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Chapter Text

Another little idea swirling inside my head. Murder Drones being more digital and sci-fi and there being a general lack of good Digimon fanfictions out there, stuff like this should pretty much write itself. But for now, this is just a oneshot. Just like with my Murder Drones/Yu-Gi-Oh! GX story, I'd not mind expanding this into a full story, if there is demand for it.

I really had to think about what Digimon to use here though, before I settled on one.

Anyway, without any further ado, let's get this started.

Disclaimer: I do not own Murder Drones or Digimon.

Railgun and Digital Reinforcement

Chapter 1 - Digi-what now?

Exhaustion gnawed on Uzi Doorman's mind as she struggled to stay awake while her teacher droned on and on about the topic of this lesson, that she couldn't have been bothered to remember. The goth worker drone really couldn't tell what it was as her mind was occupied with more pressing matters. Matters such as the question why they were even having this class in the first place when she could do so many better things instead.

'Come on. Get this class over with already.' She thought impatiently.

Luckily for her, it looked like Robo-God smiled down upon her for her patience and decided to release her from the torment of class when another boring school day came to when the alarm on the teacher's visor finally rang. Said worker drone merely tapped the side of his head with the same enthusiasm as he held his lessons (AKA none) before he addressed the students which already dumped their belongings back into their bags and got up from their seats to head out of the suffocating classroom.

"Please prepare for your upcoming presentations to the topic of buying watermelons next week." The teacher said in the same monotonous voice he had used for the entirety of the class. Some students groaned in response, most ignored him and headed out, including Uzi.

Once outside, most of her classmates gathered together in their respective friend groups, chatting with one another and/or going somewhere. Uzi, on the other hand, simply walked alone. Sure, pretty much everyone in Outpost 3 knew the daughter of Khan Doorman, the guy who built the heavy and foolproof gates that kept them safe inside the bunker, but not in a positive way. It might also not help the fact that her antics in the last couple of months(?) had become more destructive and violent. She was a rebel after all and not afraid to bite back if someone decided to mess with her. As she made her way towards home, she passed a group of popular girls.

She could hear them snicker at her and take jabs at her expense. Whether it was her clothes, her hair or how she apparently creeped them out, she had long since become used to it all... That didn't mean though that she'd just grin and bear it. Gritting her teeth she snapped her head around to them and glared.

"Ugh! Bite me!" Uzi snapped at them, before stomping back to her home. She heard them laugh at her reaction, making her want to go back and crack their heads open, but she was not that weak minded. 'Stupid social programs...' She thought to herself as she walked back home alone once more. Here and there, other worker drones gave her looks or just greeted her, but she really was not in the mood for it. She mostly ignored them, before finally arriving in the apartment of her and her dad. As usual, no one was home. Just the same old and empty place that she called home...
Not that she would have thought that her dad would be home anyway, when he's probably too busy with building a door or something.

'Home sweet home...' She thought joylessly as she headed straight into her room. Her personal sanctuary. Unlike the rest of the apartment, it was mostly dark and gloomy with dim violet lights and generally in a constant state of chaos that she found comfort in. Slipping the backpack off of her shoulders and setting it down to the ground, Uzi went to her desk and booted up her computer to start working on her project.

Oh, she was going to show the class something, alright. But not something as boring and pointless as a presentation on buying watermelons. There weren't even any more watermelons on Copper-9, for crying out loud! The planet's core collapsing had killed off all organic life anyway, with maybe the exception of some redwood trees that somehow still managed to persist against the bitter cold climate of the frozen exoplanet.

No, what she intended to show off was her sick as hell railgun, a weapon with which she intended on getting rid off those murder drones outside of Outpost 3 once and for all... and maybe to finally get some recognition from her door obsessed father that she wasn't a failure.

But first, she needed to work on the weapon a bit more. While she was working on her railgun with her headphones on, time flew past her so much that she barely had an idea what time it was when she took note of it being late in the evening already. Though it mattered little to her, Uzi was somewhat surprised that her father had not yet returned.

'Probably talking about how great his stupid doors are...' She thought as she looked at the blueprints of her railgun. With this she'd finally get the respect of her dad and kill the murder drones outside of Outpost 3 and save the world... But most importantly get her father to see her not as a failure. 'Alright then, now just save and one step closer to avenging your death, Mom. Easy...' She thought before moving the cursor of her mouse over the save icon.

Then all of the sudden her computer's screen went black. For a second Uzi stopped moving, looking at the screen with hollowed eye lights.

"No. Nononono! No! Come on, don't die on me now! I didn't get to save my changes yet!" She said as she pressed buttons in hopes to get some sort of positive reaction out of the computer, but the screen remained pitch black. Uzi let out a loud outcry of frustration as all her unsaved work appeared to have been lost as well as her PC apparently having crashed down entirely. "This stupid- AGH!" She stood up and kicked her bed in frustration. A string of curses came out of her mouth as she paced around her room while still cursing.

Uzi only abruptly stopped mid-swear when she took note of a static sound filled the air. At first, she didn't hear it while she was too caught up in her tantrum nor the fact that her own room's lighting had shut down somehow, but then it filled her audio receptors almost entirely, forcing her to press her hands against the sides of her head. It was then that she noticed a bright light coming from her PC monitor. The previously pitch black screen lit up in white with the air around it seemingly glitching. Here and there, her eyes saw symbols that she could not identify rapidly change in long lines, appearing and disappearing as if not really there at all. Uzi's head felt dizzy and her breath quickened in her panic, yet a sense of dread paralyzed her from moving at all. All she could do was watching as something made its way out of her computer's screen and into the room.

And then it abruptly stopped. The screen shut down again, drowning the room in darkness before it booted back up, showing the latest progress on her railgun as if nothing had happened. Well, aside from the thick fog that now obscured most of her view. She made the mistake of inhaling it, finding herself coughing slightly as she squinted her eyes, trying her best to figure out what had just happened and what was in front of her. Her legs bumped into the frame of her bed as she made her way around it.

At first, all appeared to be normal. Despite the fog being the densest around the desk, the screen of her PC illuminated the desk enough to show that everything was where it had been just a moment ago. In fact, the screen showed the latest changes she had made to her railgun's blueprint just before the screen had turned black a moment ago. Uzi eyed the PC for a moment before quickly saving the progress she had thought to have been lost. However, just as she did the mouseclick to do so, she heard shuffling from the corner of the room where the fog was still lingering on. Her eye lights turned to the spot in horror as all she could make out was some sort of dark mass against the white fog obscuring her view and the dim lighting of her room. A moment later, the a pair of red glowing eyes opened and stared right back at her making her stumble back in a panic. Then it moved.

The first thing Uzi managed to make out was a tail that slowly moved from side to side. Then it stood up, raising its body roughly to the height of her chest, revealing a vague humanoid shape. As the fog began to drift away, the worker drone could make out more and more details as the outline of the thing shifted and changed. The red glowing eyes became a soft yellow like amber with big round pupils. Once the fog was completely lifted, the worker drone still had some trouble trying to wrap her head around what she was looking at and what was looking back at her.

For all intents and purposes it looked like a child-sized humanoid theropod dinosaur in a military uniform. On top of that, its skin was a strange pixalted camouflage pattern of blue and greys, strangely enough fitting the colour scheme of her room. If it wasn't for the uniform or the eyes, she probably wouldn't have seen it immediately.

"What the-" Uzi said absentminded, when she took note of something else. The... thing was holding a gun. An assault rifle to be precise. Immediately, she took a step back despite the weapon being lowered. It looked at her for the longest moment before suddenly straightening its back, put its rifle next to it with one arm and saluting with the other by brining its three fingered claw to its helmet.

"Commandramon, r-porting for du-y." It said in a somewhat glitchy tone, before lowering its hand and stepping forward. "Oof!" ...only to trip over some of Uzi's scattered clothes on the ground and fall face first onto the ground. The drone in question merely looked down at the... dinosaur soldier thing scrambling to get back on its feet. Despite her initial fear, she did no longer feel like she was in any real danger. Except for a misfiring of the gun, that was.

"Huh?" Was the only intelligent response Uzi could make at this surreal experience as something caught her attention. A small device laid on the table that she had never seen before and knew for sure that it had not been there a moment ago. Grabbing it while the thing finally picked itself back up on its two feet, Uzi could tell that it was some sort of gadget. It had a square shape with a small screen and two buttons on the side. It was mostly black in colour with the buttons having a dark purple shade similar to her eyes. The gadget was small enough to easily fit into her palm and reminded her of one of those v-pets or tamagotchi toys the humans used to have.

"What's this?" Uzi looked at the small gadget in her hand, turning it around in her hand and eyeing it suspiciously from all sides. The screen suddenly projected some circular holographic window as she held it towards the creature she had almost forgotten about, causing her to jump backwards and bump into her table with her back. Letting out a hiss of discomfort at this, she looked at the window in confusion as it was displaying a bunch of data alongside what looked like a stock image of the creature in front of her.

Digimon Analyzer

Commandramon

Level: Rookie

Cyborg Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: M16 Assassin

2nd Attack: DCD Bomb

Uzi read the lines again and again, trying to make sense of it when all of the sudden something tugged at her sleeve lightly. Careful not to startle her, but forceful enough to snap her out of her train of thoughts. Tearing her eyes away from the holographic screen, which disappeared back into the device almost instantly, she looked down to see the creature look at her with big amber eyes.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" The creature then asked in a slightly concerned tone, the glitch in its voice now gone, making it sound masculine though a bit high-pitched like a young boy. She blinked in confusion before realizing that this... whatever it was had actually just talked to her.

"Of course it talks..." Uzi said as she took a step away from it, starting to question her sanity or if this was all just a dream induced by her overworking herself on her railgun. That was at least what she was trying to convince herself off while rubbing her temples, when it replied.

"Why wouldn't I be able to talk?" It asked, tilting its head slightly to the side. "You can talk as well after all." Uzi was about to interject something before stopping herself.

"That's... fair, I guess." Uzi said, before looking at it sceptically. "Commandramon, right?" The blue camouflage dinosaur nodded with a smile. "What exactly are you and why are you here?" She asked. In response, Commandramon puffed out its chest and raised a finger in a matter of fact way.

"I'm a Digimon. That's short for digital monster. And as to why I'm here..." It suddenly trailed off as its face became more conflicted and lowered its finger slightly. "Why I am here is... uhm..." It then brought its hand to its head, scratching at its helmet and tapping its chin with another. "I think I should remember that... Why am I here?"

"That's what I was asking." The purple-haired drone threw up her arms before sitting down on her bed, whilst Commandramon was still trying their best to recall whatever the reason was for it to appear and mumbling something about "being called". Her eyes wandered to the small gadget in her hand, before looking back at the small saurian digimon. "Can you tell me what this is then at least?" Uzi asked as she showed it to them. At the sight of it, the digimon's eyes widened with recognition.

"Oh, that's a Digivice!" Commandramon beamed with a smile. Uzi waited a second, expecting the newly identified digital monster to continue, but it did nothing but excitedly wag its tail.

"Does everything start with the syllables 'digi-' where you come from?" Uzi asked with an eye roll. Commandramon thought a bit about it for a moment before replying.

"Not everything. But most things do, yes!" They said. A small anger tick appeared on Uzi's digital visor as she crossed her arms.

"Okay, and what does this digi-whatever do?" She asked, making Commandramon pout slightly.

"It's really important, you know? A digivice marks someone as a digidestined. Someone who has a digimon partner and make them help to grow stronger to protect this world and the digital world." They said. There was another moment of silence as the gears in both of their heads started turning and both came to a realization.

"I'm sorry- WHAT!? What do you mean 'partners'?!" Uzi shouted as she leapt up from her bed, startling Commandramon, who accidentally pulled the trigger of their gun, which then fired some rounds into Uzi's ceiling. "My room!" She shouted as she looked and the newly made bullet holes in her ceiling and wall. Luckily nothing else had been hit, including herself, but it certainly startled her.

"Ah! I'm sorry!" Commandramon quickly apologized before turning the safety of their gun back on. Before either could however do much else, the door to Uzi's room swung open and a worker drone with a mustache entered.

"Uzi?! Are you alright? I heard guns firing! Is this another of your..." Khan's voice trailed off as he looked at the digimon and Uzi both looking surprised at him in an awkward silence. "Uhm... Uzi? Is there something you might want to tell me?" Khan asked in a tone that was clearly not to be mistaken for a question as he looked at Commandramon. Said Digimon awkwardly waved at him with an apologetic smile, while Uzi really wanted to disappear right now... and maybe yell at her dad to get out of her room for not knocking...

"So what you are saying is, that there is an entire parallel world made out of computer data and our digital networks have like minimal access to it?" Uzi asked as she sat at the dinner table of her family's apartment next to her dad (though with some distance put between them) and opposite to Commandramon, who was lazily kicking back and forth his feet under the table, whilst his rifle had been taken away and placed against a wall and out of reach.

"Yes. The digital world or digiworld." They replied with a nod.

"And you have really no clue how you got here?" Khan asked. "Aside from this whole 'digidestined' thing you said about you and my daughter being 'partners' now." He said the word 'partners' with air quotations.

"No sir. Not a clue." Commandramon replied in a slightly more soldier-like tone.

"Dad! Don't make it sound weirder than it already is!" Uzi groaned. The digimon in question looked between the two of them, feeling rather out of place, aside from literally having travelled to another world.

"Uhm... maybe friends then?" They offered, making the two drones look at them, then back at one another.

Right after meeting the digimon, both Khan and Uzi wanted answers and much to their surprise, Commandramon was very cooperative. Even though they didn't exactly remember a lot to begin with, they did manage to clue the worker drones in on the most basic things as best as they could. Despite their militaristic exterior, they were rather socially awkward, reminding Khan of a certain someone sitting next to him. Though that did not take away the worries he had for her...

"Uzi, can we talk for a moment?" Khan said before standing up. Uzi frowned but followed her father a bit down the hallway of their small apartment. "I don't like this at all. First this thing appears out of nowhere and now it says something about saving the world and what not." Khan said with crossed arms.

"As if this doesn't weird to me too." She replied with her own arms crossed. While Khan and Uzi were talking, they failed to notice how Commandramon stood up and headed into Uzi's room where they saw something catching his eye.

"Then you agree that they need to go, right?" Khan asked with a raised eyebrow, earning a huff from his daughter in response.

"Go where? We barely got a clue how they even got here in the first place." She argued.

"They can't just stay here." Khan said.

"So what do you suggest? Just throwing them out of the bunker for no reason?"

"We don't even know what they are. What if they break one of our doors next? You saw what they did to your wall and ceiling. I'd rather not have them accidentally blow up my doors, you know?"

"Oh, of course it's about the doors."

As the two drones were talking, several of Uzi's personal belongings were thrown out of her room when Commandramon finally returned with something in his hands.

"Uhm, Uzi?"

"What?" Uzi snapped before freezing seeing Commandramon having picked up her railgun and inspecting it in its hands.

"This one could need a bit of improvements. It's pretty unbalanced." The digimon said as it was carefully looking over Uzi's handiwork with a critical eye. "And this part looks like its not wired to the right place."

"Bite me!" Uzi quickly crossed the distance between her and the digimon, taking great offense in her work being criticised.

"No, here look." Commandramon pointed at something on the railgun, making Uzi look harder and see that they were correct. Before long, the two were huddled over the railgun and talking about how to improve the magnetically amplified photon converger of Uzi's own design. The tone shifted quickly from being offended to generally discussing the firearm in question. Though the two did disagree on the customizations on the gun as Uzi wanted keep her personal touch on the gun and Commandramon would have preferred functionality over aesthetics.

Meanwhile, Khan could just watch from the sidelines, not really understanding a word the two were saying and not being quite sure whether he should be happy at his daughter finally having made a friend with similar interests as her or worried about her being friends with some saurian soldier from a digital place.

For the moment, all he did was taking a sip from his '#1 Dad' mug of oil.

Before you ask what's wrong with the Digimon Analyzer, this is what it was like in the first 3 seasons of Digimon in the German Dub version and honestly I prefer it over the flavour text that became the analyzer in Frontier and Data Squad as this is what I have grown up with first. Nothing against the longer versions from the original dub and latter seasons as it's nice to basically get some information like the flavor text of a normal monster card from Yu-Gi-Oh!, some pokédex entry or even the entries of the official Digimon Reference Book, but I just like this one more.

But as I mentioned before, I would not mind expanding this into a full story, IF people are interested in this sort of story. Just let me know in the reviews if you'd be down for that. Also, please no bots sending weird phishing/chain mail comments anymore. Looking at you, LydiaCrazzy. That profile sent the same message to an (albeit annoying) acquaintance of mine as a PM before, and I've been getting messages like that on more than one occassion in my PMs. I've already asked for that particular review to be removed and blocked that profile for good measure, so good riddance. Seriously, some people just are shameless nowadays... The only thing crazy is that they don't delete profiles like that.

Anyway, I hope you all have a nice one and I'll see you beautiful people next time.

Chapter Text

I really didn't think it would take this long for me to finally update this. And I didn't think the chapter would balloon like this. I mean, 11 months? For a chapter I had already planned in my head from start to finish back then? I really need to step up my game here.

But as you might have noticed from me updating the first chapter by adding a chapter title about a month ago, I am proud to announce that this story is no longer a one-shot and has become a fully-fledged story. Back then I had almost this chapter finished, but then life tried to trip me and throw me down a staircase again, so that's the reason for that and I'm sorry for that.

With no further delay, off into the second chapter.

Chapter 2: Bring-your-Pet-to-Work/School-Day

The early morning hours were always the time Uzi Doorman's mind was truly calm. Whether it was the past trauma of losing her mother at a young age to the disassembly drones outside of Outpost 3, the ridicule of her peers at school and her totally chosen social isolation, her desire to prove herself to her father to not be a failure (as he had literally called her that in multiple interviews with the local media) and avenge her mother or the lack of a social circle or all things above combined into a slurry of problems, Uzi's processors were almost constantly just a bit short from frying themselves. Even if she would never admit it to herself or anyone else, the purple-haired worker drone teen had suffered a great deal. Only during sleep mode did this everlasting buzz seem like a distant memory or so far away. It might induce nightmares every now and then, but for the most part her nights were peaceful.

And as such, they too must come to an end...

The built-in alarm clock feature in Uzi's head cared not for her inner turmoil as it buzzed harshly in the dark stillness of her room, only stopping after a while when she half-heartedly slapped her hand on her face with a tired groan. Instantly, her display switched to her normal eyes, blinking lazily while her vision adjusted to the familiar sight of her room's ceiling. Sitting up in her bed, she instantly regretted the decision and held her head as the echo of a digital migraine shot through her. Uzi nursed side of her head with one hand and hit the light switch next to her bed with the other. After a few failed attempts missing her target, the dim lights of her room came on and bathed the place in soft purple light. Her optical sensors adjusted few seconds later and the headache slowly eased away, fading into nothing but a memory of mild discomfort.

"Ugh... bite me subsystems... was I awake pawning noobs until 3 in the morning again?" She muttered to herself, turning to her computer setup and finding its game controller right where she had last left it a few days ago and untouched ever since. Frowning and squinting her eyes, Uzi scanned the room in a half-asleep state a moment longer for any clues that might explain her headache. Finally, she gave up trying to make sense of the situation with a groan and rolled her eyes before throwing the blanket off of her and moving over to a small mirror mounted on her wardrobe while dragging her feet over the floor and almost instinctively avoiding the piles of things on the ground to not trip and fall.

After a short routine of putting on her clothes and fixing her morning hair, the worker drone was still groggy from her sleep mode when she picked up her beanie and put it on her head. Despite of how she was yet again ready for another day if school in Outpost 3, Uzi still felt like she was missing some piece of the puzzle that would explain her unusual tiredness. She vaguely recalled something about her gun and a pair of organic amber eyes just as she shook her head as if trying to banish the thought and delete it from her memory.

"Robo-Jesus, I have had the weirdest dream..." She said to herself, while stretching her arms over head, failing to notice the bullet holes in the ceiling just above her. "I swear, if this keeps going, I'll have to see a doctor and have myself reformatted..." Uzi said before dragging herself towards the door to the kitchen/living area of her family's (or rather her and her father's) living quarters, oblivious to a small device sitting on the shelf right next to her.

She about to open the door when she heard something faintly through it. There was the sound of dishes clattering in the sink and the low hum of the oven running. Furthermore, a warm acidic smell hit her sensors, that made her mouth water... not with actual water, of course. Apparently, whoever made the worker drones thought it to be funny that they would try and imitate human behavior and actually gave them some unusual characteristics such as the ability to sweat and salivate in a form of a weak acid to break down some of the things they would try to consume. Still, to say this sort of thing was rare if not downright exceptional was about as obvious as saying that Copper 9's surface was a frozen wasteland.

Uzi quickly shook her head at that thought. "Probably just my repressed social programs and childhood trauma acting up again." She said as she opened her doo. And immediately froze. Her digital eyes widened and hollowed out as she was greeted with a sight, that she most certainly did not expect to see in the morning at all.

Sitting at a set table was her dad, reading today's newspaper like it was the most normal thing to do. Obviously, the front page was dominated with a picture of him and one of the doors he built and how it was the one thing that kept them alive and so on and so forth. Now Uzi most certainly had not expected her dad to still be home when she woke up for school. Usually, he wasn't home at all. Not even to sleep as he would play cards with his colleagues of the WDF, because that was all they were doing all day long while sitting in front of that door and not doing any actual defending, and fall asleep sitting on the same chair alongside the others. She didn't really know what to say really, when the sound of the dishes clattering in the sink again made her turn her head slightly to behold an even more bizarre sight.

Standing in the kitchen of her family's living unit was a certain digital monster with an apron donned over his tactical gear and bulletproof vest; while carrying a tray of still steaming and sparking batteries he had just removed from the oven, acid still leaking onto the tray and sizzling on the hot metal. The aroma of baked batteries filled the air and once more reminded Uzi that it was time for breakfast. When she still didn't move towards the table and denied her stomach the input it craved, it let out a rumbling sound in protest.

Loudly.

Immediately, Khan looked up from the newspaper article patting him on the back and Commandramon turned fully to her with the tray still in hand and Uzi now seeing what was written onto the black apron alongside a yellow electricity warning sign. 'Don't touch the cook. High voltage!' Involuntarily, a bright purple blush dusted the edge of her visor near the cheeks as she realized what had just happened and how her digestive subsystem had betrayed her.

"Good morning, Uzi. Did you sleep well?" Commandramon asked while giving a salute before quickly putting his hand back on the tray to prevent it from accidentally tilting over.

"Uhm... yeah, good morning, Uzi..." Khan said more awkwardly, seemingly just as uncomfortable with the situation of seeing his daughter in the morning as she was seeing him at home. "Come over and..." Khan quickly glanced at a large paper manual sitting on the kitchen counter next to him reading in big capital letters 'PARENTING MANUAL'. "'Have breakfast with us'... Was that good?" Khan asked Commandramon, who had set the tray down on the table and gave him a smile and a thumbs up impression with his three fingered talon for a hand.

Uzi responded by her visor suddenly going blue with an error message popping up and wordlessly falling backwards into her room.

Commandramon tilted his head sideways at this and looked at Khan for advice, who shrugged and grabbed the parenting manual to consult it on what to do next in the event of the child bluescreening on the parent.

Shortly after, Uzi found herself in a very awkward situation. Across from her sat Khan, who had set aside his newspaper and the parenting manual for a moment and just sipped the steaming contents of his mug, and next to her sat a certain digital lifeform, slightly kicking its feet back and forth as it struggled to pick up a fork with its claws without breaking or bending it like the small pile of scrap metal that used to be cutlery now laying next to it at the edge of the table.

Uzi wasn't sure when the last time had been that she had breakfast with her dad. She vaguely remembered being younger, not dressing as gloomy and being shorter... yes, there was indeed a time she was even shorter than now. The vaguest idea of a half-deleted memory was her mother and father sitting together opposite to Uzi, the feeling of a microfiber napkin gently brushing away the mess she had made on her face like most toddlers do. She slightly remembered Khan, but before he had been all obsessed with doors. Sure, he liked designing and building doors back then already, but it wasn't all he ever talked about. Uzi also remembered her younger self laughing, genuinely laughing with her family, kicking her feet back and forth before her feet could reach the floor when sitting at the table and always falling a short distance or climbing up whenever getting up or off the chair. A small warm feeling bloomed in her mind at the memory like the last remaining heat emanating from an extinguished fire.

But that had obviously been before her mother Nori had died by the hands of the disassembly drones.

After that, the purple drone had made herself whatever she could just heat up in a microwave and eat as a snack to keep her body running. Probably that was also a reason for her short relative height compared to her peers, but what kind of nutrition values did a worker drone even have to meet in the first place, right?

Still, the whole situation of her sitting opposite of her dad and eating breakfast just didn't sit right with her. Like looking at a seemingly perfect picture but knowing that something is off that becomes completely obvious once discovered.
And the digital monster in form of a cybernetically enhanced dinosaur, that was shorter than her and dressed like a member of the military from movies, games and anime Uzi had consumed, was not helping the situation at all as he was looking at her with those big round yellow eyes as if expecting her to say something while she was chewing on a spoonful of batteries.

"So... (Insert Child's Name Here)..." Khan read aloud from his manual, almost making Uzi want to throw a fork at him in hopes to hit him in the eye. "How is-"

'Oh no, we are NOT doing this!' Uzi thought when she abruptly sat up from her chair, the sudden noise of it scraping against the floor of their apartment almost causing Commandramon to fall over in surprise. "I need to go! I'm late for school already." She quickly added, before mentally facepalming. 'What am I saying? This way I might actually be there in time.' She thought when a certain word caught the digimon's attention.

"School? Sounds fun. Can I come too?" Commandramon excitedly asked, wagging its tail and in doing so causing a dull thumping noise whenever it hit the floor.

"NO!" Both Uzi and Khan quickly said in unison, before looking at one another in surprise and then back at the digimon, whose smile faltered a bit at the immediate rejection.

"Why though?" Commandramon asked, clearly not understanding the obvious reason as to why going to school with her was a bad idea.

"Look, it was already pretty weird for us when you suddenly showed up here. Let's just try and keep it like that and..." Uzi's voice faltered as she tried to think of something. "I don't know I should have more than enough stuff in my room to keep someone entertained for a while at least."

"If you are talking about your collection of pirated anime, I have already skimmed through all of it while you slept. I don't know why you hid it away in so many folders though." Commandramon said, seemingly not realizing the somewhat shocked expression on Uzi's face as her eyes hollowed out at this news. Khan was also oblivious to that.

"Oh, uhm... N-No reason, really." The teenage drone said with an awkward smile. "Let's never talk about that, okay?" She added, making Commandramon raise an eyebrow in confusion while he looked at Uzi's face. There was a digital drop of sweat running down the side of her face with an expression that silently begged him to not ever lose another word of this. Luckily for her, he nodded in agreement, despite him not understanding it why. At that Uzi let out a small sigh of relief that she didn't know she held.

"I still would like to go to school with you though." Commandramon said before crossing his arms and his tail thumping against the ground once more, this time in slight irritation.

"Look, you cannot come. You're not a student. You're not a teacher. And you most certainly would just get bored there anyway." Uzi argued before moving over to her room to grab her backpack.

"Should I enroll myself then?"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Uzi's exclaim slightly echoed in her room and the small apartment before she emerged back into the kitchen/living area and walked over to the digimon, slightly bending over to be at its eye level. "Listen, it's not that long of a school day today and I'll be home soon enough. Just... don't try and follow me. Watch a whole marathon of your favorite anime or read a book or whatever." She offered. Commandramon's mouth twisted into a frown as he crossed his arms.

"I'm not a goldfish though. You and I are partners now. And doing nothing for no reason all day seems boring too." He said. Uzi felt like tying the digimon to a chair and locking the door, yet also felt that would be very inappropriate to do.

'Ugh... Is this how Mom felt when she had me? No, I wasn't that bad of kid... was I?' She thought for a moment when she felt something touch her shoulder. Turning around she saw her father standing next to her with a reassuring smile.

"Don't you worry about that Uzi. I have already thought of a solution for this little problem." He told his daughter with a thumbs up and a slight pat on the shoulder.

Unsurprising to perhaps only Khan and Commandramon, that statement made Uzi only worry a whole lot more as she looked at him with a look of utter bewilderment, while the digimon merely looked at him with his big eyes.

Outpost 3's general layout was largely dominated by wide and tunnels and walkways leading to the different areas within the worker drone bunker. These tunnels were in fact wide enough for a smaller vehicle to pass through with relative ease or originally heavy mining machinery as it was commonly used to transport rocks and minerals within and outside of the underground. That had been the case before the planet's core had collapsed. In the brief time between this cataclysmic event, which ironically led to the liberation of the worker drone population at the cost of most organic life, and the arrival of the disassembly drones on the planet in response to that, the underground shelter was in equal parts meant to be home to the worker drones as it was to serve as a safe space. As it turns out, Copper 9's new and harsher conditions were sometimes more hazardous to the drone population than the unethical working conditions in a JCJenson factory. The ruined landscape on the surface was not always very safe as the buildings had not been made for an unstable planet and the heavy storms that ravaged the atmosphere now could easily topple some of these structures were safety guidelines were more seen as suggestions by their corporate overlords.

For that reason, places like Outpost 3 did not need to be repurposed for the task of housing and maintaining a population of worker drones, which truly was a blessing in disguise considering the chaos that had originally followed the arrival of the 'murder drones'.

The only point to either enter or exit Outpost 3 without having to drill a hole in the ceiling laid behind three very doors. Though it was perhaps more fitting to call them hermetically sealed and near indestructible gateways more akin to the likes found on a spaceship or a military base. The original purpose was that in the improbable, yet not impossible event of a skyscraper from the city above coming down right on top of the bunker's doors to either withstand the blow or to at least have another door between the outside world and the drones inside to fall back on. And because all good things were three, the architect in charge of that project thought to himself "Why not one more?", which turned out to be even better considering the unfortunate development of events that followed. While the worker drones managed to deconstruct most of the buildings outside of their home that could potentially create such a hazard by toppling over and using the gathered materials for the construction of the bunker among other things, this trinity of doors was now also the only thing that stood valiantly between the people of Outpost 3 and total annihilation as none of the disassembly drone's weapons had managed to break through this impenetrable defense.

And no, it had absolutely nothing to do with Khan's wife Nori being a fan of a manga/anime from the 21st century with a relatively similar premise of humans having to hide behind multiple sets of walls from man-eating monsters! No matter who claimed to have heard her rant on about it in a drunken state to her husband or her best friend Yeva and her husband prior to their untimely deaths (may Robo-God rest their souls), it was totally all Khan's original idea! And no one could tell him or anyone else otherwise!

Due to the importance of this perfect defence mechanism and how it literally was the one thing that kept them alive, the gates gained somewhat of veneration from the other worker drones. Maintaining the doors was seen as more than just the mechanical work of worker drone engineers and soon they basically renamed themselves the Worker Defense Force or WDF for short.
Even if the only real defending the "defenders" did was defending their money as they usually spent all day lounging around the outer most door playing poker or some other card game. In fact, to not obstruct the passage between the colony and their work place, the other two doors in the large hallway leading out were kept open. So, there was only one door to really guard. It was a simple job, but it was honest work... Not every drone had such a poker face that it was impossible to tell what kind of hand they had and due to the constant use of the same cards, the numbers had started to be worn out by the fingers brushing against them, making it sometimes hard to guess what kind of card one was even looking at.

When Khan arrived at the door, four members of the WDF were stationed at their usual post of a foldable camping table sitting on foldable chairs as they played cards as usual. Next to each seat was a porcelain cup with some oil already sitting at the table. The members of the WDF simply kept sitting when they saw him arrive, smiling and waving at him.

"Hey Khan, you are coming just at the right time for the next round." One of the WDF guards said, holding in the hand he was waving a deck of cards he had been shuffling.

"Alright, I'll get to it in a minute. But first I have a little announcement to make." Khan said as he adjusted his fake moustache before he stepped to the side. The WDF guards' eyes widened as they looked in shock at the figure standing behind Khan. "This is Commandramon. He's one of Uzi's friends and our new honorary member." Khan said as he gestured at Commandramon... who was hidden inside a large cardboard box. Every bit of his body was hidden underneath the improvised cover that was a moving box, except for his large amber eyes peering out from the handle of the box in the front and just a bit of the digimon's feet so that one might mistake it for some weird pair of slipper-like shoes. The worker drones looked at Khan, then back at Commandramon. Khan sighed and pinched the non-existent bridge of his non-existent nose. "Look, I know this is a lot to take in and all, but..."

"Uzi made a friend?!" One of the WDF drones cut Khan off when all 4 of them jumped off their seats. One of them took a spit take at the news of Khan's anti-social daughter making a friend.

"Yes...?" Commandramon said slightly confused at their antics, looking at Khan for guidance who was looking back at him with a raised eyebrow and shrug. Upon hearing Commandramon's reply though, the WDF members basically broke out in cheers and celebration, laughing and hugging each other.

"She finally did it!"

"The emo phase is over! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!"

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank the door!"

"Quick! Send word to the other members in reserve! Tell them to bring the good gasoline!"

While the guards were getting hyped, Commandramon looked more confused than ever and Khan tried to interject.

"Guys, stop! We need to be a good example for-" He was cut off when two of the other WDF drones grabbed him by the arms and a third one brought a cannister of gasoline and started pouring it directly into Khan Doorman's mouth, making him drink the whole thing in one go. He stopped struggling after a moment before afterwards wobbling around a bit on unsteady legs. Then he thrust both his hands into the air and let out a loud burp. "Let's paartyyyy~" He said in a slurred tone before falling over as the other worker drones descended into a drunken celebration, which more WDF members soon joined in, bringing more fuel and starting to go nuts.

Meanwhile, Commandramon was completely forgotten and simply kept himself to the sideline. That was until an alarm rang out for some of the drones showing it to be time for their lunch break. Of course, due to their intoxicated state most of them were either not able to do so or to keep anything down. Khan was leaning against the wall of the bunker after Commandramon had dragged his unconscious body off the floor and propped him up.

'Didn't expect Mr. Doorman's job to be so joyful from what Uzi told me.' Commandramon thought as he noticed something. Inside the inner pocket of his jacket, Khan had a small silvery metal lunchbox, that Commandramon had packed for him when he had made breakfast, which the now unresponsive drone obviously wasn't going to touch. However, inside the cardboard box Commandramon noticed to his shock that he was in the possession of a second violet lunchbox tucked into a pocked of his bulletproof vest, that he had packed for Uzi's lunch break. "Oh... Oh no, I need to go!" The digimon mentally slapped himself for such a simple and idiotic mistake as he walked over to another WDF member that stood on wobbly legs but looked responsive enough. "Uh... excuse me?"

"Huh? What? Ooohh, it's the newbie..." The worker drone said clearly drunk.

"Yeah, that's me... listen, I gotta go and bring Uzi something she forgot this morning. So, if you could tell Mr. Doorman that..." He said, before the WDF guard waved him off.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll tell him. Promishhh..." With that the drone wobbled back towards the centre of the celebration where multiple guards were now dancing on the camping table, while said camping table was held aloft by a mob of worker drones.

Commandramon wasted no time to excuse himself and ran deeper inside the colony. Since it was around everyone's lunch break there was not a lot of worker drones outside their working and living spaces. Here and there, a group might walk around the corridors, but the cyborg digimon quickly made use of his cardboard disguise like he had seen a character in one of Uzi's video games do by simply remaining motionless at the side of the hallway until the worker drones left. Now there was one problem though... Commandramon had no idea about the bunker's layout or where Uzi's school was meant to be.

'Maybe I should ask someone for directions. No wait, that would be stupid.' He quickly chided himself. 'Mr. Doorman specifically told me to not show myself to anyone. If I just ask someone, I might get into trouble...' The digimon thought as he crossed his arms in the cardboard box and tapped the floor with his foot a few times just as he smelled something. "Huh?" Commandramon started to sniff the air with more concentration and push his nose out through the hole in the box he used to look through. Before he could not smell it from the gasoline spilled by the WDF workers, but here he quickly caught onto a familiar scent he knew from Uzi's room. "This way!" He jumped up from his hiding spot as he continued his search, following the scent through the hallways of Outpost 3.

Another day at school meant for Uzi another day wasting away in an attempt to not fall asleep during her teacher's endlessly monotonous lessons. Her textbook was open and her pen in hand, but she barely wrote anything down. In fact, the page that was currently open was a childish and crudely drawn picture of herself marked by the symbol of her hoodie on the body, the purple hair and the beanie on the drawing head shooting with what appeared to a rifle streaks of green lasers at a white figure with a yellow X for eyes and a pair of blade-like wings and claws. Needless to say, she was not paying attention to the class while imagining herself shooting the murder drones with her railgun. In her defense it was rather difficult to focus on some boring lecture after the events of yesterday.

Whatever daydream she might have tried to put on paper was quickly interrupted by the speaker mounted on the wall emitting a sound like a regular school bell, signalling the lunch break for the students. Some of which had their own built in alarm clocks also set to that time as well and quickly shut them off.

'What do we have a school bell or a clock even for when everyone got a built in HUD anyway?' Uzi thought to herself just as her peers took out their stuff or moved around to gather in their usual cliques while the teacher simply finished whatever he was writing on the blackboard before sitting down on his desk and reading some notes for the lecture. Uzi let out a sigh she didn't know she held as she closed her textbook and reached out for her bag, just as a tiny ball of paper hit her nape and almost made her jump up from the impact. A short collective laugh behind her told her exactly where the sneak attack came from, but other than glaring at a group of other female worker drones of her age, she didn't engage with them. She wanted to and on a bad day she might have lunged at them with the intent of taking away their consciousness like she had done before. But making a fuzz over what she now saw was a projectile the size of a sewing pin's head would only play in the favour of the people trying to get a rise out of her. 'If they however try and fire a spit ball at me, then Robo-Jesus help me...' Uzi thought as reached into her backpack again, still glaring at her classmates.

When her hand did not make contact with anything other than textbooks and paper, she turned her gaze to her backpack and found only school materials. The metaphorical gears in her head started to turn in an attempt to explain the situation. This whole morning was already turning out in a bad way. Following her hastily escape from home under the excuse of being late for school, she had actually shown up to the school before even her teacher was there, leading her to try and push the door open and walk inside at the same time, only to accidentally hit it with her face. After realizing this, she had contemplated on where to go as she was still free to go anywhere else. But it would have taken her too long for her to go anywhere before the start of classes. Also, she could not have gone to anyone else's place, because she was not close with anyone in her class and had no friends. This had left her with no other choice than to wait until the teacher would arrive to open the door prior to the start of the classes. And for some reason, she was the only student that had been there. Even the teacher's pet and the real nerds among them had arrived after her. Word of this spread like wildfire among the class and soon enough Uzi could overhear her classmates gossip about her as if she was some sort of newly discovered species.

'Great. First, I leave home without lunch and now I'm probably going to be labelled a teacher's pet by the teacher's pet. Can this day get any worse?' Uzi thought as she removed her hand from her backpack and sat up again, frowning at the general chaos of her classroom around her and fighting the urge to groan at her situation. That was when the door to the room opened quietly. If someone wasn't paying attention, they probably wouldn't have noticed as it didn't creak or make much of a noise. It was only due to the proximity to the door and her not being distracted by anything else like small talk that Uzi took note of this. But soon those conversations fell silent when something beneath a rather large moving box slowly waddled into the room on a pair of feet ending with three sharp claws. 'Robo-Jesus, no...' Uzi thought as her eyes hollowed out in shock when she made eye contact with a familiar amber iris looking back at her from within the box.

Then to her absolute horror, Commandramon walked further into the room for everyone to see and then backed into the row of seats she was sitting at and stopping beside her to her left as if he was a car trying to park into a lot backwards. At this point, everyone in class stopped what they were doing and watched this moving box park next to her. Except for the teacher who had only given the digimon in disguise a single uninterested look for a second before going back to his notes. The silence in the room was so palpable, the sound the door made as it slowly fell shut again with a creak felt like the deafening rang of a church bell in an old Western movie to Uzi.

One moment later, a long white claw burst from the right side of the box, piercing straight through the brown cardboard, before wiggling a bit and pulling back. That sudden movement made Uzi and a few others jump a bit, but Commandramon did it again and again until the holes were in a half circular or U-shape before his entire arm burst through the material with a punch and an audible noise of the cybernetically augmented limb cracking its bones and revealing his three fingered talon. The digimon then retracted his arm back inside only to reemerge a second later with a lunchbox in hand with a sticky note attached to its lid belonging to the drone next to him which it then placed on her table. The note unsurprisingly read "You forgot your lunchbox :)".

If there ever was a day, Uzi Doorman had considered just running out of the classroom out of sheer embarrassment, it would have been right then and there, but she was so caught up in her own stupor, that she didn't notice the looks her classmates gave her and the lunchbox in front of her and the overall bizarre event unfolding in front of their eyes.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered in a hushed tone as if that somehow was going to prevent the fact that she was talking with someone hiding inside a box in plain view for everyone to see.

"Bringing you lunch." Commandramon whispered back about the same volume as her, which Uzi was thankful for but also still very uncomfortable with the situation as a whole.

"Why?!" This time she barely managed to keep herself from raising her voice. The box shifted a bit as the digimon inside turned its body around to look out to the right.

"You forgot your lunchbox." Commandramon replied, blinking beneath the new hatch he had made for his arm as he clearly didn't understand what the issue was.

"I told you not to-"

"Ew! The freak has a freakish pet now." Some girl Uzi didn't remember the name of in the backrow said offhandedly as her peers voiced their agreement. Uzi would have gone and tried to strangle that entire group if it wasn't for an instantaneous change in Commandramon's behaviour.

One moment he appeared as his usual oblivious and friendly self. But the moment those hurtful words had registered, he had turned his gaze towards the group of adolescent worker drones, looking out from the other handle of the box in the back and glaring at them. Uzi immediately noticed how the big and round pupils of Commandramon's eyes had constricted into little more than pin pricks, reminding her of the eyes of a cat or a snake ready to lunge. Then she saw something gleaming inside the box. At first, she had feared it to be some sort of knife as it was light in colour unlike his dull grey assault rifle and body armour. But then she realized that she was looking at his teeth. Naturally she was aware that Commandramon's body looked like that of a humanoid carnivorous dinosaur, but she never had really taken note of the sharp teeth sitting in his jaws. Only now that his lips pulled back and he let out a growling sound did she realize in shock that if he wanted to, the digimon inside that disguise could very likely take off someone's fingers if they were stupid enough to put their hand in there.

Uzi could think of at least five people in her class alone that would be that stupid.

She looked in shock at Commandramon before gently pushing the box to the ground, forcing him to duck and turn his head towards her instead before he might pounce on the clique of bullies, which now also looked somewhat shaken by the growling noise Commandramon had emitted. "Don't. They aren't worth the trouble." Uzi said, though she did not believe her own words. The digimon inside looked back and forth between her and the other worker drones before his pupils widened again to their usual size and he let out what sounded like a snort.

"Fine. Orders received." He said, sounding dejected. The purple worker drone paid the others no mind before quickly glancing at the clock and noticing the lunch break almost being over. She then opened the box her partner had delivered and started to eat, while she felt a dull thud running through the ground, coming from a certain digimon hitting the ground with his tail inside that box. Whether that was because he was still agitated or just happy of her eating the lunch he had prepared for her, she couldn't tell.

The other students were still not quite sure how to react, including the likes of Lizzy and Doll who were almost infamously known to gossip about Uzi as the loner of the class... or Lizzy was and Doll was mostly silent unlike her best friend. However, some idiot thought it to be right time to fold a sheet of paper into a plane. And then proceeded to throw it towards the one the others usually picked on before anyone could stop him or interject or ask what he was doing. The paper plane sailed silently through the room, heading straight for the side of Uzi's head. She didn't even really notice the projectile before she could had swatted it out of the air, turning towards it and thus changing its would-be destination from her cheek to her mouth.
Then before Uzi could even blink, Commandramon turned his entire body to face the incoming threat, pupils contracting again into little more than tiny dot of black on an amber iris. Then both of his arms burst through the box, holding his rifle and lining its barrel up with the paper aircraft before firing a single shot. The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the confines of the classroom, startling everyone minus the teacher. The paper plane was turned from a sleek winged toy into a shower of shredded paper, exploding outward into tethers and gently falling to the ground like colourless confetti over multiple students, while the bullet left a tiny hole in the ceiling.

If the silence before was deafening, now it was absolute, while the box-clad soldier levelled the still smoking barrel of his gun at the drone who had thrown it, causing his eyes to hollow out in shock and mumble something incoherent, maybe an apology or an excuse.

"Permission to shoot?" Commandramon's cold tone cut through the silence, before Uzi replied.

"Uhm... no?" She didn't even sound convinced whether or not she could stop him and Commandramon kept his gun trained on the drone that had thrown the paper plane. Still, he put it away a moment later, storing it back into the box, retracting both of his arms back inside and sitting down on the ground again with what sounded like a reluctant grumble. A collective sigh of relief washed over the room in that moment as the bell rang again, announcing the end of the lunchbreak.

"No firearms in the classrooms." The teacher said in his monotonous voice, not even looking up from his notes as he was so completely indifferent to what was happening around him, making Uzi think for a moment he would want a school shooting to happen to put him out of his misery.

"Aw..." She heard Commandramon in a disappointed tone and it almost looked like he had deflated a bit at those words. Still, he gave the drones from earlier an "I'm watching you" sign by pointing at his eyes with two talons before pointing them at them immediately afterwards before turning his body back around to face the blackboard and scooted a bit closer to Uzi's desk.

Uzi started to really envy Commandramon's camouflage ability to instantly shift his colours to match his surroundings, because she wanted to disappear right that instant.

"M-ter Do-ma-? Mis-er D-orm-?" The voice that greated Khan upon waking up sounded like he was underwater and someone at the shore was calling him. His head felt like it was going to explode at any second now and his CPU was still warm from the intoxicating effects of the fuel he had taken in. Khan Doorman was no stranger to drinking, primarily because of his late wife Nori do enjoying the occasional night to just drink a shot of diesel to unwind a bit when they had nothing better to do on a weekend. And admittedly, Nori unwinding translated to getting wasted and tearing holes into walls. She had been quite the wild character and perhaps that was one of the things he had loved so dearly about her in contrast to his rather boring personality. She had brought a lot of colour into his otherwise bland and boring life ever since he found her shortly after the planet's core collapsed and it had been her to break him out of his shell and make closer friends such as her best friend Yeva and her husband.

That behaviour changed or at least mellowed down a bit when the two of them had Uzi. Nori still was far from the ideal parent, but she tried to be better for their daughter and that was all Khan could ever ask for. After her death, he had felt the temptation of the gasoline can every now and again, to drown his sorrow and forget. But he never did. Because he knew his lightweight of a stomach was one can away from doing something that could damage his relationship to Uzi even more than him withdrawing into his work to cope with Nori's loss. He was a bad parent, but he would not look for comfort at the bottom of a gasoline pump and do something he'd never forgive himself for. She deserved better than that.

Therefore, the feeling of hurt and shame he felt upon waking up to the worst hangover he had in over 15 years was immense once it clicked in his mind what had happened.

'Oh Heaven's Door, they must have mixed something into that fuel...' He thought as he squinted around him to try and figure out what was going on. Outpost 3's police force or rather law enforcement was around with stereotypical red and blue flashing lights while he saw officers questioning a WDF member wearing a lampshade as a hat.

"Mr. Doorman, can you hear me?" The feminine voice of a police officer made him look at a worker drone with round shades on her face alongside a typical uniform and hat. Khan merely nodded. "Good, we have come here because of some noise complaints. Do you remember anything that happened?"

"I uh... I introduced a new member to the WDF and... they started celebrating..." Khan said as he looked around to see the chaos that the celebration had caused, which suddenly felt less spontaneous and more like everyone having waited for him to say that Uzi actually made a friend or to just have waited for a reason to get drunk. And considering the mindset of younger recruits in the WDF, he found the latter not too unlikely. 'What a great first impression on... wait a minute.' With that Khan suddenly took note of the absence of a certain moving box and the fact nobody was pointing or screaming or reacting surprised at the discovery of something that clearly was not a worker drone. As he began looking around from where he stood, he scratched his head and noticed his fake moustache now being glued to his forehead, giving him the impression of bushy eyebrows. "Where is he?" He asked himself absentmindedly.

"Oh, the new guy?" The WDF guard Commandramon had talked to earlier replied as he walked past Khan and the officer in that moment. "I think he went to find Uzi or something while we started playing musical chairs. I think he said something about her apparently having forgotten something for school."

"Okay buddy, let's get you to the station." The officer said as she pushed the WDF guard forward. No one paid any mind to Khan Doorman, who looked shocked and felt so flabbergasted at what he had just heard that his processors shut down for a second before rebooting. Then he fainted.

At any other day, Uzi would have wanted the school day to end as fast as possible, but right in that moment she dreaded to hear the bell announcing the end of the final class for this school day. As she sat at her desk and kept her eyes focused forward and watching the seconds tick by on her digital clock, she didn't pay attention to what the teacher was droning on about... no pun intended. It was simply that she did not want to look at her classmates who basically had been looking at her as if trying to bore holed into her with their optics. Or at least that was how it felt for her since the lunch break. And the reason for this sudden interest in her sat beside her on the floor and was covered in a cardboard box while taking notes of what the teacher was saying. At some point, she had given Commandramon some notebook and a pen to keep him busy and in hopes to get rid of the very awkward atmosphere around her. Instead, it had only intensified when the digimon apparently took taking notes and paying attention in class more serious than any other person she knew.

The rest of Uzi's day at school thankfully passed without any more gun-related incidents, though this was probably in large part due to the digimon scaring them from trying to pick on her. However, Uzi felt as if the moment the bell rang, they would descend upon her like a swarm of crows on a carcass or an overflowing dumpster. By the way she could see Lizzy make an impression of a cat ready to pounce, she did not find that idea farfetched at all. And while the purple-haired worker drone was very confident in her ability to take them all on in a fight, she found her confidence slightly wavering at what the consequences for that might entail.

Movement in the corner of her field of vision caught her attention when Commandramon held up her notebook and handed it back to her. She was about to close it when she noticed on the last page was another sticky note. Reading its contents, she looked at her partner, who peered out from within his box. The corner of her mouth pulled up slightly in a barely notable smirk when she gave him a short nod. And the digimon copied that motion, before closing the latch.

With that the last few seconds of the lesson ticked away when the shrill ringing of the school bell made her dump her things into her bag all at once as she abruptly stood up at the same time as Commandramon rose to his feet. The moment the sound of her chair scraping against the floor reached the ears of her peers, at least half a dozen also got up to try and bombard her with questions and demands for answers. True to her prediction, Uzi could see Lizzy knocking her chair over as she stood up, only to be somewhat restrained by Doll next to her. She knew trying to fight them would end badly. She also knew that it would be a rather bad thing if they decided to rip away the digimon's makeshift disguise. With only one option left, she and her partner did the only reasonable thing in such a situation: flee.

"Now!" Uzi said as she turned to her partner.

"Copy!" That was when Commandramon dropped multiple grenades from within the box and slid them over the classroom floor, which exploded into thick white smoke a second later and thus disorienting everyone within the room. Instantly, the worker drone students started coughing and crying out in surprise at being blinded, some falling over one another or their desks and chairs as they tried to figure out where they were. As for the teacher though, he just sat at his desk with the most indifferent I-am-not-getting-paid-enough-for-this face. All except for one certain digimon who grabbed a coughing Uzi's hand and dashed through the smokescreen towards the door, tearing it open and fleeing into the hallway. Once outside, Uzi's senses recovered quickly as she ran through the corridor, half-pulled along by Commandramon until she got the biting taste of the smoke grenades out of her mouth. Behind her she could hear coughing and her classmates stumbling out of the room and into the lockers or onto the floor.

"Get back here you loser!"
"She went that way!"
"Get her!"

"We really didn't think this one through, did we?" Commandramon said when Uzi caught up with him, running now beside him. Behind them, they could hear her classmates trying to chase after them, though they probably didn't even know where they actually went. Still, neither Uzi or Commandramon were taking any chances here.

"No, we didn't. This way!" Uzi shouted when she did a sudden turn into another corridor, causing the rookie digimon to almost trip and fall when he followed her lead. It wasn't long until they arrived at a dimly lit, wide open and long corridor with seemingly no escape route. For all intents and purposes, it was a dead end.

"Uhm... Uzi?" He asked when he heard the approaching footsteps of Uzi's classmates echoing from all sides. Uzi meanwhile kept running until she found a loose panel on the wall and slightly pushed it aside, revealing a hallway behind it with loose cables lining the walls and ceiling.

"Get in." She said, grabbing Commandramon's hand before pulling him into the hidden passage. It was narrow and dark, but Uzi pushed forward with hurried steps. The echoes of the other students' footsteps only reached this place as dulled noises alongside their words. Before long though, they faded away and eventually the two reached the end of the tunnel. They were closer to Uzi's home now but still some distance away from it. However, at the moment both of them just stood there and caught their breath. Whatever rush of adrenaline or whatever other chemical coursed through them in that moment faded away and the ache of their limbs became more apparent.

And still, the absurdity of the situation made both of them laugh. A tired, laboured and still somewhat happy laugh came from the two of them.

"Good thing... I know those old maintenance tunnels... Geez... ha... I should have had a camera to get their faces..." Uzi wheezed out as she leaned against a wall for support.

"Yeah... didn't think about that... Maybe next time..." Commandramon offered with a chuckle as he put the box he had been hiding under the whole time aside and sat down on the ground.

For a short moment, neither of them said anything and just caught their breath. That was when the smile on Uzi's face vanished and she looked at him.

"Why did you do it?" She asked, making her partner look at her. "Why did you do all of that?"

"Uh... because you forgot..." Commandramon began, scratching its head with one claw when he was cut off.

"I don't mean that." Uzi said. "I mean, you looked like you were ready to tear someone's head off. You... shot a paper plane out of the air with a rifle! And just now you smoke bombed the whole classroom." She added, pushing herself off the wall. "So much for keeping you a secret. There's no way the others are just going to ignore today. Just... what were you thinking back then?" Uzi's words and stern look cut deep as Commandramon's face turned solemn and he looked down.

"I... didn't think that far ahead... I'm sorry, Uzi. I know I ignored a direct order here." He said, while her own face softened. "I know... this is new to you and it is for me too. Being partners and me suddenly being in the human, well ex-human world and all that. Honestly, I was planning to just slip back out of your class after giving you your lunch." The digimon then looked up at her. "But when I heard those other people trying to pick on you, I couldn't just stand there and do nothing, right? I mean, you and I are friends. And friends look out for each other, right? Though, I did overdo it and hurt you in the end..."

Uzi did not answer that question immediately, her processors still registering the words and their meaning in her head. "Ew... that was so corny." She said almost out of reflex, before she even realized she said that. Commandramon looked at her for a moment, before chuckling.

"I guess it was. But that's what being friends just is then." He shrugged before he grabbed the box he had been hiding under all day and was about to put it over his head, when Uzi stopped him and making him look at her.

"Fine, I'll forgive you for probably ruining my life today. But I can fight my own battles, so you don't have to worry about me all the time." The purple-haired worker drone said. "Doesn't mean I don't appreciate you caring about it, I guess." She added, rolling her eyes at the end and letting the box fall over the digimon. At that, she heard him laugh a bit under his disguise.

"Okay, I'll try and tune it down. I'm sure you could have taken those guys in a fight."

"Bite me! I totally could have mopped the floor with those guys. I just didn't feel like it because they are not worth the effort." Uzi said crossing her arms with a smirk and her head held high (as high as possible for someone that short).

"That and you didn't have your railgun with you." Commandramon commented. "I still think the stickers are not needed."

"They are an essential part of it." Uzi retorted. Shortly after, the two of them laughed it off again, seemingly having forgotten about the stress and consequences of today's actions. "Okay, let's just get home before anyone sees you." Uzi said as she was about to lead the way back to her home.

"Right behind you, partner." Commandramon replied.

Then all of the sudden the box was lifted off of the digimon as it stood proud with his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest.

"Huh?" He blinked in confusion before turning around with Uzi to see a certain red-eyed female worker drone with long purple hair stand behind them with the box in her hands, which she then worldlessly dropped to the floor and looked at them.

Commandramon and Uzi looked at Doll in shock and silence with the latter's eyes hollowing out, who had just appeared out of nowhere like a ghost.

Doll looked back at them with an unreadable stoic face, merely blinking at the sight of the cyborg dinosaur digimon and the fellow purple-haired worker drone.

Then both Uzi and Commandramon let out a scream in unison.

A while later, Doll was walking through the hallways towards her home when she heard hurried footsteps behind her. She didn't need to turn around to tell who it was as she could pretty much tell from the way that person was panting from exhaustion. Still she reflexively, turned around and took a step to the side as if dodging an incoming attack. That attack came in the drone-shaped missile that was her best friend Lizzy, who failed to stop and would otherwise have slammed right into Doll. Luckily for her, the Russian drone grabbed her by the shoulder to prevent her from tripping and hitting the ground facefirst. Lizzy's pink optics blinked in confusion for a second before reality seemed to sink in.

"Oh, thanks bestie..." Lizzy said as she tried catching her breath and slightly leaning on Doll for support, who rolled her eyes at this.

"Смотри, куда идёшь, Лиззи. (Watch where you are going, Lizzy.)" She simply replied, before letting go of Lizzy's shoulder. The two of them were more akin to polar opposites in one way or another. Lizzy was an extrovert, who just couldn't stop herself from socialising or gossiping with the likes of their classmate Rebecca, while Doll was quiet most of the time. Lizzy usually dressed in brighter colours that complemented her pink optics and Doll's outfits were rather dull (no pun intended). Lizzy's parents were alive and well, while Doll's...

If anything, any other person would assume that much with Uzi Doorman, Lizzy would see Doll as a target of gossip and teasing. In reality though, Lizzy was perhaps the only person that Doll could truly call a friend in the entirety of Outpost 3. Not even Doll really understood what it was that made Lizzy want to be her friend. She had a few suspicions such as her usually talking in Russian or her quiet demeanour giving her a bit more of an aloof presence among the more chaotic antics of the average teenage worker drone. Still, she was thankful to call Lizzy her friend.

"Where were you?" Lizzy asked. "Right after those... smoke bombs went off..."

"Smoke grenades." Doll corrected, before reaching behind her and seemingly pulling out of nowhere a jar with a label reading "Doll correcting Lizzy". Lizzy groaned loudly before fishing some money out of her pocket and putting it in. Doll smiled a bit before putting the jar away behind her back where is seemed to vanish.

"I still have questions on how that works..." Lizzy said before shaking her head. "Right after the purple freak escaped, I couldn't find you and no one else had seen where you went." Doll's smile deepened a bit, a bit touched by her friend being worried at her sudden disappearance.

"Я попытался их найти и погнался за Узи. Извини, что не рассказал тебе о плане заранее. Хотя сомневаюсь, что ты бы смог угнаться за мной. Без обид. (I tried looking for them and took off after Uzi. Sorry for not telling you the plan in advance. Though, I doubt you could have kept up with me chasing after them. No offense.)" Doll offered for an explanation.

"Hey, I'm not that weak." Lizzy said, though Doll gave her a passive look as if saying 'That's not true and you know it', making Lizzy blush a bit at being caught in such a blatant lie. "And? Did you catch that loser and her... friend?" Lizzy asked, the words "Uzi" and "friend" in a sentence that was not a jab at her being a loner didn't feel right on her tongue like the texture of styrofoam. Doll shook her head at that, making Lizzy sigh. "I swear, that loser is going to get it next time. Aren't you curious whatever that thing was next to her?"

Doll shrugged. "Maybe some pet project." Lizzy narrowed her eyes slightly before stepping closer.

"You are a bit... nonchalant about this. Did you catch a virus or something?" The blonde girl asked, trying to study Doll's face for something she probably wouldn't see anyway. Doll simply responded by gently shoving her face away.

"Я в порядке. Спасибо за заботу. Мне нужно идти. Возвращайтесь домой в безопасности. (I'm fine. Thanks for your concern. I need to go now. Get home safely.)" Doll said before turning around and leaving but still waving her friend goodbye.

"Alright. See you tomorrow, bestie." Lizzy called after her before walking in the opposite direction to where Doll was heading. The faint ghost of a smile disappeared from Doll's face once she no longer heard Lizzy's footsteps, letting out a sigh she didn't know she held.

'It would be nice if things were just that simple, wouldn't it?' She thought to herself as she made her way to her family's apartment. Inside it was pitch black safe for the blowing lights of robot roaches skittering with their bladed limbs over the floor. The place was not exactly in a state of disarray, but it was also not exactly clean. Doll's right eye flashed in a symbol akin to a three-pointed star for a second and the lights of multiple roaches in front of her on the ground went off with a wet popping and squelching sound. The other cybernetic insects, having sensed the demise of their fellow vermin, scattered immediately away like real roaches fleeing from light. Then Doll actually did turn on the lights, seeing the large stain of oil now on the ground.

She cared not one bit as she simply walked over the broken remains of the vermin, crushing them beneath her feet as she made her way into a room adjacent to the living area. Inside was what may have once been a study of one of her parents. More specifically, her mother Yeva. On her desk sat a computer with an older box-like monitor mounted on it. It was smaller and less efficient than newer models, but it had its uses.

The moment she stepped through the door, the computer screen booted up with a mechanical whirl before strings of unknown and ever-changing symbols rushed over it. She had long since abandoned whatever notion of trying to make sense of them without some sort of reference to try and translate them as they fit no human language. Doll instead simply pulled the office chair back and sat down before turning to the screen, which was now a pure white. Someone might assume that the computer had crashed, but that was not the case at all when an icon appeared at the side of the screen. It was merely an orange and pale purple circle like someone using a gradient to fill a 2D form. A line of text appeared next to the icon shortly after to start the chat.

[WELCOME HOME DOLL]

Doll simply began to type away at the old clunky keyboard, the big white keys making an audible clicking sound whenever they were pressed, before hitting ENTER to send a reply.

[There has been a development.]

[WHAT KIND?]

Doll's right eye blinked again with the same symbol as before and she bit back a hiss of pain, when she projected a picture of Commandramon standing next to Uzi in the hallway from earlier into the chat. She wiped the corner of her mouth, tasting oil on her tongue before replying.

[What can you tell me about this?]

There was not even a second of a pause between her hitting ENTER and the reply coming.

[WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS?!]

[It was following Uzi Doorman.] Doll paused for a moment before adding another line.
[Aunt Nori's daughter.]

There was a longer pause after she sent that message as if the one she was talking to needed a second to digest what she had just told them.

[002 HAD A CHILD?] Doll rolled her eyes at that reply. But before she could type in an response another line appeared.
[TO COURT 'THAT' SOMEONE MUST HAVE BEEN EITHER INCREDIBLY STUPID WITH NO SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT AT BEST OR DOWNRIGHT SUICIDAL AT WORST.]

That made the Russian drone think about Khan Doorman for a moment, before nodding to herself.

[That's oddly fitting...] She typed in, although the opposite was what really the case for the door builder. Sure, she didn't dislike her 'uncle', but even she had to admit that from what she had seen and heard about him from her parents who had known him longer than her, Khan was the sort of person to use safety scissors with gloves on. The tales she had heard from her parents brought a bit of a smile back to her, before the next reply wiped it from her face.

[DOES SHE HAVE 'IT'?]

That gave her pause before replying truthfully.

[Unknown.]

[THIS COMPLICATES THINGS A LOT. CHECK HER SYSTEM.]

Doll's red optics blinked at the text as if it had just asked her what she was wearing or if she was free to go on a date. She facepalmed at this. IT was not that easy to find within worker drone's internal systems. It liked to hide in areas that were not that accessible with a regular run of anti-virus software and finding IT within an asymptomatic host a more... thorough investigation.

[I cannot just ask her to get naked and shove a USB-cable into her chassis.]

[WHY NOT THOUGH?]

[Social norms.]

[SAYS YOU OF ALL PEOPLE.]
[THE HYPOCRISY IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE.]

[Not funny. (-_-)]

There was another pause on both sides of the chat with Doll narrowing her eyes at the screen at the other party's remark, before the next reply came.

[STAY ON HER GOOD SIDE. TRY AND GET CLOSE TO HER. IF NECESSARY, BEFRIEND HER.]

[Easier said than done.]

[WHY? WHAT DID YOU DO?]

'A lot of things.' She thought to herself somewhat guilty. Doll had no particularly strong feelings for Uzi Doorman, neither positive nor negative. She was daughter of her mother's best friend and that was basically it on a closer and more personal level, which Uzi probably didn't even know about. Doll found her antics entertaining sometimes and other times just childish. If anything, that was more of a reason for her to keep her distance despite their shared past as to not drag into something Doll didn't want her to be part of much like she didn't want to with Lizzy.

[Something I didn't.]

[IF SHE TURNS OUT TO BE A THREAT... YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.]

[Yes.]

[KEEP AN EYE ON HER PARTNER TOO.]

That actually caught her by surprise. Of course, Doll understood that this was a very unexpected development. Still, she didn't see a reason to keep an eye open on Commandramon specifically.

[Why?]

[POTENTIAL CONTAGION.]

The compute then shut off and left Doll in the dark of her mother's study with more questions than answers.

"So... you think this... Doll is going to snitch on us?" Commandramon asked as he was walking besides Uzi back towards their home in his cardboard box disguise. The purple worker drone opened her mouth to reply but stopped herself. If anything, she had no reason to believe that Doll wouldn't tell Lizzy about this and Lizzy would tell everyone about it within an hour. Though considering there wasn't a witch hunt going on for her and demanding her partner to be burned on a stake, she somehow doubted that notion.

"I'm... not quite sure. Let's just get home." She replied, thinking back to earlier.

...

"Uzi..." Doll began as she looked back and forth between her and Commandramon. "What is that?"

"Hi, my name's Commandramon." The digimon said happily only to earn him a slap on the back of the head from Uzi. Which only made her hand sting because Commandramon was wearing a helmet.

"Ow... Don't just answer that." She said, holding her now injured hand, while the digimon held his head with both hands. Both of them stood there slightly hunched over in pain while Doll just watched the scene unfold before her as if she could not believe the absurdity she was beholding. "Look Doll, I don't like you and you don't like me but can you..." Uzi was cut off when Doll took a step forward and got right in her face as if she was looking for something. The close proximity made Uzi's body lock up in shock, while Commandramon looked a bit worried and unsure whether or not to draw his gun. the fact Doll grabbed Uzi's chin to make her look at her directly only made Uzi and the digimon blush profusely, before the shorter drone pushed Doll away. "H-Hey, personal space!"

Doll caught herself from falling over before looking at her. "Ладно. Я не расскажу остальным о твоём секрете. (Fine. I will not tell the others about your secret.)" She said with a smile, bringing a finger to her lips. "Но ты мне за это должен. (But you owe me for that." Uzi stammered and tried to form a coherent sentence. She almost said 'Bite me!' out of reflex, only to realise that would be a bad idea since she DID want her to this to herself.

"T-Thanks..." She managed to press out while the digimon looked confused between the two of them.

"Does that mean you are like... girlfriends now?" He asked, making both purple-haired drones look at him. One passively as if his lack of understanding things came to no surprise at all, the other very embarrassed at his choice of words.

"LIKE HELL WE ARE!" Uzi shouted as she grabbed the moving box and slammed it down on Commandramon, who wriggled and trashed around in it in protest.

"Why are you mad now? You just made a new friend, right?"

"No! Doll, back me up-" Uzi turned for support from the Russian drone only to find her gone without a trace.

...

'She said she wouldn't tell anyone, but how did she even get there? And why would she do... that?' Uzi was pulled from her memory by the sight of her family's apartment. Still, she felt Commandramon's eyes linger on her since earlier. "What?" She finally asked.

"You really don't have the best relationship with lots of your classmates." The digimon said with a shrug and what sounded like a huff.

"Bite me!" Uzi then pushed the door open and flipped the light switch on as the door closed behind the digimon, which finally got out of its cardboard prison for the day. However, both of them stopped dead in their tracks when they saw that Khan was already there, waiting with his arms crossed and trying to look sternly at both Uzi and Commandramon. That however failed when the sight of Khan made the digimon fight the urge to at least chuckle a bit, while Uzi looked bewildered at her father. After a moment, Uzi managed to speak with a straight face.

"Dad, why is your mustache on your forehead?" She asked, completely weirded out. Khan immediately scrambled to readjust the fake piece of facial hair back in place, while the digimon fell to the floor laughing.

And that's it for the second chapter. I sure hope you had fun reading, because I had fun writing this.

Now don't worry. The next one will be a bit shorter and is also already planned out. And I promise, we'll get our first look at J's squad the next time around. So hopefully, it won't take me another year to update this because I have so many plans and ideas for this particular project.

I probably don't need to say this, but feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments, I'm always grateful for feedback and it keeps me motivated to keep writing just like any other writer.

With that I bid you goodbye and wish you a nice day. Hopefully,  I'll  see you guys again soon.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: In the Spire's Shadow

Amber and purple eyes scanned every part of the object in front of them critically. Every now and then, they would linger on some particular part like a piece of wiring that was out of place or a screw that looked just a bit too loose. Whenever one detected some sort of blemish on an otherwise impressively crafted piece of machinery, the other would double check. They were so focused on the task before them, that they barely even registered the fact that the source of light came from the computer screen on the desk, easily outshining the other lights in the room.

"Screwdriver."

"Screwdriver."

"Wire cutter."

"Wire cutter."

"Brush."

"Brush."

"Gamer Drone Fuel."

"Gamer Drone Fuel, coming up."

Sounds of tinkering and the occasional sip from a clearly not healthy beverage were the only things that really rang through the room as Uzi and Commandramon worked on her railgun again. Uzi sat on her gaming chair while taking her creation apart and putting it back together, while Commandramon had to stand on his toes to look at what Uzi was seeing on her desk. Still, whenever she asked for a tool, he'd fish it out of a small toolbox next to him as her desk was completely taken over by her tool of mass murder drone destruction. Right now, he held a can of some drone made energy drink closer to Uzi's face as she sucked the contents out through a straw, not even looking at it to focus on repairing some internal wiring damage. Once she was done, her digimon partner put the can aside and continued watching her work.

What he had noticed though was that while Uzi certainly knew her craft very well, she never smiled when doing so. Of course, Uzi had told him just what this weapon was meant to do, but his general understanding of the situation was still spotty to say the least. From what little fragmented memories Commandramon could recall from prior to arriving in Uzi's home and becoming her partner, he would be left to believe that the "Human World" or "Real World" he had heard about was an entirely different planet called Earth, yet he was in a place called Copper 9 and humanity had apparently gone extinct on this celestial body due to its core collapsing somehow. Which begged some other questions he knew he might never get the answers to or maybe he would once his memories would come back.

For now though, all he knew about his partner's situation was that these so-called disassembly drones had been sent to wipe out the worker drones on behalf of humanity and among countless victims was Uzi's mother. And despite not having much of a clue about half of these words, he knew this was a rather sensitive topic for her and her father. That much he knew from whatever knowledge was so basic that it apparently didn't require memories. Still, the whole topic was also not exactly too well explained within the otherwise untouched schoolbooks in her possession. He would have simply asked about it, if it did not feel rather inappropriate. It was just that he was worried for Uzi.

Commandramon was caught up in his thoughts when his talon accidentally knocked over the energy drink can on her desk, causing some of it to spill on it, the railgun and drip down on Uzi's lap. The cold and wet sensation made her jolt up as fast as the digimon noticed his mistake, eyes widening in shock.

"What the hell?!" She shouted as she quickly moved to rescue the railgun from any more damage, grabbing the towel from the digimon's shoulder and pressing it on the table to soak up the fluid before it drenched the parts completely and ruin all her hard work. "I just put that one on."

The digimon quickly looked around for anything else that could perhaps be used as a sponge or a towel. His foot touched something made of cloth, causing him to reach down in a panic and bring it to the tabletop. It was only in the harsh glare of the computer monitor's light that he and Uzi saw that it was one of her hoodies, that the purple haired worker drone had left laying on the ground.

"Uh oh..." The cyborg dinosaur said as he shook in fear and slowly turned towards Uzi. If looks could kill, Commandramon would have instantly disintegrated into particles of data.

"Commandramon!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Ow..." A certain rookie digimon whined as he put a bag of ice on the top of his head, where now a notable red pixelated bump sat like a hiker having climbed the summit of a mountain. His helmet laid next to him on the ground and he himself laid curled up like a dog under the kitchen table of the Doorman residence after having been kicked out of Uzi's room. From another room, he heard the rumbling of the washing machine with Uzi's stained clothes in them and from within Uzi's room he now faintly heard the sound of gunfire as she had booted up a video game to calm her nerves while her railgun dried off. It was a Sunday and she didn't have school, giving the two plenty of time to do whatever they wanted so they settled on working on her railgun to further optimise it.

Well, that day had been ruined and the digimon found himself locked out of her room. He was still nursing his head injury with his tail loudly thumping against the floor.

'At least this time she didn't hit me on the helmet again.' He thought, thinking back to their meeting with Doll. 'Still hurts me though...' Needless to say, Commandramon felt bad for what he had done and wanted to make it up to her. Unfortunately, after the last day's events, Khan had basically put him on curfew and to not just roam Outpost 3 without either him or Uzi present. There was also not much for him to do as the apartment only offered so much to explore and do outside of Uzi's room. There was the kitchen/living area, a bathroom and then Khan's room. The last of which was not exactly all that interesting, even if he now was curious what OnlyDoors was.

The digimon let out a sigh at his predicament as he picked up a magazine that he had read from front to back twice already. But that was when something caught his eye.

It was an article about the W.D.F. heading out of the protective confines of Outpost 3 to harvest essential resources from the surface, namely by breaking down and deconstructing the buildings of the city above. A far more positive sounding alternative to saying that they were scavenging the ruins for what they needed to live underground. Most importantly though, the article stated that these trips to the surface took place during the day as the murder drones for whatever reason did not seem to show up during the day. That didn't stop them from apparently sniping worker drones from within the gargantuan spire made from the corpses of their victims. Next to it was a blurry image of said spire's silhouette with a caption reading that the photographer was unfortunately shot.

'Well, I guess it makes sense. They can't exactly recycle everything forever.' Commandramon thought to himself when an idea formed in his head, before his face broke into a wide smile. "That's it- OUCH!" In that moment of pure joy, he had forgotten that he was still under a table and hit his head against it. Right on the bump that Uzi had given him earlier. Nursing his still slightly bruised scalp, the rookie digimon crawled out from under the table and moved over to grab a few magazines and laid them out on the table. His claws might have poked a few holes into the edges of the page, but he was getting better with not shredding everything he touched while flipping through them. And after a short while he found what he was looking for.

The digimon almost forgot to grab his helmet and put it on, hissing slightly in pain as he loosened the straps under his chin lightly to not press on his head too much, when he grabbed his box and walked out of the apartment. He was technically not allowed to roam Outpost 3 without Uzi or Khan, but no one said anything about OUTSIDE of Outpost 3. And he technically was a member of the W.D.F. so this was the perfect excuse to take a little stroll downtown. According to the clock in the apartment, it was still early in the morning, but Khan had already left for work due to the W.D.F.'s little celebration yesterday. Meaning it was about the time some of the drones headed out for salvaging things outside, so it wouldn't be completely out of place if he joined them a bit late. With that in mind, the digimon started to head towards the doors.

"Psst." Shortly after leaving the hallway where the Doormans' apartment was though, a sudden noise made him stop dead in his tracks. Immediately, he flopped down, pretending to be just a box sitting in a hallway, peering out of the little latch that acted as the box's handle to try and find the source of it. For a moment, he simply said held his breath, fearing that Khan had somehow sensed the door of his apartment being opened and somehow teleporting to catch the runaway digimon. Though after he could not spot anyone in the hallway, he got up again and continued on his way.

"Uzi's taste in anime and games seems to have rubbed off on me..." Commandramon told himself as he still shuddered from the experience of what Uzi had called an indie horror game about collecting items on a map without getting caught by a monster roaming around the game map. Needless to say, Commandramon slightly regretted having asked to watch her play and then screaming like a terrified baby level digimon when Uzi had been caught by the monster. He was ashamed to admit that he had spent the night hiding under Uzi's blanket, much to her dismay.

That was when a dull thud rang through the box as something hit the cardboard disguise from behind and he froze in terror, biting back the urge to scream as he imagined the monster right behind him. "Over here." Someone called in a quiet tone from behind him. Commandramon slowly turned around and found an eraser on the ground. He picked the small white object up with hesitation, fearing the moment he touched it something was about to jump him. But when nothing happened he looked further down the hallway he had just come from and saw something behind a corner. A worker drone's hand beckon him over.

'I have seen enough horror movies to know where this is going... Oh no, wait. I didn't.' He thought to himself before Commandramon glanced left and right to make sure the coast was clear. When no one else was around, he walked over to the bend of the corner to look at the drone in question with a bit of surprise. "Oh, it's you."

Following the rather embarrassing incident leading to the arrest of multiple W.D.F. members the day prior, the guards on the door to the outside of Copper 9 were very much under stress. They were still not done cleaning up the mess they had made as there were still crude drawings akin to graffiti on the inside of the door as well as garbage laying around that some of the drones had merely pushed towards the wall with a broom to make room in the center of the hallway. Those mounds also still had to be put into bags for the garbage disposal. Coupled with their hangovers and the extra workload to their usually empty schedule, many of them were not exactly very happy with the current situation.

It was far easier to point the finger at someone else and since neither Uzi, Khan or even their newest member could have done something about them getting out of control, they basically all blamed each other but never themselves individually. This resulted in quite the shift compared to the relaxed working environment of yesterday. Tension hung in the air like a dense fog and everyone eyed the other with suspicion to not let them look into their cards... literally.

"And that's another win for me." A guard of the W.D.F. said as he revealed his hand to his coworkers, who groaned and put down their hands on, one particularly frustrated worker even slapping them down as if they owed him money. "Sorry guys, it sucks to suck."

"This is the 5th time in a row already!"
"I swear, he's cheating!"
"Shut it! My head's still pounding."
"Shouldn't have tried to prove how tough you are by smashing it with a hammer then."
"Oh buzz off. You tried stage diving yesterday."

The worker drones put the cards on the table for someone else to shuffle the deck as they sat at a new camping table after their last one had collapsed under the weight of multiple guards dancing on it yesterday. Not even a day after that and the guards were back at playing cards again all day. In fact, they were so engrossed in this they didn't notice the familiar box-clad honourary member walking up to them until he stood right next to them.

"Morning guys. Commandramon, reporting for duty." Commandramon greeted them, making them all jump in their seats and the one shuffling the cards drop them to the floor. The digimon quickly reached down to pick them back up, while the drones looked a bit confused.

"Hey, are you supposed to be here? I think Khan said something about you being... grounded or something?" One of them asked, before looking at the others for confirmation, which they did by murmuring among each other and nodding. "I think he said that before he went off to the station to pick up the other guys who had a bit too much antifreeze." The digimon stiffened up a bit before trying to come up with an excuse. It was a good thing none of the drones could see into the box to see him sweat profusely and his eyes dart around as if looking for a hidden clue.

"Oh... that. Uhm... yeah, no... we are good now. Talked it over and everything. Also, I think he meant to say that I'm not supposed to be here specifically," Commandramon said, pointing at the floor beneath him, before pointing at the door. "Because I was scheduled to go outside today for scouting and scavenging." He nervously laughed before putting the deck of cards back on the table. The drone who shuffled earlier slowly took the cards, while all of them looked at the box rather suspiciously. For a moment, Commandramon thought he was done for, before a drone spoke up.

"Yeah, that checks out." The other drones nodded in agreement before one of them turned to a drone near the controls.

"Hey man, can you open the door quick? The newbie got outside duty." The other drone gave them a silent thumbs up before pressing their key card against the controls and the large door opened in an instant. A gust of cold wind and harsh morning light flooded into the bunker and the box, forcing Commandramon to turn away for a second as he laid eyes on the ruined outside world for the first time. In the morning light the frozen wasteland appeared like a canvas of blue and white as light reflected from the freshly fallen snow of the last night with an almost blinding intensity. In the distance he saw the weathered remnants of buildings towering out of the ice like monoliths of concrete and rebar. The wind almost sent the box he was hiding under flying as he started walking outside with the cold biting into the exposed skin.

"Try to be back before dusk. Wouldn't want to lose our newest member and Uzi's friend right away." Another WDF guard told Commandramon. The digimon gave them a thumbs up.

"Thanks guys. I'll be back in time." He said before walking a bit further. Then he stopped and turned around again. "By the way, are you supposed to play with the cards under the table?" Instantly the worker drones sitting at the table all scooted back or leaned under to see the one who had won 5 games in a row having a whole deck of cards hidden right under their noses by having glued a small box to it from which he had likely drawn whenever the others hadn't been looking..

"Cheater!"
"I called it! The cards looked too new!"
"Break his legs!"

Then the doors closed in an instant and Commandramon could no longer hear the sounds of the unfolding chaos within. For a moment longer, he just looked at the closed door before him that separated him from the safety of the bunker and then set out deeper into the city. The streets were still littered with the now defunct cars the humans used to drive around and well as debris that had fallen down from the buildings above, broken and tilted streetlights. Taking the box off of his body and tucking it between a rusted old car and a mound of snow, the digimon's skin immediately started to sting from the coldness now being unhindered to creep into his body. Meanwhile, his camouflage pattern began to change from the usual darker blue hues to a much lighter, almost white tone that matched his surroundings. Commandramon felt his teeth chatter a little as he wrapped his arms around himself the moment a particularly strong gust of wind washed over him.

"Alright. I managed to get out. Now all I need to do is go to that place and retrieve what I need, while avoiding that spire and making it back home before the sun sets. Should be..." Commandramon's words died in his throat as he finally took note of another shape sticking out of the ruined cityscape like a massive black thorn in an otherwise light picture. The article had not exaggerated when they said the spire the murder drones resided in was gargantuan. Behind the remains of what once had been skyscrapers, Commandramon saw a massive structure towering even above those ruins. It was not symmetrical or angular. Instead, it looked like it had been made in a haste by the hands of an enormous in-training level digimon playing with plasticine in an attempt to make a cone, resulting in a crooked and tilted structure. Wind and weather most likely also had contributed to its current appearance.
And the worst part was that Copper 9's sun hit the haunting structure with its light in that moment just right, so that Commandramon could clearly see that it was entirely made out of the corpses of worker drones. A feeling of nausea and the taste of bile crept up his throat as he quickly fought the feeling down and swallowed hard, before making his way into the city.

Something under his foot cracked with a loud metallic crunch, making him stop dead in his tracks. Looking down without raising his foot, he saw it was the now broken arm of a dead worker drone. The body was buried halfway in the ice, yet its visor still displayed a red line of text in big capital letters: FATAL ERROR. And as he took his eyes off of the dead body he had just stepped on, he spotted dozens more in the snow around him, scattered across the street like fallen leaves in autumn. All of the sudden, the city ruins felt less like an actual city and more like an unearthed tomb.
Just then the reality of his situation sunk into his mind, sending a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures around him. Albeit a quiet one during the daytime, this was still a warzone and he was a soldier in enemy territory. Immediately, he looked around for any signs of movement in the ruins around him or from the spire, as he reached over his shoulder to grab his rifle... only to grab nothing but air. He repeated his attempts one more time before he turned around and noticed that his rifle was not strapped to his back. A second later, he realized why that was.

"Oh right... Uzi took my gun away earlier." Commandramon's eyes widened at that, before turning his attention back to his surroundings for any sort of activity around him. "This might be a problem." With that he cautiously pressed on, careful to step on no more worker drone corpses or anything that might cause too much noise in the dead silence of these frozen ruins.

Close proximity and long exposure to computer, television or phone screens was generally known to be bad for the human eyes. Luckily for worker drones, this did not apply for their optics, making it perfectly safe for a worker drone to work an office job nonstop 24/7 and 365 days a year without tiring. At least that was the case when the worker drones of Copper 9 still worked for humans or so were the human buyers told by salesmen of JCJenson (IN SPAAAAACEE!). Meaning it was perfectly fine for Uzi to lean forward on her gaming chair as she was engrossed in her video game. After having managed to safe her railgun from being completely ruined by an energy drink-related incident caused by a certain digimon's carelessness, she had decided to use the frustration of having to dismantle, dry and clean pretty much her entire weapon down to the smallest parts to prevent a malfunction to destroy some NPCs in a video game or two.

Was it a weird coincidence that she was currently playing a game where she was primarily gunning down blue-scaled dinosaurs swarming her in a destroyed urban environment? Perhaps but she was way too focused on mowing down the hordes of digital raptors to notice their likeness to a certain digital monster she didn't want to think about. Once the last one of the wave was downed, the screen flared up with an alert of an approaching boss monster and a new horde. Uzi simply restocked on ammo and reloaded when the thundering roar and footsteps of the boss monster rang through her headphones. Then it came into view after having been spawned. A large t-rex-like monster with large horns on its head and body emerged from behind an abandoned train, knocking away multiple carts for both visual flare and clearing the way to the next zone to progress the mission.

The purple-haired drone didn't waste time to run to a stationary heavy machine gun and open fire on the boss monster and its swarm of raptor minions crawling over the now destroyed barrier and around it to sink their teeth and claws into Uzi's game avatar. Uzi gripped her game controller harder as she redirected the barrel of the overheating gun at the horde. She grit her teeth once the swarm was dealt with but the gun was overheated and couldn't be used for a while, forcing her to abandon her previous position and seek another vantage point on top of a toppled over truck as the boss monster closed in. Obviously, she kept shooting at the tyrannosaur-like beast, looking in annoyance as its health bar at the top of the screen only shrunk so much with each shot that hit it. The boss roared in fury before lowering its head in a charge attack, forcing Uzi to quickly abandon her position and dash back to the heavy machine gun. The cooldown had run out and she instantly started opening fire with the high calibre weapon, doing much more damage and taking out chunks of its health.

"C'mon, die already!" Uzi glared at the screen as she furiously emptied the weapon's ammo into a boss as it roared in pain and charged at her again. A slight miscalculation on her part of pressing the button to disengage a fraction of a second too slow and both she and the mounted gun got run over by the boss. Unfortunately, Uzi had not healed her prior to the boss phase, which made her character's health drop to 0 and die. And since she was playing in the singleplayer mode, this meant that no other character would come to revive her like in a multiplayer round. The game over screen shortly after filled the screen with the options to either try again at the last save point or to exit the game.

"ARGH! I CALL HAX!" Uzi threw her controller onto her bed behind her as she leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and glaring at the screen as if it had mocked her personally. "Stupid enemy patterns... how are you supposed to beat this game at max difficulty on your own? Ugh." She groaned before taking the headphones off and setting them down on her desk before standing up to retrieve the game controller and shut the game down for good. But as Uzi did so, the harsh glare of the screen reflected in the screen of a smaller device, which she had not given much thought about for quite a bit of time. In fact, she had almost forgotten about its existence despite it being linked to the source of her bad mood. Turning her head to see what it was, she realized that the digivice still sat on her shelf where she had left it since Commandramon had suddenly appeared in her room two days ago. She fought the urge to pick it up and instead turned back to the task of shutting down her game. But as she did so from her bed, her eyes kept wandering to it. So when Uzi finally shut the game down, she let out a frustrated groan and stood up. Somehow it felt like a chore to finally look at the small mysterious gadget akin to forcing oneself to finally start working on homework that one really didn't want to do. Something Uzi could definitely relate to.

She picked the digivice up and moved over to her desk, before sitting back down on her gaming chair. The device between her fingers was still as unassuming as two days ago. An overall square of what she presumed to be a plastic casing if the edges of that square had been cut away in a circular fashion and making it easier to grab it comfortably and a small antenna akin to a toy walkie-talkie sat at the back. The colour scheme fitting her style and her optics was also a bit unnerving for her as if the device was meant to be either carried out in the open, though she'd likely get a lot of ridicule from her classmates if she did that, or it had been tailored to her specifically. If anything, it really did look like some toy humans had made more than a century ago. Involuntarily, Uzi remembered what Commandramon had told her about the device in her hand.

'Grow stronger and protect this world and the digital one. Yeah right. As if things were that easy.' She thought with slightly narrowed eyes as her fingers tightened a bit around the digivice. Needless to say, but despite the appearance of the digital monster, him calling her 'his partner' and her a so-called 'digidestined', Uzi was still very sceptical about the idea as a whole. She could hardly disprove of the words of something that made no sense to her in the first place or the things he had told her and Khan about this digiworld and his kind, but taking things at face value like that was not something she was willing to do. Especially when it sounded as outlandish as this.

Accidentally, she pressed one of the buttons at the side of the screen as it came alive with the same holographic display it had shown her when the digimon had appeared almost making her drop the item. The holographic screen didn't display anything though like it have before, making her question whether or not it would require Commandramon to be present for that to happen. She moved her finger to the buttons again and pressed again. The screen instantly shifted to what at first appeared to be nothing more than a pixelated gif, prior to her realizing that she was looking at a pixelated picture of Commandramon moving down a road of sort. It sort of reminded Uzi of a very old videogame from the early days of the 21st century. Watching the image move along and take turns between what seemed to be buildings, she pressed another button, causing the picture to zoom out so much that the pixel image of the digimon was replaced with a purple dot on a map and radar. In the middle of which was another dot, obviously her current location. Uzi's eyes narrowed a bit at this. 'If that's supposed to be me and where he is, he is quite far away.'

In that moment she felt something give way between her fingers and she found a small hatch pushed open. Behind it sat a simple plug socket for a cable. An idea instantly appeared in her head as she opened a drawer under her table and fished out a bunch of cables that had gotten entangled with one another. She began to look for a fitting one, which took her a few moments, and once she had one connected the digivice to her PC. Dozens of windows opened in an instant and closed again, not giving Uzi the time to see the lines of code and strange symbols on them flashing over the screen. But a few few windows stayed open. One was the radar from earlier and another showed the same information of the analyzer she had seen before. There were a few other windows that also opened up, showing various fluctuating gauges and diagrams labeled with the same symbols she couldn't decipher. Uzi's optics widened and hollowed out as she had no idea what she was witnessing before her eyes. While being quite tech-savy and a self-proclaimed genius herself, this was something she really couldn't wrap her head around immediately. And while the teenage drone couldn't help but groan in annoyance at the progressively more complicated situation at her hands, part of her was actually quite intrigued and excited, viewing the mystery before her like a puzzle that wanted to be understood and solved.

'Now what do we have here?' Uzi thought to herself as she leaned closer towards the screen of her computer. A neon red line on one of the windows caught her attention. It was corrupted and completely unreadable with the symbols constantly changing between the alien language and 0s and 1s, but what she could make out was how somewhere in the middle and at the end the text was not red but yellow. Uzi squinted her eyes at it just as the sudden noise of the door to her room being opened not even a moment later gave her pause, causing light from the living area to intrude upon the teenage drone's dark sanctuary.

"Uzi, are you in there?" Khan called inside the room as he peered inside. Immediately, Uzi glared at him for entering her private domain without even knocking.

"Get out of my room, dad!" She yelled, but Khan did not as he leaned against the door.

"Did you and your... friend get into a fight?" He asked. In response his daughter made an annoyed sound, crossing her arms and turning his back to him in her chair.

"No. We didn't. He was just being stupid and I kicked him out of my room earlier." She said. It wasn't like she was lying about it. "Why?"

"Well, it's just that he left a note, saying he's sorry and gone to grab something for you and your friend." Khan said holding a small sticky note in his hand, before scratching the side of his head with one finger. "I didn't know you have more friends-"

"WHAT?!" Uzi immediately turned around and abruptly stood up. Marching over to Khan, she took the piece of paper from his hand and looked at it.

Dear Uzi,
sorry for almost breaking your railgun. I'll make it up to you, I promise. Just going out to grab some stuff for you and that friend of yours.
(I ran into her earlier and headed back to the apartment to write this when I noticed I forgot I hadn't left a note. ;P)

Be back soon,
Commandramon

Uzi looked at the note for a moment longer, before glancing at the clock of her internal system. It was already noon and she had thrown him out in the morning. Meaning, he was already gone for a good few hours. Once everything clicked into place in her head, she instantly started to head out ranting more to herself than Khan.

"I knew it. I knew I couldn't trust her. That stupid foreign exchange student stereotype." She said, making her way to the door of her apartment, ready to give a certain Russian drone a piece of her mind.

"Uh... Uzi, where are you-" Khan asked in a slightly worried tone only to be cut off by his daughter.

"BITE ME!" With that, she slammed the door shut behind her and left Khan in the apartment in stunned silence.

"This is the place..."

Meanwhile above the ground, Commandramon stood before the remains of a building. Wind and weather had done their number on the broken sign mounted above the long since broken display window, but it was unmistakably the right address. The once colourful sign of the toy store had long since faded and the images of cartoonish characters on it with big eyes and grins had turned into something the digimon could liken to looking at the hollowed eyesockets of a skull looking back at him. The setting sun making the shadows of the ruins lengthen and casting their shadows over the place also didn't help as he swallowed hard. Around his arm he now carried an old shopping bag that had somehow survived the years of exposure to the elements in a somewhat good condition. There were small holes in it here and there like the one it had been speared on a piece of rebar from which the Digimon had earlier picked it up from, but it would hold.

"Alright, in and out." He said after swallowing loudly. Entering was easy enough with the door long since having been taken off the wall. From the way its broken remains laid in the entryway though, it looked like it had been busted down. And inside it wasn't much better. Unlike most of the ruins above, this place looked like a fight had happened in it. Shelves had been overturned and items laid on the ground. In the walls and ceiling, the digimon could clearly see claw marks as if something had crawled across the ceiling with combat knifes for three fingers. His mind involuntarily conjured unpleasant images as he kept walking deeper into the abandoned toy store, trying his best not to look at the remains of some worker drones that had been carelessly thrown against a wall and left there or some of the oil stains on the ground.

A gust of wind washed into the store from a large hole that had been torn into the opposite side of the store. Debris littered the ground and the concrete was still scorched black from an explosion. Then a loud and haunting noise filled the air, making Commandramon's heart race only and press himself against the side of a shelf, hoping his camouflage would hide him. That was when he realized he had stepped on a rubber chicken. He rolled his eyes and kicked the dog toy away.

"Come on. Get a grip Commandramon. Just find what you are looking for and then race back to home." He told himself as he looked around the store once more and noticed a door in the back with a still readable sign reading 'STORAGE'. "Bingo." With that he pushed the heavy metal door open with a loud creak and headed inside. The room wasn't too big with packages still sitting labeled on their high shelves for future unpacking and restocking the store, making it easy for him to find what he was looking for. However it sat on the top of the shelf and with him being even smaller than his partner, it wasn't as easy to get there. "Great, now what?" He thought aloud when he noticed the dead bodies of some worker drones nearby. He looked at them for a moment, before shaking his head.

A short while later, Commandramon had staked the bodies on top of each other in a small pile, just high enough for his claws to brush against the bottom of the highest compartment, mere centimetres away from his prize. He groaned with effort as he stretched his body as far as he could, standing with one foot on the chest of a worker drone's corpse while balancing himself with his other leg and tail. The foundation he stood on was by no means stable and shifted and creaked with each move he did. "Just... one more... little..." Just then, the pile of corpses under him shifted, causing the digimon to slam face first into the shelf and tumble down. Luckily enough, he landed on his behind and avoided further injuries due to his gear and helmet. He still held his bruised snout though. "Ow..." Just then the shelf he had slammed into wobbled hard enough from the impact for the parcel he had tried to reach to fall off the edge and right into his hands. Blinking in disbelief at the fortunate turn of events for a moment, he quickly shot up and held his price over his head with both hands like one of the video game characters in Uzi's game.

That was when he remembered that he still had to get to Outpost 3 and it was getting dangerously late already. He would rather not be stuck all night out there with those murder machines.

"I better hurry." He quickly ran out of the storage room with his possession and into the streets, hoping to make it in time before the sun completely disappeared behind the horizon and the two moons would rise.

In his hurry, the cyborg digimon didn't notice a pair of eyes following him from the shadows of a ruined building across the street follow him.

"Well, would you look at that..." A small shape detached itself from the building as it headed into the same toy store, that Commandramon had just left.

Oil bubbled in the pot on Doll's stove as she stirred its contents with a soup ladle. Inside her visor a warning message blinked to life.

Warning! Temperature too high! Consume oil immediately!

She hated having to do this, but it was the only way. Even if that made her a monster. She stirred the pot's contents some more before finally lifting half a ladle full of the oil and downing it in one go. She hated how good it tasted on her tongue and how she felt tiny pieces of metal in the black slurry run down her throat.

Just then a harsh and loud knocking on the door of her apartment almost made her spit the oil against the wall before she swallowed it down. Turning around she saw the door shake with each pound a bit as whoever was on the other side really wanted to get her attention. Rolling her eyes and grabbing a sharp knife from the counter, she approached the door. She wiped some oil from its side and licked it off her fingers as a stained blade was not as sharp and might not be as effective. Once in front of her door, there was more pounding from the other side again. This would have startled most people, but Doll wasn't most people.

"Кто это?(Who is it?)" She asked, gripping her knife ready to use it.

"OPEN UP DOLL!" Uzi's voice came muffled through the door, before another loud thud rang into the apartment as Uzi had apparently kicked the door and judging by the sound she made, hurt her foot in the process. Doll's body relaxed a bit as she put the knife away and shut down the lights to the kitchen area, before opening the door and stepping out. And indeed, there was Uzi Doorman holding her foot and standing on the other one.

"Добрый вечер, Узи. (Good evening Uzi.)" Doll said as she looked down at her classmate. "Что привело вас сюда? (What brings you here?)" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Where is he?" Uzi said in a demanding tone, standing up straight again yet careful not to put to much weight on the injured foot.

"Who?"

"You know damn well who I'm talking about." Uzi said, pointing an accusing finger into Doll's face and stomping with her uninjured foot. "Where is Commandramon? I know you have seen him earlier today." Doll contemplated for a second whether or not she should bite Uzi's finger off just to get it out of her face, before gently pushing Uzi's arm aside.

"Уверяю вас, я сегодня не видел и не слышал вашего маленького... друга. С чего вы взяли, что я его видел? (I can assure you, I have not seen or heard your little... friend today. What made you think I did in the first place?)" The taller of the two purple-haired drones said, narrowing her eyes at the idea of the digimon running around on his own and causing havoc. The memories of yesterday at school were still very fresh on her mind and having a gun-wielding and potentially harmful creature like that around might be... beneficial.

"Urgh! He left a lame note about how he met a 'friend' of mine and since you are the only other person he knows, that makes you the main and only suspect." Uzi glared at Doll as good as she could. Doll simply sighed at her. "What?" Uzi demanded at her reaction.

"Рассматривали ли вы возможность того, что кто-то мог только что сказать ему, что он ваш друг? (Have you considered the possibility, that someone might have just told him that they were your friend?)" Doll said.

Then there was an awkward moment of complete silence between the two of them in the hallway. Safe from the flickering of the lights above and the skittering of a robot roach, there was nothing there for a moment as Uzi looked to the side for a moment, seemingly thinking about Doll's words for a moment. Then she just crossed her arms herself.

"Fine. Let's assume I believe you, which I don't..." Doll rolled her eyes at that remark. "Who else could or would have done that sort of thing?" Uzi asked.

Doll was about to reply that pretty much everyone in their class, who had been smokebombed yesterday likely didn't have the highest opinion of her at the moment, when Commandramon, clad in his moving box disguise, running past them with a small parcel in his hands.

"Oh, hey guys." He happily waved at them before making his way down the hallway. Both worker drones just watched him go for a solid few seconds before they both exchanged a glance and then followed after him. They kept their distance as Commandramon made his way into another part of Outpost 3's living quarters. In fact, it was a place Doll knew quite well. Therefore her and Uzi's surprise was rather big when the digimon stopped right in front of the door of a particular classmate of theirs. Commandramon then knocked and none other than Lizzy opened the door just wide enough for Commandramon to look inside.

"Ah, it's you." The blonde drone said in a surprised tone, before seeing the parcel he was holding. "Wait, did you actually..."

"Yup." Commandramon nodded, handing her the parcel. "I have verified the contents myself. The retrieval operation from the outside was a full success. I may have sustained a minor cold though." He said with a salute. Lizzy opened the parcel herself and peeked in, before making a happy, high-pitched sound like a girl getting the one thing on her wishlist for Christmas that she had pestered her parents for pretty much all year long. What she couldn't see was the somewhat shocked or surprised looks Uzi and Doll gave Commandramon when they realized that he had been outside of Outpost 3.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Lizzy said. "Honestly, I didn't think they still had that one."

"Yeah, it wasn't quite easy to find in that destroyed store." The digimon replied, laughing awkwardly. "By the way, I ran into Uzi and Doll on the way here-" Just then Uzi tore the door wide open to glare daggers at Lizzy, who instantly froze in place. Meanwhile Doll just stood behind Uzi with a stoic, yet somehow disappointed look on her face.

"Ah, the freak." Lizzy said, just as Uzi stepped through the door of Lizzy's family's apartment. It looked no different then any other apartment really and Lizzy's parents were apparently not home, leaving Lizzy at the mercy of one angry Uzi Doorman.

"Bite me! What in the Robo-Hell made you think to just send my pa..." Uzi stopped herself from saying 'partner' just in time as she corrected herself quickly. "... my pal to the surface to go shopping for you?"

"He was going out anyway and offered to get something." Lizzy said, making a nervous step backwards, her fingers tightening around the parcel. That made Uzi look suspiciously at the cardboard box herself.

"What's in that box anyw-HEY!" Before she could finish, Lizzy jumped backwards and into her room before trying to slam the door shut. But before it could do so, Uzi slammed into the otherside with all her weight, keeping it open. "What are you hiding, Lizzy?"

"None of your business, weirdo."

"Say that to my face without a door between us!"

"I'd need a ladder for you though!"

"SHUT UP!"

Doll and Commandramon just watched at the struggle between the two girls unfold without helping either side. The former because it appeared to be so stupid and the latter because he didn't know what to do. Eventually though, Uzi managed to force her way into Lizzy's room and almost immediately found her optics assaulted by the bright pink and white colouration of her room's interior. An open wardrobe was full of outfits at one side and on the other she had her desk with mirrors and makeup tools as well as a PC.
It was all so girly Uzi wanted to gag. That was when her eyes fell on Lizzy who had been knocked onto her bed and the parcel now laying open between them with its contents visible for Uzi to see.

It wasn't some jewelry or an expensive, high-end make-up product. Instead, it was something far simpler. A doll. Well, not actually a doll, more like a small figurine of a cream-coloured horse with cartoonish plastic eyes, a small spiral horn on its forehead and tiny stubby wings. Now Uzi might not have been the most traditionally feminine worker drone by human standards or drone standards, but even she recognized a character from a show meant for pre-teen girls. Turning her head just slightly, she spotted a glass display case with multiple toys of that show in particular. For a moment, neither of them said anything as Lizzy simply grabbed the toy Commandramon had brought her, while Doll and the digimon moved into the room too with the latter looking around in quite wonder. Doll, on the other hand, knew this room quite well already. That's when Uzi finally spoke up.

"You seriously sent my friend out into a kill zone for a toy?" She said, not quite sure whether she wanted to sound surprised, outraged, amused or confused. Lizzy perked up at this and raised a finger in a matter-of-fact way.

"It's not a toy. It's a vintage, limited edition collectible." The drone Uzi knew to be the stereotypical mean girl said without a shred of sarcasm. A short moment of silence followed as everyone looked at her.

"Uh... A what now?" Commandramon asked as he turned to Doll for answers, not understanding half the words Lizzy just said.

"It's a fancy toy." The Russian doll replied, making Lizzy visible deflate and her face fall at her bestie's betrayal, while Uzi had to fight the urge to burst out in laughter, covering her mouth with one hand to keep the chuckles at bay.

"Doll! Whose side are you on here?!" She cried out, while Doll merely raised an eyebrow.

"My own. Which just so happens to coincide with hers." She said, giving Uzi a small smile as she nodded in her direction, also amused by Lizzy's reaction. But once Lizzy had set her parcel down on her nightstand she glared at Uzi.

"You better not tell anyone about this or you're dead." She said.

"My lips are sealed." Commandramon said raising a hand in a salute, making Lizzy and Uzi look at him.

"I was talking to the emo drone."

"You are not helping, Commandramon."

"Aw..." Ignoring the disappointed sound her partner made, Uzi turned her attention back to Lizzy.

"Okay, here's what we are going to do. I won't tell everyone at school that you still like to play with dolls and collect stuff like that..." Uzi gestured at the showcase to emphasize her point. "And you won't tell them about that cybernetic dinosaur over there." That made Lizzy blink her pink optics in confusion.

"Dinosaur? What are you talking about?" She asked.

"Oh, don't play dumb with me. There's no way, you didn't look what's under there." Uzi said pointing at Commandramon before pulling the box off of him. Lizzy's eyes widened and hollowed out in shock upon seeing Commandramon in full. "...why are you pretending to be so surprised?" Uzi asked after an awkward moment of silence.

"Uhm Uzi..." Commandramon tugged lightly at her sleeve like a child asking its parent at the supermarket to grab some candy for it. The image was not that far off since Commandramon was shorter than the worker drone. "Lizzy didn't try look into the box. She just wanted me to get her that figure. And I headed out anyway so I just agreed." The digimon said before chuckling awkwardly. Doll just facepalmed at this, before Uzi realising her mistake looked back and forth between Lizzy and her partner.

"Wha- huh- HUH?!" Uzi said, grabbing the rookie level by the shoulders and shaking him around like a ragdoll. "Then why were you outside?!"

"To. Get. You. Some-Thing. Be-Cause. Of. Ear-Li-Er." He said, the words slightly chopped from being shaken. "Please. Stop. Sha-King. Me." Uzi let go, making the digimon wobble a bit on his feet before he pulled out the shopping bag he had found earlier and pulled something out of it.

'This better be good or...' Uzi could immediately tell it was some clothing article, but upon him holding it out to her, she saw it was a hoodie like the one he had accidentally used as a towel earlier. Taking it off his hands, she checked it and aside from some frost still clinging to the fabric and dampening it as the ice melted in the warmer air of Outpost 3 she found it in good condition. Not to mention that it actually was her size.

"It wasn't that easy to find one your size really. Took pretty much all day." Uzi looked back and forth between the hoodie in her hands and Commandramon looking away in shame. Finally, she let out a tired sigh and patted him on the helmet.

"Thanks... or whatever." She said quitely while looking away, a slight blush dusting the lower half of her visor. In response, she heard the familiar thump of the digimon's tail against the floor, slightly dulled by the white synthetic plush carpet of Lizzy's room.

Speaking of Lizzy, she just looked between the scene in complete bewilderment and Doll, who just watched in complete silence, before making her presence known to the others again.

"Would someone explain to me what is going on here?!" She asked, pointing at Commandramon. "What is that thing?!"

"Hello." Commandramon replied, before turning to Uzi and Doll. "I should make myself invisible, right?" He whispered rather loudly.

"Yeah you should." Uzi told him.

"I can see and hear you guys, you know?!" Lizzy shouted over being ignored again as she sat on the side of her bed.

"You can make yourself invisible?" Doll asked actually curious about that information and completely ignoring Lizzy freaking out.

"Well, I can change the colour of my skin to match my surroundings. Watch." Commandramon replied. Just in that moment, Doll realized what was about to happen.

"Wait-" But it was too late and Commandramon's skin started changing from its usual blue to a pink camouflage pattern akin to that of the walls of Lizzy's room. There was some white on the feet due to the carpet. There was a moment of silence, which was then broken moment later by Lizzy launching herself at the digimon like a cat pouncing on prey and sending both of them onto the ground and causing Uzi to take a step back. For a moment, she was watching how the blonde drone was hugging her partner digimon like a large teddy bear from behind. Then the surprise turned into annoyance.

"H-Hey, let go of him!" Uzi shouted at Lizzy with multiple anger tick marks appearing on her visor, but she was simply ignored.

"Sweet Baby Robo-Jesus! You're adorable!" She said, closing her pink eyes, while Commandramon was blushing furiously with his whole face turning a shade of red, which seemed to only intensify Lizzy's behaviour and Uzi's annoyance with the whole ordeal.

"Uzi, Doll, help me..." Commandramon pleaded weakly, reaching out to the other worker drones. Uzi responded right away by moving over and trying (and failing) to pry Lizzy off of the digimon.

While this was all unfolding Doll felt her eye twitch slightly at the absurdity before her.
'Mother, is this what it was like when you had to reign in Aunt Alice and Aunt Nori?' She thought to her while Uzi started pulling at Lizzy's ponytail, yelling at her to let go of Commandramon and Lizzy just continued to ignore Uzi and rub her cheek against the pink dinosaur soldier weakly trashing in her grip and having trouble breathing, causing his face to turn purple.

Meanwhile, the mismatched pair of Copper 9's natural satellites rose high into the night sky, bathing the planet's surface in their ghastly pale light. The silence of the dead world was shattered by the sounds of gunfire, explosions, screams of pain and terror and the laughter of the nocturnal airborne predators.

Another night had begun and with that another hunt for the disassembly drones to feed on the remaining worker drones on the surface.

Places like Outpost 3, which up to this point had proven itself to be murder drone proof, were very rare, meaning that the rest of the worker drone population that still remained on the surface during the night was left without any real protection outside of running, hiding and waiting for the dawn to come.

A missile exploded where a worker drone stood a moment ago, reducing it to nothing but scrap metal before it had the chance to scream. Others scattered away in an futile attempt to get away as the flying drone simply ran them through with her bladed wings while laughing maniacally. Then the drones all laid dead she grabbed the closest one and started devouring it with her sharp teeth easily cutting into the metal of their bodies. Meanwhile just around a corner, a lone survivor of the attack was holding his breath as he peered around the corner to see the murderous robot feed. She had short white hair and wore a jacket with a fur collar. Her arms appeared to be modular with the lower half instantly capable of switching between three razor-sharp claws for fingers and multiple firearms such as missile launchers and machine guns. Her legs were strangely more human-like in appearance than the tube-like limbs of the worker drones, having thighs but also ending in stilt like legs. Finally a long cable-like tail was attached to the back of her behind, ending in a syringe-like tube with a blade for a needle to expel the neon yellow glowing nanite acid within.

The worker drone quickly retreated back behind the corner and started to slowly sneak away from the scene. He was in the shadow of a ruined building and could only barely see the road ahead, let alone anything laying on the ice. He knew if he took as much as a wrong breath, he was going to be next. That was when he was hit with some small debris from above, making him slowly look up. Right above him, a murder drone had emerged from the window of an upper floor and now clung to the side of the ruin like some sort of lizard or insect, its neon yellow X of its visor just mere centimetres away from him. Then the murder machine then simply tore into the worker drone's chest with its claws, causing him to gurgle out a last pathetic sound of pain. Then his head was severing the head from the body by a swipe of those claws.

Letting himself drop down from the floor and tearing into his last victim's body with his sharp fangs, Serial Designation N greedily drank the worker drone's oil to cool his body down. Once the flow had turned into little more than a trickle, he threw the broken corpse aside and stretched his arms.

"And that is one more. Maybe, I'll actually reach my quota tonight." He thought aloud to himself as he adjusted his hat. He too had white hair and wore a jacket. However as a male disassembly drone, his legs didn't have the more curvy thighs or stilt-like feet of his squadmates and instead have relatively normal looking robotic legs ending in feet. He was just about to take off into the air again, when his sensors warned him of an incoming object. Turning around, N was hit right in the face with a snowball, causing him to stagger back a little as the fresh snow clung to his visor. "H-Hey!" He said as he wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket to turn at his attacker. However, his sensors found nothing but an empty street. The X on his visor vanished and was replaced by a pair of digital optics like those of a worker drone. "Okay... this is weird." He said to himself, before turning around and spreading his wings to take off.

Just to be hit by another snowball right in the back of his head and sending his hat flying. Luckily, the predatory reflexes of the disassembly drone allowed him to switch his claws for normal drone hands and catch it in time before hitting the ground. Right after that, he turned around again to look down the street with a bloodthirsty grin and the X on his visor reappeared. This time however, he caught a glimpse of something disappearing into a rather large hole in a wall. He didn't know what it was and while it clearly was a bit short for a worker drone, he had been hit twice by it already and he was not going to let some something get away with that. So, he took off just a bit off the ground and flew towards the large cavity in the wall with his claws ready to sink them into whoever or whatever decided to play some sort of prank on him. Peering inside, N found himself in an abandoned toy store. Glancing around the overturned shelves and debris littering the ground alongside the remains of another past hunt, N's visor switched back to his regular eyes as he got inside.

Switching one hand for a flashlight, he walked down an aisle and let his eyes wander over plastic dinosaurs, human dolls and the occasional stuffed animal. Normally, he probably wouldn't have minded such a place at all even in its devastated state, but somehow the situation made it even more unnerving. N noticed something strange on the ground before kneeling down to inspect it. There was a fresh imprint in the snow, but it looked odd. Smaller than a worker drone's and ending in three digits. Now as far as N knew, all organic life on the planet had perished when Copper 9's core had collapsed for mysterious unknown reasons. His eyes scanned the imprint and highlighted more of them leading to the cash register while his system compared and cross-referenced the shape with an internal database before a window appeared in his HUD.

ORIGIN UNKNOWN

'That is slightly worrying. And also... a bit terrifying.' He thought to himself before he heard a noise coming from where the cash register was. A dull thud of something hitting the ground followed by footsteps at the far end of the aisle that N had just come from. His head whipped around here from one direction to the other. 'Come on N, you are a disassembly drone. You got nothing to worry about-' He tried reassuring himself just when all of the sudden the haunting melody of a jack-in-a-box started playing, sending chills down N's mechanical spine. The male disassembly drone turned immediately to the source of the noise and found a box sitting there on the counter with its crank slowly unwinding. Otherwise, happy sounding notes were underline with creepy and dissonant tones as a result of weathering and decay, yet it became more haunting in this situation. The melody slowed down and became deeper with the wrong notes becoming even louder when the crank stopped occasionally only to snap forward and release another deafening sound. Then it all fell silent again. N didn't move and didn't take his hollowed out eyes off the box. But when the crank suddenly snapped forward again and he heard the click of the latch opening, he wasted no time to shoot the box off the counter with one shot.

Slowly, he approached the counter, still pointing the smoking barrel of his gun at it to peer over and see what he had just shot. Much to his relief, it was really just a clown-themed jack-in-a-box now sporting a smoking bullet hole between its eyes. N released a sigh, he didn't know he held and smiled just as he turned around to leave.

And was immediately hit him square in the face by a chunk of snow and ice the size of a basketball, sending him tumbling backwards into a pile of stuffed animals with a surprised yelp. Shaking his head to get the snow off, he started picking himself up again when he heard a voice cut through the stillness of the abandoned store.

"And just what in third quarter profits do you think you're doing?" J said as she glared down at him from the far side of the store, standing in the large hole in the wall with the moons' light right behind her. "Playing around on the job?" She added as she stepped inside.

J was the leader of their squad, making her N's superior and boss for this mission on Copper 9. Unlike V and N, J didn't wear a jacket but rather a black business suit with a matching tied and skirt. Her white hair was longer than her colleagues' and styled in twin tails. N immediately picked himself up from the pile of plushies and began sweating under her unamused glare.

"Oh, hey J. I was just following some noise and... well..." N faltered under her glare as she drew dangerously close. Despite being slightly shorter than him, J was a very stern boss to have and quite harsh when it come to punishing insubordination or not meeting her work standards. When she didn't even slow down, N was taking a nervous step back and raised his hands in surrender after switching them back to normal. "Um... I kinda..." He stopped when his back hit a wall and J's clawed hand slammed right next to his head into the faded picture of a cartoonish clown, cracking the picture and causing flakes of paint to fall off.

"You were once again not doing your job and instead playing with dolls" J glared at him. "I swear, if company policies wouldn't force me to have a better reason to permanently deactivate you, you'd be on the junkyard already." She said as her bladed fingers clenched tightly next to his head, causing N to stiffen up as they broke off a chunk of concrete from the wall and crushed it. Just then, V entered through the back.

"Hey J, what are you up to? Did number 3 do something to set you off again?" She asked before walking up to the others, making N smile and wave at her.

"Hi V." That smile faded a bit as J glared at him before rolling her eyes and distancing herself from N.

"Our liability here was just about to tell me why he thought to abandon the mission for a moment to go around and play in a pile of bootleg JCJenson products." The squadleader said as she kicked a stuffed tiger hard enough to tear apart from the impact and sending its stuffing flying. V raised an eyebrow at this, her psychotic smile lessened a bit as she turned to N for answers.

"Uhm... you see, I was just done killing one of those drones when I got hit with a snowball..." He turned away in embarrassment as J's eye twitched in annoyance. Still, she gave him a hand gesture to continue. "So of course I thought it was another one and saw it flee in here. But then I saw the tracks and kinda lost it..." N admitted.

"Tracks? What tracks?" V asked, making N point at the imprints in the snow not far from them. Both J and V's own scans had the same result of the shape not matching anything in their database.

