Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a cool night. Copper 9 was still as death under the cold glare of a variety of planets, great spires of destroyed robots casting intimidating shadows over the compound holding the survivors and their families. Outside their reinforced steel doors, drones with long claws and longer wings fought each other in a hungered frenzy or hung out on spires to chat.

A purple blur zooming past a spire knocked it noisily to the ground, much to the dismay of nearby disassembly drones. Sharp teeth glinted in the blue light as their owner snickered to herself. Not far behind her, her companion paused to apologize in her stead before zooming off after her again.

Uzi folded her wings slightly and leaned up. Her momentum catapulted her upwards for several feet before it petered out and she was dragged back towards Copper 9 again. N met her halfway, pulled her into a brief barrel roll and righted himself with her tight against him, her wings stuck to her back and arms left hanging.

Uzi used this moment to take a breather and enjoy the scenery. The Absolute Solver hummed away, taking note of every little thing (and evidently overwhelmed by N being so close, as it constantly warned her that he was there). They came close to another spire and she mimicked a "pew" action; sending a purple sigil down, blowing up one of the bodies and scaring the Disassembly Drone next to it badly enough to knock them off the towering pile.

She was suddenly airborne again, N spinning with her by their hands until he suddenly let go. She rolled and righted herself with practiced ease and found herself smiling at N's cheer. "Hey, you did it!"

"This is incredible!" Uzi looked around again, resisting the urge to blow up another spire. She hated seeing those corpse towers with a passion. "Why don't you and V fly more often?"

"To be honest, we weren't really made to fly. I don't think I logically should be at all." N flapped his metal wings to keep himself steady. "It is really cool, though! You can see so much!"

Uzi hummed in agreement. Or more accurately, the Absolute Solver hummed. Or maybe she did hum. One of them was also hungry, she knew that much. 'Relax, Rob Zombie. We'll eat when we get home.'

"So how do you feel?"

"So much better." Uzi stretched out her arms before tucking her hands against her chest again. "Um...Thank you."

"Hey, no problem. You needed some practice and I needed to get out of the compound. Win-win!"

Uzi's Absolute Solver hummed again. She tuned in, gasped and sloppily barrel-rolled away from N as a silver and yellow blur narrowly missed pinning her to the ground.

V hissed and cursed as the two landed, N ground-pounding down and Uzi landing sideways. She rushed to right herself as V stood up, blew hair out of her visor, pushed more strands away from the lights on top of her head and crossed her arms.

"What the heck was that?!" Uzi snapped, lashing her tail. "You almost killed me!"

"Yet sadly I missed," V sighed.

N crossed his arms and stared her down. The feminine murder drone stared back. Eventually she rolled her eyes, folded her wings and walked past him to Uzi. The younger drone stiffened when she threw an arm around her shoulders and dragged her up a small cliff-like overhang.
V gestured out towards the area below them. "This is why I wanted to stop you. Though killing you would have been a plus."

Uzi's eyes widened. Some sort of training area has been set up, dummies made of bits of metal and old helmets scattered around with various distances between them. Some of them even bounced back and forth, moved on a track or looked like they would fight back.

"Aw, V, you made it!" N chirped. "It looks swell, you did a great job!"

"N bullied me into making it." V avoided eye contact with Uzi when she turned to her. "Your flying and attack methods suck, so he wanted you to train. Thank him, not me. And no I'm not helping you. Figure it out yourself."

Uzi gave N a soft smile and he saluted her in turn. She then turned back, spread her wings and lifted off the ground.

She rammed the first dummy and got a nasty case of whiplash when it didn't budge. Rocking back and forth, she found that it could move, so why did she effectively hit a brick wall at full momentum?

"Your wings are dragging."

N's voice made Uzi jump. She hadn't heard him land. He gave her a little salute and motioned for her to climb down from the dummy.

"Your wings are dragging," he repeated. "When you dive, you spread them. That'll knock you off your feet, but not someone like your teacher."

"When did this become a self-defense class?"

"Right now." N nodded to Uzi sternly, making her roll her eyes with the ghost of a smile. "Do it again, but tuck your wings in this time."

"Bite me."

"Please?"

Another eye roll. Uzi took to the air again, wobbled slightly and dove, snapping her wings against her back. She ate snow about a foot away from the dummy, digging a three-foot trench into the ground.

"You have to aim, too." N spread his own wings. "Allow me to demonstrate."

"No," V called over, "let me!"

The two watched her take to the air, show off a little with a spin and a midair backflip, then she finally braced herself and dove towards the dummy with a murderous grin—

A rocket clipped her wing with a loud clang, knocking her off-course and leading to her gouging her own trench into the snowy ground. Uzi and N rushed towards her, the latter getting there first and dropping to his knees beside her. "Are you okay?!"

"I can't unfold my wing," she grunted, struggling to push herself up. "It stings."

Uzi carefully pulled apart the feathered knives, watching them snap together as soon as she let go. "They're magnetized."

"Helpful as ever. Help me up."

N put one of her arms over his shoulder and pulled her to his feet. He let Uzi take his free arm and she pulled them up the small cliff, ducking behind the overhang.

"Why're you hiding?"

Uzi violently hushed V, motioning for them to get down. N obeyed, dropping to the ground and pulling V down with him just as a handful of worker drones rushed into the area.

"Where'd it go?" One asked, pushing his helmet back in bewilderment. "I know I hit it! I heard the clang!"

"You hit it," another confirmed. "It can't have gone far. Get into groups of two! Search the place!"

"Who do they think they are?" V hissed in a whisper.

"Killer Mothites." Uzi risked peering farther above the overhang. "They're drones who'll hunt and kill you."

"Oh." N's voice was small.

"We'll kill them first." V freed herself from N and grinned widely at the two, her game face on and ready to go. "Give me five seconds and we'll have a good snack."

"Stay down!" Uzi hissed. "These guys are no joke!"

"Please. They're just worker drones. You guys are made of tissue paper."

"Oh hey, look!" N scootched up next to Uzi. "There's another Disassembly Drone! Maybe they'll join us!"

"N, keep your voice down!"

Uzi swatted his shoulder, though her focus was more on the long-haired drone creeping towards the searching workers with their long claws out. She watched them creep up on one of the workers, his partner alert him, the murder drone go to pounce and a metal stake get stabbed through their chest. The red-hot piece of metal made the drone stumble back with a screech and they swung blindly at their attacker until their midsection finally overheated and exploded, bringing it down.

"Robojesus," V hissed, lowering herself away from the cliff. "What the Hell?"

"I told you." Uzi pulled a shocked N back with her. "Killer Mothites know what they're doing."

"Nice work, Pitz!" One of the Mothites shouting again drew Uzi's attention back over the overhang. "That's another one not metaphorically breathing down our necks!"

"Man, these stakes of yours are great." Pitz slid the stake away into a strange-looking sheath and started picking up what was left of the disassembly drone. "Good for close-quarter combat!"

"Yeah, but the fact they got that close at all scares me. I mean, what if it went for me?"

"Nah, you'll be fine. We're the fear of the heartless!" Pitz used the dead drone's arm as an extension of his, pulling the blade's inventor against him. "By the next year, I'll bet there won't be any disassembly drones left hanging around here. Then our lives can go back to normal."

A third drone walked up, picking up the disassembly drone's legs. "What about those Absolute Solver girls? The doll and the bat?"

"If they haven't killed each other by then, they'll be next. The bat will be out for oil after we kill Envy, she'll be easy."

"Boy I'm glad we plan out loud like this. Makes things so much easier to remember!"

Metal hands pulled Uzi back by the shoulders. N clearly looked worried, yet smiled for her anyway.

Uzi looked back at the Killer Mothites once more before brushing off N's hands and walking off. V took a moment to follow, looking back at the group herself.

