Pre-show jitters.

Doll and Lizzy both get ready for Prom, to varying degrees of success.

The bag thudded against the floor of her apartment, the bottom of it was completely stained black with oil, from back when she was…less experienced.

Doll sorted her books back onto the shelf with a flick of her wrist, her optics flicking over the prom queen ballot in her hand, crossing out the name ‘Kelsey Day’ with a satisfied smirk. She looked to her backpack, where Kelsey’s sealed and sorted remains were stacked with a precision that would make a Tetris pro flush with envy.

The Solver flickered to life in her hand, and she grabbed the parts out of the bag before entering the kitchenette. It was perfectly clean, completely indistinguishable from any other aside from the faded black stains covering the floor, countertops, sink, cupboards, and the fridge. She laid the parts out on the counter, several empty canisters and bottles having already been set out earlier in preparation.

Doll grabbed an arm and pulled one of the empty canisters closer to her. She could use the Solver for this part, but she preferred to use her own two hands for the preparation if she could help it. It was more…personal that way, she supposed.

With a single practised motion, she twisted off the shoulder joint and let the oil pour freely into the canister, popping the joint into her mouth while the limb continued to drain.

One by one, she methodically drained each of the limbs, before unscrewing the hands and feet and draining them as well, before finally draining the head and torso. She ended up filling the canister and two water bottles, which she labelled with the day's date before putting them away in the fridge, which had several more containers filled with oil.

Doll took a moment to steel herself before gently prying the core out of the torso, cradling it in her hands, she slowly made her way down the hall, sending the rest of Kelsey’s body into the garbage chute with a dismissive wave of her hand, never once breaking her stride as she did so.

She felt the Solver writhe within her as she opened the door to her parent's bedroom, the air was musty and still, but the surfaces were free of dust. She crossed the threshold of the doorway, slowly walking towards the bed.

Her parents were laid side by side on their backs, their once screaming visages smoothed into blank frowns, their stiff limbs held outwards in shock laid flat on the bedsheets, their hands entwined, that coupled with the darkness of the room covering their smashed visors made it so that if Doll really tried she could pretend that they were just sleeping. 

She looked at the floor surrounding the bed, where several cores similar to the one in her hands were piled together, she couldn't tell you how many there were, or when exactly she had started bringing them here. But something about laying the cores of the victims of her necessary evil to rest with her parents just felt right to her, this was the only place she felt at peace anymore, maybe the cores could feel that peace as well, it was the least she could do for them, considering their bodies were the only thing keeping her alive.

Doll kneeled down to the nearest pile of cores, gently laying Kelsey amongst them, murmuring a quick thank you to her before quietly creeping onto her parent's bed. She laid herself in between them, bringing her back to the time when a much smaller her would be nestled in their arms as a particularly violent blizzard sent howling winds through the vents, she remembered how she felt like not even the murder drones that stalked the snow outside could reach her while she was being held by her parents. What she wouldn't give to go back to that time.

“Mom, dad. It's almost time” her voice was barely a whisper. “Soon your murderer will face justice, and then I’ll be able to find the cure and rid myself of this demon code in my systems” She snuggled closer to the corpse of her mother, who said and did nothing in response to her daughter, who was too busy remembering the days her mother would make her stuffed animals spin and dance about in the air while her father made dinner in the kitchen to care about that.

Doll laid there for an unknowable amount of time, letting the memories of her childhood stoke the hunger inside her that could only truly be quenched with the oil of the murder drone who took it all away, reminding her why she was doing this. And every memory was another reassurance that what she was doing was necessary, that every worker who died by her hand was the means to a justified end.

The shrill beeping of her phone broke Doll out of her recollections, she sat up with a huff. With a flick of her fingers, her phone was unlocked and hovering in front of her face. It was a text from Lizzy, her girlfriend.

> hey bbgrl, Dorkman is going to be here in 2 hours, V is oiled up and ready to go, i just got our dresses from the drycleaners, see you soon XOXO.

Doll felt her core start to vibrate in her chest, Lizzy was going to come to Doll’s apartment to drop off their outfits for prom. Then they would go to the doorman residents to collect Uzi, Doll would either lock her in the bathroom or kill her, as long as she was out of the way it didn't really matter to her. Prom would start, the queen would be announced, the murder drone would stand on the podium.

Doll didn't know what exactly she would do when that happened, she had been brainstorming a few ideas over the past few weeks. She only knew that whatever happened, the murder drone DESERVED IT.

--⚠️--

Lizzy tapped her foot against the floor as she leaned against the wall of the bunker hallway, the plastic bags containing her and Doll's prom dresses that she held crinkled as she typed away at her phone.

She typed out a bunch of messages, some to her family and friends, most to the rest of the prom committee to make sure they hadn't imploded on themselves without her there to guide them… And one sent to V.

