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Every year that V can remember being on Copper-9, she and her two squad members would hold an event amongst themselves. It was a special brawl where they would fight each other mainly for the fun of it, but also to see how their skills hold up against each other. These fights would take place inside of the spire just in case their fights lasted unusually long into the dawn of day. They had established rules in place to make sure each fight was fair, but V knew that there were times where those restrictions had to be broken as a worker’s corpse.
Today marked the day that another one of the brawls would commence. V was awaiting for N’s return from hunting to practice before the actual brawl. The brawl would be shorter this year, as J was, for the most part, out of the picture. She wasn’t totally sure if that was for better or for worse. She didn’t care about whether or not J could attend, though. She had better things on her mind: she wanted to win this year’s brawl and break N’s win streak. Ever since the third ever brawl they’ve had, N has been the one to stick to the fight and emerge victorious, and with J mysteriously missing, she wasn’t going to be slightly tired by the time she fought him.
N was a surprisingly strong brawler. The drone who always let J walk all over him like her own personal doormat had a great sense of fighting for himself, which was only proven by the yearly duels. However, V wasn’t much worse. She was critical and always tried to go for attacks that would disarm or stun the other, which worked with decent effectiveness against J.
As V idled towards the entrance of the spire, her audio sensors picked up distinct crunches in the snow that were obviously not hers. She looked over, and could make out the worker she recognized as Uzi. The worker in question let out an annoyed sigh upon being spotted.
“Damn it, I wanted to scare you!” She complained.
V deadpanned in response. “You have some nerve trying to scare me.”
“And what would you do,” Uzi fired back. “Kill me?”
“Don’t test it, because it might happen the next time you sneak up on me.”
“Whatever.” Uzi decided to change the subject. “What are you even waiting for, anyway?”
“For N to finish hunting.” She replied.
V could hear a strange notification sound coming from Uzi’s pocket. The worker quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket and silenced it without a moment’s notice. She shoved her phone back into her pocket and pretended that nothing happened.
“You don’t usually wait for him ever, I thought?”
“It’s for a brawl.”
“A what, now?”
The female disassembler did not feel like explaining the entire thing. “We just fight each other to test our abilities once a year. Nothing more, nothing less.” She didn’t feel like saying that those fights were mostly for fun. “It’ll be a little less… energy taxing with J gone.” And less fun.
V looked away from Uzi for a little, just paying attention to the sky; N was taking his time hunting, that was for sure. She looked on and waited for some movement to catch her eye. Movement that wasn’t the snow rushing past her; movement that would shine brightly when reflected off of the moonlight in just the right way.
“Hold on, hold on. So, you guys just… fight each other every year?” Uzi interrupted the brief silence.
“Mhm,” V blandly hummed. “I don’t need to repeat myself, do I?”
“Sounds fun, and I’m bored. Could I join?”
V looked over towards Uzi with confusion. A fight reserved for the disassemblers meant to put their energy and willpower to the absolute test, and Uzi was going to join in? She was briefly dumbfounded at the stupidity of it, but she wasn’t interested in questioning it. Uzi probably has a reason to have lost her mind if the camp incident is anything to go off of, anyway. She still distrusted her because of that.
“If you want to fight one of us, then go for it; I don’t care, but N might. Don’t be surprised if your systems decide to really hate you for healing a lot of injuries, considering that annoying pest is only recently affecting you.” She decided to add one last thing. “If you fight me, don’t tell me to go easy. I’ll just laugh.”
“You say that like you’re forced to hold back on killing me.” Uzi retorted to the last note.
V let out a groan. “That’s because I am. The brawls aren’t meant to warrant any death.”
“Oh, come on. That sounds less boring now, doesn’t it?” Uzi complained in a passive-aggressive tone.
“Are you asking me to kill you?”
“No, I wanted to kill you!”
“Robo-god, you already almost did just a week ago! You would’ve been a pile of oil I’d lose track of in an hour had N not intervened anyway.”
“Oh my god, whatever. Bite me!”
One of her hands turned into a set of claws as she allowed her mouth to widen and pick at a spot in her teeth. She figured that it would be better for there to be absolutely no nuisances during the fight if she wanted to try to beat N this year. She didn’t really bother to catch Uzi’s reaction. Another strange notification sound played, which was silenced quicker than last time, as if it was more of a passive sound effect than a constant ringing.
