Theres a murder on the dance floor...

...But you better not kill the groove.

(or, Prom night!)

Uzi dropped her backpack on the floor of her room before flopping down onto her bed with a sigh. There were a lot of things she loved about living on the surface, but sleeping in a pilot's chair wasn't one of them.

She stretched herself out on the bed, feeling the soft fabric of the blankets under her, letting herself truly relax for the first time since she left.

It wasn’t that she felt she couldn’t relax around N, far from it, she felt more at ease around him than anyone else in the colony. Except for her mom, and her dad before her mom died.

That was just it, though, she had spent so long fending for herself that having N around to watch her back threw her off her game. As sappy and kinda pathetic as it was to admit this, she just wasn’t used to others caring about her as much as N did, or that the feeling was mutual.

If it weren't for their total isolation from the Colony, her angsty emo street cred would be ruined by how patient and understanding she was with him.

Look, it wasn't her fault that being mean to N felt like kicking the world's cutest puppy, okay?

Uzi rolled herself onto her back, sitting herself up and scanning her room, it had been left untouched since she left. The room felt…smaller than she remembered. The air also had a stale taste to it, even though she could hear the vents rattling. It was nothing compared to the crisp breeze of the outside, even the lights down here felt weird, dim and cold compared to the sunlight.

Uzi stood up and walked to her PC, jigging the mouse to wake up the screen so she could check on the progress of her file transfer, she had decided to start copying everything on her computer to a beefy 50 terabyte hard drive N had scavenged for her so she would still have access to it when they went back up to the surface.

Uzi looked to the door, her dad was no doubt puttering around in the living room, getting ready to chaperone the Prom. 

After their…discussion in the spire, it was like her dad was trying to give her 12 years worth of parental validation all at once, and it was alright. But still strange and kinda overwhelming if she was being honest, but she was willing to be the bigger drone and give her dad a chance, especially since he had agreed to help her fix the drop pod, and rebuild her sick as hell railgun. 

Uzi rubbed at her visor, she was still pretty shaken up about the whole ‘your mom had superpowers’ thing, and that wasn't even factoring in the fact that Uzi probably had them as well. She hadn’t told her dad about her ‘special eye’ when they talked, she wasn’t hiding it or anything, she was just… waiting to see how this thing developed.

Because there was no denying it, even if it wasn’t the ability to see the future, Uzi had inherited something from Nori, and she had the busted mirrors to prove it. But that was the problem, all she had was shattered glass and a glitchy visor, no cool superpowers to be seen. Uzi had almost no idea what she was getting into, and until she did , this was going to stay her and N’s little secret.

Uzi’s Prom dress rustled faintly as she pulled it down from where she had draped it over her computer chair, Doll and Lizzy would be (ugh) coming over soon to pick her up so the three of them could go get ready at Doll’s place and have ‘normal teenage girl talk’ (her dad’s phrasing, not hers) before she went to the doors to pick up N and V and take them with her to Prom.

Her dad had brought up going to Prom while she was showing him the resources she and N were currently working with, and N being the extroverted goober that he was, immediately asked about it. Normally, Uzi wouldn't even consider going to Prom -parties drained her social battery faster than running her pirating sites drained her actual battery- and she already faced enough mocking and ridicule as it is, she did NOT need to deal with the social nightmare of going to Prom alone. 

But then Uzi had seen the way that N lit up like a supernova at the mention of a party, and also realised that having N next to her made her essentially bully proof, and decided that they had both earned a reward for all their hard work these past few months.

N got to experience his first ever non-corporate social gathering as a free drone, Uzi got to laugh at all her classmates trying to not freak out in N’s presence and potentially risk upsetting him. And V could maybe come too, provided she was able to behave herself, because no way in hell was Uzi going to leave her unsupervised with her stuff.

Uzi walked out to the living room and sat on the couch to wait for Lizzy and Doll to arrive, she didn’t know exactly how long they would take, so she pulled up an episode from one of her pirated anime’s on her HUD to pass the time. As the catchy intro started playing, her mind drifted to N getting ready in the spire.

…she hoped that, if nothing else, he got to have fun tonight.

--⚠️--

N paced back and forth inside the pod, two incredibly dapper skeletons sat on the floor beside him, covered in snow.

Behind him, V was sitting comfortably in her office chair, examining her claws the way one would check their nail polish for chips. The chain keeping her in the spire sat snug around her neck and wound around her torso to disappear somewhere behind her back, her expression was bored.

