Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Bite me!” she cried, leveling her sick as hell railgun at the monster she built it to slay. Finally, a chance to prove her worth and accomplish something great! She stared down Death, finger pulling the trigger as her magnum opus crackled to life in a brilliant flare of energy. In a burst of light bright as a supernova, life on their planet as they all knew it would shift forever-

Her alarm went off, and she groaned unhappily, stirring from her charging station. She slapped her visor to shut the infernal thing off and put on her much-hated frilly helmet. Louisa would lose her shit if she deviated at all from the uniform. She already hated the fact that Tessa let any of them have their own hair. She shuffled over to the mirror to adjust her stupid dress and make sure everything was copacetic, staring dejectedly at herself for a moment. 

She has got to stop perusing Tessa’s graphic novel collection at night. She kept not getting enough charge because she kept staying up to read…and then her reading kept bleeding into sweeping dreams of grandeur that were only ever bitterly disappointing to wake up from.

Who was she kidding with those dreams? In what freaking world was she a badass action hero?! She was built to be domestic help, and she was going to live out her days as some rich assholes’ maid until James eventually snapped and put a fork through her visor, probably. She couldn’t even have her small rebellions either, because L got up in her freaking grille in the worst of ways if so much as her laundry folding was even a little sloppy. Huge pain in the port.

Everything smoothed down and straightened and ready for the day, she took a moment to gaze wistfully out the window at the ever-gloomy sky above the manor that served as her home, and her prison.

Serial Designation Z dreamed of a day where she could properly strike terror into anyone who would dream of messing with her.

Shame that day would never come…

Chapter Text

His alarm went off, and he smacked his visor to shut it off and sat up with a wide grin on his faceplate. It was time to start another awesome day! He took a moment to look around his room and take in the sights of all his beloved things that helped maintain the wonderful status quo he’d been living for a few years.

One wall was completely covered in various drawings he’d pinned up, his more recent works that he was most proud of and enjoyed looking at. His favorite sketching subjects were the dogs he’d see in recordings and books, of course. He loved dogs. He wished so dearly that Copper-9 had actually real living dogs…but, unfortunately, the toxic death storm wasn’t really conducive to them staying alive. He had to content himself with just drawing a bunch of his own.

Some of his other drawing subjects included his little sister, who every so often insisted that he draw her in her finest frilliest ribbons, as well some characters from his favorite cartoons. He kept one drawing subject close to his chest, though; buried in a secret drawer of his desk were some sketches of his best friend and neighbor. He cherished them deeply but would sooner combust than admit to anyone they were in there.

Along another wall was where his desk was stationed, with his computer perched on it alongside a stack of comic books. It was a bit messy at the moment, but it was fine because he still knew where everything was! Probably. He at least could find his favorite comics easily, and that was the important part.

Satisfied that his room was as cozy as ever, he climbed down from his loft under the glow-in-the-dark-star-studded ceiling, walked over the corner where he kept his bag, and slung it over his shoulder. It was a weathered and well-loved over the shoulder bag that he’d stuck a bunch of little badges, stickers, and charms to over the years. Some kids liked to tease him about his ratty old sack, but it had served him well in hauling around his textbooks and art supplies, so he was loath to get rid of it. He was prone to getting very sentimental over what most would consider very menial things.

His dad assured him that it only made him more lovable, though.

To complete his look for the day, he reached over to a hook on the wall and put on his favorite cap, emblazoned with a cute dog bone. Heck yeah. He looked in the mirror and gave his reflection some finger guns, his eyelights flickering into a pair of digital shades.

“Lookin’ good, Ned!” he preened.

And then he squeaked and nearly jumped a foot in the air as his door opened unexpectedly.

“Were you giving yourself finger guns in the mirror again, Big Brother?” asked the little drone in the doorway, stifling a giggle.

“N-no!” he lied. “...Did I really take that long getting out of bed…?”

His little sister shrugged, a motion that made some of the large ribbons she was wearing bounce a little. “Father says he wants to talk to you after breakfast,” she said, sounding perhaps just a touch jealous. “He says he has big news.”

“Thanks for the update, little buddy. Time for breakfast?” Ned offered his sister his hand, and her mouth upturned in a sweet little smile as she took it.

The walk to the dining table was a quick one, and like usual for a school morning, their dad was sitting there sipping some low-grade fuel while reading the morning paper. He looked up and his eyelights brightened immediately as his children entered the room. “Ned! Cyn! Good morning, ya little goobs!”

Cyn immediately let go of Ned’s hand to scamper over to her seat with her somewhat uneven gait, and Ned gave his dad a wave before settling in his own seat, where a bowl of batteries was already set out.

Ron Chambers, like usual, looked a bit tired in the morning after his night shift watching the outer door. But he always, always perked up at breakfast when his kids came out. As he slept through a lot of the day and worked a lot of the night, breakfast was one of the best times for them to hang out as a family.

Maybe some people would mourn the struggle of having a parent that worked a graveyard shift, but Ned was a professional at finding silver linings! For starters…his dad was alive! And he was loving and emotionally open! Ned considered himself so, so lucky that he could say those things about his old man.

He knew that so, so many kids in his class weren’t so lucky…including his best friend.

Ned really thought his dad was super cool, though. He was a member of the WDF, the drones who work hard and put their lives on the line to protect the bunker! Sure…a lot of drones said they just sat around and played rummy all day, but Ned knew it took a lot to go sit out there by the doors, especially the outer door that his dad watched over. Those doors were all that stood between them and the dreaded Murder Drones that prowled the ruins of the city outside.

He’d dreamed about being a WDF member like his old man for a long time. He wanted to be a hero, he really did! He just…wasn’t the bravest drone sometimes. Or the smartest, if he was being honest with himself. But he had a strong desire in his core to do the right thing, and that counted for a lot in his favorite stories! He could go through some cool character development arcs and work on all that other stuff along the way.

“How are you this morning, Father?” Cyn asked sweetly, resting her chin in her palm as she greedily popped a battery in her mouth.

“Work last night was a hoot! So for starters, Makarov found a fresh deck of cards for the guys to use! That was nice of him…they kept grumbling all of the time about the numbers wearing off. What a guy!”

Ned nodded along with the story with a smile, while Cyn crunched on some more batteries with a deadpan expression. 

“But the big headline of the night was that Khan announced plans for…” Ron let the word hang for a moment, for dramatic effect. Cyn’s eyelights flicked back to the conversation with interest at the mention of Mr. Doorman, and N felt his core speed up. The WDF’s leader was a very taciturn man, so it was a big deal when he announced anything.

“...a. Fourth. Door!” Ron said with excitement, grinning widely. Ned let out a little impressed “oooooh!”

Cyn sighed. “I was hoping for a sick weapons system.”

“Doors keep us safe, kiddo,” Ron said, reaching over to pat the top of her helmet.

“It gets boring around here, though!” Cyn complained. “The news cycle would be a lot more entertaining if they had headlines like ‘Sick as Heck Laser Shoots Murder Drone Out of Sky,’ just saying.”

That was the thing that caught some people off-guard about Cyn and often put them off of her. She had a very soft, quiet voice…that belied a bit of a desire for chaos. Ned found it mostly endearing, though. It kept things from getting dull around here!

It was pretty unnerving when she sometimes talked about her desire to do things like put Murder Drone heads on pikes, though. He didn’t doubt it either, with how many of her dolls had ended up getting medieval executions during her games with them over the years. He shuddered a little at the thought. His sister could be a little scary sometimes. Can he really blame her, though? She’d been too frail to really go outside the family hab much growing up, and even now it was a bit of a gamble whether she could get through a given school day. It was really not helped by the bullies that sometimes liked shoving her around. Oh, they’d have their fun calling her nasty names and enjoying the fact that they couldn’t really meaningfully get hit back.

…until Ned showed up with a powerful right hook.

Ned didn’t much care for violence, but he knew that sometimes it was necessary to protect those more vulnerable. He…got suspended that particular day for cracking Chad’s visor, but he’d left Cyn alone since, so Ned didn’t regret it at all.

They’d also left Vera alone since then, too, by the sheer virtue of her hanging out with him. He didn’t really relish people being a bit scared of him, but if they left his best friend and sister alone, then so be it.

“That would be a great headline,” Ron conceded. “But a big laser isn’t quite as practical as a big industrial-strength door with top of the line hydraulics, sweetie.”

Cyn crossed her arms and pouted.

“Hey, dude, maybe after the fourth door is installed they could mount a laser on it?” Ned proposed, and it made Cyn smile a little at the thought. Then her smile fell.

“Hm. I’m not gonna stall my core on that one. Mr. Doorman hates fun.”

“Cyn! Be nice, he’s my boss,” Ron sighed.

Ned was quiet…because he knew Cyn was right. But maybe she shouldn’t say it? “He of all people would know how to keep our bunker safe, Cyn,” he finally said.

He could hear Vera’s voice in his head meekly disagreeing with him, and he frowned.

“We’re a bit defenseless if they ever get past the doors,” Cyn said quietly, looking deadly serious for once.

Vera’s voice in his head agreed with that. 

Ron sighed, standing up from his breakfast. “I promise, Cyn, the Murder Drones won’t get inside the bunker any time soon. Khan engineered those things backwards and forwards to be as Murder Drone-proof as possible. You don’t need to worry about those monsters, okay, kiddo?”

Cyn continued to pout, leading Ron to shake his head with a little yawn. 

“Anyhoo…I’m beat, and it’s coming up on time for ya goobs to get running along to school. Before you go, though…Ned, a word?”

“See you later,” Cyn muttered, grabbing her bag and cane and heading for the front door as Ron pulled Ned aside. He felt his core speed up a little in excitement. As usual, Cyn was completely right.

When the front door slid open and closed to let Cyn out, Ron laid his hands on Ned’s shoulders and gave him an earnest smile. “Big opportunity for you, kiddo. With the fourth door being planned, the WDF is going to need more guards to fill the ranks.”

“Oh, biscuits,” Ned gasped. Did this mean what he thought it meant?!

“So, Khan’s opening up the ranks to interns, to show ‘em the ropes of how the WDF is run. And I said, ‘hey boss, I know a kid who’s really great!’”

Ned grinned eyelight to eyelight. “No way!”

“Yes way!” Ron chuckled, lifting up Ned’s cap for a moment to ruffle his hair. “You’re invited to come by tonight, if you’re interested!”

“I’m so interested,” Ned cheered, throwing his arms around his dad. “Thank you thank you thank you!”

Ron chuckled and affectionately rubbed his son’s back. “You’re welcome, kiddo. Now, run along! Don’t wanna be late for class!”

“Oh, biscuits, yeah! See you, dad!” Ned yelled with a wave before running out the door, stumbling a little in his haste.

He was in such a rush that he nearly literally ran into Vera while rounding a corner. She stumbled back a little with an unhappy grunt, and Ned started to panic when he realized who he’d almost bulldozed.

“Oh BISCUITS Vera I am so so sorry-”

“I-it’s fine, Ned,” she mumbled, reaching up to re-straighten her glasses.

“Still…I should be more careful…”

“It’s fine, ” she repeated, before taking in a long vent of air. “Besides…it would’ve been pretty good timing to go to the nurse’s office, probably…”

“Aw, buddy,” he sighed. “I’m sure your project’s fine!”

“You said that about the last one,” she muttered a little bitterly, before clapping a hand over her mouth. “O-oh! I’m sorry, Ned, I just-”

“Yeah, I know…Mr. Brown can be really harsh. But I think you do great.”

Ned felt his core skip a beat as Vera ducked her head a little, a lavender blush lighting up her visor. “...Th-thanks, Ned. You’re the best.”

Okay, maybe now he was blushing, too. 

“Thanks. But we really gotta get to class, Vee! We’re running late!”

“Right,” she said with a panicked nod, starting to run ahead. It was then that Ned noticed that she was carrying a much bigger bag than usual…

Weren’t they all assigned PowerPoints?

Oh, well. He had places to be right now, and he stopped worrying about it. He needed to be worrying about having his notecards in order!!

Mr. Brown the teacher sighed as they ran in and took their seats, and in the back of the class Cyn rolled her eyelights a little when she saw who Ned ran in with.

“ Try not to be late on a presentation day,” he deadpanned, before looking across the room at the clock and deciding not to mark them tardy, a generous act of mercy from him. “Okay…let’s get this over with. When I call your name, come up and give your presentation.”

Ned silently gave Vera a double thumbs up, and she gave him an uneasy smile in return.

“First up, Vera Doorman.”

Vera’s eyelights hollowed.

“You got this, Vee!” Ned whispered as she shakily stood up, bringing her massive bag with her to the front of the room.

“Vera, what is that?” Mr. Brown sighed when he noticed the bag.

“Oh! Um! It’s my p-project,” Vera squeaked, a shaky hand reaching for the zipper.

“What does that have to do with your plan to save the failing rations program from the assignment?”

Vera nervously tapped her fingers together. “Oh. Um. N-nothing, sorry, Mr. Brown. I did my project on a much more urgent topic.”

Mr. Brown raised a digital eyebrow and rolled his eyelights. “Vera, I can’t give you a grade if you didn’t follow the-”                               

A hush fell over the room as Vera pulled a brightly glowing object that looked scarily like a huge gun out of her bag. She shouldered it with a look of cold determination that sent a chill through Ned’s oil. For once, her voice carried loud and clear through the entire classroom. The green light glinted harshly off her glasses.                                       

“This is how we’re going to destroy the Murder Drones once and for all.”

Chapter Text

The classroom was completely silent for a moment.

“That’s so not the vibe!” Riley cried, opening Pandora’s Box of uneasy and excited chatter.

“Vera, reckless declarations of war are only worth two points on the rubric,” Mr. Brown deadpanned.

Vera’s eyelights hollowed, and she trembled uneasily for a moment, looking around the room at all the frightened and/or mocking faces.

Then they landed on Ned, and he uneasily gave her a double thumbs up and an encouraging smile. She needed the support of a friend right now. Vera’s eyelights filled back in and she straightened her stance back up.

“With this magnetically amplified photon converger, I should be able to do enough damage to a Murder Drone’s core to shut it down for good,” she spoke, putting the authority back into her voice. For a fleeting moment, the normally rather meek girl looked a lot like her father…a comparison that Ned knew would make her bristle and flinch. “It’s a prototype, but it should work, and once I have proof of concept, then we can outfit the WDF with similar weapons and take back Copper-9!”

She proudly brandished her admittedly pretty sick railgun with a flourish, grinning widely for a moment.

It was ruined by Chad scoffing. “You seriously expect us to believe that you built that thing?”

Vera immediately deflated. “Yes! I poured my oil, digital sweat, and digital tears into this!”

“Vera, is it supposed to be that color?” Mr. Brown interrupted.

Vera’s eyelights hollowed once more as she looked at her railgun that had started crackling from a bit of mishandling, lights changing color from green to red. “O-oh! Oh no no no no no please-”

She didn’t get to finish that plea before her railgun violently exploded in her face. The classroom door bowed outward from the force, and all the front desks were knocked over with dazed students on the floor. Ned scurried past them to the front of the room, where Vera was curled up in on herself, clutching at her half-shattered visor with pained sobs. Ned’s eyelights hollowed and he scooped her into his arms without any further thought. She needed immediate medical attention, and…well. He’d always been one of the stronger drones in his class. While his classmates erupted into chatter and hurried whispers about Vera’s mishap, he shouldered his way past several people and shoved the door open, skidding out into the hall before booking it towards the nurse’s office.

Vera held what was left of her visor in her hands, trying to stop her crying. “I…N-Ned…that c-couldn’t have g-g-gone worse…!”

“Shhh,” Ned tried to soothe as the nurse’s office finally came into view. “Ms. Alice will fix you up and then we can go from there, okay? Baby steps.”

Vera sniffled and went quiet, making Ned sigh sympathetically as he opened the door.

“Howdy, Ned- oh stars above, what’d ya do to yer face, sweetheart?” Alice had looked up from her paperwork only to startle a little at the state of Vera’s face. She immediately got to her feet and started gathering up her first aid supplies while Ned got Vera settled in a seat as gently as he could manage. Vera tried her best to not make eye contact while Alice crouched by her chair and started gently dabbing repair gel on the wound. She winced and hissed a little at each touch.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” Alice said sympathetically. “It’s gotta sting a lil’ before it gets better. Hang in there. Almost done, I promise.”

Ned rubbed Vera’s back sympathetically as she swallowed back more wretched-sounding sobs. It’d been a long time since he’d seen her so viscerally upset. How badly he wished he could ease that pain…but he knew so, so much of it was out of his hands entirely.

She’d always wanted to impress her dad, ever since the disappearance of her mom had made him distant. He’d thrown himself so deeply into his work…and when impressing him failed, Vera had sworn to steal his thunder if necessary, if it would mobilize the WDF against the predators that lurked out in the blizzards.

“They’re pinning us in, Ned,” she’d quietly muttered to him in the past, after her dad had come into class to lecture about the three doors and their importance to society. “And if anything gets through, we’re trapped in here like a Murder Drone buffet.”

Her fists had clenched as the light had caught her glasses, and she’d looked very striking.

She was still very striking whenever she got on the topic of Murder Drone hunting, honestly. It was like a switch flipped. He thought maybe she could command a squad of soldiers like that…if they’d ever give her a chance.

It wasn’t looking very likely after she’d blown half her face off with her own prototype.

“...There,” Alice said softly as she coated the last part of the wound in repair gel. “Now for the bandages. Hold still, sweetheart. Almost done.”

“Kay,” Vera said, utterly dejected.

“How’d yer face get in such a state, anyhow? If ya don’t mind me askin’.”

Vera sighed heavily. “...I…s-screwed up again. What else is new.”

“You can fix the railgun and try again?” Ned suggested. “The lightbulb wasn’t built in a day! Or…wait…was that Rome…?”

“You’re very sweet, Ned, but I blew my shot,” Vera muttered. “Chad and the rest will get the word out, and nobody will take my prototype seriously ever again.” She sounded on the verge of tears again, and Alice gave her a look of concern as she started applying the bandages.

“Now, what’s all of this talk about a prototype railgun?” she asked. “Sounds dangerous for you young’uns to be messin’ around with.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Vera sighed. “Nothing else will kill a Murder Drone, though.”

Alica gave her a grave look, orange eyelights intense like flames.

“Don’t go messin’ with the Murder Drones, young’uns. Nothin’ good can come from that, y’hear?”

“Nothing good can come of sitting here waiting for them to claw their way in, either!” Vera cried with sudden intensity. “At least my way, we’d be proactive, dad!!”

Her currently functioning eyelight hollowed and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

“O-oh…s-sorry…I-I…”

“Vera, I think we need to have a chat with yer old man,” Alice sighed. “This is serious.”

“That won’t help anything! I’ve tried talking to him about this, and he always shuts me down and says doors are the only way! They’re not!!”

“Vera, sweetheart, y’need to calm-”

“YOU calm down!” Vera cried before stumbling to her feet, shoving Alice and Ned aside, and running from the room. Alice shook her head in dismay. 

“I jus’ don’t know what we’re gonna do with that one,” she muttered to herself, before looking to Ned. “Thanks for bringin’ her here, sweetheart. Now can ya be a dear and make sure she keeps those bandages on for the next few hours?”

Ned snapped his best salute at her, then jogged out of the room after Vera. She was already out of sight, but he suspected he knew where she was headed. He glanced around to make sure the halls were clear, then scurried over to a maintenance ladder and climbed up into the vents. It was a tight and winding route crawling through them, but he soon found himself in a little widened area in the vents, lit with a few string lights and sparsely dedicated with pillows. There Vera sat with her knees tucked to her chest, scowling at the world.

“Hey, Vee,” he greeted softly. “You good?”

“No,” she snapped, before giving him a guilty look. “Ugh…sorry. Look…it’s just been a really bad day, I’m sorry Ned.”

“Yeah, it must suck pretty hard right now,” he agreed, acknowledging her pain as he settled beside her. She let out an unhappy groan and flopped her head against his shoulder.

“Understatement of the year. But…now that I get to sit here alone for a bit? I can hear myself think…”

Ned nodded, a bit anxious. When Vera talked about thinking, she usually followed it up by saying something dramatic-

“I think if I can get one final part, I can stabilize the prototype! But…uh…I think it might be outside.”

…There it is.

“You sure you can’t find it in any of the scrap piles in here?” he asked, already kind of knowing the answer but hoping she’d say something else.

She shook her head. “I’ve picked those piles clean, Ned.” Of course she had. “I’m pretty sure that if I’m gonna find what I need…it’ll be outside the doors. I keep telling my dad…”

She trailed off muttering bitterly about staying trapped inside being detrimental while Ned looked at the ceiling and took deep vents of air. Vera had been prone to reckless ideas before, but this one just about took the cake.

“Vee,” he finally said gently. “You know I think you’re really really awesome and support you all the way-”

Vera sighed heavily. “That’s your ‘I’m-about-to-disagree-with-Vera’ voice,” she said all too knowingly.

“Biscuits!” he hissed under his breath before catching himself. “Err. I mean. Maybe going outside is a bad idea? You said the prototype’s not done yet, right…?”

“Not you too!” Vera cried in dismay. “Ned, please not you too. The only way I can complete the prototype is by going outside, you dork! That’s why I have to go!”

Ned gave her a sad, concerned look. 

Vera held his gaze with a hardened eyelight, the effect only enhanced by the honestly badass bandages on her face.

“Either you come with me, Ned…or…stand aside. I’m doing this. Tonight.”

“T-tonight?” he squeaked, eyelights hollowing. “That’s really really soon, and I-”

“And you what?” she asked, eyelight narrowing at him.

Ned averted his gaze, knowing she wouldn’t like what he was going to say. “I’m…starting as a WDF intern tonight,” he admitted.

Vera averted her gaze from him in turn. “You frickin’ traitor, huh? No wonder you’re so against me going outside…”

“No!” Ned cried defensively. “Vee, I think you’re brilliant, and your railgun is really cool! A-and maybe one day we really can fight the Murder Drones!” Vera perked up and flicked her eyelight back towards him, so he took it as a good sign and kept going. “Just…m-maybe you sneaking outside alone isn’t the best way to go about it.”

“You have any bright ideas?” she finally asked. Ned’s digital brows furrowed in thought.

“Honestly…um…the best I got is maybe, uh…I come with you?”

He regretted saying it immediately, and Vera turned and gave him a winning smile that threatened to melt his core.

“And you’re my ticket out!” she continued his malformed thought. Oh, biscuits. “You can ask about inspecting the doors or whatever, and you can sneak me out! Ned, this is perfect!”

Looking back on it, Ned could pinpoint this as the exact moment his and Vera’s lives changed course forever.

All it took was one little conversation in a hidden away little room in the vent system, one that only the two little harbingers would ever hear. 

Chapter Text

Ned was a little surprised that he wasn’t the only new recruit being shuffled into the corridor to be introduced to the WDF. Though, in retrospect, maybe he really shouldn’t have been. As he rounded the corner with his dad, his eyelights made contact with the blue ones of his classmate Beau, who dipped his hat in greeting before facing forward again.

Beau Underwood, son of the school nurse Alice, had always been one of the coolest kids in the class. He was incredibly quiet, a boy of few words. He much preferred speaking with his actions, which included chilling out in cool poses in the hallway and going out to the big empty evac zone to practice taking potshots with his revolver. Where the heck did he even get a revolver?! Did his mom even know he had it?! He certainly didn’t divulge any of that information. So. Cool.

Even Beau looked a little giddy when Khan Doorman walked out to meet the new recruits, though. He gave Beau an approving nod, and then his usually stern face cracked into a fond little smile when his optics settled on Ned. The smile turned into a quiet chuckle as Ned stood up straight and snapped into a proper salute.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm, kiddo, but we’re not that formal here,” the leader of the WDF said. “Mutual respect means a lot more than formal gestures.”

“Lots of mutual respect! Got it!” Ned blurted out in excitement.

“You’ll learn well,” Khan said in approval, before jerking his head toward the door, looking at Ron. “I’ll take the kids from here. You go watch the door.”

“All right! You be good for Khan, okay, Ned?” Ned gave a thumbs up, and Ron grinned and gave a thumbs up in return. “Oh, you’ll love him, Khan.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of how much of a go-getter he is,” Khan chuckled. “He keeps up with Vera. He’ll do fine here.”

And as soon as Khan mentioned his daughter, the digital lines in his face seemed to instantly deepen, and Ned couldn’t help but sigh. He and Vera really needed a big heart to heart one of these days. He really wasn’t as bad as Vera said he was, at least in Ned’s opinion…

As Ron headed out toward his station at the outer door, Khan turned and gestured for the boys to follow him. “First things first! Every new WDF recruit gets a crash course on Door Theory!”

Ned was ashamed that he had started zoning out during Door Theory. The honest truth was that he already had learned a lot about the doors through osmosis by virtue of hanging out with Vera a lot! Sometimes they’d pore over books together in the Doormans’ hab, which meant Ned had overheard Khan talking a lot about doors over the years. Usually while Vera scowled and did a sock-puppet-talking motion with her hand while Khan wasn’t looking. He could picture it now, and almost started giggling.

He knew the important bits, though. There were three doors, and their top of the line hydraulics were all controlled by one system. Said system had two master key cards: one was held by the WDF, and one was held by Khan himself in case of emergencies. They kept it to a master and a spare to lower the chances of the key card falling into less than responsible hands. Thinking about that made him shift nervously; Vera had planned to steal her dad’s copy from his room while he was out here giving him and Beau the tour. Something about that really didn’t sit right with Ned.

Frankly…a lot of this plan just didn’t sit right with him, and he really wished now that maybe he had tried harder to talk Vera out of it.

Her plan went something like this: she would steal her dad’s key and sneak through the vents with her railgun. Ned was going to learn about door stuff and then get issued his standard-issue WDF pistol, and he’d meet her out by the outer door and help distract his old man for her while she opened the door. Then they’d go striking out into the snowy dark yonder and…uh…well, Vera intended to prove herself by shooting down a Murder Drone with her prototype. Ned honestly wasn’t very sure about that one. He was having second and third and fourth and fifth thoughts the closer this scheme came to being put into action.

He startled a little when a text from Vera came in on his HUD.

V: yo you got the gun yet?

He tapped his fingers together uneasily and watched Khan gesture enthusiastically at a blueprint of a door before sending his reply.

Self: nope still door theory 101

V: ur kidding. Its been two hours ned

Self: really? felt more like 1. srry 

V: he’ll keep going 4ever if you let him

Ned sighed uneasily as he watched Khan enthusiastically roll out yet another board of blueprints for his captive audience. As biased as she could be against her dad…Vera had a genuine point this time. But…now that he thought about it…if he just sat here politely and played it cool, maybe Khan would talk so long that there wasn’t enough time left in the shift to wander out and get killed by a Murder Drone? That was an option!

He sat there smiling politely for several more minutes before Vera pinged him again, and he winced.

V: well?

Self: he’s very passionate about doors v

V: yeah i noticed. For robogods sake find an out or ill make one 4 u

Ned deflated a little in his chair. There goes his brilliant plan to wait this out. He’d known Vera long enough to know that when she’d had enough and made threats like that…she would make good on them. He raised his hand and did his best to really play up the nervous uneasy kid angle. Which really wasn’t hard to do. Right now he was a deeply nervous uneasy kid.

Khan took a moment to notice, enthralled with his blueprints for the fourth door. Ned had to really waggle his arm around like he had spasming servos.

“Oh! Ned! Question?”

“Not to rush things,” Ned said with a nervous giggle. “But um…when do we get the standard issue equipment? My dad says it’s always good to know your equipment!” That wasn’t actually a lie; Ron was known to speak enthusiastically about equipment safety. Especially with Cyn, who seemed to hold no such regard for the concept. It rang true enough that Khan chuckled fondly.

“Ah, you are your father’s boy. Let me get these blueprints put away and I’ll get you your bags.”

As Khan turned his back, Beau tipped his hat and gave Ned a grateful smile and a two finger salute. Ned chuckled and saluted back. So. Cool.

Self: k v stand down he’s taking us to the stuff

V: good i was about 2 start rusting. Get it and go right 2 outer door

Self: kk

Soon enough Khan led them out of the little office full of blueprints, and down the corridor to some equipment lockers. He opened one and pulled out two little bags that clanked with stuff. The older drone took a knee in front of one of the bags and gestured for the boys to crowd in a bit closer.

“Now, Beau and Ned. A lot of this stuff is emergency equipment, intended for immediate crisis. These things are not toys, and if we catch you playing with them recklessly, they will be confiscated, and your internship potentially suspended.” He spoke sternly, and gave each boy a serious look in turn. They both gave him quiet nods, and, satisfied, Khan began to go through the contents of the bags with him.

“Now, for starters, walkie-talkies. For whatever reason, they’ve been proven to have a longer range than our built-in message systems. If for whatever reason you’re stuck a distance away, radio with these.”

Ned had a sinking feeling that if you were that far away and in that desperate need of help…you were probably already on a Murder Drone’s menu and not much could save you from that.

Next, Khan produced a pair of horseshoe magnets, carefully angling them away from both his own head and those of the boys. “These are for sedative purposes only, if you encounter a hostile drone that needs subduing for whatever reason. Now, we don’t have much strife here in the bunker, but…you never know. It’s the WDF’s job to keep the peace inside as much as it is to keep the Murder Drones outside,” Khan explained. “But I’m afraid that we will be having some very serious talks if I ever catch you using these recreationally.”

“No recreational use. Got it, sir,” Ned repeated back, earning a nod of approval.

Khan gave them both a grave look as he produced the final item in the bag: a pistol. Yes, it was smaller and way more analog than Vera’s sick railgun, but it was still a whole entire gun. Ned looked at it with a healthy respect…as did Beau, who handled his own pistol regularly.

“These pistols are emergency use only,” Khan stressed. “They are self-defense weapons. Now, I don’t think either of you are remotely the type…but if we catch you threatening anyone with these, you will be immediately suspended and we will be forced to take disciplinary action.”

Both Beau and Ned nodded solemnly. Khan packed up the bag he’d opened and handed it off to Beau, then handed Ned the second one.

“Now, that about wraps up first night orientation. You boys are free to go for the rest of the night.” Khan gave a two finger salute farewell, then headed off back towards his office, presumably to work more on the plans for the fourth door. Beau tipped his hat to Ned and started wandering back into the bunker, probably right back to his mom’s hab. Ned, on the other hand, started his trek toward the outer door. As much as he dreaded what was about to go down…he couldn’t deny being excited to say hi to his dad after his orientation, carrying his big bag of official WDF gear. He was gonna be so proud…

Self: heading to outer door now, got stuff

V: way ahead of u, hurry up dork :) 

Ned hustled his way over there, waving to several other WDF guards as he went by. They were happy to open the inner and middle doors for him; they knew his dad was stationed at the outer door, and as far as they knew, he was just going to go say hi and celebrate. They were happy to accommodate. Everybody liked Ron!

Finally, he stood on the precipice of disaster as he walked out toward the station right behind the outer door. His dad was dozing at his desk with his chin in the palm of his hand…till he startled awake at the sound of Ned’s boots jogging toward him. He immediately got to his feet and held his arms open, and Ned jogged over and threw his arms around his dad. Ron immediately returned the hug in kind, squeezing him tight with an excited noise.

“Look at my little WDF drone in training!” Ron all but squealed, lifting Ned’s cap to ruffle his hair affectionately. “So, how’d your first night go?”

“Khan lectured about doors for two hours!” Ned grinned, right as a vent cover popped off behind him and Vera dropped to the ground behind him, landing in a superhero pose with a railgun on her back. Ned gave a really exaggerated and animated thumbs up and “OK” hand to keep his dad distracted from what Vera was doing right over his shoulder. Thankfully, Ron was entirely too focused on feeling fatherly pride to pass the spot check.

“Oh, just like Khan,” Ron chuckled fondly. “Just wait till he makes another announcement about progress on the fourth door! That’ll be another three hours, hah. Builds character around here!”

“I’m sure it does…” Ned said with a little chuckle. He could hear Vera slapping the card against the scanner behind him and grumbling to herself at the “rejected!” beeps.

“You and Beau get along okay? He’s pretty quiet.”

“Oh, Beau’s great!” Ned chirped. “Yeah, super cool. It’s gonna be fun working with him…definitely…”

He trailed off somewhat at the sound of Vera fumbling the key card onto the floor behind him, and Ron squinted suspiciously for a moment…and then he chuckled.

“Look at you, making work friends! Attaboy. Oh, I’m just so excited for you, Ned! This is going to open up so many doors for you!”

And then Ron’s voice died in his synthesizer as the outer door abruptly opened, letting in a flurry of irradiated snow.

“Hi, Mr. Chambers!” Vera said cheerfully, waving as she ran up and grabbed Ned’s wrist. “Really nice seeing you! OKAYBYE!!”

Before either Chambers could properly protest, Vera started sprinting and nearly dragging Ned behind her, charging out into the snowy unknown.

Ned gave his horrified father a final salute as he ran, and then the outer door slammed shut behind him.

“WE DID IT NED!!” Vera squealed happily…before her eyelights hollowed, abruptly remembering that they were outside the bunker now. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Let’s go. We’ll probably find the most scrap around that spire. Quick in and out.”

Ned gulped nervously, looking up at the ominous Spire looming in the near distance, haloed by the glow of the moons, framed by human ruins. Rumor had it that Spire was made entirely out of Worker corpses…

“I really don’t know about this, Vee,” he whispered, eyelights hollowing, rattling a little in his casing from terror. “That place is definitely super deadly…”

“We got this far! Don’t bail on me now,” Vera replied, a manic excitement glowing in her eyelights. “The rest of our lives start tonight! Our lives as heroes!”

Ned did admittedly like the thought of being a bonafide hero.

He nervously fished his pistol out of his bag.

Vera grinned, the lenses of her glasses glinting harshly in the light of the moons, obscuring her eyelights.

“Now all we gotta do is go secure a part and bring down a Murder Drone.”

Ned had a strong feeling that that was a lot easier said than done.

Chapter Text

Were it not for the omnipresent sense of looming catastrophe, it would have been a nice walk, Ned thought.

Vera clung pretty tightly to his wrist as they trudged through the snow, under broken streetlights and past shattered cars. The toxic death storm was relatively calm tonight, which meant they didn’t have to fight the wind too hard. Snowflakes blew past all around them, piling up in drifts and landing on their casing, where they melted after a few moments.

Ned didn’t think he’d ever been somewhere so quiet. Even in the latest hours in the bunker, he would always be able to hear the ventilation systems humming, or see WDF members out on patrol. Out here, though…the only sound and motion came from the storm. If he blocked out the howling of the wind and the crunching of snow under his and Vera’s boots, there would be complete silence. 

Vera’s first scavenging spot was in front of a pile-up of cars, frozen in place after their big crash together. Even all these years later, a few shards of glass from the shattered windows jutted out of the snow like glinting icy fangs. Ned’s eyelights hollowed when he realized he could see a frozen human skeleton sitting inside one of the wrecks. Its neck looked fatally fractured from the crash. He stared at it in morbid fascination as Vera started pawing through mechanical debris. He knew humans had lived on Copper-9, of course; every droneling was taught about how bravely the WDF fought to liberate dronekind from humanity’s oppression before the core collapse. He’d just never expected to be this close to the skeleton of one. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for the humans, looking at the wreck…maybe they’d been trying to get out of the city when the core had collapsed, sealing their doom. It was already too late for the broken neck guy either way.

His attention snapped back to Vera when she stood up and dusted some snow off of herself. “Ugh…nothing here. I mean…I didn’t really think there would be, but it would have been nice…” she cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder at the looming Spire. Ned couldn’t help but be disappointed, too. Would have been really nice to find the part outside the actual Spire and then get home really really quick before any Murder Drones knew they were here.

Vera turned herself around to get a better look at the Spire, and then she crouched down behind a car and dragged Ned down with her, making him yelp a little until she slapped a hand over his mouth. Her eyelights hollow, she cautiously poked her head out to look at the Spire again.

“Okay…um. So here’s the plan. We stake the place out for a little bit, and if there’s no signs of activity…we go in and look for the part,” she said, trying to keep her voice even.

It really made Ned realize that she was just as scared as he was…but so, so very brave about it. He nodded and gave her a quick salute, which did make her give him a fond little smile. A few blush lines appeared on his visor as she turned her optics toward the Spire once more.

Up close like this, Ned was horrified to see that the rumors seemed to be true. It was a bit hard to make out from here, but it seemed like the walls were really built out of Worker corpses. He could see bits of red light dotting the wall, the same shade as a Worker’s FATAL ERROR screen. He couldn’t help but shudder a little. When Vera put a steadying hand on his shoulder, he leaned into it a little. At least they had each other out here, if nothing else.

Several long minutes went by like that. There were no signs of any Murder Drones in the sky in that time.

“Now or never,” Vera finally squeaked, standing up and hauling Ned back to his feet. “I-in and out. Real quick.”

“Real quick,” he agreed, getting his pistol situated comfortably in his hand before they started trudging their way through the snow towards the Spire entrance. Super up close, there was no denying that it was a spire of corpses. Ned had to stifle a squeal as he nearly tripped over a dead Worker’s arm jutting from the snow, as if reaching for help that would never, ever come. He felt his oil chill as he regained his balance and jogged a little to catch up to Vera. This place was terrifying.

The world only got even more quiet as they cautiously crept inside the Spire. Only a little outside light made it through the entrance, and yawning above them was a dark vault lit only by possibly hundreds of FATAL ERROR messages, little flickering red parodies of distant starlight. The floor was riddled with the dismembered remains of Murder Drone meals, half buried in snow. Looming at the center of the interior was a-

“Spaceship,” Ned whispered in excitement, nudging Vera. She rolled her eyelights and nodded, then her eyelights hollowed as her optics landed on something glowing green in the snow. 

“Ned, that’s the part!” she hissed in excitement before jogging to go grab it. Ned gave her two big thumbs up…and then his eyelights hollowed as he heard a faint ringing and whispering above him. Right as Vera stood up with her part in hand, looking triumphant…she was bowled over by Ned tackling her to the ground, pinning her behind some rubble. She opened her mouth to protest, and he slapped a hand over it with a desperately pleading look.

Vera stopped her struggling as a figure with bladed wings swooped into the Spire and landed right on top of that funky little spaceship with legs. The cruelly sharp feathers glinted brightly in the dim light as a tail tipped in a glowing vial of nanite acid swayed behind them.

That was a freaking Murder Drone. 

Vera started to hyperventilate, so Ned gently took her hands in his and helped her maneuver her railgun off of her back and into her grip. Her hands trembled violently as she started working on putting the new part in. Ned hardly dared to vent any air himself, lest the monster hear them. He watched it with his utmost focus as his own pistol shook in his hand.

The Murder Drone drank the remaining oil from a severed head, then crushed it in its massive claws and tossed it aside. He was briefly reminded of Chad with cans of high-grade fuel at the one wild party he’d ever been dragged to, and shook his head to clear the thought. Not the time. But…the more he looked, the more he realized the Murder Drone was a lot more person-like than he ever wanted to consider. It was wearing a fluffy jacket not too horribly unlike a Worker’s, and a matching beanie with a pom-pom on top. And if it weren’t for the fang-lined maw splitting its faceplate, well…it would certainly look a lot like a Worker’s faceplate with a different mouth. He watched as it seemed to sniff the air, feathers rustling with a faint ringing as it flexed its wings…and Ned realized with horror that it might be able to smell them.

“Vera, we gotta go,” he whispered as quietly as he could manage. Vera looked up and nodded at him a second later, the instant she’d finished swapping out the power cell of her railgun.

And then Ned glanced over at the spaceship and realized with core-stalling horror that the Murder Drone wasn’t there anymore. There was a ringing above their heads…

And then the earth beneath them quaked from the force of the Murder Drone landing. It cackled in a feminine voice as it stared at them with that horrible slasher smile and golden X in place of eyelights.

It sounded almost like an evil laugh from one of Ned’s favorite cartoons.

Before he could make any more observations, though, Vera tried to lift up her railgun and fire it in the monster’s face…only for that wicked tail to whip around and sting her through the leg. With a horrible giggle the thing whipped its tail again, sending Vera flying head-first into some rubble, her railgun falling uselessly into the snow a few feet away.

“VERA!!” he screamed. Oh, biscuits, she was curled up and hissing in pain as she held her leg, nanite acid already starting to eat through it. The giggling Murder Drone prowled menacingly towards her…though it paused very briefly to tilt its head in curiosity at the railgun, glowing and humming softly in the snow.

That gave Ned just enough of a time window to flick his safety off and take a panicked shot. He’d aimed in the rough neighborhood of the back of its head. Fate must have been smiling down at him, because it went through its beanie and some glowing yellow fluid spurted out the other side. He flinched a little at the uncannily Worker-like scream of agony that pealed out of the monster’s chassis.

“Oh, you’re first,” the Murder Drone growled, slasher smile contorted into a furious snarl. 

“Oh biscuits, you talk?!” Ned all but screamed, stress lines forming rings under his hollow eyelights.

“Hah. As much as you’re about to freaking bleed,” it- she- purred as she prowled towards him. He realized that one of the five nodes on her headband was flickering red as it wept glowing yellow fluid. That must’ve been what he hit.

“Um?! Maybe we can talk about something nice! It’s lonely out here, right? Pretty inhospitable t-toxic death storm, huh?!”

“Nice try, toaster,” the Murder Drone snorted, claws clicking together as she advanced ever closer. “Hope you’re proud of that little trick shot, because it’s the last-”

She didn’t finish her sentence.

Right as Ned was starting to calculate the most profitable deity to pray to, a brilliant green flash off to his side lit everything up like the sun. He screamed in terror for a moment…then realized that the blaze of light wasn’t aimed at him at all.

Vera clutched her railgun closely as she fired it, the concentrated wrath of Robo-God aimed directly at the Murder Drone’s head. 

For a brief moment, the world was nothing but cleansing green light, and all of Ned’s sensors momentarily went on the fritz from the surge of energy.

And then everything went back into darkness, and Ned could get his bearings back in time to see the headless corpse of the Murder Drone collapse into the snow.

Despite her injury, Vera gasped in pure joy. “Oh my Robo-G-god,” she whispered, before screaming in excitement. “SUCK ON THAT, DAD!!”

Ned was super excited for a moment! They did it! They actually brought down a Murder Drone!! Now he just had to get Vera back home and hope that there was some kind of treatment for nanite acid…

His thought was immediately derailed by the Murder Drone sitting back up, groaning in exhaustion as its head began to reform out of a shimmery silver liquid. He and Vera clung to each other with a terrified scream. Oh biscuits this was how they died-

One of those nodes was still glowing red as the Murder Drone came back online…and perfectly normal looking yellow eyelights flickered on instead of the X, over a normal looking mouth.

Her tail flicked in irritation, and she immediately frowned as her digital eyebrows furrowed into a scowl.

“Ugh…my freakin’ head…Who even are you people?!”

Vera gave Ned an utterly terrified look. Her railgun had dimmed and was flashing a 30 minute cooldown timer at her.

He inhaled deeply. Here went everything.

He saluted with a big grin.

“We’re the new guys in the sector, heh…”

She crossed her arms and raised a digital eyebrow at him.

Chapter Text

Ned chuckled nervously and rubbed at the back of his head, fully expecting to get eaten within the next five seconds.

Finally, the Murder Drone spoke after several quiet moments of looking them over judgmentally.

“You guys are a little short for Disassemblers,” she muttered.

“Bad day at the factory,” Ned lied, on the slim off-chance she actually bought it.

The Murder Drone let out a loooooong groan and Vera tugged desperately on Ned’s arm to leave. Now. Then she collapsed to one knee as her bad leg gave out, and she hissed in pain. That got the Murder Drone’s attention and her eyelights squinted at her.

“Geez, you stuck yourself badly,” she snorted. “What, they not put nanites in your saliva either?”

Vera and Ned shot each other a disbelieving glance with hollowed eyelights.

“...No?” Ned tried. “Really bad day at the factory.”

The Murder Drone snorted derisively with a roll of her eyelights. “Yeah, that freaking figures. Our wonderful corporate overlords are always taking shortcuts. I’m sure you’ve noticed that they cheaped out on our landing pod too.” She flicked the tip of her tail to point at the decrepit spaceship with legs and sneered. “One way only, frickin’ jerks.”

“They trapped yo-US here?” Ned asked quietly, catching his near-fumble as Vera tried to hang off him to help herself back to her feet. That bad leg was not having any of it, though.

“Yup,” the Murder Drone said, popping the P for emphasis. “Welcome to the rest of your lives, slaving away for the sake of Windex or whatever.”

Ned wasn’t sure what he was expecting to be running through a Murder Drone’s processor. Nothing but base killing instinct, maybe? He certainly wasn’t expecting so much anti-corporate sentiment.

“So, um, you mentioned something about nanites?” Ned asked, a bit desperate as Vera kept trying and failing to get back up. When he glanced down, her leg was looking pretty severely eaten away. That was gonna take a lot of repair gel to fix.