A glint in the sky told V everything she needed to know. She moved into the spire without a word and waited for any cue, with Uzi watching confusedly. Soon enough, she watched as N landed in front of the spire, snow being kicked up like a small explosion. He eventually looked up, straightened his posture as his wings fell back, and started walking into the spire. A part of the tailcoat of his coat looked stained with oil.
“Hello, V, hello, Uzi!” He quickly greeted both of them.
“You took your time.” V was the first to speak out of the two.
“Yeah, sorry. I had a hard time finding–”
“Hey, N, could I maybe fight you guys in the brawl?” Uzi interrupted him.
“Oh, Uzi, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to join.” He sounded like he really wanted her to join, but knew the risks in allowing it to happen. “If you want to, you can watch us!”
Uzi looked fairly disappointed. “Eh, mkay. I’ll watch. Those fights sound sick as hell, anyway.”
N winked at Uzi after she responded, and she copied him. It was weird how much they did that sometimes. V didn’t understand it that much at all, but she had no real reason to. N chose Uzi over her in the end after all, so she couldn’t really complain for long. She rolled her eyes after a little.
She decided to cease the stalling. Her impatient tone was evident. “So, N, are we going to sit around, or are we going to start sparring here?”
“Oh, yeah, we can get to that!” He joyfully responded. “Do you want to practice first, or just get straight to it?”
V’s giggle was accompanied with a low tone. “Straight to it.”
V then watched as N walked to one side of the interior of the spire. She followed suit quickly after, going to the other side. Once they both reached their locations – which didn’t take long at all – they faced each other. She could tell that N looked pretty determined all of a sudden, likely ready to keep his win streak. V wasn’t going to let that happen, though; she had to break his streak, and now while J was gone seemed like a good time to do so. She herself looked more ready to fight him than she normally is in these brawls. She saw Uzi out of the corner of her eye glaring at her phone, before the worker looked up.
“You ready, V?” He sounded prepared for the fight. V giggled.
“Don’t make me laugh.” She sounded determined to win. N nodded his head.
“Kick her ass!” Uzi sounded excited to watch. V stifled a laugh out of the comment the worker made.
N’s left eye had adjusted to a small X as V’s entire visor was replaced with the signature symbol. His main weapon of choice was already ready, being a blade, and V’s claws were long sheathed to replace her hands. They both seemed to be preparing to pounce at each other despite being fairly far away from each other within the area of the spire. N’s free hand was on the ground, and V looked as if she had already pounced on an unsuspecting victim. Uzi only watched in awe despite the fight having not started just yet.
“Let’s dance,” they both said in unison.
They then began to quickly move at each other. N ran straight towards V, and V seemed to just wait. Once he approached a certain distance close to her, she pounced at him. His blade made a loud metallic collision noise when he parried one of the claws. One of V’s claws managed to swipe at his coat, but N was not quick to give up at all. He changed his free hand into a set of claws himself, and swiped at V’s arm. She dodged it.
V quickly furrowed her wings out and lifted off. N allowed his wings to furrow out as well, but he didn’t fly up so quickly. Once she tried to fly over and claw him, he lifted off himself, which caused her to have to immediately turn around to avoid crashing into the spire. He then performed an attack he remembered doing in the outpost, kicking V to the ground while remaining in flight, snow exploding around her as she landed in a pile of worker corpses that were resting below them. V quickly got up.
When N immediately flew down to try to attack her left arm, it was able to make a cut in her metallic shell, but she had grabbed his blade with one of her claws. Her other claw switched to a blade as she swung at his free hand. N wasn’t able to dodge it, and he let out a wince of pain as his arm fell to the ground. His eye was now hollow and determined; he was not going to give up. He quickly pushed V slightly away from grabbing his only weapon of choice, and went for her own arm in return. She couldn’t move out of the way fast enough, and both brawlers were now missing one of their arms. Her slow reaction time also caused the blade to slightly cut into the side of her torso.
