Chapter Text

Chapter 17

★Near Death Encounter★

Deep in the city of Copper 9, inside of the corpse spire, flashed multiple sparks and sounds of clicking and clankering heard inside of it, with occasional swears coming from that of a soft but outgoing girl’s voice.

That voice belonged to a female disassemble drone, working on her old but reliable spaceship, reparing as well as she could with all the scrap metal she could find and deem useful for it.

She groaned loudly, using a torch to burn a patch of metal onto the the top of it, she couldn’t believe it, she didn’t expect the battle to go that badly.

Never in all her years of being alive did she expect Cyn, Cyn of all drones beings of unimiginable horror to ever meet her match, and that match to be…she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

An edgy teen girl with God-like powers? Was that right??

She bend down and grabbed a wrench, she started to twist a few screws in place on the door.

Though if she was being honest, she wasn’t putting that much effort in the fight, (she hoped Cyn didn’t figure that out) either situation she would be in was a win win.

If The Absolute Solver won, she’d live to see another day, and if Uzi and J’s ex teammates her friends won the world would be saved and J would once more be allowed to see another day.

Of course even the latter was better for civilizations sake, their was one large con now.

That being she was all alone now, no friends, no teammates, no Solver, no nothing, all she had for companionship was the clothes on her back plus this old spaceship.

She fell still for a moment, placing her hand on the corroded metal surface of the machine, her lip curled under her mouth, and tears fell from one of her optics.

She stayed sitting their shivering for a moment, but then she sprung up and back to what she was doing.

She dropped the wrench and grabbed a few more tools from the ground.

Don't think about it, if you think about it, it just hurts worse.

Besides it wouldn't be the first time she's lost people close to her...

No reason for her to show her emotions now and actually confront that horrible trauma that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Finally an hour later, with a loud sputtering cough from it’s systems the spaceship came back to life, “Ha…” she grinned at it, not bad for three days straight of work and very little oil breaks.

Get a loud of that, half burnt, corroded and covered with dents and scratches and still worked!!!

Satisfied with her work, she opened the door up, slipped in and went into the swivel seat on the control panel.

Honestly she never flew that spaceship, but how hard could it be? N did it, he crashed but he did it, and if a fool like him could do, that what made her any less capable-

WOAH! Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in surprise That was an intimidating amount of buttons on that panel…

Her eye twitched with nervousness as she looked at the panel.

All types of doohickys and gears, atleast a hundred button, a few sliders, some switched plus one lever and a joystick it looked.

“Oh my goodness…” she muttered

J’s expression began to shift about, “Alright then…” she cracked her knuckles and hovered her hands around all the buttons, “Let’s do this I suppose…” she still felt hesitant.

It couldn’t be that hard. She repeated to herself

Trying to get the ship to drive was near impossible it felt, she’d press a few buttons here and their, then flick that lever and mess with the sliders a few times, and afterwards move the joystick about, and no matter how many times it didn’t budge, just stay sitting whirring loudly on the ground, until finally she figure it out, and after putting the tabs a certain way, she felt it rattle and rise from the ground.

She chortled, in disbelief but happiness at the same time, her face possessing a large open mouth smile, now she was feeling jittery with excitement.

She pushed up on the joy stick, the spaceship raised for the sky and began to fly up slowly but surely, a loud WHOOOSH! Escaping from it’s exhaust pipe.

Finally she could leave this awful place, no more being reminded of the past and what she lost, no more murder, no more Cyn.

She broke through the graviational pull and into the large vaccum of space, she was officially free!

She could start over! Find a new place to live, find another planet, another world, a better world.

。。。

Their was nothing.

Everywhere she looked, their was nothing their.

All the planets that had life on it were completetly terraformed, with nothing their.

Everything was gone.

it was all gone.

No matter how far she looked, no matter how long she looked, it all went fruitless.

Their was nowhere else for her to live, to start over, and no matter how much large of a tantrum she had thrown about it, nothing changed.

。。。

She took two whole weeks scouting the entire galaxy to search for a new place to live, and only stopped when she had realized the ship's power was less than half empty, so she stayed put in the middle of the area.

For another two weeks she stayed their, starving because she was too foolish to think to bring any rations, and it started to show.

