Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hunger was the first thing Uzi felt.

Hunger gnawing in her belly and core, biting her lungs and making her head woozy.

The second feeling was of comfort, familiar scents next to her. N and V, her mates, her squad.

Oh and J, for some reason.

It was warm in the worst way, digging up her core like her hunger already was.

"Hungry?"

"Hungry!"

"Hungry!"

"..."

Once that was established, minus J refusing to answer, Uzi tried looking around herself. It was dark, her gyroscope was doing flips and-

CRASH

Everything suddenly shook and Uzi felt her core drop to her stomach. The whole world seemed to rattle uncontrollably. 

It was quiet. At first, it was just from the shock of the fall. But as minutes passed, the four drones started to get antsy. They were too hungry to think, their instincts controlling them for now. Claws dug at the walls, desperate to leave.

A hatch opened up.

What followed was a rush outside, stopped by four large drones trying to fit through a small hole all at once.

"Hey, in way!"

"Move!"

"Too tight!"

"You move!"

Instinct-driven as they were, the four drones started an undignified slap-fight to push each other out or back into the dark place.

They had almost gotten into an agreement on the order they should move out when the sight of Prey just staring at them outside hit all 28 eyes at once.

With a series of whines, hisses and growls, the pile of drones not as much lunged as squeezed out of their prison. The writhing ball of limbs moved towards their Prey, sounding to all of the world like a scream from Robo-Hell itself.

Despite these clear signs of danger, it took a stray claw from one of the drones catching a Prey to make all of them run. In a moment of rare intelligence, they scattered in all directions.

The hurt Prey was quickly swarmed and dug into with relish. At least, for three of the drones. The fourth did not stop to eat, instead chasing after the Prey.

The taste of fresh oil and metal gave partial clarity to Uzi. She saw a drone torn to shreds before her, its internals completely gone. She heard her squadmates' pants and growls next to her, the dread Xs still on their faces.

Wait, weren't there four of them?

"Hey, J, prey here! Come back!" N warbled at J, huffing as the fourth drone did not listen.

Oh well, her loss.

----------------

What followed was supposed to be a massacre. It was supposed to result in most worker drones on Copper 9 dying and the only survivors hiding deep underground.

Yet, that's not what happened.

Instinct drove the Disassembly Drone squad, sure. But after their first meal, their hunger took a backseat to a much more honed instinct. Knowledge of their squad and co-operation.

Instead of all three drones (plus one extra) flying in different directions for their prey, the bonded squad quickly isolated a group of workers and took them out. Months of working together told them they had enough prey for a while. What took priority was instead to find a spot to stash their prey, as far from the sun as possible.

The night certainly would live in infamy for the worker drones. Yet with only one murder drone still aggressive, it was much easier for the workers to hide and make plans.

When the sun rose to end the carnage, no spire stood to greet it. Only a small pile of bodies around the landing pod.

Chapter Text

Uzi woke to a headache, one that throbbed behind her eyes harshly. She rubbed her forehead, grumbling low as she kicked her feet.

A yelp and a hiss woke her up fully.

She was sleeping in a pile with her mates. Okay, that was normal. What wasn't was that they were not at the spire but in a dark and musty hole. A quick glance told Uzi it was a basement.

"Ughh, got the worst hangover," she growled, holding her head. Then she blinked, still seeing the basement even though she was covering her eyes. Was her tail out? Uzi moved it, but her field of view did not change.

Rolling to her stomach, Uzi took a look at her arms-ANDWHYWERETHEYMURDERDRONEONES!?

She jumped up, landing on all fours, screeching. That earned her a tail smack from V.

"Oh shut up, yer not the only one with a hangover," she hissed, glaring at Uzi.

"I know yer blind, but I'm a murder drone now!" Uzi replied, swatting V back with her own tail. Both heard N get up, the largest drone of the group cracking his limbs as he shook himself.
"Let's not fight, I think we all had too much," the peacemaker of the group said, earning a nibble on his shoulder from V.

Her body changing once more wasn't ideal, but Uzi's focus returned to the basement. It was unlooted, with plenty of furniture and knick-knacks still present. Alongside flash-frozen human corpses.

She could see the ground was disturbed next to a wall, with the scent of dead workers and oil wafting from it. Okay, so they had also gone hunting and stashed their prey here.

"Why do I remember that J was with us?" N asked, rubbing his head and licking his teeth. That made Uzi's mind screech to a halt. She found the files of last night in her memory and-

It was like looking at the first-person footage of the day J, V and N had arrived at Copper 9. Only, as soon as they had gotten their prey, the trio had retreated here. While J had flown off to parts unknown.