N huffed and V panted. They were both getting more and more exhausted the more the brawl continued, but they were both equally determined to fight each other. Snow was kicked up all around the place as they kept landing and knocking each other down. Blades clashing that sparked against each other, wings quickly flying around and kicking up snow, it would’ve been awesome to any bystander who was watching.
Eventually, after what felt like ten minutes of exhilarating, yet tiring fighting, they both seemed to stop.
“Phew,” N had to catch his breath. “that was… probably the most fun I’ve had fighting you.” N was the first to speak.
“Probably because J didn’t start fighting me first, like the order usually is.” V responded, panting as she spoke.
“Well, I admit I’m really, really exhausted. You got me!” His X eye faltered as he humbled himself.
“Tch,” she scoffed. “No way you’re just going to give up like that.”
“I’m accepting that I’ve simply been used to fighting you when you’re already tired from fighting J. You’re a great fighter, V, and this year’s brawl was really fun! Even if I lost.”
V was in slight disbelief; she had actually won this year. She giggled in response, knowing she was finally the victor after multiple years. She nudged him playfully with her one arm, before moving onto finding her detached arm. A disassembly drone arm was moving towards her, which she simply picked up, and held to her arm socket as it reattached itself in the process of healing. Most of their wounds had already healed, although oil stained both of their jackets. She couldn’t help but notice that there was a very obvious something that was missing.
“Hold on, Uzi wanted to watch us fight, right?” N asked, which made V turn to face him.
“Yeah?” She responded.
“Well, where is she?” V noticed that Uzi was gone too. That’s what was obviously missing.
Both of them looked around the spire wordlessly. N went inside the spaceship, while V looked around the spire. She didn’t know why she bothered looking around; she didn’t need to care about Uzi’s whereabouts. She continued looking around anyway, finding almost nothing but peculiar dents in the snow.
Footsteps through the snow that trailed off and away from the spire.
“N, I found something!” She called out to him. He could be heard leaving the spaceship, and flying over towards her. He sounded slightly exhausted still after reaching her. “Footprints in the snow.” She pointed.
“Maybe that’s where she went.” He spoke. “I’ll go–”
“I’ll go follow the path.” She interrupted him. “You can go rest; she couldn’t have gone far.” She mostly said that just to get him off her back a little bit. As much as the fight was really fun like usual, she didn’t want to have him tag along.
“Oh, alright. Hope you find her!” He waved to her before walking back, lightly holding onto his own arm that was dismembered in their brawl earlier. He probably didn’t place it in correctly.
V watched him move into the spaceship, shutting the hatch as he went inside, likely to either sleep or sit down in one of the chairs and catch a break. Once the hatch was shut, she looked away, and studied the track a little bit, walking out of the spire. Her UI had immediately locked onto those markings in the snow, and determined that they belonged to a worker drone. Another detail she noticed was that they looked fairly like footsteps made by a drone who wore boots that originated from the spire itself. It was most definitely Uzi. V let her wings breathe again, and lifted off, which tired her a little more than she already was.
She flew somewhat slowly to make sure she didn’t accidentally fly past the track, keeping her head almost straight down to keep watch on the path while allowing her real eyes to make sure she didn’t run into anything. Flying was energy-taxing after such a brawl, but she felt like it was necessary to make the trek faster. She noticed that there were some points in the path where the footsteps looked slightly more spacious than other points; was Uzi running from them?
She would’ve asked herself how far Uzi had run away from the spire, but that was simply just not necessary. V didn’t think it was worth it to speak out loud when the only audio sensors that would pick up her voice would be solely herself. Her audio sensors did pick up Copper-9’s harsh atmosphere, like they always did. That damn worker drone better not have run much farther.
A couple of possible explanations behind what could’ve happened started circulating in her logical capacitors. She first thought Uzi ran back to the outpost, but that was quickly explained by the fact that she knew the path to the outpost was not the path that was taken below her. The next idea was that someone snuck in and made her leave, but that couldn’t be the case either due to there not being evidence of a second drone having walked. Uzi wouldn’t have let that happen, anyway; besides, who would be stupid enough to enter the battlefield of two disassembly drones sparring? V didn’t know what happened, and the longer the path went, the more annoyed she felt. Another strange feeling accompanied her alongside the annoyance, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
After only a few more minutes of flying, she settled with landing. If she continued to fly with the energy she was at, she would likely exhaust her oil and end up unable to return back to the spire; she needed to rest at some point. She decided to just walk alongside the path, snow crunching under her feet as the path she followed would very, very slowly be covered back up by the cascading flakes that fell all around her and sizzled upon touching her body. She eventually looked up to see if she could even see what exactly she was following.