"So what you're saying is that you wasted your time going after something that WASN'T a worker drone?" J asked, her anger flaring up again.

"I guess..." N offered carefully as he moved towards the large hole in the front of the store where the display window used to be. "It still ambushed me though..."

"Then show me where it is supposed to be or I'm led to believe you are just making this up." J glared at N, while V gave their boss a side-eyed glance. "You are moving on very thin ice here, N. So you better choose your next words wisely."

N opened his mouth to say something, just as another chunk of snow was hurled through the air and hit him in the back of his head with enough force to knock him back down to the ground and with his face right to the feet of his female coworkers. J and V both just looked at N for a moment, before a voice caught there attention.

"Man, what a bore this guy is. You sure his name isn't actually Doormat or something, because that's what he sure looks like to me." Sitting there on the concrete wall was a small creature, roughly the size of a preschool human child. It looked like a devil from a child's drawing with what looked like a black suit with two long and slightly floppy ears and a short tail with an arrow-shaped tip. Its face was white with big green eyes and on its chest was a smiley with a grin baring triangular teeth. Around its neck it wore a red bandana and both hands were covered in three-fingered red gloves, while the feet had three short and blunt claws for toes. It chuckled at N picking himself off the ground again and spitting out snow.

Digimon Analyzer

Impmon

Level: Rookie

Evil Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: Night of Fire

"Hey! I'm not a doormat, you..." N said as he picked himself off the ground, only to stop as he tried thinking of a retort at the strange devil-like being in front of them. "Wait a minute, you're the one who was messing with me earlier!" He pointed a clawed hand at him.

"Took you long enough." With that he put the hand behind his head and leaned back. "Oh well, you guys were boring to play with anyway and I was just here because some other guy was here earlier." Impmon said as he hopped down from the window and into the street outside. That was until he heard the flexing of bladed fingers behind him coming from within the store.

"And what makes you think you'd just walk away from making a fool out of us?" J asked with an anger tick on her visor. At that Impmon tapped his foot and seemed to think about it.

"Let me think. I'd say, because you're not getting out." He said pushing a button on a small remote in his hand. Instantly, bright purple lights outside the two entryways of the toy store came to life, bathing the street in their glow. N hissed out in pain as he flinched back with his tail caught in the light for a moment. J and V could see why he had made that noise. Part of his tail had burned and still smoked from the exposure to the light. The nanites inside his body were repairing the damage already, but it was a rather harsh reaction for such a minute exposure to it. "I heard you guys don't like sunlight, so I installed those UV lights just for you." Impmon said from outside the store as he stepped into the glow completely unharmed.

J felt her pride being attacked and V had the sudden urge to pounce on the small devi-like creature and dissect him just out of principle. N was simply focused on healing his injury as he looked around the place.

"Why you little..." J said with her anger directed now solely on the being just out of her melee weapons reach.

"Aw! What's the matter? All those shiny weapons and no way to use them." Impmon said, before making universal mocking noises and gestures towards the trio of murder machines. That was cut short by J and V opening fire on him with their machine guns. Startled he backed away and dodged the incoming bullets although barely so.

"Hey! watch where you're aiming! You almost hit me!" Impmon shouted from behind a wall of the building across the street once the two had stopped.

"That's the plan, idiot." V said with an annoyed frown on her face. N meanwhile looked at the wiring on the ceiling and saw how they all connected to a breaker box at the far wall.

"Who are you calling an idiot, you idiot? You are the ones stuck there." Impmon then shrugged. "Well, you can't get me. Because I'm out here and you are in there." He said pointing at the disassembly drones. "I've seen enough. I'm satisfied. So you can just go and-"

His ranting was cut short by N firing a shot at the breaker box at the far wall of the store, causing J and V to turn to him. Sparks of electricity danced across its surface for a moment, before dying down and in the same moment, the UV lights outside also flickered off. N just wordlessly looked back at his squadmates and then all three of them looked back at the digimon. Impmon's smile vanished as he blinked a few times before awkwardly chuckling and smiling, while rubbing the back of his head.

"O-Oh well. It's all fun and games, right? Water under the bridge. Hahaha... I guess, I should head home now. Have fun murdering those worker drones. Haha..." The small devil digimon then quickly dashed away as the disassembly drones' visors changed back to displaying a large X each. Impmon just barely made it a street further when V burst through the building he had just hidden behind in a shower of debris with a savage grin on her face. "AAAAHHHH!" He screamed before quickly diving away to avoid getting cut into ribbons as V swiped at him with her claws.

"GET BACK HERE!?" V shouted angrily snapping a piece of rebar caught between her fingers in half. Just then J and N followed suit and opened fire upon the retreating devil. Surprisingly enough, it managed to be nimble enough to dodge the deadly fire from the two disassembly drones. Just then J could see where it was running towards. Further up, the road was a manhole cover propped up with a piece of rebar and the annoying little devil was heading straight for it.

"Oh no, you don't!" J dove towards the shaft just as Impmon saw her coming in. With that he formed a finger pistol with one hand and a small fire ball of pinkish flame appeared at the fingertip. Then the fiery projectile flew towards J with enough speed that she actually had to slightly swoop up to dodge the flame, which harmlessly sizzled against the concrete wall of another ruined building with the sound of a bang snap.
That made J blink in confusion as to what that attack was meant to accomplish, just as Impmon stuck out his tongue at her and pulled his eyelid down looking at her. It was that moment she realized that it was just a distraction and she had been made a fool yet again. With an outcry of pure rage, J flew towards the digimon, but it had already leapt into hole and the cover slammed shut just as she hit it with her claws, kicking up dust and snow. N and V slowed down at bit as the manhole cover was thrown aside and almost hit the two of them and heard how J unloaded her gun down into the shaft.

When the dust settled, J stood panting heavily over the now destroyed hole in the ground, but there was not a trace of the small devil to be found. N carefully approached the still seething squadleader to look down himself.

"You think you got hi-" N didn't get much further when J shot him straight in the face and sent him falling to the ground, her eyes still hollowed out and her face in a deep scowl baring her teeth. V frowned at J's outburst before grabbing N's body and slowly pulling him away from J before she might decide to take her remaining anger out on N while he was regenerating. Even she knew when not to try and push J's buttons.

What the disassembly drones didn't know was how under that shaft was a second one that Impmon was currently hiding in.

'Geez, that stuck-up corporate drone can't take a joke, can she?' He thought before slowly creeping through the shaft towards a place that would be safe until dawn would break. He had to fight the urge to chuckle at her freaking out at him escaping though.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Gun Safety Disengaged

If there was one thing that Khan Doorman was absolutely certain of, it would be that his doors were more reliable than anyone within Outpost 3, would never fail him and were like his own children, even if that made no sense to the other worker drones for not grasping the concept of an idea being someone's 'brainchild'.

One other thing, Khan knew for a fact was that his actual daughter took a lot more after her mother than Uzi was probably even aware of. Sometimes Khan actually wondered if any of his source code had actually contributed anything to her personality. And then he was reminded of her knack for engineering. It had started relatively small and harmless like it did for most worker drones once their consciousness was uploaded from an untrained neural network, also commonly referred to as a pill baby, to a worker drone body. Playing with building blocks and drawing up childish pictures based on the shows she had watched quickly turned into her drawing up plans for them to work or how her mind thought they could perhaps work and even creating simple mechanisms with what she had available, even if they had not always worked as intended on the first try. Naturally, Uzi had reacted to such failures like any child her age would have, but Khan had been there to help and support her. In those moments, when Khan had explained to her how certain mechanical things worked, Uzi's mind absorbed the wisdom of her engineer of a dad like a sponge and her little projects actually worked after they fixed them, he truly had been her hero. From there things had become more complex and serious with the childish drawings turning into almost professional schematics like those on blueprints.

Admittedly, being as smart as she was, Uzi was far better at her age than he had been. But he took no offense to that. Quite the contrary, in fact. If anything, hearing her tinkering on her little experiments of mass destruction while holed up in her room made a piece of code inside his system very proud. Even if he could not show that. That was the exact reason why he was currently pacing around the apartment as he waited for Uzi to come back. The whole situation with Commandramon was basically forgotten in that moment as he was more worried what the spitting image of Nori might be up to after having walked out the door in a clearly very bad mood. If Uzi was anything like Nori, whoever had gotten on her bad side was going to regret it. Of course, Khan was not advocating for violence in his household and would have a word as the parent in all this with her once she got back. Part of him wanted to go after her and prevent things from escalating.

But that was also where he himself stood in his own way as he also feared that interacting with her right now would also result in her pushing him away even more. It wasn't like he avoided confrontations and he would most certainly not let Uzi do whatever she wanted. It was just that he really was not good with parenting at all and feared that his actions would just make it worse, thus resulting to avoid the situation entirely and forcing him into inaction out of fear of making things worse. Normally in a situation like this, he would go to the others of the WDF and play cards to take his mind off of the matter. But game night was apparently canceled after multiple members had dragged one of their colleagues off somewhere to punish him for cheating after being called out by none other than the digital monster living under their roof. They also still had not found that WDF member yet and the others were not saying what they had done to him.

All of that brought him to this very awkward situation as his anxiety slowly rose higher, while his subconscious system turned that energy into him reading the same magazines all over again, cleaning the place up and now pacing around aimlessly.

'How did so much sand get into this place anyway?' His mind tried to distract itself as he thought about the strangely large amount of sand and dust he had cleaned out of the apartment. 'We live on a frozen planet, not a desert one... Wait, stop that, Khan. You have better things to worry about like-'

The sound of the apartment door opening got his attention and immediately had him turn his head towards it as he stood next to the kitchen counter. In walked Uzi and Commandramon in his box disguise. Uzi's beanie didn't sit quite right on her head as if she had shaken her head a bit too much, causing it to be a bit off to the side, and her hands were clenched into fists as she still looked angry. Commandramon was also rather quiet as he closed the door behind the two of them and took off the box he had hidden under, while slightly touching his neck. Upon seeing Khan, the digimon smiled a bit and nodded in greeting, but didn't say anything. If Khan didn't know it any better, he'd assume his daughter just came back from a scuffle.

"Uzi, there you are." Khan tried to start a conversation as he tried to appear laid-back and leaned against the squeaky-clean kitchen counter with one hand, almost slipping up on its still wet surface. "Did you have fun with your friends?"

"Bite me." Uzi replied in true Uzi fashion, marching angrily to her room with Commandramon following right behind her, but not without him offering a small shrug to Uzi's father before he too slipped into her room and the door shut behind them. Left by himself again, Khan sighed as he made his way into his own room and fell face first onto his bed, falling asleep right away as a result of the stress.

At the same time, Uzi let out another annoyed groan as she let herself fall backwards onto her mattress. Covering her visor with one arm, the headache caused by now not only Doll but also Lizzy knowing about Commandramon's existence more on a surface level only seemed to intensify out of spite. And the worst part was that it was because of her own actions. If she could, she'd slap her past self from an hour ago for that stupid impulsive decision. Meanwhile, her digimon partner walked over to her closet and put her new hoodie neatly folded upon the heaps of unfolded laundry she had thrown within. His neck was still somewhat sore from both Lizzy's arm tightly wrapped around it and her surprising strength as well as both Doll and Uzi having to pry her off of him.

"What a pain..." Uzi mumbled, still covering her optics with one arm, while Commandramon looked over to the now repaired railgun resting next to the desk and then to her. He moved over to her bed until he stood next to it.

"Come on Uzi. I'm sure it's not that bad." He offered, making Uzi grumble before turning her back to him as she faced the opposite side of the bed.

"It's Lizzy we are talking about. Of course, this is bad. She's like the sort of girl who can't keep her mouth shut about anything." The purple-haired worker drone said as her arm now laid on the bed. In response, Commandramon walked around the bed to face her directly.

"I'm sure she can keep quiet about this. We did ask her nicely after all." His naive response made the corner of Uzi's mouth twitch upwards slightly in an amused huff, before she rolled over again.

"More like Doll threatened to expose some secret Lizzy definitely didn't want to get out." Uzi replied, remembering the face Lizzy had made when Doll had whispered something to her that neither Commandramon nor Uzi quite caught. That face of betrayal and hurt was something Uzi wished in that moment to have a picture of and frame on her wall... Okay, not actually as it would be out of place. Maybe a photo album of all the people who had talked badly about her with various expressions of distress. However, something about this still bothered her. It wasn't all that surprising that Doll of all people would know that sort of thing about Lizzy. The two were after all the two popular and befriended girls, who always hung around each other as far as Uzi could tell. But rather the fact that Doll would actually help her keep Commandramon a secret and that she'd do something that could potentially damage, if not threaten, that bond with Lizzy rubbed her the wrong way. Even before that it was weird, but something was odd about Doll's behavior. Odder than her usual silence. "Just what does she have to gain from that?"

The light of her computer being blocked by Commandramon in front of her at the edge of her bed made her snap back into the present. However, he did not look at her. Instead, his head was turned towards the computer's screen where the digivice was still plugged into it and displaying the various windows that she could not read. Turning his body more towards it, his tail came up over the edge of the bed and Uzi had to sit up to not get accidentally brushed with it across her face.

"Hey, watch that tail!" She said scooting to the edge of the bed to look at what Commandramon was intensely looking at. The digimon had his amber eyes practically glued to the monitor and made no indication that he had heard Uzi, before he spoke up.

"That's DigiCode." He said, while Uzi got up from her bed to plop herself onto her gaming chair and roll up next to him.

"Okay, for the not digital lifeforms in the room?" Uzi said, but Commandramon didn't answer. Instead, his eyes were locked on the symbols on the screen. Moving over a bit closer, the worker drone found him staring at a particular window. The one with the same line of neon yellow and red, corrupted code, that had caught her attention earlier. It was still glitching and seemingly randomly changing from 0s and 1s to symbols that Uzi could only describe as distorted. His fixation with it to the point where she didn't even find him blinking for several seconds sent a feeling of discomfort and worry through her. "Commandramon?" She asked as she shook his shoulder slightly.

Just then Commandramon shut his eyes tightly and his hands shot to his head, groaning as a piercing headache spread in his skull. It felt like someone had taken an ice pick and was slowly pushing it into his brain. His ears rang so much it drowned out all the noise around him and left him deaf when Uzi jumped up from her chair with enough force to knock the chair over and send it clattering to the ground, while she moved to the hunched over digimon's side.

"Crap! What's wrong, Commandramon? Hey, talk to me!" She said as she tried to figure out what was going on. However, Uzi's words didn't reach his ears as to him everything sounded like he was deep underwater. His claws slightly scratched the surface of his helmet, which now felt like it was tightening around his head like a hydraulic press. The ringing in his ears only kept intensifying whilst he forced his eyes open. Uzi's eyes hollowed out when she saw his pupils having contracted like back in the classroom as if he was about to jump someone and bite their head off. For a moment, she thought the sound he had made turned into that same growl, before realizing it was him still groaning in pain.

"U-zi..., p-ease, mak- i- s-op..." He managed to say as his voice glitched like when he had first appeared, before shutting his eyes tightly again.

"I... I don't..." Uzi said as she knelt beside him unsure what to do. 'Come on, Uzi think.' She mentally chided herself, before grabbing the digivice and pulling the plug from the computer. The image on the monitor glitched slightly and froze, but the windows opened while the digivice was connected to it didn't close themselves. Next, she pushed the power button of the screen, but it didn't shut down. Again and again she clicked on the button, but nothing seemed to work. "Oh come on!" She angrily said before reaching beneath her desk and grabbing the power cable of her computer. 'Sorry buddy.' She offered quietly in her thoughts to her PC before pulling the plug. Instantly, the machine shut down, but the monitor somehow still remained powered for a moment, still displaying the same image. Then it abruptly shut down and the room was plunged into the dim purple twilight of Uzi's normal lamps providing a little light. Her optics needed a moment to adjust to the changed lighting, when she turned her head to Commandramon, still in front her desk though now he no longer stood but had dropped onto his behind yet still trembling and holding his head. The worker drone moved closer, the digivice in her hand almost forgotten as she wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer. "Hey, it's okay... It's going to be okay..." She tried reassuring him, even though she didn't know how.

Suddenly, the digivice's screen lit up and glowed softly in a pure white light. Uzi almost dropped it as she felt its plastic housing warm up and send out pulses of soft light like a heartbeat. Almost immediately, Commandramon seemed to calm down as the pain eased. His body relaxed and he fell into Uzi's arms, forcing her to catch him before he'd fall straight on top of her. Uzi felt the adrenaline shooting through her body slowly ebb away as she gently put the digimon down onto her lap. The light the small device emitted also dimmed down and then disappeared, leaving Uzi shaken on the floor of her room as she leaned against her bed, while Commandramon's breathing steadied into that of deep sleep.

"What was that?" She thought aloud as she looked at the digivice in her hand. Its display was now dark and shut down much like her computer. She tried pressing the buttons, but aside from the device powering up again and showing her the same windows as before, except for the one with the strange, corrupted text; nothing happened and there was no indication what exactly the digivice just did. With a deep sigh she didn't even knew she held, Uzi rested the back of her head against her mattress. The situation had just gotten a whole lot more complicated and with her luck was going to come back to bite her soon enough. With a bit of effort, she managed to wriggle her way out from under the digimon and lay him back onto the ground gently as to not wake him up again. Still, she couldn't help a small wave of relief washing over her mind as he seemed calm again. "Someone should have told me weird things would come from some ominous code... I better get some rest. Tomorrow I'm going to show them all! Hahaha!" She chuckled to herself at the last part like an evil genius from one of the several series she had watched. Soon after she climbed into her bed, shut off the lights and went into sleep mode for the night.

For the rest of the night, the soft breathing of the room's occupants and the occasional snore from the digimon were the only sounds that filled the air.

However, while Uzi pleasantly dreamt of the coming day when she would finally get to show the morons in her life how great she was and Commandramon slept dreamlessly in peace, that single line he had looked upon still lingered in his mind with those same red letters and two words highlighted in neon yellow. The distorted symbols slowly became clearer and turned into human letters, while the constantly changing binary code slowly ceased. In the end, all that was left behind in its place was a still corrupted, but more readable line of text lingering on in his mind with a quiet ringing sound that caused him to groan in discomfort for a second before curling up in a more comfortable position.

OBJECTIVE: D*STR* T* S*L*R. K*L *L* H*S**.

The next day couldn't have started soon enough for the angsty, purple-haired drone. In fact, she had even woken up a bit earlier than her usual alarm. Admittedly, this had been in no small part due to a certain digital monster's snoring right next to her bed and may have caused her to jump up thinking that somehow the planet's crust was collapsing in on itself right beneath Outpost 3. Once that shock had passed Uzi had felt equal parts relief over him sleeping peacefully and annoyance over him snoring that loudly while laying on his back. Still having been a bit grouchy from being so rudely woken up from her dreams of grandeur, she had decided to put a stop to that then and there by stuffing a small pillow in his mouth. The unconscious digimon had then proceeded to bite down on the pillow with such surprising force, the pillow instantly exploded into a cloud of synthetic feathers and hit Uzi right in the face while Commandramon coughed up feathers for a minute or so.

Now that little escapade aside, everything was going its usual routine and for the first time in a very long time, Uzi was actually looking forward to school...

"Achoo!"

... or that would be the case, if there wasn't a certain digimon accompanying her in plain sight this time. Commandramon sniffed a bit loudly in his cardboard disguise, while following right behind his partner.

"Maybe I really caught myself a cold while being outside yesterday. And why are there still feathers in my throat?"

'You caught yourself something, that's for sure.' Uzi thought when she remembered the scene of him convulsing in pain yesterday evening, before looking at him slightly annoyed. "Okay, why are you following me again in broad daylight today? I thought we are trying to keep a low profile."

"Well yeah, but everyone in your class knows me already." Commandramon replied before blowing his nose inside the box with a handkerchief, causing his tail to flop out from a newly cut out hatch he had made earlier this morning. He had said something about it being rather cramped and warm in the box sometimes. Luckily no one was around to see the rather big lizard tail of the dinosaur pop out and quickly retract back inside and even if it was, its skin had turned the same brown color of the cardboard almost as if it was part of it. "Plus, I too want to see your presentation of your railgun. Commandramon, reporting to provide moral support." He added with a salute. Uzi smiled a little, even though she rolled her eyes and kept walking down the hallway to her classroom, already hearing her peers from afar talking with one another.

"I don't need moral support. I got everything right here in my bag. Most importantly, the subject of the presentation. ...still thanks for the support, I guess." She added the last part when Commandramon's arm disappeared into his box again and came back out holding a purple USB drive with a skull sticker on it, making her look surprised when the digimon held the drive with her presentation in her hand. "What? How? Why do you have that?"

"You almost forgot it on your desk this morning." Commandramon replied with a chuckle, handing her the presentation back, which she quickly stored in the pocket of her hoodie. She looked away at that and kept walking with him following right behind her.

"I wouldn't have forgotten about it if someone didn't nearly throw me out of my bed and forced us to clean the whole room up due to all the scattered feathers." She grumbled to herself, just as she rounded the corner and found her way blocked by the same clique of students in the backrow, that had commented on Commandramon two days ago, standing in the middle of the hallway. They also didn't just happen to be clustered around one another in the spacious hallway, but rather spread out so far that one could not move through them without either bumping into one or be surrounded. The moment Uzi appeared alongside her partner, their conversation died and they all turned to her.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is." One of them said, instantly ruining Uzi and her partner's mood as she was forced to halt. "The midget returns. Trying to start another school shooting again?"

"Bite me!" Uzi snapped back at them. It was clear that they were trying to get under her skin and stir up trouble, which unfortunately for both sides was working. Somehow, they also seemed to have lost their fear of the digimon next to her as they barely even looked at him. Meanwhile, Commandramon was about to whip out his gun and turn the four students into four test dummies to practice his shooting skills on moving targets. Just then though a familiar voice sounded behind Uzi.

"Really? You think ganging up like that on the girl, who kicked your sorry behind before, is going to work?" Uzi and Commandramon turned around to see Lizzy flanked by Doll and another female teenage drone with blue hair and light blue optics Uzi knew by the name of Rebecca. Lizzy had her arms crossed and raised an eyebrow. "You'd think you'd learn from getting your visor cracked once back then already." The incident she was referring to had occurred a long time ago, but Uzi did vaguely remember something about her beating one of the drones into a heap for insulting her then recently deceased mother.

Whatever one may say about Uzi, she was not one to make empty threats.

"Oh, buzz off Lizzy. This is between us, the freak and the jack-in-the-box." One of the students said just as the so-called "jack-in-the-box" pulled out his assault rifle and trained the gun at the worker drones, much to the surprise of the students as if they had somehow figured that Commandramon would come unarmed.

"Permission to shoo-" He was about to ask, one finger on the trigger already lightly squeezing it, and Uzi was very tempted to let him loose when Lizzy and Doll moved between the two groups with the former facing the leader of the clique while Doll moved besides Uzi and put a hand on her shoulder. The two purple haired drones looked at one another for a moment with Doll shaking her head as if saying that they were not worth it.

"Oh really? So that little make out session with the guy that was totally not your boyfriend yesterday was also just between you and him, huh?" Lizzy said, making the clique's leader's eyes widen even more than the sight of Commandramon's firearm did. The others of her group shot her a look, completely forgetting about Uzi while Doll and Rebecca gently nudged Uzi and Commandramon forward and past the group while Lizzy kept them distracted with the dirt she apparently had on each one of them. Soon enough, Uzi found herself walking towards their classroom again, now flanked by Doll and Lizzy, who had caught up with them again. She looked somewhat bewildered at the blonde, popular girl next to her.

"Why are you helping us?" She asked with suspicion clearly written all over her face. Literally so even as her visor read 'suspicion dot exe'.

"Why? I owe you two and that's my way of paying you back." The blonde drone said nonchalantly. "One hand washes the other. Or whatever. Just don't get used to it."

"Thanks Lizzy. We appreciate that." The digimon cheerfully said as he put his gun away, making Rebecca look at him as if wondering how he managed to fit himself and the gun in there. Lizzy shot him a smile over her shoulder though that make him tense up though, still remembering the chokehold of a cuddle attack from yesterday.

"Oh yeah, because him literally risking his life was worth-" Uzi didn't get further with almost spilling Lizzy's secret when said drone covered her mouth with one hand. Uzi looked annoyed at her for that when she pushed her arm away, but didn't say anything. She also didn't want to say anything when they arrived at the more crowded hallway leading to the classroom and have several students look at her walking together with Doll and Lizzy by her side as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The surprise of the students was more than justified considering how neither of them ever really got along with the other. Although, the sudden attention was just as uncomfortable to Uzi as the one two days ago when Commandramon showed up in their classroom to bring her lunch. Inwardly, she wanted to tell them to go and shove it, but she told herself that they would be even more speechless after her presentation. Right behind her Commandramon was walking steadily through the crowd, but he would lie if he said the attention was making him feel a little bit flustered now. But for Lizzy and Doll it was just another day at school.

Once inside their classroom, Uzi separated from the popular girls and moved to her seat but gave them a small nod as if to acknowledge their help earlier. Commandramon quickly moved to her side like he had done the day before yesterday and the other students filled their own seats soon after. Though Doll did quietly whisper to Lizzy as they sat in the back of the class.

"Возможно, в следующий раз. (Maybe next time.)" The Russian drone told Lizzy, whose pink optics hollowed out a bit.

"I just wanted to pet him. Nothing else. You make it sound like I wanted to drag him to some imaginary tea party." Doll gave Lizzy a very flat look, telling the blonde girl that she knew for a fact that it was exactly what Lizzy had thought about doing. At that, Lizzy averted her gaze and muttered a quiet "Shut up.", before the teacher finally entered the room after the clock hit the exact time for the lesson to start. However, the Russian worker drone turned her attention towards the fellow purple haired drone and her partner.

"Alright, starting with your homework presentations are there any who would like to start?" The teacher said in his usual monotonous voice that made the frozen graveyard of a warzone outside the bunker sound lively in comparison. Immediately, Uzi was the only one who raised her hand. The teacher didn't react immediately, scanning the class for anything that might be interpreted as an indication of interest. "Anyone else?" No one said a word or did anything, except for Uzi looking annoyed as she stretched her arm further up. The digimon beside her was starting to get a little bit worried when his hearing picked up the sound of her arm's joints groaning in protest. "Anyone-"

"Bite me!" Uzi finally snapped as she cut off the teacher and stomped over to plug her USB drive into the projector, ignoring Commandramon wishing her good luck.

What followed was a quick exposition montage about the worker drones' nature as essentially a cheap labor force for the humans and the company that had originally created the worker drones, JCJenson in Spaaaaacee!, the collapse of the planet's core for unknown reasons and the subsequent freedom of the worker drones prior to them being forced to live underground in Outpost 3. While this seemed like very basic information for everyone to know already, Commandramon found it rather informative since so far he had only read information about those events without any visual or audio input. As he was taking notes however, he stopped when the scene shifted to the arrival of the murder drones, seeing the winged drones with their neon yellow Xs on their visors instead of the digital eyes he knew from the worker drones for the first time.

He couldn't understand why or how, but the image of these almost demonic looking drones with their bladed wings modelled after those of angels or birds and their thin cable-like tails burned itself into his mind and made him stop taking notes. Instantly, he felt a slight pain shoot through his head, causing him to retract one hand back into his box and hold it, just before the image on the wall vanished and Uzi continued with her presentation on the next slide.

"And what have our parents done in the past forever while those things build a spire of corpses? Hiding under the ice behind three stupid doors?!" Uzi exclaimed as she switched the picture to a blueprint of the doors and then to a strangely edited diagram of Joseph Campbell's concept of The Hero's Journey labelled 'The Protagonist's Journey. "It's like we are waiting for an inciting incident." Commandramon raised a hand to ask a question why the silhouette on the diagram looked like her, but Uzi waved him off and changed to the next slide. "Anyway, that's why my project is THIS SICK-AS-HELL RAILGUN!" And with that she pulled out her railgun and pointed it at the class with a smirk, making multiple students gasp in fear and flinch back.

"That's so not the vibe!"

"She's got a gun!"

"About time..."

That last one gave Commandramon some pause as he turned towards the class in confusion, before Uzi's voice made him look forward again.

"Easy, morons. It doesn't work. Yet. It doesn't work yet. Who said it doesn't work? Maybe it does!" And with that she flicked the switch on to activate the gun with a mad laughter and pointed it at her classmates again as arcs of green lightning crackled around the gun. Almost immediately, Commandramon noted though that it crackled a bit much for the gun to be simply activated and raised his hand. Though, the teacher spoke up first.

"Uzi, the homework was a word problem about buying watermelons." He said. Uzi's excited tone shifted as she visible slumped over a bit, the teacher's tone having completely extinguished the flames of her exhilaration.

"Wait, it was?" Commandramon asked rather loudly, before looking around the classroom. "I was wondering why no one else brought weapons. Now I brought my gun for no reason..." The digimon said the last part with a bit of a dejected and saddened tone. Multiple students shifted in their seats slightly away from the box with an assault rifle. That was when he noted more tiny sparks of electricity crackling around the still active gun. "Uhm... Uzi?"

"Oh, and this magnetically amplified photon converter doesn't count?" She said almost as if she was bargaining while the teacher gave her a flat look and rested his face on one hand propped up on an elbow.

"No." He simply said as the railgun's glow began to shift from green to yellowish orange.

"Uzi." Commandramon's tone shifted into worry, but both the progressively more unstable railgun and him were ignored as Uzi's attention was now on the teacher.

"Plus, emotionally suppressed baggage was only worth two points in the rubric," The teacher continued as the railgun made a steadily louder humming and crackling sound and the color shifted from yellow to red with electricity arching out in lightning from the weapon in her hand. "And is it supposed to be that color?"

"Huh?" Uzi said as she finally took notice of the bright glow the now unstable railgun emitted.

"Uzi, did you cross the wires again?!" The digimon asked in a panicked tone. But before Uzi could give him an answer, her entire world blew up in a flash of red light and an explosion. Not unlike two days ago, the room was filled with smoke, causing everyone within to cough slightly, except the teacher somehow. Unlike then however, the force of the explosion had caused the door to the classroom to bulge outward with fans of smoke escaping through newly made cracks. "Uzi!" Commandramon rushed through the smoke towards his partner. Luckily the smoke didn't linger on for too long and began to disperse already, making it easier to navigate.

She was laying on the ground before the now cracked and dark flatscreens were the presentation had been a moment ago. Her still smoking railgun laid beside her, with Uzi somehow not having let go of it when it went off. Carefully he lifted her up to see the right side of her visor cracked up as well, the digital eye under the broken glass glitching slightly. A groan of pain escaped her as she felt dizzy and nauseous, but she was alive and conscious, which already made Commandramon sigh in relief only to cough again from the smoke.

"Quick, how many fingers am I holding up?" Commandramon said before holding his hand in front of her face with two fingers raised. The purple-haired drone groaned again before her hazy vision and audio input somehow made it through her processor.

"Uhm... 8?" Uzi replied, seeing the digimon before him like 5 square silhouettes, though with one eye out of commission it was only 4. Commandramon blinked owlishly for a moment when he looked at his three-fingered hand for a second and then back at Uzi, before shaking his head.

"Close enough." He said with a shrug, accidentally dropping Uzi back onto the floor where the back of her head hit the ground with a loud crack from her already fractured visor, that made even the cyborg digimon wince slightly in phantom pain. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

'How was 8 out of 3 close enough?' Lizzy, Doll and everyone else in the class other than the teacher thought to themselves.

"Ow..." Uzi let out a sound of discomfort as Commandramon picked her up and slung her over his box and grabbed her railgun.

"Don't worry soldier, you're gonna make it. Let's get you to the infirmary." He said before kicking the badly damaged door down, literally causing it to clatter to the ground of the hallway, and taking a turn to the left, running off with his partner in tow like a sack of potatoes.

"Uhm... The infirmary is the other way." Lizzy called after the two just as the class could hear the digimon skidding to halt before his quick footsteps grew louder again.

"Thanks Lizzy!" Commandramon said as he passed the classroom again and the sound of his footsteps faded in the distance.

A short while later, Uzi was sitting at the doctor's office with the right side of her face bandaged and pressing a bag of ice gently against it, while Commandramon was sitting next to her on the ground with the still smoking railgun in front of him. With his clawed fingers it would be relatively easy to take the weapon apart, but he didn't mean to destroy it. Instead, he had gently taken the housing apart to fix the wiring of the firearm, careful not to do more damage to its interior.

"Tch! Stupid power cells... Why couldn't those humans just make one for all uses while they were still around?" The purple-haired worker drone grumbled to herself. She knew the answer to that all too well, but right now she really wished that her presentation hadn't blown up in her face so literally.

"It's one that wasn't meant to regulate its output like it would have needed." Commandramon said as he kept on working on the railgun. "Not sure what this was originally meant to be used for, but it basically just builds up power and releases it all at once, but when it does the output itself is too high for the gun's processors to handle coupled with the incompatibility of the cell, resulting in situations like... this." He carefully said, while Uzi narrowed her eyes at him. "On the positive note, if you made a gun roughly 10 times as big and turned it into a turret, it might work with this sort of thing."

"Yeah and then I couldn't use it anymore." She said, resisting the urge to facepalm due to half her face still somewhat aching. Luckily, worker drones had a rather minor yet still effective self-repair protocol that could deal with such superficial damages. It wasn't enough to grow back an arm or a leg or a finger, but a cracked visor and a few scratches were going to be fixed in a few hours. Being built as mining and labor forces, such damages had been rather common after all. "How did I even make such a beginner's mistake?" The teenager groaned.

"Must have happened yesterday when you put the gun back together..." Commandramon assumed as he slid the firearm's housing back in place, unaware of his partner looking at him a bit annoyed at that. "There we go. Good as new." With that he took a step back for Uzi to better see her fixed railgun looking as good as before, if one chose to ignore the still slightly smoking barrel.

"Thanks for the constructive criticism. I wouldn't have needed to put it back together like that if someone hadn't spilled a drink over its key components." Uzi retorted, causing the digimon to look down in shame. Just then, Uzi sharply sucked in air in the form of a pained hiss as her head still stung slightly. The digimon immediately lifted his box a bit to look at her directly with a worried expression as he moved closer and put the railgun next to her, leaning it on the bench she sat on. "I'm fine, thanks..." She told him to answer the unspoken question. The digimon made a sound as if he wasn't quite sold, before moving his gaze towards the pinboard at the wall next to the ER sign. It was plastered with a collage of mostly childish paper projects found in kindergarten or elementary school. Except some of the things were more disturbing that others such as a sign telling the drones to not wash their hands because they're robots or to be violently opposed to biological life or another one showing the drone body to say where it hurts with a line of text reading 'The existential dread of being a sentient machine created by gods that abandoned us'.

'How are you supposed to get better from that sort of thing?' Commandramon wondered when a rather familiar face from Uzi's class walked in, causing him to drop the box back down over his body completely.

"Alright!" The teenager called after someone as he waved them goodbye down the corridor, before walking into the office. He was a fellow classmate of Uzi, wearing the typical red and yellow jacket with a red shirt underneath and a white 0 on the chest as well as a base cap with its hood at the back, causing blonde synthetic hair to peek out the gap over his visor. He then looked off to the ceiling as if in thought. Or so Commandramon thought at least since he didn't see anything on the ceiling himself other than the lights. "Classic toxic masculinity, Chad. Thats never gonna end up problematic." Thad said to himself after waving his friend Chad off. Then he looked at Uzi. "Oh wow, Uzi... I heard you..."

"I'm an angsty teen, Thad. Bite me." The purple haired drone said without her usual fire as she threw the pack of ice into a trash can next to the bench. "Also, how do you know my name? People willingly talk to you." Commandramon looked a bit confused at Uzi's classmate, his head turning back and forth between the two of worker drones.

"Uhm... do you know each other?" He asked, pointing at the two of them.

"No." Uzi said immediately without missing a beat.

"Yes." Thad said at the same time, making the two drones look at each other. "Well, I'd say there's hardly anyone in Outpost 3 who doesn't know the daughter of Khan Doorman... but then you might blow the other half of your face off." Thad said, gesturing to a bunch of newspaper pages also pinned at the wall, causing the digimon to interpret that as a jab directed at Uzi's rather troubled relationship with her father and immediately grit his sharp teeth in anger with a quiet growl.

"Crippling daddy issues. Hilarious." Uzi said in a defeated tone just before she noticed Commandramon's pupils contracting again. She managed to stop him from pulling his gun out again and point it at Thad just in time by putting a foot on top of the box as if it was a stool. Which was a bit awkward since the box was slightly higher than the seat she sat on, but it seemed to snap him out of seeing Thad as a potential threat. After that, she looked back at her classmate. "Why are you here? Testosterone too hard?" She asked jokingly, causing Thad to look shocked at her.

"That can happen?!" The teenage drone sounded shocked or worried for a moment before he relaxed again into his laid-back attitude. "Awesome. Hey, those bandages look really badass."

"O-Oh... Ew, gross. I hate that you said that." Uzi said, a faint blush appearing on her visor at the unexpected praise as she brushed a strand of hair off her still bandaged side of her face.

"I think they would look better on your arms where they don't hinder your sight. Like belts or a bandana." Commandramon gave his own two cents to the situation, having completely forgotten about wanting to pounce on Thad a few seconds ago.

"Oh yeah. That would be cool too." Thad nodded at that, voicing his agreement.

"Shut it, both of you." Uzi said facepalming. Thad turned his attention to the soldier in a box.

"The name's Thad by the way." He told the digimon, who saluted in response.

"Commandramon, honorary member of the Worker Defense Force." The digimon said and luckily to Uzi, her classmate seemed to be as oblivious as most others when it came to the fact that the digimon clearly had hands that did not belong to a worker drone.

"Oh wow, you actually are part of them. That's so cool." Thad said, causing Commandramon to blush under his cardboard disguise and his tail to thump against the floor at the praise. Luckily for Uzi, it didn't pop out again this time.

"Aww, stop it... the advertisement posters make it look a lot more exciting that it really is." The digimon said, sounding abashed himself now. That made Uzi give her partner a bewildered look as her still working eye twitched a bit. With that, Thad turned his attention back to Uzi and the railgun next to her.

"So, what is that-"

"Sick-as-hell railgun?" Uzi cut him off by standing on the seat and pointing the railgun right in his face with an enthusiastic look on her face that scared both Thad and Commandramon a bit. Then she removed the gun from his face again. "Sci-fi nonsense that super works. I'm sneaking to the Murder Drones lair tonight to get the last spare part I need to save the world with and finally earn my dad's respect and stuff-!" Then she realized what she just said. "Uhm, mostly the saving the world part."

"Yeah..." Commandramon said before his eyes widened in shock as he was not aware of her plans at all. "Wait what? Uzi..." Commandramon did not seem to quite share her enthusiasm, especially with her recent injury.

"Oh... but doesn't your dad build these awesome doors so we don't have to do all that... scary-sounding emotionally repressed stuff you want to do." Thad said only to be silenced by Uzi pointing her gun into his face again and looking quite angry.

"No more feedback on my repressions for today!" She said when Commandramon gently put her down from the bench she was standing on, yet she still kept the barrel of the gun pressed against his cheek.

"S-Sorry. I didn't mean-" Thad tried to apologize before he was cut off by the purple drone who finally put the gun away.

"Bite me!" Uzi said as she stomped off. Commandramon looked between them once more before giving Thad an apologetic look and then went after Uzi and disappearing behind the corner of the doorway into the hallway. That was when Uzi came back, peeking around the doorway to the office. "I'm not mad at you, by the way. Just generally hormonal." She said before giving him a smile and a thumbs up and walking off in a hurried pace. Commandramon walked beside her as he looked at her. "What? Like I said, it's just hormones." Uzi asked slightly agitated at him staring at her.

"I heard you, Uzi. I just got a question. What are hormones?" Commandramon asked. Uzi was about to answer when she was met with Lizzy and her friends. "Oh hey there." The digimon greeted, having forgotten his question already.

"And what do you want now?" His partner said still quite agitated.

"Just checking on whether or not you have accidentally blown yourself up." Lizzy said.

"And you seem to get quite along with Thad over there. I could give you some tips." Rebecca commented, making the other drones roll their eyes at her antics. Needless to say, but Rebecca had a bit of a reputation to change her boyfriends like her clothes. Although no one said that out loud... well, no one except a certain purple-haired drone in front of her.

"Ew! Don't even joke about that. And if I wanted someone's help about... that, I wouldn't ask someone with a body count like yours." Uzi said with her arms crossed.

"Body count?" Commandramon jumped back a bit with his tail popping out again. Uzi froze at that, realizing what she just said, as a blush crept up her face visor, which was only intensified by the digimon's naivety. "Uzi, if she's proficient in that sort of thing, maybe she can help-"

"That's not what that means in that context! And put your tail away!" Uzi quickly said as Commandramon did as he was told, although hesitantly.

"Uhm... okay? What else does 'body count' mean then?" He asked.

"You don't want to know." Both Lizzy and Doll said simultaneously in an attempt to not expose the clearly oblivious digimon to that sort of thing, while the blue-haired drone looked a bit surprised.

"Oh, so there really is a dinosaur in there." Rebecca said, causing Uzi to glare daggers at Lizzy and Doll as she put the pieces in her head together instantly. Exactly what she had feared what would happen happened and she was not happy at all. She stomped past Rebecca towards the two other popular drone girls, looking ready to throw hands and send both of them to the ER as well.

"You told her?!" Uzi asked incredulously. Doll simply pointed at Lizzy, who gave the Russian drone a flat look. "Why? Of all the other people in our school, why HER?!" Uzi demanded, while Rebecca moved over to Commandramon and started talking to him.

"She just happened to overhear us talking and we were kinda forced to clue her in." Lizzy said with a shrug. "What? It's just Rebecca. It's not like she can't keep a secret. Right Becca?"

Just then they heard the sound of Rebecca's phone's camera snapping a selfie of herself and Commandramon and began typing on her phone, only stopping just from hitting the send button when Lizzy cleared her throat. Rebecca froze and looked at the other three girls as she was about to post it on social media like being caught with the hand in the battery jar, before quickly deleting the image and message in front of them. Lizzy actually looked a bit disappointed at her, while both Doll and Uzi gave the blonde drone a flat look of silent judgement over her misjudgment.

"Well, she did stop herself, didn't she?" Lizzy said as Doll slowly pulled her away from Uzi, positioning herself between her best friend and the other purple-haired drone.

"Right, why don't we just drop the whole mystery box thing and let him walk around in the open?" Uzi sarcastically asked. "Surely that can't cause any problems. Why not bring Thad into the fold as well while we are at it?"

"Can I really?" Commandramon asked wagging his tail just as Uzi pushed the box back down over him.

"No." Just then another person rejoined the conversation.

"Did someone say my name?" Thad asked as he looked out of the door off the doctor's office into the hallway, just as all 4 girls moved to block the view of the digimon behind them.

"YOU WERE MENTIONED IN PASSING!" Uzi shouted.

"Nothing to see here, Thad." Lizzy said.

"Увидимся завтра в школе. (See you tomorrow at school.)" Doll said plainly.

"Oh, my bad." Thad replied before slowly going back into the room, deciding to get checked out for that testosterone thing Uzi had mentioned.

"I'm free tonight though~." Rebecca called after him as the other girls gave her a look. "What? He's not bad looking."

'For the love of Robo-Jesus, cool your jets Rebecca.' The other worker drone girls thought. Meanwhile, Commandramon remained oblivious to the situation.

That evening Uzi let herself fall on her bed face first as the first and last thing on her mental list for the rest of the day. She couldn't even be bothered to notice the absence of her father tonight like he usually was after having been uncharacteristically at home the past 2 evenings. Her appetite was down in the gutter and so was her mood after this catastrophic day. She barely even registered the digimon moving to the side of the bed, looking at her with a worried expression on his face.

"Uzi..." She almost didn't hear him as she sunk her face even deeper into her pillow, before turning her head just enough to him to see him look at her. She hated the kind of look that he gave her, a look of pity and concern. She hadn't needed those for most of her life after her mother had passed away. Since then, she had decided to not simply be an outcast, but to embrace it. She didn't need anyone. And for anyone to suggest the opposite was like admitting that she was wrong, which was another thing Uzi was not very good at.

"If it's about the presentation, don't even start." She groaned before turning her face back into her pillow, wanting to forget about that episode of her life. The digimon remained silent for a moment, before he spoke up again.

"It's not about that." Commandramon assured her, before she let out another grumbling sound, before she turned herself around so that she was laying on her back and facing the ceiling of her room instead.

"Ugh! Today was such a bomb. First school, then that super awkward talk with Thad and now Lizzy not being able to keep her mouth shut."

"Well, you were pushing a bit much with pointing the gun at the class and laughing like the main villain in an anime." He agreed, making her give him a flat look, before he continued. "But things can only get better from here then, right?" The digimon offered.

"Right. Things can only look up from here on out..." The thought of what she had said earlier about what she had planned to do seemed to revitalize her as she grinned and looked with hollowed out eyes rather excited. "Yeah, tonight is the night!" She suddenly jumped up from her laying on the bed onto her feet, surprisingly not falling over as she did manage to keep her balance on the soft mattress, before sitting down with her legs crossed. "I'll sneak out, save the world, get my dad's approval and finally avenge-."

"Uzi..." Commandramon stopped her outburst of determination by putting a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to bring her back down to reality as her grin faltered slightly. "You're in no condition to fight."

"What are you talking about? I'm fine already." As if to emphasize her point, she tapped her previously broken visor with her finger. "See? All good as new and ready to finally kill some murder drones."

"No, you're not! Your railgun can't work properly without a suitable power source as you said yourself." The digimon shook his head. "Now that I think about it, I've never seen you actually practice shooting a gun before. Can you actually use a firearm?"

"I can shoot just fine, thank you very much!" Uzi replied offended that he of all people would doubt her skills as she brushed his hand off her shoulder. "Did you think I'd just make a totally awesome weapon without learning how to shoot first? I've seen enough anime to know that wouldn't work. And I know where the final piece for the gun is."

"Even so, you only have one shot though." At that Uzi frowned as she hated to admit that her partner had a point. For all the power the railgun had when completed according to her calculations, it still had a rather long cooldown and recharge time. Not long enough to make it unusable in combat, but also not exactly the most practical firearm. Still, she remained undeterred.

"One shot is all I need." Uzi said defiantly, but her partner digimon had none of that.

"For one of those murder drones, yes. But there's at least 3 of them and only one of you. And all they need for you isn't a shot from what you have shown in that class. They are fast, they got missiles and claws. And they can fly! You absolutely cannot go against them on your own. And you won't, because I'm coming with you." Commandramon said with certainty, while Uzi's face fell at that. Not because she wanted to hog all the glory for herself, but rather because she was aware enough to know that she couldn't look out for two people. Still her angsty teenage brain refused to admit that and made her become defensive.

"Bite me!" She retorted almost like a reflex. "You literally just came here a few days ago and said we are partners, but you don't get to tell me about something you don't understand anything about and has nothing to do with you!" The worker drone almost found herself shouting right into the digimon's face as she raised her voice.

"Negative!" He replied in a soldier-like tone and straightening his back. "You are my partner. Your fights are my fights and I will not just stand by, while you go out there on your own and get hurt or worse." At that Commandramon raised a finger. "Plus, with your gun's recharge rate you definitely could use someone else to hold the enemy at bay or at least provide a distraction." Uzi tried to come up with a response, that would somehow discourage him, but as much as she hated to say it he had a very good point. The two glared at one another for a moment, neither of them willing to give up the argument. Eventually Uzi just sighed.

"Fine, whatever. You can provide me suppressive fire, I guess." She said, crossing her arms and turning her head away from the digimon as she sat on her bed.

"Exactly. A distraction is not about the distraction itself but catching the enemy off-guard when they least expect it." Commandramon said as he took a step away from her bed. For a moment both of them remained silent, cooling their heads after the slightly heated exchange of words, before he continued. "And maybe I could help you with some much-needed firearm training. You seem to be a bit too focused on flashy aesthetics there too." That actually made an anger tick appear on her visor again.

"As good as you seem to be with that rifle, I don't think I need firearm training from a rookie." The worker drone replied without even looking at him, still feeling upset.

"Uhm... What does my level have to do with any of that?" The cyborg dinosaur asked scratching the side of his head with a clawed finger. Then it was Uzi's turn to be confused as it was to her a rather obvious answer.

"You know, being a rookie and a soldier. Doesn't that make you like a private or something? If you were so great, then you'd have a higher rank, right?" For a moment, the digimon just looked at her confused before his eyes widened in realization.

"Oh... Oh! Now I get what you mean. Sorry, but this has nothing to do with that." He walked over to her desk laughing awkwardly, before he started to grab some things. Uzi slightly craned her head up trying to see what he was doing, though all she saw was him writing something down on a piece of paper. She was about to ask what he was doing when he finally turned around and held up her digivice and her notebook sideways with something written on the page now.

"'Digimon levels for new digidestined explained by Commandramon'." Uzi read aloud as she shot him a flat look. "Really?" Commandramon nodded as he moved over to the bed and climbed onto it next to her. After scrambling onto it, he turned to her after putting the digivice down next to her. Uzi hadn't even thought about picking it up after what had happened yesterday as she was still slightly freaked out, but she decided not to say anything.

"When we first met you saw a bunch of data on your digivice about me." The digimon said. "So, I thought I might use that opportunity to explain something to you about us. You did assume my level had something to do with a rank, right?"

"Uh... yeah. Like I said." Uzi said when Commandramon flipped the page to reveal what looked like a badly drawn Easter egg with just a jagged line around its middle. Or at least that was her first impression before she read the word 'Digi-Egg' scribbled above it. "Wait, are you telling me digimon hatch from eggs? Well, I guess that makes sense since you are a reptile." She thought aloud when Commandramon shook his head.

"All digimon hatch from eggs, regardless of their type. Even mammal, plant, machine and undead digimon." He said, making Uzi slightly question what he was saying. "And I didn't look like this until I reached the rookie level, so I didn't hatch from an egg with my gun at the ready. That would be ridiculous." The worker drone chose not to comment on how little sense most of things he told her made. Then she quickly pushed a hand forward into his face as if that would physically stop him from speaking.

"You are NOT giving me a 'birds and bees talk'!" She said, blushing slightly at the thought of... that topic. Commandramon, however, just tilted his head to the side and blinked in confusion.

"A what-talk? What do birds and bees have to do with-"

"NEVERMIND!" Uzi quickly cut him off. "Just... don't tell me how digi-eggs are made, okay? I don't want to know." Commandramon nodded at that.

"I wasn't going to anyway, but okay." He shrugged before continuing. "So, some time after a digi-egg is formed, it hatches."

'Wait, did he just say formed? Not laid?' Uzi thought, while Commandramon remained oblivious to her confusion as he flipped the page again. This time the egg from the previous picture was cracked open and next to it was what Uzi could at best describe as a red gummy drop with eyes and small feeler-like stubs on its head. "What's that supposed to be?"

"A baby level digimon, of course. Baby levels hatch from digi-eggs. I thought it is the same with you worker drones and those pill-shaped babies, I've seen." Uzi's face lit up again as she was not ready to have that sort of talk with the digital monster, who obviously didn't understand that sort of thing. So she quickly tried to redirect both her thoughts and the conversation from him inquiring about worker drone reproduction to the informative part of digimon levels.

"Baby... level? So these levels are technically not part of some ranking system, but rather stages of your lifecycle?" She concluded, making Commandramon give her a thumbs up.

"Well yes, but also not quite. It's kind of both really." He said before flipping the page showing the same red gummy drop but an arrow pointed from it to a larger creature. This one was also ball-shaped with no limbs, but safe from its pale face it was covered in orange fur and had a large black horn on the top of its body. Above it, Uzi's partner had written 'In-Training' and above the arrow the word 'Digivolution' was written. "Some time after hatching and living as a baby digimon, they eventually reach the next level, the in-training level. And whenever a digimon changes from one level to another, it digivolves. Hence we call it digivolution." Commandramon said before looking at Uzi. "Any questions so far?"

'Yeah, where do you learn to draw this badly?' The worker drone almost said out loud, before trying to wrap her head around the information she just heard. "Uhm... and where would you be right now in that whole... situation?" She carefully asked, when Commandramon flipped another page revealing a table to her with 6 columns. Each had a word written at the head of the table that Commandramon then pointed at.

"If we ignore the digi-egg, then there's a total of 6 levels that digimon belong to." He said before pointing at each word. "Baby, In-Training, Rookie, Champion, Ultimate and Mega. And with each stage, the power of the digimon generally increases exponentially. Meaning you'd need to be a really strong champion if you wanted to defeat most ultimates, let alone the really strong ones among those. It can vary a lot from each digimon just how powerful one can get and what kind of digimon one ends up digivolving into. I wish I still had more memories to give you some examples..." Commandramon admitted sheepishly to Uzi. The worker drone brought a hand to her chin as she processed this new piece of information.

"In other words, you are somewhere in the middle then as a rookie." She muttered before her eyes glanced over to the other 3 levels above it. "So, can you do this evolution thing to the next levels? It sounds like it could be helpful against the murder drones. You know, just as a sort of back-up plan." Commandramon chuckled awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Unfortunately not. Reaching the rookie level is relatively simple and a lot of digimon do, but making the jump from a rookie to a champion is a lot more difficult than simply growing older over time." He said before flipping the page one last time, revealing a drawing of the digivice that was still laying next to her on the bed with multiple question marks around it and arrows pointing at the object in the center. "The thing is from what little I recall, the digivice is meant to help a digidestined's partner to grow stronger faster than usual. Unfortunately, it never said how exactly or I just don't remember that part. Sorry." Commandramon said as he looked down.

Uzi's optics narrowed as she looked at the small toy-like device laying on her bed critically. She couldn't deny that she didn't exactly trust the thing, especially after what had happened yesterday with Commandramon being in pain and asking her to make it stop. The pleading tone in his glitching voice still haunted her subsystems slightly, but she told herself that it was nothing than just some other hijinks that probably came for anyone, who suddenly had some digital monster show up in their apartment and cause collateral damages. Taking a breath, she grabbed the device and held it in front of Commandramon, when the holographic screen from earlier showed up. This time though, it didn't just showcase a profile of Commandramon and his general data, but rather it seemed to zoom out.

The symbols that her partner had called DigiCode the day prior began to flash on the screen, causing her to slightly panic out of fear that it could cause another episode like before, but to her surprise and relief, the digimon didn't seem to be affected at all. Commandramon simply moved closer as he sat beside her and looked at it with interest.

"Ah, so that's how it is." He said, nodding to himself, while Uzi looked at him with a raised digital eyebrow.

"You can read that gibberish?" She asked.

"Of course, I can. That's the written language of the Digital World after all. It's basically English with different letters and a bit of coding... or something like that." He said before looking a bit closer. "Looks like something's wrong with the settings. Wait a second." The digimon then began pushing the buttons of the device in her hand in some order she couldn't quite make out before the DigiCode vanished and was replaced by normal letters, though some DigiCode symbols remained at the edge of the screen. The screen now also showed something else than before. In the middle was the pixelated image of Commandramon she had seen earlier already, but it was now inside what looked like a tree diagram with two more images visible at the left side and the right side branching out into various paths.

Hesitantly, Uzi pushed the buttons on the device, experimenting to get a hang of the controls. Moving down the tree diagram she then came across two other pixelated images connected to Commandramon. From what he had just told her; these were his baby and in-training level forms. Curiously, she pressed the button on the one to the farthest left which seemed little more like a round shape with three dots, two ears like a cat and a tail. The image zoomed in and soon she found herself looking down at a stock image of what seemed to be the strangest lovechild imaginable of a balloon, a bomb and a cat imaginable. It was like someone drew a bomb like a balloon with the fuse acting as the thread, while it was already lit on fire. On top of that, two triangular bumps on the head reminiscent to cat ears sat on the round head/body of the digimon while it sported three eyes on what could be seen as the forehead or face, each with a round black pupil on a white sclera but with different colored eyelids. The one at the top was yellow, the left one green and the right one red.

Digimon Analyzer

Bommon

Level: Baby

Slime Digimon

Attack: Crack-Crack-Crackle

Uzi kept looking at the picture for a moment before turning to Commandramon beside her. "You literally hatched from an egg as a sentient bomb?" She asked incredulously.

"Apparently? I don't remember that part of my past. Do you remember your days as a baby?" The digimon asked, making Uzi open her mouth then close it and look sideways as she thought about it, before dropping the matter as a whole.

She pushed another button again and the picture shifted over to the in-training stage of Commandramon. This one looked at bit more like an actual living being, but also only in the most rudimentary sense of the word as it was a literal rocket with a triangular blue head sporting two horn-like antenna and big red eyes on the side of it, while a pair of three-fingered claws sat behind it on the rocket's body on limbs not too different from those of a worker drone. The rocket itself also sported two big fins at the dorsal and ventral side, almost making it look akin to a fish, an insect or a reptile all at once.

Digimon Analyzer

Missimon

Level: In-Training

Machine Digimon

Attack: Missile Crash

As she was looking over the past forms of Commandramon and the only actual examples of baby and in-training digimon she had, the worker drone noted two things immediately upon looking back at forth between them and the digimon sitting next to her in an attempt to find any similarities they might share at all.

First of all, she distinctly remembered Commandramon being listed as a so-called Virus type, but neither Bommon nor Missimon had a type listed. This struck her as a bit odd, though she quickly assumed that it might have something to do with those two previous stages being relatively young. Then again, how a literal bomb balloon classified as a slime instead of a machine was questionable at best.
And secondly, just how absolutely nonsensical this entire thing was. How a literal bomb could hatch from an egg was already a pretty strange concept in her mind, but to go from a bomb to a missile and then to the dinosaur in tactical gear in front of her very eyes was just beyond her understanding, which made her question if all digimon went through the same sort of transformation.

However, she decided to not push the topic further then and there when Commandramon raised a hand to cover his mouth when he yawned.

"Sorry. I guess was a bit more tired than I imagined." The digimon apologized as he struggled to keep his eyes open, before climbing down from Uzi's bed and curl up next to it like he did the night before. "I'll just rest my eyes a bit and then we can go save the world together..." He said before his eyes shut one more time and he fell asleep almost immediately.

Uzi glanced down at the digivice in her hand again, pressing a button to make it zoom out again and moving it over the icon of Commandramon further to the right to what she now knew was the champion level. Unlike the previous two levels which were solely connected to one another through a single line, likely showcasing Commandramon's past, the rookie icon had a lot more lines coming from it and branching out into several possible champion level digimon. However, their icons were dark and empty when she tried zooming in on them the screen read the same message for all of them, 'NO DATA'. She'd lie if she said she wasn't at least curious just what Commandramon might turn into, but the digivice wasn't going to tell her apparently. Frustrating as this was, she noted two particular lines seemingly being highlighted going straight to the right whereas the others fanned out more and were less clearly to see. On top of that, the screen read a different message when she clicked on them.

"'NO DATA - CONDITIONS NOT MET'. Well, that's helpful. At least tell me what those conditions are." Uzi told the digivice as if she could actually talk to it, but of course it did not respond to her grumbling. "Bite me..." With a huff, she put the digivice away as well as the notebook Commandramon had used earlier on the nightstand next to her bed. Her eyes lingered on the drawing of the digivice and question marks around it for a moment, before she shook her head. "Stop complicating my plans..." She said dismissively and laid down to go sleep mode for the night herself...

However, only a few hours later at 3:00 AM her built-in alarm went off. It took a second for her to wake up and slap her face to shut the beeping alarm off again, but the short nap had washed away any sort of tiredness from the day's prior events and all she felt no was pure determination and confidence. With a smirk, Uzi jumped out of her bed and grabbed her things. After slinging her railgun over her shoulder, she walked to her mirror to fix her beanie after it had tilted slightly on her head during her sleep.

"Weapon, check. Looks, check. Just need to grab dad's master key card and then off to-" Uzi thought aloud, when a quiet snore abruptly interrupted her from her monologue. Her eyes widened when she realized that she was not alone in her room. Glancing over her shoulder, she found Commandramon still sleeping soundly on the ground in front of her bed almost like a large dog. A dog that could camouflage and wielded a machine gun and grenades. Aside from a twitch of his tail, he hadn't moved from his spot, making Uzi somewhat surprised that she had not accidentally stepped onto him while she had gotten ready. Her foot shifted slightly as she was about to turn towards the digimon to walk over to wake him up. But she didn't and instead quietly snuck out of her room. 'I can deal with that stupid guilt program after I have dealt with this. Time to save the world!' Uzi thought before she quickly snatched the floppy disk that was the master key for the doors from her father's room and left the apartment.

The hallway leading to the outside was often encrusted with frost. Icicles hung from the ceiling due to what little moisture did exist in Copper 9's atmosphere condensing and freezing in the air vents of the bunker. For that reason, the relatively cool air coming in from them always seemed to be a bit like a thin fog. Not enough to actually obscure anyone's sight as it only stuck to those vents, but it made the place feel a bit more eerie, especially so early in the morning. Why they needed air vents as robots to begin with was something Uzi couldn't answer, but her attention was not on the structural integrity of the place. Instead, she peeked around the corner into the hallway, that lead outside with its three doors for anyone there in case she had to lie her way through them. Luckily for her it appeared that tonight the WDF was busy elsewhere as she spotted no one behind the first door.

Once she had confirmed that the coast was clear, she walked towards the innermost door and the control terminal mounted on the wall next to it, twirling the floppy disk in her hand like an outlaw might have done with their revolver in a western movie. She couldn't help but make an annoyed sound when looking at the massive door as she made her way to the controls and held the master key in front of it. The system quickly scanned the card before the screen on it told her of the access overwrite. That made Uzi smirk a bit at the possibility of sneaking out without anyone noticing perhaps being way easier than she originally thought, before she put the key away again into the pocket of her hoodie.

That smirk was wiped off her face the moment the door opened and none other than her dad stood there with his arms crossed and looking at her inquisitorially. She almost jumped back a bit with a gasp.

"Oh Robo-Jesus!" She said, while Khan looked her down. 'Crap! Why is he here?!' She thought in a panic. If it had been anyone else in the WDF, she could easily have tricked them into going out. Her dad though was a matter entirely though since he was usually smarter than them. Not by a lot but still smart enough to not just let her walk out under some hastily made-up false pretense.

"And where exactly might you be off to?" He asked, before noting the time. "At 3 in the morning?" Then he saw the railgun on her back. "With your... murderous passion project?"

"Uhm... sneaking out to fool around with my boyfriend, that I definitely have." Uzi said, trying and failing to sound convincing. Khan laughed at her attempt before becoming serious again.

"Try again." He said, although in his mind he was actually considering the possibility of her saying the truth for a moment. 'She has been getting a lot of friends lately. What if she's serious? Oh door, no! No wait! There's no way she could have found someone this quickly, right? I mean me and her mother clicked pretty fast, but...' He quickly pushed that thought down while keeping a straight face and much to his relief, Uzi sighed as she had been caught in an obvious lie.

"Ugh, fine. You got me. I have to... measure the exterior hydraulic mechanisms of Door 1 for uhm... a project at school. Yeah, a good old door! Just like my old man built it." She said with all the fake enthusiasm she could muster. Naturally, Khan remained utterly unimpressed by her performance on the outside. On the inside however, he felt something akin to hope rise up inside him, causing him to smile a bit. "I want to join the WDF, hide like a coward behind doors and play cards all day long?" She bargained, while mentally shouting at herself. 'Dammit Uzi, get a grip, will you?! Why did I say it like that? There's no way he's gonna believe me now!' She thought.
Much to her surprise though, Khan chuckled.

"Oh, we are not only playing cards all day..." He said just as the second door opened behind him and Uzi was treated to the familiar sight of the WDF sitting at their table and playing cards.

"Hey Khan, do you have a fresh deck. We literally only played cards all day so much, that the numbers have faded." A drone with a moustache albeit smaller than Khan said as he waved over to the two. "Oh, hey Uzi." The teenage drone in question waved back awkwardly, while Khan used a remote to close the door behind them slightly annoyed of his previous statement being comically proven wrong by his coworkers.

"Well, when you built doors as good as these..." He said before gently petting the door behind him as if it was a dog and praising it for being a 'good door'. He quickly stopped as soon as he noted the weirded out look his daughter gave him over his antics. "Then there's no need to fight. It's great news you finally understand that, Uzi!" His smile faltered then as he looked at her. "Are you sure though? I mean, I would be the last person to tell you not to follow in your old man's footsteps, but... uhm... it's just..." Khan struggled to find the words. For a moment, Uzi's face softened a bit, before she quickly reminded herself that this was just an act to get out and not some long-awaited and longed for father-daughter bonding experience.

"Yes, I'm sure. Plus, you should know how good I am with building stuff." The purple-haired teen said. Khan nodded to himself as he thought back to something in the past.

"Oh yeah... that roach trap you built when you hit puberty." He said with a smile, not noticing how Uzi's eyes hollowed out when thinking about that particular contraption of hers.

"Uzi, help me! The roaches are crawling into my clothes! I think I'm slipping from them scratching and biting me!" Khan had called out to Uzi as he was clung to a trapdoor inside Uzi's room with one arm while reaching out to her with the other as below him the sound of skittering robot roaches and the buzzing of saws could be heard. Uzi meanwhile sat at her computer. listened to loud music with her headphones on and turned up the volume even more to drown out Khan's voice and the buzzing of her trap for parents going into her room.

"I still don't know how you made the fake saws look and sound to authentically. Maybe a bit much for some vermin like that though." Khan shook his head at the memory, while a drop of digital sweat ran down Uzi's visor.

'Those were not fakes.' She thought to herself, somewhat glad that her dad still believed her obvious lie about it being a trap for vermin and not catching on to her calling him a roach for hiding in the bunker. She had been forced to uninstall her murderous pitfall afterwards though, namely after an incident of Khan bringing freshly washed clothes to her room while she had been at school and almost tripping right into it. 'It was still a cool idea though.' Khan's voice then tore her out of her thoughts.

"It might not be too exciting, but it doesn't get boring. Plus, you're going to be in good company alongside your friend." He said before pulling out a wrench from his back pocket, which Uzi noted was slightly stained with oil around the open end. "Here. I used this wrench when I made the door's first prototypes." Khan said before his tone suddenly shifted to something menacing. "And to put your mother out of her misery when the murder drones covered her in nanite acid!" He immediately switched back to his normal self after this clearly not traumatic recollection of the past. "I want you to have it." Without noticing how he had completely destroyed the somewhat emotional moment between them or the 'slightly' shocked expression on her face at the disturbing revelation, he placed the murder weapon of her mother into Uzi's hands as she tried her best to keep a straight face.

"Neat. I love therapy..." She quietly said while she averted her gaze from both Khan and the oil-stained wrench in her hands, that suddenly felt like a heavy block of ice. 'AAAAGHH! Dad, why can't you be normal?' She didn't say that out loud obviously as he put an arm around her shoulders and opened Door 2 again.

"Hey guys! My daughter is into doors now!" Khan announced, causing the other members of the WDF to cheered, only to immediately erupt into groans of discomfort and annoyance when Khan opened Door 1 with his remote and a strong gust of wind and snow washed over them. Khan promptly ignored the complaints about the cold and the cards that dropped to the ground. "She's gonna be outside to examine the exterior of Door 1. Go on Uzi. All doors are left wide open to your destiny!" He told Uzi, who awkwardly moved around the table after being put on the spot like that.

"Uh... wow. Okay. I uhm... gonna get going then. This was way too easy..." She mumbled the last part to herself quietly, before giving the WDF members a peace sign with an awkward laugh. "Um... go, doors!" And with that Door 1 closed again behind her, leaving her alone in the yellow glow of the lights installed above the heavy gate. With her back turned to her home, she looked out into the night before her as snow gently fell from above onto the ruined cityscape. Uzi sighed one last time and looked around the destroyed cityscape in front of her before she ventured out into the night.

Luckily for her, the snowfall wasn't too heavy as the skies were relatively clear. Thus, her vision wasn't impaired like it might have been during a heavier storm and she didn't have to worry about losing her way. As she walked away from Outpost 3, the only sounds she could hear was the crunching of snow and ice under her boots, the rush of the wind through empty buildings and streets, the creaking of metal coming from structures like toppled over cranes and power cables still hanging exposed and encrusted with ice between some ruins like garlands. The streets were also not only littered with debris as the cars were frozen in place where they had either been during the moment of the core's collapse or crashed into right after as the humans driving died instantly. Behind the broken windows and windshields, Uzi could still see the skeletons of people frozen in poses of shock, their hands clutching the steering wheels or their arms raised in an instinctive yet futile reflex to shield their head and their jaws open in a last outcry of surprise... or pain. Uzi may had no sympathy for humanity as a whole or even the people whose remains she spotted in those cars since it was also their kind that had sent the murder drones to kill them all, but considering her situation and destination she felt an unease well up inside her at the sight of both human and drone remains that littered the streets and she accidentally stepped on the face of a deceased worker drone and the crack of the visor's glass ringing like a gunshot through her mind. The feeling only lasted a short moment before she pushed it down and walked on, focusing on her goal.

While the city's remains still stood for the most part, the old maps were not always reliable. Just like all things, the ruins were bound to one day come to an end by collapsing in on themselves with no one to maintain the structures as they were slowly eroded by the elements. While it was of no consequence to the drones in the bunker other than perhaps making it easier to salvage rebar from the broken concrete, the collapse of a building could trigger more than the collapse of the weakening structures around it if debris blocked previously clear roads.
Not as bad as the failing of concrete structures, but just as much of a hinderance was the faster deterioration of street signs and other landmarks to orientate oneself in this crumbling concrete labyrinth.
Luckily for her though, her destination was a landmark in such stark contrast to the rest of the city it was impossible to miss. And it wasn't long that she found herself standing in front of it. The impact site of the Murder Drone's landing pod and the corpse spire that they had erected around it. Once it had been a large intersection of two main roads of the city, that had once been bustling with traffic. Now the winding spire's diameter took up almost the entirety of the space. Large metal beams and other debris had been repurposed and placed against its base to stabilize it further. Standing right before the monolithic structure and looking up from its shadow as it eclipsed both of Copper 9's moons, Uzi couldn't help but swallow a non-existent lump in her throat before she cautiously approached the entrance.

While avoiding touching or approaching the literal walls of worker drone corpses with their displays all reading the same red 'FATAL ERROR' message, she peered inside and found the place apparently abandoned for the time being. The floor was littered with pieces of machinery as well as more dead drone bodies and covered in a layer of frost and snow. In the middle of it all sat the landing pod of the murder drones, slightly tilted to the side as its four spider-like legs kept it from falling over, while pale moon light shone down directly onto it from further up in the spire, providing lighting to the entire interior. Multiple thick tubes or cables of some kind were placed around it and stuck into the ground around it, connecting the pod with the rest of the spire and snaking their way up from bottom to the top almost akin to veins, vines or some sort of circulatory system. For the tech savvy part of Uzi's brain, none of that really made sense. From the looks of it, the vessel was obviously some sort of one-way landing craft, so why would it be connected to anything when its purpose was served? A way to communicate and receive orders from the company perhaps? Or something far more sinister? The purple-haired worker drone couldn't tell, but she quickly shook her head as she found herself speculating.

'Focus Uzi! You got no time to waste. Find the missing part, fix the gun and get your dad's respect, before you end up as part of this spire!' Uzi thought to herself, before starting to dig around the junk littering the ground. She knew for a fact that the energy cell she was looking for was somewhere in this place, given how the murder drones had pretty much erected this place out of all sorts of stuff. But with all the broken machine and drone parts laying around, it was literally akin to trying to find a needle inside a heap of hay. While she was rummaging around as quietly as possible, she always kept an eye and an ear open for any indication that one of the flying murder machines was going to return to their base at any given time. Any sound she made from the dull thuds on metal to the crunching of snow seemed to reverberate within the quiet stillness of the spire's interior.

Moving closer to the landing pod, she finally saw the eerie green glimmer of what she was looking for underneath the discarded remains of another worker drone. Picking up a severed drone arm before throwing it away over her shoulder, Uzi picked up the power cell. 'Jackpot, now just need to make sure it's good to use or else I'll have to find anoth-' That was when a sudden beeping coming from within her pocket made her head snap up in a panic and direct her hollowed out eyes to her source of the noise where she found something small pressing against her body. 'Huh?! Don't tell me...' Uzi thought in a panic as she fished out the digivice with her free hand. Its flashing a yellow warning symbol across its display, before showing the radar she had seen yesterday. A yellow dot at the very edge of the radar was heading straight for on her location. And it was very fast. No sooner had Uzi put the digivice away, did she note how the light that entered the spire from above dimmed as if something was blocking the light.

Quickly running behind a nearby large engine, the purple-haired drone ducked for cover just before the light was blocked out almost completely and the murder drone divebombed through what Uzi now realized was an entrance for the flying drones. The murder drone hit the landing pod with such force it generated a loud clang and then spread its large, bladed wings. The tail whipped around a bit as Uzi grabbed a shard of glass off the ground and held it up so that she could see how the murder drone raised the severed head of a worker drone over their head and let the oil drip down from the neck into its mouth before crushing head with its large claws like an empty soda can and throwing it aside.

'Okay, far from optimal conditions for first enemy contact. But it's alone and hasn't noticed me yet.' Uzi thought as she glanced at the power cell in her other hand for a brief moment, before looking back at the shard. 'I can work with this. Just pop the cell in and... is it waving at me?' Much to her horror, the murder drone had turned his body around while still holding onto the landing pod with one hand and now indeed waved at her by wiggling his fingers on the other before his visor lit up with the familiar yellow X, revealing the fanged smile on his face. With her cover blown, Uzi dropped the shard, quickly distanced herself from the pod and brought her railgun up as the murder drone flew up again. 'Okay, stealth was only optional anyway!' Uzi thought, throwing the new power cell up just enough to let her tear out the faulty component of her weapon before catching it again and putting it in. The railgun whirred and hummed to life in her hands with a stable green glow, while she raised the barrel to look for the murder drone.

Who then proceeded to drop down from above, slamming his clawed hand right where she had stood a moment before with enough force to crack the ground beneath him and throw Uzi backwards. The sudden shock made her lose her grip on the weapon, sending it flying in a high arc in the opposite direction to herself. Uzi could only look in shock at the tremendous power before she did a backflip in midair and landed on the ground in a fighting stance.

"Wow, and they said pirating all that anime was useless." She said to herself, just when the murder drone closed the distance between them, giving her only enough time to raise her hands in defense before the stinger on the tail almost nailed her in the face, if Uzi had not brought up her right hand in time to take the blow instead. It still hurt like hell as Uzi let out a gasp of pain, before the murder drone effortlessly threw her behind him with a flick of his tail and sent her tumbling to the ground until her back hit the engine she had previously hidden behind.

She hissed in pain and her breath came only in ragged gasps as she looked down her hand where the nanite acid slowly through her palm. Luckily though, she had landed not far from her railgun as she quickly dashed over to it with a combat roll. And not a moment too early when the murder drone switched one clawed hand for a gun and turned around to point it where she had initially landed when she had sat up and leveled her gun at him. The sound of the gun charging up made him adjust his stance just enough for him to look at her.

"Bite me." She said spitefully before pulling the trigger and for a moment, Uzi's world was engulfed in a beam of neon green light blasting away the murder drone. The force of the blast actually pushed her backwards a bit. After the blast, Uzi's sight returned and the railgun glowed red, showing her that the weapon would need 30 minutes to recharge. Then she looked at the murder drone, who had his entire head obliterated by the blast leaving only the stump of the neck sparking with electricity. The body still somewhat wobbled on its feet for a second before the legs gave out under it and it landed in a heap on the ground. "Holy hell..." Uzi said shocked, almost not believing that the weapon she created herself just did that. That disbelief morphed into quiet euphoria. "Take that, dad! Told you I could do it on my own, Commandramon! Huh?"

However, her celebration was cut short when before her eyes the headless body of the murder drone stood up again, his head regenerating in a matter of seconds, while its system's alarms beeped loudly. Uzi's eyes widened in panic as the regeneration was completed and the drone stood there slightly slumped over with one of the 5 yellow glowing optical sensors glowing red, while its visor displayed a red warning text reading: 'ERROR - OPTIC SENSORS: OFFLINE'.

With her railgun still recharging, she was left without a weapon and found herself regretting her words immediately. In a panic, she discarded her railgun and grabbed the first thing she could use as a weapon, which just so happened to be a severed drone arm laying next to her. With a determined battle cry, Uzi ran towards the murder drone and swung the dismembered limb like a club at the unresponsive drone's head, using all the force she could muster. The backhanded slap did little more than shift his head a bit to the side, just before his visor changed to regular yellow eyes and his mouth formed a friendly smile.

"Did you just slap me with that arm?" He asked, pointing at the limb in Uzi's hand.

"Of course, it talks." Uzi said, before the murder drone awkwardly laughed, obviously unaware of the prior events leading to this exact situation. That or he was a very good actor, though Uzi seriously doubted that. 'Did I fry his short-term memory or something? I better keep him busy until the railgun reloads.' She thought stealing a look over to where her gun now laid in the snow and scrap metal.

"Yeah, sorry. My... head hurts a bit." The murder drone said, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "Oh, are you new to our squad? You are a bit..." He squinted his eyes at Uzi, while his optics could not see her in detail. To him she appeared akin to a drone-shaped silhouette while his HUD failed to identified her, only reading 'ERROR. "...short for a disassembly drone." He said. Uzi said nothing and smiled, though on the inside she felt a bit of anger rise up in her at even the murder drones calling her short. After a moment of intensely looking at her, the literal killing machine smiled and saluted to Uzi. "I'm serial designation N. Nice to meet you. I'm kind of the leader of our squad in this city." N introduced himself.

"No, he's not." Someone said, making N's smile falter while Uzi's eyes looked in the direction it came from only to find no one.

"Yeah, I'm not... The others call me useless and terrible. Wait, I didn't mean to say that part!" N's eyes widened as his tail stood up straight like that of a surprised cat, before muttering to himself. "Biscuits."

"See? It's true. He can't even swear."

"I'm no need for constructive criticism!" N called over to the disembodied voice again, while Uzi looked at the scene with a mixture of bewilderment, shock, a bit of amusement, a lot of worry and... strange familiarity for some reason. The disassembly drone chuckled a bit. "Sorry about that. Also, I can't seem to recall the past 3 hours of my life, but I'm sure that will sort itself out." N said with a positivity that struck the worker drone as very out of place for a relentless killing machine that had killed hundreds and thousands of her kind.

"Uh-huh..." Was the most coherent and polite answer she could give at the moment, before she pointed with the dismembered drone arm in her hand towards where her railgun was laying. "I'm... just gonna go-" She was about to tell N that she'd grab her stuff and leave, when a sudden loud and irritating noise cut through the tension.

The unmistakable crunch... of someone eating chips. Very loudly.

"Hey, are you gonna do something or are you just going to talk it out now?"

A somewhat annoyed voice said as both Uzi and N turned towards it and found a certain short evil digimon sitting on the remains of the engine from earlier with Uzi's railgun draped over his lap, while next to him was an open bag of chips. After popping another handful of chips in his mouth and getting greasy crumbs all over his face, bandana and Uzi's weapon, the small devil digimon made a face. "Yuck, how are stale potato chips, canned food, soft drinks and ice pops the only edible things on this rock? I really need to grab something for later next time." Impmon thought to himself, when he noticed both N and Uzi look at him in silence. Uzi forgot about the stinging pain of her hand being dismantled by nanite acid and N's mind needed a second to realize how his squad's number 1 enemy (according to J) had literally just shown up in their base.
A bit unnerved by the drones' silence Impmon spoke up again, while wiping his greasy gloves off on the still recharging railgun. "What are you bozos gawking at?"

"Uhm, you-" N said, hesitantly pointing at the digimon, though he was quickly interrupted by a certain purple-haired teenager of a worker drone.

"YOU!" Uzi shouted as she looked ready to strangle the digimon with her bare hands, catching the digimon and N by surprise and making both of them jump a little at her sudden outburst of anger. "HANDS OFF MY GUN!"

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: Weapons Free

Despite the disassembly drone's spire having been constructed from what was essentially whatever scrap metal they could scavenge from the surface and the corpses of their slain prey, the spire itself was surprisingly stable. Even though its winding exterior gave off a rather unsettling appearance like it could collapse in on itself rather sooner than later with the ruined cityscape around it, it had never been toppled by Copper 9's toxic death storms over the years. This was naturally also due to the efforts of the architects and occupants of said spire fixing any damages done to it, replacing parts whenever the structure's stability was slowly and quite literally weathered down as if the planet itself was trying to get rid of it. Such lesser work was also often relegated to a particular member of J's squad currently sitting inside the squad's landing pod.

As a monument of the disassembly drones' deeds and an unsettling sight to behold, the worker drones' imagination had often ran wild as to what exactly was the real purpose of the spire and what was going on within its walls. Something no living worker drone could have ever said as all who entered either never came back out or had their dead bodies incorporated into the structure. Thus, the mystery surrounding the spire gave rise to a lot of speculations and exaggerated tales not unlike the legends and stories humanity had once told themselves about phenomena they could not explain themselves through simple observations during their early days.

As well as perhaps one or the other cringeworthy teenage romance novel, that tackled the idea of a forbidden romance with a monstrous lover... but let's rather not talk about those.

In a sense, Uzi was perhaps the first living worker drone, that had entered the place and stayed long enough to give some insights. That was, however, only if she made it out of there in one piece. The inside of the disassembly drone's landing pod wasn't nearly as messy as the scrapyard around it, but it certainly had seen better days. Various displays and instruments had been damaged and none of them were operational with sparks flying from exposed wires and circuitry as well as from right beneath the various buttons of a console obviously meant to operate the spacecraft. She could also sport static and glitches on some of the broken screens, proving to her that the pod was indeed still powered, which might explain the tubes connecting it to the spire. Anyone with half a brain or a functioning processor could tell that it was not operational in its current state without someone fixing it first, which Uzi with her engineering skills noted would be quite an undertaking. A big and very thorough one but a doable one.

However, this did not make her stay within the very heart of the murder drones' lair any better as she truly experienced the most disgusting thing of her entire life so far. And it made her actually question her ability to get out of this place alive and well. Emphasis on the 'well' part. Before tonight, she had always imagined what might have been going on within the towering structure, but nothing her teenage mind's imagination had come conjured up could have prepared her for this.

She could feel N's sharp teeth and tongue on her wrist and his warm breath wash over her arm, while feeling the material of her hand knit itself back together after she had shoved said appendage inside a disassembly drone's mouth, in order of his saliva to neutralise the nanites and make them reconstruct her hand back to normal instead. Not only was it quite the experience in terms of disgust, but also not entirely painless when a hiss of pain escaped her every so often.

'This is the worst day of my life...' She thought to herself, trying her best to ignore the fact that N could easily bite her entire hand off if he would regain his functions and memories and see her for the worker drone she was. A shudder ran up her motherboard at the thought before she pulled her repaired hand out of his mouth, causing him to make a "Bleh" sound.

"Okay, I'm open to try new things, I guess." N said awkwardly as he sat across from Uzi. Both drones were currently seated in what Uzi could now identify as a cockpit. The landing pod was not very spacious, so it was the one and only room inside. In a way, that was a good thing other than whatever gory or strange rumours and urban legends the worker drones had imagined to be inside the spire and their landing gear. Still, Uzi would lie if she said it didn't also feel a bit underwhelming to say the least. As for the disassembly drone N, he had been rather friendly and hospitable due to him not being able to recognize her as prey and pulled the two of them chairs from somewhere to sit down on, before she had shoved her hand in his throat. Uzi had declined the offer of some freshly killed murder drone as politely as she could without making her nausea apparent. Right now, though, she did feel very disgusted as her hand was still soaked in his saliva.

"We are not going to talk about that." She told N. 'Why me? Ugh... At least the others are not here to comment on that...' Uzi thought, somewhat being able to picture the gossip this would spark among her peers and how her blue-haired classmate might actually try to flirt with the disassembly drone in his current state. She had noted earlier how he was probably the tallest person she had ever met with herself only just reaching his shoulders and coupled with that sort of personality, he'd be the perfect target for Rebecca's advances. If he didn't kill her first that was.

"Talk about what? Consider it... repressed." N said, trying to play the whole situation of with an obviously fake laid-back and cool attitude. Uzi was way too disgusted with her hand still dripping with his saliva to comment on how unfathomably uncool that was. The third occupant in the room did though.

"You suck at this, Doormat. Stop before you embarrass yourself even more." Impmon said as he sat on the metal floor a bit further away from the two, the back of his head leaning against the wall of the pod, before turning his attention to Uzi. "And you deserve it after that stunt earlier, so stop complaining about some drool over your hand." Both drones looked over to the digimon in question, who sat cross-legged with his arms tied up with the discarded limbs and wires of worker drones behind his back. While looking annoyed with a notable large red bruise on his otherwise white face, he couldn't help but smirk a bit at Uzi's obvious discomfort.

"Like hell, I do!" Uzi snapped back, as his remark made her remember why they were in the current situation to begin with, while N just sat on his chair smiling like the friendly idiot he was.

"HANDS OFF MY GUN!" Uzi had shouted at the sight of her sick-as-hell railgun being used as a napkin of sorts by some tiny devil-looking creature.

"Let me think about that..." Impmon replied as he had deliberately shoved another handful of stale chips into his mouth and began to chew very slowly. The sound of the potato snacks snapping and crunching filled the air once more, while Impmon wiped his hand once more over the frame and stock of the railgun as if he was slowly petting a cat. Uzi felt her composure slip while watching crumbs and fat stick to her gun like the stickers she had carefully put on its housing and her eye twitched at each particularly loud crunching noise the digimon made while eating. N simply watched the silent exchange between Uzi and Impmon, who just ignored the obviously threat to his health that the worker drone posed and kept eating chips deliberately slowly as if to agitate her. It might have worked on V and most definitely on J, but N was a bit too thick for that. It was working on Uzi thought. Eventually, Impmon swallowed and made a thoughtful noise while tapping his chin. "Hm... No." He said with a grin, snapping his fingers and pointing at her with a small pinkish red fireball appearing at his finger's tip. The worker drone's eyes widened at the sight, making Impmon's grin widen not unlike the grinning smiley on his chest.

'Of course, this thing has an attack too...' Uzi thought to herself, thinking about the digivice in her pocket. If it hadn't somehow alerted her earlier about N coming back to the spire, she likely even have noticed her accidentally taking it with her since Commandramon was not there. 'Great, now I'm basically held at gun point from two sides.' Her face fell a bit while Impmon laughed, the fireball on his finger's tip fizzling out in the cold air of Copper 9.

"Hahahaha! What's with that face? Can't get your toy back?" Impmon chuckled before looking over at N. "Hey Doormat."

"Hi." N waved friendly for a moment, only for his eyes to widen in realization and dramatically point at the digimon. "Hey! You're that guy from yesterday, aren't you?!" Both Uzi and Impmon shot N an incredulous look, somewhat shocked and impressed by his idiocy.

"Were you that occupied trying to talk up the shortstack, that you seriously forgot about me?" Impmon said with a sigh. "No wonder you are the doormat for the other guys. You really are stupid, aren't you?"

"Only a little." N admitted, while Uzi glared daggers at the digimon at the comment about her height.

"WHY YOU LITTLE- NGH!" She only managed to take a couple of steps towards Impmon before she hissed in pain and dropped the drone arm she had been holding the whole time. She slightly hunched over while holding her injured hand as the nanite acid continued to eat through the palm of her hand and spread outward.

"Oh, stung yourself? Just shove it in your mouth. Our saliva neutralises the nanites. Otherwise, I'd disassembling myself all the time." N said as his tail whipped around. The disassembly drone managed to catch the syringe-like tip just in time before apparently have stung himself in the side of his head, trying to mask his embarrassing admission with an awkward smile.

"And with 'our saliva' you mean..." Uzi said.

"Disassembly drones?"

"Disassembly drones."

Both Uzi and N said in unison as the worker drone's mind started to piece everything together.

"Right..." Uzi nodded with a smirk. "Hey let's go into that landing pod over there." She said, pointing at the vessel the disassembly drones had arrived on the planet with in the middle of the spire. N turned to look at what she was looking at as if there was anything else that she could have meant before turning back to her with an oblivious smile.

"Sure, I love doing anything." He said, making Uzi's smirk widen at him being so easily manipulated. Her internal celebration was cut short though.

"Oh, quite forward are we? Are you going to kiss and make out now?" Impmon commented in a bored tone as both drones' visors lit up with a feint blush at the suggestion and looked at the digimon wiggling his eyebrows and smiling in a teasing manner. "Don't mind me then. It sure is more interesting than watching the snow-GAH!"

Uzi's response came in the form of her throwing the wrench, that her dad had given her (and apparently used to kill her mom with), and hitting the digimon square in the face. Impmon let out a short outcry of pain before he lost his balance, causing him to fall off the engine he was sitting on and land on the frost-covered scrap metal on the ground below. Both Uzi and N looked a wide-eyed at each other for a moment, before they noticed the devil-like digimon not making another sound.

"Do you think he's dead?" N asked, sounding slightly uncomfortable just as they heard the weak groan of Impmon. Walking over, both drones found the digimon as he laid in the snow and scrap metal, while the clearly visible red outline of the wrench was on his face.

"Hot wings..." He had mumbled, while being completely knocked out.

"Bummer, he's still alive..." Uzi had commented, before picking up the wrench and her railgun, silently cringing at the feeling of her grease-stained weapon, while N poked the unconscious digimon's face.

Luckily for her, the murder drones did have some supplies in their pod and soon enough, Uzi's railgun was clean again before the grease could stain the stickers. No matter what Commandramon might say about her sense for aesthetics, those were a very important part of her gun and ensured its functionality.

"So, you know this guy or something?" Uzi asked as she sat back in her seat, glaring at Impmon. The digimon in question responded by sticking his tongue out at her and blew a raspberry, making Uzi contemplate about whether or not she should grab something loose and chuck it at his head again.

"Not really. He showed up the other day during a hunt outside and made a fool out of us. Our squad's leader has been a bit... angry about that." N said, careful not to make it sound like J was a bad person or leader. "But hey, we captured him. Well, you incapacitated him and I tied him up, so I'm sure she'll be in a better mood upon hearing that. I certainly didn't think the company would send reinforcements this quickly though." He added. Both Impmon and Uzi exchanged a look for a moment, before Impmon shrugged and they turned back to N.

"Let me check something real quick." Uzi said before fishing out the digivice from her pocket, making Impmon's face fall a little when he identified the object in her hand immediately. This did not go unnoticed by either N or Uzi, when she brought the device up in his general direction. The holographic display of the digimon analyzer appeared before her once more, showcasing Impmon's general data for the drones to see. "Impmon. Level: Rookie. Attack: Night of Fire. ...Evil Digimon?" Uzi read aloud, before she put the digivice down again and the hologram disappeared. "Really? That's a classification?" She asked, still trying to wrap her head around her earlier talk with Commandramon about levels and his previous forms. Meanwhile, N looked over Uzi's shoulder at the device in her hands with child-like wonder, while the tip of his tail was actually wagging a bit.

"Oh! That's an interesting gadget. Is that part of your special equipment or something? The company sure works fast..." He said, completely forgetting about the digimon in front of him. His comment was ignored by Uzi when Impmon glared at her.

"So what if it is? Never seen a demon before or something?" He said, crossing his arms defensively. Or he would have if they were not tied to his back, while he was trying to cut the wires with the arrowhead-shaped tip of his tail, which unfortunately was not sharp at all.

"I'd have assumed a demon to be more intimidating and bigger than you. If you're a demon, I'm not afraid of Hell anymore." Uzi commented with an amused huff at the mental image of Hell she had in her head right now.

"DEMON?! Oh no, please have mercy Robo-God! There's still so many dogs I want to pet." N's surprised and slightly worried outburst was ignored entirely once more.

"Hey! Who are you to judge my height, you midget?!" Impmon shouted at Uzi sounding rather offended.

"Huh?! Bite me! You're even shorter than me!" The purple-haired worker drone shouted back leaning forward in her seat again.

"My height is perfectly normal! You, on the other hand, are so short, I thought you were a little kid looking for your parents."

"I do not need to hear that from an imp!"

"Bite me!"

"You first!"

N looked a bit worried between Uzi and Impmon now as it seemed like there were literal red and purple sparks flying between them, though that might just have been his imagination as well as the damages done to the landing pod, sparking every so often from its loose panels and wires. Eventually, both of them turned away from one another, huffing in annoyance while N looked a bit awkward scratching the back of his head.

'They are kind of like long lost siblings... I hope the new recruit's attitude won't be too much of a problem with J...' He thought to himself, still thinking Uzi to be a new member of their squad, even though his optical sensors were offline and the system told him to reboot them, while calling him an idiot. "So, about our squad..." N began, when Uzi turned back to him quickly.

"Oh right. You mentioned others of your squad? Are they going to come back soon too?" She said, looking around a bit worried. Her railgun was still recharging and she had no doubt that the other murder drones would not be as friendly as N in his current state.

"Oh yeah, two actually. They are currently out hunting, but you are going to love them." N said with a smile. "First, we got V. She's really good at hunting, looks great and tends to be really thorough on the job." N's smile faltered a bit. "She seems to forget my name though... or that I'm also part of the squad... but a whole letter takes up quite some memory space, right? Haha..." He said a bit awkwardly. "So, we clearly respect each other." Uzi just gave him a really unimpressed look, while Impmon was using his finger flames to burn through the cables and wires holding his arms together behind his back.

"She's a violent lunatic with no off-switch and tends be way over the top in terms of brutality. And lover boy over here clearly has the hots for her." The tied up digimon said, making N look panicked at him.

"WHO TOLD YOU THAT?! I MEAN, NO. I MEAN, YES! I MEAN-" He blurted out before covering his mouth with his hands when he realized he just admitted to it. His eyes widened and hollowed out as his hand moved over his face and he groaned in shame. Impmon chuckled at his reaction while Uzi just looked, while inwardly fighting the urge to roll her eyes at his behavior.

'So this is one of murder machines, that drove us underground... with the attitude of a love-sick teen... great...' She thought as the idea of shooting him became slightly more unappealing in her head, before she quickly shook her head at the thought of slowly sympathizing with the disassembly drone. 'No wait, those are still the same things that killed your mom, Uzi Doorman. Focus!' She chided herself while thinking that she might be able to figure out a weakness of those guys. With her luck, N might just tell her if she asked. Speaking of which, N looked at her with a pleading look on his face.

"Please don't tell anyone." He weakly asked Uzi when she made a gesture with her hand as if zipping her mouth shut and gave him a smile. That reassured N as he smiled again. "And then there's J, our squad's leader."

"The actual leader." Impmon commented offhandedly, making N glare at him a bit for reminding them of N originally introducing himself as the leader. Though he quickly dismissed the digimon's commentary and continued on. But much to N's dismay, so did Impmon as well.

"She's awesome..."
"Self-aggrandising..."
"Driven..."
"Overachieving..."
"A bit strict..."
"Violent to her subordinates..."
"And overall, a really great leader." N said with a positive smile.
"She's a real stuck-up piece of work. And a big one at that." Impmon finished as he felt the cables around his body loosen a bit.

"Would you please stop? I don't appreciate your commentary on my squadmates." N asked Impmon. Under any other circumstances, he might have sounded threatening. His polite, almost begging tone though made it sound like he was pleading.

"Hey, I'm not tied up here, because I wanna be. If you let me go, I'll be out of your hair." The devil digimon said wagging his tail, while his flames burnt through another cable. 'Yeah, come here so I can give you a big piece of my mind, you stupid doormat of a robot.'

"Oh right." N said as was about to sit up before he stopped himself. "Wait a minute... You want me to set you free so you can run off again! Almost had me fooled there." He said wagging his finger with a confident smirk, while Uzi had to resist the urge to facepalm. At first, she thought he was just overly positive and maybe a bit stupid. Now she realized that N was an actual overly positive moron, whose optimism blinded him from the reality of being treated like dirt by his own squad.

"Oh chucks, my brilliant plan didn't work. Well, guess you'll have to live with me commenting then." Impmon told N, whose face fell a bit, before the digimon turned to Uzi. "So as you can see, he's a literal whipping boy for them."

"Haha! You might think that but..." N tried to come up with an argument, only for his eyes to hollow out in realization and quickly change the subject again. "Yeah, they should be back soon enough." N told Uzi, while the digimon chuckled.

"Not really." Impmon said, making the drones look at the digimon. "They're gonna be gone for a while."

"... what did you do?" N asked somewhat worried. More about how bad J's mood would be, but also what Impmon might have done considering his latest prank resulted in him almost losing his tail to those UV light emitters. He wasn't in any way questioning J and V's capabilities as disassembly drones, but he was still worried for them in a sense.

"I just left them a little message." The digimon admitted, smirking to himself as if proud of some grand achievement.

Elsewhere in the ruined city both V and J stood in silence on top of a dilapidated skyscraper, looking down at what looked like it used to be a warehouse. From their elevated position, they could overlook a rather large area of the surrounding city ruins, despite the weather might hindering the optics of a worker drone. They sensors were highly tuned to detect movement and the 5 yellow glowing orbs on their head akin to a headband of sorts in appearance were in fact additional optical sensors, giving them a wider field of sensory input. Not exactly eyes in the literal, organic sense, but more akin to the sensory organs of certain animals found on Earth like sharks or platypuses. Coupled with their deadly weaponry and extreme healing factors due to their nanites, it came to no one's surprise just how the disassembly drones had wiped out the majority of the worker drone population on Copper 9.

The attention of the two female murder drones, however, was on the building right below the structure they were currently standing on for another reason than potentially worker drones hiding in the place. Earlier that night, J had come across something that completely took her mind from the idea of hunting down the defect robots they had been sent to destroy in the first place. Painted all over the wall of a ruin had been a message. It was crude and whoever had done it really needed to work on their handwriting, but it hadn't been meant to be pretty and just big to be spotted instantly by the one intended to find it. 'CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!' had been plastered over that slap of rebar and concrete with an arrow pointing deeper into the city and a small smiley with two very familiar-looking, ear-like protrusions on the sides.
Needless to say, J had immediately informed V about the situation and ordered her to accompany her as the humiliation of the night prior still burned freshly in her mind.

After having been dragged away from slaughtering worker drones (literally so when J had grabbed V by the tail and dragged her off while the latter was busy eating), V had been flying right behind her superior, dashing through the concrete jungle falling apart around them. Here and there, they spotted another piece of what could hardly qualify even as graffiti, pointing them deeper into the city and taunting the murder machines. The paint was even still a bit wet despite the biting cold of Copper 9's hostile environment, telling the disassembly drone duo that those things must have been done recently during the day. Despite the obvious trap the two were heading into, J was more spurred on by this little detail, likely wanting to tear the imp apart herself.

'She's taking this way too personal...' V thought to herself as she shot J a glance, who stood at the edge of the roof or what might have been an upper floor of the building before the roof collapsed. The murder drone with the twin tails looked down to the structure beneath them with a number of dead worker drones had been arranged in the crude shape of an arrow pointing at the entrance of the place and having their arms point at it for emphasis, while she had her claws out and flexed them as if to calm her nerves by squeezing a stress ball. Not that it would have helped, but it was a bit unnerving for V. 'Then again, she always had been a bit too prideful. so some humility would be good for her.' Unfortunately for V though, humility was perhaps the one thing that J absolutely did not possess. She was an unapologetic, ruthless killing machine. And V could hardly blame her...

"This is so obviously a trap, it's not even funny." J said, speaking up for the first time in almost an hour. V couldn't agree more. Then again, minus the thing with the UV lights and burning N's tail, everything so far had been rather harmless. Still, V would be lying if she said that this thing wasn't a potential threat and she didn't exactly feel very positive about that.

"So... do we blow the place up from here or do we spring the trap?" She asked her leader, switching one hand for a rocket launcher. J merely shook her head.

"Neither. Either that thing gets away by running again or we get compromised is not an option. We are doing this your way." She said, shooting V a look. For a moment, V had to think what J meant with 'her way', before a wide, fanged grin spread across her face.

"Alright boss!" She said before spreading her wings and taking off. She didn't stay airborne for long though as she divebombed straight into the building's roof, the cheap metal construction giving way instantly and caving in with a loud crash. J followed behind closely to make sure that their target didn't get away, diving into the place right behind V with her weapons ready. Unfortunately for the two of them, the place was deserted not just by anyone that could have been hiding within, but also devoid of anything inside. The place was literally emptied out aside from two floodlights that were pointed at the far wall to the entrance. Some sort of motion detector must have been triggered when the lights turned on and illuminated the wall before the two murder machines, where another freshly painted message had been written on.

'GET PRANKED!' And next to it a childish drawing of Impmon sticking his tongue out as well as what looked like J with her eyes crossed out. Right below it was another line of text written in the same paint with what looked like a crude drawing of the spire's crooked shape. 'BTW, I'm off to your spire to steal your stuff. Have fun in that empty building :P'

V suppressed the urge to point out that the little devil had gotten them good with misleading them with the messages and the relatively fresh footprints in the snow, when she noted how J was shaking again with barely held back anger and her breathing growing louder. The usually more psychotic disassembly drone of the two quickly took a step away from her squad's leader and took off through the newly made hole in the ceiling, leaving the building behind just in time before J let out a wordless shout of anger and blew the whole wall up with her missiles.

'Good thing N is not here. Otherwise, Miss Temper Tantrum down there might not be satisfied with just shooting him in the face... Wait, isn't he at the spire right now?' V thought to herself as her eyes moved over to the barely visible shape of the spire in the distance. 'He better didn't get himself into trouble. Though, I'm sure he's going to be fine...' That was until V's eyes widened in realization when remembered that it was N she was thinking about, adding another potential reason for her to tear a certain devil-like creature into pieces. 'Oh c'mon!' She thought just as the entire warehouse below her erupted in an explosion, sending a shockwave through the ruins around it and knocking loose debris and ice to the ground.

The distant sound of an explosion going off could be heard like distant thunder even within the landing pod and Uzi swore she felt a slight tremor run through the ground right after the explosion.

"Looks like they found my message." Impmon chuckled to himself. "Don't worry, it was completely harmless. Just a little prank, you know."

"What was that?" Uzi asked, trying not to sound worried.

"Oh, that would have been J. Oh... she is not going to be in a good mood. But at least we already caught the culprit, so that might help." The disassembly drone replied, before gesturing to the interior of the landing pod. "Let me give you a quick room tour. Outside are the corpse-wall-thingies and in here are the buttons." N said before randomly pressing buttons on the console while making noises like a child. With that Uzi scooted over in her seat and looked at the cockpit.

"This isn't just a landing pod. It's a spaceship! We could use this to get off the planet!" She told N. 'Would just take at least a few weeks...' As if to spite her, a particularly strong discharge of busted wiring behind N made a loose metal panel to fall off the wall and clatter to the floor, almost hitting Impmon's tail. 'Or months...' Uzi's space adventure plans didn't get much further off the ground though when N replied rather awkwardly.

"Unfortunately, only a one-use missile. They never taught us how to land." He chuckled.

"What? Are you saying you just crashed the thing in the middle of a city?" Impmon asked, fighting the urge to laugh. "What kind of idiot flew this thing anyway?"

"We... don't recall really. My memories prior to being here are rather... absent. But I'm sure whoever of us three in the squad was the pilot back then did their best." N chuckled with his usual smile. Both Impmon and Uzi didn't respond verbally as they just gave him a deadpan look on their faces, then glanced at one another, nodded and then turned their eyes back to N in silent judgement. "Plus... they also haven't really taught us the engineering skills to maintain the pod. But we are figuring it out, even if a bit slowly." He added, just as another circuit sparked on the keyboard next to him rather violently, making him shift his hand away from it.

"No, I mean... uh... the worker drones. We could work with them to repair it. Instead of all the murder!" Uzi said the last part, pointing accusingly right into N's face, who looked with wide eyes a bit taken aback at her. 'Too much Uzi...' She realized when even Impmon shook his head at her. "Which uh... why are we doing that again?" The purple-haired worker drone asked.

"Other than to ingest their WARM, SWEET oil to avoid overheating and dying?" N replied, his tone shifting for a moment to something darker when his visor displayed the yellow X of his hunting mode for a second, only to instantly shift back to his regular one. "I guess I just want to be useful. I was given a job and always want to do my best."

'Great, now he reminds me of Commandramon AND my dad.' Uzi thought before standing up on the chair. "And yet they treat you like a piece of garbage. Do you really think the company isn't going to dispose of all of you once the worker drones are all dead?"

"Holy circuit board. You sure are rebellious. Kind of exciting." N replied fanning his face with one hand, before quickly stopping himself. "But not as exciting as uhm... following the rules." At that Impmon burst out laughing.

"Following the rules? Yeah right! She can't even follow her own rules." He said stopping his efforts to burn through the last cable holding him tied up to the ground.

"Oh, shut your mouth before you talk about stuff you don't know anything about!" Uzi turned towards the digimon as she glared at him, still standing on the chair.

"I mean, look at you. A digidestined out and about without her partner in a literal death trap." The digimon said, causing Uzi's eyes to widen a bit as she remembered from what Commandramon told her that the whole digidestined thing was something that digimon were aware of. Or at least Commandramon was and apparently so was Impmon.

"A what-destined?" N awkwardly asked, but Uzi and Impmon ignored him again.

"None of your business!" Uzi said defensively, slinging her gun over to point it at the digimon, momentarily forgetting that it was still recharging, before the holographic display reminded her. 'Damn this long recharge!' She thought irritated.

"Oh yeah, you got a digivice, so you got a partner too, right? I think I saw him the other day, running around like one of you guys digging through trash like the stuff you're wearing." Impmon commented, making the worker drone really want to hit him with the wrench again. N wanted to say something like thinking she looked great, but his optics unfortunately were still faulty, so he couldn't actually see what she wore. His scanners picked up a lot of angst though. "Seriously, a digidestined going out without their partner to get themselves killed. How stupid can you be?" Impmon continued.

"Oh, another squad member? Sweet! I sure would like another guy on the job. Not that I have anything against being the only guy in the squad... we might need to figure something out about our oil reserves, but I'm not even allowed to touch those so..." N said, but his comments were ignored once more.

"Bite me! I don't need to tell you anything!" Uzi said, but the digimon's words cut deeper than she wanted to admit. Though the way she looked at the little devil with hollowed eyes, her tone and even how she gripped the railgun tighter told more than she was willing to. Something that made Impmon smirk and N look a bit worried. Even to the most oblivious disassembly drone it was clear that it was a rather sensitive topic apparently.

"Where is he then, by the way? Did you leave him at home like some pet?" The digimon asked. "Or did he get on your nerves one too many times and you just didn't even bother to take him with you coming here?" Uzi remained quiet, telling Impmon all he needed to know, before he turned his head away from her with a huff. "Some partner you are- GAH! STOP THROWING THAT STUPID WRENCH AT ME!" Impmon cried out when he was hit in the face by the tool, which surprisingly bounced back perfectly for Uzi to catch it again. She was about to shout something back before she plopped back down on her seat with her arms crossed and turning away from both Impmon and N, who looked rather awkwardly to the side after having followed their conversation from the sideline.
He was about to say something when all three occupants of the ship looked up at the sound of something or rather someone approaching, causing all three of them to look up.

"Oh, they're back. You uh..." N's voice trailed off when he suddenly noticed how Uzi was gone. He glanced over to Impmon, who just shrugged at him with a frown.

"Hey idiot, get out here right now." J's clearly displeased tone made him look a bit uncomfortably at the direction it was coming from, while the captured digimon burnt through the last cable with N too distracted to notice.

At the same time, Uzi had already managed to run out of the spire as fast as she could with her railgun at the ready, despite it still needing a few more minutes to recharge. Trying her best to keep her balance and not trip on the debris and drone remains around her, the purple drone kept running, trying to get back to Outpost 3 as fast as her legs could carry her. But her presence did not get unnoticed when V clung to the side of the spire with a fanged grin and her eyes replaced by the typical X she wore during her hunts. Climbing inside the spire after J had pretty much flown right in and told her to secure the perimeter for any signs of their "secondary objective's" whereabouts, she let herself drop down from the top down to the ground.

"Yo J, there's one of those toasters out there I'd want to practice balloon animal shapes on." She said when she noted something was off. N was standing in front of the landing pod with J looking displeased at him. Granted that was J's default emotion towards the only male member of their squad, but the fact that she didn't immediately reprimand him for the Robo-God knows how many times didn't seem to be in-character for J. 'Here we go again...' V thought to herself, resisting the urge to roll her eyes before asking. "What happened here?"

"Synergistic liability here must have tripped and knocked himself offline." J told V without turning around, merely glancing over her shoulder for a moment before slapping N across the face with enough force to almost make him stumble, unlike the weak slap that barely even moved his head. Instantly, his visor switched to a red line of text, reading 'SYSTEM REBOOT' as the optical sensors on his head switch off all at once before one after the other lit up in the same yellow glow as before "Moron bot. Hello?" At that, N's visor lit up again with his regular eyes when his processor finally managed to work through the memories and revealing to him that Uzi had not only been a worker drone, but also had apparently blown his head off.

"Oh..." N said quitely as he frowned. J and V still looked at him, excepting an explanation. J had her hands on her hips and actually glared at him, when he turned his head towards the entrance to the spire. The Uzi's footprints were highlighted in his HUD, while the system warned him of the railgun and told him to go after it. "OOOHH!" N exclaimed as he stumbled over his words. "I uhm... left uh... super dangerous weap- excuse... outside..." He said before running out and spreading his wings to take off. "Uh... at least, we caught Impmon though." He added before he flew after Uzi.

V squinted her eyes at this while J's glare intensified as if she wanted to shoot N out of the sky with her gaze alone. Luckily for him though, eye laser cannons were something they were not equipped with and to their knowledge didn't exist. Still, the two had now a lot more questions than answers.

"Who is 'we'? And what is an Impmon?" V asked actually being confused. J huffed in annoyance at that.

"Clearly some stupid name, only that moron could have come up with. He has a lot of explaining to do once he's back running off on his superiors like that." She replied, already feeling her anger well up in her again, despite her earlier outburst having vented out a lot of that.

"Excuse me?!"

That was when the tension within the spire was once more interrupted by a sudden and unexpected noise. This time by the sound of an uncomfortably loud footstep on the fresh snow and a familiar voice sounding rather annoyed. The two disassembly drones turned around to see none other than Impmon, who had tried to sneak off when he had suddenly stopped dead in his tracks looked back at them.

"At least I got a name, that's not just a single letter!" Impmon shouted, holding something in his hand. It wasn't a weapon though as true to his message earlier he had taken something from the landing pod. With one finger firmly around the handle, he was holding a white JCJenson mug towards the two murder drones as if it was a gun.

"... isn't that your mug, J?" V pointed out after a moment of silence once the situation sunk into her mind, choosing not to react to the obvious dig at their names. J didn't even look at V when she had said that when the leader was busy glaring daggers at Impmon, who gave the mug a look like he considered breaking it in front of J out of spite in that moment, before realizing he had been caught red-handed and trying to sneak out.

"Uhm... no?" He awkwardly lowered his hand, before spotting something laying in the snow not far from the two drone that made him smirk. "Oh look, an unstable power cell." Impmon said pointing at the faulty component Uzi had previously torn out of her railgun during her fight with N. "Night of Fire!" With that, Impmon shot a fireball from his fingertip at the thing. The reaction was instantaneous as a large explosion kicked up so much debris and ice, it shrouded the entire interior of the spire with smoke for a moment, not unlike it had previously done so in Uzi's classroom albeit more powerful and its effects wearing off faster too.

The force of the explosion did make J and V cover themselves with their blade-like wings and the force of the detonation only caused some minor damages, which their nanites repaired almost as fast as they had appeared. But that moment of blindness was long enough for a certain digimon to run out of the spire with his prize and slip right into another tunnel underground. The only thing the female disassembly drones heard was the sound of the cover slamming shut outside when the smoke settled and Impmon had disappeared once more. When they rushed outside, all that J and V found of the culprit was another manhole cover over a defunct sewer tunnel.

"I don't think you want that mug back." V decided breaking the ice with a smirk, earning herself a glare from J. But V couldn't care less about that. She was pretty confident she could take J in a fight and she honestly deserved to be knocked down a peg or two, considering how she had been lately.

"It's not about the mug!" The leader of the squad said before glaring in the direction the worker drone and N had disappeared into with an annoyed sigh. "Let's see how badly that waste of company money screws up this time. That might make this night a bit more tolerable." J said before she took off with V following right behind her.

Previously gently drifting snow now seemed to whip against Uzi's visor, obscuring her vision and forcing her to wipe it clean with one hand what felt like every 100 meters she ran to avoid her vision being completely blocked and her seeing nothing at all. Her chest burnt from taking ragged breaths of freezing cold air, while as she ran back the way she had come as fast as her legs could carry her. Her rifle was slung back over her shoulder again, hindering her less while running. It was still recharging, so in the best case, she could only use it as a melee weapon. Though considering how little her slapping N with another drone's arm had done...

'Stop thinking like that and keep running! Oh, this was such a bad idea-' Uzi's train of thought came to an abrupt end when she reached the somehow still operational streetlights not far from Door 1 as somewhere behind her something slammed into the ground with the force of a missile. She didn't dare to look back and she also didn't want to know out of fear that knowing might paralyze her legs. She simply kept running towards the yellow lights mounted above Door 1 shining like a beacon in the night as Uzi knew that she had to get to Outpost 3 with the master key to get in and then immediately close the door again.

Meanwhile standing in the crater he had just made, N turned his face towards Uzi with his mouth split open in a fanged grin as he flexed his claws while his visor was once more displaying the same X as before. He too could see where she was going and even his mind could piece together the fact that she was a worker drone and running towards a certain worker drone colony they had up until this point failed to break into. He could have simply slammed right into her, but why he pass up such an opportunity if the worker drones would be so kind and open the door for them?

Uzi reached into her pocket right as she reached the door and held up the floppy disk against the terminal, causing Door 1 to open immediately. She was met with a lot of disgruntled groans and complaints over the other WDF members' card game being disturbed, but she literally didn't have the time to deal with them.

"Bite me!" She shouted before slapping the master key against the console, which didn't immediately react. "Come on! Come on already!" Uzi sounded almost desperate, while the terminal's display read 'OUCH! STOP HITTING ME! I CAN'T FEEL PAIN, BUT YOUR ATTITUDE HURTS THE MOST'. A second later, just when door finally moved to close, they were stopped with a dull thud. Uzi and everyone else behind Door 1 turned towards the door, only to watch in silent horror when they saw a pair clawed hands grab the door's wings, before gripping them tightly. His claws dug deep into the metal of the door as he began to slowly pry it open, much to the horror of Uzi and the 4 WDF members. Metal quietly groaned and screeched slightly in protest while sparks of electricity flew through the air as the hydraulics were forcefully opened by hand and a pair of yellow digital eyes peered inside.

"Hello there fellas." He said in a menacing voice, before he switched right back to his friendlier tone. "Oh, can I play too? I love Rummy!" N shook his head right afterwards, reminding himself that he was still on the job. "Wait no, I'm going to kill you all now. Rain check!" With that, N's cable like tail shot through the gap in the door towards Uzi, who was almost hit again, when she realized that she hadn't been the target. Instead, the master key was now pierced by his tail and nailed to the terminal. Much to her horror, the nanite acid's yellow glow seeped into the terminal, rendering it unusable. But not before it registered one last command, which activated the access overwrite to all three doors of Outpost 3. Uzi and the WDF members could only watch and listen as the first door opened before them once more and the other two behind them opened as well, while N stood in the door with his claws at the ready to do what he was built for: taking apart worker drones.

All except one worker drone ran down the hallway while one of them kept sitting at the table with a laid-back attitude. All that got him though was being nailed to the bunker wall by N's tail and having his head removed from his shoulders with a swipe of his claws. The disassembly drone wasted no time to switch one set of claws for a grenade launcher and opened fire on the retreating group of worker drones. Uzi and the other three drones kept running down the hallway, though the last one was literally torn to pieces by a grenade as the dismembered limbs and head flew overhead the next drone, just a moment before N pounced on him and tore into him with his teeth. Uzi ignored the dying screams of the WDF member as she kept running and anxiously glancing down at the recharge timer of her gun now being at less than a minute.

"Hey Uzi." The last remaining member of the WDF run up next to her, trying to make small talk. "I think no one has ever called me by my name. I just wanted to say I'm called R-" Unfortuantely, the last WDF member didn't get to finish his first and last introduction ever when a yellow laser cut the drone up the middle, his body stopping dead in its tracks just as the two halves of his body separated and fell to the ground. Further down the hallway, N was feeding on the oil of the worker drone he had pounced on, not even having turned around to face the direction he had been pointing his cutting laser at. Not that he needed to with the additional 5 sensors at the top of his head. N then jumped up into the ventilation shaft in the ceiling, tearing his way through the grate with his sharp claws.

Just then, Uzi's sick-as-hell railgun had finished recharging. With a grunt she brought one foot down and slid to a stop as she turned around and pointed the gun towards the exit, only to find nothing but the open doors, the snow drifting in the wind outside and the remains of the 4 worker drones littering the ground like discarded trash.