“Oh, yeah, that,” The Murder Drone muttered, glancing down at Vera, who flinched back with a terrified, pained yelp, especially as that deadly tail kept swishing behind the monster. “Sucks they built you that frickin’ badly. Here.”

Vera screamed as the Murder Drone hocked a loogie right onto her bad leg. Then as the Murder Drone turned her gaze back at N, she looked more disgusted than anything.

“Ew, what the hell,” Vera hissed under her breath.

“That should neutralize the acid and heal the wound,” the Murder Drone explained. “I’d be careful on that leg for a while, though. Sounds like those servos got eaten pretty badly.”

“Thank you…uh…” Ned said. It was polite to thank people for their help, but…biscuits, he never got the Murder Drone’s name. Do they even have names?! 

“Z,” she said with a shrug. “And you are…?”

Oh, biscuits. Uh…she just introduced herself with a single letter, right?!

“N!” he chirped with a cheerful salute. “And this is V!”

“Welcome to the squad,” she sighed. “You’ll be here indefinitely. I’d enjoy the free time you get before L gets back. You’re never going to know a moment of peace once she gets wind of you.”

Ned glanced at Vera, and he could see the gears turning in her head. Uh oh.

Self: what are you thinking

V: it really thinks we’re new murder drones

Self: yeah i wasn’t expecting that to work tbh

V: ur a genius, we can get intel out of it

Self: you’re going to try interrogating it?

V: duh.

“Speaking of L,” Vera piped up, and Ned could tell she was doing her absolute best to try and seem casual despite being anxious. “Wanna tell us about your squad? S-so we know what to expect when they get here…”

Z snorted. “There’s not much to L, trust me. Shallow as a puddle. She acts high and mighty and then squeals if any oil touches her clothes. But, unfortunately, some jerkwad up in JCJenson HQ decided in their infinite wisdom that she should have authority over our squad.” Z sneered in distaste as she spoke. “Only thing she’s got going for her is good chart-making…but if she’d let me have the freaking pen for two seconds I could totally take over that job, and then she’d be useless! Hah!”

Z grunted as L shoved her over and pinned her on her back with one of her leg pegs resting right over her core.

“You think you’re funny rigging up a shock buzzer on my roost?” the ponytailed Disassembler snarled.

“Only a little,” Z snorted with a smirk…then she gasped in pain as a little more pressure was put on her chassis.

“Listen here you little freak. If the company would let me, I would freaking disassemble you myself! Lucky for you, policy is REALLY friggin’ strict on that point, so you get to stick around. Unfortunately. And would it kill you to stop using heavy artillery for literally everything?!”

“Explosions take those toasters apart REAL quick,” Z cackled, a wide grin splitting her faceplate as she envisioned a big oily explosion.

L put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyelights. “Explosions destroy the bodies and scatter the oil everywhere, idiot. If we run out of friggin’ oil before we get in that stupid bunker, I’m blaming you.”

Z snorted. “I could get us a golden ticket into that bunker and you’d still find a way to blame me for something. Find a new shtick.”

Z knew she had a point about wasting oil, but…she couldn’t really bring herself to care. All evidence pointed to them being sent here to die either way. Might as well enjoy herself on her way out.

Vera nodded along. “S-so…um…anyone else we should know about…?”

“Oh. Yeah. There’s also T,” Z mumbled, suddenly ducking behind some of her hair so it covered one eyelight. “He’s…cool or whatever. I guess.”

Ned could see blush lines start glowing under her visible eyelight.

“...Anything else?” Vera pressed with a forced smile, one eyelight twitching slightly.

“Bite me!” Z snapped, before quickly calming down a little. “T’s one of our top performers. Blows L waaay out of the water, that’s for sure…”

Z watched from afar as T chuckled to himself, twisting the head off of a Worker corpse and rolling it along his shoulders, then twirling it skillfully on one finger. He flashed a killing grin at a Worker that tried to make a break for it down the street as he hurled the head through the air. It flew true and hit its target dead on, sending the drone stumbling and sprawling as T unfurled his wings and shot towards it for the kill. He wasted no time wrenching its head from its struggling body, and his feathers rustled and sang cheerfully as he fed on the fresh gushing oil.

Much as Z favored her heavy artillery, she admired the elegance of T’s movements. He was a fine-tuned machine, poetry in motion. She realized she was blushing at the thought and unfurled her wings to fly away and clear her processor-

“Oh, hey, Z!” he greeted cheerfully, waving with a wing as he heard gravitic drives firing up. “Hunt’s been good over here, if you wanna share!”

Z felt her core skip a beat. “You implying I can’t catch my own?” she growled, trying to deflect from her stupid blushing visor.

T shrugged in that infuriatingly chill manner of his, eternally unflappable. “Nah, just offering to share, dude. You definitely kill a ton of drones just fine without help.”

Z scowled, smoothing some hair down over one half of her visor to hide the blush. “Wow, I hate that you said that,” she said, crouching beside him to share in some of his spoils as he flashed her an oily grin that stopped her core.

“So. Yeah. He exists,” Z said in a tone that indicated she was done with that topic.

“Three to a squad?” V asked, eager to get everything she could out of this.

“Yeah. Me, T, and L. They’re out hunting right now, but they should be back within the hour…assuming L didn’t have another meltdown over an oilstain…”

Ned didn’t enjoy the mental image of death and dismemberment that those words conjured up.

“So…um…a-anything we should watch out for out there? Things that can just… really screw up our systems and take us the hell out if we’re not paying any attention?!” Vera nearly started grinning like a maniac…but then she coughed and reeled it back in. “Um. H-hypothetically, of course. Safety first.”

Z squinted at her like she thought she was a total weirdo for a moment, then shrugged. “Stay out of the sun,” she said pointedly. “The heat will overwhelm our already crappy cooling systems and cook us alive.”

“Sun is a weakness, noted,” Vera said with an enthusiastic nod. “Will…d-definitely avoid that.”

“Also…uh…on the off chance you run into one of those freak toasters that packs actual heat? Don’t let them hit your core I guess,” Z muttered. “Your repair nanites can only work so fast before your core gives up.”

“Oh my gosh, like vampires,” Ned whispered, drawing looks from both Vera and Z. He blushed a little in embarrassment. “U-uh…I mean…the vampires in the stuff I read are kinda like that, heh…no sun, they die to a stake through the heart…”

Z raised a digital eyebrow at him. “You are one funky little dude.”

“Thank you?”

Ned’s eyelights hollowed a little as a wild thought hit him.

Did this make him and Vera cool vampire hunters?! 

That was really cool but also really really bad probably.

…Things tended to not end very happily for a lot of fictional vampire hunters.

And all the murder aside, Z really didn’t seem all that bad. If anything, she reminded him way more of a surly kid his age than any sort of monster when she was talking like this.

“Why… are we doing all of the murder stuff anyway?” he asked. 

“Oh, you mean besides drinking their WARM, SWEET oil so we don’t overheat and die?” she asked. Ned flinched back a little as her face temporarily took on that slasher smile with the X again, something manic curling at the edge of her voice before she abruptly switched back to deadpan. “The bigwigs at JCJenson probably just wanna bulldoze this planet and set up some slums housing or something,” she muttered. “Seems like something they’d do. They don’t strike me as the type to give a crap about the nuclear death storm if they can score a profit somehow.”

“You really seem to hate the company,” Ned noted. He had no love for them either; they’d sent the Murder Drones here in the first place to take out the Workers in a big genocide. That was pretty uncool of them.

But he was realizing that maybe his ire at the Murder Drones thing couldn’t really be aimed at the Murder Drones themselves, cogs in the JCJenson machine just as much as any Worker Drone here had once been.

Z snorted. “Yeah, they suck. They sent us here to kill everyone and then starve to death. They can freaking bite me.”

Ned blinked. “...Ever thought of doing something else, then? Besides murder?”

Z snorted. “Hah. Cute. Like what? Sitting and making daisy chains with all the non-existent flowers here while I overheat from low oil because of all that prey I’m not hunting?”

“Maybe…uh…repairing that ship?” Ned suggested.

Z blinked and glanced back at the landing pod, tail swishing in thought.

“I….huh. I guess in theory if it was repaired, it could fly off this hunk of ice…”

Ned smiled a little and gave her a thumbs up…till there was a faint thud up above them. Z groaned loudly as Vera and Ned shot each other terrified glances with hollowed eyelights.

V: oh robogod theyre here we gotta go NOW

Ned: yeah

While Z was distracted glaring up at the ceiling with hostile intent, tail lashing, Ned frantically helped Vera climb on his back, and he held her recharging railgun close to his chassis as he started to run out of the Spire.

“Get ready to have your audials talked off,” Z started to say, before she glanced to her side and noticed that V and N had taken off. “Uh…guys?”

“Freak!” L hissed as she swooped into the Spire. “What have you been doing in here the whole time? Place still looks like a friggin’ dump,” she groaned…then her eyelights snapped back to Z with laser focus, noticing the red flickering optic in Z’s array. “And you’ve somehow knocked yourself offline. Nice going, idiot.”

Z was briefly aware of T swooping down to stand beside L before L wound up and slapped Z right across the faceplate, triggering a reboot.

Chapter Text

Z’s processor roared back to life after the reboot, finally managing to repair the damaged memory files from the last three hours, and her optic array came fully back online in a series of five sequential flickers.

It came back to her in a rush. Her little orientation of sorts with N and V had been…a farce. A huge frickin’ farce.

Her memory repair meant that she could finally see past her busted optic and see N and V for what they really were.

Worker Drones.

Freakin’ Worker Drones had made a fool out of her.

What was worse was when the rest of her memories of that encounter played back.

N had shot one of her optics out with that little toy gun, and then while she let herself get distracted (stupid!!) V had blown her head off with that honestly sick as hell railgun.

A growl began to rumble in her chassis as the memory playback wrapped up…and it was not helped by L snapping her fingers in her face.

“Yo, Angsty Freak 5000?”

Z grabbed L’s wrist and scowled very angrily at her for a moment, then let go and whirled on her pegs, wings unfurling in a rush.

“Oh my god, Z, settle,” L ordered. “What the hell were you doing while we were out?”

“None of your damn business!!” Z screeched, gravitic drives firing up with an angry whine. Her eyelights flickered into a killing X.

“Z-”

“BITE ME!” she roared before taking off with a sonic boom that shook the Spire.

That left L and T gazing up at the new hole in their roof that Z made. L opened and closed her mouth several times, steaming with anger. T finally broke the silence, speaking pretty calmly given everything.

“...I was going to tell you that we had a couple of Workers outside.”

L whirled on him with a scowl. “You couldn’t have said that sooner?!”

He shrugged. “You were busy…and besides…I think Z’s got this one.” His tail flicked up towards the hole.

“Oh no the hell she doesn’t!” L snapped, her wings unfurling. “The freak’s going to blow them up!”

T sighed as, one more sonic boom later, he was left standing alone in the Spire. That hole was gonna take several more bodies to patch up. He jogged on foot to the Spire entrance before unfurling his wings and taking off.

Ned could hear the sonic boom when he was almost back to the bunker, and knew his time left was quite possibly measured in seconds if he didn’t get back soon enough.

Self: v get the key card out NOW

V: ahead of u

When Ned reached the bunker, ventilation system rasping from the strain of keeping his systems cooled, Vera leaned forward over the top of his head and slapped the card over the external scan. It started opening all too slowly as Ned could make out a speeding silhouette with bladed wings in the sky…

The instant it was open barely wide enough, he squeezed himself and Vera through, digital sweat drops running steadily down his visor.

“Ned!” Ron squealed, getting up from his station to run over. “Kids, what happened-”

“Close it! CLOSE IT!!” Vera screamed, jumping off Ned’s back to run over and slap the card against the internal scanner.

The seconds dragged by as it finally kicked in, the hydraulics starting to slam the door closed…

…and then in one world-shaking instant…

…it stopped closing, massive glinting bladed claws holding the door opened.

Ned felt his core stop dead for a moment as a dramatic evil laugh reached his audials, the golden X glowing in the crack between door panels.

“Game over, N,” Z purred as her tail snaked through the gap and stung through the key card and scanner panel. Vera stared at it with hollow eyelights as glowing yellow acid lit up all the new cracks in the glass, hissing and eating away at all the components.

With a loud sparking noise, the outer door began to open again.

Ron’s hollow eyelights flicked rapidly between the children and the looming Murder Drone as the door opened.

“Kids, get behind me,” he whispered, pulling out his pistol.

“Dad,” Ned cried. “We need to go!”

He cast a terrified glance at Z, her grin wide and her fangs dripping saliva as she started wiggling her way in, impatient.

Ron shook his head.

“We need to keep it out here,” he said solemnly. “Run in so they can lock everything down, okay, kids?”

No, no, no, no. This was starting to look a lot like a heroic sacrifice, and Ned wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed his dad’s arm and started trying to drag him down the corridor towards the middle door…which was also sparking and trying to open unbidden. Ron ground his heel in and wrenched his arm free.

“Ned,” he said sternly. “Cyn needs someone to look after her.”

That was yet another one of the dozens of death flags that his dad was raising right now. Ned let out a desperate sob.

Z the Murder Drone landed on the bunker floor, mad laughter bubbling out of her chassis as she stood back upright, swapping the claws on one arm out for what looked like…uh…

…Oh. It was a rocket launcher.

“Z, what if we helped you repair the ship?!” Ned cried in a final plea of desperation.

“Not falling for that again,” Z hissed, lining up her shot. “Nice try, N. I’ll give you this…you got fight. For a toaster. But your stupid little charade ends here-”

She was distracted by a hail of bullets from behind. Ned had been a bit too distracted to really notice the middle door properly opening, and several WDF drones running in guns blazing. A feral growl rumbled out of Z’s chassis as she turned her attention to them, firing her readied missile into their midst. It flew true and exploded violently, and all hell broke loose.

There was a spray of oil from the unfortunate drone who took the missile straight to the chest. Z cackled madly as it spattered her face, and she sank her claws into the WDF member who made the mistake of getting closest to her. A guttural purr rumbled through her chassis as she pinned him down screaming, then rapidly jabbed her tail through the visor of another unfortunate soul who got too close, yanking him up right next to her with a tail flick. The screams were starting to fry Ned’s audials a little.

Ron had frozen up in horror, watching the Murder Drone rip through his comrades like so many wet paper towels. Ned and Vera started tugging on his arms to make him run with them, but-

As if she had eyes on the back of her head, Z whipped her tail around and stabbed the stinger through Ron’s shoulder. She didn’t have the leverage on that sting to reel him in…but he was still staggered by the force of her yanking the stinger out, and his shoulder already hissed with glowing nanite acid. Ned’s core stopped.

“Come on, Ned!” Vera screamed. 

Ned nodded mutely, trembling as he grabbed his father’s arm and started running alongside Vera. Behind him he could still hear Z laughing as she tore all of those WDF drones apart, painting the corridor with their oil. The volume was starting to rapidly go down as more victims fell permanently silent. Ned dared to look at his father’s shoulder and saw how bad it already looked.

If anybody could fix it, it would be someone like Alice or another medic inside the bunker, right? That thought was what spurred Ned forward even as his processor threatened to crash from the strain. Vera stumbled along beside him, stress momentarily enabling her to run on that healing leg.

They eventually staggered their way up to the threshold of the inner door, dripping with oil and acid and digital sweat.

The door stayed closed as the carnage behind them finally started to fall silent.

“DAD!!” Vera shrieked, pounding on the door. “LET US IN!!

Silence answered her.

“I know you have a camera or something trained on this door right now!” she screeched. “Let. US. IN!!”

Ned heard a soft laugh, and turned to see Z stalking down the corridor toward them, letting a sword blade scrape on the ground behind her as she lifted her other arm and trained the rocket launcher on them.

Vera sobbed at the door. “Dad…I know we messed up bad…b-but…my gun is almost recharged, and then we can-”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence before the lockdown alarms blared, and the middle door slammed shut behind them. Vera’s eyelights hollowed in horror as the red emergency lighting flicked on. Before she could even begin to recover from the shock, Z’s tail stabbed through her shoulder. Vera fell backwards with a pained scream as Z yanked her tail back. Ron cried out her name and tried to raise his gun, but Z’s tail swatted that out of his violently shaking hand. Ned took shaky steps back, gasping in horror as Z slammed her peg on top of Vera’s chassis to pin her down. The bespectacled little Worker Drone writhed and screamed in pain from the nanite acid eating at her chassis.

“Any last words, toaster?” Z purred. “You probably ruined my reputation forever…but I’ll let you have that.”

“Fuck you!” Vera screamed before managing to crane the muzzle of her railgun up. Then she pulled the trigger.

Z’s X flickered into hollowed eyelights a moment before her head was blown clean off again. Unfortunately…she’d missed the core again. Vera screamed in frustration as the headless body collapsed to the ground, the silvery repair nanites already starting to shimmer around the neck stump.

Ned’s eyelights narrowed in determination, though.

There was one known cure for nanites acid, and one known source of it.

He pulled his emergency magnets from his bag and stuck them to Z’s head the instant it started to regenerate. The Murder Drone started to make some garbled nauseous noises as her stirring limbs abruptly stilled. Ned waited several core cycles, watching Z like a hawk. Her eyelights were fuzzy and flickering in her visor as she struggled to move.

“What…did you…do to me…?” she groaned, sounding sick.

He couldn’t waste time talking to her right now, though. He pulled out his walkie-talkie and pushed the button to talk.

“Chambers to Doorman,” he said in a low voice. 

A very shocked Khan picked up on the other end. “Ned? You’re still out there? I-”

“Open the inner door!” Ned barked with more ferocity than he ever thought he was capable of. After that he attempted to speak a little more calmly. “Dad and Vera are hurt, and I have the one thing that can fix it.”

“Ned, what are you-”

“I have a captive Murder Drone!” he all but yelled. “Send a medic, get her saliva, then you can do whatever with her!”

There was a long period of quiet on the other end of the line.

And then the inner door began to open.

“Come inside, quickly, and then hang in there. Alice says she’s meeting you with her kit.”

Ned didn’t waste any time, throwing his dad’s arm over his shoulder. He glanced over to make sure that Vera could at least walk enough to make it past the door…and then he reached down to grab Z’s tail. She hissed as he started dragging her behind him.

“Stop…that!”

“You just killed a bunch of people!” Ned yelled. 

Z snorted and scowled intensely as Ned kept dragging her along. He guided his injured party over to the nearest bench.

“We’re in,” he said simply into the walkie, and they all watched as the door slowly closed.

Waiting for Alice felt like an absolute eternity, as Ron ended up passing out slumped against his son’s shoulder, ventilation system struggling as the acid ate deeper and deeper. Ned wrapped an arm around him and fought tears as the core cycles dragged on and on. His dad just had to hang in there! Help was coming!!

Vera…honestly wasn’t faring too much better, whimpering in pain as she clutched at her own wound…the second acid sting in the same night. As it ate further and further she started to sob…

…And at one point, Ned saw something fairly distressing. It was barely a core cycle…

…But in an instant, one of Vera’s eyelights flickered and glitched, and the lens over that eyelight shattered. She gasped and held her head in pain.

Z for her part seemed rather nonchalant on the floor…though that was probably the magnets’ doing. She just laid there quietly, scowling, and Ned tried desperately to not think about her too much as he held his quite-possibly-dying father.

Eventually, though, salvation reached them in the form of Alice and Beau sprinting down the hall, Alice carrying her kit and Beau carrying his gun. Beau solemnly tipped his hat to Ned and company as Alice took a knee, reached in her bag…and slapped about three extra magnets on Z’s head.

“Well, look at you,” Alice said in a low voice, looking the captive Murder Drone over. “Oh, yes, I reckon we can learn a lot from you.”

“Alice! Get her saliva and put it in the acid wounds!” Ned cried, snapping her back to the task at hand. “Trust me! It’ll neutralize it!”

Z, perhaps deciding she wanted to put off her prodding, hocked a loogie at Alice’s foot, sneering up at the medical drone.

Alice, for her part, seemed to have been ready for that, since he pulled a cup from who knew where and caught most of that in it. She chuckled and properly set down her kit to get to work.

“Feisty, ain’cha? That’ll make things real interestin’ later…”

“Bite…me…” Z growled.

Ned sat and watched everything Alice did over the course of the next while. She rubbed that first wad of spit into his dad’s wound, and then alternated between applying repair gel and “encouraging” Z to spit in the cup a few more times.

The encouragement entailed holding the cup under Z’s mouth while Alice jabbed a taser into the back of her neck. What the heck was the school nurse doing with a taser?? Regardless, it did its job and Z provided a few more rounds of healing spit for both his dad’s wound as well as Vera’s, once Ron was stable enough for Alice to switch gears. As she worked, more medical staff came by and got Ron onto a stretcher, and they started maneuvering Vera onto one as well, muttering about an oil transfusion as they did so. Oh. Apparently Vera’s oil levels had tanked really hard from that second sting eating away at her systems.

Finally, Vera and Ron were whisked off to the medical wing proper, and Alice was left to put a gentle hand on Ned’s shoulder as the rest of the medical crew prepped to transport Z to…wherever they were going to take her.

Z glowered at him with unmistakable hatred and he averted his gaze, trying to focus on Alice’s eyelights.

“You were a real hero today, sweetheart,” she said. “We ain’t never had this big a leg up on the Murder Drones!”

“I got innocent drones killed,” Ned whispered, eyelights hollow.

Alice sighed and patted his shoulder. “Accidents happen. But ya handled it like a champ and caught us a live Murder Drone!!”

She was sounding… very giddy about the whole thing.

“Knowin’ how these things tick will let us fight ‘em much more effectively,” Alice purred, leaning over and patting Z’s head fondly as she was lifted onto a stretcher. She leaned back and chuckled as Z attempted to bite her finger off. The fangs closed on empty air. “So, really, thank you, Ned.”

Ned sat there with hollowed eyelights as Alice turned and walked off with her new prize, Z growling loudly all the while. He was alone except for Beau and all of his recently acquired fresh trauma.

Beau quietly took a seat next to him and gave him a concerned look, and that’s when Ned broke, flinging his arms around his classmate and sobbing while Beau gently rubbed his back.

Chapter Text

L slammed her pegs into the ground with a furious snarl just as alarms blared and the doors slammed shut. Her tail lashed furiously as she started raking her claws fruitlessly down the impenetrable door. She scratched and scratched with furious screams, and that was the state that T found his squad leader in when he landed.

“Woah, Z actually made it in there?” he asked, and L’s demeanor immediately shifted to something calmer, more aloof. That was to be expected when she knew she was being observed.

“Yeah, but then she blew it, clearly, since all the alarms got tripped and we’re freaking locked out,” L groaned with an eyelight roll. “Whatever. Guess we have one less mouth to feed now, good riddance.”

“Hold up, L. You’re not really planning on leaving her in there?”

“Uh, obviously? She went in without us and then got herself stuck, she can get herself out.”

“Z’s our squad mate,” T said solemnly, tail twitching uneasily as he watched L stalk angrily away from the closed door.

“She mostly contributes blasted debris, T. We’re better off.”

T’s shoulders slumped as he watched L unfurl her wings and take off in a huff. She really was serious about abandoning Z to her fate, huh? T shook his head, then turned to squint thoughtfully at the door.

Z had found some way in, which meant he could probably do the same. Her getting in had proved it was possible, at least. Now it was just a matter of time…

He spent a good hour out there just pacing around the bunker, testing the door, and fluttering up onto the roof to stalk around on top and prod for weaknesses. His squad had thoroughly cased this place during initial Landfall, sure, but it didn’t hurt to double check in case they’d slacked on their maintenance and a weak spot had formed, or something.

Eventually, the sun began creeping toward the horizon, and T sighed reluctantly.

In one final bid to confirm she was at least still alive and in there, he tried to ping her messaging system.

Self: hey z, u in there?

Z: 2klhi5ohids0se39068skfjhdl;wqpiadolhji…

T’s head hurt a little as that came in. The garbled glitchy string of characters just kept going and going and going, and for a fleeting moment of panic he thought he might be bootlooped out in the open right before sunrise. Thankfully, mercifully, the glitch message eventually ended.

So that told him two things. Z was in fact stuck in there, and she had gotten really messed up.

He was incredibly reluctant to leave in light of that second part, but dying in the sun would help nobody, so he spread his wings and took off.

He’d be back for Z.

Ned had spent a good chunk of that night just weeping. Beau held him in silence till he eventually cried himself out, systems forcefully resetting that routine to maintain basic function. That was when Beau had gently helped him to his feet, putting an arm around his shoulders and nodding in the general direction of the habitation wing.

Ned honestly wasn’t sure he was ready to go back home and face Cyn. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready to go home and face her. He’d have to be the one to break the news to her that Dad was in emergency care…because he’d done something stupid and led a Murder Drone into the bunker.

As if sensing his thoughts, Beau gave his back a sympathetic pat and gave him a reassuring smile. For such a cool kid…Beau was actually really really nice. Ned might be hanging out with him a lot more…

“I just…” Ned started thinking out loud, trailing off for a moment. “What do I even say to Cyn?!”

Beau shrugged sympathetically, then spoke some of his rare words. “Remind her ya love her.”

Those five words were entirely correct, and Ned nodded enthusiastically. “...Yeah. You’re right. Thanks, Beau. You’re the best.”

Beau gave him a thumbs up and then an encouraging thump on the back as they came up to the Chambers’ family hab. Ned inhaled and exhaled a long vent slooooowly. He glanced over his shoulder and got one final encouraging smile from Beau, then took the final plunge and stepped forward, the door to the hab sliding open automatically.

Immediately, Cyn slammed into his chassis, wrapping her arms around him. Ned’s core skipped a cycle from the surprise of it. Soon enough though he had his arms wrapped around her in turn as the door slid shut behind him. They stood like that for what could have been a couple minutes or eternity.

“I’m okay, Cyn,” he finally lied.

“Where’s Father?!” Cyn finally demanded, looking up at him with hollowed eyelights ringed by stress lines. “You were out way longer than you should’ve been, and now it’s sunrise and Father isn’t back from his shift yet and-”

Ned gently cut her off with a hand to her mouth. He spoke with all of the sadness in the world. “Dad…has to spend awhile in the medical wing, Cyn. I’m real, real sorry.”

Cyn looked even more stressed at the mention of the medical wing. Nobody could ever be expected to take the news of an injured parent well, but…Cyn in particular hated the medical wing after spending a lot of her childhood there. She trembled and rattled a little in her casing, and Ned gently moved to help her support her weight, guiding her towards the couch. He quietly helped her settle as sobs wracked her chassis, and he sat beside her and gently laid her head on his shoulder as she cried.

“Ned, what happened?” she finally managed to ask, after crying herself out.

“...A Murder Drone broke into the bunker and…there were a lot of casualties,” Ned forced himself to say, voice small. He left out the part about it being his fault for now.

He had plenty of chances to stop Vera and he didn’t because he wanted to be a hero.

“You were a real hero today, sweetheart,” Alice said. “We ain’t never had this big a leg up on the Murder Drones!”

Apparently he was a hero now. How empty it felt when so much oil had been needlessly spilled along the way.

He abruptly tried very hard to think about literally anything else when his memory playback showed him Z being tied down to a stretcher, helpless from the five magnets stuck to her head, glaring at him with burning hatred for what his actions were going to subject her to.

She was a monster who had killed a lot of innocent people that night. 

She had nearly killed Vera and his Dad and would absolutely not have stopped with them. For all he knew, she would have gladly killed Cyn down the road, and the thought made his oil boil a little.

But…

She was a disgruntled corporate slave sent here to die by her parent company.

She had helped neutralize Vera’s first sting with no material reward in it for her.

She’d briefly considered ditching the mindless murder in favor of doing something productive.

All it had taken was mistaking him for one of her own kind.

It was so much easier to rationalize the Murder Drones as mindless monsters that went bump in the night, but…Ned couldn’t just forget what he had seen and heard earlier tonight. The Murder Drones were people as much as Worker Drones were…and they were viciously mistreated by their own creators.

Ned desperately wished that his conscience would make him stop feeling bad for capturing Z. It was a huge boon for his colony. He was a hero for it.

All it took was condemning another person to…whatever Alice was planning to do to her. The manic look on his nurse’s face was honestly terrifying, a side he had never seen before.

He had a sinking feeling there was going to be a lot of experimentation on the captive Murder Drone, and he winced and dragged his hands through his hair with a shuddering vent.

“Big Brother?” Cyn asked softly, sounding deeply concerned. It snapped Ned out of his spiraling guilt over doing the right thing for his colony, and he fixed his eyelights on his sister.

“Just…a lot happened tonight, little buddy. But it’s over now and we can work on recovering!” He forced a smile for her benefit…and apparently it was convincing, since she nodded a little.

Ned remembered Beau’s advice.

“We’ll stick together, Cyn. Things might be tough right now, but…I’ll stick with you, cuz I’m your brother and I love you.” He pulled her into a snug little side hug, one that she gladly returned even while saying “Ew, gross, Ned.”

And…things honestly did feel a little less scary, now that he knew Cyn was going to be okay. One less thing to lose an agonizing amount of sleep to.

Yup, Z’s parting glare was still flash-frozen in his memory banks. 

Vera had been in constant agony since the break-in. They’d been keeping a watch on her, between the acid damage and the oil transfusion and the fact that she had started running an abnormally high temperature since she’d stabilized a little.  They’d eventually reluctantly agreed among themselves to put a magnet on her head to keep her pained thrashing from dislodging the oil line. And so she found herself laying still with a haze in her processor, ventilation system rasping as it struggled to draw in air.

Pain kept spiking through her processor as she watched the doctors gather round and do their hourly check-in on her status. She faintly heard some mention of her healing extraordinarily well from her injuries, but she barely processed it. She was too hot, and her processor was a mess, and her processor kept feeling pain, and pain, and pain-

And she could see a very angry male Murder Drone racing his way past Ned as he helped her out into the blessedly cool snow, and she was soaked in oil, and she fumbled for her railgun as Ned just stood there like an idiot-

“Listen,” she croaked, giving the nearest doctor a desperate look. “Listen…we…we’re all going to die-”

“Rest, Ms. Doorman,” the doctor soothed. “It’s natural that you’d be experiencing so much stress after today’s events. I promise you’ll feel better after some sleep…and we’re still looking into that virus you’ve come down with. You’re safe.”

“Listen,” Vera pleaded…her vocal synth dying in her overtaxed throat.

The doctor bent down and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Go to sleep, Vera. You’re safe. I promise.”

She wasn’t safe. None of them were safe if that other Murder Drone got inside the bunker.

But her systems were beginning an emergency shutdown on her…not helped by a second magnet getting gently held up to her head.

Her last coherent thought was a sad, childish one.

Where was her Dad?

Chapter Text

Z’s head felt weirdly full of static as she worked. It was confusing; why was she carrying around a broom and a dustpan? What did these people take her for, a TOASTER?! She huffed angrily and staggered down the hallway, nearly walking into several pieces of expensive pretentious furniture along the way because her balance was on the fritz. She was about at the end of her rope when she walked directly into another drone, stumbling back and falling on her rear.

She was about to bark out a threat when she looked up and saw a handsome faceplate looking down at her in concern. 

She became incredibly angry with herself when she realized that the handsome faceplate belonged to a freakin’ toaster. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Especially since it looked familiar…

“Oof, sorry, Z” the drone said in T’s voice. “Should’ve been looking where-”

“BITE ME!!” Z screamed, swatting away the hand he was offering her. T’s toaster doppelganger pulled his hand back, looking a little hurt for a moment.

“Z, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine! Better than fine! I am GOD!” she all but screamed, a familiar, comforting growl leaking into her voice as she unfurled her wings and claws erupted from her hands.

These didn’t feel quite right, though. Where was the ring of her feathers, the singing of her gravitic drives?

Not-T stared at her in hollow-eyed horror, and she advanced with a cackle.

Then she was abruptly interrupted by a personal ping, sent in Russian and automatically translated.

606: This is not how it happens.

Z awoke from her nightmare with a scream of pain as something wrenched her finger off. Even through the extreme fog in her processor…she could feel that, like some kind of horrible screwed up miracle from hell.

She tried to tell her assailant to bite her, but all that came out was a garbled whimper.

“Oh, yer awake!” the orange-eyed toaster chirped, holding oily bolt cutters in her hand, grinning in glee. Z snarled and bared her fangs as much as she could manage…earning herself a taser jolt in the neck.

“Oh, none of that, now,” the orange-eyed drone whispered low in her audial. “You caused us a lotta trouble the last few years. The least ya could do now is behave and teach us more ‘bout yer kind.”

Z growled…and received another jolt in the neck before another one of her fingers was cut off. Hell, the first one was still healing! Who the hell programmed such a little inconsequential digit with that many pain receptors anyway?! Her growl curdled into a pathetic whine from the pain, and the ghoulish toaster’s smile never faltered.

If anything, it grew as she pulled out a clipboard and jotted down some notes, watching the severed fingers regenerate…

Ned and Cyn had recharged together last night, finding comfort in snuggling up to one another. Their hab had felt painfully empty without their dad coming home.

It was probably unhealthy to go into recharge in the early morning and then wake up at noon. Ned certainly felt like he got negative recharge, if anything. But that was how it happened, and at least they’d gotten some recharge. He gently pried himself out of Cyn’s embrace, careful not to wake her too early, and made his way to the kitchen to work on getting some food together. A bowl of Cyn’s favorite batteries, and some low-grade for himself. He took some deep vents as he set the table, then shuffled down the hall to go get Cyn, exhaustion lines ringing his hollow eyelights.

Lucky for him, Cyn was already sitting up and stretching groggily as Ned approached. He schooled his faceplate into a cheerful smile as he gave her a good morning wave, then offered her his hand. “Breakfast’s ready…and then we can go visit Dad and Vera.”

“Kay,” Cyn said sleepily, taking his hand and hauling herself up. Her eyelights were bright, though. Ned knew that mentioning Dad would get her attention.

Breakfast was a quiet affair, the air tense with anticipation. Both young drones were antsy to go make sure their dad was okay, so they wolfed their food pretty ravenously and then headed for the door, grabbing Cyn’s cane and Ned’s bag on the way. Neither said a word as they raced down the halls quick as they could till they reached the medical wing. The helpful drone at the desk quickly directed them toward Ron’s room…and then from there it was a darn near stampede.

“Dad!!” both drones gasped as they rounded the bend into their dad’s room…and he was actually propped up in bed, looking half awake. He snapped to attention at the sound of their voices, and gave them an exhausted smile as he opened his arms wide for a hug. He grunted a little in pain as both of his children flung themselves at him for a group hug with more force than he anticipated. He held them tightly as his damaged servos could manage, giving each of their foreheads a little peck in turn. Ned couldn’t help but let out a relieved sob, and he felt his dad squeeze him just a little tighter.

“The staff told me about what you did when I woke up, Ned,” Ron murmured. “I could hardly believe it… my boy was the one who captured a Murder Drone! I’m so, so proud of you, kiddo! You saved me, and so many other drones…”

Ned felt that strange mix of pride and guilt again at the mention of managing to sedate Z.

He felt even more upset with himself when he realized the guilt was starting to easily win out over the pride.

He’d led Z here, gotten a bunch of drones killed on accident, and then doomed Z to likely torture.

It must’ve bled onto his faceplate since his dad pulled back a little to pat his hand gently, and give his forehead another little peck. “I know, it was the scariest thing you’ve done. It’s okay to be scared, Ned. You’ve done so much for everyone. It’s okay to rest awhile and take care of yourself, okay?”

Ned nodded as another strangled sob rose out of his chassis. And another one, and another one as Cyn sympathetically rubbed his back.

“Do you want to talk about it, Big Brother?” she asked softly.

Ned hesitated, his ventilation hitching again.

“N-no,” he finally said. “I’ll…I’ll be f-fine.”

He made an active effort to rein it in. What would people think of him if he said he felt absolutely awful about his supposed heroic deed? That he felt sorry for a Murder Drone?!

He managed to give Cyn and his dad a reassuring smile, and when his dad started asking about how Beau was holding up, he happily obliged the slight topic change. Beau was safe to talk about. Beau was unflappable.

The conversation meandered a bit after Ron was reassured that Beau was fine, and pretty much everyone besides the unfortunate men on the official WDF casualties list he had been given was fine.

Everyone…except Vera.

When Ron asked how she was holding up, Ned went quiet.

“Front desk said she is stable, but not doing very well,” Cyn said softly in his stead. 

“Oh…tell the poor girl I said hi,” Ron said, concerned. “She…probably needs to hear that.”

There was a profound, knowing sort of sadness etched into Ron’s faceplate with that comment. Ned nodded and gave his dad a salute.

“Well, I won’t keep ya goobs much longer. Vera needs that pick-me-up, after all. Keep the hab tidy for me? I should be back there in a couple days.”

“You got it, Father,” Cyn said with a sweet little smile.

“See you later, Dad,” Ned said with a final salute, and then he and Cyn trekked down the hall, past a few more rooms before reaching Vera’s.

Ned’s core clenched when he laid his optics on her.

She was laying there with magnets stuck to her head, bandages all over her chassis, an oil line feeding into her arm. Her eyelights were fuzzy from the magnetic interference…but Ned could see them flick ever so slightly in his and Cyn’s direction, her expression hard to read.

He held up a hand and waved with a little smile as he walked in, slowly seating himself at her bedside. “Hey, Vee,” he murmured softly. “You good? Well…as good as you can be?”

His core clenched more as she immediately shook her head as much as she could manage.

“At least the Murder Drone got locked up!” Cyn said cheerfully, and Ned once again felt his fuel lines twist a little at the memory of a helpless Z being strapped to a stretcher.

Vera shook her head a little in distress, then stared directly at Ned.

One of her eyelights flickered into a strange glyph for a moment under the shattered lens of her glasses.

“Don’t…let…her…out,” Vera grit out, her vocal synth straining…but her tone carrying all the gravity in the world. So much gravity that Ned felt himself taking a step back from his best friend.

“I…Vee, I wouldn’t. That would put everyone in danger. Please don’t worry about that, okay?”

She didn’t look any less worried, and Ned felt sick.

It was absolutely vile that even as he said that, one small part of his processor briefly considered the thought.

What if there was somehow a way to get Z back out into the wild snowy yonder without getting everyone in here killed…?

No. He needed to stop that. Immediately. Z’s captivity would greatly benefit the safety of Outpost 3 in several ways. He did the right thing.

Right?

He held Vera’s gaze, and her eyelight flickered back to normal as she let out a soft pained groan.

“Geez, that seems painful. Virus?”

Vera nodded hesitantly, though she didn’t look convinced. “...That’s…what they say.”

“Hopefully they find the antivirus soon,” Ned said sympathetically. “Hang in there, Vee.” 

He offered her his hand to hold, and she took it and weakly squeezed it in hers.

With a sinking feeling, Ned clocked that there wasn’t really any sign of Mr. Doorman having been in here, and he gently squeezed her hand in return.

“Our dad says hi,” he said softly. Vera nodded and gave him a sad smile at that news.

“Tell him I said thanks.”

To Ned’s dismay, Vera quickly grew too exhausted to talk much longer, and he gently led Cyn from the room. He had a lot on his mind going into the rest of the day…

As Vera drifted back into tumultuous recharge, her playback resumed plaguing her with that vision of Ned letting another Murder Drone get in the bunker. He stood there watching vacantly, and Vera still struggled to believe that Ned could ever be capable of such a callous thing.

She’d decided that it had to be a horrible, horrible nightmare. It was easier to cope that way. But still, she had to warn Ned today…just in case. Just a silly little hypothetical just-in-case.

That’s what she told herself, even as her mind kept playing it back to her.

The male Murder Drone kept sniffing briefly at all of the oil dripping off her chassis before he ran into the bunker to presumably exterminate her people.

“I get it!” Vera all but screamed at the inside of her own head. “You can stop now, I get it!!”

To her shock, she got a ping.

002-A: hello hello hello hello hello-

It kept repeating, dozens of “hello”s sent in such rapid fire that it made her head spin. Vera gripped at her head, the vision around her freezing as she screamed…and then violently threw up a bunch of oil. She’d feel it if she was bleeding that much internally right?!

…Or externally, for that matter. Why was she covered in oil?!?

Self: what’s going on? [ERROR: INVALID RECIPIENT]

How could that be possible?! She’d pinged her pinger right back…

But…speak of the devil.

002-A: hello goodbye hello goodbye hello goodbye i love you i love you i love you im sorry im sorry im sorry-

Vera screamed in agony again as the words kept repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating-

And she could swear she heard a distant wail joining her for just a moment, before it broke into laughter and then faded.

“H-hello?” Vera whimpered, looking at her rattling oil-soaked hands.

There was silence as the nightmare faded from around her…and even the oil faded from her casing. She could still feel it, though, and she felt the urge to vomit again even though her fuel tank was definitely empty.

At least…at least the nightmare was over.

After a few more shuddering vents, Vera fell back into blessedly dreamless recharge.

Chapter Text

“You need to stay!” Cyn insisted that evening, grabbing on to Ned’s arm as he headed toward their hab’s door. He sighed and gave her a sympathetic look.

“I know, I’m sorry, little buddy.” He gave her helmet an affectionate pat. “There’s some WDF stuff I gotta go do before we call it a night. Movie later?”

Cyn huffed and pouted, but nodded. “Princess Bride,” she declared, and Ned gave her a thumbs up.

“Deal. See you in a bit.”

His cheery smile immediately fell a little once he was out in the hallway, door sliding shut behind him. This was going to be a long night, he felt it in his core.

He knew his dad asked him to rest and take care of himself, but…Ned felt compelled to at least show up for a little bit and let the other guys see that he was functional. That felt important. So he let his legs carry him out toward the corridor that the WDF guarded.

Several of the other guards immediately started giving him waves once they spotted him. Some exclaimed that they were glad to see him, some cheered his name, some outright congratulated him for catching a Murder Drone. He kept his cheerful smile on as he waved in return, repeatedly thanking the WDF for their praise and assuring them that he was just fine.

Up until last night he’d never openly lied to people this much before. It was an odd, unpleasant realization.

It was with a sinking feeling that he realized that he’d soon seen pretty much every WDF member not on the casualties list…except for Mr. Doorman.

“Has anyone seen Mr. Doorman tonight?” he asked hesitantly, and his smile fell a little when the guys all shook their heads.

“Said he needed the night off,” one grunted. “Can’t blame the guy, his daughter almost died…”

He hadn’t visited Vera, at least from what he’d seen. Ned frowned and nodded.

“Well, thanks for the info. It was great seeing everyone and checking in! Now, I’m beat, so I’m gonna head home.” He gave one final salute to a chorus of fond farewells, and turned to head “home.”

One of these days, he’d stop lying.

To be fair, a lot of the route was the same…except he kept walking past his family’s hab and went down the hall to the Doormans’ hab. He uneasily rang their bell…to no answer. His digital brows furrowed a little. By all accounts, Mr. Doorman should be in here. He decided to try knocking rather forcefully on the door…and then flinched as he accidentally dented it a little.

“Oh, biscuits!” he gasped. Sometimes he forgot his strength…

The whoopsie seemed to have worked, though, since the hab door slid open for him a moment later while he was busy glaring at his dumb overly strong fist. His eyelights hollowed before he poked his head uncertainly through the doorway.

“Mr. Doorman? It’s me, Ned,” he called into the eerie gloom. “You home…?”

The only sound that greeted him was what sounded uncannily like the widely-respected Khan Doorman sobbing. Stress lines ringed Ned’s hollow eyelights as he walked in and turned the lights on.

A ways into the hab, there was Khan sitting at the dining table, a bunch of old photos spread out before him. In one hand he clutched a can of fuel…and the fumes on the air told Ned that it must’ve been high-grade. As he approached the table he hesitantly waved a hand in greeting, and Khan turned to look at him with one of the saddest facial expressions he’d ever seen.

“Is Vera okay?!” were the first words out of the man’s mouth, slurred from the high-grade and desperate. Ned blinked and took a step back from the force of it, then shook his head uneasily.

“She’s gonna live, but, um…honestly? She’s doing pretty rough right now,” he admitted. “She was really bummed you weren’t there.”

Maybe it was mean to say that to a guy who was currently crying into a drink while staring at photos of…uh. Huh. His wife that vanished shortly after Landfall. Ouch. Definitely mean to say. But he needed to hear it. Vera had been miserable. Ned winced when Khan started crying anew. Oh, geez. This was…bad. Very bad. He felt really out of his depth with this one.

His core clenched. His dad had mentioned talking to Khan sometimes outside of work, since he was friends with basically everyone…was…was stuff like this what he had been referring to?

Biscuits. His dad was still being kept for observation for a couple of days.

“Ah…biscuits, sorry, Mr. Doorman,” he stammered. “It’s been rough over here, too, huh?”

There was a reason he hadn’t gone to see Vera yet, right? Right?!

Khan didn’t seem to hear him. He was mumbling to himself between sobs…and Ned quickly realized he was saying variations on “I’m sorry, Nori,” over and over.

“It’s…not too late to go visit her,” Ned offered weakly, feeling woefully in over his head. “Visiting her is a good start…”

Khan shook his head, glancing woefully at his can of high-grade. “N-no. It’s…n-not right for her to see her father like this.”

