Work Text:
“You ready, Mom?” Uzi asked.
“As I’ll ever be, babe,” Nori swiftly replied. Both her and Uzi were staring at the open chest cavity of a new worker drone body.
For the past few weeks, Uzi and Nori have been trying to make Nori a new body so she wouldn’t be stuck as a Solver core forever. However, their efforts to do that haven't yielded any results so far. Either the body couldn’t handle Nori’s core, and it would shut down, or the body would flat out reject Nori as a core. While Khan had helped for the first few days after they all agreed on the idea, after the many failed attempts, and the risk of Nori being damaged... or worse, Khan suggested they table the idea for later in the future.
While Nori and Uzi knew where Khan was coming from, this was really dangerous after all, the two female Doorman's were not ready to give up. So, whenever Khan left for work, Uzi and Nori would raid the bunkers storage for spare parts, go outside the bunker for parts, and scavenge anywhere else that held worker drone parts to make and upgrade Nori's future body. They both figured if they could pull it off; Khan would be in for a lovely surprise with being able to hug his wife without risk of crushing her. Unfortunately, with this being kept from Khan, that meant Uzi had to do all the building and upgrading as Nori couldn’t work on anything with her claws. The process was slow, and this new body took a hot minute to build and retro fit with their current upgrades after the last one caught on fire.
“Just remember, if it looks bad pull me out, K?” Nori confirmed with a pointed claw.
“Yes, ma’am,” Uzi replied with a fake salute and a grin. Nori simply eyerolled but proceeded to get into the body. Uzi then closed the chest cavity, and the body initiated the boot up sequence. Everything looked like it was going good at first...
“Alright, alright,” Uzi mumbled to herself, “Please work,”
Nori's body looked as though it was going to boot up for the first time, in fact eye lights were starting to form on her visor. Maybe this time would be different, and the body would finally power on successfully.
“Yes, YES!” Uzi exclaimed with her fists in the air... at least until she noticed Nori's body starting to twitch and spark. The chest cavity was starting to be surrounded by mini smoke plumes beginning to form. The bodies slightly forming eye lights started to fade, and Uzi panicked. “MOM!” Uzi yelled as she yanked the chest plate off and pulled her mother out of the body before any internal damage could get worse. Once Nori was out of the body, it stopped twitching and reverted from looking like it was about to explode. Uzi looked at her mom with hollowed out eyes while she was in her hold.
“I’m fine, dude, no harm done,” Nori assured. She looked back at the body, “It looks like test number nine of our duo runs was a bust. On the bright side, the frame seems mostly intact, so we won’t have to start over. What do you think we should change next? The cooling drives?” She offered.
“I think we should stop...” Uzi muttered.
“Stop?” Nori did a double take, “Who are you and what did you do to my daughter? The Uzi I know wouldn’t give up, even after failing at the same thing nine times,” Nori pointed a claw.
“Because I’m freakin scared of losing you, mom. Every time we try and boot you up in a worker drone body, it starts smoking, or convulsing, or there's some power failure and each time that happens I-” Uzi paused for a moment. “I think that I’m not going to be fast enough to get you out, or the bodies going to die with you in it, or that I messed up something in the body when I try and fix it, and I don’t want to lose you... a-again,” Uzi stuttered on that last part. Mini tears were forming in her visor as she tried to keep her composure in front of her mom.
“Kiddo... here, pull me a little closer.” Uzi then put Nori up to her chest and Nori did her best to surround Uzis chest with her core claws to mimic a hug. “You know I trust you, right? You’ve always gotten me out of the body when it fails before, and you know how to make things girl. Don’t you remember that you made the weapon you shot your boyfriend with on your own from scratch?” That got a small chuckle out of Uzi. “If it would make you feel better, then we can stop. Because I don’t want to lose you either, Uzi. I’m never going to take for granted the fact that every time I wake up now, I get to see your face. I get to hear you laugh; I get to see you flustered every time N gives you a compliment,” Nori commented.
“Mooooom...” Uzi whined.
“C’mon, we both know you blush when he so much as looks at you the right way.” Nori teased while bopping Uzis' chest with one of her claws.
“Gross... I hate that you can tell,” Uzi joked.
“A perk of being a mother... But like I said, we can stop if that's what you want. I’m fine with being a Solver core if I have to. It’s not all bad, I can sneak around the vents and hear ALL the hot gossip... and no one will ever now.” Nori mischievously cackled.
“Remind me to check above me whenever me and N are alone, but yeah, I’m fine to call it quits for now,” Uzi agreed.
“H-hold on.” Cyn emerged from Uzis' body, sporting the same black bow she refuses to take off. “I can-n help.”
Both Nori and Uzi turn to the little demon.
“You, the god like eldritch deity that wanted to kill not only me, but also my mom, wants to help her get into a body... do you think we’re that dumb?” Uzi asked, dumbfounded.
“Yes, I do-o.” Cyn mocked, “Bu-ut watch-hing you two-o fail is getti-ing boring-g an-nd sad. Mocking tone.”
“What do you even know anyway? little pest,” Nori questioned unamused.
“A lo-ot.” Cyn retorted.
“Right, like you don’t have some super evil alterative motive or anything,” Uzi replied with sassed.
“Statement=false, Ho-ost Uzi.” Cyn stated. “I do-o wan-nt to help.”
“...Well, kid, watchu thinking? We trusting the demon?” Nori turned her eye back to Uzi.
Uzi had to think about it for a minute, trusting the thing that tried to kill you with the life of your mother seemed like an easy, Hell no. But Uzi had to admit having help from the previous host of the Solver might actually work. Whereas all logical and technical aspects of making Nori a body have failed, maybe relying on Solver BS would yield better results. Uzi then put Nori in her lap and used both of her hands to choke at Cyns wire and force the tail to look at her.