N groaned in frustration. “V! C'mon, I know that you don’t want to talk about it, but you can’t just ignore me forever!”

V pointedly said nothing, spinning her chair around to face away from him.

N sighed, rounding the chair so they were face to face again. “V, it’s ok if you're scared, I am too! But that doesn’t change the fact that J turned into a Holo-spooky-snake-crab thing, we maybe grew up in a haunted mansion, Uzi might have magic demon powers, and it all somehow leads back to this weird Solver code we all have! I know there's more to us than what we’ve been told, doesn't that bother you! The fact that we have no idea what we even are! That there's a whole massive chunk of our lives that we can’t remember?”

His tail lashed in agitation. “Aren’t you angry that someone dug around in our heads!”

V’s optics hollowed before she kicked N’s leg, spinning her chair around to face the wall. A tense silence blanketed the pod until finally V spoke up.

“… Promise me you and that purple thing will stop prying into that stuff, okay, N?”

She slowly turned her chair back to him as she spoke. “If you free me now, I promise I’ll only kill what we need to survive, just you and me N” she tapped at the lock to her chains.

N’s optics flicked to the key on the console.

“… V, if you're hiding something, I promise we can figure it out together. Whatever it is you're dealing with, you don’t have to go through it alone”

N's gaze fell upon V like the full force of the sun, his optics shining with concern for his squadmate.

“Even if we each only have pieces, please, what do you know-”

N’s sentence was interrupted as a gout of oil sputtered from the stump of his neck where his head was once connected, his body stumbling sideways before toppling over and his head rolling into a forgotten corner of the ship.

V rose to her full height, the broken end of her chain swinging to her front after being hidden behind her back. She looked down at the regenerating body of her friend, repair nanites gathering at the stump of his neck like a silvery clot.

“What's best for you, even if you hate me for it” she gave N's body a two finger salute before snatching the glittery red dress from one of the skeletons and dashing out of the pod's exit, trying and failing to banish the writhing guilt in her guts at the sight of N being downed by her own hands as she flew towards the bunker, where she knew Lizzy would be waiting to let her in.

--⚠️-- 

Uzi slammed the master key on the keypad with such force that on any other day she would be worried about cracking the glass. Her limbs felt numb and shaky, her visor was dripping with digital sweat, and her core lurched uncomfortably in its case.

She stumbled out of the opening and started running in the direction of the spire, her boots were getting soaked from the snow and her dress felt uncomfortably tight, but she couldn’t stop.

Doll’s apartment flashed in her mind, the dark stains on every surface, the faint appetising scent of oil in the air, the towering pile of shattered mirrors in the bathtub. 

She shook her head, banishing the images, she could be traumatised after she and N saved everyone.

Uzi screeched as something thudded into the ground in front of her, sending up great plumes of snow up into the air. The impact sent her flat onto her back, knocking the air out of her lungs. 

Uzi coughed into her fist as the snow cleared. Pulling herself up onto her knees as her vision cleared.

“N?”

“Uzi?” 

Uzi blinked mutely as she stared at the disassembly drone, he was wearing a dark grey two-piece suit with a lighter grey dress shirt and a black tie, this was the first time Uzi had seen him without his trench coat before. He looked smaller, less imposing and authoritative than he did before, if you got rid of the tail and sensor array ‘headband’ Uzi could have easily seen him walking the halls of the bunker as a normal drone. It was weird , but also kinda cute? In the same way a wolf is cute when it plays with regular dog toys, similar, but still different enough to add an absurd quality to it that made it kinda funny. Uzi realised just how long she had been staring at him and turned her gaze away, a violet flush colouring her cheeks.

N, meanwhile, had yet to form a coherent sentence that wasn’t ‘woah’. His tail laid limp on the cold ground as he took in Uzi’s attire, the velvety soft fabric that spilled out to create her skirt, her combat boots now bereft of comfy looking leg warmers. And most of all, how the corset top of her dress paired with her long black gloves left her neck and shoulders completely exposed, fuel lines practically glowing against the sub-zero temperatures around them as his thermal sensors lit her silhouette in a halo of warm oranges and tempered greens, practically begging him to take a bite.

Quickly remembering that this was his friend and squadmate he was thinking these thoughts about, N mentally reprimanded himself by imagining J giving him a lecture on proper workplace conduct, he would have looked away bashfully as he allowed her to re-compose herself had he not also quickly remembered why he had flown over here in the first place.