Ned…had to agree. He sure didn’t like seeing Khan like this, and he was just the neighbor/intern.

“In the morning after you’ve slept it off, then…?”

Khan visibly hesitated, visibly resisted another burst of crying, then slowly nodded.

“I’ve left her alone too long…” he muttered bitterly, glaring daggers at his can of high-grade like it had personally wronged him. “I left her alone too long…and I almost lost her. How can you ever forgive me…?”

Ned shifted uncomfortably. He had the distinct feeling that Mr. Doorman wasn’t talking to him anymore.

“Um…maybe you should pour that out?” Ned suggested, taking some steps back toward the front door. “And go recharge? That’d probably be for the best…”

Khan didn’t respond directly to him, continuing to mutter to someone that wasn’t there. Ned hesitantly backed his way out…

Then as the door slid shut, he put in a call for one of the night-shift medics to maybe come check on him or something?! He seemed to be doing badly!!!

Ned walked past his own family’s hab again, taking deep, shaky vents. He knew Cyn was waiting for him, but…he honestly didn’t feel remotely in the right mind for just sitting down and enjoying a movie right now. He was restless…and visiting hours in the medical wing were long over, so that was out. He ended up going on a long walk down the empty corridor leading to the vast, empty, never-used evac room. Well. Make that recently-used. From chatter he’d been hearing, a lot of drones fled out here during last night’s break-in. Ned had been too busy out front dealing with Z to see any of that.

Khan had locked them out.

Yeah…that was definitely part of why Vera had been so darn bummed after the fact.

On a strictly pragmatic level, Ned could understand the choice somewhat. If he had opened the inner door for them, it would have let Z come in right after them and she would have had free reign of the bunker from there, and likely countless drones might’ve died. Not to mention that they’d let Z in there in the first place.

But…if Ned hadn’t been there with his emergency magnets, it’s very likely that Vera and his dad would have died, and the thought made Ned nearly double over from distress.

Needless to say, he wasn’t sure what to feel toward Khan Doorman right now. It was really complicated.

Ned wasn’t sure what he’d planned to do in the evac zone. His legs had started carrying him through an absent-minded lap of the place when a sound made his oil chill.

It was a thud on the roof above.

A second later, he could hear the scraping of claws. Ned flinched and began to tremble, rattling faintly in his casing.

The bunker would keep them safe, Ned reminded himself. Ever since Mr. Doorman build those doors, a Murder Drone hadn’t managed to break through.

…Not until he and Vera had left the door open for Z, anyway.

“They’re pinning us in, Ned, and if anything gets through, we’re trapped in here like a Murder Drone buffet.”

Vera’s words rang in his processor as he stared up at the evac zone’s distant ceiling in mute horror, listening to the Murder Drone outside scratching around, looking for a weakness. Never had he heard one so brazenly poking around for a weak spot…

With a jolt, he realized that Z’s break-in must have given them a second wind. Maybe they gave up before because the doors were so strong…but Z had gotten in.

Or maybe they were coming after Z herself? He was sure that if Vera got taken, he’d try to find her…

Whatever the case was, he’d have to go warn the WDF about it. They hadn’t broken through the doors or any other part of Outpost 3 before…but they definitely needed to be on high alert if they were actively trying again. With hollow eyelights, he quietly made his way out of the evac zone, just to be safe…then he took off sprinting towards the WDF’s corridor with his urgent message.

T hissed a little in frustration as his claws glanced relatively harmlessly off of another patch of metal. He’d been stomping around here for the better part of the night, casing the joint for any weak spots and failing miserably. He’d known it was probably going to be a fruitless endeavor since they’d already tried this the first time around…but it couldn’t hurt to be thorough, right?!

He sighed dejectedly, tail lashing. Not even Z’s heavy artillery had dented this place the first go around. Heck, he could even swear that some parts of the metal still bore scuff marks from Z shooting it up. 

If he diverted power from his optic array for a moment, he could hear her maniacal cackle as she opened fire.

It was only the second night of her being trapped in there, and it was already so quiet without her around.

L seemed happier without Z talking back to her and pranking her regularly…but T missed her. Life just wasn’t the same, down a squad mate. So while L was off gorging herself on Z’s oil rations to celebrate, he traded a lot of the night’s hunting time to something that she’d call pointless.

Self: hey, z. U still in there?

Z: eihefihgrsebjkw3924y6gdoibv…

Like last time, he just got a garbled string of glitchy text that hurt his processor a little…but it was the confirmation he needed to keep his resolve strong. As long as she still pinged him back, he’d keep trying to rescue his squad mate…

Vera couldn’t even sleep anymore, magnets be damned.

Her core felt like it was boiling in her chassis, and digital sweat drops rolled down her visor as she took rapid, shallow vents, exhaling clouds of steam. 

And when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, that mysterious ping hit her processor again, the repeating words giving her a migraine.

002-A: oil cools oil cools oil cools drink drink drink good good good oil cools oil cools oil cools-

She flicked hollow eyelights toward the bag of oil that fed into the line in her arm. One of the night nurses has just changed it before heading out for the night.

The black liquid inside glistened invitingly in the lavender glow of her eyelights…lit only brighter as one of them flickered into the three-pronged glyph.

She shook her head to try and clear the feeling. No, no, no. Something about all the magnets that’ve been stuck to her of late must be frying her processor. So many PSAs in school had warned about the consequences of magnet abuse!!

The mysterious “002-A” signal wouldn’t shut up, either, and Vera grit her teeth as her gaze inevitably drifted back to the oil bag.

She watched in trembling rapture as it went drip-drip-drip into the line. Her mouth hung slightly open, salivating heavily.

002-A in the back of her processor kept insisting that it was cool and good and that she should D R I N K

Her teeth sharpened as she lunged for the bag, ripping it off of the line and ravenously sinking her fangs into it. Alarms began to blare in her room, but she didn’t notice as she greedily gulped down mouthful after mouthful of the oil that was meant to go in her arm. The flavor was indescribable, sublime, and a purr rumbled out of her chassis as she drank deep of the heavenly ichor.

She only came back to her senses as the oil sent a cooling wave of relief through her…and she snapped back into focus just in time to give the startled orderly a panicked look as they rushed into the doorway, holding an empty bag in her hands as oil dripped from her mouth. Her hands rattled in her casing as she dropped the bag and the orderly rushed over to come examine her, calling for backup.

What the hell was happening to her?!

002-A: all better all better all better

002-A: i love you

The mysterious signal finally went silent, and Vera felt nauseous as she properly processed what exactly she’d just gulped down with reckless abandon.

Thankfully, the orderly had a bucket ready for her to throw up in.

Chapter Text

Vera wasn’t even aware of what time in the day it was supposed to be when she was awoken by a gentle hand on her shoulder. She snarled on reflex…before letting out a startled squeak when she realized she’d snarled like that, and at her own father to boot. Then her hollow eyelights furrowed into a scowl. It was her father.

“You’re finally here,” she huffed.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m so, so sorry, Vera.”

“What finally got you out here?” she asked, averting her eyelights from his. “It’s only been, I dunno…two days?”

Khan sighed, fingers on his free hand curling and uncurling uneasily. “I…don’t have any excuse,” he muttered. “I should have been here much earlier.”

“We agree for once, then,” Vera said acridly, surprising even herself a little with the sheer venom laced through those words. She trembled a little; now that she was more awake, her processor was really flinging a lot of unpleasant emotions to the surface as she looked upon the father that hadn’t opened the door for her even as a Murder Drone bore down upon her.

Her father hesitated to say anything. He opened and closed his mouth a few times without ever uttering any words. 

Then he silently pressed a thermos into her hands, gentle and tentative.

She blinked and looked between it and her father, a little bewildered.

“What the heck is this?”

“Medicine,” he said quietly. “I want you to drink it, slowly. Once you drink it I can bring you home, okay?”

Vera looked at it suspiciously for a moment, and her father turned and gave her a pleading look.

It was the most emotional look he had given her in months.

She let out a shaky sigh and twisted the lid off of the thermos.

Immediately, delicious-smelling fumes hit her olfactory sensors, and her mouth salivated as she breathed the scent in. Wasn’t medicine usually supposed to be gross? She eagerly put the thermos to her lips and took a big ol’ swig of the contents, the most delicious taste in the world hitting her tongue-

And then she gagged when she realized where she’d tasted something similar before.

Last night. She’d ripped the bag from her oil line and chugged straight freakin’ oil.

She spit out what she hadn’t yet swallowed back into the thermos and gave her father a horrified look.

“Vera?!” he asked in concern, reaching for her.

She hissed and swatted his hand away.

“What’s wrong, Vera?” Khan pleaded. “Talk to me.”

“This isn’t medicine,” she hissed, pointing angrily at the thermos. “This is…i-it’s oil, Dad. Why is it oil?!”

Khan’s eyelights hollowed. “How do you know…?” he started asking, trailing off with slightly shaky hands.

Vera’s eyelight twitched and briefly flickered into that odd glyph, something she wasn’t aware of. “Answer me!” she growled. “Why is this full of OIL?!?”

“It’s a very long story, Vera,” he said quietly. “One best told at home. Please drink that.”

Vera growled in frustration for a moment…then realized her father wasn’t budging on this one. If she wanted her answers, she had to drink the damned oil. Scowling furiously at him, she began to drink reluctantly. It felt like her tubing was tying itself in knots as she drank down the delicious, oh so delicious lifeblood of another drone. It was nauseating…and it was the most divine elixir she’d ever tasted.

She shoved the empty thermos into her father’s hands with an angry huff when she was done.

She hated how much better she felt after downing that.

“Home. Now.”

Khan nodded and offered her his hand to help her stand from the bed. She realized belatedly that the oil line had been disconnected from her arm already; it seemed like her father had already made the arrangements for discharge ahead of time. She glanced at his hand for a moment, then chose not to take it and hauled herself up onto her own feet. She swayed slightly, still a bit weak, and much to her chagrin her father gently grabbed her shoulders and stood her back upright.

“Easy, kiddo,” he murmured in a gentle voice that made her feel all sorts of conflicting feelings at once.

She missed that voice.

There were so many years where he chose not to use that voice.

He’d had his chance.

She missed it.

As soon as she was able to fully steady herself, she shrugged his hands off her shoulders, not looking at him as they started the walk back home to their hab.

The walk was tense and silent. Vera had nothing she wanted to say to him right now that didn’t pertain to the very long story best told at home.

Maybe there were things she should say, but she wasn’t one to rip healing wounds back open, even if they were healing badly.

When they finally got back, the door didn’t open automatically. Vera noted with some alarm that it looked a bit dented…and her father had to actually throw his weight into it a little to manually slide it open.

“What happened there?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

Khan looked…embarrassed. “Uh…Ned has a hell of a knock,” he admitted after a little hesitation, followed by hastily gesturing for her to follow him inside. She raised a digital eyebrow before moving to sit at the kitchen table while her father wrenched the door back closed behind them. 

When Khan finally joined her at the table, she straightened her cracked glasses and crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

“Okay. We’re home. Tell the long story,” she demanded in as firm a tone as she could manage.

Khan looked to the ceiling for a moment, taking deep vents in and out. Just when Vera geared up to demand answers a second time, he murmured something quietly, starting the story.

“...Your mother and I hoped that you didn’t inherit her sickness,” he sighed, sounding genuinely pained.

Vera blinked. Her mother had disappeared when she was very young. Most drones in Outpost 3 spoke of her like the dead…but her father was very insistent on the specific wording. She had disappeared.

“Mom was in on this?” she whispered, a bit horrified.

“Vera,” he said pleadingly. “Your mom only wanted the best for you. She so desperately wanted you to have a normal life. You can hate me all you want for…for everything, but please don’t hate her.”

Vera stared at him with hollow eyelights.

He held her gaze with a profound sadness.

“What was Mom’s sickness?” she asked flatly. “What was so bad that you had to keep it a secret this whole freaking time?”

“She needed to drink oil to keep her internal temperature down,” he said quietly. “It…it was the only coolant that worked. If she didn’t drink it regularly enough, she…she got extremely sick, Vera.” He gave her a solemn look to punctuate his point. “She needed the oil to stay healthy.”

Vera opened and closed her mouth a few times before speaking. “Where…”

“Did the oil come from?” he finished for her, giving her a sad, knowing smile. “It was willingly donated to the medical ward. We didn’t have to take it from anyone unwilling.”

She nodded mutely. Her mother had been drinking drone oil the whole time?!

“We can keep it in check and you can have a good life,” he promised, reaching across the table for her hand. 

She withdrew it before he could touch it, averting her gaze from his.

“You…you knew I could’ve inherited it, and you didn’t tell me?” she asked, hurt.

“Nori asked me to not tell you unless we absolutely had to,” he said quietly, his tone one of heartbreak. “She didn’t want you living with that weight over your head if you hadn’t inherited it.”

“That’s not fair,” Vera hissed. “I had a right to know!”

“I’m sorry,” Khan said earnestly. “I’m so sorry, Vera. I made a promise…I c-couldn’t break a promise.”

“Like hell you couldn’t!” Vera cried, slamming her hands on the table. She squeaked and startled a little as it dented under her hands. She lifted them up, trembling as she stared at them, one of them fractured by the cracks in her lens.

“Vera…?”

“Bite me,” Vera snarled, staggering out of her chair and bolting down the hall to her room. She couldn’t freaking deal with any of this right now. How was she supposed to deal with the fact that her parents had been freaking lying to her by omission basically her entire life?!

As her door slammed behind her, she staggered into the center of her room. To one side was her workbench, still littered in various bits and ends scattered from her final frenzy of railgun construction. Pinned all along the wall were various rough schematics, and one wall was bookshelves lined with all sorts of how-to books for building. One wall was littered with drawings from Ned that she’d pinned up to admire. Just…looking at those lovely dogs, even now, brought just the barest little smile to her face for just a moment.

And then off to one side was a little vanity with a mirror, stationed next to her closet. It still held a lot of frilly little dresses from when she was little that she’d never really had the heart to throw away.

She used to love dreaming about being a princess of some faraway land, where she lived her days in a lovely castle and was swept off her feet by the most dapper prince. Maybe, just maybe, the prince of her daydreams was a sweet, pure-hearted blond with ice blue eyelights that really liked dogs…but…none of that mattered anymore.

She sighed heavily as she walked over to the closet and shut the door. Then on shaky legs she stepped up to her vanity, giving a morose look to her reflection. She looked haggard, standing there in a hospital gown with stress lines around her hollow eyelights. Her glasses bore one shattered lens, and a bit of dried oil still dribbled from one corner of her mouth. She sneered a little in disgust. She’d been walking around like that and her dad hadn’t said anything?! Typical…

She was snapped out of her sullen sulking as one of her eyelights abruptly flickered into a tri-pronged glyph. She gasped in surprise at the sight…then squeaked in terror as her entire mirror abruptly shattered. She reeled back as a few silvery shards clattered onto the shelf of the vanity, shallow vents racing in and out of her chassis, core cycling rapidly.

Once she was absolutely certain nothing else was going to explode, she hesitantly stepped closer and peered into what was left of her shattered reflection.

She let out a terrified sob as the glyph flickered back out, replaced once again with a hollow eyelight.

She turned around and realized that her railgun had been lovingly placed in the corner of her room, all the oil and grime from her stupid deadly misadventure scrubbed from its casing.

It looked good as new, its new power cell glowing brilliantly.

She fell to her knees and buried her faceplate in her hands, chassis wracking with sobs.

“Oh, yer lively todnight,” the ghoul chuckled as Z snapped her teeth shut over empty air where her hand had once been. “Was beginnin’ to think I’d worn ya out already. Can’t be havin’ that now, huh? Still got so much ya can teach me.”

Z let out the most fearsome growl she could manage while zonked out from five freaking magnets. Which…admittedly wasn’t nearly as fearsome as she would have liked. Dammit. She was going to wear this stupid toaster’s tubing like a festive frickin’ hat if she ever managed to get herself free.

The ghoul chuckled as she reached for a hacksaw, lifting it up with a deranged grin that could rival a Disassembler in full oil lust. Z would have been almost impressed if it wasn’t being directed right at her. She really didn’t appreciate being the prey in this relationship.

Apparently this lady’s day job was taking care of younger toasters, she’d gleaned from one monologue. Z briefly contemplated which HR person had been doing too many magnets before she screamed in agony, the hacksaw’s ridge being plunged into the joint that connected her leg to her pelvic segment. The scream glitched and fragmented from the magnetic interference, and she couldn’t make any meaningful attempt to get away before the ghoul had sawed her entire leg off. The limb dropped heavily to the floor with a loud clang and a spray of oil. Z hissed in pain, fangs grit in a snarl as the ghoul chuckled to herself.

“Alrighty!” she said cheerfully. “Now lessee how long it takes ya to regrow alla that, shall we?”

Z could barely think, between the magnets and the pain. Her ventilation rasped horribly as she sucked in rapid, shallow vents of air. She let out several really pathetic sounding whimpers, much to her chagrin. Her tail twitched ineffectually, to her dismay. So badly she wanted to just arc it up and spear it through the ghoul’s head and get this nightmare over with.

As the despair welled within her, another ping reached her processor, and her eyelights shut for a moment, some degree of relief washing over her.

T: hey z u still there?

Self: Same as always, dude. Hurry up. [ERROR]

She sighed. They never went through correctly, with the magnets on her head. Yet, T kept coming back to ping her, which meant that something was getting through.

It was her only hope of getting back outside, she knew. So she’d keep trying to ping him back.

She let out a shuddering wheeze as her leg finally finished reforming, the shimmering nanites settling themselves into their final places. She could see the ghoul nod in satisfaction before she reached for an oil bag and twisted the top off it, waterfalling some of the black liquid into Z’s mouth.

Z had half a mind to just spit it back out all over the ghoul’s face. It was pathetic to be at the mercy of her tormentor, kept alive by the ghoul’s whim. She could go out on her own terms and just refuse the oil.

It’d be such a badass metal thing to do! Screw authority!!!

…Except her base programming always kicked in to override that edgy desire. When she started running too hot, everything but her instincts shut off, and those instincts demanded coolant.

That’s why Z gurgled pathetically as she chugged oil poured directly into her mouth like some kind of wacked-out animal. Once about half the bag was gone, the ghoul nodded in satisfaction and clipped it shut.

“Can’t go wastin’ too much’a this,” she muttered to herself, picked up by Z’s sensitive audials. She sighed. Typical. Fed just enough to not overheat and die, but never fed enough to actually properly cool off. 

Self: Seriously, T, hurry it up. [ERROR]

Self: Not sure how much more I can take. :( [ERROR]

She sighed and just…tried to turn her non-vital mental functions down as much as she could. 

It’d hurt less that way.

The hacksaw found her shoulder joint next.

Vera’s body tossed and turned in her sleep that night. Recharge got no easier now that she was at home, unfortunately.

Her processor was still assaulting her with nightmares.

She screamed as strong hands shoved her up against an unfamiliar wall, and her ventilation caught in her intake as she stared into the blazing killing X of a Disassembly Drone. He leaned in real close, his voice a low rumble.

“Let’s be clear,” he growled, the sound sending spikes of primal fear through her processor. “If you make a single scratch on any of my squadmates’ casing, the deal is OFF. I will not hesitate to protect my squad.” His tail curled dangerously behind him, the barb glinting wickedly over his shoulder, pointing right in the direction of her faceplate.

“Bite me!!” her dreamself cried, completely beyond her own control. “Do it. You wanna off me so bad? May as well! I don’t want to be a freaking Murder Drone’s pet!”

The Disassembler sighed, X flickering into eyelights in an unamused expression. “...I made a deal,” he muttered.

“You can break it,” her dreamself hissed. “Should be easy. You’re a monster.”

“You make it tempting, honestly,” he huffed. “But no. I’m a man of my word. Sorry, little toaster.”

“You realize that just gives me more motive to scratch up Z’s paint, right?” her dreamself deadpanned. “You’re not very good at this.”

The Disassembler growled menacingly at her, then scowled and turned away. “Your disassembly,” he rumbled with an annoyed flick of his tail.

“Hey, T, you sure you don’t want me taking watch?” Z called from outside. “I didn’t make any deals with toasters~!”

“I’m sure, Z!” the Disassembler, T, hollered back, perhaps a touch too hastily. 

Then he leveled a core-stopping glare at her over his shoulder.

Vera sat bolt-upright, clutching her aching head and trembling. She drew her knees up to her chest and shook, eyelights hollowed as she whispered a mantra under her breath.

“It isn’t real, it isn’t real, it isn’t real…”

Chapter Text

Life was returning to something resembling normalcy. For that much, at least, Cyn was glad.

Yesterday evening her father had been cleared to leave the medical ward, so she and Ned had eagerly escorted him home and prepared him a nice homemade dinner. He’d grinned eyelight to eyelight, wrangling them into a group hug where they all laughed and enjoyed being together again.

It had been interrupted by one Khan Doorman knocking at their door, looking absolutely haggard and asking to speak with her father.

She couldn’t help but scowl as Ned dragged her back toward the bedrooms, after Father had asked them to give him and Khan some privacy. Come on, they had just gotten him back, and Mr. Doorman walks in here to monopolize his time. Ugh.

“It won’t be forever, Cyn,” Ned had reassured her as they settled in her room. “Besides…I think Mr. Doorman really needs that talk, trust me.”

Cyn crossed her arms and huffed as she sat on her puffy pink bed. “Still. He just got back. We were here first!”

“Easy, buddy,” he soothed. “Movie night?”

“You say that every time something’s going wrong,” Cyn huffed, with little heat behind it.

“Aw, but you like movies. Which one do you wanna see?” he had asked, not missing a beat as he sat on the bed next to her, holding up two DVD boxes. Cyn rolled her eyelights and pointed to her preferred choice, earning an excited smile from her brother. “Oooh, I was kinda hoping you’d pick this one.”

“Because it has dogs?”

Ned smiled sheepishly, and Cyn giggled.

“You’re really doggone predictable,” she said with a smirk, earning herself a playful shove on the shoulder.

It was nice to see Ned so cheerful, honestly. He’d been so stressed out and worried the last few days, between Father and Vera both being hospitalized, plus the scariness of fighting a Murder Drone in the first place…

It was a relief to see him eagerly bounce over to her TV and get the movie fired up. This was more like the Big Brother that she knew and loved. She giggled as he had flourished with the empty DVD case afterwards. He was so extra sometimes.

After the movie night, he had gone the extra mile to tuck her into bed for the night. It was rather over the top, admittedly…she wasn’t a little droneling anymore, despite what some bullies at school would say about her frame size. But it still felt nice, especially in light of everything that had happened recently. Ned looked happy to be doing it, so who was she to stop him?

“Good night, Big Brother,” she had said to him with all the love in the world as he’d flipped her lights off for the night.

In the morning they headed out to the table for breakfast with Father just like normal. Cyn felt like these were some of the tastiest batteries of her life…till Father opened his mouth.

“Hey, kiddos…it’s getting a bit late. Remember what we discussed last night about trying to get back to routine?”

Cyn dropped her battery halfway to her mouth and frowned. Hm. Seemed like she’d blocked that out of her memory. “Do we have to?” she whined.

“I’d love if my kiddos were the smartest in the whole outpost,” he said affectionately. “That starts at school, princess.”

Cyn sneered. “Maybe in movies. Most of what I learn there is how much my classmates suck.”

Father gave her a sympathetic look and moved to pull her into a hug, one she accepted a bit reluctantly. “It’s just half your day, kiddo. And Ned’s with you, remember? You’ll be okay, I promise.” He gently kissed her forehead, then lifted her helmet slightly to ruffle her hair. “And if you really have a rough day, we can talk about it, m’kay?”

“M’kay,” Cyn sighed. It was hard to be too pouty with Father when he was so dang emotionally supportive. She gave him a reluctant smile, then threw on her backpack, grabbed her cane, and took Ned’s hand.

“See you later, Dad,” Ned said before leading her out the door. She waved goodbye until the door slid shut behind her.

They often walked to school like this before everything had happened. If Ned wasn’t off cavorting with Vera, he was by her side as her Big Brother. It was something that could be a little embarrassing…but after the week they’d had, she was grateful for it. She held his hand tightly as they made their way down the bunker hallway, her shuffling just a little behind him as his smile faced the world.

Ned’s optimism could make everything feel okay.

Then they passed Chad and his posse on their way into school and she felt a shudder run through her as her eyelights met his for just a second on the way by. She pressed herself closer to Ned as they walked toward Mr. Brown’s class, and he gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze.

She was not in the mood to deal with those knuckleheads today.

They left her alone if Ned was anywhere in the vicinity…but it quickly became a nightmare if they realized she was alone without her Big Brother in earshot.

“Don’t let them get to you, Cyn,” he murmured.

She took some deep vents, steadying herself. “Yeah…their numbers will come up eventually and they’ll get their comeuppance,” she murmured, feeling some dark glee at the thought.

Ned nodded, though he looked a bit more uneasy at her tone. That was to be expected. Ned was a total softie and couldn’t hold a grudge to save his life.

That’s why it was a little worrying that he made faces whenever anybody brought up how heroic he was for taking down a Murder Drone.

She really hoped he wasn’t feeling guilt over bodying a Murder Drone, but…this was Ned. If anybody would, it would be him.

When they arrived in the classroom, Mr. Brown wasn’t there yet, which wasn’t too unusual. He seemed to hate his job and would show up slightly late fairly often. Also not unusual was one of the students already sitting at her desk with all of her papers and pens arranged neatly on her desk. She raised a digital eyebrow at them as they stepped through the door and separated to head to their desks.

Alas, Cyn had the misfortune of sitting next to her.

“I was beginning to think you two had dropped out,” Jade said by way of greeting.

“Ned fought a freaking Murder Drone and our father was hospitalized,” Cyn deadpanned. “Is that not a good enough reason to miss a few days?”

“It’s good to get used to not making any excuses if you want to go far in life, Cynthia,” she said primly, and Cyn’s eyelight flickered slightly in annoyance, her head tilting.

Chad and his pack of meatheads were one type of evil, and Jade was another entirely. Oh, she was a threat to her mental health by being completely obnoxious.

Worse, she was one of the few people in class who hadn’t gotten the memo to be afraid of Ned’s strength…

Cyn grimaced as Ned didn’t freaking attempt to make any comebacks to Jade’s infuriating rhetoric.

He’d unfortunately tried that once and then completely shut down in the wake of the merciless verbal dressing-down that Jade had proceeded to give him. Jade tolerated no nonsense, and had no fear about asserting her authority. 

Cyn wasn’t afraid of her like 90% of the class was. She was just pissed off by her. She’d be nothing without her use of fear to control the class, she was sure. If she was ever in trouble, Jade would be on her own…

It was that thought that gave Cyn the solace to face forward and smile as Mr. Brown and the rest of the class slowly filed in to take their seats.

All the world’s bullies would get their just desserts one day, one way or another. It was the mantra that kept Cyn going.

Just as class was getting ready to properly start with a lecture on captcha solving techniques…the door slid open for one final student, and immediately everyone’s heads whirled around to stare at her.

Cyn sighed.

There in the doorway stood Vera Doorman, the girl who’d dragged Ned into this whole mess to begin with because Ned had a hopeless crush on her that he was too much of a weenie to do anything about.

Cyn’s eyelights narrowed.

Vera wasn’t looking too good, admittedly. Her clothes still looked rather ragged from the incident, and her glasses sported a cracked lens. She staggered toward her desk with a stiffness in her servos that Cyn did feel sympathy for, just watching her move. Cyn had a lot of bad days where she moved a lot like that.

…Okay, yes, Ned had told her the full story of how Vera had gotten stung by a Murder Drone twice, but…still. She was the reason all the stuff with the Murder Drone had happened at all. More points in the favor of the “just desserts” theory.

Though…maybe that meant she had to let Vera off the hook now, since she’d gotten so messed up? Curses.

She really wasn’t that terrible…she just happened to have terminal daddy issues and was dragging Ned down with her. So Cyn was still of the ardent opinion that Vera was terrible for him. Not that he’d ever listen to her…

It was hard to focus during the lecture, admittedly. Cyn just kept fantasizing about wrapping the day up and getting home to her father and having another movie night with Ned. That and only that would heal the wounds of having to deal with the unpleasantness of having to see her bullies again.

Unfortunately when the bell rang to dismiss them for lunch, Ned took off to go check on Vera because of freaking course he would, which left her alone with Jade.

“So, how true are the stories?” she asked, leaning her chin into her palm as she rested her elbow on her desk. “I’ve heard them all, of course. They spread like wildfire. But it’s still so hard to believe that Synergistic Liability took down a Murder Drone all by himself.” She smirked maliciously, making Cyn’s oil boil. “Figured I’d go straight to the source on this one. Cut out all the middlemen mucking up the details.”

“It’s none of your business,” Cyn huffed, slamming her book shut as she placed it in her backpack. “Don’t you have anyone else to go torment?”

“Pardon me for asking simple questions, Cynthia,” Jade said, a bit loudly. “No need to be so rude.”

Cyn took several deep vents. Oh how tempting it was to just grab her cane and whack Jade upside the head with it while she had the element of surprise. After this week she was at the end of her freaking rope.

But she knew she’d never win this fight once it started. Several other stragglers left in the classroom were already watching the conversation with rapt attention. When Jade raised her voice, people listened.

And Ned had left her to go fret over Vera.

Cyn’s shoulders slumped in resignation as she gave Jade a frustrated glare-

And then to her shock, another drone walked up next to her and leveled a glare at Jade.

“It’s rude to pry,” Beau said firmly, arms crossed. Cyn turned her head toward him and her eyelights hollowed. Oh he was leveling a glare right at Jade.  

“It was a simple question,” Jade huffed, picking up her bag. “Excuse me for being curious about the infamous Murder Drone incident.”

Beau frowned. “It was traumatic. Let it be.”

Jade flipped her hair and turned to walk away, and Cyn’s mouth opened a little in shock.

With nothing more than a dozen words and a powerful glare, he’d sent Jade packing.

Beau Underwood of all people had stood up for her.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

He simply smiled and offered her a hand to help her stand up from her desk, the other moving to give his hat a little tilt.

She felt her core stutter a little in its cycle as she took his hand and he effortlessly pulled her up. His grip was firm, his hand pleasantly warm. She found herself briefly staring like an idiot as he let go.

Oh she really hoped she didn’t have a blush on her visor right now.

“So…um…you d-doing anything for lunch…?” she stammered. Ned was probably going to be glued to Ms. Angsty for the lunch period, so…she might as well stick with Beau, if he was gonna stand up for her…

He shook his head and gave her a friendly smile. She leaned heavily on her cane so her suddenly weak knees didn’t dump her on the ground. With a nervous giggle she gestured for them to walk together out into the hall, and Beau nodded and respectfully followed her lead as she shuffled out into the hall.

Beau wasn’t at all a talkative soul…but he didn’t need to be, really. He had a sort of aura about him, one of calm and comfort.

Still, though…Cyn was used to a chatty family.

“Thanks again for the save back there,” she said softly. “Jade’s…a lot.”

He shrugged with another friendly smile. It was no big deal to him, apparently. Standing up to Jade was no big deal to him. Something her Big Brother struggled with.

“What…compelled you, anyhow? Um! N-not that I’m not grateful, obviously…! Just…not many people would, y’know…?”

Beau shrugged, frowning a little at that closing statement. “Shame. You n’ yer family all seem like good folks.”

Right. He was friends with Ned. She remembered that detail now. He’d been there for the break-in. His jumping in to defend her suddenly made a lot more sense…

Though…there was admittedly something disappointing about the fact that he’d likely just done it because he knew Ned. For a fleeting second Cyn had thought that maybe someone had seen something special in her. It always did come back to Ned…

“...Yeah. My folks are the best,” she murmured. “Ned sure was a big grand hero, huh?”

Beau nodded…then frowned a little in concern as he looked back at her face.

“Ya doin’ okay?” he asked.

Cyn shrugged, averting her gaze as they approached the entrance to the cafeteria. “Just…a lot happened. You know. With the break-in and all.”

Beau nodded in solemn understanding, leading her toward an empty table. They sat down across from one another, Cyn fishing out her lunchbox while Beau pulled out a simple thermos. She looked at it curiously as she opened her box and pulled out a container of double-A’s.

“Is that your lunch?” she asked, genuinely curious.

He shrugged before taking a quick swig from the thermos. “Light eater,” he said simply.

Cyn nodded. “Some days I don’t have much of an appetite either, so…I get that.”

He smiled before taking another sip.

She grew contemplative as she munched on her batteries. Beau didn’t fill the silence much, so it gave her mind room to wander, for better or for worse.

She could see Ned across the cafeteria, sitting with Vera as she glared at a thermos like it had personally offended her. Cyn huffed and averted her gaze. Beau gave her a mildly questioning look.

“Sorry…just…questioning my brother’s taste a bit,” she muttered.

Beau raised a digital eyebrow at that.

“He’s had this huuuuuge crush on our neighbor Vera for Robo-God knows how long,” she huffed, gesturing with her hands in exasperation. “But he’ll never freaking say anything about it to her, and they’ve been doing this big stupid tango around each other for months now. And the worst part is, she’s just gonna drag him down with all those dumb family issues that she won’t freaking deal with!” Cyn threw up her hands with a frustrated groan, then dragged them down her faceplate. “Ned’s the sweetest drone ever, but he’s hopeless.”

“That’s rough,” he said sympathetically between sips from his thermos.

“That’s a word for it,” Cyn grumbled.

Beau looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yer not responsible for alla that,” he said finally. She blinked in surprise.

“...Huh?”

“Yer not responsible,” he repeated with a shrug. “His loss if it goes badly, right? Ain’t yer fault.”

“...Huh.” Cyn paused a moment. Had she been holding herself responsible for keeping him from wrecking himself with his frankly sad love life?

Maybe she had, just a little bit…

“Point,” she sighed, and he gave her a little smile.

She ate in silence for another few minutes. It wasn’t an awkward silence, though…it was a comfortable one where Beau sipped contentedly from his thermos. 

“You’re really nice to talk to,” she said earnestly. He smiled warmly in response, reaching up to tip his hat slightly.

Oh Robo-God that was charming. Cyn took a moment to get her crap together before speaking again. “So, um, you want to hang out again tomorrow, Beau?”

He nodded and gave her a thumbs up, and she about melted on the spot…and decided to be bold.

“How about after school today?” she squeaked. “We could go watch a movie or…wh-whatever…”

He pondered for a moment, and Cyn briefly wondered if she’d ruined everything.

Then he nodded with a little smile and another thumbs up.

“Awesome,” she said softly.

Chapter Text

Ned, admittedly, stopped thinking all that rationally when he saw Vera walk into class. She was upright and at least functional enough to make it to class! Though…

She was carrying herself wrong. She was slumped and haggard, like she was still sick. Her eyelights were ringed with stress lines, and Ned watched her sadly as she shuffled over to her seat and slumped down in it.

She looked a lot like Cyn on one of her off days.

It was impossible to focus on anything Mr. Brown was lecturing about, frankly. He couldn’t really tear his optics away from poor Vera. She just looked profoundly miserable the entire class. How desperately he wished he could just get up and go comfort her.

He finally got his chance at the lunch bell, and he was up and heading over to her immediately.

Which was a good thing…because Ned caught Chad looking her way, and he shot Chad a scowl in return. The jock huffed and walked the other way real quick as Ned walked up to Vera’s desk and gently laid a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.

Or…that’s what he tried to do.

She gasped and flinched away from his hand.

His eyelights immediately hollowed and he withdrew.

“N-Ned,” she gasped, giving him an apologetic look. “I’m…s-sorry. Just…rough week…”

He nodded, taking a step back to give her space to stand from her desk. She quietly rose and took a moment to smooth down her skirt and straighten her cracked glasses.

“No backup pair?” he asked sympathetically.

Vera shrugged. “It’s not too bad.”

“Vee, your whole lens is shattered,” he sighed. 

“It’s fine.”

She started walking for the door, not meeting his optics. He frowned and moved after her, gently grabbing her wrist to stop her. She flinched and whipped her head back around to glare over her shoulder before relaxing ever so slightly at the sight of Ned’s concerned face.

“Seriously. You good, Vee? You don’t seem good.”

She scowled and averted her gaze. “It’s…n-nothing you need to worry about. Just stupid Dad stuff.”

“Vee, that just makes me worry more,” he whispered.

“It’s not your problem, okay, Ned?!” Vera cried, before slapping a hand over her mouth. Clearly she hadn’t intended that to be as loud as it was. A few stragglers out in the hall turned to look at them until a stern scowl from Ned made them look the other way.

Ned made an executive decision and pulled Vera into a brief hug once the other kids weren’t looking. She desperately needed it.

She went stiff in the hug, not returning it. Disheartened, Ned let go and started walking toward the cafeteria. She visibly hesitated for a moment before sullenly shuffling after him.

So desperately he wanted her to talk to him…but she had made it abundantly clear that she had no intention to, at least not right now. So he quietly guided her over to their usual spot. She sat across from him and just…scowled despondently at the table as Ned took out his lunch. It did warm his core a little at least to see the nice message that his dad had written on the bag. Have an amazing first day back, kiddo. You earned it.

He glanced back at Vera, not taking out anything to eat.

“Uh…do you wanna share, Vee-?”

“Not hungry,” she snapped…right as her visor flickered with a high temperature warning, and she hissed in pain, a trembling hand going to her visor.

“Woah! You good?” he gasped, already standing to go check on her-

“Fine!” she snapped…before looking apologetic. “I mean…I’ll be fine,” she said, tone softer now. “I…got diagnosed with a…a chronic virus,” she sighed. “I run hot…a-and I need special coolant. Just…gimme a moment.” She took a few shaky deep vents, then pulled a thermos out of her bag. She placed it on the table…then scowled uneasily at it, like it had wronged her somehow. Right as Ned was about to ask once more if she was good, she reached for it, unscrewed the lid, and took a big swig.

And gagged, initially. Her eyelights hollowed for a moment before she forced it down, looking nauseated.

“Gross medicine?” he guessed.

Vera shrugged, then nodded before making herself drink more.

“That sucks super hard dude, I’m sorry,” he sighed. “No wonder you feel so crummy, huh?”

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “This is my life now…”

Ned reached for her hand across the table, slow and gentle. She still startled and looked at him with hollow eyelights, letting out a little squeak and blushing slightly at the contact.

“You still got me, Vee,” he said earnestly. “We can face it together.”

Vera made a rather odd face at that. It was brief, but…incredibly hard to read in a way that made Ned’s tubing twist a little inside him.

What was it she looked at him with, for that briefest second?

Distrust??

It passed quickly, and she gave him a little smile that Ned could unfortunately tell was forced for his sake. It was drawn just a little too tightly across her faceplate.

“Thanks, Ned,” she finally managed, before averting her optics and taking another sip of her medicine. He watched unhappily as her digital brows furrowed at the taste.

It sucked seeing his best friend this miserable with nothing he could do to help.

And based on her reactions just now…he was starting to feel a sinking feeling.

Maybe, somehow, he was one of the things making her so miserable.

He quietly picked at his lunch, electing to not bother her further. Maybe she’d be more willing to talk if it was on her terms…?

When she finished her medicine, she put away the thermos, gave him a half-hearted wave, and got up and walked away.

Ned watched her go, stress lines framing his eyelights, digital brows downturned in sadness.

Z prowled the halls on all fours, claws and pegs squelching through organic meat as her tail lashed behind her. This was good, she thought. This was right. Except, perhaps, for all of the meat. And the uncomfortable warmth. Where was the snow? She could barely spread her wings in these bloodstained corridors. How her gravitic drives longed to sing! Her feathers gave an antsy rattle as she sniffed for oil fumes, drawing the acrid iron tang of yet more blood scent over her tongue.

These were not her hunting grounds, she thought. Not enough toasters.

Weren’t humans supposed to be extinct?

She rounded a corner, bristling as her optic array picked up movement. She hissed, feathers rattling and ringing their threat of death, fangs gleaming in the low light. The golden X that flashed across her visor left no room for interpretation as to her message.

Her keening roar was met with a similar one from within the gloom, and she tensed uneasily.

A rival Disassembler? Crap, she was caught alone in this strange place. L would’ve been worse than useless in a turf war, but…T would’ve made for nice backup.

God, she missed T.

She roared again, trying to bluff…and her roar was met this time with…

A toaster shuffling out of the gloom, fixing her with golden hollowed eyelights.

They reminded her of a Disassembler-

Auto-translated Russian filtered into her ping system.

606: This is not how it happens.

Z startled awake…and immediately tried to bite down her scream. Best not to give the ghoul a freaking inch-

Thankfully…she still seemed to be at her day job. Thank god for that. With a shuddery exhale, Z tried to immediately relax back into recharge…to no avail. Ugh. Her processor never did like going back into recharge after those weird-ass dreams. That was really freaking unfortunate, because it meant that she had to sit there and experience the ache of her overtaxed, overheating body. Everything hurt from the strain of overworked repair systems, and the dying star in her chassis was constantly begging her to cool it. 

Unfortunately, she was powerless.

That’s what her whole existence boiled down to though, wasn’t it? She was a corporate pawn sent here to die once her job was done.

She was just a big enough idiot that she managed to find the most slow, painful way possible to go out.

Maybe she should’ve taken L’s advice and blown herself up months ago. Unfortunately…that was a non-starter, because it would’ve given L the freaking satisfaction. Not even preemptively heading this misery off at the pass was worth giving that bitch an inch.

Still…not like this ache was much better.

She didn’t even have the solace of T’s nightly wellness check yet, since it was still all sunlight out there. Probably. The ghoul was at her day job.

Z couldn’t really be bothered to keep track anymore, though.

It’d become clear to her that this was her new status quo with no end in sight.

One existential nightmare right into a worse one. Just her freakin’ luck.

After school, Vera made a beeline home. Her dad was home, but…she wasn’t in the mood. She slammed her thermos down on the dining table where he sat, then ran to her room.

“Vera-!” he called after her, but she ignored him, sprinting as quickly as she could toward her room, ignoring the protests of her healing leg.

She ran right into her room, and as the door slid shut behind her, she fell to her knees and screamed viscerally, fists pounding the floor of her room.

Scattered all around her were torn-out sketchbook pages from the night before.

Each page bore the horrifying visages of Murder Drones, scrawled hastily in all colors of colored pencil. Ned had given them to her, and she’d accidentally snapped each in half in their turn last night, reaching for whichever color remained.

The most terrifying demon of all was the little one donning a fluttering coat and a baseball cap.

This demon was the most dangerous of all. He’d haunted her dreams last night, all too beautiful, the picture of innocence as he opened the door for the Sky Demon to make his entrance and begin the slaughter.

“Please, take care of her,” the beautiful demon said, gesturing to her as she knelt in the snow, covered in oil from head to toe, hyperventilating and vomiting as the Sky Demon sniffed at her and sneered.

“Thanks for the free food,” he snorted, sounding rather ungrateful. “But this toaster doesn’t matter until you show me where she is.”

The growl still reverberated in her audials, even in the waking world.

And frozen in her processor was the image of the beautiful demon named Ned gesturing for the Sky Demon to follow him.

She alternated between screaming and sobbing, numb to the sensation of her father entering her room and pulling her into a hug. She wept and wailed like a little droneling, and eventually all she could do was cling to the chassis of the drone that held her.

“I’m sorry, Vera,” Khan whispered gently into her audial as he knelt on the floor amid all the horrific drawings and held her.

He just held her.

They sat like that for a long time before he slowly pulled back and gently pressed the dreaded thermos into her hands.

She stared at it with hollow eyelights, hands trembling.

Then she screamed and threw it across the room, breaking down again.

Khan flinched, then gently tried to pull her into another hug. She screamed and hissed, shoving him away from her with far more force than intended.

He had been out of her life for so long and now he was back but he was making her drink oil like a monster and how could she even know that anything he said to her was real anymore-

She hissed and sobbed in pain as her processor experienced a brief spike of agony, the unknown ping signal back to haunt her with more garbage.

002-A: im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry-

Dozens and dozens of repetitions. Vera held her head with a wretched sob…before lashing out with a slap as her father tried to hold her again.

002-A: please please please please please please

002-A: mine mine mine mine 

002-A: ours

Vera struggled to keep it together as a high temperature warning blazed across her visor, her HUD screaming at her for coolant.

She was distantly aware of a thermos being shoved into her hands. With a keening noise she used her fangs to tear the lid off and start chugging.

002-A: oil cools oil cools good good good good

002-A: i love you i love you i love you

With a few more gulps, the damned signal finally fell silent…and Vera’s overworked processor gave out on her as she blacked out on the floor of her room.

Chapter Text

It had been a productive hunt. 