She began to overheat, she was actually doing it during her search, but it was easy to swallow down, however when that was all she had to do it was beganing to show, even worse than when a drone usually overheated.

She was growing from hot to scolding, smoke would occasionally escape from her mouth, she began to sweat oil, something none of the dissasembly drones had ever done.

And the sounds of her cooling fans desperatly trying to fight the smoke was so loud she couldn't even think! It was enough to drive a person crazy.

Eventually she began lose both her mind and control of herself, she started to run to run across the walls on the spaceship, before passing out from low power, than she'd do it again, her wings and claws completetly out and laughter filled the room to mix in with the sound of the fans whirr.

Around the fifth week of being by herself, it looked like it would be the end for her, she was starting to get weak, barely able to move, just lie down in the middle of the spaceship, buckled down in pain with boiled over oil coarsing through her wiring and cogs.

Until for whatever reason, in a heat exhausted state, she don't know what possessed her to, she pulled herself up, on the control panel, and looked at one of many computer screens on the right wall, looking specifically at the one on the lower left corner which showed a map of where she was.

The spaceship was in the middle of the galaxy, what looked to be nothing around it, but then when she seen something, a planet around 22 miles up ahead..?

That accursed God-forsaken planet she swore she would never return to, that was swarming with worker drones of all kinds.

Workers with warm sweet sweet oil, that could quench her burning thirst.

She looked at the icon for Copper 9 for what felt to be forever, mouth wide open, drooping from her fangs and tongue grey colored saliva, and her large X shaped eye on her screen growing a ghoulish yellow color, using all the remaining strength she had left to stand up.

Finally she made another move, raised a shaky weak but determined hand up, and brought it over to the joystick.

She put a tight grip on it and pushed it forward, causing the spaceship to richochet sharply across the vaccum of space right for Copper 9.

She was driving it so fast, she didn't take over an hour to get to the planet.

Once she got their, she ordered the spaceship to take a sharp nose dive, right into the forest, crashing it right into a tree.

Coindidently the sun had just went down when she got their, so ripping the door of the spaceship off, she crawled out of it, and began to roam around searching for some unlucky drone to sink her teeth in.

It wasn't gonna hurt her to make a quick stop to catch a quick meal would it? 

。。。

J stayed crouched down under what little shade of the corpse spire was left, breathing rather heavily, outside of the spire, she heard that awful creature screeching out for its late baby.

She could even see him once in a while through the cracks, and hear it’s claws sink into the snow.

Their was sunlight flooding down from the large opening where top of the spire used to be, and occasionally if she had slipped up, she would slip out from under spire and the light would touch her rubbery robot skin and burn it even worse than it already was.

The sentinel let out one last roar, and she swore she seen one of it’s eyes, peaking through a corpse with a large whole in it’s chest, looking her dead in the eye, oh how she hoped those weak shadows of the day would keep her covered.

It continued to watch her.

J held her breath as he done so.

The sentinel stood still…just watching…and waiting…until finally…

Snap…FWOOMP!

A noise in the distance caught his attention he snapped his neck what felt to be a complete 180, and then he made a run right into the distance.

Once he was completely gone, J let out a sigh of relief, unfortunately though.

The sun had rised completely over her, and the shade of the shadows grew small enough to where the tips of her heels were exposed in the light.

Hiss a subtle sizzle and a stream of smoke began to escape from the cracks, she let out a cry of pain as she sprung onto her feet and backed into the wall.

She bit her tongue, trying not to whine from the pain,

It was funny honestly..! She had been over heating so bad it got to the point where her body was literally SWEATING out oil in order to cool her down, yet she never got used to the pain of burning up! Crazy right??

The shade shrinked even more, giving her only two feet worth of space between the darkness and the light, and it was gonna get worse before it would get better.

“I need to find a different spot.” she said, breath caught in her throat, trying to keep herself from having a mental breakdown.

Of course she had to, if she stayed their, she was probably gonna melt, and this time she probably wouldn’t make it out, but how could she get out?
The sun was bright right now, brighter than it had been these past days thanks to countless blizzards and snow storms, it was like a short break from it all, of course it would continue, in J’s mind not quick enough but it would.

She pulled off her already tore up suit, revealing her undershirt.