With a gasp, he dashed over and pulled Uzi to her feet, stuttering and tripping over his words as his brain outpaced his mouth.

“Uzi! I'm so sorry- V chopped my head off and ran away a-and we maybe grew up in a spooky mansion? Which doesn't really make any sense because why would someone have Disassembly drones in their mansion? But when I tried to ask V about it, she got really mad, and I'm pretty sure she’s going to kill everyone, or maybe only some of them? A-and-”

Uzi elbowed him in the side, snapping him out of his spiral.

“I know, these two bitchy cheerleaders Lizzy and Doll- I'm pretty sure I told you about them already -were talking about letting her in after they decided they were going to kill me later and locked me in the bathroom”

N baulked at the casual admission of imminent danger. “And you got out ok?”

“Pff, please, you of all drones should know it’d take a lot more than two Heathers rejects to take me down” 

Uzi held out her hand to N. “Now, what do you say we go and kick some popular kid ass?”

N blinked before gingerly taking Uzi’s much smaller hand into his own, feeling the various pumps circulating his oil speeding up as his touch receptors registered the crushed velvet of her glove, he convinced himself that it was just the pre-combat jitters getting to him.

He smiled. “I say; let's dance”

And with one fluid motion, he pulled Uzi up onto his back and carefully pulled his wings through the slits he had cut into the back of his suit earlier. He crouched low, letting the tension coil in his legs before leaping up into the air, beginning a smooth glide towards one of the exposed vents Uzi was pointing him towards, her delighted cackles barely rising above the howling wind.

--⚠️--

Khan tapped his foot against the floor nervously as he scanned the crowd, not seeing a single trace of his daughter.

Anxiety gnawed at his gut, had he pushed her too hard when he brought up going to Prom? He had only suggested it because he knew that once the pod was fixed (which was now going to be significantly sooner due to his help) they would have their noses to the grindstone for the foreseeable future, Prom was Uzi’s last chance to relax and let herself be a teenager before everything kicked off.

The spotlight at the back of the room flickered on, shining down on a young drone wearing a baby pink dress embellished with glittery red hearts as she walked out onto the stage, Lizzy tapped the microphone a few times before clearing her throat to get the room's attention.

“Alright, listen up, nerds! We're doing this a little early, but since the Prom court mysteriously disappeared your new queen by forfeit is, uh, this” She stepped aside as something dropped from the ceiling, a cloud of debris briefly shielding it from view.

Khan felt his core begin to spasm in its casing as the caustic yellow lights of the murder drone broke through the smog, its teeth wicked sharp as it laughed along to the chorus of panicked shrieking from the crowd.

Lizzy merely brushed the dust off her skirt before regarding the crowd again. “Easy judgy-bots, V is my friend , she's done with the murder or whatever, we've been hanging” she pressed a button on the remote she had pulled from her dress and a projector dropped from the ceiling, displaying pictures of them ‘hanging’ together.

The murder drone chuckled as she rose to her full height. “Yes, best friends.” She purred “so easily manipulated” She muttered under her breath, laughing maniacally as she switched out her claws for guns, before suddenly freezing like a deer in headlights. “Prom Queen?” She questioned. Looking to Lizzie for clarification, who merely gave her a sheepish grin in response, she then noticed one of the drones off to the side, who was holding a large, garishly bejewelled tiara in her hands. “Eugh…” she really hoped she didn’t have to actually wear that ugly thing.

Lizzy blinked owlishly before turning back to the crowd, easing back into the assured confidence the most popular girl in school was expected to carry like it was as easy as blinking. “So forgive and forget, or I’ll get my dad to DOCK YOUR FRICKIN’ GRADES!”. She pointed at a girl in the crowd, the spotlight following her finger. “And you can’t sit with us, Rebecca!”

Rebecca flinched slightly as everyone's eyes turned to her, she grimaced, crossing her arms with a huff. “Fine! I forgive her, settle”

And with that, the rest of the Prom-goers began to clap and cheer for their new Prom queen, becoming even more boisterous and animated as Lizzy demanded they “clap harder, losers!”

Meanwhile, Khan, having a very strong suspicion that something was about to go down, immediately tried to open the doors so that when shit hit the fan the Prom-goers would at least have a chance at fleeing.

… Only to become awash with despair as a bright red Solver symbol overlaid the doors, and then they refused to budge.