"Target me or N again," she threatened, "and I'll make the human's end look like a mercy kill."

~~~

"Daaaaad! I need to talk to you!"

"Yikes, Uzi." V shook an old newspaper off her leg. "What're you trying to do, wake up everyone around you?"

"Bite me. The ship isn't safe for you anymore. DAD!!"

Still no answer. N shrugged. "Guess he's not here. Tell me again why you want us to sleep here?"

"Don't you guys live in the spaceships?" Uzi pushed an old wooden table out of her way. "And sleep? Upside down? What do you think will happen if they go there and find you?"

"A slaughter," V said.

"Exactly. But among your ranks this time."

"So they got lucky tonight. We'll wipe them all out by tomorrow, it's not a big deal."

"Uh huh." Uzi looked back at her. "How's your wing feel?"

V ground her teeth. Uzi raised a mimicked eyebrow on her visor. It was easy to tell the magnetic field was still active, gluing her wing to her arm with very little wiggle room. It was very likely that had the magnetized missile actually hit her and exploded properly, she would have either been dead or rendered immobile.

Uzi suppressed a shudder. The thought of V of all drones being taken down so easily and only getting away due to sheer luck unnerved her. The Killer Mothites only existed for about a week, how did they get so powerful so quickly?

The disassembly drones followed her to her room; N humming a playful tune, V inspecting everything around them when she wasn't trying to pry her wing off her side. Uzi slapped a "DO NOT DISTURB, DAD" sign onto her bedroom door and shut it quietly before turning to them.

She was once again reminded how tall they were compared to her. N's tail knocked something off a few shelves just by turning around and V hardly had to stand upright to see over the edge of her loft.
The room that she could easily move around in suddenly seemed extremely crowded.

She pointed up at one of the pipes running across her ceiling. "That should hold you easily," she said. "If it breaks, I'll fix it again. I don't even know what they're there for anymore, we don't use water for anything besides washing shit."

V and N looked up at the pipe. It creaked loudly, as if daring them to try it. N swallowed hard and rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh...I think I'll sleep on the ground tonight."

V shrugged, jumped for the pipe, hooked her legs over it...And fell to the ground with a loud clang as soon as she tried to hang upside down. Uzi turned a laugh into a hum as the disassembly drone hissed and swore.

"Looks like we're both sleeping on the ground, then," N said hopefully.

"Until this damned magnetic field wears off, yeah." V pulled Uzi's pillow down from her loft and pointed a warning claw at the middle of N's forehead. "You so much as brush against me tonight, I'll paint this room with your oil."

N gave her a thumbs up, seemingly not worried at all. V dropped the pillow into the farthest corner, flopped onto the floor and curled up with her back towards the two. With her tailed curling under her and almost going over her head, it looked like she didn't want to be seen.

Uzi felt a slight jab of sympathy. She was a literal killing machine now facing the threat of death from her so-called prey. The tables had turned and her ego was suffering.
And now she's feeling sympathetic towards two murder drones. 'How low can you go, Uzi?'

She turned towards N to wish him good night, saw he seemed to already be drifting off just leaning against the wall and hesitantly made her way over. She peered at his visor to make sure he was asleep, then gave him a quick hug and rushed to her loft. She hoped it was just wishful thinking when her Absolute Solver hummed and warned her about certain yellow eyes watching her pull the blanket up over her shoulders as she faced the wall.

"Go to sleep already," she scolded it under her breath. "There's two of them in here, deal with it. Let me sleep!"

Judging by the way it hummed every time V or N moved, she wouldn't be getting any sleep for a long time.

Chapter Text

Uzi snapped awake to the sounds of hissing and snarling. She realized with a start that she'd been so distracted by the events of last night that she'd forgotten one crucial thing: disassembly drones can't be in the sunlight.

She catapulted out of her loft and threw her blinds shut as soon as she could reach them. There was a collective sigh of relief as N and V settled down.

Uzi shook her hands to ward off the strange burning feeling running through her oil when V lunged, pinning her to the ground and pointing the nanite acid-filled tip of her tail at the base of her head. Her voice was frighteningly level, a sharp contrast to her furious expression. "Are you trying to kill us?"

Uzi shook her head quickly, raising her hands in surrender. "I forgot they were open! I had to go out my window to meet you last night! I'm sorry!"

V stared her down, tilting her head sharply. She eventually bought it and pulled her tail back, yanking the teenaged worker drone to her feet.

"There was a door, you know." She gestured at it as if Uzi of all drones didn't know what a door was.

"Yes, I am aware of that." Uzi shot her a glare. "There's this funny thing called I'm grounded."

"No you're not." N brushed off his coat as he spoke. "You were flying around with me last night. If any of us are grounded it'd be V."

"Thanks for the reminder." V's voice dripped with venom as she gave him a murderous grin.

"Not literally grounded, you..."

Uzi hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. How was she going to explain grounding to them?

"When I say grounded, I mean that I'm not allowed to leave my room." Uzi started to pace as she searched for the words. "Khan found out about my...Condition...And said that I'm not allowed to leave here until he either finds a cure or it's out of my system. Neither of which are going to happen anytime soon, since apparently mom was like this for years!"

"Your mother was...?" V trailed off as she gestured vaguely at her.

"I don't know. She was killed by one of you guys when I was a baby."

N winced apologetically. V simply nodded and motioned for her to go on.

"All dad told me was that I had to 'stay in this room!' and 'never go anywhere without telling me!' and 'don't you even think about opening your window, sneaking off, coming back when I'm on duty at night and pretend nothing happened the next morning!'." Uzi tucked her hands behind her back and swayed on her heels, a mischievous grin on her face. "I did try to tell him, but he wasn't here. So that's what I did."

"What'll he do to you if he finds out?" N asked.

"What's he gonna do, ground me more? Forbid me from seeing you again for as long as I exist?"

V crossed her arms, a thoughtful look on her face. "She's got a point, for once."

Khan's voice came from downstairs, wishing Uzi good morning. The worker drone held her tongue to prevent snapping her catchphrase at him, motioned for N and V to stay there and stay quiet, took a moment to collect herself and left the room. She closed the door quietly and then started storming down the stairs.

"There she is!" Khan gave her a smile over his newspaper. "How're you feeling?"

Extremely hot. Uzi realized with horror that she'd forgotten another thing coming home last night: namely cooling herself off with the oil of the unfortunate past victims of disassembly drones. "I'm fine, Khan."

"Wonderful, wonderful. No school today?"

"Nope." School was pointless when half of the student body were dead.

"Do you want to, um..." Khan folded his newspaper over. "Do something together?"

Uzi walked past the table and pulled her backpack off the chair closest to the door. "Hard pass."

"Wait, where are you going? I thought you said you didn't have school today?"

"I don't." Realizing she'd just blown her excuse to get out of the house, Uzi winced and wracked her brain for another one. "I'm, uh...Going over to Lizzy's house."

"Oh no you're not, young lady, you're grounded! Remember?"

Uzi's temper flared. She stormed towards the doorway out, snapped at Khan when he tried talking to her again and slammed it shut behind her. She took a deep breath once she was away from the house, made a snowball and tossed it through the blinds into her room.

It took a moment for someone to react. N poked his head out of the window, his hat shoved down over his forehead to protect him from the sun. "Uzi?"

"Yeah, that was me." Uzi shifted her bag's weight on her back. "Let's get you guys somewhere with more space. You can't sleep in my room forever."

N gave her a thumbs up, then yanked his hand back with a hiss when the sun burned it. Uzi listened to the shuffling coming from her room as the disassembly drones worked themselves out and V was the first to leave, tumbling out of the window wearing Uzi's blanket like a hooded cape.

"Don't say a word," she threatened when Uzi snorted a laugh. "You had nothing else I could've used to protect myself."

"Picky picky," Uzi tsked.

V snatched her hat off her head and made her have to fight her to get it, thankfully letting her stay in her shadow so she wouldn't get burned during the scuffle. She'd just gotten it back and jammed it over her head when N finally left the window, using a dress as a makeshift cover over his head. Uzi and V shared an amused look and the trio left once he caught up with them.

Uzi was quick to get them into an alleyway, hoping the shade from the buildings would be enough to spare them from the sun. V let her blanket-cape's hood down and shook her hair out, pinching the blanket closed at the nape of her neck with her free hand. Uzi tried not to stare at the single wing hanging uselessly against her back. It wasn't stuck to her anymore, but it clearly wasn't working, either. Would she ever be able to fly again?

She looked to N, who had thankfully yanked the ridiculous dress cover off his head and was still happily walking along. She briefly imagined it being him that had gotten clipped by the magnet missile and felt intense sadness hit her. V was N's best friend, how did he feel during all of this?

She speed-walked up next to him and nudged his side, getting his attention. "You good?"

"Yep!" He gave her a smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because V's likely grounded for life and it was because she took a missile meant for you?"

"Nah, she'll be fine!" N tucked his hands behind his back. "If she can't fly anymore, I'll just carry her. No biggie."

"I'll be able to fly!" V snapped. "It's just taking a while for the damage to wear off!"

"Maybe the nanites don't know what to do with magnetic forces," Uzi thought out loud. "That's why they're taking so long to recover."

"Yeah! I'm sure that's it!" N ruffled V's hair. "You'll be in the air again before you know it."

V hardly even bore a tooth at him. Uzi caught the way she clenched the blanket tighter around herself. It was time to change the subject.

Lucky, too; because they had arrived at the apartment Uzi had been keeping an eye on.

"I keep wanting to run away here," she said as she led the two disassembly drones in. "But I never had the time or motive to do it."

"It looks like a shitshow," V muttered under her breath.

"Bite me. I can't clean it up if I'm never here, you know?"

V shook her head slightly and didn't answer. Uzi took that as a win and walked farther into the apartment.

There was hardly anything in the immediate vicinity beyond the simplistic table and chairs of the kitchen. The fridge was covered in a thin blanket of dust, the sink and cabinet doors were left hanging open and empty and the once bright and cheery carpet supporting the table and chairs had faded to an indiscernible colour under the sunlight streaming in through the window.

Uzi rushed to close the blinds again, ignoring the heat searing her hands. N and V took hesitant steps into their new home, the former hugging his arm against him. "Are...You sure nobody lives here?"

"I've been watching it for weeks." Uzi turned to them, brushing her bangs out of her eye. "Nobody's ever come in or out."

"What if they've already left by the time you come by?" V asked. "Or return seconds after you come back?"

Oh. She hadn't thought about that. Ah well, it was too late now.

"It'll be whatever." Uzi waved her hand and pulled her hat farther over her head. "Anyway, you guys have fun. I gotta go."

"Go where?" V asked.

"To Doll's house. If she was looking into the Absolute Solver thing, she's gotta have something with her research so far."

She left with that, ignoring N warning her that it was dangerous and V wanting to come along to get some action. Ducking down besides the stairs leading into the building, she yanked an old drone arm out of her bag and threw back the oil inside until the steady temperature rise inside her finally cooled to more of a chill.

Now that she was at a more tolerable temperature, she could think straight. Putting on a sulky expression, she speedwalked out of the alleyway and merged into the crowd of drones going about their business.

The crowd swept her away, dragging her towards the school. She had to struggle to get out of the river of drones when she reached Doll's house and wound up being pushed out of it, hitting the snowy ground. Brushing snow off her angrily, the young worker drone shot the pusher a dirty look as they walked away before heading over to the door and reaching for the doorknob.

A red sigil wrapped around her wrist, making her jump. Her Absolute Solver hummed in alarm as a snooty voice reached her audio receptors. "What're you doing, freak?"

Uzi slowly turned her head. Dolly and Lizzy stood less than three feet away, Doll's hand out to control the sigil. Lizzy pulled a piece of mimic candy out of her mouth and gestured over her shoulder. "School is that way."

"I...Is this not my house?" Uzi tried to yank her hand back, smiling nervously. "Oh shoot, sorry! I am–not feeling myself today. If you could just let me go, I'll be on my way to my real actual house that definitely has what I'm after—"

She cut herself off with a squeak when Doll waved her hand, yanking her towards the two. Lizzy wrapped a tight arm around Uzi's neck as they turned and started back the way they had come. "Nuh uh, you're coming with us. Being some kind of Frankenstein doesn't spare you from having to learn with the rest of us. Let's hang out!"

Uzi could think of a thousand things she would much rather do. She started to list them when she was dragged past a crudely drawn poster. Freeing herself from Lizzy's headlock, she squinted at the confusing mishmash of lines and shapes.

It took a moment for the tangle of scribbly lines to make sense. She was looking at a rough drawing of herself. Specifically what V called the zombie version of her, on all fours with large bat-like wings spread and her draconic tail holding the oily stump of an arm in its mouth. The X in her visor was practically carved into the page with a purple pen, almost invisible against the scribbly black of her visor. Above, alongside and below her, words were written in capital letters.

"BEWARE THE BAT WITCH"

"JOIN THE KILLER MOTHITES"

"WE CAN BRING HER DOWN!"

So she was the bat the Killer Mothites were talking about yesterday. Which meant she had a target on her back. And now here she was, standing in broad daylight directly in front of her own poster.

"Hey..." Lizzy had walked up beside her and tapped her chin in thought. "That kind of looks like y—"

"Time to go!"

Uzi grabbed Lizzy's arm and started running towards the school, ignoring her complaints. She only looked back once to make sure she hadn't accidentally caused her any harm and saw Doll staring at the poster thoughtfully.

The red-eyed drone slowly looked at her and started to smile. A male drone was pushed in front of her by his friend, briefly obstructing Uzi's view of her. By the time he had moved out of the way, she was gone.

Uzi was suddenly extremely worried. Doll had it out for her already, for reasons that she didn't really understand. Now she had a bounty on her head and Doll had basically been handed the opportunity to get her out of her way.

Maybe it was time for a wardrobe change. "Hey Lizzy..."

