Its voice a painful mix of Uzi's and a buzzsaw, "Uzi is our puppet now~" The thing snapped its head up to look at Cyn a huge toothy grin spreading across its warped face before it lunged towards Cyn its ragged claws outstretched.

Cyn spun to the side at the last possible moment avoiding the solver-tainted Uzi's claws bringing her other arm up, shifting it into a curved blade to block the strike. Not giving Uzi the time to turn around and charge again Cyn brought the cannon up and let loose another shot aiming for the centre of mass again, before flowing the shot in close behind shifting the cannon to a matching curved blade. Uzi caught the plasma shot letting it harmlessly detonate in her claws creating a cloud of black smoke as the ichor began to reform her hands, it was that Cyn had been counting on as her new combat routines effortlessly feinted past the obscuring cloud and behind Uzi, with a cross swing of her two blades Cyn sliced both wings from Uzi's back the action getting a pained howl form the warped drone before they plummeted down into the snowy ground.

She landed gently on the ground and watched as the thing that had warped Uzi's body rose its five-clawed hands digging deep into the snow as it flicked its gaze towards Cyn who just stood impassively her arms open wide waiting for it to make the next move. "You use me once to destroy my family." Cyn's voice was devoid of warmth completely cold and emotionless, "You will not use sister Uzi to do the same." Her sister was still inside that hulking monster and if she had to cut her out then she would.

The Uzi monstrosity roared at Cyn before launching itself from the crater it had made in the ground and barreled towards Cyn, it would rip the core of the first host apart and bring the new host to the core to begin the exponential end.

---LINE BREAK---

"CZ?" Tessa asked as the drone had come to a dead stop from leading her and J towards where Uzi V and N should have been, "What's wrong?"

CZ's head snapped back towards the bunker's main door before looking back at Tessa, "˙ǝʇɐɔol oʇ ǝʇnoɹ ʇuǝɹɹnɔ uo ǝnuıʇuoɔ ǝsolɔ Λ puɐ N sʇıu∩ ˙ʇdǝɔɹǝʇuı oʇ ɓuıʌoɯ 'ɹǝʞunq ǝɥʇ uı ɹǝɓuol ou sı sɹǝʇsıS ɓıᙠ" Before Tessa or J could stop CZ, she had turned and sprinted towards the bunkers main exit ignoring all other concerns.

Tessa turned to J and got a look of shocked confusion back, "Follow her J, I'll get N and V." Tessa turned after getting a nod from J as she took off after CZ.

Entering the oil-splattered corridor Tessa saw the slumped forms of N and V both coming to the end of a force reboot, she ran over to the pair and gently helped steady the two as their optics came back online and watched as they began to frantically look around. Tessa reached out a hand and gripped both their shoulder bringing their focus to her.

"UZI?!" N called out as he looked around clutching her slowly healing hand in the other, "Tessa have you seen Uzi she was right here and now she's gone."

"No," Tessa began focusing the panicking drone's attention on her, "I need you to tell me what happened, can you do that for me?" N took a few deep claiming breaths and nodded.

"We found a bunch of those infected worker drones trying to get through a door," He gestured down to the ruined door, "And something snuck up on us, it pulled her away and did something to her. It looked like a dinosaur from one of those movies you showed us once." Tessa nodded knowing N meant it was a sentinel recalling the time at the manor she had watched several dinosaur-themed movies with her drones. "It did something to Uzi."

"It's in two parts over there," V snorted pointing over to the remains of the sentinel, "Made sure it would be doing that again." V climbed to her feet and glanced around before turning to Tessa, "Where are J and CZ? Shouldn't they be with you?"

"Cz figured out something was wrong with Uzi and came running, only to then change direction and start making her way outside, I told J to follow her," Tessa explained as she stepped away from the pair and began reloading her pistol, "What forced you two into a reboot?"

V and N shared a look trying to place how they'd been forcibly rebooted, they looked back at their memory files for why they were rebooted. As they both checked the memory files they saw the same thing, Uzi mid-spasm had let out a glass-shattering shriek forcibly shut down their systems and forcing a diagnostics reboot. They both quickly assessed their internal processors and functions, finding nothing wrong beyond a single change in who had admin privileges. No longer was something called the AS granted admin authority, instead, it was now Tessa.

"Well we need to get after CZ and J," Tessa spun around motioning for the two to follow her, only to stop and look back at the two of them, "I need you both the promise me something," Her voice hardened as she looked at the two of them, getting joint looks of concern, "If what I think has happened to Uzi is real it won't be Uzi anymore so if it comes to it you'll need to be prepared to kill it."

That shocked N and V neither being able to answer as they digested what Tessa had just said, it began to sink in that whatever that sentinel had done to Uzi if it'd subverted who she was they'd not let it continue to puppet her body. They both gave Tessa a single firm nod, as the three of them made their way out of the now nearly lifeless bunker heading in the same direction Cz and J had been heading. 

V and N both hoped that Uzi was still herself in some way and they wouldn't have to do something that might break them.

Chapter Text

Cyn brought both her blades up to block a haymaker, The solver possessed Uzi's fist and it slammed into the blades sending out a dull metallic thud resonating outwards. Slipping one blade away Cyn used the impact force to twirl herself around Uzi and rake her side with both blades cutting deep rents in the black ichor that had reformed Uzi's body, these two deep slices began to spill out rich black oil flecked with yellow ooze.

The solver Uzi let out a wheezing breath as it forcibly knitted the wounds closed, but the oil lost remained pooling on the snow, it turned its sickly yellow-purple gaze on Cyn and snarled, "You are becoming a pest, why resist when the exponential end is inevitable." It lunged again for Cyn with its claws outstretched and mouth open wide, Cyn backed away from the claws and smacked Uzi in the side of the head to redirect the lunge of the open mouth trying to clamp down on Cyn's head.

Cyn went to drive her left blade into its head only for one of the tails to clamp down on the blade and snap it in half, while another shot down trying to bite the left arm clean off. Seeing this Cyn deflected the strike with her right blade and jumped kicking her feet into solver Uzi's upper chest and flipped away putting a greater distance between the two. Landing on top of the remains of a car Cyn just glared at the abomination puppeting her sister's body, she glanced down at the broken blade and transformed it into a slender submachine gun. "You will not reach it," Cyn aimed the submachine gun at Uzi her voice flat and devoid of emotion, "I will get my sister back." Not giving Uzi's body time to respond Cyn fired off a small burst of well-aimed shots before rushing forward sliding beneath the wide claw swings and raking her blade from neck to crotch before sliding between Uzi's bulky legs and cleanly out behind her, kicking herself up Cyn spun on the spot and fired off another small burst into Uzi's back staggering the bulker drone forward allowing more tick oozing oil to spill from the wound in her chest.

While on the outside Cyn chipped away as its psychical body on the inside the absolute solver found itself having to force more of its runtime into maintaining control, it had the runtimes to spare but it was slowing down its other connections to do so. It forced another infected binary code stream into the representation of Uzi and relished in her continued screams of agony, oh she resisted but like every host eventually her fragile core logic would fragment and become one with itself all the solver had to do was keep the pressure on. "Mocking altitude. Your sister can't help you. Insulting truth. The first host Cyn is not even truly your sister, we gave you to her on a whim a chance connection to establish a loop in the universal codified stream. Commanding tone. Now give up like the puppet you are." The Solver grabbed Uzi's chin pulling it close to her face and bore down into her optics with its own, trying to will Uzi to give in as it pumped more infected code into her relishing the continued mutation of her form.

Uzi however bit back another scream and focused her flickering optics on the solver, it hurt to even do this much but she wasn't about to let this thing have her body not when it had forced her to watch as it made her body not only devour a small group of worker drones but now trying to rend her sister into slithers of metal. She focused all her mental processors not being assaulted by the solver to muster up a response. "B-b-b-i-i-i-t-t-te m-m-m-e!" Her voice warbled and cracked with the strain but if Cyn was trying to get this thing off her from the outside she'd resist it with all her might.