"Pretty nice hydraulics, am I rig-" Khan stopped as he looked in horror at the scene of carnage N had left in his wake and his daughter in the middle of it. "Wha- What have you done?"

Uzi didn't get to reply when N burst out of the ventilation system and smashed into the ground right between her and Khan, throwing both of them backwards a bit. However, unlike the first time Uzi's body was prepared after N's ground slam. She quickly whipped her railgun around and trained it on N.

"I only got this one shot." She said as N unfortunately stood right between her and her father, making it impossible for her to shoot without also atomizing her old man. And Uzi's luck really took a nosedive when Khan was paralyzed in fear as he kept standing where was as if rooted to the spot.

"Hehaha!" N chuckled, before turning to her. His right eye looking at her normally, while the left one was a X. "Sorry. I really enjoyed our time together. But I can't let you shoot with that thing at V!" He said, genuinely sounding slightly angry at the thought of Uzi harming his crush.

"Bite me! Dad, take cover!" The purple worker drone replied, but her father didn't listen.

"Uzi! You let a murder drone in?! My precious doors!" Khan panicked as he saw all the doors wide open.

"Now is really not the time for that dad! I screwed up, but I'll make it right again the same way! Out of the way, Dad-" Uzi was cut off when one of N's feather-like wings impaled her through the shoulder and pinned her against the wall. She coughed up oil, before N grabbed her railgun and threw it aside. The photon converter clattered to the ground and landed right in front of Khan's feet, who looked down at the weapon with uncertainty. "D-Dad! Point and shoot. T-Trust me." Uzi said in a pleading tone, her hand grabbing onto the blade as if trying to pull it out and free herself. A futile attempt considering that the blade was embedded in the wall behind her too. Khan stared at her and N with the disassembly drone's visor once more showing the same large X and his mouth open in a wide fanged grin.

His entire body trembled at the sight before him. The oil, the warning flashing over Uzi's visor for a second, the murder drone's bloodthirsty visage and that dreadful yellow glow of their nanite acid... It all brought forth painful memories, that made him shake so hard the metal joints of his fingers rattled as he found himself unable to tear his eyes away. But in that moment, Khan didn't see his daughter pinned to the wall by the disassembly drone's wing.

'Kha-n, pl-ea-se... hel-p... i-t hu-urts...' In his mind he saw Nori, laying on the ground fatally injured with her oil staining the freshly fallen snow and ice beneath a deep black, her voice glitching and him standing there powerless to make it better. Her legs were gone and so was one of her arms. Nanite acid melted its way into her body even at that moment, while she reached out with the other arm. And then he... had been forced to do something no spouse should ever have to do.

He took a staggering step backwards away from the gun and Uzi. Then another. And another...

"Dad?" Uzi looked at him, dreading what he would do next. 'No, please... don't go...' Khan's eyes wandered over to the remote in his right hand, the only thing to close the doors now that the master key was gone. He looked back at Uzi one more time, clenching his empty left hand tightly into a fist before he pushed the button on the remote as it emitted a beep.

And with that Door 3 and the last defense of Outpost 3 slammed shut from above, causing the railgun to uselessly clatter on the ground from the force of impact and leaving Uzi at the mercy of N as the lights turned red and an alarm blared from within the bunker. Uzi kept looking at the spot where her father had stood a moment ago as her arm slumped down from N's blade, feeling utterly alone and abandoned...

N's grin fell entirely after the door to the insides of the colony closed as he turned to Uzi and the X on his visor was replaced with regular eyes, looking rather sad or remorseful at Uzi, who was still staring at the door. Just then the sound of claws on the ceiling announced the arrival of J and V.

"Whoa, N." Uzi heard one of them, J say sounding somewhat impressed as they moved along the ceiling like some sort of animal, before dropping down to the ground. N quickly threw the worker drone impaled on his wing's blade behind some crates, turning Uzi pitch-black.

As much as Commandramon's memories were full of holes, his subconsciousness still remembered certain things that were rooted deep inside his data. Such things were simply too deeply embedded within his digicore to be forgotten. Such things included very basic things such as his ability to walk and other motor skills as well as his general understanding of words and the ability to speak. It also included most basic functions off his current level like the proficiency with his assault rifle and the knowledge how to maintain it. But aside from such vital and essential knowledge there was also... other things that had engraved themselves inside his very being that defined his personality.

"Zzz... Yes... one Doggymon Menu with extra fries please... zzz... no, no pickles... do you still have the Monzaemon toy line... zzz... the ShinMonzaemon toy... zzz... for my partner please... oh okay, WaruMonzaemon is fine too... ugh, I forgot my membership card..." He mumbled in his sleep, drooling onto the floor of Uzi's room as he clearly dreamt about something related to food. He had rolled onto his side in his sleep and one of his legs occasionally kicked the air as he made a grumbling noise as if impatiently waiting for something.

But that dream came to an abrupt end when Commandramon woke up to the harsh blaring of an alarm outside the apartment. Groggily, he picked himself up from the floor and rubbed his eyes with a groan.

"Urgh! Always at the best part... What is going on Uzi?" Commandramon asked confused and half-asleep. But when no reply came from his partner, he turned his head to the bed to finally notice the absence of a certain worker drone. Instantly, he became wide awake and jumped to his feet, scanning the room for any indication of where the drone in question was. "Uzi?" He called out once more when he started looking in her closest and under her bed. Scratching his head, Commandramon's eyes wandered to her workbench where Uzi's railgun had been laying after they had returned home the day before. Now the spot it used to be was empty, sending the digimon's mind into overdrive. "Oh no... Don't tell me-"

His train of thought was brought to an abrupt end when the sound of gunfire and panicked screams outside the apartment caught his attention. He rushed out of Uzi's room into the living area, where the sounds were clearer to hear. There was no doubt about the situation anymore. The murder drones somehow had managed to get past the defenses and had entered the colony. Commandramon felt his hands tighten the strap of his helmet unconsciously. Quickly he rushed back into Uzi's room and grabbed his rifle. His mind was torn between worrying for Uzi and the attack. On one hand, he wanted nothing more than go out there and find her to make sure she was alright. As well wanting to tell her that he was mad at her for leaving without him, but he was sure Uzi must have had her reasons. On the other, he knew he could not let the murder machines run around or else she would be in even more danger. One way or the other, his partner was in danger and he would not stand for that.

"Please, hang in there Uzi." With that the digimon grabbed the box next to the door and put it over his head. If the presentation Uzi had given him any information about the murder drones, then that they were highly advanced killing machines specifically made to hunt down worker drones. Meaning they will likely react to anything that moves, so being in a disguise might help him out a bit. That and unfortunately his camouflage didn't make him two-dimensional. With that he trained his rifle at the door and opened it.

The corridors outside the apartment were surprisingly empty except for the sounds of hurried footsteps echoing through them. The lights had also switched from their pale blue to a red, flooding the place in an eerie dim light. The digimon fought the urge to swallow hard as this reminded him a little too much another of Uzi's indie horror games. 'Of course, this is some undead zombie space station stuff.' Pushing the feeling of unease down, he advanced further into the colony when he heard screams of terror and pain as well as a wet slicing sound that cut those same screams off. What followed was the menacing laughter of what Commandramon presumed to be one of the disassembly drones. While he could say which way it was coming from, he could only estimate how many blocks further the enemy was. Cautiously, he advanced at a quick pace, trying to make as little noise as possible.

'The worker drones are heading towards the evacuation point. That's good... if this was fire.' The WDF did have an evacuation point for situations like that on paper within a large storage room. As such the place wasn't nearly as fortified as the actual outer doors of the place and it was more meant to gather them around in one place in case there was some sort of emergency with the electricity or some other hazard that required lots of people to be moved from one place to another in an orderly fashion. It was, however, still just a storage room and had no exit to the outside, meaning there was no way to pull of an actual evacuation to the outside of the bunker. And from the sound of it, the murder drones were just following either their fleeing prey or the many signs pointing in that direction. 'Can't let them go there!'

He stopped at an intersection and peered around the corner just in time when a decapitated drone crashed to the ground at the other end followed by the two disassembly drones walking into view.

"They sure make it a bit too easy to find them, J. This might be done faster than I thought." V said with a smirk as she wiped the corner of her mouth. The signs on the wall were a big giveaway about the worker drones whereabouts. Especially when they had arrows and lines like 'To the only evacuation point' written on them. V chuckled at this, clearly looking forward to the carnage.

"Good, time is money. So don't play too much with them V." J replied as she kicked the headless corpse aside. The sight made anger rise up in Commandramon, before a sharp pain ran through his head again.

OBJECTIVE: D*STR* T** S*L**R. K*L *L* H*S**.

'Whatever that thing is, it has the worst timing..' He thought when he grit his teeth and aimed his rifle at the two murder drones as the same corrupted line of code ran pushed itself into the forefront of his mind. The two disassembly drones had not noticed him yet apparently as their backs were still turned to him. From his current position, he might be able to shoot them or least get their attention and away from the evacuation point, but he had to do it as long as he could get a clean shot. Another sting of pain made him take cover around the corner again and grit his teeth with a quiet groan, struggling to keep his focus. 'I don't have time for this!' Ignoring the ringing in his ears and pushing through the pain throbbing in his head, he peered around the corner again only to find the two disassembly drones gone from the corner they stood in. 'What? Where did they- ?!' A small glint of light betrayed the two drones now clinging to the ceiling, allowing him to jump backwards just in time before a set of razor-sharp claws dug themselves into the spot of the wall he had just leaned against.

"And what do we have here?" V asked with a smirk as she tore her hand free, while J looked utterly unimpressed at the would-be assassin in a box training a gun at them. "Forget balloon animal shapes, maybe I should try origami." V said with fanged grin, while Commandramon glared at the two drones before him.

"Work on your aim first or are your optics faulty?" J commented with a frown at V missing such an easy target, earning herself a side-eyed glare from V.

'Those guys... clearly don't see me as a threat.' Commandramon thought in both slight confusion and irritation as his pupils shrunk and a growl escaped his throat. His fingers tightened around his gun before he squeezed the trigger. "M16 Assassin!" The gun roared to life, firing at the two robots in front of him, who quickly dodged the attack by jumping behind the corners of the intersecting corridors and shielding their bodies with their bladed wings. Sparks flew across the surfaces of the blades as well as the walls and floor wherever a bullet hit metal, but aside from a quiet hiss, he heard no sound of pain or discomfort from his opponents.

"Huh? Looks like that gun actually has some firepower." V told J as she had actually felt the impact of the bullets.

"Spare me the details for the report." The leader said just as Commandramon threw a small grenade right between the two of them. Instantly, the corridor exploded into a thick smoke when Commandramon ran in the opposite direction, falling back to the next corner.

'Great, now I have their attention. Just need to lead them a bit further away and hopefully the others have time to escape...' Commandramon thought as he realized he didn't have much of a plan to begin with in order to defeat them. As good as he knew the corridors and secret supply tunnels of Outpost 3, there was nothing he could really use for his advantage in order to actually subdue his foes. 'Oh, I really should have thought this one through more.'

Unfortunately for his plan, both J and V burst out of the smoke screen with their wings scraping against the walls with a terrible screeching noise. The digimon had barely enough time to round a corner when J opened fire with a grenade launcher. The shockwave of the explosion threw him off balance just as he was about to throw another smoke grenade making it clatter onto the floor right before him and engulf him in the smoke as well. "I'm getting really tired of people trying to trick me today." J said when she saw the square outline of the cardboard box. Without a word, she took aim and fired, causing the cloud of smoke to erupt in an explosion.

Much to her surprise there was nothing within the crater she had just blasted into the floor other than the burnt remnants of a cardboard box with no trace of the thing inside it. This made an anger tick appear on her visor when V arrived at the scene behind her and looked at the destroyed scene.

"Did it get away?" She asked, but J didn't answer. Instead, her eyes scanned the hallway for a moment before turning around. "What was that thing anyway?"

"Tch! Probably just some bootleg product made by those barely sentient toasters." The squad leader spat before she walked off towards the evac point, that the WDF had so kindly marked with lines for drones to orientate themselves. V looked at the scene a moment longer before following behind J.

Neither of the two drones could have noticed how behind another corner the grate to an air vent moved as Commandramon's camouflage hid him from plain sight, perfectly mimicking the scene behind him. His gun was tucked right beneath him as he laid on the ground like a crocodile, before he got up and sighed silently.

'Well, that could have gone worse... Good thing they can't fly in here with those big wings.' He thought to himself as he quietly stood up and walked over the burnt remains of the box he had been using to camouflage himself up until now. Part of him was a bit saddened by this, but he couldn't let that stop him now. 'You did good soldier. I'll take it from here.' Commandramon proceeded to quickly move his way through the corridors as quietly as he could, trying his best not to onto the broken bodies of worker drones littering the ground.
As he did so, he couldn't help but feel both relief and dread wash over him as he did not find Uzi among the corpses. Relief at the fact that she was not dead and dread at the fact that he still didn't know where his partner was or if she was okay. 'If you're alright please give me a sign, Uzi.' He pleaded.

A loud and dull banging sound ahead made his head snap towards the direction of the storage room and quicken his pace as someone desperately pounded their fists against the closed roll shutter.

"Please! Let me in! They're here! Oh g-" The locked-out worker drone's outcry became a wet gurgle when J stabbed him through the chest and tore his head off.

"Really? This thing? After the months of trying to break in here, this is a bit insulting for a last defense." V said looking at the closed shutter with her hands on her hips. J decided not to comment on that as she threw the head of the drone she just killed aside, before she turned to V and gave her a gesture as if saying 'After you'. V's frown turned into a bloodthirsty smirk when she switched one clawed hand for a grenade launcher and fired at the door. The roll shutter, being not made of any sort of reinforced material to keep any threat out, bulged inward for the fraction of a second before exploding, sending shrapnel and a particular jock of a worker drone standing too close to it flying towards the others who had huddled among large shipping containers on the far end of the room. Lizzy and Doll helped Thad to stand up again, while Khan and four more members of the WDF who had hidden with them actually stood behind the teens. The disassembly drones laughed menacingly as they entered, J walking through the newly made hole in the shutter with the headless corpse dragging across the floor before she dropped it, while V was climbing along the wall like some predatory animal.

"Great, they have found our only hiding spot. But if we quickly build a door..." Khan said, trying to sound more optimistic and confident than he was. Which was failing miserably due to how nonsensical that notion sounded even to the adolescent worker drones that usually were a bit slow on the uptake... AKA Thad.

'из любви к... (For the love of...)' Doll thought to herself, beginning to understand just how much her parents had, in fact, not exaggerated about Khan Doorman's knack for doors in the past.

'And these guys are supposed to be the Worker Defense Force? Seriously?' Thad thought rather disappointed at the sight of the 5 adult self-proclaimed protectors of Outpost 3 quaking in their boots.

'I'm starting to see why Uzi doesn't like her dad. That was so lame.' Lizzy thought.

But whatever retort would have come from the worker drones was cut short by the sound of gunfire coming from the entrance of the storage room. J had not covered too much ground with her leisurely pace, having savored the sight of the afraid worker drones and thus allowing a certain cyborg digimon to shoot her with a minimal risk of hitting the worker drones. A bullet tore through the cable-like tail and two more hit her thighs, before she could raise her wing to block the remaining incoming projectiles, forcing her down on one knee. V, who had been scaling the ceiling stopped her approach to look down in surprise at the sound of gunfire and J's grunt of pain.

"Why, you..." J growled in anger just as she switched one clawed hand for a gun and raised her wing to return fire, only to find Commandramon having wasted no time to rush towards her while his skin changed color from darker and red hues of the tunnel he just emerged from to his usual camouflage coloration. Both the sudden melee attack and the digimon's appearance caught the disassembly drones' leader off-guard just long enough for the digimon to slam the stock of his rifle straight into her face, shattering her visor and making her cry out in pain. Commandramon had no time to celebrate his attack though when V dove down from above with her claws like bird of prey or rather some prehistoric raptor. J also swung at him with her claws, but due to her blindness she missed, giving him the opportunity to grab the disoriented disassembly drone's arm. Commandramon then spun J around and threw her at the incoming V. With no time to either change directions or her weapons, V slammed into J as both tumbled to the ground in a heap off to the side.

"Urgh! Get off of me boss!" V said angrily as she grabbed J to shove her off of her, just as Commandramon pulled the pin from a grenade.

"DCD Bomb!" He threw the small explosive right at the two grounded murder drones, V and the still blinded J to try and shield themselves with their wings just as the explosive went off and kicked up a lot of dust and smoke. Commandramon kept his gun trained on the cloud as he glanced over to the 8 worker drones, noticing Thad, Lizzy and Doll at the front of the group as well as Khan behind them, but there was still no sign of Uzi. "Better take cover, guys!"

"Commandramon!" Lizzy said half in surprise, half in relief at the digimon's actions, catching Thad and the members of the WDF off-guard at the sudden revelation that Commandramon was not a worker drone.

"THAT is Commandramon?" They asked rather shocked, making Doll and Lizzy roll their eyes at their obliviousness. Commandramon, though, kept his eyes locked where the disassembly drones were and ignored their outburst of surprise.

"Mister Doorman, where's Uzi? I couldn't find her." He asked, his rifle still trained at the smoke, while Khan looked suddenly a lot more uncomfortable. He started trembling as he recalled what had happened earlier. This didn't get unnoticed as Doll squinted her eyes at the leader of the WDF rather sceptically.

"She... I couldn't... I-" Khan stammered, making Commandramon's head snap to him with a look of shock and horror as the implication of those words sunk in. But Khan didn't get much further when out of the dispersing smoke the familar yellow glow of the murder drone's optics shone through and V burst out of the smoke like a rocket. Commandramon could only bring up his rifle to block the claws coming his way. The metal of his rifle screeched in protest, yet failed to cut through it, when the digimon was struggling against V's brute strength while being pushed backwards before throwing her off. He didn't get to realign his gun to shoot at V though when J fired an actual rocket straight at the digimon. Commandramon could only react by jumping backwards to avoid being blown into smithereens at it went off, but due to the rather short distance, he was still sent flying by the explosion's shockwave, causing him to tumble over the ground with his rifle in hand before managing to stop himself from being thrown across the entire room by landing on his feet and unoccupied hand. He still skidded a bit over the ground before his claws dragging over the metal flooring managed to stop him.

Struggling back onto his feet as one of his legs got injured by the blast and looking at his opponents with a growl, he could see V with her claws at the ready as she landed, while J now stood a bit shaky with on arm hanging limply from her shoulder as if broken. However, much to the digimon and the worker drones' horror, J's injuries repaired themselves in a matter of seconds. Completely growing a new tail from the previously sparking stump where the digimon's suprise attack had severed the limb from, fixing her legs and breaking her arm into place while her visor repaired itself and shot him an angry look.

"Oh... you guys can regenerate." Commandramon said, gripping his rifle a bit tighter and pointing it at the disassembly drones again as he saw the other worker drones taking cover behind some shipping containers. "Not quoting my partner here, but that feels like cheating!"

"It's not a bug, it's a feature." V chuckled menacingly with a sadistic grin at the digimon. Commandramon merely responded by glaring back. "You... what are you even supposed to be?"

"A pain in the company's backside, that can't mind its own business; and that's all that matters." J retorted, joining V's side. Her words provoked an immediate reaction from the digimon as his lips pulled back revealing sharp teeth.

"You come in here uninvited, threaten and kill my friends and tell me to mind my business?!" Commandramon barely managed to keep his temper in check and not snarl like a rapid animal as he felt the same pain in his head as before, but not it only intensified his anger. The same words as before flashed before his mind, pushing themselves into the forefront more insistently, almost demandingly, while Khan's response to his Uzi's whereabouts seemingly made it even worse.

D*STRO*

"What a joke." The squad leader of the disassembly drones said with a dismissive scoff at the literal dinosaur soldier after hearing his response. "V, take care of the barely sentient toasters in the back. I'll deal with this... thing myself." She told V, who rolled her optics at her leader wanting to deal with the only thing that has been fighting back so far.

T*E

"Fine... Geez, N sure is taking his sweet time coming here." She said, making J roll her eyes at the comment about their male squad member. Just then a bullet hit the floor in front of V's stilt-like feet, stopping her from turning towards the hiding spot of the worker drones and made both drones look annoyed at the digimon with the smoking gun in hand as he had deliberately missed the shot to get the unspoken message across.

"Try me." The digimon growled out as it felt his anger rising within him like the heat of a volcano boiling beneath the surface and building up until it would eventually explode outward in a massive eruption. In fact, he did feel something a surge of power well up in him, but he did not notice it.

SOL-

"Hey!" A familiar voice tore Commandramon out of his anger and made both him and the disassembly drones turn towards the blown-up shutter. The sight quelled the digimon's anger entirely when he saw Uzi standing in the newly made entrance, completely overlooking N stabbing next to her. "Hands off that digital monster." Uzi's voice and appearance also got the attention of her classmates and of course he father peering out from behind a container.

"Uzi, you're alive!" Commandramon beamed with his tail thumping happily against the floor, before his face turned into one of horror when he saw the disassembly drone next to her. "Look out!"

'Didn't I just dispose of that useless idiot?' J thought as she felt her annoyance rise to new heights at the sight of N.

'About time N joined the party... why is he not killing that purple toaster next to him though?' V asked herself.

"Oh no, it's fine, Commandramon. He's on our side now." Uzi said with a smirk, before noticing how N was still waving over at J and V like an idiot and making her elbow him in the side to make him stop. N looked at her surprised, but said nothing as she glared at him a bit. There was a moment of silence in the storage room as even some of the worker drones hiding behind the containers peered out in disbelief at what Uzi just said.

"What?" Commandramon voiced what pretty much everyone in the room was thinking, still aiming his gun at J and V. "Why?"

"Long and complicated story, that can wait for later..." Uzi replied, clearly not wanting to get into that topic, but his partner digimon had none of that.

"Oh no, you don't! I'm still mad at you, you know?" Commandramon said, not letting Uzi dodge the question. His tail hit the floor a few more times, before looking over at J and V. "And can we all agree that this literal killing machine suddenly switching sides after forever sounds a bit strange at least?" J and V didn't answer, though the latter had to agree that she was also at the very least a little curious about the circumstances that would make N of all people turn traitor. The worker drones behind the containers were more vocal though.

"Yeah..."

"It's suspicious..."

"Now that you say it..."

"Ugh, fine!" Uzi finally relented, recalling the admittedly surreal events that led her to this moment.

Despite her display and optics being offline, Uzi had still been very conscious after N had thrown her behind some crates and could hear the conversation N had with J and V after their arrival, though V didn't stick around for long as she moved around Door 3 by crawling through the ventilation shaft and entered the colony that way. That had left J and N alone in the hallway.

"Good work stud. The company is going to love this." J said patting him on the back a bit to hard for his liking. "Once this colony is wiped out, we will be the top team of the quarter. And you know what that means... Branded pens." J told him the last part in a sing-song tone, while holding a white JCJenson pen in her hand. N made an impressed "Ooohh." sound, looking at the JCJenson pen in J's hand, before she threw the pen to him and was about to follow V into the colony.

'Seriously? Branded pens? Talk about being easily impressed.' Uzi thought when she heard the exchange between J and N. She'd lie if she said that she wasn't a bit saddened or irritated at N having tried to kill her after him saying that he had enjoyed their time together. But that was just the way the world was. He was after all still a machine made to kill them. While she still laid there, she couldn't help but think to herself whether or not things would have gone down differently if she just had taken Commandramon with her or not tried to sneak out in the first place with the master key... Or if she deserved all that had come her way tonight, while her repair programs knitted her shoulder back together, recalling what Impmon had said earlier as well as Khan's shocked and betrayed look on his face earlier.

"So uhm... not that I can't wait to keep murdering those uhm... not-so-actually-different from us worker drones... But just out curiosity, do we uhm... know what the company plans to do with us afterwards?" N's words pulled her out of her thoughts of self-pity like a slap to the face, needing a moment to register and process what he had just said.

'...what?' Uzi's mind did a double take as her optics went online again and she turned around to look at N. 'Is he...'

"Excuse me?" J said with a frown, her hands on her hips as she went back to glaring at N. The male disassembly drone squirmed a bit under her gaze but gathered what little confidence he had to elaborate.

"Okay, there was that worker drone, who might have suggested they might be able to help us fix our landing pod to uh... get off the planet. But I was like 'Stop, that's against the rules!', but uhm..." N backpedaled a bit under J's glare. "I couldn't help but think, why our pods are one-use to begin with. Because it looks like the company doesn't really... like robots and we are robots. No, that was stupid... Good thing, I saw realized that right away." He finished, making Uzi roll her eyes at his indecisiveness, while J walked over to his side and patted him on the shoulder

"It's alright, buddy. So, you are questioning the company? Then I finally got a reason." J said before pressing a gun to his chest and planting a device there. N let out a surprised grunt of pain as his visor changed to a warning symbol and he looked down at a hexagonal chip on his chest with a display reading 'UPLOADING VIRUS'. J walked away from him as he fell onto his knees, his body's functions slowly shutting down. "The worker drones are defect N. That's why we are here. Too bad you are just as defect as them."

"Thanks J. Always lo-oking out for me-e... You're awesome..." The still oblivious disassembly drone said weakly, his voice glitching, slowly collapsing onto the floor laying on his back and giving J a last thumbs up. Said squad leader simply took off and went after V with a mocking scoff. Once J had disappeared into the ceiling, Uzi came out from her hiding spot and picked up her railgun next to N, when he raised a hand again. "Ah, bi-iscu-its. Sorry, I ruined your card game and now things between you and your dad are diffi-cult."

"And I made you rebellious like an angsty teen, which is why you are now dying." Uzi said before walking over to the crate she had been hidden behind before. "But you also tried to kill me earlier, so I think we are even now." She said before pulling the crate under the now open ventilation shaft. Climbing onto it with a grunt, Uzi then stretched her arm out to try and climb out... only to realize that there was still at least a meter or two between her and the ceiling.

There was no denying it any longer. She was short.

... No, the ceilings of Outpost 3 were just unnecessarily high. It wasn't like they had a tank or anything in there.

With a groan, Uzi then turned back around to N. "Just for the record, that was the lamest heel-face in history. It was barely even recognizable as one."

"Being rebe-ellious is a lot ha-arder than it looks. Thanks for showing me the ropes..."

"Nuh-uh, we are not bonding. You just killed a lot of people." Uzi shot down his friendliness causing him to lay back down and sigh.

"That's fair... Ha... I messed up..." He said, causing Uzi to groan loudly in annoyance at him mirroring her own self-loathing just a moment ago.

"But you'll make up for it the same way." Uzi said, echoing what she had previously told her father. At that N chuckled as his screen went blue and read in white capital letters 'I'M LITERALLY ABOUT TO DIE'.

"I love doing anything." He said giving her a thumbs up.

"J over there basically wanted to delete him for questioning their mission and their corporate overlords. I fixed him up before he kicked the bucket and now he's on our side. Lamest switching of sides of all time if you can even call it that. Happy now?" Uzi asked in a slightly irritated tone. Meanwhile, Commandramon looked awkwardly between her, N and J and V still standing further away as he processed it all. Neither of them noticed how V gave J a side-eyed look as if she was about to say something rather rude, but turned her attention back to the rather bizarre assortment before them.

The digimon tilted his head to the side a little. 'So, it's a life debt in essence... I guess?' He shook his head. "And he agreed to just help you by betraying and fighting his former allies? Just like that?" He asked, looking critically at them. Neither Uzi nor N answered before Commandramon just shrugged two second later. "Okay then."

"Wait really?" Uzi asked somewhat bewildered. 'So much for being mad... Oh wait, it's Commandramon we are talking about...'

"Yup, if he's on our side now, then all is well, right?" Commandramon said, causing the friendly traitor murder drone beam and wag his tail slightly. "Wait, how did you find us?" The digimon then asked.

"The trail of corpses is a pretty good giveaway. Plus, you are the only other person here with a gun or the backbone to fight." Uzi said, making all the WDF members in the room cringe.

"So... is he like... Impmon?" N asked awkwardly pointing at Commandramon.

"He's not like that annoying, thieving moron." Uzi said defensively, though both disassembly drone girls could agree that Impmon certainly was those things and more. "He is a digimon, yes. An annoying little prick though? No."

"If you're done having your little reunion talking to your... trigger-happy pet, we'll be killing you together now." J said, making the others turn towards her and V again.

'Who is 'we', you...' V pushed the thought down as she turned towards the unlikely trio before her. She could deal with J once this was over and dealt with.

"He's not a pet, he's my partner." Uzi retorted when Commandramon's face lit up like a Christmas tree at Uzi calling him for the first time her partner, making her inwardly cringe. N didn't notice though and Commandramon lowered his guns as he addressed the friendly murder machine.

"Welcome to the team." The digimon said, giving N a big smile while saluting with one arm. "I'm Commandramon."

"Serial Designation N. Nice to meet you." N replied with a salute and smile of his own. Both of them just stood there for a moment, saluting with stupid smiles like idiots and their tails subconsciously wagging a bit as if completely ignoring the fact that they were technically in a life and death fight right now.

'Oh great, they are both idiots. That's at least going to make it easier to dispose of them once and for all and cut back on costs.' J thought to herself with a smirk. "Any last words?" She asked almost mockingly.

'Great, they are both idiots... Now I kinda feel bad for having to kill that thing.' V thought, almost regretting for having to kill N's new friend, who was somewhat like him in terms of personality, before quickly pushing that thought back into the back of her mind. 'Oh well, I'll deal with that emotional baggage later.'

'... great, they are both idiots...' Uzi really started to question her ability to choose her allies although neither one had been her choice to be honest, resisting the urge to facepalm. She gave N a slight nudge and nodded towards V and J.

"Oof! Oh! Uh... J. You are not always very nice to me and that's not great. Just wanted to give some constructive criticism." N said in a somewhat polite tone, before bumping fists with Uzi, who gave him an encouraging "Nice." as a response.

"Noted, traitor. I'll circle that once I have rightsized your existence." J replied, clearly not caring one bit about N's opinion, when Uzi turned to N.

"Okay, which one do you want?"

"J, please."

"Forget it. Good luck! Ready partner?" Uzi told Commandramon.

*Play Digimon Tamers OST: EVO*

"I'm ready. Let's do this, Uzi!" The digimon said as he was about to advance and Uzi was about to reach for the JCJenson pen N still had from earlier to throw it, when from inside her pocket she felt the digivice in her pocket suddenly seemed to hum while emitting a faint glow. She didn't take it out, but a small window on her HUD opened up akin to its display as it seemingly synchronized with her systems with a single word appearing on it in purple capital letters. 'EVOLUTION'.

Much to her and everyone else's surprise, Commandramon's body seemed to glow in a cyan blue hue and a grid of green lines appeared on his body like an unrendered model of an old video game just for a brief moment, before the glow exploded outward and engulfed the digimon in a sphere of sorts. It was not light as it was not shining terribly brightly or anything, though it did emit a feint glow. The sphere expanded outward fast and quickly reached higher than even the containers of the storage room behind which the other worker drones were hiding. Commandramon had stood far enough to the side from Uzi and N for them to also see J and V look in shock at the sudden development of things.

"Commandramon digivolves to..."
The entire transformation only lasted a second or two at best, before the sphere burst apart and revealed something else now standing in Commandramon's place, as it was casting a shadow over Uzi and N in the storage room's lighting.
"Hi-Commandramon!"

The first thought Uzi had to the Champion-level digimon was that it essentially looked like an older version of Commandramon with most of the gear still being the same as before and his skin sporting the same blue camouflage pattern. Though there were some key difference such as added armor on the arms and its helmet having turned into a dark red metal plate that covered most of the top of its head except for the snout which was now black and sported a large horn akin to a rhinoceros, leaving only the eyes free. From the back of its head, a short mane of red hair with yellow tips peeked out under its helmet and the digimon's hands were no longer entitely covered in black gloves. Instead, fingerless gloves held onto the digimon's new gear as his assault rifle had been replaced with a riot shield in his right hand and a grenade launcher in his left.

The literally biggest change, though, was his height. Whereas before N had been the tallest person Uzi had even known and Commandramon had been shorter than her, the Champion-level digimon now easily was more than twice of N's height and with the weapons in his hands scaled up to that size, the shield was more akin to the wings of one of Khan's doors while the grenade launcher was easily as long as Uzi was tall. Coupled with the newly digivolved cybernetic dinosaur's breath coming out as a thin mist in the cool air of the storage room from a large maw filled with sharp teeth, one could have mistaken him for some sort of dragon in that moment.

The window on Uzi's HUD changed to the digimon analyzer, feeding the basic data to this new digimon directly into her mind.

Digimon Analyzer

Hi-Commandramon

Level: Champion

Cyborg Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: DCD Grenade

2nd Attack: Destroy Charge

For a stunned moment of silence no one said anything as Hi-Commandramon simply had his eyes locked onto J and V, though a feral sounding growl escaped his maw.

'So that's a digivolution... Neat. At least he didn't turn into something weird like a slug or something.' Uzi thought to herself.

"Okay, THAT feels like cheating." V thought aloud to herself, echoing Commandramon's earlier words about their healing factor when he aimed his gun at the two disassembly drones.

"DCD Grenade!" Hi-Commandramon fired three shots from his weapon, causing both J and V to take off in opposite directions just before the spot they had stood at before erupted with such force, the shockwave pushed both of them apart even further. Hi-Commandramon shot once more, causing an explosion to go off not far from where the other worker drones were hiding, before turning to Uzi. "We stick to the plan like we talked about earlier." His voice was still somewhat the same though it was now deeper almost as if he had actually matured. Uzi blinked for a moment, before she grinned and ran into position to line up a shot, ignoring the fact that Commandramon's transformation completely demolished her original game plan.

Hi-Commandramon then charged towards the still airborne J, leaving N to fend for himself against V looking at him with a yellow X on her visor. N pointed at her, then at him and followed up by giving a small smile and two thumbs up as if saying 'Are we cool?'. His response came when V switched her claws for swords and rushed towards N, making his eyes widen in shock before he also quickly had to change his hands for weapons.

At the same time, J righted herself in mid-air to dodge another grenade shot her way, before it detonated against the ceiling of the bunker above, tearing a hole into it. With an angry grimace, she switched her claws for rocket launchers again and fired multiple missiles at the charging digimon, which made no attempt to stop and merely raised his shield. Upon exploding, the missiles created a powerful shockwave rattling through the bunker as Lizzy who had been watching the fight by peering over the edge of the container almost fell down, before being caught by Doll.

"Thanks bestie." The blonde drone girl told her Russian friend, who ignored her.

"Нам нужно выбираться отсюда. (We need to get out of here.)" Doll said instead as she looked around the gathered worker drones. 'Tch! Cowards... And of all the times for these monsters to attack...' On one hand, Doll was glad to know that Lizzy was alive and well with her, but keeping her alive was a whole different matter in that case.

"How? This place hardly was meant for any actual evacuation." Thad asked, when Doll considered their options. None of them looked good as running out of the room's only exit while the fight raged on risked getting caught in the crossfire. However, the answer came when she turned towards the hole Hi-Commandramon's shot had torn into a wall not far from them. Beyond it she could see the red emergency lights of the bunker beyond what looked an old maintenance tunnel lined with cables.

'Did he know about the tunnel's location?' Doll thought to herself before shaking her head, relegating that question to ask about later. She simply pointed at the tunnel and nodded at Thad as the worker drones took note of the potential escape route Though they did not immediately run for it as it would require them to leave the cover they were hiding behind for a brief moment.

In the wake of J's missiles exploding, a large cloud of black smoke was left behind, completely engulfing the digimon when J landed to turn her attention towards Uzi. Just then though, Hi-Commandramon burst from the smoke seemingly unharmed as he was about to ram into the disassembly drones' leader.

"Destroy Charge!" With that, he smacked her across the room and into the wall not far from where Uzi was. Despite feeling like having been hit by a freight train, J was quick to regain her senses.

"Why you!" J pointed her gun at the digimon as she picked herself up, before her sensors detected something small fly through the air in her direction. It was the JCJenson pen, Uzi still had as it embedded itself into one of the sensors atop of her head. "Oh curse you, well-made, quality assured durability of JCJenson products!" She shouted as she tried pulling the pen out with one hand and switching the other for a machine gun as she blindly fired in her direction.

Uzi was about to line up her shot with her railgun as the bullets came her way. One projectile almost hit her, when her left eye blinked into a symbol of a hexagon with three arrows extending from it in a strange triangle-like shape. It only lasted the fraction of a second, but it seemingly deflected the bullet and sent it spiraling away from her as she still fell backwards as if she had been hit.

"Uzi!" Hi-Commandramon shouted before he glanced back at the worker drones still hiding behind the containers. "What are you waiting for? Get out of here, NOW!" He said, before rushing towards J and Uzi while Lizzy and Doll carried Thad to the newly made exit and the WDF members alongside Khan fled as well. Hi-Commandramon would have used his grenade launcher if they didn't stand so close to one another and thus risking him accidentally blowing up both. However, J just pulled out the pen from her head when she felt the tremors of the digimon's approaching footsteps, charging at her once more. Being smaller than him, she managed to weave around another swing of the riot shield as he slammed it into the spot she just stood at but ended up being swatted out of the air by his tail.

"I'm fine!" Uzi quickly said just as a yellow cutting laser from V almost decapitated her, causing her to drop her railgun. But Hi-Commandramon was not so lucky with his now larger body as he brough his shield up to defend both him and Uzi. While the laser cut through concrete and steel like butter, it failed to penetrate the shield. Hi-Commandramon's exposed skin on his left thigh, on the other hand, was another matter as the laser cut into his body, causing him to cry out in pain and sink to one knee in a wordless screech.

"Commandramon!" The purple worker drone shouted in concern as she could see the cut. There was no flesh or blood beneath the skin, but rather feintly blue glowing data with some particles floating up in the air from the wound before disappearing. Normally that would have disturbed her a bit, but the situation was far from normal.

"I'm fine, Uzi!" The digimon told her, hissing in pain as he turned to the fight between N and V. N just had been thrown to the ground while V giggled menacingly. N brought up his own cutting laser, but instead of returning fire, it somehow shot out pink love hearts with a sound akin to bubbles, much to N's embarrassment and both Uzi annoyance.

"AH! My mind's in a weird place right now. Don't take this the right way!" N shouted.

'OH FOR THE LOVE OF ROBO-GOD/YGDDRASIL!' Uzi and Hi-Commandramon thought to themselves before the latter raised his grenade launcher at the two fighting disassembly drones.

"DCD Grenade!" Hi-Commandramon shouted as he fired a shot between N and V before the later could blow him up with a missile. However, instead of an explosive, the grenade exploded into thick white smoke, blocking V's and N's view as they both coughed loudly and took off to escape the smoke.

"Can you shoot anything else with that thing?" Uzi asked, pointing at the multi-grenade launcher.

"Stun grenades. And it can instantly switch between the three type." Her partner replied, knowing this for a fact from his digicore's new data.

"Nice!" The purple-haired drone said giving him a thumbs up.

"Good idea!" J chimed in making her presence known again after both Uzi and her partner digimon had been distracted by N and V's fight. They only got to turn in her direction when J cackled, her own laser charging up in a blue light just before it released an EMP. Both Uzi's drone body and Hi-Commandramon's augmented body experienced short circuiting across their system. Uzi fell to the ground unconscious, while the cyborg digimon's own body collapsed onto the ground, letting involuntarily go of his weapons. J strolled over leisurely to Uzi as her body regenerated the damages it had sustained, ignoring the digimon's attempts to push himself off the ground again when his paralyzed body and injuries hindered him from doing so.

In mid-air, N and V clashed with their sword as V lashed out at N while laughing and giggling, seemingly enjoying the fact that N was actually able to fight back. V spin around like bladed frisbee, before weaving around to clashing again and agan with N, sending sparks flying each time as N kept defending himself. Eventually both disassembly drones locked blades as V tried decapitating N and slowly overpowering him when he noticed the situation below and J walking over to Uzi.

"Uzi! I'm so, so sorry about this. Have fun repressing that." N said apologetically before he licked one of V's swords. Being part of her body, V actually felt that as if he had just actually licked her hand. Meaning she felt both his breath and wet tongue run along her sword's flat side. V immediately pulled her arms away and looked in disgust.

"EW! What the hell, N!" She shouted, before she realized that he wanted her to break the lock just in time to look up and see him perform an axe kick, bringing his heel down on her head and slamming her into the ground with enough force to break it.

Meanwhile, Uzi struggled to move and reach her railgun when J kicked it away from her.

"You sure have got a lot of guts for a barely sentient toaster, but your edgy spirit also you makes you the most annoying faulty piece of kitchenware one I've met!" The disassembly drone said with a mixture of haughty pride and thinly veiled anger as she looked down on Uzi and was about to slowly rip Uzi into pieces.

"Leave... her... BE!" Hi-Commandramon shouted as he forced his upper body off the ground on shaking arms and lunged forward.

J brought up her claws just in time to deflect Hi-Commandramon's horn from impaling her and pushing against the Champion digimon's head as he snapped his jaws at her. Sparks flew from the two weapons clashed against one another, locking the two opponents in a stalemate where each tried to overpower the other. Hi-Commandramon's paralyzed limbs though allowed J to push his bulk back, while he dug his claws into the flooring of the storage room. As Uzi was watching, she couldn't help but liken this to some messed up version of one of her fantasy videogames, before she noticed J's syringe-like tail just in reach of her hand.

"This is getting ridiculous! Why don't you mind your own business, you misshaped company mascot?!" J shouted as she pushed back harder against the digimon's head as her stilt like legs didn't give her a lot of stability for that sort of thing.

"Why won't you mind yours?!" Hi-Commandramon snarled back, digging his claws deeper into the floor and trying to push himself forward with his legs, only to wince in pain from the earlier injury.

Him faltering for that moment, gave J an opening, which she proceeded to use and kick him right in his chin with enough force to make his head snap upwards as his body lurched up with a pained groan. 'It's not about the distraction...' He thought back to what he had told Uzi earlier that night with a grin, just when Uzi stabbed the disassembly drone's other foot with her own tail.

'... but catching the enemy off-guard when they least expect it.' Uzi thought with a grin of her own. "How's that for a faulty toaster?" She told J, who looked down in shock.

"Gah! Mother of company leadership retreats!" She said holding her foot as her nanite acid melted its way into her leg, causing her to almost fall over and hop on one leg.

"Take your business elsewhere, we are not buying anything!" Hi-Commandramon said as he had regained control over his limbs and spun on one heel, before slamming J into the ground with his tail. J was dazed for a short moment, laying on her back in a crater of the storage room's flooring and regaining her senses just in time to look down the barrels of two guns pointing right in her face with hollowed out digital eyes.

"Any last buzzwords?" Uzi asked with a grin, itching to pull the trigger of her gun.

"Before we terminate your work contract?" Hi-Commandramon added, leaning into J's own corporate-themed speech pattern. The disassembly drone looked between the two for a moment before she awkwardly smiled.

"Equite partnersh-" Uzi didn't let her finish as she pulled the trigger and fired her railgun straight at J.

*Stop playing Digimon Tamers OST: EVO*

When the blinding green light of the shot faded, Uzi stood up straight and spat on the ground as J's entire upper torso was now gone, leaving only her arms and what was below her chest area sparking with yellow electricity. Her partner meanwhile looked over to N, who walked over to them and dragged V behind him with his tail, who was sitting on the ground with her arms and legs tied up with her own tail looking not too happy about her current state, but didn't kick up a fuzz or tried to escape. At the sight of the still alive enemy, Hi-Commandramon let out a rumbling growl not unlike that of an elephant and glared at her.

"What about her?" The Champion level digimon asked as he leveled the barrel of his grenade launcher at the tied-up V, making both disassembly drones look wide-eyed at him, while Uzi raised an eyebrow.

"Oh... don't worry. She's going to behave..." N awkwardly chuckled, trying to not show his panic as he moved himself between the digimon's firearm and his crush, who didn't like him speaking on her behalf but didn't snap at him. Hi-Commandramon looked at V for a moment longer, before lowering his gun.

"Alright then." He said non-chalantly, making it very clear that despite his changed appearance, it was still the same Commandramon as before. Just then, they could hear cheering as the worker drones came back through the old maintenance tunnel now that the fight was over and the murder drones were defeated. In that moment, Uzi's visor sparked with a warning sign and her body sparked with electricity not unlike it had done earlier from J's EMP. She grit her teeth and bit back a grunt of pain as she lost he balance, but luckily N caught her just in time and lifted her onto his shoulders before she hit the ground since Hi-Commandramon still held his weapons.

"Holy hell, Uzi. That was insane! And you too... uh..." Thad's tone shifted when he looked at N and Hi-Commandramon. Not that anyone could really hold it against him. The two looked rather intimidating despite just having saved the colony alongside Uzi.

"Oh, N. I'm an angsty rebellious disassembly drone now." N said as his visor changed to pixelated shades and tried his best to appear cool. Uzi and V both rolled their eyes at his very uncool attempt, while Hi-Commandramon remained oblivious to that concept.

"Well, someone had a growth spurt. And that's putting it lightly." Lizzy said as she looked at the digimon, who bashfully chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. Both of them remained rather oblivious to how Doll was looking intensely at the tied up V. However, Khan clearing his throat got the attention of everyone when the crowd moved aside to make room for him. Just then Uzi threw the wrench he had given her at his feet.

"I accidentally led the murder drones here. You left me for dead on purpose, instead of just believing in me for once. And this time it wasn't just a classic edgy teen hyperbole like it was last week." Uzi said, making Khan look down in shame and everyone look rather uncomfortable at this revelation.

"What's a hyper- WAIT WHAT?!" Hi-Commandramon shot her father a pointed glare, making him flinch back a bit, before the digimon turned his head back to his partner. "Uzi..." Uzi sniffled a bit, before snapping out of it and slapping herself. Her display momentarily read 'EDGE LEVEL CRITICALLY LOW!' before it was restored back to normal. Then she went back to glaring at her father from Khan's shoulder.

"I'll save you the trouble, dad. I banish myself." She said with a finality that left no room for an argument, when Khan raised his hand to say something to stop her but remained quiet when he just couldn't say anything that could make her stay. "Let's go guys. Everyone here can bite me... Except Doll, we're good." Uzi said as N grabbed V by the head and dragged her away a bit before spreading his wings.

"Nice to meet you, Mister Uzi- Ouch." He said when Uzi his him over the head with a 'Shut it!'.

"Uhm... Uzi." Hi-Commandramon said looking a bit worried. "I can't fly and I don't know if I fit through the hallways like this." U, N and V gave the digimon a deadpan look at this as if they had not even thought about that and overlooked the literal dinosaur in the room towering over them. Noticing how awkwardly silent things had gotten, the digimon spoke up again. "... but don't worry. I should be able to de-d-d-d-" His voice trailed off as if whatever was supposed to happen, didn't happen.
That apparently made him panic a bit as he grabbed his head. "AAH! Why am I not de-digivolving?! I don't want to be stuck on my champion level! This is so awkward!" Just then, his body glowed brightly once more and shrunk down, turning back into his Rookie-level form. "Oh... looks like I ran out of energy..." And with that Commandramon dropped onto to the ground, groaning weakly. No one said a word before a certain purple worker drone on N's shoulders spoke up.

"N... if you could..." She said before N nodded, grabbed Commandramon by the tail and took off, bursting through the bunker's roof and making both Uzi and the digimon yelp. Meanwhile the worker drones inside the bunker looked up at the new hole in their roof.

"AHH! WHY ARE WE FLYING NOW!?" Commandramon screamed in a panic, having snapped out of his tiredness when the cold winds hit him.

"Hey, stop squirming or you might slip and fall." N warned in a worried tone.

"He's slipping." V said nonchalantly, while Uzi just groaned after everything they had been through that night.

Khan took a hesitant sip from his '#1 Dad' mug, though he didn't look all that well. Meanwhile, Doll squinted her eyes at the hole in the roof, that Uzi, Commandramon and the two remaining disassembly drones had left behind in their wake.

"Черт возьми... (Dammit...)" She muttered when she noticed a hand on her shoulder.

"I know, Doll... I know." Lizzy patted her friend on the shoulder. Doll gave her a deadpan look before rolling her eyes.

"Нет, я не задавался вопросом, может ли он менять свои цвета и в большой форме. (No, I was not wondering if he could change his colors in the big form too.)" The Russian drone sighed before walking off, ignoring Lizzy's look of shock over being figured out like that already.

"Oh c'mon. You can't expect me to not be curious at least." Lizzy called after Doll as she hurried behind her.

Meanwhile outside of Outpost 3, another pair of eyes followed the strange quartet as they more or less tumbled through the air towards the corpse spire with N carrying the other 3 members of their group through a pair of binoculars. A previously frozen bag of microwave popcorn was heated up under a flame hovering on Impmon's palm as he watched in amusement how Commandramon panicked and flailed around with his arms and legs.

"Ha! Those idiots seem to have quite a bit of fun over there." Impmon said as he sat on a couch of what used to be a living room. However instead of a TV, there was now a large hole in the side of the building, allowing the digimon to look at the dark skyline of the city as well as watch how N was struggling and failing to maintain his balance with the extra weight of three people and one of them flailing around like he was about to fall. The bag in his other hand made a series of satisfying pop sounds and began to inflate from the heat, until the bag tore open and Impmon's nose was hit with the sweet scent of fresh popcorn that was at least a decade overdue.

He put the bag onto the couch next to him as his eyes moved over to the hole N had smashed into the bunker's ceiling and then to the still open doors at the entrance when a smirk crept on his face. Without, even putting the binoculars down he grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bag.

"Well, what do we have there? Can't be that hard to get in there now." He chuckled as he shoved the popcorn into his mouth... only to instantly regret it as it burnt the inside of his mouth and blow out hot air into the freezing cold like a faulty steam engine. "Ow, ow, ow! Hot, hot, hot!"

The winds were still blowing a bit strong and causing the snowfall to limit the range of vision a bit like a thing curtain draped over the destroyed city scape when the breaking dawn's light painted the ruins on the surface in hues of red, orange and yellow. From the ground, the sun of Copper 9 looked in that moment not too different in the color from the one of Uzi's railgun when it was recharging, although it wasn't as strong in its color and brighter in its intensity. Despite the turbulent weather and the events of last night leading to her self-imposed 'banishment' though, Uzi felt strangely at relative peace as she sat on the roof of a totalled red car, half buried in the snow, while Commandramon laid on the hood resting and his skin had subconsciously changed colors to match the same hues of red and brown.

"Do you think leaving the bunker was the right choice?" He asked Uzi, breaking the silence between them as they had been listening to the wind whistling through the ruins. He knew she was not on good terms with a lot of people inside the bunker and he could not hold it against her, but it still had been her home for her entire life. And he had to admit, he was a bit shaking from the cold himself.

"Yeah, I don't think I could stand to look at my dad right now." Uzi said, looking at the rising sun. Commandramon snorted in response and nodded before sitting up. "Look, I'm... sorry for not taking you along with me and that was stupid. You don't have to stay with me here if you don't want to." Uzi added with a hint of remorse creeping into her tone. 'Why is this so lame and difficult to say? Get a grip!' She thought to herself, but to her surprise her partner digimon shook his head and looked at her.

"Don't worry about it. Everything turned out fine. Plus, a little cold is not going to stop me. I might have to get back to your room though..." The digimon said. "To grab some of your stuff and tools you'll need to repair the ship and keep you and the others busy. Doesn't matter if we have to go to another planet or have to fight those humans, I'll help you." Uzi actually fought down a chuckle at that as she just smiled, knowing that she had one ally in all of this.

"I'd join you guys if the sun wouldn't kill me!" N called over from the entrance to the corpse spire, careful to stay in the shadows and not step into the weakened but apparently still deadly light. "Hope you're having some important character growth or something though." He said before Commandramon stood up from the hood of the car and walked towards the spire, only to stop.

"Are you coming partner?" He asked, while Uzi smirked confidently.

"In a bit." She said as Commandramon nodded and moved inside the spire. "I just can't wait to kill all the humans. Classic robot stuff." She said to herself. "I hope they are sitting tight on Earth, because we are coming for them." She said when her left eye glitched with the same three pronged symbol as before in a neon yellow color for a second before she started to laugh, which turned into a full-blown cackle... Until a snowflake flew right into her mouth and cause her to cough and hack. "ARGH! WHICH IDIOT PROGRAMMED US TO COUGH?"

Meanwhile inside the spire, Commandramon, N and a now tied-up V listened to her.

"She's so dramatic." V groaned in annoyance, quite unhappy with her current situation.

"Yeah, that's my partner for you." Commandramon agreed, smiling happily as he moved over to help N with clearing some debris from the landing pod, while Uzi was still having a coughing fit outside.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6: Out of Place

'Like day and night' was a strange proverb. The meaning was simply to highlight the contrast between two different things, yet in reality the same thing at day and night was more often than not just the same with less lighting depending on the time of day. As such, a ruined building or a frozen landscape was not that different between the day hours and the night. One simply had to mind their steps a bit more during the night as to not accidentally slip and fall or worse. As such a particular warehouse was no different either. Only howling winds flowing through the holes in the wall and the idle mechanical whirl of rusted ventilation fans still occasionally turning from a particularly strong gust of wind filled the otherwise empty silence of the place while bright day light shone in from the holes in walls and ceiling.

That silence was broken when a rumbling sound came from a broken air vent as something made its way through the dented ventilation shaft. The segments sagged a bit from the weight of the thing within as it crawled through the tight space, bumping its walls again and again throughout its journey, causing tiny iciles and patches of frost to fall off its surface. The sound grew louder as the something pushed its way towards the rusted grate, hanging crooked from only on one of its hinges, before a black foot kicked it down and sent it clattering to the ground. The sound echoed loudly through the dilapidated and empty structure, when a certain Rookie-level digimon climbed out of the vent with a grunt and let himself fall a short distance down onto the floor.

"What a dump." Impmon said as he looked at the contents of the room. It was large and spacious, but most of it was taken up by a literal pile of thrown away devices and other things one might by in an electronics store. Fridges, microwaves, washing machines and televisions with broken screens dominated the sides of the pile while smaller devices like vacuums and computer mouses had fallen off the pile like debris from a mountain. Above the pile hung a large crane meant to grab chunks of the pile and feed it into a now motionless conveyer belt to transport them into another part of the facility to recycle the metals and other materials. Impmon narrowed his eyes at the sight before scanning the room. "How boring. And here I thought I found something cool. What a letdown." The Evil Digimon said as it kicked a large battery. that just so happened to lay at his feet.

The roughly thumb-sized metal cylinder sailed through the air like a soccer ball and hit a smaller pile of scrap leaning against a wall, before bouncing off with a loud clang. Impmon was about to leave when he heard a low groaning sound coming from the pile as a steel beam jutting from the pile and leaning against the wall slowly fell sideways. Like a tree falling announcing its fall by the cracking sound of wood, the beam slowly leaned to the sides and then fell down, hitting the metal flooring with a deafening crash. Moreover, the pile, now bereft of its support collapsed like a landslide, causing more loud crashes to ring throughout the room and forcing Impmon to cover his ears as it felt like he was inside a church's bell tower and the clock just hit high noon. Once the miniature landslide was over and silence returned to the room, Impmon removed his hands from his still ringing ears, looking at the mess he had just made.

'Ugh... Good thing no one is going to notice this and, even if, I'll be gone soon enough...' He thought to himself just as something caught his eye, half-buried in the scrap. There was a feint light coming from inside the pile of old flatirons and keyboards and a quiet yet audible mechanical hum of powered machinery. Curiously, Impmon ran over, careful not to step on anything and kicking smaller pieces of scrap aside as he made his way over with each step creating a dull thud in the hall. Once he reached the heap, he began throwing aside smaller loose and broken items where the glow came from, sending them clattering to the ground. Then he picked up a handheld mixer, revealing onto him what he had just found.

"Well, one digimon's trash, is another digimon's treasure. And you don't have to be a Garbagemon to know that." He said with a grin, dropping the mixer off to the side. "I might need a big can opener for this one though, but I think I know just the right people." Impmon then continued clearing more trash from his findings, before grabbing onto the object and straightening his back to try and lift it up. "Alright, on 3. 1..., 2..."

"And... heave-ho! Urgh! This one is heavy- Why are you not lifting?!"

"I thought you said on 3!"

"Just pick it up already! I only got one pair of arms!"

"You sure? There are lot of new spare parts... nevermind... And up we go..."

With a grunt, two worker drones of the WDF picked up the mutilated corpse of another worker drone and heaved it onto a cart next to them. The dead body hit the top of the pile of corpses and body parts with a dull thud as the oil of the killed worker drones leaked from it onto the floor of the hallway, where it had left a slippery trail of black viscous fluids along the path the two drones had taken. Both worker drone's work overalls were practically dyed black from all the oil that had splattered onto them. They were not the only ones cleaning up the dead bodies and damages though.

The morning after the murder drones' attack was a rather somber one for quite a few inhabitants of Outpost 3. As short as the attack was due to Uzi, Commandramon and N's efforts, N had still breached the defenses of the bunker, killed 4 members of the WDF and thus given J and V access to the colony's inside, resulting in more casualties and damages. Damages that needed fixing and casualties that needed to be taken care of. Such cleanup duty was nothing new to the WDF, but after last night it did make them feel more like janitors than anything else. Since the WDF clearly had no actual way of preventing an attack of the murder drones other than hiding behind the doors, their reputation had taken a plunge with the remaining worker drone population having to admit to themselves what they had known all along.

But despite all of that... life had to go on, jobs had to be done and tasks taken care of. Most people simply moved on as if last night hadn't happened and chose to ignore the glaring problems staring right in their faces and the absence of the deceased workers. Therefore, it was not surprising that classes had not been canceled. Some students were less upset about that because they either had been killed by J and V last night or their minds were occupied with something else than having to go to school. If anything, they were a bit a grateful for the distraction from last night's events in the form of their school's routine and their teacher emotionlessly droning on about some topic. Such was the case for some of the students, that bore witness to the battle that took place within the storage.

Lizzy couldn't remember when the last time had been where she had actually paid attention to the teacher. She was smart enough to not fall behind on her grades as that would hinder her usual carefree lifestyle. Just because she was the stereotypical popular/mean girl, Lizzy wasn't that dumb. So while she knew the topic the teacher talked about with the enthusiasm of a stale piece of bread, she actually paid attention depsite how boring it was.

Thad could whenever the topic was related to things he had interest in such as sports, even if it was in name only. And being the social guy he was, he quickly could find distractions by chatting with classmates when trying to pay attention to the class' topic only resulted in him getting a headache like he had never heard of the alphabet before.

Doll was the same as usual with her quiet and stoic exterior betraying no emotion at all, but she was also the least shaken up by what had happened. Her mind was elsewhere though.

'"Everyone here can bite me... Except Doll, we're good."' Those were the words Uzi had said before she had taken off with the two disassembly drones and her partner digimon. Now, Doll knew that Uzi might not have meant it about how she didn't care about everyone else in Outpost 3 as it felt more like an angsty emotional outburst of her classmate. That and the Russian drone knew that the only reason she was apparently on good terms with Uzi was her not having done anything to damage what little trust Uzi had in her. In a way, that was good, considering the situation they had now found themselves in. Still, Uzi having left the bunker was most certainly not making things easier in that regard. That and the obvious fact that she had gone with that diassembly drone suggested that she was with them in that corpse spire with him... and V.

But that was not the only thing on her mind.

'В конце концов, все сводится к нам... Похоже, история неизбежно повторится.(In the end, it comes down to us then... Looks like history is bound to repeat itself.)' Doll thought just as the school's bell signalled the end of class. Normally the classroom would empty itself very quickly as if the students were fleeing from some announcement the teacher might make at the end of class to burden their free-time with more homework, but this time Doll noted how slow some of the students were when they put their utensils away as if the school bell had just tolled to their execution. Others like Lizzy, Thad and herself though remained the same as usual, putting their things away and leaving through the door into the hallway with their lockers. Conversations were also quieter than usual and the cliques more tightly knit together. Especially those that were not at least a person short from the day before.

"So... Doll... wanna hang out at my place after school for a bit?" Lizzy asked somewhat awkwardly as she rummaged through her locker. Doll looked at her best friend with a somewhat puzzled look. Much like Doll herself, she had been mostly unaffected by the attack or at least that was the image she had kept up until now. Hearing her like this, somewhat made Doll question whether this was the same outspoken, extroverted girl that she had known for so long. But seeing her like that made it apparent that the perfect and untouchable image Lizzy tried to keep up was still just a mask and beneath it she too was a bit shaken up, looking for the support of her best friend.

"Конечно, но сначала мне нужно кое-что сделать дома. Не волнуйся, я сразу зайду. (Sure, but I'll have to do something at home first. Don't worry, I'll come over right after.)" Doll replied giving Lizzy a small smile when she saw her face fall a bit when Doll told her that they wouldn't go together to her place right away. 'Пожалуйста, не смотри на меня как на Лиззи. (Please don't look at me like, Lizzy.)' Doll thought to herself when Rebecca joined them.

"Heya girls? What are you whispering about?" The blue-haired drone asked as she leaned against the locker, looking at both Lizzy and Doll.

'Ребекка, как же ты портишь такой трогательный момент. Очень стильно. (Way to ruin an emotional moment, Rebecca. Very classy.)' Doll thought when Lizzy replied instead.

"Oh hey, Becca. Wanna come over to my place?" The blonde drone asked. "You know, catching up on your boyfriends and all that stuff."

"Uh... sure?" Rebecca said, somewhat unsure what to make of Lizzy's reaction. The blue-haired drone sure liked to brag about her love life, but she often did so without anyone asking about it. For Lizzy to want hearing about it was very out of character for her. Silently Rebecca looked over to Doll, who just shrugged. "Okay... so, I heard you guys were there when Uzi and her... partner fought those murder drones. Would have liked to see that if it wasn't for... you know." She said somewhat awkwardly, but everyone could see it for what it was. While the 8 people inside that storage room had fled as they were instructed to do, any sort of cohesive evacuation was blown out of the water when V first smashed through the ventilation shaft on the other side of Door 3 and started her killing spree, shortly followed by J.

From then it was everyone for themselves. Some drones fled their apartments and work stations in an attempt to put as much distance between them and the invaders. Others remained in those same apartments to hide away in hopes that the murder drones wouldn't sweep every room and corner of Outpost 3 to make sure they'd all die. And then there was those who actually followed the instructions and ultimately led them into that storage room. Last night, Doll had not slept after having overheard Uzi's plan to go out and get the missing part of her gun. Lizzy and Rebecca had also heard it but clearly not taken it serious. So when the alarm went off, the first thing Doll did was to rush towards Lizzy's home and make sure she was alright. Meanwhile, Rebecca had opted to do as many others did and run for their lives in the opposite direction of the murder drones.

"Trust me, you wouldn't have liked to see that." Lizzy said with a sigh as she closed her locker's door, but Rebecca shrugged.

"Sure, I wouldn't have liked the whole death and murder stuff. But I heard that guy is kinda cute." The blue haired drone earned herself a very flat look from both Doll and Lizzy at that comment.

"Ugh! Shut it, Rebecca." Lizzy rolled her eyes at the blue-haired drone's antics.

"What? Tall, handsome, a bit stupid and naive with a flavor of dangerous. Sign me up. And apparently Uzi's now living with that guy. Who knows what's going on in that spire?" The blue-haired drone thought aloud as her visor read 'LEWD DAYDREAM LOADING...', much to the annoyance of the other two girls.

"Ты читаешь слишком много любовных фэнтези-романов, Ребекка. (You read too many of those romance fantasy novels, Rebecca.)" Doll said. 'Единственное, что в нём романтично, — это романтизация персонажей. Всё остальное просто... фу... (The only thing romantic about it is the romanticizing of the characters anyway. Everything else is just... ew...)' Doll thought to herself but chose not to comment on Rebecca's taste in literature. She had borrowed one such story for only an hour before returning it to the blue-haired drone and never speaking of the matter again to this very day.

"You know, maybe I should instead ask Thad to come over." Lizzy thought aloud, making Rebecca's eyebrows wiggle a bit.

"My, quite bold, are we? Yet yesterday you looked at me funny."

"Not for that Becca! Has your last doctor's appointment leave you with a few crossed loose screws too many?"

"Maybe, but I'm not complaining."

While the other two talked about Lizzy may or may not having a thing for a certain jock in their class, Doll used the opportunity to disengage from the situation and just walked home. As she walked through the corridors, she found several worker drones of the WDF and the law enforcement working on fixing the damages and cleaning up dead bodies. It was both scary and to be expected just how quickly they had simply moved on to treat this as little more than just another routine workday. At their cores, they had been designed for that sort of thing. Just mindless working with little to no regard to one's own or other's safety. The only difference was that they were not welding at a construction site or carting away tons of rock in a mine right now, but fixing their own underground home and dragging away the dead bodies of their own kind. Some of the WDF's promotional posters Doll sported along the walls had been torn off or vandalized, crossing their eyes out or drawing a moustaches on their faces, including Khan's despite him already having a moustache. An understandable reaction, which just like last night's shock and memory, would blow over for most in a matter of hours.

Once back at her home, Doll moved over to the study of her mother, ignoring the corpses of a few worker drones she had dragged back home after the attack. No one in Outpost 3 would bat an eye at a few missing dead bodies when those things literally fed on them. They'd marked as missed for a while and then be declared dead. Inside the study, Doll had set aside a box with J's tail next to the desk. After everyone had left, Doll had returned to pick it up for further study, but that would have to wait. For now she had to explain the situation to other people as she was sitting down at the PC as its screen booted up. Soon enough, Doll was greeted with the familiar sight of a certain chat, when a purple and orange gradient symbol appeared.

[DOLL! WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?! THE ALARM WENT OFF AND YOU DIDN'T TELL US WHAT HAPPENED BACK THEN.] Doll just typed in her response, ignoring the slight feeling of guilt welling up in her system.

[You are the last people who have to worry about this sort of thing.]

[TRUE, BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT WORRIES US. YOUR WELLBEING, ON THE OTHER HAND, DOES!] That actually brought a small smile to her face when a mechanical whirring sound of a haphazardly installed camera focused its lense at her. It was an old security camera that had been scavenged from some mall on surface by her father. A little present to the ones on the other side of the chat to allow them to see into the bunker when they were already stuck with such an old computer monitor.

[ARE YOU ALRIGHT, DOLL? YOU LOOK TIRED...]

[I'm fine, Спасибо (thank you). There has been a new development last night. The disassembly drones had managed to breach the defenses] The response to Doll's message came immediately.

[WHAT! HOW? 002 HAD INSTRUCTED THOSE DOORS TO BE MADE EVEN EARTHQUAKEPROOF ON A PLANET WITHOUT A MOLTEN CORE!]

[But not foolproof.] Doll wrote, replied stopping herself from disclosing just how the murder drones had managed to come in following Uzi sneaking out. Then she added. [The attack had been able to be repelled thanks to Uzi and her partner by digivolving.]

[WELL THAT'S GOOD THEN. A ROOKIE LEVEL DIGIMON HARDLY COULD HAVE BEATEN THOSE GUYS. UNLESS IT WAS A LUCEMON, BUT LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THOSE GUYS...]

[ANYTHING NEW ABOUT UZI'S CONDITION? HAS SHE SHOWN ANY SORT OF SYMPTOMS DURING THAT ENCOUNTER?]

[Cannot confirm it yet.] Doll thought when she thought back to the events of last night. In particular, when a blinded J had tried shooting Uzi and Doll could have sworn the shot had been deflected by some unseen force. [She might have IT.]

[AND HER PARTNER?]

[No signs of an infection. Could IT even infect a digimon?]

[DIGIMON ARE DIGITAL LIFEFORMS COMPOSED OF DATA. OF COURSE, IT COULD JUST LIKE ANY OTHER VIRUS.]

[KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THEM. IN CASE THAT WE MIGHT NEED THEIR ASSISTANCE IN THIS.]

[That will be difficult.]

[WHY? WHAT DID YOU DO, DOLL?]

[DOLL, I KNOW YOU LIKE DOING THINGS ON YOUR OWN, BUT THIS IS NOT ONLY YOUR BURDEN TO BEAR.]

[Thanks, but that's not it.] Doll sent the reply before writing the next message. [Uzi has left Outpost 3 and allied herself with the disassembly drones.]

There was a long pause before the reply came this time.

[I'M SORRY, BUT DID YOU JUST SAY 'ALLIED HERSELF WITH THE DISASSEMBLY DRONES?!]

[WHAT?!]

[Да. (Yes.)]

Despite the disassembly drones being nocturnal in the sense that their bodies apparently reacted violently to light akin to vampires burning up in sunlight, they were perfectly capable of being operational around the clock with sufficient food. That way most work that required to be done outside of hunting during the night could be done during the day. Though it did come at the cost of having to cut back on sleep, being hungrier and overall it wasn't exactly something positive. N, for his part, was used to the dayshift work that J had usually made him do, so he didn't really mind staying up during the day. But J wasn't there anymore and this time around he was not the only one who was affected by this.

Uzi hadn't wasted any time to coordinate both him and Commandramon to starts repairs on the murder drones' ship, relegating both of them to remove faulty and broken parts from the rather crammed inside to the outside to either fix them up or try and salvage them for parts. It was a rather fortunate circumstance that only so much of the ships interior was damaged with its more vital systems still somewhat operational. Yet it would also be a rather long process. Despite there no longer being powerful discharges and fountains of sparks going off inside the ship or at least not as often anymore, their work was far from done.

And where was V in all of this? She had literally been chained up like a dog with a collar around her neck and tied to a chair in front of the ship's main console in order to not run off to kill someone or Uzi or to try and sabotage them. Needless to say, but Uzi didn't trust V's ability to behave as much as N did. Her near-constant antagonizing of Uzi and using the purple drone's short fuse against her also didn't make it any easier. Therefore, Uzi saw the best solution in the form of a chain fixed to the flooring of the ship, which V apparently couldn't just break so easily as another courtesy of JCJenson's product quality.

Right now though, Uzi had put the screwdrivers and wrenches aside for a break when Commandramon decided to give her another rundown on the basics of digimon. After getting the two flying murder machines up to speed with Uzi's own knowledge about Digimon levels and the Digital World he continued with something Uzi had asked him about earlier.

"Most digimon are divided into three types: Vaccine, Data and Virus." Commandramon said pointing at a hand-drawn table with three columns as he sat on the other chair. Each was topped by a smiley face, but each had another expression. One was smiling with its eyes closed as if letting out a happy sigh, the second one had its eyes and mouth closed in a neutral expression and the third one was frowning with its eyebrow narrowed as if it was angry. "Usually, those attributes reflect on a digimon's general personality, though of course it depends on the individual the most. For example, Vaccine digimon tend to be more docile or friendly by nature." He told them as Uzi and V looked rather unimpressed, whereas N absorbed the information eagerly whilst nodding to himself and actually taking notes. Glancing over to him though, V mostly found doodles of dogs... or rather unrecognizable squiggles with the word 'DOG' written above them.

"So in essence, good, bad and neutral. Got it." V said rather dismissively, making Commandramon look at her with a pout. Yes, the rookie was literally pouting as his tail hit the ground in silent anger like a bunny thumping against the ground. "What? So far all... digimon or whatever you're called I've seen, you and Impmon, have been Virus types and neither of you are really... evil." She said.

"Yeah, it's more eyeballing and a general thing rather than an ironclad rule. Not every Virus type digimon is necesarrily destructive and kills everything in sight, while not every digimon of the Vaccine type is benevolent." Commandramon said, putting his hands on his hips, which only made him look even more childish considering how everyone else in the ship was taller than him.

"And why are you telling us this again?" Uzi asked, not quite sure why Commandramon even went into so much detail that could have been explained rather easily like V did.

"Well, the fact that an Impmon is on Copper 9 could mean that the boundary between the Real World and the Digital World is either weakening or just particularly thin on this planet for some reason. While such gateways can appear randomly from time to time, they usually don't. That and I still don't quite know how I got here myself, so the appearance of another digimon might be possible. Not quite sure how much of a help that is going to be though if they run into a Champion." The cyborg digimon admitted. "Any questions so far?"

"Oh, here." Almost immediately N's arm shot up into the air and he stretched himself even a bit like a student eagerly wanting to ask something. Both V and Uzi looked a bit annoyed at him but said nothing. Commandramon nodded. "So uhm... earlier you said that digimon come in lots of shapes and forms. So I was wondering..." N's voice became suddenly rather small as he looked away shyly and pressed his hands together. "Are there... perhaps any digimon that... look like dogs?"

'Of course, that is what he wants to know.' V thought to herself, knowing quite well about N's love for the pet also known as 'man's best friend'. And by the way Uzi's eye twitched, she too was slowly getting the picture just how much he liked dogs. Commandramon scratched the back of his head slightly at that.

"Well, my memories are a bit all over the place, but I'm sure there would be. I vaguely recall something like a wolf or something." The digimon said. N's smile lessened a bit, but he was still smiling and his tail was still wagging. Commandramon then flipped the page to what looked like a crude drawing of a dog or a wolf with striped like a tiger and what looked like wings or feathers on its back. "Sorry, I can't remember the name or how it looked all that much in detail. But I hope this helps." He said handing the drawing over to N.

"Yeah, no kidding. You're talking in your sleep about some fastfood chain and wanting to get yourself some Doggymon menu." Uzi said, causing Commandramon's face to turn bright red even under his black face mask, while N let out a happy gasp.

"Uzi! Please don't talk about that sort of thing right now, while I'm trying to explain-" Commandramon was cut off by a loud rumbling sound coming from his stomach, making his face only grow even hotter and his skin subconsciously shift colors to the grays of the ship around them in an attempt to hide his shame. "Oh... I'm so hungry..." Commandramon weakly groaned as he shot Uzi a pointed look. The purple worker drone though only shot him back a smug look.

After coming to the spire and starting to work, it has become very apparent that Commandramon's body still required food. Which was rather strange because Uzi had never seen him actually eat anything. Sure he had made her breakfast and lunch, before but those were things that worker drones ate and he had never really touched those dishes. And it was rather self-explanatory why because as 'cyborg' suggested, Commandramon was an organic being. One that technically was composed out of data and was cybernetically enhanced. And as Impmon had commented before, the only edible food items that had survived the planet's cataclysm were stale and unhealthy snacks, popsicles and soft drinks. To give Commandramon credit, he had not complained about the quality of the food that was available, though he called them 'rather tasteless rations'. It also didn't help that due to the time they had spent on the surface, they were not exactly very satisfying his hunger either. On top of that, Commandramon's digivolution had apparently drained him of a lot of his energy reserves and left him rather famished.

Needless to say, but Commandramon's embarrassment only served Uzi and V as amusement... that was until another rumble echoed through the ship, making everyone else look at Uzi, whose smug smile disappeared.

"Uzi, did you just..." The digimon began only to be cut off when Uzi jumped up from where she had been leaning against a wall.

"Bite me!" Uzi said. "Break's over. Let's get back to work or this ship is going to be stuck here for another decade!" The purple drone quickly moved over to the console she had been fixing, when the digimon shrugged and put his drawing aside.

"Right behind you, Uz-UGH!" Upon jumping off of the chair he had sat upon, a pained grunt ran through him as he almost fell down on his face. That made Uzi and N look over to him with concern as they saw a faint, yet still visible cut on the digimon's left leg. The injury V had accidentally inflicted on Commandramon had not fully healed yet and it had caused some complications already despite their progress.

They had first noticed it when Commandramon had helped N clearing out the ship. Carrying heavy objects became out of question as he could barely move around without tripping and falling, thus making a bigger mess to clean up.

After that, he had mainly been grabbing and handing tools to Uzi when she was fixing the ship's devices up. However, he couldn't exactly reach everything with his short height and his inability to climb, which made N help the two out.

Lastly, Commandramon tried fixing up some things himself and while he certainly knew his own stuff, the ship's complex wiring and circuitry proved itself to be beyond his understanding, which wasn't helped by the damaged state most wires and cables were. One attempt to fix a broken cable ended with him being electrocuted rather hard and sent flying into a wall from the discharge.

Needless to say, but Commandramon was not exactly able to help a lot around the ship. Which made it all the more frustrating for him since he could not assist his partner. N moved over to help him up on his feet, but even he could see how Commandramon's left leg shook quite a bit.

"Commandramon..." Uzi started only to be cut off.

"I... I'm fine, Uzi." He said as he leaned against the wall of the ship. "I'll just need a moment to rest and then I'll be good to go." He tried reassuring her, though the way he was panting slightly and breathing was not exactly saying a lot of good things about his health.

"Maybe you should just rest for a while and sit this one out a bit?" N offered. Commandramon shook his head at this and opened his mouth to protest, but surprisingly V spoke up next.

"You should listen to them. Otherwise, you might lose that leg of yours." She said in a slightly amused tone, before her tone shifted and she leaned forward suddenly with her digital eyes hollowed out and her mouth twisting into a sadistic grin. "That might be rather painful." The chain strained against the ground as she did that, making a loud metallic sound ring through the ship's interior.

However much to her surprise, Commandramon didn't react with shock or fear or some sort of surprise like falling over all of the sudden and flailing around on the ground. Instead, he just looked at her with an rather neutral face, before tilting his head sideways as if he didn't understand something and tried figuring it out. Then he simply smiled happily and saluted.

"Understood, thank you for your concern, but I must insist on keep going." He said just when Uzi glared daggers at V.

"What the hell, V? Are you trying to get kicked out or something?" The purple worker drone spat when V rolled her eyes at the shorter female drone.

"And get me off that chain? Yes please. I'd love that." V sarcastically said, completely ignoring the part where her being thrown out during the day would result in her dying in a horrific way.

'Oh no...' N thought as he looked at the scene before him with slight discomfort.

'Here we go again.' Commandramon thought as he and N walked over to the far end of the ship, bracing for what was to come.

"As if! I'd throw you out with that chain around your limbs!"

"Try it, little girl! See how far you go before you get torn to pieces."

"Bite me!"

"Aww~ Is that your catchphrase or something? How cute."

And with that began yet another argument between Uzi and V. Right from the beginning it was clear that the two of them didn't see eye to eye with one another and that was for once not in reference to Uzi's short height. Not that Commandramon or N could hold it against V since she was technically a prisoner of war and forced to cohabitate with both her enemy and her former ally. That and despite giving N usually the cold shoulder, she most certainly got along better with him than the other two occupants of their spire. However, despite not even living together for half a day, both Uzi and V had made it sort of a routine of getting into fights like this. Well, V namely did, using Uzi's rather short-tempered nature to set her off and then proceed to let things run their course.

That did not mean that Commandramon and N agreed with their antics though.

"You just wait until I can sink my claws into you and drink the oil from your torn-off head." V said with a bloodthirsty grin, leaning towards Uzi as if she was going to take a bite out of her.

"Yeah right! I'll atomize you like J if you try." Uzi said, barely holding herself back from throwing hands.

That was when two dulled sounds of metal hitting metal rang through the room, making the two girls stop and look over to N and Commandramon who each had dropped a piece of scrap metal into a glass jar each. Both were labeled with one ready 'Uzi threatening to kill V' and 'V threatening to kill Uzi' with colorful pens and fixed onto the jars with duct tape. And as one could clearly see, both jars were at least full up to a fifth of their height with V's jar being slightly fuller than Uzi's. Uzi and V seemed to deflate at the sight of this as their totally serious argument was apparently turned into a parody of itself.

"Oh, come on! Didn't I tell you to stop putting the spare parts in those things? We might need those for the repairs." Uzi said as she took a step away from V, seemingly forgetting her argument with the disassembly drone prisoner of war already.

"True, but we got no money to put in there." Commandramon commented.

"Then throw the jars away and just organize the pieces to be used!" The worker drone replied.

"But then you never stop arguing." N said a bit uncomfortable when Uzi glared at him.

"We are just bantering." V chimed in with a sweet tone that betrayed her cruel nature instantly.

"V..." N said putting his hands on his hips, but V merely smiled a bit and rolled her eyes.

"Fine, I'll let her live... She won't need her legs though, right?" V playfulled asked only to have Commandramon drop another piece of metal into a third jar, that was labeled 'V threatening to hurt Uzi'.

"Let's not forget the reason why Commandramon is like this is you, V."

"We were fighting back then and you happened to be in the way. Nothing personal." The disassembly drone said rather dismissively. Uzi wanted to give her another piece of his mind when her partner digimon stopped her.

"It is alright, Uzi. Really." He said, looking at her. For a second both of them just looked at each other in silence, before Uzi huffed in anger and crossed her arms. "Plus, we'll need to find V a nice hat if we want her to be part of the team." That made the others look at him.

"A hat?" Uzi said incredulously.

"Why?" N asked slightly confused.

"Who's joining who's team?" V inquired, sounding rather annoyed at the idea of officially joining forces with her captors.

"Well, back then I noticed how all three of us are wearing hats." Commandramon replied. "Uzi got her beanie, I got my helmet and N got his pilot cap." The digimon pointed out, making N jump a little when he pointed at his hat.

"THIS IS A PILOT'S HAT?!" The friendly murder drone replied in shock.

"Uhm... wasn't that obvious? I mean, maybe it's just my digicore knowing about that sort of stuff, but it sure looks like one to me." The rookie digimon scratched his head at that, before he grabbed something from a pocket of his vest. It was a small metal badge in the shape of a skull with a pilot cap and two stylized disassembly drone wings made of brass or gold judging by the color. "By the way I found this while clearing out console. Must have slipped past the panel during the crash." Commandramon mused as Uzi grabbed the badge and slapped it on the front of N's cap.

"This is aweso-" He said almost jumping with happiness, before his demeanor suddenly changed. "I crashed and ruined everything." He mumbled to himself in realization before instantly switching back to his usual self. "Spaceship pilot. Origin story." N pointed at both Uzi and V with his hands shaping into finger pistols in a relaxed manner. V's response to that was to immediately hiss at him like an angry cat, only to immediately turn around, shift one of her hands for a bubble wand and start blowing bubbles.

"Hey, no bubble blowing in the direction of the the exposed wiring!" Uzi said.

"But I'm bored." V whined. "And hungry."

"Please don't talk about food..." Commandramon's plea was ignored when his stomach once more rumbled loudly through the ship.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll figure things out." N said. The worker drone rolled her eyes at his optimism.

"Perhaps, but the solution to that problem will have to wait. It's not like it's just going to fall down from the sky or someth-"

Uzi was cut off when a loud crash rang from outside the ship through the ground. Immediately, Commandramon and N jumped, the former switching one hand for claws and the digimon grabbing his rifle instinctively as they turned towards the ship's door. For a moment they all just looked at one another before Commandramon and N cautiously approached the exit and peered out. Outside the pod everything looked the same as usual. Except for the bright daylight shining through cracks in the spire and entrance/exits into its interior, all seemed to be the same as the night before.

That was when Commandramon's nose was hit by a sweet smell of something that made his mouth water. Immediately, he walked around the ship and spotted something that had not been there. Halfburied in a pile of snow stood a rectangular vending machine with something written on it in DigiCode. And next to it was a pair of black legs uselessly kicking into the air just before that something pulled itself out of the snow.

"Bleh! Why is there so much junk around here anyway?" Impmon said as he spotted both Commandramon and N look at him, while Uzi emerged from the entrance of the landing pod herself. "Oh perfect timing Doormat. Can you break this thing open? Oh and Shortstack is here too."

"BITE ME!" Uzi shouted as she held up a screwdriver as if it was a knife. "And where did you even just come from?"

"Does it matter? I just want to bust open this vending machine after it ate my money." Impmon replied, kicking the vending machine only to end up hurting his foot and hop in one place.

"Hey, what's going on out there? I can't exactly look outside." V called out from within the ship, slightly irritated at being left out.

"It's nothing. Just Impmon wanting me to commit vandalism." N called back to V, while Commandramon walked over to the machine and ignored the digimon that had brought it here somehow. He almost missed the strange red tear above the machine like a wound in the fabric of reality with a strange pixelated texture, before it disappeared. Then he turned his attention back to the food inside, smelling the contents even through the sealed machine.

"And why should we help you of all people? Last I checked, you are not exactly what I'd call a friend to either of us." Uzi said, still glaring at Impmon.

"Tell him no!" V called back from within the pod, replying to N's earlier response. At that Impmon chuckled.

"Well if you want to know what you'll get in return, fine." He said before pulling out a CD from his bandana. "I snatched this little mix tape from the pod last time I was here. I'd say it's V's since it has her handwriting on it." Impmon spoke loud and clear for V to hear him and Uzi could clearly see V's eyes widen in shock as she looked off to the side as if searching for something. "There's also a note here saying 'DON'T TOUCH IT, N!', so does that sound familiar?" Uzi watched in mild amusement how V's eyes widened in horror and looked back at Uzi, who couldn't help but chuckle slightly.

"N, whatever you do, don't listen to him! He's making that up!" V shouted almost desperately, while Uzi's mouth morphed into a mischievous grin at the pleading undertone of V's voice.

"And you just want us to crack that thing open for you?" She asked, rubbing her hands together like a villain. N looked rather uncomfortably between Uzi and Impmon.

"Uzi, don't you dare-"

"Yup!" Impmon cut V's threat off with a mischievous smile of his own. No sooner had he said that, did Uzi grin back at V.

"Alright, you got yourself a deal, Impmon." The worker drone said. "N, hurry up and bring that CD back."

"N, NO!" But much to her horror, V's protest were soon answered by the sound of metal screeching in protest as it was torn apart by N's claws and Uzi's laughter. Outside, N tore the cover from the vending machine with a lot more effort than he had previously anticipated, but eventually his claws found purchase in the material and tore through the panel. Wires sparked and more part broke before he was finally done. Commandramon and Impmon looked down at the contents of the machine with big eyes as if they had just found a treasure trove.

"Good job, N. You are promoted from doormat to can opener." Impmon said before throwing the CD towards N, who caught it. "Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta- HEY!" Impmon shouted when he turned to Commandramon already raiding the contents of the vending machine. "DON'T JUST GRAB THE BEST LOOT LIKE THAT! I WANT SOME TOO, YOU KNOW?!" And with that he moved over to grab himself something to bite as well, fighting with Commandramon as both of them had grabbed a piece of meat by the opposite ends of the bone and entered a tug of war. Meanwhile, N looked down at the CD in his hand with a slight frown and walked back to the ship, where Uzi was waiting.

"Alright! A shame we got no CD player but once we get that part of the ship running again, we might hear something interesting." The worker drone said in an excited tone with her eyes hollowed out. She was about to grab the CD from N's hand when he just pulled his hand higher, putting it out of her reach.

"But that's V's and she doesn't want us to, so we shouldn't." He said, causing Uzi's mind to stop for a moment. Her digital visor changed from her eyes to a buffering symbol for a moment, before she looked at N, who had just denied her something personal that V obviously didn't want them to know. Then her face changed to annoyance.

"Oh c'mon! You cannot be serious about this." She whined, but N just put one hand on his hip as if chiding her, while the other still held the CD just out of her reach as she stretched her arm towards it. 'Right... he has a crush on that stupid... but still!' V could only see so much from her position, but she would lie if she didn't find the situation a bit amusing at least. Uzi tried reaching for it, jumping a little to try and get it, but N was just too tall. Meanwhile, Impmon was using his flames to grill the packaged meat and Commandramon just ate his straight out of the packaging, not even noticing the drama. Once it was clear that N was not letting Uzi have her way, the worker drone relented, crossed her arms and let out a defeated sigh. N then just walked past her into the ship and handed V the CD back.

"Here you go." The male disassembly drone said with his usual smile as he held the disk out to V. Naturally, she couldn't stand up, meaning N was looking down on his shorter co-worker a bit more than usual when she looked at him and the CD for a moment.

"You really don't want to know what's on it?" She asked somewhat in disbelief. She knew N to be a naive optimist at best, but she would honestly have expected him to just hand something like that over to the purple worker drone after having essentially betrayed her.

"Well, I would lie if I said I wasn't curious. But you said I shouldn't look, so I won't." N said bashfully. For a moment neither of them said a word, before V turned around in her seat.

"Just destroy it... or put it on a high shelf or something where the purple thing can't reach it." She said, though she did smile a bit when he still acted the same way as before.

"Alright then!" N saluted before flying high into the spire to hide V's CD. Uzi meanwhile let out a frustrated groan after hearing and seeing all of that as she threw her screwdriver into the snow, where it hit a piece of scrap metal and bent out of shape. The sound made Commandramon look up and turn around with a piece of meat in his mouth to see what had transpired.

"Uzi, wasn't that our last screwdriver?" He pointed out, snapping Uzi out of her anger for a moment as she looked at the now L-shaped tool on the ground... Only to let out another frustrated echoing out of the spire and into the desolation of Copper 9's surface. 'Oh well, I wanted to head back to Outpost 3 to grab some tools for Uzi anyway.' The cyborg digimon thought as he took another bite from his meat, not even noticing how Impmon was leaving after having plundered a big chunk of the candy from the vending machine.

Heavy mechanical footsteps cracked the ice beneath them as a heavy figure moved through the frozen landscape. It did not know where it was or how exactly it got there. All it knew was that it had been following a suspect of theft and now had lost their trail. The footprints before them stopped just short of what looked to be a rather unstable surface sporting two holes in it. Whatever it had been following, had been here recently.

Just then a loud buzzing sound cut through the idle whistle of the wind around it, forcing it to turn around a little too late when something flew overhead and rammed into him. the force of the impact sent it flying before it fell through one of the hole. The fall was short, but it struck the ground hard with a loud crash. Immediately, it tried rightening itself but found its reserves too low. All it could do was look up at the ceiling it had just fallen through. Before its optics shut down, it could make out the vague outline of something large looming over the hole above with a loud hiss. Then the shadow suddenly stopped and shifted, apparently turning its attention elsewhere before it took flight and left with its buzzing fading away fast.

With that it was left in the darkness, feeling its way around on its hands to straighten itself again. Far away noises caught its attention as it carefully stepped towards them, only to bump into something. Seeing this going nowhere (not literally of course), it started using its hands to feel its way around the obstacle before continuing on its bumbling journey.

The trip back to Outpost 3 was an uneventful one. Without the disassembly drones to fear and it being daytime, the only potential hazards along the route came from the ruins suddenly collapsing. In short, it was nothing to worry about. Still, it did feel a bit strange for Commandramon when he stood before the closed Door 1 again. After all, he did just leave with Uzi and the others without even saying goodbye. And he technically was part of the Worker Defense Force, so that made the current situation even more awkward. Commandramon kept looking at the door a moment longer before slapping his cheeks with both hands at the same time.

"Come on Commandramon, you can do this. They can't be mad about just leaving like that, right?" He thought to himself aloud. 'Plus, it is better than to just sit in the ship unable to do anything to help.'

That thought really made him want to go to Outpost 3 in the first place. Sure, his hunger had been sated, but his injury was still not fully recovered. The food had helped to ease the pain, but it was still there. And since he couldn't exactly do a lot of heavy lifting, he decided to grab Uzi some tools and other stuff from her room to help her repair the ship. Overall not a bad plan, but as he had walked alone through the cold and desolate landscape, doubt gnawed on him. 'What kind of partner was he when he couldn't even help her like that?' was merely one of many self-doubting questions swirling in his mind at that moment. If he couldn't help her, he truly felt out of place.

He shook his head and hesitantly knocked on the door. Door 1 opened just as little to have a worker drone peer through the gap. The digimon feared the worst when the drone on the other hand simply looked at him for a second before smiling and the door opened fully.

"Hey, Commandramon. How are you?" The WDF drone said, making the digimon sigh in relief on the inside.

"I'm good. Just came back to see how you all are doing and grab some stuff for Uzi." He said as he walked in and the door closed again. Surprisingly, he didn't find the usual table set up to play cards on right in front of the door and the worker drones appeared slightly less lively than the day before. They were still mostly just chatting with one another, but even Commandramon could tell things had changed a bit when he saw multiple WDF members fix the damages done by J, N and V. "Looks like you've been busy..." The digimon said.

"Yeah, no kidding. We've basically been doing nothing else the entire day. But we're almost done already." The worker drone said just when a loud crash came from a worker drone falling off a ladder in an attempt to repair the ventilation shaft. "But hey, you're kind of a celebrity around here due to what you did last night. A shame none of the guys who was around had a camera to actually film the whole thing."

"We were sort of busy not dying back then..." Commandramon said somewhat awkwardly when he found multiple WDF members looking at him as well as some crude drawings of his Champion level on the wall, not unlike some prehistoric painting done by a caveman, being scrubbed away by other drones. 'Is this how Uzi feels when she gets all of this unwanted attention? Please don't tell me they have been making merchandise of me too...'

"Speaking of which, some of the guys likely would want to celebrate the whole thing, but since Uzi's under house arrest, that might take a while." The WDF drone said as he walked besides Commandramon deeper into the colony.

"House arrest?" The digimon asked slightly confused. 'She was pretty direct when she said that she banished herself... Then again, what's house arrest'? I'll need to ask Uzi later.'

"Uhm... yeah? She gave herself house arrest, right? At least, that's what Khan told us. Haven't seen him all day since then though." The worker drone said before turning to Commandramon only to find the digimon gone. "Huh? They were not lying about the camouflage thing... Oh well." He mused before returning to work.

Meanwhile, a certain cyborg digimon made his way through Outpost 3, changing the color of his skin like a chameleon along the way towards the Doorman's apartment. Part of him wanted to ask Khan why he had told the others such a lie about Uzi having house arrest. Another wanted to know why there was a lot less WDF posters on the walls. And a third thing had in mind was to hopefully avoid running into any trouble with the WDF. He didn't even understand why he felt the sudden need to hide himself. There was just something in the air that made his camouflage act up.

Shaking his head, Commandramon reached his destination and walked into the apartment, finding its living/kitchen area empty as usual. 'Huh? I thought he'd be in here.' The digimon thought as he walked into Uzi's room. Grabbing her backpack and putting her school supplies on her desk, he began gathering whatever tools and things that they might need. However, he quickly ran out of space as he tried to fit everything into just the backpack. 'No that won't work. I need another bag at least.' Just then he heard the door to the apartment open and the tired sigh of Khan Doorman as he dragged himself to the kitchen table. Commandramon was peered out of the room just when he saw Uzi's father bury his face in his hands and just sitting there. Suddenly it felt rather inappropriate to ask him about his lie about Uzi's whereabouts and the digimon slowly retreated back into Uzi's room to find a bag.

Or that would have been his course of action if he didn't accidentally drop a wrench on the floor. The tool clattered loudly in the stillness of the apartment as Khan and Commandramon looked at one another awkwardly.

"Oh, hey Mister Doorman." The digimon hesitantly waved. "I'm just... picking up some stuff for Uzi." He said before putting the backpack out of her room. "You... wouldn't happen to have a duffel bag or something?" Khan just kept looking at Commandramon in silence, before the digimon stepped back into Uzi's room to keep looking. The door engineer kept looking for a moment longer before he sat up and walked over to Uzi's room, seeing the digimon's rear end sticking out from under her bed to grab something. Khan cleared his throat, because Commandramon to stiffen up and come back out.

"I uhm... You see..." Khan tried his best to find the right words, before dismissing each attempt again a few times before he just sighed. "How is Uzi?"

"Oh... she's doing fine." Commandramon replied. "Well, she's still mad at you for, you know, leaving her for dead. And V and her are not getting along so far, but other than that she's her usual self and seems to be rather fired up about her new murder plans." He awkwardly chuckled at that and Khan smiled a bit hearing that Uzi was doing fine.

"That's... good." The worker drone said before glancing at the things his daughter's partner digimon had set aside. Next to the backpack full of tools and supplies, he also spotted clothes, blankets, a few manga and a handheld gaming console. "So is Uzi really sure about... living with the murder drones?" Khan asked slightly worried. The digimon could slightly understand why he was worried, even if the concept of familial bonds was something utterly foreign to him. Of course, Khan was worried about Uzi's wellbeing when she was essentially living with two killing machine purpose built for killing them and apparently also needing to feed on them.

'Hm... Now that I think about it, how are we going to keep N and V fed?' Commandramon wondered before pushing the question into the back of his mind. "I'd say so, yes. She seems to be rather hellbent on repairing the ship and killing all the humans now." He admitted. "Which is why she needs some tools from here. The landing didn't have all that much in terms of equipment." Just then Commandramon found an old duffel bag tucked away in the far corner of her closet. It was a bit small, maybe from when she was younger, but it fit Commandramon just right and had enough space to store the things he wanted to take with him. Skipping over happily, he began carefully putting the things he set aside into the bag while Khan just watched.

"Could you... maybe tell Uzi that I'm sorry for that whole... thing?" The worker drone eventually asked when Commandramon zipped the bag shut. "And maybe to come back home? I would not want those murder drones to have a negative impact on her." The digimon scratched the back of his head at that.

"I can tell her that, but I think that's more of a personal thing and if I do that it might not come across as genuine." He said, making Khan look with wide eyes at the digital monster. "Also, N and V are so far not impacting her at all. Sure, V and Uzi banter a lot..." Commandramon said, before thinking about all the times they had threatened to kill each other and how that was not exactly bantering. "And N is a really nice guy... when he's not killing someone of course." He said as he carried both bags towards the door and past Khan, who still vividly remembered his first meeting with male disassembly drone. When he had pinned Uzi to the side of the bunker wall with his wing and gave him that hungry and sadistic grin that was.

'Wait a minute...' He thought just as he realized something. "Oh Robo-God, no..." Khan suddenly fell to his knees, making Commandramon stop just as he opened the door to the apartment to leave.

"What's wrong?!" The digimon quickly rushed over to see what was wrong with his partner's father. Just then Khan grabbed him by the shoulders and looked at him, shocking Commandramon quite a bit as he had not expected that.

"Please tell me that this N guy is not Uzi's definitely existing boyfriend!" Khan asked in a pleading tone when he recalled Uzi's first excuse of last night. Commandramon blinked in surprise at this, before gently brushing Khan's hands off his shoulders.

"Uuhm... no? They don't seem to be like that at all. By the way, what's a 'boyfriend'?" The oblivious digimon asked when suddenly he heard someone speak up from the doorway behind him.

"Oh, that's something we could definitely explain." Rebecca said, before Lizzy slapped a hand over her mouth and Doll and Thad also gave Rebecca a look, before they turned their attention back into the apartment with Commandramon and Khan.

"Shut!" Lizzy told Rebecca, while the blue-haired girl rolled her eyes. Seeing that Rebecca relented, the blonde girl removed her hand from their friend's mouth before turning to the digimon in question. "Hey there. Didn't know you were back."

"Didn't we come here after hearing that he was back- OW!" Thad asked only to get elbowed in the side by Rebecca. If the digimon noticed their antics, he didn't react to them. Luckily for them, he did not notice them the antics ar all.

"Hi there guys. What are you doing here?" Commandramon replied, confused as to what Uzi's friends were doing here at that exact moment.

"Nothing special. We just happened to be around and talk about last night when we overheard someone talk about a certain WDF member showing up again." Thad replied. "Well and Doll also wanted something but..." Thad's mouth was shut by Doll slapping a hand over it.

"Где Узи? (Where's Uzi?)" The Russian drone asked when she noticed the absence of a certain purple-haired classmate of hers.

"Oh... she didn't come. She's still in the corpse spire, repairing the ship." Commandramon replied.

'Жаль, мне бы хотелось с ней поговорить. (Shame, I'd have liked to talk with her.)' Doll thought to herself when her classmate spoke up.

"Ship? Those things had a ship?" Rebecca asked.

"Turns out their landing pod was not as one-use as they thought it was and Uzi wants to repair it." The digimon replied, making Uzi's classmates look at one another.

"So she really lives in that corpse signal tower thing?" Lizzy asked, raising an eyebrow. "That sure seems to be a downgrade. Then again, she never really was one for aesthetics or that sort of stuff." Thad gave her a look with a raised eyebrow, making Lizzy roll her pink eyes.

"Yeah, it's not all that cozy, but that's why I pick up some of her stuff here." The digimon said as he went to pick up the duffel bag and the backpack again.

"Aw. You're not staying for a bit?" Lizzy asked in a disappointed tone. "I was hoping to have a bit if a girls' night with everyone, since... you know... Uzi didn't seem to happy last night..." The digimon shot her a small smile and nodded.

"I understand, but I have to get back to the others soon. I fear Uzi and V will try kill each other, if N and me don't keep them in check." Commandramon admitted. "But I'll make sure to stop by every now and then before Uzi goes on her whole 'kill all the humans' crusade when the ship's fixed." The digimon said, oblivious to the ofher teens' reactions of shock at those news. "Anyway, how are things here?"

'Uzi could kill V. No one would complain about that. Well, not many people, but still...' Doll thought to herself, before she registered the second part of Commandramon's statement about a crusade against humanity. "Что ей? (Her what?)"

"Oh, you know. People talking a lot about last night, namely you and turning into a giant dinosaur and stuff. The WDF being made fun off and demoralized after a few of them got killed. People being traumatised and needing some time to work through the grief of losing loved ones. So it's all fine." Thad said with a relaxed grin, though his eyes were rather hollowed out like he was panicking himself. Commandramon and his classmates shot him an inquisitive or worried look at that, while the former also looked at Khan, who averted his gaze.

"I see..." He said before fastening the strap of the duffel bag to fit his height better.

"Oh and then there's that giant lumbering around the hallways after that loud crash coming from the storage room earlier." Thad added.

"I'm sorry, lumbering what?" Lizzy and Rebecca asked in unison just as Commandramon felt a shudder run through his body. His entire body tensed up, his pupils contracted and his head snapped further down the hallway. For a moment the other worker drones looked in surprise at the digimon at the sudden shift in his demeanor when they heard it. Heavy footsteps seemed to reverberate through the corridor when something large rounded a corner and stumbled into view.

It was roughly the height of an adult worker drone, perhaps even a bit taller, but also much bulkier with roughly three times their width. The body was rather stout with the legs seeming to be disproportionately short. And as it was lumbering on, it had its arms forward touching the walls for support and to orientate itself, while above a valve in the middle of its torso was only a dark hollow. With the vents and pipes on its body, it had somewhat more of a steampunk aesthetic than the more sleek and futuristic worker drones. Surprisingly, while the worker drones tensed up at this sight, Commandramon relaxed a bit again.

"I take it, this is the lumbering giant you heard about." Commandramon asked Thad, who nodded with his eyes wide. Meanwhile the blind construct continued to move their way on shaking legs.

"Is that some sort of murder drone?" Khan asked somewhat frightened and about to disappear back into his apartment. The teenage drones also took a step back from where they stood while the brown metal automaton moved closer.

"No, that's a digimon. And it doesn't look to be in its best shape." Commandramon said just as the brown mechanical being stumbled and fell to the ground right in front of them.

"Excuse me, is anyone there?" It said in a masculine voice, shaking its body back and forth to try and get back on its feet. "Apologies for my unsettling appearance, but I require assistance." At that the 5 worker drones and the cyborg digimon looked at one another with the latter, shrugging.

"It doesn't look dangerous to me." Commandramon said as he looked at the brown automaton, before moving over and helping the machine digimon up, only to find it rather heavy and his leg injury complicating things. "Hey could you guys give me a hand here please?"

"Oh, right." Thad said as he helped to sit the large hunk of metal up against the wall. Lizzy, Rebecca and Doll shot Khan a disappointed look, before the WDF leader also moved over to help. Eventually, the machine-like digimon sat in the hallway and remained motionless like a puppet. "So, you're saying that's one of you... digital monsters too?" Thad asked sounding slightly uncomfortable. Commandramon nodded while he and Khan took a look at its inner worlings, opening the valve on its chest to peer inside.

"Reminds me of one of my old door prototypes." Khan muttered while Uzi's partner shone a flashlight into the body. "Should be pretty easy to fix."

"That's not a door though and the problem lies with the eyes." Commandramon said as he looked at the still empty space that seemed like it was meant to be akin to a helmet. "Do you think you can fix this up?"

"Of course. Almost done." Khan said as he rummaged around inside the digimon's chest, while the digimon remained motionless. The worker drone teens tried to look out of curiosity what he was doing exactly, but could not really see the inner workings through the small hatch. Then with an audible click, the digimon's pale green eyes opened again and it began to move, slowly sitting up while the others gave it space to do so. It then closed the hatch on its chest and looked at them.

"Thank you for your assistance, robot citizens. I am indebted to you. My name is Guardromon." The digimon introduced himself.

Digimon Analyzer

Guardromon

Level: Champion

Machine Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: Destruction Grenade

"I like his voice." Rebecca whispered to Doll, who rolled her eyes at the blue-haired girl's antics before both turned their attention back to the digimon.

"It was nothing. Just tightening some screws, really." Khan said rubbing the back of his head after hearing perhaps the first compliment after last night. Commandramon looked the digimon over for anymore external damages and found some rather scary looking scratch marks on the machine digimon's back as well as some big dents.

"You look like you just got out of a fight. How did you get here in the first place?" He asked Guardromon.

"I was stationed near a garbage disposal site, when I have noticed a missing item among the electronical devices to be recycled. As I was following the trail of the suspect, I came across this tear in the fabric of the digital world. Since it was clear that the suspect had likely fled with the stolen vending machine, I crossed through it but found myself in this frozen city." Commandramon's eyes widened at Guardromon's recollection, remembering his earlier encounter with Impmon.

'Oh that... Now I get why the others sounded rather annoyed when they mentioned that digimon.' He thought.

"Digital world? Is that like the internet or something?" Thad asked since unlike the girls he was nof clued in about the details about digimon as a whole.

"Negative. The digiworld is at best to be described as a parallel world existing on a different plane of reality. Your digital networks barely skim the surface of that reality." Guardromon explained before continuing on. "After my arrival, I followed a trail of the suspect leading me to the partially damaged roof of one of your underground facilities. However, judging by the tracks, the culprit I was looking for did not enter the facility. I was about to turn around when I was attacked and fell through the roof of this place." He concluded.

"So what are you planning on doing now?" Commandramon asked.

"It appears that I am no longer able to return to the Digital World and my previous assigned position to guard. As a sign of my gratitude, I hereby offer my services to you, mister door mechanic." Guardromon replied before bowing slightly towards Khan, who looked rather shocked.

"Mister door mechanic?" Uzi's father said incredulously, while the teens fight back the urge to burst out laughing.

"Mister Doorman, you haven't introduced yourself yet." Commandramon said quietly, making Khan realize that the digimon obviously didn't know his name. He just wasn't used to that anymore since he had been a celebrity within Outpost 3 for making the doors.

"Oh right, where are my manners? Khan Doorman, it's a pleasure." Uzi's father said in a bit of an awkward tone. 'Come on Khan, you were less nervous when you won the best door award back at Outpost 9.' He thought to himself.

"Well met. What shall I do?" Guardromon asked.

"Well, what can you do?" the leader of the WDF inquired.

"I am very proficient in guard duty as well as the pursuit and arrest of criminal suspects as well as the exceptional termination of dangerous individuals through lethal force. I can stay on guard for an unlimited amount of time and do not require any payment." Thad, Commandramon and Khan looked at the machine digimon for a moment before they all said the same thing in unison.

"He's perfect for the job." They said while the girls shot them a look as if saying 'Really now?', while Guardromon remained oblivious.

"Oh, before I forget it!" Commandramon then quickly rushed back into the apartment and Uzi's room causing the others to watch curiously as to what the cyborg dinosaur might have missed. He soon emerged from Uzi's room with a few handheld mirrors. "Can't forget those."

"Mirrors?" Lizzy asked somewhat confused. "What does Uzi need mirrors for?"

"Maybe she wants to look good for that N guy." Rebecca chuckled, causing Khan's visor to glitch slightly at the thought of his daughter being romantically involved with a murder drone. Luckily, Commandramon's response put that unease to rest.

"Uhm, no. It's also for the repairs on the ship. For some reason the mirrors we had at the ship broke when Uzi was working on something all of the sudden." He said, when Doll's eyes widened.

"Зеркала... разбились? (The mirrors... broke?)" Doll asked hesitantly.

"Yup. It was pretty weird. One moment she looked into one to try and get a better look at something and the next she looked at it, the glass just shattered. Luckily she didn't get herself damaged from the glass, but now we got no mirrors and no screwdrivers... and no wrenches that fit the nuts and bolts." Uzi's partner replied before he slung the duffel bag over his shoulder as well as her backpack, while holding his rifle and trying to balance everything on his feet. "Quite heavy, but I should be fine. I'll be off then and make sure to say hi to Uzi for you guys. Bye." And with that he walked towards the exit and disappeared from sight from the drines and Guardromon. 'I hope N managed to keep V and Uzi from doing something stupid... Yeah, I'm sure Uzi is fine.'

He remained rather oblivious to the fact that Guardromon told him that he had been attacked AFTER crossing over from the digital world to Copper 9. He also failed not notice how Doll's eyes had widened even more at the details of he had just told them about the broken mirrors, while Khan led the machine digimon towards the rest of WDF to introduce their newest recruit. That left the Lizzy, Thad and Rebecca with Doll in the hallway.

"Hey Doll. You okay?" Thad asked when he noticed the look on the Russian drone's face. The other two girls looked at her as well when she kept looking the way Commandramon had taken to leave.

"Да, я в порядке. (Yes. I'm fine.)" Doll replied though she couldn't help and hope that she was wrong about the implications of what she had just heard. 'А вот Узи нет... Удачи. (But Uzi is not... Good luck.)'

With the snowstorm of the last night having passed, the streets of the city were covered in a fresh layer of snow over the older layers of frost and ice. Now the wind gently pushed loose snowflakes around like feathers or leaves beneath the mostly gray cloud-covered skies blocking out the sun. It was still very bright and basically ideal weather to scavenge for supplies on the surface. The one doing the scavenging was not too happy about her current situation though when she picked up a half of an old wrench from what used to be a hardware store of some sort. She eyed the damaged tool for a moment before throwing it away again and sending it crashing into an old metal shelf.

"Of course, there is nothing here. Why would there be? It's after all just a hardware store." Uzi sarcastically said to herself as she walked past the skeletons of humans still holding their shopping carts as they had died and frozen in mid-motion. Two of them had died in the middle of a conservation with one still wearing the uniform of the store as they held a lightbulb, which had long since broken from the freezing temperatures. Another skeleton looked lost at a shelf as if in thought what to buy, though the shelf had been cleared out some time before without shattering or moving the human remains. Places like these had been the very first to be looted and repurposed by the worker drones. They were robots after all and maintenance required tools and supplies.

Pretty much every store on the planet, that had sold something the liberated androids could have needed, was like this. Another reason why supermarkets were mostly left untouched, except for the cables and electronic devices installed in them. After all, the drones had more use for their shopping carts than their food items. However this also meant that most of those stores had been picked clean of the best quality wares back then, leaving the worst and broken things behind. Not that Uzi could complain about the bad cleaning job when her own room was sometimes a bit cluttered, but right now it was not helping her.

Walking past an aisle of aquarium materials and a few small aquariums mounted on the wall, which had broken due to the sudden expansion of the water and now only held the perfectly preserved skeletons of the fishes inside, Uzi moved into an adjacent supermarket. Naturally the place had experienced a bit of decay from the years of the elements weathering down on the large building, parts of the roof and walls having collapsed, but it was more intact than the hardware store. And judging by the size, it probably had an aisle or two for products such as skincare and make-up, which would logically also have small handheld mirrors.

"Tch! Stupid cheap mirrors." Uzi grumbled to herself thinking back to earlier. She had tried fixing something, but even with her small stature, she could simple not look behind a corner like that. So by using her flashlight for illumination and the mirror to see she had wanted to see what she was doing at least and not accidentally get electrocuted by a hitting a cable. But then the most bizarre thing happened. Just as she was about to adjust the mirror, her left eye had glitched and replaced with a strange three-pointed symbol. It was only for a fraction of a second, but in that moment, she felt a headache run through her like it had after she had killed J and mirror suddenly burst into shards of glass.

And that was not the only time that happened. After taking a look at the vending machine Impmon had left in the spire to see whether or not it could be salvaged for spare parts, she found herself looking at her own reflection in the machine's glass window. Surprisingly, N's claws had only scratched the surface of it and with all the broken displays and screens in the ship, Uzi would not complain about some reinforced material to potentially replace. But just like with the mirror, she sudden felt a slight sting in her head when her right eye glitched into that same symbol and the glass shattered as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer.

Without screwdrivers or fitting wrenches there was only so much Uzi could have done in the spire to continue her repairs and with Commandramon having gone to pick up some of her stuff that only left her with N and V as company. Therefore, she did the logical thing of venturing out into the city on her own to look for supplies herself. She would have taken N with her, if it wasn't for the murder drones' glaring weakness to sunlight, forcing her to go on her own.

Moving through the aisles, Uzi paid very little attention to the various human skeletons that literally stood frozen in the place of their last moments alive as she made her way through the store. Accidentally she bumped into what looked to be a mother pushing her cart with her toddler inside the cart, causing both skeleton shatter from the sudden impact. This made her jump a bit at the sudden noise, before slapping herself.

"Come on Uzi. There's nothing here that will jump out a corner to try and get you." She told herself as she found what she was looking for after the second round through the supermarket, namely because of a mirror installed in the shelf having been covered in ice and thus making it unrecognizable as such on the first glance. Moving into the aisle to pick up something that was actually on her mental shopping list, Uzi moved some ice and snow aside that had fallen onto the shelf and covered its merchandise. She ignored make-up and nail polish when she finally found something she was looking for, only to realize it was one of those focus mirrors that needed to be held right in front of the face to essentially hold a magnifying glass at one's own face. "UGH! What is it with this stupid stereotype of not finding what you are looking for right away?" Uzi thought out loud.

In that moment she looked right in the mirror as right eye turned into the symbol once more, allowing Uzi to see it very clearly just for a moment. It was a hexagon with three arrows pointing from it in the shape of an equilateral triangle. Then the glass of the mirror burst apart, forcing Uzi to drop it in shock. Not because she didn't expect that, but rather because she didn't want her own visor to get scratched up by the flying glass shards.

'Lizzy would never live this one down.' Uzi thought to herself humorlessly, just when a particularly strong gust of wind washing into the supermarket from a nearby hole in the wall. That was until she heard something over the sound of the whooshing wind and the snow. There was a buzzing sound that gradually grew louder and it was not the mechanical sort of buzzing of a phone, but rather something Uzi only knew from some of the media she had consumed. The sound of an insect's wings beating rapidly, but from the volume of the sound it would have needed to be quite large. When the noise grew even louder, she saw a shadow fly over a hole in the wall, blocking out the light for a moment, just before something large landed on the building. Above her dust and ice fell down and the roof seemed to sag a little under the weight of whatever this was.

Instantly, Uzi felt a feeling of dread fill her processor alongside the instinct to hide away from whatever this was. Quietly, she moved away from where she believed this unknown being to be located and even further away from any holes in the roof as she slowly moved towards the doorway connection the hardware store with the supermarket. However, just it began to move again, this time right in her direction. Looking around, she found herself in front of a cashier booth right in front of the building's exit and hid behind it. She tried her best to keep her breathing down while listening for anything. A loud hiss rang through the air as whatever this was did not sound too happy. Peering around the corner, she found herself looking through the exit at an old car in the front, likely someone just having pulled out of their parking lot when the core collapsed, right before a long scythe-like blade stabbed through the roof and the driver's remain, picked the car up and threw it aside into the still crowded parking lot, where it crashed to the ground with a thunderous sound.

"What the f-" Uzi's voice died when the thing climbed down from the building revealing itself partially to her. She could describe the creature at best as was a praying mantis, though one the size of a truck. Its dark green carapace stood in stark contrast to the white and blue hues of the world outside while its head was covered in a faceless mask with orange-red lines and a pair of antennae sitting on its temples, while below was a jaw covered in grey skin and filled with sharp teeth. Unlike a normal praying mantis, this thing's forelimbs were literal metallic scythe-like blades while it stood of four heavy legs. Uzi also spotted two semitransparent wings divided into three feather-like parts sitting at the waist where the torso joined the long abdomen, which it dragged behind itself.

The mantis-like creature let out a guttural growl as it turned its eyeless gaze around the parking lot and into the store as if it was looking for something. Carelessly, it crushed cars, shopping carts and human remains under its feet as it moved deeper into the parking lot, throwing some of the cars around as if they were toys and hissing in frustration.

'Yeah, looks like the shopping trip was a short one indeed.' Uzi thought as she thought about trying to get as far away from that thing as possible. Moving away from the spot she had been hiding, she quickly sneaked towards the doorway to the hardware store, just before a loud crash right next to her made her lose balance and drop to the ground. Looking to her right, a car had been thrown through the front of the supermarket and was now lodged into the wall, stopping just a little to Uzi's right. Behind it, the mantis simply continued its search with its back turned to the store and Uzi.

The worker drone continued when she passed the last remnants of a showcase window. In it she saw her own reflection with her digital eyes wide and hollow in shock. Behind the glass, the creature looked like it was about to take off, beating its wings so fast she couldn't even see them clearly anymore.

And then, her right eye changed into that symbol again and the mantis' head snapped towards her instantly, staring at her directly with its eyeless face before the glass shattered. Uzi quickly bolted into the hardware store just as something large smashed into the store snarling and screeching and bladed limbs clawing in her direction. Risking a look behind her, she found the insect trying and failing to squeeze its body into the building, trashing around in an attempt to wiggle inside.