~~~

"I don't have anything, like, emo. I hope that's not a problem. And if it is, that's too bad."

"N-No, that's perfect. Thank you."

Talking Lizzy into skipping school in favour of giving Uzi a makeover had been laughably easy. She hardly had to convince her at all. Now they were camped out in Lizzy's headache-inducingly pink room, light pop music playing from an old-fashioned radio providing an as equally bright and stubborn atmosphere as the girl herself. Sitting on the edge of Lizzy's bed as far away from the window as possible, Uzi felt like a drop of ink that had landed on the page of a children's book.

"I do have a few purple things." Lizzy paused in her closet digging and looked back at Uzi over her shoulder. "You like purple, right?"

Uzi nodded. "I guess?"

"Perfect!" She dug her hand into her closet and pulled out a dress. "Then what do you think of this?"

Just looking at it made Uzi wish drones could vomit. It was a pale purple colour, the sleeveless top made out of blinding sequins and the just as glittery skirt dotted with its own sequins. "You don't have anything more...Low-key?"

Lizzy rolled her eyes with a scoff and threw the dress at her. "I'll go look. Try that on."

Uzi would rather die. Regardless, she swallowed her pride and pulled her beloved sweater off over her head. The dress put up a fight against being worn, which meant by the time Lizzy turned around again Uzi had managed to make it and herself look like a bedraggled mess.

"You look great!" Lizzy squealed.

Uzi shot her a disbelieving look. "Really?"

"Yeah!" Lizzy's starry-eyed look quickly faded. "It's like looking at the physical manifestation of an AI breakdown. Are you for real?"

Uzi groaned. "I had trouble putting it on. Did you find something more low-key or what?"

"I don't have anything, no." Lizzy put a finger to her chin. "But mother might. Wait here, and don't touch anything!"

Uzi flipped her off as she sashayed out of the room, loudly slamming the door closed behind her. After taking this moment to block out the sunlight yet again, Uzi tried to straighten out the dress and take a look through Lizzy's closet and dressers herself.

For a worker drone that seemed to adore the colour pink, she only had a total of three pink dresses (not counting the one she was currently wearing). The other dresses and outfits crammed into the small closet space were just about every colour of the rainbow, at least one of them sharing every colour possible in an eye-blistering assortment of nonsensical patterns. Small wonder Lizzy tried to stuff that one as far down the hanger pole as she could manage.

After a solid five minutes of searching, Uzi found two dresses that appealed to her. One was a long sleeveless dress that was a deep red colour, the velvet fabric merely suggesting a glitter in the light of her purple eyes. The other was a long-sleeved black dress with a lace skirt made in such a way that resembled spiderwebs, dark blue false gems sewn in at random intervals to add some colour. Both dresses, in Uzi's opinion, were beautiful. They both also zipped up in such a way that Uzi's wings would completely destroy them.

Uzi threw herself across Lizzy's bed with a defeated groan. Why must everything be so focused on clothes? If she was as comfortable in hardly anything as V seemed to be, she'd have it so much easier...

Lizzy silently entered the room, closing the door quietly. When Uzi lifted her head from the bed, she caught the split-second look of fear on the other drone's face before it was swiftly replaced with her usual "holier-than-thou" attitude.

"You gotta go," she said matter-of-factly. "My parents are getting suspicious."

Uzi sputtered "But the makeover!"

"Come back in an hour." Lizzy picked up her bag and sweater, shoved them both into her arms and practically shoved her out the window after opening it. "I'll cover for you. Don't worry about the dress, I never wear it anyway. Bye! Don't come back soon!"

The sunlight seared Uzi's arms as soon as she entered it, leaving her rushing to put on her sweater and running for cover at the same time. She jumped the house fence and crammed herself into the corner connecting it to the house, hunching over to be as small as possible.