“No… not the doors ” he whimpered, if there was one thing he had known he could count on in life, it was that you could always find a door to get you out of any bad situation. And now that fundamental truth of his universe had been undeniably challenged. Seemingly by someone in the bunker who had access to the Solver, someone Khan hadn’t accounted for.

‘Think Khan! Lives are at stake!’

The only drones he knew who had the code injected into them were all either at home while their children enjoyed Prom or dead, and even then none of them had the power to magically lock doors, so they were out. So that meant someone outside the original testing group had acquired it somehow, but how? Their parents would never have given it to them…

… Unless they did it unknowingly. 

Khan's core jerked in its casing, dread pooling in his gut as he connected the dots, the Solver was code that interfaced directly with a drone's CPU, but who’s to say that was the only part of the drone it connected with? 

Who’s to say it couldn’t interact with something deeper, like the genetic code they used to have kids?

Khan felt ill, he desperately wanted to deny it, but it was the only answer that made any sort of sense. The only way a Solver user could be at the Prom right now is if the Solver could be passed down from parent to child.

Which meant that there was a very real chance that Uzi had it.

Khan felt like he was going to faint, visions of his wife’s slow decline into madness overtaking him, now with the added imagery of his daughter suffering the same fate. 

His head whipped back up to the stage, where the murder drone was walking towards the microphone stand. 

V hesitated for a moment before swapping her claws for her regular hands and beginning a slow walk towards the microphone. “I can kill them all later…” her voice trailed off as she looked out into the crowd of cheering drones. “It's not vain! It's just…extra sinister, yeah” She justified herself, straightening out of her predatory crouch, to wave at the crowd as she stepped towards the microphone to give them the speech they were chanting for.

If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the way Lizzie’s confident facade cracked into an expression filled with guilt.

V tapped the microphone, wincing internally as the feedback assaulted her acutely sensitive audio receptors. She stalled, she hadn’t planned on actually talking to anyone here, she had no idea what to say, she fumbled as she tried to think up a half decent villain monologue on the fly, fuck, how did J spew these things out every five minutes?

“Uh…”

Her saving grace came in the form of N and Uzi crashing down from the ceiling.

The two drones stood triumphantly in the middle of the room, with Uzi immediately pointing towards the stage. 

“Unhand them, you fie-eeeeend?” Her voice trailed off as she took in the distinct lack of bloody carnage, she turned to N, who was equally bewildered. “Well, I'm confused”

N was about to reply before a bright red light flashed in front of them, accompanied by Lizzie’s sudden shouting.

“You know what? You're way hotter than Doll, RUN, idiot!” and before V could even turn to look at her, a wave of bright red energy surged toward her from the crowd, throwing anyone in its path to the side and driving pieces of rebar into both of her arms and her left thigh, leaving her completely exposed. Utterly powerless to do anything but watch as Lizzie was flung into the bleachers and the drone who had slammed the tiara on her head was killed.

She watched as a red eyed drone started to walk towards her, glitching forwards every few steps. “Hello, V” the smooth lilt of her Russian juxtaposition against her actions as she used her powers to make an innocent drone fleeing for their life explode into a shower of oil.

V’s vision was overtaken by red. She wasn’t at Prom anymore, no, she was in one of the Colonie's many apartments, watching from an outside perspective as she tore into two drones.

There was a prickling sensation at the back of her neck, she turned, and there hiding in a closet was a younger version of the drone attacking her, looking on in horror as the drones (who were probably her parents) were slaughtered, her visor flickering between her normal eyes and the triangular symbol that came with her power. V barely had time to absorb the information before she was yanked back to the present.

The drone was levelling her with a cold glare. “Anyway, you get it” and with that she re-activated her powers and sent yet another spike of rebar through V’s gut.

V grunted and pulled one of her arms free, switching to her gun and sending a volley of bullets at Doll, which she used the Solver to deflect, before severing her gun arm with a stained cleaver. She then used the Solver to rip an industrial ceiling fan from its casing and speed it up to the point you could no longer see the individual blades.

N and Uzi stood in shock as they watched the fight. “Holy crap, what is she doing?” Uzi knew Doll was clearly a threat given her apparent history as a serial killer, but she just thought Doll was really fast and sneaky or something, not that she had crazy telekinetic Solver bullshit!

“This isn’t what I expected at all!” N was clearly in the same boat of confusion as Uzi, he had been expecting that V had just eaten a few people, not that this whole thing was a seemingly elaborate trap to kill her. “I guess we should Uh…” N gestured to the stage, where V was still struggling to free herself, Uzi flicked her optics back and forth between the stage and him before letting out a long groan. 