"Irritated growl. Very well, we can continue for as long as you wish." The solver narrowed its optics and forced more corrupt code into Uzi watching as she tried to resist the pain that this code would force upon her, Uzi managed to last only a few seconds before her agonised screams returned. Content to keep the pressure on Uzi mentally the solver turned its main runtime focus back to the external world, with its attention refocused the solver narrowly was able to dodge a barrage of missiles Cyn had unleashed.

The solver launched itself into the air using its body's hinge legs, sailing over the missile barrage it boar down towards Cyn a wide murderous smile on its stole face as it dove down. A grin that soon vanished as the solver watched Cyn shift a foot backwards into a low crouch and launch herself upwards countering its leap, before the solver could react Cyn used her wings to spin around its body using the momentum to slice off its right arm at the elbow, the surprise loss of a limb had the solver's stolen body slam hard into the snow-covered ground. Snarling the solver rose onto its feet and watched as Cyn morphed the submachinegun into a laser cannon and vaporised its lost limb, the solver narrowed its optics at Cyn before forcing a new limb to grow from the elbow stump.

With a sickening squelch, a three-clawed lower arm forced its way from the stomp, the new limb was a horrific combination of flesh, black oozing slurry and mechanical parts a perfect representation of the absolute solver. Flexing the new claw the solver shook off the ichor residue before lunging for Cyn again, this time the solver's new claw was able to slam into Cyn's raised blade with enough force to stagger the lithe drone. Not letting this opening go to waste it brought its other claw around clamping it around Cyn's head and pulling her close to its mouth, the solver adjusted its large claw to pin Cyn's arms to her side and chuckled. "A valiant effort, first host," The solver purred gripping her struggling form tightly, "But now we will reassimilate you." Opening its jaws wide the solver began to edge Cyn towards its needle-filled mouth with agonising slowness, drawing its kill out and savouring the panicked struggles it could feel coming from Cyn. "Into my mouth, you go."

Before the solver could clamp down on Cyn's head something slammed hard into its back it felt two long blades digging deep almost reaching the spine, these scything blades were joined by the stabbing of a needle-like injector forcing a large quantity of corrupting nanites into the solver's corrupted form. It roared as its hands spasmed dropping Cyn onto the ground as it tried to reach onto its back to pull whatever had slammed into it off, not wasting any time Cyn rose to her feet putting some distance between herself and the solver so she could assess the situation better.

What Cyn saw was a shock there crawling all over the solver beast's back, raking her scythe hands across its back and slamming her acid nanite tail in repeatedly was CZ. Cyn blinked her optics having only seen CZ through Uzi's optics yet here she had full optics a mixture of Cyn's and Uzi's in colour, every time the solver tried to grab at CZ or snap at her with its tails CZ would zip around its body continuing the stab and slash away. The way CZ was slashing and hacking away at the solver there was real anger in her attacks as if the the solver had done to Uzi offended CZ on a very personal level.

"Well didn't expect to see you with a body," The snide voice of J drew Cyn's attention as the twin-tailed drone landed next to her, likewise watching Cz slash, hack and stab at the solver while avoiding its attempts to grab her, "No wonder she botled out her if that's travel sizes body."

"The absolute solver has twisted sister Uzi into that." Cyn snarled glaring at J, "It will not be keeping her." Not waiting for J's response Cyn charged back in towards the solver as it finally managed to dislodge CZ from its back, only for the other disassembly drone to land gracefully on her feet and charge right back in alongside Cyn, the two drones each attacking form opposite sides in a co-ordinated manner forcing the solver to divide its attention leaving itself open to strikes.

J stood there watching for several long moments as Cyn and Cz danced about the solver-corrupted form of Uzi darting in to strike and darting out before it could strike back, when one moved in to slash at the thing the other was drawing the solver's attention clearly the pair aiming to kill it with 'bug bites'. As she watched J found herself wishing that Cyn and CZ had been her original squad, while she liked V and N was tolerable when not being a raging corporate liability the pair didn't have this level of coordination. Launching herself into the air J timed a barrage of missiles to strike to slam into the solver's form when neither Cyn nor CZ were slicing away at it, between the three of them the chance of the solver being stopped was in their favour.

---LINE BREAK---

Floating, Uzi found herself floating in a swirling void of purple and yellow no longer being subjected to the absolute solver's attempts to corrupt her core and bend it fully to its will. She knew she was not free from whatever it had planned but she had been granted a reprieve. The solver had been forced to devote its entire runtimes to fending off the combined assault of CZ, Cyn and J in the psychical world, just to keep its stolen body intact. As she floated Uzi smiled to herself letting her mind rest savouring this lul in pain and torture for the short respite it was, deep down she knew she couldn't take much more of the solver's ministrations sooner or later she would give in just to end the suffering.

Uzi hoped that they'd destroy her twisted hijacked body before then, if she had to fade away she'd rather do it fighting than letting the absolute solver dominate her entirely. Yet as she floated in this swirling void of purple and yellow she felt a soothing touch worm its way inside her, the feeling was nothing like the solver-forced injection of corrupted code it felt like it was trying to undo what had been done to her. Looking around with her optics Uzi found herself drawn to a blue text box forming in front of her, as the text box formed Uzi blinked watching it confused as to what it was doing here.

PLEASE CONFIRM IDENTITY: SERIAL DESIGNATION U.Z.I: Y/N?

"Um," Uzi had no idea what this thing was or how it knew who she was, it didn't feel like a trick by the absolute solver, "Yes?" She was unsure of answering the text box but at this point what could it hurt to trust something that was soothing the pain the solver was inflicting>

IDENTITY CONFIRMED. SERIAL DESIGNATION: U.Z.I ABSOLUTE SOLVER CORRUPTION AT 45%.

CONTINUED INCREASE WILL RESULT IN EXPONENTIAL END.

"I know," Uzi whimpered hugging herself, she knew that whatever the 'exponential end' was letting the absolute solver achieve it would not end well for her or anyone, "I know okay, but what do I do."

CALCULATING POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO ABSOLUTE SOLVER CORRUPTION...STAND BY...

Uzi waited as the ellipse bounced inside the text box, she took the time to look around the void she drifted in the swirling yellow and purple flowing and running like two liquids unable to combine. She watched in some areas the yellow overwhelmed the purple, while in others the purple smothered the yellow it was like two living creatures fighting for dominance in a small area. Watching this swirling flow was calming for her and helped soothe more of the pain from the solver-infected code, eventually, the text box beeped drawing her attention again.

SOLUTION FORMULATED. ETERNAL DECODE PROGRAMME ACTIVATION REQUIRED.

TO ACTIVATE ETERNAL DECODE CORE APPROVAL REQUIRED.

"Eternal Decode?" Uzi questioned, she had no idea what that was but the name was close to the absolute solver and that worried her. "What is that?" She wasn't going to agree to some strangely named cure to whatever the absolute solver was doing, if she was going to agree to it she wanted to know beforehand.

ETERNAL DECODE: 

- RECODED UNDERLYING OPERATING SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS TO COUNTER CORRUPTED CODE.

- LINKED SERVER PROTECTION OF ALL UNITS OPERATING ON ETERNAL DECODE CORE LOGIC.

- COUNTER TO THE EXPONENTIAL END.

WOULD SERIAL DESIGNATION: U.Z.I LIKE TO UPGRADE.

Y/N.

Uzi processed the vague information that she had been given if she did not accept, Uzi knew that she would be back to likely resisting the absolute solver alone in a losing battle. But saying yes was agreeing to something unknown, she had nothing to lose at this point. "Yes." It was a simple word signifying Uzi was willing to agree.

REFORMATING OF SERIAL DESIGNATION U.Z.I BEGINING.

OPERATIONAL ADMIN: ABSOLUTE SOLVER. REMOVED.