She overheard Lizzy talking to someone feminine, the other voice sounding as cold as J had. Something about school, something about inappropriate times to be home, something about acceptable friends. Uzi winced in sympathy and leaned her head back against the house with a light donk.

Does anyone in her generation have good parents?

Chapter Text

V was starting to lose her marbles. She went from a robotic version of an apex predator to hiding from the sun in some shitty little hole in the span of a handful of hours. She had nothing to do but sleep; and since she'd accidentally drifted off in Uzi's room the night before she was well-rested enough to not need any.

So she went with option 2: pick on N a little.

"Sooo~!" She coyly crossed one leg over the other, sitting on the old kitchen table. "You and Uzi seem close!"

N hummed, looking over the dusty old (presumably) human books once more before turning to her. "What's that, sorry?"

"Are you into her, N?" V teased. "Uzi, I mean?"

"Well I mean, yeah I'm into her. She's my friend."

"I meant beyond that, dummy." V leaned back and propped herself up by her elbows. "Do you have a crush on her?"

"What? Eugh! No, she's a kid!"

"So're we~"

N stared blankly at her, his eyes hollowed. He blinked them full again and put a finger to his chin in thought. "I'm not so sure about that."

"You said it yourself at the cabin, moron." V leaned her head back. "She's a kid, we're both kids."

"Well, sure, I..."

V snickered. It was so easy to break N sometimes.

Someone ran past their apartment in the hallway, snapping them both to attention. V rushed to sit up and N switched his hands out for the bladed claws as he crept towards the door. Switching out her own hands for blades, V moved off the table to join him; straining to hear the runner as they swore loudly in a panicked tone. They finally stopped in front of their apartment door and struggled to open it. Both disassembly drones started to attack, then froze.

V had to stop herself from bursting out laughing. Uzi was wearing a dress clearly not suited for her sense of style, the pale purple clashing with her dark purple beanie. She had thrown her unzipped sweater over it in either an attempt to either salvage her aesthetic or to use the long sleeves to fend off the elements, which only made her look more ridiculous.

At least, as far as V was concerned. N apparently saw things differently, judging by the way he quickly switched back to his hands and gave Uzi a thumbs up with a wide grin. "Wow, you look amazing! Nice dress, Uzi!"

Uzi blushed a little bit, her pupils disappearing into the three purple lines when she looked away. "It's really not, but...Thanks."

V switched back to her hands and leaned against the table. "What caused this, er...Interesting new taste in fashion?"

"Bite me, V," Uzi snarled. "I have to be unrecognizable!"

"Why?"

Uzi dug her hand into her sweater's pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up bit of paper. She handed it off to V as she walked by the table, flopping into a chair and burying her face in her hands.

She had given V a poster of her that looked like it was drawn by a child. Crazed writing on either side made V shake her head with a laugh. "What is this?"

"I'm doomed," Uzi groaned, her voice muffled. "They're going to find out where I am and slaughter me."

"Naw, they won't find you, Uzi." N walked over and patted her shoulder with a bright reassuring smile. "We'll help you!"

"You can hide here with us," V offered. "Nobody's come near here since you moved us in."

"If Khan raises Hell that I'm gone then we'll all be dead."

"Oh come on, Uzi." V crumpled up the paper in one hand. "We can fight back! It's not another end of the world."

"That's right!" Another bright smile from N. "We all have a weakness. Maybe we can find whoever made that poster and exploit theirs!"

"How can we find the weakness of the Killer Mothites?"

There was a long silence. V pulled her busted wing out, the physical proof that the Killer Mothites could overpower drones literally made to kill them. If they could bring down a disassembly drone so easily, any attempt on them would leave them as good as dead.

But...

"How long does it take to load a missile launcher?"

Uzi lifted her head and looked towards V. She seemed confused. "I don't know. Three or five seconds, I'm guessing. Why?"

"And they've only got the one, I'm guessing. Right?"

"That we know of."

"We could find out if they have more."

Now she had Uzi's attention. The young drone watched V pull on the blanket cloak again, holding it closed around her neck and pulling part of it up to form a hood.
"Somebody owes me a favour," she went on. "This is just the way to cash it in."

"Who is it?" N asked.

"One of your little friend's classmates."

Uzi pushed herself off the chair. "I'm coming with you."

"Fine. N, you too?"

"Mhm!"

V sighed. She had really hoped to do this alone. "Come on, then. We're making a house call."

N grabbed a dusty old umbrella out of the pile of them next to the door out and gave V a thumbs up. Uzi snickered a little, V rolled her eyes. Intentionally or not, he always had to make light of things.

She supposed she could put up with it, since she scared the nanites out of him only a month before.

V leaned on the doorbell of the house she had to call, listening to it ring over and over again like a broken record. Uzi was clearly pretending she didn't recognize it as she scuffed her feet, halfway hiding behind N. The feminine worker drone who answered the door had half a second to scream when V shoved her out of the way.

"Can it, bitch." V pinned her against the wall with one hand, switched her other one out with a gun and trained it on who she presumed was her target's father sitting at a kitchen table. "If either of you so much as whimper, you're gonna be our dinner tonight. Where's your daughter?"

The father shakily pointed to his left, down a hallway. V looked back at her companions and motioned them in.

"Can we not threaten people with firepower?" Uzi asked, uneasily ducking underneath V's gun arm.

"It stops them from calling for help."

Uzi hesitated, then shrugged and nodded. "Turn the gun on her mom. She's a petty jerkoff."

"Since when did I take orders from you?"

Uzi raised her hands slightly in surrender and followed N down the hallway to the bedrooms. V thought for a moment, then switched the hand pinning the mother to a gun and pressed it against her chest. She gave a small scream and started vibrating with fear as her husband tried sneaking away, freezing and rushing back to his chair when V's head snapped towards him with an excited grin on her face.

She's never liked toying with her victims so much.

"Ugh! V!" A bitchy voice whined as the owner stomped her foot in anger. "I so regret telling you I owe you one now! This is ridiculous!"

"You know this murder drone?" The mother gasped. "Shame on you! We're going to have a long chat about this, young lady!"

"I said CAN IT!"

The young drone's mother snapped her mouth shut and nodded rapidly, whispering an apology. V briefly put her weight on the gun against her chest as a threat before turning to the drone now standing next to Uzi.

"Hi, Lizzy," she said casually. "I need a favour from you."

"You couldn't just text me it like a normal drone?" Lizzy asked with a roll of her pink pupils.

"No. N, grab her."

N agreeably picked Lizzy up and tossed her onto his back. Uzi took his arm and led the two out of the house. V hesitated for a moment, pulled the trigger against Lizzy's mother and left her father to either mourn her death or sound the alarm. By the time she was outside, the other three drones were already in the air.

V held her hands up and N dove down, catching her under the armpits and lifting her up with him. She adjusted her weight in his arms to be carried bridal-style and pretended not to notice the blatant blush lines on his visor.

"Is this, like, a kidnapping?" Lizzy asked, resting her chin on N's shoulder.

"You aren't that special," Uzi snarked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, which one of us—"

"Sure. It's a kidnapping." V lightly slapped N's face to get his head out of the clouds. "Back to base."

"The–The apartment or the ship?"

"The apartment. If her family actually treats this like a kidnapping, those Mothites might raid the ship."

"So you did take my warning seriously," Uzi mused with a smug smile before flying ahead of them.

V tightened her grip on N as he went to follow, fuming at the smug little drone's tone. She had half a mind to take that poster and make as many copies of it as she could just to get revenge on her.

Chapter Text

"So you want me to just waltz into their base–which none of you even know where it is, like you said; pretend I got hurt by a murder drone, somehow get out of their med bay and just happen to find their armoury?"

"I know it's not very well thought out." N knit his fingers together. "But it's all that we've got."

"Why don't you come up with something if you're so bright, smartass," Uzi snapped.

Lizzy tossed her ponytail. "I'm just here to be bait. I don't come up with the plans."

"Lizzy, listen." Uzi lowered her voice. "These guys mean a lot to me. If they get disassembled—"

"What's it to you?" Lizzy cut her off. "You lost a family member to them. I thought you'd have joined the Killer Mothites by now."

This was getting them nowhere. Lizzy watched the trio squirm, trying to word their request in a way that didn't have so many holes in it.

"Look," she said at last. "If that's all you've got for me, then I'm gonna head home. It was nice hanging out with you or whatever, V."

"Sorry about your mom," V muttered under her breath.

Lizzy waved her off. "It's whatever. Daddy was gonna divorce her anyway."

Uzi snorted a laugh. "Daddy?"