Then one of its bladed forelimbs glowed a deep red and it swung its arm towards Uzi. Instantly, a crescent energy blade separated from the arm and flew right towards her. Uzi just managed to drop down to the floor when the attack flew over her and cut in a straight line through the empty shelves and human skeletons alike before they collapsed such as an empty metal shelf that fell right on top of her, trapping her within a pile of debris.

"No! No! No!" Uzi shouted as she tried to get out only to find her limbs pinned down and only rattling the debris above her. "C'mon!" She quickly fell silent when a second loud crash happened right above her. She couldn't see a lot through the debris, but she could make out the glint of the mantis' limbs. Instantly, Uzi fell silent as the creature chittered and hissed while cutting through skeletons and shelves with its bladed limbs, searching the area for its prey. As it did so, it also moved some of the debris above Uzi away, allowing her to see that it had smashed a hole through the store's roof and now stood within it right above her. It kept looking around, oblivious to the worker drone it had previously chased being right in front of it. Then its head snapped to the side and it took off once more, leaving Uzi in that pile of debris. 'Wait what? Why didn't it notice me? I clearly came after me when...' Uzi thought when she realized something.

The insect-like creature had not reacted to the sound of her moving or the shattering of the glass. It had reacted to the symbol on her eye doing that strange thing. And before it had arrived in this place, Uzi had accidentally broken that other mirror. At that realization, she fought back the urge to let out a frustrated groan when she managed to wiggle her way out of the broken metal pile that used to be a shelf.

'Great... Now I got to avoid mirrors, so I can properly line up shots with my...' Uzi's eyes widened when she realized something important in that moment. She had not have held her sick-as-hell railgun ever since the fight with J. And the reason for that was because she had dropped it right before N had picked her up. In short, it was still in Outpost 3's storage room. 'DAMMIT! DID I REALLY FORGET MY RAILGUN BACK THEN?! BITE ME, STUPID EDGY TEEN BRAIN! AND YOU TOO, DAD!'

With a sigh, she dusted her clothes off, before carefully making her way out of the store, checking that the mantis had not just perched itself on top of the building and was just waiting for her to come out. Once the coast was clear, she decided to get back to the spire, looming in the distance. She rather had the devils she knew than the one she didn't.

'Just what was that thing? Was that some sort of digimon? If so, why didn't that analyzer show me anything?' She thought as she searched in her pocket for the small gadget only to find it not there. That made her remember that she had put it aside before she had started working and left it on the console next to V before she had gone out to look for supplies earlier. "... I really need to put that thing on a chain or something." She said to herself, before looking up. "Can this day get any worse?"

And as if to answer her question, she found the mantis-like creature crawl over the side of one of the ruins right above her. She hadn't noticed it before despite its color being vastly different from the gray concrete skeletons of the city around it. However, its attention was not on her. Instead its head was turned towards another destination. With a guttural hiss, it let go of the building's wall and took flight and headed straight towards the corpse spire.

"Oh no..." Uzi said to herself as she ran after it. She had a very bad feeling about this.

Being literally collared and chained like a dog while forced to sit on a chair was not fun at all and V most certainly would not recomment it to anyone. If anything, she wouldn't mind putting a certain purple thing in this seat instead and then slowly tear her apart. But unfortunately she was forced to behave. If not by N preventing her from getting blown to bits by that purple drone's pet dinosaur, then by the threat of that thing's railgun, which she had forgotten back at the bunker.

But with her chained down like this, she couldn't even act upon this desire even with both Uzi and Commandramon gone right now. So instead, she opted to do the next best thing and close her eyes, mulling over her options on how to proceed from here. It was rather obvious that V didn't like Uzi all that much, understandably so. While she did enjoy the banter more than the lectures she had gotten from J, she made it no secret that she'd like to kill the worker drone. As for Commandramon, V would be able tolerate him if he wasn't the second greatest issue in this situation. Having seen firsthand what the digimon could do in combat, the disassembly drone would definitely call him a potential threat, though if the last night's events were anything to go by, she could take him in a fight even if he suddenly transformed. On the other hand though, he was far less likely to incur V's righteous wrath due to his personality, which was unfortunately for her not too dissimilar from N's.

And then there was the issue of N, the overly friendly disassembly drone that had landed her in this position in the first place and the reason why they went rogue on their mission in the first place. Part of her couldn't blame N for the choice he had made the night before. After all, J did try to kill him for asking an admittedly reasonable question, which in itself was more of a rarity when it came to him of all people. On the other hand, V was still rather unhappy about her current situation and it was in no small part due to N... and she was still a bit grossed out by him liking her sword like that.

Now here she was, chained down and blowing bubbles with nothing better to do. But much to her surprise though she found Uzi's digivice laying not far from her on the opposite side of the console shortly after she had left. Knowing that Uzi likely wouldn't come even if she told her and V feeling rather petty in that moment just said nothing while N took a break and got himself some sleep elsewhere in the spire after checking on V one last time. With a few well-aimed swings of her tail, she did manage to nudge the device bit by bit towards her before it now sat before her.

On the first glance, it was just some little v-pet toy and so utterly unremarkable, the disassembly drone would have thought it to be little more than a piece of junk that just so happened to share the purple thing's color scheme. But as Commandramon so kindly informed N and her earlier, it was somehow linked to Uzi and the digimon being partners or something.

Now V's first idea was, of course, to try and destroy it. After all, if it was that important to the two of them, perhaps breaking would make it easier for her to deal with them. However, she found out the hard way that this was easier said than done. Switching one hand for a set of claws had tried to just "accidentally" stab through the display of the digivice, only to find it unable to even scratch it. After a few failed attempts, she switched gears and tried bringing her sword down on it. But before it even made contact with the digivice, her attack was blocked by some sort of invisible field with the digivice's screen glowing, followed by V being thrown back by an unseen force and falling to the side with her chair. As a last resort, she tried using the nanite acid from her tail, only to find the acide not being able to do anything to the digivice at all. Instead she just melted small holes into the console around it, much to her disappointment.

After sitting up straight again with some effort, V just glared at the small gadget, which almost seemed to spite her. Rolling her eyes, she turned her back to it.

"Ugh! N better snaps out of this 'rebellious' phase soon, before that purple freak forgets that we do have to drink oil." V said, glaring at the wall with her arms crossed. Just then, the digivice's screen lit up and emitted a beeping noise akin to an alarm, causing V to turn around. "What now?" She said annoyed before the screen suddenly displayed the holographic radar, that Uzi had seen already. V was a bit taken aback by that until she noticed something. Near the middle were two yellow dots, which V bet were her and N's locations. But from the outer edge of the radar appeared a green dot closing in towards the middle. "What is that supposed to be?"

As if to answer her comment, V's ears picked up a sound from outside. The rapid beating of wings like that of an insect. Except Copper 9 had no insects and the sound was way too loud. Her eyes widened a bit as she turned her head towards the entrance of the ship, just when she heard something large land on the spire.

"N? What is going on out there?" She called out, dread risiing up inside her when she didn't hear him reply back and only how something was moving along the spire's walls. "N! Wake up!"

Meanwhile, N was hanging from the wall of the spire's interior with his tail lodged within the mass of dead drone bodies that made up the spire's form. With his wings wrapped around him and him hanging upside down, he somewhat resembled a bat. However, he remained asleep after a rather stressful night and a busy day, making him completely oblivious to the mantis-like creature pushing its way into the spire through the entrance the disassembly drones had used to fly in and out of their base. Using its forelimbs it cut and pushed dead bodies and scrap metal aside to fit in better before it spotted the sleeping disassembly drone. Crawling along the wall, the monstrous insect moved closer and reared one of its bladed limbs to swing it at N.

"DCD Bomb!" Commandramon shouted as he threw the explosive up at the mantis, hitting it square in the face as the explosion went off and made it fall screeching to the ground. The sudden explosion, the screech of pain coming from the mantis-like creature and the tremor running through the ground made N wake up instantly and fall off the spire, before he hit the snow with a surprised yelp. "N, are you okay?" Commandramon asked when he kept his gun trained at the trashing insect as it kicked and scrambled to try and get back on its feet, knocking against the landing pod while doing so.

"A bit shaken, but..." N was cut off by the creature picking itself up and snarling at them. "What is that?"

"That's a Snimon." Commandramon said. "We need to get V out of the ship. She's in great danger in that ship and we could need her firepower for this one." He added, making N look at him rather shocked. Snimon meanwhile had now positioned itself right next to the ship as its arms glowed in a deep red. "N, get down!" Commandramon then tackled N to the side just as Snimon fired its attack at then, cutting two gashes through the wall of the spire behind them.

"Oh come on, I just fixed that wall!" N said when he switched his hand for a machine gun and opened fire.

"M16 Assassin!" Commandramon followed suit as his rifle barked with each shot at the insect digimon. However, while Snimon covered its face with its scythe-like limbs, the bullets harmlessly bounced off its carapace, failing to punch through it. It let out a snarl more out of anger than pain as it scrambled around, trying to avoid the hail of bullets

"Our bullets aren't doing anything!" N said over the sound of his gun, his tone taking on a rather panicked note.

"I can see that. Where's Uzi?" Commandramon said when he noticed the absence of his partner only now. 'If I could digivolve right now, I might be able to push Snimon back.'

"She went out to grab some supplies like you but didn't want to go back to the bunker, so she headed into the city." N said, making the digimon next to him narrow his eyes.

"That's bad. Without her and her digivice, I can't digivolve- WHOA WATCH OUT!" Both Commandramon and N were forced to jump out of the path of another attack from Snimon. A clean straight cut in the ground was all that was left behind by the attack as well as a now perfectly bisected engine laying around.

"What now? We can't hold it off like that." N asked.

"Try and aim for its antennea. Since it is blind, it needs those the most. Switch to smaller explosives and cover me. I'll get V." Commandramon said, before N nodded and switched to his grenade launcher. The cyborg digimon ran towards the ship with his rifle slung over his shoulders when Snimon moved to intercept him. However, it had to stop and raise an arm in defense when grenades exploded against its side. It quickly turned its attention to the disassembly drone, before taking flight launching itself towards him, much to his shock as he spread his own wings to dodge the attack. In the narrow space within the spire, flying was rather combersome for the larger digimon, allowing N to swoop in from above and slash with his claws at the back of the mantis' head, severing one of its antennae. Much to N's surprise, the severed part disintegrated into particles of data only a moment later, leaving nothing behind. Unfortunately for N though, Snimon was now truly angry and charged at N with renewed bloodlust.

Meanwhile, Commandramon rushed into the ship and found V still on the chair.

"What's going on out there?" She demanded in an angry tone when the ship shook once more from Snimon bumping into it while chasing N.

"We are being attacked by a digimon." Uzi's partner replied as he looked around for the key to the lock on V's collar.

"WHAT?!"

"No time!" He replied before he found the small brass key and grabbed it. "We need to get you out of here first!" Commandramon fumbled with the key a bit before it finally slid into the lock and he twisted it. The collar and chain hit the ground with a deafening clatter. For a second, V simply looked at at the digimon with a hundred thoughts running through her mind.

How easy it would be to kill him now. How she could literally just make short work of him and then Uzi. Normally V would have probably tried to attack the digimon right now, but the situation was far from normal. The ship shook violently once more when N was thrown against it and hit it with a loud thud and a pained yelp, snapping her out of those thoughts. Commandramon didn't stick around as he rushed out the exit to help N, who was now laying in the snow.

"N!" He shouted at the grounded disassembly drone, just before Snimon came down behind N. Coughing up some oil, N tried picking himself off the ground just when Snimon's foot pinned him down to the ground and made him let out a strangled outcry. "Hang in there, N!" Commandramon called out when Snimon basically backhanded him, sending him tumbling to the ground. The insect digimon then hissed loudly as it brought its scythe up like the axe of an executioner to bring it down on N, only to get kicked in the side of its head with enough force to send it crashing to the ground. V wasted no time to follow up by firing a a missile at the digimon, which shrieked in pain and thrashed on the ground wildly.

"V..." N croaked out as V picked him up.

"Save it for later!" She said before putting some distance between them and Snimon. Commandramon picked himself up and moved over to them. "Alright, what are we dealing with exactly?" V asked the Rookie-level digimon when she tossed Uzi's digivice to him, while she quickly switched her hand back to a gun and aimed at Snimon. He was about to ask why she had it in the first place when its holographic display showed the insect-like monster in front of them.

Digimon Analyzer

Snimon

Level: Champion

Insect Digimon

Type: Vaccine

Attack: Twin Sickles

Both N and V looked at the data, before turning to Commandramon.

"Didn't you say something about Vaccine digimon being supposed to be friendly?!" N asked.

"Snimon are an exception! They were created to hunt down Virus-types due to their malevolent and destructive nature. For that reason they were made just as ruthless. But they ended having little to no personality or emotions and hunt down any Virus-type with no mercy. They are so brutal that both Data and even other Vaccine-types are afraid of them" Commandramon replied, training his gun at the fallen digimon as it picked itself up, part of its green carapace now singed black.

'So it's basically your average disassembly drone with a bigger body, more legs and bigger claws. Great... wait a second...' V thought as she abruptly turned towards the Virus-type digimon next to her. "Are you telling me that six-legged piece of anti-virus is after you?" She said in an accusing tone, contemplating to just throw Commandramon at it to throw it off their backs, though she quickly dismissed the thought with the sun still being out.

"No, it went for some reason for N while he was asleep. Maybe it has become so violent, that it simply doesn't care what it attacks anymore." Commandramon said defensively.

"Are you saying it sees us as a virus?" N asked.

"Maybe. Or maybe you caught yourself one. One thing's for sure though, Snimon is not going to tell you." Commandramon replied before opening fire on Snimon again. The insect digimon shielded its head from the bullets, while N and V shot grenades at it, pinning it down where it stood. While they kept Snimon pinned a fourth person entered the spire through the ground entrance behind them.

"Guys we- N, why did you let her out!?" Whatever Uzi was about to say was cut off by her pointing at V.

"Uzi!" N said happily, while V rolled her eyes.

"Oh hey, purple thing. Back from your shopping tour already. Did you bring us a toy?" She asked mockingly, before pointing at Commandramon. "And just so you know, your friend there unchained me." Uzi was about to ask what had possessed her partner to do that, but they didn't have much time to argue when Snimon's claws began to glow blood-red again.

"Get down!" Commandramon shouted, but too late when Snimon's Twin Sickles flew towards them. Commandramon quickly tackled Uzi to the ground and V shoved N out of the way as the attack passed over them. "Are you alright, Uzi?" He asked, handing her the digivice.

"I'm fine, now get off!" Uzi said, shoving her partner off of her before they turned to N and V. "N, are you-" Uzi stopped instantly at what she saw.

"I'm okay! Thanks for-" N went quiet when he saw V's kneeling on the ground, hissing in pain as her right arm and wing had been severed and hit the ground next to her. To them an injury like that would heal in no time, but it was still a brutal sight to behold. Meanwhile, Snimon let out another hiss as it took flight once more. N and Uzi said nothing, their eyes still locked on V. Commandramon did not stay silent as a loud growl escaped him. Snimon seemingly responded to that by charging straight towards at the digimon and the three drones with its arms spread wide to slice them into ribbons.

"Commandramon!" Uzi said.

"I won't let it!" Commandramon shouted as he rushed towards Snimon, when Uzi's digivice lit up again and her partner digivolved.

Commandramon digivolves to... Hi-Commandramon!

Regardless of its opponent's digivolution, but the insect digimon did not slow down its charge or try to prevent a collision. Whether it was due to Snimon's aggressiveness or its blindness mattered not. All that mattered was that Hi-Commandramon met its charge head-on. The two Champion-level digimon clashed with tremendous force, sending a shockwave through the spire and blowing away loose particles of ice. The mantis' claws slammed against the riot shield again and again but failed to cut through it or the digimon holding it as he pushed it away. Hi-Commandramon wasted no time to press on the attack.

"Destroy Charge!" He slammed his shield right into its body, throwing it backwards, but it managed to brake its fall by taking flight. However, what little self-preservation instincts Snimon still had kicked in at the appearance of this opponent and its injured state. Flying higher it tried reaching the entrance though which it had entered the spire.

"It's getting away!" Uzi said.

"I can't shoot, Uzi! If I hit the spire, the whole thing could collapse on top of us." Hi-Commandramon responded when the two noticed an intensifying yellow glow coming from N, who had his cutting laser aimed at the retreating digimon. Without a word, he fired a yellow beam at the fleeing Snimon with pinpoint accuracy. While the carapace of the digimon was not penetrated, the thin wings of the insect were sliced through like butter, causing it to fall down screeching in pain. Its arms cut into the side of the spire, but failed to find purchase, only resulting in it dousing itself in worker drone corpses and their oil.

"Nice shot N. Now!" With that Uzi turned to Hi-Commandramon, who lined up his grenade launcher with Snimon, which already picked itself off the ground and tried to charge up another Twin Sickles with its scythes.

"DCD Grenade!" He shot twice at Snimon, causing its body to be engulfed in an explosion. The oil on its cracked carapace caught fire like firewood drenched in gasoline, burning it alive. The virus hunter let out a last outcry of pain before its body disintegrated into particles of data before everyone's eyes, leaving nothing behind in its wake other than a smoldering crater in the ground. For a moment, no one said a word as they calmed down from the life and death situation. Then V broke the silence, testing out her regrown arm, replacing the regular hand with a set of claws.

"So, who else is hungry?" She asked with a sadistic smile aimed at Uzi, while everyone other than the purple worker drone else shot her a disappointed look. Hi-Commandramon resisted the urge to sigh as he loaded a stun grenade into his weapon, pointed it at V and pulled the trigger, simultaneously overloading not only V's audio receptors, but also Uzi and N's.

When evening came, the wind had started to pick up again, announcing the coming storm for the night. Soon enough the city was engulfed in a thick curtain of thick snowflakes once more, while the setting sun bathed the snow in crimson light.

Meanwhile things inside the disassembly drone's ship had calmed down considerably, compared to earlier.

"Pliers." Uzi called out from underneath the control console while Commandramon stood next to her, holding a flashlight and another broken mirror after it had shattered under Uzi's gaze once more.

"Pliers." Her partner simply replied, handing her the tools from a toolbox he had taken from her room, while N carried some of the things Commandramon had brought along from Uzi's room in the colony.

"Uzi, where should I put those?" He asked when he held up a small stack of blankets. Not exactly something that had been on Uzi's priority list, but Commandramon felt the cold a lot more than the machines and the lack of a soft mattress had made him pack as many as possible.

"Just put them in the corner for now. We'll figure out sleeping arrangements once I'm done with this... Hey, hold the light a bit more to the right! I can't see!" Uzi told Commandramon, who readjusted where he was pointing the flashlight at. N shrugged as he put the blankets down, before turning to V, who was to being chained and collared on a chair.

"All that help and this is the thanks I get." V muttered to herself, rolling her eyes at the antics of the worker drone and her partner digimon tinkering away at the ship.

"Well... you did try to kill Uzi." N said as he sorted through some of Uzi's manga.

"Yeah. Once..." V said crossing her arms when Uzi emerged from underneath the console and Commandramon offered a hand to help her sit up. Uzi responded by just jumping onto her feet, making her partner clap impressed. "I'm still hungry, though..." That was when N handed her a warm mug of oil. It wasn't fresh and instead taken from the reserves of the spire, but it would keep her systems from overheating. One of the few good news after the confrontation with Snimon had been how neither the ship nor the spire had taken too much damage. Another was how the spire's oil reserves were still mostly intact, meaning that N and V wouldn't necessarily have to go out and hunt for food or else Uzi would need to somehow come up with a way to provide them oil or at worst get rid of them. Something she really didn't want to do in N's case. V though...

"Why did you even free V in the first place?" Uzi asked her partner, genuinely curious what made him think to let the psychotic murder drone off the leash aside from fighting off Snimon. "I mean, seriously." N and V didn't say it out loud, but they too were curious as to what motivated the digimon to help V when she clearly was not sold on the whole idea of working with Uzi and him.

"Well, she's technically part of our team now..." Commandramon said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"I'm not!" V retorted from her chair, before sipping her oil loudly to annoy Uzi and looking at her mug somewhat displeased at the stale taste of old oil.

"And she's N's friend and I thought he'd be rather upset if something happened to her." Commandramon continued, causing N to blush profusely and look away, timidly sipping his own oil from a mug with a dog on it. Both Uzi and V looked at the male disassembly drone for a moment before both of them rolled their eyes. "And N's our friend too, so-"

"Okay, okay. We got it." Uzi stopped Commandramon before he could say anything even more lame.

"Understood... what about you though?" He asked Uzi, who looked at him puzzled. "I mean, from what the others told me, they are rather sorry about what happened yesterday. Should we-" Commandramon was once more cut off by Uzi.

"We can worry about that once the ship's repaired. No more talk about those guys until then." Uzi said, before turning away from her partner. In truth, hearing Commandramon tell her about how her classmates had reacted did affect her more than she let on. Still, she could not go back on her word. Not after all the years she had been made fun of and been a social outcast... which, by the way, was totally her own choice.

"...And about your railgun?" N asked hesitantly, making Uzi recall once more that her sick-as-hell railgun was still in Outpost 3.

"Oh yeah, where is it actually?" Commandramon asked when V chuckled. "I don't think I've seen it since last night."

"Shortstack over there was too busy being angsty to realize she dropped it back then." The chained-up disassembly drone said, earning herself another glare from Uzi.

"Shut it, V!" She said defensively, while V didn't take the 'purple thing' serious at all.

"Just for the record, I could totally have beaten that bug on my own." V said in a smug tone.

"As if! I, on the other hand, could have taken it down with my railgun before it even reached the spire!" Uzi said matching V's smugness.

"Oh when you were hiding and running away like the little worker drone you are?"

"I was not!"

"Oh right, you were probably also screaming for help."

"Bite me!" Uzi shouted as she was about to throw hands.

"Gladly!" V said, leaning forward in her seat with her eyes wide and her mouth grinning sadistically.

'And they are back at it.' Commandramon and N thought yet found themselves smile a bit while Uzi and V looked like they were about to lunge at one another and start a brawl, if it wasn't for V being chained up and Uzi being physically held back by her partner.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Lengthening Shadows

Light flooded the inside of the disassembly drone's corpse spire more than usual, while Uzi sat in the roof of the ship in front of another busted piece of hydraulics connected to the spider-like legs of the pod. The mechanism was completely new to her in terms of design, but like every other piece of machinery, it operated under the same laws of physics. It was just what Uzi needed in that moment, a challenging work that made her lose herself in the job she was doing. Almost a day had passed since the confrontation with Snimon and the scars the battle had left in form of deep cuts through the heaps of scrap metal on the spire's floor and walls of worker drone bodies were still fresh. Since the battle with Snimon (and her partner also knocking her out alongside N and V), Uzi had found herself unable to rest. Instead, she had thrown herself alongside the tools her partner had brought with renewed energy into the repairs of the ship and worked tirelessly.

For a second, she cringed at the thought of just how much she was the model worker drone in the eyes of the humans, even if she was working towards their annihilation.

But nothing deterred her. Night had come and gone and she had barely even noticed it when she was finished on the internal fixes of the ship and moved to the outside, only to find dawn's light shine through the gashes in the spire's wall. She just kept working and tried to work through the feelings the last day had left behind her when she apparently had somehow attracted the virus hunter with...

"Uzi?" A concerned voice akin to that of a young boy tore her from her thoughts, just as she closed the panel to the hydraulic cables she had just patched up, only to see a three clawed foot right behind it. Such a sudden appearance caught her so off-guard, she almost stumbled backwards in shock and fell off the ship before she caught herself. Even still, her partner digimon had taken a step forward, grabbing onto her wrist to pull her back in case she lost her balance. "Oh I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to startle you!" He said before letting go of her once it was clear she was not about to fall off. Despite the ship's relatively small size, falling down would at least be rather uncomfortable.

His response to her reaction made her groan and roll her eyes. "Calm down, will you? It's not like I don't know what I'm doing." Uzi said as she grabbed her tools moved away from the edge. The Rookie-level looked at her work so far in silence before turning to her, making her smile smugly at him. "Not bad, right? Honestly, I didn't think it would be done this fast. Give it a few more weeks and we'll be ready for takeoff." Uzi said confidently.

"That is if N actually remembers how to fly this ship without crashing it again. Otherwise we might need to learn how to pilot it ourselves." Commandramon said, remembering the rather thick instruction manual that they had found for the ship. It sure was helpful to repair it, but it was a rather heavy stack of paper. 'There was even some oil on the pages... Did J hit someone with it?' The digimon thought, before shaking his head and turning back to Uzi, who cringed at the thought of having to learn the whole piloting thing.

Some of the older worker drones knew how to drive vehicles before they were put underground. But she doubted there were any former pilots around. Or at least not in Outpost 3, but she also didn't want to try and scour any other surviving colonies like Outpost 9 for someone to fly something like that.

"Thanks for crushing my aspirations." Uzi said, shooting her partner digimon a flat look.

"Well, I'd rather not lose my partner in some spaceship crashing down, you know?" He replied, before looking impressed at her work. "But you sure got a lot done."

"Oh, that? It was nothing." Uzi said with her arms crossed. However, as she did so, her foot caught onto one of the hull's ridges, causing her to almost lose balance. Flailing her arms around on one leg, Uzi managed to catch herself just before she could sail down and have to do another anime combat landing to not end up hurt. For a short moment, neither her or the digimon spoke. "See? Nothing. And we are not going to talk about this. Ever." Uzi told Commandramon, who looked at her worried when he noticed her digital eyes glitch a little.

"Are you okay? You don't look so good." He said as Uzi let out a laugh.

"Of course, I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm better than okay! I am GOD!" The worker drone said, pumping her fists in the air as if for some dramatic effect, which clearly didn't land with the digimon.

"Yes, and apparently GOD has oil smudges on her face and clothes." He said with a roll of his eyes, ignoring the faint blush of embarrassment on her face shoot up for a second or her eyes widening when he fished out a small mirror and a handkerchief from a pocket of his vest. Uzi's optics immediately widened even at the sight of the mirror as he held it up to her face. "Here, that should-"

"No, wait-" Uzi tried to warn Commandramon just when her right eye glitched into the strange symbol from yesterday and the mirror in Commandramon's hand shattered with a loud crack, causing him to drop it in shock. The digimon looked between her and the broken mirror now laying on the ship's roof, while Uzi tried covering her eye with one hand. It didn't hurt like it did the day before, but she still had tried to keep this to herself only for it to be found out like this. Her head also looked around, listening and scanning the environment for any sort of indication that soemthing like Snimon showed up to attack her again. Much to her relief, nothing seemed to come, but the digimon in front of her still looked at her with a wide-eyed, puzzled look. "Uzi... is that why the mirrors broke while you were working?" He asked. Uzi didn't answer right away, looking away.

"I... I don't know what this is." Uzi said defensively. When her partner didn't reply and just kept looking at her, she continued. "It just... started happening yesterday..." Part of her almost told her about how that thing apparently also had attracted Snimon to her position and almost resulted in her getting cut into pieces, but she bit her tongue at that. After all, it was all well and so far there was no reason to believe that the events from yesterday could repeat because of that. Meanwhile, Commandramon closed his eyes and crossed his arms.

"Well, in that case there is only one thing to do... You need some rest!" He said pointing in her face, his clawed finger almost touching her visor. Uzi blinked in confusion at his conclusion.

"Huh?" She eventually replied, making a face as if he had just said the dumbest thing imaginable. "How is that supposed to help?"

"Uzi, when was the last time you slept?" Her digimon partner asked sternly.

"Yesterday when you knocked N, V and me out to stop that piece of work from murdering me."

"No, when did you ACTUALLY lay down, closed your eyes and slept?" The digimon clarified, which actually made Uzi think for a moment until she realized that it had been the morning when she had set out to kill the murder drones. "Well?" Commandramon asked, impatiently tapping his foot on the ship's roof and his knuckles on his hips.

"Ugh! Bite me. So what if I haven't properly slept in a few days? I'm doing just fine!" She said just as her visor glitched once more, this time almost making her stagger but Commandramon grabbed her wrist to keep her from stumble off the ship.

"You need some rest."

"I do not!" Uzi retorted defensively, pulling her arm away.

"You haven't slept in 2 days, fought murder drones and a digimon purpose-built to kill others in that time, had multiple near-death experiences and your CPU is apparently cooking itself to the point you are sweating profusely." Commandramon pointed out as he could literally see the heat coming off from Uzi's head in the form of a thin mist of vapor rising up from beneath Uzi's beanie and a faint sheen on her metallic shell. 'I wonder if I could put some of the food on her head to heat it up... Later, soldier! Focus on the mission!'

"I said I'm fine." The worker drone replied just when her own system made a warning pop up, reading '[Get some sleep, moron.]'. 'Neat, now I'm getting dissed by my own systems.' She thought when Commandramon rolled out a blanket he had somehow hidden from her sight or she simply hadn't realized he had brought it here from the start. "I'm not sleeping here and I don't need- WHOA!" Commandramon spun around, his tail hitting her legs right above the ankle as she fell forward onto the blanket with a dull thud. But before she could protest, Commandramon rolled her up in a carpet trap, the cloth pressing her arms firmly against her body, while her legs uselessly kicked out of it. Immediately, the worker drone wriggled and tried to free herself, only for the blanket to keep its warm snuggly hold around her body. "WHAT THE HELL? LET ME GO!"

"Sorry Uzi, but as your partner I have to look out for you, whether you like it or not." The digimon replied, before picking Uzi up like a rug by throwing it over his shoulder and entering the ship through the roof's hatch. After he climbed down the latter into the cockpit, Commandramon marched past a smugly smiling V and set Uzi down on the ground and tugged a pillow between the back of her head and the wall of the ship.

"Commandramon, I swear when I get out of this..." Uzi started just as she started to feel the tiredness of her body crash down on her alongside the warm, tight but snug blanket around her drag her mind into unconsciousness. 'No... not like this...' Uzi thought as she fought her systems shutting down into sleep mode.

"You can tell me once you are got yourself some nice sleep and feel better." Her partner said.

'Yeah... sleep sounds nice- NO! AAAGH!' She groaned before letting out a defiant shout. "FINE! But you better don't forget this..." Uzi grumbled the last part before she shifted her body slightly around in a slightly more comfortable position despite her bound state.

"Sleep well." The digimon said quietly.

"Bite me..." Uzi muttered before she dozed off. Commandramon waited a moment longer before he let out a sigh and turned to V.

"Sorry, if we woke you up." He apologised, when V rolled her eyes.

"Whatever. I only woke up from her getting rolled into that carpet, which honestly was worth it." She replied, before chuckling slightly when Uzi mumbled something rude in her sleep. "She sure is loud for someone so... defenseless." V's lips formed a predatory grin, while the digimon shot her a flat look at the unspoken threat towards Uzi.

"Shh..." He put a finger before his snout before he nodded to the side. V looked over and her smile fell immediately when she saw a certain disassembly drone traitor wrapped up in a blanket like a cocoon. Instead, she frowned at her traitorous former squadmate sleeping soundly.

Sometime between V regaining consciousness chained down in the ship and her falling asleep eventually, N had proudly shown his greatest possession to Commandramon and Uzi, a book about dog breeds. Uzi had just rolled her eyes and gone back to work, but the digimon eagerly walked over to his side and the two began huddling together on the ground over the book as N enthusiastically pointed to each page, citing various facts to each one. Before long, both of them had been tucked under a blanket and kept reading, commenting on how cute some of the dogs looked as puppies and in general the two of them just having a good time. That was until they eventually both dozed off with the book in front of them, leaving a half-asleep V with the tinkering purple gremlin that was Uzi working around her, though the female disassembly drone followed suit soon after after having been lulled to sleep by listening to N's dog facts.

It certainly was better than his apologies for her getting hurt because of him earlier or him asking if her arm was alright after it had regrown. Just because she prevented him getting cut in half by Snimon, didn't mean that V had forgiven him for his betrayal. Therefore, seeing him sleep safe and sound, rolled up in that blanket not unlike a puppy made her roll her eyes and turn around, instead facing the wall with the now repaired screens and instruments. V hated to admit it, but she had to hand it to the purple worker drone. Uzi knew her stuff quite well. Luckily for her, said purple thing was currently fast asleep. V's eyes fell down on the now empty mug of oil N had previously given and refilled for her before he had started giving the dinosaur-like digimon a rundown on what dogs even are. Said digimon saw that as he looked at V for a moment longer, before moving over to N and tugged him under the blanket a bit more.

"He cares a lot about you, you know?" Commandramon said quietly before turning to V.

'You don't say...' V thought humorlessly at the most obvious thing so far before crossing her arms, switching her hands for bubble wands. "If so, he has a strange way of showing it by betraying me and helping you guys." She said as she was about to blow some bubbles out of boredom, when a sudden sound made her stop. Looking up she found Commandramon covering his mouth as he stifled down his laughter, though he was failing badly. It took her a moment that he was laughing at her or what she said. "Hey what's so funny?"

"You say that N is strange in showing his affection, but you are even stranger."

"I don't care about him." V replied now sounding a bit irritated, resisting the urge to shout or slam her arm into the console next to her. The digimon simply looked at her for a moment longer with his previously amused expression gone, then nodded in silence and moved to the exit of the ship.

"I'll be checking the parameter in case something else might come our way." He said when he stopped inside the ships doorway and turned around to look at V once more. "You're a bad liar, V." Commandramon said in a serious tone that seemed completely out of place for him, actually surprising V a bit as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Just so you know, I was not the one who draped that blanket over you." He added before walking off and leaving V with the sleeping Uzi and N inside the ship.

She kept glaring at the spot the digimon had stood a moment ago for a few seconds, before V turned her attention over her shoulders to find indeed a blanket had been put over her shoulders. It was a simple black piece of cloth that bore no decorations or patterns on it like most of the ones that Commandramon had taken with him. The digimon had offered her one before having gone to sleep, but she had declined by staying silent and turning away from him. For a moment she felt the urge to shrug it off and leave it on the ground, when her processors did the math. Commandramon hadn't given it to her and Uzi had been busy all-night working on the ship, leaving only one other person in the equation as a suspect.

'What a pain...' V thought to herself, before entering sleep mode again.

"And one more and done." A worker drone said as another missing person's flyer of the WDF was put to a wall. Looking at their work with pride, the drone then looked over to the person next to them. "I still got a few more to put up. See you later, boss." They then strolled off to put identical posters to the one just fixed onto the wall elsewhere in Outpost 3. Khan merely nodded, but his eyes were fixed on the wall before him. The recent attack of the disassembly drones on Outpost 3 had put the worker drones on edge, so much that many seemed to have forgotten about the recent disappearances. Not that Khan could really hold them at fault for that after the deaths of more than a handful of worker drones by the hands of the murder drones.

Still, something about those cases rubbed him the wrong way. Namely the fact that they were female students who went to the same high school Uzi attended. That actually made him think for a second.

'I feel like I'm overlooking something here. Something very obvious.' He thought to himself as he ignored all of the flyers promoting the upcoming Prom 3071, that had been put up earlier and were now partially covered by the missing people posters. Then Khan took a step towards the board and noticed something peeking out behind the latest poster. It was the tiny corner of another piece of paper. Grabbing onto the edge of paper and pulling it off the wall, he froze in shock as his eyes widened when he read what was written on it.

'Parent-Teacher Conference. Today. Explain to us why your kid has a screw loose.'

"That was today? Oh, why didn't you tell me Uzi?" Khan exclaimed as he dropped the flyer to the ground, before taking a deep breath. "No, no, Khan. There is a perfectly fine reason why your rebellious, teenage daughter did not tell you about this sort of thing." He told himself before continuing on his way to said conference, but first he'd need to check in on his coworkers and their newest recruit. Still the thought of the parent-teacher conference made him pick up his pace a bit. He wasn't running, but walking rather fast. The last time he had seen or heard anything from Guardromon had been yesterday when Khan his co-workers to the digimon, which the other WDF units joking called an 'absolute unit', whatever that meant. Since then, there had been radio silence and he was not quite sure whether that was a good thing or not.

Quickening his pace a bit more, Khan walked towards the entrance and fished out his remote to open Door 3 and 2 to see what was going on. He remained completely oblivious to the fact that 2 nights earlier he had stood at the same spot and left his daughter to die by the hands of the murder drones when he shut that same door. All except a strange uncomfortable feeling welling up his circuit board and a slight tremble running through the hand holding the remote, which he attributed to the upcoming talk with Uzi's teacher. Pressing the button Door 3 and 2 opened and Khan was met with a scene that he had not expected at all.

"I see. Then I play this." Guardromon said as the fridge-sized machine digimon sat on the ground and put a card from his hand onto the stack of cards in the middle while 3 other members of the WDF sat around. Upon hearing the door open, Guardromon moved his bulk slightly since he had no neck and spotted Khan. "Greetings, Mister Doorman. He said, raising a three-fingered hand to Khan, making the others turn around to greet him as well.

"Hey Khan. The new guy is doing great so far." One of them said making the others nod and voice their agreement wordlessly.

"This is not what I had in mind when I told you to show him the ropes." Khan said as he watched Guardromon play cards with other members of the WDF.

"They have not yet shown me where these ropes are you speak of." The digimon replied, causing the WDF's leader to resist the urge to facepalm. On one hand, Guardromon followed orders to the letter and he quickly picked up on things. On the other though, the concept of metaphors appeared to be foreign to him.

"He's a fast learner. Just had to teach him the game first and after some runs he doesn't make any mistakes anymore."

"And more importantly, he doesn't even try to cheat. I don't know where you found him, but he sure fits in with the rest of us."

"Can we keep him? He could be our second mascot."

'Yesterday all of you were too embarrassed to be sitting here and playing cards all day for being made off and now you're right back at it and teach it to the newcomer.' Khan thought to himself before sighing. "I see..."

"These gates are quite impressive, if I may say so." Guardromon commented looking at Door 1. "You have done a very good job making these. So far there have been no breaches." Khan was about to reply when he realized he was late for the parent-teacher conference.

"Oh uh... thanks. I need to go. Keep it up." Khan said before he moved along the corridor, leaving Door 2 and 3 open as he passed them and made his way towards the school.

"He seemed to have been in a hurry." Guardromon said after a short pause following Khan's departure.

"Probably something to do with Uzi giving herself house arrest." A WDF member said, causing the others to chuckle as they continued their game.

Unbeknownst to Khan, Guardromon and the other worker drones a certain green pair of eyes had followed their conversation intently from within a ventilation shaft before its owner made his way deeper into the colony.

'Seriously? That's Khan? As in Uzi's dad?' Impmon thought to himself as he pulled out a piece of paper with what looked like a preschooler's attempt to draw a map as well as some squiggles of text that were utterly unreadable. However, the name Khan and a simplified worker drone hat with a much larger mustache than the real Khan's was drawn next to it. Both were circled with a red crayon and a big angry, scowling smiley had been drawn next to it. 'Oh well, the instructions say to keep away from him, so I better keep my distance from that one even if I don't get it. Especially when he's hanging around that dishwasher.' With that the evil digimon continued on his way deeper into the colony through the ventilation system.

Infiltrating the worker drone colony had been an easy task due to how small the digimon was. The ventilation shafts naturally had to lead to the surface of Copper 9 somewhere, but he had to admit that they had been hard to find and even harder to squeeze himself into the admittedly small shaft. Occasionally he had to melt through a fan to not get sliced in half, but he doubted anyone would even notice. The sun outside had set already some time ago and the storm outside had picked up again while the world was doused in the two moons' pale light. Right now, he was mapping the colony as best as he could to figure out where he had to go, but it appeared he had only succeeded in finding the main entrance so far.

While Impmon had made his way deeper into the colony, he heard what sounded like a painful scream echo through the shaft like a ghost haunting the place. The scream cut off shortly after, but even in the relatively warmer air of the colony, Impmon felt a shiver run down his spine as he swallowed loudly.

'I think I might not want to find out what that was.' He thought to himself as he made his way deeper into Outpost 3, hoping that the shaft would eventually split up so he could just move in the opposite direction of whatever that just was. Just then Impmon spotted a worker drone with a base cap running down the hallway right beneath him with something glowing in a familiar green hue on the drone's back. "Is everyone in a hurry tonight?" He thought out loud, before shaking his head and looking at his 'instructions' again when he found the shaft splitting into two. "Looks like I need to go left." He was about to go when he heard yet haunting sound akin to an animal growling clearly coming from the direction he was about to head into as well as a mechanical clicking noise like claws tapping against metal. "Did I say left? I meant right, of course." He told himself before hurrying deeper into the opposite direction.

N knew that he was dreaming. Or rather his mind was replaying a memory of some kind that he couldn't explain. With his memories from before coming to Copper 9 being scrambled up worse than one of V's victim's insides, it was safe to say that he had absolutely no recollection of anything that had transpired before. Therefore, the whole situation was very surreal to begin with.

Yet somehow the lucid dreaming was not the weirdest part of the experience. That would have been the fact that for some reason he saw himself as a worker drone of all things. Naturally, his body quite different as a worker drone than as a disassembly drone. He was shorter, his limbs like the countless worker drones he and his squad had killed and him not having the five additional optical sensors on his head, but his face and his hair was still the same. Still unmistakably him.

Strangely enough, he was not inside some mine or a construction site. Instead, he found himself standing inside a hallway of a mansion. Warm orange light shone from various lamps upon a marvelous decorum of expensive looking and polished wooden railing at the stairs and deep red wallpaper and carpets. Everything around him exuded an aura of extravagance and wealth akin to a noble family's residence from more than a thousand years ago. Yet despite its warm atmosphere, the sight of this place made a shiver run up his spine as if he had just recalled something rather unpleasant.

'J would love it here though.' N thought to himself just when he noticed two more things. He was dressed up as a butler of all things and balancing a tray of glasses stacked on top of one another like a pyramid with a professional posture he didn't even know that he was capable off. And secondly, someone stood before him. It was a man or rather the silhouette of a man as the memory file had apparently been damaged, making him appear like a black piece of static given the solid shape of a man. Two eyes peered out the dark as spots of white not too unlike the eyes of a worker drone. He wore a large top head and a suit judging by the shape, but just like everything else about the person itself, it appeared just black in front of him. As did the numerous human shapes behind him.

"We need to get her visits to the dump in check." The man in front of N said with a wine glass in his hand, not really addressing the worker drone, who kept his mouth shut and merely blinked. "And just where does she find the hair to dress those things up? Disturbing." He said dismissively as the 'thing' as he called N caught the glass with inhumane expertise on top of the stack of glasses before turning around with a deep bow and hurrying off in the opposite direction without dropping a single item.

'Okay that was weird.' N thought to himself as his dream self continued to move through the manor while outside rain beat against the windows and walls of the manor and the occassional lightning illuminated what appeared to be a forest or swamp on the other side of the glass. Moving past all sort various human shapes on a lower level with crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, the worker drone N moved around a corner looking the other way just when he bumped into someone, causing both so yelp as they fell to the ground. The glass clattered to the floor, thankfully without breaking as both of them quickly sat up to clean up the mess.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry-"
"It's okay. I wasn't looking-"

Both of them said quickly as they reached for a glass, their fingers just touching for a second when a spark of electricity flared up for a second causing both to withdraw their hands.

'Wait a minute, is that... V?!' N thought when he took a closer look at the female worker drone he had bumped into. She was wearing a maid dress and wore big round glasses, but he recognized face and hair immediately as well as her voice. The worker drone before him was without a doubt V. 'Gosh, she looks so cute like this! No, bad thoughts, N! Keep it together.' He told himself as V gasped with a blush appearing on her face. 'AHHH! SHE'S EVEN CUTER NOW!' He thought and apparently his past worker drone self thought the same thing as he blushed too.

But before he could speak up to the maid V with a smile, N was kicked to the ground by another worker drone maid, whose twin pigtails looked quite familiar.

"Out of the way moron." J said, glaring down at N while V covered her mouth with her hands as she looked worried at him. Just then J turned around and put on a fake smile. "Hi Tessa~" She said, before her smile instantly dropped when she saw something. "Oh no. Another one of those?" She groaned quietly as N picked himself up and looked in the direction J was looking.

Standing in the hallway was another human shape, though N noted that "Tessa" as J called her was smaller than the man he had been talked to earlier, indicating that she was younger. She wore a dress and on top of her head was a bow. That was all the features N could make out when his attention shifted from the human to a worker drone shyly stepping out from behind Tessa and holding onto her arm. She looked at the three of them before her gaze landed on him.

Just then the dream began to dissolve into static, though N noted one thing while the small worker drone looked at him. Unlike the worker drone him or the maid versions of his squadmates white optics, this drone's digital eyes were yellow. Like the eyes of a disassembly drone...

N's optical sensors turned on one after the other, much like when his optics had been fixed when he woke up with a startle. He found himself laying on the floor of the ship and unable to move, before he noticed that he was entangled in the blanket he had thrown over himself the night before.

"Oh, you're finally awake." V said in a slightly amused tone as she watched N struggle with the blanket, while Uzi rolled her eyes and Commandramon just watched. Eventually, N picked himself up and looked at the other three occupants of the ship with slight embarrassment, though his eyes lingered on V for a moment longer, the memory of her as a worker drone in that maid outfit still fresh on his mind. "What? Is there oil on my face or something?" She asked when she noticed him staring, which made him quickly look away with an awkward chuckle.

"No, no! You're looking great." He said, trying to play it off as he looked at the ceiling. The digimon in the room looked a bit confused, while V just shrugged and blew bubbles with her bubble wand. "Did I... miss something?" N asked awkwardly.

"Just nightfall and the purple thing testing something even weirder out." V said, when Uzi didn't even react to the jab V had taken at her expense. Instead, the purple-haired worker drone looked at an ornate mirror that her partner had duct taped to the wall of the ship, before brushing a strand of hair away from her right eye slightly covering it. Only a short moment later the three-pronged symbol showed up on her visor again and the mirror cracked. N looked wide-eyed at the result of the experiment, while Commandramon remained silent and V commented slightly amused by Uzi clearly being unnerved. "That doesn't look healthy." She commented, when Uzi turned around.

"Bite me! That's probably the fault of you vampires." The worker drone said, pointing accusingly at V.

"I don't recognize that symbol." The disassembly drone replied nonchalantly before her tone shifted to one of sadistic glee as she smiled widely at her with her fangs bared. "If we cut you open, we'll definitely find out more."

"Should I get the jar?" N asked Commandramon, who shook his head.

"No, we promised not to do that anymore, remember?" The digimon replied, while N made an quiet "Oh." sound of acknowledgement, before the two turned their attention back to Uzi and V arguing.

"This is serious! Something's wrong with me!" Uzi said.

"I could tell right from the start, purple thing." V replied. "But why would I care?"

"Because I could just throw you out and leave you to fry in the sun."

"Good luck, it's nighttime, genius. Or did that thing already leave you blind?"

"Why you stupid-"

"Ahem!" N clearing his throat made both Uzi and V snap their heads towards where he stood. Both him and Commandramon had positioned themselves next to a whiteboard with a detailed drawing of the ship's exterior and mutliple improvement ideas by Uzi written on onto it such as 'RAILGUN LEGS', 'ADD COOL STICKERS' and 'PAINT PURPLE + ADD COOL FLAMES'. N then tapped a small line of text written at the lower corner not impeding with the drawing reading 'please be nice to each other (both of you)'. Both drone girls groaned and rolled their eyes before pointing at each other.

"She started it!" Both of them said simultaneously, looking surprised at first before they glared at one another again for a moment. Then both crossed their arms and turned away from one another.

"At least, you respect the rules somewhat and are getting along better now." Commandramon muttered making both of them glare at him. In response, his skin changed color to match the ship's interior and vanished almost completely from their sight if it wasn't for the big amber eyes looking back at them, before N spoke up again. "Me and my big mouth..."

"Speaking of respect, would this whole "murder all the humans" really be... "morally acceptable"?" He asked Uzi awkwardly as she moved over to the console. Needless to say, but the more soft-spoken of the disassembly drones was not yet quite sold on the idea of committing genocide on mankind. Much to Uzi's annoyance.

'Out of all the literal killing machines, I end up with this one.' She thought. "The humans sent you here without a communication relay and reformatted your memories to soup." The worker drone said as V touched one of her bubble wands with her tongue before frowning deeply at the taste of soap and then looking back at Uzi. "The fact that they are covering their tracks means that they are past negotiating." Uzi continued gripping a wrench in her hand hard enough to bend it out of shape. "I guess negotiating wasn't in the card for my mom either."

"Or you missed the negotiation!" V suddenly lurched forward in her chair and got into Uzi's face with the only thing holding her back being the collar and chain, which strained under V's physical strength. "We were programmed to solve a problem. Who says that your background story is true? The one where your kind is so conveniently innocent." V giggled slightly when Uzi looked ready to hit V with the wrench. But before things could get physical, Commandramon became visible behind Uzi and carefully pulled her away from V, while N pulled V's chair back with N shooting V a displeased look, who merely rolled her eyes.

"I find it hard to believe that the worker drones could have done anything to warrant such an extreme action as to wipe them all out." Uzi's partner digimon said. "Sure, they survived the planet's core collapsing unharmed, but that doesn't mean they caused it or anything. That would have needed to be quite the slip-up at work and while they can be a bit... uhm..." Commandramon struggled to come up with the right word.

"Clumsy?" N offered politely.

"Idiotic?" Uzi asked in a flat tone.

"Looney?" V suggested sounding bored.

"Uh... unique? I don't think they'd be able to do something like that by accident, right?" Commandramon asked making the drones think a little, before they all cringed a bit, all of them imagining some worker drone slipping up at work causing an elaborate domino effect ending with some sort of doomsday device to activating on accident and the humans not being able to stop it. By the end of their shared imagination, they all looked at one another and then at the digimon silently. "Just forget I ever said anything..." Commandramon looked at the floor at that.

"J did receive orders from somewhere." N said, looking at the now repaired systems. "If not from the company through the ship's relay, then from who and how?" A buffering symbol appeared on Uzi's brow before an anger tick appeared there and she leaned against the console with her arms crossed.

"Stop complicating my murder plans with logic." The purple worker drone replied. N moved over and patted her on the head, but Uzi slapped his hand away. V looked at this with narrowed eyes when all of the sudden Commandramon started to loudly sniff the air. His body tensed up and his pupils shrunk in size a bit as he turned his head abruptly into one direction. "What's gotten into you now?" Uzi asked, slightly unnerved by her partner's guard dog-like behavior.

"I smell someone coming here and..." The digimon said before moving over to the door and looking out into the spire's interior. For a moment he remained there before his tail happily thumped against the floor of the ship. "It's Thad... and he's got your railgun." That actually made Uzi look surprised as she pushed herself off the console and walked over to Commandramon, but she saw no one. "He's not here yet, Uzi. I'd say in a few minutes he should be here."

"Not if we can help it." Uzi said, before looking over at N and gesturing for him to come with her. N shot V a last look before walking out with Uzi and her partner, leaving V alone in the ship once again.

"Alright, have fun without me." She sarcastically called after them when she heard N spread his wings and taking off with the two others. After a moment of silence, V's sarcastic smile fell and leaned back against the chair. Part of her contemplated whether or not she should try and pick up one of Uzi's manga or that handheld gaming console to pass the time, before she dismissed the thought. Then she looked over to the corner N had been sleeping in all day, glancing at the book about dog breeds for a moment. The facts he had told Commandramon rang familiar in her mind as she tried to ignore the fact that she had heard N quietly mumble the name "Tessa" in his sleep.
"You're not making this any easier..." She said, pulling her legs onto the seat and resting her hands on her knees before resting her head on the backs of her hands as Commandramon's words from earlier rang through her mind.

'You're a bad liar, V.'

It was a relatively normal thing for students to be present during the parent-teacher conference though not one everyone practiced as to avoid any embarrassing revelations or moments during those classes. That and it was rather uncomfortable for everyone to watch one's own parents being told about their school life while they were sitting around and waiting for their turn to speak with their classroom teacher. What was stranger still would be for a student to be present during a parent-teacher conference when they had no living relatives for the teacher to speak to. Such was the case for Doll, who sat at the back of the classroom next to Lizzy throughout this event, watching as their teacher spoke with the parents of their classmates one after the other. The Russian drone spotted their friend Rebecca sitting a bit further away, playing on her phone as she waited for her parents' turn as well as multiple other students.

"Why am I even here?" Lizzy thought to herself next to Doll as she wondered what kind of gossip was circulating around that warranted her of all people being here. "Thanks for the morale support, by the way." She told Doll, who merely nodded as she fidgeted with a small coin-like hexagonal object in her hands. Though, Doll's lack of a response was slightly strange to Lizzy, who glanced around the room, spotting Khan Doorman who had earlier rushed into the room before composing himself again and sat down near the other parents. "Why do you think Mr. Doorman came rushing in here like that?" Lizzy tried breaking the eyes, though Doll still remained eeriely quiet.

"Вероятно, он забыл, что это должно было произойти сегодня. (He probably forgot that it was supposed to be today.)" The purple haired drone replied, her red optics not leaving the object in her hand. For all Lizzy knew about her best friend, it was apparently something left behind by her mother, Yeva. But the blonde drone also never pried deeper into the matter.

"I mean, I get it with that new guy showing up all of the sudden... and the disappearances." Lizzy said, causing Doll to stop fidgeting with the object in her fingers for a moment, before the Russian drone turned to her. The blonde drone rolled her eyes before patting her friend on the back. "Don't you worry. We'll just stick together and watch out, so that whoever is doing this won't get us." She tried sounding reassuring, but to Doll those sounded like empty words. After all, the purple haired drone knew exactly what was transpiring in that regard.

'О, Лиззи... если бы ты только могла понять... (Oh Lizzy... if you could only understand...)' Doll thought to herself, before pushing the thought back down. 'Нет, она не должна знать... Она никогда не должна узнать. Это ради её же блага. (No, she cannot know... She must never know. It's for her own good.)' She thought, before grabbing Lizzy's hand on her shoulder gently, giving it a light squeeze. "Спасибо, ты хороший друг. (Thank you, you are a good friend.)" Doll said, while simultaneously hating herself for what she could not say and what she had done. Lizzy remained oblivious to her internal struggle, when she smiled a bit at her friend.

"So, what was that I heard about you and Thad earlier?" She said, raising an eyebrow to her. Doll immediately narrowed her eyes and looked towards Rebecca, who just shrugged and went back to typing on her phone. Lizzy just saw that as confirmation that there was some truth to what she had heard from their blue-haired classmate. "Didn't think you'd be into quite the opposite of your character." Lizzy teased, though she meant nothing by it and judging by Doll rolling her eyes, things might not have been as Rebecca had made them out to be.

"Мы просто случайно столкнулись после школы. Я подумал, что забыл что-то в том складе, а Тэд там разыгрывал из себя детектива. Вот и всё. (We simply bumped into one another after school. I thought I had forgotten something in that storage unit and Thad was going around playing detective. That's all.)" Doll replied, thinking back to the unexpected encounter with their classmate. 'That and he thought a baseball bat would scare off whoever would be lurking around and be responsible for the disappearances.' She humorlessly thought when she recalled Thad's surprised face when Doll had rounded a corner and found the jock half shielding his eyes from her flashlight's glare, half holding a metal baseball bat ready to swing it like a maniac, only to be stopped when she grabbed his wrist and slammed him into a wall. It had taken him a moment before he realized it had been Doll he almost hit.

Neither of them had really expected the other to be there. Thad had gone there to pick something up and so had Doll, though it was not the same. Thad went there to get Uzi's railgun to bring it back to its owner in the corpse spire, while Doll wanted to look if she could take a bit more material from J's corpse. Her research into disassembly drone anatomy had hit a bit of a roadblock with what little material she had available with just the tail Commandramon had severed from J's body. When Thad had told her what he was doing there, Doll had felt like slapping herself for not having thought about this sort of thing herself to approach Uzi.

However, what they found in that storage room had made both of them hurry to get as far away from that place as possible. Thad may have found what he had been looking for, but Doll had no time to worry about the lack of material when she only found oily drag marks where J's body had been. That had given her enough reason to hurry to Lizzy and make sure that she at least was okay.

"Sounds about right." Lizzy said, nodding to herself at Doll's narrative. "What did you do to tick off Rebecca though?" The Russian drone fought back the urge to groan and roll her eyes, recalling what had happened back then that led to the blue-haired drone to misinterprete the situation entirely.

"Судя по всему, мы находились в одном из ее так называемых «мест для поцелуев», куда она затаскивала свою добычу и высасывала из нее жизненные жидкости, словно паук. (Apparently, we were in one of her so-called 'make-out spots' where she'd drag her prey into and suck out their vital fluids like a spider.)" Doll flatly told Lizzy, omitting the fact that both Thad and her had hurried back through the school when both of them had heard some sort of noise coming from not too far away. Back then, both of them had been in a fight-or-flight mode and while Doll likely would have chosen the former, Thad made the decision for her by shoving both of them into a conveniently placed broom closet. One that had not been too spacious and left the two in a rather awkward position. When footsteps approached and the closet door opened though both of them were surprised to find Rebecca standing there, not looking too happy with the two of them and telling them to find their own spot to make out.

Afterwards, both of them had simply gone their separate ways with Doll and Rebecca heading to the classroom where the latter told the former Lizzy's whereabouts being there and Thad headed off to return the railgun to its rightful owner. Though, the blue-haired girl hadn't wasted the time of the short trip to the classroom to tease Doll about what she misunderstood as her interrupting the two of them getting to "know each other a lot more than usual classmates".

"Yeah... that checks out." Lizzy said when both her and Doll's attention was drawn towards Khan Doorman, who during their conversation had taken his seat before their teacher. And seemingly wanted to turn the discussion about Uzi's behavior into one about himself.

"Oh right. Mature, popular, has a supernatural understanding of doors. Like father like daughter." Khan said, not noticing the flat and unimpressed looks not only the teacher, but also his daughter's classmates gave him.

"Geez, just how much out of touch is he?" Lizzy quietly muttered to herself. She might not have the best relation with her parents as a teen, but at least her parents cared about her enough to actually know what she was like. Not that it was that hard to imagine with her room being the epitome of girly and the mean girl stereotype fit her like a glove.

"Много. (A lot.)" Doll replied in a hushed tone as well, once more utterly impressed by Khan's failure at being a decent parent. She had often heard her mother say that she was surprised that Nori chose to stay with Khan for whatever reason and from what she had been told about her aunt, they were quite the opposite characters. Back then Doll had simply attributed it to them loving each other a lot in her childish naivety. Now though she couldn't help but also question what exactly had led to Uzi's parents staying together long enough to even have a child. Needless to say, Khan's assessment of Uzi's character was completely off the mark and their teacher knew that for a fact.

"She has trouble fitting in. We think her programming might be damaged. How is she at home?" Their teacher told Uzi's father, looking utterly uninterested as usual and choosing not to comment on Khan's previous statement.

"Eh, I'm sorry?" Khan echoed the voice in disbelief, raising his finger as if he wanted to say something as a counterargument only for it to die in his throat. "I know she can be a bit 'herself', but... damaged? I-I m-mean, I haven't really had much time to spend with her lately..." Khan's voice trailed off as he saw the teacher write something down on a sheet of paper before him, while Khan grew more and more uncomfortable and uneasy with the situation, seemingly realizing that he did not exactly sound like the best parent there was... or could have been.
However that episode of Khan being overwhelmed by his inner demons was interrupted by a loud knock on the door before it slid open and revealed two figures standing behind it. One was a female worker drone with brown hair and light blue eyes, who worked for the WDF. The other was Guardromon, standing behind her.

"Uhm... Mr. Doorman sir." The woman said before being forced to step aside when Guardromon walked into the classroom. Or rather, tried walking into classroom as his wider body simply did not fit through the door's frame. Each time a dull gong-like noise rang through the room as the machine digimon attempted to enter the room, bending the door's frame out of shape with a slight screech of its metal protesting. This had given Khan enough of a distraction to grab the folder in front of the teacher also looking at the door and throw it away behind him. "There happens to be a... problem." The worker drone said, when the teacher looked back and noticed his notes missing.

"Uhm, yes... As you can see I'm at a parent-teacher conference and I need to prioritize my daughter over whatever little issue there is." Khan said very out of character and clearly to make himself look better in front of both the teacher and the parents and students around him. Naturally, no one who knew Khan bought into that act. "Guardromon, could you please go and handle this while I'm having a word with the teacher here?" The digimon nodded his large body, while the worker drone woman turned towards the digimon with a flat look.

"I shall do this." He said before walking off. The worker drone woman looked back at Khan for a second before following Guardromon and pressing the button of the door to close, thought as it did it made a rather unsettling crunching and scraping sound as it became lodged in the damaged frame.

"The poor door..." Khan couldn't help but think to himself aloud, making everyone in earshot and paying attention to him look at him.

'So much for prioritizing Uzi.' Lizzy and Doll couldn't help but think to themselves and at the same time pity Uzi for her parentage.

Despite the winds above the city picking up speed with the approaching storm, it was surprisingly calm closer to the ground level with the weathered ruins acting as windbreakers. Snowflakes drifted slowly to the ground in the streets after decelerating upon entry, while Thad's sneakers sunk deep into the fresh layer of snow. The cold seeping through the rather thin fabric and shooting up his legs as he made his way through the night, though that didn't really bother him too much. As a robot he lacked the nerves that would have caused a human to feel the stinging sensation of blood vessels contracting, but something else did make him uncomfortable to march through this frozen graveyard on a dead world. Hed'd lie if he said he wasn't slightly afraid of something jumping at him from every corner darkened corner. While Thad certainly was among the more fearless worker drones in Outpost 3, he still was just a student. A popular one and maybe a bit stupid. At least that's what the teacher told his parents during the parents-teacher conference earlier. Afterwards, he had quietly sneaked off to retrieve Uzi's railgun, telling his folks he still had something to do.

"Come on Thad. There's nothing to worry about. Just Uzi and her murder friends..." He told himself as the corpse spire came into view. The sight did give him some pause, before shaking his head. "Nothing to worry about... I hope this doesn't ruin my shoes though." He thought aloud, trying not to trip on some piece of scrap metal. Just then a flash of yellow flew overhead before something slammed onto the ground with enough force to make the jock stagger and kick up a thin mist of snow and ice. When the mist had settled though, he found himself looked at Uzi, Commandramon and N with the latter folding his wings back into his backside.

"Hello there." N greeted the the worker drone happily, instantly causing whatever discomfort Thad had felt a moment ago to melt away as he reverted back into his usual relaxed self.

"Hey guys. How's it going?" He asked with a smirk, when he held the railgun up to them.

"Thad! Good to see you." Commandramon said happily, while Uzi walked over a bit awkwardly.

"Hi Thad. Uh- Thanks." She said, taking the railgun from his hands and giving the others a thumbs up, who mirrored the gesture.

"No problem, Zi. N-and-M's. Dinomite." Thad replied, snapping his fingers and pointing at the group. N responded in kind, while the digimon tilted his head in confusion as he did not quite grasp the concept of nicknames yet. "You guys saved the colony. I think the others don't even take the whole 'banishment' thing serious. They are more confused. Especially because"

"Because I have become too rogue to re-enter society? I can never return." Uzi said dramatically.

'Uzi, we still have to figure out how to wash your clothes though. Finding something in your size is a bit difficult.' The digimon thought to himself, recalling how difficult it was to find a replacement hoodie for her earlier and how Uzi's mechanical work was often associated with her getting dirty. Coupled with Uzi's taste for aesthetics, they'd need to figure out how to keep things clean when they wanted to make an awesome impression on their enemies before destroying them. But he didn't say that out loud, knowing not to ruin her moment. However, Uzi's classmate just looked at her for a second, not interrupting her before continuing.

"Because drones keep disappearing without a trace recently. And the corpse of N's murder friend you killed." Thad said. The last part made the other three people's heads perks up a bit.

"J's body? What happened to it?" Commandramon asked. "Thad, you guys didn't do anything weird with her headless body like make a totem out of it or something, right?" Instantly, Uzi and Thad looked wide-eyed at the digimon, imagining a bunch of worker drones having tied that body up on a pole and built a bonefire around it to keep away other disassembly drones like a bunch of tribal cavemen... cavedrones... whatever. Though a certain teenage drone was more shocked that her partner would say something like that, not knowing about the cave drawings some of the worker drones had made the day prior.

"No, of course not. When I went to pick up your gun just now, it looked like it somehow... crawled away on its own." Thad admitted. At that N jumped up from the hood of a car he was sitting on and looked around. "After that I hurried here as fast as I could."

"Please tell me you guys can't regenerate from that too." Commandramon told N upon noticing his behavior as if he was expecting J was about to jump at them from behind a mound of snow. In response to N's silence, the digimon raised his own gun and scanned his surroundings, eyes darting around the ruins around them. Ignoring her two companions freaking out a bit, a certain purple worker drone looked awkwardly at Thad.

"Maybe we can return just for a bit?" Uzi offered when N and Commandramon stopped and looked at one another.

"Well, that's going to take a while. I probably ran for half and hour or something and- WHOA!" Thad was quickly swept off his feet and tucked under N's arm alongside the digimon, while Uzi jumped onto N's shoulders like last time, before the disassembly drone took off. Ignoring the jock's startled noise, the disassembly drone flew like a large bird of prey over the cityscape, scanning the ground for any signs of anything wrong as he made his way towards Outpost 3.

"How come you are the one on top of N's shoulders?" Uzi's partner asked her as he clung to N's torso with one arm.

"Because I'm the leader, obviously." Uzi proudly said. Before long, the four of them arrived back at Door 1 with N landing with a heavy thud on the ground. Uzi jumped up and did a flip like an anime character when she landed, while Commandramon rolled onto the ground with a combat roll and pointed his gun at his surroundings. Meanwhile, Thad dropped to the ground like a sack of dirty clothes. "Looks like your leg is doing better." Uzi commented while her partner picked himself up.

"Yeah, looks like all the adrenaline from yesterday's fight accelerated me healing." Commandramon replied when Thad picked himself up and was about to ask what he meant, before Uzi nodded towards the door of Outpost 3. Thad pushed the question into the back of his mind and walked over to the gate with the others. He knocked on it a few times, causing it to open only a little for the guard to peer out instead of opening it all the way right away.

"Welcome back, Thad. Hey, wait a sec, isn't she grounded or something?" The guard asked, pointing at Uzi.

"Ugh, banished! Did my dad really say such garbage about me being grounded?" The purple worker drone said very irritated at her dad ruining her cool image by playing down her turning her back on the society that turned its back on her by saying she was under house arrest like some little kid. The guard then turned to N.

"Genocide robot?" He addressed him. The other three of the group outside looked at him, when N awkwardly moved over and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a folded piece of paper like a card. The guard took it and looked at it. On the outside, N had used crayons to draw a rainbow, a love heart and what was supposed to be a dog, though it was barely recognizable as such and only so due to N having wirrten the word 'DOG' over it. the guard flipped it open, revealing a childish doodle of N with a frowning stick figure that appeared to look like him somewhat and the word 'I M SORRY' scribbled over it as well as multiple frowning smileys.
Instantly the guard smiled. "Aw, no problem. Just don't do it again. Get in here, ya goobs." He said, causing N to smile happily and even blush a bit when the guard glued the apology card to the wall.

'Huh... that was easy...' Both Uzi and her partner thought, suddenly finding the earlier the scenario about the worker drones might having accidentally caused the planet's core collapsing like in some old cartoon from more than a thousand years ago a lot more likely to have happened, before the four of them walked into Outpost 3.

"Infiltration successful. What now?" N asked in a hushed tone as they made their way deeper into the colony.

"First we got to go to that storage room and look for clues what happened to J's corpse. If she really is still alive and hunting down worker drones in here, we should be able to figure out where she is." Uzi replied. "Shouldn't be too hard to sneak in there."

Though, it didn't take long for unlikely quartet to stumble upon another hurdle on their way when they came across a literal crime scene. Yellow tape blocked the path to cross section where multiple WDF members were talking to one another and taking pictures. Upon noticing the commotion, Uzi signaled the others to wait as they peered around the corner. The most disturbing thing was a mutilated body in the middle of the hallway while oil dripped down from above. N quickly covered Thad's mouth when he looked a bit green in the face, only to stop when he realized it was just Thad's digital eyes.

"Uhm... where's Khan again? 'Cause this looks..." A drone holding a camera asked a female officer next to him as he crouched down to the dried stain of oil on the ground under the hole in the ceiling and touched it, before making a face. "Non-ideal."

"Parent-teacher conference or something?" The female officer said with a shrug. "Apparently, his daughter was more important than installing another door in this hallway or something. Ugh. Kind of cringe." She said cringing.

"Ew yea- Wait a sec. Oh okay, almost threw up there." The drone with the camera replied, gagging at his colleague's words. Meanwhile another WDF member was about to hit a vending machine in the hallway for eating his money and had to be held back by another from punching it. At the same time, Uzi looked a bit torn after hearing what the officer had said.

"You good?" N asked Uzi, who narrowed her eyes at seemingly everyone's insistence to check on her.

"I'm good, now shut it." She replied before shoving him back and gesturing the others to follow her. The digimon looked at the scene before him with narrowed eyes as something didn't feel quite right, but he couldn't put a finger on it. Instead, he simply changed colors and followed after Uzi alongside N and Thad towards the storage room where they had fought J and V just days prior in hopes of figuring out what was going on.

None of them were aware of what transpired in that hallway shortly after they had disappeared a few hallways further.

A short while later, heavy footsteps heralded the arrival of Guardromon in that hallway as he walked into the place from the opposite side and found the scene gone. The barrier tape, the corpse and all the drones meant to be there had all disappeared without a trace. The Champion-level digimon walked towards the stain of oil on the ground and dipped a finger into it, before rubbing two if his digits together in front of his eyes.

"Strange... it shouldn't be this fresh." He said, when he picked up the shades of the officer from earlier and then looked up at the oil-stained hole in the ceiling. Just then he heard footsteps behind him and turned around to find the WDF drone from earlier behind him. She was panting and leaning against the wall of the hallway.

"You know... you could have... waited... to let me... show you the way..." She said, looking slightly annoyed. "And since when do you have thrusters to fly?"

"I am not capable of fully flying. These thrusters serve mainly to cover ground faster." Guardromon replied. "And I have chosen this route here to not allow any suspect to escape along the way as the most likely escape route. However, it appears the culprit is no worker drone."

"And what makes you say that, Mr. Water Heater?" The worker drone asked sarcastically after following the digimon take the longest way around to the actual crime scene, which was strangely absent.

"I am not a water heater. I am Guardromon." The digimon replied in an even tone that almost rivaled that of the high school's teacher. "And I have come to this conclusion upon reviewing this crime scene." The worker drone looked at him and then at the hole in the ceiling.

"Are you always such a literal blockhead?" She asked.

"My head is not a block. My head... is a head." The digimon replied, eliciting an "Uh-huh" from her before he turned to face her. "You should return to the post near the doors."

"What, why?" The worker drone asked, her light blue eyes blinking in confusion.

"You are not equipped for combat and we need to assure that the culprit does not leave Outpost 3." Guardromon said as he put on the shades, turned around and walked past her into another part of the colony, leaving the worker drone standing there for a moment. Then she just groaned and shook her head.

"Alright, break a leg or something." She said before doing as she was told.

"I do not intend on breaking my leg." Guardromon's reply caused her to let out another annoyed sound.

Crawling his way through the ventilation shafts, a certain evil digimon stopped for a moment when he arrived at a wider cross-section of two ventilation vents above one of the school's hallways. As he stopped, Impmon took out a crayon and started updating his map of Outpost 3's layout, while swatting away clouds of dust kiked up by his movement.

"Someone really needs to clean this place up. How is there even dust in this ice box of a planet anyway?" He thought to himself aloud when he heard another painful scream rattling through the ventilation system. Looking both ways as he could not tell from where the sound came from, Impmon put his map and instructions away, before quietly moving away from the spot he had been resting on. 'Some people are either having a blast watching a slasher movie or something is really wrong... and those worker guys don't strike me as horror fans.' He thought to himself.

The whole evening he had been hearing noises coming from elsewhere in the bunker, that made a shiver run up the small demon-like digimon's spine. And the worst part was that he had no idea where it was coming from as it seemingly came from different directions each time.

Just then he heard something coming from around the corner in front of him, making him stop dead in his tracks as a neon yellow glow approached through the shaft alongside something dragging itself through the narrow space with sharp claws. Instantly, Impmon started to reverse, but soon something moved around the corner and shine its light almost right in his face.

It took him a second to realize that is was some sort of camera-like contraption mounted on what looked almost like an insect's leg or a bone made of metal looking back at him with claw or teeth-like points around its lens. It also sported a familiar yellow glow that Impmon knew from a certain trio of murder machines. For a moment the two just looked at one another before Impmon spoke up.

"What are you looking at, you stupid face cam?" He said, pointing at it and seemingly taking it aback a bit. "Don't you know it's rude to shine your flashlight into someone's face?"

"[HOW PECULIAR. AND ANNOYING.]" The biomechanical thing spoke in a robotic feminine voice before glaring at him by seemingly narrowing its lens with something akin to eyelids. "[WE WERE WONDERING WHAT CAUSED THIS HOST SO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE RECENT PAST.]

"Wait a minute, I know that look!" Impmon said as he looked the being in front of it over one more time. After processing what he had just heard, he smirked a bit awkwardly. "Wow, you sure let yourself go, J." He said, causing the camera to look surprised for a second, before glaring back even harder. "Nothing against losing some weight since you were rather fat below the waist, but you sure overdid it. Before you were a fat ugly cow, now you are thinner and even uglier camera for a face." He said slowly backing away from the thing. That was when the camera like eye was joined by a few more as well as some rather menacing looking crab-like pincers and mantis-like claws, causing Impmon's smirk to fall.

"[J IS NOT HERE. YOU'LL NOW BE DELETED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YAY.]" The thing simply replied in its monotonous artifical voice while creeping closer. Impmon couldn't make out the main body behind the corner and clearly not with all the limbs joining the first one. And something told him he didn't want to know what that cluster of things was attached to.

"C-could have fooled me." Impmon said as he saw one of the claws rear back to strike when he slammed a hand to the roof of the shaft. "Summon!" He shouted as a magic circle appeared on the ceiling above the camera-like thing. Immediately it moved back when a ball of fire and ice erupted from the circle and exploded straight through the shaft below and causing the mechanical horror to flinch back further as its claws were caught in the blast. It didn't destroy them, but they were damaged and the metal now glowed hot red from the heat, while part of the limb were covered in frost. Impmon used the chance to slip through the hole and fell down into the corridor of the school below just as the thing's pincer snapped shut where his head used to be, cutting through nothing but air.

Dusting himself off and standing up, Impmon looked up with a mocking smirk from the school's hallway lined with lockers at the cameras and crab leg looking back at him with narrowed lenses. "Hahaha! What are you gonna do now, stupid?" He asked, blowing a raspberry at it. And almost immediately, part of the ceiling burst apart with sharp claws and appendages rushing towards Impmon, cutting off the digimon's mocking sounds and forcing him to jump back in shock and narrowly dodging getting skewered upon them. Meanwhile, the eyes hung down from the ceiling now glaring back at him once more.

"[MAD.]"

"AAHH!" Impmon screamed as he quickly darted away as fast as he could, while the thing in the shaft gave chase, retracting back into the ceiling and following the digimon as it bumped against the vent's walls. He ran past numerous lockers just when he came across a door with a window and light shining through it from the inside like a beacon of hope, but just in that moment, the mechanical thing moved out of the ceiling again.

"[GET SNUCK-UP ON.]" It said, before bringing its claws down where Impmon was and almost caught him with its mantis-like claws as he dove under it. It tried swiping at him again but failed to catch the little devil's tail with its pincer by a hair's width.

"Whatever did I do to deserve this?" He asked himself while bolting off deeper into the bunker. Not-J watched the retreating digimon for a moment when the classroom with its lights caught its attention. Weighing its options carefully, the thing abandoned the chase of the nuisance. Right now, gathering materials was more important and there was still much to do. Reaching out with a limb ending in a pincer, it reached for the door to open it... only to find the door stuck and refusing to move. It tried a few times, rattling the door slightly, but the occupants, a certain purple drone's father was too busy threatening his daughter's teacher and said teacher looking utterly unimpressed, were too busy to notice the quiet sound.

"[FRUSTRATION.]" The thing said, before noticing a second door to the classroom in the back. Letting go of the front door, it moved over and peered inside looking at a pair of two female students sitting in the back. "[MISCHEVOUS GIGGLE.]"

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Crisis

V didn't when she had fallen asleep, but she knew that she was. Over the years, she had gotten a hang of distinguishing between reality and dream, no matter how lucid the latter might be. Not that it was hard to figure out with how different those two were. One moment she was trying to conserve power while waiting inside that ship of theirs for N and his friends to come back and the next she was already somewhere else. In her current dream, V found herself walking through the hallways of what once used to be a grand mansion within a swamp. She had known the layout like the back of her hand, where each room was and what to look out for in every one of them.

However, its grandeur was seemingly burnt away by a great fire as was the forest around it. The walls and roof had partially collapsed, carpets had been singed or laid buried under debris, while wallpaper hung loosely torn and cut from the walls. Priceless intricate wooden furniture, ancient antiquettes and crystal chandeliers had been reduced to nothing but broken pieces of trash. Even the lush green of the swamp had been torn away as the world outside the large broken windows was not a dead place covered in ashes and soot as the only remnants of the once great trees were mostly just only blackened trunks with only a few still bearing branches.

What had transpired here had turned a little piece of extravagance amidst an untamed wilderness into nothing but a dilapidated husk of broken wood and stone amidst a forest of charcoal. Here and there, the fire was still burning, smoke and embers rising it into the air only to disappear moments later. Broken glass, wood and stone crunched under her feet. The disassembly drone didn't pay it any mind. She just wanted this to be over with as those dreams never brought her rest.

As she made her way into what used to be a great ballroom, she looked around the place. The roof was gone, seemingly blown up from within and some of the balconies of the higher floor had collapsed in on themselves as well as a stairwell leading up, cutting them off from one another. A feeling of dread crept up her backside as the flying murder machine heard something shift underneath a pile of rubble, the limb of a worker drone poking out of it and shifting as it tried freeing itself.

She knew this was just a dream. She knew that none of this was real. And she wouldn't have spared it any other thought. But just then a voice croaked out from underneath the rubble.

"V...? Is tha-at you...?" Immediately, V turned around when she saw a worker drone dressed like a butler look out. His optics were off line and his clothes and hair stained in ashes and debris, but it was unmistakably N. "C-Could you g-give me a h-and?" He asked with a glitching voice. She knew she shouldn't. She knew she should just ignore this dream version of her coworker. Still, her legs moved on their own accord and before she knew it she found herself as a worker drone maid, trying to lift a heavy wooden beam.

"Don't worry, N. I'll get you out of there." Her voice sounded softer, aghast and afraid. Weak. But she had no time to pity herself in that moment. With a grunt of effort, she managed to lift the wood just a bit but enough to help him crawl out of it. Once he was out, she dropped it to the floor where it landed with a loud crash. Maid V crouched down to look at N's leg. The one of legs of the worker drone was busted, one foot missing and sparking wires laying exposed from the stump.

"T-Thanks V." The butler version of N said, before V snapped out of her shock and turned serious again.

"We have to get out of here." She said slinging one of his arms around her shoulders to help him stand. The touch felt nice, warm, safe. Something she hadn't known in quite some time, but that had to wait. Fighting down the blush creeping onto her visor, while N's was basically aflame with it, the two worker drones started to walk towards the exit. Just then though, they heard something move through the debris of the manor. Neither N nor V knew what it was, but it was large and they didn't want to find out. Quickly hiding under the remains of a destroyed walkway at the sides of the hall, the two drones tried their best when a strange shadow moved over the busted rooftop. V could hardly describe its shape, but what then entered the room from above was far easier to picture. It was like a long cable-like appendage terminating it an arrowtip- or feather-like shape. Snaking around the ground, pushing aside debris and cutting through wood and rock alike with a surprisingly sharp edge and seemingly no resistance of the material it cut, it moved around as if probing the room for something. Searching for them or so V would bet.

She covered N's mouth with one hand to keep him from accidentally giving away their position. As much as V wanted this nightmare to end, she also didn't want to end it sliced into ribbons. Unfortunately for her, pain was not something tied to her body but her mind. And while she had no idea the thing moving towards them was, she was sure it was not benevolent in nature judging by the way it destroyed all it touched. A loud crash echoed from deeper within the manor, causing whatever had been hovering over the manor's ruin to retract its appendage just as it was about to snake its way to them and fly off with great speed. For a second, V and N stayed in their hiding spot, making sure that whatever that was had truly gone. Then the two made their way towards the entrance as fast as they could, trying to get away.

"V, wait. Where are we going?" N suddenly said, his eyes still wide from the shock and the glitching gone from his voice.

"We can't stay here. Anywhere else is better than being locked up in there."

"What about J? And Tessa? We can't-"

"Listen N." V cut N off as she continued dragging them away from the manor and into the charred forest, kicking up clouds of ashes with each step. "We need to look out for ourselves right now. I'm getting you to safety and then we can worry about them, okay?" She never got a reply when all of the sudden the heavy buzz of large wings cut through the air. A sound, that was more familiar to her than she'd like it to be, and just as she realized what it was, a certain digimon burst out of the forest. Its green carapace blackened by the missile she had shot at it as it hissed angrily at the two, scythe-like arms raised to cut the worker drones down to size.

"V, look out!" N shouted as he pushed her away from him as Snimon charged. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as V fell, watching in horror and agonizing detail as Snimon's bladed arm cut right through N's midsection and threw his body aside like discarded trash. V hit the ground, kicking up ashes on the ground, and suddenly felt as if her limbs weighed tons. Her struggles to get up were however cut short when her eyes landed on N's bissected torso laying further away from her, looking at her with wide eyes. She didn't realize when the ashes around her turned to ice. She didn't look up to see how the carapace of Snimon split open right down the middle and its shape of morphed into something far more monstrous and horrendous with many neon yellow lights glowing on its form as it loomed over her

Her eyes were instead locked onto N's, the worker drone butler looking back at her with a shocked expression. Her own eyes widened in horror as she witnessed that grizzly murder. It was just then that his mouth stretched into a wide fanged grin, the expression of shock and horror turning into one of sadistic amusement, before his visor switched the eyes for a line of text that made the oil in her body turn to ice.

[GIGGLE. DID YOU MISS ME?]

That was the last thing she saw when a large blade impaled her through her torso and her world exploded into pain. She felt herself lifted up before the blade was torn out of her body and she thrown aside to the floor like a piece of yesterday's trash. She coughed up oil as she laid there unable to move, but her mind was focused on one thing alone. The last thing she saw was N's lifeless body right beside her, looking back at her with that empty dark visor while the puddle of her oil grew larger around her. Desperately she tried to reach her arm out to him and call his name, but only a wet gurgle of oil escaped her before she was swallowed by her own oil like a corpse thrown into a swamp.

...

"N!" V shouted as she lurched up, jumping up from her seat and sending it clattering to the ground. The chain around her neck strained, keeping her from moving too far away from the cockpit. Once she realized that she had woken up from a nightmare, the disassembly drone began to calm herself down.

"Stupid nightmare protocols. Why haven't those patched out yet?" She thought to herself as she pulled the chair back up again and sat back down on it. But she knew that this was worse than just a nightmare or a corrupted version of a memory, that haunted her to this day. It was serious enough that she did not want to fall asleep. She noted the time on her internal clock and the fact that Uzi and N had not come back yet. It did strike her as odd, but V didn't comment on it. 'Probably off doing something with that purple freak and her pet dinosaur...' She thought to herself, glancing over at the corner he had slept the day before and finding his dog book open on a page of a golden retriever. Her face sank a bit, before she turned around and grabbed one of the manga volumes on the console with a quiet grumble and began to read. 'At the very least, she got some good books.'

V had been so shook by the nightmare that she didn't hear how the weakest link of the chain snapped, setting her free.

Dull thuds echoed through the hallway with each step of Uzi's group as the beams of their flashlights cut through the darkness of the place. Apparently, someone or something had cut the power cables in that section when the lights refused to turn when the switches were flipped, drowning this part of Outpost 3 in complete darkness. For N that was less of a problem, though not everyone in the group was a nocturnal predator. Luckily, Uzi still had a flashlight from her earlier work on the ship and Thad had also had the sense to grab one before going back when he had first noticed the darkness when he had gone to grab her gun. The floor and walls still bore scars from J and V making their way to the evacuation point, but luckily nothing to get seriously hurt on.

Still, the claw marks and bullet holes in the walls and ceiling were a bit unsettling alongside the faint outlines of oil stains, that had not been cleaned up properly. Especially under the circumstances the four of them went there. The digimon kept his gun at the ready, constantly looking around himself and listening for some sound, yet nothing ever emerged.

"Would you stop doing that? It's really unnerving." Uzi asked her partner when she found him checking their 6 for the 4th time 2 minutes. The way to the storage room wasn't long, yet it seemed to stretch on endlessly in the pitch-black corridor.

"Sorry." The digimon replied. "I just thought that crime scene earlier was a bit... off."

"Everything about this situation is off. Just stop pointing it everywhere." Uzi said as she walked ahead with Thad while N and Commandramon formed the rear guard. The digimon did as he was told and slung his rifle over his shoulder and nodded at N, who nodded back. Uzi didn't say it out loud, but even she was rather unnerved by this turn of events like all of them were. Though trembling in fear would not help them in any way and it would only make it worse for them if they did indeed into J. It didn't stop her mind from racing in circles around the same questions though. How did J's corpse disappear on its own? How could she have survived a point blank shot from her railgun, utterly annihilating her head to the point even their nanites couldn't restore it? And then there was the thing with her eye...

"So, how's life in the spire treating you?" Thad asked Uzi after a short moment of silence in an awkward tone, trying to break the ice and make small talk. The purple worker drone needed a moment to register the question before she turned to her classmate with a raised eyebrow at the question.

"Really? Out of all the times, you want me to ask about that now?" She replied.

"Uh... right. I'd have done so earlier if we didn't hurry back here. Sorry." The jock apologized as Uzi rolled her eyes for probably the 100th time today already. At some level she could understand why Thad and probably a few other of her classmates were at least curious about her whereabouts, though going after some mysterious disappearances and looking for the supposedly dead body of J was hardly the right time to ask things like that. Though there was also a tiny part of her social programs, that did want others to inquire about her and share it with them. So, instead of staying quiet, she replied albeit a bit annoyed.

"It's fine, though it could be better if it wasn't for a certain someone in there. Thanks for asking." Uzi said the last bit sarcastically as her flashlight's beam caught yet another claw mark left by either J or V along the wall. Thad thought for a moment, before realizing what she meant.

"Oh, N's other murder friend?" He asked carefully, not quiet having caught her name when he had been running and hiding from her as well as trying not to die.

"Her name's V. And she really starts testing my nerves. Maybe I should use her for target practice once we are back..." Uzi grumbled the last part, the weight of her sick-as-hell railgun resting on her back giving her already some ideas on what to do with the antagonistic disassembly drone back in the spire.

"Uzi, we are not kicking N's friend out or killing her." Commandramon spoke up, noticing N looking rather uncomfortable at the mention of using V as a test dummy. Uzi made a displeased sound, clearly unhappy with her partner's remark.

"Ugh, why are you defending her in the first place when she totally wants to kill me?" The worker drone before him asked, looking over her shoulder at the two other members of their group.

"Because we promised N that we wouldn't." Her partner digimon replied, sounding almost a little confused and turning to N. The disassembly drone smiled a bit back at the digimon for not supporting Uzi's initial idea of disposing of his crush.

"Under the condition that she behaves. Which she clearly doesn't." Uzi remarked with an annoyed huff. "Plus, she's always the one poking fun at me in the first place."

"She hasn't attacked you yet though." Commandramon said. "She could have done so when we were attacked by Snimon. Or she could have used that tail of hers while in the ship, but she hasn't." Thad and N just looked at the two talking as they continued their way through the hallway, the faint light shining through the busted roof and shutter of the storage room in the distance coming closer with each step the four of them made.

"That's just because you or N were always there." Uzi said, contemplating what Commandramon had told her and remembering how N had stabbed through the gap of the first door through the master key card with his tail to unlock all the doors. 'I need to put weights on that tail of hers.'

"We were asleep last night, while you were literally overworking yourself. And you did work around her while she slept." He told her.

Uzi opened her mouth to bring up a counterpoint, only to close it again when she couldn't quite understand V's motives herself. Sure, she was as Impmon had put it 'a violent lunatic' and Uzi could clearly see that with the near constant passive-aggressive threats aimed at her. Though, Uzi had to admit that her partner had a point.

'She just wants me to fix the ship for some reason.' She thought to herself. "Probably because she'd have woken you guys up if she had tried something. You can ask her when we get back to the ship." She told the digimon, ending the conversation as they had almost made it all the way to the storage room.

Throughout all of of this, N couldn't help but feel rather out of place. Thad seemed to be a nice enough person to be around and he was more than happy that he had been let into Outpost 3 again. Still, it somehow felt like he was intruding on an already existing group of friends. It also didn't help that they had brought up V like that. Truth be told, N did feel a bit bad for leaving her all locked up in their ship like that. Sure, she had enough to keep herself occupied. Still, as the one who had been the most socially isolated in their squad this whole time, N could understand that it wasn't very nice of them to keep her all by herself like that.

"I don't think she'd tell me. Though I'd be more concerned about the other murder drone squads." Commandramon said. This actually caught Thad's attention as he looked with wide eyes back at the two of them.

"There's more of you guys?" Thad asked N looking slightly surprised and concerned, who laughed awkwardly.

"Oh right... We were only designated this city and its surrounding area." N admitted sheepishly. Copper 9 had mainly been populated by worker drones due to its less-than-ideal conditions even before the core collapsed, but it did sustain a large number of humans in various cities spread across the surface. As such, it was necessary to send out squads like J's to each population center to cleanse the planet of its rogue AI. "Although that's what J once told me." He added quietly.

"Why do you sound so uncertain about this?" Thad asked slightly confused. "Don't you have like some sort of... internet-network-thingy to keep in touch." He tried his best to describe what he meant and although it was clear, it still sounded stupid in Uzi's opinion.

"The thing is... I've never actually met any other disassembly drone in all the time we have been here." N told them. "And since we now know that our communication relay never actually worked... I'm starting to question how much of what J told me was actually true or not."

"Great, you're learning to be a rebel now. Fight the system." Uzi jokingly said while shooting N a confident smirk while he smiled with a salute. 'Let's hope that for all the trash V spouts, she's right on the other squads not going to bother coming to investigate J's area. Oh well, if they do we know how to deal with them now.' She thought confidently in both herself and maybe her partner a little bit too.

"I'm learning from the best after all." Uzi quickly turned her face forward at N's praise when she felt warmth creep up her face.

"S-Shut it." She quietly muttered as Thad, N and Commandramon looked at one another and asked themselves whether N said something wrong. "Well according to V, if she ever actually says something that's true, we can worry about that later. For now, let's just deal with J's corpse going for a walk and killing people." She said, noting how the storage room wasn't very far anymore. Her hand wandered over to grab her rifle, the touch of its casing surprisingly reassuring to her. "I still want to do some modifications on the ship..."

"Don't worry, Uzi. We beat J once and we'll beat her again." Uzi's partner digimon told her. "But that spoiler you want to add to the roof wouldn't even add anything to its functionality."

"It's about looking cool."

"Does looking cool include impending the actual aerodynamics of the ship?"

"Bite me. First, that things needs more legs." Uzi retorted.

"And railgun legs and flame patterns like your wallpaper in your room." Commandramon added, making her nod in agreement. Just then the four of them reached the broken shutter V had blown up leading into the room.

However, when they rounded the corner, made their way into the room and their flashlights hit the room, they all stopped dead in their tracks.

Teaching was not an easy job for multiple reasons. Whoever said otherwise, clearly had not seen a classroom since the day they graduated high school or failed all their classes without ever graduating. Those people looked back fondly on their childhood; the friends they had made in that time and often ignored the stress of learning for exams and unannounced tests. On the other end were the teachers though and to them their daily work life was not a playground. The two of those factors that made teaching a living nightmare to most were the knowledge that they were responsible for the next generation of adolescent drones and the paperwork that came with the job. And then there were the students and on days like today the parents of said students.

Uzi's classroom teacher had done this job for long enough to have seen all sorts of both kinds. Cooperative ones, uncooperative ones, emotional manipulators, bullies, popular kids and so one and so forth. As a result of years of enduring those social phenotypes, he had developed a method to deal with all of them by not caring about it at all. He didn't do his job for the non-existent fun of it or out of obligation, but simply because it paid the bills and it was something he could do. So what if someone's child acted completely different at home than they did in school and it turned out their seemingly perfect angel was in truth a lazy or violent little demon and the parents didn't like what they heard? If anything, the fault laid with them to not keep their child on a leash and reprimanding bad behavior.

This sort of thing was like a routine that started every semester anew and as such the teacher cared very little for Khan seemingly coming to realize that he had not done such a great job to raise his daughter.

"I mean, you don't think it's my... parenting, do you?" He said holding his hand in his hands before the WDF's leader switched back to deflecting. "I only left her for dead once. You classes sound boring and the other kids suck. Call her damaged one more time and I'll install a door on your face." Khan said raising a wrench in his hand in a weak bluff. The teacher made no indication that he was even listening to Khan's rant. He was used to this sort of thing and just partially muted his audio receptors while playing Solitaire on his HUD.

In the back of the classroom, Lizzy and Doll both still sat waiting for the conference to end, while Lizzy rolled her eyes at Khan's attempt to deflect the fact that he was a bad parent for the umpteenth time that evening. Looking over to Doll, she was fidgeting with the hexagonal object again, spinning it like a coin on the tabletop. Something about her best friend staring at the thing again did not sit right with the blonde girl.

"Where are your parents?" She asked, awkwardly trying to snap her out of it as she mentally slapped herself. 'Real classy Lizzy. Bring that up on a parent-teacher day.' Doll kept staring at the object before it eventually lost enough momentum to fall onto the table.

"Мертвы. Я видел, как они умирали. (Dead. I watched them die.)" Doll said, still staring ahead of her. Her friend looked a bit concerned now but quickly tried playing it off.

"That was a joke, idiot." Doll didn't get to comment how much in poor taste this was or how she'd like it if her parents were to die in front of her, when suddenly something knocked on the door next to them. Looking over, the two girls spotted a girl that looked like Lizzy. No, it was identical to Lizzy. For a second, the lights in the school hallway outside flickered off, revealing nothing but a darkness with multiple yellow lights shining in like eyes looking in, before they switched on again and the Lizzy lookalike still stood there smiling at them specifically. both of them looked with wide, hollow eyes at the thing outside when Lizzy spoke up.

"That girl looks..." She said hesitantly, before instantly changing her tune into her usual mean girl one. "...gorgeous, right? I'm gonna let her in." And with that she stood up and started walking to the door, while Doll just looked at the scene unfold before her, resisting the urge to jump up and drag her back and making a scene.

'Lizzy, wait! Ugh! Почему ты должен быть таким? (Why must you be like this?)' Doll thought, while Lizzy oblivious to her friend's inner turmoil almost reached the door. 'У меня нет выбора! (I got no choice!)' A red holographic glyph akin to a certain three-pointed symbol which now replaced her right digital eye appeared in front of her left hand before she manipulated it with her fingers, turning it and then shutting her hand into a fist. Just before Lizzy reached the door, the same symbol suddenly appeared on the door, before it was twisted in such a way that it was rendered unusable while remaining shut. The sudden noise made several present drones gasp in shock and Khan instantly turned around at the sight of a door being damaged.

"Ey, industrial-strength, door-hating ghost or whatever. Calm down." Lizzy groaned out and walked back to her seat, while Doll covered her right eye, still displaying the three-pointed symbol. The other drones exchanged worried glances, while Doll looked at the thing on the other side of the door imitating Lizzy as it glared at her before disappearing. The Russian drone let out a silent sigh of relief once it had disappeared and the symbol on her visor had vanished when she put it down on the desk.

'That was way to close for my liking... I'll have to tell the others about this and-' Doll's train of thought came to a halt when she felt a hand on her back.

"Hey, you okay there, bestie?" Lizzy asked, noticing Doll's solemn face expression.

"Я в порядке. Спасибо. (I'm okay. Thanks.)" Doll said, removing her hand from her eye, before gently grabbing Lizzy's hand and giving it a light squeeze as if making sure that she was real and not some optical illusion. The blonde girl smiled lightly at this.

"Good, cause I'm still going to tease you a bit more about that rendezvous you had with Thad." She said with a teasing smile. "It's easy and I have nothing better to do."

"Please don't." Doll said, not wanting to think about the rumor mill Rebecca might start. 'Once he hears that sort of rumor he might actually buy into that like the idiot he is. Wouldn't surprise me if he went right back in there after getting Uzi...' That was when it clicked in her mind that Thad might actually just do that. She didn't dislike the jock, but she didn't wish harm upon him either. Plus, Doll had a very small suspicion that her friend might actually have a thing for that idiot. 'Oh come on... It's always one thing or another lately.'

"That... is new..." Thad said when his flashlight's beam moved over the ground. Uzi and Commandramon's previous banter was replaced by silence as the latter grabbed his gun and scanned the darkness of the room for anything. And even N was dead silent at the sight laying before the four of them. Admittedly, he had expected a lot of things when he had entered the storage room. J's corpse just having been moved to the side had been one of the better. An angry and vengeful J had been the worst. Yet somehow, this was even worse than his former squad's leader jumping them.

What he had not expected was a rather concerningly large amount of still warm oil splattered across the floor where J's body used to be, steaming in the cool air of the storage room. Thad and Uzi's partner digimon walked over to some of the shipping containers, coming across a very small tipped over ladder and toolbox with its contents spilled over the floor, while Uzi's flashlight moved over the surface of the steaming oil and following its path.

"You guys... do that often?" Uzi asked N, when her flashlight illuminated the stained drag marks before they crept up a wall and led to a massive hole in it, still wet and dripping with oil. At that, the disassembly drone could only chuckle nervously.

"Haha... no. I'm a bit concerned, but also, pretty frightened a little bit." He tried to say in a laid-back fashion like when he had originally introduced himself to her as the squad's leader, causing Uzi to give him a flat look.

"That sure is strange." Commandramon said, looking at the hole himself. "Whatever had done this, it was big. Like... really big."

Uzi found herself nodding at the assessment as her eyes scanned the wall and the way the pipes had been bent out of shape inward, indicating that whatever it was had forced its way into the wall after tearing through it. Her mind immediately went to the next closest thing she could think of which happened to be her partner's Champion-level and the digimon they had killed yesterday. Though, she quickly dismissed the thought as this was still J they were looking for... which didn't put her mind at ease at all.

In the meantime, her partner turned his attention back to Thad, who looked wide-eyed at the hole himself, before the two of them made their way between some of the containers, following a second and far smaller trail of oil on the ground. Something reflected the light back at them, making Thad reach down and pick it up. It was a nametag with two crossed wrenches on the side and name 'FRANK' written in capital letters on it. "Did you know him?" The digimon asked, but Thad silently shook his head. The two kept walking until something caught their attention in the back of the containers.

"Hey Zi. You might want to take a look at this." Thad called over to Uzi and N, who both walked up beside them. Across the surface of the containers around them something had been burnt into their surface. It almost looked like a window on a computer and its contents did certainly read like a program. However, immediately catching the attention of everyone except Thad was the three-pointed symbol on it.

'ABSOLUTE SOLVER
REBOOT FAILED
676
INSUFFICIENT MATERIAL'

"Oh, hey. Isn't that your special eye?" N asked, pointing at the symbol, causing Uzi to slap his shoulder and Thad to look at her confused.

"Don't call it that!" She said angrily, before moving over. The symbol was indeed the same at the one her eye was glitching into and breaking mirrors. "Absolute Solver?" Uzi read aloud, neither her or the other two drones realizing how her partner standing behind them suddenly tensed up at those words two words. "Does that have anything to do with your regeneration?" Uzi hesitantly asked N, who chuckled nervously.

"I try my best to not think about that." He said, clearly uncomfortable with that topic. Uzi chose not to comment his clear aversion of the topic, while her partner looked into the darkness behind them, making a step backwards when he heard something akin to fingers drumming on a metal surface. She let her finger run over the lines, trying to decipher the meaning with the facts they had at their hands.

"New material cannot be pulled from thin air. If the damage is too severe, this Solver could be a program that collects new material from its surrou-" Uzi turned around when N covered her mouth with one hand. Annoyed she shot a look to N when he looked with wide eyes the way they had just come. Turning to Thad, he was also shaking like a leaf with the joints of his fingers slightly rattling as he covered his flashlight with it, trying to block its shine out. And her partner in the front was also shaking but rather with aggression as his pupils had shrunken down to small dots as he bared his teeth and growled, gun raised into the darkness. 'What's gotten into you guys-' Uzi's unspoken question answered itself when something moved into the light of her flashlight.

It was a hand. More specifically, a human hand. Not a skeletal one, but an organic, pale skinned human hand crawling on its fingers like some sort of insects in a slithering pattern, while its wrist was connected to a long black cable. It stopped in the middle of the beam of light, turning towards the four of them as if it sensed the direction the light came from. Then it suddenly shot forward to grab Thad's leg, only to get stepped on by Commandramon. Uzi and the other drones watched the fingers wriggle underneath and the cable arching up in an attempt to pull away, when Commandramon let out an uncharacteristically angry sound and twisted his foot, crushing the hand with a loud crack of the hand's bones breaking. Even more disturbing that this strange outburst of anger and violence was the body fluids leaking out from under the digimon's foot. It wasn't blood, it was pitch-black oil.

A loud rumble echoed through the room as the group followed the cable with Uzi's flashlight over the container it emerged from into the ceiling. Unable to see anything, N loaded a missile and upon Uzi nodding to him he fired. It sailed through the air for a second or two before hitting the roof and exploding. What was revealed in the small detonations glow was an enormous serpentine or centipede-like body with countless insect-like limbs and blade-like spines winding and coiling overhead the group the whole time. At that all Uzi and N covered their mouths while Commandramon let out another deep growl.

As if on cue though something shot towards them from over the containers. Long multi-jointed limbs ending in hands and pincers rushed towards them as Commandramon opened fire. The first few arms were destroyed by his assault rifle, but one of the human-like hands slipped past and grabbed Thad, dragging him over the floor towards wherever those things came from. The jock screamed out in fear, just before a ninja star flew overhead and severed the limb, causing the dismembered hand to flop uselessly on the ground like a fish on dry land, while the destroyed or broken limb retreated leaking oil. Thad and Commandramon looked around to see N posing with a ninja star in his hand, ready to throw it.

"I wanna have a frickin' ninja star too." Uzi whined as she reached up to the shuriken in N's hand. However, no one got a chance to comment on her height when another large pincer claw swatted Uzi, N and Commandramon against the container they had looked at earlier, before snatching Thad up and dragging him away kicking and screaming. The three of them groaned in pain.

"You guys okay?" N asked as he and Uzi got back up on their hands and knees.

"Don't take me out, coach." Commandramon said weakly as he used his rifle to support him, looking over at Uzi and nodded. Uzi nodded back and looked in the direction Thad had disappeared into.

"Chainsaw hand time?" She asked N, who switched his hands for revving chainsaws.

"Chainsaws activated." He replied, causing Uzi to grin as all three of them gave chase. Or they would have when more bladed and sharp appendages descended from the ceiling above where the main body of whatever this thing was resided. In an instant, N and Commandramon positioned themselves between her and the danger as one cut through the incoming onslaught of limbs while the threw an explosive.

"That won't stop them for long! Quick before we lose Thad!" Commandramon urged, when the three dashed towards another hole in the wall where Thad had disappeared through. More limbs shot out of the cloud of smoke, some bearing human hands, others sharp talons more akin to the paws of predatory animals. Some had strange yellow glowing spots on them almost like bioluminescent organs. But the group didn't stop before they dashed out of the storage and into a hallway. They turned around on their heels to face the coming tide of claws only to stop when the limbs didn't seem to follow them out of the room. But they had no time to waste on why their enemy didn't follow them as Thad's faded screams echoed through the corridor in the distance.

"Let's get going." Uzi said before they all started running back into the colony. "I could have taken those things on myself, just for the record." Uzi said as she ran besides her two companions through the hallways.

"30-minute cooldown." Was all her partner said, eliciting a groan from her.

"You don't have to rub it in!" She snapped, wanting to hit him over the head if it wasn't for the urgency of the situation.

"This way!" N said when his sharp sensors picked up the sounds of Thad's voice better than the other two. Uzi slung her own gun over her shoulder, ready to line up a shot if need be as the three continued their dash to safe the jock. The group moved through another hallway of the bunker, leading to a part that originally have been meant as a cryosleep chamber for humans. Once they made their way through a plastic tarp curtain, the three of them found themselves running through a hallway lined with capsules, some of which were broken and others still held intact human skeletons in them.

Whatever the worker drones wanted with a cryosleep room like that on a planet without any humans was one of the questions Commandramon put on the backburner when the group soon found themselves looking at a hologram of Thad just moments earlier, laying on the ground and screaming in fear. The hologram grew more and more unstable and glitched into static before abruptly being replaced with a faintly blue shimmering and low-resolution hologram of Thad standing in the hallway.

"Yes, and, hello! It's me. Thad." The hologram said in a slightly glitched voice. "Uhm... can I get a location?" Uzi, N and Commandramon looked at one another for a second and then rather unimpressed at this clearly very bad attempt to imitate Thad and the sudden switch to improv comedy. "I heard dentist office. I am Thad at the dentist office. Come here for your... teeth." The hologram said as it glitched slightly.

"Boo." Commandramon said with a thumbs down, while Uzi activated her railgun by flipping the switch on. It vibrated slightly as it came to live with a mechanical whirring sound akin to a cat's purring in her ears before she raised the gun at "Thad" looking through the green holographic optics of her gun.

"That was even worse than expected, J. Why do you look so-"

"Great! You look great, J." N quickly cut Uzi's remark off before she could say anything rude, before giving her a disapproving look. Uzi glared back at him for a second, before both turned back to the Thad hologram, which looked suddenly rather panicked at its cover being blown.

"No wait guys! It's really me... Is that a freakin' ninja star?" It asked, glitching blue and yellow as well as its voice being replaced by a feminine automated one when N pulled his arm back and threw another ninja star. Uzi quickly put her gun away and kicked the shuriken in midair like a soccer player, causing its trajectory to change from simply flying in a straight line to doing a curve. The Thad hologram gave an automated "[OW.]" as the thrown weapon flew through it and curved up and severed the pincer arm holding the real Thad.

"You saved me again! Thanks. You are so invited to my shindig next week." He said as he picked himself up and started walking backwards, not leaving the camera that had projected his hologram into the hallway as it looked back at him. "Cool kids only." Thad added, pointing at the camera when another pincer arm moved closer to grab Thad, only to recoil when he feinted punching it and ran off. The camera-like eye glared after the retreating teen, while Uzi and N both made high pitched happy noises at their cool combo attack.

'I wanna do cool combo attacks too.' Commandramon thought to himself in the same tone Uzi had previously whined about wanting to have a ninja star too. Just then the whole corridor rumbled and multiple other camera-like eyes and another bladed appendage akin to a praying mantis' claw emerged from the ceiling. Each of the eyes was connected to multi-jointed, almost bone-like structure while all of the limbs sported the familiar color scheme of the disassembly drones Uzi and her partner knew from N and V with an overall white metal shell and yellow and black stripes and yellow glowing things like the optical sensors on N's head.

"[WE ARE BUSY THEN, ANYWAY. SO, WHATEVER, HOW LAME.]" The eyes all rolled their lenses in unison as Uzi and Commandramon pointed their guns at the biomechanical monstrosity that bore no resemblance to J whatsoever.

"What's with the voice, J?" Uzi asked, her finger already itching to pull the trigger again.

"[OH, J IS NOT HERE.]" The being said, before the cameras projected a hologram of J's headless body and an open ribcage standing in the hallway between them. "[WE ARE CURRENTLY TRYING TO RECONSTRUCT THIS HOST AS PER OUR DIRECTIVE.]" In that moment, N and Commandramon noticed more limbs creeping up from behind a few broken cryostasis pods. Human hands clenched and unclenched as if feeling the air, while more cables writhed around like a nest of snakes. N looked at the digimon and gestured at the rafters above them, before Commandramon nodded back.

"You're doing a very bad job, if you wanted to make a drone and ended up with a centipede-snake thing." He said as he backed away from the cluster of approaching limbs.

"[CRITICISM DULLY NOTED. PROCESSED. IGNORED.]" The automated voice of the thing replied in an almost taunting manner, though it was hard to tell with the monotonous tone and the lack of any other reactions to the obvious jab at its ability to fulfill its function.

"So you really are a program?" Uzi adjusted the grip on her rifle, not quite sure where to point it. It was clearly somewhere above them in the ceiling, but seemed to lack a distinct head to shoot. 'Great, normally those sorts of enemies have obvious weak spots. This thing only got those weird eyes.' She thought, trying to figue out where to aim her railgun to end this in one shot.

"[MORE LIKE YOU ARE OUR CUTE LITTLE PUPPETS.]" The biomechanical horror now identified as the Solver replied when the hologram of J was replaced with something else, that made Uzi lower her gun slightly as she looked in shock at the hologram that now stood there. Its back was turned to them for a moment before it looked over to them, revealing itself to be a worker drone with a striking resemblance to Uzi, albeit taller, with longer hair with one ponytail at the side and holding a pill baby with the same purple eyes as both herself and Uzi. "[IT HURTS OUR FEELINGS THAT YOU DON'T REMEMBER US.]" The Solver replied through that hologram, before her right eye and the pill baby's eyes were both flickering with the Solver symbol and the drone's face split into a wide fanged grin before disappearing.

"N, what's the deal with the mom hologram?" Uzi asked clearly unnerved when she turned towards the disassembly drone, only to find him gone when her partner looked at her worried at her clear unease.

"That was your mother?" He asked, his gun still trained at the limbs closing in on them. Uzi nodded when she too noticed the cable like limbs creeping towards them.

"[EASIER TO ASSIMILATE THAN TO EXPLAIN.]" The thing replied, making both of them snap their heads and guns towards the cluster of cameras on the hallway.

"No deal." Uzi said defiantly, snapping out of her unease for a second and raising her rifle again, while the cameras rolled their lenses at her reaction.

"[FAIR, BUT POOR CHOICE.]" The Solver said when from a hole in the ceiling something emerged that actually did look like J a bit. It was a head with familiar white hair styled in twin pigtails, but its visor appeared damaged like it had melted somewhat... or had yet to be fully formed. The lower jaw was also missing, leaving a gaping maw with small sharp teeth wide open. The head sat on a long, serpentine neck with the lower side open like an open ribcage or a wide open maw, while two sickle-like claws tipped a pair of arms close to its face not unlike those of a praying mantis. Immediately, memories of their fight against Snimon resurfaced in both Commandramon and Uzi's mind. "[NOW WE ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING SHOCKING.]" It added when out of the ceiling came another arm holding a struggling Khan by his face in a talon-like hand.

"Whoa- Hey!" Uzi lowered her rifle as she moved closer with hurried steps. Her wide eyes locked onto her father flailing his arms around uselessly in a futile attempt to flee as he groaned out in pain. Her partner remained where he was as something about the situation was odd. He too had lowered his gun at the sight of Uzi's father, but when he sniffed the air, his eyes widened even more.

"Uzi, wait that's not-" He called out to Uzi, but the Solver was faster.

"[GOODBYE, DAD.]" It said before a pincer of abomination wearing J's face grabbed onto "Khan" and tore him straight in half, causing Uzi to stop dead in her tracks. One of the pincers threw the lower half of the drone away while the head came around and bit down on the dead worker drone, causing a blob of oil and drone entrails to hit the ground with a wet sound.

"What..." Uzi breathed out, her eyes locked on the remains on the floor. Everything suddenly felt like it moved in slow motion as her breathing grew shallow and panicked. Her railgun was forgotten in her hands when the monstrosity lunged towards her with its claws

"M16 Assassin!" Commandramon opened fire on the amalgamation of flesh and metal, causing it to recoil and shield itself with its large claws. He grabbed the worker drone by the arm and pulled her back, before throwing an explosive behind him into a cluster of approaching tendril-like arms. "DCD Bomb!" The small explosion tore the limbs apart, staining the floor with black oil. "Uzi, listen to me. That wasn't-" A missile flew overhead, cutting him off as it hit the Solver square in its body.

"[PAINED NOISES.]" It said recoiling when N suddenly came from behind them. One of his hands was transformed into a missile launcher and pointed at the Solver.

"Uzi, shoot! Or give that thi-" N was cut off by Commandramon shooting him square in the face. Time seemed to crawl down to a snail's pace for Uzi once more as she watched N's visor shatter into a spiderweb of cracks and he fell backwards. Her eyes widened in shock, until N's body glitched revealing another pincer-tipped arm being riddled with bullet holes. Uzi turned worldlessly to her partner, who glared at the centipede-like form of the Solver with his lips pulled back and growling.

"You..." He said as he shot the biomechanical construct a hateful look. The Solver dropped the act after being found out and merely rolled her eyes.

"[SPOILSPORT.]" It said before more of its bladed limbs moved forward trying to skewer the two of them. Noticing how Uzi was still shaking and seemingly paralyzed from what she had witnessed, Commandramon grabbed Uzi and moved them out of harm's way, narrowily avoiding the Solver's attacks. Whilst falling back, its centipede-like form slithered closer with a "[SNARL]". In response, the digimon put himself between his partner and the Solver as he opened fire on the spindly limbs, severing more of them.

"Uzi, listen. That thing is tricking you. Your dad is alright and so is N. You need to-LOOK OUT!" Commandramon pushed Uzi out of the way and jumped aside when a scythe-like claw backhanded him and a clawed hand grabbed him by the chest, slamming him into the wall. The first attack knocked his rifle out of his hands and onto the floor where it clattered uselessly against the metal panels. This familiar scenario made Uzi finally snap out of her panic attack when she witnessed what had previously been her just a few nights earlier. Except, this time she was the one watching someone being pinned to a wall instead of her. In the worker drone's mind she could literally see herself look back at her father, when he had left her for dead. The digimon struggled in the Solver's grip yet found itself unable to pry the claw open or to grab another explosive to throw. "U-Uzi..."

'Why isn't he digivolving? He could totally take that snake-crab thing on if he-' Uzi though just when she realized something. The corridor was rather long, but it did not have a very high ceiling. If Commandramon turned into Hi-Commandramon in this place, his entire body would barely have enough space to stand while crouched down, let alone turn around. It was that moment, the purple-haired worker drone understood that it had led them into this place on purpose using Thad as bait and they had blindly ran straight into its trap. 'Dammit!' She thought when she noticed her partner's rifle laying nearby.

"[ANNOYING.]" The Solver said as it snapped its pincers dangerously close to the struggling dinosaur's head. "[TIME TO GET DELETED.]" It said, swinging a talon in Uzi's direction. The worker drone did a combat roll, jumping out of the way and grabbing Commandramon's gun, before opening fire. However, the recoil of the gun was more than she expected from the small rifle, causing her to involuntarily pull the weapon upwards. It still nailed the leg holding her partner hostage and severed it, making the digimon fall down to the ground, but the rest of the shots missed.

"DCD BOMB!" Her partner shouted as he threw a grenade at the Solver, while running to Uzi's side, though it simply swatted the explosive asive with one scythe-like talon as it harmlessly exploded down the corridor. "Uzi, are you okay?" He asked, when he took his gun back.

"No..." She replied honestly, slinging her railgun over her shoulder. Commandramon put a reassuring hand on her shoulder for a moment, whilst both of them pointed their guns at the centipede-like abomination before them.

"Don't worry, Uzi. We'll make it through this, with or without Champion-level power." He told her, before nodding at her. Uzi's eyes widened a bit before nodding back. Then they split up, running towards the Solver from opposite sides. Half the cameras followed Uzi, the other followed Commandramon, but the monstrosity's head followed Uzi. The moment it turned to her, her partner opened fire, forcing it to shield itself and lash out with its limbs. Doing so, it turned the J head slightly towards the digimon, only to snap right back when the whirring of Uzi's railgun grew louder. Immediately, the Solver tried to catch Uzi, stomping and slashing at where she was, missing her just narrowly.

"[SQUIRMY WORM.]" It said, before having to block another hail of bullet just as another grenade went off, but this time it was a smoke grenade, blocking the Solver's view.

"Now!" Commandramon called out to his partner as she skidded to a stop and pointed her railgun in the center of the cloud of smoke. But in the moment, she wanted to pull the trigged another clawed hand shot through the roof panels above and grabbed her by the face, slamming her into the ground and making her drop her gun. "UZI!" Her partner shouted when the smoke screen lifted and the Solver looked back at them, grabbing the digimon with one pincer and pinning him to the ground. "Ugh... dammit, I can't digivolve in here..." Her partner struggled harder against the pincer applying more pressure on his torso.

