Chapter Text
They've been there for as long as they could remember.
No one truly knew where they came from, or how they got here. Their past is muddled.
But the town of Primp has been humbly sitting for a few decades now. Even with it being secluded by the terrain and the perpetually cold climate, the town's residents manage to peacefully co-exist.
Or, at the very least, they were able to get their more violent cousins to co-exist without committing mass genocide wherever they go.
This brings us to a young girl named Amitie. One of the few disassembly drones that are a student at the local magic school. Disassembly drones had less natural magical ability than most of their pacifist worker counterparts, mainly because of their ability to swap out their hands with anything including laser cannons and swords and bubble blowers...and just about everything under the sun. Her green visor eyes (different from her "real eyes" - the five sections of lights on her head) were her most striking feature aside from the Puyo beanie she was never seen without. No one really knew why they were green while the rest of her "accents" were yellow like any other disassembly drone. Not even she knew.
She was at home, having an R&R moment sitting in her couch. Tomorrow was the weekend, something she always looked forward to since she got to hang out with some of her friends - Arle and Carbuncle in particular. She was casually sitting there, tail flicking about softly allowing the liquid acid to slosh about a little inside the syringe at the end. Then there was a knock on the door.
At this late in the evening? Who could that be?
She stood up and walked up to the door. She crouched a little to look at the mail slot, to see deep green eyes and red bangs she couldn't recognize.
"Hello?" Amitie asked the stranger behind the door.
"Hi," the person answered back, "I'm just looking to stay the night somewhere. Mind if you let me in?"
After hesitating a little bit, she opened the door and ended up getting a look at them. They were a worker drone that she had never met before, they had red hair styled into a pair of curly pigtails, and they were wearing a hard hat with a frozen blob decoration on it. Worker drones wearing hard hats aren't common in Peimp, so they had to have come from far away. She might have even startled the poor drone, too, but not in the way one would expect. They probably had never even seen something like a disassembly drone before. It would be unnerving to see a tall drone with stocky limbs decorated with hazard stripes and yellow bulbs on their head if you didn't know what one was.
"Oh my gosh, sorry if I scared you!" She apologized after letting the drone's reaction sink in. "Please, come in!"
The worker drone stood there silently for a few seconds, hesitating a little before going on inside. Amitie held on to her tail and kept it close to her chest as the drone walked in. She was known for being quite ditzy - her grades at magic school weren't anything to ride home about, after all - but she wasn't outright dumb. She was careful to not let her syringe-tipped tail not sting anyone.
While her new guest headed towards the couch to sit down, Amitie went into the kitchen to have a drink from her cup of oil that she left on the table an hour ago or so. There was an oil rig nearby, so that solved the problem of letting disassembly drones have oil without the need of killing others.
Upon returning, she proceeded to start a conversation with the drone. "So anyway, why'd you wanna stay the night with me?"
"Well... there's this sort of outbreak going on around at home", the worker drone began, "it was like some kind of devastating virus that has the potential to end the universe or something among those lines."
That description does sound quite familiar to Amitie. "You mean...the AbsoluteSolver?" She inquired.
"Wait, you know about it?" The drone asked with wide eyes.
"My friend Raffina has it" She answered. Raffina has had the AbsoluteSolver for quite a long while now, but she was skilled in using it to her advantage. Like amplifying the very little magic she had.
The worker drone was shocked to hear about that, but didn't really want to leave because the weird, bulky robot before her that really does look like a killing machine was genuinely friendly so far. It'd probably would be upsetting for her if she left on the spot. She decided to continue her story. "Uh, anyway, I ended up getting it, and I really don't wanna hurt anyone, so I just made my way here."
Amitie felt pity for the drone. Even with its avantages, the AbsoluteSolver isn't something to take lightly when its problems outweigh its benefits. After a brief minute of silence, Amitie spoke. "D...Don't worry, I'll try to find something for it. I'm Amitie! What's your name?"
"Oh, me? I'm Ringo. Ringo Ando." The drone replied. "But...Just what are you? I've never seen a drone like you before!"
Amitie began thinking of a way to preface her explanation without getting Ringo even more frightened. "I'll just say that I'm not unique. Well, I'm the only one of my kin with green eyes, but you know..."
The worker drone only shook her head in acknowledgment.
The two conversed for a few more minutes before called it a night. Amitie didn't have an extra bedroom, so she allowed Ringo to sleep on the couch, grabbing a blanket and a couple extra pillows from the living room closet for her. She then went back into the kitchen to drink the rest of her cup of oil before putting the cup in the sink. She then went upstairs to go to bed.
The next morning, the two drones prepared to go outside, with Ringo waiting for her clothes (the ones she came into the house with) to wash and dry off (and wearing a simple nightgown until then) while Amitie was grabbing a large empty bottle from the kitchen.
