Chapter Text

Chapter 13

★The Day After★

Ever since N and V had redeemed themselves, everyone thought Copper 9 would be a safer

than it was, they didn’t have to worry about getting brutally killed if they went outside, safety regulations could be limited, and the iron blinds on the windows could be optional and not mandatory at night time.

So you imagine the devastation as well as the panic when everyone had heard that actually scratch that! You’re still in danger, here have this dead body for proof!

Not a fun way to start Monday…

not at all.

The gossip spread like wild far, with ironically the socially outcasted Uzi being the one to start it, telling everyone her father found Kenneth Dead outside the bunker, most everyone was devastated, all the teens in the school had known each other since kindergarten, and when you know someone that long, chances are you get pretty attached to that person.

everyone’s reaction was pretty different, some cried, others denied his death, and a few were just plain disturbed, but for the most part no matter what everyone was feeling, it was pretty quiet that school day.

Even during lunch time, when it was usually a battlefield of hoots and hollers there was barely any conversation amongst any of the drones.

Currently, At the far left corner, was the Cool girls table, aka all the cheerleaders sitting side by side and in front of each other, except for Lizzy’s murder drone companion V.

All the cheerleaders were speaking in hushed voices, talking about how they couldn’t believe Kenneth was gone, and wondered what Siri could’ve been going through at the moment, one of them even crying because she had a crush on him way back when.

V listened to each and every one of them, placing her eyes on whichever drone was talking, while picking bits of robobugs she had eaten earlier that morning from her teeth and then popping them back in her mouth to eat, sure she could’ve conversed with them, however her mind was somewhere else at the moment, something more important than their grievances…

Lizzy wasn’t talking at all at all, which was especially unusual for her loud self, she just held her head up with her hand, looking down at the tray of lunch given to her, a bowl of gasoline and screw soup with a side of fried batteries on the side, stirring the soup robotically.

V thought to ask her if she was gonna eat that, but she ultimately decided against it, their was something on the blonde’s mind, it was clear in her eyes, written in her lips that curled into a thoughtful frown, her conscious was hidden deep in the back of her mind, off in another world.

V attempted to pull her out of it.

“You good?” she asked, slightly mumbling from either tiredness or laziness.

Lizzy continued playing with her food.

“E–yeah.” she finally spoke up, “I’m upset about him or whatever.”

She waved her hand in a dismissive manner.

With skeptism V squinted at her best friend.

。。。

RING!

The final bell went off, all the kids in the classroom stood up grabbing their stuff and heading out of the room, Lizzy and V was last to get up, with Lizzy staying frozen in her seat, and V staying because she didn’t wish to leave her alone.

Lizzy pulled herself up, picking up her glittery notebook, mathbook and golden retriever themed pencil holder up from her desk.

V grabbed her headphones for her.

The two made their way over to the door.

Lizzy looked back at her father, who was still sitting in his seat, with a pile full of papers on his desk.

“Go on, I’ve work to do.” he waved a dismissive hand to her as well.

Lizzy and V made their way to the hallway where the lockers were.

Lizzy went to get her backpack, while V leaned back first onto Doll’s old locker, arms crossed and tail slightly curled around her leg.

“So…think we’re gonna have to have safety regulations put back in place thanks to that murder last night?” Lizzy asked looking to V from the corner of her screen.

“Most likely.”

Her friend replied, looking down at her unsheathed and rather unsharped claws, which bothered Lizzy.

The cheerleader cringed, “Ugh… she took a pink pocket knife out of a pocket in the middle of her backpack, and handed it to her friend, “Here, fix your claws, they look terrible.”

V mumbled a thanks as she began to drag the blade’s surface across her talons.

Lizzy shut her locker, and tossed her backpack into the floor, and packed her items into it.

“Who do you think did it?” V asked

Lizzy froze.

She hoped it was a certain someone.

She huffed “No idea…” lied the girl, zipping her book bag up and then tossing it onto her back.

The two headed off.

“I have an idea who it is, just can’t prove it yet, though.” V said

Lizzy hummed something in response to this.

“So you coming over?”

“Nah, I think I’m gonna stay at my house.”