"Not all of us refer to our parents by their first name, freakshow!"

"Did you call her mommy, too?" Uzi sneered. "Or was she just 'mother dear'? Mother dearest and Daddykins?"

"Shut your mouth, Hot Topic!"

"Bite me, Carebear!"

"I think it's cute that you call him that," N chipped in.

"Don't say that!!"

Uzi's sneer turned into a wide smile that Lizzy really didn't like. She leaned back casually in her chair and pressed her fingertips together.

"Okay," she said casually, "don't help us then. Run home to your daddy. I'm sure everyone at school would love to know that's what you call him."

Lizzy narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh I would. With all the dirt you started about me?" Uzi leaned forward, a wicked grin on her face. "This would be the first in a loooong line of revenge blackmail."

"You're heartless."

"We haven't got hearts, Liz."

"So are you in or what?" V asked impatiently.

Lizzy hated being defeated. She crossed her arms and pointed at the wing drifting against the ground. "I'll think about it if you tell me why your wing is just hanging there."

"It's busted." V pulled it off the ground and tucked it under her arm self-consciously. "Your bloody bounty hunters or whatever almost killed me."

"Killer Mothites," Uzi clarified. "They have these magnetised rocket...things. It used to stick against her, now it's just hanging there."

"They have access to magnets and you want me to go in there?!"

"They won't use them against you! You're a worker drone!"

Lizzy bit her lip. She was in way over her head now. Of all the things to be demanded of her, Uzi couldn't have kidnapped her to force her to be her partner on a group project or something? Why this mission of certain death?

Uzi leaned back in her chair again, crossing one leg over the other. "It's your choice," she said casually. "You work with us, or you ruin your own reputation."

She looked unbothered, but she was fiddling with her hands and her eyes would hollow out in the few frames before she blinked. N was bouncing his leg and looking out the window, his expression worried. V was patting her wing like she was either trying to reassure herself or get it to start working again with gentle touch. They must have been really stuck if their only option was to cash in a favour from a teenaged worker drone that Uzi didn't even like.

"Fine!" Lizzy spat. "I'll do it. I'll help you."

Uzi pumped her fist with a hissed "yes" as N sprang up from his seat. "That's great! Now it's my turn."

"Where are you going?!" V demanded.

"Out to talk to people." N paused at the door. "Maybe if I ask nicely, someone will tell me where the Killer Mothites hideout is."

Uzi pushed herself off of her seat. "I'll tag along just in case. V, you and Lizzy think up a plan."

Lizzy gaped at her as she shoved by her a bit roughly. "Why do we have to?!"

"Because V was the one who wanted you here."

Uzi held the door open for N, smiled a little bit when he made a show of marching out of it like a human soldier and then slammed it shut behind her hard enough to rattle the doorframe. Lizzy overheard the two start talking in a hushed whisper as they left, Uzi snickering after one of N's words.

An awkward silence fell when it was just her and V. As much as she tried to hide it, the murder drone still made her uneasy. However she looked kind of pathetic, sitting like a grounded kid in the light of the moon with one wing around her, so Lizzy cautiously approached and cleared her throat. "So, um..."

V looked up at her. Lizzy fought against the urge to shy away or hug herself.

"Do you...Actually want to plan, or just hang out?"

"We can just chill out." V crossed her arms. "I'm not sure where Uzi was going with this plan of hers."

"But it was your idea to come and find me."

V shrugged. Lizzy tapped her foot, then pointed at her wing again. "What do you plan to do about that?"

Another shrug. V even curled up slightly after being asked, suggesting that she was still sore about it. Lizzy felt a bit guilty about asking now; she imagined it would be akin to getting your arm cut off.

What would happen to her if it never worked again?

"You know, being a walking drone isn't so bad." Lizzy pulled over the chair N had sat in to sit across from V. "Flying is cool and all, but you can make more friends if you don't avoid everyone with flight."

V arched an eyebrow. "I don't have any friends."

That stung. Lizzy scoffed and crossed her arms, sitting back. "Wow. I see where you stand with me, then. What is N, just some moron who likes to hang out with you?"

"N is–different. He keeps bringing around that little brat and they both insist on staying around. That's hardly my fault."

"An' you came to me pretty quick for someone who doesn't see me as a friend!"

The yellow lights over V's visor flashed, but she didn't reply to that. Lizzy got the feeling that she was pushing it.

Good. She's going to push harder.

"If I'm not your friend, V, then why am I here? Why return a favour? Why take me up on the idea at all?"

"I don't like leaving things hanging!" V snapped. "I thought if I cashed in the stupid idea, it would be helpful and you'd leave me alone!"

Another scoff. "You came to me, V."

V's working wing snapped open. Lizzy flinched but refused to stand down.

And then Uzi ruined the moment by barging in. "We found it!"

"Found what?" V asked, her wing quickly folding away.

"The Killer Mothites lair." Uzi pounded her hand against the side of her head. "God, it was so obvious!"

"Where do I have to go?" Lizzy asked, standing up.

"I'll take you. Follow me. V, are you coming?"

"Wouldn't miss this for the world," V said as she stood up.

"Awesome. Great. I'll meet you outside."

Lizzy shared an excited look with V for a moment, then the disassembly drone caught herself and smoothed over her features. Lizzy waited by the door as she picked up a battered-looking blanket and threw it on, holding it by her neck to make it appear more like a cloak.

"Nice blanket," she snarked.

"Shut it, tin can."

N was waiting for them outside, standing with Uzi and holding his shoulder. A flash of worry went across V's visor before she pushed it away again. "What'd he do, run into a wall?"

"We tried to break down the door before someone came by," Uzi explained. "It wasn't my smartest idea."

"I could have done it," N argued.

"What was it made of, solid steel?"

Uzi shook her head. "Heavy wood."

V hummed in thought. Lizzy looked between the three questioningly, but none of them elaborated. So steel couldn't stop them, but heavy wood can? In what world did that make sense?

The walk to wherever the Killer Mothites lair lay was quiet, which was unnerving. Uzi and her murderous buddies were weird, but they've never been quiet. Whenever Lizzy tried to strike up a conversation Uzi glared at her and the other two simply ignored her.

'Boy, you really are scared.'

"This is the building we were trying to get into," Uzi said at last when the group stopped at an old warehouse. "I don't know what their security is, but—"

"Can you talk any louder?" Lizzy cut her off.

"It's not that great," Uzi finished in a whisper. "Trying to get the door open made a lot of noise, but nobody came out."

"Then how do you know they're here?"

Something purple flashed in Uzi's hand. A familiar sigil was lit up there, something that answered Lizzy's question much better than anything verbal could. Doll had told her before that the Absolute Solver was aware of everything and acted like the human self-preservation instinct.

V suddenly stood up straighter. She grabbed Lizzy's arm and pulled her back behind one of the abandoned buildings, Uzi and N following her. She ignored them in favour of looking out behind the corner, making Lizzy mimic her and watch as a dinosaur-like robot with a bandanna tied over its eyes stalked towards the door.

"Found their security," Lizzy said. "It's some dinosaur drone."

"It's a what?!" Uzi exclaimed, then slapped her hands over her mouth.

"A dinosaur drone." Said dino drone snapped its head towards the trio at Uzi's yelp, yet didn't make any move to come over. "It's just walking around."

"Don't look it in the eye!" Uzi hissed. "Get away from there!"

"Its eyes are covered." Lizzy jumped, suddenly aware of how close she was to V. "Those Killer Mothites somehow got a bandanna around them."

"Is it just the one?" N asked.

"So far as I can see."

"Shit!" Uzi was pulling at her bangs when V moved away from the corner, pulling Lizzy with her. "I didn't know they had one of those! Now what do we do?"

"It's blindfolded, right?" Lizzy asked. "So we can just sneak around it."

"That's way too dangerous," V said shortly.

"Then lure it away!"

"How?"

Lizzy shrugged. Uzi grabbed her tail's end when it almost struck her, then she stared at it. A light went off in her visor. "I could be the bait."

"What?" N gasped. "Uzi, no!"

"That will never end well!" V snapped. "Remember what happened when I tried to be the bait?"

"This will be different!" Uzi argued. "There was no space in there. Here we're in the open air! I can fly around, I can stay out of range!"

"Uzi, no! No, no, no, no!"

Lizzy crept away as N seemingly started to panic, gripping Uzi's hands. She watched the dinosaur drone for a little while longer and saw it was tilting its head this way and that as if trying to hear them out.

"N, shut up!"

"Don't talk to him that way!" Uzi snapped.