A silk gold colored tunic, still a bit tore, but not completely in tatters like the top shirt.

J then placed it over her head, and tore a large hole into the corpse spire, with the help of her larger than average talons, afterwards she squeezed through it and started making her way down, walking fast.

Despite her attempt to hide under her shirt, she still felt the heat burning up her back.

She hissed face wrinkled into a pained expression, hoping to Robo-God that this wouldn’t take away what little flattery was in her appearance then burning up on that spaceship already done to her.

Then a sound of alarm a warming popping on the upper right side of her screen

Critcal Warning! SD Unit overheating! Please refill oil supply to prevent heat exhaustion.

“Oh..please no!” she cried out “Not now!”

She felt a burning sensation in her chest, it was getting harder to breath now.

She began to breath heavy, the heavy breathing evolved to coughing, out from her throat, smoke began to outpour, something she had learned to be an sign of extreme overheating from her time on the ship.

How could this have happened?? She had consumed at least 4 gallons worth last night, and she was still burning up? She didn't understand! what the was the problem??

Then another warning popped up.

Critical Warning! Internal Damage on SD Unit! Please Repair program immediately

Oh no, that’s because the damage she had wasn’t just external, it was internal too! Her insides-they must’ve melted together or something!

What was she possibly gonna do? If something like this had happened before Cyn would’ve been there to repair her, but now she doesn’t have that, she’s stuck like this now! She had no help, no friends, followers, no anything to pull her out of rock bottom.

One of her eyes began to flicker, changing into an X, she was about to lose it but she couldn’t do it! Not right now, not in the middle of the day! She’d burn up into a crisp.

In a desperate attempt to fight back the overheating process, she dropped onto the ground and started picking up scoops and scoops worth of snow and throwing it onto her face, but sadly it was only working so much.

A sharp pain began to go through her head, she let out a cry and sharply grip onto the roots of her hair.

This was it, she was about to go feral, loose all sense and everything out of shear unsanitational hunger, and she couldn’t even doing anything, she was about to go out the same way she went in this world, completely stupid, lost and confused of what was going on around her, but this time Tessa wasn’t going to be there to guide her.

She was all alone, no drone or anyone around to help for the next mile or so.

At least that’s what she had thought, before she had heard it.

A faint sound of talking from right behind her.

Within a split second of hearing it, J froze like a deer in headlights.

Slowly she turned her head around, that same crazed look in her eyes from when she saw V last night back.

Could it be? Was it another drone, or was she finally seeing things? Heck if she knew, but if she had the strength she was gonna go look anyway, it might have been pointless to try but it’s not like she had anything else to loose now.

J weakly pulled herself up, turning around, lowly crouched to the ground as she went to find the owner of that voice.

Once around the corner, she snuck over behind a corner of a building and peaked her head  over it.

She couldn’t believe it.

It was him.

That stupid stupid blonde boy from Uzi’s bunker, the one who tried to stop them once they broke in.

Just off in the distance, walking off to the factory pulling a box worth of who cares what? another one, all alone just like her! Could you believe that?

She let out a sharp sigh of relief, finally, another source of fresh oil.

She began to shiver, and she dragged her claws on the corner of the building.

She quickly sprung to action so fast the over shirt she used to shield herself had slipped right off from her back.

“And you're sure it’s safe for you to be out there all by yourself, sugar?” Mrs. Edward’s voice was heard from the phone on top of the box of beverages Thad was carrying.

“I’m sure mom,” Thad insisted ”trust me if you seen how N acts when he’s in the sun for too long you’d know their wasn’t anything to worry about.”

“Alrighty then…but you need to come back home before night fall, ya got that?” Mrs. Edward ordered “You’re sister’s here with the worst jitters ever right now because of you being out alone.”

“Okay mom, I’ll probably be back around 12 okay? I love you.” Thad said

His mom said she loved him too, and then ended the call.

Thad rolled his eyes with a friendly smile on his face, he loved his mom, but she really needed to understand that he knew what he was doing, and he could go a day without his friends helping out-

A sound of running was heard behind him.

His eyes squinted in confusion, Thad looked around

“What the-”

He screamed bloody murder as a blur of silver and yellow got right in front of him, with a claw grabbing him right by the scruff of his shirt collar, causing him to drop both the box and phone.