The particular street in which Amitie lived was covered in a series of canopies, allowing for the disassembly drones living there to travel through the street without the risk of overheating during the day. They also had a side effect of dyeing the road under it in a good series of colors as the sun was beaming on them.
As the two travel up the street, they noticed something just up ahead. A battle between two other drones, but not in a typical sense. In front of the conflicting drones is a hologram of a stack of blobs, the battlers adding more to the stack in such a strategic manner. One of them, a bespectacled disassembly drone with a worker drone arm holding a book with a rather elaborate cover, was the first to attack, placing one particular pair of blobs in a way that set off a chain reaction of the blobs disappearing, one group after the other. Almost all of the blobs had disappeared on his stack when...
"Ursa Major!"
The disassembly drone opened his book, a cosmic aura emanating around him. All of a sudden, a red...thing appeared from his book, manifesting as a hologram that stretched out to attack his opponent. The other battler, a worker drone with rose pink hair, quickly dodged the attack and set off her own chain reaction. The domino effect lasted somewhat longer, allowing her ample time to ready up her move.
A symbol appeared on her visor, replacing one of her eyes. It was a hexagon with three arrows on it pointing in different directions. Ringo recognized that symbol. This must be the symbol for the AbsoluteSolver, isn't it?
The drone ran towards her opponent, light blue code manifesting in front of her leg in the process. She then jumped into the air, almost hitting the canopy above them, and attacked.
"Rainbow Deluxe!"
The code in front of her leg changed color to a spectrum of colors as she aimed a kick at her opponent. Taking a huge blow, the disassembly drone ended up tumbling down the street before hitting a building behind him. The fact that he ended up in direct sunlight didn't help matters. The disassembly drone picked up his glasses, which dropped on his way down, and quickly headed to the nearest canopy as his body was sizzling from the sun.
Amitie waited for the battle to end to greet the two drones. "Hi, Klug! Hi, Raffina!"
The worker drone, Raffina, turned to Amitie at the sound of her voice. "Why hello, Amitie." She then noticed Ringo, who was standing next to her and had witnessed the whole thing. "And who must your new somewhat-frightened-looking companion be?"
"I'm Ringo." Ringo introduced herself as she approached Raffina. "You must be Raffina, right?"
"I am. I assume Amitie told you about me?" Raffina asked back.
"Yep." Amitie answered. "She said she has the AbsoluteSolver, too."
Raffina was shocked, to say the least. "Are you serious about this?"
Ringo twiddled her fingers as she stared at Raffina. "Yes, I do."
Raffina was quite skeptical, but she knew how dangerous the program was. She thought about what to do for one moment before speaking. "Hold on, I'll be right back." She then ran further up the street, possibly to get something from her house.
Ringo then turned to the disassembly drone, Klug. "Amitie sure wasn't lying when she said there were more stocky-looking drones around here, huh?"
Klug adjusted his glasses as he spoke. "You mean disassembly drones? Indeed there are."
"Disassembly drones?" Ringo inquired. "That's what they're called?"
"Yeah, that's what we're called." Amitie chimed in. "I never brought this up because you were getting so scared last night."
Ringo allowed this to sink in. "I get it."
Klug nodded, agreeing with the worker drone's sentiment. "At the very least we have less magical ability than you guys."
"But I don't know magic." Ringo replied.
As the conversation between the three died down, Raffina had returned, carrying - but not looking at - a mirror.
"I'm back!" Raffina greeted the trio. "Now, Ringo. Take a look at this mirror." She held up the mirror, continuing to not look at it.
"Umm... okay." Ringo proceeded to stare into the mirror, only for the same symbol that appeared in Raffina's eye earlier to appear in place of one o Ringo's eyes only a second or two later, causing the mirror to shatter into what looked like a million pieces. The drone jumped at the glass shattering. "I didn't even touch the mirror! How'd I break it!?"
Raffina looked at the broken mirror. She couldn't believe it. Ringo did indeed have the AbsoluteSolver.
"...I think I might have made the right call not to jump to conclusions." She muttered in shock. "I'm just going to assume you don't have a clue what that program truly does."
"From what I've heard, it has the potential of destroying the universe." Ringo replied.
Raffina sighed. "Well, that's kind of true. But you might wanna listen very carefully."
Ringo nodded and gave her a motion to go on.
"The AbsoluteSolver is sort of like a parasite." Raffina began her explanation. "It infects the damaged AI of us and tries to assimilate us so it could collect material for its own gain, no matter the cost. Although it does give drones infected with it abilities no other drone, regardless of species, could do, someone who knows little about it like you really shouldn't go using it very often if you don't want it to take you over." Her voice had a mixed tone of warning and woe.