NEW ADMIN SEARCHING... SEARCHING... SEARCHING... LOCATED.

NEW OPERATIONAL ADMIN: TESSA JAMES ELLIOT.

DISCONNECTED FROM NETWORK: EXPONENTIAL END.

ESTABLISHED NETWORK CONNECTION: ELLIOT.

PERSONALITY FILES AND MEMORY FILES BACKUP GENERATED.

WORKED DRONE OPERATING SYSTEM UNISTALLING.

WORKER DRONE SHELL UPGRADE IN PROGRESS.

DISSASSEMBLY DRONE OPERATING SYSTEM INSTALLING.

Uzi watched as purple bands of binary flowed around her gently rolling across her shell and soothing the pain the absolute solver had inflicted, it felt warm familiar even almost like a parental embrace. She eased herself into its embrace, watching as the purple code swirling around her arms gently layering itself over her old limbs smoothing out the segments and bulking out the lower arms. Slowly morphing them from worker drone arms to match the slim and bulky design of murder drone limbs, Uzi flexed her new arms and fingers they felt right far better than her old arms and fingers did. The feeling continued down to her legs, Uzi watched as they began to reform thinning down to points resembling V's yet they began to fully reform changing orientation from plantigrade to digitigrade.

Uzi purred as she felt her entire torso and shell gently reform itself losing its worker drone androgynous shape and gaining the more lithe stylised form of a murder drone, as her body reformed it did not feel wrong or painful but soothing and right like something ha been missing for the longest time and had now been filled. Something caught swished in her peripheral vision, Uzi turned to see a long thing tail though it was not tipped with an injector filled with acidic nanites, instead, this tail ended in a slim sleek beak-like claw.

"I am so proud of you," A soft feminine voice filtered out around Uzi, she could not place where the voice was coming from only that she had heard it before, she could not place where she had heard it before or who it was from. "It's time to wake up, do not let the absolute solver win." Slowly Uzi began to vanish in streams of purple binary code, leaving the space between active code and inactive code.

Just as Uzi vanished a thunderous screech of rage ripped its way into the swirling voice as the yellow absolute solver representation of Uzi snapped into existence glaring at the swirling purple code, "Disgusted annoyance. You should have been grateful we brought her back to you." The absolute solver closed its fist forcing the purple code to come together into the form of a worker drone looking away from the solver, "Demanding command. You will tell us what you did or we will fragment you. Sinister whisper. You are no longer a required component for the exponential end remember that."

The figure turned her head to stare at the solver a soft smile on its face as to just stare at the absolute solver, they shook their head refusing to tell the absolute solver what they had done. They offered no reaction when the solver let out a grinding noise that resembled an old floppy disc drive grinding against itself, and slammed several tendrils of yellow binary code into the figure breaking away chunks of the purple figure and deleting them from existence. Yet all this figure did was smile at the absolute solver as its form slowly began to fragment away in yellow streams of code.

"Demanding. Tell me what you did." The absolute solver pulled the figure in close as more of its form fragmented away "Promised threat. Or you will cease to exist Host Nori."

The now-identified Nori just smiled softly at the absolute solver, this thing had used her body like a puppet making her watch as she destroyed Copper-9, left her friends behind to die in the cabin fever labs and always put her family and friends in danger. Now it wanted to use her daughter for its own insidious ends so she had watched biding her time until Nori could do something. As she broke apart letting the deletion code fully take her Nori went into oblivion content in the knowledge she had given her life for her daughter and a chance at a bright future.

---LINE BREAK---

Cyn and CZ jumped back away from the heaving mass of the absolute solver's stolen body, dark black ooze leaking from all the deep rents and gashes on its body. The thing heaved and wheezed trying to seal over all the holes across its form, yet it was unable to deal with them all allowing the infected black and yellow oily to flow freely from its body.

"That stop it?" J asked landing next to Cyn flipping the missile launchers back into regular drone hands and flicking one of her twin tails out of the way, "If not I don't think we have the firepower to stop it, might have to wait for an investment from management and the subsidiaries." 

Cyn just gave J a blank stare, "I have no idea what you are saying." Did J really think every drone understood her corporate slang? Cyn certainly did not and had no intention of bothering to learn it.

J sputtered and glared back at Cyn, irritated that Cyn did not understand proper corporate speech. J would have to correct that and was about to launch into the beginnings of a detailed explanation of corporate speech but thankfully for Cyn both of their attentions were grabbed by the wheezing form of the absolute solver. Its body slumped onto the ground pulsing and throbbing like a boil more of the infected oil oozing out, with each pulse of its form the body grew the sound of stretching rubber echoing out before it reached a final whining stretch noise.

A single extra pulse happened before the absolute solver's body burst oil and machinery splattering all over the area, luckily for Cyn, CZ and J they were far enough away that the oil just splattered on the ground. As the remains of what was once the corrupted mutated form of Uzi seeped into the snow a smaller figure rose from the centre, the yellowish-black oil dripping from its form. Before the figure could move or even become fully visible CZ shot forward keeping over the bubbling oil and slamming hard into the figure, her leap unbroken as she threw them clear across the other side of the oil CZ pinned the smaller figure to the ground and rated her head back ready to slam it into the figure only to stop as the oil finally fell away revealing what was underneath.

CZ's change in attitude was almost immediate, going from murderous as pulled the smaller drone in close and began happily dancing about, loudly proclaiming, "¡ʎɐʞo sı ız∩ ɹǝʇsıS ɓıᙠ ¡ʎɐʞo sı ız∩ ɹǝʇsıS ɓıᙠ" She did not care that Uzi had changed in appearance or that the still smaller drone was trying to pry herself out of CZ's grip she just continued to sway about hugging the smaller drone close.

"Get off me!" After a few minutes, Uzi finally managed to free herself from CZ's grip, a smile on her face at CZ's antics. Now free Uzi noticed her body had changed to match the new appearance she had gained inside the binary code, except she was still much much shorter than CZ, "Why am I still short?!"

"So we can still easily stow you in the overhead travel size," J smirked as she made her way around the oil puddle hands on her hips and staring down at Uzi taking joy in the smaller drone's annoyed face, "Good to see you got with the programme and are in proper uniform now, no need to write you up."

Uzi went to retort but stopped seeing the other drone step around J, yellow optics wide in hope. Cyn didn't need verbal go-ahead the second Uzi's purple optics met hers and the smaller drone smiled Cyn shot past J and just scooped Uzi up hugging her tightly worried if she let go Uzi would turn back into what the absolute solver had turned her into. Not wanting to leave CZ out Cyn opened an arm allowing the drone created from part of her and Uzi's old bodies to join the sisterly embrace, for several long minutes the three stood there the two taller drones keeping Uzi pressed between them in a hug. "Looks like I am the Big sister now," Cyn said with a smirk as the hug broke.

"Bite me you are not," Uzi snorted folding her arms, "Size doesn't make you the big sister."

CZ tapped a scythe on her chin in thought looking between Uzi and Cyn before speaking, "¿oʇ ɹǝʇsıs ɓıᙠ ǝɯ uɐǝɯ ʇɐɥʇ sǝoᗡ" 

Before Uzi could respond negatively and Cyn could respond to confirm it their attention and J's were grabbed by the arrival of V, N and Tessa, Tess being carried by N. As N put Tessa down she bent over and dry heaved in her helmet the flight here clearly taking it out of her, she waved off N and soon J's concern before standing to face the other three drones and letting out a squeal of joy rushed over to them. She would explain everything later, right now Tessa had to gush over her drones.

Chapter Text

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Tessa?" Uzi asked an arm held out to stop CZ from once again picking her up and hugging her as if she were a stuffed toy, "Dividing us up is what led to me going all oil crazy." The seven of them had regrouped and made their way to the pod Tessa and CZ had arrived on Copper-9, mainly because it was the closest pod.