Despite wanting to finish the job immediately J was interrupted by searing pain shooting down from her spine, thanks to the sun beaming down on her, however she managed to ignore it, for the time being as she made a run for another building, a post office it looked, once their she kicked the door twice, causing it to bust open and then tossed the blonde smack dab in the middle, right onto his chest, thankfully he didn’t break anything because he managed to break his fall on the palms of his hands.

Thad turned onto his back, “WOAH! WOAH!” he cried out desperately trying to back away from her.

J flashed a large toothy grin, “And I hear I thought that pink one I’d seen a few days ago was the dumber one.” she unsheathed a blade and started to march on over to him.

“Wait-wait-don’t do this please!”

“She never came out here alone though, but then here you are just waltzing around as if you own the place!” she took a few steps closer to him.

“Usually I would put a worker down for this level of stupidity, but right now, I’m just grateful to find one out here on such short notice,” she said “and for that I’ll make sure your death isn’t half as painful as the last one’s.”

“Please! I have a family and friends!”

“Must be nice.”

She raised the blade up in the air, and prepared to cut him when suddenly, a course of pain went through her body, before she began to cough up smoke once again.

She buckled down in pain, falling to her hands and knees as she frantically hacked up the oily black smoke.

Thad watched her with cautious confusion.

At first he was confused, but then he realized it, she was overheating…

He nervously pulled himself up, now seeing a chance to escape as she was distracted with her…issue.

Thad began to slowly approach the front, unfortunately though, J caught wind of this, she pulled herself up and stumbled back, falling onto the door, still continuing to cough, Thad took five steps back to the original spot he was at.

After several long seconds J inhaled deeply, and she took a break from the coughing, her tired eyes fell to her own feet as she backed deeper into the door, letting the cold metal from its surface soothe her burning hot body.

She shut her eyes for a moment, and let her body rise and fall with each pained breath she took.

Thad continued to watch her, uneasy.

Despite how stupid it would be to try, he tried to reason with her, “Please let me go.” he begged, weirdly calm for the situation he was in “If you do I’ll let you have all the oil I was bringing here.”

That was a good deal right? Probably wasn’t smart letting her refuel, but hey! At least he’d get out of this whole situation, right?

J opened her eyes, “Nice try, you really think I’m gonna let you go for just a few quarts of cold oil?” she growled lowly.

“Uhh…maybe?” he shrugged “I-it worked for V and N atleast.”

J felt a change of her brain chemistry hearing that, but only for a split second, before that cold hearted hopeless way of thinking had come back to her.

“Well I’m not either of them, now am I?” she deadpanned.

She shook her head “You might as well start counting your minutes, because when I get my strength back you’re as good as gone.” promised J.

“Though…I don’t even know what I’m doing this for anymore…” she looked off for a moment.

“It’s not like I have any reason to be alive now.”

He heard her mumble under her breath.

J let out a long sharp sigh “trying to…live it’s just prolonging my misery and wait for the inevitable it seems.”

Well she actually did now why she was doing it for, Tessa. That was always the reason she kept going atleast, because that’s what her creator would’ve wanted, even though she knew that girl would probably be disgusted if she seen her now.

Thad frowned awkwardly, and scratched the back of his neck, he was never good when it came to people being self deprecating, so he didn’t exactly what to say, unfortunately though it wasn’t like he was able to make an excuse to leave, he was literally being held at knife point, and he was reminding of this any time his eyes wondered onto J’s weapon.

He had to try to talk his way out of this, otherwise he was 100 % gonna die, and after he told his mom he’d be just fine too…

He placed a fist to his mouth “Ahem.” he faked a cough gaining the killer’s attention, being as brave as he possibly could, using a mental image of his sister as help to get through it as he done so.

“Ya know it doesn’t have to be that way.” he placed out a hand, “If you want you could probably join the bright side.”

“Do like your two coworkers did and go get free oil without all the murder in the nice warm sunlight proof bunker.” he explained “Just a thought though, even though it does seem a lot better than whatever you’re doing right now.”

Thad took a few more steps on over to her.

The girl remained unphased “I doubt that.” J shook her head. “why would they do that after everything I’ve done to them?”