The gasps from the other two confirmed to Uzi she was not glitching.
"Guys, did we just travel back in time?" Uzi asked, her tail between her legs.
"Shit, the purple thing's right!" V hissed, looking around nervously.

The three spent five minutes basically panicking before something occurred to Uzi.
"Hey hey! Do you know what this means?" she asked, looking at the two Disassemblers. When neither spoke up, Uzi waved her hands (and tail.)
"We can stop J and no one needs to hide behind doors!" she explained. At that, N's tail began to wag.
"Oh, and we can save all of those other squads from the sentinels!" he added. V groaned, rolling her true eyes.
"Yeah, sure. We can maybe stop J. But in case you have forgotten, N, we still have to obey territory rules an' I highly doubt they'd believe us," she stated.

The dual 'oh' from both Uzi and N made her head hurt more. 

---

Operation: Bag The Corpo was laughably easy. While J was not immune to the instincts and senses that all Disassemblers had, she fought against them the most. Obsessed with humanity and their power plays, J had buried her growls and hisses well.

The version of her that was currently flapping about the capital was also untrained in pings and pack manoeuvres. 

Uzi, V and N knew both and had trained unique tactics and pings for their group. They had long since figured out each other's roles and any friction had sanded itself down with practice.

When it came to tracking and flushing, N was the best. Dog jokes aside, he truly had the best sense of smell and his larger size made him great at initially scaring the prey to run.

Uzi might have been new to hunting, but if she was good at something it was being annoying. Harrying the prey to keep running, never giving it a moment of rest, Uzi chased the prey into its doom.

V was fast, sure. During hunts with J, she had chased the prey to their leader. But with that role already being filled, V got to focus just on the kill. It was a bittersweet thing, something forced upon her initially. But the fact remained; V was efficient and fast, if messy.

J had never been good with stealth, not that anyone could blame her. Her role had always been to be visible and presentable. But right now, N was tailing her from the ground with the pigtailed drone being none the wiser.

He had to do this right, make her run instead of fight, otherwise, it would be a true bloodbath. 

Luckily, J was too busy tracking a group of workers to pay attention to her surroundings.

N's lucky break came when J focused herself on aiming at something, the larger drone jumping up a building and into the air with as much noise as he could make. After he had spooked J, shoulder-checking her was a minor thing.

She, wisely if this had been any other situation, flew off.

"Corpo is running, over," N pinged, tail wagging at the rush the chase brought. He was still chasing J, but at a pace that allowed Uzi to do her job.

The smallest drone of the group had the worst flight stamina, but she didn't need much to jump at poor J every time the former leader stopped for a breath.

Once J was suitably softened, Uzi stalled, grinning ear to ear as she pinged V.

"Kick-mate her up!"

As much as V hated how she had become what she was, she was still quite content with being an apex predator. It was control, more so than ever before.

J didn't even see the flash of silver lunge at her and drag her down.

The corpo did her best to fight back, hissing and screaming, but V was stronger. She knew every trick in J's book, especially as the former leader often forgot her tail existed.
"Woo, go V!" Uzi chirped as she arrived, jaws wide in a grin and tail wagging. As usual, N was more subdued as he touched down after Uzi.
"Teamwork makes the dreamwork," he stated with a cheer, earning a friendly shove from Uzi.

There was a low, angry growl from J.
"What is the meaning of this V?" she asked, teeth bared and claws out. V suddenly felt like a kid with a credit card in a candy store, this chance would never come again.
"We are unionizing," she spat, watching as J's eyes hollowed and then turned into the dread X.

Even as J became a hissing ball of pure indignation, it was so worth it.

----

"JcJenson will hear of this insolence!" J hissed and spat, even in her tied-to-a-chair state.
"Ooh, what're they gonna do? Fire us?" Uzi asked, grinning ear to ear.
"In case you, who I don't know for some reason, haven't forgotten any disassembly drone refusing to comply is to be eliminated," J spat back.

As fun as it was watching Uzi egg J on, and it was very tempting to just let the purple thing lead the conversation, V had to cut in.
"J, quit it. We know there's no JCJenson anymore," she stated, tail lashing behind her. J's eyes widened and she swallowed hard.
"T-that's a lie and you know it, V! Who am I getting orders from if not our handlers?" the former leader asked, trying to look dominant.
"Cyn."

The name of the malfunctioning drone, one that had carved its evil tendrils into each and every drone in the room, turned the air cold. Sickly. V felt like she had called Robo-Satan itself by uttering that name out loud.