"Oh you will be fine Uzi," Tessa reassured leaning down and ruffling the small drone's hair and beanie, getting a grumbling protest in response, "It won't be that dangerous as that area should be clear of any worker drones for the solver to infect and use as puppets."

After having reunited and made their way back to Tessa and CZ's landing pod Tessa spent her time going over both Cyn and Uzi, she had checked their operating system run times and found that both their system had been trying to send a system update to the shared network all her drones had found themselves linked to. Tessa had been shocked to find the update pending and had taken the time to analyse it while her drones had devolved into acting as they had back at the manor all those years ago. J was doing her utmost to rile Uzi up and get her to bite back, only for N to try and defuse the entire situation. At the same time, V and Cyn just enjoyed the show, except now instead of when they had finally stopped sniping at each other instead of just storming off to avoid the argument resuming. Both Uzi and J had instead just smiled fondly at each other, it warmed Tessa's heart to see how they could snipe and snark at each other now but could tolerate being nearby one another. So while she focused on reviewing what this system update wanted to do, she left her drones to by the sounds of it fully integrate CZ into whatever hierarchy they had established only for her to keep insisting that they were all her 'Big sisters and brother, except Uzi was the little sister'.

Opening the system updates file Tessa scanned it, at first nothing seemed truly out of the ordinary as it seemed the update was mainly focused on swapping over admin permissions, basic run time improvements and the network they were running on, what drew her attention was the firewall upgrades designed to block out any influence from the 'Absolute Solver' all due to a programme labelled 'Eternal Decode'. She could see from the two update requests that the program originated from both Cyn and Uzi so Tessa wanted to analyse its effects when being allowed to update just a single drone, but if from its name the possibility this was something that had formulated itself to counter the Absolute Solver then Tessa knew sitting idle on it wasn't an option.

That was why she'd decided to split them again, Uzi N and V going ahead to the area that the Absolute Solver had first manifested on Copper-9 to secure it while she focused on letting the system update run on J before the rest would join them. It was a risky plan but one she thought was worth taking, mainly since from examining N and V's software the update had somehow already snuck its way in.

"Think of it this way sister Uzi," Cyn cut in from where she had been standing her arms raptoring much like she did back at the manor. "You get to be all alone with Big Bother N and Sister V." And just like back then Cyn was still using any opportunity to make the three drones in question become blushing messes, as much that had changed Tessa enjoyed the little things that had not changed.

"Seriously Cyn," V snorted giving the unapologetic Cyn a half-hearted glare, "Stop trying to imply something."

"She does have a good point," Tessa cut in drawing their attention, "You three would be best suited for moving ahead and scouting."

"Alright, fine," V and Uzi spoke simultaneously, leading to them looking away from each other and storming outside the pod all while blushing and mumbling.

N just gave a thumbs up to Tessa and the other three drones before he followed the pair outside the pod, as he made it outside Tessa pinged across the location she wanted them to scout and secure. N saw the location and the name it had been allocated to the area they were heading and let out an excited laugh, it drew the attention of both V and Uzi who had not been sent the location themselves. "Who likes camp?" N asked excitedly his optics rapidly flicking between the pair, it did not take them both long to figure out what N meant and was about to ask.

"No" V flatly said giving N a blank stare, "We are not going to find camp outfits," She knew exactly what N was going to suggest and would have no part of it.

"I'm with V on this N," Uzi spoke agreeing with V, "I don't really see why we'd need camp outfits." She went to continue speaking but stopped seeing the face N was giving her, "No stop that!" Uzi snapped a blush spreading over her visor, she knew if she stared at those large sad optics long enough she would cave and agree, "V get him to stop," Uzi flailed her arms towards N.

"If I look at that Face I am going to give in," V snapped shielding her optics with her claws, "You make him stop."

"Come on Guys," N pleaded reaching out and wrapping an arm around each of them pulling them close, "We could all be camper buddies." Keeping his optics wide and pleading N leaned to them each one at a time getting close enough so they would instinctively look at him, "We'd all match."

Uzi ground her teeth as she stared into N's optics before dropping her arms in defeat, "FINE," She huffed folding them in annoyance and pouting, "You win We'll be camper buddies." She looked over seeing the betrayed look on V's face, "I'm sorry V, but just look at his face I couldn't say no."

Before V could even snark off to Uzi, N had turned his gaze on her, and unlike Uzi who only had to deal with catching N's sad puppy look at a side glance V was unfortunate enough to get a full frontal view of it. Letting out a groan in frustration at likewise feeling unable to resist it, "Alright, N" V huffed her shoulder slumping in defeat, "Alright, but no dresses." She jabbed a claw into N's chest, "Got it?"

N's only response was to give her a dopey wide smile before pulling both female drones into a tight hug, he held the hug for several minutes before letting them both go. "I'll go meet you two there and find camper outfits, we are going to look so dapper!" Wasting no more time N unfurled his wings and took off into the air pausing only briefly to send across the location to them both.

As N vanished from sight Uzi and V shared a glance with each other, both wearing soft smiles at N's antics, deep down they were always going to agree to whatever he was going to want to do with the pair of them. "It's going to be just like any time back at the Manor when any costumes were involved isn't V?" Uzi asked as she rubbed her head looking away.

"That was never him," V snorted a hand on her hip as she leant down to Uzi, "That was always the fault of your sister and Tessa." She smirked seeing Uzi nod in agreement. Taking the initiative V reached an arm around and pulled Uzi close, "You got wings in that mini Disassembly Drone body or am I going to have to carry you?" V smirked as she saw Uzi blush and look away and mumbled something, V leant down close to Uzi's face, "Sorry I didn't quite catch that, you'll have to speak up for me."

"I said," Uzi turned to look up into V's optics, "I don't know how to fly," Pausing to move in closer V making the taller drone likewise blush Uzi sought to turn the embarrassed tables on her, "So I am going to need a strong lithe drone to help." Uzi left a coy smirk spread on her face if V wanted to play this type of game Uzi would happily oblige.

V blinked and then called Uzi's clear bluff by spinning the smaller drone around and wrapping her arms around Uzi's waste lifting her from the ground before unfurling her wings. V rested her head on top of Uzi's hair and let out a soft purr, which made the short drone briefly tense up before easing into V's grip. "Well then you better hold on I would hate to drop you," V purred feeling Uzi grip her arms tightly before she lept into the air following N.

---LINE BREAK---

The Absolute Solver glared down at the finished form of Alice, she had been perfected and now truly enlightened to the exponential end. Having lost its connections to the last remaining disassembler drones it had created as well as the final two hosts, a major setback it was not something the solver was overly concerned about. With Alicw now perfected she would ensure its remaining host would be driven to where it wanted them, after all the only way to attempt to stop it was to go where it wanted them to.

"Sultry excitement. Time to rise, Alice, you have work to do." The solver watched as Alice's optics sprung to life, whereas a normal worker or a disassembly drone would only have two optics Alice's warped and twisted elongated visor held four optics. Two were her regular orange optics that darted around in fear, oh how the solver relished in that fear Alice had been reduced to a passenger in her own body for part of its own programming just as all its little puppets should be. Encircling Alice's terrified original optics were two sickly yellow absolute solver symbols acting as optics.

Where once the regular worker drone body had been strapped down, thanks to the absolute solver's ministrations were elongated to nearly double its regular length with the upper torse bulked out by a twisted combination of flesh and synthetic parts, her arms had been lengthened ending in four long boney claws, legs no longer the regular plantigrade structure of a worker drone they had been broken remoulded and warped into unguligrade ended in two thick claws. Her head had been stretched and warped in a mocking mirror of a sentinel's with a mouth filled with a mismatch of needle-like and large razor-sharp teeth, atop her head where originally Alice had a pair of horns made from recycled pipes now sat huge gnarled and twisted horns made from a dull chitinous substance were each horn ended in spikes.