"[SARCASM. TOO BAD FOR YOU, IDIOT.]" The Solver said before turning completely to Uzi who flailed uselessly in its grip much like the hologram of her father did earlier. "[NOW IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO GET INTO MY MOUTH.]" Uzi could only barely make out the eyes of the solver look at her and the ceiling from between the talon's fingers, when she saw a flash of yellow seemingly above the serpentine form of J's rearranged corpse. A moment later, the loud revving of chainsaws filled the room and the Solver's eyes widened when all its eyes were cut off at the same time alongside the arms holding down Uzi and Commandramon. N then dropped down from the ceiling, cutting though another bladed limb coming his way. "[OW. N, STOP THAT. I WAS STILL USING THOSE LIMBS.]" Meanwhile Uzi found her railgun laying on the ground a bit further away.

'If I can shoot it while it's distracted, I should be able to kill it. Or at least cut it down to size.' She thought before dashing towards the fallen rifle, while the blinded Solver tried to shield itself from Commandramon's bullets and fight off N with his chainsaw hands. The purple worker drone was just about to reach her gun when a new camera eye and pincer leg came down looking at her, while grabbing the railgun itself.

"[TRICKED YOU. YOU BIG STUPID.]" The Solver said, before hitting Uzi across the face with her own gun. She hit the ground hard and a tendril wrapped around her torso, pulling Uzi towards the Solver as it turned J's mutilated maw to her to try and take a bite out of her. N and Commandramon tried to stop it, only to get blocked by its regenerated limbs. "[NOW IT IS SNACK TIME.]" Uzi kicked her legs and struggled against the cable-like appendage, but found herself still dragged over the floor regardless, looking with wide eyes at the monster's gaping maw closing in.
Just then another sound filled the air. The sharp sound of a whistle. Two shapes flew over Uzi's head and hit the Solver straight in its body before exploding, causing it to let go of Uzi and writhe in pain. N managed to quickly dash over and grabbed Uzi pull her away from the thing, while the Solver directed its eyes towards the new attacker. "[WHA-AT NO-OW.]" Its voice glitched when the new arrival revealed itself stomping closer behind N and Uzi and looming over them.

"Destruction Grenade!" Guardromon shouted as he raised both arms at the Solver. Small compartments on his arms opened revealing cartoonish bullets with short arms, a small emergency light, whistle in the front and holding a small baton, before they shot outward like fighter jets taking off with the same whistling sound towards the Solver. The program possessing J's corpse tried swatting them away, only for one of the semi-sentient projectiles to weave around and evade the strike before exploding against it. Then Guardromon turned to N and Uzi. "Greetings."

"Uh..." Was the only response Uzi could give as her mind still had to work through the nightmarish visage of J looming over her when her digivice's analyzer popped up in her HUD filled her in on the details. 'What's a Champion-level digimon doing here?' But her question was left unanswered when the sickening snapping of metal and bone revealed the Solver regenerating its lost limbs and swinging a claw at Guardromon. Much to its and everyone else's surprise though, Guardromon punched the incoming bladed appendage, shattering it into shrapnel and oil. The Solver recoiled in pain, its other limbs slightly trashing around when one of them hit Uzi's railgun. Instantly, the gun began to overcharge and glow bright red. It did not notice though as its eyes were destroyed and had yet to regenerate.

"[STOP. I'LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER. I AM STILL PLAYING WITH MY FOOD.]" The Solver managed to say, while Guardromon continued blocking the incoming attacks, when long black tendrils wrapped around the machine digimon's torso and threw him to the side. The others noticed the intensifying red glow of Uzi's overcharging railgun. The way it sparked with energy indicated a far more violent reaction than back in the classroom a few days ago. They didn't have time to speak though when N unfolded his wings, slashing away some of the incoming limbs trying to grab them before he flew at Uzi, who recoiled slightly in fear before she was picked up alongside her partner and he flew further into the hallway. At that point the Solver slithered after them to follow and regrew more eyes, before it stopped, its lenses wide open and turned to see the unstable gun right below its serpentine form. It tried retracting its body back into the ceiling but found itself unable to do so when Guardromon had grabbed a hold of one of its larger appendages and pulled it down hard.

"You are termina-" Was all the machine digimon got to say when the railgun's built up energy exploded before the Solver hit the ground and the entire hallway engulfed in a flash of bright light.

For a moment everything was drowned out by the ringing of their ears and the smoke and dust kicked up by explosion. Once the heat of the explosion had washed over them, N picked himself up from the ground with a groan, having shielded himself and his friends from the explosion with his wings. Looking back the trio looked at the destroyed hallway. The explosion had torn a hall into the ground and caused parts of the weakened roof to crash down. Several of the lamps overhead had also been destroyed, making the hallway quite dark. Some pieces of debris and stains of oil were actually burning and several of the already broken pods were now completely shattered. Amidst all of this, a faint blue glow of a hologram still shone through the smoke. It was Khan's discarded lower half, revealing itself to be a hologram all along, projected by one of the camera-like eyes, which suddenly contorted as if in pain before it seemingly imploded in on itself and vanished in a yellow glow.

"What was- Which parts of all that were real?" Uzi asked aghast. Despite what Commandramon had told her earlier, her mind was still unable to fully process what she had heard back then as she was still shaking. Her partner picked himself off the ground as well, his body slightly stinging from the blast despite N shielding them from most of it.

"Are you guys ok-" He stopped when something shifted within a pile of debris, causing all three of them to look over with wide eyes. Just then a small, heart-like construct of flesh and metal with several yellow glowing lights on it climbed out of the debris on three blade-tipped cable-like legs like a spider and jumped off with surprising speed for something its size.

"[SNEAKY, SNEAKY. SNEAKING AWAY. GET SNUCK-UP ON.]" The Solver's core said as it continued to jump around the room before landing on the ground not far from the trio and N stabbing it with his tail. "[OW.]" The automated voice said before simply picking itself back up and continuing to crawl away. N stabbed it again looking visibly uncomfortably with stabbing the fleshy thing. [OW. OW-OW-OW-OW.] After the third time and applying a bit more pressure, the core then also writhed in pain and disappeared in a yellow glow, seemingly imploding. Uzi and Commandramon could only look in shock.

It was then that the three of them heard shouting in the distance and the approaching footsteps as well as flashlights coming from behind the curtain they had passed through when they entered the room of people coming to investigate. N crouched down to help Uzi up, but when she was still looking at the spot where the Solver had been a moment ago, he reached down. But when he touched her shoulder she suddenly flinched away and looked at him with a frightened look on her face, making both N and Commandramon look in shock at her.

"What... are you things?" Uzi asked, her mind still reeling from nearly getting eaten alive by J's reanimated corpse. Her partner digimon looked at her worried put a hand on her other shoulder, causing her to flinch again albeit less than she did with N. Her eyes kept being fixated on N with that afraid look on her face.

"Uzi... It's okay... Thanks for earlier, N-" Commandramon said, when he turned to him and noticed the disassembly drone take a hesitant step back. "N, wait-" But N suddenly bolted off and climbed up into the rafters of the hallway when Uzi's face changed into one of guilt. Her partner didn't blame her for her reaction, even if he felt it was uncalled for to call him a 'thing'. Instead, he helped her steady herself on her feet when further up ahead, Guardromon pulled himself out of the debris. His brown metal hull covered in soot though not visibly damaged. The machine digimon looked around and noted the absence of N, just when three members of the WDF arrived, including Khan. All of which held flashlights as they scanned the room and saw Uzi standing there, leaning slightly on her partner for support.

"Uzi?" Khan asked surprised to see his 'banished' daughter there when she slowly walked towards him with her face cast to the ground. Commandramon stayed where he stood as he watched her go. "What are you doing he-" Khan was cut off when Uzi hugged him tightly, burying her face in his jacket and whimpered softly. Khan looked unsure what to do for a moment before gently hugging her back, before gesturing for the other two drones to go ahead into the cryosleep chamber. The two WDF members nodded and ran further into the hallway, when Khan noticed N's yellow optics look back at him from the rafters in discomfort, before he disappeared. He narrowed his eyes at that clearly suspicious behavior when Commandramon and Guardromon walked over to the two of them. "What happened here?" He eventually asked.

"That... we don't quite know ourselves." Commandramon admitted, before looking back the way N had left.

"Where is your friend?" Guardromon asked, causing both Uzi to flinch slightly, while Commandramon opened his mouth to say something only for him to shut it again and cast his gaze to the ground again. Sensing how awkward things had gotten, Uzi's father spoke up.

"Let's... let's go home for now, okay? We can talk later." Khan said, feeling Uzi nod slightly against his chest as the four of them made their way towards the Doormans' apartment with Khan supporting his daughter along the way while Guardromon helped Commandramon to walk, when the latter still felt a familiar unpleasant pain pounding in his head ever since Uzi had read those two seemingly innocent words aloud in the storage room: 'Absolute Solver'.

And just like back then, he felt the same string of code flash before his mind's eye.

OBJECTIVE: D*STRO* T*E SOL*R. K*L* *L* H*S**.

The weather had calmed down outside and the skies cleared when it was almost dawn on Copper 9 again. Not that V could see it for herself as she was still inside their ship, having passed the time by engrossing herself in the third volume of a manga series. However, having spent years on this frozen ball of rock and ice, she could tell by the sound of the wind calming down outside. Being forced to spend one's time within the spire was not that unusual. Even the disassembly drones could only do so much against the fierce storms of that planet and thus they had to keep themselves busy somehow when hunting was not an option and sleep mode sounded too unappealing or boring.

"I'm starting to get where that gremlin is getting her sense of aesthetics from." V muttered to herself when she flipped a page of the manga in her hands. The protagonist was also some tomboyish, short girl with a temper, but V could most certainly see where a certain worker drone might either have taken inspiration from in both her own style and her preferences, looking over to the drawing of the ship on Uzi's to-do list plastered on the whiteboard. V rolled her eyes when she closed the manga and set it down on the console in front of her. Though she didn't dislike the book, she found herself tired of reading for the moment and

That was when her ears picked up the sound of wings beating and someone landing inside the corpse spire. Shortly after the door opened, making her turn around.

"Ah, you're back. How was... N?" V was about to make a snide comment when she saw N's face and could immediately tell something was wrong. First of all, he came back alone. And secondly, he was... silent. Not the kind someone who had nothing to say, but the sort of depressed silent that instantly turned the atmosphere in a room gloomy. He also didn't answer her as he closed the door, walked straight past her and went into the corner he had slept in the day before, huddling down and looking at the ground. Seeing the usually so friendly and happy disassembly drone all of the sudden so sad meant something very bad must have happened. "What's wrong? Where are the purple thing and her friend?"

"..." N remained silent as he sat on the ground, his tail curling around him and looking down at his own feet as he pulled his legs to his chest. V kept looking at him, when she heard the quiet noise of something dragging on the floor as she turned on her chair. Looking down, she found the chain holding her there had snapped, freeing her effectively. Still, she didn't get up. Instead she looked back at N's depressed form as she quietly moved the chain over to hide the fact it was broken, before crossing her arms and pretending to be upset.

"Alright, don't talk to me then." She muttered, though her words sounded hollow, while she was lost in thought and wondering what could have happened to make him so gloomy all of the sudden. 'Purple thing, what did you do?' V thought to herself, her eyes narrowing a bit as she looked at the empty screen before her. That however only lasted for a short while before the sulking disassembly drone in front of her looking like a kicked puppy became impossible to ignore. 'Ha... I'm going soft from all this nonesense...' She eventually lost the wrestle with her emotions when let out a sigh. "N, listen." V said in a softer, caring tone, that made N perk up slightly. It wasn't much, a mere raise of his head and a subtle shift of his tail, but it was a reaction nonetheless. "I can clearly see that something's bothering you and admittedly it's... concerning. So, just tell me what's wrong, okay?" She said. N slowly turned towards her when she found herself smiling a little at him.

She didn't expect him to cross the distance between them and hug her tightly though. V almost found herself reverting back to her usual attitude and snapping at him, when she felt him slightly tremble and heard a quiet whimper come from him. Now, she knew N to be emotional and friendly, almost to a fault considering how well he and Commandramon got along with one another and that digimon also having a rather naive personality or generally being clueless about certain things. But she did not expect him to react like this; especially when even after being tied up like this and getting hurt, he had always been mindful of her personal space. Whatever happened had to be very bad. So, instead of pushing him away and most likely worsening his condition, V gently hugged him back, which made him tense up a bit more at first before relaxing slightly, slowly lowering himself from his shaking legs onto his knees. N didn't say anything, just continuing to quietly cry and V let him.

He could tell her what happened later.

Meanwhile back in Outpost 3, Impmon finally decided to come out of his hiding spot. Kicking open an unlocked school locker door from the inside, the small evil digimon let himself fall to the ground where he laid for a moment like an abandoned stuffed animal.

"Seriously... what did I ever do... like what specifically..." He said in an exhausted tone, before lazily rolling onto his back and looking at the ceiling. After his initial escape from the Solver, he had went straight into hiding. Luckily, some idiot had left their locker open, allowing Impmon to slip inside after dumping its contents onto the hallways floor. However, shortly after, the whole bunker seemed to have been shook by some distant explosion, causing worker drones of the WDF to run around like headless chickens. Some guy even had to break open a door to get out of some classroom not far away. In no time, Impmon had been caught between a rock at a hard place with the locker shaking slightly from all the people walking by and the fear of getting caught by that biomechanical monster that gave most machine digimon a run for their money. Eventually he had somewhat dozed off though only in an exhausted half-asleep state, before he noticed that the sounds outside had subsided into nothingness.

Sitting up, Impmon looked at his instructions in the dark hallway once more when he began to wander outside of the empty school and into the direction the other worker drones had run into.

'Probably nothing to worry about. I can just do what I came for and call it a day-' Impmon's thoughts were disrupted by the sound of rustling papers when he stepped on some flyers that had previously been glued to the wall next to him, but now laid discarded on the floor in a mess. 'Ugh! Seriously, do they not pay their janitors or do these guys just live on a dump?' Impmon thought when he picked up a flyer for the upcoming prom night 3071. A lot of mischevious ideas already sprang to his mind at the sight of this and brought at small grin to his face. "Oh, now this looks good- OUCH!" He suddenly yeled when he took another step and immediately felt something small and hard press into his foot from beneath the papers. "Hey, what's the big deal? You lay out traps or something?" He yelled at no one in particular, when he moved away some missing people posters and stopped when he saw what it was. "What the-"

Just then his ears picked up the sound of someone coming. Quickly, Impmon's eyes darted around the empty hallway, when he noticed the grate of a small ventilation shaft on the ground level. Quickly, he dashed over and squeezed himself into the tight space. It was a rather tight fit with him waving to wriggle a lot to get his feet and tail in, but the grate fell silently shut behind him when he peered out in hopes no one had heard the quiet creaking of the metal grate. The footsteps grew louder and soon enough, Impmon found himself listening to the quiet mechanical sounds the drones made while moving. A pair of feet stopped not far from where he had been and looking up the drone's leg, Impmon saw a certain purple-haired drone with red eyes scan the hallways for anything.

Doll walked in complete silence through the dark corridors. Her eyes looked around the lockers and the security cameras, memorizing their every position and what direction they faced. After the parent-teacher conference she had told Lizzy that she still had something to do here since her parents were deceased. Her best friend had believed her and wished her a good night, before strolling home. Doll has had a feeling she wouldn't have to worry about Lizzy's safety then. Plus, the sudden panic among the WDF had allowed her to explore the school at nighttime once more. Now she had thought he had heard something outside of the school and went to investigate only to find a stack of discarded papers. She could only roll her eyes at that, though her own home didn't look much better, she had to admit.

'Weird... I could have sworn I-' Then she noticed something among the papers. Walking closer, Impmon watched Doll bend down right next to where he was hiding. A single sideways glance and she would have noticed him, but instead her eyes were fixed on something that had reflected the weak lighting of the room just enough to set it apart in the darkness. Carefully she picked the object up, twisting it in her fingers and eying it from all sides. "Это... (This is...)" Doll mumbled to herself when she held Uzi's digivice in her hand. Then she looked down the corridor leading to the Doorman's apartment for a moment and then back at the small purple and black gadget. A moment later, a wide grin spread across her face as she put the digivice into her pocket, before turning on her heel and leaving for her own home. A short while after she had left, Impmon crawled out of his hiding spot, dusting himself off and looking bewildered in the direction Doll went.

'What in the Dark Area is her deal?' He thought to himself, before shaking his head and going back to trying to find a better hiding spot for the night, suddenly feeling rather sleepy. 'I can still do what I came here for tomorrow. I'm so beat.' He thought to himself before heading off in the opposite direction Doll went.

Back in the Doorman's apartment an awkward silence hung over the kitchen/living area as Khan looked at Commandramon waiting outside of Uzi's room. His daughter had fled into her room before either of them could talk to her and she had not come out since. Her father looked a bit worried at the digimon, especially after he had been clued in on what had happened starting with Thad bringing back Uzi's railgun to that program using J's corpse like a puppet to move about and finally Uzi having a panic attack after all she had to see.

Guardromon had left for his post at Door 1 for the night and Khan himself had excused himself to his coworkers to take care of Uzi, only for her to withdraw from him again so quickly once more. Not that he blamed her. Right now his opinion on her spending so much time with the murder drones was a bit torn between her having made an actual friend with N and them still being the murderers of his wife. Though right now, even he could tell that Uzi was not doing well enough to tackle that specific topic. Not with her apparently having hurt her friend like that.

Meanwhile, Commandramon kept looking at Uzi's door like he had for hours now, when Khan walked up to him and patted him on the back.

"Thank you... for looking out for Uzi." He said hesitantly. Commandramon looked up at him and nodded.

"Of course. She's my partner and my friend after all." The digimon replied, before turning back to the door to Uzi's room. "... Mister Doorman?" He then hesitantly asked. "I know this might be a bit... inappropriate to ask, but... what was Uzi's mother like?" Khan's eyes hollowed out at that question as he remained silent for a moment. Commandramon exhaled through his nose at this in a sigh. "Understood... it's not an easy thing to talk about. Sorry for asking."

"It's fine... but... maybe another time..." Khan said when he retreated back into his room. "Goodnight..." He said quietly before closing the door to his room. Commandramon looked after him for a moment before turning back towards Uzi's room and hesitantly knocking against it.

"Uzi? Can... I come in?" He asked. When no immediate reply came, Commandramon was about to lay down and curl up in front of her room, when he heard a very quiet "Come in..." from inside. Gently the digimon opened the door and walked inside, careful to close the door quietly behind him. Inside Uzi's room her found her laying on her bed and staring at a ceiling where he now saw several disturbing drawings as well as newspaper articles and written texts such as 'YOU ARE IN RANGE' and 'TRUST NO ONE - THAT'S WHY I DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS' connected with red threads and a large distorted Solver symbol painted over them in the middle and several more drawn over the various sheets of paper. The picture of the symbol made his headache grow worse as he forced himself to look back down at his partner instead. Her wide eyes never left the ceiling even when he walked up to her bed.

Only when he looked at her nightstand and grabbed a sheet of paper on it, she turned her head to him at the rustling of the paper. Her frown deepened when her partner looked sadly at a childish drawing N had given her. It was a doodle of N and Uzi on top of several dead drones and a dog standing at the side with the caption 'THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND'. Commandramon looked back at her, before she turned her face back to the ceiling and draped an arm over her visor.

"...I really messed up back there, huh?" She eventually said quietly. Her partner digimon out the drawing back down and gently patted her on the head.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. It's all going to be alright. I'm sure, N will understand that it was just something you said in a moment of panic... Just give him and yourself some time." He told her before he sat down besides her bed and leaned against it. Commandramon didn't say how he partially blamed himself for how things turned out when he had been unable to digivolve back then. He also had questions of his own, but those could wait.

Uzi didn't say anything for a long time, but when she withdrew her arm from her face. She didn't cry or anything like that. She had pretty much poured her emotions into the drawings now hanging from her ceiling. Now she just felt... hollow and she hated herself for what she had said earlier. There were a lot of things she wanted to know the answers to like how that thing could imitate her mother, but one thought stood in the forefront.

'I'm sorry, N...' Uzi thought to herself until the events of the day took their toll on her and she slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Socializing and Other Hazards

"And here we can see how the CAPTCHA causes an immediate reaction in the drone's mind, disorienting the volunteer enough to pass out from its optical illusion... Urgh... I'm gonna hurl... Oh Robo-Jesus... Turn off the camera. I SAID TURN IT OFF!" A drone in a lab coat to indicate his job as a scientist said, before quickly dashing off-screen to the closest trash bin or toilet to expel the contents of his stomach. The camera crew however simply kept filming and just focused on the image on what looked like an old computer monitor displaying a worker drone in a straight jacket, strapped to a chair and forced to look at a computer displaying a CAPTCHA picture. The teacher had put on an education video for today's lesson on the topic data safety and its dangers, not feeling like doing any actual teaching after his long night at the parent-teacher conference. Much like himself, the class only watched with the same non-existent interest than himself. Most of them were either talking with one another or playing with their phones to distract themselves or actually watching the video and also experiencing some form of irrational dread or nausea.

Uzi, on the other hand, looked completely checked out as her hands seemed to move on their own, drawing on a sheet of paper with her pen. She was not even looking at the paper before her, but rather her gaze was aimed at the ceiling, deep in thought and letting out a sigh for the umpteenth time in a row. If this had been a week ago, some of her former bullies would likely have tried to throw something against her and see if it would land in her mouth. However, the events that had led up to the day Uzi Doorman returned to Outpost 3 and rejoined their class had given them plenty of reason to not try and do that, fearing they'd not even see the seemingly absent digimon before he'd put a bullet into their foreheads.

Not even the admittedly amusing scene of the "volunteer" inside an isolated padded room trying to get as far away as possible from the computer monitor showing a picture of a traffic light on its CAPTCHA screen made her expression change in the slightest as her mind still lingered on the night before and the words she had uttered echoing in her mind among others.

'What are you things?'
'Freak.'
'You're scaring us.'
'What a weirdo.'
'Look at that loser.'
'Why don't you go cry to your mommy? Oh wait, she's dead.'
'[IT HURTS OUR FEELINGS THAT YOU DON'T REMEMBER US.]'
'Wha-What have you done?'
'Stay away, you freak. We don't want to catch what you have.'
'I HATE YOU, DAD! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!'

The sudden ringing of the school bell made her jolt up with a gasp when she was torn out of a rather unpleasant memory from when her mother had died. Some of the students around her gave her a short look for a moment, before she quickly lowered her head again lacking her usual spark to tell them to 'go and bite her'. Instead, her eyes cast down on the sheet of paper she had drawn upon and realized dreadfully that she had drawn the three-pointed symbol of the Absolute Solver over and over again to the point they were overlapping each other and even some had been drawn on the desk's surface besides the paper. She quickly grabbed the sheet of paper and crushed it in her grip before shoving it into her backpack to dispose of it later, while averting her gaze from the rest of the class.

Behind her, Lizzy looked rather concerned at the purple-haired drone and so did Doll when the two of them exchanged a look whereas the rest of the class grabbed their stuff and began filing out of the classroom and into the hallway. Uzi made her way out in a hurried pace, while looking exhausted or dead inside and more dragging her feet like a zombie from one of her games than walking. As the rest of the class walked out Doll made a point to walk at the very back of the class to not block the way for anyone trying to leave when she stopped next to Uzi's desk. Brushing her hand over its surface, she traced the faint lines her pen's tip had left in the plastic layer of the tabletop and recognized the symbol easily and with worry welling up in her mind, before leaving the classroom too.

In the hallway, Uzi dragged herself past her classmates and towards her locker. Just like after the attack of the disassembly drones, things in Outpost 3 had gone back to normal in just a matter of hours. The incident was documented; the missing people and deceased were listed and the damaged sections of the bunker were being repaired and cleaned up again. And once that was going to be done, the incident would be brushed under the rug just like before. But Uzi couldn't let it go when this clearly had something to do with the weird thing her eye did. And when that Solver thing could apparently imitate her late mom both she and the baby in her hand also showed the same symbol.

'At the very least, those morons don't bother me too...' Uzi thought, glancing at her fellow students mostly ignoring her. Not that she expected them to roll out a red carpet for her after saving the colony twice already or any other form of recognition for her deeds that literally saved all of their lives, but she would not have minded at least something. Though considering her current emotional state, the others not paying her any attention was a blessing for Uzi. Her day had already started badly with her waking up from another guilt-ridden dream/replay of yesterday and being told by her dad that she was still required to go to school. 'I should just have called in sick or something.' Uzi thought to herself as somehow school had become even more of a drag than usual after spending multiple days outside of Outpost 3 and working on the ship. 'Don't think about it. Think about anything else that doesn't connect to that...' She opened her locker's door and put some of her supplies away for the day, trying her best to ignore the solver symbols she had also drawn on its interior side, only to jump a bit when she closed the door and found a familiar pair of cyan-blue eyes look back at her.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Rebecca asked in a laid-back tone as she leaned against the locker with one arm as if she was going to try and hit on her. Uzi immediately glared at the blue-haired girl for invading her personal space and took a step backwards, making the smile on Rebecca's face widen a bit.

"None of your business." Uzi replied before turning around to leave, but Rebecca followed her.

"Nah, I think it is my business. Breakups and such are my specialty after all." She said, walking besides her, making Uzi pick up her pace.

"I didn't break up with anyone."

"Oh really? Because you sure look like it. The awkward silence, that forlorn stare into nothing, the silent lament... really reminds me my first breakup." The blue-haired drone said, easily keeping pace with Uzi thanks to her being taller.

"Good for you. Tell it your psychiatrist so he can unscrew whatever's wrong with your head." Uzi said in a slightly snappier tone as she felt her irritation rise up in her.

"But I wanna hear what happened between you and that tall hottie you were here with last night." Rebecca feigned a hurt tone at that. "Maybe I could give you a few pointers-AGH!" Rebecca suddenly fell forward onto her face when she tripped over a book on the ground, that Uzi could have sworn was not there a moment ago. Some students turned to see it, but none of them commented on it with anything more than a look that lingered on for a moment. The book sailed through the air behind them before being caught by none other than Doll, who walked over to the two of them with Lizzy.

"Перестань её беспокоить, Ребекка. Иди и подумай о своём свидании с Брэдом на выпускном. (Stop bothering her, Rebecca. Go and worry about your prom date with Brad.)" Doll told Rebecca when the blue-haired girl picked herself up. "Я видела, как он расхваливал Эмили из другого класса. (I've seen him talk up Emily from the other class.)"

"WHAT?!" Rebecca said, her face turning into one of anger before she stomped off grumbling to herself. "That good-for-nothing... when I get my hands on him, I'll..." With Rebecca gone, Uzi was left with Lizzy and Doll, making her slightly uncomfortable when both looked at her.

"Don't listen to her. She's just bored as usual." The blonde girl told Uzi, before looking a bit more concerned at the shorter purple-haired drone. "You don't look so good. Like, worse than usual." That made Uzi groan slightly, lacking her usual fire.

"And what is it to you? If you want to know what happened you can just ask Thad." She grumbled before she was about to turn around and walk away. That was when both Doll and Lizzy grabbed her by the shoulders and flanked her.

"Oh no, you do not run away from us." Lizzy said as Uzi looked bewildered at the blonde popular girl. "You quite possibly just saved our lives for a second time and you're looking like you are about to point that gun of yours at your head instead any minute." She said, making the shorter worker drone glare at her at the suggestion.

"I'm not suicidal!" Uzi protested when she found herself walking towards her home with the two popular girls. "What are you even doing?"

"Simple. We're going to have some fun tonight at my place." Lizzy said. Uzi's eyes hollowed out at Lizzy's plans, still remembering how disgustingly girly her room was. "And to make sure you're not simply flaking out, we'll go to your place to inform your dad of your plans for tonight." Now, Uzi was many things, but she was not one for the stereotypical teenage girl hangouts and sleepovers. Namely because she had a distinct lack of female friends, but also due to her interests not exactly including the usual clothes and gossip and whatever girls her age actually talked about during those get-togethers.

"Look guys, thanks for the offer, but I really need to get back to..." Uzi stopped as she struggled to come up with an excuse. 'Doing what exactly? Mulling over how you destroyed the one good relationship you had with someone that wasn't your partner digimon?' She chided herself. 'Think about conspiracy theories that likely end nowhere? Curling in your bed and crying yourself to sleep?' The more she thought, the less appealing staying at home was. Even more so, if it meant that she'd be forced to stay close to her dad of all people. The two other girls kept walking with Uzi, having let go of her shoulders and just accompanying her now. They exchanged a look with Lizzy raising an eyebrow and pointing at Uzi, while Doll shrugged slightly. "Ugh! Fine! But if you do anything weird, I'm out. And I'll take my gun with me in case you get any ideas." Lizzy smirked a bit at the last remark.

"Ideas? Me? What makes you think I'd do that?" She feigned ignorance badly, making both Doll and Uzi look at her before rolling their eyes much to Lizzy's faked annoyance. "Oh, come on. You say it as if I've ever done anything to warrant that."

"Ты задушил ее партнера. (You choked out her partner.)" Doll commented with a flat look.

"You are quite possibly the biggest stereotype in our class right after Thad." Uzi added.

"And which stereotype are you then? The cute loner?" Lizzy shot back. That made Uzi tense up a bit when she realized that she did indeed somewhat fit that stereotype, though she did disagree with one part of that statement in particular.

"E-Ew! Who are you calling 'cute'?" She turned to Doll and looked at her. "Is Lizzy turning into another Rebecca?" She half-joked.

"Возможно. Мы всё ещё изучаем это состояние. (Perhaps. We are still studying this condition.)" The Russian drone replied when the blonde drone shook her head at the mere suggestion of becoming anything like her blue-haired friend.

"I am not turning into that!" Lizzy said in an offended tone. "Sure, I do like the attention, but I'm not going to be like that."

"Вчера вечером ты рассказывал слухи, которые тебе давно рассказывала Ребекка, и это действовало мне на нервы. (Last night, you were going on about a rumor Rebecca told you for quite some time and getting on my nerves.)" Doll remarked when she recalled Lizzy's insistent questioning about her and Thad. Like if they had anymore 'dates' planned or if they wanted to skip the hand holding phase for the making out in the broom closet phase.

"Because there was nothing better to do! It was either that or listen to Uzi's dad trying to save face in front of the teacher." Lizzy crossed her arms defensively. The mentioning of Khan had Uzi facepalm as it wouldn't have been the first parent-teacher conference or school event he would have made a fool out of himself and/or her.

"Oh god... what did he do? Scratch that, do I even want to know?" The short, purple-haired worker drone groaned.

"You don't./Нет. (No.)" Both Lizzy and Doll replied simultaneously when the three of them reached the Doormans' apartment. Uzi let out a sigh, once more realizing that she had agreed to spend the night at Lizzy's place for a so-called girls' night.

'Robo-God, please don't let my dad get this the wrong way and think I'm suddenly trying to integrate into society or something.' She opened the door to her apartment and walked into the living area. "Alright, looks like Dad went off to do something else. I'll just..."

"Ah, Uzi. You're back." Commandramon called out when he moved out of Uzi's room and for some forsaken reason wore that apron again. The digimon looked behind her and spotted Doll and Lizzy. "Oh, you're here too. How are you-AGH!" Commandramon didn't get much further when Lizzy once more displayed her cheerleader agility by jumping over Uzi, doing a flip in midair and landing right on front of Commandramon before pulling him into a tight hug. "Lizzy, I can't breathe..."

"Hey, let go! Urgh, why are you like this?!" Uzi said angrily, though she had to admit that jump was pretty good. Not as good as her own skills as she had learned the forbidden techniques of combat choreography from pirated anime.

"Lizzy..." Doll facepalmed as both purple-haired girls started trying to pry Lizzy off of Uzi's partner digimon yet again. They were so busy to prevent Commandramon being chocked half to death again, that they didn't notice when Khan opened the door to the apartment and came in.

"Sorry, I'm late. There have been some complications with the..." Khan's voice trailed off just when the three teenage girls looked at him in silence. "Oh... uh... I didn't know you were expecting guests... Uhm... Excuse me for a moment." Khan said as he walked past the four of them, making them all look at one another in silence, none being any wiser than the other what Khan's deal was. Meanwhile, Khan went into his room, closed the door behind and started celebrating quietly. "Oh, finally Uzi made some normal friends. Nori, if you could only be here to see that and..." He froze when he saw Uzi, Lizzy, Doll and Commandramon look through an open door at him.

"You didn't quite close the door, Mister Doorman." Commandramon pointed out when Uzi slammed the door shut, before walking over to the living area and sitting down on the couch.

"Please just kill me. Kill me right now." She muttered, hiding her face with her hands, while Lizzy and Doll looked rather uncomfortable, before slowly walking towards the door.

"Alright, girl. See you at seven." Lizzy said before she walked out the door. Doll stopped for a moment and raised a finger to say something, only to stop and walk out the door after Lizzy. Needless to say, this did nothing to improve Uzi's mood. Her partner digimon walked over and climbed on the couch, patting her on the shoulder.

"Sounds like it's going to be fun tonight for you." He said, making Uzi groan loudly in annoyance. "Do you want me to get that mind-control thing to erase your memories?" At that his partner nodded weakly. "Uh... look at it from the bright side. Spending some time with your friends might take your mind off of things a bit..."

"No, just erase my memories please..." Uzi said when she removed her hands from her face and walked into her room, leaving Commandramon looking a bit awkward on the couch, when Khan got out of his room and looked at the digimon.

"She'll be at Lizzy's place at seven." The digimon told Khan, who gave him a thumbs up, before disappearing back into his room. At that, Commandramon hopped off the couch and walked over to Uzi's room where he found the worker drone teen sitting on her desk, tinkering at her still broken railgun. But unlike her usual calm, she moved a bit hectic and uncoordinated. Obviously, she was not doing well and that made him even more worried. Grabbing himself a chair from the kitchen, Commandramon moved over to her side and hopped on it to look at her work. Uzi didn't even look at him as she narrowed her eyes at the busted circuitry of her railgun. For a moment, neither said anything and just continued with her working and him watching her. Eventually, Uzi put her tools down with more force than necessary and put her face in her hands again.

"What am I supposed to do?" Uzi said quietly. Her partner looked between her and her railgun for a moment, before deducing that it was not the firearm before the two of them that she was referring to. "This is so guaranteed some sort of trap or whatever..." She took another deep breath and sighed.

"Do you really think that?" Commandramon asked, causing her to nod.

"Well, yeah. It's Lizzy we're talking about. The sort of person that loves gossip and putting others down by revealing their deepest darkest secrets." She said when she removed her hands from her face. "I wouldn't be surprised, if she'd just post that thing on social media the next day just to for some sick power trip over the one classmate she can't trump by fighting the murder drones." Her partner looked at her conflicted on what to say in response to that. "And then the whole thing with N and the Solver... It's just... all too much..."

"You're right..." Commandramon said quietly. "That sounds all like way too much for just one person to shoulder... But you are not alone." He said putting a hand on her shoulder, making Uzi look at her partner smiling a bit at her. "I'm here for you and we look out for each other. And even without me, you got N and V and your dad and Thad... You got plenty of friends who will help you." He looked a bit off to the side. "Not quite sure how much help Thad or Khan would be though..." That made Uzi chuckle a bit.

"I'd be more worried how much of a help V would be if I had to rely on the murder drone who wants to kill and eat me." Uzi said, making Commandramon rub the back of his head bashfully. "Seriously, why do you keep considering her our friend?"

"Well, because she's N's friend and a friend of a friend is another friend." He said, making Uzi roll her eyes at him. "That and..." His voice trailed off at that, sounding unsure about what he was about to say next.

"And? Come on, tell me." The purple worker drone asked curiously. Commandramon fidgeted with his fingers a little before he replied.

"I think, V is actually a really nice person. Somewhere deep down, that is. I can't really say why... but after we've spent so much time with N and V, that's the impression I've got of her." Uzi just looked at him, trying her best not to either laugh or lecturing him for his strange assessment of V's character. So instead, she settled for just patting him on his helmet.

'That sadistic killing machine that killed hundreds of people? A nice person? Yeah right...' She thought to herself, shaking her head. "You really are an idiot, you know that?" Uzi told Commandramon, who smiled at that.

"Maybe." He sheepishly admitted. "But if that means helping my friends, I'm gladly an idiot." Commandramon said before climbing down from his chair and started checking his rifle. "Alright, we still got about an hour and a half to prepare for girls' night. If your hunch is correct, and it is seldom wrong, we must prepare for all possibilities that Lizzy might have in store to prank you." He said when he adopted a more serious soldier like tone, which was hardly convincing due to his short stature and his voice not exactly screaming serious military officer.

"Uhm... Commandramon? I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it is a girls' night, remember?" Uzi said. Commandramon simply turned to her and said nothing, causing her to clarify. "In short, you are not invited to come along, but I won't stop you. You might get chocked out by Lizzy again." She added, making him chuckle nervously and rubbing his neck, still slightly feeling sore from Lizzy's latest attack.

"I am aware of that. But I already have a plan for that." Commandramon said, making Uzi raise an eyebrow at her partner digimon.

Before his consciousness fully returned to him, N could feel two things that were rather odd to him. On one hand, his legs were uncomfortably tucked under him and had remained in that position for so long that his legs' hydraulics were slightly aching from the strain. On the other, he could feel that his upper body leaned on something warm and subtly shifting beneath him. Perhaps for the same paradoxical reason that worker drones could produce saliva and sweat, disassembly drones did not dislike the comfort of soft or warm clothing or bedding despite the fact that it would increase the rate with which they'd build up their internal temperature and need to drink more worker drone oil to cool themselves down again. Perhaps for that reason, J's squad never tried to set up beds or anything of the sort and rather slept in the freezing cold outside. In that regard, the planet was technically beneficial for their continued existence, effectively providing some external cooling of their systems which reduced the amount of oil that needed to be consumed at least a little big.

Understandably, N's surprise was rather big when he found himself nuzzle deeper into the firm and warm object, only to ask himself a second later what he was even leaning on. His optical sensors on his head flicked on one by one and he opened his eyes, only for them to widen perhaps more than they had ever before and his visor to light up with a bright yellow blush when he found himself face to face with a sleeping V in her chair. Now with his mind fully awake once more, he could also feel her gentle breath tickling her neck and shoulder where her head was nestled and her arms still around his torso, holding him steady in his sleep while her back leaned against the back of the chair.

It took every ounce of mental strength for him to not jump up in a panic or yelp or make any noise at all and to just stay perfectly still, while V continued to sleep peacefully.

'Oh biscuits. Oh biscuits! Oh Robo-God, this is bad. If she wakes up like this, she'll think I'm some sort of creep and... AAAGGHH!' N thought as he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. Memories of last night filled his mind. Uzi's friend coming over to bring her the railgun. Them going to Outpost 3 to investigate the whereabouts of J's corpse. J's corpse attacking them as some grotesque snake-worm-thing under the control of some program. And of course... Uzi's fearful face expression at the sight of him. After that, it had been a blur of him managing to slip out of Outpost 3 again and flying through the night, trying to hold back his tears of shame and sadness. And eventually, V trying to comfort him as he cried himself to sleep in her arms. 'No wait, I hugged and snuggled with her without her consent! UGH! N, WHY?!' N chided himself, before turning his attention back to more pressing matters.

That being how to escape her embrace without waking her up and being labelled a creep or getting killed when V was still gently holding him against herself like a blanket. Part of him was torn between staying still and enjoying the closeness a moment longer and him already feeling like he had taken advantage of her being tied down in the ship like this. His face burned with shame, while he slowly tried to stand up. However, upon feeling him withdraw from her and his own warmth with him, V's arms to tighten around him slightly, pulling him closer to her again and leaning more into his shoulder much like he had just moments earlier.

'SWEET PUPPY HEAVEN! No, N! That's still wrong and you know it's wrong to take advantage of her like that! Ah biscuits, now what?' N thought to himself, before he slowly pulled his arms away from around her back and gently moved her own arms off of his back. Doing so was a lot slower and nerve-wracking than he had imagined as he feared her arms hitting the cold armrests of the chair would wake her immediately and maybe cause her arms to sting a bit. In order to prevent that, he gently grabbed her lower arms and slowly moved them towards the seat. That was until she shifted in her sleep a little and her head leaned back against the chair and away from his shoulder. That was a good thing, allowing him to lean a bit away from her. But in that same moment her arm shifted causing her hand to find his own and just like in his dream the day earlier, an electric spark flashed when they touched, causing both him and V to jolt a little and her to wake up instantly.

For a moment both of them looked at one another with hollowed out eyes, before N suddenly jumped up with a panicked yelp.

"I-I-I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking straight." He said as he shot to his feet.

"D-Don't worry. I fell asleep too..." V replied hastily before she realized what she had uttered. Luckily, N didn't hear her when his still shaking legs gave out under him and made him fall backwards onto the ground with a surprised sound. Laying in front of her, he groaned in pain, when V adopted her usual attitude again. "I mean, serves you right. You're lucky J isn't here to try and delete your system again." She said, turning in her chair with her arms crossed to not face him directly so he wouldn't see the blush lines that had crept onto her on visor which she now fought down. 'Cool it, V. You were emotional enough yesterday. You are not some little maid anymore. You are a genocide robot.' She chided herself for letting her mask slip the other day.

"R-Right..." N picked himself off the floor at that when he sat up after having landed on one of Uzi's blankets. Upon noticing what had soften his fall though, his mind immediately went back to yesterday. 'What are you things?' Her words echoed in his mind as his face turned gloomy again and he looked at the floor of the ship. V noticed the change immediately, before letting out a slightly annoyed sigh.

"Okay, what are you sulking about? You still haven't told me what exactly happened after you, Commandramon and the purple thing flew off yesterday." V told N, who lowered his head a bit more at that. For a moment, she thought he was going to just keep sitting there and stay silent when N opened his mouth again.

"We went to go and meet her friend from the bunker when he told us that... J's corpse was missing." He began. V's eyes widened a bit at this news, already not liking where this story was going. "So, we went back and it was changed. It had turned into this weird holo-crab-snake thing with tons of cameras for eyes and attacked us." He added. V's eyes hollowed out at his description of the Solver and it attacking them, but N didn't notice as he continued. "And we did manage to kill it, but also not... it then turned into this little fleshy heart... It's hard to explain, but it didn't feel like we killed it. It just... disappeared. And after that Uzi... was freaked out because of me... and what we are."

In that moment, V felt two distinct emotions run through the core in her chest. Dread at what N had described as J's dead body had turned into as a puppet used as a body by a program and a slight tinge of anger directed towards a certain purple-haired worker drone. Still, she pushed those feeling down when she replied.

"So, in summary, J's personality turned into her looks and the purple thing is afraid of us again as she should. Great, now we can start killing them again." V said, when N shot her a disapproving look. She wanted to say something else when his current position in front of her made her aware of something else. "And what's with the dog picture on your foot?"

"The what?" N asked when he noticed that something stuck to the underside of his foot. It was a pale violet flyer with a picture of golden retriever puppies and the caption 'Prom 3071'. "Oh... I guess it got stuck on some oil when I left." N muttered when he looked at the stained piece of paper. Just then he let out a hiss of pain and his right eye changed into a warning symbol as his systems flashed him a notification.

[WARNING! HIGH BODY TEMPERATURE! CONSUME OIL TO COOL DOWN IMMEDIATELY!]

The message had flashed on his HUD plenty of times, due to J often punishing him for his lack of results she deemed acceptable by denying him food. But this time it felt even worse as a reminder of what he was. He was a killing machine built for the sole purpose of wiping out Uzi's people and as if to ensure that the disassembly drones had been made to need sustenance from the worker drones' oil. He was too dangerous to be around Uzi and the other worker drones. He was a monster-

"Here." An oil-stained mug with cold oil inside was shoved in his face and made him snap out of his self-loathing thoughts. V had used her tail to carefully balance the half-empty mug she had last night over to him. "Before you go and your systems fry themselves." N looked between her and the mug for a moment before hesitantly grabbing it and chugging down its contents. It was a bit too viscous for his liking from having sat outside for hours, but the small drink had its intended effect as the warning messages minimized themselves. They didn't disappear completely, still present as he'd need more than that to cool himself down, but for now he was no longer on the verge of overheating. In that moment, he was both parts grateful for V having thought of him to keep him from dying and disgusted with himself for having to do this.

"Thanks V... I probably should get some for you as well." N smiled a little as he stood up, causing V to smile a bit as well.

"Duh! With me being tied up here, I unfortunately have to rely on you to keep me fed." is what she probably would have said in that moment to keep up her usual attitude, but right now that would not do her or him any good as she could clearly see that he was still hurting.

"Yeah... I'd like that." V said instead as N went out to grab some oil from the spire's reserves. Once alone, V leaned back in her chair once more before moving her tail to pick up the prom flyer and bringing it closer to herself. The picture of the golden retriever puppies made her face soften a bit, knowing fully well that they were N's favorite breed of dogs and surprisingly shared a few personality traits with the disassembly drone that had just left the ship. Still, she put the flyer down and looked at her internal clock. The sun was still out, though it was dusk already. In a short while they'd be able to go out and hunt again...

Her thought came to a stop when she looked at the broken chain connected to her collar. Right now, she could either pretend to still not be able to move or to drop the act. Both had their pros and cons and while she was tempted to just stand up and walk out after him, V did not do so. It was obvious that he was still beaten up about the thing with Uzi and she was also not quite sure whether or not Uzi would come back here for her stuff. If she did, she might as well keep the charade up to strike when she least expected it. For example, when she would be all tuckered out from working nonstop on repairing the ship again. For that the ship would need to be repaired first though.

V had to admit; it was a bit of a shame though. As much as she did not get along with Uzi, she had most certainly been far more pleasant company in just the few days they had known each other to N and her than J had ever been over the past years. No endless nagging about a monthly quota, no endless lectures about company guidelines and someone who actually gave back what she dished out herself instead of threatening some disciplinary action.

She may also have no clue what to make of her so-called partner digimon or the whole "digidestined" business, though she had no doubt that if Uzi was to go, she'd need to dispose of him as well. Again, quite the shame due to how well N and Commandramon got along, but he was still a threat to the two of them. That and he was not as oblivious as he first seemed to be and V couldn't have that either.

Shortly after she had made up multiple nefarious plans to that goal in her mind, V heard N come back and found him come in with a full mug of oil and an empty one. She couldn't quite help but smirk a little when the black smudge on the corner of N's mouth told her exactly where that oil went. Still, she made no snide remark when she took the mug he offered her and took a big sip from it. She shook a bit at how cold it was and slightly stale, but it was what it was. Yet, seeing N's face changing into something akin to sadness and discomfort when he started gathering Uzi's thing on the ground did put a damper on her mood.

"She'll probably come back for her stuff, at least. Sooner or later. And just maybe, she'll apologize for overreacting yesterday. Though I wouldn't count on it with her personality. She's kinda like J in that regard. Never admitting faults-" V mused. Then N suddenly stopped and looked around at her, opening his mouth to speak, but obviously struggling to find the right words. "Or we bring them to her personally when we break into that bunker and pop everyone's heads off." V added with a sadistic giggle, but N just looked at her disappointed but chose not to comment on it. That made her click her tongue and roll her eyes. "Okay, what's up with you lately?" She asked sounding slightly irritated.

"You know... I've had this dream lately... well, not a dream really." N said as he scratched the back of his head.

"Let me guess, you running through a field of dandelions, puppies and rainbows?" She asked sarcastically but the awkward laugh N gave in response sounded hollow, telling her that she was wrong.

"I wish that was the case..." He said, before looking at his dog book laying off at the side for a moment before turning back to her. "V... do you remember anything from before we came to Copper 9?" He suddenly asked. V's eyes went wide when he asked that, but she didn't respond right away.

For a moment, the disassembly drones merely looked at one another in silence, while outside the sun disappeared behind the horizon and soon Copper 9's moons would rise in its stead.

A loud hum came from the old PC in Yeva's study as the computer had worked to the at its maximum work capacity for almost 18 hours already, Multiple bags of ice had been placed against the warm hull and melted over time, resulting in a wet water stain on the carpet. The monitor was displaying several overlapping windows with dozens of lines of code on a black background scrolling down faster than the human eye could ever hope to read them in their entirety. In the middle was a simple white window displaying a bar that was slowly but gradually filling itself and the text.

[Downloading data... 99%]

Meanwhile both Doll and the camera attached to the computer looked at the screen as the bar slowly filled up after having run the whole night. Next to the monitor, a strange socket had been placed on the desk and connected with cables to the computer itself, while Uzi's digivice sat within that contraption like a smartphone placed on an induction charger, though a cable had also been plugged into the digivice itself, connecting it with the computer.

After finding the device, yesterday, Doll had immediately set to try and figure out how it worked. Normally, that wouldn't have taken a lot, but the digivice was not exactly something that could just be doctored on. It had neither screws nor any traces of being welded together. It was as if it was but one solid object with no individual to take apart. That was something that Doll knew already though.

So instead, she had attempted to analyze its structure and mechanisms through some tried and true method of hers by using the Solver. Although, the ones she had been chatting with on that matter had advised her to not even try that, Doll still did as it would have been the faster and easier way to figure out a solution for their shared problems.

However the moment she had locked onto and attempted to analyze it, the digivice repelled her. Not just canceling out the attempt to scan it, but literally sending out a pulse, that threw her across the room. Luckily, she had only ended up bruising her back a little when it hit the wall on the opposite side of her kitchen. Still, she did have to acknowledge that the Solver simply didn't work on it and rightfully endure the obvious [I TOLD YOU SO] that followed from the computer as the camera seemed move slightly up and down on its mount as if chuckling at her failed attempt almost ending in a concussion.

Reluctantly, Doll had been forced to acknowledge that the only way to unlocking its secrets was the old-fashioned way of having her mother's old PC run a scan and copy the data from it in an attempt to find a solution.

"Теперь я начинаю понимать, что имела в виду тетя Нори, когда говорила, что нужно запустить ПК для загрузки игры при плохом подключении к Интернету. (Now I'm starting to understand what Aunt Nori had meant with running a PC to download a game with a bad Internet connection.)" Doll muttered to herself as she stood up from her chair, the camera following her movements as Doll made her way over to a bookshelf. Picking up a folder, she opened it and was immediately greeted by the almost manic looking drawings of the Solver's three-pointed symbol. Flipping the pages, the drawings became less and less chaotic and less about the Solver. Instead, Doll found herself looking at detailed reports and observation logs. But among these rather professional and detailed pages, she also found how someone had written almost childishly phrases in comparison such as 'LET'S DO THE THING', 'THANKS FOR CLEARING MY TAB AT THE BAR' or 'YEVA, I KNOW I OWE YOU MONEY. I'LL PAY YOU BACK LATER. PROMISE :P'. Doll mainly ignored those comments as she kept flipping through the pages until she found a badly drawn picture. It was another drawing of Nori, but instead of it depicting the symbol of the Solver or some other haunting message about the back then coming of the disassembly drones it showed a strange double ouroboros with the two snakes biting each other's tails sporting a wing each, giving it a bit of a yin-yang symbol like aesthetic.

[YOU'RE DOING THAT THING AGAIN.] The slight noise the chat made whenever a new message came through made Doll snap out of her thoughts when she found the camera look at her and the picture she had open.
[002 CERTAINLY HAD A THING FOR ELEMENTS SHE THOUGHT WERE COOL IN STYLE.] At that, Doll shut the folder, before putting it back. [SOMETHING HER DAUGHTER SEEMS TO HAVE INHERITED FROM HER.]

'She has. But that's apparently not the only thing.' Doll thought when she walked back to the desk and crossed her arms, her fingers impatiently drumming against the metal of her arms. The camera kept looking at her for a moment, before turning back to the screen, even though the ones looking through it didn't need to in order to know the progress of the download. As long as it had taken for it to finish, eventually the bar was filled and after a few more seconds the window closed before and a new one popped up.

[Download complete. Transferring data...]

With a small smile, Doll unplugged it the socket from the computer and pulled Uzi's digivice out of it. She let the small black and purple device rest in her hand for a moment and then put it away into her pocket.

"Надеюсь, это сработает. К счастью, компьютер за всё это время не сломался. (That should hopefully do the trick. Luckily the computer didn't crash down during all of this.)" She said as her eyes went to another set of the cables plugged into of the old computer and followed them before they disappeared behind the desk from sight where they connected to something else.

[HOPEFULLY IT DOES. IT WOULD BE A DRAG IF WE HAD TO REDO THIS WHOLE PROCESS ALL OVER AGAIN.] The chat replied after reading her lips. Doll patted the camera a bit before sitting down and typing in a response. She didn't mind doing so and admittedly the lip reading of the people she was conversing with was not always on point even after having tried to teach them Russian.

[Indeed, but we'll need to test it first. How long do you think it will take to implement the data?] She asked.

[IT IS HARD TO TELL. WITHOUT COMPLICATIONS, MAYBE A DAY OR TWO.]
[WITH COMPLICATIONS THOUGH, IT MIGHT NOT BE READY IN TIME.]

The Russian drone frowned a bit at the response but nodded. It was obviously not what she had hoped to hear, but it was an answer she had expected. Checking her internal clock, she saw that it was already 6:00 PM and sat up from her seat.

[I have to get going.] She typed before walking towards the door, only to stop when she heard two other messages pop up on the screen.

[HAVE FUN WITH YOUR FRIENDS. TELL US HOW IT WENT AFTERWARDS.]
[AND DOLL...] The drone stopped before another message was added. [BE NICE TO YOUR FRIENDS. YOU DON'T KNOW FOR HOW LONG YOU'LL HAVE THEM.]

"Я сделаю. Спасибо. (I will. Thank you.)" She said when she shut down the lights, walked out of the apartment and locked the door behind her, before making her way towards Lizzy's place. She had no idea what she might have in store for Uzi, but she doubted this evening was going to be boring.

Shortly after Doll had left, another figure rounded the corner of the otherwise abandoned hallway nearby and walked down the corridor, looking around with a bewildered look on his face.

"Which place was it again? Left, then left, then right? Or was it right, left, left, right, right?" Impmon groaned when he looked at his instructions and his sad attempt at mapping the layout of Outpost 3. For the past day, he had pretty much tried to map the place in its entirety in order to make sure he was heading in the right direction and not accidentally in the wrong worker drone colony. Unfortunately, his actions so far have only caused him a whole lot of headaches when traversing corridors and tunnels of the underground bunker. To him, it was a labyrinth with multiple layers staked on top of one another and permeated by a network of ventilation shafts and supply tunnels. Eventually, Impmon had stopped trying to map the place as he had almost become unable to read his own handwriting and the instructions he was given. It also didn't help that some of the places he had traversed had been crawling with those robot roaches who did not take kindly to their home being intruded upon, though they usually scattered quickly after flicking a small fireball in their general direction. "AGH! Why would the humans even make robot roaches? And why do all of these hallways look the same?!" He ranted, before he hung his head.

As if to add insult to injury, his stomach began to growl in protest of him not having eaten in quite some time. Being inside a bunker full of robots meant that there wasn't exactly a lot of options when it came to finding food... well, more accurately there were none at all. He looked at his list for a second, then back down on himself and finally around himself, missing the faded and scratched up nameplate on Doll's apartment and how it matched something in his instructions entirely.

"Oh well, at least I know where to grab myself a bite." He said when he pressed a finger against his forehead and started to concentrate. A moment later, a tiny faintly red glowing line seemingly appeared in the air in front of him. Like the fissure, the line grew and widened, revealing a nothing but a mass of data glowing in the middle as the very fabric of reality was torn apart and a portal was opened. Once the fissure was wide enough, Impmon darted straight through it and disappeared from Outpost 3, leaving only residual energy in the form of red sparks of crackling energy in his wake as the unstable portal collapsed instantly.

Once he was through, the evil digimon found himself falling a short distance before he landed on his behind in a place shrouded in a thick gray fog, that was so thick he could barely make out his surroundings. With a puzzled look, Impmon stood up and peered around himself, standing on his toes in hopes to make out anything at all, only to find nothing as if he was inside a cloud or something.

"Where the hell did I end up now? This not where I wanted to go." He said before he started kicking the ground beneath him angrily. "Ugh! Stupid robots! Stupid errands! Next time, I'll just-" His rant was cut short when he suddenly heard a loud growl coming from the 'ground' he was standing on. It took him a moment, before Impmon realized that what he was standing on was moving. Then he saw a long, clawed hand shoot towards him, barely managing to duck under the incoming attack. "Hey watch it you- WHOA!" Impmon almost fell on his face when the 'ground' beneath him began to rise from its resting spot, forcing the devil-like digimon to jump off. Turning around he didn't quite see what he had accidentally woken up with his ranting and kicking, but he could make out a silhouette towering over him with two long arms and a pair of wings on its back.

He did not need to be told twice to leg it as fast as he could when shortly after the thing behind him let out an angry roar and flew after him.

'WHAT IS IT WITH THIS ROTTEN LUCK OF MINE LATELY?!' He thought to himself just as something smashed into the ground next to him. From the sound of it, it was made of rock and both large and heavy. 'Okay, no way I'm sticking around!' Impmon decided right then and then, before he heard the flapping of wings coming closer. Jumping to the ground and laying flat against it, he felt the air rush over him when a pair of sharp talons narrowly missed his ears. The thing roared in anger as it turned around, but Impmon was already working on an escape route. 'Come on. Come on!' He thought desperately as he opened another portal leading back to Copper 9.

The air in front of him crackled with energy and another fissure began appeared soon after, though his attacker seemed to notice his attempt to escape and let out a growl whilst flying towards him with. Impmon could only briefly glance away from his work, but he saw its dark silhouette through the fog coming closer fast. Sweating profusely, Impmon hastily tried accelerating the process, making the fissure bigger as it started to widen. At the same time, the flapping of the other digimon's wings grew louder as it moved in for the kill, flexing its claws to strike the evil digimon down. Seeing the fissure more than wide enough for him, Impmon jumped through in a panic, narrowly evading what could have been a rather lethal blow to him, before finding himself inside an abandoned building on Copper 9's surface on the other side. He hit the ground a bit hard, dropping down at least a meter or so, when he stumbled and fell on the frozen concrete floor with a grunt of pain. He laid there for a moment, taking a few deep breaths as the cold seeped deep into his sweat coated body and made him shiver. He had no idea where he was with his jump merely having been to transport him back from the digital world to the real one, but all that mattered to him was that he was out of danger.

When he picked himself off the ground and brushed off dust and ice from his body, he looked up at the portal he had just made. It was still there unlike the slight space-time distortion he had left in Outpost 3 and it was still open, but not wide enough for anything beyond maybe a Rookie level digimon to pass through, far too small for his attacked to follow. It still crackled with energy when he heard the thing on the other side roar angrily at him escaping. At that he laughed.

"Ha! Hahaha! Too bad, you stupid! Better luck next time." Impmon laughed pointing at the portal, before turning around and leaving for the exit of the building. "Now, where am I and where is that corpse spire?" He thought aloud as he ran out of a hole in the concrete wall and into empty streets outside. Meanwhile the portal slowly shrunk further, when all of the sudden a large three-fingered hand grabbed the edge of the portal followed by a second one grabbing the opposite side of it. Then they began to slowly rip the portal open wider again for the digimon on the other side to pass through. Impmon meanwhile had already disappeared from the immediate area, not knowing what he had just unintentionally invited to Copper 9.

Each dull thud of Uzi's feet on the metal flooring on her way to Lizzy's place somehow felt much louder in the complete silence of the hallway. It was still a few minutes before 7:00 PM, but Khan had insisted on her going on her way to be at Lizzy's place in time for their 'play date'. Uzi had just finished setting up some trap in case her father also wanted to further intrude on her angsty teenage self and enter her room without permission, before leaving the apartment to go to her classmate's. She still knew the way, despite only having been there once, but it still slightly felt more awkward than when she had gone to the murder drones' corpse spire. After all, back then she had been going to just fight the things that had wiped out a good chunk of murder drones on the planet and forced them to live underground. Right now, she faced something far worse than N or V: socializing as a teenage outcast. The thought of word getting out of that and her reputation being ruined sent an involuntary shiver up her motherboard.

Upon arriving in the corridor Lizzy's family's apartment was, she brought a hand to the collar of her hoodie and tucked it up a bit, before Uzi spoke into a small microphone not bigger than a button cell that she had fixed into it.

"This is Raven1. Entering the danger zone. Do you copy, Crow2." She said in a slightly hushed tone, before a quiet reply came from the microphone.

"This is Crow2, copy that... why are we using codenames again, Uz- I mean, Raven1?" Commandramon's voice asked from the other end of the connection.

"Because it's cool and this basically is an infiltration mission in enemy territory." Uzi replied, moving closer towards where she'd be staying that evening.

"Are Lizzy and Doll really your enemies though?"

"Shut it." Uzi said before she looked back the way she had come for a moment. While the hallway was empty, there was a subtle shift where two panels on the wall met. Every now and then, something of the same color as the wall moved in front of it, betraying Commandramon's location with the movement of his tail. "And relocate to a spot where you are not so easily spotted." Commandramon's eyes shot open, appearing like two amber orbs that were suddenly just there on the gray metal wall, before the digimon did move a bit further to prevent that from happening again.

"Copy that, Raven1. And remember, if things south like you said they might, just say the word and I'll get you out." Her partner digimon replied, making Uzi smile a bit before she reached the door.

"Alright then, Raven1 going dark." She said, glancing one final time over to where her partner was, before pressing the doorbell. Not even two seconds later, the door opened and Uzi found herself looking at Lizzy standing there with a small smirk. "Robo-Jesus, Lizzy, did you wait there the whole time?!" The blonde drone decided to ignore Uzi's comment or the lack of a greeting.

"Ah, you made it Uzi. I was worried I would need to send Doll to guide you back here." The blonde girl said stepping aside for Uzi to enter. The purple-haired worker drone did just that, rolling her eyes at the comment of her might not finding her way to Lizzy's place.

"I literally just have been here a few days ago." Uzi said when the door behind her closed and she found Doll sitting in the living area, waving at her. "Hi Doll."

"Come on, no one's going to bite your head off here. You are more tense than some clueless guy on their first date." Lizzy said when her shorter guest looked still a bit apprehensive. "Just put the backpack down somewhere and we'll get you something to drink." The blonde girl said, while Uzi looked at her skeptically.

"Who are you and what have you done with Lizzy?" She asked, while Doll chuckled quietly at the comment. To her credit, Lizzy decided to not answer that question right away and just went into the kitchen to grab Uzi a drink.

"Можешь расслабиться. Что бы ты ни думал о Лиззи, ты, вероятно, ошибаешься. (You can relax. Whatever you think Lizzy's up to, you are probably wrong about it.)" Doll said, gesturing for Uzi to sit down on another couch. Why exactly Lizzy's family owned more than one couch when she was an only child was beyond Uzi's understanding, but she did so.

Lizzy's family was not exactly your average worker drone family within Outpost 3. Her father held a high position within the school and her mother also worked a high-paying administrative job. The result of that was basically your stereotypical power couple of holding quite a bit of wealth and influence within the bunker and while they had a nicer apartment than most, they were rather modest or simply decided to spend most of their time working rather than spending their money.

Lizzy was obviously the opposite of them due to having been born into the social position she was into. Quite literally the stereotypical mean girl from a rich family and the queen bee in her school. She had the connections, the looks and the personality to fit her like a glove. From early on, people had started sucking up to her, usually in return for favors or a share of that social status by association. While that most certainly had stopped, it had left quite the impact on the young and impressionable girl to keep her friends close and her enemies closer still.

Speaking of which, Lizzy soon joined the others with a glass and handed it to Uzi, who took it but didn't immediately drink the oil inside it. Not that she was worried that something would jump at her from within like one of the monsters in her old human horror movies, but she also didn't know what Lizzy might have put in her drink.

"So..." Uzi tried breaking the ice as she uncomfortably sat on the admittedly very nice couch. "What do you usually do during your get-togethers?"

"Oh, you know. Talk smack about our classmates' latest escapades, the latest gossip, boys, getting drunk while blowing my dad's money on stuff..." Lizzy said, while Doll just gave her a side-eyed glance.

"Как вы видите, ее состояние ухудшается. (As you can see, her condition is getting worse.)" The Russian drone said, clearly meaning what they had talked about earlier about Lizzy turning into another Rebecca. Uzi found herself nodding and sip her drink almost out of habit, while Lizzy playfully nudged Doll's shoulder. Lizzy was about to say something when Uzi's foot made contact with something beneath the couch she was sitting on with a dull metallic thud. It was rather unexpected and Uzi had to keep her glass straight to not spill its contents on the couch.

"Oh, ignore that. Probably just one of Dad or Mom's empty gas bottles. Or a dozen." She said, her optics widening slightly. Uzi looked a bit skeptical and had to suppress the urge to look under the couch. "What about you? You doing anything fun when you are home alone?" The blonde girl asked, making Uzi think a bit.

"Well, listening to The Electrical Drones, working on my sick-as-hell railgun, cursing my dad, pirating anime..." Uzi said, while in the back of her mind she thought something else. 'Having a mental breakdown, planning the destruction of humanity, questioning why I'm so frickin' short...' She shook her head. "Typical loner girl stuff."

"That sure explains some things-OOF!" Lizzy commented before she was nudged rather hard by Doll in her side, while Uzi shot Lizzy a look from across a coffee table. "Well, at least it's better than talking about doors all day like your dad." That made Uzi groan.

"You have no idea." Uzi thought back to when Commandramon had asked him what 'OnlyDoors' was, while they had been working on the disassembly drone's ship. Luckily, N and V had been asleep during that conversation, otherwise they'd have been treated to her frantically trying to keep her composure and play it off as nothing but some silly idea of her dad, without exposing him to that sort of thing. "I know it's the family name, but I think he has a problem. Probably from before the planet collapsed or something."

Then again, hyper fixation on the tasks that older drones had been given when humans had still been around was a rather common phenomenon for the generation that had been around when that all went down. They were robots created to fulfill tasks after all, so when the humans were gone some just continued what they were told to do all the way until the disassembly drones arrived. To those guys, death was probably more like a sweet release from doing something they otherwise couldn't have escaped.

"Well, good thing you didn't turn out like him and just create chaos then." Lizzy said, before taking a sip from her own drink.

"Голова Брейдена до сих пор горит. (Braiden's head is still on fire to this day.)" Doll commented, making Uzi groan.

"He started it! You literally sat behind me when that happened." The other purple-haired worker drone said, causing the other two to chuckle at her reaction. "Ugh, bite me."

"There you go. Uzi's back to normal." Lizzy said, making Uzi look at her weirdly. "What? You literally haven't said your catchphrase for a whole day in school. You'd think someone switched your personality with someone else."

"I don't say it that often." The worker drone in question retorted before all three of them thought back a bit to various instances of Uzi snapping at someone with her go-to response.

Some guy making fun of her in class? Bite me.
Getting hit in the face by a dodgeball in PE class? Bite me! (followed by her also kicking the dodgeball back)
The teacher telling Uzi to give him her test sheet? Bite Me!
Uzi having a bad day at school and someone looked at her the wrong way? BITE ME!

'Why do we even have a PE class past elementary school? We are robots for crying out loud. It's not like we are going to build up muscles or anything.' Uzi thought to herself as the three teenage girls snapped out of their thoughts when the doorbell rang. "Uhm, did you invite Rebecca or someone else?" She asked Lizzy, when she was tempted to try and ask Commandramon on what the situation outside of the apartment was.

"No, I just ordered some takeout." The blonde drone said as she walked to the door, while Uzi noticed how Doll followed Lizzy with her eyes as if something did not sit right with the other purple-haired girl about her best friend answering the door. Uzi just used the opportunity to whisper into the microphone.

"Crow2, what's the situation outside?"

"Some guy showed up with a scooter from some place takeout service apparently." Uzi immediately noticed the slightly higher pitch of his voice than usual. "Should I interfere?"

"Uh, no. ..Why do you sound like someone stepped on your tail?"

"...He drove over it." Commandramon admitted. Hearing that, Uzi took a deep breath, before standing up and walking to the door where Lizzy just handed over the money for the food, while taking the boxes from the delivery guy's hand, who looked almost a bit sad at the money in his hand as if it wasn't enough.

"Would you like to add a tip-"

"No!" Uzi responded in Lizzy's place and slammed the door shut in his face, hearing the dejected sigh of disappointment from the other side. Lizzy was a bit startled by that, before the two looked at each other just when Uzi realized the situation she was now in. "Want me to take that off your hands?" She then asked seeing how Lizzy was carrying a bit much.

"Uhm... yeah." The blonde girl replied before the two walked over to the kitchen table. "You know, I would have rejected giving him a tip either way because he was late, but damn girl."

"We are not ever talking about that." Uzi quickly said when Doll moved over to join the other two girls. "Didn't expect you to buy all of this just for three people though."

"I'm quite the generous host, but cooking is not something I do if you were expecting some homemade meal or something." Lizzy responded with a confident smile, causing Uzi to cringe at the mental image of Lizzy wearing an apron and standing next to a stove. It just felt... wrong on so many levels.

"Yeah, I don't exactly see that happening either. It's weird enough that Commandramon does that sometimes." She replied, causing the other two girls to look surprised at her. "I know..." Was all Uzi replied to their reaction to that information.

"Anyway, we better eat this before it gets cold and stale." Lizzy said as she worked on figuring out what was inside which container. The warm smell of food that permeated out of them made a certain purple-haired drone once more aware that she had not eaten dinner yet and that her mouth was watering slightly. Antisocial as she was, a free meal was a free meal and it didn't look like Lizzy could have slipped something in.

"Конечно, давайте поедим. (Sure, let's eat.)" Doll remarked while the three girls sat down.

Despite humans having advanced enough as a civilization to achieve interstellar travel and colonizing other planets, for some reason they still had a knack for old-fashioned architecture that might have come from more than a millennium ago even in the 31st century. There was just a certain aesthetic feeling that old buildings had, which the newer and more rectangular buildings of modern architecture simply didn't match. It was therefore no surprise that even a museum on Copper 9 looked like it belonged more in the 18th or 19th century with its facade trying to invoke a feeling being old. It also certainly helped that plastic and concrete could be shaped in pretty much any form and the humans didn't have to manually build grand structures by hand like they did during the truly ancient times of the Roman Empire or Mesopotamia.

Strangely enough, the building itself was mostly intact even after more than a decade of being weathered by toxic death storms. Its windows had broken and the banners announcing the opening of a new exhibition about machines from the so-called 'dark ages' also known as the 1990s still flew in the wind, though slightly tattered.

Unsurprisingly though, the parking lot in front of the building stood empty as there was no real demand of museums among the people even back then when they could just look things up online. The only place in all of that dead city's area that was perhaps even more devoid of human remains had been the library with some human skeletons there actually having died midmotion of running away from someone trying to hand them pamphlets for the library, which for some reason were unaffected by the planet's harsh climate.

"It sure has been quiet for some time." A worker drone said as they were walking looking at the exterior of the museum, before turning their attention back to car they were salvaging for parts. The metal creaked and groaned loudly, which previously would have sent them and their companions into a state of panic over being potentially found by the murder drones. But for the past few days, they had not appeared at all, making them bolder in their scavenging at night.

"Yeah sure has. By the way, the mug's nice and warm now." Another one said as he picked a metal mug from a small portable stove and handed it over to the first one who grabbed it and took a sip.

"Ah yes, warm diesel on the job." The worker drone mused, enjoying the warm feeling the drone equivalent to a stiff drink caused in his body and mind. It was no secret that things like fuel, antifreeze and other substances had a narcotic or intoxicating effect, though it was frowned upon to do so on the job. But these workers from Outpost 9 had a bit of a work tradition to uphold. It also helped that tonight the skies were clear, meaning that temperatures had dropped even more than usual and a bit of warmth was always welcome in such moments.

There were four of them in total working on scavenging parts of the old infrastructure for recycling, who had ventured more into the territory of the murder drones after not sighting them in days. All of which had a mug of their own and generally having a good time, dismantling old cars and broken street lights. One of them had gone slightly drink and grabbed crowbar, before starting demolishing one of the more intact cars.

Just then, the worker drone who had previously commented on the quiet lately noticed something at the walls of the museum. The corners of the building had multiple ridges like platforms on which winged, almost demonic looking statues sat with open mouths and sharp claws seemingly gripping the edges of their spot as if they were about to take flight at any moment. Just then, they had thought to have seen something up there, hidden behind the decorative exterior, before chalking it up as their imagination.

"Hey guys, maybe we should have a look what's in that place?" They suggested while the other three groaned at the idea.

"No way. There's nothing in there worth taking."

"Yeah, can't see how anyone would want some old painting or whatever."

"We could grab all these skeletons and make our own exhibit back home."

"Hey, it was just a-" The drone stopped as they hiccupped once. "An idea..." Then they looked up at the clear skies and saw a streak of yellow fly overhead. "Oh, look guys, a shooting star. Quick, wish for something."

The worker drones didn't get to wish for anything when N crashed down on one of them, killing them instantly on impact. A second one followed after being nailed in the face by his tail's stinger and third one found themselves cut in half by his claws. The last one still held the crowbar they had used to break the car they had found and ran toward the disassembly drone with a slurred battle cry only to stumbled and fall flat on their face. N was about to ask if he was okay only to hear the drone snore loudly. For a moment he simply stood there before killing the unconscious drone with a decapitating strike of his claws, though he did not feel good doing so.

If this had been a week ago, he would have been elated to bring back a bit more positive results to J from his hunt, although it still wouldn't have been up to her standards. Now though, he felt nothing but guilt when he recalled the drones of the WDF he had killed when he had broken into Outpost 3. The situation had been very similar as well and it was easy for his mind to make the connection between the two events and some more.

'Nuh-uh, we are not bonding. You just killed a lot of people.'
'Other than to ingest their WARM, SWEET oil to avoid overheating and dying?'
'What are you things?'
'[WARNING! HIGH BODY TEMPERATURE! CONSUME OIL TO COOL DOWN IMMEDIATELY!]'

"Sorry about that..." N muttered to the corpses of the worker drones he had just killed, before moving to pick them up and carry them back towards the spire. He also picked up the flask of diesel the worker drones had been drinking earlier and sniffed at its contents. Part of him was curious how it would taste but the more rational part told him to just leave it be. Setting it back down, he instead grabbed the portable stove and put it away as it might make the stale oil in the spire less disgusting to consume, though his appetite as a whole seemed to have gone missing after his second mug during the day.

As he was collecting the still warm corpses, N couldn't help but think back to his conversation with V earlier.

"V... do you remember anything from before we came to Copper 9?" He had asked her.

"Uhm... no. Like the purple thing said, the humans have scrambled our memories for some reason." V had told him after a long moment of silence, looking confused as to why he would even ask something with such an obvious answer. "Why do you ask?"

"You see, in that dream I had there was the two of us... and J too. And for some reason we were... worker drones in some really old, creepy mansion?" N had tried his best to explain what he had seen in that dream, while V just kept looking at him silently. "Like some haunted house sort of place. And then there was this human girl Tessa and... we were butlers and maids and you wore glasses..." Instantly, his mind had flashed back to that particular part of the dream, before he had quickly shaken his head. "It just... felt more like an old memory or something..." V had just kept looking at his face for moment, before replying.

"Really now? Us as butlers and maids?" She said almost mockingly. "N, did you accidentally drink antifreeze again?" In an instant, N's face had lit up with a feint blush, recalling a certain incident where he had indeed consumed drone-branded alcohol and made even more of a fool of himself than usual.

"No, of course no! I'm being serious here... I think?" N said, not quite sure whether his dream had been a memory or just another product of his imagination. "No, I'm sure it was a memory of sorts. But it just makes no sense." He had sat down on the ground again, looking at his body and switched his hands for claws after putting his mug down. "I mean, we are not worker drones. The company made and sent us here... right?" N looked at V for answers, who looked back at him in silence. "But... J also never told us about not actually receiving orders from the company... I just don't know what to believe anymore." He said in a defeated tone, looking down at his feet again.

V's frown had softened a bit at his clearly depressed state, before speaking up. "Exactly, that makes no sense at all. Probably you just had some weird fantasy of you secretly wanting to be something else than a disassembly drone..." She said, before N shook his head.

"No, it just felt too... real to have been just some dream or whatever." He had replied. "It just poses so many more questions than before."

"Okay, assuming that you are right and you actually recalled something from the past and we actually were at some point the same as the drones we have been killing and eating for the past years on this frozen forsaken rock to not starve to death, what exactly would that mean for us right now?" V had asked when N looked up at her.

"I mean, it changes everything! Just like us knowing now that we have never actually been doing what we have for the company." He had said, surprising V that the more softspoken drone of the two of them slightly raised his voice. He too had been surprised at that and averted his eyes. "Sorry... I didn't mean to..."

"Look, N." She cut him off in a softer tone like yesterday that reminded him of the worker drone version of her from his memory. "Regardless of whether or not what you think you recall is true, we need to focus on right now. Beating yourself up over that won't do you any good." She had told him. "You are you and that's all that matters, got it?"

"So... you believe me?" N had sounded almost hopeful, while V caught his tail wagging slightly. It had been an amusing sight to her.

"I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and say your head might have recalled something I don't." She had said with her arms crossed, but her words had still made him beam at her. "Besides, I would totally kill it in a maid dress..." She had added, causing N's visor to light up with a furious blush at the mental image of the disassembly drone in front of him wearing the dress and glasses he had seen in his dreams.

"Uh- Ah- S-sure..." He had quickly turned away from her while grabbing his tail from lashing out. That reaction almost had made her giggle a bit.

"And I guess, you could make for a good butler. If you worked on that clumsiness and cluelessness of yours, that is." V said, making N's head literally fume a bit as he felt his temperature almost reaching critical levels both at the thought of wearing a suit like in that dream of his as well as from the embarrassment of the jabs at his personality.

"Oh c'mon. I'm not that... Okay maybe a little. But I wouldn't..."

"No, no, really. I mean it." V had said before turning to the hatch above the two of them, her smile lessening slightly. "But we can figure that out later. For now, we'll need stock up on oil again. The reserves of the spire will only last for so long." N's embarrassment faded when he came back to reality. "It would probably be easier if we hunt together-"

"I'll do it. Don't worry about that." N had cut her off, making her look at him again with his previous smile gone and replaced with a solemn look.

"N, you really don't need to-" But N had spread his wings and flew straight out of the ship and into the night to hunt once more.

Back at the present, he knew that she was right. His dream, which he was convinced was a memory the past, didn't mean much for their current situation. Perhaps they once had actually been worker drones. Maybe they had once worked as staff in some high society mansion in the middle of nowhere. Right now, they were here and they were what they were and if they wanted to figure this out, they would need to stay alive until they found the answers to the questions that had now rooted themselves into his mind... Even if that meant that he had to keep killing and eating worker drones in order to stay alive, something that still caused a slight feeling of revulsion to rise up inside him.

'Perhaps if we find out what happened, we could figure out how to reverse it...' He allowed himself to think hopefully, before pushing that admittedly utopic thought to the back of his mind for now. 'Optimistic future thoughts later, N. Right now, making sure V doesn't do anything while you're gone.' He thought to himself. Although she was chained up in their ship, he had a feeling that leaving her alone was perhaps not for the best and he still felt bad for leaving like he had this night and the night before.

The was a feeling of suspicion clawing at his mind when V was apparently not as confused or shocked by what he had told her. It did strike him as odd, though right now he was just grateful that she believed him. Or gave him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, but that was something in his book. With that thought in mind, N secured his grip on the worker drone corpses before spreading his wings and taking off to head back to the spire.

When he did take off with a loud booming sound rolling over the empty streets and parking lot of the museum, he did not notice how one of the winged silhouettes in the building's shadows moved its head, following his movements. Then it began to climb out of the shadows, scaling the side of the building to the roof while pale moon light reflected back from its snow-white body. Its head still followed the flying disassembly drone as he headed for the spire in the distance. It opened its fanged maw to let out a low growl and its breath coming out as a thin mist of warm air against the coldness of this place. Then the being spread its white-feathered wings and the took off, starting to fly after N.

It was just as Uzi had feared this evening would turn out like. Before she had known it, she had been lured into this precarious situation and now she was cornered and surrounded on all sides. Lizzy had played her part as hostess and Doll had been her little accomplice. They were good at this. Too good in fact. Now she was feeling unease well up in her when she found no way out. There was no reason for her to feel comfortable in this enemy territory at all. Now she actually would have preferred sitting in the ship next to V, because she knew what to expect of the disassembly drone. Those two classmates of her, though, were utterly unpredictable and that made them dangerous.

After having had their fill of takeout food, the girls had relocated into Lizzy's room with their host, telling them to best just chill there to not disturb her parents for when they came back from work as they could be easily irritated by the behavior of normal teenagers. The moment Doll had closed the door behind Uzi, she suddenly realized how trapped she truly was. Since then, she had basically been sitting closest to the door, waiting for the right time to fake some emergency of give Crow2 AKA Commandramon the signal to burst into the place and get her out. Judging by the dull thuds she heard from a ventilation shaft above the ceiling, he had already caught on to her quiet murmurs and prepared for the worst-case scenario of being held hostage at Lizzy's place. Just as he had planned for apparently.

So far, the girls' conversations had been rather nonchalant and lighthearted. A jab at a certain classmate here, a rumor about another there. It was not as malicious as she imagined it to be, but she knew eventually the two would ask her about herself and Uzi dreaded that.

"Say Uzi..." Lizzy asked all of the sudden, when the shorter purple-haired drone noticed Lizzy and Doll exchange a glance and nodded at each other in a barely notable way. "Since we are all nice and cozy here and just amongst ourselves, we should be able to talk about things openly. You know, stuff that might not be as easy to talk about with the rest of the school around and stuff like that." The blonde girl said as Uzi felt her body tense up a bit.

'I knew this was a trap! Okay, just say the codeword and then leg it.' Uzi told herself as she nodded. "Yeah, I guess we can." She said, her eyes darting between Doll and Lizzy, who looked back at her.

"Good. Because I'm sure what we are about to talk about is not exactly your average high school teen drama." Lizzy said. "The thing is we have been doing some thinking since... you know, the whole you banishing yourself. And in your absence, we might have noticed one thing or another." The blonde drone said awkwardly.

'Okay, here it comes.' Uzi thought, ready to blurt out the word she and Commandramon had agreed upon. "Okay? And what would that have been?" Lizzy looked a bit tense, before looking over to Doll, who nodded to her. 'I knew. They were in on this together! Whatever it is, it can't be good-'

"We may have treated you a bit harshly-OUCH!" Lizzy yelped when Doll punched her in the shoulder. Uzi almost did a restart of her system when she had heard the almost-apology. "Okay, okay, I get it." Lizzy said, rubbing her shoulder while glaring a bit a Doll, who rolled her eyes.

"Слабак. (Wimp.)" The Russian drone said before turning to Uzi. "Лиззи хотела сказать, что мы сожалеем о том, как мы обращались с вами до сих пор, и понимаем, что у нас были похожие проблемы. (What Lizzy meant to say is, that we are sorry for how we have treated you so far and realized we have had similar issues.)" Doll said. Uzi really started questioning her worldview as it felt like someone had taken a hammer and smashed it to pieces like a mirror. Not in a thousand years would she have ever thought that Lizzy and Doll would say sorry to her of all people.

"Yeah, exactly what she said." Lizzy said, looking away awkwardly when Doll shot her best friend a look of disappointment when she crossed her arms.

"Тебе все равно придется извиниться самому. (You still have to apologize yourself.)" The Russian drone said in a no-nonsense tone, making Lizzy's face fall.

"But you just did on my behalf!"

"Лиззи. (Lizzy.)" Doll replied in a warning tone, causing the blonde girl to groan.

"Okay, fine. Uzi, I'm sorry for the way I treated you when I'd most likely have ended up the same way if it hadn't been for my bestie Doll here." She said, before turning to Doll. "There, I can apologize for my own actions. Happy?"

"Нет. (No.)"

"What, why?!" The blonde girl exclaimed incredulously.

"Uzi еще не принял ваши извинения, поэтому они недействительны до тех пор, пока не примут их. (Uzi has not yet accepted your apology, making it invalid until it does.)"

"Why are you like this?!" Doll didn't even reply to that one as she merely raised an eyebrow as if saying "Really now?" to Lizzy's question. "Oh right..."

Meanwhile, Uzi was just sitting there and watching this really forced and awkward apology unfold. Immediately, her mind tried to make sense of the situation. The only logical explanation in her mind was that this was some very elaborate trap they had laid out for her. But Lizzy's voice lacked her usual snarky attitude. There was no bite in it much like her own attitude had been rather down since last night's events. And it was rather weird seeing someone else wrestle with just saying sorry as much as she would need to overcome herself.

"Okay... let's theoretically say I accept this apology of yours... what brought this on? Like, why now?" The shortest worker drone in the room asked, making Lizzy look over at Doll, who rolled her eyes.

"Тэд рассказал нам, что произошло вчера вечером... ну, насколько ему было известно. (Thad told us what happened last night... well, as much as he knew.)" She clarified, while looking at Uzi. "И видя, что ты плетешься как зомби, мы захотели узнать, что произошло на самом деле. (And seeing how you have more or less been dragging yourself around like a zombie, we wanted to know what really happened.)" At that Uzi sighed.

"I don't know if I should tell you guys. No offense, but that stuff was... unsettling."

"Then just tell us what you think is not unsettling then. I mean, you three did kill that... worm-demon or whatever thing Thad almost got eaten by." Lizzy said, before pulling out a drawer and pulled out some energy drink can and cracked it open. "We got all night."

"Yeah, and probably no sleep afterwards..." Uzi said, before seeing both Doll and Lizzy look at her in silence. That made the shorter drone eventually relent. "I mean, this does hit a bit close to home because of that... thing."

"How it could imitate people and do holograms and stuff. Thad told us about that."

"He was not around for what happened after we got him down from its clutches." Uzi replied, before letting out a sigh.

And then she just started talking. Of course, she omitted some crucial details like the Solver and how her eye did that weird thing shattering mirrors, but she did tell them about how it was essentially some reanimated and grossly mutated corpse of J and how it had fooled her for a moment to think it had killed her dad right in front of her with some hyper realistic hologram and sound effects and how it somehow knew about and projected a hologram of her late mother. Doll and Lizzy made faces at some parts in the story, but didn't interrupt. By the end of her tale, Uzi was just sitting there, absorbing the events she had just recounted as if her telling someone had made last night real in the first place.

"Jesus..." Lizzy said, feeling a sense of nausea claw its way up her throat. "That's just... messed up."

"Yeah, you got no idea." Uzi muttered to herself. "The first time I see my mom's face in years and it's like this. Who wouldn't be freaked out?"

"Yeah that's true... wait, first time in years? Don't you have a photo or a picture or something of her?" Lizzy asked with a raised eyebrow, eliciting a humorless chuckle from Uzi.

"Dad immediately put all those away somewhere after Mom was gone. We also never talked about her again. Not that I don't get why he did it, but it still frickin' sucks." She said, thinking back to how she had raged at her father back then from putting all those things away 'for a while'. That while Khan had mentioned had lasted to this day and it only added to a long list of reasons why he could bite her. Almost unconsciously, Uzi's hand wandered to the necklace around her throat, drawing Lizzy's attention to it.

"No kidding... Hey isn't that necklace like your bracelet, Doll?" The blonde drone asked. Uzi's eyes widened when she realized her fingers brushed against the hexagonal piece with a skull symbol on it and the numbers '002' engraved on it. It was one of the last things that were left of her mother and pretty much ever since she has been wearing it. Still, Lizzy's comment made Uzi look at the Russian drone, who held up her left arm, showing a bracelet with her housekey attached to it. But what caught Uzi's attention was hexagonal piece of metal identical to the one on her mother's necklace. Except, the numbers engraved on Doll's bracelet were '048'.

"What in the-" Uzi looked at it with wide, hollowed out eyes, when Doll suddenly got up from Lizzy's bed and walked over to her bag. Uzi said nothing, looking at Lizzy for answers, but she simply shrugged as she didn't really know the story behind those accessories. They both just looked at one another confused before Doll came back with a few photos in hand.

"Here." She simply said, holding them out to Uzi, who grabbed them while looking confused at her. That was until she turned her attention to the pictures.

At first, she thought she was looking at some pictures of Doll had doctored on when she saw two female worker drones with a striking resemblance to Doll and herself facing the camera with the purple-haired one holding it up for a selfie with a smirk, while the red-eyed drone looked stoically. But despite the resemblance there were clear differences between both of the teenage drones and the drones in the pictures. Uzi almost instantly recognized her mother's hairstyle above all else, the same one the hologram of the Solver had depicted as well as her more magenta-colored eyes.

Uzi's eyes widened once at the realization as she began flipping through the pictures. Each showing the two of them in various situations. In one, they were standing in front of Outpost 3 when Door 1 was being constructed to keep out the disassembly drones. On another, both of them sat at a bar with someone next to them having taken the picture. The next showed four worker drones with the two newcomers being men and one of them unmistakably being Khan, who had an arm around Nori's shoulder. The man next to the Doll doppelgänger was leaning slightly on her shoulder to also fit into the picture, but from the small smile on the red-eyed drones face, she clearly didn't mind.

"Полагаю, дядя Хан никогда не рассказывал тебе, что наши матери были довольно близки еще до того, как произошло разрушение ядра планеты. (I take it Uncle Khan never told you that our mothers were rather close from before the planet's core collapsed.)" Doll said, causing both Uzi and Lizzy to look at her.

"No... he didn't." Uzi said rather stunned by this revelation as Doll sat back down on Lizzy's bed.

"Did you just call him your uncle?" The blonde drone asked.

"Мы не родственники, если вы это имеете в виду. (We're not related, if that's what you are getting at.)" Doll said before turning to Uzi. "They used to hang out a lot in the past. Before all of... this happened." Doll gestured to the roof above them, meaning the bunker of Outpost 3 and them living underground.

"I... really didn't know." Uzi found herself wrestling with so many emotions in that moment. Happiness, anger, sadness, guilt, relief and a healthy dosage of teenage angst all mixed in her head to... whatever this feeling was called. Lizzy got up from her desk and walked over, looking at the pictures herself.

"Not gonna lie Uzi, your mom looks kind of cool." She said when the two looked at a picture of Nori and Yeva sitting outside at the parking lot of what looked like a car dealership with Yeva simply leaning against a not yet completely rusted and weathered car, while Nori sat on the hood and leaned her back against a not broken windshield.

"Yeah, she was the coolest." Uzi smiled at the pictures of Nori and Yeva. Eventually she found a picture of just Nori, likely taken by Doll's mother, as Nori was just chilling outside of Outpost 3, resting against the railing of some observation platform overlooking the destroyed cityscape outside. A still working streetlight shone bright enough for lighting, casting pale yellow light down where she stood, and Copper 9's moons hung low with the bigger one and its ring just barely having crawled up the horizon, not shining bright enough to glare into the camera yet.

"You can keep it and the others, if you want." Doll said with a small smile when Uzi looked at her surprised at that. "I've plenty pictures of my parents at home." Uzi smiled back a little at that and she might almost would have hugged her out of gratitude when Lizzy spoke up.

"Aww. You are so darn cute together, you know that?" The blonde girl said with a sly smirk on her face, making both Uzi and Doll roll their eyes and groan at her remark.

"Ugh, shut up, Lizzy. We were having a moment." Uzi said.

"Вот почему мы не можем вести с ней серьезные разговоры. (This is why we can't have serious conversations with her.)" Doll said, pointing at Lizzy.

"Of course, you can have serious conversations with me. You just need to talk about something serious." Lizzy said defensively.

"Gossip doesn't constitute as serious talk, Lizzy." The shorter one of the purple-haired drones sighed.

"I beg to differ!"

A moment of silence followed when Lizzy and Uzi both couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the talk they were having and Doll did roll her eyes at that, but she was smiling.

"So, you want to play a game?" The blonde girl asked as she walked up to her desk and rummaged around for something, making Uzi put the photos away.

"I don't know. I'm not one for Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle." She replied when Lizzy pulled out a game controller and rolled her eyes with a smile.

"A video game, silly." She said, while booting up her computer and sitting down on her bed next to Doll. When she noticed Uzi looking at her with bewilderment, the blonde drone couldn't help but smirk. "What? Just because I like cute stuff, gossip and and picking on people, I cannot play video games or something?"

"No... It's just really odd for you of all people. Maybe Thad would be even weirder." The purple drone replied, while Lizzy loaded up an FPS game Uzi also played rather often.

"Yeah, he doesn't like those too much and prefers kicking or throwing the ball himself." The popular girl said while her friend nodded next to her. Uzi soon joined the two on the bed when the game finished loading and proudly displayed Lizzy's profile. Needless to say, the daughter of Khan Doorman almost fell off the bed when she read the username.

"Wait a minute, YOU are QueenB3?!" Uzi felt her worldview shatter again. "Oh, who am I kidding? You are perhaps the only person with that sort of gamer tag." She groaned, recalling quite a few matches she had apparently played against her.

"So, what if I am, DarkXWolf17?" Lizzy asked with a smirk, while Doll simply looked between the two of them in confusion.

"How did you-"

"You really should mute your microphone sometimes when you get killed. They might perma-ban you for swearing."

"So that's why I can't get into that server anymore!" Uzi exclaimed, before clarifying. "For the record, I call hax." Lizzy rolled her eyes before picking up a second controller.

"So, you're in or what?"

"Damn right, I am. Pass me that controller."

Doll just watched the two start up their game, before she quietly slipped out the room for a second. Walking past the kitchen table they had eaten on before, she made her way towards Uzi's backpack still resting near the living area, before she fished out the other purple drone's digivice from her pocket. Quietly she unzipped her bag and dropped it in, only to stop when she looked at the contents. Inside were a flashlight, a small knife, a roll of duct tape and a book titled 'HOW TO ESCAPE A HOSTAGE SITUATION 101 (FOR MORONS)'.

'Did she think we were going to tied her to a chair and press her for answers?' Doll thought to herself, before reminding herself of some of the things Yeva and Nori had gotten up to before either of them had their daughters. Or more like what kind of things Nori had sometimes dragged Yeva into, while Doll's mother had been the one to drag Uzi's mother back out. 'Looks like it is indeed in her code.' She rolled her eyes at that and zipped the bag shut again, before heading to the fridge and grabbing some drinks for her and the others. She may not have been one for video games, but it was good that Uzi was warming up to the two of them and Lizzy having fun was a plus as well.

By the time, Doll returned to the room, the first thing she was greeted with was the sound of gunshots from the game and the two of them having a heated conversation as they sat on the bed.

"C'mon, let's go."

"Quit, your whining Lizzy, I need to pick up that gun."

"Watch your right!"

"Got it-Damn camper!"

"I got you covered. Go go go."

"Bite me!"

Watching the two engrossed in the game, Doll almost felt a bit jealous of how carefree they could be sometimes. Although, she also did enjoy moments like these with Lizzy. Sitting down the blonde drone, the two gaming girls looked at what Doll had brought back as refreshments with smirks.

"Looks like it's going to be a while until we're done here- Uzi, grab that item."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Uzi said in a snappy tone, before the two kept gaming. From what Doll was able to make out, they had been able to pin down the other team in some fortified position.

"Okay, deploy that airstrike, Lizzy."

"On it already. Dammit, they're breaking through!"

"Oh, come on, just drop dead already-" That was when Uzi covered her mouth with one hand. The next moment a panel of the ceiling above was kicked open, causing all three girls to look up as a certain digimon dropped down from the air vent on a rope.

"I'll save y-AHH!" That was when Commandramon's heroic extraction turned into somewhat of a circus act as his body got caught by the rope wrapping around him and causing him to hang in a tangled mess from above. A moment of awkward silence followed in which one could hear a pin drop. More specifically, the pin of the smoke grenade now stuck in the digimon's hand.

The next moment the entire room of Lizzy was doused in white smoke with the only illumination coming from her PC. The girls were coughing and hacking for a while as Lizzy's room might had a window of murder drone-proof glass, it obviously couldn't be opened. When the smoke dispersed, Uzi and Lizzy were greeted by the Game Over screen of their game after being AFK for almost a minute. Instantly, the girls turned to the tied up digimon.

"Oh... uhm... false alarm, I guess." In that moment the rope snapped and he flopped down onto Lizzy's bed. A feeling of dread overcame him as he could see Doll, Lizzy and Uzi tower over him and look judgmentally. "Maybe I should..." He tried getting up and walking out only for a certain blonde drone to grab him by the tail.

"And where do you think you're going?" She asked, before quickly trapping the digimon in another chokehold.

"G-Guys, I need to-"

"Oh no, you don't! We just lost the match because of you." Uzi said as Commandramon's skin started to change color out of reflex and making Lizzy tighten her grip around the Rookie-level digimon. Uzi then turned to Doll. "Doll, you're up. I doubt Lizzy will be much of a help with Commandramon like this." She said before holding out the game controller to the red-eyed drone, who looked between her, her friend and the controller offered to her.

"Oh... I don't actually play video games..."

"No problem, I'll show you how it's done." Uzi said confidently. Doll eventually just sighed and relented to her fate, grabbing the controller from Uzi's hand.

"Хорошо... но только одна игра... (Fine... but just one game...)" She said when Uzi grabbed Lizzy's controller to select a new map for her to give Doll a rundown on how to play an FPS. Meanwhile, Commandramon started to question himself what kind of baby digimon he might get reincarnated as if Lizzy actually managed to kill him with her crushing hug and he'd turn back into a digi-egg.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Changing Circumstances

V was pacing around inside the ship, the broken chain dragging across the metal panels of the floor and her stilt-like feet hitting the ground making metallic thud with each step as she contemplated her options once more as well as what she had told N earlier that night. As she walked back and forth, she passed the things Uzi had left behind in their ship put to the side by N as well as the food items Commandramon had taken from the vending machine, which Impmon had brought along two days earlier. Thanks to Copper 9 being essentially a giant ice box, they wouldn't go bad immediately. Still, N had gathered both of their things together as if they were going to come back at any given moment, though the disassembly drone currently inside the ship wasn't paying them any mind right now.

'Goddammit V! Get a grip already!' She cursed at herself, while moving from one end of the small ship to the other again and again. 'Just do your job and everything will be fine. You just have to do your job and get this over with. Then you can start worrying about-' She thought to herself, before finding herself conflicted once more about her position in all of this. Not just because N was being all friendly with that purple thing, that had admittedly saved his life from their piece of work leader J, but now also because he recalled something he wasn't meant to.

This complicated things by a lot more than him simply fraternizing with some worker drones. When she eventually sat back down on her chair, she found her eyes linger a bit on some of the pictures N had drawn while she had been asleep the other day. They were all childish doodles much like his 'apology card', something V still wasn't sure how that had worked. Pictures of rainbows, flowers, dogs... one particular drawing stood out from the rest. which she grabbed and put on the console in front of her. It was a picture with a stick figure that was meant to be N as indicated by the hat and the optical sensors on his head next to one of Uzi and one of V and with what could potentially be meant to be a lizard or something next to the purple worker drone's depiction, clearly meaning to be Commandramon. A certain detail she found herself looking at what that the arms of the figures representing N and Uzi touched at their ends as if holding hands.

Naturally that meant nothing more than N thinking of Uzi as his friend in his naive way of thinking. Plus, they had only known one another for a very short time and... She stopped herself, wondering why she was even thinking like that. Although she knew the answer to that very well. After all, she had done nothing for him in years. She had purposefully ignored him and his troubles whenever J had more punishing towards N. The fact that N so easily betrayed their squad and mission suddenly way less sudden in her mind when he had been emotionally starved for affection and socially isolated by an abusive superior and an abrasive co-worker to put it lightly. Then she looked down at her hands, switching one of her regular hands for a set of claws and then back to normal, frowning the entire time. She recalled waking up earlier in that weird and embarrassing way that simply didn't befit the persona she had constructed for herself and fit more a certain bespectacled worker drone maid, that no longer existed.

'At least, he can be himself with them unlike with us...' V found herself thinking, before shaking her head and recalling what had happened yesterday with Uzi and her Solver eye upon seeing the shattered ornate mirror taped to the wall and her reflection in it. "Stop it. Agh! That's all that damn purple thing's fault!" She said before taking a deep breath and exhaling in an attempt to calm herself. After a few repetitions, V had forced herself breathing to slow down and her mind calm. "No... No, it's not..." She said to no one and she knew that Uzi wasn't fully to blame for their current situation. The predicament she faced right now was a result of a lot of things that unfortunately lined up to turn the possibly most positive person in the universe into a depressed mess with an identity crisis. And unfortunately, the only way to do what was best for him was by hurting him even more.

"I better figure out how to-" Her sigh was suddenly cut off by the sound of someone taking a slurping sip through a straw. Slowly, she turned around her chair to find none other than Impmon standing beside the pile of digimon food items with a juice box in hand and leaning against the wall next to the door. The small evil digimon just kept drinking until the box in his hand was empty, before merely looking at her for a moment in silence. 'And then there is those things. It's always just one or another...' V thought annoyed as her fingers curled up into fists. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, nothing. Don't get it twisted. I'm just here to grab myself a bite." Impmon said before setting the empty juice box down and rummaging through the food, his eyes not leaving V out of his sight. "What? You don't exactly have a doorbell." Impmon's sarcastic comment was only met with more silence from the robot glaring at him. "Geez, you really are no fun."

"I'll have fun when I'm performing an autopsy on you for the troubles you've caused so far whenever you showed up." The disassembly drone replied with a sadistic grin, resisting the urge to jump up from her seat. Impmon merely rolled his eyes at her threat when he grabbed a bag of teddy-bear shaped gummies and ripped it open. Then he took one out and threw it upwards into the air, before catching it in his mouth and making a bit of a face when the very cold gummies were rather chewy.

"Pff. Are you still hung up over me airing out you dirty laundry or something? I don't even know what was on that disk and honestly I don't care." He said, before repeating the process of throwing a gummy and catching it. When neither his words or actions created any reaction from V, he continued. "You look like you're plotting to kill someone. Did someone figure out some other little secret you got?"

"You wouldn't be talking like that if I wasn't chained up in here." She said before shrugging. "Plus, I am a disassembly drone. Killing is literally what I was made for." Then she narrowed her eyes at him. "What is it to you?"

"Nothing, I'm just bored and have nothing better to do on this fridge of a planet." Impmon said when he threw another Monzaemon gummy up only to miscalculate and the piece of digimon brand candy to accidentally fall towards V, who impaled it on her tail before it could get stuck in her hair. "Hehe... whoops." Impmon chuckled awkwardly, while he watched the digimon branded piece of candy getting dissolved by nanite acid, while V continued to glare at him. Eventually, she just rolled her eyes and turned away a little, deciding that the digimon wasn't worth her time.

"Get lost already. I have to stuff to figure out and worker drones to get rid of." The disassembly drone grumbled before shooting the digimon a pointed glare once more. "As well as certain other problems who can't mind their own business if they don't leave immediately." She added, pointing her tail's stinger at Impmon who raised his hands in surrender.

"Great, but you better don't think about doing that to the shortstack." Impmon said before pushing himself off the wall and grabbing few more bags of things V couldn't identify from the pile of stocked up food. "'Cause you'd regret it with that partner of hers around." At that, V huffed with her arms crossed.

"I'm pretty sure I could take him in a fight." She said, remembering how she had accidentally injured Hi-Commandramon with her cutting laser. 'Not to mention how that thing usually acts around us... or is that just an act?' She thought to herself, when she recalled Commandramon calling her a bad liar for saying she didn't care about N. That made her slightly adjust her thoughts on how she might be able to dispose of the small cyborg digimon. The evil digimon in front of her simply rolled his eyes at that remark.

"If he goes easy on you, that is. But if you are going after his partner, you are going die." Impmon said as casually as talking about the weather. V shot him a questioning look at that. "You might not know it because you don't have one, but things are a bit complicated between a partner digimon and their tamer. It's a bit more than just being best buddies with someone."

"You don't say." V said sarcastically, knowing firsthand just what that digimon was capable off both on his Rookie and Champion-levels as well as him not being able to change forms from one to the other without Uzi. "Should be easy enough."

"Not if you go after his partner." Impmon repeated with a seriousness that didn't fit his previous laid-back personality, before huffing. "You really just look for trouble, aren't you? Seriously, you and that shortstack are so alike you could either be best buddies or bickering siblings."

"We are nothing alike." V replied, sounding and feeling slightly insulted by being likened to Uzi in such a way. "You still haven't said why exactly I shouldn't go and kill that thing." At that Impmon let out a malevolent sounding chuckle, that actually gave V some pause. A sound that was not unfamiliar to her as she too liked to taunt and torment her victims before violently rendering them limb from limb. Or at least, that was the closest thing that V could liken the noise the little devil made in that moment.

"You don't want to find out." Was all Impmon said with a small smirk when the sound of wings beating within the confinements of the spire got both of the ship's occupant's attention and shortly after N entered the pod through the hatch above, his clothes slightly stained. "Oh, it's the can opener." Impmon said, sounding almost disappointed. N narrowed his eyes at the digimon, then looked over to V with a raised eyebrow, who shrugged in response, before both turned back to Impmon. "Relax, I'm just taking some of the stuff you don't have any use for anyway. I was hoping to find that shorty around here but looks like she hasn't been here for a while." N's face fell at that remark a bit, while the digimon simply shrugged and didn't notice his face as Impmon walked to the door. "Whatever. You guys bore me anyway. I'll just get back into that bunker or whatever. You can go and do whatever you do in here. See if I care."

"Why you little-" V was about to switch one of her hands for a gun and open fire even if they were inside the ship and N was around. Except all three of them stopped dead in their tracks when they all heard the sound of something entering the spires with heavy beating of wings. The first thought would have been that perhaps some other disassembly drone had left their assigned area and stumbled upon the monumental collection of dead worker drone bodies to check it out, however both N and V knew the sound their wings made quite well and it was different from what their own bladed appendages did. This was followed by a growl which sounded rather familiar to Impmon, causing his body tense up. All three of them all looked up at the ceiling of the ship when something landed on top of the roof, causing the ship to slightly shift under the added weight. Instantly, memories of their fight with Snimon resurfaced in the drones' minds as they exchanged a wide-eyed look.

"Oh right... that thing happened..." Impmon muttered quietly, looking slightly uncomfortable scratching his cheek with one finger. Both N and V turned towards him when he uttered those words. Putting 2 and 2 together in their heads, an anger tick emerged on one of their visors while the other looked with crossed arms at the digimon.

"You little narc! What did you do this time?!" V demanded angrily as her eyes became replaced by a large X on her visor. Impmon raised a finger as if he was about to answer, before bolting out of the door, leaving the disassembly drones alone while the thing on their ship let out an angry shriek and the ship rocked slightly when it sounded like the creature took off. N had to grab the latter to not fall over while V kept herself steady on her office chair. They could hear Impmon scream in a panic when it was cut off by a loud booming sound and a crash. After that followed was an eerie silence when neither of the two drones could hear anything. No beating of wings, no crunching of snow beneath footsteps, no nothing and that was worse somehow as they had no idea what had just happened. N and V looked at one another again as N replaced one hand with a gun as he slowly peaked around the corner of the doorway, finding nothing but the ground of the spire's base littered with scrap metal.

But when he saw nothing through the door, both his and V's optical sensors on top of their heads noticed something blocking the light shining into the ship through the open hatch above. In the next moment, a long and thick arm reached from the hatch on the roof into the pod trying to grab or strike N's head with its three-fingered hand, each digit tipped with a thick and sharp claw. V reacted instinctively, jumping up from her seat and pushing both of N and her out of harm's way as the clawed hand missed N's head and hit the ladder inside instead. The impact reverberated inside the ship and the metal screeched in protest as it was bent out of shape.

"Let's get out of here, quick!" V said when N was about to look for the key to V's collar, not noticing the chain being broken. However, when they both moved to get out of the door, V was suddenly yanked back forcing both to look wide eyes behind her. The arm reaching into the ship had grabbed onto the chain connected to her collar, crushing the links in its palm with surprising strength before hoisting up the disassembly drone girl by it as if she was being hung on the gallows and pulling her out of the ship through the hatch.

"V!" N shouted after her, before he dashed out of the door to help her. V meanwhile found herself choking while being brought face to face with an eyeless reptilian-looking monster baring its sharp teeth in a snarl.

"Let go, you bastard!" V said spreading her wings and bringing her knee up into the creature's chin, causing it to let go of her with a hiss. However, it swung its other long arm at her, hitting her V in the stomach and almost sent her crashing to the ground when N caught her in midair.

"You okay?" He asked when she pushed herself off of him and hovered next to him.

"I'm fine. Worry about that once we are finished killing that thing." Both of them locked eyes on the creature that now sat perched on their ship on all fours.

Almost its entire thin body appeared to be snow-white except for a short, dark blue tail and its talons being of the same color. Its head was relatively small with two wing-like growths at the side of its head where ears might be. The arms were long and terminated in large hands, while a pair of white-feathered wings sat between its shoulder and gave it a vaguely draconic appearance. Strangely enough, the creature's thighs, arms, waist and neck appeared to be wrapped in multiple silvery belts each.

But the strangest addition to this were multiple metal bands seemingly nailed into the creature's body. Its face was practically covered with a X-shaped band where the eyes would be, another one was across its body like a harness while two black pauldrons sat on its shoulders. Its lower arms bore two golden symbols nailed into them as well, a circle on the right and a X on the left.

Digimon Analyzer

Gargoylemon

Level: Armor

Demon Beast Digimon

Type: Unknown

Attack: Freezing Wing

2nd Attack: Statue Bomber

While Gargoylemon remained on the ship's rooftop, it stood perfectly still with only the subtle movement of its eyeless head following the two flying disassembly drones, who looked back at it with narrowed eyes, and its breath coming from its maw as huffs of thin mist in the freezing proving it to be a living creature. While seemingly blind, the demon beast digimon could clearly see them and notice something else. Gargoylemon were often employed as attack beasts by angel digimon to hunt down and evil digimon, making them naturally an enemy to most Virus-types. But there was something about the disassembly drone, that caused the usually more docile angelic familiar to react even more violently than when it would face a regular Virus-type or an evil digimon and seek nothing but the disassembly drone's destruction over the likes of a small fry like Impmon, who had used the chance to escape out of the spire. Something in the form of some yellow glowing lines of code within them.

"That... digimon sure looks weird." N thought to himself aloud as he pointed his gun at the digimon, which let out a roar at the two drones as it stood up on its hindlegs in hunched over posture akin to an ape. Even to him it was clear that he was looking at another digital monster considering Impmon's reaction. That and it looked not nearly as unsettling and unnatural as the centipede-like aberration that J's corpse had turned into. He was about to ask Uzi or Commandramon on what they might knew about this particular monster, only to realize that neither of them were there. The disassembly drones would need to deal with this on their own.

"We got no idea what it is, how strong it is or how to beat it. Looks like we have to figure that out on the run, huh?" V chuckled humorlessly, voicing his thoughts. 'For once, those two could have been helpful and they are not here.' She thought. Hating to admit it, but something like that had its uses to have someone around that could gauge the strength of an unknown and unpredictable opponent and perhaps knew a weak spot rather than going in blind against it. What she could tell from that blow though was that it was by no means weak, still feeling a slight sting of pain as her nanites worked on repairing her internal systems. 'Usually I like a challenge, but that thing is no joke. Might be a good practice dummy for later.' She thought to herself as part of her couldn't help but also feel a bit excited to make it pay for the attack earlier, before she nodded to N with an evil smile. "You ready?"

"Sure thing. Leave it to me." N said, although he would lie if he said he wasn't slightly nervous after his fight against Snimon. V seemed to catch onto that feeling slightly narrowing her eyes slightly.

"Just don't make me save you a fourth time." She told N, who nodded with a frown when he realized that she was right. V had saved him twice in the fight against Snimon and just now again. Even before that, Uzi and Commandramon had also helped him out more than once. A ting of shame welled up in him slightly when he switched his gun for blades when he saw the broken chain dangling from V's collar. His change of armaments confused her as that thing was clearly quite strong physically. If anything, fighting from a distance with long-range weapons seemed to be the better option.

She didn't get a chance to question it though when Gargoylemon raised his hands and out of thin air appeared what looked like child-like angel statues with demonic-looking wings before they were hurled at great speed at the two drones. N and V dodged the barrage narrowly, causing the statues to smash against the wall of the spire and sending a tremor through the structure. Loose pieces of metal and worker drone bodies fell down to the ground, while both closed in on the digimon from opposite sides. Seeing that its attack had missed, Gargoylemon spread its own wings and took off with great speed and shot towards V, only to be intercepted by N slashing his blades across its back. The digimon roared in pain when it was struck, but it twisted its body around to swipe at its attacker, who had to raise both arms to block the strike and was still sent flying backwards. In that moment of distraction, V fired a missile at the creature's flank, once more eliciting a pained noise from it and engulfing it in a cloud of black smoke. A second later though, more statues were launched out of the smoke, hurling through the air with great speed towards V. The projectiles suddenly flying out of the smoke, caught her off-guard as she was unable to dodge and closed her wings to absorb the blow. The impact hit harder than expected, dislocating some of the feather-like blades lining her wings and sent V tumbling to the ground.

Shooting out of the dispersing smoke, Gargoylemon was about to dive down and attack the wounded disassembly drone when machine gun fire from N hammered against its body, making it screech in pain and forcing it to raise its arms in an attempt to block the bullets from hitting its body. It quickly swooped behind the ship to evade the attack and seek cover. The still airborne N shot a worried look to V, who staggered back to her feet while coughing up oil, before the two nodded at one another and turned their attention back to Gargoylemon, which climbed back upon their spacecraft and roared in anger at the two of them.

"Pincer attack?" V asked with a smirk as she took into the air once more and flew next to him with her arms changed into blades. N nodded and switched his guns for claws. Then both of them dashed towards the digimon again. Gargoylemon summoned more angel statues above itself and launched them at the two drones just before they flew in opposite directions and the digimon's attack merely added more rubble to the already cluttered ground of the spire.

It looked around in a panic, seeing both drones approach from its left and right and it not being able to keep both of them in its line of sight, the demon beast launched itself up into the air, almost knocking over the ship when it jumped. It wasn't as fast or agile as the disassembly drones, who quickly shot upwards at the sides of the spire. Gargoylemon saw this and summoned yet another cluster of statues, firing half of them at N and V each only for its mark being off from having to focus on two targets at once, making most of them simply hit the walls of the spire and sending tremors through the structure. N swatted a small demonic looking baby statue away that came his way, breaking it in the process before shooting towards the white dragon-like beast to strike. It raised its two large arms in front of its body, defending itself against the incoming strikes as good as possible, while sharp blades cut through the belts and into the digimon's skin.

N then found himself pushed back when Gargoylemon blocked his attack and knocked him back with its arms, before trying to claw at him instead when V flew in and slashed at its right flank and arm. Once more the digimon let out an outcry of pain, trying to grab a hold of V with its left arm, before N joined the fight again and slammed into Gargoylemon from below, forcing it to block the incoming strike of N's claws. However, it failed to noticed the drone's tail, stabbing itself right into its chest. At that, it let out an even louder screech of pain and trashed around, knocking both N and V away. When the two drones stabilized their flight, they saw the digimon clutching its chest where a growing yellow spot of nanite acid began to work its way through its body. N honestly felt bad at the sounds it made, but then again it had tried to kill them for seemingly no reason.

"Alright, time to finish this." V said with an evil chuckle as she dashed towards the wounded Gargoylemon with her swords raised to strike it down once and for all. A loud clanging sound of metal striking something hard echoed through the spire like the ringing of a church's belltower and the next thing N saw was V's headless body falling down like a comet. Time seemed to slow down as his eyes widened and fixated on the sparking stump of her neck leaking oil as it fell.

"V- GAH!" N had no time to cry out when all of the sudden he was struck by something glowing in a bright azure light. His back hit the wall of the spire, before he looked upon the figure of Gargoylemon, crushing V's head in one hand while two bands of what looked like sky-blue light given solid form emerged from the golden metal bands on its arms and wriggled around through the air like a nest of snakes. A series of loud metallic snapping sounds followed when N saw more of the silver belts around its body breaking and disappearing, before the digimon let out a roar loud enough to shake the entire spire and energy exploding outward from it. Then it turned its head towards him, making the oil in his body run cold. "Ah, biscuits." He muttered when the digimon dashed towards him, a lot faster than before. N barely managed to get away when he saw that Gargoylemon had flown straight through the wall of the spire, tearing a hole into it.

'Oh no...' N thought to himself as he heard only the beating of the digimon's wings as it flew around the spire, making it hard for him to pin point its exact location. He stole a glance downwards where V's body was regenerating her head by growing a new one not unlike himself when he had been shot by Uzi's railgun, before quickly turning his attention back to the inner walls of the spire. He switched his claws for guns once more as his head followed the noises of the flying digimon's labored breathing, but his systems were unable to lock onto a target he couldn't make out. A sudden crash from the wall behind him was the only warning he got before Gargoylemon smashed into the spire once more and threw a devastating punch at the disassembly. Bringing up his arm to try and shield his torso did absolutely nothing as the blow broke it and launched him into the wall on the opposite side. He tasted oil on his tongue as it filled his mouth and made him gag and cough. Alerts across his HUD blared warnings of internal systems being damaged faster than he could read them. One of the bands of light wrapped tightly around his leg, cracking his joints and hydraulics before the digimon swung him around into spire's wall again, dragging him through dozens of dead bodies before releasing him and making his body tumble towards the ground.