Thad nervously looked away for a moment.

“Well they let N and V in, what makes you different from them both?” he pointed out.

J opened her mouth to argue, but she stopped herself, why is she trying to disagree? Why would she try to argue against the possibility that she might survive, instead of stay scrambling out in the cold for the rest of what little life she was gonna live if she did so??

She crossed her arms and looked away for a moment.

The blonde boy was now within arms length of her, every few minutes looking to the door than back at her, relatively agitated.

He then noticed some warning come onto her face, he couldn’t tell what it said though.

“Do you really think I should go back their? What would I even say??”

“Well I dunno, just cross that bridge when you get their I guess.”

“Look I’m seeing how you're talking, honestly you seem super smart, I’m sure you can tell this is a better decision than whatever you’re doing here.” he pointed out.

J stayed silent for a moment, then to Thad’s disbelief, she pulled her body off the door.

Once more he stepped back cautiously, afraid she would still try to hurt him. She didn’t however, but she did bend down to meet his level, placing her to hands atop her thighs.

Her tail rised into the air “How do you think they’d even respond to that?” she asked

The corners of Thad’s mouth curled into a discomforted grimace, as he thought for a moment, “I’m guessing…” he tried to think “Better than they would if you kept trying to kill everyone.” he weakly grinned, feeling sweat drip from the back of his neck (Why did they even program that in the first place??)

He still felt fear towards her, however he was beginning to feel sympathy as well, it had become clear to him she wasn’t a monster, just desperate and hungry, and admittedly he sorta did want to help her, (even though she did invoke some primal fear in him)

“You should come back with me, right now as matter of fact.” he insisted, “I’ll even let you hide under my varsity jacket while we walk back so you don’t get barbequed.”

He said as he pulled the item of clothing off from his back and showed it to her.

J looked at the jacket, that was a nice idea, especially since she had lost her other shirt while she was out in the street earlier.

J placed her arms in front of her in a rather defensive manner, “I don’t know what to say to that.” she said, trying to avoid his eyes, “It just sounds too foolishly optimistic to be a good idea.”

“It doesn’t have to be though,” he tried to explain it, “Their’s already proof it can happen, just look at your best buddies now.”

Before J could correct him on that statement he put the jacket even closer to her, “Come on back to the bunker with me, I’m sure you won’t regret it.”

J simply watched the jacket, looking at the clothing as though it would bite her, but slowly but surely she had decided to reach out for it.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, maybe she shouldn’t be so doubtful, and possibly this could be a new chance.

Just say yes, see if you have a chance to fix your life-

But then she recalled her two teammates.

V, how much she had use to trust and respect J, but now had grown so distrusting of her her, that she had thought killing her was a more reasonable suggestion that trying to talk it out.

Then N, the golden retriever underdog of the team, that she had took all her emotions out on just to make herself feel better about the situation.

If she went back with him to the colony, this would mean she'd have to face them both, and confront the issues, her lies and the abuse she had put them both through, completetly unsure how either of them would respond.

“No.”

She pulled her hand back, “I can’t go back-I can’t!” she cried out “I can't! I just caint'!!” her voice rose, backing into the door once more.

“What..?”

Before anything else, not one not two but three notifications appeared on her face all at once, with warnings all ringing out loudly

Critcal Warning! SD Unit overheating! Please refill oil supply to prevent heat exhaustion.

Critcal Warning! SD Unit overheating! Please refill oil supply to prevent heat exhaustion.

Critcal Warning! SD Unit overheating! Please refill oil supply to prevent heat exhaustion.

She backed away and slapped at her face trying to get rid of them all, but then that awful coughing had started up once again.

Once more she started hacking up the thick black smoke, but this time leaning onto the door did nothing, it wasn’t gonna stop now, no matter how hard she tried to fight it.

J once more buckled down onto her knees.

“Woah!” Thad cried “Hey are you okay? What’s the matter with you..?”

Despite the danger he was in, Thad still tried to reach out to her, still wanting to help her, what was the matter, was she having a panic attack? He thought

He dropped his jacket to the floor and placed his hand in front of her.

She trembled violently, her nails dug into the concrete.

“J…?”

He tried to speak to her.