J hissed from fear, teeth bared in a defensive snarl.
"Don't, V," she hissed under her breath. But V was not in the mood to placate the monster.
"Don't what? You and I both know we are here to soften its entry; the workers are just a distraction," she spat back. It felt so good to do that, to stare at that bootlicker narc and just let her know the monster no longer controlled her.
"It doesn't matter, V! Even if we die fighting it, it will just bring us back, over and over and over," J countered, eyes hollow and surrounded by worry-lines. 
"Then we just have to make this life count, eh?" V stated, grinning. The mask of confidence was easy to slip on, even as V felt her tail kink from fear. 

Giving into it would have been easy, she could have just pretended to be a vicious tool of JCJenson once more. But what was easy was often not what was right, V had bitterly learned. Dancing to Cyn's tune was pointless, it would hurt her squad no matter how well she played her part.

"Besides, J, Cyn owes us a debt," V said, baring her fangs and grinning. J stared at her, eyes still hollow. Her spirit had been broken, more than Vs.
But there was one thing, one person, V knew would light J's tail on fire.
"She took Tessa from you, flayed her like some animal and has been runnin' in that costume since then. High time we get her back," V snarled, tail lashing and wings spread wide. Even if J had been the closest to Tessa, the girl had still saved her and N. V wanted revenge, she wanted Cyn to feel it.
J stared at V, but V could see the former leader was starting to consider her offer. A low growl came from J's voice box, her teeth bared in a threat snarl. But her tail was not lashing.
"You know I want her back more than anything, but the three of us aren't enough," J snapped, V laughed.
"Who said it would be just the four of us?"

Chapter Text

If Operation: Bag the Corpo had been easy, Operation:Wololo hit a snag from the outset.

N and Uzi were standing at the edge of the city, right next to their territory markers. Uzi paced back and forth, frustration clear in her scent.

"So we just gonna stand here and ping at them?" she asked N, who was sniffing the air for nearby Disassemblers. The pilot gave Uzi a nervous grin.
"Yeah, if we go to neutral lands or to their turf, they'll attack," he explained. N could easily smell the trails of the other pods, there was no mistaking the bitter taste of burned gasoline. 

N quickly clawed a few new marks into the ground, an unconscious action to relieve stress. As he did, he lifted his head up and warbled a long string of pings.
"Kin, come to neutral land! Dangerous news, important news! Kin must hear!" he called out, listening as the sound echoed in the dead silence of the ruined city.

He nearly jumped up when he heard wingbeats he could not place. Instinct told him to defend his territory, but his conscious mind reminded him he had asked for this.

The new Disassembler was male, wearing a padded jacket and a messenger bag. Its hair was ratty and N could see and smell fresh wounds on it.

Ä.

"Kuules kultapoika, meneppäs takas sun  omaan pesään ja kerro J:lle että mun lauma haluaa olla rauhassa," (Listen here golden boy, you go back to your own nest and tell J my pack wants some peace from you) the ragged leader of its own squad snapped. Ä had very little patience at the best of times, being so fresh from entry would have made the grumpy drone even grumpier.

But N was no longer the shy bottom feeder he had been, he could defend himself. Sure, V had started calling the shots (when Uzi wasn't challenging her calls), but nothing was official yet. Nor would it be, that would have been a messed up dynamic between mates.

"This is bigger than turf wars, Ä. If we don't work together we'll-" N began, tail lifted up, standing as tall as he could. He kept eye-contact with Ä, not backing down.  Ä tried to slash him, but N dodged, still keeping his defensive posture up.

"Löitsä sun pään? Vai ootsä oikeasti nii tyhmä ku J väitti? Mun lauma haluaa olla rauhassa. Jos J haluaa ottaa Jenssoneilta suuhun, se on sen ongelma," (Did ya hit yer head? Or are ya as stupid as J claims? No, we want to be in peace. If J wants to suck up to the Jenssons, that's her problem) Ä spat back, earning a cackle from Uzi. The ragged leader turned his gaze on the smaller drone, baring his teeth.

"Wow, when ya said they were sensitive, you weren't kidding, N," Uzi chuckled, matching Ä's glare. It was at that moment that N realised the grumpy pack leader was no taller than Uzi. 

"Kuka vittu sä oot?" (Who the fuck are you?) Ä asked, standing his ground. Uzi casually traipsed juuust at the edge of the territory.