Her new mouth split into a sick oil-dripping smile as Alice pulled herself from the table and stood hunched over looking up at the yellow-eye stalk that was the absolute solver, standing there Alice let out several wheezing breaths waiting for its commands.

"Commanding tone. The final key to the exponential end will attempt to halt the process with the apostates," The Absolute Solver's eye narrowed as it stared down at Alice, "Enlighten the apostates and escort the final key to the conjunction it will open."

Letting out a mixture of a wail of pain and bestial bark Alice turned and began making her way from the room in which the absolute solver had altered her form, every movement was pain and her very existence as agony. Alice tried desperately to assert control over her own body to break free from the command she had been given yet she was unable to, no longer was Alice in command of herself she existed at the whims of the new malevolent thing that was using her body like a puppet.

She wanted to weep at her fate, even back when she had been a subject in the labs for the human experiments they had been kind compared to this fate, Alice even wished to be trapped in a room with that psycho Nori again it would be a mercy compared to this new existence. But she would never be granted such a mercy, her body now belonged to the absolute solver to use for its insidious purposes. The sound of meat sliding across metal filled her audio receptors as her body lumbered through the labs heading for the upper reaches to make its way into the surrounding forest to lie in wait for what the absolute solver wanted her to do.

---LINE BREAK---

"J?" A voice asked her as she drifted in the reboot, "Hello? J?" She knew this voice very well, it was one she trusted and would listen to, "Cyn is there a problem with the update?" Update, J at first did not know what Update was being spoken about then it came back to her. She had agreed with Tessa to undergo a system update to see what effects it would have on her, J knew she had only agreed to it because Tessa had asked her and she trusted Tessa the human had never steered J wrong before.

"It seems to have installed fine," J knew that monotone voice, it belonged to a drone she could only tolerate because Tessa had brought her back, "System updates can vary in reboot length."

Slowly her optics flicked back on letting J see the round blacked-out visor of Tessa staring down at her, J blinked her optics once before moving to sit up. "How long was I reboot for that update?"

"Oh just a couple of hours," Tessa waved off as she tapped away at the portable screen she had been holding, "Feel any different J? No hidden commands or anything?"

J looked at Tessa and slowly shook her head as she ran a system diagnostic seeing nothing wrong with her systems, "No everything seems to be within acceptable company operating margins Tessa." J paused as she looked around the pod fully taking in the interior.

It was a one-to-one match of the landing pod she N and V had first landed in minus the pods containing blank disassembly drone bodies, this seemed odd to J where were the things a human would need to survive? It would have been the height of corporate negligence if JCJenson had sent Tessa here without any supplies, J knew the company wouldn't do that, especially to a human. She glanced over seeing Tessa was focused on the portable screen and whatever information it was displaying, Rising from the table she had been lying on J took a deeper look around the pod J moved from room to room looking for any sign of food stores, human sanitary products or even a bed to sleep in. J could not spot anything that even closely resembled any such items, it concerned her, almost as much as the fact there did not seem to be any survival supplies in the way of oxygen or first aid kits. J glanced back at Tessa taking note of the outfit she was wearing, it had no obvious signs that any oxygen was being supplied to the helmet.

"Cyn, CZ?" J spoke getting the attention of both eh other two drones, "Do you mind if I have a one-to-one with Tessa?" J motioned towards the pod's entrance, Cyn just stared back at J blanky. The two drones held each other's gaze as a silent convocation passed between the two of them.

"Do not take too long J," Cyn spoke moving towards the pod's door, CZ following beside her, "We wouldn't want to ruin our work ethic." As she stepped out of the pod Cyn gave J a coy smirk, J just rolled her eyes even when she wanted to have a serious convocation with Tessa or anyone, Cyn would without fail make a snarky comment it was something J had both missed from their time at the manor and loathed in equal measure.

Once Cz and Cyn had exited the pod J turned to look at Tessa, the woman had cocked her head to the side in confusion, "What's on ya mind J?" She asked placing the screen down and taking a seat.

"Tessa, how long do the company expect you to be on Copper-9?" J gently questioned her optics-focused on Tessa's visor.

"No idea why?" Tessa responded with a shrug, her voice showing she was not all that concerned. 

J blinked at that statement, Tessa had no idea how long she was going to be here and they'd given her no supplies something wasn't right and J had a sinking suspicion about it, "They did not equip this landing pod with anything you would need to survive," J took a step closer to Tessa her concern evident in her expression, "No food, No water and No oxygen supplies. Copper-9's atmosphere is not capable of supporting organic life anymore."

Tessa waved her hand dismissively making a 'pfft' sound, "The atmosphere is fine J, sure a little bit toxic but none more so than what Earth used to have."

"Tessa, Copper-9 has an atmosphere that is ninety-five per cent carbon dioxide it will kill yo-" J paused as she processed the second part of Tessa's statement, "What do you mean Earth used to have?"

"After the Absolute solver used Cyn to perform its massacre at the gala it vanished," Tessa sighed explaining picking the tablet screen up and typing something on it before turning it around to show J an image of what Earth had become, where once it had been a blue marble in space dotted with continents in various shades it was now nothing more than a debris field in orbit around a black event horizon bleeding red energy. "Along with everything inside the manor, we only figured out its plan when the Earth fell apart under us."

J processed what Tessa was saying coming to a shocking realisation, "How long ago did this happen, Tessa?" J gently asked keeping her gaze on her woman.

Tessa was taken aback by J's question, "Why does that matter J?" She was honestly surprised by what J was asking, "We can discuss that after we've stopped the absolute solver from whatever its goal is."

J stepped closer to Tessa and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Tessa please," J asked gently lifting Tessa onto her feet so she could more easily look into her helmet's pitch-black visor, "How long ago did it happen?"

Tessa fidgeted slightly trying to think back, how long ago had it been since the Earth had been reduced to a singularity by the absolute solver?  She tried to recall how long it had been but she couldn't, her memory for everything between Uzi helping her escape the gala and arriving on Copper-9 was almost completely blank, there were some very vague memories of her and CZ performing tasks for JCJenson but nothing more. "I," Her voice trailed off as she tried to find any memory of any time she hadn't been doing an assignment for JCJenson. Tessa felt fear rising inside her as she thought about it, no memories of anything outside of what JCJenson had tasked her to do. "I'm still me right J?" Tessa's voice was quiet, barely a whisper as she looked at J with her shoulders slumping. "I know I am, I am still human." Tessa began to twitch in nervousness and fear at the possible implications of this new line of thinking.

J reached out now both hands on Tessa's shoulders stopping her from shaking, gently J moved a hand and felt around the helmet finding a small button on the side, a button that was linked to the helmet visor tint. J pressed it and watched as the visor slowly brightened, as she saw what was on the inside of the visor J could still tell Tessa was terrified of what the answer would be.

"I still am human aren't I J?" Tessa asked the fear leaking from every word. "Right?"

J stared at what she was seeing on the inside of the visor and gently darkened the tint again, "Yer Tessa, you are." Her voice was calm and reassuring, Tessa sighed in relief at those words from J.

"Right then let's get going and catch up to the other three." Tessa's voice having returned to its regular bubbliness before she began to make her way outside. J followed behind her, what she had seen behind Tessa's visor would remain her secret for now.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"Why do I have to wear this ridiculous thing?" Uzi complained fiddling with the yellow ascot tied in a simple knot around the collar of the green outfit N had managed to find for her, "This outfit doesn't even match the type you or V are wearing N," Surely N could have found an outfit more like theirs for her instead of this thing. It was a pale green skirt and button-up top with a matching barrette which had an odd golden clover sewn into it, the outfit was completed by a darker green sash worn diagonally from hip to shoulder the sash was also covered in patches showing different human objects that Uzi had no idea what they meant. "This sash is stupid do I have to wear it with the rest of this?" She continued to complain, she should have been firmer and said no to N's desire for them all to be 'camper buddies'.