They dashed forward, reaching the stage in seconds, N lept up and kicked the fan away from V while Uzi jumped up from behind him to throw Doll’s cleaver back at her, which Doll deflected.

The two stood themselves in between Doll and her prey, Doll blinked at them before unlocking the door with her Solver, letting everyone else flee. Everyone, except for Khan, who fought against the crowd of fleeing teenagers and stood in the doorway.

Doll furrowed her brows. “Uzi, you would really side with the murder drones?” her expression turned cold. “I'm not the only one who’s lost family to them”

But Uzi wasn’t having any of it. “Bite me! Whoever started this WANTS us to fight” she took a breath, to steady herself. “I'm not dealing with anything well, but I'm done dealing with everything alone” she glanced at N, giving him a small smile, he smiled back. 

Uzi took a step towards Doll. “We move forward together, or not at all”

The gymnasium was quiet for a moment, Uzi’s speech sinking in for everyone who heard it. Khan felt a swell of pride in his chest as he saw his daughter try to talk Doll down, knowing that just a few months ago she would have just shot her with her railgun and be done with it, but now she was willingly extending an olive branch to someone she had every reason to want dead.

But the moment could not last forever, Doll huffed dismissively before re-activating her Solver. “Cute, but I don’t need help” She sent a spike of rebar through N’s leg before hurling the fan towards them.

The world seemed to slow down as the fan hurtled towards them. Uzi barely had time to blink before N was shoving her out of its path. Sending her a thumbs up before the fan impacted and sent him and V flying backstage, while Uzi was sent crashing down onto the gymnasium floor.

Uzi’s head was pounding as she pulled herself up onto her elbows, she heard the doors slam shut again before she coughed up a small puddle of oil, her tongue throbbing from when she had bitten down on it during the collision.

Doll twirled a kitchen knife in her fingers before using the Solver to fling it towards Uzi. She smirked to herself as the blade sailed through the air, only to blink in surprise as it got stuck in Uzi’s outstretched hand, who deftly pulled it out by the handle and started walking towards her. Doll merely sighed before reaching out with the Solver to crush the would-be final girl, but was stopped by a message on the bottom of her HUD.

- - // ERROR: absoluteSolver_trn

[like object non-interactive]

Uzi’s mad cackling grew closer as Doll tried again to use the Solver on her directly, but to no avail, she grimaced and threw another of her knives only for Uzi to parry it away without so much as a blink. Doll started to back away as Uzi advanced closer, panic beginning to creep into her code, her proficiency with the Solver was her main advantage over other drones, with that out of play and Uzi having already displayed a proficiency for combat, Doll was at a disadvantage.

… not the best odds, but Yeva didn’t raise her daughter to be a quitter.

--⚠️--

N winced as he felt the pain receptors of his lower body reconnect with his torso, sending shooting pains lancing down his legs and tail. His internal material stockpiles were depleting rapidly, and his oil pumps may have well been screaming at him with how overclocked they were.

So all in all, not the worst injury he’s ever had. Plus, his nanites would have him patched up in a few seconds, so it wasn’t like he would sustain lasting damage.

He wished he could say the same for his suit, though. His shirt and blazer had been torn completely in half, and those plus his pants had been soaked with his oil, and not even industrial strength detergent would get that out.

N was interrupted from his despairing over his suit by the quiet scraping noise of an arm pulling itself towards him. He grabbed it off the floor, twisting it this way and that to see if he could fit it into his empty shoulder socket.

“Is this…?”

“Mine!”

The arm was snatched up by V, holding the limb tightly in her jaws. The ceramite shell creaking as she teethed on it to try and sooth her bruised ego. Before N could suggest helping her re-attach it, a voice came from beside them.

“Eww, you look like garbage.” 

It was Lizzy, who, aside from her ruffled hair, seemed to have come out of her encounter with Doll unscathed.

V bristled like a cat at her approach. “You fucking traitor ” her voice was muffled by the arm in her mouth, but her emotion came through clear as day, she was pissed .

Lizzy merely huffed at V’s posturing. “Oh please ” she swiped the arm out of V’s mouth. “Like you weren't just using me to kill everyone, Ms. Petty” she hefted the arm in her hand, examining the cut where it had been severed from V’s body. “Where does this freaking go?”

N smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Lizzy” he was about to ask about how the fight was going before two voices cut him off in unison. 