The footsteps seemed to have gotten less spacious – likely from Uzi walking rather than running – and they led up to a broken down car. V tried to see if there was something inside, but she couldn’t immediately make anything out. She had to get closer.
As she continued to walk, she started to faintly hear some kind of music that was playing within the car. It sounded somewhat melancholic and slow, as if the melody was meant to invoke a sense of sorrow into the listener. The music also sounded like it was at least several decades old, but V quickly figured it was a lot older than that. It was a melody that was vaguely, yet strangely familiar to her nonetheless.
She stopped just slightly in front of the car. Looking inside, she could see a music player atop the car’s radio, along with a blanket that was obviously hiding someone. V knew it was Uzi, but what she didn’t know was what she was hearing. On top of the music, she could hear what sounded like constant quiet exhales followed by slight sounds coming from the worker. It not only confirmed the voice, but made V feel more of such an unfamiliar feeling. She wasn’t worried, was she? Also, why was Uzi crying?
V was conflicted as to what to do. She could either stand here, try to get into the car, say something she would think would lighten the mood, or walk away. She immediately ruled out the last choice – as easy as it seemed – as she didn’t come all this way for nothing. Standing there would do nothing, and she for some reason felt like whatever she would say wouldn’t help the situation. She had made up her mind.
She took a few more small steps closer, approaching the car. Her hand reached over to the handle of the car door, and she pulled. The mechanism of the door surprisingly worked, as she was able to sharply tug at it a few times to open the door. The drone, who is most definitely Uzi, doesn't look up, nor seem to notice that the car door was opened. She just continued sobbing quietly to herself while slow music played on the player that V could see was resting just above the car radio, with the volume output side of the player facing Uzi. The car radio itself wasn’t operational. V didn’t know why she felt so worried, nor why she wanted to help.
Her gut told her it was probably a good idea to at least try to – even though she really did not know what she could do to help Uzi in any way – and she entered the car. She sat down in the passenger seat next to Uzi, sitting normally for a moment. She shut the car door as quietly as possible, before she then faced herself towards the worker, her legs resting below her on the car seat as she leaned against it. She looked down at the blanket that covered Uzi with worry, and she wasn’t really interested in questioning why she was.
She found herself listening to the music a little bit. It was a specially crafted song meant to express a sense of grief that the singer had for a loved one of theirs. A classic that she might’ve heard in the past at some point, but she didn’t remember fully. She still found herself enjoying listening to it like she would enjoy listening to it back in the manor, which then divulged to her wanting to reminisce about the simpler times, despite how horrible the experience was back in the past at times.
She was snapped back to reality by a hitch in Uzi’s breath that was more audible than her crying. V’s worry was strangling her like a venomous snake that wouldn’t loosen itself until she either did something about it, or let it manifest.
Out of a ditch effort to try to support her, she subconsciously put a hand on where she assumed was Uzi’s shoulder. The worker in question flinched as a gasp of quiet surprise left her mouth. The blanket sphere seemed to shrink slightly as the top of it was haphazardly shoved over Uzi’s head further by one of her hands. This isn’t helping.
The song that was playing concluded, and another song began to play on the player. The mood the second song created was fairly similar, although it had more upbeat and happier lyrics. She thought it’d be the kind of song that could be used to describe N. She felt like she remembered the melody despite not having heard it before.
This wasn’t going to go anywhere if she didn’t do anything but sit there, with her hand still on Uzi’s shoulder, as Uzi broke down slowly in front of her. V took a deep inhale and held her breath for a second.
“...May I know?” Her voice was unusually softer than she would ever allow it to be.
It surprised her the way her voice left her mouth. She didn’t think her vocal box could be that gentle ever again, but here she was. She didn’t stop it from happening, though; there wasn’t a need to keep acting so maniacal and violent. That was already reserved for the brawl just earlier.