Her head raised, revealing a large X written on her screen, her mouth was wide open revealing those awful uneven and raizer sharp teeth.

He gasped.

Suddenly a quick bite pierced into his hand.

Thad shrieked at the top of his lungs, she let go, but she then grabbed him by the waist and brought him up into the air.

“HEY!”

Finally it hit him like a ton of bricks, what was going on.

She spun him around and slammed his body onto the door. BANG! He held his eyes shut as the pain burned his body.

J let out laugh mixed in with crying looking at him with that monstrous toothy grin to Thad’s horror.

She then went to bite his neck, luckily for Thad however, thanks to playing football he was quick with his reflexes, and managed to stop her, placing both hands on her face and pushing her away as well as he could, a few of his fingers slipped into her mouth, managing to show her sickly grey gums hidden by her lips.

Despite being held away, J was still as determined as ever, and though in her state of mindless autopilot she had gotten the idea to let go of Thad and take his hands off her face, but as she let go for that split second, he slipped down onto the ground.

She went to bite him once more, he ducked down, her head slammed into the door, right in between the knobs, so hard she managed to bust them both off, and cause the doors to pop open.

The two drones fell out and onto the snow covered entrance way of the building , with J falling on top of Thad.

Once out, the sunlight hit her body, and sure enough the burning started.

The feral disassembly drone stood up, screaming and desperately trying to hide from the light with the shelter of her large hands.

Thad took this as a chance to escape and crawled away as quickly as anyone could have possibly done.

Finally having hit her, and thad being sixteen feet exactly away from her, J ran back into the factory, where it was dark and cold.

Thad went behind the box of oil he had, his core was beating so fast his chest was hurting, he shook like a flag in the wind, and his eyes were nothing more than a pair of rings with wrinkles of fear beside them both.

He took deep breaths of air, but exhaled fast and sharply, he then brought his right hand up to his eye sight, eight holes lining out his palm, each one different from the rest, all lined out with his oil.

He hesitantly turned it upside down, on the bottom part of his hand, same thing. He weakly curled his fingers into a fist, feeling the stinging from that bite.

The blonde cursed with his voice hushed as he turned to look back at the building.

Their he seen she was still their, standing in the doorway with her two hands dangling, continuing to look at him with her glowing yellow optics and those yellow and red orbs resting on in her headband, still their waiting and hoping he would come back to her.

He heard her began to make some type of noise, it was the same noise Uzi had made that time she went “Sicko mode” as he called it during that school camping trip; A weird mix between maniacally laughter and crying, It felt like a way of saying “I’m enjoying what I am doing, but I also hate it and want to stop.” Haunting and Disturbing.

He stood back up, rubbing his hurt hand, though she just tried to kill him, he still managed to feel guilt for her. It was weird, he didn’t use to feel sympathy for her, espicially after she tossed him into that wall, but when he watched her up close and personally struggling to keep her head above water, it made him a different perspective.

“Uh…” he scratched his hand and looked down at his shoe which he was twisting in the snow awkwardly.

“Look I’m sorry I can’t help you!” He placed a hand to his mouth “I want to, don’t get me wrong, but I really don’t know if you're gonna eat me or not! So yeah…”

She continued to giggle/cry.

Thad still feeling bad, decided to try to at least give her a fighting chance, so he took his phone from on top of the box, put it back in his pocket, then picked up the box of oil and went around 4 feet close of her, she tried to reach out and grab him as he placed the box down and kicked across the snowy surface, the box hissed as it glided across.

Thud! It hit the factory wall, J simply tilted her head examining the box, her yellow optics glowing brightly in the dimness of the factory.

“If it makes you feel better, you can have all those! Maybe you’ll get your good sense back!” he explained

“Bye…crazy…murder lady.”

Thad waved a final goodbye and turned around, at first he was walking, but then it evolved jogging, then sprinting, and full blown running.

J watched him until he was completely out of eyesight, she then looked down at the box, now catching onto the sweet smell from inside of it.

She used her long lanky claws to grab into it by the slit on top and pulled it into the building with her.

By the time Thad got done running, sweat clung to his forehead, and his core once again raced.