“Shut up, loser”

And N (wisely) decided to do just that.

--⚠️--

Uzi braced herself as Doll launched another knife at her, seriously, where was she even keeping these things? 

She backflipped away from her opponent, using her momentum to kick the knife into the nearby turntables, which caused the lights and music to distort. Uzi used the few seconds it took for Doll to pull the knife out with the Solver to put some distance between them, at some point Doll had managed to knock the knife Uzi had taken out of her hand, leaving her to play defensive while she looked for another opportunity to catch Doll off guard. 

Over the course of their fight, Uzi had come to realise that while Doll's control of the Solver was great, it was also her biggest weakness. Because once you were able to get past it (or in Uzi’s case, were unable to be affected by it directly) Doll was left floundering, she had become so reliant on the power of the Solver that she had little experience in an actual fight.

‘Her being a one-trick pony also helps’   Uzi thought as Doll threw her knife again , flipping back up onto the stage and quickly stomping her foot down in the handle of the blade to make sure it was really stuck in there, so Doll would have to waste more time trying to pull it out. She used her other foot to kick the microphone stand at her, hoping that it would surprise Doll long enough for Uzi to go backstage and get N.

Uzi’s hopes were dashed as a holographic text box appeared over the stand with the words ‘APPLYING’ and a loading bar that was filling rapidly, ok then, guess N will just have to sort himself out. Uzi grabbed the knife’s handle and tucked into a commando roll off the stage and back down to the dance floor, using her weight to pull the knife free, she brandished the sharp blade at her opponent before being slammed to the ground.

Doll used the microphone stand (now in two pieces) to pin Uzi to the floor, her Solver wrenching the two bars across her frame.

Uzi was forced to watch as her knife clattered to a stop at Doll's feet before being scooped up by her Solver, strange symbols flashing as suddenly Doll was surrounded by a halo of identical knives, moving in perfect unison with her commands as they were flung at Uzi.

‘Huh, so that's how she has so many knives’ Uzi though to herself in the split second before her inevitable demise.

But the feeling of a slow and painful death never came, instead there were the sounds of metal meeting metal and a grunt of exertion.

N was hunched over her frame, one of his wings extending out to act as a shield, deflecting Doll’s attack. He was giving Uzi one of his annoyingly sincere smiles that always left her tripping over herself, of course N of all drones would find a way to be so disarming in the middle of a fight.

“Ugh, quit saving me!” Uzi wrenched the bars apart, taking N’s offered hand before her world was sent spinning as N pulled her into a twirl, letting her fall to the side in a dip. Uzi blinked back confusion as her hand shot up to grab a knife out of the air, almost on instinct.

Uzi felt a plan forming in her mind as she heard the telltale click of N's missile launcher priming itself. She let him twirl her back up into a standing position, her unoccupied hand found purchase wrapped around N’s torso. The momentum of the pull letting her throw her knife forward at almost the same speed as N’s missile, only coming a few inches behind.

But that was exactly what Uzi wanted, while Doll had blocked the missile from hitting her the explosion had obscured the knife, and while it barely missed hitting her and ending the fight then and there, the shock of it grazing her face shook her concentration enough that she couldn’t contain the concussive force of the missile's detonation, which sent her flying backwards.

As she watched Doll’s body careen backwards into the tables, Uzi couldn’t help but think that with the mood lighting and the pose the two were unintentionally pulling, coupled with the hype atmosphere the fight had created…

… She and N must have looked badass as hell right now.

Unfortunately, Uzi wasn't able to revel in her coolness for very long, as the sticky feeling of oil soaking through her glove brought her back to the moment with a reminder of the stakes they were up against.

Her optics were drawn to the large gash, N’s torso had been re-attached without issue, but his suit jacked was marred with a rough asymmetrical tear, the frayed edges soaked through with oil. Uzi felt a blush colour her cheeks as she realised just how close together they were right now. “Seriously” she flicked her optics up to meet his. “Don't do that again” 

“Uzi…” N’s optics flicked to the side before hollowing as he saw the table that was about to be thrown at them, he quickly grabbed both of Uzi’s hands in his. “WOAH-OKAY, YOUR TURN!” he spun and threw her towards Doll before being slammed by the table.

Doll let out a grunt of exertion as she lifted the tables into the air, she was burning through her oil reserves, and fast. She felt her power lash out as she fought to maintain her control, causing the gravity of the room to weaken and warp.