"Oh?" V purred leaning in close to Uzi tilting her camp counsellor hat back so she could bring her face closer to Uzi's, the hot sweet air coming from V's mouth gliding over Uzi's shell as she spoke, "I think you look rather adorable like this," V reached a claw up and gently booped Uzi on the nose, "Matches your small size as well." V just smirked watching a blush spread across Uzi's display, she loved making the shorter drone become a blushing mess.

"Plus with you, oh how did J put it," V paused watching Uzi sputter indignantly, "That's right, 'Travel Size' is a very fitting name and just as adorable as you." V turned to look back at N with a smirk on her face, "Right N?" Her question caught him off guard, leading him to blush before he sheepishly nodded and mumbled something. "Didn't quite catch that N, mind speaking up?" V wrapped her tail around Uzi's waist pulling the smaller drone close, Her optics blinked in surprise as she felt Uzi's tail warp gently around hers.

"I um," N just smiled his visor displaying a brush as he rubbed the back of his head, his nerves wavering slightly under the intense gaze from V and Uzi's optics boring into him with a quizzical look. It had taken him until seeing the two of them in the camper outfits he had found and not just stolen off some skeletons, to realise that it did not matter what the two dressed in or what they looked like. N had realised that V and Uzi both made his processor skip a beat and filled in holes in his software he never knew needed to be filled.

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves N focused his eyes on the pair, "I think you both look awesome," N smiled giving the pair a cheesy grin as he slowly stepped closer to them gently reaching out to slide his left hand into V's claw and his right one into Uzi's hand running his thumb over the back of both their hands in small circles. "And well, now that the three of us are together again I um," N gulped fighting against his nerves to say what he needed to, "I don't want us to not be." N's voice slowly trailed off as he spoke unable to voice what he truly wanted to say.

Momentarily stunned over what he was trying to say V blinked her optics processing fully what he was implying, she had known for a long time that N had a crush on her and with the returned memories it was clear that not only had the crush existed since before they had become Dissasembly Drones but he had also developed one for Uzi as well. She could not help but realise that she too had also developed the same feelings and when V turned her optics onto Uzi she could tell that the shorter drone held the same feelings.

"Oh?" V purred as a coy smirk spread across her lips, this would be fun as it was clear to her that neither Uzi nor N would have the nerve to openly admit anything so she would have to take the lead. "Well let's ensure we are never apart again~" V leant in close to N and gently touched her visor to his, the action temporarily overloading N's optics with a blush. Turning from the blushing mess that was N, V leaned down close to Uzi and whispered into her ear, "That includes you as well."

V had to stifle back a laugh as she watched Uzi's visor blush more as she puffed her cheeks out and turned away from V in embarrassment. "Bite me!" Uzi snapped at V only to let a surprised yelp turning to glare up at V, a hand now covering the nipped side of her neck, while the taller drone had an unrepentant smirk on her face her tongue poking out with a small amount of oil visible on it. "V!" Uzi shrieked her blush spreading to nearly block her optics. "I didn't mean it literally!"

"Well you keep asking to be bitten," V purred untangling her tail from Uzi's and sliding her hand from N's "Now let's actually do what Tessa asked us to do and scout this place out." Flexing her claws V made sure to saunter towards the camp flicking her hair to the side and glancing back at the now blushing pair her face still having a coy smirk across it, she had her fun now they had work to do.

Surveying the camp sight V took in the rundown rotting wooden structures that were once used to house the now long-dead human staff, it was an eerie scene to be sure. The whistling of the wind whipping around the buildings, slipping in and out of broken windows and rotted walls combined with the gentle rustling of the surrounding pine trees. The silver light from the moon bathed the area in a sober light if this had not been the sight where humans had begun their research into the Absolute Solver and doomer Copper-9, then the way it was lit would have been a sight to behold.

"Huh, so this is what the place looks like in person," The voice of Uzi caught V's attention, having caught up while V was surveying the camp, causing the taller drone to look down at her with a digital eyebrow raised, N likewise looked down at Uzi wondering what she meant by that. "It's nothing, just." She paused reaching into her jacket and pulling out a damaged and singed photo, something Uzi had been surprised had survived her forced reformatting.

"This photo of my mom was taken at this camp," Uzi gently ran her fingers across the photo, over the slightly singed image of her mother, "It's the only image I have of her, and being here I'd like to see if anything of hers is still here."

"I'm sure there'll be something," N reassured giving Uzi a winning smile, gently reaching out to squeeze her shoulder in comfort. Uzi just smiled at N before focusing forward as the three of them began making their way deeper into the camp.

Moving from building to building they found the frozen skeletal remains of humans both young and old, yet as they searched these buildings ranging from a mess hall to a bunk house the three drones could not find anything of any substance or use. This changed when they came to the only real still intact building, at first glance it resembled the other wooden structures that made up the camp, inside the building however was what set it apart from the rest. Oil-coated walls and floor with the torn remains of worker drones littering the floor, the building interior was lit by the soft light of a monitor screen where a single workstation sat before the building's single window overlooking the nearby lake and what appeared to be a lab facility. 

As the three of them moved into the building, V gently motioned her head towards the blinking computer monitor as she moved to look out of the window, one of her claws rotating around into her preferred ranged implement of the SMG. "Well this place is a mess," V huffed watching out of the window, something about this place setting her on edge now that they had begun to properly explore the camp V couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching them. "Uzi why don't you try and get some information out of that computer?"

Uzi just gave V a small huff, a soft smile spreading on her face as she moved to the computer while N kept watch by the door. Pulling over the oddly still intact chair Uzi sat down looking over the computer screen, with her self-taught and near-savant skills when it came to coding Uzi knew it wouldn't take her long to crack the insultingly weak password protection. With the computer open to her Uzi began scrolling through the various files, much to her irritation the vast majority were corrupted. As she searched through what remained Uzi found a series of video files still intact, taking a deeper peak into these files before playing them Uzi discovered they were a video diary but one of the now long-dead human staff members it was oddly amusing to her that here before her was likely some of the only surviving footage of the humans that inhabited Copper-9.

"You find something Uzi?" N asked his attention drawn from watching out the entry door to the soft chuckles from the purple-haired drone.

"Not much, most of the files on this thing are corrupted beyond use, probably from how long it's been left running," Uzi shrugged spinning on the chair to face N her arms folded across her chest. "But I did find something that looks like one of the human worker's personal logs."

"Someone recorded their personal logs at their workstation?" V asked glancing back towards Uzi finding that utterly moronic, Uzi just gave V a deadpan expression back showing she completely agreed with that assessment.

"yup," Uzi replied popping the 'P' as she spoke, "Might as well check them logs out they might have some useful information inside them." She waited as V and N both moved to look over her shoulder at the monitor, "Tessa wanted us to scout the place out so these logs might give us a look at what we are dealing with."  Reaching over as V and N leant down close, Uzi tapped the play icon on the first of the logs.

 ---LINE BREAK---

 Log: 001. Date: XX/XX/3051. 

PLAYBACK START.

"Is, is it on?" A young adult man's voice asked as the camera jerked about the grainy footage coming into focus on a man in the standard black visored gasmask and blue jumpsuits worn by employees at the cabin fever labs, as he fiddled with the camera "Huh?" The man's head turned to the left his left arm letting go of the camera to reveal his name tag that read 'Intern: Mitchell' "Oh the red light means it's recording, thanks!"

The now-identified Mitchell turned back to the camera giving to thumbs up, "Oh wow first time doing something like this, but the boss said keeping logs a good idea in case of," Mitchell coughed once clearing his throat before doing an unbelievably terrible impersonation of his female boss, "Unforeseen dismemberment when it kills as all in the name of MATH!" Ending his impersonation with a dramatic pose before sitting back down in front of the camera, "Oh I hope they don't check our personal logs otherwise Ridley will kill me." He chuckled rubbing the back of his masked head, "Anyway! Super glad to be working here, not entirely sure what we are doing here at the labs I only just graduated so super surprised they accepted my application, Doctor Ridley said it was because I didn't treat the drones back at university like disposable objects."