Lizzy flapped her hand at her as if trying to wave her away. "No, seriously! Shut him up! Its coming!"

V nervously moved closer to her companions. "Uzi, if you can think of a better plan, do it now!"

"I-I can't! That's all I had!"

"Then we leave!" N grabbed V's arm by the wrist. "Let's go back. We can think of something better!"

This was getting them nowhere. Summoning her courage, Lizzy stepped out from behind the corner.

The dinosaur drone was immediately aware of her.

"Hi, dino..." Lizzy felt her system go into overdrive as she tried to make herself smaller, shuffling closer to the robot. "I'm a worker drone. You like me, right?"

It tilted its head this way and that. Lizzy stopped a few steps away. She could see the wooden door from here, dented inwards slightly but otherwise solid. If she could just get there and draw the attention of someone who could shut it down...

"There's a good dinosaur thing." Lizzy started moving sideways, giving it as wide a berth as she could manage. "I'm just going to go over here. There's a good dinosaur..."

Its feet clanked as it turned around to follow her every move. There was a flash of yellow and V left the corner herself, pupils hollowed out from fear yet somehow seeming determined. Lizzy's nervousness around the dino drone went up: if V was afraid of it, there was something to be scared of.

She sweet-talked the dino drone as she started backing towards the door, the dino drone perfectly mimicking her steps by taking just as slow steps towards her. She was starting to wonder if she had an Absolute Solver herself when she swore she could hear V switching in her arm cannon from this distance, as well as the loud clack of the dino drone snapping its head towards her. There was a bright flash from under its bandanna and the dino drone rushed towards V with a roar.

Lizzy's mouth moved faster than her motors. She screamed out a "NO!", which successfully drew the dinosaur towards her: talons, fangs and all.

There was a mass of shouting as the dino drone raked at her, ripping out something that felt very important and chowing down on her shoulder until her arm came loose. A loud clang knocked it off her and turned it on to someone else as careful hands rolled her onto her back from her attempted defensive position.

"It's a worker drone!" Her saviour gasped. "A young one!"

"That looks like Khan's girl!" Another voice added.

"No, it's not her. Her pupils are pink, not purple. Get me a stretcher!"

"i said it looks like her, not it was her...Never mind."

In her confused state of mind, all Lizzy wanted was someone familiar. She looked up as far as she could and saw V standing watch, Uzi and N trying to pull her away. She looked guilty, likely blaming herself for letting that happen.

For once, Lizzy didn't hold a grudge. She felt like a hero. She had defended her friend from something that had scared her and now she was being carried straight into the enemy's lair.

Wow, she must really be busted up to start thinking like that.

Chapter Text

She hurt all over when her system cranked itself into action again. "Where am I...?"

"Don't move too quickly now, sweetheart." A heavy hand lay on her busted shoulder, keeping her down. "You got it pretty good from that thing."

"Daddy...?"

"We're gonna contact your father, he'll come get you. What's your name?"

She wasn't sure. Something that began with L. "L...Lizzy."

"That's a wonderful name. How did you get here, Lizzy?"

Her visual receptors finally kicked in. Lizzy couldn't see anything at first, then she was made aware of two worker drones beside her–one with green pupils, the other with red ones.

Doll!

She sat up quickly, ignoring the pain that rippled through her from the action. "Where have you been, Doll? I haven't seen you all day!"

"That's not important," she said, shaking her head. "Answer his question."

"How I...Got here?" She couldn't remember for a moment. "I, uh..."

"Were you with anyone?" The green-eyed drone egged her on.

"I think so? I remember a yellow glow and...Ohmigosh."

Doll and the other drone had to keep Lizzy down as she suddenly started to stand up, ignoring the crackling electricity shooting down her midsection. "V! Is she here? Where's the dinosaur drone?!"

"Stay down! Settle down. I don't know who this V is, but she must be fine. We got the Senitle back under control. Nobody else was hurt. What were you doing all the way out there by yourself?"

"A murder drone killed my mother." Things started to come back to Lizzy the more she spoke. "It was right in front of me. I ran away and she–it chased me to their hiding spot before I got away."

Doll suddenly looked very interested in what she was saying. "You know their hiding spot?"

Lizzy nodded with a serious look. The green-eyed drone leaned forward in excitement. "You know where Envy is?!"

"Envy?" Lizzy blinked at him in confusion.

"The Bat's murder drones! The goofy killer one and the murderess! You can lead us to where they are!"

N and V. N. V. Envy. Lizzy would think it was clever if she wasn't internally worrying about the fact that a. the Killer Mothites know their names and b. she just indirectly offered to betray them.

"I can, yeah." She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, her mind racing for a way to get out of this. "But I need more rest first. I'm still hurting."

"Well yes, obviously." Doll gently pushed her down with her Absolute Solver. "Sleep, my friend. We'll be just outside if you need us."

"Whatever she said, I agree with." Green Eyes pulled up the covers over Lizzy like she was a baby bot instead of a Worker Drone. "Let me know if you need anything, alright?"

Lizzy nodded and curled up, the warmth already making her systems start to go on sleep. She had to stay awake. Stay up, dammit!

She harshly bit her wrist, something she has seen humans do in movies to keep themselves awake. Of course, since she didn't have nerve endings, it didn't do squat. However the small droplets of oil bubbling up between the resulting cracks gave her an idea.

She bit harder, crunching quality-grade plastic between her metal teeth and trying not to gag at the taste of oil flooding through her taste receptors. Again and again she bit down until she finally hit wires, causing her to gasp in pain.

The two drones outside rushed in just as she'd smeared the oil down her chin in what she hoped was a convincing manner and turned one of her feet in an awkward manner. Green Eyes sucked in air between his teeth at the sight of her. Doll looked livid.

"They came back for her," she growled. "We shouldn't have left her alone!"

"How did they get in here?!" Green Eyes looked around. "There's no way inside!"

Doll pointed at the conveniently-opened window. Lizzy tilted her head. She knows full well she wasn't the one who did it, but if it helped back up the story, she'd say an army of Murder Drones came through there to try and tear her apart. Anything to give her more time to think in the ward.

"Look at your hand!" Green Eyes gasped. "Robojesus, you can't go anywhere like this!"

"Can you replace it?" Lizzy asked weakly.

Green Eyes looked to Doll, who nodded. "It may take a few hours," she said, "but it can be done. I will make a new one for you."

"There's a drone here named Tim," Green Eyes spoke up. "He does all the wiring for our traps and things. He'll get it wired up in no time. How's your foot?"

Lizzy willed herself to try not to move it too quickly. Green Eyes sighed with relief. "It's not disconnected. It'll fix itself if it's loose. You got lucky, Liz."

He had no idea.

They had to cut her bitten hand all the way off to replace it, something Lizzy probably should have expected. And since her hand was connected through her arm, all that had to go as well. Pretty soon she was a one-armed drone so groggy from the weak magnet used as some kind of anaesthetic that she could hardly keep her head up, forcing her to sleep at last.

She was alone when she woke up again, at least as far as she could tell. Carefully slipping out from underneath the bed covers, she shuffled her way towards the door out and pushed it open.

Nope, she was indeed alone. At least until Doll appeared in front of her.

"Hello, Lizzy." The red-eyed drone gave her a smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm missing a limb. Because I am."

Doll held up a shiny new arm. Lizzy sighed with relief and backed into the room.

"What're you doing here, Doll?" Lizzy asked, sitting back on the bed when Doll motioned her to. "Shouldn't you be at home?"

"I serve a purpose here. I have no home left to return to."

"Oh. Jeez, that's rather pathetic–I mean sad! That's kinda sad."

Doll gave her a flat look. Lizzy raised her chin defiantly.

"You said a drone murdered your mother." Doll went back to her work. "When did this happen?"

"Depends on what time it is."

Doll's visor briefly flickered to a clock. 00:45.

"Yesterday."

"I apologize." Doll patted her friend's good shoulder. "I know what it is like."

"Don't feel too bad. It was mother."

"I retract my apology, then. The witch had it coming."

Lizzy snorted a laugh. She felt her new arm buzz to life and cautiously moved her fingers, relieved at how naturally they responded to her.

"We are testing a weapon against a prisoner," Doll said as Lizzy fiddled with her new arm. "Would you like to come and see?"

Lizzy shrugged and nodded. It wasn't like she had anything better to do. Doll smiled in that small way she found adorable and took her arm, gently pulling her out of the room.

So far, the Killer Mothites didn't strike her as all that bad. Sure they had a killer drone as security, but they were up against killer drones themselves; they likely knew what they were dealing with. She was starting to think Uzi had a biased view of them.