V notices that Uzi responded to the question, but not verbally. Her hand had lifted the blanket off from her head, and looked over towards V. V’s core wrenched and twisted as she noticed Uzi’s eyes bubbling purple digital tears that slithered down her visor. She did not feel like she could just sit there and watch it happen.
Today was full of surprises, and the most surprising of all to V – and likely to Uzi as well – was her awkwardly and slowly wrapping her arms around the worker. She felt like it was the best thing to do, and totally not because she kind of wanted to from seeing all of this. She closed her eyes.
After a few seconds of no words nor movements taking place, V could feel two arms reciprocating around her back. Uzi seemed to lean herself somewhat onto the disassembly drone for support as she continued to let out quiet sobs. It was new and awkward to V, but she decided not to linger on that for long. N was resting, anyway.
It was fine. Uzi was fine. They were fine.
The player seemed to transition to another song with very little break in the audio, as if the previous song suddenly ended out of nowhere. This one was more familiar than the other songs that had played from the playlist; V could actually remember listening to this song at some point in the past. She vaguely remembered dancing to it whenever she was alone. It was suddenly rather hard to hold back the urge to sing it despite the lyrics having not been sung yet. The instrumental intro was beginning to end, and V made up her mind. She figured it might help Uzi feel better, at least.
V’s voice began to escape her mouth once the instrumental break ended in various tones; singing along with the song. “Merrily we fall out of line, out of line.” Uzi’s head lifted from her chest, seeming to be in disbelief. V still had her eyes closed, and continued singing in an unnatural way, as if she had sung this song multiple times before. “I’d fall anywhere with you, I’m by your side. Swinging in the rain, humming melodies. We’re not going anywhere until we freeze!”
As her voice continued to permeate the area with its soft tune, Uzi couldn’t help but smile. The jerk who relished in murder was right with her, trying to comfort her and singing a sweet song to her. She clung onto V’s jacket a little tighter, burying her face into her shoulder as she quietly relished in the moment that she believes will never happen again: V’s beautiful singing voice. The song wasn’t even that bad either, compared to some of the other old music she’s listened to. The playlist was full of hits or misses.
V continued to go along with the song, manipulating her voice’s tone to go along with the song as it played. As she sang, she imagined herself, as a worker, dancing to the song in question. It would’ve been just V. Not N, not J, just herself and the music. The idea of it made V’s mouth curl into a happier expression as she continued to sing. A simple time, both now and before, and she wished it would stay like that. However, V knew it wasn’t the best idea to cling to the past. She felt herself hugging Uzi a little bit tighter as the song approached its end.
What immediately preceded it was an entirely different song with a more ugly tone to it. V didn’t like how it sounded, and almost reached over to figure out how to turn the volume down. She decided against it, keeping both of her arms around Uzi. She opened her eyes, took a deep vent in, exhaled, and sat still.
A couple seconds of silence that was only interrupted by the music and their breathing followed. V decided to interrupt it. “Do you feel any better, Uzi?”
She responded quietly. “Yeah… thanks.” She took a second to continue. “Your singing voice is, uhh, pretty.”
V’s eyes looked down towards Uzi. She didn’t believe what she just heard. She never sang in front of anybody, and to immediately be complimented for it? She didn’t know what to think, but she could tell that her face felt slightly warmer somehow. She wasn’t sure as to why. Small, yellow ticks could be seen at the lower part of her visor under her eyes; she was slightly blushing.
She finally formulated a response after a second. “...Thanks?” She was clearly not used to thanking people for compliments. She was more normalized to just brushing it off; giving some backhanded comment in response, but that couldn’t be done here. She had to try to respond at least. They both eventually looked at each other while embracing. V noticed similar, purple ticks under Uzi’s eyes as well, and so did Uzi notice hers. What a mess.
Uzi’s eyes were averted after a little bit of mute staring. An embarrassed chuckle escaped her mouth. “P-Pretty good, I mean!” V liked hearing her laugh.
“You suck at hiding things.” She spoke, her blush not fading immediately.
“Oh, I’m aware.”
They sat in silence again, their blush ticks disappearing from their visors. The snake had uncoiled itself a long time ago while she was singing, but it was slowly creeping up to her again. She wanted to know what was up, and she knew she had to break another silence to try to figure it out.