"I'm Serial Designation Z and the new leader of this squad, nice to meet ya," she stated, grinning at Ä. The ragged leader tensed, baring his teeth and growling. Pings of mine, get away,mine,my territory slipped past his fangs.
"Don't worry, not gonna take your territory. Our's enough, but ya gotta listen to N. Someone's plannin' to trick us," Uzi continued, eyes on Ä as the disassembler paced. If Disassembly Drones had hackles, N was sure Ä's would have been lifted. Ä growled low, making a lunge at Uzi, she did not flinch.

Seeing the resolve in Uzi, Ä huffed in approval.

"Kuule, sä selvästi oot tosissas, mut mun lauma ei toimi niinku Kultat-sun lauma. Me pidetään huolta et Työläiset ei liiku reviirien välissä, mei olla sotilaita," (Look, I can tell yer serious, but my pack doesn't work like the Goldeng-Yer pack. We make sure no Worker moves between territories, we ain't soldiers," he explained, tail moving in a slow back and fort rhythm. Uzi rolled her eyes.

"If this thing gets its claws on this planet, yer gonna lose yer territory," she countered, grinning as Ä growled at the mere thought. He eyes N, baring his teeth.

"Okei, Kultapoju, anna tulla," (Alright Golden Boy, let's hear it.)

-----------------------------

"And why should I bother? If your squad gets wiped out, then mine will be even stronger. Win-win, I'd say," the long-haired Disassembler stated, grinning at Uzi and N. Neither looked too thrilled to be dealing with him.

From what N had told her, K was looking to oust J from her position as the company favourite. Uzi almost felt bad for him for still thinking JCJenson was around.
"It'll destroy everything, not just our territory. Might even do that last, to spite ya," Uzi offered a counter-argument, K only grinned.

"We'll just leave once it does," he countered, tail held up and stinger pointed at Uzi. The smaller Disassembler mentally prepared herself for a fight.

"Buuut you crashed down, like us. And if I know Q at all, he's not a good pilot or a mechanic," N piped up, making K change his stinger target from Uzi to him.

"It won't be just Q, I've talked with few of the other leaders about this. If we all work together, we'll fix the pods," K hissed, posture dominant.

"So why don't you use that alliance to save this place?" Uzi asked.

-------------------------------

As Uzi and N returned to the cellar, J and V had already turned the space into a war room. Maps of Copper 9 covered the walls, a war table (using a game of Risk as pieces) was set up in a corner and J was currently fighting with a shortwave radio.

"This socialist piece of shit," the pigtailed Disassembler growled, swatting the machine with her hand. There was another hiss from J as Uzi cackled at the sight.

"You gonna go full old school with the tech?" Uzi asked, still very amused. 

"In case you don't know, using anything more modern than this would tip Cyn off," J explained as she returned to her work.

V was not trying to fix machines, luckily, she was drawing locations on a map of the capital city and the summer camp. Without her glasses. It looked serviceable but a bit messy.

"The labs are going to be a fun challenge," she muttered, estimating its location on the map.

"Hey, at least we know what to expect now," N tried to cheer her up, accepting V's grumble as a good enough response. The male Disassembler then dug into their cache and started chewing on a leg.

"How many did you get on board?" V asked as she continued to work on the map.

 
"We got Ä and K, but K's got some sort of alliance going so we might get more," Uzi said, digging through an old toolbox to help J. The pigtailed Disassembler let out a confused screech.

"What? You got K? How?" she asked, tail lashing and fangs bared.

"We just,uh, told him it was better to fight for his territory than leave," Uzi tried simplifying the meeting. N chuckled at that, offering Uzi a piece of the leg.

"With K and Ä on board, they'll tell every other squad about it and hopefully there will be a gathering," he mused, earning a grumble from J.

"You guys do gatherings`" Uzi asked, head deep in the old radio.
"We don't, but everyone else does," N explained.
"Why's that?"
"We are the only group that 'matters', so every other squad is left to their own devices. That and J forbid it."

Uzi glared at J, who merely huffed at the accusation.

"We had a quota to fill and a top squad spot to keep," she explained, tail held up in an effort to look dominant. Uzi scoffed.

"Yeah, busywork made by the Solver," she noted, letting out her own hiss as J only shrugged.

"The other squads didn't know better, and it was good for structuring the hunting," the former leader said. Uzi decided this was not an argument she wanted to win or lose.

"Well, since now I'm publically the squad leader, if they invite us in me and N are going," Uzi decided, smiling at N whose eyes had gained sparkles.
"Really? Always wanted to go to one!" he said, tail wagging a mile-a-minute.

Okay, so maybe Operation:Wololo wasn't a complete bust. If all the Disassemblers of Copper 9 agreed to help them, then the Solver had no army to its name.

Or, knowing it, it might try to rush out one.