He crouched lowly with labored breathing that once he caught onto was slowing down pulled his phone out from his shirt pocket, which was now the only thing he was wearing besides shoes, for his jacket as much as he hated it was stuck with J in that building.

The tired blonde dialed a number on his phone, and then placed the device to his hearing processor.

His friend Bradford answered, “Hey Thad, what’s up?”

The jock replied as he continued his journey back to his bunker “Hey! So uh, I get you two were busy today, but I don’t think I can go back to that factory by myself again…”

。。。

That next night, J tried to return back to the corpse spire with the canisters of oil given to her, unfortunately she ended up having to seek refuge on the roof of a building above thanks to a certain red eyed sentinel, who was no longer alone like he was in the early morning.

Sparky, the red eyed beast reeled his head back and released a blood curdling screech at the top of his lungs.

As if his roar was an order at least several more sentinels plus his only remaining children throated out from behind him and to the corpse pile.

All the sentinels began to tear it apart, one body and limb at a time, not even trying to eat the worker corpses, just pulling off from the pile and onto the snowy surface, it was clear they weren’t here for a meal, but had different motives.

A few decent sized holes were made of the spire, once done so the robotic dinosaurs made slipped inside of their, with Sparky being last in.

J watched from above, on the safety of the giant apartment like building, both angered at what they were doing but also uneasy knowing the reason they did it was most likely vindictive.

That was her only sanctuary, the only place she truly felt safe, and they were taking that away from here.

She agitatedly scratched the top of her arm watching as her hand morphed into a weapon.

How she wished she could stop them, just gun those overgrown lizards down and call it day, she couldn’t though, not only was she unsure if she had enough in her system for her to even do it properly, but she was afraid if she’d miss, and what those things could do, of course she never seen them start climbing up a building, but in the state she was in, she didn’t want to find out.

So she just continued watching, watching in sheer pain as the sentinels tore her only place of security into nothing more than a crumpled pile of old rusty bodies tore about recognition.

The former leader groaned and pulled her ratted out from in front of her face.

Honestly what was she even trying to do now? Why was she trying so hard to survive right now? What for? What could she possibly be livng for???

Tessa was dead.

N lost all respect he used to have for her.

There was a bounty on her head courtesy of both V and that weird dog.

And the most hostility she was met with since since the battle with Uzi was from that drone boy with the jacket, and even then she didn’t know if his niceness was authentic or not, of course it didn’t matter now, because her overheating episode probably scared him off!

Honestly if she had to gaul to, she really would’ve just given up, in her eyes, it really wasn’t worth it, she literally had nothing to live for, and she really wasn’t expecting that to change anytime soon.

Sparky marched out from the corpse pile, there was no longer any area of shade, it was now nothing more than  a row of shrubbery built with dead drone parts, the corpse spire, the one mind you that J V and N all spent years making, completely destroyed with one hour by the pack of sentinels, that was the last thing she had, now she was out in the open, unsafe from the sentinels, V, sunlight and-

On the tip of her nose a small little dendrite shaped snowflake landed, following it, more of the fresh falling powder it’s origins being three large oyster appearing clouds in the sky.

Ruummbbble…rumble…

The weather…

A few flickers of lightning crossed the sky for a moment.

The murder drone slapped her hands onto her screen groaning even louder than she had, “For Robo-God’s sake!!” she shouted

It was really a shame, she used to be on top of the world, respected, cared about, now look at her. Hiding on a roof from giant lizards, getting covered in snow. Was this really her life now? Was she just gonna be like this until one of the many threats finally got to her? It had to be better than this, it just had to.

After one final look down at the corpse along with what her life had become J finally decided to try to get more rest then what she got earlier that day thanks to going feral, and not figuring out what was going until she cleared out half those quarts in the box.

The girl flopped onto her back and emerged from their, her wings.

Thanks to excess overheating J’s wing had became twice as large as before. With scratch marks on the feather like blades, and oil staining the white bits of the wing.

She wrapped them around her body, as a makeshift cocoon for her, to hide from the elements that night. Her tail wrapped around her two legs, and eventually she somehow managed to fall asleep, her cooling fans whirring inside making the noise to that of snoring.

The sentinels were still their at the corpse spire continuing to tear it apart, leaving not even a trace of once was, but maybe that was for the best.

。。。