Ringo stood silently, trying to process it all. "...I-I thought it was a bad thing but really didn't think it would be this bad!"
"Is there any way you could fix this?" Amitie asked.
"Amitie, if I did find a way to get rid of it, I wouldn't have it right now." Raffina retorted.
Amitie nodded in disappointment. A short silence soon followed.
"I'll, just head on to the oil rig now. I need to fill my bottle." Amitie spoke.
"Why would you need oil?" Ringo asked.
"You saw me burn in the sunlight, miss. That should be a hint." Klug replied.
So, they're basically robot vampires, she thought. At least the disassembly drones she's met so far weren't getting their oil from other drones.
"A-Alright, Amitie. I guess I'll see you." Ringo waved as she saw Amitie run a distance up the street, then deploy a pair of metallic wings with blades for feathers and take off.
Raffina then turned back to Ringo. "Anyway, if you do finally learn about your powers, I would suggest trying to use them as little as possible."
"Okay. That's if I do know any of them." Ringo obliged. "I'll just be looking around for a while. I'll see you guys."
"See you, then!" Klug greeted Ringo goodbye. Raffina waved as the red-haired drone headed down the street.
Klug turned to Raffina. "So, are you gonna get yourself a new mirror?" He asked, assuming the mirror Raffina brought was one that she took off the wall in her house.
"It's an old mirror from the attic." Raffina answered. "It wouldn't matter how old it is, anyway."
Ringo walked down the street, drowned in her thoughts. The thought of knowing that she had a virus that was much worse than she would have assumed is quite terrifying to her. She wondered why the warnings back home never mentioned it slowly takes over an infected drone's AI. Maybe just to not cause a city-wide panic...
As she walked around thinking about the AbsoluteSolver, she spotted a worker drone with what looked like a stocky disassembly drone arm.
Wait.
Ringo stopped her train of thought so she could look at the drone, who was casually playing a guitar. He had light cyan hair and looked to have heterochromia: he had deep blue accents, but his left eye was bright yellow. His disassembly drone arm also didn't end in a hand, but instead a set of three hooked, blade-like claws. He looked rather chill, if not bored-looking, in spite of the dangerous claws.
She approached the drone quite carefully. As she did, she noticed a few mechanical insects near the drone, with a robotic cockroach resting on top of his head.
"H-Hello?" Ringo greeted the drone.
He stopped playing on the guitar and looked up towards her. "Hi."
"Um... you doing alright?" She asked him, referring to his tired look.
"Nod." He responded...while giving a slight nod.
That's a little...odd. He narrated his nodding?
As Ringo stood there, staring at the blue-haired drone with confusion, Amitie returned from the oil rig with a now full bottle in her hands. "Hi, Ringo!" She greeted Ringo, before noticing the blue drone. She greeted him too. "Hi, Sig!"
The drone, Sig, raised his clawed hand to greet her back. "Oh. Hey."
"I'm heading to the plaza to meet up with Arle. Wanna come?" Amitie asked Sig as she retracted her wings.
"No thanks. Shake head." Sig responded as he shook his head slowly.
Amitie simply nodded in acknowledgement towards Sig's response. Unlike Ringo, she didn't seem to mind the fact that he was narrating his movements. She wasn't upset about Sig turning the offer down, either.
"I'll go with you if you want, Amitie." Ringo told Amitie.
"Wait, really?" Amitie asked in excitement.
"Yep." Ringo confirmed.
"OMG, thank you!" Amitie said in gratitude.
Ringo then turned to Sig. "Yeah, sorry to bother you. I-I'm Ringo, by the way. I'm quite new to this town, but, you know..."
"It's fine." Sig replied. "Go on." He then returned to his guitar playing.
She and Amitie looked at each other before continuing on down the street, Amitie waving goodbye to Sig.
As the street ended into the main town square, so did the canopies. "If you burn in the sun, how are you gonna get to the plaza from there?" Ringo asked Amitie.
As to response to her question, The iris door under one of Amitie's wide forearms opened quickly as her hand sunk itself in. A plain yellow parasol emerged from where her hand once was just as quickly.
"What the- where'd that come from!?" Ringo asked in shock.
"We can change our hands to whatever we need!" Amitie answered. "I can share the parasol with you if you want!"
Ringo responded after a few seconds. "That's...contrivedly convenient."
The duo continued through the square as they headed to the plaza. As they reached the plaza entrance, a noise could be heard from in front of them.
"Guu!"
Out from the yellow, circular tunnel marking the entrance (which also happened to look like the holographic blobs from earlier) came a small, golden-yellow robot with a spherical rabbit-like appearance and a red gem on its forehead. Under the gem is a circular screen where its face could be seen. A faint scent of curry accompanied the mechanical creature.
"Guu, guu!"