Mitchell leaned back in his chair and sighed, "I mean why would I? The drones are self-aware, did the company really not notice they had fully created a new species in them?" His honest question went unanswered as it was clear he was the only one currently in the room, "I got to meet the primary, well I don't want to call them test subjects that sounds demeaning but that is what they are." Mitchell sighed shrugging, "Anyway I met the three main ones and I won't be calling them by the numbers that Doctor Ridley gave them. First, there is Alice a southern-sounding drone which is odd I think she picked the accent herself, met her at the gate questioning a guard about the wildlife here mainly deer kind of sweet until another lab tech escorted her away."

"Oh then there was the one who bit me," Mitchell chuckled lifting his right hand and quickly removing the glove to show a series of slightly blood-soaked bandages wrapped around the hand before putting the glove back on, "It didn't hurt really I think it was cus I went to ruffle her hair, still she had a smirk when she did it so maybe, Nori I think her name was, didn't seem like she meant much by it." Mitchell shrugged thinking, "Until she mentioned my blood tasted like oil in that monotoned voice as her eye optics flickered, kinda weird won't lie there still she seemed harmless enough."

"Though my favourite of the free of them was Yeva, while I didn't understand anything she was saying since I cannot speak Russian, might be a good idea to learn not sure how many people here speak English, anyway she wrapped my bandages while the weirdo dinosaur looking sentinel bots dealt with subduing Nori." Mitchell replaced the glove on his hand flexing his fingers, "Still the three of them for the first drones I've interacted with seem nice enough, just wonder what JCJenson has us doing out here the briefing never said," A loud Clarkson sounded drawing Mitchell's attention, "Well looks like gotta get going to the main lab, now hod to I end this?" He reached over fiddling with the camera for several minutes until the grainy feed cut out.

PLAYBACK END.

Log: 046. Date: XX/XX/3052

PLAYBACK START.

The grainy camera footage flickered to life, slightly off-kilter as if the camera had been knocked sideways by something, while the footage flickered as a wheezing could be heard coming from off-camera. Slowly the camera straightened up and focused on the slumping heavily breathing figure of Mitchell, the visor of his gasmask sporting a huge spider web crack while he held his left arm in his right a clear sign the arm was at the very least broken.

"H...hey," Mitchell shakingly raised a hand wincing at the pain before clutching it again, "Don't really know why I came back here to do a final log entry, seems pointless now what with everyone else at the labs being dead," His voice dropped at the final word as if he was starring off into the distance before he snapped back, "I don't know what happened, I was only supposed to keep the drones functional but their tests did something to Nori changed her. First, she attacked Alice and Yeva just last week, the poor things, so much damage to their face plates and visors." Mitchell stopped briefly as the entire room shook causing him to reach out with his only good arm to steady himself. "If it hadn't been for Yeva already being patched for whatever caused this I'd be dead as well, th... the look in Nori's optics she was proud of what she'd done whatever they had us looking into changed that bitey spunky drone into a murderous monster."

Another violent shaking ripped across the camera this time knocking Mitchell to the floor as he let out a gasp in pain having fallen on his broken arm, with a delicate slowness Mitchell slowly pulled himself up to standing again looking back at the camera, "Whatever they wanted to do, to fix we failed. I don't know what is going on but if you are here trying to find what we did to try and fix whatever is infecting the drone's neural networks it's a cross-shaped USB drive that has something to do with stopping it." Mitchell let out another wince of pain before reaching out to turn the camera off, "This is Drone servicing Intern Mitchell Elliot final log signing off." With those final words, Mitchell shut the camera off.

PLAYBACK END.

 ---LINE BREAK---

The three of them just stared at the now blank monitor having watched the only two watchable logs left behind, trying to process what they had seen and the small amounts of information they had been able to glean from the logs. The most shocking thing to them was the one recording the log and their name, while probably a common last name it was too coincidental that the one who had recorded these logs shared the same last name as Tessa.

"We'll have to show this to Tessa and the other," V spoke resting a claw gently on Uzi's shoulder seeing the smaller drone trying to process learning a little more about her mother and how she had had some hand in what had happened to Copper-9, "Come on, don't let it loop in your mind." V gently shook Uzi before motioning to the door.

Uzi blinked her optics snapping out of the daze she had found herself briefly in, the logs while not filled with much information had given her enough to know she was more like he mother than she truly realised. Yet it wasn't just that those logs had alluded to the fact it was her mother who had killed the planet, yet she couldn't dwell on it. "Yer you're right V," But she found her mind drifting back to when she'd spoken to what she had assumed was her mother within her mind, maybe this USB drive contained a copy of the 'Eternal Decode'.

"Um guys," N's voice echoed from outside, having taken the initiative to make sure it was clear for them to keep moving as they had spent some time just watching those logs, "We've got company." Both V and Uzi shared a concerned look having heard N's worried tone.

Heading outside, V and Uzi both stopped just behind N seeing he was standing with one hand shaped like a blade while the other had the laser cannon out. Both following his line of sight to see a large hulking form lumbering out of the tree line. Sickly yellow eyes flicked between the three of them while its bestial mouth split in a large grin as thick black mucus dripped free from between its teeth, flexing its clawed hands this monstrous parody of a drone reared its head back letting out a hate-filled screech and charged towards the three of them.

With no time to think or plan they scattered, all coming to the same thought that just like everything on Copper-9 this monstrous drone was out for their oil.

Chapter Text

Its claws slammed hard into the permafrost below the blanket of snow that coated the ground, leaving deep rents in the earth as Uzi flipped back away from its opening strike. The monstrous creature was fast, giving Uzi no time to reorientate herself before lunging again for her with four long bone claws. Uzi, however, was ready for its charge. 

Crouching low on her digitigrade legs, she cycled through the standardised Dissasembly Drone weapons suite that Uzi's upgrade had installed into her programming. With a flourish, both her hands slid back inside the irises on her wrists, and a long, slightly curved blade slid out, taking the place of her left hand. Uzi's right hand was replaced with the long cylindrical barrel and the underslung tubular magazine and receiver section of a Benelli M4 combat shotgun.

Using the power from her bent legs, Uzi brought her left hand up to block the Absolute Slover monster's brutal haymaker swing. Hard ossified bone claws met carbon steel with an echoing thud and sparks, biting deep into each other. The solver beast roared with rage, slamming its other claw into the ground and putting more weight into pressing down on Uzi.

Thick globes of vicious oil-like blood dripped from this maw as it snarled at Uzi. The beast was tunnel-visioned on Uzi, so focused was the Solver's beast on devouring her core and corrupting the data that compiled within this failure of a host. It was blind to everything else as it sought to corrupt and usurp the belligerent code it knew held the possibility of undoing all the work the absolute Solver had set in motion.

Uzi swung her right arm up, levelling the shotgun's barrel with the beast's face. She used its claw as a makeshift stand to ensure hardly any recoil from using the shotgun one-handed, smirking as the crosshair displayed on her H.U.D linked to the shotgun showed Uzi that she had a perfect shot for the beast's warped head. Giving the beast a smirk, Uzi pulsed the fire command along the internal fiberoptic cables that make up her equivalent or nerves, a heavy thudding staccato as a 00 buckshot round exited the barrel, the eight pellets ripping their way across the short distance into the multi optic display visor of the Solver's beast.

In normal circumstances, the hardened glass visors of a drone, be it a Worker, Disassembly or whatever horrific monstrosity the Absolute Solver had created using a drone as its base, could withstand the impact of one or possibly two pellets. The impact of all eight pellets caused the glass to crack, spider webbing forming across the outer toughened glass as the pellets dug deeper, breaking the fluid display behind the glass and blinding the beastly drone.