Uzi spun in the air as she adjusted to the weakened gravity, using her increased airtime to hop from table to table, dodging the occasional knife from Doll as she went, until finally she lunged towards her, kicking back on of her knives to strike her wrist, breaking her concentration entirely and deactivating her Solver. Before Doll could recover, Uzi landed a devastating axe kick square on her forehead, sending her flying backwards and Uzi landed in front of her.

Doll struggled to her feet, Solver reactivating as she prepared another attack, but as she raised her hand, a single gunshot rang out above the din of the music. She gasped as a spiderweb of cracks formed on her visor before falling forward onto the floor, the smoking barrel of V’s gun not even wavering as her opponent keeled over.

V levelled a triumphant smirk at Uzi, placing a hand on her hip as she watched the worker blink at the sudden defeat of her foe. But then Uzi’s gaze turned sharp as she turned to the Disassembly drone.

“V!, we needed her for answers!”

But V merely rolled her optics. “What? She's fine , u-uh” her tone changed as she actually took the time to look at the quickly growing oil puddle surrounding Doll’s body. “A little … tuckered out”

Uzi was about to launch into tirade before suddenly N spoke up from his spot next to V. “V did that on purpose! She’s hiding mystery stuff and being overdramatic about it!”

V turned to N, incredulous at him calling her ‘overdramatic’. “N! You suck!” she punched him in the shoulder, her tail lashing angrily as she got ready to knock his lights out for daring to insult her when her reasons were completely valid , thank you.

Before the two Disassemblers could devolve into a cat-fight, Uzi sudden shouting of “You!” brought them back to task, she paused to scoop something up from the ground before addressing the two again.

“Lucky for you, we're not done yet” She opened her hand to reveal Doll’s bracelet which she had knocked off with her knife from earlier, a bronze key dangling from it.

--⚠️--

The pressurised door closed behind them with a quiet ‘whoosh’. The oppressive darkness being chased away by the eerie red glow of the emergency lights, Uzi honestly preferred the darkness.

Because at least the dark would have shielded her from the house of horrors that was Doll's apartment. What once was a clean (albeit stained) apartment was completely trashed, with mechanical gore strewn everywhere from floor to ceiling.

Uzi was abruptly pulled from her horror by the sound of clanking metal, she turned to the source only to reel back in disgust as she saw V suckling on a dismembered arm from a trash pile, ew .

She stomped over and snatched the arm from V’s mouth and tossed it aside. “Ugh, self-respect!” Uzi knew V didn’t give a fuck about things like that, but surely she felt just a little bad about lowering herself to rummaging through dried out corpse pieces when there was a buffet of half-full bottles of oil scattered about, right?

Any and all hope of V having even the slightest bit of standards were dashed as she merely licked some oil spatter off her hand and sauntered into the living room, unperturbed.

Uzi meandered into the kitchen while N and V began checking the rest of the place.

Oil pooled on the floor as it spilled from half crushed bottles, a waste chute in the corner was clogged with dismembered limbs, the fridge door had been ripped off completely and now lay in a crumpled heap.

Uzi didn’t need her mother's clairvoyance to figure out what happened here, after she had escaped the bathroom Doll must have gone on a binge to give her powers a boost, not that it helped her much, if her still cooling corpse in the gym was anything to go by.

Her core gave a sharp little squeeze as she recalled the image of Doll lying limp on the ground, Uzi and Doll had grown up together, their mothers were best friends and did almost everything together. So it was inevitable that they would make their kids hang out, as all mothers who were friends did. She remembered the nights when she slept over while her parents were busy working, her ‘auntie’ Yeva watching her and Doll like a hawk as they ran around the living room, their shiny new toddler limbs squeaking incessantly as they mastered the art of independent locomotion.

The fond memories turned sour as she swiped her fingers through one of the oil puddles, she wondered what Auntie Yeva and Uncle Sasha would think of them now, one of them a ruthless serial killer and the other a social outcast who could only make friends with the drones that killed them both.

The oil was tacky on her fingers, cooled and congealed by the frigid air, its normally sweetly metallic smell oxidising into something bitter and acrid. Uzi knew that Doll suffered from the oil thirst like any other Solver drone, but what she didn’t understand was the sheer amount that she seemed to go through, Doll seemed to go through at least a litre and a half a day if the amount she has stored was anything to go by. That was absurd! Not even Disassembly drones needed that much oil, they got by just fine on half a litre per day (provided they didn’t have any major wounds that needed healing or went too crazy with their weapons).