“Kay…”

。。。

N was moving back to his apartment.

He looked near lifeless, dragging his feet across the floor, with his tail limply following behind, his neck was slouched and his head hung low.

Not only was Ken his neighbor, but he was also becoming a friend in N’s eyes. Sometimes when him and Uzi would go play cards with Khan and his employees he would be their, and when N and V moved into the apartment, they were giving that Garfield phone from Ken and Siri as a housewarming gift, which N really loved, mainly because at first he thought it was a dog, but then Ken told him it was cat, which didn’t really make a difference, they were the same thing after all, weren’t they?

Finally he got to the corridor where his apartment was and made a turn down the hall, but as he was getting there he had noticed something.

The the baby of the Dewolfe family, sitting out in front of him and V’s dorm playing with a rubber ducky.

“What the...?” he straightened his back out and his tail raised in curiosity at the sight.

Now don’t get him wrong he wasn’t exactly a baby whisperer but he did know those littles guys were probably not supposed to be left out of their house without any adult super vision like that.

He made a run over to her, giving the poor thing a scare at first causing her to nearly falling down for a moment, holding the rubber ducky in her little arms.

“Maria??” N recalled her name being as crouched down to her level, “What are you doing out here all alone?”

He went to pick her up, shockingly she didn’t fight him, just looked up and dropped the rubber ducky on the floor.

Marie was an “undertrained neutral network” basically the toddler equivalnce of a drone, she

had the body of a worker drone but was still the size of a pill baby, she wore a purple onsie and a beanie, and had shaggy bubblegum pink hair and orange eyes.

While looking at her, N then noticed behind her the door to the apartmen she lived in wide open, with a sound of yelling from inside.

Not only curious, but also needing to bring the baby back in, he placed Maria to his chest, went over and peaked through the opened door

“What do you mean you didn’t see him when you came home!?” he heard Siri’s voice ring

out “There was clear as day evidence that his oil was all over the door, how could you have

not seen it!?”

N seen Maria’s mother pacing in the kitchen with a phone to her head, she was as a mad as hornet, buzzing like one as well, with her hand moving in the air as she explained and digital tears falling from her eyes.

N felt his heart ache watching her, he had an idea what she was going though, losing

someone you loved. He felt that same way when V had sacrificed herself, but it was different, she had come back, Kenneth...he wasn’t gonna come back.

“I don’t care how dark it was! My husband is gone, he’s dead! I’m never going to see him

again and my baby girl is going to grow up without her dad in her life because one of those

THINGS you let in here probably went and killed him last night!” she screamed even louder,  voice like fragile glass cracking under pressure.

Maria flinched hearing her mom speak, and she turned her head to look up and N, as if she knew who her mom was talking about.

Feeling even worse N looked away, once more feeling guilty of the reputation he held, and here he thought his neighbors liked him...

Siri then collapsed onto the wall of the hallway with a devastated hiss from her mouth, She

cried out pinching the bridge of her screen, and then her legs buckled and she dropped the phone to her side.

Her crying turned to wails, the wails turned to a scream so loud it rang through both N an Marie’s processors.

As her mom cried out, it had a chain reaction, and Maria was next to break down, probably

not because she was sad for her father, she was probably to young to know better. most likely

because her mom was crying and made her believe she was entitled to cry with her.

Tears formed on her screen and her lower lip began to quiver before she started to whine as well, which caused N to recoil in surprise.

Maria then started to wiggle out of N’s grip slipping off from his chest and to the floor which he helped her do, holding her by her hands as she done this.

After she got to the ground, Maria not sure what to do, stumbled as quick as she could over to her mom and just hugged her legs continuing to cry.

N felt horrible watching this, and was completely lost what to do.

After a few seconds of watching he could bear it no longer and he shut the door behind him,

only managing to muffle the crying that happened behind them.

He then turned around and made his way back to his apartment, but then he was met with

another sight.

The two brothers that lived next door to him, walking together with grocery bags in hand, one

of them gossiping to others who looked completely aghast by it, and once noticing N, scowled.

N felt his stomach lurch at this, and quickly went back into his apartment, making sure to lock the door as he done so.