Her mouth opened. “So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Uzi’s attention was grabbed. “Why did you run all the way over here – away from us – just to… cry? Does it have anything to do with those notifications you were getting earlier?” She hoped that it wasn’t too much for Uzi; she was only curious about her wellbeing.
“...Right.” Uzi seemed a little saddened again, but not enough to start sobbing again.
She lowered one of her arms from V’s back as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. V lowered one of her hands in return as Uzi handed her the device. Her purple eyes were looking at everything except V herself.
She tapped on it to wake the screen up. On the phone was a wallpaper of Uzi posing with Thad – who looked slightly anxious when compared to the mischievous grin she had – while holding a railgun that she once had. Alongside her wallpaper were some text and missed call notifications coming from a drone that Uzi saved in her contacts as just “Khan”.
V read the first text message, which simply read “Hey, Uzi, could you come back home? It has to do with your mother again.” She read another text. “Respond to me, please. I don’t need to worry that those murder drones are hurting you again!” Many more texts that slowly got more and more desperate were sent after that. She figured that the Khan drone texting her was her father. She handed Uzi’s phone back to her. She didn’t say anything outward to her.
Once Uzi put her phone back in her pocket, she clarified what the texts were about. “As you read, today is the anniversary of my mother passing away.”
V thought about it for a moment. She and her squad did kill a lot of worker drones before, and still do. Every victim she’s had are all blurry, as she has as much fun toying with every one of them as the last. However, N has once told both her and J the story about a worker that was much harder for him to kill than the others. He normally takes drones out swiftly, but he described how this drone was able to regenerate some of her wounds, along with being more of a fight than what V would say was worth it. She wasn’t going to mention it to Uzi, though; she already seemed like she just wanted to keep things to herself.
“A-And,” she stuttered briefly. “Of course, when I heard about the brawl you guys were having. I wanted to distract myself, and it seemed really fun. I was just hoping that… that he would stop nagging me about it.”
V spoke. “And yet, he did anyway.”
“Mhm.” Uzi hummed, her emotions picking up again. V’s worry snake kept itself coiled around her.
The only kind of familial relationship that V could say she experienced was with Tessa’s parents, and she knew that it seemed anything but. Those two hated Tessa’s existence for whatever reason. This occasion was different, though; it seemed obvious that Uzi and her mother were a lot closer than V might’ve initially thought. A decent parental figure who was used for the gauze of a quota. N would probably be a guilty mess if he was here.
Both of them continued to sit in the car together, holding onto each other closely without a word. The music continued to play for several minutes, transitioning between songs that were tolerable and songs that weren’t as much. They all had a slow tone to all of them with various lyrics. V wasn’t paying too much attention to the lyrics of the song, but they seemed to mention something about watching a sunrise with a partner for the small part of the song that she bothered to pay attention to. That mention makes V check her internal clock.
The sun was going to rise very soon.
“Shit!” V yelled without warning.
“Huh?!” Uzi was slightly startled.
“Sun’s rising soon.”
Uzi seemed to check her own internal clock, cursing herself out only a few seconds later. They both let go of each other, more so begrudgingly than willingly. V didn’t know why she didn’t want to let go.
V quickly shifts around towards the car door, opening it with more force than she had trying to enter it. As it swings open, she quickly steps out of the car, with Uzi following quickly after through the same open door. Some snow crunches later from them walking out, and V slams the car door. The music is still faintly heard playing in the car, but V doesn’t care to listen to what the song is about this time.
She furrows out her wings, with them breathing the air. Each blade glistened in the moonlight that wouldn’t last for very long. V gestured towards Uzi to climb on her back, but the worker didn’t seem to understand what she was trying to say. It would be more efficient to fly back with her on her back, after all.
When Uzi continued being confused, she had to verbally clarify. “Hop on.”
“Like, onto your back?” Uzi asked.
V could feel her eyes rolling. “Yes, that. Just hop on so we can get back faster. I wouldn’t want to burn up.” Uzi hadn’t learned how to fly just yet, so it was probably for the better.
“Fine, but before we get going,” Uzi slowly walked up to V. Many words could’ve been orientated; formulated into a sentence for anything that she could’ve said to the disassembly drone, but she only chose to speak three. “Thanks for listening.” She climbs onto her back.