Though considering she was a freak of drone nature, that was to be expected. She was more Murder Drone than Worker Drone by now. It was surprising Khan hadn't locked her up for life yet.

Doll led her through a variety of doors and halls, each one having a guard posted who cheerily greeted the two. Each one also had a long gun that struck Lizzy as familiar. It was large, glowing a bright green colour and had a long barrel.

"Are they holding Uzi's gun thing?" She asked Doll in a whisper.

"I brought her blueprints to them. You saw what they can do to a Murder Drone."

That she did. The memory of the drone who got it point-blank is still burned into the frosty ground somewhere outside. Uzi's railgun had enough power to blow apart a horde, with the right aim.

Finally, they reached a large arena. The open-air top had chains all over it like a makeshift ceiling, which struck Lizzy as odd until she realized just what was in the small cage suspended from some of the heavy chains. A Murder Drone.

"The chains are there to stop it from flying away," she whispered to herself. "Somehow I find that horrifying."

"Set it free, Captain!" A voice shouted.

A rocket came flying out from a small metal box. The Murder Drone shrieked when it struck their cage and snapped the chain, sending it falling down. The Drone was somehow unharmed enough to climb out of it and take to the air again, grabbing at the chain ceiling with sharp metal claws and trying to pull them apart far enough to get free.

"What weapon are they hoping to test?" Lizzy asked.

"Watch."

A Worker Drone riding on the back of what Green Eyes had called a Senitle walked in, something red-hot steaming against the leather gloves he wore. Lizzy watched as he patted the dinosaur drone's long neck, slid down, put on some dark glasses and took off the bandanna covering the Senitle's eyes.

"Remember that it's only for close-quarters combat," the voice that had called for the rocket said. "You're wearing the issued body armour? Good. Its not interested in you quite yet, so whenever you're ready."

The Senitle's rider nodded and put the hot rod away in a metal sheath. With a sharp whistle, he drew the Murder Drone's attention to him.

It dove towards him, claws outstretched and barely missing him when he jumped aside. The Senitle jumped away and chattered at the taller Drone when it pushed itself upright again. They were swaying on their feet, noticeable steam coming from their body.

"See that steam?" Doll asked. "They've been starving it. It's too hungry to think straight. The perfect first test target."

Lizzy was too wrapped up in the fight to answer. The Worker Drone and Murder Drone seemed to be doing some kind of a dance, the former avoiding the latter as if he's been dodging drones since the day he was first built.

Finally, it seemed to be time. The Worker Drone lured the Murder Drone into crashing into the chains, let it tangle itself up as he ran for the Senitle, pulled something large and heavy down from its back and looped his arms through thick shoulder straps. The Murder Drone was shrieking and writhing as he made his way back to it.

"What was the shout again?" He asked nobody in particular.

"Time for marshmallows!" Doll called.

"Right!" The Worker Drone had a nasty smile as he pointed what looked like a hose at the Murder Drone. "Time for marshmallows."

Flames spewed out from the hose, engulfing the trapped Murder Drone. It screamed, writhed and broke free, charging for the Worker Drone before a flash from the Senitle (which Doll covered Lizzy's eyes to shield her from) froze it in its tracks and made it fall to the ground.

"Well!" Mused the drone in the metal box. "So much for that idea."

"It needs more work." The drone holding the flamethrower looked down the hose. "It gets too hot against my back and its really heavy. My Senitle can't run with it on."

"I'll let Jerry know. Back to the drawing board."

More drones entered the scene, the flamethrower holder rushing to put the bandanna back over the confused Senitle's eyes as they came in. Doll turned to Lizzy. "What did you think?"

She thinks she's gonna play dead before they ask her to track down "Envy" again. "It was, uh...It was great! Interesting."

"But?"

"But they're not going to fall for it. They're smarter than that." Lizzy crossed her arms and eyed the flamethrower critically. "Try it against one who's not starving to death."

"Where are we going to get one of those?" A guard coming in asked.

Doll smiled at Lizzy, seeming to thank her. "We know."

Lizzy had run her mouth again.

Oops.

Chapter Text

The apartment was quiet after Uzi left for her own house. V had taken over the single bedroom inside. Which was fine with N, he couldn't sleep anyway.

Disassembly Drones were hated, he got that. They were literally made to kill Worker Drones. Uzi used to be their go-between, but she had stopped trying a long time ago since most drones would simply run screaming from them. Even the adult ones, which was embarrassing (for them). However he now wished that she had kept it up, because it was obvious now that her fellow drones had taken what she had told them about Disassembly Drones and was using it to find ways to kill them.

Nervous. Adjective. Easily agitated or alarmed, tending to be anxious, highly strung. Worried and anxious. Someone had told him once that putting his emotions into words would help him out with them.

Who told him that? Was it J? Nah, Jay was a bit mean. She would just tell him to keep working.

Didn't sound like V.

Definitely wasn't Uzi.

Nervous. Highly strung.

He sat down at the worn table and tried to think about something else. About the progress they had made, maybe. They had found the Killer Mothites' lair, that was a good step! They found a way in, that was also good. Lizzy had been carried in...Though she wasn't in good shape. V's wing still wasn't working, either. And Uzi has been using her Absolute Solver more often than either of them were happy with.

The bad outweighed the good. Again.

"Uzi's dad works with doors," he mused to himself. "Maybe he can help us? If we send him an anonymous message? But then that dinosaur drone...No no, that's a bad idea. Uzi might want to go with him and she'll get herself in trouble, or-or hurt. Maybe we can bring them a dead drone as bait. But then her dad'll see me, and who knows what side he's on..."

N's head hit the table with an audible clang. Planning a revolution against the revolution was hard.

Footsteps coming in made him lift his head again. V stepped in somewhat shyly, Uzi's blanket covering her shoulders like a cloak. The metallic silver of her busted wing flashed in the moonlight as she walked over to sit across from him.

"You can't sleep either, huh," she asked him, sort of.

N shook his head. V tsked. "You really should. You look tired."

"So do you," he said.

"No I don't."

"You do." N tilted his head. "Either that, or your visor's broken."

V winced and looked away, her eyes glitching slightly when she blinked. "Just my luck..."

"I'm sorry, V—"

"Don't start with that. Don't you dare give me any pity." V's working wing flared slightly under her cape. "You didn't do this. Alright? Nobody did but those stupid Worker Drones. Why did we ever decide to take their side?"

"Because Uzi—"

"Yeah, Uzi. Who you infected." V shot him a glare as she spoke. "Maybe this is your fault. The one Worker Drone you figured we could afford to spare kickstarts a revolution that could get us all killed. What would J say to you, N?"

N wilted under her glare and didn't answer. V's wing flattened against her back again and she breathed out heavily.

"I'm sorry I said that," she said quietly.

"It's fine. You're right."

"Well, yeah. I mean, maybe."

Silence.

"What'll we do now?"

V shrugged. "We wait for Lizzy. And if she doesn't come back, then we try to get in ourselves."

"We're masters of disguise!" N said with a grin.

V shook her head, a smile tugging at her synthetic mouth. "I mean, probably. We were responsible for a school trip, after all."

"And you only caused one death then! I'm so proud of you—"

"Shut up!"

V swung at him, yet her bladed claws didn't so much as graze N's hair. Three telltale yellow lines at the bottom of each side of her visor made N's smile grow wider. 'She's being cute!'

"How do you think they tamed those Sentile things?"

His smile fell. "I don't know," he admitted. "But it...It scares me."

"They're killable, you know?" V sat back in her chair, neck arched against the back to look at the ceiling. "I brought down a few before they got me."

"How?"

"Blind them." V looked over her claws. "Beat them at their own game. Move faster than they do. You can even turn them on each other if you get one to flash the other, it'll make it angry."

"So we could have—"

"I was a coward," V hissed, mostly to herself. "I can't believe it. I could have just taken that thing out when we first saw it. I froze. They still scare me. They've always scared me, ever since we first saw them."

N wanted to reach out to her, to tell her that it was okay, but it really wasn't. The events of that night could have been circumvented by her taking out the dinosaur drone first thing. But then, maybe he was being a hypocrite; he could have done the same thing himself.

Guilty.

"We know now, don't we?" He said cautiously. "So we know how to, um..."

"What to do if we go back."

"Yeah."

Silence. V started fiddling with her long metal claws, the tips scratching thin white lines into the table. A soft sound from the outside made her freeze, tilting her head sharply. N tried to focus on the silence and heard the sound turn into a far-away voice.