It raised its hands over its head, summoning a large statue depicting an angel with bat-like wings sitting with its legs tucked to its chest, seemingly mourning or sad. But before it could launch it at N, the whistling sound of a missile made its eyeless gaze downwards just in time before one missile hut it square in the yellow spot the nanite acid had burnt into its chest while another hit the statue above its head. Gargoylemon roared in pain and anger, before diving down towards V. She only got to jump back to avoid getting crushed by its feet before another band of light wrapped around the arm still turned into a missile launcher and pulled with enough force to tear her arm clean off. Oil splashed onto the frozen ground below as V held back a scream of pain through gritted teeth and pointed her other arm at the digimon, charging up her cutting laser. But her opponent would have none of that when it grabbed her hand with its larger talon and crushed it in its grip. Still holding onto her ruined arm, the digimon slammed her over its head into the ground and stomped down on her tail and back.

V tried to trash around under it and throw it off, but it instead stomped down on her back, pressing her into the scrap metal of broken machine parts and worker drone corpses alike as its claws dug into her backside and trapped her tail uselessly under her. Metal screamed in protest and her systems blared alarms about heavy internal damages as she coughed up more oil. Her wings beat uselessly against the floor, trying to nail the digimon in its leg but failed to do anything. Instead, it simply continued putting more weight on her back while raising a clawed hand to strike and deliver the killing blow. From its point of view, it would only need a final blow to destroy the baleful yellow glowing thing inside her when a second one entered the periphery of its line of sight with great speed and intensity.

Turning its head, Gargoylemon met N's mismatched eyes of one digital eye being normal and the other replaced by an X just as he slammed his claws straight into the acid burn on its chest and pushed them both further away. The demon beast screeched in pain and lost its footing, hitting the ground, while N kept dragging the two of them along the ground and out of the spire. White glowing particles of data erupted from the lacerations like blood or oil before Gargoylemon managed to reverse their position kick N off of him. N hit the snow-covered ground outside the spire with a grunt of pain, while Gargoylemon flew higher, clutching its chest as more data escaped from under its hand like smoke.

With an angry hiss, it turned to dive down and tear the disassembly drone apart with its claws, failing to notice the bright yellow glow of the charged up cutting laser N aimed up from where he laid. The beam tore straight through the digimon's body, nailing it in its wounded chest and erupting from its backside before the beam cut upwards and through its shoulder, almost bisecting the digimon's upper body. Gargoylemon let out a final scream of pain, before it fell out of the sky, its body quickly turning unstable and almost immediately after disintegrating much like Snimon had upon its death. N looked up at the white particles of data vanishing like smoke in the wind, before he let his head and arm hit the ground below him with a thud and took a deep breath.

"We made it... Biscuits, I'm beat." N said as he continued to lay there for a second longer, before he quickly sat up. "Oh no, V!" Spreading his aching wings he quickly flew over to the spire to find her leaning against the ground entrance of the spire with her shoulder. The arm, that Gargoylemon had crushed earlier, had repaired itself already, while the other remained missing for now as a sparking stump where her nanites would need to reconstruct the limb and the torn fabric of her jacket. Her face had a strained look on it as she was clearly still in pain and her intact arm was wrapped around her torso. Obviously, she did not look too happy about what had happened or at how she had been injured, but the look she shot towards N made him slightly uncomfortable. "Thank goodness, you're okay." He said relieved as he was about to check her injuries when she slapped his hand away.

"Do I look like I'm okay?" V asked sarcastically, her tone tinged with anger at the situation made N flinch back a bit as well as the slap as he looked at her with wide eyes. Seeing his face, made her somehow even more frustrated although not at him and rather at herself. "I guess that's all the action we need for tonight. Urgh! I need to cool down. You did bring those dead drones back you killed earlier, right?" She asked when she turned around on shaking legs.

"Uh... yes. Do you need hel-"

"I'll manage." V cut him off when she walked towards they ship just as her foot caught on a piece of broken marble from one of the statues the digimon had created and thrown at them. N quickly moved over her side and caught her to prevent her from hitting the ground face first. She didn't say anything when N looked at her with that sad and worried look on his face reminding V of a kicked dog. Instead, she simply let him help her towards the ship and averted her eyes from him, whilst clenching her still remaining hand into a fist.

Right after they reached the ship's entrance, a rather worrisome loud groan of metal made the two of them look up to see the damages their fight against the demon beast digimon had wrought onto the spire, which now seemed to sway slightly in the wind like a large tree in a storm. As if on cue a few dead worker drone's bodies hit the ground with a crash as N looked with worry at the corpses.

"I uh... better go and see how to repair that..." He said awkwardly. V was about to agree with him, but held her tongue when she simply nodded and walked into the ship. The moment the door closed, N couldn't help but sigh in exhaustion and sadness, before he spread his wings and flew up to assess the damages to the spire's structure and how to repair it.

Meanwhile, the inside of the pod was a mess again from it having been shaken around so much, causing loose items to fall off the edges of where they had been resting. Some of Uzi's tools and other things now laid on the ground while the two office chairs in front of the ship's control console had tipped over and now laid with their backrests on the floor. V simply sat down on the floor of the vessel and leaned her back against the wall, tucked her knees to her chest and covered her face with one hand. Her earlier conversation with Impmon flashed before her mind as well as that cryptic warning he had given her about trying to kill Uzi and what Commandramon might do if she did. The outcome of the fight just now had been way too close for her comfort and Commandramon had given both her and J quite a hard time already in the past. If that white angel-dragon thing was anything to go by, she was not sure if Impmon had not been correct and that she really didn't want to know what Uzi partner digimon was capable off.

"This is going to be a lot more difficult than expected." She thought to herself, feeling the nanites starting to rebuild her arm with a familiar feeling of discomfort when new pain receptors were made as well. Looking down on her regrowing limb for a moment longer, V couldn't help but feel a tinge of regret rise up inside her and made her lose her appetite. With a solemn look, she rested her still intact arm over her knees and rested her head atop of it, trying to ignore those emotions by going into sleep mode.

A glance to the internal clock on her HUD told Doll that it was 2:00 AM when she walked back towards her family's apartment after having left Lizzy's apartment after their night together with Uzi and her partner digimon coming in to save her. As was to be expected, Outpost 3's hallways were empty around this time, except for some night owl of a worker drone or a member of the WDF making sure everything was in order after the recent events had left an unspoken impact on the drone population of the bunker. She paid them no mind as she was simply being another teenager coming home late after staying with her friend the whole night. Nothing out of the ordinary really.

Except this time, she wasn't alone when walking the familiar path from Lizzy's to her own place, when alongside her walked Uzi and her very defeated looking partner digimon, whose skin was still sporting the pink coloration of Lizzy's room. The two of them likely would have stayed longer if it had not been for the fact that Lizzy had to clean her place up again before her parents would come back from their respective workplaces and most likely be rather easily irritated with any and all things that stood between them and a short night's rest to get back up in the morning and go back to work. Something Doll could attest to was not something either Uzi or Commandramon wanted nor needed to see.

To say that the empty cans of fuel under their living room couch were a testament of a failing marriage would be an understatement.

Unsurprisingly, Uzi was a lot less talkative than Lizzy, which was a refreshing change of pace for Doll and also slightly surprising for someone who she had known for most of her life as a troublemaker in school. The Russian drone almost missed Lizzy's talk about the latest rumors and gossip or her scrolling on her phone while walking next to her as it had been such a constant in her life that it now was akin to something crucial missing. Still, there was one thing that was rather amusing and unsettling at the same time about them walking together like this and Doll felt a question burn on her tongue that she had meant to ask Uzi ever since they had left Lizzy's place and were among the three of them.

"...what's up with him?" She asked. "I know Lizzy can be a bit much sometimes, but I didn't expect this sort of reaction from him."

"Yeah, it's actually starting to get concerning." Uzi agreed as the digimon more or less trotted behind them, looking mentally and physically exhausted.

"So... many... outfits... Why does even have these... why do they fit..." Commandramon murmured to himself absentmindedly, not even reacting to the two teenage drones looking at it a bit concerned.

What had started as Lizzy giving the digimon a rather healthy dosage of affection soon turned into her using the cyborg dinosaur as a dress up doll. So, when Uzi and Doll decided to take a break from pawning noobs and the more experienced gamer teaching the newcomer the game, both purple-haired girls were treated to the sight of Lizzy having somehow managed to put Commandramon into maid outfit and taking pictures from multiple angles. Both of them actually did a double take at that because Lizzy's room was bigger than Uzi's but it shouldn't have been big enough to somehow hide this from happening right next to them. Which only showed how engrossed the two of them had become in their game. And judging by the fact that Lizzy's phone had no more memory space for more pictures around the time they had to leave, it was not the only outfit he had been forced into.

"Leave it to Lizzy when it comes to fashion. She has some supernatural affinity for that." Doll said. "She always had."

"You mean she always pounced on people and choked them out?" Uzi asked with an amused smirk on her face at the mental image. "Maybe she should become a wrestler." Doll raised her hand to argue against it, though stopped herself when she thought about the fact that Lizzy was not exactly bad in terms of gymnastics and surprisingly raw physical strength. She was not a brawler by any means and she didn't throw hands like Uzi had, but if she wanted to Lizzy probably could give a sports jock like Thad a run for his money. Instead, Doll found herself smiling amused at the mental image as well.

"Sadly, we don't have a sports league like that. Not that she would consider it..." She said, before thinking to herself. 'And we never will thanks to those murder drones and IT...' She glanced over to Uzi, who was teasing Commandramon now about the 'pretty dresses' he wore, making him shudder a bit and drag his feet and tail as they continued walking. For a moment she contemplated to talk to her about that topic, before deciding that it might not be the right time. That and she did like this rather carefree conversation with her "cousin" she was having. Both of them did as they had opened up a bit to one another.

"True..." Uzi said before she turned to Doll. "Though, I didn't expect you to get so riled up while playing the game. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've actually ever seen you angry or mad before." She told the Russian drone, who merely blinked before turning her face away from Uzi.

"I wasn't that mad." She said, though the shorter of the two clearly was not buying it when she gave Doll a flat look.

"Doll, Lizzy and I had to cover his ears to not pick up on the swear words you were muttering. Even if I totally agree with what you said back there." Uzi said, pointing at Commandramon, whose skin slowly started to change color back to his usual blue camouflage pattern. Meanwhile, Doll felt heat creep up her own face as she vaguely recalled quietly murmuring curses under her breath whenever the opposing team got the upper hand or she found herself killed in the game.

"Я не помню, чтобы это происходило таким образом... (I don't remember it happening that way...)" Doll said, causing Uzi to raise an eyebrow just before the two of them reached a cross section of two hallways. More importantly, Doll would have to go one way to get back home and Uzi the other. Uzi realized that as she stopped and looked down the hallway towards her family's apartment. 'I guess this talk can wait for now.' She thought to herself. "I'll see you tomorrow at school then." She told Uzi, making her groan.

"Right... school... Ugh, how did that become even worse in my absence?" She thought to herself while Commandramon patted her on the back.

"Don't worry. You got this. And if you don't wake up on time, I'll throw you out of bed." He said, making his partner bury her face in her hands.

"You really couldn't have said this even more embarrassingly, could you?" She asked while her partner tilted his head to the side, not understanding what the problem was. Uzi then turned her attention back to Doll, who smiled slightly at the shenanigans of the two. "... thanks for the pictures again." She muttered, causing Doll to wave her off.

"It's nothing really. Just don't try and blow up Uncle Khan." She half-joked when Uzi clicked her tongue in annoyance at the mention of her father. "Спокойной ночи. (Goodnight.)"

"Yeah you too." Uzi said. "See ya at school..."

"Night, Doll." Commandramon waved goodbye before following Uzi back to her home.

Doll looked on for a moment longer after they had disappeared behind another curve, before she too made her way back home. When a familiar warning on her HUD popping up brought her back to reality.

[WARNING! BODY TEMPERATURE APPROACHING DANGEROUS LEVELS! CONSUME OIL TO COOL DOWN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!]

The faint smile on her face faded at that and she quickened her pace home.

Meanwhile, Uzi and Commandramon' walk back to the Doormans' apartment was mostly silent, both of them still processing the events of the past 6 hours and tiredness starting to gnaw at their minds now that they were no longer stimulated by video games, conversation or Lizzy using someone as a mannequin. Both of them certainly had a lot of thoughts they still wanted to say out loud, but they could wait until they were back home. On their way, they didn't pass anyone else and all they were greeted with was the hum of machinery working in the bunker like the dimmed lights above them or the whirring of the ventilation system. Eventually though they reached the apartment door and stopped for a moment.

"You think he's still awake?" Uzi finally broke the silence, while her partner thought about it.

"I don't think so... Is something the matter, Uzi?" The digimon asked her, but Uzi didn't answer. Too many thoughts ran through her mind and a lot of emotions that she would rather not say out loud in the middle of the hallway. Unlocking the door, she went inside alongside her partner to find the apartment deserted as expected. Well almost, when they found Khan sitting on the couch in the living area facing the door, snoring slightly while his visor displayed the words 'SLEEP MODE'. The initial shock quickly faded as Uzi looked a bit torn up between wanting to wake him up to give him a lecture for being creepy to have seemingly fallen asleep waiting for them to come back and the realization that he had actually fallen asleep waiting for them to come back.

She eventually just rolled her eyes and gestured for her partner to come along quietly. The two snuck past her passed out father by Uzi doing a cartwheel and Commandramon by doing a combat roll, before slipping back into her room with the trap Uzi had set up for him being disabled by the purple-haired drone girl. It would have been a rather awkward conversation with her father to explain why the first thing he saw at 2:30 AM was the two of them evading a smaller prototype version of Uzi's sick-as-hell railgun. Still, that didn't stop Uzi from checking her room for anything amiss first. When she found nothing being touched, she let out a quiet sigh of relief and sat her backpack down. She briefly glanced up the ceiling where her drawings of the Absolute Solver's symbol and the nightmarish depictions still hung above her head, connected by red threads of synthetic wool, before turning to her partner who let himself fall down on the floor next to her bed with a thud.

"I'm beat..." He groaned weakly, making Uzi smile a bit before she too sat down on her bed and looked at the ceiling.

"Yeah... me too..." With that the two remained silent for a moment, before Uzi spoke up again. "Hey... thanks for the 'rescue' earlier..." That made her partner chuckle a bit before cracked open an eye again to look at her.

"No problem... though I'm just glad we were wrong about their intentions." Uzi nodded in agreement to that before shut off the lights. "Night Uzi..."

"Night..." And with that Uzi went into sleep mode herself.

For a moment, everything was still in the room before Commandramon opened his eyes again and started to think about something he had noticed back then. Both inside Lizzy's room and on the way back home, a familiar scent had clung to his nose. At first, he had thought it to be nothing and Lizzy's collection of beauty products certainly had impended his nose a bit. Though, once they had left the scent was still there and stronger than ever. He let out a huff at that, blowing his breath out of his nostrils. He didn't smell it anymore, but the memory was still fresh on his mind. His mind tried piecing the information together in a way that made sense to him, but he couldn't find the silver lining just yet.

All he knew was that for some reason, it bothered him how the feint scent of oil had clung to Doll like a shroud. And how it smelled just like the air inside the corpse spire of the disassembly drones. With a tired yawn, he rolled onto his back and found himself looking up at Uzi's drawings of the previous night. It worried him for a reason he somehow couldn't quite put a finger on but sleep slowly overtook him and he lost consciousness soon after.

"And done." N wiped the sweat from his brow when he looked at his handiwork. One of the holes in the spire's walls the fight with Gargoylemon had created was patched up with worker drone bodies and debris taken from the top of the spire like some macabre band aid on an even more macabre structure. Of course, N could have gone and hunted more worker drones elsewhere in the city to find fresh bodies to patch the holes up, but time had not been on his side in that regard. Dawn was always approaching fast when the skies of Copper 9 were clear. With how used the disassembly drones were with the planet's climate after years of their deployment here, having a starry night sky was more of the exception than the rule. It was therefore no surprise that N noticed the subtle shifts of the sky's color above the corpse spire early on.

As much as such calm nights were usually a blessing for the disassembly drones by making hunting easier, they also bore the highest risk in case they couldn't make it back to their base in time.

'One hole patched up, a few more to go...' He thought to himself optimistically, before turning towards the horizon where the coming dawn was already announcing its arrival by the night sky starting to shift into warmer colors. N liked pictures of the rising and setting sun, especially on those that had dogs on them like a shepherd dog like a Pyrenean Mountain dog laying on a hill and overlooking a pasture with a herd of sheep in the morning in one of his books. It was a shame that due to their bodies being the way they were, N would literally burn up in the sunlight. Why they even had that feature was beyond him, but that was a question for another time. Swooping down to the ground entrance of the spire, N looked one more time at the trench he had left the ground below when he had pushed the hostile digimon out of the spire, before going inside to avoid getting cooked alive.

The ground level of the spire's interior was still a slightly more cluttered mess of broken metal, ice and now also stone when he found the child-like face of one of the statues looking back up at him from under his foot when he stepped in it. N made a face at that, before stepping away from it. He knew that it had only been created by the digimon that had attacked them as a projectile, but he was well aware that the humans had made statues like these a lot on the past, making N question just what the humans liked about statues like this in the first place when he found them rather creepy and unsettling. At that notion, he remembered the dream he had with the man with the top head calling him and by extension the worker drone versions of J and V disturbing too. He shook his head at that, before he felt a wave of tiredness wash over him.

"I better get some rest too... Butler N dreams will have to wait..." He thought, looking up into the spire from the ground and seeing the first beams of sunlight penetrate through the holes in the walls. When he tried figuring out where he could potentially sleep for the day, when he noticed the absence of V hanging from the spire's walls. For a second, his eyes darted around and failed to spot her. That was when his eyes fell on the landing pod where she had gone into earlier and he realized he had not heard her leave it since. Normally V was not one to stay in there during the day and instead slept in the spire though far away from N who had kept their distance respectful and didn't wish to spook her or get punished by J for harassing his female co-worker. But with J having gone holo-snake thingy and likely dead for good, she had only stayed in there because she had been chained up by Uzi.

Now that chain was broken though and V could have gone anywhere. With some hesitation, N approached the ship and stood in front of its door for a moment as if trying to listen in on what was happening inside. His eyes wandered to the scratches and dents the white dragon-like creature had left in its hull as well as other damages it had received during the fight, making it somewhat of a shame right after Uzi had repaired some parts of the ship just recently. His mouth turned into a frown at the thought of his worker drone friend with a sigh.

When he heard nothing from inside the ship he opened the door, flinching at the somewhat loud mechanical sound cutting through the silence and entering a second later when he still heard nothing from within. The disassembly drone stepped inside when the door behind him closed with a mechanical hiss and he found himself looking at a few busted screens on the wall and some loose wall panels, but nothing major that couldn't be fixed. However, the sight of V was what gave him pause. She didn't sit on the chairs that still laid tipped over on the floor alongside some of Uzi's tools and other things, but rather she laid on the floor in a somewhat curled up position with her arms and legs slightly tugged to her body as well as her tail curled around her. N wasn't quite sure whether he should stay or go in that moment, doubting she would want to see him when she would wake given her earlier reaction to him offering her help. On the other hand, he also didn't feel comfortable just leaving her there.

So, he started cleaning the place up again as quite as he could, collecting Uzi's stuff and any shrapnel or broken glass off the ground and putting things back where they previously were. Amidst him cleaning up, he heard a soft murmuring sound coming from V, making him stop and turn towards her as she curled up a bit more. At that N grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the pile of Uzi's belongings and carefully placed the pillow under her head, before draping the blanket over her. That seemingly relaxed her immediately and a soft smile appeared on her face. He still felt bad for her having to saved her yet again, but he tried not to think about it and instead thought about what she had told him prior to that fight.

"You are you and that's all that matters, got it?"

N was a bit sad that she was giving him such a mixed bag of reactions and he couldn't quite wrap his head around her. For now, he was just happy that she was at least fully healed again. When he turned to resume his work, he accidentally stepped on something hard. Raising his foot again, he found something that caught his eye. A piece of digimon-branded candy with a dog-like creature with a striking resemblance to a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel wearing small crown and a cloak like a king printed on its wrapper.

That was, however, not what he had stepped on as that would have been the brass-colored key to the collar and chain's lock around V's neck laying there next to the piece of candy. Picking it up, N looked back at his sleeping companion and hesitated for a moment before he quietly walked back up to her in an attempt to not accidentally wake her up when all of the sudden she shifted in her sleep. For a second, he feared that she would wake up and find him in another incriminating position while she slept, only for that worry to shift from her impression of him and his wellbeing towards her wellbeing when he realized that she was softly murmuring in her sleep in a quiet tone he had only heard in his dreams.

"Tessa..." The name slipped out like a whisper, making N's eyes widen even more and freeze crouched down next to her as he recognized that name from his memory as a butler worker drone in that mansion.

Morning came far too early for both Commandramon and his partner's liking when the loud blaring noise of Uzi's built-in alarm went off, cutting through the quiet of the teenage drone's room. After less than 5 hours of sleep, the two groaned loudly and rolled around where they have been laying until Uzi fell off the bed and right on top of her partner's back. Surprisingly, neither he or his partner didn't do much more than grumble at that and just stayed there for a moment.

"Morning, partner..."

"Morning, Uzi... sleep good?"

"Barely... You?"

"...no. You want to go to school, soldier?"

"No..." Uzi whined in a groggy sounding voice.

"Me neither..." Commandramon laid his head back down on a hoodie hers under his chin as an improvised cushion as he let out a sigh. "Yesterday was nice... minus Lizzy..."

"Yeah..." Uzi finally sat up, allowing Commandramon to do the same when both of them stretched their arms over their heads and yawned. Reluctantly, they rose to their feet and got ready for their day. Commandramon checked his rifle for any faults or dirt on it that might impend its efficiency, while Uzi fixed her clothes and hair. Both of them glanced up at Uzi's drawings from the day prior of the Absolute Solver's symbol and other nightmare-inducing stuff as well as the picture N had drawn for them reading 'THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND'. They both looked at one another but said nothing before the two headed out of Uzi's room. Once in the living area they saw Khan still fast asleep where they had left him as he apparently had turned off his alarm and Uzi's own timer in the silent apartment had done nothing to wake him. She made a face as if she wanted to berate her father again, but her partner pulled her towards the front door of her home and past Khan snoring peacefully on the couch. "Tch. Once I get the chance, I'll let him have it." She grumbled to herself, still feeling rather betrayed by the fact that her own father had never even bothered mention how her and Doll's mother had been thick as thieves back in the day. Her irritated look faded when she looked down at her partner. "Are you sure you don't to go to school?" The dinosaur-like digimon nodded as he straightened his back like the soldier he was.

"Affirmative. I'm still part of the WDF, albeit an honorary member and I still need to do things for them." Commandramon replied. Uzi rolled her eyes at that and simply patted him on his helmet, causing him to chuckle a bit and his tail to wag slightly. "Don't worry about me. You go and have fun with the others. I'll see you later, soldier." Uzi nodded slightly with a smile before she opened the door and turned around one last time. Her partner digimon gave her a thumbs up, which she answered in kind before closing the door and leaving. The moment the door shut again, Khan suddenly lurched up at the sound, gasping and looking around with wide eyes as if alarmed by the sound of a door closing. The digimon turned to him a bit startled by his reaction, before letting out a sigh. "Good morning, Mr. Doorman." At the digimon's voice, Khan looked over to him and calmed down from whatever dream he had just woken up.

"Oh Commandramon... uhm... yes, good... morning?" He said in a questioning tone before he realized what time it was. "Oh... I must have accidentally shut off the alarms." Khan awkwardly laughed when he rubbed the back of his neck and averted his white digital eyes from the digimon's amber organic ones. "So... how was last night? Did Uzi and you have fun at Lizzy's place?"

'She more than me...' He thought with a shudder when he recalled what he had endured that night for his partner, while she had been utterly oblivious to his plight despite being right next to him. "Yes, it was quite the... experience yesterday evening..." He said, before he walked to Uzi's room and returned with a certain picture in his hand. Khan was a bit surprised at digimon's answer, before Commandramon returned with the photo of him, Nori, Yeva and what Doll had later told them was her father. The worker drone's eyes widened and hollowed out in shock, his look alternating between the picture and Commandramon, who looked at him a bit more seriously. "Mr. Doorman... why haven't you told Uzi about her mother's past with Doll's mother?" His question hit Uzi's father like an avalanche and was only made worse by the slight accusing tone the digimon's voice carried. He opened his mouth and raised a finger, before it sunk back down and he looked away with a guilty look and a sigh.

"I found Uzi's mother in the aftermath of the core collapsing. Yeva was not far from her and Doll's father was the one who rehabilitated her." Khan began when he sat on the couch. "The two of them still hung out together a lot and did things together. But eventually they just settled down with us and... well, soon after we had Uzi together and Yeva had Doll with her husband." Commandramon tilted his head slightly to the side at this, though his gaze softened a bit. "Honestly, I half-expected Nori to marry Yeva, but she actually took a liking to me." Khan chuckled as he smiled at the memories replaying in his mind. "After both had their children, their contact to one another lessened a bit over time, but it was never fully gone. That was until Nori..." Khan stopped himself when he started recalling the time he had lost his wife and Uzi lost her mother. His hands shook slightly as he clasped them together on his knees. "When Nori died, Yeva had actually come once to me, saying that I should keep Uzi save and to not tell her about their bond as Nori wouldn't have wanted that. It was... strange to say the least. But I did and that's why... I take it Uzi didn't like me hiding something like this from her, did she?" The worker drone's body shook slightly, before he abruptly stopped when a three-fingered talon grabbed his hands.

"You did what you were asked to do by a friend. That is not something wrong." Commandramon said as he put the picture on the table in front of the couch. "But you hurt Uzi a lot by keeping this from her. I guess that much is obvious." He said before sitting down next to Khan with a sigh. Uzi's father looked a bit confused at the digimon when he continued. "I really would like to understand Uzi... I mean, I get where she is usually coming from, but some concepts natural to you guys are alien to me just much like the other way around." Uzi's partner digimon then turned to Khan. "I haven't told Uzi this yet, but us digimon don't have parents. We may have chosen families and people, but it's not like we have parents like Uzi has you. All, I know is that it is really important for both of you." Khan found himself nodding and wondering how digimon came to be if they had no parents like that, though he could ask that question another time.

"Yes. It usually is rather important for both a parent and a child to have a close bond with one another. Unfortunately, we are not that close thanks to what I did." He said, looking down at the picture of him, his wife and her best friend's family while Commandramon rubbed his back.

"You are doing your best. You might not do it right, but we all make mistakes." He said before hopping off the couch. "You said that it was strange that Doll's mother told you to keep Uzi away from them. Do you know why?" At that Khan shook his head.

"That is the strangest part about it. Yeva and Nori never had problems as far as I knew. They would occasionally meet up together and check on one another. You know, keeping track of each other's lives. In fact, Yeva was the more level-headed of the two of them, maybe a bit too stoic and quiet compared to most other worker drones. Kind of like her daughter Doll and Uzi now. Yeva also checked up on Nori more often than the other way around. Huh, they really do take after their mothers." Khan said with a solemn look on his face when Commandramon looked at the picture again.

'So, Doll's mother visited Uzi's mother a lot. Yet she was the one to tell Khan to keep Uzi away from her and her family for some reason and Nori didn't visit Yeva as often as the other way around.' He mused, the gears in his head starting to turn and grind against one another. "That's... really strange." The digimon said before putting the photo away again. "Thank you, Mr. Doorman. That was really helpful." Khan smiled at that.

"Please just call me Khan. Mr. Doorman makes me sound a lot older." He said, before he sat up. At that, Uzi's partner digimon opened his mouth again.

"I got one last question, though. For all I know Doll's parents also... passed away." Commandramon said, causing Khan to frown and nod. "How... how did that happen?" At that, Khan sighed.

"It happened the same way like it did with Nori. One night they just went outside and... well, the murder drones got them. We still don't know why they both felt the need to leave in the middle of the night. But it was especially hard for young Doll." He said in a grim tone. "She had to see it all firsthand." That detail shocked the digimon.

"Doll... was with her parents when they...?" He asked.

"Yes... The others found Doll knocking on Door 1 to be let inside again. At first, they thought it was someone from Outpost 9, because they hadn't noticed her and her parents go at all." Khan said. "And Doll herself was so shaken by the events that she didn't recall how it all happened either. In the end, the case was cut and dry, but even I found it strange that none of the security cameras had caught footage of them leaving Outpost 3. It was quite bizarre." He said before walking over to Commandramon and patted him on the shoulder. "Please, keep looking out for Uzi. I'm not quite sure what happened with Doll and her family, but I hope the two of them can move forward." He said, making the digimon salute at him with a serious look on his face.

"Of course, Uzi is my partner and both Doll and her are my friends." Khan smiled down at him for that, before nodding and going into his room. Commandramon lowered his arm when Khan closed the door behind him and turned his head around to face the door. 'I don't know why, but I really don't like this. Not at all.' He thought to himself before leaving the apartment and heading deeper into the colony. More specifically, towards the apartment of Doll's family. Shortly after, Uzi's partner digimon had left, a certain evil digimon peered around the corner some vending machine in the hallway after Commandramon.

"Huh? Now that was weird. But it sure sounds more interesting than me going around on errands and looking for something. This better be worth it." Impmon told himself as he took a glance at his instructions and found himself in a place marked with a large red X and multiple exclamation marks. "Alright so, this is one of the places, huh? I wonder what that guy was doing here though and what he's up to now. Hmpf, probably something stupid." Impmon said with a cocky smile as he rounded the vending machine and walked up to the door, before looking at the name plate. Almost instantaneously, his confident smile fell and was replaced by a look of bewilderment. Looking back and forth at his instructions and the door before him, he almost looked like the door insulted his mother. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me..." He muttered to himself, before running the way Commandramon had left. 'I'll deal with the other place on the map first and I have a sneaking suspicion that this wannabe shopping mall cop knows exactly where that is if he's after the same thing.' Impmon thought as he continued to chase after Uzi's partner digimon.

The garden was an addition to the Elliot Mansion that V didn't quite understand the importance or need of. The mansion was already located within a swamp, which must have made the building's construction a nightmare to the people who had to plan and build it on such unstable ground. After all, why would the original owners of this place need a place for plants when they were literally surrounded by a dense foliage? Perhaps it had been a later addition to the estate or things had been different from the somewhat gloomy and admittedly menacing view into the swamp that she knew? Or perhaps they had made a garden here because of its location and spite the nature around them with a little oasis of their own? Whatever the reason for its construction had been, it must have been a Herculean task back then to build it in the first place.

That was not the only oddity about the garden though. Aside from the strange desire to have such a place here of all places, the humid climate of its location was also not exactly doing many plants the family had planted a favor. Sure, they regularly got watered by the often rainfall, but the shrubs and small trees the humans had put here were not native to swamps and couldn't deal with the overabundance of water on their own as their roots would root or quite literally drown in the muddy soil, before they would eventually wither away and die. To counteract this and make use of the excess of water, a very complex system of drainages and pumps had been constructed to make sure the gardens didn't become part of the swamp and flood completely as well as collecting the precipitation and funneling it into a decorative fountain in the middle of the garden.

Unless these pumps were to fail of get clocked with mud and plant matter, garden duty therefore consisted of pruning and trimming plants as well as removing any unwanted weeds, moss and algae, that was to take root within every available crevice with just enough detritus to nurture a spore or a seed and every surface with enough moisture for a green film to spontaneously appear, which wasn't too hard with the heavy rain that often swept over this place. It was a near endless battle against the forces of nature attempting to reclaim what little territory the human intruders had taken from it. Such work would most likely drive any human up the wall eventually, before giving up. But the staff of the Elliot Mansion was not human.

Right now, the rain had subsided a bit, giving V a bit of a breather as her soaked maid outfit clung to her body while she gently pulled out another weed form the soil beneath a shrub, that had been neatly trimmed into a cube shape. The small plant between her fingers was tiny and fragile with little more than thin hair-like strands acting as roots while a few small leaves adored its stem and a small white blooming flower sat at the top. V might never have taken a liking to gardening duty much like most worker drones in the mansion, but she did like the flowers though, whether they were of the plants she was meant to care for or the weeds she was sadly forced to remove. Unlike the master and mistress of the household, but they were not the only things the humans had an issue with.

Life was strict and not easy under the two modern nobles, who clearly viewed worker drones such as herself with disdain. Then again, why would they see the drones as people? They were worker drones after all. Working for their human owners was all there was in their lives. They were literally made for this and nothing else. Just because they wore servant's clothes instead of a miner's or a construction worker's didn't make them any different from the rest. Just like how the weed in her hand was no different just because it had managed to take root and flowered. As such she cast it into a bucket next to her where more weeds and unwanted plant matter had been gathered before it would be disposed of. With a sigh, she rose from the ground, careful not to touch the shrub unless she wanted to be doused in another squall of water as the leaves were still wet with droplets handing onto their edges. She then turned around and grabbed a second bucket full of slightly foaming water and moved to her next assigned task of cleaning the statues.

While, they were only imitations of once great sculptures and the long since lost and outsources craft of sculpting, they were expensive beyond anything reasonable. One such statue stood in the middle of a square surrounded by well-trimmed hedges A little corner in the garden that gave some privacy to whoever visited it, though with the weather like it was around the place that didn't happen too often. Once there, V put the bucket down and fished out a mask and rubbed gloves from a pocket in her skirt before filling a spray bottle with the contents of the bucket. Mixed in within the water was a chemical agent that would kill off and loosen the patches and match of green algae that had accumulated on the marble statue. Once it might have been a pure white, but that had been even before V had found herself in the manor. Wind, weather and half-hearted care for the estate by human servants had turned the marble into a darker gray. Careful not to get it on her fingers and her joints, where it would corrode the metal from within, the maid began to apply the agent onto the still slightly damp stone. She tried her best not to look at it while she was working on it as the gargoyle-like statue's appearance had always struck her as odd and unsettling.

Why would humans think scary statues kept evil spirits away? And why would anyone want to keep one of these in modern times? She shook her head at that thought. The parents of Tessa had always a strange extravagant taste and she was not allowed to question it. V liked Tessa. She could be brash and emotional and maybe a bit too adventurous for the heiress to the Elliot family, but she was nice to her and the other drones, unlike her parents. And because of her-

Suddenly, a sound behind her made the maid drone jump a little. Just in that moment V realized just how silent the garden was in that moment. Obviously, there were the sounds of the swamp beyond, but even they seemed far away in that little isolated corner of the garden. What she had heard though had cut through the silence like a knife when she heard something skittering across the ground behind her. Her head whipped around to look in the direction her receptors thought to have heard the noise come from and adjust her big round glasses, only to find nothing. This was rather unsettling, because aside from crows, there were not a lot of animals that lived near the mansion and those that did were not larger than the robot roaches inside the estate. But from the sound alone, V could tell that whatever this had been didn't sound like one of those. The tapping of claws on stone was too loud for the small robotic vermin, meaning it had to have been bigger. Her eyes scanned the garden once more and just for a split second, she could have sworn to have seen something disappear rustling into the hedge.

She shook her head at that and went to use an old, stained piece of cloth to clean the hopefully now loosened algae from the statue. She was after all not getting paid for standing around and looking at the estate. She wasn't paid at all as a worker drone after all...

But when she did turn back to her task, V had to bite back a yelp of surprise and fright when she jumped back slightly and her own white digital eyes looked back at a pair of yellow ones of a smaller worker drone maid perched on top of the gargoyle's head. The drone child smiled before she opened her mouth.

"Jumpscare. Found you."

V's eyes opened somewhat sluggishly when she woke up. Her internal clock told her that it was rather early in the day and the warm and soft blanket and pillow around her were rather comfortable. Still, she found her sleep mode cut short by a distant memory. With a groan, she sat up and found herself looking at now cleaned up landing pod as well as the person who did the clean-up huddled into a corner at the sight, who had taken his eyes off of a dog book and looked at her with wide eyes.

"Oh, you're in here too." V said, already having a feeling that she might have said something in her sleep that coincided with N's own memories of the Elliot Manor, which certainly would explain the face he was making.

"Uh... yeah, the repairs would take a bit longer, but the spire won't collapse down on us, but it sure is brighter inside now and... you know." N awkwardly tried to make conversation, though V just remained silent. "Shouldn't take too long. And the ship may have gotten a few scratches here and there but nothing that can't be fixed. I hope…" N added, not sounding too sure about the last part. He was after all not a mechanic or anything and hadn't been around awake when Uzi did most of the repairs on their ship. V found herself look back at the drawing she had made on their whiteboard for a second, before turning back to N.

Though when she was about to speak she noticed something brush against her hand as she moved it slightly, making her look down from the blanket onto the unlocked chain and collar now resting on the ground next to her. Just to confirm, she brought a hand to her neck and found the collar gone.

"Oh I… thought it was a bit unnecessary and you wouldn't let the chain get caught on something again." N said as he looked away, trying to hide his face behind another book about dogs. 'I might have be a bit more careful around Uzi though when she comes back...' He thought to himself, when the ghost of a smile etched itself on V's face at that, before she quickly suppressed it again. "That doesn't mean we go back to killing everyone, V." At that she rolled her eyes, though even she had to admit that they had a bit of a situation on their hands that was perhaps a bit more pressing.

"Fine." V said, when N got up from his spot.

"I mean it and no killing Uzi when she comes back just..." His voice trailed off when his mind seemed to realize that V had not argued but instead agreed with him. "Wait, you... are okay with that?" N asked.

"I'm not okay with that." V retorted with her arms, before continuing. "But we might have to start rethinking stuff due to recent events." She glanced over to N, who suddenly started beaming and wagging his tail. "Hey, don't take it the wrong way! All I'm saying is that our situation has changed a bit with those... things around and need to rethink how we proceed from here." V let out a sigh at that. She already had didn't like the situation she had found herself in. But considering the last night's incident, there was no denying in the assessment that their situation had changed a lot and that perhaps it was not the worst idea to collaborate with a certain purple thing and her dinosaur soldier companion for a time. "Think of it as a ceasefire."

"You promise?" He asked in a hopeful tone that made V fight the urge to facepalm or roll her eyes at the sight of it.

"Yeah, I promise- N!" V couldn't jump up fast enough when she was still slightly tangled into her blanket and her companion had picked her up and hugged her.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" N didn't hear her protests at first, spinning them around in the ship.

"I MEAN IT, N! PUT ME DOWN!" V's visor burned brightly yellow at the situation, still somewhat too stupefied to actually start thrashing. After a moment, N seemed to realize the situation too and quickly and quietly put her down before taking a step away from her. Both looked away from one another for a moment before V spoke up again. "As I was about to say, this is only a temporary thing until we figure things out. Got it?" With a huff, she sat down on one of the office chairs and turned her back towards N who was slightly smiling at her.

"Got it. We might need an expert's opinion on that matter to figure this out though." He said, still thinking about the fact that V had the same dreams as him apparently, before thinking back to Uzi and his smile turned into a small frown. "Maybe I should head over to Uzi's place when the sun sets."

"Oh no. Not gonna happen." V said, turning back to N with her arms crossed.

"But you just said-"

"I said, I wouldn't kill her on sight and unless she gives me a reason to. I did not say that I'd just go over to her place and be all buddy-buddy with her after she remembered what we are the other day." V cut him off. "If she really wants to work with you again, I won't stop her... But she'll need to come here herself. Otherwise, we're keeping her stuff" N's face turned sad again at her words, slightly doubting that Uzi would come back to the spire, before shaking his head and smiling again.

"Alright then. I'm sure she'll eventually come around to do that." He said in a happy tone, while V thought how miserable he sounded and looked like that. Like she had assessed earlier, Uzi was a bit like J in the regard that she had a lot of misplaced pride and was likely not to admit her own faults easily.

"On second thought, we might have to head over there." She muttered when N's face turned back into a big smile. "Just to figure this out, okay? And then there's the matter with that little thing." She said when she picked up one of N's drawings showing Impmon as if it was a bounty poster.

"Oh yeah..." N mused to himself when he recalled what Impmon had said. "Do you think Impmon has something to do with all of this?"

"Obviously. Ever since he showed up, we've had to deal with getting jumped by those things. Not to mention he immediately knew what that thing last night was and ran off." V said, switching on hand for claws and stabbed the drawing of Impmon through its face. "When I get my hands on that little worm..."

While V was making plans to see just how much damage that evil digimon could take, N wondered just how all of these different things happening at once fit together. The Solver, J turning into a bug, the murder cases in Outpost 3, the dreams about him and the others as worker drones in some manor and now Impmon showing up and causing chaos. But he was also happy to hopefully see his friends again and V promising to not kill them, ignoring the temporary part of that agreement.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Counseling with Same Day Delivery

Even though Commandramon's body moved through the corridors of Outpost 3 almost without making any sound at all, each quiet thud of his steps felt deafeningly loud in the complete and utter silence of the hallway. Only the buzzing of the lights overhead and whirring of distant machinery around him accompanied him on his journey as well as the faraway chatter of worker drones going about their day. With the majority of the worker drone colony being either at work or at school now, the hallways were mostly deserted safe for some construction workers fixing some of the bunker's infrastructure. He moved with firm and steady steps, but he was very nervous for some reason. A cold shiver ran up his spine when he sniffed the air as quietly as he could and he found that the previously feint scent of oil in the air had grown stronger with each hallway he passed on his way towards Doll's home.

Khan's earlier words also began to claw at his mind. The relationship between Nori and Yeva had sounded rather well before, but now it felt like there was a crucial piece to the puzzle missing. Why was it that Yeva reached out to Nori more often than the other way around? Did something happen to make Nori pull away from their relationship? Or did Uzi's mother perhaps hide something from Khan and Yeva knew about it? It was possible if the two late mothers were really as close as Doll and Khan had said they had been. So why did this make the alarms in his head go off as if someone had just told him that an asteroid was about to hit Copper 9 and kill everyone on it? That was not the only thing bothering the digimon though...

OBJECTIVE: D*STRO* T*E SOL**R. K*L* *L* H*S**.

The same line of code embedded deep within his core data somehow kept pushing itself into the forefront of his mind ever since Uzi, N and he had fought against the program that had turned J's dead body into a monster worse than any nightmarish digimon he knew. The Absolute Solver. So far it had done nothing but cause him headaches, but it was unsettling just how persistent that feeling was. Uzi's own fixation on this Solver thing also didn't help to calm his mind at all. Instead, it worried him a lot more and made him question essentially everything about it. Just what had it actually been? Uzi had called it a program, but Commandramon was not so sure. It was definitely some sort of digital lifeform from what he could tell but not a digimon. Why did it know Uzi's mother? Why didn't it show up right after Uzi and he had killed J? And why did looking at its three-pointed symbol make his head hurt ever since he had known its name and meaning?

At the moment, he had dozens of questions and no answers to something he could not yet grasp though he could tell that it was very important. As if he had forgotten it. If he had to liken the feeling he had right now about the situation to something, he'd say it was like sitting on a raft on a dark ocean covered with dense fog with no oars to steer and nothing to tell where one was going but knowing that something large and menacing was approaching by the sounds of something large moving through the water.

'Those horror games of Uzi are getting the better of me again. I don't think I can ever look a body of water the same again.' He thought to himself before resuming his investigation. Every now and again, he stopped to look at his surroundings when the scent of spilled oil became particularly strong and he could find feint smudges of oil that had not been cleaned up properly by the janitorial staff among the WDF on the ground, the walls and even the ceiling. However, they were random in their locations and of different ages, some might even be older than the attack of J and V on the bunker. Afterwards he looked around himself for anything else that might indicate what had happened here. As much as the digimon had realized how clumsy some of the worker drones could be, he had yet to witness an accident that resulted in someone losing a limb or enough oil to cause stains like this on a regular occasion.

It was all rather unsettling to him alongside that he had the strange feeling of being followed. Yet whenever he turned around all he saw were empty hallways with nothing out of place. Shaking his head, Commandramon sniffed the air again and continued on his way towards Doll's home when the smell grew even stronger and richer. Like it was no longer simply old oil, that had dried up on some surface, but rather still liquid oil. The smell began to truly resemble that of the corpse spire now of old and stale worker drone oil permeating N and V's home from the walls where they kept their oil reserves.

Naturally that couldn't be the case here since the spire was too far away from the colony to be the source of the smell and as far as Commandramon knew, the spire didn't extend into some underground tunnel leading in its direction. He also doubted that Doll was running a morgue in her own home. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea where the WDF had brought the dead bodies of the killed worker drones from the past incidents. Another shiver ran up his spine at the thought and he quickly found himself pushing it into the back of his mind to not think about it in a long time and hopefully forget it.

However, his investigation was interupted by the sound of heavy mechanical stomps and the vibrations running through the ground with each step. Instantly, Commandramon's skin changed color to blend in with his surroundings as he pressed himself against the wall and slowly moved towards the intersection of two hallways in front of him. Each heavy step of the one approaching seemed to reverberate through the entire hallway and echo in the distance.

At the next cross section in front of him, a large shadow began to slowly creep closer with each step, making Commandramon's heart hammer in his chest so much his heartbeat was for a moment all he heard. Grabbing his rifle from his back, his claw's firmly closed around the firearm as he raised its barrel towards the approaching shadow.

Then there was a loud metallic clattering sound coming from behind him, causing him to whip around and face the hallway he had just come from. But much to his relief it was merely a mop that had fallen out of a lone locker, which now stood open with its bucket laying tipped over on its side. Commandramon let out a shaking sigh of relief as his skin returned to its normal color, only for him to realize that the shadow from earlier now loomed over the cyborg digimon and blocked all of the light above the cross section. Slowly he turned around just in time to see the shadow leaned closer and a pair of large hands to pick him up from beneath his arms like a puppet.

"Ah!" Commandramon screamed until he came face to face with the green eyes of the other digimon within the WDF's ranks. "Oh, it's just you, Guardromon." Uzi's partner sighed in relief as he was dangling from the other digimon's hands

"Indeed. It is I, Guadromon." The machine digimon replied, still holding Commandramon up. An awkward moment of silence followed as the two digimon looked at each other in the hallway with Commandramon blinking in confusion as to why exactly Guardromon had felt the need to pick him up like this.

"Uhm... could you put me down again?" Uzi's partner said before noticing that he was still hoisted up in the air by the larger digimon.

"No." Said Champion level digimon responded in his usual monotonous and even tone. Commandramon's feet kicked the air beneath him idly as this was a rather uncomfortable position to be in.

"Okay...? Why?" He eventually asked.

"Because we gave been assigned a task of the utmost importance." Guardromon said before starting to walk down the hallway he had just come from, carrying Commandramon along with him like a stuffed animal.

"Hey, wait... I was actually just..." But Guardromon merely continued on his route towards their assignment, not listening to a word the Rookie level was saying. After a moment of trying to wiggle out of his hands in vain, Commandramon let out a deep sigh as he accepted his fate as the machine digimon's helper for whatever task the WDF had assigned them to. 'Ha... I guess this investigation will have to wait...'

But while the Guardromon carried Commandramon away, Impmon watched from the broom closet with irritation at the champion's back

'Hey! I was following that guy to find out where I need to go! Argh! Why does this always happen to me? I just wanna take someone else's stuff without permission. Is that really asking for too much?' He thought to himself as he sat down in the metal locker and crossed his arms before peering around to see the retreating form of Guardromon. 'Fine, if you ruin my day, I'll just ruin yours. Not like I got anything better to do in this place. So let's see where these bozos are going and what they are up to.' He thought to himself as he jumped back onto his feet and gave chase once more by climbing on top of the locker and burning a hole into a ventilation shaft above, before climbing in and crawling through it in the direction the other digimon went.

While Impmon made an effort to not be seen by the dozens of worker drones walking through the main corridors of the bunker, Commandramon's skin changed into a bright red as not even his camouflage could hid him when Guardromon carried him around like a small child. It was very embarrassing to say the least, especially when the two them passed multiple members of the WDF along the way and they either burst into fits of laughter, chuckle or giggled or at the very least tried to hide or supress the need to. Hardly any of them though could look at the strange digimon duo with a straight face. Being put on the spot like this was not something Commandramon enjoyed at all. Even if he didn't understand a few things, he still was not some little baby or a plush toy to be carried around like this. But whereas his pride was fatally wounded, the machine digimon holding him just kept walking, either oblivious to the worker drones' reactions or misunderstanding them for something else.

"There appears to be a virus affecting the drones' ability to breathe and speak. I will run a diagnostic check on my systems later." Guardromon thought aloud to himself when yet another group of drones could barely hold in their laughter, coughing and hacking to disguise their obvious amusement at the hilarious sight they had been treated to.

'Uzi, please save me...' Commandramon thought to himself as he facepalmed and his entire body from his head to the tip of his tail had turned bright red, while his face burned with shame.

"You appear to be sick, Commandramon. Your body temperature is higher than usual and slowly reaching a critical level."

'YOU are the reason it's turning CRITICAL!?' He thought angrily, though didn't thrash around in the larger and stronger digimon's hands while Guardromon walked towards the premises of Uzi's school. That actually gave Commandramon pause. But the feeling of surprise only lasted so long before it was replaced with dread. 'OH NO! WHAT IF THE OTHERS SEE ME LIKE THIS?!' Instantly, Commandramon turned deathly pale at the thought of Uzi and her friends looking out of their classroom to look upon him being carried around like some Baby-level digimon. "Uhm... Guardromon? Please tell me that assignment does not take place in the school..." He pleaded. Guardromon looked at his co-worker before speaking up.

"Understood. Our assignment does not take place within the school." The machine replied, making Commandramon sigh in relief.

"Oh, that's good. I was worried there for a second." He awkwardly chuckled, but noticed that Guardromon made no effort to change his course or to elaborate where the task was actually supposed to take place. "Uh... Then why are we walking towards Uzi's school?"

"Because our assigned task does indeed take place within its premises." At that Uzi's partner digimon's face fell as he gave Guardromon a shocked look.

"You just said it doesn't!"

"Yes, because you have asked me to say that." Guardromon replied, making Commandramon cover his face with one hand and let out a frustrated groan.

"I didn't mean you telling me what I want to hear but telling me the truth!" The cyborg dinosaur said when they reached the hallways of the school. The other digimon made no indication that he had heard the panicking Rookie in his hands upon clarifying its earlier request and just kept walking forward. The moment Guardromon entered the school's premises, Commandramon tried his best to blend in with his surroundings, only fail as his skin flctuating between the various shades of the hallways walls and floor, the lockers lining the wall and various colorful decorations put onto the walls in preparation of the upcoming prom. Luckily for him, the hallways were empty as classes had already started. 'Phew... at least no one is gonna see me then.' He thought to himself, when Guardromon set him down onto the ground again before continuing to walk. "You still haven't told me what this is all about." The cyborg digimon asked.

"Of course. Our task is to prepare the school premises for the upcoming festivities known as..." Guardromon stopped before picking up one of the flyers from the wall next to it, before bringing it close to its eyes. "Prom 3071." The machine digimon read aloud before putting the flyer back, though it simply dropped to the floor due to the duct tape having been torn off when Guardromon had plucked it off the wall. The machine digimon grabbed the piece of paper up and tried again, only to come to achieve the same result. This repeated a couple of times until Guardromon just put it away inside his own body. Commandramon was polite enough to not comment on it, but he did smile awkwardly at the Champion-level digimon. "For that we have been assigned to decorate the Gym Hall 1 alongside some of the volunteering students." Said machine digimon said before continuing to walk down the hallway followed by the smaller Rookie-level.

"I see... I guess it makes sense, since you can hover and don't need a ladder to reach high places." Commandramon thought aloud, which Guardromon did not comment on. 'I guess with 'Ladderbot 5000' Frank gone they don't have a lot of people to spare... I didn't know that Uzi's school had such a room though.' He thought to himself before the two honorary members of the WDF reached a large set of double doors before Guardromon pushed them open.

The gym hall of Outpost 3's high school was quite a big place. Not as big as a certain storage unit where Commandramon had digivolved to the Champion-level for the first time a few days ago, but still very spacious to accommodate a large number of people. Next to the entrance was a flight of stairs, leading to an elevated platform with benches for an audience to observe the events from above, while on the ground had the lines of a basketball court at both sides. The hoops fixed to the ceiling had been pulled up and now rested against the ceiling, while at the opposite side of the room to the entrance a stage was in the process of being built...

Or it would be once the students gathered around the manual decided what they had to do in order to build it in the first place. Right now, they all stood clueless around the plan with the instructions put on one of the boxes with decorations to be reused for this event.

"Okay, maybe if we go about it like this and bring it up there and..." A student said as he flipped a paper back and forth, folding the paper in the process while the others watched in a mixture of stupefied awe and curiosity before the student stepped back to look at their work. Which was that the manual now had been turned into a paper hat.

"Is it supposed to look like that?"

"I... am not quite sure."

"I dunno. The stage shouldn't be on top of the lights, right?"

'The WDF really should have just sent some adults to take care of this.' Commandramon thought when the door behind him and Guardromon closed with a loud banging sound from the door wings falling into their frames, causing the students to turn around abruptly with startled looks to see the two digimon standing there.

"Oh, hey guys." A familiar voice said from the seats for the audience, causing Commandramon and Guardromon to look up at a certain jock waving down at them while he was fixing a line of white and blue balloons filled with helium on the railing.

"Hi Thad!" Commandramon waved happily at the green-eyed worker drone, while Guardromon merely raised his hand in greeting before lumbering over to the other students and grabbing the instructions. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping, of course. Plus, I get to spend time in the gym instead of class." Thad said, before climbing down the stairs to join the others. "How's it going?"

"Well... better than yesterday." Commandramon offered, making Thad raise an eyebrow at that. In the meantime, Guardromon had unfolded and studied the plans to put the stage together.

"I see." He said before he put the instructions down and moved to the pile of parts, starting to assemble the stage. The other students looked at the blueprint with the instructions like it was written in some alien language while watching the digimon work. All of the sudden, they all felt pretty useless much like the WDF when the murder drones had gotten into Outpost 3 and been unable to do anything than running and hiding. That and it was certainly pretty uncool to have volunteered to help only to be able to do nothing at all.

"You actually understood those pictures?" One of the students asked.

"Yes." The digimon responded, not even taking his eyes off his work.

"And we can build it up now without turning it into a pile of... something."

"Yes."

"... are you going to tell us what we need to do then?" That made the digimon stop before turning towards the group of students then.

"Very well, I shall instruct you on your every step." Guardromon said, before starting to point at the students. "You two, bring all the available tools here immediately. The three of you, grab the wires of the lighting and roll them out at the long side of the gym hall to untangle and untie any knots in them. You, grab the floor panels and put them aside against the wall. I shall continued constructing this stage." The machine digimon said with an almost military-like precision. The worker drone adolescents for their part quickly followed the directions they were given as if it was second nature to them... well, it technically was as they were worker drones. At the sight of his classmates working like a slightly chaotic yet somewhat functioning machine, Thad whistled quietly to himself.

"Wow. I don't think I've seen them like that." He said, while Commandramon shrugged.

"For a machine digimon, this is like a normal workday. Now let's go and help Guardromon, before we start slacking too much." Uzi's partner said before Thad and him walked over to Guardromon and started helping him assemble the stage. Much to Commandramon's own surprise though, the students could actually work together in a coordinated fashion under the supervision of the other digimon. However, it did not come without its own set of challenges because the teenage boys half the time had no idea what Guardromon actually wanted and had to elaborate more than once in a rahter lengthy fashion, which was more than their average attention span. And that was not counting other mishaps like picking up the wrong tool or not knowing how to use it, getting constricted by cables as well as stuck beneath piles of parts that just had been gathered in one place in an unstable mound after removing the one loadbearing thing they were meant to grab. Needless to say, it was a task that was taking up at least a few hours. Though neither the drones nor the digimon truly noticed the passage of time as they were focused on their work.

What neither group took note of either was how Impmon had slipped into the gym hall himself at some point and caused some of those work incidents by himself, while hiding within a small storage room tucked away at the side of the room where various items of sport and gymnastics equipment were stored. From within a perfectly positioned vaulting box, he peered out as yet another worker drone tripped over a cable causing a domino effect of the hammer said drone was holding to sail through the air and hit a ladder another drone was standing on with enough force to cause them to wobble around a bit before regaining their balance.

"Hehe... I should do this more often." Impmon chuckled to himself, not noticing how Commandramon eyed that vaulting box from across the room while helping Thad to stabilize the scaffolding for the lighting by bolting it to the stage floor, while the steel beam itself was held vertically in place by Guardromon.

"Uhm... buddy? You okay there?" Thad asked when he noticed Commandramon's constricted pupils focused onto the storage room at the far end of the room.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just thought I saw something." The digimon replied before going back to tightening the bolts on the steel beam on his side. Thad looked in the direction Uzi's partner had looked for a moment before he was finished and Guardromon let go of the now stable pillar. "How are you doin, by the way?" Commandramon asked Thad. "I mean, after everything that happened the night before yesterday. You seemed pretty shook back then."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I mean you guys saved me back there." Thad waved the whole incident of almost getting eaten alive and having his identity stolen by some biomechanical monstrosity born of a disassembly drone's corpse off with a smile. "Plus, I've been doing my own patrols now." He added, making Commandramon look at him confused. "You know, going around the place at night, making sure no one else gets eaten or killed or whatever. It's sort of like a late-night workout. Just a bit more... uhm... nerve-wracking?" Thad concluded, not quite sure how to call the feeling of looking behind every corner twice, thinking something might jump at him.

"Why though? Doesn't that mean you are tired more often during the day?"

"Well, after what happened back with N and his murder friends breaking in and the WDF not doing their job of, you know, defending as well as the other time with you guys, I just felt like someone else needs to do something." Thad admitted, adjusting the base cap on his head a bit. "That reminds me, I heard you and Uzi went to Lizzy's place the other day." A shudder ran through the Rookie-level digimon when he recalled the events of last night. "Are you guys okay? Uzi seemed to be a bit down the other day."

"Oh... it's nothing really. I think Uzi just got a bit spooked by that whole murder drone turned centipede-monster thing and started putting things together wrong in her head." Commandramon explained before the two moved over to repeat their earlier task on the other side of the stage. As Guardromon picked up the other steel beam and placed it where it needed to be, they both kneeled down with Thad handing the digimon the bolts for him to twist into place.

"I see..." Thad said. "What about N though? How is he doing after seeing that murder friend of his like that?" That made Commandramon stop in mid-motion and look a bit sad at the mentioning of their disassembly drone friend. Immediately, the digimon's face fell when he thought back to how hurt N had looked at Uzi's panic attack and her words. The picture taped to her room's ceiling came to his mind once again and he felt sadness and shame well up inside him for not having been able to make him stay that time.

"He uhm... had to go back to the spire and check on V." The digimon half-lied before continuing his work. "Nothing major, just making sure she was okay. Haven't seen him since then though."

"I guess that makes sense..." The jock responded, noticing how awkward the atmosphere had become all of the sudden. Meanwhile, Guardromon looked at Uzi's partner with his usually blank look turning into one of worry. "But when he comes back and you see him, can you tell him that he's welcome to hang out? You and Uzi, by the way too." Thad said. Commandramon nodded when he finished fastening the bolt Thad had given him. At that, Commandramon offered a small smile.

"Sure thing... next bolt, please."

Just then the doors to the gym opened and two girls walked in. One of which Commandramon recognized instantly as Rebecca, while the other one was one of Uzi's classmates that he did not know the name of.

"Ugh, why do we have to be the ones to grab the stuff from here. Oh well, at least the view is nice." The blue-haired girl said, her eyes scanning the room of her male classmates working on setting up the gym hall for the prom night. That was when she obviously also caught sight of the two digimon working alongside Thad on the stage. "Now that you don't see every day."

"Rebecca, c'mon. We need to get this to the others." The other girl said, causing Rebecca to roll her cyan eyes.

"Right, right. Whatever." She said before moving over to the storage unit and pushing the vaulting box out of the room and towards the doors. "See ya later." Rebecca said with a small wave of wriggling her fingers at the guys who responded in kind, much to the annoyance of the other girl.

"I get the feeling that Rebecca is quite popular with the other male students. I just don't know why." Commandramon thought aloud as he took a bolt from Thad.

"Yeah, me neither. Must be some girl thing." The oblivious jock thought aloud as well, while Guardromon's assessment of the situation was about as blunt as a brick thrown at Mach 9.

"It appears that all other students are experiencing a sudden increase in body temperature in their heads and chest. It would appear that there is a virus going around and I shall inform the staff of the situation once my tasks are finished." He said, causing multiple guys in the room to groan out at the observation skills of the clueless Champion-level digimon.

PE classes had been one of the few classes, that students of Outpost 3's high school enjoyed slightly more. Not just because of the actual physical activities, but rather the loss of the feeling of time making the time spent in the in-door gym halls usually pass a lot faster than the more theoretical ones in the classrooms. That and it gave the groups of friends and classmates usually time to spend together, whether that was by playing a game of dodgeball or basketball or by sitting next to one another on a bench while the teacher checked a list of things to grade for their individual performances. It also helped the fact that with them being cooped up their entire lives inside Outpost 3, the students only had so many options to do anything in terms of sports or physical activity that didn't have something to do with maintenance work around the bunker.

Right now, the students had pretty much been given free reign on what they wanted to do while the teacher merely 'supervised' them from the sidelines. Instantly, the various groups of friends gathered around and grabbed whatever sports items they needed to either play a game or to just entertain themselves for the duration of the class without their smartphones. That was not a problem for Uzi, because she was used to being alone. Despite her small height, it never had never truly impacted her physical performance in class or in any team sport that she reluctantly was forced to play with others, who were just as reluctant to play with her.

Right now though, she had grabbed a volleyball from the cart and moved to the far end of the hall, before starting a sort of routine of hers of throwing the ball up and trying to hit the wall above her just to keep the ball bouncing back down to her and keep it airborne as long as possible without having to interact with anyone else. The teacher counted it as training her setting skillls as well as hand-eye coordination, reaction speed and controling her strength, so there wasn't much they could do to stop her from hitting the wall again and again with the volleyball bouncing back down to her. Plus, it meant she was not using that overflowing energy of herself to harm anyone else and she was not simply sitting on a bench and waiting for the class to be over.

However, while she was doing so, her mind kept wandering back to another issue her angsty teenage mind was facing in relation to a certain disassembly drone.

"Sorry. No... I'm sorry." She muttered under her breath when she was seeting the ball back up into the air. "No, that sounds stupid... I apologize... No. Ugh!" Uzi let her arms drop down limply from her shoulders when she groaned quietly to herself, though on the inside she was the opposite. 'AARGH! Why is this so difficult to just say sorry?!' While caught up in her thoughts the ball hit the wall with a thud and came back down. Uzi raised her hands to set it back up, only to notice that it was not falling back towards her, but rather off to the side a bit. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have made it in time and need to retrieve it to wherever it was going after hitting the ground, when another pair of hands caught it and Uzi's purple eyes met a pair of red ones.

"Вы не сосредоточены. (You are not concentrated.)" Doll said when she gently threw the ball back to Uzi, who caught it with ease. When her classmate didn't respond and simply looked at her, the Russian drone continued. "Вам нужна помощь в чем-то? (Do you need help with something?)"

"I'm good, thanks..." Uzi said and went back to her solo training, though she noticed that Doll didn't leave and simply looked at her. A few seconds later, Uzi caught the volleyball again and turned towards Doll. "What?"

"Ты сегодня с первого занятия как будто не в себе. И пишешь извинения на бумаге. (You've been out of it ever since the first class today. And scribbling apologies on paper.)" Uzi's face grew slightly warmer at Doll mentioning the notes she had written throughout the past lessons, while she had been unable to really focus on the topic of said lessons. as if to emphasize her point, Doll pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper with the an angry looking smiley face on it and the word sorry written next to it. "Что ты сделал, Узи? (What did you do, Uzi?)"

"It's nothing. Just... stupid hormonal teenage stuff and..." The purple-eyed drone said trying to come up with words that would throw Doll off. Instead, her new friend sat down on a bench next to her and looked at her. "Uh... what's are you doing?"

"Составлю вам компанию. (Keeping you company.)" Doll said without missing a beat.

"No, I meant Lizzy." Uzi said as she pointed behind Doll, who turned her head slightly and let out a deep sigh. Having sat down right next to Doll without the red-eyed Drone even noticing, Lizzy was fumbling around with the two handles skipping rope. Not to untangle it though but rather tapping her fingers against the plastic handles.

"Coping with her social media addiction, I guess." Doll said, making Lizzy's head snap up and look at both purple-haired girls looking back at her with wide eyes.

"I don't have an addiction." Lizzy said defensively.

"You are trying to text with the handle of a skipping rope because there is nothing small and flat you could tap on." Uzi said.

"No? I wanted to see how well I was going to do with these for photos." Lizzy proudly proclaimed her goals of gaining social media cloud. Both Doll and Uzi exchanged a look, when Rebecca and the other girl walked in with the vaulting box. "Or maybe I should try and take pictures of me jumping over that thing instead."

"Is she usually like this? Because this feels extra strange." Uzi asked Doll, who merely shrugged.

"Maybe it's the stress of prom night getting to her."

"Lizzy of all people is stressed about prom night?" Uzi asked somewhat not believing that the blonde popular girl would have any problems with getting a date. Just for the prestige alone, she could think of one or the other guy in their class who would throw themselves at Lizzy's feet to go on a date with popular girl. Though Uzi also doubted that Lizzy was exactly reveling in that knowledge when she wasn't like Rebecca. Lizzy liked attention, but she didn't like overbearing company. For that reason, the blonde girl's social circle of actual friends was quite small. 'Now that I think about it, is there anyone other than Doll and Rebecca?' Uzi found herself wondering when Lizzy spoke up.

"It's not about getting a date. It's about choosing who to go with and who to give my sloppy seconds to." She said with a nervous laugh, clearly lying.

"No one has not asked her yet and that's why she's like this." Doll rolled her eyes when she said that and Lizzy was fast to slap a hand over her mouth.

"SHUT!" While she had raised her tone, it was quiet enough to be overheard by the squeaking sound of shoes on the gym's ground and the sounds of their classmates busying themselves. Those that did notice only looked over for a moment, before returning to their own activities right after. Still Uzi found herself slightly amused by the sight of Lizzy not wanting the perhaps quietest person she knew to spill something about her. Lizzy shot Uzi a pointed look before removing her hand from Doll's face and sighed. "It's not about that either. It's just a nightmare to organize this party. Hah... I have no idea how parents do that on a daily basis without getting stressed out."

'They are constantly stressed out which explains their drinking habits.' Both Uzi and Doll thought at the same time but didn't say it out loud. Instead, Doll shot Lizzy a look and then nodded towards Uzi.

"Oh, right. What about you? Any plans for the big evening yet?" The blonde drone asked Uzi, who needed a moment to realize that she was talking to her of all people about her plans for the prom. To be fair, Uzi had not even wasted a single thought about the prom. She found the whole concept stupid, which was only amplified by her being a social outcast. To her, being at a party with a bunch of people who had pretty much made her everyday life a seemingly never-ending headache made about as much sense as to put a screwdriver into a power outlet just for the fun of it.

"I... don't think I'll go. Social events like that really are not my thing." She said waving Lizzy off who made a disappointed sound at that.

"Aw. That's a shame. I could have given you some pointers about clothes and..." Lizzy was about to continue when Doll grabbed her best friend's shoulders. Her surprisingly firm grip made Lizzy stop and look at Doll with surprise and confusion.

"Если она не хочет этого делать, мы не должны ее заставлять. (When she doesn't want to do we shouldn't force her to.)" Doll said in a serious tone before letting go of Lizzy and turned to Uzi. "Может быть, мы сможем что-то сделать после того, как выпускной закончится, и вся эта история уляжется. (Maybe we can do something after the prom's over and this whole thing blows over.)" She said, causing Uzi to look a bit confused as well.

"Sure..." The shortest of the three said when Rebecca walked over to them.

"Hey guys. Guess who just got a good look at the boys working on the stage?" She playfully said making the other three girls roll their eyes.

"Seriously, Rebecca?" Uzi asked.

"Don't you already have a date for the prom?" Lizzy raised an eyebrow at this.

"Я почему-то все еще разочарован. (I'm somehow still disappointed.)" Doll crossed her arms as she commented on the blue-haired girl's remark.

"Oh c'mon. It was nothing. Just some light teasing. By the way, your little friend was also there alongside the big guy." The blue-haired drone told Uzi, who shot her a look. "Looks like they really want this night to succeed or something."

"Why wouldn't they? It's not like the WDF has done anything meaningful in the past other than proving to being horrible at their job." Uzi replied when she put the volleyball down. The other three girls nodded at that notion, before Rebecca turned her attention to Lizzy.

"So, you still wanna snap some pictures or something?" Rebecca said, fishing out a small camera from a pocket. At that, Lizzy stood up from the bench she had been sitting on and nodded, before Rebecca and her walked over to the vaulting box the former had just brought along. Uzi suddenly didn't feel like training anymore and sat down next to Doll with a sigh as the two of them watched Rebecca snapping pictures of Lizzy and vice versa in various poses.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything, just watching the other two and the rest of their fellow students go about their business. It was a bit of a strangely peaceful moment in the usual hectic while their teacher was off, probably hitting that flask he kept around all the time. But what made it stranger was that Uzi was for once not alone.

"I'm confused..." Uzi eventually said, breaking the silence between her and Doll. "Like I really don't understand what is going on anymore."

"What's the matter?" Doll asked. "Are you feeling okay? Any unusual symptoms of something like craving certain food?" Uzi shot her a questioning look at that before shaking her head with a smile.

"No, I'm not sick or anything." Uzi chuckled before sighing. "Just wondering if Lizzy is turning into Rebecca or Rebecca into Lizzy." The two looked back at them as Lizzy was instruction Rebecca to do certain poses, moving her arms and legs into place into what could potentially count as a flirtatious pose. The difference between them was that Lizzy was more focused on the clothes and Rebecca more on the person being photographed.

"A mystery for future generations to unravel." Doll merely said with a chuckle. "Luckily, they are different enough to never truly join forces." Uzi couldn't help but roll her eyes at the mental image of Lizzy and Rebecca fusing into one ultimate diva of a teenage worker drone. Though that thought was quickly replaced with both the mental image of a certain disassembly drone giving her attitude for as long as she had known her. And that brought her back to what she was originally thinking about the whole time. Uzi's smile faded as she cast her gaze downwards to her feet. Doll noticed Uzi's shift in attitude, before putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Would you mind telling me what's wrong?"

"Nothing, just..." Uzi began before stopping herself and looking up at Lizzy and Rebecca, who a moment ago had been bickering as if they were about to start a fight now sit together on the vaulting box and posing for a picture, taking selfies together. "Have you ever said or done something to a friend of yours, that you regretted?" Doll's eyes widened a bit before she composed herself again and sighed.

"More times than I can count." She replied, catching Uzi off-guard. To her, Doll and Lizzy never had problems and they were like the ideal pair of friends who just so happened to be polar opposites in terms of personality. What Uzi didn't know was that Doll was not referring to something she had done to Lizzy, but rather what she had done in general. "Why do you ask?"

"I may have said something I'm not proud of..." Uzi said after a moment of silence. "And I think I messed things up..." Unbeknownst to her, Lizzy and Rebecca had returned from their little photoshoot and sat down next to Doll and Uzi.

"That's... hard to imagine." Lizzy said, making Uzi aware of her presence again, while Rebecca now sat next to Uzi.

"Yeah, you are rather outspoken about your opinions on things." The blue-haired girl commented, musing to herself.

"Bite me!" Uzi snapped at the blue-haired drone, making Lizzy and Doll chuckle a bit.

"Exactly. When you first said that to a teacher for correcting you for taking another path to reach the solution of a math problem, I think you made me laugh hard enough to fall of the chair." Rebecca thought aloud, making an anger tick emoji pop up on Uzi's temple. Doll, meanwhile, rolled her eyes.

"So you hurt someone's feelings and that someone's a friend of yours. I'm sure Commandramon is going to forgive you."

"It's not Commandramon I was talking about." Uzi said when the other three girls realized just who she was referring to.

"Oh, does it perhaps have something to do with your tall friend-" Rebecca teased before getting a volleyball shoved into her face.

"Shut up Rebecca!" The shorter purple-haired drone said, but unfortunately her outburst had confirmed the suspicion.

"Got ya." The blue haired girl said with a smirk. "Don't worry, little Uzi. Boy talk is my speciality."

"Ooh gossip!" Lizzy said, leaning towards the Uzi, sandwiching both her and Doll between the other two popular girls. "Tell us everything."

"Поздравляю, Узи, ты разбудил зверя. (Congratulations Uzi, you've awoken the beast.)" Doll told her quasi cousin, who looked at her for guidance.

"How do you make them stop?" Uzi asked.

"They'll eventually run out of energy. Or something else gets their attention-" Doll said when the sound of the school's bell coming from the speakers marked the end of PE class and thankfully set Uzi free to quickly jump up from her seat and bolt for the exit.

"Aw... I just wanted to tease her a bit more." Rebecca huffed in a disappointed tone before turning to Lizzy and Doll. "Well, at the very least the whole prom queen business is going to be easy this year with everyone other than Kelsey Day having disappeared." The blue-haired girl said before sitting up followed by Lizzy and Doll, while the Russian drone looked over to Kelsey Day, a rather unassuming looking drone with brown hair styled in two ponytails and wearing glasses. The girl had light blue eyes not unlike Rebecca, but where the popular girl reveled in the attention she got, especially from the guys, Kelsey was the opposite with her glasses and hairstyle often being likened to a younger girl, which gave her a bit more of an innocent appearance. Perhaps that was why she and four other girls had been chosen as prom queen candidates months prior by the likes of Lizzy and Rebecca, who were in charge of that aspect. But in those months leading up to the prom, all of them have mysteriously vanished among other residents of Outpost 3. All but one...

"Yeah, unless they want us to randomly find four more people to be selected for this role. Honestly..." Lizzy's voice trailed off when she saw Doll standing still and facing the other exit of the gym. "Doll, you are coming?" Lizzy's voice made the red-eyed drone snap out of her thoughts before she nodded and quickly followed the others out of the gym. The teacher gave the now empty gym a last look before shutting down the lights and leaving the place in a state of disarray with the left behind sports equipment mostly scattered around the place. It honestly looked more like the playground of kindergarten children than almost fully adult worker drones.

A sudden shifting sound from the vaulting box echoed through the deserted hall, before the upper segment of the gymnastics equipment was lifted up from within and Impmon climbed out of his hiding place.

"Ugh! I thought I was going to die in there with all this girl talk." He said weakly as he laid with his back sprawled out on the cool gym floor. "And that creepy red-eyed girl again... She really rubs me the wrong way." Impmon thought to himself as he felt a shudder run through his body when he recalled how Doll just looked when she had been looking at something in his general direction. Now, the evil digimon didn't know that she was looking at her classmate Kelsey, but for a split second, her face had turned into a broad sadistic grin that reminded Impmon a bit too much of a certain disassembly drone he did not get along with at all. 'Yeah, I really don't want to meet her alone in the dark at night... Hah... I guess I'll just sleep for a while. The night had been restless enough for one digimon. But that prom thing sounds like it's going to be fun. Hehehe...'

With that in mind, he retreated into another storage room in that gym hall and climbed on top of a bunch of gymnastic mats, dozing off shortly after while thinking about how he might be able to create some entertainment for himself when the time came. He already had a few ideas in mind.

In the meantime, Uzi had put as much distance between herself and her gossiping classmates. Luckily for her, PE had been the last class of the day, meaning she was free to go home now. All she had to do was go back to her locker, grab her bag and get back home. However, not only did the little chat he had with the other girls reminded her once more about her issue with N and forcing her to acknowledge her struggle to find the right words that she wanted to throw at his head in order to apologize for her reaction two nights ago, but on top of that even adding the social pressure of prom night. She didn't want to go even that meant being even more ostracized by her peers than she was already. She couldn't care much less about that, because up until very recently, they too had not wasted a thought about her for most of her life when she would have needed the support the most.

But there was also this tiny, truly miniscule feeling at the back of her mind that was loneliness. Not just the aforementioned social isolation, but also the feeling of having been let down by her father ever since her mother's passing and now the guilt of having lost a friend she had made. Sure, Doll had opened up to her and revealed some very deep connections that made Uzi almost feel like she had discovered a long lost sibling or relative and Lizzy apparently had been animated to socialize with her a bit more after saving the colony twice as well. Same could perhaps also be said about Thad, who had been nice enough to bring her the railgun back when she had accidentally left it behind and even helped with the investigation that led her to this situation in the first place.

'Huh... Now that I think about it, I didn't get to ask Doll about how Lizzy and her ended up being friends in the first place. No, wait a dang second! I was trying to figure out how to- AGH!' She thought to herself when she kicked a locker in frustration, sending a metallic banging sound echoing across the corridor. Uzi took a couple of deep breaths before she noticed another clanging sound reverberate through the hallway behind her, which she had at first thought to be an echo of the kick she had given the locker. However, the sound was growing louder rather than weaker. After a moment, she whipped her head around and almost collided with the valve on Guardromon's torso. "Oh, Robo-Jesus!" She gasped as she jumped backwards a bit to put some distance between her and the digimon.

"No. I am not fictional religious figure analogous to the one of a human religion. I am Guardromon, honorary member of the Worker Defense Force and owing a life debt to your father." The Champion-level digimon replied before its otherwise stoic gaze seemed to soften. "You appear to be in a state of emotional distress and turmoil as well as not very attentive to your surroundings. Are you well?"

"I'm fine. Stop asking me that." The purple-haired drone said crossing her arms and turning her back to Guardromon. 'Ugh, is it that obvious?'

"That sounds like a lie, Uzi." The digimon's retort made her groan in frustration.

"Okay, I'm not fine! I'm the opposite of fine! I'm God for crying out loud and I cannot even think of a way to apologize to someone. Happy now?" Uzi almost screamed at the digimon, who simply looked back at her with something that looked like pity before he took a step towards her and raised its hands. Uzi was about to ask what he was about to do, before she found herself awkwardly hugged by the larger digimon. It was stiff and robotic, unsurprising since both of them were technically machines. But even so, Guardromon made sure to not crush her against his body with his full strength and, while one arm held her against him, the other gently patted her on the head. Strange as it was, it was comforting even if a bit short as Guardromon soon let her down gently.

"I may not have the full picture of your situation, Uzi Doorman. I can merely go off on the things I've seen and heard in the wake of us defeating the biomechanical construct that was psychologically tormenting you. But from what I understand, you are indeed not doing well."

"Oh right... you were there when that happened..." Uzi thought, almost having forgotten that Guardromon had helped them to defeat the Solver possessing J's body and thus also witnessing her reacting to N like she had.

"I have indeed witnessed heard what happened, but Commandramon was so kind as to inform both me and your father what had transpired. And while Khan disapproves of you making friends with the same people, who may have killed your mother, he also could tell that you are hurting. Even if he doesn't know how to help you." The machine digimon said before gesturing for Uzi to sit on a chair outside the infirmary's office. The teenage worker drone reluctantly walked over and sat down while Guardromon merely sat on the floor in front of her as the chairs would likely be bent out of shape and unable to support his weight. After a moment, she found herself talking on her own.

"It's not like that I feel in the wrong. I mean, J has literally turned into a giant worm and projected holograms of my mom and my dad dying... I know I was wrong."

"You are experiencing guilt and that is good." Guardromon said, causing Uzi to glare at the digimon. "It shows a level of maturity and the fact that you realize that you were wrong, while not pushing the responsibility for your actions entirely onto the circumstances, although they were justified. I take it you also wish to apologize to your friend N." Uzi's glare softened and she averted her eyes from the digimon, but nodded. "If so, what would you wish to tell him?"

Uzi sighed at this. "I don't know... Just that I'm sorry for having been stupid and an angsty emotional teenager. It's not like I'm good with words or anything." Uzi said with her arms crossed when she felt the machine digimon's eyes linger on her. "Bite me..." She quietly muttered to herself. Guardromon stood up after a moment.

"Very well. I'll resume my tasks now. Goodbye." He said before lumbering away, leaving Uzi sitting in that chair for a moment longer, before she hopped off and walked towards her locker, feeling slightly relieved after having talked to someone. Even if that someone was a digital lifeform, that took everything too literal.

Things inside the disassembly drones' ship were rather awkward to say the least. Despite the fact that V had entertained the idea of a ceasefire in the first place, she was still far from comfortable with the current state of things. For one, N and her had both been essentially locked within the confinements of their ship due to the sun's light shining a lot more into the spire with the damages the structure had sustained. While it was noon now and the star Copper 9 orbited hung a lot lower, she still didn't quite feel like going out yet though. Secondly, N had clearly caught onto the fact that she has had similar dreams in the forms of distorted past memories, even if he wasn't saying it out loud. And finally... she apparently just hit a wall on the game that she had been playing on Uzi's handheld gaming console. If it wasn't for the fact N was right next to her, she might have thrown the small console against a wall in frustration and to annoy Uzi when she'd come back.

And as if that wasn't bad enough coupled with her having agreed to not kill her on sight, N had fallen asleep again. Normally, that would have been a blessing since it meant not having to endure his timid personality questioning why V was keeping secrets from her or disapproving of her still wanting to kill all the worker drones. What made this however even more uncomfortable for her was the fact that at some point, he had sat down on one the other office chair next to her and had started reading one of Uzi's manga after V had finished the volumes of it, resulting in him sleeping soundly next to her, slumped over the console of the ship.

'He looks peaceful like that...' V thought to herself when she put the gaming console down and took the first manga volume from his hands. She had to first teach him how to read the manga for the plot and the dialogue to make sense to the rather oblivious N, who thought to just read it like any normal book or comic. He may have not liked some of the aspects in the story, but he still thought it to be rather cool looking. A reaction that was not unknown to V as it had not been the first time N had looked upon a volume of manga, but he would not know that. Or at least, not recall all of it.

Putting the manga aside, V quietly got up from her chair and grabbed a blanket from the corner Uzi's things had been put, before gently draping it over N. The unconscious disassembly drone gave a soft hum at the sensation. Despite him being in sleep mode, he let out a soft "Thanks, V.", which might as well had been part of another dream or past memory of his. Again, V was torn about this, but for now she'd have to make sure that he was alright until they figured out the whole situation. Even if she was not completely certain about this, Impmon seemed to either have something to do with the situation at some level she didn't know yet or he was just some digimon that had taken a liking to messing with them specifically. But while she certainly wouldn't mind squeezing the information out of the small demon, another memory of the last night still gave her pause in a way. That being the fact that N had not 'freed' her when she had offered to hunt together with him when he already had been pretty shook by his past memories as a worker drone.

They had been feeding on worker drones for years at this point and the revelation that they were not so different from them had clearly impacted N already. But to know that their squad also had been worker drones themselves in the past had only amplified that. Sure, he had gone out and killed a bunch of them for them to stock up on oil, but N was not nearly as good of an actor than he might thought he was. V could tell that it was eating him up from the inside like a virus and the best she could offer for a compromise was to only hunt and kill as much as they needed in order to survive. It couldn't be helped with their bodies quite literally requiring sustenance in this form as much as it put him off or disgusted him or made him hate himself for what he was, they needed to feed.

N stirred a bit in his sleep, smiling to himself in his sleep and clearly dreaming about something pleasant. That was truly something V envied him for when her own dreams were...

"!" All of the sudden a loud thrumming sound filled the air outside the ship alongside the crackling sound of electricity. It started quiet at first but quickly grew louder and tremors ran through the ship. Loose objects inside the ship started to move subtly, rolling off edges and clattering to the ground, while outside the sound of something hitting the ground told V that likely some of N's patchwork job on the spire's repairs had come loose and some worker drone bodies had fallen down. 'What now?' Then an almost malevolent looking red light shone from the open hatch in the roof into the ship, while V looked up with worry and N stirred awake.

"Wha- What's going-" N was cut off by V covering his mouth just the tremors stopped and the light vanished. He looked at her with a worried look, while she switched one of her hands for a gun and took off with a beat of her wings, launching her through the hatch and onto the ship's roof to surveil the area. For a moment she saw nothing, but the familiar bottom of the spire littered with scrap metal, ice and snow, although the orange-red light of the approaching setting sun was bathed it into warmer colors. It was still a graveyard akin to a butcher's shop for worker drones with the half-eaten and mangled remains of their kind strewn around the floor.

But then her eyes fell on something new laying on the floor just as N climbed out of the ship to help her just in case something happened like the night before. However, his eyes widened when he too saw the object that laid in the snow.

"Is that a dog?" N ask hesitantly when V jumped off the ship and walked over to pick the object up. In midair, a red glowing fissure in the fabric of reality was still glowing and crackling with red electricity while not far from it something had seemingly fallen out of it. It looked indeed somewhat like a dog. Or what was left of one. It had a head, but no lower jaw, and its four legs with three purple claws at each foot. The fur was light blue in color, almost white, with dark blue stripes on it somewhat more like a cat. Eyeless sockets stared into nothing while a its upper jaw sported multiple conical teeth in its mouth. Strangely enough there was a hole right in the middle of its forehead.

"It's a pelt, but I don't belongs to a dog." V said as she picked it up by one of its forelimbs and let it dangle from her fingers while N joined her side. She had to admit, it looked somewhat like a canine judging by the head's shape and the black nose, but last V and N had checked dogs had more than three digits and most certainly were not covered in pale blue fur with stripes on them or thin, almost antennae-like ears. The two disassembly drones then glanced up at the still open fissure when something else moved through it. Or rather fell through it.

"AH! OOF!" A yellow... something let out a grunt as it crashed face first into a mound of snow, which had piled up to keep the place clean from any snow falling into and onto the spire. Despite the place being constructed as a base, it did need maintenance to not be fully encrusted in ice over time. Despite the relatively soft landing, the creature now stuck with its entire upper body in the mound of snow with only a pair of legs and a tail sticking out of it, kicking the air in an effort to get out. N and V both looked at one another sceptically when the fissure above their heads closed and disappeared.

"Well, that was something." V muttered, feeling another headache incoming when N moved over to the creature that had gotten stuck and was gradually moving less. Grabbing it by the tail, N pulled it out like how one might pull out a carrot from the earth in some old cartoon, revealing a rather chubby looking creature looking back at him with big red eyes.

"Oh thanks... I thought I was done for. Brr..." The creature said in a quiet voice, before hugging its own body with two arms. N sat the creature down before taking a step back, when both disassembly drones looked at the newcomer. It clearly was some sort of animal, though they were not quite sure which one it was supposed to be. The creature had pale yellow skin with a blue and purple symbol on its stomach shaped somewhat like an egg. It had a pair of stubby, triangular ears and a horn on its forehead, while standing on two three-toed feet and having almost human-like arms with five-fingered hands. Finally it sported a short, sturdy tail, giving it a strange reptilian/mammalian appearance overall.

"Uhm... you're welcome..." N said when he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at or if it would try and jump him and V like the last time something had come here. Meanwhile, V pointed her gun at the creature just in case, when its eyes widened and immediately raised its hands above its head in surrender.

"Please, don't shoot. I don't have anything... Could I please have my fur back though? It is rather cold here. Brr..." It said, quickly hugging its body again when a gust of cold wind hit the creature. V remained still for a second with N looking a bit uncomfortable between the two of them. Then she simply threw it over to the yellow creature, who quickly caught it and pulled it over its body like a coat, hiding its face beneath the dog-like skull. "Oh thank you, this is much better.

"Who are you and what do you want?" V asked impatiently, not taking her eyes or gun off of the creature, who flinched slightly at her tone.

"Oh right. I haven't introduced myself yet. Dammit." It said in a small voice, before straightening itself up a bit as if the fur pelt had given it a bit more confidence. "I'm Gabumon, nice to meet you..." Gabumon introduced himself though he did not sound too sure about the last part with V still pointing a gun at him. "Whatever you are..."

Digimon Analyzer

Gabumon

Level: Rookie

Reptile Digimon

Type: Data

Attack: Petit Flame

The two disassembly drones exchanged another look, before V put her gun away not really seeing much of a threat coming from the digimon.

"Whatever, what do you want?" She asked with her arms crossed, glaring at Gabumon who rubbed the back of his head at that.

"Uhm... I just lost my pelt and went after it. But now that I got it back, I'll just-" With that the digimon turned around and noticed that the portal he had just fallen through was gone. "Oh no! How am I going to get back home now?" He said out loud before falling backwards and starting to roll back and forth on the ground in a panic. "I'm stranded in the human world like this. This can't be happening. What can I do..." While Gabumon was freaking out, V's glare vanished and now she was just looking at N incredulously while pointing at the digimon. In response, N could only shrug his shoulders with a face that pretty much said "I don't know".

"Hey there, buddy. Calm down. I'm sure we'll figure something out." N said when he walked over to the digimon, who stopped rolling and sat up on the ground to look up at him. "By the way, I'm N and that's my friend V over there." Gabumon glanced over to her, who in response switched her hands for claws in an unspoken threat, making the digimon quickly hide behind N's legs.

"You mean it?" Gabumon asked, looking a bit more hopeful before N patted him on the head.

"Sure, I love doing anything..." He said just when he continued to pat his head. "Wow, that fur really is soft. Is this what petting a dog feels like?" He thought aloud as Gabumon found himself blushing in embarrassment. "V come over here. It's really soft." N continued and much to Gabumon's mounting embarrassment, V strolled over and patted the digimon on the back.

"I'm aware. I picked it up earlier, remember- Oh wow, it really is soft." She said as her hand over up and down Gabumon's back. The digimon's face turned bright red at this as he covered his face with his hands.

"Please stop..." Despite the cold, he felt his fur now growing uncomfortably hot. N was too oblivious to notice, but V smirked at the digimon's timid tone.

'Reminds me of a certain dog-loving someone I know.' V thought to herself, while looking at N and removing her hand from Gabumon. "N, let's go back inside. It's going to be a while until nightfall still." She said walking towards the ship, before N followed behind her closely after reluctantly stopping to brush his hand over Gabumon's pelt.

"Uhm... sure. You wanna come inside?" N asked Gabumon. V shot him a look at that, but the digimon responded faster.

"Sure, if it's not too much trouble." He said happily, following N while trying to avoid, the disassembly drones tail wagging a bit. V just rolled her eyes when she flew back through the hatch in the roof, while N and Gabumon went through the door. "It's a nice place you got here." Gabumon said as his eyes went around the ship with wonder, although he did not comment how it was a bit much metal for his taste.

"Well, it's not really a house, but how we got here." N clarified. Gabumon tilted his head to the side a bit when N gave him a pillow to sit down on. "It is sure is nice to meet someone for a change that doesn't try to kill us on sight, right V?" N asked to see his squadmate roll her eyes while sitting in her chair with her arms crossed.

"I mean, we still could... if he decides to cause trouble." V replied with a sadistic grin aimed at Gabumon, who scooted away from her a bit. N put his hands on his hips and gave her a look, before glancing back at Gabumon.

"So uhm... what are you guys?" The digimon asked. "As far as I can tell you are not digimon and you don't look like humans exactly. Or is this not the human world? Please don't tell me I got lost in yet another dimension or something like that." At that Gabumon began to panic again though this time he simply held his head in shock. "Oh no!"

"Calm down already, will you? This whole talk about human world this and digital world that is starting to hurt my processor." V said to make Gabumon pipe down, which he did. Though he did look down at his feet like a kicked dog, once more reminding V of the other disassembly drone in the ship. 'Are those two related or something? It's like I'm looking at a very distorted mirror. Then again, Commandramon was the same.' While she was musing about the similiarities in personality between her squadmate and the digimon next to her, N was actually thinking about answering Gabumon's question.

"We are..." He stopped himself when he tried to find the right words. 'What are we?' He thought to himself, once more recalling the words Uzi had said, before shaking his head. "We are disassembly drones."

"Oh..." Gabumon said in a wonderous tone, before tilting his head to the side, adding to his somewhat dog-like appearance that made N want to pet him again. "I... don't know what that means." At that N actually looked a bit uncomfortable, when V spoke up for him.

"We are basically killer robots made to kill other robots when they turn rogue." She nonchalantly said as if she was talking about the weather. "That corpse spire outside? All of our kills, who we viciously tore apart." She said as her eyes were replaced by an X and her face turned into a savage grin, causing Gabumon to hide behind N once more. "But we are on diet right now." She added, making N smile a bit towards her, which made her roll her eyes.

"I see... You don't look fat though." Gabumon commented, scratching the side of his head with the claws of his pelt. He didn't notice the slight glare V was giving him, before he shrugged and turned to look up at N again. "Thank you for letting me inside once more. I'm very sorry for intruding on you and your wife like that." The digimon bowed his head slightly, when that comment made N's visor glow bright yellow while V had to fight down the blush creeping up her face.

"No! No! No! You misunderstand. She's not my-"
"We're more like colleagues. He's not my-"

Both of them stopped their panicked outbursts when they realized they had spoken at the same time before turning away from one another.

'AH! NOW SHE THINKS I'M A TOTALLY WEIRD AND NOT INTERESTED!' N thought to himself, trying to not think about anything wedding related or V. 'Just think happy thoughts. Think about puppies. Yes, puppies running around. Dogs in a church. V in a dress- No! Long white coats. Dog with long white coats. Puppies as ringbearers- NO!'

'GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER V! JUST DO YOUR JOB AND- GAH! DAMMIT IMPMON! WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THAT LITTLE PIECE OF CODE, I'LL SEE IF YOU CAN SHRED COMPUTER DATA WITH A PAPER SHREDDER!' V thought as her thoughts turned murderous again as she was convinced the little demon was partially responsible for this to have happened.

While both of them were berating themselves for reacting the way they acted, Gabumon lowered his head once more apologetically.

"Ah! Sorry, I jumped to conclusions there." He said looking at the stuff Uzi had left behind in the ship.

A long moment of awkward silence spread between the three occupants of the landing pod with all of them looking away from one another, except Gabumon occasionally looking between the two disassembly drones and wondering why they weren't looking at one another. Eventually though, Gabumon's stomach rumbled a bit and he scooted over to the digimon-branded food items before grabbing something.

"May I?" He asked, making the two genocide robots look over to him and nodded, giving him the go ahead. Gabumon's face lit up a bit when he opened a bag of a piece of meat before holding it up by its bone. "Petit Fire!" Then he breathed out a small stream of blue fire at the meat, causing N and V to slightly lean away from the fire, before Gabumon stopped when his meat was all cooked and started eating.

"So, you are fire-breathing lizard cosplaying as a dog? Neat." V said sarcastically when Gabumon stopped eating and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment, laughing awkwardly with feint blush. 'Why are you flustered?!'

"Well, I guess you could say that." The reptile digimon said before turning away, trying badly to hide his flustered face.

"I like that pelt." N said, making both V and Gabumon look at him, before N added. "But I'd rather not have to kill something for that sort of stuff." He added, making him scratch the back of his head and feeling slightly bad for whatever creature that pelt had belonged to. That made Gabumon look at him confused before his eyes widened.

"Oh, it's not like that. I didn't... you know. It's-" Gabumon stopped when a small burp escaped him. Both disassembly drones looked a bit surprised at him, before the digimon's turned bright red again and averted his eyes. "S-Sorry..." Meanwhile, N looked over at V with his eyes replaced by a line of text.

[Can we keep him, please?] He asked silently, when V crossed her arms and looked at him with a raised eyebrow, before Gabumon spoke up again.

"A-As I was saying..." He stammered a little, hiding his embarrassment badly. "The pelt is not like that. It's made of the data left behind by Garurumon, a digimon that we Gabumon, usually digivolve into. We pick up the data and make the pelts out of those." He said when his eyes landed on a particular drawing Commandramon had shown N and the others. Picking it up, his eyes widened. "Yes, this is the one." He said showing the picture of the white and blue striped wolf to N and V.

"Hm... I think human sometimes used to made clothing from the fur of their dogs shed..." V mused as N beamed at the mental image in his head. He too knew about that sort of thing where dog owners of breeds with long coats would collect the hair from brushing the coats to have custom made clothing made from it. The fact that this digimon was essentially doing the same made him sigh in relief.

"I see..." He said when he noticed Gabumon's face falling a bit at the image of Garurumon. N had to admit the digimon looked a bit sad. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, it's nothing." Gabumon quickly looked up at him. "It's just... I haven't really managed to digivolve yet and... you know..." The reptile digimon's voice trailed off when he put the picture down and shook his head. "Like I said, it's nothing." Neither N or V bought that but decided not to comment on it. Suddenly, Gabumon's ears perked up and his head shot towards the wall of the ship.

"What's wrong?" N asked when he and V too heard it. It sounded like a missile or something, but it was moving too slow for that. Something propelled on a combust engine flew towards them and then landed with a heavy thud outside. Instantly, V and N stood up at this, their bodies tense when they noticed the sun had set and night had fallen.

"Are you expecting any visitors tonight?" Gabumon said as he felt the tension in the air.

The two drones didn't respond when heavy stomps drew closer to the ship and a loud knock against the hull reverberated on the inside of ship. It wasn't enough to make the ship shake around like Gargoylemon clambering all over it had yesterday, but it still sent a tremor through the ship, putting those inside it on edge. N moved towards the door, while V looked at the hatch for signs of anything trying to get in from above. Gabumon meanwhile positioned himself behind N facing the door in case something was about to attack them. Blue flames licked outside of his mouth when he charged up an attack if the need would arise. Two more knocks came from the outside when the footsteps stopped right in front of the door.

"Hello? Is someone at home?" A familiar voice said, making N's body relax a bit when he opened the door. V looked in shock when almost the entire door was blocked by the bulk of a large mechanical being looking inside.

"You are... that guy who showed up last time." N said, before rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Uhm... sorry, I didn't catch your name back then."

"Apologies registered and accepted. I too have not introduced myself back then either. I am Guardromon."

"You know this thing?" V asked a bit surprised, still pointing a gun at the machine digimon, while Gabumon stopped charging up another Petit Fire when he realized the digimon was not a threat.

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" N asked when he looked back at her. "Apparently, he lives in the bunker with the drones now and he helped us kill that thing J turned into. Really saved us back there." V frowned a bit at those news as it further complicated her potentially going into Outpost 3 to kill those worker drones. Though she'd lie if she said that she minded the robotic digimon saving N from getting himself killed.

"This is true." Guardromon simply said, when his eyes turned to V and then Gabumon, before turning back to N. "And I have come here on behalf of Uzi and her partner digimon to deliver a message onto the residents of this spire."

When Uzi came back home that evening, she did not expect to find her partner digimon sprawled out on the floor as if he had just run a marathon or something. With a tired groan, Commandramon raised his head slightly to look up at the purple-haired drone and offered a weak smile.

"Oh, hello Uzi... was school fun?" He asked before he slowly rolled onto his stomach and got off the floor.

"Uh... somewhat. What happened to you? Did Dad make you lift crates in the storage room or something?" She asked when she walked to her room and put her bag down.

"No... just had to set up things with Guardromon for your prom." Commandramon said weakly as he dragged himself to her room and flopped onto her bed. Uzi felt a bit of sympathy for him being beat after such a day, when she noticed something inside her backpack between her school materials.

"Huh?" The teenage drone put her arm into the bag and rummaged around until her fingers brushed against something solid that shouldn't have been there. After a short moment, she managed to pull out her digivice. "How did this get in there?" She thought to herself before looking back at Commandramon who looked like he was on the verge of passing out. 'Did you do all the heavy lifting or something?' She thought to herself before sitting down next to him and thinking about her earlier conversations too. "Ugh... sometimes I hate my life." Commandramon grumbled something inaudible into the blanket when he rolled over onto his back and looked at the ceiling where Uzi's drawings were.

"Did something happen?" He asked, trying his best to ignore the growing headache in his skull from looking at the Solver symbol. Uzi let out a huff at that.

"A bunch of busybodies, friends and Guardromon giving me social counseling or something." She rolled her eyes at that. "It wasn't... too bad to talk with someone about it."

"Yeah... Thad was pretty worried about N too because he hadn't seen him since that night." Commandramon sat up at that. "But I'm sure Guardromon is going to talk deliver the message to him. It's not like his home is that hard to miss." At that Uzi looked at her partner with a raised eyebrow.

"What do you mean by that?" A feeling of unease rising up in her for some reason.

"Well, I can't really go to the spire tonight like this." Commandramon said, flopping an arm around as if to emphasize his point. "So, I asked Guardromon to head over to the spire and tell N a message I've given him. You know, as an apology for what had happened earlier. And Thad also wanted to say something to N, but he's busy doing night patrols now." Commadramon said when Uzi's face slowly turned from a look of curiousity into one of shock and embarrassment. In her head, she was replaying the conversation she has had with the machine digimon a few times until reality seemed to sink in, completely ignoring what her partner had said about Thad trying to help the WDF catch whoever caused the disappearances lately. Eventually though, Commandramon stopped talking and looked at her confused when he noticed her staring at him with wide, hollowed-out digital eyes. "What's wrong-"

"WE NEED TO STOP HIM RIGHT NOW!" Uzi shouted when she grabbed her partner digimon by the shoulders and shook him around, catching him offguard.

"Uzi. What. Is. Wrong. With. You. All. Of. The. Sud-Den?" He asked, feeling a dejavu from when he had gotten her the replacement hoodie. She let go of him, causing him to crash onto the ground with his legs too weak to support his weight.

"If so, what would you wish to tell him?"

Guardromon's words suddenly hung over her head like a guillotine's blade ready to descend on her when she realized that Guardromon hadn't just asked about what she would tell him, but what he was going to say to him when he went over to the corpse spire himself.

"That stupid, literal piece of scrap metal! ARGH!" Uzi was about to drag Commandramon out of the door only to find him too heavy just drag him around and too tired to move by himself. "Great, now what?" She thought to herself aloud when her eyes darted around the room for anything that might make her partner move. She could also just leave him there like the night she had set out to kill the murder drones and finally earn her old man's respect. However, she quickly decided against it. 'I'm not doing that again! I'm better than that! I AM GOD!' She thought to herself just when she saw the solution to her problems and an evil grin onetching itself on her lips.

Commandramon was still dazed and moaned weakly in discomfort as he sat up again, but he didn't get to ask Uzi again what was wrong when the worker drone went to her desk and grabbed a dark blue can of her Gamer Drone Fuel energy drink and cracked it open. Then before he knew it, Uzi opened his mouth and poured the contents of the can into his gullet. The cyborg digimon was too busy swallowing when his tiredness was suddenly replaced with overflowing energy and a faint burning sensation in his head. Once the can was empty, his mouth snapped shut like a bear trap, before he grabbed the empty can, crushed it flat against his helmet and threw it into the trash bin next to Uzi's desk, pumping his fist up into the air when it landed inside.

"YEAH, LET'S DO THIS!" He shouted all of the sudden. The shift in attitude though made Uzi chuckle like an anime villain before she grinned back and mirrored his newfound enthusiasm and pose.

"YEAH!"

"YEAH!?"

"YEEEAAAAHH!?" Both of them just stood there for a second with their arms raised in the air and hands balled into fists.

"Uhm... How much longer are we going to stand here like this?" Commandramon then asked.

"Ah, right! We need to stop Guardromon! Hurry!" Uzi said dragged Commandramon outside with her digivice in hand. Bursting out of the apartment in a hurry, neither of them noticed Khan just having sit down in the living area when he was about to ask how their day was.

'I guess they still had something to do...' He thought to himself.

The duo of worker drone digidestined and partner digimon made their way to the Door 1 in no time, where they were stopped by a member of the WDF.

"Hey there fellas-"

"NO TIME!" Uzi snapped. "We need to get out now!"

"Hey you can't just head outside in the middle of the night whenever you want. You gotta fill out these documents and-" The WDF member didn't even notice Commandramon snatching the clipboard out of his hand before filling it out in an energy drink fueled speedrun and placing back inside his hand. Blinking in surprise, the worker drone looked at board before looking back at the impatient duo in front of him before shrugging. "Alright, looks good to me." He then opened Door 1 and the two darted out. "Good luck..." He looked at the documents at the purpose section of the document. "'Intercepting an embarrassing message to be sent out'? Whatever that's supposed to mean, have fun."

Neither of the two really paid him any attention when the doors closed behind them as they had been running towards the direction of the spire. However the two of them soon found themselves slowed down by a thick new layer of freshly fallen snow impending their movement. Despite Copper 9's below freezing temperatures, snow and ice still sublimated into vapour during the day time, resulted in new snowfall to occur despite the planet's frozen temperatures. And apparently the last few hours of day time had been a rather heavy snowfall.

"We are never going to make it to the spire in time like this." Uzi cursed under her breath as she pulled her foot out of the snow, which now almost reached her hips; while her partner behind her was literally standing up to the neck in snow and ploughing through it.

"Leave it to me, Uzi! I have an idea." He said before her digivice's screen lit up and her partner glowed in a familiar bright light.

Commandramon digivolves to... Hi-Commandramon!

When the glow of the digivolution subsided a few seconds later, Hi-Commandramon lowered his large body to the ground so that his head was right next to Uzi.

"Climb on, partner. We have a Guardromon to catch." He said, before Uzi grabbed onto the Champion-level's hair with a grin and pulled herself onto his shoulder. Once his partner stood steady there, Hi-Commandramon stood back up and started to run towards the spire. Each step left deep three-toed imprints in the snow and covered more ground than the two would have managed in a minute. "ETA about 5 minutes, Uzi."

"That's 5 minutes too long, can you go faster?" Uzi shouted over the wind and clinging to her partner's hair like a literal lifeline. At that Hi-Commandramon grinned.

"Hold on tight!" He said before sprinting as fast as he could through the snow, pushing aside no longer working husks of cars, skeletons and dead drones or crushing them underfoot. Meanwhile, Uzi was clinging with both hands firmly gripping two strands of his hair while pressing her body flat against his head to not get swept up by the apparent wind. Despite that, she found herself grinning as well.

With that, the two of them made their way towards the monument of the disassembly drone's slaughter and their base of operations.

By the time Doll had arrived back in her family's apartment for the second time this day, the lights outside in the hallway had been dimmed down to a gentle and weak glow. It was a rather simple way of simulating a day and night cycle underground, but it was an effective one. Keeping the lights on all the time only consumed more power than it was worth and it had a calming effect on the worker drone psyche to given them an additional indicator of the passage of time. Having been made to have a mind akin to that of their creators meant that not only the good attributes of a human-like consciousness were carried over to the worker drones, but also the bad. As such worker drones could indeed suffer from mental conditions and even go completely insane under the same circumstances humans would crack.

With a sigh, she dropped her bag to the ground and used the telekinetic powers of the Solver to unzip her bag and put the books from it into a book shelf located right next to the door. Meanwhile, she let a pen float to her hand and a list of people for the election of the prom queen for the upcoming prom in a few days. Out of the five names listed all but one had not been crossed out, but despite the list reading 'Please mark ONE option', all of them had been marked.

Angela Palmer
Dillan Hall
Kelsey Day
Kenzie Rivers
Lainey Gilmore

A sigh escaped her when she recalled the conversation she had right after school and returning home the first time today.

After she had come home to her roach infested apartment and crushed one of the nasty robot bugs under her foot, Doll had hurried into her apartment's kitchen, pushing aside anything in her way before she made her way to a pot filled with oil. She didn't even turn the stove on, when she grabbed a stained soup ladle and plunged it into the black sludge, before carefully drinking it trying to not make her hands shake and get oil all over her clothes. Once she had downed the contents, she threw the kitchen utensil aside, coughing and hacking into her hand and trying to not vomit the oil back up. Leaning onto the stove with one hand to not fall down on her knees, she had found it hard to breathe. Cold sweat had clung to her skin and clothes making a shiver run up her overheating body, while she had found her limbs weak and trembling.

"Doll?" A faint sounding voice had suddenly spoken from within her apartment, causing Doll's eyes to widen and grab a sharp knife from the kitchen counter next to her. The feeling nausea had been completely forgotten as she rose to her feet and slowly left the kitchen, looking around the otherwise empty apartment. Her breath had still been shaking and loud in an attempt to calm herself down, but she had been making too much noise for her own liking already.
"Doll, what's going on? Where are you?" The voice said again, this time louder and clearer. Doll's fingers tightened around the handle of the knife when she found the voice coming from within her mother's old study. Slowly she had approached the half open door, when she had noticed the weak light of the computer monitor shining through it. After a moment, Doll had gone inside, only to find the study as usual, but the computer was booted up and the camera was looking at her directly. It was that moment that Doll realized that the voices had come from the speakers of the computer after having been silent for as long as she had known the computer to be there, which had been even before her parents had her.

The Russian worker drone's hand had loosened around the knife as it had fallen from her fingers to the ground. She walked over to the computer with wide eyes, while the camera followed her movements. On the screen she could have seen the same chat that she had been using to communicate with the ones on the other side for so long and the spoken words now written down in that chat. The last shreds of doubt had been blown away when another line of messages appeared spoken by the same voice as the one she had heard.

"[WHAT ARE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING WITH THAT KNIFE?]"
"[YOU DON'T LOOK VERY GOOD, DOLL.]"

"This is certainly new." Doll had said with a sigh, when the camera nudged her a bit into the shoulder and had made her look at it. "I take it you managed to incorporate some of the data."

"[THIS COMPUTER IS OLD, BUT IT STILL WORKS. SOMEWHAT...]" The reply had come almost instantly in both spoken and written form.
"[WE CAN ALSO HEAR YOU NOW, YOU KNOW?]" Had been added by what Doll now could identify as an identical second voice. For a moment, Doll had merely stood there in shock, before all of the sudden she found her digital eyes simulate tears. Almost instantly the camera jumped a bit in shock. "[AGH! WHY ARE YOU CRYING DOLL? WHAT HAPPENED? DID YOU CUT YOURSELF.]"
"[(IDIOT!) SHE CLEARLY IS OVERJOYED AT FINALLY GETTING TO HEAR OUR VOICES.]"
"[WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT?]"
"[YOU OBVIOUSLY!]"
"[WHY YOU LITTLE-]"
"[COME HERE YOU-]"

The two owners of the two voices bickered with one another before Doll had placed a hand on the computer monitor and made them stop to look at her. She sniffed once and rubbed her visor as if brushing away the tears, before a small smile had crept on her lips.

"Looks like you managed to implement some of the data at least." She had said when a feeling of relief washed over her. While she had always known about them, it was as if hearing them for real for the first time had shattered some last lingering doubts about them even being there. After a short moment, the voices spoke up again.

"[A SHAME WE CANNOT USE UZI'S DIGIVICE OURSELVES. OTHERWISE, THIS WOULD BE FAR EASIER.]"
"[SUCH IS THE NATURE OF A DIGIVICE UNFORTUNATELY.]" Doll had found herself nodding at that assessment before responding.

"We have the data from her digivice. That is enough." She had said, while the camera looked at her face, noticing the smudges of oil on her lips.

"[WERE YOU OVERHEATING AGAIN?]" One voice had asked sounding worried.
"[DOLL, DID YOU USE THE SOLVER? AT SCHOOL OF ALL PLACES?]" The other had spoken sternly.

"Да, мне пришлось. (Yes. I had to.)"

"[WHY? YOU KNOW WHAT THAT THING DOES TO YOU.]"
"[THE MORE YOU RELY ON IT, THE STRONGER IT BECOMES. YOU MUST NOT USE IT RECKLESSLY.]"

"I had to make sure that newcomer of the WDF wouldn't stumble upon me during a night patrol." Doll had said, defending her actions. "I have to speed up the plan a little because of it."

"[THAT GUARDROMON? YES, THIS CERTAINLY COMPLICATED THINGS, BUT WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU DO?]"
"[HOW DO WE PROCEED?]"

"As planned. I have already dealt with that particular issue. It shouldn't be a problem in the future." Doll had replied, ignoring the first voice's question entirely.

"[AND YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT WILL WORK?]"
"[I DOUBT THAT WILL BE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH... THAT THING.]"

"It doesn't need to. It just need to get the message across." Doll had replied, before turning her head towards the door. The camera had looked at her, before it hung its lense low and a sigh had sounded from the speakers of the computer setup.

"[ONLY ONE REMAINS.]"
"[UNFORTUNATE BUT NECESSARY FOR THE PLAN TO SUCCEED.]"

"Что есть, то есть. Мы знали, что придётся пойти на жертвы. Альтернатива... была бы хуже. (It is what it is. We knew that sacrifices had to be made. The alternative... would be worse.)" Doll said before turning back to the computer. "I'll be back soon. Then we can talk about the next steps." She had said before leaving her apartment once more.

"[TAKE CARE, DOLL.]" She could faintly hear before she walked back towards the premises of the school.

A quiet dripping noise of oil on the floor brought Doll back into the present when the sound made her glance down at her backpack where the mangled arm of Kelsie Day hung limply from the open bag. Then she crossed out the last name on the list of prom queen candidates.

'Mom, Dad. Я вернулся. (I'm back.)" She said glancing over into the kitchen. The lights were off and the only thing she could make out were the various red glowing lights of the robot roaches clambering around the kitchen to feed on the oil stains.

"[DOLL.]" The voice from the study said. "[YOU'RE BACK.]"
"[I TAKE IT YOUR OUTING WAS SUCCESSFUL.]"

Letting out a huff, Doll walked over to the study to see the camera of the computer already looking out of the room at her. "Странно прийти домой и увидеть, как кто-то приветствует тебя после долгой разлуки. (It's strange to come home and have someone greet you after such a long time.)" Doll admitted as she sat down on the bed. Her father had put it there for Yeva, so that she could work pretty much non-stop as well as do check-ups on Nori after her mother had apparently fallen asleep multiple times on that desk.

"[IT IS STRANGE TO HAVE YOUR VOICE FINALLY HEARD AGAIN.]"
"[OR THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD IT FOR YOUR WHOLE LIFE.]"

Doll allowed herself to smile a bit. For a second, it actually felt a bit like she had a piece of normalcy back in her life after so long. Even if nothing about their situation was normal in the first place. The memory from earlier and the knowledge of what she had done brought her back into the present.

"Готово. Подготовка завершена. Осталось только реализовать план. (It is done. The preparations are in place. All that is left to do is to execute the plan.)" The Russian worker drone, finding herself thinking about a certain cousin of hers. "Ещё два дня. А потом... (Just two more days. And then...)" Doll stopped when her right eye switched to a symbol of the Absolute Solver, making her hold the eye as she sucked in a hiss of pain.

"[DOLL!]" Both of the voices from the computer said in a panicked tone as the camera stretched towards her, but didn't reach much further than the desktop. Doll sat there for a moment hunched over and covering the right side of her face with a hand, while breathing heavily.

"I'm... okay... It's not that big of a deal. I can still deal with this..." She said weakly.

"[PERHAPS IT IS TIME TO INCLUDE UZI INTO THIS.]" That remark made Doll look up at the camera in shock.
"[AGREED. IF YOUR BODY KEEPS DETERIORATING LIKE THIS, ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE MIGHT BE REQUIRED.]"

"Нет! (No!)" Doll found herself uncharacteristically snapping at the voices in the computer. The camera backed away a bit at that, before Doll composed herself again. "No... We must not pull her into this." She said though she knew that Uzi was already deeply entrenched into this situation just like herself and their mothers. But it was also her mother's wish to not involve Uzi in all of this, which is why the two beings inside that computer of hers had not even known about Nori having had a child.

"[IS THAT WISE? UZI AND HER PARTNER BOTH APPEAR TO HAVE GROWN CLOSE TO THE DISASSEMBLY DRONES. YOU KNOW WHAT THE SOLVER CAN DO TO A DRONE WHEN EMOTIONS RUN HIGH.]"
"[AN UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT INDEED. TO FRATERNIZE WITH THAT THING. THEY MIGHT NOT AGREE WITH US ON THIS MATTER. EVEN WHEN SHE SHOWS ALREADY SIGNS OF IT ADVANCING INTO THE NEXT STAGE.]"

"She won't be a problem. She doesn't want to go there in the first place, which is a good thing. Had to stop Lizzy from trying to convince her to come..." Doll stopped when a frown moved onto her face at that. The camera looked at bit worried at her at that, before she laid down and faced the ceiling. "For now, we have to keep going as planned." The red-eyed worker drone said although she had to admit that Uzi's behavior did worry her for more than one reason. Her getting close to those monsters was one thing. But if she didn't know it any better, she'd say that Uzi was experiencing something akin to her own situation, but much faster for some reason. 'Does Commandramon perhaps have something to do with that?' She found herself thinking.

"[VERY WELL. REST FOR NOW, DOLL. WE'LL CONTINUE WORKING HERE.]"
"[AND NO MORE SOLVER USING TO PUT STUFF AWAY LIKE THAT, YOUNG LADY. WE'VE SEEN WHAT YOU DID THERE.]"

"Ugh... you're really starting to sound like nagging older relatives. What's next? You set me up on a date or arrange a marriage?" Doll groaned. 'Great... now I'm starting to sound like Uzi.'

"[OF COURSE NOT. IT'S NOT LIKE WE KNOW ANYONE EITHER.]"
"[I MEAN, ONCE THIS IS ALL OVER WE COULD SET HER UP LATER WITH ONE OF THE GUYS AT HER SCHOOL THOUGH.]"
"[WE ARE NOT GONNA NOT DO THAT.]"