V takes off flying. She had rested enough to where she could fly with less trouble than before. They both shoot through the sky at dizzying speeds, as was possible for V; as if it were nothing. Uzi held onto her for dear life. They continue flying, with V whipping and whizzing through the sky at rapid speeds to try to beat the sunlight. No words were exchanged.
The spire comes into view eventually. V immediately homes in onto the location, rushing to the shaded area just in case the sun managed to creep above the horizon. The snow that erupted around them seemed like it mimicked that of a missile explosion. V stands straight up after landing, allowing her wings to fall back. One of the blades lightly brushes against Uzi’s arm. Uzi slowly lets go as she drops herself onto the ground behind V. It was at that moment that the hatch of the spaceship could be heard opening. N’s eyes could be seen poking out, most likely having heard the commotion.
“Oh, hi, Uzi!” He quickly climbed out of the spaceship, and ran up to her. He then tightly hugged the worker drone and lifted her up slightly, which caught her off-guard. “Try not to disappear like that on us again, okay?” He softly spoke. Uzi eventually reciprocated.
V meekly smiled at the sight. Uzi was okay, which was all that was important. She was happier that the worker drone wasn’t hurt or anything like that. Hell, if Uzi was still for some reason super interested in the brawl, she could maybe spar for practice tomorrow night.
Eventually, N let go of her, with Uzi having to regain her balance after her boots hit the snow. He waves at V. “Thank you for going to find her, V.” She nods at him, before watching as he furrows his own wings out again, flying up to a stalactite. She watched his tail coil around it as he allowed himself to hang upside-down. His eyes could be seen closing.
V turned to Uzi. “Tell anyone about what happened, and you’re dead.” Her voice was dry.
“Ah, about what?” Uzi teased. “Your precious singing?”
“Tch– don’t say that so loud!” V quickly looked up over towards N, who still had his eyes displaying on his visor. She hoped he didn’t hear that. Uzi could see that she was blushing again as the disassembly drone looked back at her. She was laughing, and then eventually, V was laughing too. The snake finally let go of her and left her alone for the day.
Eventually, though, the laughing had to settle. “So, are you going to go back to your outpost to sort… that out with your father?”
“Nah.” Uzi shrugged.
“He’s not going to leave you alone once you go back, you know.”
“He can bite me for all I care.”
They stood around for a few seconds. In those few seconds, the sun could be seen trying to creep through into the spire. It had been quite a long night today, and V was getting a little bit tired. The silence also felt rather comforting for some weird reason. V looked up to N. He was asleep.
Uzi then began to walk towards the spaceship, with V’s gaze following her. When she reaches the ship, she gestures for V to follow her. V, confused, decides to follow as Uzi climbs into the pod. The snow continued to crunch and reverberate quietly with each step that V took towards her destination.
It was definitely a strange night, that was for sure. She didn’t really expect much outside of the chance of winning the brawl, which she was surprised that she did, but more proved to happen that made things different. V had to go from fighting and grueling through oil, digital sweat, and nonexistent tears to singing for Uzi of all drones. She didn’t really regret a thing she did, though. She was getting quite tired, though.
V eventually made it to the shuttle, shuffling herself inside. Almost immediately after climbing in, she was startled by another hug from Uzi. V didn’t exactly want to stand around for this, which she assumed was pretty obvious from the fact that the worker drone let go of her somewhat quickly. She moved over to one of the two chairs, and sat down. Uzi followed her slowly, and hugged her again.
“You’re awfully clingy today.” She audibly noted, before resorting to teasing. “You sure your systems didn’t fry themselves over there?”
“Bite me,” was all that Uzi responded with.
V reciprocated the embrace, holding her to herself closely and gently. As they both rested on the chair, the disassembler slowly grew more and more tired by the second as she began to close her eyes. Her limbs relaxed a little, but she still kept her arms around Uzi. She didn’t feel like letting go. She figured it would’ve been a better idea to just keep hugging her than to shove her off. She didn’t know why, she didn’t complain, and she didn’t prevent it from happening.
Eventually, after sitting still for long enough, both Uzi and V slowly relaxed and entered sleep mode while hugging each other. Not letting each other go as if their lives depended on it.