T had found a nice little encampment of Worker Drones huddling in the northern sector of the city, spotting them from above during one of his sweeps. They’d made the fatal error of venturing out of their hidey hole in the dead of night, which was very lucky for him. He’d been very dearly hoping for a quick hunt so he could feed and then return to his usual efforts to get inside the bunker. He wasn’t even in the mood to go about his usual routine of severing the heads as practice equipment later…even though these drones did admittedly have rather intact and pristine heads after death…

He simply couldn’t enjoy such a thing when the back of his processor still itched from the absence of Z. The itch was driving him nuts, and he missed her witty comments…and he couldn’t shake the feeling that bad things would happen if word got up the chain about L’s squad being down a member.

It couldn’t ever get up the chain that they’d lost a member.

The incompetence wouldn’t be tolerated.

His eyelights hollowed at the thought before a whistle on the wind startled him. T are you there? It asked.

He lifted his head to the wind and chirped a Here in return. He drew himself up to his full standing height, tail uneasily twitching as a whistle of I’m coming answered him. In short order, L landed in front of him and surveyed the carnage of his most recent hunt impassively.

“Not terrible,” she stated. 

“Thanks…but what brings you out here?” he asked, tone casual and nonchalant.

He did want to know, though. The last few days L had been enjoying cleaning up the Spire while feasting on all of Z’s leftover rations. T had objected, since that was symbolically tantamount to celebrating Z’s demise, but…L had asserted that she was the squad leader. T unfortunately couldn’t really argue with that logic. He couldn’t afford word of mutiny getting up the chain, and by god would L definitely run it up the chain. So he left her to clean (“Z’s not gonna wreck it immediately with another explosion, and I’m tired of living in a dump,” she’d reasoned) and went about his own hunting routine. He could keep up quota and still have time to work on rescuing Z.

Maybe.

He’d admittedly been spinning his wheels pretty fruitlessly on the Z front…but he was never one to just throw in the towel immediately. Especially not with their squad at stake.

“I’m still your leader,” L scoffed. “Don’t forget it. Part of that job is to make sure you’re still doing yours.”

“Got it, boss,” he said with a nod and a half-hearted salute. 

He could see that she was uneasy, though. Her tail was twitching nonstop, and she was pacing back and forth under the guise of inspecting his work.  Finally, he bit.

“You good, Boss?” 

“Yes, I’m good, settle,” L snapped with some unexpected ferocity, before huffing and running a hand through her ponytail. “Just…needed to double check your work.”

He sighed. She was stressed and hiding it horribly. “You worried about Z?”

“God no,” she groaned, tail lashing ferociously for a moment. “Get with the program, T. We’re better off without her blowing new holes in the Spire every week and wrecking half our hunts.”

“She’s our squadmate, L,” he insisted. “It’s only natural to worry about her. No shame in it.”

“I’m not worried,” L insisted with a huff. “I’m feeling fan-freakin’-tastic! Good riddance!”

With that, she unfurled her wings and rocketed back into the sky. T watched her go with a sad look on his face.

She was definitely feeling that itch too.

Squads always came in threes.

He gathered up the bodies quickly, then unfurled his wings and shot into the sky toward the Spire.

L was elsewhere when he dumped the bodies into the oil cache…but that suited him fine for the immediate future. It meant he could just make a quick in and out before making a beeline for the bunker.

Immediately once he landed on the roof, he sent out the customary ping.

Self: hey z u there?

He sat and waited for the response, bracing himself for the pain caused by the garbled signal.

And waited.

And waited…

His eyelights hollowed as many more minutes elapsed.

Usually Z answered him within a minute.

Something was wrong.

His core raced in his chest as he switched his hands out for laser cannons. His feathers rattled threateningly and he let out a keening roar as the cannons charged…and then he fired, scoring gouges into the bunker’s material with searing lines of burning yellow light.

His eyelights flickered into a killing X as he stared through the not remotely cut-through metal.

And then he roared and started charging again…

“Are you sure your mother doesn’t mind you being here so late?” Cyn asked as Beau got up to go switch out the DVD in the machine with the next one in the box set. He glanced back at her with a nod yes before he returned to his task.

“You seem really sure,” she murmured. “I’m not sure Father would like it if I was out this late, hah…though to be fair, he gets worried if I so much as come home from school a bit late…”

Beau shrugged. “I can take care’a myself. ‘Sides…she’s been real busy this week…”

Cyn sat a little further forward as the drawer on the DVD player slid closed and Beau turned back around. “What’s she busy with? Uh…if that’s okay?”

He shrugged and shook his head in a clear I don’t know before sitting down next to her on the edge of the bed again, handing her the remote to play the next episode.

Admittedly…maybe her father wouldn’t be the most happy about her having a boy in her room at night like this if he knew. But he was at work and he didn’t need to know! She felt a mischievous little thrill at the thought, eagerly hitting the play button.

She was honestly still a little bewildered that he’d been so willing to come home and watch stuff with her…and even more so when he’d been on board with her suggestion of anime. They’d been binge-watching one of Cyn’s favorites for the last several hours now, and he seemed genuinely pretty invested. Huh. She frankly wasn’t at all sure how she’d managed any of this…but she was not about to complain.

The only interruption in the last few hours had been from Ned checking up on her. He’d been a bit surprised to see Beau there…but a quick thumbs up between the two boys had smoothed things over real quick and Ned had been on his way. He’d seemed really distracted…but that wasn’t Cyn’s problem right now. She had a cute boy in her room watching anime with her!!

At some point her neck had gotten a bit tired, and she’d let her cheek rest on Beau’s shoulder without thinking. When she’d processed it a few seconds later, she blushed, mortified-

But Beau was busy watching the heroine hurl her tiara at the monster of the week on the screen and didn’t seem to care about the little invasion of personal space. She heaved a vent of relief and proceeded to not move her head, because he was comfy. She’d actually managed to pass a whole episode like that…before they’d needed to change the disk for more episodes.

As the next one played, she decided to hazard laying her head back down in the same spot…and about died when Beau chuckled softly. She squeaked in embarrassment and started sitting back up till Beau shook his head. “Yer good. Comfy, huh?”

She blushed furiously as she lowered her head back down. “Y-yeah…” she hesitantly admitted. He let out another soft chuckle and she swore she could feel her core stutter mid-cycle.

They sat comfortably like that for most of the episode, watching the protagonists getting up to silly teen girl shenanigans before they’d inevitably transform and kick the butt of the monster of the week. This was…really really nice, actually. This was the first time she’d really had anyone in here for a marathon like this that wasn’t Ned. She found herself dozing a little as the episode dragged on. She knew this show well, so it wasn’t a big deal. She was rather comfy, and his pleasant warmth didn’t hurt either…

…and then Beau abruptly stiffened with a pained grunt. Cyn was knocked from her comfy spot as his arms reached up to clutch at his head, faceplate contorting in a grimace.

“Beau?!” she cried, concerned. She immediately paused the episode as he vented air in and out, strained.

And as quick as the episode came, it seemed to pass. His eyelights hollow, he lowered his hands back down…and Cyn could see them shake a little.

“...Beau?” she tried again, voice barely a whisper. He startled, seemingly only hearing her for the first time. He hastily reached up to straighten his hat back out and give her a thumbs up.

Cyn shook her head. “Beau. What was that? You’re not gonna get away with pretending it didn’t happen.”

He sighed, shoulder slumping. “Just…headache. Get ‘em sometimes. No big deal.”

“That looked like it hurt,” she said, gently putting a hand on his arm in concern. He was still shaking ever so slightly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He looked uneasy. “I’ll be fine. Promise. It hurts like hell for a bit, but…it wears off.”

Cyn frowned in concern…and Beau’s eyelights filled back in as he gave her a reassuring smile.

Then he stood up and gave her an apologetic look.

“...’Fraid all my meds are at home, though. Should probably call it a night.”

“Okay,” Cyn sighed, honestly pretty bummed about the abrupt exit…until she startled a little from Beau’s hand on her shoulder.

“Same time tomorrow?” he offered, and Cyn couldn’t help her face lighting up in a grin.

“Oh heck yes,” she said. “And maybe bring the meds next time, just in case?”

He gave a thumbs up, then allowed Cyn to lead him to the door of the hab. She could see him smiling again at some of younger Ned’s crude artwork pinned to the walls as they passed them for the second time that night. Dad did love plastering the whole hab in that stuff…

They reached the door, and Cyn about melted into a puddle as Beau smiled and tipped his hat to her.

“G’night, Cyn,” he said fondly.

Cyn made a desperate effort to stand herself back up straight and not look totally flustered. “G-good night, Beau,” she stammered softly, giving him a bashful smile. “See you tomorrow.”

The door slid shut behind him, and Cyn staggered over to the couch where she could flop over on her back and squeal a little, legs giddily kicking at the air a little bit.

He was coming back tomorrow!!

He was coming back tomorrow.

T wasn’t remotely through the bunker roof yet, but he was determined. He’d made a little dent in it, and that indicated that it could be done.

He swayed on his feet, screen flashing a high temperature warning as he exhaled clouds of steam into the night air. Luckily, there was a cache of oil waiting for him in the Spire to cool him down. Admittedly, the nearly nonstop laser blasts had taken a lot out of him, but…he’d live.

He honestly wasn’t so sure about Z.

She hadn’t responded to any of his pings all night…and he couldn’t stay longer. The sunrise would be soon, and he was already overheating as it was.

Self: sorry, z. I’ll be back, promise.

He waited for a moment, hoping in vain that she’d answer. She did not, and he was forced to start flying home.

Z could feel the pings.

But answering them didn’t accomplish anything, and required her to turn some of her awareness back on in order to send.

Screw that.

She’d discovered it was better to just let everything but the bare minimum required systems shut off to conserve some fuel…and to help shut out the worst of the torture.

She needed that measure, because tonight the ghoul had tired of just hacking off limbs and heads to see what would happen.

Tonight she decided to cut her chassis open and start rooting around inside.

Feeling her tubing getting cut near her beating core was not something she needed full conscious awareness of.

Not even answering T was worth that.

She was faintly aware of the ghoul’s delighted chuckling and a spray of her own oil spurting into the air as she let herself fully sink into the haze of five freaking magnets.

Nothing was better.

Chapter Text

Ned had a hard time sleeping last night.

He’d been too worried about Vera.

How desperately he wished to see his friend back to her old self, shy but sweet, so passionate about her idealistic dreams of a better future where Copper-9 belonged to Worker Drones again, where they could all feel the sun on their casing again and have infinite freedom…

She’d almost died horrifically for those dreams, and now she’d fallen so quiet, withdrawing even from him.

What had he done to make her look at him that way? He couldn’t help but keep replaying that moment in his head over and over, keeping him up last night.

She looked at him like she couldn’t trust him anymore.

What had he said wrong? What had he done wrong?

…Was she hurt that he was getting most of the credit when people gossipped about the break-in? He honestly didn’t like all the attention now. They were neglecting her part in the story…and singing his praises over something he did that continued to eat him up inside.

He shouldn’t feel sorry for the monster he captured…but he felt sorry for the drone who had spat on JCJenson’s boots and lamented her toiling under a mean squad leader.

Several hours he’d spent staring at the ceiling, trying to come up with ways that he could try to heal the recent rift. He really really missed his best friend.

And maybe seeing Cyn suddenly getting all snuggly with Beau had twisted that knife a little bit. First…when the heck had that happened?! Second…how he wished he could do something like that with Vera.

It stung sharply when the realization sank in…the realization that he hadn’t really talked properly with Vera since the night they met Z. Life had been so hectic, and she had been so sick…

Maybe she was mad at him for not visiting more? Biscuits, he felt awful about that…but he’d had his dad and Cyn to worry about, too. And Mr. Doorman too, a bit. Ned briefly wondered how much easier his life would be if he could clone himself.

He was numb throughout breakfast…Cyn looked absolutely pleased as punch with herself this morning, and Dad had been pleased as punch that she was so chipper. Ned, on the other hand, picked idly at his food without eating much, and Dad motioned for Cyn to go head on to school while he walked around to Ned’s chair.

“Hey, ace,” he said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

“Vera’s been sick,” Ned said glumly. “Really sick…and…it sucks pretty hard.”

Dad nodded sympathetically and pulled him into a side-hug with a fond squeeze. “I heard that she’s been having a rough time. I’m afraid all that we can really do is be there if she needs someone to lean on. She’s ultimately the one who decides when she’s ready to lean on us…”

Ned nodded glumly, then before he could stop himself, muttered “I’m not sure if she’ll ever be ready, though…”

“Why’s that?” Dad asked gently.

Ned sighed and averted his eyelights. “She…uh…I’m not sure she thinks I’m a f-friend anymore…”

He hated the way his voice shook into a whine as he said that.

“You’re her best friend, kiddo,” Dad reassured him. “She’s just having a rough time right now, and sometimes that makes people do things they usually wouldn’t. But I know you two goobs are peas in a pod! I don’t think anything could change that.”

“...You think…?” Ned asked, his voice small.

Dad nodded, then lifted Ned’s hat to affectionately ruffle his hair for a moment.

“You two have been glued at the hip for years!” he said cheerfully. “I’m sure it’ll work itself out. These things usually do. Now…get out there, ya goob! Class starts soon!”

Ned smiled and gave Dad a salute, then scurried off on his way to class.

Unfortunately…when he arrived there, it was to see Vera getting in a row with Jade. Ohhhhh no. He felt digital sweat prickle on his visor as the two girls raised their voices at each other. Mr. Brown was nowhere in sight to stop the bickering.

“It was just a question, Vera,” Jade sniffed. “You don’t need to blow a gasket over a simple question.”

Vera slammed her hands on Jade’s desk, visibly bristling a little. “You don’t get to ask me to relive all of that for your entertainment!”

Jade put a hand on her hip, idly clicking the pen in her other hand. “It’s not entertainment. I’m simply trying to get all angles on the story to discern the truth. Have you heard some of the wild rumors flying around this campus? I’m doing you a favor by getting the truth.”

“You’re just going to spread the gossip yourself!” Vera cried, voice getting shrill. “You’re no b-better.”

Jade rolled her eyelights before giving Vera an unamused look. “I don’t have to spread jack. You’re the one drawing all this attention to our conversation. Look around, Vera…”

Vera’s eyelights hollowed as she became aware of all the classmates filtering into the room, their optics locked on the rather loud conversation. She began to vent rapidly and shallowly, her hollow eyelights flicking back to Jade.

“Not my fault you felt the need to yell, Vera,” Jade deadpanned. “Dreadful etiquette, by the way.”

Vera whimpered, drawing into herself as more people entered the room…including Chad and his pack of tin-heads. Ned’s eyelights hollowed, and he tried to intercept…but he was a bit too late in getting his feet moving.

“The Exploding Wonder bothering you, Jade?” Chad smirked.

Jade shrugged. “Just a bit loud. Were you this loud during the break-in, Vera? Small wonder the Murder Drone found you then, I suppose…”

Ned’s hands actually balled into fists at that comment. Usually, Jade was admittedly really scary, but…

That was crossing a line.

Before Ned would do anything, though, Vera hissed and threw a fist into Jade’s visor hard enough to crack it. Jade screamed and clutched at her visor in pain while Chad tackled Vera to the ground. She thrashed her limbs and screamed, trying to get the bigger and stronger jock off of her to no avail…

…until Ned came up behind Chad and put him in a Full Nelson, lifting him off of Vera with very little effort, faceplate showing a stern scowl.

“Leave her alone,” he rumbled lowly in Chad’s ear. The jock nodded, a digital sweat drop running down the side of his visor.

Unfortunately…by the time he let Chad go…Vera had already sprinted out the door. Not even sparing a glance back at Jade (who was muttering about a cracked screen) he took off after her.

“VERA!!” he cried, boots pounding off the flooring.

He could see her cast a terrified glance over her shoulder as she tried to speed up.

To get away from him.

Ned’s eyelights hollowed and ringed with stress lines as he ground his heels into the floor, skidding to a stop as she sprinted out of sight around a corner.

Spent, he sank to his knees and trembled a little.

Vera was definitely actively avoiding him now.

Was his father mistaken…?

He staggered back into the classroom, only for Cyn to get out of her seat and rush over to give him a hug. He mutely sagged into it, sort of numb to it. It was very sweet of Cyn…but his mind was completely elsewhere.

Where was Vera?

Vera was climbing into the vents.

Her processor was on fire. Being in the classroom had been torture, being able to hear every ventilation rasp and core cycle slosh of oil through tubing in each and every classmate that walked through that door. The lights had been searing her optics to a crisp, and then Jade had the absolute nerve to ask her to openly discuss the traumatic events of the Murder Drone attack.

It was entirely too much, everything all at once. All of her frustration with Jade and then Chad had just bubbled right to the surface till she couldn’t take it anymore.

She was burning from the inside, burning with rage.

She didn’t mean to crack Jade’s visor. She really didn’t. She thought it would’ve been just enough to get her attention. She’d never been anywhere near as strong as Ned was. Hell, sometimes she could barely manage to wrench the parts of her railgun into the right places because she really wasn’t strong at all.

And then she accidentally cracked Jade’s visor like it was nothing. 

With a feral hiss at that. Vera didn’t even know a drone could make a noise like that, let alone herself.

As she’d run, she honestly wondered what she would have done if Ned had not pulled Chad off of her. 

She was becoming increasingly certain that it would have been something even more heinous than a cracked visor. Chad had shoved her into one too many lockers back in the day for it to have been pleasant.

She growled at the thought, then gasped in horror and launched herself into the vents as quickly as she could.

What was happening to her?!

She made a beeline for what she hoped would be a safe space to cool off and get herself back together…the little hidey hole she’d made with Ned, lit by strings of fairy lights with a few pillows for comfort.

Her core clenched as she wriggled her way into the little open area in the vents. 

The last time she’d been here was after Ms. Alice had patched her visor up post-railgun-explosion. The day before the ill-fated trip to the Murder Drones’ Corpse Spire to get that final part.

Her hands trembled at the memory.

She’d ruined everything and doomed everyone. 

She knew now…if she hadn’t set things in motion, she wouldn’t have put Ned in the path of the Sky Demons and set him up for what he was fated to do to them all…

Her core clenched very painfully at the thought.

Then it clenched again.

And again. She gasped in agony, clutching at her chassis with hands that rattled in their casing from her tremors.

Her core was spasming in her chest as her HUD screamed with high temperature warnings. She hissed in discomfort, shrugging her backpack off. Her dad would tell her to go drink her coolant like a ghoul…

She’d slipped out the door this morning before he could make her sip from that damn thermos, but…

Her eyelights hollowed, one flickering between an error symbol and a three-pronged glyph as she realized she’d left the thermos at home.

She was burning.

Vera fell onto her side with a yelp of agony, baring her fangs in a grimace as she curled into a fetal position, trembling severely. She could feel something slithering and scraping inside her, yearning to be free even as she hugged herself tightly, pleading for her tubing to just stay inside-

Her wish was denied as she vomited all over her backpack.

Except…it didn’t look like anything she’d eaten. It was just pure silver shimmery slurry with the most acrid scent on the planet. She could see it actively burning and melting her backpack into nothing right in front of her.

The thudding of her own core inside her strained her audials severely, the rush of oil through her own tubing…

She screamed as lavender light flared in front of her hands, and all the fairy lights along the walls exploded in showers of sparks.

Her internal components writhed in protest again, making her retch violently once more as the remains of the fairy lights flickered with glowing lavender code…and then something began to explode and slither out of them, spreading all over the walls and ceiling of the little chamber as Vera gasped and sobbed. It was distressingly hot and moist as the horrific web of foreign matter exploded outwards to begin covering her.

The horrid things inside her began to writhe and scratch at the inside of her casing with a newfound fervor as the moist cocoon enveloped her curled up form, and she clutched her head and screamed as her visor flickered between hollow eyelights, high temperature warnings, and…

A blazing lavender X.

The screams soon tapered off into hysterical sobbing punctuated by the occasional retching of steaming hot silver fluid…

And even that eventually tapered into near silence.

It was broken only by the occasional soft giggle as the X became a constant upon her visor.

Something snapped and cracked wetly in the darkness behind her.

She could only laugh.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump…

Cyn knew that Vera was doomed to drag her brother down with her, but…damn. He was completely unresponsive to her hug, and slumped numbly into his seat as Mr. Brown made his entrance and set his papers down on his desk with a sigh.

“...Jade, why is your screen cracked?” he asked flatly.

“Vera freaking lost it and hit me!” she cried indignantly…which made Cyn roll her eyelights in exasperation.

Mr. Brown tutted and wrote something on his clipboard. “Have to dock points for a violent meltdown,” he muttered before looking back up at Jade. “Go to the nurse.”

Jade staggered toward the door unsteadily till Chad got up to go help her. She swatted his hand away indignantly when he tried to steer her, but he still followed her out into the hall.

Ugh. What a simp.

Her optics strayed back to Ned as Mr. Brown, disinterested in student drama as always, started setting up his slides for the day’s lecture. Her brother was staring vacantly straight ahead, hands shaking a little on his desk. How badly she wanted to just snuggle up with him the rest of the class. He looked like he desperately needed it.

Had Vera hit him too?! Oh, Cyn might just have to go whack her real good with her cane a few times to send a message. How dare she. Terminal daddy issues did not excuse hurting Ned like this!!

She seethed her way through the whole lecture. Maybe it was about captchas again, she didn’t freaking care.

What finally caught her attention was the power going out. A few of the more dramatic kids started screaming incoherently, with Riley yelling that “This is so not the vibe!!”

“It’s just a power outage,” Mr. Brown deadpanned, then more quietly added “which means I don’t have to lecture anymore…”

Cyn glanced to her brother and met his eyelights in the dark.

He looked stressed out beyond belief.

“The power should be back on…whenever,” Mr. Brown sighed. “Go home, knock yourselves out. I’m still getting paid for the shift…”

Pandemonium broke out as kids started running for the door. Cyn winced and covered her audials, all the screeching a bit overwhelming. 

By the time she lowered her hands and flicked her optics back on…her oil chilled as she realized Ned had taken off with the crowd.

Vera, she thought with dismay. Freaking VERA.

She frowned deeply…until she found a different pair of blue eyelights looking into her own.

Beau.

He quietly offered her his hand, and she eagerly took it as she stood from her desk on shaky legs.

She realized that Beau looked deeply concerned, and he was sticking real close to her…

…with his free hand on his revolver holster.

“What’s going on?” Cyn whispered. Normally Beau was so chill…

“I think somethin’ mighta gotten loose in the bunker…” he said lowly. Cyn gasped and trembled a little, pressing herself a little closer to Beau without realizing it as he cautiously led her out into the darkened hallway. Some students were hanging around gossipping like normal…some were being dramatic maniacs down the hall, and Cyn sneered a little when she spotted Rebecca and Darren making out in an especially dark little corner. Gross.

“Things seem pretty normal,” Cyn sighed, even as Beau pulled her along, eyelights hollow.

“I…got my reasons to think that we should skedaddle,” he muttered uneasily. “Got any clue where Ned went?”

“Definitely looking for Vera,” she grumbled unhappily. For some reason, that made Beau freeze in his tracks. “...Beau?”

Beau was trembling a little, and he held his head for a moment with a grimace. Cyn gasped in concern and made a soft questioning noise before he straightened back up, a look of dread on his faceplate.

“Consarn it,” he rumbled. “He’s gon’ get killed doin’ that…”

“Beau?! What’s going on?!” she cried. He turned and gave her an uneasy look…then uneasily nudged her behind him.

“I’mma try my best, Cyn…but…if he’s already found her, he might already be a goner…”

Cyn’s core skipped a cycle. “I…wh-what? You’re not making any sense, Beau!”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, expression so deeply concerned.

She could briefly see his eyelight flicker with an odd symbol she’d never seen before.

“Vera’s dangerous right now,” he said quietly before turning back around. “I’ll protect you…but till we can find Ned, I can’t promise nothin’ ‘bout him, I’m sorry…”

She couldn’t feel vindicated about her thoughts about Vera right now. The way Beau was talking…Ned’s stupid crush was putting him in mortal peril right now.

“So find him!” she all but screamed, shaking him a little. “Find him now!”

“It ain’t that simple,” he sighed, a hand briefly massaging his temple. “I already got a migraine comin’ on, for starters…”

Cyn gave him a light shove forward to make her message clear. He stumbled a little, then turned around to level a stern look at her.

“You can’t be goin’ into danger,” he said, tone firm.

Cyn screwed her faceplate up into a pout.

“I’m not leaving my brother for dead,” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chassis for evidence. “We find him now!”

Beau sighed, gently grabbed her hand, and lowered it from his chassis. “Cyn…this is dangerous. She could very easily kill ya.”

“I’m not letting her freaking kill my brother!” Cyn cried. “Hell, giving Doorman a piece of my mind would be pretty cathartic right about now!”

Beau sighed, looking extremely reluctant. “Yer really not takin’ ‘no’ for an answer, are ya…?”

Cyn put her hands on her hips. “Hell no.”

He very reluctantly pulled his revolver out of its holster…and gently pressed it into her hands.

“Beau…? This is your weapon,” she said softly.

“I’m still armed,” he grunted without elaboration…then he gently pointed out the safety to her. “Flip this off when yer ready to fire, then aim and pull the trigger. If ya insist on comin’ with me…yer at least gonna be armed.”

Cyn nodded solemnly. “Thanks, Beau. Now let’s go find Doorman…”

Chapter Text

Ned had, in fact, gone looking for Vera.

She had been so violently unwell, and now that class was effectively canceled, he wanted to go find her and maybe hold her and tell her it would be okay…

He thankfully knew her well enough to know where she’d hide. So he made a beeline for their favorite entrance into the vents and threw himself in, crawling toward their hideout…

He felt a distinct sense of unease prickle at his processor as he realized the glow of the fairy lights wasn’t there. Did she not come in here after all? That was disquieting. Did he truly not know his best friend anymore?

As he started crawling into the hideout, his hand landed in something warm and moist with an unpleasant squelch, and his eyelights hollowed as he heard the faint, slow dripping of something from higher up.

“V-Vee…?” he called softly. Normally his voice should echo a little in here, but…something on the walls was muffling it. “Are you in here…? I’m not handling this w-well, to be immediately honest…”

Nothing but the slow, unsteady drip answered him.

He fumbled in his bag for a flashlight…and the instant it flickered on, he gasped in fear.

Every single wall was covered in some kind of fleshy mass, veins of meat spreading out across every inch of otherwise clear space. He soon realized that the drip was from globs of red dropping off from the masses onto the floor below.

Sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by gore, was a pair of shattered glasses. Ned reached for them with a trembling hand, risking getting meat juice on his coat and boots just so he could pick up the broken frames, eyelights flickering on his visor.

She couldn’t be…

His attention snapped to the vent leading out the opposite side of the hideout. 

He could see evidence of something hauling itself out of the goop and out that vent. He scowled in determination and pocketed Vera’s glasses.

There was a chance she’d made it out of…whatever this was, and he had to find her!

His urgency was only exponentially amplified by the sounds of screaming echoing faintly from far, far deeper in the ventilation system.

The screams were abruptly cut off as quickly as they started up.

Ned shuddered, took a few deep vents in and out, then threw himself into the ventilation shaft that led out of here.

He had to find Vera.

Cyn was about ready to blow a gasket at the rate things were going.

One hand shook in an antsy fashion as she clung to the revolver, and the other arm clutched Beau’s arm tightly as he led her down the pitch black halls. There was still no sign of Ned and this was like the umpteenth freaking hallway they’d checked. Several kids had already just bailed and started heading home to wait out the blackout…so the halls were starting to get eerily empty.

Cyn didn’t think of herself as a coward. She had to put on a brave face just to get out of bed a lot of the time. At any moment her servos could just decide to flip her the bird and let her lock up or fall. She’d spent a lot of bedrest as a kid watching all kinds of movies and shows of different genres, horror included. She liked to think she wasn’t a weenie, unlike Ned who got got by basically every scare in every movie ever.

There was admittedly something unnerving about traversing an empty school in pitch blackness in real life, especially with Beau insisting that they had to watch out for something.

“Are you sure he’s still here?” she asked uneasily. “It’s looking pretty empty…”

Not for the first time, Beau pulled them against some lockers so he could let her go and have one of his “headaches.” She was really beginning to suspect there was more to them than mere headaches. She’d ask a question, he’d duck aside with convenient timing and have a brief headache, and then he’d magically assert that Ned was still in the school, somehow. 

This time was much the same, and Cyn put her hands on her hips this time around.

“Beau, what is going on?” she pleaded. “I know there’s a bunch of junk you’re not telling me!”

He inhaled shakily and turned to face her, eyelight flickering with the symbol again.

“I…can see things,” he murmured, hand going up to his flickering eyelight briefly. “Things that’ve already happened. And…I saw somethin’ downright dangerous happenin’ up in them vents.”

“What happened?” Cyn cried, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a shake. It wasn’t very strong, being from her…but her point got across.

“Vera ain’t Vera no more,” Beau finally said quietly. “She’s…somethin’ else right now, and that somethin’ feeds on drone oil.”

“Like a vampire?” Cyn whispered, eyelights hollow.

Beau looked uneasy. “Ah…somethin’ like that, sure…” He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder for a moment, then looked back to her.

“I knew Vera was being a drain on Ned, but a literal vampire…?” Cyn muttered.

“Focus, Cyn,” Beau pleaded. “This is serious-”

His eyelights hollowed at the sound of footsteps, and he and Cyn both turned their heads to see their classmate Emily hesitantly peeking her head around the nearby corner.

“H-hello?” she squeaked nervously.

“Oh thank Robo-God, someone else is-” Cyn started to say.

Then Emily walked under a vent grate about twenty feet away.

In a brilliant flash of lavender light and flickering code, it exploded outward and sheared right through her entire body, spraying the hallway with oil. There was another flash of lavender as the same glyph from Beau;s eye appeared around the corpse, and it shot back up into the vents. There was a maniacal, unsettlingly familiar giggle, accompanied by the sound of growling and tearing and even more oil splashing down to the ground below.

Cyn screamed.

Her servos gave out on her just as Beau scooped her into his arms, eyelight flickering into the three-pronged glyph.

Then he disappeared in a flicker of ice-blue light and code, not a moment before a duplicate of the grate went shooting directly through where he had been standing.

The giggling fell quiet and there was a scuttle in the vent.

They reappeared in…Beau’s hab, where he immediately dropped her on the nearest couch and booked it over to the fridge, where he pulled out a thermos, unscrewed the cap, and started chugging.

Cyn, for her part, doubled over for a moment and tried not to vomit all over the Underwoods’ floor. Did they just freaking teleport?! Whatever that was, it had twisted her tubing into all sorts of unpleasant knots…

“Beau,” she whimpered as she sat back up. “What the hell.”

Beau gave her a sympathetic glance as he finished downing the contents of the thermos. She could see just a smear of black at the corner of his mouth before he wiped it on his sleeve, and her eyelights hollowed. His hollowed in turn, right back at her.

“Cyn…” he began uneasily.

“You have superpowers?!” she all but screamed. “A-and…oh Robo- God that was the same thing as the…the purple thingie…oh crap-”

“Cyn, please…lemme explain,” he pleaded, slowly walking back around the counter to face her.

“Please,” she squeaked. “What the hell is going on…?”

He gave her a sad smile as the glyph flickered back over his eyelight again…and a matching one flickered over his hand as he curled his pinkie into his palm. Yet another matching ice-blue glyph appeared over a bowl of double-A batteries across the room, and with a flick of his wrist they floated across the room into the coffee table in front of Cyn’s knees.

She stared at the batteries in shock, then mutely lifted her gaze back to Beau’s faceplate.

“...You should get yer strength back,” he said quietly, sitting himself down in a chair opposite her, hands wringing uneasily in his lap as his eyelight returned to normal. “This’ll…be a long story.”

“Where’s Ned?” she whimpered. “You can see him, right?!”

He gestured sternly at the batteries before putting his hands to his head again. Cyn uneasily popped one in her mouth as Beau subjected himself to another vision. Each crunch between her teeth felt like it took an eternity…

Until Beau screamed oily murder, eyelights hollow and ringed with stress lines, voice shrill. His vents in and out were shallow as he trembled, and Cyn shot up and stumbled her way over to him, all but falling in his lap as her weak knees failed her. He startled as he caught her, snapping back to reality.

“What did you see, Beau?” she whispered. She had never ever seen him even remotely that scared before.

“He…he’s killin’ us all,'' Beau whimpered, hands trembling and rattling in their casing. “He’s killin’ us all!!”

Cyn tilted her head. “Ned? But he saved the bunker from the break-in!”

Beau shook his head, voice shaking.

“He freed the Murder Drone.”

Cyn blinked in disbelief. “He… what?!”

Ned was lost.

Vera had always known these vents way better than he did. She was the one who pored over schematics that she’d stolen from her dad, memorizing all kinds of routes to sneak around to where she wanted to go while avoiding all the kids she didn’t like on the ground below.

Ned had usually just followed her lead.

The trail of goop had rather quickly tapered off…and aside from the very occasional splatter of black fluid he really didn’t want to think too much about, he was finding diddly-squat. He was starting to get lost in his own head, panicking over the thought of being trapped here forever alone in the dark while Vera was out there dead or dying-

He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and he screamed as a vent grate gave way under him.

He landed with a pained “oof” on top of something that was definitely not a flat surface…and he winced at how hot it was. He scrambled to get off of it…

And then his oil chilled, core skipping a cycle.

Five golden optics flickered on one at a time before a flickering glitchy golden X appeared on the drone’s visor.

“H-hi, Z,” Ned squeaked as he threw himself off the operating table.

Serial Designation Z let out what would have been a ferocious growl full of loathing and hatred and a desire for violence…if it wasn’t so garbled from magnetic interference, and if it hadn’t petered out into a keening whine of pain.

Ned couldn’t help but feel a staggering pang of pity for her. Last he’d seen her, she’d been a ferocious killing machine, agile and deadly…and eager to talk smack about her parent company.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted to the snarling Murder Drone. “I…I didn’t mean to get you stuck in a place like this…” 

He moved his flashlight beam uneasily around the room, all kinds of oil-stained surgical tools glinting coldly in the light. He shuddered on her behalf.

Z’s killing X flickered into glitchy eyelights that gave him a very unimpressed scowl…like she thought he was stupid. Maybe he was, since he turned his beam on her next…

And he could see her chassis was scuffed up with scars from poorly-healed wounds, her jacket and casing covered in oilstains. She hissed and growled at him until he flicked the beam elsewhere.

His beam had illuminated the constant steam on her breath.

“You’re overheating,” he said quietly, sympathetically.

Z gave him a look that read very clearly as “Duh.”

His eyelights fell on a little oil bag on a nearby table, and he shakily reached for it and the bag laying next to it.

What he was about to do felt so wrong. He powered down his optics very briefly as he drew in steadying inhales, letting out long exhales…

Then he ripped off the top of the first bag and started waterfalling the oil into Z’s mouth. At first she sputtered in surprise, but quickly the X was back on her face as she greedily gulped as much of it down as she could, a loud purr rumbling through her chassis like thunder. Soon the contents of the first bag were gone down her ravenous intake…and Z’s purr turned into odd plaintive chirps and warbles as her head weakly turned toward him. 

She was tracking him as he opened the second bag.

“Do you…um…feel better?” he asked meekly.

His only answer was more of those weird plaintive warbles. He had absolutely no clue what the heck they were supposed to mean…but he could hear the desperation.

Without further hesitation he ripped the second bag open and poured the oil down her intake. The rumbling purr returned in full force, and he felt oddly relieved.

By the time the second bag was done, Z’s desperate warbles had quieted down, and he could hear an audible sigh of relief. He wrung his hands uneasily as he tossed the bags into the nearby garbage can full of things he’d really rather repress. Those weren’t severed fingers, right…?

“....tT-ThaaA-aaAnK-ks,” Z ground out hesitantly, her vocal synth struggling mightily under the influence of…oh, geez, he could see five big magnets stuck to her head, illuminated by the glow of her optics. That couldn’t possibly be healthy.

“I screwed up,” he said softly. “But…um…p-promise not to kill me or the whole bunker, and maybe I can fix it…?”

Z scowled unhappily at him…but didn’t otherwise object, so he took that as a signal to keep going.

“I can take the magnets off…b-but! You have to promise! No murder sprees in the bunker!!”

Z rolled her eyelights and stuck her tongue out at him in a fierce scowl.

“Y-y-y-yOu-u s-s-Suuu-Uck,” she grumbled. “B-bU-ut f-Fi-i-Ne.” She sighed heavily, laying her head back against the table, going still, and then looking at him with blank expressionless eyelights.

He stared back at her with equally blank eyelights for a moment till she scowled again, raising one flickering eyebrow at him in question.

He took a hesitant step back toward the table, clamping his fingers shakily around the first magnet. He braced himself, then wrenched it off of her head with relative ease. The difficulty was in not fleeing in terror as she started to stir, wriggling her fingers and tail with satisfied groans.

“Promise me no murder?” he pleaded. She rolled her eyelights and nodded, and he moved on to the second magnet.

And the third.

She got increasingly more motile with each removed magnet…and she also seemed to be in more pain with each one.

“You good?” he asked softly.

“Fine,” she hissed, flashing the killing X at him for the barest second, making him tremble. She dropped the X with a snort at his expense. “The frickin’ ghoul you handed me off to has only been rooting around in my chassis with hacksaws for the last week, so I’m fine and dandy!”

“Sorry about that again,” he said with a wince. “Super sorry-”

“Ugh, less apology, more magnet pully,” she huffed with a terrifying flick of her tail.

He quickly got the fourth magnet removed, which left just one stuck to her head.

Z began to sit up, slowly pushing herself up with her arms, swaying groggily.

She turned her head to him and her visor flickered into a golden X, faceplate splitting in a razor-sharp grin of murderous glee.

“Get prank’d, idiot,” she purred. “How’s it feel to get got, huh, N?!”

He took a step back and crossed his arms, scowling.

“You promised,” he pouted. “No murder!”

“You got me captured and tortured, idiot!” she growled back, murderous smile returning to a grouchy scowl.

“And I’m getting you out! Draw?” he asked.

Z huffed. “...You die last,” she conceded.

Ned crossed his arms again. “Z.”

“What? I said you die last!”

“No murder!!”

“You’re no freakin’ fun, god,” Z hissed.

“I’m leaving that last magnet on until you’re outside,” he said sternly, in an abrupt moment of confidence.

He could see that the rebellious Murder Drone would menace the entire bunker if he let her completely free too early, no matter what bargain he tried to strike.

Z snarled at him…but was still too groggy to do much of anything.

He sighed and offered her his hand.

She stared at it with a scowl. “Take the damn magnet off, N.”

“I’m not freeing you for bunker murder,” he said sternly. “I’m just getting you back outside to your squad, okay? I think they miss you…they’re here at night clawing at the outside looking for you, right?”

Z’s eyelights hollowed at the words.

“You know that if you lead me out there and let me go…I’ll know about the inside of your little bunker, and I’ll know how to get back in again,” she purred. “You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you…?”

“Do you want to see your squad again or not?!” Ned barked, suddenly feeling very fed up with Z’s behavior. He was risking himself to save her when he by all rights had absolutely no reason to…and she was going to be rude and backstabby about it?!

Z actually went quiet at that.

Ned huffed. “You either start being a lot less rude, or…or I could just walk right out that door and leave you here!”

As soon as he said that, he knew he couldn’t ever do that. He’d never sleep again.

But she didn’t know that.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she hissed, tail sluggishly rising up behind her in threat.

Ned stood his ground, arms crossed…hiding his terrified tremble well.

“Please…no murder, no backstabbing. That’s all I ask. Do that, and I’ll get you back out to T again, okay?” he said, softening his voice.

Z visibly hesitated, seemingly scanning his face for any hint of a lie.

Then she sighed, lowering her tail and offering him her hand.

His eyelights hollowed as he gently took her super-warm hand in his and helped her down off the table…and then out the operating room doors as she swayed unevenly on her pegs.

He was leading a Murder Drone out into the hallways of Outpost-3…freeing her from captivity, returning her to where she was in a position to hunt his kind.

What kind of monster did that make him?

It was disquieting how they emerged into a relatively normal looking medical office, abandoned in the blackout. Anyone could have walked in here and not guessed that a Murder Drone was being vivisected just a room away.

He could see Z sneering judgementally at the decor as he helped her hobble through the waiting room. She caught him watching her and snorted. “What? You toasters make a room this freakin’ ugly and I’m not allowed to kill a few of them just a little?”

“No!!”

Z groaned loudly and gave him an exaggerated eye-roll before he yanked on her arm gently to keep her walking. He needed to get her out the doors as soon as possible to prevent a big freak-out…or murder. He really didn’t trust Z to keep her word on the murder thing right now.

He reached the office door, hesitated for only a moment, then pushed it open, stepping out into the hallway.

He really hoped he wasn’t getting the whole bunker killed over this.

Chapter Text

Cyn couldn’t believe her audials for a moment.

“Beau…stop pulling my leg.”

“I wouldn’t pull yer leg ‘bout this,” he said gravely, standing up on somewhat shaky legs. “Dammit, what the hell, Ned-”

“Say psych right now.”

“I wish I could!” Beau cried, pointing to his eyelight as it flickered with the three-pronged glyph. “The visions ain’t never lied, Cyn. Ned’s gone and damn done it now.” He let out a noise that sounded eerily like a growl as he started heading for the hab door. Cyn immediately started following him, one hand on her cane and one gripping the revolver tightly.

“Cyn,” he said. “No.”

“You and what freakin’ army?” She tried to shoulder her way past him and out the hab door, and he grabbed her shoulders and gently but firmly scooted her back while she scowled deeply at him. 

“You’re not keeping me from my brother!”

“He’s with a Murder Drone!!”

“I HAVE A GUN!” she screeched, waving it for emphasis. Beau’s eyelights hollowed as he grabbed her wrist and lowered the gun arm cautiously.

Before they could argue further, however, the hab door opened, and two sets of hollow blue eyelights turned to see Beau’s mother rushing into the hab, nearly bowling right into them.

Alice let out a cry of relief and pulled Beau into her arms, giving him a tight squeeze before pulling back to quickly look Cyn over. “Oh, thank goodness y’all made it home safe,” she said. “It’s gettin’ pretty damn grim out there. All them reports of people dyin’ suddenly n’ violently in the halls…oh thank god y’all’re safe.” Then she paused, glancing at Cyn again. “Hol’ up. Where’s Ned? You two’re peas in a pod!”

“Ma…” Beau said quietly, gravely. “Ned let the Murder Drone out.”

Immediately, Alice’s eyelights hollowed. “...He what.”

“I saw it, Ma.” His eye flickered again, and Alice’s mouth drew into a tight line. “He pulled the magnets right off an’ let it out.”

“So that’s why we need to go find him right now and yell at him for being a big stupid!” Cyn cried. “Robo-God, first he goes wandering off to find Vera, who…by the way, is a freakin’ vampire who kills people now!! And then he goes and stumbles into the Murder Drone and lets it out?! Ughh…he probably felt bad for it or something. Cuz he’s him. News flash idiot, it wouldn’t feel bad for you!”

Alice seemed to not be paying attention to her very important rant, though. 

She was instead reaching for a knife with a shaking hand, eyelights remaining hollow and becoming ringed with stress lines.

“Stay here, kiddos,” she said darkly. “Mama has a monster to go wrangle back into its pen.”

“Ma!” Beau called. His mother turned around, and he scowled in determination, eyelight flickering into the three-pronged glyph as he curled his pinkie in, and a matching glyph glowed in front of his hand for a moment. “Yer gonna want backup for that one, I reckon.”

“Absolutely not, young man,” she said sternly, a hand going to her hip. “What sorta mother would I be if I let you run out all willy-nilly to go muckin’ about with that thing?!”

“I’m the one with the cool powers,” he rumbled, an ice blue glyph glowing over the knife before it flew out of her hand and into his, making her let out a surprised squawk.

“Beau!! Young man, gimme my knife back this instant.”

“Not till ya let me come with ya,” he said, twirling the knife idly in his hand. Cyn watched with rapt attention, her mouth falling open in surprise. “That Murder Drone ain’t sedated no more. Yer gonna want the configs to back ya up.”

Alice crossed her arms, walking right up to him and glaring right into his eyelights. “I’m not riskin’ a Murder Drone killin’ ya,” she said sternly. “Beau, you know what they did to yer father-”

“That’s exactly why I wanna help,” he said. “I think it’d be real nice to give one of those things a piece of my damn mind.”

He smirked, showing off sharp fangs.

She visibly hesitated…then after a moment, a low chuckle bubbled out of her, a hollow-eyed grin spreading across her faceplate.

“I admire yer spirit, Beau. Damn fine chip off the ol’ block you are. But I’m afraid the answer’s still no. Yer father would roll in his grave if I let ya go out and get yerself killed…” she muttered, hand briefly going to the choker around her neck.

Cyn had gotten better looks at it before, when Alice was looking her over in school. It just had a simple tag bearing the number 046. A bit of an odd fashion statement…but Cyn was one to judge, with all of the big bright poofy ribbons that she adored.

“That’s why I ain’t dyin’ Ma,” Beau insisted. “I got superpowers.”