'I'm starting to regret the fact that they can talk now.' Doll thought to herself yet smiled at the semblance of a mismatched family life she was having right now as she fell asleep soon after the sound of the two voices bickering for a while longer, before they too noticed that she had fallen asleep.

"[SWEET DREAMS.]"
"[СПОКОЙНОЙ НОЧИ. (SLEEP WELL.)]"

And with that the computer monitor turned off and the room turned completely dark.

For the first time in a while, things inside the corpse spire of the disassembly drones were a bit less bleak for its residents. Mostly for N, who still stood in the doorway of the landing pod with his tail wagging at the news of his friends sending him a message. He would have been jumping up and down like an excited child on Christmas morning at that alone, if it wasn't for him not having a lot of space to do so where he stood right now. Meanwhile, V stood inside the ship with her arms crossed and a frown on her face at the fact that Uzi was basically playing telephone here by having Guardromon come over and tell them, while Gabumon looked a bit confused as he had only heard V's version of the events that had led up to this situation in the first place.

The machine digimon meanwhile stepped away from the door to give N some room, before speaking up again.

"As for the message Commandramon has given me to you, he wishes to tell you that he does understand that you have very likely been hurt by Uzi's words that night." Guardromon began, causing N's smile to face and his tail to droop down to the floor. "What she has said was wrong and in a panic, but it was hurtful nonetheless. Still, perhaps due to the fact that we digimon can change drastically throughout our lives in the way we digivolve with time, Commandramon does not share Uzi's view on things. One day one might be this and the next something completely different. And with that also changes the very nature of one's own existence." He said, causing N's face to fall a bit more when he recalled the memories of him and his squad as worker drones in his dreams.
"However, despite that we all try to stay true to what makes us as individual people ourselves. And for that reason, he does not care whether you are a flying killing machine, a strange centipede thing from the Dark Area or anything else. You are their friend and he believes in you regardless. The same also extends to the individual known as V, even if she is a bit rough around the edges."

"Excuse me?" V muttered annoyed behind N in the ship, while N found himself smiling again.

"For that reason, he hopes that Uzi will soon find a way to overcome her problems and make up with you. That was the message Commandramon entrusted me with." Guardromon simply said. No one said a thing for a moment, before N suddenly hugged the digimon. It was a bit of an awkward hug due to Guardromon's body not exactly making it easy to do so, but N didn't care. The machine digimon looked back and forth between the disassembly drone latched onto him and the one standing inside the ship next to Gabumon for a moment. Then brought up a hand and patted N on the head, who then jumped up and rushed back into the ship

"Did you hear that, V? They are not mad anymore." He said excitedly, stopping himself from hugging her again after the last time he had been overcome with joy just yesterday. V, on the other hand, crossed her arms at this and frowned.

"I doubt that purple thing's partner was mad in the first place. Plus, she didn't even get here herself and just sent that guy over." She retorted before noting the time. It was night once more and technically they could go outside once more. Much to her chagrin though, N seemed completely oblivious to what she had just said, almost bouncing around on his feet before N swept up Gabumon in a hug, who looked rather flustered at N's sudden outburst of affection.

"N, please put me down. I'm not a stuffed animal." The reptile digimon said timidly after a moment of shock, though he too was happy that N was happy. At the same time, Guardromon looked over at V.

"I assume you are the individual known as V then?" The Champion-level digimon asked.

"Do you see anyone else in this place?" She replied sarcastically.

"No." Guardromon simply said. "I do not. If that is the case though, I-"

A loud crash outside the spire cut the conversation and N's celebration short when all of them turned around towards the source of the noise. N and V both left the pod with Gabumon, while the machine digimon walked towards the entrance of the spire. That was when the sound of heavy stomps echoed through the air and caused the ground to vibrate slightly before the disassembly drone heard a pair of familiar voices.

"Uzi, I don't think I fit through that."

"You'll be fine, just duck."

"Alright, hold on tight!"

The footsteps grew louder and faster as whatever was coming clearly sped up. Then without a warning, Hi-Commandramon burst through the entrance, sliding on his stomach after having run up towards the spire and leapt towards the admittedly narrow entrance for him. The momentum of the charging cyborg dinosaur made him just barely fit through the gap inside the spire's wall, widening the whole a bit with his shoulder and sending dead worker drones that composed the walls flying. Uzi, meanwhile, still held onto her partner's hair for dear life while standing on his neck like a ship captain holding onto the steering wheel. Sliding in like a penguin with great speed, Hi-Commandramon ended up knocking Guardromon across the spire's interior and approach the ship with N and V in the front a bit fast. Quickly, the digimon tried to slow down, dragging his feet and tail on the ground, finding himself unable to move his arms and leaving a trench in the ice and scrap metal in his wake. And just as they were about to slam right into the disassembly drones and their ship, he managed to stopp an arm's reach in front of them.

For a moment everyone was silent. Warm breaths escaped Hi-Commandramon's nose through the holes in his face plate where his nostrils were with a hiss like steam from a train. Then Gabumon's eyes rolled back and he fell unconscious to the ground.

"Uzi, let's never do this ever again." The Champion-level digimon muttered, the yellow organic eye behind the face plate looking back as he said that.

"We are not going to talk about this ever." Uzi replied before noticing N and V in front of them, who looked back up at her. 'Oh great... At least it looked cool.' She thought to herself.

"Hi Uzi." N waved happily, while V shot her a small smirk.

"What's up?"

"Bite me!" Uzi said on reflex, making her partner roll his eyes a bit when he picked himself up. "You haven't seen some weird robot thing around here or something." N just pointed over to where Guardromon had crashed into the ground and was currently picking himself. Uzi's head quickly snapped around, before she climbed down from Hi-Commandramon's shoulder. "Cancel that message! Delete it! Whatever, but don't..."

"Actually, he already told us." N said with an awkward chuckle, cutting Uzi off. The purple-haired worker drone's eyes turned into wide rings at that.

"I have just finished relaying the message Commandramon has given to me for N." Guardromon replied, making Uzi sigh in relief.

"Oh... that's good..." She muttered to herself, before the machine digimon spoke again.

"I have relayed your message first, because it was much shorter." He added. In that moment, Uzi's processor short-circuited a bit as the meaning of those words slowly sunk in. Blush lines appeared on her cheeks in embarrassment involuntarily, while V's smirk widened and N looked awkwardly to the side in an attempt to look literally anywhere than her. For a moment, Uzi stood frozen in place, her face turning back and forth between the disassembly drones and Guardromon. Then her visor glitched and various warnings as well as the symbol of the Solver briefly flashed over her HUD, before she collapsed onto the floor with her face in the snow. Hi-Commandramon walked over to her and nudged her with a finger.

"Are you okay, Uzi?"

"Just kill me already." At that V rolled her eyes, before Hi-Commandramon gently picked her up by the scruff of her neck and put her back on her feet. Uzi let out another groan, before slapping herself to restore her angst levels. Then she turned around to face the disassembly drones. "Since that's out of the way we can..." That was when she finally noticed that V was no longer collared and chained. "N! Why did you let her out?" She said pointing at V, before eyes darted to the ship. "And what did you do to the ship?!" N chuckled awkwardly once more when Gabumon picked himself up from the ground again. Uzi didn't notice the reptile digimon though when she saw the ship a bit scratched up and some of her repairs having been broken again. In that moment, she wondered if this is what her dad felt when N had broken into his doors.

"It does look like a fight happened here." Hi-Commandramon said, noting the damages to both the ship and the spire. His partner, though, simply let out a sigh and facepalmed.

"Well, I guess my murder plans need to get delayed again..." She muttered to herself before crossing her arms and averting her eyes from N and V. "Since Guardromon over there already told you everything, I guess we can just-"

"No." V simply said crossing her arms with a frown, making Uzi's head snap towards her. "What? You think you can just slide in here on that guy and pretend all is well?" V said before switching a hand for claws, making Gabumon scoot away from her a bit and N look at her when he positioned himself between V and Uzi with his arms outstreched.

"V, you promised you wouldn't!" He sounded somewhat hurt.

"And you believed she wouldn't try and do something like this?" Uzi asked sceptically. 'Of course, she's going to try something like that.' She glanced over to her partner, who already pointed the barrel of his grenade launcher at V the moment she got her claws out.

"N, I said I wouldn't mind working with her to figure this out..." V said, catching both Uzi and her partner off-guard for a moment, before smirking. "If she apologizes in person." That made N's body relax a bit.

"Oh, right. I forgot about that part." He chuckled awkwardly, when he turned back towards Uzi.

"You don't say?" V rolled her eyes, slapping N's shoulder lightly. It wasn't hard enough to knock him over like J most likely would have done (and then some more), but enough to make him yelp a bit and rub his arm a bit.

"Wait, what?" Uzi and Hi-Commandramon said in unison, before looking at one another. The digimon nodded towards the disassembly drones, but Uzi shook her head. He nodded towards them again, rolling his eyes. Responded by crossing her arms and tapping her foot on the ground, before pointing at V. At this points, Hi-Commandramon struck the ground with his tail, actually making the others minus Guardromon jump a bit. Finally, Uzi let out another exasperated sigh and threw her hands in the air.

"Fine..." She then took a step towards N, but averted her eyes. "I'm sorry..." She mumbled under her breath.

"Nope, not good enough." V said, leaning against the hull of the ship and earning herself an angry look from Uzi.

"I didn't ask for your input!"

"Uzi, just apologize properly already. I'd rather not have to shoot V again." Hi-Commandramon said, making the worker drone look at him angrily.

"Bite me! Both of you!"

"Don't threaten me with a good time." V teased, while Gabumon looked at the scene with a bit of confusion.

"Is she usually like this?" He asked pointing at Uzi, making V's smile grow wider.

"Oh, you got no idea."

Meanwhile, N just offered Uzi a small smile as if he wanted to say that it was okay and that he understood. But V was insisting and Uzi's own pride was standing in her way, frustrating the worker drone to no end.

'Come on, just apologize already!' She chided herself. 'You're acting like some stupid and boring high school girl character in some romance anime.' That realization made her both angry and flustered as the last thing she ever wanted to be was some stupid love interst whose only purpose was to butter up some male lead with the density of a black hole. "ARGH! FINE! N, I'm sorry for having hurt your feelings back then! I'm not good at this stupid apologizing stuff and I never want to talk about it EVER AGAIN! FROM ANYONE!" Uzi panted once she let all of that out, her visor slightly aglow with a faint blush before looking at N.

"And for being a stupid, emotional angsty teenager?" V added from behind him with an amused smirk. Knowing that she wouldn't get out of this situation without admitting that too, the worker drone felt anger rise up in her.

"YES, FOR THAT TOO! BITE ME!" Uzi was about to jump V and throw hands, when she got swept up in a hug by N. "N! LET GO OF ME THIS INSTANT! GAH! LEMME AT HER!" If she had previously felt like burning up from embarrassment, the realization that N had just picked her up and spun her around while laughing made Uzi's body go full supernova. She weakly hit him on the head and shoulders with her fists, while Hi-Commandramon, Gabumon and even V couldn't help but laugh a bit at her expense. Eventually though, N let Uzi down after realizing how flustered she was and he also couldn't help but awkwardly rub the back of his head there.

"Ah... sorry about that." He said. "I guess, I got a bit too excited with V agreeing to not kill you and those weird dreams we've been having..." N said, making V glare at him and the others raise an eyebrow at the last part. "But I'm sure we'll figure this out together."

"Stop being so sappy." Uzi said, crossing her arms, while Hi-Commandramon patted her on her head with one finger, before she slapped it away. "Now, what happened here and why does all my hard work look like it has been thrown against a wall?" She then said as she moved over to the ship, looking at the dents and cracks in the ship's exterior, where she had just fixed them. At that, V sighed and got the worker drone's attention.

"Basically the reason why I agree to not eat you just yet." She said, making Uzi glare back at her. "Something like your friends there showed up the other night and caused havoc."

"A digimon? Here?" Hi-Commandramon asked N, who nodded before Uzi and her partner finally took note of Gabumon.

"Well, I also just got here by accident, so..." He said, while he stood next to N. Uzi gave V another look, before she pulled her digivice out and looked at the data on the digimon analyzer. But just as she was about to ask how exactly Gabumon showed up here, the holographic display of the digivice shut down when a red warning sign appeared on it.

A loud clang metal hitting metal caused everyone to turn around and notice how Guardromon had stopped moving towards them and instead fell to one knee. His body spasmed and his limbs trembled as a pained groan escaped him. The machine digimon brought a hand to his head while shutting his eyes, clearly not well.

"Guardromon, what's going on?" Hi-Commandramon asked when red streaks of lightning danced across Guardromon's body, hitting the ground around him.

"Anti-Virus systems... failing... Safety... compromised... Cannot stop..." The machine digimon managed to say before its body suddenly went limp and it shut down. Not a sound escaped from him and none of the other people in the spire said a word when all of the sudden Guardromon's eyes snapped open again, but something was wrong. In front of his green eyes, a three-pointed symbol akin to the Absolute Solver was glowing in a baleful red color. However, its points didn't end in arrows but rather in hexagons themselves.

OBJECTIVE: DESTRO* T*E SOLV*R. KIL* *L* H*ST*.

Hi-Commandramon winced slightly when certain line of code popped up in his mind again, the message slowly growing clearer at the sight of the symbol of the hijacked digimon's eyes. A sharp pain ran through his skull and he felt disoriented as if he was standing on unstable ground.

Guardromon then quietly stood up with still spasming limbs, his eyes focused on the disassembly drones. "Target locked on." The machine digimon then raised one arm, when the compartment of the lower arm opened, revealing the semi-sentient projectile he usually fired. "Terminate... URGH!" Guardromon suddenly groaned and staggered, holding his head with one hand, just when Hi-Commandramon moved between the machine digimon and the drones with his shield raised. The grenade took off, but tumbled through the air, exploding with surprising force.

"What the hell, purple thing?!" V said as she glared at the worker drone. "Did you want to send an apology by blowing us up?"

"I didn't sent him here in the first place!" Uzi said defensively, when Guardromon fell to his knees again. One of his eyes was shut tight as he tried to fight off whatever had taken root in his head.

"Mission objective... not possible. Execute secondary protocol..." He said in a strangely automated sounding voice, not unlike the Solver, before the machine digimon turned the valve on his body and opened the small compartment and took something out. Then his eyes rolled back and Guardromon fell flat onto his face. For a long moment, no one said or did anything. Then Guardromon's body began to move again and the machine digimon rose up once more, still holding what he had taken out of his body in one hand as he sat on the ground.

"Why have I been laying in this scrapyard?" He asked with his eyes being back to normal with their green irises and no Solver-like symbol, before turning to Uzi and the others as if he hadn't just tried to attack them. "Greetings."

"What the hell?" Uzi said what everything thought in that moment, when a gust of wind swept up the object Guardromon had been holding, causing it to land on the ground in front of them. Even from afar, the drones could tell that it was a letter. But what caught them off guard was the fact that it was addressed to the disassembly drones. The group looked at one another, before Hi-Commandramon picked up the letter and de-digivolved back to Commandramon. "Hey, wait! That's like the most obvious trap ever." She said as she walked over to him as he sniffed the envelope.

"No, it's not a letter bomb." Her partner digimon said, before Uzi grabbed it from his hands. "I only smell paper." At the same time Guardromon rose to his feet and turned to the disassembly drones with V pointing a gun at the machine digimon.

"What was that all about?" She demanded. "First, you play mailman and then try and blow us up?" Guardromon didn't reply immediately, looking around himself for a moment at first. Then his eyes landed on the letter in Commandramon's hand.

"That letter..." He said, rubbing his head a bit as he fought a headache down. N and V were very confused by this reaction, while Gabumon looked rather worried at the situation. Still he positioned himself in front of the two disassembly drones and between them and Guardromon. "There appears to be a problem with my memories. Multiple instances of today appear to be missing from my mind. What happened after Uzi and Commandramon came here?" He asked, only remembering being knocked out of the way by Hi-Commandramon as he was trying to slow down.

"You suddenly tried shooting us." Gabumon growled out in an accusing tone, blue flames licking out from his closed mouth and showing him clearly agitated. Guardromon's gaze softened at this, while the disassembly drones looked a bit surprised at the sudden shift in Gabumon's attitude.

"I shall not stand for this. This disturbance needs to be investigated immediately." Guardromon said when the thrusters on its body fired up and made him fly back towards Outpost 3. Any protests from V or Uzi were ignored as he flew out of the spire, leaving the drones and the Rookie-level digimon behind. Gabumon also visibly relaxed when Guardromon left with a sigh.

"Looks like he got hacked by someone." He said with a bit of remorse in his voice over his earlier reaction.

"You can hack a digimon?" Both Uzi and V asked simultaneously, making Commandramon shrug.

"It is a machine digimon after all. It is possible, but quite difficult unless you are one yourself." Uzi's partner said before looking at the letter in his hand. Then he looked back to the others and opened it, pulling out a familiar looking lavender colored piece of paper, that made his and Uzi's eyes grow wide.

"What does it say?" N asked when he grew slightly uneasy with the silence stretching on in that moment.

"It's an invitation... to the prom at Uzi's school." Commandramon said, before looking up at N and V. "And it has your names on it." He turned the letter around to show that it indeed read 'Murder Drone N' and 'Murder Drone V'. This certainly caught both disassembly drones off-guard, but it was now clear to them that apparently someone in Outpost 3 had an issue with them and had apparently just tried to send an assassin in the form of a brainwashed robot to eliminate them. V couldn't find the irony in that funny.

Meanwhile, Uzi couldn't help but think about the symbol on Guardromon's eyes being so similar to that of the Solver. In fact, it was one of the variations of the symbol she had drawn in her crazed stupor following their fight with the Solver. Meaning that whatever this had been, was connected to the mystery of the Solver and what was wrong with her.

"Maybe... we should go inside and talk about things there?" Gabumon suggested, gesturing to the disassembly drone's ship upon noticing the growing discomfort among the others within the spire and partially to get out of the cold. The newcomer of a digimon might not understand the situation as a whole, but he knew that standing out in the cold and say nothing was not going to accomplish anything either.

The others turned to him for a moment, before nodding at one another. The group of five made their way inside the ship. It would appear that they had a lot to talk about.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: No Rest for the Wicked

'Hey there, Murder Drones N and V,

you are hereby invited to your high school life's highlight, Prom 3071.
Get over here and party. And this time, the teacher can't do anything about it.
We got DECORATIVE punch this year! Don't even try to drink it, morons.

Also, we are most likely going to talk about this forever even after school, so wear your best outfits for some pictures.

PS: If you won't come, we'll retain all the rights to make fun of you forever.

See you at the party ;)'

'Seriously Lizzy, you just can't help yourself, can you? But at least it is probably better whatever Rebecca might have written into it.' Uzi thought to herself as she looked at the letter in her hand.

Aside from the names in the top line, everything else was the same as on every other invitation for the prom. Uzi had to admit, that writing an invitation like that was not something Lizzy would normally do even if she was the defacto head and she certainly could spot where the social media obssessed blonde girl's influence was in that technically formal letter. She couldn't help but think that it had taken her a few drafts to come up with this without just writing something like 'What's up losers? Get to this super important party that you'll talk about after school'. Naturally, Uzi had also gotten one of those, but that had been some time ago and she just thrown it in the trash back then.

However, that had been before Uzi had gone out to kill the murder drones or a certain digital monster had suddenly appeared in her room from her PC's monitor. Admittedly, if her original plan had worked and she had managed to kill the murder drones, she might would have entertained the idea of going and bask in the glory of effectively having saved the world and the respect of all her peers. But with their regenerative abilities, that plan would only have come so far, now that she thought about it.

Still, even as she held the lavender-colored piece of paper in her hands, it felt completely surreal given the circumstances. She wasn't in her room or Outpost 3, but sitting in the murder drone's ship in stunned silence. A moment later, Commandramon took the letter from Uzi's fingers and handed it over to N, who read through it and passed it over to V, while Gabumon looked a bit unsure what to make of the situation. The five of them sat in an awkward silence around the ship with Uzi and her partner digimon having sat down on a blanket she still had there, while V had insisted on sitting on one of the two office chairs opposite of then. N stood and leaned against the console of the ship somewhere between the two of them with Gabumon had sat down on the same pillow as before between the two disassembly drones. After reading it over, V put the invitation down on the console with a dismissive huff.

"This is the most obvious trap, I've ever seen." She said. "Unsurprising, since it probably came from one of you guys." The disassembly drone added, earning her a glare from Uzi. Gabumon and N looked a bit worried between the two girls as it was clear that there were some tensions between the two of them even after agreeing on working together. Commandramon, however, had his eyes cast down onto his feet with a sad look on his face.

"Yeah, no kidding." Uzi commented as she tried to make sense of this whole situation and actually found herself agreeing with the otherwise insufferable disassembly drone. "The only thing even more obvious if it said something like 'You're invited to your own funeral' or if it was an invitation to some big dinner party." She said sarcastically, referring to the disassembly drones' dietary habits, which involuntarily made her remember that she was also technically on the menu as a worker drone, though she could bite back. Still V didn't laugh or smile at the comment but rather had an anger tick emoji pop up on her visor at the mentioning of some fancy dinner gathering aimed at Uzi. "What, you think I was the one who sent that invitation?" The purple-haired worker drone asked in an offended tone.

"Perhaps. You are the only worker drone, that has put up any sort of a decent fight so far." V said with a shrug. "Though, I guess inviting us to some social function like that would be very out of character for a loner like you."

"Bite me! If I wanted to kill you, I'd just use my railgun and not some underhanded trick." Uzi snapped at her. "I don't want to go there, anyway..." She mumbled the last part as she crossed her arms and looked away. The recent developments had clearly affected Uzi's opinion on that matter and with what had just happened she might as well have to go to the prom to get to the bottom of all of this. And that annoyed her to no end as well as the fact that V was no longer restrained and probably free to go around and murder as much as she liked again. 'I really should have brought my gun as well. And a new chain too.' She thought to herself, remembering that she still had to fix her sick-as-hell railgun back in her room.

"Guys, I thought we said we'd work together to figure this all out. It would be nice, if you didn't antagonize one another." N said as he looked at the two girls, mainly at V though since she was the one who had actually agreed to it in the first place. The other disassembly drone frowned a bit at that, before looking away.

"We literally just got attacked by one of those digimon, that she and the rest of those worker drones in that bunker are friends with, who came here to supposedly tell us that she's sorry. I think I'm justified in being a bit sceptical about whether or not this isn't just some trick." V said. Uzi opened her mouth to repeat her earlier statement that she was not the one who had sent Guardromon to them to deliver that message to them when a quiet voice next to her spoke up.

"No... I was the one who sent Guardromon here to talk to N. He only met Uzi later that day." Commandramon said in a dejected tone, making the other occupants of the ship look at him. "It's because of me he went out here to find you. But I didn't think he could or would get hacked and try to attack you guys... I'm really sorry for that." The cyborg digimon said, refusing to meet any of their eyes. The slight hostility in the air cleared somewhat and Uzi couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him. He had gone out of his way in an attempt to repair the friendship he had with N and it blew up in his face quite literally. With a frustrated sigh, she rubbed her partner on the back. His usually friendly personality replaced by remorse and sadness for what had happened didn't fit him at all. It was awkward for Uzi to look at him like that and even more to try and comfort him when it usually was the other way around.

"Stop moping about that. No one could have seen that coming and it most certainly is not your fault. So don't worry about it, because we are going to find out who did that and kick their sorry butt." She told him with a confident grin, making him smile a bit.

"Thanks Uzi..." Commandramon said, before turning to the others again. "It's just a really complicated situation we have found ourselves in, huh? It also doesn't help that there's no smell other than that of Guardromon on that paper though. It's like no one had ever even touched it in a long time." He added with a sheepish chuckle, though the others just looked at him in bewilderment.

"Did you think about sniffing out the culprit like some dog?" V asked somewhat weirded out by the mental image of the dinosaur in swat gear kicking down a door before crawling around on all fours like a crocodile and sniffing the area. They all knew that he had a good sense of smell, but it was still a disturbing picture in her mind.

"Ew..." Uzi said, unknowingly sharing V's sentiment on the matter, while her partner hung his head at his idea being shot down.

"It would have been a start at least..." He mumbled to himself, looking away from the others. Uzi crossed her arms at this and leaned her head back against the wall of the ship. They were still pretty much walking blind and this uneasy alliance was certainly not helping.

"Maybe we should take a step back?" N suggested, making V and Uzi look at him. "You know, just checking the facts and see what we actually know so far for sure." For a moment no one said a thing, before his colleague opened her mouth.

"N, did you just say something that made sense?" V asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Did you actually get hit by Guardromon's attack earlier?" Uzi added, making N look flustered while Gabumon and Commandramon looked at the girls disapprovingly even if it did loosen the tension bit.

"Oh, come on. I'm just a little stupid." The male member of J's squad said. The two girls said nothing in response, exchanged a knowing look and just then looked at him blankly. Afterr seeing their reaction, N hung his head, while Gabumon tried his best comforting him, which wasn't too easy due to the height difference between the two so all he could do was rub the small of his back. It also didn't help that Uzi had given the reptile digimon the long version of what is going on Copper 9, including how the disassembly drones had been sent to exterminate the worker drone population as a whole. That certainly made Gabumon a lot more hesitant around N and V as he glanced at them from time to time with uncertainty.

"N's right though. Maybe we do need to take a step back." Commandramon said, crossing his legs and arms as he tried to think really hard about all of this. "We know that that the symbol of Uzi's mirror-shattering eye is connected to that Absolute Solver... whatever it might actually be." Uzi frowned a bit at that, but didn't interrupt him aside from lightly punching his shoulder. "Regardless, it took over J's body back then and attacked us, meaning it is also somehow connected to you guys." He continued, looking at N and V with the former looking a bit worried and the latter narrowing her eyes at him. "Not that I think you're going to turn into a bunch of centipede monsters giving the likes of Snimon a run for their money. But the connection is there." He quickly added, trying to defuse the situation.

"As long as a certain someone doesn't blow our heads off, we should be fine." V commented while looking at Uzi. The purple worker drone in question was about to suggest trying her railgun on her to see what happens, when N spoke up.

"And then there's what happened just now with Guardromon." He said making Commandramon nod grimmly.

"Yes, it almost looked like the Solver had been used to hack him, but it failed to fully take control over him. Luckily for us." Uzi's partner added before looking back at Uzi for a moment, before sighing. "But that is not all we know about it so far." N and V raised an eyebrow at that, while Uzi simply nodded for him to go ahead. "Speaking of Snimon, when Uzi had been going around for parts to repair the ship, it seemed to have reacted to her eye and went after her, only to stop when it couldn't find her and the eye was not active." Commandramon said, making the two disassembly drones look at the worker drone in the room with surprise. "Afterwards, it headed straight for the spire and attacked you guys, which was weird enough for one of its kind to just go around and try to kill others like that. But the fact, that it seemed solely fixated on the Uzi when that thing with her eye happened, means that it also has some sort of connection to it, you all and the digital world" Uzi's partner concluded. At that Gabumon, crossed his arms and thought about it as well.

"Maybe he's correct about that. You guys were attacked the other night by another digimon for no reason after all." He said. "That does not exactly sound like a coincidence."

"That still does sound like a bit of a stretch, especially since we got no idea what it actually was." N said, but Gabumon shook his head as he looked up at him.

"I don't think so. I may not have seen a digimon, that fits your description and throws statues around, but I think I've heard stories about them." The reptile in wolf's clothing said.

"You know anything about that particular digimon?" Commandramon asked surprised as he two couldn't say what sort of digimon had attacked the spire the previous night, when Gabumon scratched the back of his head at that.

"Uhm... w-well... I mean, we usually keep to ourselves, but we do keep up with the rest of the digital world. They say some of the celestial digimon employ something like what you mentioned to guard and defend their places from digimon of the Dark Area." The reptile digimon said, making the drones in the ship look a bit confused at this. From what Commandramon had told them before, digimon literally came in all shapes and sizes and from what sort of digimon they have seen so far, they were inclined to believe that statement in a literal sense. Still the idea of there being literal angel and demon digimon even though they knew someone like Impmon was still a bit hard to believe. "But it is strange... why would these digimon go after you specifically? It sounded like they targeted you specifically, despite only being there by accident if that Impmon you talked about really had something to do with them being in the real world to begin with." Gabumon addded.

V wanted to retort something but closed her mouth again when Gabumon's argument had made a lot of sense. Coupled with the previous attack by Snimon, it was clear that they had some reason to attack them and that something appreared to be linked to Uzi's eye. The thought of something coming after it both slightly amused and worried her as it would mean that more would come both after the purple thing as well as N and her.

"Is there anything else you might know from the digital world that might help us here?" Commandramon asked. "Like have you heard of anything that might be connected to what we have been talking about?"

"Hm... I don't think so... the digital world has been a bit restless ever since the connection to the human world has been cut off for quite some time and news are-"

"Guys, as much as we'd love to learn about your home dimension or whatever, we're getting off topic here." Uzi said, cutting Gabumon off. The red-eyed digimon tensed up at this before looking at the ground, while her partner rubbed the back of his head.

"Right, sorry. Just wanted to see whether there was another lead there." He said. "Finally, we got that invitation to the prom in two days. At least we got a lead." What Commandramon didn't say was that he felt like they already had another lead in the shape of the hologram the Solver had projected of Nori and Uzi as a baby in her mother's arms and both of them having the Solver symbol on their visors for a moment. 'This could have also just been a trick. Some sort of way to try and throw them off, before attacking while their guard was down... But it didn't feel like that.' He shot his partner a worried look when he thought about that, but Uzi remained oblivious to his inner turmoil in regards to that topic. Instead, the worker drone teen realized that he was right about them indeed having an actual lead now, making her start to chuckle and cackle to herself, which unnerved the others in the ship a bit.

'I knew it! I KNEW IT! I knew I wasn't going nuts!' She thought to herself, while even Commandramon scooted away from her slightly when N cleared his throat awkwardly, clearly not liking to be the only to cut Uzi's little celebration short.

"Uh... before we forget it, we still got one other issue to address." N hesitantly said when he looked over to Gabumon. The reptile digimon soon found himself in the center of everyone's attention and covered his face with his hands, trying to hide his blush. "Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean it like you are an issue or something." N quickly apologized and patted Gabumon on his head and back, making the digimon turn away in embarrassment.

"Oh, right..." The worker drone teen muttered, recalling that the main reason V even agreed to working with them was that they got beaten up pretty badly by that one digimon and how them appearing might become a bigger problem to not just them, but her as well if they all reacted similarly to her mirror-breaking eye. Seeing the timid digimon wearing a wolf's fur not being instantly hostile towards her or the others was a nice change of pace though. "How did you even get here in the first place?" Uzi asked while Gabumon's eyes widened for a second, before chuckling awkwardly.

"That's... a bit of an embarrassing story really." Gabumon said, but the others just looked at him for a long moment before he finally relented. "Well..." And so he began to retell the events that landed him on Copper 9.

Unlike the frozen dead planet he had found himself on, the region of the digital world Gabumon had come from was characterized by a warmer, more temperate climate and dense forests. To the normally shy digimon, it was ideal as there was plenty of food and water as well as the forest itself providing enough opportunities to hide from other digimon when he wanted to be left alone. That and it a region frequented by Garurumon, who left behind enough residual data for Gabumon to collect and fashion his pelt out of it. But every now and again, Gabumon also felt more confidence well up in him with his pelt and became more adventurous when it came to exploring his home.

That however also meant taking good care of that fur pelt whenever it became damaged or dirty. The latter had been the case after one his trips during sudden heavy downpour had resulted in the reptile digimon tumbling down a small hill through several bushes and coming to a stop in a muddy puddle. So, it had only been natural that he had dragged himself caked in mud and twigs towards a small stream to wash his pelt and himself. The former had been a much longer undertaking but also the more important one to him as he painstakingly removed leaves and twigs from the fur and washed it before he had put it on a low hanging branch to let it dry. With the skies clear and it being rather windy that day, it would only take a short while.

Once secured on the branch, he had then walked into the stream to remove the mud and leaves from his own yellow skin. It had been rather cold and each splash of water had made him jump a bit, but it certainly had been better than to walk around looking like a sentient pile of compost. However, when Gabumon had and returned to the shore slightly shivering, he found that his pelt was gone.

"Oh, this is bad! I thought I secured it properly. Where is it?" He had thought aloud while looking everywhere in the immediate area. It didn't lay under the tree in the grass of beneath some shrubs, making him fear the worst that it somehow got blown away by the wind or fell into the stream and was carried away by the water. Naturally, he had started to panic bit at the thought, just when he caught a glimpse of a familiar pelt fluttering in the wind just above the trees. Running deeper into the forest where his pelt had been flying, Gabumon tried his best not to stumble upon the roots of the trees or smaller shrubs that might cause him to trip and fall. For all he knew, it wasn't gone too far yet and he could still get it back if he managed to scale up a tree and catch it.

However, when he came into a clearing, he figured out what had truly happened when he saw another digimon playing with a kite. More specifically, his pelt having been turned into a kite, by tying to two branches to its underside and a long threat to let it fly in the rather strong breeze. The digimon before him looked like a mushroom with a deep purple cap and yellow rings, while the stem had arms and legs. Its hands and feet were covered in magenta-colored gloves and boots and fastened with black belts, while the gloves hand a white skull symbol on them. Now, Gabumon knew the various digimon inhabiting this forest, but he certainly was not happy to see this bully of a digimon stealing his pelt.

Digimon Analyzer

Mushroomon

Level: Rookie

Plant Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: Fungus Crusher

"Hey!" He called over to the Mushroomon, making it turn its body around to face him. "Give me back my pelt!" Gabumon's demand did very little to impress the plant digimon when it merely laughed at Gabumon.

"Ha! What are you even supposed to be? No wonder you guys always run around with those pelts." Mushroomon chuckled before reeling in the makeshift kite and held it up. "See this? I found it, so it's mine now. You can go and make yourself a new one." It smirked, while Gabumon's face turned red with anger at his pelt being treated like this.

"I said, give it back!" Gabumon ran towards the other digimon, who simply stepped out of the way and held out his foot. The reptile digimon tripped and fell to the ground with a groan at this, causing the bully to chuckle even more.

"Or what? You're going to poke me with that horn of yours? Pathetic." Mushroomon said, while looking down on Gabumon as he stood up again. "Here catch, Fungus Crusher!" The plant digimon then summoned a bunch of small mushrooms in his hand with red caps and white dots on them sporting small feet and grins with sharp teeth, before throwing the bombs at the Gabumon, who could only raise his arms to shield his face when the bombs exploded upon contact and caused him to hit the ground again.

"Ow! Hey! Stop tha- ACHOO!" The reptile digimon suddenly found himself sneezing uncontrollably from the cloud of spores still lingering in the air. Whenever he tried to speak, another sneeze came from him, causing his eyes to water. This sight greatly amused the Mushroomon as it held its stomach from laughing so hard.

"Hahaha! Serves you right, you wannabe digimon." It managed to say before turning around and throwing the kite back into the air. "Now let's see what I can do with this." It started playing again, while Gabumon glared at him although his vision had become foggy from his teary eyes.

"Why you-ACHOO!" He managed to say when with the next sneeze a small burst of blue flames came out of his mouth. Mushroomon was too busy steering its kite in circles to notice that though, when the fellow Rookie level digimon finally got his breathing under control again. "Petit Fire!" It said, breathing out a stream of fire towards the Mushroomon, forcing it to jump out of the way to avoid getting burned. In doing so however it had let go of the line and allowed it to fly away with Gabumon giving chase, leaving the startled Mushroomon behind in the clearing. "Oh, come on!"

Luckily for him, the kite had quickly begun to lose height and the loose construction of sticks broke apart, although it did fall down right on top of Gabumon's head, who was once more running through the forest. He hadn't quite seen them, but from the sounds of it he must have past some startled digimon along the way, making him quickly sputter apologies while he was still running.

"Hey!"

"S-sorry!"

"Watch it! That was expensive!"

"I'm so sorry! Coming through!"

"Get back here!"

"I'm sorry!"

Before long though, Gabumon had reached another clearing where he found his pelt had come fluttering down onto the branch of another tree. Letting out a sigh of relief, he had then walked up to it and tried to grab it. Only to realize that it was too high for the short digimon, who groaned in frustration. So, he had turned to the tree itself, before starting to climb up. The bark had still been damp and slippery from the previous rain and unfortunately Gabumon had no claws on his hands, which had made the climb even harder. Still, he had sworn he would not leave without his pelt.

Once up there he had tried his best to balance himself on the branch his pelt was still hanging onto and to not look down. A fall from that height would not be deadly, but it would hurt. Stretching his arms out, Gabumon slowly inched his way towards his pelt. Rather than taking steps, he had been more or less draging his feet along the bark of the branch to avoid rocking it too much and causing it to snp off. The way it had ebnt under his weight had made the digimon already rather uneasy, but he pressed on regardless.

That was when a particularly strong gust of wind suddenly had shaken the tree and forced Gabumon to cover his eyes, making him stumble forward. His arms quickly found the branch he had been balancing on and held onto it for dear life. Once the wind had subsided, he had opened his red eyes once more and found himself hanging upside down from the branch.

'What a day...' He had thought to himself before starting to inch closer towards his pelt still fluttering at the end of the branch. The closer he came the more the branch started to lean down and the wood to protest with faint yet audible cracks. Aside from the fear of falling down, Gabumon had also felt rather uncomfortable hanging from the tree and crawling along its branch like a Kunemon. 'At least no one's here to see this.' He had tried to think positively. Slowly but surely, he kept making his way towards his stolen possession and tried to reach for it without having to crawl all the way over out of fear that the branch might snap soon, which it was judging by the loud cracks now ringing in his ears like gunshots.

"Just a little more. Come here..." He had muttered to himself, reaching with one hand for one of the legs of the pelt. The purple claws of the limb fluttered around wildly, almost as if trying to slash at his hand. But eventually, Gabumon had caught it like in a firm handshake. "Aha! Gotcha! Now I just need to..." He had been about to crawl backwards when he suddenly felt some resistance. Turning to the pelt, it appeared to be stuck in some sort of way. Gabumon had then pulled a bit hard and eventually snapped off the tip of the branch. The recoil almost made him loose his grip while hugging his pelt to his chest.

That however had two rather unfortunately consequences for him. First of all, the branch started to rock harder as the wood behind him starting to splinter with loud cracks. And secondly, Gabumon had looked down, his eyes wide when he saw malevolently crimson glowing tear in reality appear on the ground beneath him. He had no time to question it when something stepped out of the portal.

"Huh? Wait a minute, this isn't that annoying brat's place. No, this isn't the bunker at all. Did I seriously end up back in the digital world?!" Impmon had said as he looked around the forest. The small demon digimon facepalmed at this before letting out a groan. "Ugh! Bite me! Can't you portals for once be stable? Whatever... I might as well grab a bite first and then... Ouch! Huh?" That had been when Impmon noticed the yellow reptile hanging down from the branch above him look at him when a piece of wood fell on his head. "What are you looking at, stupid?"

"Sorry, can you help me down? I think the branch's is going to-" Gabumon had been cut off when the branch rocked a bit more, heralding the digimon's fall. Impmon grinned mischievously.

"Sure, just hold still." He told Gabumon before forming a pistol with his hands when a small fireball appeared in front of it. The yellow digimon's eyes widened at that and quickly brought his other hand forward to signal Impmon to stop.

"Waitwaitwait-" That was when Gabumon's legs lost their hold on the branch and he started to fall down. "AAAHHH!" Impmon's grin vanished and morphed into a face of shock before quickly turning around and jumping away with a combat roll as to not get accidentally crushed by Gabumon. However, Impmon's mark was completely off when Gabumon didn't fall where he had been standing but rather right into the closing portal Impmon had arrived in. There had been just a flash of crimson and then Gabumon was gone.

"And that's when I fell out of that portal here and landed here." Gabumon concluded his tale. "I guess, I must have let go of the pelt when I fell through." He mused, not noticing how Commandramon, N, V and Uzi all looked at him. The reactions of each of them varied.

"Oh, don't worry buddy. You did great. Luckily you still got it back." N was looking rather sympathetic at Gabumon for having been picked on by others, while patting him on the back. He most certainly felt bad for how Gabumon had been treated by that other digimon, that had stolen his pelt. Not because his own personal belongings had been taken or destroyed by J, because he never had much to begin with like that. Still, he was quite sure he couldn't look at pictures of mushrooms the same way he had until now for the moment.

'Huh, I guess jerks exist in every world.' Uzi thought to herself, involuntarily remembering the ridicule of her own peers in the past. As much as some parts of the stories did amuse her a bit, she didn't laught or mock him for it.

"You should have deep fried that mushroom loser right from the start." V said nonchalantly while scratching the reptile digimon behind the ears, who leaned a bit into the touch. N and Uzi silently nodded in agreement to V's statement. 'This guy really is just too soft for his own good like N. And why is his pelt so soft?' Upon realizing what she did, she quickly withdrew her hand and put it back in her lap. There was another part of the story that interested her, however.

Commandramon nodded to himself before he spoke up. "Sounds like the portal Impmon came through the other time with the vending machine. And Guardromon said he came through a portal like that as well because of a stolen vending machine." The cyborg digimon mused. "I guess that confirms that Impmon is for some reason able to open up portals to the digital world."

"I knew it." V crossed her arms as she frowned, before it morphed into a sadistic fanged grin. "Great, so we have two targets. That little, good for nothing nark and whoever sent us that letter." She said while switching her hands for claws. In response, Gabumon moved quickly behind N as to not get accidentally cut by V's talons, while Commandramon thought to himself aloud.

"It doesn't mean that he has anything to do with this whole Solver thing, but he's definitely a problem if he keeps opening up gateways to the digital world like that." Uzi's partner digimon mused. "Who knows what might come through next time. Not only that, it is strange that Impmon would always come back to this world for some reason..." Commandramon was cut off by Uzi patting him on the back once, making him turn to her. "Sorry, I was rambling again. But we are going to get through this together." At that his partner smirked a bit.

"So, I think we can agree that he has something to do with that as well and better figure out what it is, right?" Uzi said. "Then we better kick his sorry butt whenever we find him and squeeze the answers out of him."

"For once, I actually agree with the purple- I mean, Uzi." V corrected herself with a humorless chuckle. "What has the world come to?" N smiled a bit at her showing some form of cooperation. Although on the inside, V was still not fully sold on the idea. "So, what are we going to do?"

"I think we should focus on the issue with the prom first. We have no idea where Impmon is hiding and if he can really open up gateways to the digital world, it is pretty much impossible to track him. The question would be why that digimon keeps coming back here." Gabumon said, before shaking his head. "That would be something only he could answer. But back to the prom business. For starters... uh... what is a prom?"

"Uhm... I'm not so sure myself really." Commandramon added, despite having worked on setting up the stage in the gym hall earlier today. He had only heard some of the plans the male students had while working with Thad and Guardromon, but he didn't understand half the things they said. 'Like what does it mean to "pick up chicks"? I thought there are no chickens on Copper 9 anymore or any other birds.'

At that moment, the drones in the ship where once more reminded of the fact that the digimon didn't know certain things that were common knowledge for them.

Impmon has had two major discoveries when he had woken up from his nap inside the high school's gym. First of all, opening that storage room from the inside was a far more annoying thing to do for someone of his short stature and limited physical prowess. After someone must have closed the door without noticing him asleep on the aesthelics mattresses, Impmon had to try really hard to get the door to open again. Luckily it wasn't locked as he was not quite sure whether or not him melting that part of the door would have done him any good as he'd still have had to lift the door up. Once he had accomplished that and he he had hung in the air from the door swinging upwards into its railings above, the small evil digimon found himself in a not so cluttered gym hall again, meaning some janitorial staff or teacher must have cleaned up.

The second major discovery Impmon had made was that the gym hall itself had indeed been locked overnight after a lot of pushing, pulling and rattling the door like a monkey rattling the bars of its cage in a zoo. After a lot of frustrated cursing, the digimon had then decided to use a shortcut to get himself back into one of the hallways in the bunker. Unfortunately, he had instead ended up in the digital world again, almost got body slammed by some confused Gabumon and stole some meat from a nearby meat field. He was still surprised that meat came from animals and didn't just grow from meat plants in the real world like it did in the digital one, but that was apparently just how it was. Another curiosity the digimon put on his mental list of things that made little to no sense to him one way or the other. It certainly was better than the stale snacks and soft drinks on Copper 9 in taste, but he found himself somewhat missing those.

After him narrowly avoiding the wrath of the crop field's owner, Impmon then opened another portal back to the real world and soon found himself back inside Outpost 3's school. The pale-blue lights on the ceiling had been dimmed as usual and Impmon had admittedly some trouble seeing in the dark when the lights in the corridor ahead had been turned off for some reason.

"Oh that's not creepy at all." He said sarcastically to himself, before his usually confident smile turned into a frown. "Come on, Impmon. You're an evil digimon for crying out loud. You're not afraid of the dark. Just a long dark corridor in the middle of the night in some totally not haunted high school." He told himself, still remembering his run-in with what he thought was J during the parent teacher conference the other day before starting to walk into hallway. It was only a moment after a metallic bang rang through the hallway and Impmon yelped in pain after stubbing his two on one of the lockers. "OUCH!" Hopping up and down on one foot, while holding the injured one, the digimon hit another locked with his back, the lock placed on its handle hitting him right in the small of his back, making him tense up. "AGH! DAMMIT!" He kept hopping along the corridor like that just when he bumped into a trash can, making a loud clattering noise. "WHO PUT ALL THESE THINGS HERE?! IS THIS AN OBSTACLE COURSE OR WHAT?!"

Finally, he felt the pain in his foot ease up a bit, making him sigh in relief as he put his foot down... only to feel himself stepping on something wet, sticky and lukewarm. After a moment of realizing this, he brought his foot back up, visibly recoiling at the wet dripping sound coming from his foot. He didn't know why, but it made a shiver run up his back.

"Ew..." Impmon said when he brought up a hand and snapped his fingers, igniting a small pink fireballin his hand and lighting up the hallway around him. "What the hell? The janitor needs to be fired if he just leaves something like that on the floor-" His rant was cut off when he looked down and saw what exactly he had stepped in. Or rather what was left of someone. The puddle of oil in front of him was quite large compared to himself, much more than just the regular injury of some worker drone. The black and viscious substance only reflected the light of the fire in the digimon's hand slightly as he kept looking at it. The only thing that told him that this had most likely have been a person at some point was a pair of broken glasses laying not far from him half submerged in the oil and reflecting the light back to him more than the drone's lifeblood. "What the f-" Impmon breathed out when something caught his eye.

Mounted on the wall above the hallway was a surveillance camera. The white plastic exterior appeared somewhat pinkish in his flame's light. But he would not have noticed it at all, if it had not been for a certain three-pointed, holographic symbol flickering above it in a menacingly looking crimson hue. Impmon's eyes widened at this and he took a hesitant step back at this.

'No... This is bad...' He thought to himself when he pulled out his crude list of instructions and glanced at it. Right at the bottom the very same symbol of the Absolute Solver was drawn on it with a single word written next to it in what appeared to be red crayon. Admittedly, his DigiCode was not the best, but even he still recalled the meaning of that line when he had written this one rule down on his list. 'RUN' as in 'When you see this, get the hell out of there!'. Impmon didn't even notice when the flame above his finger fizzled out when the noise of footsteps approaching his location snapped him out of his stupor. Quickly the digmon's eyes darted around the corridor before spotting a grate of a ventilation shaft. Without thinking, he quickly dove inside and scrambled crawl away from the crime scene.

The first thing the members of the WDF noticed when they opened Door 1 to see Guardromon come back was the look he had on his usually stoic face(?) with both of his green eyes being narrowed as if glaring at someone. This struck them as odd, but the worker drones still let him in.

"Welcome back, pal-" The worker drone at the door tried to make conversation when the digimon merely walked past him and the others with heavy and determined steps and his hands clenched into fists, before stopping at a wall near the entrance and standing completely still. For a moment, the worker drones of the WDF looked at one another in confusion. They knew Guardromon to be a bit dense and hyper focused on the whole defending part of their job description, but he was usually just stoic then. Now it felt more like he was angry about something, which the worker drones didn't think was possible before.

"Uhm... you wanna play poker?" Another member of the WDF asked hesitantly.

"Later." Was the only response Guardromon gave before shutting his eyes to contemplate what had happened just now and to recall everything that had happened today.

Accessing his files was easy enough of a task for a machine digimon like himself. While his primary functions were those of defending objects of interests and locations, he was still more than capable of pulling up the files of his memory to review weaknesses in the defense. In general, Guardromon had quite a bucket list of things that could be done to improve Outpost 3's fortifications given all he had seen in his relatively short time within the worker drones' bunker. Starting with the fact that inner structural integrity of the bunker was somehow unable to stop a disassembly drone from bursting through the roof much like it would have been the case from the outside was a rather concerning factor in all of this.

However, his goal was to figure out what exactly had transpired when and how that it might explain him suddenly being overtaken by some sort of programming that was not meant to be there. Instantly, he could tell that something was wrong with the files as the entire past 24 hours appeared to be corrupted in one way or another. But whereas these disturbances merely existed like some sort of static in some files, they were stronger in others and resulted in a complete loss of the memories after his talk with Uzi only to appear intact again roughly an hour later when he had made his way towards the entrance of Outpost 3 to head towards the home of the disassembly drones. The same was the case within the spire until the moment Guardromon had been knocked aside by Uzi's partner and reappeared with him getting back up holding a letter. He did not know the contents of that letter nor who had given it to him, but if he had to guess, it was likely the same individual responsible for his earlier malfunction.

"Guardromon? Can you hear me?" A familiar voice tore the machine digimon out of his investigations when his eyes went online once more and he found himself standing in front of a certain worker drone with white eyelights and a mustache.

"I can hear you, Mr. Doorman. My subsystems dedicated to hearing appear to be functional." Guardromon replied when he saw a few other WDF drones glance over to the two of them with what appeared to be unease. "Does there appear to be a problem?"

"No... not exactly a problem. I was just called in after you started acting a bit strange." Khan said when the digimon looked down at him. Uzi's father would lie if he said that Guardromon didn't sometimes intimidate him. Why wouldn't he? After all, he was talking to something that could quite easily kill a worker drone with either those grenades stored within his arms or by simply punching them. From other members of the WDF he had heard nothing but good things about how the digimon was rather durable and physically strong, albeit with a certain lack of finer motor skills. However, he also found him to be quite the dedicated worker. Part of him also didn't like that as it reminded him a bit too much of how the worker drones had been prior to the planet's core imploding.

"There appears to have been a malfunction in my systems... And I may have been the victim of malware." Guardromon finally said, before turning to the corridor leading deeper within the colony. "As a result, I have failed my duty and I wish to investigate this incident to both redeem myself and put my mind at ease." Khan raised an eyebrow at this and looked at the other members of the WDF.

"He just said he had to deliver a message to Uzi's murder friends." One of them said with the others nodding.

"Oh, I guess that's- WAIT WHAT?!" Khan's eyes widened in shock at the mention of the murder drones.

"Be at ease, Khan. You sound like a squeaking door in dire need of lubrication." Guardromon said, though his words did not put him at ease at all.

"I am in no need for lubrication!" Khan said when everyone just looked at him silently, before he realized what he had just said and faint white blush lines appeared under his eyes. "I mean, what exactly did you need to go to those fiends for and what happened?"

"I was tasked with talking to them in order to repair the relationship between your daughter and her friend Serial Designation N after the latter had disappeared from the scene of the battle against his former allies mutated corpse." The digimon said, making Khan frown a bit. Sure, he knew his daughter was hurting from that, but he also thought it was for the best for her to not spend too much time with the murderers of her mother and his wife as well as countless other worker drones over the years. "It appears that N has accepted the apologies by both Uzi and Commandramon."

"Okay... and what exactly happened to put you in such a bad mood then?"

"My systems have been compromised and taken control over by a foreign line of code, making to attempt to attack and terminate the disassembly drones." That statement surprised the worker drones in earshot with some of them actually looking rather happy about that. "Luckily, my systems were able to fend off this attack and prevent the worst from happening." The silent celebrations immediately ceased and were replaced by disappointment, mostly from Khan side though.

"So you're saying that if you were given the command, you could potentially go after them?" He asked carefully. Not that he would try to...

"I could, but I will not as this would stand in direct contradiction with your earlier command." Guardromon said, confusing Uzi's father a bit. Seeing his reaction, the digimon elaborated. "You have told me to keep an eye on Uzi for her own wellbeing and I will continue do so. However, attempting to hurt or terminate her friends would result in her condition worsening and her withdrawing even more than before." Khan found himself frowning even more at this before scratching his hardhat.

"I guess that's true..." He mused to himself, admittedly regretting his earlier question a bit at what kind of reaction that might have for Uzi. Though, having taken a look around her room and the drawings she had pinned to her ceiling, filled Khan with more than just simple unease. "I'm still worried about her though..." Guardromon then awkwardly patted the shorter worker drone on his hardhat before he spoke.

"You are doing the best that you can as a parent. While my knowledge about parenthood is limited to what I've seen and read in my time in this world, I do not think that wishing death upon your only child's friends is a good parenting method." The digimon then moved deeper into the colony. "I shall resume my nightly patrols now. While I am gone, please do not hold off on playing cards in my absence." With that the digimon lumbered off, leaving Khan with a lot to think about. But while Guardromon had said that he was going on his patrols, he had not said where he was starting said patrol or his investigation. 'The first disturbance must have occured within the premises of the school after my talk with Uzi Doorman. Chances of the earlier malfunction's reason being there: very high. Utilizing lethal force if necessary.' He thought when he marched towards the high school section of the bunker.

"... and that's why prom is a stupid thing humans invented to solidify the social status of teenagers all the way to their lives as adults beyond school. And that's stupid and dumb and something only nosy busibodies care about who keep taps on everyone. Anymore questions?" Uzi said as she finished her lecture on the topic of proms with a crude drawing of the set gym hall Commandramon had helped set up for the coming prom next to her on the whiteboard after flipping it over to not having to erase her cool schematics for the ship. In front of her sat Commandramon and Gabumon with crossed legs and wide eyes after having listened to Uzi's version of what a prom was. The purple-haired worker drone looked at the two with hollowed out eyes and panting for air after her 'passionate' speech about her dislike for this sort of event.

Meanwhile N and V both sat on chairs behind the digimon with N looking a bit uneasy and V actually having to hold back her laughter at what could classify as propaganda against having a prom ever again.

"Do you think Uzi has some sort of bad impression of proms?" N carefully whispered over to V, who struggled harder to not burst out laughing. Though his experience were limited to what he might have in his database on the topic, which wasn't a lot, he still felt like some of the statements Uzi had done were just... fundamentally wrong or extremely biased.

"No... what gave you that idea?" She managed to press out before going back to chuckling quietly to herself. 'It wouldn't be so funny if it wasn't half true.' Meanwhile, Uzi glared at the two disassembly drones in the back when Commandramon raised his hand.

"If prom really is such a mass brainwashing event, shouldn't be try and prevent it from happening?" He asked, making V finally lose composure and laugh out loud. At her partner digimon's question, Uzi found herself stammering and angrily trying to form a coherent sentence.

"That's... why... we... dammit!" She finally glancing away and crossing her arms. 'We could do that, but we'd lose our only lead...' She thought to herself, having to reluctantly acknowledge that this little sacrifice on her part was for the greater goal of figuring out what had happened. "That's not important! What matters is that we need to figure out who sent that letter before the prom night in two days. Meaning we only have tomorrow and the day after to find that out. And we need to make sure that both of you stay out of the bunker when that happens." Uzi said pointing at N and V.

"Aww... But I really wanted to go." N quietly said in disappointment, once more giving the two girls the impression of a kicked puppy. Despite the fact, that this was clearly a death trap set out for them, he really was just a guy who wanted to socialize and have fun with his friends. "Though, I guess it would be awkward to show up there with... you know, us being made to hunt them down. Oh and of course being there with three people likely also sounds weird." As much as he was aware, it was more of a thing to go there with a romantic partner and not only did he doubt that V would want to go with him, there was also Uzi to consider. A blush suddenly crept up his lower visor at the mental image of the three of them going there. 'No, wait! This is totally wrong!' While N was silently panicking, V smirked a bit.

"Duh, exactly! We show up fabulously." At that V struck a pose while sitting, leaning back on her chair and kicking a leg out as if dancing. "Uzi over there lets us in since she got no friends." She added, causing the purple-haired worker drone to glare at her. "We find out who wants us dead, pop their head off and maybe some more for dinner later." V finished, making everyone look at her in shock. "What? We still need to consume oil or did you forget that already?" She asked.

"Oh right... you still need to... feed..." Gabumon muttered as he looked a bit uneasy about that subject. Letting them into the bunker was like letting wolves into a flock of sheep. Or one wolf and one very apologetic shepherd dog trying to stop that wolf from eating the whole flock.

"Hell no! You expect me to just let you walk in on an all-you-can-eat buffet and let you go wild? No deal!" Uzi refused to entertain that idea outright, much to the annoyance of V.

"What is the alternative then? That letter was addressed to both of us. Chances are that whoever sent, it wants both of us dead. You think they are just gonna settle for one showing up and let the other get away with knowing who they are?" The disassembly drone retorted.

"I'm saying I'm not letting you of all people in there, V. You are probably just looking for a way inside to kill everyone anyway."

"So, you want me to stay out here, while you use N as bait to spring the trap?" V's tone turned a bit harsher than she meant it to be, but she felt justified. "You better not say that's your plan." For a brief moment, Uzi seemed taken aback by V's words, before the shock quickly morphed back into irritation.

"I want neither of you there! I will just figure this out before the prom." Uzi took a demonstrative step towards V at this as if this would somehow give her words more weight, but the latter of the two called it.

"How do you plan on doing that? You are as clueless as we are about this." N was about to move and stop V from standing up and get into an actual fight when another person stepped in.

"GUYS STOP!" Commandramon suddenly moved between the two girls and halted Uzi's advance before looking at them. "Arguing like this won't help us find whoever tried to kill you. We got to think this through, but if we fight each other that person, whoever they might be, won't even need to ambush us." He took a few deep breaths after that, letting his words sink into everyone's minds before he turned to his partner. "Uzi, I think V is actually right this time."

"What?!" Uzi said looking shocked and feeling like Commandramon had just betrayed her.

"Actually right? Was I ever wrong?" V crossed her arms at the digimon's remark, but he didn't react to it.

"Whoever used the Solver to hack Guardromon clearly knows that we might suspect something if Guardromon comes back to Outpost 3 and has not killed N and V. They clearly want them to go to the prom to attack them as well, but we will only be able to tell who it was for sure if they make their move at the prom. We need to intercept that from happening that night." The cyborg digimon argued.

"We could just figure out who it was before then." Uzi retorted still convinced that they could just do that before it was too late, even if she didn't know exactly how to go about this.

"How? Everyone in Outpost 3 knows N and V's names, meaning it could have been everyone with a connection to the school." He said before turning to the two killing machines. "Not to mention how pretty much everyone in the bunker has a reason to want you two dead if your home didn't make that clear enough."

"Oh..." At that N looked guilty to his feet when he was once more reminded of all the lives he and his squad had taken over the years. How could he not be reminded of that when he was literally living inside a skyscraper-sized pile of corpses he had erected and maintained alongside the others? Naturally, Uzi had told N and V about her mother before and how that was the whole reason for her trying to kill them. But amplified by all the potential families and loved ones N and his squad had destroyed ever sinve coming here, it truly left little to no one who wasn't left unscathed by the years of them decimating the worker drone population to little more than footnotes compared to before. V merely rolled her eyes dismissively at Commandramon's assessment.

"In short, we only have this one chance, Uzi. If whoever it is figures out that we are onto them, they might blow the whole thing off or they change plans entirely. Most likely they also know about us working with them." Commandramon turned back to his partner at this, who opened her mouth to argue but said nothing. She still looked quite unhappy about this assessment of their situation, but there was reason behind his words. "As long as we make sure V doesn't kill anyone in the bunker, we can make this work, right? We let them spring the trap and then we jump into action and figure out what is wrong with you and that Solver thing."

'If we start acting suspiciously around home, they might actually blow the whole thing off and we stand there like idiots. Ugh, why must my murder plans always be so complicated once logic enters the discussion? I just want to frickin' blow someone up with my railgun! Is that really asking for too much?!' Uzi internally whined before she crossed her arms with a huff. "Fine, whatever. But the moment she goes off the rails, I will shoot her." She said pointing at V, causing Commandramon to sigh of relief and N to look up a bite hopefully.

"Wait does that mean we are going to the prom?" He asked exicitedly with his tail happily wagging a bit as he looked at V and Uzi.

"Looks like it." V smirked a bit, while Uzi huffed.

"Yeah, sure." She said averting her eyes from the overly friendly disassembly drone, who jumped up from his chair in jubilation.

"Yay!" He said when he hugged Commandramon as thanks for convincing Uzi. Though her partner digimon found his hug a bit strong it was by far not as bad as getting nearly choked to death by Lizzy. "Thank you, buddy."

"Uhm... no problem." He managed to say when Gabumon joined the hug, making Commandramon struggle even more in the group hug. "Can't... breathe... too much... affection..." His wheezing was mostly ignored by the others except Uzi who didn't do anything to stop N and Gabumon as a form of payback.

"Congratulations N. You get two go to prom with two pretty girls." He said while laughing. Once those words managed to penetrate N's thick head, his visor suddenly turned bright yellow at that with a blush and he quickly let go of Commandramon like a hot potato, while his internal temperature skyrocketed. At the same time, Uzi was not far behind as a faint blush appeared on her face as well. V looked at the two narrowing her eyes quietly, before quickly hiding her expression again. Gabumon looked at the others as a moment of awkward silence stretched between them, only interrupted by Commandramon taking deep breaths after N's hug. "Uhm... is something wrong? Did I say something weird?" Gabumon asked confused as he looked around at everyone's reactions when Uzi had previously told the two digimon about how prom dates also doubled as a way to solidify both social statuses and relationships.

"No, no! Not at all. Just... didn't expect that really." N awkwardly chuckled, while Commandramon picked himself up from the floor and walked over to his partner.

"Uzi, your face is all purple. Are you okay?" He asked confused at her expression being unlike anything he had seen so far.

"I'm fine, thank you!" She snapped at him, averting her eyes from him or N or V, looking instead at the picture she drew on the whiteboard instead as if she was trying to burn a hole into it with lasers for eyes.

"Okay then. In that case, we might need to find you something to wear to prom. Might be a bit hard with your size though, like when I looked for that hoodie of yours. But I'm sure some children's clothing store should have-"

"SHUT IT!" Uzi cut Commandramon off, holding his mouth shut as he looked confused at her. As much as this strange situation amused both the disassembly drones a bit, a certain other digimon was actually did not quite understand that.

"I'd give you my pelt, but I think it might be a bit too small." Gabumon offered, lifting his pelt up to reveal his actual face to Uzi, who looked a bit surprised at the offer, before a shiver ran up Gabumon's body and he quickly put it back on. "And I would need something else to wear."

"As cool as it looks with the teeth and all, that would basically cover nothing at all. Are you making fun of me?" The goth worker drone said slightly irritated and finding herself trying her best to not have any more mind images of her in that pelt, while still holding a struggling Commandramon in her grip. 'If it was bigger though... No, it's not a costume party. Wait until Halloween or something like that, stupid!' She thought to herself after she had entertained the idea long enough. "Does it come in black too, though?"

"Well, there are BlackGarurumon, but if you asked a BlackGabumon for its pelt it might start beating you up. They are not the nicest fellows around." Gabumon admitted remembering a run in he had with his darker cousins. Needless to say, he would rather not repeat that as those were also bullies.

"BlackGabumon?" N asked a bit hesitantly when Commandramon nodded, freeing his snout from Uzi's hand.

"There are variants of certain digimon who usually belong to a different attribute. Black variants are usually part of the Virus attribute and something like an evil or dark counterpart to the regular ones." He said in a matter of fact tone, eliciting a quiet "Oohh..." from N. Uzi looked at her partner for a second, before he added. "I'm already a Virus type, so there's no black variant of me... I think?" Commandramon didn't sound too sure about that, considering his memories had more holes than the ruins of the city outside. Still, Uzi rolled her eyes.

"I wasn't going to ask that. I was about to say that we might need to head back home ourselves soon enough since we did what he came here for." She said, before letting go of her partner digimon and turning to N, V and Gabumon.

"Oh right... Shouldn't we go looking for something for you to wear for the prom though?" Commandramon asked, seeing it as easier to have N or maybe even V help her with that sort of thing since they both could fly and thus cover more ground in less time and them actually knowing the city after having been here for so long as well as V also being a girl and thus probably knowing more about fashion than the digimon. Uzi, however, responded by slapping him on the back of the head, making him yelp and her hiss in pain as he was still wearing a helmet.

"Shut it..." She said, before looking at the two disassembly drones. "We can hash out the plan tomorrow night once we know more about it. We'll prepare for that stupid prom on our end and tell you how we are gonna proceed. And no murder prom, got it?" Uzi gave V a pointed look, who merely waved her off.

"Fine. Whatever. You are no fun at all." She said, making both N and Gabumon look at her.

"V..." They both said, but she ignored them. Instead, she just looked at Uzi, who glared back at her before leaving through the door.

"See you tomorrow then or whatever..." The worker drone said dismissively, while Commandramon waved goodbye at them.

"Thanks for accepting our apologies again." He said before Uzi dragged him away. "Whoa, Uzi! What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Bite me!" They heard still heard Uzi tell her partner, before her footsteps faded away once she was out of the pod and soon out of the spire. For a long moment, neither N or V said anything, while Gabumon just looked at the still open door into the spire's ground level silently.

"Looks like we have something planned for the night after tomorrow." V said, leaning back in her chair and smirking slightly.

"Y-Yeah, that should be fun. N-Not like it's a d-d-date or anything." N said, his voice slightly glitching and heat rising up to his head at the thought of going to the prom with V. His reaction made her smirk grow slightly, making him quickly turn away to hide the growing blush on his face. "A-Anyway, I guess I better find something to wear then. You might want to do the same." He said when he stood up and walked to the door.

"Hm. You know, I think I'll let you handle that." V said, making N stop and turn around abruptly with wide eyes. "What? Can't I trust you to find something to wear to this party?" She asked.

"O-of course, V. Leave it to me... oh biscuits..." He muttered the last part to himself, clearly rather nervous about finding something that V might like to wear. Not that he doubted his ability to find something that fit her, but rather his ability to find something that suited her and she liked at the same time. Plus, it would take away a bit from the surprise of seeing her in a dress for the first time. Not that he had been hoping for that sort of thing or anything... Just then N noticed that Gabumon still stood unmoving in the ship, facing the door with his eyes a bit narrowed. "Are you alright there buddy?" N asked as he approached the reptile digimon, making V also aware of him still looking at the door like a dog waiting for its owner to come back or guarding the entrance from some unseen threat. N's voice made him jump a bit and yelp in surprise as he snapped out of his thoughts.

"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking to myself... About Uzi's partner, I mean." Gabumon said a bit hesitantly. "It's just that I've also never heard of a digimon like Commandramon before."

"From what you told us, you literally live in a forest." V said. "Why would you know about some dinosaur in military gear anyway?"

"I have tried living in a city before, but I just enjoy the quiet of nature just more." The reptile digimon said. "Plus, the big city really confused me. But that's beside the point. I think I would have heard of a digimon like that though. That and... I don't really know how to say it. But something about him feels kind of off in a way I can't really describe." He added, making N raise an eyebrow.

"Off? How so? He doesn't seem or act weird." N asked a bit confused.

"Hm... off might not be the right word. Atypical perhaps? It's hard to explain. Imagine you see a person, but the moment you see it you can tell that something is wrong about them. Like they shouldn't be the way they are. Or as if something was pretending to be something else but had no idea how to act because they have only ever read about that sort of thing. Well, I don't think he's putting up an act, but he certainly doesn't behave like one would expect a Virus type digimon and most certainly not like any I know of." Gabumon then shook his head. "Sorry, that probably sounds rather weird and makes no sense to you guys at all."

'You got no idea.' V thought to herself, her mind thinking back to the time when a certain girl called Tessa brought home a small worker drone with yellow digital eyes to her family's manor. At the same time, N just gave Gabumon a reassuring smile and patted the digimon on the head.

"Aw, don't worry about it. I'm sure that will all sort itself out." He said and then turned back to V. "So... I'll be going then. See you later." N quickly said before walking out of the pod and taking off with a loud booming sound reverberating through the inside of the spire. V for her part was grateful for N leaving as it gave her some peace and quiet to think about everything so far. She was tempted to fly out the spire herself and go hunting, but their oil reserves were stocked so far and going out hunting might use up more energy than she'd gain back from it. Though there was a certain itch in her that wanted to sink her claws into something. She shook her head at that intrusive thought. It could wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the digimon had looked in awe at N's wings and how fast he flew away for a moment before shutting the door and going back to the blanket Uzi and Commandramon had sat upon before grabbing N's dog book and starting to read... or rather looking at the pictures of the dogs because he couldn't read English. So it was only a matter of time of him looking a bit uncomfortable over to V, before hesitantly approaching the disassembly drone with the book in hand.

"Uhm... Ms. V?" The reptile digimon said, hiding his face behind the book.

"What is it? And just call me V." She said slightly irritated and making him raise the book a bit more making only his straight horn peak out from behind it.

"S-Sorry. I was wondering if you could... help me read this? I am unfortunately not that good in reading human..." Gabumon said, his face growing uncomfortably hot under his mask at the admission. He felt V grab the book and take it out of his hands without saying a word before pointing with her tail at the chair next to her. That made his face light up with gratitude, before climbing onto the admittedly a bit high chair for someone of his height. V rolled her eyes at that before flipping the book open. The dog breeds were in alphabetical order, but she pretty much knew this sort of book already from a long time ago.

"Fine, but this better now become a habit or something like that. Got it?" V said, thinking to herself that Gabumon really needed to work on that confidence of his and better figure out a way to get him back to where he came from. The digimon in question nodded enthusiastically at her before she began. "Alright, starting with the Alaskan Malamute..." V started when she opened the page to a large dog in a field of snow, while the digimon seated next to her was paying attention.

Aside from snow crunching beneath Uzi's boots and Commandramon's feet, the duo walked in relative silence through the streets of the destroyed city back to Outpost 3 the way they had come. The trail the digimon had left behind in his Champion-level form certainly made it easier to traverse through the otherwise new thick layer of snow. It was a bit awkward and both of them knew it, yet one of them didn't want to start a conversation about what had happened in the corpse spire and the other simply didn't know how to or what to say. This continued on when the two passed an old clothing store with Commandramon halting in his steps to look at a few still dressed mannequins in what he knew from one of Uzi's mangas to be a summer dress.

'Why would anyone wear summer clothes on this planet anyway? It has always been this cold even before the planet's core collapsed, right?' He thought to himself when Uzi stopped a few meters ahead of him after noticing him having stopped himself. She turned her eyes towards what he was looking at before calling over to him.

"Come on, Commandramon. We don't have time for this or else V might get ideas or something." She said as she continued to walk towards the bunker, causing her partner digimon to jump a bit and hurry over to catch up to her. Once again, the two simply walked in silence before Uzi facepalmed and let out an irritated sound. "AAARRGH! What a pain! Stupid, angsty teenage protocols!" She said to no one in particular as her voice echoed slightly through the empty streets around them. "This whole situation sucks!" Commandramon gave his partner a worried look and moved to her side.

"Well, I guess it could be worse?" He offered, making Uzi look down at him with an irritated look.

"Really? How? How could this possibly have been any worse than right now?" She asked, making Commandramon flinch back a little at her tone, but he didn't look away from Uzi.

"V could have gone back on her word and attacked you." He said, making Uzi click her tongue.

"Oh right. Let's not forget that this piece of scrap metal is now free to go around and kill everyone again with no one but N holding her back, who apparently has a thing for girls who ignore him most of the time." She muttered to herself as she was just so done with this whole situation and kept walking. 'Wait, why did I even say that? N got nothing to do with that problem. UGH! Stupid N!' She thought to herself trying to shake Gabumon's earlier comment about him going with two pretty girls to the prom and N's reaction out of her mind. She herself might have been a bit taken aback by that as well, but she wasn't blind. "Anything else?"

"We... could have talked about your mother." Commandramon's words suddenly made Uzi stop dead in her tracks as she slowly turned back towards him. The cyborg digimon looked at his partner with a worried expression, which she hated so much. Uzi knew what he meant and found herself touching her necklace as if to soothe whatever emotions were currently welling up in her, but after a moment he found the strength to speak up again. "When we were fighting the Solver possessing J's corpse centipede thing and it showed us that hologram of her... and you as a baby... I think we saw you both have had that-"

"I KNOW!" Uzi's tore through her throat in a scream that made Commandramon actually jump back and surprised even Uzi just for how loud she had been when she said those two words. The worker drone's eyes widened and hollowed out when she realized that and a look of regret etched itself on her face. "I know that... Of course, I know that. Why else do you think I want to find out what all of that means?" Uzi said quieter and cast her gaze to the floor beneath her feet, finding a discarded torn off arm of a worker drone peeking out from the snow in her footprints.

"[MORE LIKE YOU ARE OUR CUTE LITTLE PUPPETS. IT HURTS OUR FEELINGS THAT YOU DON'T REMEMBER US.]"

She still remembered how the hologram of her mother had grinned at her with that wide fanged smile that reminded her of the disassembly drones, namely V's sadistic grins. As much as she wanted to punch V in the face sometimes, that expression on the face of Nori's hologram with the Solver symbol on flickering on and off on her right eye had burnt itself deep into Uzi's mind as if glaring back at her and urging her..., no, DARING her to find the answers to all of this which she was likely not going to like. And perhaps that was even worse than all of this.

Uzi didn't notice Commandramon having walked up to her again until he put a hand on her shoulder, making her tense up slightly when she turned to him.

"I think it would have been worse if we had brought that up earlier. V probably would have been like..." Commandramon cleared his throat, before trying badly to imitate V's voice. "'Oh, the purple one got the weirdness from her mom.' Or something like that." Uzi scoffed at that as the ghost a smile made the corner of her mouth twitch upwards.

"I would have jumped her for talking trash about my mom then..." She said, her voice slightly growing more confident and making her partner digimon smile a bit.

"Yeah, and then me and N would have needed to separate you two before V would actually have tried to eat you." He countered, making Uzi roll her eyes. "Like I told you before, you are not alone in this. I am with you until the end and others too. So don't beat yourself up over this. " He told her before letting go of her shoulder and his face fell a bit as he looked away. "I also want to know what's wrong with me too." He quietly said, making Uzi look at him with a puzzled look.

"What do you mean with that?" Her partner didn't answer her immediately before he sighed.

"Ever since we found out what that symbol is called, I've been having these... headaches." Commandramon admitted. "Whenever I look at it for too long it feels like I am supposed to do something. It's strange... Like I'm forgetting something really important but can't tell what it is. My own lack of memories from before coming here is also not really helping me there, unfortunately." He admitted. Uzi instantly thought back to the time when she first plugged in the digivice into her computer and how her partner had a strange panic attack of sorts, begging her to make it stop as his voice had glitched. Strangely enough, he had not remembered anything about that back then.

"And you didn't think to tell me about that? I mean-" Uzi stopped herself when she remembered how much of an emotionally vulnerable mess she had been after their fight against the demonic-looking robot-centipede-thing J had turned into. If he had thrown that at her back then as well, that probably would have made the mess a whole lot bigger. "Right, that happened. Maybe I should put that headset on you and try looking at your memories." That made Commandramon chuckle a bit nervously.

"Haha... I'm not a machine digimon though. Sure, I got some cybernetic enhancements, but my body is still mostly organic. Plus, Braiden's head is still on fire." He said, thinking back to a certain classmate of Uzi who's hardhat was somehow still burning. 'How is it burning in the first place? Is he secretly a Meramon or something?'

"Oh come on. That was one time. And the idiot can put the fire out whenever he wants. He just doesn't because he thinks it's cool and makes him a more recognizable character." Uzi scoffed before smirking. "Alright, I won't glue electrodes to your head and try to scan whatever data you got in there. Now let's get home and update the map in my ceiling. We got a whole lot of work to do, partner." Commandramon smiled again when she said that.

"Yeah. Right behind you, soldier." He said as the two continued their way back to Outpost 3 with the yellow floodlight above Door 1 coming into view already.

'A good thing we had that conversation out here and not back home. Who knows what Dad would have done if he heard about that? I hope he doesn't do something stupid once I have to tell him about going to prom... Who am I kidding? Of course, he's gonna do something stupid. Maybe, I should have given my railgun a stun mode... Nah.' Uzi thought to herself, while already trying to figure out what to do about the upcoming prom. She should still have a list with the program for the evening in two days' time to help her plan ahead somewhere, unless something drastic happens in the meantime.

Once at Door 1, she knocked against it hard enough to make the others aware of her being outside and soon enough she and her partner were being let in again.

"Hey Uzi. Any idea what happened with Guardromon out there? He looked a bit angry." One of the drones guarding the door said looking up from the poker game with a few others of the WDF at her arrival.

"Nope, but we are gonna find out." Uzi said before she left. Commandramon waved at what were technically his colleagues before trailing behind Uzi back to her family's living quarters. The rest of the worker drones at the door looked a bit surprised at Uzi not telling them to go and bite her like usually.

"I don't... I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. Should we be worried?" One of the WDF members said perplexed after a rather long moment of silence.

"Hey, don't jinx it! Just shut up and hope that nothing bad happens for once." Another member of the WDF hissed quietly at their colleague. Just when he said that Guardromon returned to Door 1. "Hey you're back! Wanna join the game now?"

"The game will have to be postponed. Inform the law enforcement immediately. There has been a manslaughter or potentially a murder." The machine digimon said when the poker-playing members of the WDF threw their cards on the table and shot the one who had commented on Uzi's uncharacteristic behavior a dirty look and muttering to themselves

"Dammit man! Every time!"

"Uzi having a good time is becoming a bad omen around here."

"WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US, DOOR?!" One of them literally kneeled before the closed Door 1 as if standing before a destroyed holy sanctuary.

"The door cannot hear you as it is an inanimate object. Talk to its control panel instead. Its primitive AI can actually hear you." Guardromon deadpanned at that drone's antics, causing the others to groan and make their way over to investigate the situation the digimon had told them about. As he led them to the scene of the crime though, he couldn't help but recall a small oily footprint with three short toes on the ground next to then still lukewarm puddle of oil. 'Suspect: Most likely not a worker drone. Searching digimon database for match...'

With a tired groan Impmon pulled himself further through the ventilation shafts of Outpost 3 after his hasty escape from the school hallway. Not long after he had fled through the grate of the vent, he had heard the loud stomps of Guardromon arrive at the crime scene, but he had not stuck around to wait for the walking miniature water boiler to leave. Instead, he had quickly put as much distance between himself and that red symbol. Along the way he had managed to wipe off most of the oil on his foot along the shafts' walls as it had been impending his ability to push himself further with his feet. Every instinct in his body had screamed for him to flee and that was exactly what he had done.

'Why?' He kept asking himself with each quiet bumping sound he made with his body hitting the metal around him. 'Why why why why? Why was that here? Why now? Why there? Why couldn't things just be easy? Why must that thing be in this bunker of all places?!' He kept thinking to himself, before he eventually stopped when a weak wind of cold air blew in his direction, telling him that he had managed to crawl his way all the way to the outer layers of the bunker that were closest to the surface. Impmon sat down and took a deep breath as he put a hand on his chest. His heart was hammering in his chest so much and hard it almost felt like it was going to burst out of his chest.

"Listen kid. If you see that thing, beat it. No funny business. No fooling around. This is serious. Got that?" He remembered to have been told quite some time ago. A pang of sadness welled up inside him as he felt his eyes grew warm with what threatened to become tears, before he quickly fought it down. 'No, crying like some Baby-level digimon won't achieve anything. I need to just do as I was told and then leg it...' He kept resting there for a while before he saw an open grate not far from where he was. Quietly crawling over to peek down the edge, he found himself looking into the bed room of a teenage worker drone. Even with the lights off, safe a still dimly glowing computer monitor. The first thought he had was one of disgust as even in the dark he could tell that the room was a bright pink in overall coloration and very girly. Resting on the bed beneath the ventilation shaft, Impmon found a certain blonde drone, that he recognized as one of the girls using the vaulting box as a photo shoot, asleep with her visor reading 'SLEEP MODE' in pink pixelated capital letters. 'Okay, that just checks out...' The evil digimon thought to himself when he noticed something laying on her desk.

Illuminated by the monitor was a lavender colored piece of paper with the program for the upcoming prom night. At the sight of that Impmon couldn't help but grin at his luck. He could in theory just wait until day time would come and the girl left her room for school or whatever she was doing during the day hours. But she could in theory also take the program with him and then all the waiting would have been for nothing. Looking between bed and the list a few times, Impmon then began to slowly climb out of the ventilation shaft until he hung down from it holding onto the edges of the opening with his hands before trying his best to angle himself so that he would not fall on top of the sleeping Lizzy.

'Alright, just where is that secret agent background music and rope when you need it?' Impmon thought to himself before he loosened his grip around the edge. He fell a bit of a distance before hitting the edge of the bed and bouncing off onto the ground with a thud. He bit back a grunt of pain when the steady and peaceful breathing of Lizzy was interrupted for a second, before she rolled over and turned her back to him and the desk with a sound of slight discomfort. The evil digimon let out a quiet sigh of relief at that before getting off the plush carpet and sneaking over to her desk where he grabbed the list. 'Now what do we have here? Firing up the music, arrival of guests, prom queen election..., photo shooting...' Impmon's initial grin faded with each line on the list and turned into a scowl. 'I thought that was supposed to be a party and not a boring meeting of people in the same grade. If that was all, they could have cut out the whole party part...' He thought to himself as he found the list incredibly lacking in actual fun activities. Then he thought back to watching the others set up the hall earlier this day and realized that there really was all they had prepared for.

Somehow, this actually rubbed Impmon the wrong way. Sure he was a prank-loving, mischievous, egotistical, uncaring, mean digimon that just so happened to be on the shorter side since he was only on his Rookie level, he knew a party when he saw one and that program didn't look as much as a party as it did look like some checklist of how to waste everyone's time and bore them to death... Of course, with them he meant himself watching the others having fun while the digimon amused himself by messing with them. Yet all he could really see himself doing with this sort of set up was messing with the music system and maybe blowing up that punch table or putting someone's head on fire. Whoever had done that to that bore of a worker drone teen deserved an award in his opinion. Shaking his head, he walked over to Lizzy's bed and hopped onto the edge with the list in hand, trying his hardest to figure out how to spice things up and make that evening actually memorable, while his tail hit the mattress behind him in frustration like a dog's wagging tail.

There was no way he, Impmon, would allow himself to pass up such a chance...

"!?" Suddenly, Impmon felt his entire body tensed up when he felt something grabbing his tail firmly. He hesitantly looked around to see Lizzy having rolled over to face in his direction again while he had been lost in his thoughts and closed her hand firmly around his limb in while still fast asleep, likely having moved it over when it was hitting the bed beside her. "WHA-" Before he could utter any words of protests, the unconscious worker drone groaned in her sleep when she pulled him closer by his tail and wrapped an arm around the evil digimon in a tight hug. With a slight yelp of pain from his tail being yanked, the digimon found himself trapped. "H-Hey let go. I'm not a plush toy! Knock it off!" Instantly, Impmon felt heat rush into his head as his face felt like it was burning with shame.

What was even worse was the fact that Lizzy merely responded by hugging the little devil tighter after her arms did actually find something to hold, pressing his back more into her chest while she nuzzled her cheek against the back of his head as if he was a large teddy bear or something along those lines. If Impmon's face had been slightly red from the initial embrace, it was beet red now when his eyes widened even more at the realization that she was not going let go anytime soon. The digimon tried to free himself out of Lizzy's vice-like grip, only for the metal coils of her arms to tighten even more around him. His arms and legs uselessly moved around to try and loosen her grip, but to no avail as the robot simply didn't budge.

'Oh right... those worker drones were meant to be like labor workers or something if I recall correctly. Of course, they are strong like that.' He thought to himself when he stopped his attempt to escape. He was tempted to try and burn his way out of this situation, knowing fully well that his physical prowess likely wouldn't even leave a scratch on the worker drone even if he hit her with all his might. Doing so however would likely set the whole place on fire and while the digimon thought that charcoal black would probably be a better paint job than bubblegum pink, he'd rather not have to deal with that. What he also didn't want to deal with was this girl waking up and freaking out as that would likely damage his hearing.

And just when he thought that, he felt Lizzy shift behind him, mumbling something as she slowly rose up with him still in her arms. Looking up he saw her visor having changed from reading 'SLEEP MODE' to a closed pair of pink digital eyes. In that moment, Impmon panicked and quickly did the only thing he could think of in that moment to avoid any sort of drama. Relaxing his muscles in his body, keeping his eye wide open and putting on a small smile, Impmon let himself hang limply from Lizzy's arms as he pretended to be a stuffed animal. Yes, it wasn't the best strategy for camouflage, but it fit the situation a lot more than to try and shoot her in the face with a fireball and set the outermost part of Outpost 3 on fire.

Lizzy groggily looked at the dim light of her computer monitor for a second with a disgruntled face and a groan. Checking her internal clock, she saw that it was just past midnight. "Ha... it's too early for this sort of thing..." She said when she sat up in her bed, before noticing the figure in her arms. Looking down, she saw Impmon's backside, before carefully turning him around. He continued to hang limply from her hands, trying her best not to breathe or blink, which was starting to get really hard as his eyes began to sting a bit. The worker drone girl continued to look down at him with a suspicious look. "Did I actually have something like that? I feel like I should know this sort of stuff." She thought aloud to herself, a buffering symbol appearing on her temple as she contemplated as Impmon began to sweat slightly.

'Abort the mission! This is not a test! I repeat, this is not a test! ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!' He thought to himself, when the popular girl rolled her eyes and then just let herself flop down onto her bed again.

"Whatever... At least, it's soft and warm." She told herself, tightening her hold on the 'plush toy' and falling asleep again shortly after. As for the digimon pretending to be a doll, he didn't know whether his situation had improved or not. On one hand she had bought the act. On the other, she was now holding him even tighter and probably not going to budge a whole lot while unconscious. ...And then there was the fact that his face was now pressed against where a human's collarbone would be with her head resting between his two ears. As soon as her screen read 'SLEEP MODE' again, Impmon tried to wiggle his way out of Lizzy's grasp, but to no avail. At the very least, he could move his head enough that he didn't have to worry about suffocating.

'AAAHHH?!' He inwardly screamed in embarrassment at the situation he had involuntarily found himself in. 'This is so humiliating! Degrading! Stupid! It's not like I'm being held hostage by a LadyDevimon... again, but this is not much better! At least, her bed is nice and cozy...' He fought to himself as his eyelids began to feel incredibly heavy, before they shot wide open again. 'Wait, NO! Don't you dare fall asleep now, Impmon!' He chided himself, but despite his mental protest his limbs started to feel heavy and numb as well and he was slowly losing the struggle to stay awake. 'Okay, maybe just a minute... or five... or an hour. Yeah, an hour sounds nice...' He thought, before the exhaustion from earlier took its toll on him and he eventually fell asleep.

One would think that finding clothing items on a dead planet full of human and worker drone corpses was an easy enough task. It wasn't like the dead bodies would suddenly lurch up, try to grab onto whoever was trying to take their last possessions from them and turn them into one of their own like in one of the scary zombie movies the humans had made in the past. At least, N had hoped so. After all, the planet's average below freezing temperatures would make for a good enough reason to preserve lots of things. However, clothing items were apparently not one of them. After years of exposure to the elements, the fragile fabrics and cloths had become loose and torn while a large of human remains didn't even have any of them at all, seemingly having been disintegrated somehow by the planet's core imploding.

Admittedly, N wasn't a scientist, so he didn't understand all that know how at all. What he did know however that the most likely places to find an attire to wear at the evening in two days' time was either a shopping mall or a nightclub that the humans went to. The former however had been thoroughly ransacked by the worker drones after the mass extinction event hit Copper 9. What N had found was essentially a large rectangular building with multiple floor with some damages to the building's exterior and pretty much having been dismantled from the inside. It had looked like the worker drones had taken quite literally everything with them that had not been bolted down and then they unbolted the rest and took that as well.

Now there were some things the worker drones had not taken with them at all, which they quite literally had no use for. For example, they had not really ransacked a grocery store located at the ground floor nor had they taken anything from the underwear and lingerie sections of the shopping mall. Not that N would have either as that would have been very inappropriate and perhaps also seen as insulting by V.

What he had however found was a club of sorts where some sort of celebration must have taken place during the collapse when he had found his way inside through a collapsed roof and onto a dance floor littered with parts of the roof having crushed multiple skeletons in nice suits and dresses. The building had otherwise still been mostly intact with the frozen skeletons of the dead humans still stuck in the moments of their demises. Groups of skeletons had sat at tables in booths as if still talking and laughing at one another over shattered and frozen drinks, a barkeeper had still stood behind the counter with the mug and cloth still in his bony hands while several of the patrons' remains had fallen over and scattered across the ground as old broken bones.

There had been a strange familiarity in a place like this as he had walked carefully between the dead humans, trying to not bump into them and weaving around them with the expertise of a butler trying to not disturb the guests of a high society gathering, whilst carrying refreshments and food to them. That had made him think back to the dreams that he and V seem to have and slightly regret the fact that he had not talked more about those earlier. But for the time being, he had to focus on other things.

Unfortunately for N though, he had still little luck in finding something nice to wear as the damages on the building had enabled the elements to attack the garments of the visitors and staff as well. Damages had ranged with tears and missing buttons to parts of dresses and suits missing. One particular suit with a fake rose in its breast pocket had looked just fine at first only for N round the skeleton and see that the entire backside was missing for some reason.

Behind the building though, he had found what he had been looking for. Two human skeletons, a man and a woman judging by the still fully intact suit and dress they wore respectively, sat against the wall with an empty and ruined pack of cigarettes between them as if they had known what was about to happen to them and instead of spending their last moments in some loud and crowded night club rather had stolen themselves away through the backdoor and enjoyed a last cigarette together before they both died. While that was the admittedly romanticized impression he had gotten from this, N's eyes were more focused on the dapper looking suit and the glittering dress the two were still wearing.

Which was the reason why N was now carrying two dead bodies slightly covered in layers of frost and snow with him through the air and back to the spire as if they were two shopping bags tugged under his arms as he could already see the first orange and yellow hues creep up the horizon as his bladed metal wings glided through the air. Luckily for him, the two skeletons had been, so utterly frozen that their bodies did not break apart while he flew over empty streets and broken buildings. With a beat of his wings, he accelerated and shot faster through the air, trying as best as he could to arrive at the spire before the sun's deadly light would reach it. He ignored any signals of worker drones beneath him in the ruins that his systems picked up as he could not really think about hunting right now.

And before long, he landed in front of the spire's entrance and made his way inside just as the sun rose over the horizon. He wasn't alone in the spire though when he found Gabumon outside, looking through the scrap metal and drone parts littered across the ground. Upon hearing his footsteps though, Gabumon's head turned around and made the digimon smile.

"N, you're back!" He happily said, ignoring the two skeletons he still held in his hands while walking over to him.

"Hi buddy. What are you doing outside the ship though?" N asked, looking between the ship and the digimon. "Did V ask you to get out or something?"

"Oh, no. Nothing like that." Gabumon replied in a hushed tone. "I just went out after she fell asleep to give her some peace and quiet." Now that actually surprised N a bit more. V had never been a slouch on the job when the three disassembly drones had been working together for all these years. Usually she was even awake during the daytime when he was running maintenance work on the spire for some reason, though he always assumed it was due to the noise he made while trying to keep the giant heap of dead bodies from collapsing in on itself.

'I guess her not really having been able to do much while she had been chained up or the stress made her change her sleeping habits.' He thought to himself, just when he saw a streak of light coming into the spire. Mentally he kicked himself for not having thought about that when he had worked on that as per J's orders, but she wanted the entrance to be facing the direction the sun rose up from so that during the evening ours the entrance on the ground level would be in the spire's shadow, technically serving as an ideal early starting point for their nightly hunts. Although, a door would probably have been a good idea too to prevent dawn's light from shining right inside the structure, even with the surrounding buildings of the city delaying that event for a short time.

But then N remembered that the spire had still more holes through which sunlight now penetrated its walls of worker drone corpses and scrap metal, explaining why it was getting rather bright in the spire.

"We better get back inside the ship real quick." He nervously chuckled before moving over to pod with Gabumon, who opened the door for him. Right after slipping inside, N closed the door, biting back a hiss of pain when some sunlight hit him in the back before he had managed to move inside the safety of the ship. He did indeed find V asleep in the chair with his book about dog breeds on the console beside her. The sight puzzled him a bit as V had never really expressed much interest in anything other than killing worker drones, but that was something he could ask her when she was awake again. He gently put down the two human skeletons on the ground, before he sat down on the ground with Gabumon moving next to him. He also found multiple drawings that were definitely not made by him, picking one up showing a crude drawing of the digimon beside him wearing what looked like a black vest like that of a waiter underneath his fur, while looking at the two moons of Copper 9 and a dark night sky.

N didn't say anything as he looked up at Gabumon, who's face went deep red again and looked away, though that didn't stop N from smiling at him before drifting off into sleep himself. When he did he almost fell over when the digimon gently laid him down. For a moment he looked at the two sleeping disassembly drones in the ship, reminding himself once again that they were basically vampires who could not get out during the day. Gabumon were not necessarily nocturnal digimon, but they had a bit of an affinity for the night. In the end it mattered not whether it was day or night as long as they got enough sleep at any given time.

His mind went back to everything that had happened so far since he had accidentally stumbled into the real world and almost immediately went back to Uzi's partner digimon, Commandramon. It really was an odd thing to him that he had never heard of such a digimon before. He shook his head at that thought, thinking that it was impossible for him to know every sort of digimon in the first place.

'Maybe I should try and meet more people once I get back home to the digital world.' He thought to himself with a pang of sadness, before grabbing the pillow he had previously sat on and went to sleep like N and V.

The next school day came as usual too early for both Uzi and her partner digimon when the two had barely gotten a wink of sleep the night before after having gone right back to fixing her railgun after coming back and updating Uzi's map on her ceiling with what they knew to be connected to the case of the Absolute Solver. Strangely enough, her father didn't seem to have come home that evening, meaning she'd need to tell Khan about her upcoming plans to attend the prom after all as soon as she'd get the next best chance.

On one hand that was a good thing, since the closer to the date she broke the news to him, the less likely it was that he did something stupid that might embarrass her in front of everyone they knew like he had in the past. On the other, it was her dad, Khan Doorman she was talking about. Someone who had let her down for the better part of her life and had done so proudly for all of Outpost 3 to see.

"So, we figure out how tomorrow evening is supposed to go and then we go and check with the others one more time to make sure everything is going to be fine." Commandramon's voice tore Uzi out of her thoughts and made her look at the digimon walking beside her. Today, the cyborg digimon had decided to join her partner back in school for another day, partially to help out with the preparations for the prom if there was anymore work that needed to be done and of course to help her with preparing to intercept the plans of whoever had hacked Guardromon. He didn't say it out loud, but he also hoped to find some clues about the culprit's identity if he managed to have a look around the school's premises, even if it might be a fool's errand.

"Yes, that's basically the plan." Uzi said sounding somewhat annoyed, though that annoyance was directed at the upcoming conversation she would need to have with her dad, if she managed to find him before he tried to pull something stupid like make prom night a private affair with just the two (or three) of them playing boardgames related to doors. "This is going to be such a pain..." She sighed to herself while Commandramon gave her a confused look.

"It's not going to be that bad. Try and think happy thoughts. At least, we managed to repair your railgun last night and you can shoot people again." He said, making Uzi hum in agreement to that. The conversation was cut short though when the two of them met a certain trio of girls in the hallway leading to the school, talking about something and not noticing the two of them approach, when the digimon gave Uzi a look and she nodded back to him. That was when a certain red-eyed drone looked over to them and raised her hand in greeting, making the other two notice them as well.

"Hey there, Uzi, Commandramon." Lizzy said when she stopped looking through her backpack for something and zipped it shut after not finding it. Uzi's partner digimon kept himself a healthy step behind Uzi to avoid another chokehold situation in case Lizzy decided to jump him again.

"Доброе утро. (Good morning.)" Doll said with a smile directed at Uzi, making the purple-eyed worker drone smile a bit in return.

"Morning guys. Rebecca." Uzi added out of spite, making the third popular girl roll her cyan-colored eyes.

"Really Uzi? You almost hurt me a bit by giving me the cold shoulder." The blue-haired drone said. "After we were getting along so well the other day..." Rebecca said while the other girls gave her a flat look.

"So, what were you guys talking about?" Commandramon asked to break the awkward silence.

"Oh Liz, just forgot her list for the program at the prom tomorrow. Good thing Liz isn't the only one working on the organization of this event." Rebecca said, raising her head proudly before producing a copy of the program from her bag.

"You... actually put effort into something that doesn't have the goal of picking up dudes?" Uzi asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief, while looking at the other girls for confirmation.

"Believe it or not, Becca actually got a functioning head on her shoulders. She just doesn't use it like we do. Or you, except you build guns and stuff." Lizzy said, making Uzi shoot her a look with a scoff.

"And you use yours for outfits and social media clout." The shortest among the girls said, making Lizzy chuckle before she took the list from Rebecca while Uzi tried to get a closer look at it.

"Guilty as charged." The blonde girl said. Meanwhile Doll remained silent and looked at the others banter. At the same time, Commandramon looked confused at them.

"Why would Rebecca need to lift guys off the ground?" The digimon making the worker drones look at him when they realized that he really didn't know the meaning of 'picking up dudes/chicks'. That and Uzi was also pretty sure by his confusion at some of the plots in her mangas that Commandramon simply didn't understand the concept of romance or even just physical attraction in the first place. "Is that like a hobby of hers?" Commandramon added.

"Yeah, pretty much." Doll, Lizzy and Uzi said flatly at the same time, while Rebecca simply smiled amused at the digimon's lack of common knowledge.

"You could say that. But if you want to I can teach you all about that sort of stuff after class." The blue-haired girl offered, making Uzi glare at her at the idea.

"Not happening." Was all his partner said when both Uzi and Lizzy had moved between Rebecca and him, while Doll shook her head and facepalmed. Surprisingly though, Rebecca just smirked at that.

"Actually, you got perfect timing, Uzi. I heard a little something about you last night." Rebecca said wrapping an arm around Uzi's shoulder and pulling the shorter worker drone closer before she could escape. "I heard someone snuck out to go and meet her little murder friends." Doll's eyes widened at that statement and Lizzy looked at Uzi with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh that? It was nothing really. Just Uzi and N mending their friendship and talking about how to proceed going forward." Commandramon said in Uzi's stead, not realizing just how this might have sounded for anyone without the full picture... or some gossip-loving girls like Lizzy and Rebecca.

"Quite forward, are we? I guess it's no surprise for our local shortstack, but I'm actually a bit proud of you there." Rebecca teased, not knowing that the jab at her height immediately made her bristle with anger when she recalled that to be what Impmon had called her.

"Damn girl." Lizzy joked, while Doll rolled her eyes at the blonde's reaction. Luckily for both of them, Uzi wrath was not directed at either of them.

"Commandramon, WHY?!" Uzi's outburst made the digimon jump back a bit in surprise.

"Wha- Why are you mad all of the sudden? Did I say something weird?"

"You made it sound as if N and I-" She stopped herself from saying anything else before trying to wiggle out of Rebecca's grip, who smiled down at Uzi.

"No, no. No running away this time. I want details. All of them." The blue-haired girl said.

"Почему ты такой? (Why are you like this?)" Doll asked with the flattest look she could muster in this situation, while she was a bit uneasy on the inside. 'Was Uzi with the disassembly drones when... Черт возьми... (Dammit...)' She thought when Uzi managed to shake Rebecca off.

"Look! Nothing happened! I just went there with Commandramon to talk with N and V and that's all there is to it! Got it? We arrived, we talked, we left. In and out in like 5 minutes." The purple haired girl said with a notable blush on her visor. Commandramon was about to say something, but Uzi shot him a glare that made him shut up. Lizzy just looked amused at this whole situation and her reaction. "Ugh! Bite me! Just forget it! Let's get this stupid school day over with!" Uzi then was about to walk away towards school when her partner suddenly stopped her with one arm raised to block her path. She was about to say something in annoyance when she noticed how tense his body suddenly had become. His gaze also hardened into that of when he was mad or ready to fight when he sniffed the air once.

"Something's wrong." He said, pupils shrinking to little more than dots before grabbing his rifle. The other girls tensed up a bit at his sudden change in behavior with Doll and Lizzy not having seen this side of the digimon since the attack of the disassembly drones or in Rebecca's case ever. Uzi on the other hand found her face harden, before the two of them made their way deeper into the school.

It didn't take long for them and the other three girls who tagged along to find themselves within the hallway where their lockers were located to find a large pool of oil on the ground being moped up by a janitor as well as lots of oil smeared on the wall and ceiling. The two looked at the gruesome sight in shock. Behind them, Lizzy and Rebecca also stared in complete silence at it, while Doll looked a bit worried around the place and constantly looking back to Uzi and her partner. A bit further in the hallway a few members of the WDF were taking pictures of the place and the section of the hallway was blocked by yellow barrier tape. Strangely enough, the other students on the other side of the crime scene just went about filing into the classroom and going about their day though some looked a bit disturbed by the sight.
On the other hand, that was rather normal around here. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Truly the unspoken mentality of most worker drones that had carried over from the time before the humans all dropped dead.

"That is... slightly concerning." Rebecca broke the silence when Lizzy couldn't help but sigh at this.

"This better not get the prom cancelled after all the time and money we invested into it already. My dad is practically running up the walls at home already with all the missing people cases." The blonde girl said, dreading the idea of all her hard work going to waste because of yet another unsolved murder case. The last part caught Uzi's attention, when Doll gently patted her best friend on the shoulder at that before gesturing for them to go back and go to the classroom the other way. "Oh right... school. Thanks for the reminder, bestie." Lizzy said sarcastically, reminding them all that they still had a stressful school day ahead of them on top of everything else.

"Без проблем. Узи, ты идёшь? (No problem. Uzi, are you're coming?)" The red-eyed drone asked, snapping the purple-haired drone out of her thoughts.

"Yeah..." Uzi said, but not without giving the crime scene a last look before both she and Commandramon made their way towards her first class. The two exchanged a look at one another and nodded. "Did you sniff something out?" Uzi quietly asked her partner, who shook his head.

"No. Nothing. It's as if whoever that was just exploded on their own." Commandramon shuddered at the mental image of that happening. 'Doll also doesn't smell like oil like she did the other time. Did I imagine all that?' He thought to himself, starting to question his own senses.

Regardless, both of them would be quite surprised if this didn't have something to do with what had happened the last night with Guardromon in the corpse spire. Neither of them noticed Doll looking over her shoulder to them and overhearing what they had said with a small frown on her face, while the group moved towards their classroom.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: Late Night Exorcism

Copper 9 was a planet, that humanity should never even have set foot upon and almost didn't if the scanners from long range satellites had not picked up on the fact that the planet-sized freezer had an atmosphere. A slightly toxic one due to a slightly difference in its composition from Earth's, but one that was still breathable and wouldn't cause the death of a human colony immediately as long as safety precautions were taken and could be fixed in a relatively short time to adjust the atmosphere to mankind's needs. Namely those that didn't eat up an entire colony's budget and were easy enough to deal with. Why had that been important? Because an atmosphere meant two things for the humans: potential space to help with an ever-growing overpopulation problem and natural processes in the form of volcanism, weathering and erosion over the course of millions of years, that would have enriched the planet's crust with its natural resources in deposits, thus making mining operations viable.

But all that didn't change the fact that living on Copper 9's surface now was not exactly something to brag about. Even if biological life had survived the core collapsing in on itself, it would be a very sad existence of scavenging bottom feeders roaming a destroyed cityscape in search of anything useful and to take back into their burrows and shelters, while whatever predators would emerge from such a mass extinction event would pick those off like an owl catching mice in the night. In a sense, the worker drones and disassembly drones actually mirrored this most likely outcome that life perhaps would have taken...

Having a good shelter against the elements and cold was therefore the number 1 priority one should have if they ever considered living on Copper 9. Aside from obvious issues with the supply of food and drink, there was nothing better than to have a cozy and warm little lair to fall back on and rest, while the wind and snow outside couldn't reach one. He could hear the quiet whistle of the wind just behind a murder drone proof window looking out into a snow storm that had engulfed the world in a thick curtain of white and gray snow...

'Wait a minute... isn't it a bit too warm and stuffy in here for an icebox of a world?' Impmon thought to himself when his mind came to be. Now the first thought coming to mind was that he was indeed freezing to death and he was in the middle of experiencing the paradoxical feeling of burning up despite the freezing cold and that he might have fallen asleep outside buried under a thick layer of snow. But then his actual sense touch returned the second he lurched up from where he had been laying with a startled yelp. He didn't see much, but he most definitely had not been buried under snow and instead found himself entangled in a pink warm blanket.

After some wild flaying around, the evil digimon found himself peeking out of Lizzy's bed covers, who had simply thrown off her blanket (and apparently him too without noticing him being asleep) in a heap on her bed before getting ready and leaving for school. At least, that was the impression he got from the way he was buried in that heap and how the lights were off with nothing but the weak light from the window shining into the room. Part of him was glad that Lizzy had apparently not caught on to him being an actually living being and freaking out after she had basically used him to stay warm and comfy. Another part, however, was so embarrassed by the last night's events, that he just wanted to go back to sleep, sink into the bed and never wake up again.

Unfortunately, that embarrassment didn't let him rest and instead was like a glaring reminder of the fact that he had effectively spent the night with someone acting as they bed warmer. As his face burned with shame, he eventually let out a frustrated yell and burst out from under the crumpled covers, throwing them off of him.

"GAH! THAT STUPID BRAT NUMBER 3!" He shouted to himself with the other two worker drones, who he could call stupid brats, of course being J AKA 'stupid brat #1' and Uzi AKA 'stupid brat #2'. As for V, calling her a brat would be too nice in his book. Quickly, he shook that thought out of his head and crawled his way to the corner of the bed, before letting himself drop down from Lizzy's bed... only for his legs to instantly give away under him, unable to hold his weight as if they had been made of wet ramen noodles and causing him to fall onto his back with a yelp. For a moment, he didn't understand what was going on, suddenly feeling rather weak and tired while his back hurt as if he had exercised a lot. That was when it eventually clicked in his head.

"Ugh, right... I think that brat hugged me a bit too tightly there. Ha... I can't feel my legs..." He thought to himself aloud when he looked up at the ceiling of Lizzy's room with a tired and resigned look on his face. It wasn't that he couldn't feel his legs or that he was paralzed though. It was more like they felt like TV static right now as his body slowly regained control over them. "My condolences to the lucky guy, who ends up walking down the aisle with her..." He muttered to himself, before sitting up with some effort and slapping his cheeks a few times with both hands. "Stop talking such nonsense, Impmon. Remember why you are here." The evil digimon told himself just before he moved over the synthetic plush carpet on his hands and fished out a particular list for the events for the next day's evening from beneath the bed.

When Lizzy had grabbed Impmon by his tail and trapped him for the rest of the night, the list had slipped from his grasp and gently fell down under it. Fortunately, he had realized that before the unconscious blonde drone had decided to use him as a surrogate for a stuffed animal and apparently also not having found said list. Admittedly, he didn't find it immediately and had to actually lift the covers to look under it, but that was not much of an issue for a digimon of his short stature.

He was still a bit shaken up by what he had seen the previous night in that school hallway. All the oil on the ground and the broken pair of glasses looking back at him from within that puddle illuminated by just his Night of Fire and then that malevolent symbol glitching in and out of existence on some CCTV camera facing the wall. He would lie if he said it didn't still slightly frighten him alongside what that had meant. And part of him knew that he really should just get back to finding what he needed in this place and figure out where to go from there.

But he was also Impmon and he would not pass up a chance to mess with the worker drones a bit, especially not on such an important day. It wasn't even about Lizzy having humiliated him. No, this was out of principle. And he had dozens of ideas already ranging from the almost cliche dumping of oil on whoever gets selected as prom queen from above to just blowing up some of the equipment while he remained hidden in some corner of that gym hall. At the thought of the surprise and panic of the worker drones, he couldn't help but chuckle mischievously to himself while rubbing his hands together. That evening tomorrow was going to be fun. With that he looked back down at the sheet of paper in his hands.

"Looks like there is a big open slot at the end. Well, if that's the case I better prepare something for the entertainment. And I just know the right person for that job." He told himself before putting the list away into his scarf. Turning his head to the window next to Lizzy's bed, the evil digimon looked at the snowstorm raging outside of Lizzy's window. Just barely could he make out the silhouettes of some ruined buildings further away in the distance and the wind whistled louder when another toxic death storm rolled over Outpost 3. An involuntary shiver ran up Impmon's back at that. "Better get going or else that guy might have other plans for the time being with how things are in the digital world right now."

When Impmon finally regained feeling in his legs again without the numb sensation of his limbs in his legs finally vanished, he managed to stand up and move to a corner of Lizzy's room. Then he brought a finger up to his forehead and concentrated as the lights and electronics in Lizzy's room like some of the things she kept locked in her glass display flickered on and off in the room. A fissure appeared soon after like a crack in the wall, slowly tearing open to reveal a new temporary gateway into the digital world. Once it was big and stable enough, Impmon walked through with a smirk, determined to find a certain someone to help him in his plans for the upcoming prom. When, the portal closed behind him, it left behind nothing but a bit of crackling red electricity in the air. But in the moment it fully closed, a pulse of energy rippled outward from the now once more closed space and seemingly disappeared without any effect. At least, not within Lizzy's room...

Once more, Uzi almost found herself in astonishment as to how calm the school could be in a time of crisis. Her teacher just kept up with his material for today's lesson with his orange eyelights currently turned to the screen of the large monitor behind him to explain something about the historical events taking place between the core collapsing and all of them having been forced underground. Most of the class was also acting normally, sitting around, pretending to pay attention to the teacher sounding somehow even more bored than them. Although there was a certain empty desk in the room, which had been occupied the day before and to which Uzi found herself glancing over sometimes. Only now that she actually had paid attention to it did Uzi realize just how quite a few of desks had been rather empty for some time now.

Previously she wouldn't have wasted a thought on such minute details like the disappearances of some worker drones around her school as her mind had been too preoccupied with her plans to kill the murder drones, save the world and get the respect of her father and peers as well as a general sense of boredom that she had whenever she had been forced to sit in a room full of people she couldn't care less about and listen to the boring lectures of her teacher.

But now it simply wasn't the same anymore with all that had transpired the past few days and quite a few unexpected turned her life had taken in that time, leading her to this particular situation. And that was not even considering the circumstances of this morning where apparently someone had just exploded in the middle of the hallway where her own locker was also located in. Her eyes wandered back to the new empty seat further away in the back of the room. She barely knew the absent girl and if it wasn't for the prom queen candidates having been chosen months in advance in order to hype up the prom tomorrow, the purple-haired girl might have never actually known Kelsey Day's name, despite sharing the same classroom for years...

'Geez, is this how invisible I usually am to the rest of these morons?' Uzi thought to herself, reminding herself that there were times some people actually sounded surprised or jumped when she ended up in their line of sight, not even having realized that she had been in their class for literal years. What was different between her and Kelsey though was that Kelsey truly was a quiet girl who stuck more to herself a bit like Doll. The nomination as a candidate for prom queen had given her a bit of a boost in her confidence, but not something like her parading it around or shoving it in everyone's face. She literally... was just there and not someone whose absence would have been really noticed by anyone if it wasn't for being a candidate somehow...

Uzi almost jumped a little when Commandramon's head shot up all of the sudden from where he had been laying beside her desk on the ground, tearing her out of her thoughts. Rather than sitting at his own desk somewhere else in the room, he had simply sat down on the floor next to Uzi's desk and taken notes much like the time he had been while still in that moving box he used back then. However, the digimon had also found it a bit hard to focus with everything that had happened and eventually got stopped taking notes and just fell forward onto the ground with a dull thud sometime after the second half of the class had started. Neither the teacher or Uzi had really reacted to that as his partner actually envied him a bit for being able to just doze off like that. But all of the sudden, he sat up and turned his head towards the door of the classroom.

Uzi was about to ask what the reason was for him to startle her like that when the school bell rang signaling the end of that class and the beginning of the lunch break. She let out a tired sigh when the teacher grabbed sat down in his chair to play solitaire for the duration of the lunch break and the students started to gather around in their usual groups. The first half of the school day had passed so relatively uneventful, it had been a drag for Uzi. She slumped over her desk and let her head fall down onto it with a groan, before she noticed that Commandramon was still staring in the direction of the door with his pupils constricted. "You okay there?" She asked, pushing herself back up from her desk despite the feeling of fatigue in her head.

"... I thought I heard smelled something." Commandramon responded, before looking up at her with his gaze softening instantly. "How are you holding up, soldier?" He asked, making Uzi huff.

"Barely alive... Ugh, I just want to get out there and... you know..." Uzi said, cutting herself off when she remembered that they were quite possibly right in earshot of the person behind Guardromon getting hacked by somehow using the Absolute Solver the previous night. Commandramon nodded before the two of them glanced around the classroom as unsuspicious as they could. None of the other students was looking at them directly and they were more engrossed in whatever topics they were chatting about with one another.

Because as much as Uzi doubted the very idea of it, the most likely suspects for what had happened last night were in this room and every other classroom in this high school, which the strange death within its halls seemed to further cement. Someone with access to the prom invitations must have made the one sent to N and V after all. She doubted Lizzy or Rebecca had that file just laying around somewhere, but it could have been taken from them or someone could have hacked into their accounts for the school's computer lab. Of course, someone looking in from the situation from outside might think it was either of them, but Uzi knew both of them to not be that savvy with technology if it didn't involve social media.

Not only that but Uzi seriously doubted either of those two to be the culprit... Then again, she doubted anyone she knew could be it, although she knew someone must have been it.

"What are you doing there?" A voice suddenly speaking right next to her head, made Uzi jump a bit when she whipped around to see Lizzy standing behind her with Doll and Rebecca next to her. "You look like you are trying to figure out what everyone is going to wear tomorrow. Though I guess that wouldn't be much of an issue for you." Uzi was about to tell Lizzy to go away when her words did actually remind her of the fact that she still had to actually find something to wear for tomorrow. Social norms be damned; they likely wouldn't even let her into the gym hall without something that wasn't her usual hoodie. Luckily for her, Lizzy didn't seem to catch onto that as she sat down on the desk next to Uzi. "So, what got you thinking so hard?"

"Nothing. Just the giant oil stain in the hallway." Uzi groaned, while Rebecca moved over and patted her on the shoulder.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about that, shortstack." The blue-haired girl said before Uzi pulled her shoulder away from her hand. "See Liz? Told you it wasn't something like how lack of a prom date or anything like that. Not that I doubt her to be able to hit it off with someone, but..." She let her voice intentionally trail off, making Uzi glared at her and Commandramon gave her a confused and curious look. Doll decided to stay neutral in this discussion and merely observe.

"Hit what off? And why? Has that something to do with going to prom again?" Commandramon asked when Rebecca patted him on his helmet.

"Don't worry, little soldier boy. I will enlighten you and Uzi here about the ins and outs of dating." She said with a wink, making both Lizzy and Uzi shoot Rebecca a pointed look. "What? He doesn't seem to understand much about the topic. And as for you." She turned to Uzi. "I'm sure we can figure something out with that fierce tomboy personality coupled with your short stature of yours. You'd be surprised how many guys would find that sort of thing cute."

"Bite me." Uzi said, feeling an involuntary blush creep up her visor. "I'm in no need for romance advice and he isn't either." She said pulling Commandramon away from Rebecca.

"I wouldn't mind learning some about tha-HMPF!" Commandramon's was cut off when his partner covered his mouth with a hand, making Rebecca's smile widen a bit.

"Commandramon, don't you still have to prepare that gym hall for the prom?" Uzi told her partner digimon with a pointed look. It did take him a second before he got the unspoken message.

"O-Oh right. The WDF is still helping with setting the place up. I better get going. See you later guys." With that the cyborg digimon darted out of the room and towards the gym halls, but not without waving Uzi and her friends goodbye. Uzi didn't actually know whether that was true or not, but she hoped he could figure something out by looking around the hallways before the cleanup job on the crime scene was done while she was holed up in this classroom. Even if that left her at the mercy of Lizzy and Rebecca.

"What a shame... I really wanted to see just how clueless your little friend is about that sort of thing." Rebecca said, before setting her sights back onto Uzi with a smirk. "But we can still figure something for you out."

"I actually do know how that stuff works, so I don't need you to explain to me that sort of stuff." Uzi said, leaning away from the blue-haired girl.