It was short, just a set of instructions, punctuated with just the right amount of ‘besties’ and glittery heart emoji’s so that V wouldn't think anything was up. She and Doll had come too far to have it all fail now.

Lizzy’s stomach started to turn when she thought of her girlfriend, she was acting… Off, now that's not to say that Doll had ever been strictly normal , but Doll was a specific type of weird and off-putting, one that Lizzy loved dearly, and this wasn't it.

Lately, she had been spending all of her time in her parent's bedroom curled up between their corpses like a cat, whispering to them about all the things she would do to V once she got her hands on her. Lizzy had never been the squeamish type, she literally delivered butchered corpses to a genocidal monster every few days for the past month and a half, but even she started feeling a little green around the gills when she heard what Doll was planning. Getting revenge was one thing, but this just seemed a little too cruel, even for someone as ruthless as Lizzy.

Lizzy scrolled through her phones' gallery, looking through the pictures she had taken with V over their time together to pick out which ones she would put up on the projector later, most of them were too littered with corpses, but there were some that were presentable enough to use. 

Her thumb hovered over the screen as she looked at the photo.

It was a selfie she had taken with a large snowman she and V had built together using a human skull as the head, V was winking in the background, throwing up a peace sign with her claws. 

Lizzy remembered how the two of them spent a good few hours messing around in the snow that night, building snow sculptures of drones Lizzy didn’t like and watching as V used them as target practice, before they both got tired of it and made the snowman in the photo. She remembered laughing as V spun the skull around on the tip of her claw before slam-dunking it onto the torso, it was fun.

And that was a problem .

Because this wasn't supposed to be fun, this was supposed to be Lizzie using her manipulation skills and popular girl magnetism to charm V into a trap. Just like how V was supposed to be a ruthless monster with no concept of empathy that was only humouring her for food, not a cool looking bad girl with a snarky comment for any situation that, in another life where they weren't on opposing sides, Lizzy could see herself being actual friends with.

Which was a problem because as they spent more time together ‘another life’ was starting to become THIS life. Every time she thought about prom, she felt sweat start to bead on her visor, the image of V’s face as Doll killed her haunted her every waking moment. Would she be angry? Would she have a look of grim acceptance? Or would she feel betrayed, having what could be her first friend as witness to her death?

For the first time in years, Lizzy doubted herself. She was supposed to be a natural-born leader, the most popular girl in school and captain of the cheer squad, where she went the masses followed. Drones like her didn't get doubts, yet here she was, second guessing herself like some freshman.

Lizzy grimaced as the tempest whirled in her mind, even if she did have second thoughts about V, it wasn't like she could stop it now, there was no way V wouldn't show up to the veritable feast Lizzy had laid out for her, not without Lizzy telling her the truth, which would almost certainly spell her and/or Doll's doom. But on the other hand, she couldn’t imagine Doll taking too kindly to her getting cold feet, either.

If you had asked Lizzy a month ago, she would have slapped your face off for even insinuating that Doll would ever hurt her, but that was before her spooky-psychic-witch powers started driving her nuts. Doll had told her about them when their plan first started, that when she used her powers too long, she started having bizarre, violent thoughts that she swore weren't her own. That there was a quiet little presence in the back of her head that tinged all her feelings towards sadism and bloodlust.

Lizzy remembered how Doll’s kills steadily got more and more vicious as time went on, how at the start Doll tried to end her victims as quickly and painlessly as she could, but now she took her sweet time pulling them apart piece by piece. 

Dread tore its way through Lizzy's gut, if she warned V Doll would die, but if she did nothing then V would die, and that wasn’t even accounting for the fact that neither scenario involved her walking away unscathed. No matter how she sliced it, Lizzy was going to lose someone tonight.

Lizzy clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and smoothed her face into the confident smirk she was known for. She shot a quick text to Doll, letting her know she had collected their dresses.

It was too late to go back now, Lizzy made her bed, and now she had to lie in it.

She just hoped she would be able to live with herself after.

End notes

Hi again, now listen, I know a lot of you were exited last chapter because it looked like we were finally going to earth, BUT I'm afraid we still have a few things left to wrap up on Copper-9 before we get to the real meat and potatoes.

The funny thing is, this whole chapter was originally just the Doll POV that was a part of next chapter, but then it got too big, so I had to cut out the Doll section for space, but it was too short on its own, so I added the Lizzy POV because I realised she was the only other major character whose POV I hadn't covered (aside from Thad, but he'll have a more prominent role later)

That aside, more art! Also made by me. I didn't plan to have art in this chapter, but I was looking at the pictures Lizzy uses in canon and I just decided 'what the hell' and the end product was good enough to put here.

And finally, HOLY FUCK 1428 HITS! WE'VE PASSED TRIPLE DIGITS, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

With all that said, see you guys at prom~