“So do the Murder Drones, Beau!” Alice cried. “They regenerate faster than most weapons can meaningfully hurt ‘em. No matter what ya cut…they just keep growin’ back, given that they get enough oil. I suspect that the only way to really kill ‘em is to destroy the core…but I got a lot more to learn before I terminate the subject.” Alice paused a moment to smirk at the thought of doing just that, another low chuckle bubbling out of her. “Oh, I got a lot more to learn.”

“Y’ain’t gonna learn it if it escapes the bunker and/or kills everyone,” Beau deadpanned, twirling his mother’s knife again for emphasis.

Then he flinched as it suddenly fired some artillery from the blade into the floor.

“My knife, Beau. Give. It. Back.”

“Yer word, Ma!”

Cyn had enough of the stalemate.

She walked right between them, making a beeline for the door, elbowing her way past both of them and getting a chorus of indignant noises in response.

“Time is dead people, probably!” she hollered over her shoulder as the door slid open for her. She started hobbling her way down the hall without waiting for a response, flicking the safety on her revolver off.

Behind her, Beau and Alice exchanged a wordless, hollow-eyed glance as he handed the knife back to her, and they ran out of the hab together on Cyn’s tail.

Every time Ned heard footsteps approaching, or even anything remotely approximating the sound of footsteps, he panicked and shoved Z up against the wall.

The first few times, he’d done it a bit too roughly and she’d hissed loudly at him, visor flickering into a glitchy X, sort of defeating the entire purpose of hiding. Even after he made a concentrated effort to be more gentle, she still hissed at him the next several times.

Then, finally, when her back hit the wall behind some more equipment lockers, she sighed loudly and just let out a very deadpan “Dude. The hell is your problem?”

“People are going to completely freak out if they see you!” he whisper-shouted.

“Yeah, all zero and a half people we’ve seen out here,” she muttered. “Fantastic job.”

And, right as she said that, half of an oily corpse fell out of a vent above, the limp legs and a few bits of tubing slapping wetly against the floor.

Ned jumped and screamed, and Z warbled noisily, a predatory grin splitting her faceplate, saliva dripping from her fangs.

“Lemme go,” she finally cackled in coherent English. “God, that looks delicious.”

“Th-that’s a corpse,” Ned stammered, eyelights hollow.

“Duh. What, you’re gonna let perfectly good food go to waste?”

He quietly glanced between her and the detached legs of some poor soul before she huffed and kicked him, nearly sending him sprawling right into the oily puddle. He promptly nearly fell over again as she rushed past him on all fours, purring loudly as she tore into the remains, greedily tearing chunks off with her fangs and gulping them down. He flinched at every shriek of shearing metal, watching her devour what very well could have been someone he might have known.

It was very chilling to have confirmation that people were dying horrifically out there…and he still hadn’t found any sign of Vera besides the gore-splattered glasses.

He dearly hoped that she was still alive.

“Z…are you done yet…?” he asked uneasily, trembling as he tried to look away from the carnage, but found himself unable to.

She was wolfing down everything.

The only answer he got was a loud growl that shook him to his core, and he held up his shaking hands and scooted back slowly. Z seemed satisfied and returned to her meal.

He listened uneasily to all of the crunching and slurping for what felt like an eternity.

Finally, she rocked back onto her haunches with a satisfied moan, starting to lick the oil from her faceplate before moving to licking the back of an oily hand.

All that remained was splatters of oil on the floor…some of which Z had clearly already licked.

“Feeling, uh, better…?” he asked, voice shaky and weak. He felt like he might hurl.

“Yeah, that hit the spot,” she answered with genuine happiness, a purr still rumbling out of her.

He gave her a couple more minutes to clean herself off a bit more before he reached out with a shaky hand.

“Still not convincing you to take off the last magnet, huh?” she grumbled.

He shook his head with a half-hearted smile. “Not till you’re out of the bunker. Sorry, Z.”

“Figures,” she huffed, hesitantly taking his hand and letting him help her back to her feet again. Or maybe pegs was the more appropriate word. Her internal gyros must be ridiculous, like the rest of the tech packed away in her chassis. Were those power by nanites too? Oh, Vera would lose her mind-

“Biscuits,” he whimpered. “Vera!”

“Vera? Wait- Do you mean V?” Z scowled at the realization. “Fake names. Figures. Goes with the rest of the lie you fed me.”

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “Had to do it! You’d have killed us both if we didn’t, heh…”

She groaned as she staggered forward, held a bit steadier by his guiding hand. “Fair, I guess. Still frickin’ lame, though.”

“Do…do you want my actual name?” he asked, and then didn’t wait for an answer. “Ned. Ned Chambers.”

She snorted and laughed at that, and he couldn’t help but feel a little miffed. “What?”

“Ned? Your name is Ned. God that’s a dorky name.”

“Shush!” he huffed, a blush of embarrassment briefly glowing on his visor. “Anyway. Yeah. My best friend’s name is Vera and we gotta find her before…the…wh-whatever it is gets her!”

“We? What’s all this ‘we’ stuff, dork? I didn’t sign up to go track down your girlfriend,” she snorted, making Ned sputter. “Thought the deal was that you’d get me outside and then you’d die last.”

“Z!” he yelped, voice cracking. Biscuits! “That wasn’t the deal! It was no murder! A-and she’s not my girlfriend!”

“Suuuuure,” Z snorted with a roll of her eyelights. “And I’m the CEO of JCJenson.”

“Vee needs us!” he cried, tugging Z behind him as he started walking. She dug in her pegs with a frustrated growl.

“Dorkus! Squad! NOW!!” she snarled.

“We save my squad, then we get to yours, promise!”

“You don’t get to just change the deal whenever you want. That’s bullcrap.”

“I know, I know! But…um…I j-just remembered…I think it’s still daylight outside right now, heh…”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Z growled as Ned gave one more firm yank and she stumbled forward. “I’m gonna actually freaking kill you. Are you KIDDING me?! All of this and it was still daylight out?!”

“I fed you!” Ned said over his shoulder. “That has to count for something, right?!”

“You die last,” she huffed. 

“Z…no murder.”

“What, only you get to change the terms of the deal? Bull. Crap.”

Ned opened his mouth to argue further when he heard something dripping down from a vent grate on the opposite end of the hall…and his suspicions were confirmed by Z perking up, tail swishing in sluggish excitement as she picked up the scent of food.

“Maybe…uh…we go the other way?” he suggested.

“Dude, that’s more free food!” Z cried, wrenching her hand free to start jogging…only to stumble and faceplant halfway there. Ned winced in sympathy. That looked like a hard landing…and it was confirmed by Z yelling some very impolite words.

As Z tried to pick herself back up off the ground…a terrifyingly familiar giggle sounded from the vents above, echoing all around them.

Then in a flash of lavender light, the grate sheared off of the ceiling, reconfigured into a series of blades, and rocketed towards Z.

Ned could only cry out in horror as the onslaught sheared Z’s arms off of her chassis in a spray of oil…swiftly followed by her head. It clattered to the floor with a red FATAL ERROR blazing across what remained of her visor…which one of the blades had embedded itself in.

“Z! NO!!” he wailed, hands clutching the sides of his head.

Then his hollow eyelights ringed with stress lines as something crawled out of the grate, skittering across the ceiling like a spider, a three-pronged glyph blazing lavender across its screen as the familiar giggles kept splitting the air, manic and malicious.

“Vera?” he gasped in horror as she dropped from the ceiling, landing on top of Z’s chassis and cackling as her disturbingly fleshy wings flared out.

She was completely spattered in oil, and a very Murder Drone-esque smile split her faceplate with dripping fangs.

Her glasses sat heavily in his pocket.

“Vera, wait!” he cried, voice shaking violently as he reached a trembling hand toward her. “L-let’s talk about this-”

She let out a gleeful howl as the magic glyph lit up in front of her hand again, spinning as lavender light circled around his chassis. He flailed with a wail as she picked him up, giggling and giggling, and giggling-

“Vee, please!” he screamed. “It’s me!”

The glyph on her visor sputtered out, replaced with hollow eyelights ringed by stress lines. The light around Ned sputtered out and he landed in a heap on the floor.

She immediately doubled over and vomited up a very oily half-melted arm. A whole arm. Ned winced as he started peeling himself off the floor.

“O-oh Robo-G-god,” Vera stammered, clutching her chassis tightly as he knees knocked and she took several shaky steps back. “N-ned…oh holy h-hell I didn’t mean-!”

She paused to retch up more oil, leaning with a hand on the wall as she desperately gasped for air, steam coming out on her breath.

“V-vee…?” he asked shakily. He could see a thin tail not unlike a Murder Drone’s lashing behind her now…though the end looked really different, almost like a…fleshy head…? It whipped around and clacked its jaws at him at the sound of her name, and he squeaked before trying again.

“Vee? You g-good…?”

“NO!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, a noise that made Ned reflexively wince and slap his hands over his audials as his optics fuzzed. “N-no! Duh! Look at me, Ned! I’m g-gross and eating people! And you!” She pointed a finger accusingly at him. “Oh my freaking Robo-God the visions are all true after all. You’re gonna let the Murder Drones in and k-kill us all, so what does it matter that I’m a horrible monster now anyway, right?!?” Before he could attempt any kind of meaningful answer, she started laughing so hard that she nearly fell over, the laughter sounding a lot more like pained sobbing than anything.

He could feel his core break.

“Vee…please…tell me what’s going on-”

“So you can betray us all harder?!” Vera howled, slapping her knee. “Nope! Just let me finish taking care of this thing.”

She grinned all-too-widely and kept giggling as the glyph took over her faceplate again, and her funky magic powers started animating the grate-blades again, pointing them Z’s chassis-

And without thinking, Ned ran forward and tackled Vera to the ground. She screamed as her powers sputtered out and the blades clattered harmlessly to the oil-spattered floor.

“Vee, please! Stop! I-if we’re nice to the…uh…Z and her squad…maybe they won’t keep trying to kill everyone in the bunker?” he tried. He realized it sounded like a pathetic pipe dream, coming out of his mouth in that tone of voice…and Vera’s manic laughter picking back up only confirmed it. “We won’t know until we try!”

“Ned, you suck,” she finally hissed, eyelights not returning to her visor. It was just the glowing glyph. “You’re the thing killing everyone in this bunker at this rate!”

Her oil-slicked wing hands folded in and reached for his throat…and he panicked and struck back on reflex, the digital adrenaline running high.

His fist shattered her visor, and she fell back with a shrill shriek that sent him to the floor, HUD throwing up all kinds of errors.

By the time he was able to sit back up, he was left with Vera’s oil on his hands in an empty, oily hallway, oil continuing to drip from the vent above.

He stared up at it with hollow eyelights, shaking violently.

Then he stared back at his shaking, oily hand. A shard of glass was embedded in one of his finger joints, and he hesitated to remove it.

Then he startled at the ground of pained groaning behind him…and he frantically scurried to slap the final magnet back on Z’s head as it finished regenerating, followed by her arms.

“Dammit!” she snarled. “God freakin’ dammit. There goes the free meal!”

Then she glanced over at Ned and let out a little warble.

“God, what happened to you?”

“Vera,” he sobbed, falling against her despite his better judgment. She flinched, but didn’t try to maul him as he sobbed into her shoulder.

“Uh…wow. That’s rough, buddy.”

That didn’t even begin to cover it.

His world was falling apart in front of his optics.

Vera had been hostile towards him, Vera had tried to attack him-

“My squad’s falling apart,” he whimpered, hoping that that maybe somehow conveyed the gravity of the situation to her.

Because he may as well confide his troubles in a Murder Drone at this point.

To his shock…that elicited a little growl from her.

“Z?” he gasped.

“Squadmates aren’t supposed to try to kill each other,” she huffed. “Ned, you’re done with that one.”

“Z, she’s-”

“Your ex now,” she snarled, arm whirring as her hand retracted into the iris, trembling as she extruded a gun with concentrated effort.

“NO! She’s not- Z, you’re not killing her!” he screamed, impulsively reaching for her gun arm to try and lower it, maybe shove the gun back in, he didn’t know-

Z just cackled and growled.

“Here’s the deal. We put down your crappy ex, and then you bring me back to my squad. Take the magnet off.”

“NO!! We find Vee and calm her down with a talk and maybe I bring you to your squad first!!”

“Daylight,” Z reminded him, and he pulled his hat off and screamed into it.

Then he took some shaky vents in and out.

Then he lost it again.

“I…I can’t, I c-can’t,” he whimpered, dropping his hat and balling his hands into fists in his hair as he shook. He kept repeating the words, starting to rock back and forth a little…

…Till some warm hands steadied him. He felt his hat lower back onto his head as he was pulled into a hug.

“...If we let your terrible ex live, you promise not to blow a gasket?” she muttered, a low noise rumbling through her chassis as she pressed him close against her.

It was frightening at first…but it was a steady hum of a thing, and it became oddly soothing after a moment.

“You p-p-promise n-not to hurt Vee?” he pleaded.

“...Yeah. I promise,” she said softly.

“Thank you,” he whispered, finding himself bringing his arms up around her to cling to her and her chassis with the oddly-soothing rumble.

He felt her squeeze back a little in return.

Chapter Text

Jade Johnson was not a drone who sat and let life happen to her. 

Say what you will about her; she didn’t have time to be bothered about the mutterings of those beneath her. She was as sharp as a knife, and she would carve herself a place in this cut-throat world. One day she would be a top officer in the bunker, running the show and watching the ants scurry beneath her.

Which was why it was really very frustrating when her attempted interview with one Vera Doorman ended in Doorman throwing a screen-shattering fist into her visor.

Information was a powerful currency, and it behooved an intrepid go-getter to acquire accurate information as quickly as possible, preferably from a primary source to cut out the middleman. Middlemen got…messy. Especially when most of them were dullards of the caliber that infested her class.

Unfortunately, Doorman turned out to be a very messy primary source. Well. It was hardly Jade’s fault that she had such a major malfunction when it came to her ostensibly heroic badassery that night. Or maybe she just had a major meltdown and the stories were blown out of proportion. How was Jade to know if Doorman herself went nuclear over basic questions about the incident?

Jade’s mood was not helped by the fact that Chad Smith, known Dullard Supreme, had insisted on escorting her to the nurse’s office. She damn well knew her way there, even if her optics were on the fritz as she’d held her visor together with her hands. But, she bit her tongue for now. Smith was, admittedly, a powerful ally on a strictly pragmatic level. Bar Ned Chambers, he was the strongest drone in their class. However, Chambers was entirely too attached to his weird sister to be all that loyal to Jade, given the frequent differences of opinion that she often had with said sister. Thankfully, Chambers was docile and easily kept in check with some sharp words. Smith was second best, it was true…but he barely thought for himself and was so easily swayed into doing things for her benefit. So, sure, she could tolerate some of his mouth-venting every now and again to make sure he was still loyal in their partnership. It never hurt for a girl to have some strength behind her. Simple math, really. His services rendered were worth the cost of putting up with him.

Though, some days, her patience was sorely tested.

“The hell is up with those losers?” he grumbled. “She flips the hell out, and then he actually supports that crap…what the hell, man…?”

“Enlightening,” Jade deadpanned. “Any more cutting edge insight from the think tank?”

“Really freaking cringe of the Exploding Wonder to explode all up in your face like that. I could go, uh, freaking explode her head after class if you want, babe.”

Jade took a deep vent and counted to three internally. “No need, Chad. She can go get that malfunction out of her system while I take care of other priorities.” Honestly, him going and starting crap with Doorman would cause a lot more trouble than she wanted to deal with. She was strong, Jade felt it in that punch. It was not prudent to go kicking metaphorical wasp nests for no good reason. Something was up with Doorman and she needed more information before making any rash decisions about how to proceed with her. So, she’d have to bring her stupid dog to heel.

Thankfully, it was a relatively quick walk to Nurse Underwood’s office, and Jade turned and gave Chad a condescending salute with the hand not holding her screen together. “Thanks for your service, but I got it from here.”

Infuriatingly, he decided to put an arm around her and steer her into the nurse’s office. “But your screen’s still all smashed up, babe. Lemme get you into a seat at least.”

Ah, one of the less pleasant costs of services rendered. The toxic masculinity. She rolled what was left of her eyelights and threw an elbow into him before sitting herself down in a chair. She grimaced as he sat beside her.

“Don’t you have a lecture to be attending right now? It would do wonders for your processor.”

“Emily’s doing the homework,” he scoffed. “Don’t need it.”

Jade briefly entertained the thought of one day being able to tell this waste of resources that he was being allocated to one of the smaller, crummier habs in the bunker so a more intelligent drone could make use of the bigger habs. It was important to have a vision in life, after all. A goal to keep striving toward.

“Howdy, kiddos!” came Nurse Underwood’s cheery voice as she walked out into the lobby, followed by her pulling a face at the severity of the wound on display. “Oh, heavens to Betsy, gimme a sec to go get the kit right quick…”

Jade groaned inwardly as Smith dared to look in her general direction in Nurse Underwood’s absence. She willed him not to say anything especially stupid. She almost successfully manifested his silence.

“So who’s Betsy?”

“Figure of speech,” Jade grumbled. “Hey, do me a favor, stud. I’m going to need you to be quiet for a few minutes so I can hear myself think.”

She said the magic “stud” word and it had exactly the intended effect. He smirked and leaned back in his chair, manspreading from here into next week. At least he shut up.

Finally, Nurse Underwood emerged with her kit and knelt down by her chair to get to work. “So, what wrecked yer screen, sweetheart? No railguns blowin’ up, I hope?” she joked. That would be the last major screen-shattering incident on campus.

“No, the inventor of the railgun blew up in my face, actually,” Jade said evenly. “I tried to ask her some journalistic questions about her experiences during the break-in and she went postal.”

Nurse Underwood frowned as she gingerly slotting shards of glass back into place and rubbed in some repair gel. Jade didn’t let herself flinch at the sting and tingle of the gel starting its work on her visor. She did not make a habit of showing weakness to the world. That was for fools who were going nowhere in life.

“Y’know, Vera’s been through a lot, sweetheart,” she said. “I’d leave her be. Those memories’re painful. She got viciously attacked by a Murder Drone. That’s gonna take time to heal from, physically and mentally.”

“That girl’s crazy,” Smith scoffed, and Nurse Underwood turned and gave him a stern look.

“You can go now,” she said curtly. “I’m tryin’ to work on a patient here, young man.”

“I’m her support,” he said proudly.

Jade gave her head the tiniest shake when the nurse’s optics slid back to her for a moment.

“Young man, ya have a class to get back to,” she said, voice leaving no room for argument. “Get, ‘fore I hafta write ya up for playin’ hooky.”

Jade tried not to smile too smugly as Smith reluctantly took his leave from the office, and Nurse Underwood sighed and shook her head.

“As I was sayin’...y’should give Vera her space for a while.”

“I was simply curious about the truth of the matter of what happened that night,” she said primly, punctuated with a slight involuntary hiss as the nurse dabbed on more repair gel that stung a little more than she expected. She was a little surprised at the gravity of the look that Nurse Underwood gave her.

“If ya really need to know so darn badly…ya can ask me,” she said. “I was there…but I ain’t violatin’ patient confidentiality, so hold yer horses about them questions ‘bout Vera.” Jade’s mouth had only just barely opened before it quickly closed again. Dammit. Hmm.

“So, is it true that Ned really caught a live Murder Drone?” Jade asked, trying to keep too much eagerness from leaking into her voice. Professionalism was always of utmost importance.

She was not expecting the utter transformation of the school nurse’s visage at that question.

Her blazing orange eyelights burned brightly as a wide grin split her whole faceplate.

“He sure did, sweetheart!” she said oh-so-cheerfully, before taking a moment to school her expression into something a bit less overtly deranged. “Feisty one. Real bitey. Already learned quite a bit from studyin’ it, too. We sure as hell ain’t gonna be fightin’ them things blind no more.” She gave a low chuckle as the worked on setting more of Jade’s screen with repair gel.

That chuckle possibly made Jade’s oil chill a little. There was no empirical proof of that, though.

“How’d he do it, then?” she pressed, keeping her voice even, betraying nothing. The nurse didn’t notice the slightest tremble there that nobody could prove existed.

“Magnets,” the nurse all but purred. “So simple, but so effective. Turns out the damn things ain’t magnet-proof, for all the other ways that they’re fulla space-case craziness. Hell, we could prolly get some drones with good aim to shoot bows n’ arrows with magnets at ‘em, bring ‘em down to the ground right quick with some good shots. Wouldn’t that be the damnedest sight! Them Sky Demons laid low by some lil’ ol’ magnets.” Nurse Underwood paused briefly to let out a rather loud cackle. Jade briefly questioned the wisdom of having this woman work in a high school as the sound rang through her audials.

“That would certainly be…quite the sight,” Jade agreed hesitantly. “Surely there’s more efficient weaponry that magnets could be integrated into, though. No need to go so medieval-”

“Oh, we could rig up some crossbows with automatic firin’ mechanisms,” Nurse Underwood said all too eagerly, that grin still all over her faceplate. “I’ve been draftin’ some sketches to show Mr. Doorman. We ain’t gonna be plagued by those things no more, I do declare.”

“That preparedness is going to serve the bunker well,” Jade said with an uneasy smile.

Then the lights abruptly went out, and Nurse Underwood swore under her breath. 

“Oh, consarn it. Gimme a moment to go get a light,” she grumbled, briefly leaving Jade in the dark as the blazing orange eyelights walked across the room. She caught a couple disgruntled mutterings to the tune of Mr. Doorman not putting enough people on watching the power grid, and “damn blizzards.”

Jade could swear she heard something thudding around up in the ceiling for a brief moment, and then it was gone. She briefly wondered if she was imagining things before banishing the thought. Sure, she took a really bad blow to the head recently, but she wasn’t one to get spooked by a little darkness, and she was sound of processor.

She would only give those worries the time of day if she heard it again.

Soon enough, Nurse Underwood was back with a light strapped to her helmet, and she got right back to work where she left off. Jade noticed that her hands seemed a little shakier, though, like she was antsy.

“Is the Murder Drone’s containment contingent on the power grid functioning?” Jade asked.

“Nah, it’s all magnets,” she murmured, focused on the repair job. “It ain’t gettin’ out ‘cause of a blackout, sweetheart.”

Jade figured that, given the mad scientist’s passion for her pet project, she was probably being truthful on that matter. She would have blown a gasket a la Vera by now if there was truly a risk of the Murder Drone breaching containment right now. She tried to relax a little as the nurse finished applying repair gel.

Jade flinched slightly as Nurse Underwood started carefully wrapping half her visor in bandages…and there was an oil-curdling scream echoing distantly down the hallway.

“What the hell was that?!” Nurse Underwood blurted out, abandoning her work to run to the door and listen.

The scream had faded, and there was only silence…and the faint thud of something in the ceiling again, gone as quick as it came.

“Are you certain about the magnetic containment holding?” Jade asked. “You might want to do some revisions-”

“Stay put,” Nurse Underwood growled with surprising ferocity. “Let the gel set. I need to go check on things…”

“You’re just-!” Jade called, the visible parts of her faceplate falling into a scowl as the nurse took off, leaving her voice to fall on deaf audials. “...leaving me here? Ugh. Talk about flawed position assignment. So unprofessional to just bail on a patient at the first sign of trouble.”

She crossed her arms and scowled, but…waited. No point in needlessly exacerbating her injury…especially in the dark. Running around down one optic was a foolhardy idea befitting the dullards that infested her class, not her.

She nearly jumped as a drone shuffled his way through the door a couple minutes later. All that was visible were pink eyelights glowing fuzzily in the gloom. That startled her. Not scared. Startled.

“Why is it that I am doomed to be swarmed by idiots?” she asked rhetorically to whatever might be listening.

The unwelcome visitor blinked his fuzzy eyelights at her, the pink glow dimly illuminating a dopey grin.

“Oh, hey, you,” he greeted. “Didn’t expect anyone else in here.”

Jade knew this idiot was in her class, but his name was escaping her at the moment. That would not do. She prided herself on knowing the ins and outs of her class.  “I was wounded while pursuing journalistic integrity,” she muttered. “Why the hell are you here?”

“It’s, like, empty in here, so…nurse isn’t guarding the good stuff,” he said, sauntering over to a drawer and fishing out several little round magnets with no uncertainty or hesitation. He dropped most of them into his hoodie pocket, then slipped one under his beanie and let out a happy little shuddery noise as his eyelights visibly flickered and fuzzed from the interference.

Oh, now it came back to her.

Sam Green, the perpetual druggie and underachiever.

He stared at her blankly for a moment as she recalled his name, then he reached into his pocket and offered her a magnet.

“Sorry, rude to not offer, I know…”

He yelped as she smacked his hand away and sent the little magnet clattering and rolling under the nearest filing cabinet.

“Yeesh, that’s a bit harsh, man.”

“Shut it, moron-bot,” Jade huffed, rising out of her seat with a huff. Injury be damned, her patience for idiocy was running thin today. “There might be something loose in the school. Now is not the time to be getting higher than the stratosphere.”

“The…strato-what now…?” Green asked with a confused little chuckle.

Jade grimaced as she ran through her options. Upon standing…she swayed a little on her feet, and her vision fuzzed from the strain on the damaged optic.

If she stayed, she was trapped if whatever was out there got in here. Trapped and injured.

But if she left alone…she was in a bad way. Loathe as she was, she wasn’t in a state to fight if it came down to it, and Robo-God knew where Smith had gotten off to since Nurse Underwood shooed him out.

She cast a very reluctant glance Green’s way. 

“Sup,” he said as he flopped down into a seat next to her, letting out another shuddering happy vent from a wave of magnetic interference hitting his processor.

Jade huffed, abruptly swiped off his beanie, yanked the magnet off his head, and slapped the beanie back on. He gave her an affronted pout, eyelights hollow.

“What the heck, man?!” he protested. “Stop harshing my buzz!”

“Listen to me well, Sam,” she said sternly, pouring all her authority into her voice. “Our best chances of making it out of this school in one piece today is to pool our resources. Luckily for you, I’m the smartest drone in the school. But…admittedly…I would benefit from acquisitioning some fresh optics. I think we can arrive at a mutually beneficial partnership arrangement for the day.”

Green looked at her blankly with still-hollow eyelights, frowning.

She groaned. “Okay. Let me dumb it down for the moron-bot. We need to work together. So you need to sober the hell up.”

“Maybe you need to, like, sit back and…relax, and appreciate stuff,” he complained.

“I think I just heard someone die a few minutes ago!” Jade exclaimed.

He seemed woefully unconcerned as he fished another magnet out of his pocket and reached for his beanie again. Jade all but ran over to him and smacked his hand away before he could apply it, sending yet another magnet rolling under a filing cabinet.

“Who hurt you today?” he asked, voice trembling with sorrow.

“Vera Doorman,” she huffed with no hesitation. “Freaking shattered my ENTIRE VISOR for asking a QUESTION!!”

“Woah…” he said quietly, taken aback by the sudden yelling. Followed by “...who’s that again…?”

Jade let out an incoherent yell of frustration as she walked over and kicked the filing cabinet with the magnets under it. It rattled with a clang from the force of her boot.

Then she walked over and slapped Green upside the head about as hard as she could manage, triggering a forced reboot.

When he blinked back online, his pink eyelights were hollow and ringed with stress lines, flickering with little artifacts.

“What was that for?!” he cried, and to her delight, he sounded significantly more lucid. Granted, his voice also cracked, but it was all about that cost/benefit analysis.

“You’re helping me get us both out of this school alive, moron-bot,” she snapped. “You be my eyes, and I’ll do the thinking for both of us.” Before he could protest, she hauled him to his feet, then threw an arm over his shoulders to support herself. He let out an uneasy little yelp as she did so.

“Scream if you see anything spooky,” she deadpanned. “Make it loud. Shouldn’t be hard for you.” If he was loud, he would be distracting, and she could slip away before whatever was out there caught her.

“Kay,” he whimpered, already shaking a little.

Jade was going to claw her way out of this mess by any damn means necessary.

Even if, regrettably, she had to rely on a sad little existence-whoopsie to do it.

Chapter Text

Much to Cyn’s frustration, the halls of the bunker were entirely too quiet.

It was at least slightly better lit, since some emergency backup lights had finally been kicked back online. They flickered pretty badly, though.

Running into the monsters was actually the goal now, and they were making themselves real scarce now. Just her luck, she supposed. She’d never been all that lucky.

Beau and Alice were quick to catch up with her. 

“This ain’t safe for ya, sweetheart,” Alice insisted, gently grabbing for her arm. “You should skedaddle on back home to yer ol’ man and-“

“Not without Ned,” Cyn all but growled. “Been over this with Beau. Tick tock, we gotta move!”

“Cynthia,” Alice said sternly. “Based on what I’m hearin’…there’s a Murder Drone loose, an’ Vera is in a very dangerous state.” She took a deep vent, scowling a little. “‘Course it’s Nori’s kid…”

“What does that have to do with anything?!” Cyn cried.

“Long story,” Alice murmured, hand drifting toward that 046 choker again. “To make it short: Vera inherited a helluva sickness from her mother, and now it’s all our problem. Dammit, Khan…”

Cyn felt so lost. “Sickness? You mean the vampire stuff?”

“It’s called the Absolute Solver,” Alice murmured, pulling Cyn aside into a little storage room. She nudged Beau into the room in turn, and posted herself up by the door to speak her piece. “It’s like witchcraft. Gives its hosts alla these superpowers…but the price is that they gotta drink oil or they’ll overheat and die from a core meltdown. Awful way to go.”

Cyn blinked, and she became aware of Beau gently pressing against her at her side. She leaned into him in turn, eyelights hollow.

“Humans infected a lotta drones with that disease,” Alice growled. “Includin’ Vera’s ma and Beau’s pa. And it turned out that the damn Solver can pass from parent to child.”

Cyn distantly remembered how warm Beau had felt every time they’d made contact. He was warm, even now.

She turned to meet his hollow eyelights.

“Beau’s Solver is under control,” Alice said firmly. “It’s well-managed, I make damn sure a’ that. It’s Vera I’m worried ‘bout…”

Her orange eyelights narrowed in a grimace.

“She’s Nori’s kid, which means she got Nori’s strain.”

“That’s bad,” Cyn guessed.

“Very,” Alice answered bluntly. 

“So what do we do?” Cyn hated how her voice trembled a little.

“Not rush blindly off, for starters,” Alice huffed, twirling her knife as she thought. “Medical ward ain’t too far. We can head there. We’ll need to pin her and get some oil down her intake and make sure she keeps it down long enough to cool her systems. Easier said than done, but…”

“What about the Murder Drone?”

“Vera first,” Alice said firmly. “She’s gon’ be a massive hazard if we don’t deal with her right quick.”

Cyn took some deep, steadying vents, and turned to look at Beau once more. He was quiet, solemn.

“...You good, Beau?”

“Dandy,” he said, somewhat curtly. “Ain’t no time like the present to get started. Right, Ma?”

“Right,” she agreed, stopping her knife twirling to return it to a firm grip in her hand, expression solemn. “Ya good to move, Cyn?”

“I’m…not sure,” Cyn said honestly, already mentally kicking herself. But she could feel herself standing and leaning on her cane…and her legs felt stiff. The emotions had been running high…and now her frame was making its protests known. Now was so not the time…but that never, ever stopped her frame before. She let out a frustrated, shaky noise, revolver rattling a little in the grip of her trembling hand.

Beau’s gaze softened, and he moved to put a steadying arm around her, helping to hold her up. She so hated how she trembled, so hated the effort it took to keep herself upright in the midst of a crisis.

“I’d offer to teleport again, but…that don’t sit well with y’all’s systems,” he said apologetically. 

“P-please don’t,” Cyn agreed. “Ugh…let’s j-just go p-p-please,” she said quietly, before quickly whacking her faceplate to try to clear the stutter. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we catch Vera, the sooner we can deal with the f-f-f-freaking Murder D-Drone and save Ned, the s-sooner we can go home and forget this nightmare!!”

Alice nodded and gestured to move out, and Cyn tried to put one foot in front of the other, leaning a little into Beau’s warmth as they advanced toward the medical ward.

Hope against hope, she accessed her messaging subroutines.

She had new messages.

Dad: where r u??? WDF called all hands on deck.

Dad: come home as soon as u can.

Dad: cyn where r u

Dad: cynthia where r u

Dad: where is ned hes not giving me a good answer

Dad: please answer me

Dad: answer

Dad: answer

Dad: cynthia

The messages quickly devolved into the same few words being repeated rapidly, and the most recent one came in right as Cyn caught up.

Self: I’m safe, Dad! I’m with Beau and Ms. Underwood. 

Dad: oh my god we talked about turning notifications off

Self: I was in class, Dad. Sorry.

Dad: u scared me half to death kiddo

Self: I’m really sorry :( I wish I knew where Ned was. We’re looking for him and Vera.

Dad: u tell alice to bring u and beau back home and let the WDF handle it

Cyn mulled it over for a moment, then decided against it. She wasn’t backing out of this now.

Self: We’ll see you soon. I love you <3

That brought her attention to the next person she intended to message.

Self: Ned where the hell are you right now? Stop whatever stupid thing you’re doing right now and go home. It’s not worth it. Leave the Murder Drone to us.

There was a long pause as they got closer to the medical ward. Cyn fully expected to not receive an answer, but…she was proven wrong by a notification coming in that wasn’t part of the deluge her father was currently pouring on her.

Bro: please let me explain.

Her eyelights fuzzed for a moment, and Beau cast her a concerned look. She gestured for him to keep walking with her.

Self: It better be good.

Bro: they’re really not that different from us. torturing them isn’t right. maybe we can try and make friends with them so they leave the bunker alone.

Self: Holy crap Ned. It’s a Murder Drone. That you took down. That was pretty badass. Why are you messing everything up now?!

Bro: because her name is Z and i think maybe you would like her if you got to talk to her.

Self: Those things eat people. They eat people’s parents.

Bro: i know. things are really messed up right now. but maybe we can all talk and try to understand things and maybe that’ll help?

Self: Ned you can’t keep feeling sorry for things that will kill you.

Self: Big stupid idiot tin-head.

Self: We’re gonna come save you from yourself.

Bro: :( 

Ned went silent after that, and Cyn shuddered as she swallowed down a frustrated sob.

“Ya good, Cyn?” Beau murmured into her audial.

“No, my brother’s a moron,” she ground out. “Let’s…let’s just go.”

As Ned recovered from his crying, Z could see his demeanor shift. His mouth drew into a line of grim resolve as he picked himself up, brushed his coat off, and offered her his hand.

“Where to now, Dorkus?” Z rumbled, taking his hand and rising up onto her pegs. Her processor swam a little from the magnetic interference, and she scowled. Why must he insist on the magnet? Would taking a couple toasters for the road really be that much of a big deal? This bunker was lousy with them.

“I’m finding you somewhere safe to stay for a bit, then I’m going after Vera.”

“No, but seriously.”

“That’s my plan!”

Z bristled. “You are not dumping me in a closet and running off to go get killed by your ex.”

“Not my ex, Z!!”

“She’s gonna mess you up if you go after her alone,” she said flatly. “Not happening.”

She was taken aback by Ned rather abruptly opening a storage closet and shoving her into it. It didn’t hurt, but it was a LOT stronger than what she’d expect from a toaster. For a moment it almost felt as though T were manhandling her.

She looked up at him with hollow eyelights as she all but fell back on her butt against the back wall, Ned’s own blue eyelights blazing in the dark.

“I’m sorry, but if I bring you Vera will just freak out harder. And the sun’s not down yet so I can’t just let you outside yet…and I can’t let you wander, ‘cuz then the WDF will probably find you and I don’t even wanna think about that. So…I’m sorry, but you’re staying here.”

“I hate you,” Z growled, tail thumping against the ground in agitation.

He froze for a moment, seeming to space out…then he looked profoundly sad.

“What was that, huh, Easy-Bake Oven?” Z jeered.

“My…sister. Squadmate,” he clarified, then let out a shaky sigh. “You really need to stay here.”

“Your whole squad is just the worst, ain’t it?” Z observed.

He gave her a stern look, crossing his arms. She rolled her eyelights in response.

“Go, I guess. I’ll sit here and have fun freaking decaying in a closet,” she huffed. 

Ned looked conflicted for a moment, then sighed. “Here…can Disassembly Drones message?”

“Yes?” she asked, and Ned leaned in closer for a moment with a look of focus as an invite to message appeared on her HUD.

[Message WD: Ned? Y/N]

[Y]

[Setting contact as ‘N’]

Self: 1 got ur numb3r wh0op de freakin do0

N: this way you’re not alone while i’m out. holler if you need anything okay?

Self: t4ke the magn3t ofF.

N: holler if you need something besides that :(

Z grimaced and sluggishly flipped him off as he turned to leave the closet, closing the door behind him.

Self: if u di3 i’M kill1nG u

N: noted. i’ll try not to.

With that she was left horrifically alone with her thoughts, and she wanted to climb the walls.

She half expected the ghoul to materialize out of a shadowy corner with that damned cleaver in her hand, teeth glinting gold in the light of her exposed core.

Oh, the spectrum of emotion on the ghoul’s face when she’d opened her up and seen organic gore.

Honestly Z wasn’t expecting that either, and as she sat, she could feel her core pound, which meant she could feel the tug of muscles, the shifting of flesh beneath her casing…

Steam rose on her trembling, shallow breath as she shuddered and warbles and whimpers involuntarily escaped her chassis.

Hurt hurt help me help me I’m here. Where are you? Where are you? Help me help me hurt hurt hurt hurt-

She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it wouldn’t stop…

She could hear movement below and that meant there was so much sweet cool sweet so sweet so cool oil beneath her and all she had to do was pounce and so all she had to do was lift her hand and 

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The grates went spinning out in lilac flashes with altered razor blades rending several drones in half and their guns fell uselessly and she laughed and laughed and laughed and some survivors tried to shoot but [Rotate] spun them down into dust and [Scale] crushed their frames into sprays of divine ichor and her saliva dripped from long fangs onto the floor as she sprinted closer in a frantic beat of boots and fleshy skin against the ground and she started to feed with reckless abandon and it was so sweet so cool so so so cool-

Eyelights briefly flickered back onto her face in place of the Solver glyph, and she whimpered in horror and nausea, dropping the arm she had ripped off to devour. Once again oil came rushing back up her intake and splashing onto her knees, even as that infernal purr still rumbled through her chassis, accompanied by that agonizing thudding around her core…

Vera Doorman sobbed uncontrollably, punctuated by the occasional giggle as her entire body seized and stiffened, Solver glyph flickering over one eyelight before taking over her entire visor again.

With a growl and a huge grin she started tearing into her victim again, a guttural moan leaving her as she gulped more oil down.

So sweet so cool so so so sweet so so so cool.

The sun was only barely starting to set outside the Spire, and yet L and T were already wide awake.

It was getting increasingly difficult to stay asleep with the gnawing void of a missing squadmate in the backs of their processors.

“Can that thing set any slower?” L growled. 

“I’ll put in a request,” T grumbled.

“I’m freakin’ starving, so you think you can actually do your job tonight?”

“You do yours!” T snapped more harshly than intended, catching the growl rumbling in his chassis. “You know damn well how to get your own food!”

“Yes, but you’ve been blowing off flying your route in favor of moping over little miss Explosive Liability. Maybe we’d have actual rations stored up again if you didn’t friggin do that every night?”

“Maybe if you helped me get in there, we’d have a full squad and this would be over with!” T hissed, wings flaring out in frustration with a slight rattle of his feathers.

Z’s absence gnawed as painfully as ever, worse every day.

“We tried before!” L cried in exasperation. “There’s easier sources of oil, T.”

“Z’s still in there!” he snarled. 

“She’s crazy, but she’s not helpless,” L grumbled. “Watch, she’ll blow a hole in the side of that stupid freaking bunker any minute now, and, ta-da~! She’s out, and we’re in.”

“They did something to her in there!” T cried, feathers rattling again. “She needs help.”

“Sure. Ring me up when the toasters open the door,” L huffed, folding her wings in a little tighter around herself.

T rumbled unhappily but folded his wings in turn. It would be a little bit yet before it was remotely dark enough to even consider flying…and there really wasn’t any benefit to talking to L any more right now.

He watched the sky through a nearby gap in the Spire wall, restless.

That bunker couldn’t keep him from his missing squadmate forever.

Chapter Text

Jade was on high alert to the best of her ability as her newly-acquired peon helped her through the halls of the bunker. Thankfully, the walk out of the school had been rather uneventful, the occasional puddle of oil splattering a hallway aside. The fumes were bitter and off-putting.

Nah, the real challenge was getting home from school in these conditions.

Much of the walk was pitch-black for a while…and it was not helped by Green stopping to squint every so often.

“Move, moron-bot!” she hissed after his umpteenth stop in the middle of a hallway. “We have a tight time table, and quite possibly some kind of…threat…loose in the bunker. We can not afford to keep stopping!” She was hesitant to use the term “monster” because, besides Murder Drones, monsters weren’t real.

And, surely, if the Murder Drone had gotten loose, some kind of alarm would have gone out about it by now.

Actually…scratch that thought. A lot of the higher echelons of the WDF were filled with idiots.

“I can’t see, though,” Green mumbled. “And, like, my job is to see, right…?”

“Keep moving as long as you don’t trip. Those are your orders,” Jade huffed.

Much to her relief, he got moving again…and then they both startled as the emergency backup lights flickered on around them, and alarms started to sound. Finally.

Then Green gasped in shock as Jade’s optics finished adjusting to the new brightness…and she stiffened.

Laying on the floor around them were the scattered mutilated corpses of several Worker Drones. Jade was quick to recognize their WDF garb, oil stained and shredded as it was. Severed limbs and viscera littered the floor in puddles of oil.

She involuntarily covered her hand with her mouth as she felt her fuel tank seize uncomfortably. 

“Woah…” Green said quietly, eyelights hollow. “Yeah…uh…d-definitely would’ve tripped over that.”

He let out a soft oof as Jade threw an elbow into his side in response.

“Focus,” she hissed, taking a moment to collect herself before casting her optics back onto the scene of brutal carnage before them. “...See that guy right there, holding the gun? Do me a favor and go get it.”

“...We’re stealing from a dead guy?” he asked quietly, sounding a bit horrified.

“We’re reclaiming valuable assets from someone with no more use for them,” she corrected, making an effort to keep her voice steady. “Chop chop. Time table.”

Green let out a shaky sigh and bent down to grab the gun while Jade held herself upright for a moment. The blaring alarms, admittedly, were not helping her nerves right now. There was definitely something loose, and they needed some means of defense against it. 

“It’s not going to bite you,” Jade chided when she realized Green was still down there fiddling with something.

He made a pathetic little whimpering noise. “I’m touching a dead guy, man!”

“Hurry it up and you’ll be touching him less,” Jade snapped.

Finally, mercifully, he stood back up and handed her the gun, hands audibly shaking. She got it good and situated in one hand, then put her other arm back around his trembling shoulders to steady herself again.

She tried her best to ignore the feeling of some oil spatter still lingering on the grip. That was an unimportant detail in the grand scheme of things right now.

“Good. Now, let’s go. You’re going to go to the end of this hall and take a left…”

Haste was critical at this juncture. They still had to get through a couple more sectors to get to her family’s hab, and she did not like just how much carnage was already directly on their route. It didn’t bode well.

He took a few shuddering vents before he started walking again.

Ned found himself sprinting desperately down the halls as the alarms blared, calling Vera’s name up toward the vents to no avail…so eventually, he tried an alternate method, walking himself into a quiet hallway…and ducking to the side of a cabinet to avoid the optics of a WDF squad jogging past. Not now. He couldn’t deal with the WDF right now.

Self: v please talk to me.

Self: i want to help you but you need to talk to me.

Self: whatever’s happening, we can deal with it together.

Self: :) 

For several minutes he went unanswered, and he repeated his pleas a few times.

Then…he got a notification from her.

V: FUCK OFF

His face fell. That was not the response he had been expecting. At all.

Self: i mean, if you want? but why? :( 

V: DON’T PLAY DUMB U KNOW WHAT U DID

Self: please talk to me

V: WHAT’S THERE 2 TALK ABOUT U SIDED WITH THE MURDER DRONES

Self: they’re really not too different from us i think. we should really try talking to them!

V: AND HERE’S WHERE U LET THEM IN AND BETRAY EVERYONE

V: I’VE SEEN IT 

V: U LET THEM IN

V: PEOPLE WILL DIE 

V: IT’S UR FAULT

Self: v i don’t know what you’re talking about right now :( 

V: WE’RE DONE!!!!!!

Self: what do you mean you’ve seen it???

V: FUCK YOU

Self: i’m begging you please talk to me. i’m really worried. you’re my best friend and you don’t sound okay right now.

She stopped replying, and his core stalled in his chest for a moment till he took steadying vents in and out for a few seconds.

Self: please v i don’t want to lose you. i don’t know what i’d do without you.

002-B: Host does not wish to speak with you right now. 

Self: um

What the heck was this?! This was still Vera’s channel, he double checked.

Self: v are you okay?

002-B: Host does not wish to speak with you right now.

Self: this isn’t funny please stop

002-B: Host does not wish to speak with you right now. Buddy.