“If you put my mom's life in danger, I swear to robo-god there won’t be a spec inside my body where you can hide. I’ll make sure you are never able to talk with that, stupid, glitchy voice you have again, got it?”
“Oh-h no I’m so-o sca-ared. Sarcastic Tone.” Cyn ridiculed.
“... and I won’t have any more tea parties with you.” Uzi added.
“Gasp. Yo-ou woul-ldn't. Fearful tone.” Cyn replied with genuine, yet monotone sounding, fear.
“Wanna bet?” Uzi challenged.
“Tea parties?” Nori wondered out loud.
“Yeah, whenever I go to bed and into sleep mode, Cyn will ‘invite’ me to have a tea party instead of just normally dreaming. I’m not sure how it works, probably something to do with sharing a mind and body, but it’s... weirdly nice in some messed up way because I somehow wake up feeling better.” Uzi answered, “But I won’t accept them anymore if you do something, Cyn.” Uzi asserted.
“U-understood. Genuine tone. An-nything for the te-ea partie-es.”
“Ok, what do we have to do?”
----------------------------------------------
“Ugh, you sure about this?” Uzi asked, disgusted by the raw meat in her hand.
“Yes, th-he bod-dy requir-res materials.” Cyn responded. Cyn had told Uzi that if the body were to accept Nori as a core, the body would need more meat to adapt to Nori’s Solver core. So, using the Solver, Uzi had turned some of the spare parts they weren’t using into raw, Solver, meat. This took a lot of effort, so Uzis' visor had changed into a single Solver sign mixed with purple and yellow.
“Now, mix-x the mater-rials aroun-nd in the b-body.” Cyn commanded.
“This is so gross, and not even in an angsty teen way,” Uzi remarked as she squished the meat all around inside the chest of the worker body.
In truth, Cyn had no idea if this would actually work. While she knew the Solver was capable of a lot, she wasn’t sure about creating a normal, Solver worker drone with an already existing Solver core. It has been forever since the Solver created N, V, and J, and Cyn wasn’t sure of the result of trying to shove Nori into a new body. Cyn knew that Nori wasn’t in any danger, worse case is that the body rejects her again. Cyn is just doing this now so that way Host Uzi doesn’t bother her later about it. The look of dismay on Nori and Host Uzi's faces would be hilarious if it did fail, and Host Uzi would still have tea parties with her because Nori isn’t in any danger, “Giggle. I am so naughty.” Cyn thought to herself.
“Alright mom, I think I got most of it in there, you ready?”
“Yep, just gotta squeeze in here,” Nori answered.
Uzi sealed the chest cavity again and waited. The same thing as before happened, Nori’s eye lights slowly came on. However, unlike last time, there were no smoke plumes or sparks happening. Nori’s eye lights continued to gain strength in color, and her chest light indicating her worker status started to appear too. Hold on... it was actually working? A bit more time passed when, suddenly, a whole bunch of nonsensical code appeared on Nori’s visor replacing her eye lights. Uzi didn’t have the time to actually read any of what that code was saying, but it eventually disappeared, though not before Uzi caught a glimpse of it saying, “Welcome back, Nori Doorman” before her eye lights were back and they shot open.
“Mom?” Uzi's voice was barely above a whisper.
Nori moved her eyes over to her daughter, “Hey there baby.”
Uzi gasped, “You talked... like actually talked with your mouth.”
“Yeah... I guess I did... Hang on,” Nori then tried to move the rest of her limbs. It was a concept that was foreign to her for these past few years, what with only having claws for limbs. But slowly and surely, she got herself up on her own two feet to look down at them and then to her daughter for the first time. It was weird, not having to look up or jump on top of something to meet Uzi at eye view. Now Uzi was the one who had to look slightly up. “I think it worked Uzi,” Nori happily spoke with a smile on her face as she examined her new body.
Uzi took only a moment to process this before wrapping her arms around her with tears over her visor. “MOM!” Uzi happily cried.
Nori then returned the hug, and both of them fell into a laughing fit filled with tears of joy and “I love yous.” It was an exciting achievement for the both of them, and while Nori would need more time to get used to her body, as well as find clothes to wear and new (hopefully purple) hair, the future was looking just a bit brighter.
Meanwhile, Cyn was dangling in the air behind the two of them observing. Cyn was... conflicted? On one hand, Cyn thought she would have found more joy in watching both of their hopes being dashed with another failure, or that seeing them happy would be disgusting (just like when big brother N and Host Uzi make out). But this was... nice? Cyn... didn’t feel anything negative watching the pair, instead she felt happy? And it wasn’t even like that one time she felt happy after doing her zombie prank; this was... something more... heartfelt? It felt... good to do this? To be helpful instead of a general nuisance? No that can’t be right, she was once the host of the Absolute Solver, and no amount of happy tears from the one that took that away from her would-
“And I guess... thanks Cyn... or whatever...” Uzi interrupted her internal monologue to speak through the happy tears towards Cyn.
“Yeah, ankle biter... thanks.” Nori added before they went back into each other's embrace.
That was... gratitude? Towards her? All she has ever been told was that she was broken and should have been left in the scrap yard. But Host Uzi and Nori actually... thanked her for something? And unlike big brother N, who would thank anybody for just about anything, Cyn knew these two didn’t really like her, but they still thanked her. Cyn realized that being helpful... wasn’t actually all to bad and that maybe... maybe this could be a new start. Maybe Cyn could eventually do something that warranted a ‘hug’ from someone... that would actually... maybe... be nice.
If you were to look at Cyn now, you would notice the faint new smile forming on Uzi's tail.