"Oh, hello!" Ringo greeted the robot. "What's your name?"
"Gu gu, gu guu gu!"
"Um...come again?" Ringo asked.
"Gu gu guu!" The robot then bounced off from which it came.
"What was that?" Ringo turned to Amitie.
"That was Arle's friend!" Amitie told her. "She must have been waiting for us!"
Amitie took off into the entrance. Ringo hesitated for a moment before following her through the entrance and into the plaza. The plaza had a few street lights surrounding it, and there was a frozen fountain in the middle. The fountain had another one of the holographic blobs carved into the design. Standing near the plaza's fountain is a worker drone wearing mostly white and blue and having orange hair tied into a ponytail. The rabbit-looking robot was also there, holding onto her upper arm.
"Hiya, Amitie!" The drone chirped.
"Arle!" Amitie greeted her back, happily waving at her as she and Ringo approached her. "I want you to meet Ringo! She's not from here, but she's staying around for a while!"
"Um...Hi." Ringo sheepishly greeted Arle. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too, Ringo!" Arle happily greeted back.
"Anyway, Arle, now that we're here, we could have a Puyo battle!" Amitie chirped.
"Yeah!" Arle obliged.
"Puyo battle?" Ringo asked. "Was it that crazy battle that two of your friends had back there?"
"Yep!" Amitie confirmed. "You can join us if you want to!"
"Em, maybe later." Ringo replied. "I'll just watch you guys."
The next few minutes were spent with Ringo watching Arle and Amitie battling with the holographic blobs, which were apparently called "Puyos". So far, the drones that were "Puyo battling" made it look easy, she had to admit. It doesn't look like something she could be able to do herself, even with the AbsoluteSolver.
Speaking of which, Arle didn't seem to have the AbsoluteSolver at all. Her magic manifested quite differently than how Raffina manifested her magic. Yet the fireball and snowflake attacks Arle was dishing out were quite powerful. Amitie, however, was no pushover, although - considering what she is - it wasn't too surprising. She mostly casted her spells through what apepared to be elemental arm cannons, although Ringo could have sworn she casted a spell without one.
Following the battle, the three drones were talking about Ringo's condition.
"And that's why I made the long trip here." Ringo was finishing her explanation that she told Amtiie last night.
"Yikes..." Arle responded in concern. "I honestly thought that was a Primp thing." Her rabbit-like partner looked sad, sharing her feelings of concern.
"Primp?" Ringo asked.
"It's the name of this town." Amitie answered.
"I know very few drones that do have the AbsoluteSolver. Me and Amitie also know of a drone that lives-"
"Geez, it really is going around, isn't it?" Ringo interuppted.
"...I guess." Arle responded.
"Is there any way we could do something about this?" Amitie asked Arle.
"Honestly, I'm not so sure." Arle replied.
"Gu guu..." Her partner spoke in sadness.
"Oh, okay." Amitie said.
"I do have this, though. Maybe there's something in it that could help." Arle spoke while pulling out...a large, broken floppy disk.
"You sure? It's kinda broken." Ringo asked.
"I found it at No Drone's Land like this. I'm no repair person, so I'm not sure if it could be fixed." Arle explained.
"It's a good thing I'm a bit of a repair person myself." Ringo remarked.
Back at Amitie's house, Ringo worked on the floppy disk at the kitchen table as Arle and Amitie watched from a distance. Ringo did bring her tools with her, which probably was a relief.
After what felt like several hours, the disk was refurbished. It was a silver floppy disk with a hologram light in the center of it. "Now that I'm looking at it, that's not a floppy disk I've ever seen before." Ringo commented. "But it does look to be an eight inch."
"That really is a big floppy!" Amitie chirped.
"Well, now to find a computer that supports 8-inch floppy disks just to see what this one is all about." Ringo spoke to herself. "You know any computers I can test this out on?" She asked Amitie and Arle.
"I'm not sure. The computers at the magic school support 3 and a half-inch floppies, but not sure about 8-inch." Amitie answered.
"Me neither." Arle responded. "But...what's going on with it?"
"Huh?"
Ringo looked back at the floppy disk, the light in the center having started glowing in a deep blue light. The three drones watched as a hologram flickered into existence from the center of the disk, taking on the form of a roughly humanoid shadowy figure.
"Oh, hi! I didn't think there'd be three robots watching me come back to life. Uuh... what happened?" The hologram spoke.
"Hi!" Amitie greeted the hologram back.
"Who, or...what are you?" Ringo asked.
"I'm Ecolo!" He introduced himself. "And you look a little bummed. What's up?"
"There's just something fixated in my mind right now. Something since last night." Ringo responded.
"Fixtated about what?" Ecolo asked, his drooling smile unwavering.
Ringo sighed, "It's a long story..."