Self: what do you mean host?!

002-B: You appear to have some kind of faulty processor.

002-B: We will make message clearer then.

Self: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

The channel went silent again, and Ned trembled violently for a moment before throwing his fist into the metal cabinet hard enough to dent it. He vented heavily in and out, desperately trying to make sense of the messages.

It was not helped by constant notifications coming in from his father. He tried his best to tune that out for now.

Then one came in from Z.

Z: c4N u hUrrY 1t up

Deep vent in, deep vent out.

Self: sorry this is gonna take a while

Z: l0sT c4uS3 duD3

Self: she’s my best friend :( 

Z: 1s she?

He stared vacantly at the wall in front of him, dimly lit by the emergency lights as the alarms kept sounding.

Self: yes.

His hands rattled in their casing.

Self: since we were kids. 

Z: u Sur3?

Self: yes. stop it.

Z: 3xcuse mE for asK1ng que5tionS

Self: please save this channel for actual emergencies. i need to focus.

Z: ur 1diocY is k1nD of an 3meRgenCy

Self: i’m serious. don’t spam me with mean comments.

Z: n0t me4N if tRu3

Self: >:(

Z: 0h no tH3 to4steR is angRy 

He huffed in frustration and closed the channel, then kept walking.

He needed to be in the right state of mind when he found Vera again.

Her glasses sat heavily in his pocket, burning a hole.

Cyn had never been lucky, and this day continued to be unending proof of that.

She, Beau, and Alice had arrived in the medical ward, and Alice had wasted no time grabbing various supplies, even going as far as to start climbing on counters and scrambling up to cabinets like some kind of creature rather than a drone.

“Beau, edit me some more of these,” Alice had barked after a moment, tossing Beau a stick with a big horseshoe magnet duct taped to the end of it. Cyn watched as Beau’s eyelight had flickered into the glyph, and a matching glyph caught the stick. He flicked his wrist, the glyph changed, and suddenly six duplicates flickered into being in ice blue flashes.

“Woah… cool…” Cyn had murmured despite herself, and Beau turned to give her a sheepish little smile and tip of his hat with his free hand.

She could see little fangs glint in the blue light.

“Focus, Beau,” Alice chided, gesturing with her hand. His focus snapped back to his mother, and with another flick of his hand he sent all but one of the sticks shooting back toward his mother. She deftly caught them without missing a beat and loaded them into a makeshift quiver. As she went back to rigging up…whatever else she was working on, Beau went about duplicating another wave of the ammo and-

“Magnet arrows!” Cyn gasped, the nature of the project finally clicking. “You’re shooting her with magnet arrows?”

“She ain’t gon’ hold still otherwise,” Alice grunted as she forcefully strung her makeshift bow. “Ain’t gon’ be this simple, neither. I’mma need her distracted, else she’ll just deflect all the arrows ‘fore they can hit.”

“On it, Ma,” Beau said, Solver glyph glowing brilliantly in place of his eyelight.

“Good boy. Now, get yerself posted up where ya wanna be. Cyn, be a dear and help me with this next part?”

Cyn quickly scurried herself over to where Alice pointed, a counter with some drawers under it. Before long Alice had leaped onto the counter on all fours, bounding from across the room, and quickly opened a drawer to fish out some oil bags and a metal bowl. She handed about half the bags to Cyn, and started ripping one of her own open with her teeth before dumping it in the bowl.

“Um,” Cyn started.

“Faster if each takes half,” Alice grunted. “Jus’ tear n’ pour real quick.”

Cyn made an uncertain face before she began following instructions. It was admittedly pretty scary to see Alice just…do that. She scowled a little at the bitter smell of oil, and tried not to look too hard at it. She didn’t like looking at the bags either. Just…lots of unpleasant childhood memories from the medical ward.

At least it was a familiar hell to shelter in while things fell apart outside.

“Aight, this is good to go,” Alice finally declared, hopping off the counter and balancing the bowl in her arms as she hit the floor, not spilling a drop. “Open that cabinet n’ grab the fan for me, will ya?”

Cyn quickly reached into the indicated cabinet, grabbed the fan, and limped her way out of the exam room after Alice. She was setting the bowl down under a vent grate in the ceiling, faceplate set in steely resolve.

“Put the fan down,” she said. “And get the hell back ‘fore I turn it on, ‘cause it’s about to get hectic here.”

“Will you guys be okay?” Cyn asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

“Don’t worry ‘bout us none, we know what we’re doin’,” Alice said. “You hunker down under the table in that exam room an’ stay there till we got Vera down n’ fed.”

“Stay safe, Cyn,” Beau said from where he perched on top of a high filing cabinet, several random objects stacked up beside him, presumably to use as ammo. 

“You too,” she said, before reluctantly ducking back into the exam room at a stern look from Alice.

After a moment, when Cyn was well and truly hunkered under that table, Alice plugged the fan in, flipped it on, angled it up toward the vent to waft the oil fumes up, then ducked herself behind a reception desk.

And for several very tense minutes, it was quiet. The only sound was the hum of the fan, the muffled blare of distant alarms, and the faint hum of Cyn’s core cycling within her chest.

It probably stuttered a couple times.

Her shaking hands tightened around the grip of the revolver.

Then a faint giggle came echoing through the vents, and Cyn’s core stalled for a second. She gasped in terror and pain as she thumped her chest to reset the cycle.

And as it reset, a lilac glyph glowed over the vent cover. It sheared itself into razor blades, and as they started to fly, Beau extended his hand and froze them with ice blue glyphs of his own, the blades disintegrating into dust.

Vera leaped out of the vent at him, horrible fleshy oil-spattered wings extended with claws reaching for him…until he used his powers to scoot his cabinet out of her trajectory, then ripped some pipes out of the wall to spray some steam into her optics. She let out a very un-drone-like hiss as her wing claws dug into the wall, and her tail lashed out toward him. Beau picked up a pilfered picture frame with a glyph, fractured the glass into shards, then sent them careening through her tail’s cord, severing what looked disturbingly like an organic head in a little spray of oil. Vera shrieked in agony, then redirected the broken pipes to throw steam in Beau’s face.

In response, he dissolved into ice blue lines of code and rematerialized in line of sight of the counter. “Over here,” he said, before ripping a clock off the wall and hurling it at Vera like a terminal velocity frisbee.

She cackled in triumph as she caught it with a lilac glyph of her own. 

And the laughs got louder as she caught one of Alice’s arrows.

“DAMMIT!” Alice shrieked from behind the counter. “BEAU, MOVE!”

Unfortunately, before he could, Vera shot the arrow at his head hard enough to crack his visor from the impact. The magnet stuck true, and Beau groaned in pain as he fell to his knees. The glyph flickered off of his visor, his hollow eyelights fuzzing and flickering badly from the magnetic interference.

Vera advanced on him, limbs all moving wrong as a broken giggle kept bubbling out of her, a new head beginning to shove itself out the end of her tail cable. 

“GET BACK,” Alice snarled, jumping on top of the desk and firing three arrows at Vera at the same time, eyelights a blazing inferno.

Vera caught all three arrows with a giggle and launched them right back at Alice, squarely clocking her in the faceplate. There was another cracking noise on impact as she stumbled backward off the counter and fell.

Cyn’s core stalled in her chest again as the giggling, hunched-over Vera turned her attention back to Beau.

“HEY!” Cyn screamed at her maximum output, vocal synth fraying a little under the strain. She hauled herself out from under the exam table.

With a sickening snap, Vera’s head flipped around 180 degrees to face backward, drool and silver fluid dripping from her too-wide fang-filled smile.

The giggling got louder as the Solver glyph taking up her entire visor flickered into a lilac X exactly like a Murder Drone’s.

“O-over here,” Cyn stammered, rapidly losing all of her adrenaline-fueled confidence. Her arms shook viciously as she lifted up the revolver. “Leave the cowboy alone. I-I’m the one with the gun!!”

Her oil chilled as there was another snap, and Vera’s body turned itself around so her head could snap back into a proper position. She warbled noisily before lunging forward, her fleshy wing hands and oily boots pounding the ground as she sprinted forward, far faster than Cyn expected the nerd to be able to ever move-

Cyn’s core sputtered and stalled painfully in her chest as primal terror coursed through her.

Her audials were filled with Vera’s shrieking, uncomprehending laughter.

She was about to die.

A whispering part of Cyn’s code, the code of a security drone, guided her arms to aim. 

As Death bore down upon her with claws outstretched, drooling maw split in a mad grin, Cyn lifted her weapon and aimed right for the center of the X.

Time slowed to a standstill as her finger found the trigger and the air shook with a bang.

The bullet landed dead in the center of Vera’s visor, and it went dark as she collapsed face down on the floor mere inches in front of Cyn’s boots, oil already beginning to pool under her faceplate as her body went eerily still.

Cyn let out an oil-curdling scream and fell to her knees, revolver clattering to the ground as her hands clutched for her stuttering core.

Chapter Text

Cyn desperately beat upon her chassis with her fists for several tense moments, gasping as her core stuttered, and stuttered, and stuttered-

And then, mercifully, it began to cycle properly again, and she let out a shuddering vent as she tried to get her bearings again.

And there was Vera laying facedown in a puddle of her own oil, horrible fleshy bits sprouting out of her. Cyn shuddered violently, eyelights hollow, ringed with stress lines.

She just killed someone.

She just killed her neighbor.

Cyn turned away and dry heaved a few times, her whole chassis shaking as she sat there on her hands and knees. It wasn’t long before her arms gave out and she collapsed onto her side, whimpering.

She could have been there for a minute, or for eternity, for as well as her processor was keeping track of anything in that moment. She was only jolted back to reality by a hand on her shoulder.

She startled and felt her core stutter again before her optics met Beau’s. They were hollow and still fuzzy from the interference of the magnet he’d managed to yank off, and-

His visor wasn’t cracked anymore, though a faint wisp of steam briefly rose off of it.

“Y’okay?” he asked softly.

Cyn hesitated to answer, though she trembled violently. Beau’s hand squeezed her shoulder.

“N-no,” she finally admitted. “Beau, I killed-”

“Y-y’ain’t killed ‘er,” said a glitchy voice from behind the counter. “B-Beau, come get these m-m-magnets offa me!”

Beau gave Cyn an apologetic look and took off back behind the counter, leaving her to cast her optics back upon the very much dead looking Vera.

“W-with all due respect, Ms. Underwood…? I sh-shot her in the face. That’s really lethal,” she whimpered.

“Jus’ the one bullet?” Alice asked, hopping back on top of the counter, rummaging in her bag, and pulling out a bottle of repair gel to use on her own cracked visor. She grimaced as she started applying it to herself.

“Uh…y-yeah.”

“Y’ain’t killed ‘er,” Alice said again, with a level of confidence that left Cyn speechless for a moment. Once Alice had rubbed the repair gel into her wound, though, she fixed Cyn with a very stern look. “Seriously. Y’ain’t killed ‘er. Git back right now.”

Cyn tensed up at the urgency of the command. She tried to move, but her limbs were not having any of it. Her servos groaned in protest, and she shook terribly in place.

“I can’t!” she cried.

And then her core stuttered again as something moved a couple feet away from her.

 She turned like a deer in headlights, her hollow eyelights meeting with a shattered, oily screen above a dripping maw. Vera pushed herself up from the floor with oily wing claws, shuddering arms tucked close to her chest as a lilac glyph flickered to life in front of the shaking fingers.

Then the arm began to extend slightly, a deranged, fractured laugh bubbling out of Vera’s chassis as the bullet began to reverse itself out of her broken visor with a horrific scraping and squelching. Cyn was frozen as Vera pulled the bullet out. The other girl’s head hung limply at an awful angle once the bullet was out, steam rising from the shattered, dark visor as she lined up her arm and glowing glyph with where Cyn was laying-

And suddenly ice blue code flickered in front of her, filling her vision as Beau materialized in front of her. A beastly growl erupted from his chassis as Vera fired the bullet…and Beau caught it with a glyph of his own. He lined up a return shot of his own…right as Vera violently leaped for the nearest wall, digging her wing claws in and skittering back up toward the vent from whence she came. Beau fired, and the bullet shot into Vera’s shoulder with a splash of oil as she disappeared back into the vents. Her tail hissed fiercely at him before it followed its owner into the darkness.

“DAMMIT!” Alice howled from her perch, before scurrying down to the floor to check on her charges. “Consarn it…Cyn, sweetheart, any injuries?”

Cyn shook her head as her vocal synth sputtered ineffectively. Beau, finally tearing his gaze from the vent, turned and pulled Cyn into a gentle hug, his growls transitioning into a much softer noise. Purring? Holy crap, he was purring.

Weird as it was…it was honestly sort of soothing, having that soft rumble so close to her audials. Despite herself she found herself leaning into his embrace as she shook.

Alice leaned in to give her a quick once-over, then she sighed. “Beau…take Cyn home.”

“N-no!” she cried, hating how her voice cracked, hating how she stammered. “No. P-please. I have to s-s-save Ned…!”

“Not in this state, sweetheart,” Alice said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “I’m speakin’ as a doc here. Y’ain’t in no condition t’be doin’ dangerous things like runnin’ around dealin’ with Nori’s strain’a Solver right now. ‘Preciate the help, but yer service ends here.”

“Beau,” Cyn pleaded.

Beau shook his head, gathering her up in a princess carry even as she started to feebly struggle against the gesture.

“Beau! I need-”

“Rest,” he finished the sentence for her, voice firm. He gave his mother a nod before looking right into Cyn’s fuzzing optics.

“I’m plumb sorry, Cyn. But I ain’t lettin’ ya kill yerself. An’...sorry ‘bout this. Y’might wanna take some deep breaths.”

She was about to protest more when her entire world dissolved in ice blue code again.

She nearly threw up over Beau’s shoulder as they rematerialized in front of her family’s hab. The door slid open to a predictably empty hab as Beau carried her inside, making a beeline for her room.

She hated how her vision fuzzed and darkened as they approached her room. 

He gently set her down in her bed, and even made to start tucking her in. She scowled and tried to take over doing that part herself, but her hands shook too violently. With a whimper of dismay she conceded defeat and withdrew. Beau frowned sadly at her.

“Does yer pa know yer home?” he asked softly. “Might wanna let ‘im know.”

Self: pls com home im

Self: h urts

Self: ba d

Self: im sorry i failed

Dad: stay right there kiddo i’m coming

The frantic messages sent, she collapsed against her pillows and sobbed.

In the span of the last…definitely under an hour…she had killed her neighbor and then nearly been shot right through the face by the vengeful zombie.

And her brother was still out there with a Murder Drone, probably convinced he can talk down the zombie drone as much as he thought he could just talk it out with a freaking Murder Drone.

She couldn’t stop the sobbing once it started. Beau, who had looked about ready to maybe depart and go help his mom again…took a seat on the side of her bed and gently clasped one of her hands between his own.

“I’m sorry ya had to see all that,” he said earnestly. “It was a lot.”

She half expected some cloying, pitying thing to be said as a follow-up to that. Lots of drones said things like that to her, dripping with well-intentioned condescension to the sickly little waif of a girl.

He left it at that, though. Even under duress, he was a quiet man of few words, meaning every one.

Cyn felt a rush of gratitude in that moment.

Jade’s only solace, really, was that the repair gel had repaired most of her vision by now. It was the silver lining. It meant she had to rely less on a seeing-eye idiot.

Unfortunately her balance was still a little shot from being punched in the face at damn near terminal velocity earlier, so she wasn’t completely unshackled from the idiot.

As it turned out, when he got spooked, he didn’t shut the hell up.

Her audials were suffering under an assault that might very well be considered a violation of the ancient Geneva Conventions.

“I mean, like, where’s all the copper, right?” Green rambled as they walked. “The planet’s called Copper-9, but like…we don’t have much copper laying around, right? That’s why there’s harvester drones to do recycling and stuff, so like…where’s the copper?”

Jade allowed herself a groan, because all wellness protocols indicated that not venting a little frustration here and there led to severe mental clutter.

“Most of it was mined out and shipped off to our parent company,” she snapped. “Now shut up.”

“Doesn’t parent company, like, imply that they love us?” he continued, seemingly bugged to never correctly process a single order in his sad life. “Parents love their kids…and don’t send Murder Drones to eat their families, yeah?”

“Parents can do the damnedest things,” she grumbled. “Also, it’s a business term. You don’t have to wax philosophical about it.”

“Wait, parents can send Murder Drones to eat their kids?” he gasped, and Jade couldn’t help but slap a hand to the good side of her visor in frustration. “That’s really messed up, man.”

“I swear to Robo-God, I can feel my IQ threatening to drop every time you open your mouth,” she said through grit teeth. “Do us both a favor and shut the hell up, because at least one of us has to be able to think!!”

“I’ve been thinking,” he protested. “Non-stop…”

His eyelights hollowed as he said that.

“Yeah, well, we need useful thoughts,” she huffed. “So stop.”

“Can I have a hit now?” he asked in a small voice. 

Jade granted him a hit with her elbow in his side. He grunted in surprise…but to his credit, he didn’t even begin to drop her. That bit of good performance would be noted.

“Man,” he said, voice whiny. “I mean…the hits are how I s-stop thinking all the bad thoughts, so-”

Jade could swear that she heard something clanking toward the end of the hall, and she abruptly slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Seriously. Shut up, and get us against the wall, behind those crates,” she whisper-hissed. “I hear something.”

Wordlessly and with hollow eyelights, he followed her command. This was a distinct improvement. He wasn’t a total lost cause after all, apparently.

It didn’t take long for her to hear more of the clanking sound…accompanied by some oil-chilling animalistic warbles, and a yellow glow rounding a corner.

And there stood a Murder Drone on all fours, massive claws in the place of any hands, acid-filled tail dragging on the ground. It kept warbling as it limped along, its gait clumsy and lopsided, the X on its visor glitching with artifacts.

The glowing lights along its headband illuminated a large horseshoe magnet still stuck to its head, and Jade’s brief moment of terror transformed itself into a moment of taking stock.

That was the escaped Murder Drone…and it was still sedated.

And she happened to have a guy with her who just carried magnets around on his person.

Unfortunately…she couldn’t risk letting the Murder Drone hear them.

She’d really prefer not having to give this moron her contact…but the cost of doing that was lower than alerting the Murder Drone.

Ugh.

She shot him an invite to message over shortwave, grimacing at the brief moment she had to lean in a little closer to establish initial contact.

[WD: Sam accepted request.]

[Setting contact as ‘Green, Sam’]

Self: I need you to listen carefully to me. I am going to shoot the Murder Drone to incapacitate it briefly. Then, you are going to apply several magnets to its head to make sure it stays down. After that, we are going to bring it back to the medical ward for proper containment.

Green, Sam: lolwut

That was not the answer she had been hoping for. She turned and gave him a very disappointed and stern scowl.

Self: I am not in the mood for your crap right now. This is life or death.

Green, Sam: fiting one of those things is a really bad idea man

Self: Let me put it to you this way. We’re stuck in this hallway with a Murder Drone either way. We can either sit here and wait to die, or we can take our destiny in our own hands and become heroes that go down in Outpost 3’s history.

Green, Sam: hiding could lead 2 living

Green, Sam: dont close urself off 2 posibilitys

Self: Can you at least spell correctly while you’re being completely inane?

Green, Sam: im not crazy : (

Self: I wasn’t calling you crazy. I was calling you stupid.

Green, Sam: : (

Ugh. She had to focus. She threw an elbow into his side and gave him a very stern look as the Murder Drone slowly staggered its way closer, warbles echoing off the walls.

Self: To reiterate: I am going to shoot the Murder Drone. Once it is down, you are to apply magnets to its head. Are we clear on the protocol?

Green, Sam: can i have a hit 

Green, Sam: im 2 scared 2 think rn

Deep vent in, deep vent out.

The Murder Drone was drawing closer, its warbling becoming increasingly frantic.

Self: You may use your smallest magnet. One. You may only apply it long enough to calm yourself down enough to perform your role in this operation.

The cost of him being a little stoned was outweighed by the cost of him being too antsy to follow orders. She would take this hit to her general mental wellbeing in the short term if it meant that her name echoed through Outpost 3 in the long term. Jade Johnson, re-container of the rogue Murder Drone, hero of the people. They’d cheer her name, and she’d have so much sway over how things were run.

Her mother couldn’t possibly find anything else to critique her on after that. She’ll have achieved utmost excellence.

The warbling drew ever-closer, snapping her from her fantasy.

The Murder Drone had nearly drawn level with their crates.

As quietly as she could, Jade poked herself out from behind the crates and started aiming her gun…

And the golden X snapped around to face her as the warbles transformed into a series of sharp whistles followed by unhinged cackling, its faceplate splitting in a razor-sharp predatory grin.

“Get wrecked, idiot,” it rumbled in a much more Worker-like voice. The coherent English chilled Jade’s oil just a little, though her aim held steady as it started loping toward them.

“Holy crap, it talks?!” Green cried, voice cracking as he completely blew any cover they had remaining. She would have to reprimand him about that later.

The simple fact of the matter was that the Murder Drone was drugged, and Jade was not.

She fired.

And missed.

Crap.

She was, unfortunately, still injured.

“Terrible work, pigtails,” the Murder Drone snorted before pouncing.

She could hear Green scream in terror behind her as she frantically fired again.

Thankfully, this time she managed to actually hit something. Sure…she only grazed a light bulb, which was disappointing. This terrible aiming was absolutely unacceptable and she’d have to rectify that later.

But…the bulb still shattered, spewing glowing yellow fluid all over the place while the Murder Drone shrieked in agony. 

“WHY DO YOU FUCKERS ALWAYS GO FOR THE EYES?!”

“Sam! NOW!” Jade cried as she fired another round into another bulb. The Murder Drone let out an absolutely core-stopping keening noise that felt like it was shredding through her processor, and Jade fell to her knees. The shuddering Murder Drone hissed and raised its tail while Jade tried to get her bearings back-

And then Sam Green all but tackled the Murder Drone and gracelessly slapped a fistful of little round magnets against its head. It let out a very distorted screech of rage as its X flickered and fuzzed, then turned into very glitchy hollow eyelights as it collapsed limply to the floor, claws and tail twitching as it tried to get back up.

Jade took a deep vent in and out, and turned to look at her lackey as he stumbled backward, and stuck a few of the remaining small magnets in his pocket to his head, not even bothering to hide them under his beanie. He let out a shuddering sigh of relief as his eyelights fuzzed and he visibly relaxed.

That was more than the allotted singular magnet, but…she’d let that violation of protocol slide, just this once. He had come through with flying colors this time.

“Don’t get completely blissed out yet,” she said sternly, snapping her fingers to get his attention. “We still have to complete the last part of this operation.” She fought to keep any hint of a tremble out of her voice as she gestured to the immobilized monster before them, letting out pathetic noises at regular intervals. It was sort of funny just how quickly the terror of the night was laid low by the class druggie.

“Oh, man,” Sam said, eyelights hollowing anew. 

“Your five minute break can wait,” she said. “You’ll be properly compensated later. Right now, we need to finish transporting this asset, and time is of the essence.”

“It’s not gonna, like, murder us on the way there, right…?” he asked uneasily.

“It’s heavily sedated,” she pointed out. “It can barely move anything, let alone attack us. Make sure the magnets stay on, and we should be safe from on-the-job injury.”

The Murder Drone let out a very loud growl in protest.

It still didn’t move in any meaningful way.

“Your complaint has been noted,” she said sweetly. “And dismissed. Sam, you grab the legs.”

He wordlessly scrambled around to do as she said, and she nodded in approval. He was proving himself to be a surprisingly useful asset today…

In an ideal world she would have assigned him to deal with the bitey end of the Murder Drone…but realistically, she knew he’d probably panic. She had to use her assets wisely to achieve maximum efficiency. Thus, she found herself wrangling the front end of the monster. It absolutely tried to gnash its fangs at her, so she carefully maneuvered herself to hold it such that the head was facing away from her…and maybe dragging on the ground slightly. Jade couldn’t muster up the energy to care.

This thing would have gladly killed her…and, now that she was looking at it, it clearly didn’t have dignity to begin with. A terror of the night, a Sky Demon, wearing a tacky and frankly rather filthy pom-pom beanie? Seriously?!

She held her head high and did her level best to ignore the rumbling growls that the thing was constantly making.

“To the medical ward,” she ordered.

The Murder Drone ineffectually slapped its tail against the ground and emitted a whole spectrum of glitchy warbles, hisses, whistles, growls, and whimpers.

But, critically, it could not attack.

So Jade and Sam pressed onward.

Chapter Text

Ned was feeling a massive headache starting to build behind his optics as he wandered the halls. The blaring alarms certainly didn’t help, but they weren’t the cause.

The cause was, in part, the constant messages coming in from his father.

He finally opened the channel and looked at the most recent messages.

Dad: ned where the hell r u

Dad: ned answer me

Dad: ur grounded for a month

Dad: cyns home where r u

Dad: please

Dad: please answer where r u

Self: i’m sorry dad. there’s some important stuff i have to do. i’ll come home later.

Dad: what do u mean? whatever it is u don’t have to do it alone 

Self: i actually do :( 

Dad: u don’t!!! please talk to me

Self: i’ll talk later 

Self: love you to the moons and back

Dad: i love u too

Dad: please come home

He closed the channel with a shaky, deep vent. In and out. In and out.

He absolutely hated having to keep his dad in the dark like this…but he wouldn’t take any of this well. Z had nearly killed him…and maybe it said something about Ned that he had extended friendship to the drone that had nearly killed his father and best friend.

He’d rather not contemplate that right now.

He had to find his best friend.

He had meant every word to Vera. He didn’t know what he’d do without her. She’d held his core in his hands for years. How could she not? She’d humored his goofiness for a few long time where most of their other classmates would rather point and laugh. He was Ned, the overly-strong klutz who was a walking disaster zone who was weirdly obsessed with dogs and cartoons and comics.

And she was Vera, the spitfire genius who was usually spoken over. If only their classmates had given her half a chance to talk, he was fully convinced that they’d all be a much more united front now, rallying together and using her ideas to…

…to fight and kill the Disassembly Drones.

His shortwave pinged him again.

Z: s3riouslY g3t b4cK heR3 n0w

Self: it’d be really nice if i could just teleport over to vera and fix everything with a snap of my fingers.

Self: but i can’t. :( 

Z: 1’m b0r3D

Self: sorry. but you have to find a way to deal with it.

Z: b1t3 M3!!!!

Sure…Z was proving herself really capable of being a huge pain…and she’d straight up killed a lot of people…but she was built in a way where she had to do that in order to not die. It was like getting mad at a dog for hunting rabbits…except he was very much one of the rabbits, and so were all of his family, and the dog can very much speak rabbit, and this analogy was breaking down.

It just sucked really hard that fond memories of Vera speaking enthusiastically about her Disassembly Drone-killing ambitions were starting to leave a sour taste in his mouth.

As he ducked out of the way of another clomp of WDF boots from around a nearby corner…he realized he could hear some giggling in the vents above him. The laughter mixed with sobs, and he craned his head upward to look up at the liquid dripping from a vent grate. It was silvery, and he could see puffs of steam.

Here went everything.

He dug deep, appealing to the sweet girl he knew at a young age.

He took an exaggerated bow with a bright grin on her face.

“I, Ned of House Chambers, humbly request an audience with the lovely Princess Vee of Veetopia,” he declared, casting his memory back to the silly games they’d play as kids. “So long I’ve been dreaming of an audience!”

He saw lilac eyelights, hollow and fuzzy, move to stare at him out of the grate. He could hear her ragged ventilation as more steam puffed out into the air. The eyelights briefly flickered rapidly between a tri-pronged glyph and a blazing X before returning to hollow eyelights, digital tears glowing in their corners.

“Audience denied,” she said in a heavily strained voice. 

“What if I…uh…let you bite my arm?” he offered weakly. “You uh…you’re overheating, huh? Oil might help…?”

“NO!” Vera cried. “I…I’d kill you, Ned…I…I can’t. You n-need to leave. Now.”

He took a seat under the grate, back to the wall, legs sprawled in front of him. He stared at the brightly colored, mismatched laces on his boots.

“If I leave…all of this mess just keeps going,” he said. “I know you’re scared, and you’re overheating…so you’ve been freaking out. And the more you freak out, the more scared the WDF gets, and I know that’s really really scary, so you might freak out harder…and you see how this keeps going?”

A terrified, frantic sob answered him.

“I’m a m-m-monster,” she whimpered, barely able to spit the word out between sobs. “I d-don’t know what’s happening! I just…I just keep…f-f-freaking k-killing people. I’ve killed people, Ned. I’ve eaten…oh, Robo-God…”

He could hear her retching for a moment, and he winced on her behalf.

“What can you even do to help?” she asked, voice trembling violently. “I…I’ve s-seen what you do. You…you open the b-bunker door and let that thing in…”

“Maybe…that’s what I do to help,” he said softly. “I open the door to get you out of here, so you can calm down somewhere safe, and lay in the snow to cool off…”

The more of it he said out loud, the more he found himself realizing that it was what had to be done.

“You let…A Murder Drone…in…” she panted, more steam pouring from the grate, her voice barely audible between gasps.

And then he received a shortwave notification.

Z: 0HHHH GG0D D D D N THEYYYYYYY

Z: M M MmmM4AAA444GGG g

Z: GG G NNN 3EE3

Z: 777777777777

Z: lisSYVGHB32scCT7866sccvbntru-

That final message hit his processor like a freight train, and he clutched at his head with a pained whimper as a massive wall of garbled random text hit him all at once.

Self: Z SLOW DOWN

Z: lksdGGN FJfcdxbv32w54579i6 vfdsEGDERN8941rfw3b$#6-

He couldn’t stop a pained scream from erupting out of himself at the second wall of garbled text, and his messaging crashed as he fell over onto his side and curled in on himself a little.

As the wave of agony finally started to wash over him, he became aware of a shadow hovering over him, letting out soft warbles that didn’t sound all that unlike the noises Z had been making.

His optics refocused, and he realized that it was Vera, her eyelights hollow, her wings folded behind her.

He reached into his pocket and offered her back her cracked, bloody glasses.

She recoiled with a little whimper, so he just held the glasses steady, offering her a pained smile.

“You dropped these,” he said.

Hesitantly, she took them and put them back on her faceplate. Immediately one of her eyes flickered into the tri-pronged glyph for a second, long enough to shatter what remained of the already cracked lens covering that eye. She cried out in dismay, trembling hands hovering over the shards of glass on the floor.

“Oof…that sucks,” he said sympathetically, gently taking one of her hands in his. He gave it a little reassuring squeeze, and gave her a little smile. “But…you’re not alone. We can deal with…all of this…together.”

“Ned, you can’t,” she whispered, another puff of steam coming out of her mouth full of fangs. Her visor briefly flickered into an X.

“I can be here for you,” he said firmly, bringing himself back into a standing position. Before she could protest too much more, he put his arms around her and pulled her into a gentle hug.

She sobbed, and after a moment, her wings curled in, covering him in a tent of purple-gray flesh.

She was burning up, and the wings kept the heat in around him. His HUD briefly alerted him to the sudden spike in temperature.

“We need to get you outside so you can cool off,” he said in the gentlest voice he could manage.

“N-n-n-nO!” she wailed, recoiling from him…only to immediately fall to her knees, vomiting up more silver sludge with steam rising from it. She clutched at her abdomen in agony, boiling saliva dripping from her mouth as she turned to fix him with an X’d out visor for a moment. Then she sobbed, wing claws digging into the floor as her eyelights returned to her visor.

Pangs going through his core, Ned offered her his hand.

“Please let me help you,” he said softly. “It really sucks watching you go through this alone…”

Hesitantly, she placed a shaking, boiling-hot hand in his and rose on trembling legs. 

“Please help me,” she whispered.

As soon as she was up, Ned began making a beeline for the bunker door, moving as quickly as Vera’s legs could carry her. Every so often, her whimpers turned into growls that chilled his core before they faded again.

For all he knew, he was seconds away from a grisly death at any moment.

That couldn’t stop him from helping a dear friend, though.

And once Vera was outside in the snow, he could go back in and try to rescue Z from whatever mess she had ended up in, maybe? His processor was constantly racing, trying to juggle and keep several balls in the air before everything came crashing down into a firestorm around him.

His only solace was that with all hands on deck further into the bunker…there weren’t any WDF guards on duty at the doors. It was just a matter of getting into the vents to circumvent the inner and middle doors…

And then they dropped down, and Vera smacked the already damaged control panel for the outer door. With a strained whine, the door began to shudder its way open…

And Ned’s oil chilled when he saw how dark it was outside.

Oh.

The sun had set.

He nudged Vera into the nearest snowdrift as whispers in the sky began to reach his audials.

In an instant, Ned found himself forcefully knocked onto his back, pinned under sharp claws as a blazing golden X filled his field of vision, and a rumbling like thunder filled his audials.

“WAIT!” he screamed. “I can help you find Z!”

A second hand of claws stopped inches from his faceplate, and the Disassembly Drone, much larger than Z, warbled questioningly.

Ned took that as his cue to keep talking. 

“Um…she’s in the bunker, and I want to get her out of there as much as you do,” he said, trying to keep his voice from trembling too badly. It was difficult, though, with how utterly terrifying this Disassembly Drone was. Sure, Z could be scary, but…her squadmate had fully intended to kill him before he’d said anything.

“Lead me to her, and you live,” the Disassembler rumbled in a masculine voice.

Ned’s core cycled so rapidly in his chassis, and he was sure the Disassembler could hear it.

He thought back to Z’s stories about her squad to try and call up this guy’s name.

“T,” he guessed, and that seemed to get his attention. He wasn’t corrected, so N supposed he got that right. “I’m super down to help! But! Uh…you g-gotta promise me some stuff first, okay?”

T huffed, but the killing X flickered into blank oval eyelights as he sat back on his haunches and took his claws off of Ned’s chassis, allowing him to sit up.

“Fine. Name your terms, toaster.”

Ned glanced to the side, where a panicked Vera was clawing her way out of the snowdrift, visor blazing with the tri-pronged glyph. T followed his gaze…the X abruptly returning to his visor as he growled. Ned frantically waved an arm in front of his visor to try and distract him, but a keening metallic roar erupted from T’s chassis, his wings flaring out and feathers rattling loudly. The roar paralyzed both Ned and Vera, the frequency piercing their audials and briefly frying their processors. Vera collapsed into a hyperventilating heap as Ned clutched at his chassis, trying to get himself back together.

“W-wait…d-don’t,” Ned wheezed as T snarled at Vera. She appeared to be having a bit of a seizure as the snow melted all around her badly overheating body, steam rising into the cold night air as the wind howled and whipped it away. “She’s r-really sick…and she needs help. One of my terms is that you help her get coolant!” The words tumbled out of him before he could stop them. T turned to give him a blank stare, X flickering back into eyelights.

“You want me to…what?”

“Help her get coolant!” he reiterated, unable to stop himself from shaking. “I…I think she needs oil like a Disassembler…and she’s really scared and kind of out of control and…m-maybe being out here a while with you guys might help?” T’s faceplate was still impassive, and Ned felt something inside him break. He kept going, voice cracking from distress. “Please! She’s my best friend, a-and…I can’t lose her to heat death! It’s an awful way to go, a-and…” 

His voice dropped to a barely-audible whisper…but he knew T would be able to hear it.

“I love her. Please.”

T’s tail swished behind him as he stared at Ned for a moment.

“Your other terms?” he finally said.

“You can’t kill anyone in the bunker,” he said sternly. “We go in, we get Z, and then the both of you get back out here and help Vera.”

T let out a hard to read hum, then on all fours, he loped over to where Vera lay in the snow. With his claws he picked her up by the back of her jacket. She hissed in protest, then screamed in terror as he leaned in closer to sniff at some of the oil that covered her. She tried to swipe at him with a wing, and with lightning-fast reflexes, his tail arced up and stabbed into the membrane. She let out a banshee wail of pain before he pulled the stinger out and flung her into a less-melted snowdrift. She hissed ferociously as he stalked closer to her again…then snorted and spat a wad of saliva onto the wing he’d stung. The glowing acid in the flesh quickly went dark.

He turned back to Ned, feathers rattling quietly. “How do I know this isn’t all a trick?”

“I’m Ned Chambers, and I solemnly swear that I want to reunite Z with her squad,” he said, offering his hand for a shake.

T took his hand in his claws with surprising gentleness, giving it a firm shake before withdrawing.

“Fine. You lead me to Z, I’ll keep my claws to myself,” he agreed.

“...And?” Ned pressed, inclining his head toward the snowdrift where Vera lay sobbing. “You won’t do that again? Please? It’s really important!”

T hesitated, tail lashing behind him.

“She’s slag if she attacks any of my squadmates,” T said firmly.

“But you’ll take her in?” Ned asked. 

T made a noncommittal noise.

“It’s one of my terms,” Ned reminded him. “Please. I…I’m not sure who else can help her with…this…”

T looked very conflicted for a moment before letting out a huff. 

“Fine. You keep your word, I’ll keep mine. Claws to myself, and I bring… that …back to the Spire.”

The way T kept talking about and looking at Vera did not fill Ned with confidence…but by all rights, this negotiation really should not have gotten this far in the first place. He’d take what he could get for now.

Ned lifted a hand and gestured to the open outer door, and T was off like a rocket, folding his wings in as he sprinted on all fours at a frankly terrifying speed before starting to rake his claws down the middle door with a hiss.

“Wait- hang on, T, I have an alternate way in!” he called, before casting one final look back at Vera.

Her head poked out of the snowdrift, digital tears streaming from hollow eyelights.

She stared at him before mouthing a single word to him.

Why?

“...I’m…trying to fix things,” he said quietly. “Please stay out here. We’ll be back soon.”

And with that he turned and ran back into the bunker, feeling Vera’s optics burning a hole into the back of his head as he went.

Once he’d caught up to T, he gestured mutely up at an open vent, and T immediately caught his drift, picking Ned up and throwing him up into the vent before pouncing in after him.

Vera fell listlessly back into the snow, vents heaving out of her as steam from melting snow and her own vents fogged up her vision.

So, she was powerless to avert what she had seen.

Whimpering pathetically, she shoveled snow into her mouth to try and cool the dying star in her chassis.

Maybe it was her core, sputtering out after Ned took her final, deepest remaining bit of trust and smashed it dead against the ground.

How could he?

She held herself and sobbed, with not much else left to do.

Tonight she died, and Ned took the rest of Outpost 3 down with her.

She was a monster, but such a pathetic one that apparently the universe needed to call in reinforcements to finish off her massacre.

Yeah…tonight she died.

Good riddance?

Chapter Text

Z struggled valiantly against her captors as they carried her back toward her certain doom, though the processor fog from the magnets was keeping her at bay pretty effectively. Every impulse died in her processor, fizzling out under the bombardment of so many magnets.

On some sick level, she sort of enjoyed the relief brought by the onslaught that drowned out the aches from her battered body. It was tempting to just slip back into being numb.

But, in the periphery of her awareness, a voice whispered, cloying and demanding.

Do not give in. Do not surrender. You are not a quitter.

She snarled anew, giving it her all to regain focus in her optic array and get a good look at where she was, and if she had any ghost of a hope of escape.

One of the toasters carrying her looked pretty blissed out, actually…

She channeled everything she had into lifting her tail, just a little more, hone her focus and strike true…

The pink-eyed toaster screamed in agony as her stinger jerked upward and lodged its point in his back with a harsh hiss of nanite acid. The one with pigtails dropped her on the ground in shock as her head whirled around to see what had happened.

Dammit. She’d been aiming for a clean killshot through the head.

“UNDERWOOD!” Pigtails screamed as Z’s tail violently spasmed and threw the stoner a good distance down the hall with an arcing spray of acid as he violently divorced from her stinger. That wasn’t intentional, but helpful all the same. She grit her teeth and tried to get her limbs under her to no avail as Pigtails kept screaming. 

This hallway looked terrifying familiar. Ned had been leading her down it not too long ago, away from-

“UNDERWOOD! GET OUT HERE! WE RE-ACQUISITIONED A VERY IMPORTANT ASSET AND GREEN GOT STUNG AND HE’S LEAKING OIL OH MY ROBO-GOD-”

Z’s oil chilled as a familiar voice rung in her audials, a door sliding open.

“Thank ya kindly, Jade. Run along inside…I got a few vials of antivenin you can grab fer yer friend.”

“...U-um…” Pigtails whimpered, eyelights hollowed as they flicked between the stoner and the ghoul, the ghoul’s optics focused solely on Z as she advanced.

Z warbled frantically as the staticky bootfalls came closer, time slowing to an agonizing crawl as her limbs stayed still and heavy as lead, a low chuckle sounding far too close for comfort.

Help! Hurt! HURT!! DANGER!! HELP!! WHERE ARE YOU?! I’M HERE!! HELP!!

“You can grab the vials an’ jus’ apply the contents directly on the wound, it’ll neutralize. Some repair gel an’ bandages should patch up the worst of it right quick, I reckon.”

The ghoul only very briefly tore her gaze from Z to rattle those instructions off…and it was merely casting a quick sidelong glance.

Her eyelights soon returned to being focused solely on Z.

A too-wide and too-toothy grin split her faceplate as she took a knee in front of her, giggling low and soft for a moment.

GET BACK! Z snarled, fangs gnashing as a threatening rumble tore from her chassis…unfortunately muted by the magnets. GET BACK! STAND DOWN! WILL KILL YOU!

“Aren’t you going to treat him yourself?!” Pigtails cried. “You’re the medic-”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, sweetie,” the ghoul said, her voice deceptively kindly for a moment. “I trust ya. Fix ‘im up an’ get ‘im home. Best neutralize the acid ASAP.”

One optic was trained firmly on the ghoul. One optic could see Pigtails staring her down in disbelief.

“What’s keeping you-”

“Sorry, sweetie,” the ghoul said. Then her voice curled into something far more sickly sweet and menacing, a cloying tone that Z knew far, far too well. “I got some catchin’ up to do.”

“Go get the stuff, Jade,” the stoner sobbed as he crawled his way closer from down the hall, heaving some drips of oil as he went. She almost got distracted by the sweet smell, but-

Z hissed so violently her entire chassis shook as the ghoul threw her over her shoulder and started hefting her back toward her den of torture. 

The ghoul merely twirled another magnet in her hand and slapped it on Z’s head, making her vision go so dark as to nearly be black. 

Voices melted together into nonsense as distant hands thrust her this way and that. And she became faintly aware of blissfully cool metal against her casing. She almost allowed herself to slip into blissful nothingness.

She was violently wrested from her respite by a hand roughly pulling several magnets off of her head. She gasped in agony as many of her aches came rushing back at once…and the ghoul’s face resolved in relatively high-definition before her, teeth gleaming in the beam of the lights above the exam table. The point of a knife ghosted along the underside of her chin, leaving a small faint gash in her casing that set off several pain signals all the same. 

Hurt, she whined involuntarily before a horrific beast that didn’t understand her, and didn’t care. Stop. Please. Hurt. Scared. Help!

“It was rude of ya to walk out on me earlier, y’know,” the ghoul all but purred, voice low and dangerous. “We were havin’ so much fun, and I was fixin’ to have some more.”

Z growled in futile defiance…and the ghoul stabbed the knife into her chassis and twisted it with a low chuckle, gleeful expression fixed and unchanging as Z let out a distorted and staticky scream of agony.

“We ain’t done till I say we’re done, Sky Demon,” the ghoul rumbled, flicking a finger against the knife to rev up the circular saw within. Z writhed as the old pains shrieked across her haptic system, the ghoul all too happily slicing her chassis back open, sternum to pelvis segment.

The smile never faded as the sparks and the oil sprayed.

“I reckon this is how Luke felt when y’all sank her claws into him an’ ripped. Him. Apart. Right. In. Front. Of. Me.” Her words curled into a snarl as she angrily sliced away chunks of Z’s entrails, headless of her victim’s screams, stabbing in with every word with a little agonizing twist, one of her eyelights twitching. “Y’all played with him,” she whispered, stabbing the knife with its Frakensteined circular saw deeper into her chassis, the screaming little blade playing hell with her innards, setting everything ablaze. “My darlin’, handsome, brave Luke…he was helpin’ to save us all, an’ y’all played with him. Couldn’t even grant the mercy of a quick death, couldja?!” Her face curled into an ugly snarl, the eyelights glitching slightly as she swung the knife and its screaming blade down toward her core. Z gasped and flinched, trembling as she braced for abrupt oblivion.

Release would be a mercy at this point.

Mercy was not something that Z was accustomed to receiving.

And receive, she did not.

The ghoul’s agonized angry wail pulled itself back, restructuring itself into a broken laugh, her eyelights dripping digital tears as she grinned eyelight-to-eyelight, the smile never, ever reaching her optics. Her head lolled at an unnerving angle as she pulled the knife back slightly…and much more gingerly started severing strands of sinew and muscle from around the beating core, ever so careful not to sever anything.

Z’s vocal synth was frying, quickly rendering itself borderline nonfunctional from the constant strain of her nonstop screaming.