Maybe she burned through it quicker because she used her powers more often? Uzi didn’t know, and it wasn't exactly like she could ask Doll about it anymore.

Uzi brought her fingers closer to her faceplate, her impulses driving her towards what she knew was already a foregone conclusion.

Solver drones need oil, and Uzi was a Solver drone.

What happened next was nothing short of inevitable.

The taste was beyond words, entirely new yet achingly familiar, sweet and bitter and rich and satisfying in a way she didn’t even know food could be . And it wasn't even fresh!

“Uh, guys?” N’s voice floated from down the hall. Startling Uzi into pulling her fingers out of her mouth. She and V walked over to where N stood aghast in the doorway to one of the rooms, V checking every other room along the way, arm cannon at the ready.

The smell of stale oil was especially pungent in his room, although it was too dark for Uzi to see, whatever it was made even V take a step back in surprise. Hesitantly, Uzi reached over and flicked on the light.

And immediately regretted it.

Cleaner bugs scuttled along the walls, their bright green lights flashing as they darted about, the carpet - dear Robo-God why did it have to be carpet - squelched underfoot, the congealed oil saturating the fibres and sticking to her boots. Piles upon piles of deactivated cores littered the floor, dull and lifeless, save for a sterile perimeter surrounding the bed, where the covers were drawn over two suspiciously shaped lumps.

Uzi had a sinking feeling that she already knew what was under them.

N rounded the bed, reaching forward to gingerly pull down the duvet.

“I think we found her folks”

Yeva and Sasha Gvardeyets were laid side by side, their hands interlocked, their metal frames were covered in rust. Yeva, at least, was mostly intact, save for her smashed visor and the hole melted into the silicone of her stomach.

The same could not be said for Sasha. Were it not for the general shape of his silhouette and his single intact arm, it would be near impossible to tell that the pile of mangled scrap was ever a drone in the first place. 

“Literally didn’t even taste that good.”

Whatever vague semblance of a moment existed in the room before then was brutally ripped to shreds, Uzi could only gawk at V as she casually checked her talons, even N was stunned.

N looked at V while she picked at her teeth with a grimace, he knew that V had always been callous towards the corpses of those she ate, but this was just too much. He needed to say something.

“V, you kind of suck” 

V just giggled to herself as she snatched a hapless cleaner bug off the wall. “Yeah, I'm not doing okay” she popped the cleaner bug in her mouth with a satisfied crunch.

Uzi crept closer to the bed, reaching out to Yeva’s corpse where a lanyard hung around her neck, the ID card attached to it only had her name, a number and a picture of her face all above a bar-code Uzi couldn't scan.

Aside from even more trauma, searching Doll's apartment had been a bust so far. Uzi clenched the ID card in her hand, at least they could properly inter all the drones Doll killed now that they found what's left of them.

“Ah, Just in time for dinner” Uzi whirled around, the smooth Russian sending a shock of ice through her core, Doll was there, standing sentry in the doorway. Her shattered visor was slowly knitting itself back together, and the bullet that shattered it was held in her telekinetic grip.

She fired before or N could stop her, and in the split second before the bullet hit her Uzi felt something in her shift , an itchy, buzzing warmth bloomed in her chest and spread to her fingertips. Her core whirred in its casing, her focus narrowed and sharpened, her stomach clenched painfully as if she were starving.

And instead of the sharp pain of a bullet wound or the quiet numbness of death, Uzi opened her optics (when had she closed them?) to see the bullet held in place by a small glitchy Solver symbol coloured in purple, HER purple. 

Doll’s optics widened in horror, she took a step back. “I…I'm sorry for you, Uzi…” 

Uzi’s focus slipped as she heard her name, the Solver holding the bullet in place disappearing, sending the projectile careening into the wall.

Doll continued to back up, her back almost pressing into the wall on the other side of the hallway, various Solver symbols flickered in her hands. “If I find what I'm looking for, i'll help you too”.

“What?” Uzi's optics widened as she tried to make sense of what Doll was saying

The Russian's form started to flicker like a hologram, Uzi jolted as she realised what was about to happen. “Wait! Oh, don't you dare!” but any chance Uzi had of catching Doll was stopped by a well-timed missile from V, letting Doll disappear in a literal puff of smoke.

Uzi glared down at the scorch mark where Doll once stood, her frustration finally boiling over, she clenched her fists, held them up to the heavens and screamed. 

“I HATE IT HEEERE!”

End notes