N then made his way into the bathroom where and over to the bathroom counter. It didn’t take long for rumors to spread in the bunker, no matter how outlandish they were, people got bored just being cooped up in their, and a situation like this occurring made an atmosphere the perfect breeding ground for one.

It was clear that a few people did suspect N or V had went back to killing, N knew they did!

He could tell, just by how they looked and acted around him.

The horror or visceral hatred in their eyes, how uneasy or tense they were to be around him, the whispers...Oh the whispers he was beganing to hear, they were all over the school, about him and V, talking about all the terrible things they had done to poor Kenneth, it was terrible, and it made him feel worse than he already had felt about himself.

N looked directly into the mirror, but instead of seeing his usual reflection of a teenage boy, with shaggy white hair and gold yellow eyes, all he seen was a monster, a sharp fanged, oil thirsty monster with an X written on his screen, being given undeserved shelter with the innocent people he had been ordered to kill.

Like a wolf living amongst sheep, not even having enough dignity to wear a cloak and instead just leave the flock fear struck each time he would rear his ugly face to them.

He placed his hand onto his face, lining out screen, going back to a time when he used to be like the other workers.

How short he used to be, when his eyes used to be a bright white instead of that ominous gold

color, and his hands used to be small, not hiding a pair of sharp metal talons underneath.

He missed that time when he used to be normal, and most dark his past was was the fact his hair and clothes came from a cadaver.

Why did it have to be him?

Out of all the drones Cyn could’ve chosen to her dirty work, why was it him? Why couldn’t it have been someone else? If she really saw him like a brother, like family, why would she put him through something as horrible as this?

Why?

He placed a hand onto the glass, the drone in the mirror done the same.

It was him, it was clear that was who it was, but he just felt so disgusted looking at them, knowing what that person had done, all the people he had hurt.

He wished he could make that person feel the same pain those people had.

His fingers curled into a fist as he pulled his hand away.

-An hour later-

N sat on his bed, drawing in his sketchbook, lying on his stomach, with head resting on his left hand, and his right one being to used to draw with an old 2B graphite pencil he found one time walking in the school hallway.

For how he was drawing a couple months ago, his art was looking pretty decent. It went from his little stick figures, to something that somewhat resembled some type of manga.

Usually when N was drawing in his book it was mostly just animals, like wolves and dogs with these crazy hair cuts, but occasionally he did draw humans, as matter of fact that’s what he was drawing right now; humanized versions of him and Uzi, plus a few lot of scribbles of hearts on the side.

He had finished with the drawing of his girlfriend a minute ago, and he was now onto himself, unfortunately he was having a lot more trouble, erasing details and going over them again, to the point where the part of the page he was at was complete covered in previous chicken scratch marks and smudges from the blackened tip of the eraser on the pencil.

He usually enjoyed drawing, but right now was different, and he was being completely bombarded by a small but noisy voice of criticism that was buzzing around in his mind like an angry hornet.

No! No! No! He didn’t look anything like how he was portraying himself, the hair was way too controlled, his eyes were too friendly, no he didn’t know what any of that meant, but it sure felt like it made sense.

With a loud annoyed groan, he finally had enough and just ripped half the page, specifically the part with him drawn on it, sat up and tossed it, but since it was a piece of paper, it didn’t exactly go anywhere, instead just rocked gently in the air as it sunk all the way down and onto the floor, N watched with a burdened glance. Perhaps he should’ve crumpled it up before he did that?

He flopped onto his mattress, a loud rumble escaped the bed and the springs groaned as his body hit the bed, appearing to that of a whale who had jumped into the air and fell back first into the ocean.

N turned onto his back and picked up his book, and held it up to his chest, pulling his knees and tail up to his own level.

Why did he feel so hateful towards himself right now? He didn’t have any reason, like Uzi told him he wasn’t a monster, he was trying to be a better person.

So why did he feel so horrible, so disgusted with himself? Why couldn’t he see himself, like she saw him? Like how he saw her? Like an amazing drone, who was flawed, but still someone deserving of kindness and a chance to grow? Why couldn’t he feel that way about himself??

Why?