“It’s like a sick joke, how much yer insides look like his,” she whispered, almost gently cutting away the flesh from harsh golden lights around her core. Z desperately huffed and puffed for cooling air, saliva and nanite sludge dripping from her slack mouth. The ghoul didn’t even wipe the condensing steam from her visor, soldiering on through it in her grim crusade.

“Are ya hurtin’, Demon?” the ghoul asked with false soft concern, more gently nudging aside some actually vital sinew, the briefest lapse in the torture. “Do ya just want it all to stop hurtin’, for the world to give ya back what yer missin’?”

Z could not answer. Her screen, beyond her awareness, was throwing a CRITICAL ERROR message at her tormentor. Her steaming insides heaved and strained under the harsh light. The ghoul took a moment to pause and twirl her knife, looking pensive.

There wasn’t enough of Z left in the moment to feel the proper dread that that pensive expression should elicit.

“Well, bless yer core. Now ya know how I feel.” The ghoul brandished her knife/circular saw again, abruptly slashing right at some haptic sensors near her neck column.

Z found one last desperate scream in her chassis, her back arching a little under her as her vocal synth finally gave up the ghost.

“You ripped out half my soul, left my baby boy without his daddy, and now I’mma get square,” she leaned down to whisper-growl in Z’s audials, drawing out the severing of another haptic line. “An’ I got over a decade to make up for, Demon.”

Z couldn’t even whimper anymore…and now one of her arms was completely offline from severed haptic lines.

It was all she could do to kill power to her optic array before anything else could happen.

However, it meant that she couldn’t see the knife swinging down to stab into one of her optic bulbs.

There was nothing she could do, no noise she could make as the ghoul twisted the knife with a raucous cackle.

And then a reverberating rumble gave the ghoul pause.

The calls that Z wanted to make in response died in her damaged vocal synth.

Were these vents any wider, T would’ve shoved right on past this wacked out toaster in a corebeat.

He knew for a fact that the toaster couldn’t hear it, but with Disassembler hearing, Z’s faint pings were echoing very distantly down the vent. She was absolutely hurt and scared and needed help and-

“You need to freakin’ move it,” T growled, claws clanking impatiently against the metal as Ned crawled ahead of him on trembling little easily-snappable limbs.

By all rights, he should just disassembler the toaster right now and get it overwith and have a snack before busting Z out of here.

But…Ned was insistent he knew exactly where Z had been taken, and it might ultimately be more efficient to let him lead him right to her, rather than go tearing into the belly of the beast aimlessly searching for her.

He got exponentially less patient when her distant pings turned to screams that got slowly closer.

“I SAID-”

“I know!” Ned wailed, and the genuine distress in his voice gave T just a moment’s pause. “I know, T, I’m really scared of what’s happening to Z right now too, b-but…I’m going as fast as I can, okay? We’ll be there soon-”

Another scream…and the toaster seemed to hear this one, because he found an extra burst of speed in his chassis that hadn’t been there before. Funny, that. T wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth and sped up in kind, electing to hold his tongue for now.

Instead, he went with: “You really are concerned about her, huh? Odd for a toaster.”

“...I…uh…realized that you guys are kinda sorta maybe not that different from us Worker Drones,” he said quietly, as if ashamed to admit it. Fair enough, T supposed. Most other Workers would strongly disagree with that sentiment, he knew. “...It’s not right to let Z keep getting tortured.”

“...I’ll put in a good word for you with L,” T said, tail lashing behind him. He was half serious about that. Maybe fully serious if he really did help get Z out of here. Whether or not L would hear him out without scoffing about him having a malfunction was another story entirely, but…hell, if this toaster kept his word on this weird deal of his, it was only right for T to keep his.

He couldn’t get into this stupid bunker alone, after all.

Another scream set every sensor and ever servo on edge, synthetic muscle bunching under his casing as he itched to rush down and tear apart whatever had been hurting his squadmate so badly.

Here. Here!! T warbled desperately, and to his credit…Ned only flinched slightly at the abrupt noise not meant for Worker audials right behind him. Here. Helping. Friend. Here! Here!!

No more pings answered him, and the screams abruptly shorted out as they got ever closer.

T’s visor flickered into a killing X and he let out a ferocious territorial growl from within his chassis as Ned flinched and briefly tried to cover his audials on pure reflex.

When he got his wits about him, the toaster rapidly crawled forward a little more and dropped down out of a hole where a grate probably should have been, landing with a horrible squelch.

T’s optics could see that he’d landed…inside Z’s open chassis. The toaster screamed shrilly and fumbled himself onto the floor rapidly, and the other oil-soaked toaster that had been looming over Z startled and regarded her new guest with hollow eyelights. Z lay limp and still, visor flickering between different errors as steam and nanite sludge came out of her mouth in raspy gasps.

“Ned?! What in Sam Hill-”

T roared in fury as all five optics zeroed in on the orange-eyed toaster and the oil-and-blood-slicked tool in her hand.

He lashed his tail and leaped at his prey.

Chapter Text

Ned was aware of a blur of motion and the most horrible growling and screeching of blades against metal as he tried to re-orient himself from his fall. The bitter scent of Z’s oil all over him was clogging his olfactory sensors…and the fresh spray of oil across the room was not helping matters in the slightest. His head was swimming and it was the best that he could do to just get up into a kneeling position, his shaking making him rattle in his casing.

His optics were met with a horrible sight.

T had Alice’s severed right arm in his teeth, crushing the metal effortlessly in jaws like a beartrap. The killing X glowed harshly as he growled and attempted to pin his prey down with claws through her remaining shoulder. Alice, for her part, was screaming her fury so loudly it was as though she was roaring, and she darted in with a jab and slash to T’s chest, dodging his attempted pin and jamming the circular saw into his casing right over where his core would be. T wrenched himself back with a pained hiss, swinging his tail forward to try and sting Alice. She flung herself to the ground to dodge it, then sprang back onto her feet, heedless of the oil spurting from her arm socket.

“T!” Ned cried, voice cracking. “You made a promise-”

“This one dies,” T snarled in response, all the words coming out in a purely bestial growl.

Alice attempted to make a break for the door while T was distracted…but it didn’t last long. In an instant he was vaulting himself across the room in one seemingly effortless leap, soaring over Alice’s head and landing and whirling in front of her with a smoothness that made it seem as though his struts were made of liquid. His wings flared out to further block the door, feathers rattling menacingly as drool dripped from his fangs. Alice bared her teeth in return, and T opened his mouth wide with an ungodly screech that shredded through Ned’s audials with horrific ferocity, making all his servos give out from under him. 

For several moments, his entire world was just agonizing ringing, his haptic and audial sensors scrambling to reboot.

When he finally managed to push himself back up, his core skipped several cycles at the sight before him.

Alice Underwood the school nurse was pinned to the wall with both of her arms severed, visor throwing an OIL LEVELS LOW warning.

The thing pinning her to the wall was the bladed feather of T’s wing impaling her through the chassis, and he’d started the process of slicing her open with the claws of one hand. She was screaming in agony as the claw began rending through her chassis, oil spilling out of her as T unzipped her.

It was eerily similar to how Z’s chassis had been thrown open to the sky.

T seemed to be relishing the screams until Z let out a whimper of pain from where she lay on the exam table up above Ned’s head.

“Rot in Hell,” T growled to Alice before he swiped her head off of her neck in one clean motion, heedless of the broken choker that dropped to the floor near the head as he rushed the opened chassis over to the exam table. Carefully, tenderly, he began to scoop oily entrails out of the casing to drop into Z’s mouth, warbling quietly at her.

Ned wasn’t paying much attention to any of that, though. Alice’s severed head stopped in front of him, the red FATAL ERROR searing into his optics as he struggled to remember how to vent air through his systems. Her teeth were still bared in a final defiant snarl, a line of oil dripping from her mouth. His casing rattled as he shakily flinched away from her dead visage, an involuntary whimper squeaking out of his chassis.

The hungry growls and crunches and slurps of Z wolfing down the entrails of the school nurse reverberated in his audials as T kept warbling encouragingly to her.

Dad: ned come home please

Dad: where r u answer me

Dad: where did u go

Ned hugged himself so tightly that the casing of his arms might have started to groan a little under his grip, biting his lip so hard that oil threatened to come to the surface.

Self: checked on ms alice

Self: thing in bunker got her :’( 

Dad: are u ok?!?

He hesitated, his vents shallow and shaky.

Self: no

Self: but alive

Dad: im coming

He tried to get his optics to refocus as his vision swam and he saw double for a moment.

All he could see, briefly, was Vera hissing and snarling at him.

“Oh my freaking Robo-God the visions are all true after all. You’re gonna let the Murder Drones in and k-kill us all, so what does it matter that I’m a horrible monster now anyway, right?!?”

Vera’s voice faded from his head as another shortwave message came in.

Z: thank you

He startled as two hazard-striped pegs hit the ground, T helping Z to stand as her chassis finished the rudimentary stages of knitting itself back together. She groaned in pain, and Ned turned his hollowed, flickering eyelights up to her. The magnets had been fully removed from her, but she was still too weak to fully stand on her own and leaned heavily against T, head lolling slightly to the side.

He couldn’t figure out how he felt about that.

Her faceplate was still smeared with Alice’s oil.

T gave Ned a salute. Then he folded his wings in, wrapped his arms tightly around Z, and vaulted himself up into the vents with a series of loud clangs. 

And then the Murder Drones were gone.

Ned was still and silent aside from his trembling and his quiet whimpers for what felt like an eternity, detached from reality.

Then he found himself being hauled to his feet and pulled into his crying father’s arms, and he sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder, arms hanging limply at his sides.

Another shortwave message came in as his dad rubbed his back and tried to tell him that things would be okay.

Cyn: Ned what did you DO?!

Self: made a mistake :’( 

He only cried harder.

T kept his word, that one monster of a toaster aside. He made a beeline through those vents with Z in tow until they made it back outside, dropping out into the snow. Z could barely support herself, swaying even on all fours and letting out sickly moans. She needed to get back to the Spire and replenish herself properly, stat.

His audials picked up sobbing from a nearby snowdrift, and with regret he remembered the other part of Ned’s deal with him. With a soft growl, he approached the snowdrift and cast a couple optics downward toward the wretched drone before him.

Those wings and that tail and that cursed glyph send shudders through his struts.

“Oh, finishing that one off? Good idea,” Z rumbled behind him, tail lashing eagerly. “She owes me two heads.”

T threw out an extended arm to his side, barring the way to approach. Stay back, he rumbled.

Found food! Z protested. Attack!

STAY BACK! T insisted, at least two optics on the wretched winged toaster at all times.

Her lilac eyelights stared up at him, hollow and ringed with stress lines, one flickering between a normal eyelight and the damned glyph. She trembled, rattling in her casing.

“Get up,” he told her. “We’re going home.”

“F-fuck you,” the little wretched toaster managed to wheeze out, making no moves to get up from her fetal position in the snow. Her tail lifted its horrible little head and hissed at him, and on reflex he hissed right back, wings flaring out as his feathers rattled.

“Why are you bothering with her?” Z asked. “She’s nuts. And she took my freaking head off!! TWICE!!!”

T sighed. “Ned made a deal with me.”

“Ugh, of course he did. Poor bastard’s whipped for her. For reasons beyond my comprehension.”

“Sh-shut up!” the toaster cried, curling her wings tightly around herself to try and cocoon her way out of this conversation.

T groaned inwardly. Were it not for the deal, yes, he would’ve gladly disassembled this bomb waiting to go off.

But it’d be an egregious violation of the bro code to disassemble the girl your bro likes with no proper provocation.

Well…she did decapitate Z twice. 

His tail lashed in thought.

“Go on…g-get it over with…” the toaster grumbled dejectedly. “We all know where this is going. Do it. It’d be a favor at this point.”

Well. Now the toaster was being bossy about it. 

“Ugh, wait,” Z sneered. “I’m not giving this glitch what she wants.”

Okay…Ned’s deal got to stand. T reached down and grabbed the toaster by the back of her puffy little jacket, and she hissed as her visor flickered between a brilliant lilac X and That Thing’s glyph.

He flinched for just a second, then let out the jamming screech. The toaster cried out and went limp in his grip for a moment, and he fired up the gravitic drives in his wings and took off. Z followed a moment later, her flight uneven and wonky.

Follow me, he warbled encouragingly when her speed started to stutter. Follow me. Safe.

Here, she answered.

The toaster tried to fight against him again, and he forced her to go still again with another jamming screech.

As they came closer to the Spire, their warbles were joined by a third Disassembler, whistle carrying on the wind. Friends? Where are you?

Here! Both T and Z whistled back in sync.

T and Z swooped down into the Spire, with T making a graceful landing…and Z stumbling and briefly face-planting in the snow.

L swooped down to meet them. The barest hint of a relieved smile quickly wiping itself off of her faceplate in favor of a scowl.

“You brought the freak back instead of hunting?” L chided…before her optics caught sight of the little winged toaster he was holding by her scruff. “Ewww. Is that a toaster? T, I think that one might give us friggin’ indigestion.”

“We’re not eating this one,” T clarified, as Z made a desperate break for the cache of toaster corpses.

L put her hands on her hips and flicked her ponytail with a sassy toss of her head. “Uh, ex- squeeze me, T? I think I misheard you.”

“I’m serious, L,” he said, suppressing a sigh. He knew this was coming. “It’s a long story, but…the guy who helped me get Z back made me promise to keep this one alive, and it’d be hella rude to go back on that.”

“It’s hella rude to bring back a toaster you won’t let us eat!” L countered, her tail lashing in displeasure.

“Swear to me you won’t touch this one, and I’ll go grab as many as I can carry,” he said solemnly. “There’s still moonlight tonight…and didn’t you just say this one would give you indigestion anyway?”

“Sure, fine, whatever,” L groaned, sneering at the winged toaster. “Get to it.”

“Gimme a sec to stash this thing, and I’m on it,” he said, already running toward the pod. He jumped up and dropped down into it, as the toaster writhed in his grip.

He shoved her up against the pod wall with a threatening rumble, and she screamed in surprise at the abrupt show of force. 

“Let’s be clear,” he growled,visor flashing a killing X. “If you so much as leave a single scratch on any of my squadmates’ casing, the deal is OFF. I will not hesitate to protect my squad.” His tail curled dangerously behind him, the barb glinting wickedly over his shoulder, pointing right in the direction of her faceplate.

“Bite me!!” the toaster cried. “Do it. You wanna off me so bad? May as well! I don’t want to be a freaking Murder Drone’s pet!”

The Disassembler sighed, X flickering into eyelights in an unamused expression. “...I made a deal,” he muttered.

“You can break it,” her dreamself hissed. “Should be easy. You’re a monster.”

“You make it tempting, honestly,” he huffed. “But no. I’m a man of my word. Sorry, little toaster.”

“You realize that just gives me more motive to scratch up their paint, right?” the toaster deadpanned. “You’re not very good at this.”

T growled menacingly at her, then scowled and turned away. “Your disassembly,” he rumbled with an annoyed flick of his tail.

“And now you’re just leaving me? You’re really bad at this,” she taunted.

He growled low and let out a jamming screech in a show of dominance. The wretched little toaster nearly fell to her knees, her wing arms slamming their fleshy hands to the ground to catch her weight and keep her upright. Her tail arced up and hissed furiously at him, clacking its jaws in threat.

“Good luck trying anything with two hungry Disassemblers out there,” T snarled. “You really want to die? Knock yourself out, toaster.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Maybe be a bit friendlier.”

“My name is Vera!!”

“Okay, toaster. Simmer down while I’m out.” He began climbing up the ladder out of the pod, tail swishing in annoyance. “Or…don’t. I already kept my word to Ned, really. He didn’t really say anything about you getting yourself killed.”

She fell silent as he climbed out of the pod, unfurled his wings, and took off into the night for a proper hunt.

Chapter Text

Vera found herself sitting up in the midst of howling snow, hugging herself and rubbing her arms as she glanced around. How had she ended up outside the bunker? She quickly hauled herself to her feet and started walking, snow crunching under her boots. 

With a start she realized that the trees had green needles clinging to their branches, holding up lumps of snow. The trees on Copper-9 were all dead, right…?

She jumped with a frightened squeak and ran behind the nearest tree to hide when she heard an unfamiliar noise in the distance, like a voice crying out. What the hell was that?!

Oh…um…a wolf howl. Those were in some of the old media she’d consume in her downtime…but not on Copper-9. Right?!

The wolf howled again, closer this time, and Vera started running in earnest, core cycling rapidly, though it felt wrong, so very very wrong-

She staggered in the snow, clutching at her chest with a groan of agony as it throbbed harder and harder. 

She could hear lumbering footsteps crunching through the snow behind her, and she desperately tried to scramble back up to her feet to run. She was starting to run hot, so very very hot, and she vented air rapidly in and out, steam rising to fog up her visor.

Behind her, a growl. 

A massive limb slammed the earth, and the tremor knocked Vera to the ground. In terror, she rolled onto her back to try and see what exactly was hunting her.

Looming over her was a big hulking thing, like a mass of snow and ice had come alive, an unholy amalgamation of a wolf and something more bipedal. It hunched over her, its pelt of icy spikes glittering faintly in the minimal light. Steam poured from its slavering maw as it fixed her with its piercing eyes.

They were oily black pits, with pupils formed of brilliantly glowing tri-pronged glyphs.

“Hello, Sestrichka.”

The voice sounded vaguely feminine, a little raspy, and very monotone and synthetic. It sent a shudder through Vera to her very core as its horrific eyes never left her for a second. She was too paralyzed to move, and that allowed the wolf to advance on her, pinning her down with a massive clawed hand over her chassis. 

“Sigh. You are a bit of a runt. But you will do. We have been…getting bored. Things are…rather stagnant here.”

Vera tried valiantly to thrash her way out of the wolf’s grip, but it held firm and leaned in a bit closer, a long black tongue dripping with oil lolling from its mouth and dripping on to her.

“Cute. Play nice now, Sestrichka.”

Vera cried out in agony as a wave of heat rushed through her, and something erupted from the casing on her back. Her head swam as she started getting some blurry visual feedback from something that must be behind her, and two massive somethings flailed out to her side.

She could swear she could see the wolf smile.

And then the very earth beneath them both tremored, and the wolf drew back its ears and reared back, teeth bared in a snarl.

“Begone. We are…having a chat…with our new sister.”

The earth erupted under the wolf’s paws, and it let out a furious screech as oily tendrils began to wrap around it, and Vera screamed as horrible warbling noises made their way up from the new abyss before her.

Enemy! Danger! Kill! Kill! Hurt!

Vera curled her new limbs around herself on reflex and sobbed, willing the horrible noises to go back to being something she couldn’t process-

And then the earth opened up and swallowed her too.

The last thing she saw before everything went dark was a writhing mass of metal and something much squishier, the coils seeming to go on forever, faintly illuminated by her eyelights.

There was a rumble all around her.

Love you.

Something speared her through her back and into her core.

Vera sat bolt upright with a scream…or tried to. A weight was dragging her down. She flailed for a moment before remembering the huge disgusting wings jutting out of her casing. She shuddered as she tried to move them. They were big hulking heavy things that should not be there under any circumstances and dear Robo-God did she hate every part of having them there. With effort she pulled herself up to her feet…and immediately lost her balance as her tail lashed behind her, snapping at nothing. She lay crumpled in an unmoving heap for a moment before trying to get up again. Once more her agitated tail tried to lunge at air, and she grabbed it with a trembling hand and hissed right back at it.

Wait…she hissed. Shit. 

She let go of her agitated tail and looked woefully up the ladder leading out of the pod. The annoyance of her shattered lens aside…tt seemed lighter out there than when T had first thrown her down here…maybe now would be a decent time to make a break for it out of the Spire?

She had no clue what the hell she was gonna do once she was out, but…whatever it was would be better than languishing in the belly of the beast, surrounded by Murder Drones. 

It took several tries for her to get a proper grip on the ladder, and she only made headway once she figured out how to fold her wings more tightly against her back. She winced at how the muscle tensed and moved under the skin, so unlike the servos and struts in her arms. It was a sickening feeling…not helped by the constant throbbing and aching in her chest as her core thudded away. 

She stilled on the ladder for a moment, becoming aware of the sound of oil rushing through her head, near her audials. She grit her too-sharp teeth and took some steadying vents in and out, hot steam rising between her fangs.

She had to get it together before she left the pod, dammit. With a determined scowl, she scrambled the rest of the way up the ladder and jumped down into the snow with a superhero landing that would have made Ned proud.

Her core clenched painfully and with a hiss she lost her balance and flopped over into the snow. It was undignified and frustrating, but…the cold was nice, she had to admit. It was nice enough to keep her down for a minute as she looked up.

Sunlight was faintly streaming in through a few little holes between the stacked corpses. In the darkest corners of the vault of the Spire, the Murder Drones hung by their tails, asleep.

Except…one rustled its feathers and flexed its wings slightly, and with a jolt Vera realized that the bulbs on its head seemed to be lit up.

Crap, crap, crap. She hardly dared to vent as she scooted herself into the shadow of the pod, waiting for the Murder Drone to go still and dark again.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity filled with Vera listening to the sound of her own oil pumping through her body, it did. 

She waited another small eternity just to be sure it was asleep, and then she folded her wings as tightly and as high up behind her as she could before she started making a break for it, boots pounding the snow as she ran as fast as she could.

She made it to the edge of the Spire’s entrance and eagerly dove into the sunlit snow.

And then a piercing shriek of agony tore its way out of her vocal synth as she started to burn alive. Steam and smoke rose from her flesh as she writhed ineffectually in the snow, screaming until her vocal synth started frying-

She was roughly dragged back into the shade of the Spire by her tail. She was too blinded by general agony to process much of anything…until she became faintly aware of some growling and warbling.

Food! Food! Help! One warbled noisily.

Stand down! Go away! The other one growled, and Vera could hear the rattling of feathers.

She blearily tried to refocus her optics, and she realized she was listening to Z and T arguing over…her. Z was looking right at her, and T was standing between the two of them, drawing himself to his full height and flaring his wings.

“Come on…just a nibble,” Z tried, flashing a killing smile with an X on her visor and lashing her tail as she paced back and forth on all fours, deadly claw-blades deployed.

“Not unless you want to upset Ned,” T said firmly, crossing his arms and standing resolute. Z’s response was one of the most exaggerated, drawn-out groans of exasperation that Vera had ever heard in her life. It was so freaking obnoxious. She couldn’t just be a horrible killer monster. No…Z had to be an obnoxious horrible killer monster!!

“No, go ahead and knock yourself out,” Vera hissed, holding herself in pain. “Speed it up for me.”

“See?! Even the toaster freaking signed off on it!” Z whined.

“No,” T insisted, tail lashing in agitation. “Go get something from the cache, Z.”

Z let out another exaggerated groan, but turned and loped off toward the cache in question. T watched her go…then whirled on Vera as she lay there in the snow, half-scorched and miserable.

“You did not have permission to leave the pod,” he growled.

“You’re not the boss of me, Sky Demon,” Vera hissed in return. “What’re you gonna do? Kill me? Hah, wait…you won’t. Go shove it.”

“Oh, you make it tempting, but…I’m not rewarding bad behavior, toaster.”

She scowled deeply as his frown turned into a slag-eating smirk.

“It’s Vera.”

“Hey!!” came another voice from above, sounding supremely agitated. “All of you! Friggin’ zip your damn lips before I come down and do it for you! I need my friggin’ beauty sleep!”

“Evidently,” Vera deadpanned…earning herself a light kick from T. She hissed in pain and curled her wings tightly around herself and went still. L stopped yelling…and she could hear T walk away.

For a few moments, she allowed herself the bliss of thinking she was being left alone.

Then she had something splat into the snow in front of her, some liquid splashing onto her skin.

The sweet scent sent her mouth watering, and she eagerly pounced on the meal, shoveling it into her mouth and gulping it down with reckless abandon. So sweet, so cool-

She gagged and vomited upon realizing that she was shoveling drone entrails into her mouth, with T just standing there and watching.

His faceplate was blank and impassive.

“EW!! What the hell?!” she screeched, reeling back from the offending entrails, tail hissing loudly as it arced up over her back and clacked its jaws at T. She wiped her mouth with a trembling hand, casing rattling.

“You got burned in the sunlight and you’re going to overheat very soon if you don’t eat,” T pointed out.

She tried to ignore the steam rising from her mouth at regular intervals as she vented rapidly and shallowly. “So, get me some coolant if you’re so damn worried about it!”

“That is coolant. The best coolant on Copper-9, with raw materials to help your body repair.”

“They’re entrails!” Vera screeched. “From a Worker Drone!”

T looked at her like she was being a huge moron.

“Stop,” she demanded. “Get me a-actual coolant!”

“Either you eat that, or I come over there and make you eat it,” T said flatly. 

Vera looked down at the oily entrails and felt her fuel tank lurch horribly…even as her mouth watered from the intoxicatingly sweet smell.

No…no! She wasn’t a freaking cannibal!

Well…um…besides all those people that she maybe killed and ate yesterday. That was…uh…

That wasn’t her. Yeah.

She wasn’t a cannibal!

A nervous giggle bubbled up out of her as she ran her shaking hands down her face. Her eyelights hollowed, ringed with multiple stress lines.

The thing that snapped her out of it was T dropping into a crouch, grabbing a fistful of entrails, and shoving it into Vera’s mouth mid-giggle. She gagged but…some horrible instinct took over as she giggled with glee and gulped it down ravenously, visor flickering into a bright lilac X as she ate. She was barely aware of T slowly retreating backward as her body moved for her, devouring the feast before it. So cool, so sweet, so delicious, so filling. 

Her visor flickered back into hollow eyelights once she finished licking the oil from her hands, and she flopped back over into the snow with a nauseous moan as her fuel tank constricted painfully around its unholy meal.

After a moment of stillness, T hauled her up by the back of her jacket like he’d done the night prior…and to add insult to injury, she realized this time he was doing it by hooking his tail barb into her jacket, keeping his hands free.

“H-hey! Stop d-doing that!” she hissed, and her tail lunged to bite him of its own volition. He merely flung his tail out away from himself to create distance, and Vera swung a little from the tail barb and hugged herself with a whimper to try and keep her meal down.

As much as she hated it…her body did hurt a little less once it had some time to digest a little.

“Maybe if you keep that little menace to yourself, we can talk,” he said breezily, starting a brisk walk back toward the pod. 

“I can walk myself back to the pod!”

“Can you?” he questioned. “You’re not moving very well.”

“I can!” she insisted, and he snorted and promptly kept walking, making quick time back to the pod. “Stop laughing at me!”

“Hm…nah,” he said, jumping on top of the pod before holding his tail over the entrance and unceremoniously dropping her down inside. She landed on her back and it completely knocked all rational thought from her head for a moment. She wasn’t able to re-gather her thoughts until after T had unfurled his wings and taken off back to his roost with an amused snort.

What an absolute ass.

She huffed angrily and wrapped her wings around herself after rolling onto a more comfortable position on her side. 

She’d give him and the other Murder Drones a piece of her freaking mind…when her whole body maybe hurt a little less.

Holy hell, everything hurt…

Chapter Text

She struggled to move, magnets holding her bound at the mercy of the ghoul. The ghoul grinned coldly, hollow orange eyelights piercing straight through Z’s core…just like the knife currently plunged into her chassis near it.

“We ain’t done,” the ghoul purred, twisting the knife. “We ain’t nowhere near done, you n’ I. Lotsa quality time t’catch up on. I’ve been real lonely…y’know…since y’all decided to eat my husband.”

Z wanted to say Look, lady, I don’t even remember that toaster, but her voice was dead in her frazzled vocal synth. Nothing worked anymore, really. But the ghoul kept repairing her sensors, at least, when they started to fail. Ditto with any components that were vital to life.

The ghoul insisted she needed to feel every bit of this until her debt of pain was paid in full.

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, couldn’t end this nightmare-

Her shortwave prickled with an incoming message.

Auto-translating Russian?

606: This is not how it happens.

606: Get a grip.

Z awoke with a gasp, nearly dropping from her roost.

Roost. She was roosting. In the Spire.

She ran her hands experimentally along her blissfully unopen chassis, then shuddered and tried to calm her racing core down. She was safe in the Spire..but…dammit, sunlight was still streaming in from outside. Just her frickin’ luck. She was itching to go do something to distract herself, her battered body was quickly reminding her of how sore it was…and she was trapped inside for the next several hours at least.

Second day in a row of this crap too. Wonderful. Fatigue hung heavy on her frame, and she scowled and wrapped herself tighter in her wings, trying to force herself back into recharge.

She spent a long time feeling every weary throb of her core, aching throughout every strut that it shuddered along. The dull burn seemed as though it would be eternal, becoming as much a part of her as the overheating.

It was maddening.

Eventually, though, her exhaustion descended upon her like Disassemblers upon a Worker encampment, dragging her back into the dark depths of unconsciousness.

She found herself sitting just out of the sun, on a little bench in the shade. She scowled as she picked bits of dirt from between her finger joints, trying in vain to will some claws into existence. It’d be so much easier to get into the joints with those, rather than these stupid blunt flingers. Were the nanites malfunctioning?

She was jolted from her frustrated thoughts by a weight settling next to her on the bench. There sat a Worker Drone in a dapper suit, one who looked a lot like-

“Hey, Z,” he said in T’s voice, and she hated how her core skipped a cycle at the friendly smile he gave her. “Oof, Louisa had you weeding the garden again? I totally would’ve helped…but James had me takin’ out the trash again. Humans don’t wanna do anything themselves, right?”

Z had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

But she really didn’t mind listening right now. There was nobody around, and Not-T was focused on her.

“...You good, dude?”

Crap. She’d just been sitting there and staring at him like an idiot.

“Yeah. Uh. Just contemplating how I’m gonna kill those guys,” she grumbled, trying to sound natural. She did feel like some human-killing might help lift her mood, frankly. 

Not-T chuckled at that and her core skipped another cycle. “Ah, I see. Same old, same old. Want any help cleaning out your fingers?” he said, noticing her picking at the offending digits.

“I got it,” she muttered, before furiously returning to her task, focusing intently upon her slightly shaky hands and not the cute drone sitting next to her.

Why the hell was she getting flustered over a damn toaster?! They were food, not-

Her train of thought came to a screeching halt as Not-T’s hand rested upon her shoulder. “You really look like you’re having some trouble there. Maybe we should go inside, I could hold a light and you could get your kit-”

“N-no!” she yelped, a sudden desperation gripping her core. “Let’s just. Stay out here. Just us.”

Oh. Craaaaaap, abort-

Not-T relaxed, letting his back recline against the back of the bench. “If you’re sure. I finished my chores early, so I got nowhere important to be.”

Z lifted her optics, letting them really settle upon the drone next to her. For a toaster, he was pretty well-built and, well, handsome. 

And he looked at her like she was worth something.

A friend, and not something to be sliced open and studied.

Her tubing felt like it twisted within her.

“I missed you, T,” she blurted out.

“I’m flattered, but we’ve only been apart for a couple hours,” Not-T chuckled. 

It was maddening, hearing that voice sound so casual after she’d been through constant hell.

She grabbed his hands and looked into his white eyelights, entirely the wrong color.

And yet.

“Cut the crap!” she barked, voice shaking. “Stop being so casual, and…and doing stupid stuff like taking in that little menace!” Her hands trembled a little, and Not-T’s eyelights hollowed.

“Seriously, Z, you good…? You’re not making any sense-”

Mine, she rumbled, before her eyelights hollowed. Wait, she didn’t intend to make that specific noise-

Not-T reeled back in terror at the sound of the ping, and in her spiking panic and confusion Z warbled out several more. Friend! Sorry! Safe!

But Not-T was shaking as he leapt to his feet and took shaking steps away from her…

And then she received a message. The Russian text quickly translated as it came in.

606: This is not how it happens.

606: You are making a fool of yourself.

606: Gross.

Z shuddered awake to the sound of growling and warbling down below. She unfurled her wings and rapidly fired up her optic array to figure out what the hell was going on.

Oh…it was T trying to feed his new pet again. 

Z ground her teeth a little.

“Stop trying to feed me this crap!” Vera whined, flinging some perfectly good raw materials away from her indiscriminately, even as she vented some steam from her mouth.

Food, T rumbled, glaring at her and pointing at the remaining little pile in front of her with his tail barb. Eat.

“And stop making those noises at me!” the stupid winged toaster screeched. Z’s urge to swoop down and offline the screechy little annoyance was rising by the second.

Then she remembered Not-T backing away from her, a look of fear upon his faceplate.

Ughhhh, T would be upset if she made him break his stupid deal.

…And…that toaster who saved her would probably be upset too.

His name lingered in her shortwave contact list, though it was out of range.

“I know you understand them,” T said flatly, crossing his arms. “You’re just choosing to pretend that you don’t.” Food. Eat.

“Screw you! Get me actual food, Murder Drone!” the much smaller Worker barked, baring her fangs in a snarl.

Stand down. Eat. T growled, tail twitching in agitation.

Vera hissed like a Disassembler, then promptly clapped her hands over her mouth with a terrified squeak. Z couldn’t help but roll her eyelights as she fired up her gravitic drives and dropped from her roost. This was getting increasingly annoying- aaaand L freaking beat her to the scene, figures. Z huffed and rattled her feathers after L landed first, and closer to the two arguing drones.

Stand down! L growled to T and Vera…and she glanced across the pair to Z at the feather-rattle. “Oh my god, Z, settle, this isn’t about you!”

Vera had the gall to actually look sort of satisfied about Z getting scolded, and Z was about 2 seconds from attacking her before, once again, L got there first.

“T, put a muzzle on your pet nerd or something. This moonrise shitshow has got to stop, like, right the hell now.”

“What did you just call me?!” Vera screeched, voice cracking a little as her wings unfurled, wide.

“Seriously, T, muzzle,” L drawled, swaying her body weight mostly onto one peg and putting a hand on her hip, tail swishing behind her. “Though I guess now’s as good a time to name your damn pet, since you insist on keeping it. Ooh, how about ‘Pipsqueak?’”

“MY NAME IS VERA!!” the pipsqueak screamed.

“You’re gonna have to name the individual bits of shrapnel soon,” Z grumbled, switching one of her hands out for a rocket launcher.

It was just as well, since one of Vera’s eyelights started flickering into the freaky glyph, and a growl rumbled out of her tiny little chassis. Get back! 

T’s response was to tackle Vera to the ground and pin her down, wings unfurling and tenting over the both of them, blocking Z’s view of the little purple thing as she struggled audibly under T’s grip.

“Girls? Do me a favor and go hunting,” he said in a strained voice trying to sound casual.

“Uh, isn’t that your job?” L asked, raising a digital eyebrow.

“I’m going to be busy,” T huffed, throwing a bit more of his weight into keeping his captive down as she hissed and growled and flailed ferociously. Get back! GET BACK!! Vera’s rumbles demanded.

Z cocked her rocket launcher meaningfully, the mechanisms clicking loudly.

“No, Z, you are not blowing this one up!” T scolded.

“It’d save us a crapton of trouble, c’mon.”

“Ugh, I hate to admit it, but the freak has a point,” L muttered.

“Bite me!”

T spread a wing to rattle the feathers and get his squadmates’ attention…and Z got a look at Vera’s visor.

The glyph had spread to cover the entire thing, and a grin full of fangs split her entire faceplate even as she hissed loudly at T.

“It doesn’t need to be a huge haul, since we still have the cache. We just need something because I’m going to be busy getting this stupid toaster to drink her damn coolant!”

“Fine, settle,” L huffed. “I wanted to browse the mall again anyway.”

“I’m not going with her,” Z said flatly.

“You’re going together,” T said, before his voice softened. “Please. We can’t risk losing you again, Z.”

…Crap.

Z groaned loudly and wordlessly fired up her gravitic drives and shot out of the Spire, not waiting for L to catch up.

She heard a faint “Get back here, loser!” behind her…and soon enough, L had caught up with her, scowling in annoyance. Here, she whistled quickly, like she was spitting out something bitter.

Here, Z whistled back with just as much fondness, before banking a dozen feet to the side.

She scowled as a shortwave message came in.

Prepbot 9000: hey z gtfo when we get 2 landing zone thx

Self: stop clogging my inbox with shit i was already planning on doing

Prepbot 9000: srs gtfo 2 other side or ur shrapnel

Self: bite me

Prepbot 9000: and no explosives 

Self: no fun allowed got it

If she had free time after bagging a couple Workers she was definitely going to blow up that mall.

They flew in silence for a bit after that, besides the occasional whistles to affirm that the other was still nearby. Through the clouds and howling winds they soared until the mall came into view, looming in the midst of the city’s ruins. Some windows had been boarded up since Z’s last visit, so some Workers had definitely been here. And they’d brought supplies.

…Okay, the mall could live another night.

Z peeled off to proceed to her end of the mall as a couple of her optics tracked L swooping down and digging her claws into a wall before crawling along it and into a window, wings folding in to get more compact. She’d leave L to get in position while she went and got in her own.

Much as she hated L…L was a pretty damn good hunter as long as she had a squadmate to help herd the toasters toward her. Thus Z found herself crawling into a window on the opposite side of the mall, dimming her lights a bit for stealth as she prowled, mouth open to bring more air over her olfactory sensors.

As soon as she picked up the faint scent of oil running under casing, her visor flickered into a killing X as she switched a set of claws out for a rocket launcher.

Nothing said she couldn’t have a little fun before doing her job proper.

It was one of her weaker explosives, very much chosen on purpose, but she cackled all the same as it detonated the room and sent the surviving toasters scattering with panicked screams. Z came rushing through the smoldering rubble, motivating a proper stampede by picking off a straggler by swiping its head off, laughter rising. Off the toasters sprinted, and Z bounded after them, only wincing slightly as her battered body strained from the exertion.

Found food! Z warbled loudly as the herd turned into a hallway, scrambling past a few dilapidated storefronts. Her squadmate was definitely lurking somewhere nearby, listening and waiting…

“Guys! Get in here! It’s fortified!” cried a masculine voice from a nearby store. It clipped slightly, to Z’s trained audials. “You’ll be safe!”

The panicked herd rushed toward the friendly-sounding voice, and it was their last mistake.

L dropped from the ceiling with swords deployed, cleaving two toasters’ heads from their bodies before her pegs even hit the floor. The survivors screamed and tried to run back out…but Z was behind them and took out a couple more before they could properly process that mistake. They found themselves caught between two grinning Disassembly Drones, and their remaining lifespan was measured in seconds.

With all the toasters dead and L daintily licking oil off of her arm cone, Z turned to her.

“You really need to work on that voice more.”

“Let’s see you do better, loser,” L huffed, voice stuttering for a moment as it returned to its prissy-girl default. “Wait…you’re too busy building useless crap, never mind.”

“It’s not useless! It’s badass!”

“It clutters up the Spire.”

“You clutter up the Spire!”

“Real mature,” L sighed, swapping her swords out for hands and putting one on her hip, tail swishing restlessly before pointing its barb at her in an accusatory manner. “By the way, don’t think I didn’t hear the explosions earlier, freak. I set one freakin’ rule before we landed, and could you follow it? Nooope.”

“Get the shrapnel out of your exhaust, it was just a couple of weak rockets,” Z grumbled, already looting a corpse with her back to L, tail lashing in agitation.

“You obliterated one of our potential biggest hunts not all that long ago with ‘a couple of rockets,’” L snapped. “Is this job a joke to you, Z?”

“Kind of.” 

Z was focused in on the pockets she was rifling through with her claws, but her audials immediately picked up the sharp clicking of L’s pegs against the floor as she strode towards her. Z flicked an optic to look behind her just in time for L to sneer down directly toward it.

“Z, if I miss out on my company swag drop because you felt the need to blow our quarterly numbers to high hell for no frickin’ reason, I’m scrapping you myself!”

Z did not flinch whatsoever, pulling a few good quality screws and nuts from her prey’s pockets and putting them in her own pockets. “Oh no, you’re gonna miss out on the perks that we have never once received since landing on this rock. Whatever will I do.”

“Because you keep sabotaging our squad, freak! I swear, the instant the guys upstairs okay the forms to get a new squad member deployed, you are fucking scrap.”

“File now, and maybe they’ll process the forms this century, and sign it in unicorn blood.” Z stood up from her looting and unfurled her wings to fly back to the hardware store, never turning around. 

The feathers sliding against each other masked a faint crackle.

“Not cool of you to just leave like that, Z,” said T’s voice behind her.

And, despite herself, knowing full well who was behind her, Z still turned around on reflex because she heard T.

L sneered as her vocal synth crackled back to its default. “God, you’re whipped. So, now that I have your attention-”

Z hissed and shot off like a rocket…though, unfortunately, even as she landed at the hardware store on the other end of the mall, she was still within shortwave range.

Prepbot 9000: we wrnt done

Self: im pretty freakin done with ur shit tbh

Prepbot 9000: u not being able 2 listen is another reason 2 scrap u fyi

Self: funny how u like pulling rank but barely do any actual work

Self: get good glitch

Z busied herself with picking the store from top to bottom as soon as she arrived, scampering and crawling around and over the ruins of the product racks as she searched for anything and everything worth salvaging for her own stash. It never hurt to take any given opportunity to stockpile, especially given the nature of several of her projects. Repairs were part and parcel of the hobby, and while her nanites could work in a lot of cases…hocking loogies all over her projects was gross and took forever. There was a lot more satisfaction in taking a tool in her claws and doing it the old fashioned way.

Prepbot 9000: its called delegating responsibility

Prepbot 9000: not that a spazz like u would know that tho 

Self: lot of fancy words for just dumping all ur work on T and me

Prepbot 9000: u guys need someone organized like me doing all the paperwork 

Prepbot 9000: u know how 2 hold a pen and write? didnt think so lol

Self: i know a lot of stuff, like how to rewire your processor so you can only speak in rhymes. nobody would ever take you seriously. so like nothing changed but itd be funnier

Prepbot 9000: bs

Self: try me >:3

Prepbot 9000: not wasting more time on u

Prepbot 9000: stay the hell over there 

Prepbot 9000: maybe do me a favor and walk in2 the sun l8r

The shortwave went blessedly silent after that, which told Z that she won this round. Eat it, glitch.

She delighted in her scavenging for a good while after that, finding a few good parts to pocket. However, the gnawing of soreness all throughout her chassis demanded to be felt all the more strongly the longer that she moved, a throbbing ache that burned with each pull of muscle fiber. She winced and hissed at a particular wrong movement upsetting her chassis as she lifted up a knocked over rack.

And there in the wreckage were several little circular magnets, some still in their original packaging, boldly declaring their potent strength in a small package.

Hesitantly, gingerly, Z’s claws sliced open the packaging and pinched one between the blades. All five of her optics focused in on the little silvery disc as her claws trembled minutely, lifting it up toward her faceplate.

As she brought it closer, her optic feed began to fuzz over a little, basked in the corona of its magnetic field. Despite herself, she shuddered a little at the slight fuzzing sensation, and her claws moved to stick it to her head. In an instant, blessed numbness began to creep into her processor, dulling it to the tormented cries of her battered inner workings.

But…it was fainter than she would have hoped…so she stuck a second one on, then shuddered with a noise of relief. Better. After a moment of contented purring, she scooted the two magnets further up into her hair before tugging her beanie down over them, hiding them from view. Nobody needed to know about the terrible job her frame was doing of healing, and certainly nobody needed to know of her stopgap solution.

Soon, she would be healed more thoroughly, and she wouldn’t need damn magnets to move properly.

Still…she pocketed several more backup magnets, just in case the pain happened to get worse.

Just in case.

After all, talking to L for any length of time was rather migraine-inducing. What exactly was T hoping to accomplish by sending them out together? Hopefully he just expected Worker bodies and not any sort of bonding thing…though, knowing his optimism, he may very well have been hoping for that. She shook her head a little at the thought. Poor cute, stupid, stupid T…he’d tried every so often to get Z and L out on patrols together, possibly hoping for bonding to happen between them, and it never worked out because L was super vapid and a huge glitch. It wasn’t T’s fault that L was the worst Disassembly Drone to ever be deployed on Copper-9, but L was the worst and he should really have figured out by now that she wasn’t going to fistbump L or swap friendship bracelets or whatever. 

And, hell. Maybe if she provoked L enough she might actually make good on one of her threats for once and put an end to this miserable deployment at the behest of uncaring corporate overlords that didn’t see any of them as people.

…Not with her luck, though.

At least she found a respite from the pain.

Having picked the store clean of its goods, Z steeled herself and flew back to where she had helped L corner the Workers earlier, since two drones were gonna be necessary to haul all the bodies back to the Spire. 

“Took you long enough, loser,” L huffed, reclined in an old decaying recliner with her legs crossed over each other, one peg waggling with an air of faux impatience. Z saw right through it. L had been perfectly contented here, sprawled out in her shitty little recliner with shitty little tacky sunglasses perched atop her optic array and shitty little rings on her fingers and a shitty little handbag probably full of more shitty little accessories she’d scavenged. Ughhh.

“I bet you literally just finished up right before I got here,” Z grumbled, grabbing a couple Workers under each arm before standing. She didn’t dignify L with a proper time window to respond before she launched herself into the air…smashing a big hole in the mall roof on her way out and dropping a few hunks of debris very close to where L stood.