"V?"

"Keep quiet," V said in a harsh whisper. "I don't trust it. She was in bad shape, how did she get out so quickly?"

"V?" Lizzy was calling out in a small voice, sounding like a wounded baby AI. "Where are you? I need–I got away, but my arm–it really hurts!"

N shifted his weight. He didn't know Lizzy very well, but he knew her well enough that this wasn't like her. Which meant either V was right, this was a fake; or there was something seriously wrong with her.

"I'm going to go look."

"Over my dead body—"

"Just to peek!" N pulled his arm free of V's claws when she grabbed a hold of him. "Just to peek. I won't interact."

V didn't look convinced. After a brief moment of mulling it over, she climbed out of her seat.

"I'm coming with you."

It wasn't an offer, it was an absolute. N wisely chose against commenting on her sudden change of heart and the two Disassembly Drones crept out of the apartment and down the hall to the doorway leading outside.

Lizzy's voice didn't seem to get any louder even as N pressed his head against the door. He slowly pushed it open and put his visor to the crack in it, straining his eyes to see any potential threat or drone. Lizzy was quiet for a moment, then she finally became louder; having likely moved closer.

V's working wing raised, causing the blanket-cloak to drape over N's back. Her inner workings started to buzz at a more audible level. She was conflicted.

N pushed the door open further and followed it, tentatively peering out around it to take in the alleyway in full.

Someone with long hair was standing at the side of the street, calling for V. Whether or not it was actually Lizzy, N couldn't tell; something was screwing with his eyesight.

V's broken wing scraping against the concrete snapped "Lizzy" to attention and made her turn around. Her pink eyes flashed briefly (or was it a blink?) as she took a few hesitant steps towards the two.

"Are you there, V?" She asked. "It's Lizzy. I got out. I have so much to tell you!"

"What's wrong with you?" V asked. "You're acting odd."

Lizzy stumbled and almost fell. V moved quickly, going from leaning against N to catching her before she smashed her head on the concrete ground.

"Why'd you come all the way out here on a broken leg?" V asked angrily. "Are you glitched?!"

"It was convenient—"

"The Hell it was! Look at you, Lizzy!"

N silded up to them, tucking his hands behind his back. "She...Looks fine to me."

"You also thought Uzi looked 'fine' when she was a zombie," V shot back. "I don't want to hear it from you."

That was a little unfair. Uzi wasn't fine, granted, but she was scared; so some sense of normalcy—

Lizzy and V started to glitch, fuzzing in and out of his view. Trying to focus amidst all the warnings flashing in his visor, N wound up stumbling into V, who didn't seem to be faring very well either.

A stone rolled by, clacking against his foot. An alarm went off in his head. Lizzy wasn't alone.

The butt of a gun slammed into his back, further screwing with his sensors. The blurry figure who had hit him used his blind swing to get another hit in–this time at his chest, sending him to the ground. He lashed out with his claws and caught something, oil splattering his eyes and leaving him even more discombobulated.

"What're you doing?!" Lizzy shouted over the conflict. "Leave them alone! This is not what I said to do!"

An electrified chain went around N's wrists, snapping them together before he was yanked to the ground. His flailing wings caught something and lifted it up before an electrical jolt threw off everything but the audio.

"What're you DOING?" Lizzy snapped. "Let him go!"

"Leave the other one," a rough voice said. "We can come back for it later."

"Why did you even follow me?! You put me in danger, you morons! You know what these gu–these things are like!"

"And that, little lady," a foggy figure booped Lizzy for emphasis, "is why we followed you. Can't have another one of your generation go down to these things."

The electricity was starting to wear off. N was yanked to his feet and shoved away from the chain wielder as the growing group of drones started laughing.

Whoever was holding him started to speak, only to get cut off by N spreading his wings and suddenly taking off. He took the chain and the drone with him, hauled them both up to eye level—

And got snapped up into a net, dragging him back down again with a clang.

N freed himself with a feral struggle and forced himself onto his feet, another blow to his back sending him down again. He struck at the attacker, catching their leg and making them stumble when the chain went off again, scrambling his sensors and kicking his inner working into overdrive. Heavy hands forced him onto his back and pinned him down by the shoulders, a shadowy figure blocked the moon from his vision, something red-hot in their hands as they raised it—

His vision was suddenly blocked. Or did he go blind? Though there was a "DANGER" flashing across his visor, it was hard to tell just from that alone.

"Fine!" Lizzy snapped. "You can take him. But please, stop bashing him around. And leave the other one alone!"

'V was still there?' She wasn't saying anything and it was hard to tell where she was just by listening.

"Lizzy—"

"I'm not getting off him unless you agree. You can take him as he is, unharmed...Mostly, or you can ruin your precious reputation by pinning your daughter's best friend to a killing machine and leaving her to die."

There was a pause as whoever that was seemed to seriously consider the idea. The shape blocking N's vision moved, keeping one hand on his arm as if to reassure him. Shifting just to move his head got him another nasty shock, something that felt very important giving way with a quiet bang and visible spark.

"Get it on its feet," the one Lizzy had spoken to said. "Leave the other one, it looks pretty dead anyway."

"Give me that!"

"Nuh-uh, little one." The chain wielder raised their end of the chain higher when Lizzy reached for it. "We may happily and willingly put weapons and work items in your hands, but this thing is another matter."

"It's not that different," she scoffed.

"It is now because I say so. Now let's go."

N was hauled back to his feet, his sensors scrambling once again. Whoever held the other end of the chain yanked him along like a misbehaving dog.

Golden retrievers have gentle mouths.

He looked back. V was lying wrapped up in a similar chain, unmoving even as a straggler poked at her with a stick. The straggler's friend grabbed the stick out of his hand with a frown and pushed him after the group as N was yanked forward.

Golden retrievers have gentle mouths. German Shepherds have a very strong bite force.

Maybe if he focuses on dog facts again, he'll forget the situation he's in.

The dinosaur drone was surprisingly happy to let them pass even with him in tow. It merely sniffed at him and eagerly skittered away when one member of the group gave it a harsh push. He had to duck his head to enter the Killer Mothites lair, snapping his tail in mere seconds before it could close on it and remove his secret weapon.

Lizzy had kept a hand on his arm as they went, and for once he was grateful. Confusion over her loyalties aside, she was the most familiar thing he had in his line of sight. He wound his tail around her arm in thanks–for all of half a second, as the butt of a gun crashing into one of his wings told him that the Mothites didn't think that was a safe idea.

He was placed (or more accurately: shocked before being picked up and thrown) into a hanging cage. He pushed himself back as the cage swayed and started to rise, leaving him suspended in the air among a dozen other (mostly empty) cages. Another Disassembly Drone was in one next to him, steaming and biting at the bars for any kind of relief.

N drew his legs up and hugged them. He jolted when his cage swayed again, this time descending. When it stopped back at the platform, Lizzy was standing with a key in her hand.

"I can't let you out," she said. "They left me with the key too easily. I'm afraid they're expecting me to."

"That makes sense," N said with a shrug.

His shrug seemed to reassure her that he meant no harm, as she stepped closer. "I don't know why they followed me, I really don't. I told them I was just heading back to pick something up at a time you weren't going to be there."

"Do they know about us?"

"They call you Envy." Lizzy glanced over her shoulder before continuing. "And Uzi is the Bat. They want–I think they want to use you and V to lure her here and finish all of you off at the same time."

"But you told them about us, right? That we're harmless?"

Lizzy gave him a flat look. N slowly wilted under the weight of her stare.

"Well, maybe not harmless," he conceded. "Mostly harmless. Somewhat harmless?"

Lizzy crossed her arms. "V killed my mom less than a day ago."

"Did you even like your mother?"

"That's besides the point."

It really wasn't, but Lizzy was the only drone he had on his side here, so he let it go.

Voices coming down the hall made her jump. She gasped and reached straight through a wall for something.

"I'll come back later," she said in a harsh whisper. "I promise! Just don't tell anyone that I'm talking to you!"

She sent the cage back up before he could answer. He found himself hanging once again, alone beside the overheating Disassembly Drone now trying to reach for him. Their arm was long enough that if the cage swung in their direction just a little bit, they'd be able to pull it against theirs and get at him. They knew it, too; as they were hopping and desperately flapping as they reached.

N sat on the far side of his cage and listened to the voices bouncing off the walls; Lizzy and the Killer Mothites discussing his ultimate fate.

Fear. Verb. Be afraid of a thing that is likely to be dangerous, painful or threatening.