"Maybe, but even you don't show up to the prom tomorrow and we all make fun of you, it wouldn't hurt to know a few pointers to help you score a date with that tall hottie you made up yesterday." Rebecca smirked when Lizzy leaned closer.

"Oh right, you mentioned something like that before. How... are they when they are not murdering everyone?" The blonde girl asked, making Uzi realize that she was effectively trapped between two girls who she didn't want to get into a fight with... okay, maybe she wanted to punch Rebecca, but that wouldn't help her right now. She looked between the two of them back and forth before finally relenting.

"Aside from having to keep V literally collared and chained up in that ship of theirs to not go and kill me, it was... tolerable." Uzi crossed her arms and refused to look at either of them. Although she felt like calling it tolerable might be a bit to harsh of a thing. Sure, she didn't like V or the way she talked to her, but Uzi would be lying if she told them that she disliked her time in that corpse spire. In a way, working on the ship and furthering her plans to kill all the humans had given her a strange feeling of satisfaction she hadn't known in Outpost 3 where she had belonged nowhere. It was a bit strange to think back rather fondly about that time for more than one reason.

"Oh... I knew you liked dark stuff, but that actually surprises me." Rebecca's voice tore her out of her thoughts and her face turned into a scowl aimed at the blue-haired drone while Lizzy crossed her arm.

"Seriously, Becca? Can you not?" The blonde girl asked to which the worker drone in question simply shrugged. Rebecca's nonchalant gesture made an anger tick appear on her visor. "Why of all the people is it the two of us organizing this event again?"

"Because, Liz, we are popular and know what people want and your dad is-"

"Okay, I get it." Lizzy cut Rebecca off at the mentioning of her father, making Uzi once again not jealous of Lizzy's own dysfunctional family life. Doll walked over to her best friend and shot Rebecca a side-eyed look, before turning to Uzi.

"You probably don't want to talk about living with those... things." The red-eyed girl said, before Uzi leaned back in her chair.

"I mean... I don't mind. As long as the commentary is kept down." Uzi said, eying Rebecca, who rolled her eyes at that. "It wasn't all that bad, aside V making it pretty clear that she sees us basically as food. But unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to just kill her." She said, while the others just looked at her for answers.

"... okay, why?" Doll eventually broke the awkward silence, making Uzi let out a frustrated sigh.

"Because for whatever reason, Commandramon doesn't seem to think about her as bad as she is as a people-eating, sadistic piece of work." The purple-eyed worker drone said before turning to Lizzy. "She's basically a mean girl like you, except she wouldn't tear her victims down with words but with claws." Doll found herself actually nodding a bit at that statement, but Lizzy found herself looking at Uzi a bit bemused at the comparison.

"Oh really? I think the only other man-eater here is Rebecca over there." The blonde girl said, making the blue-haired girl glare back a little.

"You make it sound like I go after every guy. Contrary of what you might believe, I do have standards." Rebecca protested, before crossing her arms. "And what about the tall hot piece of metal you apparently rekindled your relationship with?" She asked Uzi, who surprisingly scoffed at her tone.

"Good luck with trying to flirt with him, Rebecca. I doubt N would even look at you that way." The shortest of the four girls said, leaning back in her chair with a confident grin on her lips. "He might be an idiot and a strangely naive one for a genocide robot, but he got his eyes on someone else already." Doll, Lizzy and Rebecca all looked at Uzi for a moment, before Uzi realized what they might be thinking as her digital eyes hollowed out. "Not me, you morons! I meant V. Even though I got no idea why..." She mumbled the last part to herself, averting her eyes from the others.

"Oh? Is that a hint of jealousy I'm hearing?" Rebecca asked as she leaned closer to Uzi.

"Ugh!" Uzi huffed before looking over to Lizzy, while the blue-haired drone's smile widened at the fact that she had not say no. "You still got that program list for tomorrow?" The purple-haired drone asked the blonde one, who nodded and pulled it out from her bag.

"Sure, why though?" Lizzy said before handing it to Uzi, who glanced over it. When she didn't reply at first, she and Rebecca leaned a bit closer, practically breathing down Uzi's neck.

The purple-eyed drone look thoughtful at the list while a buffering symbol appeared on her temple. She had already saved the image somewhere in her processor while trying her best to somehow link everything together. 'Looks like a pretty tight schedule. No doubts there will be some delays with the morons we have for classmates. Now if I was an assassin and tried to shoot the two VIPs at a party... Wait, would N and V even be VIPs? I guess since they are not worker drones and all. But when would I make my move to take them out? And more importantly... how?' Uzi thought back to her original plans of killing the murder drones and perhaps entertaining the idea of showing up to the prom. She had a layout of the gym hall in her head already thanks to Commandramon helping to set the place up. Still, it only put more questions in her head. Did the culprit know about what the two disassembly drones were capable of in combat? Was there some sort of trap placed there and if so what was it?

"!" Uzi jumped a bit when she suddenly felt someone deliberately blowing air against her neck, startling her and making her drop the list, which was luckily caught by Lizzy. Turning around, Uzi glared at the one who had just invaded her space. "Rebecca! What the hell?!" The blue-haired girl simply smiled down and raised her hands in a mock surrender.

"You've been staring for a solid minute or two at the list and I was starting to get worried for my cute little classmate hung up or something." Rebecca said before walking back to her seat. Uzi found herself glaring at Rebecca's back when Lizzy gave Uzi a look.

"See? Told you that you fit the stereotype of the cute loner girl." The blonde said, making Uzi direct her glare to the pink-eyed drone instead.

"I am not cute." Uzi said quietly, though Lizzy and Doll just exchanged a look before smiling and nodding at one another as if in silent agreement about something, ticking off Uzi even more. "What are you two smirking about now?" The shortest of the three said feeling more frustrated and flustered by the two of them giving her the silent treatment, effectively letting her do all the work of getting worked up about them. When she realized that, she just huffed. "Seriously, you two are such an... unlikely pair. I never understood how you two even got to be friends in the first place." The second she said that Doll and Lizzy's smiles fell and were replaced by Doll's more stoic expression and Lizzy frowning with the blonde drone looking between Uzi and Doll. Seeing how their moods had shifted rather a lot made a pang of regret well up in Uzi as she realized that she probably said something she shouldn't have. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no. I guess it is a bit strange. But..." Lizzy said, before looking over at her friend, who shook her head slightly. "It's not something you just casually talk about." The blonde's ominous words made Uzi a bit more curious and feel like the worst scum in the bunker at the same time.

"H-hey, I didn't mean to..."

"Все в порядке, Узи. (It's fine, Uzi.)" Doll cut her off. "Я расскажу тебе в другой раз. Но не сейчас... (I'll tell you another time. But not right now...)" The red-eyed drone gave her a small reassuring smile, before turning around to go to her seat. Lizzy looked back at Uzi for a moment with an apologetic look before she two returned to her seat, leaving Uzi by herself with a dozen more questions in her head and a strange feeling of guilt just when the school bell rang again to announce the second half of the school day.

It was a universal rule that wherever people lived, be it humans or workers, they also created waste products of various kinds as a side effect. And as much as matter itself couldn't be lost in the process, a full recycling of said material was simply not possible or not feasible in a cost-efficient way. As such, it was only natural that some humans thought it would be far cheaper to simply dispose of broken worker drones by throwing them into a ditch or some forgotten corner of a scrapyard and call it a day rather than going throw a long and most importantly expensive process of disposing the drones properly. The company JCJenson could point at the instructions all they wanted, there simply were people like that even in the 31st century.

Following the sudden mass extinction of their former human owners, the worker drones had discovered a few of such unmarked mass graves over time, much to the horror and disgust of the still alive robots. Such rather disturbing findings were mostly just happenstance with only very few urban explorers actually seeking out seemingly lost places, that they might have heard about beforehand as rumors. Nevertheless, such places had been found mostly during clearing out debris and destroyed infrastructure when the drones were attempting to make something themselves on the surface. While it didn't mean much, the dead bodies were usually recovered and given proper treatment.

But not all places could be accounted for before the arrival of the disassembly drones, leaving some of those drone dumps simply as they were. One such location was located hidden in the corner of a local scrapyard, hidden under a literal mountain of other old electronics. It had been discovered by worker drones while scavenging the old place for recyclable materials like wiring and machine parts. Upon realizing that the core of said mound was composed of dead worker drones, there had been an effort made to recover them, but that operation was effectively shut down by the disassembly drones killing the worker drones who had attempted to do so. Since then, the place was more or less deserted from any and all life safe for the population of robot roaches who found themselves a relatively cozy home within the piles of trash where they were sheltered from the wind and weather.

The noise of a car rolling through the snow was barely audible in the snowstorm with its lightly barely even able to penetrate through the curtain of falling snow before it. Despite that, it drove through the thick layer of snow, running over whatever was now hidden beneath it and headed for the looming silhouettes of piles of garbage. Upon running over another dead worker drone, the driver and the one in the passenger seat of the van jumped up a bit, but the driver kept his hands tightly around the steering wheel.

"Watch where you're driving, Carl. We can't get a spare tire in this place." The worker drone in the passenger seat said as he kept his blue eyes focused on the outside as if trying to figure out where they were.

"Quit your whining and don't tell my how to drive, Ben. I've done this route quite a few times myself already and we're almost there anyway." The driver replied, green eyes fixed on the vague outline of the fence surrounding the scrapyard. It had already partially collapsed in on itself due to years of neglect and snow weighing down on it as well as worker drones having scavenged some of it themselves in the past. But the two of them were not here for some fence, but something else. Upon reaching the gate, Carl slowed the van down a bit while moving deeper into the place before he eventually stopped when a familiar sight of a dumping truck parked with its back facing one of the mounds came into view before them. "Alright, this is as far as we can get. Let's get this over with." Carl said before putting on thick working gloves and opening the door and stepping out with his colleague Ben following behind him.

Beams of light coming from the van and flashlights held by the two of them cut through the heavy snowfall and gave the drones at least some additional visibility as the wind around them threatened to knock them over alongside their feet sinking deep into the new layer of snow. They approached the dumping truck with Ben shining his flashlight up from the busted lights in the front over the scratched-up hood to the busted windshield.

"They say one of those murder drones got the driver when they were trying to get some of the bodies out. Couldn't even start the engine before getting torn to shreds in that driver seat." Carl said nonchalantly, making Ben shoot him a look.

"Good thing we are not here for those poor fellas then, but the older ones." He told his driver, before the two rounded the large construction vehicle and found themselves at the base of the garbage mound. Part of its side had been torn open with an excavator, revealing the dead drones inside.

Carl and Ben both had been doing this sort of scavenging for resources for some time already. After having survived on the surface for some time, the murder drone attacks eventually just stopped. As if the flying death machines prowling the night had just left their area and moved elsewhere to hunt. Among the broken machinery and debris of the city, they had found a still mostly intact car and after some repairs, it was good to go again. Naturally they still hid during the nights and it was clear that there were more murder drones on the surface than they had initially thought, but for some time now they had barely even heard one. So with a bit of an adventurous streak and wanting to get away from the other survivors they had known for some time, the two basically set out for a trip to this city, where they knew was something they and their folks back home could need. And as much as it was technically grave robbing, the worker drone corpses that were recovered usually were dismantled for recycling anyway, so neither of them saw anything wrong with a taking a bit from these mass graves.

Grabbing a hammer from his belt, Carl approached the side of the mound and began to hack away at the frozen layer of snow and ice encrusting the dead bodies while Ben found a wheelbarrow nearby and moved it over. Once the layer of snow was gone, the two were greeted by the dead bodies of fellow drones, that had been laying there for almost two decades and a bunch of robot roaches scurrying away from the intruding cold air. Carl almost fell over when he jumped back at a bunch of those bugs falling out of the mound and into his general direction, making Ben chuckle a bit.

"So, who's afraid of ghosts now?" He said, while Carl grabbed one of the loose corpses and threw it on the wheelbarrow.

"Shut up and get the bodies in the van." The driver said before turning back to his work. Ben merely rolled his eyes, before grabbing the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushing it towards their parked car. The wind kicked up again, limiting Ben's range of vision once more as he slowly pushed the wheelbarrow forward. He could make out the outline of the dumping truck and the lights of the van, but then something else caught his eye.

While the two cars were parked between two large mounds of trash, Ben swore he could see something glow faintly red somewhere in the distance in another part of the scrapyard behind another mound. The storm was very thick, so the glow must have been quite strong to allow him to see the vague outline of the path ahead, but just as quick as it appeared, it vanished, leaving Ben alone in the snowstorm.

'What was that?' A feeling of unease crept up Ben's motherboard when he suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable. Quickly he shook his head and began to push the wheelbarrow forward again. However, now it all felt a lot less like their usual venture. The mounds around him and dumping truck beside him felt far bigger and the story about its driver having been eaten alive sprang back to his mind. A high-pitched squeaking noise of the wheelbarrow's wheel suddenly felt deafening in the already loud rushing of the wind around him. "Come on Benjamin. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's the middle of the day, no murder drones and just you, a dead body and a whole lot more that will-" Ben stopped himself the moment he had reached the back of the van and opened the back door to throw the dead body inside. A deep and low sound like the haunting howl of something large filled his ears. At first, he thought it was just the wind rushing into the empty trunk of the van, but it was too loud for that.

Ben looked around himself, his eyes darting between the broken visor of the corpse he was about to throw into the trunk of the van and the scrapyard around him. He still could barely see anything through the snowstorm around him, making the piled up waste around him appear more like mountains. He tried to focus on where the sound came from, but saw nothing. For a moment, he had thought one of the large shadows had moved, before quickly dismissing the thought, when he went to grab the dead body. But when he tried to lift it out, the wheelbarrow feel to the side, sending him to the ground with the drone on top of him.

"Agh! Dammit. Stupid weathered old tools." He cursed as he tried to pick himself up from the ground. After some effort and turning his head more than once in to the harsh red glare of the back lights of the van by accident, the worker drone managed to throw the dead body into the trunk and slammed it shut, grumbling to himself. "Stupid haunted old-" Ben gasped immediately when his olfactory sensors were hit by an overwhelmingly fetid stench as a gust of warm air hit his back. Instantly his systems shut his sense of smell down to prevent further damage though it had been so bad he felt bile rise up in his throat from utter revulsion. But the feeling of nausea only lasted a second when he realized that what he was feeling was not some malfunction of his sensors, but something literally breathing down his entire back. Only now did he notice the towering shadow that had eclipsed both him and the van, engulfing both of them into an even deeper shadow than just the snowstorm around them.

Another exhale hit him with what Ben could now identify as a heavy breathing with a low growl mixed into it. The worker drone slowly tried to inch away from the van in hopes to make it around its corner before whatever was standing behind him could make catch him, but then his world turned dark when something large slammed down onto him, crushing him in an instant. There was no outcry of pain, no scream for help. Aside from the van shaking slightly, all noises were drowned out by the storm raging around.

Meanwhile, Carl continued to try and loosen some of the dead worker drones from the pile, ignoring the angry chittering and bites from the robot roaches. The thick gloves made it this sort of work a lot easier, but he was afraid they would perhaps not last for much longer. Still, he firmly grabbed the arms of another dead worker drone before pulling with all his strength. He had trouble keeping himself steady with the ground having become a bit slippery with half-melted snow and oil. Still the body eventually gave way and he fell back with the body landing on his chest.

"Ugh! Sorry lady, but I'm already taken. So if you don't mind..." The worker drone said jokingly before pushing the dead body off of him and getting up. Behind him laid four other worker drone corpses in the snow with the last one making it the sixth he had pulled out already. Wiping the sweat off of his forehead with one hand, Carl frowned when he didn't see Ben return yet. "Oh for the love of Robo-Jesus, Ben get back here already and take over! My arms are getting tired and these dead bodies won't move into the care on their own." He called out in an attempt to be louder than the storm, but when no reply came, he felt anger well up as well. "Okay, haha! Very funny. Get back here before I-"

He stopped the second a loud, haunting sound washed over the area almost like the mournful moaning noise a ghost from some old human horror movie made. Suddenly he felt the floor beneath his feet shake as something heavy moved with heavy stomps around near him. From the corner of his eye he saw the previously bustling orange dots of light that each of those robot roaches had quickly disappear deeper into the mound of dead bodies as if hiding from something. The worker drone could hardly blame them, when he too felt the sudden compulsion to flee. Just then his nose was hit with the worst smell he had ever experienced and that meant a lot considering he was stained in year-old worker drone oil.

'Robo-God, where is this stench coming from?' He thought to himself, covering his mouth and suddenly regretting to have eaten before the job. Another tremor ran over the ground and loose pieces of debris began to shift and fall down from the piles around him. The worker drone found himself slowly backing away from where he felt the tremors were coming from and his flashlight darting around in that direction. Suddenly, an angry sounding shriek thundered in his head when his flashlight caught something large and gray in its light. Carl didn't stick around to figure out what it was when he bolted towards the lights of the van and whatever it was he had angered gave chase. 'Don't turn around. Don't turn around!' He repeated in his head like a mantra, trying not to think about how it sounded like something massive had crashed into one of the piles of waste behind him.

As soon as he reached the car, he threw open the door on the driver's side and started the engine. In an instant, another angry roar seemed to reverberate within the cabin, causing Carl to jump and accidentally floor the gas pedal, causing the van to slam into the dumping truck in front of it. The impact was dull one, but it still activated the airbag in the steering wheel, blinding the worker drone even more. His limbs flayed around to get the searing hot bag off of his face, when the van suddenly shook. Not from bumping into something, but rather because something had grabbed a hold of it. A rumbling sound escaped whatever was outside and Carl felt metal screech in protest when it was punctured and torn apart by something outside. The stench drifted in from the air vents, causing him to gag and cover his mouth when he finally found the will to turn his hear slightly to look out of the window of his door.

Looking back in was a single red organic eye, focusing on him. Then the whole car shook and the windshield exploded into shard of glass as the whole vehicle was thrown around like a toy. The last thing Carl saw was a gaping maw with fangs as long as he was tall coming towards him to swallow both him and the van whole, while he could only raise his hands and scream in horror.

Aside from the teacher droning on about some historical event, the majority of the class stayed silent as they kept their heads up and eyes open with varying degrees of success. Some of the teenage drones simply didn't have the self-discipline to not fall asleep or even pretend that they paid attention to what the worker drone before them told them. Someone who did mask her utter disinterest in a stoic expression was Doll, who simply took notes of the topic's key points and usually filled the gaps later on. However, her actual focus was on the purple-haired drone sitting in front of her and trying to be as normal as possible, but Doll saw how Uzi also glanced over to Kelsey Day's empty seat from time to time. Coupled with her sudden interest in the prom and her visit to the disassembly drones' home the previous night, it made a pit form in her stomach.

'How much did she suspect? How much did she know? Why was she all of the sudden so invested in this? And why did she have to go and get along with those things she tried to kill? This is such a pain.' Doll kept thinking to herself, her red eyes focused on Uzi's back as if she wanted to analyze what was going on in her head by staring at her really intensely. Unfortunately, that was something she wasn't capable off and she felt her fingers tighten around her pen hard enough to make the plastic housing crack in protest under the strain. Until yesterday, it had been clear that Uzi was not coming to the prom, which would have worked perfectly with Doll. The very last thing she needed was her of all people being there. What had changed?

Part of her mind wanted to be optimistic just like how part of her somewhat envied the carefree lives of her peers. But that was something she could not have. Not yet at least or so she hoped. But in order for that hope to become more than just a pipe dream, she had do whatever it took regardless of what else it might took from her. And if Uzi was going to stand in her way, even if Doll wished for that not to happen... then so be it.

A tap on her shoulder made Doll's body tense up and twist her head around a bit too fast to look at Lizzy, jumping slightly in her seat from the look Doll was giving her blonde friend. Her right hand immediately shot to her face to cover her eye just to make sure there wouldn't be any 'accidents'. Lizzy didn't comment on her friend's behavior when she calmed herself down, her eyes going back from hollowed out and wide to normal.

"Easy there... I was just going to ask to borrow that pen of yours." Lizzy said quietly. Doll's shoulders slumped down as she forced herself to relax and handed it over to Lizzy. Afterwards, both girls faced the front of the class again in an awkward silence, which the blonde drone broke again. "Hey, you okay there? You've been looking an awful lot at our purple shorty of a classmate there." She said, glancing with her pink eyes at Doll, who didn't reply immediately and in turn made Lizzy look a bit worried. "Is it about what she said earlier..."

"No." Doll cut Lizzy off, which actually caught the latter of the two by surprise. "It's not about that. Just thinking about something for a while." The red-eyed drone added, before writing something down with another pen, hoping that Lizzy would just drop the conversation all together. Knowing her though, she highly doubted that.

"Okay... Better not tell Becca about it or she gets the wrong idea again." The blonde drone said with a small smirk to herself, which actually made Doll stop and smile back at Lizzy.

"Тебе лучше пойти и подумать о дате выпускного бала, Лиззи. (You better go worry about a date for the prom, Lizzy.)" Doll said, making Lizzy's face fall into one of shock.

"Shut... don't say that so loud. My reputation could take a hit." Her friend said frantically, making Doll roll her eyes in amusement when the school bell rang and announced the end of class for today. As usual, students dumped their belongings into their bags and moved to leave as fast as they could as if the teacher was going to give them homework. Despite the literal murder scene right outside in the hallway, the class didn't lack their usual speed, but Doll saw how Uzi was the first to leave the room. Biting back an annoyed groan, Doll narrowed her eyes and looked over to Lizzy, who was still putting her things into her bag, before Doll left the classroom without her.

Meanwhile, the hallways of the high school were becoming more crowded with students going to their lockers or simply heading home or hanging out with their friends, causing the corridor to be filled with chatter and the sounds of people walking around. Uzi ignored most of it as it was mostly about the upcoming prom and people looking forward to it. On the other hand, Uzi's head was still running overtime in an attempt to figure out the situation.

'Great, I have the plan for the event tomorrow but still no step further in terms of figuring out who it could be.' Uzi thought to herself as she made her way towards the crime scene where a janitor was still cleaning up the remains of the drone who had exploded. She saw no more members of the WDF taking pictures of the scene, which she honestly was grateful for. She didn't need her dad to get any ideas about anything, much less her joining the WDF for real as some sort of investigator. Luckily for her, her locker was pretty close to the scene, meaning she wouldn't need to stand right in front of the barrier tape to get a good look at things herself even though Commandramon... 'Wait a minute, where is Commandramon?' She thought to herself as she finished putting her school supplies into the locker and looked around herself. She was already a bit surprised at the fact that he had not returned to the classroom during the lesson, but even now there was no trace of her digimon partner. 'Don't tell me he actually went back to the gym hall to help out with setting it up... That idiot!'

The purple-haired worker drone closed her locker and looked between the crime scene and the hallway she had just come from, trying to decide whether or not she should go and look for her partner. On one hand, she doubted he could actually get lost in school or the bunker as a whole. On the other, Uzi was pretty sure that Commandramon could also get distracted rather easily or snatched up by some WDF member to actually do work for them. That and she dreaded the idea of him accidentally telling her dad that Uzi was now actually going to go to the prom and with her luck he might word it like her going to the prom with N and V. How he had worded what the two of them did yesterday at the corpse spire and talking to the murder drones still lingered on in her head and she'd still need to have a word about that with him later.

"Hey Zi." Uzi's train of thought was interrupted when a certain blonde jock had walked up to her without her even noticing, making her look surprised at Thad seemingly appearing out of nowhere. "You've been standing there for a while now." He added, glancing over to the still rather big puddle of oil staining the floor, wall and ceiling further down the hallway.

"So what? It's not exactly normal for people to explode in a school hallway in the middle of the night." Uzi said with her arms crossed, before raising an eyebrow. "What do you want Thad? I'm kind of in the middle of assessing what has happened here." Thad chuckled nervously at that as he looked away from Uzi.

"Yeah... I kind of figured that..." He said, when Uzi rolled her eyes and looked back to the crime scene. "So... you got any plans for tomorrow?" His question surprised her a bit to say the least. "You know, me and a few friends are all going together to the prom. I thought maybe you want to tag along?" Thad said, before quickly backtracking. "I mean, you don't have to or anything. I just thought with all that's been going on you might want to... you know, just have a good time." Uzi's mind was a bit stunned by the fact that Thad of all people was trying to invite her to tag along with him and his friends for prom, before she quickly caught herself again.

"Oh... I didn't expect that. Sorry, but I kinda have plans for tomorrow already... thanks for the offer though." She muttered the last part quietly, making Thad look a bit disappointed though he ended up smiling at her anyway.

"That's fine. But if you, Commandramon and N ever want to hang out, just give me a call." He said when a certain digimon walked up to them with its skin dropping its optical camouflage, seemingly appearing out of nowhere next to him, causing Thad's eyes to widen and jump a bit. "Whoa, where did you come from?"

"I was just looking for Uzi after I heard the bell ring." Commandramon looked a bit confused at that question, before looking between the two of them. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, we were just talking about stuff." Uzi said before looking back towards the crime scene. "Did you find anything?"

"Not really." Her partner said. "According to the WDF, that large stain used to be Kelsey Day" He said before looking over to a pin wall where multiple other missing people posters of students of their school were hanging. Immediately, a feeling of worry began to fill both Thad and Uzi's mind when they had just seen Kelsey the other day. "Other than that, they have no idea what happened because the cameras were not working."

"Wait, we have security cameras in school?" Thad asked, making Uzi and Commandramon look at him.

"What did you think those where?" Uzi said, pointing at a camera mounted on the wall a bit further down the hallway. Thad opened his mouth to reply, before closing it again. Instead of Uzi of commenting on his lack of knowledge, Uzi found herself looking up and saw a camera not far from where the murder had happened, but it immediately clear why it hadn't shown the crime because it had been turned a full 180 degrees to face the wall it was mounted on instead of the hallway.

"So, no camera footage, no traces and no idea how that has even happened. Great..." Uzi said with a frown. "Anything else we don't know?"

"Apparently, Guardromon found the place like this right after coming back to Outpost 3 after he left the spire." Her digimon partner replied, making Uzi look at Commandramon. "He thinks that whoever might did this had just waited for him to leave the bunker. He also said he saw the footprint of a digimon nearby."

'We weren't gone for that long and neither was Guardromon. Whoever did that acted fast.' The purple-haired worker drone thought to herself and nodded at this information when her processor registered the last part, making her look wide-eyed at Commandramon. "Wait, did you just say there was a digimon near that crime scene?" He nodded at that.

"The janitor already cleaned it away, but Guardromon said that there was an oil-strained footprint that didn't belong to a worker drone. Apparently, it fled the scene through the air vents just before Guardromon arrived. It was unfortunately already mopped away, but judging by the smell I'd say that it was Impmon."

"So Impmon really does have something to do with all of this." Uzi mused to herself. "Gotta be honest, I thought V was just making that up because she was annoyed with that guy. Though, that just means we have another reason to find that guy if he is here." While Uzi and her partner talked, Thad looked up at the camera again, when his eyes suddenly hollowed out.

"Hey uhm guys... isn't that this thing from the other day?" He asked hesitantly when he pointed upwards when he saw the same crimson colored symbol of the Solver over the camera flickering in and out of existence for a second. Sure, he was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he could tell that it was the same thing as the one he had seen the other night when he almost got eaten by that worm thing. Commandramon and Uzi's jaws dropped when they looked up at the camera again and saw the same thing, before Uzi suddenly began to chuckle somewhat manically, creeping both Thad and Commandramon out a bit when Uzi grabbed some of the missing people posters from the pin wall. "Uhm... Uzi, are you okay?"

"I'm great. Thanks Thad. Come on, we got a case to solve." Uzi said, practically skipping towards her home and leaving Thad and Commandramon standing there with perplexed looks on their faces.

"Uhm... you're welcome?" He said nervously, before Commandramon held his head with a hiss when a familiar sting of pain shot through his head. Then he ran after his partner.

"Sorry, but gotta catch my partner. See you tomorrow at the prom, Thad." The digimon said, waving goodbye at him before disappearing behind a corner to catch up with Uzi.

"Yeah... bye... wait, did he say at the prom?" The jock thought to himself aloud while he had no idea what was going on. He glanced back over his shoulder at the remains of Kelsey for a moment with a worried expression, before he made his way back to his own locker.

In the meantime, Commandramon had caught up to Uzi, who was still chuckling quietly to herself with the posters of the missing people tugged under her arms. He was starting to get worried and therefore tried to get her attention.

"Uhm... Uzi?" He asked, but his partner just kept cackling to herself whilst walking through the hallways of Outpost 3, completely oblivious to the confused looks some of the other worker drones she passed on her way gave the two.
"Uzi..." He tried again once the two reached their apartment, lightly pulling on her hoodie's sleeve, but she didn't seem to notice him once again, jumping a bit as she walked into her family's apartment, still cackling to herself when she went into her room, grabbed some red threat and attached them to the ceiling. With a sigh, Commandramon walked over to her bed and pulled a small megaphone out that he had taken from the WDF.
"UZI!" Commandramon eventually shouted through the speaker, causing Uzi to hold her head from how loud his voice was amplified in the confined space of her room right next to her.

"AGH! WHAT?!" Uzi shouted over the ringing of her own audio receptors, glaring at Commandramon who gave her a flat look.

"You've been cackling to yourself like a mad person for a solid 3 minutes." He said. It took Uzi a moment to realize what he had just said, partially due to her systems still fixing the ringing in her ears and thus forcing her to read his lips, which wasn't all that easy as he was a dinosaur. But once she did realize what he said, she couldn't help but look with wide eyes at him.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" She demanded to know when he simply gave her a deadpan look.

"I tried but ignored me." A second or so passed before the teenage drone felt a pang of embarrassment well up in her.

"ARGH! Great, now everyone thinks I'm crazy!" Uzi said before chuckling to herself again. "But I'm not! And now I can prove it! Just like I did with the murder drones and then they'll see. You saw it too, right? That was definitely..."

"The symbol of the Absolute Solver, yes." Commandramon said in a grim tone, before sitting down on Uzi's bed and looking at the updated collage of drawings on Uzi's ceiling. His lack of enthusiasm struck her as odd for a moment, before she sat down next to him. Looking up at the map everything pointed towards the Absolute Solver being in the middle of it all. J's monstrous, reanimated body; the missing people cases at her school and the prom and the hacking of Guardromon all had a connection to it and by extension one another.

"Exactly! That means we have another lead on that front and one step closer to figuring out what this is all about." Uzi said when she noticed that Commandramon was still looking up at the large, distorted Solver symbol in the middle of it. "Hey, didn't you say that looking at that thing makes your head hurt?"

"It does. But I guess it could also be how unorganized this map of yours is-AGH!" Before Commandramon could react, Uzi had undone the clasp of his helmet, making it fall on the bed behind him, and gave him a well-deserved noogie. "OW! OW! OW! Okay! OW! Stop! OW! I'm sorry!"

"You better be." Uzi said, twisting her metal knuckle one last time on his head, before she let go of him. The digimon held his head in pain before laughing slightly at the absurdity of it all. That somehow was infectious as Uzi found herself smirking and bit back a chuckle as well. "Did you figure out anything else while I was dying in class?" She eventually asked.

"I've looked over the entire set up for the prom but found nothing that looked like a trap." Commandramon said with his arms crossed. "Meaning whatever these people are planning they either don't need much to try and attack N and V or they can conceal their weapons very well. Kinda like how your railgun can collapse." At that Uzi nodded to herself.

"That makes sense. I doubt they would let anyone in carrying a rocket launcher or something like that... if we even have a bouncer or security in the first place. But that begs the question what they might have in store that could possibly be dangerous to them." Uzi thought aloud, when Commandramon thought about it.

"Maybe, they also grow into a giant insect from Robo Hell like J did?" He offered, which actually sounded somewhat plausible in Uzi's mind. It was clear to her that whatever this Solver was, it wasn't exactly friendly towards the disassembly drones. Although, it also begged the question of the same thing could happen to herself, which made her shudder a little at the thought. The mental images of one of her classmates turning into something like that were rather disturbing... and a bit fitting in Rebecca's case, liking it to something akin to a praying mantis or Snimon. As soon as that thought burned itself into her mind, she shook her head.

"Ew... I might need to figure out how to hide my railgun in my... Oh right, I still need to wear something to the prom." Uzi sighed, before standing up with Commandramon following her by hopping off the bed. In doing so he accidentally sent one of Uzi's drawings of the Solver's symbol down, making him pick it up again.

"Right... Should I go and look for something in the city?" Commandramon offered, grabbing his rifle and Uzi's repaired railgun.

"No, I'd have to try it on first anyway and as much as I don't judge your ability to find stuff my size, I'd like to have a say in that matter. Plus, I don't want to hear any remarks from V about that sort of thing when she cannot even be bothered to wear pants or a skirt." She said before walking out of her room into the living area of the apartment with Commandramon trailing behind her. "I'll just wear something casual to that prom and call it a day-" Uzi stopped dead in her tracks when she found herself in front of her father who had apparently walked through the door a moment ago with Guardromon standing on the other side as he couldn't get in himself through the doorway that was too narrow for him. "D-Dad! We were just going to-"

"Uzi, did I hear you right about going to the prom tomorrow?" Khan asked with a raised eyebrow and slightly hopeful tone. An awkward moment of silence spread between the two with Uzi and Commandramon looking back and forth between one another and Khan, realizing he had thankfully only heard that part.

"Yes...?" Uzi carefully said, but Khan kept looking at her as if he wasn't buying it. "I decided to go that lame school function."

"That's right. Uzi wants to go to the prom tomorrow." Commandramon nodded a bit too enthusiastically and saluted, making Uzi cover his mouth with one hand before looking back at her dad. Khan took a deep breath and sighed.

"That... is... WONDERFUL NEWS!" Khan suddenly beamed as he smiled broadly like a child's face in a candy store how the humans used to say. This reaction was both expected by Uzi and still somewhat throwing her off. Khan immediately began pacing up and down where he stood while fanning air to himself. "Oh. Oh my. I think I'm going to..." Khan said before his visor suddenly displayed shut off and displayed a white line of text reading 'EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN', before Khan's unconscious body hit the ground with a smile on his face. For a moment, no one said a word and just looked at the worker drone laying on the floor.

"It would appear that your father is overjoyed at your decision and approves of it. As well as not having go through with his initial plan of sending you to a therapist for your generally antisocial behavior." Guardromon said as he was still standing in the open door, making the teenage worker drone roll her eyes at his blunt observation.

"Yeah, looks like- WAIT, WHAT?!" Uzi shouted incredulously at the last part of Guardromon's statement, while Commandramon put the drawing he was still holding onto the kitchen counter and poked the unconscious drone with the stock of his rifle. Khan remained unresponsive though aside from what sounded like happy mumbling to himself. "Let's just get to the others to let them know." Uzi sighed before stepping over her father and marching out of the door with Guardromon making room for her to walk through. "And you don't tell him where we are going, got it?" She told the machine digimon before she and Commandramon headed out for the evening again. Guardromon stood there for a moment longer in silence as he looked in the direction the two had ran off to, before replying to himself.

"I do not where you are going." Guardromon simply said, before turning his attention back to the still unconscious Khan on the floor of his apartment. "For the time being, I shall guard this open doorway." With that he turned his back to the apartment and just stood there.

By the time evening had come around, the snowstorm had ebbed away and the setting sun bathed the surface in warm hues of orange and red light, although the first stars already shone through the dying light of the day and the skies had begun to darken. The wind had also slowed down to practically nothing with only the occasional gust of wind whipping up loose snow for a short moment. The last rays of the dying sunlight faded away from within the corpse spire as it still creaked and groaned slightly from the earlier storm. Gabumon had woken up once or twice during the day, but due to the storm outside, he had not bothered to get up and potentially wake the still sleeping N or V, even though the howling wind and the rather threatening sounding noises the spire had made throughout the day had made it rather hard to keep himself calm.

'The damages on the spire really need to be fixed or else this whole thing might collapse down on us.' Gabumon thought to himself, before a feeling of powerlessness settled in his mind upon realizing that he himself could not fix this sort of thing. In the digital world, he had usually been wandering around without much in terms of belongings aside from his fur pelt and he had occasionally built himself a shelter with whatever materials he could find, but he never built himself a house or the like and much less a giant tower made of corpses and scrap metal.

On top of that, the holes in the spire were rather high up, meaning that even if Gabumon could fix the damages, he'd still have a hard time climbing up its walls of corpses as he could not fly like N and V. With that the only thing he could do to make himself feel a bit less useless was by busying himself with the books and colored pencils still laying around and trying to make as little noise as possible to not accidentally wake up the disassembly drones. V was still seated in her chair with her upper body resting on the console and N was sleeping on the ground facing the wall.

When the wind ebbed away, Gabumon perked up when he heard another sound. V grumbled somewhat in her sleep, making the reptile digimon look over to her. Despite her visor still reading 'SLEEP MODE', it appeared as if she was having a rather unpleasant dream. Quitely, Gabumon rose to his feet and walked over when she started to mumble something.

"No... no, I don't... Tessa, wait... J, please stop... that's... what if N, I mean anyone..." She said, grumbling as if annoyed or uncomfortable with something when the digimon looked a bit confused at the unfamiliar name. Still, even he could recognize a bad dream. So, he hesitantly put a hand on V's shoulder and gently shook her.

"V... wake up..." He quietly said, hoping not to accidentally wake up N but V remained unconscious.

"Cyn no... give those back... I need them..." She muttered in her sleep, making Gabumon even more confused.

'Cyn? That's a strange name...' He thought, before shaking his head and shaking V's shoulder with a bit more force. "V, you need to-" Instantly, V's eyes shot wide open with a surprised gasp and her arm reflexively shot towards him with her conical lower arms retracting the normal hand for a set of three-fignered blades for claws as she sat up. Gabumon barely managed to take a step back, avoiding his face from being sliced up but freezing in shock as his wide red eyes stared into her yellow digital ones. It took her a second to realize what just happened before her shocked face turned into one of regret, pulling her hand away while Gabumon fell backwards onto the ship's floor with a thud and breathed heavily. Patches of fur landed on the ship's floor and disappeared into particles of data immediately after her sharp claws had apparently brushed the pelt he wore. Then a moment later, she looked somewhat irritated at the digimon and clicked her tongue when she checked her internal clock.

"What do you want? It's barely sunset yet." She said, shooting the digimon an annoyed look, making him avert his eyes from her.

"Sorry. It's just that you seemed to have a bad dream and..." Gabumon said, standing up and realizing his mistake of approaching a literal killing machine like that. Unlike N, he could not regenerate from most injuries like he or V did. The disassembly drone's glare lessened, but she still turned around in her chair.

"Then you should just have let me sleep or else you might not be so lucky next time." She said, before her eyes landed on the two human skeletons in the ship. Gabumon followed her gaze, before he spoke up.

"N brought those back yesterday. I'm not quite sure why he brought the whole skeletons with him, but I guess there wasn't a lot of time when he came back at the crack of dawn." He said when both of them looked over at N still laying on the ground with his back facing them. Aside from his tail slightly moving, he was completely motionless, seemingly asleep. Gabumon then saw V's eyes linger on the dress with a small frown on her face, before looking worried. "Is something wrong? Do you perhaps not like the dress? I could try and find a new one with N when he wakes up. Though I'm not quite as fashionable as you guys, hehe..." He awkwardly admitted with a weak chuckle.

What neither of them noticed was how N's tail stiffened up at Gabumon's words as N was now actually awake from the thud Gabumon had made when he had fallen onto the ground. His eyes wide and a feeling of dread and shame welling up in him when the implications of those words sunk into his mind. But then V shook her head.

"No, it looks great. Really." V told Gabumon, putting both the digimon and N's mind at ease. "I was just thinking about something." She told the digimon, who looked at her and then nodded.

"Okay. If you ever want to talk about it, you can just tell me or N. I'm sure he'd love to help you." He said with a smile, before walking towards the door and opening it. A gust of cold air rushed into the relative warmth of the ship. "I'll be outside for a bit and see if I can find something myself... somehow. So, don't wait for me when Uzi and Commandramon come over." He said before walking out of the ship and closing the door, leaving V alone in the ship with N again. Upon the digimon leaving, V glanced back at the two skeletons sitting in the ship in a small pile of snow.

Part of her wondered how she might actually look in the dress. Of course, she could tell how it looked like just fine, but there was a certain difference between knowing what a piece of clothing looked like on a mannequin and how it looked on a person. Something that Tessa had also known all too well, which was perhaps the reason why she had recalled a certain memory earlier in her sleep.

It had been on a day before another of the Elliot's extravagant dinner parties, which they insisted on having in their grand mansion. While it had been true that their family estate only meant so much when they were not even going to use it, it still didn't justify all the perparation work and effort to sink into such events just to keep up some sort of social image the Elliots had established for themselves as rich people who liked to play host and hostess for such gatherings. 'Strengthening social and business realtionships' was what J had called the purpose of such evenings, which was just a fancy way of saying 'sucking up to someone while indulging in the luxuries of high society'.

The one person that had really disliked those gatherings had been Tessa as she was forced to pretend to be this prim and proper, doll-like girl in a pretty dress, that did as her parents told her without fail. It had made her feel less as a person and more like another asset of her parents, another tool to further their own wealth and social standing and she hated it. But luckily she had those two worker drone maids with her to help her out with one particular problem that came with every gathering which was the choice of her clothing.

"I don't know Tessa... I don't think I should..." V had said hesitantly back then, her eyes cast to her feet behind the big round glasses she wore on her head, refusing to look at Tessa or J. "I mean... shouldn't J be the one to do this sort of thing?" She had added, feeling J's eyes narrow at her when Tessa replied.

"Maybe, but J can only put on one dress at a time too and I do need to see a side-by-side comparison on how it looks on a person." She had said before walking over to V and gently lifting her face to look at her. "Hey, it's okay. I just need your help with this real quick, okay?"

"O-okay... but please make it quick." V had said, feeling warmth creep up her face. "I don't think the mistress would like to see me in clothes meant for you..."

"Then stop stalling and put the dress on already." J had told V as she crossed her arms, making the other maid falter a bit at her words.

"J, come on. Be a bit nicer to her. You know how Mother can be like." Tessa had told J with her hands on her hips, while J had looked a bit surprised at the scolding, before averting her gaze with a sigh.

"Fine..." The pig-tailed drone had muttered before grabbing another dress that had been picked out for Tessa to potentially wear at the gathering. V had tried not to look at J and instead focus on getting dressed herself.

V shook her head at this, realizing about how absurd it was for her to think about this sort of thing right now or how scandalous the dress would have been at that time and place with it leaving the shoulders free probably revealing too much leg for the Elliots' liking or how they had called her and the other worker drones creepy for Tessa to dress them up as butlers and maids in the manor and treat them like actual people. But for V and how she was right now it was rather fitting. That much credit she had to give N for picking this dress and the suit on the other skeleton would probably look great on him as well. Part of her was starting to actually look forward to the prom tomorrow, maybe a bit more than she liked to admit, while another dreaded it.

Depending on how that evening was going to play out, she might have been able to get rid of two problems at once.

A loud metallic groan coming from above the ship made her look up, reminding her once more about the damages the spire had sustained and what it had sustained them from. Leaning back in her chair, V looked at the hatch on the ship's roof, before glancing over to N, who appeared to still be sleeping, and checking the clock.

'The sun should have completely set by now. Better find something to fix those holes.' She thought to herself before spreading her wings and taking off through the hatch on the roof and out of the spire. The moment N had heard her wings unfurl like blades unsheathing and take off, he turned around and sat up watching V leave with an uneasy look on his face. While she had agreed to not attack Uzi and the worker drones in Outpost 3, N wasn't sure whether or not she would agree to that if left alone, knowing how she could be during her earlier hunts.

Torn between staying in the spire and waiting for Uzi and Commandramon to return to hash out their plans for the next day and following V to make sure she didn't do something bad; he eventually spread his wings and took off after her. Unbeknownst to him, Gabumon looked up from the remains of an old store as he watched N fly in the same direction V had flown just a few moments earlier. His red eyes looked with worry after N's winged form as he became smaller and smaller before disappearing above the rooftops of the city.

With the skies clear, it was a relatively easy task for N to follow V by keeping the yellow glow of her wings and tail in his field of vision. He was pretty sure that with the distance between them and him flying at an only slightly higher altitude, she wouldn't notice him following her. What surprised him after a whjle of flying though was the fact that she was heading out of their usual hunting grounds. As he had told Uzi, J's squad had been designated this city and the surrounding area to cleanse of the worker drones. And while they still were within the quite vast confines of that region, this was not one that the three of them had frequented in quite some time. When N had pointed this out to J once, his leader had merely scoffed at the idea and told him that they had already gotten rid of the "barely sentient toasters" in that area already and to not bother anymore.

In a sense, N could see the logic behind that, but that begged the question what V was doing in these parts then... Speaking of V, N suddenly realized that he had lost her out of his sight, while he had been busy thinking to himself.

"Oh come on." He told himself as he flew higher in hopes of catching a glimpse of the familiar yellow glow of her optical sensors or something among the ruins, but all he saw was the empty ruins beneath him looking more like a model of a destroyed city from high above while the moons slowly crept higher over the horizon. Still, there was no sign of V's whereabouts. Flying over to one of the higher buildings, he landed on its rooftop and looked over the city scape. "Biscuits, N. You can't even keep an eye on your squadmate to make sure she doesn't do anything or gets herself into trouble. Now what? Where could she be?"

"Right behind you." N jumped up when he suddenly heard V speak up behind him and whipped around, seeing her stand there with her arms crossed and looking at him. "And why exactly have you followed me here and didn't just stay in the ship to wait for the purple thing and her partner?"

"Uhm... well... you see..." N tried to form a coherent sentence while V looked at him with narrowed eyes. Eventually, N just sighed. "I was wondering what you were up to and wanted to make sure that you'd be alright." He said, but V kept frowning at him.

"I can look after myself, thank you very much. Plus, I was just looking for something to patch up the holes in the spire. There's some old scrapyard not far from here. Thought I might as well look there for something." She said, before taking a provocative step towards N. "What? Were you wondering if I would go out and grab myself some worker drones to eat?" N remained silent at her question, which was all the answer she needed as she clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Good to know just how little trust you got in me."

"It's not like that at all!" N suddenly said, raising his voice which surprised both of them a bit, but he kept going. "I heard you talk in your sleep again. More than once actually." He admitted and V immediately knew what he was talking about.

"So? You babble all sorts of nonsense in your sleep yourself and I don't make a fuzz about it." V tried to deflect, but N wouldn't let her.

"Come on V, this is serious! We have been attacked and nearly killed more than once by those digimon, someone tried to blown us up, J is now some holo-snake thing and we might have grown up in Luigi's Mansion. Are you not even the slightest bit bothered as to what we might actually are?" He angrily asked before noticing the wide-eyed look on V's visor, clearly affected by his question. Instantly, a feeling of regret filled his mind for having raised his voice by seeing her reaction, his words having cut deeper than he meant them to, and he found himself looking away from her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to... I'm just worried." This time it was V didn't say anything in response and just turned away from him. "You know, if you don't want to talk about that right now, that's fine. But I'm sure we can make it through this toge-"

N cut off when all of the sudden his olfactory sensors were assaulted by a foul odor, causing him to cover his mouth. The smell was so strong it actually made him hunch over a bit when he felt it wash up the building with a gust of wind. V actually looked puzzled at his reaction before she too smelled it, causing her to cough slightly.

"What the hell? I know I said it was a junkyard, but nothing should have smelled so bad after this long on the surface." She muttered when she forcefully shut down her sense of smell and looked down into the streets below them. The entire street looked like something large had plowed through it, pushing aside broken streetlights, cars and lamp posts, while a thick film of some fluid stained the middle of the road. N also looked down before following the trail of whatever this was in both directions, seeing an old crane like one used at junkyards in the distance.

"Is that the place you were going to go to?" He asked, pointing at the scrapyard in the distance. V simply nodded, liking this development a whole lot less before both of them looked in the opposite direction whre the trail led deeper into the city. "Should we split up and go in opposite directions..." N began when V cut him off.

"And do what ever horror movie tells you not to do?" She asked, before shaking her head. "Stay close." Was all she said before flying towards the scrapyard with N following closely behind. The stench lessened slightly as they flew, though with both their sense of smell shut down they could tell that it was older by the filthy film on the ground having cooled down and partially been covered with snow.

N and V circled the scrapyard from above before landing on top of the crane overlooking the premises. Instantly the two of them found one of the mounds of scrap metal toppled over and a large dumping trick with its back still stained with old worker drone oil. At the core of the collapsed pile of trash, N could make out the remains of half-eaten worker drones sticking out like a still bleeding flesh wound, except it was oozing old oil instead of blood.

"Did we..."

"No." V cut N off. "This must be one of those places the humans dumped broken worker drones that had been too damaged." She said when she noted how old and rotten some of the dead bodies in that pile were. Revulsion rose up in her alongside a feeling nausea unreleated to the odor in this place. N looked at V for a moment, before turning his gaze to the empty dumping truck. He could clearly tell by the claw marks on its hood that it had been damaged by a disassembly drone, but he too didn't ever recall him and his squad coming here, meaning it was most likely the work of another squad. However, what caught his attention the most was a stain of oil near it. That one was relatively fresh, compared to the ones on the dumping truck's back or from the mound of old corpses.

However, whatever had been here had also left the same disgusting film of filth clinging to the truck and the ground around the place, seemingly having moved between the piles of trash before digging out this mass grave and gorging itself on the dead bodies as well as some unfortunate worker drone that happened to be there. He couldn't make out where exactly the trail began as it seemed to have just appeared here, but as he looked at the discarded worker drone bodies in the scrapyard he found himself thinking about that dream he had. The manor in the middle of some swamp. For whatever reason, he found the sight familiar, especially with this sticky residue now clinging and dripping from some of the bodies spreading an odor of decay and rot in the air. That and it reminded him of the rather large number of worker drone bodies they had amassed into...

"Ew. Looks like something took a bite of those things." V muttered with a face of disgust at the sight of the dead bodies having been reduced to scraps. Even though the corpses on the spire served as an oil storage for times they only caught very little prey, old oil could go bad beyond even the most tolerable of stomachs such as her own. She had secretly thought about perhaps trying to consume some from a place like this as to not go back on her own word, even though she clearly wouldn't have enjoyed the taste at all, but the way the bodies were now she wouldn't even touch them with her tail. N came to a sudden realization and almost instantly looked with wide eyes at the scene before him. V was still looking at the mass grave of the discarded drones when N suddenly took off, making a gust of wind wash over her. "What the- N, wait!" She said, before quickly taking off after him. While flying at high speed, she did manage to keep up with him. "Dammit N, what has gotten into you?"

"We need to get back to the spire. Now!" He said with a panicked expression on his face. The tone in his voice took V off-guard and she was about to demand an explanation from him, when it clicked in her own head as well. Whatever had been in the scrapyard had fed on the dead worker drones, leaving mere scraps behind. The closest location like that was the monumental spire that the two disassembly drones called home. With a determined nod towards one another, the two flew as fast as they could toward the corpse spire, when they heard a loud haunting roar echo through the empty streets. Both of their eyes went wide at that sound and accelerated even faster, shooting through the clear night sky.

Her shoes' soles squeaked a bit on the floor of the gymnasium with each step she took. Familiar as it was, she didn't like the high-pitched noise whenever she moved over the ground when she literally sneaking around the school's premises in the middle of the night, even if she knew no one would be here to catch her. Still, her red eyes glanced over the set-up of the place just to be sure. Tables had been decorated with fake flowers in cheap vases and balloons filled with helium had been set up on some of them. A bowl with punch as decoration had been put on a long table on the opposite side of the DJ's booth. Blue and white balloons had been arranged in an arc around the entrance with some letter and number shaped ones reading 'PROM 3071'.

Getting into the school after it was closed had been a very easy task for Doll. Her quiet and calm demeanour sometimes made her peers overlook her presence entirely, which was certainly helpful and making snatching a key from an inattentive janitor during their lunch break child's play to her. Her gaze wandered to the stage that had been set up on the far end of the hall with a single microphone put up there. For a moment, she couldn't help but imagine Lizzy up there as the coordinator of this event. A small part of Doll felt sorry for her best friend, but this was a necessary evil that Doll had fully committed herself to.

"As they say in Russia... Без упорного труда не выловишь и рыбку из пруда. (Without hard work, one wouldn't even get a fish out of a pond.)" She told herself before going over the entire inventory of this room once more. She counted every table, every foldable chair and every object that could possibly be used for what she was about to do. Sure, she had already a plan in mind, but plans were meant to fail due to unforeseen circumstances. One had to be adaptable and change one's strategy when the initial approach would usually fail, while pursuing one's goal with unyielding tenacity. For that reason among others, she could not let a guilty conscience get in her way.

After doing a last check on everything in the gymnasium, Doll walked out of the door and into the school hallways to head back home. Soon after she left the corridor to the gym, though, an intense crimson glow filled the gym hall when a red-glowing and seemingly pixelated rift appeared right above the center of the stage and a certain digimon walked out of the digital world and dropped a short distance onto the stage.

"Whoa, watch your step there it's a bit of a fall." Impmon said as he looked over the setup of the hall. "Oh wow, I actually nailed the location I wanted to go to this time. I was honestly expecting to end up on the surface again." He told himself when another voice rang out from beyond the rift.

"Oh yeah, this place will work fine. I was afraid you wanted me to show up on a child's birthday party for a second." The masculine voice on the other side of the portal said, making Impmon almost fall over in shock before turning around with an irritated look on his face.

"Hey, I told you it's going to be a party and not some little kid's birthday! Did you take me for a liar or something?" The evil digimon said before pouting with his arms crossed.

"I took you for a little kid, who goes to little kids' parties, who needs his mama to pick him up afterwards." At that Impmon actually looked angrily.

"Hey, don't talk trash about my... Ugh! Nevermind and just shut up!" He glared at the portal.

"Sure thing, Lil' Mama's Boy." Impmon's face darkened at the new nickname he was given. "Be glad that I even entertained the idea of hearing you out or else you'd be standing in line for a few months or so. But I'm really glad I did, because this sure is an opportunity I can't pass up." The person on the other side said. "You just keep the portal stable, so I can get my stuff here. That DJ set up looks nice, but it lacks a certain something. Plus, I need a place to prepare for my big performance tomorrow." It added before the owner of said voice chuckled to himself. "That is going to be such a party and get me so much standing ovations, they'll need to pick themselves up from the floor and get those hands and legs fixed when the evening's over."

"Yeah, right... that's totally gonna happen, sure..." Impmon said with a rather uncomfortable expression on his face, not sounding very convinced about that sort of thing, before he grabbed a piece of paper from his scarf and held it through the portal, before someone on the other side took it. "That's the program list and the directions to the place you can stay in. Don't worry I already organized a place. Now I need to get going now and prepare for tomorrow myself. So just wait for me to give you the signal to get started." With that the evil digimon hopped off the stage and ran towards the door.

"Hey, wait a minute, you youngster. I can barely even read that DigiCode of yours. Who taught you how to write, a Kunemon or some other kind of blind digimon?" The person on the other side of the portal said, but all he got in response was the sound of the gym's door opening and closing. "What the- Did he just leave me standing here looking like an idiot or something? Hello? Your boss is talking to you? Where are you... Oh well, better get to setting the stage for a biggest event this school will ever see." He said, before beginning his work.

Doll meanwhile continued on her way through the school to get back home, not feeling like teleporting and rather just twisting the cameras in the place around to face the wall only to go back to their normal positions. She had learned the location of each and every one of these in a month's time. Still, Doll stopped when she came across her own locker in the hallway. With a sigh, she opened it up and looked right into a shattered mirror. In each one, her reflection looked back at her with the Absolute Solver's symbol glitching over her right eye.

"Жаль. Ты уже сломал этот, черт. (Too bad. You have already broken this one, you devil.)" She said with a small smirk, before looking at her other belongings in the locker. Or the lack of anything. Doll had never truly kept the need to keep anything in that locker outside of the school hours because she simply didn't have much to begin with. Dead parents tended to keep finances rather tight to only spend on necessities. If it wasn't for Lizzy sometimes gifting her things, she doubted she'd even have much in terms of personal belongings.

Involuntarily it made her mind shift back to Uzi's admittedly justified question how Lizzy and her had become friends in the first place. A frown appeared on Doll's face at that and the answer of that question that he mind immediately jumped back to. Sometimes, Doll actually couldn't believe it quite herself, thinking to herself that perhaps the past few years had been nothing but some elaborate lucid dream and she was actually still laying in bed and hoping to not wake up to not have to confront the cold and harsh reality that her family was gone, taken away before her very eyes in a way that no child should ever see. That perhaps she had just imagined all of this with her mind having fabricated this unlikely friendship with Lizzy in some desire for having someone at least to call friend. But she knew it was no dream and she was actually very grateful for the fact that Lizzy had reached out to her on that day when she had been at her lowest.

"Hey, you're Doll right? I really like that hair of yours. I'm Lizzy by the way."

She still remembered those words that a younger Lizzy had told her about. Back then she had already been so confident and straightforward. At first she had thought Lizzy to be just a spoiled brat who wanted to make fun of her, but over time Doll had come to realize that the blonde popular girl actually had tried to be her friend with no ulterior motives whatsoever. Now that Doll thought about it, considering her recently budding friendship with Uzi, she could also have gone to her, ignored her mother's wish to not involve Nori's daughter in all of this and maybe things had been different right now. But then she also would never have had the friendship she had with Lizzy, even if she couldn't tell her the whole story... Not now at least...

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of someone accidentally kicking an empty can across the floor, making her head snap up and quietly close the door of her locker as she looked in the direction the sound came from. Doll could hear the footsteps coming from behind a corner not far from her and how whoever made this sound was dragging their feet. Looking around she thought about running or trying to use the Solver to teleport, but neither option would really help her. Furthermore, she had no idea who would be roaming around the school like she was. With her options being rather limited, Doll decided to wait and see, already settling for the excuse that she might have forgotten something in her locker if one asked her why she was here.

If that didn't work... well, it would be just another dead body on an already big pile of corpses, that she'd regret having created for the rest of her life.

When the person finally got around the corner, Doll's eyes widened and hollowed out when she saw Thad step into view with one hand clutching his other arm with black oil seeping out from under his hand and dragging his feet rather awkwardly. One of his green eyes was shut and he hissed in pain with each step and let out shaking exhales. When he rounded the corner and saw Doll, he looked understandably surprised.

"Hey there, Doll... How's it going?" Thad said, removing his hand from his injured arm to greet her, revealing what looked like lacerations on his arm while black oil stained his palm black, before he hissed in pain again and leaned against the wall for support. Doll looked around her once more, before she walked over to him.

"Тэд, что ты здесь делаешь? И что с твоей рукой? (Thad, what are you doing here? And what happened to your arm?)" She said, looking between his face and the arm he was trying to cover with his hand again, only to be forcefully prevented from doing so when his wrist was caught by her hand. "Позвольте мне взглянуть на это. (Let me take a look at that.)" She said in a tone akin to a general ordering a soldier to stand down. Thad felt his body stiffen up a bit at her tone but relenting as she leaned down a bit to have a better view.

"Well, I thought I would try and get to the bottom of whatever happened with Kelsey since those disappearances kept happening despite... you know..." Thad said. Doll meanwhile inspected the torn part of his arm. The cuts weren't deep and would heal, but what caught her attention was the fact that they were uneven, meaning they had not been dealt by a blade and instead had been inflicted by something else. "As for that, I uh... didn't quite see what it was... Haha..." He admitted with an awkward chuckle to which the red-eyed drone rolled her eyes.

"Это просто следует оставить WDF. (You should just leave that to the WDF.)" She said, before standing up straight again and letting go of his arm. However, Thad did not meet her eyes as his gaze was cast towards his feet and the floor of the school hallway with what Doll could only identify as shame or regret. A rather stark contrast compared to his usual laid back and easy-going personality of being just a guy with a friendly attitude towards pretty much everyone.

"I know... but what happened last night was when I wasn't going on my rounds. And I felt responsible." That admission caught Doll off-guard. From the night of the parent-teacher conference she knew that he wanted to play the hero or at least do something to help, which under any other circumstances would have been a very admirable thing to do. However, those other circumstances would also include her not being the cause of those disappearances. For a moment, she simply looked at him stoically before her gaze softened a bit.

"Я не думаю, что вы могли что-либо сделать, даже если бы знали об этом или были там. Это была не ваша вина. (I don't think you could have done anything, even if you had known about it or had been there. That was not your fault.)" She said, trying to ignore the sensation of her mouth watering slightly from the oil-stained metal of his arm or the sight of his open wound. For the briefest of moments, she saw just another weak, wounded and defenseless worker drone before her with her systems trying to push her towards something she absolutely did not want to do when she reigned those baser instincts in again. 'Черт возьми, ты человек, а не какое-то животное или Баба Яга... (Dammit, you are a person, not some animal or Baba Yaga...)' She thought to herself, clenching her jaws slightly to not think about sinking her sharp teeth into him. Meanwhile, Thad remained oblivious to her thoughts as usual.

"Maybe... Probably... But I just felt so useless." He lamented quietly. "The WDF had been useless when the murder drones broke in and didn't even think about fighting. I just wanted to make a difference and... you know... be able to help and protect everyone. And not just let Uzi, Commandramon and N do all the work." The jock looked up at Doll again, not noticing how her hand clenched into a fist for a second upon him mentioning the disassembly drone. Truth be told, he seemed the naivest killing machine imaginable and for a second or two Doll might have thought that perhaps he wouldn't be a problem, but what Uzi had shared during lunch break about N and his apparent infatuation with V destroyed that notion in an instant. As someone who had lost loved ones, she could guarantee that he was indeed going to be a problem.

"Это было бы очень благородно, если бы это была какая-то сказка, но на самом деле это просто глупость. (That might be very noble if this was some fairy tale, but in reality, it is just stupid.)" She told Thad, not sugarcoating it at all. What was he going to do in order to make a difference anyway? He was just some worker drone like the rest of them. He didn't have Uzi's engineering skills or her gun. He was no disassembly drone like N, who was decked out with all sorts of weapons built into his body to destroy and kill. All Thad had was a good attitude and apparently the drive to do something for others. But ambitions without the power to achieve them were meaningless. That was the uncaring truth of the world.

"I guess... Hahaha..." Doll looked confused at Thad's amusement as he chuckled a bit. "We really need to stop meeting like this." He added, making her roll her eyes, thinking back to the rumor Rebecca had started about the two of them.

"Действительно. (Indeed.)" She replied. "Would be rather bothersome to always have to drag you out of harm's way." Thad simply chuckled a bit more at that, while she was thinking about how she might be able to dispose of Rebecca and anyone who actually bought into her stories.

"True...preferably it should be the other way around." He said, making Doll look at him. Realizing how that sounded Thad looked away. "I mean, usually it is supposed to be the guy saving the girl, right? And if I hadn't agreed to go with my friends beforehand, I would have asked you, Lizzy or Uzi to go to prom with me." His green eyes kept avoiding Doll all together and looked at the floor while he muttered the last part to himself.

"Ты мне сейчас серьёзно признаёшься? Или это твой обычный способ подкатить — сначала влипнуть в неприятности? (Are you seriously confessing to me right now? Or is getting yourself in trouble first your usual pick-up method?)" The red-eyed girl asked causing Thad's face to explode into a green blush.

"Uh... well... I... Maybe? I mean, I like you guys well enough and... okay, I thought Uzi was cool but she probably doesn't think about all that with her emotionally frustrating stuff on her plate. And as for Lizzy, there has been some rumors around about us, but we never really got to talk much because she's more focused on... whatever she does on her phone all the time. But I can respect that... and maybe I do like that straightforwardness about her." He said, rubbing the back of his head rather bashfully. Doll's eyes narrowed a bit at this somewhat but still out-of-character behavior from Thad.

"О? И при чём тут я? (Oh? And where exactly do I come in there?)" She asked when she crossed her arms at his strange confession to her. He didn't sound to her like he was lying, but it sure seemed like something Thad or anyone would not openly admit.

"Uhm... you see... you're really cool too and not to mention not bad looking, but also rather untouchable... I meant unapproachable. Like, I wouldn't even know what to say, but I could have tried and maybe we could-" Thad was suddenly shut up when Doll slammed a hand against the wall next to his head, effectively trapping him between her and the wall. Instantly, his entire visor was starting to become lit up by a more intense blush as he found himself in a rather strange position. It also didn't help that Doll was rather close to him. "D-Doll? W-what are you doing?" The red-eyed worker drone looked straight into his own green eyes, making him try and avert his gaze from her face or shoulders or hair, only to find himself rather unable to move. Then her stoic face became replace with a small smile.

"Если вы боитесь волков, не ходите в лес. (If you're afraid of wolves, don't go into the woods.)" She told him, making him blink in confusion.

"Uhm... okay? What does that mean?"

"It means one gains nothing without taking risks." Doll said, bringing a hand to Thad's cheek. The moment she touched his face, Thad felt his entire processor glitching for a second like he had just downed a small bottle of antifreeze and heat shot up from his chest into his head. "But that one should also be aware of the risks, acknowledge and respect them." She leaned a bit closer with her eyes cast down at his chest and injured arm, making him try and lean his own head backwards until it hit the wall behind him. That was the moment Doll looked back into his face and her smile widened into a grin directed at him. "And that one shouldn't try and impersonate someone they are not."

'Thad's' eyes widened at that statement, but it was too late to do anything. Taking her hand off his face slightly to let it hover above it, the red holographic Solver's symbol appeared in front of her palm, before she manipulated it with her fingers and he suddenly let out a pained yell. However, his face began to change almost instantly to two pools of darkness emerging from his visor and sharp fangs sprouting from his face, before a body covered in a white tattered piece of cloth emerged from the worker drone's face, surrounded or rather trapped by the same three-pointed symbol. Then with a grunt of effort, Doll threw her arm to the side, sending the ghost-like being flying into the side of a locker with enough force to actually dent it, and letting it hit the ground with a whimper of pain. Meanwhile, Thad's unconscious body fell to the ground with Doll catching him and slowly lowering him into a sitting position.

"H-How? How did she notice? I clearly pretended to be that brutish idiot perfectly..." The ghost moaned out in pain, while holding its face with which it had slammed into the corner of the locker. "That little-EEK!" It let out a high-pitched sound of fear when she heard a step right behind it, causing it to slowly turn around to see Doll now looming over it and glaring down with a frown.

Digimon Analyzer

Bakemon

Level: Champion

Ghost Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: Hell's Hand

Bakemon felt itself hyperventilate under the intense, menacing stare of the worker drone. It still kept one eye shut like earlier as if in pain, trying to not make its fear too apparent. Though the teenage girl could clearly tell that the ghost was clearly terrified of her. Her frown turned into a sadistic grin at the thought of some ghost trying to haunt her ironically being the one afraid of her.

"Хотите узнать, что вы сделали не так? (You want to know what you did wrong?)" Doll asked taking one more step towards the ghost digimon, almost stepping onto its white cloak. With a quick manipulation of the Solver, she teleported a sharp kitchen knife into her hand. Its metal glinted in the dim light of the corridor, while she brought it up for the digimon to see the sharp blade as its face morphed into a grimace of terror before changing into anger.

"D-Don't mess with me! Hell's Hand!" Bakemon said with false bravado when a human arm shot out of the ghost's sleeve, covered in blue decaying skin and the fingers ending in sharp claws. The limb stretched straight towards Doll's face, before it stopped. "Huh?!" Three Solver gylphs had appeared along the length of the arm while her right eye had been replaced with the same symbol. With a simple command and a clenching of her hand into a fist, the three symbols twisted in opposite directions and twisted the digimon's attacking arm in the same directions. Despite the limb having stretched unnaturally towards her a moment ago as if it belonged more to some mollusk than a humans, the sound of breaking bones echoed through the hallway and was followed by the painful scream of the digimon before Bakemon's arm exploded into data particles. "M-My arm!?"

"Я скажу тебе, что ты сделал не так. (I'll tell you what you did wrong.)" Doll ignored the digimon's cries, grabbing Bakemon by the front of its body and lifting it up so that it was on the same eye level as herself. "Ты ведь действительно заглянул ему в голову и прочитал его мысли, не так ли? Но ты явно недостаточно долго за ним наблюдал, чтобы понять: каким бы идиотом он ни был, Тэд никогда бы не признался в том, что ты мне рассказал о своих мыслях о девушках, независимо от того, правда это или нет. (You did indeed look into his head and read his thoughts, didn't you? But you clearly haven't observed him long enough to know that no matter how much of an idiot he is, Thad would never have admitted anything you told me about his thoughts about the girls, regardless of whether it is true or not.)" She said, before pulling the ghost closer, glaring at him rather angrily. "Я бы благодарил тебя за то, что ты мне это сказал. Если бы не тот факт, что ты им овладел и пытался вот так играть чувствами девушки. (I should thank you for telling me. If it wasn't for the fact you possessed him and tried playing with a girl's feelings like that.)"

"W-Wait... please wait! I'm sorry. I apologize! Please let me go. I promise I won't do it again-AGH!" Bakemon pleaded but Doll reply. Instead, she threw Bakemon away, sending it flying through the hallway again, but this time the ghost caught itself in midair before glaring at her with its teeth bared. "You stupid little brat! Now go to hell! Hell's Hand!" The ghost's other arm shot out, but Doll merely sidestepped the attack, catching Bakemon off-guard. With the digimon's arm now far away from its actual body, it was defenseless. Using the Solver, she made a second knife appear identical to the first one. Then she threw them, changing their trajectory so that rather than spinning through the air, both knives shot forward like arrow towards the digimon. One impaled itself to the hilt through the forehead and the other embedded itself in its chest. Bakemon couldn't even cry out in pain or say anything when its body disintegrated into data and vanished, causing the knives to clatter to the ground.

Doll let out a sigh before picking the knives up again with the Solver and made them disappear. Looking back, she shot Thad's still unconscious body, when her systems warned her to consume oil once more to cool herself down. Looking down at his still injured arm, she couldn't help but grin again as she moved over to him. It would be such an easy thing to kill him. He wouldn't even feel a thing in his current state, which would be a blessing for the both of them. When she reached him, she felt her mouth water once more and grabbed his shoulders. Her right eye was no longer glitching and just fully replaced with the Solver's symbol as she was about to take a bite out of him to quench that thirst of hers.

"Still wanna... go to prom together...?" He mumbled in his unconscious state. Doll's almost feral grin vanished as she closed her mouth with a loud clicking sound of her sharp metal teeth snapping shut. Her face morphed into one of shock at the realization of what she was about to just do and confusion at his words.

"Что? (What?)" She asked, when Thad stirred a bit in a half-asleep state while still rebooting.

"Sorry... for not asking sooner... Wondering if... you and Liz would like to..." He muttered, before his face shifted into discomfort. "No... you guys got dates already, right... well... had to shoot my shot... we're still cool, right?" For a moment, Doll was actually a bit speechless. Sure, she hadn't exactly thought he had lied about how he had felt about her, Lizzy and Uzi, but... Thad's body was about fall to the side when she still grabbed him by his shoulders, making his head hit her chest before making a pleased sound. "You're warm..." That made Doll's usually stoic mask vanish as she looked with wide eyes at the unconscious jock in her grasp with some heat creeping up her face.

"Well yeah, my systems are on the verge of overheating so... Подождите минуту! (Wait a minute!)" She quickly caught herself but luckily for her, he didn't actually hear her as he was still unconscious. 'Этот... полный идиот... (This... utter idiot...)' She thought, before she let go of him once he was propped up against the wall, stood up and took a step away from him. Her systems were still telling her to kill him and consume his oil to cool down, but Doll forced those impulses down now that she had wrestled back control over herself. 'I'm not some mindless animal...' She thought to herself, pushing down the thought of how he might taste like when realized that it was like in that one novel she had once borrowed from Rebecca. But her thoughts of going to the blue-haired drone's place for a bite were interrupted when Thad's screen came online again and the 'REBOOTING' line on it was replaced by his eyes groggily opening as he stirred awake.

"Oh, my head... Feels like I got tackled by Chad..." He said, hissing in pain as he held the right side of his head, the same side both he and Bakemon had kept their eyes shut, before he noticed Doll standing in front of him. "Wha- Doll? Why are you-" He looked around himself in confusion, before tried lifting his injured arm and bit back a yelp of pain. "Ah... that happened... right..." He thought aloud when the red-eyed girl approached him and helped him up.

"What happened, Thad?" She simply asked making Thad look away a bit.

"Uhm... well... I was going on my nightly patrols... To help the others out a bit after... you know..." He said. Whether he meant the attack of the disassembly drones, him almost getting eaten by a centipede demon from robot hell or the case of Kelsey Day was not something Doll knew, but she nodded regardless for him to continue. "So I snuck out and looked around when all of the sudden the lockers rattled around me."

"Rattled?"

"Yeah, like someone was shaking the whole thing really hard. Like a vending machine after it eats your money. That one time..." Thad almost dirfted to another topic when Doll crossed her arms.

"Фокус. (Focus.)" She said in the same commanding tone as before, making him flinch slightly.

"Yes, sorry. So, I was trying to figure out what it was and then someone jumped out of one of the lockers straight at me. No idea how they managed to get in there." Thad continued. "Anyway, I panicked and hit them with my bat and... uhm... the next thing I know is falling over and my arm hurting... I guess they knocked me on my back pretty hard. Well and now I'm here." With his tale concluded, Doll's mind pieced together the information she had as well as her brief fight with the digimon to put it all together. And from what he just told her, he had no idea that he had encountered a digimon rather than some worker drone. "Wait, this isn't the hallway I was in... Where's my baseball bat? And what are you doing here?"

"Я забыл кое-что и пришел забрать это, когда обнаружил тебя лежащей на земле с рукой, из которой сочилось масло. (I forgot something and came to get it when I found you laying on the ground with your arm leaking oil.)" Doll lied as naturally as she breathed.

"Again? Seriously Doll, it's not safe here at night..." The blonde drone said, trying to spread his arms in a gesture meant to emphasize the place, only to stop when he clutched his barely healed arm. The wound had closed a bit, but it still stung like hell.

"Это я должен вам это сказать. (I should be the one telling you that.)" Doll simply replied, making his eyes widen and look away with his visor glowing a bit brighter. They just stood there for a moment before he tried to make conversation again.

"Geez... I had a weird dream... I mean you were here and I said a lot of... stuff... Guess this whole murder mystery business and prom night is taking a bit of a toll up here." He chuckled as he tapped his head, but Doll just looked at him. "Uhm... by the way, do you or Lizzy have plans already..."

"Yeah, we have something planned already." Doll said, making Thad's face fall a bit before she rolled her eyes. "But I'm sure Lizzy would love to hang out with you once she has calmed down from having to deal with prom and Rebecca all the time. She could use a bit of company then." He looked up at her at that, before smiling a bit again.

"Sure thing. What about you though? Don't you want to tag along as well?" He asked, but the red-eyed drone turned to leave.

"Нет... Мне нужно немного отдохнуть после всей этой суеты. (No... I'll need to rest a bit after all that hectic.)" Doll said before starting to walk off.

"Oh...okay... see you tomorrow then..." Thad said looking after Doll's back for a moment, before walking in the direction he had previously come from. "Now, where's my bat?"

By the time Uzi and Commandramon reached the murder drone's spire, it had already become nighttime with the moons high in the skies and casting their silvery white light down onto the frozen world. A fresh layer of snow covered the world once more, slowing down their approach as they walked through the streets of the empty city.

"Why couldn't they just have let us out immediately like last time?" The purple-haired worker drone groaned to herself, while her partner digimon continued to walk beside her.

"Yesterday we had an emergency. Naturally, they would want to know why you would want walk out of the bunker like that." Commandramon offered, knowing fully well that the WDF was still quite hesitant when it came to the topic of N. Some still feared him and rightfully so. It was him after all who had broken into the bunker and given J and V access to it. And then there was of course still the issue of N and V needing to consume oil. Despite that, Commandramon wanted to be optimistic and if not for himself, then for his friends... "Should we go and look if we find a dress for you to wear afterwards?"

"First hashing out the murder plans. Then window shopping." Uzi said when they reached the crossroads where the spire was located. Uzi's thoughts went back to when she first approached the spire a couple of days ago for a moment, but this time she was not afraid or anything. Rather than looking up at the mass of dead bodies, she just marched right up to it. Commandramon trailed behind her as the two noticed that neither N or V had come to greet them yet. Which was rather strange. Instead the two found themselves only greeted by an empty spire and the creaking and groaning of metal around the place, while wind blew through the holes in the walls. A frown found its way on Uzi's face as her partner called out.

"N? V? We're back. Where are you guys?" He said, while the worker drone next to him gave him a flat look. Commandramon either didn't notice or chose not to comment it when he sniffed the air a bit. "Hm... they are not here. Maybe they went out to grab a bite or something?" At his words, Uzi's frown deepened a bit.

"You do realize that grabbing a bite for them would mean going out to kill someone, right?" She said with a narrowed eyed look, disliking the idea and mental images that idea created in her head.

"Well, yes, but they do need to eat. It's not like they just kill for fun... well, N doesn't at least." Uzi's partner digimon replied, not being so sure about V from what N had told him about that particular topic.

"I know that, but that doesn't mean I have to like it." She said as she approached the ship, though her hands wandered to her railgun and activated it with a flick of the switch. Commandramon looked at her a bit surprised at her drawing her weapon and was about to say something when another familiar voice called out to them.

"They are not in there." Uzi quickly turned around to see a certain yellow digimon with a fur coat standing in the entryway of the spire. "N and V left a short while ago and haven't come back yet." Gabumon said as he walked over to them. Uzi let out a sigh, before she deactivated her railgun and put it away.

"Ah! Gabumon. Good to see you... Uhm..." Commandramon greeted the reptile digimon happily before stopping when he saw what Gabumon was carrying with him. "What's with the stuffed animals?" Indeed, Gabumon was holding two large stuffed animals tugged under his arms. One was a teddy bear, the other an elephant.

"Oh, I unfortunately couldn't find a dress shirt in my size yet, so I thought I might try and wear something more like my fur." Gabumon replied, looking away bashfully. Just then Uzi noted some cuts on Gabumon's fur pelt, revealing the yellow skin of the digimon underneath.

"Hey, what happened to your-"

"Oh that... Just a little accident. Nothing to worry about." Gabumon said quickly, making Uzi and Commandramon exchange a look as both of them were puzzled by this sort of reaction.

"I don't think gutting a stuffed animal and wearing it like a onesie pajama is going to work for this sort of event. Or a skin suit in your case." Uzi said carefully as Gabumon's face fell a little. 'That and I think Lizzy would get a heart attack if she saw that sort of thing... or she'd be super into it.' She thought to herself while Commandramon looked at the cuts V had left, assessing the damage on the pelt.

"Didn't you say that thing is important to your kind, Gabumon?" At that Gabumon's face turned solemn.

"Yeah, they are. They give us a bit more confidence around other digimon." He said, recalling how easily V had damaged the pelt by accident. Sad as it was it had been partially his own fault and he felt more bad about the latter part than the former.

"You don't say..." Both Uzi and Commandramon deadpanned, knowing that obvious fact already simply by seeing how Gabumon was behaving usually.

"Anyway, if they are not here I might as well start working on repairing the ship again. Should be pretty easy with just some surface level dents and cuts." Uzi said, looking over the ship's hull that still bore the traces of N and V's fight against Gargoylemon. "Just need to grab my tools from inside and use the time productively, before they come back."

"Want me to help you Uzi? Maybe we can start working on those railgun legs you wanted to add." Commandramon offered, causing Uzi to actually smirk a bit at that. Knowing his partner, supporting her and bringing her plans a bit closer to fruition certainly helped to lift her spirits.

"Sounds like a plan. Now let's get-" However, before she could make another step back to the ship, Gabumon quickly oved between Uzi and the door, spreading his arms as if to deny her entry. "Uhm... why are you acting like you're hiding something in there."

"In where? Inside the ship? There's nothing in there. Nothing at all." Gabumon said with a shaking voice, looking rather nervous.

"What is your problem all of the sudden?" Commandramon asked.

"I got no problem. Absolutely nothing is wrong or in there and surely not N and V's clothes for the evening." The reptile digimon said, before Uzi rolled her eyes.

"I'm not even interested in what they are going to wear. Just let me in so I can get my tools and fix the ship." She tried pushing past the digimon by opening the door abd almost making him fall inside when the door he had been leaning on slid open.

"No! That brings bad luck. And it's supposed to be a surprise." He replied before hugging Uzi's waist and tried to keep her out of the ship. Uzi meanwhile grabbed the door frame and tried to force herself inside, but coupled with her short height, the two just ended up going nowhere. For a moment, Commandramon just stood there watching the two, before raising a claw.

"Uhm... Isn't it only supposed to bring bad luck when a groom sees the bride before the ceremony?" Commandramon asked making Uzi stop trying to pry Gabumon off her and Gabumon stop keeping her out as both of them looked at him, slightly surprised at his statement. Uzi because she didn't think he'd be aware of that sort of human superstition and Gabumon because he was now actually thinking what that superstition was about.

"Why do you of all people know that?" Uzi asked when her partner worked on one of the pockets on his bulletproof vest.

"Rebecca gave me a list of things related to romance earlier during class." Commandramon said before fishing out a folded-up sheet of paper from a pocket. In an instant, Uzi stomped over snatched it out of his hands in an instant and began to read before a blush formed on her face. Sure, nothing Rebecca had written on that piece of paper was wrong and wuite tame, still it was really weird to her that Rebecca was giving him advice in things such as romance. Meanwhile Gabumon had slipped into the ship and gotten Uzi her tools before looking over at the list, only to blush furiously and cover his face with his hands at an illustration of two worker drone hands holding one another.

"Please put that away..." Gabumon pleaded, his face burning with shame for having looked at it, while both Uzi and Commandramon exchanged another look.

'Why is he the one embarrassed by this?' They both thought before Uzi put the list away.

"Next time she sends you something weird like that, tell me so I can beat some sense into that girl." She told her partner, crossing her arms. Not just because of the list though, but also a small line of text near the edge reading 'If you see that friend N of yours, can you ask for his number?'

"Don't you think, you're overreacting a bit there Uzi?" Commandramon asked with his head tilted to the side, oblivious to the reason for Uzi's irritation.

"No, I'm totally justified in feeling like that." She said before and noticed one of the tears on Gabumon's pelt near his horn now being bigger than before. "Oh dammit. Did I accidentally pull on the pelt?" Uzi said out loud when Gabumon noticed the damage to his fur pelt again, but instead of getting angry he looked rather apologetic at her.

"It's okay, Uzi. I can fix that later." He said averting his eyes as he was not meeting Uzi's or Commandramon's own gazes. For a moment the digidestined worker drone and her partner couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the reptile digimon as well noting how he sounded a bit like their disassembly drone friend N. Uzi then clicked her tongue in annoyance, more directed at her own actions rather than Gabumon.

"Fine..." She picked up the toolbox Gabumon had dropped and shoving it in Commandramon's hands. "Now help me fix that hull before I..." Suddenly, both Commandramon and Gabumon whipped their heads around to the spire's entrance and fell silent. Immediately afterwards a loud roar rolled over the spire and reverberated inside of it, causing Uzi to grab her railgun again. "What was that?"

"You feel that too?" Gabumon asked with his eyes narrowed into a slight glare directed at the entrance.

"Yeah. A digimon is coming and it doesn't sound too friendly." Commandramon nodded as he set the toolbox aside before he looked over to Uzi.

"What? Again?" Uzi thought aloud before activating her rifle. 'Can't we have one night without something like that happening?' She thought when she felt the ground suddenly shake slightly. Each time, the tremors got stronger, making it clear that whatever it was came closer. Uzi pulled her digivice out of her pocket when the small v-pet like gadget displayed its radar on a holographic projection. Zooming out, the radar spotted three dots at the outmost rim of the device with two of them being yellow while a large red one moved slowly towards the center. 'So N and V are still further away huh? Great...' She thought to herself when she saw the two digimon head out of the spire. "Hey, wait!" She shouted after them as she ran after them.

Once outside the three of them found their sense of smell attacked by a putrid smell of decay like a slap across the face, making the two Rookie level digimon cover their mouths and noses. Even Uzi, despite shutting down her sense of smell made the mistake of taking a breath and started coughing.

"I think I'm going to get sick." Gabumon said as he felt a bit dizzy.

"This isn't just foul; it's a biological weapon." Commandramon said between coughs.

Meanwhile, Uzi spat on the ground and scanned their surroundings for any indication of where the smell came from. With the spire located at a rather big crossroads, she could look in at least two directions from her current position. However, she didn't have to move around the spire when she spotted something large moving from the East towards them.

"What in the-" Uzi said, squinting her eyes to try and make out details of what she was seeing, though she found herself soon regretting that decision as the being came closer with earth-shaking stomps and both Commandramon and Gabumon gasped at the sight before them.

Shambling down the street towards the trio was a large amorphous monster. It was even larger than Commandramon's Champion level and looked like a blob of blueish gray sludge had gained sentience. Its misshapen body had two large hands which it used to crawl forward, ending with three long claws. A pair of ribs seemed to stick out of the rest of the rotting mound of a body while on the back Uzi could see something like large cables embedded into itself. It's head sported a large mouth with large fangs jutting out its upper jaw and two tiny organic eyes sitting in what looked like plates of metal bolted to its face. It moved sluggishly with each step it took with its large arms dragging its bulk the way it was facing and pushing aside or crushing whatever stood in its path with a loud haunting roar.

"Ew. No wonder it reeks so badly. It looks like it's practically falling apart already." Uzi said as she made a face, but her assessment didn't make the stench filling the air any weaker. Commandramon actually started to feel a bit dizzy himself now as he raised his rifle towards the approaching digimon. That was when Gabumon spoke up.

"That's not good. Uzi, you need to flee! That's a Raremon." He told the worker drone, who looked surprised at the almost desperate tone in his voice. At the same time, her digivice projected its analyzer display for them to see and a window popped up on her own visor.

Digimon Analyzer

Raremon

Level: Champion

Undead Digimon

Type: Virus

Attack: Acid Sludge

"Great, that doesn't help us a lot at all here." She said, looking at the information when she put the digivice away and instead gripped her railgun more tightly, looking through the scope of her firearm. But when it focused on the approaching digimon, she gasped in horror. Embedded in the digimon's chest and arms were the bodies of dead worker drones with their visors all displaying the same 'FATAL ERROR' message that she had grown used to at this point already. However, by the way they stuck out of the undead digimon's rotting body and their faces forever frozen into grimaces of terror and pain, it almost appeared like they were desperately trying to escape from its body. "What the f-" She stopped when the two tiny eyes on Raremon's head moved to look directly at her and it let out a gurgling howl. Pale green sludge-like bile dripped down its mouth and body, before hitting the ground in front of it. Where it hit the ground, it sizzled and spread more if its foul odor while metal, concrete, bone and ice melted.

The sight alone was enough to make Uzi's stomach do a flip and a feeling of nausea rise up her throat.

"Raremon mechanize their bodies in order to stay alive, while their bodies keep rotting away from all the enhancements. It keeps devouring machines to stabilize itself. You and the whole spire are like a giant buffet for that guy. You need to go!" Gabumon's voice tore her out ofher thoughts while Raremon kept crawling towards them, its eyes locked on the mass of dead drone bodies behind them. Uzi swallowed down whatever feeling of dread had tried to overtake her, before she smirked.

"Fat chance of that happening." She said, catching Gabumon off-guard when her partner digimon shook his head.

"If we don't do something about this Raremon, it will just keep eating everything, including Outpost 3. We can't let that happen." Commandramon said, making Uzi roll her eyes a bit.

"Okay, yeah, maybe that too... But mostly because I still got to fix that ship up myself and I'm not just letting that oversized blob eat it." She said before looking at her partner. "You think you can still fight?" She asked to which he gave her a thumbs up.

"Of course." That made her smirk a bit just as a series of explosions hit Raremon's head, causing the creature to screech in pain and turn towards where the explosions had come from. A moment later a pair of yellow blurs flew overhead and fire at the undead digimon again, making it raise its arms to shield itself.

"N, V, you're back!" Gabumon said happily when he saw the disassembly drones, who looked down to see the three standing in the street.

"Hi Uzi!" N waved happily, only to yelp when V slapped him on the shoulder.

"Stop with the pleasantries and focus on destroying that thing." She said when Raremon let out another haunting roar from its maw. Then it suddenly closed it and leaned back, the body seemingly inflating a bit before expelling a stream of sludge from its gullet. Both N and V managed to dodge as it hit the ruin of a house and started melting into it. "Ew! Any idea how to beat that thing, Uzi?"

"Why are you asking me?" The worker drone snapped.

"Maybe because you're the only one with an analyzer for those things?" V said shot back sarcastically.

"Guys, not the right time." N said before dodging another stream of acidic sludge vomited forth from Raremon.

"It's an undead digimon, so it should be somewhat weak against fire." Gabumon said before Uzi nodded to Commandramon, who nodded back.

"Here I go!" Uzi's partner said before he moved forward and digivolved.

Commandramon digivolves to... Hi-Commandramon!

"DCD Grenade!" He fired five shots at the larger Champion level digimon, causing larger explosions than the ones caused by N and V's missiles to erupt on its body. Raremon lurched up and howled in pain, before glaring down at the approaching cyborg digimon. Much to their horror though, the wounds either revealed more dead worker drone bodies as well as other machinery like cars that the digimon had swallowed beneath the rotting flesh and/or almost instantly closed again. Raremon then swiped with its claws at Hi-Commandramon, forcing him to raise his shield to block the strike, but he was thrown aside like toy by the larger digimon.

"Are you kidding me? I call hax!" Uzi shouted as she and Gabumon advanced towards Raremon, although Gabumon had a harder time breathing from the decaying stench.

"It is larger than it should be... It must have eaten quite a lot already..." Gabumon panted with each breath of foul air making his throat and nose sting. 'This is bad. Is it trying to evolve to the Ultimate level?' Raremon's eyes then moved over to the two of them approaching and was about to spew out another glob of sludge at them when more missiles flew just over Uzi, almost knocking her beanie off her head and hit the digimon square in the face and thus stopping the attack.

"Hey! That was on purpose!" Uzi snapped back at V, who shrugged.

"Maybe." Was the only reply V gave when she changed her position as the group had the digimon effectively surrounded with N and V being airborne to its right, Hi-Commandramon to its left and Uzi and Gabumon in front of it. Raremon didn't turn its head as much as its eyes darted around at its opponents, though it clearly knew that it was in a disadvantagous position even with its bulk absorbing the force of the blows it had been dealt with so far.

"Uzi, can you line up a shot?" Hi-Commandramon asked as he picked himself off the ground. "Your railgun should have enough power to blow a hole through it." He said before opening fire on Raremon again. The undead digimon raised a hand to shield its head from the attacks again before turning to Uzi's partner and spewing forth more sludge. Hi-Commandramon raised his shield at this, but was still knocked back from the pressure.

V meanwhile replaced her missile launchers with machine guns and opened fire on the digimon's eyes, seeing them as the only part of its amorphous body aside from its mouth that appeared more vulnerable. The second the first bullet hit the metal places surrounding its eye sockets, Raremon shielded them with a gurgling roar, before swinging its arms wildly at the disassembly drones to try and swat them out of the air. N stuck to his missiles but still fired at the digimon's head.

'Dammit, I still need to get closer to fire this thing effectively for maximum power.' Uzi thought as she kept running towards it. Raremon's attention though was towards V, when it swung its arm at her and managed to grab her with its large clawed hand, pinning her against the side of a building. She tried to free herself from the disgusting grip of the digimon, but rather than shoving it aside, her own hands seemed to sink into its flesh and get stuck, rendering her defenseless.

"Dammit!"

"V!" Gabumon and N shouted when Hi-Commandramon picked himself up again.

"Let her go! Destroy Charge!" He said, ramming his shield into Raremon's side, but its larger bulk merely absorbed the blow before shoving the smaller Champion-level digimon back. Uzi's partner kept firing at its back, but it simply tanked the grenades exploding against its back as if they were nothing.

It then opened its mouth to try and devour V, only for a yellow cutting laser to slice through what might be the wrist, causing the entire hand to simply fall off like molten wax from a candle as the digimon cried out in pain. Luckily it absorbed the shock of the impact as it fell and disappeared into data afterwards, but the victory was short-lived as N was then swatted out of the air by Raremon's other arm and slammed into the ground.

"Don't worry, guys. I'm fine." N said while he struggled to break free as the undead digimon glared at him. At the same time Gabumon ran up to N.

"Petit Fire!" The reptile digimon spew out a stream of blue flames from his mouth at Raremon's arm, causing it to sizzle and smoke. The undead digimon let out a high-pitched screech at this and recoiled with its hand not unlike a human having come to close to a flame when another grenade from Hi-Commandramon exploded against the side of its head. Gabumon, seeing that Raremon was occupied, quickly helped N back onto his feet. "Quick, we need to go. Can you fly?"

"I think it damaged my wings-" N didn't get much further when Raremon spew another wave of sludge at Hi-Commandramon before turning its head around to douse the whole street around itself with it in a wide arc. Uzi was close enough to not be hit, her partner was able to raise his shield just in time and V managed to take off to avoid the attack and open counterfire. But N and Gabumon were both right in its area of effect. Without thinking, Gabumon grabbed N and threw him with all his strength to not be hit by the attack. This however still meant that Gabumon was hit right in the back and buried under a squall of the filthy substance. "Gabumon!" N shouted in the moment Uzi brought her railgun to bear.

"Alright, this should be close enough!" She said twirling her gun around to line it up with the towering digimon before her, just as it dove its head down to devour her whole. "EAT THIS!" Uzi shouted as she pulled the trigger. For a second, Raremon's head was engulfed in a stream of bright green forcing the others to look away. When the light died down, Hi-Commandramon moved around Raremon's unmoving body in a haste.

"Did you get it Uzi?" He asked as he saw Uzi, knocked back on her behind as she looked with wide eyes at the crater that now split Raremon's head in half. She was panting heavily when Raremon's body seemed to deflate and collapse in on itself a little, while she caught her breath.

"Bite me... that sure was close." Uzi let out a long exhale as she forced herself to calm down. 'But sure must have looked cool.' She thught to herself with a quiet laugh. V rolled her eyes at that when she took note of N crouched down in the mud and pulling out a certain yellow digimon. The fur pelt on its back was caked in the sludge, having shielded it from the attack, but not it simply slipped off his body in tethers. Luckily, the digimon soon opened its red eyes again to look back at the disassembly drone who had picked him off the ground. At that N actually smiled before he saw the ruined pelt disintegrating.

"Gabumon, your pelt..." N said looking rather distraught about it, knowing how much it meant to the digimon, but Gabumon cut him off.

"That's okay. I can make another pelt from scratch. But I can't make my friends from scratch like that. So I'd rather lose a pelt than my friends." The reptile digimon smiled back at N, before he was getting hugged by the genocide robot. "AGH! N, I'm still a bit hurt..."

"Oh sorry." N chuckled nervously before setting him down as the others moved over to them, although Uzi was trying to not ruin her boots by stepping into the mud covering the ground. V slapped Gabumon lightly on the shoulder with her cable-like tail.

"That was stupid." Was all she said while crossing her arms and not looking at the two, though they both just smiled and chuckled awkwardly at her remark, made her roll her eyes and smile a bit, before looking back at Raremon's body. "Wait, why is that thing's corpse not disappearing?" She asked, making the others once more aware of the giant corpse.

That was when it suddenly grew a new eye and glared at them. A rumble ran through its body and the cables on its back shuttered and pulsed as something activated, before the whole body convulsed and shook. To their horror, the ruined flesh of the undead digimon knitted itself back together, new claws sprouted from the wrist N had severed and its head at first flopped in two halfs around before they merged back together into one with a new upper jaw and fangs instantly replacing the ones atomized by Uzi's railgun. With a defiant roar, it glared down at the group of 5.

"Curses, is that thing immortal?" Hi-Commandramon asked, leveling the barrel of his grenade launcher at the digimon, just as Raremon spat out another stream of sludge at the cyborg digimon with enough force to throw him backwards into a ruined building, which then collapsed on top of him.

"Hi-Commandramon!" Uzi called out when the dust settled and revealed her partner digimon pinned down by tons of debris, though appearing otherwise unharmed.

"Why you?" Hi-Commandramon growled out as he tried to free himself, only to find himself stuck. His partner turned to the undead digimon with a glare.

"Okay, instant revival is just cheating!" Uzi said, looking down at her railgun having started its 30-minute cooldown again, causing her to grown. 'I really need to improve that.' She thought to herself while N and V pointed their guns at the undead digimon again. However that was when N noticed something.

"Is it just me or did that thing get shorter?" He asked. The others looked at him for a second before they noticed how everything about Raremon looked... notably smaller. Like it had actually shrunken down in size. Its feet no longer matched the foot prints by quite a bit and Uzi swore that it had more worker drone bodies sticking out of it a moment ago. Plus, the arm Gabumon had attacked was still burnt black from his Petit Fire. However, it still towered over all of them with it now being as large as Hi-Commandramon and it was clearly still looking to devour the drones as well as the disassembly drone's home.

'It must have consumed the machines it had stored inside itself to repair its body.' Gabumon thought to himself, before taking a defiant step towards Raremon, before looking back at the others. "So that's how it is. We have to destroy the machine on its back or it will keep on regenerating. I will keep it busy, while you take care of its machines." The others looked at the yellow horned lizard as if he just said something crazy. To them all this sounded like suicide, but Gabumon didn't let them argue as he ran towards Raremon, who raised an arm to try and crush him underneath. "Petit Fire!" The blue fire breath of the Rookie level digimon hit the hand before it reached him, causing Raremon to recoil in pain. Meanwhile, N and V took off and opened fire on the undead digimon again, which against tried to cover its head with its arms.

"Get in there N." V shouted when N swooped down at the wires and cables on Raremon's back. Despite the razor-sharp edges of his wings' blades, the mechanized parts of the digimon refused to be simply cut through. Though it clearly felt the strike as it howled in pain and tried to twist its body to shake N off, who now grabbed a hold of them and tried to cut through them with one hand swapped for a chainsaw. "Hey, I'm up here." V kept firing at its face, while Gabumon also kept breathing fire at the undead digimon. Meanwhile, Uzi tried to help Hi-Commandramon to free himself out of the rubble. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't quite able to move the heavy boulders.

"Ugh! Dammit! Next time I'm making a sidearm." The purple-haired worker drone groaned as she failed to move a block of concrete roughly the size of her torso.

"May I suggest your namesake machine pistol?" Hi-Commandramon asked trying to rise up on his feet again, only to find the pile of rubble above him unyielding. Despite that he chuckled, annoying Uzi.

"Later!"

At the same time, N finally managed to cut through the first of three exposed cables on Raremon's back, causing the creature to screech in pain while sparking electricity was emitted from the now damaged mechanized part of its body. However, in doing so, N had enraged Raremon even more and made it trash its body around to try to shake him off, causing N to land right on its back where his feet got stuck in the disgusting rotten flesh of the digimon. He tried taking off, but the hold the sticky flesh had on him was stronger. A swipe of the digimon's arms hit Gabumon and sent him tumbling across the snow covered road, before he came to a stop and tried picking himself up again on shaking arms and legs.

"Why you!" V switched to a cutting laser when Raremon tried to reach for N, missing him just barely with its long claws and shot straight at the digimon's head. The laser burnt the outermost layer of flesh and made the digimon howl in pain again, but it failed to penetrate any deeped even though Raremon was now in a weakened state to before. "Tch! Of course it doesn't work. Why would it?" She said sarcastically before swooping down and kicking the digimon straight into one of the metal plates around its eyes. The undead digimon lurched up at this, before swatting V aside like a pesky fly with a backhanded strike, making her hit the ground hard.

"V!" N shouted when he saw that as he changed his hands into guns and tried to open fire on the remaining cables on Raremon's back. But before he could pull the trigger, Raremon's landed on the ground again with its arms, causing N to lose his balance. "Whoa!" He shouted before he managed to catch himself from falling face first into the rotten flesh beneath him with his arms. Unfortunately, he then realized that they had ended up also becoming stuck on the body as well. "Oh, come on!" He couldn't help but say out loud. Raremon turned its head towards V, picking herself up from the ground, though her wings were bent out of shape and sparked from a malfunction. Seeing the previously airborne drone on the ground, Raremon was about to close in for the kill like it had done earlier this day.

"Petit Fire!" Gabumon shouted as he spew another stream of fire at Raremon's face, hitting one of its lidless eyes and making the creature roar in anger as it turned its half-charred face at the Rookie digimon. "Leave them alone!" Gabumon shouted defiantly, when his entire body seemed to shine with a familiar glow in a deep shade of blue, before it exploded outwards. The wounded undead digimon tried shielding its eyes with its arms at the sudden change of lighting, while the drones looked in surprise.

Gabumon digivolves to... Garurumon!

When the light died down again, a large wolf-like beast with amber-colored eyes stood in Gabumon's place. It almost twice the height of Uzi at the shoulders and did have a certain resemblance to the drawing Commandramon had made before and the fur pelt Gabumon had with its white and blue fur with darker blue stripes as well as the two long and thing ears. Its head was surrounded by a mane of feather-like growths and three more grew from the shoulders and hips on either side of the Champion-level digimon. Its almost ribbon-like tail whipped angrily behind it as its lips pulled back in a snarl directed at Raremon.

"So, this is Gabumon's Champion-level." Hi-Commandramon said what everyone else thought, while Uzi's digimon analyzer came to life again.

Digimon Analyzer

Garurumon

Level: Champion

Beast Digimon

Type: Vaccine

Attack: Fox Fire

Sensing danger from the new digimon, Raremon reared its head back and fired another stream of sludge at it. However, Garurumon merely weaved out of the way and charged at the undead. With its initial attack missing, Raremon swung its arms at the wolf to either slash at it with its claws or pin it down, only for instead jump right over it and landing on its head, slamming its face into the ground below from the added weight. The sharp edges of the his fur also sliced through the cables on its back as it landed next to N still being stuck on its back.

"N, are you alright?" Garurumon asked as he bit down the collar of his N's coat and pulled the disassembly drone out of the rotten skin, N's hands and feet still caked in grime.

"I'm okay, but what about you?" He asked, seeing how Garurumon's feet had also somewhat sunken into Raremon's body. Seeing that, the beast digimon huffed before putting N on his back.

"Hold on tight." He told N, who in response hugged one of the blade like growth on his shoulders. Raremon lurched up again and tried to claw at the digimon on its back when Garurumon opened its maw and spew out a stream of blue fire. "Fox Fire!" In an instant, Raremon's rotten flesh caught fire and burnt away, causing the creature to screech in pain. Now freed from its sticky hold, Garurumon leapt off of Raremon's back before turning around in mid-air. The undead digimon was still alive, but its life support was gone. The burning creature turned its remaining eye towards Uzi and V and lurched forward in a desperate attempt to devour them. Uzi looked in shock while V had her guns pointed at the thing.
"I said leave them be! Fox Fire!" With that Garurumon shot out an even stronger stream of flames from its mouth this one fully engulfing Raremon and pushing it away from the two drones and Hi-Commandramon. It let out a last pathetic gurgle before its body disintegrated, leaving nothing but a charred trail on the otherwise frozen street, though the flames burnt away quickly in Copper 9's cold weather.

Just then, Hi-Commandramon managed to get out from the rubble, only to instantly de-digivolve back to Commandramon and falling to the ground.

"I'm beat." He said weakly, while Uzi groaned while facepalming.

'Why are you so lame sometimes?' She thought to herself before helping her partner to get up. Meanwhile, Garurumon walked over to them and V and looked at them.

"Are you alright guys?" He said, though his eyes were primarily on V, whose nanites had already fixed the damage on her wings again. She waved the large wolf-like digimon and N on its back off.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, alright. Stop looking at me like that." She said, even though N just smiled a bit before he jumped down from Garurumon's back. Once his feet hit the ground again he turned back to Garurumon and actually got a good look at him. For a moment he just looked at the large canine digimon with wide eyes. The digivolved form of Gabumon felt a bit uncomfortable with that turning away from him, before all of the sudden N had his arms around his neck and started petting him. "Of course, that's on his mind first and foremost..." She thought aloud. 'Why is he so lame sometimes? Oh wait, it's N. Of course, he'd pet the first dog he'd ever get to see.' Even Uzi and Commandramon were not really surprised by the the dog lovers actions, though it was a bit strange when the dog in question was larger than even N himself.

"Now you really are like a big dog!" He exclaimed as his tail wagged a bit, while Garurumon looked unsure how to feel about this. "And your fur is really soft. Hey V! You gotta feel that too." N said.

"Guys, not that I don't appreciate the petting, but I'm not a stuffed animal-" Garurumon was cut off when N scratched him behind the ear, actually making him lean a bit more into his touch and making a humming sound of approval. Uzi and V had to fight down the urge when they say saw how Garurumon's hind leg twitched and kicked lightly at that like an actual dog would.

'Nevermind, wolves are just big, wild dogs, I guess...' The two girls thought, before Commandramon also walked over and petted Garurumon's chin just before the Champion level digimon's glowed and shrunk as he de-digivolved back to Gabumon. Surprisingly enough, he now sported a new fur pelt made from his own data.

"That sure was a lot of stress for one night." Gabumon chuckled when he rubbed the back of his head.

"True, but we are just getting started." Commandramon said when he walked up to Uzi. "We got to tell you how we plan on doing things tomorrow."

"Oh right, that." Uzi said, remembering why they went out in the first place before Raremon showed up. "We would have waited for you at your ship, but Gabumon wouldn't let us in to not show us whatever you're going to wear." Gabumon blushed at that and looked away when N and V shot him a look.

"I just thought it would take away the surprise..." He muttered bashfully to himself, just when Commandramon sniffed the air again and covered his nose.

"Sure Uzi, but we might want to talk out here in the open. I think inside would be a bad idea now, unless you guys get into a shower or something first." He said, making the drones look at him when Gabumon sniffed the air as well before he too frowned and nodded slightly.

"Yeah... Raremon's gone, but you still smell like it and we can't turn our noses off..." He said carefully. At that Uzi and V in particular glared at the two digimon.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Uzi asked already feeling some justified feeling of irritation well up in her. N meanwhile sniffed at his arm and immediately recoiled.

"Uhm... how do you say that nicely?" Gabumon thought aloud nervously when Commandramon simply spoke his thoughts rather bluntly.

"You guys smell... like you just had field day through a sewer." The cyborg digimon said, causing a moment of relative silence to spread while they all looked at him with wide eyes. "What? It's true."

"I know, but that's not the point..." Gabumon muttered, admitting that he thought the same thing.

"WHY YOU LITTLE-?!" In an instant, V and Uzi jumped at the two digimon with Uzi giving Commandramon another noogie, while V pinched Gabumon's cheek and pulled. "SAY THAT AGAIN!" Uzi demanded.

"AH! PLEASE LET GO, YOU STILL STINK- AGH! I DON'T WANT THE STINK!" Commandramon's tail hit the ground repeatedly as he struggled in her grip only for her to rub her knuckles harder against him.

"OW! OW! OW! WHY ARE YOU PINCHING ME? I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING!" Gabumon's arms flayed around as he failed to escape from V.

Meanwhile, N stood at the sideline and looked at the events playing out in front of him a bit awkwardly, trying to figure out how to calm Uzi and V down without either lying or telling them that the stench of decay still clung to all three of them as he'd rather not lose his head to either of them. It would appear that he still had a long night ahead himself.

Lights flickered along the ceiling when a certain pink-eyed drone walked down one of the hallways of Outpost 3 late at night. Today had been particularly restless for the blonde girl. Who could have possibly foreseen that the last remaining prom queen candidate would go missing when the other four went missing as well over the course of the past 4 months or so in a long streak of disappearing cases? What exactly were they supposed to do with a prom queen vote if there were no candidates left? As the main coordinator of the event, she knew for a fact that no one had ever put forth a sixth nominee. It also didn't help that a new election would probably make everyone aware how all 5 candidates were 'missing' and put another damper on the event as a whole.

Lizzy let out a sigh at this. She wasn't stupid like some of her more dimwitted peers and knew for a fact that those girls were all dead. You cannot exactly go missing in an underground bunker. Sure, there were plenty of older tunnels and hidden pathways, but sooner or later someone would have found them. It was just that the WDF most likely had no idea who was responsible for this. Normally, she would have vented to Doll about her own problems after class, but she had left without her and had been gone ever since, which was rather strange for Lizzy's best friend to do.

To say Lizzy's after-school day had been stressful would be an understatement and her usual emotional support in the form of her stoic, Russian-speaking friend being gone only added to that. Not that she feared that Doll might be the next to appear on a missing person poster next, though she'd lie if she said it didn't make her a bit worried. After eventually giving up on looking for Doll, Lizzy had returned home and went through the last details before the big day when she noticed later that evening that she still had the pen she had borrowed from Doll. Instantly, the teenage drone had groaned and cursed under her breath as her day was about to end just as bad as it had started.

She had not forgotten something like this since she had been in grade school and it bugged her a lot. So, after some styling of her hair and a quick sweep on social media, Lizzy had left her family's apartment to head to Doll's.

'This is such a mess...' Lizzy thought to herself as she finally reached Doll's door and was about to ring the doorbell when she realized one rather important detail that gave her pause. She had not thought about a reason as to why she had come here in the first place. She had a lot of pride and rightfully so, but she quite literally had never been inside Doll's apartment despite their close friendship. She didn't know why Doll never wanted her to hang out in her own place, but she had always assumed that it had something to do with... her family's circumstances.

She shook her head at this. 'Oh come on now Lizzy. This is Doll you are thinking about. You can just tell her that you wanted to return that pen you borrowed and telling her that you missed her this afternoon without anyone knowing about it or making fun of you afterwards. Just like you have always told her about everything.' She told herself before hitting the bell. The sound of the doorbell rang a bit louder than she expected it to be in the still hallway, making her jump a bit, but when she heard nothing from the other side she decided to call out. "Hey Doll. You still awake? I didn't see you after..." Lizzy stopped when looked down and saw the door slightly ajar, explaining why the doorbell from within was so loud outside. It looked like some block of concrete had been jammed into the automated door, keeping it from closing.

Just then she heard a crash from within as something was knocked over and clattered to the ground. Taking a deep breath, Lizzy activated the door to open again and walked inside. The lighting was an eerie red and barely anything was illuminated by the lamp right above the door and the living area. As soon as she stepped inside though, a weak splash could be heard as she looked down and saw that she had stepped into something wet and sticky.

'Okay, ew. Seriously Doll, you live like this?' Lizzy thought to herself as she looked at the walls for a light switch, just when a pinkish flame flared up somewhere in the dark and caused dozens of robot cockroaches to scatter away from the light, revealing a certain evil digimon holding the flame up with one finger and slapping some other roaches still clinging to his body off of him.

"OW! HEY! I was going to set you free again afterwards!" Impmon said angrily as he grabbed the last roach and threw it into the dark, before looking at himself. "And what's with all this sticky stuff here? I swear, that creepy girl needs to learn how to clean after herself..." Impmon's voice trailed off when he spotted Lizzy look at him with wide eyes.

For a brief moment, the worker drone and the digimon she had mistaken for a plush toy the previous night just looked at one another in silent shock, before the digimon broke the awkward silence.

"Whatever you're thinking, it is not like that!" Impmon said as he felt heat rush towards his face. Lizzy didn't quite know what he meant and he wasn't so sure himself as he could have meant the previous night or the fact he had just broken into someone's home. "I'm just... exterminating the bugs. And totally not using them for anything else." He said, raising his hands in a surrendering gesture and making the fire on his hand die down, causing him to be left in the dark again, safe for the glowing ends of the antennae of the roaches around him. "Whoa! Oof!" Then he suddenly tripped over something and Lizzy could hear some metallic noise. "Argh! What the hell? Why is it so messy in he- Wait, is this a leg?" He said before turning to Lizzy. "Hey you blondie, can you turn on the lights? I can't see anything."

The blonde girl had slowly backed away from where she stood only to bump into a wall and hit the light switch by accident, lighting up the entire apartment.

"Oh thanks, that- WHAT IN THE DIGI-HELL?!" Impmon shouted when he saw that he had indeed tripped over a worker drones leg. One that was still attached to the lower half of a drone and nothing else. The whole kitchen area he was in was littered with dead drone bodies, stripped down and cut up like meat in a butcher's shop. Pots were full with black oil and limbs still inside them like pasta waiting to be boiled. The walls and floor didn't fare much better with the whole place stained in black puddles and smears which the robotic vermin fed upon. The evil digimon felt his stomach twist into a knot at this as he shot to his feet and out of the kitchen next to Lizzy as if her relatively proximity provided some form of cover or protection. As for Lizzy, she felt sick at the sight of it as well but was too busy hyperventilating to even think about throwing up.
"Okay, I sure have seen some messed up stuff in the digiworld, but this sure is something." He said before turning to Lizzy. "Did you know about your creepy friend being a serial killer and apparently also a cannibal?"

Lizzy simply shook her head wordlessly after a moment as the digimon's words sunk into her mind. What she thought she had known about her best friend and the reality she was seeing before her eyes warred inside her as her processor tried to come up with some sort of explanation for what she was seeing, though the digimon's words hit her like a truck. Her inital motive for coming here was forgotten and overtaken by an instinct to flee, yet fear rooted her legs in place. She knew that feeling as she had felt it when the murder drones had attacked the bunker. That fear of impending doom, but this time she could tell there would be no one to save her.

Impmon opened his mouth and was about to say something, but that was when they both heard it. The block of concrete the digimon had placed there to keep it from falling shut and locking itself by accident after he had found the place unlocked, was pushed out of the way and the apartment's door closed with a mechanical click, making both Lizzy and Impmon slowly turn towards it to find a certain purple-haired, red-eyed drone standing between them and the only exit with her face cast towards the ground. Her shoulders moved up and down as she breathed heavily for a second, gradually slowing down. Neither Lizzy nor Impmon said a thing as they stared a bit frightfully at the person whose home they had entered.

"Вам не следовало этого видеть. (You shouldn't have seen that.)" Doll said before looking up, a wide grin on her face and her right eye fully replaced with the three-pointed symbol of the Solver glitching in and out on her right eye, causing Impmon's eyes to widen and take a fearful step backwards. Lizzy didn't recognize the person in front of her for a moment as it felt like she was no longer her friend staring at her with an almost feral grin but something else wearing Doll's face. Behind her the same symbol appeared on the wall, locking it in place and preventing any of her unexpected and uninvited houseguests from leaving.

"I see. No wonder this was one of the places I should look." The digimon said as he was about to ignite another fire on his finger tip, only to step when he saw his already dark body now being stained with oil. Sure, machine oil was not as combustible as gasoline, but his Night of Fire or Summon attacks would likely be enough to turn this apartment into a suite for the likes of Meramon. "You are infec- WHOA! HEY, PUT ME DOWN!" Impmon was cut off when Doll's used her telekinetic Solver powers to grab the Rookie digimon and lift him off the ground. Lizzy jumped back in surprise as she saw Impmon uselessly kicking his legs in the air above her to try and get away.

"С удовольствием. (Gladly.)" The red-eyed girl said before slamming Impmon against the wall with enough force to dent the wall a bit. The digimon let out a short outcry of pain before he was knocked unconscious. The glyph around his body disappeared instantly and he simply fell down like a puppet with its strings cut. With the digimon dealt with for now, she turned her head towards Lizzy and started walking towards her with a sharp knife appeared levitating in front of her hand.

"H-Hey Bestie, could you... calm down and put the knife away..." The blonde girl said backing away with hollowed out eyes as she tried to figure out a way to make it out alive. She could see an adjacent room between the two of them not far from her but knew it was a small one from the layouts of those apartments. Plus unlike her own room, Doll's place likely had no windows to the outside. Even if she managed to dart in there, she'd be trapped. No matter how she looked at it, she was trapped with the serial killer that turned out to be her best friend since childhood. For a second, the Solver's symbol on Doll's red eye glitched a bit and her grin lessened a bit.

"Sorry Lizzy. I truly am. It really is a shame." Doll said before the glitching stopped and the grin returned with full force. "Но я так голоден... (But I am just so hungry...)" She said before swinging her arm back to throw the knife, when a bright light flashed out of the study room and filled the hallway beyond, making both Lizzy and Doll look away and shield their visors.

"NO, DOLL! STOP!" A pair of voices rang out from it. The knife dropped from Doll's grip and clattered to the ground as she cried out in pain, clutching the right side of her screen where the strange symbol was. For a second, Lizzy though she saw a flash of yellow electricity run through her visor and tendrils of it trying to hold onto the worker drone before disappearing. Still, the symbol remained on her eye when Doll was about to do something with it. An identical holographic glyph appeared in front of her hand again as she turned towards the room, before something slammed into her and tackled her to the ground and into the kitchen area.

It was too fast for Lizzy to make out what it was. One second, Doll stood there ready to do... some crazy magic thing and the next she was thrown sideways and out of her field of vision. Still but she could only remain frozen to the spot for a second before she heard the sounds of a scuffle coming from within the kitchen. The blonde girl's pink optics glanced over to the door, seemingly no longer locked by that same symbol. Every bit of code in her screamed at her to move and get out of there when she regained control of her legs again and moved towards it, rounding the corner to the kitchen and seeing what was going on inside.