Prepbot 9000: who programmed u? a rabid raccoon?

Self: who programmed u? a lobotomized intern?

And then a notification popped up in group shortwave.

T: dawn soon. almost back?

Prepbot 9000: yeah

Self: coming in fully loaded

T: awesome. thank u both.

T: B1

Z could enjoy pretending for a moment that the praise had only been directed at one of them.

The silver lining of L being involved in that praise is that it soothed her raging glitch ego and they were able to fly back to the Spire in silence from that point. For a good while it was just Z and the howling of the wind as she tore through the sky.

When they finally swooped back into the Spire, T damn near tackled Z and wrenched a Worker corpse from her arms, tearing it open with a hungry growl and wolfing down casing and struts and entrails right in front of her.

“Uh…hello to you too,” Z said, uncomfortable. “God, you look like hell, T. What-”

“Toaster’s still hella feisty,” T grumbled, tail whipping back and forth in severe agitation. It nearly whacked L as she landed, and she sputtered in surprise.

“Jeez, T, friggin’ settle!” she snapped. “You’re not starving to death. No need to hit me with that thing, kay?”

T took off his cap to drag a hand back through his hair after swallowing a mouthful of oily raw material. “Sorry,” he said…and was Z imagining it, or did his voice tremble a little. “Just…rough night. I’m going out to fly a few laps in a sec. Holler if the toaster leaves the pod.”

Z cast her gaze toward the pod, and T immediately groaned and crossed his arms. “No, Z, you’re not allowed to kill it.”

“Why the hell not-”

“I made a promise to Ned,” he said quietly, weariness seeping into his voice, and Z grit her teeth.

Dammit.

She lashed her tail and launched herself up to her roost as T finished his meal and took off to go blow off some steam.

L let out an exasperated huff down below and got to work hauling the remaining bodies to the proper cache area.

Thankfully…sleep came to Z faster with magnets stuck to her head.

She sank blissfully into the temporary oblivion it offered.

Chapter Text

New day, same horrors, evidently here to stay.

Just her luck.

Vera was jolted back into consciousness with a damned HIGH TEMPERATURE WARNING flashing on her HUD, even as she quickly became painfully aware of the heat simmering in her chassis, probably emanating from that horrible throbbing, spasming core of hers.

“Dammit, I know,” she grumbled at her HUD, slapping her faceplate to clear the warning…and becoming horribly aware of the fleshy bits still jutting from her chassis. “I’m a gross monster drone, you don’t have to freaking remind me.”

Initially…her resolve was to stay in the pod all damn night.

It was a fascinating vehicle, to be sure. As Z had said during that first encounter, it had not been engineered to survive landing…but it was, at one point, a functional spacecraft. She had often found her optics wandering back to its defunct and sparking control panels during her captivity. The engineering part of her code itched to find some project to work on now that her railgun was lost to her.

It was back in the bunker, with her dad.

Her dad.

The drone who had tried to help her.

But only after he left her to die.

Thinking about her father for any length of time made her core clench even more painfully than it usually did, and hisses would escape her teeth. 

He had really screwed her over…and yet she couldn’t figure out how to feel about the fact that she might never see him again.

Did he miss her?

Or was he already throwing himself into work on Door 4 to forget her like he did her mom?

She punched a wall as her mind wandered, and helped as the metal dented a little. Ack. She still wasn’t used to having strength on par with Ned’s.

…And there was the other drone she couldn’t devote processing power to anymore. Her venting rhythm hitched before she whimpered and exhaled a puff of steam.

She forced her eyes back toward the console of the pod. Project. She needed a new one.

She hesitated, though, tail lashing in agitation, its jaws soon clacking uncomfortably close to her audial. She shuddered and tried to get her emotions under control. Yeah, maybe working on the stupid pod would just give the Murder Drones more firepower for their genocide…but…if she didn’t get her hands busy, she’s go insane.

Well… more insane.

A broken little giggle rose from her vocal synth as she ran a shaky hand down her faceplate…then slapped herself across the face, her visor displaying that she was restoring her grit levels.

She had to get it together, dammit.

Alas…there really wasn’t anything in here to even begin fixing the pod with. With a sinking feeling, she remembered that all the good scrap was probably outside among the Worker corpses.

A lot like the final part for her railgun.

She took some steadying vents and folded her horrible wings in close as she shakily started ascending the ladder, hissing a little as her tail whipped around a little of its own accord. It got significantly harder to keep a grip when it was doing that. A few of the rungs creaked a little under her grip before she finally ascended out of the pod…and promptly lost her balance due to her agitated tail, taking a royal tumble off the top of the pod and crashing into the snow below with a squeal and a thud. In her panic she flailed about to get back up…and her wings moved of their own accord and threw her off balance again, and down she went once more.

Admittedly…the snow was nice and cool, and it was tempting to stay down there.

It got less tempting when one of the Murder Drones swooped down from its roost, feathers rattling loudly as its feet slammed the ground. The resulting tremor made damn sure Vera really wasn’t getting back up that moment.

It was T, because of course it was.

“Don’t you have literally anyone else to go bother right now?!” Vera snapped, tail arching up to hiss and clack its jaws at her unwelcome visitor.

“Girls need their beauty sleep,” T said casually, tacitly not including Vera in that category. She crossed her arms and scowled up at him…and winced as her HUD and visor threw another high temperature warning. “‘Sides…looks like you need breakfast, toaster.”

“My name is Vera,” she insisted, even as T bounded off to go get “breakfast” without so much as acknowledging that she said anything. “Hello? You got buildup in your audials? Or were you just programmed wrong?”

“Nah. I just don’t give ungrateful assholes the time of day,” he shrugged, before bounding back over with…eugh, another hunk of Worker Drone entrails, all shredded up and dripping with oil. He dropped it at her feet, then crossed his arms and looked at her expectantly.

She loathed how delicious it smelled.

It could’ve been any one of her neighbors.

It could’ve been one of the innocent drones she mangled in her fugue state in the bunker.

“Stop trying to feed me this crap!” Vera wailed, grabbing some of the mangled remains and flinging them away from her in mounting disgust…even as a part of her clamored for the sweet ichor within. She vented out a puff of steam from between her salivating fangs.

Food, T rumbled, glaring at her and pointing at the remaining little pile in front of her with his tail barb. Eat.

“And stop making those noises at me!” she screeched. 

“I know you understand them,” T said flatly, crossing his arms. “You’re just choosing to pretend that you don’t.” Food. Eat.

How she detested that he was entirely correct. 

She refused to give him the satisfaction.

“Screw you! Get me actual food, Murder Drone!” she barked, baring her fangs in a snarl.

Stand down. Eat. T growled, tail twitching in agitation.

Vera hissed like a Disassembler, the sound leaping unbidden from deep within her chassis, and then she promptly clapped her hands over her mouth with a terrified squeak. Oh, what the hell! Could her stupid body stop being a nightmare and betraying her for five freakin’ minutes?!

She froze up briefly as the other two Murder Drones swooped down from their roosts, both looking directly at her with hostility that suddenly rivaled T’s.

Stand down! L growled to T and Vera as she landed first…and she glanced across the pair to Z as the latter rattled her feathers at L. “Oh my god, Z, settle, this isn’t about you!”

Oh, pfffft. Admittedly, it was kind of funny to see Z just immediately get laid into like that. A smirk found its way onto Vera’s faceplate despite herself.

“T, put a muzzle on your pet nerd or something. This moonrise shitshow has got to stop, like, right the hell now.”

“What did you just call me?!” Vera screeched, voice cracking a little as her wings unfurled, wide. Oh, that brief bit of satisfaction was gone in an instant.

“Seriously, T, muzzle,” L drawled, swaying her body weight mostly onto one peg and putting a hand on her hip, tail swishing behind her. “Though I guess now’s as good a time to name your damn pet, since you insist on keeping it. Ooh, how about ‘Pipsqueak?’”

“MY NAME IS VERA!!” she screamed indignantly, not fully aware of how she was baring her fangs in a snarl.

“You’re gonna have to name the individual bits of shrapnel soon,” Z grumbled, switching one of her hands out for a rocket launcher.

Primal, instinctual fear spiked through Vera’s systems at the sight. One of her eyelights started flickering into the freaky glyph, and a growl rumbled out of her chassis as what little remained of her broken lens over the cursed eye cracked further. Get back! 

T’s response was to tackle Vera to the ground and pin her down, wings unfurling and tenting over the both of them, blocking Vera’s view of the other Disassemblers as she struggled desperately under T’s grip.

His strength was absolute, and in this proximity she was aware of the tension just below his casing as the synthetic muscles tensed to hold her down in the snow no matter how hard she thrashed. The heat radiating off of his chassis, kept in by the tented wings, was unbearable.

“Girls? Do me a favor and go hunting,” he said in a strained voice trying to sound casual, the rumble like thunder in her audials. The monster was on top of her and she had to get the hell out-

“Uh, isn’t that your job?” L asked, raising a digital eyebrow.

“I’m going to be busy,” T huffed, throwing a bit more of his weight into keeping his captive down as she hissed and growled and flailed ferociously. Get back! GET BACK!! Vera’s rumbles demanded, erupting as unbidden as any of her other horrific Murder Drone noises. Those needed to stop right the hell now…and, unfortunately, she got more stressed hearing them, and so they kept coming out involuntarily…

Z cocked her rocket launcher meaningfully, the mechanisms clicking loudly.

“No, Z, you are not blowing this one up!” T scolded.

“It’d save us a crapton of trouble, c’mon.”

Vera…stopped hearing much of anything after that. Get back! Stand down! Threat! Threat! THREAT! THREAT! THREAT! Vera warbled and growled, thrashing with all her might as her fleshy wing arms tensed, claws trying to scrabble for purchase in the snow. T lifted his wing and made noises at the other two that she had long since stopped processing; it was irrelevant to her task of Escape. Her tail lifted itself up and her HUD lit up with its visual feed as it lunged right for T’s neck. He’d seemed distracted by the other two leaving, but with blistering reflexes her blocked her tail with his own…except her tail bit clean through his wire, and he hissed in pain as a length of his severed tail, including the nanite acid stinger, dropped down into the snow. Vera’s tail hissed loudly and lunged again as she giggled, taking advantage of his distraction to push herself up abruptly with all the force that her wing-arms could muster.

T whirled and sliced the head off of her tail with one wing’s pinions, and used his claws to much more firmly pin her down as she wailed and sobbed in fear and pain. The glyph that had taken over her visor flickered rapidly between a high temperature warning, hollow eyelights that trembled and glitched, and back to the glyph as she giggled and sobbed…and then threw up some caustic silvery slurry, hissing with steam as soon as it hit the air.

STAND DOWN! T rumbled directly in her audial, his hot vents washing over her faceplate as her struggles weakened from pain, the blades of T’s claws biting into her casing where they pressed down.

Hurt! Hurt! Threat! Threat! Threat! Vera warbled and whined involuntarily, trembling and collapsing before vomiting up another wave of slurry. T held her there for several beats, his tail lashing as the stinger regrew in a shimmer of silvery nanites, the canister slowly refilling. There was a steady threatening rumble emitted from his chassis, and the instant she so much as twitched a millimeter it spiked into a ferocious growl of STOP! that made her freeze in primal terror. She went properly still for several moments, whimpering and sobbing and heaving, and eventually T rose off of her, unfurling his wings to go shooting off and go get…something.

She was too weak to capitalize on the moment, laying in the snow and desperately venting cool air in and steaming, boiling hot air out as her whole chassis shuddered. She was burning alive and melting down from the inside-

The smell of oil hit her olfactory sensors as something fell into the snow before her faceplate, and she scrambled onto her wing-claws and feet with a hungry growl, immediately starting to wolf down the offered food.

She ate so quickly that she almost immediately vomited it all back up again with a pained whine, falling back over on her side as her limbs gave out.

She could hear T mutter something she couldn’t process in a very unhappy voice, and then there her tormentor was again, crouched in front of her, reaching for her food.

MINE! Vera snarled, before T effortlessly pinned her down with a pinion right between her wing arms, making her shudder and cry from the pressure point. If she had anything left in her failing body, she would’ve fought him to defend her much-needed food, but…there was nothing left. All she could do was whimper out a few more cries of Mine! as he rifled around in her food-

One of her cries was cut off by him shoving a mouthful of food in her jaws. She snapped her teeth shut immediately, biting a chunk out of one of his claws and adding it to the raw materials she greedily gulped down. 

And then no more came for several excruciating beats. Mine! Mine! Food! She warbled hungrily, and yet her tormentor didn’t budge. MINE!!

Stop T demanded, waiting another small agonizing eternity before allowing her another mouthful of oily raw material. She gulped it down as greedily as the last…and he managed to not get his newly-regenerated claw bitten off this time.

He forced her to wait again, and at first she protested violently, some strength returning to her. T, as always, was ready to force her back down with raw strength of his own, and his rumbling growls shook her to her core.

As more of the oil and raw materials digested, her tail forced a newly formed head out of the severed end of the cord, and she started to come back to herself, cowed into letting out a little sob at a particularly nasty growl from T that reverberated through her core. She curled up on herself a little, clutching at her chassis and whining as her tank clenched painfully around its horrific contents. 

T took his weight off of her then…and dropped a third helping of entrails in front of her.

She spat on it disdainfully and curled her wings around herself like a fleshy cocoon that she’d gladly trade any favor for to have them cut off permanently. 

With her luck, though, it’d just regrow like that stupid gross little tail head.

“And you have the gall to comment on my programming,” T deadpanned.

“Yeah. You’re an idiot. You won’t just get it over with and kill me already,” Vera muttered.

“You could give me a reason,” T observed, stretching his arms as he spoke.”And you probably will. But then Ned will be hella bummed that you died, and I think we both agree that that would suck.”

“Who cares what Ned frickin’ thinks?!” Vera cried. “He threw me to you frickin’ Murder Drones! He wanted me to die. So if you’re really so buddy-buddy with that idiot? Do us both a favor and end this stupid arrangement. You know you want to.”

Vera could hear T’s teeth grinding as he moved through his stretches, and it gave her a grim satisfaction. She was getting to him.

“News flash: he made me promise to keep you alive…and not touch anyone in your stupid bunker, by the way,” T ground out. “I stuck to my end of the deal, and he helped me get Z the hell out of there. He kept his word, so I’m keeping mine. I don’t go back on a promise.”

“You want to,” Vera pressed, noticing the lashing of his tail, the tensing of his body, the continued grinding of his fangs. He wanted to so badly and she could be done with the pain of being whatever the hell she was now-

“Yeah,” he admitted, voice coming out as a bit of a growl. “But I keep my promises.”

“WHY?!” Vera demanded. “You already got what you wanted.”

“I keep my promises…and I don’t owe you any favors,” T snarled. “Mope and throw tantrums all you want. I’m not rewarding you making an ass of yourself.”

“Okay. But why?” she pressed further, eyelights hollow. “Why cling to such a dead-end promise, huh?? Not like either of us is ever seeing Ned again, huh?!” A hysterical giggle tore out of her, a smile full of oily fangs splitting her faceplate wide open. She couldn’t stop the laughter for a moment…and what reason did she have to try, anyway?

T watched her silently with a blank expression for a moment.

“What else do I have?” he said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, before his tone hardened again. “There’s a lesson for you, toaster. Find something to hold on to, or you’re going to frickin’ lose it.” He sighed, then scowled at her. “Though, maybe it;s a bit late for that advice. Now finish your damn breakfast.”

“Make me, Gigantor,” Vera scoffed.

That was the wrong thing to say, because T was once again on top of her in an instant, moving blindingly fast. His feathers rattled as he pinned her down, snarling right in her face, a keening whine rising in his chassis that was already making her audials start freaking out.

Unfortunately for him, her body had a lot more strength in it after processing some food. In a burst of effort her wings spasmed violently and threw his hands off of them, and with a loud hiss she lunged with all her might, wing-arms surging forward to slam into his wings and knock him back.

In a scramble, she soon found herself on top of him, pinning him into the snow. She laughed hysterically as her wing-claws scraped against his steely pinions, the screech of friction filling the air.

Another rumble erupted from T’s chassis, though this one was of a softer sort, and his eyelights hollowed and ringed with stress lines as soon as he started producing the sound. He shifted and rumbled harder as Vera dragged her claws down the pinions of one wing, and oh how satisfying it was to see him squirm and look so uncomfortable.

“Not so big and scary now, huh?” Vera chuckled maliciously, lifting one of her hands with its pinkie curling in toward the palm. The eyelight under her crackled lens flickered into a tri-pronged glyph, and a similar glyph spun to life in front of her splayed fingers. Giggles kept bubbling up even as she tried to talk more. “Well, if you won’t just put me out of my misery…guess I can go ahead and put you out of everyone else’s misery!”

Threat! Threat! Threat! T warbled and barked out right as the glyphs lit up, and she had only just barely finished speaking when T found another burst of strength in him and turned the tables in the fight once more, escaping Vera’s pin and fighting with her for dominance. His claws grappled with her wing-hands as they both snarled and roared…and Vera cast her senses to the myriad corpses making up the Spire walls, all of the FATAL ERRORS flickering like dead distant stars.

[Translate]

The glyph flickered to life around one of the corpses, dislodging it from the wall and violently flinging it toward T at terminal velocity. He let go of Vera for the purposes of jumping clear of the incoming projectile, and in one pivot on his foot he was back to launching toward her, all well-practiced fluidity and precision.

She needed to slay this horribly graceful beast.

They soon found themselves locked in a mortal dance, Vera flinging around corpses with her Translate configuration and T artfully dodging, trying to get closer while she kept him back.

She needed to remember that one configuration that could change stuff, what was it…

He dodged again, letting out an exasperated growl. Stand down!

If she remembered how to do that other configuration, she could kill this monster!

The princess would be free of the tower and the dragon that guarded it.

…And then what?

Her prince had given her up to the dragon to begin with. Now what? Did she go home and kill him for his betrayal, and sit on her oil-soaked throne and become the ruler of nothing?

She paused for a moment as her core threatened to rip in half, glyph stuttering in front of her hand, and T lunged and knocked her to the ground with a violent swat to the head. Her cursed powers stuttered out as she screamed in dismay…and her scream was cut off by T whacking her again.

“Enough!” he spat, before grabbing the final wad of oily entrails and forcibly shoving them into her mouth with his fist. It muffled her screams…and entirely against her will, instinct took over and forced her to gulp down the food.

That burst of exertion had generated a lot of internal heat, after all.

T was venting heavily as he held her down, steam rising on the air as soft growls continued to rumble out of him with every exhale. He stared at her with a brilliant golden X blazing across his screen.

“I will make you wish I disassembled you if you ever activate that fucking thing around any of my squadmates,” he hissed, voice deathly quiet and yet sharply tearing through her audials all the same. One of his claws ghosted a tip along her visor, leaving a molecular gash that instantly healed itself.

She noticed that it was shaking…along with the rest of him.

“D-don’t threaten me with a good time,” she wheezed out in answer, smirking a little despite herself. 

He was scared of her powers.

Did witches scare dragons?

She could get to him. 

She could break him.

Stop. T rumbled. Stand down.

“Or what?” Vera taunted. “Do your worst, Murder Drone.”

Neither of them moved for a beat, and she laughed.

“Ooooh, are you scared? Big bad Gigantor is scared???”

“I am not scared,” T snarled…even as he trembled. She could feel him trembling all over as he held her down, and another giggle bubbled out of her.

“I didn’t realize big bad Murder Drones got scared of little toasters,” she hissed, spitting out that final word with venom. “That’s some pretty weak shit, you know. Might need to go back through inspection.”

He answered her by grabbing one of her wing-arms and wrenching it so hard that a bone snapped, his expression eerily blank. 

He didn’t so much as react as she screamed in agony.

He moved to the hand on that wing and proceeded to break the fingers that were outside of the membrane, one by one. Each little snap made Vera whimper and squeal, and T never once flinched, face impassive, lit by the glowing X.

“That’s just a taste of what I will do if you threaten Z or L with any of that glowy shit,” T said in that deathly quiet hiss. “A broken puppet’s not of any use…and I will make sure you stay fucking broken. Do. Not. Test. Me.”

His feathers rattled for emphasis, and then he shot off like a rocket toward his nest, leaving Vera to cry alone and nurse her broken wing. Within moments she could feel the tingle of nanites racing up into the flesh, working to knit it back together with a burning itch that made her want to thrash around and claw the damned thing off until naught but an oily stump would remain-

But it would grow back. It would always grow back.

She grit her teeth and winced as she could feel the bones shifting and wrenching back into place as the nanites washed over them, and more than once she felt like purging her fuel tank.

But…that’d just mean T would come back to force-feed her again, and the thought made her shudder.

The fleeting power she’d held over him had been sweet, but…whatever had gotten into T when pushed far enough was an entirely different sort of monster.

…The hell did he mean, calling her a puppet?

That single sentence kept haunting her as she hauled herself back into the safety and solace of the ruined landing pod that had brought the apocalypse to her world.

Dragons surely didn’t quake before mere puppets.

She pulled her knees to her chest, curled her wings around herself, and sobbed hysterically.

She might be this stupid dragon’s captive forever, trapped in his dark tower at the behest of the prince who had once seemed to love her.

Her misery was only interrupted by a shortwave message that came in. How long it had been, she did not know or care.

She just felt sheer horror and a migraine as the bugged messages came flooding in, overwhelming her processor.

002-A: i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you i love you

“If you love me so much, STOP!!” Vera screamed, knowing better than to try and message back over the shortwave…but having a hunch that the horrible thing on the other end could hear her somehow. “Just STOP!! Everything has gotten worse since you started flooding the shortwave, you know! For all I know, it’s your fucking fault! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

002-A: sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry

002-A: i love you i love you i love you

Vera buried her head in her knees, fists balling in her hair and pulling on it as she grit her teeth and tried to block out the influx of unwanted messages.

“002-A” needed to just buzz off and go permanently offline for all she cared. Miserable pain in the port had just…ushered in everything getting worse forever, and now, without fail, here they were again making her budding migraine worse and worse and worse.

Why the hell couldn’t she block this damn signal?! Why was it so damn buggy?!?

002-A: sorry

And, finally, the shortwave fell silent and left Vera to wallow in her misery.

After a moment, the few remaining functional sources of light within the pod spasmed, flickering violently with lilac code before sparking out.

In pitch blackness, Vera let darkness of the processor claim her.

Chapter Text

His alarm went off…and it kept going off for several minutes as he stared vacantly at the ceiling, screams from his nightmares still reverberating in his audials. The glowing stick-on stars reminded him of the red visor lights in the Spire when he first booted up with bleary optical sensors. Finally, his hollow eyelights blinked awake, clearing his vision, and he groggily smacked his visor to shut it off. 

It was time to face another day.

The ceiling sure was made of ceiling this morning. He gingerly reached up to touch it, just to double-check and confirm he wasn’t staring up at a vault of drone corpses.

He sat up, shoulders slumping a little as he wondered if the dogs in the drawings along his wall would still love him after what he did. Well…probably. That’s what dogs did best and why he loved them so dearly. But nothing else in the galaxy was as forgiving as a cute and fluffy golden retriever. He sighed heavily, the slowly started his descent down his loft ladder. He shuffled past the hook by his door with no enthusiasm, slapping his dog bone cap on crookedly and avoiding the mirror as he went.

The door slid open to an empty hallway, which was the norm this week. He continued his lonely shuffle out to the dining table, where his father was smiling encouragingly at Cyn while she picked listlessly at her bowl of batteries. Despite the smile on his faceplate, Ned could tell his father was absolutely exhausted, bags glowing under his eyelights.

Ned was sure his own expression wasn’t much better.

He mutely slid down into his seat. His father turned his head and let out a soft sigh, reaching out to gently lay a hand on Ned’s shoulder.

“How’re you doing this morning, champ?” he asked with a gentle smile.

“As good as I can,” Ned said, forcing a smile onto his faceplate so his dad wouldn’t have to worry about him. Ron nodded encouragingly, then slid him a cup of low-grade.

“Glad to hear it. You’ve had me worried the last few days, truth be told…”

“Don’t worry! I’m feeling way better this morning!” Ned lied through his teeth with a cheery smile, enthusiastically popping a battery into his mouth.

It was flavorless.

His dad reached over to gently lift his hat, ruffle his hair, and then put the hat back on, straight this time. Ned let out a half-hearted giggle, chewed another battery, and asked “How about you, Dad?”

The smile fell from Ron’s face as he pensively took a swig of his low-grade. “Things are still hectic in the WDF,” he said. “We’re still looking for missing persons. We’ve…found several bodies last night, but there’s still names on the missing list.” He paused to rub at one of his temples a little. “At least the power grid’s fully back up and running. Callie would’ve been proud of how quickly the repair squad hustled to get that done. But we still have a lot of memorial services to plan…”

Ned swallowed hard, not just at the mention of all of the people who died in the blackout…but at the mention of his mother.

She’d died as a result of a terminal malware infection when he was little. If he remembered right, Cyn had still been in her hardcase.

Dad tended to not mention her much at all anymore unless he was really emotional.

Ned leaned over to pull his dad into a hug. He let out a bit of a startled noise before very eagerly squeezing his son back in return, letting out an affectionate hum before kissing the top of his head.

“Thanks, Ned. I really needed that.” he said with the fondest look in the world. 

Ned averted his gaze slightly and caught Cyn staring blankly at him, her eyelights staring holes into him. He ended up ducking his head to shove batteries in his mouth so it was full at that moment.

Cyn…well.

Things were kind of sucking hard lately, regarding Cyn.

When they’d first reunited back in the hab after the blackout, Cyn had slapped him in the face for running off on his own and screamed at him about being stupid. Dad had calmed her down…and then she had shot him shortwave messages while he tucked her back into bed to rest after the ordeal of the day.

Cyn: Because I love you I’m not telling Dad about the Murder Drone.

Cyn: But you’re not off the hook for that.

Self: yeah thats fair

Self: thanks little buddy

Cyn: Do not “Little Buddy” me tonight.

Self: okay : (

That night had been very taxing. He and Cyn had ended up shortwave messaging for a good chunk of the night, wherein he got grilled for being a stupid idiot with no processor. Long hours he stared into those stick on glowing stars on his ceiling.

Self: im really sorry i made a lot of huge mistakes today

Cyn: Poor Beau’s gonna need a lot of help going forward.

Self: yeah : (

Cyn: I think he’d prefer if you kept your distance though.

Cyn: He

Cyn: He knows it was you.

Ned’s oil had run cold in that moment, his core skipping a cycle.

Self: what?

Cyn: It’s a really long story, but he has this virus that gives him superpowers? But basically he had a vision about you freeing the Murder Drone.

Cyn: So. He knows.

Self: wait wait wait

Self: superpower virus?

Self: like vera?

Cyn had taken a long time to shoot back a reply to that one.

Cyn: You know about it?

Self: well she got scary superpowers recently

Self: and she runs really really hot : (

Self: it’s a lot like the disassembly drones actually

Cyn: The Murder Drones again.

Self: sorry but it’s true : (

Cyn: Yeah, well, Beau doesn’t kill people.

Well. Cyn had him there. He had let out a very shaky sigh and taken a while to reply to that.

Self: they just need oil to cool their systems. If we found a way to fix the heating bug maybe nobody else would have to die!

Cyn: I love you and your optimism, Ned. But I don’t think that’s how this all works. JCJenson sent them, remember?

Self: z says jcjenson sent them here to die once they ran out of oil to drink : (

Cyn: They killed both of Beau’s parents now. : (

Self: i know : (

Self: i don’t think more killing is gonna solve anything though

Self: maybe if we worked together against jcjenson?

Cyn: I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Pretty much everyone in the bunker knows someone who got killed by one of them.

Self: not even against jcjenson?

Cyn: I don’t think provoking the humans is a good move either tbh.

Self: you have any good ideas?

Cyn: I dunno. Fortify the bunker more. Maybe try contact with bunkers in the other sectors again.

Cyn: If we don’t provoke the humans further…all they’ve sent down are the Murder Drones. And it’s still the same ones from Landfall, right?

Self: that’s kinda just more of the same though

Cyn: I guess.

Self: welp. good night cyn

He’d closed the channel and rolled over and stared at his wall for a few hours after that, fuel tank clenching with a horrible tension up until the morning.

Cyn had stayed true to her word and not breathed a word of Ned’s huge mistakes to anyone else, and for that, Ned was deeply thankful and made sure to tell her as much every day. But she still struggled to meet his eyelights, and she didn’t initiate any topics of lighter conversation out loud. Their conversations were hushed and terse affairs over shortwave, the matter of the Disassembly Drones like an insurmountable wall between them.

And, of course, this very breakfast was no exception to the trend. His shortwave notifications lit up again as he forced batteries down his chute.

Cyn: You’re not a good liar.

Self: please dad doesn’t need more to worry about

Cyn: I don’t think you’re helping anyone by lying about that.

Self: yeah sorry i’m terrible at that.

Ned bit down especially hard on his next battery, then startled a little and uneasily rubbed his arms to try and self soothe. No, it wasn’t good to let negativity win out like that. Deep vents in and out, Ned. Cool the systems.

Cyn: You might need a walk today.

Self: where? can’t face the class yet

Cyn: Somewhere. Stretch your legs, get fresh air. Stop being cooped up in here.

Cyn: It’s driving us both nuts.

Ned sighed, standing up from the table and pushing his chair in without finishing his breakfast.

“Done already?” his dad asked with a surprised blink. 

“...I need to go stretch my legs,” Ned said a little hesitantly. He could see the slightest nodding of Cyn’s head. “Might help me feel better? Even better! Ha!”

Cyn: You’re laying it on thick.

Despite Cyn’s critique of Ned’s acting, Ron still yawned sleepily and nodded. “Just be careful and don’t stay out after dark, all right? Curfew’s still in place.”

Ned nodded and saluted, then headed for the door.

As soon as he was out in the bunker hallway with the hab door shut behind him, he let out a long vent of air and his shoulders slumped to match how he felt. He let his feet start to shuffle and move him aimlessly through the halls, not paying much attention to where he was going.

If he paid too much attention, he’d start remembering where he saw pools of oil or severed limbs or torn-open chassis.

A light flickered and he jumped, eyelights hollowing for a moment as he rattled in his casing. As it returned to a steady humming glow, he forced himself to vent deeply and continue on his way, hugging himself and shivering down the entire rest of that hallway. Every bootstrap echoed in his audials, and he kept half expecting noises to start coming from the vents again.

Vera was outside the bunker now, though. No more hunting people from the vents.

He just had to have faith that T was holding up his end of the deal and helping her deal with her new condition as an oil-drinker.

Stars above, he missed her so much.

But it was for the best, right? She didn’t trust him anymore. She hated him. And really…he deserved it. He’d done the exact thing she’d seen in her terrifying visions. Of his own volition. His hands found his hair and balled into fists, tightly gripping blond locks as he stood there and trembled directly under one of the lights, swallowing down a scream he didn’t deserve to release.

He broke their trust and she deserved to hate him.

Why did trying to solve problems make everything so much worse?!

“I’m so, so sorry, Vera,” he sobbed as he forced himself to keep moving, even if only to distract himself from his thoughts. One foot in front of the other.

Keep moving forward.

One foot in front of the other.

Just like Vera probably wanted to do, far the hell away from him, right?

He grimaced in the middle of an open doorway, digital tears glowing in the corners of hollow eyelights as he leaned against the doorframe, bracing himself with one arm as his ventilation threatened to break down into uneven sobs. He bit his tongue and tried to fight it back, because this was all deserved, frankly.

As he suppressed his emotions further, he finally realized he’d walked into the evac area when he wasn’t paying attention.

And the door had just been…left open. Nervously, he poked his head through the frame to look further inside, and then gasped, hollow eyelights ringing with stress lines.

Khan Doorman was lying unconscious on the floor of the evac area, cans of high-grade scattered all around him.

“Mr. Doorman?!” Ned called.

There was no reply. The leader of the WDF was out cold.

Chapter Text

Ned stared in quiet horror at the sight of Mr. Doorman facedown on the floor before he rallied himself and jogged over to the man’s side, kneeling down to gently shake him awake. It took more shaking than he would have liked to hear Mr. Doorman start groaning, and Ned gently rolled him over and helped him sit up as gently as he could manage. His white eyelights were still a bit fuzzy from all the high-grade fuel he’d evidently swigged down.

“Are you okay?” Ned finally asked.

Mr. Doorman stared blankly at him for a long moment before answering. “...You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Sir, you were facedown on the floor,” Ned pointed out, fidgeting with his hands in discomfort.

“Ah. Well. Nothing I can’t handle,” Mr. Doorman lied as he attempted to stand up before swaying heavily on his feet. Ned’s eyelights hollowed as he bolted to his feet and ran over to help guide him to a nearby crate to sit down on.

It was then that Ned became aware of a very familiar railgun nestled between a couple of the crates, looking as new as the day Vera had first built it. Mr. Doorman seemed to notice his eyelights lingering on the weapon.

“I keep hoping she’ll come back to get it,” he sighed wistfully. “She…worked so hard on it. Chip off the old block, that one…I remember building a gun to kill humans with.”

Ned blinked and quietly sat on the crate next to him. “I think she’d be happy to see how well-maintained her railgun is.”

Mr. Doorman stared hollowly at the distant opposite wall of the evac area. “So many of the other officers are sure Vera was eaten by whatever was on rampage during the blackout,” he said flatly. 

A few soft clicks filled the empty, dully humming air as Ned uneasily tapped his fingertips together. “I…uh…don’t agree,” he said slowly, eyelights flitting about. “I mean! Nobody’s found a body, right…? And Vera’s a fighter! She b-blasted the Disassembly Drone’s head off a few times, hah!”

Mr. Doorman turned to face him, fuzzy eyelights glowing with a new brightness, that funny little thing called hope. “Vera is a fighter,” he noted before sighing. “Just like her mother.”

Ned worried his hands a little more under his gaze before speaking again. “...Did her mom also have that virus? The one that makes her run hot?”

Mr. Doorman’s eyelights hollowed. 

“I mean! Uh! She told me about it when she got back from the medical ward, how hard it was sucking to run so hot all the time and drink that gross medicine!” Ned amended hastily, chuckling nervously and rubbing at the back of his head. “It uh…sounded pretty horrible, actually.”

Mr. Doorman let out a long vent of air and quietly buried his faceplate in his hands for a long moment, leaving Ned trapped in an uneasy silence. He swore he could hear his core cycling in his audials as he waited for his response.

Finally, Mr. Doorman lifted his head and looked at Ned with hollowed eyelights ringed in so many stress lines.

“What exactly did Vera tell you?” he asked softly, a faint tremble in his voice. Ned uneasily opened his mouth and Mr. Doorman quickly cut him off again. “Answer honestly, please. This is just between us. As family friends.”

Ned swallowed hard and nodded, taking a few deep vents before speaking. “She needs to drink oil as coolant, a-and it’s really really bad if she doesn’t…”

“It was Vera, wasn’t it?” Mr. Doorman asked very softly. Ned had never seen the leader of the WDF sound so afraid.

Ned hesitated greatly, looking anywhere but Mr. Doorman’s eyes before he gave a very small, unhappy nod.

Mr. Doorman dragged a hand down his faceplate with a shaky sigh.

“I…I had a feeling. She’d left her thermos on the table,” he muttered, vents coming out shakily. “Maybe if I’d run it by the school-”

“I think she might’ve just thrown it at you,” Ned admitted with a sigh, before stammering out “N-not to be mean! I’m sorry! Just…you know…she was all mixed up and unhappy, and I really can’t blame her since she has to drink oil and had those big wings in her casing, I guess-”

“Where is she, Ned?” Mr. Doorman asked, a deep sadness laced through every word. “Where’s my baby girl?”

Ned’s eyelights hollowed, ringed with stress lines, as his hands shook a little in their casing.

“I…don’t know,” he said honestly. “All I know is that she escaped the bunker so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else…”

“Escaped the bunker?!” Mr. Doorman gasped. “Out with the Murder Drones?!”

“They need oil to cool their systems too,” Ned said quietly. “Maybe she went with them? Sounds like a similar virus…”

Mr. Doorman grimaced at him. “She went with the Murder Drones?! Ned…they…they hurt Nori.”

“Well…there’s always the chance she found her mom?” Ned suggested. “I mean…she’s out there, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Doorman said, a bit of relief washing into his voice. “She’s out there.”

Whenever the topic of Nori Doorman came up, she was spoken about as a dead drone…except by her husband, who insisted that she didn’t die…she’d disappeared. Nobody seemed to believe him about that, including his own daughter.

“And I mean…the snow might help cool her off too, right?” Ned tried.

“I suppose…”

“So…she might be safer out there for now, actually, while we clean up all the blackout stuff…” Ned murmured, sounding and feeling less confident with every word.

“I just want to see my baby girl and know she’s safe,” Mr. Doorman said, voice a whimper. “I want her to know how much she’s loved. How she’ll always have a safe place with me.” He paused, choked up as digital tears pricked in the corners of his eyelights. “I can’t…I can’t fail her like I failed Nori…”

Ned uneasily laid a hand on Mr. Doorman’s shoulder, words spilling out of his mouth before they fully passed through his processor. “I think…I think I can let her know all of that. I mean…maybe! Probably?”

Ned blinked as the older drone scrutinized him, a digital tear dripping down his visor.

“What…?”

“I…I can go look for her?” Ned stammered nervously, not sure whether he needed to shut up or keep going. Either way, he was in over his head now, once again. Did he ever stop?! “I…I went with her to the Disassembly Drones’ Spire that night. I-I know where it is, and if she’s not there, I…I know how to fend the Disassmblers off…?”

Lie. Mostly. But Mr. Doorman really wouldn’t like hearing about how he’d done dealings with the drones that had wounded his wife. Probably. Ned would really rather not test that theory right now.

“And I can bring her her railgun so she’s armed,” Ned concluded, gesturing to the pristine custom-built weapon tucked between nearby crates.

Mr. Doorman seemed to relax a little at the thought of his daughter being fully armed, some tension leaving his shoulders.

“I should do it-” Mr. Doorman started to say.

“It should be me,” Ned said in a rush. “I. Um. Well…you’re the leader of the WDF, sir! The bunker needs you here to help run things! A-and I…well. They don’t need me nearly as much. And you know me, hah…I l-love doing anything…”

“Son, I can’t voluntarily send a kid out there,” Mr. Doorman said solemnly, trying to stand back up on his unstable legs.

Ned beat him to his feet, grabbing the railgun and starting to sprint out of the evac area with it…and he ran back up to Mr. Doorman and yoinked the badge peeking out of his pocket before turning tail and booking it as fast as he could, eyelights hollow.

“NED!!” Mr. Doorman called, trying and failing to run to keep up with him.

No. Ned knew he had to do this.

He knew down to his core that he was expendable.

Nothing much would be lost if he died on this mission because he’d already screwed up so badly that if the truth got out…well. The population of Outpost 3 would be well within their rights to exile him anyway. He was really just saving everyone a step as a side effect of trying to fix his screwups.

If Jade were here she might commend that kind of efficiency. She famously loved streamlining agendas for efficiency.

That…or she’d just call him a moron-bot. She wouldn’t be wrong.

The sound of his boots hitting the ground filled his audials like rumbling thunder as he took off down the bunker halls as quickly as he could, clutching the railgun close to his chassis as he made a beeline for the bunker doors.

He had the security badge, and most of the guards were off-duty because the sun was currently up and the Disassembly Drones only came out under the cover of darkness.

Nobody but Cyn and Beau would have to know what hell he unleashed. The bunker would still probably remember him as the guy who captured Z, and Cyn and Dad wouldn’t have to be judged for his horrible decision-making.

As he booked it toward the doors, he opened his family’s group shortwave, confident he was too far away to be stopped now.

Self: sorry for the short notice but i’m gonna be gone for a while. I have an important errand to run

Self: i love you guys so much.

Self: you’re the best family a drone could ever hope for.

Cyn: Ned what are you talking about?

Self: goodbye

Dad: ned where are you going

Cyn: Ned are you doing something stupid again?

Ned closed the group shortwave channel, digital tears falling down his visor display as he waved the badge in front of Door 3’s panel, and with a rumble and whir the door started opening. Ned wriggled his way through the instant the door was remotely open enough for him to squeeze in there. His shortwave was blowing up like a box of lit fireworks.

He needed to get out of the bunker and out of shortwave range as quickly as possible. He sprinted to Door 2’s panel and slapped the badge over it, repeating the same process as before. Two open doors yawned behind him as he approached Door 3’s still-fairly-beaten-up panel and slapped the badge onto it.

He tossed the badge behind him onto the floor as the door heaved itself open, and blinding sunlight streamed into the bunker, reflecting off of decades’ worth of permanent ground snow. The wind was howling and whipping some of that snow up into little flurries.

Ned took a few deep vents and sprinted out into the light, clutching the railgun like a lifeline. 

If he ran he could probably make it to the Spire in a relatively short time, and then he’d get to find out if the Disassembler squad was going to eat him on sight or not-

A new shortwave notification came rolling in, and Ned’s eyelights followed when he saw who it was from.

Z: what the hell r u doing outside

Self: i need to drop something off at the spire for vera

Z: did someone drop a brick on ur processor

Self: ???

Z: ur gonna get killed running an errand for ur shitty ex?

Self: not my ex >: (

The shortwave was quiet while he ran further. The wind was picking up rapidly, and snow and little chunks of ice were starting to whip against his casing with a bit of a sting.

Self: well probably my ex friend now yeah : (

Z: r u trying to get killed

Self: it’s daytime

Z: ur running to the spire

Z: and i’m pretty sure there’s a blizzard starting up dude

Z: find shelter

Z: NOW

As that final message rolled in, the wind rose to a shriek that threatened to rip the railgun out of his hands. It took all the strength he had to keep his grip on it and plant his feet as the air around him became thick with snow coming down from above and being ripped up from below. The wind screamed loudly and peaked in his audials, and his optical sensors struggled to make anything out in the increasingly dim white haze as clouds were stirred by wind to block out the sun.

He might have screamed as the wind knocked him over, but the riptide of air carried the sound fully away from his audials.

Z: hey did u find shelter

Ned couldn’t divert enough energy to reply. He was furiously trying to hold on to the railgun with one arm, and reach for something sticking up out of the snow with another. Please, please, he needed to stay put and wait out the sudden storm so he could complete his delivery-

But Copper-9’s toxic death storm was merciless. Sometimes the weather calmed and the storm left an area…but it was never fully gone. The tides of the storm ebbed and flowed…and today was high tide.

Ned couldn’t hear himself scream, and the only reason he knew that he was going head over heels as he flew was because his internal gyros were going nuts and he had to resist the urge to void his tank midair.

But it didn’t drop him.

It didn’t have the mercy or the decency to drop him.

Z: come on dude stop screwing with me

Z: did u find shelter? y/n

He only had time to fire off one character before he was slammed back-first into something solid at terminal velocity, and his systems experienced a critical error that forced him into shutdown.

Self: n

Chapter Text

KNOCKED TF OUT

[IDIOT]

REBOOTING…

He came back to with a pained groan, every servo and strut aching from the bitter cold. As his optics came back online, he became aware of a big fissure spiderwebbing its way across part of his vision…ah, he was looking through a cracked visor. His servos whined in misery as he lifted a shaking hand to his head, trying to get his bearings. He frowned as he realized his cap was missing.

It took him what might have been several minutes or even several hours to rally, his HUD flashing LOW TEMPERATURE warnings at him the entire time. So badly he just wanted to go back to sleep, but…he knew that was a terrible idea. Anyone who fell asleep in a blizzard didn’t wake up.

…By that logic he shouldn’t have managed to reboot. 

Though…he did remember his dad joking about how security drones were built tough.

His core stuttered a little at the memory. He might not ever see his dad again, huh?  

He opened his shortwave logs with pangs in his heart. There were a bunch of unread messages from Cyn and Dad on the group shortwave…and also a bunch of unread messages from Z.

He couldn’t think too hard about his family or he’d cry.

He opened Z’s shortwave and read the messages received since he went offline. His system lagged a little as the sent messages loaded in.

Z: WHAT DO U MEAN NO

Z: FIND SHELTER NOW OR YOULL FRICKIN DIE

Z: HAVE U FOUND SHELTER YET

Z: Y/N

Z: WHERE ARE YOU

Z: ANSWER ME OR I’LL EAT YOUR EX

Z: STUPID FRICKIN TOASTER

Z: HER DUMB RUSTY PROCESSOR WILL TASTE SO G

Ooookay she didn’t take that very well. He groaned a little and fired off a response.

Self: i’m okay just banged up a little bit [Error: recipient out of range.]

Self: woah wait testing testing [Error: recipient out of range.]

His eyelights hollowed and ringed with stress lines.

Ohhh that wasn’t good. 

If he was out of range, it meant the storm had carried him pretty dang far from the Spire. Rubbing his poor head again, he cast his optics around his immediate area and his eyelights trembled a little on his cracked visor.