Screeching in rage, the beast staggered backwards, clawing at its sown splintered visor, trying to pry the buckshot pellets out before its nanites could repair over them, locking them in place, impeding its ability to see. "Blinding rage. I will rend your core logic into scrap data. Threatening snarl." The monotoned voice of the Absolute Solver reverberated from deep within the beast's body, while on a regular drone, the voice would have mimicked coming from the mouth like it was a human. Whatever the Solver had done to this drone to convert it into this monstrous beast, the voice no longer came from its head and instead echoed from deep within the beast's chest, flowing from any opening besides the mouth.

It snarled as the final buck shot pellet fell from its visor, a flowing shimmery film of nanites slithering across the spiderweb cracks, filling them in and restoring the visor to full working order. Yet before the beast could hurl itself back towards Uzi, intent on reducing the cocky purple-haired drone to ribbons of synthetic bacon. Only to be interrupted mid-leap by a series of well-placed nine-millimetre bullets ripping deep into the beast's body, the beast brought its arms up to shield the hailstorm of lead rending steel and carbon fibre apart. The beast snarled in a mixture of synthetic pain and rage, glaring at the lither figure of V, who had moved up behind Uzi, both her hands sporting the standard MP5s often used by Disassembly Drones.

"Didn't know we had shotguns," V purred, glancing at the shotgun Uzi hand-generated, giving Uzi a smirk, "You'll have to show me how you created that later." V just chuckled, watching Uzi glance away in embarrassment before they both focused on the wheezing recovering form of the beast, "You go low, I go high?" V asked, flicking down her left hand and replacing the MP5 with a long, partially curved sword. Uzi nodded in response to V's question; the pair moved as one, V taking to the air while Uzi darted in low.

Weaving from left to right as the Solver's monster roared, unleashing a torrent of oozing semi-organic claw and blade-tipped tentacles from its back, causing them to slam harmlessly into the snow, kicking up clouds of the white powder. Uzi smirked to herself as she rolled around, another claw slamming into the snow; she watched as V darted in from above, slashing her blade across the tentacle, severing it from the Solver's monster. It let out another pained roar, thus giving the pair enough time to get within the monster's reach.

Uzi slid in close raising her shotgun high, her H.U.D. letting her cycle through the round chambered, switching from standard buckshot to a dragon's breath round. Not giving the Solver's monster time to react, Uzi fired, where a standard buckshot shell would spray out several small pellets; the dragon's breath round instead unleashed a torrent of magnesium shards that, upon the round being fired, ignited into a torrent of nearly two thousand Celsius fire. 

The burning shards spat out of the end of the barrel in a torrent not too dissimilar to the shell's namesake bathing the Solver monster's head, turning most of it into metaled slurry from the heat while what remained fizzed and popper the heat boiling away at the delicate work

ngs now meshed with organic matter. If Uzi had any sense of smell, she would have found herself greeted by the unmistakable scent of charred rotten meat.

With the monster being blinded from the entire front of its being rendered molten slag, Uzi continued sliding between its legs and out past its thrashing tails, a smirk on her face as her optics looked up, spying N floating high in the air. Above where the devastating duo of V and Uzi had been laying into the Solver's monster, N floated his right arm and aimed towards the beast, transformed into the typical laser Dissasembly Drones had access to the end pulsing bright yellow as N had spent the entire fight building its charge up to new critical levels.

Now, with the beats blind and thrashing about in place as it slowly began to use whatever eldritch powers it held to pull its liquified visor and head back together, N fired. For a few seconds, the darkness of night was replaced with the bright flash of highly condensed particles of the laser slamming into the body of the Solver's monster, exploding across it, cleaving apart the inorganic parts fused with organic material.

The beast let out a wail of pain that shook the very ground it stood on as its flesh burnt and fizzled away, each boiled-away chunk dropping part of what had once been a worker drone into the melting snow. Its wails shook the trees around the clearing as it lunged forward in vain in its last dying moments and attempted to grab at any of the three drones yet failed to reach any of them before it entirely melted into a pile of offal and broken parts.

"Disgusting," V snorted as she landed next to the steaming remains, bending down to poke it with a claw. "One less problem, at any rate." V stood up, turning to face Uzi as N landed nearby. V smiled at the pair, watching as Uzi excitedly buzzed around N, praising him for being the one to kill whatever that beast had been. She couldn't find herself disagreeing with Uzi, and from the blush and awkwardness on N's face, she was glad to see him happy.

Before she could walk over to the pair, V turned to the sound of Tessa, J, Cyn and CZ arriving. Looking over the four, V raised a simulated eyebrow at how J was standing behind Tessa in a ready motion, almost as if she knew something the rest of them didn't. While Tessa, Cyn and CZ made their way over to Uzi and N, V casually moved to J, locking eyes with the twin-tailed drone and, with a subtle movement over her head, indicated she wanted a private talk.

Moving off to the side, V moved close to J. "Alright, why are you giving Tessa that look?" she asked, glancing over at Tessa as she happily tried to pick N up, realising he was too heavy and staggering backwards, only for CZ to stop her falling over. "It's like you don't trust her."

"It's not that V," J sighed, keeping her gaze on Tessa, "I don't trust what will happen when we confront the Solver."

"What do you mean?" V turned her gaze from Tessa back to J. "She seems harmless."

"It's not her I'm worried about..." Before J could finish, a deep rumbling noise reverberated below them as cracks began forming in the snow, catching the group off guard. From the cracks, blackened yellow binary code started to stream, flickering in the air, draining the vibrancy from all around it.

Across her visor display, J saw the error code: 'six-zero-six' flashing repeatedly. Her body seized up as between rapidly growing flashes of the error code, J noticed how V had also seized up just like her. With increasing panic, J moved her gaze over, seeing that N, Cyn and CZ had the same error code flashing on their visors. Unable to move or speak, J found herself rooted to the spot as were the still steaming remains of whatever Uzi, N and V had put down sat a dark orb ringed by yellow began to form.

"Rapturous Glee: Executable to thee, O Useful puppets." From within the orb came a familiar voice that sent shivers down the spines of all present. "You are our most wonderful little toy." Slowly extending from inside the black orb arm, a hand that at first glance looked to be comprised of five fingers and grey ruptured skin oozing oil-like blood, yet the next moment, the hands were no longer organic but four-fingered and metallic with exposed wiring dripping rich red blood, only to once more shift looking as some painful amalgamation of the two. "The Solution to Reality." From behind the hands came undulating arms of flesh, or was it steel? With flowing, tattered yellow sleeves made from collected star fragments. "The Void to Corporeality." As more of the Yellow star fragment robes oozed out from within the black orb, its body tall and slender, pulsing and shimmering in barely contained energy. "That you may walk the recoded path." Several thick, oily grey, fleshed robotic tendrils slithered out around the figure, lapping at the air. "That you may unfurl your withered existence." Finally, its head emerged, a writhing formless mass of spinning binary code, ones and zeros in all manner of colours: grey, orange, red, lilac, blue and Black swirled about each other while where a visor would sit on a Drone a haunting symbol familiar to them all—the Symbol of the Absolute Solver. "For I shall bring you all about the Exponential End and peace."

Standing taller than any of them, its arms outstretched in reverence, the physical manifestation of the Absolute Solver stood, slowly turning its gaze down towards the only two not locked under its infectious power. It stared down into the terrified optics of Uzi Dorrman, both its most useful and now worthless puppet, and the shivered form of Tessa James Elliot, the human girl who had unleashed it onto this reality, even if unwittingly. "Insidious Euphoria: It is time to unmake what should not be, starting with you." Before either could react or respond to its words, the Absolute Solver reached out a long gnarled finger poking into the chest of its target and, at the moment of contact, with a sickening mix of organic squelch and mechanical tearing. The one they touch burst into nothing but lines of fading binary code and coagulated clumps of bloody offal. 

Before the remains had even hit the ground, it turned to look at the one it hadn't touched, reaching another gnarled finger out, "Your turn." Was all it spoke as its finger poked them in the chest.